'But you cannot reach everybody. You can reach only a few.'
'Yes. For those few, what ought I to do?'
'I daresay you know of other cases, that you have not said anything about, equally miserable?'
'More miserable, I assure you,' said Pitt, looking at her. 'What then? Answer my question, like a good woman.'
'I am not a good woman.'
'Answer it like a good woman, anyhow,' said Pitt, smiling. 'What should I do, properly, for such people as those I have brought to your notice? Apply the golden rule—the only one that can give the measure of things. In their place, what would you wish—and have a right to wish—that some one should do for you? what may those who have nothing demand from those who have everything?'
'Why, they could demand all you have got!'
'Not justly. Cannot you set your imagination to work and answer me? I am not talking for nothing. Take my old Christian, near eighty, who sees a sunbeam for one hour in the twenty-four, when the sun shines, and uses it to read her Bible. The rest of the twenty-four hours without even the company of a sunbeam. Imagine—what would you, in her place, wish for?'
'I should wish to die, I think.'
'It would be welcome to Mrs. Gregory, I do not doubt, though perhaps for a different reason. Still, you would not counsel suicide, or manslaughter. While you continued in life, what would you like?'