ed the American eagle and soared among the
stars. I scraped the skies and cut the black illimitable far out beyond
the orbit of Uranus, and I reached the climax of my triumphant flight
with a hyperbole that eclipsed Goldsmith's metaphor, unthroned the foe,
and left him stunned upon the field. Thus I soared:

"I stood upon the sea shore, and with a frail reed in my hand, I wrote
in the sand, 'My Country, I love thee;' a mad wave came rushing by and
wiped out the fair impression. Cruel wave, treacherous sand, frail reed;
I said, 'I hate ye I'll trust ye no more, but with a giant's arm, I'll
reach to the coast of Norway, and pluck its tallest pine, and dip it
in the crater of Vesuvius, and write upon the burnished heavens; 'My
Country, _I love thee_! And I'd like to see _any_ durned wave rub that
out!!'"

Between the long intervals of argument my speech grinned with anecdotes
like a basketfull of 'possum heads. The fiddle played its part, the
people did the rest, and I carved upon the tombstone of the demolished
Knight these tender words:

"Tread softly 'round this sacred heap,
It guards ambition's restless sleep;
Whose greed for place ne'er did forsake him,
Don't mention office, or you'll wake him!"

I reached the goal of my visions and dreams under that collossal dome
whose splendors are shadowed in the broad river that flows by the shrine
of Mt. Vernon. I sat amid the confusion and uproar of the parliamentary
struggles of the lower branch of the Congress of the United States.
"Sunset" Cox, with his beams of wit and humor, convulsed the house and
shook the gallaries. Alexander Stephens, one of the last tottering
monuments of the glory of the Old South, still lingering on the floor,
where, in by-gone years the battles of his vigorous manhood were fought.
I saw in the Senate an assemblage of the grandest men since the days
of Webster and Clay. Conkling, the intellectual Titan, the Apollo of
manly form and grace, thundered there. The "Plumed Knight," that grand
incarnation of mind and magnetism, was at the zenith of his glory.
Edmunds, and Zack Chandler, and the brilliant and learned Jurist, Mat.
Carpenter, were there. Thurman the "noblest Roman of them all" was there
with his famous bandana handkerchief. The immortal Ben Hill, the idol
of the South, and Lamar, the gifted orator and highest type of Southern
chivalry were there. Garland, and Morgan, and Harris, and Coke, were
there; and Beck with his sledge