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Southampton My dear Martineau, Your interesting letter was sent to me by Monday afternoon, and first told me that Miss Bremer was in London, which I learned only by a pencil note on the outside, "142 Strand." That evening I was going to see my two sisters—one returned from the Continent, and one come from Derby. And on Tuesday morning I was engaged to come hither to meet Kossuth! So I fear I have missed Miss Bremer. But, from to-day's news, I fear there is no chance of K. arriving till next Monday or Tuesday; and I shall probably go back to-morrow. I will try to see Miss Bremer immediately, but am much disappointed. I have had a little correspondence with Mr. Kingsley lately—rising out of a recent lecture of his, the practical results and practical principles of which gave me great pleasure. He says he has "done his work" of protesting and denouncing capitalists, and now hopes to give himself to construction and practical creation; and much as I fear some of his generalizations, I hope great good from his purely excellent aims, and the amount of aid he can command. He agrees most heartily with my denunciation of large towns as the monster evil, and takes the matter up agriculturally thus: "No country can be underfed while it returns to the soil what it takes out of it,"—[The italics are my own. Is not this sentence of infinite value to us to-day?]—"for, in the long run, the soil will always give back as much as it receives. Every country impoverishes itself which pours into the rivers and sea the animal refuse which ought to be restored to the soil." No community can avoid this prodigality, unless its inhabitants live upon the soil. Therefore towns ought not to exceed the size at which the whole animal refuse can be economically saved and directly applied to agriculture. To me it seems that every reason—moral, political, agricultural, economical, sanitary—converge to this same conclusion; and I apply Delenda est Carthago to every city in Europe. On the subject of masters and servants, he says, "Masters should be considered 'infamous' who hired servants by the day or week, and not by the year; or who dismissed old servants without any other reason than to lower wages; but such a thing, to be possible and effective, must be mutual. The servant must have no power to leave a good master in order to raise his wages. But at present, while the servant is under no bonds to the master, and does not like to bind himself, it seems to me quite impossible to treat the masters as having any moral responsibility for the servants more than for foreigners. When we buy tea, we cannot ask whether the Chinese get a comfortable livelihood by selling it at that price." That is an extreme and clear case to which we approach in every commercial transaction in proportion as the other party claims that the relation shall be one of mere marketing. . . . Ever yours affectionately,
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