PANCRATIUS. Victory and life! I acknowledge but one right, I bow to but one law, the law of perpetual progress, and this law is your death warrant. It cries to you through my lips: 'Worm-eaten, mouldering aristocracy! full of rottenness, crammed with meat and wine, satiated with luxury--give place to the young, the strong, the hungry!' But I will save you, and you alone! THE MAN. Cease! I will not brook your arrogant pity! I know you, and your new world; I have visited your camp at night, and looked upon the restless swarms upon whose necks you ride to power! I saw all: I detected the _old_ crimes peering through the thin veils of _new_ draperies, shining under new shams, whirling to new tunes, circling in new dances--but the end was ever the same which it has been for centuries, which it will forever be: adultery, license, theft, gold, blood! But I saw you not there; you were not with your guilty children; you know you despise them in the depths of your soul; and if you do not go mad yourself in the mad dances of the blood-thirsty and blood-drunken people, you will soon scorn and despise yourself! Torture me no more! He rises, moves hurriedly to and fro, then seats himself under his escutcheon. PANCRATIUS. It is true my world is in its infancy, unformed and undeveloped; it requires food, ease, material gratifications; but it is growing, and the time will come--(_He rises from his chair, approaches the count, and leans against the pillar supporting the escutcheons_)--the time will come when my world will arrive at maturity, will attain the consciousness of its own strength, when it will say, I AM; and there will be no other voice on earth able to reply, 'I ALSO AM!' THE MAN. And then? PANCRATIUS. A race will spring from the generation I am now quickening and elevating, stronger, higher, and nobler than any the world has yet produced; the earth has never yet seen such men upon her bosom. They will be free, lords of the globe from pole to pole; the earth will be a blooming garden, every part of her surface under the highest culture; the sea will be covered with floating palaces and argosies of wealth and commerce; a universal exchange of commodities will carry civilization, mutual recognition, and comfort to every clime; prosperous cities will crown every height, and expand their blessings of refinement and culture o'er every plain; earth will then offer happy and tranquil homes to all her children, she will be one vast and united house of blissful industry and highest art! THE MAN. Your words and voice dissemble well, but your pale and rigid features in vain struggle to assume the generous glow of a noble enthusiasm, which your soul cannot feel. PANCRATIUS. Interrupt me not! Men have begged on bended knees before me for such prophecies.