table over which Hadria bent forward towards her audience,
appeared to be applauding this sentiment vigorously. It rocked to and
fro on the uneven floor with great clamour.

"Thus," the speaker went on, "these relaxed and derivative people are
living on the strength of the strong. He who is strong must carry with
him, as a perpetual burden, a mass of such pensioners, who are scared
and shocked at his rude individuality; and if he should trip or stumble,
if he should lose his way in the untrodden paths, in seeking new truth
and a broader foundation for the lives of men, then a chorus of censure
goes up from millions of little throats."

"Hear, hear!" cried Algitha and Fred, and the table rocked
enthusiastically.

"But when the good things are gained for which the upholders have
striven and perhaps given their lives, then there are no more greedy
absorbers of the bounty than these same innumerable little throats."

The table led the chorus of assent.

"And now," said the lecturer slowly, "consider this in relation to the
point at issue. Emerson asserts that circumstance can always be conquered.
But is not circumstance, to a large extent, created by these destroyers,
as I have called them? Has not the strongest soul to count with these,
who weave the web of adverse conditions, whose dead weight has to be
carried, whose work of destruction has to be incessantly repaired? Who
can dare to say 'I am master of my fate,' when he does not know how large
may be the share of the general burden that will fall to him to drag
through life, how great may be the number of these parasites who are
living on the moral capital of their generation? Surely circumstance
consists largely in the inertia, the impenetrability of the destroyers."

Ernest shewed signs of restiveness. He shuffled on his chair, made
muttered exclamations.

"Presently," said the lecturer reassuringly.

"Or put it in another way," she went on. "A man may make a
thing--circumstance included--but he is not a sort of moral spider; he
can't spin it out of his own inside. _He wants something to make it of._
The formative force comes from within, but he must have material, just
as much as a sculptor must have his marble before he can shape his
statue. There is a subtle relation between character and conditions, and
it is this _relation_ that determines Fate. Fate is as the statue of
the sculptor."

"That's where Hadria mainly differs from you," said Fred, "you make