One meets a great many people of various kinds, old and young, kind and
severe, amiable and harsh, gentle and dry, rude and polite, tiresome
and interesting. One meets men who are, one recognises, virtuous,
honourable, conscientious, and able; one meets women of character, and
ingenuousness, and charm, and beauty. But the thing that really
interests me is to meet a person--and it is not a common
experience--who has made something of himself or herself; who began
with one set of qualities, and who has achieved another set of
qualities, by desiring them and patiently practising them; who, one is
sure, has a peculiar sympathy drawn from experience, and a wisdom
matured by conflict and effort.
As a rule, one feels that people are very much the same as they began
by being. They are awkward and have not learned to be easy; they are
dull and have not learned to be interesting; or they are clever and
have not learned to be sympathetic; or charming and have not learned to
be loyal; who are satisfied, in fact, with being what they are. But
what a delightful and reviving thing it is to meet one whose glance
betrays a sort of tenderness, a gentleness, a desire to establish a
relationship; who means to like one, if he can; whose face bears signs
of the conflict of spirit, in which selfishness and complacency have
been somehow eradicated; who understands one's clumsy hints and
interprets one's unexpressed feelings; who goes about, one knows,
looking out for beautiful qualities and for subtle relationships; who
evokes the best of people, their confidence, their true and natural
selves; who is not in the least concerned with making an impression or
being thought wise or clever or brilliant, but who just hopes for
companionship and equality of soul.
Sometimes, indeed, one does not discern this largeness and wisdom of
spirit quite at first sight, though it is generally revealed by aspect
even more than by words. Sometimes these brotherly and sisterly persons
have a fence of shyness which cannot be instantly overleapt; but one
generally can discern the beautiful creature waiting gently within. But
as a rule these gracious people have nothing that is formidable or
daunting about them; they are quiet and simple; and having no cards to
play and no game to win, they are at leisure to make the best of other
people.
I have met both men and women of this apostolic kind, and one feels
that they understand; that in their tranquil maturity they can make
allowances for crude immaturity; that they do not at once dismiss one
as being foolishly young or tiresomely elderly: they have no subjects
of their own which they are vexed at finding misunderstood or not
comprehended. They do not think the worse of a person for having
preferences or prejudices; though when one has uttered a raw preference
or an unreasonable prejudice in their presence one is ashamed, as one
is for hurling a stone into a sleeping pool. One comes away from them
desiring to appreciate rather than to contemn, with horizons and vistas
of true and beautiful things opening up on all sides, with a wish to
know more and to understand more, and to believe more; with the sense
of a desirable secret of which they have the possession.
One meets sometimes exactly the opposite of all this, a lively,
brilliant, contemptuous specialist, who talks briskly and lucidly about
his own subject, and makes one feel humble and clumsy and drowsy. One
sees that he is pleased to talk, and when the ball rolls to one's feet,
one makes a feeble effort to toss it back, whereupon he makes a fine
stroke, with an ill-concealed contempt for a person who is so
ill-informed. Perhaps it is good to be humiliated thus; but it is not
pleasant, and the worst of it is that one confuses the subject with the
personality behind it, and thinks that the subject is dreary when it is
only the personality that is repellent.
Such a man is repellent, because he is self-absorbed, conceited,
contemptuous. He has grown up inside a sort of walled fortress, and he
thinks that everyone outside is a knave or a fool. He has not
_changed_. It is this change, this progress of the soul that is
adorable.
The question for most of us--a sad question too--is whether this
change, this progress, is attainable, or whether a power of growth is
given to some people and denied to others. I am afraid that this is
partially true. A good many people seem to be born inside a hard
carapace which cannot expand; and it protects them from the sensitive
apprehension of injury and hurt, which is in reality the only condition
of growth. If we feel our failures, if we see, every now and then, how
unjustly, unkindly, perversely we have behaved, we try to be different
next time. Perhaps the motive is not a very high one, because it is to
avoid similar suffering; but we improve a little and a little.
Of course, occasionally, one meets people who have not changed much,
because they started on so high a plane--it is commoner to find this
among women than among men; they have begun life tender, loyal,
unselfish; it has always been a greater happiness to see that people
round them are pleased than to find their own satisfaction. Such people
are often what the world calls ineffective, because they have no
selfish object to attain. I have a friend who is like that. He is what
would be called an unsuccessful man; he has never had time to do his
own talents justice, because his energies have always been at the
service of other people; if you ask him to do something for you, he
does it as exactly, as punctually, as faithfully as if his own
reputation depended upon it. He is now a middle-aged man with hundreds
of friends and a small income. He lives in a poky house in a suburb,
and works harder than anyone I know. If one meets him he has always the
same beautiful, tired smile; and he has fifty things to ask one, all
about oneself. I can't describe what good it does one to meet him. The
other day I met a cousin of his, a prosperous man of business. "Yes,"
he said, "poor Harry goes on in his feckless way. I gave him a bit of
my mind the other day. I said, 'Oh, it's all very well to be always at
everyone's beck and call, and ready to give up your time to anyone who
asks you--it is very pleasant, of course, and everyone speaks well of
you--but it doesn't pay, my dear fellow; and you really ought to be
thinking about making a position for yourself, though I am very much
afraid it is too late.'"
The prosperous cousin did not tell me how Harry received his advice;
but I have no doubt that he thought his cousin very kind to interest
himself in his position, and went away absurdly grateful. But I would
rather, for all that, be in Harry's poky lodgings, with a treasure of
love and service in my heart, than in his cousin's fine house in the
country, the centre of a respectful and indifferent circle.
Of course there is one sad reflection that rises in one's mind at the
thought of such a life as my friend lives. When one sees what a
difference he makes to so many people, and what a beautiful thing his
life is, one wonders vaguely why, if God makes men as he wills, he does
not make more of such natures. They are rare; they are the salt of the
world; and I suppose that if the world were all salt, it would not be
so rich and beautiful a place. If everyone were like Harry there would
be no one left to help; and I suppose that God has some reason for
leaving the world imperfect, which even we, in our infinite wisdom,
cannot precisely detect.