Are not the words of Abraham Lincoln beautiful which he spoke out of the
tragedy of a terrible civil war: “With malice toward none, with charity
for all, … let us … bind up the … wounds.” -In John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1968, p. 640.
To err is human, to forgive divine. -Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 2:1711.
Guy
de Maupassant, the French writer, tells the story of a peasant named
Hauchecome who came on market day to the village. While walking through
the public square, his eye caught sight of a piece of string lying on
the cobblestones. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. His actions
were observed by the village harness maker, with whom he had previously
had a dispute. Later
in the day the loss of a purse was reported. Hauchecome was arrested on
the accusation of the harness maker. He was taken before the mayor, to
whom he protested his innocence, showing the piece of string that he had
picked up. But he was not believed and was laughed at. The
next day the purse was found, and Hauchecome was absolved of any
wrongdoing. But, resentful of the indignity he had suffered because of a
false accusation, he became embittered and would not let the matter
die. Unwilling to forgive and forget, he thought and talked of little
else. He neglected his farm. Everywhere he went, everyone he met had to
be told of the injustice. By day and by night he brooded over it.
Obsessed with his grievance, he became desperately ill and died. In the
delirium of his death struggles, he repeatedly murmured, “A piece of
string, a piece of string.” -(The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Roslyn, New York: Black’s Reader Service, n.d., pp. 34–38.) -Shared by Gordon B. Hinckley, Of You It Is Required to Forgive, June 1991
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