Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/330

Rh Yet, as it is the best political party we have, I would not be over-nice in criticising it. I like not to pick holes in the thin spots of the only political coat we have in this stormy weather, I know the difficulties of the party, and have pity for its offenders—none for its mere hunters after place. I have spoken of the services of these classes of political men. There is one trouble which disturbs all four. They are liable to a certain disease of a peculiar nature. I have a good copy of Galen, but he does not mention it; the last edition of Hippocrates, but neither he nor his commentator, though both well-lettered men, makes any reference thereto. Hence I suppose it is a new disease, which, though not exactly a doctor of medicine, perhaps I am the first to describe. So I will call it the presidential fever; or, in Latin, Typhus infandus Americanus, I will try to describe the specific variety which is endemic in the Northern States, the only place where I have studied the disease. I may omit some symptoms of the case, which other observers will supply. At first the patient is filled with a vague longing after things too high for him. He gazes at them with a fixed stare; the pupils expand. But he cannot see distinctly; crooked ways seem straight; the shortest curve he thinks is a right angle; dirty things look clean, and he lays hold of them without perceiving their condition. Some things he sees double—especially the number of his friends; others with a semi- vision, and it is always the lower half he sees. All the time he hears a confused noise, like that of men declaring votes. State after State. This noise obscures all other sounds, so that he cannot hear the still small voice which yet moves the world of men. He can bear no "agitation;" the word "Slavery" disturbs him much; he fears discussion thereof as a hydrophobiac dreads water. Yet he is fond of the " rich brogue" of the foreign population. His sense of smell is so morbid that an honest man is unbearably offensive. His tongue is foul, but he has an irresistible propensity to lick the hands of those he thinks will give him what he seeks. His organ of locality is crazed and erratic in its action ; the thermometer may