Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a PoliticianHolley, Marietta
Religion
Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a Politician
Holley, Marietta
Methodist Church (U.S.) -- Fiction; Temperance and religion -- Fiction; Women -- Suffrage -- Fiction
And if he hadn't had a sudden engagement to go out, I should have talked
longer. But I see his engagement wus a wearin' on him. His eyes looked
fairly wild. I only give a bald idee of what I said. I have only give
the heads of my discussion to him, jest the bald heads.
Wall, after we left there, I told Sally I felt as if I must go and see
the Peace Commission. I felt as if I must make some arrangements with
'em to not have any more wars. As I told Sally, “We might jest as well
call ourselves Injuns and savages at once, if we had to keep up this
most savage and brutal trait of theirn.” Says I firmly, “I _must_,
before I go back to Jonesville, tend to it.” Says I, “I didn't come here
for fashion, or dry-goods; though I s'pose lots of both of 'em are to
be got here.” Says I, “I may tend to one or two fashionable parties, or
levys as I s'pose they call 'em here. I may go to 'em ruther than hurt
the feelin's of the upper 10. I want to do right: I don't want to hurt
the feelin's of them 10. They have hearts, and they are sensitive.
I don't think I have ever took to them 10, as much as I have to some
others; but I wish 'em well.
“And I s'pose you see as grand and curious people to their parties here,
as you can see together in any other place on the globe.
“I s'pose it is a sight to behold, to see 'em together. To see them, as
the poet says, 'To the manner born,' and them that wasn't born in
the same manor, but tryin' to act as if they was. Wealth and display,
natural courtesy and refinement, walkin' side by side with pretentius
vulgarity, and mebby poverty bringin' up the rear. Genius and folly,
honesty and affectation, gentleness and sweetness, and brazen impudence,
and hatred and malice, and envy and uncharitableness. All languages and
peoples under the sun, and differing more than stars ever did, one from
another.
[Illustration: SAMANTHA AT THE PRESIDENT'S RECEPTION.]
“And what makes it more curious and mysterius is, the way they dress,
some on 'em. Why, they say--it has come right straight to me by them
that know--that the ladies wear what they call full dress; and the
strange and mysterius part of it is, that the fuller the dress is, the
less they have on 'em.
“This is a deep subject, and queer; and I don't s'pose you will take my
word for it, and I don't want you to. But I have been _told_ so.
“Why, I s'pose them upper 10 have their hands full, their 20 hands
completely full. I fairly pity 'em--the hull 10 of 'em. They want me,
and they need me, I s'pose, and I must tend to some of 'em.
“And then,” says I, “I did calculate to pay some attention to
store-clothes. I did want to get me a new calico dress,--London brown
with a set flower on it. But I can do without that dress, and the upper
10 can do without me, better than the Nation can do without Peace.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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