useful lore, nor
yet takes him where he could gather such a store for his own pleasure.
The zest and fascination of living, with the senses alert, the tastes
awake, and manifold sights and sounds appealing to his happy
recognition--all these have to be forgotten until he gets home and is
free for a little while. Then he may seek them if he can, using art or
pastimes--what we call "civilization"--for that end. The two hours or so
of leisure are his opportunity.

But after a day like the coal-carter's, where is the man that could even
begin to refresh himself with the arts, or even the games, of
civilization? For all the active use he can make of them those spare
hours of his do not deserve to be called leisure; they are the fagged
end of the day. Slouching home to them, as it were from under ten tons
of coal, he has no energy left for further effort. The community has
had all his energy, all his power to enjoy civilization; and has paid
him three shillings and sixpence for it. It is small wonder that he
seems not to avail himself of the opportunity, prize it though he may.

Yet there is still a possibility to be considered. Albeit any active use
of leisure is out of the question, is he therefore debarred from a more
tranquil enjoyment? He sits gossiping with his family, but why should
the gossip be listless and yawning? Why should not he, to say nothing of
his relations, enjoy the refreshment of talk enlivened by the play of
pleasant and varied thoughts? As everyone knows, the actual topic of
conversation is not what makes the charm; be what it may, it will still
be agreeable, provided that it goes to an accompaniment of ideas too
plentiful and swift to be expressed. Every allusion then extends the
interest of it; reawakened memories add to its pleasure; if the minds
engaged are fairly well furnished with ideas, either by experience or by
education, the intercourse between them goes on in a sort of luminous
medium which fills the whole being with contentment. Supposing, then,
that by education, or previous experience, the coal-carter's mind has
been thus well furnished, his scanty leisure may still compensate him
for the long dull hours of his wage-earning, and the new thrift will
after all have made amends for the deprivation of the old peasant
enjoyments.

But to suppose this is to suppose a most unlikely thing. Previous
experience, at any rate, has done little for the man. The peasants
themselves were better off.