And by the way, as to servants, a great man may offend in two ways:
either by treating his servants himself superciliously, or secondly,
which is quite reconcilable with the most paternal behavior on his own
part, by suffering them to treat the public superciliously. Accordingly,
all novelists who happen to have no acquaintance with the realities
of life as it now exists, especially therefore rustic Scotch novelists,
describe the servants of noblemen as 'insolent and pampered menials.'
But, on the contrary, at no houses whatever are persons of doubtful
appearance and anomalous costume, sure of more respectful attention
than at those of the great feudal aristocracy. At a merchant's or a
banker's house, it is odds but the porter or the footman will govern
himself in his behavior by his own private construction of the case,
which (as to foreigners) is pretty sure to be wrong. But in London,
at a nobleman's door, the servants show, by the readiness of their
civilities to all such questionable comers, that they have taken their
lessons from a higher source than their own inexperience or unlearned
fancies.