“Our discussion last week at the club was on various subjects. The first was patriotism. We should be patriotic for our own country and the whole world. If we are rightly patriotic for our own country, we will be so for the whole world. It is not patriotism to say I am for the whole world, but not for my own country. This would be very inconsistent. Patriotism does not consist of saying your own country is always right, and that another is wrong because it is not your own. We also discussed the question of choosing professions, and agreed that we should always choose what we like, whether it is conventional or not. It is better to be a good dancer than a poor teacher. In doing work for others, we ought not to choose settlement work because our friends are doing it, or because we or some one else thinks we ought to. If it is work that appeals to us, we should do it; but, if not, we might go among the young people of our own circle, and help them. Another thing we spoke of was _boring_ and _being bored_. Never bore any one or allow them to bore you. If you don’t know anything to say worth while saying, keep still. If some one else bores you, look at them from some standpoint such that, if they don’t interest you, at least they make you laugh at them. If possible, don’t frequent the society of people that bore you.” They asked, had I not said it was wrong to laugh “at” people. Yes, I answered, malicious laughter was bad, as malicious criticism was bad, but there was a kindly laughter, that laughed with people, and smiled at their superficial weaknesses in a loving way openly, as we smile at our own. In this way we often laughed at, and with, the people we loved most. But, I said, let us never forget or disrespect the self, the growing, wonderful self in every creature, especially in every human being. Now Virginia and Marian have their troubles. They do dislike certain people, and they like talking about them. Virginia said a fool was a fool, and continued to be a fool, even if you thought of him as a developing self. Marian objected that though she agreed with me, she couldn’t live up to it. I said: “I am not going to tell you what to do, or preach you a sermon. Only I want you to see the thing in a true light. I find it impossible to sympathize with some people, and I cannot help disliking those who have done harm to any one I love. But I look upon it as a weakness and limitation of myself, which I mean to overcome. Remember that every self you fail to understand is a limitation of yourself. Every judgment you make of another is a judgment of yourself. I wish one could say, not: ‘I hate that person,’ but ‘I am _one who hates_ that person’; the hate being a quality of your own, and reflecting only upon yourself.” “I have said of people,” said Virginia, “that I did not see how they could have any friends.”