Now it is in this fondness for being stupendously
genteel, and keeping up fine appearances--this vulgar and common
social vice of hanging on to great connexions at any price, that
the money goes. The last time you got a distinguished writer at a
public meeting, and he was called on to address you somewhere
amongst the small hours, he told you he felt like the man in plush
who was permitted to sweep the stage down after all the other
people had gone. If the founder of this society were here, I
should think he would feel like a sort of Rip van Winkle reversed,
who had gone to sleep backwards for a hundred years and woke up to
find his fund still lying under the feet of people who did nothing
for it instead of being emancipated and standing alone long ago.
This Bloomsbury house is another part of the same desire for show,
and the officer who inhabits it. (I mean, of course, in his
official capacity, for, as an individual, I much respect him.)
When one enters the house it appears to be haunted by a series of
mysterious-looking ghosts, who glide about engaged in some
extraordinary occupation, and, after the approved fashion of
ghosts, but seldom condescend to disclose their business. What are
all these meetings and inquiries wanted for? As for the authors, I
say, as a writer by profession, that the long inquiry said to be
necessary to ascertain whether an applicant deserves relief, is a
preposterous pretence, and that working literary men would have a
far better knowledge of the cases coming before the board than can
ever be attained by that committee.
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