text:  If to this we add the mercantile habits of our countrymen the enormous wealth which their pursuits enable them to accumulate--the great honours which are the reward of successful industry and ambition--the absurd value annexed to technical distinctions--the manner in which in our as in all free countries those distinctions are conferred--and a certain disposition to sneer at any chivalrous or elevated feeling from which few of our ladies are exempt--we shall find it easy to account for the cold stiff ungraceful harsh and mercenary habits which disfigure to the astonishment of all foreigners the patrician class of English society