suffer from your isolation; but even if I did admit it, I should deny
your right to it, if in its large effects it means an ill for the race.
Would you venture to say that the race would profit by it if your
example were largely imitated? I think you dare not say so much, for
you must be aware that the general desertion of cities would mean the
decay of commerce and of the arts, the arrest of progress, and national
disintegration. And if your own personal example would bear only evil
fruit were it elevated to a law of life, it stands condemned.

'For my own part, I am where you left me. I am in the same
rooms--dull, stuffy, inconvenient--you know all about them. I breathe
quantities of bad air every day, and see a hundred things that distress
me. I go three nights a week to the room in Lucraft's Row; struggle
with the young barbarians of the slums, and am content if I see but a
few signs of order evolving themselves out of chaos. A week ago I was
knocked down by a ruffian, who came next day to apologise on the
three-fold ground that he was drunk, that he did not know it was me he
struck, and that if he had known he never would have done it. My
ruffian was very penitent. He has since signed the pledge and is my
firm friend. I chased him out of a public-house last night, and made
him come home to my lodgings with me, where I gave him coffee, and sang
songs to him. He followed all my movements with the big wistful eyes
of a dog. There were tears in those eyes when he bade me good-night.
He brushed them away with a dirty hand, and said, "I know I can keep
straight now, sir, because you are my pal, and I ain't a-going against
the wishes of my pal!" This morning he left a pineapple at the door
for me--he is a coster, and pineapples are cheap just now. I felt more
pleasure than I can say; I could have sung over my work all day, so
glad was I. My dear fellow, don't think I speak pharisaically--you
know me too well; but I do believe I got more genuine pleasure out of