Aldous Huxley

“ The assistant smiled at him gratefully. “That’s the word,” he said, delighted. “Intense. That’s it. Very intense.” He repeated the word several times as though to make sure of remembering it when the occasion next presented itself. He was determined to make good.
“I see Mr. Lypiatt is to have a show here soon,” remarked Gumbril, who had had enough of the boats.
“He is making the final arrangements with Mr. Albemarle at this very moment,” said the assistant triumphantly, with the air of one who produces, at the dramatic and critical moment, a rabbit out of the empty hat. ”

“ Gumbril, it’s the Best People that the other people resent. It’s their confidence, their ease, it’s the habit their money and their position give them of ordering people about, it’s the way they take their place in the world for granted, it’s their prestige, which the other people would like to deny, but can’t—it’s all that, Mr. Gumbril, that’s so galling.”
Gumbril nodded. He himself had envied his securer friends their power of ignoring the humanity of those who were not of their class. To do that really well, one must always have lived in a large house full of clockwork servants ”

“ There’s no liberty in this world; only gilded cages. And then, Mr. Gumbril, even suppose you could somehow get rid of the necessity of working, suppose a man’s time were all leisure. Would he be free then? I say nothing of the natural slavery of eating and sleeping and all that, Mr. Gumbril; I say nothing of that, because that, if I may say so, would be too ’air-splitting and metaphysical. But what I do ask you is this,” and Mr. Bojanus wagged his forefinger almost menacingly at the sleeping partner in this dialogue: “would a man with unlimited leisure be free, Mr. Gumbril? ”

“ Albemarle.
“Painter, poet, musician,” cried Lypiatt. “I am all three. I....”
“... there is a danger of—how shall I put it—dissipating one’s energies,” Mr. Albemarle went on with determination. Discreetly, he looked at his watch. This conversation, he thought, seemed to be prolonging itself unnecessarily.
“There is a greater danger in letting them stagnate and atrophy,” Lypiatt retorted. “Let me give you my experience.” Vehemently, he gave it.
Out in the gallery, among the boats, the views of the Grand Canal, and the Firth of Forth, Gumbril placidly ruminated. Poor old Lypiatt, he was thinking. ”

“ Bojanus smiled with a kind of roguish triumph, “you see that even in the purely ’ypothetical case of a man with indefinite leisure, there still would be no freedom.... And the case, as I have said, is purely ’ypothetical; at any rate so far as concerns the sort of people who want a revolution. And as for the sort of people who do enjoy leisure, even now—why I think, Mr. Gumbril, you and I know enough about the Best People to know that freedom, except possibly sexual freedom, is not their strongest point. ”

“ Still, it had pleased him, all the same, to be able to go there from time to time when he was in London and to think, as he sat in solitude before his gas fire, that there was literally not a soul in the universe who knew where he was. ”

“ Gumbril, a man of sense, a man of independent judgment. An ordinary man would not be free. Because he wouldn’t know how to occupy his leisure except in some way that would be forced on ’im by other people. People don’t know ’ow to entertain themselves now; they leave it to other people to do it for them. They swallow what’s given them. They ’ave to swallow it, whether they like it or not. Cinemas, newspapers, magazines, gramophones, football matches, wireless telephones—take them or leave them, if you want to amuse youself. The ordinary man can’t leave them. ”

“ Frank Crane, “A smiling face sells more goods than a clever tongue.” Still, a clever tongue, the young assistant had often reflected, was a very useful thing, especially in this job. He wondered whether one could say that the composition of a picture was very intense. Mr. Albemarle was very keen on the composition, he noticed. But perhaps it was better to stick to plain ‘fine,’ which was a little commonplace, perhaps, but very safe. He would ask Mr. Albemarle about it. ”

“ No amount of profit-sharing or self-government by the workers, no amount of hyjeenic conditions or cocoa villages or recreation grounds can get rid of the fundamental slavery—the necessity of working. Liberty? ”