“Yes, Sir; but then, you know, she would have kept her estate, which would have been a vastly better thing than an old pedigree of new relations. Besides, I don't find that any body cares for the noble blood of the Delviles but themselves; and if she had kept her fortune, every body, I fancy, would have cared for that.”
“Every body, then,” said Mr Delvile, “must be highly mercenary and ignoble, or the blood of an ancient and honourable house, would be thought contaminated by the most distant hint of so degrading a comparison.”
“Dear Sir, what should we all do with birth if it was not for wealth? it would neither take us to Ranelagh nor the Opera; nor buy us caps nor wigs, nor supply us with dinners nor bouquets.”
“Caps and wigs, dinners and bouquets!” interrupted Mr Delvile; “your ladyship's estimate of wealth is really extremely minute.”
“Why, you know, Sir, as to caps and wigs, they are very serious things, for we should look mighty droll figures to go about bare-headed; and as to dinners, how would the Delviles have lasted all these thousand centuries if they had disdained eating them?”
“Whatever may be your ladyship's satisfaction,” said Mr Delvile, angrily, “in depreciating a house that has the honour of being nearly allied with your own, you will not, I hope at least, instruct this lady,” turning to Cecilia, “to adopt a similar contempt of its antiquity and dignity.”
“This lady,” cried Mortimer, “will at least, by condescending to become one of it, secure us from any danger that such contempt may spread further.”
“Let me but,” said Cecilia, looking gratefully at him, “be as secure from exciting as I am from feeling contempt, and what can I have to wish?”
“Good and excellent young lady!” said Dr Lyster, “the first of blessings indeed is yours in the temperance of your own mind. When you began your career in life, you appeared to us short-sighted mortals, to possess more than your share of the good things of this world; such a union of riches, beauty, independence, talents, education and virtue, seemed a monopoly to raise general envy and discontent; but mark with what scrupulous exactness the good and bad is ever balanced! You have had a thousand sorrows to which those who have looked up to you have been strangers, and for which not all the advantages you possess have been equivalent. There is evidently throughout this world, in things as well as persons, a levelling principle, at war with pre-eminence, and destructive of perfection.”
“Ah!” cried Mortimer, in a low voice to Cecilia, “how much higher must we all rise, or how much lower must you fall, ere any levelling principle will approximate us with YOU!”