with a tattered parasol over her head, to the princess sweeping
through a drawing-room with a train of four yards long; from 'Arry,
winning by vulgar chaff the loud laughter of his pals, to the
statesman whose ears are tickled by the cheers that greet his
high-sounding periods; from the dark-skinned African, bartering his
rare oils and ivory for a few glass beads to hang about his neck, to
the Christian maiden selling her white body for a score of tiny stones
and an empty title to tack before her name--all march, and fight, and
bleed, and die beneath its tawdry flag.

Ay, ay, vanity is truly the motive-power that moves humanity, and it
is flattery that greases the wheels. If you want to win affection and
respect in this world, you must flatter people. Flatter high and low,
and rich and poor, and silly and wise. You will get on famously.
Praise this man's virtues and that man's vices. Compliment everybody
upon everything, and especially upon what they haven't got. Admire
guys for their beauty, fools for their wit, and boors for their
breeding. Your discernment and intelligence will be extolled to the
skies.

Every one can be got over by flattery. The belted earl--"belted earl"
is the correct phrase, I believe. I don't know what it means, unless
it be an earl that wears a belt instead of braces. Some men do. I
don't like it myself. You have to keep the thing so tight for it to
be of any use, and that is uncomfortable. Anyhow, whatever particular
kind of an earl a belted earl may be, he is, I assert, get-overable by
flattery; just as every other human being is, from a duchess to a
cat's-meat man, from a plow boy to a poet--and the poet far easier
than the plowboy, for butter sinks better into wheaten bread than into
oaten cakes.