At this moment the Leader of the House came in from behind the Speaker's chair and took his place between Mr Roper and Sir Orlando Drought. When a man has to declare a solemn purpose on a solemn occasion in a solemn place, it is needful that he should be solemn himself. And though the solemnity which befits a man best will be that which the importance of the moment may produce, without thought given by himself to his own outward person, still, who is there can refrain himself from some attempt? Who can boast, who that has been versed in the ways and duties of high places, that he has kept himself free from all study of grace, of feature, or attitude, of gait--or even of dress? For most of our bishops, for most of our judges, or our statesmen, our orators, 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.
