AKISTOCKACY AND NATUKAL SELECTION 39 



You have the aristocracy purely of Bl in Germany ; of B2 

 in America ; of B3 in France ; of B4 everywhere, but of 

 4Bs in England only : where indeed we have 4Bs in the 



highest nobility. I met nothing beyond Bl and B2 at X 



however, perhaps with ever so small an element of the two 

 others I might have been induced to stay Sunday, for I do 

 maintain that the union of all must be irresistible in every 

 degree and condition of life, from Fuegia to London. 



I have no time to answer your kind long letter. There 

 must be, as you say, something effective in the alteration 

 of the reproductive system under variation, not necessarily 

 induced by domestication but accompanying some variety 

 artificially selected. I cannot however forget that it is 

 through marriage alone that the 4 B's are usually recruited 

 in after life, and so there may be something in what you 

 say ! ! ! that's my philosophy — make the best of it till we 

 meet. 



To C. Darwin 



June 29, 1863. 



I went to the Guards Ball the other night, and was 

 deeply interested — of course I know so few people that I had 

 abundant time and opportunity to roam about, and observe, 

 and listen — admire and despise — the contrasts of old and 

 young were ghastly — my God, there were hideous old 

 women in bride's robes enough to keep you in nightmares 

 for a month of Sundays, and lovely girls enough to fill all 

 the paradises of all the Turks. The intellectual cut and 

 exceeding handsomeness of both men and women was very 

 satisfactory in the main, as was the cleanliness and general 

 health of the whole stock of high-bred humanity. To compare 

 them with an equal number of the lower classes suggested 

 many reflections, and strengthened me in my dogma that 

 Brains + Beauty = Breeding -f Wealth. I should extremely 

 like to go to a similar selection in America, France or Austria ; 

 my impression is that the comparison would be ludicrous. 



The same view is pursued in the matter of Democracy in 

 America, prompted in part by reading De Tocqueville, in part 

 by the stir of the American Civil War. His own sympathies 

 at the time may be described as not so much positively in favour 



