human destinies--bringing unhoped-for justice to the oppressed, succour
as out of heaven to the outcast, and swift retribution, as of sudden
lightning, to the oppressor. To play Providence in some tragic crisis of
human lives; at the moment when all seemed lost to step out of the
darkness and set all right with a touch of that magic wand. To walk by
the side of lost and lonely men, an unexpected friend; to scribble a
word on a card and say, "Present this tomorrow morning at such a number
Broadway and see what will happen," and then to disappear once again
into the darkness. To talk with sad, wandering girls, and arrange that
wonderful new hats and other forms of feminine hope shall fall out of
the sky into their lonely rooms on the morrow. To be the friend of weary
workmen and all that toil by night while the world is asleep in soft
beds. To come upon the hobo as he lies asleep on the park bench and slip
a purse into his tattered coat, and perhaps be somewhere by to see him
wake up in the dawn, and watch the strange antics of his joy--all
unsuspected as its cause. To go up to the poor push-cart man, as he is
being hurried from street corner to street corner by the police, and
say: "Would you like to go back to Italy? Here is a steamer ticket. A
boat sails for Genoa tomorrow. And here is a thousand dollars. It will
buy you a vineyard in Sicily. Go home and bid the signora get ready."
And then to disappear once more, like Harlequin, to flash your wand in
some other corner of the human multitude. Oh, there would be fun for
one's money, something worth while having money for!

I offer this suggestion to any rich man who may care to take it up, free
of charge. It is a fascinating opportunity, and its rewards would be
incalculable. At the end of the year how wise one would be in the human
story--how filled to overflowing his heart with the thought of the joy
he would thus have brought to so many lives--all, too, in pure fun,
himself having had such a good time all the while!