Character — Edition Insights

The Rhetoric of Exemplary Lives

Smiles builds his argument through a dense weave of historical and literary examples. In the excerpt on cheerfulness, he invokes Jeremy Taylor’s letter after losing his estate, quoting Taylor’s inventory of what remains: “the sun and moon, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me.” The passage is typical of Smiles’s method—he lets the quoted voice carry emotional weight while his own commentary remains abstract. He also cites Dr. Marshall Hall (“The best cordial of all is cheerfulness”) and Martin Luther’s advice to young men: “Gaiety and courage… are the best medicine.” These borrowed voices create a chorus of authority, but Smiles rarely pauses to analyze or challenge them. The effect is cumulative rather than analytical, a mosaic of moral testimony rather than a sustained argument.

Cheerfulness as Moral Discipline

One of the most striking passages in the excerpts treats cheerfulness not as mere temperament but as a trained habit. Smiles writes that “we may make the best of life, or we may make the worst of it; and it depends very much upon ourselves whether we extract joy or misery from it.” He then introduces the metaphor of the “beam in the eye,” which “sheds brightness, beauty, and joy upon life in all its phases.” The beam is a moral quality: it warms coldness, comforts suffering, enlightens ignorance. Smiles goes so far as to call cheerfulness “the best soil for the growth of goodness and virtue” and, citing a devotional writer, declares it the first, second, and third thing in overcoming temptations. This elevation of a seemingly minor virtue into a pillar of character is characteristic of Smiles’s project: the small, daily habits become the foundation of moral life.

Pace and Accumulation in Smiles’s Prose

The rhythm of Character is one of steady accumulation. Sentences are often short and parallel, as in “It gives brightness of heart and elasticity of spirit. It is the companion of charity, the nurse of patience, the mother of wisdom.” Smiles favors lists and triads, building a sense of completeness through repetition. Yet the pace can shift abruptly when he inserts a long quoted passage, such as Taylor’s letter, which slows the reader and introduces a personal, almost intimate voice. The chapter on cheerfulness also includes a sudden turn to Luther’s love of children and flowers—“The great gnarled man had a heart as tender as a woman’s”—a brief, vivid image that breaks the abstract flow. These variations in pace keep the didactic tone from becoming monotonous, offering moments of concrete humanity amid the moral precepts.

The Domestic Sphere as Moral Foundation

Although the excerpts focus on cheerfulness and duty, the table of contents reveals that Smiles devotes entire chapters to “Home Power,” “Companionship and Examples,” and “Companionship in Marriage.” The domestic sphere is presented as the primary arena for character formation. In the opening chapter, he asserts that “the most influential of all the virtues are those which are the most in request for daily use”—a claim that subtly privileges the private, everyday world over public achievement. The chapter on cheerfulness reinforces this by associating it with “harmony of soul” and “repose,” qualities that sustain family life. Smiles’s ideal character is not the solitary hero but the person who “can act his part honestly and honourably, and to the best of his ability” in the sphere where Providence has placed him.

Readers approaching Character should attend to how Smiles uses quoted authorities not as proof but as moral ornament. The book’s power lies less in logical argument than in the cumulative weight of example and aphorism. Because the excerpts are incomplete, it is unclear how Smiles resolves tensions between individual will and social influence, or between cheerfulness and the suffering he acknowledges. The careful reader will watch for shifts in tone—from the brisk, imperative voice of the opening to the more reflective, anecdotal passages—as clues to the work’s underlying structure.

There’s something about Smiles’s insistence on cheerfulness as a quiet guard for character—not loud optimism, just steady warmth—that stayed with me long after closing the book. It made me think about how we hold onto our sense of duty when everything feels uncertain. I found myself recalling The Heavenly Father: Lectures on Modern Atheism — Themes and Context in the same breath, that gentle wrestling with what we lean on when belief wavers. Both left me softer and more thoughtful.