If she could do nothing for the cause of labor, and
nothing for the cause of justice, she was willing to accomplish what she
could for the cause of education.
Under such urgings as these, David Marshall began irritably to impugn the
motives of those men whose philanthropic disposition had earned for them
the approval of the well-disposed. One was actuated by vanity and
vainglory; another by political ambitions; a third took to philanthropy
as to the current fad.
"There might be worse ones," Bingham would retort. "Sixty or seventy
years ago the fad hereabouts was scalp-raising. Isn't the present one an
improvement on that?"
"You bring up Ingles," the other went on; "he's simply philanthropic
as an additional vent to his own energies. You talk about Bates; he
merely makes all those benefactions to please his wife. And so with
others."
"Is that a bad motive--the wish to please one's wife by a generous deed?"
"I have _my_ wife to please," returned Marshall. His observation
came out with a sort of raw and awkward directness. It seemed to convey
the odd implication that the way to please this wife would be not to do a
generous deed, but to refrain from doing it. And Bingham, who appreciated
the saplessness of Eliza Marshall's sympathies and the narrowness of her
horizon, made no effort to give his friend's remark a more favorable
aspect.
Marshall derived support not only from the narrow selfishness of his
wife, but also from the fastidiousness of his younger son, who met with
open derision any project involving the accomplishment of a piece of
actual architecture.
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