Impost

“ Such credit all impostors and pretenders to revelation claim for themselves, and such an object they declare to be the end of their mission, although at the same time, and in the same breath, they don't forget to doom all those who reject their authority to perdition. ”

“ The newspapers announced to the world that an impostor had arisen that an impostor had been palmed upon them, a false religion had been proclaimed, and that an ignorant, stupid, lazy, good-for-nothing set of fellows were pretending to preach a new religion. ”

“ We feel assured that the very contemplation of their possibility, would make the nation rise in a mass, and eject the imbecile impostors who have already been so patiently tried, and so miserably found wanting. ”

“ A petition was first framed; moderate, reasonable, such as men of character willingly subscribed. The names were afterwards torn off and affixed to another petition which served better the purposes of the popular faction. We may judge of the wild fury which prevailed throughout the nation, when so scandalous an imposture, which affected such numbers of people, could be openly practised without drawing infamy and ruin upon the managers. ”

“ If there is sense enough left in the heart to call a blush into the cheek, the Washington administration must be ashamed to appear.—And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; ”

“ If any person would have authority, let them obtain a new commission from God, as his servants always did in ancient times, and if they officiate without such new commission, then know assuredly that they are impostors. ”

“ They laugh at you, if they make you believe your interposition has kept me thus long in my office. If you have spoken in my behalf at any time, I am glad I have always treated you with respect; though I believe you an accomplice of the Examiner. In the letter you are angry at, you see I have no reason for being so merciful to him, but out of regard to the imputation you lie under. You do not in direct terms say you are not concerned with him; but make it an argument of your innocence, that the Examiner has declared you have nothing to do with him. ”

“ On the morrow the messenger made his way to the constable's castle, and delivered to him the letter: who, when he had read its contents, grievously lamented the bitter wickedness of the sentence, crying, 'Alas! alas! how can this world continue, so steeped in sin and cruelty is every creature!—Gracious God! if it be thy will, how can it meet the righteousness of thy judgment thus to suffer innocence to be betrayed, and wicked men to reign on in prosperity?—O! blameless Constance! ”

“ But shall an author be so shabby as to abridge his sentiments, for the sake of postage, merely because a post-office clerk weighs them more according to his own than the postal rates? And am I not encouraged to the opposite course—that of protracting my emotions—by the electoral, princely, and city-benches in Ratisbon, inasmuch as the said benches by an imperial recess allow me a deduction of two thirds of my postage for printed matter, in order, as they hope, to give encouragement to literature and to sentiment? ”

“ In her mind's eye she saw, with such clearness that her actual eye could scarcely add aught to the confirmation, the thin foreign envelope, the green stamps, the familiar superscription. She went cold and she went hot. Her ears burned, and there were strange noises opening inside them like whistles and hummings, as though in protest to the insupportable outer silence, the imperturbable calm of the Post Office. But the postman was watching her, and the postmaster from his high deal stool. ”

“ You will recollect that in my late correspondence with the Postmaster-General I took the liberty to remind his Lordship of the promise under which I was induced to accept my present post, of the serious obstacles to improvements as well as of the great danger of insubordination in the office arising from my present anomalous position, and of the acknowledged fulfilment of the only condition on which my promotion was to depend. ”

“ We congratulate you that, notwithstanding the ‘labour and sorrow’ inevitable to the weight of eighty-three years, you have been spared to witness the complete triumph of your postal principles, to receive acknowledgments from the State, and honours from your Sovereign. Detractors and obstructors you have outlived, or they only survive to swell the ranks of those who applaud. ”

“ If you at an Office solicit your Due, And would not have Matters neglected; You must quicken the Clerk with the Perquisite too, To do what his Duty directed.
Or would you the Frowns of a Lady prevent, She too has this palpable Failing, The Perquisite softens her into Consent; That Reason with all is prevailing.
LUCY. What Love or Money can do shall be done: for all my Comfort depends upon your Safety.
[Enter Polly.] ”

“ Receive thou the cause of thine unworthy servant, and send them a writ or a notice immediately—sending into their conscience, and summoning them to consider what they are doing. O, frighten them with a summons from thy court, until they come and bow in contrition at thy feet; and take from their hands every revengeful weapon, and make them deliver up every gun of scandal, and every sword of bitter words, and every spear of slanderous expressions, and surrender them all at thy cross. ”

“ What is urged by those who have been so industrious to spread suspicion, and incite fury from one end of the kingdom to the other, may be known by perusing the papers which have been at once presented as petitions to the King, and exhibited in print as remonstrances to the people. ”

“ The opposition I have appeared in to your Highness's interest has been such, as I have scarce the confidence to be a petitioner to you, though in order to the saving of my life. Sir, God knows what I did did not proceed from any personal ill-will, or animosity to your royal Highness, but merely because I was of opinion, that it was the best way for observing the religion established by law, in which, if I was mistaken, yet I acted sincerely, without any ill end in it. ”

“ This will be reported to thee and do thou send for him and bespeak him gently and say to him, “O thou that strivest for thine own destruction, what moveth thee to blame us among our subjects? Verily, thou deservest present death at our hands; but the ancients say, ‘Clemency is of the attributes of the noble.’ Know that our delay in answering thy master’s letter arose not from neglect on our part, but from our much business and lack of leisure to look into thine affair and write a reply to thy king.” ”

“ In damp weather the place is rendered close by the steams of moist acts of parliament and frowzy petitions; general postmen grow faint as they enter its infected limits, and shabby figures in quest of franks, flit restlessly to and fro like the troubled ghosts of Complete Letter-writers departed. ”

“ The register duly signed, and all formalities over and done, we go out into the sunshine; and once more the aged woman, richer now by half a crown, is reduced to mute astonishment, so that speech is beyond her, when the Imp, lifting his feathered cap, politely wishes her "good morning." ”

“ If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, if upon some misinformation given him, or some mismanagement of thine, he is displeased at thee, and threaten thee, yet leave not thy place, forget not the duty of a subject, revolt not from thy allegiance, do not, in a passion, quit thy post in his service and throw up thy commission, as despairing ever to regain his favour. ”

“ Here then to Thee Thine own I leave.
Mould as Thou wilt the passive Clay;
But let me all Thy Stamp receive,
But let me all Thy Words obey,
Serve with a single Heart and Eye,
And to thy Glory live, and die. ”

“ It created no excitement, and suspicion was far from everybody's mind. The passports appeared in order; but even if they were not, who cared, on this day of all days, when tyranny was crushed and men dared to be men again? ”

“ We three have talked of it incessantly,—Carol, the Imp, and I. Somehow the wonder of it never grows any less. That such a thing could happen here, here on little Paradise Green! And yet the Imp says it is no new thing in history for an exiled king to hide himself away in a strange country amid the humblest surroundings. ”

“ What a martyrdom those four or five postal deliveries per diem of a great town may and do inflict upon some of those who are eagerly waiting for something to come, and it never appears. The postman goes past, or calls, with terrible regularity. ”

“ But don't trouble yourself. You have not the money, and I have not the letter. The letter is in my lodgings. I was not fool enough to bring it with me, and have you call a policeman to arrest me, and take it for nothing. ”

“ We catch the sound of what is to be paid—eightpence, ninepence, a shilling—and our hopes generally rise with the postage. How we are provoked at the delay in getting change—at the servant who does not hear the door! Then if the postman passes, and we do not hear the expected knock, what a pang is there! ”

“ To-day the Post Office is no respecter of persons, and the "all swallowing orifice of the pillar-box" receives without favour or distinction the correspondence of the humble with the messages of the mighty. ”

“ Their very Petitions have the force of Invectives; and the Smoother, the Softer, you find the Surface of them, the Falser, and the more Dangerous they are at the Bottom: For betwixt the Persecution that is Insinuated, on the part of the Government, & the Innocence, the Piety, and the Modesty, on that of the Sufferers, Nothing can more Provoke, a Horror, and Indignation for the One, or a Tenderness, & Compassion, for the Other. ”

“ By thy decree was spilt,
Whose head, upon the charger brought,
Appeased revengeful guilt,
His name, amid a deathless page,
Gleams forth with living ray,
While all thy royalty and pride
Are swept like foam away. ”

“ I found it difficult to believe that a man capable of trying to steal a postal order would have such a respect for our convenience as to repost the letter afterward, particularly as he would be in a bad temper after opening it, for there was no postal order inside. ”

“ Fortunately a more intelligent understanding and a better feeling now exist, and has existed for some years past. But even to gain this simple recognition that a postal official with a grievance battling against wrong was a man and a brother entitled to admittance into their ranks, was not easily obtained even when they sought it. ”

“ Are the declarations against other persons true?—No.
Why did you make them?—Because I perceived in the auto-da-fé at which I assisted, that the contents were read in the publication of the depositions, and I thought that if I declared it to be true, I should avoid death as being a good penitent. ”

“ Such was the feeling under the surface, while the great postal reformer himself never dreamed that those so low down would dare to question either his wisdom or his benevolence in finding employment for such a class of men as they. ”

“ Your petitioner is informed by his learned council, that there is no law now in being, which can justify the said lord, under colour of his peerage, to assault any of his majesty's subjects on the king's highway, and put them in fear of their lives, without provocation, which he humbly conceives, that by only happening to ride before the said lord, he could not possibly give. ”

“ I am happy to find matters are managed so impartially in the post-office here. Nothing like a public cant for making matters find their true level. Tell the postmaster, then, I’ll keep the letter, and the rather, as it happens, by good luck, to be intended for me. ”

“ There appeared to be some difficulty in procuring him his mail, and each minute he was kept waiting seemed to increase his impatience almost beyond [5] the bounds of endurance. I saw him lean forward and gasp out a hurried word to the postmaster, and was idly wondering over his anxiety and its probable causes, when I heard a hasty exclamation near me, and looking around, saw the postmaster himself beckoning to me from the door of the enclosure. ”

“ Yes; he would send his letter. It was his duty, and he would do it. Men looked askance at him, and pointed at him as a thief. He would send the letter, in spite of Dr. Tempest. Let justice be done, though the heaven may fall. ”

“ They had been willing to open their mouth and shut their eyes, inspired by the new hope of getting something, just as they had prepared themselves never more to expect anything else than to live and die in the service, discontented and ill-treated to the last. ”

“ The above is the truth, according to the oath of the deponent, who declares that he has not spoken out of malice, but solely in obedience to his conscience, and having been read to him, is declared to be correctly recorded. ”

“ Men on the streets and in farm houses believed that they were victims of imposition on the part of the deputy postmaster general, and that he was charging them more for the conveyance of their letters than the imperial statutes warranted, high as the legitimate charges were. ”

“ I wish 't I knew who t' other was from—this is the first time she's had two."
"How'd you know anything about it?"
"Why one on 'em is in the same hand that was on the order she wrote, but t' other looks like a man's hand."
"Aureely," said the postmaster, "you keep still about valentines and everything else you see in the mail, or I'll lose the post-office, and you'll go to jail! The [239] United States government don't stand no foolin'!" ”

“ Whether those postofficers really thought me, what I never thought myself, a man of importance, or whether they imagined my letters were a cover for some greater name, I do not know; but for my part, I grew peevish, to find my friendships, and all my little chitchat, must constantly be exposed to the view of every dirty fellow, that had leisure or curiosity enough to examine my letters. ”