Nature is strong; she
is persistent; she completes her syllogism after we have long been
feeding the roots of her grasses, and has her own way in spite of us.
Some ancestral Cromwellian trooper leaps to life again in Nathaniel
Greene, and makes a general of him, to confute five generations of
Broadbrims. The Puritans were good in their way, and we enjoy them
highly as a preterite phenomenon: but they were _not_ good at cakes and
ale, and that is one reason why they are a preterite phenomenon.
I suppose we are all willing to let a public censor like P.V. run amuck
whenever he likes,--so it be not down our street. I confess to a good
deal of tolerance in this respect, and, when I live in Number 21, have
plenty of stoicism to spare for the griefs of the dwellers in No. 23.
Indeed, I agreed with our young Cato heartily in what he said about
Statues. We must have an Act for the Suppression, either of Great Men,
or else of Sculptors. I have not quite made up my mind which are the
greater nuisances; but I am sure of this, that there are too many of
both. They used to be _rare_, (to use a Yankeeism omitted by Bartlett,)
but nowadays they are overdone.
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