These lower grades, especially the
impecunious, or marginal, gentlemen of leisure, affiliate
themselves by a system of dependence or fealty to the great ones;
by so doing they gain an increment of repute, or of the means
with which to lead a life of leisure, from their patron. They
become his courtiers or retainers, servants; and being fed and
countenanced by their patron they are indices of his rank and
vicarious consumer of his superfluous wealth. Many of these
affiliated gentlemen of leisure are at the same time lesser men
of substance in their own right; so that some of them are
scarcely at all, others only partially, to be rated as vicarious
consumers. So many of them, however, as make up the retainer and
hangers-on of the patron may be classed as vicarious consumer
without qualification. Many of these again, and also many of the
other aristocracy of less degree, have in turn attached to their
persons a more or less comprehensive group of vicarious consumer
in the persons of their wives and children, their servants,
retainers, etc.
Throughout this graduated scheme of vicarious leisure and
vicarious consumption the rule holds that these offices must be
performed in some such manner, or under some such circumstance or
insignia, as shall point plainly to the master to whom this
leisure or consumption pertains, and to whom therefore the
resulting increment of good repute of right inures.
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