But in Christian society we have always thought the gentleman a sort of joke, though I admit that in some great crusades and councils he earned the right to be called a practical joke.

But we in Europe never really and at the root of our souls took aristocracy seriously.

It is only an occasional non-European alien (such as Dr.Oscar Levy, the only intelligent Nietzscheite) who can even manage for a moment to take aristocracy seriously.

It may be a mere patriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that the English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown and flower of all actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as well as all the defects.

It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious matters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these.