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Any dull dog that owns
a pen and a banking-account can write out cheques for charitable
institutions. But to accomplish anything personal, imaginative,
adventurous, anything with a touch of distinction, is a less easy
matter. You wake up in the morning with the altruistic yearnings of a
St. Francois de Sales, and yet somehow you go to bed in the evening with
the craving unsatisfied. You have really had so few opportunities; and
when an occasion does arise it is hedged around with such difficulties
as to baffle all but the most persistent. Have you ever tried to give a
beggar a five-pound note? I did this morning.
She was a miserable, shivering, starving woman of fifty selling matches
in Sackville Street. She held out a shrivelled hand to me, and eyes that
once had been beautiful pleaded hungrily for alms.
"Here," said I to myself, "is an opportunity of bringing unimagined
gladness for a month or two into this forlorn creature's life."
I pressed a five-pound note into her hand and passed on. She ran after
me, terror on her face.


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