The oddest things happened, not the least of which I heard of yesterday, when one of the few K.C.’s whom it is my privilege to know showed me on his watch chain the shilling which had been given him, in his capacity as a porter at Victoria, by his butcher, all unconscious of his identity, as a tip for helping with the family luggage on their return from the South Coast. The K.C. said nothing at the time, except Thank you, but when things are a little quieter he is going to show it to his purveyor of indifferent Peace-time joints and enjoy a good laugh with him.
I have been wondering if alms-houses for the rich are not more important than for the poor. On all sides I hear of old widowed ladies who, needing homes, or companions, spend their time in visiting one married daughter or married son after another, when they would be far happier in a little colony like Hampton Court. Couldn’t you do something for them? But you would have to be very careful. If any suspicion of charity got about, the whole scheme would fail. So you could not put them together, even in the most exquisite little garden-village homes. They would have to be isolated. At what point in the social scale a necessitous old lady ceases to be willing to have her necessity known, I cannot say; but certainly those who suffer most from it would least like it published.
Old gentlemen don’t mind becoming Brothers of the Charterhouse, but what about their Sisters? I doubt it.
Only therefore by the exercise of great secrecy could you benefit them.
And have you ever thought of the men who are tossed up and down all day and all night on light-ships? To keep others safe. What a life and what opportunities to the philanthropist!
Here is the poem, which, I trust, is not too sad:—
You come not, as aforetime, to the headstone every day,
And I, who died, I do not chide because, my friend, you play;
Only, in playing, think of him who once was kind and dear,
And if you see a beauteous thing, just say, he is not here.