The first is the attitude of
unconscious hypocrisy; the second is that of selfish indifference.
It is in letting alone, with a loving readiness to help, that we
find strength and peace for ourselves in our relations with others.
All great laws are illustrated most clearly in their simplest forms,
and there is no better way to get a sense of really free and
wholesome relations with others than from the relations of a mother
with her baby. Even healthy reciprocity is there, in all the fulness
of its best beginnings, and the results of wholesome, rational,
maternal care are evident to the delighted observer in the joyous
freedom with which the baby mind develops according to the laws of
its own life.
Heidi is a baby not yet a year old, and is left alone a large part
of the day. Having no amusements imposed upon her, she has formed
the habit of entertaining herself in her own way; she greets you
with the most fascinating little gurgles, and laughs up at you when
you stop and speak to her as if to say, "How do you do? I am having
a _very_ happy time!" Five minutes' smiling and being smiled at by
her gives a friend who stops to talk "a _very_ happy time" too. If
you take her up for a little while, she stays quietly and looks at
you, then at the trees .
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