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Title: England's Ideal Date: October 1, 1887 Source: Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Vol. 2 -- No. 13, retrieved on September 3, 2019, from [[http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=2986][RevoltLib.com]]. Notes: Freedom Press, London Authors: Edward Carpenter Topics: UK, Freedom press
The feeling, indeed, seems to be spreading that England
stands already on the verge of a dangerous precipice ; at
any moment the door may open for her on a crisis more
serious than any in her whole history. Rotten to the core,
penetrated with falsehood from head to foot, her aristocracy
emasculated of all manly life, her capitalist classes wrapped
in selfishness, luxury, and self-satisfied philanthropy, her
Government offices — army, navy, and the rest — utterly
effete, plethoric, gorged (in snake-like coma) with red
tape, her Church sleeping profoundly — snoring aloud — her
trading classes steeped in deception and money greed, her
laborers stupefied with overwork and beer, her poorest
stupefied with despair, there is not a point which will bear
examination, not a wheel in the whole machine which will
not give way under pressure. The slightest disturbance
now, and the wheels will actually cease to go round : the
first serious strain — European or Eastern war — and who
knows but that the governing classes of England will suc-
cumb disgracefully. And then — with an exhausting war
upon us, our foreign supplies largely cut off, our own
country (which might grow ample food for its present popu-
lation) systematically laid waste and depopulated by land-
lords, with hopeless commercial depression, stagnation of
trade, poverty, and growing furious anarchy — our position
will be easier imagined than described.
India — with its "forty millions always on the verge of
starvation " — the playground of the sons of English capital-
ists — must go. Ireland, that has nobly struck the note of
better things to all Europe, but who in her long and glorious
battle for freedom has received no encouragement from the
English people, will desert us. We shall call to her for
help, but there shall be no answer — but derision. Egypt
will curse the nation of Bondholders.
In the face then of these considerations let us go straight
to the heart of the matter. Let us, let all who care or hold
ourselves in any way responsible for the fate of a great
nation, redeem our lives, redeem the life of England, from
this curse of dishonesty. The difficulty is that to many
people— and to whole classes — mere honesty seems such a
small matter. If it were only some great Benevolent Insti-
tution to recommend! But this is like Naaman's case in
the Bible : to merely bathe in the Jordan and make yourself
clean — is really too undignified!
But the disease from which the nation is suffering is dis-
honesty ; the more you look into it the clearer you will per-
ceive that this is so. Let us confess it. What we have
all been trying to do is to live at the expense of other
people^s labor, without giving an equivalent of our own
labor in return. Some succeed, others only try ; but it
comes to much the same thing.
Let a man pause just for once in this horrid scramble of
modern life, and ask himself what he really consumes day
by day of other people's labor — what in the way of food,
of clothing, of washing, scrubbing, and the attentions of
domestics, or even of his own wife and children — ^what
money he spends in drink, dress, books, pictures, at the
theatre, in travel. Let him sternly, and as well as he may,
reckon up the sum total by which he has thus made himself
indebted to his fellows, and then let him consider what he
creates for their benefit in return. Let him -strike the balance.
Is he a benefactor of society? — is it quits between him and
his countrymen and women? — or is he a dependent upon
them, a vacuum and a minus quantity? — a, beggar, alms-
receiver, or thief?
And not only What is he? but What is he trying to be?
For on the Ideal hangs the whole question. Here at last
we come back to the root of national life. What the ideal
cherished by the people at large is, that the nation will soon
become. Each individual man is not always sure to realise
the state of life that he has in his mind, but in the nation it
is soon realised ; and if the current idea of individuals is to
get as much and give as little as they can, to be debtors of
society and alms-receivers of the labor of others, then you
have the spectacle of a nation, as England to-day, rushing
on to bankruptcy and ruin, saddled with a huge national
debt, and converted into one gigantic workhouse and idle
shareholders' asylum. (Imagine a lot of people on an
island — all endeavoring to eat other people's dinners, but
taking precious care not to provide any of their own —
and you will have a picture of what the " well-to-do " on
this island succeed in doing, and a lot of people not well-
to-do are trying to arrive at.)
For there is no question that this is the Ideal of England
to-day — to live dependent on others, consuming much and
creating next to nothing — to occupy a spacious house,
have servants ministering to you, dividends converging Irom
various parts of the world towards you, workmen handing you
the best part of their labor as profits, tenants obsequiously
bowing as they disgorge their rent, and a good balance at
the bank ; to be a kind of human sink into which much
flows but out of which nothing ever comes — except an oc-
casional putrid whiff of Charity and Patronage — this, is it
not the thing which we have before us? which if we have
not been fortunate enough to attain to, we are doing our
best to reach.
Sad that the words "lady" and "gentleman' — once
nought but honorable — should now have become so
soiled by all ignoble use. But I fear that nothing can
save them. The modern Ideal of Gentility is hopelessly
corrupt, and it must be our avowed object to destroy it.
Of course, among its falsities, the point which I have
already alluded to is the most important. It is absolutely
useless for the well-to-do of this country to talk of Charity
while they are abstracting the vast sums they do from the
laboring classes, or to pretend to alleviate by philanthropic
nostrums the frightful poverty which they are creating whole-
sale by their mode of life. All the money given by the
Church, by charity organisations, by societies or individuals?
or out of the rates, and all the value of the gratuitous work
done by country gentlemen, philanthropists, and others, is a
mere drop in the ocean compared with the sums which
these same people and their relatives abstract from the poor,
under the various legal pretences of interest, dividends,
rent, profits, and state-payments of many kinds. " They
clean the outside of the cup and platter, but within they are
full of extortion and excess.
If for every man who consumes more than he creates there
must of necessity be another man who has to consume less
than he creates, what must be the state of affairs in that nation
where a vast class— and ever vaster becoming — is living in
the height of unproductive wastefulness? Obviousl) another
vast class — and ever vaster becoming — must be sinking
down into the abyss of toil, penury, and degradation.
Look at Brighton and Scarborough and Hastings and the
huge West End of London, and the poHte villa residences
which like unwholesome toadstools dot and disfigure the
whole of this great land. On what are these " noble "
mansions of organised idleness built except upon the bent
back of poverty and lifelong hopeless unremitting toil!
Think! you who live in them, what your life is, and upon
what it is founded.
As far as the palaces of the rich stretch through Mayfair
and Belgravia and South Kensington, so far (and farther)
must the hovels of the poor inevitably stretch in the opposite
direction. There is no escape. It is useless to talk about
better housing of these unfortunates unless you strike at the
root of their poverty ; and if you want to see the origin and
explanation of an East London rookery, you must open the
door and walk in upon some fashionable dinner party at
the West End, where elegance, wealth, ease, good gram-
mar, politeness, and literary and sentimental conversation
only serve to cover up and conceal a heartless mockery —
the lie that it is a fine thing to live upon the labor of
others. You may abolish the rookery, but if yoii do not
abolish the other thing, the poor will only find some other
place to die in ; and one room in a sanitary and respectable
neighborhood will serve a family for that purpose as well
as a whole house in a dirtier locality. If this state of affairs
were to go on long (which it won't do) England would be
converted, as I have said, into one vast workhouse and
pauper asylum, in which rows of polite paupers, sur-
rounded by luxuries and daintily fed, would be entirely
served and supported by another class -- of paupers unable
to get bread enough to eat!
But the whole Gentility business is corrupt throughout
and will not bear looking into for a moment. It is incom-
patible with Christianity (at least as Christ appears to have
taught it) ; it gives a constant lie to the doctrine of human
brotherhood.
The wretched man who has got into its toils must surren-
der that most precious of all things — the human relation to
the mass of mankind. He feels a sentimental sympathy
certainly for his " poorer brethren ; ** but he finds that he
lives in a house into which it would be simply an insult to
ask one of them ; he wears clothes in which it is impossible
for him to do any work of ordinary usefulness. If he sees
an old woman borne down by her burden in the street, he
can run to the charity organisation perhaps and get an
officer to enquire into her case — but he cannot go straight
up to her like a man, and take it from her on to his own
shoulders ; for he is a gentleman, and might soil his clothes!
It is doubtful even whether— clothes or no clothes, old wo-
man or no old woman — he could face the streets where he
is known with a bundle on his shoulders ; his dress is a
barrier to all human relation with simple people, and his
words of sympathy with the poor and suffering are wasted
on the wide air while the flash of his jewellery is in their
eyes.
He finds himself among people wh6se constipated man.
ners and frozen speech are a continual denial of all natural
affection — and a continual warning against offence ; where
to say 'onesty is passable, but to say 'ouse causes a positive
congestion ; where human dignity is at such a low ebb that
to have an obvious patch upon your coat would be con-
sidered fatal to it ; where manners have reached (I think)
the very lowest pitch of littleness and niaiserie\ where
human wants and the sacred facts, sexual and other, on
which human life is founded, are systematically ignored ;
where to converse with a domestic at the dinner table would
be an unpardonable breach of etiquette ; where it is assumed
as a matter of course that you do nothing for yourself — to
lighten the burden which your presence in the world neces-
sarily casts upon others ; where to be discovered washing
your own linen, or cooking your own dinner, or up to the
elbows in dough on baking day, or helping to get the coals
in, or scrubbing your own floor, or cleaning out your own
privy, would pass a sentence of lifelong banishment on you ;
where all dirty work, or at least such work as is considered
dirty by the "educated" people in a household, is thrust
upon young and ignorant girls ; where children are brought
up to feel far more shame at any little breach of social de-
corum — at an "h'* dropped,* or a knife used in the
wrong place at dinner, or a wrong appellative given to a
visitor — than at glaring acts of selfishness and uncharit-
ableness.
In short, the unfortunate man finds himself in a net of
falsehoods ; the whole system of life around him is founded
on falsehood. The pure beautiful relation of humanity, the
most sacred thing in all this world, is betrayed at every
step ; and Christianity with its message of human love,
Democracy with its magnificent conception of inward and
sacramental human equality, can only be cherished by him
in the hidden interior of his being ; they can have no real
abiding place in his outward life.
And when he turns to the sources from which his living
is gained, he only flounders from the quagmire into the
bog. The curse of dishonesty is upon him ; he can find no
bottom anywhere.
The interest of his money comes to him he knows not
whence ; it is wrung from the labour of someone — he knows
not whom. His capital is in the hands of railway companies,
and his dividends are gained in due season — but how?
He dares not enquire. What have companies, what have
directors and secretaries and managers to do with the ques-
tion whether justice is done to the workmen? and when
did a shareholder ever rise up and contend that dividends
ought to be less and wages more? (I met with a case once
in a report : but he was hissed down.)
His rents come to him from land and houses. Shall he
go round and collect them himself? No, that is impossible.
This farmer would show him such a desperate balance-sheet,
that widow would plead such a piteous tale, this house
might be in too disgraceful a state, and entail untold re-
pairs. No, it is impossible. He must employ an agent or
steward, and go and live at Paris or Brighton, out of sight
and hearing of those whose misfortunes might disturb
his peace of mind ; — or put his money affairs entirely in
the hands of a sohcitor. That is a good way to stifle con-
science.
Money entails duties. How shall we get the money and
forget the duties? Voila the great problem! . . . But
we cannot forget the duties. They cark unseen.
He has lent out his money on mortgage. Horrid word
that " mortgage! " — ** foreclosure," too! — sounds like
clutching somebody by the throat! Best not go and see
the party who is mortgaged; — might be some sad tale
come out. Do it through a solicitor, too, and it will be all
right.
Thus the unfortunate man of whom I have spoken finds
that, turn where he may, the whole of his life — his external
life — rests on falsehood. And I would ask you, reader,
especially well-to-do and dividend-drawing reader, is this —
this picture of the ordinary life of English" gentility — your
Ideal of life? or is it not? For if it is do not be ashamed
of it, but please look it straight in the face and understand
exactly what it means : but if it is not, then come out of it!
It may take you years to get out ; certainly you will not
shake yourself free in a week, or a month, or many months,
but still — Come out!
And surely the whole state of society which is founded on
this Ideal, however wholesome or fruitful it may have once
been, has in these latter days (whether we see it or not)
become quite decayed and barren and corrupt. It is no
good disguising the fact; surely much better is it that it
should be exposed and acknowledged. Of those who are
involved in this state of society we need think no evil.
They are our brothers and sisters, as well as the rest ; and
oftentimes, consciously or unconsciously, are suffering,
caught in its toils.
Why to-day are there thousands and thousands through-
out these classes who are weary, depressed, miserable, who
discern no object to live for ; who keep wondering whether
life is worth living, and writing weary dreary articles in
magazines on that subject? Who keep wandering from the
smoking-room of the club into Piccadilly and the park, and
from the park into picture galleries and theatres ; who go
and " stay '' with friends in order to get away from their own
surroundings, and seek " change of air," if by any means
that may bring with it a change of interest of life? Why,
indeed? Except because the human heart (to its eternal
glory) cannot subsist on lies ; because — whether they know
it or not — the deepest truest instincts of their nature are
belied, falsified at every turn of their actual lives : and
therefore they are miserable, therefore they seek something
else, they know not clearly what.
If, looking on England, I have thought that it is time
this Thing shouM come to an end, because of the poverty-
stricken despairing multitudes who are yearly sacrificed for
the maintenance of it, and (as many a workman has said to
me) are put to a slow death that it may be kept going, I
have at other times thought that, even more for the sake of
those who ride in the Juggernaut car itself, to terminate
the hydra-headed and manifold misery which lurks deep
down behind their decorous exteriors and well-appointed
surroundings, should it be finally abolished.
Anyhow, it must go. The hour of its condemnation has
struck. And not only the false thing. I speak to you,
working men and women of England, that you should no
longer look to the ideal which creates this Thing — that you
should no longer look forward to a day when you shall turn
your back on your brothers and sisters, and smooth back
white and faultless wrist-bands — living on their labor! but
that you shall look to the new Ideal, the ideal of social
brotherhood, and of honesty, which, as surely as the sun
rises in the morning, shall shortly rise on our suffering and
sorrowing country.
But I think I hear some civilisee say, " Your theories are
all very well, and all about honesty and that sort of thing,
but it is all quite impracticable. Why, if I were only to
consume an equal value to that which I create, I should
never get on at all. Let alone cigars and horses and the
like, but how about my wife and family? I don't see how
I could possibly keep up appearances and if I were to let
my position go, all my usefulness (details not given) would
go with it. Besides, I really don't see how a man can
create enough for all his daily wants. Of course, as you
say, there must be thousands and millions who are obliged
to do so, and more (in order to support us\ but how the
deuce they live I cannot imagine — and they must have to
work awfully hard. But I suppose it is their business to
support us, and I don't see how civilisation would get on
without them, and in return of course we keep them in
order, you know, and give them lots of good advice! "
To all which I reply, " Doubtless there is something
very appalling in the prospect of actually maintaining one-
self — but I sincerely believe that it is possible. Besides,
would not you yourself think it very interesting just to try ;
if only to see what you would dispense with if you had to
do the labor connected with it — or its equivalent? If you
had to cook your own dinner, for instance? "
" By Jove! I believe one would do without a lot of
sauces and side dishes! "
" Or if you had to do a week's hard work merely to get a
new coat "
" Of course I should make the old one do— only it would
become so beastly unfashionable."
That is about it. There are such a lot of things which
we could do without — which we really don't want — only, and
but ... !
And rather than sacrifice these beloved onhes and buts,
rather than snip off a few wants, or cut a sorry figure before
friends, we rush on with the great crowd which jams and
jostles through the gateway of Greed over the bodies of
those who have fallen in the struggle. And we enjoy no
rest, and our hours of Idleness, when they come, are not
delightful as they should be. For they are not free and
tuneful like the Idleness of a ploughboy or a lark, but they
are clouded with the spectral undefined remembrance of
those at the price of whose blood they have been bought.
As to the difficulty of maintaining oneself, hsten to this,
please ; and read it slowly : " For more than five years I
maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands ;
and I found that by working about six weeks in a year I
could meet all the expenses of living."
Who was it wrote these extraordinary words?
It has for some time been one of the serious problems of
Political Economy to know how much labor is really re-
quired to furnish a man with ordinary necessaries. The
proportion between labor and its reward has been lost
sight of amid the complexities of modem life ; and we only
know for certain that the ordinary wages of manual labor
represent very much less than the value actually created.
Fortunately for us, however, about forty years ago a man
thoroughly tired of wading through the bogs of modern
social life had the pluck to land himself on the dry ground
of actual necessity. He squatted on a small piece of land
in New England, built himself a little hut, produced the
main articles of his own food, hired himself out now and
then for a little ready money, and has recorded for us, as
above, the results of his experience. Moreover, to leave no
doubt as to his meaning, he adds, "The whole of my
winters, as well as most of my summers, I had free and clear
for study." (He was an author and naturalist.)
The name of this man was Henry Thoreau. His book
"Walden" (and anyone can obtain it now) gives the
details of the experiment by which he proved that a man
can actually maintain himself and have abundant leisure
besides! And this, too, under circumstances of consider-
able disadvantage ; for Thoreau isolated himself to a great
extent from the co-operation of his fellows, and had to con-
tend single-handed with Nature in the midst of the woods,
where his crops were sadly at the mercy of wild creatures.
It is true, as I have said, that he had built himself a hut,
iind had two or three acres of land to start with ; but what
a margin does his six weeks in a year leave for critical sub-
tractions!
If anyone, however, doubts the truth of the general state-
ment contained in the last paragraph, his doubt must surely
be removed by a study of the conditions of life in England
in the fifteenth century. At that time, between the fall of
the feudal barons and the rise of the capitalists and land-
lords, there was an interval during which the workers
actually got something like their due, and were not robbed
to any great extent by the classes above them. Thorold
Rogers, in his " Work and Wages," gives the wages of an
unskilled town laborer at 6d. a day in the 15th century,
while the price of a sheep at that time was 2s. Noiv the
proportions are 3s. to 50s. Four centuries ago the laborer
could have bought the sheep with four days' work ; now he
requires the toil of sixteen or seventeen days. Similarly
with the price of an ox, which was then 20s. Even bread
he could earn with less work then than now. Why is this?
Surely our country is not at present so overgrazed and cul-
tivated as to increase the difficulty of raising beasts and
crops (on the contrary, it is half-deserted and under-
cultivated) ; nor, certainly, did the laborer in the fifteenth
century receive more than he might be said to have created
by his labor. Why then does the laborer to-day not get
anything like that reward? The reason is obvious. His
labor is as fruitful as ever, but the greater part of its pro-
duce — its reward — is taken from him.
As fruitful as ever? — far more fruitful than ever ; for we
have taken no account of the vast evolutions of machinery.
What that reward would be, under our greatly-increased
powers of production — if it were only righteously distributed
— we may leave to be imagined.
As to Thoreau, the real truth about him is that he was a
thorough economist. He reduced life to its simplest terms,
and having, so to speak, labor in his right hand and its
reward in his left, he had no difficulty in seeing what was
worth laboring for and what was not, and no hesitation in
discarding things that he did not think worth the time or
trouble of production.
And I believe myself that the reason why he could so
easily bring himself to do without these things, and thus
became free — "presented with the freedom" of nature and
of life — was that he was a thoroughly educated man in the
true sense of the word.
It seems to be an accepted idea nowadays that the better
educated anyone is the more he must require. " A plough-
man can do on so much a year, but an educated man — O
quite impossible! "
Allow me to say that I regard this idea as entirely false.
First of all, if it were true, what a dismal prospect it would
open out to us! The more educated we became the more
we should require for our support, the worse bondage we
should be in to material things. We should have to work
continually harder and harder to keep pace with our wants,
or else to trench more and more on the labor of others ;
at each step the more complicated would the problem of
existence become.
But it is entirely untrue. Education does not turn a man
into a creature of blind wants, a prey to ever fresh thirsts
and desires — ^it brings him into relation with the world around
him. It enables a man to derive pleasure and to draw
sustenance from a thousand common things, which bring
neither joy nor nourishment to his more enclosed and
imprisoned brother. The one can beguile an hour any-
where. In the field, in the street, in the workshop, he sees
a thousand things of interest. The other is bored, he must
have a toy — a glass of beer or a box at the opera — but these
things cost money.
Besides, the educated man, if truly educated, has surely
more resources of skilful labor to fall back upon — he need
not fear about the future. The other may do well to
accumulate a little fund against a rainy day.
It is only to education commonly so-called — the false
education — that these libels apply. I admit that to the
current education of the well-to-do they do apply, but that
it is only or mainly a cheap-jack education, an education in
glib phrases, grammar, and the art of keeping up appear-
ances, and has little to do with bringing anyone into relation
with the real world around him — the real world of humanity,
of honest daily Life, of the majesty of Nature, and the
wonderful questions and answers of the soul, which out of
these are whispered on everyone who fairly faces them.
Let us then have courage. There is an ideal before us,
an ideal of Honest Life — which is attainable, not very
difficult of attainment, and which true education will help
us to attain to, not lead us astray from.
A man may if he likes try the experiment of Thoreau,
and restrict himself to the merest necessaries of life — so as
to see how much labor it really requires to live. Starting
from that zero point, he may add to his luxuries and to his
labors as he thinks fit. How far he travels along that
double line will of course depend upon temperament.
Thoreau, as I have said, made a specialty of economy.
One day he picked up a curiosity and kept it on his shelf for
a time ; but soon finding that it required dusting he threw
it out of the window! It did not pay for its keep. Thoreau
preferred leisure to ornaments ; other people may prefer
ornaments to leisure. There is of course no prejudice —
all characters, temperaments, and idiosyncrasies are welcome
and thrice welcome. The only condition is that you must
not expect to have the ornaments and the idleness both.
If you choose to live in a room full of ornaments no one
can make the slightest possible objection ; but you must not
expect Society (in the form of your maidservant) to dust
them for you, unless you do something useful for Society in
return. (I need not at this time of day say that giving
Money is not equivalent to "doing something useful" —
unless you have fairly earned the money ; then it is.)
Let us have courage. There is ample room within this
ideal of Honest Life for all human talent, ingenuity, diver-
gency of thought and temperament. It is not a narrow-
cramped ideal. How can it be? — for it alone contains in it
the possibility of human brotherhood. But I warn you :
it is not compatible with that other ideal of Worldly Gen-
tility. I do not'say this lightly. I know what it is for any-
one to have to abandon the forms in which he has been
brought up ;^ nor do I wish to throw discredit on any one
class, for I know that this ideal permeates more or less the
greater part of the nation to-day. But the hour demands
absolute fidelity. There is no time now for temporising.
England stands on the brink of a crisis in which no wealth,
no armaments, no diplomacy will save her — only an awaken-
ing of the National Conscience. If this comes she will
live — if it comes not • • • ?
The canker of effete gentility has eaten into the heart
of this nation. Its noble men and women are turned into
toy ladies and gentlemen ; the eternal dignity of (voluntary)
Poverty and Simplicity has been forgotten in an unworthy
scramble for easy chairs. Justice and Honesty have got
themselves melted away into a miowling and watery philan-
thropy; the rule of honor between master and servant,
and servant and master, between debtor and creditor, and
buyer and seller, has been turned into a rule of dishonor,
concealment, insincere patronage, and sharp bargains ; and
England lies done to death by her children who should
have loved her.
As for you, working men and working women of England
— in whom now, if anywhere, the hope of England lies —
I appeal to you at any rate to cease from this ideal, I
appeal to you to cease your part in this gentility business —
to cease respecting people because they wear fine clothes
and ornaments, and because they live in grand houses.
You know you do these things, or pretend to do them, and
to do either is foolish. We have had ducking and forelock-
pulling enough. It is time for you to assert the dignity of
human labor. I do not object to a man saying " sir " to
his equal, or to an elder, but I do object to his saying " sir "
to broadcloth or to a balance at the bank. Why don't
you say " yes " and have done with it? Remember that you,
too, have to learn the lesson of honesty. You know that
in your heart of hearts you despise this nonsense ; you know
that when the " gentleman's " back is turned you take off
his fancy airs, and mimic his incapable importances, or
launch out into bitter abuse of one who you think has
wronged you. Would it not be worthier, if you have these
differences, not to conceal them, but for the sake of your
own self-respect to face them out firmly and candidly?
The re-birth of England cannot come without sacrifices
from you, too. On the contrary, whatever is done, you will
have to do the greater part of it. You will often have to
incur the charge of disrespect ; you will have to risk, and to
lose, situations ; you will have to bear ridicule, and —
perhaps — arms ; Anarchists, Socialists, Communists, you will
hear yourselves called. But what would you have? It is
no good preaching Democracy with your mouths, if you are
going to stand all the while and prop with your shoulders
the rotten timbers of Feudahsm — of which, riddled as
they have been during three centuries by the maggots of
Usury, we need say no worse than that it is time they
should fall.
I say from this day you must set to work yourselves in
word thought and deed to root out this genteel dummy —
this hairdresser's Ideal of Humanity — and to establish your-
selves (where you stand) upon the broad and sacred ground
of human labor. As long as you continue to send men to
Parliament because they ride in carriages or cannot have a
meeting without asking a "squire," whom you secretly
make fun of, to take the chair, or must have clergymen and
baronets patrons of your benefit clubs — so long are you
false to your natural instincts, and to your own great
destinies.
Be arrogant rather than humble, rash rather than stupidly
contented ; but, best of all, be firm, helpful towards each
other, forgetful of differences, scrupulously honest in your-
selves, and charitable even to your enemies, but determined
that nothing shall move you from the purpose you have set
before you — the righteous distribution in society of the
fruits of your own and other men's labor, the return to
Honesty as the sole possible basis of national life and
national safety, and the redemption of England from the
curse which rests upon her.
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Commentary text from the initial author of this entry:
The little book containing 'England's Ideal and other Papers on Social Subjects," by Edward Carpenter (price 1s., .. cloth edition 2s. 6d, Swan Sonnenschein and Co.) should be read by every one. Ii is impossible for man or woman to do so without self-application of a wholesome kind. To those who are of the writer's way of thinking, his vigorous sentences will be so many trumpet notes of encouragement, To those halting between two opinions the record of his personal experiences will give the necessary impetus to join the ranks of Socialism, for the way is marked out too plainly to be mistaken. While to the adversaries of the new development, if any such should have the good luck to come across the book, tee laying bare in all its ugliness the canker of their respectability may be a help to point them to a method of cauterization if they be not already past cure.