disagreeable, because in his youth he was an enthusiastic adherent of
Herbert Spencer, and being himself a large land owner, was struck by
the proposition in _Social Statics_ that private ownership of land is
contrary to the dictates of justice. With the frankness and boldness
of youth, he not only _then_ spoke of the injustice of private
ownership of land; not only did he compose theses in the university on
the subject, but he actually distributed among the peasants the few
hundred acres of land left him by his father, not desiring to own land
contrary to his convictions. Now that he found himself the owner of
vast estates, he was confronted by two alternatives: either to waive
his ownership in favor of the peasants, as he did ten years ago with
the two hundred acres, or, by tacit acquiescence, confess that all his
former ideas were erroneous and false.

He could not carry out the first, because he possessed no resources
outside of the land. He did not wish to go into service, and yet he
had luxurious habits of life which he thought he could not abandon.
Indeed, there was no necessity of abandoning these habits, since he
had lost the strength of conviction as well as the resolution, the
vanity and the desire to astonish people that he had possessed in his
youth. The other alternative--to reject all the arguments against
private ownership of land which he gathered from Spencer's _Social
Statics_, and of which he found confirmation in the works of Henry
George--he could follow even less.

For this reason the steward's letter was disagreeable to him.