This is all very well so
long as fortune favors those who are chosen to be the ornamental
personages; but if the golden tide recedes and leaves them stranded, they
are more to be pitied than almost any other class. "I cannot dig, to beg
I am ashamed."
I think it is unpopular in this country to talk much about gentlemen and
gentlewomen. People are touchy about social distinctions, which no doubt
are often invidious and quite arbitrary and accidental, but which it is
impossible to avoid recognizing as facts of natural history. Society
stratifies itself everywhere, and the stratum which is generally
recognized as the uppermost will be apt to have the advantage in easy
grace of manner and in unassuming confidence, and consequently be more
agreeable in the superficial relations of life. To compare these
advantages with the virtues and utilities would be foolish. Much of the
noblest work in life is done by ill-dressed, awkward, ungainly persons;
but that is no more reason for undervaluing good manners and what we call
high-breeding, than the fact that the best part of the sturdy labor of
the world is done by men with exceptionable hands is to be urged against
the use of Brown Windsor as a preliminary to appearance in cultivated
society.
I mean to stand up for this poor lady, whose usefulness in the world is
apparently problematical.
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