text:  I do not mean to set too high a value on gentle birth or to limit nobility of character by that of blood; I believe my tailor to be one of nature's gentlemen (he never duns ) and I know my next neighbour Sir John thirteenth baronet as he is to possess the soul of a huckster because he sells his fruit and game: still these are the exceptions not the rule; and there are few cases of men rising from low origin--rising that is from circumstances not from ability--not the architects but the creations of their own fortunes (for that makes all the difference)--who do not carry with them through all the gradations of their advancement the plebeian instincts while they forget perhaps the homely virtues of the class from which they spring