he
laws of physiology. We have a native aristocracy, a superior race, just
as plainly marked by nature as of a higher and finer grade than the
common run of people as the white pine is marked in its form, its
stature, its bark, its delicate foliage, as belonging to the nobility of
the forest; and the pitch pine, stubbed, rough, coarse-haired, as of the
plebeian order. Only the strange thing is to see in what a capricious
way our natural nobility is distributed. The last born nobleman I have
seen, I saw this morning; he was pulling a rope that was fastened to a
Maine schooner loaded with lumber. I should say he was about twenty
years old, as fine a figure of a young man as you would ask to see, and
with a regular Greek outline of countenance, waving hair, that fell as if
a sculptor had massed it to copy, and a complexion as rich as a red
sunset. I have a notion that the State of Maine breeds the natural
nobility in a larger proportion than some other States, but they spring
up in all sorts of out-of-the-way places. The young fellow I saw this
morning had on an old flannel shirt, a pair of trowsers that meant hard
work, and a cheap cloth cap pushed back on his head so as to let the
large waves of hair straggle out over his forehead; he was tugging at his
rope with the other sailors, but upon my word I don't think I have seen a
young English nobleman of all those whom I have looked upon that answered
to the notion of "blood" so well as this young fellow did. I suppose if
I made such a levelling confession as this in public, people would think
I was looking towards being the labor-reform candidate for President.
But I should go on and spoil my prospects by saying that I don't think
the white-pine Yankee is the more generally prevailing growth, but rather
the pitch-pine Yankee.

--The Member of the Haouse seemed to have been getting a dim idea that
all this was not exactly flattering to the huckleberry districts. His
features betrayed the growth of this suspicion so clearly that the Master
replied to his look as if it had been a remark. [I need hardly say that
this particular member of the General Court was a pitch-pine Yankee of
the most thoroughly characterized aspect and flavor.]

--Yes, Sir,--the Master continued,--Sir being anybody that listened,
--there is neither flattery nor offence in the views which a
physiological observer takes of the forms of life around him. It won't
do to draw individual portraits,