n Responsions.
Lucky for _me_, at any rate, that the world has decided it so. I get a
good time of it--and the Birmingham jeweller calls me 'sir.'"

"Oh! the skilled labour! that can take care of itself, and won't go on
calling you 'sir' much longer. But what about the unskilled--the people
here for instance--the villagers? We talk of their governing themselves;
we wish it, and work for it. But which of us _really_ believes that they
are fit for it, or that they are ever going to get along without _our_
brain-power?"

"No--poor souls!" said Wharton, with a peculiar vibrating emphasis.
"'_By their stripes we are healed, by their death we have lived_.' Do
you remember your Carlyle?"

They had entered one of the bays formed by the bookcases which on either
side of the room projected from the wall at regular intervals, and were
standing by one of the windows which looked out on the great avenue.
Beside the window on either side hung a small portrait--in the one case
of an elderly man in a wig, in the other of a young, dark-haired woman.

"Plenty in general, but nothing in particular," said Marcella, laughing.
"Quote."

He was leaning against the angle formed by the wall and the bookcase.
The half-serious, half-provocative intensity of his blue eyes under the
brow which drooped forward contrasted with the careless, well-appointed
ease of his general attitude and dress.

"'_Two men I honour, and no third_,'" he said, quoting in a slightly
dragging, vibrating voice: "'_First, the toil-worn craftsman that with
earth-made implement laboriously conquers the earth and makes her
man's.--Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us
were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed; thou wert our
conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so
marred_.' Heavens! how the words swing! But it is great nonsense, you
know, for you and me--Venturists--to be maundering like this.
Charity--benevolence--that is all Carlyle is leading up to. He merely
wants the cash nexus supplemented by a few good offices. But we want
something much more unpleasant! 'Keep your subscriptions--hand over your
dividends--turn out of your land--and go to work!' Nowadays society is
trying to get out of doing what _we_ want, by doing what Carlyle
wanted."

"_Do_ you want it?" said Marcella.

"I don't know," he said, laughing. "It won't come in our time."

Her lip showed her scorn.

"That's what we all think. Meanwhile yo