Only one thing truly need the Christian envy--the large, rich,
generous soul which "envieth not."
And then, after having learned all that, you have to learn this
further thing, HUMILITY--to put a seal upon your lips and forget
what you have done. After you have been kind, after Love has stolen
forth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into the
shade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself.
Love waives even self-satisfaction. "Love vaunteth not itself, is
not puffed up." Humility--love hiding.
The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to find in this "summum
bonum:" COURTESY. This is Love in society, Love in relation to
etiquette. "Love doe not behave itself unseemly."
Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said
to be love in little things. And the one secret of politeness is
to love.
Love CANNOT behave itself unseemly. You can put the most untutored
persons into the highest society, and if they have a reservoir
of Love in their hearty they will not behave themselves unseemly.
They simply cannot do it. Carlisle said of Robert Burns that there
was no truer gentleman in Europe than the ploughman-poet. It was
because he loved everything--the mouse, and the daisy, and all the
things, great and small, that God had made.
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