‘Happily,’ said Buxton, ‘none of us are that. We’ve all got to die and make room for the new generation.’ ‘And can you answer for the new generation?’ asked Rose, ‘that they will remain shut up in your Utopia to labour, not each for himself, but for mutual benefit; that they will conform to your ideas as regards drinking and matrimony; that no selfish passion will run riot; that no serpent will come into that paradise to tempt another Eve; that the new Adam will be wiser than the old one?’ ‘Why, I thought you were in favour of the idea,’ said her husband. ‘But I am a woman.’ ‘And therefore have a full right to change your opinion,’ added Buxton. ‘Of course, there must be some failures. It is by them we learn how to succeed,’ replied Wentworth. ‘We learn from the failure of past organizations the way to form better and more successful ones. Are there not successful Shaker settlements in America?’ ‘You make me laugh,’ said the lady. ‘This is no laughing matter. We are very much in earnest.’ ‘Well, if you are in earnest, let me have the selection of the candidates for the new society.’ ‘Very good; but I am afraid you will only pass the good-looking ones, and forget the old time-honoured maxim that “handsome is as handsome does.”’ ‘A maxim I laugh to scorn.’ ‘Of course you do.’ ‘Well, you want healthy men and women, don’t you? And good looks are only to be found with physical health. It is by over-eating and over-drinking and over-working that you get a diseased and ugly race. Go to our east coast seaside resorts and see what fine men and women there are there. Contrast them with the operatives of the mine and factory. They scarcely seem to belong to the same race. A good-looking girl is happier than a plain one. You men are all for good looks. A fine physical organization indicates something more desirable. Nor do I blame them. “The soul is form, and doth the body make.” The homage we pay to beauty in man or woman is but rational. What made Alcibiades a power in Athens but his good looks? Did not Jew and Greek alike agree in doing honour to Adonis? The outward form indicates the inner disposition. If men are to have a brighter world we must people it with brighter people. But I think on the whole you had better stop where you are. Society in one way does improve. Progress is slow—but institutions are hard to remove, bad habits harder still. Why go out into the wilderness to teach people to be content with an agricultural life? Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. Better to bear the ills we have than fly to those we know not of.’ ‘Your ladyship is poetical!’