There, under the shade of the sycamores, on my father's old farm, I used to dream of the years to come. I looked through a vista blooming with pleasures, fruiting with achievements, and beautiful as the cloud-isles of the sunset. The siren, ambition, sat beside me and fired my young heart with her prophetic song. She dazzled me, and charmed me, and soothed me, into sweet fantastic reveries. She touched me and bade me look into the wondrous future. The bow of promise spanned it. Hope was enthroned there and smiled like an angel of light. Under that shining arch lay the goal of my fondest aspirations. Visions of wealth, and of laurels, and of applauding thousands, crowded the horizon of my dream. I saw the capitol of the Republic, that white-columned pantheon of liberty, lifting its magnificent pile from the midst of the palaces, and parks, the statues, and monuments, of the most beautiful city in the world. Infatuated with this vision of earthly glory, I bade adieu to home and its dreams, seized the standard of a great political party, and rushed into the turmoil and tumult of the heated campaign. Unable to bear the armor of a Saul, I went forth to do battle armed with a fiddle, a pair of saddlebags, a plug horse, and the eternal truth. There was the din of conflict by day on the hustings; there was the sound of revelry by night in the cabins. The mid-night stars twinkled to the music of the merry fiddle, and the hills resounded with the clatter of dwindling shoe soles, as the mountain lads and lassies danced the hours away in the good old time Virginia reel. I rode among the mountain fastnesses like the "Knight of the woeful figure," mounted on my prancing "Rozenante," everywhere charging the windmill of the opposing party, and wherever I drew rein the mountaineers swarmed from far and near to witness the bloodless battle of the contending candidates in the arena of joint discussion. My learned competitor, bearing the shield of "protection to American labor," and armed to the teeth with mighty argument, hurled himself upon me with the fury of a lion. His blows descended like thunderbolts, and the welkin rang with cheers when his lance went shivering to the center. His logic was appalling, his imagery was sublime. His tropes and similes flashed like the drawn blades of charging cavalry, and with a flourish of trumpets, his grand effort culminated in a splendid tribute to the Republic, crowned with Goldsmith's beautiful metaphor: "As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm; Though 'round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head."