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laws; amongst others, one which condemns to death any one who cuts down
a three-year-old poplar tree. Their supremacy is such that they have a
language of their own. In heraldic style, black, which is called sable
for gentry, is called saturne for princes, and diamond for peers.
Diamond dust, a night thick with stars, such is the night of the happy!
Even amongst themselves these high and mighty lords have their own
distinctions. A baron cannot wash with a viscount without his
permission. These are indeed excellent things, and safeguards to the
nation. What a fine thing it is for the people to have twenty-five
dukes, five marquises, seventy-six earls, nine viscounts, and sixty-one
barons, making altogether a hundred and seventy-six peers, of which some
are your grace, and some my lord! What matter a few rags here and there,
withal: everybody cannot be dressed in gold. Let the rags be. Cannot you
see the purple? One balances the other. A thing must be built of
something. Yes, of course, there are the poor--what of them! They line
the happiness of the wealthy. Devil take it! our lords are our glory!
The pack of hounds belonging to Charles, Baron Mohun, costs him as much
as the hospital for lepers in Moorgate, and for Christ's Hospital,
founded for children, in 1553, by Edward VI. Thomas Osborne, Duke of
Leeds, spends yearly on his liveries five thousand golden guineas. The
Spanish grandees have a guardian appointed by law to prevent their
ruining themselves. That is cowardly. Our lords are extravagant and
magnificent. I esteem them for it. Let us not abuse them like envious
folks. I feel happy when a beautiful vision passes. I have not the
light, but I have the reflection. A reflection thrown on my ulcer, you
will say. Go to the devil! I am a Job, delighted in the contemplation of
Trimalcion. Oh, that beautiful and radiant planet up there! But the
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