Introduction - Page 2

finds the calamity
of the times, not in bad bills of Parliament, nor the remedy in
good bills, but the vice in false and superficial aims of the
people, and the remedy in honesty and insight. Like every work
of genius, its great value is in telling such simple truths. As
we recall the topics, we are struck with force given to the plain
truths; the picture of the English nation all sitting enchanted,
the poor, enchanted so that they cannot work, the rich, enchanted
so that they cannot enjoy, and are rich in vain; the exposure of
the progress of fraud into all arts and social activities; the
proposition that the labourer must have a greater share in his
earnings; that the principle of permanence shall be admitted
into all contracts of mutual service; that the state shall
provide at least schoolmaster's education for all the citizens;
the exhortation to the workman that he shall respect the work and
not the wages; to the scholar that he shall be there for light;
to the idle, that no man shall sit idle; the picture of Abbot
Samson, the true governor, who "is not there to expect reason and
nobleness of others, he is there to give them of his own reason
and nobleness;" the assumption throughout the book, that a new
chivalry and nobility, namely the dynasty of labour, is replacing
the old nobilities. These things strike us with a force which
reminds us of the morals of the Oriental or early Greek masters,
and of no modern book. Truly in these things is great reward.
It is not by sitting so at a grand distance and calling the human
race _larvae,_ that men are to be helped, nor by helping the
depraved after their own foolish fashion; but by doing
unweariedly the particular work we were born to do. Let no man
think himself absolved because he does a generous action and
befriends the poor, but let him see whether he so holds his
property that a benefit goes from it to all. A man's diet should
be what is simplest and readiest to be had, because it is so
private a good. His house should be better, because that is for
the use of hundreds, perhaps of thousands, and is the property of
the traveler. But his speech is a perpetual and public
instrument; let that always side with the race and yield neither
a lie nor a sneer. His manners,--let them be hospitable and
civilising, so that no Phidias or Raphael shall have taught
anything better in canvas or stone; and his acts should be
representative of the human race, as one who makes them rich in
his having, and poor in his want.

It requires great courage in a man of letters to handle the
contemporary practical questions; not because he then has all
men for his rivals, but because of the infinite entanglements of
the problem, and the waste of