C—— told me, that some time ago, when poor Bethune the Scotch poet first became known, and was in great hardship, C—— himself had collected a little sum (about 30l.), and sent it to him through his publishers. Bethune wrote back to refuse it absolutely, and to say that, while he had head and hands, he would not accept charity. C—— wrote to him in answer, still anonymously, arguing against the principle, as founded in false pride, &c. Now poor Bethune is dead, and the money is found untouched,—left with a friend to be returned to the donors!
This sort of disgust and terror, which all finely constituted minds feel with regard to pecuniary obligation,—my own utter repugnance to it, even from the hands of those I most love,—makes one sad to think of. It gives one such a miserable impression of our social humanity!
Goethe makes the same remark in the Wilhelm Meister:—“Es ist sonderbar welch ein wunderliches Bedenken man sich macht, Geld von Freunden und Gönnern anzunehmen, von denen man jede andere Gabe mit Dank und Freude empfangen würde.”
55.
“In the celestial hierarchy, according to Dionysius Areopageta, the angels of Love hold the first place, the angels of Light the second, and the Thrones and Dominations the third. Among terrestrials, the Intellects, which act through the imagination upon the heart of man—i. e. poets and artists—may be accounted first in order; the merely scientific intellects the second; and the merely ruling intellects—those which apply themselves to the government of mankind, without the aid of either science or imagination—will not be disparaged if they are placed last.”
All government, all exercise of power—no matter in what form—which is not based in love and directed by knowledge, is a tyranny. It is not of God, and shall not stand.
“A time will come when the operations of charity will no longer be carried on by machinery, relentless, ponderous, indiscriminate, but by human creatures, watchful, tearful, considerate, and wise.”—Westminster Review.
