220 FOTHERGILL AS PHILANTHROPIST CHAP. 



seized with an epidemic disease, for which the doctor's 

 aid was earnestly desired. A friend took the father to 

 obtain his advice, and offered a fee, which was declined. 

 The curate's address was noted, and the doctor called 

 daily as long as he was needed : at the close the curate 

 tendered to his kind adviser a sum which he had strained 

 every nerve to obtain. What was his surprise when the 

 doctor instead put ten guineas into his hand, and charged 

 him to seek his help again freely if it was needed. After 

 prescribing for a poor patient he would give a sum "to 

 defray the cost of medicines " ; or at a final interview, 

 when he seemed to be feeling the pulse, he would slip 

 into the hand a banknote ; for he remembered, writes 

 Lettsom, that there was such a disease as hunger in the 

 catalogue of human ills, and if he could not cure he could 

 at least relieve it. No one ever knew the extent of his 

 benevolence to his patients. Of course he was imposed 

 upon, and he knew it ; but the springs of charity were 

 not in his view to be dried up because some proved 

 unworthy of it ; they came from too deep a source in 

 his character. He received a full reward although he 

 looked for none. He did not lack for money, and he 

 gained what is far more, the happiness of the man who 

 seeks only that of others. Fothergill's attitude towards 

 money shows that he had solved for himself the problem 

 of its right use on principles that few attain to. He 

 amassed no fortune, but he spent the large income earned 

 by his daily labour in pursuit of his aims in the help of 

 his fellow-men and the increase of knowledge. 



Fothergill used the same quiet unobtrusive methods 

 in aiding his friends. He heard that a lady unknown to 

 himself, but formerly known to his family, was in financial 

 straits. She was astonished to receive from him through 

 the hands of a friendly apothecary a sum of 100. Dr. 

 Gowin Knight, the eminent electrician mentioned in the 

 last chapter, was a friend of Fothergill's. By some 

 speculations in mining he found himself in difficulties, 

 and told the doctor that a sum of about one thousand 

 pounds would make him once more happy. " I will then 



