‘Oh, I don’t know. Contentment goes a long way,’ Catherine said, with some timidity, for she knew that her friend held very pronounced views, was unusually strong-minded, and had an iron will, to say nothing of an unyielding dogmatism, which occasionally, when stirred up, became objectionable, and at times offensive. In short, Anna had an aggressive spirit, and was disposed to find fault with all constituted authority.
‘Contentment!’ she echoed with a malicious sort of chuckle; ‘how can one be contented with a lot that is hard, toilsome, and irritating? It’s not pleasant to realize every hour of your life that you are only a drudge. I ask myself over and over again why wealth is so unequally distributed. Why should it be in the hands of the few, while the vast majority of mankind are the slaves of those few, and groan and sweat under the yoke of paid labour—for what? merely to keep body and soul together.’
Catherine had heard her friend express similar sentiments before, so that she was not surprised at this bluntness of speech; but as she herself did not consider she had any particular cause to complain, and as the views she held were not altogether in accordance with Anna’s, she ventured to mildly express dissent from Anna’s doctrine. It only seemed, however, to arouse that young woman to a more vigorous display of her feelings, and with a pepperiness that was distinctly characteristic of her, she exclaimed scoffingly:
‘Well, friend Catherine, I can’t help saying that I’ve no patience with anyone who is willing to accept stripes and lashes without a murmur. That’s not my spirit. I’ve got brains, so have you, and yet we are forced to toil long hours every day for bare sustenance, while thousands and tens of thousands of brainless louts are rolling in riches. Ugh! It makes me mad to think of it.’
Catherine smiled prettily as she remarked:
‘You seem to have been stirred up to-day, dear. Something has put you out of temper.’
‘Yes; I am out of temper. I’m dissatisfied. Why, only to-day an order was issued in our department that we are to work two hours extra every day owing to pressure of work; but, as you know, the miserly Government take precious good care they won’t pay us so much as an extra copeck, no matter how long we work. I say it’s shameful!’
‘But what’s the use of fretting about it if we cannot alter it?’ asked Catherine.
‘But I say we can alter it. The working classes of this country are the bone, sinew, and brains of the country; yet they are kept in shackles and ground into the dust.’
‘And yet, after all, Anna, talent is always recognised, and individualism will make its mark.’