The Persian satrape, we are told, when he saw the king of Sparta at the
place of their conference stretched on the grass with his soldiers, blushed
at the provision he made for the accommodation of his own person; he
ordered the furs and the carpets to be withdrawn; he felt his own
inferiority; and recollected, that he was to treat with a man, not to vie
with a pageant in costly attire and magnificence.

When, amid circumstances that make no trial of the virtues or talents of
men, we have been accustomed to the air of superiority which people of
fortune derive from their retinue, we are apt to lose every sense of
distinction arising from merit, or even from abilities. We rate our fellow
citizens by the figure they are able to make; by their buildings, their
dress, their equipage, and the train of their followers. All these
circumstances make a part in our estimate of what is excellent; and if the
master himself is known to be a pageant in the midst of his fortune, we
nevertheless pay our court to his station, and look up with an envious,
servile, or dejected mind, to what is, in itself, scarcely fit to amuse
children; though, when it is worn as a badge of distinction, it inflames
the ambition of those we call the great, and strikes the multitude with awe
and respect.

We judge of entire nations by the productions of a few mechanical arts, and
think we are talking of men, while we are boasting of their estates, their
dress, and their palaces. The sense in which we apply the terms,
_great_, and _noble, high rank_, and _high life_, show that we have,
on such occasions, transferred the idea of perfection from the character
to the equipage; and that excellence itself is, in our esteem, a
mere pageant, adorned at a great expense by the labours of many workmen.