ne should have some feelings
connected with it."

"The more it is a fact, the less it will be liked. People associate
social position with wealth and _estates_, but not with farms; and the
longer one has such things in a family, the worse for them!"

"I do believe, Jack," put in my uncle Ro, "that the rule which prevails
all over the rest of the world is reversed here, and that with us it is
thought a family's claim is lessened, and not increased, by time."

"To be sure it is!" answered Dunning, without giving me a chance to
speak. "Do you know that you wrote me a very silly letter once, from
Switzerland, about a family called de Blonay, that had been seated on
the same rock, in a little castle, some six or eight hundred years, and
the sort of respect and veneration the circumstance awakened? Well, all
that was very foolish, as you will find when you pay your incognito
visit to Ravensnest. I will not anticipate the result of your schooling;
but, go to school."

"As the Rensselaers and other great landlords, who have states on
durable leases, will not be very likely to give them up, except on terms
that will suit themselves, for a tax as insignificant as that mentioned
by Hugh," said my uncle, "what does the legislature anticipate from
passing the law?"

"That its members will be called the friends of the people, and not the
friends of the landlords. Would any man tax his friends, if he could
help it?"

"But what will that portion of the people who compose the anti-renters
gain by such a measure?"

"Nothing; and their complaints will be just as loud, and their longings
as active, as ever. Nothing that can have any effect on what they wish,
will be accomplished by any legislation in the matter. One committee of
the assembly has actually reported, you may remember, that the State
might assume the lands, and sell them to the tenants, or some one else;
or something of the sort."

"The constitution of the United States must be Hugh's aegis."

"And that alone will protect him, let me tell you. But for that noble
provision of the constitution of the Federal Government, his estate
would infallibly go for one-half its true value. There is no use in
mincing things, or in affecting to believe men more honest than they
are--AN INFERNAL FEELING OF SELFISHNESS IS SO MUCH TALKED OF, AND CITED,
AND REFERRED TO, ON ALL OCCASIONS, IN THIS COUNTRY, THAT A MAN ALMOST
RENDERS HIMSELF RIDICULOUS WHO APPEARS TO REST ON PRINCIPLE."