08下 | 管家难当，趋势难挡

上集回顾

对于尊严，一人认为如女人的美，生而自带。而Stevens认为这不公平，因为有Mr. Marshall案例可以证明这是可以后天努力修炼而来的。

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In my view, then, it was rather defeatist from a vocational standpoint to adopt a stance like Mr Graham's.

It is my firm conviction that at the peak of his career at Loughborough House, my father was indeed the embodiment of 'dignity'.

I realize that if one looks at the matter objectively, one has to concede my father lacked various attributes one may normally expect in a great butler. But those same absent attributes, I would argue, are every time those of a superficial and decorative order, attributes that are attractive, no doubt, as icing on the cake, but are not pertaining to what is really essential. I refer to things such as good accent and command of language, general knowledge on wide-ranging topics such as falconing or newt-mating - attributes none of which my father could have boasted. 


The obsessions with eloquence and general knowledge would appear to be ones that emerged with our generation, probably in the wake of Mr Marshall, when lesser men trying to emulate his greatness mistook the superficial for the essence. 

It is my view that our generation has been much too preoccupied with the 'trimmings'; goodness knows how much time and energy has gone into the practising of accent and command of language, how many hours spent studying encyclopedias and volumes of 'Test Your Knowledge', when the time should have been spent mastering the basic fundamentals.

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