Uncle James never became less snappish. But the upright, manly
courtesy of those boys toward him was like fresh air on a mountain,
especially because it had become a habit and was all as a matter of
course. The father and mother realized that Uncle James had,
unconsciously, made men of their boys as nothing else in the world
could have done, and had trained them so that they would grow up
tolerant and courteous toward all human peculiarities.
Many times a gracious courtesy toward the "trying member" will
discover good and helpful qualities that we had not guessed before.
Sometimes after a little honest effort we find that it is ourselves
who have been the trying members, and that the other one has been
the member tried. Often it is from two members of the family that
the trying element comes. Two sisters may clash, and they will
generally clash because they are unlike. Suppose one sister moves
and lives in big swings, and the other in minute details. Of course
when these extreme tendencies are accented in each the selfish
temptation is for the larger mind to lapse into carelessness of
details, and for the smaller mind to shrink into pettiness, and as
this process continues the sisters get more and more intolerant of
each other, and farther and farther apart. But if the sister who
moves in the big swings will learn from the other to be careful in
details, and if the smaller mind will allow itself to be enlarged by
learning from the habitually broader view of the other, each will
grow in proportion, and two women who began life as enemies in
temperament can end it as happy friends.
There are similar cases of brothers who clash, but they are not so
evident, for when men do not agree they leave one another alone.
Women do not seem to be able to do that. It is good to leave one
another alone when there is the clashing tendency, but it is better
to conquer the clashing and learn to agree.
So long as the normal course of my life leads me to live with some
one who rubs me the wrong way I am not free until I have learned to
live with that some one in quiet content. I never gain my freedom by
running away. The bondage is in me always, so long as the other
person's presence can rouse it. The only way is to fight it out
inside of one's self. When we can get the co-operation of the other
so much the better. But no one's co-operation is necessary for us to
find our own freedom, and with it an intelligent, tolerant
kindliness.
"Mother, you take that seat. No, not that one, Mother--the sun comes
in that window. Children, move aside and let your grandmother get to
her seat."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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