I was sorting through cards the other day when I came upon this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: “Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.”
Memory being what it is, I’m sure I’ll get details wrong in this remembrance, but the gist is the same. I thought of the Ralph I know and that being kind to someone brings you a warm feeling.
Years ago, our sailboat partners from New York were staying on the boat on Grand Lake. In a nearby slip, an older man and a crew of loafers at the dock were raising the tall mast. Ralph, who was a respectable sailing hand and owned a boat on Lake Erie, offered to help.
Stepping the mast is a major undertaking, and it takes skill and synchronized movements that normally include lots of shouted directions from everyone involved.
“No, over an inch.”
“Left! My left, not yours.”
“It’s leaning, it’s leaning!
“Grab that line!”
“Come my way a little. No, no, too much.”
In all the yelling and motion and confusion, somehow a toolbox fell into the lake. The owner, a crusty old fellow, was devastated. It was his father’s toolbox, and he had cherished it. His late father’s hands had wielded those very tools.
The man was inconsolable.
But Ralph managed it. He quietly hired a diver to go down and retrieve the toolbox from the bottom of the lake. Water had not had time to harm the tools, and man and tools were reunited with heartfelt gratitude and, I suspect, some moist eyes.
I heard this story third-hand. Ralph never told me about it. It seems good-deed doers don’t brag about their good deeds. Every time I think about it, it makes me believe in the goodness of people. And I think Ralph must have spilled some of that happiness perfume on himself when he poured it on that old man. Even third-hand, I felt a couple drops.
