“I will,” he answered. “In the first place, kindly consider that you are not living in a private world of your own. Everything you say and do and think has its effect on everybody around you. For example, if you feel, and say loudly enough, that it is an infernal shame to keep larks and other wild song-birds in cages, you will infallibly infect a number of other people with that sentiment, and in course of time those people who feel as you do will become so numerous that larks, thrushes, blackbirds, and linnets will no longer be caught and kept in cages. Whereas, if you merely think: ‘Oh! this is dreadful, quite too dreadful, but, you see, I can do nothing; therefore consideration for myself and others demands that I shall stop my ears and hold my tongue,’ then, indeed, nothing will ever be done, and larks, blackbirds, etc., will continue to be caught and prisoned. How do you imagine it ever came about that bears and bulls and badgers are no longer baited; cocks no longer openly encouraged to tear each other in pieces; donkeys no longer beaten to a pulp? Only by people going about and shouting out that these things made them uncomfortable. How did it come about that more than half the population of this country are not still classed as ‘serfs’ under the law? Simply because a few of our ancestors were made unhappy by seeing their fellow-creatures owned and treated like dogs, and roundly said so—in fact, were not ashamed to be sentimental humanitarians like me.” “That is all obvious. But my point is that there is moderation in all things, and a time for everything.” “By your leave,” he said, “there is little moderation desirable when we are face to face with real suffering, and, as a general rule, no time like the present.” “But there is, as you were saying just now, such a thing as a sense of proportion. I cannot see that it’s my business to excite myself about the caging of larks when there are so many much greater evils.” “Forgive my saying so,” he answered, “but if, when a caged lark comes under your nose, excitement does not take hold of you, with or against your will, there is mighty little chance of your getting excited about anything. For, consider what it means to be a caged lark—what pining and misery for that little creature, which only lives for its life up in the blue. Consider what blasphemy against Nature, and what an insult to all that is high and poetic in man, it is to cage such an exquisite thing of freedom!” “You forget that it is done out of love for the song—to bring it into towns where people can’t otherwise hear it.” “It is done for a living—and that people without imagination may squeeze out of unhappy creatures a little gratification!” “It is not a crime to have no imagination.” “No, sir; but neither is the lack of it a thing to pride oneself on, or pass by in silence, when it inflicts suffering.” “I am not defending the custom of caging larks.” “No; but you are responsible for its continuance.” “I?”