The influence of that mysterious triad, the gold eagle, the silver dollar, and the copper cent, has been overestimated. Spiritual forces are more potent than the motors of materialism. The Sermon on the Mount outweighs the law of gravity. Ethics make safer builders than stocks. Two hundred years ago, commercial enterprise essayed to subdue the New World in the interest of greedy trade, hungering for an increase; but though officered by the brightest genius and the highest daring of the age, backed by court favor and bottomed on the deepest bank-vaults of London, the effort failed.

In the reign of Elizabeth an act was passed, which is to this hour probably on the statute book, restricting building in or near the metropolis. James I appears to have been in a chronic panic on this subject, and never lost an opportunity of dilating upon it. In one of his proclamations he refers to those swarms of gentry "who, through the instigation of their wives, or to new model and fashion their daughters who, if they were unmarried, marred their reputations, and if married, lost them—did neglect their country hospitality and cumber the city, a general nuisance to the kingdom."

How few there are who are ambitious enough to risk the dangers of scanning at close range, or from points of vantage, the towers, the temples, the terraces, the ramparts, the pyramids, the domes, the pillars, the buttresses, the buttes, the palisades, the white marble walls, the red sandstone steps, the green serpentine cliffs of the Grand Canyon.

In time, as these fields became numerous from the industry of the people, they cultivated gardens of flowers and odoriferous plants, which they employed in the worship of their gods, and for the recreation of their nobles. At present they cultivate flowers, and every sort of garden herbs, upon them.

There are three ghosts at Doughoregan Manor. One is the shade of an ancient housekeeper, whose quiet tread may be heard in the corridors. Another is the spectral coach—its wheels grind on the driveway when death rides to claim a member of the household.... The third is no gruesome phantom, but the warm lively pervading spirit of Charles Carroll himself.