The Inner Life

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HE MADE me ashamed. I sat with him for twenty minutes—and the longer I was with him the more ashamed of myself I became.

We talked about people. Or perhaps it would be more truthful to say that he talked and I listened.

He talked about a political boss we both knew. I’d always thought of that boss as an unscrupulous and dangerous fellow. But my friend gave me another picture of him. To him that boss was “a splendid chap”—generous, loyal and dependable—ready with time or money for any friend in need.

He mentioned an officeholder we both knew. I remembered what a petty grafter that officeholder used to be. He remembered our acquaintance as a man with the kindest of hearts.

And so he talked and in those twenty minutes he must have spoken of at least a dozen men or women. Each one he praised. If he could not say they were intelligent, he said they were kind. If he could not say they were kind, he said they were able.

Somehow he couldn’t see a mean spot in any person he knew. He couldn’t see a weakness, a blemish on any of them, anywhere. He saw only their virtues, their good qualities, the things about them that made him love them . . . He had in him none of that hunger for malicious gossip that is in so many of us. Friendliness was a food that was good enough for him. He had no need to spice his conversation with malice.

And that’s why he made me ashamed. I tried to excuse myself by reflecting that he didn’t see all around the people he knew. He saw only the shining side of the moon and knew nothing of the dark and dangerous valleys on the other side. He was a gullible child, said I, and that was all. . . . But my argument didn’t work. I could not convince myself of that—because I knew in my heart that his way of looking at people is the only right and wise way and that when we take any other way we are but spiteful children betraying our own happiness.

Selected—from The Messenger Magazine.

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