stitious. I defy you to contrast his debasement and superstition
with the citizenship and enlightenment of the English rustic.

To-day the rich man knows in his heart that he is a cancer and not an
organ of the State. He differs from all other thieves or parasites for
this reason: that the brigand who takes by force wishes his victims to
be rich. But he who wins by a one-sided contract actually wishes them
to be poor. Rob Roy in a cavern, hearing a company approaching, will
hope (or if in a pious mood, pray) that they may come laden with gold
or goods. But Mr. Rockefeller, in his factory, knows that if those who
pass are laden with goods they will pass on. He will therefore (if in
a pious mood) pray that they may be destitute, and so be forced to
work his factory for him for a starvation wage. It is said (and also,
I believe, disputed) that Bluecher riding through the richer parts of
London exclaimed, "What a city to sack!" But Bluecher was a soldier if
he was a bandit. The true sweater feels quite otherwise. It is when he
drives through the poorest parts of London that he finds the streets
paved with gold, being paved with prostrate servants; it is when he
sees the grey lean leagues of Bow and Poplar that his soul is uplifted
and he knows he is secure. This is not rhetoric, but economics.

I repeat that up to a point the profiteer was innocent because he was
ignorant; he had been lured on by easy and accommodating events. He
was innocent as the new Thane of Glamis was innocent, as the new Thane
of Cawdor was innocent; but the King---- The modern manufacturer, like
Macbeth, decided to march on, under the mute menace of the heavens.
He knew that the spoil of the poor was in his houses; but he could
not, after careful calculation, think of any way in which they could
get it out of his houses without being arrested for housebreaking. He
faced the future with a face flinty with pride and impenitence. This
period can be dated practically by the period when the old and genuine
Protestant religion of England began to fail; and the average business
man began to be agnostic, not so much because he did not know where he
was, as because he wanted to forget. Many of the rich took to
scepticism exactly as the poor took to drink; because it was a way
out. But in any case, the man who had made a mistake not only refused
to unmake it, but decided to go on making it. But in this he made yet
another most amusing mistake, which was the be