s. If they poured out beer for their vassals it was
because both they and their vassals had a taste for beer. If (in some
slightly different mood) they poured melted lead on their vassals, it
was because both they and their vassals had a strong distaste for
melted lead. But they did not make any mystery about either of the two
substances. They did not say, "You don't like melted lead?.... Ah! no,
of course, _you_ wouldn't; you are probably the kind of person who would
prefer beer.... It is no good asking you even to imagine the curious
undercurrent of psychological pleasure felt by a refined person under
the seeming shock of melted lead." Even tyrants when they tried to be
popular, tried to give the people pleasure; they did not try to overawe
the people by giving them something which they ought to regard as
pleasure. It was the same with the popular presentment of aristocracy.
Aristocrats tried to impress humanity by the exhibition of qualities
which humanity admires, such as courage, gaiety, or even mere splendour.
The aristocracy might have more possession in these things, but the
democracy had quite equal delight in them. It was much more sensible to
offer yourself for admiration because you had drunk three bottles of
port at a sitting, than to offer yourself for admiration (as Lady Grove
does) because you think it right to say "port wine" while other people
think it right to say "port." Whether Lady Grove's preference for port
wine (I mean for the phrase port wine) is a piece of mere nonsense I do
not know; but at least it is a very good example of the futility of such
tests in the matter even of mere breeding. "Port wine" may happen to be
the phrase used n certain good families; but numberless aristocrats say
"port," and all barmaids say "port wine." The whole thing is rather
more trivial than collecting tram-tickets; and I will not pursue Lady
Grove's further distinctions. I pass over the interesting theory that I
ought to say to Jones (even apparently if he is my dearest friend), "How
is Mrs. Jones?" instead of "How is your wife?" and I pass over an
impassioned declamation about bedspreads (I think) which has failed to
fire my blood.

The truth of the matter is really quite simple. An aristocracy is a
secret society; and this is especially so when, as in the modern world,
it is practically a plutocracy. The one idea of a secret society is to
change the password. Lady Grove falls naturally into a pure perversity