ascertain if he sleeps well at night--because this is not a trifle. And
you must reflect upon his existence with the same partiality as you
reflect upon your own. (Why not?) That is to say, you must lay the
fullest stress on his difficulties, disappointments and unhappinesses,
and you must minimise his good fortune. You must magnify his efforts
after righteousness, and forget his failures. You must ever remember
that, after all, he is not to blame for the faults of his character,
which faults, in his case as in yours, are due partly to heredity and
partly to environment. And beyond everything you must always give him
credit for good intentions. Do not you, though sometimes mistakenly,
always act for the best? You know you do! And are you alone among
mortals in rectitude?

* * * * *

This mental exercise in relation to another person takes time, and it
involves a fatiguing effort. I repeat that it is not easy. Nor is it
invariably agreeable. You may, indeed, find it tedious, for example, to
picture in vivid detail all the worries that have brought about your
wife's exacerbation--negligent maid, dishonest tradesman, milk in a
thunder storm, hypercritical husband, dirt in the wrong place--but, when
you have faithfully done so, I absolutely defy you to speak to her in
the same tone as you used to employ, and to cherish resentment against
her as you used to do. And I absolutely defy you not to feel less
discontented with yourself than in the past. It is impossible that the
exercise of imagination about a person should not result in goodwill
towards that person. The exercise may put a strain upon you; but its
effect is a scientific certainty. It is the supreme social exercise, for
it is the giving of oneself in the most intimate and complete sense. It
is the suspension of one's individuality in favour of another. It