eing so inspired. My class of
working men in Lambeth exercised this faculty to some extent. When I
was teaching them English Literature, I was doing, as far as it went,
good and sound work. When I drifted into 'Thoughts for the
Present'--Heaven forgive me!--I made an ass of myself, that's the long
and short of it. My ears tingle as I remember those evenings.

'I am infinitely more human than I was; I can even laugh heartily at
American humour, and that I take to be a sign of health. Health is what
I have gained. The devotion of eight or ten hours a day to the work of
the factory has been the best medicine any one could have prescribed to
me. It was you who prescribed it, and it was your crowning act of
kindness to me, dear Mrs. Ormonde. It is possible that I have grown
coarser; indeed, I know that I associate on terms of equality and
friendliness with men from whom I should formerly have shrunk. I can
get angry, and stand on my rights, and bluster if need be, and on the
whole I think I am no worse for that. My ear is not offended if I hear
myself called 'boss;' why should it be? it is a word as well as
another. Nay, I have even felt something like excitement when listening
to political speeches, in which frequent mention was made of 'the great
State of Pennsylvania.' Well, it _is_ a great State, or the phrase has
no meaning in any application. Will not this early life of the New
World some day be studied with reverence and enthusiasm? I try to see
things as they are.

'Social problems are here in plenty. Indeed, it looks very much as if
America would sooner have reached an acute stage of social conflict
than the old countries; naturally, as it is the refuge of these who
abandon the old world in disgust. American equality is a mere phrase;
there is as much brutal injustice here as elsewhere. But I can no
longer rave on the subject; the injustice is a _fact_, and only other
facts will replace it; I concern myself only with facts. And the great
fact of all is the contemptibleness of average humanity. I will submit
for your reverent consideration the name of a great American
philanthropist--Cornelius Vanderbilt. Personally he was a disgusting
brute; ignorant, base, a boor in his manners, a blackguard in his
language; he had little if any natural affection, and to those who
offended him he was a relentless barbarian. Yet the man was a great
philanthropist, and became so by the piling up of millions of dollars.
Of course he