well as death does, would she not deserve the esteem of the estimable, more than would the woman who is the possessor of advantages which transmitted culture and careful training can alone confer?

There are many who, though they will not confess it, nevertheless hold the idea that a woman demeans herself by manual labor, and that if she wishes to be considered a gentlewoman she must lead an aimless, useless, idle life. Our ways and our habits have been so gradually altered by civilization and increase of property, that all gentlewomen lead in these days very different lives from those of their ancestresses. The life led by an English lady of rank in the times of King Edward IV., would disgust the daughter of a rich New England farmer of the present day. A page in the diary of one reads as follows: "Rose at four o'clock, and helped Catharine to milk the COWS. Six o'clock, breakfasted; the buttock of beef too much boiled, and the beer a little of the stalest. Seven, went to walk with the lady, my mother, in the courtyard. Ten, went to dinner till eleven, rose from the table, the company all desirous of walking in the fields. Four, went to prayers. Six, fed the hogs and poultry. Seven, supper on the table. Nine o'clock, the company fast asleep; these late hours are very disagreeable."

American ladies of high position are not expected to milk cows and feed pigs, but if circumstances oblige them to perform such menial duties, it is a mistake to fancy that it can abate one jot or one tittle of their ladyhood. The lady who accepts the position of a housekeeper is a lady still, and sometimes more of one than the woman who employs her. If there were less false pride upon the subject, and reduced gentlewomen would take such positions, instead of swelling the number of teachers that vainly seek situations with salaries far from commensurate to the

value of their services, how much might their own comfort in life be increased, to say nothing of the advantages which teachers would reap by diminishing the competition. Many years ago, a pretentious young woman and a snobbish young man (brother and sister), after their return home from an evening party, were criticizing the company, quite unaware that their sensible old uncle was lying awake in his chamber, and could hear every word from where they stood in the corridor. "Why, even the Grinders were there, and you know their grandfather was a grocer; I was never in such a mixed company," said the sister. "And we never will be again, if I can help it," answered the brother. The uncle called out, "Children, what do you think your grandfather was? He was a boot-maker, and some people say not a very honest one either. Now, go to bed."

It is just this class of families who are always the most interested in the antecedents of others. Nine cases out of ten the man who, whenever any name is mentioned, tells you who the grandfather was, does not know much about his own grandparents. We always reach after the things that we do not possess, and the man of no family, when he acquires position, is always harping upon the subject of birth. With him it is not, "Are they well-educated and agreeable people?" but "Who are they? What was their father's business? Are they in society? Who was their grandfather?"

It is time enough to go back into antecedents when any alliance by marriage is contemplated. Then every father and mother is justified in questioning closely to see whether there are any physical weaknesses, moral defects, or blood-taints to be transmitted to another generation.

Yet it must be admitted that every one does take more or less interest and satisfaction in hearing of the antecedents

consequence.

of supercilious or pretentious people, and learning that "the stock" they came from does not warrant us to expect any less pretension, any less superciliousness. But we should not exalt family into that importance which it justly retains in countries where property is entailed, or where to be of good birth is supposed to entail culture as a necessary As has already been said, an old family will lose its prestige if its members neglect that degree of culture which enabled their ancestors to take, and to hold, a foremost position in the ranks of society. "It takes three generations to make a gentleman," says Sir Robert Peel; but, alas! it takes only one generation to undo the work. Just as the proper development of the physique through several generations produces a higher type of organization, so the cultivation of the moral and spiritual nature elevates the human soul, and gives us a higher type of moral and spiritual life in the individual. Here aptly recur the words of Caius Marius, again giving emphasis to the truth that it is not what our ancestors made themselves, but what we make ourselves, that our standing, our merits, our influence depends upon. "The glory of ancestors casts a light, indeed, upon their posterity; but it only serves to show what the descendants are. It alike exhibits to public view their degeneracy and their worth.” An English author very sensibly defines the duties of the individual, or rather his proper objects in life if he wishes to fit himself for good society, to make himself better in every respect than he is; to render himself agreeable to every one with whom he has to do; and to improve, if necessary, the society in which he is placed. If he can do this, he will not want good ociety long. It is in the power of every man to create it for himself. An agreeable and polished person attracts like light, and every kind of society which is worth entering will soon and easily open its doors to

him, and be glad to have him in its circle. As surely as water finds its level, so surely will they who are fitted for the best society find their way to a permanent place in it; while those who are not fitted for it, who find the observance of its forms irksome, may be tolerated in circles where they are well known; but they carry no passport that will admit them into the best society of other circles. It therefore benefits society that such are excluded, for it would become no better than a beer garden were they in the majority. Wealth, mighty power as it is, cannot keep the head of vulgarity long above water in the sea of society. It must go down. Not low birth, then, but neglect of that degree of self-culture in mind and manners, which is the passport to our best society, can alone place the barrier of exclusion before its doors. "If some of our millionaires had studied their grammars and behavior-books in the respite from business, would the cultivated men and women who dined with the quondam shop-boy and mechanic, have been sneered at for that worship of gold which induced them to hobnob with vulgarity and endure the repeated neglect of the commonest forms of etiquette ?" asks an English writer. Some one has said that it is the mission of America to vulgarize the world. Not if our women are true to themselves and to their duties, teaching our youth that their demeanor to their elders should be full of respect; that the demeanor of man to woman should be deferential; for where such ideas prevail, forms can be dispensed with without leading to that inevitable vulgarity which that state of society exhibits where both forms and deference are neglected. From familiarity to indecency there is but one step; and if a woman overlooks any want of due respect, or the slightest familiarity, failing to show her disapproval in her manner, she may expect it will be repeated with more liberty. Let it be, then, impressed

upon the minds of our daughters that familiarity leads to disrespect, disrespect to vulgarity, vulgarity or indecency to vice, and vice to misery. Even Godwin, who says, "Morality is nothing but a calculation of consequences,' admits that action to be the best which produces the greatest sum of happiness; and that vice is a wrong calculation and virtue a right cal ulation of consequences.

Familiarity and disrespect are not found in our best society any more than are vice and vulgarity. A kind consideration for the feelings of others, the absence of all pretence, and conversation leading away from gossip and slander, characterizes it here as everywhere.

No better eulogy was ever written of any woman than that which appeared in the "Pennsylvania Mercury,' June 9th, 1786, of a young lady belonging to one of the leading families in the United States. A few lines from it read as follows: "If the frailties of her companions was the topic of conversation, she spoke but to vindicate; when their virtues were admired, she joined with a fervency that testified her liberality. . . . No motives influenced her conduct but the happiness of her fellow-creatures.”

Where such women are found-women "educated in the paths of prudence and virtue," there will be found our best society.

The best society is not always gay society; it may be a gay circle, or it may be a literary one, or it may be made up of literary people and gay people, or of people neither literary nor gay; but, in order to be our best society, it must be largely composed of well-born, well-trained, and highly cultured families. Let the foreigner who asserts that "America has no fine society," remember that he has not seen all our circles. Wherever a want of true refinement marks the circle, where culture is deficient and bad manners prevail, no matter how much wealth may lend its