After all, and in spite of the old copy that we have written, about the root of all evil, money is a “great invention;” especially here, where it bestows wit on fools, beauty on beasts, and covering the blots on all escutcheons, forces us to that promiscuous mingling which out-democrats democracy. How magnanimous it makes us! While the friends of the needy assist them down the hill of fortune and bid them farewell, they turn to help the lucky over its stepping stones, and lifting the pedlar’s pack from his shoulders, rub them down, and push him into what we call “our first circle”. And a pretty circle it would be, were the beginning known! But the shining gold that glitters through a handsome purse, is the _passe partout_; and like the princess in the fairy tale, nobody looks behind for fear of hobgoblin discoveries of his next door neighbor. Besides, reduced people are _so_ contemptible! Put them out! With each new reign new peers arise, and so new houses should rear their tops over the old ones, when the owners are useless and the furniture tarnished. Such a generation as we are! Such an age of refinement! Who would sit down in the year 1849, to a dinner on a square-table! Who would touch any but a Westphalia ham—drink champagne from a narrow glass—take a cup of tea from any but a silver urn—sit in any but a Louis Quatorze—kiss a baby that wore corals—notice an acquaintance with a last winter bonnet, or a _visite_ instead of a Jenny Lind? Dear me! dear me! I have been thinking a long time, and don’t know anybody that would! Mrs. Jones knew better for one—so did Mr. Jones; and while they were as vulgar as pride and ignorance could make them, learned to look upon themselves as “glasses of fashion and moulds of form.” They had to labor for the distinction with a zeal worthy a better cause; and my readers shall have the benefit of their attempts if they are not already too tired to proceed. Mrs. Jones canvassed among her female acquaintances for popularity, by calling, flattering, cringing, and sending them delicacies made by her own fair hands; and Mr. Jones, who was very anxious to be “genteel,” studied Chesterfield, and wondered what it meant. He belonged to one of the first families of a state, in which all the families were first—a universal right of distinction. His connections would have been titled in an aristocracy; but their respect for the American government made them condescend to be plain Misters, Madams, and Misses. Mr. Jones himself was a little finnikin man, with sharp, black eyes, and high cheek bones, upon which rested two red spots like the remains of a fly-blister. He combed his hair into a stiff _toupet_, that made him look like an inverted furniture-brush, with the usual equivocal portrait of some very great individual upon it.