it very much as a matter of accident, whether he
is to pass his days in the one character or in the other. Cousin Jack
assures me, that, while this man accepts almost any duty that he
chooses to assign him, he would not deem it at all a violation of the
_convenances_ to aim at the throne in the White House."

"Certainly with no hopes of ever attaining it!"

"One cannot answer for that. The man must undergo many essential
changes, and much radical improvement, before such a climax to his
fortunes can ever occur; but the instant you do away with the claims
of hereditary power, the door is opened to a new chapter of
accidents. Alexander of Russia styled himself _un heureux accident_;
and should it ever be our fortune to receive Mr. Bragg as President,
we shall only have to term him _un malheureux accident_. I believe
that will contain all the difference."

"Your republicanism is indomitable, Miss Effingham, and I shall
abandon the attempt to convert you to safer principles, more
especially as I find you supported by both the Mr. Effinghams, who,
while they condemn so much at home, seem singularly attached to their
own system at the bottom."

"They condemn, Sir George Templemore, because they know that
perfection is hopeless, and because they feel it to be unsafe and
unwise to eulogize defects, and they are attached, because near views
of other countries have convinced them that, comparatively at last,
bad as we are, we are still better than most of our neighbours."

"I can assure you," said Grace, "that many of the opinions of Mr John
Effingham, in particular, are not at all the opinions that are most
in vogue here; he rather censures what we like, and likes what we
censure. Even my dear uncle is thought to be a little heterodox on
such subjects."

"I can readily believe it," returned Eve, steadily. "These gentlemen,
having become familiar with better things, in the way of the tastes,
and of the purely agreeable, cannot discredit their own knowledge so
much as to extol that which their own experience tells them is
faulty, or condemn that which their own experience tells them is
relatively good. Now, Grace, if you will reflect a moment, you will
perceive that people necessarily like the best of their own tastes,
until they come to a knowledge of better; and that they as
necessarily quarrel with the unpleasant facts that surround them;
although these facts, as consequences of a political system, may be
much less pai