Mr. Holworthy smiled at Easelmann's notion of his own hard-heartedness, and said, hesitatingly,—
"I am afraid that some professedly charitable persons don't do so much."
"Of course they don't. I don't mean that I do anything. It's pure selfishness on my part, as I told you. But you may feel pretty sure, that, if a man's name is always in the papers, as 'our estimable fellow-citizen, President This, Director That, and Treasurer T'other,' he 'does not give indiscriminate alms':—I believe that is the phrase. Perhaps he won't rob, like my friend Sandford; but his 'disinterested labors' are an economical substitute for substantial charity, and his desire for a place in the public eye is the mainspring of all his actions."
"Most of the distress in the community is relieved by organized effort; individual charities, however well meant, would be entirely inadequate. Besides, you should not be severe upon all because one prominent person has proved unworthy."
"Sandford is a type of the class. If there is anybody I hate worse than a sick beggar, it is a man who makes a trade of philanthropy."
"And yet you are consenting to your friend's earning a living by teaching a ragged school."
"True, one may stop at any place in a storm, just for shelter."
"And you can console yourself further with the assurance that your friend won't make enough in this place to induce him to take up the 'trade,' as you call it."
"I hope not. Starve him judiciously. If he should come out, after a year or so, with a white neckcloth, spectacles, and a sanctified face, soliciting aid for his school, in Pecksniffian tones, I should regret that I hadn't furnished him with a cord and a bag of stones to drop himself into the dock with."
"I don't know why a teacher or a street-missionary may not be a gentleman."