n. His conversation, too, soon betrayed a leaning to his
personal interests, instead of being of that pure and elevated cast
which should characterize the language of a statesman. He laid down the
position, pretty dogmatically, that legislation, after all, was work;
that "the laborer was worthy of his hire"; and that, for his part, he
felt no great disposition to go through the vexation and trouble of
helping to make laws, unless he could see, with a reasonable certainty,
that something was to be got by it. He thought Leaplow had quite laws
enough as it was--more than she respected or enforced--and if she wanted
any more, all she had to do was to pay for them. He should take an early
occasion to propose that all our wages--or, at any rate, his own; others
might do as they pleased--should be raised, at the very least, two
dollars a day, and this while he merely sat in the house; for he wished
to engage me to move, by way of amendment, that as much more should
be given to the committees. He did not think it was fair to exact of
a member to be a committee-man for nothin', although most of them were
committee-men for nothin'; and if we were called on to keep two watches,
in this manner, the least that could be done would be to give us TWO
PAYS. He said, considering it in the most favorable point of view, that
there was great wear and tear of brain in legislation, and he should
never be the man he was before he engaged in the trade; he assured me
that his idees, sometimes, were so complicated that he did not know
where to find the one he wanted, and that he had wished for a cauda, a
thousand times, since he had been in the house, for, by keeping the
end of it in his hand, like the bight of a rope, he might always have
suthin' tangible to cling to. He told me, as a great secret, that he was
fairly tired of rummaging among his thoughts for the knowledge necessary
to understand what was going on, and that he had finally concluded
to put himself, for the rest of the session, under the convoy of a
God-like. He had been looking out for a fit fugleman of this sort, and
he had pretty much determined to follow the signal of the great God-like
of the Parpendic'lars, like the rest of them, for it would occasion less
confusion in the ranks, and enable him to save himself a vast deal of
trouble in making up his mind. He didn't know, on the whole, but eight
dollars a day might give a living profit, provided he could throw all
the thinking o