e here. All their ways are eloquent of condemnation of his tastes.
And yet again, while his old skill fails to be understood, and his old
outlook to be appreciated, he finds that the behaviour preferred in him
is oftener than not a behaviour which his forefathers would have thought
silly, to say the least--a finikin, fastidious behaviour, such as he
would scorn to practise at home. Thus in all ways the employers most
conscientiously humane are those who can least avoid, in their tastes
and their whole manner of living, snubbing him and setting him down in
an inferior place. They cannot help it, now that they have thrust
themselves upon him as neighbours. The more they interest themselves in
him, the more glaringly is the difference which separates themselves
from him brought out.

Whether, if the common had remained open, the villagers could still have
held aloof, at this time of day, from the movements of the outer world
is a question not worth discussion. The enclosure was brought to pass;
the keystone was knocked out of the arch; and here are some of the
indirect consequences. From a position in which the world's
distinctions of class and caste were hardly noticed--a position which
was, so to speak, an island of refuge, where self-respect could be
preserved in preserving the old rough peasant ways--the valley folk have
been forced into such relations with the world outside the valley as we
have seen. They are no longer a separate set, unclassified, but a grade
has been assigned to them in the classification of society at large, and
it is wellnigh the lowest grade of all, for only the pauper and criminal
classes are below them. In this sense, therefore, they are a "degraded"
people, though by no fault of their own. Amongst "the masses" is where
they are counted. Moreover, since they are now, as we have seen,
competing against one another for the right to live, none of the
concessions are made to them now that were of old made to the group of
them, but they count, and are judged, individually, amongst the millions
of the English proletariat. "Inferiority" has come into their lives; it
is expected of them to treat almost everybody else as a superior person.
But the cruellest indignity of all is that, although we regard them as
inferiors, we still look to them to admire and live up to our standards;
and they are to conform to our civilization, yet without the income it
requires or the social recognition it should secure