“Go on; I yield—that is, under protest.” “Protest as much as you like. In diplomacy a protest means, ‘I hope you won’t; but if you will, I can’t help it,’ Vide the correspondence about the annexation of Nice and Savoy. Now to my project. It is to start a monster hotel—one of those gigantic establishments for which the Americans are famous—in some much-frequented part of Europe, and to engage as part of the household all the ‘own time’ celebrities of diplomacy and letters. Every one knows—most of us have, indeed, felt—the desire experienced to see, meet, and converse with the noticeable men of the world—the people who, so to say, leave their mark on the age they live in—the cognate signs of human algebra. Only fancy, then, with what ecstasy would the traveller read the prospectus of an establishment wherein, as in a pantheon, all the gods were gathered around him. What would not the Yankee give for a seat at a table where the great Eltchi ladled out the soup, and the bland-voiced author of ‘The Woman in White’ lisped out, ‘Sherry, sir?’ Only imagine being handed one’s fish by the envoy that got us into the Crimean war, or taking a potato served by the accomplished writer of ‘Orley Farm’! Picture a succession of celebrities in motion around the table, and conceive, if you can, the vainglorious sentiment of the man that could say, ‘Lyons, a little more fat;’ or, ‘Carlyle, madeira;’ and imagine the luxury of that cup of tea so gracefully handed you by ‘Lost and Saved,’ and the culminating pride of taking your flat candlestick from the fingers of ‘Eleanor’s Victory.’
“Who would not cross the great globe to live in such an atmosphere of genius and grandeur? for if there be, as there may, souls dead to the charms of literary greatness, who in this advanced age of ours is indifferent to the claims of high rank and station and title? Fancy sending a K.C.B. to call a cab, or ordering a special envoy to fetch the bootjack! I dare not pursue the theme. I cannot trust myself to dwell on a subject so imbued with suggestiveness—all the varying and wondrous combinations such a galaxy of splendour and power would inevitably produce. What wit, what smartness, what epigram would abound! What a hailstorm of pleasantries, and what stories of wise aphorisms and profound reflections! How I see with my mind’s eye the literary traveller trying to overhear the Attic drolleries of the waiters as they wash up their glasses, or endeavouring to decoy Boots into a stroll with a cigar, well knowing his charming article on Dickens.
“The class-writers would of course have their specialties. ‘Soapy-Sponge’ would figure in the stable-yard, and ‘Proverbial Philosophy’ watch the trains as a touter. Fabulous prices might be obtained for a room in such an establishment, and every place at the table-d’hôte should be five guineas at least. For, after all, what would be an invitation to Compiègne to a sojourn here? Material advantages might possibly incline to the side of the Imperial board; but would any one presume to say that the company in the one was equal to the ‘service’ at the other? Who would barter the glorious reality of the first for the mean and shallow mockery of the last? Last of all, how widespread and powerful would be the influence of such an establishment over the manners of our time! Would Cockneyism, think you, omit its H’s in presence of that bland individual who offers him cheese? Would presumption dare to criticise in view of that ‘Quarterly’ man who is pouring out the bitter beer? What a check on the expansive balderdash of the ‘gent’ at his dessert to know and feel that ‘Adam Bede’ was behind him!
“Would Brown venture on that anecdote of Jones if the napkin-in-hand listener should be an ex-envoy renowned for his story-telling? Who would break down in his history, enunciate a false quantity, misquote a speech, or mistake the speaker, in such hearing? Some one might object to the position and to the functions I assign to persons of a certain distinction, and say that it was unworthy of an ex-ambassador to act as a hall-porter, or a celebrated prose-writer to clean the knives. I confess I do not think so. I shrewdly suspect a great deal of what we are pleased to call philosophy is only a well-regulated self-esteem, and that the man who feels himself immeasurably above another in mind, capacity, and attainments, and yet sees that other vastly superior in station and condition, has within his heart a pride all the more exalting that it is stimulated by the sense of a great injustice, and the profound consciousness that it is to himself, to his own nature, he must look to redress the balance that fortune would set against him.
“In the brilliant conversation of the servants’ hall, then, would these many gifted men take their revenge; and what stores of good stories, what endless drolleries, what views of life, and what traits of character, would they derive from the daily opportunities! It has constantly been remarked by foreigners that there is no trait of our national manners less graceful in itself than the way in which inferiors, especially menials, are addressed in England. It is alleged, perhaps with some truth, that we mark every difference of class more decisively than other nations; and certainly in our treatment of servants there is none of that same confidential tone so amusing in a French vaudeville. The scheme I now suggest will be the effective remedy for this.
“Will Jones, think you, presume to be imperative if it be Alfred Tennyson who has brought up his hot water? Will Brown be critical about the polish, if it be Owen Meredith has taken him his boots? Will even Snooks cry out, ‘Holloa, you fellow!’ to a passing waiter, if the individual so addressed might chance to be an Oriental Secretary or a Saturday Reviewer?
“And would the most infatuated of Bagmen venture on what O’Connell used to call a ‘chuck-under-the-chin manner,’ were the chamber-maid to be Margaret Maitland?
“Such, in brief, is my plan, O’Dowd; nor is the least of its advantages that it gets rid of the Pension List, and that beggarly £1200 a-year by which wealthy England assumes to aid the destitute sons and daughters of letters. As for myself, I have fixed on my station. I mean to be swimming-master, and the prospectus shall announce that His Excellency the late Minister at the Court of——-ducks ladies every morning from eight till nine. Think over the project, and drop me a hint as to the sort of place would suit you.”