Character and soul

The character of sound, of light, of wine, of the grain in worked wood, of a companion animal … or of their owner, may be simple or complex, weak or strong, soft or hard, bad or good. Experience builds character, apparently, in a young person’s mental and moral qualities1. For animals as for people, character flowers in freedom from fear – of the known and the unknown, of death and the hereafter.

We only see death; the free animal
has its decease perpetually behind it
and God in front, and when it moves, it moves
into eternity, like running springs.2

Character wilts in dread of an unfortunate, unjust, inopportune, or even timely or overdue end of life. How then will experience ever set us free?

A person’s character expresses their soul, or affects to express it, according to a temperament set by their personality3. Soul is the spiritual quality of an individual, human or animal, or of a creation such as a piece of music or a building, a club, a city or a nation4. Being the immaterial part, soul is timeless and therefore free of the conscious self, its importance, its memories and ambitions, hopes and fears. And experience lays bare the soul.

• Ulrich, the protagonist of Robert Musil’s 1930 The Man Without Qualities, possessed many qualities, but none possessed him. He was in this sense a young man unpossessed of qualities. Ulrich resisted society’s expectation that such traits define him, considering his talents and social identities as relative and provisional, and his virtues as hollow conventions. Musil’s long and circuitous novel pursues the inner essence underpinning character, in the fluid depths of Ulrich’s soul.
• Excerpt from Rainer Maria Rilke’s 1912 Duino Elegies, The Eighth Elegy, translated from German by J. B. Leishman.
• A person’s character may express various preferred versions of their soul, by way of any number of conceits or deceits, tempered by personality.
• An individual or a creation may be deemed to have a soul or to have no soul; a person might trade their soul for worldly riches, or indulge in soul-searching introspection.

C.P. Doncaster, Timeline of the Human Condition, star index