THE VALUE OF SYMPATHY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3542, 31 January 1922, Page 54

THE VALUE OF SYMPATHY.

By

W. H. T.

One of the puzzling things in life is to know when to be sympathetic. The range ol sympathy is as wide as the Poles and its expression is like the tones of a musical instrument. It is nc«t surprising -en that some strange harmonies and discords are forthcoming. One literary person lias maintained quite seriouslv that , shark is not unworthy of our sympatny on account of the fact that it is always suffering from a most ravenous hunger. “Think,” he said, “of the state ot intolerable famine in which the unhappy animal roams the ocean.” Wo may indeed; but the onlv kind of feeling we experience is the desire to end its sufferings once and for all time. Sympathy is fellow-feeling, or, in other words, oneness of feeling. We sympathise with people just so far' as we can interpret their minds and feel with them. Granted that this is so, it is surprising that we feel so little for one another. A man is knocked down in the street and seriously injured, but we do not shed any tears; it must be admitted that we have generally only a transient curiosity in the matter.. Excessive feeling in affairs of this kind is of course undesirable. As someone has said : if we paid a due amount of grief to every calamity we encountered, we should need a special pair of eyes to weep with. Our attitude of mind towards the experiences of others does not depend altogether on whether we have ever had similar experiences. We have constant evidence of this in the pranks of small boy. The old familiar trick of covering a brick with an old silk hat and then waiting till someone is foolish enough to give it a lusty kick, is a familiar and mild example of this unconcern. To tho spectators it is a good joke, but it is far otherwise to the person with the damaged toe. To witness pain does not always provoke grief and it is a good thing that we can react on these milder experiences or we should all be in a bad way.

Passing over such special cases which, usually, make no call for our active sympathy, there are spheres in which ” its practise is of real value. We are most of us conscious of possessing powers and a warmth of feeling which are stifled within us ; and we wonder why people let us be so dull and uninteresting, when we have it in us to be so different. Children who were like beams of sunshine in the home grow up silent and melancholy, for no particular reason that anybody knows or seems to care about. Such people are like lamps that have grown dim for want of air. Thev are quite conscious that the best part of them is buried and perhaps lost for ever, but they cannot help themselves. As the German Tieck expressed it: “There is some fruitful soil in every mind which should bring forth peculiar products and from which the originality of the individual should proceed.” It is this inner self which needs sympathy anil help and no amount of education will ever take the place of that close intimacy between ourselves and our fellows which will nurture our innermost being. Now-a-days people are so reticent and know so little about one another, that if Dr Joh rison were to come to life he would probably consider himself misunderstood and draw within his shell; or else spend all his energies in carefully avoiding other peoples’ toes. When people are in complete sympathy with one another or, it least, have determined to thoroughly understand and know each other, there is a self-reliance and freedom of expression which is delightfully refreshing and invigorating after the restrictions of ordinary business life with its cares and worries. Life is then as it should be. Such charmed circles are only too and are not easily formed ; hut mutual sympathy on a smaller scale is certainly not impossible with a little effort on the part of those possessed with a desire to be friendly. Many people are afraid to be intimate though nobody knows why they can possibly be so. If the truth is told, we think far less of people whom we know only partially than we do of those with whom we are really intimate, because the best characteristics we possess are purposely hidden, and casual society often develops the features which we most dislike. It doesn’t require much effort to prove this from our own experience. There is a Mr X., who is really rather clever: but when he walks into a hall, he fancies every eye is centred on him alone, although there are many more notable people in the building than himself. His very walk tells you plainly liow conceited hois. How did he get this idea of himself? Because he is out of close sympathy with other people. The same person, unspoilt, might he a little star in the best sense of the word. Nobody who is one of a coterie, ever has such a self-centred attitude of mind ; it becomes an impossibility ; for the sense of cleverness, which certainly is not lost, is counterbalanced by a happy appreciation of the wonderful merits of others. It is impossible to be intimate and friendly with others without recognising how much they possess which we do not: but at the same time we become sensible in a pleasing way of our own talents as far as thev go. without being in anv danger of overestimating their importance. Sympathy cannot be properly developed apart from intimate human intercourse. Development on these lines is not only a preventive against hardness and all uncliaritableness, hut saves people from wasting their feelings on unnatural objects or allowing them to degenerate into tho kind of sentiment which only weeps and does nothing.