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
"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.