"I MUST BE CRUEL ONLY TO BE KIND."
The plague grew sated and feeble. One morning frost sent a flight of icy
arrows into the town, and it vanished. The swarthy girls and lads that
sauntered homeward behind their mothers' cows across the wide suburban
stretches of marshy commons heard again the deep, unbroken, cataract
roar of the reawakened city.
We call the sea cruel, seeing its waters dimple and smile where
yesterday they dashed in pieces the ship that was black with men, women,
and children. But what shall we say of those billows of human life, of
which we are ourselves a part, that surge over the graves of its own
dead with dances and laughter and many a coquetry, with panting chase
for gain and preference, and pious regrets and tender condolences for
the thousands that died yesterday--and need not have died?
Such were the questions Dr. Sevier asked himself as he laid down the
newspaper full of congratulations upon the return of trade's and
fashion's boisterous flow, and praises of the deeds of benevolence and
mercy that had abounded throughout the days of anguish.
Certain currents in these human rapids had driven Richling and the
Doctor wide apart. But at last, one day, Richling entered the office
with a cheerfulness of countenance something overdone, and indicative to
the Doctor's eye of inward trepidation.
"Doctor," he said hurriedly, "preparing to leave the office? It was the
only moment I could command"--
"Good-morning, Richling."
"I've been trying every day for a week to get down here," said Richling,
drawing out a paper. "Doctor"--with his eyes on the paper, which he had
begun to unfold.
"Richling"-- It was the Doctor's hardest voice. Richling looked up
at him as a child looks at a thundercloud. The Doctor pointed to the
document:--
"Is that a subscription paper?"
"Yes."
"You needn't unfold it, Richling." The Doctor made a little pushing
motion at it with his open hand. "From whom does it come?"
Richling gave a name. He had not changed color when the Doctor looked
black, but now he did; for Dr. Sevier smiled. It was terrible.
"Not the little preacher that lisps?" asked the physician.
"He lisps sometimes," said Richling, with resentful subsidence of tone
and with dropped eyes, preparing to return the paper to his pocket.
"Wait," said the Doctor, more gravely, arresting the movement with his
index finger. "What is it for?"
"It's for the aid of an asylum overcrowded with orphans in consequence
of the late epidemic." There was still a tightness in Richling's throat,
a faint bitterness in his tone, a spark of indignation in his eye. But
these the Doctor ignored. He reached out his hand, took the folded paper
gently from Richling, crossed his knees, and, resting his elbows on them
and shaking the paper in a prefatory way, spoke:--
"Richling, in old times we used to go into monasteries; now we subscribe
to orphan asylums. Nine months ago I warned this community that if it
didn't take the necessary precautions against the foul contagion that
has since swept over us it would pay for its wicked folly in the lives
of thousands and the increase of fatherless and helpless children. I
didn't know it would come this year, but I knew it might come any year.
Richling, we deserved it!"
Richling had never seen his friend in so forbidding an aspect. He had
come to him boyishly elated with the fancied excellence and goodness and
beauty of the task he had assumed, and a perfect confidence that his
noble benefactor would look upon him with pride and upon the scheme with
generous favor. When he had offered to present the paper to Dr. Sevier
he had not understood the little rector's marked alacrity in accepting
his service. Now it was plain enough. He was well-nigh dumfounded. The
responses that came from him came mechanically, and in the manner of one
who wards off unmerited buffetings from one whose unkindness may not be
resented.
"You can't think that only those died who were to blame?" he asked,
helplessly; and the Doctor's answer came back instantly:--
"Ho, no! look at the hundreds of little graves! No, sir. If only those
who were to blame had been stricken, I should think the Judgment wasn't
far off. Talk of God's mercy in times of health! There's no greater
evidence of it than to see him, in these awful visitations, refusing
still to discriminate between the innocent and the guilty! Richling,
only Infinite Mercy joined to Infinite Power, with infinite command of
the future, could so forbear!"
Richling could not answer. The Doctor unfolded the paper and began to
read: "'God, in his mysterious providence'--O sir!"
"What!" demanded Richling.
"O sir, what a foul, false charge! There's nothing mysterious about it.
We've trampled the book of Nature's laws in the mire of our streets, and
dragged her penalties down upon our heads! Why, Richling,"--he shifted
his attitude, and laid the edge of one hand upon the paper that lay in
the other, with the air of commencing a demonstration,--"you're a Bible
man, eh? Well, yes, I think you are; but I want you never to forget that
the book of Nature has its commandments, too; and the man who sins
against _them_ is a sinner. There's no dispensation of mercy in that
Scripture to Jew or Gentile, though the God of Mercy wrote it with his
own finger. A community has got to know those laws and keep them, or
take the consequences--and take them here and now--on this
globe--_presently_!"
"You mean, then," said Richling, extending his hand for the return of
the paper, "that those whose negligence filled the asylums should be the
ones to subscribe."
"Yes," replied the Doctor, "yes!" drew back his hand with the paper
still in it, turned to his desk, opened the list, and wrote. Richling's
eyes followed the pen; his heart came slowly up into his throat.
"Why, Doc--Doctor, that's more than any one else has"--
"They have probably made some mistake," said Dr. Sevier, rubbing the
blotting-paper with his finger. "Richling, do you think it's your
mission to be a philanthropist?"
"Isn't it everybody's mission?" replied Richling.
"That's not what I asked you."
"But you ask a question," said Richling, smiling down upon the
subscription-paper as he folded it, "that nobody would like to answer."
"Very well, then, you needn't answer. But, Richling,"--he pointed
his long finger to the pocket of Richling's coat, where the
subscription-list had disappeared,--"this sort of work--whether you
distinctly propose to be a philanthropist or not--is right, of course.
It's good. But it's the mere alphabet of beneficence. Richling, whenever
philanthropy takes the _guise_ of philanthropy, look out. Confine your
philanthropy--you can't do it entirely, but as much as you can--confine
your philanthropy to the _motive_. It's the temptation of
philanthropists to set aside the natural constitution of society
wherever it seems out of order, and substitute some philanthropic
machinery in its place. It's all wrong, Richling. Do as a good doctor
would. Help nature."
Richling looked down askance, pushed his fingers through his hair
perplexedly, drew a deep breath, lifted his eyes to the Doctor's again,
smiled incredulously, and rubbed his brow.
"You don't see it?" asked the physician, in a tone of surprise.
"O Doctor,"--throwing up a despairing hand,--"we're miles apart. I don't
see how any work could be nobler. It looks to me"-- But Dr. Sevier
interrupted.
"--From an emotional stand-point, Richling. Richling,"--he changed his
attitude again,--"if you _want_ to be a philanthropist, be
cold-blooded."
Richling laughed outright, but not heartily.
"Well!" said his friend, with a shrug, as if he dismissed the whole
matter. But when Richling moved, as if to rise, he restrained him.
"Stop! I know you're in a hurry, but you may tell Reisen to blame me."
"It's not Reisen so much as it's the work," replied Richling, but
settled down again in his seat.
"Richling, human benevolence--public benevolence--in its beginning was
a mere nun on the battle-field, binding up wounds and wiping the damp
from dying brows. But since then it has had time and opportunity to
become strong, bold, masculine, potential. Once it had only the
knowledge and power to alleviate evil consequences; now it has both the
knowledge and the power to deal with evil causes. Now, I say to you,
leave this emotional A B C of human charity to nuns and mite societies.
It's a good work; let them do it. Give them money, if you can."
"I see what you mean--I think," said Richling, slowly, and with a
pondering eye.
"I'm glad if you do," rejoined the Doctor, visibly relieved.
"But that only throws a heavier responsibility upon strong men, if I
understand it," said Richling, half interrogatively.
"Certainly! Upon strong spirits, male or female. Upon spirits that can
drive the axe low down into the causes of things, again and again and
again, steadily, patiently, until at last some great evil towering above
them totters and falls crashing to the earth, to be cut to pieces and
burned in the fire. Richling, gather fagots for pastime if you like,
though it's poor fun; but don't think that's your mission! _Don't_ be a
fagot-gatherer! What are you smiling at?"
"Your good opinion of me," answered Richling. "Doctor, I don't believe
I'm fit for anything but a fagot-gatherer. But I'm willing to try."
"Oh, bah!" The Doctor admired such humility as little as it deserved.
"Richling, reduce the number of helpless orphans! Dig out the old roots
of calamity! A spoon is not what you want; you want a _mattock_. Reduce
crime and vice! Reduce squalor! Reduce the poor man's death-rate!
Improve his tenements! Improve his hospitals! Carry sanitation into his
workshops! Teach the trades! Prepare the poor for possible riches, and
the rich for possible poverty! Ah--ah--Richling, I preach well enough, I
think, but in practice I have missed it myself! Don't repeat my error!"
"Oh, but you haven't missed it!" cried Richling.
"Yes, but I have," said the Doctor. "Here I am, telling you to let your
philanthropy be cold-blooded; why, I've always been hot-blooded."
"I like the hot best," said Richling, quickly.
"You ought to hate it," replied his friend. "It's been the root of all
your troubles. Richling, God Almighty is unimpassioned. If he wasn't
he'd be weak. You remember Young's line: 'A God all mercy is a God
unjust.' The time has come when beneficence, to be real, must operate
scientifically, not emotionally. Emotion is good; but it must follow,
not guide. Here! I'll give you a single instance. Emotion never sells
where it can give: that is an old-fashioned, effete benevolence. The
new, the cold-blooded, is incomparably better: it never--to individual
or to community--gives where it can sell. Your instincts have applied
the rule to yourself; apply it to your fellow-man."
"Ah!" said Richling, promptly, "that's another thing. It's not my
business to apply it to them."
"It _is_ your business to apply it to them. You have no right to do
less."
"And what will men say of me? At least--not that, but"--
The Doctor pointed upward. "They will say, 'I know thee, that thou art
an hard man.'" His voice trembled. "But, Richling," he resumed with
fresh firmness, "if you want to lead a long and useful life,--you say
you do,--you must take my advice; you must deny yourself for a while;
you must shelve these fine notions for a time. I tell you once more, you
must endeavor to reestablish your health as it was before--before they
locked you up, you know. When that is done you can commence right there
if you choose; I wish you would. Give the public--sell would be better,
but it will hardly buy--a prison system less atrocious, less destructive
of justice, and less promotive of crime and vice, than the one it has.
By-the-by, I suppose you know that Raphael Ristofalo went to prison last
night again?"
Richling sprang to his feet. "For what? He hasn't"--
"Yes, sir; he has discovered the man who robbed him, and has killed
him."
Richling started away, but halted as the Doctor spoke again, rising from
his seat and shaking out his legs.
"He's not suffering any hardship. He's shrewd, you know,--has made
arrangements with the keeper by which he secures very comfortable
quarters. The star-chamber, I think they call the room he is in. He'll
suffer very little restraint. Good-day!"
He turned, as Richling left, to get his own hat and gloves. "Yes," he
thought, as he passed slowly downstairs to his carriage, "I have erred."
He was not only teaching, he was learning. To fight evil was not enough.
People who wanted help for orphans did not come to him--they sent. They
drew back from him as a child shrinks from a soldier. Even Alice, his
buried Alice, had wept with delight when he gave her a smile, and
trembled with fear at his frown. To fight evil is not enough. Everybody
seemed to feel as though that were a war against himself. Oh for some
one always to understand--never to fear--the frowning good intention of
the lonely man!