Another element of complication is that the peasants who can earn their living by working on the landlords’ land are naturally greatly averse from anything like a complete sale of it, and are alarmed by the possibility of such an idea. Also there is a class of peasants who work in factories, and therefore are only interested in the land inasmuch as profit can be derived from it while it belongs to the landlord. Again, there are others who are without land, who need land, and who are too poor to buy it. If all the land were given to them as a present to-morrow the result in the long run would be deplorable, because the quality of the land—once you eliminate the landlord and his more advanced methods—would gradually deteriorate and poverty would merely be spread over a larger area. One fact is obvious: that many of the peasants have not got enough land, and to them land is now being sold by a great number of landlords. To settle the matter further, a radical scheme of agrarian reform is necessary; many such schemes are being elaborated at this moment, but those which have seen the light up to the present have so far proved a source of universal disagreement. The fact which lies at the root of the matter is of course that if the land question is to be solved the peasant must be educated to adopt fresher methods of agriculture than those which were employed in the Garden of Eden; methods which were doubtless excellent until the fall of man rendered the cultivation of the soil a matter of painful duty, instead of pleasant recreation. I asked my friend who had lived among the peasants and studied them for years what they thought of things in general. He said that in this village they had never been inclined to loot (looting can always arise from the gathering together of six drunken men), that they are perfectly conscious of what is happening (my friend is one of the most impartial and fair-minded men alive); they are distrustful and they say little; but they _know_. As we were talking of these things I mentioned the fact that a statement I had made in print about the peasants in this village and in Russia generally reading Milton’s “Paradise Lost” had been received with interest in England and in some quarters with incredulity. It was in this very village and from the same friend, who had been a teacher there for more than twenty years, that I first heard of this. It was afterwards confirmed by my own experience. “Who denies it?” he asked. “Russians or Englishmen?” “Englishmen,” I answered. “But why?” he said. “I have only read it myself once long ago, but I should have thought that it was obvious that such a work would be likely to make a strong impression.”