The brother-in-law had not finished. He turned to the Doctor.
“Poverty, Doctor, is an inner condition”—
“Sometimes,” interposed the Doctor.
“Yes, generally,” continued the brother-in-law, with some emphasis. “And to give help you must, first of all, ‘inquire within’—within your beneficiary.”
“Not always, sir,” replied the Doctor; “not if they’re sick, for instance.” The ladies bowed briskly and applauded with their eyes. “And not always if they’re well,” he added. His last words softened off almost into soliloquy.
The banker spoke forcibly:—
“Yes, there are two quite distinct kinds of poverty. One is an accident of the moment; the other is an inner condition of the individual”—
“Of course it is,” said sister Jane’s brother-in-law, who felt it a little to have been contradicted on the side of kindness by the hard-spoken Doctor. “Certainly! it’s a deficiency of inner resources or character, and what to do with it is no simple question.”
“That’s what I was about to say,” resumed the banker; “at least, when the poverty is of that sort. And what discourages kind people is that that’s the sort we commonly see. It’s a relief to meet the other, Doctor, just as it’s a relief to a physician to encounter a case of simple surgery.”
“And—and,” said the brother-in-law, “what is your rule about plain almsgiving to the difficult sort?”