depths without any of these outward manifestations. Man has found it advisable
as he has advanced in civilization not to reveal all he feels to those around him.
The face, which is the most expressive part of the body, has come to be under
such perfect control that it is hard to read through it the emotional state, although
the face of civilized man is capable of expressing far more than is that of the
savage. The same difference is observable between the child and the adult. The
child reveals each passing shade of emotion through his expression, while the
adult may feel much that he does not show.
3. CULTIVATION OF THE EMOTIONS
There is no other mental factor which has more to do with the enjoyment we get
out of life than our feelings and emotions.
The Emotions and Enjoyment.—Few of us would care to live at all, if all
feeling were eliminated from human experience. True, feeling often makes us
suffer; but in so far as life's joys triumph over its woes, do our feelings minister
to our enjoyment. Without sympathy, love, and appreciation, life would be
barren indeed. Moreover, it is only through our own emotional experience that
we are able to interpret the feeling side of the lives about us. Failing in this, we
miss one of the most significant phases of social experience, and are left with
our own sympathies undeveloped and our life by so much impoverished.
The interpretation of the subtler emotions of those about us is in no small degree
an art. The human face and form present a constantly changing panorama of the
soul's feeling states to those who can read their signs. The ability to read the
finer feelings, which reveal themselves in expression too delicate to be read by
the eye of the gross or unsympathetic observer, lies at the basis of all fine
interpretation of personality. Feelings are often too deep for outward expression,
and we are slow to reveal our deepest selves to those who cannot appreciate and
understand them.
How Emotions Develop.—Emotions are to be cultivated as the intellect or the
muscles are to be cultivated; namely, through proper exercise. Our thought is to
dwell on those things to which proper emotions attach, and to shun lines which
would suggest emotions of an undesirable type. Emotions which are to be
developed must, as has already been said, find expression; we must act in
response to their leadings, else they become but idle vaporings. If love prompts
us to say a kind word to a suffering fellow mortal, the word must be spoken or