Self-cultivation in English读后感

Self-cultivation in English读后感

The importance of literary power needs no long argument. Everybody

acknowledges it, and sees that without it all other human faculties are

maimed. Shakespeare says that “Time insults o'er dull and speechless

tribes.” It and all who live in it insult over the speechless person. So

mutually dependent are we that on our swift and full communication

with one another is staked the success of almost every scheme we form.

He who cannot is left to the poverty of individual resource; for men do

what we desire only when persuaded. The persuasive and explanatory

tongue is, therefore, one of the chief levers of life. Its leverage is felt

within us as well as without, for expression and thought are integrally

bound together. We do not first possess completed thoughts, and then

express them. The very formation of the outward product extends,

sharpens, enriches the mind which produces, so that he who gives forth

little after a time is likely enough to discover that he has little to give

forth. By expression, too, we may carry benefits and our names to a far

generation. This durable character of fragile language puts a wide

difference of worth between it and some of the other great objects of

desire, —health, wealth, and beauty, for example. These are notoriously

liable to accident. We tremble while we have them. But literary power,

once ours, is more likely than any other possession to be ours always. It

perpetuates and enlarges itself by the very fact of its existence, and

perishes only with the decay of the man himself. For this reason, because

more than health, wealth, and beauty, literary style may be called the

man. Good judges have found in it the final test of culture, and have said

that he and he alone, is a well-educated person who uses his language

with power and beauty. The supreme and ultimate product of civilization,

it has been well said, is two or three persons talking together in a room.

Between ourselves and our language there accordingly springs up an

association peculiarly close. We are sensitive to criticism of our speech as

of our manners. The young man looks up with awe to him who has

written a book, as already half divine; and the graceful speaker is a

universal object of envy.