So should we truly, from our inmost selves, meet a child as if he were of our own age, and as if we were of his age.  This sounds like a paradox, but indeed the one proposition is essential to the other.  If we meet a child only as if he were of our age, our attitude tends to make him a little prig; if we meet him as if we were as young as he is, his need for maturer influences produces a lack of balance which we must both feet; but if we sincerely meet him as if the exchange of age were mutual, we find common ground and valuable companionship.

This mutual understanding is the basis of all true friendship.  Only read, instead of “age,” “habit of mind,” “character,” “state,” and we have the whole.  It is aiming for reciprocal relations, from the best in us to the best in others, and from the best in others to the best in ourselves.  It is the foundation of all that is strengthening, and quiet, and happy, in all human intercourse with young and old.

To gain the friendly habit is more difficult with our contemporaries than it is with children.  We have no right to guide older people unless they want to be guided, and they often want to guide us in ways we do not like at all.  We have no right to try to change their opinions, unless they ask us for new light; and they often insist upon trying to change ours whether we ask them or not.  There is sure to be selfish resistance in us when we complain of it in others, and we must acknowledge it and get free from it before we can give or find the most helpful sympathy.

A healthy letting people alone, and a good wholesome scouring of ourselves, will, if it is to come at all, bring open friendliness.  If it is not to come, then the healthy letting people alone should continue, for it is possible to live in the same house with a wilful and trying character, and live at peace, if he is lovingly let alone.  If he is unlovingly let alone, the peace will be only on the outside, and must sooner or later give way to storms, or, what is much worse, harden into unforgiving selfishness.

Our influence with others depends primarily upon what we are, and only secondarily upon what we think or upon what we say.  It is so with babies and young children, and more so with our older friends.  If we honestly feel that there is something for us to learn from another, however wrong or ignorant, in some ways, he may seem, we are not only more able to find and profit by the best in him, but also to give to him in return whatever he may be ready to receive.  How little quiet comfort there is in families where useless resistance to one another is habitual!  Members of one family often live along together with more or less appearance of good fellowship, but with an inner strain which gives them drawn faces and tired bodies, or else throws them back upon themselves in the enjoyment of their own selfishness; and sometimes there is not even the appearance of good fellowship, but a chronic resistance and disagreement, all for the want of a little sympathy and common sense.