"They, as a class [The Oligarchs], believed that they alone maintained civilisation.
It was their belief that if ever they weakened, the great beast would ingulf them and everything of beauty and wonder and joy and good in its cavernous and slime-dripping maw.
Without them, anarchy would reign and humanity would drop backward into the primitive night out of which it had so painfully emerged.
The horrid picture of anarchy was held always before the child’s eyes until they, in turn, obsessed by this cultivated fear, held the picture of anarchy before the eyes of the children that followed them.
This was the beast to be stamped upon, and the highest duty of the aristocrat was to stamp upon it.
In short, they alone , by their unremitting toil and sacrifice, stood between weak humanity and the all-devouring beast; and they believed it, firmly believed it."