These, however, are excellences more natural to
the character, in proportion as it is actively engaged in the
attempt to improve its own or some other lot. He who is continually
measuring his energy against difficulties learns what are the
difficulties insuperable to him, and what are those which, though he
might overcome, the success is not worth the cost. He whose thoughts
and activities are all needed for, and habitually employed in,
practicable and useful enterprises, is the person of all others
least likely to let his mind dwell with brooding discontent upon
things either not worth attaining, or which are not so to him. Thus
the active, self-helping character is not only intrinsically the best,
but is the likeliest to acquire all that is really excellent or
desirable in the opposite type.
The striving, go-ahead character of England and the United States is
only a fit subject of disapproving criticism on account of the very
secondary objects on which it commonly expends its strength. In itself
it is the foundation of the best hopes for the general improvement
of mankind. It has been acutely remarked that whenever anything goes
amiss the habitual impulse of French people is to say, "ll faut de
la patience"; and of English people, "What a shame." The people who
think it a shame when anything goes wrong- who rush to the conclusion
that the evil could and ought to have been prevented, are those who,
in the long run, do most to make the world better.
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