There is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh,” said the Preacher; the Educated Heart knows well how to control his mirth.
YOU call once or twice at the hospital. Do you ever call again? Not unless you have the Educated Heart. Yet the patient is still perhaps quite as ill. The plain truth is, if you must know it, most people really dislike illness. It bores them. It interferes with their happiness and convenience. It thrusts upon them, too, a disagreeable burden of sympathy.
But, one there was—d’you remember? will you ever forget? —who used to bring that cute scrapbook, every morning, pasted in with funny newspaper items of the day’s news. One there was who wrote you letters every day. One who rescued the clock that always had something in front of it, so you couldn’t see the time, who was careful never to hit the bed, who talked to you, yes, to poor sick you, instead of to the distinguished caller who happened to be present.
But still I insist I don’t mean mere kindness. Others were kind to you. They bought you things. But such acts as these required more thought and invention than the others spent, when they sent the jelly and champagne.
And oh, what do these Uneducated Hearts do at your first brave smile (though the effort kills you), at your first would-be, will-be cheerful letter, or at your first timorous step on crutches? They beam. Oh, how they beam! “Oh, you’re all right now, aren’t you!”
It may pain you for months to breathe, you may limp on that broken ankle to your grave—but it’s much more convenient for them to have you well again.
And so, isn’t it lovely you’re cured!
ASK any invalid. Ask poor Luraine. “I’m afraid I’ll have to wear glasses,” wept poor Luraine, after that accident when her eye was injured. “Well, my dear,” said her would-be comforter, “I do hope you’ll get some of those smart tortoiseshell goggles—they’re so becoming!” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what often passes for sympathy.
Ask any partially deaf person who is the cruellest of her would-be friends. Isn’t it that kind and thoughtless one who says, so sweetly: “Why, I think you get along awfully well, you know. Really no one would ever know you can’t hear!” No one but the Educated Heart ever knows or cares for the tearful nights of wild revolt, the days and years of stoic suffering that remain, just the same. Yes, just the same.
BUT let’s pass, now, to the last cage in our menagerie. Here’s a dangerous galravaging beast—one of those terrible creatures who “mean well,” even while they rend you. One historic remark of this emotional reptile there is, that in the annals of mental torture, surpasses in heartlessness all other expressions of good intent. Oh, I have said it—you have, too, I suppose. May God forgive us both, for there are those who never, never will!