146 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



Of this fact the world is becoming dimly conscious. 

 Otherwise what means the growing deference paid to 

 men of ability by all social castes, even the highest ? 

 The distinguished man of letters or science now meets 

 the head of the house of Vera de Vere upon equal 

 terms. At a Belgravian dinner-table a poet may 

 wrest the place of honour from a duke. It has not 

 always been so. It was not so when Shakespeare 

 humbly solicited the patronage of the Earl of South- 

 ampton, or when the denizens of Grub Street grovelled 

 at the feet of any nobleman who deigned to throw 

 them a crust. It is not so even now in those countries 

 which bring up the rear of civilisation. Neither in 

 Prance nor England would any social caste dare to 

 assert the privilege still exercised, say,, by the nobility 

 of Eussia or Spain. It is true we continue to be 

 saddled with an hereditary House of Lords, but it 

 has long been deemed expedient that its benches 

 should be filled up by more or less distinguished 

 commoners. This system of democratising the 

 peerage is of course a compromise. Like all com- 

 promises, it can only be transitional. It mitigates 

 the evils of caste, but it leaves their root un- 

 touched, seeing that the distinguished commoner 

 who is made a peer to-day transmits his privilege 



