第4章 Fundamental Techniques…(4)

When I was still young and trying hard to impress people, I wrote a foolish letter to Richard Harding Davis, an author who once loomed large on the literary horizon of America. I was preparing a magazine article about authors, and I asked Davis to tell me about his method of work. A few weeks earlier, I had received a letter from someone with this notation at the bottom："Dictated but not read." I was quite impressed. I felt that the writer must be very big and busy and important. I wasn't the slightest bit busy, but I was eager to make an impression on Richard Harding Davis, so I ended my short note with the words："Dictated but not read."

He never troubled to answer the letter. He simply returned it to me with this scribbled across the bottom："Your bad manners are exceeded only by your bad manners." True, I had blundered, and perhaps I deserved this rebuke. But, being human, I resented it. I resented it so sharply that when I read of the death of Richard Harding Davis ten years later, the one thought that still persisted in my mind—I am ashamed to admit—was the hurt he had given me.

If you and I want to stir up a resentment tomorrow that may rankle across the decades and endure until death, just let us indulge in a little stinging criticism—no matter how certain we are that it is justified.

When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride andvanity.

Bitter criticism caused the sensitive Thomas Hardy, one of the finest novelists ever to enrich English literature, to give up forever the writing of fiction. Criticism drove Thomas Chatterton, the English poet, to suicide.

Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people, that he was made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his success?"I will speak ill of no man," he said,"… and speak all the good I know of everybody."

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

“A great man shows his greatness," said Carlyle,"by the way he treats little men."

Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot and frequent performer at airshows, was returning to his home in Los Angeles from an air showin San Diego. As described in the magazine Flight Operations, atthree hundred feet in the air, both engines suddenly stopped. Bydeft maneuvering he managed to land the plane, but it was badlydamaged although nobody was hurt.

Hoover's first act after the emergency landing was to inspect the airplane's fuel. Just as he suspected, the World War II propeller plane he had been flying had been fueled with jet fuel rather than gasoline.

Upon returning to the airport, he asked to see the mechanicwho had serviced his airplane. The young man was sick with theagony of his mistake. Tears streamed down his face as Hooverapproached. He had just caused the loss of a very expensive planeand could have caused the loss of three lives as well.

You can imagine Hoover's anger. One could anticipate thetongue-lashing that this proud and precise pilot would unleashfor that carelessness. But Hoover didn't scold the mechanic; hedidn't even criticize him. Instead, he put his big arm around theman's shoulder and said,"To show you I'm sure that you'll neverdo this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow."

Often parents are tempted to criticize their children. Youwould expect me to say"don't." But I will not, I am merely goingto say,"Before you criticize them, read one of the classics ofAmerican journalism, ‘Father Forgets.' "

FATHER FORGETS

W. Livingston LarnedL

isten, son： I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little pawcrumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just afew minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stiflingwave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are the things I was thinking, son： I had been cross toyou. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because yougave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task fornot cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw someof your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulpeddown your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spreadbutter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play andI made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called,“Goodbye, Daddy！" and I frowned, and said in reply,"Hold yourshoulders back！"

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I cameup the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles.

There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before yourboyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockingswere expensive—and if you had to buy them you would be morecareful！ Imagine that, son, from a father！

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library,how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes?

When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption,you hesitated at the door."What is it you want?" I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge,and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and yoursmall arms tightened with an affection that God had set bloomingin your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And thenyou were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slippedfrom my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me.

What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, ofreprimanding—this was my reward to you for being a boy. It wasnot that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much ofyouth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.