’Besides this, you do not seem to perceive that the ultimate drift of the new gospel is toward anarchy.  The return to nature is practically a return to barbarism.  You would have all men content so long as they grew enough potatoes for their daily needs.  You would have England return to the conditions of the Saxon heptarchy.  Each man would squat upon his clearing in the forest, ignobly independent, brutally content.  There would be no longer that struggle for life which develops capacity, that urging onward of the flood of life which cuts for itself new channels, that passion for betterment which means progress.  You save yourself from the collisions of life; but it is in such collisions that the finest fires are struck out of the heart of humanity.  Again, I say, any course of action must be judged by its collective effect before it can be rightly understood.  It is not the individual that counts, but the race.  A good for the individual is not permissible unless it is a good also for the race.  I do not admit that your new way of life is an entire good for you, for I believe you must in time suffer from your isolation; but even if I did admit it, I should deny your right to it, if in its large effects it means an ill for the race.  Would you venture to say that the race would profit by it if your example were largely imitated?  I think you dare not say so much, for you must be aware that the general desertion of cities would mean the decay of commerce and of the arts, the arrest of progress, and national disintegration.  And if your own personal example would bear only evil fruit were it elevated to a law of life, it stands condemned.

’For my own part, I am where you left me.  I am in the same rooms—­dull, stuffy, inconvenient—­you know all about them.  I breathe quantities of bad air every day, and see a hundred things that distress me.  I go three nights a week to the room in Lucraft’s Row; struggle with the young barbarians of the slums, and am content if I see but a few signs of order evolving themselves out of chaos.  A week ago I was knocked down by a ruffian, who came next day to apologise on the three-fold ground that he was drunk, that he did not know it was me he struck, and that if he had known he never would have done it.  My ruffian was very penitent.  He has since signed the pledge and is my firm friend.  I chased him out of a public-house last night, and made him come home to my lodgings with me, where I gave him coffee, and sang songs to him.  He followed all my movements with the big wistful eyes of a dog.  There were tears in those eyes when he bade me good-night.  He brushed them away with a dirty hand, and said, “I know I can keep straight now, sir, because you are my pal, and I ain’t a-going against the wishes of my pal!” This morning he left a pineapple at the door for me—­he is a coster, and pineapples are cheap just now.  I felt more pleasure than I can say; I could have sung over my work all day, so glad was I. My dear fellow, don’t think I speak pharisaically—­you know me too well; but I do believe I got more genuine pleasure out of my experience with this rough fellow than you will ever get out of your sunsets.  Lucraft’s Row is a dull place enough, but when a ray of light does shine into it, it brings with it more than common joy.