h is the
stranger's usual fate at the hands of simple-minded foreigners. The
satisfaction must be cheap, however, at that price.

Even our wise men and sages do not seem to have escaped the contagion.
One sees professors and clergymen (who ought to set a better example)
trailing half a dozen letters after their names, initials which to the
initiated doubtless mean something, but which are also intended to fill
the souls of the ignorant with envy. I can recall but one case of a
foreign decoration being refused by a compatriot. He was a genius and we
all know that geniuses are crazy. This gentleman had done something
particularly gratifying to an Eastern potentate, who in return offered
him one of his second-best orders. It was at once refused. When urged
on him a second time our countryman lost his temper and answered, "If you
want to give it to somebody, present it to my valet. He is most anxious
to be decorated." And it was done!

It does not require a deeply meditative mind to discover the motives of
ambitious struggles. The first and strongest illusion of the human mind
is to believe that we are different from our fellows, and our natural
impulse is to try and impress this belief upon others.

Pride of birth is but one of the manifestations of the universal
weakness--invariably taking stronger and stronger hold of the people, who
from the modest dimension of their income, or other untoward
circumstances, can find no outward and visible form with which to dazzle
the world. You will find that a desire to shine is the secret of most of
the tips and presents that are given while travelling or visiting, for
they can hardly be attributed to pure spontaneous generosity.

How many people does one meet who talk of their poor and unsuccessful
relatives while omitting to mention rich and powerful connections? We
are told that far from blaming such a tendency we are to admire it. That
it is proper pride to put one's best foot forward and keep an offending
member well out of sight, that the man who wears a rosette in the button-
hole of his coat and has half the alphabet galloping after his name, is
an honor to his family.

Far be it from me to deride this weakness in others, for in my heart I am
persuaded that if I lived in China, nothing would please me more than to
have my cap adorned with a coral button, while if fate had cast my life
in the pleasant places of central Africa, a ring in my nose would
doubtless