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heart-burnings, and jealousies, and envyings, and sensitive misunderstandings. It is a sort of purgatory through which the rising man and woman pass to reach the paradise of their hope, and from which an unhappy soul is never lifted. These people do not stop to inquire whether they have any sympathy, or any thing in common with the society which they seek-whether they would be lost, or whether they would be at home in it. They do not even seem to suspect that much of that which is called the best society, is the last society that a sensible, good man should seek.

Let us suppose that wealth is the central idea of the best society, and then let the aspirant to this society ask himself whether he has wealth. Has he a fine house and an elegant turnout? Does he dress expensively, and is he able to give costly entertainments? Is he prepared to unite, on a plane of perfect equality, with those who give the law to this society? If so, it will not be necessary for him to seek it, for the society will seek him, that is, if he be an agreeable man. If he be very rich indeed, why, it is not necessary that he be agreeable at all. But suppose literary culture be the central force of this society-has the aspirant any fitness for, or sympathy with it? Can he meet those who form this society as an equal, or mingle in it as a thoroughly sympathetic element? Would he feel happy and at home in a literary atmosphere? These

questions indicate a legitimate direction of inquiry, touching every case of this kind. Multitudes of those who are dissatisfied with their position have nothing in common with the society to which they aspire, and would be so much out of place there that they would be very unhappy. My idea, then, is, that so far as society is concerned, men and women naturally find their own place. A true gentleman and a genuine gentlewoman, wherever they may appear, and whoever they may be, are as readily known as any objects; and really good society recognizes its affinities for them at once. They do not have to seek for a place, for they fall into their place as naturally as a soldier falls into, and joins step with, his company.

Now what can be meaner than the jealousy which sits in the circle where it is really most at home, and regards with its green and greedy eyes, a circle for which it has no affinities, except the affinities which envy has for that which it considers above itself? It is a meanness, too, which has two sides to it. It is notorious that the black overseer upon the plantation is severer with his companions in slavery than a white man would be, and it is just as notorious that the man who has abjectly bowed before the distinction of wealth and social standing, always becomes insufferably pretentious when fortune or favor lifts him to the place of his desire. The man who shies those he esteems his

betters is always a proud man at heart, or if the adjective be allowable, an aristocratic man; and he is very careful to preserve his position of comparative respectability with relation to those below him. He will always be found to be pretentious in his own circle, and supercilious with relation to those in lower life. Is it not true that half of the neighborhood quarrels that take place, and three-quarters of the slander, and all the gossip that are indulged in, result from these petty jealousies between circles, and the sensitiveness that is felt regarding social standing on the part of those who are not quite so high in the world as they would like to be?

I can only notice briefly the shying that is done by the other side of society. In effect, I have done this already, perhaps, but it is proper to say directly that there are many moving in what is called the best society, who, with a suspicion that they do not belong there, or a feeling that their position is not secure there, shy a humble man when they meet him, and dodge all vulgar associations. I suppose that no true gentleman is ever afraid of being mistaken for any thing else. A gentleman knows that there is nothing which is more unlike the character of a gentleman than the supercilious treatment of the humble, and the fear of losing caste by treating every class with kindness. and politeness. I recognize no difference between the

two shying classes-the men who shy their fellow-men because they are high, and the men who shy their fellow-men because they are low. Both are mean, both are unmanly, and both are deficient in the self-respect necessary to the constitution of a gentleman. There are no better friends in the world-no men who understand each other better-none who meet and converse more freely at their ease-none who have more respect for each other-than a genuine gentleman and a self-respectful humble man, who knows his place in the social scale, and is abundantly satisfied with it. There is no need of any intercourse between men, of whatever difference of social standing, less dignified and gentle than this.

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"A child of God had rather ten thousand times suffer for Christ, than that Christ should suffer by Ilim."-JOHN MASON.

"For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along
Round the earth's electric circle the swift flash of right or wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet humanity's vast frame
Through its ocean-sounded fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;-
In the gain or loss of one race, all the rest have equal claim.”

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LOWELL.

NE of the most reliable supports of that which is

best in man is faith in other men. In truth, I believe that no man can lose his faith in men and women,

and remain as good a man as he was before the loss. Better evidence that a man is rotten in some portion of his character, or rotten clean through his character, cannot be found than real, or pretended, loss of faith in his fellows. When a young man tells me that he

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