Quotation from: The Valley of the Moon

Written by: Jack London

"I kept my jewels--la la, and was robbed of them by a brute of a
Russian officer within the year."

"And you let them die," Saxon reiterated.

"They were cheap spawn. They fester and multiply like maggots.
They meant nothing--nothing, my dear, nothing. No more than your
work people mean here, whose crowning stupidity is their
continuing to beget more stupid spawn for the slavery of the
masters."