is a remarkable state of things
in our Christian commonwealths, that the poor only should be asked to
give.

IV

There is a pleasant tale of some worthless, phrasing Frenchman, who was
taxed with ingratitude: "_Il faut savoir garder l'independance du
coeur_," cried he. I own I feel with him. Gratitude without familiarity,
gratitude otherwise than as a nameless element in a friendship, is a
thing so near to hatred that I do not care to split the difference.
Until I find a man who is pleased to receive obligations, I shall
continue to question the tact of those who are eager to confer them.
What an art it is, to give, even to our nearest friends! and what a test
of manners, to receive! How, upon either side, we smuggle away the
obligation, blushing for each other; how bluff and dull we make the
giver; how hasty, how falsely cheerful, the receiver! And yet an act of
such difficulty and distress between near friends, it is supposed we can
perform to a total stranger and leave the man transfixed with grateful
emotions. The last thing you can do to a man is to burthen him with an
obligation, and it is what we propose to begin with! But let us not be
deceived: unless he is totally degraded to his trade, anger jars in his
inside, and he grates his teeth at our gratuity.

We should wipe two words from our vocabulary: gratitude and charity. In
real life, help is given out of friendship, or it is not valued; it is
received from the hand of friendship, or it is resented. We are all too
proud to take a naked gift: we must seem to pay it, if in nothing else,
then with the delights of our society. Here, then, is the pitiful fix of
the rich man; here is that needle's eye in which he stuck already in the
days of Christ, and still sticks to-day, firmer, if possible, than ever:
that he has the money and lacks the love which should make his money
acceptable. Here and now, just as of old in Palestine, he has the rich
to dinner, it is with the rich that he takes his pleasure: and when his
turn comes to be charitable, he looks in vain for a recipient. His
friends are not poor, they do not want; the poor are not his friends,
they will not take. To whom is he to give? Where to find--note this
phrase--the Deserving Poor? Charity is (what they call) centralised;
offices are hired; societies founded, with secretaries paid or unpaid:
the hunt of the Deserving Poor goes merrily forward. I think it will
take more than a merely human secretary