Being of a Puritan nobility, they have an ancestral record, affording more legitimate subject of family self-esteem than most other nobility.

Their history runs back to an ancestry of unworldly faith and prayer and self-denial, of incorruptible public virtue, sturdy resistance of evil, and pursuit of good.
There is also a literary aroma pervading their circles.

Dim suggestions of "The North American Review," of "The Dial," of Cambridge,--a sort of vague "_miel-fleur_" of authorship and poetry,--is supposed to float in the air around them; and it is generally understood that in their homes exist tastes and appreciations denied to less favored regions.

Almost every one of them has its great man,--its father, grandfather, cousin, or great uncle, who wrote a book, or edited a review, or was a president of the United States, or minister to England, whose opinions are referred to by the family in any discussion, as good Christians quote the Bible.
It is true that, in some few instances, the _pleroma_ of aristocratic dignity undergoes a sort of acetic fermentation, and comes out in ungenial qualities.

Now and then, at a public watering-place, a man or woman appears no otherwise distinguished than by a remarkable talent for being disagreeable; and it is amusing to find, on inquiry, that this repulsiveness of demeanor is entirely on account of belonging to an ancient family.
Such is the tendency of democracy to a general mingling of elements, that this frigidity is deemed necessary by these good souls to prevent the commonalty from being attracted by them, and sticking to them, as straws and bits of paper do to amber.