Have You an Educated Heart?
Last October I sent Anabel a book. She acknowledge it, and promptly. But two months afterwards she actually wrote me another letter, telling me what she thought of that book; and she proved, moreover, that she had read it. Now, I ask you, isn't that a strange and beautiful experience in this careless world? Anabel had the educated heart. To such as possess the educated heart thanks are something like mortgages, to be paid in installments. Why, after five years Anabel often refers to a gift that has pleased her. It is the motive for a gift she cares for, not its value; and hence her gratefullness.
Everything can be done beautifully by the educated heart, from the lacing of a shoe so that it won't come loose to passing the salt before it is asked for. If you say only "Good Morning", it can be done pleasingly. Observe how the polished actor says it, with that cheerful rising inflection. But the ordinary American growls it out with surly downward emphasis. Merely to speak distinctly is great kindness, I consider. You never have to ask, "What did you say?" of teh educated heart. On the other hand, very few people ever really listen with kindly attention. They are usually merely waiting for a chance to pounce you with own narrative. Or if they do listen, is you story heard with real sympathy? Does teh face really glow?
Consider the usual birthday gift or Christmas present. by universal practice it is carefully wrapped in a pretty paper and tied with a ribbon. That package is symbolical of what all friendly acts should be - kindness performed with style. Then what is style in giving? Ah, the educated heart makes it a business to know what his friend really wants. One friend I have to whom I can't express a taste that isn't treasured upagainst need . I said once that i loved watercase, and lightly wished that I might have it for every meal. Never a meal had I at his table since, without finding watercase bought speciallly for me.
Do you think it's easy, this business of giving? Verily, giving is as much an art as portrait painting or the making of glass flowers. And imaginatio can surely be brought to bear. Are you sailing for brazil? It isn't the basket of fine fruits that little purse full of Brazilian currency, bills and small change all readt for you when you go ashore at Rio.
There was old Wentrose - he understood the Fourth Dimension of kindness, all right. Never a friend of his wife's puffingly put aboard a streetcar, but he'd tuck apologetically into her hand the nickel to save her rummaging in her bag. Real elegance, the gesture of inherent nobility, I call that.
Is it sufficient simply to offer your seat in a streetcar to a woamn? The merely kind person does that. But he does it rather sheepishly. Isn't your graciousness more cultured if you give it up with a bow, with a smile of willingness? Besides the quarte you give the beggar, can't you give a few cents' worth of yourself too? The behaviour of the educated heart becomes automatic: you set it in the direction of true kindness and courtesy and after a while it willl function without deliberate thought. Such thoughtness, such consideration is not merely decorative. It is the very essence and evidence of sincerity. Without it all so-called kindness is merely titular and perfunctory.
Suppose I submit your name for membership in a club. Have I done you (or my club) any real service unless I also do my best to see trhat you are elected? And so if I go to every member of the committee, if I urge all my friends to endorse you, that is merely the completion of my regard for you. It is like saly - "It's what makes potatoes taste bad, if you don't put it on."
Must you dance with all the wallflowers, then? I don't go so far as that, although it would prove that you had imagination enough to put yourself in another's place. All I ask is that when you try to do a favor favor you do it to the full length of the rope. Don't send your telegram in just ten carefully selected words. Economize elsewhere, but add those few extra phrases that make the reader perceive that you cared more for him than you did for the expense.
No one with the educated heart ever approachede a clergyman, or a celebrity, or a long-absent visitor with the shocking greeting: "You don't remember me, do you?" No, he gives his name first. No one with the educated heart ever said, "Now do come and see me, sometime!" The educated heart's way of putting it is apt to be, "How about coming next Wednesday?" And strongly I doubt if the educated is ever tardy at an appointment. It knows that if only two minutes late a person has brought just that much less of himself.
You call once or twice at tthe hospital. Do you ever call again? Not unless you have the educated heart. Yet the patient is still perhaps quite ill. One there was who used to bring a scrapbook every morning, pasted in with funny items from the day's news.
Truly nothing is so rare as teh educated heart. And if you wonder why, just show a kodak group pictures - a banquet or a class photograph. What does every one of us first look at, talk about? Ourself. And that's the reason why most hearts are so unlearned in kindness.
If you want to mystic organ whence flows true human kindness, you must cultivate your imagination. You must learn to put yourself in another's place, think his thoughts. The educated heart, remember, does kindness with style.
The "average" man has no physical and mental idiosyncrasies - but there is no such person.
