Home sympathies and charities are most active in the winter. Coming
in from my late walk,--in fact driven in by a hurrying north wind that
would brook no delay,--a wind that brought snow that did not seem to
fall out of a bounteous sky, but to be blown from polar fields,--I
find the Mistress returned from town, all in a glow of philanthropic
excitement.
There has been a meeting of a woman's association for Ameliorating the
Condition of somebody here at home. Any one can belong to it by paying
a dollar, and for twenty dollars one can become a life Ameliorator,--a
sort of life assurance. The Mistress, at the meeting, I believe,
"seconded the motion" several times, and is one of the Vice-Presidents;
and this family honor makes me feel almost as if I were a president
of something myself. These little distinctions are among the sweetest
things in life, and to see one's name officially printed stimulates
his charity, and is almost as satisfactory as being the chairman of a
committee or the mover of a resolution. It is, I think, fortunate, and
not at all discreditable, that our little vanity, which is reckoned
among our weaknesses, is thus made to contribute to the activity of our
nobler powers. Whatever we may say, we all of us like distinction; and
probably there is no more subtle flattery than that conveyed in the
whisper, "That's he," "That's she."
There used to be a society for ameliorating the condition of the Jews;
but they were found to be so much more adept than other people in
ameliorating their own condition that I suppose it was given up.
Mandeville says that to his knowledge there are a great many people
who get up ameliorating enterprises merely to be conspicuously busy in
society, or to earn a little something in a good cause. They seem
to think that the world owes them a living because they are
philanthropists. In this Mandeville does not speak with his usual
charity. It is evident that there are Jews, and some Gentiles, whose
condition needs ameliorating, and if very little is really accomplished
in the effort for them, it always remains true that the charitable reap
a benefit to themselves. It is one of the beautiful compensations of
this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping
himself.
OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. Why is it that almost all philanthropists and
reformers are disagreeable?
I ought to explain who our next-door neighbor is. He is the person who
comes in without knocking, drops in in the most natural way, as his wife
does also, and not seldom in time to take the after-dinner cup of tea
before the fire. Formal society begins as soon as you lock your doors,
and only admit visitors through the media of bells and servants. It is
lucky for us that our next-door neighbor is honest.
THE PARSON. Why do you class reformers and philanthropists together?
Those usually called reformers are not philanthropists at all. They are
agitators. Finding the world disagreeable to themselves, they wish to
make it as unpleasant to others as possible.
MANDEVILLE. That's a noble view of your fellow-men.
OUR NEXT DOOR. Well, granting the distinction, why are both apt to be
unpleasant people to live with?
THE PARSON. As if the unpleasant people who won't mind their own
business were confined to the classes you mention! Some of the best
people I know are philanthropists,--I mean the genuine ones, and not the
uneasy busybodies seeking notoriety as a means of living.
THE FIRE-TENDER. It is not altogether the not minding their own
business. Nobody does that. The usual explanation is, that people with
one idea are tedious. But that is not all of it. For few persons
have more than one idea,--ministers, doctors, lawyers, teachers,
manufacturers, merchants,--they all think the world they live in is the
central one.
MANDEVILLE. And you might add authors. To them nearly all the life of
the world is in letters, and I suppose they would be astonished if they
knew how little the thoughts of the majority of people are occupied with
books, and with all that vast thought circulation which is the vital
current of the world to book-men. Newspapers have reached their present
power by becoming unliterary, and reflecting all the interests of the
world.
THE MISTRESS. I have noticed one thing, that the most popular persons in
society are those who take the world as it is, find the least fault, and
have no hobbies. They are always wanted to dinner.
THE YOUNG LADY. And the other kind always appear to me to want a dinner.
THE FIRE-TENDER. It seems to me that the real reason why reformers and
some philanthropists are unpopular is, that they disturb our serenity
and make us conscious of our own shortcomings. It is only now and then
that a whole people get a spasm of reformatory fervor, of investigation
and regeneration. At other times they rather hate those who disturb
their quiet.
OUR NEXT DOOR. Professional reformers and philanthropists are
insufferably conceited and intolerant.
THE MISTRESS. Everything depends upon the spirit in which a reform or a
scheme of philanthropy is conducted.
MANDEVILLE. I attended a protracted convention of reformers of a certain
evil, once, and had the pleasure of taking dinner with a tableful of
them. It was one of those country dinners accompanied with green tea.
Every one disagreed with every one else, and you would n't wonder at
it, if you had seen them. They were people with whom good food wouldn't
agree. George Thompson was expected at the convention, and I remember
that there was almost a cordiality in the talk about him, until one
sallow brother casually mentioned that George took snuff,--when a chorus
of deprecatory groans went up from the table. One long-faced maiden in
spectacles, with purple ribbons in her hair, who drank five cups of tea
by my count, declared that she was perfectly disgusted, and did n't
want to hear him speak. In the course of the meal the talk ran upon the
discipline of children, and how to administer punishment. I was quite
taken by the remark of a thin, dyspeptic man who summed up the matter
by growling out in a harsh, deep bass voice, "Punish 'em in love!" It
sounded as if he had said, "Shoot 'em on the spot!"
THE PARSON. I supposed you would say that he was a minister. There is
another thing about those people. I think they are working against the
course of nature. Nature is entirely indifferent to any reform. She
perpetuates a fault as persistently as a virtue. There's a split in
my thumb-nail that has been scrupulously continued for many years, not
withstanding all my efforts to make the nail resume its old regularity.
You see the same thing in trees whose bark is cut, and in melons that
have had only one summer's intimacy with squashes. The bad traits in
character are passed down from generation to generation with as much
care as the good ones. Nature, unaided, never reforms anything.
MANDEVILLE. Is that the essence of Calvinism?
THE PARSON. Calvinism has n't any essence, it's a fact.
MANDEVILLE. When I was a boy, I always associated Calvinism and calomel
together. I thought that homeopathy--similia, etc.--had done away with
both of them.
OUR NEXT DOOR (rising). If you are going into theology, I'm off..