ream.

The assurance rose within him that he was not to have any more such
trouble. With a singular clearness of mental vision he perceived that
the part of him which brought bad dreams had been sloughed off, like a
serpent's skin. There had been two Thorpes, and one of them--the Thorpe
who had always been willing to profit by knavery, and at last in a
splendid coup as a master thief had stolen nearly a million, and would
have shrunk not at all from adding murder to the rest, to protect that
plunder--this vicious Thorpe had gone away altogether. There was no
longer a place for him in life; he would never be seen again by
mortal eye....There remained only the good Thorpe, the pleasant,
well-intentioned opulent gentleman; the excellent citizen; the
beneficent master, to whom, even Gafferson like the others, touched a
respectful forelock.

It passed in the procession of his reverie as a kind of triumph of
virtue that the good Thorpe retained the fortune which the bad Thorpe
had stolen. It was in all senses a fortunate fact, because now it would
be put to worthy uses. Considering that he had but dimly drifted
about heretofore on the outskirts of the altruistic impulse, it was
surprisingly plain to him now that he intended to be a philanthropist.
Even as he mentioned the word to himself, the possibilities suggested
by it expanded in his thoughts. His old dormant, formless lust for power
stirred again in his pulses. What other phase of power carried with it
such rewards, such gratitudes, such humble subservience on all sides
as far as the eye could reach--as that exercised by the intelligently
munificent philanthropist?

Intelligence! that was the note of it all. Many rich people dabbled at
the giving of money, but they did it so stupidly, in such a slip-shod
fashion, that they got no credit for it. Even millionaires more or less
in public life, great newspaper-owners, great brewer-peers, and the
like, men who should know how to do things well, gave huge sums in bulk
for public charities, such as the housing of the poor, and yet contrived
somehow to let the kudos that should have been theirs evaporate. He
would make no such mistake as that.

It was easy enough to see wherein they erred. They gave superciliously,
handing down their alms from a top lofty altitude of Tory superiority,
and the Radicals down below sniffed or growled even while they
grudgingly took these gifts--that was all nonsense. These aristocratic
or tuft