ject,
the separation of ourselves from the poor. In procuring this seclusion
of ourselves by impassable barriers, we spend, to put it mildly, nine-
tenths of our wealth. The first thing that a man who was grown wealthy
does is to stop eating out of one bowl, and he sets up crockery, and fits
himself out with a kitchen and servants. And he feeds his servants high,
too, so that their mouths may not water over his dainty viands; and he
eats alone; and as eating in solitude is wearisome, he plans how he may
improve his food and deck his table; and the very manner of taking his
food (dinner) becomes a matter for pride and vain glory with him, and his
manner of taking his food becomes for him a means of sequestering himself
from other men. A rich man cannot think of such a thing as inviting a
poor man to his table. A man must know how to conduct ladies to table,
how to bow, to sit down, to eat, to rinse out the mouth; and only rich
people know all these things. The same thing occurs in the matter of
clothing. If a rich man were to wear ordinary clothing, simply for the
purpose of protecting his body from the cold,--a short jacket, a coat,
felt and leather boots, an under-jacket, trousers, shirt,--he would
require but very little, and he would not be unable, when he had two
coats, to give one of them to a man who had none. But the rich man
begins by procuring for himself clothing which consists entirely of
separate pieces, and which is fit only for separate occasions, and which
is, therefore, unsuited to the poor man. He has frock-coats, vests, pea-
jackets, lacquered boots, cloaks, shoes with French heels, garments that
are chopped up into bits to conform with the fashion, hunting-coats,
travelling-coats, and so on, which can only be used under conditions of
existence far removed from poverty. And his clothing also furnishes him
with a means of keeping at a distance from the poor. The same is the
case, and even more clearly, with his dwelling. In order that one may
live alone in ten rooms, it is indispensable that those who live ten in
one room should not see it. The richer a man is, the more difficult is
he of access; the more porters there are between him and people who are
not rich, the more impossible is it to conduct a poor man over rugs, and
seat him in a satin chair.

The case is the same with the means of locomotion. The peasant driving
in a cart, or a sledge, must be a very ill-tempered man when he will