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Sensitive people talk about feeling, in the presence
or atmosphere of a man, the peculiar disposition that
governs him, — whether a gentle or a stern one,
whether a hypocritical or a knavish one. We have
realized, in some degree, what the feeling must be, as
we have, at times, elbowed our way among the gentlemen
who throng about State or Wall street. The
atmosphere was so hard that we shrank at once into our
empty pocket, — a thing which finds no sympathy in
those diggings, — and escaped as fast as possible. We
could read every disposition that we rubbed against, like
a book, or as well as the most subtle magician could do
it. The dollar was the idea that every brain was working
and struggling to coin itself into; the dollar gleamed
in every eager glance of the eye, and was heard in every
word; the dollar was the sun that shone and the air
that blew; and though celestial choirs had been at hand,
chanting the music of the spheres, unless it had the right
chink to it, it would not have been regarded. Let
sensitive ones who have no money go down upon 'change
and try the experiment. It will not make them any
poorer, though most certainly they will not be any richer
by it.

p677-125

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