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