"Not so unprecedented, Dear," she urged, "Even the woman you think most of did it! Don't you remember 'She maketh fine linen and selleth it—and delivereth girdles unto the merchants!'"
Mr. Bankside came down handsomely.
He got used to it after a while, and then he became proud of it. If a friend ventured to suggest a criticism, or to sympathize, he would calmly respond, "'The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates.'"
AN OBVIOUS BLESSING
We are told, on the authority of the Greatest Sociologist, that it is more blessed to give than to receive.
So patent and commonplace a fact as this ought to meet with general acceptance. Anyone can see that it is so, by a little study or by less practice. To give implies having. You must be in possession before you can give. To receive implies wanting, at its best—to receive what you do not want is distinctly unpleasant. To have is more blessed than to want. Of course it is.
To give gratifies several natural feelings; the mother-instinct of supplying needs, the pride of superior power and the generosity; and, if you are a sordid soul, the desire to "lay up treasure in heaven" or, as the Buddhists frankly put it—to "acquire merit."
None of these pleasures pertain to receiving. There is a certain humiliation about it always, a childish sense of dependence and inferiority. Only children can continuously receive without degradation; and as soon as they begin to realize life at all they delight to give as we all do. "Let me help!" says the child, and plans birthday presents for mama as eagerly as he hopes for them himself.
The instinct of giving is the pressure of the surplus; the natural outgo of humanity, its fruit. We are not mere receptacles, we are productive engines, of immense capacity; and, having produced, we must distribute the product. To give, naturally, is to shed, to bear fruit; a healthy and pleasurable process.
What has confused us so long on this subject? Why have we been so blind to this glaring truth that we have stultified our giving instinct and made of it an abnormal process called "Charity," or a much restricted pleasure only used in families or at Christmas time?