"
"The English?"
"I grant that the English seem, on the whole, whiter than most men,
their records cleaner. But, good Lord, don't run away with the idea that
I don't see the drawbacks--horrors--unmentionable things done in our
very midst! I'm under no illusions. Few people, I suppose, have
fewer illusions than I have. Have you ever been in a factory, Miss
Vinrace!--No, I suppose not--I may say I hope not."
As for Rachel, she had scarcely walked through a poor street, and always
under the escort of father, maid, or aunts.
"I was going to say that if you'd ever seen the kind of thing that's
going on round you, you'd understand what it is that makes me and men
like me politicians. You asked me a moment ago whether I'd done what I
set out to do. Well, when I consider my life, there is one fact I
admit that I'm proud of; owing to me some thousands of girls in
Lancashire--and many thousands to come after them--can spend an hour
every day in the open air which their mothers had to spend over their
looms. I'm prouder of that, I own, than I should be of writing Keats and
Shelley into the bargain!"
It became painful to Rachel to be one of those who write Keats and
Shelley. She liked Richard Dalloway, and warmed as he warmed. He seemed
to mean what he said.
"I know nothing!" she exclaimed.
"It's far better that you should know nothing," he said paternally, "and
you wrong yourself, I'm sure.
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