"Still they may be famous for beauty. I think there have been a number of famous women. Queen Elizabeth—"
"Don't instance the Empress Catherine nor Catherine de Medicis. If you do, I shall never forgive you. Nor Joan of Arc—I can't remember any more."
"Nor the Pilgrim mothers! They deserved a good deal of credit to set up housekeeping on bleak Plymouth Rock. Why doesn't someone talk about them! Housekeeping is a womanly grace or virtue or acquirement—which do you call it?"
"I suppose it is an acquirement when you work hard to obtain it, a grace when it comes natural. Do you imagine they kindled the fire on the rocks and boiled the kettle as we do when we go off in the woods for a day's pleasure?"
"They wouldn't let you do it now. Plymouth Rock has become—"
"The palladium of liberty! Isn't that rather choice and fit and elegant? It is a pity that I can't take the credit of inventing it. And what a shame we haven't a few rocks about here! I have a dreadful feeling that the Capital may sink down in the slough some day and disappear. Every street ends in a marsh."
"You see, this is rightly called the New World—it is not finished yet."
"Dr. Collaston, we can't allow you to monopolize the beauties of the evening. Here are some guests anxious to meet Miss Mason," and thereupon Patricia was turned slightly around to face a group of young people.
But it was not all gayety or compliments, though men were gallant enough then, and ready with florid encomiums. There was the dreaded topic of war, which was touched upon with bated breath; there were muttered anathemas concerning the impressment of sailors; there were fears of France and a misgiving that we were not strong enough to cope with England while our resources were still slender. And already there were undercurrents forming for the Presidential election more than six months hence.
But the younger people chatted nonsense, laughed at trifles, and made engagements for pleasure as well as for life; or the more coquettish ones teased their lovers with vain pretenses. Mrs. Van Ness entertained with ease and brilliance, and was as fond of gathering the younger people about her as those more serious companies where the responsible party men met and in a veiled way touched upon the graver questions. At Mrs. Gallatin's one met the more intellectual or scientific people. There was a feeling in the air that the country ought to consider an advancement in literature. Boston was already pluming herself upon a certain intellectual standing. There were Harvard and a Law Club, and a kind of literary center that had issued a magazine, and there were several papers. New York had some poets, and there had been a few novels written. But what could anyone say about such a new country? There were no famous ruins, though there were battlefields that were to be historic ground when men could look at them from a distance. Many a brave story lurked in the fastnesses of Virginia, and old James River held a romance in almost every curve of its banks.