'Willingness to Hear'

“When, in the course of a day, a man has read a newspaper, written a letter, and not wronged anyone, that is more than enough.”

 

Such modesty is often mocked as timidity or lack of ambition. It’s the rationalization of laziness or even cowardice, we’re told. As Americans, it’s our patriotic obligation to lead the “strenuous life.” I have my doubts. A Rooseveltian life – busting trusts and hunting elephants – no doubt has its rewards but not for all of us. In fact, many of the problems we read about in newspapers are caused by people being strenuous.

 

The passage above, written by Jules Renard in his journal on this date, November 15, in 1900, is not strictly autobiographical. Renard had a family and worked hard at writing. The individual he describes reminds me of Clyde Johnson, a man I knew in Richmond, Ind., when I worked for that city’s newspaper (1983-85). Clyde was a Quaker, the first of his faith I got to know fairly well. Clyde was hospitable. His house near Earlham College was always open, whether to junkies, operas buffs or newspaper reporters exiled to Indiana. Clyde was quiet. You knew that when he spoke, it was something thoughtful, deeply considered and utterly true. I don’t recall him ever getting angry, complaining or giving someone an order. He gave the impression of being quietly fearless.

 

Dr. Johnson in one of his Rambler essays describes Clyde Johnson as I knew him:

 

“The modest man is a companion of a yet lower rank, whose only power of giving pleasure is not to interrupt it. The modest man satisfies himself with peaceful silence, which all his companions are candid enough to consider as proceeding not from inability to speak, but willingness to hear.”

 

[The quoted passage at the top is drawn from Renard’s Journal 1887-1910 (trans. Theo Cuffe, selected and introduced by Julian Barnes, riverrun, 2020).]