Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/216

 and send our party into power, and the world shall be a new place, and there shall be no sin or sorrow any more! And each free and independent voter shall have a bran-new Utopia made on purpose for him, according to his own ideas, with a good sized, extra-unpleasant Purgatory attached, to which he can send everybody he does not like. Oh, do not miss this chance!"

Oh! listen to my philosophy, it is the best and deepest. Oh! hear my songs, they are the sweetest. Oh! buy my pictures, they alone are true art. Oh! read my books, they are the finest.

Oh! I am the greatest cheesemonger, I am the greatest soldier, I am the greatest statesman, I am the greatest poet, I am the greatest showman, I am the greatest mountebank, I am the greatest editor, and I am the greatest patriot. We are the greatest nation. We are the only good people. Ours is the only true religion. Bah! how we all yell!

How we all brag and bounce, and beat the drum and shout! And nobody believes a word we utter; and the people ask one another, saying:

"How can we tell who is the greatest and the cleverest among all these shrieking braggarts?"

And they answer:

"There is none great or clever. The great and clever men are not here; there is no place for them in this pandemonium of charlatans and quacks. The men you see here are but crowing cocks. We suppose the greatest and the best of them, are they who crow the loudest and the longest; that is the only test of their merits."

Therefore, what is left for us to do, but to crow? And the best and greatest of us all, is he who crows the loudest