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283 article in its purest possible form: men are valued only according to their personal qualities, such as their cleverness, their bon-homie, & their ability to make money. I give this as preface to my Denver Cicerone's? description of one of the persons to whom he was about to introduce me. "You must now, he said, "let me take you to unclear "He is quite our finest gentleman." I had not had many minutes conversation with "quite the finest-gentleman in Denver" before I had reason for coinciding with the estimate of his fellow- townsman, for many offers of assistance & hospitality, he had given me on visitation to be his companion & guest in a long tour he was about to make in the Mountains; but which he explained wd on his part combine business with exploration & pleasure. Of course it is inconceivable that there cd be any gentleman in Denver who was not in some kind of business, & "quite the finest gentleman" of the place happened to be a grocer. But what of that? So is the Senator for the State of New York; & Denver grocers can, & do possess many of the personal qualities of gentlemen, though it may be supposed they are quite unconscious of the unclear in which Charles II used the word when he replied to his foster mother's request "that he cd make his foster brother a gentleman." that he could make him a Lord, but "that God Almighty cd not make him a gentleman." Meaning that the being, or not being a gentleman was a matter of birth & of birth only.