I've read history--always managed a couple of volumes or so in my swag--nights and nights, by the light of a fat lamp and a camp fire.
I've studied the women of great times--ancient and modern--they're always the same--and I've remarked the type of woman that's got grit--capacity for fine things--You understand all that as well as I do, Joan.

Look at the women of the French Revolution for one instance--the aristocrats, you know--well, I've realised that it takes blood and breeding and tradition behind to carry a woman to the block with a sure step and a proud smile ...' Suddenly, he became aware of Joan's gaze, half surprised, wholly interested....

He reddened and pulled himself up gruffly.
'Sentimental rot, d'ye call it ?' 'No, Colin, I believe in all that and so do you.' 'Blood and breeding and tradition--all the grand stuff that's been grown in them on the NOBLESSE OBLIGE principle--self-respect, courage, dignity--the stuff that gives staying power as well as the fire for making good spunk....

Not that I'd put a pure-blood racer to haul up logs for an iron-bark fence: any more than I'd set out to plant an English lady of that sort to rough it on the Leura.' 'Well, why not?
Do you want your wife to be like a canary in a cage ?' 'You know I don't hold with gilded cages and spoiling a woman who is there to be your mate.

But all the same, I shan't look out for MY wife until I can afford to give her as good a show as she'd be likely to have if the stopped at home.