to the American reader, it will not be impertinent to note certain
peculiarities of the Altrurian attitude which the temperament of the
writer has somewhat modified. He is entangled in his social sophistries
regarding all the competitive civilizations; he cannot apparently do full
justice to the superior heroism of charity and self-sacrifice as
practised in countries where people live _upon_ each other as the
Americans do, instead of _for_ each other as the Altrurians do; but
he has some glimmerings of the beauty of our living, and he has
undoubtedly the wish to be fair to our ideals. He is unable to value our
devotion to the spirit of Christianity amid the practices which seem to
deny it; but he evidently wishes to recognize the possibility of such a
thing. He at least accords us the virtues of our defects, and, among
the many visitors who have censured us, he has not seen us with his
censures prepared to fit the instances; in fact, the very reverse has
been his method.

Many of the instances which he fits with his censures are such as he
could no longer note, if he came among us again. That habit of
celebrating the munificence of the charitable rich, on which he spends
his sarcasm, has fallen from us through the mere superabundance of
occasion. Our rich people give so continuously for all manner of good
objects that it would be impossible for our press, however vigilant, to
note the successive benefactions, and millions are now daily bestowed
upon needy educational institutions, of which no mention whatever is made
in the newspapers. If a millionaire is now and then surprised in a good
action by a reporter of uncommon diligence, he is able by an appeal to
their common humanity to prevail with the witness to spare him the
revolting publicity which it must be confessed would once have followed
his discovery; the right hand which is full to overflowing is now as
skilled as the empty right hand in keeping the left hand ignorant of its