which they despise then there are the of wealth how many of them inherit the genius and hard which built up their fortunes how many acknowledge the stem and heavy responsibility of their opportunities how many refuse to dream their lives away in a luxury how many are smitten with the lofty ambition of au enduring name by works of a permanent value how many do not into dainty and their manhood with instead of a hearty human sympathy how many are not satisfied with having the horses and the carriages and an unlimited wardrobe and a weak affectation and imitation of foreign life the papers and who are these of our secondly these old families the spirit of our time and of our country knows no such thing but the of society hears constantly of a good family it means simply the mass of children and descendants of some man who deserved well of his country and whom his country honors but sad is the of a great name the son of will inevitably be measured by the niece of pope must show some superiority to other women so to speak or her equality is inferiority the feeling of men attributes some charm to blood and we look to see the daughter of as fair as her mother and the son of shakespeare musical as his if they are not so if they are merely names and common persons � if there is no nor shakespeare nor washington nor bacon in their words or actions or lives then we must pity them and pass gently on not them but that it is one of the laws of greatness that it all things in its vicinity which would otherwise show large enough nay in our regard for the great man we may even admit to a compassionate honor as upon our charity those who bear and his name but if these should pre upon that fame and claim any of our best society and women because their dead grandfather was a hero � they must be shown the door directly we should dread to be bom a or a or a we should not like to be the second duke of nor charles 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 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 man may say but by king of gods and men what i the instinctive do you not see our friend that you are only pointing your own if your father was governor of the state what right have you to use that fact only to your self conceit take care good care for whether you say it by your lips or by your life that withering response you � then what are if your was great you are under bonds to greatness if you are small make haste to learn it and thanking heaven the papers that your name has been made illustrious retire into a corner and keep it at least our is a class made by sundry french dancing masters and mr brown they are a corps de for the use of private they are by society for the use of young and who have dared two or three years of the tight they are cultivated for their heels not their heads their life begins at ten o clock in the and lasts until four in the morning they go home and sleep until nine then they sleepy to counting houses and offices and on until dinner time or unable to do that they are at work all day and their cheeks grow pale and their lips thin and their eyes 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 be very manly with and coarse stories and then to rush into hot and glittering rooms and seize very 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 looks what a good are you going to mrs s is this the assembled of manhood and � our best womanhood called best society and to see which is so envied a privilege if such are the elements can we be long in arriving at the present state and necessary future condition of parties vanity fair is peculiarly a picture of modem society it aims at english follies but its mark is universal as the madness is it is called a satire but after much reading we cannot discover the satire a state of society not at all superior to that of vanity fair is not unknown to our experience and unless truth telling be satire unless the most real be satire unless tears of sorrow and the bitter regret of a manly mind over the miserable spectacle of wasted powers energies and lost opportunities be we do not find satire in that sad story the reader it with a grief beyond tears it leaves a vague in the mind as if we should suspect the air to be poisoned it suggests the terrible thought of the of moral power and the of noble character as a necessary consequence of contact with society every man looks suddenly and sharply around him and himself and his neighbors to ascertain if they are all parties to this corruption sentimental youths and 