He has no objection to ride
a fine horse when he has the opportunity: he has his day-dream of
making a fortune of two hundred thousand pounds by becoming a
merchant and doing business after the Armenian fashion; and there
can be no doubt that he would have been glad to wear fine clothes,
provided he had had sufficient funds to authorize him in wearing
them. For the sake of wandering the country and plying the hammer
and tongs, he would not have refused a commission in the service of
that illustrious monarch George the Fourth, provided he had thought
that he could live on his pay, and not be forced to run in debt to
tradesmen, without any hope of paying them, for clothes and
luxuries, as many highly genteel officers in that honourable
service were in the habit of doing. For the sake of tinkering, he
would certainly not have refused a secretaryship of an embassy to
Persia, in which he might have turned his acquaintance with
Persian, Arabic, and the Lord only knows what other languages, to
account. He took to tinkering and smithery, because no better
employments were at his command. No war is waged in the book
against rank, wealth, fine clothes, or dignified employments; it is
shown, however, that a person may be a gentleman and a scholar
without them. Rank, wealth, fine clothes, and dignified
employments, are no doubt very fine things, but they are merely
externals, they do not make a gentleman, they add external grace
and dignity to the gentleman and scholar, but they make neither;
and is it not better to be a gentleman without them than not a
gentleman with them? Is not Lavengro, when he leaves London on
foot with twenty pounds in his pocket, entitled to more respect
than Mr.
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