We love rank, because we have a lingering suspicion that it somehow symbolizes wealth, or power, or brilliant intellectual gifts, or great public services, that have forced their possessors into the front rank at some time or other, and received their due recognition in the shape of titular distinction conferred either recently or in days gone by. But if a title is found to be dissociated from any nobleness of character, and is unsupported by brain power or purse power, it will not save a man from humiliating snubs, or give him the _entrée_ to the drawing-rooms of the upper classes. For we have more than one upper class among us, as other nations have had and will continue to have while the world lasts. In that social world where Mrs. Grundy bears sway, our titular aristocracy undoubtedly are the acknowledged leaders, and to them great homage is paid. But it is not only because a man is an earl, or a lady is a duchess, that the one or the other is surrounded by a little court, approached with deference and treated with studied respect, but because both the one and the other are rich enough to “support the title,” as we say. Yes, it is true that in some sense or other Our nobles wear their ermine on the outside, or walk blackly In presence of the social law, as most ignoble men. You may protest that society in England is under the dominion of a plutocracy, then. Yes! and No! Yes! in so far as it is true and always must be true, that no man or woman can live on familiar terms, and keep up the habitual intercourse with the leisure classes, without a certain amount of money. No! in so far as it is also true that money alone, however abundant it may be, will never, among us, give any one an introduction to what we call society. I have heard of cases, and I know of one, where a millionaire from our colonies took a palace in London, and lived _en prince_; was visited by no one, failed to get into any but a third-rate club, found no one to entertain and but few people to speak to; and finally has gone back from whence he came, astonished, disappointed, and soured. They tell me that wealth in America will gain admission to any society for any one. I have been repeatedly assured by intelligent Americans that this is so; yet I cannot understand that it should be so. I can quite understand that, whatever a man’s rank, or gifts, or prospects may be, he would find it very painful to mix with the upper ten thousand if he could not afford to pay for cab-hire, or keep up his subscription at the club, every day finding it hard to get his dinner, and every night perplexed _de lodice paranda_; but I can no more understand how a mere expenditure of cash could get X, Y, or Z into the best society, than I can understand how a payment of, say £10,000, would get an average cricketer into the All-England eleven, or a second-rate oar into the University crew. The Corporation of London is a plutocracy; but society, while accepting his