frontal attacks. The
wave of force which travels on a circle may arrive with more thrilling
impact on a point of contact than that which travels on a horizontal
line. Society is best served after all by the fullest development of
our best faculties; and whether we check this development from pious or
selfish motives, the result is still the same; we have robbed society
of its profit by us, which is the worst kind of evil which we can
inflict on the community.

If this statement of social obligation is admitted as correct, most of
my friend's strictures on my conduct dissolve into mere harmless
rhetoric. For instance, he says I have 'marooned' myself, and goes on
to draw a fancy picture of a South Sea Islander, content with laziness
and sunshine, intimating that this is the kind of life which I have
chosen. On the contrary my life is what most city men would call a
hard life. I work hard every day, the only difference between my work
and theirs being that my work is natural, wholesome, and pleasant,
while theirs is drudgery. In what am I more selfish than the average
citizen, who after all is doing just what I am doing, viz. working for
his living? My friend would have me believe that the man who toils in
cities does so from exalted motives. He is bearing the weight of
empire, assisting in the growth of British commerce, and generally
serving the cause of national progress, while I sit in ignoble
independence on my own potato patch. I have known a good many men
engaged in the lower ranks of commerce, but I have yet to meet one who
is influenced in the least by these highly-coloured motives and ideals.
They are intent on earning their living, no more. Their interest in
commerce is precisely confined to what they can get out of it. They
bear just as little of the burden of the Empire as the tax-gatherer
will permit them. There is not one of them who would not object with
vigour to take a single shilling less per week for the sake of
progress, or any cause that might arrogate that title. Besides, it is
surely a piece of undiluted Cockney egoism to suppose that the only
persons who do their duty by the Empire are Londoners. We are still an
agricultural country, and there are some millions of people who live
upon the land. They do some kind of work, which one may suppose is of
some utility and value to the nation; why should their kind of work be
despised? They also pay taxes, give an equivalent of labour for