The
birds are all hushed, as if afraid to disturb it; and the deer pause,
and listen, and gaze on the skies, as if the music came from heaven.
Money only can move some men, and a white heat alone dissolve stones.
But he who has ever heard the bugle, and is not inspired by it, has no
divinity within him. The body is there, but the soul is wanting.
1 This inflated passage, and some other similar ones, are extremely
characteristic of Americans in the same station of life as Slick. From
the use of superlative expressions in their conversation, they
naturally adopt an exaggerative style in writing, and the minor poets
and provincial orators of the Republic are distinguished for this
hyperbolical tone. In Great Britain they would be admired by the
Irish; on the Continent, by the Gascons. If Mr Slick were not affected
by this weakness himself, he would be among the first to detect and
ridicule it in others.
"Go on, Jackson, I will forgive your twaddle about sargeant M'Clure,
the stroke of the sun, the trooper's helmet, and the night among the
wolves. I will listen to your old soldier's stories all night, only go
on and play for me. Give me that simple air again. Let me drink it in
with my ears, till my heart is full. No grace notes, no tricks of the
band-master's, no flourishes; let it be simple and natural. Let it
suit us, and the place we are in, for it is the voice of our common
parent, nature.
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