h, and should take that
rank which is due to his merit.[R]

The error committed by our professedly republican communities
consists, not in the recognition of classes and grades of rank, but in
placing them, as they too often do, on artificial and not on natural
grounds. We have had frequent occasion, in the preceding pages, to
speak of superiors and inferiors. We fully recognize the relation
which these words indicate. It is useless to quarrel with Nature, who
has nowhere in the universe given us an example of the absolute,
unqualified, dead-level equality which some pseudo-reformers have
vainly endeavored to institute among men. Such leveling is neither
possible nor desirable. Harmony is born of difference, and not of
sameness.

We have in our country a class of toad-eaters who delight in paying
the most obsequious homage to fictitious rank of every kind. A vulgar
millionaire of the Fifth Avenue, and a foreign adventurer with a
meaningless title, are equally objects of their misplaced deference.
Losing sight of their own manhood and self-respect, they descend to
the most degrading sycophancy. We have little hope of benefiting them.
They are "joined to their idols; let them alone."

But a much larger class of our people are inclined to go to the
opposite extreme, and ignore veneration, in its human aspect,
altogether. They have no reverence for anybody or anything. This class
of people will read our book, and, we trust, profit by its well-meant
hints. We respect them, though we can not always commend their
manners. They have independence and manliness, but fail to accord due
respect to the manhood of others. It is for their special benefit that
we leave touched with considerable emphasis on the deference due to
age and _genuine_ rank, from whatever source derived.

Your townsman, Mr. Dollarmark, has no claim on you for any special
token of respect, simply because he inherited half a million, which
has grown in his hands to a million and a half, while you can not
count half a thousand, or because he lives in his own palatial
mansion, and you in a hired cottage; but your neighbor, Mr. Anvil,
who, setting out in life, like yourself, without a penny, has amassed
a little fortune by his own unaided exertions, and secured a high
social position by his manliness, integrity, and good breeding, is
entitled to a certain deference on your part--a recognition of his
merits and his superiority. Mr. Savant, who has gained distin