The Monikins Part 34

Nor were the Great National Allegories without their difficulties.

Noah perfectly understood the images of the two tripods, though he was disposed to think that neither was properly secured. A mast would make but bad weather, he maintained, let it be ever so well rigged and stayed, without being also securely stepped. He saw no use in trusting the heels of the beams to anybody. Good las.h.i.+ngs were what were wanted, and then the people might go about their private affairs, and not fear the work would fall. That the king of Leaphigh had no memory, he could testify from bitter experience; nor did he believe that he had any conscience; and, chiefly he desired to know if we, when we got up into our places on the top of the three inverted beams, among the other Bobees, were to make war on the Great Sachem and the Riddles, or whether we were to consider the whole affair as a good thing, in which the wisest course would be to make fair weather of it?

To all these remarks and questions I answered as well as my own limited experience would allow; taking care to inform my friend that he had conceived the whole matter a little too literally, as all that he had been reading about the great political beams, the tripods, and the legislative boxes, was merely an allegory.

"And pray, then, Sir John, what may an allegory be?"

"In this case, my good sir, it is a const.i.tution."

"And what is a const.i.tution?"

"Why, it is sometimes as you perceive, an allegory."

"And are we not to be mast-headed, then, according to the book?"

"Figuratively, only."

"But there are actually such critters as the Great Sachem, and Riddles, and above all, the Bobees!--We are boney fie-diddle-di-dee elected?"

"Boney fie-diddle-di-dee."

"And may I take the liberty of asking, what it is our duty to do?"

"We are to act practically--according to the literality of the legal, implied, figurative, allegorical significations of the Great National Compact under a legitimate construction."

"I fear we shall have to work doubletides, Sir John, to do so much in so short a time! Do you mean that, in honest truth, there is no beam?"

"There is, and there is not."

"No fore, main, and mizzen tops, according to what is here written down?"

"There is not, and there is."

"Sir John, in the name of G.o.d, speak out! Is all this about eight dollars a day, no better than a take in?"

"That, I believe is strictly literal."

As Noah now seemed a little mollified, I seized the opportunity to tell him he must beware how he attempted to stop Bob from attending the council. Members were privileged, going and coming; and unless he was guarded in his course, he might have some unpleasant collision with the sergeant-at-arms. Besides, it was unbecoming the dignity of a legislator to be wrangling about trifles, and he, to whom was confided the great affairs of a state, ought to attach the utmost importance to a grave exterior, which commonly was of more account with his const.i.tuents than any other quality. Any one could tell whether he was grave or not, but it was by no means so easy a matter to tell whether he or his const.i.tuents had the greater cause to appear so. Noah promised to be discreet, and we parted, not to meet again until we a.s.sembled to be sworn in.

Before continuing the narrative, I will just mention that we disposed of our commercial investments that morning. All the Leaphigh opinions brought good prices; and I had occasion to see how well the brigadier understood the market by the eagerness with which, in particular, the Opinions on the State of Society in Leaplow were bought up. But, by one of those unexpected windfalls which raise up so many of the chosen of the earth to their high places, the cook did better than any of us. It will be remembered, that he had bartered an article of merchandise that he called slush against a neglected bale of Distinctive Leaplow Opinions, which had no success at all in Leaphigh. Coming as they did from abroad, these articles had taken as novelties in Bivouac, and he sold them all before night, at enormous advances; the cry being that something new and extraordinary had found its way into the market.

CHAPTER XXVI. HOW TO ENACT LAWS--ORATORY, LOGIC, AND ELOQUENCE; ALL CONSIDERED IN THEIR EVERY-DAY ASPECTS.

Political oaths are very much the same sort of thing everywhere, and I shall say no more about our inauguration than simply to state it took place as usual. The two houses were duly organized, and we proceeded, without delay, to the transaction of business. I will here state that I was much rejoiced to find Brigadier Downright among the Bobees, the captain whispering that most probably he had been mistaken for an "immigrunt," and chosen accordingly.

It was not a great while before the Great Sachem sent us a communication, which contained a compte rendue of the state of the nation. Like most accounts it is my good fortune to receive, I thought it particularly long. Agreeably to the opinions of this doc.u.ment, the people of Leaplow were, by a good deal, the happiest people in the world; they were also considerably more respected, esteemed, beloved, honored, and properly appreciated, than any other monikin community, and, in short, they were the admiration and glory of the universe. I was exceedingly glad to hear this, for some of the facts were quite new to me; a circ.u.mstance which shows one can never get correct notions of a nation except from itself.

These important facts properly digested, we all of us set about our several duties with a zeal that spoke fairly for our industry and integrity. Things commenced swimmingly, and it was not long before the Riddles sent us a resolution for concurrence, by way of opening the ball. It was conceived in the following terms: "Resolved, that the color which has. .h.i.therto been deemed to be black, is really white."

As this was the first resolution that involved a principle on which we had been required to vote, I suggested to Noah the propriety of our going round to the brigadier, and inquiring what might be the drift of so singular a proposition. Our colleague answered the question with great good-nature, giving us to understand that the Perpendiculars and the Horizontals had long been at variance on the mere coloring property of various important questions, and the real matter involved in the resolution was not visible. The former had always maintained (by always, he meant ever since the time they maintained the contrary) the doctrine of the resolution, and the latter its converse. A majority of the Riddles, just at this moment, are Perpendiculars; and, as it was now seen, they had succeeded in getting a vote on their favorite principle.

"According to this account of the matter, Sir John," observed the captain, "I shall be compelled to maintain that black is white, seeing that I am in on the Parpendic'lar interest?"

I thought with the captain, and was pleased that my own legislative debut was not to be characterized by the promulgation of any doctrine so much at variance with my preconceived ways of thinking. Curious, however, to know his opinion, I asked the brigadier in what light he felt disposed to view the matter himself.

"I am elected by the Tangents," he said; "and, by what I can learn, it is the intention of our friends to steer a middle course; and one of our leaders is already selected, who, at a proper stage of the affair, is to move an amendment."

"Can you refer me, my dear friend, to anything connected with the Great National Allegory that bears on this point?"

"Why, there is a clause among the fundamental and immutable laws, which it is thought was intended to meet this very case; but, unhappily, the sages by whom our Allegory was drawn up have not paid quite as much attention to the phraseology as the importance of the subject demanded."

Here the brigadier laid his finger on the clause in question, and I returned to a seat to study its meaning. It was conceived as follows:--Art. IV. Clause 6: "The Great National Council shall, in no case whatever, pa.s.s any law, or resolution, declaring white to be black."

After studying this fundamental enactment to the bottom, turning it on every side, and finally considering it upside-down, I came to the conclusion that its tenor was, on the whole, rather more favorable than unfavorable to the Horizontal doctrine. It struck me, a very good argument was to be made out of the const.i.tutional question, and that it presented a very fair occasion for a new member to venture on a maiden speech. Having so settled the matter, entirely to my own satisfaction, I held myself in reserve, waiting for the proper moment to produce an effect.

It was not long before the chairman of the committee on the judiciary (one of the effects of the resolution was entirely to change the coloring of all testimony throughout the vast Republic of Leaplow) made his report on the subject-matter of the resolution. This person was a Tangent, who had a besetting wish to become a Riddle, although the leaning of our house was decidedly Horizontal; and, as a matter of course, he took the Riddle side of this question. The report, itself, required seven hours in the reading, commencing with the subject at the epocha of the celebrated caucus that was adjourned sine die, by the disruption of the earth's crust, and previously to the distribution of the great monikin family into separate communities, and ending with the subject of the resolution in his hand. The reporter had set his political palette with the utmost care, having completely covered the subject with neutral tints, before he got through with it, and glazing the whole down with ultramarine, in such a way as to cause the eye to regard the matter through a fict.i.tious atmosphere. Finally, he repeated the resolution, verbatim, and as it came from the other house.

Mr. Speaker now called upon gentlemen to deliver their sentiments. To my utter amazement, Captain Poke arose, put his tobacco back into its box, and opened the debate without apology.

The honorable captain said he understood this question to be one implicating the liberties of everybody. He understood the matter literally, as it was propounded in the Allegory, and set forth in the resolution; and, as such, he intended to look at it with unprejudiced eyes. "The natur' of this proposal lay altogether in color. What is color, after all? Make the most of it, and in the most favorable position, which, perhaps, is the cheek of a comely young woman, and it is but skin-deep. He remembered the time when a certain female in another part of the univa.r.s.e, who is commonly called Miss Poke, might have out-rosed the best rose in a placed called Stunnin'tun; and what did it all amount to? He shouldn't ask Miss Poke herself, for obvious reasons--but he would ask any of the neighbors how she looked now?

Quitting female natur', he would come to human natur' generally. He had often remarked that sea water was blue, and he had frequently caused pails to be lowered, and the water brought on deck, to see if he could come at any of this blueing matter--for indigo was both scarce and dear in his part of the world, but he never could make out anything by the experiment; from which he concluded that, on the whull, there was pretty much no such thing as color, at all.

"As for the resolution before the house, it depended entirely on the meaning of words. Now, after all, what is a word? Why, some people's words are good, and other people's words are good for nothing. For his part, he liked sealed instruments--which might be because he was a sealer--but as for mere words, he set but little store by them. He once tuck a man's word for his wages; and the long and short of it was, that he lost his money. He had known a thousand instances in which words had proved to be of no value, and he did not see why some gentlemen wished to make them of so much importance here. For his part, he was for puffing up nothing, no, not even a word or a color, above its desarts.

The people seemed to call for a change in the color of things, and he called upon gentlemen to remember that this was a free country, and one in which the laws ruled; and therefore he trusted they would be disposed to adapt the laws to the wants of the people. What had the people asked of the house in this matter? So far as his knowledge went, they had really asked nothing in words, but he understood there was great discontent on the subject of the old colors; and he construed their silence into an expression of contempt for words in general. He was a Parpendic'lar, and he should always maintain Parpendic'lar sentiments.

Gentlemen might not agree with him, but, for one, he was not disposed to jipordyze the liberties of his const.i.tuents, and therefore he gave the rizolution just as it came from the Riddles, without altering a letter--although he did think there was one word misspelt--he meant 'really,' which he had been taught to spell 'ra'aily'--but he was ready to sacrifice even his opinions on this point to the good of the country; and therefore he went with the Riddles, even to their misprints. He hoped the rizolution would pa.s.s, with the entire unanimity so important a subject demanded."

This speech produced a very strong sensation. Up to this time, the princ.i.p.al orators of the house had been much in the practice of splitting hairs about some nice technicality in the Great Allegory; but Noah, with the simplicity of a truly great mind, had made a home thrust at the root of the whole matter; laying about him with the single-first, I made a few apposite remarks on the necessity of respecting the vital ordinances of the body politic, and asked the attention of my hearers while I read to them a particular clause, which it had struck me had some allusion to the very point now in consideration. Having thus cleared the way, I had not the folly to defeat the objects of so much preparation, by an indiscreet precipitancy. So far from it, previously to reading the extract from the const.i.tution, I waited until the attention of every member present was attracted more forcibly by the dignity, deliberation, and gravity of my manner, than by the substance of what had yet been said. In the midst of this deep silence and expectation I read aloud, in a voice that reached every cranny in the hall--

"The great council shall, in no case whatever, pa.s.s any law, or resolution, declaring white to be black."

If I had been calm in the presentation of this authority, I was equally self-possessed in waiting for its effect. Looking about me I saw surprise, perplexity, doubt, wonder, and uncertainty in every countenance, if I did not find conviction. One fact embarra.s.sed even me.

Our friends the Horizontals were evidently quite as much at fault as our opponents the Perpendiculars, instead of being, as I had good reason to hope, in an ecstasy of pleasure on hearing their cause sustained by an authority so weighty.

"Will the honorable member have the goodness to explain from what author he has quoted?" one of the leading Perpendiculars at length ventured to inquire.

"The language you have just heard, Mr. Speaker," I resumed, believing that now was the favorable instant to follow up the matter, "is language that must find an echo in every heart--it is language that can never be used in vain in this venerable hall, language that carries with it conviction and command."--I observed that the members were now fairly gaping at each other with wonder.--"Sir, I am asked to name the author from whom I have quoted these sententious and explicit words--Sir, what you have just heard is to be found in the Article IV., Clause 6, of the Great National Allegory--"

"Order--order--order!" shouted a hundred raven throats.

I stood aghast, even more amazed than the house itself had been only the instant before.

"Order--order--order--order--order!" continued to be yelled, as if a million of demons were screeching in the hall.

"The honorable member will please to recollect," said the bland and ex-officio impartial speaker, who, by the way, was a Perpendicular, elected by fraud, "that it is out of order to use personalities."

"Personalities! I do not understand, sir--"