It was, indeed, no more ambitious a
task for De Lesseps, with all his men and horses, to attack the hills
of Panama, than for a single, slim young gentleman, with no previous
experience of labour in a quarry, to measure himself against that
bloated monster on his pedestal. And yet the pair were well encountered:
on the one side, bulk--on the other, genuine heroic fire.
'Down you shall come, you great big, ugly brute!' cried Morris aloud,
with something of that passion which swept the Parisian mob against the
walls of the Bastille. 'Down you shall come, this night. I'll have none
of you in my lobby.'
The face, from its indecent expression, had particularly animated the
zeal of our iconoclast; and it was against the face that he began his
operations. The great height of the demigod--for he stood a fathom
and half in his stocking-feet--offered a preliminary obstacle to this
attack. But here, in the first skirmish of the battle, intellect already
began to triumph over matter. By means of a pair of library steps,
the injured householder gained a posture of advantage; and, with great
swipes of the coal-axe, proceeded to decapitate the brute.
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