a mere virtuoso?

He is in any case what employers call a treasure, and to any one who
wishes to go forth and hunt for him I will supply a chart showing the
way to that doorstep on which last I saw him. But I myself, were I ever
so able to pay his wages, should never covet him--no, nor anything like
him. Perhaps we are not afraid of menservants if we look out at them
from the cradle. None was visible from mine. Only in later years and
under external auspices did I come across any of them. And I am
as afraid of them as ever. Maidservants frighten me less, but they
also--except the two or three ancients aforesaid--have always struck
some degree of terror to my soul. The whole notion of domestic
service has never not seemed to me unnatural. I take no credit for
enlightenment. Not to have the instinct to command implies a lack of
the instinct to obey. The two aptitudes are but different facets of one
jewel: the sense of order. When I became a schoolboy, I greatly disliked
being a monitor's fag. Other fags there were who took pride in the
quality of the toast they made for the breakfasts and suppers of their
superiors. My own feeling was that I would rather eat it myself, and
that if I mightn't eat it myself I would rather it were not very good.
Similarly, when I grew to have fags of my own, and by morning and by
evening one of them solemnly entered to me bearing a plate on which
those three traditional pieces of toast were solemnly propped one
against another, I cared not at all whether the toast were good or bad,
having no relish for it at best, but could have eaten with gusto toast
made by my own hand, not at all understanding why that member should be
accounted too august for such employment. Even so in my later life. Loth
to obey, loth to command. Convention (for she too frightens me) has made
me accept what servants would do for me by rote. But I would liefer have
it ill-done than ask even the least mettlesome of them to do it better,
and far liefer, if they would only be off and not do it at all, do it
for myself. In Italy--dear Italy, where I have lived much--servants do
still regard service somewhat in the old way, as a sort of privilege;
so that with Italian servants I am comparatively at my ease. But oh, the
delight when on the afternoon of some local festa there is no servant
at all in the little house! Oh, the reaction, the impulse to sing and
dance, and the positive quick obedience to that impulse! Convention