Nature and Human Nature | Page 5

us. So in Congress no man in either house can speak or read an oration more than an hour long, but he can send the whole lockrum, includin' what he didn't say, to the papers. One has to brag before foreign assemblies, the other before a Congress, but both have an eye to the feelings of the Americans at large, and their own constituents in particular. Now that is a trick others know as well as we do. The Irish member from Kilmany, and him from Kilmore, when he brags there never was a murder in either, don't expect the English to believe it, for he is availed they know better, but the brag pleases the patriots to home, on account of its impudence.
"So the little man, Lord Bunkum, when he opens Oxford to Jew and Gentile, and offers to make Rothschild Chancellor instead of Lord Derby, and tells them old dons, the heads of colleges, as polite as a stage-driver, that he does it out of pure regard to them, and only to improve the University, don't expect them to believe it; for he gives them a sly wink when he says so, as much as to say, how are you off for Hebrew, my old septuagenarians? Droll boy is Rothey, for though he comes from the land of Ham, he don't eat pork. But it pleases the sarcumsised Jew, and the unsarcumsised tag-rag and bobtail that are to be admitted, and who verily do believe (for their bump of conceit is largely developed) that they can improve the Colleges by granting educational excursion tickets.
"So Paddy O'Shonnosey the member for Blarney, when he votes for smashing in the porter's lodges of that Protestant institution, and talks of Toleration and Equal Rights, and calls the Duke of Tuscany a broth of a boy, and a light to illumine heretical darkness, don't talk this nonsense to please the outs or ins, for he don't care a snap of his finger for either of them, nor because he thinks it right, for it's plain he don't, seeing that he would fight till he'd run away before Maynooth should be sarved arter that fashion; but he does it, because he knows it will please him, or them, that sent him there.
"There are two kinds of boastin', Squire, active and passive. The former belongs exclusively to my countrymen, and the latter to the British. A Yankee openly asserts and loudly proclaims his superiority. John Bull feels and looks it. He don't give utterance to this conviction. He takes it for granted all the world knows and admits it, and he is so thoroughly persuaded of it himself, that, to use his own favourite phrase, he don't care a fig if folks don't admit it. His vanity, therefore, has a sublimity in it. He thinks, as the Italians say, 'that when nature formed him, she broke the mould.' There never was, never can, and never will be, another like him. His boastin', therefore, is passive. He shows it and acts it; but he don't proclaim it. He condescends and is gracious, patronizes and talks down to you. Let my boastin' alone therefore, Squire, if you please. You know what it means, what bottom it has, and whether the plaster sticks on the right spot or not.
"So there is the first division of my subject. Now for the second. But don't go off at half-cock, narvous like. I am not like the black preacher that had forty-eleven divisions. I have only a few more remarks to make. Well, I have observed that in editin' my last Journal, you struck out some scores I made under certain passages and maxims, because you thought they were not needed, or looked vain. I know it looks consaited as well as you do, but I know their use also. I have my own views of things. Let them also be as I have made them. They warn't put there for nothin'. I have a case in pint that runs on all fours with it, as brother Josiah the lawyer used to say, and if there was anythin' wantin' to prove that lawyers were not strait up and down in their dealings, that expression would show it.
"I was to court wunst to Slickville, when he was addressin' of the jury. The main points of his argument he went over and over again, till I got so tired I took up my hat and walked out. Sais I to him, arter court was prorogued and members gone home,
"'Sy,' sais I, 'why on airth did you repeat them arguments so often? It was everlastin' yarny.'
"'Sam,' sais he, and he gave his head a jupe, and pressed his lips close, like a lemon-squeezer, the way lawyers always do when they want to look wise,