“The Educated Heart?” I queried, amused, “what d’you mean, the Educated Heart?”
THE lady was growing a little calmer now. “Why, I’ve called it that to myself so long that it seems as if anyone ought to understand. Well, it’s this way. You know you can usually tell an educated man, can’t you? There’s something about him that’s—oh, I don’t know—extra. Finish, it is, perhaps. Distinction, or something. He knows how to—”
“But the Educated Heart!” I insisted, “prithee, the Educated Heart!”
“Why, it’s just the same with hearts as it is with heads,” quoth my Mentor. “Some hearts seem to be self-made, you know—rough-dry—unvarnished—amateurish. And then some hearts are just as if they’d been to college, and been graduated in Kindness. They’ve got their B.K., or D.K., even, sometimes. Yes, I know at least one Doctor of Kindness. Why, I mean, oh, they have that extra touch of consideration—thoughtfulness, you know—imagination—and—oh, dear, why do we like to have flowers on the dinner table? They’re not necessary, of course; but doesn’t that extra touch always make the soup taste perfectly wonderful? It’s all the difference between just eating and dining. Ever see a woman without style jam on a beautiful hat and make it look like a waste-basket? Well, some people are like that, when they try to be kind. Style—that’s what it is! It’s just style in kindness that most people lack. Oh, it’s the rarest thing in the world—the Educated Heart!”
THE Educated Heart! Late that night, alone, I pondered it . . . midnight, and still it haunted me . . . the Educated Heart. . . . Superkindness, she might have called it. She might have called it Tact. Vainly, I tried to coin a new word for it. But at the end, Sadie’s simple term stayed with me—the Educated Heart. And so, using that test, I found myself at length classifying my friends.
And first of all came Crystabel. Last October, you see, I sent Crystabel a book. She acknowledged it, and promptly. But, two months afterward, hadn’t she—yes, she actually had—written me another letter, telling me what she thought of that book; and she proved, moreover, that she had read it—actually read it! Now, reader, I ask you: Isn’t that a strange and beautiful experience in this careless world? Yes, Crystabel had the Educated Heart.
Indeed, receiving, simply receiving, is one of the greatest tests of the Educated Heart. To such as possess it, thanks are something like mortgages, to be paid in installments. Why, after five years, Crystabel often refers to a gift that has pleased her. Yes, and lies about it, too, sometimes! Mind you, I didn’t say that Crystabel was always really sincere. I said that she was really kind. She may dislike that gift exceedingly; she may stick it up in the garret, or give it to her laundress. But Crystabel, having the Educated Heart, appreciates kindness in others. It is the motive for that gift she cares for, not its value; and hence her tactful, iterated gratefulness. But the others—oh, the thousand negligent others!
YOU give your friend a bottle of perfume. She thanks you, and pop it goes immediately into a bureau drawer, and she begins to talk about Harry’s wife. You give her a lovely veil, and, right before your incredulous eyes, she wads it into a bunch, jams it into her bag and takes another chocolate. That bunch of jonquils you brought the invalid—haven’t you seen it carried off into some far corner, as if it were deadly mandragora, or hustled into a miscellaneous mass of wholesale offerings and the subject hurriedly changed?
Last month I visited my young cousin Frizia. “Why, what a pretty jet necklace!” they all cried, at dinner. In pleased, self-conscious expectancy I waited for Frizia to say, “Oh yes, my cousin brought it to me.” Did she? No. Not a word except, “Oh, d’you like it?” I should have been grateful, I suppose, that my little cousin even wore that necklace.
Haven’t you, too, often moaned: