文档介绍：Worldly Ways and Byways
Worldly Ways and
Byways
Eliot Gregory
1
Worldly Ways and Byways
To the Reader
THERE existed formerly, in diplomatic circles, a curious custom,
since fallen into disuse, entitled the Pele Mele, contrived doubtless by
some distracted Master of Ceremonies to quell the endless jealousies and
quarrels for precedence between courtiers and diplomatists of contending
pretensions. Under this rule no rank was recognized, each person being
allowed at banquet, fete, or other public ceremony only such place as he
had been ingenious or fortunate enough to obtain.
Any one wishing to form an idea of the confusion that ensued, of the
intrigues and expedients resorted to, not only in procuring prominent
places, but also in ensuring the integrity of the Pele Mele, should glance
over the amusing memoirs of M. de Segur.
The aspiring nobles and ambassadors, harassed by this constant
upation, had little time or inclination left for any serious pursuit,
since, to take a moment's repose or an hour's breathing space was to risk
falling behind in the endless and aimless race. Strange as it may appear,
the knowledge that they owed place and preferment more to chance or
intrigue than to any personal merit or inherited right, instead of lessening
the value of the prizes for which all were striving, seemed only to enhance
them in the eyes of petitors.
ess was the unique standard by which they gauged their fellows.
Those who eeded revelled in the adulation of their friends, but when
any one failed, the fickle crowd passed him by to bow at more fortunate
feet.
No better picture could be found of the "world" of to-day, a perpetual
Pele Mele, where such advantages only are conceded as we have been
sufficiently enterprising to obtain, and are strong or clever enough to keep
- a petition, a daily steeplechase, favorable to daring spirits
and personal initiative but with the defect of keeping frail humanity ever
on the qui vive.
Philo