Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/331

 I could not have been a Socialist because life had somehow taught me that this is a world of relativities, in which the absolute is the first impossibility. I could share, of course, their hope, or the hope of some of them in a well ordered society, though with many of them the dream seemed to be beautiful chiefly because they expected to order it themselves; they who felt themselves so long to have been the slaves were to become the masters; their hard and too logical theory of classes circumscribed their vision so that they could imagine nothing more clearly, and possibly nothing more delightful than a bouleversement which would leave them on top.

I could recognize with them the masters under whom we all alike were serving in this land, and respect them as little as we might, or detest them as we would, they presented whatever advantage there is in familiarity; if nothing more inviting than a change in masters were proposed, one would prefer those one had to others whose habits and whims he did not know. One could be pretty sure that the new masters would use the same old whips and scorpions, or if new ones, with a sting more bitter. They proposed as much, indeed, in their rigid form of organization, with a discipline more irksome and relentless, what with their signing of pledges, and their visitations and committees of inspection, and trials for heresy and excommunications. They reminded me of those prosecutors who could behold no defect in the penal machinery save that it had not been sufficiently drastic; they would replace all old intolerances and ancient tyrannies by others no