| Finding the Way |
Chapter 21 |
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But the cause of sensitiveness is not always physical. Some people allow themselves to be hurt by every kind of expression which is not quite to their mind. They have refined tastes, and rudeness offends them. They are scholarly in their speech, and they are pained by violations of the rules of grammar and rhetoric. They are accustomed to the conventional ways of polite society, and bitterly resent whatever to them seems to be vulgar. They have no patience with those whose manner or whose personality in any way offends them. Such people will never get much comfort from others until they are cured in some way of their extreme sensitiveness.
There are two ways of meeting qualities and habits which pain us or would naturally irritate or vex us. We may be mastered by them, or we may get the mastery over them. No one can live long in this world and find all things precisely to his taste. We may as well learn first as last that we cannot bring all people to our way of thinking or to our idea of the proprieties of amenities of life. If we would get along sweetly and happily with all those we must meet in our daily rounds, we shall have to do at least our share of the yielding and self denying. Instead of getting everybody to become agreeable and pleasing to us, we shall have to get over our fastidiousness, and our love will have to learn to be blind to many things that are not beautiful in others, and deaf to many things that naturally grate upon our ears and are offensive to our taste. We must be agreeable and sweet to ourselves, whether others are exactly pleasing to us or not.
The law of love teaches us to look upon all men as our brothers, and to treat them with consideration. Love is the best cure for the sensitiveness that is offended by lack of culture or refinement in others. Some of the best people in the world have homely manners and are ignorant of the conventionalities of society. Love must be large enough to overlook all such things, and to see the man back of the plain garb.
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