Here Paul felt himself touch the ground. There had stolen over him a chill of alarm as to how he was to answer such a question, but this last clause brought him back to the superficial polemics with which he was familiar enough. “Why should I be of more account than any ploughboy?” he said; “that is the whole question. Why is there this immense gulf between the ploughboy and me? Is he less a man than I am? Are not my advantages a shame to me in the face of manhood? What right have I to humiliate him for my advancement?” “What right have you to be a fool?” said Sir William, bitterly. “I don’t know: your mother is not a fool, though she is not clever. If your ploughboy had been educated as you have been, your argument might have had some show of reason. Do you mean to tell me that education is nothing--that a lad from the fields ought to be of as much use in the world as you are? This is to despise not only rank, which I know is your favourite type of injustice, but breeding, culture, everything you have acquired by your work. How do you justify yourself in throwing away _that_? There is no question of humiliating the ploughboy; the ploughboy will be of ten times as much use as you are in the bush.” This view of the question was not pleasant to Paul. He held himself up with great stateliness, and did not deign to look at his father. “That remains to be seen, sir,” he said. “What remains to be seen?--that a man brought up to farming will make a better farmer than you--or your friend the wood-carver? Suppose we consider the question from his point of view,” said Sir William. “He is a skilled workman, you tell me.” “I said a man of genius.” “All the better for my argument. Your man of genius,” Sir William went on with a barely perceptible smile, “may be--appreciated, let us say, in a country like this, where art is known: but who will care for his art where he is going?” “More than here,” cried Paul hotly, interrupting his father. “Here, because he has no money, nor position to make him known, and no impudence to push him into favour, his beautiful work is taken no notice of, and he lives by making picture-frames. Ploughing and digging is better than that. The earth at least is grateful for what is done for her.” “Not always,” said Sir William. “I thought you had heard enough about farming to know better. However, the advantage of emigrating to your--friend, will be, not the gain of anything, but the giving up of his work, and the sacrifice of what you call his genius. No, I do not scoff at his genius. I know nothing about it. I take it on your word. Your man of genius will throw away his chief distinction on your own showing; and _you_ will throw away what as yet are your only distinctions, the position you derive from your ancestors, the education which you have got (partially) by your own exertions--for what? to attempt to do clumsily what two ploughmen could do much better than you.---- Ah! who is that?”