K I N D N E S S

 

                K I N D N E S S

‘Kindness’ is defined as generosity, benevolence, warm-heartedness, humanitarianism, fellow-feeling, compassion, good-will, cordiality, graciousness, mercifulness, gentleness, etc.  

            Kindness  is one the most admirable virtues. One can call it a spiritual quality. Those who are kind-hearted believe in mercy, pity, toleration and forgiveness.

English chemist Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1828) said : “Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindnesses, and small obligations, given habitually , are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort.“

German poet and philosopher Goethe (1749-1832) believed: “Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.”

English clergy and novelist  Charles Kingsley (1819-75)  suggests: “Make a rule, and pray to God to help you to keep it , never, if possible, to lie down at night without being able to say: I have made one human being at least a little wiser, or little happier, or at least a little better this day.” This suggestion cannot be implemented  by any person without being kind-hearted.

            Finally, a reference to a poem written by the American poet and critic James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) . Its title is Yussouf who is an Arab Lord  known for his great hospitality and kind-heatedness . His tent is  always open day and night  for the needy and unsheltered.

One night a stranger Ibrahim  who had been abolished  from  his society and was a runaway, comes to Yussouf’s tent, receives Yussoufs”s plentiful  hospitality and while departing with a gift of gold disclose to  Yussouf the heart-rending truth that he is the murderer of his first-born son.

 Yussouf does not become furious and revengeful. He tells Ibrahim:

“Take thrice the gold;  but leave the desert, never to return. My one black thought shall ride away from me.

He also adds: Thou are avenged, my first-born, sleep in peace.

 Lowell closes the poem with these words:

 As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,

So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.

 

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G.R.Kanwal

27 August 2024