I say, then, we are forming an aristocracy; and,
transitory as its individual life often is, it maintains itself
tolerably, as a whole. Of course, money is its corner-stone. But
now observe this. Money kept for two or three generations
transforms a race,--I don't mean merely in manners and hereditary
culture, but in blood and bone. Money buys air and sunshine, in
which children grow up more kindly, of course, than in close, back
streets; it buys country-places to give them happy and healthy
summers, good nursing, good doctoring, and the best cuts of beef
and mutton. When the spring-chickens come to market--I beg your
pardon,--that is not what I was going to speak of. As the young
females of each successive season come on, the finest specimens
among them, other things being equal, are apt to attract those who
can afford the expensive luxury of beauty. The physical character
of the next generation rises in consequence. It is plain that
certain families have in this way acquired an elevated type of face
and figure, and that in a small circle of city-connections one may
sometimes find models of both sexes which one of the rural counties
would find it hard to match from all its townships put together.
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