"You are not wrong in my eyes, Michel," he said; "inequality of rank is the law of society; everyone wishes to rise, no one wishes to descend. If it were otherwise the people would remain in the brute stage. But the people aspire to grow, thank God! and they do grow, whatever may be done to prevent them. I myself strive to succeed, to possess something, to reach a point where I shall not always have to obey, in a word, to be free! But whatever happiness I may attain, it seems to me that I ought not to forget the point from which I started. Unjust chance compels many men to remain in poverty who deserve as well as I, perhaps much better, to escape from it. That is why I shall never despise those whom I leave behind me, and shall not cease to love them with all my heart and aid them with all my power. "I know that you shun your brothers in rank without despising them, without hating them; you do not enjoy yourself with them, and yet you would do them a favor on occasion; but beware! there is a touch of ill-advised pride in this sort of patronizing affection, and, although the day may come when it will be all right, remember that at the present time it may well seem misplaced. You have more intelligence and more knowledge of life than most of us, I agree; but is that a very real superiority? Will not any poor devil who happens to have more wisdom, virtue, or courage than you be entitled to consider himself your equal at least, even if his speech is abrupt and his language vulgar? "It will happen more than once in your career as an artist that you will have to endure patiently the impertinence of the rich; indeed, if I am not mistaken, an artist's life is likely to be a constant struggle to shelter his individual merit from the contempt of the imaginary merit attached to birth, power, and wealth. However, you are aiming for that social level, without fear or shame; you accept the challenge in advance, you propose to measure strength with the bitter vanity of the great; how does it happen, pray, that that seems less offensive and less unpleasant than the harmless familiarity of the humble? I could more readily excuse the affront of an ignorant man than that of a coxcomb, and I should feel more at ease amid the fisticuffs of my companions, than when exposed to the graceful witticisms of my alleged superiors.