Philosophy may rave as it will, “little things are great to little men,”
and the less the man, the greater is the object. A king at arms is, in
his own estimation, the greatest king in Europe, and a German baron is
not more punctilious than a master of the ceremonies. The first desire
with all men is power, the next is the semblance of power; and it is
perhaps a happy dispensation that those who are cut off from the
substantial rights of the citizen, should find a compensation in the
“decorations” of the slave; as in all other moral cases the vices of the
individual are repressed by those of the rest of the community. The
pride of Diogenes trampled on the pride of Plato; and the vanity of the
excluded may be trusted for keeping within bounds the vanity of the
preeminent and the privileged. The great enemy, however, of etiquette is
civilisation, which is incessantly at work, simplifying society.
Knowledge, by opening our eyes to the substances of things, defends us
from the juggle of forms; and Napoleon, when he called a throne a mere
chair, with gilt nails driven into it, epitomised one of the most
striking results of the revolutionary contest. Strange that he should
have overlooked or disregarded the fact in the erection of his own
institutions! Ceremonial is a true paper currency, and passes only as
far as it will be taken. The representative of a thousand pounds,
unbacked by credit, is a worthless rag of paper, and the highest
decoration which the king can confer, if repudiated by opinion, is but a
piece of blue riband. Here indeed the sublime touches the ridiculous,
for who shall draw the line of demarcation between my lord Grizzle and
the gold stick? between Mr. Dymock, in Westminster-hall, and his
representative “on a real horse” at Covent-garden?--Every day the
intercourse of society is becoming more and more easy, and a man of
fashion is as little likely to be ceremonious in trifles, as to appear
in the costume of sir Charles Grandison, or to take up the quarrels of
lord Herbert of Cherbury.[54]
[54] New Monthly Magazine.
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