g!--and we buy it for a
song--and not one man in fifty guesses that we have bought the song of
the future! The man who bought it knows its value--but Mr. Jefferson
cares only for Done lays. He'll not have the Phrygian. He dreams of
cotton and olives, of flocks and herds, rock salt and peaceful mines,
and the manors of the Golden Age,--all gathered, tended, worked,
administered by farmers, school-teachers, and philosophers! The
ploughshare (improved) and the pruning-hook, a pulpit for Dr. Priestley,
and a statue of Tom Paine, a glass house where the study of the mastodon
may lead to a knowledge of man, slavery abolished, and war abhorred, the
lion and the lamb to lie down together and Rousseau to come true--all
the old mirage--perfectibility in plain sight! That is his dream, and it
is a noble one. There is no room in it for the wicked man. In the mean
time he proposes to govern this land of milk and honey, this
bought-and-paid-for Paradise, very much as an eastern Despot might
govern a conquered province. The inconsistencies of man must disconcert
even the Thinker up in the skies. Well--it happens that the West and
this great new city of ours, there at the mouth of the river, with her
levees and her ships, her merchants, priests, and lawyers, do not want
government by a satrap. They want an Imperial City and a Caesar of their
own. Throughout the length and breadth of this vast territory there is
deep dissatisfaction--within and without, for Spain is yet arrogant upon
its borders. The Floridas--Mexico--fret and fever everywhere! It is so
before all changes, Jacqueline. The very wind sighs uneasily. Then one
comes, bolder than the rest, sees and takes his advantage. So empires
and great names are made."

"So good names are lost!" she cried. "It is not thus that you spoke one
October evening on our way from Albemarle!"

Rand dropped the iron from his hand. "That was a year and a half ago,
and all things move with rapidity. A man's mind changes. That
evening!--I was in Utopia. And yet, if we reigned,--if we two reigned,
Jacqueline,--we might reign like that. We might make a kingdom wise and
great."

"And Mr. Jefferson, and all that you owe to him? And your letter to him
every month with all the public news?"

"That was before this winter," he answered. "We have almost ceased to
write. I am not like James Madison or James Monroe. I cannot follow
always. Mr. Jefferson is a great man--but it is hungry dwelling in the
shad