Yet that is precisely what Gilbert and Sullivan did. Theyknew how to create gay words and gay music， but they knewdistressingly little about how to create gaiety in their own lives.
They created some of the loveliest light operas that ever delightedthe world： Patience， Pinafore， The Mikado. But they couldn’tcontrol their tempers. They embittered their years over nothingmore than the price of a carpet！ Sullivan ordered a new carpet forthe theatre they had bought. When Gilbert saw the bill， he hit theroof. They battled it out in court， and never spoke to one anotheragain as long as they lived. When Sullivan wrote the music for anew production， he mailed it to Gilbert； and when Gilbert wrotethe words， he mailed it back to Sullivan. Once they had to takea curtain call together， but they stood on opposite sides of thestage and bowed in different directions， so they wouldn’t see oneanother. They hadn’t the sense to put a stop-loss order on theirresentments， as Lincoln did.
Once， during the Civil War， when some of Lincoln’s friendswere denouncing his bitter enemies， Lincoln said： “You have more of a feeling of personal resentment than I have. PerhapsI have too little of it； but I never thought it paid. A man doesn’thave the time to spend half his life in quarrels. If any man ceasesto attack me， I never remember the past against him.”
I wish an old aunt of mine—Aunt Edith—had had Lincoln’sforgiving spirit. She and Uncle Frank lived on a mortgaged farmthat was infested with cockleburs and cursed with poor soil andditches. They had tough going—had to squeeze every nickel.
But Aunt Edith loved to buy a few curtains and other items tobrighten up their bare home. She bought these small luxuries oncredit at Dan Eversole’s drygoods store in Maryville， Missouri.
Uncle Frank worried about their debts. He had a farmer’s horrorof running up bills， so he secretly told Dan Eversole to stop lettinghis wife buy on credit. When she heard that， she hit the roof-andshe was still hitting the roof about it almost fifty years after it hadhappened. I have heard her tell the story—not once， but manytimes. The last time I ever saw her， she was in her late seventies. Isaid to her； “Aunt Edith， Uncle Frank did wrong to humiliate you；but don’t you honestly feel that your complaining about it almosthalf a century after it happened is infinitely worse than what hedid？”
Aunt Edith paid dearly for the grudge and bitter memories thatshe nourished. She paid for them with her own peace of mind.
When Benjamin Franklin was seven years old， he made amistake that he remembered for seventy years. When he wasa lad of seven， he fell in love with a whistle. He was so excitedabout it that he went into the toyshop， piled all his coppers on thecounter， and demanded the whistle without even asking its price.
“I then came home，” he wrote to a friend seventy years later， “andwent whistling all over the house， much pleased with my whistle.”
But when his older brothers and sisters found out that he had256 ·
paid far more for his whistle than he should have paid， they gavehim the horse laugh； and， as he said： “I cried with vexation.”
Years later， when Franklin was a world-famous figure， andAmbassador to France， he still remembered that the fact that hehad paid too much for his whistle had caused him “more chagrinthan the whistle gave him pleasure.”