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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 + + +[February 1, 1850.] NO. I. THE PRESENT TIME. + +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 band. 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 be 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! + + +[March 1, 1850.] No. II. MODEL PRISONS. + +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 band +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! + + +[April 1, 1850.] No. III. DOWNING STREET. + +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 band 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! + + +[April 15, 1850.] No. IV. THE NEW DOWNING STREET. + +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, grouseshootings, 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 clearing-out of Church and State from the unblessed host of +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 succeedingt, 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. + + +[May 1, 1850.] No. V. STUMP-ORATOR. + +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. Otherwise the etext has been +left as it was in the printed text. Footnotes have been embedded +directly into the text, with the notation [Footnote: ...]. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Carlyle's Latter-Day Pamphlets + |