n what was called the business quarter of the town, and then
to proceed with the work as far as circumstances would allow. We had
propositions before us in favor of from one hundred feet as far as up to
ten thousand. Every inch was fought for with as much obstinacy as if
it were an important breach that was defended; and combinations and
conspiracies were as rife as if we were in the midst of a revolution. It
was the general idea that by filling in with dirt, a new town might be
built wherever the causeway terminated, and fortunes made by an act of
parliament. The inhabitants of the island rallied en masse against
the causeway leading one inch from their quarter, after it had fairly
reached it; and, so throughout the entire line, monikins battled for
what they called their interests, with an obstinacy worthy of heroes.

On this great question, for it had, in truth, become of the last
importance by dragging into its consideration most of the leading
measures of the day, as well as six or seven of the principal ordinances
of the Great National Allegory, the respective partisans logically
contending that, for the time being, nothing should advance a foot in
Leaplow that did not travel along that causeway, Noah determined to take
an independent stand. This resolution was not lightly formed, for he
remained rather undecided, until, by waiting a sufficient time, he
felt quite persuaded that nothing was to be got by following any other
course. His God-like luckily was in the same predicament, and everything
promised a speedy occasion to show the world what it was to act on
principle; and this, too, in the middle of a moral eclipse.

When the question came to be discussed, the landholders along the first
line of the causeway were soon reasoned down by the superior interests
of those who lived on the island. The rub was, the point of permitting
the work to go any further. The islanders manifested great liberality,
according to their account of themselves; for they even consented that
the causeway should be constructed on the other marsh to precisely such
a distance as would enable any one to go as near as possible to the
hostile quarter, without absolutely entering it. To admit the latter,
they proved to demonstration, would be changing the character of their
own island from that of an entrepot to that of a mere thoroughfare. No
reasonable monikin could expect it of them.

As the Horizontals, by some calculation that I never un