human
Uncle, Katie asked quietly,
gpt
What a strange man he must have been,
human
Kindly explain yourself,
gpt
He seemed to think so much about people. Just people. And chiefly people who were down on their luck. I don't believe he would have been much good at raising money. He had such a queer way of going around where people worked, talking with them about their work. If he were here now, and were to do that, I wonder if he'd help much in 'stemming the rising tide of socialism' What a blessing it is for our institutions, Katie concluded,
human
I had not expected, he said,
gpt
Uncle--forgive me! But isn't it bigger than that thing of being members of the same family--hurting each other's feelings? Oh uncle! she burst forth, no longer able to hold back,
human
Oh no, she laughed,
gpt
Really, Katherine, he said stiffly,
human
Those people! The worn out shop girls and broken down men and women and diseased children that your church is built right on top of!
gpt
Katie dear, what is it? What's the trouble?
human
Uncle--it's the misery of the world! It's the people who aren't where they belong! It's the lives ruined through blunders--it's the cruelty--the needless _cruelty_ of it all. She leaned forward, the tears upon her cheeks.
gpt
Uncle, how can you? You have a mind--a kind heart. But what good are they? If you believe the things you say you believe--oh you think you believe them--but you don't seem to connect them. Here to-night we've been talking about the forms of the church--finances of the church--and humanity is in _need_, uncle--bodily need--and oh the _heart_ need! Why don't you go and see? Why you've only to look! What are your puny little problems of the church compared with people's lives? And yet you--cut off--detached--save in so far as feeding on them goes--claim to be following in the footsteps of a man who followed in _their_ footsteps--a man who went about seeing how people lived--finding out what troubled them--trying-- She sank back with a sob.
human
I didn't mean to--but I simply _can't understand it._ Can't understand how you _can_.
gpt
If I didn't think, Katherine, that something had happened to almost derange you, I should not have permitted you to continue these ravings.
human
Truths people don't want to hear are usually disposed of as ravings!
gpt
Now if I may be permitted a word. Your indictment is not at all new, though your heat in making it would indicate you believed yourself to be saying something never said before--
human
I know it's been said before! I'm more interested in knowing how it's been answered.
gpt
You have never seemed sufficiently interested in the affairs of the church, Katherine, for one to think of seriously discussing our charities with you--
human
Uncle, do you know what your charities make me think of?
gpt
No, he said coldly,
human
I do not know what they make you 'think of.' I was attempting to tell you what they were.
gpt
I know what they are. The idea that comes to my mind has a rather vulgar--
human
Oh, pray do not hesitate, Katherine. You have not been speaking what I would call delicately.
gpt
Your charities are like waving a scented handkerchief over the stock-yards. Or like handing out after-dinner mints to a mob of starving men.
human
You're quite the wrong end there--as is usual with you agitators, he replied comfortably.
gpt
We don't give them mints. We give them soup.
human
What a bore a little learning can make of one! My dear niece, I deeply regret to be compelled to inform you that there aren't 'jobs' enough to go around.
gpt
Why aren't there?
human
Why the obvious reason would seem, Katie, he replied patiently,
gpt
And as usual, the obvious reason is not it. There are too many of you and me--that's the trouble. They don't have the soup because they must furnish us the mints. It was Katie who had risen now and was walking about the room. Her cheeks were blazing.
human
I tell you, uncle, I feel it's a disgrace the way we live--taking everything and doing nothing. I feel positively cheap about it. The army and the church and all the other useless things--
gpt
I do not agree with you that the army is useless and I certainly cannot permit you to say the church is.
human
You'll not be able to stop other people from saying it!
gpt
Katie, your learning sounds very suspiciously as though it were put on last night. I feel like putting up a sign--'Fresh Paint--Keep Off.'
human
Well at any rate it's not mouldy!
gpt
At college I roomed with a chap who had a way of discovering things, getting in a fine glow of discovery over things everybody else had known. He would wake me out of a sound sleep to tell me something I had heard the week before.
human
And it's trying to be waked out of a sound sleep, isn't it, uncle?