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The object with which Philip had sent him to the Netherlands, that he might conciliate the hearts of its inhabitants by the personal graces which he had inherited from his imperial father, seemed in a fair way of accomplishment, for it was not only the venal applause of titled sycophants that he strove to merit, but he mingled gaily and familiarly with all classes of citizens.
They seldom hope to attain to anything better than a situation as "chief mate of the junior clerk," as we say in Russia, and either become sycophants, disgusting flatterers of their present lords, or, which is still worse, or at any rate sillier, begin to edit a newspaper full of cheap liberalism, which gradually develops into a revolutionary organ. But all this is only en passant.
The success I had was simply appalling. The astounded audience seemed to remember nothing of the speech of the Orchestral Conductor Royal save the incidental attack I had made upon the court sycophants. The news of this incredible event spread like wildfire. The next day I rehearsed Rienzi, which was to be performed the following evening.
Brokers, lawyers, sycophants, tipsters, treacherous ex-employés of Quarrier, detectives, up-State petty officials, lobbyists from Albany, newspaper men, men from Wall Street, Broad Street, Mulberry Street, Forty-second Street all these he saw in units, relays, regiments either at his offices or after dinner and sometimes after midnight in his own house.
Sam Sturgis was decidedly unpopular. No boy who puts on airs is likely to be a favorite with any class of persons, and Sam put on rather more than he was entitled to. From time to time he received a rebuff, but still money will tell. He had his followers and sycophants, but we may be sure that Ben was not numbered among them.
At all events, sentiments scarcely less uncompromising were continually held, not by mere sycophants and courtiers, but by many whose opinions were adorned by noble Christian lives, willing self-sacrifice, and undaunted resolution.
Virtue likewise can only be acquired by the discharge of relative duties; but the importance of these sacred duties will scarcely be felt by the being who is cajoled out of his humanity by the flattery of sycophants.
If I assume, at this time, more than ordinary liberty of speech, I conjure you to suffer, patiently, those truths, which have no other end, but your own good. You have too many reasons to be sensible how much you have suffered, by hearkening to sycophants. I shall, therefore, be plain, in laying before you the grounds of past miscarriages, in order to correct you in your future conducts.
True ambition is hungry for affection and friends, placing lovers ahead of sycophants. And the finer qualities, the softer virtues, attract more surely than mere fame. These and similar reflections came to young Thornton rather incoherently. It was not that he desired the affection or the admiration of Madeleine Presson.
In those snowy December days, the people at last realised that they were being tricked, and that the German-born Empress was striving, with her sycophants and with the "holy" rascal, for a separate peace.
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