Chapter V (3)

As he passed us, he pulled off his hat with an air of something more than respect; it partook, I thought, of affection. “There, now, is another memento of the kind I have been noticing,” said Launcelot; “Cæsar was a bosom friend and chosen playmate of Cousin Pindar and myself, when we were boys. Never were we so happy as when, stealing away on a holiday to the Hall, we ranged about the fields with honest Cæsar. He was particularly adroit in making our quail-traps and fishing-rods; was always the ringleader in all the schemes of frolicsome mischief perpetrated by the urchins of the neighborhood; considered himself on an equality with the best of us; and many a hard battle have I had with him, about the division of the spoils of an orchard, or the title to a bird’s nest. Many a summer evening do I remember when, huddled together on the steps of the Hall door, Cæsar, with his stories of ghosts, goblins, and witches, would put us all in a panic, and people every lane, and churchyard, and solitary wood, with imaginary beings. In process of time, he became the constant attendant and Man Friday of Cousin Pindar, whenever he went a sparking among the rosy country girls of the neighboring farms; and brought up his rear at every rustic dance, when he would mingle in the sable group that always thronged the door of merriment; and it was enough to put to the rout a host of splenetic imps to see his mouth gradually dilate from ear to ear, with pride and exultation, at seeing how neatly Master Pindar footed it over the floor. Cæsar was likewise the chosen confidant and special agent of Pindar in all his love affairs, until, as his evil stars would have it, on being intrusted with the delivery of a poetic billet-doux to one of his patron’s sweethearts, he took an unlucky notion to send it to his own sable dulcinea, who, not being able to read it, took it to her mistress; and so the whole affair was blown. Pindar was universally roasted, and Cæsar discharged forever from his confidence.

“Poor Cæsar!—he has now grown old, like his young masters, but he still remembers old times; and will, now and then, remind me of them as he lights me to my room, and lingers a little while to bid me a good-night. Believe me, my dear Evergreen, the honest, simple old creature has a warm corner in my heart; I don’t see, for my part, why a body may not like a negro as well as a white man!”

By the time these biographical anecdotes were ended we had reached the stable, into which we had involuntarily strolled, and found Cæsar busily employed in rubbing down the horses; an office he would not intrust to anybody else, having contracted an affection for every beast in the stable, from their being descendants of the old race of animals, his youthful contemporaries. Cæsar was very particular in giving us their pedigrees, together with a panegyric on the swiftness, bottom, blood, and spirit of their sires. From these he digressed into a variety of anecdotes in which Launcelot bore a conspicuous part, and on which the old negro dwelt with all the garrulity of age. Honest Langstaff stood leaning with his arm over the back of his favorite steed, old Killdeer; and I could perceive he listened to Cæsar’s simple details with that fond attention with which a feeling mind will hang over narratives of boyish days. His eye sparkled with animation, a glow of youthful fire stole across his pale visage; he nodded with smiling approbation at every sentence; chuckled at every exploit; laughed heartily at the story of his once having smoked out a country singing-school with brimstone and assafœtida; and slipping a piece of money into old Cæsar’s hand to buy himself a new tobacco-box, he seized me by the arm and hurried out of the stable, brimful of good nature. “’Tis a pestilent old rogue for talking, my dear fellow,” cried he, “but you must not find fault with him—the creature means well.” I knew, at the very moment that he made this apology, honest Cæsar could not have given him half the satisfaction, had he talked like a Cicero or a Solomon.

Launcelot returned to the house with me in the best possible humor—the whole family, who in truth love and honor him from their very souls, were delighted to see the sunbeams once more play in his countenance. Every one seemed to vie who should talk the most, tell the longest stories, and be most agreeable; and Will Wizard, who had accompanied me in my visit, declared, as he lighted his cigar—which had gone out forty times in the course of one of his oriental tales—that he had not passed so pleasant an evening since the birthnight ball of the beauteous empress of Hayti.

* * * * *

[The following essay was written by my friend Langstaff, in one of the paroxysms of his splenetic complaint; and, for aught I know, may have been effectual in restoring him to good humor. A mental discharge of the kind has a remarkable tendency toward sweetening the temper—and Launcelot is, at this moment, one of the best-natured men in existence.

A. EVERGREEN.]

ON GREATNESS.

BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ.

We have more than once, in the course of our work, been most jocosely familiar with great personages; and, in truth, treated them with as little ceremony, respect, and consideration, as if they had been our most particular friends. Now, we would not suffer the mortification of having our readers even suspect us of any intimacy of the kind; assuring them we are extremely choice in our intimates and uncommonly circumspect in avoiding connections with all doubtful characters; particularly pimps, bailiffs, lottery-brokers, chevaliers of industry, and great men. The world, in general, is pretty well aware of what is to be understood by the former classes of delinquents; but as the latter has never, I believe, been specifically defined, and as we are determined to instruct our readers to the extent of our abilities, and their limited comprehension, it may not be amiss here to let them know what we understand by a great man.

First, therefore, let us—editors and kings are always plural—premise, that there are two kinds of greatness: one conferred by heaven—the exalted nobility of the soul—the other, a spurious distinction, engendered by the mob and lavished upon its favorites. The former of these distinctions we have already contemplated with reverence; the latter, we will take this opportunity to strip naked before our unenlightened readers; so that, if by chance any of them are held in ignominious thralldom by this base circulation of false coin, they may forthwith emancipate themselves from such inglorious delusion.

It is a fictitious value given to individuals by public caprice, as bankers give an impression to a worthless slip of paper; thereby gaining it a currency for infinitely more than its intrinsic value. Every nation has its peculiar coin, and peculiar great men; neither of which will, for the most part, pass current out of the country where they are stamped. Your true mob-created great man, is like a note of one of the little New England banks, and his value depreciates in proportion to the distance from home. In England, a great man is he who has most ribbons and gewgaws on his coat, most horses to his carriage, most slaves in his retinue, or most toad-eaters at his table; in France, he who can most dextrously flourish his heels above his head—Duport is most incontestably the greatest man in France!—when the Emperor is absent. The greatest man in China, is he who can trace his ancestry up to the moon; and in this country, our great men may generally hunt down their pedigree until it burrow in the dirt like a rabbit. To be concise: our great men are those who are most expert at crawling on all fours, and have the happiest facility of dragging and winding themselves along in the dirt. This may seem a paradox to many of my readers, who, with great good nature be it hinted, are too stupid to look beyond the mere surface of our invaluable writings; and often pass over the knowing allusions, and poignant meaning, that is slily couching beneath. It is for the benefit of such helpless ignorants, who have no other creed but the opinion of the mob, that I shall trace, as far as it is possible to follow him in his progress from insignificance—the rise, progress, and completion of a _little great man_.

In a logocracy, to use the sage Mustapha’s phrase, it is not absolutely necessary to the formation of a great man that he should be either wise or valiant, upright or honorable. On the contrary, daily experience shows, that these qualities rather impede his preferment; inasmuch as they are prone to render him too inflexibly erect, and directly at variance with that willow suppleness which enables a man to wind and twist through all the nooks and turns and dark winding passages that lead to greatness. The grand requisite for climbing the rugged hill of popularity—the summit of which is the seat of power—is to be useful. And here, once more, for the sake of our readers, who are, of course, not so wise as ourselves, I must explain what we understand by usefulness. The horse, in his native state, is wild, swift, impetuous, full of majesty, and of a most generous spirit. It is then the animal is noble, exalted, and useless. But entrap him, manacle him, cudgel him, break down his lofty spirit, put the curb into his mouth, the load upon his back, and reduce him into servile obedience to the bridle and the lash, and it is then he becomes useful. Your jackass is one of the most useful animals in existence. If my readers do not now understand what I mean by usefulness, I give them all up for most absolute nincoms.

To rise in this country a man must first descend. The aspiring politician may be compared to that indefatigable insect, called the tumbler, pronounced by a distinguished personage to be the only industrious animal in Virginia, which buries itself in filth, and works ignobly in the dirt, until it forms a little ball, which it rolls laboriously along, like Diogenes in his tub; sometimes head, sometimes tail foremost, pilfering from every rut and mud hole, and increasing its ball of greatness by the contributions of the kennel. Just so the candidate for greatness;—he buries himself in the mob; labors in dirt and oblivion, and makes unto himself the rudiments of a popular name from the admiration and praises of rogues, ignoramuses, and blackguards. His name once started, onward he goes, struggling and puffing, and pushing it before him; collecting new tribute from the dregs and offals of society as he proceeds, until having gathered together a mighty mass of popularity, he mounts it in triumph; is hoisted into office, and becomes a great man, and a ruler in the land. All this will be clearly illustrated by a sketch of a worthy of the kind, who sprung up under my eye, and was hatched from the dirt by the broad rays of popularity, which, like the sun, can “breed maggots in a dead dog.”

Timothy Dabble was a young man of very promising talents; for he wrote a fair hand, and had thrice won the silver medal at a country academy; he was also an orator, for he talked with emphatic volubility, and could argue a full hour, without taking either side, or advancing a single opinion; he had still further requisites for eloquence, for he made very handsome gestures, had dimples in his cheeks when he smiled, and enunciated most harmoniously through his nose. In short, nature had certainly marked him out for a great man; for though he was not tall, yet he added at least half an inch to his stature by elevating his head, and assumed an amazing expression of dignity by turning up his nose and curling his nostrils, in a style of conscious superiority. Convinced by these unequivocal appearances, Dabble’s friends, in full caucus, one and all, declared that he was undoubtedly born to be a great man, and it would be his own fault if he were not one. Dabble was tickled with an opinion which coincided so happily with his own—for vanity, in a confidential whisper, had given him the like intimation—and he reverenced the judgment of his friends because they thought so highly of himself. Accordingly he set out with a determination to become a great man, and to start in the scrub-race for honor and renown. How to attain the desired prize was however, the question. He knew, by a kind of instinctive feeling, which seems peculiar to groveling minds, that honor, and its better part—profit, would never seek him out; that they would never knock at his door and crave admittance, but must be courted, and toiled after, and earned. He therefore strutted forth into the highways, and market-places, and the assemblies of the people; ranted, like a true cockerel orator, about virtue, and patriotism, and liberty, and equality, and himself. Full many a political windmill did he battle with; and full many a time did he talk himself out of breath and his hearers out of patience. But Dabble found, to his vast astonishment, that there was not a notorious political pimp at a ward meeting but could out-talk him; and what was still more mortifying, there was not a notorious political pimp but was more noticed and caressed than himself. The reason was simple enough; while he harangued about principles, the others ranted about men; where he reprobated a political error, they blasted a political character. They were, consequently, the most useful; for the great object of our political disputes is not who shall have the honor of emancipating the community from the leading-strings of delusion, but who shall have the profit of holding the strings and leading the community by the nose.

Dabble was likewise very loud in his professions of integrity, incorruptibility, and disinterestedness; words which, from being filtered and refined through newspapers and election handbills, have lost their original signification, and in the political dictionary are synonymous with empty pockets, itching palms, and interested ambition. He, in addition to all this, declared that he would support none but honest men; but unluckily, as but few of these offered themselves to be supported, Dabble’s services were seldom required. He pledged himself never to engage in party schemes, or party politics, but to stand up solely for the broad interests of his country—so he stood alone; and what is the same thing, he stood still; for, in this country, he who does not side with either party is like a body in a _vacuum_ between two planets, and must forever remain motionless.

Dabble was immeasurably surprised that a man so honest, so disinterested, and so sagacious withal, and one, too, who had the good of his country so much at heart, should thus remain unnoticed and unapplauded. A little worldly advice, whispered in his ear by a shrewd old politician, at once explained the whole mystery. “He who would become great,” said he, “must serve an apprenticeship to greatness, and rise by regular gradation, like the master of a vessel, who commences by being scrub and cabin-boy. He must fag in the train of great men, echo all their sentiments, become their toad-eater and parasite—laugh at all their jokes, and, above all, endeavor to make them laugh; if you only make a great man laugh now and then, your fortune is made. Look about you, youngster, and you will not see a single little great man of the day, but his herd of retainers, who yelp at his heels, come at his whistle, worry whoever he points at, and think themselves fully rewarded by sometimes snapping up a crumb that falls from his table. Talk of patriotism, and virtue, and incorruptibility!—tut, man! they are the very qualities that scare munificence, and keep patronage at a distance. You might as well attempt to entice crowds with red rags and gunpowder. Lay all these scarecrow virtues aside, and let this be your maxim, that a candidate for political eminence is like a dried herring; he never becomes luminous until he is corrupt.”

Dabble caught with hungry avidity these congenial doctrines, and turned into his predestined channel of action with the force and rapidity of a stream which has for a while been restrained from its natural course. He became what nature had fitted him to be: his tone softened down from arrogant self-sufficiency to the whine of fawning solicitation. He mingled in the caucuses of the sovereign people; assumed a patriotic slovenliness of dress; argued most logically with those who were of his own opinion; and slandered, with all the malice of impotence, exalted characters whose orbit he despaired ever to approach—just as that scoundrel midnight thief, the owl, hoots at the blessed light of the sun, whose glorious lustre he dares never contemplate. He likewise applied himself to discharging, faithfully, the honorable duties of a partisan; he poached about for private slanders and ribald anecdotes; he folded handbills; he even wrote one or two himself, which he carried about in his pocket and read to everybody; he became secretary at ward meetings, set his hand to divers resolutions of patriotic import, and even once went so far as to make a speech, in which he proved that patriotism was a virtue—that the reigning bashaw was a great man—that this was a free country, and he himself an arrant and incontestible buzzard!

Dabble was now very frequent and devout in his visits to those temples of politics, popularity, and smoke—the ward porter-houses; those true dens of equality, where all ranks, ages, and talents are brought down to the level of rude familiarity. ’Twas here his talents expanded, and his genius swelled up to its proper size—like the toad, which, shrinking from balmy airs and jocund sunshine, finds his congenial home in caves and dungeons, and there nourishes his venom and bloats his deformity. ’Twas here he reveled with the swinish multitude in their debauches on patriotism and porter; and it became an even chance whether Dabble would turn out a great man or a great drunkard. But Dabble in all this kept steadily in his eye the only deity he ever worshipped—his interest. Having, by this familiarity, ingratiated himself with the mob, he became wonderfully potent and industrious at elections—knew all the dens and cellars of profligacy and intemperance—brought more negroes to the polls, and knew to a greater certainty where votes could be bought for beer, than any of his contemporaries. His exertions in the cause, his persevering industry, his degrading compliance, his unresisting humility, his steadfast dependence, at length caught the attention of one of the leaders of the party, who was pleased to observe that Dabble was a very useful fellow, who would go all lengths. From that moment his fortune was made—he was hand and glove with orators and slang-whangers; basked in the sunshine of great men’s smiles, and had the honor, sundry times, of shaking hands with dignitaries during elections, and drinking out of the same pot with them at a porter-house!!

I will not fatigue myself with tracing this caterpillar in his slimy progress from worm to butterfly: suffice it that Dabble bowed and bowed, and fawned, and sneaked, and smirked, and libeled, until one would have thought perseverance itself would have settled down into despair. There was no knowing how long he might have lingered at a distance from his hopes, had he not luckily got tarred and feathered for some electioneering maneuver. This was the making of him! Let not my readers stare; tarring and feathering here is equal to pillory and cropped ears in England; and either of these kinds of martyrdom will insure a patriot the sympathy and support of his faction. His partisans—for even he had his partisans—took his case into consideration. He had been kicked, and cuffed, and disgraced, and dishonored in the cause; he had licked the dust at the feet of the mob; he was a faithful drudge, slow to anger, of invincible patience, of incessant assiduity; a thorough-going tool, who could be curbed, and spurred, and directed at pleasure—in short, he had all the important qualifications for a little great man, and he was accordingly ushered into office amid the acclamations of the party. The leading men complimented his usefulness, the multitude his republican simplicity, and the slang-whangers vouched for his patriotism. Since his elevation, he has discovered indubitable signs of having been destined for a great man. His nose has acquired an additional elevation of several degrees, so that now he appears to have bidden adieu to this world, and to have set his thoughts altogether on things above; and he has swelled and inflated himself to such a degree that his friends are under apprehensions that he will, one day or other, explode and blow up like a torpedo.

NO. XVI.—THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1807.

STYLE, AT BALLSTON.

BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ.

Notwithstanding Evergreen has never been abroad, nor had his understanding enlightened, or his views enlarged by that marvelous sharpener of the wits, a salt water voyage, yet he is tolerably shrewd and correct, in the limited sphere of his observations; and now and then astounds me with a right pithy remark, which would do no discredit even to a man who had made the grand tour.

In several late conversations at Cockloft Hall, he has amused us exceedingly by detailing sundry particulars concerning that notorious slaughterhouse of time, Ballston Springs, where he spent a considerable part of the last summer. The following is a summary of his observations.

Pleasure has passed through a variety of significations at Ballston. It originally meant nothing more than a relief from pain and sickness; and the patient who had journeyed many a weary mile to the Springs, with a heavy heart and emaciated form, called it pleasure when he threw by his crutches, and danced away from them with renovated spirits, and limbs jocund with vigor. In process of time, pleasure underwent a refinement, and appeared in the likeness of a sober unceremonious country dance, to the flute of an amateur or the three-stringed fiddle of an itinerant country musician. Still everything bespoke that happy holiday which the spirits ever enjoy, when emancipated from the shackles of formality, ceremony, and modern politeness; things went on cheerily, and Ballston was pronounced a charming, humdrum, careless place of resort, where every one was at his ease, and might follow unmolested the bent of his humor—provided his wife was not there; when, lo! all on a sudden, Style made its baneful appearance in the semblance of a gig and tandem, a pair of leather breeches, a liveried footman, and a cockney! Since that fatal era pleasure has taken an entire new signification, and at present means nothing but STYLE.

The worthy, fashionable, dashing, good-for-nothing people of every state, who had rather suffer the martyrdom of a crowd than endure the monotony of their own homes, and the stupid company of their own thoughts, flock to the Springs; not to enjoy the pleasures of society, or benefit by the qualities of the waters, but to exhibit their equipages and wardrobes, and to excite the admiration, or, what is much more satisfactory, the envy of their fashionable competitors. This, of course, awakens a spirit of noble emulation between the eastern, middle, and southern States; and every lady hereupon finding herself charged in a manner with the whole weight of her country’s dignity and style, dresses and dashes, and sparkles, without mercy, at her competitors from other parts of the Union. This kind of rivalship naturally requires a vast deal of preparation and prodigious quantities of supplies. A sober citizen’s wife will break half a dozen milliners’ shops, and sometimes starve her family a whole season, to enable herself to make the Springs campaign in style. She repairs to the seat of war with a mighty force of trunks and bandboxes, like so many ammunition chests, filled with caps, hats, gowns, ribbons, shawls, and all the various artillery of fashionable warfare. The lady of a Southern planter will lay out the whole annual produce of a rice plantation in silver and gold muslins, lace veils, and new liveries; carry a hogshead of tobacco on her head, and trail a bale of sea-island cotton at her heels; while a lady of Boston or Salem will wrap herself up in the net proceeds of a cargo of whale oil, and tie on her hat with a quintal of codfish.

The planters’ ladies, however, have generally the advantage in this contest; for, as it is an incontestable fact, that whoever comes from the West or East Indies, or Georgia, or the Carolinas, or in fact any warm climate, is immensely rich, it cannot be expected that a simple cit of the North can cope with them in style. The planter, therefore, who drives four horses abroad, and a thousand negroes at home, and who flourishes up to the Springs, followed by half a score of black-a-moors, in gorgeous liveries, is unquestionably superior to the northern merchant, who plods on in a carriage and pair; which, being nothing more than is quite necessary, has no claim whatever to style. He, however, has his consolation in feeling superior to the honest cit, who dashes about in a simple gig; he, in return, sneers at the country squire, who jogs along with his scrubby, long-eared pony and saddlebags; and the squire, by way of taking satisfaction, would make no scruple to run over the unobtrusive pedestrian, were it not that the last, being the most independent of the whole, might chance to break his head by way of retort.

The great misfortune is, that this style is supported at such an expense as sometimes to encroach on the rights and privileges of the pocket; and occasions very awkward embarrassments to the tyro of fashion. Among a number of instances, Evergreen mentions the fate of a dashing blade from the South, who made his _entrée_ with a tandem and two outriders, by the aid of which he attracted the attention of all the ladies, and caused a coolness between several young couples who, it was thought before his arrival, had a considerable kindness for each other. In the course of a fortnight his tandem disappeared!—the class of good folk who seem to have nothing to do in this world but pry into other people’s affairs, began to stare. In a little time longer an outrider was missing!—this increased the alarm, and it was consequently whispered that he had eaten the horses and drank the negro. N. B. Southern gentlemen are very apt to do this on an emergency. Serious apprehensions were entertained about the fate of the remaining servant, which were soon verified by his actually vanishing; and in “one little month” the dashing Carolinian modestly took his departure in the stagecoach!—universally regretted by the friends who had generously released him from his cumbrous load of style.

Evergreen, in the course of his detail, gave very melancholy accounts of an alarming famine which raged with great violence at the Springs. Whether this was owing to the incredible appetites of the company, or the scarcity which prevailed at the inns, he did not seem inclined to say; but he declares, that he was for several days in imminent danger of starvation, owing to his being a little too dilatory in his attendance at the dinner-table. He relates a number of “moving accidents,” which befell many of the polite company in their zeal to get a good seat at dinner; on which occasion a kind of scrub-race always took place, wherein a vast deal of jockeying and unfair play was shown, and a variety of squabbles and unseemly altercations occurred. But when arrived at the scene of action, it was truly an awful sight to behold the confusion, and to hear the tumultuous uproar of voices crying some for one thing, and some for another, to the tuneful accompaniment of knives and forks, rattling with all the energy of hungry impatience. The feast of the Centaurs and the Lapithæ was nothing when compared with a dinner at the great house. At one time, an old gentleman, whose natural irascibility was a little sharpened by the gout, had scalded his throat, by gobbling down a bowl of hot soup in a vast hurry, in order to secure the first fruits of a roasted partridge before it was snapped up by some hungry rival; when just, as he was whetting his knife and fork, preparatory for a descent on the promised land, he had the mortification to see it transferred, bodily, to the plate of a squeamish little damsel who was taking the waters for debility and loss of appetite. This was too much for the patience of old Crusty; he lodged his fork into the partridge, whipt it into his dish, and cutting off a wing of it,—“There, Miss, there’s more than you can eat. Oons! what should such a little chalky-faced puppet as you do with a whole partridge!” At another time a mighty sweet disposed old dowager, who loomed most magnificently at the table, had a sauce-boat launched upon the capacious lap of a silver-sprigged muslin gown, by the maneuvering of a little politic Frenchman, who was dextrously attempting to make a lodgment under the covered way of a chicken-pie; human nature could not bear it!—the lady bounced round, and, with one box on the ear, drove the luckless wight to utter annihilation.

But these little cross accidents are amply compensated by the great variety of amusements which abounds at this charming resort of beauty and fashion. In the morning the company, each like a jolly Bacchanalian, with glass in hand, sally forth to the Springs: where the gentlemen, who wish to make themselves agreeable, have an opportunity of dipping themselves into the good opinion of the ladies: and it is truly delectable to see with what grace and adroitness they perform this ingratiating feat. Anthony says that it is peculiarly amazing to behold the quantity of water the ladies drink on this occasion, for the purpose of getting an appetite for breakfast. He assures me he has been present when a young lady, of unparalleled delicacy, tossed off, in the space of a minute or two, one-and-twenty tumblers and a wine-glass full. On my asking Anthony whether the solicitude of the bystanders was not greatly awakened as to what might be the effects of this debauch, he replied, that the ladies at Ballston had become such great sticklers for the doctrine of evaporation, that no gentleman ever ventured to remonstrate against this excessive drinking for fear of bringing his philosophy into contempt. The most notorious water-drinkers, in particular, were continually holding forth on the surprising aptitude with which the Ballston waters evaporated; and several gentlemen, who had the hardihood to question this female philosophy, were held in high displeasure.

After breakfast, every one chooses his amusement; some take a ride into the pine woods, and enjoy the varied and romantic scenery of burnt trees, post and rail fences, pine flats, potato patches, and log huts; others scramble up the surrounding sandhills, that look like the abodes of a gigantic race of ants;—take a peep at other sandhills beyond them;—and then—come down again. Others who are romantic,—and sundry young ladies insist upon being so whenever they visit the Springs, or go anywhere into the country—stroll along the borders of a little swampy brook that drags itself along like an Alexandrine, and that so lazily as not to make a single murmur, watching the little tadpoles as they frolic, right flippantly, in the muddy stream, and listening to the inspiring melody of the harmonious frogs that croak upon its borders. Some play at billiards, some play at the fiddle, and some—play the fool;—the latter being the most prevalent amusement at Ballston.

These, together with abundance of dancing, and a prodigious deal of sleeping of afternoons, make up the variety of pleasures at the Springs—a delicious life of alternate lassitude and fatigue; of laborious dissipation, and listless idleness; of sleepless nights, and days spent in that dozing insensibility which ever succeeds them. Now and then, indeed, the influenza, the fever-and-ague, or some such pale-faced intruder, may happen to throw a momentary damp on the general felicity; but on the whole, Evergreen declares that Ballston wants only six things, to wit: good air, good wine, good living, good beds, good company, and good humor, to be the most enchanting place in the world—excepting Botany Bay, Musquito Cove, Dismal Swamp, and the black-hole at Calcutta.

* * * * *

[The following letter from the sage Mustapha has cost us more trouble to decipher, and render into tolerable English, than any hitherto published. It was full of blots and erasures, particularly the latter part, which we have no doubt was penned in a moment of great wrath and indignation. Mustapha has often a rambling mode of writing, and his thoughts take such unaccountable turns, that it is difficult to tell one moment where he will lead you the next. This is particularly obvious in the commencement of his letters, which seldom bear much analogy to the subsequent parts; he sets off with a flourish, like a dramatic hero—assumes an air of great pomposity, and struts up to his subject mounted most loftily on stilts.

L. LANGSTAFF.]

LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN,
TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF
TRIPOLI.

Among the variety of principles by which mankind are actuated, there is one, my dear Asem, which I scarcely know whether to consider as springing from grandeur and nobility of mind, or from a refined species of vanity and egotism. It is that singular, although almost universal desire of living in the memory of posterity; of occupying a share of the world’s attention, when we shall long since have ceased to be susceptible either of its praise or censure. Most of the passions of the mind are bounded by the grave; sometimes, indeed, an anxious hope or trembling fear will venture beyond the clouds and darkness that rest upon our mortal horizon, and expatiate in boundless futurity; but it is only this active love of fame which steadily contemplates its fruition, in the applause or gratitude of future ages. Indignant at the narrow limits which circumscribe existence, ambition is forever struggling to soar beyond them; to triumph over space and time, and to bear a name, at least, above the irritable oblivion in which everything else that concerns us must be involved. It is this, my friend, which prompts the patriot to his most heroic achievements; which inspires the sublimest strains of the poet, and breathes ethereal fire into the productions of the painter and the statuary.

For this the monarch rears the lofty column; the laureled conqueror claims the triumphal arch; while the obscure individual, who moved in a humbler sphere, asks but a plain and simple stone to mark his grave, and bear to the next generation this important truth, that he was born, died—and was buried. It was this passion which once erected the vast Numidian piles, whose ruins we have so often regarded with wonder, as the shades of evening—fit emblems of oblivion—gradually stole over and enveloped them in darkness. It was this which gave being to those sublime monuments of Saracen magnificence, which nod in mouldering desolation, as the blast sweeps over our deserted plains.—How futile are all our efforts to evade the obliterating hand of time! As I traversed the dreary wastes of Egypt, on my journey to Grand Cairo, I stopped my camel for a while and contemplated, in awful admiration, the stupendous pyramids. An appalling silence prevailed around; such as reigns in the wilderness when the tempest is hushed, and the beasts of prey have retired to their dens. The myriads that had once been employed in rearing these lofty mementoes of human vanity, whose busy hum once enlivened the solitude of the desert—had all been swept from the earth by the irresistible arm of death—all were mingled with their native dust; all were forgotten! Even the mighty names which these sepulchres were designed to perpetuate had long since faded from remembrance; history and tradition afforded but vague conjectures, and the pyramids imparted a humiliating lesson to the candidate for immortality.—Alas! alas! said I to myself, how mutable are the foundations on which our proudest hopes of future fame are reposed! He who imagines he has secured to himself the meed of deathless renown, indulges in deluding visions, which only bespeak the vanity of the dreamer. The storied obelisk—the triumphal arch—the swelling dome, shall crumble into dust, and the names they would preserve from oblivion shall often pass away, before their own duration is accomplished.

Yet this passion for fame, however ridiculous in the eye of the philosopher, deserves respect and consideration, from having been the source of so many illustrious actions; and, hence it has been the practice in all enlightened governments to perpetuate by monuments, the memory of great men, as a testimony of respect for the illustrious dead, and to awaken in the bosoms of posterity an emulation to merit the same honorable distinction. The people of the American logocracy, who pride themselves upon improving on every precept or example of ancient or modern governments, have discovered a new mode of exciting this love of glory; a mode by which they do honor to their great men, even in their life-time!

Thou must have observed by this time, that they manage everything in a manner peculiar to themselves; and doubtless in the best possible manner, seeing they have denominated themselves “the most enlightened people under the sun.” Thou wilt, therefore, perhaps, be curious to know how they contrive to honor the name of a living patriot, and what unheard-of monument they erect in memory of his achievements. By the fiery beard of the mighty Barbarossa, but I can scarcely preserve the sobriety of a true disciple of Mahomet while I tell thee!—wilt thou not smile, O, Mussulman of invincible gravity, to learn that they honor their great men by eating, and that the only trophy erected to their exploits, is a public dinner! But, trust me, Asem, even in this measure, whimsical as it may seem, the philosophic and considerate spirit of this people is admirably displayed. Wisely concluding that when the hero is dead, he becomes insensible to the voice of fame, the song of adulation, or the splendid trophy, they have determined that he shall enjoy his quantum of celebrity while living and revel in the full enjoyment of a nine days’ immortality. The barbarous nations of antiquity immolated human victims to the memory of their lamented dead, but the enlightened Americans offer up whole hecatombs of geese and calves, and oceans of wine, in honor of the illustrious living; and the patriot has the felicity of hearing from every quarter, the vast exploits in gluttony and reveling that have been celebrated to the glory of his name.

No sooner does a citizen signalize himself in a conspicuous manner in the service of his country, than all the gormandizers assemble and discharge the national debt of gratitude, by giving him a dinner; not that he really receives all the luxuries provided on this occasion; no, my friend, it is ten chances to one that the great man does not taste a morsel from the table, and is, perhaps, five hundred miles distant; and, to let thee into a melancholy fact, a patriot under this economic government, may be often in want of a dinner, while dozens are devoured in his praise. Neither are these repasts spread out for the hungry and necessitous, who might otherwise be filled with food and gladness, and inspired to shout forth the illustrious name, which had been the means of their enjoyment; far from this, Asem; it is the rich only who indulge in the banquet; those who pay for the dainties are alone privileged to enjoy them; so that, while opening their purses in honor of the patriot, they at the same time fulfill a great maxim, which in this country comprehends all the rules of prudence, and all the duties a man owes to himself—namely, getting the worth of their money.

In process of time this mode of testifying public applause has been found so marvelously agreeable, that they extend it to events as well as characters, and eat in triumph at the news of a treaty—at the anniversary of any grand national era, or at the gaining of that splendid victory of the tongue—an election. Nay, so far do they carry it, that certain days are set apart when the guzzlers, the gormandizers, and the wine-bibbers meet together to celebrate a grand indigestion, in memory of some great event; and every man, in the zeal of patriotism, gets devoutly drunk—“as the act directs.” Then, my friend, mayest thou behold the sublime spectacle of love of country, elevating itself from a sentiment into an appetite, whetted to the quick with the cheering prospect of tables loaded with the fat things of the land. On this occasion every man is anxious to fall to work, cram himself in honor of the day, and risk a surfeit in the glorious cause. Some, I have been told, actually fast for four-and-twenty hours preceding, that they may be enabled to do greater honor to the feast; and, certainly, if eating and drinking are patriotic rites, he who eats and drinks most, and proves himself the greatest glutton, is, undoubtedly, the most distinguished patriot. Such, at any rate, seems to be the opinion here; and they act up to it so rigidly, that by the time it is dark, every kennel in the neighborhood teems with illustrious members of the sovereign people, wallowing in their congenial element of mud and mire.

These patriotic feasts, or rather national monuments, are patronized and promoted by certain inferior cadis, called “Aldermen;” who are commonly complimented with their direction. These dignitaries, as far as I can learn, are generally appointed on account of their great talents for eating, a qualification peculiarly necessary in the discharge of their official duties. They hold frequent meetings at taverns and hotels, where they enter into solemn consultations for the benefit of lobsters and turtles; establish wholesome regulations for the safety and preservation of fish and wild-fowl; appoint the seasons most proper for eating oysters; inquire into the economy of taverns, the characters of publicans, and the abilities of their cooks; and discuss, most learnedly, the merits of a bowl of soup, a chicken-pie, or a haunch of venison; in a word, the alderman has absolute control in all matters of eating, and superintends the whole police—of the belly. Having, in the prosecution of their important office, signalized themselves at so many public festivals; having gorged so often on patriotism and pudding, and entombed so many great names in their extensive maws, thou wilt easily conceive that they wax portly apace, that they fatten on the fame of mighty men, and that their rotundity, like the rivers, the lakes, and the mountains of their country, must be on a great scale! Even so, my friend; and when I sometimes see a portly alderman puffing along, and swelling as if he had the world under his waistcoat, I cannot help looking upon him as a walking monument, and am often ready to exclaim: “Tell me, thou majestic mortal, thou breathing catacomb! to what illustrious character, what mighty event, does that capacious carcass of thine bear testimony?”

But though the enlightened citizens of this logocracy eat in honor of their friends, yet they drink destruction to their enemies. Yea, Asem, woe unto those who are doomed to undergo the public vengeance at a public dinner. No sooner are the viands removed, than they prepare for merciless and exterminating hostilities. They drink the intoxicating juice of the grape, out of little glass cups, and over each draught pronounce a short sentence or prayer; not such a prayer as thy virtuous heart would dictate, thy pious lips give utterance to, my good Asem; not a tribute of thanks to all-bountiful Allah, nor a humble supplication for his blessing on the draught; no, my friend, it is merely a toast, that is to say, a fulsome tribute of flattery to their demagogues; a labored sally of affected sentiment or national egotism; or, what is more despicable, a malediction on their enemies, an empty threat of vengeance, or a petition for their destruction; for toasts, thou must know, are another kind of missive weapon in a logocracy, and are leveled from afar, like the annoying arrows of the Tartars.

O, Asem! couldst thou but witness one of these patriotic, these monumental dinners; how furiously the flame of patriotism blazes forth; how suddenly they vanquish armies, subjugate whole countries, and exterminate nations in a bumper, thou wouldst more than ever admire the force of that omnipotent weapon, the tongue. At these moments every coward becomes a hero, every ragamuffin an invincible warrior; and the most zealous votaries of peace and quiet, forget, for a while, their cherished maxims, and join in the furious attack. Toasts succeeds toast; kings, emperors, bashaws, are like chaff before the tempest; the inspired patriot vanquishes fleets with a single gunboat, and swallows down navies at a draught, until, overpowered with victory and wine, he sinks upon the field of battle—dead drunk in his country’s cause. Sword of the puissant Khalid! what a display of valor is here!—the sons of Afric are hardy, brave, and enterprising, but they can achieve nothing like this.

Happy would it be if this mania for toasting extended no further than to the expression of national resentment. Though we might smile at the impotent vaporing and windy hyperbole, by which it is distinguished, yet we would excuse it, as the unguarded overflowings of a heart, glowing with national injuries, and indignant at the insults offered to its country. But, alas, my friend, private resentment, individual hatred, and the illiberal spirit of party, are let loose on these festive occasions. Even the names of individuals, of unoffending fellow-citizens, are sometimes dragged forth to undergo the slanders and execrations of a distempered herd of revelers.[67] Head of Mahomet! how vindictive, how insatiably vindictive, must be that spirit which can drug the mantling bowl with gall and bitterness, and indulge an angry passion in the moment of rejoicing! “Wine,” says their poet, “is like sunshine to the heart, which, under its generous influence, expands with good will, and becomes the very temple of philanthropy.” Strange, that in a temple consecrated to such a divinity, there should remain a secret corner, polluted by the lurkings of malice and revenge,—strange, that in the full flow of social enjoyment, these votaries of pleasure can turn aside to call down curses on the head of a fellow-creature. Despicable souls! ye are unworthy of being citizens of this “most enlightened country under the sun:” rather herd with the murderous savages who prowl the mountains of Tibesti; who stain their midnight orgies with the blood of the innocent wanderer, and drink their infernal potations from the skulls of the victims they have massacred.

NOTE BY WILLIAM WIZARD, ESQ.

Footnote 67:

It would seem that, in this sentence, the sage Mustapha had reference
to a patriotic dinner, celebrated last 4th of July, by some gentlemen
of Baltimore, when they righteously drank perdition to an unoffending
individual, and really thought “they had done the state some service.”
This amiable custom of “eating and drinking damnation” to others, is
not confined to any party: for a month or two after the 4th of July,
the different newspapers file off their columns of patriotic toasts
against each other, and take a pride in showing how brilliantly their
partisans can blackguard public character in their cups—“They do but
jest—poison in jest,” as Hamlet says.

And yet, trust me, Asem, this spirit of vindictive cowardice is not owing to any inherent depravity of soul, for on other occasions, I have had ample proof that this nation is mild and merciful, brave and magnanimous; neither is it owing to any defect in their political or religious precepts. The principles inculcated by their rulers, on all occasions, breathe a spirit of universal philanthropy; and as to their religion, much as I am devoted to the Koran of our divine prophet, still I cannot but acknowledge with admiration the mild forbearance, the amiable benevolence, the sublime morality bequeathed them by the founder of their faith. Thou rememberest the doctrines of the mild Nazarene, who preached peace and good-will to all mankind; who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; who blessed those who cursed him, and prayed for those who despitefully used and persecuted him! What, then, can give rise to this uncharitable, this inhuman custom among the disciples of a master so gentle and forgiving? It is that fiend _politics_, Asem—that baneful fiend which bewildereth every brain, and poisons every social feeling; which intrudes itself at the festive banquet, and like the detestable harpy, pollutes the very viands of the table; which contaminates the refreshing draught while it is inhaled; which prompts the cowardly assassin to launch his poisoned arrows from behind the social board: and which renders the bottle, that boasted promoter of good fellowship and hilarity, an infernal engine charged with direful combustion.

O, Asem! Asem! how does my heart sicken when I contemplate these cowardly barbarities! let me, therefore, if possible, withdraw my attention from them forever. My feelings have borne me from my subject; and from the monuments of ancient greatness, I have wandered to those of modern degradation. My warmest wishes remain with thee, thou most illustrious of slave-drivers; mayest thou ever be sensible of the mercies of our great prophet, who, in compassion to human imbecility, has prohibited his disciples from the use of the deluding beverage of the grape; that enemy to reason—that promoter of defamation—that auxiliary of POLITICS.

Ever thine,
MUSTAPHA.

NO. XVII.—WEDNESDAY, NOV. 11, 1807.

AUTUMNAL REFLECTIONS.

BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ.

When a man is quietly journeying downward into the valley of the shadow of departed youth, and begins to contemplate, in a shortened perspective, the end of his pilgrimage, he becomes more solicitous than ever that the remainder of his wayfaring should be smooth and pleasant; and the evening of his life, like the evening of a summer’s day, fade away in mild uninterrupted serenity. If haply his heart has escaped uninjured through the dangers of a seductive world, it may then administer to the purest of his felicities, and its chords vibrate more musically for the trials they have sustained—like the viol which yields a melody sweet in proportion to its age.

To a mind thus temperately harmonized—thus matured and mellowed by a long lapse of years—there is something truly congenial in the quiet enjoyment of our early autumn, amid the tranquillities of the country. There is a sober and chastened air of gayety diffused over the face of nature, peculiarly interesting to an old man; and when he views the surrounding landscape withering under his eye, it seems as if he and nature were taking a last farewell of each other and parting with a melancholy smile; like a couple of old friends, who, having sported away the spring and summer of life together, part at the approach of winter with a kind of prophetic fear that they are never to meet again.

It is either my good fortune, or mishap, to be keenly susceptible to the influence of the atmosphere; and I can feel in the morning, before I open my window, whether the wind is easterly. It will not, therefore, I presume, be considered an extravagant instance of vainglory when I assert, that there are few men who can discriminate more accurately in the different varieties of damps, fogs, Scotch mists, and northeast storms, than myself. To the great discredit of my philosophy, I confess, I seldom fail to anathematize and excommunicate the weather, when it sports too rudely with my sensitive system; but then I always endeavor to atone therefor, by eulogizing it when deserving of approbation. And as most of my readers—simple folks!—make but one distinction, to wit, rain and sunshine; living in most honest ignorance of the various nice shades which distinguish one fine day from another, I take the trouble, from time to time, of letting them into some of the secrets of nature. So will they be the better enabled to enjoy her beauties, with the zest of connoisseurs, and derive at least as much information from my pages as from the weather-wise lore of the almanac.

Much of my recreation, since I retreated to the Hall, has consisted in making little excursions through the neighborhood; which abounds in the variety of wild, romantic, and luxuriant landscape that generally characterizes the scenery in the vicinity of our rivers. There is not an eminence within a circuit of many miles but commands an extensive range of diversified and enchanting prospect.