are, is it not necessary that they shall pass? Have not the public so
resolved?"

"There can be no doubt of that."

"Then the member for Saxboro' cannot be strong enough to go against
the public."

"Progress of the age!" said Kenelm, musingly. "Do you think the class
of gentlemen will long last in England?"

"What do you call gentlemen? The aristocracy by birth?--the
/gentilshommes/?"

"Nay, I suppose no laws can take away a man's ancestors, and a class
of well-born men is not to be exterminated. But a mere class of
well-born men--without duties, responsibilities, or sentiment of that
which becomes good birth in devotion to country or individual
honour--does no good to a nation. It is a misfortune which statesmen
of democratic creed ought to recognize, that the class of the
well-born cannot be destroyed: it must remain as it remained in Rome
and remains in France, after all efforts to extirpate it, as the most
dangerous class of citizens when you deprive it of the attributes
which made it the most serviceable. I am not speaking of that class;
I speak of that unclassified order peculiar to England, which, no
doubt, forming itself originally from the ideal standard of honour and
truth supposed to be maintained by the /gentilshommes/, or well-born,
no longer requires pedigrees and acres to confer upon its members the
designation of gentleman; and when I hear a 'gentleman' say that he
has no option but to think one thing and say another, at whatever risk