The minister continued gently: "The ladies who are trying to get up this
Social Union proceed upon the assumption that working people can neither
see nor feel a slight; but it is a great mistake to do so."
Annie had the obtuseness about those she fancied below her which is one of
the consequences of being brought up in a superior station. She believed
that there was something to say on the other side, and she attempted to say
it.
"I don't know that you could call it a slight exactly. People can ask those
they prefer to a social entertainment."
"Yes--if it is for their own pleasure."
"But even in a public affair like this the work-people would feel
uncomfortable and out of place, wouldn't they, if they stayed to the supper
and the dance? They might be exposed to greater suffering among those whose
manners and breeding were different, and it might be very embarrassing all
round. Isn't there that side to be regarded?"
"You beg the question," said the minister, as unsparingly as if she were
a man. "The point is whether a Social Union beginning in social exclusion
could ever do any good. What part do these ladies expect to take in
maintaining it? Do they intend to spend their evenings there, to associate
on equal terms with the shoe-shop and straw-shop hands?"
"I don't suppose they do, but I don't know," said Annie dryly; and she
replied by helplessly quoting Mr. Brandreth: "They intend to organise a
system of lectures, concerts, and readings. They wish to get on common
ground with them."
"They can never get on common ground with them in that way," said the
minister. "No doubt they think they want to do them good; but good is from
the heart, and there is no heart in what they propose. The working people
would know that at once."
"Then you mean to say," Annie asked, half alarmed and half amused, "that
there can be no friendly intercourse with the poor and the well-to-do
unless it is based upon social equality?"
"I will answer your question by asking another. Suppose you were one of the
poor, and the well-to-do offered to be friendly with you on such terms as
you have mentioned, how should you feel toward them?"
"If you make it a personal question--"
"It makes itself a personal question," said the minister dispassionately.
"Well, then, I trust I should have the good sense to see that social
equality between people who were better dressed, better taught, and better
bred than myself was impossible, and that for me to force myself into their
company was not only bad taste, but it was foolish, I have often heard my
father say that the great superiority of the American practice of democracy
over the French ideal was that it didn't involve any assumption of social
equality. He said that equality before the law and in politics was sacred,
but that the principle could never govern society, and that Americans all
instinctively recognised it. And I believe that to try to mix the different
classes would be un-American."