“I am very familiar, madam,” he replied, “with what is known as the best society, and of course there is much real refinement and much honorable sentiment among its various members; but real nobility of sentiment, by which I mean devotion to the broad interests of mankind, is very rarely met, and least of all at the courts of rulers. They are all cramped and degraded by petty aims, petty intrigues for personal advancement; and above all, they are lacking the first element of wisdom—a belief in the people. What is the aristocracy of birth, name, inherited wealth robbed from generations of wages-slaves, compared to the grander aristocracy of labor, which is as old as the evolution of man himself? My mother, Kendrick’s cousin, you know, was the granddaughter of a day-laborer. Kendrick wouldn’t mention it for his best span of horses, but I am proud of it. So far as I know he is the only ancestor I have, who had an honest right to the bread he ate. So you see, madam, I would do something to atone for the sins of all the robber crew to which I belong, and so shorten my prospective hours in purgatory. To be serious, there is no congenial society for me anywhere, as life is ordered at present. I must help to build up a society of men and women who can be honest and free, because sure of the present and of the future for themselves and their children. I found more intelligence, more faith in humanity, and more freedom of expression among those workingmen at Guise, than I ever met among any set of people in my life; and the children, madam! O, the children! I can give you no idea of their rosy health, their frank expression of advanced opinions, and their courteous manners.” Mrs. Forest said that what she understood as “advanced opinions” would be a very equivocal attraction in a child according to her way of seeing things. “But, madam, your way of seeing things,” said the count, courteously, “would be different, if you had been trained to positive methods of thought. I assure you, in any case, you would be charmed by the ease, and grace of address of many of those children. Why it would make you regret that you were not the mother of the whole three hundred of them! There are prizes given them for politeness and grace of bearing.—Think of it! There is the commencement of stirpiculture, and yet the stupid, lunk-head scientists of the world, are giving _all_ their attention to the fossils of a dead past. Depend upon it, madam, this world need not be the vale of tears we have been taught to think. Life is what we should study. Life is what we should love, and as a general rule, the present is the best time to live;” and the count, praising Mrs. Forest’s wine, and apologizing for making a monologue of what should have been a conversation, bade her good-bye and left, taking the doctor with him.