ness, there is no ascent possible, but only
the one little low place limited by the personal, selfish interests of
those concerned.

Nobody else's trouble seems worth considering to those who are immersed
in their own, or in their selfish sympathy with a friend whom they have
chosen to champion. This is especially felt among conventional people,
when something happens which disturbs their external habits and
standards of life. Sympathy is at once thrown out on the side of
conventionality, without any rational inquiry as to the real rights of
the case. Selfish respectability is most unwholesome in its unhealthy
sympathy with selfish respectability.

The wholesome sympathy of living human hearts sympathizes first with
what is wholesome,--especially in those who suffer,--whether it be
wholesomeness of soul or body; and true sympathy often knows and
recognizes that wholesomeness better than the sufferer himself. Only in
a secondary way, and as a means to a higher end, does it sympathize
with the painful circumstances or conditions. By keeping our sympathies
steadily fixed on the health of a brother or friend, when he is
immersed in and overcome by his own pain, we may show him the way out
of his pain more truly and more quickly. By keeping our sympathies
fixed on the health of a friend's soul, we may lead him out of
selfishness which otherwise might gradually destroy him. In both cases
our loving care should be truly felt,--and felt as real understanding
of the pain or grief suffered in the steps by the way, with an
intelligent sense of their true relation to the best interests of the
sufferer himself Such wholesome sympathy is alert in all its
perceptions to appreciate different points of view, and takes care to
speak only in language which is intelligible, and therefore useful. It
is full of loving patience, and never forces or persuades, but waits
and watches to give help at the right time and in the right place. It
is more often helpful with silence than with words. It stimulates one
to imagine what friendship might be if it were alive and wholesome to
the very core. For, in such friendship as this, a true friend to one
man has the capacity of being a true friend to all men, and one who has
a thoroughly wholesome sympathy for one human being will have it for
all. His general attitude must always be the same--modified only by the
relative distance which comes from variety in temperaments.

In order to sympathize with