'I do: I respect him for his learning.' 'You forgive him his irony? It is not meant to be personal to you. England is the object; and partly, I may tell you, it springs from jealousy. You have such wealth! You embrace half the world: you are such a little island! All this is wonderful. The bitterness is, you are such a mindless people--I do but quote to explain my Professor's ideas. "Mindless," he says, "and arrogant, and neither in the material nor in the spiritual kingdom of noble or gracious stature, and ceasing to have a brave aspect." He calls you squat Goths. Can you bear to hear me?' 'Princess!' 'And to his conception, you, who were pioneers when the earth had to be shaped for implements and dug for gold, will turn upon us and stop our march; you are to be overthrown and left behind, there to gain humility from the only teacher you can understand--from poverty. Will you defend yourself?' 'Well, no, frankly, I will not. The proper defence for a nation is its history.' 'For an individual?' 'For a man, his readiness to abide by his word.' 'For a woman--what?' 'For a princess, her ancestry.' 'Ah! but I spoke of women. There, there is my ground of love for my Professor! I meet my equals, princes, princesses, and the man, the woman, is out of them, gone, flown! They are out of the tide of humanity; they are walking titles, "Now," says my Professor, "that tide is the blood of our being; the blood is the life-giver; and to be cut off from it is to perish." Our princely houses he esteems as dead wood. Not near so much say I: yet I hear my equals talk, and I think, "Oh! my Professor, they testify to your wisdom." I love him because he has given my every sense a face-forward attitude (you will complain of my feebleness of speech) to exterior existence. There is a princely view of life which is a true one; but it is a false one if it is the sole one. In your Parliament your House of Commons shows us real princes, your Throne merely titled ones. I speak what everybody knows, and you, I am sure, are astonished to hear me.' 'I am,' said I. 'It is owing to my Professor, my mind's father and mother. They say it is the pleasure of low-born people to feel themselves princes; mine it is to share their natural feelings. "For a princess, her ancestry." Yes; but for a princess who is no more than princess, her ancestors are a bundle of faggots, and she, with her mind and heart tied fast to them, is, at least a good half of her, dead wood. This is our opinion. May I guess at your thoughts?' 'It's more than I could dare to do myself, princess.' How different from the Ottilia I had known, or could have imagined! That was one thought. 'Out of the number, then, this,' she resumed: 'you think that your English young ladies have command over their tongues: is it not so?' 'There are prattlers among them.' 'Are they educated strictly?' 'I know little of them. They seem to me to be educated to conceal their education.'