the portions he has carved with as much
grace as he displayed in carving the fowl.'

2. Further on, when contrasting, not the carvers, but the things _to be_
carved, coming to '_Neck of Veal_,' he says of the carver: 'Should the
vertebrae have not been jointed by the butcher, you would find yourself
in the position of the ungraceful carver, being compelled to exercise a
degree of strength which should never be suffered to appear, very
possibly, too, _assisting_ gravy in a manner not contemplated by the
person unfortunate enough to receive it.'

_Genteel_ is the vulgarest and most plebeian of all known words.
Accordingly (and strange it is that the educated users of this word
should not perceive that fact), aristocratic people--people in the most
undoubted _elite_ of society as to rank or connections--utterly ignore
the word. They are aware of its existence in English dictionaries; they
know that it slumbers in those vast repositories; they even apprehend
your meaning in a vague way when you employ it as an epithet for
assigning the pretensions of an individual or a family. Generally it is
understood to imply that the party so described is in a position to make
morning calls, to leave cards, to be presentable for anything to the
contrary apparent in manners, style of conversation, etc. But these and
other suggestions still leave a vast area unmapped of blank charts in
which the soundings are still doubtful.

The word 'genteel' is so eminently vulgar apparently for this reason,
that it presents a non-vulgar distinction under a gross and vulgar
conception of that distinction. The true and central notion, on which
the word revolves, is elevating; but, by a false abstraction of its
elements, it is degraded. And yet in parts of this island where the
progress of refinement is torpid, and the field of vision is both narrow
and unchanging in all that regards the _nuances_ of manners, I have
remarked that the word 'genteel' maintains its old advantageous
acceptation; and as a proof of this, eminent and even revolutionary
thinkers born and bred in such provincial twilight, use the word as if
untainted and hardly aware that it is flyblown.

Among ourselves it is certain that a peculiar style of gossip, of
babble, and of miniature intriguing, invests the atmosphere of little
'townishness,' such as often entangles the more thoughtful and
dignified of the residents in troublesome efforts at passive resistance
or active counter-a