would have had a long contract on his hands. For
instance, those people had inherited the idea that all
men without title and a long pedigree, whether they
had great natural gifts and acquirements or hadn't,
were creatures of no more consideration than so many
animals, bugs, insects; whereas I had inherited the
idea that human daws who can consent to masquerade
in the peacock-shams of inherited dignities and un-
earned titles, are of no good but to be laughed at.
The way I was looked upon was odd, but it was
natural. You know how the keeper and the public
regard the elephant in the menagerie: well, that is the
idea. They are full of admiration of his vast bulk and
his prodigious strength; they speak with pride of the
fact that he can do a hundred marvels which are far