"Ce n'est pas mon affaire. I have no fancy for nursing infant
geniuses. I suppose there are some stray gleams of mind and
soul among these wretches. The Lord will take care of his own;
or else they can work out their own salvation. I have heard you
call our American system a ladder which any man can scale. Do
you doubt it? Or perhaps you want to banish all social ladders,
and put us all on a flat table-land,--eh, May?"

The Doctor looked vexed, puzzled. Some terrible problem lay hid
in this woman's face, and troubled these men. Kirby waited for
an answer, and, receiving none, went on, warming with his
subject.

"I tell you, there's something wrong that no talk of 'Liberte'
or 'Egalite' will do away. If I had the making of men, these
men who do the lowest part of the world's work should be
machines,--nothing more,--hands. It would be kindness. God
help them! What are taste, reason, to creatures who must live
such lives as that?" He pointed to Deborah, sleeping on the
ash-heap. "So many nerves to sting them to pain. What if God
had put your brain, with all its agony of touch, into your
fingers, and bid you work and strike with that?"

"You think you could govern the world better?" laughed the
Doctor.

"I do not think at all."

"That is true philosophy. Drift with the stream, because you
cannot dive deep enough to find bottom, eh?"