Half a Soul

There is an apocryphal story about fishes on the beach that has stayed with me my entire life. I do not remember where I first heard it, but I have always been able to recall it to mind with absolute clarity. It goes like this:

A great number of fish had washed up on the beach; there, they flip-flopped, gasping for breath. A little girl had taken it upon herself to walk up and down the beach, however, picking up fishes and throwing them back into the ocean. A bystander marvelled at this, and headed out to talk with her.

“Why are you throwing these fish back into the ocean?” he asked the little girl. “It won’t even matter, in the end. There are so many of them! You cannot possibly hope to save them all!”

The little girl frowned at the bystander and held up the fish that she currently had in her hands. “It matters to this fish,” she told him. And then, she turned herself back down the beach and stubbornly continued throwing fish back into the ocean.

The story normally ends there—but I like to think that the bystander then joined the little girl, and that a great deal more fishes were saved as a result.

I have often found myself in despair at how nonsensically awful other human beings can be. As much as we like to believe that we are capable of learning from history, I’m afraid that we are very prone to repeating the exact same mistakes as a society, time and time again. But every time I am confronted with some inescapable proof of the lowness of human nature, I am also reminded that I have within me the power to improve my own nature. There are plenty of fish upon the beach who would be grateful for a bit of kindness—and if you take the time to rescue even one, then perhaps you may even convince a bystander to join you and rescue another.

I do not mean to say that we should ever stop trying to solve the big problems in the world. But—as Elias would say—sometimes, when you cannot force the world to come to its senses, you must settle only for wiping away some of the small evils in front of you.

Every fish you throw back into the ocean is a triumph of the idea that human beings can be better. I do my best, every day, to throw at least one fish back into the ocean. I hope that you will join me.

The ton soon began to murmur that married life quite agreed with the Lord Sorcier; for while Elias would never be well-mannered, he was certainly distinctly happier. There were times, of course, when dark things threatened and great evils endangered his rest—but if he sometimes came home to sit awake in the dark, Dora always insisted at least on being with him.

Life after marriage was much different than Dora might ever have imagined. In fact, it was much better in nearly every possible way—but she suspected that had much to do with her choice of husband. As a married woman, she was far more free to spend her time as she pleased; and since she was of a mind with Elias on most things, he was only too happy to let her roll up her sleeves to help both Mrs Dun and the new orphanage. Most women of the nobility had only a few children, Dora liked to say—but she had very many, and she loved them all the same. And though it was rare for Dora to feel any sense of breathless joy, she carried with her always a soft, contented glow, rather like the star upon her finger.