[Lands of the Slave and the Free by Henry A. Murray]@TWC D-Link book
Lands of the Slave and the Free

CHAPTER IV
11/18

At last, I ascertained that he had earned his title by going about the country lecturing upon, and exhibiting in his person, the valuable qualities of his detergent treasures, through which peripatetic advertisement he had succeeded in realizing dollars and honours.

The oratory of some of these Professors is, I am told, of an order before which the eloquence of a Demosthenes would shrink abashed, if success is admitted as the test; for, only put them at the corner of a street in any town, and I have no fears of binding myself to eat every cake they do not sell before they quit their oratorical platform.

The soapy orator quitted the train at Auburn, and soon after, the vandalism of "Rome" and "Syracuse" was atoned for by the more appropriate and euphonical old Indian names of "Cayuga" and "Canandaigua." On reaching the station of the latter, an old and kind friend to my brother, when he first visited America, was waiting to welcome us to his house, which was about a quarter of a mile distant, and a most comfortable establishment it proved, in every way.

Our worthy host was a Scotchman by birth, and though he had passed nearly half a century in the United States, he was as thoroughly Scotch in all his ways as if he had just arrived from his native land; and while enjoying his hospitalities, you might have fancied yourself in a Highland laird's old family mansion.

In all his kind attentions, he was most ably assisted by his amiable lady.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books