Is it sufficient, then, simply to offer your seat in a street car to a woman? The merely kind person does that. But he does it rather sheepishly. Isn’t your graciousness more cultured if you give it up with a bow, with a smile of willingness? Besides the quarter you give the beggar, can’t you give a few cents’ worth of yourself, too?
So everything can be done beautifully by the Educated Heart, from the lacing of a shoe so that it won’t come loose, to passing the salt before it is asked for. Even if you say only “Good morning,” it can be done pleasingly. Observe how the polished actor says it, with that cheerful rising English inflection. But the ordinary American growls it out with such surly downward emphasis that in London he is apt to be asked, “What’s the matter, old chap—headache?”
Why, merely to speak distinctly is a great kindness, I consider. You never have to ask, “What did you say?” to the Educated Heart. An old maid I knew once confessed that the only proposal she ever received was from a timid, low-voiced suitor, whose question she failed to hear.
“Lucky escape,” we all agreed. “You might have married him and been tormented all your life by his mumbling!”
OF course you’ve heard that “he gives twice who gives quickly,” but how about the giver who gives but half his gift? It isn’t the procrastinator, I mean. The half-giver is one who “wearies in well-doing,” stops part way on the road to kindness, with the goal plainly in sight. If you want to have the Educated Heart you must dot all the i’s and cross the t’s. Otherwise your gift is apt to be as the grapefruit without the sugar.
HALF giving! Instances of such gold-plated parsimonious generosity I could cite all day—from the old-fashioned “thrifty” housewife, who used to cut all the buttons off the clothes before she gave them to the poor, to sweet, sympathetic Oval, who visited an invalid.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, “I bought the loveliest bunch of roses for you, but I forgot them—left them in the hotel.” And Oval, after that (although the flowers of course never came), fully expected to be credited with a kindness.
Oh, you know them. You must know them! The half-giver who invites his party to supper after the theatre, but fails to reserve a table. How surprised and apologetic he is to find all the places taken! The gent who escorts his lady to the theater, too, and, when they come out, exclaims: “Gee, doesn’t this fresh air seem good, after that stuffy house! Let’s walk a way!” How bright his smile! Truly the heart, as well as the clothes, can be shabby-genteel. That kind of liberality he has that many women possess. Oh, yes, they insist upon paying for their half of the dinner, but they always forget to share the tips!
You remember those Liberty Loan subscribers who used to say, “I’ll subscribe one thousand if you’ll take another!” That’s the way these half-givers usually leave you to complete their gifts or go and get them or something—to pay some part of the price yourself, anyway, in trouble or in work.
Dear Alfredine was kind enough to bring her friend from abroad several pairs of earrings. But, alas! as they were made for those grandmothery old pierced ears her friend had to pay a jeweler to have them fitted with screw fastenings, just nine dollars, a sum she could ill afford—at least for earrings.