not entitle me to mix with the superior class of human beings generally designated as “fine people.”  My father’s indolence renders their society an irksome exertion to him, and my mother’s pride always induces her to hang back rather than to make advances to anybody.  We are none of us, therefore, inclined to be very keen tuft-hunters.  But for these very reasons, if “fine people” seek me, it is a decided compliment, by which my vanity is flattered.  A person with less of that quality might be quite indifferent to their notice, but I think their society, as far as I have had any opportunity of observing it, has certain positive merits, which attract me irrespectively of the gratification of my vanity.  Genius and pre-eminent power of intellect, of course, belong to no class, and one would naturally prefer the society of any individual who possessed these to that of the King of England (who, by the by, is not, I believe, particularly brilliant).  I would rather pass a day with Stephenson than with Lord Alvanley, though the one is a coal-digger by birth, who occasionally murders the king’s English, and the other is the keenest wit and one of the finest gentlemen about town.  But Stephenson’s attributes of genius, industry, mental power, and perseverance are his individually, while Lord Alvanley’s gifts and graces (his wit, indeed, excepted) are, in good measure, those of his whole social set.  Moreover, in the common superficial intercourse of society, the minds and morals of those you meet are really not what you come in contact with half the time, while from their manners there is, of course, no escape; and therefore those persons may well be preferred as temporary associates whose manners are most refined, easy, and unconstrained, as I think those of so-called “fine people” are.  Originality and power of intellect belong to no class, but with information, cultivation, and the mental advantages derived from education, “fine people” are perhaps rather better endowed, as a class, than others.  Their lavish means for obtaining instruction, and their facilities for traveling, if they are but moderately endowed by nature and moderately inclined to profit by them, certainly enable them to see, hear, and know more of the surface of things than others.  This is, no doubt, a merely superficial superiority; but I suppose that there are not many people, and certainly no class of people, high, low, or of any degree, who go much below surfaces....  If you knew how, long after I have passed it, the color of a tuft of heather, or the smell of a branch of honeysuckle by the roadside, haunts my imagination, and how many suggestions of beauty and sensations of pleasure flow from this small spring of memory, even after the lapse of weeks and months, you would understand what I am going to say, which perhaps may appear rather absurd without such a knowledge of my impressions.  I think I like fine places better than “fine people;” but then one accepts, as it were, the latter for the former, and the effect of