Nine-tenths of
them are in a place where they have no business to be: so much is
certain. And what are they doing, these swarms of parasites? Justifying
their salaries by inventing fresh regulations and meddlesome bye-laws,
and making themselves objectionable all round. Distrust of authority
should be the first civic duty, even as the first military duty is said
to be the reverse of it. We catch ourselves talking of the "lesson of
history." Why not take that lesson to heart? Reverence of the mandarin
destroyed the fair life of old China, which was overturned by the
Tartars not because Chinamen were too weak or depraved, but because they
were the opposite: too moral, too law-abiding, too strong in their sense
of right. They paid for their virtue with the extinction of their
wonderful culture. They ought to have known better; they ought to have
rated morality at its true worth, since it was the profoundest Chinaman
himself who said that virtue is merely etiquette - or something to that
effect.
I found myself studying the delegato's physiognomy. What could one do
with such a composite face? It is a question which often confronts me
when I see such types. It confronted me then, in a flash. How make it
more presentable, more imposing? By what alterations? Shaving that
moustache? No; his countenance could not carry the loss; it would
forfeit what little air of dignity it possessed. A small pointed beard,
an eye-glass?
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