imagine most likely to know the proprietes of the mode; and thus manners,
unnatural to all, are transmitted second-hand, third-hand, fourth-hand,
till they are ultimately filtered into something worse than no manners at
all. Hence, you perceive all people timid, stiff, unnatural, and ill at
ease; they are dressed up in a garb which does not fit them, to which
they have never been accustomed, and are as little at home as the wild
Indian in the boots and garments of the more civilized European."

"And hence," said I, "springs that universal vulgarity of idea, as well
as manner, which pervades all society--for nothing is so plebeian as
imitation."

"A very evident truism!" said Clarendon--"what I lament most, is the
injudicious method certain persons took to change this order of things,
and diminish the desagremens of the mixture we speak of. I remember well,
when Almack's was first set up, the intention was to keep away the rich
roturiers from a place, the tone of which was also intended to be
contrary to their own. For this purpose the patronesses were instituted,
the price of admission made extremely low, and all ostentatious
refreshments discarded: it was an admirable institution for the interests
of the little oligarchy who ruled it--but it has only increased the
general imitation and vulgarity. Perhaps the records of that institution
contain things more disgraceful to the aristocracy of England, than the
whole history of Europe can furnish. And how could the Monsieur and
Madame Jourdains help following the servile and debasing example of
Monseigneur le Duc et Pair?"

"How strange it is," said one of the dowagers, "that of all the novels on
society with which we are annually inundated, there is scarcely one which
gives even a tolerable description of it."