“Nothing of the kind; a friendly letter from a member of the Cabinet,” replied he, carelessly.
“Devil take them! It isn't friendship we want; it's something to live on.”
“You are a low-minded, mercenary creature,” said O'Shea, oratorically. “Is our happiness in this life, our self-respect, our real worth, dependent upon the accident of our station, or upon the place we occupy in the affections of men,—what we possess of their sympathy and love? I look around me, and what do I see?”
“Sorra bit of me knows,” broke in Joe.
Unmindful of the interruption, O'Shea continued: “I see the high places occupied by the crafty, the subtle, and the scheming.”
“I wish we had one of them,” muttered Joe.
“I see that humble merit shivers at the door, while insolent pretension struts proudly in.”
“Ay, and more power to him, if he's able,” grumbled out the other.
“I see more,” said O'Shea, raising his voice, and extending his arm at full length,—“I see a whole nation,—eight millions of men,—great, glorious, and gifted,—men whose genius has shed a lustre over the dull swamp of their oppressors' nature, but who one day, rising from her ashes—”
“Ah! by my conscience, I knew it was comin'; and I said to myself, 'Here's the phaynix!'”