Our literary club, whether successful or not, was interesting. It
embraced hardworking women who were comparatively well read in modern
English literature, and girls who could hardly spell their own names.
The effects of our teaching were varied, ranging all the way from keen
stimulus to mental paralysis.
The activity of its committee-meetings never waned. Here we continued to
debate on Life and Humanity and other abstract themes. Here the Doctor
and the Altruist disputed with great plainness of speech, but with
underlying good-humour.
I remember one meeting at which the Doctor began with knitted brows:—
“What troubles me in all this work with the poor is, that it is
external. We turn and set them an example, and demand that they shall
conform. We impose something on them from without—”
“But they certainly need uplifting,” said the Altruist, puzzled.
“No,” asserted the Doctor, “they need simply a chance to live their own
lives decently and to develop themselves. Their only hope lies in their
natural human instincts. We cannot bring round the kingdom of Heaven for
them either by preaching or by making laws. If they could have plenty of
hot water and soap, and could be let alone, they would be better off
than if we try to teach them our ideas.”
“I do not agree with you,” said the Altruist. “They will instinctively
gain more delicate shades of feeling by coming in contact with us—”
I think that the Doctor was really angry.
“For true delicacy of feeling,” she said, “commend me to the very poor.
We ought to go down on our knees to learn of them. The kindness,
forbearance, patience, and the quiet heroism of the poor are almost
beyond our grasp. Look at it! We haven’t their opportunity for
cultivating the virtues,—unselfishness, for instance. They have none of
the modern methods for doing their duty to their neighbours without
letting it cost anything. They know nothing about ‘organizations.’ They
actually think that the only way to help is by kindness. As for us,
humanity has been civilized out of us.”
“The poor ought to be informed of this at once,” said Janet, “and ought
to be urged to start a society for the cultivation of humane instincts
among the well-to-do.”
“You do find,” admitted the Altruist, “a certain primitive generosity
among the lower classes. But when you say that they do not need the
refining influences of culture, I do not understand you.”
“I mean,” said the Doctor, “that we are absurd when we talk of teaching
the lower classes rightness of feeling, for by good rights they ought to
teach us. So far as I know, the moral forces are not the result of
culture. They work up from below. There has never been a great reform
that did not originate with the so-called ‘People.’ All that culture can
do is occasionally to supply directing power, cold brain force, to the
impulse of the masses. Something deeper than thought, in the primary
instincts of the masses, keeps the race sane, healthy, right at heart.”
“It is strange to hear that,” mused the Altruist, “in the face of the
awful degradation and the crying sin of the slums of this city. Nothing
short of miraculous regeneration, physical, mental, and spiritual, can
save them.”
“What is it that Whitman says?” asked Janet. Then she quoted softly:
“‘In this broad earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed perfection.’”
“That crass optimism,” said the Altruist, sternly, “is materialistic and
superficial. It simply ignores the vileness of a sin-stricken world.”
This question, as to whether the People are more sane at heart than the
not-People we never settled, for the committee-meeting drew to its
close.
When we separated, I went into the corridor with the Altruist for a
parting word.
“I am very sanguine in regard to our club,” he said, stroking his
smooth-shaven chin. “Janet will do fine work if her power can be set
free. I find it hard to be patient with her unreasonable pessimism.”
“It isn’t quite fair to call it unreasonable, is it,” I murmured, “until
one knows the reason for it? We have not yet discovered that.”
“As for the Doctor,”—he continued, not noticing my remark, “she is a
forceful woman, but crude. I actually feel that she does not understand
me half the time when I am talking. Of course she springs too directly
from the People to be thoroughly fine. And our difference in belief
would always make full spiritual communion impossible.”
Then he looked at me, and his eyes lighted up.
“I have an idea that you comprehend me better than any of the others,”
he said, graciously.
When I went back to the parlour, I found the Doctor preparing to go.
“There is one thing that can be said about the Altruist,” she remarked,
fastening her gloves with a snap. “He may know a great deal about God,
but he knows precious little about men and women.”