laughed a vacant and meaningless derision over its own failure.
Nothing remained for a young man without position or power except
to laugh too.

Yet the spectacle was no laughing matter to him, whatever it
might be to the public. Society is immoral and immortal; it can
afford to commit any kind of folly, and indulge in any sort of
vice; it cannot be killed, and the fragments that survive can
always laugh at the dead; but a young man has only one chance,
and brief time to seize it. Any one in power above him can
extinguish the chance. He is horribly at the mercy of fools and
cowards. One dull administration can rapidly drive out every
active subordinate. At Washington, in 1869-70, every intelligent
man about the Government prepared to go. The people would have
liked to go too, for they stood helpless before the chaos; some
laughed and some raved; all were disgusted; but they had to
content themselves by turning their backs and going to work
harder than ever on their railroads and foundries. They were
strong enough to carry even their politics. Only the helpless
remained stranded in Washington.

The shrewdest statesman of all was Mr. Boutwell, who showed how
he understood the situation by turning out of the Treasury every
one who could interfere with his repose, and then locking himself
up in it, alone. What he did there, no one knew. His colleagues
asked him in vain. Not a word could they get from him, either in
the Cabinet or out of it, of suggestion or information on matters
even of vital interest. The Treasury as an active influence
ceased to exist. Mr. Boutwell waited with confidence for society
to drag his department out of the mire, as it was sure to do if