FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128  
129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   >>   >|  
With that she retired, and shutting the door behind her left Helmsley to himself. Many and conflicting were the thoughts that chased one another through his brain during the quiet half-hour he gave to his morning meal,--a whole fund of new suggestions and ideas were being generated in him by the various episodes in which he was taking an active yet seemingly passive part. He had voluntarily entered into his present circumstances, and so far, he had nothing to complain of. He had met with friendliness and sympathy from persons who, judged by the world's conventions, were of no social account whatever, and he had seen for himself men in a condition of extreme poverty, who were nevertheless apparently contented with their lot. Of course, as a well-known millionaire, his secretaries had always had to deal with endless cases of real or assumed distress, more often the latter,--and shoals of begging letters from people representing themselves as starving and friendless, formed a large part of the daily correspondence with which his house and office were besieged,--but he had never come into personal contact with these shameless sort of correspondents, shrewdly judging them to be undeserving simply by the very fact that they wrote begging letters. He knew that no really honest or plucky-spirited man or woman would waste so much as a stamp in asking money from a stranger, even if such a stranger were twenty times a millionaire. He had given huge sums away to charitable institutions anonymously; and he remembered with a thrill of pain the "Christian kindness" of some good "Church" people, who, when the news accidentally slipped out that he was the donor of a particularly munificent gift to a certain hospital, remarked that "no doubt Mr. Helmsley had given it anonymously _at first_, in order that it might be made public more effectively _afterwards,_ by way of a personal _advertisement_!" Such spiteful comment often repeated, had effectually checked the outflow of his naturally warm and generous spirit, nevertheless he was always ready to relieve any pressing cases of want which were proved genuine, and many a wretched family in the East End of London had cause to bless him for his timely and ungrudging aid. But this present kind of life,--the life of the tramp, the poacher, the gypsy, who is content to be "on the road" rather than submit to the trammels of custom and ordinance, was new to him and full of charm. He took a pe
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128  
129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
people
 

letters

 

Helmsley

 

begging

 

present

 
millionaire
 
personal
 

stranger

 
anonymously
 

slipped


munificent

 

hospital

 
spirited
 

remarked

 
charitable
 

institutions

 
remembered
 
thrill
 

twenty

 

Church


Christian

 

kindness

 

accidentally

 

repeated

 

poacher

 

ungrudging

 

timely

 

London

 

ordinance

 

custom


trammels

 
submit
 

content

 

family

 

wretched

 
advertisement
 

spiteful

 
comment
 

effectually

 
plucky

public
 

effectively

 
checked
 
outflow
 

pressing

 

proved

 
genuine
 

relieve

 
naturally
 

generous