"
Now I do not want to confuse my readers by taking first a bead-roll of
proposals, and then a bead-roll of arguments for and against, so I
shall deal with each reformer's idea in the order of its importance.
Before beginning, I must say that I differ from all the purveyors of
the cheaper sort of sentiment; I differ from many ladies and gentlemen
who talk about abstractions; and I differ most of all from the
feather-brained persons who set up as authorities after they have paid
flying visits in cabs to ugly neighbourhoods. When a specialist like
Miss Octavia Hill speaks, we hear her with respect; but Miss Hill is
not a sentimentalist; she is a keen, cool woman who has put her
emotions aside, and who has gone to work in the dark regions in a kind
of Napoleonic fashion. No fine phrases for her--nothing but fact,
fact, fact. Miss Hill feels quite as keenly as the gushing persons;
but she has regulated her feelings according to the environment in
which her energies had to be exercised, and she has done more good
than all the poetic creatures that ever raked up "cases" or made
pretty phrases. I leave Miss Hill out of my reckoning, and I deal with
the others.
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