The truth is that anyone who has any pronounced views at all, any definite strain of temperament, is sure to encounter people who are entirely uncongenial.  What one is bound to do is to realise that there is abundant room for all kinds of personalities in the world, and it is much better not to protest and censure unless one is absolutely certain that the temperament one dislikes is a mischievous one.  It is not necessarily mischievous to be quarrelsome, though a peaceable person may dislike it.  There is no reason whatever why two quarrelsome people, if they enjoy it, should not have a good set-to.  What is mischievous is if a man is brutal and tyrannical, and prefers a tussle with an inoffensive person who is no match for him.  That is a piece of cowardice, and protest is more than justifiable.  There is a fine true story of a famous head-master, who disliked a weakling, putting on a stupid, shy, and ungainly boy to construe, and making deliberate fun of him.  There was a boy present, of the stuff of which heroes are made, who got up suddenly in his place and said, “You are not teaching that boy, sir; you are bullying him.”  The head-master had the generosity to bear his censurer no grudge for his outspokenness.  But even if one is sure that one’s indignation is justified and that one’s contempt is deserved, it is a very dangerous thing to assume the disapproving attitude.  One may know enough of a man to withstand him to the face, if one is sure that his action is base or cruel; one can hardly ever know enough of a man’s temperament and antecedents to condemn him unreservedly.  It is scarcely possible to be sure that a man is worse than he need have been, or that one would have done better if one had been in his place; and thus one must try to resist any expression of personal disapproval, because such an expression implies a consciousness of moral superiority, and the moment that one is conscious of that, as in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, the position of the condemner and the condemned is instantaneously reversed.  To hate people is the most dangerous luxury that one can indulge in, and the most that one is justified in doing is to avoid the society of entirely uncongenial people.  It is not a duty to force yourself to try to admire and like everyone who repels you.  The truth is that life is not long enough for such experiments.  But one can resolutely abstain from condemning them and from dwelling in thought and speech upon their offensive qualities. Nous sommes tous condamnes, says the sad proverb, and we have most of us enough to do in rooting up the tares in our own field, without pointing out other people’s tares exultantly to passers-by.

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