Now your city knight may have a fat and rosy coachman, he may have a
tall and portly footman, a grave and a respectable butler; but whatever
his wealth, whatever his pretension, there is one functionary of a
great household he can never attain to--he can never have a groom of the
chambers. This, like the “chasseur” abroad, is the appendage of but one
class, by constant association with whom its habits are acquired,
its tastes engendered, and it would be equally absurd to see the tall
Hungarian in all the glitter of his hussar costume, behind the caleche
of a pastrycook, as to hear the low-voiced and courteous minion of
Devonshire House announce the uncouth, un-syllabled names, that come
east of St. Dunstan's.
So, in the same way, your new nations may get up a king and a court,
a senate, an army, and a ministry, but let them not meddle with
diplomacy--the moment they do this they burn their fingers: your
diplomate is like your chasseur, and your groom of the chambers; if he
be not well done, he is a miserable failure. The world has so many
types to refer to on this head, there can be no mistake. Talleyrand,
Nesselrode, Metternich, Lord Whitworth, and several more, have too long
given the tone to this peculiar walk to admit of any error concerning
it; however, your little folk will not be denied the pleasures of their
great acquaintance. They will have their diplomacy, and they will be
laughed at: look at the Yankees. There is not a country in Europe,
there is not a state however small, there is not a Coburgism with three
thousand inhabitants and three companies of soldiers, where _they_
haven't a minister resident with plenipotentiary powers extending to
every relation political and commercial, although all the while the
Yankees would be sorely puzzled to point out on the map the _locale_ of
their illustrious ally, and the Germans no less so to find out a reason
for their embassy. Happily on this score, the very bone and marrow of
diplomacy is consulted, and secrecy is inviolable; for, as your American
knows no other tongue save that spoken on the Alleghanies, he keeps his
own counsel and theirs also.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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