Littell's Living Age/Volume 130/Issue 1676/Physical Influences upon Character

From The Victoria Magazine.

PHYSICAL INFLUENCES UPON CHARACTER.

The influence of physical comforts upon us is far more considerable than we think, or would like it to be thought, perhaps. Let the most prayerful mind be ever so bent upon service to its Maker, its litany, its confessions of wrong-doing, and yet, in the very midst of its devoutest desires for amendment, the chilling frost of an uncongenial place or posture will nip the stoutest protestations in the bud. Temporal inconvenience, in nine cases out of ten, assuredly takes the upper hand where spiritual prostration essays to acknowledge itself. However devotional the character of our mind, however we may make the best intentions to “observe a lively faith in God’s Holy Word,” not to let it sink into mere hebdomadary letter-worship, clogged by the constant round of repetition, yet, should hard-backed seats beset us, should it unfortunately chance that a preacher’s voice is droning or monotonous, these will, spite of an earnest endeavour to fix the attention, more or less affect our thoughts, and otherwise dispose of them. Even the flicker of an elusive sunbeam, or dazzling fugitive mote, will have more influence in unsettling the mind of a would-be conscientious listener than any moral truth that is being poured out before him, and to which he would fain persuade himself to attend. Among the lower classes, how very often it is to be remarked that physical comforts are more effectual in softening their character than the wisest words or the most judiciously-selected tracts. What, say they, is the use of trying to cure our souls, to ask us if we are true Christians, when our children are starving, and we ourselves in cold and nakedness? Mere creature comforts will do more for ourselves and for them than any bare words or a holding-up of exemplary lives. Among the women, too, more particularly, a brave burial and a worthy funeral is apparently more a matter of concern than even the loss they have sustained. All the comforting assurances with which kind neighbors ply them fail to create half as much personal satisfaction as the fact of their dead having “a decent” interment. Of all the physical conditions most conducive to a rough but ready estimate of the character of any new acquaintance, or to give you an appreciable understanding of the neighbor beside whom you chance to take your seat, and which is as quick a process of discovering the “inner man” as any I know, is most certainly a dinner. A good dinner is a very safe criterion by which to form an opinion of another, and, let me add, a bad one will do equally as well. Whatever there is of good in a man — wit or humor, consideration or want of consideration, his pet foibles, or his peculiar ambitions, will all manifest themselves, and creep out bit by bit here and them, and proclaim the man despite himself, though to be sure you may be excluded from a certain share of unequable temper, and such minor failings as are more especially reserved for home use, or rather home abuse.