' 'On bores,' 'On
lions,' were announced as speedily to appear. In the meantime, the
Essay on Nonchalance produced the best effects. A ci-devant stockbroker
cut a Duke dead at his club the day after its publication; and his
daughter yawned while his Grace's eldest son, the Marquess, made her an
offer as she was singing 'Di tanti palpiti.' The aristocrats got a
little frightened, and when an eminent hop-merchant and his lady had
asked a dozen Countesses to dinner, and forgot to be at home to receive
them, the old class left off quizzing.
The pamphlets, however, continued issuing forth, and the new people
advanced at a rate which was awful. They actually began to originate
some ideas of their own, and there was a whisper among the leaders of
voting the aristocrats old-fashioned. The Diffusion Society now caused
these exalted personages great anxiety and uneasiness. They argued that
Fashion was a relative quality; that it was quite impossible, and not to
be expected, that all people were to aspire to be fashionable; that it
was not in the nature of things, and that, if it were, society could not
exist; that the more their imitators advanced the more they should
baffle their imitations; that a first and fashion able class was a
necessary consequence of the organisation of man; and that a line of
demarcation would for ever be drawn between them and the other
islanders.
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