"I withdraw all argument," said Kenelm, with an aspect so humiliated
and dejected, that it would have softened a Greenland bear, or a
Counsel for the Prosecution. "I am more and more convinced that of
all the shams in the world that of benevolence is the greatest. It
seems so easy to do good, and it is so difficult to do it.
Everywhere, in this hateful civilized life, one runs one's head
against a system. A system, Mr. Travers, is man's servile imitation of
the blind tyranny of what in our ignorance we call 'Natural Laws,' a
mechanical something through which the world is ruled by the cruelty
of General Principles, to the utter disregard of individual welfare.
By Natural Laws creatures prey on each other, and big fishes eat
little ones upon system. It is, nevertheless, a hard thing for the
little fish. Every nation, every town, every hamlet, every
occupation, has a system, by which, somehow or other, the pond swarms
with fishes, of which a great many inferiors contribute to increase
the size of a superior. It is an idle benevolence to keep one
solitary gudgeon out of the jaws of a pike. Here am I doing what I
thought the simplest thing in the world, asking a gentleman, evidently
as good-natured as myself, to allow an old woman to let her premises
to a deserving young couple, and paying what she asks for it out of my
own money. And I find that I am running against a system, and
invading all the laws by which a rental is increased and an estate
improved. Mr. Travers, you have no cause for regret in not having
beaten Tom Bowles. You have beaten his victor, and I now give up all
dream of further interference with the Natural Laws that govern the
village which I have visited in vain. I had meant to remove Tom
Bowles from that quiet community. I shall now leave him to return to
his former habits,--to marry Jessie Wiles, which he certainly will do,
and--"