Causes of Aristocracy [pp. 551-566]

CAUSES OiF ARISTOCRACY.
tocracy is born of the masses, and as it is but the development of
the intellect of the talented of the masses in the various pursuits
of life, it should not be sneered at by their representatives.
All aristocrats are upstarts, if the satirist's views are correct,
but genius and energy made them so; and Pope, with his dirty
habits and great pretensions, aping of the great, was a greater
snob, according to this theory, than Cromwell. The million
must always be rough, and, to a considerable degree, ignorant.
Toil, and want of time to cultivate the graces of mind and
body, makes them so. They, therefore, resign the study of
art, science, literature, fashion, to those who have genius,
wealth, leisure, or opportunity; while they build our ships
and temples, and fight our battles under the instruction of the
higher class, and bide the time when they, too, may join the
throng of elegant idlers. It is vain for satire to storm; it cannot level the high, nor raise the low. Its endeavors are vain,
and its aims false.
We, therefore, cannot sanction this fierce declamation against
the upper society. A little reflection will convince the most
obtuse that it is wholly unjust. Men are not snobs because
they are wealthy, and should not be censured because
they show an ambition to put on good manners, and live genteelly. The snob and parvenu originated in the same feeling
that made the old regime envy the wealth and splendor of
Napoleon's court. They stalked through the Tuileries the
shadows of their former greatness, and sneered at the Bonapartes as the creatures of a military upstart; but now these
princes are no longer upstarts, but the arbitrators of Europe.
Are they any better? It is well not to sink our charity in envy.
The republic protects the highest and the humblest in the
enjoyment of his earnings; and it is hardly just for him,
whom idleness, extravagance, or misfortunes have kept poor,
to ridicule those who have toiled for their comforts with
honesty and prudence.
Conceit makes each one consider his own style of living the
most genteel, and it therefore becomes a virtue, because it
makes us contented with our lot. The poor satirize the
mechanic for waste and fashion; they, the middle class; they,
the aristocracy; and these the high society of kings, showing
how relative a thing is envy, and how universal, conceit. In
our censures of those above us, we forget their ostentation is
for our, as well as their benefit. One of the greatest means
of relieving the necessities of a laboring population, and one of
the principal stimulants of industry and invention, and of
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