They are wealthy men, of course, with so
much substance that, when one now and then attempts to waste it,
he can hardly do so; but their wealth alone would not establish
them in the popular regard. His wealth does no such effect for
Mr. Astor in England; and mere money, though it is much desired
by all, is no more venerated in the person of its possessor than
it is with us. It is ancestry, it is the uncontested primacy of
families first in their place, time out of mind, that lays its
resistless hold upon the fancy and bows the spirit before it. By
means of this comes the sovereign effect in the political as well
as the social state; for, though the people vote into or out of
power those who vote other people into or out of the
administration, it is always--or so nearly always that the
exception proves the rule--family that rules, from the King down
to the least attache of the most unimportant embassy. No doubt
many of the English are restive under the fact; and, if one had
asked their mind about it, one might have found them frank
enough; but, never asking it, it was with amusement that I heard
said once, as if such a thing had never occurred to anybody
before, "Yes, isn't it strange that those few families should
keep it all among themselves!" It was a slender female voice,
lifted by a young girl with an air of pensive surprise, as at a
curious usage of some realm of faery.
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