associate with anybody, provided he can gratify a laudable curiosity.  He has no abstract love for what is low, or what the world calls low.  He sees that many things which the world looks down upon are valuable, so he prizes much which the world condemns; he sees that many things which the world admires are contemptible, so he despises much which the world does not; but when the world prizes what is really excellent, he does not contemn it, because the world regards it.  If he learns Irish, which all the world scoffs at, he likewise learns Italian, which all the world melts at.  If he learns Gypsy, the language of the tattered tent, he likewise learns Greek, the language of the college-hall.  If he learns smithery, he also learns—­ah! what does he learn to set against smithery?—­the law?  No; he does not learn the law, which, by the way, is not very genteel.  Swimming?  Yes, he learns to swim.  Swimming, however, is not genteel; and the world—­at least the genteel part of it—­acts very wisely in setting its face against it; for to swim you must be naked, and how would many a genteel person look without his clothes?  Come, he learns horsemanship; a very genteel accomplishment, which every genteel person would gladly possess, though not all genteel people do.

Again as to associates:  if he holds communion when a boy with Murtagh, the scarecrow of an Irish academy, he associates in after life with Francis Ardry, a rich and talented young Irish gentleman about town.  If he accepts an invitation from Mr. Petulengro to his tent, he has no objection to go home with a rich genius to dinner; who then will say that he prizes a thing or a person because they are ungenteel?  That he is not ready to take up with everything that is ungenteel he gives a proof, when he refuses, though on the brink of starvation, to become bonnet to the thimble-man, an office, which, though profitable, is positively ungenteel.  Ah! but some sticker-up for gentility will exclaim, “The hero did not refuse this office from an insurmountable dislike to its ungentility, but merely from a feeling of principle.”  Well! the writer is not fond of argument, and he will admit that such was the case; he admits that it was a love of principle, rather than an over-regard for gentility, which prevented the hero from accepting, when on the brink of starvation, an ungenteel though lucrative office, an office which, the writer begs leave to observe, many a person with a great regard for gentility, and no particular regard for principle, would in a similar strait have accepted; for when did a mere love for gentility keep a person from being a dirty scoundrel, when the alternatives were “either be a dirty scoundrel or starve?” One thing, however, is certain, which is, that Lavengro did not accept the office, which if a love for what is low had been his ruling passion he certainly would have done; consequently, he refuses to do one thing which no genteel person would willingly do, even as he does