selection. Simple, but not consolatory. Still, look at the other
side of the question. Suppose you and everybody else were to give
up all superfluities, and confine all your energies to the unlimited
production of bare necessaries. Suppose you occupy every acre
of land with your corn-fields, or your piggeries; and sweep away
all the parks, and woods, and heaths, and moorlands in England.
Suppose you keep on letting your population multiply as fast as it
chooses--and it WILL multiply, you know, in that ugly, reckless,
anti-Malthusian fashion of its own--till every rood of ground
maintains its man, and only just maintains him; and what will you
have got then?'

'A dead level of abject pauperism,' put in Herbert blandly; 'a
reductio ad absurdum of all your visionary Schurzian philosophy,
my dear Ernest. Look at it another way, now, and just consider.
Which really and truly matters most to you and me, a great work
of art or a highly respectable horny-handed son of toil, whose
acquaintance we have never had the pleasure of personally making?
Suppose you read in the Times that the respectable horny-handed
one has fallen off a scaffolding and broken his neck; and that the
Dresden Madonna has been burnt by an unexpected accident; which
of the two items of intelligence affects you the most acutely? My
dear fellow, you may push your humanitarian enthusiasm as far as
ever you like; but in your heart of hearts you know as well as I
do that you'll deeply regret the loss of the Madonna, and you'll
never think again about the fate of the respectable horny-handed,
his wife or children.'

Ernest's answer, if he had any to make, was effectually nipped in
the bud by the entrance of the scout, who came in to announce Mr.