OCR Text |
Show i836- x837] Fbgg's Far West 313 by exposure, and hands hardened by honourable toil; with a huge rent, moreover, athwart his left shoulder- blade - a badge of democracy, I presume, and either neglected or produced there for the occasion; much upon the same principle, doubtless, that Quintilian counselled his disciples to disorder the hair and tumble the toga before they began to speak. Now mind ye, reader, I do not accuse the worthy man of having followed the Roman's instructions, or even of acquaintance therewith, or any such thing; but, verily, he did, in all charity, seem to have hung on his worst rigging, and that, too, for no other reason than to demonstrate the democracy aforesaid, and his affection for the sansculottes. His speech, though garnished with some little rhodomontade, was, upon the whole, a sensible production. I could hardly restrain a smile, however, at one of the worthy man's figures, in which he likened himself to " the morning sun, mounting a stump to scatter the mists which had been gathering around his fair fame." Close upon the heels of this ruse followed a beautiful simile - " a people free as the wild breezes of their own broad prairies!" The candidates alternated according to their political creeds, and denounced each other in no very measured terms. The approaching election was found, indeed, to be the prevailing topic of thought and conversation all over the land; insomuch [ 60] that the writer, himself an unassuming wayfarer, was more than once, strangely enough, mistaken for a candidate as he rode through the country, and was everywhere catechumened as to the articles of his political faith. It would be an amusing thing to a solitary traveller in a country like this, could he always detect the curious surmisings to which his presence gives rise in the minds of those among whom he chances to be thrown; especially so when, from any circumstance, his appearance does not betray his definite rank or calling in life, and |