If I, now, had had one-twentieth part of those
books, prints, that experience of life, not to mention that physical
strength and beauty, which stood towering there before the fire--so simple;
so utterly unconscious of the innate nobleness and grace which shone out
from every motion of those stately limbs and features--all the delicacy
which blood can give, combined, as one does sometimes see, with the broad
strength of the proletarian--so different from poor me!--and so different,
too, as I recollected with perhaps a savage pleasure, from the miserable,
stunted specimens of over-bred imbecility whom I had often passed in
London! A strange question that of birth! and one in which the philosopher,
in spite of himself, must come to democratic conclusions. For, after
all, the physical and intellectual superiority of the high-born is only
preserved, as it was in the old Norman times, by the continual practical
abnegation of the very caste-lie on which they pride themselves--by
continual renovation of their race, by intermarriage with the ranks below
them. The blood of Odin flowed in the veins of Norman William; true--and so
did the tanner's of Falaise!
At last he looked up and spoke courteously--
"I'm afraid I have kept you long; but now, here is for your corrections,
which are capital.
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