"
I had him again. He had to fumble around in his mind as much
as another minute before he could play; then he said in as mean
a way as I ever heard a person say anything:
"He could have been counting the cigars, you know."
I cannot endure a man like that. It is nothing to him how unkind
he is, so long as he takes the bloom off. It is all he cares for.
"An Englishman (or other human being) does dearly love a lord,"
(or other conspicuous person.) It includes us all. We love to be
noticed by the conspicuous person; we love to be associated with such,
or with a conspicuous event, even in a seventh-rate fashion,
even in the forty-seventh, if we cannot do better. This accounts
for some of our curious tastes in mementos. It accounts for the large
private trade in the Prince of Wales's hair, which chambermaids
were able to drive in that article of commerce when the Prince made
the tour of the world in the long ago--hair which probably did
not always come from his brush, since enough of it was marketed
to refurnish a bald comet; it accounts for the fact that the rope
which lynches a negro in the presence of ten thousand Christian
spectators is salable five minutes later at two dollars and inch;
it accounts for the mournful fact that a royal personage does not
venture to wear buttons on his coat in public.
We do love a lord--and by that term I mean any person whose situation
is higher than our own.
Pages:
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320