. For my own part I regret it, and I regret it because I
conceive that the good life is the life of the gentleman.

"From this it follows that my ideal of a polity is aristocratic. For a
class of gentlemen presupposes classes of workers to support it. And
these, from the ideal point of view, must be regarded as mere means. I
do not say that that is just; I do not say it is what we should choose;
but I am sure it is the law of the world in which we live. Through the
whole realm of nature every kind exists only to be the means of
supporting life in another. Everywhere the higher preys upon the
lower; everywhere the Good is parasitic on the Bad. And as in nature,
so in human society. Read history with an impartial mind, read it in
the white light, and you will see that there has never been a great
civilization that was not based upon iniquity. Those who have eyes to
see have always admitted, and always will, that the greatest
civilization of Europe was that of Greece. And of that civilization
not merely an accompaniment but the essential condition was slavery.
Take away that and you take away Pericles, Phidias, Sophocles, Plato.
Dismiss Greece, if you like. Where then will you turn? To the Middle
Ages? You encounter feudalism and serfdom. To the modern world? You
run against wage-labour. Ah, but, you say, we look to the future. We
shall abolish wage-labour, as we have abolished slavery. We shall have
an equitable society in which everybody will do productive work, and
nobody will live at the cost of others. I do not know whether you can
do this; it is possible you may; but I ask you to count the cost. And
first let me call your attention to what you have actually done during
the course of the past century. You have deposed your aristocracy and
set up in their place men who work for their living, instead of for the
public good, merchants, bankers, shop-keepers, railway directors,
brewers, company-promoters. Whether you are better and more justly
governed I do not pause to enquire. You appear to be satisfied that
you are. But what I see, returning to England only at rare intervals,
and what you perhaps cannot so easily see, is that you are ruining all
your standards. Dignity, manners, nobility, nay, common honesty
itself, is rapidly disappearing from among you. Every time I return I
find you more sordid, more petty, more insular, more ugly and
unperceptive. For the higher things, the real goods, wer