CHAPTER XXIV. AN ARRIVAL--AN ELECTION--ARCHITECTURE--A ROLLING-PIN, ANDPATRIOTISM OF THE MOST APPROVED WATER.
In due time the coast of Leaplow made its appearance, close under ourlarboard bow. So sudden was our arrival in this novel and extraordinarycountry, that we were very near running on it, before we got a glimpseof its shores. The seamanship of Captain Poke, however, stood us inhand; and, by the aid of a very clever pilot, we were soon safely mooredin the harbor of Bivouac. In this happy land, there was no registration,no passports, "no nothin'"--as Mr. Poke pointedly expressed it. Theformalities were soon observed, although I had occasion to remark, howmuch easier, after all, it is to get along in this world with vice thanwith virtue. A bribe offered to a custom-house officer was refused;and the only trouble I had, on the occasion, arose from this awkwardobtrusion of a conscience. However, the difficulty was overcome, thoughnot quite as easily as if douceurs had happened to be in fashion; and wewere permitted to land with all our necessary effects.
The city of Bivouac presented a singular aspect as I first put footwithin its hallowed streets. The houses were all covered with largeplacards, which, at first, I took to be lists of the wares to be vended,for the place is notoriously commercial; but which, on examination, Isoon discovered were merely electioneering handbills. The reader willfigure to himself my pleasure and surprise, on reading the first thatoffered. It ran as follows:
"HORIZONTAL NOMINATION.
"Horizontal-Systematic-Indoctrinated-Republicans: Attention!
"Your sacred rights are in danger; your dearest liberties are menaced;your wives and children are on the point of dissolution; the infamousand unconstitutional position that the sun gives light by day, and themoon by night, is openly and impudently propagated, and now is the onlyoccasion that will probably ever offer to arrest an error so pregnantwith deception and domestic evils. We present to your notice a suitabledefender of all those near and dear interests, in the person of,
"JOHN GOLDENCALF,
"the known patriot, the approved legislator, the profound philosopher,the incorruptible statesman. To our adopted fellow-citizens we neednot recommend Mr. Goldencalf, for he is truly one of themselves; to thenative citizens we will only say, 'Try him, and you will be more thansatisfied.'"
I found this placard of great use, for it gave me the first informationI had yet had of the duty I was expected to perform in the comingsession of the great council; which was merely to demonstrate that themoon gave light by day, and that the sun gave light by night. Of course,I immediately set about, in my own mind, hunting up the proper argumentsby which this grave political hypothesis was to be properly maintained.The next placard was in favor of,
"NOAH POKE,"
"the experienced navigator, who will conduct the ship of state intothe haven of prosperity--the practical astronomer who knows by frequentobservations, that lunars are not to be got in the dark."
"Perpendiculars, be plumb, and lay your enemies on their backs!"
After this I fell in with--
"THE HONORABLE ROBERT SMUT,"
"is confidently recommended to all their fellow-citizens by thenominating committee of the Anti-Approved-Sublimated-Politico-Tangents,as the real gentleman, a ripe scholar, [Footnote: I afterwards foundthis was a common phrase in Leaplow, being uniformly applied to everymonikin who wore spectacles.] an enlightened politician, and a soundDemocrat."
"But I should fill the manuscript with nothing else, were I to recorda tithe of the commendations and abuse that were heaped on us all, by acommunity to whom, as yet, we were absolutely strangers. A single sampleof the latter will suffice."
"AFFIDAVIT."
"Personally appeared before me, John Equity, justice of the peace, PeterVeracious, etc., etc., who, being duly sworn upon the Holy Evangelists,doth depose and say, viz.: That he was intimately acquainted with oneJohn Goldencalf in his native country, and that he is personally knowingto the fact that he, the said John Goldencalf, has three wives, sevenillegitimate children, is moreover a bankrupt without character, andthat he was obliged to emigrate in consequence of having stolen asheep."
"Sworn, etc."
"(Signed,) PETER VERACIOUS."
I naturally felt a little indignant at this impudent statement, and wasabout to call upon the first passer-by for the address of Mr. Veracious,when the skirts of my skin were seized by one of the Horizontalnominating committee, and I was covered with congratulations on my beinghappily elected. Success is an admirable plaster for all wounds, and Ireally forgot to have the affair of the sheep and of the illegitimatechildren inquired into; although I still protest, that had fortune beenless propitious, the rascal who promulgated this calumny would have beenmade to smart for his temerity. In less than five minutes it was theturn of Captain Poke. He, too, was congratulated in due form; for, asit appeared, the "immigrant interest," as Noah termed it, had actuallycarried a candidate on each of the two great opposing tickets. Thusfar, all was well; for, after sharing his mess so long, I had not thesmallest objection to sit in the Leaplow parliament with the worthysealer; but our mutual surprise, and I believe I might add, indignation,were a good deal excited, by shortly encountering a walking notice,which contained a programme of the proceedings to be observed at the"Reception of the Honorable Robert Smut."
It would seem that the Horizontals and the Perpendiculars had madeso many spurious and mystified ballots, in order to propitiate theTangents, and to cheat each other, that this young blackguardactually stood at the head of the poll!--a political phenomenon, as Isubsequently discovered, however, by no means of rare occurrence in theLeaplow history of the periodical selection of the wisest and best.
There was certainly an accumulation of interest on arriving in a strangeland, to find one's self both extolled and vituperated on most of thecorners in its capital, and to be elected to its parliament, all in thesame day. Still, I did not permit myself to be either so much elated orso much depressed, as not to have all my eyes about me, in order to getas correctly as possible, and as quickly as possible, some insight intothe characters, tastes, habits, wishes, and wants of my constituents.
I have already declared that it is my intention to dwell chiefly on themoral excellences and peculiarities of the people of the monikin world.Still I could not walk through the streets of Bivouac without observinga few physical usages, that I shall mention, because they have anevident connection with the state of society, and the historicalrecollections of this interesting portion of the polar region.
In the first place, I remarked that all sorts of quadrupeds are justas much at home in the promenades of the town, as the inhabitantsthemselves, a fact that I make no doubt has some very proper connectionwith that principle of equal rights on which the institutions of thecountry are established. In the second place, I could not but see thattheir dwellings are constructed on the very minimum of base, proppingeach other, as emblematic of the mutual support obtained by therepublican system, and seeking their development in height for the wantof breadth; a singularity of customs that I did not hesitate at once torefer to a usage of living in trees, at an epoch not very remote. Inthe third place, I noted, instead of entering their dwellings near theground like men, and indeed like most other unfledged animals, that theyascend by means of external steps to an aperture about half-way betweenthe roof and the earth, where, having obtained admission, they go up ordown within the building, as occasion requires. This usage, I made noquestion, was preserved from the period (and that, too, no distant one),when the savage condition of the country induced them to seek protectionagainst the ravages of wild beasts, by having recourse to ladders, whichwere drawn up after the family into the top of the tree, as the sun sankbeneath the horizon. These steps or ladders are generally of some whitematerial, in order that they may, even now, be found in the dark, shouldthe danger be urgent; although I do not know that Bivouac is a moredisorderly or unsafe town than another, in the present day. But habitslinger in the usages of a people, and are often found to exist asfashions, long a
fter the motive of their origin has ceased and beenforgotten. As a proof of this, many of the dwellings of Bivouac havestill enormous iron chevaux-de-frise before the doors, and near the baseof the stone-ladders; a practice unquestionably taken from the original,unsophisticated, domestic defences of this wary and enterprising race.Among a great many of these chevaux-de-frise, I remarked certain ironimages, that resemble the kings of chess-men, and which I took, atfirst, to be symbols of the calculating qualities of the owners of themansions--a species of republican heraldry--but which the brigadier toldme, on inquiry, were no more than a fashion that had descended from thecustom of having stuffed images before the doors, in the early days ofthe settlement, to frighten away the beasts at night, precisely as westation scarecrows in a corn-field. Two of these well-padded sentinels,with a stick stuck up in a fire-lock attitude, he assured me, had oftenbeen known to maintain a siege of a week, against a she-bear and anumerous family of hungry cubs, in the olden times; and, now that thedanger was gone, he presumed the families which had caused these ironmonuments to be erected, had done so to record some marvellous risksof this nature, from which their forefathers had escaped by means of soingenious an expedient.
Everything in Bivouac bears the impress of the sublime principle of theinstitutions. The houses of the private citizens, for instance, overtopthe roofs of all the public edifices, to show that the public is merelya servant of the citizen. Even the churches have this peculiarity,proving that the road to heaven is not independent of the popular will.The great Hall of Justice, an edifice of which the Bivouackers areexceedingly proud, is constructed in the same recumbent style, thearchitect, with a view to protect himself from the imputation ofbelieving that the firmament was within reach of his hand, having takenthe precaution to run up a wooden finger-board from the centre of thebuilding, which points to the place where, according to the notions ofall other people, the ridge of the roof itself should have been raised.So very apparent was this peculiarity, Noah observed, that it seemed tohim as if the whole "'arth" had been rolled down by a great politicalrolling-pin, by way of giving the country its finishing touch.
While making these remarks, one drew near at a brisk trot, who, Mr.Downright observed, eagerly desired our acquaintance. Surprised at hispretending to know such a fact without any previous communication, Itook the liberty of asking why he thought that we were the particularobjects of the other's haste.
"Simply because you are fresh arrivals. This person is one of asufficiently numerous class among us, who, devoured by a small ambition,seek notoriety--which, by the way, they are near obtaining in morerespects than they probably desire--by obtruding themselves on everystranger who touches our shore. Theirs is not a generous and frankhospitality that would fain serve others, but an irritable vanity thatwould glorify themselves. The liberal and enlightened monikin is easilyto be distinguished from all of this clique. He is neither ashamed of,nor bigoted in favor of any usages, simply because they are domestic.With him the criterions of merit are propriety, taste, expediency, andfitness. He distinguishes, while these crave; he neither wholly rejects,nor wholly lives by, imitation, but judges for himself, and uses hisexperience as a respectable and useful guide; while these think that allthey can attain that is beyond the reach of their neighbors, is, as amatter of course, the sole aim of life. Strangers they seek, becausethey have long since decreed that this country, with its usages, itspeople, and all it contains, being founded on popular rights, is allthat is debased and vulgar, themselves and a few of their own particularfriends excepted; and they are never so happy as when they are gloatingon, and basking in, the secondary refinements of what we call the 'oldregion.' Their own attainments, however, being pretty much godsends, orsuch as we all pick up in our daily intercourse, they know nothing ofany foreign country but Leaphigh, whose language we happen to speak;and, as Leaphigh is also the very beau ideal of exclusion, in itsusages, opinions, and laws, they deem all who come from that part of theearth, as rather more entitled to their profound homage than any otherstrangers."
Here Judge People's Friend, who had been vigorously pumping thenominating committee on the subject of the chances of the little wheel,suddenly left us, with a sneaking, self-abased air, and with his nose tothe ground, like a dog who has just caught a fresh scent.
The next time we met with the ex-envoy, he was in mourning for somepolitical backsliding that I never comprehended. He had submitted to afresh amputation of the bob, and had so thoroughly humbled the seatof reason, that it was not possible for the most envious and malignantdisposition to fancy he had a particle of brains left. He had, moreover,caused every hair to be shaved off his body, which was as naked as thehand, and altogether he presented an edifying picture of penitenceand self-abasement. I afterwards understood that this purification wasconsidered perfectly satisfactory, and that he was thought to be, again,within the limits of the most patriotic patriots.
In the meantime the Bivouacker had approached me, and was introduced asMr. Gilded Wriggle.
"Count Poke de Stunnin'tun, my good sir," said the brigadier, whowas the master of ceremonies on this occasion, "and the MogulGoldencalf--both noblemen of ancient lineage, admirable privileges,and of the purest water; gentlemen who, when they are at home, have sixdinners daily, always sleep on diamonds, and whose castles are none ofthem less than six leagues in extent."
"My friend General Downright has taken too much pains, gentlemen,"interrupted our new acquaintance, "your rank and extraction beingself-evident. Welcome to Leaplow! I beg you will make free with myhouse, my dog, my cat, my horse, and myself. I particularly beg thatyour first, your last, and all the intermediate visits, will be to me.Well, Mogul, what do you really think of us? You have now been on shorelong enough to have formed a pretty accurate notion of our institutionsand habits. I beg you will not judge of all of us by what you see in thestreets--"
"It is not my intention, sir."
"You are cautious, I perceive? We are in an awful condition, I confess;trampled on by the vulgar, and far--very far from being the peoplethat, I dare say, you expected to see. I couldn't be made the assistantalderman of my ward, if I wished it, sir--too much jacobism; the peopleare fools, sir; know nothing, sir; not fit to rule themselves, much lesstheir betters, sir. Here have a set of us, some hundreds in this verytown, been telling them what fools they are, how unfit they are tomanage their own affairs, and how fast they are going to the devil, anytime these twenty years, and still we have not yet persuaded them toentrust one of us with authority! To say the truth, we are in a mostmiserable condition, and, if anything COULD ruin this country, democracywould have ruined it just thirty-five years ago."
Here the wailings of Mr. Wriggle were interrupted by the wailings ofCount Poke de Stunnin'tun. The latter, by gazing in admiration at thespeaker, had inadvertently struck his toe against one of the forty-threethousand seven hundred and sixty inequalities of the pavement (foreverything in Leaplow is exactly equal, except the streets andhighways), and fallen forwards on his nose. I have already had occasionto allude to the sealer's readiness in using opprobrious epithets. Thiscontre-temps happened in the principal street of Bivouac, or in whatis called the Wide-path, an avenue of more than a league in extent; butnotwithstanding its great length, Noah took it up at one end and abusedit all the way to the other, with a precision, fidelity, rapidity andpoint, that excited general admiration. "It was the dirtiest, worstpaved, meanest, vilest, street he had ever seen, and if they had it atStunnin'tun, instead of using it as a street at all, they would fenceit up at each end, and turn it into a hog-lot." Here Brigadier Downrightbetrayed unequivocal signs of alarm. Drawing us aside, he vehementlydemanded of the captain if he were mad, to berate in this unheard-ofmanner the touchstone of Bivouac sentiment, nationality, taste,and elegance! This street was never spoken of except by the use ofsuperlatives; a usage, by the way, that Noah himself had by no meansneglected. It was commonly thought to be the longest and the shortest,the widest and the narrowest, the best built and the worst built avenue
in the universe. "Whatever you say or do," he continued, "whatever youthink or believe, never deny the superlatives of the Wide-path. If askedif you ever saw a street so crowded, although there be room to wheel aregiment, swear it is stifling; if required to name another promenadeso free from interruption, protest, by your soul, that the place is adesert! Say what you will of the institutions of the country--"
"How!" I exclaimed; "of the sacred rights of monikins?"
"Bedaub them, and the mass of the monikins, too, with just as muchfilth as you please. Indeed, if you wish to circulate freely in genteelsociety, I would advise you to get a pretty free use of the words,'jacobins,' 'rabble,' 'mob,' 'agrarians,' 'canaille' and 'democrats';for they recommend many to notice who possess nothing else. In our happyand independent country it is a sure sign of lofty sentiment, a finishededucation, a regulated intellect, and a genteel intercourse, to know howto bespatter all that portion of your fellow-creatures, for instance,who live in one-story edifices."
"I find all this very extraordinary, your government being professedly agovernment of the mass!"
"You have intuitively discovered the reason--is it not fashionable toabuse the government everywhere? Whatever you do, in genteel life, oughtto be based on liberal and elevated principles; and therefore, abuse allthat is animate in Leaplow, the present company, with their relativesand quadrupeds, excepted; but do not raise your blaspheming tongueagainst anything that is inanimate! Respect, I entreat of you, thehouses, the trees, the rivers, the mountains, and, above all, inBivouac, respect the Wide-path! We are a people of lively sensibilities,and are tender of the reputations of even our stocks and stones. Eventhe Leaplow philosophers are all of a mind on this subject."
"King!"
"Can you account for this very extraordinary peculiarity, brigadier?"
"Surely you cannot be ignorant that all which is property is sacred!We have a great respect for property, sir, and do not like to hear ourwares underrated. But lay it on the mass so much the harder, and youwill only be thought to be in possession of a superior and a refinedintelligence."
Here we turned again to Mr. Wriggle, who was dying to be noticed oncemore.
"Ah! gentlemen, last from Leaphigh!"--he had been questioning one of ourattendants--"how comes on that great and consistent people?"
"As usual, sir;--great and consistent."
"I think, however, we are quite their equals, eh?--chips of the sameblocks?"
"No, sir--blocks of the same chips."
Mr. Wriggle laughed, and appeared pleased with the compliment; and Iwished I had even laid it on a little thicker.
"Well, Mogul, what are our great forefathers about? Still pulling topieces that sublime fabric of a constitution, which has so long been thewonder of the world, and my especial admiration?"
"They are talking of changes, sir, although I believe they have effectedno great matter. The primate of all Leaphigh, I had occasion to remark,still has seven joints to his tail."
"Ah! they are a wonderful people, sir!" said Wriggle, looking ruefullyat his own bob, which, as I afterwards understood, was a mere naturalabortion. "I detest change, sir; were I a Leaphigher, I would die in mytail!"
"One for whom nature has done so much in this way, is to be excused alittle enthusiasm."
"A most miraculous people, sir--the wonder of the world--and theirinstitutions are the greatest prodigy of the times!"
"That is well remarked, Wriggle," put in the brigadier; "for they havebeen tinkering them, and altering them, any time these five hundred andfifty years, and still they remain precisely the same!"
"Very true, brigadier, very true--the marvel of our times! But,gentlemen, what do you indeed think of us? I shall not let you off withgeneralities. You have now been long enough on shore to have formed somepretty distinct notions about us, and I confess I should be glad to hearthem. Speak the truth with candor--are we not most miserable, forlorn,disreputable devils, after all?"
I disclaimed the ability to judge of the social condition of a people onso short an acquaintance; but to this Mr. Wriggle would not listen.He insisted that I must have been particularly disgusted with thecoarseness and want of refinement in the rabble, as he called the mass,who, by the way, had already struck me as being relatively much thebetter part of the population, so far as I had seen things--more thancommonly decent, quiet, and civil. Mr. Wriggle, also, very earnestly andpiteously begged I would not judge of the whole country by such samplesas I might happen to fall in with in the highways.
"I trust, Mogul, you will have charity to believe we are not all of usquite so bad as appearances, no doubt, make us in your polished eyes.These rude beings are spoiled by our jacobinical laws; but we have aclass, sir, that IS different. But, if you will not touch on the people,how do you like the town, sir? A poor place, no doubt, after your ownancient capitals?"
"Time will remedy all that, Mr. Wriggle."
"Do you then think we really want time? Now, that house at the corner,there, to my taste is fit for a gentleman in any country--eh?"
"No doubt, sir, fit for one."
"This is but a poor street in the eyes of you travellers, I know, thisWide-path of ours; though we think it rather sublime?"
"You do yourself injustice, Mr. Wriggle; though not equal to many ofthe---"
"How, sir, the Wide-path not equal to anything on earth! I know severalpeople who have been in the old world [so the Leaplowers call theregions of Leaphigh, Leapup, Leapdown, etc.] and they swear there is notas fine a street in any part of it. I have not had the good fortune totravel, sir; but, sir, permit me, sir, to say, sir, that some of them,sir, that HAVE travelled, sir, think, sir, the Wide-path, the mostmagnificent public avenue, sir, that their experienced eyes ever beheld,sir--yes, sir, that their very experienced eyes ever beheld, sir."
"I have seen so little of it, as yet, Mr. Wriggle, that you will pardonme if I have spoken hastily."
"Oh! no offence--I despise the monikin who is not above local vanitiesand provincial admiration! You ought to have seen that, sir, for Ifrankly admit, sir, that no rabble can be worse than ours, and thatwe are all going to the devil, as fast as ever we can. No, sir, a mostmiserable rabble, sir.--But as for this street, and our houses, and ourcats, and our dogs, and certain exceptions--you understand me, sir--itis quite a different thing. Pray, Mogul, who is the greatest personage,now, in your nation?"
"Perhaps I ought to say the Duke of Wellington, sir."
"Well, sir, allow me to ask if he lives in a better house than thatbefore us?--I see you are delighted, eh? We are a poor, new nation ofpitiful traders, sir, half savage, as everybody knows; but we DO flatterourselves that we know how to build a house! Will you just step inand see a new sofa that its owner bought only yesterday--I know himintimately, and nothing gives me so much pleasure as to show his newsofa."
I declined the invitation on the plea of fatigue, and by this means gotrid of so troublesome an acquaintance. On leaving me, however, he beggedthat I would not fail to make his house my home, swore terribly at therabble, and invited me to admire a very ordinary view that was to beobtained by looking up the Wide-path in a particular direction, butwhich embraced his own abode. When Mr. Wriggle was fairly out ofearshot, I demanded of the brigadier if Bivouac, or Leaplow, containedmany such prodigies.
"Enough to make themselves very troublesome, and us ridiculous,"returned Mr. Downright. "We are a young nation, Sir John, covering agreat surface, with a comparatively small population, and, as you areaware, separated from the other parts of the monikin region by a beltof ocean. In some respects we are like people in the country, and wepossess the merits and failings of those who are so situated. Perhapsno nation has a larger share of reflecting and essentially respectableinhabitants than Leaplow; but, not satisfied with being whatcircumstances so admirably fit them to be, there is a clique among us,who, influenced by the greater authority of older nations, pine to bethat which neither nature, education, manners, nor facilities will justyet allow them to become. In short, sir,
we have the besetting sin ofa young community--imitation. In our case the imitation is not alwayshappy, either; it being necessarily an imitation that is founded ondescriptions. If the evil were limited to mere social absurdities, itmight be laughed at--but that inherent desire of distinction, which isthe most morbid and irritable, unhappily, in the minds of those who arethe least able to attain anything more than a very vulgar notoriety, isjust as active here, as it is elsewhere; and some who have got wealth,and who can never get more than what is purely dependent on wealth,affect to despise those who are not as fortunate as themselves in thisparticular. In their longings for pre-eminence, they turn to otherstates (Leaphigh, more especially, which is the beau ideal of allnations and people who wish to set up a caste in opposition todespotism) for rules of thought, and declaim against that very masswhich is at the bottom of all their prosperity, by obstinately refusingto allow of any essential innovation on the common rights. In additionto these social pretenders, we have our political Indoctrinated."
"Indoctrinated! Will you explain the meaning of the term?"
"Sir, an Indoctrinated is one of a political school who holds to thevalidity of certain theories which have been made to justify a set ofadventitious facts, as is eminently the case in our own great model,Leaphigh. We are peculiarly placed in this country. Here, as a rule,facts--meaning political and social facts--are greatly in advance ofopinion, simply because the former are left chiefly to their own freeaction, and the latter is necessarily trammelled by habit and prejudice;while in the 'old region' opinion, as a rule--and meaning the leadingor better opinion--is greatly in advance of facts, because facts arerestrained by usage and personal interests, and opinion is incited bystudy, and the necessity of change."
"Permit me to say, brigadier, that I find your present institutions aremarkable result to follow such a state of things."
"They are a cause, rather than a consequence. Opinion, as a whole, iseverywhere on the advance; and it is further advanced even here, as awhole, than anywhere else. Accident has favored the foundation of thesocial compact; and once founded, the facts have been hastening to theirconsummation faster than the monikin mind has been able to keep companywith them. This is a remarkable but true state of the whole region. Inother monikin countries, you see opinion tugging at rooted practices,and making desperate efforts to eradicate them from their bed of vestedinterests, while here you see facts dragging opinion after them like atail wriggling behind a kite. [Footnote: One would think that BrigadierDownright had lately paid a visit to our own happy and much enlightenedland. Fifty years since, the negro was a slave in New York, andincapable of contracting marriage with a white. Facts have, however,been progressive; and, from one privilege to another, he has at lengthobtained that of consulting his own tastes in this matter, and, so faras he himself is concerned, of doing as he pleases. This is the fact,but he who presumes to speak of it has his windows broken by opinion,for his pains! NOTE BY THE EDITOR] As to our purely social imitation andsocial follies, absurd as they are, they are necessarily confined to asmall and an immaterial class; but the Indoctrinated spirit is a muchmore serious affair. That unsettles confidence, innovates on the right,often innocently and ignorantly, and causes the vessel of state to saillike a ship with a drag towing in her wake."
"This is truly a novel condition for an enlightened monikin nation."
"No doubt, men manage better; but of all this you will learn more in thegreat council. You may, perhaps, think it strange that our facts shouldpreserve their ascendency in opposition to so powerful a foe as opinion;but you will remember that a great majority of our people, if notabsolutely on a level with circumstances, being purely practical, aremuch nearer to this level, than the class termed the endoctrinated. Thelast are troublesome and delusive, rather than overwhelming."
"To return to Mr. Wriggle--is his sect numerous?"
"His class flourishes most in the towns. In Leaplow we are greatly inwant of a capital, where the cultivated, educated, and well-manneredcan assemble, and, placed by their habits and tastes above the ordinarymotives and feelings of the less instructed, they might form a morehealthful, independent, appropriate, and manly public sentiment thanthat which now pervades the country. As things are, the real elite ofthis community are so scattered, as rather to receive an impressionFROM, than to impart one TO society, The Leaplow Wriggles, as youhave just witnessed, are selfish and exacting as to their personalpretensions, irritably confident as to the merit of any particularexcellence which limits their own experience, and furiously proscribingto those whom they fancy less fortunate than themselves."
"Good heavens!--brigadier--all this is excessively human!"
"Ah! it is--is it? Well, this is certainly the way with us monikins. OurWriggles are ashamed of exactly that portion of our population of whichthey have most reason to be proud, viz., the mass; and they are proudof precisely that portion of which they have most reason to be ashamed,viz., themselves. But plenty of opportunities will offer to look furtherinto this; and we will now hasten to the inn."
As the brigadier appeared to chafe under the subject, I remained silent,following him as fast as I could, but keeping my eyes open, the readermay be very sure, as we went along. There was one peculiarity I couldnot but remark in this singular town. It was this:--all the houses weresmeared over with some colored earth, and then, after all this pains hadbeen taken to cover the material, an artist was employed to make whitemarks around every separate particle of the fabric (and they were inmillions), which ingenious particularity gives the dwellings a mostagreeable air of detail, imparting to the architecture, in general, asublimity that is based on the multiplication table. If to this be addedthe black of the chevaux-de-frise, the white of the entrance-ladders,and a sort of standing-collar to the whole, immediately under the eves,of some very dazzling hue, the effect is not unlike that of a platoon ofdrummers, in scarlet coats, cotton lace, and cuffs and capes of white.What renders the similitude more striking, is the fact that no two ofthe same plantoon appear to be exactly of a size, as is very apt to bethe case with your votaries in military music.