“To be sure you would,” replied Mr. Martindale; “but if, under the notion of independence, you should attempt to climb up without the usual assistance of common-place steps, you would find yourself miserably disappointed. I tell you what, Mrs. Markham, I hate sycophancy and fawning as much as you can do; and I should be no real friend to your son, did I recommend him to adopt such means of advancing himself in the world. But there is a fault on the other side; there is an affectation of independence. Now this affectation neither the mob nor the aristocracy can endure. As for your son, he can only rise by means of his talents; he has nothing else to go to market with; he has no votes or borough-interest wherewith to bribe ministers, and no pompous foolery of speechification wherewith to purchase the approbation of the mob. I respect him for his plain straightforward good sense, and if my cub of a cousin, who has made his nobility ridiculous by his slip-shod dignity and equivocal respectability, had possessed those qualities which your son possesses, he might be called Right Honorable with a serious countenance.” This was the first time that Mr. Martindale had given way to such serious reprobation of his noble relative. Our readers will, for Markham’s sake, be glad to hear that the young gentleman had left the room before this speech was uttered. There was so much seriousness in the language and manner of expression, that though Mrs. Markham would to a person of her own rank in life have ventured to make some reply of alleviation, but to a person so much her superior as Mr. Martindale she was silent. The talk then took another direction; but Mr. Markham the elder did not join in the conversation, except so far as to express his acknowledgment to Mr. Martindale for the kindness which he had shown to the young man. The singular old gentleman then took his leave, almost as abruptly as he had entered the house. It is, perhaps, one of the most difficult lessons which persons in a certain rank have to learn, to know how to manage condescension well. When a person of this rank converses with an inferior with a temporary assumption of equality, there generally exists in the mind of the inferior a feeling of awkward restraint, and a consciousness that this aspect or tone of equality is merely put on, and rises not from any feeling on the part of the individual so condescending of the natural equality of the species: and in the apparent equality, greatness is always jealous of encroachments. It was, however, a favorite amusement with Mr. Martindale, under pretence of not regarding the artificial distinctions of society, to hold free and unrestrained intercourse with persons of every rank and of no rank; but he could never divest himself of the tone and air of dogmatism. He always spoke as if he thought himself Sir Oracle: yet nevertheless he was very good-humored withal, and had, amidst all his oddities, a great benevolence of feeling and disposition.