AN EXPERIMENT IN ALTRUISM
[Illustration]
AN EXPERIMENT IN ALTRUISM
BY
ELIZABETH HASTINGS
“The world, which took but six days to make, is like to take six
thousand to make out.”—SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
New York
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND LONDON
1895
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1895,
BY MACMILLAN AND CO.
Norwood Press:
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Doctor, Janet, and I converse 1
II. I explain why I am here 6
III. I visit the Altruist 9
IV. I meet the Man of the World 17
V. I set forth the general situation 21
VI. I become acquainted with the Lad 24
VII. Janet and I converse about life and philanthropy 27
VIII. The Lad meets Baby Jean 33
IX. I visit Barnet House 37
X. I visit the Woman’s Settlement 46
XI. I describe the Butterfly Hunter 51
XII. The Lad and I discuss religious matters 55
XIII. The Doctor describes a case 62
XIV. We act as committee 68
XV. I rouse the sympathy of the Man of the World 74
XVI. Janet and the Lad sit by the window 78
XVII. I hear the Altruist lecture on Job 82
XVIII. Another baby enters the world 88
XIX. I describe our conferences and board-meetings 93
XX. Janet and the Lad become better acquainted 103
XXI. I almost decide to stop thinking 108
XXII. The Young Reformer calls 111
XXIII. I meet the People 117
XXIV. I find everybody unhappy 126
XXV. I introduce the Tailoress 131
XXVI. I describe our afternoon teas 138
XXVII. Baby Jean philosophizes 144
XXVIII. We again act as committee 147
XXIX. The Tailoress and I visit the Anarchist 153
XXX. The Lad loses a lectureship 160
XXXI. The Tailoress leads a strike 164
XXXII. The Doctor sets forth her views 171
XXXIII. Janet expounds her new philosophy 177
XXXIV. I hear Polly’s story 183
XXXV. I search for Polly 188
XXXVI. The crisis comes 192
XXXVII. I again explain the general situation 196
XXXVIII. I say good-bye to the Lad 199
XXXIX. Baby Jean plays with the telegram 202
XL. I rebel against God and the Altruist 204
XLI. I converse with the Doctor 208
XLII. I find that Janet has no philosophy 211
XLIII. I dry my pen, and again take up my Cause 214
AN EXPERIMENT IN ALTRUISM
CHAPTER I
“When Tantalus,” said Janet, “was standing in the water that he could
not reach, and was dying of thirst, a Philosopher came by. ‘Don’t you
understand,’ said the Philosopher, ‘that what you want is _water_?’”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, turning to look at the girl’s face.
Her colour was shifting quickly in the cool October air.
“I mean,” she answered, with her lips curling into her wickedest smile,
“that I have been talking with my cousin Paul. He explained, with an air
of giving information, that what I need is faith.”
“Your cousin Paul,” growled the Doctor, “has a most remarkable way of
discovering what the rest of us have always known.”
“Did you always know that?” asked the girl. “I had an idea that you
thought I needed a tonic.”
“There’s the ‘brotherhood of man,’” the Doctor went on. “Your cousin
Paul thinks that he has discovered or invented the ‘brotherhood of
man.’”
“Don’t you mean,” I suggested, “that he discovers and acts upon what the
rest of us have always known without letting it make any particular
difference?”
“I cannot see that he is trying any harder than the rest of us to find
out how to treat his neighbour,” said the Doctor. “Living in the slums
is as comfortable nowadays as living anywhere else. At least, it is at
Barnet House. That has as good appointments as any house in the city.”
“Good plumbing isn’t quite everything,” I ventured to say.
“Those university men who go to live with the poor are too
supercilious,” said the Doctor. “They patronize humanity. And the
‘cousin Paul’ doesn’t stop there. He patronizes the Creator, too. He is
constantly reminding the Creator that He is being recognized by one of
the first families.”
Janet laughed. “You are clever,” she said, “but you aren’t polite. Paul
does bend over a little in his efforts to help. But his mother’s son
could hardly avoid that. Think of the family!”
“The whole thing is artificial,” continued the Doctor. “Your cousin goes
to live in a tenement, tries to become intimate with its inhabitants,
and carries up his own coal. He could never realize that it would be
just as lofty a course of action to carry coal in his own house in
Endicott Square, and to become intimate with his barber!”
“That would not be picturesque,” said Janet.
There was a pause.
“You say he patronizes the Creator,” mused Janet. “Wouldn’t it be better
to say that he interprets God and patronizes man? I think that I dislike
the former more than the latter. He is so sure of his beliefs. And he is
so puzzled to know how any one can doubt what he believes.”
The Doctor changed the subject with, “What you want is some work to do.”
The girl’s smile vanished, and her face grew bitter.
“What’s the use of working,” she demanded, “when it doesn’t mean
anything? You can never do the thing you want to do. You can only do
what somebody else wants to do. I am tired of succeeding in other
people’s ambitions.”
“You haven’t had a great deal of experience of that kind, have you?”
asked the Doctor.
She did not listen. “The world is buttoned up wrong,” she said, “just
one hole wrong. I get what you want, and somebody else wants what you
get. I believe that hopes were given to us simply in order to hurt. The
gods must enjoy dangling before our eyes, just out of reach, the things
we pray for. Probably they like to see us clutching the air.”
“Do you know how to ride a horse?” asked the Doctor.
“Yes.”
“Then you had better do it, and let the gods alone. There is one good
thing about being on horseback: you can’t despair. If you do, you fall
off.”
Here we reached my door, and I went in. I paused for a minute, to watch
the two women going down the street,—the Doctor, with her free, even
step; the girl with quick, irregular movements.
It seemed to me that Janet was the most inexplicable of all the
inexplicable people I had met since my arrival, six weeks ago. Something
must have hurt her cruelly. She saw all life in the light of her own
pain, and she rebelled against the suffering whose ultimate meaning she
could not understand.
Yet now, with the sunlight in her warm brown hair, she looked, in her
radiant colouring, like a symbol of all the joy and gladness in the
world.