g, or Lord Settleham himself, would
sit, to apply the principles of goodwill. Against this policy the only
criticism was levelled by Felix. He could have agreed, he said, if he
had not noticed that Lord Settleham, and nearly all landowners, were
thoroughly satisfied with their existing good-will and averse to any
changes in their education that might foster an increase of it. If--he
asked--landowners were so full of good-will, and so satisfied that they
could not be improved in that matter, why had they not already done what
was now proposed, and settled the land question? He himself believed
that the land question, like any other, was only capable of settlement
through improvement in the spirit of all concerned, but he found it a
little difficult to credit Lord Settleham and the rest of the landowners
with sincerity in the matter so long as they were unconscious of any
need for their own improvement. According to him, they wanted it both
ways, and, so far as he could see, they meant to have it!

His use of the word sincere, in connection with Lord Settleham, was
at once pounced on. He could not know Lord Settleham--one of the most
sincere of men. Felix freely admitted that he did not, and hastened to
explain that he did not question the--er--parliamentary sincerity of
Lord Settleham and his followers. He only ventured to doubt whether
they realized the hold that human nature had on them. His experience, he
said, of the houses where they had been bred, and the seminaries
where they had been trained, had convinced him that there was still a
conspiracy on foot to blind Lord Settleham and those others concerning
all this; and, since they were themselves part of the conspiracy, there
was very little danger of their unmasking it. At this juncture Felix
was felt to have exceeded the limit of fair criticism, and only that
toleration toward literary men of a certain reputation, in country
houses, as persons brought there to say clever and irresponsible things,
prevented people from taking him seriously.

The third section of the guests, unquestionably more static than the
others, confined themselves to pointing out that, though the land
question was undoubtedly serious, nothing whatever would result from
placing any further impositions upon landowners. For, after all, what
was land? Simply capital invested in a certain way, and very poorly at
that. And what was capital? Simply a means of causing wages to be paid.
And whether t