"Read it yourself.
Egotistical? Stuff! Everybody's egotistical. I hate modest men; they're
all rascals. Read it and assert your own importance. You have a better
right to do so than most of your neighbors, for you belong to the
aristocracy of talent--the only aristocracy, in my opinion, that is
worth a straw." Here her ladyship took a pinch of snuff, and looked at
the middle-class families, as much as to say:--"There! what do you
think of that from a Member of your darling Peerage?"
Thus encouraged, Valentine took his station (wand in hand) beneath
"Columbus," and unrolled the manuscript.
"What a very peculiar man Mr. Blyth is!" whispered one of the lady
visitors to an acquaintance behind her.
"And what a very unusual mixture of people he seems to have asked!"
rejoined the other, looking towards the doorway, where the democracy
loomed diffident in Sunday clothes.
"The pictures which I have the honor to exhibit," began Valentine from
the manuscript, "have been painted on a principle--"
"I beg your pardon, Blyth," interrupted Lady Brambledown, whose sharp
ears had caught the remark made on Valentine and his "mixture of
people," and whose liberal principles were thereby instantly stimulated
into publicly asserting themselves.
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