We should not be surprised any day to hear that a marriage market had been
opened on one of the plazas of Rome, the quotations of which would read
something after this fashion: Husbands dull and declining; American
beauties more active; foreign mammas less firm; American securities in
great demand; the market in princes somewhat stronger; holders of titles
much sought after; brains without money a drug in the market; "bogus"
counts at a discount; the genealogy market panicky and falling; the stock
of nobility rapidly depreciating; the pedigree exchange market flat and
declining, etc., etc. This traffic in titles, this barter in dowries, this
swapping of "blood" for dollars, is an offense too rank for words to embody
it. The trade in cadetships is mild in comparison with it, because in these
commercial transactions with counts, while one party may be the purchaser,
both parties are inevitably seen to be sold. The business may only be
excusable on the theory that "an even exchange is no robbery." But so long
as brains are not bartered for a title, or beauty sacrificed for a
pedigree, we should not complain. Of money, there is plenty in America;
and, while marquises are in the market, let Shoddy continue to pipe for its
own. A fig for Macbeth's philosophy that "blood will have blood." We modify
it in these degenerate days to "blood will have money:"

"Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare;
And Mammon wins his way where Seraphs might despair."

* * * * *

"The Lay of the Last Minstrel."

"SHOO FLY, don't bodder me."