Gelett Burgess

“ THEN, if you desire to be really kind, elegantly kind, artistically kind, why not seek the highest authorities on kindness, and emulate their expert taste and method? Wherefore, let me recommend to you the greatest examples of altruistic love, past masters of sympathetic consideration, whose kindness is directed by an inspired imagination.
Two perfect exponents of the Educated Heart there are—only two, but I am sure you have known them. The mother, who sees her child as truly a part of herself; and the true lover whose imagination is fired with romance. ”

“ I know that most of us would prefer to dine with a polite murderer than with an honest tinsmith who eats with his knife. But, by that same token, I know that all such artificial distinctions are not based upon kindness. They are merely the unwritten laws of society.
But if you, however brilliantly, make fun of your wife, if you humiliate an [35] inferior, insult a debtor, if you promise and keep not your word, if you fail to flavor your kindness with sincerity, if you give only the counterfeit money of politeness—then I perceive that you have not the Educated Heart. ”

“ TRULY, as Sadie said, nothing is so rare as the Educated Heart. And if you wonder why, just show a kodak group picture—a banquet photograph—a photograph of a class. What does every one of us first look at, talk about? Ourself. And that’s the reason why most hearts are so unlearned in kindness. Yet none of us likes himself to be forgotten or neglected. ”

“ Slipshod sentimentality masquerading as kindness. Near-sighted benevolence—generosity run down at the heels, like the husband who conceives himself to be liberal because he gives his wife money—though she always has to ask him for it.
[41]
WHY, even in conversation there is plenty of chance for the Educated Heart. Of course, unless you are a moron, you must have found out by this time that very few people ever really listen. They are usually merely waiting for a chance to say something themselves. It may be laid down as an axiom, then, that no habitual talker can have the Educated Heart. ”

“ In costume, you’ll see that style is not what most people, but what the best people, wear. If you wished to be strictly up to date, then, you’d go to the leading shops for your clothes, wouldn’t you? You’d haunt the Opera, the smartest assemblies, the most aristocratic homes, to see what fashionable people selected. If you wanted to learn modern surgery you’d visit the clinic of the most eminent surgeon, wouldn’t you, to observe his technique? ”

“ No; and so the most trivial of gifts, when sent by a civilized donor on Christmas, is, by universal practice, carefully wrapped in a pretty paper, red or gold, is tied with a fancy ribbon and decorated, mayhap, with a sprig of holly.
Now, that’s what I mean by the Educated Heart. That package is symbolical of what all friendly acts should be—kindness performed with style.
Is it sufficient, then, simply to offer your seat in a street car to a woman? The merely kind person does that. ”

“ In one’s freshman year one would be taught, perhaps, not to present an $85 inlaid umbrella with a gold dog’s-head handle with rhinestone eyes to a gentleman of culture like Mr. Richard Mansfield, for instance, as was once done one Christmas by an ardent but unillumined friend. If a lady has saved your son’s life, the Educated Heart doesn’t reward her by offering her chastely appointed apartment a two-ton carved ebony chair upholstered in red plush. ”

“ SO, if you are not content with increasing your chest expansion or your biceps, if you want to enlarge that mystic organ whence flows true kindness, you must cultivate your imagination, you must learn to put yourself in another’s place, think his thoughts. There is but one substitute for imagination, and that is experience. If you have deeply suffered, perhaps you may have found from your very pain, what real kindness is. ”

“ Unless people see the blood actually streaming, every sufferer is considered merely as a comedian. The banana-peel joke is still typical of our reactions to another’s woes.
AND so, it is my fearful opinion that but seldom has the Educated Heart a keen sense of humor. Didn’t an eminent mid-Victorian advise, “Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever!” Aren’t you already thinking over your own friends?
Am I not right? Is it the sparkling bright apostle of pleasantry to whom you go to borrow that ten dollars, or to the serious, kindly dub who never sees the point? ”

“ FOR the fact is that such thoughtfulness, such consideration as I desire is not merely decorative. It is the very essence and evidence of sincerity. Without it all so-called kindness is merely titular and perfunctory. Tact is what makes kindness real, makes it effective ”

“ It’s just style in kindness that most people lack. Oh, it’s the rarest thing in the world—the Educated Heart!”
[7]
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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For many a wife, dubbed by his undiscerning friends a shrew, a harridan, has proved her real interest in him by so ballyragging him for his faults that he has, despite himself, improved to meet her criticism, become ambitious, become persevering and successful—while as many others have been slowly kissed and praised into an intellectual apathy; most affectionately murdered by the Uneducated Heart. [54] Ah, ’tis not only cats and lap dogs that are killed with kindness!
There is another side to the Mary and Martha story. ”

“ But the ordinary tale of suffering has pretty hard work getting more than half an inch inside people’s ears. Women love to tell of their operations, I hear, but do they love to listen? Doesn’t everyone smile when you say you haven’t slept a wink all night? Yes, all, save the one with the Educated Heart—and he’s your sweetheart, probably. ”

“ People nowadays haven’t the artless gratitude of that easily-satisfied girl who used to sing:
“He promised to bring me a bunch of blue ribbons
To tie up my bonny brown hair!”
The people I know usually prefer to select their own ribbons—and gloves and boudoir caps and neckties—rather than have them chosen, however expensively, by—well, by those who do sometimes have the audacity to choose them for you.
Now taste, you will say, cannot be disputed. Each one has his own. Perhaps it can’t even be educated. ”

“ 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. ”

“ AND by this time you’ll understand of course that the Educated Heart isn’t really educated at all, in the sense that it has had to learn how to be kind. It merely is wise. Its gesture is instinctive, its knowledge innate. But, you ask, can’t the uneducated heart be instructed? Don’t the churches and Sunday-schools teach How to be Good? ”

“ Do I demand too much pay for my favors? If I long for a little of the old-time courtesy to color life, must you accuse me of preferring the glib, lace-sleeved, powdered-hair flattery, of the French salons? ”

“ Well, the loveliest things of that sort I had found, were the marvelous ribbon roses made by the Comtesse de Laumont for the benefit of the widows of officers. Every one is a work of art—a beautiful and faithful portrait of some particular rose from her own garden on the Marne. ”

“ Only those [28] with the Educated Heart. Like my uncle, most care more for that self-flattering glow of kindliness than for another’s best happiness.
Who ever really forgave you for being ill and missing a dinner engagement? You had no right to be ill. You gave your kind hostess a great deal of trouble and disappointment with that ptomaine poisoning of yours!
“Be happy my way!” says the parent “Marry this nice, rich man I have chosen for you—not the poor fellow you love!” But no, putting a cushion behind a man in an armchair isn’t kindness unless he happens to want it there. ”

“ Still, it is rather pleasing to recall, in pessimistic moods—upon receiving a letter written in lead pencil, for instance, or one undated, or with no address, or, most irritating of all, with an illegible signature—it is even encouraging to recall that it isn’t always these inconsiderate, unimaginative, egoistic people, after all, who succeed most brilliantly in the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As many of our acquired habits, like walking, for instance, have been passed from the domain of the conscious to the subconscious and become automatic, so, perhaps, with the behavior of the Educated Heart. You set it in the direction of true kindness and courtesy and it will function without deliberate thought. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Why should I be? No one is important enough to hurt me. Surely the very inadequacy of their feelings proves these skim-milk saints to be unworthy the time and energy it takes to resent or protest. Am I ungrateful? ”

“ It’s kindness with a kick to it. In short, it’s the manner and custom of the Educated Heart, that makes you turn over at night and decide to add a codicil to [20] your will—why should brother Fred have it all?
Well knows the Educated Heart that the doctor’s clients usually pay slowly, and itself therefore pays without delay. Which lover has the Educated Heart—he who orders the florist to send, every day, five dollars’ worth of flowers, or he who himself selects and presents a single rose? ”

“ And the trouble with this little study will be, perhaps, if you and I don’t look out, that it will educate us as to others’ faults but lead us to forget our own. It’s so easy to be petulant and critical; it’s so easy to deny that we ourselves are morally round-shouldered. ”

“ If you refuse to take off your hat to ladies, I shall think only that you do not feel yourself bound by the elaborate rules of romantic love concocted by the lazy troubadours and sentimental chatelaines of the Middle Ages. ”

“ WHAT’S the rarest thing in all the world? Intelligent sympathy. Why? Well, each one of us is working out his own evolution, I suppose, and our own interests must be paramount and absorb us, or we lose in the race. ”

“ Verily, verily, I say unto you, giving is as much of an art as portrait-painting, or the making of glass flowers. There really ought to be a four years’ course in the art of making presents in every college for those who are not born intelligently generous. ”

“ Yes, and because of the Uneducated Hearts of their wives, husbands grow seedy, silly and old.
Why, one can tell, almost, by the looks of a man—his posture, his very clothes—whether or not his wife truly loves him. ”

“ So it isn’t always the big, climactic misfortune that we suffer from most. We can rally, after we’re stunned, and go on, somehow. But it’s the little stings that we can’t forget. It’s [53] because of the Uneducated Heart that love-mad women kill. ”

“ 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. [6] 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? ”

“ That’s something. Why, loads of people don’t even acknowledge gifts at all, nowadays.”
“Yes, and that’s just the point,” declared Sadie. “I’ve no doubt she thinks she’s really quite polite and kind. Oh, she ‘means well,’ I suppose—they all do. But the trouble with Eldora is simply that she hasn’t got the Educated Heart.”
“The Educated Heart?” I queried, amused, “what d’you mean, the Educated Heart?” ”