"Oh, indeed! Do you call George Washington an unreasonable motive? I wish to see him. Imagine me within one hundred miles of this supreme hero, and turning back to England without kissing his hand. I should be laughed at--I should deserve to be laughed at."
"Yes, if the journey were an easier one."
"To be sure, the roads and the cold will be trials; but then my uncle, you can give them to me, as God gives trials to His Beloved. He breaks them up into small portions, and puts a night's sleep between the portions. Can you not also do this?"
"You little Methodist!" answered the Earl, with a tender gleam in his eyes. "I see that I shall have to give you your own way. Will you go with us, George?"
"It will be a relief. New York is in the dumps. Little Burr having beaten the Schuyler faction, thinks himself omnipotent; and this quarrel between Mr. Jay and Governor Clinton keeps every one else on the edge of ill-humour. All the dancing part of the town are gone to Philadelphia; I have scarcely a partner left; and there is no conversation now in New York that is not political. Burr, Schuyler, Jay, Clinton! even the clergy have gone horse and foot into these disputes."
"Burr has a kind of cleverness; one must admit that."
"He is under the curse of knowing everything."
"Nevertheless his opinions will not alter the axis of the earth. It is however a dangerous thing to live in a community where politics are the staple of talk, quarrels spring full armed from a word in such an atmosphere."
"I have accommodated my politics, sir, to my own satisfaction; and I make shift to answer people according to their idols. I vow, I am so weary of the words 'honour and honesty' that they beat a tattoo on my brain."
"When you are as old as I am, George, you will understand that these words are the coin, with which men buy office. The corruption of courtiers is a general article of faith, but the impudence of patriots going to market with their honesty, beats courtly corruption to nothing. However, let us go to Philadelphia and see the play. That is what Annie desires."
"I desire to see Washington. I wish to see the greatest of Americans."
"Let me tell you, Annie," said the Earl, "that there never was a man in America less American in character and habits, than Washington."
"For all that," interrupted George, "there will never come a man after him, that will be able to rob Washington of the first place in the hearts of the American nation."