Is our neighbour the person who is near us?

Here is a story by Tolstoy

It once occurred to a certain king, that if he always knew the right time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what was the most important thing to do, he would never fail in anything he might undertake.
And this thought having occurred to him, he had it proclaimed throughout his kingdom that he would give a great reward to any one who would teach him what was the right time for every action, and who were the most necessary people, and how he might know what was the most important thing to do.

“Do you not see,” replied the hermit. “If you had not pitied my weakness yesterday, and had not dug those beds for me, but had gone your way, that man would have attacked you, and you would have repented of not having stayed with me. So the most important time was when you were digging the beds; and I was the most important man; and to do me good was your most important business. Afterwards when that man ran to us, the most important time was when you were attending to him, for if you had not bound up his wounds he would have died without having made peace with you. So he was the most important man, and what you did for him was your most important business. Remember then: there is only one time that is important— Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one else: and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!”

Leo Tolstoy, ‘Three Questions’

On the whole, I tend to agree with Tolstoy, that the people next to us are the most important – the ones whom we betray if we do not help them when they need us to (ironically, of course, Tolstoy abandoned his family at the end of his life). Weh Socrates was offered the choice of exile or death, he chose to die, despite the distress of his wife and children. In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian abandons his protesting wife and children to complete his quest for salvation. I have always been rather repelled by both Socrates and Christian, but I admire the character Mordecai in George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda. Mordecai is about to take ship for Palestine when he hears that his father has abducted his sister. He stays to help his mother, and dies of tuberculosis as a result.


Similarly, in Bleak House, Dickens criticizes Mrs Jellyby for her ‘Telescopic Philanthropy’ towards missions in Africa:

Mrs. Jellyby’s younger children are falling down the stairs, there is no dinner and no fire, the house is filthy and her eldest daughter is overworked, neglected and uneducated, yet Mrs Jellyby’s ‘handsome eyes… had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if… they could see nothing nearer than Africa!’