While she was poor, and I comparatively rich, the
inequality in social station might have been overlooked; it existed,
certainly, but was not so very marked that it might not, even in that
day, be readily forgotten; but now, Lucy was an heiress, had much more
than double my own fortune--had a fortune indeed; while I was barely
in easy circumstances, as persons of the higher classes regarded
wealth. The whole matter seemed reversed. It was clear that a sailor
like myself, with no peculiar advantages, those of a tolerable
education excepted, and who was necessarily so much absent, had not
the same chances of preferring his suit, as one of your town idlers; a
nominal lawyer, for instance, who dropped in at his office for an hour
or two, just after breakfast, and promenaded Broadway the rest of the
time, until dinner; or a man of entire leisure, like Andrew Drewett,
who belonged to the City Library set, and had no other connection with
business than to see that his rents were collected and his dividends
paid. The more I reflected, the more humble I became, he less my
chances seemed and I determined to quit the theatre, at once. The
reader will remember that I was New York born and bred, a state of
society in which few natives acted on the principle that "there was
nothing too high to be aspired to, nothing too low to be done.
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