AMERICAN CHARACTER. 57 



highest. Among these stern republicans, 1 have 

 seen a great deal of family pride, and it is certain- 

 ly a natural propensity in the common people to 

 regard with respect the descendants of those illus- 

 trious men who have been the benefactors and the 

 ornaments of the country. I have sometimes 

 been amused with the adoption of an appellation 

 which I at first misunderstood. When I heard 

 some of the lowest orders of society styled men of 

 family, what, thought I, can this mean ? What a 

 nomen generalissimum for all kinds of folks — but I 

 was soon undeceived ; by a man of family is 

 meant, in common parlance, not a man of dis- 

 tinguished family, but a man having a family. In 

 e\ery state there are great families. In every 

 city, town, village, and district, there are great 

 .families, and the invidious airs of self-importance 

 which some oftiie imbecile members of the would- 

 be-patricians take upon themselves, is often retali- 

 ated and punished by the rising up of new claim- 

 ants to superiority, who bear away the honors of 

 a fastidious aristocracy. In the middle ranks in 

 villages, the bar keeper is an important personage 

 and so is the mistress of the school, who is gene- 

 rally a well educated, well-behaved young woman. 

 They set the fashions for their associates, and gi'> 

 ♦he tone to opinion, [n some places the stage- 



