Never was there,
perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the
United States. Genuine belief seems to have left us. The underlying
principles of the States are not honestly believ'd in, (for all this
hectic glow, and these melo-dramatic screamings,) nor is humanity
itself believ'd in. What penetrating eye does not everywhere see
through the mask? The spectacle is appaling. We live in an atmosphere
of hypocrisy throughout. The men believe not in the women, nor the
women in the men. A scornful superciliousness rules in literature. The
aim of all the _litterateurs_ is to find something to make fun of. A
lot of churches, sects, &c., the most dismal phantasms I know, usurp
the name of religion. Conversation is a mass of badinage. From deceit
in the spirit, the mother of all false deeds, the offspring is already
incalculable. An acute and candid person, in the revenue department in
Washington, who is led by the course of his employment to regularly
visit the cities, north, south and west, to investigate frauds, has
talk'd much with me about his discoveries. The depravity of the
business classes of our country is not less than has been supposed,
but infinitely greater. The official services of America, national,
state, and municipal, in all their branches and departments, except
the judiciary, are saturated in corruption, bribery, falsehood,
mal-administration; and the judiciary is tainted. The great cities
reek with respectable as much as non-respectable robbery and
scoundrelism.
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