"Well," said Charlton, shrugging his shoulders "then I don't know what pride is that's all!"
"Take care, Captain Rossitur," said Fleda, laughing "I have heard of such a thing as American pride before now."
"Certainly!" said Charlton; "and I'm quite willing but it never reaches quite such a towering height on our side the water."
"I am sure I don't know how that may be," said Fleda; "but I know I have heard a lady, an enlightened, gentle-tempered American lady, so called I have heard her talk to a poor Irishwoman with whom she had nothing in the world to do, in a style that moved my indignation it stirred my blood! and there was nothing whatever to call it out. 'All the blood of all the Howards,' I hope, would not have disgraced itself so."
"What business have you to 'hope' anything about it?"
"None except from the natural desire to find what one has a right to look for. But, indeed, I wouldn't take the blood of all the Howards for any security: pride, as well as high- breeding, is a thing of natural not adventitious growth: it belongs to character, not circumstance."
"Do you know that your favourite, Mr. Carleton, is nearly connected with those same Howards, and quarters their arms with his own?"
"I have a very vague idea of the dignity implied in that expression of 'quartering arms,' which comes so roundly out of your mouth, Charlton," said Fleda, laughing. "No, I didn't know it. But, in general, I am apt to think that pride is a thing which reverses the usual rules of architecture, and builds highest on the narrowest foundations."
"What do you mean?"
"Never mind," said Fleda; "if a meaning isn't plain, it isn't worth looking after. But it will not do to measure pride by its supposed materials. It does not depend on them, but on the individual. You everywhere see people assert that most of which they feel least sure, and then it is easy for them to conclude that where there is so much more of the reality, there must be proportionably more of the assertion. I wish some of our gentlemen and ladies, who talk of pride where they see, and can see nothing but the habit of wealth; I wish they could see the universal politeness with which Mr. Carleton returns the salutes of his inferiors. Not more respectfully they lift their hats to him than he lifts his to them unless when he speaks."