“Evil is wrought by want of thought
As well as want of heart.”
Some people have a wonderful way of always speaking a kind word or doing a kind act at the right time – just when it is most needed and will do them the greatest good. No matter when we meet them, they seem, as by some unfailing inspiration, to understand our mood and to have something precisely suited to it – a bit of sunshine for our gloom, a word of cheer for our disheartenment, a gentle but never offensive reminder of duty if we are growing remiss or neglectful, an impulse to activity if our zeal is flagging, or a word of generous commendation and delicate praise if we are weary and overwrought.
There is a wondrous power in fitness. A kindness that, standing apart from its occasion, seems utterly insignificant takes on importance and assumes an inestimable value because of its opportuneness. It multiplies one’s usefulness a hundredfold, a thousandfold, to know how to speak the right word or do the right thing just at the right moment and in the right way.
Many people with the very best motives and intentions and with truly large capacity for doing good almost utterly fail of usefulness and throw their lives away because they lack this gift of tact. They perform their kindest deeds in such an inappropriate way as to rob them of nearly all their power to comfort or cheer. They always come a few minutes too late to be helpful. They speak the wrong word, giving pain when they wanted to give pleasure. They are always making allusions to themes on which no word should be spoken. They are ever touching sensitive spots. When they enter a home of sorrow, drawn by the truest sympathy, they are almost sure to make tender hearts bleed the more by some want of fitness in word or act. They are continually hurting the feelings of their friends, offending nearly every person they meet and leaving frowns and tears in their path. Every one gives them credit for honesty of intention, and yet their efforts to do good mostly come to naught or even result in harm. The sad part of it all is that their motives are good and their hearts full of benevolent desires. Their lives are failures because they lack the proper touch and do not know in what manner to do the things they resolve to do.
Others may not have one whit more sincere or earnest desire to be useful. Their interest in people may be no truer, their sympathy no deeper, their love no warmer. They may have less rather than more natural power to give help. Yet because of their peculiar and gentle tact they scatter gladness all about them and are ever performing sweet ministries of good. Their suggestions of kindness do not come to them as after thoughts when it is too late to render any help. They do not blunder into all sorts of cruelty when they try to alleviate sorrow. They come opportunely, like God’s angels. Their thoughtfulness seems intuitively to understand just what will be the best word to speak or the kindest and fittest thing to do.
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