“Yes, I had to tell him at last, after letting him waste his time and money in writing more stuff and coming to Boston with it. I've put him to needless shame, and I've inflicted suffering upon him that I can't lighten in the least by sharing.”
“No, that's the most discouraging thing about pitying people. It does them no manner of good,” said Miss Vane, “and just hurts you. Don't you think that in an advanced civilisation we shall cease to feel compassion? Why don't you preach against common pity, as you did against common politeness?”
“Well, it isn't quite such a crying sin yet. But really, really,” exclaimed Sewell, “the world seems so put together that I believe we ought to think twice before doing a good action.”
“David!” said his wife warningly.
“Oh, let him go on!” cried Miss Vane, with a laugh. “I'm proof against his monstrous doctrines. Go on, Mr. Sewell.”
“What I mean is this.” Sewell pushed himself back in his chair, and then stopped.
“Is what?” prompted both the ladies.
“Why, suppose the boy really had some literary faculty, should I have had any right to encourage it? He was very well where he was. He fed the cows and milked them, and carried the milk to the crossroads, where the dealer collected it and took it to the train. That was his life, with the incidental facts of cutting the hay and fodder, and bedding the cattle; and his experience never went beyond it. I doubt if his fancy ever did, except in some wild, mistaken excursion. Why shouldn't he have been left to this condition? He ate, he slept, he fulfilled his use. Which of us does more?”
“How would you like to have been in his place?” asked his wife.
“I couldn't put myself in his place; and therefore I oughtn't to have done anything to take him out of it,” answered Sewell.