in genealogy show that all this is literally 

 true. All the old families in New England 

 and Virginia trace their lines back to nobil- 

 ity, and thence to royalty. Almost every 

 Anglo-American has, if he knew it, noble 

 and royal blood in his veins. The Massa- 

 chusetts farmer, whose fathers came from 

 Devon or Somerset, has as much of the 

 blood of the Plantagenets, of William and 

 of Alfred, as flows in any royal veins in Eu- 

 rope. But his ancestral line passes through 

 the working and fighting younger son, not 

 through him who was first born to the pur- 

 ple. The persistence of the strong shows 

 itself in the prevalence of the leading quali- 

 ties of her dominant strains of blood, and 

 it is well for England that her gentle blood 

 flows in all her ranks and in all her classes. 

 When we consider with Demolins "what 

 constitutes the superiority of the Anglo- 

 Saxon,' Ve shall find his descent from the old 

 nobility, " Saxon and Norman and Dane," 

 not the least of its factors. 



On the continent of Europe the law of 

 primogeniture existed in less force, and the 

 results were very distinct. All of noble blood 



The 



Human 



Harvest 



[57] 



