“Look here, Lizzy,” said he, drawing her arm more closely to his side, while he bespoke her attention; “men born in Beecher's class don't need to be clever; they have no necessity for the wiles and schemes and subtleties that—that fellows like myself, in short, must practise. What they want is good address, pleasing manners,—all the better if they be good-looking. It don't require genius to write a check on one's banker; there is no great talent needed to say 'Yes,' or 'No,' in the House of Lords. The world—I mean their own world—likes them all the more if they have n't got great abilities. Now Beecher is just the fellow to suit them.”
“He is not a peer, surely?” asked she, hastily.
“No, he ain't yet, but he may be one any day. He is as sure of the peerage as—I am not! and then, poor Beecher—as you called him awhile ago—becomes the Lord Viscount Lackington, with twelve or fourteen thousand a year! I tell you, girl, that of all the trades men follow, the very best, to enjoy life, is to be an English lord with a good fortune.”
“And is it true, as I have read,” asked Lizzy, “that this high station, so fenced around by privileges, is a prize open to all who have talent or ability to deserve it,—that men of humble origin, if they be gifted with high qualities, and devote them ardently to their country's service, are adopted, from time to time, into that noble brotherhood?”
“All rubbish; don't believe a word of it. It's a flam and a humbug,—a fiction like the old story about an Englishman's house being his castle, or that balderdash, 'No man need criminate himself.' They 're always inventing 'wise saws' like these in England, and they get abroad, and are believed, at last, just by dint of repeating. Here 's the true state of the case,” said he, coming suddenly to a halt, and speaking with greater emphasis. “Here I stand, Christopher Davis, with as much wit under the crown of my hat as any noble lord on the woolsack, and I might just as well try to turn myself into a horse and be first favorite for the Oaks, as attempt to become a peer of Great Britain. It ain't to be done, girl,—it ain't to be done!”
“But, surely, I have heard of men suddenly raised to rank and title for the services—”
“So you do. They want a clever lawyer, now and then, to help them on with a peerage case; or, if the country grows forgetful of them, they attract some notice by asking a lucky general to join them; and even then they do it the way a set of old ladies would offer a seat in the coach to a stout-looking fellow on a road beset with robbers,—they hope he 'll fight for 'em; but, after all, it takes about three generations before one of these new hands gets regularly recognized by the rest.”
“What haughty pride!” exclaimed she; but nothing in her tone implied reprobation.
“Ain't it haughty pride?” cried he; “but if you only knew how it is nurtured in them, how they are worshipped! They walk down St. James's Street, and the policeman elbows me out of the way to make room for them; they stroll into Tattersall's, and the very horses cock their tails and step higher as they trot past; they go into church, and the parson clears his throat and speaks up in a fine round voice for them. It's only because the blessed sun is not an English institution, or he 'd keep all his warmth and light for the peerage!”
“And have they, who render all this homage, no shame for their self-abasement?”