With all my success, this life‑long exclusive cultivation of Barty's society, and that of his artistic friends, which has somehow unfitted me for the society of my brother‑merchants of wine—and most merchants of everything else—has not, I regret to say, quite fitted me to hold my own among the "leaders of intellectual modern thought," whose company I would fain seek and keep in preference to any other.
My very wealth seems to depress and disgust them, as it does me—and I'm no genius, I admit, and a poor conversationalist.
To amass wealth is an engrossing pursuit—and now that I have amassed a good deal more than I quite know what to do with, it seems to me a very ignoble one. It chokes up everything that makes life worth living; it leaves so little time for the constant and regular practice of those ingenuous arts which faithfully to have learned is said to soften the manners, and make one an agreeable person all round.
It is even more abrutissant than the mere pursuit of sport or pleasure.
How many a noble lord I know who's almost as beastly rich as myself, and twice as big a fool by nature, and perhaps not a better fellow at bottom—yet who can command the society of all there is of the best in science, literature, and art!
Not but what they will come and dine with me fast enough, these shining lights of culture and intellect—my food is very good, although I say it, and I get noble lords to meet them.
But they talk their real talk to each other—not to me—and to the noble lords who sit by them at my table, and who try to understand what they say. With me they fall back on politics and bimetallism, for all the pains I've taken to get up the subjects that interest them, and keep myself posted in all they've written and done. Precious little they know about bimetallism or politics!
Is it only on account of their pretty manners that my titled friends are such favorites with these highly intellectual guests of mine—and with me? If so, then pretty manners should come before everything else in the world, and be taught instead of Latin and Greek.
But if it's only because they're noble lords, then I'm beginning to think with Mr. Labouchere that it's high time the Upper House were abolished, and its denizens wafted into space, since they make such snobs of us all—including your humble servant, of course, who at least is not quite so snobbish as to know himself for a damned snob and pretend he isn't one.
Anyhow, I'm glad my life has been such a success. But would I live it all over again? Even the best of it? The "forty year"?