2012年6月10日星期日
when in truth he is a servant of heaven
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.
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