c life that pertain to
those of other countries who have not a claim in anything to be
accounted my superiors--scarcely my equals. In a word, American
aristocracy, or that which it is getting to be the fashion to stigmatize
as aristocratic, would be deemed very democratic in most of the nations
of Europe. Our Swiss brethren have their chateaux and their habits that
are a hundred times more aristocratic than anything about Ravensnest,
without giving offence to liberty; and I feel persuaded, were the
proudest establishment in all America pointed out to a European as an
aristocratic abode, he would be very apt to laugh at it, in his sleeve.
The secret of this charge among ourselves is the innate dislike which is
growing up in the country to see any man distinguished from the mass
around him in anything, even though it should be in merit. It is nothing
but the expansion of the principle which gave rise to the traditionary
feud between the "plebeians and patricians" of Albany, at the
commencement of this century, and which has now descended so much
farther than was then contemplated by the _soi-disant_ "plebeians" of
that day, as to become quite disagreeable to their own descendants. But
to return to myself--

I will own that, so far from finding any grounds of exultation in my own
aristocratical splendour, when I came to view my possessions at home, I
felt mortified and disappointed. The things that I had fancied really
respectable, and even fine, from recollection, now appeared very
common-place, and in many particulars mean. "Really," I found myself
saying _sotto voce_, "all this is scarcely worthy of being the cause of
deserting the right, setting sound principles at defiance, and of
forgetting God and his commandments!" Perhaps I was too inexperienced to
comprehend how capacious is the maw of the covetous man, and how
microscopic the eye of envy.

"You are welcome to Ravensnest," said Mr. Warren, approaching and
offering his hand in a friendly way, much as he would address any other
young friend; "we arrived a little before you, and I have had my ears
and eyes open ever since, in the hope of hearing your flute, and of
seeing your form in the highway, near the parsonage, where you promised
to visit me."

Mary was standing at her father's elbow, as when I first saw her, and
she gazed wistfully at my flute, as she would not have done had she seen
me in my proper attire, assuming my proper character.

"I danks you, sir