is PHILANTHROPY.

In order to understand this, we must remember that she is original and
unique only in the length to which she carries a common principle in
human nature. Society is full of advisers on a small scale. If you ask
your way to such a place in the street, the Mentor you invoke is
instantaneously seized with a strong desire to befriend you. He calls
after you a supplement to his directions; and if you chance to turn
your head, you will observe him watching to see whether you do take
the right hand. When the opinions of two advisers, no matter on what
subject, clash, mark the heat and obstinacy with which they are
defended. Each considers himself in the right; and believing your
wellbeing to depend upon the choice you make, is humanely solicitous
that you should give the preference to him. The managing partner
merely carries out this feeling to a noble, not to say sublime extent,
and becomes the philanthropist _par excellence_. Philanthropy is
virtue, and virtue, we all know, is its own reward--that is, we all
say; for in reality the idea is somewhat obscure. Perhaps we mean that
it is the feeling of being virtuous which rewards the act of virtue,
and if so, how happy must the managing partner be! Troubled by no
vulgar ambition, by no hankering after notoriety, by no yearning to
join ostensibly in the game of life, she shrouds herself in obscurity,
as the widow Bessie Maclure in _Old Mortality_ did in an old red
cloak, and directs with a whisper the way of the passer-by. There is a
certain awful pride which must swell at times in that woman's bosom,
as she thinks of the events which her counsel is now governing, and of
the wheels that are now turning and twirling in obedience to the
impulse they received from her!

The managing partner manages a great many benevolent societies, but it
is unnecessary here to mention more than one. This is the
Advice-to-the-poor-and-needy-giving Ladies' Samaritan Association. The
business of this admirable institution is carried on by the
lady-collectors, who solicit subscriptions, chiefly from the bachelors
on their beat; and the lady-missionaries, who visit the lowest dens in
the place, to distribute, with a beautiful philanthropy, moral Tracts,
and Exhortations to be good, tidy, church-going, and happy, to the
ragged and starving inmates. Although these, however, are the
functionaries ostensible to the public, it is the managing partner who
sets them in motion. She is neit