“There was,” said St. Clare, “a time in my life when I had plans and hopes of doing something in this world, more than to float and drift.  I had vague, indistinct yearnings to be a sort of emancipator,—­to free my native land from this spot and stain.  All young men have had such fever-fits, I suppose, some time,—­but then—­”

“Why didn’t you?” said Miss Ophelia;—­“you ought not to put your hand to the plough, and look back.”

“O, well, things didn’t go with me as I expected, and I got the despair of living that Solomon did.  I suppose it was a necessary incident to wisdom in us both; but, some how or other, instead of being actor and regenerator in society, I became a piece of driftwood, and have been floating and eddying about, ever since.  Alfred scolds me, every time we meet; and he has the better of me, I grant,—­for he really does something; his life is a logical result of his opinions and mine is a contemptible non sequitur.”

“My dear cousin, can you be satisfied with such a way of spending your probation?”

“Satisfied!  Was I not just telling you I despised it?  But, then, to come back to this point,—­we were on this liberation business.  I don’t think my feelings about slavery are peculiar.  I find many men who, in their hearts, think of it just as I do.  The land groans under it; and, bad as it is for the slave, it is worse, if anything, for the master.  It takes no spectacles to see that a great class of vicious, improvident, degraded people, among us, are an evil to us, as well as to themselves.  The capitalist and aristocrat of England cannot feel that as we do, because they do not mingle with the class they degrade as we do.  They are in our homes; they are the associates of our children, and they form their minds faster than we can; for they are a race that children always will cling to and assimilate with.  If Eva, now, was not more angel than ordinary, she would be ruined.  We might as well allow the small-pox to run among them, and think our children would not take it, as to let them be uninstructed and vicious, and think our children will not be affected by that.  Yet our laws positively and utterly forbid any efficient general educational system, and they do it wisely, too; for, just begin and thoroughly educate one generation, and the whole thing would be blown sky high.  If we did not give them liberty, they would take it.”

“And what do you think will be the end of this?” said Miss Ophelia.

“I don’t know.  One thing is certain,—­that there is a mustering among the masses, the world over; and there is a dies irae coming on, sooner or later.  The same thing is working in Europe, in England, and in this country.  My mother used to tell me of a millennium that was coming, when Christ should reign, and all men should be free and happy.  And she taught me, when I was a boy, to pray, ‘thy kingdom come.’  Sometimes I think all this sighing, and groaning, and stirring among the dry bones foretells what she used to tell me was coming.  But who may abide the day of His appearing?”