 her friends; with a
cooler indifference to the growth of principles among us in respect of public
matters and of private dealings between man and man, the advocacy of which,
beyond the foul atmosphere of a criminal trial, would disgrace your own Old
Bailey lawyers; why, then I answer plainly, No.«
    »Oh!« said Martin; in so exactly the same key as his friend's No, that it
sounded like an echo.
    »If you ask me,« his companion pursued, »whether I came back here better
satisfied with a state of things which broadly divides society into two classes
- whereof one, the great mass, asserts a spurious independence, most miserably
dependent for its mean existence on the disregard of humanising
conventionalities of manner and social custom, so that the coarser a man is, the
more distinctly it shall appeal to his taste; while the other, disgusted with
the low standard thus set up and made adaptable to everything, takes refuge
among the graces and refinements it can bring to bear on private life, and
leaves the public weal to such fortune as may betide it in the press and uproar
of a general scramble - then again I answer, No.«
    And again Martin said »Oh!« in the same odd way as before, being anxious and
disconcerted; not so much, to say the truth, on public grounds, as with
reference to the fading prospects of domestic architecture.
    »In a word,« resumed the other, »do not find and cannot believe, and
therefore will not allow, that we are a model of wisdom, and an example to the
world, and the perfection of human reason, and a great deal more to the same
purpose, which you may hear any hour in the day; simply because we began our
political life with two inestimable advantages.«
    »What were they?« asked Martin.
    »One, that our history commenced at so late a period as to escape the ages
of bloodshed and cruelty through which other nations have passed; and so had all
the light of their probation, and none of its darkness. The other, that we have
a vast territory, and not - as yet - too many people on it. These facts
considered we have done little enough, I think.«
    »Education?« suggested Martin, faintly.
    »Pretty well on that head,« said the other, shrugging his shoulders, »still
no mighty matter to boast of; for old countries, and despotic countries too,
have done as much, if not more, and made less noise
