"He would have been sure of election in the days when being taller by the head and shoulders than the common crowd was a qualification." "He had the qualification of the ordained as well as that of the popular leader: 'A comely person, and _the Lord is with him_.' This last is the mark of the true rulers by divine right,--of the men who seem framed to be the conductors of higher influences. The less finely organized "'Know them, as soon as seen, to be their lords, And reverence the secret God in them.'" Harry's beautiful face was wonderfully illuminated. Strange, this unconscious consciousness of the elect! "The relation of master and slave," I went on,--for the Doctor did not offer to speak,--"is, in Shaler's opinion, a most perverted and unnatural one; but he believes in that of protector and protected. The love of power, the instinct of dominion, is strong in him. Perhaps it must be so in those who are to be called to its exercise. 'I know thy pride,' David's elder brother said to him, when the boy left the charge of his few sheep to offer himself as the champion of a nation. But Shaler's ambition was directed by the precept, 'Let him who would be greatest among you be your servant';--whether deliberately, or by the spontaneous flow of his large, generous nature, I do not know. Whatever superiority he possessed, whether of position, education, or natural endowment, he employed for the advantage of the people under his care. All the proceeds of the estate were spent upon it. The land was brought into a high state of cultivation. Its productiveness was not only maintained, but increased. Nor was beauty neglected. Groves were planted, marshes drained, ponds formed. The old cabins gave place to new and pretty cottages. The owners and builders were encouraged to employ their own invention on them; thus there was great variety in the architecture. Vines planted about them, by favor of our kind climate, soon draped them luxuriantly, harmonizing the whole, and giving even to eccentricities of form a beauty of their own. While he took care that ability and energy should enjoy their just return of prosperity, the inferior, whether in body, mind, or soul, were not Pariahs. As Shaler believed the exercise of beneficent power to be the greatest privilege accorded to mortals, he made it one of the chief rewards of exertion." "Was the privilege appreciated?" asked the Doctor.