{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_26159/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_26159","id":"gutenberg_26159","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26159","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Category: Sociology","Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century","Social problems"],"text":"Produced by Stacy Brown, Thierry Alberto and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHOMAS CARLYLE'S\n\nCOLLECTED WORKS.\n\n\nLIBRARY EDITION.\n_IN THIRTY VOLUMES._\n\n\nVOL. XIII.\nPAST AND PRESENT.\n\n\nLONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL (LIMITED),\n11 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN.\n\n\n\n\nPAST AND PRESENT.\n\nBY\n\nTHOMAS CARLYLE.\n\n\n\n    Ernst ist das Leben.\n                         SCHILLER.\n\n[1843.]\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nBOOK I.\n\nPROEM.\n\n CHAP.                             PAGE\n\n    I. Midas                          3\n\n   II. The Sphinx                    10\n\n  III. Manchester Insurrection       19\n\n   IV. Morrison's Pill               29\n\n    V. Aristocracy of Talent         34\n\n   VI. Hero-Worship                  41\n\n\nBOOK II.\n\nTHE ANCIENT MONK.\n\n    I. Jocelin of Brakelond          51\n\n   II. St. Edmundsbury               60\n\n  III. Landlord Edmund               65\n\n   IV. Abbot Hugo                    73\n\n    V. Twelfth Century               79\n\n   VI. Monk Samson                   84\n\n  VII. The Canvassing                92\n\n VIII. The Election                  96\n\n   IX. Abbot Samson                 105\n\n    X. Government                   112\n\n   XI. The Abbot's Ways             117\n\n  XII. The Abbot's Troubles         124\n\n XIII. In Parliament                131\n\n  XIV. Henry of Essex               134\n\n   XV. Practical-Devotional         139\n\n  XVI. St. Edmund                   148\n\n XVII. The Beginnings               157\n\n\nBOOK III.\n\nTHE MODERN WORKER.\n\n    I. Phenomena                    171\n\n   II. Gospel of Mammonism          181\n\n  III. Gospel of Dilettantism       188\n\n   IV. Happy                        192\n\n    V. The English                  197\n\n   VI. Two Centuries                208\n\n  VII. Over-Production              213\n\n VIII. Unworking Aristocracy        218\n\n   IX. Working Aristocracy          228\n\n    X. Plugson of Undershot         235\n\n   XI. Labour                       244\n\n  XII. Reward                       250\n\n XIII. Democracy                    260\n\n  XIV. Sir Jabesh Windbag           275\n\n   XV. Morrison again               280\n\n\nBOOK IV.\n\nHOROSCOPE.\n\n    I. Aristocracies                297\n\n   II. Bribery Committee            312\n\n  III. The One Institution          318\n\n   IV. Captains of Industry         333\n\n    V. Permanence                   341\n\n   VI. The Landed                   348\n\n  VII. The Gifted                   355\n\n VIII. The Didactic                 361\n\n\nSummary and Index              371, 383\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I.\n\nPROEM\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nMIDAS.\n\n\nThe condition of England, on which many pamphlets are now in the\ncourse of publication, and many thoughts unpublished are going on in\nevery reflective head, is justly regarded as one of the most ominous,\nand withal one of the strangest, ever seen in this world. England is\nfull of wealth, of multifarious produce, supply for human want in\nevery kind; yet England is dying of inanition. With unabated bounty\nthe land of England blooms and grows; waving with yellow harvests;\nthick-studded with workshops, industrial implements, with fifteen\nmillions of workers, understood to be the strongest, the cunningest\nand the willingest our Earth ever had; these men are here; the work\nthey have done, the fruit they have realised is here, abundant,\nexuberant on every hand of us: and behold, some baleful fiat as of\nEnchantment has gone forth, saying, \"Touch it not, ye workers, ye\nmaster-workers, ye master-idlers; none of you can touch it, no man of\nyou shall be the better for it; this is enchanted fruit!\" On the poor\nworkers such fiat falls first, in its rudest shape; but on the rich\nmaster-workers too it falls; neither can the rich master-idlers, nor\nany richest or highest man escape, but all are like to be brought low\nwith it, and made 'poor' enough, in the money sense or a far fataler\none.\n\nOf these successful skilful workers some two millions it is now\ncounted, sit in Workhouses, Poor-law Prisons; or have 'out-door\nrelief' flung over the wall to them,--the workhouse Bastille being\nfilled to bursting, and the strong Poor-law broken asunder by a\nstronger.[1] They sit there, these many months now; their hope of\ndeliverance as yet small. In workhouses, pleasantly so-named, because\nwork cannot be done in them. Twelve-hundred-thousand workers in\nEngland alone; their cunning right-hand lamed, lying idle in their\nsorrowful bosom; their hopes, outlooks, share of this fair world,\nshut-in by narrow walls. They sit there, pent up, as in a kind of\nhorrid enchantment; glad to be imprisoned and enchanted, that they may\nnot perish starved. The picturesque Tourist, in a sunny autumn day,\nthrough this bounteous realm of England, descries the Union Workhouse\non his path. 'Passing by the Workhouse of St. Ives in Huntingdonshire,\non a bright day last autumn,' says the picturesque Tourist, 'I saw\nsitting on wooden benches, in front of their Bastille and within their\nring-wall and its railings, some half-hundred or more of these men.\nTall robust figures, young mostly or of middle age; of honest\ncountenance, many of them thoughtful and even intelligent-looking men.\nThey sat there, near by one another; but in a kind of torpor,\nespecially in a silence, which was very striking. In silence: for,\nalas, what word was to be said? An Earth all lying round, crying, Come\nand till me, come and reap me;--yet we here sit enchanted! In the eyes\nand brows of these men hung the gloomiest expression, not of anger,\nbut of grief and shame and manifold inarticulate distress and\nweariness; they returned my glance with a glance that seemed to say,\n\"Do not look at us. We sit enchanted here, we know not why. The Sun\nshines and the Earth calls; and, by the governing Powers and\nImpotences of this England, we are forbidden to obey. It is\nimpossible, they tell us!\" There was something that reminded me of\nDante's Hell in the look of all this; and I rode swiftly away.'\n\nSo many hundred thousands sit in workhouses: and other hundred\nthousands have not yet got even workhouses; and in thrifty Scotland\nitself, in Glasgow or Edinburgh City, in their dark lanes, hidden from\nall but the eye of God, and of rare Benevolence the minister of God,\nthere are scenes of woe and destitution and desolation, such as, one\nmay hope, the Sun never saw before in the most barbarous regions where\nmen dwelt. Competent witnesses, the brave and humane Dr. Alison, who\nspeaks what he knows, whose noble Healing Art in his charitable hands\nbecomes once more a truly sacred one, report these things for us:\nthese things are not of this year, or of last year, have no reference\nto our present state of commercial stagnation, but only to the common\nstate. Not in sharp fever-fits, but in chronic gangrene of this kind\nis Scotland suffering. A Poor-law, any and every Poor-law, it may be\nobserved, is but a temporary measure; an anodyne, not a remedy: Rich\nand Poor, when once the naked facts of their condition have come into\ncollision, cannot long subsist together on a mere Poor-law. True\nenough:--and yet, human beings cannot be left to die! Scotland too,\ntill something better come, must have a Poor-law, if Scotland is not\nto be a byword among the nations. O, what a waste is there; of noble\nand thrice-noble national virtues; peasant Stoicisms, Heroisms;\nvaliant manful habits, soul of a Nation's worth,--which all the metal\nof Potosi cannot purchase back; to which the metal of Potosi, and all\nyou can buy with _it_, is dross and dust!\n\nWhy dwell on this aspect of the matter? It is too indisputable, not\ndoubtful now to any one. Descend where you will into the lower class,\nin Town or Country, by what avenue you will, by Factory Inquiries,\nAgricultural Inquiries, by Revenue Returns, by Mining-Labourer\nCommittees, by opening your own eyes and looking, the same sorrowful\nresult discloses itself: you have to admit that the working body of\nthis rich English Nation has sunk or is fast sinking into a state, to\nwhich, all sides of it considered, there was literally never any\nparallel. At Stockport Assizes,--and this too has no reference to the\npresent state of trade, being of date prior to that,--a Mother and a\nFather are arraigned and found guilty of poisoning three of their\nchildren, to defraud a 'burial-society' of some _3l. 8s._ due on the\ndeath of each child: they are arraigned, found guilty; and the\nofficial authorities, it is whispered, hint that perhaps the case is\nnot solitary, that perhaps you had better not probe farther into that\ndepartment of things. This is in the autumn of 1841; the crime itself\nis of the previous year or season. \"Brutal savages, degraded Irish,\"\nmutters the idle reader of Newspapers; hardly lingering on this\nincident. Yet it is an incident worth lingering on; the depravity,\nsavagery and degraded Irishism being never so well admitted. In the\nBritish land, a human Mother and Father, of white skin and professing\nthe Christian religion, had done this thing; they, with their Irishism\nand necessity and savagery, had been driven to do it. Such instances\nare like the highest mountain apex emerged into view; under which lies\na whole mountain region and land, not yet emerged. A human Mother and\nFather had said to themselves, What shall we do to escape starvation?\nWe are deep sunk here, in our dark cellar; and help is far.--Yes, in\nthe Ugolino Hungertower stern things happen; best-loved little Gaddo\nfallen dead on his Father's knees!--The Stockport Mother and Father\nthink and hint: Our poor little starveling Tom, who cries all day for\nvictuals, who will see only evil and not good in this world: if he\nwere out of misery at once; he well dead, and the rest of us perhaps\nkept alive? It is thought, and hinted; at last it is done. And now Tom\nbeing killed, and all spent and eaten, Is it poor little starveling\nJack that must go, or poor little starveling Will?--What a committee\nof ways and means!\n\nIn starved sieged cities, in the uttermost doomed ruin of old\nJerusalem fallen under the wrath of God, it was prophesied and said,\n'The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children.' The\nstern Hebrew imagination could conceive no blacker gulf of\nwretchedness; that was the ultimatum of degraded god-punished man. And\nwe here, in modern England, exuberant with supply of all kinds,\nbesieged by nothing if it be not by invisible Enchantments, are we\nreaching that?--How come these things? Wherefore are they, wherefore\nshould they be?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNor are they of the St. Ives workhouses, of the Glasgow lanes, and\nStockport cellars, the only unblessed among us. This successful\nindustry of England, with its plethoric wealth, has as yet made nobody\nrich; it is an enchanted wealth, and belongs yet to nobody. We might\nask, Which of us has it enriched? We can spend thousands where we once\nspent hundreds; but can purchase nothing good with them. In Poor and\nRich, instead of noble thrift and plenty, there is idle luxury\nalternating with mean scarcity and inability. We have sumptuous\ngarnitures for our Life, but have forgotten to _live_ in the middle of\nthem. It is an enchanted wealth; no man of us can yet touch it. The\nclass of men who feel that they are truly better off by means of it,\nlet them give us their name!\n\nMany men eat finer cookery, drink dearer liquors,--with what\nadvantage they can report, and their Doctors can: but in the heart of\nthem, if we go out of the dyspeptic stomach, what increase of\nblessedness is there? Are they better, beautifuler, stronger, braver?\nAre they even what they call 'happier'? Do they look with satisfaction\non more things and human faces in this God's-Earth; do more things and\nhuman faces look with satisfaction on them? Not so. Human faces gloom\ndiscordantly, disloyally on one another. Things, if it be not mere\ncotton and iron things, are growing disobedient to man. The Master\nWorker is enchanted, for the present, like his Workhouse Workman,\nclamours, in vain hitherto, for a very simple sort of 'Liberty:' the\nliberty 'to buy where he finds it cheapest, to sell where he finds it\ndearest.' With guineas jingling in every pocket, he was no whit\nricher; but now, the very guineas threatening to vanish, he feels that\nhe is poor indeed. Poor Master Worker! And the Master Unworker, is not\nhe in a still fataler situation? Pausing amid his game-preserves, with\nawful eye,--as he well may! Coercing fifty-pound tenants; coercing,\nbribing, cajoling; 'doing what he likes with his own.' His mouth full\nof loud futilities, and arguments to prove the excellence of his\nCorn-law; and in his heart the blackest misgiving, a desperate\nhalf-consciousness that his excellent Corn-law is _in_defensible, that\nhis loud arguments for it are of a kind to strike men too literally\n_dumb_.\n\nTo whom, then, is this wealth of England wealth? Who is it that it\nblesses; makes happier, wiser, beautifuler, in any way better? Who has\ngot hold of it, to make it fetch and carry for him, like a true\nservant, not like a false mock-servant; to do him any real service\nwhatsoever? As yet no one. We have more riches than any Nation ever\nhad before; we have less good of them than any Nation ever had\nbefore. Our successful industry is hitherto unsuccessful; a strange\nsuccess, if we stop here! In the midst of plethoric plenty, the people\nperish; with gold walls, and full barns, no man feels himself safe or\nsatisfied. Workers, Master Workers, Unworkers, all men, come to a\npause; stand fixed, and cannot farther. Fatal paralysis spreading\ninwards, from the extremities, in St. Ives workhouses, in Stockport\ncellars, through all limbs, as if towards the heart itself. Have we\nactually got enchanted, then; accursed by some god?--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMidas longed for gold, and insulted the Olympians. He got gold, so\nthat whatsoever he touched became gold,--and he, with his long ears,\nwas little the better for it. Midas had misjudged the celestial\nmusic-tones; Midas had insulted Apollo and the gods: the gods gave him\nhis wish, and a pair of long ears, which also were a good appendage to\nit. What a truth in these old Fables!\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] The Return of Paupers for England and Wales, at Ladyday 1842, is,\n'In-door 221,687, Out-door 1,207,402, Total 1,429,089.' _Official\nReport._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE SPHINX.\n\n\nHow true, for example, is that other old Fable of the Sphinx, who sat\nby the wayside, propounding her riddle to the passengers, which if\nthey could not answer she destroyed them! Such a Sphinx is this Life\nof ours, to all men and societies of men. Nature, like the Sphinx, is\nof womanly celestial loveliness and tenderness; the face and bosom of\na goddess, but ending in claws and the body of a lioness. There is in\nher a celestial beauty,--which means celestial order, pliancy to\nwisdom; but there is also a darkness, a ferocity, fatality, which are\ninfernal. She is a goddess, but one not yet dis-imprisoned; one still\nhalf-imprisoned,--the articulate, lovely still encased in the\ninarticulate, chaotic. How true! And does she not propound her riddles\nto us? Of each man she asks daily, in mild voice, yet with a terrible\nsignificance, \"Knowest thou the meaning of this Day? What thou canst\ndo Today; wisely attempt to do?\" Nature, Universe, Destiny, Existence,\nhowsoever we name this grand unnamable Fact in the midst of which we\nlive and struggle, is as a heavenly bride and conquest to the wise and\nbrave, to them who can discern her behests and do them; a destroying\nfiend to them who cannot. Answer her riddle, it is well with thee.\nAnswer it not, pass on regarding it not, it will answer itself; the\nsolution for thee is a thing of teeth and claws; Nature is a dumb\nlioness, deaf to thy pleadings, fiercely devouring. Thou art not now\nher victorious bridegroom; thou art her mangled victim, scattered on\nthe precipices, as a slave found treacherous, recreant, ought to be\nand must.\n\nWith Nations it is as with individuals: Can they rede the riddle of\nDestiny? This English Nation, will it get to know the meaning of _its_\nstrange new Today? Is there sense enough extant, discoverable anywhere\nor anyhow, in our united twenty-seven million heads to discern the\nsame; valour enough in our twenty-seven million hearts to dare and do\nthe bidding thereof? It will be seen!--\n\nThe secret of gold Midas, which he with his long ears never could\ndiscover, was, That he had offended the Supreme Powers;--that he had\nparted company with the eternal inner Facts of this Universe, and\nfollowed the transient outer Appearances thereof; and so was arrived\n_here_. Properly it is the secret of all unhappy men and unhappy\nnations. Had they known Nature's right truth, Nature's right truth\nwould have made them free. They have become enchanted; stagger\nspell-bound, reeling on the brink of huge peril, because they were not\nwise enough. They have forgotten the right Inner True, and taken up\nwith the Outer Sham-true. They answer the Sphinx's question _wrong_.\nFoolish men cannot answer it aright! Foolish men mistake transitory\nsemblance for eternal fact, and go astray more and more.\n\nFoolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is\ndelayed, there is no justice, but an accidental one, here below.\nJudgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some\ncentury or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death! In the\ncentre of the world-whirlwind, verily now as in the oldest days,\ndwells and speaks a God. The great soul of the world is _just_. O\nbrother, can it be needful now, at this late epoch of experience,\nafter eighteen centuries of Christian preaching for one thing, to\nremind thee of such a fact; which all manner of Mahometans, old Pagan\nRomans, Jews, Scythians and heathen Greeks, and indeed more or less\nall men that God made, have managed at one time to see into; nay which\nthou thyself, till 'redtape' strangled the inner life of thee, hadst\nonce some inkling of: That there _is_ justice here below; and even, at\nbottom, that there is nothing else but justice! Forget that, thou hast\nforgotten all. Success will never more attend thee: how can it now?\nThou hast the whole Universe against thee. No more success: mere\nsham-success, for a day and days; rising ever higher,--towards its\nTarpeian Rock. Alas, how, in thy soft-hung Longacre vehicle, of\npolished leather to the bodily eye, of redtape philosophy, of\nexpediences, clubroom moralities, Parliamentary majorities to the\nmind's eye, thou beautifully rollest: but knowest thou whitherward? It\nis towards the _road's end_. Old use-and-wont; established methods,\nhabitudes, _once_ true and wise; man's noblest tendency, his\nperseverance, and man's ignoblest, his inertia; whatsoever of noble\nand ignoble Conservatism there is in men and Nations, strongest always\nin the strongest men and Nations: all this is as a road to thee, paved\nsmooth through the abyss,--till all this _end_. Till men's bitter\nnecessities can endure thee no more. Till Nature's patience with thee\nis done; and there is no road or footing any farther, and the abyss\nyawns sheer!--\n\nParliament and the Courts of Westminster are venerable to me; how\nvenerable; gray with a thousand years of honourable age! For a\nthousand years and more, Wisdom and faithful Valour, struggling amid\nmuch Folly and greedy Baseness, not without most sad distortions in\nthe struggle, have built them up; and they are as we see. For a\nthousand years, this English Nation has found them useful or\nsupportable; they have served this English Nation's want; _been_ a\nroad to it through the abyss of Time. They are venerable, they are\ngreat and strong. And yet it is good to remember always that they are\nnot the venerablest, nor the greatest, nor the strongest! Acts of\nParliament are venerable; but if they correspond not with the writing\non the 'Adamant Tablet,' what are they? Properly their one element of\nvenerableness, of strength or greatness, is, that they at all times\ncorrespond therewith as near as by human possibility they can. They\nare cherishing destruction in their bosom every hour that they\ncontinue otherwise.\n\nAlas, how many causes that can plead well for themselves in the Courts\nof Westminster; and yet in the general Court of the Universe, and free\nSoul of Man, have no word to utter! Honourable Gentlemen may find this\nworth considering, in times like ours. And truly, the din of\ntriumphant Law-logic, and all shaking of horse-hair wigs and\nlearned-serjeant gowns having comfortably ended, we shall do well to\nask ourselves withal, What says that high and highest Court to the\nverdict? For it is the Court of Courts, that same; where the universal\nsoul of Fact and very Truth sits President;--and thitherward, more and\nmore swiftly, with a really terrible increase of swiftness, all causes\ndo in these days crowd for revisal,--for confirmation, for\nmodification, for reversal with costs. Dost thou know that Court; hast\nthou had any Law-practice there? What, didst thou never enter; never\nfile any petition of redress, reclaimer, disclaimer or demurrer,\nwritten as in thy heart's blood, for thy own behoof or another's; and\nsilently await the issue? Thou knowest not such a Court? Hast merely\nheard of it by faint tradition as a thing that was or had been? Of\nthee, I think, we shall get little benefit.\n\nFor the gowns of learned-serjeants are good: parchment records, fixed\nforms, and poor terrestrial Justice, with or without horse-hair, what\nsane man will not reverence these? And yet, behold, the man is not\nsane but insane, who considers these alone as venerable. Oceans of\nhorse-hair, continents of parchment, and learned-serjeant eloquence,\nwere it continued till the learned tongue wore itself small in the\nindefatigable learned mouth, cannot make unjust just. The grand\nquestion still remains, Was the judgment just? If unjust, it will not\nand cannot get harbour for itself, or continue to have footing in this\nUniverse, which was made by other than One Unjust. Enforce it by never\nsuch statuting, three readings, royal assents; blow it to the four\nwinds with all manner of quilted trumpeters and pursuivants, in the\nrear of them never so many gibbets and hangmen, it will not stand, it\ncannot stand. From all souls of men, from all ends of Nature, from the\nThrone of God above, there are voices bidding it: Away, away! Does it\ntake no warning; does it stand, strong in its three readings, in its\ngibbets and artillery-parks? The more woe is to it, the frightfuler\nwoe. It will continue standing for its day, for its year, for its\ncentury, doing evil all the while; but it has One enemy who is\nAlmighty: dissolution, explosion, and the everlasting Laws of Nature\nincessantly advance towards it; and the deeper its rooting, more\nobstinate its continuing, the deeper also and huger will its ruin and\noverturn be.\n\nIn this God's-world, with its wild-whirling eddies and mad\nfoam-oceans, where men and nations perish as if without law, and\njudgment for an unjust thing is sternly delayed, dost thou think that\nthere is therefore no justice? It is what the fool hath said in his\nheart. It is what the wise, in all times, were wise because they\ndenied, and knew forever not to be. I tell thee again, there is\nnothing else but justice. One strong thing I find here below: the just\nthing, the true thing. My friend, if thou hadst all the artillery of\nWoolwich trundling at thy back in support of an unjust thing; and\ninfinite bonfires visibly waiting ahead of thee, to blaze centuries\nlong for thy victory on behalf of it,--I would advise thee to call\nhalt, to fling down thy baton, and say, \"In God's name, No!\" Thy\n'success'? Poor devil, what will thy success amount to? If the thing\nis unjust, thou hast not succeeded; no, not though bonfires\nblazed from North to South, and bells rang, and editors wrote\nleading-articles, and the just thing lay trampled out of sight, to all\nmortal eyes an abolished and annihilated thing. Success? In few years\nthou wilt be dead and dark,--all cold, eyeless, deaf; no blaze of\nbonfires, ding-dong of bells or leading-articles visible or audible to\nthee again at all forever: What kind of success is that!--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is true, all goes by approximation in this world; with any not\ninsupportable approximation we must be patient. There is a noble\nConservatism as well as an ignoble. Would to Heaven, for the sake of\nConservatism itself, the noble alone were left, and the ignoble, by\nsome kind severe hand, were ruthlessly lopped away, forbidden evermore\nto show itself! For it is the right and noble alone that will have\nvictory in this struggle; the rest is wholly an obstruction, a\npostponement and fearful imperilment of the victory. Towards an\neternal centre of right and nobleness, and of that only, is all this\nconfusion tending. We already know whither it is all tending; what\nwill have victory, what will have none! The Heaviest will reach the\ncentre. The Heaviest, sinking through complex fluctuating media and\nvortices, has its deflexions, its obstructions, nay at times its\nresiliences, its reboundings; whereupon some blockhead shall be heard\njubilating, \"See, your Heaviest ascends!\"--but at all moments it is\nmoving centreward, fast as is convenient for it; sinking, sinking;\nand, by laws older than the World, old as the Maker's first Plan of\nthe World, it has to arrive there.\n\nAwait the issue. In all battles, if you await the issue, each fighter\nhas prospered according to his right. His right and his might, at the\nclose of the account, were one and the same. He has fought with all\nhis might, and in exact proportion to all his right he has prevailed.\nHis very death is no victory over him. He dies indeed; but his work\nlives, very truly lives. A heroic Wallace, quartered on the scaffold,\ncannot hinder that his Scotland become, one day, a part of England:\nbut he does hinder that it become, on tyrannous unfair terms, a part\nof it; commands still, as with a god's voice, from his old Valhalla\nand Temple of the Brave, that there be a just real union as of brother\nand brother, not a false and merely semblant one as of slave and\nmaster. If the union with England be in fact one of Scotland's chief\nblessings, we thank Wallace withal that it was not the chief curse.\nScotland is not Ireland: no, because brave men rose there, and said,\n\"Behold, ye must not tread us down like slaves; and ye shall not,--and\ncannot!\" Fight on, thou brave true heart, and falter not, through dark\nfortune and through bright. The cause thou fightest for, so far as it\nis true, no farther, yet precisely so far, is very sure of victory.\nThe falsehood alone of it will be conquered, will be abolished, as it\nought to be: but the truth of it is part of Nature's own Laws,\nco-operates with the World's eternal Tendencies, and cannot be\nconquered.\n\nThe _dust_ of controversy, what is it but the _falsehood_ flying off\nfrom all manner of conflicting true forces, and making such a loud\ndust-whirlwind,--that so the truths alone may remain, and embrace\nbrother-like in some true resulting-force! It is ever so. Savage\nfighting Heptarchies: their fighting is an ascertainment, who has the\nright to rule over whom; that out of such waste-bickering Saxondom a\npeacefully cooeperating England may arise. Seek through this Universe;\nif with other than owl's eyes, thou wilt find nothing nourished there,\nnothing kept in life, but what has right to nourishment and life. The\nrest, look at it with other than owl's eyes, is not living; is all\ndying, all as good as dead! Justice was ordained from the foundations\nof the world; and will last with the world and longer.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom which I infer that the inner sphere of Fact, in this present\nEngland as elsewhere, differs infinitely from the outer sphere and\nspheres of Semblance. That the Temporary, here as elsewhere, is too\napt to carry it over the Eternal. That he who dwells in the temporary\nSemblances, and does not penetrate into the eternal Substance, will\n_not_ answer the Sphinx-riddle of Today, or of any Day. For the\nsubstance alone is substantial; that _is_ the law of Fact; if you\ndiscover not that, Fact, who already knows it, will let you also know\nit by and by!\n\nWhat is Justice? that, on the whole, is the question of the Sphinx to\nus. The law of Fact is, that Justice must and will be done. The sooner\nthe better; for the Time grows stringent, frightfully pressing! \"What\nis Justice?\" ask many, to whom cruel Fact alone will be able to prove\nresponsive. It is like jesting Pilate asking, What is Truth? Jesting\nPilate had not the smallest chance to ascertain what was Truth. He\ncould not have known it, had a god shown it to him. Thick serene\nopacity, thicker than amaurosis, veiled those smiling eyes of his to\nTruth; the inner _retina_ of them was gone paralytic, dead. He looked\nat Truth; and discerned her not, there where she stood. \"What is\nJustice?\" The clothed embodied Justice that sits in Westminster Hall,\nwith penalties, parchments, tipstaves, is very visible. But the\n_un_embodied Justice, whereof that other is either an emblem, or else\nis a fearful indescribability, is not so visible! For the unembodied\nJustice is of Heaven; a Spirit, and Divinity of Heaven,--_in_visible\nto all but the noble and pure of soul. The impure ignoble gaze with\neyes, and she is not there. They will prove it to you by logic, by\nendless Hansard Debatings, by bursts of Parliamentary eloquence. It is\nnot consolatory to behold! For properly, as many men as there are in a\nNation who _can_ withal see Heaven's invisible Justice, and know it to\nbe on Earth also omnipotent, so many men are there who stand between a\nNation and perdition. So many, and no more. Heavy-laden England, how\nmany hast thou in this hour? The Supreme Power sends new and ever new,\nall _born_ at least with hearts of flesh and not of stone;--and heavy\nMisery itself, once heavy enough, will prove didactic!--\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nMANCHESTER INSURRECTION.\n\n\nBlusterowski, Colacorde, and other Editorial prophets of the\nContinental-Democratic Movement, have in their leading-articles shown\nthemselves disposed to vilipend the late Manchester Insurrection, as\nevincing in the rioters an extreme backwardness to battle; nay as\nbetokening, in the English People itself, perhaps a want of the proper\nanimal courage indispensable in these ages. A million hungry operative\nmen started up, in utmost paroxysm of desperate protest against their\nlot; and, ask Colacorde and company, How many shots were fired? Very\nfew in comparison! Certain hundreds of drilled soldiers sufficed to\nsuppress this million-headed hydra, and tread it down, without the\nsmallest appeasement or hope of such, into its subterranean\nsettlements again, there to reconsider itself. Compared with our\nrevolts in Lyons, in Warsaw and elsewhere, to say nothing of\nincomparable Paris City past or present, what a lamblike\nInsurrection!--\n\nThe present Editor is not here, with his readers, to vindicate the\ncharacter of Insurrections; nor does it matter to us whether\nBlusterowski and the rest may think the English a courageous people or\nnot courageous. In passing, however, let us mention that, to our view,\nthis was not an unsuccessful Insurrection; that as Insurrections go,\nwe have not heard lately of any that succeeded so well.\n\nA million of hungry operative men, as Blusterowski says rose all up,\ncame all out into the streets, and--stood there. What other could they\ndo? Their wrongs and griefs were bitter, insupportable, their rage\nagainst the same was just: but who are they that cause these wrongs,\nwho that will honestly make effort to redress them? Our enemies are we\nknow not who or what; our friends are we know not where! How shall we\nattack any one, shoot or be shot by any one? Oh, if the accursed\ninvisible Nightmare, that is crushing out the life of us and ours,\nwould take a shape; approach us like the Hyrcanian tiger, the Behemoth\nof Chaos, the Archfiend himself; in any shape that we could see, and\nfasten on!--A man can have himself shot with cheerfulness; but it\nneeds first that he see clearly for what. Show him the divine face of\nJustice, then the diabolic monster which is eclipsing that: he will\nfly at the throat of such monster, never so monstrous, and need no\nbidding to do it. Woolwich grapeshot will sweep clear all streets,\nblast into invisibility so many thousand men: but if your Woolwich\ngrapeshot be but eclipsing Divine Justice, and the God's-radiance\nitself gleam recognisable athwart such grapeshot,--then, yes then is\nthe time come for fighting and attacking. All artillery-parks have\nbecome weak, and are about to dissipate: in the God's-thunder, their\npoor thunder slackens, ceases; finding that it is, in all senses of\nthe term, a _brute_ one!--\n\nThat the Manchester Insurrection stood still, on the streets, with an\nindisposition to fire and bloodshed, was wisdom for it even as an\nInsurrection. Insurrection, never so necessary, is a most sad\nnecessity; and governors who wait for that to instruct them, are\nsurely getting into the fatalest courses,--proving themselves Sons of\nNox and Chaos, of blind Cowardice, not of seeing Valour! How can there\nbe any remedy in insurrection? It is a mere announcement of the\ndisease,--visible now even to Sons of Night. Insurrection usually\n'gains' little; usually wastes how much! One of its worst kinds of\nwaste, to say nothing of the rest, is that of irritating and\nexasperating men against each other, by violence done; which is always\nsure to be injustice done, for violence does even justice unjustly.\n\nWho shall compute the waste and loss, the obstruction of every sort,\nthat was produced in the Manchester region by Peterloo alone! Some\nthirteen unarmed men and women cut down,--the number of the slain and\nmaimed is very countable: but the treasury of rage, burning hidden or\nvisible in all hearts ever since, more or less perverting the effort\nand aim of all hearts ever since, is of unknown extent. \"How ye came\namong us, in your cruel armed blindness, ye unspeakable County\nYeomanry, sabres flourishing, hoofs prancing, and slashed us down at\nyour brute pleasure; deaf, blind to all _our_ claims and woes and\nwrongs; of quick sight and sense to your own claims only! There lie\npoor sallow work-worn weavers, and complain no more now; women\nthemselves are slashed and sabred, howling terror fills the air; and\nye ride prosperous, very victorious,--ye unspeakable: give _us_ sabres\ntoo, and then come-on a little!\" Such are Peterloos. In all hearts\nthat witnessed Peterloo, stands written, as in fire-characters, or\nsmoke-characters prompt to become fire again, a legible\nbalance-account of grim vengeance; very unjustly balanced, much\nexaggerated, as is the way with such accounts: but payable readily at\nsight, in full with compound interest! Such things should be avoided\nas the very pestilence! For men's hearts ought not to be set against\none another; but set _with_ one another, and all against the Evil\nThing only. Men's souls ought to be left to see clearly; not\njaundiced, blinded, twisted all awry, by revenge, mutual abhorrence,\nand the like. An Insurrection that can announce the disease, and then\nretire with no such balance-account opened anywhere, has attained the\nhighest success possible for it.\n\nAnd this was what these poor Manchester operatives, with all the\ndarkness that was in them and round them, did manage to perform. They\nput their huge inarticulate question, \"What do you mean to do with\nus?\" in a manner audible to every reflective soul in this kingdom;\nexciting deep pity in all good men, deep anxiety in all men whatever;\nand no conflagration or outburst of madness came to cloud that feeling\nanywhere, but everywhere it operates unclouded. All England heard the\nquestion: it is the first practical form of _our_ Sphinx-riddle.\nEngland will answer it; or, on the whole, England will perish;--one\ndoes not yet expect the latter result!\n\nFor the rest, that the Manchester Insurrection could yet discern no\nradiance of Heaven on any side of its horizon; but feared that all\nlights, of the O'Connor or other sorts, hitherto kindled, were but\ndeceptive fish-oil transparencies, or bog will-o'-wisp lights, and no\ndayspring from on high: for this also we will honour the poor\nManchester Insurrection, and augur well of it. A deep unspoken sense\nlies in these strong men,--inconsiderable, almost stupid, as all they\ncan articulate of it is. Amid all violent stupidity of speech, a right\nnoble instinct of what is doable and what is not doable never forsakes\nthem: the strong inarticulate men and workers, whom _Fact_ patronises;\nof whom, in all difficulty and work whatsoever, there is good augury!\nThis work too is to be done: Governors and Governing Classes that\n_can_ articulate and utter, in any measure, what the law of Fact and\nJustice is, may calculate that here is a Governed Class who will\nlisten.\n\nAnd truly this first practical form of the Sphinx-question,\ninarticulately and so audibly put there, is one of the most\nimpressive ever asked in the world. \"Behold us here, so many\nthousands, millions, and increasing at the rate of fifty every hour.\nWe are right willing and able to work; and on the Planet Earth is\nplenty of work and wages for a million times as many. We ask, If you\nmean to lead us towards work; to try to lead us,--by ways new, never\nyet heard of till this new unheard-of Time? Or if you declare that you\ncannot lead us? And expect that we are to remain quietly unled, and in\na composed manner perish of starvation? What is it you expect of us?\nWhat is it you mean to do with us?\" This question, I say, has been put\nin the hearing of all Britain; and will be again put, and ever again,\ntill some answer be given it.\n\nUnhappy Workers, unhappier Idlers, unhappy men and women of this\nactual England. We are yet very far from an answer, and there will be\nno existence for us without finding one. \"A fair day's-wages for a\nfair day's-work:\" it is as just a demand as Governed men ever made of\nGoverning. It is the everlasting right of man. Indisputable as\nGospels, as arithmetical multiplication-tables: it must and will have\nitself fulfilled;--and yet, in these times of ours, with what enormous\ndifficulty, next-door to impossibility! For the times are really\nstrange; of a complexity intricate with all the new width of the\never-widening world; times here of half-frantic velocity of impetus,\nthere of the deadest-looking stillness and paralysis; times definable\nas showing two qualities, Dilettantism and Mammonism;--most intricate\nobstructed times! Nay, if there were not a Heaven's radiance of\nJustice, prophetic, clearly of Heaven, discernible behind all these\nconfused world-wide entanglements, of Landlord interests,\nManufacturing interests, Tory-Whig interests, and who knows what other\ninterests, expediencies, vested interests, established possessions,\ninveterate Dilettantisms, Midas-eared Mammonisms,--it would seem to\nevery one a flat impossibility, which all wise men might as well at\nonce abandon. If you do not know eternal Justice from momentary\nExpediency, and understand in your heart of hearts how Justice,\nradiant, beneficent, as the all-victorious Light-element, is also in\nessence, if need be, an all-victorious _Fire_-element, and melts all\nmanner of vested interests, and the hardest iron cannon, as if they\nwere soft wax, and does ever in the long-run rule and reign, and\nallows nothing else to rule and reign,--you also would talk of\nimpossibility! But it is only difficult, it is not impossible.\nPossible? It is, with whatever difficulty, very clearly inevitable.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFair day's-wages for fair day's-work! exclaims a sarcastic man: Alas,\nin what corner of this Planet, since Adam first awoke on it, was that\never realised? The day's-wages of John Milton's day's-work, named\n_Paradise Lost_ and _Milton's Works_, were Ten Pounds paid by\ninstalments, and a rather close escape from death on the gallows.\nConsider that: it is no rhetorical flourish; it is an authentic,\naltogether quiet fact,--emblematic, quietly documentary of a whole\nworld of such, ever since human history began. Oliver Cromwell quitted\nhis farming; undertook a Hercules' Labour and lifelong wrestle with\nthat Lernean Hydra-coil, wide as England, hissing heaven-high through\nits thousand crowned, coroneted, shovel-hatted quack-heads; and he did\nwrestle with it, the truest and terriblest wrestle I have heard of;\nand he wrestled it, and mowed and cut it down a good many stages, so\nthat its hissing is ever since pitiful in comparison, and one can walk\nabroad in comparative peace from it;--and his wages, as I understand,\nwere burial under the gallows-tree near Tyburn Turnpike, with his\nhead on the gable of Westminster Hall, and two centuries now of mixed\ncursing and ridicule from all manner of men. His dust lies under the\nEdgware Road, near Tyburn Turnpike, at this hour; and his memory\nis--Nay what matters what his memory is? His memory, at bottom, is or\nyet shall be as that of a god: a terror and horror to all quacks and\ncowards and insincere persons; an everlasting encouragement, new\nmemento, battleword, and pledge of victory to all the brave. It is the\nnatural course and history of the Godlike, in every place, in every\ntime. What god ever carried it with the Tenpound Franchisers; in Open\nVestry, or with any Sanhedrim of considerable standing? When was a god\nfound 'agreeable' to everybody? The regular way is to hang, kill,\ncrucify your gods, and execrate and trample them under your stupid\nhoofs for a century or two; till you discover that they are gods,--and\nthen take to braying over them, still in a very long-eared manner!--So\nspeaks the sarcastic man; in his wild way, very mournful truths.\n\nDay's-wages for day's-work? continues he: The Progress of Human\nSociety consists even in this same, The better and better apportioning\nof wages to work. Give me this, you have given me all. Pay to every\nman accurately what he has worked for, what he has earned and done and\ndeserved,--to this man broad lands and honours, to that man high\ngibbets and treadmills: what more have I to ask? Heaven's Kingdom,\nwhich we daily pray for, _has_ come; God's will is done on Earth even\nas it is in Heaven! This _is_ the radiance of celestial Justice; in\nthe light or in the fire of which all impediments, vested interests,\nand iron cannon, are more and more melting like wax, and disappearing\nfrom the pathways of men. A thing ever struggling forward;\nirrepressible, advancing inevitable; perfecting itself, all days,\nmore and more,--never to be _perfect_ till that general Doomsday, the\nultimate Consummation, and Last of earthly Days.\n\nTrue, as to 'perfection' and so forth, answer we; true enough! And yet\nwithal we have to remark, that imperfect Human Society holds itself\ntogether, and finds place under the Sun, in virtue simply of some\n_approximation_ to perfection being actually made and put in practice.\nWe remark farther, that there are supportable approximations, and then\nlikewise insupportable. With some, almost with any, supportable\napproximation men are apt, perhaps too apt, to rest indolently\npatient, and say, It will do. Thus these poor Manchester manual\nworkers mean only, by day's-wages for day's-work, certain coins of\nmoney adequate to keep them living;--in return for their work, such\nmodicum of food, clothes and fuel as will enable them to continue\ntheir work itself! They as yet clamour for no more; the rest, still\ninarticulate, cannot yet shape itself into a demand at all, and only\nlies in them as a dumb wish; perhaps only, still more inarticulate, as\na dumb, altogether unconscious want. _This_ is the supportable\napproximation they would rest patient with, That by their work they\nmight be kept alive to work more!--_This_ once grown unattainable, I\nthink your approximation may consider itself to have reached the\n_in_supportable stage; and may prepare, with whatever difficulty,\nreluctance and astonishment, for one of two things, for changing or\nperishing! With the millions no longer able to live, how can the units\nkeep living? It is too clear the Nation itself is on the way to\nsuicidal death.\n\nShall we say then, The world has retrograded in its talent of\napportioning wages to work, in late days? The world had always a\ntalent of that sort, better or worse. Time was when the mere\n_hand_worker needed not announce his claim to the world by\nManchester Insurrections!--The world, with its Wealth of Nations,\nSupply-and-demand and suchlike, has of late days been terribly\ninattentive to that question of work and wages. We will not say, the\npoor world has retrograded even here: we will say rather, the world\nhas been rushing on with such fiery animation to get work and ever\nmore work done, it has had no time to think of dividing the wages; and\nhas merely left them to be scrambled for by the Law of the Stronger,\nlaw of Supply-and-demand, law of Laissez-faire, and other idle Laws\nand Un-laws,--saying, in its dire haste to get the work done, That is\nwell enough!\n\nAnd now the world will have to pause a little, and take up that other\nside of the problem, and in right earnest strive for some solution of\nthat. For it has become pressing. What is the use of your spun shirts?\nThey hang there by the million unsaleable; and here, by the million,\nare diligent bare backs that can get no hold of them. Shirts are\nuseful for covering human backs; useless otherwise, an unbearable\nmockery otherwise. You have fallen terribly behind with that side of\nthe problem! Manchester Insurrections, French Revolutions, and\nthousandfold phenomena great and small, announce loudly that you must\nbring it forward a little again. Never till now, in the history of an\nEarth which to this hour nowhere refuses to grow corn if you will\nplough it, to yield shirts if you will spin and weave in it, did the\nmere manual two-handed worker (however it might fare with other\nworkers) cry in vain for such 'wages' as _he_ means by 'fair wages,'\nnamely food and warmth! The Godlike could not and cannot be paid; but\nthe Earthly always could. Gurth, a mere swineherd, born thrall of\nCedric the Saxon, tended pigs in the wood, and did get some parings of\nthe pork. Why, the four-footed worker has already _got_ all that this\ntwo-handed one is clamouring for! How often must I remind you? There\nis not a horse in England, able and willing to work, but _has_ due\nfood and lodging; and goes about sleek-coated, satisfied in heart. And\nyou say, It is impossible. Brothers, I answer, if for you it be\nimpossible, what is to become of you? It is impossible for us to\nbelieve it to be impossible. The human brain, looking at these sleek\nEnglish horses, refuses to believe in such impossibility for English\nmen. Do you depart quickly; clear the ways soon, lest worse befall. We\nfor our share do purpose, with full view of the enormous difficulty,\nwith total disbelief in the impossibility, to endeavour while life is\nin us, and to die endeavouring, we and our sons, till we attain it or\nhave all died and ended.\n\nSuch a Platitude of a World, in which all working horses could be well\nfed, and innumerable working men should die starved, were it not best\nto end it; to have done with it, and restore it once for all to the\n_Joetuns_, Mud-giants, Frost-giants, and Chaotic Brute-gods of the\nBeginning? For the old Anarchic Brute-gods it may be well enough; but\nit is a Platitude which Men should be above countenancing by their\npresence in it. We pray you, let the word _impossible_ disappear from\nyour vocabulary in this matter. It is of awful omen: to all of us, and\nto yourselves first of all.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nMORRISON'S PILL.\n\n\nWhat is to be done, what would you have us do? asks many a one, with a\ntone of impatience, almost of reproach; and then, if you mention some\none thing, some two things, twenty things that might be done, turns\nround with a satirical tehee, and \"These are your remedies!\" The state\nof mind indicated by such question, and such rejoinder, is worth\nreflecting on.\n\nIt seems to be taken for granted, by these interrogative philosophers,\nthat there is some 'thing,' or handful of 'things,' which could be\ndone; some Act of Parliament, 'remedial measure' or the like, which\ncould be passed, whereby the social malady were fairly fronted,\nconquered, put an end to; so that, with your remedial measure in your\npocket, you could then go on triumphant, and be troubled no farther.\n\"You tell us the evil,\" cry such persons, as if justly aggrieved, \"and\ndo not tell us how it is to be cured!\"\n\nHow it is to be cured? Brothers, I am sorry I have got no Morrison's\nPill for curing the maladies of Society. It were infinitely handier if\nwe had a Morrison's Pill, Act of Parliament, or remedial measure,\nwhich men could swallow, one good time, and then go on in their old\ncourses, cleared from all miseries and mischiefs! Unluckily we have\nnone such; unluckily the Heavens themselves, in their rich\npharmacopoeia, contain none such. There will no 'thing' be done that\nwill cure you. There will a radical universal alteration of your\nregimen and way of life take place; there will a most agonising\ndivorce between you and your chimeras, luxuries and falsities, take\nplace; a most toilsome, all-but 'impossible' return to Nature, and her\nveracities and her integrities, take place: that so the inner\nfountains of life may again begin, like eternal Light-fountains, to\nirradiate and purify your bloated, swollen, foul existence, drawing\nnigh, as at present, to nameless death! Either death, or else all this\nwill take place. Judge if, with such diagnosis, any Morrison's Pill is\nlike to be discoverable!\n\nBut the Life-fountain within you once again set flowing, what\ninnumerable 'things,' whole sets and classes and continents of\n'things,' year after year, and decade after decade, and century after\ncentury, will then be doable and done! Not Emigration, Education,\nCorn-Law Abrogation, Sanitary Regulation, Land Property-Tax; not these\nalone, nor a thousand times as much as these. Good Heavens, there will\nthen be light in the inner heart of here and there a man, to discern\nwhat is just, what is commanded by the Most High God, what _must_ be\ndone, were it never so 'impossible.' Vain jargon in favour of the\npalpably unjust will then abridge itself within limits. Vain jargon,\non Hustings, in Parliaments or wherever else, when here and there a\nman has vision for the essential God's-Truth of the things jargoned\nof, will become very vain indeed. The silence of here and there such a\nman, how eloquent in answer to such jargon! Such jargon, frightened at\nits own gaunt echo, will unspeakably abate; nay, for a while, may\nalmost in a manner disappear,--the wise answering it in silence, and\neven the simple taking cue from them to hoot it down wherever heard.\nIt will be a blessed time; and many 'things' will become doable,--and\nwhen the brains are out, an absurdity will die! Not easily again shall\na Corn-Law argue ten years for itself; and still talk and argue, when\nimpartial persons have to say with a sigh that, for so long back, they\nhave heard no 'argument' advanced for it but such as might make the\nangels and almost the very jackasses weep!--\n\nWholly a blessed time: when jargon might abate, and here and there\nsome genuine speech begin. When to the noble opened heart, as to such\nheart they alone do, all noble things began to grow visible; and the\ndifference between just and unjust, between true and false, between\nwork and sham-work, between speech and jargon, was once more, what to\nour happier Fathers it used to be, _infinite_,--as between a Heavenly\nthing and an Infernal: the one a thing which you were _not_ to do,\nwhich you were wise not to attempt doing; which it were better for you\nto have a millstone tied round your neck, and be cast into the sea,\nthan concern yourself with doing!--Brothers, it will not be a\nMorrison's Pill, or remedial measure, that will bring all this about\nfor us.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd yet, very literally, till, in some shape or other, it be brought\nabout, we remain cureless; till it begin to be brought about, the cure\ndoes not begin. For Nature and Fact, not Redtape and Semblance, are to\nthis hour the basis of man's life; and on those, through never such\nstrata of these, man and his life and all his interests do, sooner or\nlater, infallibly come to rest,--and to be supported or be swallowed\naccording as they agree with those. The question is asked of them,\nnot, How do you agree with Downing Street and accredited Semblance?\nbut, How do you agree with God's Universe and the actual Reality of\nthings? This Universe _has_ its Laws. If we walk according to the Law,\nthe Law-Maker will befriend us; if not, not. Alas, by no Reform Bill,\nBallot-box, Five-point Charter, by no boxes or bills or charters, can\nyou perform this alchemy: 'Given a world of Knaves, to produce an\nHonesty from their united action!' It is a distillation, once for all,\nnot possible. You pass it through alembic after alembic, it comes out\nstill a Dishonesty, with a new dress on it, a new colour to it. 'While\nwe ourselves continue valets, how _can_ any hero come to govern us?'\nWe are governed, very infallibly, by the 'sham-hero,'--whose name is\nQuack, whose work and governance is Plausibility, and also is Falsity\nand Fatuity; to which Nature says, and must say when it comes to _her_\nto speak, eternally No! Nations cease to be befriended of the\nLaw-Maker, when they walk _not_ according to the Law. The\nSphinx-question remains unsolved by them, becomes ever more insoluble.\n\nIf thou ask again, therefore, on the Morrison's-Pill hypothesis, What\nis to be done? allow me to reply: By thee, for the present, almost\nnothing. Thou there, the thing for thee to do is, if possible, to\ncease to be a hollow sounding-shell of hearsays, egoisms, purblind\ndilettantisms; and become, were it on the infinitely small scale, a\nfaithful discerning soul. Thou shalt descend into thy inner man, and\nsee if there be any traces of a _soul_ there; till then there can be\nnothing done! O brother, we must if possible resuscitate some soul and\nconscience in us, exchange our dilettantisms for sincerities, our dead\nhearts of stone for living hearts of flesh. Then shall we discern, not\none thing, but, in clearer or dimmer sequence, a whole endless host of\nthings that can be done. _Do_ the first of these; do it; the second\nwill already have become clearer, doabler; the second, third and\nthree-thousandth will then have begun to be possible for us. Not any\nuniversal Morrison's Pill shall we then, either as swallowers or as\nvenders, ask after at all; but a far different sort of remedies:\nQuacks shall no more have dominion over us, but true Heroes and\nHealers!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWill not that be a thing worthy of 'doing;' to deliver ourselves from\nquacks, sham-heroes; to deliver the whole world more and more from\nsuch? They are the one bane of the world. Once clear the world of\nthem, it ceases to be a Devil's-world, in all fibres of it wretched,\naccursed; and begins to be a God's-world, blessed, and working hourly\ntowards blessedness. Thou for one wilt not again vote for any quack,\ndo honour to any edge-gilt vacuity in man's shape: cant shall be known\nto thee by the sound of it;--thou wilt fly from cant with a shudder\nnever felt before; as from the opened litany of Sorcerers' Sabbaths,\nthe true Devil-worship of this age, more horrible than any other\nblasphemy, profanity or genuine blackguardism elsewhere audible among\nmen. It is alarming to witness,--in its present completed state! And\nQuack and Dupe, as we must ever keep in mind, are upper-side and under\nof the selfsame substance; convertible personages: turn up your dupe\ninto the proper fostering element, and he himself can become a quack;\nthere is in him the due prurient insincerity, open voracity for\nprofit, and closed sense for truth, whereof quacks too, in all their\nkinds, are made.\n\nAlas, it is not to the hero, it is to the sham-hero, that, of right\nand necessity, the valet-world belongs. 'What is to be done?' The\nreader sees whether it is like to be the seeking and swallowing of\nsome 'remedial measure'!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nARISTOCRACY OF TALENT.\n\n\nWhen an individual is miserable, what does it most of all behove him\nto do? To complain of this man or of that, of this thing or of that?\nTo fill the world and the street with lamentation, objurgation? Not so\nat all; the reverse of so. All moralists advise him not to complain of\nany person or of any thing, but of himself only. He is to know of a\ntruth that being miserable he has been unwise, he. Had he faithfully\nfollowed Nature and her Laws, Nature, ever true to her Laws, would\nhave yielded fruit and increase and felicity to him: but he has\nfollowed other than Nature's Laws; and now Nature, her patience with\nhim being ended, leaves him desolate; answers with very emphatic\nsignificance to him: No. Not by this road, my son; by another road\nshalt thou attain well-being: this, thou perceivest, is the road to\nill-being; quit this!--So do all moralists advise: that the man\npenitently say to himself first of all, Behold I was not wise enough;\nI quitted the laws of Fact, which are also called the Laws of God, and\nmistook for them the Laws of Sham and Semblance, which are called the\nDevil's Laws; therefore am I here!\n\nNeither with Nations that become miserable is it fundamentally\notherwise. The ancient guides of Nations, Prophets, Priests, or\nwhatever their name, were well aware of this; and, down to a late\nepoch, impressively taught and inculcated it. The modern guides of\nNations, who also go under a great variety of names, Journalists,\nPolitical Economists, Politicians, Pamphleteers, have entirely\nforgotten this, and are ready to deny this. But it nevertheless\nremains eternally undeniable: nor is there any doubt but we shall all\nbe taught it yet, and made again to confess it: we shall all be\nstriped and scourged till we do learn it; and shall at last either get\nto know it, or be striped to death in the process. For it is\nundeniable! When a Nation is unhappy, the old Prophet was right and\nnot wrong in saying to it: Ye have forgotten God, ye have quitted the\nways of God, or ye would not have been unhappy. It is not according to\nthe laws of Fact that ye have lived and guided yourselves, but\naccording to the laws of Delusion, Imposture, and wilful and unwilful\n_Mistake_ of Fact; behold therefore the Unveracity is worn out;\nNature's long-suffering with you is exhausted; and ye are here!\n\nSurely there is nothing very inconceivable in this, even to the\nJournalist, to the Political Economist, Modern Pamphleteer, or any\ntwo-legged animal without feathers! If a country finds itself\nwretched, sure enough that country has been _mis_guided: it is with\nthe wretched Twenty-seven Millions, fallen wretched, as with the Unit\nfallen wretched: they, as he, have quitted the course prescribed by\nNature and the Supreme Powers, and so are fallen into scarcity,\ndisaster, infelicity; and pausing to consider themselves, have to\nlament and say: Alas, we were not wise enough! We took transient\nsuperficial Semblance for everlasting central Substance; we have\ndeparted far away from the _Laws_ of this Universe, and behold now\nlawless Chaos and inane Chimera is ready to devour us!--'Nature in\nlate centuries,' says Sauerteig, 'was universally supposed to be dead;\nan old eight-day clock, made many thousand years ago, and still\nticking, but dead as brass,--which the Maker, at most, sat looking\nat, in a distant, singular and indeed incredible manner: but now I am\nhappy to observe, she is everywhere asserting herself to be not dead\nand brass at all, but alive and miraculous, celestial-infernal, with\nan emphasis that will again penetrate the thickest head of this Planet\nby and by!'--\n\nIndisputable enough to all mortals now, the guidance of this country\nhas not been sufficiently wise; men too foolish have been set to the\nguiding and governing of it, and have guided it _hither_; we must find\nwiser,--wiser, or else we perish! To this length of insight all\nEngland has now advanced; but as yet no farther. All England stands\nwringing its hands, asking itself, nigh desperate, What farther?\nReform Bill proves to be a failure; Benthamee Radicalism, the gospel\nof 'Enlightened Selfishness,' dies out, or dwindles into Five-point\nChartism, amid the tears and hootings of men: what next are we to hope\nor try? Five-point Charter, Free-trade, Church-extension,\nSliding-scale; what, in Heaven's name, are we next to attempt, that we\nsink not in inane Chimera, and be devoured of Chaos?--The case is\npressing, and one of the most complicated in the world. A\nGod's-message never came to thicker-skinned people; never had a\nGod's-message to pierce through thicker integuments, into heavier\nears. It is Fact, speaking once more, in miraculous thunder-voice,\nfrom out of the centre of the world;--how unknown its language to the\ndeaf and foolish many; how distinct, undeniable, terrible and yet\nbeneficent, to the hearing few: Behold, ye shall grow wiser, or ye\nshall die! Truer to Nature's Fact, or inane Chimera will swallow you;\nin whirlwinds of fire, you and your Mammonisms, Dilettantisms, your\nMidas-eared philosophies, double-barrelled Aristocracies, shall\ndisappear!--Such is the God's-message to _us_, once more, in these\nmodern days.\n\nWe must have more Wisdom to govern us, we must be governed by the\nWisest, we must have an Aristocracy of Talent! cry many. True, most\ntrue; but how to get it? The following extract from our young friend\nof the _Houndsditch Indicator_ is worth perusing: 'At this time,' says\nhe, 'while there is a cry everywhere, articulate or inarticulate, for\nan \"Aristocracy of Talent,\" a Governing Class namely which did govern,\nnot merely which took the wages of governing, and could not with all\nour industry be kept from misgoverning, corn-lawing, and playing the\nvery deuce with us,--it may not be altogether useless to remind some\nof the greener-headed sort what a dreadfully difficult affair the\ngetting of such an Aristocracy is! Do you expect, my friends, that\nyour indispensable Aristocracy of Talent is to be enlisted\nstraightway, by some sort of recruitment aforethought, out of the\ngeneral population; arranged in supreme regimental order; and set to\nrule over us? That it will be got sifted, like wheat out of chaff,\nfrom the Twenty-seven Million British subjects; that any Ballot-box,\nReform Bill, or other Political Machine, with Force of Public Opinion\nnever so active on it, is likely to perform said process of sifting?\nWould to Heaven that we had a sieve; that we could so much as fancy\nany kind of sieve, wind-fanners, or ne-plus-ultra of machinery,\ndevisable by man, that would do it!\n\n'Done nevertheless, sure enough, it must be; it shall and will be. We\nare rushing swiftly on the road to destruction; every hour bringing us\nnearer, until it be, in some measure, done. The doing of it is not\ndoubtful; only the method and the costs! Nay I will even mention to\nyou an infallible sifting process whereby he that has ability will be\nsifted out to rule among us, and that same blessed Aristocracy of\nTalent be verily, in an approximate degree, vouchsafed us by and by:\nan infallible sifting-process; to which, however, no soul can help his\nneighbour, but each must, with devout prayer to Heaven, endeavour to\nhelp himself. It is, O friends, that all of us, that many of us,\nshould acquire the true _eye_ for talent, which is dreadfully wanting\nat present! The true eye for talent presupposes the true reverence for\nit,--O Heavens, presupposes so many things!\n\n'For example, you Bobus Higgins, Sausage-maker on the great scale, who\nare raising such a clamour for this Aristocracy of Talent, what is it\nthat you do, in that big heart of yours, chiefly in very fact pay\nreverence to? Is it to talent, intrinsic manly worth of any kind, you\nunfortunate Bobus? The manliest man that you saw going in a ragged\ncoat, did you ever reverence him; did you so much as know that he was\na manly man at all, till his coat grew better? Talent! I understand\nyou to be able to worship the fame of talent, the power, cash,\ncelebrity or other success of talent; but the talent itself is a thing\nyou never saw with eyes. Nay what is it in yourself that you are\nproudest of, that you take most pleasure in surveying meditatively in\nthoughtful moments? Speak now, is it the bare Bobus stript of his very\nname and shirt, and turned loose upon society, that you admire and\nthank Heaven for; or Bobus with his cash-accounts and larders dropping\nfatness, with his respectabilities, warm garnitures, and pony-chaise,\nadmirable in some measure to certain of the flunky species? Your own\ndegree of worth and talent, is it of _infinite_ value to you; or only\nof finite,--measurable by the degree of currency, and conquest of\npraise or pudding, it has brought you to? Bobus, you are in a vicious\ncircle, rounder than one of your own sausages; and will never vote for\nor promote any talent, except what talent or sham-talent has already\n_got_ itself voted for!'--We here cut short the _Indicator_; all\nreaders perceiving whither he now tends.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n'More Wisdom' indeed: but where to find more Wisdom? We have already a\nCollective Wisdom, after its kind,--though 'class-legislation,' and\nanother thing or two, affect it somewhat! On the whole, as they say,\nLike people like priest; so we may say, Like people like king. The man\ngets himself appointed and elected who is ablest--to be appointed and\nelected. What can the incorruptiblest _Bobuses_ elect, if it be not\nsome _Bobissimus_, should they find such?\n\nOr again, perhaps there is not, in the whole Nation, Wisdom enough,\n'collect' it as we may, to make an adequate Collective! That too is a\ncase which may befall: a ruined man staggers down to ruin because\nthere was not wisdom enough in him; so, clearly also, may Twenty-seven\nMillion collective men!--But indeed one of the infalliblest fruits of\nUnwisdom in a Nation is that it cannot get the use of what Wisdom is\nactually in it: that it is not governed by the wisest it has, who\nalone have a divine right to govern in all Nations; but by the\nsham-wisest, or even by the openly not-so-wise if they are handiest\notherwise! This is the infalliblest result of Unwisdom; and also the\nbalefulest, immeasurablest,--not so much what we can call a\npoison-_fruit_, as a universal death-disease, and poisoning of the\nwhole tree. For hereby are fostered, fed into gigantic bulk, all\nmanner of Unwisdoms, poison-fruits; till, as we say, the life-tree\neverywhere is made a upas-tree, deadly Unwisdom overshadowing all\nthings; and there is done what lies in human skill to stifle all\nWisdom everywhere in the birth, to smite our poor world barren of\nWisdom,--and make your utmost Collective Wisdom, were it collected\nand elected by Rhadamanthus, AEacus and Minos, not to speak of drunken\nTenpound Franchisers with their ballot-boxes, an inadequate\nCollective! The Wisdom is not now there: how will you 'collect' it? As\nwell wash Thames mud, by improved methods, to find more gold in it.\n\nTruly, the first condition is indispensable, That Wisdom be there: but\nthe second is like unto it, is properly one with it; these two\nconditions act and react through every fibre of them, and go\ninseparably together. If you have much Wisdom in your Nation, you will\nget it faithfully collected; for the wise love Wisdom, and will search\nfor it as for life and salvation. If you have little Wisdom, you will\nget even that little ill-collected, trampled under foot, reduced as\nnear as possible to annihilation; for fools do not love Wisdom; they\nare foolish, first of all, because they have never loved Wisdom,--but\nhave loved their own appetites, ambitions, their coroneted coaches,\ntankards of heavy-wet. Thus is your candle lighted at both ends, and\nthe progress towards consummation is swift. Thus is fulfilled that\nsaying in the Gospel: To him that hath shall be given; and from him\nthat hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Very\nliterally, in a very fatal manner, that saying is here fulfilled.\n\nOur 'Aristocracy of Talent' seems at a considerable distance yet; does\nit not, O Bobus?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nHERO-WORSHIP.\n\n\nTo the present Editor, not less than to Bobus, a Government of the\nWisest, what Bobus calls an Aristocracy of Talent, seems the one\nhealing remedy: but he is not so sanguine as Bobus with respect to the\nmeans of realising it. He thinks that we have at once missed realising\nit, and come to need it so pressingly, by departing far from the inner\neternal Laws, and taking-up with the temporary outer semblances of\nLaws. He thinks that 'enlightened Egoism,' never so luminous, is not\nthe rule by which man's life can be led. That 'Laissez-faire,'\n'Supply-and-demand,' 'Cash-payment for the sole nexus,' and so forth,\nwere not, are not and will never be, a practicable Law of Union for a\nSociety of Men. That Poor and Rich, that Governed and Governing,\ncannot long live together on any such Law of Union. Alas, he thinks\nthat man has a soul in him, _different_ from the stomach in any sense\nof this word; that if said soul be asphyxied, and lie quietly\nforgotten, the man and his affairs are in a bad way. He thinks that\nsaid soul will have to be resuscitated from its asphyxia; that if it\nprove irresuscitable, the man is not long for this world. In brief,\nthat Midas-eared Mammonism, double-barrelled Dilettantism, and their\nthousand adjuncts and corollaries, are _not_ the Law by which God\nAlmighty has appointed this his Universe to go. That, once for all,\nthese are not the Law: and then farther that we shall have to return\nto what _is_ the Law,--not by smooth flowery paths, it is like, and\nwith 'tremendous cheers' in our throat; but over steep untrodden\nplaces, through stormclad chasms, waste oceans, and the bosom of\ntornadoes; thank Heaven, if not through very Chaos and the Abyss! The\nresuscitating of a soul that has gone to asphyxia is no momentary or\npleasant process, but a long and terrible one.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo the present Editor, 'Hero-worship,' as he has elsewhere named it,\nmeans much more than an elected Parliament, or stated Aristocracy, of\nthe Wisest; for in his dialect it is the summary, ultimate essence,\nand supreme practical perfection of all manner of 'worship,' and true\nworthships and noblenesses whatsoever. Such blessed Parliament and,\nwere it once in perfection, blessed Aristocracy of the Wisest,\ngod-honoured and man-honoured, he does look for, more and more\nperfected,--as the topmost blessed practical apex of a whole world\nreformed from sham-worship, informed anew with worship, with truth and\nblessedness! He thinks that Hero-worship, done differently in every\ndifferent epoch of the world, is the soul of all social business among\nmen; that the doing of it well, or the doing of it ill, measures\naccurately what degree of well-being or of ill-being there is in the\nworld's affairs. He thinks that we, on the whole, do our Hero-worship\nworse than any Nation in this world ever did it before: that the Burns\nan Exciseman, the Byron a Literary Lion, are intrinsically, all things\nconsidered, a baser and falser phenomenon than the Odin a God, the\nMahomet a Prophet of God. It is this Editor's clear opinion,\naccordingly, that we must learn to do our Hero-worship better; that to\ndo it better and better, means the awakening of the Nation's soul from\nits asphyxia, and the return of blessed life to us,--Heaven's blessed\nlife, not Mammon's galvanic accursed one. To resuscitate the\nAsphyxied, apparently now moribund and in the last agony if not\nresuscitated: such and no other seems the consummation.\n\n'Hero-worship,' if you will,--yes, friends; but, first of all, by\nbeing ourselves of heroic mind. A whole world of Heroes; a world not\nof Flunkies, where no Hero-King _can_ reign: that is what we aim at!\nWe, for our share, will put away all Flunkyism, Baseness, Unveracity\nfrom us; we shall then hope to have Noblenesses and Veracities set\nover us; never till then. Let Bobus and Company sneer, \"That is your\nReform!\" Yes, Bobus, that is our Reform; and except in that, and what\nwill follow out of that, we have no hope at all. Reform, like Charity,\nO Bobus, must begin at home. Once well at home, how will it radiate\noutwards, irrepressible, into all that we touch and handle, speak and\nwork; kindling ever new light, by incalculable contagion, spreading in\ngeometric ratio, far and wide,--doing good only, wheresoever it\nspreads, and not evil.\n\nBy Reform Bills, Anti-Corn-Law Bills, and thousand other bills and\nmethods, we will demand of our Governors, with emphasis, and for the\nfirst time not without effect, that they cease to be quacks, or else\ndepart; that they set no quackeries and blockheadisms anywhere to rule\nover us, that they utter or act no cant to us,--it will be better if\nthey do not. For we shall now know quacks when we see them; cant, when\nwe hear it, shall be horrible to us! We will say, with the poor\nFrenchman at the Bar of the Convention, though in wiser style than he,\nand 'for the space' not 'of an hour' but of a lifetime: \"_Je demande\nl'arrestation des coquins et des laches_.\" 'Arrestment of the knaves\nand dastards:' ah, we know what a work that is; how long it will be\nbefore _they_ are all or mostly got 'arrested:'--but here is one;\narrest him, in God's name; it is one fewer! We will, in all\npracticable ways, by word and silence, by act and refusal to act,\nenergetically demand that arrestment,--\"_je demande cette\narrestation-la!_\"--and by degrees infallibly attain it. Infallibly:\nfor light spreads; all human souls, never so bedarkened, love light;\nlight once kindled spreads, till all is luminous;--till the cry,\n\"_Arrest_ your knaves and dastards\" rises imperative from millions of\nhearts, and rings and reigns from sea to sea. Nay how many of them may\nwe not 'arrest' with our own hands, even now; we! Do not countenance\nthem, thou there: turn away from their lacquered sumptuosities, their\nbelauded sophistries, their serpent graciosities, their spoken and\nacted cant, with a sacred horror, with an _Apage Satanas_.--Bobus and\nCompany, and all men will gradually join us. We demand arrestment of\nthe knaves and dastards, and begin by arresting our own poor selves\nout of that fraternity. There is no other reform conceivable. Thou and\nI, my friend, can, in the most flunky world, make, each of us, _one_\nnon-flunky, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin\nwith:--Courage! even that is a whole world of heroes to end with, or\nwhat we poor Two can do in furtherance thereof!\n\nYes, friends: Hero-kings, and a whole world not unheroic,--there lies\nthe port and happy haven, towards which, through all these stormtost\nseas, French Revolutions, Chartisms, Manchester Insurrections, that\nmake the heart sick in these bad days, the Supreme Powers are driving\nus. On the whole, blessed be the Supreme Powers, stern as they are!\nTowards that haven will we, O friends; let all true men, with what of\nfaculty is in them, bend valiantly, incessantly, with thousandfold\nendeavour, thither, thither! There, or else in the Ocean-abysses, it\nis very clear to me, we shall arrive.\n\nWell; here truly is no answer to the Sphinx-question; not the answer\na disconsolate public, inquiring at the College of Health, was in\nhopes of! A total change of regimen, change of constitution and\nexistence from the very centre of it; a new body to be got, with\nresuscitated soul,--not without convulsive travail-throes; as all\nbirth and new-birth presupposes travail! This is sad news to a\ndisconsolate discerning Public, hoping to have got off by some\nMorrison's Pill, some Saint-John's corrosive mixture and perhaps a\nlittle blistery friction on the back!--We were prepared to part with\nour Corn-Law, with various Laws and Unlaws: but this, what is this?\n\nNor has the Editor forgotten how it fares with your ill-boding\nCassandras in Sieges of Troy. Imminent perdition is not usually driven\naway by words of warning. Didactic Destiny has other methods in store;\nor these would fail always. Such words should, nevertheless, be\nuttered, when they dwell truly in the soul of any man. Words are hard,\nare importunate; but how much harder the importunate events they\nforeshadow! Here and there a human soul may listen to the words,--who\nknows how many human souls?--whereby the importunate events, if not\ndiverted and prevented, will be rendered _less_ hard. The present\nEditor's purpose is to himself full of hope.\n\nFor though fierce travails, though wide seas and roaring gulfs lie\nbefore us, is it not something if a Loadstar, in the eternal sky, do\nonce more disclose itself; an everlasting light, shining through all\ncloud-tempests and roaring billows; ever as we emerge from the trough\nof the sea: the blessed beacon, far off on the edge of far horizons,\ntowards which we are to steer incessantly for life? Is it not\nsomething; O Heavens, is it not all? There lies the Heroic Promised\nLand; under that Heaven's-light, my brethren, bloom the Happy\nIsles,--there, O there! Thither will we;\n\n    'There dwells the great Achilles whom we knew.'[2]\n\nThere dwell all Heroes, and will dwell: thither, all ye\nheroic-minded!--The Heaven's Loadstar once clearly in our eye, how\nwill each true man stand truly to _his_ work in the ship; how, with\nundying hope, will all things be fronted, all be conquered. Nay, with\nthe ship's prow once turned in that direction, is not all, as it were,\nalready well? Sick wasting misery has become noble manful effort with\na goal in our eye. 'The choking Nightmare chokes us no longer; for we\n_stir_ under it; the Nightmare has already fled.'--\n\nCertainly, could the present Editor instruct men how to know Wisdom,\nHeroism, when they see it, that they might do reverence to _it_ only,\nand loyally make it ruler over them,--yes, he were the living epitome\nof all Editors, Teachers, Prophets, that now teach and prophesy; he\nwere an _Apollo_-Morrison, a Trismegistus and _effective_ Cassandra!\nLet no Able Editor hope such things. It is to be expected the present\nlaws of copyright, rate of reward per sheet, and other considerations,\nwill save him from that peril. Let no Editor hope such things:\nno;--and yet let all Editors aim towards such things, and even towards\nsuch alone! One knows not what the meaning of editing and writing is,\nif even this be not it.\n\nEnough, to the present Editor it has seemed possible some glimmering\nof light, for here and there a human soul, might lie in these confused\nPaper-Masses now intrusted to him; wherefore he determines to edit the\nsame. Out of old Books, new Writings, and much Meditation not of\nyesterday, he will endeavour to select a thing or two; and from the\nPast, in a circuitous way, illustrate the Present and the Future. The\nPast is a dim indubitable fact: the Future too is one, only dimmer;\nnay properly it is the _same_ fact in new dress and development. For\nthe Present holds it in both the whole Past and the whole Future;--as\nthe Life-tree Igdrasil, wide-waving, many-toned, has its roots down\ndeep in the Death-kingdoms, among the oldest dead dust of men, and\nwith its boughs reaches always beyond the stars; and in all times and\nplaces is one and the same Life-tree!\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] Tennyson's _Poems_ (Ulysses).\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II.\n\nTHE ANCIENT MONK.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nJOCELIN OF BRAKELOND.\n\n\nWe will, in this Second Portion of our Work, strive to penetrate a\nlittle, by means of certain confused Papers, printed and other, into a\nsomewhat remote Century; and to look face to face on it, in hope of\nperhaps illustrating our own poor Century thereby. It seems a\ncircuitous way; but it may prove a way nevertheless. For man has ever\nbeen a striving, struggling, and, in spite of wide-spread calumnies to\nthe contrary, a veracious creature: the Centuries too are all lineal\nchildren of one another; and often, in the portrait of early\ngrandfathers, this and the other enigmatic feature of the newest\ngrandson shall disclose itself, to mutual elucidation. This Editor\nwill venture on such a thing.\n\nBesides, in Editors' Books, and indeed everywhere else in the world of\nToday, a certain latitude of movement grows more and more becoming for\nthe practical man. Salvation lies not in tight lacing, in these\ntimes;--how far from that, in any province whatsoever! Readers and men\ngenerally are getting into strange habits of asking all persons and\nthings, from poor Editors' Books up to Church Bishops and State\nPotentates, not, By what designation art thou called; in what wig and\nblack triangle dost thou walk abroad? Heavens, I know thy designation\nand black triangle well enough! But, in God's name, what _art_ thou?\nNot Nothing, sayest thou! Then, How much and what? This is the thing I\nwould know; and even _must_ soon know, such a pass am I come to!--What\nweather-symptoms,--not for the poor Editor of Books alone! The Editor\nof Books may understand withal that if, as is said, 'many kinds are\npermissible,' there is one kind not permissible, 'the kind that has\nnothing in it, _le genre ennuyeux_;' and go on his way accordingly.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA certain Jocelinus de Brakelonda, a natural-born Englishman, has left\nus an extremely foreign Book,[3] which the labours of the Camden\nSociety have brought to light in these days. Jocelin's Book, the\n'Chronicle,' or private Boswellean Notebook, of Jocelin, a certain old\nSt. Edmundsbury Monk and Boswell, now seven centuries old, how remote\nis it from us; exotic, extraneous; in all ways, coming from far\nabroad! The language of it is not foreign only but dead: Monk-Latin\nlies across not the British Channel, but the ninefold Stygian Marshes,\nStream of Lethe, and one knows not where! Roman Latin itself, still\nalive for us in the Elysian Fields of Memory, is domestic in\ncomparison. And then the ideas, life-furniture, whole workings and\nways of this worthy Jocelin; covered deeper than Pompeii with the\nlava-ashes and inarticulate wreck of seven hundred years!\n\nJocelin of Brakelond cannot be called a conspicuous literary\ncharacter; indeed few mortals that have left so visible a work, or\nfootmark, behind them can be more obscure. One other of those\nvanished Existences, whose work has not yet vanished;--almost a\npathetic phenomenon, were not the whole world full of such! The\nbuilders of Stonehenge, for example:--or, alas, what say we,\nStonehenge and builders? The writers of the _Universal Review_ and\n_Homer's Iliad_; the paviors of London streets;--sooner or later, the\nentire Posterity of Adam! It is a pathetic phenomenon; but an\nirremediable, nay, if well meditated, a consoling one.\n\nBy his dialect of Monk-Latin, and indeed by his name, this Jocelin\nseems to have been a Norman Englishman; the surname _de Brakelonda_\nindicates a native of St. Edmundsbury itself, _Brakelond_ being the\nknown old name of a street or quarter in that venerable Town. Then\nfarther, sure enough, our Jocelin was a Monk of St. Edmundsbury\nConvent; held some '_obedientia_,' subaltern officiality there, or\nrather, in succession several; was, for one thing, 'chaplain to my\nLord Abbot, living beside him night and day for the space of six\nyears;'--which last, indeed, is the grand fact of Jocelin's existence,\nand properly the origin of this present Book, and of the chief meaning\nit has for us now. He was, as we have hinted, a kind of born\n_Boswell_, though an infinitesimally small one; neither did he\naltogether want his _Johnson_ even there and then. Johnsons are rare;\nyet, as has been asserted, Boswells perhaps still rarer,--the more is\nthe pity on both sides! This Jocelin, as we can discern well, was an\ningenious and ingenuous, a cheery-hearted, innocent, yet withal\nshrewd, noticing, quick-witted man; and from under his monk's cowl has\nlooked out on that narrow section of the world in a really _human_\nmanner; not in any _simial_, canine, ovine, or otherwise _in_human\nmanner,--afflictive to all that have humanity! The man is of patient,\npeaceable, loving, clear-smiling nature; open for this and that. A\nwise simplicity is in him; much natural sense; a _veracity_ that goes\ndeeper than words. Veracity: it is the basis of all; and, some say,\nmeans genius itself; the prime essence of all genius whatsoever. Our\nJocelin, for the rest, has read his classical manuscripts, his\nVirgilius, his Flaccus, Ovidius Naso; of course still more, his\nHomilies and Breviaries, and if not the Bible, considerable extracts\nof the Bible. Then also he has a pleasant wit; and loves a timely\njoke, though in mild subdued manner: very amiable to see. A learned\ngrown man, yet with the heart as of a good child; whose whole life\nindeed has been that of a child,--St. Edmundsbury Monastery a larger\nkind of cradle for him, in which his whole prescribed duty was to\n_sleep_ kindly, and love his mother well! This is the Biography of\nJocelin; 'a man of excellent religion,' says one of his contemporary\nBrother Monks, '_eximiae religionis, potens sermone et opere_.'\n\nFor one thing, he had learned to write a kind of Monk or Dog-Latin,\nstill readable to mankind; and, by good luck for us, had bethought him\nof noting down thereby what things seemed notablest to him. Hence\ngradually resulted a _Chronica Jocelini_; new Manuscript in the _Liber\nAlbus_ of St. Edmundsbury. Which Chronicle, once written in its\nchildlike transparency, in its innocent good-humour, not without\ntouches of ready pleasant wit and many kinds of worth, other men liked\nnaturally to read: whereby it failed not to be copied, to be\nmultiplied, to be inserted in the _Liber Albus_; and so surviving\nHenry the Eighth, Putney Cromwell, the Dissolution of Monasteries, and\nall accidents of malice and neglect for six centuries or so, it got\ninto the _Harleian Collection_,--and has now therefrom, by Mr.\nRokewood of the Camden Society, been deciphered into clear print; and\nlies before us, a dainty thin quarto, to interest for a few minutes\nwhomsoever it can.\n\nHere too it will behove a just Historian gratefully to say that Mr.\nRokewood, Jocelin's Editor, has done his editorial function well. Not\nonly has he deciphered his crabbed Manuscript into clear print; but he\nhas attended, what his fellow editors are not always in the habit of\ndoing, to the important truth that the Manuscript so deciphered ought\nto have a meaning for the reader. Standing faithfully by his text, and\nprinting its very errors in spelling, in grammar or otherwise, he has\ntaken care by some note to indicate that they are errors, and what the\ncorrection of them ought to be. Jocelin's Monk-Latin is generally\ntransparent, as shallow limpid water. But at any stop that may occur,\nof which there are a few, and only a very few, we have the comfortable\nassurance that a meaning does lie in the passage, and may by industry\nbe got at; that a faithful editor's industry had already got at it\nbefore passing on. A compendious useful Glossary is given; nearly\nadequate to help the uninitiated through: sometimes one wishes it had\nbeen a trifle larger; but, with a Spelman and Ducange at your elbow,\nhow easy to have made it far too large! Notes are added, generally\nbrief; sufficiently explanatory of most points. Lastly, a copious\ncorrect Index; which no such Book should want, and which unluckily\nvery few possess. And so, in a word, the _Chronicle of Jocelin_ is, as\nit professes to be, unwrapped from its thick cerements, and fairly\nbrought forth into the common daylight, so that he who runs, and has a\nsmattering of grammar, may read.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe have heard so much of Monks; everywhere, in real and fictitious\nHistory, from Muratori Annals to Radcliffe Romances, these singular\ntwo-legged animals, with their rosaries and breviaries, with their\nshaven crowns, hair-cilities, and vows of poverty, masquerade so\nstrangely through our fancy; and they are in fact so very strange an\nextinct species of the human family,--a veritable Monk of Bury St.\nEdmunds is worth attending to, if by chance made visible and audible.\nHere he is; and in his hand a magical speculum, much gone to rust\nindeed, yet in fragments still clear; wherein the marvellous image of\nhis existence does still shadow itself, though fitfully, and as with\nan intermittent light! Will not the reader peep with us into this\nsingular _camera lucida_, where an extinct species, though fitfully,\ncan still be seen alive? Extinct species, we say; for the live\nspecimens which still go about under that character are too evidently\nto be classed as spurious in Natural History: the Gospel of Richard\nArkwright once promulgated, no Monk of the old sort is any longer\npossible in this world. But fancy a deep-buried Mastodon, some fossil\nMegatherion, Ichthyosaurus, were to begin to _speak_ from amid its\nrock-swathings, never so indistinctly! The most extinct fossil species\nof Men or Monks can do, and does, this miracle,--thanks to the Letters\nof the Alphabet, good for so many things.\n\nJocelin, we said, was somewhat of a Boswell; but unfortunately, by\nNature, he is none of the largest, and distance has now dwarfed him to\nan extreme degree. His light is most feeble, intermittent, and\nrequires the intensest kindest inspection; otherwise it will disclose\nmere vacant haze. It must be owned, the good Jocelin, spite of his\nbeautiful childlike character, is but an altogether imperfect 'mirror'\nof these old-world things! The good man, he looks on us so clear and\ncheery, and in his neighbourly soft-smiling eyes we see so well our\n_own_ shadow,--we have a longing always to cross-question him, to\nforce from him an explanation of much. But no; Jocelin, though he\ntalks with such clear familiarity, like a next-door neighbour, will\nnot answer any question: that is the peculiarity of him, dead these\nsix hundred and fifty years, and quite deaf to us, though still so\naudible! The good man, he cannot help it, nor can we.\n\nBut truly it is a strange consideration this simple one, as we go on\nwith him, or indeed with any lucid simple-hearted soul like him:\nBehold therefore, this England of the Year 1200 was no chimerical\nvacuity or dreamland, peopled with mere vaporous Fantasms, Rymer's\nFoedera, and Doctrines of the Constitution; but a green solid place,\nthat grew corn and several other things. The Sun shone on it: the\nvicissitude of seasons and human fortunes. Cloth was woven and worn;\nditches were dug, furrow-fields ploughed, and houses built. Day by day\nall men and cattle rose to labour, and night by night returned home\nweary to their several lairs. In wondrous Dualism, then as now, lived\nnations of breathing men; alternating, in all ways, between Light and\nDark; between joy and sorrow, between rest and toil,--between hope,\nhope reaching high as Heaven, and fear deep as very Hell. Not vapour\nFantasms, Rymer's Foedera at all! Coeur-de-Lion was not a\ntheatrical popinjay with greaves and steel-cap on it, but a man living\nupon victuals,--_not_ imported by Peel's Tariff. Coeur-de-Lion came\npalpably athwart this Jocelin at St. Edmundsbury; and had almost\npeeled the sacred gold '_Feretrum_,' or St. Edmund Shrine itself, to\nransom him out of the Danube Jail.\n\nThese clear eyes of neighbour Jocelin looked on the bodily presence of\nKing John; the very John _Sansterre_, or Lackland, who signed _Magna\nCharta_ afterwards in Runnymead. Lackland, with a great retinue,\nboarded once, for the matter of a fortnight, in St. Edmundsbury\nConvent; daily in the very eyesight, palpable to the very fingers of\nour Jocelin: O Jocelin, what did he say, what did he do; how looked\nhe, lived he;--at the very lowest, what coat or breeches had he on?\nJocelin is obstinately silent. Jocelin marks down what interests\n_him_; entirely deaf to _us_. With Jocelin's eyes we discern almost\nnothing of John Lackland. As through a glass darkly, we with our own\neyes and appliances, intensely looking, discern at most: A blustering,\ndissipated human figure, with a kind of blackguard quality air, in\ncramoisy velvet, or other uncertain texture, uncertain cut, with much\nplumage and fringing; amid numerous other human figures of the like;\nriding abroad with hawks; talking noisy nonsense;--tearing out the\nbowels of St. Edmundsbury Convent (its larders namely and cellars) in\nthe most ruinous way, by living at rack and manger there. Jocelin\nnotes only, with a slight subacidity of manner, that the King's\nMajesty, _Dominus Rex_, did leave, as gift for our St. Edmund Shrine,\na handsome enough silk cloak,--or rather pretended to leave, for one\nof his retinue borrowed it of us, and _we_ never got sight of it\nagain; and, on the whole, that the _Dominus Rex_, at departing, gave\nus 'thirteen _sterlingii_,' one shilling and one penny, to say a mass\nfor him; and so departed,--like a shabby Lackland as he was! 'Thirteen\npence sterling,' this was what the Convent got from Lackland, for all\nthe victuals he and his had made away with. We of course said our mass\nfor him, having covenanted to do it,--but let impartial posterity\njudge with what degree of fervour!\n\nAnd in this manner vanishes King Lackland; traverses swiftly our\nstrange intermittent magic-mirror, jingling the shabby thirteen pence\nmerely; and rides with his hawks into Egyptian night again. It is\nJocelin's manner with all things; and it is men's manner and men's\nnecessity. How intermittent is our good Jocelin; marking down, without\neye to _us_, what _he_ finds interesting! How much in Jocelin, as in\nall History, and indeed in all Nature, is at once inscrutable and\ncertain; so dim, yet so indubitable; exciting us to endless\nconsiderations. For King Lackland _was_ there, verily he; and did\nleave these _tredecim sterlingii_, if nothing more, and did live and\nlook in one way or the other, and a whole world was living and looking\nalong with him! There, we say, is the grand peculiarity; the\nimmeasurable one; distinguishing, to a really infinite degree, the\npoorest historical Fact from all Fiction whatsoever. Fiction,\n'Imagination,' 'Imaginative Poetry,' &c. &c., except as the vehicle\nfor truth, or _fact_ of some sort,--which surely a man should first\ntry various other ways of vehiculating, and conveying safe,--what is\nit? Let the Minerva and other Presses respond!--\n\nBut it is time we were in St. Edmundsbury Monastery, and Seven good\nCenturies off. If indeed it be possible, by any aid of Jocelin, by any\nhuman art, to get thither, with a reader or two still following us?\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] _Chronica_ Jocelini de Brakelonda, _de rebus gestis Samsonis\nAbbatis Monasterii Sancti Edmundi nunc primum typis mandata, curante\nJohanne Gage Rokewood._ (Camden Society, London, 1840)\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nST. EDMUNDSBURY.\n\n\nThe _Burg_, Bury, or 'Berry' as they call it, of St. Edmund is still a\nprosperous brisk Town; beautifully diversifying, with its clear brick\nhouses, ancient clean streets, and twenty or fifteen thousand busy\nsouls, the general grassy face of Suffolk; looking out right\npleasantly, from its hill-slope, towards the rising Sun: and on the\neastern edge of it, still runs, long, black and massive, a range of\nmonastic ruins; into the wide internal spaces of which the stranger is\nadmitted on payment of one shilling. Internal spaces laid out, at\npresent, as a botanic garden. Here stranger or townsman, sauntering at\nhis leisure amid these vast grim venerable ruins, may persuade himself\nthat an Abbey of St. Edmundsbury did once exist; nay there is no doubt\nof it: see here the ancient massive Gateway, of architecture\ninteresting to the eye of Dilettantism; and farther on, that other\nancient Gateway, now about to tumble, unless Dilettantism, in these\nvery months, can subscribe money to cramp it and prop it!\n\nHere, sure enough, is an Abbey; beautiful in the eye of Dilettantism.\nGiant Pedantry also will step in, with its huge _Dugdale_ and other\nenormous _Monasticons_ under its arm, and cheerfully apprise you, That\nthis was a very great Abbey, owner and indeed creator of St. Edmund's\nTown itself, owner of wide lands and revenues; nay that its lands were\nonce a county of themselves; that indeed King Canute or Knut was very\nkind to it, and gave St. Edmund his own gold crown off his head, on\none occasion: for the rest, that the Monks were of such and such a\ngenus, such and such a number; that they had so many carucates of land\nin this hundred, and so many in that; and then farther that the large\nTower or Belfry was built by such a one, and the smaller Belfry was\nbuilt by &c. &c.--Till human nature can stand no more of it; till\nhuman nature desperately take refuge in forgetfulness, almost in flat\ndisbelief of the whole business, Monks, Monastery, Belfries, Carucates\nand all! Alas, what mountains of dead ashes, wreck and burnt bones,\ndoes assiduous Pedantry dig up from the Past Time, and name it\nHistory, and Philosophy of History; till, as we say, the human soul\nsinks wearied and bewildered; till the Past Time seems all one\ninfinite incredible gray void, without sun, stars, hearth-fires, or\ncandle-light; dim offensive dust-whirlwinds filling universal Nature;\nand over your Historical Library, it is as if all the Titans had\nwritten for themselves: Dry Rubbish shot here!\n\nAnd yet these grim old walls are not a dilettantism and dubiety; they\nare an earnest fact. It was a most real and serious purpose they were\nbuilt for! Yes, another world it was, when these black ruins, white in\ntheir new mortar and fresh chiselling, first saw the sun as walls,\nlong ago. Gauge not, with thy dilettante compasses, with that placid\ndilettante simper, the Heaven's-Watchtower of our Fathers, the fallen\nGod's-Houses, the Golgotha of true Souls departed!\n\nTheir architecture, belfries, land-carucates? Yes,--and that is but a\nsmall item of the matter. Does it never give thee pause, this other\nstrange item of it, that men then had a _soul_,--not by hearsay alone,\nand as a figure of speech; but as a truth that they _knew_, and\npractically went upon! Verily it was another world then. Their\nMissals have become incredible, a sheer platitude, sayest thou? Yes, a\nmost poor platitude; and even, if thou wilt, an idolatry and\nblasphemy, should any one persuade _thee_ to believe them, to pretend\npraying by them. But yet it is pity we had lost tidings of our\nsouls:--actually we shall have to go in quest of them again, or worse\nin all ways will befall! A certain degree of soul, as Ben Jonson\nreminds us, is indispensable to keep the very body from destruction of\nthe frightfulest sort; to 'save us,' says he, 'the expense of _salt_.'\nBen has known men who had soul enough to keep their body and five\nsenses from becoming carrion, and save salt:--men, and also Nations.\nYou may look in Manchester Hunger-mobs and Corn-law Commons Houses,\nand various other quarters, and say whether either soul or else salt\nis not somewhat wanted at present!--\n\nAnother world, truly: and this present poor distressed world might get\nsome profit by looking wisely into it, instead of foolishly. But at\nlowest, O dilettante friend, let us know always that it _was_ a world,\nand not a void infinite of gray haze with fantasms swimming in it.\nThese old St. Edmundsbury walls, I say, were not peopled with\nfantasms; but with men of flesh and blood, made altogether as we are.\nHad thou and I then been, who knows but we ourselves had taken refuge\nfrom an evil Time, and fled to dwell here, and meditate on an\nEternity, in such fashion as we could? Alas, how like an old osseous\nfragment, a broken blackened shin-bone of the old dead Ages, this\nblack ruin looks out, not yet covered by the soil; still indicating\nwhat a once gigantic Life lies buried there! It is dead now, and dumb;\nbut was alive once, and spake. For twenty generations, here was the\nearthly arena where painful living men worked out their\nlife-wrestle,--looked at by Earth, by Heaven and Hell. Bells tolled\nto prayers; and men, of many humours, various thoughts, chanted\nvespers, matins;--and round the little islet of their life rolled\nforever (as round ours still rolls, though we are blind and deaf) the\nillimitable Ocean, tinting all things with _its_ eternal hues and\nreflexes; making strange prophetic music! How silent now; all\ndeparted, clean gone. The World-Dramaturgist has written: _Exeunt_.\nThe devouring Time-Demons have made away with it all: and in its\nstead, there is either nothing; or what is worse, offensive universal\ndust-clouds, and gray eclipse of Earth and Heaven, from 'dry rubbish\nshot here!'--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTruly it is no easy matter to get across the chasm of Seven Centuries,\nfilled with such material. But here, of all helps, is not a Boswell\nthe welcomest; even a small Boswell? Veracity, true simplicity of\nheart, how valuable are these always! He that speaks what _is_ really\nin him, will find men to listen, though under never such impediments.\nEven gossip, springing free and cheery from a human heart, this too is\na kind of veracity and _speech_;--much preferable to pedantry and\ninane gray haze! Jocelin is weak and garrulous, but he is human.\nThrough the thin watery gossip of our Jocelin, we do get some glimpses\nof that deep-buried Time; discern veritably, though in a fitful\nintermittent manner, these antique figures and their life-method, face\nto face! Beautifully, in our earnest loving glance, the old centuries\nmelt from opaque to partially translucent, transparent here and there;\nand the void black Night, one finds, is but the summing-up of\ninnumerable peopled luminous _Days_. Not parchment Chartularies,\nDoctrines of the Constitution, O Dryasdust; not altogether, my erudite\nfriend!--\n\nReaders who please to go along with us into this poor _Jocelini\nChronica_ shall wander inconveniently enough, as in wintry twilight,\nthrough some poor stript hazel-grove, rustling with foolish noises,\nand perpetually hindering the eyesight; but across which, here and\nthere, some real human figure is seen moving: very strange; whom we\ncould hail if he would answer;--and we look into a pair of eyes deep\nas our own, _imaging_ our own, but all unconscious of us; to whom we,\nfor the time, are become as spirits and invisible!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nLANDLORD EDMUND.\n\n\nSome three centuries or so had elapsed since _Beodric's-worth_[4]\nbecame St. Edmund's _Stow_, St. Edmund's _Town_ and Monastery, before\nJocelin entered himself a Novice there. 'It was,' says he, 'the year\nafter the Flemings were defeated at Fornham St. Genevieve.'\n\nMuch passes away into oblivion: this glorious victory over the\nFlemings at Fornham has, at the present date, greatly dimmed itself\nout of the minds of men. A victory and battle nevertheless it was, in\nits time: some thrice-renowned Earl of Leicester, not of the De\nMontfort breed (as may be read in Philosophical and other Histories,\ncould any human memory retain such things), had quarrelled with his\nsovereign, Henry Second of the name; had been worsted, it is like, and\nmaltreated, and obliged to fly to foreign parts; but had rallied there\ninto new vigour; and so, in the year 1173, returns across the German\nSea with a vengeful army of Flemings. Returns, to the coast of\nSuffolk; to Framlingham Castle, where he is welcomed; westward towards\nSt. Edmundsbury and Fornham Church, where he is met by the constituted\nauthorities with _posse comitatus_; and swiftly cut in pieces, he and\nhis, or laid by the heels; on the right bank of the obscure river\nLark,--as traces still existing will verify.\n\nFor the river Lark, though not very discoverably, still runs or\nstagnates in that country; and the battle-ground is there; serving at\npresent as a pleasure-ground to his Grace of Northumberland. Copper\npennies of Henry II. are still found there;--rotted out from the\npouches of poor slain soldiers, who had not had _time_ to buy liquor\nwith them. In the river Lark itself was fished up, within man's\nmemory, an antique gold ring; which fond Dilettantism can almost\nbelieve may have been the very ring Countess Leicester threw away, in\nher flight, into that same Lark river or ditch.[5] Nay, few years ago,\nin tearing out an enormous superannuated ash-tree, now grown quite\ncorpulent, bursten, superfluous, but long a fixture in the soil, and\nnot to be dislodged without revolution,--there was laid bare, under\nits roots, 'a circular mound of skeletons wonderfully complete,' all\nradiating from a centre, faces upwards, feet inwards; a 'radiation'\nnot of Light, but of the Nether Darkness rather; and evidently the\nfruit of battle; for 'many of the heads were cleft, or had arrow-holes\nin them,' The Battle of Fornham, therefore, is a fact, though a\nforgotten one; no less obscure than undeniable,--like so many other\nfacts.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLike the St. Edmund's Monastery itself! Who can doubt, after what we\nhave said, that there was a Monastery here at one time? No doubt at\nall there was a Monastery here; no doubt, some three centuries prior\nto this Fornham Battle, there dwelt a man in these parts of the name\nof Edmund, King, Landlord, Duke or whatever his title was, of the\nEastern Counties;--and a very singular man and landlord he must have\nbeen.\n\nFor his tenants, it would appear, did not in the least complain of\nhim; his labourers did not think of burning his wheatstacks, breaking\ninto his game-preserves; very far the reverse of all that. Clear\nevidence, satisfactory even to my friend Dryasdust, exists that, on\nthe contrary, they honoured, loved, admired this ancient Landlord to a\nquite astonishing degree,--and indeed at last to an immeasurable and\ninexpressible degree; for, finding no limits or utterable words for\ntheir sense of his worth, they took to beatifying and adoring him!\n'Infinite admiration,' we are taught, 'means worship.'\n\nVery singular,--could we discover it! What Edmund's specific duties\nwere; above all, what his method of discharging them with such results\nwas, would surely be interesting to know; but are _not_ very\ndiscoverable now. His Life has become a poetic, nay a religious\n_Mythus_; though, undeniably enough, it was once a prose Fact, as our\npoor lives are; and even a very rugged unmanageable one. This landlord\nEdmund did go about in leather shoes, with _femoralia_ and bodycoat of\nsome sort on him; and daily had his breakfast to procure; and daily\nhad contradictory speeches, and most contradictory facts not a few, to\nreconcile with himself. No man becomes a Saint in his sleep. Edmund,\nfor instance, instead of _reconciling_ those same contradictory facts\nand speeches to himself,--which means _subduing_, and in a manlike and\ngodlike manner conquering them to himself,--might have merely thrown\nnew contention into them, new unwisdom into them, and so been\nconquered _by_ them; much the commoner case! In that way he had proved\nno 'Saint,' or Divine-looking Man, but a mere Sinner, and unfortunate,\nblameable, more or less Diabolic-looking man! No landlord Edmund\nbecomes infinitely admirable in his sleep.\n\nWith what degree of wholesome rigour his rents were collected, we hear\nnot. Still less by what methods he preserved his game, whether by\n'bushing' or how,--and if the partridge-seasons were 'excellent,' or\nwere indifferent. Neither do we ascertain what kind of Corn-bill he\npassed, or wisely-adjusted Sliding-scale:--but indeed there were few\nspinners in those days; and the nuisance of spinning, and other dusty\nlabour, was not yet so glaring a one.\n\nHow then, it may be asked, did this Edmund rise into favour; become to\nsuch astonishing extent a recognised Farmer's Friend? Really, except\nit were by doing justly and loving mercy to an unprecedented extent,\none does not know. The man, it would seem, 'had walked,' as they say,\n'humbly with God;' humbly and valiantly with God; struggling to make\nthe Earth heavenly as he could: instead of walking sumptuously and\npridefully with Mammon, leaving the Earth to grow hellish as it liked.\nNot sumptuously with Mammon? How then could he 'encourage\ntrade,'--cause Howel and James, and many wine-merchants, to bless him,\nand the tailor's heart (though in a very short-sighted manner) to sing\nfor joy? Much in this Edmund's Life is mysterious.\n\nThat he could, on occasion, do what he liked with his own, is\nmeanwhile evident enough. Certain Heathen Physical-Force\nUltra-Chartists, 'Danes' as they were then called, coming into his\nterritory with their 'five points,' or rather with their\nfive-and-twenty thousand _points_ and edges too, of pikes namely and\nbattle-axes; and proposing mere Heathenism, confiscation, spoliation,\nand fire and sword,--Edmund answered that he would oppose to the\nutmost such savagery. They took him prisoner; again required his\nsanction to said proposals. Edmund again refused. Cannot we kill you?\ncried they.--Cannot I die? answered he. My life, I think, is my own to\ndo what I like with! And he died, under barbarous tortures, refusing\nto the last breath; and the Ultra-Chartist Danes _lost_ their\npropositions;--and went with their 'points' and other apparatus, as is\nsupposed, to the Devil, the Father of them. Some say, indeed, these\nDanes were not Ultra-Chartists, but Ultra-Tories, demanding to reap\nwhere they had not sown, and live in this world without working,\nthough all the world should starve for it; which likewise seems a\npossible hypothesis. Be what they might, they went, as we say, to the\nDevil; and Edmund doing what he liked with his own, the Earth was got\ncleared of them.\n\nAnother version is, that Edmund on this and the like occasions stood\nby his order; the oldest, and indeed only true order of Nobility known\nunder the stars, that of Just Men and Sons of God, in opposition to\nUnjust and Sons of Belial,--which latter indeed are _second_-oldest,\nbut yet a very unvenerable order. This, truly, seems the likeliest\nhypothesis of all. Names and appearances alter so strangely, in some\nhalf-score centuries; and all fluctuates chameleon-like, taking now\nthis hue, now that. Thus much is very plain, and does not change hue:\nLandlord Edmund was seen and felt by all men to have done verily a\nman's part in this life-pilgrimage of his; and benedictions, and\nout-flowing love and admiration from the universal heart, were his\nmeed. Well-done! Well-done! cried the hearts of all men. They raised\nhis slain and martyred body; washed its wounds with fast-flowing\nuniversal tears; tears of endless pity, and yet of a sacred joy and\ntriumph. The beautifulest kind of tears,--indeed perhaps the\nbeautifulest kind of thing: like a sky all flashing diamonds and\nprismatic radiance; all weeping, yet shone on by the everlasting\nSun:--and _this_ is not a sky, it is a Soul and living Face! Nothing\nliker the _Temple of the Highest_, bright with some real effulgence of\nthe Highest, is seen in this world.\n\nOh, if all Yankee-land follow a small good 'Schnuespel the\ndistinguished Novelist' with blazing torches, dinner-invitations,\nuniversal hep-hep-hurrah, feeling that he, though small, _is_\nsomething; how might all Angle-land once follow a hero-martyr and\ngreat true Son of Heaven! It is the very joy of man's heart to admire,\nwhere he can; nothing so lifts him from all his mean imprisonments,\nwere it but for moments, as true admiration. Thus it has been said,\n'all men, especially all women, are born worshippers;' and will\nworship, if it be but possible. Possible to worship a Something, even\na small one; not so possible a mere loud-blaring Nothing! What sight\nis more pathetic than that of poor multitudes of persons met to gaze\nat Kings' Progresses, Lord Mayors' Shows, and other gilt-gingerbread\nphenomena of the worshipful sort, in these times; each so eager to\nworship; each, with a dim fatal sense of disappointment, finding that\nhe cannot rightly here! These be thy gods, O Israel? And thou art so\n_willing_ to worship,--poor Israel!\n\nIn this manner, however, did the men of the Eastern Counties take up\nthe slain body of their Edmund, where it lay cast forth in the village\nof Hoxne; seek out the severed head, and reverently reunite the\nsame. They embalmed him with myrrh and sweet spices, with love, pity,\nand all high and awful thoughts; consecrating him with a very\nstorm of melodious adoring admiration, and sun-dyed showers of\ntears;--joyfully, yet with awe (as all deep joy has something of the\nawful in it), commemorating his noble deeds and godlike walk and\nconversation while on Earth. Till, at length, the very Pope and\nCardinals at Rome were forced to hear of it; and they, summing up as\ncorrectly as they well could, with _Advocatus-Diaboli_ pleadings and\ntheir other forms of process, the general verdict of mankind,\ndeclared: That he had, in very fact, led a hero's life in this world;\nand being now _gone_, was gone, as they conceived, to God above, and\nreaping his reward _there_. Such, they said, was the best judgment\nthey could form of the case;--and truly not a bad judgment. Acquiesced\nin, zealously adopted, with full assent of 'private judgment,' by all\nmortals.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe rest of St. Edmund's history, for the reader sees he has now\nbecome a _Saint_, is easily conceivable. Pious munificence provided\nhim a _loculus_, a _feretrum_ or shrine; built for him a wooden\nchapel, a stone temple, ever widening and growing by new pious\ngifts;--such the overflowing heart feels it a blessedness to solace\nitself by giving. St. Edmund's Shrine glitters now with diamond\nflowerages, with a plating of wrought gold. The wooden chapel, as we\nsay, has become a stone temple. Stately masonries, long-drawn arches,\ncloisters, sounding aisles buttress it, begirdle it far and wide.\nRegimented companies of men, of whom our Jocelin is one, devote\nthemselves, in every generation, to meditate here on man's Nobleness\nand Awfulness, and celebrate and show forth the same, as they best\ncan,--thinking they will do it better here, in presence of God the\nMaker, and of the so Awful and so Noble made by Him. In one word, St.\nEdmund's Body has raised a Monastery round it. To such length, in\nsuch manner, has the Spirit of the Time visibly taken body, and\ncrystallised itself here. New gifts, houses, farms, _katalla_[6]--come\never in. King Knut, whom men call Canute, whom the Ocean-tide would\nnot be forbidden to wet,--we heard already of this wise King, with his\ncrown and gifts; but of many others, Kings, Queens, wise men and noble\nloyal women, let Dryasdust and divine Silence be the record!\nBeodric's-Worth has become St. Edmund's _Bury_;--and lasts visible to\nthis hour. All this that thou now seest, and namest Bury Town, is\nproperly the Funeral Monument of Saint or Landlord Edmund. The present\nrespectable Mayor of Bury may be said, like a Fakeer (little as he\nthinks of it), to have his dwelling in the extensive, many-sculptured\nTombstone of St. Edmund; in one of the brick niches thereof dwells the\npresent respectable Mayor of Bury.\n\nCertain Times do crystallise themselves in a magnificent manner; and\nothers, perhaps, are like to do it in rather a shabby one!--But\nRichard Arkwright too will have his Monument, a thousand years hence:\nall Lancashire and Yorkshire, and how many other shires and countries,\nwith their machineries and industries, for his monument! A true\n_pyr_amid or '_flame_-mountain,' flaming with steam fires and useful\nlabour over wide continents, usefully towards the Stars, to a certain\nheight;--how much grander than your foolish Cheops Pyramids or Sakhara\nclay ones! Let us withal be hopeful, be content or patient.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[4] Dryasdust puzzles and pokes for some biography of this Beodric;\nand repugns to consider him a mere East-Anglian Person of Condition,\nnot in need of a biography,--whose [Old English: weoweth], _weorth_ or\n_worth_, that is to say, _Growth_, Increase, or as we should now name\nit, _Estate_, that same Hamlet and wood Mansion, now St. Edmund's\nBury, originally was. For, adds our erudite Friend, the Saxon [Old\nEnglish: weowethan], equivalent to the German _werden_, means to _grow_,\nto _become_; traces of which old vocable are still found in the\nNorth-country dialects; as, 'What is _word_ of him?' meaning, 'What is\n_become_ of him?' and the like. Nay we in modern English still say,\n'Woe _worth_ the hour' (Woe _befall_ the hour), and speak of the\n'_Weird_ Sisters;' not to mention the innumerable other names of\nplaces still ending in _weorth_ or _worth_. And indeed, our common\nnoun _worth_, in the sense of _value_, does not this mean simply, What\na thing has _grown_ to, What a man has _grown_ to, How much he amounts\nto,--by the Threadneedle-street standard or another!\n\n[5] Lyttelton's _History of Henry II._ (2d edition), v. 169, &c.\n\n[6] Goods, properties; what we now call _chattels_, and still more\nsingularly _cattle_, says my erudite friend!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nABBOT HUGO.\n\n\nIt is true, all things have two faces, a light one and a dark. It is\ntrue, in three centuries much imperfection accumulates; many an Ideal,\nmonastic or other, shooting forth into practice as it can, grows to a\nstrange enough Reality; and we have to ask with amazement, Is this\nyour Ideal! For, alas, the Ideal always has to grow in the Real, and\nto seek out its bed and board there, often in a very sorry way. No\nbeautifulest Poet is a Bird-of-Paradise, living on perfumes; sleeping\nin the aether with outspread wings. The Heroic, _independent_ of bed\nand board, is found in Drury-Lane Theatre only; to avoid\ndisappointments, let us bear this in mind.\n\nBy the law of Nature, too, all manner of Ideals have their fatal\nlimits and lot; their appointed periods, of youth, of maturity or\nperfection, of decline, degradation, and final death and\ndisappearance. There is nothing born but has to die. Ideal\nmonasteries, once grown real, do seek bed and board in this world; do\nfind it more and more successfully; do get at length too intent on\nfinding it, exclusively intent on that. They are then like diseased\ncorpulent bodies fallen idiotic, which merely eat and sleep; _ready_\nfor 'dissolution,' by a Henry the Eighth or some other. Jocelin's St.\nEdmundsbury is still far from this last dreadful state: but here too\nthe reader will prepare himself to see an Ideal not sleeping in the\naether like a bird-of-paradise, but roosting as the common wood-fowl\ndo, in an imperfect, uncomfortable, more or less contemptible\nmanner!--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAbbot Hugo, as Jocelin, breaking at once into the heart of the\nbusiness, apprises us, had in those days grown old, grown rather\nblind, and his eyes were somewhat darkened, _aliquantulum caligaverunt\noculi ejus_. He dwelt apart very much, in his _Talamus_ or peculiar\nChamber; got into the hands of flatterers, a set of mealy-mouthed\npersons who strove to make the passing hour easy for him,--for him\neasy, and for themselves profitable; accumulating in the distance mere\nmountains of confusion. Old Dominus Hugo sat inaccessible in this way,\nfar in the interior, wrapt in his warm flannels and delusions;\ninaccessible to all voice of Fact; and bad grew ever worse with us.\nNot that our worthy old _Dominus Abbas_ was inattentive to the divine\noffices, or to the maintenance of a devout spirit in us or in himself;\nbut the Account-Books of the Convent fell into the frightfulest state,\nand Hugo's annual Budget grew yearly emptier, or filled with futile\nexpectations, fatal deficit, wind and debts!\n\nHis one worldly care was to raise ready money; sufficient for the day\nis the evil thereof. And how he raised it: From usurious insatiable\nJews; every fresh Jew sticking on him like a fresh horseleech, sucking\nhis and our life out; crying continually, Give, give! Take one example\ninstead of scores. Our _Camera_ having fallen into ruin, William the\nSacristan received charge to repair it; strict charge, but no money;\nAbbot Hugo would, and indeed could, give him no fraction of money. The\n_Camera_ in ruins, and Hugo penniless and inaccessible, Willelmus\nSacrista borrowed Forty Marcs (some Seven-and-twenty Pounds) of\nBenedict the Jew, and patched-up our Camera again. But the means of\nrepaying him? There were no means. Hardly could _Sacrista_,\n_Cellerarius_, or any public officer, get ends to meet, on the\nindispensablest scale, with their shrunk allowances: ready money had\nvanished.\n\nBenedict's Twenty-seven pounds grew rapidly at compound-interest; and\nat length, when it had amounted to a Hundred pounds, he, on a day of\nsettlement, presents the account to Hugo himself. Hugo already owed\nhim another Hundred of his own; and so here it has become Two Hundred!\nHugo, in a fine frenzy, threatens to depose the Sacristan, to do this\nand do that; but, in the mean while, How to quiet your insatiable Jew?\nHugo, for this couple of hundreds, grants the Jew his bond for Four\nhundred payable at the end of four years. At the end of four years\nthere is, of course, still no money; and the Jew now gets a bond for\nEight hundred and eighty pounds, to be paid by instalments, Fourscore\npounds every year. Here was a way of doing business!\n\nNeither yet is this insatiable Jew satisfied or settled with: he had\npapers against us of 'small debts fourteen years old;' his modest\nclaim amounts finally to 'Twelve hundred pounds besides\ninterest;'--and one hopes he never got satisfied in this world; one\nalmost hopes he was one of those beleaguered Jews who hanged\nthemselves in York Castle shortly afterwards, and had his usances and\nquittances and horseleech papers summarily set fire to! For\napproximate justice will strive to accomplish itself; if not in one\nway, then in another. Jews, and also Christians and Heathens, who\naccumulate in this manner, though furnished with never so many\nparchments, do, at times, 'get their grinder-teeth successively pulled\nout of their head, each day a new grinder,' till they consent to\ndisgorge again. A sad fact,--worth reflecting on.\n\nJocelin, we see, is not without secularity: Our _Dominus\nAbbas_ was intent enough on the divine offices; but then his\nAccount-Books--?--One of the things that strike us most, throughout,\nin Jocelin's _Chronicle_, and indeed in Eadmer's _Anselm_, and other\nold monastic Books, written evidently by pious men, is this, That\nthere is almost no mention whatever of 'personal religion' in them;\nthat the whole gist of their thinking and speculation seems to be the\n'privileges of our order,' 'strict exaction of our dues,' 'God's\nhonour' (meaning the honour of our Saint), and so forth. Is not this\nsingular? A body of men, set apart for perfecting and purifying their\nown souls, do not seem disturbed about that in any measure: the\n'Ideal' says nothing about its idea; says much about finding bed and\nboard for itself! How is this?\n\nWhy, for one thing, bed and board are a matter very apt to come to\nspeech: it is much easier to _speak_ of them than of ideas; and they\nare sometimes much more pressing with some! Nay, for another thing,\nmay not this religious reticence, in these devout good souls, be\nperhaps a merit, and sign of health in them? Jocelin, Eadmer, and such\nreligious men, have as yet nothing of 'Methodism;' no Doubt or even\nroot of Doubt. Religion is not a diseased self-introspection, an\nagonising inquiry: their duties are clear to them, the way of supreme\ngood plain, indisputable, and they are travelling on it. Religion lies\nover them like an all-embracing heavenly canopy, like an atmosphere\nand life-element, which is not spoken of, which in all things is\npresupposed without speech. Is not serene or complete Religion the\nhighest aspect of human nature; as serene Cant, or complete\nNo-religion, is the lowest and miserablest? Between which two, all\nmanner of earnest Methodisms, introspections, agonising inquiries,\nnever so morbid, shall play their respective parts, not without\napprobation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut let any reader fancy himself one of the Brethren in St.\nEdmundsbury Monastery under such circumstances! How can a Lord Abbot,\nall stuck-over with horseleeches of this nature, front the world? He\nis fast losing his life-blood, and the Convent will be as one of\nPharaoh's lean kine. Old monks of experience draw their hoods deeper\ndown; careful what they say: the monk's first duty is obedience. Our\nLord the King, hearing of such work, sends down his Almoner to make\ninvestigations: but what boots it? Abbot Hugo assembles us in Chapter;\nasks, \"If there is any complaint?\" Not a soul of us dare answer, \"Yes,\nthousands!\" but we all stand silent, and the Prior even says that\nthings are in a very comfortable condition. Whereupon old Abbot Hugo,\nturning to the royal messenger, says, \"You see!\"--and the business\nterminates in that way. I, as a brisk-eyed noticing youth and novice,\ncould not help asking of the elders, asking of Magister Samson in\nparticular: Why he, well-instructed and a knowing man, had not spoken\nout, and brought matters to a bearing? Magister Samson was Teacher of\nthe Novices, appointed to breed us up to the rules, and I loved him\nwell. \"_Fili mi_,\" answered Samson, \"the burnt child shuns the fire.\nDost thou not know, our Lord the Abbot sent me once to Acre in\nNorfolk, to solitary confinement and bread-and-water, already? The\nHinghams, Hugo and Robert, have just got home from banishment for\nspeaking. This is the hour of darkness: the hour when flatterers rule\nand are believed. _Videat Dominus_, let the Lord see, and judge.\"\n\nIn very truth, what could poor old Abbot Hugo do? A frail old man, and\nthe Philistines were upon him,--that is to say, the Hebrews. He had\nnothing for it but to shrink away from them; get back into his warm\nflannels, into his warm delusions again. Happily, before it was quite\ntoo late, he bethought him of pilgriming to St. Thomas of Canterbury.\nHe set out, with a fit train, in the autumn days of the year 1180;\nnear Rochester City, his mule threw him, dislocated his poor kneepan,\nraised incurable inflammatory fever; and the poor old man got his\ndismissal from the whole coil at once. St. Thomas a Becket, though in\na circuitous way, had _brought_ deliverance! Neither Jew usurers, nor\ngrumbling monks, nor other importunate despicability of men or\nmud-elements afflicted Abbot Hugo any more; but he dropt his rosaries,\nclosed his account-books, closed his old eyes, and lay down into the\nlong sleep. Heavy-laden hoary old Dominus Hugo, fare thee well.\n\nOne thing we cannot mention without a due thrill of horror: namely,\nthat, in the empty exchequer of Dominus Hugo, there was not found one\npenny to distribute to the Poor that they might pray for his soul! By\na kind of godsend, Fifty shillings did, in the very nick of time, fall\ndue, or seem to fall due, from one of his Farmers (the _Firmarius_ de\nPalegrava), and he paid it, and the Poor had it; though, alas, this\ntoo only _seemed_ to fall due, and we had it to pay again afterwards.\nDominus Hugo's apartments were plundered by his servants, to the last\nportable stool, in a few minutes after the breath was out of his body.\nForlorn old Hugo, fare thee well forever.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTWELFTH CENTURY.\n\n\nOur Abbot being dead, the _Dominus Rex_, Henry II., or Ranulf de\nGlanvill _Justiciarius_ of England for him, set Inspectors or\nCustodiars over us;--not in any breathless haste to appoint a new\nAbbot, our revenues coming into his own _Scaccarium_, or royal\nExchequer, in the mean while. They proceeded with some rigour, these\nCustodiars; took written inventories, clapt-on seals, exacted\neverywhere strict tale and measure: but wherefore should a living monk\ncomplain? The living monk has to do his devotional drill-exercise;\nconsume his allotted _pitantia_, what we call _pittance_, or ration of\nvictual; and possess his soul in patience.\n\nDim, as through a long vista of Seven Centuries, dim and very strange\nlooks that monk-life to us; the ever-surprising circumstance this,\nThat it is a _fact_ and no dream, that we see it there, and gaze into\nthe very eyes of it! Smoke rises daily from those culinary\nchimney-throats; there are living human beings there, who chant,\nloud-braying, their matins, nones, vespers; awakening _echoes_, not to\nthe bodily ear alone. St. Edmund's Shrine, perpetually illuminated,\nglows ruddy through the Night, and through the Night of Centuries\nwithal; St. Edmundsbury Town paying yearly Forty pounds for that\nexpress end. Bells clang out; on great occasions, all the bells. We\nhave Processions, Preachings, Festivals, Christmas Plays, _Mysteries_\nshown in the Churchyard, at which latter the Townsfolk sometimes\nquarrel. Time was, Time is, as Friar Bacon's Brass Head remarked; and\nwithal Time will be. There are three Tenses, _Tempora_, or Times; and\nthere is one Eternity; and as for us,\n\n    'We are such stuff as Dreams are made of!'\n\nIndisputable, though very dim to modern vision, rests on its\nhill-slope that same _Bury_, _Stow_, or Town of St. Edmund; already a\nconsiderable place, not without traffic, nay manufactures, would\nJocelin only tell us what. Jocelin is totally careless of telling:\nbut, through dim fitful apertures, we can see _Fullones_, 'Fullers,'\nsee cloth-making; looms dimly going, dye-vats, and old women spinning\nyarn. We have Fairs too, _Nundinae_, in due course; and the Londoners\ngive us much trouble, pretending that they, as a metropolitan people,\nare exempt from toll. Besides there is Field-husbandry, with perplexed\nsettlement of Convent rents: corn-ricks pile themselves within burgh,\nin their season; and cattle depart and enter; and even the poor weaver\nhas his cow,--'dungheaps' lying quiet at most doors (_ante foras_,\nsays the incidental Jocelin), for the Town has yet no improved police.\nWatch and ward nevertheless we do keep, and have Gates,--as what Town\nmust not; thieves so abounding; war, _werra_, such a frequent thing!\nOur thieves, at the Abbot's judgment-bar, deny; claim wager of battle;\nfight, are beaten, and _then_ hanged. 'Ketel, the thief,' took this\ncourse; and it did nothing for him,--merely brought us, and indeed\nhimself, new trouble!\n\nEveryway a most foreign Time. What difficulty, for example, has our\n_Cellerarius_ to collect the _repselver_, 'reaping silver,' or penny,\nwhich each householder is by law bound to pay for cutting down the\nConvent grain! Richer people pretend that it is commuted, that it is\nthis and the other; that, in short, they will not pay it. Our\n_Cellerarius_ gives up calling on the rich. In the houses of the poor,\nour _Cellerarius_ finding, in like manner, neither penny nor good\npromise, snatches, without ceremony, what _vadium_ (pledge, _wad_) he\ncan come at: a joint-stool, kettle, nay the very house-door,\n'_hostium_;' and old women, thus exposed to the unfeeling gaze of the\npublic, rush out after him with their distaffs and the angriest\nshrieks: '_vetulae exibant cum colis suis_,' says Jocelin, '_minantes\net exprobrantes_.'\n\nWhat a historical picture, glowing visible, as St. Edmund's Shrine by\nnight, after Seven long Centuries or so! _Vetulae cum colis_: My\nvenerable ancient spinning grandmothers,--ah, and ye too have to\nshriek, and rush out with your distaffs; and become Female Chartists,\nand scold all evening with void doorway;--and in old Saxon, as we in\nmodern, would fain demand some Five-point Charter, could it be\nfallen-in with, the Earth being too tyrannous!--Wise Lord Abbots,\nhearing of such phenomena, did in time abolish or commute the\nreap-penny, and one nuisance was abated. But the image of these justly\noffended old women, in their old wool costumes, with their angry\nfeatures, and spindles brandished, lives forever in the historical\nmemory. Thanks to thee, Jocelin Boswell. Jerusalem was taken by the\nCrusaders, and again lost by them; and Richard Coeur-de-Lion 'veiled\nhis face' as he passed in sight of it: but how many other things went\non, the while!\n\nThus, too, our trouble with the Lakenheath eels is very great. King\nKnut namely, or rather his Queen who also did herself honour by\nhonouring St. Edmund, decreed by authentic deed yet extant on\nparchment, that the Holders of the Town Fields, once Beodric's,\nshould, for one thing, go yearly and catch us four thousand eels in\nthe marsh-pools of Lakenheath. Well, they went, they continued to go;\nbut, in later times, got into the way of returning with a most short\naccount of eels. Not the due six-score apiece; no, Here are two-score,\nHere are twenty, ten,--sometimes, Here are none at all; Heaven help\nus, we _could_ catch no more, they were not there! What is a\ndistressed _Cellerarius_ to do? We agree that each Holder of so many\nacres shall pay one penny yearly, and let-go the eels as too slippery.\nBut, alas, neither is this quite effectual: the Fields, in my time,\nhave got divided among so many hands, there is no catching of _them_\neither; I have known our Cellarer get seven-and-twenty pence formerly,\nand now it is much if he get ten pence farthing (_vix decem denarios\net obolum_). And then their sheep, which they are bound to fold\nnightly in our pens, for the manure's sake; and, I fear, do not always\nfold: and their _aver-pennies_, and their _avragiums_, and their\n_fodercorns_, and mill-and-market dues! Thus, in its undeniable but\ndim manner, does old St. Edmundsbury spin and till, and laboriously\nkeep its pot boiling, and St. Edmund's Shrine lighted, under such\nconditions and averages as it can.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow much is still alive in England; how much has not yet come into\nlife! A Feudal Aristocracy is still alive, in the prime of life;\nsuperintending the cultivation of the land, and less consciously the\ndistribution of the produce of the land, the adjustment of the\nquarrels of the land; judging, soldiering, adjusting; everywhere\ngoverning the people,--so that even a Gurth, born thrall of Cedric,\nlacks not his due parings of the pigs he tends. Governing;--and, alas,\nalso game-preserving; so that a Robert Hood, a William Scarlet and\nothers have, in these days, put on Lincoln coats, and taken to living,\nin some universal-suffrage manner, under the greenwood-tree!\n\nHow silent, on the other hand, lie all Cotton-trades and suchlike;\nnot a steeple-chimney yet got on end from sea to sea! North of the\nHumber, a stern Willelmus Conquaestor burnt the Country, finding it\nunruly, into very stern repose. Wild fowl scream in those ancient\nsilences, wild cattle roam in those ancient solitudes; the scanty\nsulky Norse-bred population all coerced into silence,--feeling that,\nunder these new Norman Governors, their history has probably as good\nas _ended_. Men and Northumbrian Norse populations know little what\nhas ended, what is but beginning! The Ribble and the Aire roll down,\nas yet unpolluted by dyers' chemistry; tenanted by merry trouts and\npiscatory otters; the sunbeam and the vacant wind's-blast alone\ntraversing those moors. Side by side sleep the coal-strata and the\niron-strata for so many ages; no Steam-Demon has yet risen smoking\ninto being. Saint Mungo rules in Glasgow; James Watt still slumbering\nin the deep of Time. _Mancunium_, Manceaster, what we now call\nManchester, spins no cotton,--if it be not _wool_ 'cottons,' clipped\nfrom the backs of mountain sheep. The Creek of the Mersey gurgles,\ntwice in the four-and-twenty hours, with eddying brine, clangorous\nwith sea-fowl; and is a _Lither_-Pool, a _lazy_ or sullen Pool, no\nmonstrous pitchy City, and Seahaven of the world! The Centuries are\nbig; and the birth-hour is coming, not yet come. _Tempus ferax, tempus\nedax rerum._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nMONK SAMSON.\n\n\nWithin doors, down at the hill-foot, in our Convent here, we are a\npeculiar people,--hardly conceivable in the Arkwright Corn-Law ages,\nof mere Spinning-Mills and Joe-Mantons! There is yet no Methodism\namong us, and we speak much of Secularities: no Methodism; our\nReligion is not yet a horrible restless Doubt, still less a far\nhorribler composed Cant; but a great heaven-high Unquestionability,\nencompassing, interpenetrating the whole of Life. Imperfect as we may\nbe, we are here, with our litanies, shaven crowns, vows of poverty, to\ntestify incessantly and indisputably to every heart, That this Earthly\nLife and _its_ riches and possessions, and good and evil hap, are not\nintrinsically a reality at all, but _are_ a shadow of realities\neternal, infinite; that this Time-world, as an air-image, fearfully\n_emblematic_, plays and flickers in the grand still mirror of\nEternity; and man's little Life has Duties that are great, that are\nalone great, and go up to Heaven and down to Hell. This, with our poor\nlitanies, we testify, and struggle to testify.\n\nWhich, testified or not, remembered by all men or forgotten by all\nmen, does verily remain the fact, even in Arkwright Joe-Manton ages!\nBut it is incalculable, when litanies have grown obsolete; when\n_fodercorns_, _avragiums_, and all human dues and reciprocities have\nbeen fully changed into one great due of _cash payment_; and man's\nduty to man reduces itself to handing him certain metal coins, or\ncovenanted money-wages, and then shoving him out of doors; and man's\nduty to God becomes a cant, a doubt, a dim inanity, a 'pleasure of\nvirtue' or suchlike; and the thing a man does infinitely fear (the\nreal _Hell_ of a man) is, 'that he do not make money and advance\nhimself,'--I say, it is incalculable what a change has introduced\nitself everywhere into human affairs! How human affairs shall now\ncirculate everywhere not healthy life-blood in them, but, as it were,\na detestable copperas banker's ink; and all is grown acrid, divisive,\nthreatening dissolution; and the huge tumultuous Life of Society is\ngalvanic, devil-ridden, too truly possessed by a devil: For, in short,\nMammon _is_ not a god at all; but a devil, and even a very despicable\ndevil. Follow the Devil faithfully, you are sure enough to _go_ to the\nDevil: whither else can you go?--In such situations, men look back\nwith a kind of mournful recognition even on poor limited Monk-figures,\nwith their poor litanies; and reflect, with Ben Jonson, that soul is\nindispensable, some degree of soul, even to save you the expense of\nsalt!--\n\nFor the rest, it must be owned, we Monks of St. Edmundsbury are but a\nlimited class of creatures, and seem to have a somewhat dull life of\nit. Much given to idle gossip; having indeed no other work, when our\nchanting is over. Listless gossip, for most part, and a mitigated\nslander; the fruit of idleness, not of spleen. We are dull, insipid\nmen, many of us; easy-minded; whom prayer and digestion of food will\navail for a life. We have to receive all strangers in our Convent, and\nlodge them gratis; such and such sorts go by rule to the Lord Abbot\nand his special revenues; such and such to us and our poor Cellarer,\nhowever straitened. Jews themselves send their wives and little ones\nhither in war-time, into our _Pitanceria_; where they abide safe, with\ndue _pittances_,--for a consideration. We have the fairest chances\nfor collecting news. Some of us have a turn for reading Books; for\nmeditation, silence; at times we even write Books. Some of us can\npreach, in English-Saxon, in Norman-French, and even in Monk-Latin;\nothers cannot in any language or jargon, being stupid.\n\nFailing all else, what gossip about one another! This is a perennial\nresource. How one hooded head applies itself to the ear of another,\nand whispers--_tacenda_. Willelmus Sacrista, for instance, what does\nhe nightly, over in that Sacristy of his? Frequent bibations,\n'_frequentes bibationes et quaedam tacenda_,'--eheu! We have '_tempora\nminutionis_,' stated seasons of blood-letting, when we are all let\nblood together; and then there is a general free-conference, a\nsanhedrim of clatter. Notwithstanding our vow of poverty, we can by\nrule amass to the extent of 'two shillings;' but it is to be given to\nour necessitous kindred, or in charity. Poor Monks! Thus too a certain\nCanterbury Monk was in the habit of 'slipping, _clanculo_, from his\nsleeve,' five shillings into the hand of his mother, when she came to\nsee him, at the divine offices, every two months. Once, slipping the\nmoney clandestinely, just in the act of taking leave, he slipt it not\ninto her hand but on the floor, and another had it; whereupon the poor\nMonk, coming to know it, looked mere despair for some days; till\nLanfranc the noble Archbishop, questioning his secret from him, nobly\nmade the sum _seven_ shillings,[7] and said, Never mind!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne Monk, of a taciturn nature, distinguishes himself among these\nbabbling ones: the name of him Samson; he that answered Jocelin,\n\"_Fili mi_, a burnt child shuns the fire.\" They call him 'Norfolk\n_Barrator_,' or litigious person; for indeed, being of grave taciturn\nways, he is not universally a favourite; he has been in trouble more\nthan once. The reader is desired to mark this Monk. A personable man\nof seven-and-forty; stout-made, stands erect as a pillar; with bushy\neyebrows, the eyes of him beaming into you in a really strange way;\nthe face massive, grave, with 'a very eminent nose;' his head almost\nbald, its auburn remnants of hair, and the copious ruddy beard,\ngetting slightly streaked with gray. This is Brother Samson; a man\nworth looking at.\n\nHe is from Norfolk, as the nickname indicates; from Tottington in\nNorfolk, as we guess; the son of poor parents there. He has told me\nJocelin, for I loved him much, That once in his ninth year he had an\nalarming dream;--as indeed we are all somewhat given to dreaming here.\nLittle Samson, lying uneasily in his crib at Tottington, dreamed that\nhe saw the Arch Enemy in person, just alighted in front of some grand\nbuilding, with outspread bat-wings, and stretching forth detestable\nclawed hands to grip him, little Samson, and fly-off with him:\nwhereupon the little dreamer shrieked desperate to St. Edmund for\nhelp, shrieked and again shrieked; and St. Edmund, a reverend heavenly\nfigure, did come,--and indeed poor little Samson's mother, awakened by\nhis shrieking, did come; and the Devil and the Dream both fled away\nfruitless. On the morrow, his mother, pondering such an awful dream,\nthought it were good to take him over to St. Edmund's own Shrine, and\npray with him there. See, said little Samson at sight of the\nAbbey-Gate; see, mother, this is the building I dreamed of! His poor\nmother dedicated him to St. Edmund,--left him there with prayers and\ntears: what better could she do? The exposition of the dream, Brother\nSamson used to say, was this: _Diabolus_ with outspread bat-wings\nshadowed forth the pleasures of this world, _voluptates hujus saeculi_,\nwhich were about to snatch and fly away with me, had not St. Edmund\nflung his arms round me, that is to say, made me a monk of his. A\nmonk, accordingly, Brother Samson is; and here to this day where his\nmother left him. A learned man, of devout grave nature; has studied at\nParis, has taught in the Town Schools here, and done much else; can\npreach in three languages, and, like Dr. Caius, 'has had losses' in\nhis time. A thoughtful, firm-standing man; much loved by some, not\nloved by all; his clear eyes flashing into you, in an almost\ninconvenient way!\n\nAbbot Hugo, as we said, had his own difficulties with him; Abbot Hugo\nhad him in prison once, to teach him what authority was, and how to\ndread the fire in future. For Brother Samson, in the time of the\nAntipopes, had been sent to Rome on business; and, returning\nsuccessful, was too late,--the business had all misgone in the\ninterim! As tours to Rome are still frequent with us English, perhaps\nthe reader will not grudge to look at the method of travelling thither\nin those remote ages. We happily have, in small compass, a personal\nnarrative of it. Through the clear eyes and memory of Brother Samson\none peeps direct into the very bosom of that Twelfth Century, and\nfinds it rather curious. The actual _Papa_, Father, or universal\nPresident of Christendom, as yet not grown chimerical, sat there;\nthink of that only! Brother Samson went to Rome as to the real\nLight-fountain of this lower world; we now--!--But let us hear Brother\nSamson, as to his mode of travelling:\n\n'You know what trouble I had for that Church of Woolpit; how I was\ndespatched to Rome in the time of the Schism between Pope Alexander\nand Octavian; and passed through Italy at that season, when all clergy\ncarrying letters for our Lord Pope Alexander were laid hold of, and\nsome were clapt in prison, some hanged; and some, with nose and lips\ncut off, were sent forward to our Lord the Pope, for the disgrace and\nconfusion of him (_in dedecus et confusionem ejus_). I, however,\npretended to be Scotch, and putting on the garb of a Scotchman, and\ntaking the gesture of one, walked along; and when anybody mocked at\nme, I would brandish my staff in the manner of that weapon they call\n_gaveloc_,[8] uttering comminatory words after the way of the Scotch.\nTo those that met and questioned me who I was, I made no answer but:\n_Ride, ride Rome; turne Cantwereberei_.[9] Thus did I, to conceal\nmyself and my errand, and get safer to Rome under the guise of a\nScotchman.\n\nHaving at last obtained a Letter from our Lord the Pope according to\nmy wishes, I turned homewards again. I had to pass through a certain\nstrong town on my road; and lo, the soldiers thereof surrounded me,\nseizing me, and saying: \"This vagabond (_iste solivagus_), who\npretends to be Scotch, is either a spy, or has Letters from the false\nPope Alexander.\" And whilst they examined every stitch and rag of me,\nmy leggings (_caligas_), breeches, and even the old shoes that I\ncarried over my shoulder in the way of the Scotch,--I put my hand into\nthe leather scrip I wore, wherein our Lord the Pope's Letter lay,\nclose by a little jug (_ciffus_) I had for drinking out of; and the\nLord God so pleasing, and St. Edmund, I got out both the Letter and\nthe jug together; in such a way that, extending my arm aloft, I held\nthe Letter hidden between jug and hand: they saw the jug, but the\nLetter they saw not. And thus I escaped out of their hands in the name\nof the Lord. Whatever money I had, they took from me; wherefore I had\nto beg from door to door, without any payment (_sine omni expensa_)\ntill I came to England again. But hearing that the Woolpit Church was\nalready given to Geoffry Ridell, my soul was struck with sorrow\nbecause I had laboured in vain. Coming home, therefore, I sat me down\nsecretly under the Shrine of St. Edmund, fearing lest our Lord Abbot\nshould seize and imprison me, though I had done no mischief; nor was\nthere a monk who durst speak to me? nor a laic who durst bring me food\nexcept by stealth.'[10]\n\nSuch resting and welcoming found Brother Samson, with his worn soles,\nand strong heart! He sits silent, revolving many thoughts, at the foot\nof St. Edmund's Shrine. In the wide Earth, if it be not Saint Edmund,\nwhat friend or refuge has he? Our Lord Abbot, hearing of him, sent the\nproper officer to lead him down to prison, and clap 'foot-gyves on\nhim' there. Another poor official furtively brought him a cup of wine;\nbade him \"be comforted in the Lord.\" Samson utters no complaint; obeys\nin silence. 'Our Lord Abbot, taking counsel of it, banished me to\nAcre, and there I had to stay long.'\n\nOur Lord Abbot next tried Samson with promotions; made him\nSubsacristan, made him Librarian, which he liked best of all, being\npassionately fond of Books: Samson, with many thoughts in him, again\nobeyed in silence; discharged his offices to perfection, but never\nthanked our Lord Abbot,--seemed rather as if looking into him, with\nthose clear eyes of his. Whereupon Abbot Hugo said, _Se nunquam\nvidisse_, He had never seen such a man; whom no severity would break\nto complain, and no kindness soften into smiles or thanks:--a\nquestionable kind of man!\n\nIn this way, not without troubles, but still in an erect\nclear-standing manner, has Brother Samson reached his forty-seventh\nyear; and his ruddy beard is getting slightly grizzled. He is\nendeavouring, in these days, to have various broken things thatched\nin; nay perhaps to have the Choir itself completed, for he can bear\nnothing ruinous. He has gathered 'heaps of lime and sand;' has masons,\nslaters working, he and _Warinus monachus noster_, who are joint\nkeepers of the Shrine; paying out the money duly,--furnished by\ncharitable burghers of St. Edmundsbury, they say. Charitable burghers\nof St. Edmundsbury? To me Jocelin it seems rather, Samson, and Warinus\nwhom he leads, have privily hoarded the oblations at the Shrine\nitself, in these late years of indolent dilapidation, while Abbot Hugo\nsat wrapt inaccessible; and are struggling, in this prudent way, to\nhave the rain kept out![11]--Under what conditions, sometimes, has\nWisdom to struggle with Folly; get Folly persuaded to so much as\nthatch out the rain from itself! For, indeed, if the Infant govern the\nNurse, what dextrous practice on the Nurse's part will not be\nnecessary!\n\nIt is a new regret to us that, in these circumstances, our Lord the\nKing's Custodiars, interfering, prohibited all building or thatching\nfrom whatever source; and no Choir shall be completed, and Rain and\nTime, for the present, shall have their way. Willelmus Sacrista, he of\n'the frequent bibations and some things not be spoken of;' he, with\nhis red nose, I am of opinion, had made complaint to the Custodiars;\nwishing to do Samson an ill turn:--Samson his _Sub_-sacristan, with\nthose clear eyes, could not be a prime favourite of his! Samson again\nobeys in silence.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[7] _Eadmeri Hist._ p. 8.\n\n[8] Javelin, missile pike. _Gaveloc_ is still the Scotch name for\n_crowbar_.\n\n[9] Does this mean, \"Rome forever; Canterbury _not_\" (which claims an\nunjust Supremacy over us)! Mr. Rokewood is silent. Dryasdust would\nperhaps explain it,--in the course of a week or two of talking; did\none dare to question him!\n\n[10] _Jocelini Chronica_, p. 36.\n\n[11] _Jocelini Chronica_, p. 7.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE CANVASSING.\n\n\nNow, however, come great news to St. Edmundsbury: That there is to be\nan Abbot elected; that our interlunar obscuration is to cease; St.\nEdmund's Convent no more to be a doleful widow, but joyous and once\nagain a bride! Often in our widowed state had we prayed to the Lord\nand St. Edmund, singing weekly a matter of 'one-and-twenty penitential\nPsalms, on our knees in the Choir,' that a fit Pastor might be\nvouchsafed us. And, says Jocelin, had some known what Abbot we were to\nget, they had not been so devout, I believe!--Bozzy Jocelin opens to\nmankind the floodgates of authentic Convent gossip; we listen, as in a\nDionysius' Ear, to the inanest hubbub, like the voices at Virgil's\nHorn-Gate of Dreams. Even gossip, seven centuries off, has\nsignificance. List, list, how like men are to one another in all\ncenturies:\n\n'_Dixit quidam de quodam_, A certain person said of a certain person,\n\"He, that _Frater_, is a good monk, _probabilis persona_; knows much\nof the order and customs of the church; and, though not so perfect a\nphilosopher as some others, would make a very good Abbot. Old Abbot\nOrding, still famed among us, knew little of letters. Besides,\nas we read in Fables, it is better to choose a log for king, than\na serpent never so wise, that will venomously hiss and bite his\nsubjects.\"--\"Impossible!\" answered the other: \"How can such a man make\na sermon in the Chapter, or to the people on festival-days, when he\nis without letters? How can he have the skill to bind and to loose, he\nwho does not understand the Scriptures? How--?\"'\n\nAnd then 'another said of another, _alius de alio_, \"That _Frater_ is\na _homo literatus_, eloquent, sagacious; vigorous in discipline; loves\nthe Convent much, has suffered much for its sake.\" To which a third\nparty answers, \"From all your great clerks, good Lord deliver us! From\nNorfolk barrators and surly persons, That it would please thee to\npreserve us, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord!\" Then another\n_quidam_ said of another _quodam_, \"That _Frater_ is a good manager\n(_husebondus_);\" but was swiftly answered, \"God forbid that a man who\ncan neither read nor chant, nor celebrate the divine offices, an\nunjust person withal, and grinder of the faces of the poor, should\never be Abbot!\"' One man, it appears, is nice in his victuals. Another\nis indeed wise, but apt to slight inferiors; hardly at the pains to\nanswer, if they argue with him too foolishly. And so each _aliquis_\nconcerning his _aliquo_,--through whole pages of electioneering\nbabble. 'For,' says Jocelin, 'So many men, as many minds.' Our Monks\n'at time of blood-letting, _tempore minutionis_,' holding their\nsanhedrim of babble, would talk in this manner: Brother Samson, I\nremarked, never said anything; sat silent, sometimes smiling; but he\ntook good note of what others said, and would bring it up, on\noccasion, twenty years after. As for me Jocelin, I was of opinion that\n'some skill in Dialectics, to distinguish true from false,' would be\ngood in an Abbot. I spake, as a rash Novice in those days, some\nconscientious words of a certain benefactor of mine; 'and behold, one\nof those sons of Belial' ran and reported them to him, so that he\nnever after looked at me with the same face again! Poor Bozzy!--\n\nSuch is the buzz and frothy simmering ferment of the general mind and\nno-mind; struggling to 'make itself up,' as the phrase is, or\nascertain what _it_ does really want: no easy matter, in most cases.\nSt. Edmundsbury, in that Candlemas season of the year 1182, is a\nbusily fermenting place. The very clothmakers sit meditative at their\nlooms; asking, Who shall be Abbot? The _sochemanni_ speak of it,\ndriving their ox-teams afield; the old women with their spindles: and\nnone yet knows what the days will bring forth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Prior, however, as our interim chief, must proceed to work; get\nready 'Twelve Monks,' and set off with them to his Majesty at Waltham,\nthere shall the election be made. An election, whether managed\ndirectly by ballot-box on public hustings, or indirectly by force of\npublic opinion, or were it even by open alehouses, landlords'\ncoercion, popular club-law, or whatever electoral methods, is always\nan interesting phenomenon. A mountain tumbling in great travail,\nthrowing up dustclouds and absurd noises, is visibly there; uncertain\nyet what mouse or monster it will give birth to.\n\nBesides, it is a most important social act; nay, at bottom, the one\nimportant social act. Given the men a People choose, the People\nitself, in its exact worth and worthlessness, is given. A heroic\npeople chooses heroes, and is happy; a valet or flunky people chooses\nsham-heroes, what are called quacks, thinking them heroes, and is not\nhappy. The grand summary of a man's spiritual condition, what brings\nout all his herohood and insight, or all his flunkyhood and horn-eyed\ndimness, is this question put to him, What man dost thou honour? Which\nis thy ideal of a man; or nearest that? So too of a People: for a\nPeople too, every People, _speaks_ its choice,--were it only by\nsilently obeying, and not revolting,--in the course of a century or\nso. Nor are electoral methods, Reform Bills and suchlike, unimportant.\nA People's electoral methods are, in the long-run, the express image\nof its electoral _talent_; tending and gravitating perpetually,\nirresistibly, to a conformity with that: and are, at all stages, very\nsignificant of the People. Judicious readers, of these times, are not\ndisinclined to see how Monks elect their Abbot in the Twelfth Century:\nhow the St. Edmundsbury mountain manages its midwifery; and what mouse\nor man the outcome is.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE ELECTION.\n\n\nAccordingly our Prior assembles us in Chapter; and, we adjuring him\nbefore God to do justly, nominates, not by our selection, yet with our\nassent, Twelve Monks, moderately satisfactory. Of whom are Hugo\nThird-Prior, Brother Dennis a venerable man, Walter the _Medicus_,\nSamson _Subsacrista_, and other esteemed characters,--though Willelmus\n_Sacrista_, of the red nose, too is one. These shall proceed\nstraightway to Waltham; and there elect the Abbot as they may and can.\nMonks are sworn to obedience; must not speak too loud, under penalty\nof foot-gyves, limbo, and bread-and-water: yet monks too would know\nwhat it is they are obeying. The St. Edmundsbury Community has no\nhustings, ballot-box, indeed no open voting: yet by various vague\nmanipulations, pulse-feelings, we struggle to ascertain what its\nvirtual aim is, and succeed better or worse.\n\nThis question, however, rises; alas, a quite preliminary question:\nWill the _Dominus Rex_ allow us to choose freely? It is to be hoped!\nWell, if so, we agree to choose one of our own Convent. If not, if the\n_Dominus Rex_ will force a stranger on us, we decide on demurring, the\nPrior and his Twelve shall demur: we can appeal, plead, remonstrate;\nappeal even to the Pope, but trust it will not be necessary. Then\nthere is this other question, raised by Brother Samson: What if the\nThirteen should not themselves be able to agree? Brother Samson\n_Subsacrista_, one remarks, is ready oftenest with some question, some\nsuggestion, that has wisdom in it. Though a servant of servants, and\nsaying little, his words all tell, having sense in them; it seems by\nhis light mainly that we steer ourselves in this great dimness.\n\nWhat if the Thirteen should not themselves be able to agree? Speak,\nSamson, and advise.--Could not, hints Samson, Six of our venerablest\nelders be chosen by us, a kind of electoral committee, here and now:\nof these, 'with their hand on the Gospels, with their eye on the\n_Sacrosancta_,' we take oath that they will do faithfully; let these,\nin secret and as before God, agree on Three whom they reckon fittest;\nwrite their names in a Paper, and deliver the same sealed, forthwith,\nto the Thirteen: one of those Three the Thirteen shall fix on, if\npermitted. If not permitted, that is to say, if the _Dominus Rex_\nforce us to demur,--the paper shall be brought back unopened, and\npublicly burned, that no man's secret bring him into trouble.\n\nSo Samson advises, so we act; wisely, in this and in other crises of\nthe business. Our electoral committee, its eye on the Sacrosancta, is\nsoon named, soon sworn; and we, striking-up the Fifth Psalm, '_Verba\nmea_,\n\n    'Give ear unto my words, O Lord,\n    My meditation weigh,'\n\nmarch out chanting, and leave the Six to their work in the Chapter\nhere. Their work, before long, they announce as finished: they, with\ntheir eye on the Sacrosancta, imprecating the Lord to weigh and\nwitness their meditation, have fixed on Three Names, and written them\nin this Sealed Paper. Let Samson Subsacrista, general servant of the\nparty, take charge of it. On the morrow morning, our Prior and his\nTwelve will be ready to get under way.\n\nThis, then, is the ballot-box and electoral winnowing-machine they\nhave at St. Edmundsbury: a mind fixed on the Thrice Holy, an appeal to\nGod on high to witness their meditation: by far the best, and indeed\nthe only good electoral winnowing-machine,--if men have souls in them.\nTotally worthless, it is true, and even hideous and poisonous, if men\nhave no souls. But without soul, alas, what winnowing-machine in human\nelections can be of avail? We cannot get along without soul; we stick\nfast, the mournfulest spectacle; and salt itself will not save us!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn the morrow morning, accordingly, our Thirteen set forth; or rather\nour Prior and Eleven; for Samson, as general servant of the party, has\nto linger, settling many things. At length he too gets upon the road;\nand, 'carrying the sealed Paper in a leather pouch hung round his\nneck; and _froccum bajulans in ulnis_' (thanks to thee, Bozzy\nJocelin), 'his frock-skirts looped over his elbow,' showing\nsubstantial stern-works, tramps stoutly along. Away across the Heath,\nnot yet of Newmarket and horse-jockeying; across your Fleam-dike and\nDevil's-dike, no longer useful as a Mercian East-Anglian boundary or\nbulwark: continually towards Waltham, and the Bishop of Winchester's\nHouse there, for his Majesty is in that. Brother Samson, as\npurse-bearer, has the reckoning always, when there is one, to pay;\n'delays are numerous,' progress none of the swiftest.\n\nBut, in the solitude of the Convent, Destiny thus big and in her\nbirthtime, what gossiping, what babbling, what dreaming of dreams! The\nsecret of the Three our electoral elders alone know: some Abbot we\nshall have to govern us; but which Abbot, oh, which! One Monk discerns\nin a vision of the night-watches, that we shall get an Abbot of our\nown body, without needing to demur: a prophet appeared to him clad\nall in white, and said, \"Ye shall have one of yours, and he will rage\namong you like a wolf, _saeviet ut lupus_.\" Verily!--then which of\nours? Another Monk now dreams: he has seen clearly which; a certain\nFigure taller by head and shoulders than the other two, dressed in alb\nand _pallium_, and with the attitude of one about to fight;--which\ntall Figure a wise Editor would rather not name at this stage of the\nbusiness! Enough that the vision is true: that Saint Edmund himself,\npale and awful, seemed to rise from his Shrine, with naked feet, and\nsay audibly, \"He, _ille_, shall veil my feet;\" which part of the\nvision also proves true. Such guessing, visioning, dim perscrutation\nof the momentous future: the very clothmakers, old women, all\ntownsfolk speak of it, 'and more than once it is reported in St.\nEdmundsbury, This one is elected; and then, This one, and That other.'\nWho knows?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut now, sure enough, at Waltham 'on the Second Sunday of\nQuadragesima,' which Dryasdust declares to mean the 22d day of\nFebruary, year 1182, Thirteen St. Edmundsbury Monks are, at last, seen\nprocessioning towards the Winchester Manorhouse; and, in some high\nPresence-chamber and Hall of State, get access to Henry II. in all his\nglory. What a Hall,--not imaginary in the least, but entirely real and\nindisputable, though so extremely dim to us; sunk in the deep\ndistances of Night! The Winchester Manorhouse has fled bodily, like a\nDream of the old Night; not Dryasdust himself can show a wreck of it.\nHouse and people, royal and episcopal, lords and varlets, where are\nthey? Why _there_, I say, Seven Centuries off; sunk _so_ far in the\nNight, there they _are_; peep through the blankets of the old Night,\nand thou wilt see! King Henry himself is visibly there; a vivid,\nnoble-looking man, with grizzled beard, in glittering uncertain\ncostume; with earls round him, and bishops, and dignitaries, in the\nlike. The Hall is large, and has for one thing an altar near\nit,--chapel and altar adjoining it; but what gilt seats, carved\ntables, carpeting of rush-cloth, what arras-hangings, and huge fire of\nlogs:--alas, it has Human Life in it; and is not that the grand\nmiracle, in what hangings or costume soever?--\n\nThe _Dominus Rex_, benignantly receiving our Thirteen with their\nobeisance, and graciously declaring that he will strive to act for\nGod's honour and the Church's good, commands, 'by the Bishop of\nWinchester and Geoffrey the Chancellor,'--_Galfridus Cancellarius_,\nHenry's and the Fair Rosamond's authentic Son present here!--commands,\n\"That they, the said Thirteen, do now withdraw, and fix upon Three\nfrom their own Monastery.\" A work soon done; the Three hanging ready\nround Samson's neck, in that leather pouch of his. Breaking the\nseal, we find the names,--what think _ye_ of it, ye higher\ndignitaries, thou indolent Prior, thou Willelmus _Sacrista_ with the red\nbottle-nose?--the names, in this order: of Samson _Subsacrista_, of\nRoger the distressed Cellarer, of Hugo _Tertius-Prior_.\n\nThe higher dignitaries, all omitted here, 'flush suddenly red in the\nface;' but have nothing to say. One curious fact and question\ncertainly is, How Hugo Third-Prior, who was of the electoral\ncommittee, came to nominate _himself_ as one of the Three? A curious\nfact, which Hugo Third-Prior has never yet entirely explained, that I\nknow of!--However, we return, and report to the King our Three names;\nmerely altering the order; putting Samson last, as lowest of all. The\nKing, at recitation of our Three, asks us: \"Who are they? Were they\nborn in my domain? Totally unknown to me! You must nominate three\nothers.\" Whereupon Willelmus Sacrista says, \"Our Prior must be named,\n_quia caput nostrum est_, being already our head.\" And the Prior\nresponds, \"Willelmus Sacrista is a fit man, _bonus vir est_,\"--for all\nhis red nose. Tickle me, Toby, and I'll tickle thee! Venerable Dennis\ntoo is named; none in his conscience can say nay. There are now Six on\nour List. \"Well,\" said the King, \"they have done it swiftly, they!\n_Deus est cum eis._\" The Monks withdraw again; and Majesty revolves,\nfor a little, with his _Pares_ and _Episcopi_, Lords or '_Law-wards_'\nand Soul-Overseers, the thoughts of the royal breast. The Monks wait\nsilent in an outer room.\n\nIn short while, they are next ordered, To add yet another three; but\nnot from their own Convent; from other Convents, \"for the honour of my\nkingdom.\" Here,--what is to be done here? We will demur, if need be!\nWe do name three, however, for the nonce: the Prior of St. Faith's, a\ngood Monk of St. Neot's, a good Monk of St. Alban's; good men all; all\nmade abbots and dignitaries since, at this hour. There are now Nine\nupon our List. What the thoughts of the Dominus Rex may be farther?\nThe Dominus Rex, thanking graciously, sends out word that we shall now\nstrike off three. The three strangers are instantly struck off.\nWillelmus Sacrista adds, that he will of his own accord decline,--a\ntouch of grace and respect for the _Sacrosancta_, even in Willelmus!\nThe King then orders us to strike off a couple more; then yet one\nmore: Hugo Third-Prior goes, and Roger _Cellerarius_, and venerable\nMonk Dennis;--and now there remain on our List two only, Samson\nSubsacrista and the Prior.\n\nWhich of these two? It were hard to say,--by Monks who may get\nthemselves foot-gyved and thrown into limbo for speaking! We humbly\nrequest that the Bishop of Winchester and Geoffrey the Chancellor may\nagain enter, and help us to decide. \"Which do you want?\" asks the\nBishop. Venerable Dennis made a speech, 'commending the persons of the\nPrior and Samson; but always in the corner of his discourse, _in\nangulo sui sermonis_, brought Samson in.' \"I see!\" said the Bishop:\n\"We are to understand that your Prior is somewhat remiss; that you\nwant to have him you call Samson for Abbot.\" \"Either of them is good,\"\nsaid venerable Dennis, almost trembling; \"but we would have the\nbetter, if it pleased God.\" \"Which of the two _do_ you want?\" inquires\nthe Bishop pointedly. \"Samson!\" answered Dennis; \"Samson!\" echoed all\nof the rest that durst speak or echo anything: and Samson is reported\nto the King accordingly. His Majesty, advising of it for a moment,\norders that Samson be brought in with the other Twelve.\n\nThe King's Majesty, looking at us somewhat sternly, then says: \"You\npresent to me Samson; I do not know him: had it been your Prior, whom\nI do know, I should have accepted him: however, I will now do as you\nwish. But have a care of yourselves. By the true eyes of God, _per\nveros oculos Dei_, if you manage badly, I will be upon you!\" Samson,\ntherefore, steps forward, kisses the King's feet; but swiftly rises\nerect again, swiftly turns towards the altar, uplifting with the other\nTwelve, in clear tenor-note, the Fifty-first Psalm, '_Miserere mei\nDeus_,\n\n    'After thy loving-kindness, Lord,\n    Have mercy upon _me_;'\n\nwith firm voice, firm step and head, no change in his countenance\nwhatever. \"By God's eyes,\" said the King, \"that one, I think, will\ngovern the Abbey well.\" By the same oath (charged to your Majesty's\naccount), I too am precisely of that opinion! It is some while since I\nfell in with a likelier man anywhere than this new Abbot Samson. Long\nlife to him, and may the Lord _have_ mercy on him as Abbot!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus, then, have the St. Edmundsbury Monks, without express ballot-box\nor other good winnowing-machine, contrived to accomplish the most\nimportant social feat a body of men can do, to winnow-out the\nman that is to govern them: and truly one sees not that, by any\nwinnowing-machine whatever, they could have done it better. O ye kind\nHeavens, there is in every Nation and Community a _fittest_, a wisest,\nbravest, best; whom could we find and make King over us, all were in\nvery truth well;--the best that God and Nature had permitted _us_ to\nmake it! By what art discover him? Will the Heavens in their pity\nteach us no art; for our need of him is great!\n\nBallot-boxes, Reform Bills, winnowing-machines: all these are good, or\nare not so good;--alas, brethren, how _can_ these, I say, be other\nthan inadequate, be other than failures, melancholy to behold? Dim all\nsouls of men to the divine, the high and awful meaning of Human Worth\nand Truth, we shall never, by all the machinery in Birmingham,\ndiscover the True and Worthy. It is written, 'if we are ourselves\nvalets, there shall exist no hero for us; we shall not know the hero\nwhen we see him;'--we shall take the quack for a hero; and cry,\naudibly through all ballot-boxes and machinery whatsoever, Thou art\nhe; be thou King over us!\n\nWhat boots it? Seek only deceitful Speciosity, money with gilt\ncarriages, 'fame' with newspaper-paragraphs, whatever name it bear,\nyou will find only deceitful Speciosity; godlike Reality will be\nforever far from you. The Quack shall be legitimate inevitable King of\nyou; no earthly machinery able to exclude the Quack. Ye shall be born\nthralls of the Quack, and suffer under him, till your hearts are near\nbroken, and no French Revolution or Manchester Insurrection, or\npartial or universal volcanic combustions and explosions, never so\nmany, can do more than 'change the _figure_ of your Quack;' the\nessence of him remaining, for a time and times.--\"How long, O\nProphet?\" say some, with a rather melancholy sneer. Alas, ye\n_un_prophetic, ever till this come about: Till deep misery, if nothing\nsofter will, have driven you out of your Speciosities _into_ your\nSincerities; and you find that there either is a Godlike in the world,\nor else ye are an unintelligible madness; that there is a God, as well\nas a Mammon and a Devil, and a Genius of Luxuries and canting\nDilettantisms and Vain Shows! How long that will be, compute for\nyourselves. My unhappy brothers!--\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nABBOT SAMSON.\n\n\nSo, then, the bells of St. Edmundsbury clang out one and all, and in\nchurch and chapel the organs go: Convent and Town, and all the west\nside of Suffolk, are in gala; knights, viscounts, weavers, spinners,\nthe entire population, male and female, young and old, the very\nsockmen with their chubby infants,--out to have a holiday, and see the\nLord Abbot arrive! And there is: 'stripping barefoot' of the Lord\nAbbot at the Gate, and solemn leading of him in to the High Altar and\nShrine; with sudden 'silence of all the bells and organs,' as we kneel\nin deep prayer there; and again with outburst of all the bells and\norgans, and loud _Te Deum_ from the general human windpipe; and\nspeeches by the leading viscount, and giving of the kiss of\nbrotherhood; the whole wound-up with popular games, and dinner within\ndoors of more than a thousand strong, _plus quam mille comedentibus in\ngaudio magno_.\n\nIn such manner is the selfsame Samson once again returning to us,\nwelcomed on _this_ occasion. He that went away with his frock-skirts\nlooped over his arm, comes back riding high; suddenly made one of the\ndignitaries of this world. Reflective readers will admit that here was\na trial for a man. Yesterday a poor mendicant, allowed to possess not\nabove two shillings of money, and without authority to bid a dog run\nfor him,--this man today finds himself a _Dominus Abbas_, mitred Peer\nof Parliament, Lord of manor-houses, farms, manors, and wide lands; a\nman with 'Fifty Knights under him,' and dependent, swiftly obedient\nmultitudes of men. It is a change greater than Napoleon's; so sudden\nwithal. As if one of the Chandos day-drudges had, on awakening some\nmorning, found that _he_ overnight was become Duke! Let Samson with\nhis clear-beaming eyes see into that, and discern it if he can. We\nshall now get the measure of him by a new scale of inches,\nconsiderably more rigorous than the former was. For if a noble soul is\nrendered tenfold beautifuler by victory and prosperity, springing now\nradiant as into his own due element and sun-throne; an ignoble one is\nrendered tenfold and hundredfold uglier, pitifuler. Whatsoever vices,\nwhatsoever weaknesses were in the man, the parvenu will show us them\nenlarged, as in the solar microscope, into frightful distortion. Nay,\nhow many mere seminal principles of vice, hitherto all wholesomely\nkept latent, may we now see unfolded, as in the solar hothouse, into\ngrowth, into huge universally-conspicuous luxuriance and development!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut is not this, at any rate, a singular aspect of what political and\nsocial capabilities, nay, let us say, what depth and opulence of true\nsocial vitality, lay in those old barbarous ages, That the fit\nGovernor could be met with under such disguises, could be recognised\nand laid hold of under such? Here he is discovered with a maximum of\ntwo shillings in his pocket, and a leather scrip round his neck;\ntrudging along the highway, his frock-skirts looped over his arm. They\nthink this is he nevertheless, the true Governor; and he proves to be\nso. Brethren, have we no need of discovering true Governors, but will\nsham ones forever do for us? These were absurd superstitious\nblockheads of Monks; and we are enlightened Tenpound Franchisers,\nwithout taxes on knowledge! Where, I say, are our superior, are our\nsimilar or at all comparable discoveries? We also have eyes, or ought\nto have; we have hustings, telescopes; we have lights, link-lights and\nrush-lights of an enlightened free Press, burning and dancing\neverywhere, as in a universal torch-dance; singeing your whiskers as\nyou traverse the public thoroughfares in town and country. Great\nsouls, true Governors, go about under all manner of disguises now as\nthen. Such telescopes, such enlightenment,--and such discovery! How\ncomes it, I say; how comes it? Is it not lamentable; is it not even,\nin some sense, amazing?\n\nAlas, the defect, as we must often urge and again urge, is less a\ndefect of telescopes than of some eyesight. Those superstitious\nblockheads of the Twelfth Century had no telescopes, but they had\nstill an eye; not ballot-boxes; only reverence for Worth, abhorrence\nof Unworth. It is the way with all barbarians. Thus Mr. Sale informs\nme, the old Arab Tribes would gather in liveliest _gaudeamus_, and\nsing, and kindle bonfires, and wreathe crowns of honour, and solemnly\nthank the gods that, in their Tribe too, a Poet had shown himself. As\nindeed they well might; for what usefuler, I say not nobler and\nheavenlier thing could the gods, doing their very kindest, send to any\nTribe or Nation, in any time or circumstances? I declare to thee, my\nafflicted quack-ridden brother, in spite of thy astonishment, it is\nvery lamentable! We English find a Poet, as brave a man as has been\nmade for a hundred years or so anywhere under the Sun; and do we\nkindle bonfires, or thank the gods? Not at all. We, taking due counsel\nof it, set the man to gauge ale-barrels in the Burgh of Dumfries; and\npique ourselves on our 'patronage of genius.'\n\nGenius, Poet: do we know what these words mean? An inspired Soul once\nmore vouchsafed us, direct from Nature's own great fire-heart, to see\nthe Truth, and speak it, and do it; Nature's own sacred voice heard\nonce more athwart the dreary boundless element of hearsaying and\ncanting, of twaddle and poltroonery, in which the bewildered Earth,\nnigh perishing, has _lost its way_. Hear once more, ye bewildered\nbenighted mortals; listen once again to a voice from the inner\nLight-sea and Flame-sea, Nature's and Truth's own heart; know the Fact\nof your Existence what it is, put away the Cant of it which it is\n_not_; and knowing, do, and let it be well with you!--\n\nGeorge the Third is Defender of something we call 'the Faith' in those\nyears; George the Third is head charioteer of the Destinies of\nEngland, to guide them through the gulf of French Revolutions,\nAmerican Independences; and Robert Burns is Gauger of ale in Dumfries.\nIt is an Iliad in a nutshell. The physiognomy of a world now verging\ntowards dissolution, reduced now to spasms and death-throes, lies\npictured in that one fact,--which astonishes nobody, except at me for\nbeing astonished at it. The fruit of long ages of confirmed Valethood,\nentirely confirmed as into a Law of Nature; cloth-worship and\nquack-worship: entirely _confirmed_ Valethood,--which will have to\n_un_confirm itself again; God knows, with difficulty enough!--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAbbot Samson had found a Convent all in dilapidation; rain beating\nthrough it, material rain and metaphorical, from all quarters of the\ncompass. Willelmus Sacrista sits drinking nightly, and doing mere\n_tacenda_. Our larders are reduced to leanness, Jew harpies and\nunclean creatures our purveyors; in our basket is no bread. Old women\nwith their distaffs rush out on a distressed Cellarer in shrill\nChartism. 'You cannot stir abroad but Jews and Christians pounce upon\nyou with unsettled bonds;' debts boundless seemingly as the National\nDebt of England. For four years our new Lord Abbot never went abroad\nbut Jew creditors and Christian, and all manner of creditors, were\nabout him; driving him to very despair. Our Prior is remiss; our\nCellarers, officials are remiss; our monks are remiss: what man is not\nremiss? Front this, Samson, thou alone art there to front it; it is\nthy task to front and fight this, and to die or kill it. May the Lord\nhave mercy on thee!\n\nTo our antiquarian interest in poor Jocelin and his Convent, where the\nwhole aspect of existence, the whole dialect, of thought, of speech,\nof activity, is so obsolete, strange, long-vanished, there now\nsuperadds itself a mild glow of human interest for Abbot Samson; a\nreal pleasure, as at sight of man's work, especially of governing,\nwhich is man's highest work, done _well_. Abbot Samson had no\nexperience in governing; had served no apprenticeship to the trade of\ngoverning,--alas, only the hardest apprenticeship to that of obeying.\nHe had never in any court given _vadium_ or _plegium_, says Jocelin;\nhardly ever seen a court, when he was set to preside in one. But it is\nastonishing, continues Jocelin, how soon he learned the ways of\nbusiness; and, in all sort of affairs, became expert beyond others. Of\nthe many persons offering him their service, 'he retained one Knight\nskilled in taking _vadia_ and _plegia_;' and within the year was\nhimself well skilled. Nay, by and by, the Pope appoints him Justiciary\nin certain causes; the King one of his new Circuit Judges: official\nOsbert is heard saying, \"That Abbot is one of your shrewd ones,\n_disputator est_; if he go on as he begins, he will cut out every\nlawyer of us!\"[12]\n\nWhy not? What is to hinder this Samson from governing? There is in him\nwhat far transcends all apprenticeships; in the man himself there\nexists a model of governing, something to govern by! There exists in\nhim a heart-abhorrence of whatever is incoherent, pusillanimous,\nunveracious,--that is to say, chaotic, _un_governed; of the Devil, not\nof God. A man of this kind cannot help governing! He has the living\nideal of a governor in him; and the incessant necessity of struggling\nto unfold the same out of him. Not the Devil or Chaos, for any wages,\nwill he serve; no, this man is the born servant of Another than them.\nAlas, how little avail all apprenticeships, when there is in your\ngovernor himself what we may well call _nothing_ to govern by:\nnothing;--a general gray twilight, looming with shapes of\nexpediencies, parliamentary traditions, division-lists,\nelection-funds, leading-articles; this, with what of vulpine alertness\nand adroitness soever, is not much!\n\nBut indeed what say we, apprenticeship? Had not this Samson served, in\nhis way, a right good apprenticeship to governing; namely, the\nharshest slave-apprenticeship to obeying! Walk this world with no\nfriend in it but God and St. Edmund, you will either fall into the\nditch, or learn a good many things. To learn obeying is the\nfundamental art of governing. How much would many a Serene Highness\nhave learned, had he travelled through the world with water-jug and\nempty wallet, _sine omni expensa_; and, at his victorious return, sat\ndown not to newspaper-paragraphs and city-illuminations, but at the\nfoot of St. Edmund's Shrine to shackles and bread-and-water! He that\ncannot be servant of many, will never be master, true guide and\ndeliverer of many;--that is the meaning of true mastership. Had not\nthe Monk-life extraordinary 'political capabilities' in it; if not\nimitable by us, yet enviable? Heavens, had a Duke of Logwood, now\nrolling sumptuously to his place in the Collective Wisdom, but\nhimself happened to plough daily, at one time, on seven-and-sixpence a\nweek, with no out-door relief,--what a light, unquenchable by logic\nand statistic and arithmetic, would it have thrown on several things\nfor him!\n\nIn all cases, therefore, we will agree with the judicious Mrs. Glass:\n'First catch your hare!' First get your man; all is got: he can learn\nto do all things, from making boots, to decreeing judgments, governing\ncommunities; and will do them like a man. Catch your no-man,--alas,\nhave you not caught the terriblest Tartar in the world! Perhaps all\nthe terribler, the quieter and gentler he looks. For the mischief that\none blockhead, that every blockhead does, in a world so feracious,\nteeming with endless results as ours, no ciphering will sum up. The\nquack bootmaker is considerable; as corn-cutters can testify, and\ndesperate men reduced to buckskin and list-shoes. But the quack\npriest, quack high-priest, the quack king! Why do not all just\ncitizens rush, half-frantic, to stop him, as they would a\nconflagration? Surely a just citizen _is_ admonished by God and his\nown Soul, by all silent and articulate voices of this Universe, to do\nwhat in _him_ lies towards relief of this poor blockhead-quack, and of\na world that groans under him. Run swiftly; relieve him,--were it even\nby extinguishing him! For all things have grown so old, tinder-dry,\ncombustible; and he is more ruinous than conflagration. Sweep him\n_down_, at least; keep him strictly within the hearth: he will then\ncease to be conflagration; he will then become useful, more or less,\nas culinary fire. Fire is the best of servants; but what a master!\nThis poor blockhead too is born, for uses: why, elevating him to\nmastership, will you make a conflagration, a parish-curse or\nworld-curse of him?\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[12] _Jocelini Chronica_, p. 25.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nGOVERNMENT.\n\n\nHow Abbot Samson, giving his new subjects seriatim the kiss of\nfatherhood in the St. Edmundsbury chapterhouse, proceeded with\ncautious energy to set about reforming their disjointed distracted way\nof life; how he managed with his Fifty rough _Milites_ (Feudal\nKnights), with his lazy Farmers, remiss refractory Monks, with Pope's\nLegates, Viscounts, Bishops, Kings; how on all sides he laid about him\nlike a man, and putting consequence on premiss, and everywhere the\nsaddle on the right horse, struggled incessantly to educe organic\nmethod out of lazily fermenting wreck,--the careful reader will\ndiscern, not without true interest, in these pages of Jocelin Boswell.\nIn most antiquarian quaint costume, not of garments alone, but of\nthought, word, action, outlook and position, the substantial figure of\na man with eminent nose, bushy brows and clear-flashing eyes, his\nrusset beard growing daily grayer, is visible, engaged in true\ngoverning of men. It is beautiful how the chrysalis governing-soul,\nshaking off its dusty slough and prison, starts forth winged, a true\nroyal soul! Our new Abbot has a right honest unconscious feeling,\nwithout insolence as without fear or flutter, of what he is and what\nothers are. A courage to quell the proudest, an honest pity to\nencourage the humblest. Withal there is a noble reticence in this Lord\nAbbot: much vain unreason he hears; lays up without response. He is\nnot there to expect reason and nobleness of others; he is there to\ngive them of his own reason and nobleness. Is he not their servant, as\nwe said, who can suffer from them, and for them; bear the burden their\npoor spindle-limbs totter and stagger under; and, in virtue of _being_\ntheir servant, govern them, lead them out of weakness into strength,\nout of defeat into victory!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne of the first Herculean Labours Abbot Samson undertook, or the very\nfirst, was to institute a strenuous review and radical reform of his\neconomics. It is the first labour of every governing man, from\n_Paterfamilias_ to _Dominus Rex_. To get the rain thatched out from\nyou is the preliminary of whatever farther, in the way of speculation\nor of action, you may mean to do. Old Abbot Hugo's budget, as we saw,\nhad become empty, filled with deficit and wind. To see his\naccount-books clear, be delivered from those ravening flights of Jew\nand Christian creditors, pouncing on him like obscene harpies wherever\nhe showed face, was a necessity for Abbot Samson.\n\nOn the morrow after his instalment he brings in a load of money-bonds,\nall duly stamped, sealed with this or the other Convent Seal:\nfrightful, unmanageable, a bottomless confusion of Convent finance.\nThere they are;--but there at least they all are; all that shall be of\nthem. Our Lord Abbot demands that all the official seals in use among\nus be now produced and delivered to him. Three-and-thirty seals turn\nup; are straightway broken, and shall seal no more: the Abbot only,\nand those duly authorised by him shall seal any bond. There are but\ntwo ways of paying debt: increase of industry in raising income,\nincrease of thrift in laying it out. With iron energy, in slow but\nsteady undeviating perseverance, Abbot Samson sets to work in both\ndirections. His troubles are manifold: cunning _milites_, unjust\nbailiffs, lazy sockmen, he an inexperienced Abbot; relaxed lazy monks,\nnot disinclined to mutiny in mass: but continued vigilance, rigorous\nmethod, what we call 'the eye of the master,' work wonders. The\nclear-beaming eyesight of Abbot Samson, steadfast, severe,\nall-penetrating,--it is like _Fiat lux_ in that inorganic waste\nwhirlpool; penetrates gradually to all nooks, and of the chaos makes a\n_kosmos_ or ordered world!\n\nHe arranges everywhere, struggles unweariedly to arrange, and place on\nsome intelligible footing, the 'affairs and dues, _res ac redditus_,'\nof his dominion. The Lakenheath eels cease to breed squabbles between\nhuman beings; the penny of _reap-silver_ to explode into the streets\nthe Female Chartism of St. Edmundsbury. These and innumerable greater\nthings. Wheresoever Disorder may stand or lie, let it have a care;\nhere is the man that has declared war with it, that never will make\npeace with it. Man is the Missionary of Order; he is the servant not\nof the Devil and Chaos, but of God and the Universe! Let all sluggards\nand cowards, remiss, false-spoken, unjust, and otherwise diabolic\npersons have a care: this is a dangerous man for them. He has a mild\ngrave face; a thoughtful sternness, a sorrowful pity: but there is a\nterrible flash of anger in him too; lazy monks often have to murmur,\n\"_Saevit ut lupus_, He rages like a wolf; was not our Dream true!\" 'To\nrepress and hold-in such sudden anger he was continually 'careful,'\nand succeeded well:--right, Samson; that it may become in thee as\nnoble central heat, fruitful, strong, beneficent; not blaze out, or\nthe seldomest possible blaze out, as wasteful volcanoism to scorch and\nconsume!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"We must first creep, and gradually learn to walk,\" had Abbot Samson\nsaid of himself, at starting. In four years he has become a great\nwalker; striding prosperously along; driving much before him.\nIn less than four years, says Jocelin, the Convent Debts were all\nliquidated: the harpy Jews not only settled with, but banished, bag\nand baggage, out of the _Bannaleuca_ (Liberties, _Banlieue_) of St.\nEdmundsbury,--so has the King's Majesty been persuaded to permit.\nFarewell to _you_, at any rate; let us, in no extremity, apply again\nto you! Armed men march them over the borders, dismiss them under\nstern penalties,--sentence of excommunication on all that shall again\nharbour them here: there were many dry eyes at their departure.\n\nNew life enters everywhere, springs up beneficent, the Incubus of Debt\nonce rolled away. Samson hastes not; but neither does he pause to\nrest. This of the Finance is a life-long business with him;--Jocelin's\nanecdotes are filled to weariness with it. As indeed to Jocelin it was\nof very primary interest.\n\nBut we have to record also, with a lively satisfaction, that spiritual\nrubbish is as little tolerated in Samson's Monastery as material. With\ndue rigour, Willelmus Sacrista, and his bibations and _tacenda_ are,\nat the earliest opportunity, softly yet irrevocably put an end to. The\nbibations, namely, had to end; even the building where they used to be\ncarried on was razed from the soil of St. Edmundsbury, and 'on its\nplace grow rows of beans:' Willelmus himself, deposed from the\nSacristy and all offices, retires into obscurity, into absolute\ntaciturnity unbroken thenceforth to this hour. Whether the poor\nWillelmus did not still, by secret channels, occasionally get some\nslight wetting of vinous or alcoholic liquor,--now grown, in a manner,\nindispensable to the poor man? Jocelin hints not: one knows not how to\nhope, what to hope! But if he did, it was in silence and darkness;\nwith an ever-present feeling that teetotalism was his only true\ncourse. Drunken dissolute Monks are a class of persons who had better\nkeep out of Abbot Samson's way. _Saevit ut lupus_; was not the Dream\ntrue! murmured many a Monk. Nay Ranulf de Glanvill, Justiciary in\nChief, took umbrage at him, seeing these strict ways; and watched\nfarther with suspicion: but discerned gradually that there was nothing\nwrong, that there was much the opposite of wrong.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nTHE ABBOT'S WAYS.\n\n\nAbbot Samson showed no extraordinary favour to the Monks who had been\nhis familiars of old; did not promote them to offices,--_nisi essent\nidonei_, unless they chanced to be fit men! Whence great discontent\namong certain of these, who had contributed to make him Abbot:\nreproaches, open and secret, of his being 'ungrateful, hard-tempered,\nunsocial, a Norfolk _barrator_ and _paltenerius_.'\n\nIndeed, except it were for _idonei_, 'fit men,' in all kinds, it was\nhard to say for whom Abbot Samson had much favour. He loved his\nkindred well, and tenderly enough acknowledged the poor part of them;\nwith the rich part, who in old days had never acknowledged him, he\ntotally refused to have any business. But even the former he did not\npromote into offices; finding none of them _idonei_. 'Some whom he\nthought suitable he put into situations in his own household, or made\nkeepers of his country places: if they behaved ill, he dismissed them\nwithout hope of return.' In his promotions, nay almost in his\nbenefits, you would have said there was a certain impartiality. 'The\nofficial person who had, by Abbot Hugo's order, put the fetters on him\nat his return from Italy, was now supported with food and clothes to\nthe end of his days at Abbot Samson's expense.'\n\nYet he did not forget benefits; far the reverse, when an opportunity\noccurred of paying them at his own cost. How pay them at the public\ncost;--how, above all, by _setting fire_ to the public, as we said;\nclapping 'conflagrations' on the public, which the services of\nblockheads, _non-idonei_, intrinsically are! He was right willing to\nremember friends, when it could be done. Take these instances: 'A\ncertain chaplain who had maintained him at the Schools of Paris by the\nsale of holy water, _quaestu aquae benedictae_;--to this good chaplain he\ndid give a vicarage, adequate to the comfortable sustenance of him.'\n'The Son of Elias too, that is, of old Abbot Hugo's Cupbearer, coming\nto do homage for his Father's land, our Lord Abbot said to him in full\nCourt: \"I have, for these seven years, put off taking thy homage for\nthe land which Abbot Hugo gave thy Father, because that gift was to\nthe damage of Elmswell, and a questionable one: but now I must profess\nmyself overcome; mindful of the kindness thy Father did me when I was\nin bonds; because he sent me a cup of the very wine his master had\nbeen drinking, and bade me be comforted in God.\"'\n\n'To Magister Walter, son of Magister William de Dice, who wanted the\nvicarage of Chevington, he answered: \"Thy Father was Master of the\nSchools; and when I was an indigent _clericus_, he granted me freely\nand in charity an entrance to his School, and opportunity of learning;\nwherefore I now, for the sake of God, grant to thee what thou\naskest.\"' Or lastly, take this good instance,--and a glimpse, along\nwith it, into long-obsolete times: 'Two _Milites_ of Risby, Willelm\nand Norman, being adjudged in Court to come under his mercy, _in\nmisericordia ejus_,' for a certain very considerable fine of twenty\nshillings, 'he thus addressed them publicly on the spot: \"When I was a\nCloister-monk, I was once sent to Durham on business of our Church;\nand coming home again, the dark night caught me at Risby, and I had\nto beg a lodging there. I went to Dominus Norman's, and he gave me a\nflat refusal. Going then to Dominus Willelm's, and begging\nhospitality, I was by him honourably received. The twenty shillings\ntherefore of _mercy_, I, without mercy, will exact from Dominus\nNorman; to Dominus Willelm, on the other hand, I, with thanks, will\nwholly remit the said sum.\"' Men know not always to whom they refuse\nlodgings; men have lodged Angels unawares!--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is clear Abbot Samson had a talent; he had learned to judge better\nthan Lawyers, to manage better than bred Bailiffs:--a talent shining\nout indisputable, on whatever side you took him. 'An eloquent man he\nwas,' says Jocelin, 'both in French and Latin; but intent more on the\nsubstance and method of what was to be said, than on the ornamental\nway of saying it. He could read English Manuscripts very elegantly,\n_elegantissime_: he was wont to preach to the people in the English\ntongue, though according to the dialect of Norfolk, where he had been\nbrought up; wherefore indeed he had caused a Pulpit to be erected in\nour Church both for ornament of the same, and for the use of his\naudiences.' There preached he, according to the dialect of Norfolk: a\nman worth going to hear.\n\nThat he was a just clear-hearted man, this, as the basis of all true\ntalent, is presupposed. How can a man, without clear vision in his\nheart first of all, have any clear vision in the head? It is\nimpossible! Abbot Samson was one of the justest of judges; insisted on\nunderstanding the case to the bottom, and then swiftly decided without\nfeud or favour. For which reason, indeed, the Dominus Rex, searching\nfor such men, as for hidden treasure and healing to his distressed\nrealm, had made him one of the new Itinerant Judges,--such as continue\nto this day. \"My curse on that Abbot's court,\" a suitor was heard\nimprecating, \"_Maledicta sit curia istius Abbatis_, where neither gold\nnor silver can help me to confound my enemy!\" And old friendships and\nall connexions forgotten, when you go to seek an office from him! \"A\nkinless loon,\" as the Scotch said of Cromwell's new judges,--intent on\nmere indifferent fair-play!\n\nEloquence in three languages is good; but it is not the best. To us,\nas already hinted, the Lord Abbot's eloquence is less admirable than\nhis _in_eloquence, his great invaluable 'talent of silence'! '\"_Deus,\nDeus_,\" said the Lord Abbot to me once, when he heard the Convent were\nmurmuring at some act of his, \"I have much need to remember that Dream\nthey had of me, that I was to rage among them like a wolf. Above all\nearthly things I dread their driving me to do it. How much do I hold\nin, and wink at; raging and shuddering in my own secret mind, and not\noutwardly at all!\" He would boast to me at other times: \"This and that\nI have seen, this and that I have heard; yet patiently stood it.\" He\nhad this way, too, which I have never seen in any other man, that he\naffectionately loved many persons to whom he never or hardly ever\nshowed a countenance of love. Once on my venturing to expostulate with\nhim on the subject, he reminded me of Solomon: \"Many sons I have; it\nis not fit that I should smile on them.\" He would suffer faults,\ndamage from his servants, and know what he suffered, and not speak of\nit; but I think the reason was, he waited a good time for speaking of\nit, and in a wise way amending it. He intimated, openly in chapter to\nus all, that he would have no eavesdropping: \"Let none,\" said he,\n\"come to me secretly accusing another, unless he will publicly stand\nto the same; if he come otherwise, I will openly proclaim the name of\nhim. I wish, too, that every Monk of you have free access to me, to\nspeak of your needs or grievances when you will.\"\n\nThe kinds of people Abbot Samson liked worst were these three:\n'_Mendaces_, _ebriosi_, _verbosi_, Liars, drunkards and wordy or windy\npersons;'--not good kinds, any of them! He also much condemned\n'persons given to murmur at their meat or drink, especially Monks of\nthat disposition.' We remark, from the very first, his strict anxious\norder to his servants to provide handsomely for hospitality, to guard\n'above all things that there be no shabbiness in the matter of meat\nand drink; no look of mean parsimony, _in novitate mea_, at the\nbeginning of my Abbotship;' and to the last he maintains a due\nopulence of table and equipment for others; but he is himself in the\nhighest degree indifferent to all such things.\n\n'Sweet milk, honey and other naturally sweet kinds of food, were what\nhe preferred to eat: but he had this virtue,' says Jocelin, 'he never\nchanged the dish (_ferculum_) you set before him, be what it might.\nOnce when I, still a novice, happened to be waiting table in the\nrefectory, it came into my head' (rogue that I was!) 'to try if this\nwere true; and I thought I would place before him a _ferculum_ that\nwould have displeased any other person, the very platter being black\nand broken. But he, seeing it, was as one that saw it not: and now\nsome little delay taking place, my heart smote me that I had done\nthis; and so, snatching up the platter (_discus_), I changed both it\nand its contents for a better, and put down that instead; which\nemendation he was angry at, and rebuked me for,'--the stoical monastic\nman! 'For the first seven years he had commonly four sorts of dishes\non his table; afterwards only three, except it might be presents, or\nvenison from his own parks, or fishes from his ponds. And if, at any\ntime, he had guests living in his house at the request of some great\nperson, or of some friend, or had public messengers, or had harpers\n(_citharoedos_), or any one of that sort, he took the first\nopportunity of shifting to another of his Manor-houses, and so got rid\nof such superfluous individuals,'[13]--very prudently, I think.\n\nAs to his parks, of these, in the general repair of buildings, general\nimprovement and adornment of the St. Edmund Domains, 'he had laid out\nseveral, and stocked them with animals, retaining a proper huntsman\nwith hounds: and, if any guest of great quality were there, our Lord\nAbbot with his Monks would sit in some opening of the woods, and see\nthe dogs run; but he himself never meddled with hunting, that I\nsaw.'[14]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n'In an opening of the woods;'--for the country was still dark with\nwood in those days; and Scotland itself still rustled shaggy and\nleafy, like a damp black American Forest, with cleared spots and\nspaces here and there. Dryasdust advances several absurd hypotheses as\nto the insensible but almost total disappearance of these woods; the\nthick wreck of which now lies as _peat_, sometimes with huge\nheart-of-oak timber-logs imbedded in it, on many a height and hollow.\nThe simplest reason doubtless is, that by increase of husbandry, there\nwas increase of cattle; increase of hunger for green spring food; and\nso, more and more, the new seedlings got yearly eaten out in April;\nand the old trees, having only a certain length of life in them, died\ngradually, no man heeding it, and disappeared into _peat_.\n\nA sorrowful waste of noble wood and umbrage! Yes,--but a very common\none; the course of most things in this world. Monachism itself, so\nrich and fruitful once, is now all rotted into _peat_; lies sleek and\nburied,--and a most feeble bog-grass of Dilettantism all the crop we\nreap from it! That also was frightful waste; perhaps among the saddest\nour England ever saw. Why will men destroy noble Forests, even when in\npart a nuisance, in such reckless manner; turning loose four-footed\ncattle and Henry-the-Eighths into them! The fifth part of our English\nsoil, Dryasdust computes, lay consecrated to 'spiritual uses,' better\nor worse; solemnly set apart to foster spiritual growth and culture of\nthe soul, by the methods then known: and now--it too, like the\nfour-fifths, fosters what? Gentle shepherd, tell me what!\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[13] _Jocelini Chronica_, p. 31.\n\n[14] Ibid. p. 21.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE ABBOT'S TROUBLES.\n\n\nThe troubles of Abbot Samson, as he went along in this abstemious,\nreticent, rigorous way, were more than tongue can tell. The Abbot's\nmitre once set on his head, he knew rest no more. Double, double toil\nand trouble; that is the life of all governors that really govern: not\nthe spoil of victory, only the glorious toil of battle can be theirs.\nAbbot Samson found all men more or less headstrong, irrational, prone\nto disorder; continually threatening to prove _un_governable.\n\nHis lazy Monks gave him most trouble. 'My heart is tortured,' said he,\n'till we get out of debt, _cor meum cruciatum est_.' Your heart,\nindeed;--but not altogether ours! By no devisable method, or none of\nthree or four that he devised, could Abbot Samson get these Monks of\nhis to keep their accounts straight; but always, do as he might, the\nCellerarius at the end of the term is in a coil, in a flat\ndeficit,--verging again towards debt and Jews. The Lord Abbot at last\ndeclares sternly he will keep our accounts too himself; will appoint\nan officer of his own to see our Cellerarius keep them. Murmurs\nthereupon among us: Was the like ever heard? Our Cellerarius a cipher;\nthe very Townsfolk know it: _subsannatio et derisio sumus_, we have\nbecome a laughingstock to mankind. The Norfolk barrator and paltener!\n\nAnd consider, if the Abbot found such difficulty in the mere economic\ndepartment, how much in more complex ones, in spiritual ones perhaps!\nHe wears a stern calm face; raging and gnashing teeth, _fremens_ and\n_frendens_, many times, in the secret of his mind. Withal, however,\nthere is a noble slow perseverance in him; a strength of 'subdued\nrage' calculated to subdue most things: always, in the long-run, he\ncontrives to gain his point.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMurmurs from the Monks, meanwhile, cannot fail, ever deeper murmurs,\nnew grudges accumulating. At one time, on slight cause, some drop\nmaking the cup run over, they burst into open mutiny: the Cellarer\nwill not obey, prefers arrest on bread-and-water to obeying; the Monks\nthereupon strike work; refuse to do the regular chanting of the day,\nat least the younger part of them with loud clamour and uproar\nrefuse:--Abbot Samson has withdrawn to another residence, acting only\nby messengers: the awful report circulates through St. Edmundsbury\nthat the Abbot is in danger of being murdered by the Monks with their\nknives! How wilt thou appease this, Abbot Samson! Return; for the\nMonastery seems near catching fire!\n\nAbbot Samson returns; sits in his _Talamus_, or inner room, hurls out\na bolt or two of excommunication: lo, one disobedient Monk sits in\nlimbo, excommunicated, with foot-shackles on him, all day; and three\nmore our Abbot has gyved 'with the lesser sentence, to strike fear\ninto the others'! Let the others think with whom they have to do. The\nothers think; and fear enters into them. 'On the morrow morning we\ndecide on humbling ourselves before the Abbot, by word and gesture, in\norder to mitigate his mind. And so accordingly was done. He, on the\nother side, replying with much humility, yet always alleging his own\njustice and turning the blame on us, when he saw that we were\nconquered, became himself conquered. And bursting into tears,\n_perfusus lachrymis_, he swore that he had never grieved so much for\nanything in the world as for this, first on his own account, and then\nsecondly and chiefly for the public scandal which had gone abroad,\nthat St. Edmund's Monks were going to kill their Abbot. And when he\nhad narrated how he went away on purpose till his anger should cool,\nrepeating this word of the philosopher, \"I would have taken vengeance\non thee, had not I been angry,\" he arose weeping, and embraced each\nand all of us with the kiss of peace. He wept; we all wept:'[15]--what\na picture! Behave better, ye remiss Monks, and thank Heaven for such\nan Abbot; or know at least that ye must and shall obey him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWorn down in this manner, with incessant toil and tribulation, Abbot\nSamson had a sore time of it; his grizzled hair and beard grew daily\ngrayer. Those Jews, in the first four years, had 'visibly emaciated\nhim:' Time, Jews, and the task of Governing, will make a man's beard\nvery gray! 'In twelve years,' says Jocelin, 'our Lord Abbot had grown\nwholly white as snow, _totus efficitur albus sicut nix_.' White atop,\nlike the granite mountains:--but his clear-beaming eyes still look\nout, in their stern clearness, in their sorrow and pity; the heart\nwithin him remains unconquered.\n\nNay sometimes there are gleams of hilarity too; little snatches of\nencouragement granted even to a Governor. 'Once my Lord Abbot and I,\ncoming down from London through the Forest, I inquired of an old woman\nwhom we came up to, Whose wood this was, and of what manor; who the\nmaster, who the keeper?'--All this I knew very well beforehand, and my\nLord Abbot too, Bozzy that I was! But 'the old woman answered, The\nwood belonged to the new Abbot of St. Edmund's, was of the manor of\nHarlow, and the keeper of it was one Arnald. How did he behave to the\npeople of the manor? I asked farther. She answered that he used to be\na devil incarnate, _daemon vivus_, an enemy of God, and flayer of the\npeasants' skins,'--skinning them like live eels, as the manner of some\nis: 'but that now he dreads the new Abbot, knowing him to be a wise\nand sharp man, and so treats the people reasonably, _tractat homines\npacifice_.' Whereat the Lord Abbot _factus est hilaris_,--could not\nbut take a triumphant laugh for himself; and determines to leave that\nHarlow manor yet unmeddled with, for a while.[16]\n\nA brave man, strenuously fighting, fails not of a little triumph now\nand then, to keep him in heart. Everywhere we try at least to give the\nadversary as good as he brings; and, with swift force or slow watchful\nmanoeuvre, extinguish this and the other solecism, leave one\nsolecism less in God's Creation; and so _proceed_ with our battle, not\nslacken or surrender in it! The Fifty feudal Knights, for example,\nwere of unjust greedy temper, and cheated us, in the Installation-day,\nof ten knights'-fees;--but they know now whether that has profited\nthem aught, and I Jocelin know. Our Lord Abbot for the moment had to\nendure it, and say nothing; but he watched his time.\n\nLook also how my Lord of Clare, coming to claim his _un_due 'debt' in\nthe Court of Witham, with barons and apparatus, gets a Roland for his\nOliver! Jocelin shall report: 'The Earl, crowded round (_constipatus_)\nwith many barons and men-at-arms, Earl Alberic and others standing by\nhim, said, \"That his bailiffs had given him to understand they were\nwont annually to receive for his behoof, from the Hundred of\nRisebridge and the bailiffs thereof, a sum of five shillings, which\nsum was now unjustly held back;\" and he alleged farther that his\npredecessors had been infeft, at the Conquest, in the lands of Alfric\nson of Wisgar, who was Lord of that Hundred, as may be read in\nDomesday Book by all persons.--The Abbot, reflecting for a moment,\nwithout stirring from his place, made answer: \"A wonderful deficit, my\nLord Earl, this that thou mentionest! King Edward gave to St. Edmund\nthat entire Hundred, and confirmed the same with his Charter; nor is\nthere any mention there of those five shillings. It will behove thee\nto say, for what service, or on what ground, thou exactest those five\nshillings.\" Whereupon the Earl, consulting with his followers,\nreplied, That he had to carry the Banner of St. Edmund in war-time,\nand for this duty the five shillings were his. To which the Abbot:\n\"Certainly, it seems inglorious, if so great a man, Earl of Clare no\nless, receive so small a gift for such a service. To the Abbot of St.\nEdmund's it is no unbearable burden to give five shillings. But Roger\nEarl Bigot holds himself duly seised, and asserts that he by such\nseisin has the office of carrying St. Edmund's Banner; and he did\ncarry it when the Earl of Leicester and his Flemings were beaten at\nFornham. Then again Thomas de Mendham says that the right is his. When\nyou have made out with one another, that this right is thine, come\nthen and claim the five shillings, and I will promptly pay them!\"\nWhereupon the Earl said, He would speak with Earl Roger his relative;\nand so the matter _cepit dilationem_,' and lies undecided to the end\nof the world. Abbot Samson answers by word or act, in this or the like\npregnant manner, having justice on his side, innumerable persons:\nPope's Legates, King's Viscounts, Canterbury Archbishops, Cellarers,\n_Sochemanni_;--and leaves many a solecism extinguished.\n\nOn the whole, however, it is and remains sore work. 'One time, during\nmy chaplaincy, I ventured to say to him: \"_Domine_, I heard thee, this\nnight after matins, wakeful, and sighing deeply, _valde suspirantem_,\ncontrary to thy usual wont.\" He answered: \"No wonder. Thou, son\nJocelin, sharest in my good things, in food and drink, in riding and\nsuchlike; but thou little thinkest concerning the management of House\nand Family, the various and arduous businesses of the Pastoral Care,\nwhich harass me, and make my soul to sigh and be anxious.\" Whereto I,\nlifting up my hands to Heaven: \"From such anxiety, Omnipotent merciful\nLord deliver me!\"--I have heard the Abbot say, If he had been as he\nwas before he became a Monk, and could have anywhere got five or six\nmarcs of income,' some three-pound ten of yearly revenue, 'whereby to\nsupport himself in the schools, he would never have been Monk nor\nAbbot. Another time he said with an oath, If he had known what a\nbusiness it was to govern the Abbey, he would rather have been\nAlmoner, how much rather Keeper of the Books, than Abbot and Lord.\nThat latter office he said he had always longed for, beyond any other.\n_Quis talia crederet?_' concludes Jocelin, 'Who can believe such\nthings?'\n\nThree-pound ten, and a life of Literature, especially of\nquiet Literature, without copyright, or world-celebrity of\nliterary-gazettes,--yes, thou brave Abbot Samson, for thyself it had\nbeen better, easier, perhaps also nobler! But then, for thy\ndisobedient Monks, unjust Viscounts; for a Domain of St. Edmund\novergrown with Solecisms, human and other, it had not been so well.\nNay neither could _thy_ Literature, never so quiet, have been easy.\nLiterature, when noble, is not easy; but only when ignoble.\nLiterature too is a quarrel, and internecine duel, with the whole\nWorld of Darkness that lies without one and within one;--rather a hard\nfight at times, even with the three-pound ten secure. Thou, there\nwhere thou art, wrestle and duel along cheerfully to the end: and make\nno remarks!\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[15] _Jocelini Chronica_, p. 85.\n\n[16] _Jocelini Chronica_, p. 24.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nIN PARLIAMENT.\n\n\nOf Abbot Samson's public business we say little, though that also was\ngreat. He had to judge the people as Justice Errant, to decide in\nweighty arbitrations and public controversies; to equip his _milites_,\nsend them duly in war-time to the King;--strive every way that the\nCommonweal, in his quarter of it, take no damage.\n\nOnce, in the confused days of Lackland's usurpation, while\nCoeur-de-Lion was away, our brave Abbot took helmet himself, having\nfirst excommunicated all that should favour Lackland; and led his men\nin person to the siege of _Windleshora_, what we now call Windsor;\nwhere Lackland had entrenched himself, the centre of infinite\nconfusions; some Reform Bill, then as now, being greatly needed. There\ndid Abbot Samson 'fight the battle of reform,'--with other ammunition,\none hopes, than 'tremendous cheering' and suchlike! For these things\nhe was called 'the magnanimous Abbot.'\n\nHe also attended duly in his place in Parliament _de arduis regni_;\nattended especially, as in _arduissimo_, when 'the news reached London\nthat King Richard was a captive in Germany.' Here 'while all the\nbarons sat to consult,' and many of them looked blank enough, 'the\nAbbot started forth, _prosiliit coram omnibus_, in his place in\nParliament, and said, That _he_ was ready to go and seek his Lord the\nKing, either clandestinely by subterfuge (_in tapinagio_), or by any\nother method; and search till he found him, and got certain notice of\nhim; he for one! By which word,' says Jocelin, he acquired great\npraise for himself,'--unfeigned commendation from the Able Editors of\nthat age.\n\nBy which word;--and also by which _deed_: for the Abbot actually went\n'with rich gifts to the King in Germany;'[17] Usurper Lackland being\nfirst rooted out from Windsor, and the King's peace somewhat settled.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs to these 'rich gifts,' however, we have to note one thing: In all\nEngland, as appeared to the Collective Wisdom, there was not like to\nbe treasure enough for ransoming King Richard; in which extremity\ncertain Lords of the Treasury, _Justiciarii ad Scaccarium_, suggested\nthat St. Edmund's Shrine, covered with thick gold, was still\nuntouched. Could not it, in this extremity, be peeled off, at least in\npart; under condition, of course, of its being replaced when times\nmended? The Abbot, starting plumb up, _se erigens_, answered: \"Know ye\nfor certain, that I will in nowise do this thing; nor is there any man\nwho could force me to consent thereto. But I will open the doors of\nthe Church: Let him that likes enter; let him that dares come\nforward!\" Emphatic words, which created a sensation round the\nwoolsack. For the Justiciaries of the _Scaccarium_ answered, 'with\noaths, each for himself: \"I won't come forward, for my share; nor will\nI, nor I! The distant and absent who offended him, Saint Edmund has\nbeen known to punish fearfully; much more will he those close by, who\nlay violent hands on his coat, and would strip it off!\" These things\nbeing said, the Shrine was not meddled with, nor any ransom levied for\nit.'[18]\n\nFor Lords of the Treasury have in all times their impassable limits,\nbe it by 'force of public opinion' or otherwise; and in those days a\nheavenly Awe overshadowed and encompassed, as it still ought and must,\nall earthly Business whatsoever.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[17] _Jocelini Chronica_, pp. 39, 40.\n\n[18] Ibid. p. 71.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nHENRY OF ESSEX.\n\n\nOf St. Edmund's fearful avengements have they not the remarkablest\ninstance still before their eyes? He that will go to Reading Monastery\nmay find there, now tonsured into a mournful penitent Monk, the once\nproud Henry Earl of Essex; and discern how St. Edmund punishes\nterribly, yet with mercy! This Narrative is too significant to be\nomitted as a document of the Time. Our Lord Abbot, once on a visit at\nReading, heard the particulars from Henry's own mouth; and thereupon\ncharged one of his monks to write it down;--as accordingly the Monk\nhas done, in ambitious rhetorical Latin; inserting the same, as\nepisode, among Jocelin's garrulous leaves. Read it here; with ancient\nyet with modern eyes.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHenry Earl of Essex, standard-bearer of England, had high places and\nemoluments; had a haughty high soul, yet with various flaws, or rather\nwith one many-branched flaw and crack, running through the texture of\nit. For example, did he not treat Gilbert de Cereville in the most\nshocking manner? He cast Gilbert into prison; and, with chains and\nslow torments, wore the life out of him there. And Gilbert's crime was\nunderstood to be only that of innocent Joseph: the Lady Essex was a\nPotiphar's Wife, and had accused poor Gilbert! Other cracks, and\nbranches of that wide-spread flaw in the Standard-bearer's soul we\ncould point out: but indeed the main stem and trunk of all is too\nvisible in this, That he had no right reverence for the Heavenly in\nMan,--that far from showing due reverence to St. Edmund, he did not\neven show him common justice. While others in the Eastern Counties\nwere adorning and enlarging with rich gifts St. Edmund's\nresting-place, which had become a city of refuge for many things, this\nEarl of Essex flatly defrauded him, by violence or quirk of law, of\nfive shillings yearly, and converted said sum to his own poor uses!\nNay, in another case of litigation, the unjust Standard-bearer, for\nhis own profit, asserting that the cause belonged not to St. Edmund's\nCourt, but to _his_ in Lailand Hundred, 'involved us in travellings\nand innumerable expenses, vexing the servants of St. Edmund for a long\ntract of time.' In short, he is without reverence for the Heavenly,\nthis Standard-bearer; reveres only the Earthly, Gold-coined; and has a\nmost morbid lamentable flaw in the texture of him. It cannot come to\ngood.\n\nAccordingly, the same flaw, or St.-Vitus' _tic_, manifests itself ere\nlong in another way. In the year 1157, he went with his Standard to\nattend King Henry, our blessed Sovereign (whom _we_ saw afterwards at\nWaltham), in his War with the Welsh. A somewhat disastrous War; in\nwhich while King Henry and his force were struggling to retreat\nParthian-like, endless clouds of exasperated Welshmen hemming them in,\nand now we had come to the 'difficult pass of Coleshill,' and as it\nwere to the nick of destruction,--Henry Earl of Essex shrieks out on a\nsudden (blinded doubtless by his inner flaw, or 'evil genius' as some\nname it), That King Henry is killed, That all is lost,--and flings\ndown his Standard to shift for itself there! And, certainly enough,\nall _had_ been lost, had all men been as he;--had not brave men,\nwithout such miserable jerking _tic-douloureux_ in the souls of them,\ncome dashing up, with blazing swords and looks, and asserted, That\nnothing was lost yet, that all must be regained yet. In this manner\nKing Henry and his force got safely retreated, Parthian-like, from the\npass of Coleshill and the Welsh War.[19] But, once home again, Earl\nRobert de Montfort, a kinsman of this Standard-bearer's, rises up in\nthe King's Assembly to declare openly that such a man is unfit for\nbearing English Standards, being in fact either a special traitor, or\nsomething almost worse, a coward namely, or universal traitor. Wager\nof Battle in consequence; solemn Duel, by the King's appointment, 'in\na certain Island of the Thames-stream at Reading, _apud Radingas_,\nshort way from the Abbey there.' King, Peers, and an immense multitude\nof people, on such scaffoldings and heights as they can come at, are\ngathered round, to see what issue the business will take. The business\ntakes this bad issue, in our Monk's own words faithfully rendered:\n\n'And it came to pass, while Robert de Montfort thundered on him\nmanfully (_viriliter intonasset_) with hard and frequent strokes, and\na valiant beginning promised the fruit of victory, Henry of Essex,\nrather giving way, glanced round on all sides; and lo, at the rim of\nthe horizon, on the confines of the River and land, he discerned the\nglorious King and Martyr Edmund, in shining armour, and as if hovering\nin the air; looking towards him with severe countenance, nodding his\nhead with a mien and motion of austere anger. At St. Edmund's hand\nthere stood also another Knight, Gilbert de Cereville, whose armour\nwas not so splendid, whose stature was less gigantic; casting vengeful\nlooks at him. This he seeing with his eyes, remembered that old crime\nbrings new shame. And now wholly desperate, and changing reason into\nviolence, he took the part of one blindly attacking, not skilfully\ndefending. Who while he struck fiercely was more fiercely struck; and\nso, in short, fell down vanquished, and it was thought slain. As he\nlay there for dead, his kinsmen, Magnates of England, besought the\nKing, that the Monks of Reading might have leave to bury him. However,\nhe proved not to be dead, but got well again among them; and now, with\nrecovered health, assuming the Regular Habit, he strove to wipe out\nthe stain of his former life, to cleanse the long week of his\ndissolute history by at least a purifying sabbath, and cultivate the\nstudies of Virtue into fruits of eternal Felicity.'[20]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus does the Conscience of man project itself athwart whatsoever of\nknowledge or surmise, of imagination, understanding, faculty,\nacquirement, or natural disposition, he has in him; and, like light\nthrough coloured glass, paint strange pictures 'on the rim of the\nhorizon' and elsewhere! Truly, this same 'sense of the Infinite nature\nof Duty' is the central part of all with us; a ray as of Eternity and\nImmortality, immured in dusky many-coloured Time, and its deaths and\nbirths. Your 'coloured glass' varies so much from century to\ncentury;--and, in certain money-making, game-preserving centuries, it\ngets so terribly opaque! Not a Heaven with cherubim surrounds you\nthen, but a kind of vacant leaden-coloured Hell. One day it will again\ncease to be _opaque_, this 'coloured glass.' Nay, may it not become at\nonce translucent and _un_coloured? Painting no Pictures more for us,\nbut only the everlasting Azure itself? That will be a right glorious\nconsummation!--\n\nSaint Edmund from the horizon's edge, in shining armour, threatening\nthe misdoer in his hour of extreme need: it is beautiful, it is great\nand true. So old, yet so modern, actual; true yet for every one of us,\nas for Henry the Earl and Monk! A glimpse as of the Deepest in Man's\nDestiny, which is the same for all times and ages. Yes, Henry my\nbrother, there in thy extreme need, thy soul is _lamed_; and behold\nthou canst not so much as fight! For Justice and Reverence _are_ the\neverlasting central Law of this Universe; and to forget them, and have\nall the Universe against one, God and one's own Self for enemies, and\nonly the Devil and the Dragons for friends, is not that a 'lameness'\nlike few? That some shining armed St. Edmund hang minatory on thy\nhorizon, that infinite sulphur-lakes hang minatory, or do not now\nhang,--this alters no whit the eternal fact of the thing. I say, thy\nsoul is lamed, and the God and all Godlike in it marred: lamed,\nparalytic, tending towards baleful eternal death, whether thou know it\nor not;--nay hadst thou never known it, that surely had been worst of\nall!--\n\nThus, at any rate, by the heavenly Awe that overshadows earthly\nBusiness, does Samson, readily in those days, save St. Edmund's\nShrine, and innumerable still more precious things.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[19] See Lyttelton's _Henry II._, ii. 384.\n\n[20] _Jocelini Chronica_, p, 52.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nPRACTICAL-DEVOTIONAL.\n\n\nHere indeed, by rule of antagonisms, may be the place to mention that,\nafter King Richard's return, there was a liberty of tourneying given\nto the fighting-men of England: that a Tournament was proclaimed in\nthe Abbot's domain, 'between Thetford and St. Edmundsbury,'--perhaps\nin the Euston region, on Fakenham Heights, midway between these two\nlocalities: that it was publicly prohibited by our Lord Abbot; and\nnevertheless was held in spite of him,--and by the parties, as would\nseem, considered 'a gentle and free passage of arms.'\n\nNay, next year, there came to the same spot four-and-twenty young men,\nsons of Nobles, for another passage of arms; who, having completed the\nsame, all rode into St. Edmundsbury to lodge for the night. Here is\nmodesty! Our Lord Abbot, being instructed of it, ordered the Gates to\nbe closed; the whole party shut in. The morrow was the Vigil of the\nApostles Peter and Paul; no outgate on the morrow. Giving their\npromise not to depart without permission, those four-and-twenty young\nbloods dieted all that day (_manducaverunt_) with the Lord Abbot,\nwaiting for trial on the morrow. 'But after dinner,'--mark it,\nposterity!--'the Lord Abbot retiring into his _Talamus_, they all\nstarted up, and began carolling and singing (_carolare et cantare_);\nsending into the Town for wine; drinking, and afterwards howling\n(_ululantes_);--totally depriving the Abbot and Convent of their\nafternoon's nap; doing all this in derision of the Lord Abbot, and\nspending in such fashion the whole day till evening, nor would they\ndesist at the Lord Abbot's order! Night coming on, they broke the\nbolts of the Town-Gates, and went off by violence!'[21] Was the like\never heard of? The roysterous young dogs; carolling, howling, breaking\nthe Lord Abbot's sleep,--after that sinful chivalry cockfight of\ntheirs! They too are a feature of distant centuries, as of near ones.\nSt. Edmund on the edge of your horizon, or whatever else there, young\nscamps, in the dandy state, whether cased in iron or in whalebone,\nbegin to caper and carol on the green Earth! Our Lord Abbot\nexcommunicated most of them; and they gradually came in for\nrepentance.\n\nExcommunication is a great recipe with our Lord Abbot; the prevailing\npurifier in those ages. Thus when the Townsfolk and Monks' menials\nquarrelled once at the Christmas Mysteries in St. Edmund's Churchyard,\nand 'from words it came to cuffs, and from cuffs to cutting and the\neffusion of blood,'--our Lord Abbot excommunicates sixty of the\nrioters, with bell, book and candle (_accensis candelis_), at one\nstroke.[22] Whereupon they all come suppliant, indeed nearly naked,\n'nothing on but their breeches, _omnino nudi praeter femoralia_, and\nprostrate themselves at the Church-door.' Figure that!\n\nIn fact, by excommunication or persuasion, by impetuosity of driving\nor adroitness in leading, this Abbot, it is now becoming plain\neverywhere, is a man that generally remains master at last. He tempers\nhis medicine to the malady, now hot, now cool; prudent though fiery,\nan eminently practical man. Nay sometimes in his adroit practice there\nare swift turns almost of a surprising nature! Once, for example, it\nchanced that Geoffrey Riddell Bishop of Ely, a Prelate rather\ntroublesome to our Abbot, made a request of him for timber from his\nwoods towards certain edifices going on at Glemsford. The Abbot, a\ngreat builder himself, disliked the request; could not, however, give\nit a negative. While he lay, therefore, at his Manorhouse of Melford\nnot long after, there comes to him one of the Lord Bishop's men or\nmonks, with a message from his Lordship, \"That he now begged\npermission to cut down the requisite trees in Elmswell Wood,\"--so said\nthe monk: Elms_well_, where there are no trees but scrubs and shrubs,\ninstead of Elm_set_, our true _nemus_ and high-towering oak-wood, here\non Melford Manor! Elmswell? The Lord Abbot, in surprise, inquires\nprivily of Richard his Forester; Richard answers that my Lord of Ely\nhas already had his _carpentarii_ in Elm_set_, and marked out for his\nown use all the best trees in the compass of it. Abbot Samson\nthereupon answers the monk: \"Elmswell? Yes surely, be it as my Lord\nBishop wishes.\" The successful monk, on the morrow morning, hastens\nhome to Ely; but, on the morrow morning, 'directly after mass,' Abbot\nSamson too was busy! The successful monk, arriving at Ely, is rated\nfor a goose and an owl; is ordered back to say that Elmset was the\nplace meant. Alas, on arriving at Elmset, he finds the Bishop's trees,\nthey 'and a hundred more,' all felled and piled, and the stamp of St.\nEdmund's Monastery burnt into them,--for roofing of the great tower we\nare building there! Your importunate Bishop must seek wood for\nGlemsford edifices in some other _nemus_ than this. A practical Abbot!\n\nWe said withal there was a terrible flash of anger in him: witness his\naddress to old Herbert the Dean, who in a too thrifty manner has\nerected a windmill for himself on his glebe-lands at Haberdon. On the\nmorrow, after mass, our Lord Abbott orders the Cellerarius to send off\nhis carpenters to demolish the said structure _brevi manu_, and lay\nup the wood in safe keeping. Old Dean Herbert, hearing what was\ntoward, comes tottering along hither, to plead humbly for himself and\nhis mill. The Abbot answers: \"I am obliged to thee as if thou hadst\ncut off both my feet! By God's face, _per os Dei_, I will not eat\nbread till that fabric be torn in pieces. Thou art an old man, and\nshouldst have known that neither the King nor his Justiciary dare\nchange aught within the Liberties without consent of Abbot and\nConvent: and thou hast presumed on such a thing? I tell thee, it will\n_not_ be without damage to my mills; for the Townsfolk will go to thy\nmill, and grind their corn (_bladum suum_) at their own good pleasure;\nnor can I hinder them, since they are free men. I will allow no new\nmills on such principle. Away, away; before thou gettest home again,\nthou shalt see what thy mill has grown to!\"[23]--The very reverend the\nold Dean totters home again, in all haste; tears the mill in pieces by\nhis own _carpentarii_, to save at least the timber; and Abbot Samson's\nworkmen, coming up, find the ground already clear of it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEasy to bully-down poor old rural Deans, and blow their windmills\naway: but who is the man that dare abide King Richard's anger; cross\nthe Lion in his path, and take him by the whiskers! Abbot Samson too;\nhe is that man, with justice on his side. The case was this. Adam de\nCokefield, one of the chief feudatories of St. Edmund, and a principal\nman in the Eastern Counties, died, leaving large possessions, and for\nheiress a daughter of three months; who by clear law, as all men know,\nbecame thus Abbot Samson's ward; whom accordingly he proceeded to\ndispose of to such person as seemed fittest. But now King Richard has\nanother person in view, to whom the little ward and her great\npossessions were a suitable thing. He, by letter, requests that Abbot\nSamson will have the goodness to give her to this person. Abbot\nSamson, with deep humility, replies that she is already given. New\nletters from Richard, of severer tenor; answered with new deep\nhumilities, with gifts and entreaties, with no promise of obedience.\nKing Richard's ire is kindled; messengers arrive at St. Edmundsbury,\nwith emphatic message to obey or tremble! Abbot Samson, wisely silent\nas to the King's threats, makes answer: \"The King can send if he will,\nand seize the ward: force and power he has to do his pleasure, and\nabolish the whole Abbey. But I, for my part, never can be bent to wish\nthis that he seeks, nor shall it by me be ever done. For there is\ndanger lest such things be made a precedent of, to the prejudice of my\nsuccessors. _Videat Altissimus_, Let the Most High look on it.\nWhatsoever thing shall befall I will patiently endure.\"\n\nSuch was Abbot Samson's deliberate decision. Why not? Coeur-de-Lion\nis very dreadful, but not the dreadfulest. _Videat Altissimus._ I\nreverence Coeur-de-Lion to the marrow of my bones, and will in all\nright things be _homo suus_; but it is not, properly speaking, with\nterror, with any fear at all. On the whole, have I not looked on the\nface of 'Satan with outspread wings;' steadily into Hell-fire these\nseven-and-forty years;--and was not melted into terror even at that,\nsuch the Lord's goodness to me? Coeur-de-Lion!\n\nRichard swore tornado oaths, worse than our armies in Flanders, To be\nrevenged on that proud Priest. But in the end he discovered that the\nPriest was right; and forgave him, and even loved him. 'King Richard\nwrote, soon after, to Abbot Samson, That he wanted one or two of the\nSt. Edmundsbury dogs, which he heard were good.' Abbot Samson sent\nhim dogs of the best; Richard replied by the present of a ring, which\nPope Innocent the Third had given him. Thou brave Richard, thou brave\nSamson! Richard too, I suppose, 'loved a man,' and knew one when he\nsaw him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNo one will accuse our Lord Abbot of wanting worldly wisdom, due\ninterest in worldly things. A skilful man; full of cunning insight,\nlively interests; always discerning the road to his object, be it\ncircuit, be it short-cut, and victoriously travelling forward thereon.\nNay rather it might seem, from Jocelin's Narrative, as if he had his\neye all but exclusively directed on terrestrial matters, and was much\ntoo secular for a devout man. But this too, if we examine it, was\nright. For it is _in_ the world that a man, devout or other, has his\nlife to lead, his work waiting to be done. The basis of Abbot\nSamson's, we shall discover, was truly religion, after all. Returning\nfrom his dusty pilgrimage, with such welcome as we saw, 'he sat down\nat the foot of St. Edmund's Shrine.' Not a talking theory, that; no, a\nsilent practice: Thou, St. Edmund, with what lies in thee, thou now\nmust help me, or none will!\n\nThis also is a significant fact: the zealous interest our Abbot took\nin the Crusades. To all noble Christian hearts of that era, what\nearthly enterprise so noble? 'When Henry II., having taken the cross,\ncame to St. Edmund's, to pay his devotions before setting out, the\nAbbot secretly made for himself a cross of linen cloth: and, holding\nthis in one hand and a threaded needle in the other, asked leave of\nthe King to assume it.' The King could not spare Samson out of\nEngland;--the King himself indeed never went. But the Abbot's eye was\nset on the Holy Sepulchre, as on the spot of this Earth where the true\ncause of Heaven was deciding itself. 'At the retaking of Jerusalem by\nthe Pagans, Abbot Samson put on a cilice and hair-shirt, and wore\nunder-garments of hair-cloth ever after; he abstained also from flesh\nand flesh-meats (_carne et carneis_) thenceforth to the end of his\nlife.' Like a dark cloud eclipsing the hopes of Christendom, those\ntidings cast their shadow over St. Edmundsbury too: Shall Samson Abbas\ntake pleasure while Christ's Tomb is in the hands of the Infidel?\nSamson, in pain of body, shall daily be reminded of it, daily be\nadmonished to grieve for it.\n\nThe great antique heart: how like a child's in its simplicity, like a\nman's in its earnest solemnity and depth! Heaven lies over him\nwheresoever he goes or stands on the Earth; making all the Earth a\nmystic Temple to him, the Earth's business all a kind of worship.\nGlimpses of bright creatures flash in the common sunlight; angels yet\nhover doing God's messages among men: that rainbow was set in the\nclouds by the hand of God! Wonder, miracle encompass the man; he lives\nin an element of miracle; Heaven's splendour over his head, Hell's\ndarkness under his feet. A great Law of Duty, high as these two\nInfinitudes, dwarfing all else, annihilating all else,--making royal\nRichard as small as peasant Samson, smaller if need be!--The\n'imaginative faculties?' 'Rude poetic ages?' The 'primeval poetic\nelement?' Oh, for God's sake, good reader, talk no more of all that!\nIt was not a Dilettantism this of Abbot Samson. It was a Reality, and\nit is one. The garment only of it is dead; the essence of it lives\nthrough all Time and all Eternity!--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd truly, as we said above, is not this comparative silence of Abbot\nSamson as to his religion precisely the healthiest sign of him and of\nit? 'The Unconscious is the alone Complete.' Abbot Samson all along a\nbusy working man, as all men are bound to be, his religion, his\nworship was like his daily bread to him;--which he did not take the\ntrouble to talk much about; which he merely ate at stated intervals,\nand lived and did his work upon! This is Abbot Samson's Catholicism of\nthe Twelfth Century;--something like the _Ism_ of all true men in all\ntrue centuries, I fancy! Alas, compared with any of the _Isms_ current\nin these poor days, what a thing! Compared with the respectablest,\nmorbid, struggling Methodism, never so earnest; with the\nrespectablest, ghastly, dead or galvanised Dilettantism, never so\nspasmodic!\n\nMethodism with its eye forever turned on its own navel; asking itself\nwith torturing anxiety of Hope and Fear, \"Am I right? am I wrong?\nShall I be saved? shall I not be damned?\"--what is this, at bottom,\nbut a new phasis of _Egoism_, stretched out into the Infinite; not\nalways the heavenlier for its infinitude! Brother, so soon as\npossible, endeavour to rise above all that. \"Thou _art_ wrong; thou\nart like to be damned:\" consider that as the fact, reconcile thyself\neven to that, if thou be a man;--then first is the devouring Universe\nsubdued under thee, and from the black murk of midnight and noise of\ngreedy Acheron, dawn as of an everlasting morning, how far above all\nHope and all Fear, springs for thee, enlightening thy steep path,\nawakening in thy heart celestial Memnon's music!\n\nBut of our Dilettantisms, and galvanised Dilettantisms; of Puseyism--O\nHeavens, what shall we say of Puseyism, in comparison to\nTwelfth-Century Catholicism? Little or nothing; for indeed it is a\nmatter to strike one dumb.\n\n    The Builder of this Universe was wise,\n    He plann'd all souls, all systems, planets, particles:\n    The Plan He shap'd all Worlds and AEons by,\n    Was--Heavens!--Was thy small Nine-and-thirty Articles?\n\nThat certain human souls, living on this practical Earth, should\nthink to save themselves and a ruined world by noisy theoretic\ndemonstrations and laudations of _the_ Church, instead of some\nunnoisy, unconscious, but _practical_, total, heart-and-soul\ndemonstration of a Church: this, in the circle of revolving ages, this\nalso was a thing we were to see. A kind of penultimate thing,\nprecursor of very strange consummations; last thing but one? If there\nis no atmosphere, what will it serve a man to demonstrate the\nexcellence of lungs? How much profitabler, when you can, like Abbot\nSamson, breathe; and go along your way!\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[21] _Jocelini Chronica_, p. 40.\n\n[22] Ibid. p. 68.\n\n[23] _Jocelini Chronica_, p. 43.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nST. EDMUND.\n\n\nAbbot Samson built many useful, many pious edifices; human dwellings,\nchurches, church-steeples, barns;--all fallen now and vanished, but\nuseful while they stood. He built and endowed 'the Hospital of\nBabwell;' built 'fit houses for the St. Edmundsbury Schools.' Many are\nthe roofs once 'thatched with reeds' which he 'caused to be covered\nwith tiles;' or if they were churches, probably 'with lead.' For all\nruinous incomplete things, buildings or other, were an eye-sorrow to\nthe man. We saw his 'great tower of St. Edmund's;' or at least the\nroof-timbers of it, lying cut and stamped in Elmset Wood. To change\ncombustible decaying reed-thatch into tile or lead; and material,\nstill more, moral wreck into rain-tight order, what a comfort to\nSamson!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne of the things he could not in any wise but rebuild was the great\nAltar, aloft on which stood the Shrine itself; the great Altar, which\nhad been damaged by fire, by the careless rubbish and careless candle\nof two somnolent Monks, one night,--the Shrine escaping almost as if\nby miracle! Abbot Samson read his Monks a severe lecture: \"A Dream one\nof us had, that he saw St. Edmund naked and in lamentable plight. Know\nye the interpretation of that Dream? St. Edmund proclaims himself\nnaked, because ye defraud the naked Poor of your old clothes, and\ngive with reluctance 'what ye are bound to give them of meat and\ndrink: the idleness moreover and negligence of the Sacristan and his\npeople is too evident from the late misfortune by fire. Well might our\nHoly Martyr seem to lie cast out from his Shrine, and say with groans\nthat he was stript of his garments, and wasted with hunger and\nthirst!\"\n\nThis is Abbot Samson's interpretation of the Dream;--diametrically the\nreverse of that given by the Monks themselves, who scruple not to say\nprivily, \"It is _we_ that are the naked and famished limbs of the\nMartyr; we whom the Abbot curtails of all our privileges, setting his\nown official to control our very Cellarer!\" Abbot Samson adds, that\nthis judgment by fire has fallen upon them for murmuring about their\nmeat and drink.\n\nClearly enough, meanwhile, the Altar, whatever the burning of it mean\nor foreshadow, must needs be reedified. Abbot Samson reedifies it, all\nof polished marble; with the highest stretch of art and sumptuosity,\nreembellishes the Shrine for which it is to serve as pediment. Nay\nfarther, as had ever been among his prayers, he enjoys, he sinner, a\nglimpse of the glorious Martyr's very Body in the process; having\nsolemnly opened the _Loculus_, Chest or sacred Coffin, for that\npurpose. It is the culminating moment of Abbot Samson's life. Bozzy\nJocelin himself rises into a kind of Psalmist solemnity on this\noccasion; the laziest monk 'weeps' warm tears, as _Te Deum_ is sung.\n\nVery strange;--how far vanished from us in these unworshipping ages of\nours! The Patriot Hampden, best beatified man we have, had lain in\nlike manner some two centuries in his narrow home, when certain\ndignitaries of us, 'and twelve grave-diggers with pulleys,' raised him\nalso up, under cloud of night, cut off his arm with penknives, pulled\nthe scalp off his head,--and otherwise worshipped our Hero Saint in\nthe most amazing manner![24] Let the modern eye look earnestly on that\nold midnight hour in St. Edmundsbury Church, shining yet on us,\nruddy-bright, through the depths of seven hundred years; and consider\nmournfully what our Hero-worship once was, and what it now is! We\ntranslate with all the fidelity we can:\n\n'The Festival of St. Edmund now approaching, the marble blocks are\npolished, and all things are in readiness for lifting of the Shrine to\nits new place. A fast of three days was held by all the people, the\ncause and meaning thereof being publicly set forth to them. The Abbot\nannounces to the Convent that all must prepare themselves for\ntransferring of the Shrine, and appoints time and way for the work.\nComing therefore that night to matins, we found the great Shrine\n(_feretrum magnum_) raised upon the Altar, but empty; covered all over\nwith white doeskin leather, fixed to the wood with silver nails; but\none pannel of the Shrine was left down below, and resting thereon,\nbeside its old column of the Church, the Loculus with the Sacred Body\nyet lay where it was wont. Praises being sung, we all proceeded to\ncommence our disciplines (_ad disciplinas suscipiendas_). These\nfinished, the Abbot and certain with him are clothed in their albs;\nand, approaching reverently, set about uncovering the Loculus. There\nwas an outer cloth of linen, enwrapping the Loculus and all; this we\nfound tied on the upper side with strings of its own: within this was\na cloth of silk, and then another linen cloth, and then a third; and\nso at last the Loculus was uncovered, and seen resting on a little\ntray of wood, that the bottom of it might not be injured by the stone.\nOver the breast of the Martyr, there lay, fixed to the surface of the\nLoculus, a Golden Angel about the length of a human foot; holding in\none hand a golden sword, and in the other a banner: under this there\nwas a hole in the lid of the Loculus, on which the ancient servants of\nthe Martyr had been wont to lay their hands for touching the Sacred\nBody. And over the figure of the Angel was this verse inscribed:\n\n    _Martiris ecce zoma servat Michaelis agalma._[25]\n\nAt the head and foot of the Loculus were iron rings whereby it could\nbe lifted.\n\n'Lifting the Loculus and Body, therefore, they carried it to the\nAltar; and I put-to my sinful hand to help in carrying, though the\nAbbot had commanded that none should approach except called. And the\nLoculus was placed in the Shrine; and the pannel it had stood on was\nput in its place, and the Shrine for the present closed. We all\nthought that the Abbot would show the Loculus to the people; and bring\nout the Sacred Body again, at a certain period of the Festival. But in\nthis we were wofully mistaken, as the sequel shows.\n\n'For in the fourth holiday of the Festival, while the Convent were all\nsinging _Completorium_, our Lord Abbot spoke privily with the\nSacristan and Walter the Medicus; and order was taken that twelve of\nthe Brethren should be appointed against midnight, who were strong for\ncarrying the pannel-planks of the Shrine, and skilful in unfixing\nthem, and putting them together again. The Abbot then said that it was\namong his prayers to look once upon the Body of his Patron; and that\nhe wished the Sacristan and Walter the Medicus to be with him. The\nTwelve appointed Brethren were these: The Abbot's two Chaplains, the\ntwo Keepers of the Shrine, the two Masters of the Vestry; and six\nmore, namely, the Sacristan Hugo, Walter the Medicus, Augustin,\nWilliam of Dice, Robert, and Richard. I, alas, was not of the number.\n\n'The Convent therefore being all asleep, these Twelve, clothed in\ntheir albs, with the Abbot, assembled at the Altar; and opening a\npannel of the Shrine, they took out the Loculus; laid it on a table,\nnear where the Shrine used to be; and made ready for unfastening the\nlid, which was joined and fixed to the Loculus with sixteen very long\nnails. Which when, with difficulty, they had done, all except the two\nforenamed associates are ordered to draw back. The Abbot and they two\nwere alone privileged to look in. The Loculus was so filled with the\nSacred Body that you could scarcely put a needle between the head and\nthe wood, or between the feet and the wood: the head lay united to the\nbody, a little raised with a small pillow. But the Abbot, looking\nclose, found now a silk cloth veiling the whole Body, and then a linen\ncloth of wondrous whiteness; and upon the head was spread a small\nlinen cloth, and then another small and most fine silk cloth, as if it\nwere the veil of a nun. These coverings being lifted off, they found\nnow the Sacred Body all wrapt in linen; and so at length the\nlineaments of the same appeared. But here the Abbot stopped; saying he\ndurst not proceed farther, or look at the sacred flesh naked. Taking\nthe head between his hands, he thus spake, groaning: \"Glorious Martyr,\nholy Edmund, blessed be the hour when thou wert born. Glorious Martyr,\nturn it not to my perdition that I have so dared to touch thee, I\nmiserable and sinful; thou knowest my devout love, and the intention\nof my mind.\" And proceeding, he touched the eyes; and the nose, which\nwas very massive and prominent (_valde grossum et valde eminentem_);\nand then he touched the breast and arms; and raising the left arm he\ntouched the fingers, and placed his own fingers between the sacred\nfingers. And proceeding he found the feet standing stiff up, like the\nfeet of a man dead yesterday; and he touched the toes and counted them\n(_tangendo numeravit_).\n\n'And now it was agreed that the other Brethren should be called\nforward to see the miracles; and accordingly those ten now advanced,\nand along with them six others who had stolen in without the Abbot's\nassent, namely, Walter of St. Alban's, Hugh the Infirmirarius, Gilbert\nbrother of the Prior, Richard of Henham, Jocellus our Cellarer, and\nTurstan the Little; and all these saw the Sacred Body, but Turstan\nalone of them put forth his hand, and touched the Saint's knees and\nfeet. And that there might be abundance of witnesses, one of our\nBrethren, John of Dice, sitting on the roof of the Church, with the\nservants of the Vestry, and looking through, clearly saw all these\nthings.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat a scene; shining luminous effulgent, as the lamps of St. Edmund\ndo, through the dark Night; John of Dice, with vestrymen, clambering\non the roof to look through; the Convent all asleep, and the Earth all\nasleep,--and since then, Seven Centuries of Time mostly gone to sleep!\nYes, there, sure enough, is the martyred Body of Edmund, landlord of\nthe Eastern Counties, who, nobly doing what he liked with his own, was\nslain three hundred years ago: and a noble awe surrounds the memory of\nhim, symbol and promoter of many other right noble things.\n\nBut have not we now advanced to strange new stages of Hero-worship,\nnow in the little Church of Hampden, with our penknives out, and\ntwelve grave-diggers with pulleys? The manner of men's Hero-worship,\nverily it is the innermost fact of their existence, and determines all\nthe rest,--at public hustings, in private drawing-rooms, in church,\nin market, and wherever else. Have true reverence, and what indeed is\ninseparable therefrom, reverence the right man, all is well; have\nsham-reverence, and what also follows, greet with it the wrong man,\nthen all is ill, and there is nothing well. Alas, if Hero-worship\nbecome Dilettantism, and all except Mammonism be a vain grimace, how\nmuch, in this most earnest Earth, has gone and is evermore going to\nfatal destruction, and lies wasting in quiet lazy ruin, no man\nregarding it! Till at length no heavenly _Ism_ any longer coming down\nupon us, _Isms_ from the other quarter have to mount up. For the\nEarth, I say, is an earnest place; Life is no grimace, but a most\nserious fact. And so, under universal Dilettantism much having been\nstript bare, not the souls of men only, but their very bodies and\nbread-cupboards having been stript bare, and life now no longer\npossible,--all is reduced to desperation, to the iron law of Necessity\nand very Fact again; and to temper Dilettantism, and astonish it, and\nburn it up with infernal fire, arises Chartism, _Bare-back-ism_,\nSansculottism so-called! May the gods, and what of unworshipped heroes\nstill remain among us, avert the omen!--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut however this may be, St. Edmund's Loculus, we find, has the veils\nof silk and linen reverently replaced, the lid fastened down again\nwith its sixteen ancient nails; is wrapt in a new costly covering of\nsilk, the gift of Hubert Archbishop of Canterbury: and through the\nsky-window John of Dice sees it lifted to its place in the Shrine, the\npannels of this latter duly refixed, fit parchment documents being\nintroduced withal;--and now John and his vestrymen can slide down from\nthe roof, for all is over, and the Convent wholly awakens to matins.\n'When we assembled to sing matins,' says Jocelin, 'and understood\nwhat had been done, grief took hold of all that had not seen these\nthings, each saying to himself, \"Alas, I was deceived.\" Matins over,\nthe Abbot called the Convent to the great Altar; and briefly\nrecounting the matter, alleged that it had not been in his power, nor\nwas it permissible or fit, to invite us all to the sight of such\nthings. At hearing of which, we all wept, and with tears sang _Te Deum\nlaudamus_; and hastened to toll the bells in the Choir.'\n\nStupid blockheads, to reverence their St. Edmund's dead Body in this\nmanner? Yes, brother;--and yet, on the whole, who knows how to\nreverence the Body of a Man? It is the most reverend phenomenon under\nthis Sun. For the Highest God dwells visible in that mystic\nunfathomable Visibility, which calls itself \"I\" on the Earth. 'Bending\nbefore men,' says Novalis, 'is a reverence done to this Revelation in\nthe Flesh. We touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a human Body.' And\nthe Body of one Dead;--a temple where the Hero-soul once was and now\nis not: Oh, all mystery, all pity, all mute _awe_ and wonder;\n_Super_-naturalism brought home to the very dullest; Eternity laid\nopen, and the nether Darkness and the upper Light-Kingdoms, do conjoin\nthere, or exist nowhere! Sauerteig used to say to me, in his peculiar\nway: \"A Chancery Lawsuit; justice, nay justice in mere money, denied a\nman, for all his pleading, till twenty, till forty years of his Life\nare gone seeking it: and a Cockney Funeral, Death reverenced by\nhatchments, horsehair, brass-lacquer, and unconcerned bipeds carrying\nlong poles and bags of black silk:--are not these two reverences, this\nreverence for Death and that reverence for Life, a notable pair of\nreverences among you English?\"\n\nAbbot Samson, at this culminating point of his existence may, and\nindeed must, be left to vanish with his Life-scenery from the eyes of\nmodern men. He had to run into France, to settle with King Richard for\nthe military service there of his St. Edmundsbury Knights; and with\ngreat labour got it done. He had to decide on the dilapidated Coventry\nMonks; and with great labour, and much pleading and journeying, got\nthem reinstated; dined with them all, and with the 'Masters of the\nSchools of Oxneford,'--the veritable Oxford _Caput_ sitting there at\ndinner, in a dim but undeniable manner, in the City of Peeping Tom! He\nhad, not without labour, to controvert the intrusive Bishop of Ely,\nthe intrusive Abbot of Cluny. Magnanimous Samson, his life is but a\nlabour and a journey; a bustling and a justling, till the still Night\ncome. He is sent for again, over sea, to advise King Richard touching\ncertain Peers of England, who had taken the Cross, but never followed\nit to Palestine; whom the Pope is inquiring after. The magnanimous\nAbbot makes preparation for departure; departs, and----And Jocelin's\nBoswellean Narrative, suddenly shorn-through by the scissors of\nDestiny, _ends_. There are no words more; but a black line, and leaves\nof blank paper. Irremediable: the miraculous hand, that held all this\ntheatric-machinery, suddenly quits hold; impenetrable Time-Curtains\nrush down; in the mind's eye all is again dark, void; with loud\ndinning in the mind's ear, our real-phantasmagory of St. Edmundsbury\nplunges into the bosom of the Twelfth Century again, and all is over.\nMonks, Abbot, Hero-worship, Government, Obedience, Coeur-de-Lion and\nSt. Edmund's Shrine, vanish like Mirza's Vision; and there is nothing\nleft but a mutilated black Ruin amid green botanic expanses, and oxen,\nsheep and dilettanti pasturing in their places.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[24] _Annual Register_ (year 1828, Chronicle, p. 93), _Gentleman's\nMagazine_, &c. &c.\n\n[25] 'This is the Martyr's Garment, which Michael's Image guards.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS.\n\n\nWhat a singular shape of a Man, shape of a Time, have we in this Abbot\nSamson and his history; how strangely do modes, creeds, formularies,\nand the date and place of a man's birth, modify the figure of the man!\n\nFormulas too, as we call them, have a _reality_ in Human Life. They\nare real as the very _skin_ and _muscular tissue_ of a Man's Life; and\na most blessed indispensable thing, so long as they have _vitality_\nwithal, and are a _living_ skin and tissue to him! No man, or man's\nlife, can go abroad and do business in the world without skin and\ntissues. No; first of all, these have to fashion themselves,--as\nindeed they spontaneously and inevitably do. Foam itself, and this is\nworth thinking of, can harden into oyster-shell; all living objects do\nby necessity form to themselves a skin.\n\nAnd yet, again, when a man's Formulas become _dead_; as all Formulas,\nin the progress of living growth, are very sure to do! When the poor\nman's integuments, no longer nourished from within, become dead skin,\nmere adscititious leather and callosity, wearing thicker and thicker,\nuglier and uglier; till no _heart_ any longer can be felt beating\nthrough them, so thick, callous, calcified are they; and all over it\nhas now grown mere calcified oyster-shell, or were it polished\nmother-of-pearl, inwards almost to the very heart of the poor\nman:--yes then, you may say, his usefulness once more is quite\nobstructed; once more, he cannot go abroad and do business in the\nworld; it is time that _he_ take to bed, and prepare for departure,\nwhich cannot now be distant!\n\n_Ubi homines sunt modi sunt._ Habit is the deepest law of human\nnature. It is our supreme strength; if also, in certain circumstances,\nour miserablest weakness.--From Stoke to Stowe is as yet a field, all\npathless, untrodden: from Stoke where I live, to Stowe where I have to\nmake my merchandises, perform my businesses, consult my heavenly\noracles, there is as yet no path or human footprint; and I, impelled\nby such necessities, must nevertheless undertake the journey. Let me\ngo once, scanning my way with any earnestness of outlook, and\nsuccessfully arriving, my footprints are an invitation to me a second\ntime to go by the same way. It is easier than any other way: the\nindustry of 'scanning' lies already invested in it for me; I can go\nthis time with less of scanning, or without scanning at all. Nay the\nvery sight of my footprints, what a comfort for me; and in a degree,\nfor all my brethren of mankind! The footprints are trodden and\nretrodden; the path wears ever broader, smoother, into a broad\nhighway, where even wheels can run; and many travel it;--till--till\nthe Town of Stowe disappear from that locality (as towns have been\nknown to do), or no merchandising, heavenly oracle, or real business\nany longer exist for one there: then why should anybody travel the\nway?--Habit is our primal, fundamental law; Habit and Imitation, there\nis nothing more perennial in us than these two. They are the source of\nall Working and all Apprenticeship, of all Practice and all Learning,\nin this world.\n\nYes, the wise man too speaks, and acts, in Formulas; all men do so.\nAnd in general, the more completely cased with Formulas a man may be,\nthe safer, happier is it for him. Thou who, in an All of rotten\nFormulas, seemest to stand nigh bare, having indignantly shaken off\nthe superannuated rags and unsound callosities of Formulas,--consider\nhow thou too art still clothed! This English Nationality, whatsoever\nfrom uncounted ages is genuine and a fact among thy native People, in\ntheir words and ways: all this, has it not made for thee a skin or\nsecond-skin, adhesive actually as thy natural skin? This thou hast not\nstript off, this thou wilt never strip off: the humour that thy mother\ngave thee has to show itself through this. A common, or it may be an\nuncommon Englishman thou art: but, good Heavens, what sort of Arab,\nChinaman, Jew-Clothesman, Turk, Hindoo, African Mandingo, wouldst thou\nhave been, _thou_ with those mother-qualities of thine!\n\nIt strikes me dumb to look over the long series of faces, such as any\nfull Church, Courthouse, London-Tavern Meeting, or miscellany of men\nwill show them. Some score or two of years ago, all these were little\nred-coloured pulpy infants; each of them capable of being kneaded,\nbaked into any social form you chose: yet see now how they are fixed\nand hardened,--into artisans, artists, clergy, gentry, learned\nserjeants, unlearned dandies, and can and shall now be nothing else\nhenceforth!\n\nMark on that nose the colour left by too copious port and viands; to\nwhich the profuse cravat with exorbitant breastpin, and the fixed,\nforward, and as it were menacing glance of the eyes correspond. That\nis a 'Man of Business;' prosperous manufacturer, house-contractor,\nengineer, law-manager; his eye, nose, cravat have, in such work and\nfortune, got such a character: deny him not thy praise, thy pity. Pity\nhim too, the Hard-handed, with bony brow, rudely-combed hair, eyes\nlooking out as in labour, in difficulty and uncertainty; rude mouth,\nthe lips coarse, loose, as in hard toil and lifelong fatigue they\nhave got the habit of hanging:--hast thou seen aught more touching\nthan the rude intelligence, so cramped, yet energetic, unsubduable,\ntrue, which looks out of that marred visage? Alas, and his poor wife,\nwith her own hands, washed that cotton neck-cloth for him, buttoned\nthat coarse shirt, sent him forth creditably trimmed as she could. In\nsuch imprisonment lives he, for his part; man cannot now deliver him:\nthe red pulpy infant has been baked and fashioned _so_.\n\nOr what kind of baking was it that this other brother mortal got,\nwhich has baked him into the genus Dandy? Elegant Vacuum; serenely\nlooking down upon all Plenums and Entities as low and poor to his\nserene Chimeraship and _Non_entity laboriously attained! Heroic\nVacuum; inexpugnable, while purse and present condition of society\nhold out; curable by no hellebore. The doom of Fate was, Be thou a\nDandy! Have thy eye-glasses, opera-glasses, thy Long-Acre cabs with\nwhite-breeched tiger, thy yawning impassivities, pococurantisms; _fix_\nthyself in Dandyhood, undeliverable; it is thy doom.\n\nAnd all these, we say, were red-coloured infants; of the same pulp and\nstuff, few years ago; now irretrievably shaped and kneaded as we see!\nFormulas? There is no mortal extant, out of the depths of Bedlam, but\nlives all skinned, thatched, covered over with Formulas; and is, as it\nwere, held in from delirium and the Inane by his Formulas! They are\nwithal the most beneficent, indispensable of human equipments: blessed\nhe who has a skin and tissues, so it be a living one, and the\nheart-pulse everywhere discernible through it. Monachism, Feudalism,\nwith a real King Plantagenet, with real Abbots Samson, and their other\nliving realities, how blessed!--\n\nNot without a mournful interest have we surveyed that authentic image\nof a Time now wholly swallowed. Mournful reflections crowd on us;--and\nyet consolatory. How many brave men have lived before Agamemnon! Here\nis a brave governor Samson, a man fearing God, and fearing nothing\nelse; of whom as First Lord of the Treasury, as King, Chief Editor,\nHigh Priest, we could be so glad and proud; of whom nevertheless Fame\nhas altogether forgotten to make mention! The faint image of him,\nrevived in this hour, is found in the gossip of one poor Monk, and in\nNature nowhere else. Oblivion had so nigh swallowed him altogether,\neven to the echo of his ever having existed. What regiments and hosts\nand generations of such has Oblivion already swallowed! Their crumbled\ndust makes up the soil our life-fruit grows on. Said I not, as my old\nNorse Fathers taught me, The Life-tree Igdrasil, which waves round\nthee in this hour, whereof thou in this hour art portion, has its\nroots down deep in the oldest Death-Kingdoms; and grows; the Three\nNornas, or _Times_, Past, Present, Future, watering it from the Sacred\nWell!\n\nFor example, who taught thee to _speak_? From the day when two\nhairy-naked or fig-leaved Human Figures began, as uncomfortable\ndummies, anxious no longer to be dumb, but to impart themselves to one\nanother; and endeavoured, with gaspings, gesturings, with unsyllabled\ncries, with painful pantomime and interjections, in a very\nunsuccessful manner,--up to the writing of this present copyright\nBook, which also is not very successful! Between that day and this, I\nsay, there has been a pretty space of time; a pretty spell of work,\nwhich _somebody_ has done! Thinkest thou there were no poets till Dan\nChaucer? No heart burning with a thought, which it could not hold, and\nhad no word for; and needed to shape and coin a word for,--what thou\ncallest a metaphor, trope, or the like? For every word we have, there\nwas such a man and poet. The coldest word was once a glowing new\nmetaphor, and bold questionable originality. 'Thy very ATTENTION, does\nit not mean an _attentio_, a STRETCHING-TO?' Fancy that act of the\nmind, which all were conscious of, which none had yet named,--when\nthis new 'poet' first felt bound and driven to name it! His\nquestionable originality, and new glowing metaphor, was found\nadoptable, intelligible; and remains our name for it to this day.\n\nLiterature:--and look at Paul's Cathedral, and the Masonries and\nWorships and Quasi-Worships that are there; not to speak of\nWestminster Hall and its wigs! Men had not a hammer to begin with, not\na syllabled articulation: they had it all to make;--and they have made\nit. What thousand thousand articulate, semi-articulate,\nearnest-stammering _Prayers_ ascending up to Heaven, from hut and\ncell, in many lands, in many centuries, from the fervent kindled souls\nof innumerable men, each struggling to pour itself forth incompletely,\nas it might, before the incompletest _Liturgy_ could be compiled! The\nLiturgy, or adoptable and generally adopted Set of Prayers and\nPrayer-Method, was what we can call the Select Adoptabilities, 'Select\nBeauties' well edited (by [OE]cumenic Councils and other\nUseful-Knowledge Societies) from that wide waste imbroglio of Prayers\nalready extant and accumulated, good and bad. The good were found\nadoptable by men; were gradually got together, well-edited,\naccredited: the bad, found inappropriate, unadoptable, were gradually\nforgotten, disused and burnt. It is the way with human things. The\nfirst man who, looking with opened soul on this august Heaven and\nEarth, this Beautiful and Awful, which we name Nature, Universe and\nsuchlike, the essence of which remains for ever Unnameable; he who\nfirst, gazing into this, fell on his knees awestruck, in silence as is\nlikeliest,--he, driven by inner necessity, the 'audacious original'\nthat he was, had done a thing, too, which all thoughtful hearts saw\nstraightway to be an expressive, altogether adoptable thing! To bow\nthe knee was ever since the attitude of supplication. Earlier than any\nspoken Prayers, _Litanias_, or _Leitourgias_; the beginning of all\nWorship,--which needed but a beginning, so rational was it. What a\npoet he! Yes, this bold original was a successful one withal. The\nwellhead this one, hidden in the primeval dusks and distances, from\nwhom as from a Nile-source all _Forms of Worship_ flow:--such a\nNile-river (somewhat muddy and malarious now!) of Forms of Worship\nsprang there, and flowed, and flows, down to Puseyism, Rotatory\nCalabash, Archbishop Laud at St. Catherine Creed's, and perhaps lower!\n\nThings rise, I say, in that way. The _Iliad_ Poem, and indeed most\nother poetic, especially epic things, have risen as the Liturgy did.\nThe great _Iliad_ in Greece, and the small _Robin Hood's Garland_ in\nEngland, are each, as I understand, the well-edited 'Select Beauties'\nof an immeasurable waste imbroglio of Heroic Ballads in their\nrespective centuries and countries. Think what strumming of the\nseven-stringed heroic lyre, torturing of the less heroic\nfiddle-catgut, in Hellenic Kings' Courts, and English wayside Public\nHouses; and beating of the studious Poetic brain, and gasping here too\nin the semi-articulate windpipe of Poetic men, before the Wrath of a\nDivine Achilles, the Prowess of a Will Scarlet or Wakefield Pindar,\ncould be adequately sung! Honour to you, ye nameless great and\ngreatest ones, ye long-forgotten brave!\n\nNor was the Statute _De Tallagio non concedendo_, nor any Statute,\nLaw-method, Lawyer's-wig, much less were the Statute-Book and Four\nCourts, with Coke upon Lyttelton and Three Estates of Parliament in\nthe rear of them, got together without human labour,--mostly forgotten\nnow! From the time of Cain's slaying Abel by swift head-breakage, to\nthis time of killing your man in Chancery by inches, and slow\nheart-break for forty years,--there too is an interval! Venerable\nJustice herself began by Wild-Justice; all Law is as a tamed\nfurrowfield, slowly worked out, and rendered arable, from the waste\njungle of Club-Law. Valiant Wisdom tilling and draining; escorted by\nowl-eyed Pedantry, by owlish and vulturish and many other forms of\nFolly;--the valiant husbandman assiduously tilling; the blind greedy\nenemy _too_ assiduously sowing tares! It is because there is yet in\nvenerable wigged Justice some wisdom, amid such mountains of wiggeries\nand folly, that men have not cast her into the River; that she still\nsits there, like Dryden's Head in the _Battle of the Books_,--a huge\nhelmet, a huge mountain of greased parchment, of unclean horsehair,\nfirst striking the eye; and then in the innermost corner, visible at\nlast, in size as a hazelnut, a real fraction of God's Justice, perhaps\nnot yet unattainable to some, surely still indispensable to all;--and\nmen know not what to do with her! Lawyers were not all pedants,\nvoluminous voracious persons; Lawyers too were poets, were heroes,--or\ntheir Law had been past the Nore long before this time. Their Owlisms,\nVulturisms, to an incredible extent, will disappear by and by, their\nHeroisms only remaining, and the helmet be reduced to something like\nthe size of the head, we hope!--\n\nIt is all work and forgotten work, this peopled, clothed,\narticulate-speaking, high-towered, wide-acred World. The hands of\nforgotten brave men have made it a World for us; they,--honour to\nthem; they, in _spite_ of the idle and the dastard. This English\nLand, here and now, is the summary of what was found of wise, and\nnoble, and accordant with God's Truth, in all the generations of\nEnglish Men. Our English Speech is speakable because there were\nHero-Poets of our blood and lineage; speakable in proportion to the\nnumber of these. This Land of England has its conquerors, possessors,\nwhich change from epoch to epoch, from day to day; but its real\nconquerors, creators, and eternal proprietors are these following, and\ntheir representatives if you can find them: All the Heroic Souls that\never were in England, each in their degree; all the men that ever cut\na thistle, drained a puddle out of England, contrived a wise scheme in\nEngland, did or said a true and valiant thing in England. I tell thee,\nthey had not a hammer to begin with; and yet Wren built St. Paul's:\nnot an articulated syllable; and yet there have come English\nLiteratures, Elizabethan Literatures, Satanic-School, Cockney-School,\nand other Literatures;--once more, as in the old time of the\n_Leitourgia_, a most waste imbroglio, and world-wide jungle and\njumble; waiting terribly to be 'well-edited' and 'well-burnt'! Arachne\nstarted with forefinger and thumb, and had not even a distaff; yet\nthou seest Manchester, and Cotton Cloth, which will shelter naked\nbacks, at twopence an ell.\n\nWork? The quantity of done and forgotten work that lies silent under\nmy feet in this world, and escorts and attends me, and supports and\nkeeps me alive, wheresoever I walk or stand, whatsoever I think or do,\ngives rise to reflections! Is it not enough, at any rate, to strike\nthe thing called 'Fame' into total silence for a wise man? For fools\nand unreflective persons, she is and will be very noisy, this 'Fame,'\nand talks of her 'immortals' and so forth: but if you will consider\nit, what is she? Abbot Samson was not nothing because nobody _said_\nanything of him. Or thinkest thou, the Right Honourable Sir Jabesh\nWindbag can be made something by Parliamentary Majorities and Leading\nArticles? Her 'immortals'! Scarcely two hundred years back can Fame\nrecollect articulately at all; and there she but maunders and mumbles.\nShe manages to recollect a Shakspeare or so; and prates, considerably\nlike a goose, about him;--and in the rear of that, onwards to the\nbirth of Theuth, to Hengst's Invasion, and the bosom of Eternity, it\nwas all blank; and the respectable Teutonic Languages, Teutonic\nPractices, Existences, all came of their own accord, as the grass\nsprings, as the trees grow; no Poet, no work from the inspired heart\nof a Man needed there; and Fame has not an articulate word to say\nabout it! Or ask her, What, with all conceivable appliances and\nmnemonics, including apotheosis and human sacrifices among the number,\nshe carries in her head with regard to a Wodan, even a Moses, or other\nsuch? She begins to be uncertain as to what they were, whether spirits\nor men of mould,--gods, charlatans; begins sometimes to have a\nmisgiving that they were mere symbols, ideas of the mind; perhaps\nnonentities and Letters of the Alphabet! She is the noisiest,\ninarticulately babbling, hissing, screaming, foolishest, unmusicalest\nof fowls that fly; and needs no 'trumpet,' I think, but her own\nenormous goose-throat,--measuring several degrees of celestial\nlatitude, so to speak. Her 'wings,' in these days, have grown far\nswifter than ever; but her goose-throat hitherto seems only larger,\nlouder and foolisher than ever. _She_ is transitory, futile, a\ngoose-goddess:--if she were not transitory, what would become of us!\nIt is a chief comfort that she forgets us all; all, even to the very\nWodans; and grows to consider us, at last, as probably nonentities and\nLetters of the Alphabet.\n\nYes, a noble Abbot Samson resigns himself to Oblivion too; feels _it_\nno hardship, but a comfort; counts it as a still resting-place, from\nmuch sick fret and fever and stupidity, which in the night-watches\noften made his strong heart sigh. Your most sweet voices, making one\nenormous goose-voice, O Bobus and Company, how can they be a guidance\nfor any Son of Adam? In _silence_ of you and the like of you, the\n'small still voices' will speak to him better; in which does lie\nguidance.\n\nMy friend, all speech and rumour is short-lived, foolish, untrue.\nGenuine Work alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal, as\nthe Almighty Founder and World-Builder himself. Stand thou by that;\nand let 'Fame' and the rest of it go prating.\n\n    'Heard are the Voices,\n    Heard are the Sages,\n    The Worlds and the Ages:\n    \"Choose well; your choice is\n    Brief and yet endless.\n\n    Here eyes do regard you,\n    In Eternity's stillness;\n    Here is all fulness,\n    Ye brave, to reward you;\n    Work, and despair not.\"'\n\n    _Goethe._\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III.\n\nTHE MODERN WORKER.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nPHENOMENA.\n\n\nBut, it is said, our religion is gone: we no longer believe in St.\nEdmund, no longer see the figure of him 'on the rim of the sky,'\nminatory or confirmatory! God's absolute Laws, sanctioned by an\neternal Heaven and an eternal Hell, have become Moral Philosophies,\nsanctioned by able computations of Profit and Loss, by weak\nconsiderations of Pleasures of Virtue and the Moral Sublime.\n\nIt is even so. To speak in the ancient dialect, we 'have forgotten\nGod;'--in the most modern dialect and very truth of the matter, we\nhave taken up the Fact of this Universe as it _is not_. We have\nquietly closed our eyes to the eternal Substance of things, and\nopened them only to the Shows and Shams of things. We quietly\nbelieve this Universe to be intrinsically a great unintelligible\nPerhaps; extrinsically, clear enough, it is a great, most extensive\nCattlefold and Workhouse, with most extensive Kitchen-ranges,\nDining-tables,--whereat he is wise who can find a place! All the Truth\nof this Universe is uncertain; only the profit and loss of it, the\npudding and praise of it, are and remain very visible to the practical\nman.\n\nThere is no longer any God for us! God's Laws are become a\nGreatest-Happiness Principle, a Parliamentary Expediency: the Heavens\noverarch us only as an Astronomical Time-keeper; a butt for\nHerschel-telescopes to shoot science at, to shoot sentimentalities\nat:--in our and old Jonson's dialect, man has lost the _soul_ out of\nhim; and now, after the due period,--begins to find the want of it!\nThis is verily the plague-spot; centre of the universal Social\nGangrene, threatening all modern things with frightful death. To him\nthat will consider it, here is the stem, with its roots and taproot,\nwith its world-wide upas-boughs and accursed poison-exudations, under\nwhich the world lies writhing in atrophy and agony. You touch the\nfocal-centre of all our disease, of our frightful nosology of\ndiseases, when you lay your hand on this. There is no religion; there\nis no God; man has lost his soul, and vainly seeks antiseptic salt.\nVainly: in killing Kings, in passing Reform Bills, in French\nRevolutions, Manchester Insurrections, is found no remedy. The foul\nelephantine leprosy, alleviated for an hour, reappears in new force\nand desperateness next hour.\n\nFor actually this is _not_ the real fact of the world; the world is\nnot made so, but otherwise!--Truly, any Society setting out from this\nNo-God hypothesis will arrive at a result or two. The _Un_veracities,\nescorted, each Unveracity of them by its corresponding Misery and\nPenalty; the Phantasms, and Fatuities, and ten-years Corn-Law\nDebatings, that shall walk the Earth at noonday,--must needs be\nnumerous! The Universe _being_ intrinsically a Perhaps, being too\nprobably an 'infinite Humbug,' why should any minor Humbug astonish\nus? It is all according to the order of Nature; and Phantasms riding\nwith huge clatter along the streets, from end to end of our existence,\nastonish nobody. Enchanted St. Ives' Workhouses and Joe-Manton\nAristocracies; giant Working Mammonism near strangled in the\npartridge-nets of giant-looking Idle Dilettantism,--this, in all its\nbranches, in its thousand-thousand modes and figures, is a sight\nfamiliar to us.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Popish Religion, we are told, flourishes extremely in these years;\nand is the most vivacious-looking religion to be met with at present.\n\"_Elle a trois cents ans dans le ventre_,\" counts M. Jouffroy; \"_c'est\npourquoi je la respecte!_\"--The old Pope of Rome, finding it laborious\nto kneel so long while they cart him through the streets to bless the\npeople on _Corpus-Christi_ Day, complains of rheumatism; whereupon his\nCardinals consult;--construct him, after some study, a stuffed cloaked\nfigure, of iron and wood, with wool or baked hair; and place it in a\nkneeling posture. Stuffed figure, or rump of a figure; to this stuffed\nrump he, sitting at his ease on a lower level, joins, by the aid of\ncloaks and drapery, his living head and outspread hands: the rump with\nits cloaks kneels, the Pope looks, and holds his hands spread; and so\nthe two in concert bless the Roman population on _Corpus-Christi_ Day,\nas well as they can.\n\nI have considered this amphibious Pope, with the wool-and-iron back,\nwith the flesh head and hands; and endeavoured to calculate his\nhoroscope. I reckon him the remarkablest Pontiff that has darkened\nGod's daylight, or painted himself in the human retina, for these\nseveral thousand years. Nay, since Chaos first shivered, and\n'sneezed,' as the Arabs say, with the first shaft of sunlight shot\nthrough it, what stranger product was there of Nature and Art working\ntogether? Here is a Supreme Priest who believes God to be--What, in\nthe name of God, _does_ he believe God to be?--and discerns that all\nworship of God is a scenic phantasmagory of wax-candles, organ-blasts,\nGregorian chants, mass-brayings, purple monsignori, wool-and-iron\nrumps, artistically spread out,--to save the ignorant from worse.\n\nO reader, I say not who are Belial's elect. This poor amphibious Pope\ntoo gives loaves to the Poor; has in him more good latent than he is\nhimself aware of. His poor Jesuits, in the late Italian Cholera, were,\nwith a few German Doctors, the only creatures whom dastard terror had\nnot driven mad: they descended fearless into all gulfs and bedlams;\nwatched over the pillow of the dying, with help, with counsel and\nhope; shone as luminous fixed stars, when all else had gone out in\nchaotic night: honour to them! This poor Pope,--who knows what good is\nin him? In a Time otherwise too prone to forget, he keeps up the\nmournfulest ghastly memorial of the Highest, Blessedest, which once\nwas; which, in new fit forms, will again partly have to be. Is he not\nas a perpetual death's-head and cross-bones, with their _Resurgam_, on\nthe grave of a Universal Heroism,--grave of a Christianity? Such\nNoblenesses, purchased by the world's best heart's-blood, must not be\nlost; we cannot afford to lose them, in what confusions soever. To all\nof us the day will come, to a few of us it has already come, when no\nmortal, with his heart yearning for a 'Divine Humility,' or other\n'Highest form of Valour,' will need to look for it in death's-heads,\nbut will see it round him in here and there a beautiful living head.\n\nBesides, there is in this poor Pope, and his practice of the Scenic\nTheory of Worship, a frankness which I rather honour. Not half and\nhalf, but with undivided heart does _he_ set about worshipping by\nstage-machinery; as if there were now, and could again be, in Nature\nno other. He will ask you, What other? Under this my Gregorian Chant,\nand beautiful wax-light Phantasmagory, kindly hidden from you is an\nAbyss, of Black Doubt, Scepticism, nay Sansculottic Jacobinism; an\nOrcus that has no bottom. Think of that. 'Groby Pool _is_ thatched\nwith pancakes,'--as Jeannie Deans's Innkeeper defied it to be! The\nBottomless of Scepticism, Atheism, Jacobinism, behold, it is thatched\nover, hidden from your despair, by stage-properties judiciously\narranged. This stuffed rump of mine saves not me only from rheumatism,\nbut you also from what other _isms_! In this your Life-pilgrimage\nNowhither, a fine Squallacci marching-music, and Gregorian Chant,\naccompanies you, and the hollow Night of Orcus is well hid!\n\nYes truly, few men that worship by the rotatory Calabash of the\nCalmucks do it in half so great, frank or effectual a way. Drury-Lane,\nit is said, and that is saying much, might learn from him in the\ndressing of parts, in the arrangement of lights and shadows. He is the\ngreatest Play-actor that at present draws salary in this world. Poor\nPope; and I am told he is fast growing bankrupt too; and will, in a\nmeasurable term of years (a great way _within_ the 'three hundred'),\nnot have a penny to make his pot boil! His old rheumatic back will\nthen get to rest; and himself and his stage-properties sleep well in\nChaos forevermore.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOr, alas, why go to Rome for Phantasms walking the streets? Phantasms,\nghosts, in this midnight hour, hold jubilee, and screech and jabber;\nand the question rather were, What high Reality anywhere is yet awake?\nAristocracy has become Phantasm-Aristocracy, no longer able to _do_\nits work, not in the least conscious that it has any work longer to\ndo. Unable, totally careless to _do_ its work; careful only to clamour\nfor the _wages_ of doing its work,--nay for higher, and _palpably_\nundue wages, and Corn-Laws and _increase_ of rents; the old rate of\nwages not being adequate now! In hydra-wrestle, giant '_Mill_ocracy'\nso-called, a real giant, though as yet a blind one and but half-awake,\nwrestles and wrings in choking nightmare, 'like to be strangled in\nthe partridge-nets of Phantasm-Aristocracy,' as we said, which fancies\nitself still to be a giant. Wrestles, as under nightmare, till it do\nawaken; and gasps and struggles thousandfold, we may say, in a truly\npainful manner, through all fibres of our English Existence, in these\nhours and years! Is our poor English Existence wholly becoming a\nNightmare; full of mere Phantasms?--\n\nThe Champion of England, cased in iron or tin, rides into Westminster\nHall, 'being lifted into his saddle with little assistance,' and there\nasks, If in the four quarters of the world, under the cope of Heaven,\nis any man or demon that dare question the right of this King? Under\nthe cope of Heaven no man makes intelligible answer,--as several men\nought already to have done. Does not this Champion too know the world;\nthat it is a huge Imposture, and bottomless Inanity, thatched over\nwith bright cloth and other ingenious tissues? Him let us leave there,\nquestioning all men and demons.\n\nHim we have left to his destiny; but whom else have we found? From\nthis the highest apex of things, downwards through all strata and\nbreadths, how many fully awakened Realities have we fallen in\nwith:--alas, on the contrary, what troops and populations of\nPhantasms, not God-Veracities but Devil-Falsities, down to the very\nlowest stratum,--which now, by such superincumbent weight of\nUnveracities, lies enchanted in St. Ives' Workhouses, broad enough,\nhelpless enough! You will walk in no public thoroughfare or remotest\nbyway of English Existence but you will meet a man, an interest of\nmen, that has given up hope in the Everlasting, True, and placed its\nhope in the Temporary, half or wholly False. The Honourable Member\ncomplains unmusically that there is 'devil's-dust' in Yorkshire cloth.\nYorkshire cloth,--why, the very Paper I now write on is made, it\nseems, partly of plaster-lime well smoothed, and obstructs my writing!\nYou are lucky if you can find now any good Paper,--any work really\n_done_; search where you will, from highest Phantasm apex to lowest\nEnchanted basis.\n\nConsider, for example, that great Hat seven-feet high, which now\nperambulates London Streets; which my Friend Sauerteig regarded justly\nas one of our English notabilities; \"the topmost point as yet,\" said\nhe, \"would it were your culminating and returning point, to which\nEnglish Puffery has been observed to reach!\"--The Hatter in the Strand\nof London, instead of making better felt-hats than another, mounts a\nhuge lath-and-plaster Hat, seven-feet high, upon wheels; sends a man\nto drive it through the streets; hoping to be saved _thereby_. He has\nnot attempted to _make_ better hats, as he was appointed by the\nUniverse to do, and as with this ingenuity of his he could very\nprobably have done; but his whole industry is turned to _persuade_ us\nthat he has made such! He too knows that the Quack has become God.\nLaugh not at him, O reader; or do not laugh only. He has ceased to be\ncomic; he is fast becoming tragic. To me this all-deafening blast of\nPuffery, of poor Falsehood grown necessitous, of poor Heart-Atheism\nfallen now into Enchanted Workhouses, sounds too surely like a\nDoom's-blast! I have to say to myself in old dialect: \"God's blessing\nis not written on all this; His curse is written on all this!\" Unless\nperhaps the Universe _be_ a chimera;--some old totally deranged\neightday clock, dead as brass; which the Maker, if there ever was any\nMaker, has long ceased to meddle with?--To my Friend Sauerteig this\npoor seven-feet Hat-manufacturer, as the topstone of English Puffery,\nwas very notable.\n\nAlas, that we natives note him little, that we view him as a thing of\ncourse, is the very burden of the misery. We take it for granted, the\nmost rigorous of us, that all men who have made anything are expected\nand entitled to make the loudest possible proclamation of it, and call\non a discerning public to reward them for it. Every man his own\ntrumpeter; that is, to a really alarming extent, the accepted rule.\nMake loudest possible proclamation of your Hat: true proclamation if\nthat will do; if that will not do, then false proclamation,--to such\nextent of falsity as will serve your purpose; as will not seem too\nfalse to be credible!--I answer, once for all, that the fact is not\nso. Nature requires no man to make proclamation of his doings and\nhat-makings; Nature forbids all men to make such. There is not a man\nor hat-maker born into the world but feels, or has felt, that he is\ndegrading himself if he speak of his excellencies and prowesses, and\nsupremacy in his craft: his inmost heart says to him, \"Leave thy\nfriends to speak of these; if possible, thy enemies to speak of these;\nbut at all events, thy friends!\" He feels that he is already a poor\nbraggart; fast hastening to be a falsity and speaker of the Untruth.\n\nNature's Laws, I must repeat, are eternal: her small still voice,\nspeaking from the inmost heart of us, shall not, under terrible\npenalties, be disregarded. No one man can depart from the truth\nwithout damage to himself; no one million of men; no Twenty-seven\nMillions of men. Show me a Nation fallen everywhere into this course,\nso that each expects it, permits it to others and himself, I will show\nyou a Nation travelling with one assent on the broad way. The broad\nway, however many Banks of England, Cotton-Mills and Duke's Palaces it\nmay have. Not at happy Elysian fields, and everlasting crowns of\nvictory, earned by silent Valour, will this Nation arrive; but at\nprecipices, devouring gulfs, if it pause not. Nature has appointed\nhappy fields, victorious laurel-crowns; but only to the brave and\ntrue: _Un_nature, what we call Chaos, holds nothing in it but\nvacuities, devouring gulfs. What are Twenty-seven Millions, and their\nunanimity? Believe them not: the Worlds and the Ages, God and Nature\nand All Men say otherwise.\n\n'Rhetoric all this?' No, my brother, very singular to say, it is Fact\nall this. Cocker's Arithmetic is not truer. Forgotten in these days,\nit is old as the foundations of the Universe, and will endure till the\nUniverse cease. It is forgotten now; and the first mention of it\npuckers thy sweet countenance into a sneer: but it will be brought to\nmind again,--unless indeed the Law of Gravitation chance to cease, and\nmen find that they _can_ walk on vacancy. Unanimity of the\nTwenty-seven Millions will do nothing; walk not thou with them; fly\nfrom them as for thy life. Twenty-seven Millions travelling on such\ncourses, with gold jingling in every pocket, with vivats heaven-high,\nare incessantly advancing, let me again remind thee, towards the\n_firm-land's end_,--towards the end and extinction of what\nFaithfulness, Veracity, real Worth, was in their way of life. Their\nnoble ancestors have fashioned for them a 'life-road;'--in how many\nthousand senses, this! There is not an old wise Proverb on their\ntongue, an honest Principle articulated in their hearts into\nutterance, a wise true method of doing and despatching any work or\ncommerce of men, but helps yet to carry them forward. Life is still\npossible to them, because all is not yet Puffery, Falsity,\nMammon-worship and Unnature; because somewhat is yet Faithfulness,\nVeracity and Valour. With a certain very considerable finite quantity\nof Unveracity and Phantasm, social life is still possible; not with an\ninfinite quantity! Exceed your certain quantity, the seven-feet Hat,\nand all things upwards to the very Champion cased in tin, begin to\nreel and flounder,--in Manchester Insurrections, Chartisms,\nSliding-scales; the Law of Gravitation not forgetting to act. You\nadvance incessantly towards the land's end; you are, literally enough,\n'consuming the way.' Step after step, Twenty-seven Million unconscious\nmen;--till you are _at_ the land's end; till there is not Faithfulness\nenough among you any more: and the next step now is lifted _not_ over\nland, but into air, over ocean-deeps and roaring abysses:--unless\nperhaps the Law of Gravitation have forgotten to act?\n\nOh, it is frightful when a whole Nation, as our Fathers used to say,\nhas 'forgotten God;' has remembered only Mammon, and what Mammon leads\nto! When your self-trumpeting Hatmaker is the emblem of almost all\nmakers, and workers, and men, that make anything,--from\nsoul-overseerships, body-overseerships, epic poems, acts of\nparliament, to hats and shoe-blacking! Not one false man but does\nuncountable mischief: how much, in a generation or two, will\nTwenty-seven Millions, mostly false, manage to accumulate? The sum of\nit, visible in every street, market-place, senate-house,\ncirculating-library, cathedral, cotton-mill, and union-workhouse,\nfills one _not_ with a comic feeling!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nGOSPEL OF MAMMONISM.\n\n\nReader, even Christian Reader as thy title goes, hast thou any notion\nof Heaven and Hell? I rather apprehend, not. Often as the words are on\nour tongue, they have got a fabulous or semi-fabulous character for\nmost of us, and pass on like a kind of transient similitude, like a\nsound signifying little.\n\nYet it is well worth while for us to know, once and always, that they\nare not a similitude, nor a fable nor semi-fable; that they are an\neverlasting highest fact! \"No Lake of Sicilian or other sulphur burns\nnow anywhere in these ages,\" sayest thou? Well, and if there did not!\nBelieve that there does not; believe it if thou wilt, nay hold by it\nas a real increase, a rise to higher stages, to wider horizons and\nempires. All this has vanished, or has not vanished; believe as thou\nwilt as to all this. But that an Infinite of Practical Importance,\nspeaking with strict arithmetical exactness, an _Infinite_, has\nvanished or can vanish from the Life of any Man: this thou shalt not\nbelieve! O brother, the Infinite of Terror, of Hope, of Pity, did it\nnot at any moment disclose itself to thee, indubitable, un-nameable?\nCame it never, like the gleam of _preter_natural eternal Oceans, like\nthe voice of old Eternities, far-sounding through thy heart of hearts?\nNever? Alas, it was not thy Liberalism, then; it was thy Animalism!\nThe Infinite is more sure than any other fact. But only men can\ndiscern it; mere building beavers, spinning arachnes, much more the\npredatory vulturous and vulpine species, do not discern it well!--\n\n'The word Hell,' says Sauerteig, 'is still frequently in use among the\nEnglish people: but I could not without difficulty ascertain what they\nmeant by it. Hell generally signifies the Infinite Terror, the thing a\nman _is_ infinitely afraid of, and shudders and shrinks from,\nstruggling with his whole soul to escape from it. There is a Hell\ntherefore, if you will consider, which accompanies man, in all stages\nof his history, and religious or other development: but the Hells of\nmen and Peoples differ notably. With Christians it is the infinite\nterror of being found guilty before the Just Judge. With old Romans, I\nconjecture, it was the terror not of Pluto, for whom probably they\ncared little, but of doing unworthily, doing unvirtuously, which was\ntheir word for un_man_fully. And now what is it, if you pierce through\nhis Cants, his oft-repeated Hearsays, what he calls his Worships and\nso forth,--what is it that the modern English soul does, in very\ntruth, dread infinitely, and contemplate with entire despair? What\n_is_ his Hell, after all these reputable, oft-repeated Hearsays, what\nis it? With hesitation, with astonishment, I pronounce it to be: The\nterror of \"Not succeeding;\" of not making money, fame, or some other\nfigure in the world,--chiefly of not making money! Is not that a\nsomewhat singular Hell?'\n\nYes, O Sauerteig, it is very singular. If we do not 'succeed,' where\nis the use of us? We had better never have been born. \"Tremble\nintensely,\" as our friend the Emperor of China says: _there_ is the\nblack Bottomless of Terror; what Sauerteig calls the 'Hell of the\nEnglish'!--But indeed this Hell belongs naturally to the Gospel of\nMammonism, which also has its corresponding Heaven. For there _is_ one\nReality among so many Phantasms; about one thing we are entirely in\nearnest: The making of money. Working Mammonism does divide the world\nwith idle game-preserving Dilettantism:--thank Heaven that there is\neven a Mammonism, _any_thing we are in earnest about! Idleness is\nworst, Idleness alone is without hope: work earnestly at anything, you\nwill by degrees learn to work at almost all things. There is endless\nhope in work, were it even work at making money.\n\nTrue, it must be owned, we for the present, with our Mammon-Gospel,\nhave come to strange conclusions. We call it a Society; and go about\nprofessing openly the totalest separation, isolation. Our life is not\na mutual helpfulness; but rather, cloaked under due laws-of-war, named\n'fair competition' and so forth, it is a mutual hostility. We have\nprofoundly forgotten everywhere that _Cash-payment_ is not the sole\nrelation of human beings; we think, nothing doubting, that _it_\nabsolves and liquidates all engagements of man. \"My starving workers?\"\nanswers the rich mill-owner: \"Did not I hire them fairly in the\nmarket? Did I not pay them, to the last sixpence, the sum covenanted\nfor? What have I to do with them more?\"--Verily Mammon-worship is a\nmelancholy creed. When Cain, for his own behoof, had killed Abel, and\nwas questioned, \"Where is thy brother?\" he too made answer, \"Am I my\nbrother's keeper?\" Did I not pay my brother _his_ wages, the thing he\nhad merited from me?\n\nO sumptuous Merchant-Prince, illustrious game-preserving Duke, is\nthere no way of 'killing' thy brother but Cain's rude way! 'A good man\nby the very look of him, by his very presence with us as a fellow\nwayfarer in this Life-pilgrimage, _promises_ so much:' woe to him if\nhe forget all such promises, if he never know that they were given!\nTo a deadened soul, seared with the brute Idolatry of Sense, to whom\ngoing to Hell is equivalent to not making money, all 'promises,' and\nmoral duties, that cannot be pleaded for in Courts of Requests,\naddress themselves in vain. Money he can be ordered to pay, but\nnothing more. I have not heard in all Past History, and expect not to\nhear in all Future History, of any Society anywhere under God's Heaven\nsupporting itself on such Philosophy. The Universe is not made so; it\nis made otherwise than so. The man or nation of men that thinks it is\nmade so, marches forward nothing doubting, step after step; but\nmarches--whither we know! In these last two centuries of Atheistic\nGovernment (near two centuries now, since the blessed restoration of\nhis Sacred Majesty, and Defender of the Faith, Charles Second), I\nreckon that we have pretty well exhausted what of 'firm earth' there\nwas for us to march on;--and are now, very ominously, shuddering,\nreeling, and let us hope trying to recoil, on the cliff's edge!--\n\nFor out of this that we call Atheism come so many other _isms_ and\nfalsities, each falsity with its misery at its heels!--A soul is not\nlike wind (_spiritus_, or breath) contained within a capsule; the\nAlmighty Maker is not like a Clockmaker that once, in old immemorial\nages, having _made_ his Horologe of a Universe, sits ever since and\nsees it go! Not at all. Hence comes Atheism; come, as we say, many\nother _isms_; and as the sum of all, comes Valetism, the _reverse_ of\nHeroism; sad root of all woes whatsoever. For indeed, as no man ever\nsaw the above-said wind-element enclosed within its capsule, and finds\nit at bottom more deniable than conceivable; so too he finds, in spite\nof Bridgwater Bequests, your Clockmaker Almighty an entirely\nquestionable affair, a deniable affair;--and accordingly denies it,\nand along with it so much else. Alas, one knows not what and how much\nelse! For the faith in an Invisible, Unnameable, Godlike, present\neverywhere in all that we see and work and suffer, is the essence of\nall faith whatsoever; and that once denied, or still worse, asserted\nwith lips only, and out of bound prayerbooks only, what other thing\nremains believable? That Cant well-ordered is marketable Cant; that\nHeroism means gas-lighted Histrionism; that seen with 'clear eyes' (as\nthey call Valet-eyes), no man is a Hero, or ever was a Hero, but all\nmen are Valets and Varlets. The accursed practical quintessence of all\nsorts of Unbelief! For if there be now no Hero, and the Histrio\nhimself begin to be seen into, what hope is there for the seed of Adam\nhere below? We are the doomed everlasting prey of the Quack; who, now\nin this guise, now in that, is to filch us, to pluck and eat us, by\nsuch modes as are convenient for him. For the modes and guises I care\nlittle. The Quack once inevitable, let him come swiftly, let him pluck\nand eat me;--swiftly, that I may at least have done with him; for in\nhis Quack-world I can have no wish to linger. Though he slay me, yet\nwill I _not_ trust in him. Though he conquer nations, and have all the\nFlunkies of the Universe shouting at his heels, yet will I know well\nthat _he_ is an Inanity; that for him and his there is no continuance\nappointed, save only in Gehenna and the Pool. Alas, the Atheist world,\nfrom its utmost summits of Heaven and Westminster-Hall, downwards\nthrough poor seven-feet Hats and 'Unveracities fallen hungry,' down to\nthe lowest cellars and neglected hunger-dens of it, is very wretched.\n\nOne of Dr. Alison's Scotch facts struck us much.[26] A poor Irish\nWidow, her husband having died in one of the Lanes of Edinburgh, went\nforth with her three children, bare of all resource, to solicit help\nfrom the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable\nEstablishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to\nthe other, helped by none;--till she had exhausted them all; till her\nstrength and heart failed her: she sank down in typhus-fever; died,\nand infected her Lane with fever, so that 'seventeen other persons'\ndied of fever there in consequence. The humane Physician asks\nthereupon, as with a heart too full for speaking, Would it not have\nbeen _economy_ to help this poor Widow? She took typhus-fever, and\nkilled seventeen of you!--Very curious. The forlorn Irish Widow\napplies to her fellow-creatures, as if saying, \"Behold I am sinking,\nbare of help: ye must help me! I am your sister, bone of your bone;\none God made us: ye must help me!\" They answer, \"No, impossible; thou\nart no sister of ours.\" But she proves her sisterhood; her\ntyphus-fever kills _them_: they actually were her brothers, though\ndenying it! Had human creature ever to go lower for a proof?\n\nFor, as indeed was very natural in such case, all government of the\nPoor by the Rich has long ago been given over to Supply-and-demand,\nLaissez-faire and suchlike, and universally declared to be\n'impossible.' \"You are no sister of ours; what shadow of proof is\nthere? Here are our parchments, our padlocks, proving indisputably our\nmoney-safes to be _ours_, and you to have no business with them.\nDepart! It is impossible!\"--Nay, what wouldst thou thyself have us do?\ncry indignant readers. Nothing, my friends,--till you have got a soul\nfor yourselves again. Till then all things are 'impossible.' Till then\nI cannot even bid you buy, as the old Spartans would have done,\ntwo-pence worth of powder and lead, and compendiously shoot to death\nthis poor Irish Widow: even that is 'impossible' for you. Nothing is\nleft but that she prove her sisterhood by dying, and infecting you\nwith typhus. Seventeen of you lying dead will not deny such proof that\nshe _was_ flesh of your flesh; and perhaps some of the living may lay\nit to heart.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n'Impossible:' of a certain two-legged animal with feathers it is said,\nif you draw a distinct chalk-circle round him, he sits imprisoned, as\nif girt with the iron ring of Fate; and will die there, though within\nsight of victuals,--or sit in sick misery there, and be fatted to\ndeath. The name of this poor two-legged animal is--Goose; and they\nmake of him, when well fattened, _Pate de foie gras_, much prized by\nsome!\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[26] _Observations on the Management of the Poor in Scotland_, by\nWilliam Pulteney Alison, M.D. (Edinburgh, 1840.)\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nGOSPEL OF DILETTANTISM.\n\n\nBut after all, the Gospel of Dilettantism, producing a Governing Class\nwho do not govern, nor understand in the least that they are bound or\nexpected to govern, is still mournfuler than that of Mammonism.\nMammonism, as we said, at least works; this goes idle. Mammonism has\nseized some portion of the message of Nature to man; and seizing that,\nand following it, will seize and appropriate more and more of Nature's\nmessage: but Dilettantism has missed it wholly. 'Make money:' that\nwill mean withal, 'Do work in order to make money.' But, 'Go\ngracefully idle in Mayfair,' what does or can that mean? An idle,\ngame-preserving and even corn-lawing Aristocracy, in such an England\nas ours: has the world, if we take thought of it, ever seen such a\nphenomenon till very lately? Can it long continue to see such?\n\nAccordingly the impotent, insolent Donothingism in Practice and\nSaynothingism in Speech, which we have to witness on that side of our\naffairs, is altogether amazing. A Corn-Law demonstrating itself\nopenly, for ten years or more, with 'arguments' to make the angels,\nand some other classes of creatures, weep! For men are not ashamed to\nrise in Parliament and elsewhere, and speak the things they do _not_\nthink. 'Expediency,' 'Necessities of Party,' &c. &c.! It is not known\nthat the Tongue of Man is a sacred organ; that Man himself is\ndefinable in Philosophy as an 'Incarnate _Word_;' the Word not there,\nyou have no Man there either, but a Phantasm instead! In this way it\nis that Absurdities may live long enough,--still walking, and talking\nfor themselves, years and decades after the brains are quite out! How\nare 'the knaves and dastards' ever to be got 'arrested' at that\nrate?--\n\n\"No man in this fashionable London of yours,\" friend Sauerteig would\nsay, \"speaks a plain word to me. Every man feels bound to be something\nmore than plain; to be pungent withal, witty, ornamental. His poor\nfraction of sense has to be perked into some epigrammatic shape, that\nit may prick into me;--perhaps (this is the commonest) to be\ntopsyturvied, left standing on its head, that I may remember it the\nbetter! Such grinning inanity is very sad to the soul of man. Human\nfaces should not grin on one like masks; they should look on one like\nfaces! I love honest laughter, as I do sunlight; but not dishonest:\nmost kinds of dancing too; but the St. Vitus kind not at all! A\nfashionable wit, _ach Himmel_! if you ask, Which, he or a\nDeath's-head, will be the cheerier company for me? pray send _not_\nhim!\"\n\nInsincere Speech, truly, is the prime material of insincere Action.\nAction hangs, as it were, _dissolved_ in Speech, in Thought whereof\nSpeech is the Shadow; and precipitates itself therefrom. The kind of\nSpeech in a man betokens the kind of Action you will get from him. Our\nSpeech, in these modern days, has become amazing. Johnson complained,\n\"Nobody speaks in earnest, Sir; there is no serious conversation.\" To\nus all serious speech of men, as that of Seventeenth-Century Puritans,\nTwelfth-Century Catholics, German Poets of this Century, has become\njargon, more or less insane. Cromwell was mad and a quack; Anselm,\nBecket, Goethe, _ditto ditto_.\n\nPerhaps few narratives in History or Mythology are more significant\nthan that Moslem one, of Moses and the Dwellers by the Dead Sea. A\ntribe of men dwelt on the shores of that same Asphaltic Lake; and\nhaving forgotten, as we are all too prone to do, the inner facts of\nNature, and taken up with the falsities and outer semblances of it,\nwere fallen into sad conditions,--verging indeed towards a certain far\ndeeper Lake. Whereupon it pleased kind Heaven to send them the Prophet\nMoses, with an instructive word of warning, out of which might have\nsprung 'remedial measures' not a few. But no: the men of the Dead Sea\ndiscovered, as the valet-species always does in heroes or prophets, no\ncomeliness in Moses; listened with real tedium to Moses, with light\ngrinning, or with splenetic sniffs and sneers, affecting even to yawn;\nand signified, in short, that they found him a humbug, and even a\nbore. Such was the candid theory these men of the Asphalt Lake formed\nto themselves of Moses, That probably he was a humbug, that certainly\nhe was a bore.\n\nMoses withdrew; but Nature and her rigorous veracities did not\nwithdraw. The men of the Dead Sea, when we next went to visit them,\nwere all 'changed into Apes;'[27] sitting on the trees there, grinning\nnow in the most _un_affected manner; gibbering and chattering very\ngenuine nonsense; finding the whole Universe now a most indisputable\nHumbug! The Universe has _become_ a Humbug to these Apes who thought\nit one. There they sit and chatter, to this hour: only, I believe,\nevery Sabbath there returns to them a bewildered half-consciousness,\nhalf-reminiscence; and they sit, with their wizened smoke-dried\nvisages, and such an air of supreme tragicality as Apes may; looking\nout through those blinking smoke-bleared eyes of theirs, into the\nwonderfulest universal smoky Twilight and undecipherable disordered\nDusk of Things; wholly an Uncertainty, Unintelligibility, they and it;\nand for commentary thereon, here and there an unmusical chatter or\nmew:--truest, tragicalest Humbug conceivable by the mind of man or\nape! They made no use of their souls; and so have lost them. Their\nworship on the Sabbath now is to roost there, with unmusical\nscreeches, and half-remember that they had souls.\n\nDidst thou never, O Traveller, fall-in with parties of this tribe?\nMeseems they are grown somewhat numerous in our day.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[27] Sale's _Koran_ (Introduction).\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nHAPPY.\n\n\nAll work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone noble:\nbe that here said and asserted once more. And in like manner too,\nall dignity is painful; a life of ease is not for any man, nor for\nany god. The life of all gods figures itself to us as a Sublime\nSadness,--earnestness of Infinite Battle against Infinite Labour. Our\nhighest religion is named the 'Worship of Sorrow.' For the son of man\nthere is no noble crown, well worn or even ill worn, but is a crown of\nthorns!--These things, in spoken words, or still better, in felt\ninstincts alive in every heart, were once well known.\n\nDoes not the whole wretchedness, the whole _Atheism_ as I call it, of\nman's ways, in these generations, shadow itself for us in that\nunspeakable Life-philosophy of his: The pretension to be what he calls\n'happy'? Every pitifulest whipster that walks within a skin has his\nhead filled with the notion that he is, shall be, or by all human and\ndivine laws ought to be 'happy.' His wishes, the pitifulest\nwhipster's, are to be fulfilled for him; his days, the pitifulest\nwhipster's, are to flow on in ever-gentle current of enjoyment,\nimpossible even for the gods. The prophets preach to us, Thou shalt be\nhappy; thou shalt love pleasant things, and find them. The people\nclamour, Why have we not found pleasant things?\n\nWe construct our theory of Human Duties, not on any\nGreatest-Nobleness Principle, never so mistaken; no, but on a\nGreatest-Happiness Principle. 'The word _Soul_ with us, as in some\nSlavonic dialects, seems to be synonymous with _Stomach_.' We plead\nand speak, in our Parliaments and elsewhere, not as from the Soul, but\nfrom the Stomach;--wherefore indeed our pleadings are so slow to\nprofit. We plead not for God's Justice; we are not ashamed to stand\nclamouring and pleading for our own 'interests,' our own rents and\ntrade-profits; we say, They are the 'interests' of so many; there is\nsuch an intense desire in us for them! We demand Free-Trade, with much\njust vociferation and benevolence, That the poorer classes, who are\nterribly ill-off at present, may have cheaper New-Orleans bacon. Men\nask on Free-trade platforms, How can the indomitable spirit of\nEnglishmen be kept up without plenty of bacon? We shall become a\nruined Nation!--Surely, my friends, plenty of bacon is good and\nindispensable: but, I doubt, you will never get even bacon by aiming\nonly at that. You are men, not animals of prey, well-used or ill-used!\nYour Greatest-Happiness Principle seems to me fast becoming a rather\nunhappy one.--What if we should cease babbling about 'happiness,' and\nleave _it_ resting on its own basis, as it used to do!\n\nA gifted Byron rises in his wrath; and feeling too surely that he for\nhis part is not 'happy,' declares the same in very violent language,\nas a piece of news that may be interesting. It evidently has surprised\nhim much. One dislikes to see a man and poet reduced to proclaim on\nthe streets such tidings: but on the whole, as matters go, that is not\nthe most dislikable. Byron speaks the _truth_ in this matter. Byron's\nlarge audience indicates how true it is felt to be.\n\n'Happy,' my brother? First of all, what difference is it whether thou\nart happy or not! Today becomes Yesterday so fast, all Tomorrows\nbecome Yesterdays; and then there is no question whatever of the\n'happiness,' but quite another question. Nay, thou hast such a sacred\npity left at least for thyself, thy very pains, once gone over into\nYesterday, become joys to thee. Besides, thou knowest not what\nheavenly blessedness and indispensable sanative virtue was in them;\nthou shalt only know it after many days, when thou art wiser!--A\nbenevolent old Surgeon sat once in our company, with a Patient fallen\nsick by gourmandising, whom he had just, too briefly in the Patient's\njudgment, been examining. The foolish Patient still at intervals\ncontinued to break in on our discourse, which rather promised to take\na philosophic turn: \"But I have lost my appetite,\" said he,\nobjurgatively, with a tone of irritated pathos; \"I have no appetite; I\ncan't eat!\"--\"My dear fellow,\" answered the Doctor in mildest tone,\n\"it isn't of the slightest consequence;\"--and continued his\nphilosophical discoursings with us!\n\nOr does the reader not know the history of that Scottish iron\nMisanthrope? The inmates of some town-mansion, in those Northern\nparts, were thrown into the fearfulest alarm by indubitable symptoms\nof a ghost inhabiting the next house, or perhaps even the\npartition-wall! Ever at a certain hour, with preternatural gnarring,\ngrowling and screeching, which attended as running bass, there began,\nin a horrid, semi-articulate, unearthly voice, this song: \"Once I was\nhap-hap-happy, but now I'm _mees_erable! Clack-clack-clack, gnarr-r-r,\nwhuz-z: Once I was hap-hap-happy, but now I'm _mees_erable!\"--Rest,\nrest, perturbed spirit;--or indeed, as the good old Doctor said: My\ndear fellow, it isn't of the slightest consequence! But no; the\nperturbed spirit could not rest; and to the neighbours, fretted,\naffrighted, or at least insufferably bored by him, it _was_ of such\nconsequence that they had to go and examine in his haunted chamber.\nIn his haunted chamber, they find that the perturbed spirit is an\nunfortunate--Imitator of Byron? No, is an unfortunate rusty Meat-jack,\ngnarring and creaking with rust and work; and this, in Scottish\ndialect, is _its_ Byronian musical Life-philosophy, sung according to\nability!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTruly, I think the man who goes about pothering and uproaring for his\n'happiness,'--pothering, and were it ballot-boxing, poem-making, or in\nwhat way soever fussing and exerting himself,--he is not the man that\nwill help us to 'get our knaves and dastards arrested'! No; he rather\nis on the way to increase the number,--by at least one unit and his\ntail! Observe, too, that this is all a modern affair; belongs not to\nthe old heroic times, but to these dastard new times. 'Happiness our\nbeing's end and aim,' all that very paltry speculation is at bottom,\nif we will count well, not yet two centuries old in the world.\n\nThe only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with asking much\nabout was, happiness enough to get his work done. Not \"I can't eat!\"\nbut \"I can't work!\" that was the burden of all wise complaining among\nmen. It is, after all, the one unhappiness of a man, That he cannot\nwork; that he cannot get his destiny as a man fulfilled. Behold, the\nday is passing swiftly over, our life is passing swiftly over; and the\nnight cometh, wherein no man can work. The night once come, our\nhappiness, our unhappiness,--it is all abolished; vanished, clean\ngone; a thing that has been: 'not of the slightest consequence'\nwhether we were happy as eupeptic Curtis, as the fattest pig of\nEpicurus, or unhappy as Job with potsherds, as musical Byron with\nGiaours and sensibilities of the heart; as the unmusical Meat-jack\nwith hard labour and rust! But our work,--behold that is not\nabolished, that has not vanished: our work, behold, it remains, or the\nwant of it remains;--for endless Times and Eternities, remains; and\nthat is now the sole question with us forevermore! Brief brawling Day,\nwith its noisy phantasms, its poor paper-crowns tinsel-gilt, is gone;\nand divine everlasting Night, with her star-diadems, with her silences\nand her veracities, is come! What hast thou done, and how? Happiness,\nunhappiness: all that was but the _wages_ thou hadst; thou hast spent\nall that, in sustaining thyself hitherward; not a coin of it remains\nwith thee, it is all spent, eaten: and now thy work, where is thy\nwork? Swift, out with it; let us see thy work!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf a truth, if man were not a poor hungry dastard, and even much of a\nblockhead withal, he would cease criticising his victuals to such\nextent; and criticise himself rather, what he does with his victuals!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE ENGLISH.\n\n\nAnd yet, with all thy theoretic platitudes, what a depth of practical\nsense in thee, great England! A depth of sense, of justice, and\ncourage; in which, under all emergencies and world-bewilderments, and\nunder this most complex of emergencies we now live in, there is still\nhope, there is still assurance!\n\nThe English are a dumb people. They can do great acts, but not\ndescribe them. Like the old Romans, and some few others, _their_ Epic\nPoem is written on the Earth's surface: England her Mark! It is\ncomplained that they have no artists: one Shakspeare indeed; but for\nRaphael only a Reynolds; for Mozart nothing but a Mr. Bishop: not a\npicture, not a song. And yet they did produce one Shakspeare: consider\nhow the element of Shakspearean melody does lie imprisoned in their\nnature; reduced to unfold itself in mere Cotton-mills, Constitutional\nGovernments, and suchlike;--all the more interesting when it does\nbecome visible, as even in such unexpected shapes it succeeds in\ndoing! Goethe spoke of the Horse, how impressive, almost affecting it\nwas that an animal of such qualities should stand obstructed so; its\nspeech nothing but an inarticulate neighing, its handiness mere\n_hoof_iness, the fingers all constricted, tied together, the\nfinger-nails coagulated into a mere hoof, shod with iron. The more\nsignificant, thinks he, are those eye-flashings of the generous noble\nquadruped; those prancings, curvings of the neck clothed with thunder.\n\nA Dog of Knowledge has free utterance; but the Warhorse is almost\nmute, very far from free! It is even so. Truly, your freest utterances\nare not by any means always the best: they are the worst rather; the\nfeeblest, trivialest; their meaning prompt, but small, ephemeral.\nCommend me to the silent English, to the silent Romans. Nay the\nsilent Russians, too, I believe to be worth something: are they\nnot even now drilling, under much obloquy, an immense semi-barbarous\nhalf-world from Finland to Kamtschatka, into rule, subordination,\ncivilisation,--really in an old Roman fashion; speaking no word about\nit; quietly hearing all manner of vituperative Able Editors speak!\nWhile your ever-talking, ever-gesticulating French, for example, what\nare they at this moment drilling?--Nay of all animals, the freest of\nutterance, I should judge, is the genus _Simia_: go into the Indian\nwoods, say all Travellers, and look what a brisk, adroit, unresting\nApe-population it is!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe spoken Word, the written Poem, is said to be an epitome of the\nman; how much more the done Work. Whatsoever of morality and of\nintelligence; what of patience, perseverance, faithfulness, of method,\ninsight, ingenuity, energy; in a word, whatsoever of Strength the man\nhad in him will lie written in the Work he does. To work: why, it is\nto try himself against Nature, and her everlasting unerring Laws;\nthese will tell a true verdict as to the man. So much of virtue and of\nfaculty did _we_ find in him; so much and no more! He had such\ncapacity of harmonising himself with _me_ and my unalterable\never-veracious Laws; of cooeperating and working as _I_ bade him;--and\nhas prospered, and has not prospered, as you see!--Working as great\nNature bade him: does not that mean virtue of a kind; nay of all\nkinds? Cotton can be spun and sold, Lancashire operatives can be got\nto spin it, and at length one has the woven webs and sells them, by\nfollowing Nature's regulations in that matter: by not following\nNature's regulations, you have them not. You have them not;--there is\nno Cotton-web to sell: Nature finds a bill against you; your\n'Strength' is not Strength, but Futility! Let faculty be honoured, so\nfar as it is faculty. A man that can succeed in working is to me\nalways a man.\n\nHow one loves to see the burly figure of him, this thick-skinned,\nseemingly opaque, perhaps sulky, almost stupid Man of Practice, pitted\nagainst some light adroit Man of Theory, all equipt with clear logic,\nand able anywhere to give you Why for Wherefore! The adroit Man of\nTheory, so light of movement, clear of utterance, with his bow\nfull-bent and quiver full of arrow-arguments,--surely he will strike\ndown the game, transfix everywhere the heart of the matter; triumph\neverywhere, as he proves that he shall and must do? To your\nastonishment, it turns out oftenest No. The cloudy-browed,\nthick-soled, opaque Practicality, with no logic utterance, in silence\nmainly, with here and there a low grunt or growl, has in him what\ntranscends all logic-utterance: a Congruity with the Unuttered. The\nSpeakable, which lies atop, as a superficial film, or outer skin, is\nhis or is not his: but the Doable, which reaches down to the World's\ncentre, you find him there!\n\nThe rugged Brindley has little to say for himself; the rugged\nBrindley, when difficulties accumulate on him, retires silent,\n'generally to his bed;' retires 'sometimes for three days together to\nhis bed, that he may be in perfect privacy there,' and ascertain in\nhis rough head how the difficulties can be overcome. The ineloquent\nBrindley, behold he _has_ chained seas together; his ships do visibly\nfloat over valleys, invisibly through the hearts of mountains; the\nMersey and the Thames, the Humber and the Severn have shaken hands:\nNature most audibly answers, Yea! The Man of Theory twangs his\nfull-bent bow: Nature's Fact ought to fall stricken, but does not: his\nlogic-arrow glances from it as from a scaly dragon, and the obstinate\nFact keeps walking its way. How singular! At bottom, you will have to\ngrapple closer with the dragon; take it home to you, by real faculty,\nnot by seeming faculty; try whether you are stronger, or it is\nstronger. Close with it, wrestle it: sheer obstinate toughness of\nmuscle; but much more, what we call toughness of heart, which will\nmean persistence hopeful and even desperate, unsubduable patience,\ncomposed candid openness, clearness of mind: all this shall be\n'strength' in wrestling your dragon; the whole man's real strength is\nin this work, we shall get the measure of him here.\n\nOf all the Nations in the world at present the English are the\nstupidest in speech, the wisest in action. As good as a 'dumb' Nation,\nI say, who cannot speak, and have never yet spoken,--spite of the\nShakspeares and Miltons who show us what possibilities there are!--O\nMr. Bull, I look in that surly face of thine with a mixture of pity\nand laughter, yet also with wonder and veneration. Thou complainest\nnot, my illustrious friend; and yet I believe the heart of thee is\nfull of sorrow, of unspoken sadness, seriousness,--profound melancholy\n(as some have said) the basis of thy being. Unconsciously, for thou\nspeakest of nothing, this great Universe is great to thee. Not by\nlevity of floating, but by stubborn force of swimming, shalt thou make\nthy way. The Fates sing of thee that thou shalt many times be thought\nan ass and a dull ox, and shalt with a godlike indifference believe\nit. My friend,--and it is all untrue, nothing ever falser in point of\nfact! Thou art of those great ones whose greatness the small passer-by\ndoes not discern. Thy very stupidity is wiser than their wisdom. A\ngrand _vis inertiae_ is in thee; how many grand qualities unknown to\nsmall men! Nature alone knows thee, acknowledges the bulk and strength\nof thee: thy Epic, unsung in words, is written in huge characters on\nthe face of this Planet,--sea-moles, cotton-trades, railways, fleets\nand cities, Indian Empires, Americas, New Hollands; legible throughout\nthe Solar System!\n\nBut the dumb Russians too, as I said, they, drilling all wild Asia and\nwild Europe into military rank and file, a terrible yet hitherto a\nprospering enterprise, are still dumber. The old Romans also could not\n_speak_, for many centuries:--not till the world was theirs; and so\nmany speaking Greekdoms, their logic-arrows all spent, had been\nabsorbed and abolished. The logic-arrows, how they glanced futile from\nobdurate thick-skinned Facts; Facts to be wrestled down only by the\nreal vigour of Roman thews!--As for me, I honour, in these\nloud-babbling days, all the Silent rather. A grand Silence that of\nRomans;--nay the grandest of all, is it not that of the gods! Even\nTriviality, Imbecility, that can sit silent, how respectable is it in\ncomparison! The 'talent of silence' is our fundamental one. Great\nhonour to him whose Epic is a melodious hexameter Iliad; not a\njingling Sham-Iliad, nothing true in it but the hexameters and forms\nmerely. But still greater honour, if his Epic be a mighty Empire\nslowly built together, a mighty Series of Heroic Deeds,--a mighty\nConquest over Chaos; _which_ Epic the 'Eternal Melodies' have, and\nmust have, informed and dwelt in, as it sung itself! There is no\nmistaking that latter Epic. Deeds are greater than Words. Deeds have\nsuch a life, mute but undeniable, and grow as living trees and\nfruit-trees do; they people the vacuity of Time, and make it green and\nworthy. Why should the oak prove logically that it ought to grow, and\nwill grow? Plant it, try it; what gifts of diligent judicious\nassimilation and secretion it has, of progress and resistance, of\n_force_ to grow, will then declare themselves. My much-honoured,\nillustrious, extremely inarticulate Mr. Bull!--\n\nAsk Bull his spoken opinion of any matter,--oftentimes the force of\ndullness can no farther go. You stand silent, incredulous, as over a\nplatitude that borders on the Infinite. The man's Churchisms,\nDissenterisms, Puseyisms, Benthamisms, College Philosophies,\nFashionable Literatures, are unexampled in this world. Fate's prophecy\nis fulfilled; you call the man an ox and an ass. But set him once to\nwork,--respectable man! His spoken sense is next to nothing,\nnine-tenths of it palpable _non_sense: but his unspoken sense, his\ninner silent feeling of what is true, what does agree with fact, what\nis doable and what is not doable,--this seeks its fellow in the world.\nA terrible worker; irresistible against marshes, mountains,\nimpediments, disorder, incivilisation; everywhere vanquishing\ndisorder, leaving it behind him as method and order. He 'retires to\nhis bed three days,' and considers!\n\nNay withal, stupid as he is, our dear John,--ever, after infinite\ntumblings, and spoken platitudes innumerable from barrel-heads and\nparliament-benches, he does settle down somewhere about the just\nconclusion; you are certain that his jumblings and tumblings will end,\nafter years or centuries, in the stable equilibrium. Stable\nequilibrium, I say; centre-of-gravity lowest;--not the unstable, with\ncentre-of-gravity highest, as I have known it done by quicker people!\nFor indeed, do but jumble and tumble sufficiently, you avoid that\nworst fault, of settling with your centre-of-gravity highest; your\ncentre-of-gravity is certain to come lowest, and to stay there. If\nslowness, what we in our impatience call 'stupidity,' be the price of\nstable equilibrium over unstable, shall we grudge a little slowness?\nNot the least admirable quality of Bull is, after all, that of\nremaining insensible to logic; holding out for considerable periods,\nten years or more, as in this of the Corn-Laws, after all arguments\nand shadow of arguments have faded away from him, till the very\nurchins on the street titter at the arguments he brings.\nLogic,--[Greek: Logike], the 'Art of Speech,'--does indeed speak so\nand so; clear enough: nevertheless Bull still shakes his head; will\nsee whether nothing else _illogical_, not yet 'spoken,' not yet able\nto be 'spoken,' do not lie in the business, as there so often\ndoes!--My firm belief is, that, finding himself now enchanted,\nhand-shackled, foot-shackled, in Poor-Law Bastilles and elsewhere, he\nwill retire three days to his bed, and _arrive_ at a conclusion or\ntwo! His three-years 'total stagnation of trade,' alas, is not that a\npainful enough 'lying in bed to consider himself'? Poor Bull!\n\nBull is a born Conservative; for this too I inexpressibly honour him.\nAll great Peoples are conservative; slow to believe in novelties;\npatient of much error in actualities; deeply and forever certain of\nthe greatness that is in LAW, in Custom once solemnly established, and\nnow long recognised as just and final.--True, O Radical Reformer,\nthere is no Custom that can, properly speaking, be final; none. And\nyet thou seest _Customs_ which, in all civilised countries, are\naccounted final; nay, under the Old-Roman name of _Mores_, are\naccounted _Morality_, Virtue, Laws of God Himself. Such, I assure\nthee, not a few of them are; such almost all of them once were. And\ngreatly do I respect the solid character,--a blockhead, thou wilt say;\nyes, but a well-conditioned blockhead, and the best-conditioned,--who\nesteems all 'Customs once solemnly acknowledged' to be ultimate,\ndivine, and the rule for a man to walk by, nothing doubting, not\ninquiring farther. What a time of it had we, were all men's life and\ntrade still, in all parts of it, a problem, a hypothetic seeking, to\nbe settled by painful Logics and Baconian Inductions! The Clerk in\nEastcheap cannot spend the day in verifying his Ready-Reckoner; he\nmust take it as verified, true and indisputable; or his Book-keeping\nby Double Entry will stand still. \"Where is your Posted Ledger?\" asks\nthe Master at night.--\"Sir,\" answers the other, \"I was verifying my\nReady-Reckoner, and find some errors. The Ledger is--!\"--Fancy such a\nthing!\n\nTrue, all turns on your Ready-Reckoner being moderately\ncorrect,--being _not_ insupportably incorrect! A Ready-Reckoner which\nhas led to distinct entries in your Ledger such as these: '_Creditor_\nan English People by fifteen hundred years of good Labour; and\n_Debtor_ to lodging in enchanted Poor-Law Bastilles: _Creditor_ by\nconquering the largest Empire the Sun ever saw; and _Debtor_ to\nDonothingism and \"Impossible\" written on all departments of the\ngovernment thereof: _Creditor_ by mountains of gold ingots earned; and\n_Debtor_ to No Bread purchasable by them:'--_such_ Ready-Reckoner,\nmethinks, is beginning to be suspect; nay is ceasing, and has ceased,\nto be suspect! Such Ready-Reckoner is a Solecism in Eastcheap; and\nmust, whatever be the press of business, and will and shall be\nrectified a little. Business can go on no longer with _it_. The most\nConservative English People, thickest-skinned, most patient of\nPeoples, is driven alike by its Logic and its Unlogic, by things\n'spoken,' and by things not yet spoken or very speakable, but only\nfelt and very unendurable, to be wholly a Reforming People. Their\nLife, as it is, has ceased to be longer possible for them.\n\nUrge not this noble silent People; rouse not the Berserkir rage that\nlies in them! Do you know their Cromwells, Hampdens, their Pyms and\nBradshaws? Men very peaceable, but men that can be made very terrible!\nMen who, like their old Teutsch Fathers in Agrippa's days, 'have a\nsoul that despises death;' to whom 'death,' compared with falsehoods\nand injustices, is light;--'in whom there is a rage unconquerable by\nthe immortal gods!' Before this, the English People have taken very\npreternatural-looking Spectres by the beard; saying virtually: \"And if\nthou _wert_ 'preternatural'? Thou with thy 'divine-rights' grown\ndiabolic-wrongs? Thou,--not even 'natural;' decapitable; totally\nextinguishable!\"--Yes, just so godlike as this People's patience was,\neven so godlike will and must its impatience be. Away, ye scandalous\nPractical Solecisms, children actually of the Prince of Darkness; ye\nhave near broken our hearts; we can and will endure you no longer.\nBegone, we say; depart, while the play is good! By the Most High God,\nwhose sons and born, missionaries true men are, ye shall not continue\nhere! You and we have become incompatible; can inhabit one house no\nlonger. Either you must go, or we. Are ye ambitious to try _which_ it\nshall be?\n\nO my Conservative friends, who still specially name and struggle to\napprove yourselves 'Conservative,' would to Heaven I could persuade\nyou of this world-old fact, than which Fate is not surer, That Truth\nand Justice alone are _capable_ of being 'conserved' and preserved!\nThe thing which is unjust, which is _not_ according to God's Law, will\nyou, in a God's Universe, try to conserve that? It is so old, say you?\nYes, and the hotter haste ought _you_, of all others, to be in, to let\nit grow no older! If but the faintest whisper in your hearts intimate\nto you that it is not fair,--hasten, for the sake of Conservatism\nitself, to probe it rigorously, to cast it forth at once and forever\nif guilty. How will or can you preserve _it_, the thing that is not\nfair? 'Impossibility' a thousandfold is marked on that. And ye call\nyourselves Conservatives, Aristocracies:--ought not honour and\nnobleness of mind, if they had departed from all the Earth elsewhere,\nto find their last refuge with you? Ye unfortunate!\n\nThe bough that is dead shall be cut away, for the sake of the tree\nitself. Old? Yes, it is too old. Many a weary winter has it swung and\ncreaked there, and gnawed and fretted, with its dead wood, the organic\nsubstance and still living fibre of this good tree; many a long summer\nhas its ugly naked brown defaced the fair green umbrage; every day it\nhas done mischief, and that only: off with it, for the tree's sake, if\nfor nothing more; let the Conservatism that would preserve cut _it_\naway. Did no wood-forester apprise you that a dead bough with its dead\nroot left sticking there is extraneous, poisonous; is as a dead iron\nspike, some horrid rusty ploughshare driven into the living\nsubstance;--nay is far worse; for in every wind-storm ('commercial\ncrisis' or the like), it frets and creaks, jolts itself to and fro,\nand cannot lie quiet as your dead iron spike would.\n\nIf I were the Conservative Party of England (which is another bold\nfigure of speech), I would not for a hundred thousand pounds an hour\nallow those Corn-Laws to continue! Potosi and Golconda put together\nwould not purchase my assent to them. Do you count what treasuries of\nbitter indignation they are laying up for you in every just English\nheart? Do you know what questions, not as to Corn-prices and\nSliding-scales alone, they are _forcing_ every reflective Englishman\nto ask himself? Questions insoluble, or hitherto unsolved; deeper\nthan any of our Logic-plummets hitherto will sound: questions deep\nenough,--which it were better that we did not name even in thought!\nYou are forcing us to think of them, to begin uttering them. The\nutterance of them is begun; and where will it be ended, think you?\nWhen two millions of one's brother-men sit in Workhouses, and five\nmillions, as is insolently said, 'rejoice in potatoes,' there are\nvarious things that must be begun, let them end where they can.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTWO CENTURIES.\n\n\nThe Settlement effected by our 'Healing Parliament' in the Year of\nGrace 1660, though accomplished under universal acclamations from the\nfour corners of the British Dominions, turns out to have been one of\nthe mournfulest that ever took place in this land of ours. It called\nand thought itself a Settlement of brightest hope and fulfilment,\nbright as the blaze of universal tar-barrels and bonfires could make\nit: and we find it now, on looking back on it with the insight which\ntrial has yielded, a Settlement as of despair. Considered well, it was\na Settlement to govern henceforth without God, with only some decent\nPretence of God.\n\nGoverning by the Christian Law of God had been found a thing of\nbattle, convulsion, confusion, an infinitely difficult thing:\nwherefore let us now abandon it, and govern only by so much of God's\nChristian Law as--as may prove quiet and convenient for us. What is\nthe end of Government? To guide men in the way wherein they should go:\ntowards their true good in this life, the portal of infinite good in a\nlife to come? To guide men in such way, and ourselves in such way, as\nthe Maker of men, whose eye is upon us, will sanction at the Great\nDay?--Or alas, perhaps at bottom _is_ there no Great Day, no sure\noutlook of any life to come; but only this poor life, and what of\ntaxes, felicities, Nell-Gwyns and entertainments we can manage to\nmuster here? In that case, the end of Government will be, To suppress\nall noise and disturbance, whether of Puritan preaching, Cameronian\npsalm-singing, thieves'-riot, murder, arson, or what noise soever,\nand--be careful that supplies do not fail! A very notable conclusion,\nif we will think of it, and not without an abundance of fruits for us.\nOliver Cromwell's body hung on the Tyburn gallows, as the type of\nPuritanism found futile, inexecutable, execrable,--yes, that\ngallows-tree has been a fingerpost into very strange country indeed.\nLet earnest Puritanism die; let decent Formalism, whatsoever cant it\nbe or grow to, live! We have had a pleasant journey in that direction;\nand are--arriving at our inn?\n\nTo support the Four Pleas of the Crown, and keep Taxes coming in: in\nvery sad seriousness, has not this been, ever since, even in the best\ntimes, almost the one admitted end and aim of Government? Religion,\nChristian Church, Moral Duty; the fact that man had a soul at all;\nthat in man's life there was any eternal truth or justice at all,--has\nbeen as good as left quietly out of sight. Church indeed,--alas, the\nendless talk and struggle we have had of High-Church, Low-Church,\nChurch-Extension, Church-in-Danger: we invite the Christian reader to\nthink whether it has not been a too miserable screech-owl phantasm of\ntalk and struggle, as for a 'Church,'--which one had rather not define\nat present!\n\nBut now in these godless two centuries, looking at England and her\nefforts and doings, if we ask, What of England's doings the Law of\nNature had accepted, Nature's King had actually furthered and\npronounced to have truth in them,--where is our answer? Neither the\n'Church' of Hurd and Warburton, nor the Anti-Church of Hume and\nPaine; not in any shape the Spiritualism of England: all this is\nalready seen, or beginning to be seen, for what it is; a thing that\nNature does _not_ own. On the one side is dreary Cant, with a\n_reminiscence_ of things noble and divine; on the other is but acrid\nCandour, with a _prophecy_ of things brutal, infernal. Hurd and\nWarburton are sunk into the sere and yellow leaf; no considerable body\nof true-seeing men looks thitherward for healing: the Paine-and-Hume\nAtheistic theory, of 'things well let alone,' with Liberty, Equality\nand the like, is also in these days declaring itself nought, unable to\nkeep the world from taking fire.\n\nThe theories and speculations of both these parties, and, we may say,\nof all intermediate parties and persons, prove to be things which the\nEternal Veracity did not accept; things superficial, ephemeral, which\nalready a near Posterity, finding them already dead and brown-leafed,\nis about to suppress and forget. The Spiritualism of England, for\nthose godless years, is, as it were, all forgettable. Much has been\nwritten: but the perennial Scriptures of Mankind have had small\naccession: from all English Books, in rhyme or prose, in leather\nbinding or in paper wrappage, how many verses have been added to\nthese? Our most melodious Singers have sung as from the throat\noutwards: from the inner Heart of Man, from the great Heart of Nature,\nthrough no Pope or Philips, has there come any tone. The Oracles have\nbeen dumb. In brief, the Spoken Word of England has not been true. The\nSpoken Word of England turns out to have been trivial; of short\nendurance; not valuable, not available as a Word, except for the\npassing day. It has been accordant with transitory Semblance;\ndiscordant with eternal Fact. It has been unfortunately not a Word,\nbut a Cant; a helpless involuntary Cant, nay too often a cunning\nvoluntary one: either way, a very mournful Cant; the Voice not of\nNature and Fact, but of something other than these.\n\nWith all its miserable shortcomings, with its wars, controversies,\nwith its trades-unions, famine-insurrections,--it is her Practical\nMaterial Work alone that England has to show for herself! This, and\nhitherto almost nothing more; yet actually this. The grim inarticulate\nveracity of the English People, unable to speak its meaning in words,\nhas turned itself silently on things; and the dark powers of Material\nNature have answered, \"Yes, this at least is true, this is not false!\"\nSo answers Nature. \"Waste desert-shrubs of the Tropical swamps have\nbecome Cotton-trees; and here, under my furtherance, are verily woven\nshirts,--hanging unsold, undistributed, but capable to be distributed,\ncapable to cover the bare backs of my children of men. Mountains, old\nas the Creation, I have permitted to be bored through; bituminous\nfuel-stores, the wreck of forests that were green a million years\nago,--I have opened them from my secret rock-chambers, and they are\nyours, ye English. Your huge fleets, steamships, do sail the sea; huge\nIndias do obey you; from huge _New_ Englands and Antipodal Australias\ncomes profit and traffic to this Old England of mine!\" So answers\nNature. The Practical Labour of England is _not_ a chimerical\nTriviality: it is a Fact, acknowledged by all the Worlds; which no man\nand no demon will contradict. It is, very audibly, though very\ninarticulately as yet, the one God's Voice we have heard in these two\natheistic centuries.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now to observe with what bewildering obscurations and impediments\nall this as yet stands entangled, and is yet intelligible to no man!\nHow, with our gross Atheism, we hear it not to be the Voice of God to\nus, but regard it merely as a Voice of earthly Profit-and-Loss. And\nhave a Hell in England,--the Hell of not making money. And coldly see\nthe all-conquering valiant Sons of Toil sit enchanted, by the million,\nin their Poor-Law Bastille, as if this were Nature's Law;--mumbling to\nourselves some vague janglement of Laissez-faire, Supply-and-demand,\nCash-payment the one nexus of man to man: Free-trade, Competition, and\nDevil take the hindmost, our latest Gospel yet preached!\n\nAs if, in truth, there were no God of Labour; as if godlike Labour and\nbrutal Mammonism were convertible terms. A serious, most earnest\nMammonism grown Midas-eared; an unserious Dilettantism, earnest about\nnothing, grinning with inarticulate incredulous incredible jargon\nabout all things, as the _enchanted_ Dilettanti do by the Dead Sea! It\nis mournful enough, for the present hour; were there not an endless\nhope in it withal. Giant Labour, truest emblem there is of God\nthe World-Worker, Demiurgus, and Eternal Maker; noble Labour,\nwhich is yet to be the King of this Earth, and sit on the highest\nthrone,--staggering hitherto like a blind irrational giant, hardly\nallowed to have his common place on the street-pavements; idle\nDilettantism. Dead-Sea Apism crying out, \"Down with him; he is\ndangerous!\"\n\nLabour must become a seeing rational giant, with a _soul_ in the body\nof him, and take his place on the throne of things,--leaving his\nMammonism, and several other adjuncts, on the lower steps of said\nthrone.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nOVER-PRODUCTION.\n\n\nBut what will reflective readers say of a Governing Class, such as\nours, addressing its Workers with an indictment of 'Over-production'!\nOver-production: runs it not so? \"Ye miscellaneous, ignoble\nmanufacturing individuals, ye have produced too much! We accuse you of\nmaking above two-hundred thousand shirts for the bare backs of\nmankind. Your trousers too, which you have made, of fustian, of\ncassimere, of Scotch-plaid, of jane, nankeen and woollen broadcloth,\nare they not manifold? Of hats for the human head, of shoes for the\nhuman foot, of stools to sit on, spoons to eat with--Nay, what say we\nhats or shoes? You produce gold-watches, jewelries, silver-forks, and\nepergnes, commodes, chiffoniers, stuffed sofas--Heavens, the\nCommercial Bazaar and multitudinous Howel-and-Jameses cannot contain\nyou. You have produced, produced;--he that seeks your indictment, let\nhim look around. Millions of shirts, and empty pairs of breeches, hang\nthere in judgment against you. We accuse you of over-producing: you\nare criminally guilty of producing shirts, breeches, hats, shoes and\ncommodities, in a frightful over-abundance. And now there is a glut,\nand your operatives cannot be fed!\"\n\nNever surely, against an earnest Working Mammonism was there brought,\nby Game-preserving aristocratic Dilettantism, a stranger accusation,\nsince this world began. My lords and gentlemen,--why, it was _you_\nthat were appointed, by the fact and by the theory of your position\non the Earth, to 'make and administer Laws,'--that is to say, in a\nworld such as ours, to guard against 'gluts;' against honest\noperatives, who had done their work, remaining unfed! I say, _you_\nwere appointed to preside over the Distribution and Apportionment of\nthe Wages of Work done; and to see well that there went no labourer\nwithout his hire, were it of money-coins, were it of hemp\ngallows-ropes: that function was yours, and from immemorial time has\nbeen; yours, and as yet no other's. These poor shirt-spinners have\nforgotten much, which by the virtual unwritten law of their position\nthey should have remembered: but by any written recognised law of\ntheir position, what have they forgotten? They were set to make\nshirts. The Community with all its voices commanded them, saying,\n\"Make shirts;\"--and there the shirts are! Too many shirts? Well, that\nis a novelty, in this intemperate Earth, with its nine-hundred\nmillions of bare backs! But the Community commanded you, saying, \"See\nthat the shirts are well apportioned, that our Human Laws be emblem of\nGod's Laws;\"--and where is the apportionment? Two million shirtless or\nill-shirted workers sit enchanted in Workhouse Bastilles, five million\nmore (according to some) in Ugolino Hunger-cellars; and for remedy,\nyou say,--what say you?--\"Raise _our_ rents!\" I have not in my time\nheard any stranger speech, not even on the Shores of the Dead Sea. You\ncontinue addressing those poor shirt-spinners and over-producers in\nreally a _too_ triumphant manner!\n\n\"Will you bandy accusations, will you accuse _us_ of over-production?\nWe take the Heavens and the Earth to witness that we have produced\nnothing at all. Not from us proceeds this frightful overplus of\nshirts. In the wide domains of created Nature circulates no shirt or\nthing of our producing. Certain fox-brushes nailed upon our\nstable-door, the fruit of fair audacity at Melton Mowbray; these we\nhave produced, and they are openly nailed up there. He that accuses us\nof producing, let him show himself, let him name what and when. We are\ninnocent of producing;--ye ungrateful, what mountains of things have\nwe not, on the contrary, had to 'consume' and make away with!\nMountains of those your heaped manufactures, wheresoever edible or\nwearable, have they not disappeared before us, as if we had the talent\nof ostriches, of cormorants, and a kind of divine faculty to eat? Ye\nungrateful!--and did you not grow under the shadow of our wings? Are\nnot your filthy mills built on these fields of ours; on this soil of\nEngland, which belongs to--whom think you? And we shall not offer you\nour own wheat at the price that pleases us, but that partly pleases\nyou? A precious notion! What would become of you, if we chose, at any\ntime, to decide on growing no wheat more?\"\n\nYes, truly, _here_ is the ultimate rock-basis of all Corn-Laws;\nwhereon, at the bottom of much arguing, they rest, as securely as they\ncan: What would become of you, if we decided, some day, on growing no\nmore wheat at all? If we chose to grow only partridges henceforth, and\na modicum of wheat for our own uses? Cannot we do what we like with\nour own?--Yes, indeed! For my share, if I could melt Gneiss Rock, and\ncreate Law of Gravitation; if I could stride out to the Doggerbank,\nsome morning, and striking down my trident there into the mud-waves,\nsay, \"Be land, be fields, meadows, mountains and fresh-rolling\nstreams!\" by Heaven, I should incline to have the letting of _that_\nland in perpetuity, and sell the wheat of it, or burn the wheat of it,\naccording to my own good judgment! My Corn-Lawing friends, you\naffright me.\n\nTo the 'Millo-cracy' so-called, to the Working Aristocracy, steeped\ntoo deep in mere ignoble Mammonism, and as yet all unconscious of its\nnoble destinies, as yet but an irrational or semi-rational giant,\nstruggling to awake some soul in itself,--the world will have much to\nsay, reproachfully, reprovingly, admonishingly. But to the Idle\nAristocracy, what will the world have to say? Things painful, and not\npleasant!\n\nTo the man who _works_, who attempts, in never so ungracious barbarous\na way, to get forward with some work, you will hasten out with\nfurtherances, with encouragements, corrections; you will say to him:\n\"Welcome; thou art ours; our care shall be of thee.\" To the Idler,\nagain, never so gracefully going idle, coming forward with never so\nmany parchments, you will not hasten out; you will sit still, and be\ndisinclined to rise. You will say to him: \"Not welcome, O complex\nAnomaly; would thou hadst stayed out of doors: for who of mortals\nknows what to do with thee? Thy parchments: yes, they are old, of\nvenerable yellowness; and we too honour parchment, old-established\nsettlements, and venerable use-and-wont. Old parchments in very\ntruth:--yet on the whole, if thou wilt remark, they are young to the\nGranite Rocks, to the Groundplan of God's Universe! We advise thee to\nput up thy parchments; to go home to thy place, and make no needless\nnoise whatever. Our heart's wish is to save thee: yet there as thou\nart, hapless Anomaly, with nothing but thy yellow parchments, noisy\nfutilities, and shotbelts and fox-brushes, who of gods or men can\navert dark Fate? Be counselled, ascertain if no work exist for thee on\nGod's Earth; if thou find no commanded-duty there but that of going\ngracefully idle? Ask, inquire earnestly, with a half-frantic\nearnestness; for the answer means Existence or Annihilation to thee.\nWe apprise thee of the world-old fact, becoming sternly disclosed\nagain in these days, That he who cannot work in this Universe cannot\nget existed in it: had he parchments to thatch the face of the world,\nthese, combustible fallible sheepskin, cannot avail him. Home, thou\nunfortunate; and let us have at least no noise from thee!\"\n\nSuppose the unfortunate Idle Aristocracy, as the unfortunate Working\none has done, were to 'retire three days to _its_ bed,' and consider\nitself there, what o'clock it had become?--\n\nHow have we to regret not only that men have 'no religion,' but that\nthey have next to no reflection: and go about with heads full of mere\nextraneous noises, with eyes wide-open but visionless,--for most part\nin the somnambulist state!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nUNWORKING ARISTOCRACY.\n\n\nIt is well said, 'Land is the right basis of an Aristocracy;' whoever\npossesses the Land, he, more emphatically than any other, is the\nGovernor, Viceking of the people on the Land. It is in these days as\nit was in those of Henry Plantagenet and Abbot Samson; as it will in\nall days be. The Land is _Mother_ of us all; nourishes, shelters,\ngladdens, lovingly enriches us all; in how many ways, from our first\nwakening to our last sleep on her blessed mother-bosom, does she, as\nwith blessed mother-arms, enfold us all!\n\nThe Hill I first saw the Sun rise over, when the Sun and I and all\nthings were yet in their auroral hour, who can divorce me from it?\nMystic, deep as the world's centre, are the roots I have struck into\nmy Native Soil; no _tree_ that grows is rooted so. From noblest\nPatriotism to humblest industrial Mechanism; from highest dying for\nyour country, to lowest quarrying and coal-boring for it, a Nation's\nLife depends upon its Land. Again and again we have to say, there can\nbe no true Aristocracy but must possess the Land.\n\nMen talk of 'selling' Land. Land, it is true, like Epic Poems and even\nhigher things, in such a trading world, has to be presented in the\nmarket for what it will bring, and as we say be 'sold:' but the notion\nof 'selling,' for certain bits of metal, the _Iliad_ of Homer, how\nmuch more the _Land_ of the World-Creator, is a ridiculous\nimpossibility! We buy what is saleable of it; nothing more was ever\nbuyable. Who can or could sell it to us? Properly speaking, the Land\nbelongs to these two: To the Almighty God; and to all His Children of\nMen that have ever worked well on it, or that shall ever work well on\nit. No generation of men can or could, with never such solemnity and\neffort, sell Land on any other principle: it is not the property of\nany generation, we say, but that of all the past generations that have\nworked on it, and of all the future ones that shall work on it.\n\nAgain, we hear it said, The soil of England, or of any country, is\nproperly worth nothing, except 'the labour bestowed on it.' This,\nspeaking even in the language of Eastcheap, is not correct. The rudest\nspace of country equal in extent to England, could a whole English\nNation, with all their habitudes, arrangements, skills, with\nwhatsoever they do carry within the skins of them and cannot be stript\nof, suddenly take wing and alight on it,--would be worth a very\nconsiderable thing! Swiftly, within year and day, this English Nation,\nwith its multiplex talents of ploughing, spinning, hammering, mining,\nroad-making and trafficking, would bring a handsome value out of such\na space of country. On the other hand, fancy what an English Nation,\nonce 'on the wing,' could have done with itself, had there been simply\nno soil, not even an inarable one, to alight on? Vain all its talents\nfor ploughing, hammering, and whatever else; there is no Earth-room\nfor this Nation with its talents: this Nation will have to _keep_\nhovering on the wing, dolefully shrieking to and fro; and perish\npiecemeal; burying itself, down to the last soul of it, in the waste\nunfirmamented seas. Ah yes, soil, with or without ploughing, is the\ngift of God. The soil of all countries belongs evermore, in a very\nconsiderable degree, to the Almighty Maker! The last stroke of labour\nbestowed on it is not the making of its value, but only the\nincreasing thereof.\n\nIt is very strange, the degree to which these truisms are forgotten in\nour days; how, in the ever-whirling chaos of Formulas, we have quietly\nlost sight of Fact,--which it is so perilous not to keep forever in\nsight. Fact, if we do not see it, will make us _feel_ it by and\nby!--From much loud controversy, and Corn-Law debating there rises,\nloud though inarticulate, once more in these years, this very question\namong others, Who made the Land of England? Who made it, this\nrespectable English Land, wheat-growing, metalliferous, carboniferous,\nwhich will let readily hand over head for seventy millions or upwards,\nas it here lies: who did make it?--\"We!\" answer the much-_consuming_\nAristocracy; \"We!\" as they ride in, moist with the sweat of Melton\nMowbray: \"It is we that made it; or are the heirs, assigns and\nrepresentatives of those who did!\"--My brothers, You? Everlasting\nhonour to you, then; and Corn-Laws as many as you will, till your own\ndeep stomachs cry Enough, or some voice of Human pity for our famine\nbids you Hold! Ye are as gods, that can create soil. Soil-creating\ngods there is no withstanding. They have the might to sell wheat at\nwhat price they list; and the right, to all lengths, and\nfamine-lengths,--if they be pitiless infernal gods! Celestial gods, I\nthink, would stop short of the famine-price; but no infernal nor any\nkind of god can be bidden stop!----Infatuated mortals, into what\nquestions are you driving every thinking man in England?\n\nI say, you did _not_ make the Land of England; and, by the possession\nof it, you _are_ bound to furnish guidance and governance to England!\nThat is the law of your position on this God's-Earth; an everlasting\nact of Heaven's Parliament, not repealable in St. Stephen's or\nelsewhere! True government and guidance; not no-government and\nLaissez-faire; how much less, _mis_-government and Corn-Law! There is\nnot an imprisoned Worker looking out from these Bastilles but appeals,\nvery audibly in Heaven's High Courts, against you, and me, and\neveryone who is not imprisoned, \"Why am I here?\" His appeal is audible\nin Heaven; and will become audible enough on Earth too, if it remain\nunheeded here. His appeal is against you, foremost of all; you stand\nin the front-rank of the accused; you, by the very place you hold,\nhave first of all to answer him and Heaven!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat looks maddest, miserablest in these mad and miserable Corn-Laws\nis independent altogether of their 'effect on wages,' their effect on\n'increase of trade,' or any other such effect: it is the continual\nmaddening proof they protrude into the faces of all men, that our\nGoverning Class, called by God and Nature and the inflexible law of\nFact, either to do something towards governing, or to die and be\nabolished,--have not yet learned even to sit still and do no mischief!\nFor no Anti-Corn-Law League yet asks more of them than this;--Nature\nand Fact, very imperatively, asking so much more of them.\nAnti-Corn-Law League asks not, Do something; but, Cease your\ndestructive misdoing, Do ye nothing!\n\nNature's message will have itself obeyed: messages of mere Free-Trade,\nAnti-Corn-Law League and Laissez-faire, will then need small\nobeying!--Ye fools, in name of Heaven, work, work, at the Ark of\nDeliverance for yourselves and us, while hours are still granted you!\nNo: instead of working at the Ark, they say, \"We cannot get our hands\nkept rightly warm;\" and _sit obstinately burning the planks_. No\nmadder spectacle at present exhibits itself under this Sun.\n\nThe Working Aristocracy; Mill-owners, Manufacturers, Commanders of\nWorking Men: alas, against them also much shall be brought in\naccusation; much,--and the freest Trade in Corn, total abolition of\nTariffs, and uttermost 'Increase of Manufactures' and 'Prosperity of\nCommerce,' will permanently mend no jot of it. The Working Aristocracy\nmust strike into a new path; must understand that money alone is _not_\nthe representative either of man's success in the world, or of man's\nduties to man; and reform their own selves from top to bottom, if they\nwish England reformed. England will not be habitable long, unreformed.\n\nThe Working Aristocracy--Yes, but on the threshold of all this, it is\nagain and again to be asked, What of the Idle Aristocracy? Again and\nagain, What shall we say of the Idle Aristocracy, the Owners of the\nSoil of England; whose recognised function is that of handsomely\nconsuming the rents of England, shooting the partridges of England,\nand as an agreeable amusement (if the purchase-money and other\nconveniences serve), dilettante-ing in Parliament and Quarter-Sessions\nfor England? We will say mournfully, in the presence of Heaven and\nEarth,--that we stand speechless, stupent, and know not what to say!\nThat a class of men entitled to live sumptuously on the marrow of the\nearth; permitted simply, nay entreated, and as yet entreated in vain,\nto do nothing at all in return, was never heretofore seen on the face\nof this Planet. That such a class is transitory, exceptional, and,\nunless Nature's Laws fall dead, cannot continue. That it has continued\nnow a moderate while; has, for the last fifty years, been rapidly\nattaining its state of perfection. That it will have to find its\nduties and do them; or else that it must and will cease to be seen on\nthe face of this Planet, which is a Working one, not an Idle one.\n\nAlas, alas, the Working Aristocracy, admonished by Trades-unions,\nChartist conflagrations, above all by their own shrewd sense kept in\nperpetual communion with the fact of things, will assuredly reform\nthemselves, and a working world will still be possible:--but the fate\nof the Idle Aristocracy, as one reads its horoscope hitherto in\nCorn-Laws and suchlike, is an abyss that fills one with despair. Yes,\nmy rosy fox-hunting brothers, a terrible _Hippocratic look_ reveals\nitself (God knows, not to my joy) through those fresh buxom\ncountenances of yours. Through your Corn-Law Majorities,\nSliding-Scales, Protecting-Duties, Bribery-Elections, and triumphant\nKentish-fire, a thinking eye discerns ghastly images of ruin, too\nghastly for words; a handwriting as of Mene, Mene. Men and brothers,\non your Sliding-scale you seem sliding, and to have slid,--you little\nknow whither! Good God! did not a French Donothing Aristocracy, hardly\nabove half a century ago, declare in like manner, and in its\nfeatherhead believe in like manner, \"We cannot exist, and continue to\ndress and parade ourselves, on the just rent of the soil of France;\nbut we must have farther payment than rent of the soil, we must be\nexempted from taxes too,\"--we must have a Corn-Law to extend our rent?\nThis was in 1789: in four years more--Did you look into the Tanneries\nof Meudon, and the long-naked making for themselves breeches of human\nskins! May the merciful Heavens avert the omen; may we be wiser, that\nso we be less wretched.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA High Class without duties to do is like a tree planted on\nprecipices; from the roots of which all the earth has been crumbling.\nNature owns no man who is not a Martyr withal. Is there a man who\npretends to live luxuriously housed up; screened from all work, from\nwant, danger, hardship, the victory over which is what we name\nwork--he himself to sit serene, amid down-bolsters and appliances, and\nhave all his work and battling done by other men? And such man calls\nhimself a _noble_-man? His fathers worked for him, he says; or\nsuccessfully gambled for him: here _he_ sits; professes, not in sorrow\nbut in pride, that he and his have done no work, time out of mind. It\nis the law of the land, and is thought to be the law of the Universe,\nthat he, alone of recorded men, shall have no task laid on him, except\nthat of eating his cooked victuals, and not flinging himself out of\nwindow. Once more I will say, there was no stranger spectacle ever\nshown under this Sun. A veritable fact in our England of the\nNineteenth Century. His victuals he does eat: but as for keeping in\nthe inside of the window,--have not his friends, like me, enough to\ndo? Truly, looking at his Corn-Laws, Game-Laws, Chandos-Clauses,\nBribery-Elections and much else, you do shudder over the tumbling and\nplunging he makes, held back by the lapels and coatskirts; only a thin\nfence of window-glass before him,--and in the street mere horrid iron\nspikes! My sick brother, as in hospital-maladies men do, thou dreamest\nof Paradises and Eldorados, which are far from thee. 'Cannot I do what\nI like with my own?' Gracious Heaven, my brother, this that thou seest\nwith those sick eyes is no firm Eldorado, and Corn-Law Paradise of\nDonothings, but a dream of thy own fevered brain. It is a\nglass-window, I tell thee, so many stories from the street; where are\niron spikes and the law of gravitation!\n\nWhat is the meaning of nobleness, if this be 'noble'? In a valiant\nsuffering for others, not in a slothful making others suffer for us,\ndid nobleness ever lie. The chief of men is he who stands in the van\nof men; fronting the peril which frightens back all others; which, if\nit be not vanquished, will devour the others. Every noble crown is,\nand on Earth will forever be, a crown of thorns. The Pagan Hercules,\nwhy was he accounted a hero? Because he had slain Nemean Lions,\ncleansed Augean Stables, undergone Twelve Labours only not too heavy\nfor a god. In modern, as in ancient and all societies, the\nAristocracy, they that assume the functions of an Aristocracy, doing\nthem or not, have taken the post of honour; which is the post of\ndifficulty, the post of danger,--of death, if the difficulty be not\novercome. _Il faut payer de sa vie._ Why was our life given us, if not\nthat we should manfully give it? Descend, O Donothing Pomp; quit thy\ndown-cushions; expose thyself to learn what wretches feel, and how to\ncure it! The Czar of Russia became a dusty toiling shipwright; worked\nwith his axe in the Docks of Saardam; and his aim was small to thine.\nDescend thou: undertake this horrid 'living chaos of Ignorance and\nHunger' weltering round thy feet; say, \"I will heal it, or behold I\nwill die foremost in it.\" Such is verily the law. Everywhere and\neverywhen a man has to '_pay_ with his life;' to do his work, as a\nsoldier does, at the expense of life. In no Piepowder earthly Court\ncan you sue an Aristocracy to do its work, at this moment: but in the\nHigher Court, which even _it_ calls 'Court of Honour,' and which is\nthe Court of Necessity withal, and the eternal Court of the Universe,\nin which all Fact comes to plead, and every Human Soul is an\napparitor,--the Aristocracy is answerable, and even now answering,\n_there_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nParchments? Parchments are venerable: but they ought at all times to\nrepresent, as near as they by possibility can, the writing of the\nAdamant Tablets; otherwise they are not so venerable! Benedict the Jew\nin vain pleaded parchments; his usuries were too many. The King said,\n\"Go to, for all thy parchments, thou shalt pay just debt; down with\nthy dust, or observe this tooth-forceps!\" Nature, a far juster\nSovereign, has far terribler forceps. Aristocracies, actual and\nimaginary, reach a time when parchment pleading does not avail them.\n\"Go to, for all thy parchments, thou shalt pay due debt!\" shouts the\nUniverse to them, in an emphatic manner. They refuse to pay,\nconfidently pleading parchment: their best grinder-tooth, with\nhorrible agony, goes out of their jaw. Wilt thou pay now? A second\ngrinder, again in horrible agony, goes: a second, and a third, and if\nneed be, all the teeth and grinders, and the life itself with\nthem;--and _then_ there is free payment, and an anatomist-subject into\nthe bargain!\n\nReform Bills, Corn-Law Abrogation Bills, and then Land-Tax Bill,\nProperty-Tax Bill, and still dimmer list of _etceteras_; grinder after\ngrinder:--my lords and gentlemen, it were better for you to arise and\nbegin doing your work, than sit there and plead parchments!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe write no Chapter on the Corn-Laws, in this place; the Corn-Laws are\ntoo mad to have a Chapter. There is a certain immorality, when there\nis not a necessity, in speaking about things finished; in chopping\ninto small pieces the already slashed and slain. When the brains are\nout, why does not a Solecism die? It is at its own peril if it refuse\nto die; it ought to make all conceivable haste to die, and get itself\nburied! The trade of Anti-Corn-Law Lecturer in these days, still an\nindispensable, is a highly tragic one.\n\nThe Corn-Laws will go, and even soon go: would we were all as sure of\nthe Millennium as they are of going! They go swiftly in these present\nmonths; with an increase of velocity, an ever-deepening,\never-widening sweep of momentum, truly notable. It is at the\nAristocracy's own damage and peril, still more than at any other's\nwhatsoever, that the Aristocracy maintains them;--at a damage, say\nonly, as above computed, of a 'hundred thousand pounds an hour'! The\nCorn-Laws keep all the air hot: fostered by their fever-warmth, much\nthat is evil, but much also, how much that is good and indispensable,\nis rapidly coming to life among us!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nWORKING ARISTOCRACY.\n\n\nA poor Working Mammonism getting itself 'strangled in the\npartridge-nets of an Unworking Dilettantism,' and bellowing\ndreadfully, and already black in the face, is surely a disastrous\nspectacle! But of a Midas-eared Mammonism, which indeed at bottom all\npure Mammonisms are, what better can you expect? No better;--if not\nthis, then something other equally disastrous, if not still more\ndisastrous. Mammonisms, grown asinine, have to become human again, and\nrational; they have, on the whole, to cease to be Mammonisms, were it\neven on compulsion, and pressure of the hemp round their neck!--My\nfriends of the Working Aristocracy, there are now a great many things\nwhich you also, in your extreme need, will have to consider.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Continental people, it would seem, are 'exporting our machinery,\nbeginning to spin cotton and manufacture for themselves, to cut us out\nof this market and then out of that!' Sad news indeed; but\nirremediable;--by no means the saddest news. The saddest news is, that\nwe should find our National Existence, as I sometimes hear it said,\ndepend on selling manufactured cotton at a farthing an ell cheaper\nthan any other People. A most narrow stand for a great Nation to base\nitself on! A stand which, with all the Corn-Law Abrogations\nconceivable, I do not think will be capable of enduring.\n\nMy friends, suppose we quitted that stand; suppose we came honestly\ndown from it, and said: \"This is our minimum of cotton-prices. We care\nnot, for the present, to make cotton any cheaper. Do you, if it seem\nso blessed to you, make cotton cheaper. Fill your lungs with\ncotton-fuzz, your hearts with copperas-fumes, with rage and mutiny;\nbecome ye the general gnomes of Europe, slaves of the lamp!\"--I admire\na Nation which fancies it will die if it do not undersell all other\nNations, to the end of the world. Brothers, we will cease to\n_under_sell them; we will be content to _equal_-sell them; to be happy\nselling equally with them! I do not see the use of underselling them.\nCotton-cloth is already two-pence a yard or lower; and yet bare backs\nwere never more numerous among us. Let inventive men cease to spend\ntheir existence incessantly contriving how cotton can be made cheaper;\nand try to invent, a little, how cotton at its present cheapness could\nbe somewhat justlier divided among us. Let inventive men consider,\nWhether the Secret of this Universe, and of Man's Life there, does,\nafter all, as we rashly fancy it, consist in making money? There is\nOne God, just, supreme, almighty: but is Mammon the name of him?--With\na Hell which means 'Failing to make money,' I do not think there is\nany Heaven possible that would suit one well; nor so much as an Earth\nthat can be habitable long! In brief, all this Mammon-Gospel, of\nSupply-and-demand, Competition, Laissez-faire, and Devil take the\nhindmost, begins to be one of the shabbiest Gospels ever preached; or\naltogether the shabbiest. Even with Dilettante partridge-nets, and at\na horrible expenditure of pain, who shall regret to see the entirely\ntransient, and at best somewhat despicable life strangled out of _it_?\nAt the best, as we say, a somewhat despicable, unvenerable thing, this\nsame 'Laissez-faire;' and now, at the _worst_, fast growing an\naltogether detestable one!\n\n\"But what is to be done with our manufacturing population, with our\nagricultural, with our ever-increasing population?\" cry many.--Ay,\nwhat? Many things can be done with them, a hundred things, and a\nthousand things,--had we once got a soul, and begun to try. This one\nthing, of doing for them by 'underselling all people,' and filling our\nown bursten pockets and appetites by the road; and turning over all\ncare for any 'population,' or human or divine consideration except\ncash only, to the winds, with a \"Laissez-faire\" and the rest of it:\nthis is evidently not the thing. Farthing cheaper per yard? No great\nNation can stand on the apex of such a pyramid; screwing itself higher\nand higher; balancing itself on its great-toe! Can England not subsist\nwithout being _above_ all people in working? England never\ndeliberately purposed such a thing. If England work better than all\npeople, it shall be well. England, like an honest worker, will work as\nwell as she can; and hope the gods may allow her to live on that\nbasis. Laissez-faire and much else being once well dead, how many\n'impossibles' will become possible! They are impossible, as\ncotton-cloth at two-pence an ell was--till men set about making it.\nThe inventive genius of great England will not forever sit patient\nwith mere wheels and pinions, bobbins, straps and billy-rollers\nwhirring in the head of it. The inventive genius of England is not a\nBeaver's, or a Spinner's or Spider's genius: it is a _Man's_ genius, I\nhope, with a God over him!\n\nLaissez-faire, Supply-and-demand,--one begins to be weary of all that.\nLeave all to egoism, to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure, of\napplause:--it is the Gospel of Despair! Man _is_ a Patent-Digester,\nthen: only give him Free Trade, Free digesting-room; and each of us\ndigest what he can come at, leaving the rest to Fate! My unhappy\nbrethren of the Working Mammonism, my unhappier brethren of the Idle\nDilettantism, no world was ever held together in that way for long. A\nworld of mere Patent-Digesters will soon have nothing to digest: such\nworld ends, and by Law of Nature must end, in 'over-population;' in\nhowling universal famine, 'impossibility,' and suicidal madness, as of\nendless dog-kennels run rabid. Supply-and-demand shall do its full\npart, and Free Trade shall be free as air;--thou of the shotbelts, see\nthou forbid it not, with those paltry, _worse_ than Mammonish\nswindleries and Sliding-scales of thine, which are seen to be\nswindleries for all thy canting, which in times like ours are very\nscandalous to see! And Trade never so well freed, and all Tariffs\nsettled or abolished, and Supply-and-demand in full operation,--let us\nall know that we have yet done nothing; that we have merely cleared\nthe ground for doing.\n\nYes, were the Corn-Laws ended tomorrow, there is nothing yet ended;\nthere is only room made for all manner of things beginning. The\nCorn-Laws gone, and Trade made free, it is as good as certain this\nparalysis of industry will pass away. We shall have another period of\ncommercial enterprise, of victory and prosperity; during which, it is\nlikely, much money will again be made, and all the people may, by the\nextant methods, still for a space of years, be kept alive and\nphysically fed. The strangling band of Famine will be loosened from\nour necks; we shall have room again to breathe; time to bethink\nourselves, to repent and consider! A precious and thrice-precious\nspace of years; wherein to struggle as for life in reforming our foul\nways; in alleviating, instructing, regulating our people; seeking, as\nfor life, that something like spiritual food be imparted them, some\nreal governance and guidance be provided them! It will be a priceless\ntime. For our new period or paroxysm of commercial prosperity will and\ncan, on the old methods of 'Competition and Devil take the hindmost,'\nprove but a paroxysm: a new paroxysm,--likely enough, if we do not use\nit better, to be our _last_. In this, of itself, is no salvation. If\nour Trade in twenty years, 'flourishing' as never Trade flourished,\ncould double itself; yet then also, by the old Laissez-faire method,\nour Population is doubled: we shall then be as we are, only twice as\nmany of us, twice and ten times as unmanageable!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll this dire misery, therefore; all this of our poor Workhouse\nWorkmen, of our Chartisms, Trades-strikes, Corn-Laws, Toryisms, and\nthe general downbreak of Laissez-faire in these days,--may we not\nregard it as a voice from the dumb bosom of Nature, saying to us:\n\"Behold! Supply-and-demand is not the one Law of Nature; Cash-payment\nis not the sole nexus of man with man,--how far from it! Deep, far\ndeeper than Supply-and-demand, are Laws, Obligations sacred as Man's\nLife itself: these also, if you will continue to do work, you shall\nnow learn and obey. He that will learn them, behold Nature is on his\nside, he shall yet work and prosper with noble rewards. He that will\nnot learn them, Nature is against him, he shall not be able to do work\nin Nature's empire,--not in hers. Perpetual mutiny, contention,\nhatred, isolation, execration shall wait on his footsteps, till all\nmen discern that the thing which he attains, however golden it look or\nbe, is not success, but the want of success.\"\n\nSupply-and-demand,--alas! For what noble work was there ever yet any\naudible 'demand' in that poor sense? The man of Macedonia, speaking in\nvision to an Apostle Paul, \"Come over and help us,\" did not specify\nwhat rate of wages he would give! Or was the Christian Religion itself\naccomplished by Prize-Essays, Bridgwater Bequests, and a 'minimum of\nFour thousand five hundred a year'? No demand that I heard of was made\nthen, audible in any Labour-market, Manchester Chamber of Commerce, or\nother the like emporium and hiring establishment; silent were all\nthese from any whisper of such demand;--powerless were all these to\n'supply' it, had the demand been in thunder and earthquake, with gold\nEldorados and Mahometan Paradises for the reward. Ah me, into what\nwaste latitudes, in this Time-Voyage, have we wandered; like\nadventurous Sindbads;--where the men go about as if by galvanism, with\nmeaningless glaring eyes, and have no soul, but only a beaver-faculty\nand stomach! The haggard despair of Cotton-factory, Coal-mine\noperatives, Chandos Farm-labourers, in these days, is painful to\nbehold; but not so painful, hideous to the inner sense, as that\nbrutish godforgetting Profit-and-Loss Philosophy and Life-theory,\nwhich we hear jangled on all hands of us, in senate-houses,\nspouting-clubs, leading-articles, pulpits and platforms, everywhere as\nthe Ultimate Gospel and candid Plain-English of Man's Life, from the\nthroats and pens and thoughts of all-but all men!--\n\nEnlightened Philosophies, like Moliere Doctors, will tell you:\n\"Enthusiasms, Self-sacrifice, Heaven, Hell and suchlike: yes, all that\nwas true enough for old stupid times; all that used to be true: but we\nhave changed all that, _nous avons change tout cela_!\" Well; if the\nheart be got round now into the right side, and the liver to the left;\nif man have no heroism in him deeper than the wish to eat, and in his\nsoul there dwell now no Infinite of Hope and Awe, and no divine\nSilence can become imperative because it is not Sinai Thunder, and no\ntie will bind if it be not that of Tyburn gallows-ropes,--then verily\nyou have changed all that; and for it, and for you, and for me, behold\nthe Abyss and nameless Annihilation is ready. So scandalous a beggarly\nUniverse deserves indeed nothing else; I cannot say I would save it\nfrom Annihilation. Vacuum, and the serene Blue, will be much\nhandsomer; easier too for all of us. I, for one, decline living as a\nPatent-Digester. Patent-Digester, Spinning-Mule, Mayfair\nClothes-Horse: many thanks, but your Chaosships will have the goodness\nto excuse me!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nPLUGSON OF UNDERSHOT.\n\n\nOne thing I do know: Never, on this Earth, was the relation of man to\nman long carried on by Cash-payment alone. If, at any time, a\nphilosophy of Laissez-faire, Competition and Supply-and-demand, start\nup as the exponent of human relations, expect that it will soon end.\n\nSuch philosophies will arise: for man's philosophies are usually the\n'supplement of his practice;' some ornamental Logic-varnish, some\nouter skin of Articulate Intelligence, with which he strives to render\nhis dumb Instinctive Doings presentable when they are done. Such\nphilosophies will arise; be preached as Mammon-Gospels, the ultimate\nEvangel of the World; be believed, with what is called belief, with\nmuch superficial bluster, and a kind of shallow satisfaction real in\nits way:--but they are ominous gospels! They are the sure, and even\nswift, forerunner of great changes. Expect that the old System of\nSociety is done, is dying and fallen into dotage, when it begins to\nrave in that fashion. Most Systems that I have watched the death of,\nfor the last three thousand years, have gone just so. The Ideal, the\nTrue and Noble that was in them having faded out, and nothing now\nremaining but naked Egoism, vulturous Greediness, they cannot live;\nthey are bound and inexorably ordained by the oldest Destinies,\nMothers of the Universe, to die. Curious enough: they thereupon,\nas I have pretty generally noticed, devise some light comfortable\nkind of 'wine-and-walnuts philosophy' for themselves, this\nof Supply-and-demand or another; and keep saying, during hours\nof mastication and rumination, which they call hours of\nmeditation: \"Soul, take thy ease; it is all _well_ that thou art a\nvulture-soul;\"--and pangs of dissolution come upon them, oftenest\nbefore they are aware!\n\nCash-payment never was, or could except for a few years be, the\nunion-bond of man to man. Cash never yet paid one man fully his\ndeserts to another; nor could it, nor can it, now or henceforth to the\nend of the world. I invite his Grace of Castle-Rackrent to reflect on\nthis;--does he think that a Land Aristocracy when it becomes a Land\nAuctioneership can have long to live? Or that Sliding-scales will\nincrease the vital stamina of it? The indomitable Plugson too, of the\nrespected Firm of Plugson, Hunks and Company, in St. Dolly Undershot,\nis invited to reflect on this; for to him also it will be new, perhaps\neven newer. Book-keeping by double entry is admirable, and records\nseveral things in an exact manner. But the Mother-Destinies also keep\ntheir Tablets; in Heaven's Chancery also there goes on a recording;\nand things, as my Moslem friends say, are 'written on the iron leaf.'\n\nYour Grace and Plugson, it is like, go to Church occasionally: did you\nnever in vacant moments, with perhaps a dull parson droning to you,\nglance into your New Testament, and the cash-account stated four times\nover, by a kind of quadruple entry,--in the Four Gospels there? I\nconsider that a cash-account, and balance-statement of work done and\nwages paid, worth attending to. Precisely _such_, though on a smaller\nscale, go on at all moments under this Sun; and the statement and\nbalance of them in the Plugson Ledgers and on the Tablets of Heaven's\nChancery are discrepant exceedingly;--which ought really to teach, and\nto have long since taught, an indomitable common-sense Plugson of\nUndershot, much more an unattackable _un_common-sense Grace of\nRackrent, a thing or two!--In brief, we shall have to dismiss the\nCash-Gospel rigorously into its own place: we shall have to know, on\nthe threshold, that either there is some infinitely deeper Gospel,\nsubsidiary, explanatory and daily and hourly corrective, to the Cash\none; or else that the Cash one itself and all others are fast\ntravelling!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor all human things do require to have an Ideal in them; to have some\nSoul in them, as we said, were it only to keep the Body unputrefied.\nAnd wonderful it is to see how the Ideal or Soul, place it in what\nugliest Body you may, will irradiate said Body with its own nobleness;\nwill gradually, incessantly, mould, modify, new-form or reform said\nugliest Body, and make it at last beautiful, and to a certain degree\ndivine!--Oh, if you could dethrone that Brute-god Mammon, and put a\nSpirit-god in his place! One way or other, he must and will have to be\ndethroned.\n\nFighting, for example, as I often say to myself, Fighting with steel\nmurder-tools is surely a much uglier operation than Working, take it\nhow you will. Yet even of Fighting, in religious Abbot Samson's days,\nsee what a Feudalism there had grown,--a 'glorious Chivalry,' much\nbesung down to the present day. Was not that one of the 'impossiblest'\nthings? Under the sky is no uglier spectacle than two men with\nclenched teeth, and hell-fire eyes, hacking one another's flesh;\nconverting precious living bodies, and priceless living souls, into\nnameless masses of putrescence, useful only for turnip-manure. How did\na Chivalry ever come out of that; how anything that was not hideous,\nscandalous, infernal? It will be a question worth considering by and\nby.\n\nI remark, for the present, only two things: first, that the Fighting\nitself was not, as we rashly suppose it, a Fighting without cause, but\nmore or less with cause. Man is created to fight; he is perhaps best\nof all definable as a born soldier; his life 'a battle and a march,'\nunder the right General. It is forever indispensable for a man to\nfight: now with Necessity, with Barrenness, Scarcity, with Puddles,\nBogs, tangled Forests, unkempt Cotton;--now also with the\nhallucinations of his poor fellow Men. Hallucinatory visions rise in\nthe head of my poor fellow man; make him claim over me rights which\nare not his. All Fighting, as we noticed long ago, is the dusty\nconflict of strengths, each thinking itself the strongest, or, in\nother words, the justest;--of Mights which do in the long-run, and\nforever will in this just Universe in the long-run, mean Rights. In\nconflict the perishable part of them, beaten sufficiently, flies off\ninto dust: this process ended, appears the imperishable, the true and\nexact.\n\nAnd now let us remark a second thing: how, in these baleful\noperations, a noble devout-hearted Chevalier will comport himself, and\nan ignoble godless Bucanier and Chactaw Indian. Victory is the aim of\neach. But deep in the heart of the noble man it lies forever legible,\nthat as an Invisible Just God made him, so will and must God's Justice\nand this only, were it never so invisible, ultimately prosper in all\ncontroversies and enterprises and battles whatsoever. What an\nInfluence; ever-present,--like a Soul in the rudest Caliban of a body;\nlike a ray of Heaven, and illuminative creative _Fiat-Lux_, in the\nwastest terrestrial Chaos! Blessed divine Influence, traceable even in\nthe horror of Battlefields and garments rolled in blood: how it\nennobles even the Battlefield; and, in place of a Chactaw Massacre,\nmakes it a Field of Honour! A Battlefield too is great. Considered\nwell, it is a kind of Quintessence of Labour; Labour distilled into\nits utmost concentration; the significance of years of it compressed\ninto an hour. Here too thou shalt be strong, and not in muscle only,\nif thou wouldst prevail. Here too thou shalt be strong of heart, noble\nof soul; thou shalt dread no pain or death, thou shalt not love ease\nor life; in rage, thou shalt remember mercy, justice;--thou shalt be a\nKnight and not a Chactaw, if thou wouldst prevail! It is the rule of\nall battles, against hallucinating fellow Men, against unkempt Cotton,\nor whatsoever battles they may be, which a man in this world has to\nfight.\n\nHowel Davies dyes the West-Indian Seas with blood, piles his decks\nwith plunder; approves himself the expertest Seaman, the daringest\nSeafighter: but he gains no lasting victory, lasting victory is not\npossible for him. Not, had he fleets larger than the combined British\nNavy all united with him in bucaniering. He, once for all, cannot\nprosper in his duel. He strikes down his man: yes; but his man, or his\nman's representative, has no notion to lie struck down; neither,\nthough slain ten times, will he keep so lying;--nor has the Universe\nany notion to keep him so lying! On the contrary, the Universe and he\nhave, at all moments, all manner of motives to start up again, and\ndesperately fight again. Your Napoleon is flung out, at last, to St.\nHelena; the latter end of him sternly compensating the beginning. The\nBucanier strikes down a man, a hundred or a million men: but what\nprofits it? He has one enemy never to be struck down; nay two enemies:\nMankind and the Maker of Men. On the great scale or on the small, in\nfighting of men or fighting of difficulties, I will not embark my\nventure with Howel Davies: it is not the Bucanier, it is the Hero only\nthat can gain victory, that can do more than _seem_ to succeed. These\nthings will deserve meditating; for they apply to all battle and\nsoldiership, all struggle and effort whatsoever in this Fight of Life.\nIt is a poor Gospel, Cash-Gospel or whatever name it have, that does\nnot, with clear tone, uncontradictable, carrying conviction to all\nhearts, forever keep men in mind of these things.\n\nUnhappily, my indomitable friend Plugson of Undershot has, in a great\ndegree, forgotten them;--as, alas, all the world has; as, alas, our\nvery Dukes and Soul-Overseers have, whose special trade it was to\nremember them! Hence these tears.--Plugson, who has indomitably spun\nCotton merely to gain thousands of pounds, I have to call as yet a\nBucanier and Chactaw; till there come something better, still more\nindomitable from him. His hundred Thousand-pound Notes, if there be\nnothing other, are to me but as the hundred Scalps in a Chactaw\nwigwam. The blind Plugson: he was a Captain of Industry, born member\nof the Ultimate genuine Aristocracy of this Universe, could he have\nknown it! These thousand men that span and toiled round him, they were\na regiment whom he had enlisted, man by man; to make war on a very\ngenuine enemy: Bareness of back, and disobedient Cotton-fibre, which\nwill not, unless forced to it, consent to cover bare backs. Here is a\nmost genuine enemy; over whom all creatures will wish him victory. He\nenlisted his thousand men; said to them, \"Come, brothers, let us have\na dash at Cotton!\" They follow with cheerful shout; they gain such a\nvictory over Cotton as the Earth has to admire and clap hands at: but,\nalas, it is yet only of the Bucanier or Chactaw sort,--as good as no\nvictory! Foolish Plugson of St. Dolly Undershot: does he hope to\nbecome illustrious by hanging up the scalps in his wigwam, the hundred\nthousands at his banker's, and saying, Behold my scalps? Why, Plugson,\neven thy own host is all in mutiny: Cotton is conquered; but the 'bare\nbacks'--are worse covered than ever! Indomitable Plugson, thou must\ncease to be a Chactaw; thou and others; thou thyself, if no other!\n\nDid William the Norman Bastard, or any of his Taillefers,\n_Ironcutters_, manage so? Ironcutter, at the end of the campaign, did\nnot turn-off his thousand fighters, but said to them: \"Noble fighters,\nthis is the land we have gained; be I Lord in it,--what we will call\n_Law-ward_, maintainer and _keeper_ of Heaven's _Laws_: be I\n_Law-ward_, or in brief orthoepy _Lord_ in it, and be ye Loyal Men\naround me in it; and we will stand by one another, as soldiers round a\ncaptain, for again we shall have need of one another!\" Plugson,\nbucanier-like, says to them: \"Noble spinners, this is the Hundred\nThousand we have gained, wherein I mean to dwell and plant vineyards;\nthe hundred thousand is mine, the three and sixpence daily was yours:\nadieu, noble spinners; drink my health with this groat each, which I\ngive you over and above!\" The entirely unjust Captain of Industry, say\nI; not Chevalier, but Bucanier! 'Commercial Law' does indeed acquit\nhim; asks, with wide eyes, What else? So too Howel Davies asks, Was it\nnot according to the strictest Bucanier Custom? Did I depart in any\njot or tittle from the Laws of the Bucaniers?\n\nAfter all, money, as they say, is miraculous. Plugson wanted victory;\nas Chevaliers and Bucaniers, and all men alike do. He found money\nrecognised, by the whole world with one assent, as the true symbol,\nexact equivalent and synonym of victory;--and here we have him, a\ngrimbrowed, indomitable Bucanier, coming home to us with a 'victory,'\nwhich the whole world is _ceasing_ to clap hands at! The whole world,\ntaught somewhat impressively, is beginning to recognise that such\nvictory is but half a victory; and that now, if it please the Powers,\nwe must--have the other half!\n\nMoney is miraculous. What miraculous facilities has it yielded, will\nit yield us; but also what never-imagined confusions, obscurations has\nit brought in; down almost to total extinction of the moral-sense in\nlarge masses of mankind! 'Protection of property,' of what is\n'_mine_,' means with most men protection of money,--the thing which,\nhad I a thousand padlocks over it, is least of all _mine_; is, in a\nmanner, scarcely worth calling mine! The symbol shall be held sacred,\ndefended everywhere with tipstaves, ropes and gibbets; the thing\nsignified shall be composedly cast to the dogs. A human being who has\nworked with human beings clears all scores with them, cuts himself\nwith triumphant completeness forever loose from them, by paying down\ncertain shillings and pounds. Was it not the wages I promised you?\nThere they are, to the last sixpence,--according to the Laws of the\nBucaniers!--Yes, indeed;--and, at such times, it becomes imperatively\nnecessary to ask all persons, bucaniers and others, Whether these same\nrespectable Laws of the Bucaniers are written on God's eternal Heavens\nat all, on the inner Heart of Man at all; or on the respectable\nBucanier Logbook merely, for the convenience of bucaniering merely?\nWhat a question;--whereat Westminster Hall shudders to its driest\nparchment; and on the dead wigs each particular horsehair stands on\nend!\n\nThe Laws of Laissez-faire, O Westminster, the laws of industrial\nCaptain and industrial Soldier, how much more of idle Captain and\nindustrial Soldier, will need to be remodelled, and modified, and\nrectified in a hundred and a hundred ways,--and _not_ in the\nSliding-scale direction, but in the totally opposite one! With two\nmillion industrial Soldiers already sitting in Bastilles, and five\nmillion pining on potatoes, methinks Westminster cannot begin too\nsoon!--A man has other obligations laid on him, in God's Universe,\nthan the payment of cash: these also Westminster, if it will continue\nto exist and have board-wages, must contrive to take some charge\nof:--by Westminster or by another, they must and will be taken charge\nof; be, with whatever difficulty, got articulated, got enforced, and\nto a certain approximate extent put in practice. And, as I say, it\ncannot be too soon! For Mammonism, left to itself, has become\nMidas-eared; and with all its gold mountains, sits starving for want\nof bread: and Dilettantism with its partridge-nets, in this extremely\nearnest Universe of ours, is playing somewhat too high a game. 'A man\nby the very look of him promises so much:' yes; and by the rent-roll\nof him does he promise nothing?--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAlas, what a business will this be, which our Continental friends,\ngroping this long while somewhat absurdly about it and about it, call\n'Organisation of Labour;'--which must be taken out of the hands of\nabsurd windy persons, and put into the hands of wise, laborious,\nmodest and valiant men, to begin with it straightway; to proceed with\nit, and succeed in it more and more, if Europe, at any rate if\nEngland, is to continue habitable much longer. Looking at the kind of\nmost noble Corn-Law Dukes or Practical _Duces_ we have, and also of\nright reverend Soul-Overseers, Christian Spiritual _Duces_ 'on a\nminimum of four thousand five hundred,' one's hopes are a little\nchilled. Courage, nevertheless; there are many brave men in England!\nMy indomitable Plugson,--nay is there not even in thee some hope? Thou\nart hitherto a Bucanier, as it was written and prescribed for thee by\nan evil world: but in that grim brow, in that indomitable heart which\n_can_ conquer Cotton, do there not perhaps lie other ten-times nobler\nconquests?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nLABOUR.\n\n\nFor there is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in Work. Were\nhe never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always\nhope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in Idleness alone is\nthere perpetual despair. Work, never so Mammonish, mean, _is_ in\ncommunication with Nature; the real desire to get Work done will\nitself lead one more and more to truth, to Nature's appointments and\nregulations, which are truth.\n\nThe latest Gospel in this world is, Know thy work and do it. 'Know\nthyself:' long enough has that poor 'self' of thine tormented thee;\nthou wilt never get to 'know' it, I believe! Think it not thy\nbusiness, this of knowing thyself; thou art an unknowable individual:\nknow what thou canst work at; and work at it, like a Hercules! That\nwill be thy better plan.\n\nIt has been written, 'an endless significance lies in Work;' a man\nperfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared away, fair\nseedfields rise instead, and stately cities; and withal the man\nhimself first ceases to be a jungle and foul unwholesome desert\nthereby. Consider how, even, in the meanest sorts of Labour, the whole\nsoul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony, the instant he\nsets himself to work! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation,\nDespair itself, all these like helldogs lie beleaguering the soul of\nthe poor dayworker, as of every man: but he bends himself with free\nvalour against his task, and all these are stilled, all these shrink\nmurmuring far off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed\nglow of Labour in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all poison\nis burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is made bright blessed\nflame!\n\nDestiny, on the whole, has no other way of cultivating us. A formless\nChaos, once set it _revolving_, grows round and ever rounder; ranges\nitself, by mere force of gravity, into strata, spherical courses; is\nno longer a Chaos, but a round compacted World. What would become of\nthe Earth, did she cease to revolve? In the poor old Earth, so long as\nshe revolves, all inequalities, irregularities disperse themselves;\nall irregularities are incessantly becoming regular. Hast thou looked\non the Potter's wheel,--one of the venerablest objects; old as the\nProphet Ezechiel and far older? Rude lumps of clay, how they spin\nthemselves up, by mere quick whirling, into beautiful circular dishes.\nAnd fancy the most assiduous Potter, but without his wheel; reduced to\nmake dishes, or rather amorphous botches, by mere kneading and baking!\nEven such a Potter were Destiny, with a human soul that would rest and\nlie at ease, that would not work and spin! Of an idle unrevolving man\nthe kindest Destiny, like the most assiduous Potter without wheel, can\nbake and knead nothing other than a botch; let her spend on him what\nexpensive colouring, what gilding and enamelling she will, he is but a\nbotch. Not a dish; no, a bulging, kneaded, crooked, shambling,\nsquint-cornered, amorphous botch,--a mere enamelled vessel of\ndishonour! Let the idle think of this.\n\nBlessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other\nblessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, and will\nfollow it! How, as a free-flowing channel, dug and torn by noble\nforce through the sour mud-swamp of one's existence, like an\never-deepening river there, it runs and flows;--draining-off the sour\nfestering water, gradually from the root of the remotest grass-blade;\nmaking, instead of pestilential swamp, a green fruitful meadow with\nits clear-flowing stream. How blessed for the meadow itself, let the\nstream and _its_ value be great or small! Labour is Life: from the\ninmost heart of the Worker rises his god-given Force, the sacred\ncelestial Life-essence breathed into him by Almighty God; from his\ninmost heart awakens him to all nobleness,--to all knowledge,\n'self-knowledge' and much else, so soon as Work fitly begins.\nKnowledge? The knowledge that will hold good in working, cleave thou\nto that; for Nature herself accredits that, says Yea to that. Properly\nthou hast no other knowledge but what thou hast got by working: the\nrest is yet all a hypothesis of knowledge; a thing to be argued of in\nschools, a thing floating in the clouds, in endless logic-vortices,\ntill we try it and fix it. 'Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by\nAction alone.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd again, hast thou valued Patience, Courage, Perseverance, Openness\nto light; readiness to own thyself mistaken, to do better next time?\nAll these, all virtues, in wrestling with the dim brute Powers of\nFact, in ordering of thy fellows in such wrestle, there and elsewhere\nnot at all, thou wilt continually learn. Set down a brave Sir\nChristopher in the middle of black ruined Stone-heaps, of foolish\nunarchitectural Bishops, redtape Officials, idle Nell-Gwyn Defenders\nof the Faith; and see whether he will ever raise a Paul's Cathedral\nout of all that, yea or no! Rough, rude, contradictory are all things\nand persons, from the mutinous masons and Irish hodmen, up to the idle\nNell-Gwyn Defenders, to blustering redtape Officials, foolish\nunarchitectural Bishops. All these things and persons are there not\nfor Christopher's sake and his Cathedral's; they are there for their\nown sake mainly! Christopher will have to conquer and constrain all\nthese,--if he be able. All these are against him. Equitable Nature\nherself, who carries her mathematics and architectonics not on the\nface of her, but deep in the hidden heart of her,--Nature herself is\nbut partially for him; will be wholly against him, if he constrain her\nnot! His very money, where is it to come from? The pious munificence\nof England lies far-scattered, distant, unable to speak, and say, \"I\nam here;\"--must be spoken to before it can speak. Pious munificence,\nand all help, is so silent, invisible like the gods; impediment,\ncontradictions manifold are so loud and near! O brave Sir Christopher,\ntrust thou in those notwithstanding, and front all these; understand\nall these; by valiant patience, noble effort, insight, by\nman's-strength, vanquish and compel all these,--and, on the whole,\nstrike down victoriously the last topstone of that Paul's Edifice; thy\nmonument for certain centuries, the stamp 'Great Man' impressed very\nlegibly on Portland-stone there!--\n\nYes, all manner of help, and pious response from Men or Nature, is\nalways what we call silent; cannot speak or come to light, till it be\nseen, till it be spoken to. Every noble work is at first 'impossible.'\nIn very truth, for every noble work the possibilities will lie\ndiffused through Immensity; inarticulate, undiscoverable except to\nfaith. Like Gideon thou shalt spread out thy fleece at the door of thy\ntent; see whether under the wide arch of Heaven there be any bounteous\nmoisture, or none. Thy heart and life-purpose shall be as a miraculous\nGideon's fleece, spread out in silent appeal to Heaven; and from the\nkind Immensities, what from the poor unkind Localities and town and\ncountry Parishes there never could, blessed dew-moisture to suffice\nthee shall have fallen!\n\nWork is of a religious nature:--work is of a _brave_ nature; which it\nis the aim of all religion to be. All work of man is as the swimmer's:\na waste ocean threatens to devour him; if he front it not bravely, it\nwill keep its word. By incessant wise defiance of it, lusty rebuke and\nbuffet of it, behold how it loyally supports him, bears him as its\nconqueror along. 'It is so,' says Goethe, 'with all things that man\nundertakes in this world.'\n\nBrave Sea-captain, Norse Sea-king,--Columbus, my hero, royalest\nSea-king of all! it is no friendly environment this of thine, in the\nwaste deep waters; around thee mutinous discouraged souls, behind thee\ndisgrace and ruin, before thee the unpenetrated veil of Night.\nBrother, these wild water-mountains, bounding from their deep bases\n(ten miles deep, I am told), are not entirely there on thy behalf!\nMeseems _they_ have other work than floating thee forward:--and the\nhuge Winds, that sweep from Ursa Major to the Tropics and Equators,\ndancing their giant-waltz through the kingdoms of Chaos and Immensity,\nthey care little about filling rightly or filling wrongly the small\nshoulder-of-mutton sails in this cockle-skiff of thine! Thou art not\namong articulate-speaking friends, my brother; thou art among\nimmeasurable dumb monsters, tumbling, howling wide as the world here.\nSecret, far off, invisible to all hearts but thine, there lies a help\nin them: see how thou wilt get at that. Patiently thou wilt wait till\nthe mad South-wester spend itself, saving thyself by dextrous science\nof defence, the while: valiantly, with swift decision, wilt thou\nstrike in, when the favouring East, the Possible, springs up. Mutiny\nof men thou wilt sternly repress; weakness, despondency, thou wilt\ncheerily encourage: thou wilt swallow down complaint, unreason,\nweariness, weakness of others and thyself;--how much wilt thou swallow\ndown! There shall be a depth of Silence in thee, deeper than this Sea,\nwhich is but ten miles deep: a Silence unsoundable; known to God only.\nThou shalt be a Great Man. Yes, my World-Soldier, thou of the World\nMarine-service,--thou wilt have to be _greater_ than this tumultuous\nunmeasured World here round thee is: thou, in thy strong soul, as with\nwrestler's arms, shalt embrace it, harness it down; and make it bear\nthee on,--to new Americas, or whither God wills!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nREWARD.\n\n\n'Religion,' I said; for, properly speaking, all true Work is Religion:\nand whatsoever Religion is not Work may go and dwell among the\nBrahmins, Antinomians, Spinning Dervishes, or where it will; with me\nit shall have no harbour. Admirable was that of the old Monks,\n'_Laborare est Orare_, Work is Worship.'\n\nOlder than all preached Gospels was this unpreached, inarticulate, but\nineradicable, forever-enduring Gospel: Work, and therein have\nwellbeing. Man, Son of Earth and of Heaven, lies there not, in the\ninnermost heart of thee, a Spirit of active Method, a Force for\nWork;--and burns like a painfully-smouldering fire, giving thee no\nrest till thou unfold it, till thou write it down in beneficent Facts\naround thee! What is immethodic, waste, thou shalt make methodic,\nregulated, arable; obedient and productive to thee. Wheresoever thou\nfindest Disorder, there is thy eternal enemy; attack him swiftly,\nsubdue him; make Order of him, the subject not of Chaos, but of\nIntelligence, Divinity and Thee! The thistle that grows in thy path,\ndig it out, that a blade of useful grass, a drop of nourishing milk,\nmay grow there instead. The waste cotton-shrub, gather its waste white\ndown, spin it, weave it; that, in place of idle litter, there may be\nfolded webs, and the naked skin of man be covered.\n\nBut above all, where thou findest Ignorance, Stupidity,\nBrute-mindedness,--yes, there, with or without Church-tithes and\nShovel-hat, with or without Talfourd-Mahon Copyrights, or were it with\nmere dungeons and gibbets and crosses, attack it, I say; smite it\nwisely, unweariedly, and rest not while thou livest and it lives; but\nsmite, smite, in the name of God! The Highest God, as I understand it,\ndoes audibly so command thee; still audibly, if thou have ears to\nhear. He, even He, with his _un_spoken voice, awfuler than any Sinai\nthunders or syllabled speech of Whirlwinds; for the Silence of deep\nEternities, of Worlds from beyond the morning-stars, does it not speak\nto thee? The unborn Ages; the old Graves, with their long-mouldering\ndust, the very tears that wetted it now all dry,--do not these speak\nto thee, what ear hath not heard? The deep Death-kingdoms, the Stars\nin their never-resting courses, all Space and all Time, proclaim it to\nthee in continual silent admonition. Thou too, if ever man should,\nshalt work while it is called Today. For the Night cometh, wherein no\nman can work.\n\nAll true Work is sacred; in all true Work, were it but true\nhand-labour, there is something of divineness. Labour, wide as the\nEarth, has its summit in Heaven. Sweat of the brow; and up from that\nto sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; which includes all Kepler\ncalculations, Newton meditations, all Sciences, all spoken Epics, all\nacted Heroisms, Martyrdoms,--up to that 'Agony of bloody sweat,' which\nall men have called divine! O brother, if this is not 'worship,' then\nI say, the more pity for worship; for this is the noblest thing yet\ndiscovered under God's sky. Who art thou that complainest of thy life\nof toil? Complain not. Look up, my wearied brother; see thy fellow\nWorkmen there, in God's Eternity: surviving there, they alone\nsurviving: sacred Band of the Immortals, celestial Bodyguard of the\nEmpire of Mankind. Even in the weak Human Memory they survive so long,\nas saints, as heroes, as gods; they alone surviving; peopling, they\nalone, the unmeasured solitudes of Time! To thee Heaven, though\nsevere, is _not_ unkind; Heaven is kind,--as a noble Mother; as that\nSpartan Mother, saying while she gave her son his shield, \"With it, my\nson, or upon it!\" Thou too shalt return _home_ in honour; to thy\nfar-distant Home, in honour; doubt it not,--if in the battle thou keep\nthy shield! Thou, in the Eternities and deepest Death-kingdoms, art\nnot an alien; thou everywhere art a denizen! Complain not; the very\nSpartans did not _complain_.\n\nAnd who art thou that braggest of thy life of Idleness; complacently\nshowest thy bright gilt equipages; sumptuous cushions; appliances for\nfolding of the hands to mere sleep? Looking up, looking down, around,\nbehind or before, discernest thou, if it be not in Mayfair alone, any\n_idle_ hero, saint, god, or even devil? Not a vestige of one. In the\nHeavens, in the Earth, in the Waters under the Earth, is none like\nunto thee. Thou art an original figure in this Creation; a denizen in\nMayfair alone, in this extraordinary Century or Half-Century alone!\nOne monster there is in the world: the idle man. What is his\n'Religion'? That Nature is a Phantasm, where cunning beggary or\nthievery may sometimes find good victual. That God is a lie; and that\nMan and his Life are a lie.--Alas, alas, who of us _is_ there that can\nsay, I have worked? The faithfulest of us are unprofitable servants;\nthe faithfulest of us know that best. The faithfulest of us may say,\nwith sad and true old Samuel, \"Much of my life has been trifled away!\"\nBut he that has, and except 'on public occasions' professes to have,\nno function but that of going idle in a graceful or graceless manner;\nand of begetting sons to go idle; and to address Chief Spinners and\nDiggers, who at least _are_ spinning and digging, \"Ye scandalous\npersons who produce too much\"--My Corn-Law friends, on what imaginary\nstill richer Eldorados, and true iron-spikes with law of gravitation,\nare ye rushing!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs to the Wages of Work there might innumerable things be said; there\nwill and must yet innumerable things be said and spoken, in St.\nStephen's and out of St. Stephen's; and gradually not a few things be\nascertained and written, on Law-parchment, concerning this very\nmatter:--'Fair day's-wages for a fair day's-work' is the most\nunrefusable demand! Money-wages 'to the extent of keeping your worker\nalive that he may work more;' these, unless you mean to dismiss him\nstraightway out of this world, are indispensable alike to the noblest\nWorker and to the least noble!\n\nOne thing only I will say here, in special reference to the former\nclass, the noble and noblest; but throwing light on all the other\nclasses and their arrangements of this difficult matter: The 'wages'\nof every noble Work do yet lie in Heaven or else Nowhere. Not in\nBank-of-England bills, in Owen's Labour-bank, or any the most improved\nestablishment of banking and money-changing, needest thou, heroic\nsoul, present thy account of earnings. Human banks and labour-banks\nknow thee not; or know thee after generations and centuries have\npassed away, and thou art clean gone from 'rewarding,'--all manner of\nbank-drafts, shop-tills, and Downing-street Exchequers lying very\ninvisible, so far from thee! Nay, at bottom, dost thou need any\nreward? Was it thy aim and life-purpose to be filled with good things\nfor thy heroism; to have a life of pomp and ease, and be what men call\n'happy,' in this world, or in any other world? I answer for thee\ndeliberately, No. The whole spiritual secret of the new epoch lies in\nthis, that thou canst answer for thyself, with thy whole clearness of\nhead and heart, deliberately, No!\n\nMy brother, the brave man has to give his Life away. Give it, I advise\nthee;--thou dost not expect to _sell_ thy Life in an adequate manner?\nWhat price, for example, would content thee? The just price of thy\nLife to thee,--why, God's entire Creation to thyself, the whole\nUniverse of Space, the whole Eternity of Time, and what they hold:\nthat is the price which would content thee; that, and if thou wilt be\ncandid, nothing short of that! It is thy all; and for it thou wouldst\nhave all. Thou art an unreasonable mortal;--or rather thou art a poor\n_infinite_ mortal, who, in thy narrow clay-prison here, _seemest_ so\nunreasonable! Thou wilt never sell thy Life, or any part of thy Life,\nin a satisfactory manner. Give it, like a royal heart; let the price\nbe Nothing: thou _hast_ then, in a certain sense, got All for it! The\nheroic man,--and is not every man, God be thanked, a potential\nhero?--has to do so, in all times and circumstances. In the most\nheroic age, as in the most unheroic, he will have to say, as Burns\nsaid proudly and humbly of his little Scottish Songs, little dewdrops\nof Celestial Melody in an age when so much was unmelodious: \"By\nHeaven, they shall either be invaluable or of no value; I do not need\nyour guineas for them!\" It is an element which should, and must, enter\ndeeply into all settlements of wages here below. They never will be\n'satisfactory' otherwise; they cannot, O Mammon Gospel, they never\ncan! Money for my little piece of work 'to the extent that will allow\nme to keep working;' yes, this,--unless you mean that I shall go my\nways _before_ the work is all taken out of me: but as to 'wages'--!--\n\nOn the whole, we do entirely agree with those old Monks, _Laborare\nest Orare_. In a thousand senses, from one end of it to the other,\ntrue Work _is_ Worship. He that works, whatsoever be his work, he\nbodies forth the form of Things Unseen; a small Poet every Worker is.\nThe idea, were it but of his poor Delf Platter, how much more of his\nEpic Poem, is as yet 'seen,' half-seen, only by himself; to all others\nit is a thing unseen, impossible; to Nature herself it is a thing\nunseen, a thing which never hitherto was;--very 'impossible,' for it\nis as yet a No-thing! The Unseen Powers had need to watch over such a\nman; he works in and for the Unseen. Alas, if he look to the Seen\nPowers only, he may as well quit the business; his No-thing will never\nrightly issue as a Thing, but as a Deceptivity, a Sham-thing,--which\nit had better not do!\n\nThy No-thing of an Intended Poem, O Poet who hast looked merely to\nreviewers, copyrights, booksellers, popularities, behold it has not\nyet become a Thing; for the truth is not in it! Though printed,\nhotpressed, reviewed, celebrated, sold to the twentieth edition: what\nis all that? The Thing, in philosophical uncommercial language, is\nstill a No-thing, mostly semblance, and deception of the\nsight;--benign Oblivion incessantly gnawing at it, impatient till\nChaos, to which it belongs, do reabsorb it!--\n\nHe who takes not counsel of the Unseen and Silent, from him will never\ncome real visibility and speech. Thou must descend to the _Mothers_,\nto the _Manes_, and Hercules-like long suffer and labour there,\nwouldst thou emerge with victory into the sunlight. As in battle and\nthe shock of war,--for is not this a battle?--thou too shalt fear no\npain or death, shalt love no ease or life; the voice of festive\nLubberlands, the noise of greedy Acheron shall alike lie silent under\nthy victorious feet. Thy work, like Dante's, shall 'make thee lean for\nmany years.' The world and its wages, its criticisms, counsels,\nhelps, impediments, shall be as a waste ocean-flood; the chaos through\nwhich thou art to swim and sail. Not the waste waves and their weedy\ngulf-streams, shalt thou take for guidance: thy star alone,--'_Se tu\nsegui tua stella!_' Thy star alone, now clear-beaming over Chaos, nay\nnow by fits gone out, disastrously eclipsed: this only shalt thou\nstrive to follow. O, it is a business, as I fancy, that of weltering\nyour way through Chaos and the murk of Hell! Green-eyed dragons\nwatching you, three-headed Cerberuses,--not without sympathy of\n_their_ sort! \"_Eccovi l' uom ch' e stato all' Inferno._\" For in fine,\nas Poet Dryden says, you do walk hand in hand with sheer Madness, all\nthe way,--who is by no means pleasant company! You look fixedly into\nMadness, and _her_ undiscovered, boundless, bottomless Night-empire;\nthat you may extort new Wisdom out of it, as an Eurydice from\nTartarus. The higher the Wisdom, the closer was its neighbourhood and\nkindred with mere Insanity; literally so;--and thou wilt, with a\nspeechless feeling, observe how highest Wisdom, struggling up into\nthis world, has oftentimes carried such tinctures and adhesions of\nInsanity still cleaving to it hither!\n\nAll Works, each in their degree, are a making of Madness sane;--truly\nenough a religious operation; which cannot be carried on without\nreligion. You have not work otherwise; you have eye-service, greedy\ngrasping of wages, swift and ever swifter manufacture of semblances to\nget hold of wages. Instead of better felt-hats to cover your head, you\nhave bigger lath-and-plaster hats set travelling the streets on\nwheels. Instead of heavenly and earthly Guidance for the souls of men,\nyou have 'Black or White Surplice' Controversies, stuffed\nhair-and-leather Popes;--terrestrial _Law-wards_, Lords and\nLaw-bringers, 'organising Labour' in these years, by passing\nCorn-Laws. With all which, alas, this distracted Earth is now full,\nnigh to bursting. Semblances most smooth to the touch and eye; most\naccursed, nevertheless, to body and soul. Semblances, be they of\nSham-woven Cloth or of Dilettante Legislation, which are _not_ real\nwool or substance, but Devil's-dust, accursed of God and man! No man\nhas worked, or can work, except religiously; not even the poor\nday-labourer, the weaver of your coat, the sewer of your shoes. All\nmen, if they work not as in a Great Taskmaster's eye, will work wrong,\nwork unhappily for themselves and you.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIndustrial work, still under bondage to Mammon, the rational soul of\nit not yet awakened, is a tragic spectacle. Men in the rapidest motion\nand self-motion; restless, with convulsive energy, as if driven by\nGalvanism, as if possessed by a Devil; tearing asunder mountains,--to\nno purpose, for Mammonism is always Midas-eared! This is sad, on the\nface of it. Yet courage: the beneficent Destinies, kind in their\nsternness, are apprising us that this cannot continue. Labour is not a\ndevil, even while encased in Mammonism; Labour is ever an imprisoned\ngod, writhing unconsciously or consciously to escape out of Mammonism!\nPlugson of Undershot, like Taillefer of Normandy, wants victory; how\nmuch happier will even Plugson be to have a Chivalrous victory than a\nChactaw one! The unredeemed ugliness is that of a slothful People.\nShow me a People energetically busy; heaving, struggling, all\nshoulders at the wheel; their heart pulsing, every muscle swelling,\nwith man's energy and will;--I show you a People of whom great good is\nalready predicable; to whom all manner of good is yet certain, if\ntheir energy endure. By very working, they will learn; they have,\nAntaeus-like, their foot on Mother Fact: how can they but learn?\n\nThe vulgarest Plugson of a Master-Worker, who can command Workers,\nand get work out of them, is already a considerable man. Blessed and\nthrice-blessed symptoms I discern of Master-Workers who are not vulgar\nmen; who are Nobles, and begin to feel that they must act as such: all\nspeed to these, they are England's hope at present! But in this\nPlugson himself, conscious of almost no nobleness whatever, how much\nis there! Not without man's faculty, insight, courage, hard energy, is\nthis rugged figure. His words none of the wisest; but his actings\ncannot be altogether foolish. Think, how were it, stoodst thou\nsuddenly in his shoes! He has to command a thousand men. And not\nimaginary commanding; no, it is real, incessantly practical. The evil\npassions of so many men (with the Devil in them, as in all of us) he\nhas to vanquish; by manifold force of speech and of silence, to\nrepress or evade. What a force of silence, to say nothing of the\nothers, is in Plugson! For these his thousand men he has to provide\nraw-material, machinery, arrangement, houseroom; and ever at the\nweek's end, wages by due sale. No Civil-List, or Goulburn-Baring\nBudget has he to fall back upon, for paying of his regiment; he has to\npick his supplies from the confused face of the whole Earth and\nContemporaneous History, by his dexterity alone. There will be dry\neyes if he fail to do it!--He exclaims, at present, 'black in the\nface,' near strangled with Dilettante Legislation: \"Let me have\nelbow-room, throat-room, and I will not fail! No, I will spin yet, and\nconquer like a giant: what 'sinews of war' lie in me, untold resources\ntowards the Conquest of this Planet, if instead of hanging me, you\nhusband them, and help me!\"--My indomitable friend, it is _true_; and\nthou shalt and must be helped.\n\nThis is not a man I would kill and strangle by Corn-Laws, even if I\ncould! No, I would fling my Corn-Laws and Shotbelts to the Devil; and\ntry to help this man. I would teach him, by noble precept and\nlaw-precept, by noble example most of all, that Mammonism was not the\nessence of his or of my station in God's Universe; but the\nadscititious excrescence of it; the gross, terrene, godless embodiment\nof it; which would have to become, more or less, a godlike one. By\nnoble _real_ legislation, by true _noble's_-work, by unwearied,\nvaliant, and were it wageless effort, in my Parliament and in my\nParish, I would aid, constrain, encourage him to effect more or less\nthis blessed change. I should know that it would have to be effected;\nthat unless it were in some measure effected, he and I and all of us,\nI first and soonest of all, were doomed to perdition!--Effected it\nwill be; unless it were a Demon that made this Universe; which I, for\nmy own part, do at no moment, under no form, in the least believe.\n\nMay it please your Serene Highnesses, your Majesties, Lordships and\nLaw-wardships, the proper Epic of this world is not now 'Arms and the\nMan;' how much less, 'Shirt-frills and the Man:' no, it is now 'Tools\nand the Man:' that, henceforth to all time, is now our Epic;--and you,\nfirst of all others, I think, were wise to take note of that!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nDEMOCRACY.\n\n\nIf the Serene Highnesses and Majesties do not take note of that, then,\nas I perceive, _that_ will take note of itself! The time for levity,\ninsincerity, and idle babble and play-acting, in all kinds, is gone\nby; it is a serious, grave time. Old long-vexed questions, not yet\nsolved in logical words or parliamentary laws, are fast solving\nthemselves in facts, somewhat unblessed to behold! This largest of\nquestions, this question of Work and Wages, which ought, had we heeded\nHeaven's voice, to have begun two generations ago or more, cannot be\ndelayed longer without hearing Earth's voice. 'Labour' will verily\nneed to be somewhat 'organised,' as they say,--God knows with what\ndifficulty. Man will actually need to have his debts and earnings a\nlittle better paid by man; which, let Parliaments speak of them or be\nsilent of them, are eternally his due from man, and cannot, without\npenalty and at length not without death-penalty, be withheld. How much\nought to cease among us straightway; how much ought to begin\nstraightway, while the hours yet are!\n\nTruly they are strange results to which this of leaving all to 'Cash;'\nof quietly shutting-up the God's Temple, and gradually opening\nwide-open the Mammon's Temple, with 'Laissez-faire, and Every man for\nhimself,'--have led us in these days! We have Upper, speaking Classes,\nwho indeed do 'speak' as never man spake before; the withered\nflimsiness, the godless baseness and barrenness of whose Speech might\nof itself indicate what kind of Doing and practical Governing went on\nunder it! For Speech is the gaseous element out of which most kinds of\nPractice and Performance, especially all kinds of moral Performance,\ncondense themselves, and take shape; as the one is, so will the other\nbe. Descending, accordingly, into the Dumb Class in its Stockport\nCellars and Poor-Law Bastilles, have we not to announce that they also\nare hitherto unexampled in the History of Adam's Posterity?\n\nLife was never a May-game for men: in all times the lot of the dumb\nmillions born to toil was defaced with manifold sufferings,\ninjustices, heavy burdens, avoidable and unavoidable; not play at all,\nbut hard work that made the sinews sore and the heart sore. As\nbond-slaves, _villani_, _bordarii_, _sochemanni_, nay indeed as dukes,\nearls and kings, men were oftentimes made weary of their life; and had\nto say, in the sweat of their brow and of their soul, Behold, it is\nnot sport, it is grim earnest, and our back can bear no more! Who\nknows not what massacrings and harryings there have been; grinding,\nlong-continuing, unbearable injustices,--till the heart had to rise in\nmadness, and some \"_Eu Sachsen, nimith euer sachses_, You Saxons, out\nwith your gully-knives, then!\" You Saxons, some 'arrestment,' partial\n'arrestment of the Knaves and Dastards' has become indispensable!--The\npage of Dryasdust is heavy with such details.\n\nAnd yet I will venture to believe that in no time, since the\nbeginnings of Society, was the lot of those same dumb millions of\ntoilers so entirely unbearable as it is even in the days now passing\nover us. It is not to die, or even to die of hunger, that makes a man\nwretched; many men have died; all men must die,--the last exit of us\nall is in a Fire-Chariot of Pain. But it is to live miserable we know\nnot why: to work sore and yet gain nothing; to be heart-worn, weary,\nyet isolated, unrelated, girt-in with a cold-universal Laissez-faire:\nit is to die slowly all our life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead,\nInfinite Injustice, as in the accursed iron belly of a Phalaris' Bull!\nThis is and remains forever intolerable to all men whom God has made.\nDo we wonder at French Revolutions, Chartisms, Revolts of Three Days?\nThe times, if we will consider them, are really unexampled.\n\nNever before did I hear of an Irish Widow reduced to 'prove her\nsisterhood by dying of typhus-fever and infecting seventeen\npersons,'--saying in such undeniable way, \"You _see_ I was your\nsister!\" Sisterhood, brotherhood, was often forgotten; but not till\nthe rise of these ultimate Mammon and Shotbelt Gospels did I ever see\nit so expressly denied. If no pious Lord or _Law-ward_ would remember\nit, always some pious Lady ('_Hlaf-dig_,' Benefactress,\n'_Loaf-giveress_,' they say she is,--blessings on her beautiful\nheart!) was there, with mild mother-voice and hand, to remember it;\nsome pious thoughtful _Elder_, what we now call 'Prester,' _Presbyter_\nor 'Priest,' was there to put all men in mind of it, in the name of\nthe God who had made all.\n\nNot even in Black Dahomey was it ever, I think, forgotten to the\ntyphus-fever length. Mungo Park, resourceless, had sunk down to die\nunder the Negro Village-Tree, a horrible White object in the eyes of\nall. But in the poor Black Woman, and her daughter who stood aghast at\nhim, whose earthly wealth and funded capital consisted of one small\ncalabash of rice, there lived a heart richer than _Laissez-faire_:\nthey, with a royal munificence, boiled their rice for him; they sang\nall night to him, spinning assiduous on their cotton distaffs, as he\nlay to sleep: \"Let us pity the poor white man; no mother has he to\nfetch him milk, no sister to grind him corn!\" Thou poor black Noble\nOne,--thou _Lady_ too: did not a God make thee too; was there not in\nthee too something of a God!--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGurth, born thrall of Cedric the Saxon, has been greatly pitied by\nDryasdust and others. Gurth, with the brass collar round his neck,\ntending Cedric's pigs in the glades of the wood, is not what I call an\nexemplar of human felicity: but Gurth, with the sky above him, with\nthe free air and tinted boscage and umbrage round him, and in him at\nleast the certainty of supper and social lodging when he came home;\nGurth to me seems happy, in comparison with many a Lancashire and\nBuckinghamshire man of these days, not born thrall of anybody! Gurth's\nbrass collar did not gall him: Cedric _deserved_ to be his master. The\npigs were Cedric's, but Gurth too would get his parings of them. Gurth\nhad the inexpressible satisfaction of feeling himself related\nindissolubly, though in a rude brass-collar way, to his fellow-mortals\nin this Earth. He had superiors, inferiors, equals.--Gurth is now\n'emancipated' long since; has what we call 'Liberty.' Liberty, I am\ntold, is a divine thing. Liberty when it becomes the 'Liberty to die\nby starvation' is not so divine!\n\nLiberty? The true liberty of a man, you would say, consisted in his\nfinding out, or being forced to find out the right path, and to walk\nthereon. To learn, or to be taught, what work he actually was able\nfor; and then by permission, persuasion, and even compulsion, to set\nabout doing of the same! That is his true blessedness, honour,\n'liberty' and maximum of wellbeing: if liberty be not that, I for one\nhave small care about liberty. You do not allow a palpable madman to\nleap over precipices; you violate his liberty, you that are wise; and\nkeep him, were it in strait-waistcoats, away from the precipices!\nEvery stupid, every cowardly and foolish man is but a less palpable\nmadman: his true liberty were that a wiser man, that any and every\nwiser man, could, by brass collars, or in whatever milder or sharper\nway, lay hold of him when he was going wrong, and order and compel him\nto go a little righter. O, if thou really art my _Senior_, Seigneur,\nmy _Elder_, Presbyter or Priest,--if thou art in very deed my _Wiser_,\nmay a beneficent instinct lead and impel thee to 'conquer' me, to\ncommand me! If thou do know better than I what is good and right, I\nconjure thee in the name of God, force me to do it; were it by never\nsuch brass collars, whips and handcuffs, leave me not to walk over\nprecipices! That I have been called, by all the Newspapers, a 'free\nman' will avail me little, if my pilgrimage have ended in death and\nwreck. O that the Newspapers had called me slave, coward, fool, or\nwhat it pleased their sweet voices to name me, and I had attained not\ndeath, but life!--Liberty requires new definitions.\n\nA conscious abhorrence and intolerance of Folly, of Baseness,\nStupidity, Poltroonery and all that brood of things, dwells deep in\nsome men: still deeper in others an _un_conscious abhorrence and\nintolerance, clothed moreover by the beneficent Supreme Powers in what\nstout appetites, energies, egoisms so-called, are suitable to\nit;--these latter are your Conquerors, Romans, Normans, Russians,\nIndo-English; Founders of what we call Aristocracies. Which indeed\nhave they not the most 'divine right' to found;--being themselves very\ntruly [Greek: Aristoi], Bravest, Best; and conquering generally a\nconfused rabble of Worst, or at lowest, clearly enough, of Worse? I\nthink their divine right, tried, with affirmatory verdict, in the\ngreatest Law-Court known to me, was good! A class of men who are\ndreadfully exclaimed against by Dryasdust; of whom nevertheless\nbeneficent Nature has oftentimes had need; and may, alas, again have\nneed.\n\nWhen, across the hundredfold poor scepticisms, trivialisms, and\nconstitutional cobwebberies of Dryasdust, you catch any glimpse of a\nWilliam the Conqueror, a Tancred of Hauteville or suchlike,--do you\nnot discern veritably some rude outline of a true God-made King; whom\nnot the Champion of England cased in tin, but all Nature and the\nUniverse were calling to the throne? It is absolutely necessary that\nhe get thither. Nature does not mean her poor Saxon children to\nperish, of obesity, stupor or other malady, as yet: a stern Ruler and\nLine of Rulers therefore is called in,--a stern but most beneficent\n_perpetual House-Surgeon_ is by Nature herself called in, and even the\nappropriate _fees_ are provided for him! Dryasdust talks lamentably\nabout Hereward and the Fen Counties; fate of Earl Waltheof; Yorkshire\nand the North reduced to ashes: all which is undoubtedly lamentable.\nBut even Dryasdust apprises me of one fact: 'A child, in this\nWilliam's reign, might have carried a purse of gold from end to end of\nEngland.' My erudite friend, it is a fact which outweighs a thousand!\nSweep away thy constitutional, sentimental and other cobwebberies;\nlook eye to eye, if thou still have any eye, in the face of this big\nburly William Bastard: thou wilt see a fellow of most flashing\ndiscernment, of most strong lion-heart;--in whom, as it were, within a\nframe of oak and iron, the gods have planted the soul of 'a man of\ngenius'! Dost thou call that nothing? I call it an immense\nthing!--Rage enough was in this Willelmus Conquaestor, rage enough for\nhis occasions;--and yet the essential element of him, as of all such\nmen, is not scorching _fire_, but shining illuminative _light_. Fire\nand light are strangely interchangeable; nay, at bottom, I have found\nthem different forms of the same most godlike 'elementary substance'\nin our world: a thing worth stating in these days. The essential\nelement of this Conquaestor is, first of all, the most sun-eyed\nperception of what _is_ really what on this God's-Earth;--which, thou\nwilt find, does mean at bottom 'Justice,' and 'Virtues' not a few:\n_Conformity_ to what the Maker has seen good to make; that, I suppose,\nwill mean Justice and a Virtue or two?--\n\nDost thou think Willelmus Conquaestor would have tolerated ten\nyears' jargon, one hour's jargon, on the propriety of killing\nCotton-manufactures by partridge Corn-Laws? I fancy, this was not the\nman to knock out of his night's-rest with nothing but a noisy\nbedlamism in your mouth! \"Assist us still better to bush the\npartridges; strangle Plugson who spins the shirts?\"--\"_Par la\nSplendeur de Dieu!_\"----Dost thou think Willelmus Conquaestor, in this\nnew time, with Steamengine Captains of Industry on one hand of him,\nand Joe-Manton Captains of Idleness on the other, would have doubted\nwhich _was_ really the Best; which did deserve strangling, and which\nnot?\n\nI have a certain indestructible regard for Willelmus Conquaestor. A\nresident House-Surgeon, provided by Nature for her beloved English\nPeople, and even furnished with the requisite fees, as I said; for he\nby no means felt himself doing Nature's work, this Willelmus, but his\nown work exclusively! And his own work withal it was; informed '_par\nla Splendeur de Dieu_.'--I say, it is necessary to get the work out of\nsuch a man, however harsh that be! When a world, not yet doomed for\ndeath, is rushing down to ever-deeper Baseness and Confusion, it is a\ndire necessity of Nature's to bring in her Aristocracies, her Best,\neven by forcible methods. When their descendants or representatives\ncease entirely to _be_ the Best, Nature's poor world will very soon\nrush down again to Baseness; and it becomes a dire necessity of\nNature's to cast them out. Hence French Revolutions, Five-point\nCharters, Democracies, and a mournful list of _Etceteras_, in these\nour afflicted times.\n\nTo what extent Democracy has now reached, how it advances irresistible\nwith ominous, ever-increasing speed, he that will open his eyes on any\nprovince of human affairs may discern. Democracy is everywhere the\ninexorable demand of these ages, swiftly fulfilling itself. From the\nthunder of Napoleon battles, to the jabbering of Open-vestry in St.\nMary Axe, all things announce Democracy. A distinguished man, whom\nsome of my readers will hear again with pleasure, thus writes to me\nwhat in these days he notes from the Wahngasse of Weissnichtwo, where\nour London fashions seem to be in full vogue. Let us hear the Herr\nTeufelsdroeckh again, were it but the smallest word!\n\n'Democracy, which means despair of finding any Heroes to govern you,\nand contented putting-up with the want of them,--alas, thou too, _mein\nLieber_, seest well how close it is of kin to _Atheism_, and other sad\n_Isms_: he who discovers no God whatever, how shall he discover\nHeroes, the visible Temples of God?--Strange enough meanwhile\nit is, to observe with what thoughtlessness, here in our rigidly\nConservative Country, men rush into Democracy with full cry. Beyond\ndoubt, his Excellenz the Titular-Herr Ritter Kauderwaelsch von\nPferdefuss-Quacksalber, he our distinguished Conservative Premier\nhimself, and all but the thicker-headed of his Party, discern\nDemocracy to be inevitable as death, and are even desperate of\ndelaying it much!\n\n'You cannot walk the streets without beholding Democracy announce\nitself: the very Tailor has become, if not properly Sansculottic,\nwhich to him would be ruinous, yet a Tailor unconsciously symbolising,\nand prophesying with his scissors, the reign of Equality. What now is\nour fashionable coat? A thing of superfinest texture, of deeply\nmeditated cut; with Malines-lace cuffs; quilted with gold; so that a\nman can carry, without difficulty, an estate of land on his back?\n_Keineswegs_, By no manner of means! The Sumptuary Laws have fallen\ninto such a state of desuetude as was never before seen. Our\nfashionable coat is an amphibium between barn-sack and drayman's\ndoublet. The cloth of it is studiously coarse; the colour a speckled\nsoot-black or rust-brown gray; the nearest approach to a Peasant's.\nAnd for shape,--thou shouldst see it! The last consummation of the\nyear now passing over us is definable as Three Bags; a big bag for the\nbody, two small bags for the arms, and by way of collar a hem! The\nfirst Antique Cheruscan who, of felt-cloth or bear's-hide, with bone\nor metal needle, set about making himself a coat, before Tailors had\nyet awakened out of Nothing,--did not he make it even so? A loose wide\npoke for body, with two holes to let out the arms; this was his\noriginal coat: to which holes it was soon visible that two small loose\npokes, or sleeves, easily appended, would be an improvement.\n\n'Thus has the Tailor-art, so to speak, overset itself, like most other\nthings; changed its centre-of-gravity; whirled suddenly over from\nzenith to nadir. Your Stulz, with huge somerset, vaults from his high\nshopboard down to the depths of primal savagery,--carrying much along\nwith him! For I will invite thee to reflect that the Tailor, as\ntopmost ultimate froth of Human Society, is indeed swift-passing,\nevanescent, slippery to decipher; yet significant of much, nay of all.\nTopmost evanescent froth, he is churned-up from the very lees, and\nfrom all intermediate regions of the liquor. The general outcome he,\nvisible to the eye, of what men aimed to do, and were obliged and\nenabled to do, in this one public department of symbolising themselves\nto each other by covering of their skins. A smack of all Human Life\nlies in the Tailor: its wild struggles towards beauty, dignity,\nfreedom, victory; and how, hemmed-in by Sedan and Huddersfield, by\nNescience, Dulness, Prurience, and other sad necessities and laws of\nNature, it has attained just to this: Gray savagery of Three Sacks\nwith a hem!\n\n'When the very Tailor verges towards Sansculottism, is it not ominous?\nThe last Divinity of poor mankind dethroning himself; sinking _his_\ntaper too, flame downmost, like the Genius of Sleep or of Death;\nadmonitory that Tailor time shall be no more!--For, little as one\ncould advise Sumptuary Laws at the present epoch, yet nothing is\nclearer than that where ranks do actually exist, strict division of\ncostumes will also be enforced; that if we ever have a new Hierarchy\nand Aristocracy, acknowledged veritably as such, for which I daily\npray Heaven, the Tailor will reawaken; and be, by volunteering and\nappointment, consciously and unconsciously, a safeguard of that\nsame.'--Certain farther observations, from the same invaluable pen, on\nour never-ending changes of mode, our 'perpetual nomadic and even\nape-like appetite for change and mere change' in all the equipments of\nour existence, and the 'fatal revolutionary character' thereby\nmanifested, we suppress for the present. It may be admitted that\nDemocracy, in all meanings of the word, is in full career;\nirresistible by any Ritter Kauderwaelsch or other Son of Adam, as times\ngo. 'Liberty' is a thing men are determined to have.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut truly, as I had to remark in the mean while, 'the liberty of not\nbeing oppressed by your fellow man' is an indispensable, yet one of\nthe most insignificant fractional parts of Human Liberty. No man\noppresses thee, can bid thee fetch or carry, come or go, without\nreason shown. True; from all men thou art emancipated: but from\nThyself and from the Devil--? No man, wiser, unwiser, can make thee\ncome or go: but thy own futilities, bewilderments, thy false appetites\nfor Money, Windsor Georges and suchlike? No man oppresses thee, O free\nand independent Franchiser: but does not this stupid Porter-pot\noppress thee? No Son of Adam can bid thee come or go; but this absurd\nPot of Heavy-wet, this can and does! Thou art the thrall not of Cedric\nthe Saxon, but of thy own brutal appetites and this scoured dish of\nliquor. And thou pratest of thy 'liberty'? Thou entire blockhead!\n\nHeavy-wet and gin: alas, these are not the only kinds of thraldom.\nThou who walkest in a vain show, looking out with ornamental\ndilettante sniff and serene supremacy at all Life and all Death; and\namblest jauntily; perking up thy poor talk into crotchets, thy poor\nconduct into fatuous somnambulisms;--and _art_ as an 'enchanted Ape'\nunder God's sky, where thou mightest have been a man, had proper\nSchoolmasters and Conquerors, and Constables with cat-o'-nine tails,\nbeen vouchsafed thee; dost thou call that 'liberty'? Or your\nunreposing Mammon-worshipper again, driven, as if by Galvanisms, by\nDevils and Fixed-Ideas, who rises early and sits late, chasing the\nimpossible; straining every faculty to 'fill himself with the east\nwind,'--how merciful were it, could you, by mild persuasion, or by the\nseverest tyranny so-called, check him in his mad path, and turn him\ninto a wiser one! All painful tyranny, in that case again, were but\nmild 'surgery;' the pain of it cheap, as health and life, instead of\ngalvanism and fixed-idea, are cheap at any price.\n\nSure enough, of all paths a man could strike into, there _is_, at any\ngiven moment, a _best path_ for every man; a thing which, here and\nnow, it were of all things _wisest_ for him to do;--which could he be\nbut led or driven to do, he were then doing 'like a man,' as we phrase\nit; all men and gods agreeing with him, the whole Universe virtually\nexclaiming Well-done to him! His success, in such case, were complete;\nhis felicity a maximum. This path, to find this path and walk in it,\nis the one thing needful for him. Whatsoever forwards him in that, let\nit come to him even in the shape of blows and spurnings, is liberty:\nwhatsoever hinders him, were it wardmotes, open-vestries, pollbooths,\ntremendous cheers, rivers of heavy-wet, is slavery.\n\nThe notion that a man's liberty consists in giving his vote at\nelection-hustings, and saying, \"Behold, now I too have my\ntwenty-thousandth part of a Talker in our National Palaver; will not\nall the gods be good to me?\"--is one of the pleasantest! Nature\nnevertheless is kind at present; and puts it into the heads of many,\nalmost of all. The liberty especially which has to purchase itself by\nsocial isolation, and each man standing separate from the other,\nhaving 'no business with him' but a cash-account: this is such a\nliberty as the Earth seldom saw;--as the Earth will not long put up\nwith, recommend it how you may. This liberty turns out, before it have\nlong continued in action, with all men flinging up their caps round\nit, to be, for the Working Millions a liberty to die by want of food;\nfor the Idle Thousands and Units, alas, a still more fatal liberty to\nlive in want of work; to have no earnest duty to do in this\nGod's-World any more. What becomes of a man in such predicament?\nEarth's Laws are silent; and Heaven's speak in a voice which is not\nheard. No work, and the ineradicable need of work, give rise to new\nvery wondrous life-philosophies, new very wondrous life-practices!\nDilettantism, Pococurantism, Beau-Brummelism, with perhaps an\noccasional, half-mad, protesting burst of Byronism, establish\nthemselves: at the end of a certain period,--if you go back to 'the\nDead Sea,' there is, say our Moslem friends, a very strange\n'Sabbath-day' transacting itself there!--Brethren, we know but\nimperfectly yet, after ages of Constitutional Government, what Liberty\nand Slavery are.\n\nDemocracy, the chase of Liberty in that direction, shall go its full\ncourse; unrestrainable by him of Pferdefuss-Quacksalber, or any of\n_his_ household. The Toiling Millions of Mankind, in most vital need\nand passionate instinctive desire of Guidance, shall cast away\nFalse-Guidance; and hope, for an hour, that No-Guidance will suffice\nthem: but it can be for an hour only. The smallest item of human\nSlavery is the oppression of man by his Mock-Superiors; the\npalpablest, but I say at bottom the smallest. Let him shake-off such\noppression, trample it indignantly under his feet; I blame him not, I\npity and commend him. But oppression by your Mock-Superiors well\nshaken off, the grand problem yet remains to solve: That of finding\ngovernment by your Real-Superiors! Alas, how shall we ever learn the\nsolution of that, benighted, bewildered, sniffing, sneering,\ngodforgetting unfortunates as we are? It is a work for centuries; to\nbe taught us by tribulations, confusions, insurrections, obstructions;\nwho knows if not by conflagration and despair! It is a lesson\ninclusive of all other lessons; the hardest of all lessons to learn.\n\nOne thing I do know: Those Apes, chattering on the branches by the\nDead Sea, never got it learned; but chatter there to this day. To them\nno Moses need come a second time; a thousand Moseses would be but so\nmany painted Phantasms, interesting Fellow-Apes of new strange\naspect,--whom they would 'invite to dinner,' be glad to meet with in\nlion-soirees. To them the voice of Prophecy, of heavenly monition, is\nquite ended. They chatter there, all Heaven shut to them, to the end\nof the world. The unfortunates! Oh, what is dying of hunger, with\nhonest tools in your hand, with a manful purpose in your heart, and\nmuch real labour lying round you done, in comparison? You honestly\nquit your tools; quit a most muddy confused coil of sore work, short\nrations, of sorrows, dispiritments and contradictions, having now\nhonestly done with it all;--and await, not entirely in a distracted\nmanner, what the Supreme Powers, and the Silences and the Eternities\nmay have to say to you.\n\nA second thing I know: This lesson will have to be learned,--under\npenalties! England will either learn it, or England also will cease to\nexist among Nations. England will either learn to reverence its\nHeroes, and discriminate them from its Sham-Heroes and Valets and\ngaslighted Histrios; and to prize them as the audible God's-voice,\namid all inane jargons and temporary market-cries, and say to them\nwith heart-loyalty, \"Be ye King and Priest, and Gospel and Guidance\nfor us:\" or else England will continue to worship new and ever-new\nforms of Quackhood,--and so, with what resiliences and reboundings\nmatters little, go down to the Father of Quacks! Can I dread such\nthings of England? Wretched, thick-eyed, gross-hearted mortals, why\nwill ye worship lies, and 'Stuffed Clothes-suits created by the\nninth-parts of men'! It is not your purses that suffer; your\nfarm-rents, your commerces, your mill-revenues, loud as ye lament over\nthese; no, it is not these alone, but a far deeper than these: it is\nyour souls that lie dead, crushed down under despicable Nightmares,\nAtheisms, Brain-fumes; and are not souls at all, but mere succedanea\nfor _salt_ to keep your bodies and their appetites from putrefying!\nYour cotton-spinning and thrice-miraculous mechanism, what is this\ntoo, by itself, but a larger kind of Animalism? Spiders can spin,\nBeavers can build and show contrivance; the Ant lays-up accumulation\nof capital, and has, for aught I know, a Bank of Antland. If there is\nno soul in man higher than all that, did it reach to sailing on the\ncloud-rack and spinning sea-sand; then I say, man is but an animal, a\nmore cunning kind of brute: he has no soul, but only a succedaneum for\nsalt. Whereupon, seeing himself to be truly of the beasts that perish,\nhe ought to admit it, I think;--and also straightway universally to\nkill himself; and so, in a manlike manner at least _end_, and wave\nthese brute-worlds _his_ dignified farewell!--\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nSIR JABESH WINDBAG.\n\n\nOliver Cromwell, whose body they hung on their Tyburn gallows because\nhe had found the Christian Religion inexecutable in this country,\nremains to me by far the remarkablest Governor we have had here for\nthe last five centuries or so. For the last five centuries, there has\nbeen no Governor among us with anything like similar talent; and for\nthe last two centuries, no Governor, we may say, with the possibility\nof similar talent,--with an idea in the heart of him capable of\ninspiring similar talent, capable of co-existing therewith. When you\nconsider that Oliver believed in a God, the difference between\nOliver's position and that of any subsequent Governor of this Country\nbecomes, the more you reflect on it, the more immeasurable!\n\nOliver, no volunteer in Public Life, but plainly a balloted soldier\nstrictly ordered thither, enters upon Public Life; comports himself\nthere like a man who carried his own life in his hand; like a man\nwhose Great Commander's eye was always on him. Not without results.\nOliver, well-advanced in years, finds now, by Destiny and his own\nDeservings, or as he himself better phrased it, by wondrous successive\n'Births of Providence,' the Government of England put into his hands.\nIn senate-house and battle-field, in counsel and in action, in private\nand in public, this man has proved himself a man: England and the\nvoice of God, through waste awful whirlwinds and environments,\nspeaking to his great heart, summon him to assert formally, in the way\nof solemn Public Fact and as a new piece of English Law, what\ninformally and by Nature's eternal Law needed no asserting, That he,\nOliver, was the Ablest Man of England, the King of England; that he,\nOliver, would undertake governing England. His way of making this same\n'assertion,' the one way he had of making it, has given rise to\nimmense criticism: but the assertion itself, in what way soever\n'made,' is it not somewhat of a solemn one, somewhat of a tremendous\none!\n\nAnd now do but contrast this Oliver with my right honourable friend\nSir Jabesh Windbag, Mr. Facing-both-ways, Viscount Mealymouth,\nEarl of Windlestraw, or what other Cagliostro, Cagliostrino,\nCagliostraccio, the course of Fortune and Parliamentary Majorities has\nconstitutionally guided to that dignity, any time during these last\nsorrowful hundred-and-fifty years! Windbag, weak in the faith of a\nGod, which he believes only at Church on Sundays, if even then; strong\nonly in the faith that Paragraphs and Plausibilities bring votes; that\nForce of Public Opinion, as he calls it, is the primal Necessity of\nThings, and highest God we have:--Windbag, if we will consider him,\nhas a problem set before him which may be ranged in the impossible\nclass. He is a Columbus minded to sail to the indistinct country of\nNowhere, to the indistinct country of Whitherward, by the _friendship_\nof those same waste-tumbling Water-Alps and howling waltz of All the\nWinds; not by conquest of them and in spite of them, but by friendship\nof them, when once _they_ have made-up their mind! He is the most\noriginal Columbus I ever saw. Nay, his problem is not an impossible\none: he will infallibly _arrive_ at that same country of Nowhere; his\nindistinct Whitherward will be a _Thither_ward! In the Ocean Abysses\nand Locker of Davy Jones, there certainly enough do he and _his_\nship's company, and all their cargo and navigatings, at last find\nlodgment.\n\nOliver knew that his America lay There, Westward Ho;--and it was not\nentirely by _friendship_ of the Water-Alps, and yeasty insane\nFroth-Oceans, that he meant to get thither! He sailed accordingly; had\ncompass-card, and Rules of Navigation,--older and greater than these\nFroth-Oceans, old as the Eternal God! Or again, do but think of this.\nWindbag in these his probable five years of office has to prosper and\nget Paragraphs: the Paragraphs of these five years must be his\nsalvation, or he is a lost man; redemption nowhere in the Worlds or in\nthe Times discoverable for him. Oliver too would like his Paragraphs;\nsuccesses, popularities in these five years are not undesirable to\nhim: but mark, I say, this enormous circumstance: _after_ these five\nyears are gone and done, comes an Eternity for Oliver! Oliver has to\nappear before the Most High Judge: the utmost flow of Paragraphs, the\nutmost ebb of them, is now, in strictest arithmetic, verily no matter\nat all; its exact value _zero_; an account altogether erased!\nEnormous;--which a man, in these days, hardly fancies with an effort!\nOliver's Paragraphs are all done, his battles, division-lists,\nsuccesses all summed: and now in that awful unerring Court of Review,\nthe real question first rises, Whether he has succeeded at all;\nwhether he has not been defeated miserably forevermore? Let him come\nwith world-wide _Io-Paeans_, these avail him not. Let him come covered\nover with the world's execrations, gashed with ignominious\ndeath-wounds, the gallows-rope about his neck: what avails that? The\nword is, Come thou brave and faithful; the word is, Depart thou quack\nand accursed!\n\nO Windbag, my right honourable friend, in very truth I pity thee. I\nsay, these Paragraphs, and low or loud votings of thy poor\nfellow-blockheads of mankind, will never guide thee in any enterprise\nat all. Govern a country on such guidance? Thou canst not make a pair\nof shoes, sell a pennyworth of tape, on such. No, thy shoes are vamped\nup falsely to meet the market; behold, the leather only _seemed_ to be\ntanned; thy shoes melt under me to rubbishy pulp, and are not\nveritable mud-defying shoes, but plausible vendible similitudes of\nshoes,--thou unfortunate, and I! O my right honourable friend, when\nthe Paragraphs flowed in, who was like Sir Jabesh? On the swelling\ntide he mounted; higher, higher, triumphant, heaven-high. But the\nParagraphs again ebbed out, as unwise Paragraphs needs must: Sir\nJabesh lies stranded, sunk and forever sinking in ignominious ooze;\nthe Mud-nymphs, and ever-deepening bottomless Oblivion, his portion to\neternal time. 'Posterity?' Thou appealest to Posterity, thou? My right\nhonourable friend, what will Posterity do for thee! The voting of\nPosterity, were it continued through centuries in thy favour, will be\nquite inaudible, extra-forensic, without any effect whatever.\nPosterity can do simply nothing for a man; nor even seem to do much if\nthe man be not brainsick. Besides, to tell the truth, the bets are a\nthousand to one, Posterity will not hear of thee, my right honourable\nfriend! Posterity, I have found, has generally his own Windbags\nsufficiently trumpeted in all market-places, and no leisure to attend\nto ours. Posterity, which has made of Norse Odin a similitude, and of\nNorman William a brute monster, what will or can it make of English\nJabesh? O Heavens, 'Posterity!'--\n\n\"These poor persecuted Scotch Covenanters,\" said I to my inquiring\nFrenchman, in such stinted French as stood at command, \"_ils s'en\nappelaient a_\"--\"_A la Posterite_,\" interrupted he, helping me\nout.--\"_Ah, Monsieur, non, mille fois non!_ They appealed to the\nEternal God; not to Posterity at all! _C'etait different._\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nMORRISON AGAIN.\n\n\nNevertheless, O Advanced-Liberal, one cannot promise thee any 'New\nReligion,' for some time; to say truth, I do not think we have the\nsmallest chance of any! Will the candid reader, by way of closing this\nBook Third, listen to a few transient remarks on that subject?\n\nCandid readers have not lately met with any man who had less notion to\ninterfere with their Thirty-Nine or other Church-Articles; wherewith,\nvery helplessly as is like, they may have struggled to form for\nthemselves some not inconceivable hypothesis about this Universe, and\ntheir own Existence there. Superstition, my friend, is far from me;\nFanaticism, for any _Fanum_ likely to arise soon on this Earth, is\nfar. A man's Church-Articles are surely articles of price to him; and\nin these times one has to be tolerant of many strange 'Articles,' and\nof many still stranger 'No-articles,' which go about placarding\nthemselves in a very distracted manner,--the numerous long\nplacard-poles, and questionable infirm paste-pots, interfering with\none's peaceable thoroughfare sometimes!\n\nFancy a man, moreover, recommending his fellow men to believe in God,\nthat so Chartism might abate, and the Manchester Operatives be got to\nspin peaceably! The idea is more distracted than any placard-pole seen\nhitherto in a public thoroughfare of men! My friend, if thou ever do\ncome to believe in God, thou wilt find all Chartism, Manchester riot,\nParliamentary incompetence, Ministries of Windbag, and the wildest\nSocial Dissolutions, and the burning-up of this entire Planet, a most\nsmall matter in comparison. Brother, this Planet, I find, is but an\ninconsiderable sand-grain in the continents of Being: this Planet's\npoor temporary interests, thy interests and my interests there, when I\nlook fixedly into that eternal Light-Sea and Flame-Sea with _its_\neternal interests, dwindle literally into Nothing; my speech of it\nis--silence for the while. I will as soon think of making Galaxies and\nStar-Systems to guide little herring-vessels by, as of preaching\nReligion that the Constable may continue possible. O my\nAdvanced-Liberal friend, this new second progress, of proceeding 'to\ninvent God,' is a very strange one! Jacobinism unfolded into\nSaint-Simonism bodes innumerable blessed things; but the thing itself\nmight draw tears from a Stoic!--As for me, some twelve or thirteen New\nReligions, heavy Packets, most of them unfranked, having arrived here\nfrom various parts of the world, in a space of six calendar months, I\nhave instructed my invaluable friend the Stamped Postman to introduce\nno more of them, if the charge exceed one penny.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHenry of Essex, duelling in that Thames Island, 'near to Reading\nAbbey,' had a religion. But was it in virtue of his seeing armed\nPhantasms of St. Edmund 'on the rim of the horizon,' looking minatory\non him? Had that, intrinsically, anything to do with his religion at\nall? Henry of Essex's religion was the Inner Light or Moral Conscience\nof his own soul; such as is vouchsafed still to all souls of\nmen;--which Inner Light shone here 'through such intellectual and\nother media' as there were; producing 'Phantasms,' Kircherean\nVisual-Spectra, according to circumstances! It is so with all men. The\nclearer my Inner Light may shine, through the _less_ turbid media,\nthe _fewer_ Phantasms it may produce,--the gladder surely shall I be,\nand not the sorrier! Hast thou reflected, O serious reader,\nAdvanced-Liberal or other, that the one end, essence, use of all\nreligion past, present and to come, was this only: To keep that same\nMoral Conscience or Inner Light of ours alive and shining;--which\ncertainly the 'Phantasms' and the 'turbid media' were not essential\nfor! All religion was here to remind us, better or worse, of what we\nalready know better or worse, of the quite _infinite_ difference there\nis between a Good man and a Bad; to bid us love infinitely the one,\nabhor and avoid infinitely the other,--strive infinitely to _be_ the\none, and not to be the other. 'All religion issues in due Practical\nHero-worship.' He that has a soul unasphyxied will never want a\nreligion; he that has a soul asphyxied, reduced to a succedaneum for\nsalt, will never find any religion, though you rose from the dead to\npreach him one.\n\nBut indeed, when men and reformers ask for 'a religion,' it is\nanalogous to their asking, 'What would you have us to do?' and\nsuchlike. They fancy that their religion too shall be a kind of\nMorrison's Pill, which they have only to swallow once, and all will be\nwell. Resolutely once gulp-down your Religion, your Morrison's Pill,\nyou have it all plain sailing now: you can follow your affairs, your\nno-affairs, go along money-hunting, pleasure-hunting, dilettanteing,\ndangling, and miming and chattering like a Dead-Sea Ape: your\nMorrison will do your business for you. Men's notions are very\nstrange!--Brother, I say there is not, was not, nor will ever be, in\nthe wide circle of Nature, any Pill or Religion of that character. Man\ncannot afford thee such; for the very gods it is impossible. I advise\nthee to renounce Morrison; once for all, quit hope of the Universal\nPill. For body, for soul, for individual or society, there has not any\nsuch article been made. _Non extat._ In Created Nature it is not, was\nnot, will not be. In the void imbroglios of Chaos only, and realms of\nBedlam, does some shadow of it hover, to bewilder and bemock the poor\ninhabitants _there_.\n\nRituals, Liturgies, Creeds, Hierarchies: all this is not religion; all\nthis, were it dead as Odinism, as Fetishism, does not kill religion at\nall! It is Stupidity alone, with never so many rituals, that kills\nreligion. Is not this still a World? Spinning Cotton under Arkwright\nand Adam Smith; founding Cities by the Fountain of Juturna, on the\nJaniculum Mount; tilling Canaan under Prophet Samuel and Psalmist\nDavid, man is ever man; the missionary of Unseen Powers; and great and\nvictorious, while he continues true to his mission; mean, miserable,\nfoiled, and at last annihilated and trodden out of sight and memory,\nwhen he proves untrue. Brother, thou art a Man, I think; thou art not\na mere building Beaver, or two-legged Cotton-Spider; thou hast verily\na Soul in thee, asphyxied or otherwise! Sooty Manchester,--it too is\nbuilt on the infinite Abysses; overspanned by the skyey Firmaments;\nand there is birth in it, and death in it;--and it is every whit as\nwonderful, as fearful, unimaginable, as the oldest Salem or Prophetic\nCity. Go or stand, in what time, in what place we will, are there not\nImmensities, Eternities over us, around us, in us:\n\n    'Solemn before us,\n    Veiled, the dark Portal,\n    Goal of all mortal:--\n    Stars silent rest o'er us,\n    Graves under us silent!'\n\nBetween _these_ two great Silences, the hum of all our spinning\ncylinders, Trades-Unions, Anti-Corn-Law Leagues and Carlton Clubs\ngoes on. Stupidity itself ought to pause a little and consider that. I\ntell thee, through all thy Ledgers, Supply-and-demand Philosophies,\nand daily most modern melancholy Business and Cant, there does shine\nthe presence of a Primeval Unspeakable; and thou wert wise to\nrecognise, not with lips only, that same!\n\nThe Maker's Laws, whether they are promulgated in Sinai Thunder, to\nthe ear or imagination, or quite otherwise promulgated, are the Laws\nof God; transcendent, everlasting, imperatively demanding obedience\nfrom all men. This, without any thunder, or with never so much\nthunder, thou, if there be any soul left in thee, canst know of a\ntruth. The Universe, I say, is made by Law; the great Soul of the\nWorld is just and not unjust. Look thou, if thou have eyes or soul\nleft, into this great shoreless Incomprehensible: in the heart of its\ntumultuous Appearances, Embroilments, and mad Time-vortexes, is there\nnot, silent, eternal, an All-just, an All-beautiful; sole Reality and\nultimate controlling Power of the whole? This is not a figure of\nspeech; this is a fact. The fact of Gravitation known to all animals,\nis not surer than this inner Fact, which may be known to all men. He\nwho knows this, it will sink, silent, awful, unspeakable, into his\nheart. He will say with Faust: \"Who _dare_ name Him?\" Most rituals or\n'namings' he will fall in with at present, are like to be\n'namings'--which shall be nameless! In silence, in the Eternal Temple,\nlet him worship, if there be no fit word: Such knowledge, the crown of\nhis whole spiritual being, the life of his life, let him keep and\nsacredly walk by. He has a religion. Hourly and daily, for himself and\nfor the whole world, a faithful, unspoken, but not ineffectual prayer\nrises, \"Thy will be done.\" His whole work on Earth is an emblematic\nspoken or acted prayer, Be the will of God done on Earth,--not the\nDevil's will, or any of the Devil's servants' wills! He has a\nreligion, this man; an everlasting Load-star that beams the brighter\nin the Heavens, the darker here on Earth grows the night around him.\nThou, if thou know not this, what are all rituals, liturgies,\nmythologies, mass-chantings, turnings of the rotatory calabash? They\nare as nothing; in a good many respects they are as _less_. Divorced\nfrom this, getting half-divorced from this, they are a thing to fill\none with a kind of horror; with a sacred inexpressible pity and fear.\nThe most tragical thing a human eye can look on. It was said to the\nProphet, \"Behold, I will show thee worse things than these: women\nweeping to Thammuz.\" That was the acme of the Prophet's vision,--then\nas now.\n\nRituals, Liturgies, Credos, Sinai Thunder: I know more or less the\nhistory of these; the rise, progress, decline and fall of these. Can\nthunder from all the thirty-two azimuths, repeated daily for centuries\nof years, make God's Laws more godlike to me? Brother, No. Perhaps I\nam grown to be a man now; and do not need the thunder and the terror\nany longer! Perhaps I am above being frightened; perhaps it is not\nFear, but Reverence alone, that shall now lead me!--Revelations,\nInspirations? Yes: and thy own god-created Soul; dost thou not call\nthat a 'revelation'? Who made Thee? Where didst Thou come from? The\nVoice of Eternity, if thou be not a blasphemer and poor asphyxied\nmute, speaks with that tongue of thine! _Thou_ art the latest Birth of\nNature; it is 'the Inspiration of the Almighty' that giveth _thee_\nunderstanding! My brother, my brother!--\n\nUnder baleful Atheisms, Mammonisms, Joe-Manton Dilettantisms, with\ntheir appropriate Cants and Idolisms, and whatsoever scandalous\nrubbish obscures and all but extinguishes the soul of man,--religion\nnow is; its Laws, written if not on stone tables, yet on the Azure of\nInfinitude, in the inner heart of God's Creation, certain as Life,\ncertain as Death! I say the Laws are there, and thou shalt not disobey\nthem. It were better for thee not. Better a hundred deaths than yes.\nTerrible 'penalties,' withal, if thou still need 'penalties,' are\nthere for disobeying. Dost thou observe, O redtape Politician, that\nfiery infernal Phenomenon, which men name French Revolution, sailing,\nunlooked-for, unbidden; through thy inane Protocol Dominion:--farseen,\nwith splendour, not of Heaven? Ten centuries will see it. There were\nTanneries at Meudon for human skins. And Hell, very truly Hell, had\npower over God's upper Earth for a season. The cruelest Portent that\nhas risen into created Space these ten centuries: let us hail it, with\nawestruck repentant hearts, as the voice once more of a God, though of\none in wrath. Blessed be the God's-voice; for _it_ is true, and\nFalsehoods have to cease before it! But for that same preternatural\nquasi-infernal Portent, one could not know what to make of this\nwretched world, in these days, at all. The deplorablest quack-ridden,\nand now hunger-ridden, downtrodden Despicability and _Flebile\nLudibrium_, of redtape Protocols, rotatory Calabashes, Poor-Law\nBastilles: who is there that could think of _its_ being fated to\ncontinue?--\n\nPenalties enough, my brother! This penalty inclusive of all: Eternal\nDeath to thy own hapless Self, if thou heed no other. Eternal Death, I\nsay,--with many meanings old and new, of which let this single one\nsuffice us here: The eternal impossibility for thee to be aught but a\nChimera, and swift-vanishing deceptive Phantasm, in God's\nCreation;--swift-vanishing, never to reappear: why should _it_\nreappear! Thou hadst one chance, thou wilt never have another.\nEverlasting ages will roll on, and no other be given thee. The\nfoolishest articulate-speaking soul now extant, may not he say to\nhimself: \"A whole Eternity I waited to be born; and now I have a whole\nEternity waiting to see what I will do when born!\" This is not\nTheology, this is Arithmetic. And thou but half-discernest this; thou\nbut half-believest it? Alas, on the shores of the Dead Sea, on\nSabbath, there goes on a Tragedy!--\n\nBut we will leave this of 'Religion;' of which, to say truth, it is\nchiefly profitable in these unspeakable days to keep silence. Thou\nneedest no 'New Religion;' nor art thou like to get any. Thou hast\nalready more 'religion' than thou makest use of. This day thou knowest\nten commanded duties, seest in thy mind ten things which should be\ndone, for one that thou doest! _Do_ one of them; this of itself will\nshow thee ten others which can and shall be done. \"But my future\nfate?\" Yes, thy future fate, indeed! Thy future fate, while thou\nmakest _it_ the chief question, seems to me--extremely questionable! I\ndo not think it can be good. Norse Odin, immemorial centuries ago, did\nnot he, though a poor Heathen, in the dawn of Time, teach us that for\nthe Dastard there was, and could be, no good fate; no harbour\nanywhere, save down with Hela, in the pool of Night! Dastards, Knaves,\nare they that lust for Pleasure, that tremble at Pain. For this world\nand for the next Dastards are a class of creatures made to be\n'arrested;' they are good for nothing else, can look for nothing else.\nA greater than Odin has been here. A greater than Odin has taught\nus--not a greater Dastardism, I hope! My brother, thou must pray for a\n_soul_; struggle, as with life-and-death energy, to get back thy soul!\nKnow that; 'religion' is no Morrison's Pill from without, but a\nreawakening of thy own Self from within:--and, above all, leave me\nalone of thy 'religions' and 'new religions' here and elsewhere! I am\nweary of this sick croaking for a Morrison's-Pill religion; for any\nand for every such. I want none such; and discern all such to be\nimpossible. The resuscitation of old liturgies fallen dead; much more,\nthe manufacture of new liturgies that will never be alive: how\nhopeless! Stylitisms, eremite fanaticisms and fakeerisms; spasmodic\nagonistic posture-makings, and narrow, cramped, morbid, if forever\nnoble wrestlings: all this is not a thing desirable to me. It is a\nthing the world _has_ done once,--when its beard was not grown as now!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd yet there is, at worst, one Liturgy which does remain forever\nunexceptionable: that of _Praying_ (as the old Monks did withal) _by\nWorking_. And indeed the Prayer which accomplished itself in special\nchapels at stated hours, and went not with a man, rising up from all\nhis Work and Action, at all moments sanctifying the same,--what was it\never good for? 'Work is Worship:' yes, in a highly considerable\nsense,--which, in the present state of all 'worship,' who is there\nthat can unfold! He that understands it well, understands the Prophecy\nof the whole Future; the last Evangel, which has included all others.\n_Its_ cathedral the Dome of Immensity,--hast thou seen it? coped with\nthe star-galaxies; paved with the green mosaic of land and ocean; and\nfor altar, verily, the Star-throne of the Eternal! Its litany and\npsalmody the noble acts, the heroic work and suffering, and true\nheart-utterance of all the Valiant of the Sons of Men. Its choir-music\nthe ancient Winds and Oceans, and deep-toned, inarticulate, but most\nspeaking voices of Destiny and History,--supernal ever as of old.\nBetween two great Silences:\n\n    'Stars silent rest o'er us,\n    Graves under us silent!'\n\nBetween which two great Silences, do not, as we said, all human\nNoises, in the naturalest times, most _preter_naturally march and\nroll?--\n\nI will insert this also, in a lower strain, from Sauerteig's\n_AEsthetische Springwurzeln_. 'Worship?' says he: 'Before that inane\ntumult of Hearsay filled men's heads, while the world lay yet silent,\nand the heart true and open, many things were Worship! To the primeval\nman whatsoever good came, descended on him (as, in mere fact, it ever\ndoes) direct from God; whatsoever duty lay visible for him, this a\nSupreme God had prescribed. To the present hour I ask thee, Who else?\nFor the primeval man, in whom dwelt Thought, this Universe was all a\nTemple; Life everywhere a Worship.\n\n'What Worship, for example, is there not in mere Washing! Perhaps one\nof the most moral things a man, in common cases, has it in his power\nto do. Strip thyself, go into the bath, or were it into the limpid\npool and running brook, and there wash and be clean; thou wilt step\nout again a purer and a better man. This consciousness of perfect\nouter pureness, that to thy skin there now adheres no foreign speck of\nimperfection, how it radiates in on thee, with cunning symbolic\ninfluences, to thy very soul! Thou hast an increase of tendency\ntowards all good things whatsoever. The oldest Eastern Sages, with joy\nand holy gratitude, had felt it so,--and that it was the Maker's gift\nand will. Whose else _is_ it? It remains a religious duty, from oldest\ntimes, in the East.--Nor could Herr Professor Strauss, when I put the\nquestion, deny that for us at present it is still such here in the\nWest! To that dingy fuliginous Operative, emerging from his soot-mill,\nwhat is the first duty I will prescribe, and offer help towards? That\nhe clean the skin of him. _Can_ he pray, by any ascertained method?\nOne knows not entirely:--but with soap and a sufficiency of water, he\ncan wash. Even the dull English feel something of this; they have a\nsaying, \"Cleanliness is near of kin to Godliness:\"--yet never, in any\ncountry, saw I operative men worse washed, and, in a climate drenched\nwith the softest cloudwater, such a scarcity of baths!'--Alas,\nSauerteig, our 'operative men' are at present short even of potatoes:\nwhat 'duty' can you prescribe to them?\n\nOr let us give a glance at China. Our new friend, the Emperor there,\nis Pontiff of three hundred million men; who do all live and work,\nthese many centuries now; authentically patronised by Heaven so far;\nand therefore must have some 'religion' of a kind. This\nEmperor-Pontiff has, in fact, a religious belief of certain Laws of\nHeaven; observes, with a religious rigour, his 'three thousand\npunctualities,' given out by men of insight, some sixty generations\nsince, as a legible transcript of the same,--the Heavens do seem to\nsay, not totally an incorrect one. He has not much of a ritual, this\nPontiff-Emperor; believes, it is likest, with the old Monks, that\n'Labour is Worship.' His most public Act of Worship, it appears, is\nthe drawing solemnly at a certain day, on the green bosom of our\nMother Earth, when the Heavens, after dead black winter, have again\nwith their vernal radiances awakened her, a distinct red Furrow with\nthe Plough,--signal that all the Ploughs of China are to begin\nploughing and worshipping! It is notable enough. He, in sight of the\nSeen and Unseen Powers, draws his distinct red Furrow there; saying,\nand praying, in mute symbolism, so many most eloquent things!\n\nIf you ask this Pontiff, \"Who made him? What is to become of him and\nus?\" he maintains a dignified reserve; waves his hand and\npontiff-eyes over the unfathomable deep of Heaven, the 'Tsien,' the\nazure kingdoms of Infinitude; as if asking, \"Is it doubtful that we\nare right _well_ made? Can aught that is _wrong_ become of us?\"--He\nand his three hundred millions (it is their chief 'punctuality') visit\nyearly the Tombs of their Fathers; each man the Tomb of his Father and\nhis Mother: alone there, in silence, with what of 'worship' or of\nother thought there may be, pauses solemnly each man; the divine Skies\nall silent over him; the divine Graves, and this divinest Grave, all\nsilent under him; the pulsings of his own soul, if he have any soul,\nalone audible. Truly it may be a kind of worship! Truly, if a man\ncannot get some glimpse into the Eternities, looking through this\nportal,--through what other need he try it?\n\nOur friend the Pontiff-Emperor permits cheerfully, though with\ncontempt, all manner of Buddists, Bonzes, Talapoins and suchlike, to\nbuild brick Temples, on the voluntary principle; to worship with what\nof chantings, paper-lanterns and tumultuous brayings, pleases them;\nand make night hideous, since they find some comfort in so doing.\nCheerfully, though with contempt. He is a wiser Pontiff than many\npersons think! He is as yet the one Chief Potentate or Priest in this\nEarth who has made a distinct systematic attempt at what we call the\nultimate result of all religion, '_Practical_ Hero-worship:' he does\nincessantly, with true anxiety, in such way as he can, search and sift\n(it would appear) his whole enormous population for the Wisest born\namong them; by which Wisest, as by born Kings, these three hundred\nmillion men are governed. The Heavens, to a certain extent, do appear\nto countenance him. These three hundred millions actually make\nporcelain, souchong tea, with innumerable other things; and fight,\nunder Heaven's flag, against Necessity;--and have fewer Seven-Years\nWars, Thirty-Years Wars, French-Revolution Wars, and infernal\nfightings with each other, than certain millions elsewhere have!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNay in our poor distracted Europe itself, in these newest times, have\nthere not religious voices risen,--with a religion new and yet the\noldest; entirely indisputable to all hearts of men? Some I do know,\nwho did not call or think themselves 'Prophets,' far enough from that;\nbut who were, in very truth, melodious Voices from the eternal Heart\nof Nature once again; souls forever venerable to all that have a soul.\nA French Revolution is one phenomenon; as complement and spiritual\nexponent thereof, a Poet Goethe and German Literature is to me\nanother. The old Secular or Practical World, so to speak, having gone\nup in fire, is not here the prophecy and dawn of a new Spiritual\nWorld, parent of far nobler, wider, new Practical Worlds? A Life of\nAntique devoutness, Antique veracity and heroism, has again become\npossible, is again _seen_ actual there, for the most modern man. A\nphenomenon, as quiet as it is, comparable for greatness to no other!\n'The great event for the world is, now as always, the arrival\nin it of a new Wise Man.' Touches there are, be the Heavens ever\nthanked, of new Sphere-melody; audible once more, in the infinite\njargoning discords and poor scrannel-pipings of the thing called\nLiterature;--priceless there, as the voice of new Heavenly Psalms!\nLiterature, like the old Prayer-Collections of the first centuries,\nwere it 'well selected from and burnt,' contains precious things. For\nLiterature, with all its printing-presses, puffing-engines and\nshoreless deafening triviality, _is_ yet 'the Thought of Thinking\nSouls.' A sacred 'religion,' if you like the name, does live in the\nheart of that strange froth-ocean, not wholly froth, which we call\nLiterature; and will more and more disclose itself therefrom;--not now\nas scorching Fire: the red smoky scorching Fire has purified itself\ninto white sunny Light. Is not Light grander than Fire? It is the same\nelement in a state of purity.\n\nMy ingenuous readers, we will march out of this Third Book with a\nrhythmic word of Goethe's on our lips; a word which perhaps has\nalready sung itself, in dark hours and in bright, through many a\nheart. To me, finding it devout yet wholly credible and veritable,\nfull of piety yet free of cant; to me, joyfully finding much in it,\nand joyfully missing so much in it, this little snatch of music, by\nthe greatest German Man, sounds like a stanza in the grand _Road-Song_\nand _Marching-Song_ of our great Teutonic Kindred, wending, wending,\nvaliant and victorious, through the undiscovered Deeps of Time! He\ncalls it _Mason-Lodge_,--not Psalm or Hymn:\n\n    The Mason's ways are\n    A type of Existence,\n    And his persistence\n    Is as the days are\n    Of men in this world.\n\n    The Future hides in it\n    Gladness and sorrow;\n    We press still thorow,\n    Nought that abides in it\n    Daunting us,--onward.\n\n    And solemn before us,\n    Veiled, the dark Portal,\n    Goal of all mortal:--\n    Stars silent rest o'er us,\n    Graves under us silent!\n\n    While earnest thou gazest,\n    Comes boding of terror,\n    Comes phantasm and error,\n    Perplexes the bravest\n    With doubt and misgiving.\n\n    But heard are the Voices,--\n    Heard are the Sages,\n    The Worlds and the Ages:\n    \"Choose well, your choice is\n    Brief and yet endless:\n\n    Here eyes do regard you,\n    In Eternity's stillness;\n    Here is all fulness,\n    Ye brave, to reward you;\n    Work, and despair not.\"\n\n\n\n\nBOOK IV.\n\nHOROSCOPE.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nARISTOCRACIES.\n\n\nTo predict the Future, to manage the Present, would not be so\nimpossible, had not the Past been so sacrilegiously mishandled;\neffaced, and what is worse, defaced! The Past cannot be seen; the\nPast, looked at through the medium of 'Philosophical History' in these\ntimes, cannot even be _not_ seen: it is misseen; affirmed to have\nexisted,--and to have been a godless Impossibility. Your Norman\nConquerors, true royal souls, crowned kings as such, were vulturous\nirrational tyrants: your Becket was a noisy egoist and hypocrite;\ngetting his brains spilt on the floor of Canterbury Cathedral, to\nsecure the main chance,--somewhat uncertain how! 'Policy, Fanaticism,'\nor say 'Enthusiasm,' even 'honest Enthusiasm,'--ah yes, of course:\n\n    'The Dog, to gain his private ends,\n    _Went_ mad, and bit the Man!'--\n\nFor in truth, the eye sees in all things 'what it brought with it the\nmeans of seeing.' A godless century, looking back on centuries that\nwere godly, produces portraitures more miraculous than any other. All\nwas inane discord in the Past; brute Force bore rule everywhere;\nStupidity, savage Unreason, fitter for Bedlam than for a human World!\nWhereby indeed it becomes sufficiently natural that the like\nqualities, in new sleeker habiliments, should continue in our time to\nrule. Millions enchanted in Bastille Workhouses; Irish Widows proving\ntheir relationship by typhus-fever: what would you have? It was ever\nso, or worse. Man's History, was it not always even this: The cookery\nand eating-up of imbecile Dupedom by successful Quackhood; the battle,\nwith various weapons, of vulturous Quack and Tyrant against vulturous\nTyrant and Quack? No God was in the Past Time; nothing but Mechanisms\nand Chaotic Brute-Gods:--how shall the poor 'Philosophic Historian,'\nto whom his own century is all godless, see any God in other\ncenturies?\n\nMen believe in Bibles, and disbelieve in them: but of all Bibles the\nfrightfulest to disbelieve in is this 'Bible of Universal History.'\nThis is the Eternal Bible and God's-Book, 'which every born man,' till\nonce the soul and eyesight are extinguished in him, 'can and must,\nwith his own eyes, see the God's-Finger writing!' To discredit this,\nis an _infidelity_ like no other. Such infidelity you would punish, if\nnot by fire and faggot, which are difficult to manage in our times,\nyet by the most peremptory order, To hold its peace till it got\nsomething wiser to say. Why should the blessed Silence be broken into\nnoises, to communicate only the like of this? If the Past have no\nGod's-Reason in it, nothing but Devil's-Unreason, let the Past be\neternally forgotten: mention _it_ no more;--we whose ancestors were\nall hanged, why should we talk of ropes!\n\nIt is, in brief, not true that men ever lived by Delirium, Hypocrisy,\nInjustice, or any form of Unreason, since they came to inhabit this\nPlanet. It is not true that they ever did, or ever will, live except\nby the reverse of these. Men will again be taught this. Their acted\nHistory will then again be a Heroism; their written History, what it\nonce was, an Epic. Nay, forever it is either such, or else it\nvirtually is--Nothing. Were it written in a thousand volumes, the\nUnheroic of such volumes hastens incessantly to be forgotten; the net\ncontent of an Alexandrian Library of Unheroics is, and will ultimately\nshow itself to be, _zero_. What man is interested to remember _it_;\nhave not all men, at all times, the liveliest interest to forget\nit?--'Revelations,' if not celestial, then infernal, will teach us\nthat God is; we shall then, if needful, discern without difficulty\nthat He has always been! The Dryasdust Philosophisms and enlightened\nScepticisms of the Eighteenth Century, historical and other, will have\nto survive for a while with the Physiologists, as a memorable\n_Nightmare-Dream_. All this haggard epoch, with its ghastly Doctrines,\nand death's-head Philosophies 'teaching by example' or otherwise, will\none day have become, what to our Moslem friends their godless ages\nare, 'the Period of Ignorance.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf the convulsive struggles of the last Half-Century have taught poor\nstruggling convulsed Europe any truth, it may perhaps be this as the\nessence of innumerable others: That Europe requires a real\nAristocracy, a real Priesthood, or it cannot continue to exist. Huge\nFrench Revolutions, Napoleonisms, then Bourbonisms with their\ncorollary of Three Days, finishing in very unfinal Louis-Philippisms:\nall this ought to be didactic! All this may have taught us, That False\nAristocracies are insupportable; that No-Aristocracies,\nLiberty-and-Equalities are impossible; that true Aristocracies are at\nonce indispensable and not easily attained.\n\nAristocracy and Priesthood, a Governing Class and a Teaching\nClass: these two, sometimes separate, and endeavouring to\nharmonise themselves, sometimes conjoined as one, and the King a\nPontiff-King:--there did no Society exist without these two vital\nelements, there will none exist. It lies in the very nature of man:\nyou will visit no remotest village in the most republican country of\nthe world, where virtually or actually you do not find these two\npowers at work. Man, little as he may suppose it, is necessitated to\nobey superiors. He is a social being in virtue of this necessity; nay\nhe could not be gregarious otherwise. He obeys those whom he esteems\nbetter than himself, wiser, braver; and will forever obey such; and\neven be ready and delighted to do it.\n\nThe Wiser, Braver: these, a Virtual Aristocracy everywhere and\neverywhen, do in all Societies that reach any articulate shape,\ndevelop themselves into a ruling class, an Actual Aristocracy, with\nsettled modes of operating, what are called laws and even\n_private-laws_ or privileges, and so forth; very notable to look upon\nin this world.--Aristocracy and Priesthood, we say, are sometimes\nunited. For indeed the Wiser and the Braver are properly but one\nclass; no wise man but needed first of all to be a brave man, or he\nnever had been wise. The noble Priest was always a noble _Aristos_ to\nbegin with, and something more to end with. Your Luther, your Knox,\nyour Anselm, Becket, Abbot Samson, Samuel Johnson, if they had not\nbeen brave enough, by what possibility could they ever have been\nwise?--If, from accident or forethought, this your Actual Aristocracy\nhave got discriminated into Two Classes, there can be no doubt but the\nPriest Class is the more dignified; supreme over the other, as\ngoverning head is over active hand. And yet in practice again, it is\nlikeliest the reverse will be found arranged;--a sign that the\narrangement is already vitiated; that a split is introduced into it,\nwhich will widen and widen till the whole be rent asunder.\n\nIn England, in Europe generally, we may say that these two\nVirtualities have unfolded themselves into Actualities, in by far the\nnoblest and richest manner any region of the world ever saw. A\nspiritual Guideship, a practical Governorship, fruit of the grand\nconscious endeavours, say rather of the immeasurable unconscious\ninstincts and necessities of men, have established themselves; very\nstrange to behold. Everywhere, while so much has been forgotten, you\nfind the King's Palace, and the Viceking's Castle, Mansion,\nManorhouse; till there is not an inch of ground from sea to sea but\nhas both its King and Viceking, long due series of Vicekings, its\nSquire, Earl, Duke or whatever the title of him,--to whom you have\ngiven the land, that he may govern you in it.\n\nMore touching still, there is not a hamlet where poor peasants\ncongregate, but, by one means and another, a Church-Apparatus has been\ngot together,--roofed edifice, with revenues and belfries; pulpit,\nreading-desk, with Books and Methods: possibility, in short, and\nstrict prescription, That a man stand there and speak of spiritual\nthings to men. It is beautiful;--even in its great obscuration and\ndecadence, it is among the beautifulest, most touching objects one\nsees on the Earth. This Speaking Man has indeed, in these times,\nwandered terribly from the point; has, alas, as it were, totally lost\nsight of the point: yet, at bottom, whom have we to compare with him?\nOf all public functionaries boarded and lodged on the Industry of\nModern Europe, is there one worthier of the board he has? A man even\nprofessing, and never so languidly making still some endeavour, to\nsave the souls of men: contrast him with a man professing to do little\nbut shoot the partridges of men! I wish he could find the point again,\nthis Speaking One; and stick to it with tenacity, with deadly energy:\nfor there is need of him yet! The Speaking Function, this of Truth\ncoming to us with a living voice, nay in a living shape, and as a\nconcrete practical exemplar: this, with all our Writing and Printing\nFunctions, has a perennial place. Could he but find the point\nagain,--take the old spectacles off his nose, and looking up discover,\nalmost in contact with him, what the _real_ Satanas, and\nsoul-devouring, world-devouring _Devil_, now is! Original Sin and\nsuchlike are bad enough. I doubt not: but distilled Gin, dark\nIgnorance, Stupidity, dark Corn-Law, Bastille and Company, what are\nthey! _Will_ he discover our new real Satan, whom he has to fight; or\ngo on droning through his old nose-spectacles about old extinct\nSatans; and never see the real one, till he _feel_ him at his own\nthroat and ours? That is a question, for the world! Let us not\nintermeddle with it here.\n\nSorrowful, phantasmal as this same Double Aristocracy of Teachers and\nGovernors now looks, it is worth all men's while to know that the\npurport of it is and remains noble and most real. Dryasdust, looking\nmerely at the surface, is greatly in error as to those ancient Kings.\nWilliam Conqueror, William Rufus or Redbeard, Stephen Curthose\nhimself, much more Henry Beauclerc and our brave Plantagenet Henry:\nthe life of these men was not a vulturous Fighting; it was a valorous\nGoverning,--to which occasionally Fighting did, and alas must yet,\nthough far seldomer now, superadd itself as an accident, a distressing\nimpedimental adjunct. The fighting too was indispensable, for\nascertaining who had the might over whom, the right over whom. By much\nhard fighting, as we once said, 'the unrealities, beaten into dust,\nflew gradually off;' and left the plain reality and fact, \"Thou\nstronger than I; thou wiser than I; thou king, and subject I,\" in a\nsomewhat clearer condition.\n\nTruly we cannot enough admire, in those Abbot-Samson and\nWilliam-Conqueror times, the arrangement they had made of their\nGoverning Classes. Highly interesting to observe how the sincere\ninsight, on their part, into what did, of primary necessity, behove to\nbe accomplished, had led them to the way of accomplishing it, and in\nthe course of time to get it accomplished! No imaginary Aristocracy\nwould serve their turn; and accordingly they attained a real one. The\nBravest men, who, it is ever to be repeated and remembered, are also\non the whole the Wisest, Strongest, everyway Best, had here, with a\nrespectable degree of accuracy, been got selected; seated each on his\npiece of territory, which was lent him, then gradually given him, that\nhe might govern it. These Vicekings, each on his portion of the common\nsoil of England, with a Head King over all, were a 'Virtuality\nperfected into an Actuality' really to an astonishing extent.\n\nFor those were rugged stalwart ages; full of earnestness, of a rude\nGod's-truth:--nay, at any rate, their _quilting_ was so unspeakably\n_thinner_ than ours; Fact came swiftly on them, if at any time they\nhad yielded to Phantasm! 'The Knaves and Dastards' had to be\n'arrested' in some measure; or the world, almost within year and day,\nfound that it could not live. The Knaves and Dastards accordingly were\ngot arrested. Dastards upon the very throne had to be got arrested,\nand taken off the throne,--by such methods as there were; by the\nroughest method, if there chanced to be no smoother one! Doubtless\nthere was much harshness of operation, much severity; as indeed\ngovernment and surgery are often somewhat severe. Gurth, born thrall\nof Cedric, it is like, got cuffs as often as pork-parings, if he\nmisdemeaned himself; but Gurth did belong to Cedric: no human creature\nthen went about connected with nobody; left to go his way into\nBastilles or worse, under _Laissez-faire_; reduced to prove his\nrelationship by dying of typhus-fever!--Days come when there is no\nKing in Israel, but every man is his own king, doing that which is\nright in his own eyes;--and tarbarrels are burnt to 'Liberty.'\n'Ten-pound Franchise' and the like, with considerable effect in\nvarious ways!--\n\nThat Feudal Aristocracy, I say, was no imaginary one. To a respectable\ndegree, its _Jarls_, what we now call Earls, were _Strong-Ones_ in\nfact as well as etymology; its Dukes _Leaders_; its Lords _Law-wards_.\nThey did all the Soldiering and Police of the country, all the\nJudging, Law-making, even the Church-Extension; whatsoever in the way\nof Governing, of Guiding and Protecting could be done. It was a Land\nAristocracy; it managed the Governing of this English People, and had\nthe reaping of the Soil of England in return. It is, in many senses,\nthe Law of Nature, this same Law of Feudalism;--no right Aristocracy\nbut a Land one! The curious are invited to meditate upon it in these\ndays. Soldiering, Police and Judging, Church-Extension, nay real\nGovernment and Guidance, all this was actually _done_ by the Holders\nof the Land in return for their Land. How much of it is now done by\nthem; done by anybody? Good Heavens, \"Laissez-faire, Do ye nothing,\neat your wages and sleep,\" is everywhere the passionate half-wise cry\nof this time; and they will not so much as do nothing, but must do\nmere Corn-Laws! We raise Fifty-two millions, from the general mass of\nus, to get our Governing done--or, alas, to get ourselves persuaded\nthat it is done: and the 'peculiar burden of the Land' is to pay, not\nall this, but to pay, as I learn, one twenty-fourth part of all this.\nOur first Chartist Parliament, or Oliver _Redivivus_, you would say,\nwill know where to lay the new taxes of England!--Or, alas, taxes? If\nwe made the Holders of the Land pay every shilling still of the\nexpense of Governing the Land, what were all that? The Land, by mere\nhired Governors, cannot be got governed. You cannot hire men to govern\nthe Land: it is by a mission not contracted for in the Stock-Exchange,\nbut felt in their own hearts as coming out of Heaven, that men can\ngovern a Land. The mission of a Land Aristocracy is a _sacred_ one, in\nboth the senses of that old word. The footing it stands on, at\npresent, might give rise to thoughts other than of Corn-Laws!--\n\nBut truly a 'Splendour of God,' as in William Conqueror's rough oath,\ndid dwell in those old rude veracious ages; did inform, more and more,\nwith a heavenly nobleness, all departments of their work and life.\nPhantasms could not yet walk abroad in mere Cloth Tailorage; they were\nat least Phantasms 'on the rim of the horizon,' pencilled there by an\neternal Light-beam from within. A most 'practical' Hero-worship went\non, unconsciously or half-consciously, everywhere. A Monk Samson, with\na maximum of two shillings in his pocket, could, without ballot-box,\nbe made a Viceking of, being seen to be worthy. The difference between\na good man and a bad man was as yet felt to be, what it forever is, an\nimmeasurable one. Who _durst_ have elected a Pandarus Dogdraught, in\nthose days, to any office, Carlton Club, Senatorship, or place\nwhatsoever? It was felt that the arch Satanas and no other had a clear\nright of property in Pandarus; that it were better for you to have no\nhand in Pandarus, to keep out of Pandarus his neighbourhood! Which is,\nto this hour, the mere fact; though for the present, alas, the\nforgotten fact. I think they were comparatively blessed times those,\nin their way! 'Violence,' 'war,' 'disorder:' well, what is war, and\ndeath itself, to such a perpetual life-in-death, and 'peace, peace,\nwhere there is no peace'! Unless some Hero-worship, in its new\nappropriate form, can return, this world does not promise to be very\nhabitable long.\n\nOld Anselm, exiled Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the purest-minded\n'men of genius,' was travelling to make his appeal to Rome against\nKing Rufus,--a man of rough ways, in whom the 'inner Lightbeam' shone\nvery fitfully. It is beautiful to read, in Monk Eadmer, how the\nContinental populations welcomed and venerated this Anselm, as no\nFrench population now venerates Jean-Jacques or giant-killing\nVoltaire; as not even an American population now venerates a Schnuespel\nthe distinguished Novelist! They had, by phantasy and true insight,\nthe intensest conviction that a God's-Blessing dwelt in this\nAnselm,--as is my conviction too. They crowded round, with bent knees\nand enkindled hearts, to receive his blessing, to hear his voice, to\nsee the light of his face. My blessings on them and on him!--But the\nnotablest was a certain necessitous or covetous Duke of Burgundy, in\nstraitened circumstances we shall hope,--who reflected that in all\nlikelihood this English Archbishop, going towards Rome to appeal, must\nhave taken store of cash with him to bribe the Cardinals. Wherefore he\nof Burgundy, for his part, decided to lie in wait and rob him. 'In an\nopen space of a wood,' some 'wood' then green and growing, eight\ncenturies ago, in Burgundian Land,--this fierce Duke, with fierce\nsteel followers, shaggy, savage, as the Russian bear, dashes out on\nthe weak old Anselm; who is riding along there, on his small\nquiet-going pony; escorted only by Eadmer and another poor Monk on\nponies; and, except small modicum of roadmoney, not a gold coin in his\npossession. The steelclad Russian bear emerges, glaring: the old\nwhite-bearded man starts not,--paces on unmoved, looking into him with\nthose clear old earnest eyes, with that venerable sorrowful time-worn\nface; of whom no man or thing need be afraid, and who also is afraid\nof no created man or thing. The fire-eyes of his Burgundian Grace meet\nthese clear eye-glances, convey them swift to his heart: he bethinks\nhim that probably this feeble, fearless, hoary Figure has in it\nsomething of the Most High God; that probably he shall be damned if he\nmeddle with it,--that, on the whole, he had better not. He plunges,\nthe rough savage, from his war-horse, down to his knees; embraces the\nfeet of old Anselm: he too begs his blessing; orders men to escort\nhim, guard him from being robbed, and under dread penalties see him\nsafe on his way. _Per os Dei_, as his Majesty was wont to ejaculate!\n\nNeither is this quarrel of Rufus and Anselm, of Henry and Becket,\nuninstructive to us. It was, at bottom, a great quarrel. For,\nadmitting that Anselm was full of divine blessing, he by no means\nincluded in him all forms of divine blessing:--there were far other\nforms withal, which he little dreamed of; and William Redbeard was\nunconsciously the representative and spokesman of these. In truth,\ncould your divine Anselm, your divine Pope Gregory have had their way,\nthe results had been very notable. Our Western World had all become a\nEuropean Thibet, with one Grand Lama sitting at Rome; our one\nhonourable business that of singing mass, all day and all night. Which\nwould not in the least have suited us! The Supreme Powers willed it\nnot so.\n\nIt was as if King Redbeard unconsciously, addressing Anselm, Becket\nand the others, had said: \"Right Reverend, your Theory of the Universe\nis indisputable by man or devil. To the core of our heart we feel that\nthis divine thing, which you call Mother Church, does fill the whole\nworld hitherto known, and is and shall be all our salvation and all\nour desire. And yet--and yet--Behold, though it is an unspoken secret,\nthe world is _wider_ than any of us think, Right Reverend! Behold,\nthere are yet other immeasurable Sacrednesses in this that you call\nHeathenism, Secularity! On the whole, I, in an obscure but most rooted\nmanner, feel that I cannot comply with you. Western Thibet and\nperpetual mass-chanting,--No. I am, so to speak, in the family-way;\nwith child, of I know not what,--certainly of something far different\nfrom this! I have--_Per os Dei_, I have Manchester Cotton-trades,\nBromwicham Iron-trades, American Commonwealths, Indian Empires, Steam\nMechanisms and Shakspeare Dramas, in my belly; and cannot do it, Right\nReverend!\"--So accordingly it was decided: and Saxon Becket spilt his\nlife in Canterbury Cathedral, as Scottish Wallace did on Tower-hill,\nand as generally a noble man and martyr has to do,--not for nothing;\nno, but for a divine something other than _he_ had altogether\ncalculated. We will now quit this of the hard, organic, but limited\nFeudal Ages; and glance timidly into the immense Industrial Ages, as\nyet all inorganic, and in a quite pulpy condition, requiring\ndesperately to harden themselves into some organism!\n\nOur Epic having now become _Tools and the Man_, it is more than\nusually impossible to prophesy the Future. The boundless Future does\nlie there, predestined, nay already extant though unseen; hiding, in\nits Continents of Darkness, 'gladness and sorrow:' but the supremest\nintelligence of man cannot prefigure much of it:--the united\nintelligence and effort of All Men in all coming generations, this\nalone will gradually prefigure it, and figure and form it into a seen\nfact! Straining our eyes hitherto, the utmost effort of intelligence\nsheds but some most glimmering dawn, a little way into its dark\nenormous Deeps: only huge outlines loom uncertain on the sight; and\nthe ray of prophecy, at a short distance, expires. But may we not say,\nhere as always, Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof! To shape\nthe whole Future is not our problem; but only to shape faithfully a\nsmall part of it, according to rules already known. It is perhaps\npossible for each of us, who will with due earnestness inquire, to\nascertain clearly what he, for his own part, ought to do: this let\nhim, with true heart, do, and continue doing. The general issue will,\nas it has always done, rest well with a Higher Intelligence than ours.\n\nOne grand 'outline,' or even two, many earnest readers may perhaps, at\nthis stage of the business, be able to prefigure for themselves,--and\ndraw some guidance from. One prediction, or even two, are already\npossible. For the Life-tree Igdrasil, in all its new developments, is\nthe selfsame world-old Life-tree: having found an element or elements\nthere, running from the very roots of it in Hela's Realms, in the Well\nof Mimer and of the Three Nornas or Times, up to this present hour of\nit in our own hearts, we conclude that such will have to continue. A\nman has, in his own soul, an Eternal; can read something of the\nEternal there, if he will look! He already knows what will continue;\nwhat cannot, by any means or appliance whatsoever, be made to\ncontinue!\n\nOne wide and widest 'outline' ought really, in all ways, to be\nbecoming clear to us; this namely: That a 'Splendour of God,' in one\nform or other, will have to unfold itself from the heart of these our\nIndustrial Ages too; or they will never get themselves 'organised;'\nbut continue chaotic, distressed, distracted evermore, and have to\nperish in frantic suicidal dissolution. A second 'outline' or\nprophecy, narrower, but also wide enough, seems not less certain:\nThat there will again _be_ a King in Israel; a system of Order and\nGovernment; and every man shall, in some measure, see himself\nconstrained to do that which is right in the King's eyes. This too we\nmay call a sure element of the Future; for this too is of the\nEternal;--this too is of the Present, though hidden from most; and\nwithout it no fibre of the Past ever was. An actual new Sovereignty,\nIndustrial Aristocracy, real not imaginary Aristocracy, is\nindispensable and indubitable for us.\n\nBut what an Aristocracy; on what new, far more complex and cunningly\ndevised conditions than that old Feudal fighting one! For we are to\nbethink us that the Epic verily is not _Arms and the Man_, but\n_Tools and the Man_,--an infinitely wider kind of Epic. And again\nwe are to bethink us that men cannot now be bound to men by\n_brass-collars_,--not at all: that this brass-collar method, in all\nfigures of it, has vanished out of Europe forevermore! Huge Democracy,\nwalking the streets everywhere in its Sack Coat, has asserted so much;\nirrevocably, brooking no reply! True enough, man _is_ forever the\n'born thrall' of certain men, born master of certain other men, born\nequal of certain others, let him acknowledge the fact or not. It is\nunblessed for him when he cannot acknowledge this fact; he is in the\nchaotic state, ready to perish, till he do get the fact acknowledged.\nBut no man is, or can henceforth be, the brass-collar thrall of any\nman; you will have to bind him by other, far nobler and cunninger\nmethods. Once for all, he is to be loose of the brass-collar, to have\na scope _as_ wide as his faculties now are:--will he not be all the\nusefuler to you in that new state? Let him go abroad as a trusted one,\nas a free one; and return home to you with rich earnings at night!\nGurth could only tend pigs; this one will build cities, conquer waste\nworlds.--How, in conjunction with inevitable Democracy, indispensable\nSovereignty is to exist: certainly it is the hugest question ever\nheretofore propounded to Mankind! The solution of which is work for\nlong years and centuries. Years and centuries, of one knows not what\ncomplexion;--blessed or unblessed, according as they shall, with\nearnest valiant effort, make progress therein, or, in slothful\nunveracity and dilettantism, only talk of making progress. For either\nprogress therein, or swift and ever swifter progress towards\ndissolution, is henceforth a necessity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is of importance that this grand reformation were begun; that\nCorn-Law Debatings and other jargon, little less than delirious in\nsuch a time, had fled far away, and left us room to begin! For the\nevil has grown practical, extremely conspicuous; if it be not seen and\nprovided for, the blindest fool will have to feel it ere long. There\nis much that can wait; but there is something also that cannot wait.\nWith millions of eager Working Men imprisoned in 'Impossibility' and\nPoor-Law Bastilles, it is time that some means of dealing with them\nwere trying to become 'possible'! Of the Government of England, of all\narticulate-speaking functionaries, real and imaginary Aristocracies,\nof me and of thee, it is imperatively demanded, \"How do you mean to\nmanage these men? Where are they to find a supportable existence? What\nis to become of them,--and of you!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nBRIBERY COMMITTEE.\n\n\nIn the case of the late Bribery Committee, it seemed to be the\nconclusion of the soundest practical minds that Bribery could not be\nput down; that Pure Election was a thing we had seen the last of, and\nmust now go on without, as we best could. A conclusion not a little\nstartling; to which it requires a practical mind of some seasoning to\nreconcile yourself at once! It seems, then, we are henceforth to get\nourselves constituted Legislators not according to what merit we may\nhave, or even what merit we may seem to have, but according to the\nlength of our purse, and our frankness, impudence and dexterity in\nlaying out the contents of the same. Our theory, written down in all\nbooks and law-books, spouted forth from all barrel-heads, is perfect\npurity of Tenpound Franchise, absolute sincerity of question put and\nanswer given;--and our practice is irremediable bribery; irremediable,\nunpunishable, which you will do more harm than good by attempting to\npunish! Once more, a very startling conclusion indeed; which, whatever\nthe soundest practical minds in Parliament may think of it, invites\nall British men to meditations of various kinds.\n\nA Parliament, one would say, which proclaims itself elected and\neligible by bribery, tells the Nation that is governed by it a piece\nof singular news. Bribery: have we reflected what bribery is? Bribery\nmeans not only length of purse, which is neither qualification nor the\ncontrary for legislating well; but it means dishonesty, and even\nimpudent dishonesty;--brazen insensibility to lying and to making\nothers lie; total oblivion, and flinging overboard, for the nonce, of\nany real thing you can call veracity, morality; with dextrous\nputting-on the cast-clothes of that real thing, and strutting about in\nthem! What Legislating can you get out of a man in that fatal\nsituation? None that will profit much, one would think! A Legislator\nwho has left his veracity lying on the door-threshold, he, why verily\n_he_--ought to be sent out to seek it again!\n\nHeavens, what an improvement, were there once fairly in Downing-street\nan Election-Office opened, with a tariff of Boroughs! Such and such a\npopulation, amount of property-tax, ground-rental, extent of trade;\nreturns two Members, returns one Member, for so much money down:\nIpswich so many thousands, Nottingham so many,--as they happened, one\nby one, to fall into this new Downing-street Schedule A! An\nincalculable improvement, in comparison: for now at least you have it\nfairly by length of purse, and leave the dishonesty, the impudence,\nthe unveracity all handsomely aside. Length of purse and desire to be\na Legislator ought to get a man into Parliament, not _with_, but if\npossible _without_ the unveracity, the impudence and the dishonesty!\nLength of purse and desire, these are, as intrinsic qualifications,\ncorrectly equal to zero; but they are not yet _less_ than zero,--as\nthe smallest addition of that latter sort will make them!\n\nAnd is it come to this? And does our venerable Parliament announce\nitself elected and eligible in this manner? Surely such a Parliament\npromulgates strange horoscopes of itself. What is to become of a\nParliament elected or eligible in this manner? Unless Belial and\nBeelzebub have got possession of the throne of this Universe, such\nParliament is preparing itself for new Reform-bills. We shall have to\ntry it by Chartism, or any conceivable _ism_, rather than put-up with\nthis! There is already in England 'religion' enough to get six hundred\nand fifty-eight Consulting Men brought together who do _not_ begin\nwork with a lie in their mouth. Our poor old Parliament, thousands of\nyears old, is still good for something, for several things;--though\nmany are beginning to ask, with ominous anxiety, in these days: For\nwhat thing? But for whatever thing and things Parliament be good,\nindisputably it must start with other than a lie in its mouth! On the\nwhole, a Parliament working with a lie in its mouth, will have to take\nitself away. To no Parliament or thing, that one has heard of, did\nthis Universe ever long yield harbour on that footing. At all hours of\nthe day and night, some Chartism is advancing, some armed Cromwell is\nadvancing, to apprise such Parliament: \"Ye are no Parliament. In the\nname of God,--go!\"\n\nIn sad truth, once more, how is our whole existence, in these present\ndays, built on Cant, Speciosity, Falsehood, Dilettantism; with this\none serious Veracity in it: Mammonism! Dig down where you will,\nthrough the Parliament-floor or elsewhere, how infallibly do you, at\nspade's depth below the service, come upon this universal _Liars_-rock\nsubstratum! Much else is ornamental; true on barrel-heads, in pulpits,\nhustings, Parliamentary benches; but this is forever true and truest:\n\"Money does bring money's worth; Put money in your purse.\" Here, if\nnowhere else, is the human soul still in thorough earnest; sincere\nwith a prophet's sincerity: and 'the Hell of the English,' as\nSauerteig said, 'is the infinite terror of Not getting on, especially\nof Not making money.' With results!\n\nTo many persons the horoscope of Parliament is more interesting than\nto me: but surely all men with souls must admit that sending members\nto Parliament by bribery is an infamous solecism; an act entirely\nimmoral, which no man can have to do with more or less, but he will\nsoil his fingers more or less. No Carlton Clubs, Reform Clubs, nor any\nsort of clubs or creatures, or of accredited opinions or practices,\ncan make a Lie Truth, can make Bribery a Propriety. The Parliament\nshould really either punish and put away Bribery, or legalise it by\nsome Office in Downing-street. As I read the Apocalypses, a Parliament\nthat can do neither of these things is not in a good way.--And yet,\nalas, what of Parliaments and their Elections? Parliamentary Elections\nare but the topmost ultimate outcome of an electioneering which goes\non at all hours, in all places, in every meeting of two or more men.\nIt is _we_ that vote wrong, and teach the poor ragged Freemen of\nBoroughs to vote wrong. We pay respect to those worthy of no respect.\n\nIs not Pandarus Dogdraught a member of select clubs, and admitted into\nthe drawing-rooms of men? Visibly to all persons he is of the offal of\nCreation; but he carries money in his purse, due lacquer on his\ndog-visage, and it is believed will not steal spoons. The human\nspecies does not with one voice, like the Hebrew Psalmist, 'shun to\nsit' with Dogdraught, refuse totally to dine with Dogdraught; men\ncalled of honour are willing enough to dine with him, his talk being\nlively, and his champagne excellent. We say to ourselves, \"The man is\nin good society,\"--others have already voted for him; why should not\nI? We _forget_ the indefeasible right of property that Satan has in\nDogdraught,--we are not afraid to be near Dogdraught! It is we that\nvote wrong; blindly, nay with falsity prepense! It is we that no\nlonger know the difference between Human Worth and Human Unworth; or\nfeel that the one is admirable and alone admirable, the other\ndetestable, damnable! How shall _we_ find out a Hero and Viceking\nSamson with a maximum of two shillings in his pocket? We have no\nchance to do such a thing. We have got out of the Ages of Heroism,\ndeep into the Ages of Flunkyism,--and must return or die. What a noble\nset of mortals are we, who, because there is no Saint Edmund\nthreatening us at the rim of the horizon, are not afraid to be\nwhatever, for the day and hour, is smoothest for us!\n\nAnd now, in good sooth, why should an indigent discerning Freeman give\nhis vote without bribes? Let us rather honour the poor man that he\ndoes discern clearly wherein lies, for him, the true kernel of the\nmatter. What is it to the ragged grimy Freeman of a Tenpound-Franchise\nBorough, whether Aristides Rigmarole Esq. of the Destructive, or the\nHon. Alcides Dolittle of the Conservative Party be sent to\nParliament;--much more, whether the two-thousandth part of them be\nsent, for that is the amount of his faculty in it? Destructive or\nConservative, what will either of them destroy or conserve of vital\nmoment to this Freeman? Has he found either of them care, at bottom, a\nsixpence for him or his interests, or those of his class or of his\ncause, or of any class or cause that is of much value to God or to\nman? Rigmarole and Dolittle have alike cared for themselves hitherto;\nand for their own clique, and self-conceited crotchets,--their greasy\ndishonest interests of pudding, or windy dishonest interests of\npraise; and not very perceptibly for any other interest whatever.\nNeither Rigmarole nor Dolittle will accomplish any good or any evil\nfor this grimy Freeman, like giving him a five-pound note, or refusing\nto give it him. It will be smoothest to vote according to value\nreceived. That is the veritable fact; and he indigent, like others\nthat are not indigent, acts conformably thereto.\n\nWhy, reader, truly, if they asked thee or me, Which way we meant to\nvote?--were it not our likeliest answer: Neither way! I, as a Tenpound\nFranchiser, will receive no bribe; but also I will not vote for either\nof these men. Neither Rigmarole nor Dolittle shall, by furtherance of\nmine, go and make laws for this country. I will have no hand in such a\nmission. How dare I! If other men cannot be got in England, a totally\nother sort of men, different as light is from dark, as star-fire is\nfrom street-mud, what is the use of votings, or of Parliaments in\nEngland? England ought to resign herself; there is no hope or\npossibility for England. If England cannot get her Knaves and Dastards\n'arrested,' in some degree, but only get them 'elected,' what is to\nbecome of England?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI conclude, with all confidence, that England will verily have to put\nan end to briberies on her Election Hustings and elsewhere, at what\ncost soever;--and likewise that we, Electors and Eligibles, one and\nall of us, for our own behoof and hers, cannot too soon begin, at what\ncost soever, to put an end to _bribeabilities_ in ourselves. The\ndeath-leprosy, attacked in this manner, by purifying lotions from\nwithout and by rallying of the vital energies and purities from\nwithin, will probably abate somewhat! It has otherwise no chance to\nabate.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE ONE INSTITUTION.\n\n\nWhat our Government can do in this grand Problem of the Working\nClasses of England? Yes, supposing the insane Corn-Laws totally\nabolished, all speech of them ended, and 'from ten to twenty years of\nnew possibility to live and find wages' conceded us in consequence:\nWhat the English Government might be expected to accomplish or attempt\ntowards rendering the existence of our Labouring Millions somewhat\nless anomalous, somewhat less impossible, in the years that are to\nfollow those 'ten or twenty,' if either 'ten' or 'twenty' there be?\n\nIt is the most momentous question. For all this of the Corn-Law\nAbrogation, and what can follow therefrom, is but as the shadow on\nKing Hezekiah's Dial: the shadow has gone back twenty years; but will\nagain, in spite of Free-Trades and Abrogations, travel forward its old\nfated way. With our present system of individual Mammonism, and\nGovernment by Laissez-faire, this Nation cannot live. And if, in the\npriceless interim, some new life and healing be not found, there is no\nsecond respite to be counted on. The shadow on the Dial advances\nthenceforth without pausing. What Government can do? This that they\ncall 'Organising of Labour' is, if well understood, the Problem of the\nwhole Future, for all who will in future pretend to govern men. But\nour first preliminary stage of it, How to deal with the Actual\nLabouring Millions of England? this is the imperatively pressing\nProblem of the Present, pressing with a truly fearful intensity and\nimminence in these very years and days. No Government can longer\nneglect it: once more, what can our Government do in it?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGovernments are of very various degrees of activity: some, altogether\nLazy Governments, in 'free countries' as they are called, seem in\nthese times almost to profess to do, if not nothing, one knows not at\nfirst what. To debate in Parliament, and gain majorities; and\nascertain who shall be, with a toil hardly second to Ixion's, the\nPrime Speaker and Spoke-holder, and keep the Ixion's-Wheel going, if\nnot forward, yet round? Not altogether so:--much, to the experienced\neye, is not what it seems! Chancery and certain other Law-Courts seem\nnothing; yet in fact they are, the worst of them, something: chimneys\nfor the devilry and contention of men to escape by;--a very\nconsiderable something! Parliament too has its tasks, if thou wilt\nlook; fit to wear-out the lives of toughest men. The celebrated\nKilkenny Cats, through their tumultuous congress, cleaving the ear of\nNight, could they be said to do nothing? Hadst thou been of them, thou\nhadst seen! The feline Heart laboured, as with steam up--to the\nbursting point; and death-doing energy nerved every muscle: they had a\nwork there; and did it! On the morrow, two tails were found left, and\npeaceable annihilation; a neighbourhood _delivered_ from despair.\n\nAgain, are not Spinning-Dervishes an eloquent emblem, significant of\nmuch? Hast thou noticed him, that solemn-visaged Turk, the eyes shut;\ndingy wool mantle circularly hiding his figure;--bell-shaped; like a\ndingy bell set spinning on the _tongue_ of it? By centrifugal force\nthe dingy wool mantle heaves itself; spreads more and more, like\nupturned cup widening into upturned saucer: thus spins he, to the\npraise of Allah and advantage of mankind, fast and faster, till\ncollapse ensue, and sometimes death!--\n\nA Government such as ours, consisting of from seven to eight hundred\nParliamentary Talkers, with their escort of Able Editors and Public\nOpinion; and for head, certain Lords and Servants of the Treasury, and\nChief Secretaries and others, who find themselves at once Chiefs and\nNo-Chiefs, and often commanded rather than commanding,--is doubtless a\nmost complicate entity, and none of the alertest for getting on with\nbusiness! Clearly enough, if the Chiefs be not self-motive and what we\ncall men, but mere patient lay-figures without self-motive principle,\nthe Government will not move anywhither; it will tumble disastrously,\nand jumble, round its own axis, as for many years past we have seen it\ndo.--And yet a self-motive man who is not a lay-figure, place him in\nthe heart of what entity you may, will make it move more or less! The\nabsurdest in Nature he will make a little _less_ absurd, he. The\nunwieldiest he will make to move;--that is the use of his existing\nthere. He will at least have the manfulness to depart out of it, if\nnot; to say: \"I cannot move in thee, and be a man; like a wretched\ndrift-log dressed in man's clothes and minister's clothes, doomed to a\nlot baser than belongs to man, I will not continue with thee, tumbling\naimless on the Mother of Dead Dogs here:--Adieu!\"\n\nFor, on the whole, it is the lot of Chiefs everywhere, this same. No\nChief in the most despotic country but was a Servant withal; at once\nan absolute commanding General, and a poor Orderly-Sergeant, ordered\nby the very men in the ranks,--obliged to collect the vote of the\nranks too, in some articulate or inarticulate shape, and weigh well\nthe same. The proper name of all Kings is Minister, Servant. In no\nconceivable Government can a lay-figure get forward! _This_ Worker,\nsurely he above all others has to 'spread out his Gideon's Fleece,'\nand collect the monitions of Immensity; the poor Localities, as we\nsaid, and Parishes of Palace-yard or elsewhere, having no due monition\nin them. A Prime Minister, even here in England, who shall dare\nbelieve the heavenly omens, and address himself like a man and hero to\nthe great dumb-struggling heart of England; and speak out for it, and\nact out for it, the God's-Justice it is writhing to get uttered and\nperishing for want of,--yes, he too will see awaken round him, in\npassionate burning all-defiant loyalty, the heart of England, and such\na 'support' as no Division-List or Parliamentary Majority was ever yet\nknown to yield a man! Here as there, now as then, he who can and dare\ntrust the heavenly Immensities, all earthly Localities are subject to\nhim. We will pray for such a Man and First-Lord;--yes, and far better,\nwe will strive and incessantly make ready, each of us, to be worthy to\nserve and second such a First-Lord! We shall then be as good as sure\nof his arriving; sure of many things, let him arrive or not.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWho can despair of Governments that passes a Soldier's Guard-house, or\nmeets a redcoated man on the streets! That a body of men could be got\ntogether to kill other men when you bade them: this, _a priori_, does\nit not seem one of the impossiblest things? Yet look, behold it: in\nthe stolidest of Donothing Governments, that impossibility is a thing\ndone. See it there, with buff belts, red coats on its back; walking\nsentry at guard-houses, brushing white breeches in barracks; an\nindisputable palpable fact. Out of gray Antiquity, amid all\nfinance-difficulties, _scaccarium_-tallies, ship-moneys,\ncoat-and-conduct moneys, and vicissitudes of Chance and Time, there,\ndown to the present blessed hour, it is.\n\nOften, in these painfully decadent and painfully nascent Times, with\ntheir distresses, inarticulate gaspings and 'impossibilities;' meeting\na tall Lifeguardsman in his snow-white trousers, or seeing those two\nstatuesque Lifeguardsmen in their frowning bearskins, pipe-clayed\nbuckskins, on their coal-black sleek-fiery quadrupeds, riding sentry\nat the Horse-Guards,--it strikes one with a kind of mournful interest,\nhow, in such universal down-rushing and wrecked impotence of almost\nall old institutions, this oldest Fighting Institution is still so\nyoung! Fresh-complexioned, firm-limbed, six feet by the standard, this\nfighting-man has verily been got up, and can fight. While so much has\nnot yet got into being; while so much has gone gradually out of it,\nand become an empty Semblance or Clothes-suit; and highest\nking's-cloaks, mere chimeras parading under them so long, are getting\nunsightly to the earnest eye, unsightly, almost offensive, like a\ncostlier kind of scarecrow's-blanket,--here still is a reality!\n\nThe man in horsehair wig advances, promising that he will get me\n'justice:' he takes me into Chancery Law-Courts, into decades,\nhalf-centuries of hubbub, of distracted jargon; and does _get_\nme--disappointment, almost desperation; and one refuge: that of\ndismissing him and his 'justice' altogether out of my head. For I have\nwork to do; I cannot spend my decades in mere arguing with other men\nabout the exact wages of my work: I will work cheerfully with no\nwages, sooner than with a ten-years gangrene or Chancery Lawsuit in my\nheart! He of the horsehair wig is a sort of failure; no substance, but\na fond imagination of the mind. He of the shovel-hat, again, who comes\nforward professing that he will save my soul--O ye Eternities, of him\nin this place be absolute silence!--But he of the red coat, I say, is\na success and no failure! He will veritably, if he get orders, draw\nout a long sword and kill me. No mistake there. He is a fact and not a\nshadow. Alive in this Year Forty-three, able and willing to do _his_\nwork. In dim old centuries, with William Rufus, William of Ipres, or\nfar earlier, he began; and has come down safe so far. Catapult has\ngiven place to cannon, pike has given place to musket, iron mail-shirt\nto coat of red cloth, saltpetre ropematch to percussion-cap;\nequipments, circumstances have all changed, and again changed: but the\nhuman battle-engine in the inside of any or of each of these, ready\nstill to do battle, stands there, six feet in standard size. There are\nPay-Offices, Woolwich Arsenals, there is a Horse-Guards, War-Office,\nCaptain-General; persuasive Sergeants, with tap of drum, recruit in\nmarket-towns and villages;--and, on the whole, I say, here is your\nactual drilled fighting-man; here are your actual Ninety-thousand of\nsuch, ready to go into any quarter of the world and fight!\n\nStrange, interesting, and yet most mournful to reflect on. Was this,\nthen, of all the things mankind had some talent for, the one thing\nimportant to learn well, and bring to perfection; this of successfully\nkilling one another? Truly you have learned it well, and carried the\nbusiness to a high perfection. It is incalculable what, by arranging,\ncommanding and regimenting, you can make of men. These thousand\nstraight-standing firmset individuals, who shoulder arms, who march,\nwheel, advance, retreat; and are, for your behoof, a magazine charged\nwith fiery death, in the most perfect condition of potential activity:\nfew months ago, till the persuasive sergeant came, what were they?\nMultiform ragged losels, runaway apprentices, starved weavers,\nthievish valets; an entirely broken population, fast tending towards\nthe treadmill. But the persuasive sergeant came; by tap of drum\nenlisted, or formed lists of them, took heartily to drilling\nthem;--and he and you have made them this! Most potent, effectual for\nall work whatsoever, is wise planning, firm combining and commanding\namong men. Let no man despair of Governments who looks on these two\nsentries at the Horse-Guards and our United-Service Clubs! I could\nconceive an Emigration Service, a Teaching Service, considerable\nvarieties of United and Separate Services, of the due thousands\nstrong, all effective as this Fighting Service is; all doing _their_\nwork, like it;--which work, much more than fighting, is henceforth the\nnecessity of these New Ages we are got into! Much lies among us,\nconvulsively, nigh desperately _struggling to be born_.\n\nBut mean Governments, as mean-limited individuals do, have stood by\nthe physically indispensable; have realised that and nothing more. The\nSoldier is perhaps one of the most difficult things to realise; but\nGovernments, had they not realised him, could not have existed:\naccordingly he is here. O Heavens, if we saw an army ninety-thousand\nstrong, maintained and fully equipt, in continual real action and\nbattle against Human Starvation, against Chaos, Necessity, Stupidity,\nand our real 'natural enemies,' what a business were it! Fighting and\nmolesting not 'the French,' who, poor men, have a hard enough battle\nof their own in the like kind, and need no additional molesting from\nus; but fighting and incessantly spearing down and destroying\nFalsehood, Nescience, Delusion, Disorder, and the Devil and his\nAngels! Thou thyself, cultivated reader, hast done something in that\nalone true warfare; but, alas, under what circumstances was it? Thee\nno beneficent drill-sergeant, with any effectiveness, would rank in\nline beside thy fellows; train, like a true didactic artist, by the\nwit of all past experience, to do thy soldiering; encourage thee when\nright, punish thee when wrong, and everywhere with wise\nword-of-command say, Forward on this hand, Forward on that! Ah, no:\nthou hadst to learn thy small-sword and platoon exercise where and how\nthou couldst; to all mortals but thyself it was indifferent whether\nthou shouldst ever learn it. And the rations, and shilling a day, were\nthey provided thee,--reduced as I have known brave Jean-Pauls,\nlearning their exercise, to live on 'water _without_ the bread'? The\nrations; or any furtherance of promotion to corporalship,\nlance-corporalship, or due cat-o'-nine tails, with the slightest\nreference to thy deserts, were not provided. Forethought, even as of a\npipe-clayed drill-sergeant, did not preside over thee. To\ncorporalship, lance-corporalship, thou didst attain; alas, also to the\nhalberts and cat: but thy rewarder and punisher seemed blind as the\nDeluge: neither lance-corporalship, nor even drummer's cat, because\nboth appeared delirious, brought thee due profit.\n\nIt was well, all this, we know;--and yet it was not well! Forty\nsoldiers, I am told, will disperse the largest Spitalfields mob: forty\nto ten-thousand, that is the proportion between drilled and undrilled.\nMuch there is which cannot yet be organised in this world; but\nsomewhat also which can, somewhat also which must. When one thinks,\nfor example, what Books are become and becoming for us, what Operative\nLancashires are become; what a Fourth Estate, and innumerable\nVirtualities not yet got to be Actualities are become and\nbecoming,--one sees Organisms enough in the dim huge Future; and\n'United Services' quite other than the redcoat one; and much, even in\nthese years, struggling to be born!\n\nOf Time-Bill, Factory-Bill and other such Bills the present Editor\nhas no authority to speak. He knows not, it is for others than he to\nknow, in what specific ways it may be feasible to interfere, with\nLegislation, between the Workers and the Master-Workers;--knows only\nand sees, what all men are beginning to see, that Legislative\ninterference, and interferences not a few are indispensable; that as a\nlawless anarchy of supply-and-demand, on market-wages alone, this\nprovince of things cannot longer be left. Nay interference has begun:\nthere are already Factory Inspectors,--who seem to have no _lack_ of\nwork. Perhaps there might be Mine-Inspectors too:--might there not be\nFurrowfield Inspectors withal, and ascertain for us how on seven and\nsixpence a week a human family does live! Interference has begun; it\nmust continue, must extensively enlarge itself, deepen and sharpen\nitself. Such things cannot longer be idly lapped in darkness, and\nsuffered to go on unseen: the Heavens do see them; the curse, not the\nblessing of the Heavens is on an Earth that refuses to see them.\n\nAgain, are not Sanitary Regulations possible for a Legislature? The\nold Romans had their AEdiles; who would, I think, in direct\ncontravention to supply-and-demand, have rigorously seen rammed up\ninto total abolition many a foul cellar in our Southwarks,\nSaint-Gileses, and dark poison-lanes; saying sternly, \"Shall a Roman\nman dwell there?\" The Legislature, at whatever cost of consequences,\nwould have had to answer, \"God forbid!\"--The Legislature, even as it\nnow is, could order all dingy Manufacturing Towns to cease from their\nsoot and darkness; to let-in the blessed sunlight, the blue of Heaven,\nand become clear and clean; to burn their coal-smoke, namely, and make\nflame of it. Baths, free air, a wholesome temperature, ceilings twenty\nfeet high, might be ordained, by Act of Parliament, in all\nestablishments licensed as Mills. There are such Mills already\nextant;--honour to the builders of them! The Legislature can say to\nothers: Go ye and do likewise; better if you can.\n\nEvery toiling Manchester, its smoke and soot all burnt, ought it not,\namong so many world-wide conquests, to have a hundred acres or so of\nfree greenfield, with trees on it, conquered, for its little children\nto disport in; for its all-conquering workers to take a breath of\ntwilight air in? You would say so! A willing Legislature could say so\nwith effect. A willing Legislature could say very many things! And to\nwhatsoever 'vested interest,' or suchlike, stood up, gainsaying\nmerely, \"I shall lose profits,\"--the willing Legislature would answer,\n\"Yes, but my sons and daughters will gain health, and life, and a\nsoul.\"--\"What is to become of our Cotton-trade?\" cried certain\nSpinners, when the Factory Bill was proposed; \"What is to become of\nour invaluable Cotton-trade?\" The Humanity of England answered\nsteadfastly: \"Deliver me these rickety perishing souls of infants, and\nlet your Cotton-trade take its chance. God Himself commands the one\nthing; not God especially the other thing. We cannot have prosperous\nCotton-trades at the expense of keeping the Devil a partner in\nthem!\"--\n\nBills enough, were the Corn-Law Abrogation Bill once passed, and a\nLegislature willing! Nay this one Bill, which lies yet unenacted, a\nright Education Bill, is not this of itself the sure parent of\ninnumerable wise Bills,--wise regulations, practical methods and\nproposals, gradually ripening towards the state of Bills? To irradiate\nwith intelligence, that is to say, with order, arrangement and all\nblessedness, the Chaotic, Unintelligent: how, except by educating,\n_can_ you accomplish this? That thought, reflection, articulate\nutterance and understanding be awakened in these individual million\nheads, which are the atoms of your Chaos: there is no other way of\nilluminating any Chaos! The sum-total of intelligence that is found in\nit, determines the extent of order that is possible for your\nChaos,--the feasibility and rationality of what your Chaos will dimly\ndemand from you, and will gladly obey when proposed by you! It is an\nexact equation; the one accurately measures the other.--If the whole\nEnglish People, during these 'twenty years of respite,' be not\neducated, with at least schoolmaster's educating, a tremendous\nresponsibility, before God and men, will rest somewhere! How dare any\nman, especially a man calling himself minister of God, stand up in any\nParliament or place, under any pretext or delusion, and for a day or\nan hour forbid God's Light to come into the world, and bid the Devil's\nDarkness continue in it one hour more! For all light and science,\nunder all shapes, in all degrees of perfection, is of God; all\ndarkness, nescience, is of the Enemy of God. 'The schoolmaster's creed\nis somewhat awry?' Yes, I have found few creeds entirely correct; few\nlight-beams shining _white_, pure of admixture: but of all creeds and\nreligions now or ever before known, was not that of thoughtless\nthriftless Animalism, of Distilled Gin, and Stupor and Despair,\nunspeakably the least orthodox? We will exchange _it_ even with\nPaganism, with Fetishism; and, on the whole, must exchange it with\nsomething.\n\nAn effective 'Teaching Service' I do consider that there must be; some\nEducation Secretary, Captain-General of Teachers, who will actually\ncontrive to get us _taught_. Then again, why should there not be an\n'Emigration Service,' and Secretary, with adjuncts, with funds,\nforces, idle Navy-ships, and ever-increasing apparatus; in fine an\n_effective system_ of Emigration; so that, at length, before our\ntwenty years of respite ended, every honest willing Workman who found\nEngland too strait, and the 'Organisation of Labour' not yet\nsufficiently advanced, might find likewise a bridge built to carry him\ninto new Western Lands, there to 'organise' with more elbow-room some\nlabour for himself? There to be a real blessing, raising new corn for\nus, purchasing new webs and hatchets from us; leaving us at least in\npeace;--instead of staying here to be a Physical-Force Chartist,\nunblessed and no blessing! Is it not scandalous to consider that a\nPrime Minister could raise within the year, as I have seen it done, a\nHundred and Twenty Millions Sterling to shoot the French; and we are\nstopt short for want of the hundredth part of that to keep the English\nliving? The bodies of the English living, and the souls of the English\nliving:--these two 'Services,' an Education Service and an Emigration\nService, these with others will actually have to be organised!\n\nA free bridge for Emigrants: why, we should then be on a par with\nAmerica itself, the most favoured of all lands that have no\ngovernment; and we should have, besides, so many traditions and\nmementos of priceless things which America has cast away. We could\nproceed deliberately to 'organise Labour,' not doomed to perish unless\nwe effected it within year and day;--every willing Worker that proved\nsuperfluous, finding a bridge ready for him. This verily will have to\nbe done; the Time is big with this. Our little Isle is grown too\nnarrow for us; but the world is wide enough yet for another Six\nThousand Years. England's sure markets will be among new Colonies of\nEnglishmen in all quarters of the Globe. All men trade with all men,\nwhen mutually convenient; and are even bound to do it by the Maker of\nmen. Our friends of China, who guiltily refused to trade, in these\ncircumstances,--had we not to argue with them, in cannon-shot at last,\nand convince them that they ought to trade! 'Hostile Tariffs' will\narise, to shut us out; and then again will fall, to let us in: but the\nSons of England, speakers of the English language were it nothing\nmore, will in all times have the ineradicable predisposition to trade\nwith England. Mycale was the _Pan-Ionian_, rendezvous of all the\nTribes of Ion, for old Greece; why should not London long continue the\n_All-Saxon-home_, rendezvous of all the 'Children of the Harz-Rock,'\narriving, in select samples, from the Antipodes and elsewhere, by\nsteam and otherwise, to the 'season' here!--What a Future; wide as the\nworld, if we have the heart and heroism for it,--which, by Heaven's\nblessing, we shall:\n\n    'Keep not standing fixed and rooted,\n    Briskly venture, briskly roam;\n    Head and hand, where'er thou foot it,\n    And stout heart are still at home.\n\n    In what land the sun does visit,\n    Brisk are we, whate'er betide:\n    To give space for wandering is it\n    That the world was made so wide.'[28]\n\nFourteen hundred years ago, it was by a considerable 'Emigration\nService,' never doubt it, by much enlistment, discussion and\napparatus, that we ourselves arrived in this remarkable Island,--and\ngot into our present difficulties among others!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is true the English Legislature, like the English People, is of\nslow temper; essentially conservative. In our wildest periods of\nreform, in the Long Parliament itself, you notice always the\ninvincible instinct to hold fast by the Old; to admit the _minimum_ of\nNew; to expand, if it be possible, some old habit or method, already\nfound fruitful, into new growth for the new need. It is an instinct\nworthy of all honour; akin to all strength and all wisdom. The Future\nhereby is not dissevered from the Past, but based continuously on it;\ngrows with all the vitalities of the Past, and is rooted down deep\ninto the beginnings of us. The English Legislature is entirely\nrepugnant to believe in 'new epochs.' The English Legislature does not\noccupy itself with epochs; has, indeed, other business to do than\nlooking at the Time-Horologe and hearing it tick! Nevertheless new\nepochs do actually come; and with them new imperious peremptory\nnecessities; so that even an English Legislature has to look up, and\nadmit, though with reluctance, that the hour has struck. The hour\nhaving struck, let us not say 'impossible:'--it will have to be\npossible! 'Contrary to the habits of Parliament, the habits of\nGovernment?' Yes: but did any Parliament or Government ever sit in a\nYear Forty-three before? One of the most original, unexampled years\nand epochs; in several important respects totally unlike any other!\nFor Time, all-edacious and all-feracious, does run on: and the Seven\nSleepers, awakening hungry after a hundred years, find that it is not\ntheir old nurses who can now give them suck!\n\nFor the rest, let not any Parliament, Aristocracy, Millocracy, or\nMember of the Governing Class, condemn with much triumph this small\nspecimen of 'remedial measures;' or ask again, with the least anger,\nof this Editor, What is to be done, How that alarming problem of the\nWorking Classes is to be managed? Editors are not here, foremost of\nall, to say How. A certain Editor thanks the gods that nobody pays him\nthree hundred thousand pounds a year, two hundred thousand, twenty\nthousand, or any similar sum of cash for saying How;--that his wages\nare very different, his work somewhat fitter for him. An Editor's\nstipulated work is to apprise _thee_ that it must be done. The 'way to\ndo it,'--is to try it, knowing that thou shalt die if it be not done.\nThere is the bare back, there is the web of cloth; thou shalt cut me a\ncoat to cover the bare back, thou whose trade it is. 'Impossible?'\nHapless Fraction, dost thou discern Fate there, half unveiling herself\nin the gloom of the future, with her gibbet-cords, her steel-whips,\nand very authentic Tailor's Hell; waiting to see whether it is\n'possible'? Out with thy scissors, and cut that cloth or thy own\nwindpipe!\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[28] Goethe, _Wilhelm Meister_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nCAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY.\n\n\nIf I believed that Mammonism with its adjuncts was to continue\nhenceforth the one serious principle of our existence, I should reckon\nit idle to solicit remedial measures from any Government, the disease\nbeing insusceptible of remedy. Government can do much, but it can in\nno wise do all. Government, as the most conspicuous object in Society,\nis called upon to give signal of what shall be done; and, in many\nways, to preside over, further, and command the doing of it. But the\nGovernment cannot do, by all its signaling and commanding, what the\nSociety is radically indisposed to do. In the long-run every\nGovernment is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and\nunwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.--The main\nsubstance of this immense Problem of Organising Labour, and first of\nall of Managing the Working Classes, will, it is very clear, have to\nbe solved by those who stand practically in the middle of it; by those\nwho themselves work and preside over work. Of all that can be enacted\nby any Parliament in regard to it, the germs must already lie\npotentially extant in those two Classes, who are to obey such\nenactment. A Human Chaos _in_ which there is no light, you vainly\nattempt to irradiate by light shed _on_ it: order never can arise\nthere.\n\nBut it is my firm conviction that the 'Hell of England' will _cease_\nto be that of 'not making money;' that we shall get a nobler Hell and\na nobler Heaven! I anticipate light _in_ the Human Chaos, glimmering,\nshining more and more; under manifold true signals from without That\nlight shall shine. Our deity no longer being Mammon,--O Heavens, each\nman will then say to himself: \"Why such deadly haste to make money? I\nshall not go to Hell, even if I do not make money! There is another\nHell, I am told!\" Competition, at railway-speed, in all branches of\ncommerce and work will then abate:--good felt-hats for the head, in\nevery sense, instead of seven-feet lath-and-plaster hats on wheels,\nwill then be discoverable! Bubble-periods, with their panics and\ncommercial crises, will again become infrequent; steady modest\nindustry will take the place of gambling speculation. To be a noble\nMaster, among noble Workers, will again be the first ambition with\nsome few; to be a rich Master only the second. How the Inventive\nGenius of England, with the whirr of its bobbins and billy-rollers\nshoved somewhat into the backgrounds of the brain, will contrive and\ndevise, not cheaper produce exclusively, but fairer distribution of\nthe produce at its present cheapness! By degrees, we shall again have\na Society with something of Heroism in it, something of Heaven's\nBlessing on it; we shall again have, as my German friend asserts,\n'instead of Mammon-Feudalism with unsold cotton-shirts and\nPreservation of the Game, noble just Industrialism and Government by\nthe Wisest!'\n\nIt is with the hope of awakening here and there a British man to know\nhimself for a man and divine soul, that a few words of parting\nadmonition, to all persons to whom the Heavenly Powers have lent power\nof any kind in this land, may now be addressed. And first to those\nsame Master-Workers, Leaders of Industry; who stand nearest and in\nfact powerfulest, though not most prominent, being as yet in too many\nsenses a Virtuality rather than an Actuality.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Leaders of Industry, if Industry is ever to be led, are virtually\nthe Captains of the World; if there be no nobleness in them, there\nwill never be an Aristocracy more. But let the Captains of Industry\nconsider: once again, are they born of other clay than the old\nCaptains of Slaughter; doomed forever to be no Chivalry, but a mere\ngold-plated _Doggery_,--what the French well name _Canaille_,\n'Doggery' with more or less gold carrion at its disposal? Captains of\nIndustry are the true Fighters, henceforth recognisable as the only\ntrue ones: Fighters against Chaos, Necessity and the Devils and\nJoetuns; and lead on Mankind in that great, and alone true, and\nuniversal warfare; the stars in their courses fighting for them, and\nall Heaven and all Earth saying audibly, Well done! Let the Captains\nof Industry retire into their own hearts, and ask solemnly, If there\nis nothing but vulturous hunger, for fine wines, valet reputation and\ngilt carriages, discoverable there? Of hearts made by the Almighty God\nI will not believe such a thing. Deep-hidden under wretchedest\ngod-forgetting Cants, Epicurisms, Dead-Sea Apisms; forgotten as under\nfoulest fat Lethe mud and weeds, there is yet, in all hearts born into\nthis God's-World, a spark of the Godlike slumbering. Awake, O\nnightmare sleepers; awake, arise, or be forever fallen! This is not\nplayhouse poetry; it is sober fact. Our England, our world cannot live\nas it is. It will connect itself with a God again, or go down with\nnameless throes and fire-consummation to the Devils. Thou who feelest\naught of such a Godlike stirring in thee, any faintest intimation of\nit as through heavy-laden dreams, follow _it_, I conjure thee. Arise,\nsave thyself, be one of those that save thy country.\n\nBucaniers, Chactaw Indians, whose supreme aim in fighting is that\nthey may get the scalps, the money, that they may amass scalps and\nmoney: out of such came no Chivalry, and never will! Out of such came\nonly gore and wreck, infernal rage and misery; desperation quenched in\nannihilation. Behold it, I bid thee, behold there, and consider! What\nis it that thou have a hundred thousand-pound bills laid-up in thy\nstrong-room, a hundred scalps hung-up in thy wigwam? I value not them\nor thee. Thy scalps and thy thousand-pound bills are as yet nothing,\nif no nobleness from within irradiate them; if no Chivalry, in action,\nor in embryo ever struggling towards birth and action, be there.\n\nLove of men cannot be bought by cash-payment; and without love men\ncannot endure to be together. You cannot lead a Fighting World without\nhaving it regimented, chivalried: the thing, in a day, becomes\nimpossible; all men in it, the highest at first, the very lowest at\nlast, discern consciously, or by a noble instinct, this necessity. And\ncan you any more continue to lead a Working World unregimented,\nanarchic? I answer, and the Heavens and Earth are now answering, No!\nThe thing becomes not 'in a day' impossible; but in some two\ngenerations it does. Yes, when fathers and mothers, in Stockport\nhunger-cellars, begin to eat their children, and Irish widows have to\nprove their relationship by dying of typhus-fever; and amid Governing\n'Corporations of the Best and Bravest,' busy to preserve their\ngame by 'bushing,' dark millions of God's human creatures start\nup in mad Chartisms, impracticable Sacred-Months, and Manchester\nInsurrections;--and there is a virtual Industrial Aristocracy as yet\nonly half-alive, spell-bound amid money-bags and ledgers; and an\nactual Idle Aristocracy seemingly near dead in somnolent delusions, in\ntrespasses and double-barrels; 'sliding,' as on inclined-planes,\nwhich every new year they _soap_ with new Hansard's-jargon under God's\nsky, and so are 'sliding,' ever faster, towards a 'scale' and\nbalance-scale whereon is written _Thou art found Wanting_:--in such\ndays, after a generation or two, I say, it does become, even to the\nlow and simple, very palpably impossible! No Working World, any more\nthan a Fighting World, can be led on without a noble Chivalry of Work,\nand laws and fixed rules which follow out of that,--far nobler than\nany Chivalry of Fighting was. As an anarchic multitude on mere\nSupply-and-demand, it is becoming inevitable that we dwindle in horrid\nsuicidal convulsion and self-abrasion, frightful to the imagination,\ninto _Chactaw_ Workers. With wigwams and scalps,--with palaces and\nthousand-pound bills; with savagery, depopulation, chaotic desolation!\nGood Heavens, will not one French Revolution and Reign of Terror\nsuffice us, but must there be two? There will be two if needed; there\nwill be twenty if needed; there will be precisely as many as are\nneeded. The Laws of Nature will have themselves fulfilled. That is a\nthing certain to me.\n\nYour gallant battle-hosts and work-hosts, as the others did, will need\nto be made loyally yours; they must and will be regulated,\nmethodically secured in their just share of conquest under\nyou;--joined with you in veritable brotherhood, sonhood, by quite\nother and deeper ties than those of temporary day's wages! How would\nmere redcoated regiments, to say nothing of chivalries, fight for you,\nif you could discharge them on the evening of the battle, on payment\nof the stipulated shillings,--and they discharge you on the morning of\nit! Chelsea Hospitals, pensions, promotions, rigorous lasting covenant\non the one side and on the other, are indispensable even for a hired\nfighter. The Feudal Baron, much more,--how could he subsist with mere\ntemporary mercenaries round him, at sixpence a day; ready to go over\nto the other side, if sevenpence were offered? He could not have\nsubsisted;--and his noble instinct saved him from the necessity of\neven trying! The Feudal Baron had a Man's Soul in him; to which\nanarchy, mutiny, and the other fruits of temporary mercenaries, were\nintolerable: he had never been a Baron otherwise, but had continued a\nChactaw and Bucanier. He felt it precious, and at last it became\nhabitual, and his fruitful enlarged existence included it as a\nnecessity, to have men round him who in heart loved him; whose life he\nwatched over with rigour yet with love; who were prepared to give\ntheir life for him, if need came. It was beautiful; it was human! Man\nlives not otherwise, nor can live contented, anywhere or any-when.\nIsolation is the sum-total of wretchedness to man. To be cut off, to\nbe left solitary: to have a world alien, not your world; all a hostile\ncamp for you; not a home at all, of hearts and faces who are yours,\nwhose you are! It is the frightfulest enchantment; too truly a work of\nthe Evil One. To have neither superior, nor inferior, nor equal,\nunited manlike to you. Without father, without child, without brother.\nMan knows no sadder destiny. 'How is each of us,' exclaims Jean Paul,\n'so lonely in the wide bosom of the All!' Encased each as in his\ntransparent 'ice-palace;' our brother visible in his, making signals\nand gesticulations to us;--visible, but forever unattainable: on his\nbosom we shall never rest, nor he on ours. It was not a God that did\nthis; no!\n\nAwake, ye noble Workers, warriors in the one true war: all this must\nbe remedied. It is you who are already half-alive, whom I will welcome\ninto life; whom I will conjure, in God's name, to shake off your\nenchanted sleep, and live wholly! Cease to count scalps, gold-purses;\nnot in these lies your or our salvation. Even these, if you count only\nthese, will not long be left. Let bucaniering be put far from you;\nalter, speedily abrogate all laws of the bucaniers, if you would gain\nany victory that shall endure. Let God's justice, let pity, nobleness\nand manly valour, with more gold-purses or with fewer, testify\nthemselves in this your brief Life-transit to all the Eternities, the\nGods and Silences. It is to you I call; for ye are not dead, ye are\nalready half-alive: there is in you a sleepless dauntless energy, the\nprime-matter of all nobleness in man. Honour to you in your kind. It\nis to you I call: ye know at least this, That the mandate of God to\nHis creature man is: Work! The future Epic of the World rests not with\nthose that are near dead, but with those that are alive, and those\nthat are coming into life.\n\nLook around you. Your world-hosts are all in mutiny, in confusion,\ndestitution; on the eve of fiery wreck and madness! They will not\nmarch farther for you, on the sixpence a day and supply-and-demand\nprinciple: they will not; nor ought they, nor can they. Ye shall\nreduce them to order, begin reducing them. To order, to just\nsubordination; noble loyalty in return for noble guidance. Their souls\nare driven nigh mad; let yours be sane and ever saner. Not as a\nbewildered bewildering mob; but as a firm regimented mass, with real\ncaptains over them, will these men march any more. All human\ninterests, combined human endeavours, and social growths in this\nworld, have, at a certain stage of their development, required\norganising: and Work, the grandest of human interests, does now\nrequire it.\n\nGod knows, the task will be hard: but no noble task was ever easy.\nThis task will wear away your lives, and the lives of your sons and\ngrandsons: but for what purpose, if not for tasks like this, were\nlives given to men? Ye shall cease to count your thousand-pound\nscalps, the noble of you shall cease! Nay the very scalps, as I say,\nwill not long be left if you count only these. Ye shall cease wholly\nto be barbarous vulturous Chactaws, and become noble European\nNineteenth-Century Men. Ye shall know that Mammon, in never such gigs\nand flunky 'respectabilities,' is not the alone God; that of himself\nhe is but a Devil, and even a Brute-god.\n\nDifficult? Yes, it will be difficult. The short-fibre cotton; that too\nwas difficult. The waste cotton-shrub, long useless, disobedient, as\nthe thistle by the wayside,--have ye not conquered it; made it into\nbeautiful bandana webs; white woven shirts for men; bright-tinted\nair-garments wherein flit goddesses? Ye have shivered mountains\nasunder, made the hard iron pliant to you as soft putty: the\nForest-giants, Marsh-joetuns bear sheaves of golden-grain; AEgir the\nSea-demon himself stretches his back for a sleek highway to you, and\non Firehorses and Windhorses ye career. Ye are most strong. Thor\nred-bearded, with his blue sun-eyes, with his cheery heart and strong\nthunder-hammer, he and you have prevailed. Ye are most strong, ye Sons\nof the icy North, of the far East,--far marching from your rugged\nEastern Wildernesses, hitherward from the gray Dawn of Time! Ye are\nSons of the _Joetun_-land; the land of Difficulties Conquered.\nDifficult? You must try this thing. Once try it with the understanding\nthat it will and shall have to be done. Try it as ye try the paltrier\nthing, making of money! I will bet on you once more, against all\nJoetuns, Tailor-gods, Double-barrelled Law-wards, and Denizens of Chaos\nwhatsoever!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nPERMANENCE.\n\n\nStanding on the threshold, nay as yet outside the threshold, of a\n'Chivalry of Labour,' and an immeasurable Future which it is to fill\nwith fruitfulness and verdant shade; where so much has not yet come\neven to the rudimental state, and all speech of positive enactments\nwere hazardous in those who know this business only by the eye,--let\nus here hint at simply one widest universal principle, as the basis\nfrom which all organisation hitherto has grown up among men, and all\nhenceforth will have to grow: The principle of Permanent Contract\ninstead of Temporary.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPermanent not Temporary:--you do not hire the mere redcoated fighter\nby the day, but by the score of years! Permanence, persistence is the\nfirst condition of all fruitfulness in the ways of men. The 'tendency\nto persevere,' to persist in spite of hindrances, discouragements and\n'impossibilities:' it is this that in all things distinguishes the\nstrong soul from the weak; the civilised burgher from the nomadic\nsavage,--the Species Man from the Genus Ape! The Nomad has his very\nhouse set on wheels; the Nomad, and in a still higher degree the Ape,\nare all for 'liberty;' the privilege to flit continually is\nindispensable for them. Alas, in how many ways, does our humour, in\nthis swift-rolling, self-abrading Time, show itself nomadic, apelike;\nmournful enough to him that looks on it with eyes! This humour will\nhave to abate; it is the first element of all fertility in human\nthings, that such 'liberty' of apes and nomads do by freewill or\nconstraint abridge itself, give place to a better. The civilised man\nlives not in wheeled houses. He builds stone castles, plants lands,\nmakes lifelong marriage-contracts;--has long-dated hundred-fold\npossessions, not to be valued in the money-market; has pedigrees,\nlibraries, law-codes; has memories and hopes, even for this Earth,\nthat reach over thousands of years. Lifelong marriage-contracts: how\nmuch preferable were year-long or month-long--to the nomad or ape!\n\nMonth-long contracts please me little, in any province where there can\nby possibility be found virtue enough for more. Month-long contracts\ndo not answer well even with your house-servants; the liberty on both\nsides to change every month is growing very apelike, nomadic;--and I\nhear philosophers predict that it will alter, or that strange results\nwill follow: that wise men, pestered with nomads, with unattached\never-shifting spies and enemies rather than friends and servants, will\ngradually, weighing substance against semblance, with indignation,\ndismiss such, down almost to the very shoeblack, and say, \"Begone; I\nwill serve myself rather, and have peace!\" Gurth was hired for life to\nCedric, and Cedric to Gurth. O Anti-Slavery Convention, loud-sounding\nlong-eared Exeter-Hall--But in thee too is a kind of instinct towards\njustice, and I will complain of nothing. Only black Quashee over the\nseas being once sufficiently attended to, wilt thou not perhaps open\nthy dull sodden eyes to the 'sixty-thousand valets in London itself\nwho are yearly dismissed to the streets, to be what they can, when the\nseason ends;'--or to the hunger-stricken, pallid, _yellow_-coloured\n'Free Labourers' in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Buckinghamshire, and all\nother shires! These Yellow-coloured, for the present, absorb all my\nsympathies: if I had a Twenty Millions, with Model-Farms and Niger\nExpeditions, it is to these that I would give it! Quashee has already\nvictuals, clothing; Quashee is not dying of such despair as the\nyellow-coloured pale man's. Quashee, it must be owned, is hitherto a\nkind of blockhead. The Haiti Duke of Marmalade, educated now for\nalmost half a century, seems to have next to no sense in him. Why, in\none of those Lancashire Weavers, dying of hunger, there is more\nthought and heart, a greater arithmetical amount of misery and\ndesperation, than in whole gangs of Quashees. It must be owned, thy\neyes are of the sodden sort; and with thy emancipations, and thy\ntwenty-millionings and long-eared clamourings, thou, like Robespierre\nwith his pasteboard _Etre Supreme_, threatenest to become a bore to\nus: _Avec ton Etre Supreme tu commences m'embeter!_--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn a Printed Sheet of the assiduous, much-abused, and truly useful Mr.\nChadwick's, containing queries and responses from far and near as to\nthis great question, 'What is the effect of education on working-men,\nin respect of their value as mere workers?' the present Editor,\nreading with satisfaction a decisive unanimous verdict as to\nEducation, reads with inexpressible interest this special remark, put\nin by way of marginal incidental note, from a practical manufacturing\nQuaker, whom, as he is anonymous, we will call Friend Prudence.\nPrudence keeps a thousand workmen; has striven in all ways to attach\nthem to him; has provided conversational soirees; play-grounds, bands\nof music for the young ones; went even 'the length of buying them a\ndrum:' all which has turned out to be an excellent investment. For a\ncertain person, marked here by a black stroke, whom we shall name\nBlank, living over the way,--he also keeps somewhere about a thousand\nmen; but has done none of these things for them, nor any other thing,\nexcept due payment of the wages by supply-and-demand. Blank's workers\nare perpetually getting into mutiny, into broils and coils: every six\nmonths, we suppose, Blank has a strike; every one month, every day and\nevery hour, they are fretting and obstructing the shortsighted Blank;\npilfering from him, wasting and idling for him, omitting and\ncommitting for him. \"I would not,\" says Friend Prudence, \"exchange my\nworkers for his _with seven thousand pounds to boot_.\"[29]\n\nRight, O honourable Prudence; thou art wholly in the right: Seven\nthousand pounds even as a matter of profit for this world, nay for the\nmere cash-market of this world! And as a matter of profit not for this\nworld only, but for the other world and all worlds, it outweighs the\nBank of England!--Can the sagacious reader descry here, as it were the\noutmost inconsiderable rock-ledge of a universal rock-foundation, deep\nonce more as the Centre of the World, emerging so, in the experience\nof this good Quaker, through the Stygian mud-vortexes and general\nMother of Dead Dogs, whereon, for the present, all swags and\ninsecurely hovers, as if ready to be swallowed?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSome Permanence of Contract is already almost possible; the principle\nof Permanence, year by year, better seen into and elaborated, may\nenlarge itself, expand gradually on every side into a system. This\nonce secured, the basis of all good results were laid. Once permanent,\nyou do not quarrel with the first difficulty on your path, and quit it\nin weak disgust; you reflect that it cannot be quitted, that it must\nbe conquered, a wise arrangement fallen on with regard to it. Ye\nfoolish Wedded Two, who have quarrelled, between whom the Evil Spirit\nhas stirred-up transient strife and bitterness, so that\n'incompatibility' seems almost nigh, ye are nevertheless the Two who,\nby long habit, were it by nothing more, do best of all others suit\neach other: it is expedient for your own two foolish selves, to say\nnothing of the infants, pedigrees and public in general, that ye agree\nagain; that ye put away the Evil Spirit, and wisely on both hands\nstruggle for the guidance of a Good Spirit!\n\nThe very horse that is permanent, how much kindlier do his rider and\nhe work, than the temporary one, hired on any hack principle yet\nknown! I am for permanence in all things, at the earliest possible\nmoment, and to the latest possible. Blessed is he that continueth\nwhere he is. Here let us rest, and lay-out seedfields; here let us\nlearn to dwell. Here, even here, the orchards that we plant will yield\nus fruit; the acorns will be wood and pleasant umbrage, if we wait.\nHow much grows everywhere, if we do but wait! Through the swamps we\nwill shape causeways, force purifying drains; we will learn to thread\nthe rocky inaccessibilities; and beaten tracks, worn smooth by mere\ntravelling of human feet, will form themselves. Not a difficulty but\ncan transfigure itself into a triumph; not even a deformity but, if\nour own soul have imprinted worth on it, will grow dear to us. The\nsunny plains and deep indigo transparent skies of Italy are all\nindifferent to the great sick heart of a Sir Walter Scott: on the back\nof the Apennines, in wild spring weather, the sight of bleak Scotch\nfirs, and snow-spotted heath and desolation, brings tears into his\neyes.[30]\n\nO unwise mortals that forever change and shift, and say, Yonder, not\nHere! Wealth richer than both the Indies lies everywhere for man, if\nhe will endure. Not his oaks only and his fruit-trees, his very heart\nroots itself wherever he will abide;--roots itself, draws nourishment\nfrom the deep fountains of Universal Being! Vagrant Sam-Slicks, who\nrove over the Earth doing 'strokes of trade,' what wealth have they?\nHorseloads, shiploads of white or yellow metal: in very sooth, what\n_are_ these? Slick rests nowhere, he is homeless. He can build stone\nor marble houses; but to continue in them is denied him. The wealth of\na man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, which he is\nloved and blessed by! The herdsman in his poor clay shealing, where\nhis very cow and dog are friends to him, and not a cataract but\ncarries memories for him, and not a mountain-top but nods old\nrecognition: his life, all encircled as in blessed mother's-arms, is\nit poorer than Slick's with the ass-loads of yellow metal on his back?\nUnhappy Slick! Alas, there has so much grown nomadic, apelike, with\nus: so much will have, with whatever pain, repugnance and\n'impossibility,' to alter itself, to fix itself again,--in some wise\nway, in any not delirious way!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA question arises here: Whether, in some ulterior, perhaps some not\nfar-distant stage of this 'Chivalry of Labour,' your Master-Worker may\nnot find it possible, and needful, to grant his Workers permanent\n_interest_ in his enterprise and theirs? So that it become, in\npractical result, what in essential fact and justice it ever is, a\njoint enterprise; all men, from the Chief Master down to the lowest\nOverseer and Operative, economically as well as loyally concerned for\nit?--Which question I do not answer. The answer, near or else far, is\nperhaps, Yes;--and yet one knows the difficulties. Despotism is\nessential in most enterprises; I am told, they do not tolerate\n'freedom of debate' on board a Seventy-four! Republican senate and\n_plebiscita_ would not answer well in Cotton-Mills. And yet observe\nthere too: Freedom, not nomad's or ape's Freedom, but man's Freedom;\nthis is indispensable. We must have it, and will have it! To reconcile\nDespotism with Freedom:--well, is that such a mystery? Do you not\nalready know the way? It is to make your Despotism _just_. Rigorous as\nDestiny; but just too, as Destiny and its Laws. The Laws of God: all\nmen obey these, and have no 'Freedom' at all but in obeying them. The\nway is already known, part of the way;--and courage and some qualities\nare needed for walking on it!\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[29] _Report on the Training of Pauper Children_ (1841), p. 18.\n\n[30] Lockhart's _Life of Scott_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE LANDED.\n\n\nA man with fifty, with five hundred, with a thousand pounds a day,\ngiven him freely, without condition at all,--on condition, as it now\nruns, that he will sit with his hands in his pockets and do no\nmischief, pass no Corn-Laws or the like,--he too, you would say, is or\nmight be a rather strong Worker! He is a Worker with such tools as no\nman in this world ever before had. But in practice, very astonishing,\nvery ominous to look at, he proves not a strong Worker;--you are too\nhappy if he will prove but a No-worker, do nothing, and not be a\nWrong-worker.\n\nYou ask him, at the year's end: \"Where is your three-hundred thousand\npound; what have you realised to us with that?\" He answers, in\nindignant surprise: \"Done with it? Who are you that ask? I have eaten\nit; I and my flunkies, and parasites, and slaves two-footed and\nfour-footed, in an ornamental manner; and I am here alive by it; _I_\nam realised by it to you!\"--It is, as we have often said, such an\nanswer as was never before given under this Sun. An answer that fills\nme with boding apprehension, with foreshadows of despair. O stolid\nUse-and-wont of an atheistic Half-century, O Ignavia, Tailor-godhood,\nsoul-killing Cant, to what passes art thou bringing us!--Out of the\nloud-piping whirlwind, audibly to him that has ears, the Highest God\nis again announcing in these days: \"Idleness shall not be.\" God has\nsaid it, man cannot gainsay.\n\nAh, how happy were it, if he this Aristocrat Worker would, in like\nmanner, see _his_ work and do it! It is frightful seeking another to\ndo it for him. Guillotines, Meudon Tanneries, and half-a-million men\nshot dead, have already been expended in that business; and it is yet\nfar from done. This man too is something; nay he is a great thing.\nLook on him there: a man of manful aspect; something of the\n'cheerfulness of pride' still lingering in him. A free air of graceful\nstoicism, of easy silent dignity sits well on him; in his heart, could\nwe reach it, lie elements of generosity, self-sacrificing justice,\ntrue human valour. Why should he, with such appliances, stand an\nincumbrance in the Present; perish disastrously out of the Future!\nFrom no section of the Future would we lose these noble courtesies,\nimpalpable yet all-controlling; these dignified reticences, these\nkingly simplicities;--lose aught of what the fruitful Past still gives\nus token of, memento of, in this man. Can we not save him:--can he not\nhelp us to save him! A brave man, he too; had not undivine Ignavia,\nHearsay, Speech without meaning,--had not Cant, thousandfold Cant\nwithin him and around him, enveloping him like choke-damp, like thick\nEgyptian darkness, thrown his soul into asphyxia, as it were\nextinguished his soul; so that he sees not, hears not, and Moses and\nall the Prophets address him in vain.\n\nWill he awaken, be alive again, and have a soul; or is this death-fit\nvery 'death? It is a question of questions, for himself and for us\nall! Alas, is there no noble work for this man too? Has not he\nthickheaded ignorant boors; lazy, enslaved farmers, weedy lands?\nLands! Has not he weary heavy-laden ploughers of land; immortal souls\nof men, ploughing, ditching, day-drudging; bare of back, empty of\nstomach, nigh desperate of heart; and none peaceably to help them but\nhe, under Heaven? Does he find, with his three-hundred thousand\npounds, no noble thing trodden down in the thoroughfares, which it\nwere godlike to help up? Can he do nothing for his Burns but make a\nGauger of him; lionise him, bedinner him, for a foolish while; then\nwhistle him down the wind, to desperation and bitter death?--His work\ntoo is difficult, in these modern, far-dislocated ages. But it may be\ndone; it may be tried;--it must be done.\n\nA modern Duke of Weimar, not a god he either, but a human duke,\nlevied, as I reckon, in rents and taxes and all incomings whatsoever,\nless than several of our English Dukes do in rent alone. The Duke of\nWeimar, with these incomings, had to govern, judge, defend, everyway\nadminister _his_ Dukedom. He does all this as few others did: and he\nimproves lands besides all this, makes river-embankments, maintains\nnot soldiers only but Universities and Institutions;--and in his Court\nwere these four men: Wieland, Herder, Schiller, Goethe. Not as\nparasites, which was impossible; not as table-wits and poetic\nKaterfeltoes; but as noble Spiritual Men working under a noble\nPractical Man. Shielded by him from many miseries; perhaps from many\nshortcomings, destructive aberrations. Heaven had sent, once more,\nheavenly Light into the world; and this man's honour was that he gave\nit welcome. A new noble kind of Clergy, under an old but still noble\nkind of King! I reckon that this one Duke of Weimar did more for the\nCulture of his Nation than all the English Dukes and _Duces_ now\nextant, or that were extant since Henry the Eighth gave them the\nChurch Lands to eat, have done for theirs!--I am ashamed, I am alarmed\nfor my English Dukes: what word have I to say?\n\n_If_ our Actual Aristocracy, appointed 'Best-and-Bravest,' will be\nwise, how inexpressibly happy for us! If not,--the voice of God from\nthe whirlwind is very audible to me. Nay, I will thank the Great God,\nthat He has said, in whatever fearful ways, and just wrath against us,\n\"Idleness shall be no more!\" Idleness? The awakened soul of man, all\nbut the asphyxied soul of man, turns from it as from worse than death.\nIt is the life-in-death of Poet Coleridge. That fable of the Dead-Sea\nApes ceases to be a fable. The poor Worker starved to death is not the\nsaddest of sights. He lies there, dead on his shield; fallen down into\nthe bosom of his old Mother; with haggard pale face, sorrow-worn, but\nstilled now into divine peace, silently appeals to the Eternal God and\nall the Universe,--the most silent, the most eloquent of men.\n\nExceptions,--ah yes, thank Heaven, we know there are exceptions. Our\ncase were too hard, were there not exceptions, and partial exceptions\nnot a few, whom we know, and whom we do not know. Honour to the name\nof Ashley,--honour to this and the other valiant Abdiel, found\nfaithful still; who would fain, by work and by word, admonish their\nOrder not to rush upon destruction! These are they who will, if not\nsave their Order, postpone the wreck of it;--by whom, under blessing\nof the Upper Powers, 'a quiet euthanasia spread over generations,\ninstead of a swift torture-death concentred into years,' may be\nbrought about for many things. All honour and success to these. The\nnoble man can still strive nobly to save and serve his Order;--at\nlowest, he can remember the precept of the Prophet: \"Come out of her,\nmy people; come out of her!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo sit idle aloft, like living statues, like absurd Epicurus'-gods, in\npampered isolation, in exclusion from the glorious fateful battlefield\nof this God's-World: it is a poor life for a man, when all\nUpholsterers and French-Cooks have done their utmost for it!--Nay\nwhat a shallow delusion is this we have all got into, That any man\nshould or can keep himself apart from men, have 'no business' with\nthem, except a cash-account 'business'! It is the silliest tale a\ndistressed generation of men ever took to telling one another. Men\ncannot live isolated: we _are_ all bound together, for mutual good or\nelse for mutual misery, as living nerves in the same body. No highest\nman can disunite himself from any lowest. Consider it. Your poor\n'Werter blowing out his distracted existence because Charlotte will\nnot have the keeping thereof:' this is no peculiar phasis; it is\nsimply the highest expression of a phasis traceable wherever one human\ncreature meets another! Let the meanest crookbacked Thersites teach\nthe supremest Agamemnon that he actually does not reverence him, the\nsupremest Agamemnon's eyes flash fire responsive; a real pain and\npartial insanity has seized Agamemnon. Strange enough: a\nmany-counselled Ulysses is set in motion by a scoundrel-blockhead;\nplays tunes, like a barrel-organ, at the scoundrel-blockhead's\ntouch,--has to snatch, namely, his sceptre-cudgel, and weal the\ncrooked back with bumps and thumps! Let a chief of men reflect well on\nit. Not in having 'no business' with men, but in having no unjust\nbusiness with them, and in _having_ all manner of true and just\nbusiness, can either his or their blessedness be found possible, and\nthis waste world become, for both parties, a home and peopled garden.\n\nMen do reverence men. Men do worship in that 'one temple of the\nworld,' as Novalis calls it, the Presence of a Man! Hero-worship, true\nand blessed, or else mistaken, false and accursed, goes on everywhere\nand everywhen. In this world there is one godlike thing, the essence\nof all that was or ever will be of godlike in this world: the\nveneration done to Human Worth by the hearts of men. Hero-worship, in\nthe souls of the heroic, of the clear and wise,--it is the perpetual\npresence of Heaven in our poor Earth: when it is not there, Heaven is\nveiled from us; and all is under Heaven's ban and interdict, and there\nis no worship, or worth-ship, or worth or blessedness in the Earth any\nmore!--\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIndependence, 'lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye,'--alas, yes, he\nis one we have got acquainted with in these late times: a very\nindispensable one, for spurning-off with due energy innumerable\nsham-superiors, Tailor-made: honour to him, entire success to him!\nEntire success is sure to him. But he must not stop there, at that\nsmall success, with his eagle-eye. He has now a second far greater\nsuccess to gain: to seek out his real superiors, whom not the Tailor\nbut the Almighty God has made superior to him, and see a little what\nhe will do with these! Rebel against these also? Pass by with minatory\neagle-glance, with calm-sniffing mockery, or even without any mockery\nor sniff, when these present themselves? The lion-hearted will never\ndream of such a thing. Forever far be it from him! His minatory\neagle-glance will veil itself in softness of the dove: his lion-heart\nwill become a lamb's; all its just indignation changed into just\nreverence, dissolved in blessed floods of noble humble love, how much\nheavenlier than any pride, nay, if you will, how much prouder! I know\nhim, this lion-hearted, eagle-eyed one; have met him, rushing on,\n'with bosom bare,' in a very distracted dishevelled manner, the times\nbeing hard;--and can say, and guarantee on my life, That in him is no\nrebellion; that in him is the reverse of rebellion, the needful\npreparation for obedience. For if you do mean to obey God-made\nsuperiors, your first step is to sweep out the Tailor-made ones;\norder them, under penalties, to vanish, to make ready for vanishing!\n\nNay, what is best of all, he cannot rebel, if he would. Superiors whom\nGod has made for us we cannot order to withdraw! Not in the least. No\nGrand-Turk himself, thickest-quilted tailor-made Brother of the Sun\nand Moon can do it: but an Arab Man, in cloak of his own clouting;\nwith black beaming eyes, with flaming sovereign-heart direct from the\ncentre of the Universe; and also, I am told, with terrible 'horse-shoe\nvein' of swelling wrath in his brow, and lightning (if you will not\nhave it as light) tingling through every vein of him,--he rises; says\nauthoritatively: \"Thickest-quilted Grand-Turk, tailor-made Brother of\nthe Sun and Moon, No:--_I_ withdraw not; thou shalt obey me or\nwithdraw!\" And so accordingly it is: thickest-quilted Grand-Turks and\nall their progeny, to this hour, obey that man in the remarkablest\nmanner; preferring _not_ to withdraw.\n\nO brother, it is an endless consolation to me, in this disorganic, as\nyet so quack-ridden, what you may well call hag-ridden and hell-ridden\nworld, to find that disobedience to the Heavens, when they send any\nmessenger whatever, is and remains impossible. It cannot be done; no\nTurk grand or small can do it. 'Show the dullest clodpole,' says my\ninvaluable German friend, 'show the haughtiest featherhead, that a\nsoul higher than himself is here; were his knees stiffened into brass,\nhe must down and worship.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE GIFTED.\n\n\nYes, in what tumultuous huge anarchy soever a Noble human Principle\nmay dwell and strive, such tumult is in the way of being calmed into a\nfruitful sovereignty. It is inevitable. No Chaos can continue chaotic\nwith a soul in it. Besouled with earnest human Nobleness, did not\nslaughter, violence and fire-eyed fury, grow into a Chivalry; into a\nblessed Loyalty of Governor and Governed? And in Work, which is of\nitself noble, and the only true fighting, there shall be no such\npossibility? Believe it not; it is incredible; the whole Universe\ncontradicts it. Here too the Chactaw Principle will be subordinated;\nthe Man Principle will, by degrees, become superior, become supreme.\n\nI know Mammon too; Banks-of-England, Credit-Systems, world-wide\npossibilities of work and traffic; and applaud and admire them. Mammon\nis like Fire; the usefulest of all servants, if the frightfulest of\nall masters! The Cliffords, Fitzadelms and Chivalry Fighters 'wished\nto gain victory,' never doubt it: but victory, unless gained in a\ncertain spirit, was no victory; defeat, sustained in a certain spirit,\nwas itself victory. I say again and again, had they counted the scalps\nalone, they had continued Chactaws, and no Chivalry or lasting victory\nhad been. And in Industrial Fighters and Captains is there no\nnobleness discoverable? To them, alone of men, there shall forever be\nno blessedness but in swollen coffers? To see beauty, order,\ngratitude, loyal human hearts around them, shall be of no moment; to\nsee fuliginous deformity, mutiny, hatred and despair, with the\naddition of half-a-million guineas, shall be better? Heaven's\nblessedness not there; Hell's cursedness, and your half-million bits\nof metal, a substitute for that! Is there no profit in diffusing\nHeaven's blessedness, but only in gaining gold?--If so, I apprise the\nMill-owner and Millionaire, that he too must prepare for vanishing;\nthat neither is _he_ born to be of the sovereigns of this world; that\nhe will have to be trampled and chained down in whatever terrible\nways, and brass-collared safe, among the born thralls of this world!\nWe cannot have _Canailles_ and Doggeries that will not make some\nChivalry of themselves: our noble Planet is impatient of such; in the\nend, totally intolerant of such!\n\nFor the Heavens, unwearying in their bounty, do send other souls into\nthis world, to whom yet, as to their forerunners, in Old Roman, in Old\nHebrew and all noble times, the omnipotent guinea is, on the whole, an\nimpotent guinea. Has your half-dead avaricious Corn-Law Lord, your\nhalf-alive avaricious Cotton-Law Lord, never seen one such? Such are,\nnot one, but several; are, and will be, unless the gods have doomed\nthis world to swift dire ruin. These are they, the elect of the world;\nthe born champions, strong men, and liberatory Samsons of this poor\nworld: whom the poor Delilah-world will not always shear of their\nstrength and eyesight, and set to grind in darkness at _its_ poor\ngin-wheel! Such souls are, in these days, getting somewhat out of\nhumour with the world. Your very Byron, in these days, is at least\ndriven mad; flatly refuses fealty to the world. The world with its\ninjustices, its golden brutalities, and dull yellow guineas, is a\ndisgust to such souls: the ray of Heaven that is in them does at least\npredoom them to be very miserable here. Yes:--and yet all misery is\nfaculty misdirected, strength that has not yet found its way. The\nblack whirlwind is mother of the lightning. No _smoke_, in any sense,\nbut can become flame and radiance! Such soul, once graduated in\nHeaven's stern University, steps out superior to your guinea.\n\nDost thou know, O sumptuous Corn-Lord, Cotton-Lord, O mutinous\nTrades-Unionist, gin-vanquished, undeliverable; O much-enslaved\nWorld,--this man is not a slave with thee! None of thy promotions is\nnecessary for him. His place is with the stars of Heaven: to thee it\nmay be momentous, to thee it may be life or death, to him it is\nindifferent, whether thou place him in the lowest hut, or forty feet\nhigher at the top of thy stupendous high tower, while here on Earth.\nThe joys of Earth that are precious, they depend not on thee and thy\npromotions. Food and raiment, and, round a social hearth, souls who\nlove him, whom he loves: these are already his. He wants none of thy\nrewards; behold also, he fears none of thy penalties. Thou canst not\nanswer even by killing him: the case of Anaxarchus thou canst kill;\nbut the self of Anaxarchus, the word or act of Anaxarchus, in no wise\nwhatever. To this man death is not a bugbear; to this man life is\nalready as earnest and awful, and beautiful and terrible, as death.\n\nNot a May-game is this man's life; but a battle and a march, a warfare\nwith principalities and powers. No idle promenade through fragrant\norange-groves and green flowery spaces, waited on by the choral Muses\nand the rosy Hours: it is a stern pilgrimage through burning sandy\nsolitudes, through regions of thick-ribbed ice. He walks among men;\nloves men, with inexpressible soft pity,--as they _cannot_ love him:\nbut his soul dwells in solitude, in the uttermost parts of Creation.\nIn green oases by the palm-tree wells, he rests a space; but anon he\nhas to journey forward, escorted by the Terrors and the Splendours,\nthe Archdemons and Archangels. All Heaven, all Pandemonium are his\nescort. The stars keen-glancing, from the Immensities, send tidings to\nhim; the graves, silent with their dead, from the Eternities. Deep\ncalls for him unto Deep.\n\nThou, O World, how wilt thou secure thyself against this man? Thou\ncanst not hire him by thy guineas; nor by thy gibbets and\nlaw-penalties restrain him. He eludes thee like a Spirit. Thou canst\nnot forward him, thou canst not hinder him. Thy penalties, thy\npoverties, neglects, contumelies: behold, all these are good for him.\nCome to him as an enemy; turn from him as an unfriend; only do not\nthis one thing,--infect him not with thy own delusion: the benign\nGenius, were it by very death, shall guard him against this!--What\nwilt thou do with him? He is above thee, like a god. Thou, in thy\nstupendous three-inch pattens, art under him. He is thy born king, thy\nconqueror and supreme lawgiver: not all the guineas and cannons, and\nleather and prunella, under the sky can save thee from him. Hardest\nthick-skinned Mammon-world, ruggedest Caliban shall obey him, or\nbecome not Caliban but a cramp. Oh, if in this man, whose eyes can\nflash Heaven's lightning, and make all Calibans into a cramp, there\ndwelt not, as the essence of his very being, a God's justice, human\nNobleness, Veracity and Mercy,--I should tremble for the world. But\nhis strength, let us rejoice to understand, is even this: The quantity\nof Justice, of Valour and Pity that is in him. To hypocrites and\ntailored quacks in high places his eyes are lightning; but they melt\nin dewy pity softer than a mother's to the downpressed, maltreated; in\nhis heart, in his great thought, is a sanctuary for all the wretched.\nThis world's improvement is forever sure.\n\n'Man of Genius?' Thou hast small notion, meseems, O Maecenas\nTwiddledee, of what a Man of Genius is. Read in thy New Testament and\nelsewhere,--if, with floods of mealymouthed inanity; with miserable\nfroth-vortices of Cant now several centuries old, thy New Testament is\nnot all bedimmed for thee. _Canst_ thou read in thy New Testament at\nall? The Highest Man of Genius, knowest thou him; Godlike and a God to\nthis hour? His crown a Crown of Thorns? Thou fool, with _thy_ empty\nGodhoods, Apotheoses _edgegilt_; the Crown of Thorns made into a poor\njewel-room crown, fit for the head of blockheads; the bearing of the\nCross changed to a riding in the Long-Acre Gig! Pause in thy\nmass-chantings, in thy litanyings, and Calmuck prayings by machinery;\nand pray, if noisily, at least in a more human manner. How with thy\nrubrics and dalmatics, and clothwebs and cobwebs, and with thy\nstupidities and grovelling baseheartedness, hast thou hidden the\nHoliest into all but invisibility!--\n\n'Man of Genius:' O Maecenas Twiddledee, hast thou any notion what a Man\nof Genius is? Genius is 'the inspired gift of God.' It is the clearer\npresence of God Most High in a man. Dim, potential in all men; in this\nman it has become clear, actual. So says John Milton, who ought to be\na judge; so answer him the Voices of all Ages and all Worlds. Wouldst\nthou commune with such a one? _Be_ his real peer, then: does that lie\nin thee? Know thyself and thy real and thy apparent place, and know\nhim and his real and his apparent place, and act in some noble\nconformity with all that. What! The star-fire of the Empyrean shall\neclipse itself, and illuminate magic-lanterns to amuse grown children?\nHe, the god-inspired, is to twang harps for thee, and blow through\nscrannel-pipes, to soothe thy sated soul with visions of new, still\nwider Eldorados, Houri Paradises, richer Lands of Cockaigne? Brother,\nthis is not he; this is a counterfeit, this twangling, jangling,\nvain, acrid, scrannel-piping man. Thou dost well to say with sick\nSaul, \"It is nought, such harping!\"--and in sudden rage, to grasp thy\nspear, and try if thou canst pin such a one to the wall. King Saul was\nmistaken in his man, but thou art right in thine. It is the due of\nsuch a one: nail him to the wall, and leave him there. So ought copper\nshillings to be nailed on counters; copper geniuses on walls, and left\nthere for a sign!--\n\nI conclude that the Men of Letters too may become a 'Chivalry,' an\nactual instead of a virtual Priesthood, with result immeasurable,--so\nsoon as there is nobleness in themselves for that. And, to a\ncertainty, not sooner! Of intrinsic Valetisms you cannot, with whole\nParliaments to help you, make a Heroism. Doggeries never so\ngold-plated, Doggeries never so escutcheoned, Doggeries never so\ndiplomaed, bepuffed, gas-lighted, continue Doggeries, and must take\nthe fate of such.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE DIDACTIC.\n\n\nCertainly it were a fond imagination to expect that any preaching of\nmine could abate Mammonism; that Bobus of Houndsditch will love his\nguineas less, or his poor soul more, for any preaching of mine! But\nthere is one Preacher who does preach with effect, and gradually\npersuade all persons: his name is Destiny, is Divine Providence, and\nhis Sermon the inflexible Course of Things. Experience does take\ndreadfully high school-wages; but he teaches like no other!\n\nI revert to Friend Prudence the good Quaker's refusal of 'seven\nthousand pounds to boot.' Friend Prudence's practical conclusion will,\nby degrees, become that of all rational practical men whatsoever. On\nthe present scheme and principle, Work cannot continue. Trades'\nStrikes, Trades' Unions, Chartisms; mutiny, squalor, rage and\ndesperate revolt, growing ever more desperate, will go on their way.\nAs dark misery settles down on us, and our refuges of lies fall in\npieces one after one, the hearts of men, now at last serious, will\nturn to refuges of truth. The eternal stars shine out again, so soon\nas it is dark _enough_.\n\nBegirt with desperate Trades' Unionism and Anarchic Mutiny, many an\nIndustrial _Law-ward_, by and by, who has neglected to make laws and\nkeep them, will be heard saying to himself: \"Why have I realised five\nhundred thousand pounds? I rose early and sat late, I toiled and\nmoiled, and in the sweat of my brow and of my soul I strove to gain\nthis money, that I might become conspicuous, and have some honour\namong my fellow-creatures. I wanted them to honour me, to love me. The\nmoney is here, earned with my best lifeblood: but the honour? I am\nencircled with squalor, with hunger, rage, and sooty desperation. Not\nhonoured, hardly even envied; only fools and the flunky-species so\nmuch as envy me. I am conspicuous,--as a mark for curses and\nbrickbats. What good is it? My five hundred scalps hang here in my\nwigwam: would to Heaven I had sought something else than the scalps;\nwould to Heaven I had been a Christian Fighter, not a Chactaw one! To\nhave ruled and fought not in a Mammonish but in a Godlike spirit; to\nhave had the hearts of the people bless me, as a true ruler and\ncaptain of my people; to have felt my own heart bless me, and that God\nabove instead of Mammon below was blessing me,--this had been\nsomething. Out of my sight, ye beggarly five hundred scalps of\nbanker's-thousands: I will try for something other, or account my life\na tragical futility!\"\n\nFriend Prudence's 'rock-ledge,' as we called it, will gradually\ndisclose itself to many a man; to all men. Gradually, assaulted from\nbeneath and from above, the Stygian mud-deluge of Laissez-faire,\nSupply-and-demand, Cash-payment the one Duty, will abate on all hands;\nand the everlasting mountain-tops, and secure rock-foundations that\nreach to the centre of the world, and rest on Nature's self, will\nagain emerge, to found on, and to build on. When Mammon-worshippers\nhere and there begin to be God-worshippers, and bipeds-of-prey become\nmen, and there is a Soul felt once more in the huge-pulsing\nelephantine mechanic Animalism of this Earth, it will be again a\nblessed Earth.\n\n\"Men cease to regard money?\" cries Bobus of Houndsditch: \"What else\ndo all men strive for? The very Bishop informs me that Christianity\ncannot get on without a minimum of Four thousand five hundred in its\npocket. Cease to regard money? That will be at Doomsday in the\nafternoon!\"--O Bobus, my opinion is somewhat different. My opinion is,\nthat the Upper Powers have not yet determined on destroying this Lower\nWorld. A respectable, ever-increasing minority, who do strive for\nsomething higher than money, I with confidence anticipate;\never-increasing, till there be a sprinkling of them found in all\nquarters, as salt of the Earth once more. The Christianity that cannot\nget on without a minimum of Four thousand five hundred, will give\nplace to something better that can. Thou wilt not join our small\nminority, thou? Not till Doomsday in the afternoon? Well; _then_, at\nleast, thou wilt join it, thou and the majority in mass!\n\nBut truly it is beautiful to see the brutish empire of Mammon cracking\neverywhere; giving sure promise of dying, or of being changed. A\nstrange, chill, almost ghastly dayspring strikes up in Yankeeland\nitself: my Transcendental friends announce there, in a distinct,\nthough somewhat lankhaired, ungainly manner, that the Demiurgus Dollar\nis dethroned; that new unheard-of Demiurgusships, Priesthoods,\nAristocracies, Growths and Destructions, are already visible in the\ngray of coming Time. Chronos is dethroned by Jove; Odin by St. Olaf:\nthe Dollar cannot rule in Heaven forever. No; I reckon, not. Socinian\nPreachers quit their pulpits in Yankeeland, saying, \"Friends, this is\nall gone to coloured cobweb, we regret to say!\"--and retire into the\nfields to cultivate onion-beds, and live frugally on vegetables. It is\nvery notable. Old godlike Calvinism declares that its old body is now\nfallen to tatters, and done; and its mournful ghost, disembodied,\nseeking new embodiment, pipes again in the winds;--a ghost and spirit\nas yet, but heralding new Spirit-worlds, and better Dynasties than the\nDollar one.\n\nYes, here as there, light is coming into the world; men love not\ndarkness, they do love light. A deep feeling of the eternal nature of\nJustice looks out among us everywhere,--even through the dull eyes of\nExeter Hall; an unspeakable religiousness struggles, in the most\nhelpless manner, to speak itself, in Puseyisms and the like. Of our\nCant, all condemnable, how much is not condemnable without pity; we\nhad almost said, without respect! The _in_articulate worth and truth\nthat is in England goes down yet to the Foundations.\n\nSome 'Chivalry of Labour,' some noble Humanity and practical\nDivineness of Labour, will yet be realised on this Earth. Or why\n_will_; why do we pray to Heaven, without setting our own shoulder to\nthe wheel? The Present, if it will have the Future accomplish, shall\nitself commence. Thou who prophesiest, who believest, begin thou to\nfulfil. Here or nowhere, now equally as at any time! That outcast\nhelp-needing thing or person, trampled down under vulgar feet or\nhoofs, no help 'possible' for it, no prize offered for the saving of\nit,--canst not thou save it, then, without prize? Put forth thy hand,\nin God's name; know that 'impossible,' where Truth and Mercy and the\neverlasting Voice of Nature order, has no place in the brave man's\ndictionary. That when all men have said \"Impossible,\" and tumbled\nnoisily elsewhither, and thou alone art left, then first thy time and\npossibility have come. It is for thee now; do thou that, and ask no\nman's counsel, but thy own only, and God's. Brother, thou hast\npossibility in thee for much: the possibility of writing on the\neternal skies the record of a heroic life. That noble downfallen or\nyet unborn 'Impossibility,' thou canst lift it up, thou canst, by thy\nsoul's travail, bring it into clear being. That loud inane Actuality,\nwith millions in its pocket, too 'possible' that, which rolls along\nthere, with quilted trumpeters blaring round it, and all the world\nescorting it as mute or vocal flunky,--escort it not thou; say to it,\neither nothing, or else deeply in thy heart: \"Loud-blaring Nonentity,\nno force of trumpets, cash, Long-acre art, or universal flunkyhood of\nmen, makes thee an Entity; thou art a _Non_entity, and deceptive\nSimulacrum, more accursed than thou seemest. Pass on in the Devil's\nname, unworshipped by at least one man, and leave the thoroughfare\nclear!\"\n\nNot on Ilion's or Latium's plains; on far other plains and places\nhenceforth can noble deeds be now done. Not on Ilion's plains; how\nmuch less in Mayfair's drawingrooms! Not in victory over poor brother\nFrench or Phrygians; but in victory over Frost-joetuns, Marsh-giants,\nover demons of Discord, Idleness, Injustice, Unreason, and Chaos come\nagain. None of the old Epics is longer possible. The Epic of French\nand Phrygians was comparatively a small Epic: but that of Flirts and\nFribbles, what is that? A thing that vanishes at cock-crowing,--that\nalready begins to scent the morning air! Game-preserving\nAristocracies, let them 'bush' never so effectually, cannot escape the\nSubtle Fowler. Game seasons will be excellent, and again will be\nindifferent, and by and by they will not be at all. The Last Partridge\nof England, of an England where millions of men can get no corn to\neat, will be shot and ended. Aristocracies with beards on their chins\nwill find other work to do than amuse themselves with trundling-hoops.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut it is to you, ye Workers, who do already work, and are as grown\nmen, noble and honourable in a sort, that the whole world calls for\nnew work and nobleness. Subdue mutiny, discord, wide-spread despair,\nby manfulness, justice, mercy and wisdom. Chaos is dark, deep as Hell;\nlet light be, and there is instead a green flowery World. Oh, it is\ngreat, and there is no other greatness. To make some nook of God's\nCreation a little fruitfuller, better, more worthy of God; to make\nsome human hearts a little wiser, manfuler, happier,--more blessed,\nless accursed! It is work for a God. Sooty Hell of mutiny and savagery\nand despair can, by man's energy, be made a kind of Heaven; cleared of\nits soot, of its mutiny, of its need to mutiny; the everlasting arch\nof Heaven's azure overspanning _it_ too, and its cunning mechanisms\nand tall chimney-steeples, as a birth of Heaven; God and all men\nlooking on it well pleased.\n\nUnstained by wasteful deformities, by wasted tears or heart's-blood of\nmen, or any defacement of the Pit, noble fruitful Labour, growing ever\nnobler, will come forth,--the grand sole miracle of Man; whereby Man\nhas risen from the low places of this Earth, very literally, into\ndivine Heavens. Ploughers, Spinners, Builders; Prophets, Poets, Kings;\nBrindleys and Goethes, Odins and Arkwrights; all martyrs, and noble\nmen, and gods are of one grand Host; immeasurable; marching ever\nforward since the beginnings of the World. The enormous,\nall-conquering, flame-crowned Host, noble every soldier in it; sacred,\nand alone noble. Let him who is not of it hide himself; let him\ntremble for himself. Stars at every button cannot make him noble;\nsheaves of Bath-garters, nor bushels of Georges; nor any other\ncontrivance but manfully enlisting in it, valiantly taking place and\nstep in it. O Heavens, will he not bethink himself; he too is so\nneeded in the Host! It were so blessed, thrice-blessed, for himself\nand for us all! In hope of the Last Partridge, and some Duke of Weimar\namong our English Dukes, we will be patient yet a while.\n\n    'The Future hides in it\n    Gladness and sorrow;\n    We press still thorow,\n    Nought that abides in it\n    Daunting us,--onward.'\n\n\n\n\nSUMMARY AND INDEX.\n\n\n\n\nSUMMARY.\n\n\nBOOK I.--PROEM.\n\n\nChap. I. _Midas._\n\nThe condition of England one of the most ominous ever seen in this\nworld: Full of wealth in every kind, yet dying of inanition.\nWorkhouses, in which no work can be done. Destitution in Scotland.\nStockport Assizes. (p. 3.)--England's unprofitable success: Human\nfaces glooming discordantly on one another. Midas longed for gold, and\nthe gods gave it him. (7.)\n\n\nChap. II. _The Sphinx._\n\nThe grand unnamable Sphinx-riddle, which each man is called upon to\nsolve. Notions of the foolish concerning justice and judgment. Courts\nof Westminster, and the general High Court of the Universe. The one\nstrong thing, the just thing, the true thing. (p. 10.)--A noble\nConservatism, as well as an ignoble. In all battles of men each\nfighter, in the end, prospers according to his right: Wallace of\nScotland. (15.)--Fact and Semblance. What is Justice? As many men as\nthere are in a Nation who can _see_ Heaven's Justice, so many are\nthere who stand between it and perdition. (17.)\n\n\nChap. III. _Manchester Insurrection._\n\nPeterloo not an unsuccessful Insurrection. Governors who wait for\nInsurrection to instruct them, getting into the fatalest courses.\nUnspeakable County Yeomanry. Poor Manchester operatives, and their\nhuge inarticulate question: Unhappy Workers, unhappier Idlers, of this\nactual England! (p. 19.)--Fair day's-wages for fair day's-work:\nMilton's 'wages,' Cromwell's. Pay to each man what he has earned and\ndone and deserved; what more have we to ask?--Some not _in_supportable\napproximation indispensable and inevitable. (24.)\n\n\nChap. IV. _Morrisons Pill._\n\nA state of mind worth reflecting on. No Morrison's Pill for curing the\nmaladies of Society: Universal alteration of regimen and way of life:\nVain jargon giving place to some genuine Speech again. (p. 29.)--If we\nwalk according to the Law of this Universe, the Law-Maker will\nbefriend us; if not, not. Quacks, sham heroes, the one bane of the\nworld. Quack and Dupe, upper side and under of the selfsame substance.\n(31.)\n\n\nChap. V. _Aristocracy of Talent._\n\nAll misery the fruit of unwisdom: Neither with individuals nor with\nNations is it fundamentally otherwise. Nature in late centuries\nuniversally supposed to be dead; but now everywhere asserting herself\nto be alive and miraculous. The guidance of this country not\nsufficiently wise. (p. 34.)--Aristocracy of talent, or government by\nthe Wisest, a dreadfully difficult affair to get started. The true\n_eye_ for talent; and the flunky eye for respectabilities, warm\ngarnitures and larders dropping fatness: Bobus and Bobissimus. (37.)\n\n\nChap VI. _Hero-worship._\n\nEnlightened Egoism, never so luminous, not the rule by which man's\nlife can be led. A _soul_, different from a stomach in any sense of\nthe word. Hero-worship done differently in every different epoch of\nthe world. Reform, like Charity, must begin at home. 'Arrestment of\nthe knaves and dastards,' beginning by arresting our own poor selves\nout of that fraternity. (p. 41.)--The present Editor's purpose to\nhimself full of hope. A Loadstar in the eternal sky: A glimmering of\nlight, for here and there a human soul. (45.)\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II.--THE ANCIENT MONK.\n\n\nChap. I. _Jocelin of Brakelond._\n\nHow the Centuries stand lineally related to each other. The one Book\nnot permissible, the kind that has nothing in it. Jocelin's\n'Chronicle,' a private Boswellean Notebook, now seven centuries old.\nHow Jocelin, from under his monk's cowl, looked out on that narrow\nsection of the world in a really _human_ manner: A wise simplicity in\nhim; a _veracity_ that goes deeper than words. Jocelin's Monk-Latin;\nand Mr. Rokewood's editorial helpfulness and fidelity. (p. 51.)--A\nveritable Monk of old Bury St. Edmunds worth attending to. This\nEngland of ours, of the year 1200: Coeur-de-Lion: King Lackland, and\nhis thirteenpenny mass. The poorest historical Fact, and the grandest\nimaginative Fiction. (55.)\n\n\nChap. II. _St. Edmundsbury._\n\nSt. Edmund's Bury, a prosperous brisk Town: Extensive ruins of the\nAbbey still visible. Assiduous Pedantry, and its rubbish-heaps called\n'History.' Another world it was, when those black ruins first saw the\nsun as walls. At lowest, O dilettante friend, let us know always that\nit _was_ a world. No easy matter to get across the chasm of Seven\nCenturies: Of all helps, a Boswell, even a small Boswell, the\nwelcomest. (p. 60.)\n\n\nChap. III. _Landlord Edmund._\n\n'Battle of Fornham,' a fact, though a forgotten one. Edmund, Landlord\nof the Eastern Counties: A very singular kind of 'landlord.' How he\ncame to be 'sainted.' Seen and felt to have done verily a man's part\nin this life-pilgrimage of his. How they took up the slain body of\ntheir Edmund, and reverently embalmed it. (p. 65.)--Pious munificence,\never growing by new pious gifts. Certain Times do crystallise\nthemselves in a magnificent manner, others in a rather shabby one.\n(71.)\n\n\nChap. IV. _Abbot Hugo._\n\nAll things have two faces, a light one and a dark: The Ideal has to\ngrow in the Real, and to seek its bed and board there, often in a very\nsorry manner. Abbot Hugo, grown old and feeble. Jew debts and Jew\ncreditors. How approximate justice strives to accomplish itself. (p.\n73.)--In the old monastic Books almost no mention whatever of\n'personal religion.' A poor Lord Abbot, all stuck-over with\nhorse-leeches: A 'royal commission of inquiry,' to no purpose. A\nmonk's first duty, obedience. Magister Samson, Teacher of the Novices.\nThe Abbot's providential death. (76.)\n\n\nChap. V. _Twelfth Century._\n\nInspectors or Custodiars; the King not in any breathless haste to\nappoint a new Abbot. Dim and very strange looks that monk-life to us.\nOur venerable ancient spinning grandmothers, shrieking, and rushing\nout with their distaffs. Lakenheath eels too slippery to be caught.\n(p. 79.)--How much is alive in England, in that Twelfth Century; how\nmuch not yet come into life. Feudal Aristocracy; Willelmus Conquaestor:\nNot a steeple-chimney yet got on end from sea to sea. (82.)\n\n\nChap. VI. _Monk Samson._\n\nMonk-Life and Monk-Religion: A great heaven-high Unquestionability,\nencompassing, interpenetrating all human Duties. Our modern Arkwright\nJoe-Manton ages: All human dues and reciprocities changed into one\ngreat due of 'cash-payment.' The old monks but a limited class of\ncreatures, with a somewhat dull life of it. (p. 84.)--One Monk of a\ntaciturn nature distinguishes himself among those babbling ones. A Son\nof poor Norfolk parents. Little Samson's awful dream: His poor Mother\ndedicates him to St. Edmund. He grows to be a learned man, of devout\ngrave nature. Sent to Rome on business; and returns _too_ successful:\nMethod of travelling thither in those days. His tribulations at home.\nStrange conditions under which Wisdom has sometimes to struggle with\nfolly. (86.)\n\n\nChap. VII. _The Canvassing._\n\nA new Abbot to be elected. Even gossip, seven centuries off, has\nsignificance. The Prior with Twelve Monks, to wait on his Majesty at\nWaltham. An 'election' the one important social act. Given the Man a\nPeople choose, the worth and worthlessness of the People itself is\ngiven. (p. 92.)\n\n\nChap. VIII. _The Election._\n\nElectoral methods and manipulations. Brother Samson ready oftenest\nwith some question, some suggestion that has wisdom in it. The\nThirteen off to Waltham, to choose their Abbot: In the solitude of the\nConvent, Destiny thus big and in her birthtime, what gossiping,\nbabbling, dreaming of dreams! (p. 96.)--King Henry II. in his high\nPresence-chamber. Samson chosen Abbot: the King's royal acceptation.\n(99.)--St. Edmundsbury Monks, without express ballot-box or other\nwinnowing machine. In every Nation and Community there is at all times\n_a fittest_, wisest, bravest, best. Human Worth and human\nWorthlessness. (103.)\n\n\nChap. IX. _Abbot Samson._\n\nThe Lord Abbot's arrival at St. Edmundsbury: The selfsame Samson\nyesterday a poor mendicant, this day finds himself a _Dominus Abbas_\nand mitred Peer of Parliament. (p. 105.)--Depth and opulence of true\nsocial vitality in those old barbarous ages. True Governors go about\nunder all manner of disguises now as then. Genius, Poet; what these\nwords mean George the Third, head charioteer of England; and Robert\nBurns, gauger of ale in Dumfries. (106.)--How Abbot Samson found a\nConvent all in dilapidation. His life-long harsh apprenticeship to\ngoverning, namely obeying. First get your Man; all is got. Danger of\nblockheads. (108.)\n\n\nChap. X. _Government._\n\nBeautiful, how the chrysalis governing-soul, shaking off its dusty\nslough and prison, starts forth winged, a true royal soul! One first\nlabour, to institute a strenuous review and radical reform of his\neconomics. Wheresoever Disorder may stand or lie, let it have a care;\nhere is a man that has declared war with it. (p. 112.)--In less than\nfour years the Convent debts are all liquidated, and the harpy Jews\nbanished from St. Edmundsbury. New life springs beneficent everywhere:\nSpiritual rubbish as little tolerated as material. (114.)\n\n\nChap. XI. _The Abbot's Ways._\n\nReproaches, open and secret, of ingratitude, unsociability: Except for\n'fit men' in all kinds, hard to say for whom Abbot Samson had much\nfavour. Remembrance of benefits. (p. 117.)--An eloquent man, but\nintent more on substance than on ornament. A just clear heart the\nbasis of all true talent. One of the justest of judges: His invaluable\n'talent of silence.' Kind of people he liked worst. Hospitality and\nstoicism. (119.)--The country in those days still dark with noble wood\nand umbrage: How the old trees gradually died out, no man heeding it.\nMonachism itself, so rich and fruitful once, now all rotted into\n_peat_. Devastations of four-footed cattle and Henry-the-Eighths.\n(122.)\n\n\nChap. XII. _The Abbot's Troubles._\n\nThe troubles of Abbot Samson more than tongue can tell. Not the spoil\nof victory, only the glorious toil of battle, can be theirs who really\ngovern. An insurrection of the Monks. Behave better, ye remiss Monks,\nand thank Heaven for such an Abbot. (p. 124.)--Worn down with\nincessant toil and tribulation: Gleams of hilarity too; little\nsnatches of encouragement granted even to a Governor. How my Lord of\nClare, coming to claim his _un_due 'debt,' gets a Roland for his\nOliver. A Life of Literature, noble and ignoble. (126.)\n\n\nChap. XIII. _In Parliament._\n\nConfused days of Lackland's usurpation, while Coeur-de-Lion was\naway: Our brave Abbot took helmet himself, excommunicating all who\nshould favour Lackland. King Richard a captive in Germany. (p.\n131.)--St. Edmund's Shrine not meddled with: A heavenly Awe\novershadowed and encompassed, as it still ought and must, all earthly\nBusiness whatsoever. (132.)\n\n\nChap. XIV. _Henry of Essex._\n\nHow St. Edmund punished terribly, yet with mercy: A Narrative\nsignificant of the Time. Henry Earl of Essex, standard-bearer of\nEngland: No right reverence for the Heavenly in Man. A traitor or a\ncoward. Solemn Duel, by the King's appointment. An evil Conscience\ndoth make cowards of us all. (p. 134.)\n\n\nChap. XV. _Practical-Devotional._\n\nA Tournament proclaimed and held in the Abbot's domain, in spite of\nhim. Roystering young dogs brought to reason. The Abbot a man that\ngenerally remains master at last: The importunate Bishop of Ely\noutwitted. A man that dare abide King Richard's anger, with justice on\nhis side. Thou brave Richard, thou brave Samson! (p. 139.)--The basis\nof Abbot Samson's life truly religion. His zealous interest in the\nCrusades. The great antique heart, like a child's in its simplicity,\nlike a man's in its earnest solemnity and depth. His comparative\nsilence as to his religion precisely the healthiest sign of him and\nit. Methodism, Dilettantism, Puseyism. (144.)\n\n\nChap. XVI. _St. Edmund._\n\nAbbot Samson built many useful, many pious edifices: ALL ruinous,\nincomplete things an eye-sorrow to him. Rebuilding the great Altar: A\nglimpse of the glorious Martyr's very Body. What a scene; how far\nvanished from us, in these unworshipping ages of ours! The manner of\nmen's Hero-worship, verily the innermost fact of their existence,\ndetermining all the rest. (p. 148.)--On the whole, who knows how to\nreverence the Body of Man? Abbot Samson, at the culminating point of\nhis existence: Our real-phantasmagory of St. Edmundsbury plunges into\nthe bosom of the Twelfth Century again, and all is over. (154.)\n\n\nChap. XVII. _The Beginnings._\n\nFormulas the very skin and muscular tissue of a Man's Life: Living\nFormulas and dead. Habit the deepest law of human nature. A pathway\nthrough the pathless. Nationalities. Pulpy infancy, kneaded, baked\ninto any form you choose: The Man of Business; the hard-handed\nLabourer; the genus Dandy. No Mortal out of the depths of Bedlam but\nlives by Formulas. (p. 157.)--The hosts and generations of brave men\nOblivion has swallowed: Their crumbled dust, the soil our life-fruit\ngrows on. Invention of Speech, Forms of Worship; Methods of Justice.\nThis English Land, here and now, the summary of what was wise and\nnoble, and accordant with God's Truth, in all the generations of\nEnglish Men. The thing called 'Fame.' (161.)\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III--THE MODERN WORKER.\n\n\nChap. I. _Phenomena._\n\nHow men have 'forgotten God;' taken the Fact of this Universe as it\n_is not_, God's Laws become a Greatest-Happiness Principle, a\nParliamentary Expediency. Man has lost the _soul_ out of him, and\nbegins to find the want of it. (p. 171.)--The old Pope of Rome, with\nhis stuffed dummy to do the kneeling for him. Few men that worship by\nthe rotatory Calabash, do it in half so great, frank or effectual a\nway. (173.)--Our Aristocracy no longer able to _do_ its work, and not\nin the least conscious that it has any work to do. The Champion of\nEngland 'lifted into his saddle.' The Hatter in the Strand, mounting a\nhuge lath-and-plaster Hat. Our noble ancestors have fashioned for us,\nin how many thousand senses, a 'life-road;' and we their sons are\nmadly, literally enough, 'consuming the way.' (175.)\n\n\nChap. II. _Gospel of Mammonism._\n\nHeaven and Hell, often as the words are on our tongue, got to be\nfabulous or semi-fabulous for most of us. The real 'Hell' of the\nEnglish. Cash-payment, _not_ the sole or even chief relation of human\nbeings. Practical Atheism, and its despicable fruits. (p. 181.)--One\nof Dr. Alison's melancholy facts: A poor Irish Widow, in the Lanes of\nEdinburgh, _proving_ her sisterhood. Until we get a human _soul_\nwithin us, all things are _im_possible: Infatuated geese, with\nfeathers and without. (185.)\n\n\nChap. III. _Gospel of Dilettantism._\n\nMammonism at least works, but 'Go gracefully idle in Mayfair,' what\ndoes or can that mean?--Impotent, insolent Donothingism in Practice\nand Saynothingism in Speech. No man now speaks a plain word: Insincere\nSpeech the prime material of insincere Action. (p. 188.)--Moslem\nparable of Moses and the Dwellers by the Dead Sea: The Universe\n_become_ a Humbug to the Apes that thought it one. (190.)\n\n\nChap. IV. _Happy._\n\nAll work noble; and every noble crown a crown of thorns. Man's pitiful\npretension to be what he calls 'happy.' His Greatest-Happiness\nPrinciple fast becoming a rather unhappy one. Byron's large audience.\nA philosophical Doctor: A disconsolate Meat-jack, gnarring and\ncreaking with rust and work. (p. 192.)--The only 'happiness' a brave\nman ever troubled himself much about, the happiness to get his work\ndone. (195.)\n\n\nChap. V. _The English._\n\nWith all thy theoretic platitudes, what a depth of practical sense in\nthee, great England! A dumb people, who can do great acts, but not\ndescribe them. The noble Warhorse, and the Dog of Knowledge: The\nfreest utterances not by any means the best. (p. 197.)--The done Work,\nmuch more than the spoken Word, an epitome of the man. The Man of\nPractice, and the Man of Theory: Ineloquent Brindley. The English, of\nall Nations the stupidest in speech, the wisest in action: Sadness and\nseriousness: Unconsciously this great Universe is great to them. The\nsilent Romans. John Bull's admirable insensibility to Logic.\n(198.)--All great Peoples conservative. Kind of Ready-Reckoner a\nSolecism in Eastcheap. Berserkir rage. Truth and Justice alone\n_capable_ of being 'conserved.' Bitter indignation engendered by the\nCorn-Laws in every just English heart. (203.)\n\n\nChap. VI. _Two Centuries._\n\nThe 'Settlement' of the year 1660 one of the mournfulest that ever\ntook place in this land of ours. The true end of Government, to guide\nmen in the way they should go: The true good of this life, the portal\nof infinite good in the life to come. Oliver Cromwell's body hung on\nthe Tyburn gallows, the type of Puritanism found futile, inexecutable,\nexecrable. The Spiritualism of England, for two godless centuries,\nutterly forgettable: Her practical material Work alone memorable. (p.\n208.)--Bewildering obscurations and impediments: Valiant Sons of Toil\nenchanted, by the million, in their Poor-Law Bastille. Giant Labour\nyet to be King of this Earth. (211.)\n\n\nChap. VII. _Over-Production._\n\nAn idle Governing Class addressing its Workers with an indictment of\n'Over-production.' Duty of justly apportioning the Wages of Work\ndone. A game-preserving Aristocracy, guiltless of producing or\napportioning anything. Owning the soil of England. (p. 213.)--The\nWorking Aristocracy steeped in ignoble Mammonism: The Idle\nAristocracy, with its yellow parchments and pretentious futilities.\n(216.)\n\n\nChap. VIII. _Unworking Aristocracy._\n\nOur Land the _Mother_ of us all: No true Aristocracy but must possess\nthe Land. Men talk of 'selling' Land: Whom it belongs to. Our\nmuch-consuming Aristocracy: By the law of their position bound to\nfurnish guidance and governance. Mad and miserable Corn-Laws. (p.\n218.)--The Working Aristocracy, and its terrible New-Work: The Idle\nAristocracy, and its horoscope of despair. (222.)--A High Class\nwithout duties to do, like a tree planted on precipices. In a valiant\nsuffering for others, not in a slothful making others suffer for us,\ndid nobleness ever lie. The Pagan Hercules; the Czar of Russia.\n(223.)--Parchments, venerable and not venerable. Benedict the Jew, and\nhis usuries. No Chapter on the Corn-Laws: The Corn-Laws too mad to\nhave a Chapter. (225.)\n\n\nChap. IX. _Working Aristocracy._\n\nMany things for the Working Aristocracy, in their extreme need, to\nconsider. A National Existence supposed to depend on 'selling cheaper'\nthan any other People. Let inventive men try to invent a little\nhow cotton at its present cheapness could be somewhat justlier\ndivided. Many 'impossibles' will have to become possible. (p.\n228.)--Supply-and-demand: For what noble work was there ever yet any\naudible 'demand' in that poor sense? (232.)\n\n\nChap. X. _Plugson of Undershot._\n\nMan's philosophies usually the 'supplement of his practice:' Symptoms\nof social death. Cash-Payment: The Plugson Ledger, and the Tablets of\nHeaven's Chancery, discrepant exceedingly. (p. 235.)--All human things\ndo require to have an Ideal in them. How murderous Fighting became a\n'glorious Chivalry.' Noble devout-hearted Chevaliers. Ignoble\nBucaniers and Chactaw Indians: Howel Davies. Napoleon flung out, at\nlast, to St. Helena; the latter end of him sternly compensating for\nthe beginning. (237.)--The indomitable Plugson, as yet a Bucanier and\nChactaw. William Conqueror and his Norman followers. Organisation of\nLabour: Courage, there are yet many brave men in England! (240.)\n\n\nChap. XI. _Labour._\n\nA perennial nobleness and even sacredness in Work. Significance of the\nPotter's Wheel. Blessed is he who has found his Work; let him ask no\nother blessedness. (p. 244.)--A brave Sir Christopher, and his Paul's\nCathedral: Every noble work at first 'impossible.' Columbus royalest\nSea-king of all: A depth of Silence, deeper than the Sea; a Silence\nunsoundable; known to God only. (246.)\n\n\nChap. XII. _Reward._\n\nWork is Worship: Labour, wide as the Earth, has its summit in Heaven.\nOne monster there is in the world, the idle man. (p. 250.)--'Fair\nday's-wages for a fair days-work,' the most unrefusable demand. The\n'wages' of every noble Work in Heaven, or else Nowhere: The brave man\nhas to _give_ his Life away. He that works bodies forth the form of\nThings Unseen. Strange mystic affinity of Wisdom and Insanity: All\nWork, in its degree, a making of Madness sane. (253.)--Labour not a\ndevil, even when encased in Mammonism: The unredeemed ugliness, a\nslothful People. The vulgarest Plugson of a Master-Worker, not a man\nto strangle by Corn-Laws and Shotbelts. (257.)\n\n\nChap. XIII. _Democracy._\n\nMan must actually have his debts and earnings a little better paid by\nman. At no time was the lot of the dumb millions of toilers so\nentirely unbearable as now. Sisterhood, brotherhood often forgotten,\nbut never before so expressly denied. Mungo Park and his poor Black\nBenefactress. (p. 260.)--Gurth, born thrall of Cedric the Saxon:\nLiberty a divine thing; but 'liberty to die by starvation' not so\ndivine. Nature's Aristocracies. William Conqueror, a resident\nHouse-Surgeon provided by Nature for her beloved English People.\n(263.)--Democracy, the despair of finding Heroes to govern us, and\ncontented putting-up with the want of them. The very Tailor\nunconsciously symbolising the reign of Equality. Wherever ranks do\nactually exist, strict division of costumes will also be enforced.\n(267.)--Freedom from oppression, an indispensable yet most\ninsignificant portion of Human Liberty. A _best path_ does exist for\nevery man; a thing which, here and now, it were of all things _wisest_\nfor him to do. Mock Superiors and Real Superiors. (269.)\n\n\nChap. XIV. _Sir Jabesh Windbag._\n\nOliver Cromwell, the remarkablest Governor we have had for the last\nfive centuries or so: No volunteer in Public Life, but plainly a\nballoted soldier: The Government of England put into his hands. (p.\n275.)--Windbag, weak in the faith of a God; strong only in the faith\nthat Paragraphs and Plausibilities bring votes. Five years of\npopularity or unpopularity; and _after_ those five years, an Eternity.\nOliver has to appear before the Most High Judge: Windbag, appealing to\n'Posterity.' (276.)\n\n\nChap. XV. _Morrison again._\n\nNew Religions: This new stage of progress, proceeding 'to invent God,'\na very strange one indeed. (p. 280.)--Religion, the Inner Light or\nMoral Conscience of a man's soul. Infinite difference between a Good\nman and a Bad. The great Soul of the World, just and not unjust:\nFaithful, unspoken, but not ineffectual 'prayer.' Penalties: The\nFrench Revolution, cruelest Portent that has risen into created Space\nthese ten centuries. Man needs no 'New Religion;' nor is like to get\nit: Spiritual Dastardism, and sick folly. (281.)--One Liturgy which\ndoes remain forever unexceptionable, that of _Praying by Working_.\nSauerteig on the symbolic influences of Washing. Chinese\nPontiff-Emperor and his significant 'punctualities.' (287.)--Goethe\nand German Literature. The great event for the world, now as always,\nthe arrival in it of a new Wise Man. Goethe's _Mason-Lodge_. (292.)\n\n\n\n\nBOOK IV.--HOROSCOPE.\n\n\nChap. I. _Aristocracies._\n\nTo predict the Future, to manage the Present, would not be so\nimpossible, had not the Past been so sacrilegiously mishandled: A\ngodless century, looking back to centuries that were godly. (p.\n297.)--A new real Aristocracy and Priesthood. The noble Priest always\na noble _Aristos_ to begin with, and something more to end with.\nModern Preachers, and the _real_ Satanas that now is. Abbot-Samson and\nWilliam-Conqueror times. The mission of a Land Aristocracy a _sacred_\none, in both senses of that old word. Truly a 'Splendour of God' did\ndwell in those old rude veracious ages. Old Anselm travelling to Rome,\nto appeal against King Rufus. Their quarrel at bottom a great quarrel.\n(299.)--The boundless Future, predestined, nay already extant though\nunseen. Our Epic, not _Arms and the Man_, but _Tools and the Man_; an\ninfinitely wider kind of Epic. Important that our grand Reformation\nwere begun. (308.)\n\n\nChap. II. _Bribery Committee._\n\nOur theory, perfect purity of Tenpound Franchise; our practice,\nirremediable bribery. Bribery, indicative not only of length of purse,\nbut of brazen dishonesty: Proposed improvements. A Parliament,\nstarting with a lie in its mouth, promulgates strange horoscopes of\nitself. (p. 312.)--Respect paid to those worthy of no respect:\nPandarus Dogdraught. The indigent discerning Freeman; and the kind of\nmen he is called upon to vote for. (315.)\n\n\nChap. III. _The one Institution._\n\nThe 'Organisation of Labour,' if well understood, the Problem of the\nwhole Future. Governments of various degrees of utility. Kilkenny\nCats; Spinning-Dervishes; Parliamentary Eloquence. A Prime-Minister\nwho would dare believe the heavenly omens. (p. 318.)--Who can despair\nof Governments, that passes a Soldier's Guard-house?--Incalculable\nwhat, by arranging, commanding and regimenting, can be made of men.\nOrganisms enough in the dim huge Future; and 'United Services' quite\nother than the red-coat one. (321.)--Legislative interference between\nWorkers and Master-Workers increasingly indispensable. Sanitary\nReform: People's Parks: A right Education Bill, and effective Teaching\nService. Free bridge for Emigrants: England's sure markets among her\nColonies. London the _All-Saxon-Home_, rendezvous of all the 'Children\nof the Harz-Rock.' (326.)--The English essentially conservative:\nAlways the invincible instinct to hold fast by the Old, to admit the\n_minimum_ of New. Yet new epochs do actually come; and with them new\nperemptory necessities. A certain Editor's stipulated work. (330.)\n\n\nChap. IV. _Captains of Industry._\n\nGovernment can do much, but it can in nowise do all. Fall of Mammon:\nTo be a noble Master among noble Workers, will again be the first\nambition with some few. (p. 333.)--The leaders of Industry, virtually\nthe Captains of the World: Doggeries and Chivalries. Isolation, the\nsum-total of wretchedness to man. All social growths in this world\nhave required organising; and Work, the grandest of human interests,\ndoes now require it. (335.)\n\n\nChap V. _Permanence._\n\nThe 'tendency to persevere,' to persist in spite of hindrances,\ndiscouragements and 'impossibilities,' that which distinguishes the\nSpecies Man from the Genus Ape. Month-long contracts, and Exeter-Hall\npurblindness. A practical manufacturing Quaker's care for his workmen.\n(p. 341.)--Blessing of Permanent Contract: Permanence in all things,\nat the earliest possible moment, and to the latest possible. Vagrant\nSam-Slicks. The wealth of a man the number of things he loves and\nblesses, which he is loved and blessed by. (344.) The Worker's\n_interest_ in the enterprise with which he is connected. How to\nreconcile Despotism with Freedom. (346.)\n\n\nChap. VI. _The Landed._\n\nA man with fifty, with five hundred, with a thousand pounds a day,\ngiven him freely, without condition at all, might be a rather strong\nWorker: The sad reality, very ominous to look at. Will he awaken, be\nalive again; or is this death-fit very death?--Goethe's Duke of\nWeimar. Doom of Idleness. (p. 348.)--To sit idle aloft, like absurd\nEpicurus'-gods, a poor life for a man. Independence, 'lord of the\nlion-heart and eagle-eye:' Rejection of sham Superiors, the needful\npreparation for obedience to _real_ Superiors. (351.)\n\n\nChap. VII. _The Gifted._\n\nTumultuous anarchy calmed by noble effort into fruitful sovereignty.\nMammon, like Fire, the usefulest of servants, if the frightfulest of\nmasters. Souls to whom the omnipotent guinea is, on the whole, an\nimpotent guinea: Not a May-game is this man's life, but a battle and\nstern pilgrimage: God's justice, human Nobleness, Veracity and Mercy,\nthe essence of his very being. (p. 355.)--What a man of Genius is.\nThe Highest 'Man of Genius.' Genius, the clearer presence of God Most\nHigh in a man. Of intrinsic Valetisms you cannot, with whole\nParliaments to help you, make a Heroism. (359.)\n\n\nChap. VIII. _The Didactic._\n\nOne preacher who does preach with effect, and gradually persuade\nall persons. Repentant Captains of Industry: A Chactaw Fighter\nbecome a Christian Fighter (p. 361.)--Doomsday in the afternoon.\nThe 'Christianity' that cannot get on without a minimum of\nFour-thousand-five-hundred, will give place to something better that\ncan. Beautiful to see the brutish empire of Mammon cracking\neverywhere: A strange, chill, almost ghastly dayspring in Yankeeland\nitself. Here as there, Light is coming into the world. Whoso believes,\nlet him begin to fulfil: 'Impossible,' where Truth and Mercy and the\neverlasting Voice of Nature order, can have no place in the brave\nman's dictionary. (364.)--Not on Ilion's or Latium's plains; on far\nother plains and places henceforth can noble deeds be done. The last\nPartridge of England shot and ended: Aristocracies with beards on\ntheir chins. O, it is great, and there is no other greatness: To make\nsome nook of God's Creation a little fruitfuler; to make some human\nhearts a little wiser, manfuler, happier: It is work for a God! (365.)\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\nAlison, Dr., 5, 185.\n\nAnger, 114.\n\nAnselm, travelling to Rome, 306.\n\nApes, Dead-Sea, 190, 270, 272.\n\nArab Poets, 107.\n\nAristocracy of Talent, 34;\n  dreadfully difficult to attain, 37, 41, 299;\n  our Phantasm-Aristocracy, 175, 215, 220, 242, 252, 270, 348, 364;\n  duties of an Aristocracy, 213, 220, 240;\n  Working Aristocracy, 216, 222, 335, 366;\n  no true Aristocracy, but must possess the Land, 218, 304;\n  Nature's Aristocracies, 264;\n  a Virtual Aristocracy everywhere and everywhen, 300;\n  the Feudal Aristocracy no imaginary one, 304, 338.\n\nArmy, the, 321.\n\nArrestment of the knaves and dastards, 43, 303.\n\nAtheism, practical, 184, 192.\n\n\nBattlefield, a, 238.\n  See Fighting.\n\nBecket, 297, 307.\n\nBeginnings, 157.\n\nBenefactresses, 262.\n\nBenthamee Radicalism, 36.\n\nBerserkir rage, 205.\n\nBible of Universal History, 298.\n\nBlockheads, danger of, 111.\n\nBobus of Houndsditch, 38, 41, 363.\n\nBonaparte flung out to St. Helena, 239.\n\nBooks, 51.\n\nBribery, 312.\n\nBrindley, 199.\n\nBucaniering, 239.\n\nBurns, 42, 108, 254, 350.\n\nByron's life-weariness, 193, 356.\n\n\nCant, 76.\n\nCanute, King, 60.\n\nCash-payment not the sole relation of human beings, 183, 235, 242;\n  love of men cannot be bought with cash, 336.\n\nCenturies, the, lineally related to each other, 51, 63.\n\nChactaw Indian, 238.\n\nChampion of England, the, 'lifted into his saddle,' 176.\n\nChancery Law-Courts, 319, 322.\n\nChina, Pontiff-Emperor of, 290.\n\nChivalry of Labour, 237, 336, 341, 346, 355, 364.\n\nChristianity, grave of, 174;\n  the Christian Law of God found difficult and inconvenient, 208;\n  the Christian Religion not accomplished by Prize-Essays, 233, 236, 251;\n  or by a minimum of Four-thousand-five-hundred, 363.\n  See New Testament.\n\nChurch, the English, 209, 322;\n  Church Articles, 280;\n  what a Church-Apparatus _might_ do, 301.\n\nCoeur-de-Lion, 57, 131;\n  King Richard, too, knew a man when he saw him, 144.\n\nColonies, England's sure markets among her, 329.\n\nColumbus, royalest Sea-king of all, 248.\n\nCompetition and Devil take the hindmost, 229, 233;\n  abatement of, 334.\n\nConscience, 137, 281.\n\nConservatism, noble and ignoble, 12, 15;\n  John Bull a born Conservative, 203;\n  Justice alone _capable_ of being 'conserved,' 205.\n\nCorn-Laws, unimaginable arguments for the, 8, 30, 188, 203;\n  bitter indignation in every just English heart, 206;\n  ultimate basis of, 215;\n  mischief and danger of, 220, 226, 258;\n  after the Corn-Laws are ended, 231, 311, 318;\n  what William Conqueror would have thought of them, 266.\n\nCromwell, and his terrible lifelong wrestle, 24;\n  by far our remarkablest Governor, 275.\n\nCrusades, the, 144.\n\nCustom, reverence for, 203.\n\n\nDandy, the genus, 160.\n\nDeath, eternal, 286.\n  See Life.\n\nDebt, 113.\n\nDemocracy, 260;\n  close of kin to Atheism, 267;\n  walking the streets everywhere, 310.\n\nDespotism reconciled with Freedom, 346.\n\nDestiny, didactic, 45.\n\nDilettantism, 60, 146, 154, 212;\n  gracefully idle in Mayfair, 188.\n\nDupes and Quacks, 33.\n\nDuty, infinite nature of, 137, 145.\n\n\nEconomics, necessity of, 113.\n\nEditor's, the purpose to himself full of hope, 46;\n  his stipulated work, 331.\n\nEdmund, St., 65;\n  on the rim of the horizon, 136;\n  opening the Shrine of, 148.\n\nEdmundsbury, St., 60.\n\nEducation Service, an effective, possible, 328.\n\nElection, the one important social act, 94;\n  electoral winnowing-machines, 98, 106.\n\nEmigration, 329.\n\nEngland, full of wealth, yet dying of inanition, 3;\n  the guidance of, not wise enough, 34, 335;\n  England of the year '1200,' 57, 62, 79, 139, 303;\n  disappearance of our English Forests, 122;\n  this England, the practical summary of English Heroism, 165;\n  now nearly eaten up by puffery and unfaithfulness, 180;\n  real Hell of the English, 182;\n  of all Nations, the stupidest in speech, the wisest in action, 197, 211;\n  unspoken sadness, 200;\n  conservatism, 203;\n  Berserkir rage, 205;\n  a Future, wide as the world, if we have heart and heroism for it, 330.\n\nEssex, Henry Earl of, 134, 281.\n\nExperience, 361.\n\n\nFact and Semblance, 17; and Fiction, 59.\n\nFame, the thing called, 161, 166.\n  See Posterity.\n\nFighting, all, an ascertainment who has the right to rule over\n    whom, 17, 302;\n  murderous Fighting become a 'glorious Chivalry,' 237.\n\nFlunkies, whom no Hero-King _can_ reign over, 43.\n  See Valets.\n\nForests, disappearance of, 122.\n\nFormulas, the very skin and muscular tissue of Man's Life, 157, 160.\n\nFornham, battle of, 65.\n\nFrench Donothing Aristocracy, 223;\n  the French Revolution a voice of God, though in wrath, 286, 337.\n\nFunerals, Cockney, 155.\n\nFuture, the, already extant though unseen, 308;\n  England's Future, 330.\n  See Past.\n\n\nGeese, with feathers and without, 187.\n\nGenius, what meant by, 107, 359.\n\nGideon's fleece, 247.\n\nGifted, the, 355.\n\nGod, forgetting, 171;\n  God's Justice, 238, 284;\n  belief in God, 275;\n  proceeding 'to invent God,' 281.\n\nGoethe, 292, 350;\n  his _Mason-Lodge_, 293.\n\nGossip preferable to pedantry, 63;\n  seven centuries off, 92, 97.\n\nGoverning, art of, 110, 112;\n  Lazy Governments, 319;\n  every Government the symbol of its People, 333.\n\nGreat Man, a, 249.\n  See Wisdom.\n\nGurth, born thrall of Cedric the Saxon, 263, 303, 310.\n\n\nHabit, the deepest law of human nature, 158.\n\nHampden's coffin opened, 149.\n\nHappy, pitiful pretensions to be, 192;\n  happiness of getting one's work done, 195.\n\nHat, perambulating, seven-feet high, 177.\n\nHealing Art, the, a sacred one, 5.\n\nHeaven and Hell, our notions of, 181.\n\nHeaven's Chancery, 236, 242.\n\nHell, real, of a man, 85;\n  Hell of the English, 182, 334.\n\nHenry II. choosing an Abbot, 99;\n  his Welsh wars, 135;\n  on his way to the Crusades, 144;\n  our brave Plantagenet Henry, 302.\n\nHenry VIII., 123.\n\nHercules, 225, 255.\n\nHeroic Promised-Land, 45.\n\nHero-worship, 41, 70, 150, 153, 282, 305, 352;\n  what Heroes have done for us, 165, 179.\n\nHistory, Philosophical, 297, 298.\n\nHorses, able and willing to work, 28;\n  Goethe's thoughts about the Horse, 197.\n\nHowel Davies, the Bucanier, 239.\n\nHugo, Abbot, old, feeble and improvident, 73;\n  his death, 78;\n  difficulties with Monk Samson, 90.\n\n\nIdeal, the, in the Real, 73, 237.\n\nIdleness alone without hope, 183;\n  Idle Aristocracy, 216, 222, 252, 348.\n\nIgdrasil, the Life-Tree, 47, 161, 309.\n\nIgnorance, our Period of, 299.\n\nIliad, the, 163.\n\nImpossible, 24, 28;\n  without _soul_, all things impossible, 186;\n  every noble\n  work at first 'impossible,' 247, 255, 364.\n\nIndependence, 353.\n\nIndustry, Captains of, 240, 258, 335, 355, 362;\n  our Industrial Ages, 309.\n\nInfancy and Maturity, 159.\n\nInjustice the one thing intolerable, 262.\n\nInsanity, strange affinity of Wisdom and, 256.\n\nInsurrections, 19.\n\nInvention, 161.\n\nIrish Widow, an, _proving_ her sisterhood, 186, 262.\n\nIsolation the sum-total of wretchedness, 338.\n\n\nJew debts and creditors, 74, 113, 115;\n  Benedict and the tooth-forceps, 225.\n\nJocelm of Brakelond, 51;\n  his Boswellean Notebook seven centuries old, 52.\n\nJohn, King, 57, 131.\n\nJustice, the basis of all things, 12, 24, 138, 205;\n  what is Justice, 17, 266;\n  a just judge, 119;\n  venerable Wigged-Justice began in Wild-Justice, 164;\n  God's Justice alone strong, 238, 358.\n  See Parchments.\n\n\nKilkenny Cats, 319.\n\nKing, the true and the sham, 103, 110, 273;\n  the Ablest Man, the virtual King, 276;\n  again _be_ a King, 310;\n  the proper name of all Kings, Minister, Servant, 320.\n\n'Know thyself,' 244.\n\n\nLabour, to be King of this Earth, 212;\n  Organisation of, 243, 260, 318;\n  perennial nobleness and sacredness in, 244.\n  See Chivalry, Work.\n\n_Laissez-faire_, 229;\n  general breakdown of, 232, 233.\n\nLakenheath eels, 81.\n\nLandlords, past and present, 67;\n  Landowning, 215;\n  whom the Land belongs to, 218;\n  the mission of a Land Aristocracy a _sacred_ one, 305, 348.\n\nLaughter, 189.\n\nLaw, gradual growth of, 163;\n  the Maker's Laws, 284.\n  See Chancery.\n\nLegislative interference, 326.\n\nLiberty, true meaning of, 263, 269.\n\nLife, the, to come, 208, 286;\n  Life never a May-game for men, 261, 357.\n\nLiterature, noble and ignoble, 129.\n\nLiturgies, 162.\n\nLiverpool, 83.\n\nLoadstar, a, in the eternal sky, 15.\n\nLogical futilities, 199, 202.\n\n\nMachinery, exporting, 228.\n\nMahomet, 351.\n\nMammon, not a god at all, 85;\n  Gospel of Mammonism, 181, 236;\n  Working Mammonism better than Idle Dilettantism, 183, 188, 257;\n  getting itself strangled, 228;\n  fall of Mammon, 334, 362;\n  Mammon like Fire, 355.\n  See Economics.\n\nMan the Missionary of Order, 114, 285;\n  sacredness of the human Body, 155;\n  a born Soldier, 238;\n  a God-created Soul, 285.\n  See Great Man.\n\nManchester Insurrection, 19;\n  poor Manchester operatives, 22, 62;\n  Manchester in the twelfth century, 83;\n  even sooty Manchester built on the infinite Abysses, 283.\n\nMarriage-contracts, 342, 344.\n\nMaster, eye of the, 114.\n\nMeat-jack, a disconsolate, 195.\n\nMethodism, 76, 84, 146.\n\nMidas, 3, 9.\n\nMights and Rights, 238.\n\nMillocracy, our giant, 175.\n\nMilton's 'wages,' 24.\n\nMisery, all, the fruit of unwisdom, 34;\n  strength, that has not yet found its way, 357.\n\nMonks, ancient and modern, 55;\n  the old monks not without secularity, 76, 84;\n  insurrection of monks, 125.\n\nMorality, 203.\n\nMorrison's Pill, 29;\n  men's 'Religion' a kind of, 282.\n\nMoses and the Dwellers by the Dead-Sea, 190.\n\nMungo Park, 262.\n\n\nNational Misery the result of national misguidance, 34.\n\nNationality, 159.\n\nNature, not dead, but alive and miraculous, 36.\n\nNegro Slavery and White Nomadism, 342.\n\nNew Testament, 236, 359.\n\nNobleness, meaning of, 224.\n\n\nObedience, 110.\n\nOblivion a still resting-place, 166.\n\nOrganising, what may be done by, 323, 336.\n\nOriginality, 162.\n  See Path-making.\n\nOver-production, charge of, 213, 253.\n\n\nPandarus Dogdraught, 305, 315.\n\nParchments, venerable and not venerable, 216, 225.\n\nParliament and the Courts of Westminster, 12, 319;\n  a Parliament starting with a lie in its mouth, 314.\n\nPast, Present and Future, 47, 298, 310, 331.\n\nPath-making, 158.\n\nPedantry, 61.\n\nPermanence the first condition of all fruitfulness, 341, 344.\n\nPeterloo, 21.\n\nPilate, 17.\n\nPity, 70.\n\nPlugson of Undershot, 235, 257.\n\nPope, the old, with stuffed devotional rump, 173.\n\nPosterity, appealing to, 279.\n  See Fame.\n\nPotter's Wheel, significance of the, 245.\n\nPractice, the Man of, 199.\n\nPrayer, faithful unspoken, 284;\n  praying _by working_, 288.\n\nPremier, what a wise, might do, 321.\n  See Windbag.\n\nPriest, the noble, 300.\n\nPuffery, all-deafening blast of, 177.\n\nPuritanism, giving way to decent Formalism, 209.\n\nPuseyism, 146, 364.\n\n\nQuacks and sham-heroes, 33, 103, 177, 185, 277.\n\nQuaker's, a manufacturing, care for his workmen, 343, 361.\n\n\nReady-Reckoner, strange state of our, 204.\n\nReform, like Charity, must begin at home, 43.\n\nReligion, a great heaven-high Unquestionability, 76, 84, 145;\n  our religion gone, 171;\n  all true Work, Religion, 250;\n  foolish craving for a 'New Religion,' 280, 287;\n  inner light of a man's soul, 281.\n  See Prayer, Worship.\n\nRichard I. See Coeur-de-Lion.\n\nRobert de Montfort, 136.\n\nRokewood, Mr., 55.\n\nRoman Conquests, 201.\n\nRome, a tour to, in the twelfth century, 88.\n\nRussians, the silent, worth something, 198, 201;\n  the Czar of Russia, 225.\n\n\nSaints and Sinners, 68.\n\nSam-Slicks, vagrant, 346.\n\nSamson, Monk, teacher of the Novices, 77;\n  his parentage, dream, and dedication to St. Edmund, 87;\n  sent to Rome, 88;\n  home-tribulations, 90;\n  silence and weariness, 93;\n  though a servant of servants, his words all tell, 97;\n  elected Abbot, 102;\n  arrival at St. Edmundsbury, 105;\n  getting to work, 108, 112;\n  his favour for fit men, 117;\n  not unmindful of kindness, 118;\n  a just clear-hearted man, 119;\n  hospitality and stoicism, 121;\n  troubles and triumphs, 124;\n  in Parliament, 131;\n  practical devotion, 139;\n  Bishop of Ely outwitted, 141;\n  King Richard withstood, 143;\n  zealous interest in the Crusades, 144;\n  a glimpse of the Body of St. Edmund, 149;\n  the culminating point of his existence, 155.\n\nSanitary Reform, 326.\n\nSatanas, the true, that now is, 302.\n\nSauerteig, on Nature, 35;\n  our reverence for Death and for Life, 155;\n  the real Hell of the English, 182;\n  fashionable Wits, 189;\n  symbolic influences of Washing, 289.\n\nSaxon Heptarchy, 17.\n\nSchnuespel, the distinguished Novelist, 70.\n\nScotch Covenanters, 278.\n\nScotland, destitution in, 5.\n\nScott, Sir W., on the Apennines, 345.\n\nSelfishness, 36, 41.\n\nSilence, invaluable talent of, 120, 201, 298;\n  unsounded depth of, 249, 251;\n  two Silences of Eternity, 283.\n\nSliding-Scales, 223, 231.\n  See Corn-Laws.\n\nSoldier, the, 321.\n\nSorrow, Worship of, 192.\n\nSoul and conscience, need for some, 32, 98, 237, 287;\n  to save the 'expense of salt,' 62;\n  man has lost the _soul_ out of him, 172, 191.\n\nSpeech and jargon, difference between, 31;\n  invention of articulate speech, 161;\n  insincere speech, 189;\n  the Speaking Man wandering terribly from the point, 301.\n  See Silence.\n\nSphinx-riddle of Life, the, 10, 17;\n  _our_ Sphinx-riddle, 22.\n\nSpinning Dervishes, 319.\n\nSumptuary Laws, 269.\n\nSupply-and-demand, 232.\n\n\nTailor-art, symbolism of the, 267.\n\nTaxes, where to lay the new, 304.\n\nTears, beautifulest kind of, 70.\n\nTeufelsdroeckh on Democracy, 267.\n\nTheory, the Man of, 199.\n\nThersites, 352.\n\nThirty-nine Articles, 280.\n\nTools and the Man, 308, 310.\n\n\nUnanimity in folly, 179.\n\nUnconscious, the, the alone complete, 145.\n\nUniverse, general High Court of the, 13, 31, 225;\n  a great unintelligible 'Perhaps,' 171;\n  _become_ the Humbug it was thought to be, 190;\n  a beggarly Universe, 234;\n  the Universe made by Law, 284.\n\nUnseen, the, 255.\n\nUnwisdom, infallible fruits of, 39.\n\n\nVacuum, and the serene Blue, 234.\n\nValets and Heroes, 32, 103, 185, 273, 360;\n  London valets dismissed annually to the streets, 342.\n  See Flunkies.\n\n\nWages, fair day's, for fair day's work, 24, 253.\n\nWallace, Scotland's debt to, 16.\n\nWashing, symbolic influences of, 289.\n\nWealth, true, 345, 362.\n\nWeimar, Duke of, 350.\n\nWillelmus Conquaestor; 83, 241;\n  a man of most flashing discernment and strong lion-heart, 265;\n  not a vulturous Fighter, but a valorous Governor, 302.\n\nWillelmus Sacrista, 74, 86, 91, 101, 115.\n\nWilliam Rufus; 302, 306;\n  the quarrel of Rufus and Anselm a great quarrel, 307.\n\nWindbag, Sir Jabesh, 166, 275.\n\nWisdom, how, has to struggle with Folly, 91, 92, 97, 163, 264;\n  the higher the Wisdom the closer its kindred with Insanity, 256;\n  a _wisest path_ for every man, 271;\n  the Wise and Brave properly but one class, 300, 303, 366;\n  the life of the Gifted not a May-game, but a battle and stern\n    pilgrimage, 357.\n\nWits, fashionable, 189.\n\nWomen, born worshippers, 70.\n\nWork, world-wide accumulated, 164;\n  endless hope in work, 183, 244;\n  all work noble, 192;\n  and eternal, 195;\n  the work he has done, an epitome of the Man, 198, 246;\n  Work is Worship, 250, 288;\n  all Work a making of Madness sane, 256.\n  See Labour.\n\nWorkhouses, in which no work can be done, 4.\n\nWorking Aristocracy, 216, 222, 335, 366;\n  getting strangled, 228.\n\nWorkmen, English, unable to find work, 4, 23;\n  intolerable lot, 261.\n\nWorship, Forms of, 162;\n  Scenic Theory of, 174;\n  Apelike, 190;\n  the truest, 250, 288.\n  See Religion.\n\nWorth, human, and Worthlessness, 103.\n  See Pandarus.\n\n\nYankee Transcendentalists, 363.\n\n\nEND OF PAST AND PRESENT.\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nThere are many inconsistently hyphenated words. I have left them the\nway they were in the original scans.\n\nThe \"w\" letter in the Old English words is a wynn.","title":"Past and Present: Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII.","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":108325}