THE BEAUTY OF A WELL CULTIVATED HEART.
However high and exalted the achievements of mind, and whatever the pleasures and consolations of knowledge, these are small when contrasted with the beauties of a well-cultivated heart. The grand attainments of talent and genius, exhibiting man’s lofty superiority over all animated existence, may attract our admiration and elicit our surprise, but the manifestation of those noble qualities which we ascribe to the heart, alone can make us feel. Mind only appeals to mind: heart alone to heart.
“Knowledge is wealth,” was a favorite and perhaps somewhat egotistical saying of the ancient philosophers, and, indeed, without it man would be a most pitiable creature. It is a maxim ascribed to Zoroaster, that “he who lives in ignorance knoweth neither God nor religion,” and Thales, one of the seven wise men of Greece, and founder of the Ionic sect, calls him “who enjoys good health, finds fortune favorable, and has well cultivated his soul with sound learning,” the happy man. Without mental culture, we cannot appreciate the treasures of nature, and unless we have a knowledge of its laws, obtained through a study of the sciences, we cannot realize the comforts with which it is arrayed for the benefit of mankind. Even the merciful government of God is rendered one of terror and fear through ignorance, whilst the intercourse with our fellows so essential to social happiness, is restrained within the most narrow bounds, and we remain little better than barbarians. The Mitylenians esteemed ignorance of the liberal arts a deplorable punishment, and thus, when masters of the sea, they prohibited the revolted allies from teaching their children letters or music, as the most grievous penalty they could possibly inflict.
The affections, and those virtues which signally reach them, we have for ages been accustomed to place to the heart’s account. We yield to it all the virtues of sensibility, and thus it becomes the great source and centre of feeling. To it we ascribe that generous commiseration and sympathy which constitute the pillars of society, and which have long since confirmed the declaration of the great Roman orator, that no nation has ever existed where civility, good nature, and gratitude, were not had in esteem, and where the proud, the mischievous, the cruel, and ungrateful, were not had in contempt and abhorrence. Wisdom may flatter our self-love, and as it advances, justly challenge our respect, but we fail to see in it the power or the pleasure which is inseparable from the heart’s good sentiments. “It is to no purpose to be wise, unless we are rendered better,” truly observes Lucian. Life is made a blessing, not through the influence of mind, however much it may have done to surround us with the means of comfort and enjoyment, but through the great excellencies of man’s nature. It is a law of nature, as we are told by the most eminent moralists, that each should cultivate an agreeable sociability as the best means of promoting the end for which human society has been instituted. This can never be successfully done without the virtues of the heart—such as friendship and love, and above and including all, CHARITY.
The pleasure of man’s intercourse with his fellows depends principally upon the virtues that adorn him. The wise, if arrogant, vain, and ungrateful, may only succeed in awakening within the good feelings of mingled respect and contempt; whilst the generous, the humble, the just, will ever elicit universal esteem. We rely upon their gratitude and confide in their friendship, realizing the happiness of their guileless sincerity and truth. Without friendship, life would be a gift which we might well despise. “By what other means,” asks Seneca, “are we preserved, but by the mutual assistance of good turns?” It is this generous virtue, springing from the heart, that renders our associations agreeable, and throws around our existence the joys and pleasures of social life. “If any man,” says Xenophon, “a lover of virtue, ever found a more profitable companion than Socrates, I deem that man the happiest of human kind.” This celebrated ancient general and scholar, in thus speaking of his friend, utters but a truthful tribute to the virtue of friendship, as exemplified in the life of every honest man.
The man who has well improved his heart becomes a fit companion for all, whatever may be their condition. He views the actions of men through the medium of his generous virtues, rather than through that rigid severity which accompanies an unforgiving temper. His noble charity recognizes a universal equality, and whilst he bears with the errors and follies of those around him, he seeks to remove them by generous appeals to the heart rather than by censure and rough rebuke. He remembers that the tender entreaties of his mother, and the lamentations of his wife and children, prevented Coriolanus from destroying the Rome that had formerly banished him, and not the fear of the Romans nor their tempting overtures; and that afterwards the moderation of Valerius Corvus, the Dictator, quelled a dangerous mutiny, and accomplished, perhaps a similar end. He is not prone to look upon every error as a serious crime to be resented, but prefers to act upon the magnanimous dictum accredited to the Chinese philosophers, who “reckoned it a true mark of a brave, and wise, and worthy man, to put up the hurts and affronts he received, without any inclination to harm the author.” When it becomes necessary to punish a villain, he prefers the example of Pericles, if circumstances allow it, who, it is said, endured the ribaldry of a rogue for an entire day, without exhibiting anger, and then commanded a servant to light him home with the torch: thus, perhaps, taking the most signal vengeance possible, for none can patiently bear such generosity and silence from him whom he hates, and with whom he desires to quarrel. In the wide range of human blessings there is none to equal those generous impulses which govern the conduct of such a man. They enable him truly to fulfil the destiny of his affections, in whatever station he may be called, despite the circumstances calculated to arouse his passions and excite the evil elements in his nature.
They who have well cultivated the heart’s true sensibilities, find the means and sources of enjoyment spread lavishly around them. The fickle and whimsical pursuits after momentary pleasure, which vex and perplex so many, never disturb their quiet nor encumber their repose. The happiness that attends them is unalloyed, not subject to the regrets of disappointment, nor the frequent remorse which preys upon the mind of him who had haunted the glittering pleasures of animal life and its enticing enjoyments. They feel the full gratification of the inward sense, which is sincere, penetrating, and permanent. The store upon which they draw is exhaustless. Other elements of nature may perish by too frequent use, but the sensibilities of the heart only increase in strength and vigor through every occasion that calls them forth, and expand the more the more they are exercised. It is use that preserves them: slothfulness is their great and formidable enemy. “All virtues,” says an ancient Grecian philosopher, “depend upon exercise and use; to preserve them, we must practice them.”
The career of man often presents melancholy illustrations of the want of this true sensibility. The aims of life, too frequently governed by the arbitrary decrees of society, lead him into paths that rather blunt than encourage it; and he finds little substantial pleasure in fulfilling a destiny which circumstances have forced upon him against the better qualities of his nature. Fortune may have smiled upon him, enriching him with her bounties, yet these, if simply depending upon themselves, soon sicken and lose their interest. The riches of the soul can only be enjoyed through the sensibilities of the heart, which lead us to the performance of deeds of truth and charity. They alone can enable us to discharge the mission of sympathy and love towards the unfortunate and distressed; they alone can qualify us for generous and magnanimous intercourse with those whose evil destiny deserves our kind indulgence, and fit us for more exalted association with equals and superiors; they alone can develope the good germs in our nature into exceeding excellencies, and lead us to true virtue and its exhaustless treasures; and they alone can make the journey of life resemble a smooth and even surface, and surround us with pleasures and comforts which the insensible may never know. How much, then, is it our duty to cultivate the heart through the exercise of its sensibilities, and thus obtain the full gratification of every virtuous faculty in our nature! How much, then, does it behoove each of us to conquer the sordid and selfish motives too frequently engendered by surrounding influences, and bring into more healthful existence those noble affections with which we are endowed! Thus alone can we truly live in mind and heart, and effect a happy harmony between soul and body—no longer verifying the saying of Theophrastus, that the former pays large rent to the latter for its dwelling.