The sixth member, although she was a member of committees, was neither a
real expert in, nor a real lover of, Doing Good. In Doing Good, I think,
we have got into bad habits. We try in groups to do good to the
individual, whereas, if good is to be done, it would seem more likely,
and more consonant with precedent, that the individual might do it to
the group. Without the smile of a Treasurer we cannot unloose our
purse-strings; without the sanction of a Chairman we have no courage;
without Minutes we have no memory. There is hardly one of us who would
dare to give a flannelette nightgown to a Factory Girl who had Stepped
Aside, without a committee to lay the blame on, should the Factory Girl,
fortified by the flannelette nightgown, take Further Steps Aside.

The sixth member was only too apt to put her trust in committees.
Herself she did not trust at all, though she thought herself quite a
good creature, as selves go. She had come to London two years ago, with
a little trunk and a lot of good intentions as her only possessions, and
she had paid the inevitable penalty for her earnestness. It is a sad
thing to see any one of naturally healthy and rebellious tendency stray
into the flat path of Charity. Gay heedless young people set their
unwary feet between the flowery borders of that path, the thin air of
resigned thanks breathed by the deserving poor mounts to their heads
like wine; committees lie in wait for them on every side; hostels and
settlements entice them fatally to break their journey at every mile;
they run rejoicing to their doom, and I think shall eventually find
themselves without escape, elected eternal life-members of the Committee
that sits around the glassy sea.

The sixth member was saved by a merciful inefficiency of temperament
from attaining the vortex of her whirlpool of charity. To be in the
vortex is, I believe, almost always to see less. The bull's eye is