I take, then, this one institution as a test. As every
normal man desires a woman, and children born of a woman,
every normal man desires a house of his own to put them into.
He does not merely want a roof above him and a chair
below him; he wants an objective and visible kingdom;
a fire at which he can cook what food he likes, a door
he can open to what friends he chooses. This is the normal
appetite of men; I do not say there are not exceptions.
There may be saints above the need and philanthropists below it.
Opalstein, now he is a duke, may have got used to more than this;
and when he was a convict may have got used to less.
But the normality of the thing is enormous. To give nearly
everybody ordinary houses would please nearly everybody;
that is what I assert without apology. Now in modern England
(as you eagerly point out) it is very difficult to give nearly
everybody houses. Quite so; I merely set up the desideratum;
and ask the reader to leave it standing there while he turns
with me to a consideration of what really happens in the social
wars of our time.
