“Ay,” said Derwent; “but it is not the people, but the selfish middle class that rules as yet. Anarchy, even tyranny, may be the mother of men, of high thought and noble deeds; but the lights of the Manchester school are matter and greed, dry bones and death.”
Sewall looked at him quizzically. “Oh, dear,” said he, good-naturedly, “here’s another terrible fellow who believes something!”
“But,” hazarded Arthur, with a blush, “will not representatives do something, and think something, when we make our politics something more than a game for party stakes?”
“Young man,” said Sewall, impressively, “this country cannot be governed without parties and organizations. And if the organizers are not paid for their trouble, they won’t organize. I’ve never known a man with a principle that was worth his salt in politics yet; how can you expect parties to have them? This great country of ours is on the make, just now; and it doesn’t trouble itself about much else.” And Mr. Sewall suddenly dropped his professional tone and, turning to Mrs. Gower, resumed his air of an homme du monde. “Lovely country, after all, is it not, Mrs. Gower? Look at that purple twilight stealing in under the western mountains; I’ve just got a Daubigny with exactly that feeling in it. Only Frenchmen can paint in the half lights, the minor tones, after all.”
Mrs. Gower still patronized art, though she successively had given over most of her special protections for the patronage of human life in general; but Sewall was an amateur, and was famed for his galleries, his cellars, and his orchids. Derwent looked at him from the corners of his eyes, but kept silent; meantime Kill Van Kull, Si Starbuck, and Marion Lenoir, sitting forward, had brought out their banjos and struck up a Southern melody, very soft and sweet. “What a pity we have no folk-songs,” said Wemyss. “Great art is, after all, impossible without the nursery songs and tales of many generations, without the legends and delusions of the people.”
“I am glad to find you need the people for something,” said Derwent, dryly.
“But they have self-educated it away,” said Wemyss. “They have driven beauty out of the world with the three Rs; and now they are about to cut one another’s throats for its mere goods and raw material.”
“True,” said Derwent. “But is it they that have done it? or we that have taught them?”
“Speaking of the people,” laughed Flossie, “there they are.” And she pointed to an excursion-boat coming up the river; it was filled with a holiday party—clerks, upper mechanics, small tradesmen, and their womankind. The latter were resplendently dressed in new bonnets and bright shawls; the husbands looked dingy and jaded. Wemyss took out his opera-glass and scanned the decks for a minute or more, then laid it down wearily as if exhausted. “I have no doubt they are most of them virtuous,” said he. “But they all wear glass diamonds in their ears.”
“Nay,” said Sewall, without cynicism, but as if merely stating an obvious fact. “There are the people.” And he pointed to a huge three-decked barge, coming slowly down stream before two tugs. It was covered with long streamers; the largest bearing, in flaring white letters, “The P. J. McGarragle Association;” and on smaller ones, “6th Ward.” All the decks were black with people; and all the people were waltzing to the loud rhythm of several brass bands. A few dozen of the younger men on the lower deck yelled at the little launch as it went by; they were tipsily singing an obscene song. “Mr. McGarragle has just been elected to Congress; and he is giving a free picnic to all his supporters in his district.”