structed after the fashion of a
galvanic battery, and although he means to respond at once, he doesn't.
He has not the temperamental apparatus that works in that way. He has,
perhaps, a thousand qualities that are better, finer, more important,
but he does not happen to have that particular one. What then? Shall you
make his life and your own a burden with complaint and reproach? By no
means. Let it pass. It is a part of his individuality, and cannot--at
the moment, at least--be altered. This one must frankly accept as the
defect of his friend. But recognizing the defect need not blind one to
the thousand virtues that his friend possesses.

In fact, as we have each and all our individual sins, negligences, and
weaknesses, we may well limit our zeal for reform to our own needs, at
least until we have achieved such perfection that we are entitled to
require perfection on the part of our associates.

To the orderly, thrifty type of New England temperament nothing is more
incompatible with sympathy than the bad management of the person not
endowed with "faculty," as Mrs. Stowe well expresses it. And it must be
conceded that a lack of the power essential to dominate the general
affairs of life and keep them in due subordination and order, is an
unmistakable draft on the affections. It is a problem as to just how far
aid and sympathy do any good, and not infrequently the greater the real
care and affection, the greater, too, is the irritation and the
annoyance. But even the annoyance born of tender interest and love, it
is better not to feel too keenly. Let one do what he can,--do all that
is reasonable and right to assist in counterbalancing the ills that
arise from defective management, and then let it pass, and not take it
into his mind as a source of constant anxiety. We have all our lessons
to learn, and every failure brings its own discipline as the inevitable
result. "Regret calamities if you can thereby help the sufferer," as
Emerson so well says; "if not, attend to your own work, and already the
evil begins to be repaired."

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Charm of Companionship.]

Of society, in the true sense, social life offers comparatively little.
In the midst of ceremonial assembling one is starved for companionship.
One may live in the very heart of what is held to be a brilliant social
season and be as unutterably lonely as if in a desert solitude. Indeed,
the latter offers compe