Of course, it is a most impertinent, and almost a blasphemous
thing, for a working man to dare to mention such subjects. Is it not
"speaking evil of dignities"? Strange, by-the-by, that merely to mention
facts, without note or comment, should be always called "speaking evil"!
Does not that argue ill for the facts themselves? Working men think so; but
what matter what "the swinish multitude" think?
When I speak of wealth, I do not mean that the dean's household would
have been considered by his own class at all too luxurious. He would have
been said, I suppose, to live in a "quiet, comfortable, gentlemanlike
way"--"everything very plain and very good." It included a butler--a
quiet, good-natured old man--who ushered us into our bedrooms; a footman,
who opened the door--a sort of animal for which I have an extreme
aversion--young, silly, conceited, over-fed, florid--who looked just the
man to sell his soul for a livery, twice as much food as he needed, and the
opportunity of unlimited flirtations with the maids; and a coachman, very
like other coachmen, whom I saw taking a pair of handsome carriage-horses
out to exercise, as we opened the gate.
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