avely on the affairs of their little state;
how, reverently and orderly the subordinate commons used to come into
their presence at their bidding, and do as they were told by the supreme
authorities; and how, as time and years passed, the heads of these same
commons began to lift themselves a little and a little higher, till they
really seemed as much _real men_ as those who occupied the chairs of
state; how, when at last their struggles had gained the great municipal
reform, some sixteen years ago, they took their seats in the very midst
of the aldermanic autocrats, with all the coolness of precocious
intellect, usurping dignities reserved for high-sounding names or
well-lined purses. Could they not tell a few more tales of how the
ethereal blue and whites,--remembering the day when their opponents, clad
in purple, numbered nine out of twelve of the industrious nominees who
were to choose their fellow-workers in the field of city usefulness, had
traded with their talents till they had gained nine and thirty more
purples to sit by their side, and smile at the twelve blue-looking
occupants of the opposition benches,--did, in later times, effectually
turn the tables on the oppressors' heads, and sit above them in triumph,
looking down on fallen greatness; how this revolution had scarce become
familiar to their little sapiencies, when from the very centre of the
rival factions sprang another party; and the dogs, and dragons, and
what-nots, felt ready to jump from their seats, when their ears heard a
city youth avow himself an independent man, neither a _blue_ nor
_purple_--a man of _principle_--didn't they wonder what it meant, and
whether he really had enough of it to buy up both the other bidders in
this marketable borough, or whether it would pay the interest of all the
sums that they had severally spent in the good city's cause, and how they
longed to laugh outright when he avowed that honesty and truth were all
the _principal_ he traded with, and how they began by-and-bye to think
there might be something in it, and to comprehend a little of the theory,
but somehow the working of it seemed to puzzle and perplex them, it
seemed to be so complicated by the interference of expediency. But it
will not do to tarry longer, conjecturing what might be the confessions
of the little carved images; who does not, or has not read the brilliant
comedies that have been, and are yet being, enacted perpetually within
this chamber?