'With sincere gratitude I acknowledge the receipt of your most kind
and generous donation. The money...'

(Again his hand lay idle for several minutes.)

'shall be used as you wish, and I will render to you a detailed
account of the benefits conferred by it.'

Never had he found composition so difficult. He felt that he was expressing
himself wretchedly; a clog was on his brain. It cost him an exertion of
physical strength to conclude the letter. When it was done, he went out,
purchased a stamp at a tobacconist's shop, and dropped the envelope into
the post.

Little slumber had Mr. Tymperley that night. On lying down, he began to
wonder where he should find the poor people worthy of sharing in this
benefaction. Of course he had no acquaintance with the class of persons of
whom Mrs. Weare was thinking. In a sense, all the families round about were
poor, but--he asked himself--had poverty the same meaning for them as for
him? Was there a man or woman in this grimy street who, compared with
himself, had any right to be called poor at all? An educated man forced to
live among the lower classes arrives at many interesting conclusions with
regard to them; one conclusion long since fixed in Mr. Tymperley's mind was
that the 'suffering' of those classes is very much exaggerated by outsiders
using a criterion quite inapplicable. He saw around him a world of coarse
jollity, of contented labour, and of brutal apathy. It seemed to him more
than probable that the only person in this street conscious of poverty, and
suffering under it, was himself.