Part 3

Now, that’s what I mean by the Educated Heart. That package is symbolical of what all friendly acts should be--kindness performed with style.

Is it sufficient, then, simply to offer your seat in a street car to a woman? 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 quarter you give the beggar, can’t you give a few cents’ worth of yourself, too?

So 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. Even if you say only “Good morning,” it can be done pleasingly. Observe how the polished actor says it, with that cheerful rising English inflection. But the ordinary American growls it out with such surly downward emphasis that in London he is apt to be asked, “What’s the matter, old chap--headache?”

Why, merely to speak distinctly is a great kindness, I consider. You never have to ask, “What did you say?” to the Educated Heart. An old maid I knew once confessed that the only proposal she ever received was from a timid, low-voiced suitor, whose question she failed to hear.

“Lucky escape,” we all agreed. “You might have married him and been tormented all your life by his mumbling!”

OF course you’ve heard that “he gives twice who gives quickly,” but how about the giver who gives but half his gift? It isn’t the procrastinator, I mean. The half-giver is one who “wearies in well-doing,” stops part way on the road to kindness, with the goal plainly in sight. If you want to have the Educated Heart you must dot all the i’s and cross the t’s. Otherwise your gift is apt to be as the grapefruit without the sugar.

HALF giving! Instances of such gold-plated parsimonious generosity I could cite all day--from the old-fashioned “thrifty” housewife, who used to cut all the buttons off the clothes before she gave them to the poor, to sweet, sympathetic Oval, who visited an invalid.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, “I bought the loveliest bunch of roses for you, but I forgot them--left them in the hotel.” And Oval, after that (although the flowers of course never came), fully expected to be credited with a kindness.

Oh, you know them. You must know them! The half-giver who invites his party to supper after the theatre, but fails to reserve a table. How surprised and apologetic he is to find all the places taken! The gent who escorts his lady to the theater, too, and, when they come out, exclaims: “Gee, doesn’t this fresh air seem good, after that stuffy house! Let’s walk a way!” How bright his smile! Truly the heart, as well as the clothes, can be shabby-genteel. That kind of liberality he has that many women possess. Oh, yes, they insist upon paying for their half of the dinner, but they always forget to share the tips!

You remember those Liberty Loan subscribers who used to say, “I’ll subscribe one thousand if you’ll take another!” That’s the way these half-givers usually leave you to complete their gifts or go and get them or something--to pay some part of the price yourself, anyway, in trouble or in work.

Dear Alfredine was kind enough to bring her friend from abroad several pairs of earrings. But, alas! as they were made for those grandmothery old pierced ears her friend had to pay a jeweler to have them fitted with screw fastenings, just nine dollars, a sum she could ill afford--at least for earrings.

* * * * *

“I’d rather not try, please,” said Alice. “I’m quite content to stay here--only I am so hot and thirsty!”

“I know what you’d like,” the Queen said good-naturedly, taking a little box out of her pocket. “Have a biscuit?”

* * * * *

KIND you may think you are, and never know you are not kind. And worse than all the rest are those who force their presents on you.

My indulgent uncle, once, presented me with theatre tickets to see Bernhardt. Now it so happened that day that at the last moment I had the opportunity to meet a man, a famous man, whom I had long wanted to know, and who proved to be of the greatest help to me.

When I told my uncle, was he pleased to hear of my good luck? Not at all. Never did he forgive me for not using his tickets.

How many men who have taken the pains to secure a friend a good position are pleased to hear that he himself has discovered a better one? Only those with the Educated Heart. Like my uncle, most care more for that self-flattering glow of kindliness than for another’s best happiness.

Who ever really forgave you for being ill and missing a dinner engagement? You had no right to be ill. You gave your kind hostess a great deal of trouble and disappointment with that ptomaine poisoning of yours!

“Be happy my way!” says the parent “Marry this nice, rich man I have chosen for you--not the poor fellow you love!” But no, putting a cushion behind a man in an armchair isn’t kindness unless he happens to want it there. It may make him uncomfortable.

And dear old country grandmother--who used to urge on us, nay, force on us that third generous helping of pudding. Grandma’s heart was big enough--but it wasn’t quite the right shape.

WHAT’S the rarest thing in all the world? Intelligent sympathy. Why? Well, each one of us is working out his own evolution, I suppose, and our own interests must be paramount and absorb us, or we lose in the race.

Still, it is rather pleasing to recall, in pessimistic moods--upon receiving a letter written in lead pencil, for instance, or one undated, or with no address, or, most irritating of all, with an illegible signature--it is even encouraging to recall that it isn’t always these inconsiderate, unimaginative, egoistic people, after all, who succeed most brilliantly in the world. Sometimes a good, plain writer, desirous of making it easy for his reader, gets to the top, too, God bless him! And my faith in kindness as a policy is restored, too, by the glaring fact that of all my acquaintances the one least to be suspected of an inferiority complex is the only one who begins a telephone conversation by decently introducing himself: “B. Ganning talking!” instead of peremptorily demanding my name, like a census man breaking in the door.

As many of our acquired habits, like walking, for instance, have been passed from the domain of the conscious to the subconscious and become automatic, so, perhaps, with the behavior of the Educated Heart. You set it in the direction of true kindness and courtesy and it will function without deliberate thought.

And, alas, vice versa! It steers as well towards selfishness.

AND now, right there, before I find more fault, do, please, get my point of view. Am I fastidious? Why, all I ask is an unadulterated drop of your emotion. Am I querulous? Why should I be? No one is important enough to hurt me. Surely the very inadequacy of their feelings proves these skim-milk saints to be unworthy the time and energy it takes to resent or protest. Am I ungrateful? Not if you have done the least friendly act and done it wholly. Do I demand too much pay for my favors? If I long for a little of the old-time courtesy to color life, must you accuse me of preferring the glib, lace-sleeved, powdered-hair flattery, of the French salons?

Not at all. These modern, downright, shirt-sleeved ways of ours, open-air, golf-playing ways, man-and-woman, give-and-take ways--making up the jocose and slangy warfare we call friendship, nowadays--they’re well enough, so long as the thought beneath is honest. But mere words, words, words--aren’t you, too, sick of them? Don’t you want deeds or nothing?