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The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter, a novel by F. Colburn Adams |
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Chapter 22. How News Of An Extraordinary Character Was Received And Restored The Major To Sound Health... |
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_ CHAPTER XXII. HOW NEWS OF AN EXTRAORDINARY CHARACTER WAS RECEIVED AND RESTORED THE MAJOR TO SOUND HEALTH; ALSO A FEW REMARKS CONCERNING THE MANUFACTURE OF HEROES THE judicious and forgiving reader will, I am sure, join me in approving the facility with which the major regained his stock of courage, (lost when entering Tarpaulin Cove,) on hearing that the politicians of New York had determined on making him a hero of no mean parts, and were devising a grand programme for our reception. And this consoling news I read to him from that very enterprising and extremely reliable journal, the New York Herald, a copy of which I got of the parson, who was its Tarpaulin Cove correspondent, and admired it much for its mingling of divine and human things, as well as the amount of honey the editor always mixed with his brimstone. The Common Council had, according to this sagacious journal, held a meeting, and, at the expense of much unintelligible oratory and disorder, passed a resolution appropriating five thousand dollars for the purpose of giving us a reception worthy of either Cicero or Washington. And this was to be entirely in consideration of the great public services we had rendered the country. And it was further resolved, and therein set forth, that Aldermen Pennyworth, of the Sixth Ward, and Brandybottom, of the Second, together with Councilmen Bluster and Sputter, (the last named gentleman being clever at a speech,) be a committee of reception, invested with power to draw up and present a suitable address on behalf of the citizens of "this great metropolis." It was also resolved, in a flourish of speech utterly unknown in anything ever attempted by Choate, that the mayor, who, though he contemplated himself the greatest of potentates, was famous only for commanding an unruly police to bludgeon the heads of peaceable citizens, should publicly receive us at the City Hall. This news so elated the major, that he commenced running about the deck, after the manner of a madman. He next tore the bandages from his head, and swore though his eyes were disfigured, his body remained in most excellent condition. As to persecutions, all great men ought to endure them with humility, for they were only the forerunners of great honors. He therefore resolved to say no more of the scars, but, in proof of his faith, to for ever esteem Captain Luke Snider a public benefactor, and to set about commending himself to the consideration of all good citizens, for therein, as he conceived, lay the virtue of true eminence. And now that he had a horse of such excellent parts, and a pig whose rare gifts, (did the critics do him justice,) must prove invaluable, he flattered himself he was fairly on the road to fortune, and might safely leave the rest to the hero makers of New York. I must inform the honest reader, that great value was set by the Common Council upon the fact, that the major had transferred his affections from the whig to the democratic party, which could not fail to shed a lasting luster upon its principles. Two honest Hibernian members of the very common board of very uncommon councilmen, had, with that modesty so characteristic of them, paid me the high compliment of saying, that I had been justly styled the great northern political war horse. I could not suppress a blush at seeing myself cut so strange a figure, inasmuch as the flourish of speech was such as had never been thought of by Aristotle, and would have paled even Henry Clay. Let no man, therefore, doubt the truth of what I here say; for I am not given to writing satires, preferring to wait until heaven shall send me some nobler mission. Nor would I have the reader express surprise, that persons so humble as the major and myself should be thus suddenly subjected to the process of hero making so much in fashion with the forty thousand idlers and politicians of New York, who have graciously taken upon themselves the directing of all public affairs, seeing that good men are so engaged in the getting of gold as to care not a whit if the devil get all their liberties. And if the reader have read the histories of Greece and Rome, wherein it is written that he only was made a hero who had achieved some great undertaking, and thereby conferred lasting honors upon his country, his surprise may be increased at the strange elements of character necessary to a hero at this day. But I humbly beg him to consider the circumstances of these forty thousand idlers and other politicians, who, having no employment for their fingers, let the devil direct their brains, and have turned hero making into a commerce of so cheap a quality, that no good christian can be got to engage in it. In fine, (and it is no vulgar invention of my brain,) the virtues required of an hero at this day, are that he have been a great marauder, who, having invaded the country of a poor, down trodden people, driven them from their quiet homes, plundered them of their property, ravished their daughters, drenched their fields with the blood of the innocent, and whitened the highways with the bones of his own dissolute but deluded followers, and spread desolation over the land, had to leave it a vanquished miscreant. And upon the principle, that if you give power to the idle and reckless they will make heroes to suit their kind and circumstances, he will then be received at the Battery with a great waste of powder, and such other noisy demonstrations as shall please the unruly. From thence he shall be conveyed in a shabby carriage, drawn by four lean horses, escorted by six firemen in red shirts, and preceded by two Dutch drummers with serious faces, and long, light beards, and a dyspeptic negro fifer, through sundry of our most crowded streets. And there shall follow him a procession of urchins, so abject in raiment that all peaceable lookers on will wonder where they came from, and how it happened that in a city so well supplied with water their unclean appearance, and the evident satisfaction they derived from scratching, was a sight for the eyes to behold. The hero must be careful to admonish the two or three ex-aldermen who accompany him, that it will not do to expose the necks of bottles in their pockets during their passage through the streets; he must also be sure to deliver his bows with becoming grace, and to keep his right hand upon his heart, (if he have one,) giving the mob to understand that therein beats his love for righting wronged humanity. Nor will he lose anything in reputation, if he exercise great courtesy in returning those manifestations of approbation which are become so common with enthusiastic chambermaids, who flourish napkins from third and fourth story windows, and are mistaken by the uninitiated for damsels of quality with delicately perfumed cambrics. And as he let nothing slip through his fingers while bathing in blood the homes of the people he had made wretched, so must he now comfort himself with the assurance, that the uproar of the rabble constituting his train is all cheers sent up by the honest people in admiration of his wonderful exploits. And, being free from every restraint or obligation, he may, with advantage to himself, recur to the deeds of C'sar and Alexander, (not forgetting to remember Cicero,) to which he may compare his own. He can then sneer at your people of quality, and having sufficient cause, prepare himself for a speech of extraordinary eloquence, in which he need have no fear of profaning, for his hearers will stand amazed, and think how mighty a thing it is to be a hero. I would also advise him to give his thoughts entirely to himself, and be careful not to betray them with his words, lest some ambitious critic set them down and use them at some future day to his damage. He must likewise sufficiently eulogize the companions in his exploits; and though they were true to nothing but debauchery and their own conceits, it will serve him best if he tell distressing tales of their patriotism. And above all, he will be wholly deficient in rendering himself justice, if he do not set forth with the very best of his rhetoric, how much he is misrepresented by the press, which will persist in calling him a monster, when in truth he is a servant of heaven, sent upon earth to raise the fallen. And when he shall have been drawn through a sufficient number of streets, and the eyes of the curious shall have been gratified, and the dyspeptic fifer has exhausted his wind, and, together with the Dutch drummers, can no longer invest the jaded train with a martial spirit, then, if the lean animals have strength enough left in their dilapidated frames, the cortége, as it is well called, may proceed into the Park, where the hero, if it do not rain, may take off his hat to the multitude of rejected humanity, (such as ragged politicians and wasted vagrants,) there assembled. Having paused a few moments, (to the great impatience of his shattered admirers,) that the aldermen who accompanied him may quench their thirst, he will alight amidst the huzzas of the throng and ascend the platform, built for the occasion by an enthusiastic carpenter. An ex-alderman, of dogged deportment, whom the clamorous mob greet with the title of judge, will welcome him in an address, (he will read it by the light of a tallow candle, held in the hand of a corpulent councilman,) written by a well starved critic on the Times newspaper, and for which service he (the said starved critic) was promised five dollars. The hero will undoubtedly take it for granted, that he is as great a general as he is there set down; nor must he be amazed if he find it written of him, that the noble deeds of which he is the champion far outshine all that has heretofore been set down in history. In fine, he must receive each compliment with a gracious bow, remembering that they are employed with the sincerity so characteristic of our gravest politicians. It being customary, I make no doubt the address will be received with "deafening applause," though it were impossible those present could hear one word of it. The reading will then conclude with twenty thousand voices spontaneously calling for the hero, who must rise with great gravity, and, having surveyed the dilapidated throng, proceed to respond in a speech of at least half an hour long. While delivering himself of this speech, he must be careful not to think of the gray haired fathers and mourning orphans he has left to mingle their tears over the devastation he inflicted upon their country, lest it damage his rhetoric. But he must declare that he is overwhelmed with the honors thus showered upon him by an assemblage so respectable. Of course he will not forget to mention, that his emotions have quite deprived him of the power, even if he had the capacity, of expressing his gratitude for this very unexpected manifestation of their approbation. And this peroration he must end, with complimenting the virtue and discretion, the self sacrificing devotion, and the high purposes of the motley assemblage, who are meanwhile getting up numerous fights for their more immediate amusement. The drummers and fifer having refreshed themselves, the hero must be got carefully into the carriage by his generals and adjutant generals in waiting, when the four lean horses, who were comforted with oats during the delivery of the speeches, will draw him up Broadway to the tune of "The dead I left behind me!" It being after nightfall, when the balconies of heaven are filled with black, warlike clouds, it will be necessary that the train proceed with torchlights, which are an essential part of the ovation to all great heroes. These generally consist of thirteen lighted tallow candles and two transparencies, in the manufacture of which six shillings were expended for as many yards of Lowell cotton, sufficient to supply shirts to the unwashed Hibernians who bear them. The torchlights, as is customary, must be carried by hatless and shoeless urchins, who will feel great pride in the service, and have no scruple at scrambling for the pennies thrown them by the mischievous who line the sidewalk. The transparencies must also bear the significant motto, "Welcome to the brave." All this and much more being done, the hero will have arrived at one of our most fashionable hotels, where splendid apartments have been prepared for him; and for which the cunning landlord was careful to get his pay in advance. As those who follow such trains and such heroes have an habitual aversion to water, its diminution or increase on arriving at the hotel will depend very much on the state of the weather. But no true hero will for a moment think of entering his hotel unless all the ambitious chambermaids in it are grouped upon its balconies, and its entrances so lined with pickpockets, that it becomes absolutely necessary that his generals force a passage. The crowd outside will then greet his advance up stairs with much shouting, interspersed with demands for a speech, which, on partaking of a well compounded punch, in which his generals will not forget to join him, seeing that he is their only worldly stock in trade left, he may manifest his willingness to receive friends of distinction. This being regarded as an oversight by his most famous general, and the corpulent alderman, he will be reminded that the safety of the building is really in danger from the enthusiasm of the citizens outside, who refuse to go peaceably to their homes until he appears before them on the balcony, where they can offer him their homage, and hear from his lips at least three speeches. All this being done to the entire satisfaction of his admirers, then let him snap his fingers at your unprogressive gentlemen of quality, (who are much given to sneering,) and comfort himself that "the people" are always right. The torchbearers having exhausted their pennies as well as their patriotism, and the peaceable intervention of a shower having dispersed the mob, the hero, satisfied he has received every honor a grateful people can bestow, will, as is customary, betake himself much fatigued to his apartments, where he must remain in consultation with his generals and a few select friends, (on the grave question of what is to be done next?) until two o'clock in the morning, or, perhaps, until Aurora begins to open her windows in the east or the expert bar tender has wearied of mixing libations not even the most self-complacent of the generals has a shilling to pay for. This sad state of affairs being reported to head quarters, the hero will, unless the aldermen present pledge the city for security, hasten to his cot, and having snuffed out his candle get quietly to bed. Having overstepped the limits of my chapter in these few remarks upon our present system of hero making, the reader must look for something better in the next chapter, and accept for apology the fact that I have written of things I have seen, out of sheer love for the truth of history. In perusing this subject, I had almost forgotten to remark, that the hero, though he have gone quietly to bed, will not be considered at the very apex of his fame until the men of the newspapers, with their usual love of enterprise in journalism, shall have written down and published to the world (they, it must not be overlooked, follow close at the heels of the torch bearers) all that was said and done, not even forgetting to mention how delicately the horses raised their tails when occasion required. _ |
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