strain of trying to grasp another point-of-view; and to speak frankly, it is not worth the trouble.  I do not at all desire to migrate out of my own class, and I have never been able to sympathise with people who did.  The motive for doing so is not generally a good one, though it is of course possible to conceive a high-minded aristocrat who from motives based upon our common humanity might desire to apprehend the point-of-view of an artisan, or a high-minded artisan who for the same motive desired to apprehend the point-of-view of an earl.  But one requires to feel sure that this is based upon a strong sense of charity and responsibility, and I can only say that I have not found that the desire to migrate into a different class is generally based upon these qualities.

The question is, what ought a man who believes sincerely in the principle of equality to do in the matter, if he is situated as I am situated?  What I admire and desire in life is friendly contact with my fellows, interesting work, leisure for following the pursuits I enjoy, such as art and literature.  I honestly confess that I am not interested in what are called Social Problems, or rather I am not at all interested in the sort of people who study them.  Such problems have hardly reached the vital stage; they are in the highly technical stage, and are mixed up with such things as political economy, politics, organisation, and so forth, which, to be perfectly frank, are to me blighting and dreary objects of study.  I honour profoundly the people who engage in such pursuits; but life is not long enough to take up work, however valuable, from a sense of duty, if one realises one’s own unfitness for such labours.  I wish with all my heart that all classes cared equally for the things which I love.  I should like to be able to talk frankly and unaffectedly about books, and interesting people, and the beauties of nature, and abstract topics of a mild kind, with any one I happened to meet.  But, as a rule, to speak frankly, I find that people of what I must call the lower class are not interested in these things; people in what I will call the upper class are faintly interested, in a horrible and condescending way, in them—­which is worse than no interest at all.  A good many people in my own class are impatient of them, and think of them as harmless recreations; I fall back upon a few like-minded friends, with whom I can talk easily and unreservedly of such things, without being thought priggish or donnish or dilettanteish or unintelligible.  The subjects in which I find the majority of people interested are personal gossip, money, success, business, politics.  I love personal gossip, but that can only be enjoyed in a circle well acquainted with each other’s faults and foibles; and I do not sincerely care for talking about the other matters I have mentioned.  Hitherto I have always had a certain amount of educational responsibility, and that has furnished an abundance of material for