The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1859-06-23

of our special individuality, as distinguish,
ed from our generic humanity. 1t isjust
here that the very highest society asserts
its superior breeding. Among truly ele-
giant people of the highest ton, you will
find more real equality in social intercourse
than in country village. AS nuns drop
their birth-names and become Sister Mar.
garet and Sister Mary, so high-bred peo-
pie drop their personal distinctions and
become brothers and sisters of converse
tional charity. Nor are fashionable peo
pie without their heroism | believe there
are men that have shown as much self
devotion in carrying lone wall-fower
down to the supper-table as eyer saint OF
martyr in the act that has canonized his
name There are Florence Nightingales
of the ballroom, whom nothing can hold
back from their errands of mercy. They
find out the handed, gloveless under
graduate OF bucolic antecedents, as he
squirms in his corner, and distil their soft
words upon him like dew upon the green
herb. They reach even the poor relation,
whose dreary apparition saddens the per-
fumed atmosphere of the sumptuous draw
ing-room. | have known one of these
angels ask, Of her oaen accord, that des-
olate middle-aged man, whom nobody
seemed to know, should be presented to
her by the hostess. He wore no shirt
collar,-he had On black gloves, and was
hourishing a red bandanna handkerchief
Match me this, ye proud children ofpov-
erty, who boast of your paltry sacrifices
for each other Virtue in humble life
What is that to the glorious self-renun-
ciatijn of a martyr in pearls and diamonds
As | saw this noble woman bending grace
fully before the social mendicant,-the
billows of her beauty heaving under the
foam of the traitorous laces that half re-
vealed then,-I should have wept with
sympathetic emotion, but that tears, ex-
cept as a private demonstration, are an
ill-disguised expression of self-conscious-
ness and vanity, which is inadmissible in
good society.
| have sometimes thought, with pang,
of the position in which political chance
or contrivance might hereafter place some
one of our fellow-citizens. 1t has hap
pened hitherto, SO far as my limited knowl-
edge goes, that the President of the Unit
ed States has always been what might be
called in general terms gentleman.
But what fiat some future time the choice
of the people should fall upon one on
whom that lofty title could not, by any
stretch of charity, be bestowed? ? This
may happen,-how soon the future only
knows Think of this miserable man OF
coming political possib' lities,-an unpre-
sentable boor, sucked into Office by one OF
those eddies in the flow of popular senti-
ment which carry straws and chips into
the public harbor, while the PROSTATE
trunks of the monarchs of the forest hur-
ry down on the senseless stream to the
gulf of political oblivion ! Think of him,
[ say, and of the concentrated gaze OF
good society through its thousand eyes,
all continent, as it were, in one great burn
ing glass of ice that shrivels its wretched
object in fiery torture, itself cold as the
glacier of an unusual cavern! No,-there
will be angels Of good breeding then as
now, to shield the victim of free institu
tions from himself and from his torturers
| can fancy lovely woman playfully with
drawing the knife which he would abuse
by making it an instrument for the con
veyance of food,-or, failing in this kline
artifce, sacrificing herself by initiating his
use of that implement; how much harder
than to plunge it into her bosom, like Lu
cretia ! [ can see her studying his pro
vincial dialect until she becomes the
Champolfon of New England or Western
or Southern barbarisms. She has learned
that hdo,o means aohat; that hinhin' i.
the same thing as thinking; or she has
found out the meaning of that extraordin
airy monosyllable, which no single-tongueC
photographer can make legible, prevail
iny on the banks of the Hudson and a
its embouchure, and elsewhere, ,--wha
they say when they think they say first
| { fe-eest,-te as in the French le),-or tha
cheer means chdir,-or that urritatio1
means Irritation, and SO of other enor
mites. Nothing surprises her. The high
est breeding, you know, comes round t.
the Indian standard, to take everything
coolly,-nH admirari,-lf you happen t.
be learned and like the Roman phrase fo
the same thing.
If you like the company of people tha
stare at you from head to foot to see
there is hole in your coat, orif you hav
not grown a little older, or if your eye
are not yellow with jaundice, or if you
complexion is not little faded, and 81
on, and then convey the fact to you, il
the style in which the Poor Relation ad
dressed the divinity-student, go will
them as much as you like. ] hate tn
sight of the wretcaes. Don't for mercy