My tastes are
so simple that I cannot imagine any advantage which
wealth can give--save indeed the exquisite pleasure of
helping a good man or a good cause. Why should people
ever take credit for charity when they must know that
they cannot gain as much pleasure out of their guineas in
any other fashion? I gave my watch to a broken
schoolmaster the other day (having no change in my
pocket), and the mater could not quite determine whether
it was a trait of madness or of nobility. I could have
told her with absolute confidence that it was neither the
one nor the other, but a sort of epicurean
selfishness with perhaps a little dash of swagger away
down at the bottom of it. What had I ever had from my
chronometer like the quiet thrill of satisfaction when
the fellow brought me the pawn ticket and told me that
the thirty shillings had been useful?
Leslie Duncan got out at Carstairs, and I was left
alone with a hale, white-haired, old Roman Catholic
priest, who had sat quietly reading his office in the
corner. We fell into the most intimate talk, which
lasted all the way to Avonmouth--indeed, so interested
was I that I very nearly passed through the place without
knowing it. Father Logan (for that was his name) seemed
to me to be a beautiful type of what a priest should be--
self-sacrificing and pure-minded, with a kind of simple
cunning about him, and a deal of innocent fun.
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