Get the
tale of any honest tramp, you will find it was always the poor who
helped him; get the truth from any workman who has met misfortunes,
it was always next door that he would go for help, or only with
such exceptions as are said to prove a rule; look at the course of
the mimetic beggar, it is through the poor quarters that he trails
his passage, showing his bandages to every window, piercing even to
the attics with his nasal song. Here 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
familarity, 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.
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