The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 565 pages of information about The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter.

The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 565 pages of information about The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter.
abject in raiment that all peaceable lookers on will wonder where they came from, and how it happened that in a city so well supplied with water their unclean appearance, and the evident satisfaction they derived from scratching, was a sight for the eyes to behold.  The hero must be careful to admonish the two or three ex-aldermen who accompany him, that it will not do to expose the necks of bottles in their pockets during their passage through the streets; he must also be sure to deliver his bows with becoming grace, and to keep his right hand upon his heart, (if he have one,) giving the mob to understand that therein beats his love for righting wronged humanity.  Nor will he lose anything in reputation, if he exercise great courtesy in returning those manifestations of approbation which are become so common with enthusiastic chambermaids, who flourish napkins from third and fourth story windows, and are mistaken by the uninitiated for damsels of quality with delicately perfumed cambrics.  And as he let nothing slip through his fingers while bathing in blood the homes of the people he had made wretched, so must he now comfort himself with the assurance, that the uproar of the rabble constituting his train is all cheers sent up by the honest people in admiration of his wonderful exploits.  And, being free from every restraint or obligation, he may, with advantage to himself, recur to the deeds of C‘sar and Alexander, (not forgetting to remember Cicero,) to which he may compare his own.  He can then sneer at your people of quality, and having sufficient cause, prepare himself for a speech of extraordinary eloquence, in which he need have no fear of profaning, for his hearers will stand amazed, and think how mighty a thing it is to be a hero.

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 cort‚ge, 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,

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The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.