h extreme mortification, in her father's with
anger. The ladies were exchanging scandalized looks, while one of the
gentlemen had put up his eyeglass and was studying me with an air of
scientific curiosity, When I saw that things which were to me so
intolerable moved them not at all, that words that melted my heart to
speak had only offended them with the speaker, I was at first stunned
and then overcome with a desperate sickness and faintness at the
heart. What hope was there for the wretched, for the world, if
thoughtful men and tender women were not moved by things like these!
Then I bethought myself that it must be because I had not spoken
aright. No doubt I had put the case badly. They were angry because
they thought I was berating them, when God knew I was merely thinking
of the horror of the fact without any attempt to assign the
responsibility for it.

I restrained my passion, and tried to speak calmly and logically that
I might correct this impression. I told them that I had not meant to
accuse them, as if they, or the rich in general, were responsible for
the misery of the world. True indeed it was, that the superfluity
which they wasted would, otherwise bestowed, relieve much bitter
suffering. These costly viands, these rich wines, these gorgeous
fabrics and glistening jewels represented the ransom of many lives.
They were verily not without the guiltiness of those who waste in a
land stricken with famine. Nevertheless, all the waste of all the
rich, were it saved, would go but a little way to cure the poverty of
the world. There was so little to divide that even if the rich went
share and share with the poor, there would be but a common fare of
crusts, albeit made very sweet then by brotherly love.

The folly of men, not their hard-heartedness, was the great cause of
the world's poverty. It was not the crime of man, nor of any class of
men, that made the race so miserable, but a hideous, ghastly mistake,
a colossal world-darkening blunder. And then I showed them how four
fifths of the labor of men was utterly wasted by the mutual warfare,
the lack of organization and concert among the workers. Seeking to
make the matter very plain, I instanced the case of arid lands where
the soil yielded the means of life only by careful use of the
watercourses for irrigation. I showed how in such countries it was
counted the most important function of the government to see that the
water was not wasted by the selfishness