This line of thought would carry me
back over more ages than I care to traverse; I am content with knowing
that the shrews are in a minority, and that the majority of my
countrywomen are sweet and benign.
X.
ARE WE WEALTHY?
Among the working-classes shrewd men are now going about putting some
very awkward questions which seem paradoxical at first sight, but
which are quite understood by many intelligent men to whom they are
addressed. The query "Are we wealthy?" seems easy enough to answer;
and of course a rapid and superficial observer gives an affirmative in
reply. It seems so obvious! Our income is a thousand millions per
year; our railways and merchant fleets can hardly be valued without
putting a strain on the imagination; and it seems as if the atmosphere
were reeking with the very essence of riches. A millionaire gives
nearly one thousand pounds for a puppy; he buys seventeen baby horses
for about three thousand pounds apiece; he gives four thousand guineas
for a foal, and bids twenty thousand pounds for one two-year-old
filly; his house costs a million or thereabouts. Minor plutocrats
swarm among us, and they all exhibit their wealth with every available
kind of ostentation; yet that obstinate question remains to be
answered--"Are we wealthy?" We may give the proletarians good advice
and recommend them to employ no extreme talk and no extreme measures;
but there is the new disposition, and we cannot get away from it.
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