Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/88

 84 by both the romantic and humanist schools of literature.

There are men who live where wealth is made. They hear the hum of the wheels all day; all day their eyes wander over stocks and ledger pages. It is difficult for them to use wealth. They may clothe themselves in all the appearances of richness, but the coverings fit badly on their backs, and no one can ever be deceived by their show. Now, when a new and rich wealth-producing epoch comes and gains pour in upon people in a great rush, this kind of rich man is produced. Political economy is written to explain and justify him; ethical systems are built up solely from his virtues; his success is canonised. But the praise is only temporary. The world cannot continue to live and yet make obeisance to him. The minds who see past him and through him revolt against him. Hence every literary genius during the middle of the nineteenth century poured hot scorn or icy cold water upon the successes of his times. It is true these writers were generally only unhappy critics or defiant rebels; they were not reconstructive; they only harped upon the desires of their imagination. Ruskin's vagueness has left us a number of illuminating aphorisms like: "There is no wealth but life"; Carlyle's passion has fashioned for us the mediæval-modern community of Past and Present and thrown out volcanic eruptions of fault-finding; Dickens' pilloryings led to the removal of some of the blotches in the face of society as he found it, but when he