ut of the said
public, of course take no part in the help of anybody. And even if
the willing bearers could sustain the burden anywise adequately, none
of us would complain; but I am certain there is no man, whatever
his fortune, who is now engaged in any earnest offices of kindness
to these sufferers, especially of the middle class, among his
acquaintance, who will not bear me witness that for one we can
relieve, we must leave three to perish. I have left three, myself, in
the first three months of this year. One was the artist Paul Gray, for
whom an appeal was made to me for funds to assist him in going abroad
out of the bitter English winter. I had not the means by me, and he
died a week afterwards. Another case was that of a widow whose husband
had committed suicide, for whom application was made to me at the same
time; and the third was a personal friend, to whom I refused a sum
which he said would have saved him from bankruptcy. I believe six
times as much would not have saved him; however, I refused, and he is
ruined.

117. And observe, also, it is not the mere crippling of my means that
I regret. It is the crippling of my temper, and waste of my time. The
knowledge of all this distress, even when I can assist it,--much more
when I cannot,--and the various thoughts of what I can and cannot, or
ought and ought not, to do, are a far greater burden to me than the
mere loss of the money. It is peremptorily not my business--it is not
my gift, bodily or mentally, to look after other people's sorrow. I
have enough of my own; and even if I had not, the sight of pain is not
good for me. I don't want to be a bishop. In a most literal and
sincere sense, "_nolo episcopari_." I don't want to be an almoner, nor
a counselor, nor a Member of Parliament, nor a voter for Members of
Parliament. (What would Mr. Holyoake say to me if he knew that I have
never voted for anybody in my life, and never mean to do so!) I am
essentially a painter and a leaf dissector; and my powers of thought
are all purely mathematical, seizing ultimate principles only--never
accidents; a line is always, to me, length without breadth; it is not
a cable or a crowbar; and though I can almost infallibly reason out
the final law of anything, if within reach of my industry, I neither
care for, nor can trace, the minor exigencies of its daily appliance.
So, in every way, I like a quiet life; and I don't like seeing people
cry, or die; and should rejoice, more