What is necessary before one can read another's secret? It is not mere curiosity,—we know that shuts up the nature which it tries to read. It is not awkward goodwill; that, too, crushes the flower which it tries to examine.
A man comes with impertinent curiosity and looks into your window, and you shut it in his face indignantly. A friend comes strolling by and gazes in with easy carelessness, not making much of what you may be doing, not thinking it of much importance, and before him you cover up instinctively the work which was serious to you and make believe you were playing games.
When men try to get hold of the secret of your life, no friendship, no kindliness, can make you show it to them unless they evidently really feel as you feel that it is a serious and a sacred thing. There must be something like reverence or awe about the way that they approach you. (Sermons of Phillips Brooks.)
The task even of approximating a knowledge of other people would be impossible were it not for the fundamental need which every human being has for self-revelation. If this is true when the course of life is clear and undisturbed, it is most assuredly true when a man is in difficulty. Then reticence requires an almost conscious effort and confession is often a necessity. There are times when the urge to unburden one's self will not be denied and one is compelled to speak.
The experience that befell a social worker while on a train returning from the seashore is by
