"
There is a great deal of truth in this, and it is manfully put.
Where it fails is, I think, in assuming an amount of will-power and
resolution in human character, which I suspect is not there. The
system the writer recommends is a system that a strong character
instinctively practises, moving through sentiment to emotion,
naturally, and by a sturdy growth. But to tell a man to feel more
in a thing, is like telling a man to be intelligent, benevolent,
wise. It is just what no one can do. The various grades of emotion
are not things like examinations, in which one can successively
graduate. They are expressions of temperament. The sentimental man
is the man who can go thus far and no farther. How shall one
acquire vigour and generosity? By behaving as if one was vigorous
and generous, when one is neither? I do not think it can be done in
that way. One can do something to check a tendency, very little to
deepen it. What the writer calls false asceticism is the only brave
and wholesome refuge of people, who know themselves well enough to
know that they cannot trust themselves. Take the case of one's
relations with other people. If a man drifts into sentimental
relations with other people, attracted by charm of any kind, and
knowing quite well that the relation is built on charm, and that he
will not be able to follow it into truer regions, I think he had
probably better try to keep himself in check, not embrace a
sentimental relation with a mild hope that it may develop into a
real devotion.
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