N.B. There is an order of the other sex so nearly resembling the one just described, that I am in a great quandary whether I should not have united them, since the principal difference which I can discover, after much study is, that the former wears petticoats and the latter pantaloons. You and your readers must settle it, for Oliver Oldschool can not.
Order 3d. Noli me tangere, or Touch me not.—These are so super-eminently sensitive and irritable, that should you but crook your finger at them apparently by way of slight, nothing but your blood can expiate the deadly offence: and whether that blood is to be extracted by a bout at fisty cuffs or cudgelling, or by the more genteel instrumentality of dirk, sword or pistol, must depend upon the relative rank and station of the parties concerned. If you belong not to that tribe embraced by the very comprehensive but rather equivocal term—gentlemen, you may hope to escape with only a few bruises or scarifications; but should your luckless destiny have placed you among them, death or decrepitude must be your portion, unless you should have the fortune to inflict it on your adversary.
Order 4th. The Gastronomes.—The description of this order requires but few words. Their only object in life seems to be—to tickle their palates, and to provide the ways and means of provoking and gratifying their gormandizing appetites. They would travel fifty miles to eat a good dinner, sooner than move fifty inches to do a benevolent action; and would sacrifice fame, fortune and friends, rather than forego what they call the pleasures of the table. They show industry in nothing but catering for their meals; animation in nothing but discussions on the qualities and cookery of different dishes; and the only strong passion they ever evince is, that which reduces them merely to the level of beasts of prey. During the brief period of their degraded existence, they live despised and scoffed at by all but their associates, and die victims to dropsy, gout, palsy and apoplexy.
Order 5th. The Brain Stealers.—The chief difference between this and the preceding order is, that the former steal their own brains by eating, the latter by drinking. For the idea conveyed by the term brain-stealers, I acknowledge myself indebted to Cassio in the play of Othello, where, in a fit of remorse for getting drunk, he is made to exclaim, "Oh! that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!" This order may well follow its predecessor in dignity, or rather in uselessness, since the greatest optimist ever born would be puzzled to find out the way in which either can render any real, essential service to mankind. Although the alleged excuse for their practice—so long as they retain sense enough to offer any—is to cheer the spirits—to gladden the heart, the undeniable effect of that practice is, to depress the one, and to pain the other. Melancholy expels merriment, and the solitary feeling banishes the social; for the intolerable shame inspired by the consciousness of the self-larceny they are continually committing, drives them into secret places for its perpetration; and into solitude during the short intervals between their self-destructive acts, to brood over their own indelible disgrace, the hopeless misery they inflict on all their friends and relatives, and the damning guilt they incur if there be any truth in Holy Writ—any such thing as eternal punishment in another world, for deeds voluntarily perpetrated in our present state of existence. But these are matters which never for a moment seem to arrest their desperate course. During the few intervals of sanity which chance rather than design seems to afford them, the retrospect is so full of self-condemnation, agonizing remorse, and awful anticipations of future retribution, of future and eternal punishment, that they recklessly hasten to drown all feeling—all consciousness of existence in the deadly draughts which they continually swallow. Thus they linger out their brief and pitiable lives in a kind of comatose stupor—a wretched burden and disgrace to themselves and a misery beyond description to all connected with them.
Order 6th. The Devilish Good Fellows.—These possess, in an eminent degree, the art of concealing much thorough selfishness under the guise of what are called companionable qualities; for although loud professors of sociality and great company keepers, (except that of the ladies, which they never voluntarily seek,) they mix in society rather oftener at other people's expense than their own. Their money is lavished chiefly on themselves, except the modicum most skilfully expended in purchasing a character for generosity, and that which in common parlance is miscalled good fellowship. This is easily and often most profitably done, by giving a few well-timed dinners, suppers, and card-parties to their select companions and bosom friends, whose money they scruple not to win on such occasions to the last cent; having first made these dear objects of their disinterested regard drunk, while they kept sober for the purpose, although apparently encountering a similar risk of intoxication. All they do is for effect—for gulling others to their own advantage, rather than for any particular pleasure which they themselves derive from their own actions. Thus they become uproarious at the convivial board, not so much from impulse as design; not to excite themselves but their companions; and frequently clamor for "pushing the bottle," (for they are brain stealers) more to stultify others than to exhilirate their own feelings. They are great depositaries and retailers of all such anecdotes and stories as are called good, but rather on account of their obscenity than their genuine humor or wit. Now and then they incontinently perpetrate puns; make practical jokes; and are always merry in appearance, (whatever the real feelings may be) so far as antic contortions of the risible muscles can make them so. But they are utter strangers to that genuine hilarity of heart which imparts perennial cheerfulness to the countenances of all who are blessed with it, and which springs from a consciousness—both of good motives and good actions. Their lives are spent in a feverish course of sensuality—often of the lowest, the very grossest kind; and they generally die of a miserable old age, just as truly rational, temperate and moral people reach the prime of life.
Order 7th. The Philo-Mammonites, or Money Lovers.—Although this term would comprehend a most numerous and motley host, if the mere existence of the passion itself were deemed a sufficient distinction, yet I mean to apply the designation only to such abortions of our race as love money for itself alone, independently as it would seem, both of its real and adventitiously exchangeable value. Others burn with affection for the beloved article, only as a means to attain the ends which they most passionately desire. These ends are as countless as the sands; some, for example, make it the grand object of their temporal existence to buy fine clothes, others fine equipages; others again fine houses, fine furniture, fine pictures, fine books—in short, fine any thing which the world calls so, whatever they themselves may think of it; for, as Dr. Franklin most truly says, "other peoples' eyes cost us more than our own." The exclusive money-lovers despise what others love; with "the fleshly lusts that war against the souls" of other men, and cost money, they have nothing to do—no, not they! and even the common necessaries and comforts of life are all rejected for the sake of making, hoarding, and contemplating the dear—all-absorbing object of the only affection they are capable of feeling. In this respect, the money lover differs entirely, not only from all other human beings, but from every race of brutes, reptiles, and insects yet discovered. They, for instance, accumulate the food which they love, evidently for use, and not solely to look at, to gloat upon, as the ultimate, the exclusive source of gratification. Their accumulation, therefore, is but the means of attaining the end—consumption, from which all their real enjoyment seems to be anticipated. The propensity to collect for future use, which is called instinct in the latter, is identical with what is deemed the love of money, as it operates upon all the orders of mankind, except the Philo Mammonites. With the former, it is not the money they love, but something for which they have a passionate regard, that they know their money can procure: with the latter, the sole enjoyment (if indeed they may be thought capable of any) seems to consist in the mere looking at their hoards, and in the consciousness of being able to exclaim—"all this is mine, nothing but the inexorable tyrant death can take it away. Let others call it pleasure and happiness to spend money, if they are fools enough to do so; we deem it the only pleasure and happiness to make and keep it." To such men, the common feelings of humanity—the ordinary ties that bind together families and communities, are things utterly incomprehensible; and consequently neither the sufferings of their fellow men, nor their utmost miseries are ever permitted, for one moment, to interfere with that darling object which occupies their souls, to the exclusion of all others. This they for ever pursue, with an ardor that no discouragement can check; a recklessness of public sentiment that defies all shame; and often with a degree of self-inflicted want, both of food and raiment, which must be witnessed to be believed.
Order 8th. The Confiscators.—In this order must be included (strange as it may seem) not only all thieves, pickpockets, swindlers, robbers and professional gamblers, but even many others, who, although professing most sanctimonious horror at the bare idea of violating the letter of the laws relative to property, scruple not to disregard their spirit, whenever pelf is to be made by it. To make money is the great end of their existence; but the means are left to time and circumstances to suggest—always, however, to be used according to the law-verbal, in such cases made and provided. The general title indicates rather the wills than the deeds of the whole order; the former being permanent, intense, and liable to no change—whereas the latter terminate, now and then, in such uncomfortable results as loss of character, imprisonment, and hanging. Self-appropriation, without parting with any equivalent, without incurring any loss that can possibly be avoided, is the cardinal, the paramount law with every grade: they differ only in the "modus operandi." Some, for example, work by fraud—others by force; some by superior skill, or exclusive knowledge—while hosts of others rely for success upon practising on the passions and vices, or the innocence and gullibility of their fellow-men. To do this the more effectually, they make much use of the terms justice, honesty, fair-dealing, in their discourse, but take special care to exclude them from their practice; for they are to prosper, even should the Devil take all at whose expense that prosperity has been achieved, if, indeed, he deemed them worth taking, after their dear friends, the confiscators, have done with them.
Order 9th. The Blatterers.—Although this word is now nearly obsolete, or degraded to the rank of vulgarisms, in company with many other good old terms of great force and fitness, once deemed of sterling value, I venture to use it here, because I know, in our whole language, no other so perfectly descriptive of this order; nor, indeed, any other which conveys the same idea. And here (if you will pardon another digression) I cannot forbear to express my regret at being compelled, as it were, to take leave of so many old acquaintances in our mother tongue, who have been expelled from modern parlance and writing. Our literary tastes and language will require but very little more sublimation—little more polishing and refining, to render that tongue scarcely intelligible to persons whose misfortune it was to be educated some half century ago, unless, indeed, they will go to school again. To call things by their right names, is among the "mala prohibita" in the canons of modern criticism; the strength, fitness, and power of old words, must give way to the indispensable euphony of new ones; and all the qualities once deemed essential to good style, must now be sacrificed, or, at least, hold a far inferior rank to mere smoothness, polish, and harmony of diction. I might give you quite a long catalogue of highly respectable and significant old words, once the legal currency of discourse, which have long since been turned out of doors, to make room for their modern correlatives; but neither my time nor space will permit me to mention more than the following, out of some hundreds. For instance, my old acquaintance, and perhaps yours, the word "breeches," has been dismissed for "unmentionables," or "inexpressibles;"—"shifts" and "petticoats" are now yclept "under dress;" and even "hell" itself, according to the authority of a highly polished Divine, perhaps now living, must hereafter be softened and amplified into the phrase, "a place which politeness forbids to mention." But let me return to the description of the Blattering order.
To say, as I was very near doing, that their peculiar trait is "to have words at will," would have conveyed a very false notion; for that phrase is properly applicable only to such persons as can talk or be silent—can restrain or pour out their discourse at pleasure. But the Blatterers, although their words are as countless as the sands, seem to exercise no volition over them whatever, any more than a sieve can be said to do over the water that may be poured into it. Through and through the liquid will and must run, be the consequences what they may; and out of the mouths of the Blatterers must their words issue, let what will happen. So invariable is this the case, that we might almost say of their discourse as the Latin poet has so happily said of the stream of Time:
"Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum."