All forms of worship will lend themselves to exaggeration and develop eccentricities, and most certainly it is not the worship of the Golden Calf that is an exception to the rule. Let us look at the question from this side as well as the other.
You never run the risk of offending an Englishman by offering him money.
Everyone must remember the lamentations of the Madagascar missionary, Mr. Shaw. The reverend gentleman had been parted from his flock, and obliged to take pot-luck on board the late Admiral Pierre's vessel. What meant those jeremiads? Was it apologies he wanted? Not a bit of it! This apostle wanted cash. From the day that he received $5000 from the French Government not a word more was heard from him. He was quiet and happy.
$5000 for having eaten a few bad dinners! It does not fall to everyone's share to dine so satisfactorily as that.
Although the labor of preparing the posthumous works of Victor Hugo for publication will be enormous, his literary executors have refused to accept the profits, sure to be immense, which the poet meant should be the reward of their arduous task. But the thought of receiving money for such a labor of love is odious to them. English people may look upon this as sentimentality, but it compares very favorably with the highly practical proceedings of Thomas Carlyle's literary executor.
M. H——, the French député, who obtained 10,000 francs damages the other day, in Paris, from an individual who had insulted his wife, gave the money to the poor the very same day. It is a fact that, in France, no man, jealous of his honor, would pocket such gains.
"But," you will say, "surely the Reverend Mr. Shaw gave his $5000 to the poor, or to some good cause——?"
You little know the type.
In England, it is only too much the fashion to carry everything to the bank—an insult, a kick, the loss of a lover, the faithlessness of a wife, all possible inconveniences; the almighty guinea consoles for every wrong, and may be offered to anyone.
On his wedding day (January 28, 1885), the Rev. Stephen Gladstone, Vicar of Hawarden, and son of the Prime Minister of England, received, among his numerous wedding presents, a check for a hundred pounds from Dr. Sir Andrew Clark, and another for the same sum from the Duke of Westminster. The thing was so natural that not a single English paper commented on the fact.