Towards democracy, S. 64

50 Towards Democracy

When poverty and hardship smile for their espousal, and fierce endurance is fused in one passion with love, and the glitter of concealment is torn away, and the loins are compressed and the eyes aflame with lust,

Towards that which shall surely be born?

When Wealth is slowly and visibly putrefying and putrefying the old order of things ;

When the surface test is final—the rainbow-colored scum and society rotting down beneath it; a trick of clothing or speech, metallic chink in the pocket, white skin, soft hands, fawning and lying looks—everywhere the thrust of rejection, the bond of redemption nowhere; the sacred gifts all violated stale and profaned—men and women falling off from them listless, like satiated leeches ;

When Labor is not loyal and true, nor the Laborers loyal and true to each other; when a man has no pride in the creation of his hands, nor rejoices to make it perfect ; when machinery is perfectly organised and human souls are hopelessly disorganised ;

Do you think all these things mean nothing?

XV : Ah, England! Ah, beating beating heart! No wonder you are weary! weary of talk! Weary seeking amid the scramble, amid the scramble of words and the scramble of wealth, Amid the fashionable, the scientific, the artistic, the commercial, the political, the learned and literary scramble—weary,