ing scale of taxation, they yell as if
they were thumb-screwed: but five shillings in the pound goes to the
kitchen as a matter of course--to puff those pompous idiots! and the
parsons, who should be preaching against this sheer waste of food and
perversion of the strength of the nation, as a public sin, are maundering
about schism. There's another idle army! Then we have artists, authors,
lawyers, doctors--the honourable professions! all hanging upon wealth,
all ageing the rich, and all bearing upon labour! it's incubus on
incubus. In point of fact, the rider's too heavy for the horse in
England.'

He began to nibble at bread.

Rosamund pushed over to him a plate of the celebrated Steynham pie, of
her own invention, such as no douse in the county of Sussex could produce
or imitate.

'What would you have the parsons do?' she said.

'Take the rich by the throat and show them in the kitchen-mirror that
they're swine running down to the sea with a devil in them.' She had set
him off again, but she had enticed him to eating. 'Pooh! it has all been
said before. Stones are easier to move than your English. May I be
forgiven for saying it! an invasion is what they want to bring them to
their senses. I'm sick of the work. Why should I be denied--am I to kill
the woman I love that I may go on hammering at them? Their idea of
liberty is, an evasion of public duty. Dr. Shrapnel's right--it's a
money-logged Island! Men like the Earl of Romfrey, who have never done
work in their days except to kill bears and birds, I say they're stifled
by wealth: and he at least would have made an Admiral of mark, or a
General: not of much value, but useful in case of need. But he, like a
pretty woman, was under no obligation to contribute more than an
ornamental person to the common good. As to that, we count him by tens of
thousands now, and his footmen and maids by hundreds of thousands. The
rich love the nation through their possessions; otherwise they have no
country. If they loved the country they would care for the people. Their
hearts are eaten up by property. I am bidden to hold my tongue because I
have no knowledge. When men who have this "knowledge" will go down to the
people, speak to them, consult and argue with them, and come into
suitable relations with them--I don't say of lords and retainers, but of
knowers and doers, leaders and followers--out of consideration for public
safety, if not for the common good, I shall hang back gl