ble aspect
before both of his _inamoratas_, past and present.

"I do not agree with you, mademoiselle. I am one of those who think
that in the very framing of this Constitution of ours the dragon's teeth
were sown, whose harvest is not yet produced. Mr. Calhoun, with his
prophetic eye, foresees that this crop of armed men is inevitable from
such germs, as does Mr. Clay, were he only frank, which he is not,
because he deludes himself--the most incurable and inexcusable of all
deceptions."

And she applied herself again assiduously to her snuffbox, tapping it
peremptorily before opening it, and, with a gloomy eye fixed on space,
she continued:

"In all lands, from the time of Cassandra and Jeremiah up, there have
been prophets. Prophets for good and prophets for ill--of which some few
have been God-appointed, and the sayings of such alone have been
preserved. The rest vanish away into oblivion like chaff before the
wind--never mind what their achievement, what their boast.

"In this nation we have only two true prophets, Calhoun and Clay--both
men of equal might, and resolution, and intellect--gifted as beseems
their vocation, masterful and heroic; and to these all other men are
subordinate in the great designs of Providence."

"Where do you leave Mr. Webster, John Quincy Adams, General Jackson
himself, in such a category, madame?" I asked, eagerly.

"They are doing, or have done, the work God has appointed for them to
do, I suppose, mademoiselle; but they are accessories merely of the
times, and will pass away with the necessities of the moment."

"'The earth has bubbles as the water hath, and these are of them,'" said
Major Favraud aside, between his short, set teeth, nodding to me as he
spoke, and lending the next moment implicit attention to what Madame
Grambeau was saying; for the brief pause she had made for another pinch
of snuff was ended, and she continued impetuously, as if no interval had
occurred:

"Clay is, unconsciously, I trust, for the honor of mankind, fulfilling
his destiny--this great prophet who still refuses to prophesy. He is
entering the wedge for what he declines to admit the possibility of--yet
there must be moments when that eye of power pierces the clouds of
prejudice and party, wherewith it seeks to blind its kingly vision, and
descries the horrors beyond as the result of the acts he is now
committing; and when such moments of clear conviction come to him, the
ambitious tool of a part