The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Wr - Washington Irving [25]
A few days ago the friend, whom I have mentioned in some of my former letters, called upon me to accompany him to witness this grand ceremony; and we forthwith sallied out to the polls, as he called them. Though for several weeks before this splendid exhibition nothing else had been talked of, yet I do assure thee I was entirely ignorant of its nature; and when, on coming up to a church, my companion informed me we were at the polls, I supposed that an election was some great religious ceremony, like the fast of Ramazan,ao or the great festival of Haraphat,ap so celebrated in the East.
My friend, however, undeceived me at once, and entered into a long dissertation on the nature and object of an election, the substance of which was nearly to this effect:—
“You know,” said he, “that this country is engaged in a violent internal warfare, and suffers a variety of evils from civil dissensions. An election is the grand trial of strength, the decisive battle when the belligerents draw out their forces in martial array; when every leader, burning with warlike ardor, and encouraged by the shouts and acclamations of tatterdemalions, buffoons, dependents, parasites, toad-eaters, scrubs, vagrants, mumpers, ragamuffins, bravoes, and beggars in his rear; and puffed up by his bellows-blowing slangwhangers, waves gallantly the banners of faction, and presses forward to office and immortality!
“For a month or two previous to the critical period which is to decide this important affair, the whole community is in a ferment. Every man, of whatever rank or degree—such is the wonderful patriotism of the people—disinterestedly neglects his business to devote himself to his country; and not an insignificant fellow but feels himself inspired, on this occasion, with as much warmth in favor of the cause he has espoused, as if all the comfort of his life, or even his life itself, was dependent on the issue. Grand councils of war are, in the first place, called by the different powers, which are dubbed general meetings, where all the head workmen of the party collect, and arrange the order of battle—appoint their different commanders, and their subordinate instruments, and furnish the funds indispensable for supplying the expenses of the war. Inferior councils are next called in the different classes or wards, consisting of young cadets, who are candidates for offices; idlers who come there for mere curiosity; and orators who appear for the purpose of detailing all the crimes, the faults, or the weaknesses of their opponents, and speaking the sense of the meeting, as it is called; for as the meeting generally consists of men whose quota of sense, taken individually, would make but a poor figure, these orators are appointed to collect it all in a lump; when, I assure you, it makes a very formidable appearance, and furnishes sufficient matter to spin an oration of two or three hours.
“The orators who declaim at these meetings are, with a few exceptions, men of the most profound and perplexed eloquence; who are the oracles of barbers’ shops, market-places, and porter-houses; and whom you may see every day at the corners of the streets, taking honest men prisoners by the button, and talking their ribs quite bare without mercy and without end. These orators, in addressing an audience, generally mount a chair, a table, or an empty beer barrel, which last is supposed to afford considerable inspiration, and thunder away their combustible sentiments at the heads of