at of that? The same low tone of
mind assails men in other professions in a similar manner--calls great
writers scribblers--great generals, butchers--and so on. It entirely
depends on the point of view. Adopting your point, I announce myself
intelligibly as a Swindler. Now return the obligation, and adopt
mine. Hear what I have to say for myself, in the exercise of my
profession.--Shall I continue to put it frankly?"

"Yes," said Magdalen; "and I'll tell you frankly afterward what I think
of it."

The captain cleared his throat; mentally assembled his entire army of
words--horse, foot, artillery, and reserves; put himself at the head;
and dashed into action, to carry the moral intrenchments of Society by a
general charge.

"Now observe," he began. "Here am I, a needy object. Very good. Without
complicating the question by asking how I come to be in that condition,
I will merely inquire whether it is, or is not, the duty of a Christian
community to help the needy. If you say No, you simply shock me; and
there is an end of it; if you say Yes, then I beg to ask, Why am I to
blame for making a Christian community do its duty? You may say, Is a
careful man who has saved money bound to spend it again on a careless
stranger who has saved none? Why of course he is! And on what ground,
pray? Good heavens! on the ground that he has _got_ the money, to be
sure. All the world over, the man who has not got the thing, obtains it,
on one pretense or another, of the man who has--and, in nine cases out
of ten, the pretense is a false one. What! your pockets are full, and
my pockets are empty; and you refuse to help me? Sordid wretch! do you
think I will allow you to violate the sacred obligations of charity
in my person? I won't allow you--I say, distinctly, I won't allow you.
Those are my principles as a moral agriculturist. Principles which admit
of trickery? Certainly. Am I to blame if the field of human sympathy
can't be cultivated in any other way? Consult my brother agriculturists
in the mere farming line--do they get their crops for the asking? No!
they must circumvent arid Nature exactly as I circumvent sordid
Man. They must plow, and sow, and top-dress, and bottom-dress, and
deep-drain, and surface-drain, and all the rest of it. Why am I to be
checked in the vast occupation of deep-draining mankind? Why am I to be
persecuted for habitually exciting the noblest feelings of our common
nature? Infamous!--I can characterize it b