How we cite our quotes: (Chapter, Paragraph)
Quote #10
"Your dress, my dear Frank, is respectable; your cheek is not gaunt. Why talk of necessities when nakedness and starvation beget the only real necessities?"
"But I need relief, Charlie; and so sorely, that I now conjure you to forget that I was ever your friend, while I apply to you only as a fellow-being, whom, surely, you will not turn away."
"That I will not. Take off your hat, bow over to the ground, and supplicate an alms of me in the way of London streets, and you shall not be a sturdy beggar in vain. But no man drops pennies into the hat of a friend, let me tell you. If you turn beggar, then, for the honor of noble friendship, I turn stranger." (41, 10-12)
Hooooo, this is kind of a doozy, and it's a scary look into Egbert's mind. First off, we get his quick, appearance-based test of human need. A true sufferer of poverty must be malnourished and unclothed, he argues. When pressed for help "as a fellow-being," then he shares what he thinks is the appropriate dynamic between a stranger and a sufferer: beg me…on your knees. Plus, friendship and begging are mutually exclusive for this dude. It's worth pointing out that this means Egbert can't see himself ever being friends with a poor person.