"Life's better joys spring up thus by the wayside,
And the world calls them trifles. 'Tis not so.
Heaven is not prodigal, nor pours its joys
In unregarded torrents upon man:
They fall, as fall the riches of the clouds
Upon the parched earth, gently, drop by drop.
Nothing is trifling which love consecrates."--AYLMERE.
"The art of our necessities is strange."--KING LEAR.
THE WORLD UNMASKED.--A ROUGH DIAMOND.--DECAYED GENTILITY.--"THREE
FLIGHT, BACK."--SEVERAL ANECDOTES.--THE OLD FOX-HUNTER.--"STAND ON
YOUR HEAD."--KINDNESS TO CLERGYMEN.--RARE CHARITY.--OLD AND
HOMELESS.--THE "O'CLO'" JEW.--DR. HUNTER'S GENEROSITY.--"WHAT'S THE
PRICE OF BEEF?"--A SAD OMISSION.--INNATE GENEROSITY.--A CURB-STONE
MONEY-MANIAC.--AN EYE-OPENER.--AN AVARICIOUS DOCTOR.--ROBBING THE
DEAD.
Side by side, hand in hand, through the world, go generosity and meanness.
If these could but be personified, and the individuals compelled to stand
before men in broad daylight, O, what a staring would there be! Those whom
we thought the very embodiment of generosity and kindness would "crop out"
in their true hideousness of character--unmasked meanness and selfishness;
yes, men too high in the estimation of the world, in church and in state.
On the other hand, we should be equally astonished to find amongst those
in the humbler walks of life, as well as some in the more exalted, people,
whom the world counted as mean and penurious, now standing forth adorned
in robes bleached like the snow-drift, shining bright as the golden
sunrise, yet blushing to find that their hidden charities, and secret,
self-denying generosities, had been suddenly brought to light.
And when the secret works of this world shall be revealed, no class of men
will stand forth more blessed in deeds of generosity and self-sacrifice
than the physicians. There is an occasional black sheep in the great
flock.