Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Writings (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (9 page)

I could not help being struck with the exceeding great number of ragged, dirty-looking persons that swaggered about the place, and seemed to think themselves the bashaws of the land. I inquired of my friend if these people were employed to drive away the hogs, dogs, and other intruders that might thrust themselves in and interrupt the ceremony?

“By no means,” replied he; “these are the representatives of the sovereign people, who come here to make governors, senators, and members of assembly, and are the source of all power and authority in this nation.”

“Preposterous!” said I; “how is it possible that such men can be capable of distinguishing between an honest man and a knave; or, even if they were, will it not always happen that they are led by the nose by some intriguing demagogue, and made the mere tools of ambitious political jugglers? Surely it would be better to trust to Providence, or even to chance, for governors, than resort to the discriminating powers of an ignorant mob. I plainly perceive the consequence. A man, who possesses superior talents, and that honest pride which ever accompanies this possession, will always be sacrificed by some creeping insect who will prostitute himself to familiarity with the lowest of mankind; and, like the idolatrous Egyptian, worship the wallowing tenants of filth and mire.”

“All this is true enough,” replied my friend, “but after all, you cannot say but that this is a free country, and that the people can get drunk cheaper here, particularly at elections, than in the despotic countries of the East.” I could not, with any degree of propriety or truth, deny this last assertion; for just at that moment a patriotic brewer arrived with a load of beer, which, for a moment, occasioned a cessation of argument. The great crowd of buzzards, puffers, and “old continentals” of all parties, who throng to the polls, to persuade, to cheat, or to force the freeholders into the right way, and to maintain the freedom of suffrage, seemed for a moment to forget their antipathies, and joined heartily in a copious libation of this patriotic and argumentative beverage.

These beer-barrels, indeed, seem to be most able logicians, well stored with that kind of sound argument best suited to the comprehension, and most relished by the mob, or sovereign people, who are never so tractable as when operated upon by this convincing liquor, which, in fact, seems to be imbued with the very spirit of a logocracy. No sooner does it begin its operation, than the tongue waxes exceeding valorous, and becomes impatient for some mighty conflict. The puffer puts himself at the head of his body-guard of buzzards, and his legion of ragamuffins, and woe then to every unhappy adversary who is uninspired by the deity of the beer-barrel—he is sure to be talked, and argued, into complete insignificance.

While I was making these observations, I was surprised to observe a bashaw, high in office, shaking a fellow by the hand, that looked rather more ragged than a scarecrow, and inquiring with apparent solicitude concerning the health of his family; after which he slipped a little folded paper into his hand and turned away. I could not help applauding his humility in shaking the fellow’s hand, and his benevolence in relieving his distresses, for I imagined the paper contained something for the poor man’s necessities; and truly he seemed verging toward the last stage of starvation. My friend, however, soon undeceived me by saying that this was an elector, and that the bashaw had merely given him the list of candidates for whom he was to vote.

“Ho! ho!” said I, “then he is a particular friend of the bashaw?”

“By no means,” replied my friend, “the bashaw will pass him without notice, the day after the election, except, perhaps, just to drive over him with his coach.”

My friend then proceeded to inform me that for some time before, and during the continuance of an election, there was a most delectable courtship, or intrigue carried on between the great bashaws and the mother Mob. That mother Mob generally preferred the attentions of the rabble, or of fellows of her own stamp; but would sometimes condescend to be treated to a feasting, or anything of that kind, at the bashaw’s expense! Nay, sometimes when she was in good humor, she would condescend to toy with him in her rough way: but woe to the bashaw who attempted to be familiar with her, for she was the most petulant, cross, crabbed, scolding, thieving, scratching, toping, wrongheaded, rebellious, and abominable termagant that ever was let loose in the world to the confusion of honest gentlemen bashaws.

Just then a fellow came round and distributed among the crowd a number of handbills, written by the ghost of Washington,
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the fame of whose illustrious actions, and still more illustrious virtues, have reached even the remotest regions of the East, and who is venerated by this people as the Father of his country. On reading this paltry paper, I could not restrain my indignation. “Insulted hero,” cried I, “is it thus thy name is profaned, thy memory disgraced, thy spirit drawn down from heaven to administer to the brutal violence of party rage? It is thus the necromancers of the East, by their infernal incantations, sometimes call up the shades of the just, to give their sanction to frauds, to lies, and to every species of enormity?” My friend smiled at my warmth, and observed, that raising ghosts, and not only raising them but making them speak, was one of the miracles of election. “And believe me,” continued he, “there is good reason for the ashes of departed heroes being disturbed on these occasions, for such is the sandy foundation of our government, that there never happens an election of an alderman, or a collector, or even a constable, but we are in imminent danger of losing our liberties, and becoming a province of France, or tributary to the British islands.” “By the hump of Mahomet’s camel,” said I, “but this is only another striking example of the prodigious great scale on which everything is transacted in this country!”

By this time I had become tired of the scene; my head ached with the uproar of voices, mingling in all the discordant tones of triumphant exclamation, nonsensical argument, intemperate reproach, and drunken absurdity. The confusion was such as no language can adequately describe, and it seemed as if all the restraints of decency, and all the bands of law, had been broken and given place to the wide ravages of licentious brutality. These, thought I, are the orgies of liberty! these are manifestations of the spirit of independence! these are the symbols of man’s sovereignty! Head of Mahomet! with what a fatal and inexorable despotism do empty names and ideal phantoms exercise their dominion over the human mind! The experience of ages has demonstrated, that in all nations, barbarous or enlightened, the mass of the people, the mob, must be slaves, or they will be tyrants; but their tyranny will not be long: some ambitious leader, having at first condescended to be their slave, will at length become their master; and in proportion to the vileness of his former servitude, will be the severity of his subsequent tyranny. Yet, with innumerable examples staring them in the face, the people still bawl out liberty; by which they mean nothing but freedom from every species of legal restraint, and a warrant for all kinds of licentiousness: and the bashaws and leaders, in courting the mob, convince them of their power; and by administering to their passions, for the purposes of ambition, at length learn, by fatal experience, that he who worships the beast that carries him on his back, will sooner or later be thrown into the dust, and trampled under foot by the animal who has learnt the secret of its power, by this very adoration.

Ever thine,

I
n compliance with
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an ancient and venerable custom, sanctioned by time and our ancestors, and more especially by my own inclinations, I will take this opportunity to salute my readers with as many good wishes as I can possibly spare for, in truth, I have been so prodigal of late, that I have but few remaining. I should have offered my congratulations sooner; but, to be candid, having made the last New-Year’s campaign, according to custom, under Cousin Christopher, in which I have seen some pretty hard service, my head has been somewhat out of order of late, and my intellects rather cloudy for clear writing. Besides, I may allege as another reason, that I have deferred my greetings until this day, which is exactly one year since we introduced ourselves to the public; and surely periodical writers have the same right of dating from the commencement of their works, that monarchs have from the time of their coronation, or our most puissant republic from the declaration of its independence.

These good wishes are warmed into more than usual benevolence by the thought that I am now, perhaps, addressing my old friends for the last time. That we should thus cut off our work in the very vigor of its existence, may excite some little matter of wonder in this enlightened community. Now, though we could give a variety of good reasons for so doing, yet it would be an ill-natured act to deprive the public of such an admirable opportunity to indulge in their favorite amusement of conjecture; so we generously leave them to flounder in the smooth ocean of glorious uncertainty. Besides, we have ever considered it as beneath persons of our dignity to account for our movements or caprices; thank heaven, we are not like the unhappy rulers of this enlightened land, accountable to the mob for our actions, or dependent on their smiles for support!—this much, however, we will say, it is not for want of subjects that we stop our career. We are not in the situation of poor Alexander the Great,
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who wept, as well indeed he might, because there were no more worlds to conquer; for, to do justice to this queer, odd, rantipole city, and to this whimsical country, there is matter enough in them to keep our risible muscles and our pens going till doomsday.

Most people, in taking a farewell which may, perhaps, be forever, are anxious to part on good terms; and it is usual, on such melancholy occasions, for even enemies to shake hands, forget their previous quarrels, and bury all former animosities in parting regrets. Now, because most people do this, I am determined to act in quite a different way; for, as I have lived, so I should wish to die, in my own way, without imitating any person, whatever may be his rank, talents, or reputation. Besides, if I know our trio, we have no enmities to obliterate, no hatchet to bury; and as to all injuries—those we have long since forgiven. At this moment there is not an individual in the world, not even the Pope himself, to whom we have any personal hostility. But if, shutting their eyes to the many striking proofs of good-nature displayed through the whole course of this work, there should be any persons so singularly ridiculous as to take offense at our strictures, we heartily forgive their stupidity; earnestly entreating them to desist from all manifestations of ill-humor, lest they should, peradventure, be classed under some one of the denominations of recreants we have felt it our duty to hold up to public ridicule. Even at this moment, we feel a glow of parting philanthropy stealing upon us; a sentiment of cordial good-will toward the numerous host of readers that have jogged on at our heels during the last year; and in justice to ourselves must seriously protest, that if at any time we have treated them a little ungently, it was purely in that spirit of hearty affection, with which a schoolmaster drubs an unlucky urchin, or a humane muleteer his recreant animal, at the very moment when his heart is brimful of loving-kindness. If this is not considered an ample justification, so much the worse; for in that case I fear we shall remain forever unjustified—a most desperate extremity, and worthy of every man’s commiseration!

One circumstance, in particular, has tickled us mightily as we jogged along; and that is, the astonishing secrecy with which we have been able to carry on our lucubrations! fully aware of the profound sagacity of the public of Gotham, and their wonderful faculty of distinguishing a writer by his style, it is with great self-congratulation we find that suspicion has never pointed to us as the authors of SALMAGUNDI. Our gray-beard speculations have been most bountifully attributed to sundry smart young gentlemen, who, for aught we know, have no beards at all; and we have often been highly amused when they were charged with the sin of writing what their harmless minds never conceived, to see them affect all the blushing modesty and beautiful embarrassment of detected virgin authors. The profound and penetrating public, having so long been led away from truth and nature by a constant perusal of those delectable histories, and romances, from beyond seas, in which human nature is, for the most part, wickedly mangled and debauched, have never once imagined this work was a genuine and most authentic history; that the Cocklofts were a real family, dwelling in the city, paying scot and lot, entitled to the right of suffrage, and holding several respectable offices in the corporation. As little do they suspect that there is a knot of merry old bachelors seated snugly in the old-fashioned parlor of an old-fashioned Dutch house, with a weather-cock on the top that came from Holland; who amuse themselves of an evening by laughing at their neighbors, in an honest way, and who manage to jog on through the streets of our ancient and venerable city, without elbowing or being elbowed by a living soul.

When we first adopted the idea of discontinuing this work, we determined, in order to give the critics a fair opportunity for dissection, to declare ourselves, one and all, absolutely defunct; for it is one of the rare and invaluable privileges of a periodical writer, that by an act of innocent suicide he may lawfully consign himself to the grave, and cheat the world of posthumous renown. But we abandoned this scheme for many substantial reasons. In the first place, we care but little for the opinion of critics, whom we consider a kind of freebooters in the republic of letters; who, like deer, goats, and divers other graminivorous animals, gain subsistence by gorging upon the buds and leaves of the young shrubs of the forest, thereby robbing them of their verdure, and retarding their progress to maturity. It also occurred to us, that though an author might lawfully, in all countries, kill himself outright, yet this privilege did not extend to the raising himself from the dead, if he was ever so anxious; and all that is left him in such a case, is to take the benefit of the metempsychosis act, and revive under a new name and form.