"We Men Of The World," A Washington
Man Might Have Said, "Know Very Well That Everybody Must Take Care
Of Himself First.
We are very good friends with you - of course, and
are very glad to see you at our table
Whenever you come across the
water; but as for rejoicing at your joys, or expecting you to
sympathize with our sorrows, we know the world too well for that.
We are splitting into pieces, and of course that is gain to you.
Take another cigar." This polite, fashionable, and certainly
comfortable way of looking at the matter had never been attained at
New York or Philadelphia, at Boston or Chicago. The Northern
provincial world of the States had declared to itself that those who
were not with it were against it; that its neighbors should be
either friends or foes; that it would understand nothing of
neutrality. This was often mortifying to me, but I think I liked it
better on the whole than the laisser-aller indifference of
Washington.
Everybody acknowledged that society in Washington had been almost
destroyed by the loss of the Southern half of the usual sojourners
in the city. The Senators and members of government, who heretofore
had come front the Southern States, had no doubt spent more money in
the capital than their Northern brethren. They and their families
had been more addicted to social pleasures. They are the
descendants of the old English Cavaliers, whereas the Northern men
have come from the old English Roundheads.
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