, nor Charles Dickens, Jr. It is a terrible thing, one would
say, to a mind of honorable feeling, to be pointed out as somebody's
son, or uncle, or granddaughter, as if the excellence were all derived.
It must be a little humiliating to reflect that if your great-uncle had
not been somebody, you would be nobody--that, in fact, you are only a
name, and that, if you should consent to change it for the sake of a
fortune, as is sometimes done, you would cease to be anything but a rich
man. "My father was President, or Governor of the State," some pompous
man may say. But, by Jupiter! king of gods and men, what are _you_? is
the instinctive response. Do you not see, our pompous friend, that you
are only pointing your own unimportance? If your father was Governor of
the State, what right have you to use that fact only to fatten your
self-conceit? Take care, good care; for whether you say it by your lips
or by your life, that withering response awaits you--"then what are
_you_?" If your ancestor was great, you are under bonds to greatness. If
you are small, make haste to learn it betimes, and, thanking heaven that
your name has been made illustrious, retire into a corner and keep it,
at least, untarnished.

Our thirdly, is a class made by sundry French tailors, bootmakers,
dancing-masters, and Mr. Brown. They are a corps-de-ballet, for use of
private entertainments. They are fostered by society for the use of
young debutantes, and hardier damsels, who have dared two or three years
of the "tight" polka. They are cultivated for their heels, not their
heads. Their life begins at ten o'clock in the evening, and lasts until
four in the morning. They go home and sleep until nine; then they reel,
sleepy, to counting-houses and offices, and doze on desks until
dinnertime. Or, unable to do that, they are actively at work all day,
and their cheeks grow pale, and their lips thin, and their eyes
bloodshot and hollow, and they drag themselves home at evening to catch
a nap until the ball begins, or to dine and smoke at their club, and the
very manly with punches and coarse stories; and then to rush into hot
and glittering rooms, and seize very _decollete_ girls closely around
the waist, and dash with them around an area of stretched linen, saying
in the panting pauses, "How very hot it is!" "How very pretty Miss Podge
looks!" "What a good redowa!" "Are you going to Mrs. Potiphar's?"

Is this the assembled flower of manhood and womanhood, c