" (3) And thus it was that Dr. Arnold
trained a host of manly and noble characters, who spread the
influence of his example in all parts of the world.
So also was it said of Dugald Stewart, that he breathed the love
of virtue into whole generations of pupils. "To me," says the
late Lord Cockburn, "his lectures were like the opening of the
heavens. I felt that I had a soul. His noble views, unfolded in
glorious sentences, elevated me into a higher world... They
changed my whole nature." (4)
Character tells in all conditions of life. The man of good
character in a workshop will give the tone to his fellows, and
elevate their entire aspirations. Thus Franklin, while a workman
in London, is said to have reformed the manners of an entire
workshop. So the man of bad character and debased energy will
unconsciously lower and degrade his fellows. Captain John Brown--
the "marching-on Brown"--once said to Emerson, that "for a
settler in a new country, one good believing man is worth a
hundred, nay, worth a thousand men without character." His
example is so contagious, that all other men are directly and
beneficially influenced by him, and he insensibly elevates and
lifts them up to his own standard of energetic activity.
Communication with the good is invariably productive of good. The
good character is diffusive in his influence. "I was common clay
till roses were planted in me," says some aromatic earth in the
Eastern fable.
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