James Fenimore Cooper

“ People’s Friend is the only appellation of which I am at all tenacious. Call me People’s Friend, sir, and you may call me anything else you find most convenient.”
“Sir, you are only too obliging. May I venture to ask if you have really, propria persona, filled all these different stations in life?”
“Certainly, sir—I hope you do not mistake me for an impostor!”
“As far from it as possible.—But a judge and a commodore, for instance, are characters whose duties are so utterly at variance in human affairs, that I will allow I find the conjunction, even in a monikin, a little extraordinary.” ”

“ None in the world, sir. We act on principles much too liberal for so narrow an objection. You are but little acquainted with the institutions and policy of our beloved and most happy country, I see, sir. This is not Leaphigh, nor Leapup, nor Leapdown, nor Leapover, nor Leapthrough, nor Leapunder; but good old, hearty, liberal, free and independent, most beloved, happy, and prosperous beyond example, Leaplow. Species is of no account under our system. We would as soon naturalize one animal as another, provided it be a republican animal. ”

“ I have carried out the principle of the social-stake system in the extreme, and cannot say that I have been at all satisfied with its success. At this moment I am the proprietor of vested interests which are scattered over half the world. So far from finding that I love my kind any more for all these social stakes, I am compelled to see that the wish to protect one, is constantly driving me into acts of injustice against all the others. There is something wrong, depend on it, Anna, in the old dogmas of political economists! ”

“ This loyal and judicious borough had never been known to waste its favors on those who had not a stake in the community. It understood that fundamental principle of good government which lays down the axiom that none were to be trusted but those who had a visible and an extended interest in the country; for without these pledges of honesty and independence what had the elector to expect but bribery and corruption—a traffic in his dearest rights, and a bargaining that might destroy the glorious institutions under which he dwelt. ”

“ It is possible Noah would have retorted, had not Mrs. Vigilance Lynx, at that moment, come wriggling by, in a way to show she was much satisfied with her safe return home. To own the truth, while striving to find apologies for it, I had been a little contraire, as the French term it, by the indifference of my Lord Chatterino, which, in my secret heart, I was not slow in attributing to the manner in which a peer of the realm of Leaphigh regarded, de haut en bas, a mere baronet of Great Britain—or Great Breeches, as the young noble so pertinaciously insisted on terming our illustrious island. ”

“ Those, again, who draw THEIR tickets—they may betray their trusts?”
“Impossible—THEY are always the most patriotic patriots of the land! No, no, sir—we are not such dunces as to leave anything to corruption. Chance does it all. Chance makes me a commodore to-day—a judge to-morrow. Chance makes the lottery boys, and chance makes the patriots. It is necessary to see in order to understand how much purer and useful is your chance patriot, for instance, than one that is bred to the calling.”
“Why, this savors, after all, of the doctrine of descents, which is little more than matter of chance.” ”

“ The day she refused young Sir Harry Griffin I could have kneeled at her feet and called her blessed!
It is said that no moral disease is ever benefited by its study. I was a living proof of the truth of the opinion that brooding over one’s wrongs or infirmities seldom does much more than aggravate the evil. I greatly fear it is in the nature of man to depreciate the advantages he actually enjoys and to exaggerate those which are denied him. ”

“ Wriggle, that you will pardon me if I have spoken hastily.”
“Oh! no offence—I despise the monikin who is not above local vanities and provincial admiration! You ought to have seen that, sir, for I frankly admit, sir, that no rabble can be worse than ours, and that we are all going to the devil, as fast as ever we can. No, sir, a most miserable rabble, sir.—But as for this street, and our houses, and our cats, and our dogs, and certain exceptions—you understand me, sir—it is quite a different thing. Pray, Mogul, who is the greatest personage, now, in your nation?” ”

“ Sir John—God bless you!” Noah blew his nose till it rung like a French horn. I thought his little coals of eyes were glittering, too, more than common, most probably with moisture. “You’re a droll navigator, and make no more of the ice than a colt makes of a rail. But though the man at the wheel is not always awake the heart seldom sleeps.” ”

“ Money is a necessary auxiliary to rank, and without rank there can be no order, and without order no liberty; but when the love of money gets to occupy the place of respect for descent and past actions, a community loses the very sentiment on which all its noble exploits are bottomed.’ So you see, dear Anna, that our parents hold very different opinions on a very grave question, and between natural affection and acquired veneration I scarcely know which to receive. ”

“ It was a clever gyration, beyond a doubt; and the performer looked towards me, as if inviting commendation.
“Admirably executed, judge, and in a way to induce one to believe that you must have paid great attention to the practice.”
“I have performed this manoeuvre, Sir John, five times in real life; and my claim to be a patriotic patriot is founded on its invariable success. A single false step might have ruined me; but as you say, practice makes perfect, and perfection is the parent of success.” ”

“ We are a people of lively sensibilities, and are tender of the reputations of even our stocks and stones. Even the Leaplow philosophers are all of a mind on this subject.”
“King!”
“Can you account for this very extraordinary peculiarity, brigadier?”
“Surely you cannot be ignorant that all which is property is sacred! We have a great respect for property, sir, and do not like to hear our wares underrated. But lay it on the mass so much the harder, and you will only be thought to be in possession of a superior and a refined intelligence.” ”

“ Under a due impression of the exigency of such a state of things, the common law—not statute law, my lords, which is apt to be tainted with the imperfections of monikin reason in its isolated or individual state, usually bearing the impress of the single cauda from which it emanated—but the common law, the known receptacle of all the common sense of the nation—in such a state of things, then, has the common law long since decreed that his majesty’s first-cousin should be the keeper of his majesty’s conscience ”

“ The primate of all Leaphigh, I had occasion to remark, still has seven joints to his tail.”
“Ah! they are a wonderful people, sir!” said Wriggle, looking ruefully at his own bob, which, as I afterwards understood, was a mere natural abortion. “I detest change, sir; were I a Leaphigher, I would die in my tail!”
“One for whom nature has done so much in this way, is to be excused a little enthusiasm.”
“A most miraculous people, sir—the wonder of the world—and their institutions are the greatest prodigy of the times!” ”

“ Pardon me, sir—convince me of your identity—we must be particular in matters of this sort—and you shall have possession of the property in season to secure your own election or that of any of your friends. I will return Lord Pledge his small advances, and another time he will know better than to fail of keeping his promises. What is a borough good for if a nobleman’s word is not sacred? You will find the electors, in particular, every way worthy of your favor. They are as frank, loyal, and straightforward a constituency as any in England. ”

“ That it is not an infallible sign of great mental refinement to bespatter our fellow-creatures, while every nerve is writhing in honor of our pigs, our cats, our stocks, and our stones.
That select political wisdom, like select schools, propagates much questionable knowledge.
That the whole people is not infallible, neither is a part of the people infallible.
That love for the species is a godlike and pure sentiment; but the philanthropy which is dependent on buying land by the square mile, and selling it by the square foot, is stench in the nostrils of the just. ”

“ I am sure you are very right in throwing yourself altogether on the mercy of the court, which is quite disposed to show you all that is in its power, which happens, in this case, to be none at all. I need not dwell on the gravity of your offence. If the law should allow that the queen has no memory, other females might put in claims to the same privilege, and society would become a chaos. Marriage vows, duties, affections, and all our nearest and dearest interests would be unhinged, and this pleasant state of being would degenerate into a moral, or rather an immoral pandemonium. ”

“ I confess I was indignant at this picture, and did not hesitate to stigmatize the practice as barbarous.
“Your indignation is very natural, Sir John, and is just what a stranger would be likely to feel, when he found mercy, and charity, and brotherly love, and virtue, and, above all, humility, made the stalking-horses of pride, selfishness, and avarice. But this is the way with us monikins; no doubt, men manage better.” ”

“ If you deem development, improvement and simplification a descent, beyond a question, sir. But your figure is a bad one, Sir John; for ocular demonstration is before you, that a monikin can carry his tail as high as a man can possibly carry his head. Our species, in this sense, is morally nicked; and it costs us no effort to be on a level with human kings. We hold, with you, that the brain is the seat of reason, while the animal is in what we call the human probation, but that it is a reason undeveloped, imperfect, and confused ”

“ The liberal and enlightened monikin is easily to be distinguished from all of this clique. He is neither ashamed of, nor bigoted in favor of any usages, simply because they are domestic. With him the criterions of merit are propriety, taste, expediency, and fitness. He distinguishes, while these crave; he neither wholly rejects, nor wholly lives by, imitation, but judges for himself, and uses his experience as a respectable and useful guide; while these think that all they can attain that is beyond the reach of their neighbors, is, as a matter of course, the sole aim of life. ”

“ Nature delights in these little equivocations; thus, we have false suns, false rainbows, false prophets, false vision, and even false philosophy. There are entire races of both our species, too, as the Congo and the Esquimaux, for yours, and baboons and the common monkeys, that inhabit various parts of the world possessed by the human species, for ours, which are mere shadows of the forms and qualities that properly distinguish the animal in its state of protection. ”

“ You have intuitively discovered the reason—is it not fashionable to abuse the government everywhere? Whatever you do, in genteel life, ought to be based on liberal and elevated principles; and therefore, abuse all that is animate in Leaplow, the present company, with their relatives and quadrupeds, excepted; but do not raise your blaspheming tongue against anything that is inanimate! Respect, I entreat of you, the houses, the trees, the rivers, the mountains, and, above all, in Bivouac, respect the Wide-path! ”

“ As the real gentleman is more simple in manners than the distant imitator of his deportment; as fashions and habits are always more exaggerated in provincial towns than in polished capitals; or as the profound philosopher has less pretensions than the tyro, so does our common genus, as it draws nearer to the consummation of its destiny and its highest attainments, learn to reject the most valued usages of the middle condition, and to return with ardor towards nature as to a first love. It is on this principle, sir, that the monikin family never wear clothes. ”

“ If the merit of our system depended on self-government, in your signification, or on self-restraint, in any signification, it would not be worth the trouble of this argument, Sir John Goldencalf. This is one of those balmy fallacies with which ill-judging moralists endeavor to stimulate monikins to good deeds. Our government is based on a directly opposite principle; that of watching and restraining each other, instead of trusting to our ability to restrain ourselves. It is the want of responsibility, and not of constant and active presence, which infers virtue and self-control. ”