Part 4

Actions speak louder. . . .

FOR the fact is that such thoughtfulness, such consideration as I desire is not merely decorative. It is the very essence and evidence of sincerity. Without it all so-called kindness is merely titular and perfunctory. Tact is what makes kindness real, makes it effective; just as the perfume proves which is the genuine, and which is the artificial violet.

Suppose I propose your name for membership in my club. Have I done you (or my club) any real service, unless I also do my best to see that you are elected? So then, if I go to every member of the committee, if I urge all my friends to endorse you, is that a quixotic feeling for punctilio?

I think not. It is merely the completion of my regard for you. It is like salt--“it’s what makes potatoes taste bad, if you don’t put it on.” It is a guarantee of my true feeling. It is the hug without which the kiss means nothing.

NEITHER do I insist on obedience to custom. You may violate any of the folk-ways, for all I care. If you refuse to take off your hat to ladies, I shall think only that you do not feel yourself bound by the elaborate rules of romantic love concocted by the lazy troubadours and sentimental chatelaines of the Middle Ages. Offer your left hand to me, if you like, I care not. We carry no daggers now. I know that most of us would prefer to dine with a polite murderer than with an honest tinsmith who eats with his knife. But, by that same token, I know that all such artificial distinctions are not based upon kindness. They are merely the unwritten laws of society.

But if you, however brilliantly, make fun of your wife, if you humiliate an inferior, insult a debtor, if you promise and keep not your word, if you fail to flavor your kindness with sincerity, if you give only the counterfeit money of politeness--then I perceive that you have not the Educated Heart. Indeed, the Educated Heart is rare enough anywhere; but it is found quite as often among those who know not your artificial social code, as it is with those of the six-fork dinner.

AHA! Now you think you have me in the old conventional corner by the altruistic what-not, and the goody-goody seashells, eh? Copybook stuff. Mass morality. Herd-minded optimism that finds good in everything and why find fault--“it’s not constructive.’’ But, no--I’m not trying to prove “’Tis only noble to be good,” but only that to be good, or even pleasing, is a severe aesthetic problem. Well, I know that

“Hearts just as pure and fair May beat in Belgrave Square As in the lowly air Of Seven Dials,”

but, at the same time, one of the highest orders of the Educated Heart, I must tell you, is found in the criminal classes.

You stagger? Yes, I repeat: in the crook himself.

Doesn’t the confidence man, for instance, do everything in the power of his trained imagination (in his first approaches, at least), to make his victim happy? Doesn’t he study his come-on’s every whim and taste? Is there anyone more tactful and polite, more considerate and anxious to please than a shoplifter? Oh, charming, truly charming, thoughtful and heart-wise must he be who marries eleven wives; even though afterwards he murders them for the insurance money and buries them all in the cellar. He knows how to anticipate his victim’s least desire.

Well, why not be as shrewd as the crook, then, yourself, to discover what will please and satisfy the friend you love? Get-rich-quick Wallingford had a perverted heart, ’tis true, but it had taken its degree in the Art of Pleasing.

Not much like your millionaires who ask their poor relatives, “You don’t mind sitting in front with the chauffeur, do you?” or give their country cousins horrible little black hats with a stick-up in the back!

MUST you dance with all the wallflowers, then, and always be nice to old ladies? Well, no--I won’t go so far as that, although that, too, would certainly show an Educated Heart. It would prove that you had imagination enough anyway to put yourself in another’s place.

No, all I ask is that, when you try to do a favor--to be kind--you do it to the full length of the rope. Don’t send your telegram “collect,” or in just ten carefully selected words. Economize elsewhere, but add those few extra phrases that make the reader grin and perceive that you cared more for him than you did for the expense.

No one with the Educated Heart ever approached a clergyman, or a celebrity, or a long-absent visitor with the shocking greeting: “Oh, Mr. Spoop, 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!” Well he knows that that merely means: “Don’t come at all.” The Educated Heart’s way of putting it is apt to be, “How about next Wednesday?”

And strongly I doubt even if the Educated Heart is ever tardy at that appointment. It knows that even if only two minutes late a person has brought just that much less of himself. Oh, he came, yes--and we put over the deal, after all. But forever you will remember that he made you wait.

YOU understand, don’t you, that I’m not trying to discuss unkindness, or even impoliteness? Nor merely legitimate half-kindness do I mean. It would be absurd to assert that one shouldn’t say, “Here, you may have this hat--I don’t like it.” But wouldn’t it be still more absurd to call that sort of thing kindness?

No, what I impugn are thoughtless attempts to be kind. Slipshod sentimentality masquerading as kindness. Near-sighted benevolence--generosity run down at the heels, like the husband who conceives himself to be liberal because he gives his wife money--though she always has to ask him for it.

WHY, even in conversation there is plenty of chance for the Educated Heart. Of course, unless you are a moron, you must have found out by this time that very few people ever really listen. They are usually merely waiting for a chance to say something themselves. It may be laid down as an axiom, then, that no habitual talker can have the Educated Heart. Even though these wordy pests go through all the motions of listening, say “Oh,” and “Ah,” and “Really, is that so?” and “How awful!” the moment you close your lips they pounce upon you with their own narrative.

Or if, peradventure, they do listen, is the story of your trials or disappointments heard with real sympathy? Not often. Your illness? Your divorce? Your losses? You are merely providing them with a more or less amusing entertainment.

Why, one of the best ways to make yourself popular--an infallible way-- is to tell a story upon yourself. Give yourself the worst of it, and they’ll all roar.

But did anyone ever laugh with joy when you informed him that you had made ten thousand dollars, or won a beauty prize? How faint, oh, how pale are their congratulations! The lips move, but does the face really glow? Tell them you fell down two flights of stairs, though, and you’ll see a fine abandon of mirth. They’ll slap you on the back, by Jove, and invite you to dinner, so that you can repeat it to the wife.

YOU think I’m fooling? Not at all. A psychological fact it is, that, in nine cases out of ten, if you tell of an accident of which you’re the victim, your hearer will instantly laugh. Just try it yourself, and see.

Oh, of course, if you paint a vivid enough picture, if you say “I had three ribs and a shoulder blade broken and four others were killed,” then possibly you may awaken their sympathy. But the ordinary tale of suffering has pretty hard work getting more than half an inch inside people’s ears. Women love to tell of their operations, I hear, but do they love to listen? Doesn’t everyone smile when you say you haven’t slept a wink all night? Yes, all, save the one with the Educated Heart--and he’s your sweetheart, probably.

Queer, but the world, alas! is very hard of hearing. Unless people see the blood actually streaming, every sufferer is considered merely as a comedian. The banana-peel joke is still typical of our reactions to another’s woes.

AND so, it is my fearful opinion that but seldom has the Educated Heart a keen sense of humor. Didn’t an eminent mid-Victorian advise, “Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever!” Aren’t you already thinking over your own friends?

Am I not right? Is it the sparkling bright apostle of pleasantry to whom you go to borrow that ten dollars, or to the serious, kindly dub who never sees the point? Which dentist is most apt to drill that horrid millimetre too far into a shrieking nerve--he who tells you diverting anecdotes, the while, or the solemn conscientious drudge?