His brow darkened, his thin nostril dilated a little.
"Yes," he began, "I told you that you were an aristocrat, and who
but an aristocrat would laugh such a laugh as that, and look such
a look? A laugh frigidly jeering; a look lazily mutinous;
gentlemanlike irony, patrician resentment. What a nobleman you
would have made, William Crimsworth! You are cut out for one;
pity Fortune has baulked Nature! Look at the features, figure,
even to the hands--distinction all over--ugly distinction!
Now, if you'd only an estate and a mansion, and a park, and a
title, how you could play the exclusive, maintain the rights of
your class, train your tenantry in habits of respect to the
peerage, oppose at every step the advancing power of the people,
support your rotten order, and be ready for its sake to wade
knee-deep in churls' blood; as it is, you've no power; you can
do nothing; you're wrecked and stranded on the shores of
commerce; forced into collision with practical men, with whom
you cannot cope, for YOU'LL NEVER BE A TRADESMAN."
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