The Moral Vision Broken Pledges
necklace out of his safe and send it to a jeweller to have it valued, so that he could sell it. To his consternation he was told that it was made of brass. Although the doctor was shocked momentarily, it did not take him long to recover. He said that he had lost his money but that he would not lose his composure. He chose to forget all about this sad incident, and simply took the chain out of his safe and put it in a common almirah, along with other articles made of brass. This attitude adopted by the doctor is the best solution to many problems that arise from our contacts with other people. Whenever our hopes and trusts have been betrayed, we feel that we have genuine grounds for feeling aggrieved. When a supposed man of principle proves a scoundrel, a well-wisher turns out an enemy and a reasonable person shows himself to be quite the reverse, we feel really let down. On such occasions, the best policy is to bring those who have disappointed us down from the high pedestals that we had them on, and put them back among the commonplace. What had formerly been
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