"It seems to me
that my skepticism is more respectful and more modest than the
revolutionary ardor of other folks. Many a patriot of eighteen, many a
spouting-club orator, would turn the bishops out of the House of Lords
to-morrow, and throw the lords out after the bishops, and throw the
throne into the Thames after the peers and the bench. Is that man more
modest than I, who take these institutions as I find them, and wait
for time and truth to develop, or fortify, or (if you like) destroy
them? A college tutor, or a nobleman's toady, who appears one fine day
as my right reverend lord, in a silk apron and a shovel-hat, and
assumes benedictory airs over me, is still the same man we remember at
Oxbridge, when he was truckling to the tufts, and bullying the poor
under-graduates in the lecture-room. An hereditary legislator, who
passes his time with jockeys and blacklegs and ballet-girls, and who
is called to rule over me and his other betters, because his
grandfather made a lucky speculation in the funds, or found a coal or
tin-mine on his property, or because his stupid ancestor happened to
be in command of ten thousand men as brave as himself, who overcame
twelve thousand Frenchmen, or fifty thousand Indians--such a man, I
say, inspires me with no more respect than the bitterest democrat can
feel toward him.
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