“Wonderful race!” exclaimed Sinclair, “whether it is the President of the United States, a cowboy, or a fashionable woman, they are all gifted with that intuition which divines ‘friend’ or ‘foe’ in each face they meet; just as the red Indian measures distance with his far-seeing eye, and discovers a white spot on the horizon which is likely to develop into a blizzard. In everything they undertake, they first see the aim, go for it, win it, and sit down afterwards without a flush or a puff.”
“Perhaps America is destined to shape our future civilisation,” said Lady Carey; “I am sure I do not care who is to be our saviour, as long as we are saved from this anarchy.”
“My dear Lady Carey,” replied Lord Somerville, as he walked to the chimney and leaned his elbow on the marble mantelpiece, “we shall have to coin another word for the future Society that is staring us in the face, for the old word civilisation has a nasty flavour about it. At times we have worn war-paint and feathers; at others, charms round our necks, crosses on our hearts, decorations on our breasts; but the cruelty of the savage was no more execrable than the dogmatic ferocity of Torquemada, nor in any way more inhuman than the ruthlessness of George I. Nor was Queen Eleanor’s kerchief more indicative of mediæval depravity than Queen Elizabeth’s frill an emblem of Renaissance levity. Each of these historical eras was but a different stage of barbarism. We had more ornaments than Hottentots, and less principles than monkeys. As long as we have two different creeds, half-a-dozen codes of honour, and hundreds of punctilios, we shall never be civilised. Instead of adding more labels to human beings, we must, first of all, find out what a human being is. We are taught virtue in the nursery, but we are compelled to commit crimes when out of it. The morning prayer says one thing, and life as we make it teaches another. Step by step we are trained to family deceit, political Pharisaism, commercial fraud, diplomatic mendacity, art quackery; and all that in the name of a Redeemer who lashed the vendors out of the temple, and died for the love of truth and peace.”
“Someone said that it needed three generations to make a gentleman,” murmured Vane in his silvery voice.