MEMOIRS OF MY NAMESAKE. 123 



room for rhetoric rich is fairy flowers, and for philosophy broad as 

 heaven's breast. And why, pray? Because he who traverses a new 

 land 



Can sing his song or say his say, 

 "With never a one to say him nay. 



Glorious privilege ! In my excursions through tracts of fact and 

 fiction I will avail myself of it to my heart's content if to that of 

 nothing else. 



Is not this hifaluting?" It is. Porsiflage? Why not? Is not the 

 baloon my own? Well, then, in my ascents and descents, the risk of 

 breaking my neck is also my own, and one inducement to the dear 

 reader to witness my eccentric course is that he may be repaid for 

 his trouble by seeing me do it ! 



Ah, but there is consolation in such morbid catering to popular 

 excitement, for the finale will create sympathy, and "Poor fellow, 

 I'm sorry for him," will, as a reward, be another flattering proof that 

 the end justifies the means." 



But, again, "what's the matter" with using big words ? The preju- 

 dice against their use is not well founded — that is, when the big 

 words do not halt or stammer, but flow trippingly off the tongue. 

 As well reject diamonds because pearls might do as well. 



Here ends my preface, because as my brilliant nyebor, Bill Nye, 

 in his happy perversions, might say, "A word to the sufficient is 

 wise," which might with him be a diamond of wit, but, with a lesser 

 light, it is certainly a, peaoious one. 



The pertinence of my proverb is shown by the length of the "word." 



And now to my story. 



My maternal great-grandfather was sheriff of the County of Lim- 

 erick, Ireland, and he claimed kinship with his namesakes, the Car- 

 rolls of Carrollton, while his son was the owner of a homestead, 

 pretty to this day, known to not a few on Staten Island, called "The 

 Greenhouse," in the town of Hospital. My paternal grandfather 

 claimed kinship with the de Burghs, a branch of the ducal house of 

 Ulster, of which the present head is the unpatriotic and unpopular 

 Marquis of Clanricarde. 



There had been a great falling off in his ancestral pretentions, for, 

 at the time to which I refer, he filled the plebeian, but by no means 



