ATHENS. 
95 
mirals of the Duck ponds, Knights of the Bed-chamber, and 
other distinguished men of rank. 
Men did I say ? Men ? Pardon the slander ! It was un¬ 
intentional. I mean no disrespect to my fellow-creatures 
of the male sex ; the word is used in a conventional sense. 
There is, however, in certain countries where royalty exists, 
a class of creatures who consider it no degradation to occupy 
positions of this kind ; and there is in our own country a class 
so slavish in their devotion to rank and station, that they are 
ever ready to worship such creatures—to bend the knee before 
the titled minions of royalty. It may be said that these titles 
are nominal. Does that make them the less degrading ? He 
who would suffer himself to be called the Prince of Flunkeys, 
or the High-chief of Sneaks, and deliberately accept the title 
as merely nominal, is a flunkey or a sneak at heart, whether 
he be paid in money for the indignity, or rewarded with im¬ 
aginary honors ; and he who would accept the title of a base- 
born menial, not from necessity but from choice, is more de¬ 
spicable than the basest of menials; he is one, who, in the 
language of Junius, could never aspire to hatred, never rise 
above contempt: to claim for such a creature any attribute 
of manliness, is to desecrate God’s own image in which man 
is made. 
But really, I had almost forgotten in the struggle between 
my growing passion for royalty and the prejudices of educa¬ 
tion in favor of democracy, the high hopes of preferment sug¬ 
gested by the attentions of King Otho and his amiable spouse. 
The fact is, my zeal on both sides has been productive of some 
slight discrepancy. I can only account for it in this way : 
that we tourists who visit the old world, have our share of 
that natural weakness which causes the mass of mankind to 
sacrifice principle where vanity and self-importance are con¬ 
cerned. We like to astonish our untraveled brethren at home 
by boasting of our intimacy with people of rank in Europe; 
we scorn titles as a matter of principle, and worship them 
as a matter of personal ambition. We fashionable people 
who travel, as well as some of us who don’t travel, are just 
as prone to aspire to what we condemn in others, as the 
