se, object the teaching of
Christianity; but the lowly and the humble of whom it speaks scarcely
exist, scarcely can exist, in our day and country. A ludicrous pretence
of education is banishing every form of native simplicity. In the large
towns, the populace sink deeper and deeper into a vicious vulgarity,
and every rural district is being affected by the spread of contagion.
To flatter the proletariat is to fight against all the good that still
characterises educated England--against reverence for the beautiful,
against magnanimity, against enthusiasm of mind, heart, and soul.'

He quivered with vehemence of feeling, and the flush which rose to his
hearer's cheek, the swimming brightness of her eye, proved that a
strong sympathy stirred within her.

'I know nothing of the uneducated in towns,' she said, 'but the little
I have seen of them in country places certainly supports your opinion.
I could point to two or three families who have suffered distinct
degradation owing to what most people call an improvement in their
circumstances. Father often speaks of such instances, comparing the
state of things now with what he can remember.'

'My own experience,' pursued Godwin, 'has been among the lower classes
in London. I don't mean the very poorest, of whom one hears so much
nowadays; I never went among them because I had no power of helping
them, and the sight of their vileness would only have moved me to
unjust hatred. But the people who earn enough for their needs, and
whose spiritual guide is the Sunday newspaper--I know them, because for
a long time I was obliged to lodge in their houses. Only a consuming
fire could purify the places where they dwell. Don't misunderstand me;
I am not charging them with what are commonly held vices and crimes,
but with the consistent love of everything that is ignoble, with utter
deadness to generous impulse, with the fatal habit of low mockery. And
_these_ are the people who really direct the democratic movement. They
set the tone in politics; they are debasing art and literature; even
the homes of wealthy people begin to show the effects of their
influence. One hears men and women of gentle birth using phrases which
originate with shopboys; one sees them reading print which is addressed
to the coarsest million. They crowd to entertainments which are
deliberately adapted to the lowest order of mind. When commercial
interest is supreme, how can the tastes of the majority fail to lea