I do not myself think things can be cured except by a wider equalization of strictly private property, especially in land. This is not done or even demanded, not because it is impossible, but because its tradition has been lost. Meanwhile the Insurance Act, by which the rich contribute to the medical support of their servants, on condition of obtaining a tighter hold on their service, is the first of many legislative acts which will have for their object the ordering and cleansing, but also the strengthening, of the wage-system. They will attempt to forbid strikes. Thus we shall have the poor, with better conditions perhaps and under some general social stipulations; but bound irrevocably to particular and private masters.

The only thing I have to say about such a scheme concerns your country more than mine. This system of fixed service for certain masters has much to be said for it; and much was said by men dead and alive. In the wilderness by Chancellorsville or down all the roads to Richmond, there must be the dust of great gentlemen who came up out of the South to fight for such a system; and I think our Liberal social reformers owe them an apology. I think they ought to stand a moment and salute the dead, who had the courage to die for this thing, and the courage to call it by its name.

“LIGHT IS THERE ABOVE
WHICH MAKES THE
CREATOR VISIBLE

© V. O.

TO THAT CREATURE
WHICH HAS ITS
PEACE ONLY IN
SEEING HIM”

PARADISO
CANTO
XXIX–XXX

THE
RIVER OF
LIGHT

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri

Studies in Red Chalk by Violet Oakley, for the medallions of a painted glass window made for the house of Mr. Robert J. Collier

Original Illustration

⇒
LARGER IMAGE

“O GLORY AND LIGHT
OF OTHER POETS:
MAY THE LONG
ZEAL

© V. O.

AVAIL ME AND THE
GREAT LOVE THAT
MADE ME SEARCH
THY VOLUME”

INFERNO
CANTO I

DANTE,
DRIVEN BACK BY
THE THREE BEASTS