Have you an educated heart? — Reading Notes

she had seen, with those awfully wide black stitchings down the back. Though fairly weak after a bad attack of the flu, poor Sadie had tramped through shop after shop, from 34th Street to 56th Street last week, to find those particular gloves; actually fighting for them, at the last, with a mob of wild women at a bargain sale. Well, Sadie had gone and bought a fancy box. Sadie had wrapped that package with neatness and with fondest care. Sadie had walked twenty-one blocks (so she said) to a Post Office. Sadie had stood there in line for half an hour, more or less, to have it weighed and insured.

“And I just loved it all--I loved doing it for Eldora,” wailed Sadie. “And now all she says is that she is ‘ever so much obliged’!”

“Oh, well,” said I loftily, “we oughtn’t to give things just for the thanks, you know.”

“Never mind the thanks!” snapped Sadie, “but did she _like_ those gloves? Good gracious, you want to know whether you’ve pleased a person or not, don’t you? Were they the right shade? Did they match her gown? Were they the size? Did they fit her? Has she worn them? Why, she might have said _something_ about them!”

“Well, at any rate,” I offered in appeasement, “she answered you promptly. That’s something. Why, loads of people don’t even acknowledge gifts at all, nowadays.”

“Yes, and that’s just the point,” declared Sadie. “I’ve no doubt she thinks she’s really quite polite and kind. Oh, she ‘means well,’ I suppose--they all do. But the trouble with Eldora is simply that she hasn’t got the Educated Heart.”

“The Educated Heart?” I queried, amused, “what d’you mean, the Educated Heart?”

THE lady was growing a little calmer now. “Why, I’ve called it that to myself so long that it seems as if anyone ought to understand. Well, it’s this way. You know you can usually tell an educated man, can’t you? There’s something about him that’s--oh, I don’t know--extra. Finish, it is, perhaps. Distinction, or something. He knows how to--”

“But the Educated Heart!” I insisted, “prithee, the Educated Heart!”

“Why, it’s just the same with hearts as it is with heads,” quoth my Mentor. “Some hearts seem to be self-made, you know--rough-dry--unvarnished--amateurish. And then some hearts are just as if they’d been to college, and been graduated in Kindness. They’ve got their B.K., or D.K., even, sometimes. Yes, I know at least one Doctor of Kindness. Why, I mean, oh, they have that extra touch of consideration--thoughtfulness, you know--imagination--and--oh, dear, why do we like to have flowers on the dinner table? They’re not necessary, of course; but doesn’t that extra touch always make the soup taste perfectly wonderful? It’s all the difference between just eating and dining. Ever see a woman without style jam on a beautiful hat and make it look like a waste-basket? Well, some people are like that, when they try to be kind. Style--that’s what it is! It’s just style in kindness that most people lack. Oh, it’s the rarest thing in the world--the Educated Heart!”

THE Educated Heart! Late that night, alone, I pondered it . . . midnight, and still it haunted me . . . the Educated Heart. . . . Superkindness, she might have called it. She might have called it Tact. Vainly, I tried to coin a new word for it. But at the end, Sadie’s simple term stayed with me--the Educated Heart. And so, using that test, I found myself at length classifying my friends.

And first of all came Crystabel. Last October, you see, I sent Crystabel a book. She acknowledged it, and promptly. But, two months afterward, hadn’t she--yes, she actually had--written me another letter, telling me what she thought of that book; and she proved, moreover, that she had read it--actually read it! Now, reader, I ask you: Isn’t that a strange and beautiful experience in this careless world? Yes, Crystabel had the Educated Heart.