These views are not mine only. They have been already set forth so much
more forcibly by M. de Tocqueville, that I should have thought it
unnecessary to talk about them, were not the rhetorical phrases, "Caste,"
"Privileged Classes," "Aristocratic Exclusiveness," and such-like,
bandied about again just now, as if they represented facts. If there
remain in this kingdom any facts which correspond to those words, let
them be abolished as speedily as possible: but that such do remain was
not the opinion of the master of modern political philosophy, M. de
Tocqueville.

He expresses his surprise "that the fact which distinguishes England from
all other modern nations, and which alone can throw light on her
peculiarities, . . . has not attracted more attention, . . . and that
habit has rendered it, as it were, imperceptible to the English
themselves--that England was the only country in which the system of
caste had been not only modified, but effectually destroyed. The
nobility and the middle classes followed the same business, embraced the
same professions, and, what is far more significant, intermarried with
each other. The daughter of the greatest nobleman" (and this, if true of
the eighteenth century, has become far more true of the nineteenth)
"could already, without disgrace, marry a man of yesterday." . . .

"It has often been remarked that the English nobility has been more
prudent, more able, and less exclusive than any other. It would have
been much nearer the truth to say, that in England, for a very long time
past, no nobility, properly so called, have existed, if we take the word
in the ancient and limited sense it has everywhere else retained." . . .

"For several centuries the word 'gentleman'" (he might have added,
"burgess") "has altogether changed its meaning in England; and the word