Did life mean to them merely the diminishing of their forces?

On the contrary, they entered gay, laughing young, a youth guarded
intact by freedom and hope. What were the subjects of conversation
pursued at dinner? Love, labour, the price paid for it, the advantages
of town over country life, the neighbour and her conduct. What was the
appearance of my companions? There was nothing in it to shock good
taste. Their hands and feet were somewhat broadened by work, their skins
were imperfect for the lack of proper food, their dresses were of coarse
material; but in small things the differences were superficial only. Was
it, then, in big things that the divergence began which places them as a
lower class? Was it money alone that kept them from the places of
authority? What were their ambitions, their perplexities? What part does
self-respect play? How well satisfied are they, or how restless? What
can we learn from them? What can we teach them?

We ate our dinner of boiled meat and custard pie and all started back in
good time for a one o'clock beginning at the mill. For the space of
several hundred feet its expressionless red brick walls lined the
street, implacable, silent. Within all hummed to the collective activity
of a throng, each working with all his force for a common end. Machines
roared and pounded; a fine dust filled the air--a cloud of lint sent
forth from the friction of thousands of busy hands in perpetual contact
with the shapeless anonymous garments they were fashioning. There were,
on their way between the cutting-and the finishing-rooms, 7,000 dozen
shirts. They were to pass by innumerable hands; they were to be held and
touched by innumerable individuals; they were to be begun and finished
by innumerable human beings with distinct tastes and likings, abilities
and failings; and when the 7,000 dozen shirts were complete they were to
look alike, and they were to look as though made by a machine; they were