THE "JIM-FISK" ELEMENT IN HUMAN NATURE.

AMONG the most widely known and conspicuous traits in the character of the late lamented Prince of Erie, was his inordinate passion for making a display. He builds an opera-house, and runs it at a great loss, for the sole purpose of making his name prominent before the public as a patron-saint of the histrionic profession. He enrolls and magnificently equips a regiment of soldiers, aspiring to military glory, if not by deeds of valor on the battle-field, at least by gaudy uniform in time of peace, and by brandishing in front of the "Bloody Ninth" a bloodless sword. But not only does he raise and support armies; he creates navies. He buys a line of steamers, comprising the finest boats in the country; but their chief value to him, after all, is in adding to the many titles he already enjoys the new one of Admiral. He drives a team which he is sure cannot be excelled in Gotham, and confidently believes not much inferior to that of Phoebus himself. In these and many other pursuits, besides his own regular and legitimate calling, undertaken less for pleasure than for notoriety, he has succeeded in producing upon the staid plodding men of our day an impression like that of the meteor, - his own guiding star.

This man is held up to us as one influenced to a remarkable extent by the famoe sacra fames. Notoriety he thirsted for, and notoriety he certainly gained. Without doubt, he is the shining example of that trait so graphically expressed in the vulgate by the term "cutting a dash." But was he alone in this? Is it not possible that there is something of the same tendency in ourselves? Of course I do not claim that it is developed in any of us to the same degree it was in that representative man, for the very good reason that few of us feel desirous or able to spend the three or four millions required annually to support the spread-eagle style on such a scale before a gaping world. Do not, however, set down the trait as a characteristic of him alone, or even, as you may quite willingly do, attribute it also to A, and admit that you have observed it in B; but consider honestly your own case as well. Do you say you don't believe any such thing, that there is nothing of the Jim-Fisk in you? Stop and think, - you, I mean! Ah yes, now you remember, when you were spending a few days last summer with your grandmother, (bless her dear old heart!) how, when she introduced you to all the neighbors, as it was her pride and delight to do, you would greet them with a good-natured condescension, and inquire with solicitude after the sheep and the crops; make the greatest display of your shallow agricultural information, and then laugh in your sleeve to catch from the whispered comments, "Remarkable clever young feller," "Seems to know considerable"; and, from the good old ladies, "Why, he's perlite's a basket o' chips." And then, when you went to ride with that cousin of yours, though we all know the horse took his own time when you were off on the back roads, how you straightened up as you drove down into the village, and reasoned with that horse (illustrating liberally with cuts) to so good purpose that he tore through the main street of the village at a rate that brought half the population to the doors to see your skilful handling of the impetuous steed, the kindling of whose sudden fire they fortunately did not witness. And how about your waiting that Sunday till service had begun, and then marching down to the front of the broad-aisle with - No, I will stop. You evidently have none of the Jim-Fisk in you, - not a bit of it.

The older I grow (I am now quite venerable), the more I am inclined to think that it is nothing but lack of ability or opportunity that keeps down this element in the majority of men. Of course there are exceptions, but excessive modesty is not a common failing of the age. The boy who dragged his new trousers around in the dust before wearing them, so that their freshness might not be suspected, was an uncommon child. Boys don't do so now. Even the persons who are seemingly most free from the common weakness, if you but change their circumstances a little, are as subject to it as any.

Look at that "dig," whom you have known, ever since you entered college, as the most retiring, modest fellow imaginable. Yet he goes away into some country place, and, as he gets out of his old ruts and among people where his superiority is in some respects tacitly acknowledged, you shall observe, even in him, the universal Jim-Fisk showing symptoms of his presence. He has a friend teaching school in this same country town, upon whom he calls. See him when, before he enters in front of the assembled school, he stops and furtively brushes his beaver, and dusts off his boots. Ah! he has the disease. See him mount the platform and sit down, composedly throwing back the lappel of his coat. See him coolly adjust his eye-glasses (at home he only needs them for reading), and gaze around the room. You would certainly suppose him one of the great men of the land. One of the small boys thinks he is the governor. He rather enjoys this, and does his best to carry out the illusion. He has spied one or two pretty girls in his audience, whom he proceeds to regard especially, to the eminent danger of subverting the discipline of the school. The teacher calls out his pet class to recite in Virgil, and our "dig" (ah, so fallen!) takes the offered book. He listens nonchalantly to a translation, and a number of questions from the teacher, when the latter, perhaps seeing the state of the case, suggests that his visitor asks the class some questions. Just the thing! Our friend has now got so far as to be in the mood for this or anything else. The pretty girl before noticed is now reciting, and he improves the opportunity of striking an acquaintance by the somewhat peculiar style of conversation resulting under these circumstances. He asks many questions which he remembers as having troubled him once, but the answers he is by no means sure of. Fortunately, however, the teacher relieves him from any embarrassment which might result from his not knowing the answers to his own questions, by adopting that system of leading questions and suggestive side-hints, always at the command of teachers for the benefit of their pet classes in general, and of such emergencies in particular.

Fallen, indeed, is this the beau-ideal of a virtuous and simple-minded "dig," the pride of the Faculty!

But let him that is without the same sin among you cast the first stone.

I.