One does not live half a century without knowing one's world pretty well. I know the honourable and noble lord, full of gout, vainglory, and stealthy vices; I know the fashionable divine, with pride in his heart, milk on his lips, and cobwebs in his brain; I know the smug respectability, with low cunning under his silk hat, and chicanery buttoned up in his irreproachable frock coat; I know the fine lady, beautiful as a poppy, who is haughty from sheer lack of sense; I know the glib orator of mean acts and golden words; I know the elected person of much dignity and little wit,' and the woman of much loveliness and little love. I have to defend men and women whose deeds revolt me, whose presence disgusts me. I have to defend them against the world, and against my own prejudices and aversion. For I also have a heredity and an environment, and therefore crochets, and passions, and antipathies. Though I can defend all victims of heredity and environment, though I can demand justice for the worst, yet my nature loathes the bully and the tyrant, and still more does it loathe the mean: the man of the Judas spirit, who barters children's lives, and women's souls, and the manhood of cities, for dirty pieces of silver. Such a wretch is not to be hated, is not to be punished: he is to be pitied and I am to defend him. But when I think of him my soul is sick. I feel as if a worm had crawled over me. I cannot help this. I cannot endure him. I am not big enough: I lack the grace. I pity him profoundly; but my pity is cold. I pity the devil-fish, and the conger eel; but I could not touch them. They are repulsive to me. It is very difficult for us to separate the man from his acts. It is very difficult for us to hate and to loathe the acts, without hating and loathing the man. This is the old, old Adam in us, rebelling against the new altruism and the new reason. We are still a long way behind our ideals. It is no part of my plan to flatter the world. I know you, my brothers and sisters, too well for that. There is a strong family resemblance between us. Your ancestors, also, had tails. And then, like Thoreau, "I know what mean and sneaking lives many of you lead." The majority of you, indeed, are still little better than barbarians. The mass of you waste your lives and starve your souls for the sake of beads and scalps, and flesh and firewater. Your heroes are, too, often, mere prowling appetites, or solemn vanities, ravenous for pudding and praise; mere tailor-made effigies, to stick stars upon, or feathers into; mere painted idols for ignorance to worship; embroidered serene-emptiness for flunkeys to bow down to: kings and things of shreds and patches. Yes. We are all painfully human, and under a régime of blame and punishment may count ourselves extremely lucky if we have never been found out.