It was the same old story, only less affecting, because generally deficient in style, and faulty as to spelling, and no longer illustrated by tearful, vigorously mopped eyes, abysmal sighs, and hands wrung till they cracked.

For a time Wilhelm went to every address given in these letters, in order to see and hear for himself, but after awhile his powers of discrimination were sharpened, and he learned to distinguish between the impositions of swindlers and professional beggars, and the real distress which has a claim to sympathy.
By degrees, it is true, he became convinced, even in the chill dwellings of real poverty, that this was hardly ever entirely unmerited.

Where it had not been brought about by laziness, frivolity, or drink, its source was to be found in ignorance or incapacity, in other words, in an inefficient equipment for the battle of life.

He judged all these circumstances, however, to be the outward and visible signs of obscure natural laws, and that to interfere with rash and ignorant hands in their workings was as useless as it was unreasonable.
He therefore pondered seriously whether, by denying to a portion of mankind the qualities indispensable to success in the struggle for existence, Nature herself did not predestine them to misery and destruction; whether the irredeemable poor--those who after each help upward invariably fell back in the former state--were not the offscourings of humanity, the preservation of whom was a fruitless task, and altogether against the design of Nature?
Fortunately, he did not allow his deeds of brotherly love to be darkened by the shadow of these and kindred thoughts.

He brought forward reasons which always ended by triumphing over his cold doubts.
Misery was possibly the outcome of inexorable natural laws, but then was not compassion the same?
The poor were poor under the pressure of some irresistible force, but did not the charitable act under the same pressure?
Moreover, was Wilhelm so sure that he himself was better equipped for the race of life than those unfortunates who went under because they chose a trade for which they were neither mentally nor physically competent, or because, from laziness or obstinacy, they insisted on remaining in Berlin, where nobody wanted them, when a few miles off they might have found all the conditions conducive to their prosperity?
How could he know whether he would have been capable of earning his living if his father had not left him a plentifully-spread table?
In the rooms that contained so little furniture and so many emaciated human beings, into which his charitable zeal led him every day, he pictured himself, pale and thin, without food, without books; and although he had the harmless vanity to believe that privation and penury would affect him less deeply than the poor devils he visited, the idea that he saw his own face before him, as it might have been had he not had the good luck to be his father's heir opened his hand still wider, and added to the money words of sympathy and comfort, which afforded the recipients--unless they were utterly hardened--as much pleasure as the donation itself.
Beside his almsgiving, he now had another occupation which took up all his surplus time.