We all ought to have hereditary titles and landed property, in order
to insure national prosperity for ever. Novelists do not, as a rule,
treat of the Sinking Back because it is a depressing subject. There
are many ways of falling. Mostly, the father makes an ass of himself
in the way of business or speculation; or he dies too soon; or his
sons possess none of their father's ability; or they take to drink.
Anyhow, down goes the Family, at first slowly, but with ever
increasing rapidity, back to its original level. There is no country
in the world--certainly not the United States--where a young man may
rise to distinction with greater ease than this realm of the Three
Kingdoms. There is also none where the families show a greater
alacrity in sinking. But the most reluctant to go down, those who
cling most tightly to the social level which they think they have
reached, are the daughters; so that when misfortunes fall upon them
they are ready to deny themselves everything rather than lose the
social dignity which they think belongs to them.
Again, a steady feeder of these ranks is the large family of girls. It
is astonishing what a number of families there are in which they are
all, or nearly all, girls.
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