They thought it a democratic institution, this droll a ping of
monarchical forms. To them the deadly dulness of the show was as
natural and proper as ever to the courtiers of the Philips and
Charleses seemed the ceremonies of the Escurial. To her it had the
effect of a nightmare, or of an opium-eater's vision, She felt a
sudden conviction that this was to be the end of American society;
its realisation and dream at once. She groaned in spirit.
"Yes! at last I have reached the end! We shall grow to be wax
images, and our talk will be like the squeaking of toy dolls. We
shall all wander round and round the earth and shake hands. No
one will have any object in this world, and there will be no other.
It is worse than anything in the 'Inferno.' What an awful vision of
eternity!"
Suddenly, as through a mist, she saw the melancholy face of Lord
Skye approaching. He came to her side, and his voice recalled her
to reality.
"Does it amuse you, this sort of thing?" he asked in a vague way.
"We take our amusement sadly, after the manner of our people,"
she replied; "but it certainly interests me."
They stood for a time in silence, watching the slowly eddying
dance of Democracy, until he resumed:
"Whom do you take that man to be--the long, lean one, with a long
woman on each arm?"
"That man," she replied, "I take to be a Washington
department-clerk, or perhaps a member of Congress from Iowa,
with a wife and wife's sister. Do they shock your nobility?"
He looked at her with comical resignation.
Pages:
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79