I only say, that so hundreds of thousands think; so they speak, and will
speak more and more loudly, as long as the present tone of society
endures,--good-natured and well meaning, but luxurious, covetous,
ignoble, frivolous, ignorant; believing--all classes alike, not only that
money makes the man, but worse far--that money makes the woman also; and
all the while half-ashamed of itself, half-distrustful of itself, and
trying to buy off man by alms, and God by superstition.
So long as the great mass of the poor of any city know nothing of the
great mass of the rich of that city, save as folk who roll past them in
their carriages, seemingly easy while they are struggling, seemingly
happy while they are wretched, so long will the rich of that city be
supposed, however falsely, to be what the French workmen used to call
mangeurs d'hommes--exploiteurs d'hommes--to get their wealth by means of
the poverty, their comfort by means of the misery of their fellow-men;
and so long will they be exposed to that mere envy and hatred which
pursues always the more prosperous, till, in some national crisis, when
the rich and poor meet together, both parties will be but too apt to
behave, through mutual fear and hate, as if not God, but the devil, was
the maker of them all.
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