A
great noble of Rome observed that to direct a wanderer aright was like
lighting another man's candle with one's own; it assisted the fortunes
of the beneficiary without subtracting from the estate of the
Samaritan. For myself, I need neither the Roman argument nor the Roman
example to create within me a benevolent willingness to hang a lantern
in the tower of truth for the guidance of any gentleman now groping as
to the actual status of Mr. Croker with Tammany Hall.
"It requires no word to those initiate to convince them that Mr.
Croker no longer sits on the throne, and that his potentialities are
forever departed away. For myself, grown too indolent for an interest
in aught beyond the sentimentalities of politics, I sorrow that this
is so. Indifference is ever conservative and hesitates at change; and,
speaking for what is within myself and not at all perhaps for that
which is best for the public, I would have preferred a continuation of
the Croker dynasty. As it is, good sooth! Mr. Croker is destroyed. And
your ruin, of whatever character, the resort of owls, the habitat of
bats, and all across it flung the melancholy ivy--that verdant banner
of victorious decay!--is, at its loveliest, but a spectacle of
depression; and one who has witnessed Mr. Croker in his vigor must be
at least dimly affected as he beholds him take his sad and passive
place with those who were.
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