“Yes, certainly. We are mindful, as a whole people, of the divine law—‘In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread.’”
“But the capitalists? I’m anxious about Number One, you see.”
“We have none.”
“I forgot, of course. But the lawyers, the doctors, the parsons, the novelists?”
“They all do their share of hand-work.”
The lawyer said: “That seems to dispose of the question of the working-man in society. But how about your minds? When do you cultivate your minds? When do the ladies of Altruria cultivate their minds, if they have to do their own work, as I suppose they do? Or is it only the men who work, if they happen to be the husbands and fathers of the upper classes?”
The Altrurian seemed to be sensible of the kindly scepticism which persisted in our reception of his statements, after all we had read of Altruria. He smiled indulgently, and said: “You mustn’t imagine that work in Altruria is the same as it is here. As we all work, the amount that each one need do is very little, a few hours each day at the most, so that every man and woman has abundant leisure and perfect spirits for the higher pleasures which the education of their whole youth has fitted them to enjoy. If you can understand a state of things where the sciences and arts and letters are cultivated for their own sake, and not as a means of livelihood—”
“No,” said the lawyer, smiling, “I’m afraid we can’t conceive of that. We consider the pinch of poverty the highest incentive that a man can have. If our gifted friend here,” he said, indicating me, “were not kept like a toad under the harrow, with his nose on the grindstone, and the poorhouse staring him in the face—”
“For Heaven’s sake,” I cried out, “don’t mix your metaphors so, anyway!”
“If it were not for that and all the other hardships that literary men undergo—