You may not think living with others is an art, but it is one of the finest and most difficult of arts. By learning it early in life we save ourselves many unpleasant experiences. If we are difficult to live with, our punishment is severe and inexorable. No one will live with us who can escape from us. We all know people who, upon entering a room, bring with them a cloud. On the other hand, we also know those whose coming always brings sunshine. Some one said of a young friend of mine of unusually radiant personality, “When she went down the corridor it seemed as if a light had passed by.” A Boston daily paper once had this item: “Yesterday was dark and rainy, but Phillips Brooks passed down Newspaper Row and the sun shone.” It goes without saying that these persons were good to live with.

One may be honest, sincere, generous, and, in the main, kind, and yet be difficult to live with because of the absence of the so-called lesser virtues. We must have the elemental virtues as foundations of character, but they are not enough. As a Bible writer puts it, it is “the little foxes that spoil the vineyards.” The “little foxes” are the little faults which arise within us almost unnoticed, and which grow upon us with added years. Some of these faults cause people to want to avoid us and seek the company of those who are pleasanter to have about. To want to be liked is a laudable desire when one does not sacrifice anything higher for it. To aim to be a person whose presence brings gladness to others is not only your right, but your duty. There is a cheap popularity which those who seek it are willing to purchase at any cost. That is not what I am talking about. I will name some of the little faults which often spoil an otherwise admirable character.

Unnecessary criticism of others. I say unnecessary criticism. All honor and praise to the one who can speak the word of admonishment or reproof when it ought to be spoken and in the right spirit and the right manner; who can give warning or suggestion at the proper time and place and in a tactful way. We all need more friends who are not afraid to tell us of our faults with the high motive of aiding us to overcome them; who will even run the risk of losing our friendship in order that they may help us to be true to our best selves. But how much of the fault-finding in the world does any good or is intended to do any good? Is it not true that much of it merely gives vent to irritability on the part of the fault-finder? The next time you are tempted to find fault, ask yourself two questions: First, will it do any good? Next, am I doing it in the right spirit? Unless these two questions can be answered in the affirmative, then silence is golden. Moreover, criticism should, whenever possible, be tempered with praise. We can take much from one who recognizes the good in us and who knows that our virtues far outweigh our failings.

Another of the little foxes is fretfulness, grumbling, nagging, call it what you will. We all recognize it when we come in contact with it and probably we have been shocked at times to discover it in ourselves. This fault grows rapidly in the atmosphere of loving tolerance. It never would have an opportunity to develop in us if we were not surrounded by those who love us, make excuses for us, and put up with us. Strangers would not submit to it and we should not think of asking them to do so. It is a subtle danger, that creeps on us so stealthily that often we are not aware of its approach. It may come at first from some disordered physical state. The happy, healthy child does not whine, the ailing child usually does; too often this is the beginning of an irritability that pursues its victim through life.

We Americans are a nervous, excitable people, partly, perhaps, because of climatic conditions. A stimulating climate fosters a tendency to disorders of the nervous system. We should, therefore, be on our guard against this type of sin that doth so easily beset us. Our physical condition is usually more within our control than we are willing to admit. The girl who keeps late hours, takes little exercise, and eats injudiciously is morally responsible for her irritable condition, for the remedy is in her own hands. Can you not remember some time when you retired at night feeling ill-used and unappreciated, filled with the thought that life was full of trials and crosses and that your lot was particularly unhappy—only to wake up the next morning in a glorious world where your condition in life seemed a very fortunate one? It is not necessary to adduce arguments to prove that one of your first duties is to keep yourself every day and every hour of your life in the best possible physical condition. You can conquer only by making it a matter of conscience. Alternating work and rest, sufficient recreation and amusement, and always some change after prolonged labor are necessary to keep one in good physical condition. As a result, you find yourself in possession of a serenity and a self-control which forbid irritability.

Have you a quick, hot temper? You cannot live amicably with others until you have learned to control it. A display of temper is the flash of lightning, the burst of flame. It is all over in an instant, yet, in a fit of temper what may one not say or do? He is “beside himself,” we say—that is, he is no longer himself, but some one else outside of himself. Have you ever, in a burst of temper, wounded those you love best in all the world? Have you said or done things that you feared had lost you the respect of some one whose good opinion was of priceless value to you? Have you given utterance to words that you would give years of your life to recall? If so, worse, almost, than anything else, is the fact that you have lost your own self-respect. What is more undignified, more ridiculous than one who has lost control of himself and is saying and doing things to-day of which he will bitterly repent to-morrow? Remember that nothing can more easily cost you the respect of others than a display of temper. Thereafter you are marked as one who lacks balance, dignity, power.

But wishing cannot bring them back, as we all know to our cost. The only thing to do is to learn our lesson and in the future to keep the mastery of self. “He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.”

If you have a quick temper, do not bemoan the fact, but be thankful. It probably means that you have spirit, enthusiasm, power to do things, the achieving will. Do not ask to change places with the sluggish person who lacks the capacity to feel keenly and to dare greatly. Rather, learn to control your temper instead of letting it control you. We do not admire a person who cannot get angry.

In reading the biography of a great man recently, I found these words: “He had the power of a great wrath.” Is it not true that all people who have accomplished large things have had this power? George Washington was seldom angry, yet, when his righteous indignation was roused, it was like a consuming fire. We all remember the story of Abraham Lincoln, who, when only a young man, seeing some slaves auctioned off in the New Orleans slave market, declared, “If I ever get a chance to hit that thing I will hit it hard!” And he did hit it hard. St. Paul says, “Be ye angry and sin not.” Christ himself more than once showed the power of a great indignation, as witness the occasion when he drove the money-changers out of the temple with a whip of cords. There are wrongs being done that should cause your blood to boil with indignation, and you will be not less but more capable of feeling and expressing your wrath at wrong-doing if you control yourself when small things cross you.

The acquirement of self-control is not so difficult as it seems. All you need to do is to make it a habit. If you only knew it, some of the calmest, serenest, most self-controlled persons of your acquaintance were once conspicuous for a high temper. “What man has done man can do.”

Self-will is a fault which spoils many friendships and is an element of discord in many families. It is a determination to have one’s own way. If one is persistent and disagreeable enough about it, one always succeeds in getting it, for others will not think the matter of sufficient importance continually to oppose. When we have this quality in youth, by middle age people are saying of us, “He is set in his ways, he is domineering, autocratic.” This tendency often shows itself in a determination to have the last word. Who has not at some time been in a family where heated discussions were continually arising out of some trifle? One says the thing in question happened Monday and another insists it was Thursday, until finally every one has forgotten what was the real subject of discussion. In the intercourse between you and your friend, is there one whose will prevails in every case of disagreement? Then beware. That way lies danger for both. In your family is there one who determines every plan and settles every course of action? Some one is in danger of becoming a despot.

If we would be good to live with we must not be too exacting. We all have the “defects of our qualities,” and this fault is one that often characterizes the person of very high ideals. We ought to be dissatisfied with ourselves. A passion for perfection should forever forbid any self-complacency. We ought also to demand the best of others so far as we may. But how far have we a right to hold them to the same standards as ourselves? We do not know the springs of action in their lives, “the moving why they do it.” Do not give your friends the uncomfortable feeling that you are continually disappointed in them. Good sense, sympathy, and tact are necessary if we would act the rÔle of mentor to those about us.

The intolerant person is hard to live with. By intolerance I mean the inability to get another person’s point of view. We are prone to demand that others look through our own glasses; we think that any other point of view than ours is wrong. Young people are said to be, on the whole, intolerant. The tolerant spirit we often acquire as we grow older. If you are serious-minded, do not think all lively people frivolous. If you are gay, remember that not all serious persons are stupid. When you respect others, respect their opinions and try to see the reason for them. We need more of that kind of trust in each other. Not all the good people are in your church nor are all the honest men in your father’s political party.

Discourtesy is one of the enemies of friendly intercourse. By this I mean all that is not gentle, kindly, and refined. Rudeness kills affection almost as readily as does unfaithfulness. We should not neglect with our nearest and dearest those refinements and amenities which we instinctively practice with strangers, and which oil the machinery of life and make it run smoothly. Do you say, “But I must be myself in my own home. I must speak as I please and act as I feel”? Not if to be yourself is to act the churl; not if it is to blurt out every unkind thought that may come to your mind. Home is the place for dressing-gown and slippers, not for boorishness. It is a great thing to be able to win friends, but greater to be able to keep them.

Finally, no selfish person is good to live with. Selfishness in one form or another is at the root of most of the evil in the world. It is an insidious foe, and there are none of us whom it does not attack. It is in the home that habits of unselfishness must be developed or they are likely never to be developed at all. In the home there is an opportunity to practice unselfishness every day and every hour. Nowhere else are there so many opportunities to be watchful of the needs of others and to be ready to supply them. Nowhere else are the occasions so manifold in which one may surrender one’s own pleasure for the good of others. Yet, wherever people live together, there is constant opportunity for the practice of this virtue.

These are some of the little foxes that spoil the vines. There have been people who have been exacting, fault-finding, irritable, self-willed, and discourteous, who yet have lived honest lives and have accomplished something of good in the world. Yet the good accomplished would have been far greater and their lives would have been much happier if, to the more fundamental virtues, there had been added the fine flowering of character which comes with the addition of those particular qualities which make one comfortable to live with, a pleasant person to have about.