AN ARRIVAL—AN ELECTION—ARCHITECTURE—A ROLLING-PIN, AND PATRIOTISM OF
THE MOST APPROVED WATER.
In due time the coast of Leaplow made its appearance, close under our
larboard bow. So sudden was our arrival in this novel and extraordinary
country, that we were very near running on it, before we got a glimpse
of its shores. The seamanship of Captain Poke, however, stood us in
hand; and, by the aid of a very clever pilot, we were soon safely
moored in the harbor of Bivouac. In this happy land, there was no
registration, no passports, “no nothin’”—as Mr. Poke pointedly
expressed it. The formalities were soon observed, although I had
occasion to remark, how much easier, after all, it is to get along in
this world with vice than with virtue. A bribe offered to a
custom-house officer was refused; and the only trouble I had, on the
occasion, arose from this awkward obtrusion of a conscience. However,
the difficulty was overcome, though not quite as easily as if douceurs
had happened to be in fashion; and we were permitted to land with all
our necessary effects.
The city of Bivouac presented a singular aspect as I first put foot
within its hallowed streets. The houses were all covered with large
placards, which, at first, I took to be lists of the wares to be
vended, for the place is notoriously commercial; but which, on
examination, I soon discovered were merely electioneering handbills.
The reader will figure to himself my pleasure and surprise, on reading
the first that offered. 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 infamous
and unconstitutional position that the sun gives light by day, and the
moon by night, is openly and impudently propagated, and now is the only
occasion that will probably ever offer to arrest an error so pregnant
with deception and domestic evils. We present to your notice a suitable
defender 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 need not
recommend Mr. Goldencalf, for he is truly one of themselves; to the
native citizens we will only say, ‘Try him, and you will be more than
satisfied.’”
I found this placard of great use, for it gave me the first information
I had yet had of the duty I was expected to perform in the coming
session of the great council; which was merely to demonstrate that the
moon 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
arguments by 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 into the
haven of prosperity—the practical astronomer who knows by frequent
observations, 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 the
nominating committee of the Anti-Approved-Sublimated-Politico-Tangents,
as the real gentleman, a ripe scholar, [Footnote: I afterwards found
this was a common phrase in Leaplow, being uniformly applied to every
monikin who wore spectacles.] an enlightened politician, and a sound
Democrat.”
“But I should fill the manuscript with nothing else, were I to record a
tithe of the commendations and abuse that were heaped on us all, by a
community to whom, as yet, we were absolutely strangers. A single
sample of the latter will suffice.”
“AFFIDAVIT.”
“Personally appeared before me, John Equity, justice of the peace,
Peter Veracious, etc., etc., who, being duly sworn upon the Holy
Evangelists, doth depose and say, viz.: That he was intimately
acquainted with one John Goldencalf in his native country, and that he
is personally knowing to the fact that he, the said John Goldencalf,
has three wives, seven illegitimate children, is moreover a bankrupt
without character, and that he was obliged to emigrate in consequence
of having stolen a sheep.”
“Sworn, etc.”
“(Signed,) PETER VERACIOUS.”
I naturally felt a little indignant at this impudent statement, and was
about 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
Horizontal nominating committee, and I was covered with congratulations
on my being happily elected. Success is an admirable plaster for all
wounds, and I really forgot to have the affair of the sheep and of the
illegitimate children inquired into; although I still protest, that had
fortune been less propitious, the rascal who promulgated this calumny
would have been made to smart for his temerity. In less than five
minutes it was the turn of Captain Poke. He, too, was congratulated in
due form; for, as it appeared, the “immigrant interest,” as Noah termed
it, had actually carried a candidate on each of the two great opposing
tickets. Thus far, all was well; for, after sharing his mess so long, I
had not the smallest objection to sit in the Leaplow parliament with
the worthy sealer; 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 made so
many spurious and mystified ballots, in order to propitiate the
Tangents, and to cheat each other, that this young blackguard actually
stood at the head of the poll!—a political phenomenon, as I
subsequently discovered, however, by no means of rare occurrence in the
Leaplow history of the periodical selection of the wisest and best.
There was certainly an accumulation of interest on arriving in a
strange land, to find one’s self both extolled and vituperated on most
of the corners in its capital, and to be elected to its parliament, all
in the same day. Still, I did not permit myself to be either so much
elated or so much depressed, as not to have all my eyes about me, in
order to get as correctly as possible, and as quickly as possible, some
insight into the characters, tastes, habits, wishes, and wants of my
constituents.
I have already declared that it is my intention to dwell chiefly on the
moral excellences and peculiarities of the people of the monikin world.
Still I could not walk through the streets of Bivouac without observing
a few physical usages, that I shall mention, because they have an
evident connection with the state of society, and the historical
recollections of this interesting portion of the polar region.
In the first place, I remarked that all sorts of quadrupeds are just as
much at home in the promenades of the town, as the inhabitants
themselves, a fact that I make no doubt has some very proper connection
with that principle of equal rights on which the institutions of the
country are established. In the second place, I could not but see that
their dwellings are constructed on the very minimum of base, propping
each other, as emblematic of the mutual support obtained by the
republican system, and seeking their development in height for the want
of breadth; a singularity of customs that I did not hesitate at once to
refer to a usage of living in trees, at an epoch not very remote. In
the third place, I noted, instead of entering their dwellings near the
ground like men, and indeed like most other unfledged animals, that
they ascend by means of external steps to an aperture about half-way
between the roof and the earth, where, having obtained admission, they
go up or down within the building, as occasion requires. This usage, I
made no question, was preserved from the period (and that, too, no
distant one), when the savage condition of the country induced them to
seek protection against the ravages of wild beasts, by having recourse
to ladders, which were drawn up after the family into the top of the
tree, as the sun sank beneath the horizon. These steps or ladders are
generally of some white material, in order that they may, even now, be
found in the dark, should the danger be urgent; although I do not know
that Bivouac is a more disorderly or unsafe town than another, in the
present day. But habits linger in the usages of a people, and are often
found to exist as fashions, long after the motive of their origin has
ceased and been forgotten. As a proof of this, many of the dwellings of
Bivouac have still enormous iron chevaux-de-frise before the doors, and
near the base of 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 iron images, that resemble the kings of chess-men, and
which I took, at first, to be symbols of the calculating qualities of
the owners of the mansions—a species of republican heraldry—but which
the brigadier told me, on inquiry, were no more than a fashion that had
descended from the custom of having stuffed images before the doors, in
the early days of the settlement, to frighten away the beasts at night,
precisely as we station 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 often been known to maintain a siege of a week,
against a she-bear and a numerous family of hungry cubs, in the olden
times; and, now that the danger was gone, he presumed the families
which had caused these iron monuments to be erected, had done so to
record some marvellous risks of this nature, from which their
forefathers had escaped by means of so ingenious an expedient.
Everything in Bivouac bears the impress of the sublime principle of the
institutions. The houses of the private citizens, for instance, overtop
the roofs of all the public edifices, to show that the public is merely
a 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 are
exceedingly proud, is constructed in the same recumbent style, the
architect, with a view to protect himself from the imputation of
believing that the firmament was within reach of his hand, having taken
the precaution to run up a wooden finger-board from the centre of the
building, which points to the place where, according to the notions of
all other people, the ridge of the roof itself should have been raised.
So very apparent was this peculiarity, Noah observed, that it seemed to
him as if the whole “’arth” had been rolled down by a great political
rolling-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 his
pretending to know such a fact without any previous communication, I
took the liberty of asking why he thought that we were the particular
objects of the other’s haste.
“Simply because you are fresh arrivals. This person is one of a
sufficiently numerous class among us, who, devoured by a small
ambition, seek notoriety—which, by the way, they are near obtaining in
more respects than they probably desire—by obtruding themselves on
every stranger who touches our shore. Theirs is not a generous and
frank hospitality that would fain serve others, but an irritable vanity
that would glorify themselves. The liberal and enlightened monikin is
easily to 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, and fitness. He distinguishes, while these crave; he
neither wholly rejects, nor wholly lives by, imitation, but judges for
himself, and uses his experience as a respectable and useful guide;
while these think that all they can attain that is beyond the reach of
their neighbors, is, as a matter of course, the sole aim of life.
Strangers they seek, because they have long since decreed that this
country, with its usages, its people, and all it contains, being
founded on popular rights, is all that is debased and vulgar,
themselves and a few of their own particular friends excepted; and they
are never so happy as when they are gloating on, and basking in, the
secondary refinements of what we call the ‘old region.’ Their own
attainments, however, being pretty much godsends, or such as we all
pick up in our daily intercourse, they know nothing of any foreign
country but Leaphigh, whose language we happen to speak; and, as
Leaphigh is also the very beau ideal of exclusion, in its usages,
opinions, and laws, they deem all who come from that part of the earth,
as rather more entitled to their profound homage than any other
strangers.”
Here Judge People’s Friend, who had been vigorously pumping the
nominating committee on the subject of the chances of the little wheel,
suddenly left us, with a sneaking, self-abased air, and with his nose
to the 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 some
political backsliding that I never comprehended. He had submitted to a
fresh amputation of the bob, and had so thoroughly humbled the seat of
reason, that it was not possible for the most envious and malignant
disposition 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 the hand, and altogether he presented an edifying picture of
penitence and self-abasement. I afterwards understood that this
purification was considered 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 as
Mr. Gilded Wriggle.
“Count Poke de Stunnin’tun, my good sir,” said the brigadier, who was
the master of ceremonies on this occasion, “and the Mogul
Goldencalf—both noblemen of ancient lineage, admirable privileges, and
of the purest water; gentlemen who, when they are at home, have six
dinners daily, always sleep on diamonds, and whose castles are none of
them less than six leagues in extent.”
“My friend General Downright has taken too much pains, gentlemen,”
interrupted our new acquaintance, “your rank and extraction being
self-evident. Welcome to Leaplow! I beg you will make free with my
house, my dog, my cat, my horse, and myself. I particularly beg that
your 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 shore
long enough to have formed a pretty accurate notion of our institutions
and habits. I beg you will not judge of all of us by what you see in
the streets—”
“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 people that,
I dare say, you expected to see. I couldn’t be made the assistant
alderman of my ward, if I wished it, sir—too much jacobism; the people
are fools, sir; know nothing, sir; not fit to rule themselves, much
less their betters, sir. Here have a set of us, some hundreds in this
very town, been telling them what fools they are, how unfit they are to
manage their own affairs, and how fast they are going to the devil, any
time these twenty years, and still we have not yet persuaded them to
entrust one of us with authority! To say the truth, we are in a most
miserable condition, and, if anything COULD ruin this country,
democracy would have ruined it just thirty-five years ago.”
Here the wailings of Mr. Wriggle were interrupted by the wailings of
Count Poke de Stunnin’tun. The latter, by gazing in admiration at the
speaker, had inadvertently struck his toe against one of the
forty-three thousand seven hundred and sixty inequalities of the
pavement (for everything in Leaplow is exactly equal, except the
streets and highways), and fallen forwards on his nose. I have already
had occasion to allude to the sealer’s readiness in using opprobrious
epithets. This contre-temps happened in the principal street of
Bivouac, or in what is called the Wide-path, an avenue of more than a
league in extent; but notwithstanding its great length, Noah took it up
at one end and abused it all the way to the other, with a precision,
fidelity, rapidity and point, that excited general admiration. “It was
the dirtiest, worst paved, meanest, vilest, street he had ever seen,
and if they had it at Stunnin’tun, instead of using it as a street at
all, they would fence it up at each end, and turn it into a hog-lot.”
Here Brigadier Downright betrayed unequivocal signs of alarm. Drawing
us aside, he vehemently demanded of the captain if he were mad, to
berate in this unheard-of manner the touchstone of Bivouac sentiment,
nationality, taste, and elegance! This street was never spoken of
except by the use of superlatives; a usage, by the way, that Noah
himself had by no means neglected. 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 you think or believe, never deny the
superlatives of the Wide-path. If asked if you ever saw a street so
crowded, although there be room to wheel a regiment, swear it is
stifling; if required to name another promenade so free from
interruption, protest, by your soul, that the place is a desert! 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 much
filth as you please. Indeed, if you wish to circulate freely in genteel
society, 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
happy and independent country it is a sure sign of lofty sentiment, a
finished education, a regulated intellect, and a genteel intercourse,
to know how to 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
a government of the mass!”
“You have intuitively discovered the reason—is it not fashionable to
abuse the government everywhere? Whatever you do, in genteel life,
ought to be based on liberal and elevated principles; and therefore,
abuse all that is animate in Leaplow, the present company, with their
relatives and quadrupeds, excepted; but do not raise your blaspheming
tongue against anything that is inanimate! Respect, I entreat of you,
the houses, the trees, the rivers, the mountains, and, above all, in
Bivouac, respect the Wide-path! We are a people of lively
sensibilities, and are tender of the reputations of even our stocks and
stones. Even the 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 our
wares underrated. But lay it on the mass so much the harder, and you
will only be thought to be in possession of a superior and a refined
intelligence.”
Here we turned again to Mr. Wriggle, who was dying to be noticed once
more.
“Ah! gentlemen, last from Leaphigh!”—he had been questioning one of our
attendants—“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 same
blocks?”
“No, sir—blocks of the same chips.”
Mr. Wriggle laughed, and appeared pleased with the compliment; and I
wished I had even laid it on a little thicker.
“Well, Mogul, what are our great forefathers about? Still pulling to
pieces that sublime fabric of a constitution, which has so long been
the wonder of the world, and my especial admiration?”
“They are talking of changes, sir, although I believe they have
effected no 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 ruefully
at his own bob, which, as I afterwards understood, was a mere natural
abortion. “I detest change, sir; were I a Leaphigher, I would die in my
tail!”
“One for whom nature has done so much in this way, is to be excused a
little enthusiasm.”
“A most miraculous people, sir—the wonder of the world—and their
institutions are the greatest prodigy of the times!”
“That is well remarked, Wriggle,” put in the brigadier; “for they have
been tinkering them, and altering them, any time these five hundred and
fifty 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 with
generalities. You have now been long enough on shore to have formed
some pretty distinct notions about us, and I confess I should be glad
to hear them. 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
on so short an acquaintance; but to this Mr. Wriggle would not listen.
He insisted that I must have been particularly disgusted with the
coarseness and want of refinement in the rabble, as he called the mass,
who, by the way, had already struck me as being relatively much the
better part of the population, so far as I had seen things—more than
commonly decent, quiet, and civil. Mr. Wriggle, also, very earnestly
and piteously begged I would not judge of the whole country by such
samples as I might happen to fall in with in the highways.
“I trust, Mogul, you will have charity to believe we are not all of us
quite so bad as appearances, no doubt, make us in your polished eyes.
These rude beings are spoiled by our jacobinical laws; but we have a
class, 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 own ancient 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, this
Wide-path of ours; though we think it rather sublime?”
“You do yourself injustice, Mr. Wriggle; though not equal to many of
the—-”
“How, sir, the Wide-path not equal to anything on earth! I know several
people who have been in the old world [so the Leaplowers call the
regions of Leaphigh, Leapup, Leapdown, etc.] and they swear there is
not as fine a street in any part of it. I have not had the good fortune
to travel, sir; but, sir, permit me, sir, to say, sir, that some of
them, sir, that HAVE travelled, sir, think, sir, the Wide-path, the
most magnificent 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 pardon
me if I have spoken hastily.”
“Oh! no offence—I despise the monikin who is not above local vanities
and provincial admiration! You ought to have seen that, sir, for I
frankly admit, sir, that no rabble can be worse than ours, and that we
are all going to the devil, as fast as ever we can. No, sir, a most
miserable rabble, sir.—But as for this street, and our houses, and our
cats, and our dogs, and certain exceptions—you understand me, sir—it is
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 that
before us?—I see you are delighted, eh? We are a poor, new nation of
pitiful traders, sir, half savage, as everybody knows; but we DO
flatter ourselves that we know how to build a house! Will you just step
in and see a new sofa that its owner bought only yesterday—I know him
intimately, and nothing gives me so much pleasure as to show his new
sofa.”
I declined the invitation on the plea of fatigue, and by this means got
rid of so troublesome an acquaintance. On leaving me, however, he
begged that I would not fail to make his house my home, swore terribly
at the rabble, and invited me to admire a very ordinary view that was
to be obtained by looking up the Wide-path in a particular direction,
but which embraced his own abode. When Mr. Wriggle was fairly out of
earshot, I demanded of the brigadier if Bivouac, or Leaplow, contained
many such prodigies.
“Enough to make themselves very troublesome, and us ridiculous,”
returned Mr. Downright. “We are a young nation, Sir John, covering a
great surface, with a comparatively small population, and, as you are
aware, separated from the other parts of the monikin region by a belt
of ocean. In some respects we are like people in the country, and we
possess the merits and failings of those who are so situated. Perhaps
no nation has a larger share of reflecting and essentially respectable
inhabitants than Leaplow; but, not satisfied with being what
circumstances so admirably fit them to be, there is a clique among us,
who, influenced by the greater authority of older nations, pine to be
that which neither nature, education, manners, nor facilities will just
yet allow them to become. In short, sir, we have the besetting sin of a
young community—imitation. In our case the imitation is not always
happy, either; it being necessarily an imitation that is founded on
descriptions. If the evil were limited to mere social absurdities, it
might be laughed at—but that inherent desire of distinction, which is
the most morbid and irritable, unhappily, in the minds of those who are
the least able to attain anything more than a very vulgar notoriety, is
just 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 this
particular. In their longings for pre-eminence, they turn to other
states (Leaphigh, more especially, which is the beau ideal of all
nations and people who wish to set up a caste in opposition to
despotism) for rules of thought, and declaim against that very mass
which is at the bottom of all their prosperity, by obstinately refusing
to allow of any essential innovation on the common rights. In addition
to 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 the
validity of certain theories which have been made to justify a set of
adventitious 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 of
opinion, simply because the former are left chiefly to their own free
action, and the latter is necessarily trammelled by habit and
prejudice; while in the ‘old region’ opinion, as a rule—and meaning the
leading or better opinion—is greatly in advance of facts, because facts
are restrained by usage and personal interests, and opinion is incited
by study, and the necessity of change.”
“Permit me to say, brigadier, that I find your present institutions a
remarkable result to follow such a state of things.”
“They are a cause, rather than a consequence. Opinion, as a whole, is
everywhere on the advance; and it is further advanced even here, as a
whole, than anywhere else. Accident has favored the foundation of the
social compact; and once founded, the facts have been hastening to
their consummation faster than the monikin mind has been able to keep
company with them. This is a remarkable but true state of the whole
region. In other monikin countries, you see opinion tugging at rooted
practices, and making desperate efforts to eradicate them from their
bed of vested interests, while here you see facts dragging opinion
after them like a tail wriggling behind a kite. [Footnote: One would
think that Brigadier Downright had lately paid a visit to our own happy
and much enlightened land. Fifty years since, the negro was a slave in
New York, and incapable of contracting marriage with a white. Facts
have, however, been progressive; and, from one privilege to another, he
has at length obtained that of consulting his own tastes in this
matter, and, so far as 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 and social follies, absurd as they are, they are
necessarily confined to a small and an immaterial class; but the
Indoctrinated spirit is a much more serious affair. That unsettles
confidence, innovates on the right, often innocently and ignorantly,
and causes the vessel of state to sail like 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
the great council. You may, perhaps, think it strange that our facts
should preserve their ascendency in opposition to so powerful a foe as
opinion; but you will remember that a great majority of our people, if
not absolutely on a level with circumstances, being purely practical,
are much nearer to this level, than the class termed the endoctrinated.
The last 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 in
want of a capital, where the cultivated, educated, and well-mannered
can assemble, and, placed by their habits and tastes above the ordinary
motives and feelings of the less instructed, they might form a more
healthful, independent, appropriate, and manly public sentiment than
that which now pervades the country. As things are, the real elite of
this community are so scattered, as rather to receive an impression
FROM, than to impart one TO society, The Leaplow Wriggles, as you have
just witnessed, are selfish and exacting as to their personal
pretensions, irritably confident as to the merit of any particular
excellence which limits their own experience, and furiously proscribing
to 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. Our
Wriggles are ashamed of exactly that portion of our population of which
they have most reason to be proud, viz., the mass; and they are proud
of precisely that portion of which they have most reason to be ashamed,
viz., themselves. But plenty of opportunities will offer to look
further into 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
reader may be very sure, as we went along. There was one peculiarity I
could not but remark in this singular town. It was this:—all the houses
were smeared over with some colored earth, and then, after all this
pains had been taken to cover the material, an artist was employed to
make white marks around every separate particle of the fabric (and they
were in millions), which ingenious particularity gives the dwellings a
most agreeable air of detail, imparting to the architecture, in
general, a sublimity that is based on the multiplication table. If to
this be added the 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 of drummers, in scarlet coats, cotton
lace, and cuffs and capes of white. What renders the similitude more
striking, is the fact that no two of the same plantoon appear to be
exactly of a size, as is very apt to be the case with your votaries in
military music.