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Birds of buried ages, whose long, bittern-like cries flopped wofully through the silence, made ever and anon a call to each other, like the Nemesis of century calling to century. One of these birds, having authority and standing on one leg, observed to Mr. Waples, in a very philosophical manner: "Stranger, are you of the Fungi family?"
Does he represent Art, or does he represent the Public? If he represent Art, then he is but a refracting medium between the purveyor and the public, which will therefore be wofully mistaken if it seek in his critiques a guide to its play-going, as it to some extent does.
"In eighteen hundred an' sixty-five I thought I was quite lucky to find myself alive. I saddled up old Bald Face my business to pursue, An' I went to drivin' steers as I used for to do." The fiddle was wofully out of tune, and it rasped and screeched and limped like a spavined colt, but the voice of Peppers went ahead with the bellow.
And not only did he do these things well, but he thought he did them to perfection; hence he was often tricked about horses, which he pretended to know better than any jockey; was made to play at ball and billiards by sharpers who took his money, and came back from London wofully poorer each time than he went, as the state of his affairs testified when the sudden accident came by which his career was brought to an end.
I once begged you to send me a book in three volumes, called "Essais sur les Moeurs;" forgive me if I put you in mind of it, and request you to send me that, or any other new book. I am wofully in want of reading, and sick to death of all our political stuff, which, as the Parliament is happily at the distance of three months, I would fain forget till I cannot help hearing of it.
But, like that mirror of chivalry, the sage and valorous Don Quixote, I leave these petty contests for some future Sancho Panza of an historian, while I reserve my prowess and my pen for achievements of higher dignity; for at this moment I hear a direful and portentous note issuing from the bosom of the great council of the league, and resounding throughout the regions of the east, menacing the fame and fortunes of Peter Stuyvesant; I call, therefore, upon the reader to leave behind him all the paltry brawls of the Connecticut borders, and to press forward with me to the relief of our favorite hero, who, I foresee, will be wofully beset by the implacable Yankees in the next chapter.
Unless the replier has the vigour of Swift, or at least of Bentley, the adroitness in fence of Pascal, or at least of Voltaire, "replies, duplies, quadruplies" are apt to be wofully tedious reading, and Mr Arnold was rather a veles than a triarius of controversy.
Her smile, though wofully sad, is sweet and sympathetic. She humbly and graciously thanks all the prominent citizens, who receive her assurances as so much accustomed tribute. The trowel rings. The soprano sings. The orator is at his best. Band after band takes up its air. The march begins again. Chicago is gratified.
It is clear there must be lady characters, or I am quite sure the Greek Chorus would find fault wofully, and the only one we have had, Sarah, to wit, can't decently appear again, except in the spiritual form. Well, there is the original Portia, alas for that clever, virtuous, and noble lady! how is she fallen in the French! she is noble-looking and clever, but the third quality, oh, dear me!
What do these men and movements mean? I am wofully wrong in my ethnographical calculations if these things do not mean, that the people of whom Tacitus wrote, "No man dictates to the assembly; he may persuade but cannot command," were shaping and moulding the life of Europe, with their passionate love of individual liberty, with their sturdy insistence upon the right of men to think and work without arbitrary interference.
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