{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_69614/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_69614","id":"gutenberg_69614","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69614","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Conduct of life","Courtesy","Generosity","Interpersonal relations","Kindness"],"text":"HAVE YOU AN EDUCATED HEART?\n\n\n_By_ GELETT BURGESS\n\n\nAuthor of \u201cAre You a Bromide?\u201d\n\u201cThe Maxims of Methuselah,\u201d\n\u201cThe Romance of the Commonplace,\u201d &c.\n\nBONI AND LIVERIGHT\nPublishers :: New York City\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nCopyright, 1923,\nBy the Crowell Publishing Co.\n----------\nCopyright, 1923,\nBy Gelett Burgess\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------\n   _Here the heart_\n_May give a useful lesson to the head,_\n_And Learning wiser grow without his books._\n   Cowper: _The Task._\n----------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\nTHE EDUCATED HEART\n\n\nNOW, Sadie, I knew, was temperamental. Sadie was sensitive. But surely\nthere wasn\u2019t quite enough in that dull musical comedy, that afternoon,\nto make anyone weep. But, as I had noticed Sadie dabbing at her eyes\nwith her handkerchief, off and on through the first act, when the\ncurtain went down, I demanded the reason.\n\nSomewhat reluctantly Sadie handed me a letter. \u201cDid you ever see\nanything as heartless as that?\u201d she asked. \u201cIt\u2019s about a package I sent\nto Eldora, last week.\u201d\n\nI read it. Then, uncertainly: \u201cWhy, I don\u2019t know,\u201d I replied; \u201cseems\nall right enough to me. \u2018Ever so much obliged for the birthday package.\u2019\nWhat\u2019s the matter with that?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, she might just as well have said, \u2018Yours of the 16th at hand and\ncontents noted\u2019!\u201d And as Sadie snatched back the letter she was already\nemptying the vials of her resentment.\n\nA while ago, it appeared, when she was visiting Sadie in New York,\nEldora had raved over some fawn-colored gloves she had seen, with those\nawfully wide black stitchings down the back. Though fairly weak after a\nbad attack of the flu, poor Sadie had tramped through shop after shop,\nfrom 34th Street to 56th Street last week, to find those particular\ngloves; actually fighting for them, at the last, with a mob of wild\nwomen at a bargain sale. Well, Sadie had gone and bought a fancy box.\nSadie had wrapped that package with neatness and with fondest care.\nSadie had walked twenty-one blocks (so she said) to a Post Office.\nSadie had stood there in line for half an hour, more or less, to have it\nweighed and insured.\n\n\u201cAnd I just loved it all--I loved doing it for Eldora,\u201d wailed Sadie.\n\u201cAnd now all she says is that she is \u2018ever so much obliged\u2019!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, well,\u201d said I loftily, \u201cwe oughtn\u2019t to give things just for the\nthanks, you know.\u201d\n\n\u201cNever mind the thanks!\u201d snapped Sadie, \u201cbut did she _like_ those\ngloves? Good gracious, you want to know whether you\u2019ve pleased a person\nor not, don\u2019t you? Were they the right shade? Did they match her gown?\nWere they the size? Did they fit her? Has she worn them? Why, she might\nhave said _something_ about them!\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, at any rate,\u201d I offered in appeasement, \u201cshe answered you\npromptly. That\u2019s something. Why, loads of people don\u2019t even\nacknowledge gifts at all, nowadays.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, and that\u2019s just the point,\u201d declared Sadie. \u201cI\u2019ve no doubt she\nthinks she\u2019s really quite polite and kind. Oh, she \u2018means well,\u2019 I\nsuppose--they all do. But the trouble with Eldora is simply that she\nhasn\u2019t got the Educated Heart.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Educated Heart?\u201d I queried, amused, \u201cwhat d\u2019you mean, the Educated\nHeart?\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE lady was growing a little calmer now. \u201cWhy, I\u2019ve called it that to\nmyself so long that it seems as if anyone ought to understand. Well,\nit\u2019s this way. You know you can usually tell an educated man, can\u2019t you?\nThere\u2019s something about him that\u2019s--oh, I don\u2019t know--extra. Finish, it\nis, perhaps. Distinction, or something. He knows how to--\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the Educated Heart!\u201d I insisted, \u201cprithee, the Educated Heart!\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, it\u2019s just the same with hearts as it is with heads,\u201d quoth my\nMentor. \u201cSome hearts seem to be self-made, you\nknow--rough-dry--unvarnished--amateurish. And then some hearts are just\nas if they\u2019d been to college, and been graduated in Kindness. They\u2019ve\ngot their B.K., or D.K., even, sometimes. Yes, I know at least one\nDoctor of Kindness. Why, I mean, oh, they have that extra touch of\nconsideration--thoughtfulness, you know--imagination--and--oh, dear, why\ndo we like to have flowers on the dinner table? They\u2019re not necessary,\nof course; but doesn\u2019t that extra touch always make the soup taste\nperfectly wonderful? It\u2019s all the difference between just eating and\ndining. Ever see a woman without style jam on a beautiful hat and make\nit look like a waste-basket? Well, some people are like that, when they\ntry to be kind. Style--that\u2019s what it is! It\u2019s just style in kindness\nthat most people lack. Oh, it\u2019s the rarest thing in the world--the\nEducated Heart!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE Educated Heart! Late that night, alone, I pondered it . . .\nmidnight, and still it haunted me . . . the Educated Heart. . . .\nSuperkindness, she might have called it. She might have called it Tact.\nVainly, I tried to coin a new word for it. But at the end, Sadie\u2019s\nsimple term stayed with me--the Educated Heart. And so, using that test,\nI found myself at length classifying my friends.\n\nAnd first of all came Crystabel. Last October, you see, I sent Crystabel\na book. She acknowledged it, and promptly. But, two months afterward,\nhadn\u2019t she--yes, she actually had--written me another letter, telling me\nwhat she thought of that book; and she proved, moreover, that she had\nread it--actually read it! Now, reader, I ask you: Isn\u2019t that a strange\nand beautiful experience in this careless world? Yes, Crystabel had\nthe Educated Heart.\n\nIndeed, receiving, simply receiving, is one of the greatest tests of the\nEducated Heart. To such as possess it, thanks are something like\nmortgages, to be paid in installments. Why, after five years, Crystabel\noften refers to a gift that has pleased her. Yes, and lies about it,\ntoo, sometimes! Mind you, I didn\u2019t say that Crystabel was always really\nsincere. I said that she was really kind. She may dislike that gift\nexceedingly; she may stick it up in the garret, or give it to her\nlaundress. But Crystabel, having the Educated Heart, appreciates\nkindness in others. It is the motive for that gift she cares for, not\nits value; and hence her tactful, iterated gratefulness. But the\nothers--oh, the thousand negligent others!\n\n\n\n\nYOU give your friend a bottle of perfume. She thanks you, and pop it\ngoes immediately into a bureau drawer, and she begins to talk about\nHarry\u2019s wife. You give her a lovely veil, and, right before your\nincredulous eyes, she wads it into a bunch, jams it into her bag and\ntakes another chocolate. That bunch of jonquils you brought the\ninvalid--haven\u2019t you seen it carried off into some far corner, as if it\nwere deadly mandragora, or hustled into a miscellaneous mass of\nwholesale offerings and the subject hurriedly changed?\n\nLast month I visited my young cousin Frizia. \u201cWhy, what a pretty jet\nnecklace!\u201d they all cried, at dinner. In pleased, self-conscious\nexpectancy I waited for Frizia to say, \u201cOh yes, my cousin brought it to\nme.\u201d Did she? No. Not a word except, \u201cOh, d\u2019you like it?\u201d I should\nhave been grateful, I suppose, that my little cousin even wore that\nnecklace.\n\nHaven\u2019t you, too, often moaned:\n\n_I shot a present into the air;_\n_It fell to earth, I know not where!_\n\n\n\n\nWHY, there are innumerable ways of insulting the giver of a present.\nListen, for instance, to this acknowledgment, from Zeroine: \u201cAll my\nlife,\u201d she wrote, \u201cI have given away pink azaleas to my friends; and\nthis is the first time I ever received one.\u201d How\u2019s that for egoism?\nCompared to her noble, extravagant and advertised generosity didn\u2019t my\none gift loom pretty small?\n\nRather clever she is, that Zeroine, a positive genius, sometimes--you\nknow them--at making one wish one hadn\u2019t tried to be nice to her. As\nthe bride of one of my confreres I met her first in Paris. To celebrate\nher marriage I racked my brains for something charming enough with which\nto greet a new friend. Something not costly, you know, yet perfect and\nunique. Well, the loveliest things of that sort I had found, were the\nmarvelous ribbon roses made by the Comtesse de Laumont for the benefit\nof the widows of officers. Every one is a work of art--a beautiful and\nfaithful portrait of some particular rose from her own garden on the\nMarne.\n\nTo her house on the Avenue Malakoff I went (her only son, last of his\nline, had just been killed at the front, but her work must go on), and\nthree exquisite William Allen Richardsons I picked out from all the\nrest. Late that night, too impatient to wait, through the narrow,\nshuttered, unlighted Paris streets I walked--no taxicabs in those war\ndays--over the river to deliver my initiatory tribute at Zeroine\u2019s\nhotel. And with it I left a letter telling her the roses\u2019 pathetic\nstory.\n\nThis is what Zeroine replied:\n\n\u201cYes, I know the De Laumont roses. They\u2019re lovely. I saw the wife\nof the Ambassador wearing one last week, and got the address. I have\nbeen intending to buy some of them; but you have kindly saved me the\ntrouble.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nBUT for the most extraordinary misunderstanding of all that gifts should\nmean, I think I must, after all, award the prize to Mrs. Hilking. The\nChristmas tree that day at Mrs. Hilking\u2019s was heavily hung with\npresents--piled deep on the floor they were. Mrs. Hilking was happy--oh,\nshe was awfully happy! Didn\u2019t she have good reason to be happy? \u201cWhy,\u201d\ngurgled Mrs. Hilking, so proudly, \u201cbaby has received so many, many\nChristmas presents that I didn\u2019t have to give him a single one myself!\u201d\nSelah!\n\n\n\n\nDO you begin to see, now, what Sadie meant by style in kindness? Style\nis what a smart hat has, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s what an expensive motor car\nhas--or a beautiful dancer. It\u2019s the perfect technique of any artist--a\nsuccessful clergyman, or a good novelist, or a clever burglar such as\nMr. Raffles. In short, style is a combination of good taste and\nimagination. Then what is style in giving? To give what you\u2019d like\nyourself may be kindness. But the Educated Heart isn\u2019t quite satisfied\neven with the Golden Rule. It amends, or, rather, translates it thus:\n\u201cWhatsoever ye would that men should do to you, _were ye such as they_,\ndo ye even so to them.\u201d\n\nBut perhaps you don\u2019t know what your friend wants. Ah, but the Educated\nHeart makes it its business to know, to remember, or to find out. \u201cA\nman\u2019s heart,\u201d you know, \u201cdeviseth his way.\u201d\n\nOne friend I have to whom I can\u2019t express a taste or desire that isn\u2019t\ntreasured up against need. If I happen to mention liking a Japanese\nwriting set, it is only a question of time when that set is mine.\n\nI said to the Prandials once that I loved watercress, and lightly wished\nthat I might have it for every meal. Never a meal have I ever had at the\nPrandials\u2019 table, since then, without finding watercress bought\nspecially for me.\n\n\n\n\nD\u2019YOU think it\u2019s easy, this business of giving? Verily, verily, I say\nunto you, giving is as much of an art as portrait-painting, or the\nmaking of glass flowers. There really ought to be a four years\u2019 course\nin the art of making presents in every college for those who are not\nborn intelligently generous.\n\nIn one\u2019s freshman year one would be taught, perhaps, not to present an\n$85 inlaid umbrella with a gold dog\u2019s-head handle with rhinestone eyes\nto a gentleman of culture like Mr. Richard Mansfield, for instance, as\nwas once done one Christmas by an ardent but unillumined friend. If a\nlady has saved your son\u2019s life, the Educated Heart doesn\u2019t reward her by\noffering her chastely appointed apartment a two-ton carved ebony chair\nupholstered in red plush.\n\nOh, no, it\u2019s not easy. People nowadays haven\u2019t the artless gratitude\nof that easily-satisfied girl who used to sing:\n\n_\u201cHe promised to bring me a bunch of blue ribbons\nTo tie up my bonny brown hair!\u201d_\n\nThe people I know usually prefer to select their own ribbons--and gloves\nand boudoir caps and neckties--rather than have them chosen, however\nexpensively, by--well, by those who do sometimes have the audacity to\nchoose them for you.\n\nNow taste, you will say, cannot be disputed. Each one has his own.\nPerhaps it can\u2019t even be educated. We\u2019ll see, later.\n\nBut imagination surely can be brought to bear. Suppose we suggest a few\nways, in illustration.\n\n\n\n\nARE you sailing for Italy? Ah, it isn\u2019t the basket of fine fat fruits\nthat brings the tears to your eyes, nor the flowers with trailing yards\nand yards of red ribbon--all that\u2019s mere kindness, ordinary everyday\nkindness. Even the Vanderbilts can do that. But it\u2019s the things--oh,\nit\u2019s the things Mr. Rockefeller never would think of--it\u2019s that little\npurse full of Italian currency, bills and small change all ready for\nyou when you first trip ashore at Genoa. It\u2019s the little nest of spools\nof colored silk Minnie made for you to catch up the first threatened\nrun in your stocking. I may, oh, yes, I may forget the three hundred\ndollars you lent me that time I was broke; but the little corkscrew you\nso thoughtfully added when you gave me that bottle of your pet malt\nextract--that I shall never, never forget!\n\nNo, he didn\u2019t have much style, I admit, to his dented, dusty derby, poor\nold Westrose, but, God bless him, his heart was certainly up to date. He\nmay have got a lady\u2019s coat upside down occasionally when he helped her\non with it--but he understood the Fourth Dimension of Kindness, all\nright. Never a friend of his wife\u2019s did he ever puffingly put aboard a\nstreet car, but he\u2019d tuck, apologetically, into her hand the nickel to\nsave her rummaging in her bag.\n\nReal elegance, the gesture of inherent nobility, I call that. It\u2019s like\nthe flourish to the signature of Charles Dickens. It\u2019s kindness with a\nkick to it. In short, it\u2019s the manner and custom of the Educated Heart,\nthat makes you turn over at night and decide to add a codicil to\nyour will--why should brother Fred have it all?\n\nWell knows the Educated Heart that the doctor\u2019s clients usually pay\nslowly, and itself therefore pays without delay. Which lover has the\nEducated Heart--he who orders the florist to send, every day, five\ndollars\u2019 worth of flowers, or he who himself selects and presents a\nsingle rose? Ask the sweetheart--she knows that\n\n_\u201c\u2019Tis not so much the gallant who woos,\nAs the gallant\u2019s way of wooing!\u201d_\n\n*   *   *   *   *\n\n\u201cI\u2019m so sorry I couldn\u2019t send you anything this Christmas,\u201d said\nMillicent, \u201cbut I\u2019ve been awfully hard up!\u201d\n\nToo hard up, in fact, to afford two cents to stamp a letter, sending her\nlove!\n\n*   *   *   *   *\n\n\n\n\nAND now, I beseech you, consider the usual Christmas present. No one but\na boor would present a diamond wrapped in a scrap of newspaper, would\nhe? No; and so the most trivial of gifts, when sent by a civilized donor\non Christmas, is, by universal practice, carefully wrapped in a pretty\npaper, red or gold, is tied with a fancy ribbon and decorated, mayhap,\nwith a sprig of holly.\n\nNow, that\u2019s what I mean by the Educated Heart. That package is\nsymbolical of what all friendly acts should be--_kindness performed with\nstyle_.\n\nIs it sufficient, then, simply to offer your seat in a street car to a\nwoman? The merely kind person does that. But he does it rather\nsheepishly. Isn\u2019t your graciousness more cultured if you give it up with\na bow, with a smile of willingness? Besides the quarter you give the\nbeggar, can\u2019t you give a few cents\u2019 worth of yourself, too?\n\nSo everything can be done beautifully by the Educated Heart, from the\nlacing of a shoe so that it won\u2019t come loose, to passing the salt before\nit is asked for. Even if you say only \u201cGood morning,\u201d it can be done\npleasingly. Observe how the polished actor says it, with that cheerful\nrising English inflection. But the ordinary American growls it out with\nsuch surly downward emphasis that in London he is apt to be asked,\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter, old chap--headache?\u201d\n\nWhy, merely to speak distinctly is a great kindness, I consider. You\nnever have to ask, \u201cWhat did you say?\u201d to the Educated Heart. An old\nmaid I knew once confessed that the only proposal she ever received was\nfrom a timid, low-voiced suitor, whose question she failed to hear.\n\n\u201cLucky escape,\u201d we all agreed. \u201cYou might have married him and been\ntormented all your life by his mumbling!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nOF course you\u2019ve heard that \u201che gives twice who gives quickly,\u201d but how\nabout the giver who gives but half his gift? It isn\u2019t the\nprocrastinator, I mean. The half-giver is one who \u201cwearies in\nwell-doing,\u201d stops part way on the road to kindness, with the goal\nplainly in sight. If you want to have the Educated Heart you must dot\nall the i\u2019s and cross the t\u2019s. Otherwise your gift is apt to be as the\ngrapefruit without the sugar.\n\n\n\n\nHALF giving! Instances of such gold-plated parsimonious generosity I\ncould cite all day--from the old-fashioned \u201cthrifty\u201d housewife, who used\nto cut all the buttons off the clothes before she gave them to the poor,\nto sweet, sympathetic Oval, who visited an invalid.\n\n\u201cOh, I\u2019m so sorry,\u201d she said, \u201cI bought the loveliest bunch of roses for\nyou, but I forgot them--left them in the hotel.\u201d And Oval, after that\n(although the flowers of course never came), fully expected to be\ncredited with a kindness.\n\nOh, you know them. You must know them! The half-giver who invites his\nparty to supper after the theatre, but fails to reserve a table. How\nsurprised and apologetic he is to find all the places taken! The gent\nwho escorts his lady to the theater, too, and, when they come out,\nexclaims: \u201cGee, doesn\u2019t this fresh air seem good, after that stuffy\nhouse! Let\u2019s walk a way!\u201d How bright his smile! Truly the heart, as well\nas the clothes, can be shabby-genteel. That kind of liberality he has\nthat many women possess. Oh, yes, they insist upon paying for their half\nof the dinner, but they always forget to share the tips!\n\nYou remember those Liberty Loan subscribers who used to say, \u201cI\u2019ll\nsubscribe one thousand if you\u2019ll take another!\u201d That\u2019s the way these\nhalf-givers usually leave you to complete their gifts or go and get them\nor something--to pay some part of the price yourself, anyway, in trouble\nor in work.\n\nDear Alfredine was kind enough to bring her friend from abroad several\npairs of earrings. But, alas! as they were made for those grandmothery\nold pierced ears her friend had to pay a jeweler to have them fitted\nwith screw fastenings, just nine dollars, a sum she could ill afford--at\nleast for earrings.\n\n*   *   *   *   *\n\n\u201cI\u2019d rather not try, please,\u201d said Alice. \u201cI\u2019m quite content to stay\nhere--only I _am_ so hot and thirsty!\u201d\n\n\u201cI know what _you\u2019d_ like,\u201d the Queen said good-naturedly, taking a\nlittle box out of her pocket. \u201cHave a biscuit?\u201d\n\n*   *   *   *   *\n\n\n\n\nKIND you may think you are, and never know you are not kind. And worse\nthan all the rest are those who force their presents on you.\n\nMy indulgent uncle, once, presented me with theatre tickets to see\nBernhardt. Now it so happened that day that at the last moment I had the\nopportunity to meet a man, a famous man, whom I had long wanted to know,\nand who proved to be of the greatest help to me.\n\nWhen I told my uncle, was he pleased to hear of my good luck? Not at\nall. Never did he forgive me for not using his tickets.\n\nHow many men who have taken the pains to secure a friend a good position\nare pleased to hear that he himself has discovered a better one? Only\nthose with the Educated Heart. Like my uncle, most care more for\nthat self-flattering glow of kindliness than for another\u2019s best\nhappiness.\n\nWho ever really forgave you for being ill and missing a dinner\nengagement? You had no right to be ill. You gave your kind hostess a\ngreat deal of trouble and disappointment with that ptomaine poisoning of\nyours!\n\n\u201cBe happy _my_ way!\u201d says the parent \u201cMarry this nice, rich man I have\nchosen for you--not the poor fellow you love!\u201d But no, putting a cushion\nbehind a man in an armchair isn\u2019t kindness unless he happens to want it\nthere. It may make him uncomfortable.\n\nAnd dear old country grandmother--who used to urge on us, nay, force on\nus that third generous helping of pudding. Grandma\u2019s heart was big\nenough--but it wasn\u2019t quite the right shape.\n\n\n\n\nWHAT\u2019S the rarest thing in all the world? Intelligent sympathy. Why?\nWell, each one of us is working out his own evolution, I suppose, and\nour own interests must be paramount and absorb us, or we lose in the\nrace.\n\nStill, it is rather pleasing to recall, in pessimistic moods--upon\nreceiving a letter written in lead pencil, for instance, or one undated,\nor with no address, or, most irritating of all, with an illegible\nsignature--it is even encouraging to recall that it isn\u2019t always these\ninconsiderate, unimaginative, egoistic people, after all, who succeed\nmost brilliantly in the world. Sometimes a good, plain writer, desirous\nof making it easy for his reader, gets to the top, too, God bless him!\nAnd my faith in kindness as a policy is restored, too, by the glaring\nfact that of all my acquaintances the one least to be suspected of\nan inferiority complex is the only one who begins a telephone\nconversation by decently introducing himself:\n  \u201cB. Ganning talking!\u201d\ninstead of peremptorily demanding _my_ name, like a census man breaking\nin the door.\n\nAs many of our acquired habits, like walking, for instance, have been\npassed from the domain of the conscious to the subconscious and become\nautomatic, so, perhaps, with the behavior of the Educated Heart. You set\nit in the direction of true kindness and courtesy and it will function\nwithout deliberate thought.\n\nAnd, alas, _vice versa!_ It steers as well towards selfishness.\n\n\n\n\nAND now, right there, before I find more fault, do, please, get my point\nof view. Am I fastidious? Why, all I ask is an unadulterated drop of\nyour emotion. Am I querulous? Why should I be? No one is important\nenough to hurt me. Surely the very inadequacy of their feelings proves\nthese skim-milk saints to be unworthy the time and energy it takes to\nresent or protest. Am I ungrateful? Not if you have done the least\nfriendly act and done it wholly. Do I demand too much pay for my favors?\nIf I long for a little of the old-time courtesy to color life, must you\naccuse me of preferring the glib, lace-sleeved, powdered-hair flattery,\nof the French salons?\n\nNot at all. These modern, downright, shirt-sleeved ways of ours,\nopen-air, golf-playing ways, man-and-woman, give-and-take\nways--making up the jocose and slangy warfare we call friendship,\nnowadays--they\u2019re well enough, so long as the thought beneath is honest.\nBut mere words, words, words--aren\u2019t you, too, sick of them? Don\u2019t you\nwant deeds or nothing?\n\nActions speak louder. . . .\n\n\n\n\nFOR the fact is that such thoughtfulness, such consideration as I desire\nis not merely decorative. It is the very essence and evidence of\nsincerity. Without it all so-called kindness is merely titular and\nperfunctory. Tact is what makes kindness real, makes it effective; just\nas the perfume proves which is the genuine, and which is the artificial\nviolet.\n\nSuppose I propose your name for membership in my club. Have I done\nyou (or my club) any real service, unless I also do my best to see that\nyou are elected? So then, if I go to every member of the committee, if I\nurge all my friends to endorse you, is that a quixotic feeling for\npunctilio?\n\nI think not. It is merely the completion of my regard for you. It is\nlike salt--\u201cit\u2019s what makes potatoes taste bad, if you don\u2019t put it on.\u201d\nIt is a guarantee of my true feeling. It is the hug without which the\nkiss means nothing.\n\n\n\n\nNEITHER do I insist on obedience to custom. You may violate any of the\nfolk-ways, for all I care. If you refuse to take off your hat to ladies,\nI shall think only that you do not feel yourself bound by the elaborate\nrules of romantic love concocted by the lazy troubadours and sentimental\nchatelaines of the Middle Ages. Offer your left hand to me, if you like,\nI care not. We carry no daggers now. I know that most of us would prefer\nto dine with a polite murderer than with an honest tinsmith who eats\nwith his knife. But, by that same token, I know that all such artificial\ndistinctions are not based upon kindness. They are merely the unwritten\nlaws of society.\n\nBut if you, however brilliantly, make fun of your wife, if you humiliate\nan inferior, insult a debtor, if you promise and keep not your word,\nif you fail to flavor your kindness with sincerity, if you give only the\ncounterfeit money of politeness--then I perceive that you have not the\nEducated Heart. Indeed, the Educated Heart is rare enough anywhere; but\nit is found quite as often among those who know not your artificial\nsocial code, as it is with those of the six-fork dinner.\n\n\n\n\nAHA! Now you think you have me in the old conventional corner by the\naltruistic what-not, and the goody-goody seashells, eh? Copybook stuff.\nMass morality. Herd-minded optimism that finds good in everything and\nwhy find fault--\u201cit\u2019s not constructive.\u2019\u2019 But, no--I\u2019m not trying to\nprove \u201c\u2019Tis only noble to be good,\u201d but only that to be good, or even\npleasing, is a severe aesthetic problem. Well, I know that\n\n_\u201cHearts just as pure and fair_\n_May beat in Belgrave Square_\n_As in the lowly air_\n_Of Seven Dials,\u201d_\n\nbut, at the same time, one of the highest orders of the Educated Heart,\nI must tell you, is found in the criminal classes.\n\nYou stagger? Yes, I repeat: in the crook himself.\n\nDoesn\u2019t the confidence man, for instance, do everything in the power of\nhis trained imagination (in his first approaches, at least), to make his\nvictim happy? Doesn\u2019t he study his come-on\u2019s every whim and taste? Is\nthere anyone more tactful and polite, more considerate and anxious\nto please than a shoplifter? Oh, charming, truly charming, thoughtful\nand heart-wise must he be who marries eleven wives; even though\nafterwards he murders them for the insurance money and buries them all\nin the cellar. He knows how to anticipate his victim\u2019s least desire.\n\nWell, why not be as shrewd as the crook, then, yourself, to discover\nwhat will please and satisfy the friend you love? Get-rich-quick\nWallingford had a perverted heart, \u2019tis true, but it had taken its\ndegree in the Art of Pleasing.\n\nNot much like your millionaires who ask their poor relatives, \u201cYou don\u2019t\nmind sitting in front with the chauffeur, do you?\u201d or give their country\ncousins horrible little black hats with a stick-up in the back!\n\n\n\n\nMUST you dance with all the wallflowers, then, and always be nice to old\nladies? Well, no--I won\u2019t go so far as that, although that, too, would\ncertainly show an Educated Heart. It would prove that you had\nimagination enough anyway to put yourself in another\u2019s place.\n\nNo, all I ask is that, when you try to do a favor--to be kind--you do it\nto the full length of the rope. Don\u2019t send your telegram \u201ccollect,\u201d or\nin just ten carefully selected words. Economize elsewhere, but add those\nfew extra phrases that make the reader grin and perceive that you cared\nmore for him than you did for the expense.\n\nNo one with the Educated Heart ever approached a clergyman, or a\ncelebrity, or a long-absent visitor with the shocking greeting: \u201cOh,\nMr. Spoop, you don\u2019t remember me, do you?\u201d No, he gives his name first.\nNo one with the Educated Heart ever said, \u201cNow do come and see me,\nsometime!\u201d Well he knows that that merely means: \u201cDon\u2019t come at all.\u201d\nThe Educated Heart\u2019s way of putting it is apt to be, \u201cHow about next\nWednesday?\u201d\n\nAnd strongly I doubt even if the Educated Heart is ever tardy at that\nappointment. It knows that even if only two minutes late a person has\nbrought just that much less of himself. Oh, he came, yes--and we put\nover the deal, after all. But forever you will remember that he made\nyou wait.\n\n\n\n\nYOU understand, don\u2019t you, that I\u2019m not trying to discuss unkindness, or\neven impoliteness? Nor merely legitimate half-kindness do I mean. It\nwould be absurd to assert that one shouldn\u2019t say, \u201cHere, you may have\nthis hat--I don\u2019t like it.\u201d But wouldn\u2019t it be still more absurd to call\nthat sort of thing kindness?\n\nNo, what I impugn are thoughtless attempts to be kind. Slipshod\nsentimentality masquerading as kindness. Near-sighted\nbenevolence--generosity run down at the heels, like the husband who\nconceives himself to be liberal because he gives his wife money--though\nshe always has to ask him for it.\n\n\n\n\nWHY, even in conversation there is plenty of chance for the Educated\nHeart. Of course, unless you are a moron, you must have found out by\nthis time that very few people ever really listen. They are usually\nmerely waiting for a chance to say something themselves. It may be laid\ndown as an axiom, then, that no habitual talker can have the Educated\nHeart. Even though these wordy pests go through all the motions of\nlistening, say \u201cOh,\u201d and \u201cAh,\u201d and \u201cReally, is that so?\u201d and \u201cHow\nawful!\u201d the moment you close your lips they pounce upon you with their\nown narrative.\n\nOr if, peradventure, they do listen, is the story of your trials or\ndisappointments heard with real sympathy? Not often. Your illness? Your\ndivorce? Your losses? You are merely providing them with a more or\nless amusing entertainment.\n\nWhy, one of the best ways to make yourself popular--an infallible way--\nis to tell a story upon yourself. Give yourself the worst of it, and\nthey\u2019ll all roar.\n\nBut did anyone ever laugh with joy when you informed him that you had\nmade ten thousand dollars, or won a beauty prize? How faint, oh, how\npale are their congratulations! The lips move, but does the face really\nglow? Tell them you fell down two flights of stairs, though, and you\u2019ll\nsee a fine abandon of mirth. They\u2019ll slap you on the back, by Jove, and\ninvite you to dinner, so that you can repeat it to the wife.\n\n\n\n\nYOU think I\u2019m fooling? Not at all. A psychological fact it is, that, in\nnine cases out of ten, if you tell of an accident of which you\u2019re the\nvictim, your hearer will instantly laugh. Just try it yourself, and see.\n\nOh, of course, if you paint a vivid enough picture, if you say \u201cI had\nthree ribs and a shoulder blade broken and four others were killed,\u201d\nthen possibly you may awaken their sympathy. But the ordinary tale of\nsuffering has pretty hard work getting more than half an inch inside\npeople\u2019s ears. Women love to tell of their operations, I hear, but do\nthey love to listen? Doesn\u2019t everyone smile when you say you haven\u2019t\nslept a wink all night? Yes, all, save the one with the Educated\nHeart--and he\u2019s your sweetheart, probably.\n\nQueer, but the world, alas! is very hard of hearing. Unless people see\nthe blood actually streaming, every sufferer is considered merely as a\ncomedian. The banana-peel joke is still typical of our reactions to\nanother\u2019s woes.\n\n\n\n\nAND so, it is my fearful opinion that but seldom has the Educated Heart\na keen sense of humor. Didn\u2019t an eminent mid-Victorian advise, \u201cBe good,\nsweet maid, and let who will be clever!\u201d Aren\u2019t you already thinking\nover your own friends?\n\nAm I not right? Is it the sparkling bright apostle of pleasantry to whom\nyou go to borrow that ten dollars, or to the serious, kindly dub who\nnever sees the point? Which dentist is most apt to drill that horrid\nmillimetre too far into a shrieking nerve--he who tells you diverting\nanecdotes, the while, or the solemn conscientious drudge?\n\nTo whom do you tell your troubles-- the agile wit, or the\nbromide-minded, solid, respectable Philistine, your uncle, with the\nshoestring tie? No, no; oh, no, my friend, you can\u2019t be too quick on\nthe comic trigger, if you would have the Educated Heart!\n\nThere is \u201ca time to weep, and a time to laugh,\u201d said the Preacher; the\nEducated Heart knows well how to control his mirth.\n\n\n\n\nYOU call once or twice at the hospital. Do you ever call again? Not\nunless you have the Educated Heart. Yet the patient is still perhaps\nquite as ill. The plain truth is, if you must know it, most people\nreally dislike illness. It bores them. It interferes with their\nhappiness and convenience. It thrusts upon them, too, a disagreeable\nburden of sympathy.\n\nBut, one there was--d\u2019you remember? will you ever forget?--who used to\nbring that cute scrapbook, every morning, pasted in with funny newspaper\nitems of the day\u2019s news. One there was who wrote you letters every day.\nOne who rescued the clock that _always_ had something in front of it, so\nyou couldn\u2019t see the time, who was careful never to hit the bed, who\ntalked to you, yes, to poor sick _you_, instead of to the\ndistinguished caller who happened to be present.\n\nBut still I insist I don\u2019t mean mere kindness. Others were kind to you.\nThey bought you things. But such acts as these required more thought and\ninvention than the others spent, when they sent the jelly and champagne.\n\nAnd oh, what do these Uneducated Hearts do at your first brave smile\n(though the effort kills you), at your first would-be, will-be cheerful\nletter, or at your first timorous step on crutches? They beam. Oh, how\nthey beam! \u201cOh, you\u2019re all right now, aren\u2019t you!\u201d\n\nIt may pain you for months to breathe, you may limp on that broken ankle\nto your grave--but it\u2019s much more convenient for them to have you well\nagain.\n\nAnd so, isn\u2019t it lovely you\u2019re cured!\n\n\n\n\nASK any invalid. Ask poor Luraine. \u201cI\u2019m afraid I\u2019ll have to wear\nglasses,\u201d wept poor Luraine, after that accident when her eye was\ninjured. \u201cWell, my dear,\u201d said her would-be comforter, \u201cI do hope you\u2019ll\nget some of those smart tortoiseshell goggles--they\u2019re so becoming!\u201d And\nthat, ladies and gentlemen, is what often passes for sympathy.\n\nAsk any partially deaf person who is the cruellest of her would-be\nfriends. Isn\u2019t it that kind and thoughtless one who says, so sweetly:\n\u201cWhy, I think you get along awfully well, you know. Really no one would\never know you can\u2019t hear!\u201d No one but the Educated Heart ever knows or\ncares for the tearful nights of wild revolt, the days and years of stoic\nsuffering that remain, just the same. Yes, just the same.\n\n\n\n\nBUT let\u2019s pass, now, to the last cage in our menagerie. Here\u2019s a\ndangerous galravaging beast--one of those terrible creatures who \u201cmean\nwell,\u201d even while they rend you. One historic remark of this emotional\nreptile there is, that in the annals of mental torture, surpasses in\nheartlessness all other expressions of good intent. Oh, I have said\nit--you have, too, I suppose. May God forgive us both, for there are\nthose who never, never will!\n\nGalna it was who has dramatized it for me best. A dreadful suicide it\nwas, no horror lacking. Galna, alone in the house--alone, save for her\nmaid and that shocking wreck of one she had loved. And in her anguish,\nher despair, her bewilderment, the telephone bell rang. Lo, Mrs. Spick,\nkind, effusive Mrs. Spick, had rung her up to coo conventional\ncondolence.\n\n\u201cAnd now, if there is anything I can do, Galna,\u201d she concluded, \u201cbe sure\nand let me know!\u201d\n\nAh, my friend, sometime you, too, must have suffered--suffered and\nknown not where to turn; and, as sure as most hearts, alas, are\nignorant, sometime you, too, must have heard that frightful phrase--\nthat mockery of friendship. The very epitaph it is upon the grave of\naffection: \u201c_If there is anything I can do, be sure and let me know!_\u201d\n\nBut as Galna, dazed, lonely, aching, staggered back to her room, behold,\nupon her bed she saw an unfamiliar thing. Tear-blinded, she groped for\nit. A hundred-dollar bill!\n\n\u201cWhy, where did this come from?\u201d she asked, wondering.\n\n\u201cOh, Miss Felice left it there,\u201d said her maid, \u201cshe thought perhaps\nyou might happen to be short of money.\u201d\n\n\u201cFelice?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, she\u2019s downstairs now, helping wash the dishes and putting the\nparlor to rights, and sending telegrams.\u201d\n\nAh, Felice needed no one to \u201clet her know\u201d what to do. She had\nimagination. She had the Educated Heart.\n\nFor the Educated Heart always knows. \u201cHe seeth with his heart.\u201d The\nlanguage of suffering, ordinarily, can no more be learned without\nexperience than can the language of Mars; but upon some blessed few, in\nthis world, thank God, has fallen the Gift of Tongues.\n\n\n\n\nTRULY, as Sadie said, nothing is so rare as the Educated Heart. And if\nyou wonder why, just show a kodak group picture--a banquet photograph--a\nphotograph of a class. What does every one of us first look at, talk\nabout? Ourself. And that\u2019s the reason why most hearts are so unlearned\nin kindness. Yet none of us likes himself to be forgotten or neglected.\nAlmost any wife, I verily believe, would prefer actual rudeness to\nhaving a husband pass over her wedding anniversary unnoticed. Even a\nblow would prove that she was of some importance in his life.\n\nSo it isn\u2019t always the big, climactic misfortune that we suffer from\nmost. We can rally, after we\u2019re stunned, and go on, somehow. But it\u2019s\nthe little stings that we can\u2019t forget. It\u2019s because of the\nUneducated Heart that love-mad women kill.\n\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you get a smart hat like Carrie\u2019s, dear? She\u2019s always so\nwell-dressed!\u201d\n\nYes, and because of the Uneducated Hearts of their wives, husbands grow\nseedy, silly and old.\n\nWhy, one can tell, almost, by the looks of a man--his posture, his very\nclothes--whether or not his wife truly loves him. For many a wife,\ndubbed by his undiscerning friends a shrew, a harridan, has proved her\nreal interest in him by so ballyragging him for his faults that he has,\ndespite himself, improved to meet her criticism, become ambitious,\nbecome persevering and successful--while as many others have been\nslowly kissed and praised into an intellectual apathy; most\naffectionately murdered by the Uneducated Heart. Ah, \u2019tis not only\ncats and lap dogs that are killed with kindness!\n\nThere is another side to the Mary and Martha story. I know them well,\nthose two sisters. Mary loves Martha well, she will tell you, and be\nshocked at your question. But dear Martha is, before her time, an old\nwoman, round-shouldered, bowed down by caring for others. In the years,\nhas Mary ever said, \u201cStraighten up, dear! You are growing crooked.\u201d\n\nNot once. Her own head high, she walks beside a sister almost\ndeformed--whom, with an Educated Heart, she could have saved from\nugliness.\n\n\n\n\nAND by this time you\u2019ll understand of course that the Educated Heart\nisn\u2019t really educated at all, in the sense that it has had to learn how\nto be kind. It merely is wise. Its gesture is instinctive, its knowledge\ninnate. But, you ask, can\u2019t the uneducated heart be instructed? Don\u2019t\nthe churches and Sunday-schools teach How to be Good? How about the\nbooks of Ethics? Ah, the trouble with them all is that they teach what\nto do, but not how to do it.\n\nAnd the trouble with this little study will be, perhaps, if you and I\ndon\u2019t look out, that it will educate us as to others\u2019 faults but lead us\nto forget our own. It\u2019s so easy to be petulant and critical; it\u2019s so\neasy to deny that we ourselves are morally round-shouldered. If you have\neven the rudiments of a heart culture, long before this you will be\nsaying to yourself:\n\nHave _I_ an Educated Heart?\n\n\n\n\nSO, if you are not content with increasing your chest expansion or your\nbiceps, if you want to enlarge that mystic organ whence flows true\nkindness, you must cultivate your imagination, you must learn to put\nyourself in another\u2019s place, think his thoughts. There is but one\nsubstitute for imagination, and that is experience. If you have deeply\nsuffered, perhaps you may have found from your very pain, what real\nkindness is. Like Confucius you may have learned politeness from the\nimpolite. And if you haven\u2019t--well, I scarcely think it should be\nnecessary for you to break a leg or inoculate yourself with the\ngerms of typhoid. You might do a great deal, really, by exercising\njust your common sense.\n\nTake a little thought, therefore, upon what style really is. In costume,\nyou\u2019ll see that style is not what most people, but what the best people,\nwear. If you wished to be strictly up to date, then, you\u2019d go to the\nleading shops for your clothes, wouldn\u2019t you? You\u2019d haunt the Opera, the\nsmartest assemblies, the most aristocratic homes, to see what\nfashionable people selected. If you wanted to learn modern surgery you\u2019d\nvisit the clinic of the most eminent surgeon, wouldn\u2019t you, to observe\nhis technique?\n\n\n\n\nTHEN, if you desire to be really kind, elegantly kind, artistically\nkind, why not seek the highest authorities on kindness, and emulate\ntheir expert taste and method? Wherefore, let me recommend to you the\ngreatest examples of altruistic love, past masters of sympathetic\nconsideration, whose kindness is directed by an inspired imagination.\n\nTwo perfect exponents of the Educated Heart there are--only two, but I\nam sure you have known them. The mother, who sees her child as truly a\npart of herself; and the true lover whose imagination is fired with\nromance. In those two is most perfectly manifest the love which passeth\nunderstanding. Forever, unconsciously, they demonstrate the radiant\ntruth:\n\n\u201cThe heart hath its reasons, which the reason knoweth not of.\u201d\n\n\n\nTHE END","title":"Have you an educated heart?","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":7100}