I shook hands with Lord
Mafferton without the slightest personal indignation with him for being
a peer, and remember thinking that if he had been a duke I should have
had just the same charity for him. Indeed, I was sorry, and am still
sorry, that during the four months I spent in England I didn't meet a
single duke. This is less surprising than it looks, as they are known to
be very scarce, and at least a quarter of a million Americans visit
Great Britain every year; but I should like to have known one or two. As
it was, four or five knights--knights are very thick--one baronet, Lord
Mafferton, one marquis--but we had no conversation--one colonel of
militia, one Lord Mayor, and a Horse Guard, rank unknown, comprise my
acquaintance with the aristocracy. A duke or so would have completed the
set. And the magnanimity which I would so willingly have stretched to
include a duke spread itself over other British institutions as amply as
Arthur could have wished. When I saw things in Hyde Park on Sunday that
I was compelled to find excuses for, I thought of the tyrant's iron
heel; and when I was obliged to overlook the superiorities of the titled
great, I reflected upon the difficulty of walking in iron heels without
inconveniencing a prostrate population.
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