ours of the night I would lie awake speculating upon
it, and wondering if it were impulses of this nature that elevated men
to high deeds and generous actions, and--to realize my conception in one
word--made them "gentlemen."

To be sure, in all the accessory advantages of such, Halkett was most
lamentably deficient, and it would have been labor in vain to endeavor
to conform him to any one of the usages of the polite world; and yet, I
thought, might it not be possible that this rude, unlettered man might
have within him, in the recesses of his own heart, all those finer
instincts, all those refinements of high feeling and honor that make
up a gentleman,--like a lump of pure virgin gold encased in a mass of
pudding-stone. The study of this problem took an intense hold upon me;
for while I could recognize in myself a considerable power for imitating
all the observations of the well-bred world, I grieved to see that these
graces were mere garments, which no more influenced a man's real actions
than the color of his coat or the shape of his hat will affect the
stages of an ague or the paroxysms of a fever.

To become a "gentleman," according to my very crude notions of that
character, was the ruling principle of my life. I knew that rank,
wealth, and station were all indispensably requisite; but these I
also fancied might be easily counterfeited, while other gifts must be
absolutely possessed,--such as a good address; a skill in all manly
exercises; a personal courage ever ready to the proof; a steady
adherence to a pledged word. Now I tried to educate myself to all these,
and to a certain extent I succeeded. In fact, I experienced what all men
have who have set up a standard before them, that constant measurement
will make one grow taller. I fancied that Halkett and myself were on
the way to the same object, by different roads. Forgive the absurd
presumption, most benevolent reader; for there is really something
insufferably ludicrous in the very thought; and I make the "confession"
now only in the fulness of a heart which is determined to have no
concealments.

That I rode my "mustang" with a greater air; that I wore my black fox
pelisse more jauntily; that I slung my rifle at my back with a certain
affectation of grace; that I was altogether "got up" with an eye to the
picturesque,--did not escape my companions, who made themselves vastly
merry at pretensions which, in their eyes, were so supremely ridiculous,
but wh