At the interest of this question, he leapt from his hammock, peering into that thing, and his fleet feet were away, running after the truth with that rapt abandonment that had characterized his hunting and football. This was clear: that there was some difference between land and sea as working-grounds for men. Shore people, like a shoemaker, did not have for themselves enough shoes from even five, or six, days' work on which to live in plenty for a week: and hence would take nothing less than an enormous quantity of the fisher's fish in exchange for a pair of shoes, making him, too, poor as themselves. But since land work was as productive as sea work, and far more so, it could only be that the shoemaker did not get for himself all the shoes which he made, as the fisher got for himself all the fish which he caught: some power took from shore people a large part of what they made, a power which did not exist on the sea. That much was sure. What was this power, this inherent difference? He could think of no inherent difference except this: that shore workers paid rent for land--directly and indirectly--in a million subtle ways; but fishers paid none for the sea. So, then, if shore folk paid no rent, they would have a still greater superfluity of shoes, etc., from one day's labour in six than the fish-rich fisher? So it seemed. So it _was_--as with savages. He started! But one minute's reflection showed him that it was in the very nature of the shore to pay rent: because one piece of land was better than another--City land, for instance--and those working on the better must pay for that benefit. Civilized land, therefore, was bound to pay rent. So that the shore people could never have the easy superfluity of the fish-rich fisher--because land was bound to pay rent? And the fisher must buy the shore things so dear with his easy-got fish, toiling, he, too, all the week--because land was bound to pay rent? The wretchedness of Man, then, was a Law? Hogarth, confronted by a wall, groaned, and while his body was cold, his brow rolled with sweat, he feeling himself on the brink of some truth profound as the roots of the mountains.... “Land was bound to pay rent”: he reached that point; and there remained. “But suppose the workers on shore paid the rent _among themselves_....?” At last those words: and he gave out a shout which begat mouths of echo through the galleries of Colmoor. “If the workers on shore paid rent among one another”--then they would--on the whole--be in the very position of the fish-rich workers on sea, who paid no rent at all, the nation--as a whole--living on its country rent-free: England English, America American, as the sea human: and our race might then begin to think, to live! It seemed too sublime--and divine--to be true! Again, point by point, he went over his reasoning with prying eye; and, on coming back to the same conclusion, hugged himself, moaning. At last--he knew.