You are inconsistent.

You are opposed to aristocracies, yet you'd take an earldom if you could.

Am I to understand that you don't blame an earl for being and remaining an earl ?" "I certainly don't." "And you wouldn't blame Tompkins, or yourself, or me, or anybody, for accepting an earldom if it was offered ?" "Indeed I wouldn't." "Well, then, who would you blame ?" "The whole nation--any bulk and mass of population anywhere, in any country, that will put up with the infamy, the outrage, the insult of a hereditary aristocracy which they can't enter--and on absolutely free and equal terms." "Come, aren't you beclouding yourself with distinctions that are not differences ?" "Indeed I am not.

I am entirely clear-headed about this thing.

If I could extirpate an aristocratic system by declining its honors, then I should be a rascal to accept them.