HUMAN NATURE
WHEN I WAS EIGHT years old and was spending a week-end visiting my Aunt Libby Linsley, at her home in Stratford on the Housatonic, a middle-aged man called one evening, and after a polite skirmish with my aunt, he devoted his attention to me. At that time I happened to be excited about boats, and the visitor discussed the subject in a way that seemed to me particuÂlarly interesting. After he left, I spoke of him with enthusiasm. What a man! And how tremendously interÂested in boats! My aunt informed me he was a New York lawyer; that he cared nothing whatever about boatsÂtook not the slightest interest in the subject. âBut why then did he talk all the time about boats?â âBecause he is a gentleman. He saw you were interested in boats, and he talked about the things he knew would interÂest and please you. He made himself agreeable.â I never forgot my auntâs remark.
Like many boys of my time, I learned about religion and morality from my mother, and about etiquette, clothes, and the ways of the world from my aunt. For some reason virÂgin aunts were always more worldly minded than mothers.
On this occasion Aunt Libby made clear the difference between a gentleÂman and a bore. A gentleman puts his companions or guests or casual acÂquaintances at their ease; he is conÂsiderate; he has tact; he draws out the contents of the other manâs mind, and thus enables him to appear at his best. A bore talks only about the things that interest him himself; he has litÂtle perception of the impression he is making, or of the actual state of mind of his victim.
Perhaps the final test of a gentleman is his attitude toward children. I wonder if all men remember as vividÂly as I do the occasions when grownÂup people treated us neither with contempt nor with indifference nor with what is worse, grinning condeÂscension-Iâ And how is my little man today?â-but with unassumed reÂspect. The few occasions in my childÂhood when strangers treated me with courtesy produced an indelible imÂpression.
In conversation, the time and the place and the subject should harmoÂnise. There are talkers who have a positive genius for the inopportune.
Not so many years ago, as I was leavÂing my house to walk to the Yale-Harvard football game, I met a man I knew only slightly, who insisted on discussing literature all the way to the arena of combat. There were the streets crowded with an excited throng, all-except my friend thinking of only one thing; in the midst of this joyous, laughing, noisy multitude, this man wished to know what I thought of the contemporary condition of American poetry.
The relative importance of poetry and football had nothing to do with the occasion. As humour is out of place at a funeral, so a discussion of literature is out of place at the great game of the year. A manâs soul is of more importance than a trivial engagement; but if a zealous evanÂgelist stops a man running to catch a train to enquire about his salvation, it is probable he will miss both.
A...