gnorant of the world by
virtue of their own obscurity: "Not to know _them_, argues one's self
unknown." Their manners take a suitable tone and colouring, and for once
they find it necessary to impress a sense of their consequence upon
others, they meet with a thousand occasions for moderating and tempering
this sense by acts of courteous condescension. With the families of
bishops it is otherwise: with them, it is all uphill work to make known
their pretensions; for the proportion of the episcopal bench taken from
noble families is not at any time very large, and the succession to these
dignities is so rapid that the public ear seldom has time to become
familiar with them, unless where they are connected with some literary
reputation. Hence it is that the children of bishops carry about with
them an austere and repulsive air, indicative of claims not generally
acknowledged, a sort of _noli me tangere_ manner, nervously apprehensive
of too familiar approach, and shrinking with the sensitiveness of a gouty
man from all contact with the [Greek text]. Doubtless, a powerful
understanding, or unusual goodness of nature, will preserve a man from
such weakness, but in general the truth of my representation will be
acknowledged; pride, if not of deeper root in such families, appears at
least more upon the surface of their manners. This spirit of manners
naturally communicates itself to their domestics and other dependants.
Now, my landlady had been a lady's maid or a nurse in the family of the
Bishop of ---, and had but lately married away and "settled" (as such
people express it) for life. In a little town like B---, merely to have
lived in the bishop's family conferred some distinction; and my good
landlady had rather more than her share of the pride I have noticed on
that score. What "my lord" said and what "my lord" did, how useful he
was in Parliament and how indispensable at Oxford, formed the daily
burden of her talk. All this I bore very well, for I was too
good-natured to laugh in anybody's face, and I could make an ample
allowance for the garrulity of an old servant. Of necessity, however, I
must have appeared in her eyes very inadequately impressed with the
bishop's importance, and, perhaps to punish me for my indifference, or
possibly by accident, she one day repeated to me a conversation in which
I was indirectly a party concerned. She had been to the palace to pay
her respects to the family, and, dinner bei