“I don’t approve of it,” said the Duke, bringing his hand down upon the table with an emphasis that made all the glasses on it ring. “You may talk as you will, Eustace; you may mix argument with sophistry as much as you like, but you’ll never make black white by all the rhetoric of the world. I don’t like it. I don’t like the whole movement, and I don’t believe that good will ever come of it; but leaving alone that point, on which we shall never agree, I hold that your methods are vile and hateful. You are setting class against class; you are rousing ill-will and stirring up hatred and enmity; you are teaching men to be discontented with their position in life----” “Yes, sir, I know I am, because they _ought_ to be discontented with degradation, ignorance, and hopeless misery. There is no reason why it should continue and increase as it does. We want them to be disgusted and discontented with it. Would there ever have been any civilisation and culture in the world had men always been contented to remain exactly in the position in which they were born?” “Don’t talk your stump-orator nonsense to me,” said the old Duke sternly. “Confusion of terms does all very well to blind and deceive an ignorant mob; but keep it for them, and don’t try to advance your flimsy arguments by using it to men who can think and reason. The gradual growth of science and art and learning--the building on and on from an original foundation as the mental horizon extends--is generically different from the aimless discontent and selfish desire to rob and plunder, which is the outcome of the vaunted discontent you wish to inspire in the breasts of the people; and you know it as well as I do. You may keep _that_ sort of talk for those who cannot see through it, and answer the fool according to his folly. But when you have men to deal with, and not ignorant children, you must think of sounder arguments if you desire to be listened to patiently.” Eustace flushed rather hotly at the taunt, which was hardly deserved in his case, although he was aware that his cause--like too many others--was promoted by means of arguments which could be torn to shreds by any shrewd thinker. But for all that, he had a profound belief in the gospel of discontent as the most powerful factor in the world’s history, and he used it with a genuine belief in it, not with the desire to promote confusion in the minds of his hearers. But he did not reply to his kinsman’s sharp retort, and after a brief pause the Duke recommenced his former diatribe. “I have been patient with you, Eustace. I recognise fully your position here, and that you have a certain latitude with regard to the people which would be accorded to no one else; but----”