What the Canvasser Said
— I find opinion and feeling on the subject to differ very widely. I have “ inquired round ” among my own friends, and give the remarks of two of them (both, let me add, men), which very well represent the two extremes. The first writes : —
“I think that the finest and highest order of love asks less than it gives, for the reason that it is grand to give in an unstinted way, in spite of a smaller return. It reveals a superb character that can do this, — that feels its requital in the fact of bestowal. It is ennobling to give, to bestow, and the height of unselfishness to be content with less.” He then expresses as his opinion that it would be far easier to rise to such a height in love than in friendship.
The second friend holds this view : —
“ In regard to the soul’s allegiance, trust, and affection, I certainly think it is possible to give too much of one’s self in that sense ; and a very little is too much, when it is not returned in kind. The disposition to squander sentiment is both the effect and the cause of a morbid state opposed to the healthy one of giving ‘ action.’ You cannot do too much for even the least deserving of fellow-men, if it is rightly done, but it is easier (and very cheap, and at the same time very agreeable) to give too much of the sentimental side.
“ And are you sure that it really is giving ? Is it not simply enjoying the sweet comfort of feeling that one is doing a noble thing or making a noble sacrifice, while it really begins in self and ends in self ? A feeling which cannot or does not result in action must ‘return unto itself void,’ and deserves the penalty of selfish indulgence and wasted force.”
Both these opinions — one the expression of a rich and generous nature, the other based rather, perhaps, on the “ stern demands of justice ” — have so much weight that they seem well entitled to a candid hearing, and the other friends in council may, according to their own dispositions, “ pay their pennies and take their choice.”
Another friend of mine, a poet of some note, has summed up the whole question in a poem which offers, in my humble opinion, the only true view, if not exactly a solution, of the problem, namely, that the noblest, highest, and truest love gives itself without stint and without reserve, independent of the insufficiency of the return made it, or indeed of any return at all. The lines have never before been shown to the public, but I am permitted to use them here.
INSUFFICIENCY.
Rosy with pomp of spring,
All the white wealth of present blossoming
Surpassing fair to see,
And promise of the golden fruit to be,
For him, my friend ; and he
A tuft of grass that sprang beside his door
Lightly held out to me.
I brought him from my closely guarded store,
The heart’s most sacred nook,
Where the red lights of darkest rubies burn,
My gems ; and he in turn
A handful of white pebbles from the brook
That flows the meadow through.
I gave him of my richest wine, that grew
Upon no hill, nor knew
The winepress save God’s own, — the joy and pain
Of all my life, distilled
To subtlest draught; and he did take and drain,
And smiling gaze around,
Scarce heeding if the priceless drops were spilled
Upon the barren ground.
— Yet hush ! I will not murmur nor complain,
With idle tears and vain,
All should be thus. I think he gave his best
In what he gave, nor guessed
Half the sharp sorrow that my heart possessed.
And this I surely know,
God made him as he is, as He made me,
Though fashioned differently, —
His cup not full, and mine to overflow.
His soul I could not teach —
Nay, though I gave my very own for price ! —
la all life’s days to reach
A deeper depth, and higher heights to soar
Than it had touched before;
But what to me was granted will suffice
Perchance both him and me,
And I can love, and love, and love him still, —
Ay, love him more and more,
Till my great love, like tides of rising sea,
Shall deepen, flush, and fill
All shallows of his nature and supply
All want there yet may be,
His every lack and insufficiency,
So full and wondrously,
That after all beneath God’s stainless sky
Accepted in His sight,
Fair with the glories of His deathless light,
Our friendship yet may stand
A temple sacred and divinely planned,
Soul knit with equal soul,
One rounded, perfect, and immortal whole !
Of course this sort of one-sided giving involves, in a certain sense, a fearful cost to the giver, but I also know to a certainty that one does not die from the loss of such life blood, but that, on the contrary, the whole character is uplifted, broadened, ennobled, and enriched by it, provided the nature is originally large and generous enough to bear the strain and accept that “ discipline of fire.”
The same poet has also said in another place : —