simply because he knows Greek and Latin and Hebrew? Do
they respect the village schoolmaster, for example,
on account of his learning? Not in the very slightest! On
the contrary, they regard him with the greatest contempt.
The man they will serve is the man whose birth gives him
the right to command them, or else the man with money
in his pockets to make it worth their while. These two
are the only leaders they understand. And if that's true
here in England, in times of peace, among our own people,
how much truer must it be of our soldiers, away from England,
in a time of war?"

"But, mamma," the Hon. Winifred intervened, "don't you
see how badly that might work nowadays? now that the good
families have so little money, and all the fortunes are
in the hands of stockjobbing people--and so on? It would
be THEIR sons who would buy all the commissions--and
I'm sure Balder wouldn't get on at all with that lot."

Lady Plowden answered with decision and great promptness.
"You see so little of the world, Winnie dear,
that you don't get very clear ideas of its movements.
The people who make fortunes in England are every whit
as important to its welfare as those who inherit names,
and individually I'm sure they are often much more deserving.
Every generation sniffs at its nouveaux riches, but by
the next they have become merged in the aristocracy.
It isn't a new thing in England at all. It has always been
that way. Two-thirds of the peerage have their start
from a wealthy merchant, or some other person who made