Character and Conduct Part 16

Accidie

APRIL 7

"As one compares the various estimates of the sin, one can mark three main elements which help to make it what it is--elements which can be distinguished, though in experience, I think, they almost always tend to meet and mingle; they are _gloom_ and _sloth_ and _irritation_."

_The Spirit of Discipline_, Bishop PAGET.

"You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make earnest effort to confer that pleasure on others? You will find half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy."

LYDIA MARIA CHILDS.

"Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness; altogether past calculation its power of endurance."

CARLYLE.

Accidie

APRIL 8

"'It is a mood which severs a man from thoughts of G.o.d, and suffers him not to be calm and kindly to his brethren. Sometimes, without any provoking cause, we are suddenly depressed by so great sorrowfulness, that we cannot greet with wonted courtesy the coming even of those who are dear and near to us, and all they say in conversation, however appropriate it may be, we think annoying and unnecessary, and have no pleasant answer for it, because the gall of bitterness fills all the recesses of our soul.' Those who are sad after this fas.h.i.+on have, as St.

Gregory says, anger already close to them; for from sadness such as this come forth (as he says in another place) malice, grudging, faint-heartedness, despair, torpor as to that which is commanded, and the straying of the mind after that which is forbidden."

_The Spirit of Discipline_, Bishop PAGET.

"Activity is the antidote to the depressions that lower our vitality, whether they come from physical or psychical causes."

Accidie

APRIL 9

"We may be somewhat surprised when we discover how precisely Pascal, or Shakspeare, or Montaigne, can put his finger on our weak point, or tell us the truth about some moral lameness or disorder of which we, perhaps, were beginning to accept a more lenient and comfortable diagnosis. But when a poet, controversialist and preacher of the Eastern Church, under the dominion of the Saracens, or an anch.o.r.et of Egypt, an Abbot of Gaul, in the sixth century, tells us, in the midst of our letters, and railway journeys, and magazines, and movements, exactly what it is that on some days makes us so singularly unpleasant to ourselves and to others--tells us in effect that it is not simply the east wind, or dyspepsia, or overwork, or the contrariness of things in general, but that it is a certain subtle and complex trouble of our own hearts, which we perhaps have never had the patience or the frankness to see as it really is; that he knew it quite well, only too well for his own happiness and peace, and that he can put us in a good way of dealing with it--the very strangeness of the intrusion from such a quarter into our most private affairs may secure for him a certain degree of our interest and attention."

_The Spirit of Discipline_, Bishop PAGET.

Accidie

APRIL 10

"And now, as ever, over against Accidie rises the great grace of Fort.i.tude; the grace that makes men undertake hard things by their own will wisely and reasonably. There is something in the very name of Fort.i.tude which speaks to the almost indelible love of heroism in men's hearts; but perhaps the truest Fort.i.tude may often be a less heroic, a more tame and business-like affair than we are apt to think. It may be exercised chiefly in doing very little things, whose whole value lies in this, that, if one did not hope in G.o.d, one would not do them; in secretly dispelling moods which one would like to show; in saying nothing about one's lesser troubles and vexations; in seeing whether it may not be best to bear a burden before one tries to see whither one can s.h.i.+ft it; in refusing for one's self excuses which one would not refuse for others. These, anyhow, are ways in which a man may every day be strengthening himself in the discipline of Fort.i.tude; and then, if greater things are asked of him, he is not very likely to draw back from them. And while he waits the asking of these greater things, he may be gaining from the love of G.o.d a hidden strength and glory such as he himself would least of all suspect; he may be growing in the patience and perseverance of the saints. For most of us the chief temptation to lose heart, the chief demand upon our strength, comes in the monotony of our failures, and in the tedious persistence of prosaic difficulties; it is the distance, not the pace, that tries us. To go on choosing what has but a look of being the more excellent way, pus.h.i.+ng on towards a faintly glimmering light, and never doubting the supreme worth of goodness even in its least brilliant fragments,--this is the normal task of many lives; in this men show what they are like. And for this we need a quiet and sober Fort.i.tude, somewhat like that which Botticelli painted, and Mr. Ruskin has described."

_The Spirit of Discipline_, Bishop PAGET.

Temper

APRIL 11

"What is temper? Its primary meaning, the proportion and mode in which qualities are mingled, is much neglected in popular speech, yet even here the word often carries a reference to an habitual state or general tendency of the organism in distinction from what are held to be specific virtues and vices. As people confess to bad memory without expecting to sink in mental reputation, so we hear a man declared to have a bad temper and yet glorified as the possessor of every high quality. When he errs or in any way commits himself, his temper is accused, not his character, and it is understood that but for a brutal bearish mood he is kindness itself. If he kicks small animals, swears violently at a servant who mistakes orders, or is grossly rude to his wife, it is remarked apologetically that these things mean nothing--they are all temper.

"Certainly there is a limit to this form of apology; and the forgery of a bill, or the ordering of goods without any prospect of paying for them, has never been set down to an unfortunate habit of sulkiness or of irascibility. But on the whole there is a peculiar exercise of indulgence towards the manifestations of bad temper which tends to encourage them, so that we are in danger of having among us a number of virtuous persons who conduct themselves detestably, just as we have hysterical patients who, with sound organs, are apparently labouring under many sorts of organic disease. Let it be admitted, however, that a man may be a 'good fellow' and yet have a bad temper, so bad that we recognise his merits with reluctance, and are inclined to resent his occasionally amiable behaviour as an unfair demand on our admiration."

GEORGE ELIOT.

Temper

APRIL 12

"Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, sulkiness, touchiness, doggedness,--these are the staple ingredients of Ill-Temper. And yet men laugh over it. 'Only temper,' they call it: a little hot-headedness, a momentary ruffling of the surface, a mere pa.s.sing cloud. But the pa.s.sing cloud is composed of drops, and the drops here betoken an ocean, foul and rancorous, seething somewhere within the life--an ocean made up of jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, sulkiness, touchiness, doggedness, lashed into a raging storm.

"This is why temper is significant. It is not in what it is that its significance lies, but in what it reveals. But for this it were not worth notice. It is the intermittent fever which tells of un-intermittent disease; the occasional bubble escaping to the surface, betraying the rottenness underneath; a hastily prepared specimen of the hidden products of the soul, dropped involuntarily when you are off your guard. In one word, it is the lightning-form of a dozen hideous and unchristian sins."

_The Ideal Life_, HENRY DRUMMOND.

"Whenever you are angry, be a.s.sured that it is not only a present evil, but that you have increased a habit."

EPICTETUS.

Temper

APRIL 13

"Certainly if a bad-tempered man can be admirably virtuous, he must be so under extreme difficulties. I doubt the possibility that a high order of character can co-exist with a temper like Touchwood's. For it is of the nature of such temper to interrupt the formation of healthy mental habits, which depend on a growing harmony between perception, conviction, and impulse. There may be good feelings, good deeds--for a human nature may pack endless varieties and blessed inconsistencies in its windings--but it is essential to what is worthy to be called high character, that it may be safely calculated on, and that its qualities shall have taken the form of principles or laws habitually, if not perfectly, obeyed. If a man frequently pa.s.ses unjust judgments, takes up false att.i.tudes, intermits his acts of kindness with rude behaviour or cruel words, and falls into the consequent vulgar error of supposing that he can make amends by laboured agreeableness, I cannot consider such courses any the less ugly because they are ascribed to 'temper.'

Especially I object to the a.s.sumption that his having a fundamentally good disposition is either an apology or a compensation for his bad behaviour."

GEORGE ELIOT.

Temper

APRIL 14

"Consider how much more often you suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved."

MARCUS AURELIUS.

"The _difficult_ part of good temper consists in forbearance, and accommodation to the ill-humour of others."