In discussing a quintessential cad of the upper class in Barnaby Rudge, Charles Dickens permitted himself what his friend Thomas Carlyle may have called ‘a philosophical reflection.’  (You can find the phrase in the first sentence of The French Revolution.’

The despisers of mankind – apart from the mere fools and mimics of that creed – are of two sorts.  They who believe their merit neglected and unappreciated, make up one class; they who receive adulation and flattery, knowing their own worthlessness, compose the other.  Be sure that the coldest misanthropes are ever of this last order.

At the risk of being uncharitable, this might bring to mind Canberra, Washington and Westminster – and a fair slice of the press.

Who was it who said that we go to great writers for the truth?