“I see what you mean—I think,” said Richling, slowly, and with a pondering eye.
“I’m glad if you do,” rejoined the Doctor, visibly relieved.
“But that only throws a heavier responsibility upon strong men, if I understand it,” said Richling, half interrogatively.
“Certainly! Upon strong spirits, male or female. Upon spirits that can drive the axe low down into the causes of things, again and again and again, steadily, patiently, until at last some great evil towering above them totters and falls crashing to the earth, to be cut to pieces and burned in the fire. Richling, gather fagots for pastime if you like, though it’s poor fun; but don’t think that’s your mission! Don’t be a fagot-gatherer! What are you smiling at?”
“Your good opinion of me,” answered Richling. “Doctor, I don’t believe I’m fit for anything but a fagot-gatherer. But I’m willing to try.”
“Oh, bah!” The Doctor admired such humility as little as it deserved. “Richling, reduce the number of helpless orphans! Dig out the old roots of calamity! A spoon is not what you want; you want a mattock. Reduce crime and vice! Reduce squalor! Reduce the poor man’s death-rate! Improve his tenements! Improve his hospitals! Carry sanitation into his workshops! Teach the trades! Prepare the poor for possible riches, and the rich for possible poverty! Ah—ah—Richling, I preach well enough, I think, but in practice I have missed it myself! Don’t repeat my error!”
“Oh, but you haven’t missed it!” cried Richling.
“Yes, but I have,” said the Doctor. “Here I am, telling you to let your philanthropy be cold-blooded; why, I’ve always been hot-blooded.”
“I like the hot best,” said Richling, quickly.
“You ought to hate it,” replied his friend. “It’s been the root of all your troubles. Richling, God Almighty is unimpassioned. If he wasn’t he’d be weak. You remember Young’s line: ‘A God all mercy is a God unjust.’ The time has come when beneficence, to be real, must operate scientifically, not emotionally. Emotion is good; but it must follow, not guide. Here! I’ll give you a single instance. Emotion never sells where it can give: that is an old-fashioned, effete benevolence. The new, the cold-blooded, is incomparably better: it never—to individual or to community—gives where it can sell. Your instincts have applied the rule to yourself; apply it to your fellow-man.”