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diff --git a/old/1140.txt b/old/1140.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..63bc022 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1140.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7142 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Latter-Day Pamphlets, by Thomas Carlyle + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Latter-Day Pamphlets + +Author: Thomas Carlyle + +Posting Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #1140] +Release Date: December, 1997 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS *** + + + + +Produced by Ron Burkey + + + + + +LATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS. + +by Thomas Carlyle + + + + But as yet struggles the twelfth hour of the Night. Birds + of darkness are on the wing; spectres uproar; the dead walk; + the living dream. Thou, Eternal Providence, wilt make the + Day dawn!--JEAN PAUL. + + + Then said his Lordship, "Well. God mend all!"--"Nay, by + God, Donald, we must help him to mend it!" said the other.-- + RUSHWORTH (_Sir David Ramsay and Lord Rea, in 1630_). + + + + +CONTENTS. + +I. THE PRESENT TIME + +II. MODEL PRISONS + +III. DOWNING STREET + +IV. THE NEW DOWNING STREET + +V. STUMP-ORATOR + + + + +NO. I. THE PRESENT TIME. [February 1, 1850.] + +The Present Time, youngest-born of Eternity, child and heir of all the +Past Times with their good and evil, and parent of all the Future, is +ever a "New Era" to the thinking man; and comes with new questions and +significance, however commonplace it look: to know _it_, and what it +bids us do, is ever the sum of knowledge for all of us. This new Day, +sent us out of Heaven, this also has its heavenly omens;--amid the +bustling trivialities and loud empty noises, its silent monitions, which +if we cannot read and obey, it will not be well with us! No;--nor is +there any sin more fearfully avenged on men and Nations than that same, +which indeed includes and presupposes all manner of sins: the sin which +our old pious fathers called "judicial blindness;"--which we, with our +light habits, may still call misinterpretation of the Time that now +is; disloyalty to its real meanings and monitions, stupid disregard of +these, stupid adherence active or passive to the counterfeits and mere +current semblances of these. This is true of all times and days. + +But in the days that are now passing over us, even fools are arrested +to ask the meaning of them; few of the generations of men have seen +more impressive days. Days of endless calamity, disruption, dislocation, +confusion worse confounded: if they are not days of endless hope too, +then they are days of utter despair. For it is not a small hope that +will suffice, the ruin being clearly, either in action or in prospect, +universal. There must be a new world, if there is to be any world at +all! That human things in our Europe can ever return to the old sorry +routine, and proceed with any steadiness or continuance there; this +small hope is not now a tenable one. These days of universal death +must be days of universal new-birth, if the ruin is not to be total and +final! It is a Time to make the dullest man consider; and ask himself, +Whence _he_ came? Whither he is bound?--A veritable "New Era," to the +foolish as well as to the wise. + + +Not long ago, the world saw, with thoughtless joy which might have been +very thoughtful joy, a real miracle not heretofore considered possible +or conceivable in the world,--a Reforming Pope. A simple pious creature, +a good country-priest, invested unexpectedly with the tiara, takes up +the New Testament, declares that this henceforth shall be his rule +of governing. No more finesse, chicanery, hypocrisy, or false or foul +dealing of any kind: God's truth shall be spoken, God's justice shall be +done, on the throne called of St. Peter: an honest Pope, Papa, or Father +of Christendom, shall preside there. And such a throne of St. Peter; +and such a Christendom, for an honest Papa to preside in! The European +populations everywhere hailed the omen; with shouting and rejoicing +leading articles and tar-barrels; thinking people listened with +astonishment,--not with sorrow if they were faithful or wise; with awe +rather as at the heralding of death, and with a joy as of victory beyond +death! Something pious, grand and as if awful in that joy, revealing +once more the Presence of a Divine Justice in this world. For, to such +men it was very clear how this poor devoted Pope would prosper, with his +New Testament in his hand. An alarming business, that of governing +in the throne of St. Peter by the rule of veracity! By the rule of +veracity, the so-called throne of St. Peter was openly declared, above +three hundred years, ago, to be a falsity, a huge mistake, a pestilent +dead carcass, which this Sun was weary of. More than three hundred years +ago, the throne of St. Peter received peremptory judicial notice to +quit; authentic order, registered in Heaven's chancery and since legible +in the hearts of all brave men, to take itself away,--to begone, and +let us have no more to do with _it_ and its delusions and impious +deliriums;--and it has been sitting every day since, it may depend upon +it, at its own peril withal, and will have to pay exact damages yet for +every day it has so sat. Law of veracity? What this Popedom had to do +by the law of veracity, was to give up its own foul galvanic life, an +offence to gods and men; honestly to die, and get itself buried. + +Far from this was the thing the poor Pope undertook in regard to +it;--and yet, on the whole, it was essentially this too. "Reforming +Pope?" said one of our acquaintance, often in those weeks, "Was there +ever such a miracle? About to break up that huge imposthume too, by +'curing' it? Turgot and Necker were nothing to this. God is great; and +when a scandal is to end, brings some devoted man to take charge of +it in hope, not in despair!"--But cannot he reform? asked many simple +persons;--to whom our friend in grim banter would reply: "Reform a +Popedom,--hardly. A wretched old kettle, ruined from top to bottom, and +consisting mainly now of foul _grime_ and _rust_: stop the holes of it, +as your antecessors have been doing, with temporary putty, it may hang +together yet a while; begin to hammer at it, solder at it, to what you +call mend and rectify it,--it will fall to sherds, as sure as rust is +rust; go all into nameless dissolution,--and the fat in the fire will be +a thing worth looking at, poor Pope!"--So accordingly it has proved. The +poor Pope, amid felicitations and tar-barrels of various kinds, went on +joyfully for a season: but he had awakened, he as no other man could +do, the sleeping elements; mothers of the whirlwinds, conflagrations, +earthquakes. Questions not very soluble at present, were even sages +and heroes set to solve them, began everywhere with new emphasis to be +asked. Questions which all official men wished, and almost hoped, +to postpone till Doomsday. Doomsday itself _had_ come; that was the +terrible truth! + +For, sure enough, if once the law of veracity be acknowledged as the +rule for human things, there will not anywhere be want of work for the +reformer; in very few places do human things adhere quite closely to +that law! Here was the Papa of Christendom proclaiming that such was +actually the case;--whereupon all over Christendom such results as we +have seen. The Sicilians, I think, were the first notable body that set +about applying this new strange rule sanctioned by the general Father; +they said to themselves, We do not by the law of veracity belong to +Naples and these Neapolitan Officials; we will, by favor of Heaven and +the Pope, be free of these. Fighting ensued; insurrection, fiercely +maintained in the Sicilian Cities; with much bloodshed, much tumult and +loud noise, vociferation extending through all newspapers and countries. +The effect of this, carried abroad by newspapers and rumor, was great +in all places; greatest perhaps in Paris, which for sixty years past has +been the City of Insurrections. The French People had plumed themselves +on being, whatever else they were not, at least the chosen "soldiers of +liberty," who took the lead of all creatures in that pursuit, at least; +and had become, as their orators, editors and litterateurs diligently +taught them, a People whose bayonets were sacred, a kind of Messiah +People, saving a blind world in its own despite, and earning for +themselves a terrestrial and even celestial glory very considerable +indeed. And here were the wretched down-trodden populations of Sicily +risen to rival them, and threatening to take the trade out of their +hand. + +No doubt of it, this hearing continually of the very Pope's glory as +a Reformer, of the very Sicilians fighting divinely for liberty +behind barricades,--must have bitterly aggravated the feeling of every +Frenchman, as he looked around him, at home, on a Louis-Philippism +which had become the scorn of all the world. "_Ichabod_; is the glory +departing from us? Under the sun is nothing baser, by all accounts and +evidences, than the system of repression and corruption, of shameless +dishonesty and unbelief in anything but human baseness, that we now live +under. The Italians, the very Pope, have become apostles of liberty, and +France is--what is France!"--We know what France suddenly became in the +end of February next; and by a clear enough genealogy, we can trace a +considerable share in that event to the good simple Pope with the New +Testament in his hand. An outbreak, or at least a radical change and +even inversion of affairs hardly to be achieved without an outbreak, +everybody felt was inevitable in France: but it had been universally +expected that France would as usual take the initiative in that matter; +and had there been no reforming Pope, no insurrectionary Sicily, France +had certainly not broken out then and so, but only afterwards and +otherwise. The French explosion, not anticipated by the cunningest men +there on the spot scrutinizing it, burst up unlimited, complete, defying +computation or control. + +Close following which, as if by sympathetic subterranean electricities, +all Europe exploded, boundless, uncontrollable; and we had the year +1848, one of the most singular, disastrous, amazing, and, on the whole, +humiliating years the European world ever saw. Not since the irruption +of the Northern Barbarians has there been the like. Everywhere +immeasurable Democracy rose monstrous, loud, blatant, inarticulate +as the voice of Chaos. Everywhere the Official holy-of-holies was +scandalously laid bare to dogs and the profane:--Enter, all the world, +see what kind of Official holy it is. Kings everywhere, and reigning +persons, stared in sudden horror, the voice of the whole world bellowing +in their ear, "Begone, ye imbecile hypocrites, histrios not heroes! Off +with you, off!" and, what was peculiar and notable in this year for the +first time, the Kings all made haste to go, as if exclaiming, "We _are_ +poor histrios, we sure enough;--did you want heroes? Don't kill us; +we couldn't help it!" Not one of them turned round, and stood upon his +Kingship, as upon a right he could afford to die for, or to risk +his skin upon; by no manner of means. That, I say, is the alarming +peculiarity at present. Democracy, on this new occasion, finds all Kings +conscious that they are but Play-actors. The miserable mortals, enacting +their High Life Below Stairs, with faith only that this Universe may +perhaps be all a phantasm and hypocrisis,--the truculent Constable of +the Destinies suddenly enters: "Scandalous Phantasms, what do _you_ +here? Are 'solemnly constituted Impostors' the proper Kings of men? +Did you think the Life of Man was a grimacing dance of apes? To be led +always by the squeak of your paltry fiddle? Ye miserable, this Universe +is not an upholstery Puppet-play, but a terrible God's Fact; and you, +I think,--had not you better begone!" They fled precipitately, some +of them with what we may call an exquisite ignominy,--in terror of the +treadmill or worse. And everywhere the people, or the populace, take +their own government upon themselves; and open "kinglessness," what +we call _anarchy_,--how happy if it be anarchy _plus_ a +street-constable!--is everywhere the order of the day. Such was the +history, from Baltic to Mediterranean, in Italy, France, Prussia, +Austria, from end to end of Europe, in those March days of 1848. Since +the destruction of the old Roman Empire by inroad of the Northern +Barbarians, I have known nothing similar. + +And so, then, there remained no King in Europe; no King except the +Public Haranguer, haranguing on barrel-head, in leading article; or +getting himself aggregated into a National Parliament to harangue. And +for about four months all France, and to a great degree all Europe, +rough-ridden by every species of delirium, except happily the murderous +for most part, was a weltering mob, presided over by M. de Lamartine, at +the Hotel-de-Ville; a most eloquent fair-spoken literary gentleman, +whom thoughtless persons took for a prophet, priest and heaven-sent +evangelist, and whom a wise Yankee friend of mine discerned to be +properly "the first stump-orator in the world, standing too on +the highest stump,--for the time." A sorrowful spectacle to men of +reflection, during the time he lasted, that poor M. de Lamartine; with +nothing in him but melodious wind and _soft sawder_, which he and others +took for something divine and not diabolic! Sad enough; the eloquent +latest impersonation of Chaos-come-again; able to talk for itself, and +declare persuasively that it is Cosmos! However, you have but to wait a +little, in such cases; all balloons do and must give up their gas in the +pressure of things, and are collapsed in a sufficiently wretched manner +before long. + +And so in City after City, street-barricades are piled, and truculent, +more or less murderous insurrection begins; populace after populace +rises, King after King capitulates or absconds; and from end to end of +Europe Democracy has blazed up explosive, much higher, more irresistible +and less resisted than ever before; testifying too sadly on what +a bottomless volcano, or universal powder-mine of most inflammable +mutinous chaotic elements, separated from us by a thin earth-rind, +Society with all its arrangements and acquirements everywhere, in the +present epoch, rests! The kind of persons who excite or give signal to +such revolutions--students, young men of letters, advocates, +editors, hot inexperienced enthusiasts, or fierce and justly bankrupt +desperadoes, acting everywhere on the discontent of the millions +and blowing it into flame,--might give rise to reflections as to +the character of our epoch. Never till now did young men, and almost +children, take such a command in human affairs. A changed time since +the word _Senior_ (Seigneur, or _Elder_) was first devised to signify +"lord," or superior;--as in all languages of men we find it to have +been! Not an honorable document this either, as to the spiritual +condition of our epoch. In times when men love wisdom, the old man will +ever be venerable, and be venerated, and reckoned noble: in times that +love something else than wisdom, and indeed have little or no wisdom, +and see little or none to love, the old man will cease to be venerated; +and looking more closely, also, you will find that in fact he has ceased +to be venerable, and has begun to be contemptible; a foolish boy still, +a boy without the graces, generosities and opulent strength of young +boys. In these days, what of _lordship_ or leadership is still to be +done, the youth must do it, not the mature or aged man; the mature man, +hardened into sceptical egoism, knows no monition but that of his own +frigid cautious, avarices, mean timidities; and can lead no-whither +towards an object that even seems noble. But to return. + +This mad state of matters will of course before long allay itself, as +it has everywhere begun to do; the ordinary necessities of men's daily +existence cannot comport with it, and these, whatever else is +cast aside, will have their way. Some remounting--very temporary +remounting--of the old machine, under new colors and altered forms, will +probably ensue soon in most countries: the old histrionic Kings will +be admitted back under conditions, under "Constitutions," with national +Parliaments, or the like fashionable adjuncts; and everywhere the old +daily life will try to begin again. But there is now no hope that +such arrangements can be permanent; that they can be other than poor +temporary makeshifts, which, if they try to fancy and make themselves +permanent, will be displaced by new explosions recurring more speedily +than last time. In such baleful oscillation, afloat as amid raging +bottomless eddies and conflicting sea-currents, not steadfast as +on fixed foundations, must European Society continue swaying, now +disastrously tumbling, then painfully readjusting itself, at ever +shorter intervals,--till once the _new_ rock-basis does come to light, +and the weltering deluges of mutiny, and of need to mutiny, abate again! + +For universal _Democracy_, whatever we may think of it, has declared +itself as an inevitable fact of the days in which we live; and he +who has any chance to instruct, or lead, in his days, must begin by +admitting that: new street-barricades, and new anarchies, still more +scandalous if still less sanguinary, must return and again return, till +governing persons everywhere know and admit that. Democracy, it may be +said everywhere, is here:--for sixty years now, ever since the grand or +_First_ French Revolution, that fact has been terribly announced to all +the world; in message after message, some of them very terrible indeed; +and now at last all the world ought really to believe it. That the world +does believe it; that even Kings now as good as believe it, and know, +or with just terror surmise, that they are but temporary phantasm +Play-actors, and that Democracy is the grand, alarming, imminent and +indisputable Reality: this, among the scandalous phases we witnessed +in the last two years, is a phasis full of hope: a sign that we are +advancing closer and closer to the very Problem itself, which it will +behoove us to solve or die; that all fighting and campaigning and +coalitioning in regard to the _existence_ of the Problem, is hopeless +and superfluous henceforth. The gods have appointed it so; no Pitt, nor +body of Pitts or mortal creatures can appoint it otherwise. Democracy, +sure enough, is here; one knows not how long it will keep hidden +underground even in Russia;--and here in England, though we object to it +resolutely in the form of street-barricades and insurrectionary pikes, +and decidedly will not open doors to it on those terms, the tramp of +its million feet is on all streets and thoroughfares, the sound of its +bewildered thousand-fold voice is in all writings and speakings, in all +thinkings and modes and activities of men: the soul that does not now, +with hope or terror, discern it, is not the one we address on this +occasion. + +What is Democracy; this huge inevitable Product of the Destinies, which +is everywhere the portion of our Europe in these latter days? There +lies the question for us. Whence comes it, this universal big black +Democracy; whither tends it; what is the meaning of it? A meaning it +must have, or it would not be here. If we can find the right meaning of +it, we may, wisely submitting or wisely resisting and controlling, still +hope to live in the midst of it; if we cannot find the right meaning, +if we find only the wrong or no meaning in it, to live will not be +possible!--The whole social wisdom of the Present Time is summoned, in +the name of the Giver of Wisdom, to make clear to itself, and lay deeply +to heart with an eye to strenuous valiant practice and effort, what +the meaning of this universal revolt of the European Populations, which +calls itself Democracy, and decides to continue permanent, may be. + +Certainly it is a drama full of action, event fast following event; in +which curiosity finds endless scope, and there are interests at stake, +enough to rivet the attention of all men, simple and wise. Whereat the +idle multitude lift up their voices, gratulating, celebrating sky-high; +in rhyme and prose announcement, more than plentiful, that _now_ the +New Era, and long-expected Year One of Perfect Human Felicity has +come. Glorious and immortal people, sublime French citizens, heroic +barricades; triumph of civil and religious liberty--O Heaven! one of the +inevitablest private miseries, to an earnest man in such circumstances, +is this multitudinous efflux of oratory and psalmody, from the universal +foolish human throat; drowning for the moment all reflection whatsoever, +except the sorrowful one that you are fallen in an evil, heavy-laden, +long-eared age, and must resignedly bear your part in the same. The +front wall of your wretched old crazy dwelling, long denounced by you +to no purpose, having at last fairly folded itself over, and fallen +prostrate into the street, the floors, as may happen, will still hang +on by the mere beam-ends, and coherency of old carpentry, though in a +sloping direction, and depend there till certain poor rusty nails +and worm-eaten dovetailings give way:--but is it cheering, in such +circumstances, that the whole household burst forth into celebrating +the new joys of light and ventilation, liberty and picturesqueness of +position, and thank God that now they have got a house to their mind? My +dear household, cease singing and psalmodying; lay aside your fiddles, +take out your work-implements, if you have any; for I can say with +confidence the laws of gravitation are still active, and rusty nails, +worm-eaten dovetailings, and secret coherency of old carpentry, are not +the best basis for a household!--In the lanes of Irish cities, I +have heard say, the wretched people are sometimes found living, and +perilously boiling their potatoes, on such swing-floors and inclined +planes hanging on by the joist-ends; but I did not hear that they sang +very much in celebration of such lodging. No, they slid gently about, +sat near the back wall, and perilously boiled their potatoes, in silence +for most part!-- + +High shouts of exultation, in every dialect, by every vehicle of speech +and writing, rise from far and near over this last avatar of Democracy +in 1848: and yet, to wise minds, the first aspect it presents seems +rather to be one of boundless misery and sorrow. What can be more +miserable than this universal hunting out of the high dignitaries, +solemn functionaries, and potent, grave and reverend signiors of +the world; this stormful rising-up of the inarticulate dumb masses +everywhere, against those who pretended to be speaking for them and +guiding them? These guides, then, were mere blind men only pretending +to see? These rulers were not ruling at all; they had merely got on the +attributes and clothes of rulers, and were surreptitiously drawing +the wages, while the work remained undone? The Kings were Sham-Kings, +play-acting as at Drury Lane;--and what were the people withal that took +them for real? + +It is probably the hugest disclosure of _falsity_ in human things that +was ever at one time made. These reverend Dignitaries that sat amid +their far-shining symbols and long-sounding long-admitted professions, +were mere Impostors, then? Not a true thing they were doing, but a +false thing. The story they told men was a cunningly devised fable; the +gospels they preached to them were not an account of man's real position +in this world, but an incoherent fabrication, of dead ghosts and unborn +shadows, of traditions, cants, indolences, cowardices,--a falsity +of falsities, which at last _ceases_ to stick together. Wilfully and +against their will, these high units of mankind were cheats, then; and +the low millions who believed in them were dupes,--a kind of _inverse_ +cheats, too, or they would not have believed in them so long. A +universal _Bankruptcy of Imposture_; that may be the brief definition +of it. Imposture everywhere declared once more to be contrary to Nature; +nobody will change its word into an act any farther:--fallen insolvent; +unable to keep its head up by these false pretences, or make its pot +boil any more for the present! A more scandalous phenomenon, wide as +Europe, never afflicted the face of the sun. Bankruptcy everywhere; foul +ignominy, and the abomination of desolation, in all high places: odious +to look upon, as the carnage of a battle-field on the morrow morning;--a +massacre not of the innocents; we cannot call it a massacre of the +innocents; but a universal tumbling of Impostors and of Impostures into +the street!-- + +Such a spectacle, can we call it joyful? There is a joy in it, to the +wise man too; yes, but a joy full of awe, and as it were sadder than +any sorrow,--like the vision of immortality, unattainable except through +death and the grave! And yet who would not, in his heart of hearts, feel +piously thankful that Imposture has fallen bankrupt? By all means let it +fall bankrupt; in the name of God let it do so, with whatever misery to +itself and to all of us. Imposture, be it known then,--known it must +and shall be,--is hateful, unendurable to God and man. Let it understand +this everywhere; and swiftly make ready for departure, wherever it yet +lingers; and let it learn never to return, if possible! The eternal +voices, very audibly again, are speaking to proclaim this message, +from side to side of the world. Not a very cheering message, but a very +indispensable one. + +Alas, it is sad enough that Anarchy is here; that we are not permitted +to regret its being here,--for who that had, for this divine Universe, +an eye which was human at all, could wish that Shams of any kind, +especially that Sham-Kings should continue? No: at all costs, it is +to be prayed by all men that Shams may _cease_. Good Heavens, to what +depths have we got, when this to many a man seems strange! Yet strange +to many a man it does seem; and to many a solid Englishman, wholesomely +digesting his pudding among what are called the cultivated classes, it +seems strange exceedingly; a mad ignorant notion, quite heterodox, and +big with mere ruin. He has been used to decent forms long since +fallen empty of meaning, to plausible modes, solemnities grown +ceremonial,--what you in your iconoclast humor call shams, all his life +long; never heard that there was any harm in them, that there was any +getting on without them. Did not cotton spin itself, beef grow, and +groceries and spiceries come in from the East and the West, quite +comfortably by the side of shams? Kings reigned, what they were pleased +to call reigning; lawyers pleaded, bishops preached, and honorable +members perorated; and to crown the whole, as if it were all real and +no sham there, did not scrip continue salable, and the banker pay in +bullion, or paper with a metallic basis? "The greatest sham, I have +always thought, is he that would destroy shams." + +Even so. To such depth have _I_, the poor knowing person of this epoch, +got;--almost below the level of lowest humanity, and down towards the +state of apehood and oxhood! For never till in quite recent generations +was such a scandalous blasphemy quietly set forth among the sons of +Adam; never before did the creature called man believe generally in +his heart that lies were the rule in this Earth; that in deliberate +long-established lying could there be help or salvation for him, could +there be at length other than hindrance and destruction for him. O +Heavyside, my solid friend, this is the sorrow of sorrows: what on earth +can become of us till this accursed enchantment, the general summary and +consecration of delusions, be cast forth from the heart and life of +one and all! Cast forth it will be; it must, or we are tending, at all +moments, whitherward I do not like to name. Alas, and the casting of +it out, to what heights and what depths will it lead us, in the sad +universe mostly of lies and shams and hollow phantasms (grown very +ghastly now), in which, as in a safe home, we have lived this century +or two! To heights and depths of social and individual _divorce_ from +delusions,--of "reform" in right sacred earnest, of indispensable +amendment, and stern sorrowful abrogation and order to depart,--such +as cannot well be spoken at present; as dare scarcely be thought at +present; which nevertheless are very inevitable, and perhaps rather +imminent several of them! Truly we have a heavy task of work before us; +and there is a pressing call that we should seriously begin upon it, +before it tumble into an inextricable mass, in which there will be no +working, but only suffering and hopelessly perishing! + + +Or perhaps Democracy, which we announce as now come, will itself manage +it? Democracy, once modelled into suffrages, furnished with ballot-boxes +and such like, will itself accomplish the salutary universal change from +Delusive to Real, and make a new blessed world of us by and by?--To the +great mass of men, I am aware, the matter presents itself quite on this +hopeful side. Democracy they consider to _be_ a kind of "Government." +The old model, formed long since, and brought to perfection in England +now two hundred years ago, has proclaimed itself to all Nations as the +new healing for every woe: "Set up a Parliament," the Nations everywhere +say, when the old King is detected to be a Sham-King, and hunted out or +not; "set up a Parliament; let us have suffrages, universal suffrages; +and all either at once or by due degrees will be right, and a real +Millennium come!" Such is their way of construing the matter. + +Such, alas, is by no means my way of construing the matter; if it were, +I should have had the happiness of remaining silent, and been without +call to speak here. It is because the contrary of all this is deeply +manifest to me, and appears to be forgotten by multitudes of my +contemporaries, that I have had to undertake addressing a word to them. +The contrary of all this;--and the farther I look into the roots of all +this, the more hateful, ruinous and dismal does the state of mind all +this could have originated in appear to me. To examine this recipe of a +Parliament, how fit it is for governing Nations, nay how fit it may now +be, in these new times, for governing England itself where we are used +to it so long: this, too, is an alarming inquiry, to which all thinking +men, and good citizens of their country, who have an ear for the small +still voices and eternal intimations, across the temporary clamors and +loud blaring proclamations, are now solemnly invited. Invited by the +rigorous fact itself; which will one day, and that perhaps soon, demand +practical decision or redecision of it from us,--with enormous penalty +if we decide it wrong! I think we shall all have to consider this +question, one day; better perhaps now than later, when the leisure +may be less. If a Parliament, with suffrages and universal or any +conceivable kind of suffrages, is the method, then certainly let us set +about discovering the kind of suffrages, and rest no moment till we +have got them. But it is possible a Parliament may not be the method! +Possible the inveterate notions of the English People may have settled +it as the method, and the Everlasting Laws of Nature may have settled it +as not the method! Not the whole method; nor the method at all, if +taken as the whole? If a Parliament with never such suffrages is not the +method settled by this latter authority, then it will urgently behoove +us to become aware of that fact, and to quit such method;--we may depend +upon it, however unanimous we be, every step taken in that direction +will, by the Eternal Law of things, be a step _from_ improvement, not +towards it. + +Not towards it, I say, if so! Unanimity of voting,--that will do nothing +for us if so. Your ship cannot double Cape Horn by its excellent plans +of voting. The ship may vote this and that, above decks and below, in +the most harmonious exquisitely constitutional manner: the ship, to get +round Cape Horn, will find a set of conditions already voted for, and +fixed with adamantine rigor by the ancient Elemental Powers, who are +entirely careless how you vote. If you can, by voting or without voting, +ascertain these conditions, and valiantly conform to them, you will get +round the Cape: if you cannot, the ruffian Winds will blow you ever back +again; the inexorable Icebergs, dumb privy-councillors from Chaos, will +nudge you with most chaotic "admonition;" you will be flung half frozen +on the Patagonian cliffs, or admonished into shivers by your iceberg +councillors, and sent sheer down to Davy Jones, and will never get round +Cape Horn at all! Unanimity on board ship;--yes indeed, the ship's crew +may be very unanimous, which doubtless, for the time being, will be very +comfortable to the ship's crew, and to their Phantasm Captain if they +have one: but if the tack they unanimously steer upon is guiding them +into the belly of the Abyss, it will not profit them much!--Ships +accordingly do not use the ballot-box at all; and they reject the +Phantasm species of Captains: one wishes much some other Entities--since +all entities lie under the same rigorous set of laws--could be brought +to show as much wisdom, and sense at least of self-preservation, the +first command of Nature. Phantasm Captains with unanimous votings: this +is considered to be all the law and all the prophets, at present. + +If a man could shake out of his mind the universal noise of political +doctors in this generation and in the last generation or two, and +consider the matter face to face, with his own sincere intelligence +looking at it, I venture to say he would find this a very extraordinary +method of navigating, whether in the Straits of Magellan or the +undiscovered Sea of Time. To prosper in this world, to gain felicity, +victory and improvement, either for a man or a nation, there is but +one thing requisite, That the man or nation can discern what the true +regulations of the Universe are in regard to him and his pursuit, and +can faithfully and steadfastly follow these. These will lead him to +victory; whoever it may be that sets him in the way of these,--were +it Russian Autocrat, Chartist Parliament, Grand Lama, Force of Public +Opinion, Archbishop of Canterbury, M'Croudy the Seraphic Doctor with his +Last-evangel of Political Economy,--sets him in the sure way to please +the Author of this Universe, and is his friend of friends. And again, +whoever does the contrary is, for a like reason, his enemy of enemies. +This may be taken as fixed. + +And now by what method ascertain the monition of the gods in regard to +our affairs? How decipher, with best fidelity, the eternal regulation +of the Universe; and read, from amid such confused embroilments of +human clamor and folly, what the real Divine Message to us is? A divine +message, or eternal regulation of the Universe, there verily is, in +regard to every conceivable procedure and affair of man: faithfully +following this, said procedure or affair will prosper, and have the +whole Universe to second it, and carry it, across the fluctuating +contradictions, towards a victorious goal; not following this, mistaking +this, disregarding this, destruction and wreck are certain for every +affair. How find it? All the world answers me, "Count heads; ask +Universal Suffrage, by the ballot-boxes, and that will tell." Universal +Suffrage, ballot-boxes, count of heads? Well,--I perceive we have got +into strange spiritual latitudes indeed. Within the last half-century or +so, either the Universe or else the heads of men must have altered very +much. Half a century ago, and down from Father Adam's time till then, +the Universe, wherever I could hear tell of it, was wont to be of +somewhat abstruse nature; by no means carrying its secret written on its +face, legible to every passer-by; on the contrary, obstinately hiding +its secret from all foolish, slavish, wicked, insincere persons, and +partially disclosing it to the wise and noble-minded alone, whose number +was not the majority in my time! + +Or perhaps the chief end of man being now, in these improved epochs, +to make money and spend it, his interests in the Universe have become +amazingly simplified of late; capable of being voted on with effect +by almost anybody? "To buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the +dearest:" truly if that is the summary of his social duties, and the +final divine message he has to follow, we may trust him extensively +to vote upon that. But if it is not, and never was, or can be? If the +Universe will not carry on its divine bosom any commonwealth of mortals +that have no higher aim,--being still "a Temple and Hall of Doom," not +a mere Weaving-shop and Cattle-pen? If the unfathomable Universe +has decided to _reject_ Human Beavers pretending to be Men; and will +abolish, pretty rapidly perhaps, in hideous mud-deluges, their "markets" +and them, unless they think of it?--In that case it were better to think +of it: and the Democracies and Universal Suffrages, I can observe, will +require to modify themselves a good deal! + +Historically speaking, I believe there was no Nation that could subsist +upon Democracy. Of ancient Republics, and _Demoi_ and _Populi_, we have +heard much; but it is now pretty well admitted to be nothing to our +purpose;--a universal-suffrage republic, or a general-suffrage one, or +any but a most-limited-suffrage one, never came to light, or dreamed of +doing so, in ancient times. When the mass of the population were slaves, +and the voters intrinsically a kind of _kings_, or men born to +rule others; when the voters were real "aristocrats" and manageable +dependents of such,--then doubtless voting, and confused jumbling of +talk and intrigue, might, without immediate destruction, or the need of +a Cavaignac to intervene with cannon and sweep the streets clear of it, +go on; and beautiful developments of manhood might be possible beside +it, for a season. Beside it; or even, if you will, by means of it, +and in virtue of it, though that is by no means so certain as is often +supposed. Alas, no: the reflective constitutional mind has misgivings as +to the origin of old Greek and Roman nobleness; and indeed knows not how +this or any other human nobleness could well be "originated," or brought +to pass, by voting or without voting, in this world, except by the grace +of God very mainly;--and remembers, with a sigh, that of the Seven +Sages themselves no fewer than three were bits of Despotic Kings, [Gr.] +_Turannoi_, "Tyrants" so called (such being greatly wanted there); +and that the other four were very far from Red Republicans, if of any +political faith whatever! We may quit the Ancient Classical concern, and +leave it to College-clubs and speculative debating-societies, in these +late days. + +Of the various French Republics that have been tried, or that are still +on trial,--of these also it is not needful to say any word. But there +is one modern instance of Democracy nearly perfect, the Republic of +the United States, which has actually subsisted for threescore years or +more, with immense success as is affirmed; to which many still appeal, +as to a sign of hope for all nations, and a "Model Republic." Is not +America an instance in point? Why should not all Nations subsist and +flourish on Democracy, as America does? + +Of America it would ill beseem any Englishman, and me perhaps as little +as another, to speak unkindly, to speak unpatriotically, if any of us +even felt so. Sure enough, America is a great, and in many respects a +blessed and hopeful phenomenon. Sure enough, these hardy millions of +Anglo-Saxon men prove themselves worthy of their genealogy; and, with +the axe and plough and hammer, if not yet with any much finer kind of +implements, are triumphantly clearing out wide spaces, seedfields for +the sustenance and refuge of mankind, arenas for the future history of +the world; doing, in their day and generation, a creditable and cheering +feat under the sun. But as to a Model Republic, or a model anything, the +wise among themselves know too well that there is nothing to be said. +Nay the title hitherto to be a Commonwealth or Nation at all, among the +[Gr.] _ethne_ of the world, is, strictly considered, still a thing +they are but striving for, and indeed have not yet done much towards +attaining. Their Constitution, such as it may be, was made here, +not there; went over with them from the Old-Puritan English +workshop ready-made. Deduct what they carried with them from England +ready-made,--their common English Language, and that same Constitution, +or rather elixir of constitutions, their inveterate and now, as it +were, inborn reverence for the Constable's Staff; two quite immense +attainments, which England had to spend much blood, and valiant sweat of +brow and brain, for centuries long, in achieving;--and what new elements +of polity or nationhood, what noble new phasis of human arrangement, or +social device worthy of Prometheus or of Epimetheus, yet comes to light +in America? Cotton crops and Indian corn and dollars come to light; +and half a world of untilled land, where populations that respect the +constable can live, for the present _without_ Government: this comes +to light; and the profound sorrow of all nobler hearts, here uttering +itself as silent patient unspeakable ennui, there coming out as vague +elegiac wailings, that there is still next to nothing more. "Anarchy +_plus_ a street-constable:" that also is anarchic to me, and other than +quite lovely! + +I foresee, too, that, long before the waste lands are full, the very +street-constable, on these poor terms, will have become impossible: +without the waste lands, as here in our Europe, I do not see how he +could continue possible many weeks. Cease to brag to me of America, and +its model institutions and constitutions. To men in their sleep there +is nothing granted in this world: nothing, or as good as nothing, to men +that sit idly caucusing and ballot-boxing on the graves of their heroic +ancestors, saying, "It is well, it is well!" Corn and bacon are granted: +not a very sublime boon, on such conditions; a boon moreover which, on +such conditions, cannot last!--No: America too will have to strain its +energies, in quite other fashion than this; to crack its sinews, and all +but break its heart, as the rest of us have had to do, in thousand-fold +wrestle with the Pythons and mud-demons, before it can become a +habitation for the gods. America's battle is yet to fight; and we, +sorrowful though nothing doubting, will wish her strength for it. New +Spiritual Pythons, plenty of them; enormous Megatherions, as ugly as +were ever born of mud, loom huge and hideous out of the twilight Future +on America; and she will have her own agony, and her own victory, but on +other terms than she is yet quite aware of. Hitherto she but ploughs +and hammers, in a very successful manner; hitherto, in spite of her +"roast-goose with apple-sauce," she is not much. "Roast-goose with +apple-sauce for the poorest workingman:" well, surely that is something, +thanks to your respect for the street-constable, and to your continents +of fertile waste land;--but that, even if it could continue, is by +no means enough; that is not even an instalment towards what will be +required of you. My friend, brag not yet of our American cousins! Their +quantity of cotton, dollars, industry and resources, I believe to be +almost unspeakable; but I can by no means worship the like of these. +What great human soul, what great thought, what great noble thing that +one could worship, or loyally admire, has yet been produced there? None: +the American cousins have yet done none of these things. "What they have +done?" growls Smelfungus, tired of the subject: "They have doubled +their population every twenty years. They have begotten, with a rapidity +beyond recorded example, Eighteen Millions of the greatest _bores_ +ever seen in this world before,--that hitherto is their feat in +History!"--And so we leave them, for the present; and cannot predict the +success of Democracy, on this side of the Atlantic, from their example. + +Alas, on this side of the Atlantic and on that, Democracy, we apprehend, +is forever impossible! So much, with certainty of loud astonished +contradiction from all manner of men at present, but with sure appeal +to the Law of Nature and the ever-abiding Fact, may be suggested and +asserted once more. The Universe itself is a Monarchy and Hierarchy; +large liberty of "voting" there, all manner of choice, utmost free-will, +but with conditions inexorable and immeasurable annexed to every +exercise of the same. A most free commonwealth of "voters;" but with +Eternal Justice to preside over it, Eternal Justice enforced by Almighty +Power! This is the model of "constitutions;" this: nor in any Nation +where there has not yet (in some supportable and withal some constantly +increasing degree) been confided to the _Noblest_, with his select +series of _Nobler_, the divine everlasting duty of directing and +controlling the Ignoble, has the "Kingdom of God," which we all pray +for, "come," nor can "His will" even _tend_ to be "done on Earth as +it is in Heaven" till then. My Christian friends, and indeed my +Sham-Christian and Anti-Christian, and all manner of men, are invited +to reflect on this. They will find it to be the truth of the case. The +Noble in the high place, the Ignoble in the low; that is, in all times +and in all countries, the Almighty Maker's Law. + +To raise the Sham-Noblest, and solemnly consecrate him by whatever +method, new-devised, or slavishly adhered to from old wont, this, +little as we may regard it, is, in all times and countries, a practical +blasphemy, and Nature will in nowise forget it. Alas, there lies the +origin, the fatal necessity, of modern Democracy everywhere. It is +the Noblest, not the Sham-Noblest; it is God-Almighty's Noble, not the +Court-Tailor's Noble, nor the Able-Editor's Noble, that must, in +some approximate degree, be raised to the supreme place; he and not a +counterfeit,--under penalties! Penalties deep as death, and at +length terrible as hell-on-earth, my constitutional friend!--Will the +ballot-box raise the Noblest to the chief place; does any sane +man deliberately believe such a thing? That nevertheless is the +indispensable result, attain it how we may: if that is attained, all is +attained; if not that, nothing. He that cannot believe the ballot-box +to be attaining it, will be comparatively indifferent to the ballot-box. +Excellent for keeping the ship's crew at peace under their Phantasm +Captain; but unserviceable, under such, for getting round Cape Horn. +Alas, that there should be human beings requiring to have these things +argued of, at this late time of day! + +I say, it is the everlasting privilege of the foolish to be governed +by the wise; to be guided in the right path by those who know it better +than they. This is the first "right of man;" compared with which all +other rights are as nothing,--mere superfluities, corollaries which will +follow of their own accord out of this; if they be not contradictions +to this, and less than nothing! To the wise it is not a privilege; far +other indeed. Doubtless, as bringing preservation to their country, it +implies preservation of themselves withal; but intrinsically it is the +harshest duty a wise man, if he be indeed wise, has laid to his hand. A +duty which he would fain enough shirk; which accordingly, in these +sad times of doubt and cowardly sloth, he has long everywhere been +endeavoring to reduce to its minimum, and has in fact in most cases +nearly escaped altogether. It is an ungoverned world; a world which we +flatter ourselves will henceforth need no governing. On the dust of our +heroic ancestors we too sit ballot-boxing, saying to one another, It is +well, it is well! By inheritance of their noble struggles, we have +been permitted to sit slothful so long. By noble toil, not by shallow +laughter and vain talk, they made this English Existence from a savage +forest into an arable inhabitable field for us; and we, idly dreaming it +would grow spontaneous crops forever,--find it now in a too questionable +state; peremptorily requiring real labor and agriculture again. Real +"agriculture" is not pleasant; much pleasanter to reap and winnow (with +ballot-box or otherwise) than to plough! + +Who would govern that can get along without governing? He that is +fittest for it, is of all men the unwillingest unless constrained. +By multifarious devices we have been endeavoring to dispense with +governing; and by very superficial speculations, of _laissez-faire_, +supply-and-demand, &c. &c. to persuade ourselves that it is best so. The +Real Captain, unless it be some Captain of mechanical Industry hired +by Mammon, where is he in these days? Most likely, in silence, in +sad isolation somewhere, in remote obscurity; trying if, in an evil +ungoverned time, he cannot at least govern himself. The Real Captain +undiscoverable; the Phantasm Captain everywhere very conspicuous:--it is +thought Phantasm Captains, aided by ballot-boxes, are the true method, +after all. They are much the pleasantest for the time being! And so no +_Dux_ or Duke of any sort, in any province of our affairs, now _leads_: +the Duke's Bailiff _leads_, what little leading is required for getting +in the rents; and the Duke merely rides in the state-coach. It is +everywhere so: and now at last we see a world all rushing towards +strange consummations, because it is and has long been so! + + +I do not suppose any reader of mine, or many persons in England at +all, have much faith in Fraternity, Equality and the Revolutionary +Millenniums preached by the French Prophets in this age: but there are +many movements here too which tend inevitably in the like direction; and +good men, who would stand aghast at Red Republic and its adjuncts, seem +to me travelling at full speed towards that or a similar goal! Certainly +the notion everywhere prevails among us too, and preaches itself abroad +in every dialect, uncontradicted anywhere so far as I can hear, That +the grand panacea for social woes is what we call "enfranchisement," +"emancipation;" or, translated into practical language, the cutting +asunder of human relations, wherever they are found grievous, as is like +to be pretty universally the case at the rate we have been going for +some generations past. Let us all be "free" of one another; we +shall then be happy. Free, without bond or connection except that of +cash-payment; fair day's wages for the fair day's work; bargained for by +voluntary contract, and law of supply-and-demand: this is thought to be +the true solution of all difficulties and injustices that have occurred +between man and man. + +To rectify the relation that exists between two men, is there no method, +then, but that of ending it? The old relation has become unsuitable, +obsolete, perhaps unjust; it imperatively requires to be amended; and +the remedy is, Abolish it, let there henceforth be no relation at all. +From the "Sacrament of Marriage" downwards, human beings used to be +manifoldly related, one to another, and each to all; and there was no +relation among human beings, just or unjust, that had not its grievances +and difficulties, its necessities on both sides to bear and forbear. But +henceforth, be it known, we have changed all that, by favor of Heaven: +"the voluntary principle" has come up, which will itself do the business +for us; and now let a new Sacrament, that of Divorce, which we call +emancipation, and spout of on our platforms, be universally the order of +the day!--Have men considered whither all this is tending, and what it +certainly enough betokens? Cut every human relation which has anywhere +grown uneasy sheer asunder; reduce whatsoever was compulsory to +voluntary, whatsoever was permanent among us to the condition of +nomadic:--in other words, loosen by assiduous wedges in every joint, the +whole fabric of social existence, stone from stone: till at last, all +now being loose enough, it can, as we already see in most countries, +be overset by sudden outburst of revolutionary rage; and, lying as mere +mountains of anarchic rubbish, solicit you to sing Fraternity, &c., over +it, and to rejoice in the new remarkable era of human progress we have +arrived at. + +Certainly Emancipation proceeds with rapid strides among us, this good +while; and has got to such a length as might give rise to reflections +in men of a serious turn. West-Indian Blacks are emancipated, and +it appears refuse to work: Irish Whites have long been entirely +emancipated; and nobody asks them to work, or on condition of finding +them potatoes (which, of course, is indispensable), permits them to +work.--Among speculative persons, a question has sometimes risen: In the +progress of Emancipation, are we to look for a time when all the +Horses also are to be emancipated, and brought to the supply-and-demand +principle? Horses too have "motives;" are acted on by hunger, fear, +hope, love of oats, terror of platted leather; nay they have vanity, +ambition, emulation, thankfulness, vindictiveness; some rude outline +of all our human spiritualities,--a rude resemblance to us in mind and +intelligence, even as they have in bodily frame. The Horse, poor dumb +four-footed fellow, he too has his private feelings, his affections, +gratitudes; and deserves good usage; no human master, without crime, +shall treat him unjustly either, or recklessly lay on the whip where +it is not needed:--I am sure if I could make him "happy," I should be +willing to grant a small vote (in addition to the late twenty millions) +for that object! + +Him too you occasionally tyrannize over; and with bad result to +yourselves, among others; using the leather in a tyrannous unnecessary +manner; withholding, or scantily furnishing, the oats and ventilated +stabling that are due. Rugged horse-subduers, one fears they are a +little tyrannous at times. "Am I not a horse, and half-brother?"--To +remedy which, so far as remediable, fancy--the horses all "emancipated;" +restored to their primeval right of property in the grass of this Globe: +turned out to graze in an independent supply-and-demand manner! So long +as grass lasts, I dare say they are very happy, or think themselves so. +And Farmer Hodge sallying forth, on a dry spring morning, with a sieve +of oats in his hand, and agony of eager expectation in his heart, is he +happy? Help me to plough this day, Black Dobbin: oats in full measure if +thou wilt. "Hlunh, No--thank!" snorts Black Dobbin; he prefers glorious +liberty and the grass. Bay Darby, wilt not thou perhaps? "Hlunh!"--Gray +Joan, then, my beautiful broad-bottomed mare,--O Heaven, she too answers +Hlunh! Not a quadruped of them will plough a stroke for me. Corn-crops +are _ended_ in this world!--For the sake, if not of Hodge, then of +Hodge's horses, one prays this benevolent practice might now cease, and +a new and better one try to begin. Small kindness to Hodge's horses to +emancipate them! The fate of all emancipated horses is, sooner or later, +inevitable. To have in this habitable Earth no grass to eat,--in Black +Jamaica gradually none, as in White Connemara already none;--to roam +aimless, wasting the seedfields of the world; and be hunted home to +Chaos, by the due watch-dogs and due hell-dogs, with such horrors of +forsaken wretchedness as were never seen before! These things are not +sport; they are terribly true, in this country at this hour. + +Between our Black West Indies and our White Ireland, between these two +extremes of lazy refusal to work, and of famishing inability to find any +work, what a world have we made of it, with our fierce Mammon-worships, +and our benevolent philanderings, and idle godless nonsenses of one kind +and another! Supply-and-demand, Leave-it-alone, Voluntary Principle, +Time will mend it:--till British industrial existence seems fast +becoming one huge poison-swamp of reeking pestilence physical and moral; +a hideous _living_ Golgotha of souls and bodies buried alive; such a +Curtius' gulf, communicating with the Nether Deeps, as the Sun never saw +till now. These scenes, which the _Morning Chronicle_ is bringing home +to all minds of men,--thanks to it for a service such as Newspapers have +seldom done,--ought to excite unspeakable reflections in every mind. +Thirty thousand outcast Needlewomen working themselves swiftly to +death; three million Paupers rotting in forced idleness, _helping_ said +Needlewomen to die: these are but items in the sad ledger of despair. + +Thirty thousand wretched women, sunk in that putrefying well of +abominations; they have oozed in upon London, from the universal Stygian +quagmire of British industrial life; are accumulated in the _well_ of +the concern, to that extent. British charity is smitten to the heart, +at the laying bare of such a scene; passionately undertakes, by enormous +subscription of money, or by other enormous effort, to redress that +individual horror; as I and all men hope it may. But, alas, what next? +This general well and cesspool once baled clean out to-day, will begin +before night to fill itself anew. The universal Stygian quagmire is +still there; opulent in women ready to be ruined, and in men ready. +Towards the same sad cesspool will these waste currents of human ruin +ooze and gravitate as heretofore; except in draining the universal +quagmire itself there is no remedy. "And for that, what is the method?" +cry many in an angry manner. To whom, for the present, I answer only, +"Not 'emancipation,' it would seem, my friends; not the cutting loose of +human ties, something far the reverse of that!" + +Many things have been written about shirtmaking; but here perhaps is +the saddest thing of all, not written anywhere till now, that I know of. +Shirts by the thirty thousand are made at twopence-halfpenny each; and +in the mean while no needlewoman, distressed or other, can be procured +in London by any housewife to give, for fair wages, fair help in sewing. +Ask any thrifty house-mother, high or low, and she will answer. In high +houses and in low, there is the same answer: no _real_ needlewoman, +"distressed" or other, has been found attainable in any of the houses I +frequent. Imaginary needlewomen, who demand considerable wages, and have +a deepish appetite for beer and viands, I hear of everywhere; but their +sewing proves too often a distracted puckering and botching; not sewing, +only the fallacious hope of it, a fond imagination of the mind. Good +sempstresses are to be hired in every village; and in London, with its +famishing thirty thousand, not at all, or hardly,--Is not No-government +beautiful in human business? To such length has the Leave-alone +principle carried it, by way of organizing labor, in this affair of +shirtmaking. Let us hope the Leave-alone principle has now got its +apotheosis; and taken wing towards higher regions than ours, to deal +henceforth with a class of affairs more appropriate for it! + +Reader, did you ever hear of "Constituted Anarchy"? Anarchy; +the choking, sweltering, deadly and killing rule of No-rule; the +consecration of cupidity, and braying folly, and dim stupidity and +baseness, in most of the affairs of men? Slop-shirts attainable three +halfpence cheaper, by the ruin of living bodies and immortal souls? +Solemn Bishops and high Dignitaries, _our_ divine "Pillars of Fire by +night," debating meanwhile, with their largest wigs and gravest look, +upon something they call "prevenient grace"? Alas, our noble men of +genius, Heaven's _real_ messengers to us, they also rendered nearly +futile by the wasteful time;--preappointed they everywhere, and +assiduously trained by all their pedagogues and monitors, to "rise in +Parliament," to compose orations, write books, or in short speak words, +for the approval of reviewers; instead of doing real kingly work to be +approved of by the gods! Our "Government," a highly "responsible" +one; responsible to no God that I can hear of, but to the twenty-seven +million _gods_ of the shilling gallery. A Government tumbling and +drifting on the whirlpools and mud-deluges, floating atop in a +conspicuous manner, no-whither,--like the carcass of a drowned ass. +Authentic _Chaos_ come up into this sunny Cosmos again; and all men +singing Gloria in _excelsis_ to it. In spirituals and temporals, in +field and workshop, from Manchester to Dorsetshire, from Lambeth Palace +to the Lanes of Whitechapel, wherever men meet and toil and traffic +together,--Anarchy, Anarchy; and only the street-constable (though with +ever-increasing difficulty) still maintaining himself in the middle of +it; that so, for one thing, this blessed exchange of slop-shirts for +the souls of women may transact itself in a peaceable manner!--I, for my +part, do profess myself in eternal opposition to this, and discern well +that universal Ruin has us in the wind, unless we can get out of this. +My friend Crabbe, in a late number of his _Intermittent Radiator_, +pertinently enough exclaims:-- + +"When shall we have done with all this of British Liberty, Voluntary +Principle, Dangers of Centralization, and the like? It is really getting +too bad. For British Liberty, it seems, the people cannot be taught +to read. British Liberty, shuddering to interfere with the rights of +capital, takes six or eight millions of money annually to feed the +idle laborer whom it dare not employ. For British Liberty we live over +poisonous cesspools, gully-drains, and detestable abominations; and +omnipotent London cannot sweep the dirt out of itself. British Liberty +produces--what? Floods of Hansard Debates every year, and apparently +little else at present. If these are the results of British Liberty, I, +for one, move we should lay it on the shelf a little, and look out for +something other and farther. We have achieved British Liberty hundreds +of years ago; and are fast growing, on the strength of it, one of the +most absurd populations the Sun, among his great Museum of Absurdities, +looks down upon at present." + + +Curious enough: the model of the world just now is England and her +Constitution; all Nations striving towards it: poor France swimming +these last sixty years in seas of horrid dissolution and confusion, +resolute to attain this blessedness of free voting, or to die in chase +of it. Prussia too, solid Germany itself, has all broken out into +crackling of musketry, loud pamphleteering and Frankfort parliamenting +and palavering; Germany too will scale the sacred mountains, how steep +soever, and, by talisman of ballot-box, inhabit a political Elysium +henceforth. All the Nations have that one hope. Very notable, and +rather sad to the humane on-looker. For it is sadly conjectured, all the +Nations labor somewhat under a mistake as to England, and the causes of +her freedom and her prosperous cotton-spinning; and have much misread +the nature of her Parliament, and the effect of ballot-boxes and +universal suffrages there. + +What if it were because the English Parliament was from the first, +and is only just now ceasing to be, a Council of actual Rulers, real +Governing Persons (called Peers, Mitred Abbots, Lords, Knights of the +Shire, or howsoever called), actually _ruling_ each his section of +the country,--and possessing (it must be said) in the lump, or when +assembled as a Council, uncommon patience, devoutness, probity, +discretion and good fortune,--that the said Parliament ever came to be +good for much? In that case it will not be easy to "imitate" the English +Parliament; and the ballot-box and suffrage will be the mere bow of +Robin Hood, which it is given to very few to bend, or shoot with to +any perfection. And if the Peers become mere big Capitalists, Railway +Directors, gigantic Hucksters, Kings of Scrip, _without_ lordly quality, +or other virtue except cash; and the Mitred Abbots change to mere +Able-Editors, masters of Parliamentary Eloquence, Doctors of +Political Economy, and such like; and all _have_ to be elected by a +universal-suffrage ballot-box,--I do not see how the English Parliament +itself will long continue sea-worthy! Nay, I find England in her own +big dumb heart, wherever you come upon her in a silent meditative hour, +begins to have dreadful misgivings about it. + +The model of the world, then, is at once unattainable by the world, and +not much worth attaining? England, as I read the omens, is now called a +second time to "show the Nations how to live;" for by her Parliament, +as chief governing entity, I fear she is not long for this world! Poor +England must herself again, in these new strange times, the old methods +being quite worn out, "learn how to live." That now is the terrible +problem for England, as for all the Nations; and she alone of all, not +_yet_ sunk into open Anarchy, but left with time for repentance and +amendment; she, wealthiest of all in material resource, in spiritual +energy, in ancient loyalty to law, and in the qualities that yield such +loyalty,--she perhaps alone of all may be able, with huge travail, and +the strain of all her faculties, to accomplish some solution. She will +have to try it, she has now to try it; she must accomplish it, or perish +from her place in the world! + +England, as I persuade myself, still contains in it many _kings_; +possesses, as old Rome did, many men not needing "election" to command, +but eternally elected for it by the Maker Himself. England's one hope +is in these, just now. They are among the silent, I believe; mostly far +away from platforms and public palaverings; not speaking forth the image +of their nobleness in transitory words, but imprinting it, each on his +own little section of the world, in silent facts, in modest valiant +actions, that will endure forevermore. They must sit silent no longer. +They are summoned to assert themselves; to act forth, and articulately +vindicate, in the teeth of howling multitudes, of a world too justly +_maddened_ into all manner of delirious clamors, what of wisdom they +derive from God. England, and the Eternal Voices, summon them; poor +England never so needed them as now. Up, be doing everywhere: the hour +of crisis has verily come! In all sections of English life, the god-made +_king_ is needed; is pressingly demanded in most; in some, cannot +longer, without peril as of conflagration, be dispensed with. He, +wheresoever he finds himself, can say, "Here too am I wanted; here is +the kingdom I have to subjugate, and introduce God's Laws into,--God's +Laws, instead of Mammon's and M'Croudy's and the Old Anarch's! Here is +my work, here or nowhere."--Are there many such, who will answer to the +call, in England? It turns on that, whether England, rapidly crumbling +in these very years and months, shall go down to the Abyss as her +neighbors have all done, or survive to new grander destinies _without_ +solution of continuity! Probably the chief question of the world at +present. + +The true "commander" and king; he who knows for himself the divine +Appointments of this Universe, the Eternal Laws ordained by God the +Maker, in conforming to which lies victory and felicity, in departing +from which lies, and forever must lie, sorrow and defeat, for each and +all of the Posterity of Adam in every time and every place; he who has +sworn fealty to these, and dare alone against the world assert these, +and dare not with the whole world at his back deflect from these;--he, +I know too well, is a rare man. Difficult to discover; not quite +discoverable, I apprehend, by manoeuvring of ballot-boxes, and riddling +of the popular clamor according to the most approved methods. He is not +sold at any shop I know of,--though sometimes, as at the sign of the +Ballot-box, he is advertised for sale. Difficult indeed to discover: +and not very much assisted, or encouraged in late times, to discover +_himself_;--which, I think, might be a kind of help? Encouraged rather, +and commanded in all ways, if he be wise, to _hide_ himself, and +give place to the windy Counterfeit of himself; such as the universal +suffrages can recognize, such as loves the most sweet voices of the +universal suffrages!--O Peter, what becomes of such a People; what can +become? + +Did you never hear, with the mind's ear as well, that fateful Hebrew +Prophecy, I think the fatefulest of all, which sounds daily through +the streets, "Ou' clo! Ou' clo!"--A certain People, once upon a time, +clamorously voted by overwhelming majority, "Not _he_; Barabbas, not +he! _Him_, and what he is, and what he deserves, we know well enough: +a reviler of the Chief Priests and sacred Chancery wigs; a seditious +Heretic, physical-force Chartist, and enemy of his country and mankind: +To the gallows and the cross with him! Barabbas is our man; Barabbas, we +are for Barabbas!" They got Barabbas:--have you well considered what +a fund of purblind obduracy, of opaque _flunkyism_ grown truculent and +transcendent; what an eye for the phylacteries, and want of eye for the +eternal noblenesses; sordid loyalty to the prosperous Semblances, and +high-treason against the Supreme Fact, such a vote betokens in these +natures? For it was the consummation of a long series of such; they and +their fathers had long kept voting so. A singular People; who could both +produce such divine men, and then could so stone and crucify them; a +People terrible from the beginning!--Well, they got Barabbas; and they +got, of course, such guidance as Barabbas and the like of him could give +them; and, of course, they stumbled ever downwards and devilwards, in +their truculent stiffnecked way; and--and, at this hour, after eighteen +centuries of sad fortune, they prophetically sing "Ou' clo!" in all the +cities of the world. Might the world, at this late hour, but take note +of them, and understand their song a little! + +Yes, there are some things the universal suffrage can decide,--and about +these it will be exceedingly useful to consult the universal suffrage: +but in regard to most things of importance, and in regard to the choice +of men especially, there is (astonishing as it may seem) next to no +capability on the part of universal suffrage.--I request all candid +persons, who have never so little originality of mind, and every man has +a little, to consider this. If true, it involves such a change in our +now fashionable modes of procedure as fills me with astonishment and +alarm. _If_ popular suffrage is not the way of ascertaining what the +Laws of the Universe are, and who it is that will best guide us in +the way of these,--then woe is to us if we do not take another method. +Delolme on the British Constitution will not save us; deaf will the +Parcae be to votes of the House, to leading articles, constitutional +philosophies. The other method--alas, it involves a stopping short, or +vital change of direction, in the glorious career which all Europe, with +shouts heaven-high, is now galloping along: and that, happen when it +may, will, to many of us, be probably a rather surprising business! + +One thing I do know, and can again assert with great confidence, +supported by the whole Universe, and by some two hundred generations of +men, who have left us some record of themselves there, That the few Wise +will have, by one method or another, to take command of the innumerable +Foolish; that they must be got to take it;--and that, in fact, since +Wisdom, which means also Valor and heroic Nobleness, is alone strong in +this world, and one wise man is stronger than all men unwise, they can +be got. That they must take it; and having taken, must keep it, and do +their God's Message in it, and defend the same, at their life's peril, +against all men and devils. This I do clearly believe to be the backbone +of all Future Society, as it has been of all Past; and that without it, +there is no Society possible in the world. And what a business _this_ +will be, before it end in some degree of victory again, and whether the +time for shouts of triumph and tremendous cheers upon it is yet come, or +not yet by a great way, I perceive too well! A business to make us all +very serious indeed. A business not to be accomplished but by noble +manhood, and devout all-daring, all-enduring loyalty to Heaven, such as +fatally _sleeps_ at present,--such as is not _dead_ at present either, +unless the gods have doomed this world of theirs to die! A business +which long centuries of faithful travail and heroic agony, on the part +of all the noble that are born to us, will not end; and which to us, of +this "tremendous cheering" century, it were blessedness very great to +see successfully begun. Begun, tried by all manner of methods, if there +is one wise Statesman or man left among us, it verily must be;--begun, +successfully or unsuccessfully, we do hope to see it! + + +In all European countries, especially in England, one class of Captains +and commanders of men, recognizable as the beginning of a new real +and not imaginary "Aristocracy," has already in some measure developed +itself: the Captains of Industry;--happily the class who above all, or +at least first of all, are wanted in this time. In the doing of material +work, we have already men among us that can command bodies of men. +And surely, on the other hand, there is no lack of men needing to be +commanded: the sad class of brother-men whom we had to describe as +"Hodge's emancipated horses," reduced to roving famine,--this too has in +all countries developed itself; and, in fatal geometrical progression, +is ever more developing itself, with a rapidity which alarms every one. +On this ground, if not on all manner of other grounds, it may be truly +said, the "Organization of Labor" (_not_ organizable by the mad methods +tried hitherto) is the universal vital Problem of the world. + +To bring these hordes of outcast captainless soldiers under due +captaincy? This is really the question of questions; on the answer +to which turns, among other things, the fate of all Governments, +constitutional and other,--the possibility of their continuing to exist, +or the impossibility. Captainless, uncommanded, these wretched outcast +"soldiers," since they cannot starve, must needs become banditti, +street-barricaders,--destroyers of every Government that _cannot_ put +them under captains, and send them upon enterprises, and in short render +life human to them. Our English plan of Poor Laws, which we once piqued +ourselves upon as sovereign, is evidently fast breaking down. Ireland, +now admitted into the Idle Workhouse, is rapidly bursting it in pieces. +That never was a "human" destiny for any honest son of Adam; nowhere but +in England could it have lasted at all; and now, with Ireland sharer +in it, and the fulness of time come, it is as good as ended. Alas, yes. +Here in Connemara, your crazy Ship of the State, otherwise dreadfully +rotten in many of its timbers I believe, has sprung a leak: spite of +all hands at the pump, the water is rising; the Ship, I perceive, will +founder, if you cannot stop this leak! + +To bring these Captainless under due captaincy? The anxious thoughts of +all men that do think are turned upon that question; and their efforts, +though as yet blindly and to no purpose, under the multifarious +impediments and obscurations, all point thitherward. Isolated men, +and their vague efforts, cannot do it. Government everywhere is called +upon,--in England as loudly as elsewhere,--to give the initiative. A +new strange task of these new epochs; which no Government, never +so "constitutional," can escape from undertaking. For it is vitally +necessary to the existence of Society itself; it must be undertaken, and +succeeded in too, or worse will follow,--and, as we already see in Irish +Connaught and some other places, will follow soon. To whatever +thing still calls itself by the name of Government, were it never so +constitutional and impeded by official impossibilities, all men will +naturally look for help, and direction what to do, in this extremity. +If help or direction is not given; if the thing called Government merely +drift and tumble to and fro, no-whither, on the popular vortexes, like +some carcass of a drowned ass, constitutionally put "at the top of +affairs," popular indignation will infallibly accumulate upon it; one +day, the popular lightning, descending forked and horrible from the +black air, will annihilate said supreme carcass, and smite it home +to its native ooze again!--Your Lordship, this is too true, though +irreverently spoken: indeed one knows not how to speak of it; and to me +it is infinitely sad and miserable, spoken or not!--Unless perhaps the +Voluntary Principle will still help us through? Perhaps this Irish leak, +in such a rotten distressed condition of the Ship, with all the crew so +anxious about it, will be kind enough to stop of itself?-- + +Dismiss that hope, your Lordship! Let all real and imaginary Governors +of England, at the pass we have arrived at, dismiss forever that +fallacious fatal solace to their do-nothingism: of itself, too clearly, +the leak will never stop; by human skill and energy it must be stopped, +or there is nothing but the sea-bottom for us all! A Chief Governor of +England really ought to recognize his situation; to discern that, doing +nothing, and merely drifting to and fro, in however constitutional a +manner, he is a squanderer of precious moments, moments that perhaps are +priceless; a truly alarming Chief Governor. Surely, to a Chief Governor +of England, worthy of that high name,--surely to him, as to every +living man, in every conceivable situation short of the Kingdom of the +Dead--there is _something_ possible; some plan of action other than that +of standing mildly, with crossed arms, till he and we--sink? Complex as +his situation is, he, of all Governors now extant among these distracted +Nations, has, as I compute, by far the greatest possibilities. The +Captains, actual or potential, are there, and the million Captainless: +and such resources for bringing them together as no other has. To these +outcast soldiers of his, unregimented roving banditti for the present, +or unworking workhouse prisoners who are almost uglier than banditti; +to these floods of Irish Beggars, Able-bodied Paupers, and nomadic +Lackalls, now stagnating or roaming everywhere, drowning the face of the +world (too truly) into an untenantable swamp and Stygian quagmire, has +the Chief Governor of this country no word whatever to say? Nothing but +"Rate in aid," "Time will mend it," "Necessary business of the Session;" +and "After me the Deluge"? A Chief Governor that can front his Irish +difficulty, and steadily contemplate the horoscope of Irish and British +Pauperism, and whitherward it is leading him and us, in this humor, must +be a--What shall we call such a Chief Governor? Alas, in spite of old +use and wont,--little other than a tolerated Solecism, growing daily +more intolerable! He decidedly ought to have some word to say on this +matter,--to be incessantly occupied in getting something which he could +practically say!--Perhaps to the following, or a much finer effect? + + +_Speech of the British Prime-Minister to the floods of Irish and other +Beggars, the able-bodied Lackalls, nomadic or stationary, and the +general assembly, outdoor and indoor, of the Pauper Populations of these +Realms_. + +"Vagrant Lackalls, foolish most of you, criminal many of you, miserable +all; the sight of you fills me with astonishment and despair. What to +do with you I know not; long have I been meditating, and it is hard to +tell. Here are some three millions of you, as I count: so many of you +fallen sheer over into the abysses of open Beggary; and, fearful to +think, every new unit that falls is _loading_ so much more the chain +that drags the others over. On the edge of the precipice hang uncounted +millions; increasing, I am told, at the rate of 1200 a day. They hang +there on the giddy edge, poor souls, cramping themselves down, holding +on with all their strength; but falling, falling one after another; and +the chain is getting _heavy_, so that ever more fall; and who at last +will stand? What to do with you? The question, What to do with you? +especially since the potato died, is like to break my heart! + +"One thing, after much meditating, I have at last discovered, and now +know for some time back: That you cannot be left to roam abroad in this +unguided manner, stumbling over the precipices, and loading ever heavier +the fatal _chain_ upon those who might be able to stand; that this +of locking you up in temporary Idle Workhouses, when you stumble, and +subsisting you on Indian meal, till you can sally forth again on fresh +roamings, and fresh stumblings, and ultimate descent to the devil;--that +this is _not_ the plan; and that it never was, or could out of England +have been supposed to be, much as I have prided myself upon it! + +"Vagrant Lackalls, I at last perceive, all this that has been sung and +spoken, for a long while, about enfranchisement, emancipation, freedom, +suffrage, civil and religious liberty over the world, is little other +than sad temporary jargon, brought upon us by a stern necessity,--but +now ordered by a sterner to take itself away again a little. Sad +temporary jargon, I say: made up of sense and nonsense,--sense in small +quantities, and nonsense in very large;--and, if taken for the whole +or permanent truth of human things, it is no better than fatal infinite +nonsense eternally _untrue_. All men, I think, will soon have to quit +this, to consider this as a thing pretty well achieved; and to look out +towards another thing much more needing achievement at the time that now +is. + +"All men will have to quit it, I believe. But to you, my indigent +friends, the time for quitting it has palpably arrived! To talk of +glorious self-government, of suffrages and hustings, and the fight +of freedom and such like, is a vain thing in your case. By all human +definitions and conceptions of the said fight of freedom, you for your +part have lost it, and can fight no more. Glorious self-government is +a glory not for you, not for Hodge's emancipated horses, nor you. No; I +say, No. You, for your part, have tried it, and _failed_. Left to walk +your own road, the will-o'-wisps beguiled you, your short sight could +not descry the pitfalls; the deadly tumult and press has whirled you +hither and thither, regardless of your struggles and your shrieks; and +here at last you lie; fallen flat into the ditch, drowning there and +dying, unless the others that are still standing please to pick you +up. The others that still stand have their own difficulties, I can tell +you!--But you, by imperfect energy and redundant appetite, by doing too +little work and drinking too much beer, you (I bid you observe) have +proved that you cannot do it! You lie there plainly in the ditch. And +I am to pick you up again, on these mad terms; help you ever again, as +with our best heart's-blood, to do what, once for all, the gods +have made impossible? To load the fatal _chain_ with your perpetual +staggerings and sprawlings; and ever again load it, till we all lie +sprawling? My indigent incompetent friends, I will not! Know that, +whoever may be 'sons of freedom,' you for your part are not and cannot +be such. Not 'free' you, I think, whoever may be free. You palpably are +fallen captive,--_caitiff_, as they once named it:--you do, silently +but eloquently, demand, in the name of mercy itself, that some genuine +command be taken of you. + +"Yes, my indigent incompetent friends; some genuine practical command. +Such,--if I rightly interpret those mad Chartisms, Repeal Agitations, +Red Republics, and other delirious inarticulate howlings and bellowings +which all the populations of the world now utter, evidently cries of +pain on their and your part,--is the demand which you, Captives, make of +all men that are not Captive, but are still Free. Free men,--alas, +had you ever any notion who the free men were, who the not-free, the +incapable of freedom! The free men, if you could have understood it, +they are the wise men; the patient, self-denying, valiant; the Nobles +of the World; who can discern the Law of this Universe, what it is, and +piously _obey_ it; these, in late sad times, having cast you loose, you +are fallen captive to greedy sons of profit-and-loss; to bad and ever to +worse; and at length to Beer and the Devil. Algiers, Brazil or Dahomey +hold nothing in them so authentically _slave_ as you are, my indigent +incompetent friends! + +"Good Heavens, and I have to raise some eight or nine millions annually, +six for England itself, and to wreck the morals of my working population +beyond all money's worth, to keep the life from going out of you: a +small service to you, as I many times bitterly repeat! Alas, yes; before +high Heaven I must declare it such. I think the old Spartans, who would +have killed you instead, had shown more 'humanity,' more of manhood, +than I thus do! More humanity, I say, more of manhood, and of sense for +what the dignity of man demands imperatively of you and of me and of us +all. We call it charity, beneficence, and other fine names, this brutish +Workhouse Scheme of ours; and it is but sluggish heartlessness, and +insincerity, and cowardly lowness of soul. Not 'humanity' or manhood, +I think; perhaps _ape_hood rather,--paltry imitancy, from the teeth +outward, of what our heart never felt nor our understanding ever saw; +dim indolent adherence to extraneous and extinct traditions; traditions +now really about extinct; not living now to almost any of us, and still +haunting with their spectralities and gibbering _ghosts_ (in a truly +baleful manner) almost all of us! Making this our struggling 'Twelfth +Hour of the Night' inexpressibly hideous!-- + +"But as for you, my indigent incompetent friends, I have to repeat with +sorrow, but with perfect clearness, what is plainly undeniable, and is +even clamorous to get itself admitted, that you are of the nature of +slaves,--or if you prefer the word, of _nomadic, and now even vagrant +and vagabond, servants that can find no master on those terms_; +which seems to me a much uglier word. Emancipation? You have been +'emancipated' with a vengeance! Foolish souls, I say the whole world +cannot emancipate you. Fealty to ignorant Unruliness, to gluttonous +sluggish Improvidence, to the Beer-pot and the Devil, who is there that +can emancipate a man in that predicament? Not a whole Reform Bill, a +whole French Revolution executed for his behoof alone: nothing but God +the Maker can emancipate him, by making him anew. + +"To forward which glorious consummation, will it not be well, O indigent +friends, that you, fallen flat there, shall henceforth learn to take +advice of others as to the methods of standing? Plainly I let you know, +and all the world and the worlds know, that I for my part mean it so. +Not as glorious unfortunate sons of freedom, but as recognized captives, +as unfortunate fallen brothers requiring that I should command you, and +if need were, control and compel you, can there henceforth be a relation +between us. Ask me not for Indian meal; you shall be compelled to earn +it first; know that on other terms I will not give you any. Before +Heaven and Earth, and God the Maker of us all, I declare it is a scandal +to see _such_ a life kept in you, by the sweat and heart's-blood of your +brothers; and that, if we cannot mend it, death were preferable! Go to, +we must get out of this--unutterable coil of nonsenses, constitutional, +philanthropical, &c., in which (surely without mutual hatred, if with +less of 'love' than is supposed) we are all strangling one another! +Your want of wants, I say, is that you be _commanded_ in this world, +not being able to command yourselves. Know therefore that it shall be +so with you. Nomadism, I give you notice, has ended; needful permanency, +soldier-like obedience, and the opportunity and the necessity of hard +steady labor for your living, have begun. Know that the Idle Workhouse +is shut against you henceforth; you cannot enter there at will, nor +leave at will; you shall enter a quite other Refuge, under conditions +strict as soldiering, and not leave till I have done with you. He that +prefers the glorious (or perhaps even the rebellious _in_glorious) +'career of freedom,' let him prove that he can travel there, and be the +master of himself; and right good speed to him. He who has proved that +he cannot travel there or be the master of himself,--let him, in the +name of all the gods, become a servant, and accept the just rules of +servitude! + +"Arise, enlist in my Irish, my Scotch and English 'Regiments of the New +Era,'--which I have been concocting, day and night, during these three +Grouse-seasons (taking earnest incessant counsel, with all manner of +Industrial Notabilities and men of insight, on the matter), and have now +brought to a kind of preparation for incipiency, thank Heaven! Enlist +there, ye poor wandering banditti; obey, work, suffer, abstain, as all +of us have had to do: so shall you be useful in God's creation, so shall +you be helped to gain a manful living for yourselves; not otherwise than +so. Industrial Regiments [_Here numerous persons, with big wigs many +of them, and austere aspect, whom I take to be Professors of the Dismal +Science, start up in an agitated vehement manner: but the Premier +resolutely beckons them down again_]--Regiments not to fight the French +or others, who are peaceable enough towards us; but to fight the Bogs +and Wildernesses at home and abroad, and to chain the Devils of the Pit +which are walking too openly among us. + +"Work, for you? Work, surely, is not quite undiscoverable in an Earth +so wide as ours, if we will take the right methods for it! Indigent +friends, we will adopt this new relation (which is _old_ as the world); +this will lead us towards such. Rigorous conditions, not to be violated +on either side, lie in this relation; conditions planted there by God +Himself; which woe will betide us if we do not discover, gradually more +and more discover, and conform to! Industrial Colonels, Workmasters, +Task-masters, Life-commanders, equitable as Rhadamanthus and inflexible +as he: such, I perceive, you do need; and such, you being once put under +law as soldiers are, will be discoverable for you. I perceive, with +boundless alarm, that I shall have to set about discovering such,--I, +since I am at the top of affairs, with all men looking to me. Alas, it +is my new task in this New Era; and God knows, I too, little other than +a red-tape Talking-machine, and unhappy Bag of Parliamentary Eloquence +hitherto, am far behind with it! But street-barricades rise everywhere: +the hour of Fate has come. In Connemara there has sprung a leak, since +the potato died; Connaught, if it were not for Treasury-grants and +rates-in-aid, would have to recur to Cannibalism even now, and Human +Society would cease to pretend that it existed there. Done this thing +must be. Alas, I perceive that if I cannot do it, then surely I shall +die, and perhaps shall not have Christian burial! But I already raise +near upon Ten Millions for feeding you in idleness, my nomadic friends; +work, under due regulations, I really might try to get of--[_Here +arises indescribable uproar, no longer repressible, from all manner +of Economists, Emancipationists, Constitutionalists, and miscellaneous +Professors of the Dismal Science, pretty numerously scattered about; +and cries of "Private enterprise," "Rights of Capital," "Voluntary +Principle," "Doctrines of the British Constitution," swollen by the +general assenting hum of all the world, quite drown the Chief Minister +for a while. He, with invincible resolution, persists; obtains hearing +again_:] + +"Respectable Professors of the Dismal Science, soft you a little. +Alas, I know what you would say. For my sins, I have read much in those +inimitable volumes of yours,--really I should think, some barrowfuls of +them in my time,--and, in these last forty years of theory and practice, +have pretty well seized what of Divine Message you were sent with to me. +Perhaps as small a message, give me leave to say, as ever there was +such a noise made about before. Trust me, I have not forgotten it, shall +never forget it. Those Laws of the Shop-till are indisputable to me; +and practically useful in certain departments of the Universe, as the +multiplication-table itself. Once I even tried to sail through the +Immensities with them, and to front the big coming Eternities with them; +but I found it would not do. As the Supreme Rule of Statesmanship, or +Government of Men,--since this Universe is not wholly a Shop,--no. You +rejoice in my improved tariffs, free-trade movements and the like, on +every hand; for which be thankful, and even sing litanies if you choose. +But here at last, in the Idle-Workhouse movement,--unexampled yet on +Earth or in the waters under the Earth,--I am fairly brought to a stand; +and have had to make reflections, of the most alarming, and indeed +awful, and as it were religious nature! Professors of the Dismal +Science, I perceive that the length of your tether is now pretty well +run; and that I must request you to talk a little lower in future. By +the side of the shop-till,--see, your small 'Law of God' is hung up, +along with the multiplication-table itself. But beyond and above the +shop-till, allow me to say, you shall as good as hold your peace. +Respectable Professors, I perceive it is not now the Gigantic Hucksters, +but it is the Immortal Gods, yes they, in their terror and their beauty, +in their wrath and their beneficence, that are coming into play in the +affairs of this world! Soft you a little. Do not you interrupt me, but +try to understand and help me!-- + +--"Work, was I saying? My indigent unguided friends, I should think some +work might be discoverable for you. Enlist, stand drill; become, from a +nomadic Banditti of Idleness, Soldiers of Industry! I will lead you to +the Irish Bogs, to the vacant desolations of Connaught now falling into +Cannibalism, to mistilled Connaught, to ditto Munster, Leinster, Ulster, +I will lead you: to the English fox-covers, furze-grown Commons, New +Forests, Salisbury Plains: likewise to the Scotch Hill-sides, and bare +rushy slopes, which as yet feed only sheep,--moist uplands, thousands of +square miles in extent, which are destined yet to grow green crops, and +fresh butter and milk and beef without limit (wherein no 'Foreigner can +compete with us'), were the Glasgow sewers once opened on them, and you +with your Colonels carried thither. In the Three Kingdoms, or in the +Forty Colonies, depend upon it, you shall be led to your work! + +"To each of you I will then say: Here is work for you; strike into it +with manlike, soldier-like obedience and heartiness, according to the +methods here prescribed,--wages follow for you without difficulty; all +manner of just remuneration, and at length emancipation itself follows. +Refuse to strike into it; shirk the heavy labor, disobey the rules,--I +will admonish and endeavor to incite you; if in vain, I will flog you; +if still in vain, I will at last shoot you,--and make God's Earth, and +the forlorn-hope in God's Battle, free of you. Understand it, I advise +you! The Organization of Labor"--[_Left speaking_, says our reporter.] + + +"Left speaking:" alas, that he should have to "speak" so much! There are +things that should be done, not spoken; that till the doing of them is +begun, cannot well be spoken. He may have to "speak" seven years yet, +before a spade be struck into the Bog of Allen; and then perhaps it will +be too late!-- + +You perceive, my friends, we have actually got into the "New Era" there +has been such prophesying of: here we all are, arrived at last;--and +it is by no means the land flowing with milk and honey we were led +to expect! Very much the reverse. A terrible _new_ country this: no +neighbors in it yet, that I can see, but irrational flabby monsters +(philanthropic and other) of the giant species; hyenas, laughing hyenas, +predatory wolves; probably _devils_, blue (or perhaps blue-and-yellow) +devils, as St. Guthlac found in Croyland long ago. A huge untrodden +haggard country, the "chaotic battle-field of Frost and Fire;" a country +of savage glaciers, granite mountains, of foul jungles, unhewed forests, +quaking bogs;--which we shall have our own ados to make arable and +habitable, I think! We must stick by it, however;--of all enterprises +the impossiblest is that of getting out of it, and shifting into +another. To work, then, one and all; hands to work! + + + + +No. II. MODEL PRISONS. [March 1, 1850.] + +The deranged condition of our affairs is a universal topic among men at +present; and the heavy miseries pressing, in their rudest shape, on the +great dumb inarticulate class, and from this, by a sure law, spreading +upwards, in a less palpable but not less certain and perhaps still more +fatal shape on all classes to the very highest, are admitted everywhere +to be great, increasing and now almost unendurable. How to diminish +them,--this is every man's question. For in fact they do imperatively +need diminution; and unless they can be diminished, there are many other +things that cannot very long continue to exist beside them. A serious +question indeed, How to diminish them! + +Among the articulate classes, as they may be called, there are two ways +of proceeding in regard to this. One large body of the intelligent +and influential, busied mainly in personal affairs, accepts the social +iniquities, or whatever you may call them, and the miseries consequent +thereupon; accepts them, admits them to be extremely miserable, +pronounces them entirely inevitable, incurable except by Heaven, and +eats its pudding with as little thought of them as possible. Not a very +noble class of citizens these; not a very hopeful or salutary method of +dealing with social iniquities this of theirs, however it may answer in +respect to themselves and their personal affairs! But now there is the +select small minority, in whom some sentiment of public spirit and human +pity still survives, among whom, or not anywhere, the Good Cause may +expect to find soldiers and servants: their method of proceeding, in +these times, is also very strange. They embark in the "philanthropic +movement;" they calculate that the miseries of the world can be cured by +bringing the philanthropic movement to bear on them. To universal public +misery, and universal neglect of the clearest public duties, let private +charity superadd itself: there will thus be some balance restored, and +maintained again; thus,--or by what conceivable method? On these terms +they, for their part, embark in the sacred cause; resolute to cure a +world's woes by rose-water; desperately bent on trying to the uttermost +that mild method. It seems not to have struck these good men that no +world, or thing here below, ever fell into misery, without having first +fallen into folly, into sin against the Supreme Ruler of it, by adopting +as a law of conduct what was not a law, but the reverse of one; and +that, till its folly, till its sin be cast out of it, there is not the +smallest hope of its misery going,--that not for all the charity and +rose-water in the world will its misery try to go till then! + +This is a sad error; all the sadder as it is the error chiefly of the +more humane and noble-minded of our generation; among whom, as we +said, or elsewhere not at all, the cause of real Reform must expect its +servants. At present, and for a long while past, whatsoever young soul +awoke in England with some disposition towards generosity and social +heroism, or at lowest with some intimation of the beauty of such +a disposition,--he, in whom the poor world might have looked for a +Reformer, and valiant mender of its foul ways, was almost sure to become +a Philanthropist, reforming merely by this rose-water method. To admit +that the world's ways are foul, and not the ways of God the Maker, but +of Satan the Destroyer, many of them, and that they must be mended or +we all die; that if huge misery prevails, huge cowardice, falsity, +disloyalty, universal Injustice high and low, have still longer +prevailed, and must straightway try to cease prevailing: this is what +no visible reformer has yet thought of doing: All so-called "reforms" +hitherto are grounded either on openly admitted egoism (cheap bread to +the cotton-spinner, voting to those that have no vote, and the like), +which does not point towards very celestial developments of the +Reform movement; or else upon this of remedying social injustices by +indiscriminate contributions of philanthropy, a method surely still more +unpromising. Such contributions, being indiscriminate, are but a new +injustice; these will never lead to reform, or abolition of injustice, +whatever else they lead to! + +Not by that method shall we "get round Cape Horn," by never such +unanimity of voting, under the most approved Phantasm Captains! It is +miserable to see. Having, as it were, quite lost our way round Cape +Horn, and being sorely "admonished" by the Iceberg and other dumb +councillors, the pilots,--instead of taking to their sextants, and +asking with a seriousness unknown for a long while, What the Laws of +wind and water, and of Earth and of Heaven are,--decide that now, in +these new circumstances, they will, to the worthy and unworthy, serve +out a double allowance of grog. In this way they hope to do it,--by +steering on the old wrong tack, and serving out more and more, +copiously what little _aqua vitae_ may be still on board! Philanthropy, +emancipation, and pity for human calamity is very beautiful; but the +deep oblivion of the Law of Right and Wrong; this "indiscriminate +mashing up of Right and Wrong into a patent treacle" of the +Philanthropic movement, is by no means beautiful; this, on the contrary, +is altogether ugly and alarming. + +Truly if there be not something inarticulate among us, not yet uttered +but pressing towards utterance, which is much wiser than anything we +have lately articulated or brought into word or action, our outlooks are +rather lamentable. The great majority of the powerful and active-minded, +sunk in egoistic scepticisms, busied in chase of lucre, pleasure, and +mere vulgar objects, looking with indifference on the world's woes, and +passing carelessly by on the other side; and the select minority, of +whom better might have been expected, bending all their strength to cure +them by methods which can only make bad worse, and in the end +render cure hopeless. A blind loquacious pruriency of indiscriminate +Philanthropism substituting itself, with much self-laudation, for the +silent divinely awful sense of Right and Wrong;--testifying too clearly +that here is no longer a divine sense of Right and Wrong; that, in +the smoke of this universal, and alas inevitable and indispensable +revolutionary fire, and burning up of worn-out rags of which the world +is full, our life-atmosphere has (for the time) become one vile London +fog, and the eternal loadstars are gone out for us! Gone out;--yet very +visible if you can get above the fog; still there in their place, +and quite the same as they always were! To whoever does still know of +loadstars, the proceedings, which expand themselves daily, of +these sublime philanthropic associations, and "universal +sluggard-and-scoundrel protection-societies," are a perpetual +affliction. With their emancipations and abolition principles, and +reigns of brotherhood and new methods of love, they have done great +things in the White and in the Black World, during late years; and are +preparing for greater. + +In the interest of human reform, if there is ever to be any reform, and +return to prosperity or to the possibility of prospering, it is urgent +that the nonsense of all this (and it is mostly nonsense, but not quite) +should be sent about its business straightway, and forbidden to deceive +the well-meaning souls among us any more. Reform, if we will understand +that divine word, cannot begin till then. One day, I do know, this, as +is the doom of all nonsense, will be drummed out of the world, with due +placard stuck on its back, and the populace flinging dead cats at it: +but whether soon or not, is by no means so certain. I rather guess, +_not_ at present, not quite soon. Fraternity, in other countries, has +gone on, till it found itself unexpectedly manipulating guillotines by +its chosen Robespierres, and become a fraternity like Cain's. Much +to its amazement! For in fact it is not all nonsense; there is an +infinitesimal fraction of sense in it withal; which is so difficult +to disengage;--which must be disengaged, and laid hold of, before +Fraternity can vanish. + +But to our subject,--the Model Prison, and the strange theory of life +now in action there. That, for the present, is my share in the wide +adventure of Philanthropism; the world's share, and how and when it is +to be liquidated and ended, rests with the Supreme Destinies. + +Several months ago, some friends took me with them to see one of the +London Prisons; a Prison of the exemplary or model kind. An immense +circuit of buildings; cut out, girt with a high ring-wall, from the +lanes and streets of the quarter, which is a dim and crowded one. +Gateway as to a fortified place; then a spacious court, like the square +of a city; broad staircases, passages to interior courts; fronts of +stately architecture all round. It lodges some thousand or twelve +hundred prisoners, besides the officers of the establishment. Surely one +of the most perfect buildings, within the compass of London. We looked +at the apartments, sleeping-cells, dining-rooms, working-rooms, general +courts or special and private: excellent all, the ne-plus-ultra of human +care and ingenuity; in my life I never saw so clean a building; probably +no Duke in England lives in a mansion of such perfect and thorough +cleanness. + +The bread, the cocoa, soup, meat, all the various sorts of food, in +their respective cooking-places, we tasted: found them of excellence +superlative. The prisoners sat at work, light work, picking oakum, and +the like, in airy apartments with glass roofs, of agreeable temperature +and perfect ventilation; silent, or at least conversing only by secret +signs: others were out, taking their hour of promenade in clean flagged +courts: methodic composure, cleanliness, peace, substantial wholesome +comfort reigned everywhere supreme. The women in other apartments, +some notable murderesses among them, all in the like state of methodic +composure and substantial wholesome comfort, sat sewing: in long ranges +of wash-houses, drying-houses and whatever pertains to the getting-up +of clean linen, were certain others, with all conceivable mechanical +furtherances, not too arduously working. The notable murderesses were, +though with great precautions of privacy, pointed out to us; and we were +requested not to look openly at them, or seem to notice them at all, +as it was found to "cherish their vanity" when visitors looked at them. +Schools too were there; intelligent teachers of both sexes, studiously +instructing the still ignorant of these thieves. + +From an inner upper room or gallery, we looked down into a range of +private courts, where certain Chartist Notabilities were undergoing +their term. Chartist Notability First struck me very much; I had seen +him about a year before, by involuntary accident and much to my disgust, +magnetizing a silly young person; and had noted well the unlovely +voracious look of him, his thick oily skin, his heavy dull-burning eyes, +his greedy mouth, the dusky potent insatiable animalism that looked +out of every feature of him: a fellow adequate to animal-magnetize most +things, I did suppose;--and here was the post I now found him arrived +at. Next neighbor to him was Notability Second, a philosophic or +literary Chartist; walking rapidly to and fro in his private court, a +clean, high-walled place; the world and its cares quite excluded, for +some months to come: master of his own time and spiritual resources to, +as I supposed, a really enviable extent. What "literary man" to an equal +extent! I fancied I, for my own part, so left with paper and ink, and +all taxes and botherations shut out from me, could have written such a +Book as no reader will here ever get of me. Never, O reader, never here +in a mere house with taxes and botherations. Here, alas, one has to +snatch one's poor Book, bit by bit, as from a conflagration; and to +think and live, comparatively, as if the house were not one's own, but +mainly the world's and the devil's. Notability Second might have filled +one with envy. + +The Captain of the place, a gentleman of ancient Military or Royal-Navy +habits, was one of the most perfect governors; professionally and by +nature zealous for cleanliness, punctuality, good order of every kind; +a humane heart and yet a strong one; soft of speech and manner, yet with +an inflexible rigor of command, so far as his limits went: "iron hand +in a velvet glove," as Napoleon defined it. A man of real worth, +challenging at once love and respect: the light of those mild bright +eyes seemed to permeate the place as with an all-pervading vigilance, +and kindly yet victorious illumination; in the soft definite voice it +was as if Nature herself were promulgating her orders, gentlest mildest +orders, which however, in the end, there would be no disobeying, which +in the end there would be no living without fulfilment of. A true +"aristos," and commander of men. A man worthy to have commanded and +guided forward, in good ways, twelve hundred of the best common-people +in London or the world: he was here, for many years past, giving all +his care and faculty to command, and guide forward in such ways as there +were, twelve hundred of the worst. I looked with considerable admiration +on this gentleman; and with considerable astonishment, the reverse of +admiration, on the work he had here been set upon. + +This excellent Captain was too old a Commander to complain of anything; +indeed he struggled visibly the other way, to find in his own mind that +all here was best; but I could sufficiently discern that, in his natural +instincts, if not mounting up to the region of his thoughts, there was +a continual protest going on against much of it; that nature and all his +inarticulate persuasion (however much forbidden to articulate itself) +taught him the futility and unfeasibility of the system followed here. +The Visiting Magistrates, he gently regretted rather than complained, +had lately taken his tread-wheel from him, men were just now pulling +it down; and how he was henceforth to enforce discipline on these bad +subjects, was much a difficulty with him. "They cared for nothing but +the tread-wheel, and for having their rations cut short:" of the two +sole penalties, hard work and occasional hunger, there remained now only +one, and that by no means the better one, as he thought. The "sympathy" +of visitors, too, their "pity" for his interesting scoundrel-subjects, +though he tried to like it, was evidently no joy to this practical mind. +Pity, yes: but pity for the scoundrel-species? For those who will not +have pity on themselves, and will force the Universe and the Laws +of Nature to have no "pity on" them? Meseems I could discover fitter +objects of pity! + +In fact it was too clear, this excellent man had got a field for his +faculties which, in several respects, was by no means the suitable one. +To drill twelve hundred scoundrels by "the method of kindness," and of +abolishing your very tread-wheel,--how could any commander rejoice to +have such a work cut out for him? You had but to look in the faces of +these twelve hundred, and despair, for most part, of ever "commanding" +them at all. Miserable distorted blockheads, the generality; ape-faces, +imp-faces, angry dog-faces, heavy sullen ox-faces; degraded underfoot +perverse creatures, sons of _in_docility, greedy mutinous darkness, +and in one word, of STUPIDITY, which is the general mother of such. +Stupidity intellectual and stupidity moral (for the one always means +the other, as you will, with surprise or not, discover if you look) +had borne this progeny: base-natured beings, on whom in the course of +a maleficent subterranean life of London Scoundrelism, the Genius +of Darkness (called Satan, Devil, and other names) had now visibly +impressed his seal, and had marked them out as soldiers of Chaos and of +him,--appointed to serve in _his_ Regiments, First of the line, Second +ditto, and so on in their order. Him, you could perceive, they would +serve; but not easily another than him. These were the subjects whom our +brave Captain and Prison-Governor was appointed to command, and +reclaim to _other_ service, by "the method of love," with a tread-wheel +abolished. + +Hopeless forevermore such a project. These abject, ape, wolf, ox, imp +and other diabolic-animal specimens of humanity, who of the very gods +could ever have commanded them by love? A collar round the neck, and a +cart-whip flourished over the back; these, in a just and steady human +hand, were what the gods would have appointed them; and now when, by +long misconduct and neglect, they had sworn themselves into the Devil's +regiments of the line, and got the seal of Chaos impressed on their +visage, it was very doubtful whether even these would be of avail for +the unfortunate commander of twelve hundred men! By "love," without hope +except of peaceably teasing oakum, or fear except of a temporary loss +of dinner, he was to guide these men, and wisely constrain +them,--whitherward? No-whither: that was his goal, if you will think +well of it; that was a second fundamental falsity in his problem. False +in the warp and false in the woof, thought one of us; about as false +a problem as any I have seen a good man set upon lately! To guide +scoundrels by "love;" that is a false woof, I take it, a method that +will not hold together; hardly for the flower of men will love alone do; +and for the sediment and scoundrelism of men it has not even a chance +to do. And then to guide any class of men, scoundrel or other, +_No-whither_, which was this poor Captain's problem, in this Prison with +oakum for its one element of hope or outlook, how can that prosper by +"love" or by any conceivable method? That is a warp wholly false. Out of +which false warp, or originally false condition to start from, combined +and daily woven into by your false woof, or methods of "love" and such +like, there arises for our poor Captain the falsest of problems, and for +a man of his faculty the unfairest of situations. His problem was, not +to command good men to do something, but bad men to do (with superficial +disguises) nothing. + + +On the whole, what a beautiful Establishment here fitted up for the +accommodation of the scoundrel-world, male and female! As I said, no +Duke in England is, for all rational purposes which a human being can +or ought to aim at, lodged, fed, tended, taken care of, with such +perfection. Of poor craftsmen that pay rates and taxes from their day's +wages, of the dim millions that toil and moil continually under the +sun, we know what is the lodging and the tending. Of the Johnsons, +Goldsmiths, lodged in their squalid garrets; working often enough amid +famine, darkness, tumult, dust and desolation, what work _they_ have +to do:--of these as of "spiritual backwoodsmen," understood to be +preappointed to such a life, and like the pigs to killing, "quite used +to it," I say nothing. But of Dukes, which Duke, I could ask, has cocoa, +soup, meat, and food in general made ready, so fit for keeping him +in health, in ability to do and to enjoy? Which Duke has a house so +thoroughly clean, pure and airy; lives in an element so wholesome, and +perfectly adapted to the uses of soul and body as this same, which is +provided here for the Devil's regiments of the line? No Duke that I +have ever known. Dukes are waited on by deleterious French cooks, +by perfunctory grooms of the chambers, and expensive crowds of +eye-servants, more imaginary than real: while here, Science, Human +Intellect and Beneficence have searched and sat studious, eager to do +their very best; they have chosen a real Artist in Governing to see +their best, in all details of it, done. Happy regiments of the line, +what soldier to any earthly or celestial Power has such a lodging and +attendance as you here? No soldier or servant direct or indirect of +God or of man, in this England at present. Joy to you, regiments of the +line. Your Master, I am told, has his Elect, and professes to be "Prince +of the Kingdoms of this World;" and truly I see he has power to do a +good turn to those he loves, in England at least. Shall we say, May +_he_, may the Devil give you good of it, ye Elect of Scoundrelism? I +will rather pass by, uttering no prayer at all; musing rather in silence +on the singular "worship of God," or practical "reverence done to +Human Worth" (which is the outcome and essence of all real "worship" +whatsoever) among the Posterity of Adam at this day. + +For all round this beautiful Establishment, or Oasis of Purity, intended +for the Devil's regiments of the line, lay continents of dingy poor +and dirty dwellings, where the unfortunate not _yet_ enlisted into +that Force were struggling manifoldly,--in their workshops, in their +marble-yards and timber-yards and tan-yards, in their close cellars, +cobbler-stalls, hungry garrets, and poor dark trade-shops with +red-herrings and tobacco-pipes crossed in the window,--to keep the Devil +out-of-doors, and not enlist with him. And it was by a tax on these +that the Barracks for the regiments of the line were kept up. Visiting +Magistrates, impelled by Exeter Hall, by Able-Editors, and the +Philanthropic Movement of the Age, had given orders to that effect. +Rates on the poor servant of God and of her Majesty, who still serves +both in his way, painfully selling red-herrings; rates on him and his +red-herrings to boil right soup for the Devil's declared Elect! Never +in my travels, in any age or clime, had I fallen in with such Visiting +Magistrates before. Reserved they, I should suppose, for these ultimate +or penultimate ages of the world, rich in all prodigies, political, +spiritual,--ages surely with such a length of ears as was never +paralleled before. + +If I had a commonwealth to reform or to govern, certainly it should +not be the Devil's regiments of the line that I would first of all +concentrate my attention on! With them I should be apt so make rather +brief work; to them one would apply the besom, try to sweep _them_, with +some rapidity into the dust-bin, and well out of one's road, I should +rather say. Fill your thrashing-floor with docks, ragweeds, mugworths, +and ply your flail upon them,--that is not the method to obtain sacks +of wheat. Away, you; begone swiftly, _ye_ regiments of the line: in the +name of God and of His poor struggling servants, sore put to it to +live in these bad days, I mean to rid myself of you with some degree of +brevity. To feed you in palaces, to hire captains and schoolmasters +and the choicest spiritual and material artificers to expend their +industries on you, No, by the Eternal! I have quite other work for that +class of artists; Seven-and-twenty Millions of neglected mortals who +have not yet quite declared for the Devil. Mark it, my diabolic friends, +I mean to lay leather on the backs of you, collars round the necks of +you; and will teach you, after the example of the gods, that this world +is _not_ your inheritance, or glad to see you in it. You, ye diabolic +canaille, what has a Governor much to do with you? You, I think, he +will rather swiftly dismiss from his thoughts,--which have the whole +celestial and terrestrial for their scope, and not the subterranean of +scoundreldom alone. You, I consider, he will sweep pretty rapidly into +some Norfolk Island, into some special Convict Colony or remote +domestic Moorland, into some stone-walled Silent-System, under hard +drill-sergeants, just as Rhadamanthus, and inflexible as he, and there +leave you to reap what you have sown; he meanwhile turning his endeavors +to the thousand-fold immeasurable interests of men and gods,--dismissing +the one extremely contemptible interest of scoundrels; sweeping that +into the cesspool, tumbling that over London Bridge, in a very brief +manner, if needful! Who are you, ye thriftless sweepings of Creation, +that we should forever be pestered with you? Have we no work to do but +drilling Devil's regiments of the line? + +If I had schoolmasters, my benevolent friend, do you imagine I would set +them on teaching a set of unteachables, who as you perceive have already +made up their mind that black is white,--that the Devil namely is the +advantageous Master to serve in this world? My esteemed Benefactor +of Humanity, it shall be far from me. Minds open to that particular +conviction are not the material I like to work upon. When once my +schoolmasters have gone over all the other classes of society from +top to bottom; and have no other soul to try with teaching, all +being thoroughly taught,--I will then send them to operate on _these_ +regiments of the line: then, and, assure yourself, never till then. The +truth is, I am sick of scoundreldom, my esteemed Benefactor; it always +was detestable to me; and here where I find it lodged in palaces and +waited on by the benevolent of the world, it is more detestable, not to +say insufferable to me than ever. + +Of Beneficence, Benevolence, and the people that come together to talk +on platforms and subscribe five pounds, I will say nothing here; indeed +there is not room here for the twentieth part of what were to be said of +them. The beneficence, benevolence, and sublime virtue which issues in +eloquent talk reported in the Newspapers, with the subscription of +five pounds, and the feeling that one is a good citizen and ornament to +society,--concerning this, there were a great many unexpected remarks to +be made; but let this one, for the present occasion, suffice:-- + +My sublime benevolent friends, don't you perceive, for one thing, +that here is a shockingly unfruitful investment for your capital of +Benevolence; precisely the worst, indeed, which human ingenuity could +select for you? "Laws are unjust, temptations great," &c. &c.: alas, I +know it, and mourn for it, and passionately call on all men to help in +altering it. But according to every hypothesis as to the law, and the +temptations and pressures towards vice, here are the individuals who, of +all the society, have yielded to said pressure. These are of the +worst substance for enduring pressure! The others yet stand and +make resistance to temptation, to the law's injustice; under all the +perversities and strangling impediments there are, the rest of the +society still keep their feet, and struggle forward, marching under +the banner of Cosmos, of God and Human Virtue; these select Few, as I +explain to you, are they who have fallen to Chaos, and are sworn +into certain regiments of the line. A superior proclivity to Chaos is +declared in these, by the very fact of their being here! Of all the +generation we live in, these are the worst stuff. These, I say, are the +Elixir of the Infatuated among living mortals: if you want the worst +investment for your Benevolence, here you accurately have it. O my +surprising friends! Nowhere so as here can you be certain that a given +quantity of wise teaching bestowed, of benevolent trouble taken, will +yield zero, or the net _Minimum_ of return. It is sowing of your wheat +upon Irish quagmires; laboriously harrowing it in upon the sand of the +seashore. O my astonishing benevolent friends! + +Yonder, in those dingy habitations, and shops of red herring and +tobacco-pipes, where men have not yet quite declared for the Devil; +there, I say, is land: here is mere sea-beach. Thither go with your +benevolence, thither to those dingy caverns of the poor; and there +instruct and drill and manage, there where some fruit may come from it. +And, above all and inclusive of all, cannot you go to those Solemn human +Shams, Phantasm Captains, and Supreme Quacks that ride prosperously in +every thoroughfare; and with severe benevolence, ask them, What they +are doing here? They are the men whom it would behoove you to drill a +little, and tie to the halberts in a benevolent manner, if you could! +"We cannot," say you? Yes, my friends, to a certain extent you can. By +many well-known active methods, and by all manner of passive methods, +you can. Strive thitherward, I advise you; thither, with whatever +social effort there may lie in you! The well-head and "consecrated" +thrice-accursed chief fountain of all those waters of bitterness,--it is +they, those Solemn Shams and Supreme Quacks of yours, little as they or +you imagine it! Them, with severe benevolence, put a stop to; them send +to their Father, far from the sight of the true and just,--if you would +ever see a just world here! + +What sort of reformers and workers are you, that work only on the +rotten material? That never think of meddling with the material while +it continues sound; that stress it and strain it with new rates and +assessments, till once it has given way and declared itself rotten; +whereupon you snatch greedily at it, and say, Now let us try to do some +good upon it! You mistake in every way, my friends: the fact is, you +fancy yourselves men of virtue, benevolence, what not; and you are not +even men of sincerity and honest sense. I grieve to say it; but it is +true. Good from you, and your operations, is not to be expected. You may +go down! + +Howard is a beautiful Philanthropist, eulogized by Burke, and in +most men's minds a sort of beatified individual. How glorious, having +finished off one's affairs in Bedfordshire, or in fact finding them very +dull, inane, and worthy of being quitted and got away from, to set out +on a cruise, over the Jails first of Britain; then, finding that +answer, over the Jails of the habitable Globe! "A voyage of discovery, +a circum-navigation of charity; to collate distresses, to gauge +wretchedness, to take the dimensions of human misery:" really it is very +fine. Captain Cook's voyage for the Terra Australis, Ross's, Franklin's +for the ditto Borealis: men make various cruises and voyages in +this world,--for want of money, want of work, and one or the other +want,--which are attended with their difficulties too, and do not make +the cruiser a demigod. On the whole, I have myself nothing but +respect, comparatively speaking, for the dull solid Howard, and his +"benevolence," and other impulses that set him cruising; Heaven +had grown weary of Jail-fevers, and other the like unjust penalties +inflicted upon scoundrels,--for scoundrels too, and even the very Devil, +should not have _more_ than their due;--and Heaven, in its opulence, +created a man to make an end of that. Created him; disgusted him with +the grocer business; tried him with Calvinism, rural ennui, and sore +bereavement in his Bedfordshire retreat;--and, in short, at last got +him set to his work, and in a condition to achieve it. For which I am +thankful to Heaven; and do also,--with doffed hat, humbly salute John +Howard. A practical solid man, if a dull and even dreary; "carries +his weighing-scales in his pocket:" when your jailer answers, "The +prisoner's allowance of food is so and so; and we observe it sacredly; +here, for example, is a ration."--"Hey! A ration this?" and solid John +suddenly produces his weighing-scales; weighs it, marks down in his +tablets what the actual quantity of it is. That is the art and manner of +the man. A man full of English accuracy; English veracity, solidity, + simplicity; by whom this universal Jail-commission, not to be paid for +in money but far otherwise, is set about, with all the slow energy, the +patience, practicality, sedulity and sagacity common to the best English +commissioners paid in money and not expressly otherwise. + +For it is the glory of England that she has a turn for fidelity in +practical work; that sham-workers, though very numerous, are rarer than +elsewhere; that a man who undertakes work for you will still, in various +provinces of our affairs, do it, instead of merely seeming to do it. +John Howard, without pay in money, _did_ this of the Jail-fever, as +other Englishmen do work, in a truly workmanlike manner: his distinction +was that he did it without money. He had not 500 pounds or 5,000 pounds +a year of salary for it; but lived merely on his Bedfordshire estates, +and as Snigsby irreverently expresses it, "by chewing his own cud." And, +sure enough, if any man might chew the cud of placid reflections, solid +Howard, a mournful man otherwise, might at intervals indulge a little +in that luxury.--No money-salary had he for his work; he had merely the +income of his properties, and what he could derive from within. Is this +such a sublime distinction, then? Well, let it pass at its value. There +have been benefactors of mankind who had more need of money than he, and +got none too. Milton, it is known, did his _Paradise Lost_ at the +easy rate of five pounds. Kepler worked out the secret of the Heavenly +Motions in a dreadfully painful manner; "going over the calculations +sixty times;" and having not only no public money, but no private +either; and, in fact, writing almanacs for his bread-and-water, while +he did this of the Heavenly Motions; having no Bedfordshire estates; +nothing but a pension of 18 pounds (which they would not pay him), the +valuable faculty of writing almanacs, and at length the invaluable +one of dying, when the Heavenly bodies were vanquished, and battle's +conflagration had collapsed into cold dark ashes, and the starvation +reached too high a pitch for the poor man. + +Howard is not the only benefactor that has worked without money for us; +there have been some more,--and will be, I hope! For the Destinies are +opulent; and send here and there a man into the world to do work, +for which they do not mean to pay him in money. And they smite him +beneficently with sore afflictions, and blight his world all into grim +frozen ruins round him,--and can make a wandering Exile of their Dante, +and not a soft-bedded Podesta of Florence, if they wish to get a _Divine +Comedy_ out of him. Nay that rather is their way, when they have worthy +work for such a man; they scourge him manifoldly to the due pitch, +sometimes nearly of despair, that he may search desperately for his +work, and find it; they urge him on still with beneficent stripes when +needful, as is constantly the case between whiles; and, in fact, have +privately decided to reward him with beneficent death by and by, and not +with money at all. O my benevolent friend, I honor Howard very much; +but it is on this side idolatry a long way, not to an infinite, but to +a decidedly finite extent! And you,--put not the modest noble Howard, a +truly modest man, to the blush, by forcing these reflections on us! + +Cholera Doctors, hired to dive into black dens of infection and despair, +they, rushing about all day from lane to lane, with their life in their +hand, are found to do their function; which is a much more rugged one +than Howard's. Or what say we, Cholera Doctors? Ragged losels gathered +by beat of drum from the overcrowded streets of cities, and drilled a +little and dressed in red, do not they stand fire in an uncensurable +manner; and handsomely give their life, if needful, at the rate of a +shilling per day? Human virtue, if we went down to the roots of it, is +not so rare. The materials of human virtue are everywhere abundant +as the light of the sun: raw materials,--O woe, and loss, and scandal +thrice and threefold, that they so seldom are elaborated, and built into +a result! that they lie yet unelaborated, and stagnant in the souls of +wide-spread dreary millions, fermenting, festering; and issue at last as +energetic vice instead of strong practical virtue! A Mrs. Manning "dying +game,"--alas, is not that the foiled potentiality of a kind of heroine +too? Not a heroic Judith, not a mother of the Gracchi now, but a +hideous murderess, fit to be the mother of hyenas! To such extent can +potentialities be foiled. Education, kingship, command,--where is it, +whither has it fled? Woe a thousand times, that this, which is the +task of all kings, captains, priests, public speakers, land-owners, +book-writers, mill-owners, and persons possessing or pretending to +possess authority among mankind,--is left neglected among them all; +and instead of it so little done but protocolling, black-or-white +surplicing, partridge-shooting, parliamentary eloquence and popular +twaddle-literature; with such results as we see!-- + + +Howard abated the Jail-fever; but it seems to me he has been the +innocent cause of a far more distressing fever which rages high just +now; what we may call the Benevolent-Platform Fever. Howard is to be +regarded as the unlucky fountain of that tumultuous frothy ocean-tide +of benevolent sentimentality, "abolition of punishment," all-absorbing +"prison-discipline," and general morbid sympathy, instead of hearty +hatred, for scoundrels; which is threatening to drown human society as +in deluges, and leave, instead of an "edifice of society" fit for +the habitation of men, a continent of fetid ooze inhabitable only by +mud-gods and creatures that walk upon their belly. Few things more +distress a thinking soul at this time. + +Most sick am I, O friends, of this sugary disastrous jargon of +philanthropy, the reign of love, new era of universal brotherhood, and +not Paradise to the Well-deserving but Paradise to All-and-sundry, which +possesses the benighted minds of men and women in our day. My friends, I +think you are much mistaken about Paradise! "No Paradise for anybody: +he that cannot do without Paradise, go his ways:" suppose you tried that +for a while! I reckon that the safer version. Unhappy sugary brethren, +this is all untrue, this other; contrary to the fact; not a tatter of it +will hang together in the wind and weather of fact. In brotherhood with +the base and foolish I, for one, do not mean to live. Not in brotherhood +with them was life hitherto worth much to me; in pity, in hope not yet +quite swallowed of disgust,--otherwise in enmity that must last through +eternity, in unappeasable aversion shall I have to live with +these! Brotherhood? No, be the thought far from me. They are Adam's +children,--alas yes, I well remember that, and never shall forget it; +hence this rage and sorrow. But they have gone over to the dragons; they +have quitted the Father's house, and set up with the Old Serpent: till +they return, how can they be brothers? They are enemies, deadly to +themselves and to me and to you, till then; till then, while hope yet +lasts, I will treat them as brothers fallen insane;--when hope has +ended, with tears grown sacred and wrath grown sacred, I will cut them +off in the name of God! It is at my peril if I do not. With the servant +of Satan I dare not continue in partnership. Him I must put away, +resolutely and forever; "lest," as it is written, "I become partaker of +his plagues." + +Beautiful Black Peasantry, who have fallen idle and have got the Devil +at your elbow; interesting White Felonry, who are not idle, but +have enlisted into the Devil's regiments of the line,--know that my +benevolence for you is comparatively trifling! What I have of +that divine feeling is due to others, not to you. A "universal +Sluggard-and-Scoundrel Protection Society" is not the one I mean to +institute in these times, where so much wants protection, and is sinking +to sad issues for want of it! The scoundrel needs no protection. The +scoundrel that will hasten to the gallows, why not rather clear the +way for him! Better he reach _his_ goal and outgate by the natural +proclivity, than be so expensively dammed up and detained, poisoning +everything as he stagnates and meanders along, to arrive at last a +hundred times fouler, and swollen a hundred times bigger! Benevolent men +should reflect on this.--And you Quashee, my pumpkin,--(not a bad fellow +either, this poor Quashee, when tolerably guided!)--idle Quashee, I say +you must get the Devil _sent away_ from your elbow, my poor dark friend! +In this world there will be no existence for you otherwise. No, not as +the brother of your folly will I live beside you. Please to withdraw out +of my way, if I am not to contradict your folly, and amend it, and put +it in the stocks if it will not amend. By the Eternal Maker, it is on +that footing alone that you and I can live together! And if you had +respectable traditions dated from beyond Magna Charta, or from beyond +the Deluge, to the contrary, and written sheepskins that would thatch +the face of the world,--behold I, for one individual, do not believe +said respectable traditions, nor regard said written sheepskins except +as things which _you_, till you grow wiser, will believe. Adieu, +Quashee; I will wish you better guidance than you have had of late. + +On the whole, what a reflection is it that we cannot bestow on an +unworthy man any particle of our benevolence, our patronage, or whatever +resource is ours,--without withdrawing it, it and all that will grow +of it, from one worthy, to whom it of right belongs! We cannot, I +say; impossible; it is the eternal law of things. Incompetent Duncan +M'Pastehorn, the hapless incompetent mortal to whom I give the cobbling +of my boots,--and cannot find in my heart to refuse it, the poor drunken +wretch having a wife and ten children; he _withdraws_ the job from +sober, plainly competent, and meritorious Mr. Sparrowbill, generally +short of work too; discourages Sparrowbill; teaches him that he too may +as well drink and loiter and bungle; that this is not a scene for +merit and demerit at all, but for dupery, and whining flattery, and +incompetent cobbling of every description;--clearly tending to the ruin +of poor Sparrowbill! What harm had Sparrowbill done me that I should +so help to ruin him? And I couldn't save the insalvable M'Pastehorn; +I merely yielded him, for insufficient work, here and there a +half-crown,--which he oftenest drank. And now Sparrowbill also is +drinking! + +Justice, Justice: woe betides us everywhere when, for this reason or +for that, we fail to do justice! No beneficence, benevolence, or other +virtuous contribution will make good the want. And in what a rate of +terrible geometrical progression, far beyond our poor computation, +any act of Injustice once done by us grows; rooting itself ever anew, +spreading ever anew, like a banyan-tree,--blasting all life under it, +for it is a poison-tree! There is but one thing needed for the world; +but that one is indispensable. Justice, Justice, in the name of Heaven; +give us Justice, and we live; give us only counterfeits of it, or +succedanea for it, and we die! + + +Oh, this universal syllabub of philanthropic twaddle! My friend, it is +very sad, now when Christianity is as good as extinct in all hearts, to +meet this ghastly-Phantasm of Christianity parading through almost all. +"I will clean your foul thoroughfares, and make your Devil's-cloaca of +a world into a garden of Heaven," jabbers this Phantasm, itself a +phosphorescence and unclean! The worst, it is written, comes from +corruption of the best:--Semitic forms now lying putrescent, dead and +still unburied, this phosphorescence rises. I say sometimes, such a +blockhead Idol, and miserable _White_ Mumbo-jumbo, fashioned out of +deciduous sticks and cast clothes, out of extinct cants and modern +sentimentalisms, as that which they sing litanies to at Exeter Hall and +extensively elsewhere, was perhaps never set up by human folly before. +Unhappy creatures, that is not the Maker of the Universe, not that, +look one moment at the Universe, and see! That is a paltry Phantasm, +engendered in your own sick brain; whoever follows that as a Reality +will fall into the ditch. + +Reform, reform, all men see and feel, is imperatively needed. Reform +must either be got, and speedily, or else we die: and nearly all the men +that speak, instruct us, saying, "Have you quite done your interesting +Negroes in the Sugar Islands? Rush to the Jails, then, O ye reformers; +snatch up the interesting scoundrel-population there, to them be +nursing-fathers and nursing-mothers. And oh, wash, and dress, and teach, +and recover to the service of Heaven these poor lost souls: so, we +assure you, will society attain the needful reform, and life be still +possible in this world." Thus sing the oracles everywhere; nearly all +the men that speak, though we doubt not, there are, as usual, immense +majorities consciously or unconsciously wiser who hold their tongue. But +except this of whitewashing the scoundrel-population, one sees little +"reform" going on. There is perhaps some endeavor to do a little +scavengering; and, as the all-including point, to cheapen the terrible +cost of Government: but neither of these enterprises makes progress, +owing to impediments. + +"Whitewash your scoundrel-population; sweep out your abominable gutters +(if not in the name of God, ye brutish slatterns, then in the name of +Cholera and the Royal College of Surgeons): do these two things;--and +observe, much cheaper if you please!"--Well, here surely is an Evangel +of Freedom, and real Program of a new Era. What surliest misanthrope +would not find this world lovely, were these things done: scoundrels +whitewashed; some degree of scavengering upon the gutters; and at a +cheap rate, thirdly? That surely is an occasion on which, if ever +on any, the Genius of Reform may pipe all hands!--Poor old Genius of +Reform; bedrid this good while; with little but broken ballot-boxes, and +tattered stripes of Benthamee Constitutions lying round him; and on the +walls mere shadows of clothing-colonels, rates-in-aid, poor-law unions, +defunct potato and the Irish difficulty,--he does not seem long for this +world, piping to that effect? + + +Not the least disgusting feature of this Gospel according to the +Platform is its reference to religion, and even to the Christian +Religion, as an authority and mandate for what it does. Christian +Religion? Does the Christian or any religion prescribe love +of scoundrels, then? I hope it prescribes a healthy hatred of +scoundrels;--otherwise what am I, in Heaven's name, to make of it? Me, +for one, it will not serve as a religion on those strange terms. Just +hatred of scoundrels, I say; fixed, irreconcilable, inexorable enmity +to the enemies of God: this, and not love for them, and incessant +whitewashing, and dressing and cockering of them, must, if you look +into it, be the backbone of any human religion whatsoever. Christian +Religion! In what words can I address you, ye unfortunates, sunk in the +slushy ooze till the worship of mud-serpents, and unutterable Pythons +and poisonous slimy monstrosities, seems to you the worship of God? This +is the rotten carcass of Christianity; this mal-odorous phosphorescence +of post-mortem sentimentalism. O Heavens, from the Christianity of +Oliver Cromwell, wrestling in grim fight with Satan and his incarnate +Blackguardisms, Hypocrisies, Injustices, and legion of human and +infernal angels, to that of eloquent Mr. Hesperus Fiddlestring +denouncing capital punishments, and inculcating the benevolence on +platforms, what a road have we travelled! + +A foolish stump-orator, perorating on his platform mere benevolences, +seems a pleasant object to many persons; a harmless or insignificant +one to almost all. Look at him, however; scan him till you discern the +nature of him, he is not pleasant, but ugly and perilous. That +beautiful speech of his takes captive every long ear, and kindles into +quasi-sacred enthusiasm the minds of not a few; but it is quite in the +teeth of the everlasting facts of this Universe, and will come only +to mischief for every party concerned. Consider that little spouting +wretch. Within the paltry skin of him, it is too probable, he holds few +human virtues, beyond those essential for digesting victual: envious, +cowardly, vain, splenetic hungry soul; what heroism, in word or thought +or action, will you ever get from the like of him? He, in his necessity, +has taken into the benevolent line; warms the cold vacuity of his inner +man to some extent, in a comfortable manner, not by silently doing some +virtue of his own, but by fiercely recommending hearsay pseudo-virtues +and respectable benevolences to other people. Do you call that a good +trade? Long-eared fellow-creatures, more or less resembling himself, +answer, "Hear, hear! Live Fiddlestring forever!" Wherefrom follow +Abolition Congresses, Odes to the Gallows;--perhaps some dirty little +Bill, getting itself debated next Session in Parliament, to waste +certain nights of our legislative Year, and cause skipping in our +Morning Newspaper, till the abortion can be emptied out again and sent +fairly floating down the gutters. + +Not with entire approbation do I, for one, look on that eloquent +individual. Wise benevolence, if it had authority, would order that +individual, I believe, to find some other trade: "Eloquent individual, +pleading here against the Laws of Nature,--for many reasons, I bid thee +close that mouth of thine. Enough of balderdash these long-eared have +now drunk. Depart thou; _do_ some benevolent work; at lowest, be silent. +Disappear, I say; away, and jargon no more in that manner, lest a worst +thing befall thee." _Exeat_ Fiddlestring!--Beneficent men are not they +who appear on platforms, pleading against the Almighty Maker's Laws; +these are the maleficent men, whose lips it is pity that some authority +cannot straightway shut. Pandora's Box is not more baleful than the +gifts these eloquent benefactors are pressing on us. Close your pedler's +pack, my friend; swift, away with it! Pernicious, fraught with mere woe +and sugary poison is that kind of benevolence and beneficence. + +Truly, one of the saddest sights in these times is that of poor +creatures, on platforms, in parliaments and other situations, making and +unmaking "Laws;" in whose soul, full of mere vacant hearsay and windy +babble, is and was no image of Heaven's Law; whom it never struck that +Heaven had a Law, or that the Earth--could not have what kind of Law you +pleased! Human Statute-books, accordingly, are growing horrible to think +of. An impiety and poisonous futility every Law of them that is so +made; all Nature is against it; it will and can do nothing but mischief +wheresoever it shows itself in Nature: and such Laws lie now like an +incubus over this Earth, so innumerable are they. How long, O Lord, how +long!--O ye Eternities, Divine Silences, do you dwell no more, then, in +the hearts of the noble and the true; and is there no inspiration of +the Almighty any more vouchsafed us? The inspiration of the Morning +Newspapers--alas, we have had enough of that, and are arrived at the +gates of death by means of that! + + +"Really, one of the most difficult questions this we have in these +times, What to do with our criminals?" blandly observed a certain +Law-dignitary, in my hearing once, taking the cigar from his mouth, and +pensively smiling over a group of us under the summer beech-tree, as +Favonius carried off the tobacco-smoke; and the group said nothing, only +smiled and nodded, answering by new tobacco-clouds. "What to do with our +criminals?" asked the official Law-dignitary again, as if entirely at a +loss.--"I suppose," said one ancient figure not engaged in smoking, "the +plan would be to treat them according to the real law of the case; to +make the Law of England, in respect of them, correspond to the Law of +the Universe. Criminals, I suppose, would prove manageable in that way: +if we could do approximately as God Almighty does towards them; in a +word, if we could try to do Justice towards them."--"I'll thank you +for a definition of Justice?" sneered the official person in a cheerily +scornful and triumphant manner, backed by a slight laugh from the +honorable company; which irritated the other speaker.--"Well, I have no +pocket definition of Justice," said he, "to give your Lordship. It has +not quite been my trade to look for such a definition; I could rather +fancy it had been your Lordship's trade, sitting on your high place this +long while. But one thing I can tell you: Justice always is, whether we +define it or not. Everything done, suffered or proposed, in Parliament +or out of it, is either just or else unjust; either is accepted by the +gods and eternal facts, or is rejected by them. Your Lordship and I, +with or without definition, do a little know Justice, I will hope; if +we don't both know it and do it, we are hourly travelling down +towards--Heavens, must I name such a place! That is the place we are +bound to, with all our trading-pack, and the small or extensive budgets +of human business laid on us; and there, if we _don't know_ Justice, we, +and all our budgets and Acts of Parliament, shall find lodging when the +day is done!"--The official person, a polite man otherwise, grinned as +he best could some semblance of a laugh, mirthful as that of the ass +eating thistles, and ended in "Hah, oh, ah!"-- + +Indeed, it is wonderful to hear what account we at present give +ourselves of the punishment of criminals. No "revenge"--O Heavens, no; +all preachers on Sunday strictly forbid that; and even (at least +on Sundays) prescribe the contrary of that. It is for the sake of +"example," that you punish; to "protect society" and its purse and skin; +to deter the innocent from falling into crime; and especially withal, +for the purpose of improving the poor criminal himself,--or at lowest, +of hanging and ending him, that he may not grow worse. For the poor +criminal is, to be "improved" if possible: against him no "revenge" even +on week-days; nothing but love for him, and pity and help; poor fellow, +is he not miserable enough? Very miserable,--though much less so than +the Master of him, called Satan, is understood (on Sundays) to have long +deservedly been! + +My friends, will you permit me to say that all this, to one poor +judgment among your number, is the mournfulest twaddle that human +tongues could shake from them; that it has no solid foundation in the +nature of things; and to a healthy human heart no credibility whatever. +Permit me to say, only to hearts long drowned in dead Tradition, and for +themselves neither believing nor disbelieving, could this seem credible. +Think, and ask yourselves, in spite of all this preaching and perorating +from the teeth outward! Hearts that are quite strangers to eternal Fact, +and acquainted only at all hours with temporary Semblances parading +about in a prosperous and persuasive condition; hearts that from +their first appearance in this world have breathed since birth, in +all spiritual matters, which means in all matters not pecuniary, the +poisonous atmosphere of universal Cant, could believe such a thing. Cant +moral, Cant religious, Cant political; an atmosphere which envelops all +things for us unfortunates, and has long done; which goes beyond +the Zenith and below the Nadir for us, and has as good as choked the +spiritual life out of all of us,--God pity such wretches, with little +or nothing _real_ about them but their purse and their abdominal +department! Hearts, alas, which everywhere except in the metallurgic +and cotton-spinning provinces, have communed with no Reality, or awful +Presence of a Fact, godlike or diabolic, in this Universe or this +unfathomable Life at all. Hunger-stricken asphyxied hearts, which have +nourished themselves on what they call religions, Christian religions. +Good Heaven, once more fancy the Christian religion of Oliver Cromwell; +or of some noble Christian man, whom you yourself may have been blessed +enough, once, long since, in your life, to know! These are not _untrue_ +religions; they are the putrescences and foul residues of religions that +are extinct, that have plainly to every honest nostril been dead some +time, and the remains of which--O ye eternal Heavens, will the +nostril never be delivered from them!--Such hearts, when they get upon +platforms, and into questions not involving money, can "believe" many +things!-- + +I take the liberty of asserting that there is one valid reason, and +only one, for either punishing a man or rewarding him in this world; one +reason, which ancient piety could well define: That you may do the will +and commandment of God with regard to him; that you may do justice to +him. This is your one true aim in respect of him; aim thitherward, with +all your heart and all your strength and all your soul, thitherward, +and not elsewhither at all! This aim is true, and will carry you to +all earthly heights and benefits, and beyond the stars and Heavens. All +other aims are purblind, illegitimate, untrue; and will never carry you +beyond the shop-counter, nay very soon will prove themselves incapable +of maintaining you even there. Find out what the Law of God is with +regard to a man; make that your human law, or I say it will be ill with +you, and not well! If you love your thief or murderer, if Nature and +eternal Fact love him, then do as you are now doing. But if Nature and +Fact do _not_ love him? If they have set inexorable penalties upon +him, and planted natural wrath against him in every god-created human +heart,--then I advise you, cease, and change your hand. + +Reward and punishment? Alas, alas, I must say you reward and punish +pretty much alike! Your dignities, peerages, promotions, your kingships, +your brazen statues erected in capital and county towns to our select +demigods of your selecting, testify loudly enough what kind of +heroes and hero-worshippers you are. Woe to the People that no longer +venerates, as the emblem of God himself, the aspect of Human Worth; that +no longer knows what human worth and unworth is! Sure as the Decrees of +the Eternal, that People cannot come to good. By a course too clear, +by a necessity too evident, that People will come into the hands of the +unworthy; and either turn on its bad career, or stagger downwards to +ruin and abolition. Does the Hebrew People prophetically sing "Ou' +clo'!" in all thoroughfares, these eighteen hundred years in vain? + +To reward men according to their worth: alas, the perfection of this, +we know, amounts to the millennium! Neither is perfect punishment, +according to the like rule, to be attained,--nor even, by a legislator +of these chaotic days, to be too zealously attempted. But when he does +attempt it,--yes, when he summons out the Society to sit deliberative on +this matter, and consult the oracles upon it, and solemnly settle it in +the name of God; then, if never before, he should try to be a little +in the right in settling it!--In regard to reward of merit, I do not +bethink me of any attempt whatever, worth calling an attempt, on the +part of modern Governments; which surely is an immense oversight on +their part, and will one day be seen to have been an altogether fatal +one. But as to the punishment of crime, happily this cannot be quite +neglected. When men have a purse and a skin, they seek salvation at +least for these; and the Four Pleas of the Crown are a thing that +must and will be attended to. By punishment, capital or other, by +treadmilling and blind rigor, or by whitewashing and blind laxity, the +extremely disagreeable offences of theft and murder must be kept down +within limits. + +And so you take criminal caitiffs, murderers, and the like, and hang +them on gibbets "for an example to deter others." Whereupon arise +friends of humanity, and object. With very great reason, as I consider, +if your hypothesis be correct. What right have you to hang any poor +creature "for an example"? He can turn round upon you and say, "Why make +an 'example' of me, a merely ill-situated, pitiable man? Have you no +more respect for misfortune? Misfortune, I have been told, is sacred. +And yet you hang me, now I am fallen into your hands; choke the life out +of me, for an example! Again I ask, Why make an example of me, for your +own convenience alone?"--All "revenge" being out of the question, it +seems to me the caitiff is unanswerable; and he and the philanthropic +platforms have the logic all on their side. + +The one answer to him is: "Caitiff, we hate thee; and discern for some +six thousand years now, that we are called upon by the whole Universe +to do it. Not with a diabolic but with a divine hatred. God himself, we +have always understood, 'hates sin,' with a most authentic, celestial, +and eternal hatred. A hatred, a hostility inexorable, unappeasable, +which blasts the scoundrel, and all scoundrels ultimately, into black +annihilation and disappearance from the sum of things. The path of it +as the path of a flaming sword: he that has eyes may see it, walking +inexorable, divinely beautiful and divinely terrible, through the +chaotic gulf of Human History, and everywhere burning, as with +unquenchable fire, the false and death-worthy from the true and +life-worthy; making all Human History, and the Biography of every man, a +God's Cosmos in place of a Devil's Chaos. So is it, in the end; even +so, to every man who is a man, and not a mutinous beast, and has eyes to +see. To thee, caitiff, these things were and are, quite incredible; +to us they are too awfully certain,--the Eternal Law of this Universe, +whether thou and others will believe it or disbelieve. We, not to +be partakers in thy destructive adventure of defying God and all the +Universe, dare not allow thee to continue longer among us. As a palpable +deserter from the ranks where all men, at their eternal peril, are bound +to be: palpable deserter, taken with the red hand fighting thus against +the whole Universe and its Laws, we--send thee back into the whole +Universe, solemnly expel thee from our community; and will, in the name +of God, not with joy and exultation, but with sorrow stern as thy own, +hang thee on Wednesday next, and so end." + +Other ground on which to deliberately slay a disarmed fellow-man I can +see none. Example, effects upon the public mind, effects upon this and +upon that: all this is mere appendage and accident; of all this I make +no attempt to keep account,--sensible that no arithmetic will or can +keep account of it; that its "effects," on this hand and on that, +transcend all calculation. One thing, if I can calculate it, will +include all, and produce beneficial effects beyond calculation, and +no ill effect at all, anywhere or at any time: What the Law of the +Universe, or Law of God, is with regard to this caitiff? That, by all +sacred research and consideration, I will try to find out; to that I +will come as near as human means admit; that shall be my exemplar and +"example;" all men shall through me see that, and be profited _beyond_ +calculation by seeing it. + +What this Law of the Universe, or Law made by God, is? Men at one time +read it in their Bible. In many Bibles, Books, and authentic symbols +and monitions of Nature and the World (of Fact, that is, and of +Human Speech, or Wise Interpretation of Fact), there are still clear +indications towards it. Most important it is, for this and for some +other reasons, that men do, in some way, get to see it a little! And if +no man could now see it by any Bible, there is written in the heart of +every man an authentic copy of it direct from Heaven itself: there, if +he have learnt to decipher Heaven's writing, and can read the sacred +oracles (a sad case for him if he altogether cannot), every born man may +still find some copy of it. + +"Revenge," my friends! revenge, and the natural hatred of scoundrels, +and the ineradicable tendency to _revancher_ oneself upon them, and +pay them what they have merited: this is forevermore intrinsically a +correct, and even a divine feeling in the mind of every man. Only +the excess of it is diabolic; the essence I say is manlike, and even +godlike,--a monition sent to poor man by the Maker himself. Thou, poor +reader, in spite of all this melancholy twaddle, and blotting out of +Heaven's sunlight by mountains of horsehair and officiality, hast still +a human heart. If, in returning to thy poor peaceable dwelling-place, +after an honest hard day's work, thou wert to find, for example, a +brutal scoundrel who for lucre or other object of his, had slaughtered +the life that was dearest to thee; thy true wife, for example, thy true +old mother, swimming in her blood; the human scoundrel, or two-legged +wolf, standing over such a tragedy: I hope a man would have so much +divine rage in his heart as to snatch the nearest weapon, and put a +conclusion upon said human wolf, for one! A palpable messenger of Satan, +that one; accredited by all the Devils, to be put an end to by all the +children of God. The soul of every god-created man flames wholly into +one divine blaze of sacred wrath at sight of such a Devil's-messenger; +authentic firsthand monition from the Eternal Maker himself as to what +is next to be done. Do it, or be thyself an ally of Devil's-messengers; +a sheep for two-legged human wolves, well deserving to be eaten, as thou +soon wilt be! + +My humane friends, I perceive this same sacred glow of divine wrath, or +authentic monition at first hand from God himself, to be the foundation +for all Criminal Law, and Official horsehair-and-bombazine procedure +against Scoundrels in this world. This first-hand gospel from the +Eternities, imparted to every mortal, this is still, and will forever +be, your sanction and commission for the punishment of human scoundrels. +See well how you will translate this message from Heaven and the +Eternities into a form suitable to this World and its Times. Let not +violence, haste, blind impetuous impulse, preside in executing it; the +injured man, invincibly liable to fall into these, shall not himself +execute it: the whole world, in person of a Minister appointed for that +end, and surrounded with the due solemnities and caveats, with bailiffs, +apparitors, advocates, and the hushed expectation of all men, shall do +it, as under the eye of God who made all men. How it shall be done? this +is ever a vast question, involving immense considerations. Thus Edmund +Burke saw, in the Two Houses of Parliament, with King, Constitution, and +all manner of Civil-Lists, and Chancellors' wigs and Exchequer budgets, +only the "method of getting twelve just men put into a jury-box:" that, +in Burke's view, was the summary of what they were all meant for. How +the judge will do it? Yes, indeed:--but let him see well that he does +do it: for it is a thing that must by no means be left undone! A +sacred gospel from the Highest: not to be smothered under horsehair +and bombazine, or drowned in platform froth, or in any wise omitted or +neglected, without the most alarming penalties to all concerned! + +Neglect to treat the hero as hero, the penalties--which are inevitable +too, and terrible to think of, as your Hebrew friends can tell you--may +be some time in coming; they will only gradually come. Not all at once +will your thirty thousand Needlewomen, your three million Paupers, your +Connaught fallen into potential Cannibalism, and other fine consequences +of the practice, come to light;--though come to light they will; and +"Ou' clo'!" itself may be in store for you, if you persist steadily +enough. But neglect to treat even your declared scoundrel as scoundrel, +this is the last consummation of the process, the drop by which the cup +runs over; the penalties of this, most alarming, extensive, and such as +you little dream of, will straightway very rapidly come. Dim oblivion of +Right and Wrong, among the masses of your population, will come; doubts +as to Right and Wrong, indistinct notion that Right and Wrong are not +eternal, but accidental, and settled by uncertain votings and talkings, +will come. Prurient influenza of Platform Benevolence, and "Paradise +to All-and-sundry," will come. In the general putrescence of your +"religions," as you call them, a strange new religion, named of +Universal Love, with Sacraments mainly of--_Divorce_, with Balzac, Sue +and Company for Evangelists, and Madame Sand for Virgin, will come,--and +results fast following therefrom which will astonish you very much! + +"The terrible anarchies of these years," says Crabbe, in his _Radiator_, +"are brought upon us by a necessity too visible. By the crime of +Kings,--alas, yes; but by that of Peoples too. Not by the crime of one +class, but by the fatal obscuration, and all but obliteration of the +sense of Right and Wrong in the minds and practices of every class. What +a scene in the drama of Universal History, this of ours! A world-wide +loud bellow and bray of universal Misery; _lowing_, with crushed +maddened heart, its inarticulate prayer to Heaven:--very pardonable to +me, and in some of its transcendent developments, as in the grand French +Revolution, most respectable and ever-memorable. For Injustice reigns +everywhere; and this murderous struggle for what they call 'Fraternity,' +and so forth has a spice of eternal sense in it, though so terribly +disfigured! Amalgam of sense and nonsense; eternal sense by the grain, +and temporary nonsense by the square mile: as is the habit with poor +sons of men. Which pardonable amalgam, however, if it be taken as the +pure final sense, I must warn you and all creatures, is unpardonable, +criminal, and fatal nonsense;--with which I, for one, will take care not +to concern myself! + +"_Dogs should not be taught to eat leather_, says the old adage: +no;--and where, by general fault and error, and the inevitable nemesis +of things, the universal kennel is set to diet upon _leather_; and from +its keepers, its 'Liberal Premiers,' or whatever their title is, will +accept or expect nothing else, and calls it by the pleasant name of +progress, reform, emancipation, abolition-principles, and the like,--I +consider the fate of said kennel and of said keepers to be a thing +settled. Red republic in Phrygian nightcap, organization of labor _a la_ +Louis Blanc; street-barricades, and then murderous cannon-volleys _a la_ +Cavaignac and Windischgratz, follow out of one another, as grapes, must, +new wine, and sour all-splitting vinegar do: vinegar is but _vin-aigre_, +or the self-same 'wine' grown _sharp_! If, moreover, I find the Worship +of Human Nobleness abolished in any country, and a _new_ astonishing +Phallus-Worship, with universal Balzac-Sand melodies and litanies in +treble and in bass, established in its stead, what can I compute +but that Nature, in horrible throes, will repugn against such +substitution,--that, in short, the astonishing new Phallus-Worship, with +its finer sensibilities of the heart, and 'great satisfying loves,' +with its sacred kiss of peace for scoundrel and hero alike, with its +all-embracing Brotherhood, and universal Sacrament of Divorce, will have +to take itself away again!" + + +The Ancient Germans, it appears, had no scruple about public executions; +on the contrary, they thought the just gods themselves might fitly +preside over these; that these were a solemn and highest act of worship, +if justly done. When a German man had done a crime deserving death, +they, in solemn general assembly of the tribe, doomed him, and +considered that Fate and all Nature had from the beginning doomed him, +to die with ignominy. Certain crimes there were of a supreme nature; +him that had perpetrated one of these, they believed to have declared +himself a prince of scoundrels. Him once convicted they laid hold of, +nothing doubting; bore him, after judgment, to the deepest convenient +Peat-bog; plunged him in there, drove an oaken frame down over him, +solemnly in the name of gods and men: "There, prince of scoundrels, that +is what we have had to think of thee, on clear acquaintance; our grim +good-night to thee is that! In the name of all the gods lie there, and +be our partnership with thee dissolved henceforth. It will be better for +us, we imagine!" + +My friends, after all this beautiful whitewash and humanity and +prison-discipline; and such blubbering and whimpering, and soft Litany +to divine and also to quite other sorts of Pity, as we have had for a +century now,--give me leave to admonish you that that of the Ancient +Germans too was a thing inexpressibly necessary to keep in mind. If that +is not kept in mind, the universal Litany to Pity is a mere universal +nuisance, and torpid blasphemy against the gods. I do not much respect +it, that purblind blubbering and litanying, as it is seen at present; +and the litanying over scoundrels I go the length of disrespecting, +and in some cases even of detesting. Yes, my friends, scoundrel is +scoundrel: that remains forever a fact; and there exists not in the +earth whitewash that can make the scoundrel a friend of this Universe; +he remains an enemy if you spent your life in whitewashing him. He won't +whitewash; this one won't. The one method clearly is, That, after fair +trial, you dissolve partnership with him; send him, in the name of +Heaven, whither _he_ is striving all this while and have done with him. +And, in a time like this, I would advise you, see likewise that you be +speedy about it! For there is immense work, and of a far hopefuler sort, +to be done _elsewhere_. + + +Alas, alas, to see once the "prince of scoundrels," the Supreme +Scoundrel, him whom of all men the gods liked worst, solemnly laid hold +of, and hung upon the gallows in sight of the people; what a lesson to +all the people! Sermons might be preached; the Son of Thunder and the +Mouth of Gold might turn their periods now with some hope; for here, in +the most impressive way, is a divine sermon acted. Didactic as no +spoken sermon could be. Didactic, devotional too;--in awed solemnity, +a recognition that Eternal Justice rules the world; that at the call of +this, human pity shall fall silent, and man be stern as his Master and +Mandatory is!--Understand too that except upon a basis of even such +rigor, sorrowful, silent, inexorable as that of Destiny and Doom, there +is no true pity possible. The pity that proves so possible and plentiful +without that basis, is mere _ignavia_ and cowardly effeminacy; maudlin +laxity of heart, grounded on blinkard dimness of head--contemptible as a +drunkard's tears. + +To see our Supreme Scoundrel hung upon the gallows, alas, that is far +from us just now! There is a worst man in England, too,--curious to +think of,--whom it would be inexpressibly advantageous to lay hold +of, and hang, the first of all. But we do not know him with the least +certainty, the least approach even to a guess,--such buzzards and +dullards and poor children of the Dusk are we, in spite of our +Statistics, Unshackled Presses, and Torches of Knowledge;--not eagles +soaring sunward, not brothers of the lightnings and the radiances we; +a dim horn-eyed, owl-population, intent mainly on the catching of mice! +Alas, the supreme scoundrel, alike with the supreme hero, is very far +from being known. Nor have we the smallest apparatus for dealing +with either of them, if he were known. Our supreme scoundrel sits, I +conjecture, well-cushioned, in high places, at this time; rolls softly +through the world, and lives a prosperous gentleman; instead of sinking +him in peat-bogs, we mount the brazen image of him on high columns: such +is the world's temporary judgment about its supreme scoundrels; a mad +world, my masters. To get the supreme scoundrel always accurately the +first hanged, this, which presupposes that the supreme hero were always +the first promoted, this were precisely the millennium itself, clear +evidence that the millennium had come: alas, we must forbear hope of +this. Much water will run by before we see this. + +And yet to quit all aim towards it; to go blindly floundering along, +wrapt up in clouds of horsehair, bombazine, and sheepskin officiality, +oblivious that there exists such an aim; this is indeed fatal. In every +human law there must either exist such an aim, or else the law is not a +human but a diabolic one. Diabolic, I say: no quantity of bombazine, or +lawyers' wigs, three-readings, and solemn trumpeting and bow-wowing +in high places or in low, can hide from me its frightful infernal +tendency;--bound, and sinking at all moments gradually to Gehenna, +this "law;" and dragging down much with it! "To decree _injustice_ by +a _law_:" inspired Prophets have long since seen, what every clear soul +may still see, that of all Anarchies and Devil-worships there is none +like this; that this is the "Throne of Iniquity" set up in the name of +the Highest, the human Apotheosis of Anarchy itself. "_Quiet_ Anarchy," +you exultingly say? Yes; quiet Anarchy, which the longer it sits "quiet" +will have the frightfuler account to settle at last. For every doit of +the account, as I often say, will have to be settled one day, as sure as +God lives. Principal, and compound interest rigorously computed; and the +interest is at a terrible rate per cent in these cases! Alas, the aspect +of certain beatified Anarchies, sitting "quiet;" and of others in a +state of infernal explosion for sixty years back: this, the one view our +Europe offers at present, makes these days very sad.-- + +My unfortunate philanthropic friends, it is this long-continued oblivion +of the soul of law that has reduced the Criminal Question to such a pass +among us. Many other things have come, and are coming, for the same sad +reason, to a pass! Not the supreme scoundrel have our laws aimed at; +but, in an uncertain fitful manner, at the inferior or lowest scoundrel, +who robs shop-tills and puts the skin of mankind in danger. How can +Parliament get through the Criminal Question? Parliament, oblivious of +Heavenly Law, will find itself in hopeless _reductio ad absurdum_ in +regard to innumerable other questions,--in regard to all questions +whatsoever by and by. There will be no existence possible for Parliament +on these current terms. Parliament, in its law-makings, must really try +to attain some vision again of what Heaven's Laws are. A thing not +easy to do; a thing requiring sad sincerity of heart, reverence, pious +earnestness, valiant manful wisdom;--qualities not overabundant in +Parliament just now, nor out of it, I fear. + +Adieu, my friends. My anger against you is gone; my sad reflections +on you, and on the depths to which you and I and all of us are sunk in +these strange times, are not to be uttered at present. You would have +saved the Sarawak Pirates, then? The Almighty Maker is wroth that the +Sarawak cut-throats, with their poisoned spears, are away? What must his +wrath be that the thirty thousand Needlewomen are still here, and the +question of "prevenient grace" not yet settled! O my friends, in sad +earnest, sad and deadly earnest, there much needs that God would mend +all this, and that we should help him to mend it!--And don't you think, +for one thing, "Farmer Hodge's horses" in the Sugar Islands are pretty +well "emancipated" now? My clear opinion farther is, we had better quit +the Scoundrel-province of Reform; better close that under hatches, in +some rapid summary manner, and go elsewhither with our Reform efforts. A +whole world, for want of Reform, is drowning and sinking; threatening to +swamp itself into a Stygian quagmire, uninhabitable by any noble-minded +man. Let us to the well-heads, I say; to the chief fountains of these +waters of bitterness; and there strike home and dig! To puddle in the +embouchures and drowned outskirts, and ulterior and ultimate issues and +cloacas of the affair: what profit can there be in that? Nothing to be +saved there; nothing to be fished up there, except, with endless peril +and spread of pestilence, a miscellany of broken waifs and dead dogs! In +the name of Heaven, quit that! + + + + +No. III. DOWNING STREET. [April 1, 1850.] + +From all corners of the wide British Dominion there rises one complaint +against the ineffectuality of what are nicknamed our "red-tape" +establishments, our Government Offices, Colonial Office, Foreign +Office and the others, in Downing Street and the neighborhood. To me +individually these branches of human business are little known; but +every British citizen and reflective passer-by has occasion to wonder +much, and inquire earnestly, concerning them. To all men it is evident +that the social interests of one hundred and fifty Millions of us depend +on the mysterious industry there carried on; and likewise that the +dissatisfaction with it is great, universal, and continually increasing +in intensity,--in fact, mounting, we might say, to the pitch of settled +despair. + +Every colony, every agent for a matter colonial, has his tragic tale +to tell you of his sad experiences in the Colonial Office; what blind +obstructions, fatal indolences, pedantries, stupidities, on the right +and on the left, he had to do battle with; what a world-wide jungle of +red-tape, inhabited by doleful creatures, deaf or nearly so to human +reason or entreaty, he had entered on; and how he paused in amazement, +almost in despair; passionately appealed now to this doleful creature, +now to that, and to the dead red-tape jungle, and to the living Universe +itself, and to the Voices and to the Silences;--and, on the whole, found +that it was an adventure, in sorrowful fact, equal to the fabulous +ones by old knights-errant against dragons and wizards in enchanted +wildernesses and waste howling solitudes; not achievable except by +nearly superhuman exercise of all the four cardinal virtues, and +unexpected favor of the special blessing of Heaven. His adventure +achieved or found unachievable, he has returned with experiences new +to him in the affairs of men. What this Colonial Office, inhabiting +the head of Downing Street, really was, and had to do, or try doing, in +God's practical Earth, he could not by any means precisely get to know; +believes that it does not itself in the least precisely know. Believes +that nobody knows;--that it is a mystery, a kind of Heathen myth; +and stranger than any piece of the old mythological Pantheon; for it +practically presides over the destinies of many millions of living men. + +Such is his report of the Colonial Office: and if we oftener hear such +a report of that than we do of the Home Office, Foreign Office or the +rest,--the reason probably is, that Colonies excite more attention at +present than any of our other interests. The Forty Colonies, it appears, +are all pretty like rebelling just now; and are to be pacified with +constitutions; luckier Constitutions, let us hope, than some late ones +have been. Loyal Canada, for instance, had to quench a rebellion the +other year; and this year, in virtue of its constitution, it is +called upon to pay the rebels their damages; which surely is a rather +surprising result, however constitutional!--Men have rents and moneys +dependent in the Colonies; Emigration schemes, Black Emancipations, +New-Zealand and other schemes; and feel and publish more emphatically +what their Downing-Street woes in these respects have been. + +Were the state of poor sallow English ploughers and weavers, what we may +call the Sallow or Yellow Emancipation interest, as much in object with +Exeter-Hall Philanthropists as that of the Black blockheads now all +emancipated, and going at large without work, or need of working, in +West-India clover (and fattening very much in it, one delights to hear), +then perhaps the Home Office, its huge virtual task better understood, +and its small actual performance better seen into, might be found still +more deficient, and behind the wants of the age, than the Colonial +itself is. + +How it stands with the Foreign Office, again, one still less knows. +Seizures of Sapienza, and the like sudden appearances of Britain in the +character of Hercules-Harlequin, waving, with big bully-voice, her huge +sword-of-sharpness over field-mice, and in the air making horrid circles +(horrid catherine-wheels and death-disks of metallic terror from +said huge sword), to see how they will like it,--do from time to time +astonish the world, in a not pleasant manner. Hercules-Harlequin, the +Attorney Triumphant, the World's Busybody: none of these are parts this +Nation has a turn for; she, if you consulted her, would rather not play +these parts, but another! Seizures of Sapienza, correspondences with +Sotomayor, remonstrances to Otho King of Athens, fleets hanging by their +anchor in behalf of the Majesty of Portugal; and in short the whole, +or at present very nearly the whole, of that industry of protocolling, +diplomatizing, remonstrating, admonishing, and "having the honor to +be,"--has sunk justly in public estimation to a very low figure. + +For in fact, it is reasonably asked, What vital interest has England +in any cause now deciding itself in foreign parts? Once there was a +Papistry and Protestantism, important as life eternal and death eternal; +more lately there was an interest of Civil Order and Horrors of the +French Revolution, important at least as rent-roll and preservation of +the game; but now what is there? No cause in which any god or man of +this British Nation can be thought to be concerned. Sham-kingship, now +recognized and even self-recognized everywhere to be sham, wrestles +and struggles with mere ballot-box Anarchy: not a pleasant spectacle to +British minds. Both parties in the wrestle professing earnest wishes of +peace to us, what have we to do with it except answer earnestly, "Peace, +yes certainly," and mind our affairs elsewhere. The British Nation has +no concern with that indispensable sorrowful and shameful wrestle now +going on everywhere in foreign parts. The British Nation already, by +self-experience centuries old, understands all that; was lucky enough +to transact the greater part of that, in noble ancient ages, while the +wrestle had not yet become a shameful one, but on both sides of it there +was wisdom, virtue, heroic nobleness fruitful to all time,--thrice-lucky +British Nation! The British Nation, I say, has nothing to learn there; +has now quite another set of lessons to learn, far ahead of what +is going on there. Sad example there, of what the issue is, and how +inevitable and how imminent, might admonish the British Nation to +be speedy with its new lessons; to bestir itself, as men in peril of +conflagration do, with the neighboring houses all on fire! To obtain, +for its own very pressing behoof, if by possibility it could, some real +Captaincy instead of an imaginary one: to remove resolutely, and replace +by a better sort, its own peculiar species of teaching and guiding +histrios of various name, who here too are numerous exceedingly, and +much in need of gentle removal, while the play is still good, and the +comedy has not yet become _tragic_; and to be a little swift about it +withal; and so to escape the otherwise inevitable evil day! This Britain +might learn: but she does not need a protocolling establishment, with +much "having the honor to be," to teach it her. + +No:--she has in fact certain cottons, hardwares and such like to sell in +foreign parts, and certain wines, Portugal oranges, Baltic tar and +other products to buy; and does need, I suppose, some kind of Consul, or +accredited agent, accessible to British voyagers, here and there, in the +chief cities of the Continent: through which functionary, or through the +penny-post, if she had any specific message to foreign courts, it would +be easy and proper to transmit the same. Special message-carriers, to be +still called Ambassadors, if the name gratified them, could be sent when +occasion great enough demanded; not sent when it did not. But for all +purposes of a resident ambassador, I hear persons extensively and well +acquainted among our foreign embassies at this date declare, That a +well-selected _Times_ reporter or "own correspondent" ordered to reside +in foreign capitals, and keep his eyes open, and (though sparingly) his +pen going, would in reality be much more effective;--and surely we see +well, he would come a good deal cheaper! Considerably cheaper in expense +of money; and in expense of falsity and grimacing hypocrisy (of which no +human arithmetic can count the ultimate cost) incalculably cheaper! +If this is the fact, why not treat it as such? If this is so in any +measure, we had better in that measure admit it to be so! The time, I +believe, has come for asking with considerable severity, How far is it +so? Nay there are men now current in political society, men of weight +though also of wit, who have been heard to say, "That there was but one +reform for the Foreign Office,--to set a live coal under it," and with, +of course, a fire-brigade which could prevent the undue spread of the +devouring element into neighboring houses, let that reform it! In +such odor is the Foreign Office too, if it were not that the Public, +oppressed and nearly stifled with a mere infinitude of bad odors, +neglects this one,--in fact, being able nearly always to avoid the +street where it is, _escapes_ this one, and (except a passing curse, +once in the quarter or so) as good as forgets the existence of it. + +Such, from sad personal experience and credited prevailing rumor, is the +exoteric public conviction about these sublime establishments in Downing +Street and the neighborhood, the esoteric mysteries of which are indeed +still held sacred by the initiated, but believed by the world to be mere +Dalai-Lama pills, manufactured let not refined lips hint how, and quite +_un_salvatory to mankind. Every one may remark what a hope animates the +eyes of any circle, when it is reported or even confidently asserted, +that Sir Robert Peel has in his mind privately resolved to go, one day, +into that stable of King Augeas, which appalls human hearts, so rich +is it, high-piled with the droppings of two hundred years; and +Hercules-like to load a thousand night-wagons from it, and turn running +water into it, and swash and shovel at it, and never leave it till the +antique pavement, and real basis of the matter, show itself clean again! +In any intelligent circle such a rumor, like the first break of day +to men in darkness, enlightens all eyes; and each says devoutly, +"_Faxitis_, O ye righteous Powers that have pity on us! All England +grateful, with kindling looks, will rise in the rear of him, and from +its deepest heart bid him good speed!" + +For it is universally felt that some _esoteric_ man, well acquainted +with the mysteries and properties good and evil of the administrative +stable, is the fittest to reform it, nay can alone reform it otherwise +than by sheer violence and destruction, which is a way we would avoid; +that in fact Sir Robert Peel is, at present, the one likely or possible +man to reform it. And secondly it is felt that "reform" in that +Downing-Street department of affairs is precisely the reform which were +worth all others; that those administrative establishments in Downing +Street are really the Government of this huge ungoverned Empire; that +to clean out the dead pedantries, unveracities, indolent somnolent +impotences, and accumulated dung-mountains there, is the beginning of +all practical good whatsoever. Yes, get down once again to the actual +_pavement_ of that; ascertain what the thing is, and was before dung +accumulated in it; and what it should and may, and must, for the life's +sake of this Empire, henceforth become: here clearly lies the heart of +the whole matter. Political reform, if this be not reformed, is naught +and a mere mockery. + +What England wants, and will require to have, or sink in nameless +anarchies, is not a Reformed Parliament, meaning thereby a Parliament +elected according to the six or the four or any other number of "points" +and cunningly devised improvements in hustings mechanism, but a Reformed +Executive or Sovereign Body of Rulers and Administrators,--some improved +method, innumerable improvements in our poor blind methods, of getting +hold of these. Not a better Talking-Apparatus, the best conceivable +Talking-Apparatus would do very little for us at present;--but an +infinitely better Acting-Apparatus, the benefits of which would be +invaluable now and henceforth. The practical question puts itself with +ever-increasing stringency to all English minds: Can we, by no industry, +energy, utmost expenditure of human ingenuity, and passionate invocation +of the Heavens and Earth, get to attain some twelve or ten or six men to +manage the affairs of this nation in Downing Street and the chief posts +elsewhere, who are abler for the work than those we have been used to, +this long while? For it is really a heroic work, and cannot be done by +histrios, and dexterous talkers having the honor to be: it is a heavy +and appalling work; and, at the starting of it especially, will +require Herculean men; such mountains of pedant exuviae and obscene +owl-droppings have accumulated in those regions, long the habitation +of doleful creatures; the old _pavements_, the natural facts and real +essential functions of those establishments, have not been seen by eyes +for these two hundred years last past! Herculean men acquainted with the +virtues of running water, and with the divine necessity of getting down +to the clear pavements and old veracities; who tremble before no amount +of pedant exuviae, no loudest shrieking of doleful creatures; who +tremble only to live, themselves, like inane phantasms, and to leave +their life as a paltry _contribution_ to the guano mountains, and not as +a divine eternal protest against them! + +These are the kind of men we want; these, the nearest possible +approximation to these, are the men we must find and have, or go +bankrupt altogether; for the concern as it is will evidently not hold +long together. How true is this of Crabbe: "Men sit in Parliament +eighty-three hours per week, debating about many things. Men sit in +Downing Street, doing protocols, Syrian treaties, Greek questions, +Portuguese, Spanish, French, Egyptian and AEthiopian questions; +dexterously writing despatches, and having the honor to be. Not a +question of them is at all pressing in comparison with the English +question. Pacifico the miraculous Gibraltar Jew has been hustled by some +populace in Greece:--upon him let the British Lion drop, very rapidly +indeed, a constitutional tear. Radetzky is said to be advancing upon +Milan;--I am sorry to hear it, and perhaps it does deserve a despatch, +or friendly letter, once and away: but the Irish Giant, named of +Despair, is advancing upon London itself, laying waste all English +cities, towns and villages; that is the interesting Government despatch +of the day! I notice him in Piccadilly, blue-visaged, thatched in rags, +a blue child on each arm; hunger-driven, wide-mouthed, seeking whom he +may devour: he, missioned by the just Heavens, too truly and too sadly +their 'divine missionary' come at last in this authoritative manner, +will throw us all into Doubting Castle, I perceive! That is the +phenomenon worth protocolling about, and writing despatches upon, and +thinking of with all one's faculty day and night, if one wishes to have +the honor to be--anything but a Phantasm Governor of England just now! +I entreat your Lordship's all but undivided attention to that Domestic +Irish Giant, named of Despair, for a great many years to come. Prophecy +of him there has long been; but now by the rot of the potato (blessed be +the just gods, who send us either swift death or some beginning of +cure at last!), he is here in person, and there is no denying him, or +disregarding him any more; and woe to the public watchman that ignores +him, and sees Pacifico the Gibraltar Jew instead!" + + +What these strange Entities in Downing Street intrinsically are; who +made them, why they were made; how they do their function; and what +their function, so huge in appearance, may in net-result amount to,--is +probably known to no mortal. The unofficial mind passes by in dark +wonder; not pretending to know. The official mind must not blab;--the +official mind, restricted to its own square foot of territory in the +vast labyrinth, is probably itself dark, and unable to blab. We see the +outcome; the mechanism we do not see. How the tailors clip and sew, in +that sublime sweating establishment of theirs, we know not: that the +coat they bring us out is the sorrowfulest fantastic mockery of a coat, +a mere intricate artistic network of traditions and formalities, an +embroiled reticulation made of web-listings and superannuated thrums and +tatters, endurable to no grown Nation as a coat, is mournfully clear!-- + +Two kinds of fundamental error are supposable in such a set of Offices; +these two, acting and reacting, are the vice of all inefficient Offices +whatever.--_First_, that the work, such as it may be, is ill done in +these establishments. That it is delayed, neglected, slurred over, +committed to hands that cannot do it well; that, in a word, the +questions sent thither are not wisely handled, but unwisely; not decided +truly and rapidly, but with delays and wrong at last: which is the +principal character, and the infallible result, of an insufficient +Intellect being set to decide them. Or _second_, what is still fataler, +the work done there may itself be quite the wrong kind of work. Not +the kind of supervision and direction which Colonies, and other such +interests, Home or Foreign, do by the nature of them require from the +Central Government; not that, but a quite other kind! The Sotomayor +correspondence, for example, is considered by many persons not to +be mismanaged merely, but to be a thing which should never have been +managed at all; a quite superfluous concern, which and the like of which +the British Government has almost no call to get into, at this new epoch +of time. And not Sotomayor only, nor Sapienza only, in regard to that +Foreign Office, but innumerable other things, if our witty friend of the +"live coal" have reason in him! Of the Colonial Office, too, it is urged +that the questions they decide and operate upon are, in very great part, +questions which they never should have meddled with, but almost all +of which should have been decided in the Colonies themselves,--Mother +Country or Colonial Office reserving its energy for a quite other class +of objects, which are terribly neglected just now. + +These are the two vices that beset Government Offices; both of them +originating in insufficient Intellect,--that sad insufficiency from +which, directly or indirectly, all evil whatsoever springs! And these +two vices act and react, so that where the one is, the other is sure to +be; and each encouraging the growth of the other, both (if some cleaning +of the Augeas stable have not intervened for a long while) will be found +in frightful development. You cannot have your work well done, if the +work be not of a right kind, if it be not work prescribed by the law of +Nature as well as by the rules of the office. Laziness, which lies in +wait round all human labor-offices, will in that case infallibly leak +in, and vitiate the doing of the work. The work is but idle; if the +doing of it will but pass, what need of more? The essential problem, +as the rules of office prescribe it for you, if Nature and Fact say +nothing, is that your work be got to pass; if the work itself is worth +nothing, or little or an uncertain quantity, what more can gods or men +require of it, or, above all, can I who am the doer of it require, but +that it be got to pass? + +And now enters another fatal effect, the mother of ever-new mischiefs, +which renders well-doing or improvement impossible, and drives bad +everywhere continually into worse. The work being what we see, a stupid +subaltern will do as well as a gifted one; the essential point is, that +he be a quiet one, and do not bother me who have the driving of him. +Nay, for this latter object, is not a certain height of intelligence +even dangerous? I want no mettled Arab horse, with his flashing glances, +arched, neck and elastic step, to draw my wretched sand-cart through the +streets; a broken, grass-fed galloway, Irish garron, or painful ass with +nothing in the belly of him but patience and furze, will do it safelier +for me, if more slowly. Nay I myself, am I the worse for being of a +feeble order of intelligence; what the irreverent speculative, world +calls barren, red-tapish, limited, and even intrinsically dark and +small, and if it must be said, stupid?--To such a climax does it come +in all Government and other Offices, where Human Stupidity has once +introduced itself (as it will everywhere do), and no Scavenger God +intervenes. The work, at first of some worth, is ill done, and becomes +of less worth and of ever less, and finally of none: the worthless +work can now _afford_ to be ill done; and Human Stupidity, at a +double geometrical ratio, with frightful expansion grows and +accumulates,--towards the unendurable. + +The reforming Hercules, Sir Robert Peel or whoever he is to be, that +enters Downing Street, will ask himself this question first of all, What +work is now necessary, not in form and by traditionary use and wont, but +in very fact, for the vital interests of the British Nation, to be done +here? The second question, How to get it well done, and to keep the +best hands doing it well, will be greatly simplified by a good answer to +that. Oh for an eye that could see in those hideous mazes, and a heart +that could dare and do! Strenuous faithful scrutiny, not of what is +_thought_ to be what in the red-tape regions, but of what really is +what in the realms of Fact and Nature herself; deep-seeing, wise and +courageous eyes, that could look through innumerable cobweb veils, +and detect what fact or no-fact lies at heart of them,--how invaluable +these! For, alas, it is long since such eyes were much in the habit +of looking steadfastly at any department of our affairs; and poor +commonplace creatures, helping themselves along, in the way of +makeshift, from year to year, in such an element, do wonderful works +indeed. Such creatures, like moles, are safe only underground, and their +engineerings there become very daedalean. In fact, such unfortunate +persons have no resource but to become what we call Pedants; to ensconce +themselves in a safe world of habitudes, of applicable or inapplicable +traditions; not coveting, rather avoiding the general daylight of +common-sense, as very extraneous to them and their procedure; by long +persistence in which course they become Completed Pedants, hidebound, +impenetrable, able to _defy_ the hostile extraneous element; an alarming +kind of men, Such men, left to themselves for a century or two, in any +Colonial, Foreign, or other Office, will make a terrible affair of it! + +For the one enemy we have in this Universe is Stupidity, Darkness of +Mind; of which darkness, again, there are many sources, every _sin_ a +source, and probably self-conceit the chief source. Darkness of mind, +in every kind and variety, does to a really tragic extent abound: but of +all the kinds of darkness, surely the Pedant darkness, which asserts +and believes itself to be light, is the most formidable to mankind! For +empires or for individuals there is but one class of men to be trembled +at; and that is the Stupid Class, the class that cannot see, who alas +are they mainly that will not see. A class of mortals under which as +administrators, kings, priests, diplomatists, &c., the interests +of mankind in every European country have sunk overloaded, as under +universal nightmare, near to extinction; and indeed are at this moment +convulsively writhing, decided either to throw off the unblessed +superincumbent nightmare, or roll themselves and it to the Abyss. Vain +to reform Parliament, to invent ballot-boxes, to reform this or that; +the real Administration, practical Management of the Commonwealth, +goes all awry; choked up with long-accumulated pedantries, so that your +appointed workers have been reduced to work as moles; and it is one vast +boring and counter-boring, on the part of eyeless persons irreverently +called stupid; and a daedalean bewilderment, writing "impossible" on all +efforts or proposals, supervenes. + + +The State itself, not in Downing Street alone but in every department of +it, has altered much from what it was in past times; and it will again +have to alter very much, to alter I think from top to bottom, if it +means to continue existing in the times that are now coming and come! + +The State, left to shape itself by dim pedantries and traditions, +without distinctness of conviction, or purpose beyond that of helping +itself over the difficulty of the hour, has become, instead of a +luminous vitality permeating with its light all provinces of our +affairs, a most monstrous agglomerate of inanities, as little adapted +for the actual wants of a modern community as the worst citizen need +wish. The thing it is doing is by no means the thing we want to have +done. What we want! Let the dullest British man endeavor to raise in his +mind this question, and ask himself in sincerity what the British Nation +wants at this time. Is it to have, with endless jargoning, debating, +motioning and counter-motioning, a settlement effected between the +Honorable Mr. This and the Honorable Mr. That, as to their respective +pretensions to ride the high horse? Really it is unimportant which of +them ride it. Going upon past experience long continued now, I should +say with brevity, "Either of them--Neither of them." If our Government +is to be a No-Government, what is the matter who administers it? Fling +an orange-skin into St. James's Street; let the man it hits be your man. +He, if you breed him a little to it, and tie the due official bladders +to his ankles, will do as well as another this sublime problem of +balancing himself upon the vortexes, with the long loaded-pole in his +hands; and will, with straddling painful gestures, float hither and +thither, walking the waters in that singular manner for a little while, +as well as his foregoers did, till he also capsize, and be left floating +feet uppermost; after which you choose another. + +What an immense pother, by parliamenting and palavering in all corners +of your empire, to decide such a question as that! I say, if that is the +function, almost any human creature can learn to discharge it: fling out +your orange-skin again; and save an incalculable labor, and an emission +of nonsense and falsity, and electioneering beer and bribery and +balderdash, which is terrible to think of, in deciding. Your National +Parliament, in so far as it has only that question to decide, may be +considered as an enormous National Palaver existing mainly for imaginary +purposes; and certain, in these days of abbreviated labor, to get itself +sent home again to its partridge-shootings, fox-huntings, and above all, +to its rat-catchings, if it could but understand the time of day, and +know (as our indignant Crabbe remarks) that "the real Nimrod of this +era, who alone does any good to the era, is the rat-catcher!" + +The notion that any Government is or can be a No-Government, without +the deadliest peril to all noble interests of the Commonwealth, and +by degrees slower or swifter to all ignoble ones also, and to the +very gully-drains, and thief lodging-houses, and Mosaic sweating +establishments, and at last without destruction to such No-Government +itself,--was never my notion; and I hope it will soon cease altogether +to be the world's or to be anybody's. But if it be the correct +notion, as the world seems at present to flatter itself, I point out +improvements and abbreviations. Dismiss your National Palaver; make the +_Times_ Newspaper your National Palaver, which needs no beer-barrels or +hustings, and is _cheaper_ in expense of money and of falsity a thousand +and a million fold; have an economical red-tape drilling establishment +(it were easier to devise such a thing than a right _Modern +University_);--and fling out your orange-skin among the graduates, when +you want a new Premier. + +A mighty question indeed! Who shall be Premier, and take in hand the +"rudder of government," otherwise called the "spigot of taxation;" shall +it be the Honorable Felix Parvulus, or the Right Honorable Felicissimus +Zero? By our electioneerings and Hansard Debatings, and ever-enduring +tempest of jargon that goes on everywhere, we manage to settle that; to +have it declared, with no bloodshed except insignificant blood from +the nose in hustings-time, but with immense beershed and inkshed +and explosion of nonsense, which darkens all the air, that the Right +Honorable Zero is to be the man. That we firmly settle; Zero, all +shivering with rapture and with terror, mounts into the high saddle; +cramps himself on, with knees, heels, hands and feet; and the horse +gallops--whither it lists. That the Right Honorable Zero should attempt +controlling the horse--Alas, alas, he, sticking on with beak and claws, +is too happy if the horse will only gallop any-whither, and not throw +him. Measure, polity, plan or scheme of public good or evil, is not +in the head of Felicissimus; except, if he could but devise it, some +measure that would please his horse for the moment, and encourage him +to go with softer paces, godward or devilward as it might be, and save +Felicissimus's leather, which is fast wearing. This is what we call a +Government in England, for nearly two centuries now. + +I wish Felicissimus were saddle-sick forever and a day! He is a dreadful +object, however much we are used to him. If the horse had not been bred +and broken in, for a thousand years, by real riders and horse-subduers, +perhaps the best and bravest the world ever saw, what would have become +of Felicissimus and him long since? This horse, by second-nature, +religiously respects all fences; gallops, if never so madly, on the +highways alone;--seems to me, of late, like a desperate Sleswick +thunder-horse who had lost his way, galloping in the labyrinthic lanes +of a woody flat country; passionate to reach his goal; unable to reach +it, because in the flat leafy lanes there is no outlook whatever, and +in the bridle there is no guidance whatever. So he gallops stormfully +along, thinking it is forward and forward; and alas, it is only round +and round, out of one old lane into the other;--nay (according to +some) "he mistakes _his own footprints_, which of course grow ever more +numerous, for the sign of a more and more frequented road;" and his +despair is hourly increasing. My impression is, he is certain soon, such +is the growth of his necessity and his despair, to--plunge _across_ the +fence, into an opener survey of the country; and to sweep Felicissimus +off his back, and comb him away very tragically in the process! Poor +Sleswicker, I wish you were better ridden. I perceive it lies in the +Fates you must now either be better ridden, or else not long at all. +This plunging in the heavy labyrinth of over-shaded lanes, with one's +stomach getting empty, one's Ireland falling into cannibalism, and no +vestige of a goal either visible or possible, cannot last. + + +Colonial Offices, Foreign, Home and other Offices, got together under +these strange circumstances, cannot well be expected to be the best that +human ingenuity could devise; the wonder rather is to see them so good +as they are. Who made them, ask me not. Made they clearly were; for we +see them here in a concrete condition, writing despatches, and drawing +salary with a view to buy pudding. But how those Offices in Downing +Street were made; who made them, or for what kind of objects they were +made, would be hard to say at present. Dim visions and phantasmagories +gathered from the Books of Horace Walpole, Memoirs of Bubb Doddington, +Memoirs of my Lady Sundon, Lord Fanny Hervey, and innumerable others, +rise on us, beckoning fantastically towards, not an answer, but some +conceivable intimations of an answer, and proclaiming very legibly the +old text, "_Quam parva sapientia_," in respect of this hard-working +much-subduing British Nation; giving rise to endless reflections in a +thinking Englishman of this day. Alas, it is ever so: each generation +has its task, and does it better or worse; greatly neglecting what is +not immediately its task. Our poor grandfathers, so busy conquering +Indias, founding Colonies, inventing spinning-jennies, kindling +Lancashires and Bromwichams, took no thought about the government of +all that; left it all to be governed by Lord Fanny and the Hanover +Succession, or how the gods pleased. And now we the poor grandchildren +find that it will not stick together on these terms any longer; that our +sad, dangerous and sore task is to discover some government for this +big world which has been conquered to us; that the red-tape Offices +in Downing Street are near the end of their rope; that if we can get +nothing better, in the way of government, it is all over with our world +and us. How the Downing-Street Offices originated, and what the meaning +of them was or is, let Dryasdust, when in some lucid moment the whim +takes him, instruct us. Enough for us to know and see clearly, with +urgent practical inference derived from such insight, That they were not +made for us or for our objects at all; that the devouring Irish Giant +is here, and that he cannot be fed with red-tape, and will eat us if we +cannot feed him. + +On the whole, let us say Felicissimus made them;--or rather it was +the predecessors of Felicissimus, who were not so dreadfully hunted, +sticking to the wild and ever more desperate Sleswicker in the leafy +labyrinth of lanes, as he now is. He, I think, will never make anything; +but be combed off by the elm-boughs, and left sprawling in the ditch. +But in past time, this and the other heavy-laden red-tape soul had +withal a glow of patriotism in him; now and then, in his whirling +element, a gleam of human ingenuity, some eye towards business that must +be done. At all events, for him and every one, Parliament needed to +be persuaded that business was done. By the contributions of many such +heavy-laden souls, driven on by necessity outward and inward, these +singular Establishments are here. Contributions--who knows how far back +they go, far beyond the reign of George the Second, or perhaps the reign +of William Conqueror. Noble and genuine some of them were, many of them +were, I need not doubt: for there is no human edifice that stands long +but has got itself planted, here and there, upon the basis of fact; +and being built, in many respects, according to the laws of statics: no +standing edifice, especially no edifice of State, but has had the +wise and brave at work in it, contributing their lives to it; and is +"cemented," whether it know the fact or not, "by the blood of heroes!" +None; not even the Foreign Office, Home Office, still less the National +Palaver itself. William Conqueror, I find, must have had a first-rate +Home Office, for his share. The _Domesday Book_, done in four years, +and done as it is, with such an admirable brevity, explicitness and +completeness, testifies emphatically what kind of under-secretaries and +officials William had. Silent officials and secretaries, I suppose; +not wasting themselves in parliamentary talk; reserving all their +intelligence for silent survey of the huge dumb fact, silent +consideration how they might compass the mastery of that. Happy +secretaries, happy William! + +But indeed nobody knows what inarticulate traditions, remnants of old +wisdom, priceless though quite anonymous, survive in many modern things +that still have life in them. Ben Brace, with his taciturnities, and +rugged stoical ways, with his tarry breeches, stiff as plank-breeches, +I perceive is still a kind of _Lod-brog_ (Loaded-breeks) in more senses +than one; and derives, little conscious of it, many of his excellences +from the old Sea-kings and Saxon Pirates themselves; and how many Blakes +and Nelsons since have contributed to Ben! "Things are not so false +always as they seem," said a certain Professor to me once: "of this +you will find instances in every country, and in your England more than +any--and I hope will draw lessons from them. An English Seventy-four, if +you look merely at the articulate law and methods of it, is one of the +impossiblest entities. The captain is appointed not by preeminent merit +in sailorship, but by parliamentary connection; the men [this was spoken +some years ago] are got by impressment; a press-gang goes out, knocks +men down on the streets of sea-towns, and drags them on board,--if the +ship were to be stranded, I have heard they would nearly all run ashore +and desert. Can anything be more unreasonable than a Seventy-four? +Articulately almost nothing. But it has inarticulate traditions, ancient +methods and habitudes in it, stoicisms, noblenesses, _true_ rules +both of sailing and of conduct; enough to keep it afloat on Nature's +veridical bosom, after all. See; if you bid it sail to the end of the +world, it will lift anchor, go, and arrive. The raging oceans do not +beat it back; it too, as well as the raging oceans, has a relationship +to Nature, and it does not sink, but under the due conditions is borne +along. If it meet with hurricanes, it rides them out; if it meet an +Enemy's ship, it shivers it to powder; and in short, it holds on its +way, and to a wonderful extent _does_ what it means and pretends to do. +Assure yourself, my friend, there is an immense fund of truth somewhere +or other stowed in that Seventy-four." + + +More important than the past history of these Offices in Downing Street, +is the question of their future history; the question, How they are +to be got mended! Truly an immense problem, inclusive of all others +whatsoever; which demands to be attacked, and incessantly persisted in, +by all good citizens, as the grand problem of Society, and the one thing +needful for the Commonwealth! A problem in which all men, with all their +wisdoms and all their virtues, faithfully and continually co-operating +at it, will never have done _enough_, and will still only be struggling +_towards_ perfection in it. In which some men can do much;--in which +every man can do something. Every man, and thou my present Reader canst +do this: _Be_ thyself a man abler to be governed; more reverencing the +divine faculty of governing, more sacredly detesting the diabolical +semblance of said faculty in self and others; so shalt thou, if not +govern, yet actually according to thy strength assist in real governing. +And know always, and even lay to heart with a quite unusual solemnity, +with a seriousness altogether of a religious nature, that as "Human +Stupidity" is verily the accursed parent of all this mischief, so +Human Intelligence alone, to which and to which only is victory and +blessedness appointed here below, will or can cure it. If we knew +this as devoutly as we ought to do, the evil, and all other evils were +curable;--alas, if we had from of old known this, as all men made in +God's image ought to do, the evil never would have been! Perhaps few +Nations have ever known it less than we, for a good while back, have +done. Hence these sorrows. + +What a People are the poor Thibet idolaters, compared with us and +our "religions," which issue in the worship of King Hudson as our +Dalai-Lama! They, across such hulls of abject ignorance, have seen into +the heart of the matter; we, with our torches of knowledge everywhere +brandishing themselves, and such a human enlightenment as never was +before, have quite missed it. Reverence for Human Worth, earnest devout +search for it and encouragement of it, loyal furtherance and obedience +to it: this, I say, is the outcome and essence of all true "religions," +and was and ever will be. We have not known this. No; loud as our +tongues sometimes go in that direction, we have no true reverence +for Human Intelligence, for Human Worth and Wisdom: none, or too +little,--and I pray for a restoration of such reverence, as for the +change from Stygian darkness to Heavenly light, as for the return +of life to poor sick moribund Society and all its interests. Human +Intelligence means little for most of us but Beaver Contrivance, which +produces spinning-mules, cheap cotton, and large fortunes. Wisdom, +unless it give us railway scrip, is not wise. + +True nevertheless it forever remains that Intellect is the real object +of reverence, and of devout prayer, and zealous wish and pursuit, among +the sons of men; and even, well understood, the one object. It is the +Inspiration of the Almighty that giveth men understanding. For it must +be repeated, and ever again repeated till poor mortals get to discern +it, and awake from their baleful paralysis, and degradation under foul +enchantments, That a man of Intellect, of real and not sham Intellect, +is by the nature of him likewise inevitably a man of nobleness, a man +of courage, rectitude, pious strength; who, even _because_ he is and has +been loyal to the Laws of this Universe, is initiated into _discernment_ +of the same; to this hour a Missioned of Heaven; whom if men follow, it +will be well with them; whom if men do not follow, it will not be well. +Human Intellect, if you consider it well, is the exact summary of Human +_Worth_; and the essence of all worth-ships and worships is reverence +for that same. This much surprises you, friend Peter; but I assure you +it is the fact;--and I would advise you to consider it, and to try +if you too do not gradually find it so. With me it has long been an +article, not of "faith" only, but of settled insight, of conviction as +to what the ordainments of the Maker in this Universe are. Ah, could you +and the rest of us but get to know it, and everywhere religiously +act upon it,--as our _Fortieth_ Article, which includes all the other +Thirty-nine, and without which the Thirty-nine are good for almost +nothing,--there might then be some hope for us! In this world there +is but one appalling creature: the Stupid man _considered_ to be the +Missioned of Heaven, and followed by men. He is our King, men say, +he;--and they follow him, through straight or winding courses, I for one +know well whitherward. + +Abler men in Downing Street, abler men to govern us: yes, that, sure +enough, would gradually remove the dung-mountains, however high they +are; that would be the way, nor is there any other way, to remedy +whatsoever has gone wrong in Downing Street and in the wide regions, +spiritual and temporal, which Downing Street presides over! For the Able +Man, meet him where you may, is definable as the born enemy of Falsity +and Anarchy, and the born soldier of Truth and Order: into what +absurdest element soever you put him, he is there to make it a little +less absurd, to fight continually with it till it become a little sane +and human again. Peace on other terms he, for his part, cannot make with +it; not he, while he continues _able_, or possessed of real intellect +and not imaginary. There is but one man fraught with blessings for this +world, fated to diminish and successively abolish the curses of the +world; and it is he. For him make search, him reverence and follow; know +that to find him or miss him, means victory or defeat for you, in all +Downing Streets, and establishments and enterprises here below.--I leave +your Lordship to judge whether this has been our practice hitherto; +and would humbly inquire what your Lordship thinks is likely to be the +consequence of continuing to neglect this. It ought to have been our +practice; ought, in all places and all times, to be the practice in this +world; so says the fixed law of things forevermore:--and it must cease +to be _not_ the practice, your Lordship; and cannot too speedily do so I +think!-- + +Much has been done in the way of reforming Parliament in late years; but +that of itself seems to avail nothing, or almost less. The men that sit +in Downing Street, governing us, are not abler men since the Reform +Bill than were those before it. Precisely the same kind of men; obedient +formerly to Tory traditions, obedient now to Whig ditto and popular +clamors. Respectable men of office: respectably commonplace in +facility,--while the situation is becoming terribly original! Rendering +their outlooks, and ours, more ominous every day. + +Indisputably enough the meaning of all reform-movement, electing and +electioneering, of popular agitation, parliamentary eloquence, and all +political effort whatsoever, is that you may get the ten Ablest Men in +England put to preside over your ten principal departments of affairs. +To sift and riddle the Nation, so that you might extricate and sift +out the true ten gold grains, or ablest men, and of these make your +Governors or Public Officers; leaving the dross and common sandy or +silty material safely aside, as the thing to be governed, not to govern; +certainly all ballot-boxes, caucuses, Kennington-Common meetings, +Parliamentary debatings, Red Republics, Russian Despotisms, and +constitutional or unconstitutional methods of society among mankind, are +intended to achieve this one end; and some of them, it will be owned, +achieve it very ill!--If you have got your gold grains, if the men +you have got are actually the ablest, then rejoice; with whatever +astonishment, accept your Ten, and thank the gods; under this Ten your +destruction will at least be milder than under another. But if you have +_not_ got them, if you are very far from having got them, then do not +rejoice at all, then _lament_ very much; then admit that your sublime +political constitutions and contrivances do not prove themselves +sublime, but ridiculous and contemptible; that your world's wonder of a +political mill, the envy of surrounding nations, does not yield you real +meal; yields you only powder of millstones (called Hansard Debatings), +and a detestable brown substance not unlike the grindings of dried +horse-dung or prepared street-mud, which though sold under royal +patent, and much recommended by the trade, is quite unfit for culinary +purposes!-- + + +But the disease at least is not mysterious, whatever the remedy be. Our +disease,--alas, is it not clear as the sun, that we suffer under what is +the disease of all the miserable in this world, _want of wisdom_; that +in the Head there is no vision, and that thereby all the members are +dark and in bonds? No vision in the head; heroism, faith, devout insight +to discern what is needful, noble courage to do it, greatly defective +there: not seeing eyes there, but spectacles constitutionally ground, +which, to the unwary, _seem_ to see. A quite fatal circumstance, had +you never so many Parliaments! How is your ship to be steered by a Pilot +with no _eyes_ but a pair of glass ones got from the constitutional +optician? He must steer by the _ear_, I think, rather than by the eye; +by the shoutings he catches from the shore, or from the Parliamentary +benches nearer hand:--one of the frightfulest objects to see steering +in a difficult sea! Reformed Parliaments in that case, reform-leagues, +outer agitations and excitements in never such abundance, cannot profit: +all this is but the writhing, and painful blind convulsion of the +limbs that are in bonds, that are all in dark misery till the head be +delivered, till the pressure on the brain be removed. + +Or perhaps there is now no heroic wisdom left in England; England, once +the land of heroes, is itself sunk now to a dim owlery, and habitation +of doleful creatures, intent only on money-making and other forms of +catching mice, for whom the proper gospel is the gospel of M'Croudy, and +all nobler impulses and insights are forbidden henceforth? Perhaps these +present agreeable Occupants of Downing Street, such as the parliamentary +mill has yielded them, are the _best_ the miserable soil had grown? +The most Herculean Ten Men that could be found among the English +Twenty-seven Millions, are these? There _are_ not, in any place, under +any figure, ten diviner men among us? Well; in that case, the riddling +and searching of the twenty-seven millions has been _successful_. Here +are our ten divinest men; with these, unhappily not divine enough, we +must even content ourselves and die in peace; what help is there? No +help, no hope, in that case. + +But, again, if these are _not_ our divinest men, then evidently there +always is hope, there always is possibility of help; and ruin never is +quite inevitable, till we _have_ sifted out our actually divinest +ten, and set these to try their hand at governing!--That this has been +achieved; that these ten men are the most Herculean souls the English +population held within it, is a proposition credible to no mortal. No, +thank God; low as we are sunk in many ways, this is not yet credible! +Evidently the reverse of this proposition is the fact. Ten much diviner +men do certainly exist. By some conceivable, not forever impossible, +method and methods, ten very much diviner men could be sifted +out!--Courage; let us fix our eyes on that important fact, and strive +all thitherward as towards a door of hope! + + +Parliaments, I think, have proved too well, in late years, that they are +not the remedy. It is not Parliaments, reformed or other, that will ever +send Herculean men to Downing Street, to reform Downing Street for us; +to diffuse therefrom a light of Heavenly Order, instead of the murk of +Stygian Anarchy, over this sad world of ours. That function does not lie +in the capacities of Parliment. That is the function of a _King_,--if +we could get such a priceless entity, which we cannot just now! Failing +which, Statesmen, or Temporary Kings, and at the very lowest one real +Statesman, to shape the dim tendencies of Parliament, and guide them +wisely to the goal: he, I perceive, will be a primary condition, +indispensable for any progress whatsoever. + +One such, perhaps, might be attained; one such might prove discoverable +among our Parliamentary populations? That one, in such an enterprise as +this of Downing Street, might be invaluable! One noble man, at once +of natural wisdom and practical experience; one Intellect still really +human, and not red-tapish, owlish and pedantical, appearing there in +that dim chaos, with word of command; to brandish Hercules-like the +divine broom and shovel, and turn running water in upon the place, and +say as with a fiat, "Here shall be truth, and real work, and talent +to do it henceforth; I will seek for able men to work here, as for the +elixir of life to this poor place and me:"--what might not one such man +effect there! + +Nay one such is not to be dispensed with anywhere in the affairs of +men. In every ship, I say, there must be a _seeing_ pilot, not a mere +hearing one! It is evident you can never get your ship steered through +the difficult straits by persons standing ashore, on this bank and that, +and shouting _their_ confused directions to you: "'Ware that Colonial +Sandbank!--Starboard now, the Nigger Question!--Larboard, _larboard_, +the Suffrage Movement! Financial Reform, your Clothing-Colonels +overboard! The Qualification Movement, 'Ware-re-re!--Helm-a-lee! Bear a +hand there, will you! Hr-r-r, lubbers, imbeciles, fitter for a tailor's +shopboard than a helm of Government, Hr-r-r!"--And so the ship wriggles +and tumbles, and, on the whole, goes as wind and current drive. No ship +was ever steered except to destruction in that manner. I deliberately +say so: no ship of a State either. If you cannot get a real pilot on +board, and put the helm into his hands, your ship is as good as a wreck. +One real pilot on board may save you; all the bellowing from the banks +that ever was, will not, and by the nature of things cannot. Nay your +pilot will have to succeed, if he do succeed, very much in spite of said +bellowing; he will hear all that, and regard very little of it,--in a +patient mild-spoken wise manner, will regard all of it as what it is. +And I never doubt but there is in Parliament itself, in spite of its +vague palaverings which fill us with despair in these times, a dumb +instinct of inarticulate sense and stubborn practical English insight +and veracity, that would manfully support a Statesman who could take +command with really manful notions of Reform, and as one deserving to +be obeyed. Oh for one such; even one! More precious to us than all the +bullion in the Bank, or perhaps that ever was in it, just now! + +For it is Wisdom alone that can recognize wisdom: Folly or Imbecility +never can; and that is the fatalest ban it labors under, dooming it to +perpetual failure in all things. Failure which, in Downing Street and +places of _command_ is especially accursed; cursing not one but hundreds +of millions! Who is there that can recognize real intellect, and do +reverence to it; and discriminate it well from sham intellect, which is +so much more abundant, and deserves the reverse of reverence? He that +himself has it!--One really human Intellect, invested with command, and +charged to reform Downing Street for us, would continually attract real +intellect to those regions, and with a divine magnetism search it out +from the modest corners where it lies hid. And every new accession of +intellect to Downing Street would bring to it benefit only, and would +increase such divine attraction in it, the parent of all benefit there +and elsewhere! + + +"What method, then; by what method?" ask many. Method, alas! To secure +an increased supply of Human Intellect to Downing Street, there will +evidently be no quite effectual "method" but that of increasing the +supply of Human Intellect, otherwise definable as Human Worth, in +Society generally; increasing the supply of sacred reverence for it, of +loyalty to it, and of life-and-death desire and pursuit of it, among +all classes,--if we but knew such a "method"! Alas, that were simply the +method of making all classes Servants of Heaven; and except it be devout +prayer to Heaven, I have never heard of any method! To increase the +reverence for Human Intellect or God's Light, and the detestation +of Human Stupidity or the Devil's Darkness, what method is there? No +method,--except even this, that we should each of us "pray" for it, +instead of praying for mere scrip and the like; that Heaven would please +to vouchsafe us each a little of it, one by one! As perhaps Heaven, in +its infinite bounty, by stern methods, gradually will? Perhaps Heaven +has mercy too in these sore plagues that are oppressing us; and means +to teach us reverence for Heroism and Human Intellect, by such baleful +experience of what issue Imbecility and Parliamentary Eloquence lead to? +Such reverence, I do hope, and even discover and observe, is silently +yet extensively going on among us even in these sad years. In which +small salutary fact there burns for us, in this black coil of universal +baseness fast becoming universal wretchedness, an inextinguishable +hope; far-off but sure, a divine "pillar of fire by night." Courage, +courage!-- + +Meanwhile, that our one reforming Statesman may have free command +of what Intellect there is among us, and room to try all means for +awakening and inviting ever more of it, there has one small Project +of Improvement been suggested; which finds a certain degree of favor +wherever I hear it talked of, and which seems to merit much more +consideration than it has yet received. Practical men themselves approve +of it hitherto, so far as it goes; the one objection being that the +world is not yet prepared to insist on it,--which of course the world +can never be, till once the world consider it, and in the first place +hear tell of it! I have, for my own part, a good opinion of this +project. The old unreformed Parliament of rotten boroughs _had_ one +advantage; but that is hereby, in a far more fruitful and effectual +manner, secured to the new. + +The Proposal is, That Secretaries under and upper, that all manner of +changeable or permanent servants in the Government Offices shall +be selected without reference to their power of getting into +Parliament;--that, in short, the Queen shall have power of nominating +the half-dozen or half-score Officers of the Administration, whose +presence is thought necessary in Parliament, to official seats there, +without reference to any constituency but her own only, which of course +will mean her Prime Minister's. A very small encroachment on the present +constitution of Parliament; offering the minimum of change in present +methods, and I almost think a maximum in results to be derived +therefrom.--The Queen nominates John Thomas (the fittest man she, much +inquiring, can hear tell of in her three kingdoms) President of the +Poor-Law Board, Under Secretary of the Colonies, Under, or perhaps +even Upper Secretary of what she and her Premier find suitablest for a +working head so eminent, a talent so precious; and grants him, by her +direct authority, seat and vote in Parliament so long as he holds that +office. Upper Secretaries, having more to do in Parliament, and being +so bound to be in favor there, would, I suppose, at least till new times +and habits come, be expected to be chosen from among the _People's_ +Members as at present. But whether the Prime Minister himself is, in all +times, bound to be first a People's Member; and which, or how many, +of his Secretaries and subordinates he might be allowed to take as +_Queen's_ Members, my authority does not say,--perhaps has not himself +settled; the project being yet in mere outline or foreshadow, the +practical embodiment in all details to be fixed by authorities much more +competent than he. The soul of his project is, That the Crown also have +power to elect a few members to Parliament. + +From which project, however wisely it were embodied, there could +probably, at first or all at once, no great "accession of intellect" to +the Government Offices ensue; though a little might, even at first, and +a little is always precious: but in its ulterior operation, were that +faithfully developed, and wisely presided over, I fancy an immense +accession of intellect might ensue;--nay a natural ingress might thereby +be opened to all manner of accessions, and the actual flower of whatever +intellect the British Nation had might be attracted towards Downing +Street, and continue flowing steadily thither! For, let us see a little +what effects this simple change carries in it the possibilities of. Here +are beneficent germs, which the presence of one truly wise man as Chief +Minister, steadily fostering them for even a few years, with the sacred +fidelity and vigilance that would beseem him, might ripen into living +practices and habitual facts, invaluable to us all. + +What it is that Secretaries of State, Managers of Colonial +Establishments, of Home and Foreign Government interests, have really +and truly to do in Parliament, might admit of various estimate in these +times. An apt debater in Parliament is by no means certain to be an able +administrator of Colonies, of Home or Foreign Affairs; nay, rather +quite the contrary is to be presumed of him; for in order to become a +"brilliant speaker," if that is his character, considerable portions of +his natural internal endowment must have gone to the surface, in order +to make a shining figure there, and precisely so much the less (few men +in these days know how much less!) must remain available in the internal +silent state, or as faculty for thinking, for devising and acting, +which latter and which alone is the function essential for him in his +Secretaryship. Not to tell a good story for himself "in Parliament and +to the twenty-seven millions, many of them fools;" not that, but to do +good administration, to know with sure eye, and decide with just and +resolute heart, what is what in the _things_ committed to his charge: +this and not that is the service which poor England, whatever it may +think and maunder, does require and want of the Official Man in Downing +Street. Given a good Official Man or Secretary, he really ought, as far +as it is possible, to be left working in the silent state. No mortal can +both work, and do good talking in Parliament, or out of it: the feat is +impossible as that of serving two hostile masters. + +Nor would I, if it could be helped, much trouble my good Secretary with +addressing Parliament: needful explanations; yes, in a free country, +surely;--but not to every frivolous and vexatious person, in or out of +Parliament, who chooses to apply for them. There should be demands +for explanation too which were reckoned frivolous and vexatious, and +censured as such. These, I should say, are the not needful explanations: +and if my poor Secretary is to be called out from his workshop to answer +every one of these,--his workshop will become (what we at present see +it, deservedly or not) little other than a pillory; the poor Secretary +a kind of talking-machine, exposed to dead cats and rotten eggs; and +the "work" got out of him or of it will, as heretofore, be very +inconsiderable indeed!--Alas, on this side also, important improvements +are conceivable; and will even, I imagine, get them whence we may, be +found indispensable one day. The honorable gentleman whom you interrupt +here, he, in his official capacity, is not an individual now, but the +embodiment of a Nation; he is the "People of England" engaged in the +work of Secretaryship, this one; and cannot forever afford to let the +three Tailors of Tooley Street break in upon him at all hours!-- + +But leaving this, let us remark one thing which is very plain: That +whatever be the uses and duties, real or supposed, of a Secretary +in Parliament, his faculty to accomplish these is a point entirely +unconnected with his ability to get elected into Parliament, and has +no relation or proportion to it, and no concern with it whatever. +Lord Tommy and the Honorable John are not a whit better qualified for +Parliamentary duties, to say nothing of Secretary duties, than plain +Tom and Jack; they are merely better qualified, as matters stand, +for getting admitted to try them. Which state of matters a reforming +Premier, much in want of abler men to help him, now proposes altering. +Tom and Jack, once admitted by the Queen's writ, there is every reason +to suppose will do quite as well there as Lord Tommy and the Honorable +John. In Parliament quite as well: and elsewhere, in the other +infinitely more important duties of a Government Office, which indeed +are and remain the essential, vital and intrinsic duties of such a +personage, is there the faintest reason to surmise that Tom and Jack, +if well chosen, will fall short of Lord Tommy and the Honorable John? No +shadow of a reason. Were the intrinsic genius of the men exactly equal, +there is no shadow of a reason: but rather there is quite the reverse; +for Tom and Jack have been at least workers all their days, not idlers, +game-preservers and mere human clothes-horses, at any period of their +lives; and have gained a schooling _thereby_, of which Lord Tommy and +the Honorable John, unhappily strangers to it for most part, can form no +conception! Tom and Jack have already, on this most narrow hypothesis, +a decided _superiority_ of likelihood over Lord Tommy and the Honorable +John. + +But the hypothesis is very narrow, and the fact is very wide; the +hypothesis counts by units, the fact by millions. Consider how many Toms +and Jacks there are to choose from, well or ill! The aristocratic class +from whom Members of Parliament can be elected extends only to certain +thousands; from these you are to choose your Secretary, if a seat in +Parliament is the primary condition. But the general population is of +Twenty-seven Millions; from all sections of which you can choose, if +the seat in Parliament is not to be primary. Make it ultimate instead of +primary, a last investiture instead of a first indispensable condition, +and the whole British Nation, learned, unlearned, professional, +practical, speculative and miscellaneous, is at your disposal! In the +lowest broad strata of the population, equally as in the highest and +narrowest, are produced men of every kind of genius; man for man, your +chance of genius is as good among the millions as among the units;--and +class for class, what must it be! From all classes, not from certain +hundreds now but from several millions, whatsoever man the gods had +gifted with intellect and nobleness, and power to help his country, +could be chosen: O Heavens, could,--if not by Tenpound Constituencies +and the force of beer, then by a Reforming Premier with eyes in his +head, who I think might do it quite infinitely better. Infinitely +better. For ignobleness cannot, by the nature of it, choose the noble: +no, there needs a seeing man who is himself noble, cognizant by internal +experience of the symptoms of nobleness. Shall we never think of this; +shall we never more remember this, then? It is forever true; and Nature +and Fact, however we may rattle our ballot-boxes, do at no time forget +it. + +From the lowest and broadest stratum of Society, where the births are by +the million, there was born, almost in our own memory, a Robert Burns; +son of one who "had not capital for his poor moor-farm of Twenty +Pounds a year." Robert Burns never had the smallest chance to got into +Parliament, much as Robert Burns deserved, for all our sakes, to have +been found there. For the man--it was not known to men purblind, sunk +in their poor dim vulgar element, but might have been known to men of +insight who had any loyalty or any royalty of their own--was a born king +of men: full of valor, of intelligence and heroic nobleness; fit for +far other work than to break his heart among poor mean mortals, gauging +beer! Him no Tenpound Constituency chose, nor did any Reforming Premier: +in the deep-sunk British Nation, overwhelmed in foggy stupor, with the +loadstars all gone out for it, there was no whisper of a notion that it +could be desirable to choose him,--except to come and dine with you, and +in the interim to gauge. And yet heaven-born Mr. Pitt, at that period, +was by no means without need of Heroic Intellect, for other purposes +than gauging! But sorrowful strangulation by red-tape, much _tighter_ +then than it now is when so many revolutionary earthquakes have tussled +it, quite tied up the meagre Pitt; and he said, on hearing of this Burns +and his sad hampered case, "Literature will take care of itself."--"Yes, +and of you too, if you don't mind it!" answers one. + +And so, like Apollo taken for a Neat-herd, and perhaps for none of the +best on the Admetus establishment, this new Norse Thor had to put +up with what was going; to gauge ale, and be thankful; pouring his +celestial sunlight through Scottish Song-writing,--the narrowest chink +ever offered to a Thunder-god before! And the meagre Pitt, and his +Dundasses and red-tape Phantasms (growing very ghastly now to think of), +did not in the least know or understand, the impious, god-forgetting +mortals, that Heroic Intellects, if Heaven were pleased to send such, +were the one salvation for the world and for them and all of us. No; +they "had done very well without" such; did not see the use of such; +went along "very well" without such; well presided over by a singular +Heroic Intellect called George the Third: and the Thunder-god, as was +rather fit of him, departed early, still in the noon of life, somewhat +weary of gauging ale!--O Peter, what a scandalous torpid element of +yellow London fog, favorable to owls only and their mousing operations, +has blotted out the stars of Heaven for us these several generations +back,--which, I rejoice to see, is now visibly about to take itself away +again, or perhaps to be _dispelled_ in a very tremendous manner! + + +For the sake of my Democratic friends, one other observation. Is +not this Proposal the very essence of whatever truth there is in +"Democracy;" this, that the able man be chosen, in whatever rank be +is found? That he be searched for as hidden treasure is; be trained, +supervised, set to the work which he alone is fit for. All Democracy +lies in this; this, I think, is worth all the ballot-boxes and +suffrage-movements now going. Not that the noble soul, born poor, should +be set to spout in Parliament, but that he should be set to assist in +governing men: this is our grand Democratic interest. With this we +can be saved; without this, were there a Parliament spouting in +every parish, and Hansard Debates to stem the Thames, we perish,--die +constitutionally drowned, in mere oceans of palaver. + +All reformers, constitutional persons, and men capable of reflection, +are invited to reflect on these things. Let us brush the cobwebs from +our eyes; let us bid the inane traditions be silent for a moment; and +ask ourselves, like men dreadfully intent on having it _done_, "By what +method or methods can the able men from every rank of life be gathered, +as diamond-grains from the general mass of sand: the able men, not +the sham-able;--and set to do the work of governing, contriving, +administering and guiding for us!" It is the question of questions. +All that Democracy ever meant lies there: the attainment of a truer and +truer Aristocracy, or Government again by the _Best_. + +Reformed Parliaments have lamentably failed to attain it for us; and I +believe will and must forever fail. One true Reforming Statesman, one +noble worshipper and knower of human intellect, with the quality of an +experienced Politician too; he, backed by such a Parliament as England, +once recognizing him, would loyally send, and at liberty to choose his +working subalterns from all the Englishmen alive; he surely might do +something? Something, by one means or another, is becoming fearfully +necessary to be done! He, I think, might accomplish more for us in +ten years, than the best conceivable Reformed Parliament, and utmost +extension of the suffrage, in twice or ten times ten. + +What is extremely important too, you could try this method with safety; +extension of the suffrage you cannot so try. With even an approximately +heroic Prime Minister, you could get nothing but good from prescribing +to him thus, to choose the fittest man, under penalties; to choose, not +the fittest of the four or the three men that were in Parliament, but +the fittest from the whole Twenty-seven Millions that he could hear +of,--at his peril. Nothing but good from this. From extension of +the suffrage, some think, you might get quite other than good. From +extension of the suffrage, till it became a universal counting of heads, +one sees not in the least what wisdom could be extracted. A Parliament +of the Paris pattern, such as we see just now, might be extracted: and +from that? Solution into universal slush; drownage of all interests +divine and human, in a Noah's-Deluge of Parliamentary eloquence,--such +as we hope our sins, heavy and manifold though they are, have not yet +quite deserved! + + +Who, then, is to be the Reforming Statesman, and begin the noble work +for us? He is the preliminary; one such; with him we may prosecute the +enterprise to length after length; without him we cannot stir in it at +all. A true _king_, temporary king, that dare undertake the government +of Britain, on condition of beginning in sacred earnest to "reform" it, +not at this or that extremity, but at the heart and centre. That will +expurgate Downing Street, and the practical Administration of our +Affairs; clear out its accumulated mountains of pendantries and cobwebs; +bid the Pedants and the Dullards depart, bid the Gifted and the Seeing +enter and inhabit. So that henceforth there be Heavenly light there, +instead of Stygian dusk; that God's vivifying light instead of Satan's +deadening and killing dusk, may radiate therefrom, and visit with +healing all regions of this British Empire,--which now writhes through +every limb of it, in dire agony as if of death! The enterprise is great, +the enterprise may be called formidable and even awful; but there is +none nobler among the sublunary affairs of mankind just now. Nay tacitly +it is the enterprise of every man who undertakes to be British Premier +in these times;--and I cannot esteem him an enviable Premier who, +because the engagement is _tacit_, flatters himself that it does not +exist! "Show it me in the bond," he says. Your Lordship, it actually +exists: and I think you will see it yet, in another kind of "bond" than +that sheepskin one! + + +But truly, in any time, what a strange feeling, enough to alarm a very +big Lordship, this: that he, of the size he is, has got to the apex of +English affairs! Smallest wrens, we know, by training and the aid +of machinery, are capable of many things. For this world abounds in +miraculous combinations, far transcending anything they do at Drury Lane +in the melodramatic way. A world which, as solid as it looks, is made +all of aerial and even of spiritual stuff; permeated all by incalculable +sleeping forces and electricities; and liable to go off, at any +time, into the hugest developments, upon a scratch thoughtfully or +thoughtlessly given on the right point:--Nay, for every one of us, could +not the sputter of a poor pistol-shot shrivel the Immensities together +like a burnt scroll, and make the Heavens and the Earth pass away with a +great noise? Smallest wrens, and canary-birds of some dexterity, can be +trained to handle lucifer-matches; and have, before now, fired off +whole powder-magazines and parks of artillery. Perhaps without much +astonishment to the canary-bird. The canary-bird can hold only its own +quantity of astonishment; and may possibly enough retain its presence of +mind, were even Doomsday to come. It is on this principle that I explain +to myself the equanimity of some men and Premiers whom we have known. + +This and the other Premier seems to take it with perfect coolness. And +yet, I say, what a strange feeling, to find himself Chief Governor +of England; girding on, upon his moderately sized new soul, the old +battle-harness of an Oliver Cromwell, an Edward Longshanks, a William +Conqueror. "I, then, am the Ablest of English attainable Men? This +English People, which has spread itself over all lands and seas, and +achieved such works in the ages,--which has done America, India, the +Lancashire Cotton-trade, Bromwicham Iron-trade, Newton's Principia, +Shakspeare's Dramas, and the British Constitution,--the apex of all its +intelligences and mighty instincts and dumb longings: it is I? William +Conqueror's big gifts, and Edward's and Elizabeth's; Oliver's lightning +soul, noble as Sinai and the thunders of the Lord: these are mine, I +begin to perceive,--to a certain extent. These heroisms have I,--though +rather shy of exhibiting them. These; and something withal of the +huge beaver-faculty of our Arkwrights, Brindleys; touches too of +the phoenix-melodies and _sunny_ heroisms of our Shakspeares, of +our Singers, Sages and inspired Thinkers all this is in me, I will +hope,--though rather shy of exhibiting it on common occasions. The +Pattern Englishman, raised by solemn acclamation upon the bucklers of +the English People, and saluted with universal 'God save THEE!'--has +now the honor to announce himself. After fifteen hundred years of +constitutional study as to methods of raising on the bucklers, which +is the operation of operations, the English People, surely pretty well +skilled in it by this time, has raised--the remarkable individual now +addressing you. The best-combined sample of whatsoever divine qualities +are in this big People, the consummate flower of all that they have done +and been, the ultimate product of the Destinies, and English man of men, +arrived at last in the fulness of time, is--who think you? Ye worlds, +the Ithuriel javelin by which, with all these heroisms and accumulated +energies old and new, the English People means to smite and pierce, is +this poor tailor's-bodkin, hardly adequate to bore an eylet-hole, who +now has the honor to"--Good Heavens, if it were not that men generally +are very much of the canary-bird, here, are reflections sufficient to +annihilate any man, almost before starting! + +But to us also it ought to be a very strange reflection! This, then, +is the length we have brought it to, with our constitutioning, and +ballot-boxing, and incessant talk and effort in every kind for so +many centuries back; this? The golden flower of our grand alchemical +projection, which has set the world in astonishment so long, and been +the envy of surrounding nations, is--what we here see. To be governed by +his Lordship, and guided through the undiscovered paths of Time by this +respectable degree of human faculty. With our utmost soul's travail we +could discover, by the sublimest methods eulogized by all the world, no +abler Englishman than this? + +Really it should make us pause upon the said sublime methods, and ask +ourselves very seriously, whether, notwithstanding the eulogy of all +the world, they can be other than extremely astonishing methods, that +require revisal and reconsideration very much indeed! For the kind of +"man" we get to govern us, all conclusions whatsoever centre there, and +likewise all manner of issues flow infallibly therefrom. "Ask well, who +is your Chief Governor," says one: "for around him men like to him will +infallibly gather, and by degrees all the world will be made in his +image." "He who is himself a noble man, has a chance to know the +nobleness of men; he who is not, has none. And as for the poor +Public,--alas, is not the kind of 'man' you set upon it the liveliest +symbol of its and your veracity and victory and blessedness, or +unveracity and misery and cursedness; the general summation and +practical outcome of all else whatsoever in the Public and in you?" + +Time was when an incompetent Governor could not be permitted among men. +He was, and had to be, by one method or the other, clutched up from his +place at the helm of affairs, and hurled down into the hold, perhaps +even overboard, if he could not really steer. And we call those ages +barbarous, because they shuddered to see a Phantasm at the helm of their +affairs; an eyeless Pilot with constitutional spectacles, steering by +the ear mainly? And we have changed all that; no-government is now the +best; and a tailor's foreman, who gives no trouble, is preferable to any +other for governing? My friends, such truly is the current idea; but you +dreadfully mistake yourselves, and the fact is not such. The fact, now +beginning to disclose itself again in distressed Needlewomen, famishing +Connaughts, revolting Colonies, and a general rapid advance towards +Social Ruin, remains really what it always was, and will so remain! + +Men have very much forgotten it at present; and only here a man and +there a man begins again to bethink himself of it: but all men will +gradually get reminded of it, perhaps terribly to their cost; and the +sooner they all lay it to heart again, I think it will be the better. +For in spite of our oblivion of it, the thing remains forever true; nor +is there any Constitution or body of Constitutions, were they clothed +with never such venerabilities and general acceptabilities, that avails +to deliver a Nation from the consequences of forgetting it. Nature, +I assure you, does forevermore remember it; and a hundred British +Constitutions are but as a hundred cobwebs between her and the penalty +she levies for forgetting it. Tell me what kind of man governs a People, +you tell me, with much exactness, what the net sum-total of social worth +in that People has for some time been. Whether _they_ have loved +the phylacteries or the eternal noblenesses; whether they have been +struggling heavenward like eagles, brothers of the radiances, or groping +owl-like with horn-eyed diligence, catching mice and balances at their +banker's,--poor devils, you will see it all in that one fact. A fact +long prepared beforehand; which, if it is a peaceably received one, must +have been acquiesced in, judged to be "best," by the poor mousing owls, +intent only to have a large balance at their banker's and keep a whole +skin. + +Such sordid populations, which were long blind to Heaven's light, +are getting themselves burnt up rapidly, in these days, by +street-insurrection and Hell-fire;--as is indeed inevitable, my esteemed +M'Croudy! Light, accept the blessed light, if you will have it when +Heaven vouchsafes. You refuse? You prefer Delolme on the British +Constitution, the Gospel according to M'Croudy, and a good balance at +your banker's? Very well: the "light" is more and more withdrawn; and +for some time you have a general dusk, very favorable for catching +mice; and the opulent owlery is very "happy," and well-off at its +banker's;--and furthermore, by due sequence, infallible as the +foundations of the Universe and Nature's oldest law, the light _returns_ +on you, condensed, this time, into _lightning_, which there is not any +skin whatever too thick for taking in! + + + + +No. IV. THE NEW DOWNING STREET. [April 15, 1850.] + +In looking at this wreck of Governments in all European countries, there +is one consideration that suggests itself, sadly elucidative of our +modern epoch. These Governments, we may be well assured, have gone to +anarchy for this one reason inclusive of every other whatsoever, That +they were not wise enough; that the spiritual talent embarked in +them, the virtue, heroism, intellect, or by whatever other synonyms we +designate it, was not adequate,--probably had long been inadequate, and +so in its dim helplessness had suffered, or perhaps invited falsity +to introduce itself; had suffered injustices, and solecisms, and +contradictions of the Divine Fact, to accumulate in more than tolerable +measure; whereupon said Governments were overset, and declared before +all creatures to be too false. + +This is a reflection sad but important to the modern Governments now +fallen anarchic, That they had not spiritual talent enough. And if this +is so, then surely the question, How these Governments came to sink for +_want_ of intellect? is a rather interesting one. Intellect, in some +measure, is born into every Century; and the Nineteenth flatters itself +that it is rather distinguished that way! What had become of this +celebrated Nineteenth Century's intellect? Surely some of it existed, +and was "developed" withal;--nay in the "undeveloped," unconscious, or +inarticulate state, it is not dead; but alive and at work, if mutely +not less beneficently, some think even more so! And yet Governments, it +would appear, could by no means get enough of it; almost none of it came +their way: what had become of it? Truly there must be something very +questionable, either in the intellect of this celebrated Century, or in +the methods Governments now have of supplying their wants from the +same. One or other of two grand fundamental shortcomings, in regard to +intellect or human enlightenment, is very visible in this enlightened +Century of ours; for it has now become the most anarchic of Centuries; +that is to say, has fallen practically into such Egyptian darkness that +it cannot grope its way at all! + +Nay I rather think both of these shortcomings, fatal deficits both, are +chargeable upon us; and it is the joint harvest of both that we are now +reaping with such havoc to our affairs. I rather guess, the intellect of +the Nineteenth Century, so full of miracle to Heavyside and others, +is itself a mechanical or _beaver_ intellect rather than a high or +eminently human one. A dim and mean though authentic kind of intellect, +this; venerable only in defect of better. This kind will avail but +little in the higher enterprises of human intellect, especially in that +highest enterprise of guiding men Heavenward, which, after all, is the +one real "governing" of them on this God's-Earth:--an enterprise not to +be achieved by beaver intellect, but by other higher and highest kinds. +This is deficit _first_. And then _secondly_, Governments have, really +to a fatal and extraordinary extent, neglected in late ages to supply +themselves with what intellect was going; having, as was too natural +in the dim time, taken up a notion that human intellect, or even beaver +intellect, was not necessary to them at all, but that a little of +the _vulpine_ sort (if attainable), supported by routine, red-tape +traditions, and tolerable parliamentary eloquence on occasion, would +very well suffice. A most false and impious notion; leading to fatal +lethargy on the part of Governments, while Nature and Fact were +preparing strange phenomena in contradiction to it. + +These are two very fatal deficits;--the remedy of either of which would +be the remedy of both, could we but find it! For indeed they are vitally +connected: one of them is sure to produce the other; and both once in +action together, the advent of darkness, certain enough to issue in +anarchy by and by, goes on with frightful acceleration. If Governments +neglect to invite what noble intellect there is, then too surely all +intellect, not omnipotent to resist bad influences, will tend to become +beaverish ignoble intellect; and quitting high aims, which seem shut up +from it, will help itself forward in the way of making money and such +like; or will even sink to be sham intellect, helping itself by methods +which are not only beaverish but vulpine, and so "ignoble" as not +to have common honesty. The Government, taking no thought to choose +intellect for itself, will gradually find that there is less and less +of a good quality to choose from: thus, as in all impieties it does, +bad grows worse at a frightful _double_ rate of progression; and your +impiety is twice cursed. If you are impious enough to tolerate darkness, +you will get ever more darkness to tolerate; and at that inevitable +stage of the account (inevitable in all such accounts) when actual light +or else destruction is the alternative, you will call to the Heavens and +the Earth for light, and none will come! + +Certainly this evil, for one, has _not_ "wrought its own cure;" but +has wrought precisely the reverse, and has been hourly eating away what +possibilities of cure there were. And so, I fear, in spite of rumors to +the contrary, it always is with evils, with solecisms against Nature, +and contradictions to the divine fact of things: not an evil of them has +ever wrought its own cure in my experience;--but has continually grown +worse and wider and uglier, till some _good_ (generally a good _man_) +not able to endure the abomination longer, rose upon it and cured or +else extinguished it. Evil Governments, divested of God's light because +they have loved darkness rather, are not likelier than other evils to +work their own cure out of that bad plight. + +It is urgent upon all Governments to pause in this fatal course; +persisted in, the goal is fearfully evident; every hour's persistence in +it is making return more difficult. Intellect exists in all countries; +and the function appointed it by Heaven,--Governments had better not +attempt to contradict that, for they cannot! Intellect _has_ to +govern in this world and will do it, if not in alliance with so-called +"Governments" of red-tape and routine, then in divine hostility to such, +and sometimes alas in diabolic hostility to such; and in the end, as +sure as Heaven is higher than Downing Street, and the Laws of Nature are +tougher than red-tape, with entire victory over them and entire ruin to +them. If there is one thinking man among the Politicians of England, I +consider these things extremely well worth his attention just now. + + +Who are available to your Offices in Downing Street? All the gifted +souls, of every rank, who are born to you in this generation. These are +appointed, by the true eternal "divine right" which will never become +obsolete, to be your governors and administrators; and precisely as you +employ them, or neglect to employ them, will your State be favored of +Heaven or disfavored. This noble young soul, you can have him on either +of two conditions; and on one of them, since he is here in the world, +you must have him. As your ally and coadjutor; or failing that, as +your natural enemy: which shall it be? I consider that every Government +convicts itself of infatuation and futility, or absolves and justifies +itself before God and man, according as it answers this question. With +all sublunary entities, this is the question of questions. What talent +is born to you? How do you employ that? The crop of spiritual talent +that is born to you, of human nobleness and intellect and heroic +faculty, this is infinitely more important than your crops of cotton or +corn, or wine or herrings or whale-oil, which the Newspapers record +with such anxiety every season. This is not quite counted by seasons, +therefore the Newspapers are silent: but by generations and centuries, I +assure you it becomes amazingly sensible; and surpasses, as Heaven does +Earth, all the corn and wine, and whale-oil and California bullion, or +any other crop you grow. If that crop cease, the other crops--please to +take them also, if you are anxious about them. That once ceasing, we may +shut shop; for no other crop whatever will stay with us, nor is worth +having if it would. + +To promote men of talent, to search and sift the whole society in every +class for men of talent, and joyfully promote them, has not always been +found impossible. In many forms of polity they have done it, and still +do it, to a certain degree. The degree to which they succeed in doing it +marks, as I have said, with very great accuracy the degree of divine +and human worth that is in them, the degree of success or real ultimate +victory they can expect to have in this world.--Think, for example, +of the old Catholic Church, in its merely terrestrial relations to the +State; and see if your reflections, and contrasts with what now is, are +of an exulting character. Progress of the species has gone on as with +seven-league boots, and in various directions has shot ahead amazingly, +with three cheers from all the world; but in this direction, the most +vital and indispensable, it has lagged terribly, and has even +moved backward, till now it is quite gone out of sight in clouds of +cotton-fuzz and railway-scrip, and has fallen fairly over the horizon to +rearward! + +In those most benighted Feudal societies, full of mere tyrannous steel +Barons, and totally destitute of Tenpound Franchises and Ballot-boxes, +there did nevertheless authentically preach itself everywhere this +grandest of gospels, without which no other gospel can avail us much, +to all souls of men, "Awake ye noble souls; here is a noble career for +you!" I say, everywhere a road towards promotion, for human nobleness, +lay wide open to all men. The pious soul,--which, if you reflect, +will mean the ingenuous and ingenious, the gifted, intelligent and +nobly-aspiring soul,--such a soul, in whatever rank of life it were +born, had one path inviting it; a generous career, whereon, by human +worth and valor, all earthly heights and Heaven itself were attainable. +In the lowest stratum of social thraldom, nowhere was the noble soul +doomed quite to choke, and die ignobly. The Church, poor old benighted +creature, had at least taken care of that: the noble aspiring soul, not +doomed to choke ignobly in its penuries, could at least run into the +neighboring Convent, and there take refuge. Education awaited it there; +strict training not only to whatever useful knowledge could be had +from writing and reading, but to obedience, to pious reverence, +self-restraint, annihilation of self,--really to human nobleness in many +most essential respects. No questions asked about your birth, genealogy, +quantity of money-capital or the like; the one question was, "Is there +some human nobleness in you, or is there not?" The poor neat-herd's +son, if he were a Noble of Nature, might rise to Priesthood, to +High-priesthood, to the top of this world,--and best of all, he had +still high Heaven lying high enough above him, to keep his head steady, +on whatever height or in whatever depth his way might lie! + +A thrice-glorious arrangement, when I reflect on it; most salutary to +all high and low interests; a truly human arrangement. You made the born +noble yours, welcoming him as what he was, the Sent of Heaven: you did +not force him either to die or become your enemy; idly neglecting or +suppressing him as what he was not, a thing of no worth. You accepted +the blessed _light_; and in the shape of infernal _lightning_ it needed +not to visit you. How, like an immense mine-shaft through the dim +oppressed strata of society, this Institution of the Priesthood ran; +opening, from the lowest depths towards all heights and towards Heaven +itself, a free road of egress and emergence towards virtuous nobleness, +heroism and well-doing, for every born man. This we may call the living +lungs and blood-circulation of those old Feudalisms. When I think of +that immeasurable all-pervading lungs; present in every corner of human +society, every meanest hut a _cell_ of said lungs; inviting whatsoever +noble pious soul was born there to the path that was noble for him; +and leading thereby sometimes, if he were worthy, to be the Papa +of Christendom, and Commander of all Kings,--I perceive how the old +Christian society continued healthy, vital, and was strong and heroic. +When I contrast this with the noble aims now held out to noble souls +born in remote huts, or beyond the verge of Palace-Yard; and think of +what your Lordship has done in the way of making priests and papas,--I +see a society without lungs, fast wheezing itself to death, in horrid +convulsions; and deserving to die. + +Over Europe generally in these years, I consider that the State has +died, has fairly coughed its last in street musketry, and fallen down +dead, incapable of any but _galvanic_ life henceforth,--owing to this +same fatal want of _lungs_, which includes all other wants for a State. +And furthermore that it will never come alive again, till it contrive +to get such indispensable vital apparatus; the outlook toward which +consummation is very distant in most communities of Europe. If you let +it come to death or suspended animation in States, the case is very +bad! Vain to call in universal-suffrage parliaments at that stage: +the universal-suffrage parliaments cannot give you any breath of life, +cannot find any _wisdom_ for you; by long impiety, you have let the +supply of noble human wisdom die out; and the wisdom that now courts +your universal suffrages is beggarly human _attorneyism_ or sham-wisdom, +which is _not_ an insight into the Laws of God's Universe, but into the +laws of hungry Egoism and the Devil's Chicane, and can in the end profit +no community or man. + +No; the kind of heroes that come mounted on the shoulders of the +universal suffrage, and install themselves as Prime Ministers and +healing Statesmen by force of able editorship, do not bid very fair +to bring Nations back to the ways of God. Eloquent high-lacquered +_pinchbeck_ specimens these, expert in the arts of Belial +mainly;--fitter to be markers at some exceedingly expensive +billiard-table than sacred chief-priests of men! "Greeks of the Lower +Empire;" with a varnish of parliamentary rhetoric; and, I suppose, +this other great gift, toughness of character,--proof that they have +_persevered_ in their Master's service. Poor wretches, their industry +is mob-worship, place-worship, parliamentary intrigue, and the multiplex +art of tongue-fence: flung into that bad element, there they swim for +decades long, throttling and wrestling one another according to their +strength,--and the toughest or luckiest gets to land, and becomes +Premier. A more entirely unbeautiful class of Premiers was never raked +out of the ooze, and set on high places, by any ingenuity of man. Dame +Dubarry's petticoat was a better seine-net for fishing out Premiers than +that. Let all Nations whom necessity is driving towards that method, +take warning in time! + +Alas, there is, in a manner, but one Nation that can still take warning! +In England alone of European Countries the State yet survives; and might +help itself by better methods. In England heroic wisdom is not yet dead, +and quite replaced by attorneyism: the honest beaver faculty yet abounds +with us, the heroic manful faculty shows itself also to the observant +eye, not dead but dangerously sleeping. I said there were many _kings_ +in England: if these can yet be rallied into strenuous activity, and set +to govern England in Downing Street and elsewhere, which their function +always is,--then England can be saved from anarchies and universal +suffrages; and that Apotheosis of Attorneyism, blackest of terrestrial +curses, may be spared us. If these cannot, the other issue, in such +forms as may be appropriate to us, is inevitable. What escape is there? +England must conform to the eternal laws of life, or England too must +die! + +England with the largest mass of real living interests ever intrusted to +a Nation; and with a mass of extinct imaginary and quite dead interests +piled upon it to the very Heavens, and encumbering it from shore to +shore,--does reel and stagger ominously in these years; urged by the +Divine Silences and the Eternal Laws to take practical hold of its +living interests and manage them: and clutching blindly into its +venerable extinct and imaginary interests, as if that were still the way +to do it. England must contrive to manage its living interests, and quit +its dead ones and their methods, or else depart from its place in this +world. Surely England is called as no Nation ever was, to summon out its +_kings_, and set them to that high work!--Huge inorganic England, nigh +choked under the exuviae of a thousand years, and blindly sprawling amid +chartisms, ballot-boxes, prevenient graces, and bishops' nightmares, +must, as the preliminary and commencement of organization, learn to +_breathe_ again,--get "lungs" for herself again, as we defined it. That +is imperative upon her: she too will die, otherwise, and cough her last +upon the streets some day;--how can she continue living? To enfranchise +whatsoever of Wisdom is born in England, and set that to the sacred +task of coercing and amending what of Folly is born in England: Heaven's +blessing is purchasable by that; by not that, only Heaven's curse is +purchasable. The reform contemplated, my liberal friends perceive, is +a truly radical one; no ballot-box ever went so deep into the roots: a +radical, most painful, slow and difficult, but most indispensable reform +of reforms! + +How short and feeble an approximation to these high ulterior results, +the best Reform of Downing Street, presided over by the fittest +Statesman one can imagine to exist at present, would be, is too apparent +to me. A long time yet till we get our living interests put under due +administration, till we get our dead interests handsomely dismissed. A +long time yet till, by extensive change of habit and ways of thinking +and acting, _we_ get living "lungs" for ourselves! Nevertheless, by +Reform of Downing Street, we do begin to breathe: we do start in the way +towards that and all high results. Nor is there visible to me any other +way. Blessed enough were the way once entered on; could we, in our evil +days, but see the noble enterprise begun, and fairly in progress! + + +What the "_New_ Downing Street" can grow to, and will and must if +England is to have a Downing Street beyond a few years longer, it is +far from me, in my remote watch-tower, to say with precision. A Downing +Street inhabited by the gifted of the intellects of England; directing +all its energies upon the real and living interests of England, and +silently but incessantly, in the alembics of the place, burning up the +extinct imaginary interests of England, that we may see God's sky a +little plainer overhead, and have all of us a great accession of "heroic +wisdom" to dispose of: such a Downing Street--to draw the plan of it, +will require architects; many successive architects and builders will +be needed there. Let not editors, and remote unprofessional persons, +interfere too much!--Change in the present edifice, however, radical +change, all men can discern to be inevitable; and even, if there shall +not worse swiftly follow, to be imminent. Outlines of the future edifice +paint themselves against the sky (to men that still have a sky, and +are above the miserable London fogs of the hour); noble elements of new +State Architecture, foreshadows of a new Downing Street for the New Era +that is come. These with pious hope all men can see; and it is good +that all men, with whatever faculty they have, were earnestly looking +thitherward;--trying to get above the fogs, that they might look +thitherward! + + +Among practical men the idea prevails that Government can do nothing +but "keep the peace." They say all higher tasks are unsafe for it, +impossible for it,--and in fine not necessary for it or for us. On this +footing a very feeble Downing Street might serve the turn!--I am well +aware that Government, for a long time past, has taken in hand no other +public task, and has professed to have no other, but that of keeping +the peace. This public task, and the private one of ascertaining +whether Dick or Jack was to do it, have amply filled the capabilities +of Government for several generations now. Hard tasks both, it would +appear. In accomplishing the first, for example, have not heaven-born +Chancellors of the Exchequer had to shear us very bare; and to leave an +overplus of Debt, or of fleeces shorn _before_ they are grown, justly +esteemed among the wonders of the world? Not a first-rate keeping of the +peace, this, we begin to surmise! At least it seems strange to us. + +For we, and the overwhelming majority of all our acquaintances, in this +Parish and Nation and the adjacent Parishes and Nations, are profoundly +conscious to ourselves of being by nature peaceable persons; following +our necessary industries; without wish, interest or faintest intention +to cut the skin of any mortal, to break feloniously into his industrial +premises, or do any injustice to him at all. Because indeed, independent +of Government, there is a thing called conscience, and we dare not. +So that it cannot but appear to us, "the peace," under dexterous +management, might be very much more easily kept, your Lordship; nay, +we almost think, if well let alone, it would in a measure keep _itself_ +among such a set of persons! And how it happens that when a poor +hardworking creature of us has laboriously earned sixpence, the +Government comes in, and (as some compute) says, "I will thank you for +threepence of that, as per account, for getting you peace to spend the +other threepence," our amazement begins to be considerable,--and I think +results will follow from it by and by. Not the most dexterous keeping +of the peace, your Lordship, unless it be more difficult to do than +appears! + +Our domestic peace, we cannot but perceive, as good as keeps itself. +Here and there a select Equitable Person, appointed by the Public +for that end, clad in ermine, and backed by certain companies of +blue Police, is amply adequate, without immoderate outlay in money or +otherwise, to keep down the few exceptional individuals of the scoundrel +kind; who, we observe, by the nature of them, are always weak and +inconsiderable. And as to foreign peace, really all Europe, now +especially with so many railroads, public journals, printed books, +penny-post, bills of exchange, and continual intercourse and mutual +dependence, is more and more becoming (so to speak) one Parish; the +Parishioners of which being, as we ourselves are, in immense majority +peaceable hard-working people, could, if they were moderately well +guided, have almost no disposition to quarrel. Their economic interests +are one, "To buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest;" their +faith, any _religious_ faith they have, is one, "To annihilate shams--by +all methods, street-barricades included." Why should they quarrel? +The Czar of Russia, in the Eastern parts of the Parish, may have other +notions; but he knows too well he must keep them to himself. He, if +he meddled with the Western parts, and attempted anywhere to crush or +disturb that sacred Democratic Faith of theirs, is aware there would +rise from a hundred and fifty million human throats such a _Hymn of the +Marseillaise_ as was never heard before; and England, France, Germany, +Poland, Hungary, and the Nine Kingdoms, hurling themselves upon him in +never-imagined fire of vengeance, would swiftly reduce his Russia and +him to a strange situation! Wherefore he forbears,--and being a person +of some sense, will long forbear. In spite of editorial prophecy, the +Czar of Russia does not disturb our night's rest. And with the other +parts of the Parish our dreams and our thoughts are of anything but of +fighting, or of the smallest need to fight. + +For keeping of the peace, a thing highly desirable to us, we strive to +be grateful to your Lordship. Intelligible to us, also, your Lordship's +reluctance to get out of the old routine. But we beg to say farther, +that peace by itself has no feet to stand upon, and would not suit us +even if it had. Keeping of the peace is the function of a policeman, and +but a small fraction of that of any Government, King or Chief of men. +Are not all men bound, and the Chief of men in the name of all, to do +properly this: To see, so far as human effort under pain of eternal +reprobation can, God's Kingdom incessantly advancing here below, and His +will done on Earth as it is in Heaven? On Sundays your Lordship knows +this well; forgot it not on week-days. I assure you it is forevermore a +fact. That is the immense divine and never-ending task which is laid on +every man, and with unspeakable increase of emphasis on every Government +or Commonwealth of men. Your Lordship, that is the basis upon which +peace and all else depends! That basis once well lost, there is no peace +capable of being kept,--the only peace that could then be kept is that +of the churchyard. Your Lordship may depend on it, whatever thing takes +upon it the name of Sovereign or Government in an English Nation such +as this will have to get out of that old routine; and set about keeping +something very different from the peace, in these days! + + +Truly it is high time that same beautiful notion of No-Government should +take itself away. The world is daily rushing towards wreck, while that +lasts. If your Government is to be a Constituted Anarchy, what issue can +it have? Our one interest in such Government is, that it would be kind +enough to cease and go its ways, _before_ the inevitable arrive. The +question, Who is to float atop no-whither upon the popular vertexes, +and act that sorry character, "carcass of the drowned ass upon the +mud-deluge"? is by no means an important one for almost anybody,--hardly +even for the drowned ass himself. Such drowned ass ought to ask himself, +If the function is a sublime one? For him too, though he looks sublime +to the vulgar and floats atop, a private situation, down out of sight in +his natural ooze, would be a luckier one. + +Crabbe, speaking of constitutional philosophies, faith in the ballot-box +and such like, has this indignant passage: "If any voice of deliverance +or resuscitation reach us, in this our low and all but lost estate, sunk +almost beyond plummet's sounding in the mud of Lethe, and oblivious of +all noble objects, it will be an intimation that we must put away all +this abominable nonsense, and understand, once more, that Constituted +Anarchy, with however many ballot-boxes, caucuses, and hustings +beer-barrels, is a continual offence to gods and men. That to be +governed by small men is not only a misfortune, but it is a curse and +a sin; the effect, and alas the cause also, of all manner of curses and +sins. That to profess subjection to phantasms, and pretend to accept +guidance from fractional parts of tailors, is what Smelfungus in his +rude dialect calls it, 'a damned _lie_,' and nothing other. A lie which, +by long use and wont, we have grown accustomed to, and do not the least +feel to be a lie, having spoken and done it continually everywhere for +such a long time past;--but has Nature grown to accept it as a veracity, +think you, my friend? Have the Parcae fallen asleep, because you wanted +to make money in the City? Nature at all moments knows well that it is +a lie; and that, like all lies, it is cursed and damned from the +beginning. + +"Even so, ye indigent millionnaires, and miserable bankrupt populations +rolling in gold,--whose note-of-hand will go to any length in +Threadneedle Street, and to whom in Heaven's Bank the stern answer is, +'No effects!' Bankrupt, I say; and Californias and Eldorados will not +save us. And every time we speak such lie, or do it or look it, as we +have been incessantly doing, and many of us with clear consciousness, +for about a hundred and fifty years now, Nature marks down the exact +penalty against us. 'Debtor to so much lying: forfeiture of existing +stock of worth to such extent;--approach to general damnation by so +much.' Till now, as we look round us over a convulsed anarchic Europe, +and at home over an anarchy not yet convulsed, but only heaving towards +convulsion, and to judge by the Mosaic sweating-establishments, cannibal +Connaughts and other symptoms, not far from convulsion now, we seem to +have pretty much _exhausted_ our accumulated stock of worth; and unless +money's 'worth' and bullion at the Bank will save us, to be rubbing very +close upon that ulterior bourn which I do not like to name again! + +"On behalf of nearly twenty-seven millions of my fellow-countrymen, sunk +deep in Lethean sleep, with mere owl-dreams of Political Economy and +mice-catching, in this pacific thrice-infernal slush-element; and +also of certain select thousands, and hundreds and units, awakened or +beginning to awaken from it, and with horror in their hearts perceiving +where they are, I beg to protest, and in the name of God to say, with +poor human ink, desirous much that I had divine thunder to say it with, +Awake, arise,--before you sink to death eternal! Unnamable destruction, +and banishment to Houndsditch and Gehenna, lies in store for all Nations +that, in angry perversity or brutal torpor and owlish blindness, neglect +the eternal message of the gods, and vote for the Worse while the Better +is there. Like owls they say, 'Barabbas will do; any orthodox Hebrew +of the Hebrews, and peaceable believer in M'Croudy and the Faith of +Leave-alone will do: the Right Honorable Minimus is well enough; he +shall be our Maximus, under him it will be handy to catch mice, and +Owldom shall continue a flourishing empire.'" + + +One thing is undeniable, and must be continually repeated till it get +to be understood again: Of all constitutions, forms of government, and +political methods among men, the question to be asked is even this, What +kind of man do you set over us? All questions are answered in the answer +to this. Another thing is worth attending to: No people or populace, +with never such ballot-boxes, can select such man for you; only the man +of worth can recognize worth in men;--to the commonplace man of no or +of little worth, you, unless you wish to be _mis_led, need not apply on +such an occasion. Those poor Tenpound Franchisers of yours, they are not +even in earnest; the poor sniffing sniggering Honorable Gentlemen they +send to Parliament are as little so. Tenpound Franchisers full of mere +beer and balderdash; Honorable Gentlemen come to Parliament as to an +Almack's series of evening parties, or big cockmain (battle of all the +cocks) very amusing to witness and bet upon: what can or could men in +that predicament ever do for you? Nay, if they were in life-and-death +earnest, what could it avail you in such a case? I tell you, a million +blockheads looking authoritatively into one man of what you call genius, +or noble sense, will make nothing but nonsense out of him and his +qualities, and his virtues and defects, if they look till the end of +time. He understands them, sees what they are; but that they should +understand him, and see with rounded outline what his limits are,--this, +which would mean that they are bigger than he, is forever denied them. +Their one good understanding of him is that they at last should loyally +say, "We do not quite understand thee; we perceive thee to be nobler and +wiser and bigger than we, and will loyally follow thee." + +The question therefore arises, Whether, since reform of parliament and +such like have done so little in that respect, the problem might not +be with some hope attacked in the direct manner? Suppose all our +Institutions, and Public Methods of Procedure, to continue for the +present as they are; and suppose farther a Reform Premier, and the +English Nation once awakening under him to a due sense of the infinite +importance, nay the vital necessity there is of getting able and abler +men:--might not some heroic wisdom, and actual "ability" to do what must +be done, prove discoverable to said Premier; and so the indispensable +Heaven's-blessing descend to us from _above_, since none has yet +sprung from below? From above we shall have to try it; the other +is exhausted,--a hopeless method that! The utmost passion of the +house-inmates, ignorant of masonry and architecture, cannot avail to +cure the house of smoke: not if _they_ vote and agitate forever, and +bestir themselves to the length even of street-barricades, will the +_smoke_ in the least abate: how can it? Their passion exercised in such +ways, till Doomsday, will avail them nothing. Let their passion rage +steadily against the existing major-domos to this effect, "_Find_ us +men skilled in house-building, acquainted with the laws of atmospheric +suction, and capable to cure smoke;" something might come of it! In the +lucky circumstance of having one man of real intellect and courage to +put at the head of the movement, much would come of it;--a New Downing +Street, fit for the British Nation and its bitter necessities in this +Now Era, would come; and from that, in answer to continuous sacred +fidelity and valiant toil, all good whatsoever would gradually come. + +Of the Continental nuisance called "Bureaucracy,"--if this should alarm +any reader,--I can see no risk or possibility in England. Democracy +is hot enough here, fierce enough; it is perennial, universal, clearly +invincible among us henceforth. No danger it should let itself be flung +in chains by sham secretaries of the Pedant species, and accept their +vile Age of Pinchbeck for its Golden Age! Democracy clamors, with its +Newspapers, its Parliaments, and all its twenty-seven million throats, +continually in this Nation forevermore. I remark, too, that, the +unconscious purport of all its clamors is even this, "Find us men +skilled,"--_make_ a New Downing Street, fit for the New Era! + + +Of the Foreign Office, in its reformed state, we have not much to say. +Abolition of imaginary work, and replacement of it by real, is on all +hands understood to be very urgent there. Large needless expenditures +of money, immeasurable ditto of hypocrisy and grimace; embassies, +protocols, worlds of extinct traditions, empty pedantries, foul +cobwebs:--but we will by no means apply the "live coal" of our witty +friend; the Foreign Office will repent, and not be driven to suicide! A +truer time will come for the Continental Nations too: Authorities based +on truth, and on the silent or spoken Worship of Human Nobleness, +will again get themselves established there; all Sham-Authorities, and +consequent Real-Anarchies based on universal suffrage and the Gospel +according to George Sand, being put away; and noble action, heroic +new-developments of human faculty and industry, and blessed fruit as +of Paradise getting itself conquered from the waste battle-field of +the chaotic elements, will once more, there as here, begin to show +themselves. + +When the Continental Nations have once got to the bottom of _their_ +Augean Stable, and begun to have real enterprises based on the eternal +facts again, our Foreign Office may again have extensive concerns with +them. And at all times, and even now, there will remain the question to +be sincerely put and wisely answered, What essential concern _has_ the +British Nation with them and their enterprises? Any concern at all, +except that of handsomely keeping apart from them? If so, what are +the methods of best managing it?--At present, as was said, while Red +Republic but clashes with foul Bureaucracy; and Nations, sunk in +blind ignavia, demand a universal-suffrage Parliament to heal their +wretchedness; and wild Anarchy and Phallus-Worship struggle with +Sham-Kingship and extinct or galvanized Catholicism; and in the Cave of +the Winds all manner of rotten waifs and wrecks are hurled against +each other,--our English interest in the controversy, however huge said +controversy grow, is quite trifling; we have only in a handsome manner +to say to it: "Tumble and rage along, ye rotten waifs and wrecks; +clash and collide as seems fittest to you; and smite each other into +annihilation at your own good pleasure. In that huge conflict, dismal +but unavoidable, we, thanks to our heroic ancestors, having got so far +ahead of you, have now no interest at all. Our decided notion is, the +dead ought to bury their dead in such a case: and so we have the +honor to be, with distinguished consideration, your entirely +devoted,--FLIMNAP, SEC. FOREIGN DEPARTMENT."--I really think Flimnap, +till truer times come, ought to treat much of his work in this way: +cautious to give offence to his neighbors; resolute not to concern +himself in any of their self-annihilating operations whatsoever. + + +Foreign wars are sometimes unavoidable. We ourselves, in the course of +natural merchandising and laudable business, have now and then got into +ambiguous situations; into quarrels which needed to be settled, and +without fighting would not settle. Sugar Islands, Spice Islands, Indias, +Canadas, these, by the real decree of Heaven, were ours; and nobody +would or could believe it, till it was tried by cannon law, and so +proved. Such cases happen. In former times especially, owing very much +to want of intercourse and to the consequent mutual ignorance, there did +occur misunderstandings: and therefrom many foreign wars, some of +them by no means unnecessary. With China, or some distant country, too +unintelligent of us and too unintelligible to us, there still sometimes +rises necessary occasion for a war. Nevertheless wars--misunderstandings +that get to the length of arguing themselves out by sword and +cannon--have, in these late generations of improved intercourse, been +palpably becoming less and less necessary; have in a manner become +superfluous, if we had a little wisdom, and our Foreign Office on a good +footing. + +Of European wars I really hardly remember any, since Oliver Cromwell's +last Protestant or Liberation war with Popish antichristian Spain some +two hundred years ago, to which I for my own part could have contributed +my life with any heartiness, or in fact would have subscribed money +itself to any considerable amount. Dutch William, a man of some heroism, +did indeed get into troubles with Louis Fourteenth; and there rested +still some shadow of Protestant Interest, and question of National and +individual Independence, over those wide controversies; a little money +and human enthusiasm was still due to Dutch William. Illustrious Chatham +also, not to speak of his Manilla ransoms and the like, did one thing: +assisted Fritz of Prussia, a brave man and king (almost the only +sovereign King I have known since Cromwell's time) like to be borne down +by ignoble men and sham-kings; for this let illustrious Chatham too have +a little money and human enthusiasm,--a little, by no means much. But +what am I to say of heaven-born Pitt the son of Chatham? England sent +forth her fleets and armies; her money into every country; money as +if the heaven-born Chancellor had got a Fortunatus' purse; as if this +Island had become a volcanic fountain of gold, or new terrestrial sun +capable of radiating mere guineas. The result of all which, what was +it? Elderly men can remember the tar-barrels burnt for success and +thrice-immortal victory in the business; and yet what result had we? The +French Revolution, a Fact decreed in the Eternal Councils, could not +be put down: the result was, that heaven-born Pitt had actually been +fighting (as the old Hebrews would have said) against the Lord,--that +the Laws of Nature were stronger than Pitt. Of whom therefore there +remains chiefly his unaccountable radiation of guineas, for the +gratitude of posterity. Thank you for nothing,--for eight hundred +millions _less_ than nothing! + + +Our War Offices, Admiralties, and other Fighting Establishments, are +forcing themselves on everybody's attention at this time. Bull grumbles +audibly: "The money you have cost me these five-and-thirty years, during +which you have stood elaborately ready to fight at any moment, without +at any moment being called to fight, is surely an astonishing sum. The +National Debt itself might have been half paid by that money, which has +all gone in pipe-clay and blank cartridges! "Yes, Mr. Bull, the +money can be counted in hundreds of millions; which certainly is +something:--but the "strenuously organized idleness," and what mischief +that amounts to,--have you computed it? A perpetual solecism, and +blasphemy (of its sort), set to march openly among us, dressed in +scarlet! Bull, with a more and more sulky tone, demands that such +solecism be abated; that these Fighting Establishments be as it were +disbanded, and set to do some work in the Creation, since fighting +there is now none for them. This demand is irrefragably just, is growing +urgent too; and yet this demand cannot be complied with,--not yet while +the State grounds itself on unrealities, and Downing Street continues +what it is. + +The old Romans made their soldiers work during intervals of war. The New +Downing Street too, we may predict, will have less and less tolerance +for idleness on the part of soldiers or others. Nay the New Downing +Street, I foresee, when once it has got its "_Industrial_ Regiments" +organized, will make these mainly do its fighting, what fighting +there is; and so save immense sums. Or indeed, all citizens of the +Commonwealth, as is the right and the interest of every free man in +this world, will have themselves trained to arms; each citizen ready to +defend his country with his own body and soul,--he is not worthy to have +a country otherwise. In a State grounded on veracities, that would be +the rule. Downing Street, if it cannot bethink itself of returning to +the veracities, will have to vanish altogether! + +To fight with its neighbors never was, and is now less than ever, the +real trade of England. For far other objects was the English People +created into this world; sent down from the Eternities, to mark with its +history certain spaces in the current of sublunary Time! Essential, too, +that the English People should discover what its real objects are; and +resolutely follow these, resolutely refusing to follow other than these. +The State will have victory so far as it can do that; so far as it +cannot, defeat. + +In the New Downing Street, discerning what its real functions are, and +with sacred abhorrence putting away from it what its functions are not, +we can fancy changes enough in Foreign Office, War Office, Colonial +Office, Home Office! Our War-soldiers _Industrial_, first of all; +doing nobler than Roman works, when fighting is not wanted of them. +Seventy-fours not hanging idly by their anchors in the Tagus, or off +Sapienza (one of the saddest sights under the sun), but busy, every +Seventy-four of them, carrying over streams of British Industrials to +the immeasurable Britain that lies beyond the sea in every zone of the +world. A State grounding itself on the veracities, not on the semblances +and the injustices: every citizen a soldier for it. Here would be new +_real_ Secretaryships and Ministries, not for foreign war and diplomacy, +but for domestic peace and utility. Minister of Works; Minister of +Justice,--clearing his Model Prisons of their scoundrelism; shipping his +scoundrels wholly abroad, under hard and just drill-sergeants (hundreds +of such stand wistfully ready for you, these thirty years, in the +Rag-and-Famish Club and elsewhere!) into fertile desert countries; +to make railways,--one big railway (says the Major [Footnote: Major +Carmichael Smith; see his Pamphlets on this subject]) quite across +America; fit to employ all the able-bodied Scoundrels and efficient +Half-pay Officers in Nature! + +Lastly,--or rather firstly, and as the preliminary of all, would there +not be a Minister of Education? Minister charged to get this English +People taught a little, at his and our peril! Minister of Education; +no longer dolefully embayed amid the wreck of moribund "religions," but +clear ahead of all that; steering, free and piously fearless, towards +his divine goal under the eternal stars!--O heaven, and are these things +forever impossible, then? Not a whit. To-morrow morning they might all +begin to be, and go on through blessed centuries realizing themselves, +if it were not that--alas, if it were not that we are most of us +insincere persons, sham talking-machines and hollow windy fools! Which +it is not "impossible" that we should cease to be, I hope? + + +Constitutions for the Colonies are now on the anvil; the discontented +Colonies are all to be cured of their miseries by Constitutions. Whether +that will cure their miseries, or only operate as a Godfrey's-cordial to +stop their whimpering, and in the end worsen all their miseries, may +be a sad doubt to us. One thing strikes a remote spectator in these +Colonial questions: the singular placidity with which the British +Statesman at this time, backed by M'Croudy and the British moneyed +classes, is prepared to surrender whatsoever interest Britain, as +foundress of those establishments, might pretend to have in the +decision. "If you want to go from us, go; we by no means want you to +stay: you cost us money yearly, which is scarce; desperate quantities +of trouble too: why not go, if you wish it?" Such is the humor of the +British Statesman, at this time.--Men clear for rebellion, "annexation" +as they call it, walk openly abroad in our American Colonies; found +newspapers, hold platform palaverings. From Canada there comes duly by +each mail a regular statistic of Annexationism: increasing fast in this +quarter, diminishing in that;--Majesty's Chief Governor seeming to take +it as a perfectly open question; Majesty's Chief Governor in fact seldom +appearing on the scene at all, except to receive the impact of a +few rotten eggs on occasion, and then duck in again to his private +contemplations. And yet one would think the Majesty's Chief Governor +ought to have a kind of interest in the thing? Public liberty is carried +to a great length in some portions of her Majesty's dominions. But +the question, "Are we to continue subjects of her Majesty, or start +rebelling against her? So many as are for rebelling, hold up your +hands!" Here is a public discussion of a very extraordinary nature to +be going on under the nose of a Governor of Canada. How the Governor +of Canada, being a British piece of flesh and blood, and not a Canadian +lumber-log of mere pine and rosin, can stand it, is not very conceivable +at first view. He does it, seemingly, with the stoicism of a Zeno. It is +a constitutional sight like few. + +And yet an instinct deeper than the Gospel of M'Croudy teaches all +men that Colonies are worth something to a country! That if, under the +present Colonial Office, they are a vexation to us and themselves, some +other Colonial Office can and must be contrived which shall render them +a blessing; and that the remedy will be to contrive such a Colonial +Office or method of administration, and by no means to cut the Colonies +loose. Colonies are not to be picked off the street every day; not a +Colony of them but has been bought dear, well purchased by the toil +and blood of those we have the honor to be sons of; and we cannot just +afford to cut them away because M'Croudy finds the present management +of them cost money. The present management will indeed require to be cut +away;--but as for the Colonies, we purpose through Heaven's blessing to +retain them a while yet! Shame on us for unworthy sons of brave fathers +if we do not. Brave fathers, by valiant blood and sweat, purchased for +us, from the bounty of Heaven, rich possessions in all zones; and we, +wretched imbeciles, cannot do the function of administering them? And +because the accounts do not stand well in the ledger, our remedy is, not +to take shame to ourselves, and repent in sackcloth and ashes, and +amend our beggarly imbecilities and insincerities in that as in other +departments of our business, but to fling the business overboard, and +declare the business itself to be bad? We are a hopeful set of heirs to +a big fortune! It does not suit our Manton gunneries, grouse-shootings, +mousings in the City; and like spirited young gentlemen we will give it +up, and let the attorneys take it? + +Is there no value, then, in human things, but what can write itself down +in the cash-ledger? All men know, and even M'Croudy in his inarticulate +heart knows, that to men and Nations there are invaluable values which +cannot be sold for money at all. George Robins is great; but he is not +onmipotent. George Robins cannot quite sell Heaven and Earth by auction, +excellent though he be at the business. Nay, if M'Croudy offered his own +life for _sale_ in Threadneedle Street, would anybody buy it? Not I, for +one. "Nobody bids: pass on to the next lot," answers Robins. And yet to +M'Croudy this unsalable lot is worth all the Universe:--nay, I believe, +to us also it is worth something; good monitions, as to several things, +do lie in this Professor of the dismal science; and considerable sums +even of money, not to speak of other benefit, will yet come out of his +life and him, for which nobody bids! Robins has his own field where he +reigns triumphant; but to that we will restrict him with iron limits; +and neither Colonies nor the lives of Professors, nor other such +invaluable objects shall come under his hammer. + +Bad state of the ledger will demonstrate that your way of dealing +with your Colonies is absurd, and urgently in want of reform; but to +demonstrate that the Empire itself must be dismembered to bring the +ledger straight? Oh never. Something else than the ledger must intervene +to do that. Why does not England repudiate Ireland, and insist on the +"Repeal," instead of prohibiting it under death-penalties? Ireland has +never been a paying speculation yet, nor is it like soon to be! Why does +not Middlesex repudiate Surrey, and Chelsea Kensington, and each county +and each parish, and in the end each individual set up for himself +and his cash-box, repudiating the other and his, because their mutual +interests have got into an irritating course? They must change the +course, seek till they discover a soothing one; that is the remedy, when +limbs of the same body come to irritate one another. Because the paltry +tatter of a garment, reticulated for you out of thrums and listings in +Downing Street, ties foot and hand together in an intolerable manner, +will you relieve yourself by cutting off the hand or the foot? You will +cut off the paltry tatter of a pretended body-coat, I think, and fling +that to the nettles; and imperatively require one that fits your size +better. + +Miserabler theory than that of money on the ledger being the primary +rule for Empires, or for any higher entity than City owls and their +mice-catching, cannot well be propounded. And I would by no means advise +Felicissimus, ill at ease on his high-trotting and now justly impatient +Sleswicker, to let the poor horse in its desperation go in that +direction for a momentary solace. If by lumber-log Governors, by +Godfrey's cordial Constitutions or otherwise, be contrived to cut +off the Colonies or any real right the big British Empire has in her +Colonies, both he and the British Empire will bitterly repent it one +day! The Sleswicker, relieved in ledger for a moment, will find that +it is wounded in heart and honor forever; and the turning of its wild +forehoofs upon Felicissimus as he lies in the ditch combed off, is not +a thing I like to think of! Britain, whether it be known to Felicissimus +or not, has other tasks appointed her in God's Universe than the making +of money; and woe will betide her if she forget those other withal. +Tasks, colonial and domestic, which are of an eternally _divine_ nature, +and compared with which all money, and all that is procurable by money, +are in strict arithmetic an imponderable quantity, have been assigned +this Nation; and they also at last are coming upon her again, clamorous, +abstruse, inevitable, much to her bewilderment just now! + +This poor Nation, painfully dark about said tasks and the way of doing +them, means to keep its Colonies nevertheless, as things which somehow +or other must have a value, were it better seen into. They are portions +of the general Earth, where the children of Britain now dwell; where the +gods have so far sanctioned their endeavor, as to say that they have a +right to dwell. England will not readily admit that her own children +are worth nothing but to be flung out of doors! England looking on her +Colonies can say: "Here are lands and seas, spice-lands, corn-lands, +timber-lands, overarched by zodiacs and stars, clasped by many-sounding +seas; wide spaces of the Maker's building, fit for the cradle yet of +mighty Nations and their Sciences and Heroisms. Fertile continents +still inhabited by wild beasts are mine, into which all the distressed +populations of Europe might pour themselves, and make at once an Old +World and a New World human. By the eternal fiat of the gods, this +must yet one day be; this, by all the Divine Silences that rule this +Universe, silent to fools, eloquent and awful to the hearts of the wise, +is incessantly at this moment, and at all moments, commanded to begin to +be. Unspeakable deliverance, and new destiny of thousand-fold expanded +manfulness for all men, dawns out of the Future here. To me has fallen +the godlike task of initiating all that: of me and of my Colonies, the +abstruse Future asks, Are you wise enough for so sublime a destiny? Are +you too foolish?" + + +That you ask advice of whatever wisdom is to be had in the Colony, and +even take note of what _un_wisdom is in it, and record that too as an +existing fact, will certainly be very advantageous. But I suspect the +kind of Parliament that will suit a Colony is much of a secret just now! +Mr. Wakefield, a democratic man in all fibres of him, and acquainted +with Colonial Socialities as few are, judges that the franchise for +your Colonial Parliament should be decidedly select, and advises a high +money-qualification; as there is in all Colonies a fluctuating migratory +mass, not destitute of money, but very much so of loyalty, permanency, +or civic availability; whom it is extremely advantageous not to consult +on what you are about attempting for the Colony or Mother Country. This +I can well believe;--and also that a "high money-qualification," in +the present sad state of human affairs, might be some help to you +in selecting; though whether even that would quite certainly bring +"wisdom," the one thing indispensable, is much a question with me. It +might help, it might help! And if by any means you could (which you +cannot) exclude the Fourth Estate, and indicate decisively that Wise +Advice was the thing wanted here, and Parliamentary Eloquence was not +the thing wanted anywhere just now,--there might really some light of +experience and human foresight, and a truly valuable benefit, be found +for you in such assemblies. + +And there is one thing, too apt to be forgotten, which it much behooves +us to remember: In the Colonies, as everywhere else in this world, the +vital point is not who decides, but what is decided on! That measures +tending really to the best advantage temporal and spiritual of the +Colony be adopted, and strenuously put in execution; there lies +the grand interest of every good citizen British and Colonial. Such +measures, whosoever have originated and prescribed them, will gradually +be sanctioned by all men and gods; and clamors of every kind in +reference to them may safely to a great extent be neglected, as +clamorous merely, and sure to be transient. Colonial Governor, Colonial +Parliament, whoever or whatever does an injustice, or resolves on an +_un_wisdom, he is the pernicious object, however parliamentary he be! + +I have known things done, in this or the other Colony, in the most +parliamentary way before now, which carried written on the brow of them +sad symptoms of eternal reprobation; not to be mistaken, had you painted +an inch thick. In Montreal, for example, at this moment, standing amid +the ruins of the "Elgin Marbles" (as they call the burnt walls of the +Parliament House there), what rational British soul but is forced to +institute the mournfulest constitutional reflection? Some years ago the +Canadas, probably not without materials for discontent, and blown upon +by skilful artists, blazed up into crackling of musketry, open flame of +rebellion; a thing smacking of the gallows in all countries that pretend +to have any "Government." Which flame of rebellion, had there been no +loyal population to fling themselves upon it at peril of their life, +might have ended we know not how. It ended speedily, in the good way; +Canada got a Godfrey's-cordial Constitution; and for the moment all was +varnished into some kind of feasibility again. A most poor feasibility; +momentary, not lasting, nor like to be of profit to Canada! For this +year, the Canadian most constitutional Parliament, such a congeries +of persons as one can imagine, decides that the aforesaid flame of +rebellion shall not only be forgotten as per bargain, but that--the +loyal population, who flung their lives upon it and quenched it in the +nick of time, shall pay the rebels their damages! Of this, I believe, +on sadly conclusive evidence, there is no doubt whatever. Such, when you +wash off the constitutional pigments, is the Death's-head that discloses +itself. I can only say, if all the Parliaments in the world were to +vote that such a thing was just, I should feel painfully constrained to +answer, at my peril, "No, by the Eternal, never!" And I would recommend +any British Governor who might come across that Business, there or here, +to overhaul it again. What the meaning of a Governor, if he is not +to overhaul and control such things, may be, I cannot conjecture. A +Canadian Lumber-log may as well be made Governor. _He_ might have +some cast-metal hand or shoulder-crank (a thing easily contrivable in +Birmingham) for signing his name to Acts of the Colonial Parliament; he +would be a "native of the country" too, with popularity on that score if +on no other;--he is your man, if you really want a Log Governor!-- + + +I perceive therefore that, besides choosing Parliaments never so well, +the New Colonial Office will have another thing to do: Contrive to send +out a new kind of Governors to the Colonies. This will be the mainspring +of the business; without this the business will not go at all. An +experienced, wise and valiant British man, to represent the Imperial +Interest; he, with such a speaking or silent Collective Wisdom as he can +gather round him in the Colony, will evidently be the condition of all +good between the Mother Country and it. If you can find such a man, your +point is gained; if you cannot, lost. By him and his Collective Wisdom +all manner of _true_ relations, mutual interests and duties such as they +do exist in fact between Mother Country and Colony, can be gradually +developed into practical methods and results; and all manner of true and +noble successes, and veracities in the way of governing, be won. +Choose well your Governor;--not from this or that poor section of the +Aristocracy, military, naval, or red-tapist; wherever there are born +kings of men, you had better seek them out, and breed them to this work. +All sections of the British Population will be open to you: and, on the +whole, you must succeed in finding a man _fit_. And having found him, I +would farther recommend you to keep him some time! It would be a great +improvement to end this present nomadism of Colonial Governors. Give +your Governor due power; and let him know withal that he is wedded to +his enterprise, and having once well learned it, shall continue with it; +that it is not a Canadian Lumber-log you want there, to tumble upon +the vertexes and sign its name by a Birmingham shoulder-crank, but +a Governor of Men; who, you mean, shall fairly gird himself to his +enterprise, and fail with it and conquer with it, and as it were live +and die with it: he will have much to learn; and having once learned it, +will stay, and turn his knowledge to account. + +From this kind of Governor, were you once in the way of finding him +with moderate certainty, from him and his Collective Wisdom, all good +whatsoever might be anticipated. And surely, were the Colonies +once enfranchised from red-tape, and the poor Mother Country once +enfranchised from it; were our idle Seventy-fours all busy carrying +out streams of British Industrials, and those Scoundrel Regiments all +working, under divine drill-sergeants, at the grand Atlantic and Pacific +Junction Railway,--poor Britain and her poor Colonies might find that +they _had_ true relations to each other: that the Imperial _Mother_ and +her constitutionally obedient Daughters were not a red-tape fiction, +provoking bitter mockery as at present, but a blessed God's-Fact +destined to fill half the world with its fruits one day! + + +But undoubtedly our grand primary concern is the Home Office, and its +Irish Giant named of Despair. When the Home Office begins dealing with +this Irish Giant, which it is vitally urgent for us the Home Office +should straightway do, it will find its duties enlarged to a most +unexpected extent, and, as it were, altered from top to bottom. A +changed time now when the question is, What to do with three millions +of paupers (come upon you for food, since you have no work for them) +increasing at a frightful rate per day? Home Office, Parliament, King, +Constitution will find that they have now, if they will continue in this +world long, got a quite immense new question and continually recurring +set of questions. That huge question of the Irish Giant with his Scotch +and English Giant-Progeny advancing open-mouthed upon us, will, as I +calculate, change from top to bottom not the Home Office only but +all manner of Offices and Institutions whatsoever, and gradually the +structure of Society itself. I perceive, it will make us a new Society, +if we are to continue a Society at all. For the alternative is not, Stay +where we are, or change? But Change, with new wise effort fit for the +new time, to true and wider nobler National Life; or Change, by indolent +folding of the arms, as we are now doing, in horrible anarchies and +convulsions to Dissolution, to National Death, or Suspended-animation? +Suspended-animation itself is a frightful possibility for Britain: this +Anarchy whither all Europe has preceded us, where all Europe is now +weltering, would suit us as ill as any! The question for the British +Nation is: Can we work our course pacifically, on firm land, into the +New Era; or must it be, for us too, as for all the others, through black +abysses of Anarchy, hardly escaping, if we do with all our struggles +escape, the jaws of eternal Death? + +For Pauperism, though it now absorbs its high figure of millions +annually, is by no means a question of money only, but of infinitely +higher and greater than all conceivable money. If our Chancellor of the +Exchequer had a Fortunatus' purse, and miraculous sacks of Indian meal +that would stand scooping from forever,--I say, even on these terms +Pauperism could not be endured; and it would vitally concern all British +Citizens to abate Pauperism, and never rest till they had ended it +again. Pauperism is the general leakage through every joint of the ship +that it is rotten. Were all men doing their duty, or even seriously +trying to do it, there would be no Pauper. Were the pretended Captains +of the world at all in the habit of commanding; were the pretended +Teachers of the world at all in the habit of teaching,--of admonishing +said Captains among others, and with sacred zeal apprising them to what +place such neglect was leading,--how could Pauperism exist? Pauperism +would lie far over the horizon; we should be lamenting and denouncing +quite inferior sins of men, which were only tending afar off towards +Pauperism. A true Captaincy; a true Teachership, either making all men +and Captains know and devoutly recognize the eternal law of things, or +else breaking its own heart, and going about with sackcloth round its +loins, in testimony of continual sorrow and protest, and prophecy of +God's vengeance upon such a course of things: either of these divine +equipments would have saved us; and it is because we have neither of +them that we are come to such a pass! + +We may depend upon it, where there is a Pauper, there is a sin; to +make one Pauper there go many sins. Pauperism is our Social Sin grown +manifest; developed from the state of a spiritual ignobleness, a +practical impropriety and base oblivion of duty, to an affair of the +ledger. Here is not now an unheeded sin against God; here is a concrete +ugly bulk of Beggary demanding that you should buy Indian meal for it. +Men of reflection have long looked with a horror for which there was no +response in the idle public, upon Pauperism; but the quantity of meal it +demands has now awakened men of no reflection to consider it. Pauperism +is the poisonous dripping from all the sins, and putrid unveracities and +god-forgetting greedinesses and devil-serving cants and jesuitisms, that +exist among us. Not one idle Sham lounging about Creation upon false +pretences, upon means which he has not earned, upon theories which he +does not practise, but yields his share of Pauperism somewhere or +other. His sham-work oozes down; finds at last its issue as human +Pauperism,--in a human being that by those false pretences cannot live. +The Idle Workhouse, now about to burst of overfilling, what is it +but the scandalous poison-tank of drainage from the universal Stygian +quagmire of our affairs? Workhouse Paupers; immortal sons of Adam rotted +into that scandalous condition, subter-slavish, demanding that you would +make slaves of them as an unattainable blessing! My friends, I perceive +the quagmire must be drained, or we cannot live. And farther, I +perceive, this of Pauperism is the corner where we must _begin_,--the +levels all pointing thitherward, the possibilities lying all clearly +there. On that Problem we shall find that innumerable things, that all +things whatsoever hang. By courageous steadfast persistence in that, I +can foresee Society itself regenerated. In the course of long strenuous +centuries, I can see the State become what it is actually bound to be, +the keystone of a most real "Organization of Labor,"--and on this Earth +a world of some veracity, and some heroism, once more worth living in! + + +The State in all European countries, and in England first of all, as I +hope, will discover that its functions are now, and have long been, very +wide of what the State in old pedant Downing Streets has aimed at; +that the State is, for the present, not a reality but in great part a +dramatic speciosity, expending its strength in practices and objects +fallen many of them quite obsolete; that it must come a little nearer +the true aim again, or it cannot continue in this world. The "Champion +of England" eased in iron or tin, and "able to mount his horse with +little assistance,"--this Champion and the thousand-fold cousinry of +Phantasms he has, nearly all dead now but still walking as ghosts, +must positively take himself away: who can endure him, and his solemn +trumpetings and obsolete gesticulations, in a Time that is full of +deadly realities, coming open-mouthed upon us? At Drury Lane, let him +play his part, him and his thousand-fold cousinry; and welcome, so long +as any public will pay a shilling to see him: but on the solid earth, +under the extremely earnest stars, we dare not palter with him, or +accept his tomfooleries any more. Ridiculous they seem to some; horrible +they seem to me: all lies, if one look whence they come and whither they +go, are horrible. + +Alas, it will be found, I doubt, that in England more than in any +country, our Public Life and our Private, our State and our Religion, +and all that we do and speak (and the most even of what we _think_), +is a tissue of half-truths and whole-lies; of hypocrisies, +conventionalisms, worn-out traditionary rags and cobwebs; such a +life-garment of beggarly incredible and uncredited falsities as no +honest souls of Adam's Posterity were ever enveloped in before. And we +walk about in it with a stately gesture, as if it were some priestly +stole or imperial mantle; not the foulest beggar's gabardine that ever +was. "No Englishman dare believe the truth," says one: "he stands, for +these two hundred years, enveloped in lies of every kind; from nadir to +zenith an ocean of traditionary cant surrounds him as his life-element. +He really thinks the truth dangerous. Poor wretch, you see him +everywhere endeavoring to temper the truth by taking the falsity +along with it, and welding them together; this he calls 'safe course,' +'moderate course,' and other fine names; there, balanced between God and +the Devil, he thinks he _can_ serve two masters, and that things will go +well with him." + +In the cotton-spinning and similar departments our English friend +knows well that truth or God will have nothing to do with the Devil or +falsehood, but will ravel all the web to pieces if you introduce +the Devil or Non-veracity in any form into it: in this department, +therefore, our English friend avoids falsehood. But in the religious, +political, social, moral, and all other spiritual departments he freely +introduces falsehood, nothing doubting; and has long done so, with a +profuseness not elsewhere met with in the world. The unhappy creature, +does he not know, then, that every lie is accursed, and the parent of +mere curses? That he must _think_ the truth; much more speak it? That, +above all things, by the oldest law of Heaven and Earth which no man +violates with impunity, he must not and shall not wag the tongue of +him except to utter his thought? That there is not a grin or beautiful +acceptable grimace he can execute upon his poor countenance, but is +either an express veracity, the image of what passes within him; or else +is a bit of Devil-worship which he and the rest of us will have to pay +for yet? Alas, the grins he executes upon his poor _mind_ (which is all +tortured into St. Vitus dances, and ghastly merry-andrewisms, by the +practice) are the most extraordinary this sun ever saw. + +We have Puseyisms, black-and-white surplice controversies:--do not, +officially and otherwise, the select of the longest heads in England +sit with intense application and iron gravity, in open forum, judging of +"prevenient grace"? Not a head of them suspects that it can be improper +so to sit, or of the nature of treason against the Power who gave an +Intellect to man;--that it can be other than the duty of a good citizen +to use his god-given intellect in investigating prevenient grace, +supervenient moonshine, or the color of the Bishop's nightmare, if that +happened to turn up. I consider them far ahead of Cicero's Roman Augurs +with their chicken-bowels: "Behold these divine chicken-bowels, O Senate +and Roman People; the midriff has fallen eastward!" solemnly intimates +one Augur. "By Proserpina and the triple Hecate!" exclaims the other, +"I say the midriff has fallen to the west!" And they look at one another +with the seriousness of men prepared to die in their opinion,--the +authentic seriousness of men betting at Tattersall's, or about to +receive judgment in Chancery. There is in the Englishman something +great, beyond all Roman greatness, in whatever line you meet him; even +as a Latter-Day Augur he seeks his fellow!--Poor devil, I believe it is +his intense love of peace, and hatred of breeding discussions which lead +no-whither, that has led him into this sad practice of amalgamating true +and false. + +He has been at it these two hundred years; and has now carried it to a +terrible length. He couldn't follow Oliver Cromwell in the Puritan +path heavenward, so steep was it, and beset with thorns,--and becoming +uncertain withal. He much preferred, at that juncture, to go heavenward +with his Charles Second and merry Nell Gwynns, and old decent +formularies and good respectable aristocratic company, for escort; sore +he tried, by glorious restorations, glorious revolutions and so +forth, to perfect this desirable amalgam; hoped always it might be +possible;--is only just now, if even now, beginning to give up the +hope; and to see with wide-eyed horror that it is not at Heaven he +is arriving, but at the Stygian marshes, with their thirty thousand +Needlewomen, cannibal Connaughts, rivers of lamentation, continual wail +of infants, and the yellow-burning gleam of a Hell-on-Earth!--Bull, my +friend, you must strip that astonishing pontiff-stole, imperial mantle, +or whatever you imagine it to be, which I discern to be a garment of +curses, and poisoned Nessus'-shirt now at last about to take fire upon +you; you must strip that off your poor body, my friend; and, were it +only in a soul's suit of Utilitarian buff, and such belief as that a +big loaf is better than a small one, come forth into contact with your +world, under _true_ professions again, and not false. You wretched man, +you ought to weep for half a century on discovering what lies you have +believed, and what every lie leads to and proceeds from. O my friend, no +honest fellow in this Planet was ever so served by his cooks before; or +has eaten such quantities and qualities of dirt as you have been made +to do, for these two centuries past. Arise, my horribly maltreated yet +still beloved Bull; steep yourself in running water for a long while, my +friend; and begin forthwith in every conceivable direction, physical and +spiritual, the long-expected _Scavenger Age_. + +Many doctors have you had, my poor friend; but I perceive it is the +Water-Cure alone that will help you: a complete course of _scavengerism_ +is the thing you need! A new and veritable heart-divorce of England from +the Babylonish woman, who is Jesuitism and Unveracity, and dwells not +at Rome now, but under your own nose and everywhere; whom, and her foul +worship of Phantasms and Devils, poor England _had_ once divorced, with +a divine heroism not forgotten yet, and well worth remembering now: a + Phantasms which have too long nestled thick there, under those +astonishing "Defenders of the Faith,"--Defenders of the Hypocrisies, the +spiritual Vampires and obscene Nightmares, under which England lies in +syncope;--this is what you need; and if you cannot get it, you must die, +my poor friend! + +Like people, like priest. Priest, King, Home Office, all manner of +establishments and offices among a people bear a striking resemblance to +the people itself. It is because Bull has been eating so much dirt that +his Home Offices have got into such a shockingly dirty condition,--the +old pavements of them quite gone out of sight and out of memory, and +nothing but mountains of long-accumulated dung in which the poor cattle +are sprawling and tumbling. Had his own life been pure, had his own +daily conduct been grounding itself on the clear pavements or actual +beliefs and veracities, would he have let his Home Offices come to such +a pass? Not in Downing Street only, but in all other thoroughfares and +arenas and spiritual or physical departments of his existence, running +water and Herculean scavengerism have become indispensable, unless the +poor man is to choke in his own exuviae, and die the sorrowfulest death. + + +If the State could once get back to the real sight of its essential +function, and with religious resolution begin doing that, and putting +away its multifarious imaginary functions, and indignantly casting out +these as mere dung and insalubrious horror and abomination (which they +are), what a promise of reform were there! The British Home Office, +surely this and its kindred Offices exist, if they will think of it, +that life and work may continue possible, and may not become impossible, +for British men. If honorable existence, or existence on human terms +at all, have become impossible for millions of British men, how can +the Home Office or any other Office long exist? With thirty thousand +Needlewomen, a Connaught fallen into potential cannibalism, and the Idle +Workhouse everywhere bursting, and declaring itself an inhumanity and +stupid ruinous brutality not much longer to be tolerated among rational +human creatures, it is time the State were bethinking itself. + +So soon as the State attacks that tremendous cloaca of Pauperism, which +will choke the world if it be not attacked, the State will find its real +functions very different indeed from what it had long supposed them! +The State is a reality, and not a dramaturgy; it exists here to render +existence possible, existence desirable and noble, for the State's +subjects. The State, as it gets into the track of its real work, will +find that same expand into whole continents of new unexpected, most +blessed activity; as its dramatic functions, declared superfluous, +more and more fall inert, and go rushing like huge torrents of extinct +exuviae, dung and rubbish, down to the Abyss forever. O Heaven, to see +a State that knew a little why it was there, and on what ground, in this +Year 1850, it could pretend to exist, in so extremely earnest a world as +ours is growing! The British State, if it will be the crown and keystone +of our British Social Existence, must get to recognize, with a veracity +very long unknown to it, what the real objects and indispensable +necessities of our Social Existence are. Good Heavens, it is not +prevenient grace, or the color of the Bishop's nightmare, that is +pinching us; it is the impossibility to get along any farther for +mountains of accumulated dung and falsity and horror; the total +closing-up of noble aims from every man,--of any aim at all, from many +men, except that of rotting out in Idle Workhouses an existence below +that of beasts! + +Suppose the State to have fairly started its "Industrial Regiments of +the New Era," which alas, are yet only beginning to be talked of,--what +continents of new real work opened out, for the Home and all other +Public Offices among us! Suppose the Home Office looking out, as for +life and salvation, for proper men to command these "Regiments." Suppose +the announcement were practically made to all British souls that the +want of wants, more indispensable than any jewel in the crown, was that +of men _able to command men_ in ways of industrial and moral well-doing; +that the State would give its very life for such men; that such men +_were_ the State; that the quantity of them to be found in England +lamentably small at present, was the exact measure of England's +worth,--what a new dawn of everlasting day for all British souls! Noble +British soul, to whom the gods have given faculty and heroism, what men +call genius, here at last is a career for thee. It will not be needful +now to swear fealty to the Incredible, and traitorously cramp thyself +into a cowardly canting play-actor in God's Universe; or, solemnly +forswearing that, into a mutinous rebel and waste bandit in thy +generation: here is an aim that is clear and credible, a course fit +for a man. No need to become a tormenting and self-tormenting mutineer, +banded with rebellious souls, if thou wouldst live; no need to rot in +suicidal idleness; or take to platform preaching, and writing in Radical +Newspapers, to pull asunder the great Falsity in which thou and all of +us are choking. The great Falsity, behold it has become, in the very +heart of it, a great Truth of Truths; and invites thee and all brave men +to cooperate with it in transforming all the body and the joints into +the noble likeness of that heart! Thrice-blessed change. The State aims, +once more, with a true aim; and has loadstars in the eternal Heaven. +Struggle faithfully for it; noble is _this_ struggle; thou too, +according to thy faculty, shalt reap in due time, if thou faint not. +Thou shalt have a wise command of men, thou shalt be wisely commanded by +men,--the summary of all blessedness for a social creature here below. +The sore struggle, never to be relaxed, and not forgiven to any son of +man, is once more a noble one; glory to the Highest, it is now once more +a true and noble one, wherein a man can afford to die! Our path is now +again Heavenward. Forward, with steady pace, with drawn weapons, and +unconquerable hearts, in the name of God that made us all!-- + +Wise obedience and wise command, I foresee that the regimenting of +Pauper Banditti into Soldiers of Industry is but the beginning of +this blessed process, which will extend to the topmost heights of our +Society; and, in the course of generations, make us all once more a +Governed Commonwealth, and _Civitas Dei_, if it please God! Waste-land +Industrials succeeding, other kinds of Industry, as cloth-making, +shoe-making, plough-making, spade-making, house-building,--in the end, +all kinds of Industry whatsoever, will be found capable of regimenting. +Mill-operatives, all manner of free operatives, as yet unregimented, +nomadic under private masters, they, seeing such example and its +blessedness, will say: "Masters, you must regiment us a little; make our +interests with you permanent a little, instead of temporary and nomadic; +we will enlist with the State otherwise!" This will go on, on the one +hand, while the State-operation goes on, on the other: thus will +all Masters of Workmen, private Captains of Industry, be forced to +incessantly co-operate with the State and its public Captains; they +regimenting in their way, the State in its way, with ever-widening +field; till their fields _meet_ (so to speak) and coalesce, and there be +no unregimented worker, or such only as are fit to remain unregimented, +any more.--O my friends, I clearly perceive this horrible cloaca of +Pauperism, wearing nearly bottomless now, is the point where we +must begin. Here, in this plainly unendurable portion of the general +quagmire, the lowest point of all, and hateful even to M'Croudy, must +our main drain begin: steadily prosecuting that, tearing that along with +Herculean labor and divine fidelity, we shall gradually drain the entire +Stygian swamp, and make it all once more a fruitful field! + +For the State, I perceive, looking out with right sacred earnestness for +persons able to command, will straightway also come upon the question: +"What kind of schools and seminaries, and teaching and also preaching +establishments have I, for the training of young souls to take command +and to yield obedience? Wise command, wise obedience: the capability of +these two is the net measure of culture, and human virtue, in every man; +all good lies in the possession of these two capabilities; all evil, +wretchedness and ill-success in the want of these. He is a good man that +can command and obey; he that cannot is a bad. If my teachers and my +preachers, with their seminaries, high schools and cathedrals, do train +men to these gifts, the thing they are teaching and preaching must be +true; if they do not, not true!" + +The State, once brought to its veracities by the thumb-screw in this +manner, what will it think of these same seminaries and cathedrals! +I foresee that our Etons and Oxfords with their nonsense-verses, +college-logics, and broken crumbs of mere _speech_,--which is not even +English or Teutonic speech, but old Grecian and Italian speech, dead +and buried and much lying out of our way these two thousand years last +past,--will be found a most astonishing seminary for the training of +young English souls to take command in human Industries, and act a +valiant part under the sun! The State does not want vocables, but manly +wisdoms and virtues: the State, does it want parliamentary orators, +first of all, and men capable of writing books? What a rag-fair of +extinct monkeries, high-piled here in the very shrine of our existence, +fit to smite the generations with atrophy and beggarly paralysis,--as we +see it do! The Minister of Education will not want for work, I think, in +the New Downing Street! + +How it will go with Souls'-Overseers, and what the _new_ kind will be, +we do not prophesy just now. Clear it is, however, that the last finish +of the State's efforts, in this operation of regimenting, will be to get +the _true_ Souls'-Overseers set over men's souls, to regiment, as the +consummate flower of all, and constitute into some Sacred Corporation, +bearing authority and dignity in their generation, the Chosen of the +Wise, of the Spiritual and Devout-minded, the Reverent who deserve +reverence, who are as the Salt of the Earth;--that not till this is done +can the State consider its edifice to have reached the first story, to +be safe for a moment, to be other than an arch without the keystones, +and supported hitherto on mere wood. How will this be done? Ask not; let +the second or the third generation after this begin to ask!--Alas, wise +men do exist, born duly into the world in every current generation; but +the getting of _them_ regimented is the highest pitch of human Polity, +and the feat of all feats in political engineering:--impossible for us, +in this poor age, as the building of St. Paul's would be for Canadian +Beavers, acquainted only with the architecture of fish-dams, and with no +trowel but their tail. + +Literature, the strange entity so called,--that indeed is here. If +Literature continue to be the haven of expatriated spiritualisms, and +have its Johnsons, Goethes and _true_ Archbishops of the World, to show +for itself as heretofore, there may be hope in Literature. If Literature +dwindle, as is probable, into mere merry-andrewism, windy twaddle, +and feats of spiritual legerdemain, analogous to rope-dancing, +opera-dancing, and street-fiddling with a hat carried round for +halfpence, or for guineas, there will be no hope in Literature. What +if our next set of Souls'-Overseers were to be _silent_ ones very +mainly?--Alas, alas, why gaze into the blessed continents and delectable +mountains of a Future based on _truth_, while as yet we struggle far +down, nigh suffocated in a slough of lies, uncertain whether or how we +shall be able to climb at all! + + +Who will begin the long steep journey with us; who of living statesmen +will snatch the standard, and say, like a hero on the forlorn-hope for +his country, Forward! Or is there none; no one that can and dare? And +our lot too, then, is Anarchy by barricade or ballot-box, and Social +Death?--We will not think so. + + +Whether Sir Robert Peel will undertake the Reform of Downing Street for +us, or any Ministry or Reform farther, is not known. He, they say, is +getting old, does himself recoil from it, and shudder at it; which is +possible enough. The clubs and coteries appear to have settled that +he surely will not; that this melancholy wriggling seesaw of red-tape +Trojans and Protectionist Greeks must continue its course till--what +_can_ happen, my friends, if this go on continuing? + +And yet, perhaps, England has by no means so settled it. Quit the clubs +and coteries, you do not hear two rational men speak long together upon +politics, without pointing their inquiries towards this man. A Minister +that will attack the Augeas Stable of Downing Street, and begin +producing a real Management, no longer an imaginary one, of our affairs; +_he_, or else in few years Chartist Parliament and the Deluge come: that +seems the alternative. As I read the omens, there was no man in my time +more authentically called to a post of difficulty, of danger, and of +honor than this man. The enterprise is ready for him, if he is ready for +it. He has but to lift his finger in this enterprise, and whatsoever +is wise and manful in England will rally round him. If the faculty and +heart for it be in him, he, strangely and almost tragically if we look +upon his history, is to have leave to try it; he now, at the eleventh +hour, has the opportunity for such a feat in reform as has not, in these +late generations, been attempted by all our reformers put together. + +As for Protectionist jargon, who in these earnest days would occupy many +moments of his time with that? "A Costermonger in this street," says +Crabbe, "finding lately that his rope of onions, which he hoped would +have brought a shilling, was to go for only sevenpence henceforth, burst +forth into lamentation, execration and the most pathetic tears. Throwing +up the window, I perceived the other costermongers preparing impatiently +to pack this one out of their company as a disgrace to it, if he would +not hold his peace and take the market-rate for his onions. I +looked better at this Costermonger. To my astonished imagination, a +star-and-garter dawned upon the dim figure of the man; and I perceived +that here was no Costermonger to be expelled with ignominy, but a +sublime goddess-born Ducal Individual, whom I forbear to name at this +moment! What an omen;--nay to my astonished imagination, there dawned +still fataler omens. Surely, of all human trades ever heard of, the +trade of Owning Land in England ought _not_ to bully us for drink--money +just now!" + +"Hansard's Debates," continues Crabbe farther on, "present many +inconsistencies of speech; lamentable unveracities uttered in +Parliament, by one and indeed by all; in which sad list Sir Robert Peel +stands for his share among others. Unveracities not a few were spoken in +Parliament: in fact, to one with a sense of what is called God's truth, +it seemed all one unveracity, a talking from the teeth outward, not as +the convictions but as the expediencies and inward astucities directed; +and, in the sense of God's _truth_, I have heard no true word uttered in +Parliament at all. Most lamentable unveracities continually _spoken_ in +Parliament, by almost every one that had to open his mouth there. But +the largest veracity ever _done_ in Parliament in our time, as we all +know, was of this man's doing;--and that, you will find, is a very +considerable item in the calculation!" + +Yes, and I believe England in her dumb way remembers that too. And +"the Traitor Peel" can very well afford to let innumerable Ducal +Costermongers, parliamentary Adventurers, and lineal representatives of +the Impenitent Thief, say all their say about him, and do all their do. +With a virtual England at his back, and an actual eternal sky above him, +there is not much in the total net-amount of that. When the master of +the horse rides abroad, many dogs in the village bark; but he pursues +his journey all the same. + + + + +No. V. STUMP-ORATOR. [May 1, 1850.] + +It lies deep in our habits, confirmed by all manner of educational and +other arrangements for several centuries back, to consider human talent +as best of all evincing itself by the faculty of eloquent speech. Our +earliest schoolmasters teach us, as the one gift of culture they have, +the art of spelling and pronouncing, the rules of correct speech; +rhetorics, logics follow, sublime mysteries of grammar, whereby we may +not only speak but write. And onward to the last of our schoolmasters in +the highest university, it is still intrinsically grammar, under various +figures grammar. To speak in various languages, on various things, but +on all of them to speak, and appropriately deliver ourselves by tongue +or pen,--this is the sublime goal towards which all manner of beneficent +preceptors and learned professors, from the lowest hornbook upwards, are +continually urging and guiding us. Preceptor or professor, looking over +his miraculous seedplot, seminary as he well calls it, or crop of young +human souls, watches with attentive view one organ of his delightful +little seedlings growing to be men,--the tongue. He hopes we shall +all get to speak yet, if it please Heaven. "Some of you shall be +book-writers, eloquent review-writers, and astonish mankind, my young +friends: others in white neckcloths shall do sermons by Blair and +Lindley Murray, nay by Jeremy Taylor and judicious Hooker, and be +priests to guide men heavenward by skilfully brandished handkerchief and +the torch of rhetoric. For others there is Parliament and the election +beer-barrel, and a course that leads men very high indeed; these shall +shake the senate-house, the Morning Newspapers, shake the very spheres, +and by dexterous wagging of the tongue disenthrall mankind, and lead our +afflicted country and us on the way we are to go. The way if not where +noble deeds are done, yet where noble words are spoken,--leading us if +not to the real Home of the Gods, at least to something which shall more +or less deceptively resemble it!" + +So fares it with the son of Adam, in these bewildered epochs; so, from +the first opening of his eyes in this world, to his last closing of +them, and departure hence. Speak, speak, oh speak;--if thou have +any faculty, speak it, or thou diest and it is no faculty! So in +universities, and all manner of dames' and other schools, of the very +highest class as of the very lowest; and Society at large, when we +enter there, confirms with all its brilliant review-articles, successful +publications, intellectual tea-circles, literary gazettes, parliamentary +eloquences, the grand lesson we had. Other lesson in fact we have none, +in these times. If there be a human talent, let it get into the tongue, +and make melody with that organ. The talent that can say nothing for +itself, what is it? Nothing; or a thing that can do mere drudgeries, and +at best make money by railways. + +All this is deep-rooted in our habits, in our social, educational and +other arrangements; and all this, when we look at it impartially, is +astonishing. Directly in the teeth of all this it may be asserted that +speaking is by no means the chief faculty a human being can attain to; +that his excellence therein is by no means the best test of his general +human excellence, or availability in this world; nay that, unless we +look well, it is liable to become the very worst test ever devised for +said availability. The matter extends very far, down to the very roots +of the world, whither the British reader cannot conveniently follow me +just now; but I will venture to assert the three following things, and +invite him to consider well what truth he can gradually find in them:-- + +First, that excellent speech, even speech _really_ excellent, is not, +and never was, the chief test of human faculty, or the measure of a +man's ability, for any true function whatsoever; on the contrary, that +excellent _silence_ needed always to accompany excellent speech, and was +and is a much rarer and more difficult gift. + +_Secondly_, that really excellent speech--which I, being possessed +of the Hebrew Bible or Book, as well as of other books in my own and +foreign languages, and having occasionally heard a wise man's word among +the crowd of unwise, do almost unspeakably esteem, as a human gift--is +terribly apt to get confounded with its counterfeit, sham-excellent +speech! And furthermore, that if really excellent human speech is among +the best of human things, then sham-excellent ditto deserves to be +ranked with the very worst. False speech,--capable of becoming, as some +one has said, the falsest and basest of all human things:--put the case, +one were listening to _that_ as to the truest and noblest! Which, little +as we are conscious of it, I take to be the sad lot of many excellent +souls among us just now. So many as admire parliamentary eloquence, +divine popular literature, and such like, are dreadfully liable to +it just now: and whole nations and generations seem as if getting +themselves _asphyxiaed_, constitutionally into their last sleep, by +means of it just now! + +For alas, much as we worship speech on all hands, here is a _third_ +assertion which a man may venture to make, and invite considerate men +to reflect upon: That in these times, and for several generations back, +there has been, strictly considered, no really excellent speech at all, +but sham-excellent merely; that is to say, false or quasi-false +speech getting itself admired and worshipped, instead of detested and +suppressed. A truly alarming predicament; and not the less so if we find +it a quite pleasant one for the time being, and welcome the advent of +asphyxia, as we would that of comfortable natural sleep;--as, in so +many senses, we are doing! Surly judges there have been who did not much +admire the "Bible of Modern Literature," or anything you could distil +from it, in contrast with the ancient Bibles; and found that in the +matter of speaking, our far best excellence, where that could be +obtained, was excellent silence, which means endurance and exertion, and +good work with lips closed; and that our tolerablest speech was of the +nature of honest commonplace introduced where indispensable, which +only set up for being brief and true, and could not be mistaken for +excellent. + +These are hard sayings for many a British reader, unconscious of any +damage, nay joyfully conscious to himself of much profit, from that side +of his possessions. Surely on this side, if on no other, matters stood +not ill with him? The ingenuous arts had softened his manners; the +parliamentary eloquences supplied him with a succedaneum for government, +the popular literatures with the finer sensibilities of the heart: +surely on this _wind_ward side of things the British reader was not ill +off?--Unhappy British reader! + +In fact, the spiritual detriment we unconsciously suffer, in every +province of our affairs, from this our prostrate respect to power of +speech is incalculable. For indeed it is the natural consummation of +an epoch such as ours. Given a general insincerity of mind for several +generations, you will certainly find the Talker established in the +place of honor; and the Doer, hidden in the obscure crowd, with activity +lamed, or working sorrowfully forward on paths unworthy of him. All +men are devoutly prostrate, worshipping the eloquent talker; and no man +knows what a scandalous idol he is. Out of whom in the mildest +manner, like comfortable natural rest, comes mere asphyxia and death +everlasting! Probably there is not in Nature a more distracted phantasm +than your commonplace eloquent speaker, as he is found on platforms, +in parliaments, on Kentucky stumps, at tavern-dinners, in windy, empty, +insincere times like ours. The "excellent Stump-orator," as our admiring +Yankee friends define him, he who in any occurrent set of circumstances +can start forth, mount upon his "stump," his rostrum, tribune, place +in parliament, or other ready elevation, and pour forth from him +his appropriate "excellent speech," his interpretation of the said +circumstances, in such manner as poor windy mortals round him shall cry +bravo to,--he is not an artist I can much admire, as matters go! Alas, +he is in general merely the windiest mortal of them all; and is admired +for being so, into the bargain. Not a windy blockhead there who kept +silent but is better off than this excellent stump-orator. Better off, +for a great many reasons; for this reason, were there no other: the +silent one is not admired; the silent suspects, perhaps partly admits, +that he is a kind of blockhead, from which salutary self-knowledge +the excellent stump-orator is debarred. A mouthpiece of Chaos to poor +benighted mortals that lend ear to him as to a voice from Cosmos, this +excellent stump-orator fills me with amazement. Not empty these musical +wind-utterances of his; they are big with prophecy; they announce, too +audibly to me, that the end of many things is drawing nigh! + +Let the British reader consider it a little; he too is not a little +interested in it. Nay he, and the European reader in general, but he +chiefly in these days, will require to consider it a great deal,--and to +take important steps in consequence by and by, if I mistake not. And in +the mean while, sunk as he himself is in that bad element, and like a +jaundiced man struggling to discriminate yellow colors,--he will have to +meditate long before he in any measure get the immense meanings of the +thing brought home to him; and discern, with astonishment, alarm, and +almost terror and despair, towards what fatal issues, in our Collective +Wisdom and elsewhere, this notion of talent meaning eloquent speech, so +obstinately entertained this long while, has been leading us! Whosoever +shall look well into origins and issues, will find this of eloquence +and the part it now plays in our affairs, to be one of the gravest +phenomena; and the excellent stump-orator of these days to be not only +a ridiculous but still more a highly tragical personage. While the +many listen to him, the few are used to pass rapidly, with some gust of +scornful laughter, some growl of impatient malediction; but he deserves +from this latter class a much more serious attention. + + +In the old Ages, when Universities and Schools were first instituted, +this function of the schoolmaster, to teach mere speaking, was the +natural one. In those healthy times, guided by silent instincts and the +monition of Nature, men had from of old been used to teach themselves +what it was essential to learn, by the one sure method of learning +anything, practical apprenticeship to it. This was the rule for all +classes; as it now is the rule, unluckily, for only one class. The +Working Man as yet sought only to know his craft; and educated himself +sufficiently by ploughing and hammering, under the conditions given, and +in fit relation to the persons given: a course of education, then as +now and ever, really opulent in manful culture and instruction to him; +teaching him many solid virtues, and most indubitably useful knowledges; +developing in him valuable faculties not a few both to do and to +endure,--among which the faculty of elaborate grammatical utterance, +seeing he had so little of extraordinary to utter, or to learn from +spoken or written utterances, was not bargained for; the grammar of +Nature, which he learned from his mother, being still amply sufficient +for him. This was, as it still is, the grand education of the Working +Man. + +As for the Priest, though his trade was clearly of a reading and +speaking nature, he knew also in those veracious times that grammar, if +needful, was by no means the one thing needful, or the chief thing. By +far the chief thing needful, and indeed the one thing then as now, was, +That there should be in him the feeling and the practice of reverence +to God and to men; that in his life's core there should dwell, spoken +or silent, a ray of pious wisdom fit for illuminating dark human +destinies;--not so much that he should possess the art of speech, as +that he should have something to speak! And for that latter requisite +the Priest also trained himself by apprenticeship, by actual attempt +to practise, by manifold long-continued trial, of a devout and painful +nature, such as his superiors prescribed to him. This, when once judged +satisfactory, procured him ordination; and his grammar-learning, in +the good times of priesthood, was very much of a parergon with him, +as indeed in all times it is intrinsically quite insignificant in +comparison. + +The young Noble again, for whom grammar schoolmasters were first hired +and high seminaries founded, he too without these, or above and over +these, had from immemorial time been used to learn his business by +apprenticeship. The young Noble, before the schoolmaster as after him, +went apprentice to some elder noble; entered himself as page with some +distinguished earl or duke; and here, serving upwards from step to step, +under wise monition, learned his chivalries, his practice of arms and +of courtesies, his baronial duties and manners, and what it would beseem +him to do and to be in the world,--by practical attempt of his own, and +example of one whose life was a daily concrete pattern for him. To such +a one, already filled with intellectual substance, and possessing what +we may call the practical gold-bullion of human culture, it was an +obvious improvement that he should be taught to speak it out of him on +occasion; that he should carry a spiritual banknote producible on demand +for what of "gold-bullion" he had, not so negotiable otherwise, stored +in the cellars of his mind. A man, with wisdom, insight and heroic worth +already acquired for him, naturally demanded of the schoolmaster this +one new faculty, the faculty of uttering in fit words what he had. A +valuable superaddition of faculty:--and yet we are to remember it was +scarcely a new faculty; it was but the tangible sign of what +other faculties the man had in the silent state: and many a rugged +inarticulate chief of men, I can believe, was most enviably +"educated," who had not a Book on his premises; whose signature, a true +sign-_manual_, was the stamp of his iron hand duly inked and clapt upon +the parchment; and whose speech in Parliament, like the growl of lions, +did indeed convey his meaning, but would have torn Lindley Murray's +nerves to pieces! To such a one the schoolmaster adjusted himself very +naturally in that manner; as a man wanted for teaching grammatical +utterance; the thing to utter being already there. The thing to utter, +here was the grand point! And perhaps this is the reason why among +earnest nations, as among the Romans for example, the craft of the +schoolmaster was held in little regard; for indeed as mere teacher of +grammar, of ciphering on the abacus and such like, how did he differ +much from the dancing-master or fencing-master, or deserve much +regard?--Such was the rule in the ancient healthy times. + + +Can it be doubtful that this is still the rule of human education; that +the human creature needs first of all to be educated not that he may +speak, but that he may have something weighty and valuable to say! If +speech is the bank-note of an inward capital of culture, of insight and +noble human worth, then speech is precious, and the art of speech shall +be honored. But if there is no inward capital; if speech represent no +real culture of the mind, but an imaginary culture; no bullion, but +the fatal and now almost hopeless deficit of such? Alas, alas, said +bank-note is then a _forged_ one; passing freely current in the market; +but bringing damages to the receiver, to the payer, and to all the +world, which are in sad truth infallible, and of amount incalculable. +Few think of it at present; but the truth remains forever so. In +parliaments and other loud assemblages, your eloquent talk, disunited +from Nature and her facts, is taken as wisdom and the correct image of +said facts: but Nature well knows what it is, Nature will not have it +as such, and will reject your forged note one day, with huge costs. The +foolish traders in the market pass freely, nothing doubting, and rejoice +in the dexterous execution of the piece: and so it circulates from hand +to hand, and from class to class; gravitating ever downwards towards the +practical class; till at last it reaches some poor _working_ hand, who +can pass it no farther, but must take it to the bank to get bread with +it, and there the answer is, "Unhappy caitiff, this note is forged. It +does not mean performance and reality, in parliaments and elsewhere, for +thy behoof; it means fallacious semblance of performance; and thou, poor +dupe, art thrown into the stocks on offering it here!" + +Alas, alas, looking abroad over Irish difficulties, Mosaic +sweating-establishments, French barricades, and an anarchic Europe, is +it not as if all the populations of the world were rising or had risen +into incendiary madness;--unable longer to endure such an avalanche +of forgeries, and of penalties in consequence, as had accumulated upon +them? The speaker is "excellent;" the notes he does are beautiful? +Beautifully fit for the market, yes; _he_ is an excellent artist in his +business;--and the more excellent he is, the more is my desire to lay +him by the heels, and fling _him_ into the treadmill, that I might save +the poor sweating tailors, French Sansculottes, and Irish Sanspotatoes +from bearing the smart! + +For the smart must be borne; some one must bear it, as sure as God +lives. Every word of man is either a note or a forged note:--have these +eternal skies forgotten to be in earnest, think you, because men go +grinning like enchanted apes? Foolish souls, this now as of old is the +unalterable law of your existence. If you know the truth and do it, +the Universe itself seconds you, bears you on to sure victory +everywhere:--and, observe, to sure defeat everywhere if you do not +do the truth. And alas, if you _know_ only the eloquent fallacious +semblance of the truth, what chance is there of your ever doing it? +You will do something very different from it, I think!--He who well +considers, will find this same "art of speech," as we moderns have +it, to be a truly astonishing product of the Ages; and the longer he +considers it, the more astonishing and alarming. I reckon it the saddest +of all the curses that now lie heavy on us. With horror and amazement, +one perceives that this much-celebrated "art," so diligently practised +in all corners of the world just now, is the chief destroyer of whatever +good is born to us (softly, swiftly shutting up all nascent good, as if +under exhausted glass receivers, there to choke and die); and the grand +parent manufactory of evil to us,--as it were, the last finishing and +varnishing workshop of all the Devil's ware that circulates under the +sun. No Devil's sham is fit for the market till it have been polished +and enamelled here; this is the general assaying-house for such, where +the artists examine and answer, "Fit for the market; not fit!" Words +will not express what mischiefs the misuse of words has done, and is +doing, in these heavy-laden generations. + +Do you want a man _not_ to practise what he believes, then encourage +him to keep often speaking it in words. Every time he speaks it, the +tendency to do it will grow less. His empty speech of what he believes, +will be a weariness and an affliction to the wise man. But do you wish +his empty speech of what he believes, to become farther an insincere +speech of what he does not believe? Celebrate to him his gift of speech; +assure him that he shall rise in Parliament by means of it, and achieve +great things without any performance; that eloquent speech, whether +performed or not, is admirable. My friends, eloquent unperformed speech, +in Parliament or elsewhere, is horrible! The eloquent man that delivers, +in Parliament or elsewhere, a beautiful speech, and will perform nothing +of it, but leaves it as if already performed,--what can you make of that +man? He has enrolled himself among the _Ignes Fatui_ and Children of +the Wind; means to serve, as beautifully illuminated Chinese Lantern, +in that corps henceforth. I think, the serviceable thing you could do +to that man, if permissible, would be a severe one: To clip off a bit +of his eloquent tongue by way of penance and warning; another bit, if +he again spoke without performing; and so again, till you had clipt the +whole tongue away from him,--and were delivered, you and he, from at +least one miserable mockery: "There, eloquent friend, see now in silence +if there be any redeeming deed in thee; of blasphemous wind-eloquence, +at least, we shall have no more!" How many pretty men have gone this +road, escorted by the beautifulest marching music from all the "public +organs;" and have found at last that it ended--where? It is the _broad_ +road, that leads direct to Limbo and the Kingdom of the Inane. Gifted +men, and once valiant nations, and as it were the whole world with one +accord, are marching thither, in melodious triumph, all the drums and +hautboys giving out their cheerfulest _Ca-ira_. It is the universal +humor of the world just now. My friends, I am very sure you will +_arrive_, unless you halt!-- + + +Considered as the last finish of education, or of human culture, worth +and acquirement, the art of speech is noble, and even divine; it is +like the kindling of a Heaven's light to show us what a glorious world +exists, and has perfected itself, in a man. But if no world exist in the +man; if nothing but continents of empty vapor, of greedy self-conceits, +common-place hearsays, and indistinct loomings of a sordid _chaos_ +exist in him, what will be the use of "light" to show us that? Better +a thousand times that such a man do not speak; but keep his empty +vapor and his sordid chaos to himself, hidden to the utmost from all +beholders. To look on that, can be good for no human beholder; to +look away from that, must be good. And if, by delusive semblances of +rhetoric, logic, first-class degrees, and the aid of elocution-masters +and parliamentary reporters, the poor proprietor of said chaos should +be led to persuade himself, and get others persuaded,--which it is the +nature of his sad task to do, and which, in certain eras of the world, +it is fatally possible to do,--that this is a cosmos which he owns; that +_he_, being so perfect in tongue-exercise and full of college-honors, +is an "educated" man, and pearl of great price in his generation; that +round him, and his parliament emulously listening to him, as round some +divine apple of gold set in a picture of silver, all the world should +gather to adore: what is likely to become of him and the gathering +world? An apple of Sodom set in the clusters of Gomorrah: that, little +as he suspects it, is the definition of the poor chaotically +eloquent man, with his emulous parliament and miserable adoring +world!--Considered as the whole of education, or human culture, which +it now is in our modern manners; all apprenticeship except to mere +handicraft having fallen obsolete, and the "educated man" being with us +emphatically and exclusively the man that can speak well with tongue +or pen, and astonish men by the quantities of speech he has _heard_ +("tremendous _reader_," "walking encyclopaedia," and such like),--the +Art of Speech is probably definable in that case as the short summary of +all the Black Arts put together. + + +But the Schoolmaster is secondary, an effect rather than a cause in +this matter: what the Schoolmaster with his universities shall manage +or attempt to teach will be ruled by what the Society with its practical +industries is continually demanding that men should learn. We spoke once +of vital lungs for Society: and in fact this question always rises as +the alpha and omega of social questions, What methods the Society has of +summoning aloft into the high places, for its help and governance, the +wisdom that is born to it in all places, and of course is born chiefly +in the more populous or lower places? For this, if you will consider it, +expresses the ultimate available result, and net sum-total, of all the +efforts, struggles and confused activities that go on in the Society; +and determines whether they are true and wise efforts, certain to be +victorious, or false and foolish, certain to be futile, and to fall +captive and caitiff. How do men rise in your Society? In all Societies, +Turkey included, and I suppose Dahomey included, men do rise; but the +question of questions always is, What kind of men? Men of noble gifts, +or men of ignoble? It is the one or the other; and a life-and-death +inquiry which! For in all places and all times, little as you may heed +it, Nature most silently but most inexorably demands that it be the one +and not the other. And you need not try to palm an ignoble sham upon +her, and call it noble; for she is a judge. And her penalties, as quiet +as she looks, are terrible: amounting to world-earthquakes, to anarchy +and death everlasting; and admit of no appeal!-- + +Surely England still flatters herself that she has lungs; that she can +still breathe a little? Or is it that the poor creature, driven into +mere blind industrialisms; and as it were, gone pearl-diving this long +while many fathoms deep, and tearing up the oyster-beds so as never +creature did before, hardly knows,--so busy in the belly of the oyster +chaos, where is no thought of "breathing,"--whether she has lungs or +not? Nations of a robust habit, and fine deep chest, can sometimes take +in a deal of breath _before_ diving; and live long, in the muddy deeps, +without new breath: but they too come to need it at last, and will die +if they cannot get it! + +To the gifted soul that is born in England, what is the career, then, +that will carry him, amid noble Olympic dust, up to the immortal gods? +For his country's sake, that it may not lose the service he was born +capable of doing it; for his own sake, that his life be not choked and +perverted, and his light from Heaven be not changed into lightning +from the Other Place,--it is essential that there be such a career. The +country that can offer no career in that case, is a doomed country; nay +it is already a dead country: it has secured the ban of Heaven upon it; +will not have Heaven's light, will have the Other Place's lightning; and +may consider itself as appointed to expire, in frightful coughings of +street musketry or otherwise, on a set day, and to be in the eye of law +dead. In no country is there not some career, inviting to it either the +noble Hero, or the tough Greek of the Lower Empire: which of the two do +your careers invite? There is no question more important. The kind of +careers you offer in countries still living, determines with perfect +exactness the kind of the life that is in them,--whether it is natural +blessed life, or galvanic accursed ditto, and likewise what degree of +strength is in the same. + +Our English careers to born genius are twofold. There is the silent or +unlearned career of the Industrialisms, which are very many among us; +and there is the articulate or learned career of the three professions, +Medicine, Law (under which we may include Politics), and the Church. +Your born genius, therefore, will first have to ask himself, Whether he +can hold his tongue or cannot? True, all human talent, especially all +deep talent, is a talent to _do_, and is intrinsically of silent nature; +inaudible, like the Sphere Harmonies and Eternal Melodies, of which it +is an incarnated fraction. All real talent, I fancy, would much rather, +if it listened only to Nature's monitions, express itself in rhythmic +facts than in melodious words, which latter at best, where they are good +for anything, are only a feeble echo and shadow or foreshadow of the +former. But talents differ much in this of power to be silent; and +circumstances, of position, opportunity and such like, modify them +still more;--and Nature's monitions, oftenest quite drowned in foreign +hearsays, are by no means the only ones listened to in deciding!--The +Industrialisms are all of silent nature; and some of them are heroic +and eminently human; others, again, we may call unheroic, not eminently +human: _beaverish_ rather, but still honest; some are even _vulpine_, +altogether inhuman and dishonest. Your born genius must make his choice. + +If a soul is born with divine intelligence, and has its lips touched +with hallowed fire, in consecration for high enterprises under the sun, +this young soul will find the question asked of him by England every +hour and moment: "Canst thou turn thy human intelligence into the beaver +sort, and make honest contrivance, and accumulation of capital by it? If +so, do it; and avoid the vulpine kind, which I don't recommend. Honest +triumphs in engineering and machinery await thee; scrip awaits +thee, commercial successes, kingship in the counting-room, on the +stock-exchange;--thou shalt be the envy of surrounding flunkies, and +collect into a heap more gold than a dray-horse can draw."--"Gold, so +much gold?" answers the ingenuous soul, with visions of the envy of +surrounding flunkies dawning on him; and in very many cases decides that +he will contract himself into beaverism, and with such a horse-draught +of gold, emblem of a never-imagined success in beaver heroism, strike +the surrounding flunkies yellow. + +This is our common course; this is in some sort open to every creature, +what we call the beaver career; perhaps more open in England, taking in +America too, than it ever was in any country before. And, truly, good +consequences follow out of it: who can be blind to them? Half of a most +excellent and opulent result is realized to us in this way; baleful +only when it sets up (as too often now) for being the whole result. A +half-result which will be blessed and heavenly so soon as the other half +is had,--namely wisdom to guide the first half. Let us honor all honest +human power of contrivance in its degree. The beaver intellect, so +long as it steadfastly refuses to be vulpine, and answers the tempter +pointing out short routes to it with an honest "No, no," is truly +respectable to me; and many a highflying speaker and singer whom I have +known, has appeared to me much less of a developed man than certain +of my mill-owning, agricultural, commercial, mechanical, or otherwise +industrial friends, who have held their peace all their days and gone on +in the silent state. If a man can keep his intellect silent, and make it +even into honest beaverism, several very manful moralities, in danger +of wreck on other courses, may comport well with that, and give it a +genuine and partly human character; and I will tell him, in these days +he may do far worse with himself and his intellect than change it into +beaverism, and make honest money with it. If indeed he could become a +_heroic_ industrial, and have a life "eminently human"! But that is not +easy at present. Probably some ninety-nine out of every hundred of our +gifted souls, who have to seek a career for themselves, go this +beaver road. Whereby the first half-result, national wealth namely, is +plentifully realized; and only the second half, or wisdom to guide it, +is dreadfully behindhand. + +But now if the gifted soul be not of taciturn nature, be of vivid, +impatient, rapidly productive nature, and aspire much to give itself +sensible utterance,--I find that, in this case, the field it has in +England is narrow to an extreme; is perhaps narrower than ever offered +itself, for the like object, in this world before. Parliament, Church, +Law: let the young vivid soul turn whither he will for a career, he +finds among variable conditions one condition invariable, and extremely +surprising, That the proof of excellence is to be done by the tongue. +For heroism that will not speak, but only act, there is no account +kept:--The English Nation does not need that silent kind, then, but only +the talking kind? Most astonishing. Of all the organs a man has, there +is none held in account, it would appear, but the tongue he uses +for talking. Premiership, woolsack, mitre, and quasi-crown: all is +attainable if you can talk with due ability. Everywhere your proof-shot +is to be a well-fired volley of talk. Contrive to talk well, you will +get to Heaven, the modern Heaven of the English. Do not talk well, only +work well, and heroically hold your peace, you have no chance whatever +to get thither; with your utmost industry you may get to Threadneedle +Street, and accumulate more gold than a dray-horse can draw. Is not this +a very wonderful arrangement? + +I have heard of races done by mortals tied in sacks; of human +competitors, high aspirants, climbing heavenward on the soaped pole; +seizing the soaped pig; and clutching with cleft fist, at full gallop, +the fated goose tied aloft by its foot;--which feats do prove agility, +toughness and other useful faculties in man: but this of dexterous talk +is probably as strange a competition as any. And the question rises, +Whether certain of these other feats, or perhaps an alternation of all +of them, relieved now and then by a bout of grinning through the collar, +might not be profitably substituted for the solitary proof-feat of talk, +now getting rather monotonous by its long continuance? Alas, Mr. Bull, +I do find it is all little other than a proof of toughness, which is a +quality I respect, with more or less expenditure of falsity and +astucity superadded, which I entirely condemn. Toughness _plus_ +astucity:--perhaps a simple wooden mast set up in Palace-Yard, well +soaped and duly presided over, might be the honester method? Such a +method as this by trial of talk, for filling your chief offices in +Church and State, was perhaps never heard of in the solar system +before. You are quite used to it, my poor friend; and nearly dead by the +consequences of it: but in the other Planets, as in other epochs of your +own Planet it would have done had you proposed it, the thing awakens +incredulous amazement, world-wide Olympic laughter, which ends in +tempestuous hootings, in tears and horror! My friend, if you can, as +heretofore this good while, find nobody to take care of your affairs +but the expertest talker, it is all over with your affairs and you. Talk +never yet could guide any man's or nation's affairs; nor will it yours, +except towards the _Limbus Patrum_, where all talk, except a very select +kind of it, lodges at last. + + +Medicine, guarded too by preliminary impediments, and frightful +medusa-heads of quackery, which deter many generous souls from entering, +is of the _half_-articulate professions, and does not much invite the +ardent kinds of ambition. The intellect required for medicine might be +wholly human, and indeed should by all rules be,--the profession of the +Human Healer being radically a sacred one and connected with the +highest priesthoods, or rather being itself the outcome and acme of all +priesthoods, and divinest conquests of intellect here below. As will +appear one day, when men take off their old monastic and ecclesiastic +spectacles, and look with eyes again! In essence the Physician's task +is always heroic, eminently human: but in practice most unluckily at +present we find it too become in good part _beaverish_; yielding a +money-result alone. And what of it is not beaverish,--does not that too +go mainly to ingenious talking, publishing of yourself, ingratiating +of yourself; a partly human exercise or waste of intellect, and alas a +partly vulpine ditto;--making the once sacred [Gr.] _'Iatros_, or Human +Healer, more impossible for us than ever! + +Angry basilisks watch at the gates of Law and Church just now; and +strike a sad damp into the nobler of the young aspirants. Hard bonds +are offered you to sign; as it were, a solemn engagement to constitute +yourself an impostor, before ever entering; to declare your belief +in incredibilities,--your determination, in short, to take Chaos for +Cosmos, and Satan for the Lord of things, if he come with money in his +pockets, and horsehair and bombazine decently wrapt about him. Fatal +preliminaries, which deter many an ingenuous young soul, and send him +back from the threshold, and I hope will deter ever more. But if you do +enter, the condition is well known: "Talk; who can talk best here? His +shall be the mouth of gold, and the purse of gold; and with my [Gr.] +_mitra_ (once the head-dress of unfortunate females, I am told) shall +his sacred temples be begirt." + +Ingenuous souls, unless forced to it, do now much shudder at the +threshold of both these careers, and not a few desperately turn back +into the wilderness rather, to front a very rude fortune, and be +devoured by wild beasts as is likeliest. But as to Parliament, again, +and its eligibility if attainable, there is yet no question anywhere; +the ingenuous soul, if possessed of money-capital enough, is predestined +by the parental and all manner of monitors to that career of talk; and +accepts it with alacrity and clearness of heart, doubtful only whether +he shall be _able_ to make a speech. Courage, my brave young fellow. If +you can climb a soaped pole of any kind, you will certainly be able to +make a speech. All mortals have a tongue; and carry on some jumble, +if not of thought, yet of stuff which they could talk. The weakest of +animals has got a cry in it, and can give voice before dying. If you are +tough enough, bent upon it desperately enough, I engage you shall make +a speech;--but whether that will be the way to Heaven for you, I do not +engage. + +These, then, are our two careers for genius: mute Industrialism, which +can seldom become very human, but remains beaverish mainly: and the +three Professions named learned,--that is to say, able to talk. For the +heroic or higher kinds of human intellect, in the silent state, there is +not the smallest inquiry anywhere; apparently a thing not wanted in this +country at present. What the supply may be, I cannot inform M'Croudy; +but the market-demand, he may himself see, is _nil_. These are our three +professions that require human intellect in part or whole, not able to +do with mere beaverish; and such a part does the gift of talk play in +one and all of them. Whatsoever is not beaverish seems to go forth +in the shape of talk. To such length is human intellect wasted or +suppressed in this world! + +If the young aspirant is not rich enough for Parliament, and is deterred +by the basilisks or otherwise from entering on Law or Church, and cannot +altogether reduce his human intellect to the beaverish condition, or +satisfy himself with the prospect of making money,--what becomes of +him in such case, which is naturally the case of very many, and ever +of more? In such case there remains but one outlet for him, and notably +enough that too is a talking one: the outlet of Literature, of trying +to write Books. Since, owing to preliminary basilisks, want of cash, or +superiority to cash, he cannot mount aloft by eloquent talking, let +him try it by dexterous eloquent writing. Here happily, having three +fingers, and capital to buy a quire of paper, he can try it to all +lengths and in spite of all mortals: in this career there is happily +no public impediment that can turn him back; nothing but private +starvation--which is itself a _finis_ or kind of goal--can pretend to +hinder a British man from prosecuting Literature to the very utmost, and +wringing the final secret from her: "A talent is in thee; No talent is +in thee." To the British subject who fancies genius may be lodged in +him, this liberty remains; and truly it is, if well computed, almost the +only one he has. + +A crowded portal this of Literature, accordingly! The haven of +expatriated spiritualisms, and alas also of expatriated vanities and +prurient imbecilities: here do the windy aspirations, foiled activities, +foolish ambitions, and frustrate human energies reduced to the vocable +condition, fly as to the one refuge left; and the Republic of Letters +increases in population at a faster rate than even the Republic of +America. The strangest regiment in her Majesty's service, this of the +Soldiers of Literature:--would your Lordship much like to march through +Coventry with them? The immortal gods are there (quite irrecognizable +under these disguises), and also the lowest broken valets;--an extremely +miscellaneous regiment. In fact the regiment, superficially viewed, +looks like an immeasurable motley flood of discharged play-actors, +funambulists, false prophets, drunken ballad-singers; and marches not +as a regiment, but as a boundless canaille,--without drill, uniform, +captaincy or billet; with huge over-proportion of drummers; you would +say, a regiment gone wholly to the drum, with hardly a good musket to +be seen in it,--more a canaille than a regiment. Canaille of all the +loud-sounding levities, and general winnowings of Chaos, marching +through the world in a most ominous manner; proclaiming, audibly if +you have ears: "Twelfth hour of the Night; ancient graves yawning; pale +clammy Puseyisms screeching in their winding-sheets; owls busy in the +City regions; many goblins abroad! Awake ye living; dream no more; arise +to judgment! Chaos and Gehenna are broken loose; the Devil with his +Bedlams must be flung in chains again, and the Last of the Days is about +to dawn!" Such is Literature to the reflective soul at this moment. + +But what now concerns us most is the circumstance that here too the +demand is, Vocables, still vocables. In all appointed courses of +activity and paved careers for human genius, and in this unpaved, +unappointed, broadest career of Literature, broad way that leadeth to +destruction for so many, the one duty laid upon you is still, Talk, +talk. Talk well with pen or tongue, and it shall be well with you; +do not talk well, it shall be ill with you. To wag the tongue with +dexterous acceptability, there is for human worth and faculty, in our +England of the Nineteenth Century, that one method of emergence and no +other. Silence, you would say, means annihilation for the Englishman of +the Nineteenth Century. The worth that has not spoken itself, is not; +or is potentially only, and as if it were not. Vox is the God of this +Universe. If you have human intellect, it avails nothing unless you +either make it into beaverism, or talk with it. Make it into beaverism, +and gather money; or else make talk with it, and gather what you can. +Such is everywhere the demand for talk among us: to which, of course, +the supply is proportionate. + +From dinners up to woolsacks and divine mitres, here in England, much +may be gathered by talk; without talk, of the human sort nothing. Is +Society become wholly a bag of wind, then, ballasted by guineas? Are our +interests in it as a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal?--In Army or +Navy, when unhappily we have war on hand, there is, almost against our +will, some kind of demand for certain of the silent talents. But in +peace, that too passes into mere demand of the ostentations, of the +pipeclays and the blank cartridges; and,--except that Naval men are +occasionally, on long voyages, forced to hold their tongue, and converse +with the dumb elements, and illimitable oceans, that moan and rave there +without you and within you, which is a great advantage to the Naval +man,--our poor United Services have to make conversational windbags and +ostentational paper-lanterns of themselves, or do worse, even as the +others. + + +My friends, must I assert, then, what surely all men know, though all +men seem to have forgotten it, That in the learned professions as in the +unlearned, and in human things throughout, in every place and in every +time, the true function of intellect is not that of talking, but of +understanding and discerning with a view to performing! An intellect may +easily talk too much, and perform too little. Gradually, if it get into +the noxious habit of talk, there will less and less performance come +of it, talk being so delightfully handy in comparison with work; and +at last there will no work, or thought of work, be got from it at +all. Talk, except as the preparation for work, is worth almost +nothing;--sometimes it is worth infinitely less than nothing; and +becomes, little conscious of playing such a fatal part, the general +summary of pretentious nothingnesses, and the chief of all the curses +the Posterity of Adam are liable to in this sublunary world! Would you +discover the Atropos of Human Virtue; the sure Destroyer, "by painless +extinction," of Human Veracities, Performances, and Capabilities to +perform or to be veracious,--it is this, you have it here. + +Unwise talk is matchless in unwisdom. Unwise work, if it but persist, is +everywhere struggling towards correction, and restoration to health; +for it is still in contact with Nature, and all Nature incessantly +contradicts it, and will heal it or annihilate it: not so with unwise +talk, which addresses itself, regardless of veridical Nature, to the +universal suffrages; and can if it be dexterous, find harbor there +till all the suffrages are bankrupt and gone to Houndsditch, Nature not +interfering with her protest till then. False speech, definable as the +acme of unwise speech, is capable, as we already said, of becoming the +falsest of all things. Falsest of all things:--and whither will the +general deluge of that, in Parliament and Synagogue, in Book and +Broadside, carry you and your affairs, my friend, when once they are +embarked on it as now? + + +Parliament, _Parliamentum_, is by express appointment the Talking +Apparatus; yet not in Parliament either is the essential function, by +any means, talk. Not to speak your opinion well, but to have a good and +just opinion worth speaking,--for every Parliament, as for every man, +this latter is the point. Contrive to have a true opinion, you will get +it told in some way, better or worse; and it will be a blessing to all +creatures. Have a false opinion, and tell it with the tongue of Angels, +what can that profit? The better you tell it, the worse it will be! + +In Parliament and out of Parliament, and everywhere in this Universe, +your one salvation is, That you can discern with just insight, and +follow with noble valor, what the law of the case before you is, what +the appointment of the Maker in regard to it has been. Get this out +of one man, you are saved; fail to get this out of the most August +Parliament wrapt in the sheepskins of a thousand years, you are +lost,--your Parliament, and you, and all your sheepskins are lost. +Beautiful talk is by no means the most pressing want in Parliament! We +have had some reasonable modicum of talk in Parliament! What talk has +done for us in Parliament, and is now doing, the dullest of us at length +begins to see! + +Much has been said of Parliament's breeding men to business; of the +training an Official Man gets in this school of argument and talk. He is +here inured to patience, tolerance; sees what is what in the Nation and +in the Nation's Government attains official knowledge, official +courtesy and manners--in short, is polished at all points into official +articulation, and here better than elsewhere qualifies himself to be +a Governor of men. So it is said.--Doubtless, I think, he will see and +suffer much in Parliament, and inure himself to several things;--he +will, with what eyes he has, gradually _see_ Parliament itself, for one +thing; what a high-soaring, helplessly floundering, ever-babbling yet +inarticulate dark dumb Entity it is (certainly one of the strangest +under the sun just now): which doubtless, if he have in view to get +measures voted there one day, will be an important acquisition for him. +But as to breeding himself for a Doer of Work, much more for a King, or +Chief of Doers, here in this element of talk; as to that I confess +the fatalest doubts, or rather, alas, I have no doubt! Alas, it is +our fatalest misery just now, not easily alterable, and yet urgently +requiring to be altered, That no British man can attain to be a +Statesman, or Chief of _Workers_, till he has first proved himself +a Chief of _Talkers_: which mode of trial for a Worker, is it not +precisely, of all the trials you could set him upon, the falsest and +unfairest? + +Nay, I doubt much you are not likely ever to meet the fittest material +for a Statesman, or Chief of Workers, in such an element as that. Your +Potential Chief of Workers, will he come there at all, to try whether he +can talk? Your poor tenpound franchisers and electoral world generally, +in love with eloquent talk, are they the likeliest to discern what man +it is that has worlds of silent work in him? No. Or is such a man, even +if born in the due rank for it, the likeliest to present himself, and +court their most sweet voices? Again, no. + +The Age that admires talk so much can have little discernment for +inarticulate work, or for anything that is deep and genuine. Nobody, or +hardly anybody, having in himself an earnest sense for truth, how can +anybody recognize an inarticulate Veracity, or Nature-fact of any +kind; a Human _Doer_ especially, who is the most complex, profound, and +inarticulate of all Nature's Facts? Nobody can recognize him: till once +he is patented, get some public stamp of authenticity, and has been +articulately proclaimed, and asserted to be a Doer. To the worshipper of +talk, such a one is a sealed book. An excellent human soul, direct from +Heaven,--how shall any excellence of man become recognizable to +this unfortunate? Not except by announcing and placarding itself as +excellent,--which, I reckon, it above other things will probably be in +no great haste to do. + +Wisdom, the divine message which every soul of man brings into this +world; the divine prophecy of what the new man has got the new and +peculiar capability to do, is intrinsically of silent nature. It cannot +at once, or completely at all, be read off in words; for it is written +in abstruse facts, of endowment, position, desire, opportunity, granted +to the man;--interprets itself in presentiments, vague struggles, +passionate endeavors and is only legible in whole when his work is +_done_. Not by the noble monitions of Nature, but by the ignoble, is a +man much tempted to publish the secret of his soul in words. Words, if +he have a secret, will be forever inadequate to it. Words do but disturb +the real answer of fact which could be given to it; disturb, obstruct, +and will in the end abolish, and render impossible, said answer. No +grand Doer in this world can be a copious speaker about his doings. +William the Silent spoke himself best in a country liberated; Oliver +Cromwell did not shine in rhetoric; Goethe, when he had but a book in +view, found that he must say nothing even of that, if it was to succeed +with him. + +Then as to politeness, and breeding to business. An official man must be +bred to business; of course he must: and not for essence only, but even +for the manners of office he requires breeding. Besides his intrinsic +faculty, whatever that may be, he must be cautious, vigilant, +discreet,--above all things, he must be reticent, patient, polite. +Certain of these qualities are by nature imposed upon men of station; +and they are trained from birth to some exercise of them: this +constitutes their one intrinsic qualification for office;--this is their +one advantage in the New Downing Street projected for this New Era; and +it will not go for much in that Institution. One advantage, or temporary +advantage; against which there are so many counterbalances. It is the +indispensable preliminary for office, but by no means the complete +outfit,--a miserable outfit where there is nothing farther. + +Will your Lordship give me leave to say that, practically, the intrinsic +qualities will presuppose these preliminaries too, but by no means _vice +versa_. That, on the whole, if you have got the intrinsic qualities, you +have got everything, and the preliminaries will prove attainable; but +that if you have got only the preliminaries, you have yet got nothing. +A man of real dignity will not find it impossible to bear himself in a +dignified manner; a man of real understanding and insight will get +to know, as the fruit of his very first study, what the laws of his +situation are, and will conform to these. Rough old Samuel Johnson, +blustering Boreas and rugged Arctic Bear as he often was, defined +himself, justly withal, as a polite man: a noble manful attitude of soul +is his; a clear, true and loyal sense of what others are, and what he +himself is, shines through the rugged coating of him; comes out as +grave deep rhythmus when his King honors him, and he will not "bandy +compliments with his King;"--is traceable too in his indignant trampling +down of the Chesterfield patronages, tailor-made insolences, and +contradictions of sinners; which may be called his _revolutionary_ +movements, hard and peremptory by the law of them; these could not be +soft like his _constitutional_ ones, when men and kings took him for +somewhat like the thing he was. Given a noble man, I think your Lordship +may expect by and by a polite man. No "politer" man was to be found in +Britain than the rustic Robert Burns: high duchesses were captivated +with the chivalrous ways of the man; recognized that here was the true +chivalry, and divine nobleness of bearing,--as indeed they well might, +now when the Peasant God and Norse Thor had come down among them again! +Chivalry this, if not as they do chivalry in Drury Lane or West-End +drawing-rooms, yet as they do it in Valhalla and the General Assembly of +the Gods. + +For indeed, who _invented_ chivalry, politeness, or anything that is +noble and melodious and beautiful among us, except precisely the like +of Johnson and of Burns? The select few who in the generations of +this world were wise and valiant, they, in spite of all the tremendous +majority of blockheads and slothful belly-worshippers, and noisy ugly +persons, have devised whatsoever is noble in the manners of man to man. +I expect they will learn to be polite, your Lordship, when you give them +a chance!--Nor is it as a school of human culture, for this or for +any other grace or gift, that Parliament will be found first-rate +or indispensable. As experience in the river is indispensable to the +ferryman, so is knowledge of his Parliament to the British Peel or +Chatham;--so was knowledge of the OEil-de-Boeuf to the French Choiseul. +Where and how said river, whether Parliament with Wilkeses, or +OEil-de-Boeuf with Pompadours, can be waded, boated, swum; how the +miscellaneous cargoes, "measures" so called, can be got across it, +according to their kinds, and landed alive on the hither side as +facts:--we have all of us our _ferries_ in this world; and must know the +river and its ways, or get drowned some day! In that sense, practice +in Parliament is indispensable to the British Statesman; but not in any +other sense. + +A school, too, of manners and of several other things, the Parliament +will doubtless be to the aspirant Statesman; a school better or +worse;--as the OEil-de-Boeuf likewise was, and as all scenes where men +work or live are sure to be. Especially where many men work together, +the very rubbing against one another will grind and polish off their +angularities into roundness, into "politeness" after a sort; and the +official man, place him how you may, will never want for schooling, +of extremely various kinds. A first-rate school one cannot call this +Parliament for him;--I fear to say what rate at present! In so far as it +teaches him vigilance, patience, courage, toughness of lungs or of soul, +and skill in any kind of swimming, it is a good school. In so far as it +forces him to speak where Nature orders silence; and even, lest all the +world should learn his secret (which often enough would kill his secret, +and little profit the world), forces him to speak falsities, vague +ambiguities, and the froth-dialect usual in Parliaments in these times, +it may be considered one of the worst schools ever devised by man; and, +I think, may almost challenge the OEil-de-Boeuf to match it in badness. + +Parliament will train your men to the manners required of a statesman; +but in a much less degree to the intrinsic functions of one. To these +latter, it is capable of mistraining as nothing else can. Parliament +will train you to talk; and above all things to hear, with patience, +unlimited quantities of foolish talk. To tell a good story for yourself, +and to make it _appear_ that you have done your work: this, especially +in constitutional countries, is something;--and yet in all countries, +constitutional ones too, it is intrinsically nothing, probably even +less. For it is not the function of any mortal, in Downing Street or +elsewhere here below, to wag the tongue of him, and make it appear that +he has done work; but to wag some quite other organs of him, and to +do work; there is no danger of his work's appearing by and by. Such an +accomplishment, even in constitutional countries, I grieve to say, may +become much less than nothing. Have you at all computed how much less? +The human creature who has once given way to satisfying himself with +"appearances," to seeking his salvation in "appearances," the moral life +of such human creature is rapidly bleeding out of him. Depend upon it, +Beelzebub, Satan, or however you may name the too authentic Genius of +Eternal Death, has got that human creature in his claws. By and by you +will have a dead parliamentary bagpipe, and your living man fled away +without return! + +Such parliamentary bagpipes I myself have heard play tunes, much to the +satisfaction of the people. Every tune lies within their compass; and +their mind (for they still call it _mind_) is ready as a hurdy-gurdy +on turning of the handle: "My Lords, this question now before the +House"--Ye Heavens, O ye divine Silences, was there in the womb of +Chaos, then, such a product, liable to be evoked by human art, as that +same? While the galleries were all applausive of heart, and the Fourth +Estate looked with eyes enlightened, as if you had touched its lips with +a staff dipped in honey,--I have sat with reflections too ghastly to +be uttered. A poor human creature and learned friend, once possessed of +many fine gifts, possessed of intellect, veracity, and manful conviction +on a variety of objects, has he now lost all that;--converted all that +into a glistering phosphorescence which can show itself on the outside; +while within, all is dead, chaotic, dark; a painted sepulchre full of +dead-men's bones! Discernment, knowledge, intellect, in the human sense +of the words, this man has now none. His opinion you do not ask on any +matter: on the _matter_ he has no opinion, judgment, or insight; only +on what may be said about the matter, how it may be argued of, what tune +may be played upon it to enlighten the eyes of the Fourth Estate. + +Such a soul, though to the eye he still keeps tumbling about in the +Parliamentary element, and makes "motions," and passes bills, for aught +I know,--are we to define him as a _living_ one, or as a dead? Partridge +the Almanac-Maker, whose "Publications" still regularly appear, is known +to be dead! The dog that was drowned last summer, and that floats up and +down the Thames with ebb and flood ever since,--is it not dead? Alas, +in the hot months, you meet here and there such a floating dog; and at +length, if you often use the river steamers, get to know him by sight. +"There he is again, still astir there in his quasi-stygian element!" +you dejectedly exclaim (perhaps reading your Morning Newspaper at the +moment); and reflect, with a painful oppression of nose and imagination, +on certain completed professors of parliamentary eloquence in modern +times. Dead long since, but _not_ resting; daily doing motions in that +Westminster region still,--daily from Vauxhall to Blackfriars, and +back again; and cannot get away at all! Daily (from Newspaper or river +steamer) you may see him at some point of his fated course, hovering in +the eddies, stranded in the ooze, or rapidly progressing with flood or +ebb; and daily the odor of him is getting more intolerable: daily the +condition of him appeals more tragically to gods and men. + + +Nature admits no lie; most men profess to be aware of this, but few in +any measure lay it to heart. Except in the departments of mere material +manipulation, it seems to be taken practically as if this grand truth +were merely a polite flourish of rhetoric. What is a lie? The question +is worth asking, once and away, by the practical English mind. + +A voluntary spoken divergence from the fact as it stands, as it has +occurred and will proceed to develop itself: this clearly, if adopted by +any man, will so far forth mislead him in all practical dealing with +the fact; till he cast that statement out of him, and reject it as an +unclean poisonous thing, he can have no success in dealing with the +fact. If such spoken divergence from the truth be involuntary, we lament +it as a misfortune; and are entitled, at least the speaker of it is, +to lament it extremely as the most palpable of all misfortunes, as the +indubitablest losing of his way, and turning aside from the goal instead +of pressing towards it, in the race set before him. If the divergence is +voluntary,--there superadds itself to our sorrow a just indignation: we +call the voluntary spoken divergence a lie, and justly abhor it as the +essence of human treason and baseness, the desertion of a man to the +Enemy of men against himself and his brethren. A lost deserter; who has +gone over to the Enemy, called Satan; and cannot _but_ be lost in the +adventure! Such is every liar with the tongue; and such in all nations +is he, at all epochs, considered. Men pull his nose, and kick him out +of doors; and by peremptory expressive methods signify that they can and +will have no trade with him. Such is spoken divergence from the fact; so +fares it with the practiser of that sad art. + +But have we well considered a divergence _in thought_ from what is the +fact? Have we considered the man whose very thought is a lie to him and +to us! He too is a frightful man; repeating about this Universe on every +hand what is not, and driven to repeat it; the sure herald of ruin to +all that follow him, that know with _his_ knowledge! And would you learn +how to get a mendacious thought, there is no surer recipe than carrying +a loose tongue. The lying thought, you already either have it, or will +soon get it by that method. He who lies with his very tongue, _he_ +clearly enough has long ceased to think truly in his mind. Does he, in +any sense, "think"? All his thoughts and imaginations, if they +extend beyond mere beaverisms, astucities and sensualisms, are false, +incomplete, perverse, untrue even to himself. He has become a false +mirror of this Universe; not a small mirror only, but a crooked, +bedimmed and utterly deranged one. But all loose tongues too are akin +to lying ones; are insincere at the best, and go rattling with little +meaning; the thought lying languid at a great distance behind them, if +thought there be behind them at all. Gradually there will be none or +little! How can the thought of such a man, what he calls thought, be +other than false? + +Alas, the palpable liar with his tongue does at least know that he is +lying, and has or might have some faint vestige of remorse and chance +of amendment; but the impalpable liar, whose tongue articulates mere +accepted commonplaces, cants and babblement, which means only, "Admire +me, call me an excellent stump-orator!"--of him what hope is there? +His thought, what thought he had, lies dormant, inspired only to invent +vocables and plausibilities; while the tongue goes so glib, the thought +is absent, gone a wool-gathering; getting itself drugged with the +applausive "Hear, hear!"--what will become of such a man? His idle +thought has run all to seed, and grown false and the giver of falsities; +the inner light of his mind is gone out; all his light is mere putridity +and phosphorescence henceforth. Whosoever is in quest of ruin, let him +with assurance follow that man; he or no one is on the right road to it. + +Good Heavens, from the wisest Thought of a man to the actual truth of +a Thing as it lies in Nature, there is, one would suppose, a sufficient +interval! Consider it,--and what other intervals we introduce! The +faithfulest, most glowing word of a man is but an imperfect image of the +thought, such as it is, that dwells within him; his best word will never +but with error convey his thought to other minds: and then between his +poor thought and Nature's Fact, which is the Thought of the Eternal, +there may be supposed to lie some discrepancies, some shortcomings! +Speak your sincerest, think your wisest, there is still a great gulf +between you and the fact. And now, do not speak your sincerest, and what +will inevitably follow out of that, do not think your wisest, but think +only your plausiblest, your showiest for parliamentary purposes, where +will you land with that guidance?--I invite the British Parliament, and +all the Parliamentary and other Electors of Great Britain, to reflect +on this till they have well understood it; and then to ask, each of +himself, What probably the horoscopes of the British Parliament, at this +epoch of World-History, may be?-- + +Fail, by any sin or any misfortune, to discover what the truth of the +fact is, you are lost so far as that fact goes! If your thought do not +image truly but do image falsely the fact, you will vainly try to work +upon the fact. The fact will not obey you, the fact will silently resist +you; and ever, with silent invincibility, will go on resisting you, +till you do get to image it truly instead of falsely. No help for you +whatever, except in attaining to a true image of the fact. Needless to +vote a false image true; vote it, revote it by overwhelming majorities, +by jubilant unanimities and universalities; read it thrice or three +hundred times, pass acts of parliament upon it till the Statute-book can +hold no more,--it helps not a whit: the thing is not so, the thing is +otherwise than so; and Adam's whole Posterity, voting daily on it till +the world finish, will not alter it a jot. Can the sublimest sanhedrim, +constitutional parliament, or other Collective Wisdom of the world, +persuade fire not to burn, sulphuric acid to be sweet milk, or the Moon +to become green cheese? The fact is much the reverse:--and even the +Constitutional British Parliament abstains from such arduous attempts +as these latter in the voting line; and leaves the multiplication-table, +the chemical, mechanical and other qualities of material substances +to take their own course; being aware that voting and perorating, and +reporting in Hansard, will not in the least alter any of these. Which is +indisputably wise of the British Parliament. + +Unfortunately the British Parliament does not, at present, quite know +that all manner of things and relations of things, spiritual equally +with material, all manner of qualities, entities, existences whatsoever, +in this strange visible and invisible Universe, are equally inflexible +of nature; that, they will, one and all, with precisely the same +obstinacy, continue to obey their own law, not our law; deaf as the +adder to all charm of parliamentary eloquence, and of voting never so +often repeated; silently, but inflexibly and forevermore, declining to +change themselves, even as sulphuric acid declines to become sweet milk, +though you vote so to the end of the world. This, it sometimes seems +to me, is not quite sufficiently laid hold of by the British and other +Parliaments just at present. Which surely is a great misfortune to +said Parliaments! For, it would appear, the grand point, after all +constitutional improvements, and such wagging of wigs in Westminster as +there has been, is precisely what it was before any constitution was yet +heard of, or the first official wig had budded out of nothing: namely, +to ascertain what the truth of your question, in Nature, really is! +Verily so. In this time and place, as in all past and in all future +times and places. To-day in St. Stephen's, where constitutional, +philanthropical, and other great things lie in the mortar-kit; even as +on the Plain of Shinar long ago, where a certain Tower, likewise of a +very philanthropic nature, indeed one of the desirablest towers I ever +heard of, was to be built,--but couldn't! My friends, I do not laugh; +truly I am more inclined to weep. + +Get, by six hundred and fifty-eight votes, or by no vote at all, by +the silent intimation of your own eyesight and understanding given you +direct out of Heaven, and more sacred to you than anything earthly, and +than all things earthly,--a correct image of the fact in question, as +God and Nature have made it: that is the one thing needful; with that it +shall be well with you in whatsoever you have to do with said fact. Get, +by the sublimest constitutional methods, belauded by all the world, an +incorrect image of the fact: so shall it be other than well with you; so +shall you have laud from able editors and vociferous masses of mistaken +human creatures; and from the Nature's Fact, continuing quite silently +the same as it was, contradiction, and that only. What else? Will Nature +change, or sulphuric acid become sweet milk, for the noise of vociferous +blockheads? Surely not. Nature, I assure you, has not the smallest +intention of doing so. + +On the contrary, Nature keeps silently a most exact Savings-bank, +and official register correct to the most evanescent item, Debtor and +Creditor, in respect to one and all of us; silently marks down, Creditor +by such and such an unseen act of veracity and heroism; Debtor to such +a loud blustery blunder, twenty-seven million strong or one unit strong, +and to all acts and words and thoughts executed in consequence of +that,--Debtor, Debtor, Debtor, day after day, rigorously as Fate (for +this is Fate that is writing); and at the end of the account you +will have it all to pay, my friend; there is the rub! Not the +infinitesimalest fraction of a farthing but will be found marked there, +for you and against you; and with the due rate of interest you will have +to pay it, neatly, completely, as sure as you are alive. You will have +to pay it even in money if you live:--and, poor slave, do you think +there is no payment but in money? There is a payment which Nature +rigorously exacts of men, and also of Nations, and this I think when +her wrath is sternest, in the shape of dooming you to possess money. To +possess it; to have your bloated vanities fostered into monstrosity +by it, your foul passions blown into explosion by it, your heart and +perhaps your very stomach ruined with intoxication by it; your poor life +and all its manful activities stunned into frenzy and comatose sleep by +it,--in one word, as the old Prophets said, your soul forever lost by +it. Your soul; so that, through the Eternities, you shall have no +soul, or manful trace of ever having had a soul; but only, for certain +fleeting moments, shall have had a money-bag, and have given soul and +heart and (frightfuler still) stomach itself in fatal exchange for +the same. You wretched mortal, stumbling about in a God's Temple, and +thinking it a brutal Cookery-shop! Nature, when her scorn of a slave is +divinest, and blazes like the blinding lightning against his slavehood, +often enough flings him a bag of money, silently saying: "That! Away; +thy doom is that!"-- + +For no man, and for no body or biggest multitude of men, has Nature +favor, if they part company with her facts and her. Excellent +stump-orator; eloquent parliamentary dead-dog, making motions, passing +bills; reported in the Morning Newspapers, and reputed the "best speaker +going"? From the Universe of Fact he has turned himself away; he is gone +into partnership with the Universe of Phantasm; finds it profitablest +to deal in forged notes, while the foolish shopkeepers will accept +them. Nature for such a man, and for Nations that follow such, has her +patibulary forks, and prisons of death everlasting:--dost thou doubt +it? Unhappy mortal, Nature otherwise were herself a Chaos and no Cosmos. +Nature was not made by an Impostor; not she, I think, rife as they +are!--In fact, by money or otherwise, to the uttermost fraction of a +calculable and incalculable value, we have, each one of us, to settle +the exact balance in the above-said Savings-bank, or official register +kept by Nature: Creditor by the quantity of veracities we have done, +Debtor by the quantity of falsities and errors; there is not, by any +conceivable device, the faintest hope of escape from that issue for one +of us, nor for all of us. + +This used to be a well-known fact; and daily still, in certain edifices, +steeple-houses, joss-houses, temples sacred or other, everywhere spread +over the world, we hear some dim mumblement of an assertion that such is +still, what it was always and will forever be, the fact: but meseems +it has terribly fallen out of memory nevertheless; and, from Dan to +Beersheba, one in vain looks out for a man that really in his heart +believes it. In his heart he believes, as we perceive, that scrip will +yield dividends: but that Heaven too has an office of account, and +unerringly marks down, against us or for us, whatsoever thing we do +or say or think, and treasures up the same in regard to every +creature,--this I do not so well perceive that he believes. Poor +blockhead, no: he reckons that all payment is in money, or approximately +representable by money; finds money go a strange course; disbelieves the +parson and his Day of Judgment; discerns not that there is any judgment +except in the small or big debt court; and lives (for the present) on +that strange footing in this Universe. The unhappy mortal, what is +the use of his "civilizations" and his "useful knowledges," if he have +forgotten that beginning of human knowledge; the earliest perception +of the awakened human soul in this world; the first dictate of Heaven's +inspiration to all men? I cannot account him a man any more; but only +a kind of human beaver, who has acquired the art of ciphering. He lives +without rushing hourly towards suicide, because his soul, with all +its noble aspirations and imaginations, is sunk at the bottom of his +stomach, and lies torpid there, unaspiring, unimagining, unconsidering, +as if it were the vital principle of a mere _four_-footed beaver. A soul +of a man, appointed for spinning cotton and making money, or, alas, +for merely shooting grouse and gathering rent; to whom Eternity and +Immortality, and all human Noblenesses and divine Facts that did not +tell upon the stock-exchange, were meaningless fables, empty as the +inarticulate wind. He will recover out of that persuasion one day, or be +ground to powder, I believe!-- + +To such a pass, by our beaverisms and our mammonisms; by canting of +"prevenient grace" everywhere, and so boarding and lodging our poor +souls upon supervenient moonshine everywhere, for centuries long; by our +sordid stupidities and our idle babblings; through faith in the divine +Stump-orator, and Constitutional Palaver, or august Sanhedrim of +Orators,--have men and Nations been reduced, in this sad epoch! I +cannot call them happy Nations; I must call them Nations like to perish; +Nations that will either begin to recover, or else soon die. Recovery is +to be hoped;--yes, since there is in Nature an Almighty Beneficence, and +His voice, divinely terrible, can be heard in the world-whirlwind now, +even as from of old and forevermore. Recovery, or else destruction and +annihilation, is very certain; and the crisis, too, comes rapidly on: +but by Stump-Orator and Constitutional Palaver, however perfected, my +hopes of _recovery_ have long vanished. Not by them, I should imagine, +but by something far the reverse of them, shall we return to truth and +God!-- + +I tell you, the ignoble intellect cannot think the _truth_, even +within its own limits, and when it seriously tries! And of the ignoble +intellect that does not seriously try, and has even reached the +"ignobleness" of seriously trying the reverse, and of lying with its +very tongue, what are we to expect? It is frightful to consider. Sincere +wise speech is but an imperfect corollary, and insignificant outer +manifestation, of sincere wise thought. He whose very tongue utters +falsities, what has his heart long been doing? The thought of his heart +is not its wisest, not even _its_ wisest; it is its foolishest;--and +even of that we have a false and foolish copy. And it is Nature's Fact, +or the Thought of the Eternal, which we want to arrive at in regard +to the matter,--which if we do _not_ arrive at, we shall not save the +matter, we shall drive the matter into shipwreck! + +The practice of modern Parliaments, with reporters sitting among them, +and twenty-seven millions mostly fools listening to them, fills me with +amazement. In regard to no _thing_, or fact as God and Nature have made +it, can you get so much as the real thought of any honorable head,--even +so far as _it_, the said honorable head, still has capacity of thought. +What the honorable gentleman's wisest thought is or would have been, +had he led from birth a life of piety and earnest veracity and heroic +virtue, you, and he himself poor deep-sunk creature, vainly conjecture +as from immense dim distances far in the rear of what he is led to +_say_. And again, far in the rear of what his thought is,--surely long +infinitudes beyond all _he_ could ever think,--lies the Thought of God +Almighty, the Image itself of the Fact, the thing you are in quest of, +and must find or do worse! Even his, the honorable gentleman's, actual +bewildered, falsified, vague surmise or quasi-thought, even this is not +given you; but only some falsified copy of this, such as he fancies may +suit the reporters and twenty-seven millions mostly fools. And upon that +latter you are to act;--with what success, do you expect? That is the +thought you are to take for the Thought of the Eternal Mind,--that +double-distilled falsity of a blockheadism from one who is false even as +a blockhead! + +Do I make myself plain to Mr. Peter's understanding? Perhaps it will +surprise him less that parliamentary eloquence excites more wonder than +admiration in me; that the fate of countries governed by that sublime +alchemy does not appear the hopefulest just now. Not by that method, I +should apprehend, will the Heavens be scaled and the Earth vanquished; +not by that, but by another. + + +A benevolent man once proposed to me, but without pointing out the +methods how, this plan of reform for our benighted world: To cut from +one generation, whether the current one or the next, all the tongues +away, prohibiting Literature too; and appoint at least one generation to +pass its life in silence. "There, thou one blessed generation, from the +vain jargon of babble thou art beneficently freed. Whatsoever of truth, +traditionary or original, thy own god-given intellect shall point out to +thee as true, that thou wilt go and do. In doing of it there will be a +verdict for thee; if a verdict of True, thou wilt hold by it, and ever +again do it; if of Untrue, thou wilt never try it more, but be eternally +delivered from it. To do aught because the vain hearsays order thee, and +the big clamors of the sanhedrim of fools, is not thy lot,--what worlds +of misery are spared thee! Nature's voice heard in thy own inner being, +and the sacred Commandment of thy Maker: these shall be thy guidances, +thou happy tongueless generation. What is good and beautiful thou shalt +know; not merely what is said to be so. Not to talk of thy doings, and +become the envy of surrounding flunkies, but to taste of the fruit of +thy doings themselves, is thine. What the Eternal Laws will sanction for +thee, do; what the Froth Gospels and multitudinous long-eared Hearsays +never so loudly bid, all this is already chaff for thee,--drifting +rapidly along, thou knowest whitherward, on the eternal winds." + +Good Heavens, if such a plan were practicable, how the chaff might be +winnowed out of every man, and out of all human things; and ninety-nine +hundredths of our whole big Universe, spiritual and practical, might +blow itself away, as mere torrents of chaff whole trade-winds of chaff, +many miles deep, rushing continually with the voice of whirlwinds +towards a certain FIRE, which knows how to deal with it! Ninety-nine +hundredths blown away; all the lies blown away, and some skeleton of a +spiritual and practical Universe left standing for us which were true: +O Heavens, is it forever impossible, then? By a generation that had +no tongue it really might be done; but not so easily by one that had. +Tongues, platforms, parliaments, and fourth-estates; unfettered presses, +periodical and stationary literatures: we are nearly all gone to tongue, +I think; and our fate is very questionable. + + +Truly, it is little known at present, and ought forthwith to become +better known, what ruin to all nobleness and fruitfulness and +blessedness in the genius of a poor mortal you generally bring about, by +ordering him to speak, to do all things with a view to their being seen! +Few good and fruitful things ever were done, or could be done, on those +terms. Silence, silence; and be distant ye profane, with your +jargonings and superficial babblements, when a man has anything to do! +Eye-service,--dost thou know what that is, poor England?--eye-service +is all the man can do in these sad circumstances; grows to be all he has +the idea of doing, of his or any other man's ever doing, or ever having +done, in any circumstances. Sad, enough. Alas, it is our saddest woe of +all;--too sad for being spoken of at present, while all or nearly all +men consider it an imaginary sorrow on my part! + +Let the young English soul, in whatever logic-shop and nonsense-verse +establishment of an Eton, Oxford, Edinburgh, Halle, Salamanca, or other +High Finishing-School, he may be getting his young idea taught how to +speak and spout, and print sermons and review-articles, and thereby show +himself and fond patrons that it _is_ an idea,--lay this solemnly to +heart; this is my deepest counsel to him! The idea you have once spoken, +if it even were an idea, is no longer yours; it is gone from you, so +much life and virtue is gone, and the vital circulations of your self +and your destiny and activity are henceforth deprived of it. If you +could not get it spoken, if you could still constrain it into silence, +so much the richer are you. Better keep your idea while you can: let +it still circulate in your blood, and there fructify; inarticulately +inciting you to good activities; giving to your whole spiritual life a +ruddier health. When the time does come for speaking it, you will speak +it all the more concisely, the more expressively, appropriately; and +if such a time should never come, have you not already acted it, and +uttered it as no words can? Think of this, my young friend; for there is +nothing truer, nothing more forgotten in these shabby gold-laced days. +Incontinence is half of all the sins of man. And among the many kinds of +that base vice, I know none baser, or at present half so fell and fatal, +as that same Incontinence of Tongue. "Public speaking," "parliamentary +eloquence:" it is a Moloch, before whom young souls are made to pass +through the fire. They enter, weeping or rejoicing, fond parents +consecrating them to the red-hot Idol, as to the Highest God: and they +come out spiritually _dead_. Dead enough; to live thenceforth a galvanic +life of mere Stump-Oratory; screeching and gibbering, words without +wisdom, without veracity, without conviction more than skin-deep. A +divine gift, that? It is a thing admired by the vulgar, and rewarded +with seats in the Cabinet and other preciosities; but to the wise, it is +a thing not admirable, not adorable; unmelodious rather, and ghastly and +bodeful, as the speech of sheeted spectres in the streets at midnight! + +Be not a Public Orator, thou brave young British man, thou that art +now growing to be something: not a Stump-Orator, if thou canst help +it. Appeal not to the vulgar, with its long ears and its seats in the +Cabinet; not by spoken words to the vulgar; _hate_ the profane vulgar, +and bid it begone. Appeal by silent work, by silent suffering if there +be no work, to the gods, who have nobler than seats in the Cabinet for +thee! Talent for Literature, thou hast such a talent? Believe it not, be +slow to believe it! To speak, or to write, Nature did not peremptorily +order thee; but to work she did. And know this: there never was a talent +even for real Literature, not to speak of talents lost and damned +in doing sham Literature, but was primarily a talent for something +infinitely better of the silent kind. Of Literature, in all ways, be +shy rather than otherwise, at present! There where thou art, work, work; +whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it,--with the hand of a man, not +of a phantasm; be that thy unnoticed blessedness and exceeding great +reward. Thy words, let them be few, and well-ordered. Love silence +rather than speech in these tragic days, when, for very speaking, the +voice of man has fallen inarticulate to man; and hearts, in this loud +babbling, sit dark and dumb towards one another. Witty,--above all, oh +be not witty: none of us is bound to be witty, under penalties; to be +wise and true we all are, under the terriblest penalties! + +Brave young friend, dear to me, and _known_ too in a sense, though never +seen, nor to be seen by me,--you are, what I am not, in the happy case +to learn to _be_ something and to _do_ something, instead of eloquently +talking about what has been and was done and may be! The old are what +they are, and will not alter; our hope is in you. England's hope, and +the world's, is that there may once more be millions such, instead +of units as now. _Macte; i fausto pede_. And may future generations, +acquainted again with the silences, and once more cognizant of what is +noble and faithful and divine, look back on us with pity and incredulous +astonishment! + + + + +Italicized text is represented in the etext with underscores _thusly_. +Greek text has been transliterated into English, with notation "[Gr.]" +appended to it. 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