"Pardon me. When you were a workman among workmen, did you not wish to be their leader? When you were foremost among them, did you not wish to be their master? If you were a master tradesman, would you not wish to lead and guide your brother tradesmen? Would you not desire wealth in order that you might be assisted by it in your views of ambition? If you were an alderman in your borough, would you not wish to be the mayor? If mayor, would you not wish to be its representative in Parliament? If in Parliament, would you not wish to be heard there? Would you not then clothe yourself as those among whom you lived, eat as they ate, drink as they drank, keep their hours, fall into their habits, and be one of them? The theory of equality is very grand." "The grandest thing in the world, Sir William." "It is one to which all legislative and all human efforts should and must tend. All that is said and all that is done among people that have emancipated themselves from the thraldom of individual aggrandizement, serve to diminish in some degree the distance between the high and the low. But could you establish absolute equality in England to-morrow, as it was to have been established in France some half century ago, the inequality of men's minds and character would re-establish an aristocracy within twenty years. The energetic, the talented, the honest, and the unselfish will always be moving towards an aristocratic side of society, because their virtues will beget esteem, and esteem will beget wealth,--and wealth gives power for good offices." "As when one man throws away forty thousand a year on race-courses." "When you make much water boil, Mr. Thwaite, some of it will probably boil over. When two men run a race, some strength must be wasted in fruitless steps beyond the goal. It is the fault of many patriotic men that, in their desire to put down the evils which exist they will see only the power that is wasted, and have no eyes for the good work done. The subject is so large that I should like to discuss it with you when we have more time. For the present let me beg of you, for your own sake as well as for her who is to be your wife, that you will not repudiate civility offered to you by her family. It will show a higher manliness in you to go among them, and accept among them the position which your wife's wealth and your own acquirements will give you, than to stand aloof moodily because they are aristocrats." "You can make yourself understood when you speak, Sir William." "I am glad to hear you say so," said the lawyer, smiling. "I cannot, and so you have the best of me. But you can't make me like a lord, or think that a young man ought to wear a silk gown." "I quite agree with you that the silk gowns should be kept for their elders," and so the conversation was ended.