We have indeed almost ceased to be an army marching with confidence towards the enemy, and have become a mob breaking impatiently loose from the discipline and ideals of our past.
Aristocracy, it must be boldly said, has played traitor to England.

It has ceased to lead, and not because it has been thrust from its rightful place by the rude hand of democracy, but because it has deliberately preferred the company of the vulgar.

No one has pulled it down, it has itself descended.

It has lost its respect for learning, it has grown careless of manners, it has abandoned faith in its duty, it is conscious of no solemn obligations, it takes no interest in art, it is indifferent to science, it is sick of effort, it has surrendered gladly and gratefully to the materialism of plutocracy.
If it could have lost itself in plutocracy the harm would not have been so great; but it still remains for the multitude a true aristocracy, and looking up to that aristocracy for its standards--an aristocracy whose private life is now public property--the multitude has become materialistic, throwing Puritanism to the dogs, and pushing as heartily forward to the trough as any full-fed glutton in the middle or the upper ranks of life.
The standards set by the privileged classes at this time are the same standards as ruled in France before the Revolution.

There is no example of modesty, earnestness, restraint, thrift, duty, or culture.