Only Man is vile

The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interr’d with their bones…

(Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)

There were these parents of an ex-student who had come over for a chat, and they happily and gratefully recalled the time they spent when their daughter was a pupil here. I do not like to boast, but it made me feel good to see how well they remembered all the ‘special’ favours that the girl and her friends had been treated to as a matter of course – things that were special only because they had neither expected nor got the same treatment at any other tutor’s: a large, well-lit and airy room to study in rather than a dingy garage, a clean toilet always available, filtered water to drink, medicines whenever someone felt ill, our own clothes for them to change into when they came in from the rain dripping wet, the meals upstairs when some child was hungry, the assurance that the kids were safe indoors with us when a parent couldn’t help being late in picking them up, the punctuality which made things hugely convenient for them and their parents alike, the stories they heard, the games they played, the movies they watched, the quizzes they enjoyed, the countless jokes they laughed over, the meticulous correction and commentary on homework, the habit of disciplined regular work well within deadlines, which, if picked up here, helped them to do better in all subjects, the books they borrowed to read, the new vistas opened up of so many things they had never even heard before, things which came in tremendously useful later in life, whether they were taking a vocabulary test or participating in a group discussion or an impromptu writing contest, even at university level or while entering working life…

I told them that the real wonder was not that I did all this, but that they remembered still, long after my immediate utility was exhausted, and had even bothered to come over to thank me for it. I am not ungrateful to Providence: certainly for years and years lots of ex-students and parents have spoken well of me; nothing else can explain why such big numbers come over unfailingly to enroll with me at the start of session after session, despite all my failings, all the outbursts of temper, all the scathing remarks, all the worst that the scandal-mongers have spread. What makes me wonder is that so few people thank me directly for what they have got from me (even over the phone or the internet), and also that there is a sizeable number of people who, after having enjoyed and benefitted from everything good that I did for them, have decided, once they found out that I had maybe one fault or two, that I was an entirely forgettable person, or not a nice man to know. And this is not peculiar to someone like me: titans all through history have faced the same weird treatment from the people. One fault or shortcoming discovered (you know, Gandhi had sexual urges for women other than his wife!!!), and all the great and good about them is instantly forgotten. Talk about selective memory. Which is why I tell everybody that to praise someone is infinitely harder than to abuse. Anybody can speak ill of you, however noble you might be, and however petty and despicable a character he might have himself. It is hard to live long and not become a misanthrope. I think it was in this frame of mind that the poet wrote of a beautiful natural landscape ‘where every prospect pleases/ and only Man is vile’!