We commence our history with that strife of the tongues which
had at the outset also their battle of Hastings, their field of Sanilac.
There began the feud which to-day continues to divide our language,
though the descendants of the primitive stocks are inextricably mingled.
For it is as in "Sibyl." That novel showed us the peer's descendants at
the workman's forge, while the manufacturer's grandchildren were wearing
the ermine and the strawberry-leaves. There is the constant passing to
and fro across the one border-line which never changes. Dandy Mick and
Devilsdust save a little money and become "respectable." We can follow
out their history after Mr. Disraeli leaves them. They marry Harriet and
Caroline, and contrive to educate a sharp boy or two, who will rise to
become superintendents in the mills and to speculate in cotton-spinning.
They in turn send into trade, with far greater advantages, their sons.
The new generation, still educating, and, faithful to the original
impulse, putting forth its fresh and aspiring tendrils, gets one boy
into the church, another at the bar, and keeps a third at the great
_Rouge-et-Noir_ table of commerce.
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