As well might the flat plain boast of seeing as far as the pillar. Earl
and town fought the fight of Barons and Commons in epitome. The Earl
gave way; the Barons gave way. Mighty men may thrash numbers for a time;
in the end the numbers will be thrashed into the art of beating their
teachers. It is bad policy to fight the odds inch by inch. Those
primitive school masters of the million liked it, and took their pleasure
in that way. The Romfreys did not breed warriors for a parade at Court;
wars, though frequent, were not constant, and they wanted occupation:
they may even have felt that they were bound in no common degree to the
pursuit of an answer to what may be called the parent question of
humanity: Am I thy master, or thou mine? They put it to lords of other
castles, to town corporations, and sometimes brother to brother: and
notwithstanding that the answer often unseated and once discastled them,
they swam back to their places, as born warriors, urged by a passion for
land, are almost sure to do; are indeed quite sure, so long as they
multiply sturdily, and will never take no from Fortune. A family passion
for land, that survives a generation, is as effective as genius in
producing the object it conceives; and through marriages and conflicts,
the seizure of lands, and brides bearing land, these sharp-feeding eagle-
eyed earls of Romfrey spied few spots within their top tower's wide
circle of the heavens not their own.

It is therefore manifest that they had the root qualities, the prime
active elements, of men in perfection, and notably that appetite to
flourish at the cost of the weaker, which is the blessed exemplification
of strength, and has been man's cheerfulest encouragement to fight on
since his comparative subjugation (on the whole, it seems complete) of
the animal world. By-and-by the struggle is transferred to higher
ground, and we begin to perceive how much we are indebted to the fighting
spirit. Strength is the brute form of truth. No conspicuously great man