But I replied that I greatly feared no amount of opportunity to help
mankind in general would have reconciled me to life anywhere or under any
conditions after leaving her behind in a dream--a confession of shameless
selfishness which she was pleased to pass over without special rebuke, in
consideration, no doubt, of my unfortunate bringing up.

"Besides," I resumed, being willing a little further to vindicate myself,
"it would not have done any good. I have just told you how in my
nightmare last night, when I tried to tell my contemporaries and even my
best friends about the nobler way men might live together, they derided
me as a fool and madman. That is exactly what they would have done in
reality had the dream been true and I had gone about preaching as in the
case you supposed."

"Perhaps a few might at first have acted as you dreamed they did," she
replied. "Perhaps they would not at once have liked the idea of economic
equality, fearing that it might mean a leveling down for them, and not
understanding that it would presently mean a leveling up of all together
to a vastly higher plane of life and happiness, of material welfare and
moral dignity than the most fortunate had ever enjoyed. But even if the
rich had at first mistaken you for an enemy to their class, the poor, the
great masses of the poor, the real nation, they surely from the first
would have listened as for their lives, for to them your story would have
meant glad tidings of great joy."

"I do not wonder that you think so," I answered, "but, though I am still
learning the A B C of this new world, I knew my contemporaries, and I
know that it would not have been as you fancy. The poor would have
listened no better than the rich, for, though poor and rich in my day
were at bitter odds in everything else, they were agreed in believing