There are those again honest, kindly, sensible, practical men,
many of them; men whom I have no wish to offend; whom I had rather
ask to teach me some of their own experience and common sense,
which has learned to discern, like good statesmen, not only what
ought to be done, but what can be done--there are those, I say,
who would sooner see this whole question let alone. Their
feeling, as far as I can analyse it, seems to be that the evils of
which I have been complaining, are on the whole inevitable; or, if
not, that we can mend so very little of them, that it is wisest to
leave them alone altogether, lest, like certain sewers, "the more
you stir them, the more they smell." They fear lest we should
unsettle the minds of the many for whom these evils will never be
mended; lest we make them discontented; discontented with their
houses, their occupations, their food, their whole social
arrangements; and all in vain.

I should answer, in all courtesy and humility--for I sympathise
deeply with such men and women, and respect them deeply likewise--
but are not people discontented already, from the lowest to the
highest? And ought a man, in such a piecemeal, foolish, greedy,
sinful world as this is, and always has been, to be anything but
discontented? If he thinks that things are going all right, must
he not have a most beggarly conception of what going right means?
And if things are not going right, can it be anything but good for
him to see that they are not going right? Can truth and fact harm
any human being? I shall not believe so, as long as I have a
Bible wherein to believe. For my part, I should like to make
every man, woman, and child whom I meet discontented with
themselves, even as I am discontented with myself. I should like