I
shall find them coarse, crude, and ignorant; their methods of speech
will grate upon me, their manners will repel me; they will be as truly
foreign to me as the natives of New Guinea, and their total incapacity
to share the thoughts which compose my own inner life will be scarcely
less complete. It is a truly humiliating thing to admit that
differences of nationality separate men less effectually than disparity
of manners. If I am at all fastidious I am more likely to be repelled
by coarse language, gross habits, or vulgar behaviour in my fellow
mortal than by all his errors in creed or morals. So little parts men,
and is permitted to part them, that it is very likely that some mere
awkwardness of behaviour in my fellow man may extirpate effectually the
regard I might have had for him. How little indeed is permitted to
part friends--often nothing more than a tone of voice, a word
misinterpreted, or something equally slight, the product very possibly
of shyness, or inability for right expression on a sudden call. And
there is all that goes by the name of antipathy, the nameless and quite
irrational repulsions which we permit ourselves to cherish, for which
we have no better excuse than that they are instinctive. With all
these forces against us how can we love our neighbour as ourselves? It
is something if we do not detest him; if we tolerate him it should be
counted to us for a virtue.
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