We Notice From Year
To Year The Rise From The Ranks Of Numberless Men To The Highest
Positions, Who Are Our Leaders And Legislators, Owners Of Great Estates
Who Found Great Families And Receive Titles.
But we do not notice the
corresponding decline and final disappearance of those who were highly
placed, since this is a more gradual process and has nothing
sensational about it.
Yet the two processes are equally great and far-
reaching in their effects, and are like those two of Elaboration and
Degeneration which go on side by side for ever in nature, in the animal
world; and like darkness and light and heat and cold in the physical
world.
As a fact, the country is full of the descendants of families that have
"died out." How long it takes to blot out or blur the finer features
and expression we do not know, and the time probably varies according
to the length of the period during which the family existed in its
higher phase. The question which confronts us is: Does the higher or
better nature, the "inward perfections" which are correlated with the
aspects which please, endure too, or do those who fall from their own
class degenerate morally to the level of the people they live and are
one with?
It is a nice question. In Sussex, with Mr. M. A. Lower, who has written
about the vanished or submerged families of that county, for my guide
as to names, I have sought out persons of a very humble condition, some
who were shepherds and agricultural labourers, and have been surprised
at the good faces of many of them, the fine, even noble, features and
expression, and with these an exceptionally fine character.
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