and I have a sensation of making a substantial sacrifice in doing so.
Obviously, however, it has cost me really nothing! I spend two hundred
and fifty dollars or more every week or so on an evening's entertainment
for fifteen or twenty of my friends and think nothing of it. It is part
of my manner of living, and my manner of living is an advertisement of
my success--and advertising in various subtle ways is a business
necessity. Yet if I give two hundred and fifty dollars to a relief fund
I have an inflation of the heart and feel conscious of my generosity.

I can frankly say, therefore, that so far as I am concerned my response
to the ordinary appeal for charity is purely perfunctory and largely, if
not entirely, dictated by policy; and the sum total of my charities on
an income of seventy-five thousand dollars a year is probably less than
fifteen hundred dollars, or about two per cent.

Yet, thinking it over dispassionately, I do not conclude from this that
I am an exceptionally selfish man. I believe I represent the average in
this respect. I always respond to minor calls in a way that pleases the
recipient and causes a genuine flow of satisfaction in my own breast. I
toss away nickels, dimes and quarters with prodigality; and if one of
the office boys feels out of sorts I send him off for a week's vacation
on full pay. I make small loans to seedy fellows who have known better
days and I treat the servants handsomely at Christmas.

I once sent a boy to college--that is, I promised him fifty dollars a
year. He died in his junior term, however. Sisters of Mercy, the
postman, a beggar selling pencils or shoelaces--almost anybody, in
short, that actually comes within range--can pretty surely count on
something from me. But I confess I never go out of my way to look for
people in need of help. I have not the time.