It may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in 't,
An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in 't;
But glory is a kin' o' thing _I_ sha'n't pursue no furder,
Coz thet's the off'cers' parquisite,--yourn's on'y jest the murder.
An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in 't;
But glory is a kin' o' thing _I_ sha'n't pursue no furder,
Coz thet's the off'cers' parquisite,--yourn's on'y jest the murder.
James Russell Lowell
Now I can truly see how little and transitory is life.
The
earth appears almost as a drop of vinegar, on which the solar microscope
of the imagination must be brought to bear in order to make out
anything distinctly. That animalcule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis
Philippe, just landed on the coast of England. That other, in the gray
surtout and cocked hat, is Napoleon Bonaparte Smith, assuring France
that she need apprehend no interference from him in the present alarming
juncture. At that spot, where you seem to see a speck of something in
motion, is an immense mass-meeting. Look sharper, and you will see a
mite brandishing his mandibles in an excited manner. That is the great
Mr. Soandso, defining his position amid tumultuous and irrepressible
cheers. That infinitesimal creature, upon whom some score of others, as
minute as he, are gazing in open-mouthed admiration, is a famous
philosopher, expounding to a select audience their capacity for the
Infinite. That scarce discernible pufflet of smoke and dust is a
revolution. That speck there is a reformer, just arranging the lever
with which he is to move the world. And lo, there creeps forward the
shadow of a skeleton that blows one breath between its grinning teeth,
and all our distinguished actors are whisked off the slippery stage into
the dark Beyond.
'Yes, the little show-box has its solemner suggestions. Now and then we
catch a glimpse of a grim old man, who lays down a scythe and hour-glass
in the corner while he shifts the scenes. There, too, in the dim
background, a weird shape is ever delving. Sometimes he leans upon his
mattock, and gazes, as a coach whirls by, bearing the newly married on
their wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe brought home from
christening. Suddenly (for the scene grows larger and larger as we look)
a bony hand snatches back a performer in the midst of his part, and him,
whom yesterday two infinities (past and future) would not suffice, a
handful of dust is enough to cover and silence forever. Nay, we see the
same fleshless fingers opening to clutch the showman himself, and guess,
not without a shudder, that they are lying in wait for spectator also.
'Think of it: for three dollars a year I buy a season-ticket to this
great Globe Theatre, for which God would write the dramas (only that we
like farces, spectacles, and the tragedies of Apollyon better), whose
scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtain is rung down by Death.
'Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes as I am tearing off the
wrapper of my newspaper. Then suddenly that otherwise too often vacant
sheet becomes invested for me with a strange kind of awe. Look! deaths
and marriages, notices of inventions, discoveries, and books, lists of
promotions, of killed, wounded, and missing, news of fires, accidents,
of sudden wealth and as sudden poverty;--I hold in my hand the ends of
myriad invisible electric conductors, along which tremble the joys,
sorrows, wrongs, triumphs, hopes, and despairs of as many men and women
everywhere. So that upon that mood of mind which seems to isolate me
from mankind as a spectator of their puppet-pranks, another supervenes,
in which I feel that I, too, unknown and unheard of, am yet of some
import to my fellows. For, through my newspaper here, do not families
take pains to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death among them?
Are not here two who would have me know of their marriage? And,
strangest of all, is not this singular person anxious to have me
informed that he has received a fresh supply of Dimitry Bruisgins? But
to none of us does the Present continue miraculous (even if for a moment
discerned as such). We glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to
Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and to-morrow this sheet,
(Acts x. 11, 12) in which a vision was let down to me from Heaven, shall
be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the platter for a beggar's broken
victuals. '--H. W. ]
No. VII
A LETTER
FROM A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN ANSWER TO SUTTIN QUESTIONS
PROPOSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW, INCLOSED IN A NOTE FROM MR. BIGLOW TO S. H.
GAY, ESQ. , EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-SLAVERY STANDARD
[Curiosity may be said to be the quality which preeminently
distinguishes and segregates man from the lower animals. As we trace the
scale of animated nature downward, we find this faculty (as it may truly
he called) of the mind diminished in the savage, and wellnigh extinct
in the brute. The first object which civilized man proposes to himself I
take to be the finding out whatsoever he can concerning his neighbors.
_Nihil humanum a me alienum puto;_ I am curious about even John Smith.
The desire next in strength to this (an opposite pole, indeed, of the
same magnet) is that of communicating the unintelligence we have
carefully picked up.
Men in general may be divided into the inquisitive and the
communicative. To the first class belong Peeping Toms, eaves-droppers,
navel-contemplating Brahmins, metaphysicians, travellers, Empedocleses,
spies, the various societies for promoting Rhinothism, Columbuses,
Yankees, discoverers, and men of science, who present themselves to the
mind as so many marks of interrogation wandering up and down the world,
or sitting in studies and laboratories. The second class I should again
subdivide into four. In the first subdivision I would rank those who
have an itch to tell us about themselves,--as keepers of diaries,
insignificant persons generally, Montaignes, Horace Walpoles,
autobiographers, poets. The second includes those who are anxious to
impart information concerning other people,--as historians, barbers, and
such. To the third belong those who labor to give us intelligence about
nothing at all,--as novelists, political orators, the large majority of
authors, preachers, lecturers, and the like. In the fourth come those
who are communicative from motives of public benevolence,--as finders of
mares'-nests and bringers of ill news. Each of us two-legged fowls
without feathers embraces all these subdivisions in himself to a greater
or less degree, for none of us so much as lays an egg, or incubates a
chalk one, but straightway the whole barnyard shall know it by our
cackle or our cluck. _Omnibus hoc vitium est_. There are different
grades in all these classes. One will turn his telescope toward a
back-yard, another toward Uranus; one will tell you that he dined with
Smith, another that he supped with Plato. In one particular, all men may
be considered as belonging to the first grand division, inasmuch as they
all seem equally desirous of discovering the mote in their neighbor's eye.
To one or another of these species every human being may safely be
referred. I think it beyond a peradventure that Jonah prosecuted some
inquiries into the digestive apparatus of whales, and that Noah sealed
up a letter in an empty bottle, that news in regard to him might not be
wanting in case of the worst. They had else been super or subter human.
I conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons who continually
peep and pry at the keyhole of that mysterious door through which,
sooner or later, we all make our exits, so there are doubtless ghosts
fidgeting and fretting on the other side of it, because they have no
means of conveying back to this world the scraps of news they have
picked up in that. For there is an answer ready somewhere to every
question, the great law of _give and take_ runs through all nature, and
if we see a hook, we may be sure that an eye is waiting for it. I read
in every face I meet a standing advertisement of information wanted in
regard to A. B. , or that the friends of C. D. can hear something to his
disadvantage by application to such a one.
It was to gratify the two great passions of asking and answering that
epistolary correspondence was first invented. Letters (for by this
usurped title epistles are now commonly known) are of several kinds.
First, there are those which are not letters at all--as letters-patent,
letters dismissory, letters enclosing bills, letters of administration,
Pliny's letters, letters of diplomacy, of Cato, of Mentor, of Lords
Lyttelton, Chesterfield, and Orrery, of Jacob Behmen, Seneca (whom St.
Jerome includes in his list of sacred writers), letters from abroad,
from sons in college to their fathers, letters of marque, and letters
generally, which are in no wise letters of mark. Second, are real
letters, such as those of Gray, Cowper, Walpole, Howell, Lamb, D. Y. , the
first letters from children (printed in staggering capitals), Letters
from New York, letters of credit, and others, interesting for the sake
of the writer or the thing written. I have read also letters from Europe
by a gentleman named Pinto, containing some curious gossip, and which I
hope to see collected for the benefit of the curious. There are,
besides, letters addressed to posterity,--as epitaphs, for example,
written for their own monuments by monarchs, whereby we have lately
become possessed of the names of several great conquerors and kings of
kings, hitherto unheard of and still unpronounceable, but valuable to
the student of the entirely dark ages. The letter of our Saviour to King
Abgarus, that which St. Peter sent to King Pepin in the year of grace
755, that of the Virgin to the magistrates of Messina, that of the
Sanhedrim of Toledo to Annas and Caiaphas, A. D. 35, that of Galeazzo
Sforza's spirit to his brother Lodovico, that of St. Gregory
Thaumaturgus to the D----l, and that of this last-mentioned active
police-magistrate to a nun of Girgenti, I would place in a class by
themselves, as also the letters of candidates, concerning which I shall
dilate more fully in a note at the end of the following poem. At present
_sat prata biberunt_. Only, concerning the shape of letters, they are
all either square or oblong, to which general figures circular letters
and round-robins also conform themselves. --H. W. ]
Deer Sir its gut to be the fashun now to rite letters to the candid 8s
and i wus chose at a publick Meetin in Jaalam to du wut wus nessary fur
that town. i writ to 271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. tha air called
candid 8s but I don't see nothin candid about 'em. this here 1 wich I
send wus thought satty's factory. I dunno as it's ushle to print
Poscrips, but as all the ansers I got hed the saim, I sposed it wus
best. times has gretly changed. Formaly to knock a man into a cocked hat
wus to use him up, but now it ony gives him a chance fur the cheef
madgustracy. --H. B.
Dear Sir,--You wish to know my notions
On sartin pints thet rile the land;
There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns
Ez bein' mum or underhand;
I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur
Thet blurts right out wut's in his head.
An' ef I've one pecooler feetur,
It is a nose thet wunt be led.
So, to begin at the beginnin'
An' come direcly to the pint, 10
I think the country's underpinnin'
Is some consid'ble out o' jint;
I aint agoin' to try your patience
By tellin' who done this or thet,
I don't make no insinooations,
I jest let on I smell a rat.
Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so,
But, ef the public think I'm wrong,
I wunt deny but wut I be so,--
An' fact, it don't smell very strong; 20
My mind's tu fair to lose its balance
An' say wich party hez most sense;
There may be folks o' greater talence
Thet can't set stiddier on the fence.
I'm an eclectic; ez to choosin'
'Twixt this an' thet, I'm plaguy lawth;
I leave a side thet looks like losin',
But (wile there's doubt) I stick to both;
I stan' upon the Constitution,
Ez preudunt statesman say, who've planned 30
A way to git the most profusion
O' chances ez to _ware_ they'll stand.
Ez fer the war, I go agin it,--
I mean to say I kind o' du,--
Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it,
The best way wuz to fight it thru';
Not but wut abstract war is horrid,
I sign to thet with all my heart,--
But civlyzation _doos_ git forrid 39
Sometimes upon a powder-cart.
About thet darned Proviso matter
I never hed a grain o' doubt.
Nor I aint one my sense to scatter
So 'st no one couldn't pick it out;
My love fer North an' South is equil,
So I'll jest answer plump an' frank,
No matter wut may be the sequil,--
Yes, Sir, I _am_ agin a Bank.
Ez to the answerin' o' questions,
I'm an off ox at bein' druv, 50
Though I ain't one thet ary test shuns
'll give our folks a helpin' shove;
Kind o' permiscoous I go it
Fer the holl country, an' the ground
I take, ez nigh ez I can show it,
Is pooty gen'ally all round.
I don't appruve o' givin' pledges;
You'd ough' to leave a feller free,
An' not go knockin' out the wedges
To ketch his fingers in the tree;
Pledges air awfle breachy cattle 61
Thet preudunt farmers don't turn out,--
Ez long 'z the people git their rattle,
Wut is there fer 'em to grout about?
Ez to the slaves, there's no confusion
In _my_ idees consarnin' them,--
_I_ think they air an Institution,
A sort of--yes, jest so,--ahem:
Do _I_ own any? Of my merit
On thet pint you yourself may jedge; 70
All is, I never drink no sperit,
Nor I haint never signed no pledge.
Ez to my princerples, I glory
In hevin' nothin' o' the sort;
I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory,
I'm jest a canderdate, in short;
Thet's fair an' square an' parpendicler
But, ef the Public cares a fig
To hev me an'thin' in particler,
Wy, I'm a kind o' peri-Wig. 80
P. S.
Ez we're a sort o' privateerin',
O' course, you know, it's sheer an' sheer,
An' there is sutthin' wuth your hearin'
I'll mention in _your_ privit ear;
Ef you git _me_ inside the White House,
Your head with ile I'll kin' o' 'nint
By gittin' _you_ inside the Lighthouse
Down to the eend o' Jaalam Pint.
An' ez the North hez took to brustlin'
At bein' scrouged frum off the roost, 90
I'll tell ye wut'll save all tusslin'
An' give our side a harnsome boost,--
Tell 'em thet on the Slavery question
I'm RIGHT, although to speak I'm lawth;
This gives you a safe pint to rest on,
An' leaves me frontin' South by North.
[And now of epistles candidatial, which are of two kinds,--namely,
letters of acceptance, and letters definitive of position. Our republic,
on the eve of an election, may safely enough be called a republic of
letters. Epistolary composition becomes then an epidemic, which seizes
one candidate after another, not seldom cutting short the thread of
political life. It has come to such a pass, that a party dreads less the
attacks of its opponents than a letter from its candidate. _Litera
scripta manet_, and it will go hard if something bad cannot be made of
it. General Harrison, it is well understood, was surrounded, during his
candidacy, with the _cordon sanitaire_ of a vigilance committee. No
prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously deprived of writing
materials. The soot was scraped carefully from the chimney-places;
outposts of expert rifle-shooters rendered it sure death for any goose
(who came clad in feathers) to approach within a certain limited
distance of North Bend; and all domestic fowls about the premises were
reduced to the condition of Plato's original man. By these precautions
the General was saved. _Parva componere magnis_, I remember, that, when
party-spirit once ran high among my people, upon occasion of the choice
of a new deacon, I, having my preferences, yet not caring too openly to
express them, made use of an innocent fraud to bring about that result
which I deemed most desirable. My stratagem was no other than the
throwing a copy of the Complete Letter-Writer in the way of the
candidate whom I wished to defeat. He caught the infection, and
addressed a short note to his constituents, in which the opposite party
detected so many and so grave improprieties (he had modelled it upon the
letter of a young lady accepting a proposal of marriage), that he not
only lost his election, but, falling under a suspicion of Sabellianism
and I know not what (the widow Endive assured me that he was a
Paralipomenon, to her certain knowledge), was forced to leave the town.
Thus it is that the letter killeth.
The object which candidates propose to themselves in writing is to
convey no meaning at all. And here is a quite unsuspected pitfall into
which they successively plunge headlong. For it is precisely in such
cryptographies that mankind are prone to seek for and find a wonderful
amount and variety of significance. _Omne ignotum pro mirifico_. How do
we admire at the antique world striving to crack those oracular nuts
from Delphi, Hammon, and elsewhere, in only one of which can I so much
as surmise that any kernel had ever lodged; that, namely, wherein Apollo
confessed that he was mortal. One Didymus is, moreover, related to have
written six thousand books on the single subject of grammar, a topic
rendered only more tenebrific by the labors of his successors, and which
seems still to possess an attraction for authors in proportion as they
can make nothing of it. A singular loadstone for theologians, also, is
the Beast in the Apocalypse, whereof, in the course of my studies, I
have noted two hundred and three several interpretations, each
lethiferal to all the rest. _Non nostrum est tantas componere lites_,
yet I have myself ventured upon a two hundred and fourth, which I
embodied in a discourse preached on occasion of the demise of the late
usurper, Napoleon Bonaparte, and which quieted, in a large measure, the
minds of my people. It is true that my views on this important point
were ardently controverted by Mr. Shearjashub Holden, the then preceptor
of our academy, and in other particulars a very deserving and sensible
young man, though possessing a somewhat limited knowledge of the Greek
tongue. But his heresy struck down no deep root, and, he having been
lately removed by the hand of Providence, I had the satisfaction of
reaffirming my cherished sentiments in a sermon preached upon the Lord's
day immediately succeeding his funeral. This might seem like taking an
unfair advantage, did I not add that he had made provision in his last
will (being celibate) for the publication of a posthumous tractate in
support of his own dangerous opinions.
I know of nothing in our modern times which approaches so nearly to the
ancient oracle as the letter of a Presidential candidate. Now, among the
Greeks, the eating of beans was strictly forbidden to all such as had it
in mind to consult those expert amphibologists, and this same
prohibition on the part of Pythagoras to his disciples is understood to
imply an abstinence from politics, beans having been used as ballots.
That other explication, _quod videlicet sensus eo cibo obtundi
existimaret_, though supported _pugnis et calcibus_ by many of the
learned, and not wanting the countenance of Cicero, is confuted by the
larger experience of New England. On the whole, I think it safer to
apply here the rule of interpretation which now generally obtains in
regard to antique cosmogonies, myths, fables, proverbial expressions,
and knotty points generally, which is, to find a common-sense meaning,
and then select whatever can be imagined the most opposite thereto. In
this way we arrive at the conclusion, that the Greeks objected to the
questioning of candidates. And very properly, if, as I conceive, the
chief point be not to discover what a person in that position is, or
what he will do, but whether he can be elected. _Vos exemplaria Graeca
nocturna versate manu, versate diurna_.
But, since an imitation of the Greeks in this particular (the asking of
questions being one chief privilege of freemen) is hardly to be hoped
for, and our candidates will answer, whether they are questioned or not,
I would recommend that these ante-electionary dialogues should be
carried on by symbols, as were the diplomatic correspondences of the
Scythians an Macrobii, or confined to the language of signs, like the
famous interview of Panurge and Goatsnose. A candidate might then
convey a suitable reply to all committees of inquiry by closing one eye,
or by presenting them with a phial of Egyptian darkness to be speculated
upon by their respective constituencies. These answers would be
susceptible of whatever retrospective construction the exigencies of the
political campaign might seem to demand, and the candidate could take
his position on either side of the fence with entire consistency. Or, if
letters must be written, profitable use might be made of the Dighton
rock hieroglyphic or the cuneiform script, every fresh decipherer of
which is enabled to educe a different meaning, whereby a sculptured
stone or two supplies us, and will probably continue to supply
posterity, with a very vast and various body of authentic history. For
even the briefest epistle in the ordinary chirography is dangerous.
There is scarce any style so compressed that superfluous words may not
be detected in it. A severe critic might curtail that famous brevity of
Caesar's by two thirds, drawing his pen through the supererogatory
_veni_ and _vidi_. Perhaps, after all, the surest footing of hope is to
be found in the rapidly increasing tendency to demand less and less of
qualification in candidates. Already have statesmanship, experience, and
the possession (nay, the profession, even) of principles been rejected
as superfluous, and may not the patriot reasonably hope that the ability
to write will follow? At present, there may be death in pothooks as well
as pots, the loop of a letter may suffice for a bowstring, and all the
dreadful heresies of Antislavery may lurk in a flourish. --H. W. ]
No. VIII
A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ.
[In the following epistle, we behold Mr. Sawin returning, a _miles
emeritus_, to the bosom of his family. _Quantum mutatus! _ The good
Father of us all had doubtless intrusted to the keeping of this child of
his certain faculties of a constructive kind. He had put in him a share
of that vital force, the nicest economy of every minute atom of which is
necessary to the perfect development of Humanity. He had given him a
brain and heart, and so had equipped his soul with the two strong wings
of knowledge and love, whereby it can mount to hang its nest under the
eaves of heaven. And this child, so dowered, he had intrusted to the
keeping of his vicar, the State. How stands the account of that
stewardship? The State, or Society (call her by what name you will), had
taken no manner of thought of him till she saw him swept out into the
street, the pitiful leavings of last night's debauch, with cigar-ends,
lemon-parings, tobacco-quids, slops, vile stenches, and the whole
loathsome next-morning of the bar-room,--an own child of the Almighty
God! I remember him as he was brought to be christened, a ruddy, rugged
babe; and now there he wallows, reeking, seething,--the dead corpse, not
of a man, but of a soul,--a putrefying lump, horrible for the life that
is in it. Comes the wind of heaven, that good Samaritan, and parts the
hair upon his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss those parched, cracked
lips; the morning opens upon him her eyes full of pitying sunshine, the
sky yearns down to him,--and there he lies fermenting. O sleep! let me
not profane thy holy name by calling that stertorous unconsciousness a
slumber! By and by comes along the State, God's vicar. Does she say, 'My
poor, forlorn foster-child! Behold here a force which I will make dig
and plant and build for me'? Not so, but, 'Here is a recruit ready-made
to my hand, a piece of destroying energy lying unprofitably idle. ' So
she claps an ugly gray suit on him, puts a musket in his grasp, and
sends him off, with Gubernatorial and other godspeeds, to do duty as a
destroyer.
I made one of the crowd at the last Mechanics' Fair, and, with the rest,
stood gazing in wonder at a perfect machine, with its soul of fire, its
boiler-heart that sent the hot blood pulsing along the iron arteries,
and its thews of steel. And while I was admiring the adaptation of means
to end, the harmonious involutions of contrivance, and the
never-bewildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, the
imperious engine's lackey and drudge, whose sole office was to let fall,
at intervals, a drop or two of oil upon a certain joint. Then my soul
said within me, See there a piece of mechanism to which that other you
marvel at is but as the rude first effort of a child,--a force which not
merely suffices to set a few wheels in motion, but which can send an
impulse all through the infinite future,--a contrivance, not for turning
out pins, or stitching button-holes, but for making Hamlets and Lears.
And yet this thing of iron shall be housed, waited on, guarded from rust
and dust, and it shall be a crime but so much as to scratch it with a
pin; while the other, with its fire of God in it, shall be buffeted
hither and thither, and finally sent carefully a thousand miles to be
the target for a Mexican cannon-ball. Unthrifty Mother State! My heart
burned within me for pity and indignation, and I renewed this covenant
with my own soul,--_In aliis mansuetus ero, at, in blasphemiis contra
Christum, non ita. _. --H. W. ]
I spose you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me,
Exacly ware I be myself,--meanin' by thet the holl o' me.
Wen I left hum, I hed two legs, an' they worn't bad ones neither,
(The scaliest trick they ever played wuz bringin' on me hither,)
Now one on 'em's I dunno ware;--they thought I wuz adyin',
An' sawed it off because they said 'twuz kin' o' mortifyin';
I'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I don't see, nuther,
Wy one shoud take to feelin' cheap a minnit sooner 'n t'other,
Sence both wuz equilly to blame; but things is ez they be;
It took on so they took it off, an' thet's enough fer me: 10
There's one good thing, though, to be said about my wooden new one,--
The liquor can't git into it ez 't used to in the true one;
So it saves drink; an' then, besides, a feller couldn't beg
A gretter blessin' then to hev one ollers sober peg;
It's true a chap's in want o' two fer follerin' a drum,
But all the march I'm up to now is jest to Kingdom Come.
I've lost one eye, but thet's a loss it's easy to supply
Out o' the glory thet I've gut, fer thet is all my eye;
An' one is big enough, I guess, by diligently usin' it,
To see all I shall ever git by way o' pay fer losin' it; 20
Off'cers I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an' kickins,
Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter the fattest pickins;
So, ez the eye's put fairly out, I'll larn to go without it,
An' not allow _myself_ to be no gret put out about it.
Now, le' me see, thet isn't all; I used, 'fore leavin' Jaalam,
To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems to ail 'em:
Ware's my left hand? Oh, darn it, yes, I recollect wut's come on 't;
I haint no left arm but my right, an' thet's gut jest a thumb on 't;
It aint so bendy ez it wuz to cal'late a sum on 't.
I've hed some ribs broke,--six (I b'lieve),--I haint kep' no account on
'em; 30
Wen pensions git to be the talk, I'll settle the amount on 'em.
An' now I'm speakin' about ribs, it kin' o' brings to mind
One thet I couldn't never break,--the one I lef' behind;
Ef you should see her, jest clear out the spout o' your invention
An' pour the longest sweetnin' in about an annooal pension,
An' kin' o' hint (in case, you know, the critter should refuse to be
Consoled) I aint so 'xpensive now to keep ez wut I used to be;
There's one arm less, ditto one eye, an' then the leg thet's wooden
Can be took off an' sot away wenever ther's a puddin'.
I spose you think I'm comin' back ez opperlunt ez thunder, 40
With shiploads o' gold images an' varus sorts o' plunder;
Wal, 'fore I vullinteered, I thought this country wuz a sort o'
Canaan, a reg'lar Promised Land flowin' with rum an' water,
Ware propaty growed up like time, without no cultivation,
An' gold wuz dug ez taters be among our Yankee nation,
Ware nateral advantages were pufficly amazin',
Ware every rock there wuz about with precious stuns wuz blazin'.
Ware mill-sites filled the country up ez thick ez you could cram 'em,
An' desput rivers run about a beggin' folks to dam 'em;
Then there were meetinhouses, tu, chockful o' gold an' silver 50
Thet you could take, an' no one couldn't hand ye in no bill fer;--
Thet's wut I thought afore I went, thet's wut them fellers told us
Thet stayed to hum an' speechified an' to the buzzards sold us;
I thought thet gold-mines could be gut cheaper than Chiny asters,
An' see myself acomin' back like sixty Jacob Astors;
But sech idees soon melted down an' didn't leave a grease-spot;
I vow my holl sheer o' the spiles wouldn't come nigh a V spot;
Although, most anywares we've ben, you needn't break no locks,
Nor run no kin' o' risks, to fill your pocket full o' rocks.
I 'xpect I mentioned in my last some o' the nateral feeturs 60
O' this all-fiered buggy hole in th' way o' awfle creeturs,
But I fergut to name (new things to speak on so abounded)
How one day you'll most die o' thust, an' 'fore the next git drownded.
The clymit seems to me jest like a teapot made o' pewter
Our Preudence hed, thet wouldn't pour (all she could du) to suit her;
Fust place the leaves 'ould choke the spout, so's not a drop 'ould dreen
out,
Then Prude 'ould tip an' tip an' tip, till the holl kit bust clean out,
The kiver-hinge-pin bein' lost, tea-leaves an' tea an' kiver
'ould all come down _kerswosh! _ ez though the dam bust in a river.
Jest so 'tis here; holl months there aint a day o' rainy weather, 70
An' jest ez th' officers 'ould be a layin' heads together
Ez t' how they'd mix their drink at sech a milingtary deepot,--
'Twould pour ez though the lid wuz off the everlastin' teapot.
The cons'quence is, thet I shall take, wen I'm allowed to leave here,
One piece o' propaty along, an' thet's the shakin' fever;
It's reggilar employment, though, an' thet aint thought to harm one,
Nor 'taint so tiresome ez it wuz with t'other leg an' arm on;
An' it's a consolation, tu, although it doosn't pay,
To hev it said you're some gret shakes in any kin' o' way.
'Tworn't very long, I tell ye wut, I thought o' fortin-makin',-- 80
One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an' next ez good ez bakin',--
One day abrilin' in the sand, then smoth'rin' in the mashes,--
Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess o' hacks an' smashes.
But then, thinks I, at any rate there's glory to be hed,--
Thet's an investment, arter all, thet mayn't turn out so bad;
But somehow, wen we'd fit an' licked, I ollers found the thanks
Gut kin' o' lodged afore they come ez low down ez the ranks;
The Gin'rals gut the biggest sheer, the Cunnles next, an' so on,--
_We_ never gat a blasted mite o' glory ez I know on;
An' spose we hed, I wonder how you're goin' to contrive its 90
Division so's to give a piece to twenty thousand privits;
Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o' the brav'st one,
You wouldn't git more 'n half enough to speak of on a grave-stun;
We git the licks,--we're jest the grist thet's put into War's hoppers;
Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps pick up the coppers.
It may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in 't,
An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in 't;
But glory is a kin' o' thing _I_ sha'n't pursue no furder,
Coz thet's the off'cers' parquisite,--yourn's on'y jest the murder.
Wal, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at least there's one 100
Thing in the bills we aint bed yit, an' thet's the GLORIOUS FUN;
Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persume we
All day an' night shall revel in the halls o' Montezumy.
I'll tell ye wut _my_ revels wuz, an' see how you would like 'em;
_We_ never gut inside the hall: the nighest ever _I_ come
Wuz stan'in' sentry in the sun (an', fact, it _seemed_ a cent'ry)
A ketchin' smells o' biled an' roast thet come out thru the entry,
An' hearin' ez I sweltered thru my passes an' repasses,
A rat-tat-too o' knives an' forks, a clinkty-clink o' glasses:
I can't tell off the bill o' fare the Gin'rals hed inside; 110
All I know is, thet out o' doors a pair o' soles wuz fried,
An' not a hunderd miles away from ware this child wuz posted,
A Massachusetts citizen wuz baked an' biled an' roasted;
The on'y thing like revellin' thet ever come to me
Wuz bein' routed out o' sleep by thet darned revelee.
They say the quarrel's settled now; for my part I've some doubt on 't,
't'll take more fish-skin than folks think to take the rile clean on 't;
At any rate I'm so used up I can't do no more fightin',
The on'y chance thet's left to me is politics or writin';
Now, ez the people's gut to hev a milingtary man, 120
An' I aint nothin' else jest now, I've hit upon a plan;
The can'idatin' line, you know, 'ould suit me to a T,
An' ef I lose, 'twunt hurt my ears to lodge another flea;
So I'll set up ez can'idate fer any kin' o' office,
(I mean fer any thet includes good easy-cheers an' soffies;
Fer ez tu runnin' fer a place ware work's the time o' day,
You know thet's wut I never did,--except the other way;)
Ef it's the Presidential cheer fer wich I'd better run,
Wut two legs anywares about could keep up with my one?
There aint no kin' o' quality in can'idates, it's said, 130
So useful eza wooden leg,--except a wooden head;
There's nothin' aint so poppylar--(wy, it 's a parfect sin
To think wut Mexico hez paid fer Santy Anny's pin;)--
Then I haint gut no princerples, an', sence I wuz knee-high,
I never _did_ hev any gret, ez you can testify;
I'm a decided peace-man, tu, an' go agin the war,--
Fer now the holl on 't's gone an' past, wut is there to go _for_?
Ef, wile you're 'lectioneerin' round, some curus chaps should beg
To know my views o' state affairs, jest answer WOODEN LEG!
Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an' kin' o' pry an' doubt 140
An' ax fer sutthin' deffynit, jest say ONE EYE PUT OUT!
Thet kin' o' talk I guess you'll find'll answer to a charm,
An' wen you're druv tu nigh the wall, hol' up my missin' arm;
Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, put on a vartoous look
An' tell 'em thet's precisely wut I never gin nor--took!
Then you can call me 'Timbertoes,'--thet's wut the people likes;
Sutthin' combinin' morril truth with phrases sech ez strikes;
Some say the people's fond o' this, or thet, or wut you please,--
I tell ye wut the people want is jest correct idees;
'Old Timbertoes,' you see, 's a creed it's safe to be quite bold
on, 150
There's nothin' in 't the other side can any ways git hold on;
It's a good tangible idee, a sutthin' to embody
Thet valooable class o' men who look thru brandy-toddy;
It gives a Party Platform, tu, jest level with the mind
Of all right-thinkin', honest folks thet mean to go it blind;
Then there air other good hooraws to dror on ez you need 'em,
Sech ez the ONE-EYED SLARTERER, the BLOODY BIRDOFREDUM:
Them's wut takes hold o' folks thet think, ez well ez o' the masses,
An' makes you sartin o' the aid o' good men of all classes.
There's one thing I'm in doubt about: in order to be Presidunt, 160
It's absolutely ne'ssary to be a Southern residunt;
The Constitution settles thet, an' also thet a feller
Must own a nigger o' some sort, jet black, or brown, or yeller.
Now I haint no objections agin particklar climes,
Nor agin ownin' anythin' (except the truth sometimes),
But, ez I haint no capital, up there among ye, maybe,
You might raise funds enough fer me to buy a low-priced baby,
An' then to suit the No'thern folks, who feel obleeged to say
They hate an' cus the very thing they vote fer every day,
Say you're assured I go full butt fer Libbaty's diffusion 170
An' make the purchis on'y jest to spite the Institootion;--
But, golly! there's the currier's hoss upon the pavement pawin'!
I'll be more 'xplicit in my next.
Yourn, BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.
[We have now a tolerably fair chance of estimating how the balance-sheet
stands between our returned volunteer and glory. Supposing the entries
to be set down on both sides of the account in fractional parts of one
hundred, we shall arrive at something like the following result:--
B. SAWIN, Esq. , _in account with_ (BLANK) GLORY.
_Cr. _
By loss of one leg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
" do. one arm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
" do. four fingers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
" do. one eye. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
earth appears almost as a drop of vinegar, on which the solar microscope
of the imagination must be brought to bear in order to make out
anything distinctly. That animalcule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis
Philippe, just landed on the coast of England. That other, in the gray
surtout and cocked hat, is Napoleon Bonaparte Smith, assuring France
that she need apprehend no interference from him in the present alarming
juncture. At that spot, where you seem to see a speck of something in
motion, is an immense mass-meeting. Look sharper, and you will see a
mite brandishing his mandibles in an excited manner. That is the great
Mr. Soandso, defining his position amid tumultuous and irrepressible
cheers. That infinitesimal creature, upon whom some score of others, as
minute as he, are gazing in open-mouthed admiration, is a famous
philosopher, expounding to a select audience their capacity for the
Infinite. That scarce discernible pufflet of smoke and dust is a
revolution. That speck there is a reformer, just arranging the lever
with which he is to move the world. And lo, there creeps forward the
shadow of a skeleton that blows one breath between its grinning teeth,
and all our distinguished actors are whisked off the slippery stage into
the dark Beyond.
'Yes, the little show-box has its solemner suggestions. Now and then we
catch a glimpse of a grim old man, who lays down a scythe and hour-glass
in the corner while he shifts the scenes. There, too, in the dim
background, a weird shape is ever delving. Sometimes he leans upon his
mattock, and gazes, as a coach whirls by, bearing the newly married on
their wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe brought home from
christening. Suddenly (for the scene grows larger and larger as we look)
a bony hand snatches back a performer in the midst of his part, and him,
whom yesterday two infinities (past and future) would not suffice, a
handful of dust is enough to cover and silence forever. Nay, we see the
same fleshless fingers opening to clutch the showman himself, and guess,
not without a shudder, that they are lying in wait for spectator also.
'Think of it: for three dollars a year I buy a season-ticket to this
great Globe Theatre, for which God would write the dramas (only that we
like farces, spectacles, and the tragedies of Apollyon better), whose
scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtain is rung down by Death.
'Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes as I am tearing off the
wrapper of my newspaper. Then suddenly that otherwise too often vacant
sheet becomes invested for me with a strange kind of awe. Look! deaths
and marriages, notices of inventions, discoveries, and books, lists of
promotions, of killed, wounded, and missing, news of fires, accidents,
of sudden wealth and as sudden poverty;--I hold in my hand the ends of
myriad invisible electric conductors, along which tremble the joys,
sorrows, wrongs, triumphs, hopes, and despairs of as many men and women
everywhere. So that upon that mood of mind which seems to isolate me
from mankind as a spectator of their puppet-pranks, another supervenes,
in which I feel that I, too, unknown and unheard of, am yet of some
import to my fellows. For, through my newspaper here, do not families
take pains to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death among them?
Are not here two who would have me know of their marriage? And,
strangest of all, is not this singular person anxious to have me
informed that he has received a fresh supply of Dimitry Bruisgins? But
to none of us does the Present continue miraculous (even if for a moment
discerned as such). We glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to
Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and to-morrow this sheet,
(Acts x. 11, 12) in which a vision was let down to me from Heaven, shall
be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the platter for a beggar's broken
victuals. '--H. W. ]
No. VII
A LETTER
FROM A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN ANSWER TO SUTTIN QUESTIONS
PROPOSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW, INCLOSED IN A NOTE FROM MR. BIGLOW TO S. H.
GAY, ESQ. , EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-SLAVERY STANDARD
[Curiosity may be said to be the quality which preeminently
distinguishes and segregates man from the lower animals. As we trace the
scale of animated nature downward, we find this faculty (as it may truly
he called) of the mind diminished in the savage, and wellnigh extinct
in the brute. The first object which civilized man proposes to himself I
take to be the finding out whatsoever he can concerning his neighbors.
_Nihil humanum a me alienum puto;_ I am curious about even John Smith.
The desire next in strength to this (an opposite pole, indeed, of the
same magnet) is that of communicating the unintelligence we have
carefully picked up.
Men in general may be divided into the inquisitive and the
communicative. To the first class belong Peeping Toms, eaves-droppers,
navel-contemplating Brahmins, metaphysicians, travellers, Empedocleses,
spies, the various societies for promoting Rhinothism, Columbuses,
Yankees, discoverers, and men of science, who present themselves to the
mind as so many marks of interrogation wandering up and down the world,
or sitting in studies and laboratories. The second class I should again
subdivide into four. In the first subdivision I would rank those who
have an itch to tell us about themselves,--as keepers of diaries,
insignificant persons generally, Montaignes, Horace Walpoles,
autobiographers, poets. The second includes those who are anxious to
impart information concerning other people,--as historians, barbers, and
such. To the third belong those who labor to give us intelligence about
nothing at all,--as novelists, political orators, the large majority of
authors, preachers, lecturers, and the like. In the fourth come those
who are communicative from motives of public benevolence,--as finders of
mares'-nests and bringers of ill news. Each of us two-legged fowls
without feathers embraces all these subdivisions in himself to a greater
or less degree, for none of us so much as lays an egg, or incubates a
chalk one, but straightway the whole barnyard shall know it by our
cackle or our cluck. _Omnibus hoc vitium est_. There are different
grades in all these classes. One will turn his telescope toward a
back-yard, another toward Uranus; one will tell you that he dined with
Smith, another that he supped with Plato. In one particular, all men may
be considered as belonging to the first grand division, inasmuch as they
all seem equally desirous of discovering the mote in their neighbor's eye.
To one or another of these species every human being may safely be
referred. I think it beyond a peradventure that Jonah prosecuted some
inquiries into the digestive apparatus of whales, and that Noah sealed
up a letter in an empty bottle, that news in regard to him might not be
wanting in case of the worst. They had else been super or subter human.
I conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons who continually
peep and pry at the keyhole of that mysterious door through which,
sooner or later, we all make our exits, so there are doubtless ghosts
fidgeting and fretting on the other side of it, because they have no
means of conveying back to this world the scraps of news they have
picked up in that. For there is an answer ready somewhere to every
question, the great law of _give and take_ runs through all nature, and
if we see a hook, we may be sure that an eye is waiting for it. I read
in every face I meet a standing advertisement of information wanted in
regard to A. B. , or that the friends of C. D. can hear something to his
disadvantage by application to such a one.
It was to gratify the two great passions of asking and answering that
epistolary correspondence was first invented. Letters (for by this
usurped title epistles are now commonly known) are of several kinds.
First, there are those which are not letters at all--as letters-patent,
letters dismissory, letters enclosing bills, letters of administration,
Pliny's letters, letters of diplomacy, of Cato, of Mentor, of Lords
Lyttelton, Chesterfield, and Orrery, of Jacob Behmen, Seneca (whom St.
Jerome includes in his list of sacred writers), letters from abroad,
from sons in college to their fathers, letters of marque, and letters
generally, which are in no wise letters of mark. Second, are real
letters, such as those of Gray, Cowper, Walpole, Howell, Lamb, D. Y. , the
first letters from children (printed in staggering capitals), Letters
from New York, letters of credit, and others, interesting for the sake
of the writer or the thing written. I have read also letters from Europe
by a gentleman named Pinto, containing some curious gossip, and which I
hope to see collected for the benefit of the curious. There are,
besides, letters addressed to posterity,--as epitaphs, for example,
written for their own monuments by monarchs, whereby we have lately
become possessed of the names of several great conquerors and kings of
kings, hitherto unheard of and still unpronounceable, but valuable to
the student of the entirely dark ages. The letter of our Saviour to King
Abgarus, that which St. Peter sent to King Pepin in the year of grace
755, that of the Virgin to the magistrates of Messina, that of the
Sanhedrim of Toledo to Annas and Caiaphas, A. D. 35, that of Galeazzo
Sforza's spirit to his brother Lodovico, that of St. Gregory
Thaumaturgus to the D----l, and that of this last-mentioned active
police-magistrate to a nun of Girgenti, I would place in a class by
themselves, as also the letters of candidates, concerning which I shall
dilate more fully in a note at the end of the following poem. At present
_sat prata biberunt_. Only, concerning the shape of letters, they are
all either square or oblong, to which general figures circular letters
and round-robins also conform themselves. --H. W. ]
Deer Sir its gut to be the fashun now to rite letters to the candid 8s
and i wus chose at a publick Meetin in Jaalam to du wut wus nessary fur
that town. i writ to 271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. tha air called
candid 8s but I don't see nothin candid about 'em. this here 1 wich I
send wus thought satty's factory. I dunno as it's ushle to print
Poscrips, but as all the ansers I got hed the saim, I sposed it wus
best. times has gretly changed. Formaly to knock a man into a cocked hat
wus to use him up, but now it ony gives him a chance fur the cheef
madgustracy. --H. B.
Dear Sir,--You wish to know my notions
On sartin pints thet rile the land;
There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns
Ez bein' mum or underhand;
I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur
Thet blurts right out wut's in his head.
An' ef I've one pecooler feetur,
It is a nose thet wunt be led.
So, to begin at the beginnin'
An' come direcly to the pint, 10
I think the country's underpinnin'
Is some consid'ble out o' jint;
I aint agoin' to try your patience
By tellin' who done this or thet,
I don't make no insinooations,
I jest let on I smell a rat.
Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so,
But, ef the public think I'm wrong,
I wunt deny but wut I be so,--
An' fact, it don't smell very strong; 20
My mind's tu fair to lose its balance
An' say wich party hez most sense;
There may be folks o' greater talence
Thet can't set stiddier on the fence.
I'm an eclectic; ez to choosin'
'Twixt this an' thet, I'm plaguy lawth;
I leave a side thet looks like losin',
But (wile there's doubt) I stick to both;
I stan' upon the Constitution,
Ez preudunt statesman say, who've planned 30
A way to git the most profusion
O' chances ez to _ware_ they'll stand.
Ez fer the war, I go agin it,--
I mean to say I kind o' du,--
Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it,
The best way wuz to fight it thru';
Not but wut abstract war is horrid,
I sign to thet with all my heart,--
But civlyzation _doos_ git forrid 39
Sometimes upon a powder-cart.
About thet darned Proviso matter
I never hed a grain o' doubt.
Nor I aint one my sense to scatter
So 'st no one couldn't pick it out;
My love fer North an' South is equil,
So I'll jest answer plump an' frank,
No matter wut may be the sequil,--
Yes, Sir, I _am_ agin a Bank.
Ez to the answerin' o' questions,
I'm an off ox at bein' druv, 50
Though I ain't one thet ary test shuns
'll give our folks a helpin' shove;
Kind o' permiscoous I go it
Fer the holl country, an' the ground
I take, ez nigh ez I can show it,
Is pooty gen'ally all round.
I don't appruve o' givin' pledges;
You'd ough' to leave a feller free,
An' not go knockin' out the wedges
To ketch his fingers in the tree;
Pledges air awfle breachy cattle 61
Thet preudunt farmers don't turn out,--
Ez long 'z the people git their rattle,
Wut is there fer 'em to grout about?
Ez to the slaves, there's no confusion
In _my_ idees consarnin' them,--
_I_ think they air an Institution,
A sort of--yes, jest so,--ahem:
Do _I_ own any? Of my merit
On thet pint you yourself may jedge; 70
All is, I never drink no sperit,
Nor I haint never signed no pledge.
Ez to my princerples, I glory
In hevin' nothin' o' the sort;
I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory,
I'm jest a canderdate, in short;
Thet's fair an' square an' parpendicler
But, ef the Public cares a fig
To hev me an'thin' in particler,
Wy, I'm a kind o' peri-Wig. 80
P. S.
Ez we're a sort o' privateerin',
O' course, you know, it's sheer an' sheer,
An' there is sutthin' wuth your hearin'
I'll mention in _your_ privit ear;
Ef you git _me_ inside the White House,
Your head with ile I'll kin' o' 'nint
By gittin' _you_ inside the Lighthouse
Down to the eend o' Jaalam Pint.
An' ez the North hez took to brustlin'
At bein' scrouged frum off the roost, 90
I'll tell ye wut'll save all tusslin'
An' give our side a harnsome boost,--
Tell 'em thet on the Slavery question
I'm RIGHT, although to speak I'm lawth;
This gives you a safe pint to rest on,
An' leaves me frontin' South by North.
[And now of epistles candidatial, which are of two kinds,--namely,
letters of acceptance, and letters definitive of position. Our republic,
on the eve of an election, may safely enough be called a republic of
letters. Epistolary composition becomes then an epidemic, which seizes
one candidate after another, not seldom cutting short the thread of
political life. It has come to such a pass, that a party dreads less the
attacks of its opponents than a letter from its candidate. _Litera
scripta manet_, and it will go hard if something bad cannot be made of
it. General Harrison, it is well understood, was surrounded, during his
candidacy, with the _cordon sanitaire_ of a vigilance committee. No
prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously deprived of writing
materials. The soot was scraped carefully from the chimney-places;
outposts of expert rifle-shooters rendered it sure death for any goose
(who came clad in feathers) to approach within a certain limited
distance of North Bend; and all domestic fowls about the premises were
reduced to the condition of Plato's original man. By these precautions
the General was saved. _Parva componere magnis_, I remember, that, when
party-spirit once ran high among my people, upon occasion of the choice
of a new deacon, I, having my preferences, yet not caring too openly to
express them, made use of an innocent fraud to bring about that result
which I deemed most desirable. My stratagem was no other than the
throwing a copy of the Complete Letter-Writer in the way of the
candidate whom I wished to defeat. He caught the infection, and
addressed a short note to his constituents, in which the opposite party
detected so many and so grave improprieties (he had modelled it upon the
letter of a young lady accepting a proposal of marriage), that he not
only lost his election, but, falling under a suspicion of Sabellianism
and I know not what (the widow Endive assured me that he was a
Paralipomenon, to her certain knowledge), was forced to leave the town.
Thus it is that the letter killeth.
The object which candidates propose to themselves in writing is to
convey no meaning at all. And here is a quite unsuspected pitfall into
which they successively plunge headlong. For it is precisely in such
cryptographies that mankind are prone to seek for and find a wonderful
amount and variety of significance. _Omne ignotum pro mirifico_. How do
we admire at the antique world striving to crack those oracular nuts
from Delphi, Hammon, and elsewhere, in only one of which can I so much
as surmise that any kernel had ever lodged; that, namely, wherein Apollo
confessed that he was mortal. One Didymus is, moreover, related to have
written six thousand books on the single subject of grammar, a topic
rendered only more tenebrific by the labors of his successors, and which
seems still to possess an attraction for authors in proportion as they
can make nothing of it. A singular loadstone for theologians, also, is
the Beast in the Apocalypse, whereof, in the course of my studies, I
have noted two hundred and three several interpretations, each
lethiferal to all the rest. _Non nostrum est tantas componere lites_,
yet I have myself ventured upon a two hundred and fourth, which I
embodied in a discourse preached on occasion of the demise of the late
usurper, Napoleon Bonaparte, and which quieted, in a large measure, the
minds of my people. It is true that my views on this important point
were ardently controverted by Mr. Shearjashub Holden, the then preceptor
of our academy, and in other particulars a very deserving and sensible
young man, though possessing a somewhat limited knowledge of the Greek
tongue. But his heresy struck down no deep root, and, he having been
lately removed by the hand of Providence, I had the satisfaction of
reaffirming my cherished sentiments in a sermon preached upon the Lord's
day immediately succeeding his funeral. This might seem like taking an
unfair advantage, did I not add that he had made provision in his last
will (being celibate) for the publication of a posthumous tractate in
support of his own dangerous opinions.
I know of nothing in our modern times which approaches so nearly to the
ancient oracle as the letter of a Presidential candidate. Now, among the
Greeks, the eating of beans was strictly forbidden to all such as had it
in mind to consult those expert amphibologists, and this same
prohibition on the part of Pythagoras to his disciples is understood to
imply an abstinence from politics, beans having been used as ballots.
That other explication, _quod videlicet sensus eo cibo obtundi
existimaret_, though supported _pugnis et calcibus_ by many of the
learned, and not wanting the countenance of Cicero, is confuted by the
larger experience of New England. On the whole, I think it safer to
apply here the rule of interpretation which now generally obtains in
regard to antique cosmogonies, myths, fables, proverbial expressions,
and knotty points generally, which is, to find a common-sense meaning,
and then select whatever can be imagined the most opposite thereto. In
this way we arrive at the conclusion, that the Greeks objected to the
questioning of candidates. And very properly, if, as I conceive, the
chief point be not to discover what a person in that position is, or
what he will do, but whether he can be elected. _Vos exemplaria Graeca
nocturna versate manu, versate diurna_.
But, since an imitation of the Greeks in this particular (the asking of
questions being one chief privilege of freemen) is hardly to be hoped
for, and our candidates will answer, whether they are questioned or not,
I would recommend that these ante-electionary dialogues should be
carried on by symbols, as were the diplomatic correspondences of the
Scythians an Macrobii, or confined to the language of signs, like the
famous interview of Panurge and Goatsnose. A candidate might then
convey a suitable reply to all committees of inquiry by closing one eye,
or by presenting them with a phial of Egyptian darkness to be speculated
upon by their respective constituencies. These answers would be
susceptible of whatever retrospective construction the exigencies of the
political campaign might seem to demand, and the candidate could take
his position on either side of the fence with entire consistency. Or, if
letters must be written, profitable use might be made of the Dighton
rock hieroglyphic or the cuneiform script, every fresh decipherer of
which is enabled to educe a different meaning, whereby a sculptured
stone or two supplies us, and will probably continue to supply
posterity, with a very vast and various body of authentic history. For
even the briefest epistle in the ordinary chirography is dangerous.
There is scarce any style so compressed that superfluous words may not
be detected in it. A severe critic might curtail that famous brevity of
Caesar's by two thirds, drawing his pen through the supererogatory
_veni_ and _vidi_. Perhaps, after all, the surest footing of hope is to
be found in the rapidly increasing tendency to demand less and less of
qualification in candidates. Already have statesmanship, experience, and
the possession (nay, the profession, even) of principles been rejected
as superfluous, and may not the patriot reasonably hope that the ability
to write will follow? At present, there may be death in pothooks as well
as pots, the loop of a letter may suffice for a bowstring, and all the
dreadful heresies of Antislavery may lurk in a flourish. --H. W. ]
No. VIII
A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ.
[In the following epistle, we behold Mr. Sawin returning, a _miles
emeritus_, to the bosom of his family. _Quantum mutatus! _ The good
Father of us all had doubtless intrusted to the keeping of this child of
his certain faculties of a constructive kind. He had put in him a share
of that vital force, the nicest economy of every minute atom of which is
necessary to the perfect development of Humanity. He had given him a
brain and heart, and so had equipped his soul with the two strong wings
of knowledge and love, whereby it can mount to hang its nest under the
eaves of heaven. And this child, so dowered, he had intrusted to the
keeping of his vicar, the State. How stands the account of that
stewardship? The State, or Society (call her by what name you will), had
taken no manner of thought of him till she saw him swept out into the
street, the pitiful leavings of last night's debauch, with cigar-ends,
lemon-parings, tobacco-quids, slops, vile stenches, and the whole
loathsome next-morning of the bar-room,--an own child of the Almighty
God! I remember him as he was brought to be christened, a ruddy, rugged
babe; and now there he wallows, reeking, seething,--the dead corpse, not
of a man, but of a soul,--a putrefying lump, horrible for the life that
is in it. Comes the wind of heaven, that good Samaritan, and parts the
hair upon his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss those parched, cracked
lips; the morning opens upon him her eyes full of pitying sunshine, the
sky yearns down to him,--and there he lies fermenting. O sleep! let me
not profane thy holy name by calling that stertorous unconsciousness a
slumber! By and by comes along the State, God's vicar. Does she say, 'My
poor, forlorn foster-child! Behold here a force which I will make dig
and plant and build for me'? Not so, but, 'Here is a recruit ready-made
to my hand, a piece of destroying energy lying unprofitably idle. ' So
she claps an ugly gray suit on him, puts a musket in his grasp, and
sends him off, with Gubernatorial and other godspeeds, to do duty as a
destroyer.
I made one of the crowd at the last Mechanics' Fair, and, with the rest,
stood gazing in wonder at a perfect machine, with its soul of fire, its
boiler-heart that sent the hot blood pulsing along the iron arteries,
and its thews of steel. And while I was admiring the adaptation of means
to end, the harmonious involutions of contrivance, and the
never-bewildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, the
imperious engine's lackey and drudge, whose sole office was to let fall,
at intervals, a drop or two of oil upon a certain joint. Then my soul
said within me, See there a piece of mechanism to which that other you
marvel at is but as the rude first effort of a child,--a force which not
merely suffices to set a few wheels in motion, but which can send an
impulse all through the infinite future,--a contrivance, not for turning
out pins, or stitching button-holes, but for making Hamlets and Lears.
And yet this thing of iron shall be housed, waited on, guarded from rust
and dust, and it shall be a crime but so much as to scratch it with a
pin; while the other, with its fire of God in it, shall be buffeted
hither and thither, and finally sent carefully a thousand miles to be
the target for a Mexican cannon-ball. Unthrifty Mother State! My heart
burned within me for pity and indignation, and I renewed this covenant
with my own soul,--_In aliis mansuetus ero, at, in blasphemiis contra
Christum, non ita. _. --H. W. ]
I spose you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me,
Exacly ware I be myself,--meanin' by thet the holl o' me.
Wen I left hum, I hed two legs, an' they worn't bad ones neither,
(The scaliest trick they ever played wuz bringin' on me hither,)
Now one on 'em's I dunno ware;--they thought I wuz adyin',
An' sawed it off because they said 'twuz kin' o' mortifyin';
I'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I don't see, nuther,
Wy one shoud take to feelin' cheap a minnit sooner 'n t'other,
Sence both wuz equilly to blame; but things is ez they be;
It took on so they took it off, an' thet's enough fer me: 10
There's one good thing, though, to be said about my wooden new one,--
The liquor can't git into it ez 't used to in the true one;
So it saves drink; an' then, besides, a feller couldn't beg
A gretter blessin' then to hev one ollers sober peg;
It's true a chap's in want o' two fer follerin' a drum,
But all the march I'm up to now is jest to Kingdom Come.
I've lost one eye, but thet's a loss it's easy to supply
Out o' the glory thet I've gut, fer thet is all my eye;
An' one is big enough, I guess, by diligently usin' it,
To see all I shall ever git by way o' pay fer losin' it; 20
Off'cers I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an' kickins,
Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter the fattest pickins;
So, ez the eye's put fairly out, I'll larn to go without it,
An' not allow _myself_ to be no gret put out about it.
Now, le' me see, thet isn't all; I used, 'fore leavin' Jaalam,
To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems to ail 'em:
Ware's my left hand? Oh, darn it, yes, I recollect wut's come on 't;
I haint no left arm but my right, an' thet's gut jest a thumb on 't;
It aint so bendy ez it wuz to cal'late a sum on 't.
I've hed some ribs broke,--six (I b'lieve),--I haint kep' no account on
'em; 30
Wen pensions git to be the talk, I'll settle the amount on 'em.
An' now I'm speakin' about ribs, it kin' o' brings to mind
One thet I couldn't never break,--the one I lef' behind;
Ef you should see her, jest clear out the spout o' your invention
An' pour the longest sweetnin' in about an annooal pension,
An' kin' o' hint (in case, you know, the critter should refuse to be
Consoled) I aint so 'xpensive now to keep ez wut I used to be;
There's one arm less, ditto one eye, an' then the leg thet's wooden
Can be took off an' sot away wenever ther's a puddin'.
I spose you think I'm comin' back ez opperlunt ez thunder, 40
With shiploads o' gold images an' varus sorts o' plunder;
Wal, 'fore I vullinteered, I thought this country wuz a sort o'
Canaan, a reg'lar Promised Land flowin' with rum an' water,
Ware propaty growed up like time, without no cultivation,
An' gold wuz dug ez taters be among our Yankee nation,
Ware nateral advantages were pufficly amazin',
Ware every rock there wuz about with precious stuns wuz blazin'.
Ware mill-sites filled the country up ez thick ez you could cram 'em,
An' desput rivers run about a beggin' folks to dam 'em;
Then there were meetinhouses, tu, chockful o' gold an' silver 50
Thet you could take, an' no one couldn't hand ye in no bill fer;--
Thet's wut I thought afore I went, thet's wut them fellers told us
Thet stayed to hum an' speechified an' to the buzzards sold us;
I thought thet gold-mines could be gut cheaper than Chiny asters,
An' see myself acomin' back like sixty Jacob Astors;
But sech idees soon melted down an' didn't leave a grease-spot;
I vow my holl sheer o' the spiles wouldn't come nigh a V spot;
Although, most anywares we've ben, you needn't break no locks,
Nor run no kin' o' risks, to fill your pocket full o' rocks.
I 'xpect I mentioned in my last some o' the nateral feeturs 60
O' this all-fiered buggy hole in th' way o' awfle creeturs,
But I fergut to name (new things to speak on so abounded)
How one day you'll most die o' thust, an' 'fore the next git drownded.
The clymit seems to me jest like a teapot made o' pewter
Our Preudence hed, thet wouldn't pour (all she could du) to suit her;
Fust place the leaves 'ould choke the spout, so's not a drop 'ould dreen
out,
Then Prude 'ould tip an' tip an' tip, till the holl kit bust clean out,
The kiver-hinge-pin bein' lost, tea-leaves an' tea an' kiver
'ould all come down _kerswosh! _ ez though the dam bust in a river.
Jest so 'tis here; holl months there aint a day o' rainy weather, 70
An' jest ez th' officers 'ould be a layin' heads together
Ez t' how they'd mix their drink at sech a milingtary deepot,--
'Twould pour ez though the lid wuz off the everlastin' teapot.
The cons'quence is, thet I shall take, wen I'm allowed to leave here,
One piece o' propaty along, an' thet's the shakin' fever;
It's reggilar employment, though, an' thet aint thought to harm one,
Nor 'taint so tiresome ez it wuz with t'other leg an' arm on;
An' it's a consolation, tu, although it doosn't pay,
To hev it said you're some gret shakes in any kin' o' way.
'Tworn't very long, I tell ye wut, I thought o' fortin-makin',-- 80
One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an' next ez good ez bakin',--
One day abrilin' in the sand, then smoth'rin' in the mashes,--
Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess o' hacks an' smashes.
But then, thinks I, at any rate there's glory to be hed,--
Thet's an investment, arter all, thet mayn't turn out so bad;
But somehow, wen we'd fit an' licked, I ollers found the thanks
Gut kin' o' lodged afore they come ez low down ez the ranks;
The Gin'rals gut the biggest sheer, the Cunnles next, an' so on,--
_We_ never gat a blasted mite o' glory ez I know on;
An' spose we hed, I wonder how you're goin' to contrive its 90
Division so's to give a piece to twenty thousand privits;
Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o' the brav'st one,
You wouldn't git more 'n half enough to speak of on a grave-stun;
We git the licks,--we're jest the grist thet's put into War's hoppers;
Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps pick up the coppers.
It may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in 't,
An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in 't;
But glory is a kin' o' thing _I_ sha'n't pursue no furder,
Coz thet's the off'cers' parquisite,--yourn's on'y jest the murder.
Wal, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at least there's one 100
Thing in the bills we aint bed yit, an' thet's the GLORIOUS FUN;
Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persume we
All day an' night shall revel in the halls o' Montezumy.
I'll tell ye wut _my_ revels wuz, an' see how you would like 'em;
_We_ never gut inside the hall: the nighest ever _I_ come
Wuz stan'in' sentry in the sun (an', fact, it _seemed_ a cent'ry)
A ketchin' smells o' biled an' roast thet come out thru the entry,
An' hearin' ez I sweltered thru my passes an' repasses,
A rat-tat-too o' knives an' forks, a clinkty-clink o' glasses:
I can't tell off the bill o' fare the Gin'rals hed inside; 110
All I know is, thet out o' doors a pair o' soles wuz fried,
An' not a hunderd miles away from ware this child wuz posted,
A Massachusetts citizen wuz baked an' biled an' roasted;
The on'y thing like revellin' thet ever come to me
Wuz bein' routed out o' sleep by thet darned revelee.
They say the quarrel's settled now; for my part I've some doubt on 't,
't'll take more fish-skin than folks think to take the rile clean on 't;
At any rate I'm so used up I can't do no more fightin',
The on'y chance thet's left to me is politics or writin';
Now, ez the people's gut to hev a milingtary man, 120
An' I aint nothin' else jest now, I've hit upon a plan;
The can'idatin' line, you know, 'ould suit me to a T,
An' ef I lose, 'twunt hurt my ears to lodge another flea;
So I'll set up ez can'idate fer any kin' o' office,
(I mean fer any thet includes good easy-cheers an' soffies;
Fer ez tu runnin' fer a place ware work's the time o' day,
You know thet's wut I never did,--except the other way;)
Ef it's the Presidential cheer fer wich I'd better run,
Wut two legs anywares about could keep up with my one?
There aint no kin' o' quality in can'idates, it's said, 130
So useful eza wooden leg,--except a wooden head;
There's nothin' aint so poppylar--(wy, it 's a parfect sin
To think wut Mexico hez paid fer Santy Anny's pin;)--
Then I haint gut no princerples, an', sence I wuz knee-high,
I never _did_ hev any gret, ez you can testify;
I'm a decided peace-man, tu, an' go agin the war,--
Fer now the holl on 't's gone an' past, wut is there to go _for_?
Ef, wile you're 'lectioneerin' round, some curus chaps should beg
To know my views o' state affairs, jest answer WOODEN LEG!
Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an' kin' o' pry an' doubt 140
An' ax fer sutthin' deffynit, jest say ONE EYE PUT OUT!
Thet kin' o' talk I guess you'll find'll answer to a charm,
An' wen you're druv tu nigh the wall, hol' up my missin' arm;
Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, put on a vartoous look
An' tell 'em thet's precisely wut I never gin nor--took!
Then you can call me 'Timbertoes,'--thet's wut the people likes;
Sutthin' combinin' morril truth with phrases sech ez strikes;
Some say the people's fond o' this, or thet, or wut you please,--
I tell ye wut the people want is jest correct idees;
'Old Timbertoes,' you see, 's a creed it's safe to be quite bold
on, 150
There's nothin' in 't the other side can any ways git hold on;
It's a good tangible idee, a sutthin' to embody
Thet valooable class o' men who look thru brandy-toddy;
It gives a Party Platform, tu, jest level with the mind
Of all right-thinkin', honest folks thet mean to go it blind;
Then there air other good hooraws to dror on ez you need 'em,
Sech ez the ONE-EYED SLARTERER, the BLOODY BIRDOFREDUM:
Them's wut takes hold o' folks thet think, ez well ez o' the masses,
An' makes you sartin o' the aid o' good men of all classes.
There's one thing I'm in doubt about: in order to be Presidunt, 160
It's absolutely ne'ssary to be a Southern residunt;
The Constitution settles thet, an' also thet a feller
Must own a nigger o' some sort, jet black, or brown, or yeller.
Now I haint no objections agin particklar climes,
Nor agin ownin' anythin' (except the truth sometimes),
But, ez I haint no capital, up there among ye, maybe,
You might raise funds enough fer me to buy a low-priced baby,
An' then to suit the No'thern folks, who feel obleeged to say
They hate an' cus the very thing they vote fer every day,
Say you're assured I go full butt fer Libbaty's diffusion 170
An' make the purchis on'y jest to spite the Institootion;--
But, golly! there's the currier's hoss upon the pavement pawin'!
I'll be more 'xplicit in my next.
Yourn, BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.
[We have now a tolerably fair chance of estimating how the balance-sheet
stands between our returned volunteer and glory. Supposing the entries
to be set down on both sides of the account in fractional parts of one
hundred, we shall arrive at something like the following result:--
B. SAWIN, Esq. , _in account with_ (BLANK) GLORY.
_Cr. _
By loss of one leg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
" do. one arm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
" do. four fingers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
" do. one eye. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
