society which distance and poetry immortalize.

But let the love of the family portraits belong to poetry and not to
politics. It is good in the one way, and bad in the other.

The _sentiment_ of ancestral pride is an integral part of human
nature. Its _organization_ in institutions is the real object of
enmity to all sensible men, because it is a direct preference of
derived to original power, implying a doubt that the world at every
period is able to take care of itself.

The family portraits have a poetic significance; but he is a brave
child of the family who dares to show them. They all sit in
passionless and austere judgment upon himself. Let him not invite us
to see them, until he has considered whether they are honored or
disgraced by his own career--until he has looked in the glass of his
own thought and scanned his own proportions.

The family portraits are like a woman's diamonds; they may flash
finely enough before the world, but she herself trembles lest their
lustre eclipse her eyes. It is difficult to resist the tendency to
depend upon those portraits, and to enjoy vicariously through them a
high consideration. But, after all, what girl is complimented when you
curiously regard her because her mother was beautiful? What attenuated
consumptive, in whom self-respect is yet unconsumed, delights in your
respect for him, founded in honor for his stalwart ancestor?

No man worthy the name rejoices in any homage which his own effort and
character have not deserved. You intrinsically insult him when you
make him the scapegoat of your admiration for his ancestor. But when