e disruption has not taken place long enough ago
for the new to have assumed any appearance of stability. The old deities
of fashion have been swept away in the flood of revolution, and the new
which are eventually to take their place have scarcely yet made
themselves apparent through the general confusion. The millionaire of
two years ago, intent at that time on the means by which the revenues
from his brown-stone houses and pet railroad stocks could be spent to
the most showy advantage, has become the struggling man of to-day,
intent upon keeping up appearances, and happy if diminished and doubtful
rents can even be made to meet increasing taxes. The struggling man of
that time has meanwhile sprung into fortune and position, through lucky
adventures in government transportations or army contracts; and the
jewelers of Broadway and Chestnut street are busy resetting the diamonds
of decayed families, to sparkle on brows and bosoms that only a little
while ago beat with pride at an added weight of California paste or
Kentucky rock-crystal. The most showy equipages that have this year been
flashing at Newport and Saratoga, were never seen between the
bathing-beach and Fort Adams, or between Congress Spring and the Lake,
in the old days; and if opera should ever revive, and the rich notes of
melody repay the _impresario_, as they enrapture the audience at the
Academy, there will be new faces in the most prominent boxes, almost as
_outre_ and unaccustomed in their appearance there as was that of the
hard-featured Western President, framed in a shock head and a turn-down
collar, meeting the gaze of astonished Murray Hill, when he passed an
hour here on his way to the inauguration.

Quite as notable a change has taken place in personal reputation. Many
of the men on whom the country depended as most likely to prove able
defenders in the day of need, have not only discovered to the world
their worthlessness, but filled up the fable of the man who leaned upon
a reed, by fatally piercing those whom they had betrayed to their fall.
Bubble-characters have burst, and high-sounding phrases have been
exploded. Men whose education and antecedents should have made them
brave and true, have shown themselves false and cowardly--impotent for
good, and active only for evil. Unconsidered nobodies have meanwhile
sprung forth from the mass of the people, and equally astonished
themselves and others by the power, wisdom and courage they have
di