old.

This servile vanity is not less natural or less common than the vanity
of dominion. Whoever feels himself incapable of command, at least
desires to obey a powerful chief. Serfs have been known to consider
themselves dishonored when they became the property of a mere count
after having been that of a prince, and Saint-Simon mentions a valet who
would only wait upon marquises.

July 7th, seven o'clock P. M.--I have just now been up the Boulevards;
it was the opera night, and there was a crowd of carriages in the
Rue Lepelletier. The foot-passengers who were stopped at a crossing
recognized the persons in some of these as we went by, and mentioned
their names; they were those of celebrated or powerful men, the
successful ones of the day.

Near me there was a man looking on with hollow cheeks and eager eyes,
whose thin black coat was threadbare. He followed with envious looks
these possessors of the privileges of power or of fame, and I read on
his lips, which curled with a bitter smile, all that passed in his mind.

"Look at them, the lucky fellows!" thought he; "all the pleasures
of wealth, all the enjoyments of pride, are theirs. Their names are
renowned, all their wishes fulfilled; they are the sovereigns of the
world, either by their intellect or their power; and while I, poor and
unknown, toil painfully along the road below, they wing their way over
the mountain-tops gilded by the broad sunshine of prosperity."

I have come home in deep thought. Is it true that there are these
inequalities, I do not say in the fortunes, but in the happiness of men?
Do genius and authority really wear life as a crown, while the greater
part of mankind receive it as a yoke? Is the difference of rank but a
different use of men's dispositions and talents, or a real inequality
in their destinies? A solemn question, as it regards the verification of
God's impartiality.

July 8th, noon.--I went this morning to call upon a friend from the
same province as myself, who is the first usher-in-waiting to one of our
ministers. I took him some letters from his family, left for him by a
traveller just come from Brittany. He wished me to stay.

"To-day," said he, "the Minister gives no audience: he takes a day of
rest with his family. His younger sisters are arrived; he will take them
this morning to St. Cloud, and in the evening he has invited his friends
to a private ball. I shall be dismissed directly for the rest of the
day. We can d