ABSTRACT
Amongst optimistic philanthropists it is a common aspiration that the rich and the poor may learn to know each other better. With many this desire takes the form of a wish to be personally acquainted with the poor, to be brought into actual contact with them in such a way as to establish friendly relations with them. Mr. George Gissing hates politics and rarely argues, and his method of attack is one which makes defence singularly difficult. He merely points to human nature and relentlessly and yet sympathetically displays the defects and merits of the demos. Richard Murtimer, the socialistic agitator, becomes the owner of large estates and mining property, not in order to prove that the working classes are unable to bear sudden prosperity, but to throw into greater relief his selfishness and his want of moral perception. Most historians of Richard Murtimer’s career would leave us with the impression that he was a contemptible ruffian.
