SOCIAL ETIQUETTE.

173

scarcely so intolerable to tlie slaves tliemselves as it is to themembcrs of free and enlightened communities. Who, forinstance, are so proud of tlieir liveries as footmen? and asJeames believes liis crimson plush to be a dignified ratherthan degrading costume, even so do the half-feudal Ger-mans see no moral debasement in tlie slavish forms to whichthey liave to submit when addressing princes and graffs, who,as regards either landed possessions or intelligence, are notcomparable to our yeomen.

At the court of Siam his barbarous majesty expects everyone who enters his presence to prostrate himself on his stomachat the foot of the throne, and Englishmen alone have had spiritenough to break through the custom; whereas in Great Britainnothing is so hateful to the members of tlie aristocracy as to heartliemselves beslavered with the repetition of their titles at eachsentence. It is the mark of a true gentleman, indeed, to desireto raise others to his own dignity, and to behave towards allpersons as if they were on an equality with himself: whilst it isthe act only of a titled tom-fool, that some crowned hcad hasbeen pleased to nickname noble, to conduct himself with arro-gance towards those whom he fancies to be his " inferiors."

During the Congress at Vienna, where all the foreign am-bassadors appeared in a blaze of stars and garters and " Orders,"the Englisli minister presented himself in the unpretendingcostume of a simple gentleman. " II n'a pas de ddcoration,"whispered one of the envoys to Prince Metternich, on learningfrom Ihm the dignity of the potcntate in piain clothes. "Mafoi! "replied the Prince; " c'est bien distingue."

At a recent concert of Jenny Lind's at Ems, however,almost all the Germans occupying the front seats came placardedwith their rank, their coats being decorated with stars like thefront of a tradesman's house on an illumination night. But asit is a very bad portrait of a " Red Lion" that requires to have