The foul skin, the unwashed clothes, the layer of greasy smuts, the
boots that once fitted someone, and are now held on by string, the
scraps of food bought by the pennyworth, the tea, condensed milk, fried
fish, bread and "strawberry flavour," the coal bought by the
"half-hundred," the unceasing noise, the absence of peace or rest, the
misery of sickness in a crowd--all such things may be counted among the
outward conditions of unhappiness, and only people who have never known
them would call them trivial. But by the unhappiness that springs from
poverty I mean far worse than these.

The definition of happiness as "an energy of the soul along the lines
of excellence, in a fully developed life" is ancient now, but I have
never found a better. From happiness so defined, poverty excludes our
working-classes in the lump, almost without exception. For them an
energy of the soul along the lines of excellence is almost unknown, and
a fully developed life impossible. In both these respects their
condition has probably become worse within the last century. If there is
a word of truth in what historians tell us, a working-man must certainly
have had a better chance of exercising an energy of his soul before the
development of factories and machinery. What energy of the personal soul
is exercised in a mill-hand, a tea-packer, a slop-tailor, or the watcher
of a thread in a machine? How can a man or woman engaged in such labour
for ten hours a day at subsistence wage enjoy a fully developed life? It
seems likely that the old-fashioned workman who made things chiefly with
his own hands and had some opportunity of personal interest in the work,
stood a better chance of the happiness arising from an energy of the
soul. His life was also more fully developed by the variety and interest
of his working material and surroundings. This is the point to which our
prophets who pour their lamentations over advancing civilisation should
direct their main attack, as, indeed, the best of them have done. For