go on with my narrative. As every schoolboy knows, in the latter
part of the nineteenth century the civilization of to-day, or
anything like it, did not exist, although the elements which were
to develop it were already in ferment. Nothing had, however,
occurred to modify the immemorial division of society into the
four classes, or nations, as they may be more fitly called, since
the differences between them were far greater than those
between any nations nowadays, of the rich and the poor, the
educated and the ignorant. I myself was rich and also educated,
and possessed, therefore, all the elements of happiness enjoyed
by the most fortunate in that age. Living in luxury, and occupied
only with the pursuit of the pleasures and refinements of life, I
derived the means of my support from the labor of others,
rendering no sort of service in return. My parents and grand-
parents had lived in the same way, and I expected that my
descendants, if I had any, would enjoy a like easy existence.

But how could I live without service to the world? you ask.
Why should the world have supported in utter idleness one who
was able to render service? The answer is that my great-grandfather
had accumulated a sum of money on which his descendants
had ever since lived. The sum, you will naturally infer, must
have been very large not to have been exhausted in supporting
three generations in idleness. This, however, was not the fact.
The sum had been originally by no means large. It was, in fact,
much larger now that three generations had been supported
upon it in idleness, than it was at first. This mystery of use
without consumption, of warmth without combustion, seems like
magic, but was merely an ingenious application of the art now
happily lost but carried to great perfection by your ancestors, of