The Imperial Highway; Essays on Business and Home Life, with Biographies of Self-Made Men by Jerome Paine Bates (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1886. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... WEIGHT OF CHARACTER. "There's no power In ancestry to make the foolish wise, The ignorant learned, the cowardly and base Deserving our respect as brave and good. Hence man's best riches must be gained, not given, His noblest name deserved, and not derived." ERE is hardly any other word in the language which means more in life, or which is more essential to all that makes life valuable, than the word character. It does not stand for any one endowment, faculty, or gift, but it is rather the sum of all that men and women are in themselves. It does not stand for wealth, for there are many wealthy men who have no weight or strength of character. They are lifted upon a pinnacle by the force of circumstances or by the power of money, but those around and those below them see their essential hollowness and worthlessness, and see through their pretentious greatness, as though it were but transparent glass. Neither is character a synonym for intellectual ability simply, because there are very many men and women of considerable talent who have no weight of character. Character, then, may be compared to a reservoir into which all the rills and streamlets of personal power empty themselves, forming the collected result of life's accumulations. Or, as another has said, "It is the crown and glory of life. It is human nature in its best form. It is moral order embodied in the individual. Men of character are not only the conscience of society, but in every well-governed state they are its best motive power. The strength, the civil security, and the civilization of a nation, all depend upon individual character. It constitutes a rank in itself, and dignifies and exalts every station in life. It carries with it an influence which always tells." Though a man have comparat...