If he did not go into the alleys to pick up the poor, they were not excluded, if qualified by intrinsic qualities to adorn the scene. Neither were wealth or fashion a cause of exclusion, more than of admission. All depended on the person; yet he did not _seek_ his guests among the slaves of fashion, for he knew that persons highly endowed rarely had patience with the frivolities of that class, but retired, and left it to be peopled mostly by weak and plebeian natures. Yet all depended on the individual. Was the person fair, noble, wise, brilliant, or even only youthfully innocent and gay, or venerable in a good old age, he or she was welcome. Still, as simplicity of character and some qualification positively good, healthy, and natural, was requisite for admission, we must say the company was select. Our nobleman and his family had weeded their "circle" carefully, year by year. Some valued acquaintances they had made in ball-rooms and boudoirs, and kept; but far more had been made through the daily wants of life, and shoemakers, seamstresses, and graziers mingled happily with artists and statesmen, to the benefit of both. (N.B.--None used the poisonous weed, in or out of our domestic temple.) I cannot tell you what infinite good our nobleman and his family were doing by creation of this true social centre, where the legitimate aristocracy of the land assembled, not to be dazzled by expensive furniture, (our nobleman bought what was good in texture and beautiful in form, but not _because_ it was expensive,) not to be feasted on rare wines and highly-seasoned dainties, though they found simple refreshments well prepared, as indeed it was a matter of duty and conscience in that house that the least office should be well fulfilled, but to enjoy the generous confluence of mind with mind and heart with heart, the pastimes that are not waste-times of taste and inventive fancy, the cordial union of beings from all points and places in noble human sympathy. New York was beginning to be truly American, or rather Columbian, and money stood for something in the records of history. It had brought opportunity to genius and aid to virtue. But just at this moment, the jostling showed me that I had reached the corner of Wall Street. I looked earnestly at the omnibuses discharging their eager freight, as if I hoped to see my merchant. "Perhaps he has gone to the post office to take out letters from his friends in Utopia," thought I. "Please give me a penny," screamed a half-starved ragged little street-sweep, and the fancied cradle of the American Utopia receded, or rather proceeded, fifty years, at least, into the future. THE POOR MAN. AN IDEAL SKETCH. The foregoing sketch of the Rich Man, seems to require this companion-piece; and we shall make the attempt, though the subject is far more difficult than the former was.