Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Writings (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Washington Irving Read Free Book Online

festival of Haraphat, ap so celebrated in the East.
    My friend, however, undeceived me at once, and entered into a long dissertation on the nature and object of an election, the substance of which was nearly to this effect:—
    “You know,” said he, “that this country is engaged in a violent internal warfare, and suffers a variety of evils from civil dissensions. An election is the grand trial of strength, the decisive battle when the belligerents draw out their forces in martial array; when every leader, burning with warlike ardor, and encouraged by the shouts and acclamations of tatterdemalions, buffoons, dependents, parasites, toad-eaters, scrubs, vagrants, mumpers, ragamuffins, bravoes, and beggars in his rear; and puffed up by his bellows-blowing slangwhangers, waves gallantly the banners of faction, and presses forward to office and immortality!
    “For a month or two previous to the critical period which is to decide this important affair, the whole community is in a ferment. Every man, of whatever rank or degree—such is the wonderful patriotism of the people—disinterestedly neglects his business to devote himself to his country; and not an insignificant fellow but feels himself inspired, on this occasion, with as much warmth in favor of the cause he has espoused, as if all the comfort of his life, or even his life itself, was dependent on the issue. Grand councils of war are, in the first place, called by the different powers, which are dubbed general meetings, where all the head workmen of the party collect, and arrange the order of battle—appoint their different commanders, and their subordinate instruments, and furnish the funds indispensable for supplying the expenses of the war. Inferior councils are next called in the different classes or wards, consisting of young cadets, who are candidates for offices; idlers who come there for mere curiosity; and orators who appear for the purpose of detailing all the crimes, the faults, or the weaknesses of their opponents, and speaking the sense of the meeting, as it is called; for as the meeting generally consists of men whose quota of sense, taken individually, would make but a poor figure, these orators are appointed to collect it all in a lump; when, I assure you, it makes a very formidable appearance, and furnishes sufficient matter to spin an oration of two or three hours.
    “The orators who declaim at these meetings are, with a few exceptions, men of the most profound and perplexed eloquence; who are the oracles of barbers’ shops, market-places, and porter-houses; and whom you may see every day at the corners of the streets, taking honest men prisoners by the button, and talking their ribs quite bare without mercy and without end. These orators, in addressing an audience, generally mount a chair, a table, or an empty beer barrel, which last is supposed to afford considerable inspiration, and thunder away their combustible sentiments at the heads of the audience, who are generally so busily employed in smoking, drinking, and hearing themselves talk, that they seldom hear a word of the matter. This, however, is of little moment: for as they come there to agree, at all events, to a certain set of resolutions, or articles of war, it is not at all necessary to hear the speech; more especially as few would understand it if they did. Do not suppose, however, that the minor persons of the meeting are entirely idle. Besides smoking and drinking, which are generally practiced, there are few who do not come with as great a desire to talk as the orator himself; each has his little circle of listeners, in the midst of whom he sets his hat on one side of his head, and deals out matter-of-fact information, and draws self-evident conclusions with the pertinacity of a pedant, and to the great edification of his gaping auditors. Nay, the very urchins from the nursery, who are scarcely emancipated from the dominion of birch, on these occasions strut pigmy great men, bellow