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216 John Galsworthy
not all the same. . . . One likes to be friendly.
What s the use of being alive if one isn t?
"
Unfortunately most people are not alive to the
tragedies around them. They are often unthinking
mechanisms, mere tabulating machines, like Alfred
Calway, the Professor, who believes that
"
we re
to give the State all we can spare, to make the
undeserving deserving." Or as Sir Hoxton, the
Justice of the Peace, who insists that
"
we ought to
support private organizations for helping the de
serving, and damn the undeserving." Finally
there is the Canon who religiously seeks the mid
dle road and
"
wants a little of both."
When Ann concludes that her father is the de
spair of all social reformers, she is but expressing
a great truism ; namely, that social reform is a cold
and bloodless thing that can find no place in the
glowing humanity of Christopher Wellwyn.
It is Christmas Eve, the birth of Him who came
to proclaim
"
Peace on earth, good will to all."
Christopher Wellwyn is about to retire when he is
disturbed by a knock on the door.
The snow-covered, frost-pinched figure of
Guinevere Megan appears. She is a flower-seller
to whom Wellwyn had once given his card that
she might find him in case of need. She comes to
him when the rest of the world has passed her by,
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