OBSERVATIONS ON SOCIETY. 121 



have seen you engaged, there was not one of a kind in 

 any degree suited to lessen my well-founded respect for 

 you, as a sagacious man of business, of genial feelings, 

 of nice integrity, and a discriminating intellect.' 



Irksome as was the routine of bank business to one 

 who, in his hours of hardest toil, had always previously 

 had the breath of heaven, the cool breeze of the hill-side, 

 to fan his brow, Miller soon found that as a bank ac- 

 countant he occupied a coigne of vantage from which 

 to conduct his studies of human nature and of human 

 life. If anything was still wanted to secure him against 

 those showy plausibilities and political, social, senti- 

 mental extravagances, which are the besetting sins of 

 self-educated men, it was the opportunity afforded him 

 in a bank office of drawing the line between sound and 

 substance, between gold and glitter, between reality and 

 pretence. There is a passage in the Schools and School- 

 masters illustrative of this remark, which has always 

 seemed to me to contain a singular amount of practical 

 sense, and of accurate valuable information. 



' However humbly honesty and good sense/ thus it 

 proceeds, ' may be rated in the great world generally, 

 they always, when united, bear premium in a judiciously 

 managed bank office. It was interesting enough, too, to 

 see quiet silent men, like " honest farmer Flamburgh," 

 getting wealthy, mainly because, though void of display, 

 they were not wanting in integrity and judgment ; and 

 clever unscrupulous fellows like " Ephraim Jenkinson," 

 who " spoke to good purpose," becoming poor, very much 

 because, with all their smartness, they lacked sense and 

 principle. It was worthy of being noted, too, that in 

 looking around from my peculiar point of view on the 

 agricultural classes, I found the farmers on really good 

 farms usually thriving, if not themselves in fault, however 



