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

for the instruction of gray-bearded ignorance, and, like the frog in the fable, aq endeavor to puff themselves up to the size of the great object of their emulation—the principal orator.”
    “But is it not preposterous to a degree,” cried I, “for those puny whipsters to attempt to lecture age and experience? They should be sent to school to learn better.”
    “Not at all,” replied my friend; “for as an election is nothing more than a war of words, the man that can wag his tongue with the greatest elasticity, whether he speaks to the purpose or not, is entitled to lecture at ward meetings and polls, and instruct all who are inclined to listen to him; you may have remarked a ward meeting of politic dogs, where, although the great dog is, ostensibly, the leader, and makes the most noise, yet every little scoundrel of a cur has something to say; and in proportion to his insignificance, fidgets, and worries, and puffs about mightily, in order to obtain the notice and approbation of his betters. Thus it is with these little, beardless, bread-and-butter politicians, who on this occasion escape from the jurisdiction of their mammas to attend to the affairs of the nation. You will see them engaged in dreadful wordy contest with old cart-men, cobblers, and tailors, and plume themselves not a little if they should chance to gain a victory. Aspiring spirits! how interesting are the first dawnings of political greatness! An election, my friend, is a nursery or hot-bed of genius in a logocracy; and I look with enthusiasm on a troop of these Liliputian ar partisans, as so many chatterers, and orators and puffers, and slangwhangers in embryo, who will one day take an important part in the quarrels and wordy wars of their country.
    “As the time for fighting the decisive battle approaches, appearances become more and more alarming; committees are appointed, who hold little encampments from whence they send out small detachments of tattlers, to reconnoitre, harass, and skirmish with the enemy, and, if possible, ascertain their numbers; everybody seems big with the mighty event that is impending; the orators, they gradually swell up beyond their usual size; the little orators, they grow greater and greater; the secretaries of the ward committees strut about, looking like wooden oracles; the puffers put on the airs of mighty consequence; the slangwhangers deal out direful innuendoes, and threats of doughty import, and all is buzz, murmur, suspense, and sublimity!
    “At length the day arrives. The storm that has been so long gathering and threatening in distant thunders, bursts forth in terrible explosion; all business is at an end; the whole city is in a tumult; the people are running helter-skelter, they know not whither, and they know not why; the hackney coaches rattle through the streets with thundering vehemence, loaded with recruiting sergeants who have been prowling in cellars and caves, to unearth some miserable minion of poverty and ignorance, who will barter his vote for a glass of beer, or a ride in a coach with such fine gentlemen! the buzzards of the party scamper from poll to poll, on foot or on horseback; and they worry from committee to committee, and buzz, and fume, and talk big, and— do nothing; like the vagabond drone, who wastes his time in the laborious idleness of see-saw-song and busy nothingness.”
    I know not how long my friend would have continued his detail, had he not been interrupted by a squabble which took place between two old continentals, as as they were called. It seems they had entered into an argument on the respective merits of their cause, and not being able to make each other clearly understood, resorted to what is called knock-down arguments, which form the superlative degree of argumentum ad hominem; at but are, in my opinion, extremely inconsistent with the true spirit of a genuine logocracy. After they had beaten each other soundly, and set the whole mob together by the ears, they came