derstood the matter
literally, as it was propounded in the Allegory, and set forth in the
resolution; and, as such, he intended to look at it with unprejudiced
eyes. "The natur' of this proposal lay altogether in color. What
is color, after all? Make the most of it, and in the most favorable
position, which, perhaps, is the cheek of a comely young woman, and
it is but skin-deep. He remembered the time when a certain female in
another part of the univarse, who is commonly called Miss Poke, might
have out-rosed the best rose in a placed called Stunnin'tun; and what
did it all amount to? He shouldn't ask Miss Poke herself, for obvious
reasons--but he would ask any of the neighbors how she looked now?
Quitting female natur', he would come to human natur' generally. He had
often remarked that sea water was blue, and he had frequently caused
pails to be lowered, and the water brought on deck, to see if he could
come at any of this blueing matter--for indigo was both scarce and dear
in his part of the world, but he never could make out anything by the
experiment; from which he concluded that, on the whull, there was pretty
much no such thing as color, at all.

"As for the resolution before the house, it depended entirely on the
meaning of words. Now, after all, what is a word? Why, some people's
words are good, and other people's words are good for nothing. For
his part, he liked sealed instruments--which might be because he was a
sealer--but as for mere words, he set but little store by them. He once
tuck a man's word for his wages; and the long and short of it was, that
he lost his money. He had known a thousand instances in which words had
proved to be of no value, and he did not see why some gentlemen wished
to make them of so much importance here. For his part, he was for
puffing up nothing, no, not even a word or a color, above its desarts.
The people seemed to call for a change in the color of things, and he
called upon gentlemen to remember that this was a free country, and one
in which the laws ruled; and therefore he trusted they would be disposed
to adapt the laws to the wants of the people. What had the people asked
of the house in this matter? So far as his knowledge went, they had
really asked nothing in words, but he understood there was great
discontent on the subject of the old colors; and he construed their
silence into an expression of contempt for words in general. He was a
Parpendic'lar, and he should alwa