manufactures than England possesses; they will create artists more
skilled than even beautiful France can boast of. A hundred years hence,
all other nations will be second-class by comparison."

The next day the conversation was resumed and carried on with much
spirit, until Sedgwick, who had been reading through it all, laid down
his book, and in a brief pause of the talk said:

"Neither fruitful fields, rich mines, nor skilled artisans, nor all
combined, are enough to make great nations. A hundred nations existed
when Rome was founded. They had as fair prospects as did Rome, but ninety
of the hundred are forgotten; the other ten are remembered but as
inferior nations. It was the stock of men and women that made Rome's
grandeur and terror. For five hundred years an unfaithful wife was never
known in Rome. The result was Rome had to be great and grand.

"I stood once on the crest of the Rocky Mountains in Montana. Near
together were two springs, out of each of which the water flowed away
in a creek. One follows the mountains down to the eastward, the other
to the west. One finds its final home in the Gulf of Mexico, the other
in the Pacific. The one takes on other streams, its volume steadily
swells; before it flows far its channel is hewed through fertile fields;
gaining in power, the argosies of commerce find a home upon its broad
bosom, and it is a recognized power in the world, a mighty factor in the
calculations of merchants and shippers.

"But in the meantime it becomes tainted, until at last when it finds its
grave in the Gulf, so foul are its waters that they discolor for miles
the deep blue of the sea.