Whether Langdon was of this sort or not I could not say positively; but he had spirit, and, as I have said, a family-pride which would not let him be dependent.  The New England Brahmin caste often gets blended with connections of political influence or commercial distinction.  It is a charming thing for the scholar, when his fortune carries him in this way into some of the “old families” who have fine old houses, and city-lots that have risen in the market, and names written in all the stock-books of all the dividend-paying companies.  His narrow study expands into a stately library, his books are counted by thousands instead of hundreds, and his favorites are dressed in gilded calf in place of plebeian sheepskin or its pauper substitutes of cloth and paper.

The Reverend Jedediah Langdon, grandfather of our young gentleman, had made an advantageous alliance of this kind.  Miss Dorothea Wentworth had read one of his sermons which had been printed “by request,” and became deeply interested in the young author, whom she had never seen.  Out of this circumstance grew a correspondence, an interview, a declaration, a matrimonial alliance, and a family of half a dozen children.  Wentworth Langdon, Esquire, was the oldest of these, and lived in the old family-mansion.  Unfortunately, that principle of the diminution of estates by division, to which I have referred, rendered it somewhat difficult to maintain the establishment upon the fractional income which the proprietor received from his share of the property.  Wentworth Langdon, Esq., represented a certain intermediate condition of life not at all infrequent in our old families.  He was the connecting link between the generation which lived in ease, and even a kind of state, upon its own resources, and the new brood, which must live mainly by its wits or industry, and make itself rich, or shabbily subside into that lower stratum known to social geologists by a deposit of Kidderminster carpets and the peculiar aspect of the fossils constituting the family furniture and wardrobe.  This slack-water period of a race, which comes before the rapid ebb of its prosperity, is familiar to all who live in cities.  There are no more quiet, inoffensive people than these children of rich families, just above the necessity of active employment, yet not in a condition to place their own children advantageously, if they happen to have families.  Many of them are content to live unmarried.  Some mend their broken fortunes by prudent alliances, and some leave a numerous progeny to pass into the obscurity from which their ancestors emerged; so that you may see on handcarts and cobblers’ stalls names which, a few generations back, were upon parchments with broad seals, and tombstones with armorial bearings.

In a large city, this class of citizens is familiar to us in the streets.  They are very courteous in their salutations; they have time enough to bow and take their hats off,—­which, of course, no businessman can afford to do.  Their beavers are smoothly brushed, and their boots well polished; all their appointments are tidy; they look the respectable walking gentleman to perfection.  They are prone to habits,—­they frequent reading-rooms,—­insurance-offices,—­they walk the same streets at the same hours,—­so that one becomes familiar with their faces and persons, as a part of the street-furniture.