As guests
they are fish out of water.
Circumstances do, of course, react on character. It is conventional
for the rich to give, and for the poor to receive. Riches do tend to
foster in you the instincts of a host, and poverty does create an
atmosphere favourable to the growth of guestish instincts. But strong
bents make their own way. Not all guests are to be found among the
needy, nor all hosts among the affluent. For sixteen years after my
education was, by courtesy, finished-- from the age, that is, of
twenty-two to the age of thirty-eight, I lived in London, seeing all
sorts of people all the while; and I came across many a rich man who,
like the master of the shepherd Corin, was `of churlish disposition'
and little recked `to find the way to heaven by doing deeds of
hospitality.' On the other hand, I knew quite poor men who were
incorrigibly hospitable.
To such men, all honour. The most I dare claim for myself is that if I
had been rich I should have been better than Corin's master. Even as
it was, I did my best. But I had no authentic joy in doing it. Without
the spur of pride I might conceivably have not done it at all. There
recurs to me from among memories of my boyhood an episode that is
rather significant. In my school, as in most others, we received now
and again `hampers' from home.
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