17. The Middle-class
THAT I belong to the middle-class is my chief misfortune; it is better to be born an aristocrat, but better still an artisan. To the middle-class belong all the money makers: builders of monopolies, political wire-pullers, and all that spells greed. These people buy everything and sell everybody. With them lying is an art, whereas for the poor it is only a pastime. The aristocrat—the product of luxury and idleness—is as much above any mean action as he is at loss inmanaging his own affairs. He must employ agents:enter the middle-class! To them he entrusts all his worldly belongings, with an intuitive knowledge that he is robbed always and will be as long as he lives. He knows they pursue his money with all the zest that he pursues sport. But he always carries the same bright face, the same kind heart; and he would pay to the last penny. O but how strange, his agents save him from ruin! and the people on the land contribute more to the miserable business than is known to my lord, more than they themselves ever realise: and so the middle-class remains the back-bone of the Empire. But what does this mean? The truth is thatGod made the lord and the labourer: the rest is mainly the work of the devil!