WILLIAM.
My mother is entirely of your opinion. She has often told me that I should regulate my actions by an invariable rule of right, and, above all, never take advantage of the misfortunes of others to benefit myself.
CHARLES.
I feel a particular respect for men of abilities, and should think wealth indeed a blessing, if it enabled me to be of use to them.
We now reached home, as I have the bottom of my paper. Farewell,
WILLIAM.
LETTER XXXV.
William to Emilia.
Your brother went yesterday to visit the painter I mentioned to you, and Edward to read the newspaper in a neighbouring coffee-house; I stayed at home to transact some business for my mother. Charles returned first, and was scarcely seated, when Edward ran in with great haste.—I am glad, said he, to find you at home, I met at the coffee-house, by chance, a poor Englishman. Will you assist me to relieve a countryman, for they seem to have the first claim to our benevolence?
CHARLES.
I do not think so; I should not ask, when I saw a man in distress, what countryman he was, whether he was a Dutchman, Englishman or Frenchman; I should feel compassion. But where is your Englishman? let me see him. Come with us, William. We all three went to the door, and found a young man who seemed about four and twenty, who had an appearance of extreme poverty. Your brother Charles expressed some astonishment; I suppose he had prepared himself to meet an old man, for I have often heard him say that healthy young ones, except in particular circumstances, need never want, and that their distress is generally a proof of their idleness.