Next to being rich themselves, it is for such persons a very delightful thing to have the reputation of being a friend and associate, or at least an acquaintance of those who are rich. Why, even in England, it is so. There are scarcely a dozen members of the English House of Peers, who can trace back their lineage two hundred years, without coming to some money-making merchant, or lawyer, or speculator of some kind, as the had and founder of their family. . . It is no derogation, then, to the Boston aristocracy, that it rests upon money. Money is something substantial.
Every body knows that and feels it.
Birth is a mere idea, which grows every day more and more intangible.