LOSING THE SELF TO VIRTUE
Easter brings thoughts to Charles Moore
about a good woman he knew well, and the reasons for her goodness
MOST people would like to be good. Iago is a rare character. Most of us try to do what is right. We have consciences, even if they are easily stilled. You may read less in the papers about being good than about being rich or being healthy, but that is because it is easier to write about wealth or health than about goodness, not because people are indifferent to it. The idea that one has done something truly and seriously wrong remains unbearable for most of us. We would give a great deal never to have to think this of ourselves.
But how to be good, that is the question, a question so hard to answer that many give up even trying. Possibly there is no general answer. But there are examples. There are people who are good. I have had the luck to know one good woman very well.
The life story of my aunt Hilary, who died just before Christmas, is quickly told. She was born in 1927 and was brought up in Sussex. She became a teacher, both at independent and state schools, and taught for several years in Uganda shortly before independence. Her last job was as a trainer of teachers in Ripon. She retired to Sus- sex, near her family and old friends. She never married, or held anything which could be called a public position.
Hilary's interests were those that might be expected from a woman of her age and class and marital status. She loved birds and flowers, and places that were quiet or holy. She was well-read in the sweeter and funnier parts of English literature. Her life centred upon her brothers and sister and their descendants, a few friends, the chil- dren she taught and the Church of Eng- land. If she differed from the stereotype of the Anglican spinster, it was that she was more liberal in politics and theology, but this would never have been very apparent since she was the least `viewy' of people. Hers was a very quiet life.
Her goodness was quiet as well. She was Martha to the Mary of her younger sister (also a very good woman) — more likely to slip away and do the washing-up than to lead the conversation after lunch, more likely to be the one who laughed at some- one else's joke (a wonderfully exclamatory 'Oh, how killing!') than to make the joke herself. And yet it was obvious even to a small child — perhaps particularly to a small child — that the goodness was there.
A great deal of 'being nice' to people is a sort of show, a way of trying to impress, even if genuinely well meant. With Hilary, there was literally none of this. Hers was an unconditional concern for the welfare of the other person: that was all she was thinking about. And so a child would tell her whatever was in his head in the atmo- sphere which is supposed to prevail in prayer, a state of perfect trust.
It was only by thinking about what most other people are like that one could piece together how remarkable Hilary was. She never used something you had said against you; she was never bored; she never quar- relled; she never lectured or disapproved; she never complained; she never showed Listen, forget the radiologist ... better make it an archaeologist.' off, never exploited the weak or ignored the afflicted, never asked for anything for her- self. And when I say never, the word is used accurately. For Hilary there were no days of backsliding or swings of mood (except, per- haps, occasional moments of gentle melan- choly), no times when her own worries came before those of others. Literally on her death-bed, weak and with very bad sight, she was writing to thank people who had sent her flowers, wondering how they were.
At her funeral, we read George Her- bert's poem 'Virtue', which ends,
Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber never gives; But though the whole world turns to coal, Then chiefly lives.
She was the strongest person I have known.
Hilary's secret, I think, was that she really had expelled self from her life. Some good people have subdued self, but the sense of its suppression remains, giving a feeling of tension. Hilary was 'at ease with herself' because her self was not there. Some of her loving feelings must have been disappoint- ed, one always guessed, by having no hus- band or children. She used to criticise a quality of 'daydreaming' in her own charac- ter which may have had something to do with this. But because she never counte- nanced the idea that there was a `me' with rights and needs which had to be satisfied, she accepted her fate. She may even have rejoiced in it, for her spinsterhood enabled her to give equally to all what parents must give chiefly to their children.
This absence of self did not produce an absence of character, although it tended to conceal those evidences of character which egotistical people strew prodigally about. You knew what would make Hilary laugh, what would make her pleased; her good- ness was not 'by the book', it had charm and grace. She had a flair for virtue, as some have a flair for music. Her unintru- siveness arose from her gift of sympathy, and sympathy provokes love. There is one further point. My aunt did not hit on the right way to live by accident. She did it through faith. Goodness is not confined to Christians, or even to the reli- gious, but Hilary's goodness was distinc- tively Christian. She loved God as her father and people as His children. That love ruled her life, prescribing all its duties and defining all its pleasures. It made her single-minded and simple-hearted. And the style in which she served God was the style of Anglican piety which has a unique place in the history of Christian living — temper- ate, courteous, respectful of beauty, undemonstrative but serious.
Now more than at any other time, I think of Hilary. She always organised an Easter egg hunt for her great-nephews and great- nieces, and it was an occasion charged with a peculiar sweetness. I think this was because she was celebrating the Resurrec- tion of Jesus and because she truly knew what it meant.
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