verywhere except in England. It is also true, however, that this
estate of small possession is attacked everywhere today; it has never
existed among ourselves, and it may be destroyed among our neighbors. We
have, therefore, to ask ourselves what it is in human affairs generally,
and in this domestic ideal in particular, that has really ruined the
natural human creation, especially in this country.

Man has always lost his way. He has been a tramp ever since Eden; but he
always knew, or thought he knew, what he was looking for. Every man has
a house somewhere in the elaborate cosmos; his house waits for him waist
deep in slow Norfolk rivers or sunning itself upon Sussex downs. Man has
always been looking for that home which is the subject matter of this
book. But in the bleak and blinding hail of skepticism to which he
has been now so long subjected, he has begun for the first time to be
chilled, not merely in his hopes, but in his desires. For the first time
in history he begins really to doubt the object of his wanderings on the
earth. He has always lost his way; but now he has lost his address.

Under the pressure of certain upper-class philosophies (or in other
words, under the pressure of Hudge and Gudge) the average man has
really become bewildered about the goal of his efforts; and his efforts,
therefore, grow feebler and feebler. His simple notion of having a home
of his own is derided as bourgeois, as sentimental, or as despicably
Christian. Under various verbal forms he is recommended to go on to the
streets--which is called Individualism; or to the work-house--which
is called Collectivism. We shall consider this process somewhat more
carefully in a moment. But it may be said here that Hudge and Gudge, or
the governing class generally, will never fail for lack of some modern
phrase to cover their ancient predominance. The great lords will refuse
the English peasant his three acres and a cow on advanced grounds, if
they cannot refuse it longer on reactionary grounds. They will deny him
the three acres on grounds of State Ownership. They will forbid him the
cow on grounds of humanitarianism.

And this brings us to the ultimate analysis of this singular influence
that has prevented doctrinal demands by the English people. There are,
I believe, some who still deny that England is governed by an oligarchy.
It is quite enough for me to know that a man might have gone to sleep
some thirty years ago over the day's ne