at young man more than you meant,--I said.--I
don't believe he will jump off of one of the bridges, for he has too
much principle; but I mean to follow him and see where he goes, for he
looks as if his mind were made up to something.

I followed him at a reasonable distance. He walked doggedly along,
looking neither to the right nor the left, turned into State Street, and
made for a well-known Life-Insurance Office. Luckily, the doctor was
there and overhauled him on the spot. There was nothing the matter with
him, he said, and he could have his life insured as a sound one. He came
out in good spirits, and told me this soon after.

This led me to make some remarks the next morning on the manners of
well-bred and ill-bred people.

I began,--The whole essence of true gentle-breeding (one does not
like to say gentility) lies in the wish and the art to be agreeable.
Good-breeding is _surface-Christianity_. Every look, movement, tone,
expression, subject of discourse, that may give pain to another is
habitually excluded from conversational intercourse. This is the reason
why rich people are apt to be so much more agreeable than others.

--I thought you were a great champion of equality,--said the discreet
and severe lady who had accompanied our young friend, the Latin Tutor's
daughter.

I go politically for _e_quality,--I said,--and socially for _the_
quality.

Who are the "quality,"--said the Model, etc.,--in a community like ours?

I confess I find this question a little difficult to answer,--I
said.--Nothing is better known than the distinction of social ranks
which exists in every community, and nothing is harder to define. The
great gentlemen and ladies of a place are its real lords and masters and
mistresses; they are the _quality_, whether in a monarchy or a republic;
mayors and governors and generals and senators and ex-presidents are
nothing to them. How well we know this, and how seldom it finds a
distinct expression! Now I tell you truly, I believe in man as man, and
I disbelieve in all distinctions except such as follow the natural lines
of cleavage in a society which has crystallized according to its own
true laws. But the essence of equality is to be able to say the truth;
and there is nothing more curious than these truths relating to the
stratification of society.

Of all the facts in this world that do not take hold of immortality,
there is not one so intensely real, permanent, and engrossing as thi