to spoil others or be spoiled by them. But my grandfather--the old
rascal!--was in no such dilemma. Master as he was of his bit of merry
England, no man could have enslaved him, and he might at least have
lived and let live. My father followed his example in the matter of the
deer forest, but that was the climax of his wickedness, whereas it was
only the beginning of my grandfather's. Howbeit, whichever bears the
palm, there they were, the types after which we all strive."

"Not all, Sidney. Not we two. I hate tradespeople and country squires.
We belong to the artistic and cultured classes, and we can keep aloof
from shopkeepers."

"Living, meanwhile, at the rate of several thousand a year on rent and
interest. No, my dear, this is the way of those people who insist that
when they are in heaven they shall be spared the recollection of such a
place as hell, but are quite content that it shall exist outside their
consciousness. I respect my father more--I mean I despise him less--for
doing his own sweating and filching than I do the sensitive sluggards
and cowards who lent him their money to sweat and filch with, and asked
no questions provided the interest was paid punctually. And as to your
friends the artists, they are the worst of all."

"Oh, Sidney, you are determined not to be pleased. Artists don't keep
factories."

"No; but the factory is only a part of the machinery of the system.
Its basis is the tyranny of brain force, which, among civilized men, is
allowed to do what muscular force does among schoolboys and savages. The
schoolboy proposition is: 'I am stronger than you, therefore you shall
fag for me.' Its grown up form is: 'I am cleverer than you, therefore