214 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



again, was immediately shoved aside unanswered &quot;by another, 

 whether in this nineteenth century of the carpenter s son, 

 and first of vulgar, whistling, snorting, roaring locomotives, 

 new-world steamers, and submarine electric telegraphs ; 

 penny newspapers, state free-schools, and mechanic s lyce- 

 urns, this still soft atmosphere of elegant longevity was ex 

 actly the most favourable for the production of thorough, 

 sound, influential manhood, and especially for the growth 

 of the right sort of legislators and lawgivers for the peo- 

 pie. 



It seems certainly that it would be hard for a man whose 

 mind has been mainly formed and habited in the midst of 

 this abundance of quiet, and beauty, and pleasantness, tc 

 rightly understand and judiciously work for the wants of 

 those whose &quot;native air&quot; is as different from this as is that 

 of another planet. Especially hard must it be to look witl 

 perfect honesty and appreciating candour upon principles 

 ideas, measures that are utterly discordant with, and threater 

 to interrupt, this costly nursery song to which his philosophy 

 religion, and habits have been studiously harmonized. 



Hard, by the way, very hard sometimes, must be the 

 trial of a younger son in one of these families. One son only 

 is the real son, to sympathize with and make his own, his 

 father s interests, arrangements, and hopes ; the others are 

 but hangers-on for a time, and while so must grow accus 

 tomed to all this beauty and splendour must be enhomea 

 to it, and then they are thrust out and return only as inferior? 

 or as guests. 



Strange ! I find this monstrous primogeniture seems nat 

 ural and Heaven-inspired law to Englishmen. I can conceive 

 how, in its origin, it might have been so in the patriarchal 

 state, where it was the general direction of the common in 

 heritance, rather than the inheritance itself, that was taken b\ 



