lady,--this proprietor of so many black and other diamonds,--has really
induced her to believe that she is the superior of the world in general:
and that people are not to associate with her except awfully at a
distance. I recollect being once at the city of Grand Cairo, through
which a European Royal Prince was passing India-wards. One night at the
inn there was a great disturbance: a man had drowned himself in the well
hard by: all the inhabitants of the hotel came bustling into the Court,
and amongst others your humble servant, who asked of a certain young man
the reason of the disturbance. How was I to know that this young gent
was a prince? He had not his crown and sceptre on: he was dressed in a
white jacket and felt hat: but he looked surprised at anybody speaking
to him: answered an unintelligible monosyllable, and--BECKONED HIS
AID-DE-CAMP TO COME AND SPEAK TO ME. It is our fault, not that of the
great, that they should fancy themselves so far above us. If you WILL
fling yourself under the wheels, Juggernaut will go over you, depend
upon it; and if you and I, my dear friend, had Kotow performed before
us every day,--found people whenever we appeared grovelling in slavish
adoration, we should drop into the airs of superiority quite naturally,
and accept the greatness with which the world insisted upon endowing us.

Here is an instance, out of Lord L----'s travels, of that calm,
good-natured, undoubting way in which a great man accepts the homage of
his inferiors. After making some profound and ingenious remarks about
the town of Brussells, his lordship says:--'Staying some day at the
Hotel de Belle Vue, a greatly overrated establishment, and not nearly as
comfortable as the Hotel de France--I made acquaintance with Dr. L----,
the physician of the Mission. He was desirous of doing the honours of
the place to me, and he ordered for us a DINER EN GOURMAND at the chief
restaurateur's, maintaining it surpassed the Rocher at Paris. Six or
eight partook of the entertainment, and we all agreed it was infinitely