The Adventures of My Cousin SmoothTempleton, Timothy
General
The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth
Templeton, Timothy
Pierce, Franklin, 1804-1869 -- Humor; United States -- Politics and government -- 1853-1857
"'Like every one who visits Washington these times, yer a friend of
the Gineral's, and have fit with him in the Mexican war?' again he
inquired, seeming to anticipate my answer. Of the Mexicans I know
little--of the war less: it were well our country made peace its
friend, war its enemy. As to the General and his fighting in Mexico,
that was a matter that best affected himself; through it he became a
great potentate, but not so great a man; but, I accept the general
idea that he is now become troubled of a short memory. During this
time I had not forgotten number one--my supper! Having stowed it well
away under my lining, I felt very much like a man who had just turned
away his back on Secretary Marcy, having through personal friendship
received the country's best collectorship. Seeing the point of
good-nature to which my feelings had arrived through the strong
argument of meats, Mr. Patrick proffered his services to navigate me
out of the place where he ate his people--through entries, corridors,
passages, halls, and down stairways, along which we were ever
encountering persons who, like Mr. Pierce, were groping their way in
the dark. In the course of time, and after much feeling and fumbling,
I again encountered the light of the mahogany counter, behind which
stood the same individual I have before described--his person so
formidable, his face so full and fat, his hair so sleek and smooth.
"'Had a good supper, Squire Smooth?' says he, a broad smile spreading
over his broader face. On answering in the affirmative, he introduced
me to numerous unsatisfied politicians. One of this very numerous
gentry, and of whom I had, unfortunately, occasion to know more at a
subsequent period, (he was a man of grief from South Carolina), swore,
by his knowledge of southern rights and secession, that his State, so
neglected, would certainly go out of the Union. She had not a minister
abroad--only Consul General at Alexandria, which was said by the
knowing ones to be somewhere in Egypt; and where, to prove his strong
faith in southern principles, and his independent indifference to the
feelings of thin-skin northerners, he had purchased two very handsome
Nubian slaves of the feminine gender. This was merely to illustrate
the truly American spirit of our institutions: perchance it might
arouse from his stupor the Viceroy, who not fully cognizant of the
height of civilization to which America had arrived, was making
singular, and to me very praiseworthy efforts, to free his people from
the curse of enslaving men. To our patriotic Consul General we say--go
it!--a few more such examples will give the Egyptian an impression of
our liberty and christian love most strange: the brilliant light of
our western star will, I fear, have much in it to remind him of those
darker days when his forefathers built pyramids.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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