whereupon he turned round and begged the
boy's pardon.

You see the idea behind such banalities. It is that we are stricken with
respectful admiration that people with titles should act like ordinary
decent human beings. It is an insult to them, and it ought to be an insult
to the intelligence of the reader. But the newspaper man knows his public
as well as the cinema producer. He knows we have the souls of flunkeys. I
am no better than the rest. When I knew Mr. Kearley, the grocer, I looked
on him as a man and an equal. When he blossomed into Lord Devonport I felt
that he had taken wings and flown beyond my humble circle. I feel the
flunkey strong in me. I hate him, but I cannot kill him.

It is not the fact that inferior people get titles which should give us
concern. It is not even that they get them so often by secret gifts, by
impudent touting, by base service. These things are known, and they are no
worse to-day than they have always been. Every honours list makes us gape
and smile. If we see a really distinguished name in it we feel surprise and
a certain sorrow. What is he doing in that galley? I confess I have never
felt the same towards J.M. Barrie since he allowed a tag to be stuck on to
a great name. What did he want with a tag that any tuft hunter in public
life can get? It is only littleness that can gain from titles. Greatness is
always dishonoured by them. Fancy Sir Charles Dickens, or Lord Dickens, or
Lord Darwin, or Lord Carlyle, or Lord Shakespeare, or John Milton
masquerading as the Marquis of Oxfordshire. Yes, Tennyson became a lord and
was the smaller man for the fact. Who does not recall Swinburne's scornful
comment:

Stoop, Chaucer, stoop;
Keats, Shelley, Burns bow down.