“Now, my Friend, who are the aristoi? Philosophy may Answer ‘The Wise and the Good.’ But the World, Mankind, have by their practice always preferred ‘the rich and beautiful and well born.’ ” Even philosophers, he chided, when marrying their children, “prefer the rich and handsome and the well descended to the wise and the good.” There were “five Pillars of Aristocracy,” he concluded, “Beauty, Wealth, Birth, Genius, and Virtues. Any one of the three first can, at any time, overbear any one or both of the two last.”
