I deny that. I will
not allow you or any man to treat me as if I were a mere member of
the British public. I detest its prejudices; I scorn its narrowness; I
demand the right to think for myself. You pose as an advanced man. Let
me tell you that I was an advanced man before you were born.

TANNER. I knew it was a long time ago.

RAMSDEN. I am as advanced as ever I was. I defy you to prove that I have
ever hauled down the flag. I am more advanced than ever I was. I grow
more advanced every day.

TANNER. More advanced in years, Polonius.

RAMSDEN. Polonius! So you are Hamlet, I suppose.

TANNER. No: I am only the most impudent person you've ever met. That's
your notion of a thoroughly bad character. When you want to give me a
piece of your mind, you ask yourself, as a just and upright man, what
is the worst you can fairly say of me. Thief, liar, forger, adulterer,
perjurer, glutton, drunkard? Not one of these names fit me. You have
to fall back on my deficiency in shame. Well, I admit it. I even
congratulate myself; for if I were ashamed of my real self, I should
cut as stupid a figure as any of the rest of you. Cultivate a little
impudence, Ramsden; and you will become quite a remarkable man.

RAMSDEN. I have no--

TANNER. You have no desire for that sort of notoriety. Bless you, I knew
that answer would come as well as I know that a box of matches will come
out of an automatic machine when I put a penny in the slot: you would be
ashamed to say anything else.

The crushing retort for which Ramsden has been visibly collecting his
forces is lost for ever; for at this point Octavius returns with Miss
Ann Whitefield and her mother; and Ramsden springs up and hurries to the
door to receive them. Whether Ann is good-looking or not depends upon
your taste; also and perhaps chiefly on your age and sex. To Octavius
she is an enchantingly beautiful woman, in whose presence the world
becomes transfigured, and the puny limits of individual consciousness
are suddenly made infinite by a mystic memory of the whole life of the
race to its beginnings in the east, or even back to the paradise from
which it fell. She is to him the reality of romance, the leaner good
sense of nonsense, the unveiling of his eyes, the freeing of his soul,
the abolition of time, place and circumstance, the etherealization of
his blood into rapturous rivers of the very water of life itself,
the revelation of all the mysteries and the sanctification of