It required all his delicate Epicurean education to prevent his doing something about it; he had to repeat over to himself his favorite notions: that the injustice and unhappiness in the world is a constant; that the theory of progress is a delusion; that the poor, never having known happiness, are insensible to misfortune. Like all the rich he could not bring himself to believe that the poor (look at their houses, look at their clothes) could really suffer. Like all the cultivated he believed that only the widely read could be said to know that they were unhappy.
He seems so frivolous and so careless, but he gives money to beggars, not frivolously or carelessly, but because he believes in giving money to beggars, and giving it to them __here they stand_.He says he knows perfectly well all the arguments against giving money to beggars. But he finds those to be precisely the arguments for giving money to them. If beggars are lazy or deceptive or wanting a drink, he knows only too well his own lack of motivation, his own dishonesty, his own thirst.He doesn__ believe in __cientific charity_ because that is too easy, as easy as writing a check. He believes in __romiscuous charity_ because that is really difficult. __t means the most dark and terrible of all human actions__alking to a man. In fact, I know of nothing more difficult than really talking to the poor men we meet._ (pp. 13-14)
Common Sense 101: Lessons from G.K. Chesterton
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He seems so frivolous and so careless, but he gives money to beggars, not frivolously or carelessly, but because he believes in giving money to beggars, and giving it to them __here they stand_.He says he knows perfectly well all the arguments against giving money to beggars. But he finds those to be precisely the arguments for giving money to them. If beggars are lazy or deceptive or wanting a drink, he knows only too well his own lack of motivation, his own dishonesty, his own thirst.He doesn__ believe in __cientific charity_ because that is too easy, as easy as writing a check. He believes in __romiscuous charity_ because that is really difficult. __t means the most dark and terrible of all human actions__alking to a man. In fact, I know of nothing more difficult than really talking to the poor men we meet._ (pp. 13-14)
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