ttentions of the ante-chamber, through elegant
manners, delicate flattery, fashionable drawing-rooms, or valets and
women on an intimate footing; mistresses here enjoy no credit and there
are neither favorites nor the favored; a valet is regarded as a useful
implement; great personages are not considered as extra-ornamental and
human furniture for the palace. Not one among them dare ask for a place
for a protege which he is incapable of filling, an advancement which
would derange the lists of promotions, a pass over the heads of others;
if they obtain any favors, these are insignificant or political; the
master grants them as an after-thought, to rally somebody, or a party,
to his side; they personally, their ornamental culture, their high-bred
tone, their wit, their conversational powers, their smiles and bows--all
this is lost on him, or charged to account. He has no liking for their
insinuating and discreet ways;[3326] he regards them as merely good
domestics for parade; all he esteems in them is their ceremonial
significance, that innate suppleness which permits them to be at once
servile and dignified, the hereditary tact which teaches them how to
present a letter, not from hand to hand, but on the rim of a hat, or
on a silver plate, and these faculties he estimates at their true
worth.--On the other hand, nobody succeeds, as lately under the
Republic, through tribunal or club verbosity, through appeals to
principles, through eloquent or declamatory tirades; "glittering
generalities," hollow abstractions and phrases made to produce an
impression have no effect; and what is better, political ideology, with
a solicitor or pleader, is a bad note. The positive, practical mind
of the judge has taken in at a glance and penetrated to the bottom
of arguments, means and valid pretensions; he submits impatiently to
metaphysics and pettifoggery, to the argumentative force and mendacity
of words.--This goes so far that he distrusts oratorical or literary
talent; in any event when he entrusts active positions or a part in
public business then he takes no note of it. According to him, "the men
who write well and are eloquent have no solidity of judgment; they are
illogical and very poor in discussion,"[3327] they are mere artists
like others, so many word-musicians, a kind of special, narrow-minded
instrument, some of them good solo players, like Fontanes, and who the
head of a State can use, but only in official music for grand c