We are only saying to a man who is sitting before a table laden with a vast quantity of different dishes heaped with all kinds of appetising foods: “Being an ordinary mortal your digestion will not stand more than a limited quantity of that food. If you continually eat more than what is good for you, you will be ill. A certain amount of food will nourish you, a larger amount will simply make you sick. We do not say your food is too good, nastier food would be better for you, nor do we say that you must never have a feast: but we assure you that if you habitually gorge the surfeit will injure your digestive powers, will destroy your own enjoyment of the meal, and at the same time, by this thoughtless waste, you are depriving many who have an insufficient quantity of what is rightfully theirs. In any case, you can never manage to eat all these dishes by yourself. What good are they to you? To propose that you should be relieved of some of your superfluity is the suggestion of a friend and not of an enemy. Just reflect as you see this huge meal spread before you that the great majority of your fellow-men have not more than one meagre and inadequate dish.” He would probably reply: “I am the best judge of what is good for me. The food is mine. If I do not eat it I am not going to allow anyone to deprive me of it, but I can always give part of it away if and when I feel inclined”--and he will continue with a dull gaze of satiated weariness to regard the piles of food before him. This is a fair metaphor, because we have all been forced to learn the precise nature of our limitations with regard to the consumption of food. Is it unreasonable to hope that in time we may become as conscious of our limitations in the consumption of other materials no less important? If the rich protest that they have a perfect right to amass what fortune they like, and that it is tyranny and an infringement of their liberty to deny them this right, they can be told plainly that their liberty will only be respected if they in their turn will respect the liberty of others, which cannot be effectually secured except by restraining license. As it is, they are manifestly depriving others of their liberty and elementary rights by the outrageous license they now allow themselves. No one cries out louder than a rich man if by any chance he loses part of his fortune. The reduction of his income from fifty to thirty, or from twenty to ten thousand a year is a catastrophe for which he unceasingly asks the sympathy and commiseration of his friends. The dismissal of the second footman is a hardship which requires courage to face, the sale of a corner of the estate is the sign of ruin! He stands in striking contrast to those who, having to face genuine poverty, often show fortitude and pluck in the face of bitter misfortunes.