“Really!” returned Morton, who had furnished ear of double interest to the Reverend Bronson's words, “it is an error, don't y' know, to give any people a rule they don't desire. A government should always match a public. What do you suppose would become of them if one were to suddenly organize a negro tribe of darkest Africa into a republic? Why, under such loose rule as ours, the poor savage beggars would gnaw each other like dogs--they would, really! It would be as depressing a solecism as a Scotchman among the stained glasses, the frescoes, and the Madonnas of a Spanish cathedral; or a Don worshiping within the four bare walls and roof of a Highland kirk. Whatever New York may pretend, it will always be found in possession of that sort of government, whether for virtue or for vice, whereof it secretly approves.” And Morton surveyed the good dominie through that historic eyeglass as though pleased with what he'd said. “But is it not humiliating?” asked the Reverend Bronson. “If what you say be true, does it not make for your discouragement?” “No more than does the vulgar fact of dogs and horses, don't y' know! Really, I take life as it is, and think only to be amused. I remark on men, and upon their conditions of the moral, the mental, and the physical!--on the indomitable courage of restoration as against the ceaseless industry of decay!--on the high and the low, the good and the bad, the weak and the strong, the right and the wrong, the top and the bottom, the past and the future, the white and the black, and all those other things that are not!--and I laugh at all. There is but one thing real, one thing true, one thing important, one thing at which I never laugh!--and that is the present. But really!” concluded Morton, recurring to affectations which for the moment had been forgot, “I'm never discouraged, don't y' know! I shall never permit myself an interest deep enough for that; it wouldn't be good form. Even those beastly low standards which obtain, as you say, in New York do not discourage me. No, I'm never discouraged--really!” “You do as much as any, by your indifference, to perpetuate those standards,” remarked the Reverend Bronson in a way of mournful severity. “My dear old chap,” returned Morton, growing sprightly as the other displayed solemnity, “I take, as I tell you, conditions as I find them, don't y' know! And wherefore no? It's all nature: it's the hog to its wallow, the eagle to its crag;--it is, really! Now an eagle in a mud-wallow, or a hog perching on a crag, would be deuced bad form! You see that yourself, you must--really!” and our philosopher glowered sweetly. “I shall never know,” said the Reverend Bronson, with a half-laugh, “when to have you seriously. I cannot but wish, however, that the town had better luck about its City Hall.”