Oh, sir, of all things deliver me from the patronage of the
great people of a country town. It was my ruin. You must know that this
town, though small, was filled with feuds, and parties, and great
folks; being a busy little trading and manufacturing town. The mischief
was that their greatness was of a kind not to be settled by reference
to the court calendar, or college of heraldry. It was therefore the
most quarrelsome kind of greatness in existence. You smile, sir, but
let me tell you there are no feuds more furious than the frontier
feuds, which take place on these "debatable lands" of gentility. The
most violent dispute that I ever knew in high life, was one that
occurred at a country town, on a question of precedence between the
ladies of a manufacturer of pins and a manufacturer of needles.
At the town where I was situated there were perpetual altercations of
the kind. The head manufacturer's lady, for instance, was at daggers
drawings with the head shopkeeper's, and both were too rich and had too
many friends to be treated lightly. The doctor's and lawyer's ladies
held their heads still higher; but they in their turn were kept in
check by the wife of a country banker, who kept her own carriage; while
a masculine widow of cracked character, and second-hand fashion, who
lived in a large house, and was in some way related to nobility, looked
down upon them all. She had been exiled from the great world, but here
she ruled absolute.
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