“Well, you said my ruling passion was making fun of Boston to visitors; at least, you and Mrs. Wyndham said it between you. I really never do that, unless I give the other side of the question as well.”
“What other side?” asked Mrs. Sam, who wanted to make conversation.
“Boston,” said Vancouver with some solemnity. “It is not more often ridiculous than other great institutions.”
“You simply take one’s breath away, Mr. Vancouver,” said Mrs. Wyndham, with a good deal of emphasis. “The idea of calling Boston ’an institution!’”
“Why, certainly. The United States are only an institution after all. You could not soberly call us a nation. Even you could not reasonably be moved to fine patriotic phrases about your native country, if your ancestors had signed twenty Declarations of Independence. We live in a great institution, and we have every right to flatter ourselves on the success of its management; but in the long run this thing will not do for a nation.”
Miss Brandon looked at Vancouver with a sort of calm incredulity. Mrs. Wyndham always quarreled with him on points like the one now raised, and accordingly took up the cudgels.
“I do not see how you can congratulate yourself on the management of your institution, as you call it, when you know very well you would rather die than have anything to do with it.”
“Very true. But then, you always say that gentlemen should not touch anything so dirty as politics, Mrs. Wyndham,” retorted Vancouver.
“Well, that just shows that it is not an institution at all, and that you are quite wrong, and that we are a great nation supported and carried on by real patriotism.”
“And the Irish and German votes,” added Vancouver, with that scorn which only the true son of freedom can exhibit in speaking of his fellow-citizens.