"I despise mere frivolity," said Cecil loftily.
"My dear Mr. Farquhar, there is a time for everything; and if you think that a lunch-party on the river in the middle of the season is a suitable occasion for discussing Lord Stonebridge's pecuniary difficulties, or solving Lady Silverhampton's religious doubts, I can only say that I don't." Elisabeth was irritated; she knew that Cecil was annoyed with her friends not because they could talk smart nonsense, but because he could not.
"Still, you can not deny that the upper classes are frivolous," Cecil persisted.
"But I do deny it. I don't think that they are a bit more frivolous than any other class, but I think they are a good deal more plucky. Each class has its own particular virtue, and the distinguishing one of the aristocracy seems to me to be pluck; therefore they make light of things which other classes of society would take seriously. It isn't that they don't feel their own sorrows and sicknesses, but they won't allow other people to feel them; which is, after all, only a form of good manners."
But Cecil was still rather sulky. "I belong to the middle class and I am proud of it."
"So do I; but identifying one's self with one class doesn't consist in abusing all the others, any more than identifying one's self with one church consists in abusing all the others--though some people seem to think it does."
"These grand people may entertain you and be pleasant to you in their way, I don't deny; but they don't regard you as one of themselves unless you are one," persisted Cecil, with all the bitterness of a small nature.
Elisabeth smiled with all the sweetness of a large one. "And why should they? Sir Wilfred and you and I are pleasant enough to them in our own way, but we don't regard any of them as one of ourselves unless he is one. They don't show it, and we don't show it: we are all too well-mannered; but we can not help knowing that they are not artists any more than they can help knowing that we are not aristocrats. Being conscious that certain people lack certain qualities which one happens to possess, is not the same thing as despising those people; and I always think it as absurd as it is customary to describe one's consciousness of one's own qualifications as self-respect, and other people's consciousness of theirs as pride and vanity."