Many and interesting as are the disguises of avarice, it is only in rank and ancestry that you find perfect complacency and assurance. "We have all heard," says Thackeray, "of the dying French duchess who viewed her coming dissolution and subsequent fate so easily, because she said she was sure that Heaven must deal politely with a person of her quality." You recollect that other duchess, in Saint-Simon, who, on the death of a sinner of illustrious race, said, "They may say what they like, but no one shall persuade me that God does not think of it twice before he damns a man of his birth." An old lady once said to De Tocqueville, "I have been reading with great satisfaction the genealogies which prove that Jesus Christ descended from David. It shows that our Lord was a gentleman." "We are somewhat ashamed in general," said Senior to De Tocqueville, "of Jewish blood; yet the Levis boast of their descent from the Hebrew Levi." "They are proud of it," answered De Tocqueville; "because they make themselves out to be cousins of the blessed Virgin. They have a picture in which a Duke de Levi stands bareheaded before the Virgin. 'Pray put your hat on, cousin,' she says. 'I had rather keep it off,' he answered."
"Do we not every day meet with people," says Xavier de Maistre, "who fancy they are ill because they are unshaven, or because some one has thought they have looked poorly, and told them so? Dress has such influence upon men's minds that there are valetudinarians who think themselves in better health than usual when they have on a new coat and well powdered wig. They deceive the public and themselves by their nicety about dress, until one finds some fine morning they have died in full fig, and their death startles everybody."
Lord Eldon was fond of relating amusing anecdotes of the famous state trials of Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwall, which occurred while he was attorney general. "Every evening," he said, "upon my leaving the court, a signal was given that I was coming out, for a general hissing and hooting of the attorney general. This went through the street in which the court sat, from one end of it to the other, and was continued all the way down to Ludgate Hill and by Fleet Market. One evening, at the rising of the court, I was preparing to retire, when Mr. Garrow said, 'Do not, Mr. Attorney, pass that tall man at the end of the table.' 'And why not?' said Mr. Law, who stood next. 'He has been here,' answered Mr. Garrow, 'during the whole trial, with his eyes constantly fixed on the attorney general.' 'I will pass him,' said Mr. Law. 'And so will I,' was my rejoinder. As we passed, the man drew back. When I entered my carriage, the mob rushed forward, crying, 'That's he, drag him out!' Mr. Erskine, from whose carriage the mob had taken off the horses to draw him home in triumph, stopped the people, saying, 'I will not go without the attorney general!' I instantly addressed them: 'So you imagine, that if you kill me, you will be without an attorney general! Before ten o'clock to-morrow there will be a new attorney general, by no means so favorably disposed to you as I am.' I heard a friend in the crowd exclaim, 'Let him alone! let him alone!' They separated, and I proceeded. When I reached my home in Gower Street, I saw, close to my door, the tall man who stood near me in court. I had no alternative; I instantly went up to him: 'What do you want?' I said. 'Do not be alarmed,' he answered; 'I have attended in court during the whole of the trial--I know my own strength, and am resolved to stand by you. You once did an act of great kindness to my father. Thank God, you are safe at home. May He bless and protect you!' He instantly disappeared."