"You will see," said Ostrog, with a forced smile that
would brush these difficult questions aside. "I have
not roused the force to destroy myself--trust me."
"I wonder," said Graham.
Ostrog stared.
"Must the world go this way?" said Graham, with
his emotions at the speaking point. "Must it indeed
go in this way? Have all our hopes been vain? "
"What do you mean? " said Ostrog. " Hopes?"
"I came from a democratic age. And I find an
aristocratic tyranny!"
"Well,--but you are the chief tyrant."
Graham shook his head.
"Well," said Ostrog, "take the general question.
It is the way that change has always travelled.
Aristocracy, the prevalence of the best--the suffering and
extinction of the unfit, and so to better things."
"But aristocracy! those people I met--"
"Oh! not those!" said Ostrog. "But for the most
part they go to their death. Vice and pleasure! They
have no children. That sort of stuff will die out. If
the world keeps to one road, that is, if there is no
turning back. An easy road to excess, convenient
Euthanasia for the pleasure seekers singed in the
flame, that is the way to improve the race!"
"Pleasant extinction," said Graham. "Yet--."
He thought for an instant." There is that other thing--the
Crowd, the great mass of poor men. Will that
die out? That will not die out. And it suffers, its
suffering is a force that even you--"
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