Chapter 50: The Glory of Having Good Friends

The Words: W. B. Yeats, 1937

In 1937, when he was past seventy, W. B. Yeats wrote a poem called "The Municipal Gallery Revisited". In it, he walks through a gallery of paintings and finds himself among portraits of people he had known, many of them friends who had already died. He is so moved that he has to sit down. At the end of the poem, he asks the reader, to put it in my own words, to think about where a person's glory truly begins and ends. His answer is in one plain line: "And say my glory was I had such friends." After a long and famous life, this is what he chose to be proud of.

The Life Behind the Words

Yeats was born in 1865 and died in 1939. He wrote in English and became one of the great poets of his century. He also wrote plays and helped to found a theatre, where new plays by writers of his land were performed. In 1923 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. His poems changed greatly over the years, from the dreamy songs of his youth to the strong, plain voice of his old age. "The Municipal Gallery Revisited" belongs to those last years, when he was looking back over his life.

Among the portraits in the gallery were faces of the people who had shared his work. One was Augusta Gregory, a writer who worked beside him for many years on the theatre, and in whose house he often stayed and wrote. Another was John Synge, a playwright whose work Yeats had greatly admired. By 1937, both had been dead for years. Standing among their pictures, Yeats did not think first of his own prizes or books. He thought of the people who had walked beside him, and he felt that they had been the best part of his life.

What the Words Ask of Us

The poem asks us to look again at what we call success. We often measure a life by what a person has made, won or owned. Yeats, who had made and won a great deal, says that the true glory was the company he kept: the friends who argued with him, worked with him and believed in him. This is a very hopeful idea, because friendship is not only for the famous. Anyone, in any life, can be rich in friends. And a good friend makes us better than we would be alone.

Think of Beatrice, who is sixty-eight and is looking through an old box of photographs. There are pictures from school, from her first job, from holidays with neighbours, from a choir she sang in for twenty years. She is not famous, and she has no prizes on her walls. But as she turns the pictures over, she feels a deep, warm pride. These faces are the story of her life. She telephones one old friend from the choir that evening, and they talk for an hour. Beatrice understands Yeats's line very well.

Similar Words From Around the World

Cicero, who wrote in Latin, praised friendship two thousand years earlier. In On Friendship, section 22, he says that friendship makes good fortune brighter and makes bad fortune lighter by dividing and sharing it. Yeats remembers his friends at the end of life; Cicero explains what they did for him along the way. In good years, they shared his joy and made it greater. In hard years, they carried part of the weight. No wonder Yeats called them his glory.

Samuel Johnson, a writer in English of the 1700s, adds practical advice. As James Boswell records in his Life of Johnson, under the year 1755, Johnson said that a person should keep his friendships in constant repair and make new friends as he goes through life. Yeats looked at the portraits of friends he had lost. Johnson reminds us that friendships need care while we have them, and that it is never too late to make new ones. A friendship, like a house, lasts longer when we look after it.

Living It Today

This message is for every age. A young person starting out can remember that the people they meet now may become the faces they treasure at seventy. Someone in the busy middle of life, with work and family, can make a little room for old friends, even with a short message. An older reader may feel the loss of friends who have died, as Yeats did, and also the joy of having known them. Remembering them with gratitude is a way of keeping their company.

This week, do one thing to keep a friendship in good repair. Write to someone you have not spoken to for a long time, thank a friend for something they did years ago, or invite a newer acquaintance for tea. If you are thinking of a friend who has died, tell someone a story about them. In the end, as Yeats found among the paintings, the people we have loved and who have loved us are a glory no one can take away.

Chapter 51: Keeping Faith in Humanity

The Words: Rabindranath Tagore, 1941

In April 1941, as his eightieth birthday came near, Rabindranath Tagore wrote an address called "Crisis in Civilization". He wrote it in Bengali, and an English version was also published. In it, he looked back on his long life and on a world that was once again at war. He spoke honestly of his sorrow and of hopes that had not come true. Yet near the end, he said something that has comforted many readers since. In my own words: to lose faith in humanity would be a sin, and he would not commit that sin. He would keep his faith in people to the end.

The Life Behind the Words

Tagore was born in 1861 in South Asia. He was a poet, a writer of stories, novels and plays, and a composer of more than two thousand songs, many of which are still sung every day. In his sixties he began to paint, and he left behind a large body of pictures. In 1913 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He also founded a school where children often learned outdoors, under the trees, because he believed that learning should be joyful and close to nature.

Tagore travelled widely and met people of many lands, and he hoped all his life that the peoples of the world would learn from one another. By 1941 he had lived through one world war and was living through another, and he had seen much cruelty. An old man looking at such a world might easily have become bitter. Tagore chose another way. He was honest about the darkness, but he refused to let it decide what he believed about people. A few months after writing the address, in the same year, he died.

What the Words Ask of Us

Tagore's words do not ask us to pretend that people are always good. He saw clearly what people can do to one another. What he asks is that we do not give up on humanity because of its worst moments. He calls losing this faith a sin, which shows how seriously he took it. For him, faith in people was not a feeling that comes and goes with the news. It was a choice and a duty, something to protect, like a light in a strong wind.

Think of Paolo, who is forty-five and has grown tired of hearing bad news every day. One evening, he decides to count the good things he sees instead. A stranger helps an old man with his shopping bags. A teenager gives up her seat on the bus. A colleague stays late to help a friend finish a task. None of these things are reported anywhere. But Paolo realises that the world is full of them. His faith in people was never really gone. He had only stopped looking for the evidence.

Similar Words From Around the World

Confucius, in the Analects, 4.17, gives a calm way to live with both good and bad in people. In my own words: when you see a good person, think of becoming like them; when you see a bad person, look inside yourself. This fits Tagore's faith well. Faith in humanity does not mean ignoring wrongdoing. It means letting good people inspire us and letting bad deeds become a mirror for our own hearts, rather than a reason for despair. Both men keep their eyes open and their hearts turned towards the good.

Emily Dickinson, writing in English in the early 1860s, around the time Tagore was born, described hope in a famous short poem. "Hope" is the thing with feathers, she wrote, a bird that perches in the soul, sings its tune without words and never stops at all. Tagore's faith in humanity is like that bird. It went on singing in his heart even in a year of war, when he was old and ill. Dickinson tells us what hope is like. Tagore shows us a person who kept it singing until the last.

Living It Today

This message speaks to anyone who feels discouraged about the world. A young person who sees cruelty online can also seek out stories of kindness, which are just as real. A teacher or parent can help children notice good deeds, so that they grow up with faith in others. An older reader, who has seen both the worst and the best of people over many years, can share stories of goodness with younger people. Like Tagore at eighty, those who have lived long can be keepers of this faith.

This week, keep a small record of the good you see in people. Each evening, write down one kind or honest act you noticed, however small. At the end of the week, read the list. You may be surprised at how long it is. Tagore wrote his words in a dark year, and they are still a light. Your own small list can be a light too, reminding you that faith in people is not foolish. It is one of the bravest and most hopeful choices a person can make.