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Dixwell's is set among the oi polloi, who, in the day of reckoning, were judged hardly worth a hanging; but Whalley's occupies the bad eminence of being fourth on the list, and next to the hard-fisted autograph of Oliver himself; while William Goffe's is signed just before the signature of Pride, whose miserable penmanship that day, it will be remembered, cost his poor body an airing on the gibbet, in the year 1660.
He institutes a new system of censorship of his own. It takes the form of sneering at and condemning anything that does not conform to his own ideas. He sniffs at all sorts of innocently happy people who are inoffensively pursuing their noisy course through life. He begins to hate noise. He makes a virtue of his abstention from ordinary pleasures. He speaks condescendingly of the "hoi polloi."
He seems to have been unnoticed, except as one of the hoi polloi of the musical rabble, till an accident attracted attention to his talent. A drama was to be produced in which a very difficult cavatina was introduced. The manager was at a loss for any one to sing it till Rubini proffered his services. The fee was a trifling one, but it paved the way for an engagement in the minor parts of opera.
They at length ceased altogether to see each other. Yet there was between them a tacit compact like that between the hereditary guests in the Iliad: "'Egkhea d' allelon aleometha kai di' dmilon. Polloi men gar emoi Troes kleitoi t' epikouroi Kteinein on ke theos ge pori kai possi kikheio Polloi d' au soi Akhaioi enairmen, on ke duneai."
Of the dwellings of the place, fully twenty were of a quality that denoted ease in the condition of their occupants, and bespoke the habits of those accustomed to live in a manner superior to the oi polloi of the human race.
The enjoyment of art, as the disinterested cognition devoid of Will, can afford an interval of rest from the drudgery of Will service. But esthetic beatitude can be obtained only by a few; it is not for the hoi polloi. And then, art can give only a transient consolation. Everything in life indicates that earthly happiness is destined to be frustrated or to be recognized as an illusion.
"This is the region of taste, Miss Effingham," he said, with a shrug of the jaw, if such a member can shrug; "and I do not wonder at finding you here." He then chatted pleasantly a moment, with the party, and passed on, giving an ominous gape, as he drew nearer to the oi polloi of literature. A moment after appeared Mr.
Hateful word, yes, but having a perfectly legitimate niche, since in the minds of the hoi polloi it nicely describes the differences between the poor gentleman and the gentleman of leisure. To proceed with the digression, to no one is the word more hateful than to the individual to whom it is applied. Cutty would have blushed at the clerk's thought.
Gregor, valeting in a hotel, pressing coats and trousers and sewing on buttons! Groggy old world, wasn't it? Gregor, pressing the trousers of the hoi polloi! Gregor, who could have sent New York mad with that old Stradivarius of his! But Gregor was wise. Safety for him lay in obscurity; and what was more obscure than a hotel valet?
"And we really can't consider that there is any more style to this manner of driving than if we belonged to the hoi polloi who drive with their husbands, and let their dogs follow, can we?" Bee gave me a look. "I believe you are pinching him to make him howl," she said.
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