Histories must perforce deal with the political aims, successes and
failures of men; must cover a big canvas and sing a large and
impersonal song. But just here we have only to think of these old-time
phantoms of ours as they affect or are affected by the old-time
regions in which for the nonce we are interested. To Richmond
Hill--with its white columns and shadow-flinging portico, its gardens
and its oak trees and its silver pond--it was of small import that the
master just missed being President of the United States, that he did
become Vice-president, and President of the Senate, and that he was
probably as able a jurist as ever distinguished the Bar of New York;
also that he made almost as many enemies as he did friends. But it was
decidedly the concern of the sweet and imposing old house on Richmond
Hill that it was from its arms, so to speak, that he went out in a
cold, white rage to the duel with his chief enemy; that he returned,
broken and heartsick, doubly defeated in that he had chanced to be the
victor, to the protection of Richmond Hill.
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