The Feast of St. Friend | Page 9

goodwill is far less a process of performing acts than a process of thinking thoughts. To think, is it necessary to involve yourself in the cog-wheels of a society? Moreover, a society means fuss and shouting: two species of disturbance which are both futile and deleterious, particularly in an intimate affair of morals.
You can best help the general cultivation of goodwill along by cultivating goodwill in your own heart. Until you have started the task of personal cultivation, you will probably assume that there will be time left over for superintending the cultivation of goodwill in other people's hearts. But a very little experience ought to show you that this is a delusion. You will perceive, if not at once, later, that you have bitten off just about as much as you can chew. And you will appreciate also the wisdom of not advertising your enterprise. Why, indeed, should you breathe a word to a single soul concerning your admirable intentions? Rest assured that any unusual sprouting of the desired crop will be instantly noticed by the persons interested.
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The next point is: Towards whom are you to cultivate goodwill? Naturally, one would answer: Towards the whole of humanity. But the whole of humanity, as far as you are concerned, amounts to naught but a magnificent abstract conception. And it is very difficult to cultivate goodwill towards a magnificent abstract conception. The object of goodwill ought to be clearly defined, and very visible to the physical eye, especially in the case of people, such as us, who are only just beginning to give to the cultivation of goodwill, perhaps, as much attention as we give to our clothes or our tobacco. If a novice sets out to embrace the whole of humanity in his goodwill, he will have even less success than a young man endeavouring to fall in love with four sisters at once; and his daily companions--those who see him eat his bacon and lace his boots and earn his living--will most certainly have a rough time of it. * * * No! It will be best for you to centre your efforts on quite a small group of persons, and let the rest of humanity struggle on as well as it can, with no more of your goodwill than it has hitherto had.
In choosing the small group of people, it will be unnecessary for you to go to Timbuktu, or into the next street or into the next house. And, in this group of people you will be wise, while neglecting no member of the group, to specialise on one member. Your wife, if you have one, or your husband? Not necessarily. I was meaning simply that one who most frequently annoys you. He may be your husband, or she may be your wife. These things happen. He may be your butler. Or you may be his butler. She may be your daughter, or he may be your father, and you a charming omniscient girl of seventeen wiser than anybody else. Whoever he or she may be who oftenest inspires you with a feeling of irritated superiority, aim at that person in particular.
The frequency of your early failures with him or her will show you how prudent you were not to make an attempt on the whole of humanity at once. And also you will see that you did well not to publish your excellent intentions. If nobody is aware of your striving, nobody will be aware that you have failed in striving. Your successes will appear effortless, and most important of all, you will be free from the horrid curse of self-consciousness. Herein is one of the main advantages of not wearing a badge. Lastly, you will have the satisfaction of feeling that, if everybody else is doing as you are, the whole of humanity is being attended to after all. And the comforting thought is that very probably, almost certainly, quite a considerable number of people are in fact doing as you are; some of them--make no doubt--are doing a shade better. I now come to the actual method of cultivating goodwill.

SEVEN
THE GIFT OF ONESELF
Children divide their adult acquaintances into two categories--those who sympathise with them in the bizarre and trying adventure called life; and those who don't. The second category is much the larger of the two. Very many people belong to it who think that they belong to the first. They may deceive themselves, but they cannot deceive a child. Although you may easily practise upon the credulity of a child in matters of fact, you cannot cheat his moral and social judgment. He will add you up, and he will add anybody up, and he will estimate conduct, upon principles of his own and in a manner terribly impartial.