"It is this hunger for simple justice that is the great thing. And there are people who are giving their whole lives to satisfy it. What we need is to realize what it all means, and to get that joyous thrill over it that came to you when you found for the first time that life consisted not in getting, but in giving. It's a wonderful giving, this giving of one's self, and people do appreciate it. When you have ministered to a person's self-respect, when you have contributed to his self-reliance, when you have inspired him to self-help, you have given him something. And you are conscious of it, and so is he, though you both find it hard to express in the old terms. All the old Christmas cheer is in these reciprocities of friendship that have lost every touch of condescension. We need some genial imagination to picture to us all the happiness that is being diffused by people who have come to look upon themselves not as God's almoners, but as sharers with others in the Common Good. I wish we had a new Dickens to write it up."
"If you are waiting for that, you will wait a long time," said Scrooge.
"Perhaps so, but the people are here all the same, and they are getting on with their work."
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A