"But the misery and want and starvation. The ... the... utter
hopelessness of it all."

"But it isn't hopeless at all. Nothing is hopeless. And then, knowing
the misery is there, and doing nothing, is far worse than seeing it and
doing what one can."

"Oh no, because one can forget so often."

"Some can. I can't. Therefore I can only choose to go and wrestle
with it."

"Of course it is heroic of you, but still! - "

Harold St. Quintin gave a gay laugh.

"It is not a bit more heroic than your work on the stage to give people
pleasure. I get as much satisfaction in return as you do; and that is
the main point. Slum humanity is seething with interest, and it is by
no means all sad, nor all discouraging. There is probably more humour
and heroism there per square mile than anywhere else."

"And no doubt more animal life also," put in Dick Bruce. "It's the
superfluous things that put me off, not the want of anything."

"It's feeling such an ass puts me off," added Hermon; "they're all so
busy and alert about one thing or another down there, they make me feel
a mere cumberer of the earth. A woman manages a husband, and a family,
and some sort of a home, and does the breadwinning as well. The