British sympathy was not nearly so exclusively with the South at the time of the war as is generally supposed in the United States; none the less, the ruling and aristocratic classes in England did largely wish to see the success of the Southern armies. The Southerner, it was understood, was a gentleman, a man of mettle and spirit, and in many cases the direct descendant of an old English Cavalier family; while the Northerners were for the most part but humdrum and commercially minded people who inherited the necessarily somewhat bigoted, if excellent, characteristics of their Dutch, Puritan, or Quaker ancestors. The view had at least sufficient historical basis to serve as an excuse if not as a justification. So it came about that those classes which came to form the backbone of the Conservative party were largely sympathisers with the South; and, after the war, that sympathy naturally descended to the Democratic party rather than to the Northern Republicans. Except, however, in one particular the fundamental sentiments which make a man a Republican or a Democrat to-day have nothing to do with the issues of war times. I do not know that any one has successfully defined the fundamental difference either between a Conservative and a Liberal, or between a Republican and a Democrat, nor have I any desire to attempt it; and where both parties in each country are in a constant state of flux and give-and-take, such a definition would perhaps be impossible. It may be that Ruskin came as near to it as is practicable when he spoke of himself as "a Tory of the old school,--the school of Homer and Sir Walter Scott."