The critic who is always talking about our modern enlightenment, ancient superstitions, and the stupidity and barbarism of the past- such a man is not a Progressive; he is not even a fanatical or vainglorious Progressive. He is simply an aristocrat. He is putting one class of men fantastically in the front of mankind; he is committing that sin which is called oligarchy, and which is the sin of forgetting the resemblances and remembering only the differences of men. And, indeed, if one had to select an oligarchy one would, I think, select any oligarchy but this. An aristocracy of the sword, and even an aristocracy of intellect (that disgusting thing) would be more human and rational than a mere aristocracy of chronology. It would be easier to believe in the superiority of peers to commoners than in the mere superiority of half-past two to half-past one.

-January 12, 1906, Daily News