that we deliberately arrange our lives in such a fashion so that this
approach may be rendered difficult.

Not only this; but, on taking a survey of our life, of the life of
the wealthy, I saw that every thing which is considered desirable in
that life consists in, or is inseparably bound up with, the idea of
getting as far away from the poor as possible. In fact, all the
efforts of our well-endowed life, beginning with our food, dress,
houses, our cleanliness, and even down to our education,--every thing
has for its chief object, the separation of ourselves from the poor.
In procuring this seclusion of ourselves by impassable barriers, we
spend, to put it mildly, nine-tenths of our wealth. The first thing
that a man who was grown wealthy does is to stop eating out of one
bowl, and he sets up crockery, and fits himself out with a kitchen
and servants. And he feeds his servants high, too, so that their
mouths may not water over his dainty viands; and he eats alone; and
as eating in solitude is wearisome, he plans how he may improve his
food and deck his table; and the very manner of taking his food
(dinner) becomes a matter for pride and vain glory with him, and his
manner of taking his food becomes for him a means of sequestering
himself from other men. A rich man cannot think of such a thing as
inviting a poor man to his table. A man must know how to conduct
ladies to table, how to bow, to sit down, to eat, to rinse out the
mouth; and only rich people know all these things. The same thing
occurs in the matter of clothing. If a rich man were to wear
ordinary clothing, simply for the purpose of protecting his body from
the cold,--a short jacket, a coat, felt and leather boots, an under-
jacket, trousers, shirt,--he would require but very little, and he
would not be unable, when he had two coats, to give one of them to a
man who had none. But the rich man begins by procuring for himself