etween the human being who
gratefully receives a shilling, and touches his cap as he receives it,
and the human being whose income is paid in yearly or half-yearly sums,
and to whom a pecuniary tip would appear as an insult; yet, of course,
that great gulf is the result of training alone. John Smith the laborer,
with twelve shillings a week, and the bishop with eight thousand a
year, had, by original constitution, precisely the same kind of feeling
towards that much-sought, yet much-abused reality which provides the
means of life. Who shall reckon up by what millions of slight touches
from the hand of circumstance, extending over many years, the one man is
gradually formed into the giving of the shilling, and the other man into
the receiving of it with that touch of his hat? Who shall read back the
forming influences at work since the days in the cradle, that gradually
formed one man into sitting down to dinner, and another man into waiting
behind his chair? I think it would be occasionally a comfort, if one
could believe, as American planters profess to believe about their
slaves, that there is an original and essential difference between men;
for, truly, the difference in their positions is often so tremendous
that it is painful to think that it is the self-same clay and the
self-same common mind that are promoted to dignity and degraded to
servitude. And if _you_ sometimes feel _that_,--_you_, in whose favor
the arrangement tends,--what do you suppose your servants sometimes
think upon the subject? It was no wonder that the millions of Russia
were ready to grovel before their Czar, while they believed that he
was "an emanation from the Deity." But in countries where it is quite
understood that every man is just as much an emanation from the Deity
as any other, you will not long have that sort of thing. You remember
Goldsmith's noble lines, which Dr. Johnson never could read without
tears, concerning the English character. Is it not true that it is just
because the humble, but intelligent Englishman understands distinctly
that we are all of us _people of whom more might have been made_, that
he has "learnt to venerate himself as man"? And thinking of influences
which form the character, there is a sad reflection which has often
occurred to me. It is, that circumstances often develop a character
which it is hard to contemplate without anger and disgust. And yet, in
many such cases, it is rather pity that is due. The more