High up, enthroned in a mammoth boat, stately and beautiful in design,
sets a impressive female figger, her face all lit up with Truth and
Earnest Purpose as she towers up above the others. The boat seems to be
a-goin' aginst the wind, as boats that amount to anything and git there
always have in the past, and most likely will in the future. And the
keen wind wuz a-blowin' hard aginst the female figger that wuz
a-standin' up in front of the boat, but she didn't care; it blowed her
drapery back some, but it only floated out her wings better.
She held a bugle in her hand, a-soundin' out, I should judge from her
looks--
"How goes the world? I am comin' to help, but you needn't wait for me--I
will overtake you!"
She wuz bound to help the old world along, as you could see by her
looks.
I thought when I first looked at it that the hull thing wuz to show
forth the powers of electricity. I thought that that wuz Electricity on
top of that throne, and the woman in front wuz a-gazin' out fur ahead,
a-tryin' to catch sight of that most wondrous New World that that
strange Magician is a-goin' to sail us into. And I didn't wonder that
she wuz a-gazin' so intent fur off ahead.
For we don't know no more about that strange, onknown world than
Columbus did when he sot sail from Genoa.
A few strange birds have flown from it and lighted on the heads of the
Discoverers, a few spars of wisdom has been washed ashore, and some
strange leaves and sea-weeds, all tellin' us that they have come from a
new world different from ours, and one more riz up like--more like the
Immortal.
But of the hull world of wonder, it is yet to be discovered; and I
thought, as I looked at it, I shouldn't wonder if they will get
there--the figger on the throne wuz so impressive, and the female in
front so determined.
Wisdom, and courage, and joyful hope and ardor.
Helped by 'em, borne along by 'em in the face of envy, and detraction,
and bigotry, and old custom, the boat sails grandly.
"Ho! up there on the high mast! What news?"
"Light! light ahead!"
But to resoom: a-standin' up on each side of that impressive figger wuz
another row of females--mebby they had oars in their hands, showin' that
they wuz calculatin' to take hold and row the boat for a spell if it got
stuck; and mebby they wuz poles, or sunthin'.
But I don't believe they meant to use 'em on that solitary man that
stood in back end of the boat, a-propellin' it--it would have been a
shame if they had.
No; I believe that they meant to help at sunthin' or ruther with them
long sticks.
They wuz all a-lookin' some distance ahead, all a-seemin' bound to get
where they started for.
Besides bein' gorgeous in the extreme, I took it as bein' a compliment
to my sect, the way that fountain wuz laid out--ten or a dozen wimmen,
and only one or two men. But after I got it all fixed out in my mind
what that lofty and impressive figger meant, a bystander a-standin' by
explained it all out to me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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