Much sarcasm, variegated as Paris green jealousy and red precipitate wrath could dye it, has been expended on this delicate matter of the Mule's paternal ancestry. Among other spiteful things it has been averred that like certain party organizations he has no more ground for pride of descent than he has for hope of posterity. Let us promptly concede the validity of the averment. Argue not with one steeped in kerosene and other fire-waters; matters look ominous when a disputant opens the discussion with foam on his teeth and noises in his nostril. Fill blanks as to name of party by majority vote of those present, and let the proceedings proceed.
It is doubtless true that the speechless, unspeakable Mule, seldom troubles himself about his heirs, executors or administrators. Why should he? He is a monstrosity, physical and metaphysical; the ne plus ultra, the "nothing beyond" of his species. Besides, he has little of value to bequeath; he is a disinherited prodigal, with champagne tastes and a root beer revenue, digesting his diet of wild oats; his assets would scarcely overbalance those of a disbanded Uncle Tom troupe—one blood hound, one death-bed, and two cakes of imitation ice. Moreover, truth to tell, he is probably in no special haste to die. This amiable weakness is shared by certain of our own race.
A hypercritical Boston lady, mistress of the mysteries of nine idioms and five kinds of angel cake, was heard to declare that she would rather not die at all than be buried anywhere outside Mount Auburn.
The speechless, discredited Mule, born old, wise and fuzzy, has little to thank his paternal ancestors for, save phenomenal ears that not even a lion's skin can hide, as witness Æsop, and a phenomenal voice that no lion's roar can drown. Both these heritages were preordained for grand service in an epoch when war should gnash loud her iron fangs, and shake her crest of bristling bayonets. Vouchsafe unto the male line gratitude for little else. But as for the female line, who knows? Possibly it runs back to "Araby the blest," where horse pedigrees are cherished like a Connecticut coffee pot, until they fade into genealogical perspectives. Such perspectives, for example, as make the fine art of heraldic blazonry, frescoing and retouching precious to the British nobility—some of whom, by the way, have much less cause than the nameless, unblamable Mule, to canonize the low-neck and short-sleeve branch of their lineage.
Although we do not know precisely who invented the Mule, it must be obvious that he is not a historical tenderfoot. He is not a mere ephemeral product of the county fair season, when alleged acrobats with leaky balloons monopolize the casualty columns. Neither is he one of those picturesque gubernatorial giraffes of the populist era, who come unwanted and go unwept.
Notwithstanding the fact that he is necessarily renewed with each generation, he belongs to an old family—one, in fact, fairly rancid with antiquity. He was the unconsidered drudge of the hoariest ancients, in those days when the average human heart could be readily split up for floor tiles. He had been promoted thence to the rank of mail carrier as long ago as when Mordecai the Jew "sent letters by riders on Mules" from Babylon, after the king had turned the rascals out with a promptness that compelled the admiration of every taxpayer.
He was bestridden by sprigs of royalty as long ago as when Absolom the lengthy-locked rode under the boughs of a great oak, wherein his hair became entangled, "and the Mule that was under him went away,"—thus sayeth the Scriptures! Unspeakable Mule, fraught with immeasurable destinies! Had he stood until great David's shear-bearers could come up and cut loose the best-beloved, the whole current of Israel's history might have changed, saving vast research to the modern sensational divine working a heresy advertisement for all there is in it. Solomon, next-beloved, might never have reigned; his superfluous seven hundred wives and his indispensable three hundred concubines, with their lissome, lightsome round of free hand riots, internal and interminable, might never have been accumulated; neither seen the sparkle of his three thousand proverbs, nor heard the ripple of his songs a thousand and five.
It is thus manifest that although this interesting hybrid is virtually an afterthought, he is not one of those later-day improvements in a chronic state of apology. This is authentic. It is also reassuring to such typical, representative citizens weighing three hundred pounds each as still have misgivings. Had the speechless unspeakable Mule been simply an unperfected modern invention in the rough, his hair not yet dry, his effectiveness and hope of glory would have been greatly lessened. The surviving boasters "ablest to be heard" now on grassy village streets, with two million major-generals, colonels, first sergeants and other soldiers, might never have been able to suppress the most causeless and wicked rebellion ever waged by an army of barefooted chevaliers, fed on corn meal, sporadic acid and gunpowder, always in light marching order. N. B. They were always in hard fighting order likewise, since by an eternal law increment of bile is superinduced by shrinkage of commissariat.
Almost any mediocre can compile a mass of information from the cyclopedia. Even the vague enthusiast who goes through the world wearing an air of crushed strawberry resignation on his face and shaking hands with one finger can do that. But it is not the desideratum in a matter of this sort.
People prefer to see things step out with stereoscopic rotundity. Like the juvenile Lochinvar, they stay not for stone and stop not for air brakes. They demand the decentralization of apothegms. They desire sculpture from a chisel that, ignoring down and dimple, cuts thought and carves breath from the marble, without risk of challenge for implied bias. In the absence of stone-cutters, let a cyclopedia furnish from its cold-storage vaults some preliminary fundamentals. If they be plain, ascertainable, intelligible statements of fact, clothed in tights as it were, devoid of frills and amplifications, so much the better—and briefer! I quote: