minor gift of temper, the most splendid endowments may be
comparatively valueless to their possessor.

Character is formed by a variety of minute circumstances, more or
less under the regulation and control of the individual. Not a
day passes without its discipline, whether for good or for evil.
There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of
consequences, as there is no hair so small but casts its shadow.
It was a wise saying of Mrs. Schimmelpenninck's mother, never to
give way to what is little; or by that little, however you may
despise it, you will be practically governed.

Every action, every thought, every feeling, contributes to the
education of the temper, the habits, and understanding; and
exercises an inevitable influence upon all the acts of our future
life. Thus character is undergoing constant change, for better or
for worse--either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on
the other. "There is no fault nor folly of my life," says Mr.
Ruskin, "that does not rise up against me, and take away my joy,
and shorten my power of possession, of sight, of understanding.
And every past effort of my life, every gleam of rightness or good
in it, is with me now, to help me in my grasp of this art and its
vision." (7)

The mechanical law, that action and reaction are equal, holds true
also in morals. Good deeds act and react on the doers of them;
and so do evil. Not only so: they produce like effects, by the
influence of example, on those who are the subjects of them. But
man is not the creature, so much as he is the creator, of
circumstances: (8) and, by the exercise of his freewill, he can