hearts turn eagerly to the American millionaire. As his hand goes down
to his pocket, our fingers go up to the brims of our hats by instinct.
Our ideal prosperity is not the prosperity of the industrial north, but
the prosperity of the Isle of Wight, of Folkestone and Ramsgate, of Nice
and Monte Carlo. That is the only prosperity you see on the stage, where
the workers are all footmen, parlourmaids, comic lodging-letters
and fashionable professional men, whilst the heroes and heroines are
miraculously provided with unlimited dividends, and eat gratuitously,
like the knights in Don Quixote's books of chivalry.

The city papers prate of the competition of Bombay with Manchester and
the like. The real competition is the competition of Regent Street with
the Rue de Rivoli, of Brighton and the south coast with the Riviera, for
the spending money of the American Trusts. What is all this growing
love of pageantry, this effusive loyalty, this officious rising
and uncovering at a wave from a flag or a blast from a brass band?
Imperialism: Not a bit of it. Obsequiousness, servility, cupidity roused
by the prevailing smell of money. When Mr Carnegie rattled his millions
in his pockets all England became one rapacious cringe. Only, when
Rhodes (who had probably been reading my Socialism for Millionaires)
left word that no idler was to inherit his estate, the bent backs
straightened mistrustfully for a moment. Could it be that the Diamond
King was no gentleman after all? However, it was easy to ignore a rich
man's solecism. The ungentlemanly clause was not mentioned again; and
the backs soon bowed themselves back into their natural shape.

But I hear you asking me in alarm whether I have actually put all this
tub thumping into a Don Juan comedy. I have not. I have only made my Don
Juan a political pamphleteer, and given you his pamphlet in full by way
of appendix. You will find it at the end of the book. I am sorry to say