An Impression Was Left Upon Me, Though
I Cannot Say Whether It Was Well Or Ill Founded, As Though There
Were a tacit understanding between the establishments at Oropa and
Graglia that the one was to adapt itself to the
Poorer, and the
other to the richer classes of society; and this not from any
sordid motive, but from a recognition of the fact that any great
amount of intermixture between the poor and the rich is not found
satisfactory to either one or the other. Any wide difference in
fortune does practically amount to a specific difference, which
renders the members of either species more or less suspicious of
those of the other, and seldom fertile inter se. The well-to-do
working-man can help his poorer friends better than we can. If an
educated man has money to spare, he will apply it better in helping
poor educated people than those who are more strictly called the
poor. As long as the world is progressing, wide class distinctions
are inevitable; their discontinuance will be a sign that
equilibrium has been reached. Then human civilisation will become
as stationary as that of ants and bees. Some may say it will be
very sad when this is so; others, that it will be a good thing; in
truth, it is good either way, for progress and equilibrium have
each of them advantages and disadvantages which make it impossible
to assign superiority to either; but in both cases the good greatly
overbalances the evil; for in both the great majority will be
fairly well contented, and would hate to live under any other
system.
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