to all its cries and distresses.

"Not seeing the enlarged benefits that were to flow from this
Journal of Prospective Civilization, nor having any great faith in
the quality of civilization stolen literature would confer upon a
nation, I preferred to distinguish my generosity by a more national
and less tricky example. This, I observed, did not give satisfaction
to the damsels, who turned away with a look of contempt, and no
doubt to this day entertain a very poor opinion of me.

"When we had reached the street my companion very modestly said
there were not less than a thousand curious places a politician
should visit before being qualified for taking a high position among
his fellows. Many of these were established for the benefit of poor
men in pursuit of fortunes, which it was absurd to think could not
be got without a too strict adherence to truth and probity. First,
he said, he would introduce me to the high priest of the Pewter Mug,
which was the Star Chamber of Tammany, though many simple-minded
people residing in the rural districts had mistaken it for the place
in which Mr. Beecher, the reverend, wrote his celebrated star
letters. No famous politician or statesman ever visited New York
without scenting its pure atmosphere. And even Marcy himself, who,
notwithstanding his grievous fault of quoting great authors, would
be written down in history as a knight of diplomatists, had been
heard to say (he was a frequenter of the Mug) that he owed the
profoundness of his wisdom to the quality of the beverages there
served. And as the first dawn of his generosity was supposed to have
broken forth in this compliment to the accommodating high priest, it
did him infinite credit in the future.