You've Got To Know Yourself So You

But Then Peace, Peace! I Am So Mistrustful Of It: So Much Afraid That It Means A Sort Of Weakness And Giving In.

We Are So Conceited And So Unproud.

Melville Had To Fight, Fight Against The Existing World, Against His Own Very Self. Only He Would Never Quite Put The Knife In The Heart Of His Paradisal Ideal. Somehow, Somewhere, Somewhen, Love Should Be A Fulfillment, And Life Should Be A Thing Of Bliss. That Was His Fixed Ideal. Fata Morgana. That Was The Pin He Tortured Himself On, Like A Pinned-down Butterfly.

The Great Crime Which The Moneyed Classes And Promoters Of Industry Committed In The Palmy Victorian Days Was The Condemning Of The Workers To Ugliness, Ugliness, Ugliness: Meanness And Formless And Ugly Surroundings, Ugly Ideals, Ugly Religion, Ugly Hope, Ugly Love, Ugly Clothes, Ugly Furniture, Ugly Houses, Ugly Relationship Between Workers And Employers. The Human Soul Needs Actual Beauty More Than Bread.

I Cannot Be A Materialist - But Oh, How Is It Possible That A God Who Speaks To All Hearts Can Let Belgravia Go Laughing To A Vicious Luxury, And Whitechapel Cursing To A Filthy Debauchery - Such Suffering, Such Dreadful Suffering - And Shall The Short Years Of Christ's Mission Atone For It All?