The eccentricity of
common persons is the entertainment of the multitude, and the maternal
hand is perceived for a cherishing and endearing sign upon them; but
rarely can this be found suitable for the august in station; only,
indeed, when their sceptre is no more fearful than a grandmother's birch;
and these must learn from it sooner or later that they are uncomfortably
mortal.
When herrings are at auction on a beach, for example, the man of chief
distinction in the town should not step in among a poor fraternity to
take advantage of an occasion of cheapness, though it be done, as he may
protest, to relieve the fishermen of a burden; nor should such a
dignitary as the bailiff of a Cinque Port carry home the spoil of
victorious bargaining on his arm in a basket. It is not that his conduct
is in itself objectionable, so much as that it causes him to be popularly
weighed; and during life, until the best of all advocates can plead
before our fellow Englishmen that we are out of their way, it is prudent
to avoid the process.
Mr. Tinman, however, this high-stepping person in question, happened to
have come of a marketing mother. She had started him from a small shop
to a big one. He, by the practice of her virtues, had been enabled to
start himself as a gentleman. He was a man of this ambition, and prouder
behind it. But having started himself precipitately, he took rank among
independent incomes, as they are called, only to take fright at the
perils of starvation besetting one who has been tempted to abandon the
source of fifty per cent.
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