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To begin with, there is a considerable portion of The Ring, especially the portraiture of our capitalistic industrial system from the socialist's point of view in the slavery of the Niblungs and the tyranny of Alberic, which is unmistakable, as it dramatizes that portion of human activity which lies well within the territory covered by our intellectual consciousness.
And so we arrive at the end of the Socialist's dream of "the socialization of the means of production and exchange," of the Positivist's dream of moralizing the capitalist, and of the ethical professor's, legislator's, educator's dream of putting commandments and codes and lessons and examination marks on a man as harness is put on a horse, ermine on a judge, pipeclay on a soldier, or a wig on an actor, and pretending that his nature has been changed.
To live again without memory of having lived before is to live another. Re-existence without recollection is absurd; there is nothing to re-exist. THIS is not a country of equal fortunes; outside a Socialist's dream no such country exists or can exist.
The only explanation that seems to meet the case is that which is supplied by the idealistic nature of Selwyn's mind. One of his ideals was plain living, and he had something of the socialist's contempt for the "rights of property." Even before his consecration his mind had been exercised on the question of the land purchases of the New Zealand missionaries.
Through the sad pages of George Eliot, through Emerson's exultant psalm, through the reformer's battle, the socialist's scheme, runs this golden link, the value of simple humanity. This, then, we may say is the characteristic attitude of the man of to-day, before the processes of nature, awe and reverence; before the life of humanity, sympathy and tenderness.
Comrade Prebble repeated his observation. Mike looked helplessly at Psmith, but Psmith's eyes were on his plate. Mike felt he must venture on some answer. 'No, he said decidedly. Comrade Prebble seemed slightly taken aback. There was an awkward pause. Then Mr Waller, for whom his fellow Socialist's methods of conversation held no mysteries, interpreted. 'The mustard, Prebble? Yes, yes.
Thus does the government sink to the petty rascalities of shop-keepers. Even a government manager on a fixed salary in work-coupons will descend to these tricks of the trade to keep out of the clutches of the auditor, or to make a "good record." The socialist's answer perhaps would be that under their system government factories would make only perfect goods.
Let him be once exorcised and the ills of humanity are gone. And the exorcism, it appears, is of the simplest. Let this demon once feel the contact of state ownership of the means of production and his baneful influence will vanish into thin air as his mediæval predecessors did at the touch of a thimbleful of holy water. This, then, is the socialist's program.
'He is a strong man, Stella said in a tone which betrayed the Socialist's enthusiasm. 'He stands for earth-subduing energy. I imagine him at a forge, beating fire out of iron. 'H'm! That's not quite the same thing as imagining him that beautiful child's husband. No education, I suppose? 'Sufficient. With more, he would no longer fill the place he does.
As she had seen her garments overswept by the folds of the fair Socialist's white velvet mantle, lined with Arctic fox and clasped with diamonds, she had smiled ironically at the juxtaposition.
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