century will not pass, before they will
enforce them by the necessary penal statutes. We have got matters so
now, that a man can no longer indulge in the aristocratic and selfish
desire to make a will, and, take my word for it, we shall not stop
until we bring every thing to the proper standard."

The reader is not to suppose from his language that Mr. Dodge was an
agrarian, or that he looked forward to a division of property, at
some future day; for, possessing in his own person already, more than
what could possibly fall to an individual share, he had not the
smallest desire to lessen its amount by a general division. In point
of fact he did not know his own meaning, except as he felt envy of
all above him, in which, in truth, was to be found the whole secret
of his principles, his impulses, and his doctrines. Any thing that
would pull down those whom education, habits, fortune, or tastes, had
placed in positions more conspicuous than his own, was, in his eyes,
reasonable and just--as any thing that would serve him, in person,
the same ill turn, would have been tyranny and oppression. The
institutions of America, like every thing human, have their bad as
well as their good side; and while we firmly believe in the relative
superiority of the latter, as compared with other systems, we should
fail of accomplishing the end set before us in this work, did we not
exhibit, in strong colours, one of the most prominent consequences
that has attended the entire destruction of factitious personal
distinctions in the country, which has certainly aided in bringing
out in bolder relief than common, the prevalent disposition in man to
covet that which is the possession of another, and to decry merits
that are unattainable.

"Well, I rejoice to hear this," returned Mrs. Abbott, whose
principles were of the same loose school as those of her companion,
"for I think no one should have rights but those who have experienced
religion, if you would keep vital religion in a country. There goes
that old sea-lion, Truck, and his fishing associate, the commodore,
with their lines and poles, as usual, Mr. Dodge; I beg you will call
to them, for I long to hear what the first can have to say about his
beloved Effinghams, now?"

Mr. Dodge complied, and the navigator of the ocean and the navigator
of the lake, were soon seated in Mrs. Abbott's little parlour, which
might be styled the focus of gossip, near those who were so lately
its sole occup