The Lost Art of Gratitude

The contours …

No. That was not going to work. He muttered the words again, with Isabel listening; she loved these impromptu songs Jamie seemed to be able to summon up from somewhere within him, so effortlessly.Through lover’s eyes,

Through lover’s ears,

I see and hold

The wondrous world

My lover sees, my lover hears.

“That’s beautiful,” she said. “And the tune?”

He hummed it first, without its words, and then sang it, softly, as they turned the corner into their road. Further down the pavement, a woman they both knew slightly, a neighbour from a few streets away, was walking her dog, a brindle greyhound. The dog looked up sharply, sniffing at the air, and Isabel knew at once that with its sharp hearing it had picked up Jamie’s song.

Jamie stopped. “I need to work on it a bit,” he said. “The trouble about writing songs is this: Who’s going to sing them?”

“You and I,” said Isabel. “And little Charlie when he’s a bit bigger. He’ll love that song about olives.”

“He’ll have forgotten about olives by then. He’ll want songs about trains and bears and so on,” said Jamie.

“You can write those too.”

Jamie smiled. “He likes music. I sang him ‘Dance to your Daddy’ the other night, and he cooed with pleasure. I need to sing him ‘The Train to Glasgow’ some day, if I can find the words. All about a fortunate boy getting the train to Glasgow.”

“Children like simple tales,” said Isabel.

“And we don’t?”

Isabel thought about this. It was just too easy to say that adults did not like stories that were simple, and perhaps that was wrong. Perhaps that was what adults really wanted, searched for and rarely found: a simple story in which good triumphs against cynicism and despair. That was what she wanted, but she was aware of the fact that one did not publicise the fact too widely, certainly not in sophisticated circles. Such circles wanted complexity, dysfunction and irony: there was no room for joy, celebration or pathos. But where was the fun in that?

She answered his question. “We probably do. We want resolution and an ending that shows us that the world is a just place. We’ve always wanted that. We want human flourishing, as Philippa Foot would put it.”

“One of your philosophers?”

“Yes, Professor Philippa Foot. She wrote a book called Natural Goodness. I would offer to show it to you had I not just agreed not to burden you with philosophy.”

“I like the sound of her,” said Jamie. “Professor Foot. Is she naturally good?”

“I think she is,” said Isabel. “Though usually people who are naturally good have to work at it. The goodness may be there, but they have to cultivate it, work to bring it out.” She paused. “She’s the granddaughter of an American president, Grover Cleveland. One does not necessarily expect an Oxford philosopher to be the granddaughter of anybody like that.”

Jamie was lost in thought. “If you’re not naturally good—let’s say that your inclinations are, in fact, distinctly on the bad side, then can you become naturally good? Or will it just be superficial?”

They were almost at the gate. “I think you can,” said Isabel. “Change your nature, that is. I suppose it depends on what sort of faults you’re talking about.”

“What if you only have one?” asked Jamie.

“That would be a rather short list,” said Isabel. “Have you only got one fault? Most of us have rather more.” She frowned. “I have, for example …”

Jamie cut her off. “None.”

“Oh, I do.” She wondered whether he truly thought that.

Jamie pushed the gate open. “Is this really the sort of thing you spend your time thinking about?” He smiled at her as he ushered her through.

“I am a moral philosopher,” said Isabel.

Jamie was still thinking about faults. “What are the really difficult ones?”

“Addictions,” said Isabel. “Faults that aren’t necessarily people’s fault.”

Jamie stopped. “Drinking too much? Alcoholism?”

“Yes,” said Isabel. “I don’t think that people choose to be alcoholics, or heroin addicts for that matter. And if they don’t choose, then how can it be their fault?” We are responsible, she explained, only for those things that we choose; everything else happened to us—we did not do it.

Jamie objected. “Maybe they should have shown more self-control to begin with?”

“But if they don’t have that capacity for self-control?” Isabel said. “If they’re weak? You don’t choose your character, you know.”

“Don’t you?”

They resumed their walk down the path. Jamie reached for his key. “What if you know that you have to practise certain things? As musicians have to? We aren’t born being able to play the piano.”