In the watches of the
night, we may assure ourselves that there is no such dignity; but
jostling with our fellows in the white light of day, we find that it does
exist, and that we ourselves measure ourselves by the dollars we happen
to possess. They give us confidence and carriage and dignity--ay, a
personal dignity which goes down deeper than the garments with which we
hide our nakedness. The world, when it knows nothing else of him,
measures a man by his clothes; but the man himself, if he be neither a
genius nor a philosopher, but merely a clay-born, measures himself by his
pocket-book. He cannot help it, and can no more fling it from him than
can the bashful young man his self-consciousness when crossing a ballroom
floor.

I remember once absenting myself from civilization for weary months.
When I returned, it was to a strange city in another country. The people
were but slightly removed from my own breed, and they spoke the same
tongue, barring a certain barbarous accent which I learned was far older
than the one imbibed by me with my mother's milk. A fur cap, soiled and
singed by many camp-fires, half sheltered the shaggy tendrils of my uncut
hair. My foot-gear was of walrus hide, cunningly blended with seal gut.
The remainder of my dress was as primal and uncouth. I was a sight to
give merriment to gods and men. Olympus must have roared at my coming.
The world, knowing me not, could judge me by my clothes alone. But I
refused to be so judged. My spiritual backbone stiffened, and I held my
head high, looking all men in the eyes. And I did these things, not that
I was an egotist, not that I was impervious to the critical glances of my
fellows, but because of a certain hogskin belt, plethoric and
sweat-bewrinkled, which buckled next the skin above the hips. Oh, it's
absurd, I grant, but had that belt not been so circumstanced, and so
situated, I should have shrunk away into side streets and back alleys,
walking humbly and avoiding all gregarious humans except those who were
likewise abroad without belts. Why? I do not know, save that in such
way did my fathers before me.

Viewed in the light of sober reason, the whole thing was preposterous.
But I walked down the gang-plank with the mien of a hero, of a barbarian
who knew himself to be greater than the civilization he invaded. I was
possessed of the arrogance of a Roman governor. At last I knew what it
was to be born to the purple, and I took my