TENDERNESS
Tenderness has more than one meaning. Whereas religiously it is a virtue, medically
it is physical weakness. A tender part of one’s body is uncomfortable and
painful. But tender-heartedness in normal human beings is an admirable quality.
It relieves the pain of others and wins their love and gratitude.
Dictionaries define tenderness as
softness, delicacy, sensitivity, sympathy, gentleness, kindness, compassion,
generosity, benevolence, humaneness, etc.
Children want tender-hearted
parents, students tender-hearted teachers, employees tender-hearted masters and
criminals tender-hearted legal authorities.
Strictness appeals to minds; tenderness
to hearts. Humans as also birds and beasts expect tenderness from those before whom
they appear as offenders.
It is better to reform defaulters
than to break them .God pardons wicked people innumerable times. He allows
sinners to become saints better late than never.
The English novelist Henry Fielding
(1707-1754) who was also a magistrate wrote: A tender-hearted and compassionate
disposition, which inclines men to pity and feel for the misfortunes of others,
and which is, even for its own sake, incapable of involving any man in ruin and
misery, is of all tempers of mind the most amiable; and though it seldom
receives much honour, is worthy of the highest.”
According to William Morley Punshon
(1824-1881), an English Nonconformist: Speak
the truth by all means; be bold and fearless in your rebuke of error, and in
your keener rebuke of wrong doing; but be human, and loving, and gentle, and
brotherly the while.
It will not be wrong to say that a
person’s tenderness shows his faith in the philosophy of non-violence.
Finally, this quote: Tenderness and
kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength
and resolution.
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G.R.Kanwal
22 December 2024
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