The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Wr - Washington Irving [28]
“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,au 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,