Year: 1878

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a limited degree in neutralizing the siren
uous efforts of their supporters to beat
out through the breakers which surround
them and weather the storm.-BrOOkLyn
Commercial Reporter.


REGULATING THE FEELINGS.


A great lesson to be learned by much
study of the profound arts of keeping
our friends and regulating our feelings
is that the province of the will lies very
deep down indeed, not to say long way
back. Its hardest tasks, indeed, ought
to be performed for us by our great
grandparents. Our best efforts will
hardly bear satisfactory fruit much be-
fore the third or fourth generation. But
they have to be made, and all we can
do is to restrict them as much as posi-
BILE to those deep subsoil regions where
they show least and effect most. In the
matter of constancy, for instance, it is
both useless and ungracious to tia our
selves up tightly in the slighter and more
frequent manifestations of feeling
Mere manner and correspondence and
conversation and other such trihes may
take what course they will, while one
holds on like grim death to the real tie
from which they spring. So long as one
can stand by friend in word and deed,
giving ones self some trouble to render
him real services and taking his part
against all corners, little more or less
surface amiability will not signify much.
The pendulum of feeling may be allowed
to swing quite freely, while the centre is
fixed by force of will. A wide range of
feeling is in itself attractive, and it is a
great mistake to try to keep any senti
ment always at one temperature. Most
of us like our friends much the better for
an occasional absence from them. The
boa constructor is certainly not less vora-
cious and has probably not less enjoy
ment of his food than the rodent who
never stops nibbling. Faithfulness in
the long run is much helped by GER
tain laxity in detail Perhaps we may
say thatn friendship is really safe which
cannot afford to allow free play to the
caprices of surface feeling. One of our
wisest preachers used to say that if you
want to love your neighbor, and it does
not come easily, you should do him
kindness. 1t is only by such indirect
means that the will can be brought to
bear upon feeling either efectually or
without risk Of producing hollowness.
In the matter of cheerfulneSS, for in
stance, indirect means, such as attention
to health and active occupation and
amuscments, are the only legitimate
methods of tinting ones spectacles with
color. The most contagious and genu-
inc cheerfulnesS is the result of a COM
bination of good health, conscience, hab-
it and principle, which among gthem have
superseded the necessity for effort of any
kind. But when it becomes so settled
character of the mind as this, it must
necessarily lose one charm, that of sig
nifcance as token of good news. The
people who delight us by their unfailing
brightness of temper do not greatly i'm
press us by any particular demonstra-
ton of hopefulneSs. Some peoples
smiles cheer like the sunshine or the
song of larkS-that is to say, when we
can bear them. Others raise our hopes
like a rise in the barometer, because we
know they would never smile for moth
ing. We can scarcely have both merits
combined in one person.


The danger of intention is that it
tends either to produce uniformity of
behavior, which destroys all significance,
or to excite opposition. The will is
somewhat unsightly, though important
part of our nature. Its place is like that
of the foundation Of house or the bony
skeleton of vertebrate animal, deep
down out of sight. Its force must be
directed rather to acts than to feelings,
though in practice the two cannot be
completely distinguished, and its action
will be successful in proportion as it is
suicidal-that is, no effort to feel prop
erly will be quite satisfactory till the
feeling comes without an effort. lnten
ton is to feeling like sort of culinary
process, which ought to be well over be-
fore the guests arrive. In matters of
feeling the perfection of art is not to
conceal, but to eliminate art. The
artist in character must be content to
efface himself altogether. His best tri-
umphs do not begin till his very exist
ence is forgotten. For character is
something more and better than work
of art. 1t is flower which reaches per-
fection only as the result of process in
which cultivation bears an inconceiva-
bly, small proportion to forces overwhich
we have no control, and whose crown
ing grace is luxuriance of free growth
never attained under the gardeners
hand. Yet art has its place in the for
nation of the noblest types, although
that place is in the past.-SatHrday Re
aYe7O.