462), "for between those who sell themselves to prostitution and those who sell themselves to marriage, the only difference is in price and duration of the contract." We have already seen how very large a part in prostitution is furnished by those who have left domestic service to adopt this life (_ante_ p. 264). It is not difficult to find in this fact evidence of the kind of impulse which impels a woman to adopt the career of prostitution. "The servant, in our society of equality," wrote Goncourt, recalling somewhat earlier days when she was often admitted to a place in the family life, "has become nothing but a paid pariah, a machine for doing household work, and is no longer allowed to share the employer's human life."[205] And in England, even half a century ago, we already find the same statements concerning the servant's position: "domestic service is a complete slavery," with early hours and late hours, and constant running up and down stairs till her legs are swollen; "an amount of ingenuity appears too often to be exercised, worthy of a better cause, in obtaining the largest possible amount of labor out of the domestic machine"; in addition she is "a kind of lightning conductor," to receive the ill-temper and morbid feelings of her mistress and the young ladies; so that, as some have said, "I felt so miserable I did not care what became of me, I wished I was dead."[206] The servant is deprived of all human relationships; she must not betray the existence of any simple impulse, or natural need. At the same time she lives on the fringe of luxury; she is surrounded by the tantalizing visions of pleasure and amusement for which her fresh young nature craves.[207] It is not surprising that, repelled by unrelieved drudgery and attracted by idle luxury, she should take the plunge which will alone enable her to enjoy the glittering aspects of civilization which seem so desirable to her.[208]