And yet, that antagonism has its compensations. It brings Aaron into favor with Governor Clinton; it finds him allies among the Livingstons. The latter powerful family invite him into their politics. He thanks them, but declines. He is for the law; hungry to make money, he sees no profit, but only loss in politics.
In his gold-getting, Aaron is marvelously successful; and, as he rolls up riches, he buys land. Thus one proud day he becomes master of Richmond Hill, with its lawn sweeping down to the Hudson—Richmond Hill, where he played slave of the quill to Washington, and suffered in his vanity from the big general’s loftily abstracted pose.
Master of a mansion, Aaron fills his libraries with books and his cellars with wine. Thus he is never without good company, reading the one and sipping the other. The faded Theodosia presides over his house; and, because of her years or his lack of them, her manner toward him trenches upon the maternal.
The household is a hive of happiness. Aaron, who takes the pedagogue instinct from sire and grandsire, puts in his leisure drilling the small Prévost boys in their lessons. He will have them talking Latin and reading Greek like little priests, before he is done with them. As for baby Theodosia, she reigns the chubby queen of all their hearts; it is to her credit not theirs that she isn’t hopelessly spoiled.
In his wine and his reading, Aaron’s tastes take opposite directions. The books he likes are heavy, while his best-liked wines are light. He reads Jeremy Bentham; also he finds comfort in William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
He adorns his study with a portrait of the lady; which feat in decoration furnishes the prudish a pang.
These book radicalisms, and his weaknesses for alarming doctrines, social and political, do not help Aaron’s standing with respectable hypocrites, of whom there are vast numbers about, and who in its fashion and commerce and politics give the town a tone. These whited sepulchers of society purse discreet yet condemnatory lips when Aaron’s name is mentioned, and speak of him as favoring “Benthamism” and “Godwinism.” Our dullard pharisee folk know no more of “Benthamism” and “Godwinism” in their definitions, than of plant life in the planet Mars; but their manner is the manner of ones who speak of evils tenfold worse than murder. Aaron pays no heed; neither does he fret over the innuendoes of these hypocritical ones. He was born full of contempt for men’s opinions, and has fostered and flattered it into a kind of cold passion. Occupied with the loved ones at Richmond Hill, careless to the point of blind and deaf of all outside, he seeks only to win lawsuits and pile up gold. And never once does his glance rove officeward.
This anti-office coolness is all on Aaron’s side. He does not pursue office; but now and again office pursues him. Twice he goes to the legislature; next, Governor Clinton asks him to become attorney general. As attorney general he makes one of a commission, Governor Clinton at its head, which sells five and a half million acres of the State’s public land for $1,030,000. The highest price received is three shillings an acre; the purchasers number six. The big sale is to Alexander McComb, who is given a deed for three million six hundred thousand acres at eight-pence an acre. The public howls over these surprising transactions in real estate. The popular anger, however, is leveled at Governor Clinton, he being a sort of Cæsar. Aaron, who dwells more in the background, escapes unscathed.
While these several matters go forward, the nation adopts a constitution. Then it elects Washington President, and sets up government shop in New York. Aaron’s part in these mighty doings is the quiet part. He does not think much of the Constitution, but accepts it; he thinks less of Washington, but accepts him, too. It is within the rim of the possible that son-in-law Hamilton, invited into Washington’s Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury, helps the administration to a lowest place in Aaron’s esteem; for Aaron is a priceless hater, and that feud is in no degree relaxed.
When the national government is born, the rusty General Schuyler and Rufus King are chosen senators for New York. The rusty old general, in the two-handed lottery which ensues, draws the shorter term. This in no wise weighs upon him; what difference should it make? At the close of that short term, he will be reëlected for a full term of six years. To assume otherwise would be preposterous; the rusty old general feels no such short-term uneasiness.