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 !"
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,
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,
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,
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,
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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