“But if anyone else said so, my son, wouldn’t you be in a tear. YOU know you consider yourself equal to any gentleman.”
“In myself,” he answered, “not in my class or my education or my manners. But in myself I am.”
“Very well, then. Then why talk about the common people?”
“Because — the difference between people isn’t in their class, but in themselves. Only from the middle classes one gets ideas, and from the common people —life itself, warmth. You feel their hates and loves.”