lleys. The sap in her maple-trees will start earlier, run brighter,
and sugar off more gloriously than it has ever done before. Up to this
time, Vermont has never had her share of honors at the national Capitol,
but now her time has come.

I am so glad I went to Mr. Greeley's birthday party, and I haven't a
doubt that a great many other persons feel pretty much as I do about
it. When I shook hands with him there, and saw him standing in the midst
of his friends, with his kind face looking smooth and enticing as a
sweet baked apple, I little thought it might be the next President of
these United States that was enjoying himself over a birthday. But
things do get tangled and untangled dreadfully in this world of
ours--don't they? and the most uncertain thing on this side of sundown
is any man's destiny. The most certain thing is the popularity of
success. It seems to me now as if I think considerable more of this
great Vermonter than I did last week, but what has he done to make
me?--that's what I should like to know. He's just the same man; has just
as many faults--no great new supply of virtues. In fact, what has he
done this week more than he did last, that I should feel a sort of honor
and glory in being his friend?

I have been putting these questions to myself, and the answer makes me
feel a little meachen. I am the missionary of one of the most august
bodies that can be found in this or any other country. I represent a
body of blameless, heroic ladies, whose glory it is to be above
prejudice, and capable of self-judgment--ladies that are ladies, and
wish to set an example of Christian womanliness to their own sex and the
rest of mankind, feeling that "the eyes of all Vermont are upon them."

I am all this, yet I feel the humiliation of thinking all the better of
a man because a great hullabaloo of other men have declared before the
world that they want him for President of these United States. This is
weak, but natural--natural, but awfully weak. Why should we let crowds
of men we never saw judge for us? But then, how are we to judge for
ourselves?

After all, this self-government is a difficult thing to carry out. What
man really does govern himself?--either through his brain, or heart,
some one else governs him. He gives himself up by the wholesale to a
crowd, or by retail to his own family.

In the parlor of our hotel last night there was nothing but confusion
and commotion. I went down there with Cousin E.