And so what he saves by avoiding the society of the ineffective country squires, after whom all the professional families run helter-skelter, but of his intimacy with whom, were he to profess it, a prince would think nothing, he will lavish on the politicians who (free-masons, or worse, though they be) can advance him in Diplomacy or "back" him in an election, and on the artists or scientists whose patronage can help him to "arrive" in those departments in which they excel, on everyone, in fact, who is in a position to confer a fresh distinction or to "bring off" a rich marriage.