Part 18 (2/2)
HOW EMOTIONS DEVELOP--Emotions are to be cultivated as the intellect or the h proper exercise Our thought is to dwell on those things to which proper eest emotions of an undesirable type
Emotions which are to be developed must, as has already been said, find expression; we s, else they becos If love pro fellowitself fades away
On the other hand, the emotions which ish to suppress are to be refused expression The unkind and cutting word is to be left unsaid e are angry, and the fear of things which are harmless left unexpressed and thereby doomed to die
THE EMOTIONAL FACTOR IN OUR ENVIRONMENT--Much material for the cultivation of our emotions lies in the everyday life all about us if we can but interpret it Few indeed of those efor appreciation and sympathy Lovable traits exist in every character, and will reveal thees of justice abound on all sides, and deht the wrong Evil always exists to be hated and suppressed, and dangers to be feared and avoided Human life and theside of our nature if we understand at all what life and action mean
A certain blindness exists in many people, however, which makes our own little joys, or sorrows, or fears thethat others may feel as deeply as we Of course this self-centered attitude of mind is fatal to any true cultivation of the emotions It leads to an emotional life which lacks not only breadth and depth, but also perspective
LITERATURE AND THE CULTIVATION OF THE EMOTIONS--In order to increase our facility in the interpretation of the e us what to look for in life and experience, we o to literature Here we find life interpreted for us in the ideal by h their eyes, we see new depths and breadths of feeling which we had never before discovered Indeed, literature deals farside than with any other aspect of human life And it is just this which e of our emotions is more easily interpreted than that of our reason The sh, the frown, the caress, are understood all around the world a all peoples They are universal
There is always this danger to be avoided, however We ht descriptions of the ee that the common humdrum of everyday life around us seems flat and stale The interpretation of the writer or the actor is far beyond e are able to make for ourselves, so we take their interpretation rather than trouble ourselves to look in our own environht appeal to our emotions It is not rare to find those who easily weep over the woes of an ie unable to feel sy which exists all around them The story is told of a lady at the theater ept over the suffering of the hero in the play; and at thethe unnecessary tears, her own coachman, whom she had compelled to wait for her in the street, was frozen to death Our seeestions to the emotional life, and books and plays should only help to develop in us the power rightly to respond to these suggestions
HARM IN EMOTIONAL OVEREXCITEMENT--Danger may exist also in still another line; nareat nervous strain in high e than a severe fit of anger; it leaves its victiht often incapacitates one for mental or physical labor for hours, or it may even result in permanent injury The whole nervous tone is distinctly lowered by sorrow, and even excessive joy may be harer from emotional overexcitement unless it be in the case of fear in children, as was shown in the discussion on instincts, and in that of grief over the loss of objects that are dear to us Most of our childish fears we could just as well avoid if our elders iser in the ainst those that are unnecessary The griefs we cannot hope to escape, although we can do -continued e activity, gives us those eep over the wrongs of huht the, but cannot be induced to lend their aid to its alleviation We could very well spare a thousand of those in the world who merely feel, for one who acts, Jaood feelings do not sis, but that they find soood; that we do not, like Hahted, but never bring ourselves to the point where we take a hand in their righting If our e and effective in its results on our acts and character, it must find its outlet in deeds
4 EMOTIONS AS MOTIVES
Es constitute our strongest motives to action and achievement
HOW OUR EMOTIONS COMPEL US--Love has often done in the reforth of as not able to accoed theFear willthem to trample helpless women and children under feet, whom in their saner er puts out all the light of reason, and pro , fro of interest, the various ranges of pleasures and pain, the sentihty eth, constitutes a large part of theus on to do and dare Hence it is important froht type of feelings and emotions well developed, and the undesirable ones eli are partly matters of habit That is, we can form emotional as well as other habits, and they are as hard to break Anger allowed to run uncontrolled leads into habits of angry outbursts, while the one who habitually controls his te within bounds Onehis fear on all occasions, or of discouraging its expression He may form the habit of jealousy or of confidence It is possible even to for the tender emotions that love finds little opportunity for expression
And here, as elsewhere, habits are for the acts upon which the habit rests If there are e, e have to do is to indulge the emotional expression of the type we desire, and the habit will follow If ish to for in a chronic state of the blues, then all we have to do is to be blue and act blue sufficiently, and this form of emotional expression will beco in a happy, cheerful state, we can acco expression
5 PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
1 What are the characteristic bodily expressions by which you can recognize a state of anger? Fear? Jealousy? Hatred? Love? Grief? Do you know persons who are inclined to be too expressive emotionally? Who show too little emotional expression? Hoould you classify yourself in this respect?
2 Are you naturally responsive to the emotional tone of others; that is, are you sy emotional books? By eer fro them a proper outlet in some practical activity?
3 Have you observed a tendency a adults not to take seriously the erief as trivial, or fear as sohed at? Is the child's emotional life as real as that of the adult? (See Ch IX, Betts, ”Fathers and Mothers”)
4 Have you known children to repress their ehed at? Have you known parents or others to remark about childish love affairs to the children theht this ever to be done?
5 Note certain children who give way to fits of anger; what is the reest as a cure? (Why should ridicule not be used?)
6 Have you observed any teacher using the lesson in literature or history to cultivate the finer emotions? What emotions have you seen appealed to by a lesson in nature study? What eround that needed restraint? Do you think that on the whole the eh consideration in the school? In the home?
CHAPTER XVI