January 14th, 1867.
To Mrs. Shaen.
Gardening is to me a great joy. I hate the trouble of going out, but when I am once there, I am as happy as it is possible to be. What a quantity one learns when one tries to do nothing.
14, Nottingham Place, W.
February 17th, 1867.
To Miss Florence Davenport Hill.
I am very sorry indeed to hear such a bad account of Mr. Hill. I hope, if this bright warm weather continues, it may do him good. It is sad for the Clifton time to have been spent in nursing instead of nice society.
About the reader, or about anything else, you need never think that I should ever suspect you or your sister of shrinking from effort, or of being anything but brave and generous; but one has to be brave in refusing as well as in accepting; and considerate towards those whose whole lives God has bound up with our own most nearly; as well as to the many pathetically forlorn of the great world family who cross our path. Each case can but be decided on its own merits. I quite see how in this one there may be many difficulties. If I did not, as I say, I should feel quite sure you had decided it as rightly as you could, and quite unselfishly. Do you not often feel (I do) as if people were often selfish in yielding to feeling instead of ruling it?
This brings me to the most interesting question about gifts, to which you allude. It is to me a puzzling one, not so much as regards the poor (there I can see my way some distance, I think, and have written a few words on the subject, which I hope some day to print). I think that when gifts are given and received by the same person, they are ennobling. It is the greediness of the recipient that is the awful result at present; and the helpless indolence of expectant selfishness. Call the man out of himself by letting him know the joy of receiving and giving, and you may pour your gifts upon him, even lavishly, and not corrupt him. Besides this, let us give better things; sympathy, friendship, intercourse; let us be friends, and then we can give with comparative impunity. For the hearts of people always feel the spiritual gift to be the greater if it be genuine at all. Where a material gift comes as a witness of real love, it is the love that is the all-absorbing thought, not the gift, be it ever so much needed. All presents, too, should depend to some degree on character; we do not to one another select those calculated to deepen any tendency we disapprove, rather to awake fresh admiration of what is noble.
THE RIGHT WAYS OF GIVING