iers certain pleasing brass-buttoned
chaps whose actual swords could never have done as much for them in all
their lives. And yet, my boy, if all those powerful, unsordid
creatures, our country editors, had their youths to live over again, I
verily believe that two-thirds of them would sooner be put to the sword
than put to the pen. Such is man!

Nevertheless, mighty as the pen may be, it must fail equally with the
well-known Southern Confederacy to do justice to this Capital of our
distracted country in its present social peculiarities. The cackling of
geese once saved the Capitol of the Roman Empire, my boy; but it will
take more geese than those who have come hither with the expectation of
being respected for their virtues, to save Washington from permanent
investment by all the speculative chaps on earth who have no other
capital to invest. The present social circle around the family hearth
of this Capitalian and Congressional town, my boy, is somewhat more
remarkable than it was, even in the palmiest and most mutually abusive
days of our eloquent National Legislature, and fully equals the
frequent domestic symposium of Albany when the State Legislature meet
_there_. Look into a Washington home, and you shall find the venerable
grandfather, who sits nearest the fire, talking and chuckling to
himself over his success that day in depreciating the national currency
by first frightening a country squire on the street almost into fits by
prating learnedly about "repudiation," and then buying all his treasury
notes from him at fifty per cent. discount! Next sits the younger
husband and father, cataloguing to his devoted wife, with the
forefinger of his right hand upon all the fingers of his left, the
successive pecuniary advantages sure to accrue from a contract he has
just obtained to supply our national troops with patent suspenders, and
which will enable him to return to New York in the spring, purchase a
palatial residence on Fifth Avenue, and sign urgent and influential
calls for Peace Conventions. Thirdly, my boy, we have the interesting
wife and mother who listens to her lord and master's revelation with
beaming satisfaction, glancing occasionally at her youthful son and
heir, who, with two thimbles, is practising upon the rug at her feet
the curious and ingenious game of the "Little Joker," whereby he hopes
to reap profit from his small associates on the morrow. The fourth
figure of this prayerful group around the