At least, in such a condition of social manners and feelings mere wealth was not installed on the throne of Mammon in the eyes of all men.

If one of the old coaches was more pitiably rickety than the rest; if the ancient-fashioned coat of some long-descended marchese was itself as threadbare as the old family liveries; if some widowed contessa had crept out from the last habitable corner of her dilapidated palazzo, where she was known to live on a modicum of chicory-water, brought in a tumbler from the nearest cafe, and a crust; not on any such account was there the smallest tendency towards a derisive smile on the lip, or in the mind of any man, at these pitiable attempts to keep up appearances, which everybody considered it right to keep up.

Not on any such account was the stately courtesy of the Legate's reception in the smallest degree modified.

It was subject, indeed, to many modifications; but these were wholly irrespective of any such circumstances.
There is a peculiar sort of naivete about Italian ostentation, which robs it of all its offensiveness.

Nobody exhibits their finery or grandeur for the sake of crushing another; nobody feels themselves crushed by the exhibition of it.