Page:Despotism and democracy; a study in Washington society and politics (IA despotismdemocra00seawiala).pdf/46

 *ties with his own grandfather, Cap'n Ebenezer Crane. The Secretary's father had made money, and his daughters were replicas of Lady Clara Vere de Vere. Of his sons, one, the present Secretary of State, had left the banks of the Ohio never to return, and by a steady evolution had passed from the Western Reserve College to Harvard, thence to Oxford for a post-graduate course, to Berlin as attaché to the then Legation, thence home to exercise a gift the politicians had found in him, viz., the power to form a silk-stocking contingent in the party to offset the silk stockings in the opposition. Being a man of some brains and much perseverance, he had reached the most highly ornamental position in the Government of the United States—the Secretaryship of State. He maintained it with dignity. He had, of course, long since, abjured the Methodist faith, in which he was reared, and was as uncompromising a Churchman as his brother, the Episcopal Bishop—for such had been the career of the steam-boat captain's other son. Both had been brought up in an auriferous atmosphere totally denied the descendants of Cap'n Ebenezer Crane, who had lost his all in the steam-boat business, and