Wealth in all communities is comparative, and he who has only a few thousand dollars, where no one else has so much, is the rich man, and ever assumes the rich man's prerogatives and bearing. All experience has proved that as a man estimates himself, so in time will the community esteem him; and he who assumes to lead or dictate will soon be permitted to do so, and will become the first in prominence and influence in his neighborhood, county, or State. Greatness commences humbly and progresses by assumption. The humble ruler of a neighborhood, like a pebble thrown into a pond, will continue to increase the circle of his influence until it reaches the limits of his county. The fathers speak of him, the children hear of him, his name is a household word; if he but assumes enough, in time he becomes the great man of the county; and if with impudence he unites a modicum of talent, well larded with a cunning deceit, it will not be long before he is Governor or member of Congress. It is not surprising, then, that in nearly every one of these communities the great man was a Virginian. It has been assumed by the Virginians that they have descended from a superior race, and this may be true as regards many families whose ancestors were of Norman descent; but it is not true of the mass of her population; and for one descendant from the nobility and gentry of the mother country, there are thousands of pure Anglo-Saxon blood. It was certainly true, from the character and abilities of her public men, in her colonial condition and in the earlier days of the republic, she had a right to assume a superiority; but this, I fancy, was more the result of her peculiar institutions than of any superiority of race or greater purity of blood. I am far, however, from underrating the influence of blood. That there are species of the same race superior in mental as well as in physical formation is certainly true. The peculiar organization of the brain, its fineness of texture in some, distinguish them as mentally superior to others, as the greater development of bone and muscle marks the superiority of physical power. Very frequently this difference is seen in brothers, and sometimes in families of the same parents--the males in some usurping all the mental acumen, and in others the females. Why this is so, I cannot stop to speculate.