Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/79

Rh to be envied. I have never seen another man or woman of whom I had anything approaching such a thought. I may have envied this or that possession of theirs, but themselves never, and it is only my cowardice that ever envied you. Jack,' he added, turning his head quickly, 'tell me truly and sincerely, as from man to man, from soul to soul, does your life-work satisfy your conscience? Do you in your clearest and serenest hours of insight and reason, the inspired moments when no self-deception stands erect and unabashed before one's conscious eyes, do you really believe in the social course you pursued and are, I suppose, pursuing?'

'Dear man,' said Daniel, softly stretching out and putting his hand on the arm of his friend, which rested on the arm of the chair, 'I can only answer you that four years' experience of the results of the social ideas which I have, either rightly or wrongly, conceived—four years' careful observation from within and without—(You would smile at my mysterious disguises and aliases. I have worked months on end in my own factories, and those of other employers, unknown to any one but my wife.)—have all the more and more convinced me that humanity at the present moment is menaced with a most terrible danger. It is not anarchy, it is not the "slavery" of which the Individualists are so afraid—at least it is not in the