Do you not see how this
admiration transformed the life of the young king, and made him after
the type of that which he admired? It does not make any difference what
this special admiration may be. Let a man admire Beethoven, and he will
cultivate instinctively the qualities that make the beauty and
greatness of Beethoven's character and the wonders of his career.
This ideal may be in a book, it may be embodied in fiction. I have
liked always, either on the walls of my room or on the walls of my
heart, to have certain portraits of persons whom I have loved, who are
no longer living; and they are to me constant stimulus. They speak to
me by day, and in my dreams at night their eyes follow me, and seem to
look into my soul; and in their presence I could not do a mean, an
unmanly thing. I love, I reverence, I worship these lofty ideals. And
the quality of these characters filters down through and permeates the
thought and the life.
You remember how the other aspect of this thought is illustrated by
Shakspere. He says, "My nature is subdued To what it works in, like the
dyer's hand." If that with which you keep company, that you admire, is
below you, it degrades; if it is above you, it lifts. In any case you
are transformed, shaped into the likeness of that which you admire.
There is another aspect of this close akin to that which I have just
been dealing with. It is only the worshipper who has in him any
promise, any possibility, of growth.
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