terms in that sorry science.

I understand, far better than most men, what I owe to the labour of
others. This money which I "draw" at the four quarters of the year, in a
sense falls to me from heaven; but I know very well that every drachm is
sweated from human pores. Not, thank goodness, with the declared tyranny
of basest capitalism; I mean only that it is the product of human labour;
perhaps wholesome, but none the less compulsory. Look far enough, and it
means muscular toil, that swinking of the ruder man which supports all
the complex structure of our life. When I think of him thus, the man of
the people earns my gratitude. That it is gratitude from afar, that I
never was, and never shall be, capable of democratic fervour, is a
characteristic of my mind which I long ago accepted as final. I have
known revolt against the privilege of wealth (can I not remember spots in
London where I have stood, savage with misery, looking at the prosperous
folk who passed?), but I could never feel myself at one with the native
poor among whom I dwelt. And for the simplest reason; I came to know
them too well. He who cultivates his enthusiasm amid graces and comforts
may nourish an illusion with regard to the world below him all his life
long, and I do not deny that he may be the better for it; for me, no
illusion was possible. I knew the poor, and I knew that their aims were
not mine. I knew that the kind of life (such a modest life!) which I
should have accepted as little short of the ideal, would have been to
them--if they could have been made to understand it--a weariness and a
contempt. To ally myself with them against the "upper world" would have
been mere dishonesty, or sheer despair. What they at heart desired, was
to me barren; what I coveted, was to them for ever incomprehensible.

That my own aim indicated an ideal which is the best for all to pursue, I
am far from maintaining. It may be so, or not; I have long known the