Book 5 — CHAPTER XIV.

A REMARK, IN WHICH THE AUTHOR APPEARS AS A POLITICIAN, AND ABUSES BOTH PARTIES.

There are other persons besides Zachariah the philanthropist, who have experienced the ingratitude of the poor; and, truth to say, if we can believe the accounts of those who profess to have the best means of judging, there is more of it among that class of beings in the United States than in any other Christian land. If it be so, let not the reader wonder at its existence. It springs, like a thousand other evils of a worse, because of a political complexion, from that constitution of society which, notwithstanding its being in opposition to all the interests of the land and the character of our institutions, is founded in, and perpetuated by, the folly of the richer classes. It lies, not in the natural enmity supposed to exist between the rich and the poor, but in the unnatural hatred provoked in the bosoms of the one by the offensive pride and arrogance of the other. The poor man in America feels himself, in a political view, as he really is, the equal of the millionaire; but this very consciousness of equality adds double bitterness to the sense of actual inferiority, which the richer and more fortunate usually do their best, as far as manners and deportment are concerned, to keep alive. Why should the folly of a feudal aristocracy prevail under the shadow of a purely democratic government? It is to the stupid pride, the insensate effort at pomp and ostentation, the unconcealed contempt of labour, the determination, manifested in a thousand ways, and always as unfeelingly as absurdly, to keep the "base mechanical" aware of the gulf between him and his betters—in a word, to the puerile vanity and stolid pride of the genteel and refined, that we owe the exasperation of those classes in whose hands lie the reins of power, and who will use them for good or bad purposes, according as they are kept in a good or bad humour. It is to these things we trace, besides the general demoralization ever resulting from passions long encouraged, besides the unwilling and unthankful reception of benefits coming from the hands of the detested, all those political evils which demagoguism, agrarianism, mobocracism, and all other isms of a vulgar stamp, have brought upon the land. There is pride in the poor, as well as the rich: the wise man and the patriot will take care not to offend it.

Reader, if thou art a rich man, and despisest thy neighbour, remember that he has a thousand friends of his class where thou hast one of thine, and that he can beat thee at the elections. If thou art a gentleman, remember that thy cobbler is another, or thinks himself so—which is all the same thing in America. At all events, remember this—namely, that the poor man will find no fault with thy wealth, if thou findest none with his poverty.