{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1140/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1140","id":"gutenberg_1140","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1140","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century","Social problems"],"text":"Produced by Ron Burkey\n\n\n\n\n\nLATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS.\n\nby Thomas Carlyle\n\n\n\n     But as yet struggles the twelfth hour of the Night.  Birds\n     of darkness are on the wing; spectres uproar; the dead walk;\n     the living dream.  Thou, Eternal Providence, wilt make the\n     Day dawn!--JEAN PAUL.\n\n\n     Then said his Lordship, \"Well.  God mend all!\"--\"Nay, by\n     God, Donald, we must help him to mend it!\" said the other.--\n     RUSHWORTH (_Sir David Ramsay and Lord Rea, in 1630_).\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\nI. THE PRESENT TIME\n\nII. MODEL PRISONS\n\nIII. DOWNING STREET\n\nIV. THE NEW DOWNING STREET\n\nV. STUMP-ORATOR\n\n\n\n\nNO. I. THE PRESENT TIME. [February 1, 1850.]\n\nThe Present Time, youngest-born of Eternity, child and heir of all the\nPast Times with their good and evil, and parent of all the Future, is\never a \"New Era\" to the thinking man; and comes with new questions and\nsignificance, however commonplace it look: to know _it_, and what it\nbids us do, is ever the sum of knowledge for all of us. This new Day,\nsent us out of Heaven, this also has its heavenly omens;--amid the\nbustling trivialities and loud empty noises, its silent monitions, which\nif we cannot read and obey, it will not be well with us! No;--nor is\nthere any sin more fearfully avenged on men and Nations than that same,\nwhich indeed includes and presupposes all manner of sins: the sin which\nour old pious fathers called \"judicial blindness;\"--which we, with our\nlight habits, may still call misinterpretation of the Time that now\nis; disloyalty to its real meanings and monitions, stupid disregard of\nthese, stupid adherence active or passive to the counterfeits and mere\ncurrent semblances of these. This is true of all times and days.\n\nBut in the days that are now passing over us, even fools are arrested\nto ask the meaning of them; few of the generations of men have seen\nmore impressive days. Days of endless calamity, disruption, dislocation,\nconfusion worse confounded: if they are not days of endless hope too,\nthen they are days of utter despair. For it is not a small hope that\nwill suffice, the ruin being clearly, either in action or in prospect,\nuniversal. There must be a new world, if there is to be any world at\nall! That human things in our Europe can ever return to the old sorry\nroutine, and proceed with any steadiness or continuance there; this\nsmall hope is not now a tenable one. These days of universal death\nmust be days of universal new-birth, if the ruin is not to be total and\nfinal! It is a Time to make the dullest man consider; and ask himself,\nWhence _he_ came? Whither he is bound?--A veritable \"New Era,\" to the\nfoolish as well as to the wise.\n\n\nNot long ago, the world saw, with thoughtless joy which might have been\nvery thoughtful joy, a real miracle not heretofore considered possible\nor conceivable in the world,--a Reforming Pope. A simple pious creature,\na good country-priest, invested unexpectedly with the tiara, takes up\nthe New Testament, declares that this henceforth shall be his rule\nof governing. No more finesse, chicanery, hypocrisy, or false or foul\ndealing of any kind: God's truth shall be spoken, God's justice shall be\ndone, on the throne called of St. Peter: an honest Pope, Papa, or Father\nof Christendom, shall preside there. And such a throne of St. Peter;\nand such a Christendom, for an honest Papa to preside in! The European\npopulations everywhere hailed the omen; with shouting and rejoicing\nleading articles and tar-barrels; thinking people listened with\nastonishment,--not with sorrow if they were faithful or wise; with awe\nrather as at the heralding of death, and with a joy as of victory beyond\ndeath! Something pious, grand and as if awful in that joy, revealing\nonce more the Presence of a Divine Justice in this world. For, to such\nmen it was very clear how this poor devoted Pope would prosper, with his\nNew Testament in his hand. An alarming business, that of governing\nin the throne of St. Peter by the rule of veracity! By the rule of\nveracity, the so-called throne of St. Peter was openly declared, above\nthree hundred years, ago, to be a falsity, a huge mistake, a pestilent\ndead carcass, which this Sun was weary of. More than three hundred years\nago, the throne of St. Peter received peremptory judicial notice to\nquit; authentic order, registered in Heaven's chancery and since legible\nin the hearts of all brave men, to take itself away,--to begone, and\nlet us have no more to do with _it_ and its delusions and impious\ndeliriums;--and it has been sitting every day since, it may depend upon\nit, at its own peril withal, and will have to pay exact damages yet for\nevery day it has so sat. Law of veracity? What this Popedom had to do\nby the law of veracity, was to give up its own foul galvanic life, an\noffence to gods and men; honestly to die, and get itself buried.\n\nFar from this was the thing the poor Pope undertook in regard to\nit;--and yet, on the whole, it was essentially this too. \"Reforming\nPope?\" said one of our acquaintance, often in those weeks, \"Was there\never such a miracle? About to break up that huge imposthume too, by\n'curing' it? Turgot and Necker were nothing to this. God is great; and\nwhen a scandal is to end, brings some devoted man to take charge of\nit in hope, not in despair!\"--But cannot he reform? asked many simple\npersons;--to whom our friend in grim banter would reply: \"Reform a\nPopedom,--hardly. A wretched old kettle, ruined from top to bottom, and\nconsisting mainly now of foul _grime_ and _rust_: stop the holes of it,\nas your antecessors have been doing, with temporary putty, it may hang\ntogether yet a while; begin to hammer at it, solder at it, to what you\ncall mend and rectify it,--it will fall to sherds, as sure as rust is\nrust; go all into nameless dissolution,--and the fat in the fire will be\na thing worth looking at, poor Pope!\"--So accordingly it has proved. The\npoor Pope, amid felicitations and tar-barrels of various kinds, went on\njoyfully for a season: but he had awakened, he as no other man could\ndo, the sleeping elements; mothers of the whirlwinds, conflagrations,\nearthquakes. Questions not very soluble at present, were even sages\nand heroes set to solve them, began everywhere with new emphasis to be\nasked. Questions which all official men wished, and almost hoped,\nto postpone till Doomsday. Doomsday itself _had_ come; that was the\nterrible truth!\n\nFor, sure enough, if once the law of veracity be acknowledged as the\nrule for human things, there will not anywhere be want of work for the\nreformer; in very few places do human things adhere quite closely to\nthat law! Here was the Papa of Christendom proclaiming that such was\nactually the case;--whereupon all over Christendom such results as we\nhave seen. The Sicilians, I think, were the first notable body that set\nabout applying this new strange rule sanctioned by the general Father;\nthey said to themselves, We do not by the law of veracity belong to\nNaples and these Neapolitan Officials; we will, by favor of Heaven and\nthe Pope, be free of these. Fighting ensued; insurrection, fiercely\nmaintained in the Sicilian Cities; with much bloodshed, much tumult and\nloud noise, vociferation extending through all newspapers and countries.\nThe effect of this, carried abroad by newspapers and rumor, was great\nin all places; greatest perhaps in Paris, which for sixty years past has\nbeen the City of Insurrections. The French People had plumed themselves\non being, whatever else they were not, at least the chosen \"soldiers of\nliberty,\" who took the lead of all creatures in that pursuit, at least;\nand had become, as their orators, editors and litterateurs diligently\ntaught them, a People whose bayonets were sacred, a kind of Messiah\nPeople, saving a blind world in its own despite, and earning for\nthemselves a terrestrial and even celestial glory very considerable\nindeed. And here were the wretched down-trodden populations of Sicily\nrisen to rival them, and threatening to take the trade out of their\nhand.\n\nNo doubt of it, this hearing continually of the very Pope's glory as\na Reformer, of the very Sicilians fighting divinely for liberty\nbehind barricades,--must have bitterly aggravated the feeling of every\nFrenchman, as he looked around him, at home, on a Louis-Philippism\nwhich had become the scorn of all the world. \"_Ichabod_; is the glory\ndeparting from us? Under the sun is nothing baser, by all accounts and\nevidences, than the system of repression and corruption, of shameless\ndishonesty and unbelief in anything but human baseness, that we now live\nunder. The Italians, the very Pope, have become apostles of liberty, and\nFrance is--what is France!\"--We know what France suddenly became in the\nend of February next; and by a clear enough genealogy, we can trace a\nconsiderable share in that event to the good simple Pope with the New\nTestament in his hand. An outbreak, or at least a radical change and\neven inversion of affairs hardly to be achieved without an outbreak,\neverybody felt was inevitable in France: but it had been universally\nexpected that France would as usual take the initiative in that matter;\nand had there been no reforming Pope, no insurrectionary Sicily, France\nhad certainly not broken out then and so, but only afterwards and\notherwise. The French explosion, not anticipated by the cunningest men\nthere on the spot scrutinizing it, burst up unlimited, complete, defying\ncomputation or control.\n\nClose following which, as if by sympathetic subterranean electricities,\nall Europe exploded, boundless, uncontrollable; and we had the year\n1848, one of the most singular, disastrous, amazing, and, on the whole,\nhumiliating years the European world ever saw. Not since the irruption\nof the Northern Barbarians has there been the like. Everywhere\nimmeasurable Democracy rose monstrous, loud, blatant, inarticulate\nas the voice of Chaos. Everywhere the Official holy-of-holies was\nscandalously laid bare to dogs and the profane:--Enter, all the world,\nsee what kind of Official holy it is. Kings everywhere, and reigning\npersons, stared in sudden horror, the voice of the whole world bellowing\nin their ear, \"Begone, ye imbecile hypocrites, histrios not heroes! Off\nwith you, off!\" and, what was peculiar and notable in this year for the\nfirst time, the Kings all made haste to go, as if exclaiming, \"We _are_\npoor histrios, we sure enough;--did you want heroes? Don't kill us;\nwe couldn't help it!\" Not one of them turned round, and stood upon his\nKingship, as upon a right he could afford to die for, or to risk\nhis skin upon; by no manner of means. That, I say, is the alarming\npeculiarity at present. Democracy, on this new occasion, finds all Kings\nconscious that they are but Play-actors. The miserable mortals, enacting\ntheir High Life Below Stairs, with faith only that this Universe may\nperhaps be all a phantasm and hypocrisis,--the truculent Constable of\nthe Destinies suddenly enters: \"Scandalous Phantasms, what do _you_\nhere? Are 'solemnly constituted Impostors' the proper Kings of men?\nDid you think the Life of Man was a grimacing dance of apes? To be led\nalways by the squeak of your paltry fiddle? Ye miserable, this Universe\nis not an upholstery Puppet-play, but a terrible God's Fact; and you,\nI think,--had not you better begone!\" They fled precipitately, some\nof them with what we may call an exquisite ignominy,--in terror of the\ntreadmill or worse. And everywhere the people, or the populace, take\ntheir own government upon themselves; and open \"kinglessness,\" what\nwe call _anarchy_,--how happy if it be anarchy _plus_ a\nstreet-constable!--is everywhere the order of the day. Such was the\nhistory, from Baltic to Mediterranean, in Italy, France, Prussia,\nAustria, from end to end of Europe, in those March days of 1848. Since\nthe destruction of the old Roman Empire by inroad of the Northern\nBarbarians, I have known nothing similar.\n\nAnd so, then, there remained no King in Europe; no King except the\nPublic Haranguer, haranguing on barrel-head, in leading article; or\ngetting himself aggregated into a National Parliament to harangue. And\nfor about four months all France, and to a great degree all Europe,\nrough-ridden by every species of delirium, except happily the murderous\nfor most part, was a weltering mob, presided over by M. de Lamartine, at\nthe Hotel-de-Ville; a most eloquent fair-spoken literary gentleman,\nwhom thoughtless persons took for a prophet, priest and heaven-sent\nevangelist, and whom a wise Yankee friend of mine discerned to be\nproperly \"the first stump-orator in the world, standing too on\nthe highest stump,--for the time.\" A sorrowful spectacle to men of\nreflection, during the time he lasted, that poor M. de Lamartine; with\nnothing in him but melodious wind and _soft sawder_, which he and others\ntook for something divine and not diabolic! Sad enough; the eloquent\nlatest impersonation of Chaos-come-again; able to talk for itself, and\ndeclare persuasively that it is Cosmos! However, you have but to wait a\nlittle, in such cases; all balloons do and must give up their gas in the\npressure of things, and are collapsed in a sufficiently wretched manner\nbefore long.\n\nAnd so in City after City, street-barricades are piled, and truculent,\nmore or less murderous insurrection begins; populace after populace\nrises, King after King capitulates or absconds; and from end to end of\nEurope Democracy has blazed up explosive, much higher, more irresistible\nand less resisted than ever before; testifying too sadly on what\na bottomless volcano, or universal powder-mine of most inflammable\nmutinous chaotic elements, separated from us by a thin earth-rind,\nSociety with all its arrangements and acquirements everywhere, in the\npresent epoch, rests! The kind of persons who excite or give signal to\nsuch revolutions--students, young men of letters, advocates,\neditors, hot inexperienced enthusiasts, or fierce and justly bankrupt\ndesperadoes, acting everywhere on the discontent of the millions\nand blowing it into flame,--might give rise to reflections as to\nthe character of our epoch. Never till now did young men, and almost\nchildren, take such a command in human affairs. A changed time since\nthe word _Senior_ (Seigneur, or _Elder_) was first devised to signify\n\"lord,\" or superior;--as in all languages of men we find it to have\nbeen! Not an honorable document this either, as to the spiritual\ncondition of our epoch. In times when men love wisdom, the old man will\never be venerable, and be venerated, and reckoned noble: in times that\nlove something else than wisdom, and indeed have little or no wisdom,\nand see little or none to love, the old man will cease to be venerated;\nand looking more closely, also, you will find that in fact he has ceased\nto be venerable, and has begun to be contemptible; a foolish boy still,\na boy without the graces, generosities and opulent strength of young\nboys. In these days, what of _lordship_ or leadership is still to be\ndone, the youth must do it, not the mature or aged man; the mature man,\nhardened into sceptical egoism, knows no monition but that of his own\nfrigid cautious, avarices, mean timidities; and can lead no-whither\ntowards an object that even seems noble. But to return.\n\nThis mad state of matters will of course before long allay itself, as\nit has everywhere begun to do; the ordinary necessities of men's daily\nexistence cannot comport with it, and these, whatever else is\ncast aside, will have their way. Some remounting--very temporary\nremounting--of the old machine, under new colors and altered forms, will\nprobably ensue soon in most countries: the old histrionic Kings will\nbe admitted back under conditions, under \"Constitutions,\" with national\nParliaments, or the like fashionable adjuncts; and everywhere the old\ndaily life will try to begin again. But there is now no hope that\nsuch arrangements can be permanent; that they can be other than poor\ntemporary makeshifts, which, if they try to fancy and make themselves\npermanent, will be displaced by new explosions recurring more speedily\nthan last time. In such baleful oscillation, afloat as amid raging\nbottomless eddies and conflicting sea-currents, not steadfast as\non fixed foundations, must European Society continue swaying, now\ndisastrously tumbling, then painfully readjusting itself, at ever\nshorter intervals,--till once the _new_ rock-basis does come to light,\nand the weltering deluges of mutiny, and of need to mutiny, abate again!\n\nFor universal _Democracy_, whatever we may think of it, has declared\nitself as an inevitable fact of the days in which we live; and he\nwho has any chance to instruct, or lead, in his days, must begin by\nadmitting that: new street-barricades, and new anarchies, still more\nscandalous if still less sanguinary, must return and again return, till\ngoverning persons everywhere know and admit that. Democracy, it may be\nsaid everywhere, is here:--for sixty years now, ever since the grand or\n_First_ French Revolution, that fact has been terribly announced to all\nthe world; in message after message, some of them very terrible indeed;\nand now at last all the world ought really to believe it. That the world\ndoes believe it; that even Kings now as good as believe it, and know,\nor with just terror surmise, that they are but temporary phantasm\nPlay-actors, and that Democracy is the grand, alarming, imminent and\nindisputable Reality: this, among the scandalous phases we witnessed\nin the last two years, is a phasis full of hope: a sign that we are\nadvancing closer and closer to the very Problem itself, which it will\nbehoove us to solve or die; that all fighting and campaigning and\ncoalitioning in regard to the _existence_ of the Problem, is hopeless\nand superfluous henceforth. The gods have appointed it so; no Pitt, nor\nbody of Pitts or mortal creatures can appoint it otherwise. Democracy,\nsure enough, is here; one knows not how long it will keep hidden\nunderground even in Russia;--and here in England, though we object to it\nresolutely in the form of street-barricades and insurrectionary pikes,\nand decidedly will not open doors to it on those terms, the tramp of\nits million feet is on all streets and thoroughfares, the sound of its\nbewildered thousand-fold voice is in all writings and speakings, in all\nthinkings and modes and activities of men: the soul that does not now,\nwith hope or terror, discern it, is not the one we address on this\noccasion.\n\nWhat is Democracy; this huge inevitable Product of the Destinies, which\nis everywhere the portion of our Europe in these latter days? There\nlies the question for us. Whence comes it, this universal big black\nDemocracy; whither tends it; what is the meaning of it? A meaning it\nmust have, or it would not be here. If we can find the right meaning of\nit, we may, wisely submitting or wisely resisting and controlling, still\nhope to live in the midst of it; if we cannot find the right meaning,\nif we find only the wrong or no meaning in it, to live will not be\npossible!--The whole social wisdom of the Present Time is summoned, in\nthe name of the Giver of Wisdom, to make clear to itself, and lay deeply\nto heart with an eye to strenuous valiant practice and effort, what\nthe meaning of this universal revolt of the European Populations, which\ncalls itself Democracy, and decides to continue permanent, may be.\n\nCertainly it is a drama full of action, event fast following event; in\nwhich curiosity finds endless scope, and there are interests at stake,\nenough to rivet the attention of all men, simple and wise. Whereat the\nidle multitude lift up their voices, gratulating, celebrating sky-high;\nin rhyme and prose announcement, more than plentiful, that _now_ the\nNew Era, and long-expected Year One of Perfect Human Felicity has\ncome. Glorious and immortal people, sublime French citizens, heroic\nbarricades; triumph of civil and religious liberty--O Heaven! one of the\ninevitablest private miseries, to an earnest man in such circumstances,\nis this multitudinous efflux of oratory and psalmody, from the universal\nfoolish human throat; drowning for the moment all reflection whatsoever,\nexcept the sorrowful one that you are fallen in an evil, heavy-laden,\nlong-eared age, and must resignedly bear your part in the same. The\nfront wall of your wretched old crazy dwelling, long denounced by you\nto no purpose, having at last fairly folded itself over, and fallen\nprostrate into the street, the floors, as may happen, will still hang\non by the mere beam-ends, and coherency of old carpentry, though in a\nsloping direction, and depend there till certain poor rusty nails\nand worm-eaten dovetailings give way:--but is it cheering, in such\ncircumstances, that the whole household burst forth into celebrating\nthe new joys of light and ventilation, liberty and picturesqueness of\nposition, and thank God that now they have got a house to their mind? My\ndear household, cease singing and psalmodying; lay aside your fiddles,\ntake out your work-implements, if you have any; for I can say with\nconfidence the laws of gravitation are still active, and rusty nails,\nworm-eaten dovetailings, and secret coherency of old carpentry, are not\nthe best basis for a household!--In the lanes of Irish cities, I\nhave heard say, the wretched people are sometimes found living, and\nperilously boiling their potatoes, on such swing-floors and inclined\nplanes hanging on by the joist-ends; but I did not hear that they sang\nvery much in celebration of such lodging. No, they slid gently about,\nsat near the back wall, and perilously boiled their potatoes, in silence\nfor most part!--\n\nHigh shouts of exultation, in every dialect, by every vehicle of speech\nand writing, rise from far and near over this last avatar of Democracy\nin 1848: and yet, to wise minds, the first aspect it presents seems\nrather to be one of boundless misery and sorrow. What can be more\nmiserable than this universal hunting out of the high dignitaries,\nsolemn functionaries, and potent, grave and reverend signiors of\nthe world; this stormful rising-up of the inarticulate dumb masses\neverywhere, against those who pretended to be speaking for them and\nguiding them? These guides, then, were mere blind men only pretending\nto see? These rulers were not ruling at all; they had merely got on the\nattributes and clothes of rulers, and were surreptitiously drawing\nthe wages, while the work remained undone? The Kings were Sham-Kings,\nplay-acting as at Drury Lane;--and what were the people withal that took\nthem for real?\n\nIt is probably the hugest disclosure of _falsity_ in human things that\nwas ever at one time made. These reverend Dignitaries that sat amid\ntheir far-shining symbols and long-sounding long-admitted professions,\nwere mere Impostors, then? Not a true thing they were doing, but a\nfalse thing. The story they told men was a cunningly devised fable; the\ngospels they preached to them were not an account of man's real position\nin this world, but an incoherent fabrication, of dead ghosts and unborn\nshadows, of traditions, cants, indolences, cowardices,--a falsity\nof falsities, which at last _ceases_ to stick together. Wilfully and\nagainst their will, these high units of mankind were cheats, then; and\nthe low millions who believed in them were dupes,--a kind of _inverse_\ncheats, too, or they would not have believed in them so long. A\nuniversal _Bankruptcy of Imposture_; that may be the brief definition\nof it. Imposture everywhere declared once more to be contrary to Nature;\nnobody will change its word into an act any farther:--fallen insolvent;\nunable to keep its head up by these false pretences, or make its pot\nboil any more for the present! A more scandalous phenomenon, wide as\nEurope, never afflicted the face of the sun. Bankruptcy everywhere; foul\nignominy, and the abomination of desolation, in all high places: odious\nto look upon, as the carnage of a battle-field on the morrow morning;--a\nmassacre not of the innocents; we cannot call it a massacre of the\ninnocents; but a universal tumbling of Impostors and of Impostures into\nthe street!--\n\nSuch a spectacle, can we call it joyful? There is a joy in it, to the\nwise man too; yes, but a joy full of awe, and as it were sadder than\nany sorrow,--like the vision of immortality, unattainable except through\ndeath and the grave! And yet who would not, in his heart of hearts, feel\npiously thankful that Imposture has fallen bankrupt? By all means let it\nfall bankrupt; in the name of God let it do so, with whatever misery to\nitself and to all of us. Imposture, be it known then,--known it must\nand shall be,--is hateful, unendurable to God and man. Let it understand\nthis everywhere; and swiftly make ready for departure, wherever it yet\nlingers; and let it learn never to return, if possible! The eternal\nvoices, very audibly again, are speaking to proclaim this message,\nfrom side to side of the world. Not a very cheering message, but a very\nindispensable one.\n\nAlas, it is sad enough that Anarchy is here; that we are not permitted\nto regret its being here,--for who that had, for this divine Universe,\nan eye which was human at all, could wish that Shams of any kind,\nespecially that Sham-Kings should continue? No: at all costs, it is\nto be prayed by all men that Shams may _cease_. Good Heavens, to what\ndepths have we got, when this to many a man seems strange! Yet strange\nto many a man it does seem; and to many a solid Englishman, wholesomely\ndigesting his pudding among what are called the cultivated classes, it\nseems strange exceedingly; a mad ignorant notion, quite heterodox, and\nbig with mere ruin. He has been used to decent forms long since\nfallen empty of meaning, to plausible modes, solemnities grown\nceremonial,--what you in your iconoclast humor call shams, all his life\nlong; never heard that there was any harm in them, that there was any\ngetting on without them. Did not cotton spin itself, beef grow, and\ngroceries and spiceries come in from the East and the West, quite\ncomfortably by the side of shams? Kings reigned, what they were pleased\nto call reigning; lawyers pleaded, bishops preached, and honorable\nmembers perorated; and to crown the whole, as if it were all real and\nno sham there, did not scrip continue salable, and the banker pay in\nbullion, or paper with a metallic basis? \"The greatest sham, I have\nalways thought, is he that would destroy shams.\"\n\nEven so. To such depth have _I_, the poor knowing person of this epoch,\ngot;--almost below the level of lowest humanity, and down towards the\nstate of apehood and oxhood! For never till in quite recent generations\nwas such a scandalous blasphemy quietly set forth among the sons of\nAdam; never before did the creature called man believe generally in\nhis heart that lies were the rule in this Earth; that in deliberate\nlong-established lying could there be help or salvation for him, could\nthere be at length other than hindrance and destruction for him. O\nHeavyside, my solid friend, this is the sorrow of sorrows: what on earth\ncan become of us till this accursed enchantment, the general summary and\nconsecration of delusions, be cast forth from the heart and life of\none and all! Cast forth it will be; it must, or we are tending, at all\nmoments, whitherward I do not like to name. Alas, and the casting of\nit out, to what heights and what depths will it lead us, in the sad\nuniverse mostly of lies and shams and hollow phantasms (grown very\nghastly now), in which, as in a safe home, we have lived this century\nor two! To heights and depths of social and individual _divorce_ from\ndelusions,--of \"reform\" in right sacred earnest, of indispensable\namendment, and stern sorrowful abrogation and order to depart,--such\nas cannot well be spoken at present; as dare scarcely be thought at\npresent; which nevertheless are very inevitable, and perhaps rather\nimminent several of them! Truly we have a heavy task of work before us;\nand there is a pressing call that we should seriously begin upon it,\nbefore it tumble into an inextricable mass, in which there will be no\nworking, but only suffering and hopelessly perishing!\n\n\nOr perhaps Democracy, which we announce as now come, will itself manage\nit? Democracy, once modelled into suffrages, furnished with ballot-boxes\nand such like, will itself accomplish the salutary universal change from\nDelusive to Real, and make a new blessed world of us by and by?--To the\ngreat mass of men, I am aware, the matter presents itself quite on this\nhopeful side. Democracy they consider to _be_ a kind of \"Government.\"\nThe old model, formed long since, and brought to perfection in England\nnow two hundred years ago, has proclaimed itself to all Nations as the\nnew healing for every woe: \"Set up a Parliament,\" the Nations everywhere\nsay, when the old King is detected to be a Sham-King, and hunted out or\nnot; \"set up a Parliament; let us have suffrages, universal suffrages;\nand all either at once or by due degrees will be right, and a real\nMillennium come!\" Such is their way of construing the matter.\n\nSuch, alas, is by no means my way of construing the matter; if it were,\nI should have had the happiness of remaining silent, and been without\ncall to speak here. It is because the contrary of all this is deeply\nmanifest to me, and appears to be forgotten by multitudes of my\ncontemporaries, that I have had to undertake addressing a word to them.\nThe contrary of all this;--and the farther I look into the roots of all\nthis, the more hateful, ruinous and dismal does the state of mind all\nthis could have originated in appear to me. To examine this recipe of a\nParliament, how fit it is for governing Nations, nay how fit it may now\nbe, in these new times, for governing England itself where we are used\nto it so long: this, too, is an alarming inquiry, to which all thinking\nmen, and good citizens of their country, who have an ear for the small\nstill voices and eternal intimations, across the temporary clamors and\nloud blaring proclamations, are now solemnly invited. Invited by the\nrigorous fact itself; which will one day, and that perhaps soon, demand\npractical decision or redecision of it from us,--with enormous penalty\nif we decide it wrong! I think we shall all have to consider this\nquestion, one day; better perhaps now than later, when the leisure\nmay be less. If a Parliament, with suffrages and universal or any\nconceivable kind of suffrages, is the method, then certainly let us set\nabout discovering the kind of suffrages, and rest no moment till we\nhave got them. But it is possible a Parliament may not be the method!\nPossible the inveterate notions of the English People may have settled\nit as the method, and the Everlasting Laws of Nature may have settled it\nas not the method! Not the whole method; nor the method at all, if\ntaken as the whole? If a Parliament with never such suffrages is not the\nmethod settled by this latter authority, then it will urgently behoove\nus to become aware of that fact, and to quit such method;--we may depend\nupon it, however unanimous we be, every step taken in that direction\nwill, by the Eternal Law of things, be a step _from_ improvement, not\ntowards it.\n\nNot towards it, I say, if so! Unanimity of voting,--that will do nothing\nfor us if so. Your ship cannot double Cape Horn by its excellent plans\nof voting. The ship may vote this and that, above decks and below, in\nthe most harmonious exquisitely constitutional manner: the ship, to get\nround Cape Horn, will find a set of conditions already voted for, and\nfixed with adamantine rigor by the ancient Elemental Powers, who are\nentirely careless how you vote. If you can, by voting or without voting,\nascertain these conditions, and valiantly conform to them, you will get\nround the Cape: if you cannot, the ruffian Winds will blow you ever back\nagain; the inexorable Icebergs, dumb privy-councillors from Chaos, will\nnudge you with most chaotic \"admonition;\" you will be flung half frozen\non the Patagonian cliffs, or admonished into shivers by your iceberg\ncouncillors, and sent sheer down to Davy Jones, and will never get round\nCape Horn at all! Unanimity on board ship;--yes indeed, the ship's crew\nmay be very unanimous, which doubtless, for the time being, will be very\ncomfortable to the ship's crew, and to their Phantasm Captain if they\nhave one: but if the tack they unanimously steer upon is guiding them\ninto the belly of the Abyss, it will not profit them much!--Ships\naccordingly do not use the ballot-box at all; and they reject the\nPhantasm species of Captains: one wishes much some other Entities--since\nall entities lie under the same rigorous set of laws--could be brought\nto show as much wisdom, and sense at least of self-preservation, the\nfirst command of Nature. Phantasm Captains with unanimous votings: this\nis considered to be all the law and all the prophets, at present.\n\nIf a man could shake out of his mind the universal noise of political\ndoctors in this generation and in the last generation or two, and\nconsider the matter face to face, with his own sincere intelligence\nlooking at it, I venture to say he would find this a very extraordinary\nmethod of navigating, whether in the Straits of Magellan or the\nundiscovered Sea of Time. To prosper in this world, to gain felicity,\nvictory and improvement, either for a man or a nation, there is but\none thing requisite, That the man or nation can discern what the true\nregulations of the Universe are in regard to him and his pursuit, and\ncan faithfully and steadfastly follow these. These will lead him to\nvictory; whoever it may be that sets him in the way of these,--were\nit Russian Autocrat, Chartist Parliament, Grand Lama, Force of Public\nOpinion, Archbishop of Canterbury, M'Croudy the Seraphic Doctor with his\nLast-evangel of Political Economy,--sets him in the sure way to please\nthe Author of this Universe, and is his friend of friends. And again,\nwhoever does the contrary is, for a like reason, his enemy of enemies.\nThis may be taken as fixed.\n\nAnd now by what method ascertain the monition of the gods in regard to\nour affairs? How decipher, with best fidelity, the eternal regulation\nof the Universe; and read, from amid such confused embroilments of\nhuman clamor and folly, what the real Divine Message to us is? A divine\nmessage, or eternal regulation of the Universe, there verily is, in\nregard to every conceivable procedure and affair of man: faithfully\nfollowing this, said procedure or affair will prosper, and have the\nwhole Universe to second it, and carry it, across the fluctuating\ncontradictions, towards a victorious goal; not following this, mistaking\nthis, disregarding this, destruction and wreck are certain for every\naffair. How find it? All the world answers me, \"Count heads; ask\nUniversal Suffrage, by the ballot-boxes, and that will tell.\" Universal\nSuffrage, ballot-boxes, count of heads? Well,--I perceive we have got\ninto strange spiritual latitudes indeed. Within the last half-century or\nso, either the Universe or else the heads of men must have altered very\nmuch. Half a century ago, and down from Father Adam's time till then,\nthe Universe, wherever I could hear tell of it, was wont to be of\nsomewhat abstruse nature; by no means carrying its secret written on its\nface, legible to every passer-by; on the contrary, obstinately hiding\nits secret from all foolish, slavish, wicked, insincere persons, and\npartially disclosing it to the wise and noble-minded alone, whose number\nwas not the majority in my time!\n\nOr perhaps the chief end of man being now, in these improved epochs,\nto make money and spend it, his interests in the Universe have become\namazingly simplified of late; capable of being voted on with effect\nby almost anybody? \"To buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the\ndearest:\" truly if that is the summary of his social duties, and the\nfinal divine message he has to follow, we may trust him extensively\nto vote upon that. But if it is not, and never was, or can be? If the\nUniverse will not carry on its divine bosom any commonwealth of mortals\nthat have no higher aim,--being still \"a Temple and Hall of Doom,\" not\na mere Weaving-shop and Cattle-pen? If the unfathomable Universe\nhas decided to _reject_ Human Beavers pretending to be Men; and will\nabolish, pretty rapidly perhaps, in hideous mud-deluges, their \"markets\"\nand them, unless they think of it?--In that case it were better to think\nof it: and the Democracies and Universal Suffrages, I can observe, will\nrequire to modify themselves a good deal!\n\nHistorically speaking, I believe there was no Nation that could subsist\nupon Democracy. Of ancient Republics, and _Demoi_ and _Populi_, we have\nheard much; but it is now pretty well admitted to be nothing to our\npurpose;--a universal-suffrage republic, or a general-suffrage one, or\nany but a most-limited-suffrage one, never came to light, or dreamed of\ndoing so, in ancient times. When the mass of the population were slaves,\nand the voters intrinsically a kind of _kings_, or men born to\nrule others; when the voters were real \"aristocrats\" and manageable\ndependents of such,--then doubtless voting, and confused jumbling of\ntalk and intrigue, might, without immediate destruction, or the need of\na Cavaignac to intervene with cannon and sweep the streets clear of it,\ngo on; and beautiful developments of manhood might be possible beside\nit, for a season. Beside it; or even, if you will, by means of it,\nand in virtue of it, though that is by no means so certain as is often\nsupposed. Alas, no: the reflective constitutional mind has misgivings as\nto the origin of old Greek and Roman nobleness; and indeed knows not how\nthis or any other human nobleness could well be \"originated,\" or brought\nto pass, by voting or without voting, in this world, except by the grace\nof God very mainly;--and remembers, with a sigh, that of the Seven\nSages themselves no fewer than three were bits of Despotic Kings, [Gr.]\n_Turannoi_, \"Tyrants\" so called (such being greatly wanted there);\nand that the other four were very far from Red Republicans, if of any\npolitical faith whatever! We may quit the Ancient Classical concern, and\nleave it to College-clubs and speculative debating-societies, in these\nlate days.\n\nOf the various French Republics that have been tried, or that are still\non trial,--of these also it is not needful to say any word. But there\nis one modern instance of Democracy nearly perfect, the Republic of\nthe United States, which has actually subsisted for threescore years or\nmore, with immense success as is affirmed; to which many still appeal,\nas to a sign of hope for all nations, and a \"Model Republic.\" Is not\nAmerica an instance in point? Why should not all Nations subsist and\nflourish on Democracy, as America does?\n\nOf America it would ill beseem any Englishman, and me perhaps as little\nas another, to speak unkindly, to speak unpatriotically, if any of us\neven felt so. Sure enough, America is a great, and in many respects a\nblessed and hopeful phenomenon. Sure enough, these hardy millions of\nAnglo-Saxon men prove themselves worthy of their genealogy; and, with\nthe axe and plough and hammer, if not yet with any much finer kind of\nimplements, are triumphantly clearing out wide spaces, seedfields for\nthe sustenance and refuge of mankind, arenas for the future history of\nthe world; doing, in their day and generation, a creditable and cheering\nfeat under the sun. But as to a Model Republic, or a model anything, the\nwise among themselves know too well that there is nothing to be said.\nNay the title hitherto to be a Commonwealth or Nation at all, among the\n[Gr.] _ethne_ of the world, is, strictly considered, still a thing\nthey are but striving for, and indeed have not yet done much towards\nattaining. Their Constitution, such as it may be, was made here,\nnot there; went over with them from the Old-Puritan English\nworkshop ready-made. Deduct what they carried with them from England\nready-made,--their common English Language, and that same Constitution,\nor rather elixir of constitutions, their inveterate and now, as it\nwere, inborn reverence for the Constable's Staff; two quite immense\nattainments, which England had to spend much blood, and valiant sweat of\nbrow and brain, for centuries long, in achieving;--and what new elements\nof polity or nationhood, what noble new phasis of human arrangement, or\nsocial device worthy of Prometheus or of Epimetheus, yet comes to light\nin America? Cotton crops and Indian corn and dollars come to light;\nand half a world of untilled land, where populations that respect the\nconstable can live, for the present _without_ Government: this comes\nto light; and the profound sorrow of all nobler hearts, here uttering\nitself as silent patient unspeakable ennui, there coming out as vague\nelegiac wailings, that there is still next to nothing more. \"Anarchy\n_plus_ a street-constable:\" that also is anarchic to me, and other than\nquite lovely!\n\nI foresee, too, that, long before the waste lands are full, the very\nstreet-constable, on these poor terms, will have become impossible:\nwithout the waste lands, as here in our Europe, I do not see how he\ncould continue possible many weeks. Cease to brag to me of America, and\nits model institutions and constitutions. To men in their sleep there\nis nothing granted in this world: nothing, or as good as nothing, to men\nthat sit idly caucusing and ballot-boxing on the graves of their heroic\nancestors, saying, \"It is well, it is well!\" Corn and bacon are granted:\nnot a very sublime boon, on such conditions; a boon moreover which, on\nsuch conditions, cannot last!--No: America too will have to strain its\nenergies, in quite other fashion than this; to crack its sinews, and all\nbut break its heart, as the rest of us have had to do, in thousand-fold\nwrestle with the Pythons and mud-demons, before it can become a\nhabitation for the gods. America's battle is yet to fight; and we,\nsorrowful though nothing doubting, will wish her strength for it. New\nSpiritual Pythons, plenty of them; enormous Megatherions, as ugly as\nwere ever born of mud, loom huge and hideous out of the twilight Future\non America; and she will have her own agony, and her own victory, but on\nother terms than she is yet quite aware of. Hitherto she but ploughs\nand hammers, in a very successful manner; hitherto, in spite of her\n\"roast-goose with apple-sauce,\" she is not much. \"Roast-goose with\napple-sauce for the poorest workingman:\" well, surely that is something,\nthanks to your respect for the street-constable, and to your continents\nof fertile waste land;--but that, even if it could continue, is by\nno means enough; that is not even an instalment towards what will be\nrequired of you. My friend, brag not yet of our American cousins! Their\nquantity of cotton, dollars, industry and resources, I believe to be\nalmost unspeakable; but I can by no means worship the like of these.\nWhat great human soul, what great thought, what great noble thing that\none could worship, or loyally admire, has yet been produced there? None:\nthe American cousins have yet done none of these things. \"What they have\ndone?\" growls Smelfungus, tired of the subject: \"They have doubled\ntheir population every twenty years. They have begotten, with a rapidity\nbeyond recorded example, Eighteen Millions of the greatest _bores_\never seen in this world before,--that hitherto is their feat in\nHistory!\"--And so we leave them, for the present; and cannot predict the\nsuccess of Democracy, on this side of the Atlantic, from their example.\n\nAlas, on this side of the Atlantic and on that, Democracy, we apprehend,\nis forever impossible! So much, with certainty of loud astonished\ncontradiction from all manner of men at present, but with sure appeal\nto the Law of Nature and the ever-abiding Fact, may be suggested and\nasserted once more. The Universe itself is a Monarchy and Hierarchy;\nlarge liberty of \"voting\" there, all manner of choice, utmost free-will,\nbut with conditions inexorable and immeasurable annexed to every\nexercise of the same. A most free commonwealth of \"voters;\" but with\nEternal Justice to preside over it, Eternal Justice enforced by Almighty\nPower! This is the model of \"constitutions;\" this: nor in any Nation\nwhere there has not yet (in some supportable and withal some constantly\nincreasing degree) been confided to the _Noblest_, with his select\nseries of _Nobler_, the divine everlasting duty of directing and\ncontrolling the Ignoble, has the \"Kingdom of God,\" which we all pray\nfor, \"come,\" nor can \"His will\" even _tend_ to be \"done on Earth as\nit is in Heaven\" till then. My Christian friends, and indeed my\nSham-Christian and Anti-Christian, and all manner of men, are invited\nto reflect on this. They will find it to be the truth of the case. The\nNoble in the high place, the Ignoble in the low; that is, in all times\nand in all countries, the Almighty Maker's Law.\n\nTo raise the Sham-Noblest, and solemnly consecrate him by whatever\nmethod, new-devised, or slavishly adhered to from old wont, this,\nlittle as we may regard it, is, in all times and countries, a practical\nblasphemy, and Nature will in nowise forget it. Alas, there lies the\norigin, the fatal necessity, of modern Democracy everywhere. It is\nthe Noblest, not the Sham-Noblest; it is God-Almighty's Noble, not the\nCourt-Tailor's Noble, nor the Able-Editor's Noble, that must, in\nsome approximate degree, be raised to the supreme place; he and not a\ncounterfeit,--under penalties! Penalties deep as death, and at\nlength terrible as hell-on-earth, my constitutional friend!--Will the\nballot-box raise the Noblest to the chief place; does any sane\nman deliberately believe such a thing? That nevertheless is the\nindispensable result, attain it how we may: if that is attained, all is\nattained; if not that, nothing. He that cannot believe the ballot-box\nto be attaining it, will be comparatively indifferent to the ballot-box.\nExcellent for keeping the ship's crew at peace under their Phantasm\nCaptain; but unserviceable, under such, for getting round Cape Horn.\nAlas, that there should be human beings requiring to have these things\nargued of, at this late time of day!\n\nI say, it is the everlasting privilege of the foolish to be governed\nby the wise; to be guided in the right path by those who know it better\nthan they. This is the first \"right of man;\" compared with which all\nother rights are as nothing,--mere superfluities, corollaries which will\nfollow of their own accord out of this; if they be not contradictions\nto this, and less than nothing! To the wise it is not a privilege; far\nother indeed. Doubtless, as bringing preservation to their country, it\nimplies preservation of themselves withal; but intrinsically it is the\nharshest duty a wise man, if he be indeed wise, has laid to his hand. A\nduty which he would fain enough shirk; which accordingly, in these\nsad times of doubt and cowardly sloth, he has long everywhere been\nendeavoring to reduce to its minimum, and has in fact in most cases\nnearly escaped altogether. It is an ungoverned world; a world which we\nflatter ourselves will henceforth need no governing. On the dust of our\nheroic ancestors we too sit ballot-boxing, saying to one another, It is\nwell, it is well! By inheritance of their noble struggles, we have\nbeen permitted to sit slothful so long. By noble toil, not by shallow\nlaughter and vain talk, they made this English Existence from a savage\nforest into an arable inhabitable field for us; and we, idly dreaming it\nwould grow spontaneous crops forever,--find it now in a too questionable\nstate; peremptorily requiring real labor and agriculture again. Real\n\"agriculture\" is not pleasant; much pleasanter to reap and winnow (with\nballot-box or otherwise) than to plough!\n\nWho would govern that can get along without governing? He that is\nfittest for it, is of all men the unwillingest unless constrained.\nBy multifarious devices we have been endeavoring to dispense with\ngoverning; and by very superficial speculations, of _laissez-faire_,\nsupply-and-demand, &c. &c. to persuade ourselves that it is best so. The\nReal Captain, unless it be some Captain of mechanical Industry hired\nby Mammon, where is he in these days? Most likely, in silence, in\nsad isolation somewhere, in remote obscurity; trying if, in an evil\nungoverned time, he cannot at least govern himself. The Real Captain\nundiscoverable; the Phantasm Captain everywhere very conspicuous:--it is\nthought Phantasm Captains, aided by ballot-boxes, are the true method,\nafter all. They are much the pleasantest for the time being! And so no\n_Dux_ or Duke of any sort, in any province of our affairs, now _leads_:\nthe Duke's Bailiff _leads_, what little leading is required for getting\nin the rents; and the Duke merely rides in the state-coach. It is\neverywhere so: and now at last we see a world all rushing towards\nstrange consummations, because it is and has long been so!\n\n\nI do not suppose any reader of mine, or many persons in England at\nall, have much faith in Fraternity, Equality and the Revolutionary\nMillenniums preached by the French Prophets in this age: but there are\nmany movements here too which tend inevitably in the like direction; and\ngood men, who would stand aghast at Red Republic and its adjuncts, seem\nto me travelling at full speed towards that or a similar goal! Certainly\nthe notion everywhere prevails among us too, and preaches itself abroad\nin every dialect, uncontradicted anywhere so far as I can hear, That\nthe grand panacea for social woes is what we call \"enfranchisement,\"\n\"emancipation;\" or, translated into practical language, the cutting\nasunder of human relations, wherever they are found grievous, as is like\nto be pretty universally the case at the rate we have been going for\nsome generations past. Let us all be \"free\" of one another; we\nshall then be happy. Free, without bond or connection except that of\ncash-payment; fair day's wages for the fair day's work; bargained for by\nvoluntary contract, and law of supply-and-demand: this is thought to be\nthe true solution of all difficulties and injustices that have occurred\nbetween man and man.\n\nTo rectify the relation that exists between two men, is there no method,\nthen, but that of ending it? The old relation has become unsuitable,\nobsolete, perhaps unjust; it imperatively requires to be amended; and\nthe remedy is, Abolish it, let there henceforth be no relation at all.\nFrom the \"Sacrament of Marriage\" downwards, human beings used to be\nmanifoldly related, one to another, and each to all; and there was no\nrelation among human beings, just or unjust, that had not its grievances\nand difficulties, its necessities on both sides to bear and forbear. But\nhenceforth, be it known, we have changed all that, by favor of Heaven:\n\"the voluntary principle\" has come up, which will itself do the business\nfor us; and now let a new Sacrament, that of Divorce, which we call\nemancipation, and spout of on our platforms, be universally the order of\nthe day!--Have men considered whither all this is tending, and what it\ncertainly enough betokens? Cut every human relation which has anywhere\ngrown uneasy sheer asunder; reduce whatsoever was compulsory to\nvoluntary, whatsoever was permanent among us to the condition of\nnomadic:--in other words, loosen by assiduous wedges in every joint, the\nwhole fabric of social existence, stone from stone: till at last, all\nnow being loose enough, it can, as we already see in most countries,\nbe overset by sudden outburst of revolutionary rage; and, lying as mere\nmountains of anarchic rubbish, solicit you to sing Fraternity, &c., over\nit, and to rejoice in the new remarkable era of human progress we have\narrived at.\n\nCertainly Emancipation proceeds with rapid strides among us, this good\nwhile; and has got to such a length as might give rise to reflections\nin men of a serious turn. West-Indian Blacks are emancipated, and\nit appears refuse to work: Irish Whites have long been entirely\nemancipated; and nobody asks them to work, or on condition of finding\nthem potatoes (which, of course, is indispensable), permits them to\nwork.--Among speculative persons, a question has sometimes risen: In the\nprogress of Emancipation, are we to look for a time when all the\nHorses also are to be emancipated, and brought to the supply-and-demand\nprinciple? Horses too have \"motives;\" are acted on by hunger, fear,\nhope, love of oats, terror of platted leather; nay they have vanity,\nambition, emulation, thankfulness, vindictiveness; some rude outline\nof all our human spiritualities,--a rude resemblance to us in mind and\nintelligence, even as they have in bodily frame. The Horse, poor dumb\nfour-footed fellow, he too has his private feelings, his affections,\ngratitudes; and deserves good usage; no human master, without crime,\nshall treat him unjustly either, or recklessly lay on the whip where\nit is not needed:--I am sure if I could make him \"happy,\" I should be\nwilling to grant a small vote (in addition to the late twenty millions)\nfor that object!\n\nHim too you occasionally tyrannize over; and with bad result to\nyourselves, among others; using the leather in a tyrannous unnecessary\nmanner; withholding, or scantily furnishing, the oats and ventilated\nstabling that are due. Rugged horse-subduers, one fears they are a\nlittle tyrannous at times. \"Am I not a horse, and half-brother?\"--To\nremedy which, so far as remediable, fancy--the horses all \"emancipated;\"\nrestored to their primeval right of property in the grass of this Globe:\nturned out to graze in an independent supply-and-demand manner! So long\nas grass lasts, I dare say they are very happy, or think themselves so.\nAnd Farmer Hodge sallying forth, on a dry spring morning, with a sieve\nof oats in his hand, and agony of eager expectation in his heart, is he\nhappy? Help me to plough this day, Black Dobbin: oats in full measure if\nthou wilt. \"Hlunh, No--thank!\" snorts Black Dobbin; he prefers glorious\nliberty and the grass. Bay Darby, wilt not thou perhaps? \"Hlunh!\"--Gray\nJoan, then, my beautiful broad-bottomed mare,--O Heaven, she too answers\nHlunh! Not a quadruped of them will plough a stroke for me. Corn-crops\nare _ended_ in this world!--For the sake, if not of Hodge, then of\nHodge's horses, one prays this benevolent practice might now cease, and\na new and better one try to begin. Small kindness to Hodge's horses to\nemancipate them! The fate of all emancipated horses is, sooner or later,\ninevitable. To have in this habitable Earth no grass to eat,--in Black\nJamaica gradually none, as in White Connemara already none;--to roam\naimless, wasting the seedfields of the world; and be hunted home to\nChaos, by the due watch-dogs and due hell-dogs, with such horrors of\nforsaken wretchedness as were never seen before! These things are not\nsport; they are terribly true, in this country at this hour.\n\nBetween our Black West Indies and our White Ireland, between these two\nextremes of lazy refusal to work, and of famishing inability to find any\nwork, what a world have we made of it, with our fierce Mammon-worships,\nand our benevolent philanderings, and idle godless nonsenses of one kind\nand another! Supply-and-demand, Leave-it-alone, Voluntary Principle,\nTime will mend it:--till British industrial existence seems fast\nbecoming one huge poison-swamp of reeking pestilence physical and moral;\na hideous _living_ Golgotha of souls and bodies buried alive; such a\nCurtius' gulf, communicating with the Nether Deeps, as the Sun never saw\ntill now. These scenes, which the _Morning Chronicle_ is bringing home\nto all minds of men,--thanks to it for a service such as Newspapers have\nseldom done,--ought to excite unspeakable reflections in every mind.\nThirty thousand outcast Needlewomen working themselves swiftly to\ndeath; three million Paupers rotting in forced idleness, _helping_ said\nNeedlewomen to die: these are but items in the sad ledger of despair.\n\nThirty thousand wretched women, sunk in that putrefying well of\nabominations; they have oozed in upon London, from the universal Stygian\nquagmire of British industrial life; are accumulated in the _well_ of\nthe concern, to that extent. British charity is smitten to the heart,\nat the laying bare of such a scene; passionately undertakes, by enormous\nsubscription of money, or by other enormous effort, to redress that\nindividual horror; as I and all men hope it may. But, alas, what next?\nThis general well and cesspool once baled clean out to-day, will begin\nbefore night to fill itself anew. The universal Stygian quagmire is\nstill there; opulent in women ready to be ruined, and in men ready.\nTowards the same sad cesspool will these waste currents of human ruin\nooze and gravitate as heretofore; except in draining the universal\nquagmire itself there is no remedy. \"And for that, what is the method?\"\ncry many in an angry manner. To whom, for the present, I answer only,\n\"Not 'emancipation,' it would seem, my friends; not the cutting loose of\nhuman ties, something far the reverse of that!\"\n\nMany things have been written about shirtmaking; but here perhaps is\nthe saddest thing of all, not written anywhere till now, that I know of.\nShirts by the thirty thousand are made at twopence-halfpenny each; and\nin the mean while no needlewoman, distressed or other, can be procured\nin London by any housewife to give, for fair wages, fair help in sewing.\nAsk any thrifty house-mother, high or low, and she will answer. In high\nhouses and in low, there is the same answer: no _real_ needlewoman,\n\"distressed\" or other, has been found attainable in any of the houses I\nfrequent. Imaginary needlewomen, who demand considerable wages, and have\na deepish appetite for beer and viands, I hear of everywhere; but their\nsewing proves too often a distracted puckering and botching; not sewing,\nonly the fallacious hope of it, a fond imagination of the mind. Good\nsempstresses are to be hired in every village; and in London, with its\nfamishing thirty thousand, not at all, or hardly,--Is not No-government\nbeautiful in human business? To such length has the Leave-alone\nprinciple carried it, by way of organizing labor, in this affair of\nshirtmaking. Let us hope the Leave-alone principle has now got its\napotheosis; and taken wing towards higher regions than ours, to deal\nhenceforth with a class of affairs more appropriate for it!\n\nReader, did you ever hear of \"Constituted Anarchy\"? Anarchy;\nthe choking, sweltering, deadly and killing rule of No-rule; the\nconsecration of cupidity, and braying folly, and dim stupidity and\nbaseness, in most of the affairs of men? Slop-shirts attainable three\nhalfpence cheaper, by the ruin of living bodies and immortal souls?\nSolemn Bishops and high Dignitaries, _our_ divine \"Pillars of Fire by\nnight,\" debating meanwhile, with their largest wigs and gravest look,\nupon something they call \"prevenient grace\"? Alas, our noble men of\ngenius, Heaven's _real_ messengers to us, they also rendered nearly\nfutile by the wasteful time;--preappointed they everywhere, and\nassiduously trained by all their pedagogues and monitors, to \"rise in\nParliament,\" to compose orations, write books, or in short speak words,\nfor the approval of reviewers; instead of doing real kingly work to be\napproved of by the gods! Our \"Government,\" a highly \"responsible\"\none; responsible to no God that I can hear of, but to the twenty-seven\nmillion _gods_ of the shilling gallery. A Government tumbling and\ndrifting on the whirlpools and mud-deluges, floating atop in a\nconspicuous manner, no-whither,--like the carcass of a drowned ass.\nAuthentic _Chaos_ come up into this sunny Cosmos again; and all men\nsinging Gloria in _excelsis_ to it. In spirituals and temporals, in\nfield and workshop, from Manchester to Dorsetshire, from Lambeth Palace\nto the Lanes of Whitechapel, wherever men meet and toil and traffic\ntogether,--Anarchy, Anarchy; and only the street-constable (though with\never-increasing difficulty) still maintaining himself in the middle of\nit; that so, for one thing, this blessed exchange of slop-shirts for\nthe souls of women may transact itself in a peaceable manner!--I, for my\npart, do profess myself in eternal opposition to this, and discern well\nthat universal Ruin has us in the wind, unless we can get out of this.\nMy friend Crabbe, in a late number of his _Intermittent Radiator_,\npertinently enough exclaims:--\n\n\"When shall we have done with all this of British Liberty, Voluntary\nPrinciple, Dangers of Centralization, and the like? It is really getting\ntoo bad. For British Liberty, it seems, the people cannot be taught\nto read. British Liberty, shuddering to interfere with the rights of\ncapital, takes six or eight millions of money annually to feed the\nidle laborer whom it dare not employ. For British Liberty we live over\npoisonous cesspools, gully-drains, and detestable abominations; and\nomnipotent London cannot sweep the dirt out of itself. British Liberty\nproduces--what? Floods of Hansard Debates every year, and apparently\nlittle else at present. If these are the results of British Liberty, I,\nfor one, move we should lay it on the shelf a little, and look out for\nsomething other and farther. We have achieved British Liberty hundreds\nof years ago; and are fast growing, on the strength of it, one of the\nmost absurd populations the Sun, among his great Museum of Absurdities,\nlooks down upon at present.\"\n\n\nCurious enough: the model of the world just now is England and her\nConstitution; all Nations striving towards it: poor France swimming\nthese last sixty years in seas of horrid dissolution and confusion,\nresolute to attain this blessedness of free voting, or to die in chase\nof it. Prussia too, solid Germany itself, has all broken out into\ncrackling of musketry, loud pamphleteering and Frankfort parliamenting\nand palavering; Germany too will scale the sacred mountains, how steep\nsoever, and, by talisman of ballot-box, inhabit a political Elysium\nhenceforth. All the Nations have that one hope. Very notable, and\nrather sad to the humane on-looker. For it is sadly conjectured, all the\nNations labor somewhat under a mistake as to England, and the causes of\nher freedom and her prosperous cotton-spinning; and have much misread\nthe nature of her Parliament, and the effect of ballot-boxes and\nuniversal suffrages there.\n\nWhat if it were because the English Parliament was from the first,\nand is only just now ceasing to be, a Council of actual Rulers, real\nGoverning Persons (called Peers, Mitred Abbots, Lords, Knights of the\nShire, or howsoever called), actually _ruling_ each his section of\nthe country,--and possessing (it must be said) in the lump, or when\nassembled as a Council, uncommon patience, devoutness, probity,\ndiscretion and good fortune,--that the said Parliament ever came to be\ngood for much? In that case it will not be easy to \"imitate\" the English\nParliament; and the ballot-box and suffrage will be the mere bow of\nRobin Hood, which it is given to very few to bend, or shoot with to\nany perfection. And if the Peers become mere big Capitalists, Railway\nDirectors, gigantic Hucksters, Kings of Scrip, _without_ lordly quality,\nor other virtue except cash; and the Mitred Abbots change to mere\nAble-Editors, masters of Parliamentary Eloquence, Doctors of\nPolitical Economy, and such like; and all _have_ to be elected by a\nuniversal-suffrage ballot-box,--I do not see how the English Parliament\nitself will long continue sea-worthy! Nay, I find England in her own\nbig dumb heart, wherever you come upon her in a silent meditative hour,\nbegins to have dreadful misgivings about it.\n\nThe model of the world, then, is at once unattainable by the world, and\nnot much worth attaining? England, as I read the omens, is now called a\nsecond time to \"show the Nations how to live;\" for by her Parliament,\nas chief governing entity, I fear she is not long for this world! Poor\nEngland must herself again, in these new strange times, the old methods\nbeing quite worn out, \"learn how to live.\" That now is the terrible\nproblem for England, as for all the Nations; and she alone of all, not\n_yet_ sunk into open Anarchy, but left with time for repentance and\namendment; she, wealthiest of all in material resource, in spiritual\nenergy, in ancient loyalty to law, and in the qualities that yield such\nloyalty,--she perhaps alone of all may be able, with huge travail, and\nthe strain of all her faculties, to accomplish some solution. She will\nhave to try it, she has now to try it; she must accomplish it, or perish\nfrom her place in the world!\n\nEngland, as I persuade myself, still contains in it many _kings_;\npossesses, as old Rome did, many men not needing \"election\" to command,\nbut eternally elected for it by the Maker Himself. England's one hope\nis in these, just now. They are among the silent, I believe; mostly far\naway from platforms and public palaverings; not speaking forth the image\nof their nobleness in transitory words, but imprinting it, each on his\nown little section of the world, in silent facts, in modest valiant\nactions, that will endure forevermore. They must sit silent no longer.\nThey are summoned to assert themselves; to act forth, and articulately\nvindicate, in the teeth of howling multitudes, of a world too justly\n_maddened_ into all manner of delirious clamors, what of wisdom they\nderive from God. England, and the Eternal Voices, summon them; poor\nEngland never so needed them as now. Up, be doing everywhere: the hour\nof crisis has verily come! In all sections of English life, the god-made\n_king_ is needed; is pressingly demanded in most; in some, cannot\nlonger, without peril as of conflagration, be dispensed with. He,\nwheresoever he finds himself, can say, \"Here too am I wanted; here is\nthe kingdom I have to subjugate, and introduce God's Laws into,--God's\nLaws, instead of Mammon's and M'Croudy's and the Old Anarch's! Here is\nmy work, here or nowhere.\"--Are there many such, who will answer to the\ncall, in England? It turns on that, whether England, rapidly crumbling\nin these very years and months, shall go down to the Abyss as her\nneighbors have all done, or survive to new grander destinies _without_\nsolution of continuity! Probably the chief question of the world at\npresent.\n\nThe true \"commander\" and king; he who knows for himself the divine\nAppointments of this Universe, the Eternal Laws ordained by God the\nMaker, in conforming to which lies victory and felicity, in departing\nfrom which lies, and forever must lie, sorrow and defeat, for each and\nall of the Posterity of Adam in every time and every place; he who has\nsworn fealty to these, and dare alone against the world assert these,\nand dare not with the whole world at his back deflect from these;--he,\nI know too well, is a rare man. Difficult to discover; not quite\ndiscoverable, I apprehend, by manoeuvring of ballot-boxes, and riddling\nof the popular clamor according to the most approved methods. He is not\nsold at any shop I know of,--though sometimes, as at the sign of the\nBallot-box, he is advertised for sale. Difficult indeed to discover:\nand not very much assisted, or encouraged in late times, to discover\n_himself_;--which, I think, might be a kind of help? Encouraged rather,\nand commanded in all ways, if he be wise, to _hide_ himself, and\ngive place to the windy Counterfeit of himself; such as the universal\nsuffrages can recognize, such as loves the most sweet voices of the\nuniversal suffrages!--O Peter, what becomes of such a People; what can\nbecome?\n\nDid you never hear, with the mind's ear as well, that fateful Hebrew\nProphecy, I think the fatefulest of all, which sounds daily through\nthe streets, \"Ou' clo! Ou' clo!\"--A certain People, once upon a time,\nclamorously voted by overwhelming majority, \"Not _he_; Barabbas, not\nhe! _Him_, and what he is, and what he deserves, we know well enough:\na reviler of the Chief Priests and sacred Chancery wigs; a seditious\nHeretic, physical-force Chartist, and enemy of his country and mankind:\nTo the gallows and the cross with him! Barabbas is our man; Barabbas, we\nare for Barabbas!\" They got Barabbas:--have you well considered what\na fund of purblind obduracy, of opaque _flunkyism_ grown truculent and\ntranscendent; what an eye for the phylacteries, and want of eye for the\neternal noblenesses; sordid loyalty to the prosperous Semblances, and\nhigh-treason against the Supreme Fact, such a vote betokens in these\nnatures? For it was the consummation of a long series of such; they and\ntheir fathers had long kept voting so. A singular People; who could both\nproduce such divine men, and then could so stone and crucify them; a\nPeople terrible from the beginning!--Well, they got Barabbas; and they\ngot, of course, such guidance as Barabbas and the like of him could give\nthem; and, of course, they stumbled ever downwards and devilwards, in\ntheir truculent stiffnecked way; and--and, at this hour, after eighteen\ncenturies of sad fortune, they prophetically sing \"Ou' clo!\" in all the\ncities of the world. Might the world, at this late hour, but take note\nof them, and understand their song a little!\n\nYes, there are some things the universal suffrage can decide,--and about\nthese it will be exceedingly useful to consult the universal suffrage:\nbut in regard to most things of importance, and in regard to the choice\nof men especially, there is (astonishing as it may seem) next to no\ncapability on the part of universal suffrage.--I request all candid\npersons, who have never so little originality of mind, and every man has\na little, to consider this. If true, it involves such a change in our\nnow fashionable modes of procedure as fills me with astonishment and\nalarm. _If_ popular suffrage is not the way of ascertaining what the\nLaws of the Universe are, and who it is that will best guide us in\nthe way of these,--then woe is to us if we do not take another method.\nDelolme on the British Constitution will not save us; deaf will the\nParcae be to votes of the House, to leading articles, constitutional\nphilosophies. The other method--alas, it involves a stopping short, or\nvital change of direction, in the glorious career which all Europe, with\nshouts heaven-high, is now galloping along: and that, happen when it\nmay, will, to many of us, be probably a rather surprising business!\n\nOne thing I do know, and can again assert with great confidence,\nsupported by the whole Universe, and by some two hundred generations of\nmen, who have left us some record of themselves there, That the few Wise\nwill have, by one method or another, to take command of the innumerable\nFoolish; that they must be got to take it;--and that, in fact, since\nWisdom, which means also Valor and heroic Nobleness, is alone strong in\nthis world, and one wise man is stronger than all men unwise, they can\nbe got. That they must take it; and having taken, must keep it, and do\ntheir God's Message in it, and defend the same, at their life's peril,\nagainst all men and devils. This I do clearly believe to be the backbone\nof all Future Society, as it has been of all Past; and that without it,\nthere is no Society possible in the world. And what a business _this_\nwill be, before it end in some degree of victory again, and whether the\ntime for shouts of triumph and tremendous cheers upon it is yet come, or\nnot yet by a great way, I perceive too well! A business to make us all\nvery serious indeed. A business not to be accomplished but by noble\nmanhood, and devout all-daring, all-enduring loyalty to Heaven, such as\nfatally _sleeps_ at present,--such as is not _dead_ at present either,\nunless the gods have doomed this world of theirs to die! A business\nwhich long centuries of faithful travail and heroic agony, on the part\nof all the noble that are born to us, will not end; and which to us, of\nthis \"tremendous cheering\" century, it were blessedness very great to\nsee successfully begun. Begun, tried by all manner of methods, if there\nis one wise Statesman or man left among us, it verily must be;--begun,\nsuccessfully or unsuccessfully, we do hope to see it!\n\n\nIn all European countries, especially in England, one class of Captains\nand commanders of men, recognizable as the beginning of a new real\nand not imaginary \"Aristocracy,\" has already in some measure developed\nitself: the Captains of Industry;--happily the class who above all, or\nat least first of all, are wanted in this time. In the doing of material\nwork, we have already men among us that can command bodies of men.\nAnd surely, on the other hand, there is no lack of men needing to be\ncommanded: the sad class of brother-men whom we had to describe as\n\"Hodge's emancipated horses,\" reduced to roving famine,--this too has in\nall countries developed itself; and, in fatal geometrical progression,\nis ever more developing itself, with a rapidity which alarms every one.\nOn this ground, if not on all manner of other grounds, it may be truly\nsaid, the \"Organization of Labor\" (_not_ organizable by the mad methods\ntried hitherto) is the universal vital Problem of the world.\n\nTo bring these hordes of outcast captainless soldiers under due\ncaptaincy? This is really the question of questions; on the answer\nto which turns, among other things, the fate of all Governments,\nconstitutional and other,--the possibility of their continuing to exist,\nor the impossibility. Captainless, uncommanded, these wretched outcast\n\"soldiers,\" since they cannot starve, must needs become banditti,\nstreet-barricaders,--destroyers of every Government that _cannot_ put\nthem under captains, and send them upon enterprises, and in short render\nlife human to them. Our English plan of Poor Laws, which we once piqued\nourselves upon as sovereign, is evidently fast breaking down. Ireland,\nnow admitted into the Idle Workhouse, is rapidly bursting it in pieces.\nThat never was a \"human\" destiny for any honest son of Adam; nowhere but\nin England could it have lasted at all; and now, with Ireland sharer\nin it, and the fulness of time come, it is as good as ended. Alas, yes.\nHere in Connemara, your crazy Ship of the State, otherwise dreadfully\nrotten in many of its timbers I believe, has sprung a leak: spite of\nall hands at the pump, the water is rising; the Ship, I perceive, will\nfounder, if you cannot stop this leak!\n\nTo bring these Captainless under due captaincy? The anxious thoughts of\nall men that do think are turned upon that question; and their efforts,\nthough as yet blindly and to no purpose, under the multifarious\nimpediments and obscurations, all point thitherward. Isolated men,\nand their vague efforts, cannot do it. Government everywhere is called\nupon,--in England as loudly as elsewhere,--to give the initiative. A\nnew strange task of these new epochs; which no Government, never\nso \"constitutional,\" can escape from undertaking. For it is vitally\nnecessary to the existence of Society itself; it must be undertaken, and\nsucceeded in too, or worse will follow,--and, as we already see in Irish\nConnaught and some other places, will follow soon. To whatever\nthing still calls itself by the name of Government, were it never so\nconstitutional and impeded by official impossibilities, all men will\nnaturally look for help, and direction what to do, in this extremity.\nIf help or direction is not given; if the thing called Government merely\ndrift and tumble to and fro, no-whither, on the popular vortexes, like\nsome carcass of a drowned ass, constitutionally put \"at the top of\naffairs,\" popular indignation will infallibly accumulate upon it; one\nday, the popular lightning, descending forked and horrible from the\nblack air, will annihilate said supreme carcass, and smite it home\nto its native ooze again!--Your Lordship, this is too true, though\nirreverently spoken: indeed one knows not how to speak of it; and to me\nit is infinitely sad and miserable, spoken or not!--Unless perhaps the\nVoluntary Principle will still help us through? Perhaps this Irish leak,\nin such a rotten distressed condition of the Ship, with all the crew so\nanxious about it, will be kind enough to stop of itself?--\n\nDismiss that hope, your Lordship! Let all real and imaginary Governors\nof England, at the pass we have arrived at, dismiss forever that\nfallacious fatal solace to their do-nothingism: of itself, too clearly,\nthe leak will never stop; by human skill and energy it must be stopped,\nor there is nothing but the sea-bottom for us all! A Chief Governor of\nEngland really ought to recognize his situation; to discern that, doing\nnothing, and merely drifting to and fro, in however constitutional a\nmanner, he is a squanderer of precious moments, moments that perhaps are\npriceless; a truly alarming Chief Governor. Surely, to a Chief Governor\nof England, worthy of that high name,--surely to him, as to every\nliving man, in every conceivable situation short of the Kingdom of the\nDead--there is _something_ possible; some plan of action other than that\nof standing mildly, with crossed arms, till he and we--sink? Complex as\nhis situation is, he, of all Governors now extant among these distracted\nNations, has, as I compute, by far the greatest possibilities. The\nCaptains, actual or potential, are there, and the million Captainless:\nand such resources for bringing them together as no other has. To these\noutcast soldiers of his, unregimented roving banditti for the present,\nor unworking workhouse prisoners who are almost uglier than banditti;\nto these floods of Irish Beggars, Able-bodied Paupers, and nomadic\nLackalls, now stagnating or roaming everywhere, drowning the face of the\nworld (too truly) into an untenantable swamp and Stygian quagmire, has\nthe Chief Governor of this country no word whatever to say? Nothing but\n\"Rate in aid,\" \"Time will mend it,\" \"Necessary business of the Session;\"\nand \"After me the Deluge\"? A Chief Governor that can front his Irish\ndifficulty, and steadily contemplate the horoscope of Irish and British\nPauperism, and whitherward it is leading him and us, in this humor, must\nbe a--What shall we call such a Chief Governor? Alas, in spite of old\nuse and wont,--little other than a tolerated Solecism, growing daily\nmore intolerable! He decidedly ought to have some word to say on this\nmatter,--to be incessantly occupied in getting something which he could\npractically say!--Perhaps to the following, or a much finer effect?\n\n\n_Speech of the British Prime-Minister to the floods of Irish and other\nBeggars, the able-bodied Lackalls, nomadic or stationary, and the\ngeneral assembly, outdoor and indoor, of the Pauper Populations of these\nRealms_.\n\n\"Vagrant Lackalls, foolish most of you, criminal many of you, miserable\nall; the sight of you fills me with astonishment and despair. What to\ndo with you I know not; long have I been meditating, and it is hard to\ntell. Here are some three millions of you, as I count: so many of you\nfallen sheer over into the abysses of open Beggary; and, fearful to\nthink, every new unit that falls is _loading_ so much more the chain\nthat drags the others over. On the edge of the precipice hang uncounted\nmillions; increasing, I am told, at the rate of 1200 a day. They hang\nthere on the giddy edge, poor souls, cramping themselves down, holding\non with all their strength; but falling, falling one after another; and\nthe chain is getting _heavy_, so that ever more fall; and who at last\nwill stand? What to do with you? The question, What to do with you?\nespecially since the potato died, is like to break my heart!\n\n\"One thing, after much meditating, I have at last discovered, and now\nknow for some time back: That you cannot be left to roam abroad in this\nunguided manner, stumbling over the precipices, and loading ever heavier\nthe fatal _chain_ upon those who might be able to stand; that this\nof locking you up in temporary Idle Workhouses, when you stumble, and\nsubsisting you on Indian meal, till you can sally forth again on fresh\nroamings, and fresh stumblings, and ultimate descent to the devil;--that\nthis is _not_ the plan; and that it never was, or could out of England\nhave been supposed to be, much as I have prided myself upon it!\n\n\"Vagrant Lackalls, I at last perceive, all this that has been sung and\nspoken, for a long while, about enfranchisement, emancipation, freedom,\nsuffrage, civil and religious liberty over the world, is little other\nthan sad temporary jargon, brought upon us by a stern necessity,--but\nnow ordered by a sterner to take itself away again a little. Sad\ntemporary jargon, I say: made up of sense and nonsense,--sense in small\nquantities, and nonsense in very large;--and, if taken for the whole\nor permanent truth of human things, it is no better than fatal infinite\nnonsense eternally _untrue_. All men, I think, will soon have to quit\nthis, to consider this as a thing pretty well achieved; and to look out\ntowards another thing much more needing achievement at the time that now\nis.\n\n\"All men will have to quit it, I believe. But to you, my indigent\nfriends, the time for quitting it has palpably arrived! To talk of\nglorious self-government, of suffrages and hustings, and the fight\nof freedom and such like, is a vain thing in your case. By all human\ndefinitions and conceptions of the said fight of freedom, you for your\npart have lost it, and can fight no more. Glorious self-government is\na glory not for you, not for Hodge's emancipated horses, nor you. No; I\nsay, No. You, for your part, have tried it, and _failed_. Left to walk\nyour own road, the will-o'-wisps beguiled you, your short sight could\nnot descry the pitfalls; the deadly tumult and press has whirled you\nhither and thither, regardless of your struggles and your shrieks; and\nhere at last you lie; fallen flat into the ditch, drowning there and\ndying, unless the others that are still standing please to pick you\nup. The others that still stand have their own difficulties, I can tell\nyou!--But you, by imperfect energy and redundant appetite, by doing too\nlittle work and drinking too much beer, you (I bid you observe) have\nproved that you cannot do it! You lie there plainly in the ditch. And\nI am to pick you up again, on these mad terms; help you ever again, as\nwith our best heart's-blood, to do what, once for all, the gods\nhave made impossible? To load the fatal _chain_ with your perpetual\nstaggerings and sprawlings; and ever again load it, till we all lie\nsprawling? My indigent incompetent friends, I will not! Know that,\nwhoever may be 'sons of freedom,' you for your part are not and cannot\nbe such. Not 'free' you, I think, whoever may be free. You palpably are\nfallen captive,--_caitiff_, as they once named it:--you do, silently\nbut eloquently, demand, in the name of mercy itself, that some genuine\ncommand be taken of you.\n\n\"Yes, my indigent incompetent friends; some genuine practical command.\nSuch,--if I rightly interpret those mad Chartisms, Repeal Agitations,\nRed Republics, and other delirious inarticulate howlings and bellowings\nwhich all the populations of the world now utter, evidently cries of\npain on their and your part,--is the demand which you, Captives, make of\nall men that are not Captive, but are still Free. Free men,--alas,\nhad you ever any notion who the free men were, who the not-free, the\nincapable of freedom! The free men, if you could have understood it,\nthey are the wise men; the patient, self-denying, valiant; the Nobles\nof the World; who can discern the Law of this Universe, what it is, and\npiously _obey_ it; these, in late sad times, having cast you loose, you\nare fallen captive to greedy sons of profit-and-loss; to bad and ever to\nworse; and at length to Beer and the Devil. Algiers, Brazil or Dahomey\nhold nothing in them so authentically _slave_ as you are, my indigent\nincompetent friends!\n\n\"Good Heavens, and I have to raise some eight or nine millions annually,\nsix for England itself, and to wreck the morals of my working population\nbeyond all money's worth, to keep the life from going out of you: a\nsmall service to you, as I many times bitterly repeat! Alas, yes; before\nhigh Heaven I must declare it such. I think the old Spartans, who would\nhave killed you instead, had shown more 'humanity,' more of manhood,\nthan I thus do! More humanity, I say, more of manhood, and of sense for\nwhat the dignity of man demands imperatively of you and of me and of us\nall. We call it charity, beneficence, and other fine names, this brutish\nWorkhouse Scheme of ours; and it is but sluggish heartlessness, and\ninsincerity, and cowardly lowness of soul. Not 'humanity' or manhood,\nI think; perhaps _ape_hood rather,--paltry imitancy, from the teeth\noutward, of what our heart never felt nor our understanding ever saw;\ndim indolent adherence to extraneous and extinct traditions; traditions\nnow really about extinct; not living now to almost any of us, and still\nhaunting with their spectralities and gibbering _ghosts_ (in a truly\nbaleful manner) almost all of us! Making this our struggling 'Twelfth\nHour of the Night' inexpressibly hideous!--\n\n\"But as for you, my indigent incompetent friends, I have to repeat with\nsorrow, but with perfect clearness, what is plainly undeniable, and is\neven clamorous to get itself admitted, that you are of the nature of\nslaves,--or if you prefer the word, of _nomadic, and now even vagrant\nand vagabond, servants that can find no master on those terms_;\nwhich seems to me a much uglier word. Emancipation? You have been\n'emancipated' with a vengeance! Foolish souls, I say the whole world\ncannot emancipate you. Fealty to ignorant Unruliness, to gluttonous\nsluggish Improvidence, to the Beer-pot and the Devil, who is there that\ncan emancipate a man in that predicament? Not a whole Reform Bill, a\nwhole French Revolution executed for his behoof alone: nothing but God\nthe Maker can emancipate him, by making him anew.\n\n\"To forward which glorious consummation, will it not be well, O indigent\nfriends, that you, fallen flat there, shall henceforth learn to take\nadvice of others as to the methods of standing? Plainly I let you know,\nand all the world and the worlds know, that I for my part mean it so.\nNot as glorious unfortunate sons of freedom, but as recognized captives,\nas unfortunate fallen brothers requiring that I should command you, and\nif need were, control and compel you, can there henceforth be a relation\nbetween us. Ask me not for Indian meal; you shall be compelled to earn\nit first; know that on other terms I will not give you any. Before\nHeaven and Earth, and God the Maker of us all, I declare it is a scandal\nto see _such_ a life kept in you, by the sweat and heart's-blood of your\nbrothers; and that, if we cannot mend it, death were preferable! Go to,\nwe must get out of this--unutterable coil of nonsenses, constitutional,\nphilanthropical, &c., in which (surely without mutual hatred, if with\nless of 'love' than is supposed) we are all strangling one another!\nYour want of wants, I say, is that you be _commanded_ in this world,\nnot being able to command yourselves. Know therefore that it shall be\nso with you. Nomadism, I give you notice, has ended; needful permanency,\nsoldier-like obedience, and the opportunity and the necessity of hard\nsteady labor for your living, have begun. Know that the Idle Workhouse\nis shut against you henceforth; you cannot enter there at will, nor\nleave at will; you shall enter a quite other Refuge, under conditions\nstrict as soldiering, and not leave till I have done with you. He that\nprefers the glorious (or perhaps even the rebellious _in_glorious)\n'career of freedom,' let him prove that he can travel there, and be the\nmaster of himself; and right good speed to him. He who has proved that\nhe cannot travel there or be the master of himself,--let him, in the\nname of all the gods, become a servant, and accept the just rules of\nservitude!\n\n\"Arise, enlist in my Irish, my Scotch and English 'Regiments of the New\nEra,'--which I have been concocting, day and night, during these three\nGrouse-seasons (taking earnest incessant counsel, with all manner of\nIndustrial Notabilities and men of insight, on the matter), and have now\nbrought to a kind of preparation for incipiency, thank Heaven! Enlist\nthere, ye poor wandering banditti; obey, work, suffer, abstain, as all\nof us have had to do: so shall you be useful in God's creation, so shall\nyou be helped to gain a manful living for yourselves; not otherwise than\nso. Industrial Regiments [_Here numerous persons, with big wigs many\nof them, and austere aspect, whom I take to be Professors of the Dismal\nScience, start up in an agitated vehement manner: but the Premier\nresolutely beckons them down again_]--Regiments not to fight the French\nor others, who are peaceable enough towards us; but to fight the Bogs\nand Wildernesses at home and abroad, and to chain the Devils of the Pit\nwhich are walking too openly among us.\n\n\"Work, for you? Work, surely, is not quite undiscoverable in an Earth\nso wide as ours, if we will take the right methods for it! Indigent\nfriends, we will adopt this new relation (which is _old_ as the world);\nthis will lead us towards such. Rigorous conditions, not to be violated\non either side, lie in this relation; conditions planted there by God\nHimself; which woe will betide us if we do not discover, gradually more\nand more discover, and conform to! Industrial Colonels, Workmasters,\nTask-masters, Life-commanders, equitable as Rhadamanthus and inflexible\nas he: such, I perceive, you do need; and such, you being once put under\nlaw as soldiers are, will be discoverable for you. I perceive, with\nboundless alarm, that I shall have to set about discovering such,--I,\nsince I am at the top of affairs, with all men looking to me. Alas, it\nis my new task in this New Era; and God knows, I too, little other than\na red-tape Talking-machine, and unhappy Bag of Parliamentary Eloquence\nhitherto, am far behind with it! But street-barricades rise everywhere:\nthe hour of Fate has come. In Connemara there has sprung a leak, since\nthe potato died; Connaught, if it were not for Treasury-grants and\nrates-in-aid, would have to recur to Cannibalism even now, and Human\nSociety would cease to pretend that it existed there. Done this thing\nmust be. Alas, I perceive that if I cannot do it, then surely I shall\ndie, and perhaps shall not have Christian burial! But I already raise\nnear upon Ten Millions for feeding you in idleness, my nomadic friends;\nwork, under due regulations, I really might try to get of--[_Here\narises indescribable uproar, no longer repressible, from all manner\nof Economists, Emancipationists, Constitutionalists, and miscellaneous\nProfessors of the Dismal Science, pretty numerously scattered about;\nand cries of \"Private enterprise,\" \"Rights of Capital,\" \"Voluntary\nPrinciple,\" \"Doctrines of the British Constitution,\" swollen by the\ngeneral assenting hum of all the world, quite drown the Chief Minister\nfor a while. He, with invincible resolution, persists; obtains hearing\nagain_:]\n\n\"Respectable Professors of the Dismal Science, soft you a little.\nAlas, I know what you would say. For my sins, I have read much in those\ninimitable volumes of yours,--really I should think, some barrowfuls of\nthem in my time,--and, in these last forty years of theory and practice,\nhave pretty well seized what of Divine Message you were sent with to me.\nPerhaps as small a message, give me leave to say, as ever there was\nsuch a noise made about before. Trust me, I have not forgotten it, shall\nnever forget it. Those Laws of the Shop-till are indisputable to me;\nand practically useful in certain departments of the Universe, as the\nmultiplication-table itself. Once I even tried to sail through the\nImmensities with them, and to front the big coming Eternities with them;\nbut I found it would not do. As the Supreme Rule of Statesmanship, or\nGovernment of Men,--since this Universe is not wholly a Shop,--no. You\nrejoice in my improved tariffs, free-trade movements and the like, on\nevery hand; for which be thankful, and even sing litanies if you choose.\nBut here at last, in the Idle-Workhouse movement,--unexampled yet on\nEarth or in the waters under the Earth,--I am fairly brought to a stand;\nand have had to make reflections, of the most alarming, and indeed\nawful, and as it were religious nature! Professors of the Dismal\nScience, I perceive that the length of your tether is now pretty well\nrun; and that I must request you to talk a little lower in future. By\nthe side of the shop-till,--see, your small 'Law of God' is hung up,\nalong with the multiplication-table itself. But beyond and above the\nshop-till, allow me to say, you shall as good as hold your peace.\nRespectable Professors, I perceive it is not now the Gigantic Hucksters,\nbut it is the Immortal Gods, yes they, in their terror and their beauty,\nin their wrath and their beneficence, that are coming into play in the\naffairs of this world! Soft you a little. Do not you interrupt me, but\ntry to understand and help me!--\n\n--\"Work, was I saying? My indigent unguided friends, I should think some\nwork might be discoverable for you. Enlist, stand drill; become, from a\nnomadic Banditti of Idleness, Soldiers of Industry! I will lead you to\nthe Irish Bogs, to the vacant desolations of Connaught now falling into\nCannibalism, to mistilled Connaught, to ditto Munster, Leinster, Ulster,\nI will lead you: to the English fox-covers, furze-grown Commons, New\nForests, Salisbury Plains: likewise to the Scotch Hill-sides, and bare\nrushy slopes, which as yet feed only sheep,--moist uplands, thousands of\nsquare miles in extent, which are destined yet to grow green crops, and\nfresh butter and milk and beef without limit (wherein no 'Foreigner can\ncompete with us'), were the Glasgow sewers once opened on them, and you\nwith your Colonels carried thither. In the Three Kingdoms, or in the\nForty Colonies, depend upon it, you shall be led to your work!\n\n\"To each of you I will then say: Here is work for you; strike into it\nwith manlike, soldier-like obedience and heartiness, according to the\nmethods here prescribed,--wages follow for you without difficulty; all\nmanner of just remuneration, and at length emancipation itself follows.\nRefuse to strike into it; shirk the heavy labor, disobey the rules,--I\nwill admonish and endeavor to incite you; if in vain, I will flog you;\nif still in vain, I will at last shoot you,--and make God's Earth, and\nthe forlorn-hope in God's Battle, free of you. Understand it, I advise\nyou! The Organization of Labor\"--[_Left speaking_, says our reporter.]\n\n\n\"Left speaking:\" alas, that he should have to \"speak\" so much! There are\nthings that should be done, not spoken; that till the doing of them is\nbegun, cannot well be spoken. He may have to \"speak\" seven years yet,\nbefore a spade be struck into the Bog of Allen; and then perhaps it will\nbe too late!--\n\nYou perceive, my friends, we have actually got into the \"New Era\" there\nhas been such prophesying of: here we all are, arrived at last;--and\nit is by no means the land flowing with milk and honey we were led\nto expect! Very much the reverse. A terrible _new_ country this: no\nneighbors in it yet, that I can see, but irrational flabby monsters\n(philanthropic and other) of the giant species; hyenas, laughing hyenas,\npredatory wolves; probably _devils_, blue (or perhaps blue-and-yellow)\ndevils, as St. Guthlac found in Croyland long ago. A huge untrodden\nhaggard country, the \"chaotic battle-field of Frost and Fire;\" a country\nof savage glaciers, granite mountains, of foul jungles, unhewed forests,\nquaking bogs;--which we shall have our own ados to make arable and\nhabitable, I think! We must stick by it, however;--of all enterprises\nthe impossiblest is that of getting out of it, and shifting into\nanother. To work, then, one and all; hands to work!\n\n\n\n\nNo. II. MODEL PRISONS. [March 1, 1850.]\n\nThe deranged condition of our affairs is a universal topic among men at\npresent; and the heavy miseries pressing, in their rudest shape, on the\ngreat dumb inarticulate class, and from this, by a sure law, spreading\nupwards, in a less palpable but not less certain and perhaps still more\nfatal shape on all classes to the very highest, are admitted everywhere\nto be great, increasing and now almost unendurable. How to diminish\nthem,--this is every man's question. For in fact they do imperatively\nneed diminution; and unless they can be diminished, there are many other\nthings that cannot very long continue to exist beside them. A serious\nquestion indeed, How to diminish them!\n\nAmong the articulate classes, as they may be called, there are two ways\nof proceeding in regard to this. One large body of the intelligent\nand influential, busied mainly in personal affairs, accepts the social\niniquities, or whatever you may call them, and the miseries consequent\nthereupon; accepts them, admits them to be extremely miserable,\npronounces them entirely inevitable, incurable except by Heaven, and\neats its pudding with as little thought of them as possible. Not a very\nnoble class of citizens these; not a very hopeful or salutary method of\ndealing with social iniquities this of theirs, however it may answer in\nrespect to themselves and their personal affairs! But now there is the\nselect small minority, in whom some sentiment of public spirit and human\npity still survives, among whom, or not anywhere, the Good Cause may\nexpect to find soldiers and servants: their method of proceeding, in\nthese times, is also very strange. They embark in the \"philanthropic\nmovement;\" they calculate that the miseries of the world can be cured by\nbringing the philanthropic movement to bear on them. To universal public\nmisery, and universal neglect of the clearest public duties, let private\ncharity superadd itself: there will thus be some balance restored, and\nmaintained again; thus,--or by what conceivable method? On these terms\nthey, for their part, embark in the sacred cause; resolute to cure a\nworld's woes by rose-water; desperately bent on trying to the uttermost\nthat mild method. It seems not to have struck these good men that no\nworld, or thing here below, ever fell into misery, without having first\nfallen into folly, into sin against the Supreme Ruler of it, by adopting\nas a law of conduct what was not a law, but the reverse of one; and\nthat, till its folly, till its sin be cast out of it, there is not the\nsmallest hope of its misery going,--that not for all the charity and\nrose-water in the world will its misery try to go till then!\n\nThis is a sad error; all the sadder as it is the error chiefly of the\nmore humane and noble-minded of our generation; among whom, as we\nsaid, or elsewhere not at all, the cause of real Reform must expect its\nservants. At present, and for a long while past, whatsoever young soul\nawoke in England with some disposition towards generosity and social\nheroism, or at lowest with some intimation of the beauty of such\na disposition,--he, in whom the poor world might have looked for a\nReformer, and valiant mender of its foul ways, was almost sure to become\na Philanthropist, reforming merely by this rose-water method. To admit\nthat the world's ways are foul, and not the ways of God the Maker, but\nof Satan the Destroyer, many of them, and that they must be mended or\nwe all die; that if huge misery prevails, huge cowardice, falsity,\ndisloyalty, universal Injustice high and low, have still longer\nprevailed, and must straightway try to cease prevailing: this is what\nno visible reformer has yet thought of doing: All so-called \"reforms\"\nhitherto are grounded either on openly admitted egoism (cheap bread to\nthe cotton-spinner, voting to those that have no vote, and the like),\nwhich does not point towards very celestial developments of the\nReform movement; or else upon this of remedying social injustices by\nindiscriminate contributions of philanthropy, a method surely still more\nunpromising. Such contributions, being indiscriminate, are but a new\ninjustice; these will never lead to reform, or abolition of injustice,\nwhatever else they lead to!\n\nNot by that method shall we \"get round Cape Horn,\" by never such\nunanimity of voting, under the most approved Phantasm Captains! It is\nmiserable to see. Having, as it were, quite lost our way round Cape\nHorn, and being sorely \"admonished\" by the Iceberg and other dumb\ncouncillors, the pilots,--instead of taking to their sextants, and\nasking with a seriousness unknown for a long while, What the Laws of\nwind and water, and of Earth and of Heaven are,--decide that now, in\nthese new circumstances, they will, to the worthy and unworthy, serve\nout a double allowance of grog. In this way they hope to do it,--by\nsteering on the old wrong tack, and serving out more and more,\ncopiously what little _aqua vitae_ may be still on board! Philanthropy,\nemancipation, and pity for human calamity is very beautiful; but the\ndeep oblivion of the Law of Right and Wrong; this \"indiscriminate\nmashing up of Right and Wrong into a patent treacle\" of the\nPhilanthropic movement, is by no means beautiful; this, on the contrary,\nis altogether ugly and alarming.\n\nTruly if there be not something inarticulate among us, not yet uttered\nbut pressing towards utterance, which is much wiser than anything we\nhave lately articulated or brought into word or action, our outlooks are\nrather lamentable. The great majority of the powerful and active-minded,\nsunk in egoistic scepticisms, busied in chase of lucre, pleasure, and\nmere vulgar objects, looking with indifference on the world's woes, and\npassing carelessly by on the other side; and the select minority, of\nwhom better might have been expected, bending all their strength to cure\nthem by methods which can only make bad worse, and in the end\nrender cure hopeless. A blind loquacious pruriency of indiscriminate\nPhilanthropism substituting itself, with much self-laudation, for the\nsilent divinely awful sense of Right and Wrong;--testifying too clearly\nthat here is no longer a divine sense of Right and Wrong; that, in\nthe smoke of this universal, and alas inevitable and indispensable\nrevolutionary fire, and burning up of worn-out rags of which the world\nis full, our life-atmosphere has (for the time) become one vile London\nfog, and the eternal loadstars are gone out for us! Gone out;--yet very\nvisible if you can get above the fog; still there in their place,\nand quite the same as they always were! To whoever does still know of\nloadstars, the proceedings, which expand themselves daily, of\nthese sublime philanthropic associations, and \"universal\nsluggard-and-scoundrel protection-societies,\" are a perpetual\naffliction. With their emancipations and abolition principles, and\nreigns of brotherhood and new methods of love, they have done great\nthings in the White and in the Black World, during late years; and are\npreparing for greater.\n\nIn the interest of human reform, if there is ever to be any reform, and\nreturn to prosperity or to the possibility of prospering, it is urgent\nthat the nonsense of all this (and it is mostly nonsense, but not quite)\nshould be sent about its business straightway, and forbidden to deceive\nthe well-meaning souls among us any more. Reform, if we will understand\nthat divine word, cannot begin till then. One day, I do know, this, as\nis the doom of all nonsense, will be drummed out of the world, with due\nplacard stuck on its back, and the populace flinging dead cats at it:\nbut whether soon or not, is by no means so certain. I rather guess,\n_not_ at present, not quite soon. Fraternity, in other countries, has\ngone on, till it found itself unexpectedly manipulating guillotines by\nits chosen Robespierres, and become a fraternity like Cain's. Much\nto its amazement! For in fact it is not all nonsense; there is an\ninfinitesimal fraction of sense in it withal; which is so difficult\nto disengage;--which must be disengaged, and laid hold of, before\nFraternity can vanish.\n\nBut to our subject,--the Model Prison, and the strange theory of life\nnow in action there. That, for the present, is my share in the wide\nadventure of Philanthropism; the world's share, and how and when it is\nto be liquidated and ended, rests with the Supreme Destinies.\n\nSeveral months ago, some friends took me with them to see one of the\nLondon Prisons; a Prison of the exemplary or model kind. An immense\ncircuit of buildings; cut out, girt with a high ring-wall, from the\nlanes and streets of the quarter, which is a dim and crowded one.\nGateway as to a fortified place; then a spacious court, like the square\nof a city; broad staircases, passages to interior courts; fronts of\nstately architecture all round. It lodges some thousand or twelve\nhundred prisoners, besides the officers of the establishment. Surely one\nof the most perfect buildings, within the compass of London. We looked\nat the apartments, sleeping-cells, dining-rooms, working-rooms, general\ncourts or special and private: excellent all, the ne-plus-ultra of human\ncare and ingenuity; in my life I never saw so clean a building; probably\nno Duke in England lives in a mansion of such perfect and thorough\ncleanness.\n\nThe bread, the cocoa, soup, meat, all the various sorts of food, in\ntheir respective cooking-places, we tasted: found them of excellence\nsuperlative. The prisoners sat at work, light work, picking oakum, and\nthe like, in airy apartments with glass roofs, of agreeable temperature\nand perfect ventilation; silent, or at least conversing only by secret\nsigns: others were out, taking their hour of promenade in clean flagged\ncourts: methodic composure, cleanliness, peace, substantial wholesome\ncomfort reigned everywhere supreme. The women in other apartments,\nsome notable murderesses among them, all in the like state of methodic\ncomposure and substantial wholesome comfort, sat sewing: in long ranges\nof wash-houses, drying-houses and whatever pertains to the getting-up\nof clean linen, were certain others, with all conceivable mechanical\nfurtherances, not too arduously working. The notable murderesses were,\nthough with great precautions of privacy, pointed out to us; and we were\nrequested not to look openly at them, or seem to notice them at all,\nas it was found to \"cherish their vanity\" when visitors looked at them.\nSchools too were there; intelligent teachers of both sexes, studiously\ninstructing the still ignorant of these thieves.\n\nFrom an inner upper room or gallery, we looked down into a range of\nprivate courts, where certain Chartist Notabilities were undergoing\ntheir term. Chartist Notability First struck me very much; I had seen\nhim about a year before, by involuntary accident and much to my disgust,\nmagnetizing a silly young person; and had noted well the unlovely\nvoracious look of him, his thick oily skin, his heavy dull-burning eyes,\nhis greedy mouth, the dusky potent insatiable animalism that looked\nout of every feature of him: a fellow adequate to animal-magnetize most\nthings, I did suppose;--and here was the post I now found him arrived\nat. Next neighbor to him was Notability Second, a philosophic or\nliterary Chartist; walking rapidly to and fro in his private court, a\nclean, high-walled place; the world and its cares quite excluded, for\nsome months to come: master of his own time and spiritual resources to,\nas I supposed, a really enviable extent. What \"literary man\" to an equal\nextent! I fancied I, for my own part, so left with paper and ink, and\nall taxes and botherations shut out from me, could have written such a\nBook as no reader will here ever get of me. Never, O reader, never here\nin a mere house with taxes and botherations. Here, alas, one has to\nsnatch one's poor Book, bit by bit, as from a conflagration; and to\nthink and live, comparatively, as if the house were not one's own, but\nmainly the world's and the devil's. Notability Second might have filled\none with envy.\n\nThe Captain of the place, a gentleman of ancient Military or Royal-Navy\nhabits, was one of the most perfect governors; professionally and by\nnature zealous for cleanliness, punctuality, good order of every kind;\na humane heart and yet a strong one; soft of speech and manner, yet with\nan inflexible rigor of command, so far as his limits went: \"iron hand\nin a velvet glove,\" as Napoleon defined it. A man of real worth,\nchallenging at once love and respect: the light of those mild bright\neyes seemed to permeate the place as with an all-pervading vigilance,\nand kindly yet victorious illumination; in the soft definite voice it\nwas as if Nature herself were promulgating her orders, gentlest mildest\norders, which however, in the end, there would be no disobeying, which\nin the end there would be no living without fulfilment of. A true\n\"aristos,\" and commander of men. A man worthy to have commanded and\nguided forward, in good ways, twelve hundred of the best common-people\nin London or the world: he was here, for many years past, giving all\nhis care and faculty to command, and guide forward in such ways as there\nwere, twelve hundred of the worst. I looked with considerable admiration\non this gentleman; and with considerable astonishment, the reverse of\nadmiration, on the work he had here been set upon.\n\nThis excellent Captain was too old a Commander to complain of anything;\nindeed he struggled visibly the other way, to find in his own mind that\nall here was best; but I could sufficiently discern that, in his natural\ninstincts, if not mounting up to the region of his thoughts, there was\na continual protest going on against much of it; that nature and all his\ninarticulate persuasion (however much forbidden to articulate itself)\ntaught him the futility and unfeasibility of the system followed here.\nThe Visiting Magistrates, he gently regretted rather than complained,\nhad lately taken his tread-wheel from him, men were just now pulling\nit down; and how he was henceforth to enforce discipline on these bad\nsubjects, was much a difficulty with him. \"They cared for nothing but\nthe tread-wheel, and for having their rations cut short:\" of the two\nsole penalties, hard work and occasional hunger, there remained now only\none, and that by no means the better one, as he thought. The \"sympathy\"\nof visitors, too, their \"pity\" for his interesting scoundrel-subjects,\nthough he tried to like it, was evidently no joy to this practical mind.\nPity, yes: but pity for the scoundrel-species? For those who will not\nhave pity on themselves, and will force the Universe and the Laws\nof Nature to have no \"pity on\" them? Meseems I could discover fitter\nobjects of pity!\n\nIn fact it was too clear, this excellent man had got a field for his\nfaculties which, in several respects, was by no means the suitable one.\nTo drill twelve hundred scoundrels by \"the method of kindness,\" and of\nabolishing your very tread-wheel,--how could any commander rejoice to\nhave such a work cut out for him? You had but to look in the faces of\nthese twelve hundred, and despair, for most part, of ever \"commanding\"\nthem at all. Miserable distorted blockheads, the generality; ape-faces,\nimp-faces, angry dog-faces, heavy sullen ox-faces; degraded underfoot\nperverse creatures, sons of _in_docility, greedy mutinous darkness,\nand in one word, of STUPIDITY, which is the general mother of such.\nStupidity intellectual and stupidity moral (for the one always means\nthe other, as you will, with surprise or not, discover if you look)\nhad borne this progeny: base-natured beings, on whom in the course of\na maleficent subterranean life of London Scoundrelism, the Genius\nof Darkness (called Satan, Devil, and other names) had now visibly\nimpressed his seal, and had marked them out as soldiers of Chaos and of\nhim,--appointed to serve in _his_ Regiments, First of the line, Second\nditto, and so on in their order. Him, you could perceive, they would\nserve; but not easily another than him. These were the subjects whom our\nbrave Captain and Prison-Governor was appointed to command, and\nreclaim to _other_ service, by \"the method of love,\" with a tread-wheel\nabolished.\n\nHopeless forevermore such a project. These abject, ape, wolf, ox, imp\nand other diabolic-animal specimens of humanity, who of the very gods\ncould ever have commanded them by love? A collar round the neck, and a\ncart-whip flourished over the back; these, in a just and steady human\nhand, were what the gods would have appointed them; and now when, by\nlong misconduct and neglect, they had sworn themselves into the Devil's\nregiments of the line, and got the seal of Chaos impressed on their\nvisage, it was very doubtful whether even these would be of avail for\nthe unfortunate commander of twelve hundred men! By \"love,\" without hope\nexcept of peaceably teasing oakum, or fear except of a temporary loss\nof dinner, he was to guide these men, and wisely constrain\nthem,--whitherward? No-whither: that was his goal, if you will think\nwell of it; that was a second fundamental falsity in his problem. False\nin the warp and false in the woof, thought one of us; about as false\na problem as any I have seen a good man set upon lately! To guide\nscoundrels by \"love;\" that is a false woof, I take it, a method that\nwill not hold together; hardly for the flower of men will love alone do;\nand for the sediment and scoundrelism of men it has not even a chance\nto do. And then to guide any class of men, scoundrel or other,\n_No-whither_, which was this poor Captain's problem, in this Prison with\noakum for its one element of hope or outlook, how can that prosper by\n\"love\" or by any conceivable method? That is a warp wholly false. Out of\nwhich false warp, or originally false condition to start from, combined\nand daily woven into by your false woof, or methods of \"love\" and such\nlike, there arises for our poor Captain the falsest of problems, and for\na man of his faculty the unfairest of situations. His problem was, not\nto command good men to do something, but bad men to do (with superficial\ndisguises) nothing.\n\n\nOn the whole, what a beautiful Establishment here fitted up for the\naccommodation of the scoundrel-world, male and female! As I said, no\nDuke in England is, for all rational purposes which a human being can\nor ought to aim at, lodged, fed, tended, taken care of, with such\nperfection. Of poor craftsmen that pay rates and taxes from their day's\nwages, of the dim millions that toil and moil continually under the\nsun, we know what is the lodging and the tending. Of the Johnsons,\nGoldsmiths, lodged in their squalid garrets; working often enough amid\nfamine, darkness, tumult, dust and desolation, what work _they_ have\nto do:--of these as of \"spiritual backwoodsmen,\" understood to be\npreappointed to such a life, and like the pigs to killing, \"quite used\nto it,\" I say nothing. But of Dukes, which Duke, I could ask, has cocoa,\nsoup, meat, and food in general made ready, so fit for keeping him\nin health, in ability to do and to enjoy? Which Duke has a house so\nthoroughly clean, pure and airy; lives in an element so wholesome, and\nperfectly adapted to the uses of soul and body as this same, which is\nprovided here for the Devil's regiments of the line? No Duke that I\nhave ever known. Dukes are waited on by deleterious French cooks,\nby perfunctory grooms of the chambers, and expensive crowds of\neye-servants, more imaginary than real: while here, Science, Human\nIntellect and Beneficence have searched and sat studious, eager to do\ntheir very best; they have chosen a real Artist in Governing to see\ntheir best, in all details of it, done. Happy regiments of the line,\nwhat soldier to any earthly or celestial Power has such a lodging and\nattendance as you here? No soldier or servant direct or indirect of\nGod or of man, in this England at present. Joy to you, regiments of the\nline. Your Master, I am told, has his Elect, and professes to be \"Prince\nof the Kingdoms of this World;\" and truly I see he has power to do a\ngood turn to those he loves, in England at least. Shall we say, May\n_he_, may the Devil give you good of it, ye Elect of Scoundrelism? I\nwill rather pass by, uttering no prayer at all; musing rather in silence\non the singular \"worship of God,\" or practical \"reverence done to\nHuman Worth\" (which is the outcome and essence of all real \"worship\"\nwhatsoever) among the Posterity of Adam at this day.\n\nFor all round this beautiful Establishment, or Oasis of Purity, intended\nfor the Devil's regiments of the line, lay continents of dingy poor\nand dirty dwellings, where the unfortunate not _yet_ enlisted into\nthat Force were struggling manifoldly,--in their workshops, in their\nmarble-yards and timber-yards and tan-yards, in their close cellars,\ncobbler-stalls, hungry garrets, and poor dark trade-shops with\nred-herrings and tobacco-pipes crossed in the window,--to keep the Devil\nout-of-doors, and not enlist with him. And it was by a tax on these\nthat the Barracks for the regiments of the line were kept up. Visiting\nMagistrates, impelled by Exeter Hall, by Able-Editors, and the\nPhilanthropic Movement of the Age, had given orders to that effect.\nRates on the poor servant of God and of her Majesty, who still serves\nboth in his way, painfully selling red-herrings; rates on him and his\nred-herrings to boil right soup for the Devil's declared Elect! Never\nin my travels, in any age or clime, had I fallen in with such Visiting\nMagistrates before. Reserved they, I should suppose, for these ultimate\nor penultimate ages of the world, rich in all prodigies, political,\nspiritual,--ages surely with such a length of ears as was never\nparalleled before.\n\nIf I had a commonwealth to reform or to govern, certainly it should\nnot be the Devil's regiments of the line that I would first of all\nconcentrate my attention on! With them I should be apt so make rather\nbrief work; to them one would apply the besom, try to sweep _them_, with\nsome rapidity into the dust-bin, and well out of one's road, I should\nrather say. Fill your thrashing-floor with docks, ragweeds, mugworths,\nand ply your flail upon them,--that is not the method to obtain sacks\nof wheat. Away, you; begone swiftly, _ye_ regiments of the line: in the\nname of God and of His poor struggling servants, sore put to it to\nlive in these bad days, I mean to rid myself of you with some degree of\nbrevity. To feed you in palaces, to hire captains and schoolmasters\nand the choicest spiritual and material artificers to expend their\nindustries on you, No, by the Eternal! I have quite other work for that\nclass of artists; Seven-and-twenty Millions of neglected mortals who\nhave not yet quite declared for the Devil. Mark it, my diabolic friends,\nI mean to lay leather on the backs of you, collars round the necks of\nyou; and will teach you, after the example of the gods, that this world\nis _not_ your inheritance, or glad to see you in it. You, ye diabolic\ncanaille, what has a Governor much to do with you? You, I think, he\nwill rather swiftly dismiss from his thoughts,--which have the whole\ncelestial and terrestrial for their scope, and not the subterranean of\nscoundreldom alone. You, I consider, he will sweep pretty rapidly into\nsome Norfolk Island, into some special Convict Colony or remote\ndomestic Moorland, into some stone-walled Silent-System, under hard\ndrill-sergeants, just as Rhadamanthus, and inflexible as he, and there\nleave you to reap what you have sown; he meanwhile turning his endeavors\nto the thousand-fold immeasurable interests of men and gods,--dismissing\nthe one extremely contemptible interest of scoundrels; sweeping that\ninto the cesspool, tumbling that over London Bridge, in a very brief\nmanner, if needful! Who are you, ye thriftless sweepings of Creation,\nthat we should forever be pestered with you? Have we no work to do but\ndrilling Devil's regiments of the line?\n\nIf I had schoolmasters, my benevolent friend, do you imagine I would set\nthem on teaching a set of unteachables, who as you perceive have already\nmade up their mind that black is white,--that the Devil namely is the\nadvantageous Master to serve in this world? My esteemed Benefactor\nof Humanity, it shall be far from me. Minds open to that particular\nconviction are not the material I like to work upon. When once my\nschoolmasters have gone over all the other classes of society from\ntop to bottom; and have no other soul to try with teaching, all\nbeing thoroughly taught,--I will then send them to operate on _these_\nregiments of the line: then, and, assure yourself, never till then. The\ntruth is, I am sick of scoundreldom, my esteemed Benefactor; it always\nwas detestable to me; and here where I find it lodged in palaces and\nwaited on by the benevolent of the world, it is more detestable, not to\nsay insufferable to me than ever.\n\nOf Beneficence, Benevolence, and the people that come together to talk\non platforms and subscribe five pounds, I will say nothing here; indeed\nthere is not room here for the twentieth part of what were to be said of\nthem. The beneficence, benevolence, and sublime virtue which issues in\neloquent talk reported in the Newspapers, with the subscription of\nfive pounds, and the feeling that one is a good citizen and ornament to\nsociety,--concerning this, there were a great many unexpected remarks to\nbe made; but let this one, for the present occasion, suffice:--\n\nMy sublime benevolent friends, don't you perceive, for one thing,\nthat here is a shockingly unfruitful investment for your capital of\nBenevolence; precisely the worst, indeed, which human ingenuity could\nselect for you? \"Laws are unjust, temptations great,\" &c. &c.: alas, I\nknow it, and mourn for it, and passionately call on all men to help in\naltering it. But according to every hypothesis as to the law, and the\ntemptations and pressures towards vice, here are the individuals who, of\nall the society, have yielded to said pressure. These are of the\nworst substance for enduring pressure! The others yet stand and\nmake resistance to temptation, to the law's injustice; under all the\nperversities and strangling impediments there are, the rest of the\nsociety still keep their feet, and struggle forward, marching under\nthe banner of Cosmos, of God and Human Virtue; these select Few, as I\nexplain to you, are they who have fallen to Chaos, and are sworn\ninto certain regiments of the line. A superior proclivity to Chaos is\ndeclared in these, by the very fact of their being here! Of all the\ngeneration we live in, these are the worst stuff. These, I say, are the\nElixir of the Infatuated among living mortals: if you want the worst\ninvestment for your Benevolence, here you accurately have it. O my\nsurprising friends! Nowhere so as here can you be certain that a given\nquantity of wise teaching bestowed, of benevolent trouble taken, will\nyield zero, or the net _Minimum_ of return. It is sowing of your wheat\nupon Irish quagmires; laboriously harrowing it in upon the sand of the\nseashore. O my astonishing benevolent friends!\n\nYonder, in those dingy habitations, and shops of red herring and\ntobacco-pipes, where men have not yet quite declared for the Devil;\nthere, I say, is land: here is mere sea-beach. Thither go with your\nbenevolence, thither to those dingy caverns of the poor; and there\ninstruct and drill and manage, there where some fruit may come from it.\nAnd, above all and inclusive of all, cannot you go to those Solemn human\nShams, Phantasm Captains, and Supreme Quacks that ride prosperously in\nevery thoroughfare; and with severe benevolence, ask them, What they\nare doing here? They are the men whom it would behoove you to drill a\nlittle, and tie to the halberts in a benevolent manner, if you could!\n\"We cannot,\" say you? Yes, my friends, to a certain extent you can. By\nmany well-known active methods, and by all manner of passive methods,\nyou can. Strive thitherward, I advise you; thither, with whatever\nsocial effort there may lie in you! The well-head and \"consecrated\"\nthrice-accursed chief fountain of all those waters of bitterness,--it is\nthey, those Solemn Shams and Supreme Quacks of yours, little as they or\nyou imagine it! Them, with severe benevolence, put a stop to; them send\nto their Father, far from the sight of the true and just,--if you would\never see a just world here!\n\nWhat sort of reformers and workers are you, that work only on the\nrotten material? That never think of meddling with the material while\nit continues sound; that stress it and strain it with new rates and\nassessments, till once it has given way and declared itself rotten;\nwhereupon you snatch greedily at it, and say, Now let us try to do some\ngood upon it! You mistake in every way, my friends: the fact is, you\nfancy yourselves men of virtue, benevolence, what not; and you are not\neven men of sincerity and honest sense. I grieve to say it; but it is\ntrue. Good from you, and your operations, is not to be expected. You may\ngo down!\n\nHoward is a beautiful Philanthropist, eulogized by Burke, and in\nmost men's minds a sort of beatified individual. How glorious, having\nfinished off one's affairs in Bedfordshire, or in fact finding them very\ndull, inane, and worthy of being quitted and got away from, to set out\non a cruise, over the Jails first of Britain; then, finding that\nanswer, over the Jails of the habitable Globe! \"A voyage of discovery,\na circum-navigation of charity; to collate distresses, to gauge\nwretchedness, to take the dimensions of human misery:\" really it is very\nfine. Captain Cook's voyage for the Terra Australis, Ross's, Franklin's\nfor the ditto Borealis: men make various cruises and voyages in\nthis world,--for want of money, want of work, and one or the other\nwant,--which are attended with their difficulties too, and do not make\nthe cruiser a demigod. On the whole, I have myself nothing but\nrespect, comparatively speaking, for the dull solid Howard, and his\n\"benevolence,\" and other impulses that set him cruising; Heaven\nhad grown weary of Jail-fevers, and other the like unjust penalties\ninflicted upon scoundrels,--for scoundrels too, and even the very Devil,\nshould not have _more_ than their due;--and Heaven, in its opulence,\ncreated a man to make an end of that. Created him; disgusted him with\nthe grocer business; tried him with Calvinism, rural ennui, and sore\nbereavement in his Bedfordshire retreat;--and, in short, at last got\nhim set to his work, and in a condition to achieve it. For which I am\nthankful to Heaven; and do also,--with doffed hat, humbly salute John\nHoward. A practical solid man, if a dull and even dreary; \"carries\nhis weighing-scales in his pocket:\" when your jailer answers, \"The\nprisoner's allowance of food is so and so; and we observe it sacredly;\nhere, for example, is a ration.\"--\"Hey! A ration this?\" and solid John\nsuddenly produces his weighing-scales; weighs it, marks down in his\ntablets what the actual quantity of it is. That is the art and manner of\nthe man. A man full of English accuracy; English veracity, solidity,\n simplicity; by whom this universal Jail-commission, not to be paid for\nin money but far otherwise, is set about, with all the slow energy, the\npatience, practicality, sedulity and sagacity common to the best English\ncommissioners paid in money and not expressly otherwise.\n\nFor it is the glory of England that she has a turn for fidelity in\npractical work; that sham-workers, though very numerous, are rarer than\nelsewhere; that a man who undertakes work for you will still, in various\nprovinces of our affairs, do it, instead of merely seeming to do it.\nJohn Howard, without pay in money, _did_ this of the Jail-fever, as\nother Englishmen do work, in a truly workmanlike manner: his distinction\nwas that he did it without money. He had not 500 pounds or 5,000 pounds\na year of salary for it; but lived merely on his Bedfordshire estates,\nand as Snigsby irreverently expresses it, \"by chewing his own cud.\" And,\nsure enough, if any man might chew the cud of placid reflections, solid\nHoward, a mournful man otherwise, might at intervals indulge a little\nin that luxury.--No money-salary had he for his work; he had merely the\nincome of his properties, and what he could derive from within. Is this\nsuch a sublime distinction, then? Well, let it pass at its value. There\nhave been benefactors of mankind who had more need of money than he, and\ngot none too. Milton, it is known, did his _Paradise Lost_ at the\neasy rate of five pounds. Kepler worked out the secret of the Heavenly\nMotions in a dreadfully painful manner; \"going over the calculations\nsixty times;\" and having not only no public money, but no private\neither; and, in fact, writing almanacs for his bread-and-water, while\nhe did this of the Heavenly Motions; having no Bedfordshire estates;\nnothing but a pension of 18 pounds (which they would not pay him), the\nvaluable faculty of writing almanacs, and at length the invaluable\none of dying, when the Heavenly bodies were vanquished, and battle's\nconflagration had collapsed into cold dark ashes, and the starvation\nreached too high a pitch for the poor man.\n\nHoward is not the only benefactor that has worked without money for us;\nthere have been some more,--and will be, I hope! For the Destinies are\nopulent; and send here and there a man into the world to do work,\nfor which they do not mean to pay him in money. And they smite him\nbeneficently with sore afflictions, and blight his world all into grim\nfrozen ruins round him,--and can make a wandering Exile of their Dante,\nand not a soft-bedded Podesta of Florence, if they wish to get a _Divine\nComedy_ out of him. Nay that rather is their way, when they have worthy\nwork for such a man; they scourge him manifoldly to the due pitch,\nsometimes nearly of despair, that he may search desperately for his\nwork, and find it; they urge him on still with beneficent stripes when\nneedful, as is constantly the case between whiles; and, in fact, have\nprivately decided to reward him with beneficent death by and by, and not\nwith money at all. O my benevolent friend, I honor Howard very much;\nbut it is on this side idolatry a long way, not to an infinite, but to\na decidedly finite extent! And you,--put not the modest noble Howard, a\ntruly modest man, to the blush, by forcing these reflections on us!\n\nCholera Doctors, hired to dive into black dens of infection and despair,\nthey, rushing about all day from lane to lane, with their life in their\nhand, are found to do their function; which is a much more rugged one\nthan Howard's. Or what say we, Cholera Doctors? Ragged losels gathered\nby beat of drum from the overcrowded streets of cities, and drilled a\nlittle and dressed in red, do not they stand fire in an uncensurable\nmanner; and handsomely give their life, if needful, at the rate of a\nshilling per day? Human virtue, if we went down to the roots of it, is\nnot so rare. The materials of human virtue are everywhere abundant\nas the light of the sun: raw materials,--O woe, and loss, and scandal\nthrice and threefold, that they so seldom are elaborated, and built into\na result! that they lie yet unelaborated, and stagnant in the souls of\nwide-spread dreary millions, fermenting, festering; and issue at last as\nenergetic vice instead of strong practical virtue! A Mrs. Manning \"dying\ngame,\"--alas, is not that the foiled potentiality of a kind of heroine\ntoo? Not a heroic Judith, not a mother of the Gracchi now, but a\nhideous murderess, fit to be the mother of hyenas! To such extent can\npotentialities be foiled. Education, kingship, command,--where is it,\nwhither has it fled? Woe a thousand times, that this, which is the\ntask of all kings, captains, priests, public speakers, land-owners,\nbook-writers, mill-owners, and persons possessing or pretending to\npossess authority among mankind,--is left neglected among them all;\nand instead of it so little done but protocolling, black-or-white\nsurplicing, partridge-shooting, parliamentary eloquence and popular\ntwaddle-literature; with such results as we see!--\n\n\nHoward abated the Jail-fever; but it seems to me he has been the\ninnocent cause of a far more distressing fever which rages high just\nnow; what we may call the Benevolent-Platform Fever. Howard is to be\nregarded as the unlucky fountain of that tumultuous frothy ocean-tide\nof benevolent sentimentality, \"abolition of punishment,\" all-absorbing\n\"prison-discipline,\" and general morbid sympathy, instead of hearty\nhatred, for scoundrels; which is threatening to drown human society as\nin deluges, and leave, instead of an \"edifice of society\" fit for\nthe habitation of men, a continent of fetid ooze inhabitable only by\nmud-gods and creatures that walk upon their belly. Few things more\ndistress a thinking soul at this time.\n\nMost sick am I, O friends, of this sugary disastrous jargon of\nphilanthropy, the reign of love, new era of universal brotherhood, and\nnot Paradise to the Well-deserving but Paradise to All-and-sundry, which\npossesses the benighted minds of men and women in our day. My friends, I\nthink you are much mistaken about Paradise! \"No Paradise for anybody:\nhe that cannot do without Paradise, go his ways:\" suppose you tried that\nfor a while! I reckon that the safer version. Unhappy sugary brethren,\nthis is all untrue, this other; contrary to the fact; not a tatter of it\nwill hang together in the wind and weather of fact. In brotherhood with\nthe base and foolish I, for one, do not mean to live. Not in brotherhood\nwith them was life hitherto worth much to me; in pity, in hope not yet\nquite swallowed of disgust,--otherwise in enmity that must last through\neternity, in unappeasable aversion shall I have to live with\nthese! Brotherhood? No, be the thought far from me. They are Adam's\nchildren,--alas yes, I well remember that, and never shall forget it;\nhence this rage and sorrow. But they have gone over to the dragons; they\nhave quitted the Father's house, and set up with the Old Serpent: till\nthey return, how can they be brothers? They are enemies, deadly to\nthemselves and to me and to you, till then; till then, while hope yet\nlasts, I will treat them as brothers fallen insane;--when hope has\nended, with tears grown sacred and wrath grown sacred, I will cut them\noff in the name of God! It is at my peril if I do not. With the servant\nof Satan I dare not continue in partnership. Him I must put away,\nresolutely and forever; \"lest,\" as it is written, \"I become partaker of\nhis plagues.\"\n\nBeautiful Black Peasantry, who have fallen idle and have got the Devil\nat your elbow; interesting White Felonry, who are not idle, but\nhave enlisted into the Devil's regiments of the line,--know that my\nbenevolence for you is comparatively trifling! What I have of\nthat divine feeling is due to others, not to you. A \"universal\nSluggard-and-Scoundrel Protection Society\" is not the one I mean to\ninstitute in these times, where so much wants protection, and is sinking\nto sad issues for want of it! The scoundrel needs no protection. The\nscoundrel that will hasten to the gallows, why not rather clear the\nway for him! Better he reach _his_ goal and outgate by the natural\nproclivity, than be so expensively dammed up and detained, poisoning\neverything as he stagnates and meanders along, to arrive at last a\nhundred times fouler, and swollen a hundred times bigger! Benevolent men\nshould reflect on this.--And you Quashee, my pumpkin,--(not a bad fellow\neither, this poor Quashee, when tolerably guided!)--idle Quashee, I say\nyou must get the Devil _sent away_ from your elbow, my poor dark friend!\nIn this world there will be no existence for you otherwise. No, not as\nthe brother of your folly will I live beside you. Please to withdraw out\nof my way, if I am not to contradict your folly, and amend it, and put\nit in the stocks if it will not amend. By the Eternal Maker, it is on\nthat footing alone that you and I can live together! And if you had\nrespectable traditions dated from beyond Magna Charta, or from beyond\nthe Deluge, to the contrary, and written sheepskins that would thatch\nthe face of the world,--behold I, for one individual, do not believe\nsaid respectable traditions, nor regard said written sheepskins except\nas things which _you_, till you grow wiser, will believe. Adieu,\nQuashee; I will wish you better guidance than you have had of late.\n\nOn the whole, what a reflection is it that we cannot bestow on an\nunworthy man any particle of our benevolence, our patronage, or whatever\nresource is ours,--without withdrawing it, it and all that will grow\nof it, from one worthy, to whom it of right belongs! We cannot, I\nsay; impossible; it is the eternal law of things. Incompetent Duncan\nM'Pastehorn, the hapless incompetent mortal to whom I give the cobbling\nof my boots,--and cannot find in my heart to refuse it, the poor drunken\nwretch having a wife and ten children; he _withdraws_ the job from\nsober, plainly competent, and meritorious Mr. Sparrowbill, generally\nshort of work too; discourages Sparrowbill; teaches him that he too may\nas well drink and loiter and bungle; that this is not a scene for\nmerit and demerit at all, but for dupery, and whining flattery, and\nincompetent cobbling of every description;--clearly tending to the ruin\nof poor Sparrowbill! What harm had Sparrowbill done me that I should\nso help to ruin him? And I couldn't save the insalvable M'Pastehorn;\nI merely yielded him, for insufficient work, here and there a\nhalf-crown,--which he oftenest drank. And now Sparrowbill also is\ndrinking!\n\nJustice, Justice: woe betides us everywhere when, for this reason or\nfor that, we fail to do justice! No beneficence, benevolence, or other\nvirtuous contribution will make good the want. And in what a rate of\nterrible geometrical progression, far beyond our poor computation,\nany act of Injustice once done by us grows; rooting itself ever anew,\nspreading ever anew, like a banyan-tree,--blasting all life under it,\nfor it is a poison-tree! There is but one thing needed for the world;\nbut that one is indispensable. Justice, Justice, in the name of Heaven;\ngive us Justice, and we live; give us only counterfeits of it, or\nsuccedanea for it, and we die!\n\n\nOh, this universal syllabub of philanthropic twaddle! My friend, it is\nvery sad, now when Christianity is as good as extinct in all hearts, to\nmeet this ghastly-Phantasm of Christianity parading through almost all.\n\"I will clean your foul thoroughfares, and make your Devil's-cloaca of\na world into a garden of Heaven,\" jabbers this Phantasm, itself a\nphosphorescence and unclean! The worst, it is written, comes from\ncorruption of the best:--Semitic forms now lying putrescent, dead and\nstill unburied, this phosphorescence rises. I say sometimes, such a\nblockhead Idol, and miserable _White_ Mumbo-jumbo, fashioned out of\ndeciduous sticks and cast clothes, out of extinct cants and modern\nsentimentalisms, as that which they sing litanies to at Exeter Hall and\nextensively elsewhere, was perhaps never set up by human folly before.\nUnhappy creatures, that is not the Maker of the Universe, not that,\nlook one moment at the Universe, and see! That is a paltry Phantasm,\nengendered in your own sick brain; whoever follows that as a Reality\nwill fall into the ditch.\n\nReform, reform, all men see and feel, is imperatively needed. Reform\nmust either be got, and speedily, or else we die: and nearly all the men\nthat speak, instruct us, saying, \"Have you quite done your interesting\nNegroes in the Sugar Islands? Rush to the Jails, then, O ye reformers;\nsnatch up the interesting scoundrel-population there, to them be\nnursing-fathers and nursing-mothers. And oh, wash, and dress, and teach,\nand recover to the service of Heaven these poor lost souls: so, we\nassure you, will society attain the needful reform, and life be still\npossible in this world.\" Thus sing the oracles everywhere; nearly all\nthe men that speak, though we doubt not, there are, as usual, immense\nmajorities consciously or unconsciously wiser who hold their tongue. But\nexcept this of whitewashing the scoundrel-population, one sees little\n\"reform\" going on. There is perhaps some endeavor to do a little\nscavengering; and, as the all-including point, to cheapen the terrible\ncost of Government: but neither of these enterprises makes progress,\nowing to impediments.\n\n\"Whitewash your scoundrel-population; sweep out your abominable gutters\n(if not in the name of God, ye brutish slatterns, then in the name of\nCholera and the Royal College of Surgeons): do these two things;--and\nobserve, much cheaper if you please!\"--Well, here surely is an Evangel\nof Freedom, and real Program of a new Era. What surliest misanthrope\nwould not find this world lovely, were these things done: scoundrels\nwhitewashed; some degree of scavengering upon the gutters; and at a\ncheap rate, thirdly? That surely is an occasion on which, if ever\non any, the Genius of Reform may pipe all hands!--Poor old Genius of\nReform; bedrid this good while; with little but broken ballot-boxes, and\ntattered stripes of Benthamee Constitutions lying round him; and on the\nwalls mere shadows of clothing-colonels, rates-in-aid, poor-law unions,\ndefunct potato and the Irish difficulty,--he does not seem long for this\nworld, piping to that effect?\n\n\nNot the least disgusting feature of this Gospel according to the\nPlatform is its reference to religion, and even to the Christian\nReligion, as an authority and mandate for what it does. Christian\nReligion? Does the Christian or any religion prescribe love\nof scoundrels, then? I hope it prescribes a healthy hatred of\nscoundrels;--otherwise what am I, in Heaven's name, to make of it? Me,\nfor one, it will not serve as a religion on those strange terms. Just\nhatred of scoundrels, I say; fixed, irreconcilable, inexorable enmity\nto the enemies of God: this, and not love for them, and incessant\nwhitewashing, and dressing and cockering of them, must, if you look\ninto it, be the backbone of any human religion whatsoever. Christian\nReligion! In what words can I address you, ye unfortunates, sunk in the\nslushy ooze till the worship of mud-serpents, and unutterable Pythons\nand poisonous slimy monstrosities, seems to you the worship of God? This\nis the rotten carcass of Christianity; this mal-odorous phosphorescence\nof post-mortem sentimentalism. O Heavens, from the Christianity of\nOliver Cromwell, wrestling in grim fight with Satan and his incarnate\nBlackguardisms, Hypocrisies, Injustices, and legion of human and\ninfernal angels, to that of eloquent Mr. Hesperus Fiddlestring\ndenouncing capital punishments, and inculcating the benevolence on\nplatforms, what a road have we travelled!\n\nA foolish stump-orator, perorating on his platform mere benevolences,\nseems a pleasant object to many persons; a harmless or insignificant\none to almost all. Look at him, however; scan him till you discern the\nnature of him, he is not pleasant, but ugly and perilous. That\nbeautiful speech of his takes captive every long ear, and kindles into\nquasi-sacred enthusiasm the minds of not a few; but it is quite in the\nteeth of the everlasting facts of this Universe, and will come only\nto mischief for every party concerned. Consider that little spouting\nwretch. Within the paltry skin of him, it is too probable, he holds few\nhuman virtues, beyond those essential for digesting victual: envious,\ncowardly, vain, splenetic hungry soul; what heroism, in word or thought\nor action, will you ever get from the like of him? He, in his necessity,\nhas taken into the benevolent line; warms the cold vacuity of his inner\nman to some extent, in a comfortable manner, not by silently doing some\nvirtue of his own, but by fiercely recommending hearsay pseudo-virtues\nand respectable benevolences to other people. Do you call that a good\ntrade? Long-eared fellow-creatures, more or less resembling himself,\nanswer, \"Hear, hear! Live Fiddlestring forever!\" Wherefrom follow\nAbolition Congresses, Odes to the Gallows;--perhaps some dirty little\nBill, getting itself debated next Session in Parliament, to waste\ncertain nights of our legislative Year, and cause skipping in our\nMorning Newspaper, till the abortion can be emptied out again and sent\nfairly floating down the gutters.\n\nNot with entire approbation do I, for one, look on that eloquent\nindividual. Wise benevolence, if it had authority, would order that\nindividual, I believe, to find some other trade: \"Eloquent individual,\npleading here against the Laws of Nature,--for many reasons, I bid thee\nclose that mouth of thine. Enough of balderdash these long-eared have\nnow drunk. Depart thou; _do_ some benevolent work; at lowest, be silent.\nDisappear, I say; away, and jargon no more in that manner, lest a worst\nthing befall thee.\" _Exeat_ Fiddlestring!--Beneficent men are not they\nwho appear on platforms, pleading against the Almighty Maker's Laws;\nthese are the maleficent men, whose lips it is pity that some authority\ncannot straightway shut. Pandora's Box is not more baleful than the\ngifts these eloquent benefactors are pressing on us. Close your pedler's\npack, my friend; swift, away with it! Pernicious, fraught with mere woe\nand sugary poison is that kind of benevolence and beneficence.\n\nTruly, one of the saddest sights in these times is that of poor\ncreatures, on platforms, in parliaments and other situations, making and\nunmaking \"Laws;\" in whose soul, full of mere vacant hearsay and windy\nbabble, is and was no image of Heaven's Law; whom it never struck that\nHeaven had a Law, or that the Earth--could not have what kind of Law you\npleased! Human Statute-books, accordingly, are growing horrible to think\nof. An impiety and poisonous futility every Law of them that is so\nmade; all Nature is against it; it will and can do nothing but mischief\nwheresoever it shows itself in Nature: and such Laws lie now like an\nincubus over this Earth, so innumerable are they. How long, O Lord, how\nlong!--O ye Eternities, Divine Silences, do you dwell no more, then, in\nthe hearts of the noble and the true; and is there no inspiration of\nthe Almighty any more vouchsafed us? The inspiration of the Morning\nNewspapers--alas, we have had enough of that, and are arrived at the\ngates of death by means of that!\n\n\n\"Really, one of the most difficult questions this we have in these\ntimes, What to do with our criminals?\" blandly observed a certain\nLaw-dignitary, in my hearing once, taking the cigar from his mouth, and\npensively smiling over a group of us under the summer beech-tree, as\nFavonius carried off the tobacco-smoke; and the group said nothing, only\nsmiled and nodded, answering by new tobacco-clouds. \"What to do with our\ncriminals?\" asked the official Law-dignitary again, as if entirely at a\nloss.--\"I suppose,\" said one ancient figure not engaged in smoking, \"the\nplan would be to treat them according to the real law of the case; to\nmake the Law of England, in respect of them, correspond to the Law of\nthe Universe. Criminals, I suppose, would prove manageable in that way:\nif we could do approximately as God Almighty does towards them; in a\nword, if we could try to do Justice towards them.\"--\"I'll thank you\nfor a definition of Justice?\" sneered the official person in a cheerily\nscornful and triumphant manner, backed by a slight laugh from the\nhonorable company; which irritated the other speaker.--\"Well, I have no\npocket definition of Justice,\" said he, \"to give your Lordship. It has\nnot quite been my trade to look for such a definition; I could rather\nfancy it had been your Lordship's trade, sitting on your high place this\nlong while. But one thing I can tell you: Justice always is, whether we\ndefine it or not. Everything done, suffered or proposed, in Parliament\nor out of it, is either just or else unjust; either is accepted by the\ngods and eternal facts, or is rejected by them. Your Lordship and I,\nwith or without definition, do a little know Justice, I will hope; if\nwe don't both know it and do it, we are hourly travelling down\ntowards--Heavens, must I name such a place! That is the place we are\nbound to, with all our trading-pack, and the small or extensive budgets\nof human business laid on us; and there, if we _don't know_ Justice, we,\nand all our budgets and Acts of Parliament, shall find lodging when the\nday is done!\"--The official person, a polite man otherwise, grinned as\nhe best could some semblance of a laugh, mirthful as that of the ass\neating thistles, and ended in \"Hah, oh, ah!\"--\n\nIndeed, it is wonderful to hear what account we at present give\nourselves of the punishment of criminals. No \"revenge\"--O Heavens, no;\nall preachers on Sunday strictly forbid that; and even (at least\non Sundays) prescribe the contrary of that. It is for the sake of\n\"example,\" that you punish; to \"protect society\" and its purse and skin;\nto deter the innocent from falling into crime; and especially withal,\nfor the purpose of improving the poor criminal himself,--or at lowest,\nof hanging and ending him, that he may not grow worse. For the poor\ncriminal is, to be \"improved\" if possible: against him no \"revenge\" even\non week-days; nothing but love for him, and pity and help; poor fellow,\nis he not miserable enough? Very miserable,--though much less so than\nthe Master of him, called Satan, is understood (on Sundays) to have long\ndeservedly been!\n\nMy friends, will you permit me to say that all this, to one poor\njudgment among your number, is the mournfulest twaddle that human\ntongues could shake from them; that it has no solid foundation in the\nnature of things; and to a healthy human heart no credibility whatever.\nPermit me to say, only to hearts long drowned in dead Tradition, and for\nthemselves neither believing nor disbelieving, could this seem credible.\nThink, and ask yourselves, in spite of all this preaching and perorating\nfrom the teeth outward! Hearts that are quite strangers to eternal Fact,\nand acquainted only at all hours with temporary Semblances parading\nabout in a prosperous and persuasive condition; hearts that from\ntheir first appearance in this world have breathed since birth, in\nall spiritual matters, which means in all matters not pecuniary, the\npoisonous atmosphere of universal Cant, could believe such a thing. Cant\nmoral, Cant religious, Cant political; an atmosphere which envelops all\nthings for us unfortunates, and has long done; which goes beyond\nthe Zenith and below the Nadir for us, and has as good as choked the\nspiritual life out of all of us,--God pity such wretches, with little\nor nothing _real_ about them but their purse and their abdominal\ndepartment! Hearts, alas, which everywhere except in the metallurgic\nand cotton-spinning provinces, have communed with no Reality, or awful\nPresence of a Fact, godlike or diabolic, in this Universe or this\nunfathomable Life at all. Hunger-stricken asphyxied hearts, which have\nnourished themselves on what they call religions, Christian religions.\nGood Heaven, once more fancy the Christian religion of Oliver Cromwell;\nor of some noble Christian man, whom you yourself may have been blessed\nenough, once, long since, in your life, to know! These are not _untrue_\nreligions; they are the putrescences and foul residues of religions that\nare extinct, that have plainly to every honest nostril been dead some\ntime, and the remains of which--O ye eternal Heavens, will the\nnostril never be delivered from them!--Such hearts, when they get upon\nplatforms, and into questions not involving money, can \"believe\" many\nthings!--\n\nI take the liberty of asserting that there is one valid reason, and\nonly one, for either punishing a man or rewarding him in this world; one\nreason, which ancient piety could well define: That you may do the will\nand commandment of God with regard to him; that you may do justice to\nhim. This is your one true aim in respect of him; aim thitherward, with\nall your heart and all your strength and all your soul, thitherward,\nand not elsewhither at all! This aim is true, and will carry you to\nall earthly heights and benefits, and beyond the stars and Heavens. All\nother aims are purblind, illegitimate, untrue; and will never carry you\nbeyond the shop-counter, nay very soon will prove themselves incapable\nof maintaining you even there. Find out what the Law of God is with\nregard to a man; make that your human law, or I say it will be ill with\nyou, and not well! If you love your thief or murderer, if Nature and\neternal Fact love him, then do as you are now doing. But if Nature and\nFact do _not_ love him? If they have set inexorable penalties upon\nhim, and planted natural wrath against him in every god-created human\nheart,--then I advise you, cease, and change your hand.\n\nReward and punishment? Alas, alas, I must say you reward and punish\npretty much alike! Your dignities, peerages, promotions, your kingships,\nyour brazen statues erected in capital and county towns to our select\ndemigods of your selecting, testify loudly enough what kind of\nheroes and hero-worshippers you are. Woe to the People that no longer\nvenerates, as the emblem of God himself, the aspect of Human Worth; that\nno longer knows what human worth and unworth is! Sure as the Decrees of\nthe Eternal, that People cannot come to good. By a course too clear,\nby a necessity too evident, that People will come into the hands of the\nunworthy; and either turn on its bad career, or stagger downwards to\nruin and abolition. Does the Hebrew People prophetically sing \"Ou'\nclo'!\" in all thoroughfares, these eighteen hundred years in vain?\n\nTo reward men according to their worth: alas, the perfection of this,\nwe know, amounts to the millennium! Neither is perfect punishment,\naccording to the like rule, to be attained,--nor even, by a legislator\nof these chaotic days, to be too zealously attempted. But when he does\nattempt it,--yes, when he summons out the Society to sit deliberative on\nthis matter, and consult the oracles upon it, and solemnly settle it in\nthe name of God; then, if never before, he should try to be a little\nin the right in settling it!--In regard to reward of merit, I do not\nbethink me of any attempt whatever, worth calling an attempt, on the\npart of modern Governments; which surely is an immense oversight on\ntheir part, and will one day be seen to have been an altogether fatal\none. But as to the punishment of crime, happily this cannot be quite\nneglected. When men have a purse and a skin, they seek salvation at\nleast for these; and the Four Pleas of the Crown are a thing that\nmust and will be attended to. By punishment, capital or other, by\ntreadmilling and blind rigor, or by whitewashing and blind laxity, the\nextremely disagreeable offences of theft and murder must be kept down\nwithin limits.\n\nAnd so you take criminal caitiffs, murderers, and the like, and hang\nthem on gibbets \"for an example to deter others.\" Whereupon arise\nfriends of humanity, and object. With very great reason, as I consider,\nif your hypothesis be correct. What right have you to hang any poor\ncreature \"for an example\"? He can turn round upon you and say, \"Why make\nan 'example' of me, a merely ill-situated, pitiable man? Have you no\nmore respect for misfortune? Misfortune, I have been told, is sacred.\nAnd yet you hang me, now I am fallen into your hands; choke the life out\nof me, for an example! Again I ask, Why make an example of me, for your\nown convenience alone?\"--All \"revenge\" being out of the question, it\nseems to me the caitiff is unanswerable; and he and the philanthropic\nplatforms have the logic all on their side.\n\nThe one answer to him is: \"Caitiff, we hate thee; and discern for some\nsix thousand years now, that we are called upon by the whole Universe\nto do it. Not with a diabolic but with a divine hatred. God himself, we\nhave always understood, 'hates sin,' with a most authentic, celestial,\nand eternal hatred. A hatred, a hostility inexorable, unappeasable,\nwhich blasts the scoundrel, and all scoundrels ultimately, into black\nannihilation and disappearance from the sum of things. The path of it\nas the path of a flaming sword: he that has eyes may see it, walking\ninexorable, divinely beautiful and divinely terrible, through the\nchaotic gulf of Human History, and everywhere burning, as with\nunquenchable fire, the false and death-worthy from the true and\nlife-worthy; making all Human History, and the Biography of every man, a\nGod's Cosmos in place of a Devil's Chaos. So is it, in the end; even\nso, to every man who is a man, and not a mutinous beast, and has eyes to\nsee. To thee, caitiff, these things were and are, quite incredible;\nto us they are too awfully certain,--the Eternal Law of this Universe,\nwhether thou and others will believe it or disbelieve. We, not to\nbe partakers in thy destructive adventure of defying God and all the\nUniverse, dare not allow thee to continue longer among us. As a palpable\ndeserter from the ranks where all men, at their eternal peril, are bound\nto be: palpable deserter, taken with the red hand fighting thus against\nthe whole Universe and its Laws, we--send thee back into the whole\nUniverse, solemnly expel thee from our community; and will, in the name\nof God, not with joy and exultation, but with sorrow stern as thy own,\nhang thee on Wednesday next, and so end.\"\n\nOther ground on which to deliberately slay a disarmed fellow-man I can\nsee none. Example, effects upon the public mind, effects upon this and\nupon that: all this is mere appendage and accident; of all this I make\nno attempt to keep account,--sensible that no arithmetic will or can\nkeep account of it; that its \"effects,\" on this hand and on that,\ntranscend all calculation. One thing, if I can calculate it, will\ninclude all, and produce beneficial effects beyond calculation, and\nno ill effect at all, anywhere or at any time: What the Law of the\nUniverse, or Law of God, is with regard to this caitiff? That, by all\nsacred research and consideration, I will try to find out; to that I\nwill come as near as human means admit; that shall be my exemplar and\n\"example;\" all men shall through me see that, and be profited _beyond_\ncalculation by seeing it.\n\nWhat this Law of the Universe, or Law made by God, is? Men at one time\nread it in their Bible. In many Bibles, Books, and authentic symbols\nand monitions of Nature and the World (of Fact, that is, and of\nHuman Speech, or Wise Interpretation of Fact), there are still clear\nindications towards it. Most important it is, for this and for some\nother reasons, that men do, in some way, get to see it a little! And if\nno man could now see it by any Bible, there is written in the heart of\nevery man an authentic copy of it direct from Heaven itself: there, if\nhe have learnt to decipher Heaven's writing, and can read the sacred\noracles (a sad case for him if he altogether cannot), every born man may\nstill find some copy of it.\n\n\"Revenge,\" my friends! revenge, and the natural hatred of scoundrels,\nand the ineradicable tendency to _revancher_ oneself upon them, and\npay them what they have merited: this is forevermore intrinsically a\ncorrect, and even a divine feeling in the mind of every man. Only\nthe excess of it is diabolic; the essence I say is manlike, and even\ngodlike,--a monition sent to poor man by the Maker himself. Thou, poor\nreader, in spite of all this melancholy twaddle, and blotting out of\nHeaven's sunlight by mountains of horsehair and officiality, hast still\na human heart. If, in returning to thy poor peaceable dwelling-place,\nafter an honest hard day's work, thou wert to find, for example, a\nbrutal scoundrel who for lucre or other object of his, had slaughtered\nthe life that was dearest to thee; thy true wife, for example, thy true\nold mother, swimming in her blood; the human scoundrel, or two-legged\nwolf, standing over such a tragedy: I hope a man would have so much\ndivine rage in his heart as to snatch the nearest weapon, and put a\nconclusion upon said human wolf, for one! A palpable messenger of Satan,\nthat one; accredited by all the Devils, to be put an end to by all the\nchildren of God. The soul of every god-created man flames wholly into\none divine blaze of sacred wrath at sight of such a Devil's-messenger;\nauthentic firsthand monition from the Eternal Maker himself as to what\nis next to be done. Do it, or be thyself an ally of Devil's-messengers;\na sheep for two-legged human wolves, well deserving to be eaten, as thou\nsoon wilt be!\n\nMy humane friends, I perceive this same sacred glow of divine wrath, or\nauthentic monition at first hand from God himself, to be the foundation\nfor all Criminal Law, and Official horsehair-and-bombazine procedure\nagainst Scoundrels in this world. This first-hand gospel from the\nEternities, imparted to every mortal, this is still, and will forever\nbe, your sanction and commission for the punishment of human scoundrels.\nSee well how you will translate this message from Heaven and the\nEternities into a form suitable to this World and its Times. Let not\nviolence, haste, blind impetuous impulse, preside in executing it; the\ninjured man, invincibly liable to fall into these, shall not himself\nexecute it: the whole world, in person of a Minister appointed for that\nend, and surrounded with the due solemnities and caveats, with bailiffs,\napparitors, advocates, and the hushed expectation of all men, shall do\nit, as under the eye of God who made all men. How it shall be done? this\nis ever a vast question, involving immense considerations. Thus Edmund\nBurke saw, in the Two Houses of Parliament, with King, Constitution, and\nall manner of Civil-Lists, and Chancellors' wigs and Exchequer budgets,\nonly the \"method of getting twelve just men put into a jury-box:\" that,\nin Burke's view, was the summary of what they were all meant for. How\nthe judge will do it? Yes, indeed:--but let him see well that he does\ndo it: for it is a thing that must by no means be left undone! A\nsacred gospel from the Highest: not to be smothered under horsehair\nand bombazine, or drowned in platform froth, or in any wise omitted or\nneglected, without the most alarming penalties to all concerned!\n\nNeglect to treat the hero as hero, the penalties--which are inevitable\ntoo, and terrible to think of, as your Hebrew friends can tell you--may\nbe some time in coming; they will only gradually come. Not all at once\nwill your thirty thousand Needlewomen, your three million Paupers, your\nConnaught fallen into potential Cannibalism, and other fine consequences\nof the practice, come to light;--though come to light they will; and\n\"Ou' clo'!\" itself may be in store for you, if you persist steadily\nenough. But neglect to treat even your declared scoundrel as scoundrel,\nthis is the last consummation of the process, the drop by which the cup\nruns over; the penalties of this, most alarming, extensive, and such as\nyou little dream of, will straightway very rapidly come. Dim oblivion of\nRight and Wrong, among the masses of your population, will come; doubts\nas to Right and Wrong, indistinct notion that Right and Wrong are not\neternal, but accidental, and settled by uncertain votings and talkings,\nwill come. Prurient influenza of Platform Benevolence, and \"Paradise\nto All-and-sundry,\" will come. In the general putrescence of your\n\"religions,\" as you call them, a strange new religion, named of\nUniversal Love, with Sacraments mainly of--_Divorce_, with Balzac, Sue\nand Company for Evangelists, and Madame Sand for Virgin, will come,--and\nresults fast following therefrom which will astonish you very much!\n\n\"The terrible anarchies of these years,\" says Crabbe, in his _Radiator_,\n\"are brought upon us by a necessity too visible. By the crime of\nKings,--alas, yes; but by that of Peoples too. Not by the crime of one\nclass, but by the fatal obscuration, and all but obliteration of the\nsense of Right and Wrong in the minds and practices of every class. What\na scene in the drama of Universal History, this of ours! A world-wide\nloud bellow and bray of universal Misery; _lowing_, with crushed\nmaddened heart, its inarticulate prayer to Heaven:--very pardonable to\nme, and in some of its transcendent developments, as in the grand French\nRevolution, most respectable and ever-memorable. For Injustice reigns\neverywhere; and this murderous struggle for what they call 'Fraternity,'\nand so forth has a spice of eternal sense in it, though so terribly\ndisfigured! Amalgam of sense and nonsense; eternal sense by the grain,\nand temporary nonsense by the square mile: as is the habit with poor\nsons of men. Which pardonable amalgam, however, if it be taken as the\npure final sense, I must warn you and all creatures, is unpardonable,\ncriminal, and fatal nonsense;--with which I, for one, will take care not\nto concern myself!\n\n\"_Dogs should not be taught to eat leather_, says the old adage:\nno;--and where, by general fault and error, and the inevitable nemesis\nof things, the universal kennel is set to diet upon _leather_; and from\nits keepers, its 'Liberal Premiers,' or whatever their title is, will\naccept or expect nothing else, and calls it by the pleasant name of\nprogress, reform, emancipation, abolition-principles, and the like,--I\nconsider the fate of said kennel and of said keepers to be a thing\nsettled. Red republic in Phrygian nightcap, organization of labor _a la_\nLouis Blanc; street-barricades, and then murderous cannon-volleys _a la_\nCavaignac and Windischgratz, follow out of one another, as grapes, must,\nnew wine, and sour all-splitting vinegar do: vinegar is but _vin-aigre_,\nor the self-same 'wine' grown _sharp_! If, moreover, I find the Worship\nof Human Nobleness abolished in any country, and a _new_ astonishing\nPhallus-Worship, with universal Balzac-Sand melodies and litanies in\ntreble and in bass, established in its stead, what can I compute\nbut that Nature, in horrible throes, will repugn against such\nsubstitution,--that, in short, the astonishing new Phallus-Worship, with\nits finer sensibilities of the heart, and 'great satisfying loves,'\nwith its sacred kiss of peace for scoundrel and hero alike, with its\nall-embracing Brotherhood, and universal Sacrament of Divorce, will have\nto take itself away again!\"\n\n\nThe Ancient Germans, it appears, had no scruple about public executions;\non the contrary, they thought the just gods themselves might fitly\npreside over these; that these were a solemn and highest act of worship,\nif justly done. When a German man had done a crime deserving death,\nthey, in solemn general assembly of the tribe, doomed him, and\nconsidered that Fate and all Nature had from the beginning doomed him,\nto die with ignominy. Certain crimes there were of a supreme nature;\nhim that had perpetrated one of these, they believed to have declared\nhimself a prince of scoundrels. Him once convicted they laid hold of,\nnothing doubting; bore him, after judgment, to the deepest convenient\nPeat-bog; plunged him in there, drove an oaken frame down over him,\nsolemnly in the name of gods and men: \"There, prince of scoundrels, that\nis what we have had to think of thee, on clear acquaintance; our grim\ngood-night to thee is that! In the name of all the gods lie there, and\nbe our partnership with thee dissolved henceforth. It will be better for\nus, we imagine!\"\n\nMy friends, after all this beautiful whitewash and humanity and\nprison-discipline; and such blubbering and whimpering, and soft Litany\nto divine and also to quite other sorts of Pity, as we have had for a\ncentury now,--give me leave to admonish you that that of the Ancient\nGermans too was a thing inexpressibly necessary to keep in mind. If that\nis not kept in mind, the universal Litany to Pity is a mere universal\nnuisance, and torpid blasphemy against the gods. I do not much respect\nit, that purblind blubbering and litanying, as it is seen at present;\nand the litanying over scoundrels I go the length of disrespecting,\nand in some cases even of detesting. Yes, my friends, scoundrel is\nscoundrel: that remains forever a fact; and there exists not in the\nearth whitewash that can make the scoundrel a friend of this Universe;\nhe remains an enemy if you spent your life in whitewashing him. He won't\nwhitewash; this one won't. The one method clearly is, That, after fair\ntrial, you dissolve partnership with him; send him, in the name of\nHeaven, whither _he_ is striving all this while and have done with him.\nAnd, in a time like this, I would advise you, see likewise that you be\nspeedy about it! For there is immense work, and of a far hopefuler sort,\nto be done _elsewhere_.\n\n\nAlas, alas, to see once the \"prince of scoundrels,\" the Supreme\nScoundrel, him whom of all men the gods liked worst, solemnly laid hold\nof, and hung upon the gallows in sight of the people; what a lesson to\nall the people! Sermons might be preached; the Son of Thunder and the\nMouth of Gold might turn their periods now with some hope; for here, in\nthe most impressive way, is a divine sermon acted. Didactic as no\nspoken sermon could be. Didactic, devotional too;--in awed solemnity,\na recognition that Eternal Justice rules the world; that at the call of\nthis, human pity shall fall silent, and man be stern as his Master and\nMandatory is!--Understand too that except upon a basis of even such\nrigor, sorrowful, silent, inexorable as that of Destiny and Doom, there\nis no true pity possible. The pity that proves so possible and plentiful\nwithout that basis, is mere _ignavia_ and cowardly effeminacy; maudlin\nlaxity of heart, grounded on blinkard dimness of head--contemptible as a\ndrunkard's tears.\n\nTo see our Supreme Scoundrel hung upon the gallows, alas, that is far\nfrom us just now! There is a worst man in England, too,--curious to\nthink of,--whom it would be inexpressibly advantageous to lay hold\nof, and hang, the first of all. But we do not know him with the least\ncertainty, the least approach even to a guess,--such buzzards and\ndullards and poor children of the Dusk are we, in spite of our\nStatistics, Unshackled Presses, and Torches of Knowledge;--not eagles\nsoaring sunward, not brothers of the lightnings and the radiances we;\na dim horn-eyed, owl-population, intent mainly on the catching of mice!\nAlas, the supreme scoundrel, alike with the supreme hero, is very far\nfrom being known. Nor have we the smallest apparatus for dealing\nwith either of them, if he were known. Our supreme scoundrel sits, I\nconjecture, well-cushioned, in high places, at this time; rolls softly\nthrough the world, and lives a prosperous gentleman; instead of sinking\nhim in peat-bogs, we mount the brazen image of him on high columns: such\nis the world's temporary judgment about its supreme scoundrels; a mad\nworld, my masters. To get the supreme scoundrel always accurately the\nfirst hanged, this, which presupposes that the supreme hero were always\nthe first promoted, this were precisely the millennium itself, clear\nevidence that the millennium had come: alas, we must forbear hope of\nthis. Much water will run by before we see this.\n\nAnd yet to quit all aim towards it; to go blindly floundering along,\nwrapt up in clouds of horsehair, bombazine, and sheepskin officiality,\noblivious that there exists such an aim; this is indeed fatal. In every\nhuman law there must either exist such an aim, or else the law is not a\nhuman but a diabolic one. Diabolic, I say: no quantity of bombazine, or\nlawyers' wigs, three-readings, and solemn trumpeting and bow-wowing\nin high places or in low, can hide from me its frightful infernal\ntendency;--bound, and sinking at all moments gradually to Gehenna,\nthis \"law;\" and dragging down much with it! \"To decree _injustice_ by\na _law_:\" inspired Prophets have long since seen, what every clear soul\nmay still see, that of all Anarchies and Devil-worships there is none\nlike this; that this is the \"Throne of Iniquity\" set up in the name of\nthe Highest, the human Apotheosis of Anarchy itself. \"_Quiet_ Anarchy,\"\nyou exultingly say? Yes; quiet Anarchy, which the longer it sits \"quiet\"\nwill have the frightfuler account to settle at last. For every doit of\nthe account, as I often say, will have to be settled one day, as sure as\nGod lives. Principal, and compound interest rigorously computed; and the\ninterest is at a terrible rate per cent in these cases! Alas, the aspect\nof certain beatified Anarchies, sitting \"quiet;\" and of others in a\nstate of infernal explosion for sixty years back: this, the one view our\nEurope offers at present, makes these days very sad.--\n\nMy unfortunate philanthropic friends, it is this long-continued oblivion\nof the soul of law that has reduced the Criminal Question to such a pass\namong us. Many other things have come, and are coming, for the same sad\nreason, to a pass! Not the supreme scoundrel have our laws aimed at;\nbut, in an uncertain fitful manner, at the inferior or lowest scoundrel,\nwho robs shop-tills and puts the skin of mankind in danger. How can\nParliament get through the Criminal Question? Parliament, oblivious of\nHeavenly Law, will find itself in hopeless _reductio ad absurdum_ in\nregard to innumerable other questions,--in regard to all questions\nwhatsoever by and by. There will be no existence possible for Parliament\non these current terms. Parliament, in its law-makings, must really try\nto attain some vision again of what Heaven's Laws are. A thing not\neasy to do; a thing requiring sad sincerity of heart, reverence, pious\nearnestness, valiant manful wisdom;--qualities not overabundant in\nParliament just now, nor out of it, I fear.\n\nAdieu, my friends. My anger against you is gone; my sad reflections\non you, and on the depths to which you and I and all of us are sunk in\nthese strange times, are not to be uttered at present. You would have\nsaved the Sarawak Pirates, then? The Almighty Maker is wroth that the\nSarawak cut-throats, with their poisoned spears, are away? What must his\nwrath be that the thirty thousand Needlewomen are still here, and the\nquestion of \"prevenient grace\" not yet settled! O my friends, in sad\nearnest, sad and deadly earnest, there much needs that God would mend\nall this, and that we should help him to mend it!--And don't you think,\nfor one thing, \"Farmer Hodge's horses\" in the Sugar Islands are pretty\nwell \"emancipated\" now? My clear opinion farther is, we had better quit\nthe Scoundrel-province of Reform; better close that under hatches, in\nsome rapid summary manner, and go elsewhither with our Reform efforts. A\nwhole world, for want of Reform, is drowning and sinking; threatening to\nswamp itself into a Stygian quagmire, uninhabitable by any noble-minded\nman. Let us to the well-heads, I say; to the chief fountains of these\nwaters of bitterness; and there strike home and dig! To puddle in the\nembouchures and drowned outskirts, and ulterior and ultimate issues and\ncloacas of the affair: what profit can there be in that? Nothing to be\nsaved there; nothing to be fished up there, except, with endless peril\nand spread of pestilence, a miscellany of broken waifs and dead dogs! In\nthe name of Heaven, quit that!\n\n\n\n\nNo. III. DOWNING STREET. [April 1, 1850.]\n\nFrom all corners of the wide British Dominion there rises one complaint\nagainst the ineffectuality of what are nicknamed our \"red-tape\"\nestablishments, our Government Offices, Colonial Office, Foreign\nOffice and the others, in Downing Street and the neighborhood. To me\nindividually these branches of human business are little known; but\nevery British citizen and reflective passer-by has occasion to wonder\nmuch, and inquire earnestly, concerning them. To all men it is evident\nthat the social interests of one hundred and fifty Millions of us depend\non the mysterious industry there carried on; and likewise that the\ndissatisfaction with it is great, universal, and continually increasing\nin intensity,--in fact, mounting, we might say, to the pitch of settled\ndespair.\n\nEvery colony, every agent for a matter colonial, has his tragic tale\nto tell you of his sad experiences in the Colonial Office; what blind\nobstructions, fatal indolences, pedantries, stupidities, on the right\nand on the left, he had to do battle with; what a world-wide jungle of\nred-tape, inhabited by doleful creatures, deaf or nearly so to human\nreason or entreaty, he had entered on; and how he paused in amazement,\nalmost in despair; passionately appealed now to this doleful creature,\nnow to that, and to the dead red-tape jungle, and to the living Universe\nitself, and to the Voices and to the Silences;--and, on the whole, found\nthat it was an adventure, in sorrowful fact, equal to the fabulous\nones by old knights-errant against dragons and wizards in enchanted\nwildernesses and waste howling solitudes; not achievable except by\nnearly superhuman exercise of all the four cardinal virtues, and\nunexpected favor of the special blessing of Heaven. His adventure\nachieved or found unachievable, he has returned with experiences new\nto him in the affairs of men. What this Colonial Office, inhabiting\nthe head of Downing Street, really was, and had to do, or try doing, in\nGod's practical Earth, he could not by any means precisely get to know;\nbelieves that it does not itself in the least precisely know. Believes\nthat nobody knows;--that it is a mystery, a kind of Heathen myth;\nand stranger than any piece of the old mythological Pantheon; for it\npractically presides over the destinies of many millions of living men.\n\nSuch is his report of the Colonial Office: and if we oftener hear such\na report of that than we do of the Home Office, Foreign Office or the\nrest,--the reason probably is, that Colonies excite more attention at\npresent than any of our other interests. The Forty Colonies, it appears,\nare all pretty like rebelling just now; and are to be pacified with\nconstitutions; luckier Constitutions, let us hope, than some late ones\nhave been. Loyal Canada, for instance, had to quench a rebellion the\nother year; and this year, in virtue of its constitution, it is\ncalled upon to pay the rebels their damages; which surely is a rather\nsurprising result, however constitutional!--Men have rents and moneys\ndependent in the Colonies; Emigration schemes, Black Emancipations,\nNew-Zealand and other schemes; and feel and publish more emphatically\nwhat their Downing-Street woes in these respects have been.\n\nWere the state of poor sallow English ploughers and weavers, what we may\ncall the Sallow or Yellow Emancipation interest, as much in object with\nExeter-Hall Philanthropists as that of the Black blockheads now all\nemancipated, and going at large without work, or need of working, in\nWest-India clover (and fattening very much in it, one delights to hear),\nthen perhaps the Home Office, its huge virtual task better understood,\nand its small actual performance better seen into, might be found still\nmore deficient, and behind the wants of the age, than the Colonial\nitself is.\n\nHow it stands with the Foreign Office, again, one still less knows.\nSeizures of Sapienza, and the like sudden appearances of Britain in the\ncharacter of Hercules-Harlequin, waving, with big bully-voice, her huge\nsword-of-sharpness over field-mice, and in the air making horrid circles\n(horrid catherine-wheels and death-disks of metallic terror from\nsaid huge sword), to see how they will like it,--do from time to time\nastonish the world, in a not pleasant manner. Hercules-Harlequin, the\nAttorney Triumphant, the World's Busybody: none of these are parts this\nNation has a turn for; she, if you consulted her, would rather not play\nthese parts, but another! Seizures of Sapienza, correspondences with\nSotomayor, remonstrances to Otho King of Athens, fleets hanging by their\nanchor in behalf of the Majesty of Portugal; and in short the whole,\nor at present very nearly the whole, of that industry of protocolling,\ndiplomatizing, remonstrating, admonishing, and \"having the honor to\nbe,\"--has sunk justly in public estimation to a very low figure.\n\nFor in fact, it is reasonably asked, What vital interest has England\nin any cause now deciding itself in foreign parts? Once there was a\nPapistry and Protestantism, important as life eternal and death eternal;\nmore lately there was an interest of Civil Order and Horrors of the\nFrench Revolution, important at least as rent-roll and preservation of\nthe game; but now what is there? No cause in which any god or man of\nthis British Nation can be thought to be concerned. Sham-kingship, now\nrecognized and even self-recognized everywhere to be sham, wrestles\nand struggles with mere ballot-box Anarchy: not a pleasant spectacle to\nBritish minds. Both parties in the wrestle professing earnest wishes of\npeace to us, what have we to do with it except answer earnestly, \"Peace,\nyes certainly,\" and mind our affairs elsewhere. The British Nation has\nno concern with that indispensable sorrowful and shameful wrestle now\ngoing on everywhere in foreign parts. The British Nation already, by\nself-experience centuries old, understands all that; was lucky enough\nto transact the greater part of that, in noble ancient ages, while the\nwrestle had not yet become a shameful one, but on both sides of it there\nwas wisdom, virtue, heroic nobleness fruitful to all time,--thrice-lucky\nBritish Nation! The British Nation, I say, has nothing to learn there;\nhas now quite another set of lessons to learn, far ahead of what\nis going on there. Sad example there, of what the issue is, and how\ninevitable and how imminent, might admonish the British Nation to\nbe speedy with its new lessons; to bestir itself, as men in peril of\nconflagration do, with the neighboring houses all on fire! To obtain,\nfor its own very pressing behoof, if by possibility it could, some real\nCaptaincy instead of an imaginary one: to remove resolutely, and replace\nby a better sort, its own peculiar species of teaching and guiding\nhistrios of various name, who here too are numerous exceedingly, and\nmuch in need of gentle removal, while the play is still good, and the\ncomedy has not yet become _tragic_; and to be a little swift about it\nwithal; and so to escape the otherwise inevitable evil day! This Britain\nmight learn: but she does not need a protocolling establishment, with\nmuch \"having the honor to be,\" to teach it her.\n\nNo:--she has in fact certain cottons, hardwares and such like to sell in\nforeign parts, and certain wines, Portugal oranges, Baltic tar and\nother products to buy; and does need, I suppose, some kind of Consul, or\naccredited agent, accessible to British voyagers, here and there, in the\nchief cities of the Continent: through which functionary, or through the\npenny-post, if she had any specific message to foreign courts, it would\nbe easy and proper to transmit the same. Special message-carriers, to be\nstill called Ambassadors, if the name gratified them, could be sent when\noccasion great enough demanded; not sent when it did not. But for all\npurposes of a resident ambassador, I hear persons extensively and well\nacquainted among our foreign embassies at this date declare, That a\nwell-selected _Times_ reporter or \"own correspondent\" ordered to reside\nin foreign capitals, and keep his eyes open, and (though sparingly) his\npen going, would in reality be much more effective;--and surely we see\nwell, he would come a good deal cheaper! Considerably cheaper in expense\nof money; and in expense of falsity and grimacing hypocrisy (of which no\nhuman arithmetic can count the ultimate cost) incalculably cheaper!\nIf this is the fact, why not treat it as such? If this is so in any\nmeasure, we had better in that measure admit it to be so! The time, I\nbelieve, has come for asking with considerable severity, How far is it\nso? Nay there are men now current in political society, men of weight\nthough also of wit, who have been heard to say, \"That there was but one\nreform for the Foreign Office,--to set a live coal under it,\" and with,\nof course, a fire-brigade which could prevent the undue spread of the\ndevouring element into neighboring houses, let that reform it! In\nsuch odor is the Foreign Office too, if it were not that the Public,\noppressed and nearly stifled with a mere infinitude of bad odors,\nneglects this one,--in fact, being able nearly always to avoid the\nstreet where it is, _escapes_ this one, and (except a passing curse,\nonce in the quarter or so) as good as forgets the existence of it.\n\nSuch, from sad personal experience and credited prevailing rumor, is the\nexoteric public conviction about these sublime establishments in Downing\nStreet and the neighborhood, the esoteric mysteries of which are indeed\nstill held sacred by the initiated, but believed by the world to be mere\nDalai-Lama pills, manufactured let not refined lips hint how, and quite\n_un_salvatory to mankind. Every one may remark what a hope animates the\neyes of any circle, when it is reported or even confidently asserted,\nthat Sir Robert Peel has in his mind privately resolved to go, one day,\ninto that stable of King Augeas, which appalls human hearts, so rich\nis it, high-piled with the droppings of two hundred years; and\nHercules-like to load a thousand night-wagons from it, and turn running\nwater into it, and swash and shovel at it, and never leave it till the\nantique pavement, and real basis of the matter, show itself clean again!\nIn any intelligent circle such a rumor, like the first break of day\nto men in darkness, enlightens all eyes; and each says devoutly,\n\"_Faxitis_, O ye righteous Powers that have pity on us! All England\ngrateful, with kindling looks, will rise in the rear of him, and from\nits deepest heart bid him good speed!\"\n\nFor it is universally felt that some _esoteric_ man, well acquainted\nwith the mysteries and properties good and evil of the administrative\nstable, is the fittest to reform it, nay can alone reform it otherwise\nthan by sheer violence and destruction, which is a way we would avoid;\nthat in fact Sir Robert Peel is, at present, the one likely or possible\nman to reform it. And secondly it is felt that \"reform\" in that\nDowning-Street department of affairs is precisely the reform which were\nworth all others; that those administrative establishments in Downing\nStreet are really the Government of this huge ungoverned Empire; that\nto clean out the dead pedantries, unveracities, indolent somnolent\nimpotences, and accumulated dung-mountains there, is the beginning of\nall practical good whatsoever. Yes, get down once again to the actual\n_pavement_ of that; ascertain what the thing is, and was before dung\naccumulated in it; and what it should and may, and must, for the life's\nsake of this Empire, henceforth become: here clearly lies the heart of\nthe whole matter. Political reform, if this be not reformed, is naught\nand a mere mockery.\n\nWhat England wants, and will require to have, or sink in nameless\nanarchies, is not a Reformed Parliament, meaning thereby a Parliament\nelected according to the six or the four or any other number of \"points\"\nand cunningly devised improvements in hustings mechanism, but a Reformed\nExecutive or Sovereign Body of Rulers and Administrators,--some improved\nmethod, innumerable improvements in our poor blind methods, of getting\nhold of these. Not a better Talking-Apparatus, the best conceivable\nTalking-Apparatus would do very little for us at present;--but an\ninfinitely better Acting-Apparatus, the benefits of which would be\ninvaluable now and henceforth. The practical question puts itself with\never-increasing stringency to all English minds: Can we, by no industry,\nenergy, utmost expenditure of human ingenuity, and passionate invocation\nof the Heavens and Earth, get to attain some twelve or ten or six men to\nmanage the affairs of this nation in Downing Street and the chief posts\nelsewhere, who are abler for the work than those we have been used to,\nthis long while? For it is really a heroic work, and cannot be done by\nhistrios, and dexterous talkers having the honor to be: it is a heavy\nand appalling work; and, at the starting of it especially, will\nrequire Herculean men; such mountains of pedant exuviae and obscene\nowl-droppings have accumulated in those regions, long the habitation\nof doleful creatures; the old _pavements_, the natural facts and real\nessential functions of those establishments, have not been seen by eyes\nfor these two hundred years last past! Herculean men acquainted with the\nvirtues of running water, and with the divine necessity of getting down\nto the clear pavements and old veracities; who tremble before no amount\nof pedant exuviae, no loudest shrieking of doleful creatures; who\ntremble only to live, themselves, like inane phantasms, and to leave\ntheir life as a paltry _contribution_ to the guano mountains, and not as\na divine eternal protest against them!\n\nThese are the kind of men we want; these, the nearest possible\napproximation to these, are the men we must find and have, or go\nbankrupt altogether; for the concern as it is will evidently not hold\nlong together. How true is this of Crabbe: \"Men sit in Parliament\neighty-three hours per week, debating about many things. Men sit in\nDowning Street, doing protocols, Syrian treaties, Greek questions,\nPortuguese, Spanish, French, Egyptian and AEthiopian questions;\ndexterously writing despatches, and having the honor to be. Not a\nquestion of them is at all pressing in comparison with the English\nquestion. Pacifico the miraculous Gibraltar Jew has been hustled by some\npopulace in Greece:--upon him let the British Lion drop, very rapidly\nindeed, a constitutional tear. Radetzky is said to be advancing upon\nMilan;--I am sorry to hear it, and perhaps it does deserve a despatch,\nor friendly letter, once and away: but the Irish Giant, named of\nDespair, is advancing upon London itself, laying waste all English\ncities, towns and villages; that is the interesting Government despatch\nof the day! I notice him in Piccadilly, blue-visaged, thatched in rags,\na blue child on each arm; hunger-driven, wide-mouthed, seeking whom he\nmay devour: he, missioned by the just Heavens, too truly and too sadly\ntheir 'divine missionary' come at last in this authoritative manner,\nwill throw us all into Doubting Castle, I perceive! That is the\nphenomenon worth protocolling about, and writing despatches upon, and\nthinking of with all one's faculty day and night, if one wishes to have\nthe honor to be--anything but a Phantasm Governor of England just now!\nI entreat your Lordship's all but undivided attention to that Domestic\nIrish Giant, named of Despair, for a great many years to come. Prophecy\nof him there has long been; but now by the rot of the potato (blessed be\nthe just gods, who send us either swift death or some beginning of\ncure at last!), he is here in person, and there is no denying him, or\ndisregarding him any more; and woe to the public watchman that ignores\nhim, and sees Pacifico the Gibraltar Jew instead!\"\n\n\nWhat these strange Entities in Downing Street intrinsically are; who\nmade them, why they were made; how they do their function; and what\ntheir function, so huge in appearance, may in net-result amount to,--is\nprobably known to no mortal. The unofficial mind passes by in dark\nwonder; not pretending to know. The official mind must not blab;--the\nofficial mind, restricted to its own square foot of territory in the\nvast labyrinth, is probably itself dark, and unable to blab. We see the\noutcome; the mechanism we do not see. How the tailors clip and sew, in\nthat sublime sweating establishment of theirs, we know not: that the\ncoat they bring us out is the sorrowfulest fantastic mockery of a coat,\na mere intricate artistic network of traditions and formalities, an\nembroiled reticulation made of web-listings and superannuated thrums and\ntatters, endurable to no grown Nation as a coat, is mournfully clear!--\n\nTwo kinds of fundamental error are supposable in such a set of Offices;\nthese two, acting and reacting, are the vice of all inefficient Offices\nwhatever.--_First_, that the work, such as it may be, is ill done in\nthese establishments. That it is delayed, neglected, slurred over,\ncommitted to hands that cannot do it well; that, in a word, the\nquestions sent thither are not wisely handled, but unwisely; not decided\ntruly and rapidly, but with delays and wrong at last: which is the\nprincipal character, and the infallible result, of an insufficient\nIntellect being set to decide them. Or _second_, what is still fataler,\nthe work done there may itself be quite the wrong kind of work. Not\nthe kind of supervision and direction which Colonies, and other such\ninterests, Home or Foreign, do by the nature of them require from the\nCentral Government; not that, but a quite other kind! The Sotomayor\ncorrespondence, for example, is considered by many persons not to\nbe mismanaged merely, but to be a thing which should never have been\nmanaged at all; a quite superfluous concern, which and the like of which\nthe British Government has almost no call to get into, at this new epoch\nof time. And not Sotomayor only, nor Sapienza only, in regard to that\nForeign Office, but innumerable other things, if our witty friend of the\n\"live coal\" have reason in him! Of the Colonial Office, too, it is urged\nthat the questions they decide and operate upon are, in very great part,\nquestions which they never should have meddled with, but almost all\nof which should have been decided in the Colonies themselves,--Mother\nCountry or Colonial Office reserving its energy for a quite other class\nof objects, which are terribly neglected just now.\n\nThese are the two vices that beset Government Offices; both of them\noriginating in insufficient Intellect,--that sad insufficiency from\nwhich, directly or indirectly, all evil whatsoever springs! And these\ntwo vices act and react, so that where the one is, the other is sure to\nbe; and each encouraging the growth of the other, both (if some cleaning\nof the Augeas stable have not intervened for a long while) will be found\nin frightful development. You cannot have your work well done, if the\nwork be not of a right kind, if it be not work prescribed by the law of\nNature as well as by the rules of the office. Laziness, which lies in\nwait round all human labor-offices, will in that case infallibly leak\nin, and vitiate the doing of the work. The work is but idle; if the\ndoing of it will but pass, what need of more? The essential problem,\nas the rules of office prescribe it for you, if Nature and Fact say\nnothing, is that your work be got to pass; if the work itself is worth\nnothing, or little or an uncertain quantity, what more can gods or men\nrequire of it, or, above all, can I who am the doer of it require, but\nthat it be got to pass?\n\nAnd now enters another fatal effect, the mother of ever-new mischiefs,\nwhich renders well-doing or improvement impossible, and drives bad\neverywhere continually into worse. The work being what we see, a stupid\nsubaltern will do as well as a gifted one; the essential point is, that\nhe be a quiet one, and do not bother me who have the driving of him.\nNay, for this latter object, is not a certain height of intelligence\neven dangerous? I want no mettled Arab horse, with his flashing glances,\narched, neck and elastic step, to draw my wretched sand-cart through the\nstreets; a broken, grass-fed galloway, Irish garron, or painful ass with\nnothing in the belly of him but patience and furze, will do it safelier\nfor me, if more slowly. Nay I myself, am I the worse for being of a\nfeeble order of intelligence; what the irreverent speculative, world\ncalls barren, red-tapish, limited, and even intrinsically dark and\nsmall, and if it must be said, stupid?--To such a climax does it come\nin all Government and other Offices, where Human Stupidity has once\nintroduced itself (as it will everywhere do), and no Scavenger God\nintervenes. The work, at first of some worth, is ill done, and becomes\nof less worth and of ever less, and finally of none: the worthless\nwork can now _afford_ to be ill done; and Human Stupidity, at a\ndouble geometrical ratio, with frightful expansion grows and\naccumulates,--towards the unendurable.\n\nThe reforming Hercules, Sir Robert Peel or whoever he is to be, that\nenters Downing Street, will ask himself this question first of all, What\nwork is now necessary, not in form and by traditionary use and wont, but\nin very fact, for the vital interests of the British Nation, to be done\nhere? The second question, How to get it well done, and to keep the\nbest hands doing it well, will be greatly simplified by a good answer to\nthat. Oh for an eye that could see in those hideous mazes, and a heart\nthat could dare and do! Strenuous faithful scrutiny, not of what is\n_thought_ to be what in the red-tape regions, but of what really is\nwhat in the realms of Fact and Nature herself; deep-seeing, wise and\ncourageous eyes, that could look through innumerable cobweb veils,\nand detect what fact or no-fact lies at heart of them,--how invaluable\nthese! For, alas, it is long since such eyes were much in the habit\nof looking steadfastly at any department of our affairs; and poor\ncommonplace creatures, helping themselves along, in the way of\nmakeshift, from year to year, in such an element, do wonderful works\nindeed. Such creatures, like moles, are safe only underground, and their\nengineerings there become very daedalean. In fact, such unfortunate\npersons have no resource but to become what we call Pedants; to ensconce\nthemselves in a safe world of habitudes, of applicable or inapplicable\ntraditions; not coveting, rather avoiding the general daylight of\ncommon-sense, as very extraneous to them and their procedure; by long\npersistence in which course they become Completed Pedants, hidebound,\nimpenetrable, able to _defy_ the hostile extraneous element; an alarming\nkind of men, Such men, left to themselves for a century or two, in any\nColonial, Foreign, or other Office, will make a terrible affair of it!\n\nFor the one enemy we have in this Universe is Stupidity, Darkness of\nMind; of which darkness, again, there are many sources, every _sin_ a\nsource, and probably self-conceit the chief source. Darkness of mind,\nin every kind and variety, does to a really tragic extent abound: but of\nall the kinds of darkness, surely the Pedant darkness, which asserts\nand believes itself to be light, is the most formidable to mankind! For\nempires or for individuals there is but one class of men to be trembled\nat; and that is the Stupid Class, the class that cannot see, who alas\nare they mainly that will not see. A class of mortals under which as\nadministrators, kings, priests, diplomatists, &c., the interests\nof mankind in every European country have sunk overloaded, as under\nuniversal nightmare, near to extinction; and indeed are at this moment\nconvulsively writhing, decided either to throw off the unblessed\nsuperincumbent nightmare, or roll themselves and it to the Abyss. Vain\nto reform Parliament, to invent ballot-boxes, to reform this or that;\nthe real Administration, practical Management of the Commonwealth,\ngoes all awry; choked up with long-accumulated pedantries, so that your\nappointed workers have been reduced to work as moles; and it is one vast\nboring and counter-boring, on the part of eyeless persons irreverently\ncalled stupid; and a daedalean bewilderment, writing \"impossible\" on all\nefforts or proposals, supervenes.\n\n\nThe State itself, not in Downing Street alone but in every department of\nit, has altered much from what it was in past times; and it will again\nhave to alter very much, to alter I think from top to bottom, if it\nmeans to continue existing in the times that are now coming and come!\n\nThe State, left to shape itself by dim pedantries and traditions,\nwithout distinctness of conviction, or purpose beyond that of helping\nitself over the difficulty of the hour, has become, instead of a\nluminous vitality permeating with its light all provinces of our\naffairs, a most monstrous agglomerate of inanities, as little adapted\nfor the actual wants of a modern community as the worst citizen need\nwish. The thing it is doing is by no means the thing we want to have\ndone. What we want! Let the dullest British man endeavor to raise in his\nmind this question, and ask himself in sincerity what the British Nation\nwants at this time. Is it to have, with endless jargoning, debating,\nmotioning and counter-motioning, a settlement effected between the\nHonorable Mr. This and the Honorable Mr. That, as to their respective\npretensions to ride the high horse? Really it is unimportant which of\nthem ride it. Going upon past experience long continued now, I should\nsay with brevity, \"Either of them--Neither of them.\" If our Government\nis to be a No-Government, what is the matter who administers it? Fling\nan orange-skin into St. James's Street; let the man it hits be your man.\nHe, if you breed him a little to it, and tie the due official bladders\nto his ankles, will do as well as another this sublime problem of\nbalancing himself upon the vortexes, with the long loaded-pole in his\nhands; and will, with straddling painful gestures, float hither and\nthither, walking the waters in that singular manner for a little while,\nas well as his foregoers did, till he also capsize, and be left floating\nfeet uppermost; after which you choose another.\n\nWhat an immense pother, by parliamenting and palavering in all corners\nof your empire, to decide such a question as that! I say, if that is the\nfunction, almost any human creature can learn to discharge it: fling out\nyour orange-skin again; and save an incalculable labor, and an emission\nof nonsense and falsity, and electioneering beer and bribery and\nbalderdash, which is terrible to think of, in deciding. Your National\nParliament, in so far as it has only that question to decide, may be\nconsidered as an enormous National Palaver existing mainly for imaginary\npurposes; and certain, in these days of abbreviated labor, to get itself\nsent home again to its partridge-shootings, fox-huntings, and above all,\nto its rat-catchings, if it could but understand the time of day, and\nknow (as our indignant Crabbe remarks) that \"the real Nimrod of this\nera, who alone does any good to the era, is the rat-catcher!\"\n\nThe notion that any Government is or can be a No-Government, without\nthe deadliest peril to all noble interests of the Commonwealth, and\nby degrees slower or swifter to all ignoble ones also, and to the\nvery gully-drains, and thief lodging-houses, and Mosaic sweating\nestablishments, and at last without destruction to such No-Government\nitself,--was never my notion; and I hope it will soon cease altogether\nto be the world's or to be anybody's. But if it be the correct\nnotion, as the world seems at present to flatter itself, I point out\nimprovements and abbreviations. Dismiss your National Palaver; make the\n_Times_ Newspaper your National Palaver, which needs no beer-barrels or\nhustings, and is _cheaper_ in expense of money and of falsity a thousand\nand a million fold; have an economical red-tape drilling establishment\n(it were easier to devise such a thing than a right _Modern\nUniversity_);--and fling out your orange-skin among the graduates, when\nyou want a new Premier.\n\nA mighty question indeed! Who shall be Premier, and take in hand the\n\"rudder of government,\" otherwise called the \"spigot of taxation;\" shall\nit be the Honorable Felix Parvulus, or the Right Honorable Felicissimus\nZero? By our electioneerings and Hansard Debatings, and ever-enduring\ntempest of jargon that goes on everywhere, we manage to settle that; to\nhave it declared, with no bloodshed except insignificant blood from\nthe nose in hustings-time, but with immense beershed and inkshed\nand explosion of nonsense, which darkens all the air, that the Right\nHonorable Zero is to be the man. That we firmly settle; Zero, all\nshivering with rapture and with terror, mounts into the high saddle;\ncramps himself on, with knees, heels, hands and feet; and the horse\ngallops--whither it lists. That the Right Honorable Zero should attempt\ncontrolling the horse--Alas, alas, he, sticking on with beak and claws,\nis too happy if the horse will only gallop any-whither, and not throw\nhim. Measure, polity, plan or scheme of public good or evil, is not\nin the head of Felicissimus; except, if he could but devise it, some\nmeasure that would please his horse for the moment, and encourage him\nto go with softer paces, godward or devilward as it might be, and save\nFelicissimus's leather, which is fast wearing. This is what we call a\nGovernment in England, for nearly two centuries now.\n\nI wish Felicissimus were saddle-sick forever and a day! He is a dreadful\nobject, however much we are used to him. If the horse had not been bred\nand broken in, for a thousand years, by real riders and horse-subduers,\nperhaps the best and bravest the world ever saw, what would have become\nof Felicissimus and him long since? This horse, by second-nature,\nreligiously respects all fences; gallops, if never so madly, on the\nhighways alone;--seems to me, of late, like a desperate Sleswick\nthunder-horse who had lost his way, galloping in the labyrinthic lanes\nof a woody flat country; passionate to reach his goal; unable to reach\nit, because in the flat leafy lanes there is no outlook whatever, and\nin the bridle there is no guidance whatever. So he gallops stormfully\nalong, thinking it is forward and forward; and alas, it is only round\nand round, out of one old lane into the other;--nay (according to\nsome) \"he mistakes _his own footprints_, which of course grow ever more\nnumerous, for the sign of a more and more frequented road;\" and his\ndespair is hourly increasing. My impression is, he is certain soon, such\nis the growth of his necessity and his despair, to--plunge _across_ the\nfence, into an opener survey of the country; and to sweep Felicissimus\noff his back, and comb him away very tragically in the process! Poor\nSleswicker, I wish you were better ridden. I perceive it lies in the\nFates you must now either be better ridden, or else not long at all.\nThis plunging in the heavy labyrinth of over-shaded lanes, with one's\nstomach getting empty, one's Ireland falling into cannibalism, and no\nvestige of a goal either visible or possible, cannot last.\n\n\nColonial Offices, Foreign, Home and other Offices, got together under\nthese strange circumstances, cannot well be expected to be the best that\nhuman ingenuity could devise; the wonder rather is to see them so good\nas they are. Who made them, ask me not. Made they clearly were; for we\nsee them here in a concrete condition, writing despatches, and drawing\nsalary with a view to buy pudding. But how those Offices in Downing\nStreet were made; who made them, or for what kind of objects they were\nmade, would be hard to say at present. Dim visions and phantasmagories\ngathered from the Books of Horace Walpole, Memoirs of Bubb Doddington,\nMemoirs of my Lady Sundon, Lord Fanny Hervey, and innumerable others,\nrise on us, beckoning fantastically towards, not an answer, but some\nconceivable intimations of an answer, and proclaiming very legibly the\nold text, \"_Quam parva sapientia_,\" in respect of this hard-working\nmuch-subduing British Nation; giving rise to endless reflections in a\nthinking Englishman of this day. Alas, it is ever so: each generation\nhas its task, and does it better or worse; greatly neglecting what is\nnot immediately its task. Our poor grandfathers, so busy conquering\nIndias, founding Colonies, inventing spinning-jennies, kindling\nLancashires and Bromwichams, took no thought about the government of\nall that; left it all to be governed by Lord Fanny and the Hanover\nSuccession, or how the gods pleased. And now we the poor grandchildren\nfind that it will not stick together on these terms any longer; that our\nsad, dangerous and sore task is to discover some government for this\nbig world which has been conquered to us; that the red-tape Offices\nin Downing Street are near the end of their rope; that if we can get\nnothing better, in the way of government, it is all over with our world\nand us. How the Downing-Street Offices originated, and what the meaning\nof them was or is, let Dryasdust, when in some lucid moment the whim\ntakes him, instruct us. Enough for us to know and see clearly, with\nurgent practical inference derived from such insight, That they were not\nmade for us or for our objects at all; that the devouring Irish Giant\nis here, and that he cannot be fed with red-tape, and will eat us if we\ncannot feed him.\n\nOn the whole, let us say Felicissimus made them;--or rather it was\nthe predecessors of Felicissimus, who were not so dreadfully hunted,\nsticking to the wild and ever more desperate Sleswicker in the leafy\nlabyrinth of lanes, as he now is. He, I think, will never make anything;\nbut be combed off by the elm-boughs, and left sprawling in the ditch.\nBut in past time, this and the other heavy-laden red-tape soul had\nwithal a glow of patriotism in him; now and then, in his whirling\nelement, a gleam of human ingenuity, some eye towards business that must\nbe done. At all events, for him and every one, Parliament needed to\nbe persuaded that business was done. By the contributions of many such\nheavy-laden souls, driven on by necessity outward and inward, these\nsingular Establishments are here. Contributions--who knows how far back\nthey go, far beyond the reign of George the Second, or perhaps the reign\nof William Conqueror. Noble and genuine some of them were, many of them\nwere, I need not doubt: for there is no human edifice that stands long\nbut has got itself planted, here and there, upon the basis of fact;\nand being built, in many respects, according to the laws of statics: no\nstanding edifice, especially no edifice of State, but has had the\nwise and brave at work in it, contributing their lives to it; and is\n\"cemented,\" whether it know the fact or not, \"by the blood of heroes!\"\nNone; not even the Foreign Office, Home Office, still less the National\nPalaver itself. William Conqueror, I find, must have had a first-rate\nHome Office, for his share. The _Domesday Book_, done in four years,\nand done as it is, with such an admirable brevity, explicitness and\ncompleteness, testifies emphatically what kind of under-secretaries and\nofficials William had. Silent officials and secretaries, I suppose;\nnot wasting themselves in parliamentary talk; reserving all their\nintelligence for silent survey of the huge dumb fact, silent\nconsideration how they might compass the mastery of that. Happy\nsecretaries, happy William!\n\nBut indeed nobody knows what inarticulate traditions, remnants of old\nwisdom, priceless though quite anonymous, survive in many modern things\nthat still have life in them. Ben Brace, with his taciturnities, and\nrugged stoical ways, with his tarry breeches, stiff as plank-breeches,\nI perceive is still a kind of _Lod-brog_ (Loaded-breeks) in more senses\nthan one; and derives, little conscious of it, many of his excellences\nfrom the old Sea-kings and Saxon Pirates themselves; and how many Blakes\nand Nelsons since have contributed to Ben! \"Things are not so false\nalways as they seem,\" said a certain Professor to me once: \"of this\nyou will find instances in every country, and in your England more than\nany--and I hope will draw lessons from them. An English Seventy-four, if\nyou look merely at the articulate law and methods of it, is one of the\nimpossiblest entities. The captain is appointed not by preeminent merit\nin sailorship, but by parliamentary connection; the men [this was spoken\nsome years ago] are got by impressment; a press-gang goes out, knocks\nmen down on the streets of sea-towns, and drags them on board,--if the\nship were to be stranded, I have heard they would nearly all run ashore\nand desert. Can anything be more unreasonable than a Seventy-four?\nArticulately almost nothing. But it has inarticulate traditions, ancient\nmethods and habitudes in it, stoicisms, noblenesses, _true_ rules\nboth of sailing and of conduct; enough to keep it afloat on Nature's\nveridical bosom, after all. See; if you bid it sail to the end of the\nworld, it will lift anchor, go, and arrive. The raging oceans do not\nbeat it back; it too, as well as the raging oceans, has a relationship\nto Nature, and it does not sink, but under the due conditions is borne\nalong. If it meet with hurricanes, it rides them out; if it meet an\nEnemy's ship, it shivers it to powder; and in short, it holds on its\nway, and to a wonderful extent _does_ what it means and pretends to do.\nAssure yourself, my friend, there is an immense fund of truth somewhere\nor other stowed in that Seventy-four.\"\n\n\nMore important than the past history of these Offices in Downing Street,\nis the question of their future history; the question, How they are\nto be got mended! Truly an immense problem, inclusive of all others\nwhatsoever; which demands to be attacked, and incessantly persisted in,\nby all good citizens, as the grand problem of Society, and the one thing\nneedful for the Commonwealth! A problem in which all men, with all their\nwisdoms and all their virtues, faithfully and continually co-operating\nat it, will never have done _enough_, and will still only be struggling\n_towards_ perfection in it. In which some men can do much;--in which\nevery man can do something. Every man, and thou my present Reader canst\ndo this: _Be_ thyself a man abler to be governed; more reverencing the\ndivine faculty of governing, more sacredly detesting the diabolical\nsemblance of said faculty in self and others; so shalt thou, if not\ngovern, yet actually according to thy strength assist in real governing.\nAnd know always, and even lay to heart with a quite unusual solemnity,\nwith a seriousness altogether of a religious nature, that as \"Human\nStupidity\" is verily the accursed parent of all this mischief, so\nHuman Intelligence alone, to which and to which only is victory and\nblessedness appointed here below, will or can cure it. If we knew\nthis as devoutly as we ought to do, the evil, and all other evils were\ncurable;--alas, if we had from of old known this, as all men made in\nGod's image ought to do, the evil never would have been! Perhaps few\nNations have ever known it less than we, for a good while back, have\ndone. Hence these sorrows.\n\nWhat a People are the poor Thibet idolaters, compared with us and\nour \"religions,\" which issue in the worship of King Hudson as our\nDalai-Lama! They, across such hulls of abject ignorance, have seen into\nthe heart of the matter; we, with our torches of knowledge everywhere\nbrandishing themselves, and such a human enlightenment as never was\nbefore, have quite missed it. Reverence for Human Worth, earnest devout\nsearch for it and encouragement of it, loyal furtherance and obedience\nto it: this, I say, is the outcome and essence of all true \"religions,\"\nand was and ever will be. We have not known this. No; loud as our\ntongues sometimes go in that direction, we have no true reverence\nfor Human Intelligence, for Human Worth and Wisdom: none, or too\nlittle,--and I pray for a restoration of such reverence, as for the\nchange from Stygian darkness to Heavenly light, as for the return\nof life to poor sick moribund Society and all its interests. Human\nIntelligence means little for most of us but Beaver Contrivance, which\nproduces spinning-mules, cheap cotton, and large fortunes. Wisdom,\nunless it give us railway scrip, is not wise.\n\nTrue nevertheless it forever remains that Intellect is the real object\nof reverence, and of devout prayer, and zealous wish and pursuit, among\nthe sons of men; and even, well understood, the one object. It is the\nInspiration of the Almighty that giveth men understanding. For it must\nbe repeated, and ever again repeated till poor mortals get to discern\nit, and awake from their baleful paralysis, and degradation under foul\nenchantments, That a man of Intellect, of real and not sham Intellect,\nis by the nature of him likewise inevitably a man of nobleness, a man\nof courage, rectitude, pious strength; who, even _because_ he is and has\nbeen loyal to the Laws of this Universe, is initiated into _discernment_\nof the same; to this hour a Missioned of Heaven; whom if men follow, it\nwill be well with them; whom if men do not follow, it will not be well.\nHuman Intellect, if you consider it well, is the exact summary of Human\n_Worth_; and the essence of all worth-ships and worships is reverence\nfor that same. This much surprises you, friend Peter; but I assure you\nit is the fact;--and I would advise you to consider it, and to try\nif you too do not gradually find it so. With me it has long been an\narticle, not of \"faith\" only, but of settled insight, of conviction as\nto what the ordainments of the Maker in this Universe are. Ah, could you\nand the rest of us but get to know it, and everywhere religiously\nact upon it,--as our _Fortieth_ Article, which includes all the other\nThirty-nine, and without which the Thirty-nine are good for almost\nnothing,--there might then be some hope for us! In this world there\nis but one appalling creature: the Stupid man _considered_ to be the\nMissioned of Heaven, and followed by men. He is our King, men say,\nhe;--and they follow him, through straight or winding courses, I for one\nknow well whitherward.\n\nAbler men in Downing Street, abler men to govern us: yes, that, sure\nenough, would gradually remove the dung-mountains, however high they\nare; that would be the way, nor is there any other way, to remedy\nwhatsoever has gone wrong in Downing Street and in the wide regions,\nspiritual and temporal, which Downing Street presides over! For the Able\nMan, meet him where you may, is definable as the born enemy of Falsity\nand Anarchy, and the born soldier of Truth and Order: into what\nabsurdest element soever you put him, he is there to make it a little\nless absurd, to fight continually with it till it become a little sane\nand human again. Peace on other terms he, for his part, cannot make with\nit; not he, while he continues _able_, or possessed of real intellect\nand not imaginary. There is but one man fraught with blessings for this\nworld, fated to diminish and successively abolish the curses of the\nworld; and it is he. For him make search, him reverence and follow; know\nthat to find him or miss him, means victory or defeat for you, in all\nDowning Streets, and establishments and enterprises here below.--I leave\nyour Lordship to judge whether this has been our practice hitherto;\nand would humbly inquire what your Lordship thinks is likely to be the\nconsequence of continuing to neglect this. It ought to have been our\npractice; ought, in all places and all times, to be the practice in this\nworld; so says the fixed law of things forevermore:--and it must cease\nto be _not_ the practice, your Lordship; and cannot too speedily do so I\nthink!--\n\nMuch has been done in the way of reforming Parliament in late years; but\nthat of itself seems to avail nothing, or almost less. The men that sit\nin Downing Street, governing us, are not abler men since the Reform\nBill than were those before it. Precisely the same kind of men; obedient\nformerly to Tory traditions, obedient now to Whig ditto and popular\nclamors. Respectable men of office: respectably commonplace in\nfacility,--while the situation is becoming terribly original! Rendering\ntheir outlooks, and ours, more ominous every day.\n\nIndisputably enough the meaning of all reform-movement, electing and\nelectioneering, of popular agitation, parliamentary eloquence, and all\npolitical effort whatsoever, is that you may get the ten Ablest Men in\nEngland put to preside over your ten principal departments of affairs.\nTo sift and riddle the Nation, so that you might extricate and sift\nout the true ten gold grains, or ablest men, and of these make your\nGovernors or Public Officers; leaving the dross and common sandy or\nsilty material safely aside, as the thing to be governed, not to govern;\ncertainly all ballot-boxes, caucuses, Kennington-Common meetings,\nParliamentary debatings, Red Republics, Russian Despotisms, and\nconstitutional or unconstitutional methods of society among mankind, are\nintended to achieve this one end; and some of them, it will be owned,\nachieve it very ill!--If you have got your gold grains, if the men\nyou have got are actually the ablest, then rejoice; with whatever\nastonishment, accept your Ten, and thank the gods; under this Ten your\ndestruction will at least be milder than under another. But if you have\n_not_ got them, if you are very far from having got them, then do not\nrejoice at all, then _lament_ very much; then admit that your sublime\npolitical constitutions and contrivances do not prove themselves\nsublime, but ridiculous and contemptible; that your world's wonder of a\npolitical mill, the envy of surrounding nations, does not yield you real\nmeal; yields you only powder of millstones (called Hansard Debatings),\nand a detestable brown substance not unlike the grindings of dried\nhorse-dung or prepared street-mud, which though sold under royal\npatent, and much recommended by the trade, is quite unfit for culinary\npurposes!--\n\n\nBut the disease at least is not mysterious, whatever the remedy be. Our\ndisease,--alas, is it not clear as the sun, that we suffer under what is\nthe disease of all the miserable in this world, _want of wisdom_; that\nin the Head there is no vision, and that thereby all the members are\ndark and in bonds? No vision in the head; heroism, faith, devout insight\nto discern what is needful, noble courage to do it, greatly defective\nthere: not seeing eyes there, but spectacles constitutionally ground,\nwhich, to the unwary, _seem_ to see. A quite fatal circumstance, had\nyou never so many Parliaments! How is your ship to be steered by a Pilot\nwith no _eyes_ but a pair of glass ones got from the constitutional\noptician? He must steer by the _ear_, I think, rather than by the eye;\nby the shoutings he catches from the shore, or from the Parliamentary\nbenches nearer hand:--one of the frightfulest objects to see steering\nin a difficult sea! Reformed Parliaments in that case, reform-leagues,\nouter agitations and excitements in never such abundance, cannot profit:\nall this is but the writhing, and painful blind convulsion of the\nlimbs that are in bonds, that are all in dark misery till the head be\ndelivered, till the pressure on the brain be removed.\n\nOr perhaps there is now no heroic wisdom left in England; England, once\nthe land of heroes, is itself sunk now to a dim owlery, and habitation\nof doleful creatures, intent only on money-making and other forms of\ncatching mice, for whom the proper gospel is the gospel of M'Croudy, and\nall nobler impulses and insights are forbidden henceforth? Perhaps these\npresent agreeable Occupants of Downing Street, such as the parliamentary\nmill has yielded them, are the _best_ the miserable soil had grown?\nThe most Herculean Ten Men that could be found among the English\nTwenty-seven Millions, are these? There _are_ not, in any place, under\nany figure, ten diviner men among us? Well; in that case, the riddling\nand searching of the twenty-seven millions has been _successful_. Here\nare our ten divinest men; with these, unhappily not divine enough, we\nmust even content ourselves and die in peace; what help is there? No\nhelp, no hope, in that case.\n\nBut, again, if these are _not_ our divinest men, then evidently there\nalways is hope, there always is possibility of help; and ruin never is\nquite inevitable, till we _have_ sifted out our actually divinest\nten, and set these to try their hand at governing!--That this has been\nachieved; that these ten men are the most Herculean souls the English\npopulation held within it, is a proposition credible to no mortal. No,\nthank God; low as we are sunk in many ways, this is not yet credible!\nEvidently the reverse of this proposition is the fact. Ten much diviner\nmen do certainly exist. By some conceivable, not forever impossible,\nmethod and methods, ten very much diviner men could be sifted\nout!--Courage; let us fix our eyes on that important fact, and strive\nall thitherward as towards a door of hope!\n\n\nParliaments, I think, have proved too well, in late years, that they are\nnot the remedy. It is not Parliaments, reformed or other, that will ever\nsend Herculean men to Downing Street, to reform Downing Street for us;\nto diffuse therefrom a light of Heavenly Order, instead of the murk of\nStygian Anarchy, over this sad world of ours. That function does not lie\nin the capacities of Parliment. That is the function of a _King_,--if\nwe could get such a priceless entity, which we cannot just now! Failing\nwhich, Statesmen, or Temporary Kings, and at the very lowest one real\nStatesman, to shape the dim tendencies of Parliament, and guide them\nwisely to the goal: he, I perceive, will be a primary condition,\nindispensable for any progress whatsoever.\n\nOne such, perhaps, might be attained; one such might prove discoverable\namong our Parliamentary populations? That one, in such an enterprise as\nthis of Downing Street, might be invaluable! One noble man, at once\nof natural wisdom and practical experience; one Intellect still really\nhuman, and not red-tapish, owlish and pedantical, appearing there in\nthat dim chaos, with word of command; to brandish Hercules-like the\ndivine broom and shovel, and turn running water in upon the place, and\nsay as with a fiat, \"Here shall be truth, and real work, and talent\nto do it henceforth; I will seek for able men to work here, as for the\nelixir of life to this poor place and me:\"--what might not one such man\neffect there!\n\nNay one such is not to be dispensed with anywhere in the affairs of\nmen. In every ship, I say, there must be a _seeing_ pilot, not a mere\nhearing one! It is evident you can never get your ship steered through\nthe difficult straits by persons standing ashore, on this bank and that,\nand shouting _their_ confused directions to you: \"'Ware that Colonial\nSandbank!--Starboard now, the Nigger Question!--Larboard, _larboard_,\nthe Suffrage Movement! Financial Reform, your Clothing-Colonels\noverboard! The Qualification Movement, 'Ware-re-re!--Helm-a-lee! Bear a\nhand there, will you! Hr-r-r, lubbers, imbeciles, fitter for a tailor's\nshopboard than a helm of Government, Hr-r-r!\"--And so the ship wriggles\nand tumbles, and, on the whole, goes as wind and current drive. No ship\nwas ever steered except to destruction in that manner. I deliberately\nsay so: no ship of a State either. If you cannot get a real pilot on\nboard, and put the helm into his hands, your ship is as good as a wreck.\nOne real pilot on board may save you; all the bellowing from the banks\nthat ever was, will not, and by the nature of things cannot. Nay your\npilot will have to succeed, if he do succeed, very much in spite of said\nbellowing; he will hear all that, and regard very little of it,--in a\npatient mild-spoken wise manner, will regard all of it as what it is.\nAnd I never doubt but there is in Parliament itself, in spite of its\nvague palaverings which fill us with despair in these times, a dumb\ninstinct of inarticulate sense and stubborn practical English insight\nand veracity, that would manfully support a Statesman who could take\ncommand with really manful notions of Reform, and as one deserving to\nbe obeyed. Oh for one such; even one! More precious to us than all the\nbullion in the Bank, or perhaps that ever was in it, just now!\n\nFor it is Wisdom alone that can recognize wisdom: Folly or Imbecility\nnever can; and that is the fatalest ban it labors under, dooming it to\nperpetual failure in all things. Failure which, in Downing Street and\nplaces of _command_ is especially accursed; cursing not one but hundreds\nof millions! Who is there that can recognize real intellect, and do\nreverence to it; and discriminate it well from sham intellect, which is\nso much more abundant, and deserves the reverse of reverence? He that\nhimself has it!--One really human Intellect, invested with command, and\ncharged to reform Downing Street for us, would continually attract real\nintellect to those regions, and with a divine magnetism search it out\nfrom the modest corners where it lies hid. And every new accession of\nintellect to Downing Street would bring to it benefit only, and would\nincrease such divine attraction in it, the parent of all benefit there\nand elsewhere!\n\n\n\"What method, then; by what method?\" ask many. Method, alas! To secure\nan increased supply of Human Intellect to Downing Street, there will\nevidently be no quite effectual \"method\" but that of increasing the\nsupply of Human Intellect, otherwise definable as Human Worth, in\nSociety generally; increasing the supply of sacred reverence for it, of\nloyalty to it, and of life-and-death desire and pursuit of it, among\nall classes,--if we but knew such a \"method\"! Alas, that were simply the\nmethod of making all classes Servants of Heaven; and except it be devout\nprayer to Heaven, I have never heard of any method! To increase the\nreverence for Human Intellect or God's Light, and the detestation\nof Human Stupidity or the Devil's Darkness, what method is there? No\nmethod,--except even this, that we should each of us \"pray\" for it,\ninstead of praying for mere scrip and the like; that Heaven would please\nto vouchsafe us each a little of it, one by one! As perhaps Heaven, in\nits infinite bounty, by stern methods, gradually will? Perhaps Heaven\nhas mercy too in these sore plagues that are oppressing us; and means\nto teach us reverence for Heroism and Human Intellect, by such baleful\nexperience of what issue Imbecility and Parliamentary Eloquence lead to?\nSuch reverence, I do hope, and even discover and observe, is silently\nyet extensively going on among us even in these sad years. In which\nsmall salutary fact there burns for us, in this black coil of universal\nbaseness fast becoming universal wretchedness, an inextinguishable\nhope; far-off but sure, a divine \"pillar of fire by night.\" Courage,\ncourage!--\n\nMeanwhile, that our one reforming Statesman may have free command\nof what Intellect there is among us, and room to try all means for\nawakening and inviting ever more of it, there has one small Project\nof Improvement been suggested; which finds a certain degree of favor\nwherever I hear it talked of, and which seems to merit much more\nconsideration than it has yet received. Practical men themselves approve\nof it hitherto, so far as it goes; the one objection being that the\nworld is not yet prepared to insist on it,--which of course the world\ncan never be, till once the world consider it, and in the first place\nhear tell of it! I have, for my own part, a good opinion of this\nproject. The old unreformed Parliament of rotten boroughs _had_ one\nadvantage; but that is hereby, in a far more fruitful and effectual\nmanner, secured to the new.\n\nThe Proposal is, That Secretaries under and upper, that all manner of\nchangeable or permanent servants in the Government Offices shall\nbe selected without reference to their power of getting into\nParliament;--that, in short, the Queen shall have power of nominating\nthe half-dozen or half-score Officers of the Administration, whose\npresence is thought necessary in Parliament, to official seats there,\nwithout reference to any constituency but her own only, which of course\nwill mean her Prime Minister's. A very small encroachment on the present\nconstitution of Parliament; offering the minimum of change in present\nmethods, and I almost think a maximum in results to be derived\ntherefrom.--The Queen nominates John Thomas (the fittest man she, much\ninquiring, can hear tell of in her three kingdoms) President of the\nPoor-Law Board, Under Secretary of the Colonies, Under, or perhaps\neven Upper Secretary of what she and her Premier find suitablest for a\nworking head so eminent, a talent so precious; and grants him, by her\ndirect authority, seat and vote in Parliament so long as he holds that\noffice. Upper Secretaries, having more to do in Parliament, and being\nso bound to be in favor there, would, I suppose, at least till new times\nand habits come, be expected to be chosen from among the _People's_\nMembers as at present. But whether the Prime Minister himself is, in all\ntimes, bound to be first a People's Member; and which, or how many,\nof his Secretaries and subordinates he might be allowed to take as\n_Queen's_ Members, my authority does not say,--perhaps has not himself\nsettled; the project being yet in mere outline or foreshadow, the\npractical embodiment in all details to be fixed by authorities much more\ncompetent than he. The soul of his project is, That the Crown also have\npower to elect a few members to Parliament.\n\nFrom which project, however wisely it were embodied, there could\nprobably, at first or all at once, no great \"accession of intellect\" to\nthe Government Offices ensue; though a little might, even at first, and\na little is always precious: but in its ulterior operation, were that\nfaithfully developed, and wisely presided over, I fancy an immense\naccession of intellect might ensue;--nay a natural ingress might thereby\nbe opened to all manner of accessions, and the actual flower of whatever\nintellect the British Nation had might be attracted towards Downing\nStreet, and continue flowing steadily thither! For, let us see a little\nwhat effects this simple change carries in it the possibilities of. Here\nare beneficent germs, which the presence of one truly wise man as Chief\nMinister, steadily fostering them for even a few years, with the sacred\nfidelity and vigilance that would beseem him, might ripen into living\npractices and habitual facts, invaluable to us all.\n\nWhat it is that Secretaries of State, Managers of Colonial\nEstablishments, of Home and Foreign Government interests, have really\nand truly to do in Parliament, might admit of various estimate in these\ntimes. An apt debater in Parliament is by no means certain to be an able\nadministrator of Colonies, of Home or Foreign Affairs; nay, rather\nquite the contrary is to be presumed of him; for in order to become a\n\"brilliant speaker,\" if that is his character, considerable portions of\nhis natural internal endowment must have gone to the surface, in order\nto make a shining figure there, and precisely so much the less (few men\nin these days know how much less!) must remain available in the internal\nsilent state, or as faculty for thinking, for devising and acting,\nwhich latter and which alone is the function essential for him in his\nSecretaryship. Not to tell a good story for himself \"in Parliament and\nto the twenty-seven millions, many of them fools;\" not that, but to do\ngood administration, to know with sure eye, and decide with just and\nresolute heart, what is what in the _things_ committed to his charge:\nthis and not that is the service which poor England, whatever it may\nthink and maunder, does require and want of the Official Man in Downing\nStreet. Given a good Official Man or Secretary, he really ought, as far\nas it is possible, to be left working in the silent state. No mortal can\nboth work, and do good talking in Parliament, or out of it: the feat is\nimpossible as that of serving two hostile masters.\n\nNor would I, if it could be helped, much trouble my good Secretary with\naddressing Parliament: needful explanations; yes, in a free country,\nsurely;--but not to every frivolous and vexatious person, in or out of\nParliament, who chooses to apply for them. There should be demands\nfor explanation too which were reckoned frivolous and vexatious, and\ncensured as such. These, I should say, are the not needful explanations:\nand if my poor Secretary is to be called out from his workshop to answer\nevery one of these,--his workshop will become (what we at present see\nit, deservedly or not) little other than a pillory; the poor Secretary\na kind of talking-machine, exposed to dead cats and rotten eggs; and\nthe \"work\" got out of him or of it will, as heretofore, be very\ninconsiderable indeed!--Alas, on this side also, important improvements\nare conceivable; and will even, I imagine, get them whence we may, be\nfound indispensable one day. The honorable gentleman whom you interrupt\nhere, he, in his official capacity, is not an individual now, but the\nembodiment of a Nation; he is the \"People of England\" engaged in the\nwork of Secretaryship, this one; and cannot forever afford to let the\nthree Tailors of Tooley Street break in upon him at all hours!--\n\nBut leaving this, let us remark one thing which is very plain: That\nwhatever be the uses and duties, real or supposed, of a Secretary\nin Parliament, his faculty to accomplish these is a point entirely\nunconnected with his ability to get elected into Parliament, and has\nno relation or proportion to it, and no concern with it whatever.\nLord Tommy and the Honorable John are not a whit better qualified for\nParliamentary duties, to say nothing of Secretary duties, than plain\nTom and Jack; they are merely better qualified, as matters stand,\nfor getting admitted to try them. Which state of matters a reforming\nPremier, much in want of abler men to help him, now proposes altering.\nTom and Jack, once admitted by the Queen's writ, there is every reason\nto suppose will do quite as well there as Lord Tommy and the Honorable\nJohn. In Parliament quite as well: and elsewhere, in the other\ninfinitely more important duties of a Government Office, which indeed\nare and remain the essential, vital and intrinsic duties of such a\npersonage, is there the faintest reason to surmise that Tom and Jack,\nif well chosen, will fall short of Lord Tommy and the Honorable John? No\nshadow of a reason. Were the intrinsic genius of the men exactly equal,\nthere is no shadow of a reason: but rather there is quite the reverse;\nfor Tom and Jack have been at least workers all their days, not idlers,\ngame-preservers and mere human clothes-horses, at any period of their\nlives; and have gained a schooling _thereby_, of which Lord Tommy and\nthe Honorable John, unhappily strangers to it for most part, can form no\nconception! Tom and Jack have already, on this most narrow hypothesis,\na decided _superiority_ of likelihood over Lord Tommy and the Honorable\nJohn.\n\nBut the hypothesis is very narrow, and the fact is very wide; the\nhypothesis counts by units, the fact by millions. Consider how many Toms\nand Jacks there are to choose from, well or ill! The aristocratic class\nfrom whom Members of Parliament can be elected extends only to certain\nthousands; from these you are to choose your Secretary, if a seat in\nParliament is the primary condition. But the general population is of\nTwenty-seven Millions; from all sections of which you can choose, if\nthe seat in Parliament is not to be primary. Make it ultimate instead of\nprimary, a last investiture instead of a first indispensable condition,\nand the whole British Nation, learned, unlearned, professional,\npractical, speculative and miscellaneous, is at your disposal! In the\nlowest broad strata of the population, equally as in the highest and\nnarrowest, are produced men of every kind of genius; man for man, your\nchance of genius is as good among the millions as among the units;--and\nclass for class, what must it be! From all classes, not from certain\nhundreds now but from several millions, whatsoever man the gods had\ngifted with intellect and nobleness, and power to help his country,\ncould be chosen: O Heavens, could,--if not by Tenpound Constituencies\nand the force of beer, then by a Reforming Premier with eyes in his\nhead, who I think might do it quite infinitely better. Infinitely\nbetter. For ignobleness cannot, by the nature of it, choose the noble:\nno, there needs a seeing man who is himself noble, cognizant by internal\nexperience of the symptoms of nobleness. Shall we never think of this;\nshall we never more remember this, then? It is forever true; and Nature\nand Fact, however we may rattle our ballot-boxes, do at no time forget\nit.\n\nFrom the lowest and broadest stratum of Society, where the births are by\nthe million, there was born, almost in our own memory, a Robert Burns;\nson of one who \"had not capital for his poor moor-farm of Twenty\nPounds a year.\" Robert Burns never had the smallest chance to got into\nParliament, much as Robert Burns deserved, for all our sakes, to have\nbeen found there. For the man--it was not known to men purblind, sunk\nin their poor dim vulgar element, but might have been known to men of\ninsight who had any loyalty or any royalty of their own--was a born king\nof men: full of valor, of intelligence and heroic nobleness; fit for\nfar other work than to break his heart among poor mean mortals, gauging\nbeer! Him no Tenpound Constituency chose, nor did any Reforming Premier:\nin the deep-sunk British Nation, overwhelmed in foggy stupor, with the\nloadstars all gone out for it, there was no whisper of a notion that it\ncould be desirable to choose him,--except to come and dine with you, and\nin the interim to gauge. And yet heaven-born Mr. Pitt, at that period,\nwas by no means without need of Heroic Intellect, for other purposes\nthan gauging! But sorrowful strangulation by red-tape, much _tighter_\nthen than it now is when so many revolutionary earthquakes have tussled\nit, quite tied up the meagre Pitt; and he said, on hearing of this Burns\nand his sad hampered case, \"Literature will take care of itself.\"--\"Yes,\nand of you too, if you don't mind it!\" answers one.\n\nAnd so, like Apollo taken for a Neat-herd, and perhaps for none of the\nbest on the Admetus establishment, this new Norse Thor had to put\nup with what was going; to gauge ale, and be thankful; pouring his\ncelestial sunlight through Scottish Song-writing,--the narrowest chink\never offered to a Thunder-god before! And the meagre Pitt, and his\nDundasses and red-tape Phantasms (growing very ghastly now to think of),\ndid not in the least know or understand, the impious, god-forgetting\nmortals, that Heroic Intellects, if Heaven were pleased to send such,\nwere the one salvation for the world and for them and all of us. No;\nthey \"had done very well without\" such; did not see the use of such;\nwent along \"very well\" without such; well presided over by a singular\nHeroic Intellect called George the Third: and the Thunder-god, as was\nrather fit of him, departed early, still in the noon of life, somewhat\nweary of gauging ale!--O Peter, what a scandalous torpid element of\nyellow London fog, favorable to owls only and their mousing operations,\nhas blotted out the stars of Heaven for us these several generations\nback,--which, I rejoice to see, is now visibly about to take itself away\nagain, or perhaps to be _dispelled_ in a very tremendous manner!\n\n\nFor the sake of my Democratic friends, one other observation. Is\nnot this Proposal the very essence of whatever truth there is in\n\"Democracy;\" this, that the able man be chosen, in whatever rank be\nis found? That he be searched for as hidden treasure is; be trained,\nsupervised, set to the work which he alone is fit for. All Democracy\nlies in this; this, I think, is worth all the ballot-boxes and\nsuffrage-movements now going. Not that the noble soul, born poor, should\nbe set to spout in Parliament, but that he should be set to assist in\ngoverning men: this is our grand Democratic interest. With this we\ncan be saved; without this, were there a Parliament spouting in\nevery parish, and Hansard Debates to stem the Thames, we perish,--die\nconstitutionally drowned, in mere oceans of palaver.\n\nAll reformers, constitutional persons, and men capable of reflection,\nare invited to reflect on these things. Let us brush the cobwebs from\nour eyes; let us bid the inane traditions be silent for a moment; and\nask ourselves, like men dreadfully intent on having it _done_, \"By what\nmethod or methods can the able men from every rank of life be gathered,\nas diamond-grains from the general mass of sand: the able men, not\nthe sham-able;--and set to do the work of governing, contriving,\nadministering and guiding for us!\" It is the question of questions.\nAll that Democracy ever meant lies there: the attainment of a truer and\ntruer Aristocracy, or Government again by the _Best_.\n\nReformed Parliaments have lamentably failed to attain it for us; and I\nbelieve will and must forever fail. One true Reforming Statesman, one\nnoble worshipper and knower of human intellect, with the quality of an\nexperienced Politician too; he, backed by such a Parliament as England,\nonce recognizing him, would loyally send, and at liberty to choose his\nworking subalterns from all the Englishmen alive; he surely might do\nsomething? Something, by one means or another, is becoming fearfully\nnecessary to be done! He, I think, might accomplish more for us in\nten years, than the best conceivable Reformed Parliament, and utmost\nextension of the suffrage, in twice or ten times ten.\n\nWhat is extremely important too, you could try this method with safety;\nextension of the suffrage you cannot so try. With even an approximately\nheroic Prime Minister, you could get nothing but good from prescribing\nto him thus, to choose the fittest man, under penalties; to choose, not\nthe fittest of the four or the three men that were in Parliament, but\nthe fittest from the whole Twenty-seven Millions that he could hear\nof,--at his peril. Nothing but good from this. From extension of\nthe suffrage, some think, you might get quite other than good. From\nextension of the suffrage, till it became a universal counting of heads,\none sees not in the least what wisdom could be extracted. A Parliament\nof the Paris pattern, such as we see just now, might be extracted: and\nfrom that? Solution into universal slush; drownage of all interests\ndivine and human, in a Noah's-Deluge of Parliamentary eloquence,--such\nas we hope our sins, heavy and manifold though they are, have not yet\nquite deserved!\n\n\nWho, then, is to be the Reforming Statesman, and begin the noble work\nfor us? He is the preliminary; one such; with him we may prosecute the\nenterprise to length after length; without him we cannot stir in it at\nall. A true _king_, temporary king, that dare undertake the government\nof Britain, on condition of beginning in sacred earnest to \"reform\" it,\nnot at this or that extremity, but at the heart and centre. That will\nexpurgate Downing Street, and the practical Administration of our\nAffairs; clear out its accumulated mountains of pendantries and cobwebs;\nbid the Pedants and the Dullards depart, bid the Gifted and the Seeing\nenter and inhabit. So that henceforth there be Heavenly light there,\ninstead of Stygian dusk; that God's vivifying light instead of Satan's\ndeadening and killing dusk, may radiate therefrom, and visit with\nhealing all regions of this British Empire,--which now writhes through\nevery limb of it, in dire agony as if of death! The enterprise is great,\nthe enterprise may be called formidable and even awful; but there is\nnone nobler among the sublunary affairs of mankind just now. Nay tacitly\nit is the enterprise of every man who undertakes to be British Premier\nin these times;--and I cannot esteem him an enviable Premier who,\nbecause the engagement is _tacit_, flatters himself that it does not\nexist! \"Show it me in the bond,\" he says. Your Lordship, it actually\nexists: and I think you will see it yet, in another kind of \"bond\" than\nthat sheepskin one!\n\n\nBut truly, in any time, what a strange feeling, enough to alarm a very\nbig Lordship, this: that he, of the size he is, has got to the apex of\nEnglish affairs! Smallest wrens, we know, by training and the aid\nof machinery, are capable of many things. For this world abounds in\nmiraculous combinations, far transcending anything they do at Drury Lane\nin the melodramatic way. A world which, as solid as it looks, is made\nall of aerial and even of spiritual stuff; permeated all by incalculable\nsleeping forces and electricities; and liable to go off, at any\ntime, into the hugest developments, upon a scratch thoughtfully or\nthoughtlessly given on the right point:--Nay, for every one of us, could\nnot the sputter of a poor pistol-shot shrivel the Immensities together\nlike a burnt scroll, and make the Heavens and the Earth pass away with a\ngreat noise? Smallest wrens, and canary-birds of some dexterity, can be\ntrained to handle lucifer-matches; and have, before now, fired off\nwhole powder-magazines and parks of artillery. Perhaps without much\nastonishment to the canary-bird. The canary-bird can hold only its own\nquantity of astonishment; and may possibly enough retain its presence of\nmind, were even Doomsday to come. It is on this principle that I explain\nto myself the equanimity of some men and Premiers whom we have known.\n\nThis and the other Premier seems to take it with perfect coolness. And\nyet, I say, what a strange feeling, to find himself Chief Governor\nof England; girding on, upon his moderately sized new soul, the old\nbattle-harness of an Oliver Cromwell, an Edward Longshanks, a William\nConqueror. \"I, then, am the Ablest of English attainable Men? This\nEnglish People, which has spread itself over all lands and seas, and\nachieved such works in the ages,--which has done America, India, the\nLancashire Cotton-trade, Bromwicham Iron-trade, Newton's Principia,\nShakspeare's Dramas, and the British Constitution,--the apex of all its\nintelligences and mighty instincts and dumb longings: it is I? William\nConqueror's big gifts, and Edward's and Elizabeth's; Oliver's lightning\nsoul, noble as Sinai and the thunders of the Lord: these are mine, I\nbegin to perceive,--to a certain extent. These heroisms have I,--though\nrather shy of exhibiting them. These; and something withal of the\nhuge beaver-faculty of our Arkwrights, Brindleys; touches too of\nthe phoenix-melodies and _sunny_ heroisms of our Shakspeares, of\nour Singers, Sages and inspired Thinkers all this is in me, I will\nhope,--though rather shy of exhibiting it on common occasions. The\nPattern Englishman, raised by solemn acclamation upon the bucklers of\nthe English People, and saluted with universal 'God save THEE!'--has\nnow the honor to announce himself. After fifteen hundred years of\nconstitutional study as to methods of raising on the bucklers, which\nis the operation of operations, the English People, surely pretty well\nskilled in it by this time, has raised--the remarkable individual now\naddressing you. The best-combined sample of whatsoever divine qualities\nare in this big People, the consummate flower of all that they have done\nand been, the ultimate product of the Destinies, and English man of men,\narrived at last in the fulness of time, is--who think you? Ye worlds,\nthe Ithuriel javelin by which, with all these heroisms and accumulated\nenergies old and new, the English People means to smite and pierce, is\nthis poor tailor's-bodkin, hardly adequate to bore an eylet-hole, who\nnow has the honor to\"--Good Heavens, if it were not that men generally\nare very much of the canary-bird, here, are reflections sufficient to\nannihilate any man, almost before starting!\n\nBut to us also it ought to be a very strange reflection! This, then,\nis the length we have brought it to, with our constitutioning, and\nballot-boxing, and incessant talk and effort in every kind for so\nmany centuries back; this? The golden flower of our grand alchemical\nprojection, which has set the world in astonishment so long, and been\nthe envy of surrounding nations, is--what we here see. To be governed by\nhis Lordship, and guided through the undiscovered paths of Time by this\nrespectable degree of human faculty. With our utmost soul's travail we\ncould discover, by the sublimest methods eulogized by all the world, no\nabler Englishman than this?\n\nReally it should make us pause upon the said sublime methods, and ask\nourselves very seriously, whether, notwithstanding the eulogy of all\nthe world, they can be other than extremely astonishing methods, that\nrequire revisal and reconsideration very much indeed! For the kind of\n\"man\" we get to govern us, all conclusions whatsoever centre there, and\nlikewise all manner of issues flow infallibly therefrom. \"Ask well, who\nis your Chief Governor,\" says one: \"for around him men like to him will\ninfallibly gather, and by degrees all the world will be made in his\nimage.\" \"He who is himself a noble man, has a chance to know the\nnobleness of men; he who is not, has none. And as for the poor\nPublic,--alas, is not the kind of 'man' you set upon it the liveliest\nsymbol of its and your veracity and victory and blessedness, or\nunveracity and misery and cursedness; the general summation and\npractical outcome of all else whatsoever in the Public and in you?\"\n\nTime was when an incompetent Governor could not be permitted among men.\nHe was, and had to be, by one method or the other, clutched up from his\nplace at the helm of affairs, and hurled down into the hold, perhaps\neven overboard, if he could not really steer. And we call those ages\nbarbarous, because they shuddered to see a Phantasm at the helm of their\naffairs; an eyeless Pilot with constitutional spectacles, steering by\nthe ear mainly? And we have changed all that; no-government is now the\nbest; and a tailor's foreman, who gives no trouble, is preferable to any\nother for governing? My friends, such truly is the current idea; but you\ndreadfully mistake yourselves, and the fact is not such. The fact, now\nbeginning to disclose itself again in distressed Needlewomen, famishing\nConnaughts, revolting Colonies, and a general rapid advance towards\nSocial Ruin, remains really what it always was, and will so remain!\n\nMen have very much forgotten it at present; and only here a man and\nthere a man begins again to bethink himself of it: but all men will\ngradually get reminded of it, perhaps terribly to their cost; and the\nsooner they all lay it to heart again, I think it will be the better.\nFor in spite of our oblivion of it, the thing remains forever true; nor\nis there any Constitution or body of Constitutions, were they clothed\nwith never such venerabilities and general acceptabilities, that avails\nto deliver a Nation from the consequences of forgetting it. Nature,\nI assure you, does forevermore remember it; and a hundred British\nConstitutions are but as a hundred cobwebs between her and the penalty\nshe levies for forgetting it. Tell me what kind of man governs a People,\nyou tell me, with much exactness, what the net sum-total of social worth\nin that People has for some time been. Whether _they_ have loved\nthe phylacteries or the eternal noblenesses; whether they have been\nstruggling heavenward like eagles, brothers of the radiances, or groping\nowl-like with horn-eyed diligence, catching mice and balances at their\nbanker's,--poor devils, you will see it all in that one fact. A fact\nlong prepared beforehand; which, if it is a peaceably received one, must\nhave been acquiesced in, judged to be \"best,\" by the poor mousing owls,\nintent only to have a large balance at their banker's and keep a whole\nskin.\n\nSuch sordid populations, which were long blind to Heaven's light,\nare getting themselves burnt up rapidly, in these days, by\nstreet-insurrection and Hell-fire;--as is indeed inevitable, my esteemed\nM'Croudy! Light, accept the blessed light, if you will have it when\nHeaven vouchsafes. You refuse? You prefer Delolme on the British\nConstitution, the Gospel according to M'Croudy, and a good balance at\nyour banker's? Very well: the \"light\" is more and more withdrawn; and\nfor some time you have a general dusk, very favorable for catching\nmice; and the opulent owlery is very \"happy,\" and well-off at its\nbanker's;--and furthermore, by due sequence, infallible as the\nfoundations of the Universe and Nature's oldest law, the light _returns_\non you, condensed, this time, into _lightning_, which there is not any\nskin whatever too thick for taking in!\n\n\n\n\nNo. IV. THE NEW DOWNING STREET. [April 15, 1850.]\n\nIn looking at this wreck of Governments in all European countries, there\nis one consideration that suggests itself, sadly elucidative of our\nmodern epoch. These Governments, we may be well assured, have gone to\nanarchy for this one reason inclusive of every other whatsoever, That\nthey were not wise enough; that the spiritual talent embarked in\nthem, the virtue, heroism, intellect, or by whatever other synonyms we\ndesignate it, was not adequate,--probably had long been inadequate, and\nso in its dim helplessness had suffered, or perhaps invited falsity\nto introduce itself; had suffered injustices, and solecisms, and\ncontradictions of the Divine Fact, to accumulate in more than tolerable\nmeasure; whereupon said Governments were overset, and declared before\nall creatures to be too false.\n\nThis is a reflection sad but important to the modern Governments now\nfallen anarchic, That they had not spiritual talent enough. And if this\nis so, then surely the question, How these Governments came to sink for\n_want_ of intellect? is a rather interesting one. Intellect, in some\nmeasure, is born into every Century; and the Nineteenth flatters itself\nthat it is rather distinguished that way! What had become of this\ncelebrated Nineteenth Century's intellect? Surely some of it existed,\nand was \"developed\" withal;--nay in the \"undeveloped,\" unconscious, or\ninarticulate state, it is not dead; but alive and at work, if mutely\nnot less beneficently, some think even more so! And yet Governments, it\nwould appear, could by no means get enough of it; almost none of it came\ntheir way: what had become of it? Truly there must be something very\nquestionable, either in the intellect of this celebrated Century, or in\nthe methods Governments now have of supplying their wants from the\nsame. One or other of two grand fundamental shortcomings, in regard to\nintellect or human enlightenment, is very visible in this enlightened\nCentury of ours; for it has now become the most anarchic of Centuries;\nthat is to say, has fallen practically into such Egyptian darkness that\nit cannot grope its way at all!\n\nNay I rather think both of these shortcomings, fatal deficits both, are\nchargeable upon us; and it is the joint harvest of both that we are now\nreaping with such havoc to our affairs. I rather guess, the intellect of\nthe Nineteenth Century, so full of miracle to Heavyside and others,\nis itself a mechanical or _beaver_ intellect rather than a high or\neminently human one. A dim and mean though authentic kind of intellect,\nthis; venerable only in defect of better. This kind will avail but\nlittle in the higher enterprises of human intellect, especially in that\nhighest enterprise of guiding men Heavenward, which, after all, is the\none real \"governing\" of them on this God's-Earth:--an enterprise not to\nbe achieved by beaver intellect, but by other higher and highest kinds.\nThis is deficit _first_. And then _secondly_, Governments have, really\nto a fatal and extraordinary extent, neglected in late ages to supply\nthemselves with what intellect was going; having, as was too natural\nin the dim time, taken up a notion that human intellect, or even beaver\nintellect, was not necessary to them at all, but that a little of\nthe _vulpine_ sort (if attainable), supported by routine, red-tape\ntraditions, and tolerable parliamentary eloquence on occasion, would\nvery well suffice. A most false and impious notion; leading to fatal\nlethargy on the part of Governments, while Nature and Fact were\npreparing strange phenomena in contradiction to it.\n\nThese are two very fatal deficits;--the remedy of either of which would\nbe the remedy of both, could we but find it! For indeed they are vitally\nconnected: one of them is sure to produce the other; and both once in\naction together, the advent of darkness, certain enough to issue in\nanarchy by and by, goes on with frightful acceleration. If Governments\nneglect to invite what noble intellect there is, then too surely all\nintellect, not omnipotent to resist bad influences, will tend to become\nbeaverish ignoble intellect; and quitting high aims, which seem shut up\nfrom it, will help itself forward in the way of making money and such\nlike; or will even sink to be sham intellect, helping itself by methods\nwhich are not only beaverish but vulpine, and so \"ignoble\" as not\nto have common honesty. The Government, taking no thought to choose\nintellect for itself, will gradually find that there is less and less\nof a good quality to choose from: thus, as in all impieties it does,\nbad grows worse at a frightful _double_ rate of progression; and your\nimpiety is twice cursed. If you are impious enough to tolerate darkness,\nyou will get ever more darkness to tolerate; and at that inevitable\nstage of the account (inevitable in all such accounts) when actual light\nor else destruction is the alternative, you will call to the Heavens and\nthe Earth for light, and none will come!\n\nCertainly this evil, for one, has _not_ \"wrought its own cure;\" but\nhas wrought precisely the reverse, and has been hourly eating away what\npossibilities of cure there were. And so, I fear, in spite of rumors to\nthe contrary, it always is with evils, with solecisms against Nature,\nand contradictions to the divine fact of things: not an evil of them has\never wrought its own cure in my experience;--but has continually grown\nworse and wider and uglier, till some _good_ (generally a good _man_)\nnot able to endure the abomination longer, rose upon it and cured or\nelse extinguished it. Evil Governments, divested of God's light because\nthey have loved darkness rather, are not likelier than other evils to\nwork their own cure out of that bad plight.\n\nIt is urgent upon all Governments to pause in this fatal course;\npersisted in, the goal is fearfully evident; every hour's persistence in\nit is making return more difficult. Intellect exists in all countries;\nand the function appointed it by Heaven,--Governments had better not\nattempt to contradict that, for they cannot! Intellect _has_ to\ngovern in this world and will do it, if not in alliance with so-called\n\"Governments\" of red-tape and routine, then in divine hostility to such,\nand sometimes alas in diabolic hostility to such; and in the end, as\nsure as Heaven is higher than Downing Street, and the Laws of Nature are\ntougher than red-tape, with entire victory over them and entire ruin to\nthem. If there is one thinking man among the Politicians of England, I\nconsider these things extremely well worth his attention just now.\n\n\nWho are available to your Offices in Downing Street? All the gifted\nsouls, of every rank, who are born to you in this generation. These are\nappointed, by the true eternal \"divine right\" which will never become\nobsolete, to be your governors and administrators; and precisely as you\nemploy them, or neglect to employ them, will your State be favored of\nHeaven or disfavored. This noble young soul, you can have him on either\nof two conditions; and on one of them, since he is here in the world,\nyou must have him. As your ally and coadjutor; or failing that, as\nyour natural enemy: which shall it be? I consider that every Government\nconvicts itself of infatuation and futility, or absolves and justifies\nitself before God and man, according as it answers this question. With\nall sublunary entities, this is the question of questions. What talent\nis born to you? How do you employ that? The crop of spiritual talent\nthat is born to you, of human nobleness and intellect and heroic\nfaculty, this is infinitely more important than your crops of cotton or\ncorn, or wine or herrings or whale-oil, which the Newspapers record\nwith such anxiety every season. This is not quite counted by seasons,\ntherefore the Newspapers are silent: but by generations and centuries, I\nassure you it becomes amazingly sensible; and surpasses, as Heaven does\nEarth, all the corn and wine, and whale-oil and California bullion, or\nany other crop you grow. If that crop cease, the other crops--please to\ntake them also, if you are anxious about them. That once ceasing, we may\nshut shop; for no other crop whatever will stay with us, nor is worth\nhaving if it would.\n\nTo promote men of talent, to search and sift the whole society in every\nclass for men of talent, and joyfully promote them, has not always been\nfound impossible. In many forms of polity they have done it, and still\ndo it, to a certain degree. The degree to which they succeed in doing it\nmarks, as I have said, with very great accuracy the degree of divine\nand human worth that is in them, the degree of success or real ultimate\nvictory they can expect to have in this world.--Think, for example,\nof the old Catholic Church, in its merely terrestrial relations to the\nState; and see if your reflections, and contrasts with what now is, are\nof an exulting character. Progress of the species has gone on as with\nseven-league boots, and in various directions has shot ahead amazingly,\nwith three cheers from all the world; but in this direction, the most\nvital and indispensable, it has lagged terribly, and has even\nmoved backward, till now it is quite gone out of sight in clouds of\ncotton-fuzz and railway-scrip, and has fallen fairly over the horizon to\nrearward!\n\nIn those most benighted Feudal societies, full of mere tyrannous steel\nBarons, and totally destitute of Tenpound Franchises and Ballot-boxes,\nthere did nevertheless authentically preach itself everywhere this\ngrandest of gospels, without which no other gospel can avail us much,\nto all souls of men, \"Awake ye noble souls; here is a noble career for\nyou!\" I say, everywhere a road towards promotion, for human nobleness,\nlay wide open to all men. The pious soul,--which, if you reflect,\nwill mean the ingenuous and ingenious, the gifted, intelligent and\nnobly-aspiring soul,--such a soul, in whatever rank of life it were\nborn, had one path inviting it; a generous career, whereon, by human\nworth and valor, all earthly heights and Heaven itself were attainable.\nIn the lowest stratum of social thraldom, nowhere was the noble soul\ndoomed quite to choke, and die ignobly. The Church, poor old benighted\ncreature, had at least taken care of that: the noble aspiring soul, not\ndoomed to choke ignobly in its penuries, could at least run into the\nneighboring Convent, and there take refuge. Education awaited it there;\nstrict training not only to whatever useful knowledge could be had\nfrom writing and reading, but to obedience, to pious reverence,\nself-restraint, annihilation of self,--really to human nobleness in many\nmost essential respects. No questions asked about your birth, genealogy,\nquantity of money-capital or the like; the one question was, \"Is there\nsome human nobleness in you, or is there not?\" The poor neat-herd's\nson, if he were a Noble of Nature, might rise to Priesthood, to\nHigh-priesthood, to the top of this world,--and best of all, he had\nstill high Heaven lying high enough above him, to keep his head steady,\non whatever height or in whatever depth his way might lie!\n\nA thrice-glorious arrangement, when I reflect on it; most salutary to\nall high and low interests; a truly human arrangement. You made the born\nnoble yours, welcoming him as what he was, the Sent of Heaven: you did\nnot force him either to die or become your enemy; idly neglecting or\nsuppressing him as what he was not, a thing of no worth. You accepted\nthe blessed _light_; and in the shape of infernal _lightning_ it needed\nnot to visit you. How, like an immense mine-shaft through the dim\noppressed strata of society, this Institution of the Priesthood ran;\nopening, from the lowest depths towards all heights and towards Heaven\nitself, a free road of egress and emergence towards virtuous nobleness,\nheroism and well-doing, for every born man. This we may call the living\nlungs and blood-circulation of those old Feudalisms. When I think of\nthat immeasurable all-pervading lungs; present in every corner of human\nsociety, every meanest hut a _cell_ of said lungs; inviting whatsoever\nnoble pious soul was born there to the path that was noble for him;\nand leading thereby sometimes, if he were worthy, to be the Papa\nof Christendom, and Commander of all Kings,--I perceive how the old\nChristian society continued healthy, vital, and was strong and heroic.\nWhen I contrast this with the noble aims now held out to noble souls\nborn in remote huts, or beyond the verge of Palace-Yard; and think of\nwhat your Lordship has done in the way of making priests and papas,--I\nsee a society without lungs, fast wheezing itself to death, in horrid\nconvulsions; and deserving to die.\n\nOver Europe generally in these years, I consider that the State has\ndied, has fairly coughed its last in street musketry, and fallen down\ndead, incapable of any but _galvanic_ life henceforth,--owing to this\nsame fatal want of _lungs_, which includes all other wants for a State.\nAnd furthermore that it will never come alive again, till it contrive\nto get such indispensable vital apparatus; the outlook toward which\nconsummation is very distant in most communities of Europe. If you let\nit come to death or suspended animation in States, the case is very\nbad! Vain to call in universal-suffrage parliaments at that stage:\nthe universal-suffrage parliaments cannot give you any breath of life,\ncannot find any _wisdom_ for you; by long impiety, you have let the\nsupply of noble human wisdom die out; and the wisdom that now courts\nyour universal suffrages is beggarly human _attorneyism_ or sham-wisdom,\nwhich is _not_ an insight into the Laws of God's Universe, but into the\nlaws of hungry Egoism and the Devil's Chicane, and can in the end profit\nno community or man.\n\nNo; the kind of heroes that come mounted on the shoulders of the\nuniversal suffrage, and install themselves as Prime Ministers and\nhealing Statesmen by force of able editorship, do not bid very fair\nto bring Nations back to the ways of God. Eloquent high-lacquered\n_pinchbeck_ specimens these, expert in the arts of Belial\nmainly;--fitter to be markers at some exceedingly expensive\nbilliard-table than sacred chief-priests of men! \"Greeks of the Lower\nEmpire;\" with a varnish of parliamentary rhetoric; and, I suppose,\nthis other great gift, toughness of character,--proof that they have\n_persevered_ in their Master's service. Poor wretches, their industry\nis mob-worship, place-worship, parliamentary intrigue, and the multiplex\nart of tongue-fence: flung into that bad element, there they swim for\ndecades long, throttling and wrestling one another according to their\nstrength,--and the toughest or luckiest gets to land, and becomes\nPremier. A more entirely unbeautiful class of Premiers was never raked\nout of the ooze, and set on high places, by any ingenuity of man. Dame\nDubarry's petticoat was a better seine-net for fishing out Premiers than\nthat. Let all Nations whom necessity is driving towards that method,\ntake warning in time!\n\nAlas, there is, in a manner, but one Nation that can still take warning!\nIn England alone of European Countries the State yet survives; and might\nhelp itself by better methods. In England heroic wisdom is not yet dead,\nand quite replaced by attorneyism: the honest beaver faculty yet abounds\nwith us, the heroic manful faculty shows itself also to the observant\neye, not dead but dangerously sleeping. I said there were many _kings_\nin England: if these can yet be rallied into strenuous activity, and set\nto govern England in Downing Street and elsewhere, which their function\nalways is,--then England can be saved from anarchies and universal\nsuffrages; and that Apotheosis of Attorneyism, blackest of terrestrial\ncurses, may be spared us. If these cannot, the other issue, in such\nforms as may be appropriate to us, is inevitable. What escape is there?\nEngland must conform to the eternal laws of life, or England too must\ndie!\n\nEngland with the largest mass of real living interests ever intrusted to\na Nation; and with a mass of extinct imaginary and quite dead interests\npiled upon it to the very Heavens, and encumbering it from shore to\nshore,--does reel and stagger ominously in these years; urged by the\nDivine Silences and the Eternal Laws to take practical hold of its\nliving interests and manage them: and clutching blindly into its\nvenerable extinct and imaginary interests, as if that were still the way\nto do it. England must contrive to manage its living interests, and quit\nits dead ones and their methods, or else depart from its place in this\nworld. Surely England is called as no Nation ever was, to summon out its\n_kings_, and set them to that high work!--Huge inorganic England, nigh\nchoked under the exuviae of a thousand years, and blindly sprawling amid\nchartisms, ballot-boxes, prevenient graces, and bishops' nightmares,\nmust, as the preliminary and commencement of organization, learn to\n_breathe_ again,--get \"lungs\" for herself again, as we defined it. That\nis imperative upon her: she too will die, otherwise, and cough her last\nupon the streets some day;--how can she continue living? To enfranchise\nwhatsoever of Wisdom is born in England, and set that to the sacred\ntask of coercing and amending what of Folly is born in England: Heaven's\nblessing is purchasable by that; by not that, only Heaven's curse is\npurchasable. The reform contemplated, my liberal friends perceive, is\na truly radical one; no ballot-box ever went so deep into the roots: a\nradical, most painful, slow and difficult, but most indispensable reform\nof reforms!\n\nHow short and feeble an approximation to these high ulterior results,\nthe best Reform of Downing Street, presided over by the fittest\nStatesman one can imagine to exist at present, would be, is too apparent\nto me. A long time yet till we get our living interests put under due\nadministration, till we get our dead interests handsomely dismissed. A\nlong time yet till, by extensive change of habit and ways of thinking\nand acting, _we_ get living \"lungs\" for ourselves! Nevertheless, by\nReform of Downing Street, we do begin to breathe: we do start in the way\ntowards that and all high results. Nor is there visible to me any other\nway. Blessed enough were the way once entered on; could we, in our evil\ndays, but see the noble enterprise begun, and fairly in progress!\n\n\nWhat the \"_New_ Downing Street\" can grow to, and will and must if\nEngland is to have a Downing Street beyond a few years longer, it is\nfar from me, in my remote watch-tower, to say with precision. A Downing\nStreet inhabited by the gifted of the intellects of England; directing\nall its energies upon the real and living interests of England, and\nsilently but incessantly, in the alembics of the place, burning up the\nextinct imaginary interests of England, that we may see God's sky a\nlittle plainer overhead, and have all of us a great accession of \"heroic\nwisdom\" to dispose of: such a Downing Street--to draw the plan of it,\nwill require architects; many successive architects and builders will\nbe needed there. Let not editors, and remote unprofessional persons,\ninterfere too much!--Change in the present edifice, however, radical\nchange, all men can discern to be inevitable; and even, if there shall\nnot worse swiftly follow, to be imminent. Outlines of the future edifice\npaint themselves against the sky (to men that still have a sky, and\nare above the miserable London fogs of the hour); noble elements of new\nState Architecture, foreshadows of a new Downing Street for the New Era\nthat is come. These with pious hope all men can see; and it is good\nthat all men, with whatever faculty they have, were earnestly looking\nthitherward;--trying to get above the fogs, that they might look\nthitherward!\n\n\nAmong practical men the idea prevails that Government can do nothing\nbut \"keep the peace.\" They say all higher tasks are unsafe for it,\nimpossible for it,--and in fine not necessary for it or for us. On this\nfooting a very feeble Downing Street might serve the turn!--I am well\naware that Government, for a long time past, has taken in hand no other\npublic task, and has professed to have no other, but that of keeping\nthe peace. This public task, and the private one of ascertaining\nwhether Dick or Jack was to do it, have amply filled the capabilities\nof Government for several generations now. Hard tasks both, it would\nappear. In accomplishing the first, for example, have not heaven-born\nChancellors of the Exchequer had to shear us very bare; and to leave an\noverplus of Debt, or of fleeces shorn _before_ they are grown, justly\nesteemed among the wonders of the world? Not a first-rate keeping of the\npeace, this, we begin to surmise! At least it seems strange to us.\n\nFor we, and the overwhelming majority of all our acquaintances, in this\nParish and Nation and the adjacent Parishes and Nations, are profoundly\nconscious to ourselves of being by nature peaceable persons; following\nour necessary industries; without wish, interest or faintest intention\nto cut the skin of any mortal, to break feloniously into his industrial\npremises, or do any injustice to him at all. Because indeed, independent\nof Government, there is a thing called conscience, and we dare not.\nSo that it cannot but appear to us, \"the peace,\" under dexterous\nmanagement, might be very much more easily kept, your Lordship; nay,\nwe almost think, if well let alone, it would in a measure keep _itself_\namong such a set of persons! And how it happens that when a poor\nhardworking creature of us has laboriously earned sixpence, the\nGovernment comes in, and (as some compute) says, \"I will thank you for\nthreepence of that, as per account, for getting you peace to spend the\nother threepence,\" our amazement begins to be considerable,--and I think\nresults will follow from it by and by. Not the most dexterous keeping\nof the peace, your Lordship, unless it be more difficult to do than\nappears!\n\nOur domestic peace, we cannot but perceive, as good as keeps itself.\nHere and there a select Equitable Person, appointed by the Public\nfor that end, clad in ermine, and backed by certain companies of\nblue Police, is amply adequate, without immoderate outlay in money or\notherwise, to keep down the few exceptional individuals of the scoundrel\nkind; who, we observe, by the nature of them, are always weak and\ninconsiderable. And as to foreign peace, really all Europe, now\nespecially with so many railroads, public journals, printed books,\npenny-post, bills of exchange, and continual intercourse and mutual\ndependence, is more and more becoming (so to speak) one Parish; the\nParishioners of which being, as we ourselves are, in immense majority\npeaceable hard-working people, could, if they were moderately well\nguided, have almost no disposition to quarrel. Their economic interests\nare one, \"To buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest;\" their\nfaith, any _religious_ faith they have, is one, \"To annihilate shams--by\nall methods, street-barricades included.\" Why should they quarrel?\nThe Czar of Russia, in the Eastern parts of the Parish, may have other\nnotions; but he knows too well he must keep them to himself. He, if\nhe meddled with the Western parts, and attempted anywhere to crush or\ndisturb that sacred Democratic Faith of theirs, is aware there would\nrise from a hundred and fifty million human throats such a _Hymn of the\nMarseillaise_ as was never heard before; and England, France, Germany,\nPoland, Hungary, and the Nine Kingdoms, hurling themselves upon him in\nnever-imagined fire of vengeance, would swiftly reduce his Russia and\nhim to a strange situation! Wherefore he forbears,--and being a person\nof some sense, will long forbear. In spite of editorial prophecy, the\nCzar of Russia does not disturb our night's rest. And with the other\nparts of the Parish our dreams and our thoughts are of anything but of\nfighting, or of the smallest need to fight.\n\nFor keeping of the peace, a thing highly desirable to us, we strive to\nbe grateful to your Lordship. Intelligible to us, also, your Lordship's\nreluctance to get out of the old routine. But we beg to say farther,\nthat peace by itself has no feet to stand upon, and would not suit us\neven if it had. Keeping of the peace is the function of a policeman, and\nbut a small fraction of that of any Government, King or Chief of men.\nAre not all men bound, and the Chief of men in the name of all, to do\nproperly this: To see, so far as human effort under pain of eternal\nreprobation can, God's Kingdom incessantly advancing here below, and His\nwill done on Earth as it is in Heaven? On Sundays your Lordship knows\nthis well; forgot it not on week-days. I assure you it is forevermore a\nfact. That is the immense divine and never-ending task which is laid on\nevery man, and with unspeakable increase of emphasis on every Government\nor Commonwealth of men. Your Lordship, that is the basis upon which\npeace and all else depends! That basis once well lost, there is no peace\ncapable of being kept,--the only peace that could then be kept is that\nof the churchyard. Your Lordship may depend on it, whatever thing takes\nupon it the name of Sovereign or Government in an English Nation such\nas this will have to get out of that old routine; and set about keeping\nsomething very different from the peace, in these days!\n\n\nTruly it is high time that same beautiful notion of No-Government should\ntake itself away. The world is daily rushing towards wreck, while that\nlasts. If your Government is to be a Constituted Anarchy, what issue can\nit have? Our one interest in such Government is, that it would be kind\nenough to cease and go its ways, _before_ the inevitable arrive. The\nquestion, Who is to float atop no-whither upon the popular vertexes,\nand act that sorry character, \"carcass of the drowned ass upon the\nmud-deluge\"? is by no means an important one for almost anybody,--hardly\neven for the drowned ass himself. Such drowned ass ought to ask himself,\nIf the function is a sublime one? For him too, though he looks sublime\nto the vulgar and floats atop, a private situation, down out of sight in\nhis natural ooze, would be a luckier one.\n\nCrabbe, speaking of constitutional philosophies, faith in the ballot-box\nand such like, has this indignant passage: \"If any voice of deliverance\nor resuscitation reach us, in this our low and all but lost estate, sunk\nalmost beyond plummet's sounding in the mud of Lethe, and oblivious of\nall noble objects, it will be an intimation that we must put away all\nthis abominable nonsense, and understand, once more, that Constituted\nAnarchy, with however many ballot-boxes, caucuses, and hustings\nbeer-barrels, is a continual offence to gods and men. That to be\ngoverned by small men is not only a misfortune, but it is a curse and\na sin; the effect, and alas the cause also, of all manner of curses and\nsins. That to profess subjection to phantasms, and pretend to accept\nguidance from fractional parts of tailors, is what Smelfungus in his\nrude dialect calls it, 'a damned _lie_,' and nothing other. A lie which,\nby long use and wont, we have grown accustomed to, and do not the least\nfeel to be a lie, having spoken and done it continually everywhere for\nsuch a long time past;--but has Nature grown to accept it as a veracity,\nthink you, my friend? Have the Parcae fallen asleep, because you wanted\nto make money in the City? Nature at all moments knows well that it is\na lie; and that, like all lies, it is cursed and damned from the\nbeginning.\n\n\"Even so, ye indigent millionnaires, and miserable bankrupt populations\nrolling in gold,--whose note-of-hand will go to any length in\nThreadneedle Street, and to whom in Heaven's Bank the stern answer is,\n'No effects!' Bankrupt, I say; and Californias and Eldorados will not\nsave us. And every time we speak such lie, or do it or look it, as we\nhave been incessantly doing, and many of us with clear consciousness,\nfor about a hundred and fifty years now, Nature marks down the exact\npenalty against us. 'Debtor to so much lying: forfeiture of existing\nstock of worth to such extent;--approach to general damnation by so\nmuch.' Till now, as we look round us over a convulsed anarchic Europe,\nand at home over an anarchy not yet convulsed, but only heaving towards\nconvulsion, and to judge by the Mosaic sweating-establishments, cannibal\nConnaughts and other symptoms, not far from convulsion now, we seem to\nhave pretty much _exhausted_ our accumulated stock of worth; and unless\nmoney's 'worth' and bullion at the Bank will save us, to be rubbing very\nclose upon that ulterior bourn which I do not like to name again!\n\n\"On behalf of nearly twenty-seven millions of my fellow-countrymen, sunk\ndeep in Lethean sleep, with mere owl-dreams of Political Economy and\nmice-catching, in this pacific thrice-infernal slush-element; and\nalso of certain select thousands, and hundreds and units, awakened or\nbeginning to awaken from it, and with horror in their hearts perceiving\nwhere they are, I beg to protest, and in the name of God to say, with\npoor human ink, desirous much that I had divine thunder to say it with,\nAwake, arise,--before you sink to death eternal! Unnamable destruction,\nand banishment to Houndsditch and Gehenna, lies in store for all Nations\nthat, in angry perversity or brutal torpor and owlish blindness, neglect\nthe eternal message of the gods, and vote for the Worse while the Better\nis there. Like owls they say, 'Barabbas will do; any orthodox Hebrew\nof the Hebrews, and peaceable believer in M'Croudy and the Faith of\nLeave-alone will do: the Right Honorable Minimus is well enough; he\nshall be our Maximus, under him it will be handy to catch mice, and\nOwldom shall continue a flourishing empire.'\"\n\n\nOne thing is undeniable, and must be continually repeated till it get\nto be understood again: Of all constitutions, forms of government, and\npolitical methods among men, the question to be asked is even this, What\nkind of man do you set over us? All questions are answered in the answer\nto this. Another thing is worth attending to: No people or populace,\nwith never such ballot-boxes, can select such man for you; only the man\nof worth can recognize worth in men;--to the commonplace man of no or\nof little worth, you, unless you wish to be _mis_led, need not apply on\nsuch an occasion. Those poor Tenpound Franchisers of yours, they are not\neven in earnest; the poor sniffing sniggering Honorable Gentlemen they\nsend to Parliament are as little so. Tenpound Franchisers full of mere\nbeer and balderdash; Honorable Gentlemen come to Parliament as to an\nAlmack's series of evening parties, or big cockmain (battle of all the\ncocks) very amusing to witness and bet upon: what can or could men in\nthat predicament ever do for you? Nay, if they were in life-and-death\nearnest, what could it avail you in such a case? I tell you, a million\nblockheads looking authoritatively into one man of what you call genius,\nor noble sense, will make nothing but nonsense out of him and his\nqualities, and his virtues and defects, if they look till the end of\ntime. He understands them, sees what they are; but that they should\nunderstand him, and see with rounded outline what his limits are,--this,\nwhich would mean that they are bigger than he, is forever denied them.\nTheir one good understanding of him is that they at last should loyally\nsay, \"We do not quite understand thee; we perceive thee to be nobler and\nwiser and bigger than we, and will loyally follow thee.\"\n\nThe question therefore arises, Whether, since reform of parliament and\nsuch like have done so little in that respect, the problem might not\nbe with some hope attacked in the direct manner? Suppose all our\nInstitutions, and Public Methods of Procedure, to continue for the\npresent as they are; and suppose farther a Reform Premier, and the\nEnglish Nation once awakening under him to a due sense of the infinite\nimportance, nay the vital necessity there is of getting able and abler\nmen:--might not some heroic wisdom, and actual \"ability\" to do what must\nbe done, prove discoverable to said Premier; and so the indispensable\nHeaven's-blessing descend to us from _above_, since none has yet\nsprung from below? From above we shall have to try it; the other\nis exhausted,--a hopeless method that! The utmost passion of the\nhouse-inmates, ignorant of masonry and architecture, cannot avail to\ncure the house of smoke: not if _they_ vote and agitate forever, and\nbestir themselves to the length even of street-barricades, will the\n_smoke_ in the least abate: how can it? Their passion exercised in such\nways, till Doomsday, will avail them nothing. Let their passion rage\nsteadily against the existing major-domos to this effect, \"_Find_ us\nmen skilled in house-building, acquainted with the laws of atmospheric\nsuction, and capable to cure smoke;\" something might come of it! In the\nlucky circumstance of having one man of real intellect and courage to\nput at the head of the movement, much would come of it;--a New Downing\nStreet, fit for the British Nation and its bitter necessities in this\nNow Era, would come; and from that, in answer to continuous sacred\nfidelity and valiant toil, all good whatsoever would gradually come.\n\nOf the Continental nuisance called \"Bureaucracy,\"--if this should alarm\nany reader,--I can see no risk or possibility in England. Democracy\nis hot enough here, fierce enough; it is perennial, universal, clearly\ninvincible among us henceforth. No danger it should let itself be flung\nin chains by sham secretaries of the Pedant species, and accept their\nvile Age of Pinchbeck for its Golden Age! Democracy clamors, with its\nNewspapers, its Parliaments, and all its twenty-seven million throats,\ncontinually in this Nation forevermore. I remark, too, that, the\nunconscious purport of all its clamors is even this, \"Find us men\nskilled,\"--_make_ a New Downing Street, fit for the New Era!\n\n\nOf the Foreign Office, in its reformed state, we have not much to say.\nAbolition of imaginary work, and replacement of it by real, is on all\nhands understood to be very urgent there. Large needless expenditures\nof money, immeasurable ditto of hypocrisy and grimace; embassies,\nprotocols, worlds of extinct traditions, empty pedantries, foul\ncobwebs:--but we will by no means apply the \"live coal\" of our witty\nfriend; the Foreign Office will repent, and not be driven to suicide! A\ntruer time will come for the Continental Nations too: Authorities based\non truth, and on the silent or spoken Worship of Human Nobleness,\nwill again get themselves established there; all Sham-Authorities, and\nconsequent Real-Anarchies based on universal suffrage and the Gospel\naccording to George Sand, being put away; and noble action, heroic\nnew-developments of human faculty and industry, and blessed fruit as\nof Paradise getting itself conquered from the waste battle-field of\nthe chaotic elements, will once more, there as here, begin to show\nthemselves.\n\nWhen the Continental Nations have once got to the bottom of _their_\nAugean Stable, and begun to have real enterprises based on the eternal\nfacts again, our Foreign Office may again have extensive concerns with\nthem. And at all times, and even now, there will remain the question to\nbe sincerely put and wisely answered, What essential concern _has_ the\nBritish Nation with them and their enterprises? Any concern at all,\nexcept that of handsomely keeping apart from them? If so, what are\nthe methods of best managing it?--At present, as was said, while Red\nRepublic but clashes with foul Bureaucracy; and Nations, sunk in\nblind ignavia, demand a universal-suffrage Parliament to heal their\nwretchedness; and wild Anarchy and Phallus-Worship struggle with\nSham-Kingship and extinct or galvanized Catholicism; and in the Cave of\nthe Winds all manner of rotten waifs and wrecks are hurled against\neach other,--our English interest in the controversy, however huge said\ncontroversy grow, is quite trifling; we have only in a handsome manner\nto say to it: \"Tumble and rage along, ye rotten waifs and wrecks;\nclash and collide as seems fittest to you; and smite each other into\nannihilation at your own good pleasure. In that huge conflict, dismal\nbut unavoidable, we, thanks to our heroic ancestors, having got so far\nahead of you, have now no interest at all. Our decided notion is, the\ndead ought to bury their dead in such a case: and so we have the\nhonor to be, with distinguished consideration, your entirely\ndevoted,--FLIMNAP, SEC. FOREIGN DEPARTMENT.\"--I really think Flimnap,\ntill truer times come, ought to treat much of his work in this way:\ncautious to give offence to his neighbors; resolute not to concern\nhimself in any of their self-annihilating operations whatsoever.\n\n\nForeign wars are sometimes unavoidable. We ourselves, in the course of\nnatural merchandising and laudable business, have now and then got into\nambiguous situations; into quarrels which needed to be settled, and\nwithout fighting would not settle. Sugar Islands, Spice Islands, Indias,\nCanadas, these, by the real decree of Heaven, were ours; and nobody\nwould or could believe it, till it was tried by cannon law, and so\nproved. Such cases happen. In former times especially, owing very much\nto want of intercourse and to the consequent mutual ignorance, there did\noccur misunderstandings: and therefrom many foreign wars, some of\nthem by no means unnecessary. With China, or some distant country, too\nunintelligent of us and too unintelligible to us, there still sometimes\nrises necessary occasion for a war. Nevertheless wars--misunderstandings\nthat get to the length of arguing themselves out by sword and\ncannon--have, in these late generations of improved intercourse, been\npalpably becoming less and less necessary; have in a manner become\nsuperfluous, if we had a little wisdom, and our Foreign Office on a good\nfooting.\n\nOf European wars I really hardly remember any, since Oliver Cromwell's\nlast Protestant or Liberation war with Popish antichristian Spain some\ntwo hundred years ago, to which I for my own part could have contributed\nmy life with any heartiness, or in fact would have subscribed money\nitself to any considerable amount. Dutch William, a man of some heroism,\ndid indeed get into troubles with Louis Fourteenth; and there rested\nstill some shadow of Protestant Interest, and question of National and\nindividual Independence, over those wide controversies; a little money\nand human enthusiasm was still due to Dutch William. Illustrious Chatham\nalso, not to speak of his Manilla ransoms and the like, did one thing:\nassisted Fritz of Prussia, a brave man and king (almost the only\nsovereign King I have known since Cromwell's time) like to be borne down\nby ignoble men and sham-kings; for this let illustrious Chatham too have\na little money and human enthusiasm,--a little, by no means much. But\nwhat am I to say of heaven-born Pitt the son of Chatham? England sent\nforth her fleets and armies; her money into every country; money as\nif the heaven-born Chancellor had got a Fortunatus' purse; as if this\nIsland had become a volcanic fountain of gold, or new terrestrial sun\ncapable of radiating mere guineas. The result of all which, what was\nit? Elderly men can remember the tar-barrels burnt for success and\nthrice-immortal victory in the business; and yet what result had we? The\nFrench Revolution, a Fact decreed in the Eternal Councils, could not\nbe put down: the result was, that heaven-born Pitt had actually been\nfighting (as the old Hebrews would have said) against the Lord,--that\nthe Laws of Nature were stronger than Pitt. Of whom therefore there\nremains chiefly his unaccountable radiation of guineas, for the\ngratitude of posterity. Thank you for nothing,--for eight hundred\nmillions _less_ than nothing!\n\n\nOur War Offices, Admiralties, and other Fighting Establishments, are\nforcing themselves on everybody's attention at this time. Bull grumbles\naudibly: \"The money you have cost me these five-and-thirty years, during\nwhich you have stood elaborately ready to fight at any moment, without\nat any moment being called to fight, is surely an astonishing sum. The\nNational Debt itself might have been half paid by that money, which has\nall gone in pipe-clay and blank cartridges! \"Yes, Mr. Bull, the\nmoney can be counted in hundreds of millions; which certainly is\nsomething:--but the \"strenuously organized idleness,\" and what mischief\nthat amounts to,--have you computed it? A perpetual solecism, and\nblasphemy (of its sort), set to march openly among us, dressed in\nscarlet! Bull, with a more and more sulky tone, demands that such\nsolecism be abated; that these Fighting Establishments be as it were\ndisbanded, and set to do some work in the Creation, since fighting\nthere is now none for them. This demand is irrefragably just, is growing\nurgent too; and yet this demand cannot be complied with,--not yet while\nthe State grounds itself on unrealities, and Downing Street continues\nwhat it is.\n\nThe old Romans made their soldiers work during intervals of war. The New\nDowning Street too, we may predict, will have less and less tolerance\nfor idleness on the part of soldiers or others. Nay the New Downing\nStreet, I foresee, when once it has got its \"_Industrial_ Regiments\"\norganized, will make these mainly do its fighting, what fighting\nthere is; and so save immense sums. Or indeed, all citizens of the\nCommonwealth, as is the right and the interest of every free man in\nthis world, will have themselves trained to arms; each citizen ready to\ndefend his country with his own body and soul,--he is not worthy to have\na country otherwise. In a State grounded on veracities, that would be\nthe rule. Downing Street, if it cannot bethink itself of returning to\nthe veracities, will have to vanish altogether!\n\nTo fight with its neighbors never was, and is now less than ever, the\nreal trade of England. For far other objects was the English People\ncreated into this world; sent down from the Eternities, to mark with its\nhistory certain spaces in the current of sublunary Time! Essential, too,\nthat the English People should discover what its real objects are; and\nresolutely follow these, resolutely refusing to follow other than these.\nThe State will have victory so far as it can do that; so far as it\ncannot, defeat.\n\nIn the New Downing Street, discerning what its real functions are, and\nwith sacred abhorrence putting away from it what its functions are not,\nwe can fancy changes enough in Foreign Office, War Office, Colonial\nOffice, Home Office! Our War-soldiers _Industrial_, first of all;\ndoing nobler than Roman works, when fighting is not wanted of them.\nSeventy-fours not hanging idly by their anchors in the Tagus, or off\nSapienza (one of the saddest sights under the sun), but busy, every\nSeventy-four of them, carrying over streams of British Industrials to\nthe immeasurable Britain that lies beyond the sea in every zone of the\nworld. A State grounding itself on the veracities, not on the semblances\nand the injustices: every citizen a soldier for it. Here would be new\n_real_ Secretaryships and Ministries, not for foreign war and diplomacy,\nbut for domestic peace and utility. Minister of Works; Minister of\nJustice,--clearing his Model Prisons of their scoundrelism; shipping his\nscoundrels wholly abroad, under hard and just drill-sergeants (hundreds\nof such stand wistfully ready for you, these thirty years, in the\nRag-and-Famish Club and elsewhere!) into fertile desert countries;\nto make railways,--one big railway (says the Major [Footnote: Major\nCarmichael Smith; see his Pamphlets on this subject]) quite across\nAmerica; fit to employ all the able-bodied Scoundrels and efficient\nHalf-pay Officers in Nature!\n\nLastly,--or rather firstly, and as the preliminary of all, would there\nnot be a Minister of Education? Minister charged to get this English\nPeople taught a little, at his and our peril! Minister of Education;\nno longer dolefully embayed amid the wreck of moribund \"religions,\" but\nclear ahead of all that; steering, free and piously fearless, towards\nhis divine goal under the eternal stars!--O heaven, and are these things\nforever impossible, then? Not a whit. To-morrow morning they might all\nbegin to be, and go on through blessed centuries realizing themselves,\nif it were not that--alas, if it were not that we are most of us\ninsincere persons, sham talking-machines and hollow windy fools! Which\nit is not \"impossible\" that we should cease to be, I hope?\n\n\nConstitutions for the Colonies are now on the anvil; the discontented\nColonies are all to be cured of their miseries by Constitutions. Whether\nthat will cure their miseries, or only operate as a Godfrey's-cordial to\nstop their whimpering, and in the end worsen all their miseries, may\nbe a sad doubt to us. One thing strikes a remote spectator in these\nColonial questions: the singular placidity with which the British\nStatesman at this time, backed by M'Croudy and the British moneyed\nclasses, is prepared to surrender whatsoever interest Britain, as\nfoundress of those establishments, might pretend to have in the\ndecision. \"If you want to go from us, go; we by no means want you to\nstay: you cost us money yearly, which is scarce; desperate quantities\nof trouble too: why not go, if you wish it?\" Such is the humor of the\nBritish Statesman, at this time.--Men clear for rebellion, \"annexation\"\nas they call it, walk openly abroad in our American Colonies; found\nnewspapers, hold platform palaverings. From Canada there comes duly by\neach mail a regular statistic of Annexationism: increasing fast in this\nquarter, diminishing in that;--Majesty's Chief Governor seeming to take\nit as a perfectly open question; Majesty's Chief Governor in fact seldom\nappearing on the scene at all, except to receive the impact of a\nfew rotten eggs on occasion, and then duck in again to his private\ncontemplations. And yet one would think the Majesty's Chief Governor\nought to have a kind of interest in the thing? Public liberty is carried\nto a great length in some portions of her Majesty's dominions. But\nthe question, \"Are we to continue subjects of her Majesty, or start\nrebelling against her? So many as are for rebelling, hold up your\nhands!\" Here is a public discussion of a very extraordinary nature to\nbe going on under the nose of a Governor of Canada. How the Governor\nof Canada, being a British piece of flesh and blood, and not a Canadian\nlumber-log of mere pine and rosin, can stand it, is not very conceivable\nat first view. He does it, seemingly, with the stoicism of a Zeno. It is\na constitutional sight like few.\n\nAnd yet an instinct deeper than the Gospel of M'Croudy teaches all\nmen that Colonies are worth something to a country! That if, under the\npresent Colonial Office, they are a vexation to us and themselves, some\nother Colonial Office can and must be contrived which shall render them\na blessing; and that the remedy will be to contrive such a Colonial\nOffice or method of administration, and by no means to cut the Colonies\nloose. Colonies are not to be picked off the street every day; not a\nColony of them but has been bought dear, well purchased by the toil\nand blood of those we have the honor to be sons of; and we cannot just\nafford to cut them away because M'Croudy finds the present management\nof them cost money. The present management will indeed require to be cut\naway;--but as for the Colonies, we purpose through Heaven's blessing to\nretain them a while yet! Shame on us for unworthy sons of brave fathers\nif we do not. Brave fathers, by valiant blood and sweat, purchased for\nus, from the bounty of Heaven, rich possessions in all zones; and we,\nwretched imbeciles, cannot do the function of administering them? And\nbecause the accounts do not stand well in the ledger, our remedy is, not\nto take shame to ourselves, and repent in sackcloth and ashes, and\namend our beggarly imbecilities and insincerities in that as in other\ndepartments of our business, but to fling the business overboard, and\ndeclare the business itself to be bad? We are a hopeful set of heirs to\na big fortune! It does not suit our Manton gunneries, grouse-shootings,\nmousings in the City; and like spirited young gentlemen we will give it\nup, and let the attorneys take it?\n\nIs there no value, then, in human things, but what can write itself down\nin the cash-ledger? All men know, and even M'Croudy in his inarticulate\nheart knows, that to men and Nations there are invaluable values which\ncannot be sold for money at all. George Robins is great; but he is not\nonmipotent. George Robins cannot quite sell Heaven and Earth by auction,\nexcellent though he be at the business. Nay, if M'Croudy offered his own\nlife for _sale_ in Threadneedle Street, would anybody buy it? Not I, for\none. \"Nobody bids: pass on to the next lot,\" answers Robins. And yet to\nM'Croudy this unsalable lot is worth all the Universe:--nay, I believe,\nto us also it is worth something; good monitions, as to several things,\ndo lie in this Professor of the dismal science; and considerable sums\neven of money, not to speak of other benefit, will yet come out of his\nlife and him, for which nobody bids! Robins has his own field where he\nreigns triumphant; but to that we will restrict him with iron limits;\nand neither Colonies nor the lives of Professors, nor other such\ninvaluable objects shall come under his hammer.\n\nBad state of the ledger will demonstrate that your way of dealing\nwith your Colonies is absurd, and urgently in want of reform; but to\ndemonstrate that the Empire itself must be dismembered to bring the\nledger straight? Oh never. Something else than the ledger must intervene\nto do that. Why does not England repudiate Ireland, and insist on the\n\"Repeal,\" instead of prohibiting it under death-penalties? Ireland has\nnever been a paying speculation yet, nor is it like soon to be! Why does\nnot Middlesex repudiate Surrey, and Chelsea Kensington, and each county\nand each parish, and in the end each individual set up for himself\nand his cash-box, repudiating the other and his, because their mutual\ninterests have got into an irritating course? They must change the\ncourse, seek till they discover a soothing one; that is the remedy, when\nlimbs of the same body come to irritate one another. Because the paltry\ntatter of a garment, reticulated for you out of thrums and listings in\nDowning Street, ties foot and hand together in an intolerable manner,\nwill you relieve yourself by cutting off the hand or the foot? You will\ncut off the paltry tatter of a pretended body-coat, I think, and fling\nthat to the nettles; and imperatively require one that fits your size\nbetter.\n\nMiserabler theory than that of money on the ledger being the primary\nrule for Empires, or for any higher entity than City owls and their\nmice-catching, cannot well be propounded. And I would by no means advise\nFelicissimus, ill at ease on his high-trotting and now justly impatient\nSleswicker, to let the poor horse in its desperation go in that\ndirection for a momentary solace. If by lumber-log Governors, by\nGodfrey's cordial Constitutions or otherwise, be contrived to cut\noff the Colonies or any real right the big British Empire has in her\nColonies, both he and the British Empire will bitterly repent it one\nday! The Sleswicker, relieved in ledger for a moment, will find that\nit is wounded in heart and honor forever; and the turning of its wild\nforehoofs upon Felicissimus as he lies in the ditch combed off, is not\na thing I like to think of! Britain, whether it be known to Felicissimus\nor not, has other tasks appointed her in God's Universe than the making\nof money; and woe will betide her if she forget those other withal.\nTasks, colonial and domestic, which are of an eternally _divine_ nature,\nand compared with which all money, and all that is procurable by money,\nare in strict arithmetic an imponderable quantity, have been assigned\nthis Nation; and they also at last are coming upon her again, clamorous,\nabstruse, inevitable, much to her bewilderment just now!\n\nThis poor Nation, painfully dark about said tasks and the way of doing\nthem, means to keep its Colonies nevertheless, as things which somehow\nor other must have a value, were it better seen into. They are portions\nof the general Earth, where the children of Britain now dwell; where the\ngods have so far sanctioned their endeavor, as to say that they have a\nright to dwell. England will not readily admit that her own children\nare worth nothing but to be flung out of doors! England looking on her\nColonies can say: \"Here are lands and seas, spice-lands, corn-lands,\ntimber-lands, overarched by zodiacs and stars, clasped by many-sounding\nseas; wide spaces of the Maker's building, fit for the cradle yet of\nmighty Nations and their Sciences and Heroisms. Fertile continents\nstill inhabited by wild beasts are mine, into which all the distressed\npopulations of Europe might pour themselves, and make at once an Old\nWorld and a New World human. By the eternal fiat of the gods, this\nmust yet one day be; this, by all the Divine Silences that rule this\nUniverse, silent to fools, eloquent and awful to the hearts of the wise,\nis incessantly at this moment, and at all moments, commanded to begin to\nbe. Unspeakable deliverance, and new destiny of thousand-fold expanded\nmanfulness for all men, dawns out of the Future here. To me has fallen\nthe godlike task of initiating all that: of me and of my Colonies, the\nabstruse Future asks, Are you wise enough for so sublime a destiny? Are\nyou too foolish?\"\n\n\nThat you ask advice of whatever wisdom is to be had in the Colony, and\neven take note of what _un_wisdom is in it, and record that too as an\nexisting fact, will certainly be very advantageous. But I suspect the\nkind of Parliament that will suit a Colony is much of a secret just now!\nMr. Wakefield, a democratic man in all fibres of him, and acquainted\nwith Colonial Socialities as few are, judges that the franchise for\nyour Colonial Parliament should be decidedly select, and advises a high\nmoney-qualification; as there is in all Colonies a fluctuating migratory\nmass, not destitute of money, but very much so of loyalty, permanency,\nor civic availability; whom it is extremely advantageous not to consult\non what you are about attempting for the Colony or Mother Country. This\nI can well believe;--and also that a \"high money-qualification,\" in\nthe present sad state of human affairs, might be some help to you\nin selecting; though whether even that would quite certainly bring\n\"wisdom,\" the one thing indispensable, is much a question with me. It\nmight help, it might help! And if by any means you could (which you\ncannot) exclude the Fourth Estate, and indicate decisively that Wise\nAdvice was the thing wanted here, and Parliamentary Eloquence was not\nthe thing wanted anywhere just now,--there might really some light of\nexperience and human foresight, and a truly valuable benefit, be found\nfor you in such assemblies.\n\nAnd there is one thing, too apt to be forgotten, which it much behooves\nus to remember: In the Colonies, as everywhere else in this world, the\nvital point is not who decides, but what is decided on! That measures\ntending really to the best advantage temporal and spiritual of the\nColony be adopted, and strenuously put in execution; there lies\nthe grand interest of every good citizen British and Colonial. Such\nmeasures, whosoever have originated and prescribed them, will gradually\nbe sanctioned by all men and gods; and clamors of every kind in\nreference to them may safely to a great extent be neglected, as\nclamorous merely, and sure to be transient. Colonial Governor, Colonial\nParliament, whoever or whatever does an injustice, or resolves on an\n_un_wisdom, he is the pernicious object, however parliamentary he be!\n\nI have known things done, in this or the other Colony, in the most\nparliamentary way before now, which carried written on the brow of them\nsad symptoms of eternal reprobation; not to be mistaken, had you painted\nan inch thick. In Montreal, for example, at this moment, standing amid\nthe ruins of the \"Elgin Marbles\" (as they call the burnt walls of the\nParliament House there), what rational British soul but is forced to\ninstitute the mournfulest constitutional reflection? Some years ago the\nCanadas, probably not without materials for discontent, and blown upon\nby skilful artists, blazed up into crackling of musketry, open flame of\nrebellion; a thing smacking of the gallows in all countries that pretend\nto have any \"Government.\" Which flame of rebellion, had there been no\nloyal population to fling themselves upon it at peril of their life,\nmight have ended we know not how. It ended speedily, in the good way;\nCanada got a Godfrey's-cordial Constitution; and for the moment all was\nvarnished into some kind of feasibility again. A most poor feasibility;\nmomentary, not lasting, nor like to be of profit to Canada! For this\nyear, the Canadian most constitutional Parliament, such a congeries\nof persons as one can imagine, decides that the aforesaid flame of\nrebellion shall not only be forgotten as per bargain, but that--the\nloyal population, who flung their lives upon it and quenched it in the\nnick of time, shall pay the rebels their damages! Of this, I believe,\non sadly conclusive evidence, there is no doubt whatever. Such, when you\nwash off the constitutional pigments, is the Death's-head that discloses\nitself. I can only say, if all the Parliaments in the world were to\nvote that such a thing was just, I should feel painfully constrained to\nanswer, at my peril, \"No, by the Eternal, never!\" And I would recommend\nany British Governor who might come across that Business, there or here,\nto overhaul it again. What the meaning of a Governor, if he is not\nto overhaul and control such things, may be, I cannot conjecture. A\nCanadian Lumber-log may as well be made Governor. _He_ might have\nsome cast-metal hand or shoulder-crank (a thing easily contrivable in\nBirmingham) for signing his name to Acts of the Colonial Parliament; he\nwould be a \"native of the country\" too, with popularity on that score if\non no other;--he is your man, if you really want a Log Governor!--\n\n\nI perceive therefore that, besides choosing Parliaments never so well,\nthe New Colonial Office will have another thing to do: Contrive to send\nout a new kind of Governors to the Colonies. This will be the mainspring\nof the business; without this the business will not go at all. An\nexperienced, wise and valiant British man, to represent the Imperial\nInterest; he, with such a speaking or silent Collective Wisdom as he can\ngather round him in the Colony, will evidently be the condition of all\ngood between the Mother Country and it. If you can find such a man, your\npoint is gained; if you cannot, lost. By him and his Collective Wisdom\nall manner of _true_ relations, mutual interests and duties such as they\ndo exist in fact between Mother Country and Colony, can be gradually\ndeveloped into practical methods and results; and all manner of true and\nnoble successes, and veracities in the way of governing, be won.\nChoose well your Governor;--not from this or that poor section of the\nAristocracy, military, naval, or red-tapist; wherever there are born\nkings of men, you had better seek them out, and breed them to this work.\nAll sections of the British Population will be open to you: and, on the\nwhole, you must succeed in finding a man _fit_. And having found him, I\nwould farther recommend you to keep him some time! It would be a great\nimprovement to end this present nomadism of Colonial Governors. Give\nyour Governor due power; and let him know withal that he is wedded to\nhis enterprise, and having once well learned it, shall continue with it;\nthat it is not a Canadian Lumber-log you want there, to tumble upon\nthe vertexes and sign its name by a Birmingham shoulder-crank, but\na Governor of Men; who, you mean, shall fairly gird himself to his\nenterprise, and fail with it and conquer with it, and as it were live\nand die with it: he will have much to learn; and having once learned it,\nwill stay, and turn his knowledge to account.\n\nFrom this kind of Governor, were you once in the way of finding him\nwith moderate certainty, from him and his Collective Wisdom, all good\nwhatsoever might be anticipated. And surely, were the Colonies\nonce enfranchised from red-tape, and the poor Mother Country once\nenfranchised from it; were our idle Seventy-fours all busy carrying\nout streams of British Industrials, and those Scoundrel Regiments all\nworking, under divine drill-sergeants, at the grand Atlantic and Pacific\nJunction Railway,--poor Britain and her poor Colonies might find that\nthey _had_ true relations to each other: that the Imperial _Mother_ and\nher constitutionally obedient Daughters were not a red-tape fiction,\nprovoking bitter mockery as at present, but a blessed God's-Fact\ndestined to fill half the world with its fruits one day!\n\n\nBut undoubtedly our grand primary concern is the Home Office, and its\nIrish Giant named of Despair. When the Home Office begins dealing with\nthis Irish Giant, which it is vitally urgent for us the Home Office\nshould straightway do, it will find its duties enlarged to a most\nunexpected extent, and, as it were, altered from top to bottom. A\nchanged time now when the question is, What to do with three millions\nof paupers (come upon you for food, since you have no work for them)\nincreasing at a frightful rate per day? Home Office, Parliament, King,\nConstitution will find that they have now, if they will continue in this\nworld long, got a quite immense new question and continually recurring\nset of questions. That huge question of the Irish Giant with his Scotch\nand English Giant-Progeny advancing open-mouthed upon us, will, as I\ncalculate, change from top to bottom not the Home Office only but\nall manner of Offices and Institutions whatsoever, and gradually the\nstructure of Society itself. I perceive, it will make us a new Society,\nif we are to continue a Society at all. For the alternative is not, Stay\nwhere we are, or change? But Change, with new wise effort fit for the\nnew time, to true and wider nobler National Life; or Change, by indolent\nfolding of the arms, as we are now doing, in horrible anarchies and\nconvulsions to Dissolution, to National Death, or Suspended-animation?\nSuspended-animation itself is a frightful possibility for Britain: this\nAnarchy whither all Europe has preceded us, where all Europe is now\nweltering, would suit us as ill as any! The question for the British\nNation is: Can we work our course pacifically, on firm land, into the\nNew Era; or must it be, for us too, as for all the others, through black\nabysses of Anarchy, hardly escaping, if we do with all our struggles\nescape, the jaws of eternal Death?\n\nFor Pauperism, though it now absorbs its high figure of millions\nannually, is by no means a question of money only, but of infinitely\nhigher and greater than all conceivable money. If our Chancellor of the\nExchequer had a Fortunatus' purse, and miraculous sacks of Indian meal\nthat would stand scooping from forever,--I say, even on these terms\nPauperism could not be endured; and it would vitally concern all British\nCitizens to abate Pauperism, and never rest till they had ended it\nagain. Pauperism is the general leakage through every joint of the ship\nthat it is rotten. Were all men doing their duty, or even seriously\ntrying to do it, there would be no Pauper. Were the pretended Captains\nof the world at all in the habit of commanding; were the pretended\nTeachers of the world at all in the habit of teaching,--of admonishing\nsaid Captains among others, and with sacred zeal apprising them to what\nplace such neglect was leading,--how could Pauperism exist? Pauperism\nwould lie far over the horizon; we should be lamenting and denouncing\nquite inferior sins of men, which were only tending afar off towards\nPauperism. A true Captaincy; a true Teachership, either making all men\nand Captains know and devoutly recognize the eternal law of things, or\nelse breaking its own heart, and going about with sackcloth round its\nloins, in testimony of continual sorrow and protest, and prophecy of\nGod's vengeance upon such a course of things: either of these divine\nequipments would have saved us; and it is because we have neither of\nthem that we are come to such a pass!\n\nWe may depend upon it, where there is a Pauper, there is a sin; to\nmake one Pauper there go many sins. Pauperism is our Social Sin grown\nmanifest; developed from the state of a spiritual ignobleness, a\npractical impropriety and base oblivion of duty, to an affair of the\nledger. Here is not now an unheeded sin against God; here is a concrete\nugly bulk of Beggary demanding that you should buy Indian meal for it.\nMen of reflection have long looked with a horror for which there was no\nresponse in the idle public, upon Pauperism; but the quantity of meal it\ndemands has now awakened men of no reflection to consider it. Pauperism\nis the poisonous dripping from all the sins, and putrid unveracities and\ngod-forgetting greedinesses and devil-serving cants and jesuitisms, that\nexist among us. Not one idle Sham lounging about Creation upon false\npretences, upon means which he has not earned, upon theories which he\ndoes not practise, but yields his share of Pauperism somewhere or\nother. His sham-work oozes down; finds at last its issue as human\nPauperism,--in a human being that by those false pretences cannot live.\nThe Idle Workhouse, now about to burst of overfilling, what is it\nbut the scandalous poison-tank of drainage from the universal Stygian\nquagmire of our affairs? Workhouse Paupers; immortal sons of Adam rotted\ninto that scandalous condition, subter-slavish, demanding that you would\nmake slaves of them as an unattainable blessing! My friends, I perceive\nthe quagmire must be drained, or we cannot live. And farther, I\nperceive, this of Pauperism is the corner where we must _begin_,--the\nlevels all pointing thitherward, the possibilities lying all clearly\nthere. On that Problem we shall find that innumerable things, that all\nthings whatsoever hang. By courageous steadfast persistence in that, I\ncan foresee Society itself regenerated. In the course of long strenuous\ncenturies, I can see the State become what it is actually bound to be,\nthe keystone of a most real \"Organization of Labor,\"--and on this Earth\na world of some veracity, and some heroism, once more worth living in!\n\n\nThe State in all European countries, and in England first of all, as I\nhope, will discover that its functions are now, and have long been, very\nwide of what the State in old pedant Downing Streets has aimed at;\nthat the State is, for the present, not a reality but in great part a\ndramatic speciosity, expending its strength in practices and objects\nfallen many of them quite obsolete; that it must come a little nearer\nthe true aim again, or it cannot continue in this world. The \"Champion\nof England\" eased in iron or tin, and \"able to mount his horse with\nlittle assistance,\"--this Champion and the thousand-fold cousinry of\nPhantasms he has, nearly all dead now but still walking as ghosts,\nmust positively take himself away: who can endure him, and his solemn\ntrumpetings and obsolete gesticulations, in a Time that is full of\ndeadly realities, coming open-mouthed upon us? At Drury Lane, let him\nplay his part, him and his thousand-fold cousinry; and welcome, so long\nas any public will pay a shilling to see him: but on the solid earth,\nunder the extremely earnest stars, we dare not palter with him, or\naccept his tomfooleries any more. Ridiculous they seem to some; horrible\nthey seem to me: all lies, if one look whence they come and whither they\ngo, are horrible.\n\nAlas, it will be found, I doubt, that in England more than in any\ncountry, our Public Life and our Private, our State and our Religion,\nand all that we do and speak (and the most even of what we _think_),\nis a tissue of half-truths and whole-lies; of hypocrisies,\nconventionalisms, worn-out traditionary rags and cobwebs; such a\nlife-garment of beggarly incredible and uncredited falsities as no\nhonest souls of Adam's Posterity were ever enveloped in before. And we\nwalk about in it with a stately gesture, as if it were some priestly\nstole or imperial mantle; not the foulest beggar's gabardine that ever\nwas. \"No Englishman dare believe the truth,\" says one: \"he stands, for\nthese two hundred years, enveloped in lies of every kind; from nadir to\nzenith an ocean of traditionary cant surrounds him as his life-element.\nHe really thinks the truth dangerous. Poor wretch, you see him\neverywhere endeavoring to temper the truth by taking the falsity\nalong with it, and welding them together; this he calls 'safe course,'\n'moderate course,' and other fine names; there, balanced between God and\nthe Devil, he thinks he _can_ serve two masters, and that things will go\nwell with him.\"\n\nIn the cotton-spinning and similar departments our English friend\nknows well that truth or God will have nothing to do with the Devil or\nfalsehood, but will ravel all the web to pieces if you introduce\nthe Devil or Non-veracity in any form into it: in this department,\ntherefore, our English friend avoids falsehood. But in the religious,\npolitical, social, moral, and all other spiritual departments he freely\nintroduces falsehood, nothing doubting; and has long done so, with a\nprofuseness not elsewhere met with in the world. The unhappy creature,\ndoes he not know, then, that every lie is accursed, and the parent of\nmere curses? That he must _think_ the truth; much more speak it? That,\nabove all things, by the oldest law of Heaven and Earth which no man\nviolates with impunity, he must not and shall not wag the tongue of\nhim except to utter his thought? That there is not a grin or beautiful\nacceptable grimace he can execute upon his poor countenance, but is\neither an express veracity, the image of what passes within him; or else\nis a bit of Devil-worship which he and the rest of us will have to pay\nfor yet? Alas, the grins he executes upon his poor _mind_ (which is all\ntortured into St. Vitus dances, and ghastly merry-andrewisms, by the\npractice) are the most extraordinary this sun ever saw.\n\nWe have Puseyisms, black-and-white surplice controversies:--do not,\nofficially and otherwise, the select of the longest heads in England\nsit with intense application and iron gravity, in open forum, judging of\n\"prevenient grace\"? Not a head of them suspects that it can be improper\nso to sit, or of the nature of treason against the Power who gave an\nIntellect to man;--that it can be other than the duty of a good citizen\nto use his god-given intellect in investigating prevenient grace,\nsupervenient moonshine, or the color of the Bishop's nightmare, if that\nhappened to turn up. I consider them far ahead of Cicero's Roman Augurs\nwith their chicken-bowels: \"Behold these divine chicken-bowels, O Senate\nand Roman People; the midriff has fallen eastward!\" solemnly intimates\none Augur. \"By Proserpina and the triple Hecate!\" exclaims the other,\n\"I say the midriff has fallen to the west!\" And they look at one another\nwith the seriousness of men prepared to die in their opinion,--the\nauthentic seriousness of men betting at Tattersall's, or about to\nreceive judgment in Chancery. There is in the Englishman something\ngreat, beyond all Roman greatness, in whatever line you meet him; even\nas a Latter-Day Augur he seeks his fellow!--Poor devil, I believe it is\nhis intense love of peace, and hatred of breeding discussions which lead\nno-whither, that has led him into this sad practice of amalgamating true\nand false.\n\nHe has been at it these two hundred years; and has now carried it to a\nterrible length. He couldn't follow Oliver Cromwell in the Puritan\npath heavenward, so steep was it, and beset with thorns,--and becoming\nuncertain withal. He much preferred, at that juncture, to go heavenward\nwith his Charles Second and merry Nell Gwynns, and old decent\nformularies and good respectable aristocratic company, for escort; sore\nhe tried, by glorious restorations, glorious revolutions and so\nforth, to perfect this desirable amalgam; hoped always it might be\npossible;--is only just now, if even now, beginning to give up the\nhope; and to see with wide-eyed horror that it is not at Heaven he\nis arriving, but at the Stygian marshes, with their thirty thousand\nNeedlewomen, cannibal Connaughts, rivers of lamentation, continual wail\nof infants, and the yellow-burning gleam of a Hell-on-Earth!--Bull, my\nfriend, you must strip that astonishing pontiff-stole, imperial mantle,\nor whatever you imagine it to be, which I discern to be a garment of\ncurses, and poisoned Nessus'-shirt now at last about to take fire upon\nyou; you must strip that off your poor body, my friend; and, were it\nonly in a soul's suit of Utilitarian buff, and such belief as that a\nbig loaf is better than a small one, come forth into contact with your\nworld, under _true_ professions again, and not false. You wretched man,\nyou ought to weep for half a century on discovering what lies you have\nbelieved, and what every lie leads to and proceeds from. O my friend, no\nhonest fellow in this Planet was ever so served by his cooks before; or\nhas eaten such quantities and qualities of dirt as you have been made\nto do, for these two centuries past. Arise, my horribly maltreated yet\nstill beloved Bull; steep yourself in running water for a long while, my\nfriend; and begin forthwith in every conceivable direction, physical and\nspiritual, the long-expected _Scavenger Age_.\n\nMany doctors have you had, my poor friend; but I perceive it is the\nWater-Cure alone that will help you: a complete course of _scavengerism_\nis the thing you need! A new and veritable heart-divorce of England from\nthe Babylonish woman, who is Jesuitism and Unveracity, and dwells not\nat Rome now, but under your own nose and everywhere; whom, and her foul\nworship of Phantasms and Devils, poor England _had_ once divorced, with\na divine heroism not forgotten yet, and well worth remembering now: a\n Phantasms which have too long nestled thick there, under those\nastonishing \"Defenders of the Faith,\"--Defenders of the Hypocrisies, the\nspiritual Vampires and obscene Nightmares, under which England lies in\nsyncope;--this is what you need; and if you cannot get it, you must die,\nmy poor friend!\n\nLike people, like priest. Priest, King, Home Office, all manner of\nestablishments and offices among a people bear a striking resemblance to\nthe people itself. It is because Bull has been eating so much dirt that\nhis Home Offices have got into such a shockingly dirty condition,--the\nold pavements of them quite gone out of sight and out of memory, and\nnothing but mountains of long-accumulated dung in which the poor cattle\nare sprawling and tumbling. Had his own life been pure, had his own\ndaily conduct been grounding itself on the clear pavements or actual\nbeliefs and veracities, would he have let his Home Offices come to such\na pass? Not in Downing Street only, but in all other thoroughfares and\narenas and spiritual or physical departments of his existence, running\nwater and Herculean scavengerism have become indispensable, unless the\npoor man is to choke in his own exuviae, and die the sorrowfulest death.\n\n\nIf the State could once get back to the real sight of its essential\nfunction, and with religious resolution begin doing that, and putting\naway its multifarious imaginary functions, and indignantly casting out\nthese as mere dung and insalubrious horror and abomination (which they\nare), what a promise of reform were there! The British Home Office,\nsurely this and its kindred Offices exist, if they will think of it,\nthat life and work may continue possible, and may not become impossible,\nfor British men. If honorable existence, or existence on human terms\nat all, have become impossible for millions of British men, how can\nthe Home Office or any other Office long exist? With thirty thousand\nNeedlewomen, a Connaught fallen into potential cannibalism, and the Idle\nWorkhouse everywhere bursting, and declaring itself an inhumanity and\nstupid ruinous brutality not much longer to be tolerated among rational\nhuman creatures, it is time the State were bethinking itself.\n\nSo soon as the State attacks that tremendous cloaca of Pauperism, which\nwill choke the world if it be not attacked, the State will find its real\nfunctions very different indeed from what it had long supposed them!\nThe State is a reality, and not a dramaturgy; it exists here to render\nexistence possible, existence desirable and noble, for the State's\nsubjects. The State, as it gets into the track of its real work, will\nfind that same expand into whole continents of new unexpected, most\nblessed activity; as its dramatic functions, declared superfluous,\nmore and more fall inert, and go rushing like huge torrents of extinct\nexuviae, dung and rubbish, down to the Abyss forever. O Heaven, to see\na State that knew a little why it was there, and on what ground, in this\nYear 1850, it could pretend to exist, in so extremely earnest a world as\nours is growing! The British State, if it will be the crown and keystone\nof our British Social Existence, must get to recognize, with a veracity\nvery long unknown to it, what the real objects and indispensable\nnecessities of our Social Existence are. Good Heavens, it is not\nprevenient grace, or the color of the Bishop's nightmare, that is\npinching us; it is the impossibility to get along any farther for\nmountains of accumulated dung and falsity and horror; the total\nclosing-up of noble aims from every man,--of any aim at all, from many\nmen, except that of rotting out in Idle Workhouses an existence below\nthat of beasts!\n\nSuppose the State to have fairly started its \"Industrial Regiments of\nthe New Era,\" which alas, are yet only beginning to be talked of,--what\ncontinents of new real work opened out, for the Home and all other\nPublic Offices among us! Suppose the Home Office looking out, as for\nlife and salvation, for proper men to command these \"Regiments.\" Suppose\nthe announcement were practically made to all British souls that the\nwant of wants, more indispensable than any jewel in the crown, was that\nof men _able to command men_ in ways of industrial and moral well-doing;\nthat the State would give its very life for such men; that such men\n_were_ the State; that the quantity of them to be found in England\nlamentably small at present, was the exact measure of England's\nworth,--what a new dawn of everlasting day for all British souls! Noble\nBritish soul, to whom the gods have given faculty and heroism, what men\ncall genius, here at last is a career for thee. It will not be needful\nnow to swear fealty to the Incredible, and traitorously cramp thyself\ninto a cowardly canting play-actor in God's Universe; or, solemnly\nforswearing that, into a mutinous rebel and waste bandit in thy\ngeneration: here is an aim that is clear and credible, a course fit\nfor a man. No need to become a tormenting and self-tormenting mutineer,\nbanded with rebellious souls, if thou wouldst live; no need to rot in\nsuicidal idleness; or take to platform preaching, and writing in Radical\nNewspapers, to pull asunder the great Falsity in which thou and all of\nus are choking. The great Falsity, behold it has become, in the very\nheart of it, a great Truth of Truths; and invites thee and all brave men\nto cooperate with it in transforming all the body and the joints into\nthe noble likeness of that heart! Thrice-blessed change. The State aims,\nonce more, with a true aim; and has loadstars in the eternal Heaven.\nStruggle faithfully for it; noble is _this_ struggle; thou too,\naccording to thy faculty, shalt reap in due time, if thou faint not.\nThou shalt have a wise command of men, thou shalt be wisely commanded by\nmen,--the summary of all blessedness for a social creature here below.\nThe sore struggle, never to be relaxed, and not forgiven to any son of\nman, is once more a noble one; glory to the Highest, it is now once more\na true and noble one, wherein a man can afford to die! Our path is now\nagain Heavenward. Forward, with steady pace, with drawn weapons, and\nunconquerable hearts, in the name of God that made us all!--\n\nWise obedience and wise command, I foresee that the regimenting of\nPauper Banditti into Soldiers of Industry is but the beginning of\nthis blessed process, which will extend to the topmost heights of our\nSociety; and, in the course of generations, make us all once more a\nGoverned Commonwealth, and _Civitas Dei_, if it please God! Waste-land\nIndustrials succeeding, other kinds of Industry, as cloth-making,\nshoe-making, plough-making, spade-making, house-building,--in the end,\nall kinds of Industry whatsoever, will be found capable of regimenting.\nMill-operatives, all manner of free operatives, as yet unregimented,\nnomadic under private masters, they, seeing such example and its\nblessedness, will say: \"Masters, you must regiment us a little; make our\ninterests with you permanent a little, instead of temporary and nomadic;\nwe will enlist with the State otherwise!\" This will go on, on the one\nhand, while the State-operation goes on, on the other: thus will\nall Masters of Workmen, private Captains of Industry, be forced to\nincessantly co-operate with the State and its public Captains; they\nregimenting in their way, the State in its way, with ever-widening\nfield; till their fields _meet_ (so to speak) and coalesce, and there be\nno unregimented worker, or such only as are fit to remain unregimented,\nany more.--O my friends, I clearly perceive this horrible cloaca of\nPauperism, wearing nearly bottomless now, is the point where we\nmust begin. Here, in this plainly unendurable portion of the general\nquagmire, the lowest point of all, and hateful even to M'Croudy, must\nour main drain begin: steadily prosecuting that, tearing that along with\nHerculean labor and divine fidelity, we shall gradually drain the entire\nStygian swamp, and make it all once more a fruitful field!\n\nFor the State, I perceive, looking out with right sacred earnestness for\npersons able to command, will straightway also come upon the question:\n\"What kind of schools and seminaries, and teaching and also preaching\nestablishments have I, for the training of young souls to take command\nand to yield obedience? Wise command, wise obedience: the capability of\nthese two is the net measure of culture, and human virtue, in every man;\nall good lies in the possession of these two capabilities; all evil,\nwretchedness and ill-success in the want of these. He is a good man that\ncan command and obey; he that cannot is a bad. If my teachers and my\npreachers, with their seminaries, high schools and cathedrals, do train\nmen to these gifts, the thing they are teaching and preaching must be\ntrue; if they do not, not true!\"\n\nThe State, once brought to its veracities by the thumb-screw in this\nmanner, what will it think of these same seminaries and cathedrals!\nI foresee that our Etons and Oxfords with their nonsense-verses,\ncollege-logics, and broken crumbs of mere _speech_,--which is not even\nEnglish or Teutonic speech, but old Grecian and Italian speech, dead\nand buried and much lying out of our way these two thousand years last\npast,--will be found a most astonishing seminary for the training of\nyoung English souls to take command in human Industries, and act a\nvaliant part under the sun! The State does not want vocables, but manly\nwisdoms and virtues: the State, does it want parliamentary orators,\nfirst of all, and men capable of writing books? What a rag-fair of\nextinct monkeries, high-piled here in the very shrine of our existence,\nfit to smite the generations with atrophy and beggarly paralysis,--as we\nsee it do! The Minister of Education will not want for work, I think, in\nthe New Downing Street!\n\nHow it will go with Souls'-Overseers, and what the _new_ kind will be,\nwe do not prophesy just now. Clear it is, however, that the last finish\nof the State's efforts, in this operation of regimenting, will be to get\nthe _true_ Souls'-Overseers set over men's souls, to regiment, as the\nconsummate flower of all, and constitute into some Sacred Corporation,\nbearing authority and dignity in their generation, the Chosen of the\nWise, of the Spiritual and Devout-minded, the Reverent who deserve\nreverence, who are as the Salt of the Earth;--that not till this is done\ncan the State consider its edifice to have reached the first story, to\nbe safe for a moment, to be other than an arch without the keystones,\nand supported hitherto on mere wood. How will this be done? Ask not; let\nthe second or the third generation after this begin to ask!--Alas, wise\nmen do exist, born duly into the world in every current generation; but\nthe getting of _them_ regimented is the highest pitch of human Polity,\nand the feat of all feats in political engineering:--impossible for us,\nin this poor age, as the building of St. Paul's would be for Canadian\nBeavers, acquainted only with the architecture of fish-dams, and with no\ntrowel but their tail.\n\nLiterature, the strange entity so called,--that indeed is here. If\nLiterature continue to be the haven of expatriated spiritualisms, and\nhave its Johnsons, Goethes and _true_ Archbishops of the World, to show\nfor itself as heretofore, there may be hope in Literature. If Literature\ndwindle, as is probable, into mere merry-andrewism, windy twaddle,\nand feats of spiritual legerdemain, analogous to rope-dancing,\nopera-dancing, and street-fiddling with a hat carried round for\nhalfpence, or for guineas, there will be no hope in Literature. What\nif our next set of Souls'-Overseers were to be _silent_ ones very\nmainly?--Alas, alas, why gaze into the blessed continents and delectable\nmountains of a Future based on _truth_, while as yet we struggle far\ndown, nigh suffocated in a slough of lies, uncertain whether or how we\nshall be able to climb at all!\n\n\nWho will begin the long steep journey with us; who of living statesmen\nwill snatch the standard, and say, like a hero on the forlorn-hope for\nhis country, Forward! Or is there none; no one that can and dare? And\nour lot too, then, is Anarchy by barricade or ballot-box, and Social\nDeath?--We will not think so.\n\n\nWhether Sir Robert Peel will undertake the Reform of Downing Street for\nus, or any Ministry or Reform farther, is not known. He, they say, is\ngetting old, does himself recoil from it, and shudder at it; which is\npossible enough. The clubs and coteries appear to have settled that\nhe surely will not; that this melancholy wriggling seesaw of red-tape\nTrojans and Protectionist Greeks must continue its course till--what\n_can_ happen, my friends, if this go on continuing?\n\nAnd yet, perhaps, England has by no means so settled it. Quit the clubs\nand coteries, you do not hear two rational men speak long together upon\npolitics, without pointing their inquiries towards this man. A Minister\nthat will attack the Augeas Stable of Downing Street, and begin\nproducing a real Management, no longer an imaginary one, of our affairs;\n_he_, or else in few years Chartist Parliament and the Deluge come: that\nseems the alternative. As I read the omens, there was no man in my time\nmore authentically called to a post of difficulty, of danger, and of\nhonor than this man. The enterprise is ready for him, if he is ready for\nit. He has but to lift his finger in this enterprise, and whatsoever\nis wise and manful in England will rally round him. If the faculty and\nheart for it be in him, he, strangely and almost tragically if we look\nupon his history, is to have leave to try it; he now, at the eleventh\nhour, has the opportunity for such a feat in reform as has not, in these\nlate generations, been attempted by all our reformers put together.\n\nAs for Protectionist jargon, who in these earnest days would occupy many\nmoments of his time with that? \"A Costermonger in this street,\" says\nCrabbe, \"finding lately that his rope of onions, which he hoped would\nhave brought a shilling, was to go for only sevenpence henceforth, burst\nforth into lamentation, execration and the most pathetic tears. Throwing\nup the window, I perceived the other costermongers preparing impatiently\nto pack this one out of their company as a disgrace to it, if he would\nnot hold his peace and take the market-rate for his onions. I\nlooked better at this Costermonger. To my astonished imagination, a\nstar-and-garter dawned upon the dim figure of the man; and I perceived\nthat here was no Costermonger to be expelled with ignominy, but a\nsublime goddess-born Ducal Individual, whom I forbear to name at this\nmoment! What an omen;--nay to my astonished imagination, there dawned\nstill fataler omens. Surely, of all human trades ever heard of, the\ntrade of Owning Land in England ought _not_ to bully us for drink--money\njust now!\"\n\n\"Hansard's Debates,\" continues Crabbe farther on, \"present many\ninconsistencies of speech; lamentable unveracities uttered in\nParliament, by one and indeed by all; in which sad list Sir Robert Peel\nstands for his share among others. Unveracities not a few were spoken in\nParliament: in fact, to one with a sense of what is called God's truth,\nit seemed all one unveracity, a talking from the teeth outward, not as\nthe convictions but as the expediencies and inward astucities directed;\nand, in the sense of God's _truth_, I have heard no true word uttered in\nParliament at all. Most lamentable unveracities continually _spoken_ in\nParliament, by almost every one that had to open his mouth there. But\nthe largest veracity ever _done_ in Parliament in our time, as we all\nknow, was of this man's doing;--and that, you will find, is a very\nconsiderable item in the calculation!\"\n\nYes, and I believe England in her dumb way remembers that too. And\n\"the Traitor Peel\" can very well afford to let innumerable Ducal\nCostermongers, parliamentary Adventurers, and lineal representatives of\nthe Impenitent Thief, say all their say about him, and do all their do.\nWith a virtual England at his back, and an actual eternal sky above him,\nthere is not much in the total net-amount of that. When the master of\nthe horse rides abroad, many dogs in the village bark; but he pursues\nhis journey all the same.\n\n\n\n\nNo. V. STUMP-ORATOR. [May 1, 1850.]\n\nIt lies deep in our habits, confirmed by all manner of educational and\nother arrangements for several centuries back, to consider human talent\nas best of all evincing itself by the faculty of eloquent speech. Our\nearliest schoolmasters teach us, as the one gift of culture they have,\nthe art of spelling and pronouncing, the rules of correct speech;\nrhetorics, logics follow, sublime mysteries of grammar, whereby we may\nnot only speak but write. And onward to the last of our schoolmasters in\nthe highest university, it is still intrinsically grammar, under various\nfigures grammar. To speak in various languages, on various things, but\non all of them to speak, and appropriately deliver ourselves by tongue\nor pen,--this is the sublime goal towards which all manner of beneficent\npreceptors and learned professors, from the lowest hornbook upwards, are\ncontinually urging and guiding us. Preceptor or professor, looking over\nhis miraculous seedplot, seminary as he well calls it, or crop of young\nhuman souls, watches with attentive view one organ of his delightful\nlittle seedlings growing to be men,--the tongue. He hopes we shall\nall get to speak yet, if it please Heaven. \"Some of you shall be\nbook-writers, eloquent review-writers, and astonish mankind, my young\nfriends: others in white neckcloths shall do sermons by Blair and\nLindley Murray, nay by Jeremy Taylor and judicious Hooker, and be\npriests to guide men heavenward by skilfully brandished handkerchief and\nthe torch of rhetoric. For others there is Parliament and the election\nbeer-barrel, and a course that leads men very high indeed; these shall\nshake the senate-house, the Morning Newspapers, shake the very spheres,\nand by dexterous wagging of the tongue disenthrall mankind, and lead our\nafflicted country and us on the way we are to go. The way if not where\nnoble deeds are done, yet where noble words are spoken,--leading us if\nnot to the real Home of the Gods, at least to something which shall more\nor less deceptively resemble it!\"\n\nSo fares it with the son of Adam, in these bewildered epochs; so, from\nthe first opening of his eyes in this world, to his last closing of\nthem, and departure hence. Speak, speak, oh speak;--if thou have\nany faculty, speak it, or thou diest and it is no faculty! So in\nuniversities, and all manner of dames' and other schools, of the very\nhighest class as of the very lowest; and Society at large, when we\nenter there, confirms with all its brilliant review-articles, successful\npublications, intellectual tea-circles, literary gazettes, parliamentary\neloquences, the grand lesson we had. Other lesson in fact we have none,\nin these times. If there be a human talent, let it get into the tongue,\nand make melody with that organ. The talent that can say nothing for\nitself, what is it? Nothing; or a thing that can do mere drudgeries, and\nat best make money by railways.\n\nAll this is deep-rooted in our habits, in our social, educational and\nother arrangements; and all this, when we look at it impartially, is\nastonishing. Directly in the teeth of all this it may be asserted that\nspeaking is by no means the chief faculty a human being can attain to;\nthat his excellence therein is by no means the best test of his general\nhuman excellence, or availability in this world; nay that, unless we\nlook well, it is liable to become the very worst test ever devised for\nsaid availability. The matter extends very far, down to the very roots\nof the world, whither the British reader cannot conveniently follow me\njust now; but I will venture to assert the three following things, and\ninvite him to consider well what truth he can gradually find in them:--\n\nFirst, that excellent speech, even speech _really_ excellent, is not,\nand never was, the chief test of human faculty, or the measure of a\nman's ability, for any true function whatsoever; on the contrary, that\nexcellent _silence_ needed always to accompany excellent speech, and was\nand is a much rarer and more difficult gift.\n\n_Secondly_, that really excellent speech--which I, being possessed\nof the Hebrew Bible or Book, as well as of other books in my own and\nforeign languages, and having occasionally heard a wise man's word among\nthe crowd of unwise, do almost unspeakably esteem, as a human gift--is\nterribly apt to get confounded with its counterfeit, sham-excellent\nspeech! And furthermore, that if really excellent human speech is among\nthe best of human things, then sham-excellent ditto deserves to be\nranked with the very worst. False speech,--capable of becoming, as some\none has said, the falsest and basest of all human things:--put the case,\none were listening to _that_ as to the truest and noblest! Which, little\nas we are conscious of it, I take to be the sad lot of many excellent\nsouls among us just now. So many as admire parliamentary eloquence,\ndivine popular literature, and such like, are dreadfully liable to\nit just now: and whole nations and generations seem as if getting\nthemselves _asphyxiaed_, constitutionally into their last sleep, by\nmeans of it just now!\n\nFor alas, much as we worship speech on all hands, here is a _third_\nassertion which a man may venture to make, and invite considerate men\nto reflect upon: That in these times, and for several generations back,\nthere has been, strictly considered, no really excellent speech at all,\nbut sham-excellent merely; that is to say, false or quasi-false\nspeech getting itself admired and worshipped, instead of detested and\nsuppressed. A truly alarming predicament; and not the less so if we find\nit a quite pleasant one for the time being, and welcome the advent of\nasphyxia, as we would that of comfortable natural sleep;--as, in so\nmany senses, we are doing! Surly judges there have been who did not much\nadmire the \"Bible of Modern Literature,\" or anything you could distil\nfrom it, in contrast with the ancient Bibles; and found that in the\nmatter of speaking, our far best excellence, where that could be\nobtained, was excellent silence, which means endurance and exertion, and\ngood work with lips closed; and that our tolerablest speech was of the\nnature of honest commonplace introduced where indispensable, which\nonly set up for being brief and true, and could not be mistaken for\nexcellent.\n\nThese are hard sayings for many a British reader, unconscious of any\ndamage, nay joyfully conscious to himself of much profit, from that side\nof his possessions. Surely on this side, if on no other, matters stood\nnot ill with him? The ingenuous arts had softened his manners; the\nparliamentary eloquences supplied him with a succedaneum for government,\nthe popular literatures with the finer sensibilities of the heart:\nsurely on this _wind_ward side of things the British reader was not ill\noff?--Unhappy British reader!\n\nIn fact, the spiritual detriment we unconsciously suffer, in every\nprovince of our affairs, from this our prostrate respect to power of\nspeech is incalculable. For indeed it is the natural consummation of\nan epoch such as ours. Given a general insincerity of mind for several\ngenerations, you will certainly find the Talker established in the\nplace of honor; and the Doer, hidden in the obscure crowd, with activity\nlamed, or working sorrowfully forward on paths unworthy of him. All\nmen are devoutly prostrate, worshipping the eloquent talker; and no man\nknows what a scandalous idol he is. Out of whom in the mildest\nmanner, like comfortable natural rest, comes mere asphyxia and death\neverlasting! Probably there is not in Nature a more distracted phantasm\nthan your commonplace eloquent speaker, as he is found on platforms,\nin parliaments, on Kentucky stumps, at tavern-dinners, in windy, empty,\ninsincere times like ours. The \"excellent Stump-orator,\" as our admiring\nYankee friends define him, he who in any occurrent set of circumstances\ncan start forth, mount upon his \"stump,\" his rostrum, tribune, place\nin parliament, or other ready elevation, and pour forth from him\nhis appropriate \"excellent speech,\" his interpretation of the said\ncircumstances, in such manner as poor windy mortals round him shall cry\nbravo to,--he is not an artist I can much admire, as matters go! Alas,\nhe is in general merely the windiest mortal of them all; and is admired\nfor being so, into the bargain. Not a windy blockhead there who kept\nsilent but is better off than this excellent stump-orator. Better off,\nfor a great many reasons; for this reason, were there no other: the\nsilent one is not admired; the silent suspects, perhaps partly admits,\nthat he is a kind of blockhead, from which salutary self-knowledge\nthe excellent stump-orator is debarred. A mouthpiece of Chaos to poor\nbenighted mortals that lend ear to him as to a voice from Cosmos, this\nexcellent stump-orator fills me with amazement. Not empty these musical\nwind-utterances of his; they are big with prophecy; they announce, too\naudibly to me, that the end of many things is drawing nigh!\n\nLet the British reader consider it a little; he too is not a little\ninterested in it. Nay he, and the European reader in general, but he\nchiefly in these days, will require to consider it a great deal,--and to\ntake important steps in consequence by and by, if I mistake not. And in\nthe mean while, sunk as he himself is in that bad element, and like a\njaundiced man struggling to discriminate yellow colors,--he will have to\nmeditate long before he in any measure get the immense meanings of the\nthing brought home to him; and discern, with astonishment, alarm, and\nalmost terror and despair, towards what fatal issues, in our Collective\nWisdom and elsewhere, this notion of talent meaning eloquent speech, so\nobstinately entertained this long while, has been leading us! Whosoever\nshall look well into origins and issues, will find this of eloquence\nand the part it now plays in our affairs, to be one of the gravest\nphenomena; and the excellent stump-orator of these days to be not only\na ridiculous but still more a highly tragical personage. While the\nmany listen to him, the few are used to pass rapidly, with some gust of\nscornful laughter, some growl of impatient malediction; but he deserves\nfrom this latter class a much more serious attention.\n\n\nIn the old Ages, when Universities and Schools were first instituted,\nthis function of the schoolmaster, to teach mere speaking, was the\nnatural one. In those healthy times, guided by silent instincts and the\nmonition of Nature, men had from of old been used to teach themselves\nwhat it was essential to learn, by the one sure method of learning\nanything, practical apprenticeship to it. This was the rule for all\nclasses; as it now is the rule, unluckily, for only one class. The\nWorking Man as yet sought only to know his craft; and educated himself\nsufficiently by ploughing and hammering, under the conditions given, and\nin fit relation to the persons given: a course of education, then as\nnow and ever, really opulent in manful culture and instruction to him;\nteaching him many solid virtues, and most indubitably useful knowledges;\ndeveloping in him valuable faculties not a few both to do and to\nendure,--among which the faculty of elaborate grammatical utterance,\nseeing he had so little of extraordinary to utter, or to learn from\nspoken or written utterances, was not bargained for; the grammar of\nNature, which he learned from his mother, being still amply sufficient\nfor him. This was, as it still is, the grand education of the Working\nMan.\n\nAs for the Priest, though his trade was clearly of a reading and\nspeaking nature, he knew also in those veracious times that grammar, if\nneedful, was by no means the one thing needful, or the chief thing. By\nfar the chief thing needful, and indeed the one thing then as now, was,\nThat there should be in him the feeling and the practice of reverence\nto God and to men; that in his life's core there should dwell, spoken\nor silent, a ray of pious wisdom fit for illuminating dark human\ndestinies;--not so much that he should possess the art of speech, as\nthat he should have something to speak! And for that latter requisite\nthe Priest also trained himself by apprenticeship, by actual attempt\nto practise, by manifold long-continued trial, of a devout and painful\nnature, such as his superiors prescribed to him. This, when once judged\nsatisfactory, procured him ordination; and his grammar-learning, in\nthe good times of priesthood, was very much of a parergon with him,\nas indeed in all times it is intrinsically quite insignificant in\ncomparison.\n\nThe young Noble again, for whom grammar schoolmasters were first hired\nand high seminaries founded, he too without these, or above and over\nthese, had from immemorial time been used to learn his business by\napprenticeship. The young Noble, before the schoolmaster as after him,\nwent apprentice to some elder noble; entered himself as page with some\ndistinguished earl or duke; and here, serving upwards from step to step,\nunder wise monition, learned his chivalries, his practice of arms and\nof courtesies, his baronial duties and manners, and what it would beseem\nhim to do and to be in the world,--by practical attempt of his own, and\nexample of one whose life was a daily concrete pattern for him. To such\na one, already filled with intellectual substance, and possessing what\nwe may call the practical gold-bullion of human culture, it was an\nobvious improvement that he should be taught to speak it out of him on\noccasion; that he should carry a spiritual banknote producible on demand\nfor what of \"gold-bullion\" he had, not so negotiable otherwise, stored\nin the cellars of his mind. A man, with wisdom, insight and heroic worth\nalready acquired for him, naturally demanded of the schoolmaster this\none new faculty, the faculty of uttering in fit words what he had. A\nvaluable superaddition of faculty:--and yet we are to remember it was\nscarcely a new faculty; it was but the tangible sign of what\nother faculties the man had in the silent state: and many a rugged\ninarticulate chief of men, I can believe, was most enviably\n\"educated,\" who had not a Book on his premises; whose signature, a true\nsign-_manual_, was the stamp of his iron hand duly inked and clapt upon\nthe parchment; and whose speech in Parliament, like the growl of lions,\ndid indeed convey his meaning, but would have torn Lindley Murray's\nnerves to pieces! To such a one the schoolmaster adjusted himself very\nnaturally in that manner; as a man wanted for teaching grammatical\nutterance; the thing to utter being already there. The thing to utter,\nhere was the grand point! And perhaps this is the reason why among\nearnest nations, as among the Romans for example, the craft of the\nschoolmaster was held in little regard; for indeed as mere teacher of\ngrammar, of ciphering on the abacus and such like, how did he differ\nmuch from the dancing-master or fencing-master, or deserve much\nregard?--Such was the rule in the ancient healthy times.\n\n\nCan it be doubtful that this is still the rule of human education; that\nthe human creature needs first of all to be educated not that he may\nspeak, but that he may have something weighty and valuable to say! If\nspeech is the bank-note of an inward capital of culture, of insight and\nnoble human worth, then speech is precious, and the art of speech shall\nbe honored. But if there is no inward capital; if speech represent no\nreal culture of the mind, but an imaginary culture; no bullion, but\nthe fatal and now almost hopeless deficit of such? Alas, alas, said\nbank-note is then a _forged_ one; passing freely current in the market;\nbut bringing damages to the receiver, to the payer, and to all the\nworld, which are in sad truth infallible, and of amount incalculable.\nFew think of it at present; but the truth remains forever so. In\nparliaments and other loud assemblages, your eloquent talk, disunited\nfrom Nature and her facts, is taken as wisdom and the correct image of\nsaid facts: but Nature well knows what it is, Nature will not have it\nas such, and will reject your forged note one day, with huge costs. The\nfoolish traders in the market pass freely, nothing doubting, and rejoice\nin the dexterous execution of the piece: and so it circulates from hand\nto hand, and from class to class; gravitating ever downwards towards the\npractical class; till at last it reaches some poor _working_ hand, who\ncan pass it no farther, but must take it to the bank to get bread with\nit, and there the answer is, \"Unhappy caitiff, this note is forged. It\ndoes not mean performance and reality, in parliaments and elsewhere, for\nthy behoof; it means fallacious semblance of performance; and thou, poor\ndupe, art thrown into the stocks on offering it here!\"\n\nAlas, alas, looking abroad over Irish difficulties, Mosaic\nsweating-establishments, French barricades, and an anarchic Europe, is\nit not as if all the populations of the world were rising or had risen\ninto incendiary madness;--unable longer to endure such an avalanche\nof forgeries, and of penalties in consequence, as had accumulated upon\nthem? The speaker is \"excellent;\" the notes he does are beautiful?\nBeautifully fit for the market, yes; _he_ is an excellent artist in his\nbusiness;--and the more excellent he is, the more is my desire to lay\nhim by the heels, and fling _him_ into the treadmill, that I might save\nthe poor sweating tailors, French Sansculottes, and Irish Sanspotatoes\nfrom bearing the smart!\n\nFor the smart must be borne; some one must bear it, as sure as God\nlives. Every word of man is either a note or a forged note:--have these\neternal skies forgotten to be in earnest, think you, because men go\ngrinning like enchanted apes? Foolish souls, this now as of old is the\nunalterable law of your existence. If you know the truth and do it,\nthe Universe itself seconds you, bears you on to sure victory\neverywhere:--and, observe, to sure defeat everywhere if you do not\ndo the truth. And alas, if you _know_ only the eloquent fallacious\nsemblance of the truth, what chance is there of your ever doing it?\nYou will do something very different from it, I think!--He who well\nconsiders, will find this same \"art of speech,\" as we moderns have\nit, to be a truly astonishing product of the Ages; and the longer he\nconsiders it, the more astonishing and alarming. I reckon it the saddest\nof all the curses that now lie heavy on us. With horror and amazement,\none perceives that this much-celebrated \"art,\" so diligently practised\nin all corners of the world just now, is the chief destroyer of whatever\ngood is born to us (softly, swiftly shutting up all nascent good, as if\nunder exhausted glass receivers, there to choke and die); and the grand\nparent manufactory of evil to us,--as it were, the last finishing and\nvarnishing workshop of all the Devil's ware that circulates under the\nsun. No Devil's sham is fit for the market till it have been polished\nand enamelled here; this is the general assaying-house for such, where\nthe artists examine and answer, \"Fit for the market; not fit!\" Words\nwill not express what mischiefs the misuse of words has done, and is\ndoing, in these heavy-laden generations.\n\nDo you want a man _not_ to practise what he believes, then encourage\nhim to keep often speaking it in words. Every time he speaks it, the\ntendency to do it will grow less. His empty speech of what he believes,\nwill be a weariness and an affliction to the wise man. But do you wish\nhis empty speech of what he believes, to become farther an insincere\nspeech of what he does not believe? Celebrate to him his gift of speech;\nassure him that he shall rise in Parliament by means of it, and achieve\ngreat things without any performance; that eloquent speech, whether\nperformed or not, is admirable. My friends, eloquent unperformed speech,\nin Parliament or elsewhere, is horrible! The eloquent man that delivers,\nin Parliament or elsewhere, a beautiful speech, and will perform nothing\nof it, but leaves it as if already performed,--what can you make of that\nman? He has enrolled himself among the _Ignes Fatui_ and Children of\nthe Wind; means to serve, as beautifully illuminated Chinese Lantern,\nin that corps henceforth. I think, the serviceable thing you could do\nto that man, if permissible, would be a severe one: To clip off a bit\nof his eloquent tongue by way of penance and warning; another bit, if\nhe again spoke without performing; and so again, till you had clipt the\nwhole tongue away from him,--and were delivered, you and he, from at\nleast one miserable mockery: \"There, eloquent friend, see now in silence\nif there be any redeeming deed in thee; of blasphemous wind-eloquence,\nat least, we shall have no more!\" How many pretty men have gone this\nroad, escorted by the beautifulest marching music from all the \"public\norgans;\" and have found at last that it ended--where? It is the _broad_\nroad, that leads direct to Limbo and the Kingdom of the Inane. Gifted\nmen, and once valiant nations, and as it were the whole world with one\naccord, are marching thither, in melodious triumph, all the drums and\nhautboys giving out their cheerfulest _Ca-ira_. It is the universal\nhumor of the world just now. My friends, I am very sure you will\n_arrive_, unless you halt!--\n\n\nConsidered as the last finish of education, or of human culture, worth\nand acquirement, the art of speech is noble, and even divine; it is\nlike the kindling of a Heaven's light to show us what a glorious world\nexists, and has perfected itself, in a man. But if no world exist in the\nman; if nothing but continents of empty vapor, of greedy self-conceits,\ncommon-place hearsays, and indistinct loomings of a sordid _chaos_\nexist in him, what will be the use of \"light\" to show us that? Better\na thousand times that such a man do not speak; but keep his empty\nvapor and his sordid chaos to himself, hidden to the utmost from all\nbeholders. To look on that, can be good for no human beholder; to\nlook away from that, must be good. And if, by delusive semblances of\nrhetoric, logic, first-class degrees, and the aid of elocution-masters\nand parliamentary reporters, the poor proprietor of said chaos should\nbe led to persuade himself, and get others persuaded,--which it is the\nnature of his sad task to do, and which, in certain eras of the world,\nit is fatally possible to do,--that this is a cosmos which he owns; that\n_he_, being so perfect in tongue-exercise and full of college-honors,\nis an \"educated\" man, and pearl of great price in his generation; that\nround him, and his parliament emulously listening to him, as round some\ndivine apple of gold set in a picture of silver, all the world should\ngather to adore: what is likely to become of him and the gathering\nworld? An apple of Sodom set in the clusters of Gomorrah: that, little\nas he suspects it, is the definition of the poor chaotically\neloquent man, with his emulous parliament and miserable adoring\nworld!--Considered as the whole of education, or human culture, which\nit now is in our modern manners; all apprenticeship except to mere\nhandicraft having fallen obsolete, and the \"educated man\" being with us\nemphatically and exclusively the man that can speak well with tongue\nor pen, and astonish men by the quantities of speech he has _heard_\n(\"tremendous _reader_,\" \"walking encyclopaedia,\" and such like),--the\nArt of Speech is probably definable in that case as the short summary of\nall the Black Arts put together.\n\n\nBut the Schoolmaster is secondary, an effect rather than a cause in\nthis matter: what the Schoolmaster with his universities shall manage\nor attempt to teach will be ruled by what the Society with its practical\nindustries is continually demanding that men should learn. We spoke once\nof vital lungs for Society: and in fact this question always rises as\nthe alpha and omega of social questions, What methods the Society has of\nsummoning aloft into the high places, for its help and governance, the\nwisdom that is born to it in all places, and of course is born chiefly\nin the more populous or lower places? For this, if you will consider it,\nexpresses the ultimate available result, and net sum-total, of all the\nefforts, struggles and confused activities that go on in the Society;\nand determines whether they are true and wise efforts, certain to be\nvictorious, or false and foolish, certain to be futile, and to fall\ncaptive and caitiff. How do men rise in your Society? In all Societies,\nTurkey included, and I suppose Dahomey included, men do rise; but the\nquestion of questions always is, What kind of men? Men of noble gifts,\nor men of ignoble? It is the one or the other; and a life-and-death\ninquiry which! For in all places and all times, little as you may heed\nit, Nature most silently but most inexorably demands that it be the one\nand not the other. And you need not try to palm an ignoble sham upon\nher, and call it noble; for she is a judge. And her penalties, as quiet\nas she looks, are terrible: amounting to world-earthquakes, to anarchy\nand death everlasting; and admit of no appeal!--\n\nSurely England still flatters herself that she has lungs; that she can\nstill breathe a little? Or is it that the poor creature, driven into\nmere blind industrialisms; and as it were, gone pearl-diving this long\nwhile many fathoms deep, and tearing up the oyster-beds so as never\ncreature did before, hardly knows,--so busy in the belly of the oyster\nchaos, where is no thought of \"breathing,\"--whether she has lungs or\nnot? Nations of a robust habit, and fine deep chest, can sometimes take\nin a deal of breath _before_ diving; and live long, in the muddy deeps,\nwithout new breath: but they too come to need it at last, and will die\nif they cannot get it!\n\nTo the gifted soul that is born in England, what is the career, then,\nthat will carry him, amid noble Olympic dust, up to the immortal gods?\nFor his country's sake, that it may not lose the service he was born\ncapable of doing it; for his own sake, that his life be not choked and\nperverted, and his light from Heaven be not changed into lightning\nfrom the Other Place,--it is essential that there be such a career. The\ncountry that can offer no career in that case, is a doomed country; nay\nit is already a dead country: it has secured the ban of Heaven upon it;\nwill not have Heaven's light, will have the Other Place's lightning; and\nmay consider itself as appointed to expire, in frightful coughings of\nstreet musketry or otherwise, on a set day, and to be in the eye of law\ndead. In no country is there not some career, inviting to it either the\nnoble Hero, or the tough Greek of the Lower Empire: which of the two do\nyour careers invite? There is no question more important. The kind of\ncareers you offer in countries still living, determines with perfect\nexactness the kind of the life that is in them,--whether it is natural\nblessed life, or galvanic accursed ditto, and likewise what degree of\nstrength is in the same.\n\nOur English careers to born genius are twofold. There is the silent or\nunlearned career of the Industrialisms, which are very many among us;\nand there is the articulate or learned career of the three professions,\nMedicine, Law (under which we may include Politics), and the Church.\nYour born genius, therefore, will first have to ask himself, Whether he\ncan hold his tongue or cannot? True, all human talent, especially all\ndeep talent, is a talent to _do_, and is intrinsically of silent nature;\ninaudible, like the Sphere Harmonies and Eternal Melodies, of which it\nis an incarnated fraction. All real talent, I fancy, would much rather,\nif it listened only to Nature's monitions, express itself in rhythmic\nfacts than in melodious words, which latter at best, where they are good\nfor anything, are only a feeble echo and shadow or foreshadow of the\nformer. But talents differ much in this of power to be silent; and\ncircumstances, of position, opportunity and such like, modify them\nstill more;--and Nature's monitions, oftenest quite drowned in foreign\nhearsays, are by no means the only ones listened to in deciding!--The\nIndustrialisms are all of silent nature; and some of them are heroic\nand eminently human; others, again, we may call unheroic, not eminently\nhuman: _beaverish_ rather, but still honest; some are even _vulpine_,\naltogether inhuman and dishonest. Your born genius must make his choice.\n\nIf a soul is born with divine intelligence, and has its lips touched\nwith hallowed fire, in consecration for high enterprises under the sun,\nthis young soul will find the question asked of him by England every\nhour and moment: \"Canst thou turn thy human intelligence into the beaver\nsort, and make honest contrivance, and accumulation of capital by it? If\nso, do it; and avoid the vulpine kind, which I don't recommend. Honest\ntriumphs in engineering and machinery await thee; scrip awaits\nthee, commercial successes, kingship in the counting-room, on the\nstock-exchange;--thou shalt be the envy of surrounding flunkies, and\ncollect into a heap more gold than a dray-horse can draw.\"--\"Gold, so\nmuch gold?\" answers the ingenuous soul, with visions of the envy of\nsurrounding flunkies dawning on him; and in very many cases decides that\nhe will contract himself into beaverism, and with such a horse-draught\nof gold, emblem of a never-imagined success in beaver heroism, strike\nthe surrounding flunkies yellow.\n\nThis is our common course; this is in some sort open to every creature,\nwhat we call the beaver career; perhaps more open in England, taking in\nAmerica too, than it ever was in any country before. And, truly, good\nconsequences follow out of it: who can be blind to them? Half of a most\nexcellent and opulent result is realized to us in this way; baleful\nonly when it sets up (as too often now) for being the whole result. A\nhalf-result which will be blessed and heavenly so soon as the other half\nis had,--namely wisdom to guide the first half. Let us honor all honest\nhuman power of contrivance in its degree. The beaver intellect, so\nlong as it steadfastly refuses to be vulpine, and answers the tempter\npointing out short routes to it with an honest \"No, no,\" is truly\nrespectable to me; and many a highflying speaker and singer whom I have\nknown, has appeared to me much less of a developed man than certain\nof my mill-owning, agricultural, commercial, mechanical, or otherwise\nindustrial friends, who have held their peace all their days and gone on\nin the silent state. If a man can keep his intellect silent, and make it\neven into honest beaverism, several very manful moralities, in danger\nof wreck on other courses, may comport well with that, and give it a\ngenuine and partly human character; and I will tell him, in these days\nhe may do far worse with himself and his intellect than change it into\nbeaverism, and make honest money with it. If indeed he could become a\n_heroic_ industrial, and have a life \"eminently human\"! But that is not\neasy at present. Probably some ninety-nine out of every hundred of our\ngifted souls, who have to seek a career for themselves, go this\nbeaver road. Whereby the first half-result, national wealth namely, is\nplentifully realized; and only the second half, or wisdom to guide it,\nis dreadfully behindhand.\n\nBut now if the gifted soul be not of taciturn nature, be of vivid,\nimpatient, rapidly productive nature, and aspire much to give itself\nsensible utterance,--I find that, in this case, the field it has in\nEngland is narrow to an extreme; is perhaps narrower than ever offered\nitself, for the like object, in this world before. Parliament, Church,\nLaw: let the young vivid soul turn whither he will for a career, he\nfinds among variable conditions one condition invariable, and extremely\nsurprising, That the proof of excellence is to be done by the tongue.\nFor heroism that will not speak, but only act, there is no account\nkept:--The English Nation does not need that silent kind, then, but only\nthe talking kind? Most astonishing. Of all the organs a man has, there\nis none held in account, it would appear, but the tongue he uses\nfor talking. Premiership, woolsack, mitre, and quasi-crown: all is\nattainable if you can talk with due ability. Everywhere your proof-shot\nis to be a well-fired volley of talk. Contrive to talk well, you will\nget to Heaven, the modern Heaven of the English. Do not talk well, only\nwork well, and heroically hold your peace, you have no chance whatever\nto get thither; with your utmost industry you may get to Threadneedle\nStreet, and accumulate more gold than a dray-horse can draw. Is not this\na very wonderful arrangement?\n\nI have heard of races done by mortals tied in sacks; of human\ncompetitors, high aspirants, climbing heavenward on the soaped pole;\nseizing the soaped pig; and clutching with cleft fist, at full gallop,\nthe fated goose tied aloft by its foot;--which feats do prove agility,\ntoughness and other useful faculties in man: but this of dexterous talk\nis probably as strange a competition as any. And the question rises,\nWhether certain of these other feats, or perhaps an alternation of all\nof them, relieved now and then by a bout of grinning through the collar,\nmight not be profitably substituted for the solitary proof-feat of talk,\nnow getting rather monotonous by its long continuance? Alas, Mr. Bull,\nI do find it is all little other than a proof of toughness, which is a\nquality I respect, with more or less expenditure of falsity and\nastucity superadded, which I entirely condemn. Toughness _plus_\nastucity:--perhaps a simple wooden mast set up in Palace-Yard, well\nsoaped and duly presided over, might be the honester method? Such a\nmethod as this by trial of talk, for filling your chief offices in\nChurch and State, was perhaps never heard of in the solar system\nbefore. You are quite used to it, my poor friend; and nearly dead by the\nconsequences of it: but in the other Planets, as in other epochs of your\nown Planet it would have done had you proposed it, the thing awakens\nincredulous amazement, world-wide Olympic laughter, which ends in\ntempestuous hootings, in tears and horror! My friend, if you can, as\nheretofore this good while, find nobody to take care of your affairs\nbut the expertest talker, it is all over with your affairs and you. Talk\nnever yet could guide any man's or nation's affairs; nor will it yours,\nexcept towards the _Limbus Patrum_, where all talk, except a very select\nkind of it, lodges at last.\n\n\nMedicine, guarded too by preliminary impediments, and frightful\nmedusa-heads of quackery, which deter many generous souls from entering,\nis of the _half_-articulate professions, and does not much invite the\nardent kinds of ambition. The intellect required for medicine might be\nwholly human, and indeed should by all rules be,--the profession of the\nHuman Healer being radically a sacred one and connected with the\nhighest priesthoods, or rather being itself the outcome and acme of all\npriesthoods, and divinest conquests of intellect here below. As will\nappear one day, when men take off their old monastic and ecclesiastic\nspectacles, and look with eyes again! In essence the Physician's task\nis always heroic, eminently human: but in practice most unluckily at\npresent we find it too become in good part _beaverish_; yielding a\nmoney-result alone. And what of it is not beaverish,--does not that too\ngo mainly to ingenious talking, publishing of yourself, ingratiating\nof yourself; a partly human exercise or waste of intellect, and alas a\npartly vulpine ditto;--making the once sacred [Gr.] _'Iatros_, or Human\nHealer, more impossible for us than ever!\n\nAngry basilisks watch at the gates of Law and Church just now; and\nstrike a sad damp into the nobler of the young aspirants. Hard bonds\nare offered you to sign; as it were, a solemn engagement to constitute\nyourself an impostor, before ever entering; to declare your belief\nin incredibilities,--your determination, in short, to take Chaos for\nCosmos, and Satan for the Lord of things, if he come with money in his\npockets, and horsehair and bombazine decently wrapt about him. Fatal\npreliminaries, which deter many an ingenuous young soul, and send him\nback from the threshold, and I hope will deter ever more. But if you do\nenter, the condition is well known: \"Talk; who can talk best here? His\nshall be the mouth of gold, and the purse of gold; and with my [Gr.]\n_mitra_ (once the head-dress of unfortunate females, I am told) shall\nhis sacred temples be begirt.\"\n\nIngenuous souls, unless forced to it, do now much shudder at the\nthreshold of both these careers, and not a few desperately turn back\ninto the wilderness rather, to front a very rude fortune, and be\ndevoured by wild beasts as is likeliest. But as to Parliament, again,\nand its eligibility if attainable, there is yet no question anywhere;\nthe ingenuous soul, if possessed of money-capital enough, is predestined\nby the parental and all manner of monitors to that career of talk; and\naccepts it with alacrity and clearness of heart, doubtful only whether\nhe shall be _able_ to make a speech. Courage, my brave young fellow. If\nyou can climb a soaped pole of any kind, you will certainly be able to\nmake a speech. All mortals have a tongue; and carry on some jumble,\nif not of thought, yet of stuff which they could talk. The weakest of\nanimals has got a cry in it, and can give voice before dying. If you are\ntough enough, bent upon it desperately enough, I engage you shall make\na speech;--but whether that will be the way to Heaven for you, I do not\nengage.\n\nThese, then, are our two careers for genius: mute Industrialism, which\ncan seldom become very human, but remains beaverish mainly: and the\nthree Professions named learned,--that is to say, able to talk. For the\nheroic or higher kinds of human intellect, in the silent state, there is\nnot the smallest inquiry anywhere; apparently a thing not wanted in this\ncountry at present. What the supply may be, I cannot inform M'Croudy;\nbut the market-demand, he may himself see, is _nil_. These are our three\nprofessions that require human intellect in part or whole, not able to\ndo with mere beaverish; and such a part does the gift of talk play in\none and all of them. Whatsoever is not beaverish seems to go forth\nin the shape of talk. To such length is human intellect wasted or\nsuppressed in this world!\n\nIf the young aspirant is not rich enough for Parliament, and is deterred\nby the basilisks or otherwise from entering on Law or Church, and cannot\naltogether reduce his human intellect to the beaverish condition, or\nsatisfy himself with the prospect of making money,--what becomes of\nhim in such case, which is naturally the case of very many, and ever\nof more? In such case there remains but one outlet for him, and notably\nenough that too is a talking one: the outlet of Literature, of trying\nto write Books. Since, owing to preliminary basilisks, want of cash, or\nsuperiority to cash, he cannot mount aloft by eloquent talking, let\nhim try it by dexterous eloquent writing. Here happily, having three\nfingers, and capital to buy a quire of paper, he can try it to all\nlengths and in spite of all mortals: in this career there is happily\nno public impediment that can turn him back; nothing but private\nstarvation--which is itself a _finis_ or kind of goal--can pretend to\nhinder a British man from prosecuting Literature to the very utmost, and\nwringing the final secret from her: \"A talent is in thee; No talent is\nin thee.\" To the British subject who fancies genius may be lodged in\nhim, this liberty remains; and truly it is, if well computed, almost the\nonly one he has.\n\nA crowded portal this of Literature, accordingly! The haven of\nexpatriated spiritualisms, and alas also of expatriated vanities and\nprurient imbecilities: here do the windy aspirations, foiled activities,\nfoolish ambitions, and frustrate human energies reduced to the vocable\ncondition, fly as to the one refuge left; and the Republic of Letters\nincreases in population at a faster rate than even the Republic of\nAmerica. The strangest regiment in her Majesty's service, this of the\nSoldiers of Literature:--would your Lordship much like to march through\nCoventry with them? The immortal gods are there (quite irrecognizable\nunder these disguises), and also the lowest broken valets;--an extremely\nmiscellaneous regiment. In fact the regiment, superficially viewed,\nlooks like an immeasurable motley flood of discharged play-actors,\nfunambulists, false prophets, drunken ballad-singers; and marches not\nas a regiment, but as a boundless canaille,--without drill, uniform,\ncaptaincy or billet; with huge over-proportion of drummers; you would\nsay, a regiment gone wholly to the drum, with hardly a good musket to\nbe seen in it,--more a canaille than a regiment. Canaille of all the\nloud-sounding levities, and general winnowings of Chaos, marching\nthrough the world in a most ominous manner; proclaiming, audibly if\nyou have ears: \"Twelfth hour of the Night; ancient graves yawning; pale\nclammy Puseyisms screeching in their winding-sheets; owls busy in the\nCity regions; many goblins abroad! Awake ye living; dream no more; arise\nto judgment! Chaos and Gehenna are broken loose; the Devil with his\nBedlams must be flung in chains again, and the Last of the Days is about\nto dawn!\" Such is Literature to the reflective soul at this moment.\n\nBut what now concerns us most is the circumstance that here too the\ndemand is, Vocables, still vocables. In all appointed courses of\nactivity and paved careers for human genius, and in this unpaved,\nunappointed, broadest career of Literature, broad way that leadeth to\ndestruction for so many, the one duty laid upon you is still, Talk,\ntalk. Talk well with pen or tongue, and it shall be well with you;\ndo not talk well, it shall be ill with you. To wag the tongue with\ndexterous acceptability, there is for human worth and faculty, in our\nEngland of the Nineteenth Century, that one method of emergence and no\nother. Silence, you would say, means annihilation for the Englishman of\nthe Nineteenth Century. The worth that has not spoken itself, is not;\nor is potentially only, and as if it were not. Vox is the God of this\nUniverse. If you have human intellect, it avails nothing unless you\neither make it into beaverism, or talk with it. Make it into beaverism,\nand gather money; or else make talk with it, and gather what you can.\nSuch is everywhere the demand for talk among us: to which, of course,\nthe supply is proportionate.\n\nFrom dinners up to woolsacks and divine mitres, here in England, much\nmay be gathered by talk; without talk, of the human sort nothing. Is\nSociety become wholly a bag of wind, then, ballasted by guineas? Are our\ninterests in it as a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal?--In Army or\nNavy, when unhappily we have war on hand, there is, almost against our\nwill, some kind of demand for certain of the silent talents. But in\npeace, that too passes into mere demand of the ostentations, of the\npipeclays and the blank cartridges; and,--except that Naval men are\noccasionally, on long voyages, forced to hold their tongue, and converse\nwith the dumb elements, and illimitable oceans, that moan and rave there\nwithout you and within you, which is a great advantage to the Naval\nman,--our poor United Services have to make conversational windbags and\nostentational paper-lanterns of themselves, or do worse, even as the\nothers.\n\n\nMy friends, must I assert, then, what surely all men know, though all\nmen seem to have forgotten it, That in the learned professions as in the\nunlearned, and in human things throughout, in every place and in every\ntime, the true function of intellect is not that of talking, but of\nunderstanding and discerning with a view to performing! An intellect may\neasily talk too much, and perform too little. Gradually, if it get into\nthe noxious habit of talk, there will less and less performance come\nof it, talk being so delightfully handy in comparison with work; and\nat last there will no work, or thought of work, be got from it at\nall. Talk, except as the preparation for work, is worth almost\nnothing;--sometimes it is worth infinitely less than nothing; and\nbecomes, little conscious of playing such a fatal part, the general\nsummary of pretentious nothingnesses, and the chief of all the curses\nthe Posterity of Adam are liable to in this sublunary world! Would you\ndiscover the Atropos of Human Virtue; the sure Destroyer, \"by painless\nextinction,\" of Human Veracities, Performances, and Capabilities to\nperform or to be veracious,--it is this, you have it here.\n\nUnwise talk is matchless in unwisdom. Unwise work, if it but persist, is\neverywhere struggling towards correction, and restoration to health;\nfor it is still in contact with Nature, and all Nature incessantly\ncontradicts it, and will heal it or annihilate it: not so with unwise\ntalk, which addresses itself, regardless of veridical Nature, to the\nuniversal suffrages; and can if it be dexterous, find harbor there\ntill all the suffrages are bankrupt and gone to Houndsditch, Nature not\ninterfering with her protest till then. False speech, definable as the\nacme of unwise speech, is capable, as we already said, of becoming the\nfalsest of all things. Falsest of all things:--and whither will the\ngeneral deluge of that, in Parliament and Synagogue, in Book and\nBroadside, carry you and your affairs, my friend, when once they are\nembarked on it as now?\n\n\nParliament, _Parliamentum_, is by express appointment the Talking\nApparatus; yet not in Parliament either is the essential function, by\nany means, talk. Not to speak your opinion well, but to have a good and\njust opinion worth speaking,--for every Parliament, as for every man,\nthis latter is the point. Contrive to have a true opinion, you will get\nit told in some way, better or worse; and it will be a blessing to all\ncreatures. Have a false opinion, and tell it with the tongue of Angels,\nwhat can that profit? The better you tell it, the worse it will be!\n\nIn Parliament and out of Parliament, and everywhere in this Universe,\nyour one salvation is, That you can discern with just insight, and\nfollow with noble valor, what the law of the case before you is, what\nthe appointment of the Maker in regard to it has been. Get this out\nof one man, you are saved; fail to get this out of the most August\nParliament wrapt in the sheepskins of a thousand years, you are\nlost,--your Parliament, and you, and all your sheepskins are lost.\nBeautiful talk is by no means the most pressing want in Parliament! We\nhave had some reasonable modicum of talk in Parliament! What talk has\ndone for us in Parliament, and is now doing, the dullest of us at length\nbegins to see!\n\nMuch has been said of Parliament's breeding men to business; of the\ntraining an Official Man gets in this school of argument and talk. He is\nhere inured to patience, tolerance; sees what is what in the Nation and\nin the Nation's Government attains official knowledge, official\ncourtesy and manners--in short, is polished at all points into official\narticulation, and here better than elsewhere qualifies himself to be\na Governor of men. So it is said.--Doubtless, I think, he will see and\nsuffer much in Parliament, and inure himself to several things;--he\nwill, with what eyes he has, gradually _see_ Parliament itself, for one\nthing; what a high-soaring, helplessly floundering, ever-babbling yet\ninarticulate dark dumb Entity it is (certainly one of the strangest\nunder the sun just now): which doubtless, if he have in view to get\nmeasures voted there one day, will be an important acquisition for him.\nBut as to breeding himself for a Doer of Work, much more for a King, or\nChief of Doers, here in this element of talk; as to that I confess\nthe fatalest doubts, or rather, alas, I have no doubt! Alas, it is\nour fatalest misery just now, not easily alterable, and yet urgently\nrequiring to be altered, That no British man can attain to be a\nStatesman, or Chief of _Workers_, till he has first proved himself\na Chief of _Talkers_: which mode of trial for a Worker, is it not\nprecisely, of all the trials you could set him upon, the falsest and\nunfairest?\n\nNay, I doubt much you are not likely ever to meet the fittest material\nfor a Statesman, or Chief of Workers, in such an element as that. Your\nPotential Chief of Workers, will he come there at all, to try whether he\ncan talk? Your poor tenpound franchisers and electoral world generally,\nin love with eloquent talk, are they the likeliest to discern what man\nit is that has worlds of silent work in him? No. Or is such a man, even\nif born in the due rank for it, the likeliest to present himself, and\ncourt their most sweet voices? Again, no.\n\nThe Age that admires talk so much can have little discernment for\ninarticulate work, or for anything that is deep and genuine. Nobody, or\nhardly anybody, having in himself an earnest sense for truth, how can\nanybody recognize an inarticulate Veracity, or Nature-fact of any\nkind; a Human _Doer_ especially, who is the most complex, profound, and\ninarticulate of all Nature's Facts? Nobody can recognize him: till once\nhe is patented, get some public stamp of authenticity, and has been\narticulately proclaimed, and asserted to be a Doer. To the worshipper of\ntalk, such a one is a sealed book. An excellent human soul, direct from\nHeaven,--how shall any excellence of man become recognizable to\nthis unfortunate? Not except by announcing and placarding itself as\nexcellent,--which, I reckon, it above other things will probably be in\nno great haste to do.\n\nWisdom, the divine message which every soul of man brings into this\nworld; the divine prophecy of what the new man has got the new and\npeculiar capability to do, is intrinsically of silent nature. It cannot\nat once, or completely at all, be read off in words; for it is written\nin abstruse facts, of endowment, position, desire, opportunity, granted\nto the man;--interprets itself in presentiments, vague struggles,\npassionate endeavors and is only legible in whole when his work is\n_done_. Not by the noble monitions of Nature, but by the ignoble, is a\nman much tempted to publish the secret of his soul in words. Words, if\nhe have a secret, will be forever inadequate to it. Words do but disturb\nthe real answer of fact which could be given to it; disturb, obstruct,\nand will in the end abolish, and render impossible, said answer. No\ngrand Doer in this world can be a copious speaker about his doings.\nWilliam the Silent spoke himself best in a country liberated; Oliver\nCromwell did not shine in rhetoric; Goethe, when he had but a book in\nview, found that he must say nothing even of that, if it was to succeed\nwith him.\n\nThen as to politeness, and breeding to business. An official man must be\nbred to business; of course he must: and not for essence only, but even\nfor the manners of office he requires breeding. Besides his intrinsic\nfaculty, whatever that may be, he must be cautious, vigilant,\ndiscreet,--above all things, he must be reticent, patient, polite.\nCertain of these qualities are by nature imposed upon men of station;\nand they are trained from birth to some exercise of them: this\nconstitutes their one intrinsic qualification for office;--this is their\none advantage in the New Downing Street projected for this New Era; and\nit will not go for much in that Institution. One advantage, or temporary\nadvantage; against which there are so many counterbalances. It is the\nindispensable preliminary for office, but by no means the complete\noutfit,--a miserable outfit where there is nothing farther.\n\nWill your Lordship give me leave to say that, practically, the intrinsic\nqualities will presuppose these preliminaries too, but by no means _vice\nversa_. That, on the whole, if you have got the intrinsic qualities, you\nhave got everything, and the preliminaries will prove attainable; but\nthat if you have got only the preliminaries, you have yet got nothing.\nA man of real dignity will not find it impossible to bear himself in a\ndignified manner; a man of real understanding and insight will get\nto know, as the fruit of his very first study, what the laws of his\nsituation are, and will conform to these. Rough old Samuel Johnson,\nblustering Boreas and rugged Arctic Bear as he often was, defined\nhimself, justly withal, as a polite man: a noble manful attitude of soul\nis his; a clear, true and loyal sense of what others are, and what he\nhimself is, shines through the rugged coating of him; comes out as\ngrave deep rhythmus when his King honors him, and he will not \"bandy\ncompliments with his King;\"--is traceable too in his indignant trampling\ndown of the Chesterfield patronages, tailor-made insolences, and\ncontradictions of sinners; which may be called his _revolutionary_\nmovements, hard and peremptory by the law of them; these could not be\nsoft like his _constitutional_ ones, when men and kings took him for\nsomewhat like the thing he was. Given a noble man, I think your Lordship\nmay expect by and by a polite man. No \"politer\" man was to be found in\nBritain than the rustic Robert Burns: high duchesses were captivated\nwith the chivalrous ways of the man; recognized that here was the true\nchivalry, and divine nobleness of bearing,--as indeed they well might,\nnow when the Peasant God and Norse Thor had come down among them again!\nChivalry this, if not as they do chivalry in Drury Lane or West-End\ndrawing-rooms, yet as they do it in Valhalla and the General Assembly of\nthe Gods.\n\nFor indeed, who _invented_ chivalry, politeness, or anything that is\nnoble and melodious and beautiful among us, except precisely the like\nof Johnson and of Burns? The select few who in the generations of\nthis world were wise and valiant, they, in spite of all the tremendous\nmajority of blockheads and slothful belly-worshippers, and noisy ugly\npersons, have devised whatsoever is noble in the manners of man to man.\nI expect they will learn to be polite, your Lordship, when you give them\na chance!--Nor is it as a school of human culture, for this or for\nany other grace or gift, that Parliament will be found first-rate\nor indispensable. As experience in the river is indispensable to the\nferryman, so is knowledge of his Parliament to the British Peel or\nChatham;--so was knowledge of the OEil-de-Boeuf to the French Choiseul.\nWhere and how said river, whether Parliament with Wilkeses, or\nOEil-de-Boeuf with Pompadours, can be waded, boated, swum; how the\nmiscellaneous cargoes, \"measures\" so called, can be got across it,\naccording to their kinds, and landed alive on the hither side as\nfacts:--we have all of us our _ferries_ in this world; and must know the\nriver and its ways, or get drowned some day! In that sense, practice\nin Parliament is indispensable to the British Statesman; but not in any\nother sense.\n\nA school, too, of manners and of several other things, the Parliament\nwill doubtless be to the aspirant Statesman; a school better or\nworse;--as the OEil-de-Boeuf likewise was, and as all scenes where men\nwork or live are sure to be. Especially where many men work together,\nthe very rubbing against one another will grind and polish off their\nangularities into roundness, into \"politeness\" after a sort; and the\nofficial man, place him how you may, will never want for schooling,\nof extremely various kinds. A first-rate school one cannot call this\nParliament for him;--I fear to say what rate at present! In so far as it\nteaches him vigilance, patience, courage, toughness of lungs or of soul,\nand skill in any kind of swimming, it is a good school. In so far as it\nforces him to speak where Nature orders silence; and even, lest all the\nworld should learn his secret (which often enough would kill his secret,\nand little profit the world), forces him to speak falsities, vague\nambiguities, and the froth-dialect usual in Parliaments in these times,\nit may be considered one of the worst schools ever devised by man; and,\nI think, may almost challenge the OEil-de-Boeuf to match it in badness.\n\nParliament will train your men to the manners required of a statesman;\nbut in a much less degree to the intrinsic functions of one. To these\nlatter, it is capable of mistraining as nothing else can. Parliament\nwill train you to talk; and above all things to hear, with patience,\nunlimited quantities of foolish talk. To tell a good story for yourself,\nand to make it _appear_ that you have done your work: this, especially\nin constitutional countries, is something;--and yet in all countries,\nconstitutional ones too, it is intrinsically nothing, probably even\nless. For it is not the function of any mortal, in Downing Street or\nelsewhere here below, to wag the tongue of him, and make it appear that\nhe has done work; but to wag some quite other organs of him, and to\ndo work; there is no danger of his work's appearing by and by. Such an\naccomplishment, even in constitutional countries, I grieve to say, may\nbecome much less than nothing. Have you at all computed how much less?\nThe human creature who has once given way to satisfying himself with\n\"appearances,\" to seeking his salvation in \"appearances,\" the moral life\nof such human creature is rapidly bleeding out of him. Depend upon it,\nBeelzebub, Satan, or however you may name the too authentic Genius of\nEternal Death, has got that human creature in his claws. By and by you\nwill have a dead parliamentary bagpipe, and your living man fled away\nwithout return!\n\nSuch parliamentary bagpipes I myself have heard play tunes, much to the\nsatisfaction of the people. Every tune lies within their compass; and\ntheir mind (for they still call it _mind_) is ready as a hurdy-gurdy\non turning of the handle: \"My Lords, this question now before the\nHouse\"--Ye Heavens, O ye divine Silences, was there in the womb of\nChaos, then, such a product, liable to be evoked by human art, as that\nsame? While the galleries were all applausive of heart, and the Fourth\nEstate looked with eyes enlightened, as if you had touched its lips with\na staff dipped in honey,--I have sat with reflections too ghastly to\nbe uttered. A poor human creature and learned friend, once possessed of\nmany fine gifts, possessed of intellect, veracity, and manful conviction\non a variety of objects, has he now lost all that;--converted all that\ninto a glistering phosphorescence which can show itself on the outside;\nwhile within, all is dead, chaotic, dark; a painted sepulchre full of\ndead-men's bones! Discernment, knowledge, intellect, in the human sense\nof the words, this man has now none. His opinion you do not ask on any\nmatter: on the _matter_ he has no opinion, judgment, or insight; only\non what may be said about the matter, how it may be argued of, what tune\nmay be played upon it to enlighten the eyes of the Fourth Estate.\n\nSuch a soul, though to the eye he still keeps tumbling about in the\nParliamentary element, and makes \"motions,\" and passes bills, for aught\nI know,--are we to define him as a _living_ one, or as a dead? Partridge\nthe Almanac-Maker, whose \"Publications\" still regularly appear, is known\nto be dead! The dog that was drowned last summer, and that floats up and\ndown the Thames with ebb and flood ever since,--is it not dead? Alas,\nin the hot months, you meet here and there such a floating dog; and at\nlength, if you often use the river steamers, get to know him by sight.\n\"There he is again, still astir there in his quasi-stygian element!\"\nyou dejectedly exclaim (perhaps reading your Morning Newspaper at the\nmoment); and reflect, with a painful oppression of nose and imagination,\non certain completed professors of parliamentary eloquence in modern\ntimes. Dead long since, but _not_ resting; daily doing motions in that\nWestminster region still,--daily from Vauxhall to Blackfriars, and\nback again; and cannot get away at all! Daily (from Newspaper or river\nsteamer) you may see him at some point of his fated course, hovering in\nthe eddies, stranded in the ooze, or rapidly progressing with flood or\nebb; and daily the odor of him is getting more intolerable: daily the\ncondition of him appeals more tragically to gods and men.\n\n\nNature admits no lie; most men profess to be aware of this, but few in\nany measure lay it to heart. Except in the departments of mere material\nmanipulation, it seems to be taken practically as if this grand truth\nwere merely a polite flourish of rhetoric. What is a lie? The question\nis worth asking, once and away, by the practical English mind.\n\nA voluntary spoken divergence from the fact as it stands, as it has\noccurred and will proceed to develop itself: this clearly, if adopted by\nany man, will so far forth mislead him in all practical dealing with\nthe fact; till he cast that statement out of him, and reject it as an\nunclean poisonous thing, he can have no success in dealing with the\nfact. If such spoken divergence from the truth be involuntary, we lament\nit as a misfortune; and are entitled, at least the speaker of it is,\nto lament it extremely as the most palpable of all misfortunes, as the\nindubitablest losing of his way, and turning aside from the goal instead\nof pressing towards it, in the race set before him. If the divergence is\nvoluntary,--there superadds itself to our sorrow a just indignation: we\ncall the voluntary spoken divergence a lie, and justly abhor it as the\nessence of human treason and baseness, the desertion of a man to the\nEnemy of men against himself and his brethren. A lost deserter; who has\ngone over to the Enemy, called Satan; and cannot _but_ be lost in the\nadventure! Such is every liar with the tongue; and such in all nations\nis he, at all epochs, considered. Men pull his nose, and kick him out\nof doors; and by peremptory expressive methods signify that they can and\nwill have no trade with him. Such is spoken divergence from the fact; so\nfares it with the practiser of that sad art.\n\nBut have we well considered a divergence _in thought_ from what is the\nfact? Have we considered the man whose very thought is a lie to him and\nto us! He too is a frightful man; repeating about this Universe on every\nhand what is not, and driven to repeat it; the sure herald of ruin to\nall that follow him, that know with _his_ knowledge! And would you learn\nhow to get a mendacious thought, there is no surer recipe than carrying\na loose tongue. The lying thought, you already either have it, or will\nsoon get it by that method. He who lies with his very tongue, _he_\nclearly enough has long ceased to think truly in his mind. Does he, in\nany sense, \"think\"? All his thoughts and imaginations, if they\nextend beyond mere beaverisms, astucities and sensualisms, are false,\nincomplete, perverse, untrue even to himself. He has become a false\nmirror of this Universe; not a small mirror only, but a crooked,\nbedimmed and utterly deranged one. But all loose tongues too are akin\nto lying ones; are insincere at the best, and go rattling with little\nmeaning; the thought lying languid at a great distance behind them, if\nthought there be behind them at all. Gradually there will be none or\nlittle! How can the thought of such a man, what he calls thought, be\nother than false?\n\nAlas, the palpable liar with his tongue does at least know that he is\nlying, and has or might have some faint vestige of remorse and chance\nof amendment; but the impalpable liar, whose tongue articulates mere\naccepted commonplaces, cants and babblement, which means only, \"Admire\nme, call me an excellent stump-orator!\"--of him what hope is there?\nHis thought, what thought he had, lies dormant, inspired only to invent\nvocables and plausibilities; while the tongue goes so glib, the thought\nis absent, gone a wool-gathering; getting itself drugged with the\napplausive \"Hear, hear!\"--what will become of such a man? His idle\nthought has run all to seed, and grown false and the giver of falsities;\nthe inner light of his mind is gone out; all his light is mere putridity\nand phosphorescence henceforth. Whosoever is in quest of ruin, let him\nwith assurance follow that man; he or no one is on the right road to it.\n\nGood Heavens, from the wisest Thought of a man to the actual truth of\na Thing as it lies in Nature, there is, one would suppose, a sufficient\ninterval! Consider it,--and what other intervals we introduce! The\nfaithfulest, most glowing word of a man is but an imperfect image of the\nthought, such as it is, that dwells within him; his best word will never\nbut with error convey his thought to other minds: and then between his\npoor thought and Nature's Fact, which is the Thought of the Eternal,\nthere may be supposed to lie some discrepancies, some shortcomings!\nSpeak your sincerest, think your wisest, there is still a great gulf\nbetween you and the fact. And now, do not speak your sincerest, and what\nwill inevitably follow out of that, do not think your wisest, but think\nonly your plausiblest, your showiest for parliamentary purposes, where\nwill you land with that guidance?--I invite the British Parliament, and\nall the Parliamentary and other Electors of Great Britain, to reflect\non this till they have well understood it; and then to ask, each of\nhimself, What probably the horoscopes of the British Parliament, at this\nepoch of World-History, may be?--\n\nFail, by any sin or any misfortune, to discover what the truth of the\nfact is, you are lost so far as that fact goes! If your thought do not\nimage truly but do image falsely the fact, you will vainly try to work\nupon the fact. The fact will not obey you, the fact will silently resist\nyou; and ever, with silent invincibility, will go on resisting you,\ntill you do get to image it truly instead of falsely. No help for you\nwhatever, except in attaining to a true image of the fact. Needless to\nvote a false image true; vote it, revote it by overwhelming majorities,\nby jubilant unanimities and universalities; read it thrice or three\nhundred times, pass acts of parliament upon it till the Statute-book can\nhold no more,--it helps not a whit: the thing is not so, the thing is\notherwise than so; and Adam's whole Posterity, voting daily on it till\nthe world finish, will not alter it a jot. Can the sublimest sanhedrim,\nconstitutional parliament, or other Collective Wisdom of the world,\npersuade fire not to burn, sulphuric acid to be sweet milk, or the Moon\nto become green cheese? The fact is much the reverse:--and even the\nConstitutional British Parliament abstains from such arduous attempts\nas these latter in the voting line; and leaves the multiplication-table,\nthe chemical, mechanical and other qualities of material substances\nto take their own course; being aware that voting and perorating, and\nreporting in Hansard, will not in the least alter any of these. Which is\nindisputably wise of the British Parliament.\n\nUnfortunately the British Parliament does not, at present, quite know\nthat all manner of things and relations of things, spiritual equally\nwith material, all manner of qualities, entities, existences whatsoever,\nin this strange visible and invisible Universe, are equally inflexible\nof nature; that, they will, one and all, with precisely the same\nobstinacy, continue to obey their own law, not our law; deaf as the\nadder to all charm of parliamentary eloquence, and of voting never so\noften repeated; silently, but inflexibly and forevermore, declining to\nchange themselves, even as sulphuric acid declines to become sweet milk,\nthough you vote so to the end of the world. This, it sometimes seems\nto me, is not quite sufficiently laid hold of by the British and other\nParliaments just at present. Which surely is a great misfortune to\nsaid Parliaments! For, it would appear, the grand point, after all\nconstitutional improvements, and such wagging of wigs in Westminster as\nthere has been, is precisely what it was before any constitution was yet\nheard of, or the first official wig had budded out of nothing: namely,\nto ascertain what the truth of your question, in Nature, really is!\nVerily so. In this time and place, as in all past and in all future\ntimes and places. To-day in St. Stephen's, where constitutional,\nphilanthropical, and other great things lie in the mortar-kit; even as\non the Plain of Shinar long ago, where a certain Tower, likewise of a\nvery philanthropic nature, indeed one of the desirablest towers I ever\nheard of, was to be built,--but couldn't! My friends, I do not laugh;\ntruly I am more inclined to weep.\n\nGet, by six hundred and fifty-eight votes, or by no vote at all, by\nthe silent intimation of your own eyesight and understanding given you\ndirect out of Heaven, and more sacred to you than anything earthly, and\nthan all things earthly,--a correct image of the fact in question, as\nGod and Nature have made it: that is the one thing needful; with that it\nshall be well with you in whatsoever you have to do with said fact. Get,\nby the sublimest constitutional methods, belauded by all the world, an\nincorrect image of the fact: so shall it be other than well with you; so\nshall you have laud from able editors and vociferous masses of mistaken\nhuman creatures; and from the Nature's Fact, continuing quite silently\nthe same as it was, contradiction, and that only. What else? Will Nature\nchange, or sulphuric acid become sweet milk, for the noise of vociferous\nblockheads? Surely not. Nature, I assure you, has not the smallest\nintention of doing so.\n\nOn the contrary, Nature keeps silently a most exact Savings-bank,\nand official register correct to the most evanescent item, Debtor and\nCreditor, in respect to one and all of us; silently marks down, Creditor\nby such and such an unseen act of veracity and heroism; Debtor to such\na loud blustery blunder, twenty-seven million strong or one unit strong,\nand to all acts and words and thoughts executed in consequence of\nthat,--Debtor, Debtor, Debtor, day after day, rigorously as Fate (for\nthis is Fate that is writing); and at the end of the account you\nwill have it all to pay, my friend; there is the rub! Not the\ninfinitesimalest fraction of a farthing but will be found marked there,\nfor you and against you; and with the due rate of interest you will have\nto pay it, neatly, completely, as sure as you are alive. You will have\nto pay it even in money if you live:--and, poor slave, do you think\nthere is no payment but in money? There is a payment which Nature\nrigorously exacts of men, and also of Nations, and this I think when\nher wrath is sternest, in the shape of dooming you to possess money. To\npossess it; to have your bloated vanities fostered into monstrosity\nby it, your foul passions blown into explosion by it, your heart and\nperhaps your very stomach ruined with intoxication by it; your poor life\nand all its manful activities stunned into frenzy and comatose sleep by\nit,--in one word, as the old Prophets said, your soul forever lost by\nit. Your soul; so that, through the Eternities, you shall have no\nsoul, or manful trace of ever having had a soul; but only, for certain\nfleeting moments, shall have had a money-bag, and have given soul and\nheart and (frightfuler still) stomach itself in fatal exchange for\nthe same. You wretched mortal, stumbling about in a God's Temple, and\nthinking it a brutal Cookery-shop! Nature, when her scorn of a slave is\ndivinest, and blazes like the blinding lightning against his slavehood,\noften enough flings him a bag of money, silently saying: \"That! Away;\nthy doom is that!\"--\n\nFor no man, and for no body or biggest multitude of men, has Nature\nfavor, if they part company with her facts and her. Excellent\nstump-orator; eloquent parliamentary dead-dog, making motions, passing\nbills; reported in the Morning Newspapers, and reputed the \"best speaker\ngoing\"? From the Universe of Fact he has turned himself away; he is gone\ninto partnership with the Universe of Phantasm; finds it profitablest\nto deal in forged notes, while the foolish shopkeepers will accept\nthem. Nature for such a man, and for Nations that follow such, has her\npatibulary forks, and prisons of death everlasting:--dost thou doubt\nit? Unhappy mortal, Nature otherwise were herself a Chaos and no Cosmos.\nNature was not made by an Impostor; not she, I think, rife as they\nare!--In fact, by money or otherwise, to the uttermost fraction of a\ncalculable and incalculable value, we have, each one of us, to settle\nthe exact balance in the above-said Savings-bank, or official register\nkept by Nature: Creditor by the quantity of veracities we have done,\nDebtor by the quantity of falsities and errors; there is not, by any\nconceivable device, the faintest hope of escape from that issue for one\nof us, nor for all of us.\n\nThis used to be a well-known fact; and daily still, in certain edifices,\nsteeple-houses, joss-houses, temples sacred or other, everywhere spread\nover the world, we hear some dim mumblement of an assertion that such is\nstill, what it was always and will forever be, the fact: but meseems\nit has terribly fallen out of memory nevertheless; and, from Dan to\nBeersheba, one in vain looks out for a man that really in his heart\nbelieves it. In his heart he believes, as we perceive, that scrip will\nyield dividends: but that Heaven too has an office of account, and\nunerringly marks down, against us or for us, whatsoever thing we do\nor say or think, and treasures up the same in regard to every\ncreature,--this I do not so well perceive that he believes. Poor\nblockhead, no: he reckons that all payment is in money, or approximately\nrepresentable by money; finds money go a strange course; disbelieves the\nparson and his Day of Judgment; discerns not that there is any judgment\nexcept in the small or big debt court; and lives (for the present) on\nthat strange footing in this Universe. The unhappy mortal, what is\nthe use of his \"civilizations\" and his \"useful knowledges,\" if he have\nforgotten that beginning of human knowledge; the earliest perception\nof the awakened human soul in this world; the first dictate of Heaven's\ninspiration to all men? I cannot account him a man any more; but only\na kind of human beaver, who has acquired the art of ciphering. He lives\nwithout rushing hourly towards suicide, because his soul, with all\nits noble aspirations and imaginations, is sunk at the bottom of his\nstomach, and lies torpid there, unaspiring, unimagining, unconsidering,\nas if it were the vital principle of a mere _four_-footed beaver. A soul\nof a man, appointed for spinning cotton and making money, or, alas,\nfor merely shooting grouse and gathering rent; to whom Eternity and\nImmortality, and all human Noblenesses and divine Facts that did not\ntell upon the stock-exchange, were meaningless fables, empty as the\ninarticulate wind. He will recover out of that persuasion one day, or be\nground to powder, I believe!--\n\nTo such a pass, by our beaverisms and our mammonisms; by canting of\n\"prevenient grace\" everywhere, and so boarding and lodging our poor\nsouls upon supervenient moonshine everywhere, for centuries long; by our\nsordid stupidities and our idle babblings; through faith in the divine\nStump-orator, and Constitutional Palaver, or august Sanhedrim of\nOrators,--have men and Nations been reduced, in this sad epoch! I\ncannot call them happy Nations; I must call them Nations like to perish;\nNations that will either begin to recover, or else soon die. Recovery is\nto be hoped;--yes, since there is in Nature an Almighty Beneficence, and\nHis voice, divinely terrible, can be heard in the world-whirlwind now,\neven as from of old and forevermore. Recovery, or else destruction and\nannihilation, is very certain; and the crisis, too, comes rapidly on:\nbut by Stump-Orator and Constitutional Palaver, however perfected, my\nhopes of _recovery_ have long vanished. Not by them, I should imagine,\nbut by something far the reverse of them, shall we return to truth and\nGod!--\n\nI tell you, the ignoble intellect cannot think the _truth_, even\nwithin its own limits, and when it seriously tries! And of the ignoble\nintellect that does not seriously try, and has even reached the\n\"ignobleness\" of seriously trying the reverse, and of lying with its\nvery tongue, what are we to expect? It is frightful to consider. Sincere\nwise speech is but an imperfect corollary, and insignificant outer\nmanifestation, of sincere wise thought. He whose very tongue utters\nfalsities, what has his heart long been doing? The thought of his heart\nis not its wisest, not even _its_ wisest; it is its foolishest;--and\neven of that we have a false and foolish copy. And it is Nature's Fact,\nor the Thought of the Eternal, which we want to arrive at in regard\nto the matter,--which if we do _not_ arrive at, we shall not save the\nmatter, we shall drive the matter into shipwreck!\n\nThe practice of modern Parliaments, with reporters sitting among them,\nand twenty-seven millions mostly fools listening to them, fills me with\namazement. In regard to no _thing_, or fact as God and Nature have made\nit, can you get so much as the real thought of any honorable head,--even\nso far as _it_, the said honorable head, still has capacity of thought.\nWhat the honorable gentleman's wisest thought is or would have been,\nhad he led from birth a life of piety and earnest veracity and heroic\nvirtue, you, and he himself poor deep-sunk creature, vainly conjecture\nas from immense dim distances far in the rear of what he is led to\n_say_. And again, far in the rear of what his thought is,--surely long\ninfinitudes beyond all _he_ could ever think,--lies the Thought of God\nAlmighty, the Image itself of the Fact, the thing you are in quest of,\nand must find or do worse! Even his, the honorable gentleman's, actual\nbewildered, falsified, vague surmise or quasi-thought, even this is not\ngiven you; but only some falsified copy of this, such as he fancies may\nsuit the reporters and twenty-seven millions mostly fools. And upon that\nlatter you are to act;--with what success, do you expect? That is the\nthought you are to take for the Thought of the Eternal Mind,--that\ndouble-distilled falsity of a blockheadism from one who is false even as\na blockhead!\n\nDo I make myself plain to Mr. Peter's understanding? Perhaps it will\nsurprise him less that parliamentary eloquence excites more wonder than\nadmiration in me; that the fate of countries governed by that sublime\nalchemy does not appear the hopefulest just now. Not by that method, I\nshould apprehend, will the Heavens be scaled and the Earth vanquished;\nnot by that, but by another.\n\n\nA benevolent man once proposed to me, but without pointing out the\nmethods how, this plan of reform for our benighted world: To cut from\none generation, whether the current one or the next, all the tongues\naway, prohibiting Literature too; and appoint at least one generation to\npass its life in silence. \"There, thou one blessed generation, from the\nvain jargon of babble thou art beneficently freed. Whatsoever of truth,\ntraditionary or original, thy own god-given intellect shall point out to\nthee as true, that thou wilt go and do. In doing of it there will be a\nverdict for thee; if a verdict of True, thou wilt hold by it, and ever\nagain do it; if of Untrue, thou wilt never try it more, but be eternally\ndelivered from it. To do aught because the vain hearsays order thee, and\nthe big clamors of the sanhedrim of fools, is not thy lot,--what worlds\nof misery are spared thee! Nature's voice heard in thy own inner being,\nand the sacred Commandment of thy Maker: these shall be thy guidances,\nthou happy tongueless generation. What is good and beautiful thou shalt\nknow; not merely what is said to be so. Not to talk of thy doings, and\nbecome the envy of surrounding flunkies, but to taste of the fruit of\nthy doings themselves, is thine. What the Eternal Laws will sanction for\nthee, do; what the Froth Gospels and multitudinous long-eared Hearsays\nnever so loudly bid, all this is already chaff for thee,--drifting\nrapidly along, thou knowest whitherward, on the eternal winds.\"\n\nGood Heavens, if such a plan were practicable, how the chaff might be\nwinnowed out of every man, and out of all human things; and ninety-nine\nhundredths of our whole big Universe, spiritual and practical, might\nblow itself away, as mere torrents of chaff whole trade-winds of chaff,\nmany miles deep, rushing continually with the voice of whirlwinds\ntowards a certain FIRE, which knows how to deal with it! Ninety-nine\nhundredths blown away; all the lies blown away, and some skeleton of a\nspiritual and practical Universe left standing for us which were true:\nO Heavens, is it forever impossible, then? By a generation that had\nno tongue it really might be done; but not so easily by one that had.\nTongues, platforms, parliaments, and fourth-estates; unfettered presses,\nperiodical and stationary literatures: we are nearly all gone to tongue,\nI think; and our fate is very questionable.\n\n\nTruly, it is little known at present, and ought forthwith to become\nbetter known, what ruin to all nobleness and fruitfulness and\nblessedness in the genius of a poor mortal you generally bring about, by\nordering him to speak, to do all things with a view to their being seen!\nFew good and fruitful things ever were done, or could be done, on those\nterms. Silence, silence; and be distant ye profane, with your\njargonings and superficial babblements, when a man has anything to do!\nEye-service,--dost thou know what that is, poor England?--eye-service\nis all the man can do in these sad circumstances; grows to be all he has\nthe idea of doing, of his or any other man's ever doing, or ever having\ndone, in any circumstances. Sad, enough. Alas, it is our saddest woe of\nall;--too sad for being spoken of at present, while all or nearly all\nmen consider it an imaginary sorrow on my part!\n\nLet the young English soul, in whatever logic-shop and nonsense-verse\nestablishment of an Eton, Oxford, Edinburgh, Halle, Salamanca, or other\nHigh Finishing-School, he may be getting his young idea taught how to\nspeak and spout, and print sermons and review-articles, and thereby show\nhimself and fond patrons that it _is_ an idea,--lay this solemnly to\nheart; this is my deepest counsel to him! The idea you have once spoken,\nif it even were an idea, is no longer yours; it is gone from you, so\nmuch life and virtue is gone, and the vital circulations of your self\nand your destiny and activity are henceforth deprived of it. If you\ncould not get it spoken, if you could still constrain it into silence,\nso much the richer are you. Better keep your idea while you can: let\nit still circulate in your blood, and there fructify; inarticulately\ninciting you to good activities; giving to your whole spiritual life a\nruddier health. When the time does come for speaking it, you will speak\nit all the more concisely, the more expressively, appropriately; and\nif such a time should never come, have you not already acted it, and\nuttered it as no words can? Think of this, my young friend; for there is\nnothing truer, nothing more forgotten in these shabby gold-laced days.\nIncontinence is half of all the sins of man. And among the many kinds of\nthat base vice, I know none baser, or at present half so fell and fatal,\nas that same Incontinence of Tongue. \"Public speaking,\" \"parliamentary\neloquence:\" it is a Moloch, before whom young souls are made to pass\nthrough the fire. They enter, weeping or rejoicing, fond parents\nconsecrating them to the red-hot Idol, as to the Highest God: and they\ncome out spiritually _dead_. Dead enough; to live thenceforth a galvanic\nlife of mere Stump-Oratory; screeching and gibbering, words without\nwisdom, without veracity, without conviction more than skin-deep. A\ndivine gift, that? It is a thing admired by the vulgar, and rewarded\nwith seats in the Cabinet and other preciosities; but to the wise, it is\na thing not admirable, not adorable; unmelodious rather, and ghastly and\nbodeful, as the speech of sheeted spectres in the streets at midnight!\n\nBe not a Public Orator, thou brave young British man, thou that art\nnow growing to be something: not a Stump-Orator, if thou canst help\nit. Appeal not to the vulgar, with its long ears and its seats in the\nCabinet; not by spoken words to the vulgar; _hate_ the profane vulgar,\nand bid it begone. Appeal by silent work, by silent suffering if there\nbe no work, to the gods, who have nobler than seats in the Cabinet for\nthee! Talent for Literature, thou hast such a talent? Believe it not, be\nslow to believe it! To speak, or to write, Nature did not peremptorily\norder thee; but to work she did. And know this: there never was a talent\neven for real Literature, not to speak of talents lost and damned\nin doing sham Literature, but was primarily a talent for something\ninfinitely better of the silent kind. Of Literature, in all ways, be\nshy rather than otherwise, at present! There where thou art, work, work;\nwhatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it,--with the hand of a man, not\nof a phantasm; be that thy unnoticed blessedness and exceeding great\nreward. Thy words, let them be few, and well-ordered. Love silence\nrather than speech in these tragic days, when, for very speaking, the\nvoice of man has fallen inarticulate to man; and hearts, in this loud\nbabbling, sit dark and dumb towards one another. Witty,--above all, oh\nbe not witty: none of us is bound to be witty, under penalties; to be\nwise and true we all are, under the terriblest penalties!\n\nBrave young friend, dear to me, and _known_ too in a sense, though never\nseen, nor to be seen by me,--you are, what I am not, in the happy case\nto learn to _be_ something and to _do_ something, instead of eloquently\ntalking about what has been and was done and may be! The old are what\nthey are, and will not alter; our hope is in you. England's hope, and\nthe world's, is that there may once more be millions such, instead\nof units as now. _Macte; i fausto pede_. And may future generations,\nacquainted again with the silences, and once more cognizant of what is\nnoble and faithful and divine, look back on us with pity and incredulous\nastonishment!\n\n\n\n\nItalicized text is represented in the etext with underscores _thusly_.\nGreek text has been transliterated into English, with notation \"[Gr.]\"\nappended to it. Otherwise the etext has been left as it was in the\nprinted text. Footnotes have been embedded directly into the text, with\nthe notation [Footnote: ...].","title":"Latter-Day Pamphlets","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":73563}