“Really?” said Pauline good-humouredly.
“Almsgiving,” went on Monsieur Bergeret, “is no more to be compared to beneficence than a monkey’s grimace to the smile of the Joconda. Beneficence is as ingenious as almsgiving is inept. It is vigilant, and proportions its efforts to the need. That is precisely what I did not do with regard to brother Hobbler. The very name of beneficence evoked the most beautiful ideas in the sensitive minds of the century of the philosophers. It used to be believed that the name was first created by the good Abbé de Saint-Pierre, but it is older still, and can be found in the old Balzac. In the sixteenth century men said bénéficence, not bienfaisance, but it is the same word. I must admit that I do not find its pristine beauty in the word bienfaisance; for me it has been spoiled by the Pharisees who have made too free a use of it. We have many charitable institutions in our country, pawn-shops, provident societies, mutual aid and insurance societies. Some of these are useful and do good service. But their common defect is that they proceed to aggravate the very social iniquity which they are intended to correct; they are poisonous remedies. Universal beneficence would have every one living by his own labours and not on the labours of others. Everything but fair exchange and solidarity is vile and shameful and unfruitful. Human charity is the co-operation of all in the production and division of the fruits of labour.
“Charity is justice; it is love, and the poor are more skilled in it than the rich. What rich man has ever practised human charity as fully as Epictetus or Benoît Malon? True charity is the gift of each man’s work to all; it is a beautiful kindness; it is the harmonious gesture of the soul which bows itself like a vase of precious ointment, pouring forth its benefits. It is Michael Angelo painting the Sistine Chapel, or the deputies in the National Assembly on the night of the 4th of August. It is giving, in all its happy completeness; it is money poured forth together with love and thought. We have nothing that belongs to us alone but ourselves; we truly give only when we give our work, our minds, our genius. And this splendid offering of one’s whole self to all men enriches the giver as much as the community.”
“But,” objected Pauline, “you could not give love and beauty to Hobbler, so you gave him what was most convenient to him.”
“It is true that Hobbler has become a mere animal. Of all the good things that gratify man, he cares only for alcohol. I conclude as much from the fact that as he came towards me he reeked of brandy. But, such as he is, he is our work. Our pride fathered and our sin mothered him; he is the evil fruit of our vices. Every man in the world should both give and receive. He has not given enough, doubtless because he has not received enough.”
“He may be lazy,” said Pauline. “Mon Dieu, how can we do away with poverty and weakness and idleness! Don’t you believe that men are naturally good and that it is society that makes them wicked?”
“No, I don’t believe that men are naturally good,” replied Monsieur Bergeret. “What I see is that they are emerging painfully and very slowly from their primitive barbarism, and that with great effort they are organizing a justice that is uncertain and a charity that is precarious. The time is yet far distant when they will be kind and gentle to one another. The time is yet far distant when they will not war upon one another, and when pictures representing battle scenes will be hidden away as affording an immoral and shameful spectacle. I believe that the reign of violence will last a long time yet, that for many years to come the nations will rend one another asunder for trivial reasons; that for many years to come the people of the same country will desperately snatch from one another the common necessaries of life, instead of equitably dividing them. But I also believe that men are least ferocious when they are least wretched, that in the long run the progress of industry will produce a certain softening of manners. A botanist has assured me that if a hawthorn be transplanted from a stony to a fruitful soil its thorns will change into flowers.”
“There you are! You are an optimist, papa; I knew you were!” cried Pauline, stopping short for a moment in the middle of the pavement to gaze at her father with her dawn-grey eyes, full of gentle radiance and morning coolness. “You are an optimist. You are working with a cheerful heart to build the house of the future. That is good! It is a fine thing to build the New Republic with men of good will.”
Monsieur Bergeret smiled at the hopeful words and youthful eyes.
“Yes,” he said, “it would be fine to lay the foundations for the new society, where each man would receive the just price of his labour.”