encouragement Laura had given him, nor what hopes he might justly have

of winning her. He had never seen him desponding before. The "brag"

appeared to be all taken out of him, and his airy manner only asserted

itself now and then in a comical imitation of its old self.

Philip wanted time to look about him before he decided what to do.

He was not familiar with Washington, and it was difficult to adjust his

feelings and perceptions to its peculiarities. Coming out of the sweet

sanity of the Bolton household, this was by contrast the maddest Vanity

Fair one could conceive. It seemed to him a feverish, unhealthy

atmosphere in which lunacy would be easily developed. He fancied that

everybody attached to himself an exaggerated importance, from the fact of

being at the national capital, the center of political influence, the

fountain of patronage, preferment, jobs and opportunities.

People were introduced to each other as from this or that state, not from

cities or towns, and this gave a largeness to their representative

feeling. All the women talked politics as naturally and glibly as they

talk fashion or literature elsewhere. There was always some exciting

topic at the Capitol, or some huge slander was rising up like a miasmatic

exhalation from the Potomac, threatening to settle no one knew exactly

where. Every other person was an aspirant for a place, or, if he had

one, for a better place, or more pay; almost every other one had some

claim or interest or remedy to urge; even the women were all advocates

for the advancement of some person, and they violently espoused or

denounced this or that measure as it would affect some relative,

465

The Gilded Age