that binds them to the soil, nor local pride, as is the case with
genuine villagers; it is rather sheer inertia. Such pride, if it
existed, might do much for the regeneration of great cities, by
creating a series of eager and intelligent communities, which would vie
with one another in civic self-improvement; but this is just the kind
of pride which does not exist. No one cares how his suburb is
misgoverned, so long as rates are not too exorbitant. A suburb will
wake into momentary life to curb the liberal programmes of the
school-board, or to vote against the establishment of a free library; a
gross self-interest being thus the only variation of its apathy. It
soon falls asleep again, dulled into torpor by the fumes of its own
intolerant smugness. For much of this the element of family separation
in suburban life is answerable. The men pay their rates and house-rent
at Surbiton, but they live their real lives within hearing of the bell
of St. Paul's; how should they take any interest in Surbiton? After
all, Surbiton is to them but a vast caravansary, where they are lodged
and fed at night; and one does not inquire too closely into the
internal amenities of his hotel so long as the food is tolerable, and
the bed clean.

Suburbanism is, however, but a branch, though an important branch, of
the larger question, whether in cities men do not ultimately sacrifice
the finer qualities and joys of life to the act of getting a living.
It will perhaps be said that the man with a true genius for business
must in any case live in a city; that he is not discontented with the
conditions of his life; that, all things being considered, he is
probably living the kind of life for which he is best fitted. May not
a writer, who is presumably a person of studious and quiet habits,
misinterpret the life of a business man precisely in the same way that
he misinterprets the life of the poor, by applying to it his own