The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1911-12-28
MY EXPERIENCE IN
THE LEGISLATURE
BY c. H. FLOYD, in ApalsehIcoIa Times.

wilson say You shall not take ven
geance on this defendant, for the Lord
god hath said vengeance Is mine -
and ii had a quality of subltmity so
that and the roof Of the old courthouse
at Bristol opened, and Heaven with
the most high appeared, no one would
have thought it remarkable.
Once I heard Henry G. Hicks in an
introduction of a public speaker refer
to the great dome of Heaven glitter
ing with its everlasting lights" and
Henry Clay Hicks seemed taller than
the tallest stars.
Once I heard w. A. Blount in the
Senate at Tallahassee climb the Him
alyan mountain-range of pure elo-
quence SO that you wondered such
men really lived, and once or twice be-
sides these enumerated occasions, like
Elijah. l have been taken up in
Heaven. I can count the journeys On
my ten fingers.
No one during the sixty days of the
last session OF the house discharged
the arrow from the bow of Ulysses.
Surely more men could lift us to the
table-land of great art If they tried.
But so few try because of the terri
Bile price that is required, for this is
the law-you shall not be given the
keys of power unless you are worthy;
and none is worthy unless he be dedi-
Gated to the absolute, to the ideal;
isolated in hell; and a place is either
Heaven or hell; and the world of men
is not Heaven; and on earth what
is at all divine is shut up, driven out
into the wilderness, or crucif1ed; and
who will give up his comfort and SNUG
cataleptic dream, his dumdrum graf
iflcation Of the common chloroforming
appetite for the whirlwind of eeric
power?
Very few. We are men of unclean
lips and when the living coal from the
altar is put to the lips that they might
be cleansed we refuse to be transfig-
ured and we stay in the smoky cave
until death comes down and Jerks us
out.
l wish 7 could take a funnel and I
wish every person in Florida had only
one head and wish I could take that
funnel and jab the spout into the brain
of that one head, and pour into that
brain the deathless and supreme glory
contained in Victor Hugo's Essay on
Shakespeare Then removing the
spout Of the funnel, and fixing up the
| wound in the skull. after awhile, in
the appointed time, when a voice
should be raised calling to Lazarus,
the dead GOD In each of us F1oridians
would rise, like loyal followers of Rod
| erick Dhu. from every bush and rock
| of the surrounding hills Of Scotland.
l wish every school teacher in Flori-
da except H. A. Ferrill had one head
so that could put in under the paper
| cutting guillotine in the "Apalachicola
Times" office; and then heave on the
lever, and as the wooden head dropped
ofh, catch it and let the worthless
blood drip into a tin bucket and then
stick the head on a pole in front of
Crawford Henry's store with a notice
painted out of the blood in the afore-
| said tin bucket reading as follows:
This is the just end OF the Present
Day School-Teac cher who, with a mag
nifcent opportunity to shape children
| into men and heroes, made a lot of
| commonplace, tfresorne, wooden head
| ed duplicates Of the said teacher, like
the writer Of this epitaph, and almost
| everybody else