ed plumes of the angels. But the kings in their heavy gold and the
proud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards,
for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward
drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One "settles down" into a
sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay
self-forgetfulness. A man "falls" into a brown study; he reaches up at a
blue sky. Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much
more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a
natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the
easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good _Times_ leading
article than a good joke in _Punch_. For solemnity flows out of men
naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be
light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.

Now, it is the peculiar honour of Europe since it has been Christian
that while it has had aristocracy it has always at the back of its heart
treated aristocracy as a weakness--generally as a weakness that must be
allowed for. If any one wishes to appreciate this point, let him go
outside Christianity into some other philosophical atmosphere. Let him,
for instance, compare the classes of Europe with the castes of India.
There aristocracy is far more awful, because it is far more
intellectual. It is seriously felt that the scale of classes is a scale
of spiritual values; that the baker is better than the butcher in an
invisible and sacred sense. But no Christianity, not even the most
ignorant or perverse, ever suggested that a baronet was better than a
butcher in that sacred sense. No Christianity, however ignorant or
extravagant, ever suggested that a duke would not be damned. In pagan
society there may have been (I do not know) some such serious division
between the free man and the slave. But in Christian society we have
always thought the gentleman a sort of joke, though I admit that in some
great crusades and councils he earned the right to be called a practical
joke. But we in Europe never really and at the root of our souls took
aristocracy seriously. It is only an occasional non-European alien (such
as Dr. Oscar Levy, the only intelligent Nietzscheite) who can even
manage for a moment to take aristocracy seriously. It may be a mere
patriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that the
English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the