Tribulations of a Cheerful Giver by William Dean Howells

Some months ago, as I was passing through a down-town street on my way / to the elevated station, I saw a man sitting on the steps of a house. / He seemed to be resting his elbows on his knees, and holding out both / his hands. As I came nearer I perceived that he had no hands, but only / stumps, where the fingers had been cut off close to the palms, and / that it was these stumps he was holding out in the mute appeal which / was his form of begging. Otherwise he did not ask charity. When I / approached him he did not look up, and when I stopped in front of him / he did not speak. I thought this rather fine, in its way; except for / his mutilation, which the man really could not help, there was nothing / to offend the taste; and his immobile silence was certainly impressive.

I decided at once to give him something; for when I am in the presence / of want, or even the appearance of want, there is something that says / to me, "Give to him that asketh," and I have to give, or else go away / with a bad conscience -- a thing I hate. Of course I do not give much, / for I wish to be a good citizen as well as a good Christian; and as / soon as I obey that voice which I cannot disobey, I hear another voice / reproaching me for encouraging street beggary. I have been taught that / street beggary is wrong, and when I have to unbutton two coats and go / through three or four pockets before I can reach the small coin I mean / to give in compliance with that imperative voice, I certainly feel it / to be wrong. So I compromise, and I am never able to make sure that / either of those voices is satisfied with me. I am not even satisfied / with myself; but I am better satisfied than if I gave nothing. That was / the selfish reason I now had for deciding to yield to my better nature, / and to obey the voice which bade me "Give to him that asketh"; for, as / I said, I hate a bad conscience, and of two bad consciences I always / choose the least, which in a case like this, is the one that incensed / political economy gives me.