Page:Love and Mr. Lewisham – Wells (1899).djvu/221

Rh for their toil, their suffering; pretends that he and his parasitic career are payment for their thwarted desires. Imagine him bullying his gardener over some transplanted geraniums, the thick mist of lies they stand in, so that the man does not immediately, with the edge of a spade smite down his impertinence to the dust from which it rose. And his case is the case of all comfortable lives. What a lie and sham all civility is, all good breeding, all culture and refinement, while one poor ragged wretch drags hungry on the earth!"

"But this is Socialism!" said Lewisham. "I—"

"No Ism," said Chaffery, raising his rich voice. "Only the ghastly truth of things—the truth that the warp and the woof of the world of men is Lying. Socialism is no remedy, no ism is a remedy; things are so."

"I don't agree—" began Lewisham.

"Not with the hopelessness, because you are young, but with the description you do."

"Well—within limits."

"You agree that most respectable positions in the world are tainted with the fraud of our social conditions. If they were not tainted with fraud they would not be respectable. Even your own position—Who gave you the right to marry and prosecute interesting scientific studies while other young men rot in mines?"