May 23
It is not the beauty of the face that adorns a person, but the purity of the word, the care of the work and the quietness of the nature. A character, inconspicuously cultivated, is the adornment that lasts longest.
Lessons for Women (freely rendered)
Listening mode
It is not the beauty of the face that adorns a person, but the purity of the word, the care of the work and the quietness of the nature. A character, inconspicuously cultivated, is the adornment that lasts longest.
When someone who has known you for a long time is asked to describe what you are like, they rarely mention the things you yourself paid attention to. Perhaps they mention that you keep your promises even when they have become inconvenient, or that you speak about people who are absent the way you would speak to them. You had never thought of this as a trait. It was simply your way of getting things done.
There is a curious inequality in this. A face shows itself at first glance, a character only through repetition. That takes someone who has seen you often enough, including on days when something went wrong for you. Whoever knows your reliability usually knows your impatience too.
You can still cultivate your character, only hardly with an eye to its effect. As soon as you are honest so that others will think you honest, you are already reckoning with an audience again, and your next sentence comes out a little smoother.
What others later value in you may have come about precisely in the moments when you weren't thinking about yourself. You hear the description, nod, and only half recognise yourself.
