126. And every bachelor and rosiere should be entitled to claim, if they needed it, according to their position in life, a fixed income from the State, for seven years from the day of their marriage, for the setting up of their homes; and, however rich they might be by inheritance, their income should not be permitted to exceed a given sum, proportioned to their rank, for the seven years following that in which they had obtained their permission to marry, but should accumulate in the trust of the State until that seventh year, in which they should be put (on certain conditions) finally in possession of their property; and the men, thus necessarily not before their twenty-eighth, nor usually later than their thirty-first year, become eligible to offices of State. So that the rich and poor should not be sharply separated in the beginning of the war of life; but the one supported against the first stress of it long enough to enable them, by proper forethought and economy, to secure their footing; and the other trained somewhat in the use of moderate means, before they were permitted to have the command of abundant ones. And of the sources from which these State incomes for the married poor should be supplied, or of the treatment of those of our youth whose conduct rendered it advisable to refuse them permission to marry, I defer what I have to say till we come to the general subjects of taxation and criminal discipline; leaving the proposals made in this letter to bear, for the present, whatever aspect of mere romance and unrealizable vision they probably may, and to most readers, such as they assuredly will. Nor shall I make the slightest effort to redeem them from these imputations; for though there is nothing in all their purport which would not be approved, as in the deepest sense "practical"--by the Spirit of Paradise-- "Which gives to all the self-same bent, Whose lives are wise and innocent," and though I know that national justice in conduct, and peace in heart, could by no other laws be so swiftly secured, I confess with much _dis_peace of heart, that both justice and happiness have at this day become, in England, "romantic impossibilities." LETTER XXI. OF THE DIGNITY OF THE FOUR FINE ARTS; AND OF THE PROPER SYSTEM OF RETAIL TRADE. _April 15, 1867._ 127. I return now to the part of the subject at which I was interrupted--the inquiry as to the proper means of finding persons willing to maintain themselves and others by degrading occupations. That, on the whole, simply manual occupations _are_ degrading, I suppose I may assume you to admit; at all events, the fact is so, and I suppose few general readers will have any doubt of it.[A]