our generals, for many even of our doctors and our parsons, even our attorneys, our taxgatherers, and certainly our butlers and our coachmen.  Mr Turveydrop, the great professor of deportment, has done much.  But there should always be the art to underlie and protect the art;—­the art that can hide the art.  The really clever archbishop,—­the really potent chief justice, the man, who as a politician, will succeed in becoming a king of men, should know how to carry his buckram without showing it.  It was in this that Sir Timothy perhaps failed a little.  There are men who look as though they were born to wear blue ribbons.  It has come, probably, from study, but it seems to be natural.  Sir Timothy did not impose on those who looked at him as do these men.  You see a little of the paint, you could hear the crumple of the starch and the padding; you could trace something of the uneasiness in the would-be composed grandeur of the brow.  ‘Turveydrop!’ the spectator would say to himself.  But after all it may be a question whether a man be open to reproach for not doing that well which the greatest among us,—­if we could find one great enough,—­would not do at all.

For I think we must hold that true personal dignity should be achieved,—­must, if it is to be quite true, have been achieved,—­ without any personal effort.  Though it be evinced, in part, by the carriage of the body, that carriage should be the fruit of the operation of the mind.  Even when it be assisted by external garniture such as special clothes, and wigs, and ornaments, such garniture should be prescribed by the sovereign or by custom, and should not have been selected by the wearer.  In regard to speech a man may study all that which may make him suasive, but if he go beyond that he will trench on those histrionic efforts, which he will know to be wrong because he will be ashamed to acknowledge them.  It is good to be beautiful, but it should come of God and not of the hairdresser.  And personal dignity is a great possession; but a man should struggle for it no more than he would for beauty.  Many, however, do struggle for it, and with such success that, though they do not achieve quite the real thing, still they get something on which they can bolster themselves up and be mighty.

Others, older men than Silverbridge, saw as much as did our young friends, but they were more complaisant and more reasonable.  They, too, heard the crackle of the buckram, and were aware that the last touch of awe had come upon that brow just as its owner was emerging from the shadow of the Speaker’s chair;—­but to them it was a thing of course.  A real Csar is not to be found every day, nor can we always have a Pitt to control our debates.  That kind of thing, that last touch has its effect.  Of course it is all paint,—­ but how would the poor girl look before the gaslights if there were no paint?  The House of Commons likes a little deportment on occasions.  If a special man looks bigger than you, you can console yourself by reflecting that he also looks bigger than your fellows.  Sir Timothy probably knew what he was about, and did himself on the whole more good than harm by his little tricks.