Character

CHAP. XII.]

The Mystery of Life.

371

bad, to which they have been exposed through life! Regard for such considerations should teach charity and forbearance to all men.

At the same time, life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it. Each mind makes its own little world. The cheerful mind makes it pleasant, and the discontented mind makes it miserable. My mind to me a kingdom is," applies alike to the peasant as to the monarch. The one may be in his heart a king, as the other may be a slave. Life is for the most part but the mirror of our own individual selves. Our mind gives to all situations, to all fortunes, high or low, their real characters. To the good, the world is good; to the bad, it is bad. If our views of life be elevated-if we regard it as a sphere of useful effort, of high living and high thinking, of working for others' good as well as our own-it will be joyful, hopeful, and blessed. If, on the contrary, we regard it merely as affording opportunities for self-seeking, pleasure, and aggrandisement, it will be full of toil, anxiety, and disappointment.

There is much in life that, while in this state, we can never comprehend. There is, indeed, a great deal of mystery in life-much that we see "as in a glass darkly." But though we may not apprehend the full meaning of the discipline of trial through which the best have to pass, we must have faith in the completeness of the design of which our little individual lives form a part.

We have each to do our duty in that sphere of life in which we have been placed. Duty alone is true; there is no true action but in its accomplishment. Duty is the end and aim of the highest life; the truest pleasure of all is that derived from the consciousness of its fulfilment. Of all others, it is the one that is most thoroughly

372 Duty the Aim and End of Life. [CHAP. XII.

satisfying, and the least accompanied by regret and disappointment. In the words of George Herbert, the consciousness of duty performed "gives us music at midnight."

And when we have done our work on earth-of necessity, of labour, of love, or of duty,-like the silkworm that spins its little cocoon and dies, we too depart. But, short though our stay in life may be, it is the appointed sphere in which each has to work out the great aim and end of his being to the best of his power; and when that is done, the accidents of the flesh will affect but little the immortality we shall at last put on:

"Therefore we can go die as sleep, and trust
Half that we have

Unto an honest faithful grave;

Making our pillows either down or dust !"

INDEX.

ABAUZIT, his patience, 223
Abbot, Dr., on the character of
Sackville, 2

Abdalrahman, the Caliph, and
happiness, 369

Ability, speculative and practical,
115

Accident, greatness sometimes de-
veloped by, 276

Adams, President, and Washing-
ton, 18; his mother, 47; and
character of Lady Rachel Rus-
sell, 324 (note)

Adanson, French botanist, 224
Addison, Secretary of State, 109;
ou the character of authors, 278;
on temper, 314; his failure as a
speaker, 354

Admiration of the great and good,
21, 74, 78, 148, 363
Adversity, uses of, 133, 352,362, 364
Affliction, uses of, 363, 368
African women and Mungo Park,
303

Albert, Prince, and the chief prize
at Wellington College, 11; his
admiration of noble deeds, 78;
his shyness, 250

Alexander the Great,-on pleasure
and toil, 89; on hope, 233
Alfieri, his admiration of Plutarch,
272

Alfred, King, his patience and

good fortune, 233

American colonization, 256
Ancillon, on disrespect for others,
240

Angelo, Michael, and Francis de
Medicis, 83; and self-help, 144;
and Vittoria Colonna, 191; and
his persecutors, 355

Anne, Queen, literary men in reigu
of, 109
Anquetil (historian), self-denial
of, 169

Antisthenes and Diogenes, 143
Ariosto, and Leo X., 83; his genius
for business, 110; his admira-
tion of Vittoria Colonna, 191
Aristotle, portrait of the magna-
nimous man, 148; his apocryphal
history, 286

Arnold, Dr., on French history,
27; on personal example, 69;
his influence, 76; on admiration,
78; on truthfulness, 208; his
cordiality, 222

Arnold, Matthew, 112

Art, and nationality, 259; and
history, 261

Askew, Anne, martyr, 129
Association, influence of good, 67
Athens, cause of its decline, 29;
art in its decay, 261

Attica, its smallness and great-
ness, 28
Audley (Court of Wards) on dis-
honesty in office, 184
Augustine, St., his boyhood, 38;
on force of habit, 40 (note); his
'Confessions,' 279; his favourite
books, 296
Autobiography, 279

BACON, Lord: his mother, 46; a
man of business, 108; on practi-
cal wisdom, 109; on leisure,
117; his 'Novum Organon' de-
nounced, 126; on deformity,

277

Bacon, Roger, his persecution, 125
Bailey, Samuel, literary man and

banker, 114; on speculative and
practical ability, 115 (note)
Bailly, French astronomer, guil-
lotined, 357

Bankers, literary, 113
Bannockburn, Douglas and Ran-
dolph at, 145

Barry, painter, and Edmund Burke,

176

Barton, Bernard, and C. Lamb, 98
Baudin and Flinders, the navi-
gators, 358

Baxter: on leaving his books at
death, 296; his wife, 325; in
prison, 361

Beaumont, Sir C., admiration of
Claude, 85

Beautiful, worship of the, 258
Beauty, marrying for, 314
Beethoven, and Handel, &c., 84;
his composition under bodily
sufferings, 368
Behnes, sculptor, 243

Bell, Sir C., on example, 64; ad-
miration of, 85; his discoveries,
127; his biography unwritten,
287 (note)
Bentham, Jeremy: description of
a Liberal, 139; on happy think-
ing, 162; on self-control, 171;
on happiness, 226; influence of
'Telemachus' on his mind, 294;
his failure at the bar, 353
Béranger, his songs, 178
Bernard, St., on self-injury, 11
Bible, a series of biographies, 269
Bicknell, husband of Sabrina Sid-
ney, 105

Bigness not greatness, 28

Biography, lesson of, 86, 269; in-

terest of, 267, 281; art of, 273,
283; unwritten, 286
Biot, Laplace's generous conduct
to, 146

'Birkenhead,' loss of the, 159, 198
Black Prince, The, his courtesy, 145
Blake, Wm. (artist), his wife, 337
Blucher, Marshal: his promise to
Wellington, 206; his favourite
book, 291

Bluntness of manner, 244, 248
Boccaccio, a diplomatist, 110

Boetius, his 'Consolations of Philo-
sophy,' 359

Boileau, his failure at the bar, 353
Bolingbroke, on Marlborogh's cha-
racter, 82

Boniface, St., and work, 96
Books: companionship of, 264;
Hazlitt on, 265, 297; immortality
of, 266; society of, 267, 295;
favourite, of great men, 272, 287;
inspirers of youth, 292, 295;
makers of revolutions, 297
Bossuet, on love of truth, 93 (note);

his industry, 101; C. Bossuet,
and Fontenelle's 'Eloges,' 292
Boswell, and Johnson, 79; his 'Life
of Johnson,' 284
Brain-work, 122; G. Wilson's, ex-
cessive, 209

Bremer, Miss, on the power of evil
words, 171

Broderip, Mr., naturalist, 113
Brooke, Lord, on the character of
Sir P. Sidney, 73

Brougham, Lord, on the education
of the child, 33; his maternal
grandmother, 46; his industry,
106; on hobbies, 118
Brown, Capt. John, on character, 71
Brown, Dr. Thos., on death, 370
Browne, Sir T., his profession, 108;
on truthfulness, 206

Brunel, Mr. (engineer), on illnature,
239

Bruno, martyrdom of, 125
Bruyère, La, his memoirs, 281
Buchanan, George, his prison-
work, 359

Buckland, Dr., assailed because of
his views of geology, 127; his
wife as a helper, 330
Buffon, admiration of Sir I. New-
ton, 85; on enthusiasm in the
young, 228
Bunyan, influence of his wife 324;
his prison-works, 359; on the
discipline of suffering, 365
Buonaparte (see Napoleon)
Burdett, Sir F., loss of his wife,
328

Burke, Edmund, on superfine vir-
tues, 2; on the power of virtue,

Index.

8; his infirmity of temper, 9,
177 (note); on example, 64;
Fox's admiration of, 74; advice
to Barry, 176; his cheerfulness,
225; favourite books, 288; his
married life, 310; description of
his wife, 319; on adversity, 352
Burleigh, Lord, on the qualities of
a wife, 315

Burns, the poet, on manliness, 5;
his want of self-control, 177; on
the qualities of a wife, 313; his
songs, 178; his character de-
veloped by difficulty, 366
Burton, on indolence, 29; causes
of melancholy, 90
Business habits, 101; necessary for
women, 53, 102; and genius,
105; and literature, 107; and
discipline, 162

Byron, Lord, on Dante, 23, 77; his
mother, 51; on Sheridan, 183;
on hope, 234; his shyness, 251,
253; his deformity, 277

CESAR, JULIUS, power of his name
after death, 20; his authorship
and generalship, 104, 118; his
intrepidity, 142

Calderon, a soldier, 111
Callistratus, the inspirer of Demos-
thenes, 82

Calvin, energy of, 22, 143; mar-
riage of, 325

Calvinism, and Knox, 22; and
Cromwell, 166

Camoens, a soldier, 111; his diffi-
culties and sufferings, 354
Campan, Madame, Napoleon and,
31 (motto)

Campanella, his prison-work, 359
Campbell, Lord, his 'Lives,' 278
Canada, French colonization in,

375

son,' 79; on control of speech,
171; on biography, 264, 268;
his wife, 334

Caroline Matilda, Queen of Den-
mark, her prayer, 370
Carpenter, Miss Mary, 154
Casaubon, his industry, 98
Cervantes, a soldier, 111; his

genius, 297; his poverty, 351
Chamfort, on autobiography, 279
Character, influence of, 1; forma-
tion of, 9, 36, 43; and will, 12;
and reverence, 15, 21; immor-
tality of, 21; national, 25; and
the home, 31, 308; and popu-
larity, 137; energy of, 140; the
best protection, 151; and disci-
pline, 159; and truthfulness,
204; and manner, 236; and
marriage, 299; and adversity
343, 364, 368

Charity, practical, 41, 128, 174, 370
Charles I., literary men employed

by, 108; imprisoned by, 360
Charles V. (of Spain), magna-
nimity of, 147

Chateaubriand and Washington, 73
Chatham, Earl of, his inspiring

energy, 18; his public honesty,
184; his favourite books, 288
Chaucer, a man of business, 107
Cheerfulness, 216-34

Chesterfield, Earl of, on truthful-
ness, 204; on hardening of the
heart with age, 221

Child, the, and the home, 33
Chisholm, Mrs., 154
Christianity, and work, 96; and
Epictetus, 194

Cicero, influence of his works, 296
Circumstances, and character, 10,
41, 176, 370

Civilization, home the school of,
32; and mothers, 37
Clapperton, traveller, his obscure
death, 357

Clarendon, his character of Hamp-
den, 106, 164, 204
Clarkson, and anti-slavery, 142
Classical studies, uses of, 119, 235
(note)

Claude Lorraine and Constable, 85

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