The Random Thoughts of Henry Holloway
Some years ago I saw a play called, ‘Eliza Comes to Stay’. The family was expecting Eliza to be a fair-haired, blue eyed child but she turned out to be a young woman, dressed deliberately to keep her safe from the dangers of sex. She was in love with the hero of the play.
As the play proceeded the efforts of all parties were concentrated on getting her out of the way to save an embarrassing situation. In one scene, the otherwise quiet atmosphere was suddenly split by a flash of temper when Eliza said: ‘I have been trying to be peaceful and agreeable - but there’s a lot going on inside me that nobody knows anything about.’ And how right she was!
I take it that Eliza spoke for us all. What a lot goes on inside us that nobody knows anything about. There are times when we don’t see much in ourselves. Some times we do not see much in one another. We are never allowed to forget our failings, especially if we are married, and the theologians have never allowed us to forget that we were all shapen in iniquity.
There is a biography of Madeline Carroll, the film star. She was regarded by Hollywood as the finest example of a lady since Jane Austen. During the Second World War she was known to thousands of American soldiers as ‘The Face’. Film directors referred to her as ‘The Iceberg’. But some 200 war orphans whom she housed and cared for in her home in France, spoke of her as ‘The Angel’.
We all appear in different lights, to ourselves and to our friends. It was Oliver Wendell Holmes who started the hare about the three men, the man you really are, the man you want to be and the man other people think you are. Young John, who was sitting at the table, grabbed the last three peaches in the dish, remarking that there was just one for each of him. Humour apart, we are a curious mixture at times.
The poet Tennyson once said, ‘If there be a devil in a man, there is an angel too’.
The really big problem in life, as I see it, is to give the ‘angel’ a chance to get through. Arthur Cotton has a story called ‘Mr. Smedley’s Guest’. Sitting one night by his fireside a man falls asleep and dreams that he has a visitor. This visitor, strangely enough, does all the things he himself had once dreamed that he would do. He spends an enchanting evening with his guest. Then when the guest is about to leave, he asks, ‘Who are you anyway?’ The guest replies, ‘The man you might have been’.
It is a good thing to weigh up our possibilities, to be honest enough with ourselves to acknowledge the bad and, at the same time, to recognize the good. All seeds grow by culture; and what we have to do is to develop the good and get rid of the bad. The Bible puts it, ‘Overcome evil with good’ Most people find that they can’t handle this business alone. They share the problem with a friend. A friend who knew life and who shared in its gaiety as well as its sorrow.
When you are not really living at your best, you let yourself down, you let your friends down and, of course, you let down the greatest friend of all. He once said, in effect, ‘I’ll be there all the time, to help.’
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