CHARACTER - The Grandest Thing in the World. Orison Swett Marden

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СКАЧАТЬ high desire that others may be blest savors of heaven.”

      A poor woman, knowing that Dr. Oliver Goldsmith had studied physic, and hearing of his great humanity, solicited him in a letter to send her something for her husband, who had lost his appetite and was reduced to a most melancholy state. The good-natured poet waited on her instantly, and after some discourse with his patient found him sinking in sickness and poverty. The doctor told him they should hear from him in an hour, when he would send them some pills which he believed would prove efficacious. He immediately went home and put ten guineas into a chip box, with the following label: “These must be used as necessities require. Be patient, and of a good heart.”

      At the battle of Fredericksurg, hundreds of Union soldiers lay wounded on the field a whole day and a night; the agonizing cries for water among the wounded were only answered by the roar of the guns. At last a Southern soldier who could not endure these piteous cries any longer begged his general to let him carry water to the suffering. The general told him it would be instant death to appear on the field, but the cries of the unfortunates drowned the roar of the guns to him at least, and he rushed out among the wounded and dying with a supply of water on his errand of mercy. Wondering eyes from both armies watched the brave fellow as, heedless of guns, he passed from soldier to soldier, gently raising his head and placing the cooling cup to his parched lips. The Union soldiers were so struck by the action of this boy in gray, risking his life for his enemies’ sake, that they ceased firing from admiration for an hour and a half, as did the Confederates. During this whole time the boy in gray went over the entire battlefield, giving drink to the thirsty, straightening cramped and mangled limbs, putting knapsacks under the heads of sufferers, spreading coats and blankets as if they had been his own comrades.

      General Gordon is said to have had a great number of medals for which he cared nothing. There was a gold one, however, given to him by the Empress of China, with a special inscription engraved upon it, for which he had a great liking. But it suddenly disappeared; no one knew where or how. Years afterwards it was found out, by a curious accident, that Gordon had erased the inscription, sold the medal for ten pounds, and sent the sum anonymously for the relief of the sufferers from the cotton famine at Manchester.

      There is one anecdote—matchless if not incredible. It reads like a fable out of the Orient. It relates to a Spanish Moor, whose walk in his garden was interrupted by the inrush of a Spanish cavalier who flung himself at his feet and implored protection, saying that the pursuers were seeking his life for having slain a Moor. Refuge was promised in the garden summer-house till midnight. Unlocking the door at the appointed hour, the Moor said: “You have killed my only son. But I pledged my word not to betray you.” And he placed the murderer upon a mule, saying, “Flee while darkness conceals you. God is just; my faith is unspotted, and I have resigned judgment to him.”

      Yet, unless it is true that a pledge is sacred, the pillars of heaven may fall. Unless generosity of spirit prevails among men there can never be upon earth an ideal life.

      “The last, best fruit,” says Richter, “which comes to late perfection even in the kindliest soul, is tenderness toward the hard, forbearance toward the unforbearing, warmth of heart toward the cold, philanthropy toward the misanthropic.”

      As we stand upon the seashore while the tide is coming in, one wave reaches up the beach far higher than any previous one, then recedes, and for some time none that follows comes up to its mark, but after a while the whole sea is there and beyond it; so now and then there comes a man head and shoulders above his fellow-men, showing that Nature has not lost her ideal of great-heartedness, and after a while even the average man will overtop the highest wave of noble manhood yet given to the world.

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