Honour to those who are working to provide intellectual amusements for the masses, and that education of the soul which places man _above_ the circumstances by which he is surrounded! Much has been done, and much is still left to do. Those waves must be taught to leap ever upwards, to fling their separate crests towards the sky; for if the tempest should arise, and they should come surging on in one gigantic volume, they will make a clear breach wherever the embankment happens to be weakest; and who shall withstand their force? Can we wonder to find the lower classes sometimes discontented, when we think of their privations and their toils? Shall a man starve with but half-an-inch of plate-glass betwixt his dry white lips and the reeking abundance of luxurious gluttony? and shall he turn away without a murmur, die, and make no sign? Shall a fellow-creature drag on an existence of perpetual labour, with no pleasures, no relaxations, almost no repose; and shall we expect this dreary, blighted being to be always contented, always cheerful, always respectful to his superiors? Is it to be all one way here below? shall it be all joy, and mirth, and comfort, and superfluity with the one; and all want, and misery, and grim despair with the other? Forbid it, Heaven! Let us, every man, put his shoulder to the wheel--let each, in his own circle, be it small or great, do all in his power for those beneath him--beneath him but in the accident of station, brothers in all besides--live and let live--stretch a helping hand to all who need it--treat every man as one who has an immortal soul--and though “they shall never cease out of the land,” yet will their wants be known and their hardships alleviated, and the fairest spirit of heaven--angelic Charity--shall spread her wings widest and warmest in London for the poor. CHAPTER X SUPERFLUITY LONDON FOR THE RICH--A GOLDEN IMAGE--THE LADY OF FASHION--LIFE WELL SPENT--BOOK-WRITING AND BOOK-MAKING--THE DAY OF THE DRAWING-ROOM--GOING TO MY CLUB--THE AWFUL MOMENT--GOD SAVE THE QUEEN