is not the man for him.  He thinks his decision an instinct, or an intuition, because, through much practice, these mental operations have become so rapid as to defy analysis.  Not being infallible, he sometimes mistakes; and when he so mistakes, he will be sure to say,—­I made that loss because I relied too much upon this characteristic, or because I did not allow its proper weight to the absence of some other,—­because I thought his shrewdness or his honesty, his enterprise or his economy, would save him:  implying that he had observed some non-conformity to his standard, but had relied upon some excellency in excess to make up for it.

What are the perplexities which beset the question, To whom shall the jobber sell his goods?  They are manifold; and some of them are peculiar to our country.  Our territory is very extensive; our population very heterogeneous; the economy and close calculation which recommend a man in Massachusetts may discredit him in Louisiana.  The very countenance is often a sure indication of character and of capacity, when it is one of a class and a region whose peculiarities we thoroughly understand; but coming to us from other classes and regions, we are often at fault,—­more especially in these latter days, when all strong-mindedness is presumed to be foreshadowed in a stiff beard.  Time was when something could be inferred from a lip, a mouth, a chin,—­when character could be found in the contour and color of a cheek; but that time has passed.  The time was, when, among a homogeneous people, a few time-honored characteristics were both relied on and insisted on:  for example, good parentage, good moral character, a thorough training, and superior capacity, joined to industry, economy, sound judgment, and good manners.  But Young America has learned to make light of some of these, and to dispense altogether with others of them.

Once the buyer was required to prove himself an honest, worthy, and capable man.  If he wanted credit, he must humbly sue for it, and prove himself deserving of it; and no man thought of applying for it who was not prepared to furnish irrefragable evidence.  Once, a reference to some respectable acquaintance would serve the purpose; and neighbors held themselves bound to tell all they knew.  The increase of merchants, and fierce competition for customers, have changed this.  Men now regard their knowledge of other men as a part of their capital or stock-in-trade.  Their knowledge has been acquired at much cost of labor and money; and they hold themselves absolved from all obligation to give away what they have thus expensively acquired.  Moreover, their confidence has sometimes been betrayed, and their free communications have been remorselessly used to their disadvantage.  Alas, it cannot be denied that even dry-goods jobbers, with all their extraordinary endowments, are not quite perfect! for some of them will “state the thing that is not,” and others “convey” their neighbor’s property into their own coffers:  men who prefer gain to godliness, and mistake much money for respectability.