All this is not
denied. Your order stands before Europe the most gorgeous of
existing spectacles; though you have of late years dexterously
thrown some of the odium of your polity upon that middle class
which you despise, and who are despicable only because they
imitate you, your tenure of power is not in reality impaired.
You govern us still with absolute authority--and you govern
the most miserable people on the face of the globe."
"And is this a fair description of the people of England?"
said Lord Valentine. "A flash of rhetoric, I presume, that
would place them lower than the Portuguese or the Poles, the
serfs of Russia or the Lazzaroni of Naples."
"Infinitely lower," said the delegate, "for they are not only
degraded, but conscious of their degradation. They no longer
believe in any innate difference between the governing and the
governed classes of this country. They are sufficiently
enlightened to feel they are victims. Compared with the
privileged classes of their own land, they are in a lower
state than any other population compared with its privileged
classes. All is relative, my lord, and believe me, the
relations of the working classes of England to its privileged
orders are relations of enmity, and therefore of peril.
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