could live on his pay, and not be forced to run in debt
to tradesmen, without any hope of paying them, for clothes and luxuries,
as many highly genteel officers in that honourable service were in the
habit of doing. For the sake of tinkering he would certainly not have
refused a secretaryship of an embassy to Persia, in which he might have
turned his acquaintance with Persian, Arabic, and the Lord only knows
what other languages, to account. He took to tinkering and smithery,
because no better employments were at his command. No war is waged in
the book against rank, wealth, fine clothes, or dignified employments; it
is shown, however, that a person may be a gentleman and a scholar without
them. Rank, wealth, fine clothes, and dignified employments, are no
doubt very fine things, but they are merely externals, they do not make a
gentleman, they add external grace and dignity to the gentleman and
scholar, but they make neither; and is it not better to be a gentleman
without them than not a gentleman with them? Is not Lavengro, when he
leaves London on foot with twenty pounds in his pocket, entitled to more
respect than Mr. Flamson flaming in his coach with a million? And is not
even the honest jockey at Horncastle, who offers a fair price to Lavengro
for his horse, entitled to more than the scoundrel lord, who attempts to
cheat him of one-fourth of its value.

Millions, however, seem to think otherwise, by their servile adoration of
people whom, without rank, wealth, and fine clothes, they would consider
infamous; but whom, possessed of rank, wealth, and glittering
habiliments, they seem to admire all the more for their profligacy and
crimes. Does not a blood-spot or a lust-spot on the clothes of a
blooming emperor give a kind of zest to the genteel young god? Do not
the pride, superciliousness, and selfishness of a certain aristocracy
make it all the more regarded by its worshippers? And do not the
clownish and gutter-blood admirers of Mr. Flamson like him all the more
because they are conscious that he is a knave? If such is the case--and,
alas! is it not the case?--they cannot be too frequently told that fine
clothes, wealth, and titles adorn a person in proportion as he adorns
them; that if worn by the magnanimous and good they are ornaments indeed,
but if by the vile and profligate they are merely san benitos, and only
serve to make their infamy doubly apparent; and that a person in seedy
raiment and tatter