Working with the Homeless

Thoreau is often claimed by those who are homeless by choice, as their patron saint, though his perspective is congruent with that of Saint-Exupery—who would never be claimed as a patron saint by the homeless.

Here is Thoreau on the poor.

“Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, though it be your example which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them. We make curious mistakes sometimes. Often the poor man is not so cold and hungry as he is dirty and ragged and gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his misfortune. If you give him money, he will perhaps buy more rags with it. I was wont to pity the clumsy Irish laborers who cut ice on the pond, in such mean and ragged clothes, while I shivered in my more tidy and somewhat more fashionable garments, till, one bitter cold day, one who had slipped into the water came to my house to warm him, and I saw him strip off three pairs of pants and two pairs of stockings ere he got down to the skin, though they were dirty and ragged enough, it is true, and that he could afford to refuse the extra garments which I offered him, he had so many intra ones. This ducking was the very thing he needed. Then I began to pity myself, and I saw that it would be a greater charity to bestow on me a flannel shirt than a whole slop-shop on him. There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.

(Thoreau, H. D. (1854). Walden. New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, (1996) pp. 97-98)

Here is Saint-Exupery.

“All too often have I seen pity led astray. But we who govern men have learnt to plumb their hearts, and we bestow compassion only on what is worthy of our concern. No pity waste I on the shrilly voiced afflictions that fret women’s hearts. As I withhold it from the dying and from the dead. And I know wherefore.

“A time there was, in my young days, when I pitied beggars and their sores. I hired physicians and procured balsams for them. Caravans from a far-off island brought me those rare unguents laced with gold that mend the torn skin above the flesh. Thus did I until the day when I discovered that beggars cling to their stench as to something rare and precious. For I had caught them scratching away their scabs and smearing their bodies with dung, like the husbandman who spreads manure over his garden plot, so as to wean from it the crimson flower. Vying with each other, they flaunted their corruption, and bragged of the alms they wrung from the tender-hearted. He who wheedled most likened himself to a high priest bringing forth from the shrine his goodliest idol for all to gape at and heap with offerings. When they deigned to consult my physicians, it was in the hope that the hugeness and virulence of their cankers would astound him. And how nimbly they shuffled their stumps to have room made for them in the market places! Thus they took the kindness done them for a homage, proffering their limbs to unctions that flattered their self-esteem.

“But no sooner were they healed than they found themselves of no account, like barren soil that feeds nothing; and they made haste to revive the ulcers that formerly had battened on their flesh. Then, clad once more in a motley of scabs and sores, they strutted it, begging-bowl in hand, and squatted beside the caravan road where, crying up their noisome gods, they levied tribute of the wayfarers.”

(Saint-Exupery, A. (1950). The Wisdom of the Sands. New York: Harcourt, Brace and company. pp. 3-4)