[Illustration: Buttons Melancholy.]
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THE SENATOR ENTRAPPED.--THE WILES AND WITCHERY OF A QUEEN OF SOCIETY. --HIS FATE DESTINED TO BE, AS HE THINKS, ITALIAN COUNTESSES. --SENTIMENTAL CONVERSATION.--POETRY.--BEAUTY.--MOONLIGHT.--RAPTURE. --DISTRACTION.--BLISS!
The blandishments of Florentine society might have led captive a sterner soul than that of the Senator. Whether he wished it or not, he was overcome. His friend, the Minister, took him to the houses of the leaders of society, and introduced him as an eminent American statesman and member of the Senate.
Could any recommendation be equal to that? For, be it remembered, it was the Revolutionary time. Republicanism ran high. America was synonymous with the Promised Land. To be a statesman in America was as great a dignity as to be prince in any empire on earth. Besides, it was infinitely more honored, for it was popular. The eyes of the struggling people were tamed to that country which shoved them an example of republican freedom.
So if the Florentines received the Senator with boundless hospitality, it was because they admired his country, and reverenced his dignity. They liked to consider the presence of the American Minister and Senator as an expression of the good-will of the American Government. They looked upon him diplomatically. All that he said was listened to with the deepest respect, which was none the less when they did not comprehend a word. His pithy sentences, when translated into Italian, became the neatest epigrams in the world. His suggestions as to the best mode of elevating and enriching the country were considered by one set as the profoundest philosophy, and by another as the keenest satire. They were determined to lionize him. It was a new sensation to the Senator. He desired to prolong it. He recalled the lines of the good Watts:
"My willing soul would stay
In such a frame as this."
He thought of Dr. Franklin in Paris, of his severe republicanism amid the aristocratic influences around. How like his present situation was to that of the august philosopher!