'Well, they have known how to yield. They have helped to build our
Constitution.'

'Reverence their ancestors, then! The worse for such descendants. But
you have touched the exact stamp of the English mind:--it is, to accept
whatsoever is bequeathed it, without inquiry whether there is any change
in the matter. Nobles in very fact you would not let them be if they
could. Nobles in name, with a remote recommendation to posterity--that
suits you!'

He sat himself up to stuff a fresh bowl of tobacco, while he pursued:
'Yes, yes: you worship your aristocracy. It is notorious. You have a
sort of sagacity. I am not prepared to contest the statement that you
have a political instinct. Here it is chiefly social. You worship your
so-called aristocracy perforce in order to preserve an ideal of contrast
to the vulgarity of the nation.'

This was downright insolence.

It was intolerable. I jumped on my feet. 'The weapons I would use
in reply to such remarks I cannot address to you, Herr Professor.
Therefore, excuse me.'

He sent out quick spirts of smoke rolling into big volumes. 'Nay, my
good young Englishman, but on the other hand you have not answered me.
And hear me: yes, you have shown us a representation of freedom. True.
But you are content with it in a world that moves by computation some
considerable sum upwards of sixty thousand miles an hour.'

'Not on a fresh journey--a recurring course!' said I.