“Souls! I really can’t say, as I have never dissected one, what a soul is. But, as to title, I might not be able to show a clear title to this house; yet I inherited it from my father, and he built it, or, rather, had it built by another man. Now, suppose the other man stole the materials or the money to buy them; the house would, no doubt, by moral right belong to him from whom the money was stolen. Would the government be, therefore, justified in forcibly ejecting me, for his benefit, I and mine being entirely innocent in the matter?” “The point is, it seems to me,” said Mr. Clare, “whether we aim to get rid of evil in itself, or only of a wrong to some individual or class. In this case, the wrong to the slave was abolished at the expense of another wrong to the slaveholder, a wrong forbidden by the law which bids us to overcome evil with good, the only method by which it can be overcome. The old abolition party tried to overcome it with evil, by stirring up strife and preaching insurrection; then the Southern pride and obstinacy determined to fight for their peculiar institution, and the result is that the large majority of our negroes are worse off, morally and physically, than they were as slaves; and the negro question is a more puzzling problem to-day than it was in ’61.” “But would not their condition have been the same had they been set free by purchase?” asked Alice. “No; for the most thoughtful minds on both sides favored their gradual enfranchisement and colonization in Liberia, which would have been the making of them as a nation. But I see no hope of anything like that now, unless we get the Commune _without violence_: in which case, among so many sweeping changes, one more or less will not signify materially,” said Mr. Clare. “We seem to return to our muttons, whether we would or no,” observed the doctor. “Here is Monsieur Tonson come again. But I think I see what you mean by your lessons of the past; only, how the wrongs of the poor man are to be redressed without violence or wrong to the rich, is too hard a nut for me to crack.” “Gradual enfranchisement,” said Mr. Clare, “and brotherly love on both sides.” Dr. Richards shrugged his shoulders. “It is a question of ‘next things,’” said the clergyman. “Some day I will read you a little poem, if you like, about that. The idea is, that we can see only one step at a time, can live but one moment at a time; and that, if each of these is clearly right, the end must be the same. Of course, the application is only to individual life, but I think it is also true of nations; we can see but one step at a time. It has been objected to Socialism that no practicable plan for securing it has ever been suggested. To my mind, that is its most hopeful feature.” “My dear sir, do you wish to stun us with your paradoxes?”