HESTER. The English aristocracy supply us with our curiosities,
Lady Caroline. They are sent over to us every summer, regularly,
in the steamers, and propose to us the day after they land. As for
ruins, we are trying to build up something that will last longer
than brick or stone. [Gets up to take her fan from table.]

LADY HUNSTANTON. What is that, dear? Ah, yes, an iron Exhibition,
is it not, at that place that has the curious name?

HESTER. [Standing by table.] We are trying to build up life, Lady
Hunstanton, on a better, truer, purer basis than life rests on
here. This sounds strange to you all, no doubt. How could it
sound other than strange? You rich people in England, you don't
know how you are living. How could you know? You shut out from
your society the gentle and the good. You laugh at the simple and
the pure. Living, as you all do, on others and by them, you sneer
at self-sacrifice, and if you throw bread to the poor, it is merely
to keep them quiet for a season. With all your pomp and wealth and
art you don't know how to live - you don't even know that. You
love the beauty that you can see and touch and handle, the beauty
that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of the unseen beauty of
life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing. You
have lost life's secret. Oh, your English society seems to me
shallow, selfish, foolish. It has blinded its eyes, and stopped
its ears. It lies like a leper in purple. It sits like a dead
thing smeared with gold. It is all wrong, all wrong.

LADY STUTFIELD. I don't think one should know of these things. It
is not very, very nice, is it?