Howards End

houses now."
    "In other words, Mr. Bast need never have left it."
    "No, the fellow needn’t."
    "—and needn’t have started life elsewhere at a greatly reduced salary."
    "He only says 'reduced,'" corrected Margaret, seeing trouble ahead.
    "With a man so poor, every reduction must be great. I consider it a deplorable misfortune."
    Mr. Wilcox, intent on his business with Mrs. Munt, was going steadily on, but the last remark made him say: "What? What’s that? Do you mean that I’m responsible?"
    "You’re ridiculous, Helen."
    "You seem to think—" He looked at his watch. "Let me explain the point to you. It is like this. You seem to assume, when a business concern is conducting a delicate negotiation, it ought to keep the public informed stage by stage. The Porphyrion, according to you, was bound to say, 'I am trying all I can to get into the Tariff Ring. I am not sure that I shall succeed, but it is the only thing that will save me from insolvency, and I am trying.' My dear Helen—"
    "Is that your point? A man who had little money has less—that’s mine."
    "I am grieved for your clerk. But it is all in the days work. It’s part of the battle of life."
    "A man who had little money—" she repeated, "has less, owing to us. Under these circumstances I consider 'the battle of life' a happy expression."
    "Oh come, come!" he protested pleasantly, "you’re not to blame. No one’s to blame."
    "Is no one to blame for anything?"
    "I wouldn’t say that, but you’re taking it far too seriously. Who is this fellow?"
    "We have told you about the fellow twice already," said Helen. "You have even met the fellow. He is very poor and his wife is an extravagant imbecile. He is capable of better things. We—we, the upper classes—thought we would help him from the height of our superior knowledge—and here’s the result!"
    He raised his finger. "Now, a word of advice."
    "I require no more advice."
    "A word of advice. Don’t take up that sentimental attitude over the poor. See that she doesn’t, Margaret. The poor are poor, and one’s sorry for them, but there it is. As civilisation moves forward, the shoe is bound to pinch in places, and it’s absurd to pretend that any one is responsible personally. Neither you, nor I, nor my informant, nor the man who informed him, nor the directors of the Porphyrion, are to blame for this clerk’s loss of salary. It’s just the shoe pinching—no one can help it; and it might easily have been worse."
    Helen quivered with indignation.
    "By all means subscribe to charities—subscribe to them largely—but don’t get carried away by absurd schemes of Social Reform. I see a good deal behind the scenes, and you can take it from me that there is no Social Question—except for a few journalists who try to get a living out of the phrase. There are just rich and poor, as there always have been and always will be. Point me out a time when men have been equal—"
    "I didn’t say—"
    "Point me out a time when desire for equality has made them happier. No, no. You can’t. There always have been rich and poor. I’m no fatalist. Heaven forbid! But our civilisation is moulded by great impersonal forces" (his voice grew complacent; it always did when he eliminated the personal), "and there always will be rich and poor. You can’t deny it" (and now it was a respectful voice)—"and you can’t deny that, in spite of all, the tendency of civilisation has on the whole been upward."
    "Owing to God, I suppose," flashed Helen.
    He stared at her.
    "You grab the dollars. God does the rest."
    It was no good instructing the girl if she was going to talk about God in that neurotic modern way. Fraternal to the last, he left her for the quieter company of Mrs. Munt. He thought, "She rather reminds me of Dolly."
    Helen looked out at the sea.
    "Don’t ever discuss political economy with Henry," advised her sister. "It’ll only end in a cry."
    "But he must be one of those men who have reconciled science with religion," said Helen slowly. "I don’t like those men. They are scientific themselves, and talk of the survival of the fittest, and cut down the salaries of their clerks, and stunt the independence of all who may menace their comfort, but yet they believe that somehow good—it is always that sloppy 'somehow' will be the outcome, and that in some mystical way the Mr. Basts of the future will benefit because the Mr. Brits of today are in pain."
    "He is such a man in theory. But oh, Helen, in