A Miscellany of Men | Page 9

word "Northcliffe." What does that simple word suggest to the
simple soul? To my simple soul (uninstructed otherwise) it suggests a
lofty and lonely crag somewhere in the wintry seas towards the
Orkheys or Norway; and barely clinging to the top of this crag the
fortress of some forgotten chieftain. As it happens, of course, I know
that the word does not mean this; it means another Fleet Street
journalist like myself or only different from myself in so far as he has
sought to secure money while I have sought to secure a jolly time.
A title does not now even serve as a distinction: it does not distinguish.
A coronet is not merely an extinguisher: it is a hiding-place.
But the really odd thing is this. This false quality in titles does not
merely apply to the new and vulgar titles, but to the old and historic

titles also. For hundreds of years titles in England have been essentially
unmeaning; void of that very weak and very human instinct in which
titles originated. In essential nonsense of application there is nothing to
choose between Northcliffe and Norfolk. The Duke of Norfolk means
(as my exquisite and laborious knowledge of Latin informs me) the
Leader of Norfolk. It is idle to talk against representative government
or for it. All government is representative government until it begins to
decay. Unfortunately (as is also evident) all government begins to
decay the instant it begins to govern. All aristocrats were first meant as
envoys of democracy; and most envoys of democracy lose no time in
becoming aristocrats. By the old essential human notion, the Duke of
Norfolk ought simply to be the first or most manifest of Norfolk men.
I see growing and filling out before me the image of an actual Duke of
Norfolk. For instance, Norfolk men all make their voices run up very
high at the end of a sentence. The Duke of Norfolk's voice, therefore,
ought to end in a perfect shriek. They often (I am told) end sentences
with the word "together"; entirely irrespective of its meaning. Thus I
shall expect the Duke of Norfolk to say: "I beg to second the motion
together"; or "This is a great constitutional question together." I shall
expect him to know much about the Broads and the sluggish rivers
above them; to know about the shooting of water-fowl, and not to know
too much about anything else. Of mountains he must be wildly and
ludicrously ignorant. He must have the freshness of Norfolk; nay, even
the flatness of Norfolk. He must remind me of the watery expanses, the
great square church towers and the long level sunsets of East England.
If he does not do this, I decline to know him.
I need not multiply such cases; the principle applies everywhere. Thus I
lose all interest in the Duke of Devonshire unless he can assure me that
his soul is filled with that strange warm Puritanism, Puritanism shot
with romance, which colours the West Country. He must eat nothing
but clotted cream, drink nothing but cider, reading nothing but 'Lorna
Doone', and be unacquainted with any town larger than Plymouth,
which he must regard with some awe, as the Central Babylon of the
world. Again, I should expect the Prince of Wales always to be full of
the mysticism and dreamy ardour of the Celtic fringe.

Perhaps it may be thought that these demands are a little extreme; and
that our fancy is running away with us. Nevertheless, it is not my Duke
of Devonshire who is funny; but the real Duke of Devonshire. The
point is that the scheme of titles is a misfit throughout: hardly anywhere
do we find a modern man whose name and rank represent in any way
his type, his locality, or his mode of life. As a mere matter of social
comedy, the thing is worth noticing. You will meet a man whose name
suggests a gouty admiral, and you will find him exactly like a timid
organist: you will hear announced the name of a haughty and almost
heathen grande dame, and behold the entrance of a nice, smiling
Christian cook. These are light complications of the central fact of the
falsification of all names and ranks. Our peers are like a party of
mediaeval knights who should have exchanged shields, crests, and
pennons. For the present rule seems to be that the Duke of Sussex may
lawfully own the whole of Essex; and that the Marquis of Cornwall
may own all the hills and valleys so long as they are not Cornish.
The clue to all this tangle is as simple as it is terrible. If England is an
aristocracy, England is dying. If this system IS the country, as some say,
the country