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can hope , though but few know how to act ; and happiness , as Swift remarked , is only the perpetual condition of being well deceived . The schoolboy pictures manhood , without rods or tasks ; the maiden loves not the actual personification of , but the nearest resemblance to , the hero of her dream , and sighs , she hardly knows why , at each discovery of some new discrepancy between the faulty living one and
the perfect ideal . Individuals in each walk of life change their condition to some fancied state of redolent ease and plenty , until old age , like the foot of Alnaschar , trips up the ricketty foundation of our prosperity , and we start at discovering ourselves bankrupts in time , who in fancy had revelled in an eternity of youth . Nevertheless , as to universal endowment , without distinction of class or sex , fiction , like the air we breathe , is open to the use or abuse of all .
Yet it has its decided benefits , this activity of imagery , if duly restrained , so that men may be said to be even deceived into wholesome energy , and swallow the bitter medicine of this world ' s wretchedness under cover of an illusory sweetness furnished by imagination . We do our duty , indeed , when we picture to youth the disappointments , vexations , and deceitfulness of man , in order
to lead the mind ' s aspirations to a higher sphere ; but as to the benefit resulting to the world , it is indeed well that the vivacity of Telemachus rejects the chill aphorisms of Mentor . Instil thoroughly into a young man ' s heart the very incorporation of the old man ' s experience , and farewell to the exertion which draws all its energy from the vain expectation that the world will reward it , and to the
bold flights of talented ambition whose soarings stimulate the march of mind , and yet whose pinions are buoyed up by the vapouring hope , that merit is sure to triumph over envy , and that distinction follows desert necessarily in the world ' s allotment of prizes . By-andby is time enough for the aspirant to discover that the world is not
just— -meanwhile , let the racer run the course ; but do not damp him yet , by the information that in all probability the guerdon he desires will be given to another , for if you did this , he would never run at all , and mankind would stagnate in a torpitude of hopeless apathy and a sullen weariness of inactive discontent .
There is also , besides the stimulus which imagination gives to mental energy , a self-protective influence which , under such principle , the mind acquires : we mean in the corroboration of its self-esteem . This is a panoply against public opinion , the variety
of circumstance , and , in many cases , even the pressure of corporeal infirmity , —that straw which so often throws down the giant ! Let a man possess true self-esteem , and the sneer of the envious , the adulation of the sycophant , are equally powerless to molest or perturb him . But here we must define : self-esteem must not be confounded
with conceit , for the latter is synonymous with vanity , and the former with pride . Pride results from the estimate set by a man upon his own judgment ; vanity from the estimate he sets npon the judgment of the world : and hence the truth of the dictum , that " a really proud man is too proud to be vain ; " in other words , his self-estimate
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
can hope , though but few know how to act ; and happiness , as Swift remarked , is only the perpetual condition of being well deceived . The schoolboy pictures manhood , without rods or tasks ; the maiden loves not the actual personification of , but the nearest resemblance to , the hero of her dream , and sighs , she hardly knows why , at each discovery of some new discrepancy between the faulty living one and
the perfect ideal . Individuals in each walk of life change their condition to some fancied state of redolent ease and plenty , until old age , like the foot of Alnaschar , trips up the ricketty foundation of our prosperity , and we start at discovering ourselves bankrupts in time , who in fancy had revelled in an eternity of youth . Nevertheless , as to universal endowment , without distinction of class or sex , fiction , like the air we breathe , is open to the use or abuse of all .
Yet it has its decided benefits , this activity of imagery , if duly restrained , so that men may be said to be even deceived into wholesome energy , and swallow the bitter medicine of this world ' s wretchedness under cover of an illusory sweetness furnished by imagination . We do our duty , indeed , when we picture to youth the disappointments , vexations , and deceitfulness of man , in order
to lead the mind ' s aspirations to a higher sphere ; but as to the benefit resulting to the world , it is indeed well that the vivacity of Telemachus rejects the chill aphorisms of Mentor . Instil thoroughly into a young man ' s heart the very incorporation of the old man ' s experience , and farewell to the exertion which draws all its energy from the vain expectation that the world will reward it , and to the
bold flights of talented ambition whose soarings stimulate the march of mind , and yet whose pinions are buoyed up by the vapouring hope , that merit is sure to triumph over envy , and that distinction follows desert necessarily in the world ' s allotment of prizes . By-andby is time enough for the aspirant to discover that the world is not
just— -meanwhile , let the racer run the course ; but do not damp him yet , by the information that in all probability the guerdon he desires will be given to another , for if you did this , he would never run at all , and mankind would stagnate in a torpitude of hopeless apathy and a sullen weariness of inactive discontent .
There is also , besides the stimulus which imagination gives to mental energy , a self-protective influence which , under such principle , the mind acquires : we mean in the corroboration of its self-esteem . This is a panoply against public opinion , the variety
of circumstance , and , in many cases , even the pressure of corporeal infirmity , —that straw which so often throws down the giant ! Let a man possess true self-esteem , and the sneer of the envious , the adulation of the sycophant , are equally powerless to molest or perturb him . But here we must define : self-esteem must not be confounded
with conceit , for the latter is synonymous with vanity , and the former with pride . Pride results from the estimate set by a man upon his own judgment ; vanity from the estimate he sets npon the judgment of the world : and hence the truth of the dictum , that " a really proud man is too proud to be vain ; " in other words , his self-estimate