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diff --git a/old/13534.txt b/old/13534.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c9a2dbc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13534.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12329 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Past and Present, by Thomas Carlyle + +*************************************************************** +THERE IS AN IMPROVED EDITION OF THIS TITLE WITH LINKED TABLE OF +CONTENTS WHICH MAY BE VIEWED AS EBOOK (# 26159) at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26159 +***********************************************************^*** + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Past and Present + +Author: Thomas Carlyle + +Release Date: September 27, 2004 [EBook #13534] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAST AND PRESENT *** + + + + +Produced by Jake Jaqua + + + + +PAST AND PRESENT + By Thomas Carlyle + +Appreciation by Ralph Waldo Emerson + + +First published 1843 + + + +THOMAS CARLYLE, born in 1795 at Ecclefechan, the son of a +stonemason. Educated at Edinburgh University. Schoolmaster for +a short time, but decided on a literary career, visiting Paris +and London. Retired in 1828 to Dumfriesshire to write. In 1834 +moved to Cheyne Row, Chelsea, and died there in 1881. + + + + + +INTRODUCTION + Being an appreciation from "The Dial" (July 1843) + by Ralph Waldo Emerson + + +Here is Carlyle's new poem, his _Iliad_ of English woes, to +follow his poem on France, entitled the _History of the French +Revolution._ In its first aspect it is a political tract, and +since Burke, since Milton, we have had nothing to compare with +it. It grapples honestly with the facts lying before all men, +groups and disposes them with a master's mind, and, with a heart +full of manly tenderness, offers his best counsel to his +brothers. Obviously it is the book of a powerful and +accomplished thinker, who has looked with naked eyes at the +dreadful political signs in England for the last few years, has +conversed much on these topics with such wisemen of all ranks and +parties as are drawn to a scholar's house, until, such daily and +nightly meditation has grown into a great connection, if not a +system of thoughts; and the topic of English politics becomes +the best vehicle for the expression of his recent thinking, +recommended to him by the desire to give some timely counsels, +and to strip the worst mischiefs of their plausibility. It is a +brave and just book, and not a semblance. "No new truth," say +the critics on all sides. Is it so? Truth is very old, but the +merit of seers is not to invent but to dispose objects in their +right places, and he is the commander who is always in the mount, +whose eye not only sees details, but throws crowds of details +into their right arrangement and a larger and juster totality +than any other. The book makes great approaches to true +contemporary history, a very rare success, and firmly holds up to +daylight the absurdities still tolerated in the English and +European system. It is such an appeal to the conscience and +honour of England as cannot be forgotten, or be feigned to be +forgotten. It has the merit which belongs to every honest book, +that it was self-examining before it was eloquent, and so hits +all other men, and, as the country people say of good preaching, +"comes bounce down into every pew." Every reader shall carry +away something. The scholar shall read and write, the farmer and +mechanic shall toil, with new resolution, nor forget the book +when they resume their labour. + +Though no theocrat, and more than most philosophers, a believer +in political systems, Mr. Carlyle very fairly finds the calamity +of the times, not in bad bills of Parliament, nor the remedy in +good bills, but the vice in false and superficial aims of the +people, and the remedy in honesty and insight. Like every work +of genius, its great value is in telling such simple truths. As +we recall the topics, we are struck with force given to the plain +truths; the picture of the English nation all sitting enchanted, +the poor, enchanted so that they cannot work, the rich, enchanted +so that they cannot enjoy, and are rich in vain; the exposure of +the progress of fraud into all arts and social activities; the +proposition that the labourer must have a greater share in his +earnings; that the principle of permanence shall be admitted +into all contracts of mutual service; that the state shall +provide at least schoolmaster's education for all the citizens; +the exhortation to the workman that he shall respect the work and +not the wages; to the scholar that he shall be there for light; +to the idle, that no man shall sit idle; the picture of Abbot +Samson, the true governor, who "is not there to expect reason and +nobleness of others, he is there to give them of his own reason +and nobleness;" the assumption throughout the book, that a new +chivalry and nobility, namely the dynasty of labour, is replacing +the old nobilities. These things strike us with a force which +reminds us of the morals of the Oriental or early Greek masters, +and of no modern book. Truly in these things is great reward. +It is not by sitting so at a grand distance and calling the human +race _larvae,_ that men are to be helped, nor by helping the +depraved after their own foolish fashion; but by doing +unweariedly the particular work we were born to do. Let no man +think himself absolved because he does a generous action and +befriends the poor, but let him see whether he so holds his +property that a benefit goes from it to all. A man's diet should +be what is simplest and readiest to be had, because it is so +private a good. His house should be better, because that is for +the use of hundreds, perhaps of thousands, and is the property of +the traveler. But his speech is a perpetual and public +instrument; let that always side with the race and yield neither +a lie nor a sneer. His manners,--let them be hospitable and +civilising, so that no Phidias or Raphael shall have taught +anything better in canvas or stone; and his acts should be +representative of the human race, as one who makes them rich in +his having, and poor in his want. + +It requires great courage in a man of letters to handle the +contemporary practical questions; not because he then has all +men for his rivals, but because of the infinite entanglements of +the problem, and the waste of strength in gathering unripe +fruits. The task is superhuman; and the poet knows well that a +little time will do more than the most puissant genius. Time +stills the loud noise of opinions, sinks the small, raises the +great, so that the true emerges without effort and in perfect +harmony to all eyes; but the truth of the present hour, except +in particulars and single relations, is unattainable. Each man +can very well know his own part of duty, if he will; but to +bring out the truth for beauty, and as literature, surmounts the +powers of art. The most elaborate history of today will have the +oddest dislocated look in the next generation. The historian of +today is yet three ages off. The poet cannot descend into the +turbid present without injury to his rarest gifts. Hence that +necessity of isolation which genius has always felt. He must +stand on his glass tripod, if he would keep his electricity. + +But when the political aspects are so calamitous that the +sympathies of the man overpower the habits of the poet, a higher +than Literary inspiration may succour him. It is a costly proof +of character, that the most renowned scholar of England should +take his reputation in his hand and should descend into the ring; +and he has added to his love whatever honour his opinions may +forfeit. To atone for this departure from the vows of the +scholar and his eternal duties to this secular charity, we have +at least this gain, that here is a message which those to whom it +was addressed cannot choose but hear. Though they die, they must +listen. It is plain that whether by hope or by fear, or were it +only by delight in this panorama of brilliant images; all the +great classes of English society must read, even those whose +existence it proscribes. Poor Queen Victoria--poor Sir Robert +Peel--poor Primate and Bishops--poor Dukes and Lords! There is +no help in place or pride or in looking another way; a grain of +wit is more penetrating than the lightning of the night-storm, +which no curtains or shutters will keep out. Here is a book +which will be read, no thanks to anybody but itself. What pains, +what hopes, what vows, shall come of the reading! Here is a book +as full of treason as an egg is full of meat, and every lordship +and worship and high form and ceremony of English conservatism +tossed like a football into the air, and kept in the air, with +merciless kicks and rebounds, and yet not a word is punishable by +statute. The wit has eluded all official zeal; and yet these +dire jokes, these cunning thrusts, this darning sword of Cherubim +waved high in air, illuminates the whole horizon, and shows to +the eyes of the universe every wound it inflicts. Worst of all +for the party attacked, it bereaves them beforehand of all +sympathy, by anticipating the plea of poetic and humane +conservatism, and impressing the reader with the conviction that +the satirist himself has the truest love for everything old and +excellent in English land and institutions, and a genuine respect +for the basis of truth in those whom he exposes. + +We are at some loss how to state what strikes us as the fault of +this remarkable book, for the variety and excellence of the +talent displayed in it is pretty sure to leave all special +criticism in the wrong. And we may easily fail in expressing the +general objection which we feel. It appears to us as a certain +disproportion in the picture, caused by the obtrusion of the +whims of the painter. In this work, as in his former labours, +Mr. Carlyle reminds us of a sick giant. His humours are + expressed with so much force of constitution that his +fancies are more attractive and more credible than the sanity of +duller men. But the habitual exaggeration of the tone wearies +whilst it stimulated. + +It is felt to be so much deduction from the universality of the +picture. It is not serene sunshine, but everything is seen in +lurid storm lights. Every object attitudinises, to the very +mountains and stars almost, under the refraction of this +wonderful humorist; and instead of the common earth and sky, we +have a Martin's Creation or Judgment Day. A crisis has always +arrived which requires a _deus ex machina._ One can hardly +credit, whilst under the spell of this magician, that the world +always had the same bankrupt look, to foregoing ages as to us--as +of a failed world just re-collecting its old withered forces to +begin again and try to do a little business. It was perhaps +inseparable from the attempt to write a book of wit and +imagination on English politics, that a certain local emphasis +and love of effect, such as is the vice of preaching, should +appear, producing on the reader a feeling of forlornness by the +excess of value attributed to circumstances. But the splendour +of wit cannot out--dazzle the calm daylight, which always shows +every individual man in balance with his age, and able to work +out his own salvation from all the follies of that, and no such +glaring contrasts or severalties in that or this. Each age has +its own follies, as its majority is made up of foolish young +people; its superstitions appear no superstitions to itself; +and if you should ask the contemporary, he would tell you, with +pride or with regret (according as he was practical or poetic), +that he had none. But after a short time, down go its follies +and weakness and the memory of them; its virtues alone remain, +and its limitation assumes the poetic form of a beautiful +superstition, as the dimness of our sight clothes the objects in +the horizon with mist and colour. The revelation of Reason is +this of the un-changeableness of the fate of humanity under all +its subjective aspects; that to the cowering it always cowers, +to the daring it opens great avenues. The ancients are only +venerable to us because distance has destroyed what was trivial; +as the sun and stars affect us only grandly, because we cannot +reach to their smoke and surfaces and say, Is that all? + +And yet the gravity of the times, the manifold and increasing +dangers of the English State, may easily excuse some over- +colouring of the picture; and we at this distance are not so far +removed from any of the specific evils, and are deeply +participant in too many, not to share the gloom and thank the +love and the courage of the counselor. This book is full of +humanity, and nothing is more excellent in this as in all Mr. +Carlyle's works than the attitude of the writer. He has the +dignity of a man of letters, who knows what belongs to him, and +never deviates from his sphere; a continuer of the great line of +scholars, and sustains their office in the highest credit and +honour. If the good heaven have any good word to impart to this +unworthy generation, here is one scribe qualified and clothed for +its occasion. One excellence he has in an age of Mammon and of +criticism, that he never suffers the eye of his wonder to close. +Let who will be the dupe of trifles, he cannot keep his eye oft +from that gracious Infinite which embosoms us. + +As a literary artist he has great merits, beginning with the main +one that he never wrote one dull line. How well-read, how +adroit, what thousand arts in his one art of writing; with his +expedient for expressing those unproven opinions which he +entertains but will not endorse, by summoning one of his men of +straw from the cell,--and the respectable Sauerteig, or +Teufelsdrockh, or Dryasdust, or Picturesque Traveler, says what +is put into his mouth, and disappears. That morbid temperament +has given his rhetoric a somewhat bloated character; a luxury to +many imaginative and learned persons, like a showery south-wind +with its sunbursts and rapid chasing of lights and glooms over +the landscape, and yet its offensiveness to multitudes of +reluctant lovers makes us often wish some concession were +possible on the part of the humorist. Yet it must not be +forgotten that in all his fun of castanets, or playing of tunes +with a whip-lash like some renowned charioteers,--in all this +glad and needful venting of his redundant spirits, he does yet +ever and anon, as if catching the glance of one wise man in the +crowd, quit his tempestuous key, and lance at him in clear level +tone the very word, and then with new glee return to his game. +He is like a lover or an outlaw who wraps up his message in a +serenade, which is nonsense to the sentinel, but salvation to the +ear for which it is meant. He does not dodge the question, but +gives sincerity where it is due. + +One word more respecting this remarkable style. We have in +literature few specimens of magnificence. Plato is the purple +ancient, and Bacon and Milton the moderns of the richest strains. +Burke sometimes reaches to that exuberant fullness, though +deficient in depth. Carlyle in his strange, half mad way, has +entered the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and shown a vigour and +wealth of resource which has no rival in the tourney play of +these times--the indubitable champion of England. Carlyle is the +first domestication of the modern system, with its infinity of +details, into style. We have been civilising very fast, building +London and Paris, and now planting New England and India, New +Holland and Oregon--and it has not appeared in literature; there +has been no analogous expansion and recomposition in books. +Carlyle's style is the first emergence of all this wealth and +labour with which the world has gone with child so long. London +and Europe, tunneled, graded corn-lawed, with trade-nobility, and +East and West Indies for dependencies, and America, with the +Rocky Hills in the horizon, have never before been conquered in +literature. This is the first invasion and conquest. How like +an air-balloon or bird of Jove does he seem to float over the +continent, and stooping here and there pounce on a fact as a +symbol which was never a symbol before. This is the first +experiment, and something of rudeness and haste must be pardoned +to so great an achievement. It will be done again and again, +sharper, simpler; but fortunate is he who did it first, though +never so giant-like and fabulous. This grandiose character +pervades his wit and his imagination. We have never had anything +in literature so like earthquakes as the laughter of Carlyle. He +"shakes with his mountain mirth." It is like the laughter of the +Genii in the horizon. These jokes shake down Parliament-house +and Windsor Castle, Temple and Tower, and the future shall echo +the dangerous peals. The other particular of magnificence is in +his rhymes. Carlyle is a poet who is altogether too burly in his +frame and habit to submit to the limits of metre. Yet he is full +of rhythm, not only in the perpetual melody of his periods, but +in the burdens, refrains, and returns of his sense and music. +Whatever thought or motto has once appeared to him fraught with +meaning, becomes an omen to him henceforward, and is sure to +return with deeper tones and weightier import, now as threat, now +as confirmation, in gigantic reverberation, as if the hills, the +horizon, and the next ages returned the sound. + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + +Life of Schiller (Lond. Mag., 1823-4), 1825, 1845. (Supplement +published in the People's Edition, 1873) Wilhelm Meister's +Apprenticeship, 1824. Elements of Geometry and Trigonometry +(from the French of Legendre), 1824. German Romance, 1827. +Sartor Resartus (Fraser's Mag., 1833-4), 1835 (Boston) 1838. +French Revolution, 1837,1839. Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, +1839, 1840, 1847, 1857. (In these were reprinted Articles from +Edinburgh Review, Foreign Review, Foreign Quarterly Review, +Fraser's Magazine, Westminster Review, New Monthly Magazine, +London and Westminster Review, Keepsake, Proceedings of the +Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Times.) Chartism, 1840. +Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History, 1841. Past and +Present, 1843. Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches; with +Elucidations, 1845. Thirty-five Unpublished Letters of Oliver +Cromwell, 1847 (Fraser). Original Discourses on the Negro +Question (Fraser, 1849), 1853. Latter-day Pamphlets, 1850. Life +of John Sterling, 1851. History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, +1858-65. Inaugural Address at Edinburgh, 1866. Shooting +Niagara; and After? 1867 (from Macmillan). The Early Kings of +Norway; also an Essay on the Portraits of John Knox, 1875. + +There were also contributions to Brewster's Edinburgh +Encyclopaedia, vols. xiv. xv., and xvi.; to New Edinburgh +Review, 1821, 1822; Fraser's Magazine, 1830, 1831; The Times, +19 June, 1844 (Mazzini); 28 November, 1876; 5 May, 1877; +Examiner, 1848; Spectator 1848. + +First Collected Edition of Works, 1857-58 (16 vols.) + +Reminiscences (ed. J.A. Froude), 1881; (ed. C.E. Norton, 1887, +and preprinted in Everyman's Library; 1932, with an added +article on Professor John Wilson--"Christopher North") +Reminiscences of my Irish journey in 1849, 1882. Last Words of +Thomas Carlyle, 1882 (ed. by J.C.A.) Last Words of Thomas +Carlyle, 1892. Rescued Essays (ed. P. Newberry) 1892. +Historical Sketches of Notable Persons and Events in the Reign of +James I. and Charles I. (ed. A. Carlyle), 1898. + +Sir Leslie Stephen's article on Carlyle in the Dictionary of +National Biography gives a list of his occasional writings which +have never been collected or reprinted. + + + +Contents + +Book I--Proem + +I. Midas. +II. The Sphinx +III. Manchester Insurrection +IV. Morrison's Pill +V. Aristocracy of Talent +VI. Hero-Worship + + +Book II--The Ancient Monk + +I. Jocelin of Brakelond +II. St. Edmundsbury +III. Landlord Edmund +IV. Abbot Hugo +V. Twelfth Century +VI. Monk Samson +VII. The Canvassing +VIII. The Election +IX. Abbot Samson +X. Government +XI. The Abbot's Ways +XII. The Abbot's Troubles +XIII. In Parliament +XIV. Henry of Essex +XV. Practical-Devotional +XVI St. Edmund +XVII The Beginnings + + +Book III--The Modern Worker + +I. Phenomena, +II. Gospel of Mammonism +III. Gospel of Dilettantism +XV. Happy +V. The English +VI. Two Centuries +VII. Over-Production +VIII. Unworking Aristocracy +IX. Working Aristocracy +X. Plugson of Undershot +XI. Labour +XII Reward +XIII. Democracy +XIV Sir Jabesh Windbag +XV. Morrison Again + +Book IV--Horoscope + +I. Aristocracies +II. Bribery Committee +III. The One Institution +IV Captains of Industry +V. Permanence +VI. The Landed +VII. The Gifted +VIII The Didactic + +Summary + + + + +Book I--Proem + + +Chapter I + +Midas + + +The condition of England, on which many pamphlets are now in the +course of publication, and many thoughts unpublished are going on +in every reflective head, is justly regarded as one of the most +ominous, and withal one of the strangest, ever seen in this +world. England is full of wealth, of multifarious produce, +supply for human want in every kind; yet England is dying of +inanition. With unabated bounty the land of England blooms and +grows; waving with yellow harvests; thick-studded with +workshops, industrial implements, with fifteen millions of +workers, understood to be the strongest, the cunningest and the +willingest our Earth ever had; these men are here; the work +they have done, the fruit they have realised is here, abundant, +exuberant on every hand of us: and behold, some baleful fiat as +of Enchantment has gone forth, saying, "Touch it not, ye workers, +ye master-workers, ye master-idlers; none of you can touch it, +no man of you shall be the better for it; this is enchanted +fruit!" On the poor workers such fiat falls first, in its rudest +shape; but on the rich masterworkers too it falls; neither can +the rich master-idlers, nor any richest or highest man escape, +but all are like to be brought low with it, and made 'poor' +enough, in the money-sense or a far fataller one. + +Of these successful skillful workers some two millions, it is now +counted, sit in Workhouses, Poor-law Prisons; or have 'out-door +relief' flung over the wall to them,--the workhouse Bastille +being filled to bursting, and the strong Poor-law broken asunder +by a stronger.* They sit there, these many months now; their +hope of deliverance as yet small. In workhouses, pleasantly so +named, because work cannot be done in them. Twelve hundred +thousand workers in England alone; their cunning right-hand +lamed, lying idle in their sorrowful bosom; their hopes, +outlooks, share of this fair world, shut in by narrow walls. +They sit there, pent up, as in a kind of horrid enchantment; +glad to be imprisoned and enchanted, that they may not perish +starved. The picturesque Tourist, in a sunny autumn day, +through this bounteous realm of England, describes the Union +Workhouse on his path. 'Passing by the Workhouse of St. Ives +in Huntingdonshire, on a bright day last autumn,' says the +picturesque Tourist, 'I saw sitting on wooden benches, in front +of their Bastille and within their ringwall and its railings, +some half-hundred or more of these men. Tall robust figures, +young mostly or of middle age; of honest countenance, many of +them thoughtful and even intelligent-looking men. They sat +there, near by one another; but in a kind of torpor, especially +in a silence, which was very striking. In silence: for, alas, +what word was to be said? An Earth all lying round, crying, Come +and till me, come and reap me;--yet we here sit enchanted! In +the eyes and brows of these men hung the gloomiest expression, +not of anger, but of grief and shame and manifold inarticulate +distress and weariness; they returned my glance with a glance +that seemed to say, "Do not look at us. We sit enchanted here, +we know not why. The Sun shines and the Earth calls; and, by +the governing Powers and Impotences of this England, we are +forbidden to obey. It is impossible, they tell us!" There was +something that reminded me of Dante's Hell in the look of all +this; and I rode swiftly away. + +--------- +* The Return of Paupers for England and Wales, at Ladyday, 1842, +is, "In-door 221,687, Out-door 1,207,402, Total 1,429,089."-- +(_Official Report_) +--------- + +So many hundred thousands sit in workhouses: and other hundred +thousands have not yet got even workhouses; and in thrifty +Scotland itself, in Glasgow or Edinburgh City, in their +dark lanes, hidden from all but the eye of God, and of rare +Benevolence the minister of God, there are scenes of woe and +destitution and desolation, such as, one may hope, the Sun never +saw before in the most barbarous regions where men dwelt. +Competent witnesses, the brave and humane Dr. Alison, who speaks +what he knows, whose noble Healing Art in his charitable hands +becomes once more a truly sacred one, report these things for us: +these things are not of this year, or of last year, have no +reference to our present state of commercial stagnation, but only +to the common state. Not in sharp fever-fits, but in chronic +gangrene of this kind is Scotland suffering. A Poor-law, any and +every Poor-law, it may be observed, is but a temporary measure; +an anodyne, not a remedy: Rich and Poor, when once the naked +facts of their condition have come into collision, cannot long +subsist together on a mere Poor-law. True enough:--and yet, +human beings cannot be left to die! Scotland too, till something +better come, must have a Poor-law, if Scotland is not to be a +byword among the nations. O, what a waste is there; of noble +and thrice-noble national virtues; peasant Stoicisms, Heroisms; +valiant manful habits, soul of a Nation's worth,--which all the +metal of Potosi cannot purchase back; to which the metal of +Potosi, and all you can buy with _it,_ is dross and dust! + +Why dwell on this aspect of the matter? It is too indisputable, +not doubtful now to any one. Descend where you will into the +lower class, in Town or Country, by what avenue you will, by +Factory Inquiries, Agricultural Inquiries, by Revenue Returns, by +Mining-Labourer Committees, by opening your own eyes and looking, +the same sorrowful result discloses itself: you have to admit +that the working body of this rich English Nation has sunk or is +fast sinking into a state, to which, all sides of it considered, +there was literally never any parallel. At Stockport Assizes,-- +and this too has no reference to the present state of trade, +being of date prior to that,--a Mother and a Father are arraigned +and found guilty of poisoning three of their children, to defraud +a 'burial-society' of some _31.8s._ due on the death of each +child: they are arraigned, found guilty; and the official +authorities, it is whispered, hint that perhaps the case is not +solitary, that perhaps you had better not probe farther into that +department of things. This is in the autumn of 1841; the crime +itself is of the previous year or season. "Brutal savages, +degraded Irish," mutters the idle reader of Newspapers; hardly +lingering on this incident. Yet it is an incident worth +lingering on; the depravity, savagery and degraded Irishism +being never so well admitted. In the British land, a human +Mother and Father, of white skin and professing the Christian +religion, had done this thing; they, with their Irishism and +necessity and savagery, had been driven to do it. Such instances +are like the highest mountain apex emerged into view; under +which lies a whole mountain region and land, not yet emerged. A +human Mother and Father had said to themselves, What shall we do +to escape starvation? We are deep sunk here, in our dark cellar; +and help is far.--Yes, in the Ugolino Hungertower stern things +happen; best-loved little Gaddo fallen dead on his Father's +knees!--The Stockport Mother and Father think and hint: Our poor +little starveling Tom, who cries all day for victuals, who will +see only evil and not good in this world: if he were out of +misery at once; he well dead, and the rest of us perhaps kept +alive? It is thought, and hinted; at last it is done. And now +Tom being killed, and all spent and eaten, Is it poor little +starveling Jack that must go, or poor little starveling Will?-- +What an inquiry of ways and means! + +In starved sieged cities, in the uttermost doomed ruin of old +Jerusalem fallen under the wrath of God, it was prophesied and +said, 'The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own +children.' The stern Hebrew imagination could conceive no +blacker gulf of wretchedness; that was the ultimatum of degraded +god-punished man. And we here, in modern England, exuberant with +supply of all kinds, besieged by nothing if it be not by +invisible Enchantments, are we reaching that?--How come these +things? Wherefore are they, wherefore should they be? + + +Nor are they of the St. Ives workhouses, of the Glasgow lanes, +and Stockport cellars, the only unblessed among us. This +successful industry of England, with its plethoric wealth, has as +yet made nobody rich; it is an enchanted wealth, and belongs yet +to nobody. We might ask, Which of us has it enriched? We can +spend thousands where we once spent hundreds; but can purchase +nothing good with them. In Poor and Rich, instead of noble +thrift and plenty, there is idle luxury alternating with mean +scarcity and inability. We have sumptuous garnitures for our +Life, but have forgotten to _live_ in the middle of them. It is +an enchanted wealth; no man of us can yet touch it. The class +of men who feel that they are truly better off by means of it, +let them give us their name! + +Many men eat finer cookery, drink dearer liquors,--with what +advantage they can report, and their Doctors can: but in the +heart of them, if we go out of the dyspeptic stomach, what +increase of blessedness is there? Are they better, beautifuller, +stronger, braver? Are they even what they call 'happier? Do +they look with satisfaction on more things and human faces in +this God's Earth; do more things and human faces look with +satisfaction on them? Not so. Human faces gloom discordantly, +disloyally on one another. Things, if it be not mere cotton and +iron things, are growing disobedient to man. The Master Worker +is enchanted, for the present, like his Workhouse Workman; +clamours, in vain hitherto, for a very simple sort of 'Liberty:' +the liberty 'to buy where he finds it cheapest, to sell where he +finds it dearest.' With guineas jingling in every pocket, he was +no whit richer; but now, the very guineas threatening to vanish, +he feels that he is poor indeed. Poor Master Worker! And the +Master Unworker, is not he in a still fataller situation? +Pausing amid his game-preserves, with awful eye,--as he well may! +Coercing fifty-pound tenants; coercing, bribing, cajoling; +doing what he likes with his own. His mouth full of loud +futilities, and arguments to prove the excellence of his +Corn-law;* and in his heart the blackest misgiving, a desperate +half-consciousness that his excellent Corn-law is indefensible, +that his loud arguments for it are of a kind to strike men too +literally _dumb._ + +------------- +[* Digital transcriber note: The "corn-law" that Carlyle +repeatedly refers to was an English sliding-scale tariff on +grain, which kept the price of bread artificially inflated.] +------------- + +To whom, then, is this wealth of England wealth? Who is it that +it blesses; makes happier, wiser, beautifuller, in any way +better? Who has got hold of it, to make it fetch and carry for +him, like a true servant, not like a false mock-servant; to do +him any real service whatsoever? As yet no one. We have more +riches than any Nation ever had before; we have less good of +them than any Nation ever had before. Our successful industry is +hitherto unsuccessful; a strange success, if we stop here! In +the midst of plethoric plenty, the people perish; with gold +walls, and full barns, no man feels himself safe or satisfied. +Workers, Master Workers, Unworkers, all men, come to a pause; +stand fixed, and cannot farther. Fatal paralysis spreading +inwards, from the extremities, in St. Ives workhouses, in +Stockport cellars, through all limbs, as if towards the heart +itself. Have we actually got enchanted, then; accursed by +some god?-- + +Midas longed for gold, and insulted the Olympians. He got gold, +so that whatsoever he touched became gold,--and he, with his long +ears, was little the better for it. Midas had misjudged the +celestial music-tones; Midas had insulted Apollo and the gods: +the gods gave him his wish, and a pair of long ears, which also +were a good appendage to it. What a truth in these old Fables! + + + + +Chapter II + +The Sphinx + + +How true, for example, is that other old Fable of the Sphinx, who +sat by the wayside, propounding her riddle to the passengers, +which if they could not answer she destroyed them! Such a Sphinx +is this Life of ours, to all men and societies of men. Nature, +like the Sphinx, is of womanly celestial loveliness and +tenderness; the face and bosom of a goddess, but ending in claws +and the body of a lioness. There is in her a celestial beauty,-- +which means celestial order, pliancy to wisdom; but there is +also a darkness, a ferocity, fatality, which are infernal. +She is a goddess, but one not yet disimprisoned; one still +half-imprisoned,--the inarticulate, lovely still encased in the +inarticulate, chaotic. How true! And does she not propound her +riddles to us? Of each man she asks daily, in mild voice, yet +with a terrible significance, "Knowest thou the meaning of this +Day? What thou canst do Today; wisely attempt to do?" Nature, +Universe, Destiny, Existence, howsoever we name this grand +unnameable Fact in the midst of which we live and struggle, is as +a heavenly bride and conquest to the wise and brave, to them who +can discern her behests and do them; a destroying fiend to them +who cannot. Answer her riddle, it is well with thee. Answer it +not, pass on regarding it not, it will answer itself; the +solution for thee is a thing of teeth and claws; Nature is a +dumb lioness, deaf to thy pleadings, fiercely devouring. Thou +art not now her victorious bridegroom; thou art her mangled +victim, scattered on the precipices, as a slave found treacherous, +recreant, ought to be and must. + +With Nations it is as with individuals: Can they rede the riddle +of Destiny? This English Nation, will it get to know the meaning +of _its_ strange new Today? Is there sense enough extant, +discoverable anywhere or anyhow, in our united twenty-seven +million heads to discern the same; valour enough in our +twenty-seven million hearts to dare and do the bidding thereof? +It will be seen!-- + +The secret of gold Midas, which he with his long ears never could +discover, was, That he had offended the Supreme Powers;--that he +had parted company with the eternal inner Facts of this Universe, +and followed the transient outer Appearances thereof; and so was +arrived _here._ Properly it is the secret of all unhappy men and +unhappy nations. Had they known Nature's right truth, Nature's +right truth would have made them free. They have become +enchanted; stagger spell-bound, reeling on the brink of huge +peril, because they were not wise enough. They have forgotten +the right Inner True, and taken up with the Outer Sham-true. +They answer the Sphinx's question wrong. Foolish men cannot +answer it aright! Foolish men mistake transitory semblance for +eternal fact, and go astray more and more. + +Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is +delayed, there is no justice, but an accidental one, here below. +Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, +some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death! +In the centre of the world-whirlwind, verily now as in the oldest +days, dwells and speaks a God. The great soul of the world is +_just._ O brother, can it be needful now, at this late epoch of +experience, after eighteen centuries of Christian preaching for +one thing, to remind thee of such a fact; which all manner of +Mahometans, old Pagan Romans, Jews, Scythians and heathen Greeks, +and indeed more or less all men that God made, have managed at +one time to see into; nay which thou thyself, till 'redtape' +strangled the inner life of thee, hadst once some inkling of: +That there is justice here below; and even, at bottom, that +there is nothing else but justice! Forget that, thou hast +forgotten all. Success will never more attend thee: how can it +now? Thou hast the whole Universe against thee. No more +success: mere sham-success, for a day and days; rising ever +higher,--towards its Tarpeian Rock. Alas, how, in thy soft-hung +Longacre vehicle, of polished leather to the bodily eye, of +redtape philosophy, of expediencies, clubroom moralities, +Parliamentary majorities to the mind's eye, thou beautifully +rollest: but knowest thou whitherward? It is towards the +_road's end._ Old use-and-wont; established methods, habitudes, +once true and wise; man's noblest tendency, his perseverance, +and man's ignoblest, his inertia; whatsoever of noble and +ignoble Conservatism there is in men and Nations, strongest +always in the strongest men and Nations: all this is as a road +to thee, paved smooth through the abyss,--till all this _end._ +Till men's bitter necessities can endure thee no more. Till +Nature's patience with thee is done; and there is no road or +footing any farther, and the abyss yawns sheer-- + +Parliament and the Courts of Westminster are venerable to me; +how venerable; grey with a thousand years of honourable age! +For a thousand years and more, Wisdom and faithful Valour, +struggling amid much Folly and greedy Baseness, not without most +sad distortions in the struggle, have built them up; and they +are as we see. For a thousand years, this English Nation has +found them useful or supportable; they have served this English +Nation's want; _been_ a road to it through the abyss of Time. +They are venerable, they are great and strong. And yet it is +good to remember always that they are not the venerablest, nor +the greatest, nor the strongest! Acts of Parliament are +venerable; but if they correspond not with the writing on the +Adamant Tablet, what are they? Properly their one element of +venerableness, of strength or greatness, is, that they at all +times correspond therewith as near as by human possibility they +can. They are cherishing destruction in their bosom every hour +that they continue otherwise. + +Alas, how many causes that can plead well for themselves in the +Courts of Westminster; and yet in the general Court of the +Universe, and free Soul of Man, have no word to utter! +Honourable Gentlemen may find this worth considering, in times +like ours. And truly, the din of triumphant Law-logic, and all +shaking of horse-hair wigs and learned-sergeant gowns having +comfortably ended, we shall do well to ask ourselves withal, What +says that high and highest Court to the verdict? For it is the +Court of Courts, that same; where the universal soul of Fact and +very Truth sits President;--and thitherward, more and more +swiftly, with a really terrible increase of swiftness, all causes +do in these days crowd for revisal,--for confirmation, for +modification, for reversal with costs. Dost thou know that +Court; hast thou had any Law-practice there? What, didst thou +never enter; never file any petition of redress, reclaimer, +disclaimer or demurrer, written as in thy heart's blood, for thy +own behoof or another's; and silently await the issue? Thou +knowest not such a Court? Hast merely heard of it by faint +tradition as a thing that was or had been? Of thee, I think, we +shall get little benefit. + +For the gowns of learned-sergeants are good: parchment records, +fixed forms, and poor terrestrial justice, with or without +horse-hair, what sane man will not reverence these? And yet, +behold, the man is not sane but insane, who considers these alone +as venerable. Oceans of horse-hair, continents of parchment, and +learned-sergeant eloquence, were it continued till the learned +tongue wore itself small in the indefatigable learned mouth, +cannot make unjust just. The grand question still remains, Was +the judgment just? If unjust, it will not and cannot get harbour +for itself, or continue to have footing in this Universe, which +was made by other than One Unjust. Enforce it by never such +statuting, three readings, royal assents; blow it to the four +winds with all manner of quilted trumpeters and pursuivants, in +the rear of them never so many gibbets and hangmen, it will not +stand, it cannot stand. From all souls of men, from all ends of +Nature, from the Throne of God above, there are voices bidding +it: Away, away! Does it take no warning; does it stand, strong +in its three readings, in its gibbets and artillery-parks? The +more woe is to it, the frightfuller woe. It will continue +standing, for its day, for its year, for its century, doing +evil all the while; but it has One enemy who is Almighty: +dissolution, explosion, and the everlasting Laws of Nature +incessantly advance towards it; and the deeper its rooting, more +obstinate its continuing, the deeper also and huger will its ruin +and overturn be. + +In this God's-world, with its wild-whirling eddies and mad +foam-oceans, where men and nations perish as if without law, and +judgment for an unjust thing is sternly delayed, dost thou think +that there is therefore no justice? It is what the fool hath +said in his heart. It is what the wise, in all times, were wise +because they denied, and knew forever not to be. I tell thee +again, there is nothing else but justice. One strong thing I +find here below: the just thing, the true thing. My friend, if +thou hadst all the artillery of Woolwich trundling at thy back in +support of an unjust thing; and infinite bonfires visibly +waiting ahead of thee, to blaze centuries long for thy victory on +behalf of it,--I would advise thee to call halt, to fling down +thy baton, and say, "In God's name, No!" Thy 'success?' Poor +devil, what will thy success amount to? If the thing is unjust, +thou hast not succeeded; no, not though bonfires blazed +from North to South, and bells rang, and editors wrote +leading-articles, and the just thing lay trampled out of sight, +to all mortal eyes an abolished and annihilated thing. Success? +In few years, thou wilt be dead and dark,--all cold, eyeless, +deaf; no blaze of bonfires, ding-dong of bells or leading-articles +visible or audible to thee again at all forever: What kind of +success is that!-- + +It is true all goes by approximation in this world; with any not +insupportable approximation we must be patient. There is a noble +Conservatism as well as an ignoble. Would to Heaven, for the +sake of Conservatism itself, the noble alone were left, and the +ignoble, by some kind severe hand, were ruthlessly lopped away, +forbidden ever more to skew itself! For it is the right and +noble alone that will have victory in this struggle; the rest is +wholly an obstruction, a postponement and fearful imperilment of +the victory. Towards an eternal centre of right and nobleness, +and of that only, is all this confusion tending. We already know +whither it is all tending; what will have victory, what will +have none! The Heaviest will reach the centre. The Heaviest, +sinking through complex fluctuating media and vortices, has its +deflexions, its obstructions, nay at times its resiliences, its +reboundings; whereupon some blockhead shall be heard jubilating, +"See, your Heaviest ascends!"--but at all moments it is moving +centreward, fast as is convenient for it; sinking, sinking; and, +by laws older than the World, old as the Maker's first Plan of +the World, it has to arrive there. + +Await the issue. In all battles, if you await the issue, each +fighter has prospered according to his right. His right and his +might, at the close of the account, were one and the same. He +has fought with all his might, and in exact proportion to all his +right he has prevailed. His very death is no victory over him. +He dies indeed; but his work lives, very truly lives. A heroic +Wallace, quartered on the scaffold, cannot hinder that his +Scotland become, one day, a part of England: but he does hinder +that it become, on tyrannous unfair terms, a part of it; +commands still, as with a god's voice, from his old Valhalla and +Temple of the Brave, that there be a just real union as of +brother and brother, not a false and merely semblant one as of +slave and master. If the union with England be in fact one of +Scotland's chief blessings, we thank Wallace withal that it was +not the chief curse. Scotland is not Ireland: no, because brave +men rose there, and said, "Behold, ye must not tread us down like +slaves; and ye shall not,--and cannot!" Fight on, thou brave +true heart, and falter not, through dark fortune and through +bright. The cause thou fightest for, so far as it is true, no +farther, yet precisely so far, is very sure of victory. The +falsehood alone of it will be conquered, will be abolished, as it +ought to be: but the truth of it is part of Nature's own Laws, +cooperates with the World's eternal Tendencies, and cannot +be conquered. + +The _dust_ of controversy, what is it but the _falsehood_ flying +off from all manner of conflicting true forces, and making such a +loud dust-whirlwind,--that so the truths alone may remain, and +embrace brother-like in some true resulting-force! It is ever +so. Savage fighting Heptarchies: their fighting is an +ascertainment, who has the right to rule over whom; that out of +such waste-bickering Saxondom a peacefully cooperating England +may arise. Seek through this Universe; if with other than owl's +eyes, thou wilt find nothing nourished there, nothing kept in +life, but what has right to nourishment and life. The rest, look +at it with other than owl's eyes, is not living; is all dying, +all as good as dead! Justice was ordained from the foundations +of the world; and will last with the world and longer. + + +From which I infer that the inner sphere of Fact, in this present +England as elsewhere, differs infinitely from the outer sphere +and spheres of Semblance. That the Temporary, here as elsewhere, +is too apt to carry it over the Eternal. That he who dwells in +the temporary Semblances, and does not penetrate into the eternal +Substance, will _not_ answer the Sphinx-riddle of Today, or of +any Day. For the substance alone is substantial; that is the +law of Fact: if you discover not that, Fact, who already knows +it, will let you also know it by and by! + +What is justice? that, on the whole, is the question of the +Sphinx to us. The law of Fact is, that justice must and will be +done. The sooner the better; for the Time grows stringent, +frightfully pressing! "What is justice?" ask many, to whom cruel +Fact alone will be able to prove responsive. It is like jesting +Pilate asking, What is Truth? Jesting Pilate had not the +smallest chance to ascertain what was Truth. He could not have +known it, had a god shewn it to him. Thick serene opacity, +thicker than amaurosis, veiled those smiling eyes of his to +Truth; the inner _retina_ of them was gone paralytic, dead. He +looked at Truth; and discerned her not, there where she stood. +"What is justice?" The clothed embodied justice that sits in +Westminster Hall, with penalties, parchments, tipstaves, is very +visible. But the unembodied justice, whereof that other is +either an emblem, or else is a fearful indescribability, is not +so visible! For the unembodied Justice is of Heaven; a Spirit, +and Divinity of Heaven,--invisible to all but the noble and pure +of soul. The impure ignoble gaze with eyes, and she is not +there. They will prove it to you by logic, by endless Hansard +Debatings, by bursts of Parliamentary eloquence. It is not +consolatory to behold! For properly, as many men as there are in +a Nation who _can_ withal see Heaven's invisible Justice, and +know it to be on Earth also omnipotent, so many men are there who +stand between a Nation and perdition. So many, and no more. +Heavy-laden England, how many hast thou in this hour? The +Supreme Power sends new and ever new, all _born_ at least with +hearts of flesh and not of stone;--and heavy Misery itself, once +heavy enough, will prove didactic!-- + + + + +Chapter III + +Manchester Insurrection + + +Blusterowski, Colacorde, and other Editorial prophets of the +Continental Democratic Movement, have in their leading-articles +shewn themselves disposed to vilipend the late Manchester +Insurrection, as evincing in the rioters an extreme backwardness +to battle; nay as betokening, in the English People itself, +perhaps a want of the proper animal-courage indispensable in +these ages. A million hungry operative men started up, in utmost +paroxysm of desperate protest against their lot; and, ask +Colacorde and company, How many shots were fired? Very few in +comparison! Certain hundreds of drilled soldiers sufficed to +suppress this million-headed hydra's and tread it down, without +the smallest appeasement or hope of such, into its subterranean +settlements again, there to reconsider itself. Compared +with our revolts in Lyons, in Warsaw and elsewhere, to say +nothing of incomparable Paris City past or present, what a +lamblike Insurrection!-- + +The present Editor is not here, with his readers, to vindicate +the character of Insurrections; nor does it matter to us whether +Blusterowski and the rest may think the English a courageous +people or not courageous. In passing, however, let us mention +that, to our view, this was not an unsuccessful Insurrection; +that as Insurrections go, we have not heard lately of any that +succeeded so well. + +A million of hungry operative men, as Blusterowski says, rose +all up, came all out into the streets, and--stood there. What +other could they do? Their wrongs and griefs were bitter, +insupportable, their rage against the same was just: but who are +they that cause these wrongs, who that will honestly make effort +to redress them? Our enemies are we know not who or what; our +friends are we know not where! How shall we attack any one, +shoot or be shot by any one? O, if the accursed invisible +Nightmare, that is crushing out the life of us and ours, would +take a shape; approach us like the Hyrcanian tiger, the Behemoth +of Chaos, the Archfiend himself; in any shape that we could see, +and fasten on!--A man can have himself shot with cheerfulness; +but it needs first that he see clearly for what. Shew him the +divine face of justice, then the diabolic monster which is +eclipsing that: he will fly at the throat of such monster, never +so monstrous, and need no bidding to do it. Woolwich grapeshot +will sweep clear all streets, blast into invisibility so many +thousand men: but if your Woolwich grapeshot be but eclipsing +Divine justice, and the God's-radiance itself gleam recognisable +athwart such grapeshot,--then, yes then is the time come for +fighting and attacking. All artillery-parks have become weak, +and are about to dissipate: in the God's-thunder, their poor +thunder slackens, ceases; finding that it is, in all senses of +the term, a _brute_ one!-- + +That the Manchester Insurrection stood still, on the streets, +with an indisposition to fire and bloodshed, was wisdom for it +even as an Insurrection. Insurrection, never so necessary, is a +most sad necessity; and governors who wait for that to instruct +them, are surely getting into the fatallest courses,--proving +themselves Sons of Nox and Chaos, of blind Cowardice, not of +seeing Valour! How can there be any remedy in insurrection? It +is a mere announcement of the disease,--visible now even to Sons +of Night. Insurrection usually 'gains' little; usually wastes +how much! One of its worst kinds of waste, to say nothing of the +rest, is that of irritating and exasperating men against each +other, by violence done; which is always sure to be injustice +done, for violence does even justice unjustly. + +Who shall compute the waste and loss, the obstruction of every +sort, that was produced in the Manchester region by Peterloo +alone! Some thirteen unarmed men and women cut down,--the number +of the slain and maimed is very countable: but the treasury of +rage, burning hidden or visible in all hearts ever since, more or +less perverting the effort and aim of all hearts ever since, is +of unknown extent. "How ye came among us, in your cruel armed +blindness, ye unspeakable County Yeomanry, sabres flourishing, +hoofs prancing, and slashed us down at your brute pleasure; +deaf, blind to all _our_ claims and woes and wrongs; of quick +sight and sense to your own claims only! There lie poor sallow +workworn weavers, and complain no more now; women themselves are +slashed and sabred, howling terror fills the air; and ye ride +prosperous, very victorious,--ye unspeakable: give us sabres +too, and then come-on a little!" Such are Peterloos. In +all hearts that witnessed Peterloo, stands written, as in +fire-characters, or smoke-characters prompt to become fire again, +a legible balance-account of grim vengeance; very unjustly +balanced, much exaggerated, as is the way with such accounts; +but payable readily at sight, in full with compound interest! +Such things should be avoided as the very pestilence. For men's +hearts ought not to be set against one another; but set _with_ +one another, and all against the Evil Thing only. Men's souls +ought to be left to see clearly; not jaundiced, blinded, twisted +all awry, by revenge, mutual abhorrence, and the like. An +Insurrection that can announce the disease, and then retire with +no such balance-account opened anywhere, has attained the highest +success possible for it. + +And this was what these poor Manchester operatives, with all the +darkness that was in them and round them, did manage to perform. +They put their huge inarticulate question, "What do you mean to +do with us?" in a manner audible to every reflective soul in this +kingdom; exciting deep pity in all good men, deep anxiety in all +men whatever; and no conflagration or outburst of madness came +to cloud that feeling anywhere, but everywhere it operates +unclouded. All England heard the question: it is the first +practical form of our Sphinx-riddle. England will answer it; +or, on the whole, England will perish;--one does not yet expect +the latter result! + +For the rest, that the Manchester Insurrection could yet discern +no radiance of Heaven on any side of its horizon; but feared +that all lights, of the O'Connor or other sorts, hitherto +kindled, were but deceptive fish-oil transparencies, or bog +will-o'-wisp lights, and no dayspring from on high: for this +also we will honour the poor Manchester Insurrection, and augur +well of it. A deep unspoken sense lies in these strong men,-- +inconsiderable, almost stupid, as all they can articulate of it +is. Amid all violent stupidity of speech, a right noble instinct +of what is doable and what is not doable never forsakes them: +the strong inarticulate men and workers, whom _Fact_ patronises; +of whom, in all difficulty and work whatsoever, there is good +augury! This work too is to be done: Governors and Governing +Classes that _can_ articulate and utter, in any measure, what the +law of Fact and Justice is, may calculate that here is a Governed +Class who will listen. + +And truly this first practical form of the Sphinx-question, +inarticulately and so audibly put there, is one of the most +impressive ever asked in the world. "Behold us here, so many +thousands, millions, and increasing at the rate of fifty every +hour. We are right willing and able to work; and on the Planet +Earth is plenty of work and wages for a million times as many. +We ask, If you mean to lead us towards work; to try to lead us, +--by ways new, never yet heard of till this new unheard-of Time? +Or if you declare that you cannot lead us? And expect that we +are to remain quietly unled, and in a composed manner perish of +starvation? What is it you expect of us? What is it you mean to +do with us?" This question, I say, has been put in the hearing +of all Britain; and will be again put, and ever again, till some +answer be given it. + +Unhappy Workers, unhappier Idlers, unhappy men and women of this +actual England! We are yet very far from an answer, and there +will be no existence for us without finding one. "A fair +day's-wages for a fair day's-work:" it is as just a demand as +Governed men ever made of Governing. It is the everlasting +right of man. Indisputable as Gospels, as arithmetical +multiplication-tables: it must and will have itself fulfilled; +--and yet, in these times of ours, with what enormous difficulty, +next-door to impossibility! For the times are really strange; +of a complexity intricate with all the new width of the +ever-widening world; times here of half-frantic velocity of +impetus, there of the deadest-looking stillness and paralysis; +times definable as shewing two qualities, Dilettantism and +Mammonism;--most intricate obstructed times! Nay, if there +were not a Heaven's radiance of justice, prophetic, clearly +of Heaven, discernible behind all these confused worldwide +entanglements, of Landlord interests, Manufacturing interests, +Tory-Whig interests, and who knows what other interests, +expediencies, vested interests, established possessions, +inveterate Dilettantisms, Midas-eared Mammonisms,--it would +seem to everyone a flat impossibility, which all wise men +might as well at once abandon. If you do not know eternal +justice from momentary Expediency, and understand in your +heart of hearts how justice, radiant, beneficent, as the +all-victorious Light-element, is also in essence, if need be, +an all-victorious _Fire_-element, and melts all manner of vested +interests, and the hardest iron cannon, as if they were soft wax, +and does ever in the long-run rule and reign, and allows nothing +else to rule and reign,--you also would talk of impossibility! +But it is only difficult, it is not impossible. Possible? It +is, with whatever difficulty, very clearly inevitable. + +Fair day's-wages for fair-day's-work! exclaims a sarcastic man; +alas, in what corner of this Planet, since Adam first awoke on +it, was that ever realised? The day's-wages of John Milton's +day's-work, named _Paradise Lost_ and _Milton's Works,_ were Ten +Pounds paid by instalments, and a rather close escape from death +on the gallows. Consider that: it is no rhetorical flourish; +it is an authentic, altogether quiet fact,--emblematic, quietly +documentary of a whole world of such, ever since human history +began. Oliver Cromwell quitted his farming; undertook a +Hercules' Labour and lifelong wrestle with that Lernean +Hydracoil, wide as England, hissing heaven-high through its +thousand crowned, coroneted, shovel-hatted quackheads; and he +did wrestle with it, the truest and terriblest wrestle I have +heard of; and he wrestled it, and mowed and cut it down a good +many stages, so that its hissing is ever since pitiful in +comparison, and one can walk abroad in comparative peace from +it;--and his wages, as I understand, were burial under the +gallows-tree near Tyburn Turnpike, with his head on the gable of +Westminster Hall, and two centuries now of mixed cursing and +ridicule from all manner of men. His dust lies under the +Edgeware Road, near Tyburn Turnpike, at this hour; and his +memory is--Nay, what matters what his memory is? His memory, at +bottom, is or yet shall be as that of a god: a terror and horror +to all quacks and cowards and insincere persons; an everlasting +encouragement, new memento, battleword, and pledge of victory to +all the brave. It is the natural course and history of the +Godlike, in every place, in every time. What god ever carried it +with the Tenpound Franchisers; in Open Vestry, or with any +Sanhedrim of considerable standing? When was a god found +agreeable to everybody? The regular way is to hang, kill, +crucify your gods, and execrate and trample them under your +stupid hoofs for a century or two; till you discover that they +are gods,--and then take to braying over them, still in a very +long-eared manner!--So speaks the sarcastic man; in his wild +way, very mournful truths. + +Day's-wages for day's-work? continues he: The Progress of Human +Society consists even in this same. The better and better +apportioning of wages to work. Give me this, you have given me +all. Pay to every man accurately what he has worked for, what he +has earned and done and deserved,--to this man broad lands and +honours, to that man high gibbets and treadmills: what more have +I to ask? Heaven's Kingdom, which we daily pray for, _has_ come; +God's will is done on Earth even as it is in Heaven! This _is_ +the radiance of celestial justice; in the light or in the fire +of which all impediments, vested interests, and iron cannon, are +more and more melting like wax, and disappearing from +the pathways of men. A thing ever struggling forward; +irrepressible, advancing inevitable; perfecting itself, all +days, more and more,--never to be _perfect_ till that general +Doomsday, the ultimate Consummation, and Last of earthly Days. + +True, as to 'perfection' and so forth, answer we; true enough! +And yet withal we have to remark, that imperfect Human Society +holds itself together, and finds place under the Sun, in virtue +simply of some _approximation_ to perfection being actually made +and put in practice. We remark farther, that there are +supportable approximations, and then likewise insupportable. +With some, almost with any, supportable approximation men are +apt, perhaps too apt, to rest indolently patient, and say, It +will do. Thus these poor Manchester manual workers mean only, by +day's-wages for day's-work, certain coins of money adequate to +keep them living;--in return for their work, such modicum of +food, clothes and fuel as will enable them to continue their work +itself! They as yet clamour for no more; the rest, still +inarticulate, cannot yet shape itself into a demand at all, and +only lies in them as a dumb wish; perhaps only, still more +inarticulate, as a dumb, altogether unconscious want. _This_ is +the supportable approximation they would rest patient with, That +by their work they might be kept alive to work more!--_This_ once +grown unattainable, I think, your approximation may consider +itself to have reached the insupportable stage; and may prepare, +with whatever difficulty, reluctance and astonishment, for one of +two things, for changing or perishing! With the millions no +longer able to live, how can the units keep living? It is too +clear the Nation itself is on the way to suicidal death. + +Shall we say then, The world has retrograded in its talent of +apportioning wages to work, in late days? The world had always a +talent of that sort, better or worse. Time was when the mere +_hand_worker needed not announce his claim to the world by +Manchester Insurrections!--The world, with its Wealth of Nations, +Supply-and-demand and such like, has of late days been terribly +inattentive to that question of work and wages. We will not say, +the poor world has retrograded even here: we will say rather, +the world has been rushing on with such fiery animation to get +work and ever more work done, it has had no time to think of +dividing the wages; and has merely left them to be scrambled for +by the Law of the Stronger, law of Supply-and-demand, law of +Laissez-faire, and other idle Laws and Un-laws,--saying, in its +dire haste to get the work done, That is well enough! + +And now the world will have to pause a little, and take up that +other side of the problem, and in right earnest strive for some +solution of that. For it has become pressing. What is the use +of your spun shirts? They hang there by the million unsaleable; +and here, by the million, are diligent bare backs that can get no +hold of them. Shirts are useful for covering human backs; +useless otherwise, an unbearable mockery otherwise. You have +fallen terribly behind with that side of the problem! Manchester +Insurrections, French Revolutions, and thousandfold phenomena +great and small, announce loudly that you must bring it forward a +little again. Never till now, in the history of an Earth which +to this hour nowhere refuses to grow corn if you will plough it, +to yield shirts if you will spin and weave in it, did the mere +manual two-handed worker (however it might fare with other +workers) cry in vain for such "wages" as _he_ means by "fair +wages," namely food and warmth! The Godlike could not and cannot +be paid; but the Earthly always could. Gurth, a mere swineherd, +born thrall of Cedric the Saxon, tended pigs in the wood, and did +get some parings of the pork. Why, the four-footed worker has +already got all that this two-handed one is clamouring for! How +often must I remind you? There is not a horse in England, able +and willing to work, but _has_ due food and lodging; and goes +about sleek-coated, satisfied in heart. And you say, It is +impossible. Brothers, I answer, if for you it be impossible, +what is to become of you? It is impossible for us to believe it +to be impossible. The human brain, looking at these sleek +English horses, refuses to believe in such impossibility for +English men. Do you depart quickly; clear the ways soon, lest +worse befall. We for our share do purpose, with full view of the +enormous difficulty, with total disbelief in the impossibility, +to endeavour while life is in us, and to die endeavouring, we and +our sons, till we attain it or have all died and ended. + +Such a Platitude of a World, in which all working horses could be +well fed, and innumerable working men should die starved, were it +not best to end it; to have done with it, and restore it once +for all to the _Jotuns,_ Mud-giants, Frost-giants and Chaotic +Brute-gods of the Beginning? For the old Anarchic Brute-gods it +may be well enough, but it is a Platitude which Men should be +above countenancing by their presence in it. We pray you, let +the word _impossible_ disappear from your vocabulary in this +matter. It is of awful omen; to all of us, and to yourselves +first of all. + + + + +Chapter IV + +Morrison's Pill + + +What is to be done, what would you have us do? asks many a one, +with a tone of impatience, almost of reproach; and then, if you +mention some one thing, some two things, twenty things that might +be done, turns round with a satirical tehee, and, "These are your +remedies!" The state of mind indicated by such question, and +such rejoinder, is worth reflecting on. + +It seems to be taken for granted, by these interrogative +philosophers, that there is some 'thing,' or handful of 'things,' +which could be done; some Act of Parliament, 'remedial measure +or the like, which could be passed, whereby the social malady +were fairly fronted, conquered, put an end to; so that, with +your remedial measure in your pocket, you could then go on +triumphant, and be troubled no farther. "You tell us the evil," +cry such persons, as if justly aggrieved, "and do not tell us how +it is to be cured!" + +How it is to be cured? Brothers, I am sorry I have got +no Morrison's Pill for curing the maladies of Society. It +were infinitely handier if we had a Morrison's Pill, Act of +Parliament, or remedial measure, which men could swallow, one +good time, and then go on in their old courses, cleared from all +miseries and mischiefs! Unluckily we have none such; unluckily +the Heavens themselves, in their rich pharmacopoeia, contain none +such. There will no 'thing' be done that will cure you. There +will a radical universal alteration of your regimen and way of +life take place; there will a most agonising divorce between you +and your chimeras, luxuries and falsities, take place; a most +toilsome, all but 'impossible' return to Nature, and her +veracities, and her integrities, take place: that so the inner +fountains of life may again begin, like eternal Light-fountains, +to irradiate and purify your bloated, swollen, foul existence, +drawing nigh, as at present, to nameless death! Either death or +else all this will take place. Judge if, with such diagnosis, +any Morrison's Pill is like to be discoverable! + +But the Life-fountain within you once again set flowing, +what innumerable 'things,' whole sets and classes and continents +of 'things,' year after year, and decade after decade, and +century after century, will then be doable and done! Not +Emigration, Education, Corn-Law Abrogation, Sanitary Regulation, +Land Property-Tax; not these alone, nor a thousand times as much +as these. Good Heavens, there will then be light in the inner +heart of here and there a man, to discern what is just, what is +commanded by the Most High God, what _must_ be done, were it +never so 'impossible.' Vain jargon in favour of the palpably +unjust will then abridge itself within limits. Vain jargon, on +Hustings, in Parliaments or wherever else, when here and there a +man has vision for the essential God's-Truth of the things +jargoned of, will become very vain indeed. The silence of here +and there such a man, how eloquent in answer to such jargon! +Such jargon, frightened at its own gaunt echo, will unspeakably +abate; nay, for a while, may almost in a manner disappear,--the +wise answering it in silence, and even the simple taking cue from +them to hoot it down wherever heard. It will be a blessed time; +and many 'things' will become doable,--and when the brains are +out, an absurdity will die! Not easily again shall a Corn-Law +argue ten years for itself; and still talk and argue, when +impartial persons have to say with a sigh that, for so long back, +they have heard no 'argument' advanced for it but such as might +make the angels and almost the very jackasses weep!-- + +Wholly a blessed time: when jargon might abate, and here and +there some genuine speech begin. When to the noble opened heart, +as to such heart they alone do, all noble things began to grow +visible; and the difference between just and unjust, between +true and false, between work and sham-work, between speech and +jargon, was once more, what to our happier Fathers it used to be, +_infinite,_--as between a Heavenly thing and an Infernal: the +one a thing which you were _not_ to do, which you were wise not +to attempt doing; which it were better for you to have a +millstone tied round your neck, and be cast into the sea, than +concern yourself with doing!--Brothers, it will not be a +Morrison's Pill, or remedial measure, that will bring all this +about for us. + + +And yet, very literally, till, in some shape or other, it be +brought about, we remain cureless; till it begin to be brought +about, the cure does not begin. For Nature and Fact, not Redtape +and Semblance, are to this hour the basis of man's life; and on +those, through never such strata of these, man and his life and +all his interests do, sooner or later, infallibly come to rest,-- +and to be supported or be swallowed according as they agree with +those. The question is asked of them, not, How do you agree with +Downing-streets and accredited Semblance? but, How do you agree +with God's Universe and the actual Reality of things? This +Universe _has_ its Laws. If we walk according to the Law, the +Law-Maker will befriend us; if not, not. Alas, by no Reform +Bill, Ballot-box, Five-point Charter, by no boxes or bills or +charters, can you perform this alchemy: 'Given a world of Knaves +to produce an Honesty from their united action!' It is a +distillation, once for all, not possible. You pass it through +alembic after alembic, it comes out still a Dishonesty, with a +new dress on it, a new colour to it. 'While we ourselves +continue valets, how can any hero come to govern us?' We are +governed, very infallibly, by the 'sham-hero,'--whose name is +Quack, whose work and governance is Plausibility, and also is +Falsity and Fatuity; to which Nature says, and must say when it +comes to _her_ to speak, eternally No! Nations cease to be +befriended of the Law-Maker, when they walk _not_ according to +the Law. The Sphinx-question remains unsolved by them, becomes +ever more insoluble. + +If thou ask again, therefore, on the Morrison's-Pill hypothesis, +What is to be done? allow me to reply: By thee, for the present, +almost nothing. Thou there, the thing for thee to do is, if +possible, to cease to be a hollow sounding-shell of hearsays, +egoisms, purblind dilettantisms; and become, were it on the +infinitely small scale, a faithful discerning soul. Thou shalt +descend into thy inner man, and see if there be any traces of a +_soul_ there; till then there can be nothing done! O brother, +we must if possible resuscitate some soul and conscience in us, +exchange our dilettantisms for sincerities, our dead hearts of +stone for living hearts of flesh. Then shall we discern, not one +thing, but, in clearer or dimmer sequence, a whole endless host +of things that can be done. _Do_ the first of these; do it; +the second will already have become clearer, doabler; the +second, third and three-thousandth will then have begun to be +possible for us. Not any universal Morrison's Pill shall we +then, either as swallowers or as venders, ask after at all; but +a far different sort of remedies: Quacks shall no more have +dominion over us, but true Heroes and Healers! + + +Will not that be a thing worthy of 'doing;' to deliver ourselves +from quacks, sham-heroes; to deliver the whole world more and +more from such? They are the one bane of the world. Once clear +the world of them, it ceases to be a Devil's-world, in all fibres +of it wretched, accursed; and begins to be a God's-world, +blessed, and working hourly towards blessedness. Thou for one +wilt not again vote for any quack, do honour to any edge-gilt +vacuity in man's shape: cant shall be known to thee by the sound +of it;--thou wilt fly from cant with a shudder never felt before; +as from the opened litany of Sorcerers' Sabbaths, the true Devil- +worship of this age, more horrible than any other blasphemy, +profanity or genuine blackguardism elsewhere audible among men. +It is alarming to witness,--in its present completed state! And +Quack and Dupe, as we must ever keep in mind, are upper-side and +under of the selfsame substance; convertible personages: turn +up your dupe into the proper fostering element, and he +himself can become a quack; there is in him the due prurient +insincerity, open voracity for profit, and closed sense for +truth, whereof quacks too, in all their kinds, are made. + +Alas, it is not to the hero, it is to the sham-hero that, of +right and necessity, the valet-world belongs. 'What is to be +done?' The reader sees whether it is like to be the seeking and +swallowing of some 'remedial measure!' + + + + +Chapter V + +Aristocracy of Talent + + +When an individual is miserable, what does it most of all behove +him to do? To complain of this man or of that, of this thing or +of that? To fill the world and the street with lamentation, +objurgation? Not so at all; the reverse of so. All moralists +advise him not to complain of any person or of any thing, but of +himself only. He is to know of a truth that being miserable he +has been unwise, he. Had he faithfully followed Nature and her +Laws, Nature, ever true to her Laws, would have yielded fruit and +increase and felicity to him: but he has followed other than +Nature's Laws; and now Nature, her patience with him being +ended, leaves him desolate; answers with very emphatic +significance to him: No. Not by this road, my son; by another +road shalt thou attain well-being: this, thou perceivest is the +road to ill-being; quit this!--So do all moralists advise: that +the man penitently say to himself first of all, Behold I was not +wise enough; I quitted the laws of Fact, which are also called +the Laws of God, and mistook for them the laws of Sham and +Semblance, which are called the Devil's Laws; therefore +am I here! + +Neither with Nations that become miserable is it fundamentally +otherwise. The ancient guides of Nations, Prophets, Priests, or +whatever their name, were well aware of this; and, down to a +late epoch, impressively taught and inculcated it. The modern +guides of Nations, who also go under a great variety of names, +journalists, Political Economists, Politicians, Pamphleteers, +have entirely forgotten this, and are ready to deny this. But it +nevertheless remains eternally undeniable: nor is there any +doubt but we shall all be taught it yet, and made again to +confess it: we shall all be striped and scourged till we do +learn it; and shall at last either get to know it, or be striped +to death in the process. For it is undeniable! When a Nation is +unhappy, the old Prophet was right and not wrong in saying to it: +Ye have forgotten God, ye have quitted the ways of God, or ye +would not have been unhappy. It is not according to the laws of +Fact that ye have lived and guided yourselves, but according to +the laws of Delusion, Imposture, and wilful and unwilful +_Mistake_ of Fact; behold therefore the Unveracity is worn out; +Nature's long-suffering with you is exhausted; and ye are here! + +Surely there is nothing very inconceivable in this, even to the +Journalist, to the Political Economist, Modern Pamphleteer, or +any two-legged animal without feathers! If a country finds +itself wretched, sure enough that country has been _mis_guided: +it is with the wretched Twenty-seven Millions, fallen wretched, +as with the Unit fallen wretched: they as he have quitted the +course prescribed by Nature and the Supreme Powers, and so are +fallen into scarcity, disaster, infelicity; and pausing to +consider themselves, have to lament and say, Alas, we were not +wise enough. We took transient superficial Semblance for +everlasting central Substance; we have departed far away from +the _Laws_ of this Universe, and behold now lawless Chaos and +inane Chimera is ready to devour us!--'Nature in late centuries,' +says Sauerteig, 'was universally supposed to be dead; an old +eight-day clock, made many thousand years ago, and still ticking, +but dead as brass,--which the Maker, at most, sat looking at, in +a distant, singular, and indeed incredible manner: but now I am +happy to observe, she is everywhere asserting herself to be not +dead and brass at all, but alive and miraculous, celestial- +infernal, with an emphasis that will again penetrate the thickest +head of this Planet by and by!-- + +Indisputable enough to all mortals now, the guidance of this +country has not been sufficiently wise: men too foolish have +been set to the guiding and governing of it, and have guided it +hither; we must find wiser,--_wiser,_ or else we perish! To +this length of insight all England has now advanced; but as yet +no farther. All England stands wringing its hands, asking +itself, nigh desperate, What farther? Reform Bill proves to be a +failure; Benthamee Radicalism, the gospel of 'Enlightened +Selfishness,' dies out, or dwindles into Five-point Chartism, +amid the tears and hootings of men: what next are we to hope or +try? Five-point Charter, Freetrade; Church-extension, Sliding- +scale; what, in Heaven's name, are we next to attempt, that we +sink not in inane Chimera, and be devoured of Chaos?--The case is +pressing, and one of the most complicated in the world. A God's- +message never came to thicker-skinned people; never had a God's- +message to pierce through thicker integuments, into heavier ears. +It is Fact, speaking once more, in miraculous thunder-voice, from +out of the centre of the world;--how unknown its language to the +deaf and foolish many; how distinct, undeniable, terrible and +yet beneficent, to the hearing few: Behold, ye shall grow wiser, +or ye shall die! Truer to Nature's Fact, or inane Chimera will +swallow you; in whirlwinds of fire, you and your Mammonisms, +Dilettantisms, your Midas-eared philosophies, double-barreled +Aristocracies, shall disappear!--Such is the God's-message to +_us,_ once more; in these modern days. + +We must have more Wisdom to govern us, we must be governed by the +Wisest, we must have an Aristocracy of Talent! cry many. True, +most true; but how to get it? The following extract from our +young friend of the _Houndsditch Indicator_ is worth perusing: +'At this time,' says he, 'while there is a cry everywhere, +articulate or inarticulate, for an "Aristocracy of Talent," a +Governing Class namely which did govern, not merely which took +the wages of governing, and could not with all our industry be +kept from misgoverning, corn-lawing, and playing the very deuce +with us,--it may not be altogether useless to remind some of the +greener-headed sort what a dreadfully difficult affair the +getting of such an Aristocracy is! Do you expect, my friends, +that your indispensable Aristocracy of Talent is to be enlisted +straightway, by some sort of recruitment aforethought, out of the +general population; arranged in supreme regimental order; and +set to rule over us? That it will be got sifted, like wheat out +of chaff, from the Twenty-seven Million British subjects; that +any Ballot-box, Reform Bill, or other Political Machine, with +Force of Public Opinion never so active on it, is likely to +perform said process of sifting? Would to Heaven that we had a +sieve; that we could so much as fancy any kind of sieve, wind- +fanners, or ne-plus-ultra of machinery, devisable by man, that +would do it! + +'Done nevertheless, sure enough, it must be; it shall and will +be. We are rushing swiftly on the road to destruction; every +hour bringing us nearer, until it be, in some measure, done. The +doing of it is not doubtful; only the method and the costs! Nay +I will even mention to you an infallible sifting-process whereby +he that has ability will be sifted out to rule among us, and that +same blessed Aristocracy of Talent be verily, in an approximate +degree, vouchsafed us by and by: an infallible sifting-process; +to which, however, no soul can help his neighbour, but each must, +with devout prayer to Heaven, endeavour to help himself. It is, +O friends, that all of us, that many of us, should acquire the +true eye for talent, which is dreadfully wanting at present! The +true _eye_ for talent presupposes the true reverence for it,--O +Heavens, presupposes so many things! + +'For example, you Bobus Higgins, Sausage-maker on the great +scale, who are raising such a clamour for this Aristocracy of +Talent, what is it that you do, in that big heart of yours, +chiefly in very fact pay reverence to? Is it to talent, +intrinsic manly worth of any kind, you unfortunate Bobus? The +manliest man that you saw going in a ragged coat, did you ever +reverence him; did you so much as know that he was a manly man +at all, till his coat grew better? Talent! I understand you to +be able to worship the fame of talent, the power, cash, celebrity +or other success of talent; but the talent itself is a thing you +never saw with eyes. Nay what is it in yourself that you +are proudest of, that you take most pleasure in surveying +meditatively in thoughtful moments? Speak now, is it the bare +Bobus stript of his very name and shirt, and turned loose upon +society, that you admire and thank Heaven for; or Bobus with +his cash-accounts and larders dropping fatness, with his +respectabilities, warm garnitures, and pony-chaise, admirable in +some measure to certain of the flunkey species? Your own degree +of worth and talent, is it of _infinite_ value to you; or only +of finite,--measurable by the degree of currency, and conquest of +praise or pudding, it has brought you to? Bobus, you are in a +vicious circle, rounder than one of your own sausages; and will +never vote for or promote any talent, except what talent or sham- +talent has already _got_ itself voted for!'--We here cut short +the _Indicator;_ all readers perceiving whither he now tends. + + +'More Wisdom' indeed: but where to find more Wisdom? We have +already a Collective Wisdom, after its kind,--though 'class- +legislation,' and another thing or two, affect it somewhat! On +the whole, as they say, Like people like priest; so we may say, +Like people like king. The man gets himself appointed and +elected who is ablest--to be appointed and elected. What can the +incorruptiblest _Bobuses_ elect, if it be not some _Bobissimus,_ +should they find such? + +Or, again, perhaps there is not, in the whole Nation, Wisdom +enough, 'collect' it as we may, to make an adequate Collective! +That too is a case which may befall: a ruined man staggers down +to ruin because there was not wisdom enough in him; so, clearly +also, may Twenty-seven Million collective men!--But indeed one of +the infalliblest fruits of Unwisdom in a Nation is that it cannot +get the use of what Wisdom is actually in it: that it is not +governed by the wisest it has, who alone have a divine right to +govern in all Nations; but by the sham-wisest, or even by the +openly not-so-wise if they are handiest otherwise! This is the +infalliblest result of Unwisdom; and also the balefullest, +immeasurablest,--not so much what we can call a poison-_fruit,_ +as a universal death-disease, and poisoning of the whole tree. +For hereby are fostered, fed into gigantic bulk, all manner of +Unwisdoms, poison-fruits; till, as we say, the life-tree +everywhere is made a upas-tree, deadly Unwisdom overshadowing all +things; and there is done what lies in human skill to stifle all +Wisdom everywhere in the birth, to smite our poor world barren of +Wisdom,--and make your utmost Collective Wisdom, were it +collected and elected by Rhadamanthus, AEacus and Minos, not to +speak of drunken Tenpound Franchisers with their ballot-boxes, an +inadequate Collective! The Wisdom is not now there: how will +you 'collect' it? As well wash Thames mud, by improved methods, +to find more gold in it. + +Truly, the first condition is indispensable, That Wisdom be +there: but the second is like unto it, is properly one with it: +these two conditions act and react through every fibre of them, +and go inseparably together. If you have much Wisdom in your +Nation, you will get it faithfully collected; for the wise love +Wisdom, and will search for it as for life and salvation. If you +have little Wisdom, you will get even that little ill-collected, +trampled under foot, reduced as near as possible to annihilation; +for fools do not love Wisdom; they are foolish, first of all, +because they have never loved Wisdom,--but have loved their own +appetites, ambitions, their coroneted coaches, tankards of heavy- +wet. Thus is your candle lighted at both ends, and the progress +towards consummation is swift. Thus is fulfilled that saying in +the Gospel: To him that hath shall be given; and from him that +hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Very +literally, in a very fatal manner, that saying is here fulfilled. + +Our 'Aristocracy of Talent' seems at a considerable distance yet; +does it not, O Bobus? + + + + +Chapter VI + +Hero-Worship + + +To the present Editor, not less than to Bobus, a Government of +the Wisest, what Bobus calls an Aristocracy of Talent, seems the +one healing remedy: but he is not so sanguine as Bobus with +respect to the means of realizing it. He thinks that we have at +once missed realising it, and come to need it so pressingly, +by departing far from the inner eternal Laws and taking up +with the temporary outer semblances of Laws. He thinks that +'enlightened Egoism,' never so luminous, is not the rule by +which man's life can be led. That 'Laissez-faire,' 'Supply-and- +demand,' 'Cash-payment for the sole nexus,' and so forth, were +not, are not, and will never be, a practicable Law of Union for a +Society of Men. That Poor and Rich, that Governed and Governing, +cannot long live together on any such Law of Union. Alas, he +thinks that man has a soul in him, _different_ from the stomach +in any sense of this word; that if said soul be asphyxied, and +lie quietly forgotten, the man and his affairs are in a bad way. +He thinks that said soul will have to be resuscitated from its +asphyxia; that if it prove irresuscitable, the man is not long +for this world. In brief, that Midas-eared Mammonism, double- +barreled Dilettantism, and their thousand adjuncts and corollaries, +are not the Law by which God Almighty has appointed this his +Universe to go. That, once for all, these are not the Law: +and then farther that we shall have to return to what is +the Law,--not by smooth flowery paths, it is like, and with +'tremendous cheers' in our throat; but over steep untrodden +places, through stormclad chasms, waste oceans, and the bosom of +tornadoes; thank Heaven, if not through very Chaos and the +Abyss! The resuscitating of a soul that has gone to asphyxia is +no momentary or pleasant process, but a long and terrible one. + + +To the present Editor 'Hero-worship,' as he has elsewhere named +it, means much more than an elected Parliament, or stated +Aristocracy, of the Wisest; for, in his dialect, it is the +summary, ultimate essence, and supreme practical perfection of +all manner of 'worship,' and true worships and noblenesses +whatsoever. Such blessed Parliament and, were it once in +perfection, blessed Aristocracy of the Wisest, god-honoured and +man-honoured, he does look for, more and more perfected,--as the +topmost blessed practical apex of a whole world reformed from +sham-worship, informed anew with worship, with truth and +blessedness! He thinks that Hero-worship, done differently in +every different epoch of the world, is the soul of all social +business among men; that the doing of it well, or the doing of +it ill, measures accurately what degree of well-being or of ill- +being there is in the world's affairs. He thinks that we, on the +whole, do our Hero-worship worse than any Nation in this world +ever did it before: that the Burns an Exciseman, the Byron a +Literary Lion, are intrinsically, all things considered, a baser +and falser phenomenon than the Odin a God, the Mahomet a Prophet +of God. It is this Editor's clear opinion, accordingly, that we +must learn to do our Hero-worship better; that to do it better +and better, means the awakening of the Nation's soul from its +asphyxia, and the return of blessed life to us,--Heaven's blessed +life, not Mammon's galvanic accursed one. To resuscitate the +Asphyxied, apparently now moribund, and in the last agony if not +resuscitated: such and no other seems the consummation. + +'Hero-worship,' if you will,--yes, friends; but, first of all, +by being ourselves of heroic mind. A whole world of Heroes; a +world not of Flunkeys, where no Hero-King _can_ reign: that is +what we aim at! We, for our share, will put away all Flunkeyism, +Baseness, Unveracity from us; we shall then hope to have +Noblenesses and Veracities set over us; never till then. Let +Bobus and Company sneer, "That is your Reform!" Yes, Bobus, that +is our Reform; and except in that, and what will follow out of +that, we have no hope at all. Reform, like Charity, O Bobus, +must begin at home. Once well at home, how will it radiate +outwards, irrepressible, into all that we touch and handle, speak +and work; kindling ever new light, by incalculable contagion, +spreading in geometric ratio, far and wide,--doing good only, +wheresoever it spreads, and not evil. + +By Reform Bills, Anti-Corn-Law Bills, and thousand other bills +and methods, we will demand of our Governors, with emphasis, and +for the first time not without effect, that they cease to be +quacks, or else depart; that they set no quackeries and +blockheadisms anywhere to rule over us, that they utter or act no +cant to us,--that it will be better if they do not. For we shall +now know quacks when we see them; cant, when we hear it, shall +be horrible to us! We will say, with the poor Frenchman at the +Bar of the Convention, though in wiser style than he, and 'for +the space' not 'of an hour' but of a lifetime: _"Je demande +l'arrestation des coquins et des laches."_ 'Arrestment of the +knaves and dastards:' ah, we know what a work that is; how long +it will be before _they_ are all or mostly got 'arrested:'--but +here is one; arrest him, in God's name; it is one fewer! We +will, in all practicable ways, by word and silence, by act +and refusal to act, energetically demand arrestment,--_"le +demande cette arrestation-la!"_--and by degrees infallibly +attain it. Infallibly: for light spreads; all human +souls, never so bedarkened, love light; light once kindled +spreads, till all is luminous;--till the cry, "_Arrest_ your +knaves and dastards rises imperative from millions of hearts, and +rings and reigns from sea to sea. Nay, how many of them may we +not 'arrest' with our own hands, even now; we! Do not +countenance them, thou there: turn away from their lackered +sumptuosities, their belauded sophistries, their serpent +graciosities, their spoken and acted cant, with a sacred horror, +with an _Apage Satanas._--Bobus and Company, and all men will +gradually join us. We demand arrestment of the knaves and +dastards, and begin by arresting our own poor selves out of that +fraternity. There is no other reform conceivable. Thou and I, +my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, +_one_ non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes +to begin with:--Courage! even that is a whole world of heroes to +end with, or what we poor Two can do in furtherance thereof! + +Yes, friends: Hero-kings and a whole world not unheroic, there +lies the port and happy haven, towards which, through all these +stormtost seas, French Revolutions, Chartisms, Manchester +Insurrections, that make the heart sick in these bad days, the +Supreme Powers are driving us. On the whole, blessed be the +Supreme Powers, stern as they are! Towards that haven will we, O +friends; let all true men, with what of faculty is in them, bend +valiantly, incessantly, with thousandfold endeavour, thither, +thither! There, or else in the Ocean-abysses, it is very clear +to me, we shall arrive. + + +Well; here truly is no answer to the Sphinx-question; not the +answer a disconsolate Public, inquiring at the College of Health, +was in hopes of! A total change of regimen, change of constitution +and existence from the very centre of it; a new body to be got, +with resuscitated soul,--not without convulsive travail-throes; +as all birth and new-birth presupposes travail! This is sad news +to a disconsolate discerning Public, hoping to have got off by +some Morrison's Pill, some Saint-John's corrosive mixtures and +perhaps a little blistery friction on the back!--We were prepared +to part with our Corn-Law, with various Laws and Unlaws: but +this, what is this? + +Nor has the Editor forgotten how it fares with your ill-boding +Cassandras in Sieges of Troy. Imminent perdition is not usually +driven away by words of warning. Didactic Destiny has other +methods in store; or these would fail always. Such words +should, nevertheless, be uttered, when they dwell truly in the +soul of any man. Words are hard, are importunate; but how much +harder the importunate events they foreshadow! Here and there a +human soul may listen to the words,--who knows how many human +souls? whereby the importunate events, if not diverted and +prevented, will be rendered _less_ hard. The present Editor's +purpose is to himself full of hope. + +For though fierce travails, though wide seas and roaring gulfs +lie before us, is it not something if a Loadstar, in the eternal +sky, do once more disclose itself; an everlasting light, shining +through all cloud-tempests and roaring billows, ever as we emerge +from the trough of the sea: the blessed beacon, far off on the +edge of far horizons, towards which we are to steer incessantly +for life? Is it not something; O Heavens, is it not all? There +lies the Heroic Promised Land; under that Heaven's-light, my +brethren, bloom the Happy Isles,--there, O there! Thither +will we; + + There dwells the great Achilles whom we knew.* + +------------- +* Tennyson's _Poems_ (Ulysses) +----------- + +There dwell all Heroes, and will dwell: thither, all ye heroic- +minded!--The Heaven's Loadstar once clearly in our eye, how will +each true man stand truly to _his_ work in the ship; how, with +undying hope, will all things be fronted, all be conquered. Nay, +with the ship's prow once turned in that direction, is not all, +as it were, already well? Sick wasting misery has become noble +manful effort with a goal in our eye. 'The choking Nightmare +chokes us no longer; for we _stir_ under it; the Nightmare has +already fled.'-- + +Certainly, could the present Editor instruct men how to know +Wisdom, Heroism, when they see it, that they might do reverence +to it only, and loyally make it ruler over them,--yes, he were +the living epitome of all Editors, Teachers, Prophets, that +now teach and prophesy; he were an _Apollo_-Morrison, a +Trismegistus! and _effective_ Cassandra! Let no Able Editor hope +such things. It is to be expected the present laws of copyright, +rate of reward per sheet, and other considerations, will save him +from that peril. Let no Editor hope such things: no;--and yet +let all Editors aim towards such things, and even towards such +alone! One knows not what the meaning of editing and writing is, +if even this be not it. + +Enough, to the present Editor it has seemed possible some +glimmering of light, for here and there a human soul, might lie +in these confused Paper-Masses now intrusted to him; wherefore +he determines to edit the same. Out of old Books, new Writings, +and much Meditation not of yesterday, he will endeavour to select +a thing or two; and from the Past, in a circuitous way, +illustrate the Present and the Future. The Past is a dim +indubitable fact: the Future too is one, only dimmer; nay +properly it is the same fact in new dress and development. For +the Present holds in it both the whole Past and the whole +Future;--as the LIFE-TREE IGDRASIL, wide-waving, many-toned, has +its roots down deep in the Death-kingdoms, among the oldest dead +dust of men, and with its boughs reaches always beyond the stars; +and in all times and places is one and the same Life-tree! + + + + +Book II--The Ancient Monk + + + +Chapter I + +Jocelin of Brakelond + + +We will, in this Second Portion of our Work, strive to penetrate +a little, by means of certain confused Papers, printed and other, +into a somewhat remote Century; and to look face to face on it, +in hope of perhaps illustrating our own poor Century thereby. It +seems a circuitous way; but it may prove a way nevertheless. +For man has ever been a striving, struggling, and, in spite of +wide-spread calumnies to the contrary, a veracious creature: the +Centuries too are all lineal children of one another; and often, +in the portrait of early grandfathers, this and the other +enigmatic feature of the newest grandson shall disclose itself, +to mutual elucidation. This Editor will venture on such a thing. + +Besides, in Editors' Books, and indeed everywhere else in the +world of Today, a certain latitude of movement grows more and +more becoming for the practical man. Salvation lies not in tight +lacing, in these times;--how far from that, in any province +whatsoever! Readers and men generally are getting into strange +habits of asking all persons and things, from poor Editors' Books +up to Church Bishops and State Potentates, not, By what +designation are thou called; in what wig and black triangle dost +thou walk abroad? Heavens, I know thy designation and black +triangle well enough! But, in God's name, what _art_ thou? Not +Nothing, sayest thou! Then if not, How much and what? This is +the thing I would know; and even _must_ soon know, such a pass +am I come to!--What weather-symptoms,--not for the poor Editor of +Books alone! The Editor of Books may understand withal that if, +as is said, 'many kinds are permissible,' there is one kind not +permissible, 'the kind that has nothing in it, _le genre +ennuyeux;'_ and go on his way accordingly. + +A certain Jocelinus de Brakelonda, a natural-born Englishman, has +left us an extremely foreign Book,* which the labours of the +Camden Society have brought to light in these days. Jocelin's +Book, the 'Chronicle,' or private Boswellean Notebook, of +Jocelin, a certain old St. Edmundsbury Monk and Boswell, now +seven centuries old, how remote is it from us; exotic, +extraneous; in all ways, coming from far abroad! The language +of it is not foreign only but dead: Monk-Latin lies across not +the British Channel, but the ninefold Stygian Marshes, Stream of +Lethe, and one knows not where! Roman Latin itself, still +alive for us in the Elysian Fields of Memory, is domestic +in comparison. And then the ideas, life-furniture, whole +workings and ways of this worthy Jocelin; covered deeper than +Pompeii with the lava-ashes and inarticulate wreck of seven +hundred years! + +---------- +* _Chronica Jocelini de Brakelonda, de rebus gestis Samsonis +Abbatis Monasterii Sancti Edmundi: nunc primum typis mandata, +curante Johanne Gage Rokewood._ (Camden Society, London, 1840) +---------- + +Jocelin of Brakelond cannot be called a conspicuous literary +character; indeed few mortals that have left so visible a work, +or footmark, behind them can be more obscure. One other of those +vanished Existences, whose work has not yet vanished;--almost a +pathetic phenomenon, were not the whole world full of such! The +builders of Stonehenge, for example:--or alas, what say we, +Stonehenge and builders? The writers of the _Universal Review_ +and _Homer's Iliad;_ the paviers of London streets;--sooner +or later, the entire Posterity of Adam! It is a pathetic +phenomenon; but an irremediable, nay, if well meditated, a +consoling one. + +By his dialect of Monk-Latin, and indeed by his name, this +Jocelin seems to have been a Norman Englishman; the surname de +Brakelonda indicates a native of St. Edmundsbury itself, +_Brakelond_ being the known old name of a street or quarter in +that venerable Town. Then farther, sure enough, our Jocelin was +a Monk of St. Edmundsbury Convent; held some _'obedientia,'_ +subaltern officiality there, or rather, in succession several; +was, for one thing, 'chaplain to my Lord Abbot, living beside him +night and day for the space of six years;'--which last, indeed, +is the grand fact of Jocelin's existence, and properly the origin +of this present Book, and of the chief meaning it has for us now. +He was, as we have hinted, a kind of born _Boswell,_ though an +infinitesimally small one; neither did he altogether want his +_Johnson_ even there and then. Johnsons are rare; yet, as has +been asserted, Boswels perhaps still rarer,--the more is the pity +on both sides! This Jocelin, as we can discern well, was an +ingenious and ingenuous, a cheery-hearted, innocent, yet withal +shrewd, noticing, quick-wilted man; and from under his monk's +cowl has looked out on that narrow section of the world in a +really _human_ manner; not in any _simial,_ canine, ovine, or +otherwise inhuman manner,--afflictive to all that have humanity! +The man is of patient, peaceable, loving, clear-smiling nature; +open for this and that. A wise simplicity is in him; much +natural sense; a _veracity_ that goes deeper than words. +Veracity: it is the basis of all; and, some say, means genius +itself; the prime essence of all genius whatsoever. Our +Jocelin, for the rest, has read his classical manuscripts, his +Virgilius, his Flaccus, Ovidius Naso; of course still more, his +Homilies and Breviaries, and if not the Bible, considerable +extracts of the Bible. Then also he has a pleasant wit; and +loves a timely joke, though in mild subdued manner: very amiable +to see. A learned grown man, yet with the heart of a good +child; whose whole life indeed has been that of a child,--St. +Edmundsbury Monastery a larger kind of cradle for him, in which +his whole prescribed duty was to _sleep_ kindly, and love his +mother well! This is the Biography of Jocelin; 'a man of +excellent religion,' says one of his contemporary Brother Monks, +_'eximiae religionis, potens sermone et opere.'_ + +For one thing, he had learned to write a kind of Monk or Dog- +Latin, still readable to mankind; and, by good luck for us, had +bethought him of noting down thereby what things seemed notablest +to him. Hence gradually resulted a _Chronica Jocelini;_ new +Manuscript in the _Liber Albus_ of St. Edmundsbury. Which +Chronicle, once written in its childlike transparency, in its +innocent good-humour, not without touches of ready pleasant wit +and many kinds of worth, other men liked naturally to read: +whereby it failed not to be copied, to be multiplied, to be +inserted in the _Liber Albus;_ and so surviving Henry the +Eighth, Putney Cromwell, the Dissolution of Monasteries, and all +accidents of malice and neglect for six centuries or so, it got +into the _Harleian Collection,_--and has now therefrom, by Mr. +Rokewood of the Camden Society, been deciphered into clear print; +and lies before us, a dainty thin quarto, to interest for a few +minutes whomsoever it can. + +Here too it will behove a just Historian gratefully to say that +Mr. Rokewood, Jocelin's Editor, has done his editorial function +well. Not only has he deciphered his crabbed Manuscript into +clear print; but he has attended, what his fellow editors are +not always in the habit of doing, to the important truth that the +Manuscript so deciphered ought to have a meaning for the reader. +Standing faithfully by his text, and printing its very errors in +spelling, in grammar or otherwise, he has taken care by some note +to indicate that they are errors, and what the correction of them +ought to be. Jocelin's Monk-Latin is generally transparent, as +shallow limpid water. But at any stop that may occur, of which +there are a few, and only a very few, we have the comfortable +assurance that a meaning does lie in the passage, and may by +industry be got at; that a faithful editor's industry had +already got at it before passing on. A compendious useful +Glossary is given; nearly adequate to help the uninitiated +through: sometimes one wishes it had been a trifle larger; +but, with a Spelman and Ducange at your elbow, how easy to have +made it far too large! Notes are added, generally brief; +sufficiently explanatory of most points. Lastly, a copious +correct Index; which no such Book should want, and which +unluckily very few possess. And so, in a word, the _Chronicle of +Jocelin_ is, as it professes to be, unwrapped from its thick +cerements, and fairly brought forth into the common daylight, so +that he who runs, and has a smattering of grammar, may read. + +We have heard so much of Monks; everywhere, in real and +fictitious History, from Muratori Annals to Radcliffe Romances, +these singular two-legged animals, with their rosaries and +breviaries, with their shaven crowns, hair-cilices, and vows of +poverty, masquerade so strangely through our fancy; and they are +in fact so very strange an extinct species of the human family,-- +a veritable Monk of Bury St. Edmunds is worth attending to, if by +chance made visible and audible. Here he is; and in his hand a +magical speculum, much gone to rust indeed, yet in fragments +still clear; wherein the marvelous image of his existence does +still shadow itself, though fitfully, and as with an intermittent +light! Will not the reader peep with us into this singular +_camera lucida,_ where an extinct species, though fitfully, can +still be seen alive? Extinct species, we say; for the live +specimens which still go about under that character are too +evidently to be classed as spurious in Natural History: the +Gospel of Richard Arkwright once promulgated, no Monk of the old +sort is any longer possible in this world. But fancy a deep- +buried Mastodon, some fossil Megatherion, Ichthyosaurus, were +to begin to speak from amid its rock-swathings, never so +indistinctly! The most extinct fossil species of Men or Monks +can do, and does, this miracle,--thanks to the Letters of the +Alphabet, good for so many things. + +Jocelin, we said, was somewhat of a Boswell; but unfortunately, +by Nature, he is none of the largest, and distance has now +dwarfed him to an extreme degree. His light is most feeble, +intermittent, and requires the intensest kindest inspection; +otherwise it will disclose mere vacant haze. It must be owned, +the good Jocelin, spite of his beautiful childlike character, is +but an altogether imperfect 'mirror' of these old-world things! +The good man, he looks on us so clear and cheery, and in his +neighbourly soft-smiling eyes we see so well our _own_ shadow,-- +we have a longing always to cross-question him, to force from him +an explanation of much. But no; Jocelin, though he talks with +such clear familiarity, like a next-door neighbour, will not +answer any question: that is the peculiarity of him, dead these +six hundred and fifty years, and quite deaf to us, though still +so audible! The good man, he cannot help it, nor can we. + +But truly it is a strange consideration this simple one, as we go +on with him, or indeed with any lucid simple-hearted soul like +him: Behold therefore, this England of the Year 1200 was no +chimerical vacuity or dreamland, peopled with mere vaporous +Fantasms, Rymer's Foedera, and Doctrines of the Constitution, but +a green solid place, that grew corn and several other things. +The Sun shone on it; the vicissitude of seasons and human +fortunes. Cloth was woven and worn; ditches were dug, +furrowfields ploughed, and houses built. Day by day all men and +cattle rose to labour, and night by night returned home weary to +their several lairs. In wondrous Dualism, then as now, lived +nations of breathing men; alternating, in all ways, between +Light and Dark; between joy and sorrow, between rest and toil, +between hope, hope reaching high as Heaven, and fear deep as very +Hell. Not vapour Fantasms, Rymer's Foedera at all! Coeur-de- +Lion was not a theatrical popinjay with greaves and steelcap on +it, but a man living upon victuals,--_not_ imported by Peel's +Tariff. Coeur-de-Lion came palpably athwart this Jocelin at St. +Edmundsbury; and had almost peeled the sacred gold _'Feretrum,'_ +or St. Edmund Shrine itself, to ransom him out of the Danube Jail. + +These clear eyes of neighbour Jocelin looked on the bodily +presence of King John; the very John _Sansterre,_ or Lackland, +who signed _Magna Charta_ afterwards in Runnymead. Lackland, +with a great retinue, boarded once, for the matter of a +fortnight, in St. Edmundsbury Convent; daily in the very +eyesight, palpable to the very fingers of our Jocelin: O +Jocelin, what did he say, what did he do; how looked he, lived +he;--at the very lowest, what coat or breeches had he on? +Jocelin is obstinately silent. Jocelin marks down what interests +_him;_ entirely deaf to _us._ With Jocelin's eyes we discern +almost nothing of John Lackland. As through a glass darkly, we +with our own eyes and appliances, intensely looking, discern at +most: A blustering, dissipated, human figure, with a kind of +blackguard quality air, in cramoisy velvet, or other uncertain +texture, uncertain cut, with much plumage and fringing; amid +numerous other human figures of the like; riding abroad with +hawks; talking noisy nonsense;--tearing out the bowels of St. +Edmundsbury Convent (its larders namely and cellars) in the most +ruinous way, by living at rack and manger there. Jocelin notes +only, with a slight subacidity of manner, that the King's +Majesty, _Dominus Rex,_ did leave, as gift for our St. Edmund +Shrine, a handsome enough silk cloak,--or rather pretended to +leave, for one of his retinue borrowed it of us, and we never got +sight of it again; and, on the whole, that the _Dominus Rex,_ at +departing, gave us 'thirteen _sterlingii,'_ one shilling and one +penny, to say a mass for him; and so departed,--like a shabby +Lackland as he was! 'Thirteen pence sterling,' this was what the +Convent got from Lackland, for all the victuals he and his had +made away with. We of course said our mass for him, having +covenanted to do it,--but let impartial posterity judge with what +degree of fervour! + +And in this manner vanishes King Lackland; traverses swiftly our +strange intermittent magic-mirror, jingling the shabby thirteen +pence merely; and rides with his hawks into Egyptian night +again. It is Jocelin's manner with all things; and it is men's +manner and men's necessity. How intermittent is our good +Jocelin; marking down, without eye to _us,_ what _he_ finds +interesting! How much in Jocelin, as in all History, and indeed +in all Nature, is at once inscrutable and certain; so dim, yet +so indubitable; exciting us to endless considerations. For King +Lackland was there, verily he; and did leave these _tredecim +sterlingii_ if nothing more, and did live and look in one way +or the other, and a whole world was living and looking along +with him! There, we say, is the grand peculiarity; the +immeasurable one; distinguishing, to a really infinite degree, +the poorest historical Fact from all Fiction whatsoever. Fiction, +'Imagination,' 'Imaginative Poetry,' &c. &c., except as the +vehicle for truth, or _fact_ of some sort,--which surely a man +should first try various other ways of vehiculating, and +conveying safe,--what is it? Let the Minerva and other Presses +respond!--But it is time we were in St. Edmundsbury Monastery, +and Seven good Centuries off. If indeed it be possible, by any +aid of Jocelin, by any human art, to get thither, with a reader +or two still following us? + + + + +Chapter II + +St. Edmundsbury + + +The _Burg,_ Bury, or 'Berry' as they call it, of St. Edmund is +still a prosperous brisk Town; beautifully diversifying, with +its clear brick houses, ancient clean streets, and twenty or +fifteen thousand busy souls, the general grassy face of Suffolk; +looking out right pleasantly, from its hill-slope, towards the +rising Sun: and on the eastern edge of it, still runs, long, +black and massive, a range of monastic ruins; into the wide +internal spaces of which the stranger is admitted on payment of +one shilling. Internal spaces laid out, at present, as a botanic +garden. Here stranger or townsman, sauntering at his leisure +amid these vast grim venerable ruins, may persuade himself that +an Abbey of St. Edmundsbury did once exist; nay there is +no doubt of it: see here the ancient massive Gateway, of +architecture interesting to the eye of Dilettantism; and farther +on, that other ancient Gateway, now about to tumble, unless +Dilettantism, in these very months, can subscribe money to cramp +it and prop it! + +Here, sure enough, is an Abbey; beautiful in the eye of +Dilettantism. Giant Pedantry also will step in, with its huge +_Dugdale_ and other enormous _Monasticons_ under its arm, and +cheerfully apprise you. That this was a very great Abbey, owner +and indeed creator of St. Edmund's Town itself, owner of wide +lands and revenues; nay that its lands were once a county of +themselves; that indeed King Canute or Knut was very kind to it; +and gave St. Edmund his own gold crown off his head, on one +occasion: for the rest, that the Monks were of such and such a +genus, such and such a number; that they had so many Carucates +of land in this hundred, and so many in that; and then farther +that the large Tower or Belfry was built by such a one, and the +smaller Belfry was built by &c. &c.--Till human nature can stand +no more of it; till human nature desperately take refuge in +forgetfulness, almost in flat disbelief of the whole business, +Monks, Monastery, Belfries, Carucates and all! Alas, what +mountains of dead ashes, wreck and burnt bones, does assiduous +Pedantry dig up from the Past Time, and name it History, and +Philosophy of History; till, as we say, the human soul sinks +wearied and bewildered; till the Past Time seems all one +infinite incredible grey void, without sun, stars, hearth-fires, +or candle-light; dim offensive dust-whirlwinds filling universal +Nature; and over your Historical Library, it is as if all the +Titans had written for themselves: DRY RUBBISH SHOT HERE! + + +And yet these grim old walls are not a dilettantism and dubiety; +they are an earnest fact. It was a most real and serious purpose +they were built for! Yes, another world it was, when these black +ruins, white in their new mortar and fresh chiseling, first saw +the sun as walls, long ago. Gauge not, with thy dilettante +compasses, with that placid dilettante simper, the Heaven's- +Watchtower of our Fathers, the fallen God's-Houses, the Golgotha +of true Souls departed! + +Their architecture, belfries, land-carucates? Yes,--and that is +but a small item of the matter. Does it never give thee pause, +this other strange item of it, that men then had a _soul,_--not +by hearsay alone, and as a figure of speech; but as a truth that +they knew, and practically went upon! Verily it was another +world then. Their Missals have become incredible, a sheer +platitude, sayest thou? Yes, a most poor platitude; and even, +if thou wilt, an idolatry and blasphemy, should any one persuade +_thee_ to believe them, to pretend praying by them. But yet it +is pity we had lost tidings of our souls:--actually we shall +have to go in quest of them again, or worse in all ways will +befall! A certain degree of soul, as Ben Jonson reminds us, is +indispensable to keep the very body from destruction of the +frightfullest sort; to 'save us,' says he, 'the expense of +_salt.'_ Ben has known men who had soul enough to keep their +body and five senses from becoming carrion, and save salt:--men, +and also Nations. You may look in Manchester Hunger-mobs and +Corn-law Commons Houses, and various other quarters, and +say whether either soul or else salt is not somewhat wanted +at present!-- + +Another world, truly: and this present poor distressed world +might get some profit by looking wisely into it, instead of +foolishly. But at lowest, O dilettante friend, let us know +always that it was a world, and not a void infinite of grey haze +with fantasms swimming in it. These old St. Edmundsbury walls, I +say, were not peopled with fantasms; but with men of flesh and +blood, made altogether as we are. Had thou and I then been, who +knows but we ourselves had taken refuge from an evil Time, and +fled to dwell here, and meditate on an Eternity, in such fashion +as we could? Alas, how like an old osseous fragment, a broken +blackened shin-bone of the old dead Ages, this black ruin looks +out, not yet covered by the soil; still indicating what a once +gigantic Life lies buried there! It is dead now, and dumb; but +was alive once, and spake. For twenty generations, here was the +earthly arena where painful living men worked out their life- +wrestle,--looked at by Earth, by Heaven and Hell. Bells tolled +to prayers; and men, of many humours, various thoughts, chanted +vespers, matins;--and round the little islet of their life rolled +forever (as round ours still rolls, though we are blind and deaf) +the illimitable Ocean, tinting all things with _its_ eternal hues +and reflexes; making strange prophetic music! How silent now; +all departed, clean gone. The World-Dramaturgist has written: +_Exeunt._ The devouring Time-Demons have made away with it all: +and in its stead, there is either nothing; or what is worse, +offensive universal dustclouds, and grey eclipse of Earth and +Heaven, from 'dry rubbish shot here!'-- + + +Truly, it is no easy matter to get across the chasm of Seven +Centuries, filled with such material. But here, of all helps, is +not a Boswell the welcomest; even a small Boswell? Veracity, +true simplicity of heart, how valuable are these always! He that +speaks what _is_ really in him, will find men to listen, though +under never such impediments. Even gossip, springing free and +cheery from a human heart, this too is a kind of veracity and +_speech;_--much preferable to pedantry and inane grey haze! +Jocelin is weak and garrulous, but he is human. Through the thin +watery gossip of our Jocelin, we do get some glimpses of that +deep-buried Time; discern veritably, though in a fitful +intermittent manner, these antique figures and their life-method, +face to face! Beautifully, in our earnest loving glance, the old +centuries melt from opaque to partially translucent, transparent +here and there; and the void black Night, one finds, is but the +summing up of innumerable peopled luminous _Days._ Not parchment +Chartularies, Doctrines of the Constitution, O Dryasdust; not +altogether, my erudite friend!-- + +Readers who please to go along with us into this poor _Jocelini +Chronica_ shall wander inconveniently enough, as in wintry +twilight, through some poor stript hazel-grove, rustling with +foolish noises, and perpetually hindering the eyesight; but +across which, here and there, some real human figure is seen +moving: very strange; whom we could hail if he would answer;-- +and we look into a pair of eyes deep as our own, _imaging_ our +own, but all unconscious of us; to whom we for the time are +become as spirits and invisible! + + + + +Chapter III + +Landlord Edmund + + +Some three centuries or so had elapsed since _Beodric's-worth_* +became St. Edmund's _Stow,_ St. Edmund's _Town_ and Monastery, +before Jocelin entered himself a Novice there. 'It was,' says +he, 'the year after the Flemings were defeated at Fornham St. +Genevieve.' + +------------- +* Dryasdust puzzles and pokes for some biography of this Beodric; +and repugns to consider him a mere East-Anglian Person of +Condition, not in need of a biography,--whose [script] _weorth_ +or _worth,_ that is to say, _Growth,_ Increase, or as we should +now name it, _Estate,_ that same Hamlet and wood Mansion, now St. +Edmund's Bury, originally was. For, adds our erudite Friend, the +Saxon [script], equivalent to the German _werden,_ means to +_grow,_ to _become;_ traces of which old vocable are still found +in the North-country dialects, as, 'What is _word_ of him? +meaning 'What is become of him?' and the like. Nay we in modern +English still say, 'Woe _worth_ the hour' (Woe _befall_ the +hour), and speak of the _'Weird_ Sisters;' not to mention the +innumerable other names of places still ending in _weorth_ or +_worth._ And indeed, our common noun _worth,_ in the sense of +_value,_ does not this mean simply, What a thing has _grown_ to, +What a man has _grown_ to, How much he amounts to,--by the +Threadneedle-street standard or another! +-------------- + +Much passes away into oblivion: this glorious victory over +the Flemings at Fornham has, at the present date, greatly +dimmed itself out of the minds of men. A victory and battle +nevertheless it was, in its time: some thrice-renowned Earl of +Leicester, not of the De Montfort breed, (as may be read in +Philosophical and other Histories, could any human memory retain +such things,) had quarreled with his sovereign, Henry Second of +the name; had been worsted, it is like, and maltreated, and +obliged to fly to foreign parts; but had rallied there into new +vigour; and so, in the year 1173, returns across the German Sea +with a vengeful army of Flemings. Returns, to the coast of +Suffolk; to Framlingham Castle, where he is welcomed; westward +towards St. Edmundsbury and Fornham Church, where he is met by +the constituted authorities with _posse comitatus;_ and swiftly +cut in pieces, he and his, or laid by the heels; on the right +bank of the obscure river Lark,--as traces still existing +will verify. + +For the river Lark, though not very discoverably, still runs or +stagnates in that country; and the battle-ground is there; +serving at present as a pleasure-ground to his Grace of +Newcastle. Copper pennies of Henry II are still found there;-- +rotted out from the pouches of poor slain soldiers, who had not +had _time_ to buy liquor with them. In the river Lark itself was +fished up, within man's memory, an antique gold ring; which fond +Dilettantism can almost believe may have been the very ring +Countess Leicester threw away, in her flight, into that same Lark +river or ditch.* Nay, few years ago, in tearing out an enormous +superannuated ash-tree, now grown quite corpulent, bursten, +superfluous, but long a fixture in the soil, and not to be +dislodged without revolution,--there was laid bare, under its +roots, 'a circular mound of skeletons wonderfully complete,' all +radiating from a centre, faces upwards, feet inwards; a +'radiation' not of Light, but of the Nether Darkness rather; and +evidently the fruit of battle; for 'many of the heads were +cleft, or had arrow-holes in them. The Battle of Fornham, +therefore, is a fact, though a forgotten one; no less obscure +than undeniable,--like so many other facts. + +---------- +*Lyttelton's _History of Henry II._ (2nd Edition), v. 169, &c. +---------- + +Like the St. Edmund's Monastery itself! Who can doubt, after +what we have said, that there was a Monastery here at one time? +No doubt at all there was a Monastery here; no doubt, some three +centuries prior to this Fornham Battle, there dwelt a man in +these parts, of the name of Edmund, King, Landlord, Duke or +whatever his title was, of the Eastern Counties;--and a very +singular man and landlord he must have been. + +For his tenants, it would appear, did not complain of him in the +least; his labourers did not think of burning his wheatstacks, +breaking into his game-preserves; very far the reverse of all +that. Clear evidence, satisfactory even to my friend Dryasdust, +exists that, on the contrary, they honoured, loved, admired this +ancient Landlord to a quite astonishing degree,--and indeed at +last to an immeasurable and inexpressible degree; for, finding +no limits or utterable words for their sense of his worth, they +took to beatifying and adoring him! 'Infinite admiration,' we +are taught, 'means worship.' + +Very singular,--could we discover it! What Edmund's specific +duties were; above all, what his method of discharging them with +such results was, would surely be interesting to know; but are +_not_ very discoverable now. His Life has become a poetic, nay a +religious _Mythus;_ though, undeniably enough, it was once a +prose Fact, as our poor lives are; and even a very rugged +unmanageable one. This landlord Edmund did go about in leather +shoes, with _femoralia_ and bodycoat of some sort on him; and +daily had his breakfast to procure; and daily had contradictory +speeches, and most contradictory facts not a few, to reconcile +with himself. No man becomes a Saint in his sleep. Edmund, for +instance, instead of _reconciling_ those same contradictory facts +and speeches to himself; which means _subduing,_ and, in a +manlike and godlike manner, conquering them to himself,--might +have merely thrown new contention into them, new unwisdom into +them, and so been conquered _by_ them; much the commoner case! +In that way he had proved no 'Saint,' or Divine-looking Man, but +a mere Sinner, and unfortunate, blameable, more or less Diabolic- +looking man! No landlord Edmund becomes infinitely admirable in +his sleep. + +With what degree of wholesome rigour his rents were collected we +hear not. Still less by what methods he preserved his game, +whether by 'bushing' or how,--and if the partridge-seasons were +'excellent,' or were indifferent. Neither do we ascertain what +kind of Corn-bill he passed, or wisely-adjusted Sliding-scale:-- +but indeed there were few spinners in those days; and the +nuisance of spinning, and other dusty labour, was not yet so +glaring a one. + +How then, it may be asked, did this Edmund rise into favour; +become to such astonishing extent a recognised Farmer's Friend? +Really, except it were by doing justly and loving mercy, to an +unprecedented extent, one does not know. The man, it would seem, +'had walked,' as they say, 'humbly with God;' humbly and +valiantly with God; struggling to make the Earth heavenly, as he +could: instead of walking sumptuously and pridefully with +Mammon, leaving the Earth to grow hellish as it liked. Not +sumptuously with Mammon? How then could he 'encourage trade,'-- +cause Howel and James, and many wine-merchants to bless him, and +the tailor's heart (though in a very short-sighted manner) to +sing for joy? Much in this Edmund's Life is mysterious. + +That he could, on occasion, do what he liked with his own is, +meanwhile, evident enough. Certain Heathen Physical-Force Ultra- +Chartists, 'Danes' as they were then called, coming into his +territory with their 'five points,' or rather with their five- +and-twenty thousand _points_ and edges too, of pikes namely and +battleaxes; and proposing mere Heathenism, confiscation, +spoliation, and fire and sword,--Edmund answered that he would +oppose to the utmost such savagery. They took him prisoner; +again required his sanction to said proposals. Edmund again +refused. Cannot we kill you? cried they.--Cannot I die? answered +he. My life, I think, is my own to do what I like with! And he +died, under barbarous tortures, refusing to the last breath; and +the Ultra-Chartist Danes _lost_ their propositions;--and went +with their 'points' and other apparatus, as is supposed, to the +Devil, the Father of them. Some say, indeed, these Danes were +not Ultra-Chartists, but Ultra-Tories, demanding to reap where +they had not sown, and live in this world without working, though +all the world should starve for it; which likewise seems a +possible hypothesis. Be what they might, they went, as we say, +to the Devil; and Edmund doing what he liked with his own, the +Earth was got cleared of them. + +Another version is, that Edmund on this and the like occasions +stood by his order; the oldest, and indeed only true order of +Nobility known under the stars, that of just Men and Sons of God, +in opposition to Unjust and Sons of Belial,--which latter indeed +are _second_-oldest, but yet a very unvenerable order. This, +truly, seems the likeliest hypothesis of all. Names and +appearances alter so strangely, in some half-score centuries; +and all fluctuates chameleon-like, taking now this hue, now that. +Thus much is very plain, and does not change hue: Landlord +Edmund was seen and felt by all men to have done verily a man's +part in this life-pilgrimage of his; and benedictions, and +outflowing love and admiration from the universal heart, were his +meed. Well-done! Well-done! cried the hearts of all men. They +raised his slain and martyred body; washed its wounds with fast- +flowing universal tears; tears of endless pity, and yet of a +sacred joy and triumph. The beautifullest kind of tears,--indeed +perhaps the beautifullest kind of thing: like a sky all flashing +diamonds and prismatic radiance; all weeping, yet shone on by +the everlasting Sun:--and _this_ is not a sky, it is a Soul and +living Face! Nothing liker the _Temple of the Highest,_ bright +with some real effulgence of the Highest, is seen in this world. + +O, if all Yankee-land follow a small good 'Schnuspel the +distinguished Novelist' with blazing torches, dinner-invitations, +universal hep-hep-hurrah, feeling that he, though small, is +something; how might all Angle-land once follow a hero-martyr +and great true Son of Heaven! It is the very joy of man's heart +to admire, where he can; nothing so lifts him from all his mean +imprisonments, were it but for moments, as true admiration. Thus +it has been said, 'all men, especially all women, are born +worshipers;' and will worship, if it be but possible. Possible +to worship a Something, even a small one; not so possible a mere +loud-blaring Nothing! What sight is more pathetic than that of +poor multitudes of persons met to gaze at King's Progresses,' +Lord Mayor's Shews, and other gilt-gingerbread phenomena of the +worshipful sort, in these times; each so eager to worship; +each, with a dim fatal sense of disappointment, finding that he +cannot rightly here! These be thy gods, O Israel? And thou art +so _willing_ to worship,--poor Israel! + +In this manner, however, did the men of the Eastern Counties take +up the slain body of their Edmund, where it lay cast forth in the +village of Hoxne; seek out the severed head, and reverently +reunite the same. They embalmed him with myrrh and sweet spices, +with love, pity, and all high and awful thoughts; consecrating +him with a very storm of melodious adoring admiration, and sun- +dyed showers of tears;--joyfully, yet with awe (as all deep joy +has something of the awful in it), commemorating his noble deeds +and godlike walk and conversation while on Earth. Till, at +length, the very Pope and Cardinals at Rome were forced to hear +of it; and they, summing up as correctly as they well could, +with _Advocatus-Diaboli_ pleadings and their other forms of +process, the general verdict of mankind, declared: That he had, +in very fact, led a hero's life in this world; and being now +_gone,_ was gone as they conceived to God above, and reaping his +reward _there._ Such, they said, was the best judgment they +could form of the case;--and truly not a bad judgment. +Acquiesced in, zealously adopted, with full assent of 'private +judgment,' by all mortals. + + +The rest of St. Edmund's history, for the reader sees he has now +become a _Saint,_ is easily conceivable. Pious munificence +provided him a _loculus,_ a _feretrum_ or shrine; built for him +a wooden chapel, a stone temple, ever widening and growing by new +pious gifts;--such the overflowing heart feels it a blessedness +to solace itself by giving. St. Edmund's Shrine glitters now +with diamond flowerages, with a plating of wrought gold. The +wooden chapel, as we say, has become a stone temple. Stately +masonries, longdrawn arches, cloisters, sounding aisles buttress +it, begirdle it far and wide. Regimented companies of men, of +whom our Jocelin is one, devote themselves, in every generation, +to meditate here on man's Nobleness and Awfulness, and celebrate +and shew forth the same, as they best can,--thinking they will do +it better here, in presence of God the Maker, and of the so Awful +and so Noble made by Him. In one word, St. Edmund's Body has +raised a Monastery round it. To such length, in such manner, has +the Spirit of the Time visibly taken body, and crystallised +itself here. New gifts, houses, farms, _katalla_*--come ever in. +King Knut, whom men call Canute, whom the Ocean-tide would not be +forbidden to wet,--we heard already of this wise King, with his +crown and gifts; but of many others, Kings, Queens, wise men and +noble loyal women, let Dryasdust and divine Silence be the +record! Beodric's-Worth has become St. Edmund's _Bury;_--and +lasts visible to this hour. All this that thou now seest, and +namest Bury Town, is properly the Funeral Monument of Saint or +Landlord Edmund. The present respectable Mayor of Bury may be +said, like a Fakeer (little as he thinks of it), to have his +dwelling in the extensive, many-sculptured Tombstone of St. +Edmund; in one of the brick niches thereof dwells the present +respectable Mayor of Bury. + +--------- +* Goods, properties; what we now call _chattels,_ and still more +singularly _cattle,_ says my erudite friend! +--------- + +Certain Times do crystallise themselves in a magnificent manner; +and others, perhaps, are like to do it in rather a shabby one!-- +But Richard Arkwright too will have his Monument, a thousand +years hence: all Lancashire and Yorkshire, and how many other +shires and countries, with their machineries and industries, for +his monument! A true _pyr_amid or _'flame_-mountain,' flaming +with steam fires and useful labour over wide continents, usefully +towards the Stars, to a certain height;--how much grander than +your foolish Cheops Pyramids or Sakhara clay ones! Let us withal +be hopeful, be content or patient. + + + + +Chapter IV + +Abbot Hugo + + +It is true, all things have two faces, a light one and a dark. +It is true, in three centuries much imperfection accumulates; +many an Ideal, monastic or other, shooting forth into practice as +it can, grows to a strange enough Reality; and we have to ask +with amazement, Is this your Ideal! For, alas, the Ideal always +has to grow in the Real, and to seek out its bed and board there, +often in a very sorry way. No beautifullest Poet is a Bird-of- +Paradise, living on perfumes; sleeping in the aether with +outspread wings. The Heroic, _independent_ of bed and board, is +found in Drury Lane Theatre only; to avoid disappointments, let +us bear this in mind. + +By the law of Nature, too, all manner of Ideals have their fatal +limits and lot; their appointed periods, of youth, of maturity +or perfection, of decline, degradation, and final death and +disappearance. There is nothing born but has to die. Ideal +monasteries, once grown real, do seek bed and board in this +world; do find it more and more successfully; do get at length +too intent on finding it, exclusively intent on that. They are +then like diseased corpulent bodies fallen idiotic, which merely +eat and sleep; _ready_ for 'dissolution,' by a Henry the Eighth +or some other. Jocelin's St. Edmundsbury is still far from this +last dreadful state: but here too the reader will prepare +himself to see an Ideal not sleeping in the nether like a bird- +of-paradise, but roosting as the common woodfowl do, in an +imperfect, uncomfortable, more or less contemptible manner!-- + + +Abbot Hugo, as Jocelin, breaking at once into the heart of the +business, apprises us, had in those days grown old, grown rather +blind, and his eyes were somewhat darkened, _aliquantulum +caligaverunt oculi ejus._ He dwelt apart very much, in his +_Talamus_ or peculiar Chamber; got into the hands of flatterers, +a set of mealy-mouthed persons who strove to make the passing +hour easy for him,--for him easy, and for themselves profitable; +accumulating in the distance mere mountains of confusion. Old +Dominus Hugo sat inaccessible in this way, far in the interior, +wrapt in his warm flannels and delusions; inaccessible to all +voice of Fact; and bad grew ever worse with us. Not that our +worthy old _Dominus Abbas_ was inattentive to the divine offices, +or to the maintenance of a devout spirit in us or in himself; +but the Account-Books of the Convent fell into the frightfullest +state, and Hugo's annual Budget grew yearly emptier, or filled +with futile expectations, fatal deficit, wind and debts! + +His one worldly care was to raise ready money; sufficient for +the day is the evil thereof. And how he raised it: From +usurious insatiable Jews; every fresh Jew sticking on him like a +fresh horseleech, sucking his and our life out; crying +continually, Give, Give! Take one example instead of scores. +Our _Camera_ having fallen into ruin, William the Sacristan +received charge to repair it; strict charge, but no money; +Abbot Hugo would, and indeed could, give him no fraction +of money. The _Camera_ in ruins, and Hugo penniless and +inaccessible, Willelmus Sacrista borrowed Forty Mares (some +Seven-and-twenty Pounds) of Benedict the Jew, and patched up our +Camera again. But the means of repaying him? There were no +means. Hardly could _Sacrista, Cellerarius, or any public +officer, get ends to meet, on the indispensablest scale, with +their shrunk allowances: ready money had vanished. + +Benedict's Twenty-seven pounds grew rapidly at compound-interest; +and at length, when it had amounted to One hundred pounds, he, on +a day of settlement, presents the account to Hugo himself. Hugo +already owed him another One hundred of his own; and so here it +has become Two hundred! Hugo, in a fine frenzy, threatens to +depose the Sacristan, to do this and do that; but, in the mean +while, How to quiet your insatiable Jew? Hugo, for this couple +of hundreds, grants the Jew his bond for Four hundred payable at +the end of four years. At the end of four years there is, of +course, still no money; and the Jew now gets a bond for Eight +hundred and eighty pounds, to be paid by installments, Four-score +pounds every year. Here was a way of doing business! + +Neither yet is this insatiable Jew satisfied or settled with: he +had papers against us of 'small debts fourteen years old;' his +modest claim amounts finally to 'Twelve hundred pounds besides +interest;'--and one hopes he never got satisfied in this world; +one almost hopes he was one of those beleaguered Jews who hanged +themselves in York Castle shortly afterwards, and had his usances +and quittances and horseleech papers summarily set fire to! For +approximate justice will strive to accomplish itself; if not in +one way, then in another. Jews, and also Christians and +Heathens, who accumulate in this manner, though furnished with +never so many parchments, do, at times, 'get their grinder-teeth +successively pulled out of their head, each day a new grinder, +till they consent to disgorge again. A sad fact,--worth +reflecting on. + + +Jocelin, we see, is not without secularity: Our _Dominus Abbas_ +was intent enough on the divine offices; but then his Account- +Books--?--One of the things that strike us most, throughout, in +Jocelin's Chronicle, and indeed in Eadmer's _Anselm,_ and other +old monastic Books, written evidently by pious men, is this, That +there is almost no mention whatever of 'personal religion' in +them; that the whole gist of their thinking and speculation +seems to be the 'privileges of our order,' 'strict exaction of +our dues,' 'God's honour' (meaning the honour of our Saint), and +so forth. Is not this singular? A body of men, set apart for +perfecting and purifying their own souls, do not seem disturbed +about that in any measure: the 'Ideal' says nothing about its +idea; says much about finding bed and board for itself! How +is this? + +Why, for one thing, bed and board are a matter very apt to come +to speech: it is much easier to _speak_ of them than of ideas; +and they are sometimes much more pressing with some! Nay, for +another thing, may not this religious reticence, in these devout +good souls, be perhaps a merit, and sign of health in them? +Jocelin, Eadmer, and such religious men, have as yet nothing of +'Methodism;' no Doubt or even root of Doubt. Religion is not a +diseased self-introspection, an agonising inquiry: their duties +are clear to them, the way of supreme good plain, indisputable, +and they are traveling on it. Religion lies over them like an +all-embracing heavenly canopy, like an atmosphere and life- +element, which is not spoken of, which in all things is +presupposed without speech. Is not serene or complete Religion +the highest aspect of human nature; as serene Cant, or complete +No-religion, is the lowest and miserablest? Between which two, +all manner of earnest Methodisms, introspections, agonising +inquiries, never so morbid, shall play their respective parts, +not without approbation. + + +But let any reader fancy himself one of the Brethren in St. +Edmundsbury Monastery under such circumstances! How can a Lord +Abbot, all stuck over with horse-leeches of this nature, front +the world? He is fast losing his life-blood, and the Convent +will be as one of Pharaoh's lean kine. Old monks of experience +draw their hoods deeper down; careful what they say: the monk's +first duty is obedience. Our Lord the King, hearing of such +work, sends down his Almoner to make investigations: but what +boots it? Abbot Hugo assembles us in Chapter; asks, "If there +is any complaint?" Not a soul of us dare answer, "Yes, +thousands!" but we all stand silent, and the Prior even says that +things are in a very comfortable condition. Whereupon old Abbot +Hugo, turning to the royal messenger, says, "You see!"--and the +business terminates in that way. I, as a brisk-eyed, noticing +youth and novice, could not help asking of the elders, asking of +Magister Samson in particular: Why he, well-instructed and a +knowing man, had not spoken out, and brought matters to a +bearing? Magister Samson was Teacher of the Novices, appointed +to breed us up to the rules, and I loved him well. _"Fili mi,"_ +answered Samson, "the burnt child shuns the fire. Dost thou not +know, our Lord the Abbot sent me once to Acre in Norfolk, to +solitary confinement and bread and water, already? The Hinghams, +Hugo and Robert, have just got home from banishment for speaking. +This is the hour of darkness: the hour when flatterers rule and +are believed. _Videat Dominus,_ let the Lord see, and judge." + +In very truth, what could poor old Abbot Hugo do? A frail old +man; and the Philistines were upon him,--that is to say, the +Hebrews. He had nothing for it but to shrink away from them; +get back into his warm flannels, into his warm delusions again. +Happily, before it was quite too late, he bethought him of +pilgriming to St. Thomas of Canterbury. He set out, with a fit +train, in the autumn days of the year 1180; near Rochester City, +his mule threw him, dislocated his poor kneepan, raised incurable +inflammatory fever; and the poor old man got his dismissal from +the whole coil at once. St. Thomas a Becket, though in a +circuitous way, had _brought_ deliverance! Neither Jew usurers, +nor grumbling monks, nor other importunate despicability of men +or mud-elements afflicted Abbot Hugo any more; but he dropt his +rosaries, closed his account-books, closed his old eyes, and lay +down into the long sleep. Heavy-laden hoary old Dominus Hugo, +fare thee well. + +One thing we cannot mention without a due thrill of horror: +namely, that, in the empty exchequer of Dominus Hugo, there was +not found one penny to distribute to the Poor that they might +pray for his soul! By a kind of godsend, Fifty shillings did, in +the very nick of time, fall due, or seem to fall due, from one of +his Farmers (the _Firmarius_ de Palegrava), and he paid it, and +the Poor had it; though, alas, this too only _seemed_ to fall +due, and we had it to pay again afterwards. Dominus Hugo's +apartments were plundered by his servants, to the last portable +stool, in a few minutes after the breath was out of his body. +Forlorn old Hugo, fare thee well forever. + + + + +Chapter V + +Twelfth Century + + +Our Abbot being dead, the _Dominus Rex,_ Henry II, or Ranulf de +Glanvill _Justiciarius_ of England for him, set Inspectors or +Custodiars over us;--not in any breathless haste to appoint a new +Abbot, our revenues coming into his own Scaccarium, or royal +Exchequer, in the meanwhile. They proceeded with some rigour, +these Custodiars; took written inventories, clapt-on seals, +exacted everywhere strict tale and measure: but wherefore should +a living monk complain? The living monk has to do his devotional +drill-exercise; consume his allotted _pitantia,_ what we +call _pittance,_ or ration of victual; and possess his soul +in patience. + +Dim, as through a long vista of Seven Centuries, dim and very +strange looks that monk-life to us; the ever-surprising +circumstance this, That it is a _fact_ and no dream, that we see +it there, and gaze into the very eyes of it! Smoke rises daily +from those culinary chimney-throats; there are living human +beings there, who chant, loud-braying, their matins, nones, +vespers; awakening echoes, not to the bodily ear alone. St. +Edmund's Shrine, perpetually illuminated, glows ruddy through +the Night, and through the Night of Centuries withal; St. +Edmundsbury Town paying yearly Forty pounds for that express end. +Bells clang out; on great occasions, all the bells. We have +Processions, Preachings, Festivals, Christmas Plays, _Mysteries_ +shewn in the Churchyard, at which latter the Townsfolk sometimes +quarrel. Time was, Time is, as Friar Bacon's Brass Head +remarked; and withal Time will be. There are three Tenses, +_Tempora,_ or Times; and there is one Eternity; and as for us, + + 'We are such stuff as Dreams are made of!' + +Indisputable, though very dim to modern vision, rests on its hill- +slope that same _Bury,_ _Stow,_ or Town of St. Edmund; already a +considerable place, not without traffic, nay manufactures, would +Jocelin only tell us what. Jocelin is totally careless of +telling: but, through dim fitful apertures, we can see +_Fullones,_ 'Fullers,' see cloth-making; looms dimly going, +dye-vats, and old women spinning yarn. We have Fairs too, +_Nundinae,_ in due course; and the Londoners give us much +trouble, pretending that they, as a metropolitan people, are +exempt from toll. Besides there is Field-husbandry, with +perplexed settlement of Convent rents: comricks pile themselves +within burgh, in their season; and cattle depart and enter; and +even the poor weaver has his cow,--'dung-heaps' lying quiet at +most doors (_ante foras,_ says the incidental Jocelin), for the +Town has yet no improved police. Watch and ward nevertheless we +do keep, and have Gates,--as what Town must not; thieves so +abounding; war, _werra,_ such a frequent thing! Our thieves, at +the Abbot's judgment bar, deny; claim wager of battle; fight, +are beaten, and _then_ hanged. 'Ketel, the thief,' took this +course; and it did nothing for him,--merely brought us, and +indeed himself, new trouble! + +Every way a most foreign Time. What difficulty, for example, has +our Cellerarius to collect the _repselver,_ 'reaping silver,' or +penny, which each householder is by law bound to pay for cutting +down the Convent grain! Richer people pretend that it is +commuted, that it is this and the other; that, in short, they +will not pay it. Our _Cellerarius_ gives up calling on the rich. +In the houses of the poor, our _Cellerarius_ finding, in like +manner, neither penny nor good promise, snatches, without +ceremony, what _vadium_ (pledge, _wad_) he can come at: a joint- +stool, kettle, nay the very house-door, _'hostium;'_ and old +women, thus exposed to the unfeeling gaze of the public, rush out +after him with their distaffs and the angriest shrieks: +_'vetulae exibant cum colis suis,'_ says Jocelin, 'minantes +et exprobrantes.'_ + +What a historical picture, glowing visible, as St. Edmund's +Shrine by night, after Seven long Centuries or so! _Vetulae cum +colis:_ My venerable ancient spinning grandmothers,--ah, and ye +too have to shriek, and rush out with your distaffs; and become +Female Chartists, and scold all evening with void doorway;--and +in old Saxon, as we in modern, would fain demand some Five-point +Charter, could it be fallen in with, the Earth being too +tyrannous!--Wise Lord Abbots, hearing of such phenomena, did in +time abolish or commute the reap-penny, and one nuisance was +abated. But the image of these justly offended old women, in +their old wool costumes, with their angry features, and spindles +brandished, lives forever in the historical memory. Thanks to +thee, Jocelin Boswell. Jerusalem was taken by the Crusaders, and +again lost by them; and Richard Coeur-de-Lion 'veiled his face' +as he passed in sight of it: but how many other things went on, +the while! + +Thus, too, our trouble with the Lakenheath eels is very great. +King Knut, namely, or rather his Queen who also did herself +honour by honouring St. Edmund, decreed by authentic deed yet +extant on parchment, that the Holders of the Town Fields, once +Beodric's, should, for one thing, go yearly and catch us four +thousand eels in the marsh-pools of Lakenheath. Well, they went, +they continued to go; but, in later times, got into the way of +returning with a most short account of eels. Not the due six- +score apiece; no, Here are two-score, Here are twenty, ten,-- +sometimes, Here are none at all; Heaven help us, we _could_ +catch no more, they were not there! What is a distressed +_Cellerarius_ to do? We agree that each Holder of so many acres +shall pay one penny yearly, and let go the eels as too slippery. +But alas, neither is this quite effectual: the Fields, in my +time, have got divided among so many hands, there is no catching +of them _either_; I have known our Cellarer get seven and twenty +pence formerly, and now it is much if he get ten pence farthing +(_vix decem denarios et obolum_). And then their sheep, which +they are bound to fold nightly in our pens, for the manure's +sake; and, I fear, do not always fold: and their _aver- +pennies,_ and their _avragiums,_ and their _foder-corns,_ and +mill-and-market dues! Thus, in its undeniable but dim manner, +does old St. Edmundsbury spin and till, and laboriously keep its +pot boiling, and St. Edmund's Shrine lighted, under such +conditions and averages as it can. + + +How much is still alive in England; how much has not yet come +into life! A Feudal Aristocracy is still alive, in the prime of +life; superintending the cultivation of the land, and less +consciously the distribution of the produce of the land, the +adjustment of the quarrels of the land; judging, soldiering, +adjusting; everywhere governing the people,--so that even a +Gurth born thrall of Cedric lacks not his due parings of the pigs +he tends. Governing;--and, alas, also game-preserving, so that a +Robert Hood, a William Scarlet and others have, in these days, +put on Lincoln coats, and taken to living, in some universal- +suffrage manner, under the greenwood tree! + +How silent, on the other hand, lie all Cotton-trades and such +like; not a steeple-chimney yet got on end from sea to sea! +North of the Humber, a stern Willelmus Conquestor burnt the +Country, finding it unruly, into very stern repose. Wild fowl +scream in those ancient silences, wild cattle roam in those +ancient solitudes; the scanty sulky Norse-bred population all +coerced into silence,--feeling that, under these new Norman +Governors, their history has probably as good as _ended._ Men +and Northumbrian Norse populations know little what has ended, +what is but beginning! The Ribble and the Aire roll down, as yet +unpolluted by dyers' chemistry; tenanted by merry trouts and +piscatory otters; the sunbeam and the vacant wind's-blast alone +traversing those moors. Side by side sleep the coal-strata and +the iron-strata for so many ages; no Steam-Demon has yet risen +smoking into being. Saint Mungo rules in Glasgow; James Watt +still slumbering in the deep of Time. _Mancunium,_ Manceaster, +what we now call Manchester, spins no cotton,--if it be not +_wool_ 'cottons,' clipped from the backs of mountain sheep. The +Creek of the Mersey gurgles, twice in the four-and-twenty hours, +with eddying brine, clangorous with sea-fowl; and is a _Lither_- +Pool, a _lazy_ or sullen Pool, no monstrous pitchy City, and +Seahaven of the world! The Centuries are big; and the birth- +hour is coming, not yet come. _Tempus ferax, tempus edax rerum._ + + + + +Chapter VI + +Monk Samson + + +Within doors, down at the hill-foot, in our Convent here, we are +a peculiar people,--hardly conceivable in the Arkwright Corn-Law +ages, of mere Spinning-Mills and Joe-Mantons! There is yet no +Methodism among us, and we speak much of Secularities: no +Methodism; our Religion is not yet a horrible restless Doubt, +still less a far horribler composed Cant; but a great heaven- +high Unquestionability, encompassing, interpenetrating the whole +of Life. Imperfect as we may be, we are here, with our litanies, +shaven crowns, vows of poverty, to testify incessantly and +indisputably to every heart, That this Earthly Life, and +its riches and possessions, and good and evil hap, are not +intrinsically a reality at all, but _are_ a shadow of realities +eternal, infinite; that this Time-world, as an air-image, +fearfully _emblematic,_ plays and flickers in the grand still +mirror of Eternity; and man's little Life has Duties that are +great, that are alone great, and go up to Heaven and down to +Hell. This, with our poor litanies, we testify and struggle +to testify. + +Which, testified or not, remembered by all men, or forgotten by +all men, does verily remain the fact, even in Arkwright Joe +Manton ages! But it is incalculable, when litanies have grown +obsolete; when _fodercorns,_ _avragiums,_ and all human dues and +reciprocities have been fully changed into one great due of _cash +payment;_ and man's duty to man reduces itself to handing him +certain metal coins, or covenanted money-wages, and then shoving +him out of doors; and man's duty to God becomes a cant, a doubt, +a dim inanity, a 'pleasure of virtue' or such like; and the +thing a man does infinitely fear (the real _Hell_ of a man) is +'that he do not make money and advance himself,'--I say, it is +incalculable what a change has introduced itself everywhere into +human affairs! How human affairs shall now circulate everywhere +not healthy life-blood in them, but, as it were, a detestable +copperas banker's ink; and all is grown acrid, divisive, +threatening dissolution; and the huge tumultuous Life of Society +is galvanic, devil-ridden, too truly possessed by a devil! For, +in short, Mammon _is_ not a god at all; but a devil, and even a +very despicable devil. Follow the Devil faithfully, you are sure +enough to _go_ to the Devil: whither else _can_ you go?--In such +situations, men look back with a kind of mournful recognition +even on poor limited Monk-figures, with their poor litanies; and +reflect, with Ben Jonson, that soul is indispensable, some degree +of soul, even to save you the expense of salt!-- + +For the rest, it must be owned, we Monks of St. Edmundsbury are +but a limited class of creatures, and seem to have a somewhat +dull life of it. Much given to idle gossip; having indeed no +other work, when our chanting is over. Listless gossip, for most +part, and a mitigated slander; the fruit of idleness, not of +spleen. We are dull, insipid men, many of us; easy-minded; +whom prayer and digestion of food will avail for a life. We have +to receive all strangers in our Convent, and lodge them gratis; +such and such sorts go by rule to the Lord Abbot and his special +revenues; such and such to us and our poor Cellarer, however +straitened. Jews themselves send their wives and little ones +hither in war-time, into our _Pitanceria;_ where they abide +safe, with due _pittances,_--for a consideration. We have the +fairest chances for collecting news. Some of us have a turn for +reading Books; for meditation, silence; at times we even write +Books. Some of us can preach, in English-Saxon, in Norman +French, and even in Monk-Latin; others cannot in any language or +jargon, being stupid. + +Failing all else, what gossip about one another! This is a +perennial resource. How one hooded head applies itself to the +ear of another, and whispers--_tacenda._ Willelmus Sacrista, for +instance, what does he nightly, over in that Sacristy of his? +Frequent bibations, _'frequentes bibationes et quaedam tacenda,'_ +--eheu! We have _'tempora minutionis,'_ stated seasons of +bloodletting, when we are all let blood together; and then +there is a general free-conference, a sanhedrim of clatter. For +all our vow of poverty, we can by rule amass to the extent of +'two shillings;' but it is to be given to our necessitous +kindred, or in charity. Poor Monks! Thus too a certain +Canterbury Monk was in the habit of 'slipping, _clanculo_ from +his sleeve,' five shillings into the hand of his mother, when she +came to see him, at the divine offices, every two months. Once, +slipping the money clandestinely, just in the act of taking +leave, he slipt it not into her hand but on the floor, and +another had it; whereupon the poor Monk, coming to know it, +looked mere despair for some days; till, Lanfranc the noble +Archbishop, questioning his secret from him, nobly made the sum +_seven_ shillings, and said, Never mind! + + +One Monk of a taciturn nature distinguishes himself among these +babbling ones: the name of him Samson; he that answered +Jocelin, "_Fili mi,_ a burnt child shuns the fire." They call him +'Norfolk _Barrator,'_ or litigious person; for indeed, being of +grave taciturn ways, he is not universally a favourite; he has +been in trouble more than once. The reader is desired to mark +this Monk. A personable man of seven-and-forty; stout-made, +stands erect as a pillar; with bushy eyebrows, the eyes of him +beaming into you in a really strange way; the face massive, +grave, with 'a very eminent nose;' his head almost bald, its +auburn remnants of hair, and the copious ruddy beard, getting +slightly streaked with grey. This is Brother Samson; a man +worth looking at. + +He is from Norfolk, as the nickname indicates; from Tottington +in Norfolk, as we guess; the son of poor parents there. He has +told me, Jocelin, for I loved him much, That once in his ninth +year he had an alarming dream;--as indeed we are all somewhat +given to dreaming here. Little Samson, lying uneasily in his +crib at Tottington, dreamed that he saw the Arch Enemy in person, +just alighted in front of some grand building, with outspread +bat-wings, and stretching forth detestable clawed hands to grip +him, little Samson, and fly off with him: whereupon the little +dreamer shrieked desperate to St. Edmund for help, shrieked and +again shrieked; and St. Edmund, a reverend heavenly figure, did +come,--and indeed poor little Samson's mother, awakened by his +shrieking, did come; and the Devil and the Dream both fled away +fruitless. On the morrow, his mother, pondering such an awful +dream, thought it were good to take him over to St. Edmund's own +Shrine, and pray with him there. See, said little Samson at +sight of the Abbey-Gate; see, mother, this is the building I +dreamed of! His poor mother dedicated him to St. Edmund,--left +him there with prayers and tears: what better could she do? The +exposition of the dream, Brother Samson used to say, was this: +_Diabolus_ with outspread bat-wings shadowed forth the pleasures +of this world, _voluptates hujus saeculi,_ which were about to +snatch and fly away with me, had not St. Edmund flung his arms +round me, that is to say, made me a monk of his. A monk, +accordingly, Brother Samson is; and here to this day where his +mother left him. A learned man, of devout grave nature; has +studied at Paris, has taught in the Town Schools here, and done +much else; can preach in three languages, and, like Dr. Caius, +'has had losses' in his time. A thoughtful, firm-standing man; +much loved by some, not loved by all; his clear eyes flashing +into you, in an almost inconvenient way! + +Abbot Hugo, as we said, has his own difficulties with him; Abbot +Hugo had him in prison once, to teach him what authority was, and +how to dread the fire in future. For Brother Samson, in the time +of the Antipopes, had been sent to Rome on business; and, +returning successful, was too late,--the business had all misgone +in the interim! As tours to Rome are still frequent with us +English, perhaps the reader will not grudge to look at the method +of traveling thither in those remote ages. We happily have, in +small compass, a personal narrative of it. Through the clear +eyes and memory of Brother Samson, one peeps direct into the very +bosom of that Twelfth Century, and finds it rather curious. The +actual _Papa,_ Father, or universal President of Christendom, as +yet not grown chimerical, sat there; think of that only! +Brother Samson went to Rome as to the real Light-fountain of this +lower world; we now--!--But let us hear Brother Samson, as to +his mode of traveling: + +'You know what trouble I had for that Church of Woolpit; how I +was despatched to Rome in the time of the Schism between Pope +Alexander and Octavian; and passed through Italy at that season, +when all clergy carrying letters for our Lord Pope Alexander were +laid hold of, and some were clapt in prison, some hanged; and +some, with nose and lips cut off, were sent forward to our Lord +the Pope, for the disgrace and confusion of him (_in dedecus et +confusionem ejus_). I, however, pretended to be Scotch, and +putting on the garb of a Scotchman, and taking the gesture of +one, walked along; and when anybody mocked at me, I would +brandish my staff in the manner of that weapon they call +_gaveloc,_* uttering comminatory words after the way of the +Scotch. To those that met and questioned me who I was, I made no +answer but: _Ride, ride Rome; turne Cantwereberei._ ** Thus did +I, to conceal myself and my errand, and get safer to Rome under +the guise of a Scotchman. + +---------- +* Javelin, missile pike. _Gaveloc_ is still the Scotch name for +_crowbar._ + +** Does this mean, "Rome forever; Canterbury _not"_ (which +claims an unjust Supremacy _over_ us)! Mr. Rokewood is silent. +Dryasdust would perhaps explain it,--in the course of a week or +two of talking; did one dare to question him! +---------- + +'Having at last obtained a Letter from our Lord the Pope +according to my wishes, I turned homewards again. I had to pass +through a certain strong town on my road; and lo, the soldiers +thereof surrounded me, seizing me, and saying: "This vagabond +(_iste solivagus_), who pretends to be Scotch, is either a spy, +or has Letters from the false Pope Alexander." And whilst they +examined every stitch and rag of me, my leggings (_caligas_), +breeches, and even the old shoes that I carried over my shoulder +in the way of the Scotch,--I put my hand into the leather scrip I +wore, wherein our Lord the Pope's Letter lay, close by a little +jug (_ciffus_) I had for drinking out of; and the Lord God so +pleasing, and St. Edmund, I got out both the Letter and the jug +together; in such a way that, extending my arm aloft, I held the +Letter hidden between jug and hand: they saw the jug, but the +Letter they saw not. And thus I escaped out of their hands in +the name of the Lord. Whatever money I had they took from me; +wherefore I had to beg from door to door, without any payment +(_sine omni expensa_) till I came to England again. But hearing +that the Woolpit Church was already given to Geoffry Ridell, my +soul was struck with sorrow because I had laboured in vain. + +'Coming home, therefore, I sat me down secretly under the Shrine +of St. Edmund, fearing lest our Lord Abbot should seize and +imprison me, though I had done no mischief; nor was there a monk +who durst speak to me, nor a laic who durst bring me food except +by stealth. + +Such resting and welcoming found Brother Samson, with his worn +soles, and strong heart! He sits silent, revolving many +thoughts, at the foot of St. Edmund's Shrine. In the wide Earth, +if it be not Saint Edmund, what friend or refuge has he? Our +Lord Abbot, hearing of him, sent the proper officer to lead him +down to prison, clap 'foot-gyves on him' there. Another poor +official furtively brought him a cup of wine; bade him "be +comforted in the Lord." Samson utters no complaint; obeys in +silence. 'Our Lord Abbot, taking counsel of it, banished me to +Acre, and there I had to stay long.' + +Our Lord Abbot next tried Samson with promotions; made him +Subsacristan, made him Librarian, which he liked best of all, +being passionately fond of Books: Samson, with many thoughts in +him, again obeyed in silence; discharged his offices to +perfection, but never thanked our Lord Abbot,--seemed rather as +if looking into him, with those clear eyes of his. Whereupon +Abbot Hugo said, _Se nunquam vidisse,_ he had never seen such a +man; whom no severity would break to complain, and no kindness +soften into smiles or thanks:--a questionable kind of man! + + +In this way, not without troubles, but still in an erect clear- +standing manner, has Brother Samson reached his forty-seventh +year; and his ruddy beard is getting slightly grizzled. He is +endeavouring, in these days, to have various broken things +thatched in; nay perhaps to have the Choir itself completed, for +he can bear nothing ruinous. He has gathered 'heaps of lime and +sand;' has masons, slaters working, he and _Warinus monachus +noster,_ who are joint keepers of the Shrine; paying out the +money duly,--furnished by charitable burghers of St. Edmundsbury, +they say. Charitable burghers of St. Edmundsbury? To me Jocelin +it seems rather, Samson and Warinus, whom he leads, have privily +hoarded the oblations at the Shrine itself, in these late +years of indolent dilapidation, while Abbot Hugo sat wrapt +inaccessible; and are struggling, in this prudent way, to have +the rain kept out!--Under what conditions, sometimes, has Wisdom +to struggle with Folly; get Folly persuaded to so much as thatch +out the rain from itself! For, indeed, if the Infant govern +the Nurse, what dexterous practice on the Nurse's part will +not be necessary! + +It is regret to us that, in these circumstances, our Lord the +King's Custodiars, interfering, prohibited all building or +thatching from whatever source; and no Choir shall be completed, +and Rain and Time, for the present, shall have their way. +Willelmus Sacrista, he of 'the frequent bibations and some things +not to be spoken of;' he, with his red nose, I am of opinion, +had made complaint to the Custodiars; wishing to do Samson an +ill turn:--Samson his _Sub_-sacristan, with those clear eyes, +could not be a prime favourite of his! Samson again obeys +in silence. + + + + +Chapter VII + +The Canvassing + + +Now, however, come great news to St. Edmundsbury: That there is +to be an Abbot elected; that our interlunar obscuration is to +cease; St. Edmund's Convent no more to be a doleful widow, but +joyous and once again a bride! Often in our widowed state had we +prayed to the Lord and St. Edmund, singing weekly a matter of +'one-and-twenty penitential Psalms, on our knees in the Choir,' +that a fit Pastor might be vouchsafed us. And, says Jocelin, had +some known what Abbot we were to get, they had not been so +devout, I believe!--Bozzy Jocelin opens to mankind the floodgates +of authentic Convent gossip; we listen, as in a Dionysius' Ear, +to the inanest hubbub, like the voices at Virgil's Horn-Gate of +Dreams. Even gossip, seven centuries off, has significance. +List, list, how like men are to one another in all centuries: + +_`Dixit quidam de quodam,_ A certain person said of a certain +person, "He, that _Frater,_ is a good monk, _probabilis persona;_ +knows much of the order and customs of the church; and though +not so perfect a philosopher as some others, would make a very +good Abbot. Old Abbot Ording, still famed among us, knew little +of letters. Besides, as we read in Fables, it is better to +choose a log for king, than a serpent, never so wise, that will +venomously hiss and bite his subjects."--"Impossible!" answered +the other: "How can such a man make a sermon in the chapter, or +to the people on festival days, when he is without letters? How +can he have the skill to bind and to loose, he who does not +understand the Scriptures? How--?"' + +And then `another said of another, _alius de alio,_ "That +_Frater_ is a _homo literatus,_ eloquent, sagacious; vigorous +in discipline; loves the Convent much, has suffered much for +its sake." To which a third party answers, "From all your +great clerks good Lord deliver us! From Norfolk barrators, and +surly persons, That it would please thee to preserve us, We +beseech thee to hear us, good Lord!"' Then `another _quidam_ +said of another _quodam,_ "That _Frater_ is a good manager +(_husebondus_);" but was swiftly answered, "God forbid that a +man who can neither read nor chant, nor celebrate the divine +offices, an unjust person withal, and grinder of the faces of the +poor, should ever be Abbot!"' One man, it appears, is nice in +his victuals. Another is indeed wise; but apt to slight +inferiors; hardly at the pains to answer, if they argue with him +too foolishly. And so each _aliquis_ concerning his _aliquo,_-- +through whole pages of electioneering babble. `For,' says +Jocelin, `So many men, as many minds. Our Monks at time of +blood-letting, _tempore minutionis,_' holding their sanhedrim of +babble, would talk in this manner: Brother Samson, I remarked, +never said anything; sat silent, sometimes smiling; but he took +good note of what others said, and would bring it up, on +occasion, twenty years after. As for me Jocelin, I was of +opinion that `some skill in Dialectics, to distinguish true from +false,' would be good in an Abbot. I spake, as a rash Novice in +those days, some conscientious words of a certain benefactor of +mine; `and behold, one of those sons of Belial' ran and reported +them to him, so that he never after looked at me with the same +face again! Poor Bozzy!-- + +Such is the buzz and frothy simmering ferment of the general mind +and no-mind; struggling to `make itself up,' as the phrase is, +or ascertain what _it_ does really want: no easy matter, in most +cases. St. Edmundsbury, in that Candlemas season of the year +1182, is a busily fermenting place. The very clothmakers sit +meditative at their looms; asking, Who shall be Abbot? The +_sochemanni_ speak of it, driving their ox-teams afield; the old +women with their spindles: and none yet knows what the days will +bring forth. + + +The Prior, however, as our interim chief, must proceed to work; +get ready 'Twelve Monks,' and set off with them to his Majesty at +Waltham, there shall the election be made. An election, whether +managed directly by ballot-box on public hustings, or indirectly +by force of public opinion, or were it even by open alehouses, +landlords' coercion, popular club-law, or whatever electoral +methods, is always an interesting phenomenon. A mountain +tumbling in great travail, throwing up dustclouds and absurd +noises, is visibly there; uncertain yet what mouse or monster it +will give birth to. + +Besides it is a most important social act; nay, at bottom, the +one important social act. Given the men a People choose, the +People itself, in its exact worth and worthlessness, is given. A +heroic people chooses heroes, and is happy; a valet or flunkey +people chooses sham-heroes, what are called quacks, thinking them +heroes, and is not happy. The grand summary of a man's spiritual +condition, what brings out all his herohood and insight, or all +his flunkeyhood and horn-eyed dimness, is this question put to +him, What man dost thou honour? Which is thy ideal of a man; or +nearest that? So too of a People: for a People too, every +People, _speaks_ its choice,--were it only by silently obeying, +and not revolting,--in the course of a century or so. Nor are +electoral methods, Reform Bills and such like, unimportant. A +People's electoral methods are, in the long-run, the express +image of its electoral _talent;_ tending and gravitating +perpetually, irresistibly, to a conformity with that: and are, +at all stages, very significant of the People. Judicious +readers, of these times, are not disinclined to see how +Monks elect their Abbot in the Twelfth Century: how the St. +Edmundsbury mountain manages its midwifery; and what mouse or +man the outcome is. + + + + +Chapter VIII + +The Election + + +Accordingly our Prior assembles us in Chapter; and, we adjuring +him before God to do justly, nominates, not by our selection, yet +with our assent, Twelve Monks, moderately satisfactory. Of whom +are Hugo Third-Prior, Brother Dennis a venerable man, Walter the +_Medicus,_ Samson _Subsacrista,_ and other esteemed characters,-- +though Willelmus _Sacrista,_ of the red nose, too is one. These +shall proceed straightway to Waltham; elect the Abbot as they +may and can. Monks are sworn to obedience; must not speak too +loud, under penalty of foot-gyves, limbo, and bread and water: +yet monks too would know what it is they are obeying. The St. +Edmundsbury Community has no hustings, ballot-box, indeed no open +voting: yet by various vague manipulations, pulse-feelings, we +struggle to ascertain what its virtual aim is, and succeed better +or worse. + +This question, however, rises; alas, a quite preliminary +question: Will the _Dominus Rex_ allow us to choose freely? It +is to be hoped! Well, if so, we agree to choose one of our own +Convent. If not, if the _Dominus Rex_ will force a stranger on +us, we decide on demurring, the Prior and his Twelve shall demur: +we can appeal, plead, remonstrate; appeal even to the Pope, but +trust it will not be necessary. Then there is this other +question, raised by Brother Samson: What if the Thirteen should +not themselves be able to agree? Brother Samson _Subsacrista,_ +one remarks, is ready oftenest with some question, some +suggestion, that has wisdom in it. Though a servant of servants, +and saying little, his words all tell, having sense in them; +it seems by his light mainly that we steer ourselves in this +great dimness. + +What if the Thirteen should not themselves be able to agree? +Speak, Samson, and advise.--Could not, hints Samson, Six of our +venerablest elders be chosen by us, a kind of electoral +committee, here and now: of these, `with their hand on the +Gospels, with their eye on the _Sacrosancta,'_ we take oath that +they will do faithfully; let these, in secret and as before God, +agree on Three whom they reckon fittest; write their names in a +Paper, and deliver the same sealed, forthwith, to the Thirteen: +one of those Three the Thirteen shall fix on, if permitted. If +not permitted, that is to say, if the _Dominus Rex_ force us to +demur,--the Paper shall be brought back unopened, and publicly +burned, that no man's secret bring him into trouble. + +So Samson advises, so we act; wisely, in this and in other +crises of the business. Our electoral committee, its eye on the +Sacrosancta,_ is soon named, soon sworn; and we striking up the +Fifth Psalm, _'Verba mea,_ + + `Give ear unto my words, O Lord, + My meditation weigh,' + +march out chanting, and leave the Six to their work in the +Chapter here. Their work, before long, they announce as +finished: they, with their eye on the Sacrosancta, imprecating +the Lord to weigh and witness their meditation, have fixed on +Three Names, and written them in this Sealed Paper. Let Samson +Subsacrista, general servant of the party, take charge of it. On +the morrow morning, our Prior and his Twelve will be ready to get +under way. + +This then is the ballot-box and electoral winnowing-machine they +have at St. Edmundsbury: a mind fixed on the Thrice Holy, an +appeal to God on high to witness their meditation: by far the +best, and indeed the only good electoral winnowing-machine,--If +men have souls in them. Totally worthless, it is true, and even +hideous and poisonous, if men have no souls. But without soul, +alas what winnowing-machine in human elections, can be of +avail? We cannot get along without soul; we stick fast, the +mournfullest spectacle; and salt itself will not save us! + + +On the morrow morning, accordingly, our Thirteen set forth; or +rather our Prior and Eleven; for Samson, as general servant of +the party, has to linger, settling many things. At length he too +gets upon the road; and, 'carrying the sealed Paper in a leather +pouch hung round his neck; and _froccum bajulans in ulnis'_ +(thanks to thee Bozzy Jocelin), 'his frock-skirts looped over his +elbow,' skewing substantial stern-works, tramps stoutly along. +Away across the Heath, not yet of Newmarket and horse-jockeying; +across your Fleam-dike and Devil's-dike, no longer useful as a +Mercian East-Anglian boundary or bulwark: continually towards +Waltham, and the Bishop of Winchester's House there, for his +Majesty is in that. Brother Samson, as purse-bearer, has the +reckoning always, when there is one, to pay; 'delays are +numerous,' progress none of the swiftest. + +But, in the solitude of the Convent, Destiny thus big and in her +birthtime, what gossiping, what babbling, what dreaming of +dreams! The secret of the Three our electoral elders alone know: +some Abbot we shall have to govern us; but which Abbot, O which! +One Monk discerns in a vision of the night-watches, that we shall +get an Abbot of our own body, without needing to demur: a +prophet appeared to him clad all in white, and said, "Ye shall +have one of yours, and he will rage among you like a wolf, +_saeviet ut lupus."_ Verily!--then which of ours? Another Monk +now dreams: he has seen clearly which; a certain Figure taller +by head and shoulders than the other two, dressed in alb and +_pallium,_ and with the attitude of one about to fight;--which +tall Figure a wise Editor would rather not name at this stage of +the business! Enough that the vision is true: that Saint Edmund +himself, pale and awful, seemed to rise from his Shrine, with +naked feet, and say audibly, "He, _ille,_ shall veil my feet;" +which part of the vision also proves true. Such guessing, +visioning, dim perscrutation of the momentous future: the very +clothmakers, old women, all townsfolk speak of it, 'and more than +once it is reported in St. Edmundsbury, This one is elected; and +then, This one and That other.' Who knows? + + +But now, sure enough, at Waltham 'on the Second Sunday of +Quadragesima,' which Dryasdust declares to mean the 22d day of +February, year 1182, Thirteen St. Edmundsbury Monks are, at last, +seen processioning towards the Winchester Manorhouse; and in +some high Presence-chamber, and Hall of State, get access to +Henry II in all his glory. What a Hall,--not imaginary in the +least, but entirely real and indisputable, though so extremely +dim to us; sunk in the deep distances of Night! The Winchester +Manorhouse has fled bodily, like a Dream of the old Night; not +Dryasdust himself can skew a wreck of it. House and people, +royal and episcopal, lords and varlets, where are they? Why +_there,_ I say, Seven Centuries off; sunk so far in the Night, +there they _are;_ peep through the blankets of the old Night, +and thou wilt seel King Henry himself is visibly there, a vivid, +noble-looking man, with grizzled beard, in glittering uncertain +costume, with earls round him, and bishops and dignitaries, in +the like. The Hall is large, and has for one thing an altar near +it,--chapel and altar adjoining it; but what gilt seats, carved +tables, carpeting of rush-cloth, what arras-hangings, and a huge +fire of logs:--alas, it has Human Life in it; and is not that +the grand miracle, in what hangings or costume soever?-- + +The _Dominus Rex,_ benignantly receiving our Thirteen with their +obeisance, and graciously declaring that he will strive to act +for God's honour, and the Church's good, commands, 'by the Bishop +of Winchester and Geoffrey the Chancellor,'--_Galfrides +Cancellarius,_ Henry's and the Fair Rosamond's authentic Sons +present here!--commands, "That they, the said Thirteen, do now +withdraw, and fix upon Three from their own Monastery." A work +soon done; the Three hanging ready round Samson's neck, in that +leather pouch of his. Breaking the seal, we find the names,-- +what think _ye_ of it, ye higher dignitaries, thou indolent +Prior, thou Willelmus _Sacrista_ with the red bottle-nose?--the +names, in this order: of Samson _Subsacrista,_ of Roger the +distressed Cellarer, of Hugo _Tertius-Prior._ + +The higher dignitaries, all omitted here, 'flush suddenly red in +the face;' but have nothing to say. One curious fact and +question certainly is, How Hugo Third-Prior, who was of the +electoral committee, came to nominate _himself_ as one of the +Three? A curious fact, which Hugo Third-Prior has never yet +entirely explained; that I know of!--However, we return, and +report to the King our Three names; merely altering the order; +putting Samson last, as lowest of all. The King, at recitation +of our Three, asks us: "Who are they? Were they born in my +domain? Totally unknown to me! You must nominate three others." +Whereupon Willelmus Sacrista says, "Our Prior must be named, +_quia caput nostrum est,_ being already our head." And the Prior +responds, "Willelmus Sacrista is a fit man, _bonus vir est,"_-- +for all his red nose. Tickle me Toby, and I'll tickle thee! +Venerable Dennis too is named; none in his conscience can say +nay. There are now Six on our List. "Well," said the King, +"they have done it swiftly, they! _Deus est cum eis."_ The +Monks withdraw again; and Majesty revolves, for a little, with +his _Pares_ and _Episcopi,_ Lords or _'Law-wards'_* and Soul- +Overseers, the thoughts of the royal breast. The Monks wait +silent in an outer room. + +-------- +* or "Lawyers"--digital editor +-------- + + +In short while, they are next ordered, To add yet another three; +but not from their own Convent; from other Convents, "for the +honour of my kingdom." Here,--what is to be done here? We will +demur, if need be! We do name three, however, for the nonce: +the Prior of St. Faith's, a good Monk of St. Neot's, a good Monk +of St. Alban's; good men all; all made abbots and dignitaries +since, at this hour. There are now Nine upon our List. What the +thoughts of the Dominus Rex may be farther? The Dominus Rex, +thanking graciously, sends out word that we shall now strike off +three. The three strangers are instantly struck off. Willelmus +Sacrista adds, that he will of his own accord decline,--a touch +of grace and respect for the _Sacrosancta,_ even in Willelmus! +The King then orders us to strike off a couple more; then yet +one more: Hugo Third-Prior goes, and Roger _Cellerarius,_ and +venerable Monk Dennis;--and now there remain on our List two +only, Samson Subsacrista and the Prior. + +Which of these two? It were hard to say,--by Monks who may get +themselves foot-gyved and thrown into limbo, for speaking! We +humbly request that the Bishop of Winchester and Geoffrey the +Chancellor may again enter, and help us to decide. "Which do you +want?" asks the Bishop. Venerable Dennis made a speech, +'commending the persons of the Prior and Samson; but always in +the corner of his discourse, in _angulo sui sermonis,_ brought +Samson in.' "I see!" said the Bishop: "We are to understand +that your Prior is somewhat remiss; that you want to have him +you call Samson for Abbot." "Either of them is good," said +venerable Dennis, almost trembling; "but we would have the +better, if it pleased God." "Which of the two _do_ you want?" +inquires the Bishop pointedly. "Samson!" answered Dennis; +"Samson!" echoed all of the rest that durst speak or echo +anything: and Samson is reported to the King accordingly. His +Majesty, advising of it for a moment, orders that Samson be +brought in with the other Twelve. + +The King's Majesty, looking at us somewhat sternly, then says: +"You present to me Samson; I do not know him: had it been your +Prior, whom I do know, I should have accepted him: however, I +will now do as you wish. But have a care of yourselves. By the +true eyes of God, _per veros oculos Dei,_ if you manage badly, I +will be upon you!" Samson, therefore, steps forward, kisses the +King's feet; but swiftly rises erect again, swiftly turns +towards the altar, uplifting with the other Twelve, in clear +tenor-note, the Fifty-first Psalm, _'Miserere mei Deus,_ + + 'After thy loving-kindness, Lord, + Have mercy upon _me;'_ + +with firm voice, firm step and head, no change in his countenance +whatever. "By God's eyes," said the King, "that one, I think, +will govern the Abbey well." By the same oath (charged to your +Majesty's account), I too am precisely of that opinion! It is +some while since I fell in with a likelier man anywhere than this +new Abbot Samson. Long life to him, and may the Lord _have_ +mercy on him as Abbot! + + +Thus, then, have the St. Edmundsbury Monks, without express +ballot-box or other good winnowing-machine, contrived to +accomplish the most important social feat a body of men can do, +to winnow out the man that is to govern them: and truly one sees +not that, by any winnowing-machine whatever, they could have done +it better. O ye kind Heavens, there is in every Nation and +Community, a _fittest,_ a wisest, bravest, best; whom could we +find and make King over us, all were in very truth well;--the +best that God and Nature had permitted _us_ to make it! By what +art discover him? Will the Heavens in their pity teach us no +art; for our need of him is great! + +Ballot-boxes, Reform Bills, winnowing-machines: all these are +good, or are not so good;--alas, brethren, how _can_ these, I +say, be other than inadequate, be other than failures, melancholy +to behold? Dim all souls of men to the divine, the high and +awful meaning of Human Worth and Truth, we shall never, by all +the machinery in Birmingham, discover the True and Worthy. It is +written, 'if we are ourselves valets, there shall exist no hero +for us; we shall not know the hero when we see him;'--we +shall take the quack for a hero; and cry, audibly through +all ballot-boxes and machinery whatsoever, Thou art he; be +thou King over us! + +What boots it? Seek only deceitful Speciosity, godlike Reality +will be forever far from you. The Quack shall be legitimate +inevitable King of you; no earthly machinery able to exclude the +Quack. Ye shall be born thralls of the Quack, and suffer under +him, till you hearts are near broken, and no French Revolution or +Manchester Insurrection, or partial or universal volcanic +combustions and explosions; never so many, can do more than +'change the _figure_ of your Quack;' the essence of him +remaining, for a time and times.--"How long, O Prophet?" say +some, with a rather melancholy sneer. Alas, ye _un_prophetic, +ever till this come about: Till deep misery, if nothing softer +will, have driven you out of your Speciosites _into_ your +Sincerities; and you find there either is a Godlike in the +world, or else ye are an unintelligible madness; that there is a +God, as well as a Mammon and a Devil, and a Genius of Luxuries +and canting Dilettantisms and Vain Shows! How long that will be, +compute for yourselves. My unhappy brothers!-- + + + + +Chapter IX + +Abbot Samson + + +So then the bells of St. Edmundsbury clang out one and all, and +in church and chapel the organs go: Convent and Town, and all +the west side of Suffolk, are in gala; knights, viscounts, +weavers, spinners, the entire population, male and female, young +and old, the very sockmen with their chubby infants,--out to have +a holiday, and see the Lord Abbot arrive! And there is +'stripping barefoot' of the Lord Abbot at the Gate, and solemn +leading of him in to the High Altar and Shrine; with sudden +'silence of all the bells and organs,' as we kneel in deep prayer +there; and again with outburst of all the bells and organs, and +loud _Te Deum_ from the general human windpipe; and speeches by +the leading viscount, and giving of the kiss of brotherhood; the +whole wound up with popular games, and dinner within doors of +more than a thousand strong, _plus quam mille comedentibus in +gaudio magno._ + +In such manner is the selfsame Samson once again returning +to us, welcomed on _this_ occasion. He that went away with his +frock-skirts looped over his arm, comes back riding high; +suddenly made one of the dignitaries of this world. Reflective +readers will admit that here was a trial for a man. Yesterday a +poor mendicant, allowed to possess not above two shillings of +money, and without authority to bid a dog run for him, this man +today finds himself a _Dominus Abbas,_ mitred Peer of Parliament, +Lord of manorhouses, farms, manors, and wide lands; a man with +'Fifty Knights under him,' and dependent swiftly obedient +multitudes of men. It is a change greater than Napoleon's; so +sudden withal. As if one of the Chandos daydrudges had, on +awakening some morning, found that he overnight was become Duke! +Let Samson with his clear-beaming eyes see into that, and discern +it if he can. We shall now get the measure of him by a new scale +of inches, considerably more rigorous than the former was. For +if a noble soul is rendered tenfold beautifuller by victory and +prosperity, springing now radiant as into his own due element and +sunthrone; an ignoble one is rendered tenfold and hundredfold +uglier, pitifuller. Whatsoever vices, whatsoever weaknesses were +in the man, the parvenu will shew us them enlarged, as in the +solar microscope, into frightful distortion. Nay, how many mere +seminal principles of vice, hitherto all wholesomely kept latent, +may we now see unfolded, as in the solar hothouse, into growth, +into huge universally-conspicuous luxuriance and development! + + +But is not this, at any rate, a singular aspect of what political +and social capabilities, nay let us say what depth and opulence +of true social vitality, lay in those old barbarous ages, That +the fit Governor could be met with under such disguises, could be +recognised and laid hold of under such? Here he is discovered +with a maximum of two shillings in his pocket, and a leather +scrip round his neck; trudging along the highway, his frock- +skirts looped over his arm. They think this is he nevertheless, +the true Governor; and he proves to be so. Brethren, have we no +need of discovering true Governors, but will sham ones forever do +for us? These were absurd superstitious blockheads of Monks; +and we are enlightened Tenpound Franchisers, without taxes on +knowledge! Where, I say, are our superior, are our similar or at +all comparable discoveries? We also have eyes, or ought to have; +we have hustings, telescopes; we have lights, link-lights and +rushlights of an enlightened free Press, burning and dancing +everywhere, as in a universal torch-dance; singeing your +whiskers as you traverse the public thoroughfares in town and +country. Great souls, true Governors, go about under all manner +of disguises now as then. Such telescopes, such enlightenment,-- +and such discovery! How comes it, I say; how comes it? Is it +not lamentable; is it not even, in some sense, amazing? + +Alas, the defect, as we must often urge and again urge, is less a +defect of telescopes than of some eyesight. Those superstitious +blockheads of the Twelfth Century had no telescopes, but they had +still an eye: not ballot-boxes; only reverence for Worth, +abhorrence of Unworth. It is the way with all barbarians. Thus +Mr. Sale informs me, the old Arab Tribes would gather in +liveliest _gaudeamus,_ and sing, and kindle bonfires, and wreathe +crowns of honour, and solemnly thank the gods that, in their +Tribe too, a Poet had shewn himself. As indeed they well might; +for what usefuller, I say not nobler and heavenlier thing could +the gods, doing their very kindest, send to any Tribe or Nation, +in any time or circumstances? I declare to thee, my afflicted +quack-ridden brother, in spite of thy astonishment, it is very +lamentable! We English find a Poet, as brave a man as has been +made for a hundred years or so anywhere under the Sun; and do we +kindle bonfires, thank the gods? Not at all. We, taking due +counsel of it, set the man to gauge ale-barrels in the Burgh of +Dumfries; and pique ourselves on our 'patronage of genius.' + +Genius, Poet: do we know what these words mean? An inspired +Soul once more vouchsafed us, direct from Nature's own great +fire-heart, to see the Truth, and speak it, and do it; Nature's +own sacred voice heard once more athwart the dreary boundless +element of hearsaying and canting, of twaddle and poltroonery, in +which the bewildered Earth, nigh perishing, has _lost its way._ +Hear once more, ye bewildered benighted mortals; listen once +again to a voice from the inner Light-sea and Flame-sea, Nature's +and Truth's own heart; know the Fact of your Existence what it +is, put away the Cant of it which it is not; and knowing, do, +and let it be well with you!-- + +George the Third is Defender of something we call 'the Faith' in +those years; George the Third is head charioteer of the +Destinies of England, to guide them through the gulf of French +Revolutions, American Independences; and Robert Burns is Gauger +of ale in Dumfries. It is an Iliad in a nutshell. The +physiognomy of a world now verging towards dissolution, reduced +now to spasms and death-throes, lies pictured in that one fact,-- +which astonishes nobody, except at me for being astonished at it. +The fruit of long ages of confirmed Valethood, entirely confirmed +as into a Law of Nature; cloth-worship and quack-worship: +entirely _confirmed_ Valethood,--which will have to unconfirm +itself again; God knows, with difficulty enough!-- + +Abbot Samson had found a Convent all in dilapidation; rain +beating through it, material rain and metaphorical, from all +quarters of the compass. Willelmus Sacrista sits drinking +nightly, and doing mere _tacenda._ Our larders are reduced to +leanness, Jew Harpies and unclean creatures our purveyors; in +our basket is no bread. Old women with their distaffs rush out +on a distressed Cellarer in shrill Chartism. 'You cannot stir +abroad but Jews and Christians pounce upon you with unsettled +bonds;' debts boundless seemingly as the National Debt of +England. For four years our new Lord Abbot never went abroad but +Jew creditors and Christian, and all manner of creditors, were +about him; driving him to very despair. Our Prior is remiss; +our Cellarers, officials are remiss, our monks are remiss: what +man is not remiss? Front this, Samson, thou alone art there to +front it; it is thy task to front and fight this, and to die or +kill it. May the Lord have mercy on thee! + +To our antiquarian interest in poor Jocelin and his Convent, +where the whole aspect of existence, the whole dialect, of +thought, of speech, of activity, is so obsolete, strange, long- +vanished, there now superadds itself a mild glow of human +interest for Abbot Samson; a real pleasure, as at sight of man's +work, especially of governing, which is man's highest work, done +_well._ Abbot Samson had no experience in governing; had served +no apprenticeship to the trade of governing,--alas, only the +hardest apprenticeship to that of obeying. He had never in any +court given _vadium_ or _plegium,_ says Jocelin; hardly ever +seen a court, when he was set to preside in one. But it is +astonishing, continues Jocelin, how soon he learned the ways of +business; and, in all sort of affairs, became expert beyond +others. Of the many persons offering him their service 'he +retained one Knight skilled in taking _vadia_ and _plegia;'_ and +within the year was himself well skilled. Nay, by and by, the +Pope appoints him Justiciary in certain causes; the King one of +his new Circuit judges: official Osbert is heard saying, "That +Abbot is one of your shrewd ones, _disputator est;_ if he go on +as he begins, he will cut out every lawyer of us!" + +Why not? What is to hinder this Samson from governing? There is +in him what far transcends all apprenticeships; in the man +himself there exists a model of governing, something to govern +by! There exists in him a heart-abhorrence of whatever is +incoherent, pusillanimous, unveracious,--that is to say, chaotic, +_un_governed; of the Devil, not of God. A man of this kind +cannot help governing! He has the living ideal of a governor in +him; and the incessant necessity of struggling to unfold the +same out of him. Not the Devil or Chaos, for any wages, will he +serve; no, this man is the born servant of Another than them. +Alas, how little avail all apprenticeships, when there is in your +governor himself what we may well call _nothing_ to govern by: +nothing;--a general grey twilight, looming with shapes of +expediencies, parliamentary traditions, division-lists, election- +funds, leading-articles; this, with what of vulpine alertness +and adroitness soever, is not much! + +But indeed what say we, apprenticeship? Had not this Samson +served, in his way, a right good apprenticeship to governing; +namely, the harshest slave-apprenticeship to obeying! Walk this +world with no friend in it but God and St. Edmund, you will +either fall into the ditch, or learn a good many things. To +learn obeying is the fundamental art of governing. How much +would many a Serene Highness have learned, had he traveled +through the world with water-jug and empty wallet, _sine omni +expensa;_ and, at his victorious return, sat down not to +newspaper-paragraphs and city-illuminations, but at the foot of +St. Edmund's Shrine to shackles and bread and water! He that +cannot be servant of many, will never be master, true guide and +deliverer of many;--that is the meaning of true mastership. Had +not the Monk-life extraordinary 'political capabilities' in it; +if not imitable by us, yet enviable? Heavens, had a Duke of +Logwood, now rolling sumptuously to his place in the Collective +Wisdom, but himself happened to plough daily, at one time, on +seven-and-sixpence a week, with no out-door relief,--what a +light, unquenchable by logic and statistic and arithmetic, would +it have thrown on several things for him! + +In all cases, therefore, we will agree with the judicious Mrs. +Glass: 'First catch your hare!' First get your man; all is +got: he can learn to do all things, from making boots, to +decreeing judgments, governing communities; and will do them +like a man. Catch your no-man,--alas, have you not caught the +terriblest Tartar in the world! Perhaps all the terribler, the +quieter and gentler he looks. For the mischief that one +blockhead, that every blockhead does, in a world so feracious, +teeming with endless results as ours, no ciphering will sum up. +The quack bootmaker is considerable; as corn-cutters can +testify, and desperate men reduced to buckskin and list-shoes. +But the quack priest, quack high-priest, the quack king! Why do +not all just citizens rush, half-frantic, to stop him, as they +would a conflagration? Surely a just citizen _is_ admonished by +God and his own Soul, by all silent and articulate voices of this +Universe, to do what in _him_ lies towards relief of this poor +blockhead-quack, and of a world that groans under him. Runs +swiftly; relieve him,--were it even by extinguishing him! For +all things have grown so old, tinder-dry, combustible; and he is +more ruinous than conflagration. Sweep him _down,_ at least; +keep him strictly within the hearth: he will then cease to be +conflagration; he will then become useful, more or less, as +culinary fire. Fire is the best of servants; but what a master! +This poor blockhead too is born for uses: why, elevating him to +mastership, will you make a conflagration, a parish-curse or +world-curse of him? + + + + +Chapter X + +Government + + +How Abbot Samson, giving his new subjects seriatim the kiss of +fatherhood in the St. Edmundsbury chapterhouse, proceeded with +cautious energy to set about reforming their disjointed +distracted way of life; how he managed with his Fifty rough +_Milites_ (Feudal Knights), with his lazy Farmers, remiss +refractory Monks, with Pope's Legates, Viscounts, Bishops, Kings; +how on all sides he laid about him like a man, and putting +consequence on premiss, and everywhere the saddle on the right +horse, struggled incessantly to educe organic method out of +lazily fermenting wreck,--the careful reader will discern, not +without true interest, in these pages of Jocelin Boswell. In +most antiquarian quaint costume, not of garments alone, but of +thought, word, action, outlook and position, the substantial +figure of a man with eminent nose, bushy brows and clear-flashing +eyes, his russet beard growing daily greyer, is visible, engaged +in true governing of men. It is beautiful how the chrysalis +governing-soul, shaking off its dusty slough and prison, starts +forth winged, a true royal soul! Our new Abbot has a right +honest unconscious feeling, without insolence as without fear or +flutter, of what he is and what others are. A courage to quell +the proudest, an honest pity to encourage the humblest. Withal +there is a noble reticence in this Lord Abbot: much vain +unreason he hears; lays up without response. He is not there to +expect reason and nobleness of others; he is there to give them +of his own reason and nobleness. Is he not their servant, as we +said, who can suffer from them, and for them; bear the burden +their poor spindle-limbs totter and stagger under; and in virtue +_thereof_ govern them, lead them out of weakness into strength, +out of defeat into victory! + + +One of the first Herculean Labours Abbot Samson undertook, or the +very first, was to institute a strenuous review and radical +reform of his economics. It is the first labour of every +governing man, from _Paterfamilias_ to _Dominus Rex._ To get the +rain thatched out from you is the preliminary of whatever +farther, in the way of speculation or of action, you may mean to +do. Old Abbot Hugo's budget, as we saw, had become empty, filled +with deficit and wind. To see his account-books clear, be +delivered from those ravening flights of Jew and Christian +creditors, pouncing on him like obscene harpies wherever he +shewed face, was a necessity for Abbot Samson. + +On the morrow after his instalment, he brings in a load of money- +bonds, all duly stamped, sealed with this or the other Convent +Seal: frightful, unmanageable, a bottomless confusion of Convent +finance. There they are;--but there at least they all are; all +that shall be of them. Our Lord Abbot demands that all the +official seals in use among us be now produced and delivered to +him. Three-and-thirty seals turn up; are straightway broken, +and shall seal no more: the Abbot only, and those duly +authorised by him shall seal any bond. There are but two ways of +paying debt: increase of industry in raising income, increase of +thrift in laying it out. With iron energy, in slow but steady +undeviating perseverance, Abbot Samson sets to work in both +directions. His troubles are manifold: cunning _milites,_ +unjust bailiffs, lazy sockmen, he an inexperienced Abbot; +relaxed lazy monks, not disinclined to mutiny in mass: but +continued vigilance, rigorous method, what we call 'the eye of +the master,' work wonders. The clear-beaming eyesight of Abbot +Samson, steadfast, severe, all-penetrating,--it is like _Fiat +luxe_ in that inorganic waste whirlpool; penetrates gradually to +all nooks, and of the chaos makes a _kosmos_ or ordered world! + +He arranges everywhere, struggles unweariedly to arrange, and +place on some intelligible footing, the 'affairs and dues, +_res ac redditus,'_ of his dominion. The Lakenheath eels +cease to breed squabbles between human beings; the penny of +_reap-silver_ to explode into the streets the Female Chartism of +St. Edmundsbury. These and innumerable greater things. +Wheresoever Disorder may stand or lie, let it have a care; here +is the man that has declared war with it, that never will make +peace with it. Man is the Missionary of Order; he is the +servant not of the Devil and Chaos, but of God and the Universe! +Let all sluggards and cowards, remiss, false-spoken, unjust, and +otherwise diabolic persons have a care: this is a dangerous man +for them. He has a mild grave face; a thoughtful sternness, a +sorrowful pity: but there is a terrible flash of anger in him +too; lazy monks often have to murmur, _"Saevit ut lupus,_ He +rages like a wolf; was not our Dream true!" "To repress and +hold-in such sudden anger he was continually careful," and +succeeded well:--right, Samson; that it may become in thee as +noble central heat, fruitful, strong, beneficent; not blaze out, +or the seldomest possible blaze out, as wasteful volcanoism to +scorch and consume! + + +"We must first creep, and gradually learn to walk," had Abbot +Samson said of himself, at starting. In four years he has become +a great walker; striding prosperously along; driving much +before him. In less than four years, says Jocelin, the Convent +Debts were all liquidated: the harpy Jews not only settled +with, but banished, bag and baggage, out of the _Bannaleuca_ +(Liberties, _Banlieue_) of St. Edmundsbury,--so has the King's +Majesty been persuaded to permit. Farewell to _you,_ at any +rate; let us, in no extremity, apply again to you! Armed men +march them over the borders, dismiss them under stern penalties, +--sentence of excommunication on all that shall again harbour them +here: there were many dry eyes at their departure. + +New life enters everywhere, springs up beneficent, the Incubus of +Debt once rolled away. Samson hastes not; but neither does he +pause to rest. This of the Finance is a life-long business with +him;--Jocelin's anecdotes are filled to weariness with it. As +indeed to Jocelin it was of very primary interest. + +But we have to record also, with a lively satisfaction, that +spiritual rubbish is as little tolerated in Samson's Monastery as +material. With due rigour, Willelmus Sacrista, and his bibations +and _tacenda_ are, at the earliest opportunity, softly, yet +irrevocably put an end to. The bibations, namely, had to end; +even the building where they used to be carried on was razed from +the soil of St. Edmundsbury, and 'on its place grow rows of +beams:' Willelmus himself, deposed from the Sacristry and all +offices, retires into obscurity, into absolute taciturnity +unbroken thenceforth to this hour. Whether the poor Willelmus +did not still, by secret channels, occasionally get some slight +wetting of vinous or alcoholic liquor,--now grown, in a manner, +indispensable to the poor man? Jocelin hints not; one knows not +how to hope, what to hope! But if he did, it was in silence and +darkness; with an ever-present feeling that teetotalism was his +only true course. + +Drunken dissolute Monks are a class of persons who had better +keep out of Abbot Samson's way. _Saevit ut lupus;_ was not the +Dream true! murmured many a Monk. Nay Ranulf de Glanville, +Justiciary in Chief, took umbrage at him, seeing these strict +ways; and watched farther with suspicion: but discerned +gradually that there was nothing wrong, that there was much the +opposite of wrong. + + + + +Chapter XI + +The Abbot's Ways + + +Abbot Samson shewed no extraordinary favour to the Monks who had +been his familiars of old; did not promote them to offices,-- +_nisi essent idonei,_ unless they chanced to be fit men! Whence +great discontent among certain of these, who had contributed to +make him Abbot: reproaches, open and secret, of his being +'ungrateful, hard-tempered, unsocial, a Norfolk _barrator_ +and _paltenerius.'_ + +Indeed, except it were for _idonei,_ 'fit men,' in all kinds, it +was hard to say for whom Abbot Samson had much favour. He loved +his kindred well, and tenderly enough acknowledged the poor part +of them; with the rich part, who in old days had never +acknowledged him, he totally refused to have any business. But +even the former he did not promote into offices; finding none of +them _idonei._ 'Some whom he thought suitable he put into +situations in his own household, or made keepers of his country +places: if they behaved ill, he dismissed them without hope of +return. In his promotions, nay almost in his benefits, you would +have said there was a certain impartiality. 'The official person +who had, by Abbot Hugo's order, put the fetters on him at his +return from Italy, was now supported with food and clothes to the +end of his days at Abbot Samson's expense.' + +Yet he did not forget benefits; far the reverse, when an +opportunity occurred of paying them at his own cost. How pay +them at the public cost;--how, above all, by _setting fire_ to +the public, as we said; clapping 'conflagrations' on the public, +which the services of blockheads, _non-idonei,_ intrinsically +are! He was right willing to remember friends, when it could be +done. Take these instances: 'A certain chaplain who had +maintained him at the Schools of Paris by the sale of holy water, +_quaestu aquae benedictae;_--to this good chaplain he did give a +vicarage, adequate to the comfortable sustenance of him. 'The +Son of Elias, too, that is, of old Abbot Hugo's Cupbearer, coming +to do homage for his Father's land, our Lord Abbot said to him in +full court: "I have, for these seven years, put off taking thy +homage for the land which Abbot Hugo gave thy Father, because +that gift was to the damage of Elmswell, and a questionable one: +but now I must profess myself overcome; mindful of the kindness +thy Father did me when I was in bonds; because he sent me a cup +of the very wine his master had been drinking, and bade me be +comforted in God."' + +'To Magister Walter, son of Magister William de Dice, who wanted +the vicarage of Chevington, he answered: "Thy Father was Master +of the Schools; and when I was an indigent _clericus,_ he +granted me freely and in charity an entrance to his School, and +opportunity of learning; wherefore I now, for the sake of God, +grant to thee what thou askest."' Or lastly, take this good +instance,--and a glimpse, along with it, into long-obsolete +times: 'Two _Milites_ of Risby, Willelm and Norman, being +adjudged in Court to come under his mercy, _in misericordia +ejus,'_ for a certain very considerable fine of twenty shillings, +'he thus addressed them publicly on the spot: "When I was a +Cloister-monk, I was once sent to Durham on business of our +Church; and coming home again, the dark night caught me at +Risby, and I had to beg a lodging there. I went to Dominus +Norman's, and he gave me a flat refusal. Going then to Dominus +Willelm's, and begging hospitality, I was by him honourably +received. The twenty shillings therefore of _mercy,_ I, without +mercy, will exact from Dominus Norman; to Dominus Willelm, on +the other hand, I, with thanks, will wholly remit the said sum."' +Men know not always to whom they refuse lodgings; men have +lodged Angels unawares!-- + + +It is clear Abbot Samson had a talent; he had learned to judge +better than Lawyers, to manage better than bred Bailiffs:--a +talent shining out indisputable, on whatever side you took him. +'An eloquent man he was,' says Jocelin, 'both in French and +Latin; but intent more on the substance and method of what was +to be said, than on the ornamental way of saying it. He could +read English Manuscripts very elegantly, _elegantissime:_ he was +wont to preach to the people in the English tongue, though +according to the dialect of Norfolk, where he had been brought +up; wherefore indeed he had caused a Pulpit to be erected in our +Church both for ornament of the same, and for the use of his +audiences.' There preached he, according to the dialect of +Norfolk: a man worth going to hear. + +That he was a just clear-hearted man, this, as the basis of all +true talent, is presupposed. How can a man, without clear vision +in his heart first of all, have any clear vision in the head? It +is impossible! Abbot Samson was one of the justest of judges; +insisted on understanding the case to the bottom, and then +swiftly decided without feud or favour. For which reason, +indeed, the Dominus Rex, searching for such men, as for hidden +treasure and healing to his distressed realm, had made him one of +the new Itinerant judges,--such as continue to this day. "My +curse on that Abbot's court," a suitor was heard imprecating, +_"Maledicta sit curia istius Abbatis,_ where neither gold nor +silver can help me to confound my enemy!" And old friendships +and all connexions forgotten, when you go to seek an office from +him! "A kinless loon," as the Scotch said of Cromwell's new +judges,--intent on mere indifferent fair-play! + +Eloquence in three languages is good; but it is not the best. +To us, as already hinted, the Lord Abbot's eloquence is less +admirable than his ineloquence, his great invaluable 'talent of +silence!' _'"Deus, Deus,"_ said the Lord Abbot to me once, when +he heard the Convent were murmuring at some act of his, "I have +much need to remember that Dream they had of me, that I was to +rage among them like a wolf. Above all earthly things I dread +their driving me to do it. How much do I hold in, and wink at; +raging and shuddering in my own secret mind, and not outwardly at +all!" He would boast to me at other times: "This and that I +have seen, this and that I have heard; yet patiently stood it." +He had this way, too, which I have never seen in any other man, +that he affectionately loved many persons to whom he never or +hardly ever shewed a countenance of love. Once on my venturing +to expostulate with him on the subject, he reminded me of +Solomon: "Many sons I have; it is not fit that I should smile +on them." He would suffer faults, damage from his servants, and +know what he suffered, and not speak of it; but I think the +reason was, he waited a good time for speaking of it, and in a +wise way amending it. He intimated, openly in chapter to us all, +that he would have no eavesdropping: "Let none," said he, "come +to me secretly accusing another, unless he will publicly stand to +the same; if he come otherwise, I will openly proclaim the name +of him. I wish, too, that every Monk of you have free access to +me, to speak of your needs or grievances when you will."' + +The kinds of people Abbot Samson liked worst were these three: +_`Mendaces, ebriosi, verbosi,_ Liars, drunkards, and wordy or +windy persons;'--not good kinds, any of them! He also much +condemned 'persons given to murmur at their meat or drink, +especially Monks of that disposition. We remark, from the very +first, his strict anxious order to his servants to provide +handsomely for hospitality, to guard 'above all things that there +be no shabbiness in the matter of meat and drink; no look of +mean parsimony, in _novitate mea,_ at the beginning of my +Abbotship;' and to the last he maintains a due opulence of table +and equipment for others: but he is himself in the highest +degree indifferent to all such things. + +'Sweet milk, honey, and other naturally sweet kinds of food, were +what he preferred to eat: but he had this virtue,' says Jocelin, +'he never changed the dish (_ferculum_) you set before him, be +what it might. Once when I, still a novice, happened to be +waiting table in the refectory, it came into my head' (rogue that +I was!) `to try if this were true; and I thought I would place +before him a _ferculum_ that would have displeased any other +person, the very platter being black and broken. But he, seeing +it, was as one that saw it not: and now some little delay taking +place, my heart smote me that I had done this; and so, snatching +up the platter (_discus_), I changed both it and its contents for +a better, and put down that instead; which emendation he was +angry at, and rebuked me for,'--the stoical monastic man! 'For +the first seven years he had commonly four sorts of dishes on his +table; afterwards only three, except it might be presents, or +venison from his own parks, or fishes from his ponds. And if, at +any time, he had guests living in his house at the request of +some great person, or of some friend, or had public messengers, +or had harpers (_citharoedos_), or any one of that sort, he took +the first opportunity of shifting to another of his Manor-houses, +and so got rid of such superfluous individuals,'--very prudently, +I think. + +As to his parks, of these, in the general repair of buildings, +general improvement and adornment of the St. Edmund Domains, 'he +had laid out several, and stocked them with animals, retaining a +proper huntsman with hounds: and, if any guest of great quality +were there, our Lord Abbot with his Monks would sit in some +opening of the woods, and see the dogs run; but he himself never +meddled with hunting, that I saw.' + + +'In an opening of the woods;'--for the country was still dark +with wood in those days; and Scotland itself still rustled +shaggy and leafy, like a damp black American Forest, with cleared +spots and spaces here and there. Dryasdust advances several +absurd hypotheses as to the insensible but almost total +disappearance of these woods; the thick wreck of which now lies +as peat, sometimes with huge heart-of-oak timber logs imbedded in +it, on many a height and hollow. The simplest reason doubtless +is, that by increase of husbandry, there was increase of cattle; +increase of hunger for green spring food; and so, more and more, +the new seedlings got yearly eaten out in April; and the old +trees, having only a certain length of life in them, died +gradually, no man heeding it, and disappeared into _peat._ + +A sorrowful waste of noble wood and umbrage! Yes,--but a +very common one; the course of most things in this world. +Monachism itself, so rich and fruitful once, is now all rotted +into peat; lies sleek and buried,--and a most feeble bog-grass +of Dilettantism all the crop we reap from it! That also was +frightful waste; perhaps among the saddest our England ever saw. +Why will men destroy noble Forests, even when in part a nuisance, +in such reckless manner; turning loose four-footed cattle and +Henry-the-Eighths into them! The fifth part of our English soil, +Dryasdust computes, lay consecrated to 'spiritual uses,' better +or worse; solemnly set apart to foster spiritual growth and +culture of the soul, by the methods then known: and now-- +it too, like the four-fifths, fosters what? Gentle shepherd, +tell me what! + + + + +Chapter XII + +The Abbot's Troubles + + +The troubles of Abbot Samson, as he went along in this +abstemious, reticent, rigorous way, were more than tongue can +tell. The Abbot's mitre once set on his head, he knew rest no +more. Double, double, toil and trouble; that is the life of all +governors that really govern: not the spoil of victory, only the +glorious toil of battle can be theirs. Abbot Samson found all +men more or less headstrong, irrational, prone to disorder; +continually threatening to prove ungovernable. + +His lazy Monks gave him most trouble. 'My heart is tortured,' +said he, 'till we get out of debt, _cor meum cruciatum est.'_ +Your heart, indeed;--but not altogether ours! By no devisable +method, or none of three or four that he devised, could Abbot +Samson get these Monks of his to keep their accounts straight; +but always, do as he might, the Cellerarius at the end of the +term is in a coil, in a flat deficit,--verging again towards debt +and Jews. The Lord Abbot at last declares sternly he will keep +our accounts too himself; will appoint an officer of his own to +see our Cellerarius keep them. Murmurs thereupon among us: Was +the like ever heard? Our Cellerarius a cipher; the very +Townsfolk know it: _subsannatio et derisio sumus,_ we have +become a laughingstock to mankind. The Norfolk barrator +and paltener! + +And consider, if the Abbot found such difficulty in the mere +economic department, how much in more complex ones, in spiritual +ones perhaps! He wears a stern calm face; raging and gnashing +teeth, _fremens_ and _frendens,_ many times, in the secret of his +mind. Withal, however, there is noble slow perseverance in him; +a strength of 'subdued rage' calculated to subdue most things: +always, in the long-run, he contrives to gain his point. + + +Murmurs from the Monks, meanwhile, cannot fail; ever deeper +murmurs, new grudges accumulating. At one time, on slight cause, +some drop making the cup run over, they burst into open mutiny: +the Cellarer will not obey, prefers arrest on bread and water to +obeying; the Monks thereupon strike work; refuse to do the +regular chanting of the day, at least the younger part of them +with loud clamour and uproar refuse:--Abbot Samson has withdrawn +to another residence, acting only by messengers: the awful +report circulates through St. Edmundsbury that the Abbot is in +danger of being murdered by the Monks with their knives! How +wilt thou appease this, Abbot Samson? Return; for the Monastery +seems near catching fire! + +Abbot Samson returns; sits in his _Thalamus_ or inner room, +hurls out a bolt or two of excommunication: lo, one disobedient +Monk sits in limbo, excommunicated, with foot-shackles on him, +all day; and three more our Abbot has gyved 'with the lesser +sentence, to strike fear into the others!' Let the others think +with whom they have to do. The others think; and fear enters +into them. 'On the morrow morning we decide on humbling +ourselves before the Abbot, by word and gesture, in order to +mitigate his mind. And so accordingly was done. He, on the +other side, replying with much humility, yet always alleging his +own justice and turning the blame on us, when he saw that we were +conquered, became himself conquered. And bursting into tears, +_perfusus lachrymis,_ he swore that he had never grieved so much +for anything in the world as for this, first on his own account, +and then secondly and chiefly for the public scandal which had +gone abroad, that St. Edmund's Monks were going to kill their +Abbot. And when he had narrated how he went away on purpose till +his anger should cool, repeating this word of the philosopher, "I +would have taken vengeance on thee, had not I been angry," he +arose weeping, and embraced each and all of us with the kiss of +peace. He wept; we all wept:'--what a picture! Behave better, +ye remiss Monks, and thank Heaven for such an Abbot; or know at +least that ye must and shall obey him. + + +Worn down in this manner, with incessant toil and tribulation, +Abbot Samson had a sore time of it; his grizzled hair and beard +grew daily greyer. Those Jews, in the first four years, had +'visibly emaciated him:' Time, Jews, and the task of Governing, +will make a man's beard very grey! 'In twelve years,' says +Jocelin, 'our Lord Abbot had grown wholly white as snow, _totus +efficitur albus sicut nix.'_ White, atop, like the granite +mountains:--but his clear-beaming eyes still look out, in their +stern clearness, in their sorrow and pity; the heart within him +remains unconquered. + +Nay sometimes there are gleams of hilarity too; little snatches +of encouragement granted even to a Governor. 'Once my Lord Abbot +and I, coming down from London through the Forest, I inquired of +an old woman whom we came up to, Whose wood this was, and of what +manor; who the master, who the keeper?'--All this I knew very +well beforehand, and my Lord Abbot too, Bozzy that I was! But +'the old woman answered, The wood belonged to the new Abbot of +St. Edmund's, was of the manor of Harlow, and the keeper of it +was one Arnald. How did he behave to the people of the manor? I +asked farther. She answered that he used to be a devil +incarnate, _daemon vivus_, an enemy of God, and flayer of the +peasants' skins,'--skinning them like live eels, as the manner of +some is: but that now he dreads the new Abbot, knowing him to be +a wise and sharp man, and so treats the people reasonably, +_tractat homines pacifice.'_ Whereat the Lord Abbot _factus est +hilaris,_--could not but take a triumphant laugh for himself; +and determines to leave that Harlow manor yet unmeddled with, for +a while. + +A brave man, strenuously fighting, fails not of a little triumph, +now and then, to keep him in heart. Everywhere we try at least +to give the adversary as good as he brings; and, with swift +force or slow watchful manoeuvre, extinguish this and the other +solecism, leave one solecism less in God's Creation; and so +_proceed_ with our battle, not slacken or surrender in it! The +Fifty feudal Knights; for example, were of unjust greedy temper, +and cheated us, in the Installation-day, of ten knights'-fees;-- +but they know now whether that has profited them aught, and I +Jocelin know. Our Lord Abbot for the moment had to endure it, +and say nothing; but he watched his time. + +Look also how my Lord of Clare, coming to claim his undue 'debt' +in the Court at Witham, with barons and apparatus, gets a Rowland +for his Oliver! Jocelin shall report: 'The Earl, crowded round +(_constipatus_) with many barons and men at arms, Earl Alberic +and others standing by him, said, "That his bailiffs had given +him to understand they were wont annually to receive for his +behoof, from the Hundred of Risebridge and the bailiffs thereof, +a sum of five shillings, which sum was now unjustly held back;" +and he alleged farther that his predecessors had been infeft, at +the Conquest, in the lands of Alfric son of Wisgar, who was Lord +of that Hundred, as may be read in Domesday Book by all persons. +--The Abbot, reflecting for a moment, without stirring from his +place, made answer: "A wonderful deficit, my Lord Earl, this +that thou mentionest! King Edward gave to St. Edmund that entire +Hundred, and confirmed the same with his Charter; nor is there +any mention there of those five shillings. It will behove thee +to say, for what service, or on what ground, thou exactest those +five shillings." Whereupon the Earl, consulting with his +followers, replied, That he had to carry the Banner of St. Edmund +in war-time, and for this duty the five shillings were his. To +which the Abbot: "Certainly, it seems inglorious, if so great a +man, Earl of Clare no less, receive so small a gift for such a +service. To the Abbot of St. Edmund's it is no unbearable burden +to give five shillings. But Roger Earl Bigot holds himself duly +seised, and asserts that he by such seisin has the office of +carrying St. Edmund's Banner; and he did carry it when the Earl +of Leicester and his Flemings were beaten at Fornham. Then again +Thomas de Mendham says that the right is his. When you have made +out with one another, that this right is thine, come then and +claim the five shillings, and I will promptly pay them!" +Whereupon the Earl said, He would speak with Earl Roger his +relative; and so the matter _cepit dilationem,'_ and lies +undecided to the end of the world. Abbot Samson answers by word +or act, in this or the like pregnant manner, having justice on +his side, innumerable persons: Pope's Legates, King's Viscounts, +Canterbury Archbishops, Cellarers, _Sochemanni;_--and leaves many +a solecism extinguished. + +On the whole, however, it is and remains sore work. 'One time, +during my chaplaincy, I ventured to say to him: _"Domane,_ I +heard thee, this night after matins, wakeful, and sighing deeply, +_valde suspirantem,_ contrary to thy usual wont." He answered: +"No wonder. Thou, son Jocelin, sharest in my good things, in +food and drink, in riding and such like; but thou little +thinkest concerning the management of House and Family, the +various and arduous businesses of the Pastoral Care, which harass +me, and make my soul to sigh and be anxious." Whereto I, lifting +up my hands to Heaven: "From such anxiety, Omnipotent Merciful +Lord deliver me!"--I have heard the Abbot say, If he had been as +he was before he became a Monk, and could have anywhere got five +or six mares of income,' some three pound ten of yearly revenue, +'whereby to support himself in the schools, he would never have +been Monk nor Abbot. Another time he said with an oath, If he +had known what a business it was to govern the Abbey, he would +rather have been Almoner, how much rather Keeper of the Books, +than Abbot and Lord. That latter office he said he had always +longed for, beyond any other. _Quis talia crederet,'_ concludes +Jocelin, 'Who can believe such things?' + +Three pound ten, and a life of Literature, especially of quiet +Literature, without copyright, or world-celebrity of literary- +gazettes,--yes, thou brave Abbot Samson, for thyself it had been +better, easier, perhaps also nobler! But then, for thy +disobedient Monks, unjust Viscounts; for a Domain of St. Edmund +overgrown with Solecisms, human and other, it had not been so +well. Nay neither could _thy_ Literature, never so quiet, have +been easy. Literature, when noble, is not easy; but only when +ignoble. Literature too is a quarrel, and internecine duel, with +the whole World of Darkness that lies without one and within +one;--rather a hard fight at times, even with the three pound ten +secure. Thou, there where thou art, wrestle and duel along, +cheerfully to the end; and make no remarks! + + + + +Chapter XIII + +In Parliament + + +Of Abbot Samson's public business we say little, though that also +was great. He had to judge the people as justice Errant, to +decide in weighty arbitrations and public controversies; to +equip his _milites,_ send them duly in war-time to the King;-- +strive every way that the Commonweal, in his quarter of it, take +no damage. + +Once, in the confused days of Lackland's usurpation, while Coeur- +de-Lion was away, our brave Abbot took helmet himself, having +first excommunicated all that should favour Lackland; and led +his men in person to the siege of _Windleshora_, what we now call +Windsor; where Lackland had entrenched himself, the centre of +infinite confusions; some Reform Bill, then as now, being +greatly needed. There did Abbot Samson 'fight the battle of +reform,'--with other ammunition, one hopes, than 'tremendous +cheering' and such like! For these things he was called 'the +magnanimous Abbot' + +He also attended duly in his place in Parliament _de arduis +regni;_ attended especially, as in _arduissimo,_ when 'the news +reached London that King Richard was a captive in Germany.' Here +'while all the barons sat to consult,' and many of them looked +blank enough, 'the Abbot started forth, _prosiliit coram +omnibus,_ in his place in Parliament, and said, That _he_ was +ready to go and seek his Lord the King, either clandestinely by +subterfuge (_in tapinagio_), or by any other method; and search +till he found him, and got certain notice of him; he for one! +By which word,' says Jocelin, 'he acquired great praise for +himself,'--unfeigned commendation from the Able Editors of +that age. + +By which word;--and also by which _deed:_ for the Abbot actually +went 'with rich gifts to the King in Germany;' Usurper Lackland +being first rooted out from Windsor, and the King's peace +somewhat settled. + +As to these 'rich gifts,' however, we have to note one thing: In +all England, as appeared to the Collective Wisdom, there was not +like to be treasure enough for ransoming King Richard; in which +extremity certain Lords of the Treasury, _Justiciarii ad +Scaccarium,_ suggested that St. Edmund's Shrine, covered with +thick gold, was still untouched. Could not it, in this +extremity, be peeled off, at least in part; under condition, of +course, of its being replaced, when times mended? The Abbot, +starting plumb up, _se erigens,_ answered: "Know ye for certain, +that I will in no wise do this thing; nor is there any man who +could force me to consent thereto. But I will open the doors of +the Church: Let him that likes enter; let him that dares come +forward!" Emphatic words, which created a sensation round the +woolsack. For the Justiciaries of the _Scaccarium_ answered, +'with oaths, each for himself: "I won't come forward, for my +share; nor will I, nor I! The distant and absent who offended +him, Saint Edmund has been known to punish fearfully; much more +will he those close by, who lay violent hands on his coat, and +would strip it off!" These things being said, the Shrine was not +meddled with, nor any ransom levied for it. + +For Lords of the Treasury have in all times their impassable +limits, be it by 'force of public opinion' or otherwise; and in +those days a Heavenly Awe overshadowed and encompassed, as it +still ought and must, all earthly Business whatsoever. + + + + +Chapter XIV + +Henry of Essex + + +Of St. Edmund's fearful avengements have they not the +remarkablest instance still before their eyes? He that will go +to Reading Monastery may find there, now tonsured into a mournful +penitent Monk, the once proud Henry Earl of Essex; and discern +how St. Edmund punishes terribly, yet with mercy! This Narrative +is too significant to be omitted as a document of the Time. Our +Lord Abbot, once on a visit at Reading, heard the particulars +from Henry's own mouth; and thereupon charged one of his monks +to write it down;--as accordingly the Monk has done, in ambitious +rhetorical Latin; inserting the same, as episode, among +Jocelin's garrulous leaves. Read it here; with ancient yet with +modern eyes. + + +Henry Earl of Essex, standard-bearer of England, had high places +and emoluments; had a haughty high soul, yet with various flaws, +or rather with one many-branched flaw and crack, running through +the texture of it. For example, did he not treat Gilbert de +Cereville in the most shocking manner? He cast Gilbert into +prison; and, with chains and slow torments, wore the life out of +him there. And Gilbert's crime was understood to be only that of +innocent Joseph: the Lady Essex was a Potiphar's Wife, and had +accused poor Gilbert! Other cracks, and branches of that +widespread flaw in the Standard-bearer's soul we could point out: +but indeed the main stem and trunk of all is too visible in this, +That he had no right reverence for the Heavenly in Man,--that far +from shewing due reverence to St. Edmund, he did not even shew +him common justice. While others in the Eastern Counties were +adorning and enlarging with rich gifts St. Edmund's resting- +place, which had become a city of refuge for many things, this +Earl of Essex flatly defrauded him, by violence or quirk of law, +of five shillings yearly, and converted said sum to his own poor +uses! Nay, in another case of litigation, the unjust Standard +bearer, for his own profit, asserting that the cause belonged not +to St. Edmund's Court, but to _his_ in Lailand Hundred, 'involved +us in travelings and innumerable expenses, vexing the servants of +St. Edmund for a long tract of time: In short, he is without +reverence for the Heavenly, this Standard-bearer; reveres only +the Earthly, Gold-coined; and has a most morbid lamentable flaw +in the texture of him. It cannot come to, good. + +Accordingly, the same flaw, or St.-Vitus' _tic,_ manifests itself +ere long in another way. In the year 1157, he went with his +Standard to attend King Henry, our blessed Sovereign (whom _we_ +saw afterwards at Waltham), in his War with the Welsh. A +somewhat disastrous War; in which while King Henry and his force +were struggling to retreat Parthian-like, endless clouds of +exasperated Welshmen hemming them in, and now we had come to the +'difficult pass of Coleshill,' and as it were to the nick of +destruction,--Henry Earl of Essex shrieks out on a sudden +(blinded doubtless by his inner flaw, or 'evil genius' as some +name it), That King Henry is killed, That all is lost,--and +flings down his Standard to shift for itself there! And, +certainly enough, all _had_ been lost, had all men been as he;-- +had not brave men, without such miserable jerking _tic- +douloureux_ in the souls of them, come dashing up, with blazing +swords and looks, and asserted That nothing was lost yet, that +all must be regained yet. In this manner King Henry and his +force got safely retreated, Parthian-like, from the pass of +Coleshill and the Welsh War.* But, once home again, Earl Robert +de Montfort, a kinsman of this Standard-bearer's, rises up in the +King's Assembly to declare openly that such a man is unfit for +bearing English Standards, being in fact either a special +traitor, or something almost worse, a coward namely, or universal +traitor. Wager of Battle in consequence; solemn Duel, by the +King's appointment, 'in a certain Island of the Thames-stream at +Reading, _apud Radingas,_ short way from the Abbey there. King, +Peers, and an immense multitude of people, on such scaffoldings +and heights as they can come at, are gathered round, to see what +issue the business will take. The business takes this bad issue, +in our Monk's own words faithfully rendered: + +---------- +*See Lyttelton's _Henry II.,_ ii: 384. +---------- + +'And it came to pass, while Robert de Montfort thundered on him +manfully (_viriliter intonasset_) with hard and frequent strokes, +and a valiant beginning promised the fruit of victory, Henry of +Essex, rather giving way, glanced round on all sides; and lo, at +the rim of the horizon, on the confines of the River and land, he +discerned the glorious King and Martyr Edmund, in shining armour, +and as if hovering in the air; looking towards him with severe +countenance, nodding his head with a mien and motion of austere +anger. At St. Edmund's hand there stood also another Knight, +Gilbert de Cereville, whose armour was not so splendid, whose +stature was less gigantic; casting vengeful looks at him. This +he seeing with his eyes, remembered that old crime brings new +shame. And now wholly desperate, and changing reason into +violence, he took the part of one blindly attacking, not +skillfully defending. Who while he struck fiercely was more +fiercely struck; and so, in short, fell down vanquished, and it +was thought, slain. As he lay there for dead, his kinsmen, +Magnates of England, besought the King, that the Monks of Reading +might have leave to bury him. However, he proved not to be dead, +but got well again among them; and now, with recovered health, +assuming the Regular Habit, he strove to wipe out the stain of +his former life, to cleanse the long week of his dissolute +history by at least a purifying sabbath, and cultivate the +studies of Virtue into fruits of eternal Felicity: + + +Thus does the Conscience of man project itself athwart whatsoever +of knowledge or surmise, of imagination, understanding, faculty, +acquirement, or natural disposition he has in him; and, like +light through coloured glass, paint strange pictures 'on the rim +of the horizon' and elsewhere! Truly, this same 'sense of the +Infinite nature of Duty' is the central part of all with us; a +ray as of Eternity and Immortality, immured in dusky many- +coloured Time, and its deaths and births. Your 'coloured glass' +varies so much from century to century;--and, in certain money- +making, game-preserving centuries, it gets so terribly opaque! +Not a Heaven with cherubim surrounds you then, but a kind of +vacant leaden-coloured Hell. One day it will again cease to be +opaque, this 'coloured glass.' Nay, may it not become at once +translucent and uncoloured? Painting no Pictures more for us, +but only the everlasting Azure itself? That will be a right +glorious consummation!-- + +Saint Edmund from the horizon's edge, in shining armour, +threatening the misdoer in his hour of extreme need: it is +beautiful, it is great and true. So old, yet so modern, actual; +true yet for every one of us, as for Henry the Earl and Monk! A +glimpse as of the Deepest in Man's Destiny, which is the same for +all times and ages. Yes, Henry my brother, there in thy extreme +need, thy soul _is lamed;_ and behold thou canst not so much as +fight! For justice and Reverence _are_ the everlasting central +Law of this Universe; and to forget them, and have all the +Universe against one, God and one's own Self for enemies, and +only the Devil and the Dragons for friends, is not that a +'lameness' like few? That some shining armed St. Edmund hang +minatory on thy horizon, that infinite sulphur-lakes hang +minatory, or do not now hang,--this alters no whit the eternal +fact of the thing. I say, thy soul is lamed, and the God and all +Godlike in it marred: lamed, paralytic, tending towards baleful +eternal death, whether thou know it or not;--nay hadst thou never +known it, that surely had been worst of all!-- + +Thus, at any rate, by the heavenly Awe that overshadows earthly +Business, does Samson, readily in those days, save St. Edmund's +Shrine, and innumerable still more precious things. + + + +Chapter XV + +Practical--Devotional + + +Here indeed, perhaps, by rule of antagonisms, may be the place to +mention that, after King Richard's return, there was a liberty of +tourneying given to the fighting men of England: that a +Tournament was proclaimed in the Abbot's domain, 'between +Thetford and St. Edmundsbury,'--perhaps in the Euston region, on +Fakenham Heights, midway between these two localities: that it +was publicly prohibited by our Lord Abbot; and nevertheless was +held in spite of him,--and by the parties, as would seem, +considered 'a gentle and free passage of arms.' + +Nay, next year, there came to the same spot four-and-twenty young +men, sons of Nobles, for another passage of arms; who, having +completed the same, all rode into St. Edmundsbury to lodge for +the night. Here is modesty! Our Lord Abbot, being instructed of +it, ordered the Gates to be closed; the whole party shut in. +The morrow was the Vigil of the Apostles Peter and Paul; no +outgate on the morrow. Giving their promise not to depart +without permission, those four-and-twenty young bloods dieted all +that day (_manducaverunt_) with the Lord Abbot, waiting for trial +on the morrow. 'But after dinner,'--mark it, posterity!--'the +Lord Abbot retiring into his _Thalamus,_ they all started up, and +began caroling and singing (_carolare et cantare_); sending +into the Town for wine; drinking, and afterwards howling +(_ululantes_);--totally depriving the Abbot and Convent of their +afternoon's nap; doing all this in derision of the Lord Abbot, +and spending in such fashion the whole day till evening, nor +would they desist at the Lord Abbot's order! Night coming on, +they broke the bolts of the Town-Gates, and went off by +violence!' Was the like ever heard of? The roysterous young +dogs; caroling, howling, breaking the Lord Abbot's sleep,--after +that sinful chivalry cock-fight of theirs! They too are a +feature of distant centuries, as of near ones. St. Edmund on the +edge of your horizon, or whatever else there, young scamps, in +the dandy state, whether cased in iron or in whalebone, begin +to caper and carol on the green Earth! Our Lord Abbot +excommunicated most of them; and they gradually came in +for repentance. + +Excommunication is a great recipe with our Lord Abbot; the +prevailing purifier in those ages. Thus when the Townsfolk and +Monks-menials quarreled once at the Christmas Mysteries in St. +Edmund's Churchyard, and 'from words it came to cuffs, and from +cuffs to cuttings and the effusion of blood,'--our Lord Abbot +excommunicates sixty of the rioters, with bell, book and candle +(_accensis candelis_), at one stroke. Whereupon they all come +suppliant, indeed nearly naked, 'nothing on but their breeches, +_omnino nudi praeter femoralia,_ and prostrate themselves at the +Church-door.' Figure that! + +In fact, by excommunication or persuasion, by impetuosity of +driving or adroitness in leading, this Abbot, it is now becoming +plain everywhere, is a man that generally remains master at last. +He tempers his medicine to the malady, now hot, now cool; +prudent though fiery, an eminently practical man. Nay sometimes +in his adroit practice there are swift turns almost of a +surprising nature! Once, for example, it chanced that Geoffrey +Riddell Bishop of Ely, a Prelate rather troublesome to our Abbot, +made a request of him for timber from his woods towards certain +edifices going on at Glemsford. The Abbot, a great builder +himself, disliked the request; could not however give it a +negative. While he lay, therefore, at his Manorhouse of Melford +not long after, there comes to him one of the Lord Bishop's men +or monks, with a message from his Lordship, "That he now begged +permission to cut down the requisite trees in Elmswell Wood," so +said the monk: Elm_swell,_ where there are no trees but scrubs +and shrubs, instead of Elm_set,_ our true _nemus,_ and high- +towering oak-wood, here on Melford Manor! Elmswell? The Lord +Abbot, in surprise, inquires privily of Richard his Forester; +Richard answers that my Lord of Ely has already had his +_carpentarii_ in Elmset, and marked out for his own use all the +best trees in the compass of it. Abbot Samson thereupon answers +the monk: "Elmswell? Yes surely, be it as my Lord Bishop +wishes." The successful monk, on the morrow morning, hastens +home to Ely; but, on the morrow morning, 'directly after mass,' +Abbot Samson too was busy! The successful monk, arriving at Ely, +is rated for a goose and an owl; is ordered back to say that +Elmset was the place meant. Alas, on arriving at Elmset, he +finds the Bishop's trees, they 'and a hundred more,' all felled +and piled, and the stamp of St. Edmund's Monastery burnt into +them,--for roofing of the great tower we are building there! +Your importunate Bishop must seek wood for Glemsford edifices in +some other _nemus_ than this. A practical Abbot! + +We said withal there was a terrible flash of anger in him: +witness his address to old Herbert the Dean, who in a too thrifty +manner has erected a wind-mill for himself on his glebe-lands at +Haberdon. On the morrow, after mass, our Lord Abbot orders the +Cellerarius to send off his carpenters to demolish the said +structure _brevi manu,_ and lay up the wood in safe keeping. Old +Dean Herbert, hearing what was toward, comes tottering along +hither, to plead humbly for himself and his mill. The Abbot +answers: "I am obliged to thee as if thou hadst cut off both my +feet! By God's face, _per os Dei,_ I will not eat bread till +that fabric be torn in pieces. Thou art an old man, and shouldst +have known that neither the King nor his Justiciary dare change +aught within the Liberties, without consent of Abbot and Convent: +and thou hast presumed on such a thing? I tell thee, it will not +be without damage to my mills; for the Townsfolk will go to thy +mill, and grind their corn (_bladum suum_) at their own good +pleasure; nor can I hinder them, since they are free men. I +will allow no new mills on such principle. Away, away; before +thou gettest home again, thou wilt see what thy mill has grown +to!"--The very reverend, the old Dean totters home again, in all +haste; tears the mill in pieces by his own _carpentarii_, to +save at least the timber; and Abbot Samson's workmen, coming up, +find the ground already clear of it. + + +Easy to bully down poor old rural Deans, and blow their windmills +away: but who is the man that dare abide King Richard's anger; +cross the Lion in his path, and take him by the whiskers! Abbot +Samson too; he is that man, with justice on his side. The case +was this. Adam de Cokefield, one of the chief feudatories of St. +Edmund, and a principal man in the Eastern Counties, died, +leaving large possessions, and for heiress a daughter of three +months; who by clear law, as all men know, became thus Abbot +Samson's ward; whom accordingly he proceeded to dispose of to +such person as seemed fittest. But now King Richard has another +person in view, to whom the little ward and her great possessions +were a suitable thing. He, by letter, requests that Abbot Samson +will have the goodness to give her to this person. Abbot Samson, +with deep humility, replies that she is already given. New +letters from Richard, of severer tenor; answered with new deep +humilities, with gifts and entreaties, with no promise of +obedience. King Richard's ire is kindled; messengers arrive at +St. Edmundsbury, with emphatic message to obey or tremble! Abbot +Samson, wisely silent as to the King's threats, makes answer: +"The King can send if he will, and seize the ward: force and +power he has to do his pleasure, and abolish the whole Abbey. I +never can be bent to wish this that he seeks, nor shall it by me +be ever done. For there is danger lest such things be made a +precedent of, to the prejudice of my successors. _Videat +Altissimus,_ Let the Most High look on it. Whatsoever thing +shall befall I will patiently endure." + +Such was Abbot Samson's deliberate decision. Why not? Coeur-de- +Lion is very dreadful, but not the dreadfulest. _Videat +Altissimus._ I reverence Coeur-de-Lion to the marrow of my bones, +and will in all right things be _homo suus;_ but it is not, +properly speaking, with terror, with any fear at all. On the +whole, have I not looked on the face of 'Satan with outspread +wings;' steadily into Hellfire these seven-and-forty years;--and +was not melted into terror even at that, such the Lord's goodness +to me? Coeur-de-Lion! + +Richard swore tornado oaths, worse than our armies in Flanders, +To be revenged on that proud Priest. But in the end he +discovered that the Priest was right; and forgave him, and even +loved him. 'King Richard wrote, soon after, to Abbot Samson, +That he wanted one or two of the St. Edmundsbury dogs, which he +heard were good. Abbot Samson sent him dogs of the best; +Richard replied by the present of a ring, which Pope Innocent the +Third had given him. Thou brave Richard, thou brave Samson! +Richard too, I suppose, 'loved a man,' and knew one when he +saw him. + +No one will accuse our Lord Abbot of wanting worldly wisdom, due +interest in worldly things. A skillful man; full of cunning +insight, lively interests; always discerning the road to his +object, be it circuit, be it short-cut, and victoriously +traveling forward thereon. Nay rather it might seem, from +Jocelin's Narrative, as if he had his eye all but exclusively +directed on terrestrial matters, and was much too secular for a +devout man. But this too, if we examine it, was right. For it +is in the world that a man, devout or other, has his life to +lead, his work waiting to be done. The basis of Abbot Samson's, +we shall discover, was truly religion, after all. Returning from +his dusty pilgrimage, with such welcome as we saw, 'he sat down +at the foot of St. Edmund's Shrine.' Not a talking theory that; +no, a silent practice: Thou St. Edmund with what lies in thee, +thou now must help me, or none will! + +This also is a significant fact: the zealous interest our Abbot +took in the Crusades. To all noble Christian hearts of that era, +what earthly enterprise so noble? 'When Henry II., having taken +the cross, came to St. Edmund's, to pay his devotions before +setting out, the Abbot secretly made for himself a cross of linen +cloth: and, holding this in one hand and a threaded needle in +the other, asked leave of the King to assume it!' The King could +not spare Samson out of England;--the King himself indeed never +went. But the Abbot's eye was set on the Holy Sepulchre, as on +the spot of this Earth where the true cause of Heaven was +deciding itself. 'At the retaking of Jerusalem by the Pagans, +Abbot Samson put on a cilice and hair-shirt, and wore under- +garments of hair-cloth ever after; he abstained also from flesh +and fleshmeats (_carne et carneis_) thenceforth to the end of his +life.' Like a dark cloud eclipsing the hopes of Christendom, +those tidings cast their shadow over St. Edmundsbury too: Shall +Samson Abbas take pleasure while Christ's Tomb is in the hands of +the Infidel? Samson, in pain of body, shall daily be reminded of +it, admonished to grieve for it. + +The great antique heart: how like a child's in its simplicity, +like a man's in its earnest solemnity and depth! Heaven lies +over him wheresoever he goes or stands on the Earth; making all +the Earth a mystic Temple to him, the Earth's business all a kind +of worship. Glimpses of bright creatures flash in the common +sunlight; angels yet hover doing God's messages among men: that +rainbow was set in the clouds by the hand of God! Wonder, +miracle encompass the man; he lives in an element of miracle; +Heaven's splendour over his head, Hell's darkness under his feet. +A great Law of Duty, high as these two Infinitudes, dwarfing all +else, annihilating all else,--making royal Richard as small as +peasant Samson, smaller if need be!--The 'imaginative faculties?' +'Rude poetic ages?' The 'primeval poetic element?' O for God's +sake, good reader, talk no more of all that! It was not a +Dilettantism this of Abbot Samson. It was a Reality, and it is +one. The garment only of it is dead; the essence of it lives +through all Time and all Eternity! + + +And truly, as we said above, is not this comparative silence of +Abbot Samson as to his religion, precisely the healthiest sign of +him and of it? 'The Unconscious is the alone Complete.' Abbot +Samson all along a busy working man, as all men are bound to be, +his religion, his worship was like his daily bread to him;--which +he did not take the trouble to talk much about; which he merely +ate at stated intervals, and lived and did his work upon! This +is Abbot Samson's Catholicism of the Twelfth Century;--something +like the _Ism_ of all true men in all true centuries, I fancy! +Alas, compared with any of the _Isms_ current in these poor days, +what a thing! Compared with the respectablest, morbid, +struggling Methodism, never so earnest; with the respectablest, +ghastly, dead or galvanised Dilettantism, never so spasmodic! + +Methodism with its eye forever turned on its own navel; asking +itself with torturing anxiety of Hope and Fear, "Am I right, am I +wrong? Shall I be saved, shall I not be damned?"--what is this, +at bottom, but a new phasis of _Egoism,_ stretched out into the +Infinite; not always the heavenlier for its infinitude! +Brother, so soon as possible, endeavour to rise above all that. +"Thou art wrong; thou art like to be damned:" consider that as +the fact, reconcile thyself even to that, if thou be a man;--then +first is the devouring Universe subdued under thee, and from the +black murk of midnight and noise of greedy Acheron; dawn as of +an everlasting morning, how far above all Hope and all Fear, +springs for thee, enlightening thy steep path, awakening in thy +heart celestial Memnon's music! + +But of our Dilettantisms, and galvanised Dilettantisms; of +Puseyism--O Heavens, what shall we say of Puseyism, in comparison +to Twelfth-Century Catholicism? Little or nothing; for indeed +it is a matter to strike one dumb. + + The Builder of this Universe was wise, + He plann'd all souls, all systems, planets, particles: + The Plan He shap'd His Worlds and Aeons by + Was--Heavens!--Was thy small Nine-and-thirty Articles? + +That certain human souls, living on this practical Earth, should +think to save themselves and a ruined world by noisy theoretic +demonstrations and laudations of _the_ Church, instead of some +unnoisy, unconscious, but _practical,_ total, heart-and-soul +demonstration of _a_ Church: this, in the circle of revolving +ages, this also was a thing we were to see. A kind of +penultimate thing, precursor of very strange consummations; last +thing but one? If there is no atmosphere, what will it serve a +man to demonstrate the excellence of lungs? How much profitabler +when you can, like Abbot Samson, breathe; and go along your way! + + + + +Chapter XVI + +St. Edmund + + +Abbot Samson built many useful, many pious edifices; human +dwellings, churches, church-steeples, barns;--all fallen now and +vanished, but useful while they stood. He built and endowed 'the +Hospital of Babwell;' built 'fit houses for the St. Edmundsbury +Schools: Many are the roofs once 'thatched with reeds' which he +'caused to be covered with tiles;' or if they were churches, +probably 'with lead.' For all ruinous incomplete things, +buildings or other, were an eye-sorrow to the man. We saw his +'great tower of St. Edmund's;' or at least the roof-timbers of +it, lying cut and stamped in Elmset Wood. To change combustible +decaying reed-thatch into tile or lead, and material, still more, +moral wreck into rain-tight order, what a comfort to Samson! + + +One of the things he could not in any wise but rebuild was the +great Altar, aloft on which stood the Shrine itself; the great +Altar, which had been damaged by fire, by the careless rubbish +and careless candle of two somnolent Monks, one night,--the +Shrine escaping almost as if by miracle! Abbot Samson read his +Monks a severe lecture: "A Dream one of us had, that he saw St. +Edmund naked and in lamentable plight. Know ye the +interpretation of that Dream? St. Edmund proclaims himself +naked, because ye defraud the naked Poor of your old clothes, and +give with reluctance what ye are bound to give them of meat and +drink: the idleness moreover and negligence of the Sacristan and +his people is too evident from the late misfortune by fire. Well +might our Holy Martyr seem to be cast out from his Shrine, and +say with groans that he was stript of his garments, and wasted +with hunger and thirst!" + +This is Abbot Samson's interpretation of the Dream;-- +diametrically the reverse of that given by the Monks themselves, +who scruple not to say privily, "It is we that are the naked and +famished limbs of the Martyr; we whom the Abbot curtails of all +our privileges, setting his own official to control our very +Cellarer!" Abbot Samson adds, that this judgment by fire has +fallen upon them for murmuring about their meat and drink. + +Clearly enough, meanwhile, the Altar, whatever the burning of it +mean or foreshadow, must needs be reedified. Abbot Samson +reedifies it, all of polished marble; with the highest stretch +of art and sumptuosity, reembellishes the Shrine for which it is +to serve as pediment. Nay farther, as had ever been among his +prayers, he enjoys, he sinner, a glimpse of the glorious Martyr's +very Body in the process; having solemnly opened the Loculus, +Chest or sacred Coffin, for that purpose. It is the culminating +moment of Abbot Samson's life. Bozzy Jocelin himself rises into +a kind of Psalmist solemnity on this occasion; the laziest monk +'weeps' warm tears, as _Te Deum_ is sung. + +Very strange;--how far vanished from us in these unworshiping +ages of ours! The Patriot Hampden, best beatified man we have, +had lain in like manner some two centuries in his narrow home, +when certain dignitaries of us, 'and twelve grave-diggers with +pulleys,' raised him also up, under cloud of night; cut off his +arm with penknifes, pulled the scalp off his head,--and otherwise +worshiped our Hero Saint in the most amazing manner! Let the +modern eye look earnestly on that old midnight hour in St. +Edmundsbury Church, shining yet on us, ruddy-bright, through the +depths of seven hundred years; and consider mournfully what our +Hero-worship once was, and what it now is! We translate with all +the fidelity we can: + +'The Festival of St. Edmund now approaching, the marble blocks +are polished, and all things are in readiness for lifting of the +Shrine to its new place. A fast of three days was held by all +the people, the cause and meaning thereof being publicly set +forth to them. The Abbot announces to the Convent that all must +prepare themselves for transferring of the Shrine, and appoints +time and way for the work. Coming therefore that night to +matins, we found the great Shrine (_feretrum magnum_) raised upon +the Altar, but empty; covered all over with white doeskin +leather, fixed to the wood with silver nails; but one panel of +the Shrine was left down below, and resting thereon, beside its +old column of the Church, the Loculus with the Sacred Body yet +lay where it was wont. Praises being sung, we all proceeded to +commence our disciplines (_ad disciplinas suscipiendas_). These +finished, the Abbot and certain with him are clothed in their +albs; and, approaching reverently, set about uncovering the +Loculus. There was an outer cloth of linen, enwrapping the +Loculus and all; this we found tied on the upper side with +strings of its own: within this was a cloth of silk, and then +another linen cloth, and then a third; and so at last the +Loculus was uncovered, and seen resting on a little tray of wood, +that the bottom of it might not be injured by the stone. Over +the breast of the Martyr, there lay, fixed to the surface of the +Loculus, a Golden Angel about the length of a human foot; +holding in one hand a golden sword, and in the other a banner: +under this there was a hole in the lid of the Loculus, on which +the ancient servants of the Martyr had been wont to lay their +hands for touching the Sacred Body. And over the figure of the +Angel was this verse inscribed: + + _Martiris ecce zoma servat Michaelis agalma_ * + +At the head and foot of the Loculus were iron rings whereby it +could be lifted. + +-------------- +* This is the Martyr's Garment, which Michael's Image guards. +-------------- + +'Lifting the Loculus and Body, therefore, they carried it to the +Altar; and I put-to my sinful hand to help in carrying, though +the Abbot had commanded that none should approach except called. +And the Loculus was placed in the Shrine; and the panel it had +stood on was put in its place, and the Shrine for the present +closed. We all thought that the Abbot would shew the Loculus to +the people; and bring out the Sacred Body again, at a certain +period of the Festival. But in this we were woefully mistaken, +as the sequel shews. + +'For in the fourth holiday of the Festival, while the Convent +were all singing _Completorium,_ our Lord Abbot spoke privily +with the Sacristan and Walter the Medicus; and order was taken +that twelve of the Brethren should be appointed against midnight, +who were strong for carrying the panel-planks of the Shrine, and +skillful in unfixing them, and putting them together again. The +Abbot then said that it was among his prayers to look once upon +the Body of his Patron; and that he wished the Sacristan and +Walter the Medicus to be with him. The Twelve appointed Brethren +were these: The Abbot's two Chaplains, the two Keepers of the +Shrine, the two Masters of the Vestry; and six more, namely, the +Sacristan Hugo, Walter the Medicus, Augustin, William of Dice, +Robert, and Richard. I, alas, was not of the number. + +'The Convent therefore being all asleep, these Twelve, clothed in +their albs, with the Abbot, assembled at the Altar; and opening +a panel of the Shrine, they took out the Loculus; laid it on a +table, near where the Shrine used to be; and made ready for +unfastening the lid, which was joined and fixed to the Loculus +with sixteen very long nails. Which when, with difficulty, they +had done, all except the two forenamed associates are ordered to +draw back. The Abbot and they two were alone privileged to look +in. The Loculus was so filled with the Sacred Body that you +could scarcely put a needle between the head and the wood, or +between the feet and the wood: the head lay united to the body, +a little raised with a small pillow. But the Abbot, looking +close, found now a silk cloth veiling the whole Body, and then a +linen cloth of wondrous whiteness; and upon the head was spread +a small linen cloth, and then another small and most fine silk +cloth, as if it were the veil of a nun. These coverings being +lifted off, they found now the Sacred Body all wrapt in linen; +and so at length the lineaments of the same appeared. But here +the Abbot stopped; saying he durst not proceed farther, or look +at the sacred flesh naked. Taking the head between his hands, he +thus spake groaning: "Glorious Martyr, holy Edmund, blessed be +the hour when thou wert born. Glorious Martyr, turn it not to my +perdition that I have so dared to touch thee, I miserable and +sinful; thou knowest my devout love, and the intention of my +mind." And proceeding, he touched the eyes; and the nose, which +was very massive and prominent (_valde grossum et valde +eminentem_); and then he touched the breast and arms; and +raising the left arm he touched the fingers, and placed his own +fingers between the sacred fingers. And proceeding he found the +feet standing stiff up, like the feet of a man dead yesterday; +and he touched the toes, and counted them (_tangendo numeravit_). + +'And now it was agreed that the other Brethren should be called +forward to see the miracles; and accordingly those ten now +advanced, and along with them six others who had stolen in +without the Abbot's assent, namely, Walter of St. Alban's, Hugh +the Infirmirarius, Gilbert brother of the Prior, Richard of +Henham, Jocellus our Cellarer, and Turstan the Little; and all +these saw the Sacred Body, but Turstan alone of them put forth +his hand, and touched the Saint's knees and feet. And that there +might be abundance of witnesses, one of our Brethren, John of +Dice, sitting on the roof of the Church, with the servants of the +Vestry, and looking through, clearly saw all these things. + + +What a scene; shining luminous effulgent, as the lamps of St. +Edmund do, through the dark Night; John of Dice, with vestrymen, +clambering on the roof to look through; the Convent all asleep, +and the Earth all asleep,--and since then, Seven Centuries of +Time mostly gone to sleep! Yes, there, sure enough, is the +martyred Body of Edmund landlord of the Eastern Counties, who, +nobly doing what he liked with his own, was slain three hundred +years ago: and a noble awe surrounds the memory of him, symbol +and promoter of many other right noble things. + +But have not we now advanced to strange new stages of Hero- +worship, now in the little Church of Hampden, with our penknives +out, and twelve grave-diggers with pulleys? The manner of men's +Hero-worship, verily it is the innermost fact of their existence, +and determines all the rest,--at public hustings, in private +drawing-rooms, in church, in market, and wherever else. Have +true reverence, and what indeed is inseparable therefrom, +reverence the right man, all is well; have sham-reverence, and +what also follows, greet with it the wrong man, then all is ill, +and there is nothing well. Alas, if Hero-worship become +Dilettantism, and all except Mammonism be a vain grimace, how +much, in this most earnest Earth, has gone and is evermore going +to fatal destruction, and lies wasting in quiet lazy ruin, no man +regarding it! Till at length no heavenly _Ism_ any longer coming +down upon us, _Isms_ from the other quarter have to mount up. +For the Earth, I say, is an earnest place; Life is no grimace, +but a most serious fact. And so, under universal Dilettantism +much having been stript bare, not the souls of men only, but +their very bodies and bread-cupboards having been stript bare, +and life now no longer possible,--all is reduced to desperation, +to the iron law of Necessity and very Fact again; and to temper +Dilettantism, and astonish it, and burn it up with infernal fire, +arises Chartism, _Bare-backism,_ Sansculottism so-called! May +the gods, and what of unworshiped heroes still remain among us, +avert the omen.-- + + +But however this may be, St. Edmund's Loculus, we find, has the +veils of silk and linen reverently replaced, the lid fastened +down again with its sixteen ancient nails; is wrapt in a new +costly covering of silk, the gift of Hubert Archbishop of +Canterbury: and through the sky-window John of Dice sees it +lifted to its place in the Shrine, the panels of this latter duly +refixed, fit parchment documents being introduced withal;--and +now John and his vestrymen can slide down from the roof, for all +is over, and the Convent wholly awakens to matins. 'When we +assembled to sing matins,' says Jocelin, 'and understood what had +been done, grief took hold of all that had not seen these things, +each saying to himself, "Alas, I was deceived." Matins over, the +Abbot called the Convent to the great Altar; and briefly +recounting the matter, alleged that it had not been in his power, +nor was it permissible or fit, to invite us all to the sight of +such things. At hearing of which, we all wept, and with tears +sang _Te Deum laudamus;_ and hastened to toll the bells in +the Choir. + +Stupid blockheads, to reverence their St. Edmund's dead Body in +this manner? Yes, brother;--and yet, on the whole, who knows how +to reverence the Body of a Man? It is the most reverend +phenomenon under this Sun. For the Highest God dwells visible in +that mystic unfathomable Visibility, which calls itself "I" on +the Earth. 'Bending before men,' says Novalis, 'is a reverence +done to this Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven when we +lay our hand on a human Body.' And the Body of one Dead;--a +temple where the Hero-soul once was and now is not: Oh, all +mystery, all pity, all mute awe and wonder; Supernaturalism +brought home to the very dullest; Eternity laid open, and the +nether Darkness and the upper Light-Kingdoms;--do conjoin there, +or exist nowhere! Sauerteig used to say to me, in his peculiar +way: "A Chancery Lawsuit; justice, nay justice in mere money, +denied a man, for all his pleading, till twenty, till forty years +of his Life are gone seeking it: and a Cockney Funeral, Death +reverenced by hatchments, horsehair, brass-lacker, and +unconcerned bipeds carrying long poles and bags of black +silk:--are not these two reverences, this reverence for Death +and that reverence for Life, a notable pair of reverences among +you English?" + +Abbot Samson, at this culminating point of his existence, may, +and indeed must, be left to vanish with his Life-scenery from the +eyes of modern men. He had to run into France, to settle with +King Richard for the military service there of his St. +Edmundsbury Knights; and with great labour got it done. He had +to decide on the dilapidated Coventry Monks; and with great +labour, and much pleading and journeying, got them reinstated; +dined with them all, and with the 'Masters of the Schools of +Oxneford,'--the veritable Oxford _Caput_ sitting there at dinner, +in a dim but undeniable manner, in the City of Peeping Tom! He +had, not without labour, to controvert the intrusive Bishop of +Ely, the intrusive Abbot of Cluny. Magnanimous Samson, his life +is but a labour and a journey; a bustling and a justling, till +the still Night come. He is sent for again, over sea, to advise +King Richard touching certain Peers of England, who had taken the +Cross, but never followed it to Palestine; whom the Pope is +inquiring after. The magnanimous Abbot makes preparation for +departure; departs, and--And Jocelin's Boswellean Narrative, +suddenly shorn through by the scissors of Destiny, ends. There +are no words more; but a black line, and leaves of blank paper. +Irremediable: the miraculous hand that held all this theatric- +machinery suddenly quits hold; impenetrable Time-Curtains rush +down; in the mind's eye all is again dark, void; with loud +dinning in the mind's ear, our real-phantasmagory of St. +Edmundsbury plunges into the bosom of the Twelfth Century again, +and all is over. Monks, Abbot, Hero-worship, Government, +Obedience, Coeur-de-Lion and St. Edmund's Shrine, vanish like +Mirza's Vision; and there is nothing left but a mutilated black +Ruin amid green botanic expanses, and oxen, sheep and dilettanti +pasturing in their places. + + + +Chapter XVII + +The Beginnings + + +What a singular shape of a Man; shape of a Time, have we in this +Abbot Samson and his history; how strangely do modes, creeds, +formularies, and the date and place of a man's birth, modify the +figure of the man! + +Formulas too, as we call them, have a _reality_ in Human Life. +They are real as the very _skin_ and _muscular tissue_ of a Man's +Life; and a most blessed indispensable thing, so long as they +have _vitality_ withal, and are a living skin and tissue to him! +No man, or man's life, can go abroad and do business in the world +without skin and tissues. No; first of all, these have to +fashion themselves,--as indeed they spontaneously and inevitably +do. Foam itself, and this is worth thinking of, can harden into +oyster-shell; all living objects do by necessity form to +themselves a skin. + +And yet, again, when a man's Formulas become _dead;_ as all +Formulas, in the progress of living growth, are very sure to do! +When the poor man's integuments, no longer nourished from within, +become dead skin, mere adscititious leather and callosity, +wearing thicker and thicker, uglier and uglier; till no _heart_ +any longer can be felt beating through them, so thick, callous, +calcified are they; and all over it has now grown mere calcified +oystershell, or were it polished mother-of-pearl, inwards almost +to the very heart of the poor man:--yes then, you may say, his +usefulness once more is quite obstructed; once more, he cannot +go abroad and do business in the world; it is time that +_he_ take to bed, and prepare for departure, which cannot now +be distant! + +_Ubi homines sunt modi sunt._ Habit is the deepest law of human +nature. It is our supreme strength; if also, in certain +circumstances, our miserablest weakness.--From Stoke to Stowe is +as yet a field, all pathless, untrodden: from Stoke where I +live, to Stowe where I have to make my merchandises, perform my +businesses, consult my heavenly oracles, there is as yet no path +or human footprint; and I, impelled by such necessities, must +nevertheless undertake the journey. Let me go once, scanning my +way with any earnestness of outlook, and successfully arriving, +my footprints are an invitation to me a second time to go by the +same way. It is easier than any other way: the industry of +'scanning' lies already invested in it for me; I can go this +time with less of scanning, or without scanning at all. Nay the +very sight of my footprints, what a comfort for me; and in a +degree, for all my brethren of mankind! The footprints are +trodden and retrodden; the path wears ever broader, smoother, +into a broad highway, where even wheels can run; and many travel +it;--till--till the Town of Stowe disappear from that locality +(as towns have been known to do), or no merchandising, heavenly +oracle, or real business any longer exist for one there: then +why should anybody travel the way?--Habit is our primal, +fundamental law; Habit and Imitation, there is nothing more +perennial in us than these two. They are the source of all +Working and all Apprenticeship, of all Practice and all Learning, +in this world. + +Yes, the wise man too speaks, and acts, in Formulas; all men do +so. In general the more completely cased with Formulas a man may +be, the safer, happier is it for him. Thou who, in an All of +rotten Formulas, seemest to stand nigh bare, having indignantly +shaken off the superannuated rags and unsound callosities of +Formulas,--consider how thou too art still clothed! This English +Nationality, whatsoever from uncounted ages is genuine and a fact +among thy native People, and their words and ways: all this, has +it not made for thee a skin or second-skin, adhesive actually as +thy natural skin? This thou hast not stript off, this thou wilt +never strip off: the humour that thy mother gave thee has to +shew itself through this. A common, or it may be an uncommon +Englishman thou art: but good Heavens, what sort of Arab, +Chinaman, Jew-Clothesman, Turk, Hindoo, African Mandingo, wouldst +_thou_ have been, thou with those mother-qualities of thine! + +It strikes me dumb to look over the long series of faces, such as +any full Church, Courthouse, London-Tavern Meeting, or miscellany +of men will shew them. Some score or two of years ago, all these +were little red-coloured pulpy infants; each of them capable of +being kneaded, baked into any social form you chose: yet see now +how they are fixed and hardened,--into artisans, artists, clergy, +gentry, learned sergeants, unlearned dandies, and can and shall +now be nothing else henceforth! + +Mark on that nose the colour left by too copious port and viands; +to which the profuse cravat with exorbitant breastpin, and the +fixed, forward, and as it were menacing glance of the eyes +correspond. That is a 'Man of Business;' prosperous +manufacturer, house-contractor, engineer, law-manager; his eye, +nose, cravat have, in such work and fortune, got such a +character: deny him not thy praise, thy pity. Pity him too, the +Hard-handed, with bony brow, rudely combed hair, eyes looking out +as in labour, in difficulty and uncertainty; rude mouth, the +lips coarse, loose, as in hard toil and lifelong fatigue they +have got the habit of hanging:--hast thou seen aught more +touching than the rude intelligence, so cramped, yet energetic, +unsubduable, true, which looks out of that marred visage? Alas, +and his poor wife, with her own hands, washed that cotton +neckcloth for him, buttoned that coarse shirt, sent him forth +creditably trimmed as she could. In such imprisonment lives he, +for his part; man cannot now deliver him: the red pulpy infant +has been baked and fashioned so. + +Or what kind of baking was it that this other brother-mortal got, +which has baked him into the genus Dandy? Elegant Vacuum; +serenely looking down upon all Plenums and Entities, as low and +poor to his serene Chimeraship and _Non_entity laboriously +attained! Heroic Vacuum; inexpugnable, while purse and present +condition of society hold out; curable by no hellebore. The +doom of Fate was, Be thou a Dandy! Have thy eye-glasses, opera- +glasses, thy Long-Acre cabs with white-breeched tiger, thy +yawning impassivities, pococurantisms; fix thyself in Dandyhood, +undeliverable; it is thy doom. + +And all these, we say, were red-coloured infants; of the same +pulp and stuff, few years ago; now irretrievably shaped and +kneaded as we see! Formulas? There is no mortal extant, out of +the depths of Bedlam, but lives all skinned, thatched, covered +over with Formulas; and is, as it were, held in from delirium +and the Inane by his Formulas! They are withal the most +beneficent, indispensable of human equipments: blessed he who +has a skin and tissues, so it be a living one, and the heart- +pulse everywhere discernible through it. Monachism, Feudalism, +with a real King Plantagenet, with real Abbots Samson, and their +other living realities, how blessed!-- + + +Not without a mournful interest have we surveyed this authentic +image of a Time now wholly swallowed. Mournful reflections crowd +on us; and yet consolatory. How many brave men have lived +before Agamemnon! Here is a brave governor Samson, a man fearing +God, and fearing nothing else; of whom as First Lord of the +Treasury, as King, Chief Editor, High Priest, we could be so glad +and proud; of whom nevertheless Fame has altogether forgotten to +make mention! The faint image of him, revived in this hour, is +found in the gossip of one poor Monk, and in Nature nowhere else. +Oblivion had so nigh swallowed him altogether, even to the echo +of his ever having existed. What regiments and hosts and +generations of such has Oblivion already swallowed! Their +crumbled dust makes up the soil our life-fruit grows on. Said I +not, as my old Norse Fathers taught me, The Life-tree Igdrasil, +which waves round thee in this hour, whereof thou in this hour +art portion, has its roots down deep in the oldest Death- +Kingdoms; and grows; the Three Nornas, or _Times,_ Past, +Present, Future, watering it from the Sacred Well! + +For example, who taught thee to _speak?_ From the day when two +hairy-naked or fig-leaved Human Figures began, as uncomfortable +dummies, anxious no longer to be dumb, but to impart themselves +to one another; and endeavoured, with gaspings, gesturings, with +unsyllabled cries, with painful pantomime and interjections, in a +very unsuccessful manner,--up to the writing of this present +copyright Book, which also is not very successful! Between that +day and this, I say, there has been a pretty space of time; a +pretty spell of work, which _somebody_ has done! Thinkest thou +there were no poets till Dan Chaucer? No heart burning with a +thought, which it could not hold, and had no word for; and +needed to shape and coin a word for,--what thou callest a +metaphor, trope, or the like? For every word we have, there was +such a man and poet. The coldest word was once a glowing new +metaphor, and bold questionable originality. 'Thy very +ATTENTION, does it not mean an _attentio,_ a STRETCHING-TO?' +Fancy that act of the mind, which all were conscious of, which +none had yet named,--when this new 'poet' first felt bound and +driven to name it! His questionable originality, and new glowing +metaphor, was found adoptable, intelligible; and remains our +name for it to this day. + + +Literature:--and look at Paul's Cathedral, and the Masonries and +Worships and Quasi-Worships that are there; not to speak of +Westminster Hall and its wigs! Men had not a hammer to begin +with, not a syllabled articulation: they had it all to make;-- +and they have made it. What thousand thousand articulate, semi- +articulate, earnest-stammering _Prayers_ ascending up to Heaven, +from hut and cell, in many lands, in many centuries, from the +fervent kindled souls of innumerable men, each struggling to pour +itself forth incompletely as it might, before the incompletest +_Liturgy_ could be compiled! The Liturgy, or adoptable and +generally adopted Set of Prayers and Prayer-Method, was what we +can call the Select Adoptabilities, 'Select Beauties' well-edited +(by Oecumenic Councils and other Useful-Knowledge Societies) from +that wide waste imbroglio of Prayers already extant and +accumulated, good and bad. The good were found adoptable by men; +were gradually got together, well-edited, accredited: the bad, +found inappropriate, unadoptable, were gradually forgotten, +disused and burnt. It is the way with human things. The first +man who, looking with opened soul on this August Heaven and +Earth, this Beautiful and Awful, which we name Nature, Universe +and such like, the essence of which remains forever UNNAMEABLE; +he who first, gazing into this, fell on his knees awestruck, in +silence as is likeliest,--he, driven by inner necessity, the +'audacious original' that he was, had done a thing, too, which +all thoughtful hearts saw straightway to be an expressive, +altogether adoptable thing! To bow the knee was ever since the +attitude of supplication. Earlier than any spoken Prayers, +_Litanias,_ or Leitourgias;_ the beginning of all Worship,-- +which needed but a beginning, so rational was it. What a poet +he! Yes, this bold original was a successful one withal. The +wellhead this one, hidden in the primeval dusks and distances, +from whom as from a Nile-source all _Forms of Worship_ flow:-- +such a Nile-river (somewhat muddy and malarious now!) of Forms of +Worship sprang there, and flowed, and flows, down to Puseyism, +Rotatory Calabash, Archbishop Laud at St. Catherine Creed's, and +perhaps lower! + +Things rise, I say, in that way. The _Iliad_ Poem, and indeed +most other poetic, especially epic things, have risen as the +Liturgy did. The great _Iliad_ in Greece, and the small _Robin +Hood's Garland_ in England, are each, as I understand, the well- +edited 'Select Beauties' of an immeasurable waste imbroglio of +Heroic Ballads in their respective centuries and countries. +Think what strumming of the seven-stringed heroic lyre, torturing +of the less heroic fiddle-catgut, in Hellenic Kings' Courts, and +English wayside Public Houses; and beating of the studious +Poetic brain, and gasping here too in the semi-articulate +windpipe of Poetic men, before the Wrath of a Divine Achilles, +the Prowess of a Will Scarlet or Wakefield Pinder, could be +adequately sung! Honour to you, ye nameless great and greatest +ones, ye long-forgotten brave! + +Nor was the Statute _De Tallagio non concedendo,_ nor any +Statute, Law-method, Lawyer's-wig, much less were the Statute- +Book and Four Courts, with Coke upon Lyttleton and Three Estates +of Parliament in the rear of them, got together without human +labour,--mostly forgotten now! From the time of Cain's slaying +Abel by swift head-breakage, to this time of killing your man in +Chancery by inches, and slow heart-break for forty years,--there +too is an interval! Venerable justice herself began by Wild- +justice; all Law is as a tamed furrowfield, slowly worked out, +and rendered arable, from the waste jungle of Club-Law. Valiant +Wisdom tilling and draining; escorted by owl-eyed Pedantry, by +owlish and vulturish and many other forms of Folly;--the valiant +husbandman assiduously tilling; the blind greedy enemy _too_ +assiduously sowing tares! It is because there is yet in +venerable wigged justice some wisdom, amid such mountains of +wiggeries and folly, that men have not cast her into the River; +that she still sits there, like Dryden's Head in the _Battle of +the Books,_--a huge helmet, a huge mountain of greased parchment, +of unclean horsehair, first striking the eye; and then in the +innermost corner, visible at last, in size as a hazelnut, a real +fraction of God's justice, perhaps not yet unattainable to some, +surely still indispensable to all;--and men know not what to do +with her! Lawyers were not all pedants, voluminous voracious +persons; Lawyers too were poets, were heroes,--or their Law had +been past the Nore long before this time. Their Owlisms, +Vulturisms, to an incredible extent, will disappear by and by, +their Heroisms only remaining, and the helmet be reduced to +something like the size of the head, we hope!-- + +It is all work and forgotten work, this peopled, clothed, +articulate-speaking, high-towered, wide-acred World. The hands +of forgotten brave men have made it a World for us; they,-- +honour to them; they, in _spite_ of the idle and the dastard. +This English Land, here and now, is the summary of what was found +of wise, and noble, and accordant with God's Truth, in all the +generations of English Men. Our English Speech is speakable +because there were Hero-Poets of our blood and lineage; +speakable in proportion to the number of these. This Land of +England has its conquerors, possessors, which change from epoch +to epoch, from day to day; but its real conquerors, creators, +and eternal proprietors are these following, and their +representatives if you can find them: All the Heroic Souls that +ever were in England, each in their degree; all the men that +ever cut a thistle, drained a puddle out of England, contrived a +wise scheme in England, did or said a true and valiant thing in +England. I tell thee, they had not a hammer to begin with; and +yet Wren built St. Paul's: not an articulated syllable; and yet +there have come English Literatures, Elizabethan Literatures, +Satanic-School, Cockney-School, and other Literatures;--once +more, as in the old time of the _Leitourgia,_ a most waste +imbroglio, and world-wide jungle and jumble; waiting terribly to +be 'well-edited,' and 'well-burnt!' Arachne started with +forefinger and thumb, and had not even a distaff; yet thou seest +Manchester, and Cotton Cloth, which will shelter naked backs, at +two-pence an ell. + +Work? The quantity of done and forgotten work that lies silent +under my feet in this world, and escorts and attends me, and +supports and keeps me alive, wheresoever I walk or stand, +whatsoever I think or do, gives rise to reflections! Is it not +enough, at any rate, to strike the thing called 'Fame' into total +silence for a wise man? For fools and unreflective persons, she +is and will be very noisy, this 'Fame,' and talks of her +'immortals' and so forth: but if you will consider it, what is +she? Abbot Samson was not nothing because nobody _said_ anything +of him. Or thinkest thou, the Right Honourable Sir Jabesh +Windbag can be made something by Parliamentary Majorities and +Leading Articles? Her 'immortals!' Scarcely two hundred years +back can Fame recollect articulately at all; and there she but +maunders and mumbles. She manages to recollect a Shakspeare or +so; and prates, considerably like a goose, about him;--and in +the rear of that, onwards to the birth of Theuth, to Hengst's +Invasion, and the bosom of Eternity, it was all blank; and the +respectable Teutonic Languages, Teutonic Practices, Existences +all came of their own accord, as the grass springs, as the trees +grow; no Poet, no work from the inspired heart of a Man needed +there; and Fame has not an articulate word to say about it! Or +ask her, What, with all conceivable appliances and mnemonics, +including apotheosis and human sacrifices among the number, she +carries in her head with regard to a Wodan, even a Moses, or +other such? She begins to be uncertain as to what they were, +whether spirits or men of mould,--gods, charlatans; begins +sometimes to have a misgiving that they were mere symbols, ideas +of the mind; perhaps nonentities, and Letters of the Alphabet! +She is the noisiest, inarticulately babbling, hissing, screaming, +foolishest, unmusicalest of fowls that fly; and needs no +'trumpet,' I think, but her own enormous goose-throat,--measuring +several degrees of celestial latitude, so to speak. Her 'wings,' +in these days, have grown far swifter than ever; but her goose- +throat hitherto seems only larger; louder and foolisher than +ever. _She_ is transitory, futile, a goose-goddess:--if she were +not transitory, what would become of us! It is a chief comfort +that she forgets us all; all, even to the very Wodans; and +grows to consider us, at last, as probably nonentities and +Letters of the Alphabet. + +Yes, a noble Abbot Samson resigns himself to Oblivion too; feels +it no hardship, but a comfort; counts it as a still resting- +place, from much sick fret and fever and stupidity, which in the +night-watches often made his strong heart sigh. Your most sweet +voices, making one enormous goose-voice, O Bobus and Company, how +can they be a guidance for any Son of Adam? In _silence_ of you +and the like of you, the 'small still voices' will speak to him +better; in which does lie guidance. + +My friend, all speech and rumour is shortlived, foolish, untrue. +Genuine WORK alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal, +as the Almighty Founder and World-Builder himself. Stand thou +by that; and let 'Fame' and the rest of it go prating. + + "Heard are the Voices, + Heard are the Sages, + The Worlds and the Ages: + "Choose well, your choice is + Brief and yet endless. + + Here eyes do regard you, + In Eternity's stillness; + Here is all fulness, + Ye brave, to reward you; + Work, and despair not." + --Goethe + + + + +Book III--The Modern Worker + + + +Chapter I + +Phenomena + + +But, it is said, our religion is gone: we no longer believe in +St. Edmund, no longer see the figure of him 'on the rim of the +sky,' minatory or confirmatory! God's absolute Laws, sanctioned +by an eternal Heaven and an eternal Hell, have become Moral +Philosophies, sanctioned by able computations of Profit and +Loss, by weak considerations of Pleasures of Virtue and the +Moral Sublime. + +It is even so. To speak in the ancient dialect, we 'have +forgotten God;'--in the most modern dialect and very truth of the +matter, we have taken up the Fact of this Universe as it _is +not._ We have quietly closed our eyes to the eternal Substance +of things, and opened them only to the Shews and Shams of things. +We quietly believe this Universe to be intrinsically a great +unintelligible PERHAPS; extrinsically, clear enough, it is a +great, most extensive Cattlefold and Workhouse, with most +extensive Kitchen-ranges, Dining-tables,--whereat he is wise who +can find a place! All the Truth of this Universe is uncertain; +only the profit and loss of it, the pudding and praise of it, are +and remain very visible to the practical man. + +There is no longer any God for us! God's Laws are become a +Greatest-Happiness Principle, a Parliamentary Expediency: the +Heavens overarch us only as an Astronomical Time-keeper; a butt +for Herschel-telescopes to shoot science at, to shoot +sentimentalities at:--in our and old Jonson's dialect, man has +lost the _soul_ out of him; and now, after the due period,-- +begins to find the want of it! This is verily the plague-spot; +centre of the universal Social Gangrene, threatening all modern +things with frightful death. To him that will consider it, here +is the stem, with its roots and taproot, with its world-wide +upas-boughs and accursed poison-exudations, under which the world +lies writhing in atrophy and agony. You touch the focal-centre +of all our disease, of our frightful nosology of diseases, when +you lay your hand on this. There is no religion; there is no +God; man has lost his soul, and vainly seeks antiseptic salt. +Vainly: in killing Kings, in passing Reform Bills, in French +Revolutions, Manchester Insurrections, is found no remedy. The +foul elephantine leprosy, alleviated for an hour, reappears in +new force and desperateness next hour. + +For actually this is _not_ the real fact of the world; the world +is not made so, but otherwise!--Truly, any Society setting out +from this No-God hypothesis will arrive at a result or two. The +Unveracities, escorted, each Unveracity of them by its +corresponding Misery and Penalty; the Phantasms, and Fatuities, +and ten-years Corn-Law Debatings, that shall walk the Earth at +noonday,--must needs be numerous! The Universe _being_ +intrinsically a Perhaps, being too probably an 'infinite Humbug,' +why should any minor Humbug astonish us? It is all according to +the order of Nature; and Phantasms riding with huge clatter +along the streets, from end to end of our existence, astonish +nobody. Enchanted St. Ives' Workhouses and Joe-Manton +Aristocracies; giant Working Mammonism near strangled in the +partridge-nets of giant-looking Idle Dilettantism,--this, in all +its branches, in its thousand thousand modes and figures, is a +sight familiar to us. + + +The Popish Religion, we are told, flourishes extremely in these +years; and is the most vivacious-looking religion to be met with +at present. _"Elle a trois cents ans dans le ventre,"_ counts M. +Jouffroy; _"c'est pourquoi je la respecte!"_--The old Pope of +Rome, finding it laborious to kneel so long while they cart him +through the streets to bless the people on _Corpus-Christi_ Day, +complains of rheumatism; whereupon his Cardinals consult;-- +construct him, after some study, a stuffed cloaked figure, of +iron and wood, with wool or baked hair; and place it in a +kneeling posture. Stuffed figure, or rump of a figure; to this +stuffed rump he, sitting at his ease on a lower level, joins, by +the aid of cloaks and drapery, his living head and outspread +hands: the rump with its cloaks kneels, the Pope looks, and +holds his hands spread; and so the two in concert bless the +Roman population on _Corpus-Christi_ Day, as well as they can. + +I have considered this amphibious Pope, with the wool-and-iron +back, with the flesh head and hands; and endeavoured to +calculate his horoscope. I reckon him the remarkablest Pontiff +that has darkened God's daylight, or painted himself in the human +retina, for these several thousand years. Nay, since Chaos first +shivered, and 'sneezed,' as the Arabs say, with the first shaft +of sunlight shot through it, what stranger product was there of +Nature and Art working together? Here is a Supreme Priest who +believes God to be--What in the name of God _does_ he believe God +to be?--and discerns that all worship of God is a scenic +phantasmagory of wax-candles, organ-blasts, Gregorian Chants, +mass-brayings, purple monsignori, wool-and-iron rumps, +artistically spread out,--to save the ignorant from worse. + +O reader, I say not who are Belial's elect. This poor amphibious +Pope too gives loaves to the Poor; has in him more good latent +than he is himself aware of. His poor Jesuits, in the late +Italian Cholera, were, with a few German Doctors, the only +creatures whom dastard terror had not driven mad: they descended +fearless into all gulfs and bedlams; watched over the pillow of +the dying, with help, with counsel and hope; shone as luminous +fixed stars, when all else had gone out in chaotic night: honour +to them! This poor Pope,--who knows what good is in him? In a +Time otherwise too prone to forget, he keeps up the mournfulest +ghastly memorial of the Highest, Blessedest, which once was; +which, in new fit forms, will again partly have to be. Is he not +as a perpetual death's-head and cross-bones, with their +_Resurgam,_ on the grave of a Universal Heroism,--grave of a +Christianity? Such Noblenesses, purchased by the world's best +heart's-blood, must not be lost; we cannot afford to lose them, +in what confusions soever. To all of us the day will come, to a +few of us it has already come, when no mortal, with his heart +yearning for a 'Divine Humility,' or other 'Highest form of +Valour,' will need to look for it in death's-heads, but will see +it round him in here and there a beautiful living head. + +Besides, there is in this poor Pope, and his practice of the +Scenic Theory of Worship, a frankness which I rather honour. Not +half and half, but with undivided heart does _he_ set about +worshiping by stage-machinery; as if there were now, and could +again be, in Nature no other. He will ask you, What other? +Under this my Gregorian Chant, and beautiful wax-light +Phantasmagory, kindly hidden from you is an Abyss, of black +Doubt, Scepticism, nay Sansculottic Jacobinism; an Orcus that +has no bottom. Think of that. 'Groby Pool _is_ thatched with +pancakes,'--as Jeannie Deans's Innkeeper defied it to be! The +Bottomless of Scepticism, Atheism, Jacobinism, behold, it is +thatched over, hidden from your despair, by stage-properties +judiciously arranged. This stuffed rump of mine saves not me +only from rheumatism, but you also from what other _isms!_ In +this your Life-pilgrimage Nowhither, a fine Squallacci marching- +music, and Gregorian Chant, accompanies you, and the hollow Night +of Orcus is well hid! + +Yes truly, few men that worship by the rotatory Calabash of the +Calmucks do it in half so great, frank or effectual a way. +Drury-lane, it is said, and that is saying much, may learn from +him in the dressing of parts, in the arrangement of lights and +shadows. He is the greatest Play-actor that at present draws +salary in this world. Poor Pope; and I am told he is fast +growing bankrupt too; and will, in a measurable term of years (a +great way _within_ the 'three hundred'), not have a penny to make +his pot boil! His old rheumatic back will then get to rest; and +himself and his stage-properties sleep well in Chaos forevermore. + + +Or, alas, why go to Rome for Phantasms walking the streets? +Phantasms, ghosts, in this midnight hour, hold jubilee, and +screech and jabber; and the question rather were, What high +Reality anywhere is yet awake? Aristocracy has become Phantasm- +Aristocracy, no longer able to _do_ its work, not in the least +conscious that it has any work longer to do. Unable, totally +careless to _do_ its work; careful only to clamour for the +_wages_ of doing its work,--nay for higher, and _palpably_ undue +wages, and Corn-Laws and _increase_ of rents; the old rate of +wages not being adequate now! In hydra-wrestle, giant +_'Millo_cracy' so-called, a real giant, though as yet a blind one +and but half-awake, wrestles and wrings in choking nightmare, +'like to be strangled in the partridge-nets of Phantasm- +Aristocracy,' as we said, which fancies itself still to be a +giant. Wrestles, as under nightmare, till it do awaken; and +gasps and struggles thousandfold, we may say, in a truly painful +manner, through all fibres of our English Existence, in these +hours and years! Is our poor English Existence wholly becoming a +Nightmare; full of mere Phantasms?-- + +The Champion of England, cased in iron or tin, rides into +Westminster Hall, 'being lifted into his saddle with little +assistance,' and there asks, If in the four quarters of the +world, under the cope of Heaven, is any man or demon that dare +question the right of this King? Under the cope of Heaven no man +makes intelligible answer,--as several men ought already to have +done. Does not this Champion too know the world; that it is a +huge Imposture, and bottomless Inanity, thatched over with bright +cloth and other ingenious tissues? Him let us leave there, +questioning all men and demons. + +Him we have left to his destiny; but whom else have we found? +From this the highest apex of things, downwards through all +strata and breadths, how many fully awakened Realities have we +fallen in with:--alas, on the contrary, what troops and +populations of Phantasms, not God-Veracities but Devil-Falsities, +down to the very lowest stratum,--which now, by such +superincumbent weight of Unveracities, lies enchanted in St. +Ives' Workhouses, broad enough, helpless enough! You will walk +in no public thoroughfare or remotest byway of English Existence +but you will meet a man, an interest of men, that has given up +hope in the Everlasting, True, and placed its hope in the +Temporary, half or wholly False. The Honourable Member complains +unmusically that there is 'devil's-dust' in Yorkshire cloth. +Yorkshire cloth,--why, the very Paper I now write on is made, it +seems, partly of plaster-lime well-smoothed, and obstructs my +writing! You are lucky if you can find now any good Paper,--any +work really _done;_ search where you will, from highest Phantasm +apex to lowest Enchanted basis! + +Consider, for example, that great Hat seven-feet high, which now +perambulates London Streets; which my Friend Sauerteig regarded +justly as one of our English notabilities; "the topmost point as +yet," said he, "would it were your culminating and returning +point, to which English Puffery has been observed to reach!"--The +Hatter in the Strand of London, instead of making better felt- +hats than another, mounts a huge lath-and-plaster Hat, seven-feet +high, upon wheels; sends a man to drive it through the streets; +hoping to be saved _thereby._ He has not attempted to _make_ +better hats, as he was appointed by the Universe to do, and as +with this ingenuity of his he could very probably have done; but +his whole industry is turned to persuade us that he has made +such! He too knows that the Quack has become God. Laugh not at +him, O reader; or do not laugh only. He has ceased to be comic; +he is fast becoming tragic. To me this all-deafening blast of +Puffery, of poor Falsehood grown necessitous, of poor Heart- +Atheism fallen now into Enchanted Workhouses, sounds too surely +like a Doom's-blast! I have to say to myself in old dialect: +"God's blessing is not written on all this, His curse is written +on all this!" Unless perhaps the Universe be a chimera;--some +old totally deranged eightday clock, dead as brass; which +the Maker, if there ever was any Maker, has long ceased to +meddle with?--To my Friend Sauerteig this poor seven-feet +Hat-manufacturer, as the topstone of English Puffery, was +very notable. + +Alas, that we natives note him little, that we view him as a +thing of course, is the very burden of the misery. We take it +for granted, the most rigorous of us, that all men who have made +anything are expected and entitled to make the loudest possible +proclamation of it; call on a discerning public to reward them +for it. Every man his own trumpeter; that is, to a really +alarming extent, the accepted rule. Make loudest possible +proclamation of your Hat: true proclamation if that will do; if +that will not do, then false proclamation,--to such extent of +falsity as will serve your purpose; as will not seem too false +to be credible!--I answer, once for all, that the fact is not so. +Nature requires no man to make proclamation of his doings and +hat-makings; Nature forbids all men to make such. There is not +a man or hat-maker born into the world but feels, at first, that +he is degrading himself if he speak of his excellencies and +prowesses, and supremacy in his craft: his inmost heart says to +him, "Leave thy friends to speak of these; if possible, thy +enemies to speak of these; but at all events, thy friends!" He +feels that he is already a poor braggart; fast hastening to be a +falsity and speaker of the Untruth. + +Nature's Laws, I must repeat, are eternal: her small still +voice, speaking from the inmost heart of us, shall not, under +terrible penalties, be disregarded. No one man can depart from +the truth without damage to himself; no one million of men; no +Twenty-seven Millions of men. Shew me a Nation fallen everywhere +into this course, so that each expects it, permits it to others +and himself, I will shew you a Nation traveling with one assent +on the broad way. The broad way, however many Banks of England, +Cotton-Mills and Duke's Palaces it may have! Not at happy +Elysian fields, and everlasting crowns of victory, earned by +silent Valour, will this Nation arrive; but at precipices, +devouring gulfs, if it pause not. Nature has appointed happy +fields, victorious laurel-crowns; but only to the brave and +true: _Un_nature, what we call Chaos, holds nothing in it but +vacuities, devouring gulfs. What are Twenty-seven Millions, and +their unanimity? Believe them not: the Worlds and the Ages, God +and Nature and All Men say otherwise. + +'Rhetoric all this?' No, my brother, very singular to say, it is +Fact all this. Cocker's Arithmetic is not truer. Forgotten in +these days, it is old as the foundations of the Universe, and +will endure till the Universe cease. It is forgotten now; and +the first mention of it puckers thy sweet countenance into a +sneer: but it will be brought to mind again,--unless indeed the +Law of Gravitation chance to cease, and men find that they can +walk on vacancy. Unanimity of the Twenty-seven Millions will do +nothing: walk not thou with them; fly from them as for thy +life. Twenty-seven Millions traveling on such courses, with gold +jingling in every pocket, with vivats heaven-high, are +incessantly advancing, let me again remind thee, towards the +_firm-land's end,_--towards the end and extinction of what +Faithfulness, Veracity, real Worth, was in their way of life. +Their noble ancestors have fashioned for them a 'life-road!'--in +how many thousand senses, this! There is not an old wise Proverb +on their tongue, an honest Principle articulated in their hearts +into utterance, a wise true method of doing and despatching any +work or commerce of men, but helps yet to carry them forward. +Life is still possible to them, because all is not yet Puffery, +Falsity, Mammon-worship and Unnature; because somewhat is yet +Faithfulness, Veracity and Valour. With a certain very +considerable finite quantity of Unveracity and Phantasm, social +life is still possible; not with an infinite quantity! Exceed +your certain quantity, the seven-feet Hat, and all things upwards +to the very Champion cased in tin, begin to reel and flounder,-- +in Manchester Insurrections, Chartisms, Sliding-scales; the Law +of Gravitation not forgetting to act. You advance incessantly +towards the land's end; you are, literally enough, 'consuming +the way.' Step after step, Twenty-seven Million unconscious +men;--till you are at the land's end; till there is not +Faithfulness enough among you any more: and the next step now is +lifted _not_ over land, but into air, over ocean-deeps and +roaring abysses:--unless perhaps the Law of Gravitation have +forgotten to act? + +O, it is frightful when a whole Nation, as our Fathers used to +say, has 'forgotten God;' has remembered only Mammon, and what +Mammon leads to! When your self-trumpeting Hatmaker is the +emblem of almost all makers, and workers, and men, that make +anything,--from soul-overseerships, body-overseerships, epic +poems, acts of parliament, to hats and shoe-blacking! Not one +false man but does uncountable mischief: how much, in a +generation or two, will Twenty-seven Millions, mostly false, +manage to accumulate? The sum of it, visible in every street, +marketplace, senate-house, circulating-library, cathedral, +cotton-mill, and union-workhouse, fills one _not_ with a +comic feeling! + + + + +Chapter II + +Gospel of Mammonism + + +Reader, even Christian Reader as thy title goes, hast thou any +notion of Heaven and Hell? I rather apprehend, not. Often as +the words are on our tongue, they have got a fabulous or +semifabulous character for most of us, and pass on like a kind of +transient similitude, like a sound signifying little. + +Yet it is well worth while for us to know, once and always, that +they are not a similitude, nor a fable nor semi-fable; that they +are an everlasting highest fact! "No Lake of Sicilian or other +sulphur burns now anywhere in these ages," sayest thou? Well, +and if there did not! Believe that there does not; believe it +if thou wilt, nay hold by it as a real increase, a rise to higher +stages, to wider horizons and empires. All this has vanished, or +has not vanished; believe as thou wilt as to all this. But that +an Infinite of Practical Importance, speaking with strict +arithmetical exactness, an _Infinite,_ has vanished or can vanish +from the Life of any Man: this thou shalt not believe! O +brother, the Infinite of Terror, of Hope, of Pity, did it not at +any moment disclose itself to thee, indubitable, unnameable? +Came it never, like the gleam of preternatural eternal Oceans, +like the voice of old Eternities, far-sounding through thy heart +of hearts? Never? Alas, it was not thy Liberalism then; it was +thy Animalism! The Infinite is more sure than any other fact. +But only men can discern it; mere building beavers, spinning +arachnes, much more the predatory vulturous and vulpine species, +do not discern it well!-- + +'The word Hell,' says Sauerteig, 'is still frequently in use +among the English People: but I could not without difficulty +ascertain what they meant by it. Hell generally signifies the +Infinite Terror, the thing a man is infinitely afraid of, and +shudders and shrinks from, struggling with his whole soul to +escape from it. There is a Hell therefore, if you will consider, +which accompanies man, in all stages of his history, and +religious or other development: but the Hells of men and Peoples +differ notably. With Christians it is the infinite terror of +being found guilty before the just Judge. With old Romans, I +conjecture, it was the terror not of Pluto, for whom probably +they cared little, but of doing unworthily, doing unvirtuously, +which was their word for un_man_fully. And now what is it, if +you pierce through his Cants, his oft-repeated Hearsays, what he +calls his Worships and so forth,--what is it that the modern +English soul does, in very truth, dread infinitely, and +contemplate with entire despair? What is his Hell; after all +these reputable, oft-repeated Hearsays, what is it? With +hesitation, with astonishment, I pronounce it to be: The terror +of "Not succeeding;" of not making money, fame, or some other +figure in the world,--chiefly of not making money! Is not that a +somewhat singular Hell? + +Yes, O Sauerteig, it is very singular. If we do not 'succeed,' +where is the use of us? We had better never have been born. +"Tremble intensely," as our friend the Emperor of China says: +_there_ is the black Bottomless of Terror; what Sauerteig calls +the 'Hell of the English!'--But indeed this Hell belongs +naturally to the Gospel of Mammonism, which also has its +corresponding Heaven. For there is one Reality among so many +Phantasms; about one thing we are entirely in earnest: The +making of money. Working Mammonism does divide the world with +idle game-preserving Dilettantism:--thank Heaven that there is +even a Mammonism, anything we are in earnest about! Idleness is +worst, Idleness alone is without hope: work earnestly at +anything, you will by degrees learn to work at almost all things. +There is endless hope in work, were it even work at making money. + +True, it must be owned, we for the present, with our Mammon- +Gospel, have come to strange conclusions. We call it a Society; +and go about professing openly the totalest separation, +isolation. Our life is not a mutual helpfulness; but rather, +cloaked under due laws-of-war, named 'fair competition' and so +forth, it is a mutual hostility. We have profoundly forgotten +everywhere that _Cash-payment_ is not the sole relation of human +beings; we think, nothing doubting, that it absolves and +liquidates all engagements of man. "My starving workers?" +answers the rich Mill-owner: "Did not I hire them fairly in the +market? Did I not pay them, to the last sixpence, the sum +covenanted for? What have I to do with them more?"--Verily +Mammon-worship is a melancholy creed. When Cain, for his own +behoof, had killed Abel, and was questioned, "Where is thy +brother" he too made answer, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Did I +not pay my brother _his_ wages, the thing he had merited from me? + +O sumptuous Merchant-Prince, illustrious game-preserving Duke, is +there no way of 'killing' thy brother but Cain's rude way! 'A +good man by the very look of him, by his very presence with us as +a fellow wayfarer in this Life-pilgrimage, _promises_ so much:' +woe to him if he forget all such promises, if he never know that +they were given! To a deadened soul, seared with the brute +Idolatry of Sense, to whom going to Hell is equivalent to not +making money, all 'promises,' and moral duties, that cannot be +pleaded for in Courts of Requests, address themselves in vain. +Money he can be ordered to pay, but nothing more. I have not +heard in all Past History, and expect not to hear in all Future +History, of any Society anywhere under God's Heaven supporting +itself on such Philosophy. The Universe is not made so; it is +made otherwise than so. The man or nation of men that thinks it +is made so, marches forward nothing doubting, step after step; +but marches--whither we know! In these last two centuries of +Atheistic Government (near two centuries now, since the blessed +restoration of his Sacred Majesty, and Defender of the Faith, +Charles Second), I reckon that we have pretty well exhausted what +of 'firm earth' there was for us to march on;--and are now, very +ominously, shuddering, reeling, and let us hope trying to recoil, +on the cliff's edge!-- + +For out of this that we call Atheism come so many other _isms_ +and falsities, each falsity with its misery at its heels!--A SOUL +is not like wind (_spiritus,_ or breath) contained within a +capsule; the ALMIGHTY MAKER is not like a Clockmaker that once, +in old immemorial ages, having _made_ his Horologe of a Universe, +sits ever since and sees it go! Not at all. Hence comes +Atheism; come, as we say, many other _isms;_ and as the sum of +all, comes Valetism, the _reverse_ of Heroism; sad root of all +woes whatsoever. For indeed, as no man ever saw the above-said +wind-element enclosed within its capsule, and finds it at bottom +more deniable than conceivable; so too he finds, in spite of +Bridgewater Bequests, your Clockmaker Almighty an entirely +questionable affair, a deniable affair;--and accordingly denies +it, and along with it so much else. Alas, one knows not what and +how much else! For the faith in an Invisible, Unnameable, +Godlike, present everywhere in all that we see and work and +suffer, is the essence of all faith whatsoever; and that once +denied, or still worse, asserted with lips only, and out of bound +prayerbooks only, what other thing remains believable? That Cant +well-ordered is marketable Cant; that Heroism means gas-lighted +Histrionism; that seen with 'clear eyes' (as they call Valet- +eyes), no man is a Hero, or ever was a Hero, but all men are +Valets and Varlets. The accursed practical quintessence of all +sorts of Unbelief! For if there be now no Hero, and the Histrio +himself begin to be seen into, what hope is there for the seed of +Adam here below? We are the doomed everlasting prey of the +Quack; who, now in this guise, now in that, is to filch us, to +pluck and eat us, by such modes as are convenient for him. For +the modes and guises I care little. The Quack once inevitable, +let him come swiftly, let him pluck and eat me;--swiftly, that I +may at least have done with him; for in his Quack-world I can +have no wish to linger. Though he slay me, yet will I despise +him. Though he conquer nations, and have all the Flunkeys of the +Universe shouting at his heels, yet will I know well that _he_ is +an Inanity; that for him and his there is no continuance +appointed, save only in Gehenna and the Pool. Alas, the Atheist +world, from its utmost summits of Heaven and Westminster Hall, +downwards through poor sevenfeet Hats and 'Unveracities fallen +hungry,' down to the lowest cellars and neglected hunger-dens of +it, is very wretched. + +One of Dr. Alison's Scotch facts struck us much.* A poor +Irish Widow, her husband having died in one of the Lanes of +Edinburgh, went forth with her three children, bare of all +resource, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments of +that City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that she +was refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none;-- +till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heart +failed her: she sank down in typhus-fever; died, and infected +her Lane with fever, so that 'seventeen other persons' died of +fever there in consequence. The humane Physician asks thereupon, +as with a heart too full for speaking, Would it not have been +_economy_ to help this poor Widow? She took typhus-fever, and +killed seventeen of you!--Very curious. The forlorn Irish Widow +applies to her fellow-creatures, as if saying, "Behold I am +sinking, bare of help: ye must help me! I am your sister, bone +of your bone; one God made us: ye must help me!" They answer, +"No; impossible: thou art no sister of ours." But she proves +her sisterhood; her typhus-fever kills _them:_ they actually +were her brothers, though denying it! Had man ever to go lower +for a proof? + +------------ +* _Observations on the Management of the Poor in Scotland:_ By +William Pulteney Alison, M.D. (Edinburgh, 1840) +------------ + +For, as indeed was very natural in such case, all government of +the Poor by the Rich has long ago been given over to Supply-and- +demand, Laissez-faire and such like, and universally declared to +be 'impossible.' "You are no sister of ours; what shadow of +proof is there? Here are our parchments, our padlocks, proving +indisputably our money-safes to be _ours,_ and you to have no +business with them. Depart! It is impossible!"--Nay, what +wouldst thou thyself have us do? cry indignant readers. Nothing, +my friends,--till you have got a soul for yourselves again. Till +then all things are 'impossible.' Till then I cannot even bid +you buy, as the old Spartans would have done, two-pence worth of +powder and lead, and compendiously shoot to death this poor Irish +Widow: even that is 'impossible' for you. Nothing is left but +that she prove her sisterhood by dying, and infecting you with +typhus. Seventeen of you lying dead will not deny such proof +that she was flesh of your flesh; and perhaps some of the living +may lay it to heart. + +'Impossible:' of a certain two-legged animal with feathers, it +is said if you draw a distinct chalk-circle round him, he sits +imprisoned, as if girt with the iron ring of Fate; and will die +there, though within sight of victuals,--or sit in sick misery +there, and be fatted to death. The name of this poor two-legged +animal is--Goose; and they make of him, when well fattened, +_Pate de foie gras,_ much prized by some! + + + + +Chapter III + +Gospel of Dilettantism + + +But after all, the Gospel of Dilettantism, producing a Governing +Class who do not govern, nor understand in the least that they +are bound or expected to govern, is still mournfuler than that of +Mammonism. Mammonism, as we said, at least works; this goes +idle. Mammonism has seized some portion of the message of Nature +to man; and seizing that, and following it, will seize and +appropriate more and more of Nature's message: but Dilettantism +has missed it wholly. 'Make money:' that will mean withal, 'Do +work in order to make money.' But, 'Go gracefully idle in +Mayfair,' what does or can that mean? An idle, game-preserving +and even corn-Jawing Aristocracy, in such an England as ours: +has the world, if we take thought of it, ever seen such a +phenomenon till very lately? Can it long continue to see such? + +Accordingly the impotent, insolent Donothingism in Practice, and +Saynothingism in Speech, which we have to witness on that side of +our affairs, is altogether amazing. A Corn-Law demonstrating +itself openly, for ten years or more, with 'arguments' to make +the angels, and some other classes of creatures, weep! For men +are not ashamed to rise in Parliament and elsewhere, and speak +the things they do _not_ think. 'Expediency,' 'Necessities of +Party,' &c. &c.! It is not known that the Tongue of Man is a +sacred organ; that Man himself is definable in Philosophy as an +'Incarnate _Word;'_ the Word not there, you have no Man there +either, but a Phantasm instead! In this way it is that +Absurdities may live long enough,--still walking, and talking for +themselves, years and decades after the brains are quite out! +How are 'the knaves and dastards' ever to be got 'arrested' at +that rate?-- + +"No man in this fashionable London of yours," friend Sauerteig +would say, "speaks a plain word to me. Every man feels bound to +be something more than plain; to be pungent withal, witty, +ornamental. His poor fraction of sense has to be perked into +some epigrammatic shape, that it may prick into me;--perhaps +(this is the commonest) to be topsyturvied, left standing on its +head, that I may remember it the better! Such grinning inanity +is very sad to the soul of man. Human faces should not grin on +one like masks; they should look on one like faces! I love +honest laughter, as I do sunlight; but not dishonest: most +kinds of dancing too; but the St.-Vitus kind not at all! A +fashionable wit, ach Himmel, if you ask, Which, he or a Death's- +head, will be the cheerier company for me? pray send _not_ him!" + +Insincere Speech, truly, is the prime material of insincere +Action. Action hangs, as it were, _dissolved_ in Speech, in +Thought whereof Speech is the shadow; and precipitates itself +therefrom. The kind of Speech in a man betokens the kind of +Action you will get from him. Our Speech, in these modern days, +has become amazing. Johnson complained, "Nobody speaks in +earnest, Sir; there is no serious conversation." To us all +serious speech of men, as that of Seventeenth-Century Puritans, +Twelfth-Century Catholics, German Poets of this Century, has +become jargon, more or less insane. Cromwell was mad and a +quack; Anselm, Becket, Goethe, _ditto ditto._ + + +Perhaps few narratives in History or Mythology are more +significant than that Moslem one, of Moses and the Dwellers by +the Dead Sea. A tribe of men dwelt on the shores of that same +Asphaltic Lake; and having forgotten, as we are all too prone to +do, the inner facts of Nature, and taken up with the falsities +and outer semblances of it, were fallen into sad conditions,-- +verging indeed towards a certain far deeper Lake. Whereupon it +pleased kind Heaven to send them the Prophet Moses, with an +instructive word of warning, out of which might have sprung +'remedial measures' not a few. But no: the men of the Dead Sea +discovered, as the valet-species always does in heroes or +prophets, no comeliness in Moses; listened with real tedium to +Moses, with light grinning, or with splenetic sniffs and sneers, +affecting even to yawn; and signified, in short, that they found +him a humbug, and even a bore. Such was the candid theory these +men of the Asphalt Lake formed to themselves of Moses, That +probably he was a humbug, that certainly he was a bore. + +Moses withdrew; but Nature and her rigorous veracities did not +withdraw. The men of the Dead Sea, when we next went to visit +them, were all 'changed into Apes;'* sitting on the trees there, +grinning now in the most _un_affected manner; gibbering and +chattering _complete_ nonsense; finding the whole Universe now a +most indisputable Humbug! The Universe has _become_ a Humbug to +these Apes who thought it one! There they sit and chatter, to +this hour: only, I think, every Sabbath there returns to them a +bewildered half-consciousness, half-reminiscence; and they sit, +with their wizened smoke-dried visages, and such an air of +supreme tragicality as Apes may; looking out, through those +blinking smoke-bleared eyes of theirs, into the wonderfulest +universal smoky Twilight and undecipherable disordered Dusk of +Things; wholly an Uncertainty, Unintelligibility, they and it; +and for commentary thereon, here and there an unmusical chatter +or mew:--truest, tragicalest Humbug conceivable by the mind of +man or ape! They made no use of their souls; and so have lost +them. Their worship on the Sabbath now is to roost there, with +unmusical screeches, and half-remember that they had souls. + +Didst thou never, O Traveler, fall in with parties of this tribe? +Meseems they are grown somewhat numerous in our day. + +--------- +* Sale's _Koran_ (_Introduction_). + + + + +Chapter IV + +Happy + + +All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone noble: +be that here said and asserted once more. And in like manner too +all dignity is painful; a life of ease is not for any man, nor +for any god. The life of all gods figures itself to us as a +Sublime Sadness--earnestness of Infinite Battle against Infinite +Labour. Our highest religion is named the 'Worship of Sorrow.' +For the son of man there is no noble crown, well worn, or even +ill worn, but is a crown of thorns!--These things, in spoken +words, or still better, in felt instincts alive in every heart, +were once well known. + +Does not the whole wretchedness, the whole _Atheism_ as I call +it, of man's ways, in these generations, shadow itself for us in +that unspeakable Life-philosophy of his: The pretension to be +what he calls 'happy?' Every pitifulest whipster that walks +within a skin has his head filled with the notion that he is, +shall be, or by all human and divine laws ought to be, 'happy.' +His wishes, the pitifulest whipster's, are to be fulfilled for +him; his days, the pitifulest whipster's, are to flow on in +ever-gentle current of enjoyment, impossible even for the gods. +The prophets preach to us, Thou shalt be happy; thou shalt love +pleasant things, and find them. The people clamour, Why have we +not found pleasant things? + +We construct our theory of Human Duties, not on any Greatest- +Nobleness Principle, never so mistaken; no, but on a Greatest- +Happiness Principle. 'The word _Soul_ with us, as in some +Slavonic dialects, seems to be synonymous with _Stomach._ We +plead and speak, in our Parliaments and elsewhere, not as from +the Soul, but from the Stomach;--wherefore, indeed, our pleadings +are so slow to profit. We plead not for God's justice; we are +not ashamed to stand clamouring and pleading for our own +'interests,' our own rents and trade-profits; we say, They are +the 'interests' of so many; there is such an intense desire for +them in us! We demand Free-Trade, with much just vociferation +and benevolence, That the poorer classes, who are terribly ill- +off at present, may have cheaper New-Orleans bacon. Men ask on +Free-trade platforms, How can the indomitable spirit of +Englishmen be kept up without plenty of bacon? We shall become a +ruined Nation!--Surely, my friends, plenty of bacon is good and +indispensable: but, I doubt, you will never get even bacon by +aiming only at that. You are men, not animals of prey, well-used +or ill-used! Your Greatest-Happiness Principle seems to me fast +becoming a rather unhappy one.--What if we should cease babbling +about 'happiness,' and leave _it_ resting on its own basis, as it +used to do! + +A gifted Byron rises in his wrath; and feeling too surely that +he for his part is not 'happy,' declares the same in very violent +language, as a piece of news that may be interesting. It +evidently has surprised him much. One dislikes to see a man and +poet reduced to proclaim on the streets such tidings: but on the +whole, as matters go, that is not the most dislikable. Byron +speaks the _truth_ in this matter. Byron's large audience +indicates how true it is felt to be. + +'Happy,' my brother? First of all, what difference is it whether +thou art happy or not! Today becomes Yesterday so fast, all +Tomorrows become Yesterdays; and then there is no question +whatever of the 'happiness,' but quite another question. Nay, +thou hast such a sacred pity left at least for thyself, thy very +pains once gone over into Yesterday become joys to thee. +Besides, thou knowest not what heavenly blessedness and +indispensable sanative virtue was in them; thou shalt only know +it after many days, when thou art wiser!--A benevolent old +Surgeon sat once in our company, with a Patient fallen sick by +gourmandising, whom he had just, too briefly in the Patient's +judgment, been examining. The foolish Patient still at intervals +continued to break in on our discourse, which rather promised to +take a philosophic turn: "But I have lost my appetite," said he, +objurgatively, with a tone of irritated pathos; "I have no +appetite; I can't eat!"--"My dear fellow," answered the Doctor +in mildest tone, "it isn't of the slightest consequence;"--and +continued his philosophical discoursings with us! + +Or does the reader not know the history of that Scottish iron +Misanthrope? The inmates of some town-mansion, in those Northern +parts, were thrown into the fearfulest alarm by indubitable +symptoms of a ghost inhabiting the next house, or perhaps even +the partition-wall! Ever at a certain hour, with preternatural +gnarring, growling and screeching, which attended as running +bass, there began, in a horrid, semi-articulate, unearthly voice, +this song: "Once I was hap-hap-happy, but now I'm _mees_-erable! +Clack-clack-clack, gnarr-r-r, whuz-z: Once I was hap-hap-happy, +but now I'm _mees_-erable!"--Rest, rest, perturbed spirit;--or +indeed, as the good old Doctor said: My dear fellow, it isn't of +the slightest consequence! But no; the perturbed spirit could +not rest; and to the neighbours, fretted, affrighted, or at +least insufferably bored by him, it _was_ of such consequence +that they had to go and examine in his haunted chamber. In his +haunted chamber, they find that the perturbed spirit is an +unfortunate--Imitator of Byron? No, is an unfortunate rusty +Meat-jack, gnarring and creaking with rust and work; and this, +in Scottish dialect, is _its_ Byronian musical Life-philosophy, +sung according to ability! + + +Truly, I think the man who goes about pothering and uproaring for +his 'happiness,'--pothering, and were it ballot-boxing, poem- +making, or in what way soever fussing and exerting himself,--he +is not the man that will help us to 'get our knaves and dastards +arrested!' No; he rather is on the way to increase the number, +--by at least one unit and _his_ tail! Observe, too, that this is +all a modern affair; belongs not to the old heroic times, but to +these dastard new times. 'Happiness our being's end and aim' is +at bottom, if we will count well, not yet two centuries old in +the world. + +The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with asking +much about was, happiness enough to get his work done. Not "I +can't eat!" but "I can't work!" that was the burden of all wise +complaining among men. It is, after all, the one unhappiness of +a man. That he cannot work; that he cannot get his destiny as a +man fulfilled. Behold, the day is passing swiftly over, our life +is passing swiftly over; and the night cometh, wherein no man +can work. The night once come, our happiness, our unhappiness,-- +it is all abolished; vanished, clean gone; a thing that has +been: 'not of the slightest consequence' whether we were happy +as eupeptic Curtis, as the fattest pig of Epicurus, or unhappy as +job with potsherds, as musical Byron with Giaours and +sensibilities of the heart; as the unmusical Meat-jack with hard +labour and rust! But our work,--behold that is not abolished, +that has not vanished: our work, behold, it remains, or the want +of it remains;--for endless Times and Eternities, remains; and +that is now the sole question with us forevermore! Brief +brawling Day, with its noisy phantasms, its poor paper-crowns +tinsel-gilt, is gone; and divine everlasting Night, with her +star-diadems, with her silences and her veracities, is come! +What hast thou done, and how? Happiness, unhappiness: all that +was but the _wages_ thou hadst; thou hast spent all that, in +sustaining thyself hitherward; not a coin of it remains with +thee, it is all spent, eaten: and now thy work, where is thy +work? Swift, out with it, let us see thy work! + + +Of a truth, if man were not a poor hungry dastard, and even +much of a blockhead withal, he would cease criticising his +victuals to such extent; and criticise himself rather, what +he does with his victuals! + + + + +Chapter V + +The English + + +And yet, with all thy theoretic platitudes, what a depth of +practical sense in thee, great England! A depth of sense, of +justice, and courage; in which, under all emergencies and world- +bewilderments, and under this most complex of emergencies we now +live in, there is still hope, there is still assurance! + +The English are a dumb people. They can do great acts, but not +describe them. Like the old Romans, and some few others, _their_ +Epic Poem is written on the Earth's surface: England her Mark! +It is complained that they have no artists: one Shakspeare +indeed; but for Raphael only a Reynolds; for Mozart nothing but +a Mr. Bishop: not a picture, not a song. And yet they did +produce one Shakspeare: consider how the element of Shakspearean +melody does lie imprisoned in their nature; reduced to unfold +itself in mere Cotton-mills, Constitutional Governments, and such +like;--all the more interesting when it does become visible, as +even in such unexpected shapes it succeeds in doing! Goethe +spoke of the Horse, how impressive, almost affecting it was that +an animal of such qualities should stand obstructed so; its +speech nothing but an inarticulate neighing, its handiness mere +_hoof_iness, the fingers all constricted, tied together, the +fingernails coagulated into a mere hoof, shod with iron. The +more significant, thinks he, are those eye-flashings of the +generous noble quadruped; those prancings, curvings of the neck +clothed with thunder. + + +A Dog of Knowledge has _free_ utterance; but the Warhorse is +almost mute, very far from free! It is even so. Truly, your +freest utterances are not by any means always the best: they are +the worst rather; the feeblest, trivialest; their meaning +prompt, but small, ephemeral. Commend me to the silent English, +to the silent Romans. Nay, the silent Russians too I believe to +be worth something: are they not even now drilling, under much +obloquy, an immense semi-barbarous half-world from Finland to +Kamtschatka, into rule, subordination, civilisation,--really in +an old Roman fashion; speaking no word about it; quietly hearing +all manner of vituperative Able Editors speak! While your ever- +talking, ever-gesticulating French, for example, what are they at +this moment drilling?--Nay, of all animals, the freest of +utterance, I should judge, is the genus Simia:_ go into the +Indian woods, say all Travelers, and look what a brisk, adroit, +unresting Ape-population it is! + + +The spoken Word, the written Poem, is said to be an epitome of +the man; how much more the done Work. Whatsoever of morality +and of intelligence; what of patience, perseverance, +faithfulness, of method, insight, ingenuity, energy; in a word, +whatsoever of Strength the man had in him will lie written in the +Work he does. To work: why, it is to try himself against +Nature, and her everlasting unerring Laws; these will tell a +true verdict as to the man. So much of virtue and of faculty did +_we_ find in him; so much and no more! He had such capacity of +harmonising himself with _me_ and my unalterable ever-veracious +Laws; of cooperating and working as _I_ bade him;--and has +prospered, and has not prospered, as you see!--Working as great +Nature bade him: does not that mean virtue of a kind; nay, of +all kinds? Cotton can be spun and sold, Lancashire operatives +can be got to spin it, and at length one has the woven webs and +sells them, by following Nature's regulations in that matter: by +not following Nature's regulations, you have them not. You have +them not;--there is no Cotton-web to sell: Nature finds a bill +against you; your 'Strength' is not Strength, but Futility! Let +faculty be honoured, so far as it is faculty. A man that can +succeed in working is to me always a man. + +How one loves to see the burly figure of him, this thick-skinned, +seemingly opaque, perhaps sulky, almost stupid Man of Practice, +pitted against some light--adroit Man of Theory, all equipt with +clear logic, and able anywhere to give you Why for Wherefore! The +adroit Man of Theory, so light of movement, clear of utterance, +with his bow full-bent and quiver full of arrow-arguments,-- +surely he will strike down the game, transfix everywhere the +heart of the matter; triumph everywhere, as he proves that he +shall and must do? To your astonishment, it turns out oftenest +No. The cloudy-browed, thick-soled, opaque Practicality, with no +logic-utterance, in silence mainly, with here and there a low +grunt or growl, has in him what transcends all logic-utterance: +a Congruity with the Unuttered! The Speakable, which lies atop, +as a superficial film, or outer skin, is his or is not his: but +the Doable, which reaches down to the World's centre, you find +him there! + +The rugged Brindleys has little to say for himself; the rugged +Brindley, when difficulties accumulate on him, retires silent, +'generally to his bed;' retires 'sometimes for three days +together to his bed, that he may be in perfect privacy there,' +and ascertain in his rough head how the difficulties can be +overcome. The ineloquent Brindley, behold he _has_ chained seas +together; his ships do visibly float over valleys, invisibly +through the hearts of mountains; the Mersey and the Thames, the +Humber and the Severn have shaken hands: Nature most audibly +answers, Yea! The man of Theory twangs his full-bent bow: +Nature's Fact ought to fall stricken, but does not: his logic- +arrow glances from it as from a scaly dragon, and the obstinate +Fact keeps walking its way. How singular! At bottom, you will +have to grapple closer with the dragon; take it home to you, by +real faculty, not by seeming faculty; try whether you are +stronger or it is stronger. Close with it, wrestle it: sheer +obstinate toughness of muscle; but much more, what we call +toughness of heart, which will mean persistance hopeful and even +desperate, unsubduable patience, composed candid openness, +clearness of mind: all this shall be 'strength' in wrestling +your dragon; the whole man's real strength is in this work, we +shall get the measure of him here. + +Of all the Nations in the world at present we English are the +stupidest in speech, the wisest in action. As good as a 'dumb' +Nation, I say, who cannot speak, and have never yet spoken,-- +spite of the Shakspeares and Miltons who skew us what +possibilities there are!--O Mr. Bull, I look in that surly face +of thine with a mixture of pity and laughter, yet also with +wonder and veneration. Thou complainest not, my illustrious +friend; and yet I believe the heart of thee is full of sorrow, +of unspoken sadness, seriousness,--profound melancholy (as some +have said) the basis of thy being. Unconsciously, for thou +speakest of nothing, this great Universe is great to thee. Not +by levity of floating, but by stubborn force of swimming, shalt +thou make thy way. The Fates sing of thee that thou shalt many +times be thought an ass and a dull ox, and shalt with a god-like +indifference believe it. My friend,--and it is all untrue, +nothing ever falser in point of fact! Thou art of those great +ones whose greatness the small passer-by does not discern. Thy +very stupidity is wiser than their wisdom. A grand _vis +inertiae_ is in thee; how many grand qualities unknown to small +men! Nature alone knows thee, acknowledges the bulk and strength +of thee: thy Epic, unsung in words, is written in huge +characters on the face of this Planet,--sea-moles, cotton-trades, +railways, fleets and cities, Indian Empires, Americas, New- +Hollands; legible throughout the Solar System! + +But the dumb Russians too, as I said, they, drilling all wild +Asia and wild Europe into military rank and file, a terrible yet +hitherto a prospering enterprise, are still dumber. The old +Romans also could not _speak,_ for many centuries:--not till the +world was theirs; and so many speaking Greekdoms, their logic- +arrows all spent, had been absorbed and abolished. The logic- +arrows, how they glanced futile from obdurate thick-skinned +Facts; Facts to be wrestled down only by the real vigour of +Roman thews!--As for me, I honour, in these loud-babbling days, +all the Silent rather. A grand Silence that of Romans;--nay the +grandest of all, is it not that of the gods! Even Triviality, +Imbecility, that can sit silent, how respectable is it in +comparison! The 'talent of silence' is our fundamental one. +Great honour to him whose Epic is a melodious hexameter Iliad; +not a jingling Sham-Iliad, nothing true in it but the hexameters +and forms merely. But still greater honour, if his Epic be a +mighty Empire slowly built together, a mighty Series of Heroic +Deeds,--a mighty Conquest over Chaos; _which_ Epic the 'Eternal +Melodies' have, and must have, informed and dwelt in, as it sung +itself! There is no mistaking that latter Epic. Deeds are +greater than Words. Deeds have such a life, mute but undeniable, +and grow as living trees and fruit-trees do; they people the +vacuity of Time, and make it green and worthy. Why should the +oak prove logically that it ought to grow, and will grow? Plant +it, try it; what gifts of diligent judicious assimilation and +secretion it has, of progress and resistance, of _force_ to grow, +will then declare themselves. My much-honoured, illustrious, +extremely inarticulate Mr. Bull!-- + +Ask Bull his spoken opinion of any matter,--oftentimes the force +of dulness can no farther go. You stand silent, incredulous, as +over a platitude that borders on the Infinite. The man's +Churchisms, Dissenterisms, Puseyisms, Benthamisms, College +Philosophies, Fashionable Literatures, are unexampled in this +world. Fate's prophecy is fulfilled; you call the man an ox and +an ass. But set him once to work,--respectable man! His spoken +sense is next to nothing, nine-tenths of it palpable _nonsense:_ +but his unspoken sense, his inner silent feeling of what is true, +what does agree with fact, what is doable and what is not +doable,--this seeks its fellow in the world. A terrible worker; +irresistible against marshes, mountains, impediments, disorder, +in civilisation; everywhere vanquishing disorder, leaving it +behind him as method and order. He 'retires to his bed three +days,' and considers! + +Nay withal, stupid as he is, our dear John,--ever, after infinite +tumblings, and spoken platitudes innumerable from barrelheads and +parliament-benches, he does settle down somewhere about the just +conclusion; you are certain that his jumblings and tumblings +will end, after years or centuries, in the stable equilibrium. +Stable equilibrium, I say; centre-of-gravity lowest;--not the +unstable, with centre-of-gravity highest, as I have known it done +by quicker people! For indeed, do but jumble and tumble +sufficiently, you avoid that worst fault, of settling with your +centre-of-gravity highest; your centre-of-gravity is certain to +come lowest, and to stay there. If slowness, what we in our +impatience call 'stupidity,' be the price of stable equilibrium +over unstable, shall we grudge a little slowness? Not the least +admirable quality of Bull is, after all, that of remaining +insensible to logic; holding out for considerable periods, ten +years or more, as in this of the Corn-Laws, after all arguments +and shadow of arguments have faded away from him, till the very +urchins on the street titter at the arguments he brings. Logic, +--[Greek] the 'Art of Speech,'--does indeed speak so and so; +clear enough: nevertheless Bull still shakes his head; will see +whether nothing else _illogical,_ not yet 'spoken,' not yet able +to be 'spoken,' do not lie in the business, as there so often +does!--My firm belief is, that, finding himself now enchanted, +hand-shackled, foot-shackled, in Poor-Law Bastilles and +elsewhere, he will retire three days to his bed, and _arrive_ at +a conclusion or two! His three-years total stagnation of trade, +alas, is not that a painful enough 'lying in bed to consider +himself?' Poor Bull! + +Bull is a born Conservative; for this too I inexpressibly honour +him. All great Peoples are conservative; slow to believe in +novelties; patient of much error in actualities; deeply and +forever certain of the greatness that is in LAW, in Custom once +solemnly established, and now long recognised as just and final. +--True, O Radical Reformer, there is no Custom that can, properly +speaking, be final; none. And yet thou seest _Customs_ which, +in all civilised countries, are accounted final; nay, under the +Old Roman name of _Mores,_ are accounted _Morality,_ Virtue, Laws +of God Himself. Such, I assure thee, not a few of them are; +such almost all of them once were. And greatly do I respect the +solid character,--a blockhead, thou wilt say; yes, but a well- +conditioned blockhead, and the best-conditioned,--who esteems all +'Customs once solemnly acknowledged' to be ultimate, divine, and +the rule for a man to walk by, nothing doubting, not inquiring +farther. What a time of it had we, were all men's life and trade +still, in all parts of it, a problem, a hypothetic seeking, to be +settled by painful Logics and Baconian Inductions! The Clerk in +Eastcheap cannot spend the day in verifying his Ready-Reckoner; +he must take it as verified, true and indisputable; or his Book- +keeping by Double Entry will stand still. "Where is your Posted +Ledger?" asks the Master at night.--"Sir," answers the other, "I +was verifying my Ready-Reckoner, and find some errors. The +Ledger is--!"--Fancy such a thing! + +True, all turns on your Ready-Reckoner being moderately correct, +--being _not_ insupportably incorrect! A Ready-Reckoner which has +led to distinct entries in your Ledger such as these: +_'Creditor_ an English People by fifteen hundred years of good +Labour; and _Debtor_ to lodging in enchanted Poor-Law Bastilles: +_Creditor_ by conquering the largest Empire the Sun ever saw; +and _Debtor_ to Donothingism and "Impossible" written on all +departments of the government thereof: _Creditor_ by mountains +of gold ingots earned; and _Debtor_ to No Bread purchasable by +them:'--_such_ Ready-Reckoner, methinks, is beginning to be +suspect; nay is ceasing, and has ceased, to be suspect! Such +Ready-Reckoner is a Solecism in Eastcheap; and must, whatever be +the press of business, and will and shall be rectified a little. +Business can go on no longer with _it._ The most Conservative +English People, thickest-skinned, most patient of Peoples, is +driven alike by its Logic and its Unlogic, by things 'spoken,' +and by things not yet spoken or very speakable, but only felt and +very unendurable, to be wholly a Reforming People. Their Life as +it is has ceased to be longer possible for them. + +Urge not this noble silent People; rouse not the Berserkir-rage +that lies in them! Do you know their Cromwells, Hampdens, their +Pyms and Bradshaws? Men very peaceable, but men that can be made +very terrible! Men who, like their old Teutsch Fathers in +Agrippa's days, 'have a soul that despises death;' to whom +'death,' compared with falsehoods and injustices, is light;--'in +whom there is a range unconquerable by the immortal gods!' +Before this, the English People have taken very preternatural- +looking Spectres by the beard; saying virtually: "And if thou +_wert_ 'preternatural?' Thou with thy 'divine-rights' grown +diabolic wrongs? Thou,--not even 'natural;' decapitable; +totally extinguishable!"--Yes, just so godlike as this People's +patience was, even so godlike will and must its impatience be. +Away, ye scandalous Practical Solecisms, children actually of the +Prince of Darkness; ye have near broken our hearts; we can and +will endure you no longer. Begone, we say; depart, while the +play is good! By the Most High God, whose sons and born +missionaries true men are, ye shall not continue here! You and +we have become incompatible; can inhabit one house no longer. +Either you must go, or we. Are ye ambitious to try _which_ it +shall be? + +O my Conservative friends, who still specially name and struggle +to approve yourselves 'Conservative,' would to Heaven I could +persuade you of this world-old fact, than which Fate is not +surer, That Truth and justice alone are _capable_ of being +'conserved' and preserved! The thing which is unjust, which is +not according to God's Law, will you, in a God's Universe, try to +conserve that? It is so old, say you? Yes, and the hotter haste +ought _you,_ of all others, to be in to let it grow no older! If +but the faintest whisper in your hearts intimate to you that it +is not fair,--hasten, for the sake of Conservatism itself, to +probe it rigorously, to cast it forth at once and forever if +guilty. How will or can you preserve _it,_ the thing that is not +fair? 'Impossibility' a thousandfold is marked on that. And ye +call yourselves Conservatives, Aristocracies:--ought not honour +and nobleness of mind, if they had departed from all the Earth +elsewhere, to find their last refuge with you? Ye unfortunate! + +The bough that is dead shall be cut away, for the sake of the +tree itself. Old? Yes, it is too old. Many a weary winter has +it swung and creaked there, and gnawed and fretted, with its dead +wood, the organic substance and still living fibre of this good +tree; many a long summer has its ugly naked brown defaced the +fair green umbrage; every day it has done mischief, and that +only: off with it, for the tree's sake, if for nothing more; +let the Conservatism that would preserve cut _it_ away. Did no +wood-forester apprise you that a dead bough with its dead root +left sticking there is extraneous, poisonous; is as a dead iron +spike, some horrid rusty ploughshare driven into the living +substance;--nay is far worse; for in every windstorm +('commercial crisis' or the like), it frets and creaks, jolts +itself to and fro, and cannot lie quiet as your dead iron +spike would! + +If I were the Conservative Party of England (which is another +bold figure of speech), I would not for a hundred thousand pounds +an hour allow those Corn-Laws to continue! Potosi and Golconda +put together would not purchase my assent to them. Do you count +what treasuries of bitter indignation they are laying up for you +in every just English heart? Do you know what questions, not as +to Corn-prices and Sliding-scales alone, they are _forcing_ every +reflective Englishman to ask himself? Questions insoluble, or +hitherto unsolved; deeper than any of our Logic-plummets +hitherto will sound: questions deep enough,--which it were +better that we did not name even in thought! You are forcing us +to think of them, to begin uttering them. The utterance of them +is begun; and where will it be ended, think you? When two +millions of one's brother-men sit in Workhouses, and five +millions, as is insolently said, 'rejoice in potatoes,' there are +various things that must be begun, let them end where they can. + + + + +Chapter VI + +Two Centuries + +The Settlement effected by our 'Healing Parliament' in the Year +of Grace 1660, though accomplished under universal acclamations +from the four corners of the British Dominions, turns out to have +been one of the mournfulest that ever took place in this land of +ours. It called and thought itself a Settlement of brightest +hope and fulfilment, bright as the blaze of universal tar-barrels +and bonfires could make it: and we find it now, on looking back +on it with the insight which trial has yielded, a Settlement as +of despair. Considered well, it was a settlement to govern +henceforth without God, with only some decent Pretence of God. + +Governing by the Christian Law of God had been found a thing of +battle, convulsion, confusion, an infinitely difficult thing: +wherefore let us now abandon it, and govern only by so much of +God's Christian Law as--as may prove quiet and convenient for us. +What is the end of Government? To guide men in the way wherein +they should go; towards their true good in this life, the portal +of infinite good in a life to come? To guide men in such way, +and ourselves in such way, as the Maker of men, whose eye is upon +us, will sanction at the Great Day?--Or alas, perhaps at bottom +_is_ there no Great Day, no sure outlook of any life to come; +but only this poor life, and what of taxes, felicities, Nell- +Gwyns and entertainments, we can manage to muster here? In that +case, the end of Government will be, To suppress all noise and +disturbance, whether of Puritan preaching, Cameronian psalm- +singing, thieves'-riot, murder, arson, or what noise soever, and +--be careful that supplies do not fail! A very notable +conclusion, if we will think of it; and not without an abundance +of fruits for us. Oliver Cromwell's body hung on the Tyburn- +gallows, as the type of Puritanism found futile, inexecutable, +execrable,--yes, that gallows-tree has been a fingerpost into +very strange country indeed. Let earnest Puritanism die; let +decent Formalism, whatsoever cant it be or grow to, live! We +have had a pleasant journey in that direction; and are--arriving +at our inn? + +To support the Four Pleas of the Crowns and keep Taxes coming in: +in very sad seriousness, has not this been, ever since, even in +the best times, almost the one admitted end and aim of +Government? Religion, Christian Church, Moral Duty; the fact +that man had a soul at all; that in man's life there was any +eternal truth or justice at all,--has been as good as left +quietly out of sight. Church indeed,--alas, the endless talk and +struggle we have had of High-Church, Low-Church, Church- +Extension, Church-in-Danger: we invite the Christian reader to +think whether it has not been a too miserable screech-owl +phantasm of talk and struggle, as for a 'Church,'--which one had +rather not define at present! + +But now in these godless two centuries, looking at England and +her efforts and doings, if we ask, What of England's doings the +Law of Nature had accepted, Nature's King had actually furthered +and pronounced to have truth in them,--where is our answer? +Neither the 'Church' of Hurd and Warburton, nor the Anti-church +of Hume and Paine; not in any shape the Spiritualism of England: +all this is already seen, or beginning to be seen, for what it +is; a thing that Nature does _not_ own. On the one side is +dreary Cant, with a _reminiscence_ of things noble and divine; +on the other is but acrid Candour, with a _prophecy_ of things +brutal, infernal. Hurd and Warburton are sunk into the sere and +yellow leaf; no considerable body of true-seeing men looks +thitherward for healing: the Paine-and-Hume Atheistic theory, of +'things well let alone,' with Liberty, Equality and the like, is +also in these days declaring itself naught, unable to keep the +world from taking fire. + +The theories and speculations of both these parties, and, we may +say, of all intermediate parties and persons, prove to be things +which the Eternal Veracity did not accept; things superficial, +ephemeral, which already a near Posterity, finding them already +dead and brown-leafed, is about to suppress and forget. The +Spiritualism of England, for those godless years, is, as it were, +all forgettable. Much has been written: but the perennial +Scriptures of Mankind have had small accession: from all English +Books, in rhyme or prose, in leather binding or in paper +wrappage, how many verses have been added to these? Our most +melodious Singers have sung as from the throat outwards: from +the inner Heart of Man, from the great Heart of Nature, through +no Pope or Philips, has there come any tone. The Oracles have +been dumb. In brief, the Spoken Word of England has not been +true. The Spoken Word of England turns out to have been trivial; +of short endurance; not valuable, not available as a Word, +except for the passing day. It has been accordant with +transitory Semblance; discordant with eternal Fact. It has been +unfortunately not a Word, but a Cant; a helpless involuntary +Cant, nay too often a cunning voluntary one: either way, a very +mournful Cant; the Voice not of Nature and Fact, but of +something other than these. + +With all its miserable shortcomings, with its wars, +controversies, with its trades-unions, famine-insurrections,--it +is her Practical Material Work alone that England has to shew for +herself! This, and hitherto almost nothing more; yet actually +this. The grim inarticulate veracity of the English People, +unable to speak its meaning in words, has turned itself silently +on things; and the dark powers of Material Nature have answered: +Yes, this at least is true, this is not false! So answers +Nature. Waste desert-shrubs of the Tropical swamps have become +Cotton-trees; and here, under my furtherance, are verily woven +shirts,--hanging unsold, undistributed, but capable to be +distributed, capable to cover the bare backs of my children of +men. Mountains, old as the Creation, I have permitted to be +bored through: bituminous fuel-stores, the wreck of forests that +were green a million years ago,--I have opened them from my +secret rock-chambers, and they are yours, ye English. Your huge +fleets, steamships, do sail the sea: huge Indias do obey you; +from huge _New_ Englands and Antipodal Australias, comes profit +and traffic to this Old England of mine! So answers Nature. The +Practical Labour of England is _not_ a chimerical Triviality: it +is a Fact, acknowledged by all the Worlds; which no man and no +demon will contradict. It is, very audibly, though very +inarticulately as yet, the one God's Voice we have heard in these +two atheistic centuries. + + +And now to observe with what bewildering obscurations and +impediments all this as yet stands entangled, and is yet +intelligible to no man! How, with our gross Atheism, we hear it +not to be the Voice of God to us, but regard it merely as a Voice +of earthly Profit-and-Loss. And have a Hell in England,--the +Hell of not making money. And coldly see the all-conquering +valiant Sons of Toil sit enchanted, by the million, in their +Poor-Law Bastille, as if this were Nature's Law;--mumbling to +ourselves some vague janglement of Laissez-faire, Supply-and- +demand, Cash-payment the one nexus of man to man: Free-trade, +Competition, and Devil take the hindmost, our latest Gospel +yet preached! + +As if, in truth, there were no God of Labour; as if godlike +Labour and brutal Mammonism were convertible terms. A serious, +most earnest Mammonism grown Midas-eared; an unserious +Dilettantism, earnest about nothing, grinning with inarticulate +incredulous incredible jargon about all things, as the +_enchanted_ Dilettanti do by the Dead Sea! It is mournful +enough, for the present hour; were there not an endless hope in +it withal. Giant LABOUR, truest emblem there is of God the +World-Worker, Demiurgus, and Eternal Maker; noble LABOUR, which +is yet to be the King of this Earth, and sit on the highest +throne,--staggering hitherto like a blind irrational giant, +hardly allowed to have his common place on the street-pavements; +idle Dilettantism, Dead-Sea Apism, crying out, "Down with him, he +is dangerous!" + +Labour must become a seeing rational giant, with a soul in the +body of him, and take his place on the throne of things,--leaving +his Mammonism, and several other adjuncts, on the lower steps of +said throne. + + + + +Chapter VII + +Over-Production + + +But what will reflective readers say of a Governing Class, such +as ours, addressing its Workers with an indictment of +'Overproduction!' Over-production: runs it not so? "Ye +miscellaneous, ignoble manufacturing individuals, ye have +produced too much! We accuse you of making above two-hundred +thousand shirts for the bare backs of mankind. Your trousers +too, which you have made, of fustian, of cassimere, of Scotch- +plaid, of jane, nankeen and woollen broadcloth, are they not +manifold? Of hats for the human head, of shoes for the human +foot, of stools to sit on, spoons to eat with--Nay, what say we +hats or shoes? You produce gold-watches, jewelleries, silver- +forks and epergnes, commodes, chiffoniers, stuffed sofas-- +Heavens, the Commercial Bazaar and multitudinous Howel-and- +Jameses cannot contain you. You have produced, produced;--he +that seeks your indictment, let him look around. Millions of +shirts, and empty pairs of breeches, hang there in judgment +against you. We accuse you of over-producing: you are +criminally guilty of producing shirts, breeches, hats, shoes and +commodities, in a frightful overabundance. And now there is a +glut, and your operatives cannot be fed!" + +Never surely, against an earnest Working Mammonism was there +brought, by Game-preserving aristocratic Dilettantism, a stranger +accusation, since this world began. My lords and gentlemen,-- +why, it was _you_ that were appointed, by the fact and by the +theory of your position on the Earth, to 'make and administer +Laws,'--that is to say, in a world such as ours, to guard against +'gluts;' against honest operatives, who had done their work, +remaining unfed! I say, _you_ were appointed to preside over the +Distribution and Apportionment of the Wages of Work done; and to +see well that there went no labourer without his hire, were it of +money-coins, were it of hemp gallows-ropes: that function was +yours, and from immemorial time has been; yours, and as yet no +other's. These poor shirt-spinners have forgotten much, which by +the virtual unwritten law of their position they should have +remembered: but by any written recognised law of their position, +what have they forgotten? They were set to make shirts. The +Community with all its voices commanded them, saying, "Make +shirts;"--and there the shirts are! Too many shirts? Well, that +is a novelty, in this intemperate Earth, with its nine-hundred +millions of bare backs! But the Community commanded you, saying, +"See that the shirts are well apportioned, that our Human Laws be +emblem of God's Laws;"--and where is the apportionment? Two +million shirtless or ill-shirted workers sit enchanted in +Workhouse Bastilles, five million more (according to some) in +Ugolino Hunger-cellars; and for remedy, you say, what say you?-- +"Raise _our_ rents!" I have not in my time heard any stranger +speech, not even on the Shores of the Dead Sea. You continue +addressing those poor shirt-spinners and over-producers, in +really a _too_ triumphant manner: + +"Will you bandy accusations, will you accuse us of +overproduction? We take the Heavens and the Earth to witness +that we have produced nothing at all. Not from us proceeds this +frightful _over_plus of shirts. In the wide domains of created +Nature, circulates no shirt or thing of our producing. Certain +fox-brushes nailed upon our stable-door, the fruit of fair +audacity at Melton Mowbray; these we have produced, and they are +openly nailed up there. He that accuses us of producing, let him +shew himself, let him name what and when. We are innocent of +producing;--ye ungrateful, what mountains of things have we not, +on the contrary, had to 'consume,' and make away with! Mountains +of those your heaped manufactures, wheresoever edible or +wearable, have they not disappeared before us, as if we had the +talent of ostriches, of cormorants, and a kind of divine faculty +to eat? Ye ungrateful!--and did you not grow under the shadow of +our wings? Are not your filthy mills built on these fields of +ours; on this soil of England, which belongs to--whom think you? +And we shall not offer you our own wheat at the price that +pleases us, but that partly pleases you? A precious notion! +What would become of you, if we chose, at any time, to decide on +growing no wheat more?" + +Yes, truly, here is the ultimate rock-basis of all Corn-Laws; +whereon, at the bottom of much arguing, they rest, as securely as +they can: What would become of you, if we decided, some day, on +growing no more wheat at all? If we chose to grow only partridges +henceforth, and a modicum of wheat for our own uses? Cannot we +do what we like with our own?--Yes, indeed! For my share, if I +could melt Gneiss Rock, and create Law of Gravitation; if I +could stride out to the Doggerbank, some morning, and striking +down my trident there into the mudwaves, say, "Be land, be +fields, meadows, mountains and fresh-rolling streams!" by Heaven, +I should incline to have the letting of _that_ land in +perpetuity, and sell the wheat of it, or burn the wheat of it, +according to my own good judgment! My Corn-Lawing friends, you +affright me. + + +To the 'Millo-cracy' so-called, to the Working Aristocracy, +steeped too deep in mere ignoble Mammonism, and as yet all +unconscious of its noble destinies, as yet but an irrational or +semirational giant, struggling to awake some soul in itself,--the +world will have much to say, reproachfully, reprovingly, +admonishingly. But to the Idle Aristocracy, what will the world +have to say? Things painful and not pleasant! + +To the man who _works,_ who attempts, in never so ungracious +barbarous a way, to get forward with some work, you will hasten +out with furtherances, with encouragements, corrections; you +will say to him: "Welcome, thou art ours; our care shall be of +thee." To the idler, again, never so gracefully going idle, +coming forward with never so many parchments, you will not hasten +out; you will sit still, and be disinclined to rise. You will +say to him: "Not welcome, O complex Anomaly; would thou hadst +staid out of doors: for who of mortals knows what to do with +thee? Thy parchments: yes, they are old, of venerable +yellowness; and we too honour parchment, old-established +settlements, and venerable use and wont. Old parchments in very +truth:--yet on the whole, if thou wilt remark, they are young to +the Granite Rocks, to the Groundplan of God's Universe! We +advise thee to put up thy parchments; to go home to thy place, +and make no needless noise whatever. Our heart's wish is to save +thee: yet there as thou art, hapless Anomaly, with nothing but +thy yellow parchments, noisy futilities, and shotbelts and fox- +brushes, who of gods or men can avert dark Fate? Be counselled, +ascertain if no work exist for thee on God's Earth; if thou find +no commanded-duty there but that of going gracefully idle? Ask, +inquire earnestly, with a half-frantic earnestness; for the +answer means Existence or Annihilation to thee. We apprise thee +of the world-old fact, becoming sternly disclosed again in these +days, That he who cannot work in this Universe cannot get existed +in it: had he parchments to thatch the face of the world, these, +combustible fallible sheepskin, cannot avail him. Home, thou +unfortunate; and let us have at least no noise from thee!" + +Suppose the unfortunate Idle Aristocracy, as the unfortunate +Working one has done, were to 'retire three days to _its_ bed,' +and consider itself there, what o'clock it had become?-- + +How have we to regret not only that men have 'no religion,' but +that they have next to no reflection; and go about with heads +full of mere extraneous noises, with eyes wide-open but +visionless,--for most part, in the somnambulist state! + + + +Chapter VIII + +Unworking Aristocracy + + +It is well said, 'Land is the right basis of an Aristocracy;' +whoever possesses the Land, he, more emphatically than any other, +is the Governor, Viceking of the people on the Land. It is in +these days as it was in those of Henry Plantagenet and Abbot +Samson; as it will in all days be. The Land is _Mother_ of us +all; nourishes, shelters, gladdens, lovingly enriches us all; +in how many ways, from our first wakening to our last sleep on +her blessed mother-bosom, does she, as with blessed mother-arms, +enfold us all! + +The Hill I first saw the Sun rise over, when the Sun and I and +all things were yet in their auroral hour, who can divorce me +from it? Mystic, deep as the world's centre, are the roots I +have struck into my Native Soil; no _tree_ that grows is rooted +so. From noblest Patriotism to humblest industrial Mechanism; +from highest dying for your country, to lowest quarrying and +coal-boring for it, a Nation's Life depends upon its Land. Again +and again we have to say, there can be no true Aristocracy but +must possess the Land. + +Men talk of 'selling' Land. Land, it is true, like Epic Poems +and even higher things, in such a trading world, has to be +presented in the market for what it will bring, and as we say be +'sold:' but the notion of 'selling,' for certain bits of metal, +the _Iliad_ of Homer, how much more the _Land_ of the World- +Creator, is a ridiculous impossibility! We buy what is saleable +of it; nothing more was ever buyable. Who can, or could, sell +it to us? Properly speaking, the Land belongs to these two: To +the Almighty God; and to all His Children of Men that have ever +worked well on it, or that shall ever work well on it. No +generation of men can or could, with never such solemnity and +effort, sell Land on any other principle: it is not the property +of any generation, we say, but that of all the past generations +that have worked on it, and of all the future ones that shall +work on it. Again, we hear it said, The soil of England, or of +any country, is properly worth nothing, except the labour +bestowed on it: This, speaking even in the language of +Eastcheap, is not correct. The rudest space of country equal in +extent to England, could a whole English Nation, with all their +habitudes, arrangements, skills, with whatsoever they do carry +within the skins of them, and cannot be stript of, suddenly take +wing, and alight on it,--would be worth a very considerable +thing! Swiftly, within year and day, this English Nation, with +its multiplex talents of ploughing, spinning, hammering, mining, +road-making and trafficking, would bring a handsome value out of +such a space of country. On the other hand, fancy what an +English Nation, once 'on the wing,' could have done with itself, +had there been simply no soil, not even an inarable one, to +alight on? Vain all its talents for ploughing, hammering, and +whatever else; there is no Earth-room for this Nation with its +talents: this Nation will have to keep hovering on the wing, +dolefully shrieking to and fro; and perish piecemeal; burying +itself, down to the last soul of it, in the waste unfirmamented +seas. Ah yes, soil, with or without ploughing, is the gift of +God. The soil of all countries belongs evermore, in a very +considerable degree, to the Almighty Maker! The last stroke of +labour bestowed on it is not the making of its value, but only +the increasing thereof. + +It is very strange, the degree to which these truisms are +forgotten in our days; how, in the ever-whirling chaos of +Formulas, we have quietly lost sight of Fact,--which it is so +perilous not to keep forever in sight! Fact, if we do not see +it, will make us _feel_ it by and by!--From much loud controversy +and Corn-Law debating there rises, loud though inarticulate, once +more in these years, this very question among others, Who made +the Land of England? Who made it, this respectable English Land, +wheat-growing, metalliferous, carboniferous, which will let +readily hand over head for seventy millions or upwards, as it +here lies: who did make it?--"We!" answer the much-_consuming_ +Aristocracy; "We!" as they ride in, moist with the sweat of +Melton Mowbray: "It is we that made it; or are the heirs, +assigns and representatives of those who did!"--My brothers, You? +Everlasting honour to you, then; and Corn-Laws as many as you +will, till your own deep stomachs cry Enough, or some voice of +human pity for our famine bids you Hold! Ye are as gods, that +can create soil. Soil-creating gods there is no withstanding. +They have the might to sell wheat at what price they list; and +the right, to all lengths, and famine-lengths,--if they be +pitiless infernal gods! Celestial gods, I think, would stop +short of the famine-price; but no infernal nor any kind of god +can be bidden stop!--Infatuated mortals, into what questions are +you driving every thinking man in England? + +I say, you did _not_ make the Land of England; and, by the +possession of it, you _are_ bound to furnish guidance and +governance to England! That is the law of your position on this +God's-Earth; an everlasting act of Heaven's Parliament, not +repealable in St. Stephen's or elsewhere! True government and +guidance; not no-government and Laissez-faire; how much less, +misgovernment and Corn-Law! There is not an imprisoned Worker +looking out from these Bastilles but appeals, very audibly in +Heaven's High Courts, against you, and me, and every one who is +not imprisoned, "Why am I here?" His appeal is audible in +Heaven; and will become audible enough on Earth too, if it +remain unheeded here. His appeal is against you, foremost of +all; you stand in the front-rank of the accused; you, by the +very place you hold, have first of all to answer him and Heaven! + + +What looks maddest, miserablest in these mad and miserable Corn- +Laws is independent altogether of their 'effect on wages,' their +effect on 'increase of trade,' or any other such effect: it is +the continual maddening proof they protrude into the faces of all +men, that our Governing Class, called by God and Nature and the +inflexible law of Fact, either to do something towards governing, +or to die and be abolished,--have not yet learned even to sit +still, and do no mischief! For no Anti-Corn-Law League yet asks +more of them than this;--Nature and Fact, very imperatively, +asking so much more of them. Anti-Corn-Law League asks not, Do +something; but, Cease your destructive misdoing, Do ye nothing! + +Nature's message will have itself obeyed: messages of mere Free- +Trade, Anti-Corn-Law League and Laissez-faire, will then need +small obeying!--Ye fools, in name of Heaven, work, work, at the +Ark of Deliverance for yourselves and us, while hours are still +granted you! No: instead of working at the Ark, they say, "We +cannot get our hands kept rightly warm;" and _sit obstinately +burning the planks._ No madder spectacle at present exhibits +itself under this Sun. + + +The Working Aristocracy; Mill-owners, Manufacturers, Commanders +of Working Men: alas, against them also much shall be brought in +accusation; much,--and the freest Trade in Corn, total abolition +of Tariffs, and uttermost 'Increase of Manufactures' and +'Prosperity of Commerce,' will permanently mend no jot of it. +The Working Aristocracy must strike into a new path; must +understand that money alone is _not_ the representative either of +man's success in the world, or of man's duties to man; and +reform their own selves from top to bottom, if they wish England +reformed. England will not be habitable long, unreformed. + +The Working Aristocracy--Yes, but on the threshold of all this, +it is again and again to be asked, What of the Idle Aristocracy? +Again and again, what shall we say of the Idle Aristocracy, the +Owners of the Soil of England; whose recognised function is that +of handsomely consuming the rents of England, shooting the +partridges of England, and as an agreeable amusement (if the +purchase-money and other conveniences serve), dilettante-ing in +Parliament and Quarter-Sessions for England? We will say +mournfully, in the presence of Heaven and Earth,--that we stand +speechless, stupent, and know not what to say! That a class of +men entitled to live sumptuously on the marrow of the earth; +permitted simply, nay entreated, and as yet entreated in vain, to +do nothing at all in return, was never heretofore seen on the +face of this Planet. That such a class is transitory, +exceptional, and, unless Nature's Laws fall dead, cannot +continue. That it has continued now a moderate while; has, for +the last fifty years, been rapidly attaining its state of +perfection. That it will have to find its duties and do them; +or else that it must and will cease to be seen on the face of +this Planet, which is a Working one, not an Idle one. + +Alas, alas, the Working Aristocracy, admonished by Trades-unions, +Chartist conflagrations, above all by their own shrewd sense kept +in perpetual communion with the fact of things, will assuredly +reform themselves, and a working world will still be possible:-- +but the fate of the Idle Aristocracy, as one reads its horoscope +hitherto in Corn-Laws and such like, is an abyss that fills one +with despair. Yes, my rosy fox-hunting brothers, a terrible +_Hippocratic look_ reveals itself (God knows, not to my joy) +through those fresh buxom countenances of yours. Through your +Corn-Law Majorities, Sliding-Scales, Protecting-Duties, Bribery- +Elections and triumphant Kentish-fires a thinking eye discerns +ghastly images of ruin, too ghastly for words; a handwriting as +of MENE, MENE? Men and brothers, on your Sliding-scale you seem +sliding, and to have slid,--you little know whither! Good God! +did not a French Donothing Aristocracy, hardly above half a +century ago, declare in like manner, and in its featherhead +believe in like manner, "We cannot exist, and continue to dress +and parade ourselves, on the just rent of the soil of France; +but we must have farther payment than rent of the soil, we must +be exempted from taxes too,"--we must have a Corn-Law to extend +our rent? This was in 1789: in four years more--Did you look +into the Tanneries of Meudon, and the long-naked making for +themselves breeches of human skins! May the merciful Heavens +avert the omen; may we be wiser, that so we be less wretched. + + +A High Class without duties to do is like a tree planted on +precipices; from the roots of which all the earth has been +crumbling. Nature owns no man who is not a Martyr withal. Is +there a man who pretends to live luxuriously housed up; screened +from all work, from want, danger, hardship, the victory over +which is what we name work;--he himself to sit serene, amid down- +bolsters and appliances, and have all his work and battling done +by other men? And such man calls himself a _noble_-man? His +fathers worked for him, he says; or successfully gambled for +him: here _he_ sits; professes, not in sorrow but in pride, +that he and his have done no work, time out of mind. It is the +law of the land, and is thought to be the law of the Universe, +that he, alone of recorded men, shall have no task laid on him, +except that of eating his cooked victuals, and not flinging +himself out of window. Once more I will say, there was no +stranger spectacle ever shewn under this Sun. A veritable fact +in our England of the Nineteenth Century. His victuals he does +eat: but as for keeping in the inside of the window,--have not +his friends, like me, enough to do? Truly, looking at his Corn- +Laws, Game-Laws, Chandos-Clauses, Bribery-Elections and much +else, you do shudder over the tumbling and plunging he makes, +held back by the lappelles and coatskirts; only a thin fence of +window-glass before him,--and in the street mere horrid iron +spikes! My sick brother, as in hospital-maladies men do, thou +dreamest of Paradises and Eldorados, which are far from thee. +'Cannot I do what I like with my own?' Gracious Heaven, my +brother, this that thou seest with those sick eyes is no firm +Eldorado, and Corn-Law Paradise of Donothings, but a dream of thy +own fevered brain. It is a glass-window, I tell thee, so many +stories from the street; where are iron spikes and the law +of gravitation! + +What is the meaning of nobleness, if this be 'noble?' In a +valiant suffering for others, not in a slothful making others +suffer for us, did nobleness ever lie. The chief of men is he +who stands in the van of men; fronting the peril which frightens +back all others; which, if it be not vanquished, will devour the +others. Every noble crown is, and on Earth will forever be, a +crown of thorns. The Pagan Hercules, why was he accounted a +hero? Because he had slain Nemean Lions, cleansed Augean +Stables, undergone Twelve Labours only not too heavy for a god. +In modern, as in ancient and all societies, the Aristocracy, they +that assume the functions of an Aristocracy, doing them or not, +have taken the post of honour; which is the post of difficulty, +the post of danger,--of death, if the difficulty be not overcome. +_Il faut payer de sa vie._ Why was our life given us, if not +that we should manfully give it? Descend, O Donothing Pomp; +quit thy down-cushions; expose thyself to learn what wretches +feel, and how to cure it! The Czar of Russia became a dusty +toiling shipwright; worked with his axe in the Docks of Saardam; +and his aim was small to thine. Descend thou: undertake this +horrid 'living chaos of Ignorance and Hunger' weltering round thy +feet; say, "I will heal it, or behold I will die foremost in +it." Such is verily the law. Everywhere and everywhen a man has +to _'pay_ with his life;' to do his work, as a soldier does, at +the expense of life. In no Piepowder earthly Court can you sue +an Aristocracy to do its work, at this moment: but in the Higher +Court, which even it calls 'Court of Honour,' and which is the +Court of Necessity withal, and the eternal Court of the Universe, +in which all Fact comes to plead, and every Human Soul is an +apparitor,--the Aristocracy is answerable, and even now +answering, _there._ + + +Parchments? Parchments are venerable: but they ought at all +times to represent, as near as they by possibility can, the +writing of the Adamant Tablets; otherwise they are not so +venerable! Benedict the Jew in vain pleaded parchments; his +usuries were too many. The King said, "Go to, for all thy +parchments, thou shalt pay just debt; down with thy dust, or +observe this tooth-forceps!" Nature, a far juster Sovereign, has +far terribler forceps. Aristocracies, actual and imaginary, +reach a time when parchment pleading does not avail them. "Go +to, for all thy parchments, thou shalt pay due debt!" shouts the +Universe to them, in an emphatic manner. They refuse to pay, +confidently pleading parchment: their best grinder-tooth, with +horrible agony, goes out of their jaw. Wilt thou pay now? A +second grinder, again in horrible agony, goes: a second, and a +third, and if need be, all the teeth and grinders, and the life +itself with them;--and _then_ there is free payment, and an +anatomist-subject into the bargain! + +Reform Bills, Corn-Law Abrogation Bills, and then Land-Tax Bill, +Property-Tax Bill, and still dimmer list of _etceteras;_ grinder +after grinder:---my lords and gentlemen, it were better for +you to arise, and begin doing your work, than sit there and +plead parchments! + + +We write no Chapter on the Corn-Laws, in this place; the Corn- +Laws are too mad to have a Chapter. There is a certain +immorality, when there is not a necessity, in speaking about +things finished; in chopping into small pieces the already +slashed and slain. When the brains are out, why does not a +Solecism die! It is at its own peril if it refuse to die; it +ought to make all conceivable haste to die, and get itself +buried! The trade of Anti-Corn-Law Lecturer in these days, still +an indispensable, is a highly tragic one. + +The Corn-Laws will go, and even soon go: would we were all as +sure of the Millennium as they are of going! They go swiftly in +these present months; with an increase of velocity, an ever- +deepening, ever-widening sweep of momentum, truly notable. It is +at the Aristocracy's own damage and peril, still more than at any +other's whatsoever, that the Aristocracy maintains them;--at a +damage, say only, as above computed, of a 'hundred thousand +pounds an hour!' The Corn-Laws keep all the air hot: fostered +by their fever-warmth, much that is evil, but much also, how +much that is good and indispensable, is rapidly coming to life +among us! + + + + +Chapter IX + +Working Aristocracy + + +A poor Working Mammonism getting itself 'strangled in the +partridge-nets of an Unworking Dilettantism,' and bellowing +dreadfully, and already black in the face, is surely a disastrous +spectacle! But of a Midas-eared Mammonism, which indeed at +bottom all pure Mammonisms are, what better can you expect? No +better;--if not this, then something other equally disastrous, if +not still more disastrous. Mammonisms, grown asinine, have to +become human again, and rational; they have, on the whole, to +cease to be Mammonisms, were it even on compulsion, and pressure +of the hemp round their neck!--My friends of the Working +Aristocracy, there are now a great many things which you also, in +your extreme need, will have to consider. + + +The Continental people, it would seem, are 'exporting our +machinery, beginning to spin cotton and manufacture for +themselves, to cut us out of this market and then out of that!' +Sad news indeed; but irremediable;--by no means the saddest +news. The saddest news is, that we should find our National +Existence, as I sometimes hear it said, depend on selling +manufactured cotton at a farthing an ell cheaper than any other +People. A most narrow stand for a great Nation to base itself +on! A stand which, with all the Corn-Law Abrogations +conceivable, I do not think will be capable of enduring. + +My friends, suppose we quitted that stand; suppose we came +honestly down from it, and said: "This is our minimum of +cottonprices. We care not, for the present, to make cotton any +cheaper. Do you, if it seem so blessed to you, make cotton +cheaper. Fill your lungs with cotton-fuzz, your hearts with +copperas-fumes, with rage and mutiny; become ye the general +gnomes of Europe, slaves of the lamp!"--I admire a Nation which +fancies it will die if it do not undersell all other Nations, to +the end of the world. Brothers, we will cease to _under_sell +them; we will be content to _equal_-sell them; to be happy +selling equally with them! I do not see the use of underselling +them. Cotton-cloth is already two-pence a yard or lower; and +yet bare backs were never more numerous among us. Let inventive +men cease to spend their existence incessantly contriving how +cotton can be made cheaper; and try to invent, a little, how +cotton at its present cheapness could be somewhat justlier +divided among us! Let inventive men consider, Whether the Secret +of this Universe, and of Man's Life there, does, after all, as we +rashly fancy it, consist in making money? There is One God, +just, supreme, almighty: but is Mammon the name of him?--With a +Hell which means 'Failing to make money,' I do not think there is +any Heaven possible that would suit one well; nor so much as an +Earth that can be habitable long! In brief, all this Mammon- +Gospel, of Supply-and-demand, Competition, Laissez-faire, and +Devil take the hindmost, begins to be one of the shabbiest +Gospels ever preached on Earth; or altogether the shabbiest. +Even with Dilettante partridge-nets, and at a horrible +expenditure of pain, who shall regret to see the entirely +transient, and at best somewhat despicable life strangled out of +_it?_ At the best, as we say, a somewhat despicable, unvenerable +thing, this same 'Laissez-faire;' and now, at the worst, fast +growing an altogether detestable one! + +"But what is to be done with our manufacturing population, with +our agricultural, with our ever-increasing population?" cry +many.--Aye, what? Many things can be done with them, a hundred +things, and a thousand things,--had we once got a soul, and begun +to try. This one thing, of doing for them by 'underselling all +people,' and filling our own bursten pockets and appetites by the +road; and turning over all care for any 'population,' or human +or divine consideration except cash only, to the winds, with a +"Laissez-faire" and the rest of it: this is evidently not the +thing. 'Farthing cheaper per yard:' no great Nation can stand +on the apex of such a pyramid; screwing itself higher and +higher; balancing itself on its great-toe! Can England not +subsist without being _above_ all people in working? England +never deliberately purposed such a thing. If England work better +than all people, it shall be well. England, like an honest +worker, will work as well as she can; and hope the gods may +allow her to live on that basis. Laissez-faire and much else +being once well dead, how many 'impossibles' will become +possible! They are 'impossible,' as cotton-cloth at two-pence an +ell was--till men set about making it. The inventive genius of +great England will not forever sit patient with mere wheels and +pinions, bobbins, straps and billy-rollers whirring in the head +of it. The inventive genius of England is not a Beaver's, or a +Spinner's or Spider's genius: it is a _Man's_ genius, I hope, +with a God over him! + +Supply-and-demand? One begins to be weary of such work. Leave +all to egoism, to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure, of +applause:--it is the Gospel of Despair! Man is a Patent- +Digester, then: only give him Free Trade, Free digesting-room; +and each of us digest what he can come at, leaving the rest to +Fate! My unhappy brethren of the Working Mammonism, my unhappier +brethren of the Idle Dilettantism, no world was ever held +together in that way for long. A world of mere Patent-Digesters +will soon have nothing to digest: such world ends, and by Law of +Nature must end, in 'over-population;' in howling universal +famine, 'impossibility,' and suicidal madness, as of endless dog- +kennels run rabid. Supply-and-demand shall do its full part, and +Free Trade shall be free as air;--thou of the shotbelts, see thou +forbid it not, with those paltry, _worse_ than 'Mammonish' +swindleries and Sliding-scales of thine, which are seen to be +swindleries for all thy canting, which in times like ours are +very scandalous to see! And Trade never so well freed, and all +Tariffs settled or abolished, and Supply-and-demand in full +operation,--let us all know that we have yet done nothing; that +we have merely cleared the ground for doing. + +Yes, were the Corn-Laws ended tomorrow, there is nothing yet +ended; there is only room made for all manner of things +beginning. The Corn-Laws gone, and Trade made free, it is as +good as certain this paralysis of industry will pass away. We +shall have another period of commercial enterprise, of victory +and prosperity; during which, it is likely, much money will +again be made, and all the people may, by the extant methods, +still for a space of years, be kept alive and physically fed. +The strangling band of Famine will be loosened from our necks; +we shall have room again to breathe; time to bethink ourselves, +to repent and consider! A precious and thrice-precious space of +years; wherein to struggle as for life in reforming our foul +ways; in alleviating, instructing, regulating our people; +seeking, as for life, that something like spiritual food be +imparted them, some real governance and guidance be provided +them! It will be a priceless time. For our new period or +paroxysm of commercial prosperity will and can, on the old +methods of 'Competition and Devil take the hindmost,' prove but a +paroxysm: a new paroxysm,--likely enough, if we do not use it +better, to be our _last._ In this, of itself, is no salvation. +If our Trade in twenty years, 'flourishing' as never Trade +flourished, could double itself; yet then also, by the old +Laissez-faire method, our Population is doubled: we shall +then be as we are, only twice as many of us, twice and ten +times as unmanageable! + + +All this dire misery, therefore; all this of our poor Workhouse +Workmen, of our Chartisms, Trades-strikes, Corn-Laws, Toryisms, +and the general downbreak of Laissez-faire in these days,--may we +not regard it as a voice from the dumb bosom of Nature, saying to +us: Behold! Supply-and-demand is not the one Law of Nature; +Cash-payment is not the sole nexus of man with man,--how far from +it! Deep, far deeper than Supply-and-demand, are Laws, +Obligations sacred as Man's Life itself: these also, if you will +continue to do work, you shall now learn and obey. He that will +learn them, behold Nature is on his side, he shall yet work and +prosper with noble rewards. He that will not learn them, Nature +is against him; he shall not be able to do work in Nature's +empire,--not in hers. Perpetual mutiny, contention, hatred, +isolation, execration shall wait on his footsteps, till all men +discern that the thing which he attains, however golden it look +or be, is not success, but the want of success. + +Supply-and-demand,--alas! For what noble work was there ever yet +any audible 'demand' in that poor sense? The man of Macedonia, +speaking in vision to an Apostle Paul, "Come over and help us," +did not specify what rate of wages he would give! Or was the +Christian Religion itself accomplished by Prize-Essays, +Bridgewater Bequests, and a 'minimum of Four thousand five +hundred a year?'' No demand that I heard of was made then, +audible in any Labour-market, Manchester Chamber of Commerce, or +other the like emporium and hiring establishment; silent were +all these from any whisper of such demand;--powerless were all +these to 'supply' it, had the demand been in thunder and +earthquake, with gold Eldorados and Mahometan Paradises for the +reward. Ah me, into what waste latitudes, in this Time-Voyage, +have we wandered; like adventurous Sindbads;--where the men go +about as if by galvanism, with meaningless glaring eyes, and have +no soul, but only a beaver-faculty and stomach! The haggard +despair of Cotton-factory, Coal-mine operatives, Chandos Farm- +labourers, in these days, is painful to behold; but not so +painful, hideous to the inner sense, as the brutish god- +forgetting Profit-and-Loss Philosophy, and Life-theory, which we +hear jangled on all hands of us, in senate-houses, spouting- +clubs, leading-articles, pulpits and platforms, everywhere as the +Ultimate Gospel and candid Plain-English of Man's Life, from the +throats and pens and thoughts of all but all men!-- + +Enlightened Philosophies, like Moliere Doctors, will tell you: +"Enthusiasms, Self-sacrifice, Heaven, Hell and such like: yes, +all that was true enough for old stupid times; all that used to +be true: but we have changed all that, _nous avons change tout +cela!"_ Well; if the heart be got round now into the right side, +and the liver to the left; if man have no heroism in him deeper +than the wish to eat, and in his soul there dwell now no Infinite +of Hope and Awe, and no divine Silence can become imperative +because it is not Sinai Thunder, and no tie will bind if it be +not that of Tyburn gallows-ropes,--then verily you have changed +all that; and for it, and for you, and for me, behold the Abyss +and nameless Annihilation is ready. So scandalous a beggarly +Universe deserves indeed nothing else; I cannot say I would save +it from Annihilation. Vacuum, and the serene Blue, will be much +handsomer; easier too for all of us. I, for one, decline living +as a Patent-Digester. Patent-Digester, Spinning-Mule, Mayfair +Clothes-Horse: many thanks, but your Chaosships will have the +goodness to excuse me! + + + + +Chapter X + +Plugson of Undershot + + +One thing I do know: Never, on this Earth, was the relation of +man to man long carried on by Cash-payment alone. If, at any +time, a philosophy of Laissez-faire, Competition and Supply-and- +demand, start up as the exponent of human relations, expect that +it will soon end. + +Such philosophies will arise: for man's philosophies are usually +the 'supplement of his practice;' some ornamental Logic-varnish, +some outer skin of Articulate Intelligence, with which he strives +to render his dumb Instinctive Doings presentable when they are +done. Such philosophies will arise; be preached as Mammon- +Gospels, the ultimate Evangel of the World; be believed, with +what is called belief, with much superficial bluster, and a kind +of shallow satisfaction real in its way:--but they are ominous +gospels! They are the sure, and even swift, forerunner of great +changes. Expect that the old System of Society is done, is dying +and fallen into dotage, when it begins to rave in that fashion. +Most Systems that I have watched the death of, for the last three +thousand years, have gone just so. The Ideal, the True and Noble +that was in them having faded out, and nothing now remaining but +naked Egoism, vulturous Greediness, they cannot live; they are +bound and inexorably ordained by the oldest Destinies, Mothers of +the Universe, to die. Curious enough: they thereupon, as I have +pretty generally noticed, devise some light comfortable kind of +'wine-and-walnuts philosophy' for themselves, this of Supply-and- +demand or another; and keep saying, during hours of mastication +and rumination, which they call hours of meditation: "Soul, take +thy ease, it is all _well_ that thou art a vulture-soul;" +--and pangs of dissolution come upon them, oftenest before they +are aware! + +Cash-payment never was, or could except for a few years be, the +union-bond of man to man. Cash never yet paid one man fully his +deserts to another; nor could it, nor can it, now or henceforth +to the end of the world. I invite his Grace of Castle-Rackrent +to reflect on this;--does he think that a Land Aristocracy when +it becomes a Land Auctioneership can have long to live? Or that +Sliding-scales will increase the vital stamina of it? The +indomitable Plugson too, of the respected Firm of Plugson, Hunks +and Company, in St. Dolly Undershot, is invited to reflect on +this; for to him also it will be new, perhaps even newer. +Bookkeeping by double entry is admirable, and records several +things in an exact manner. But the Mother-Destinies also keep +their Tablets; in Heaven's Chancery also there goes on a +recording; and things, as my Moslem friends say, are 'written on +the iron leaf.' + +Your Grace and Plugson, it is like, go to Church occasionally: +did you never in vacant moments, with perhaps a dull parson +droning to you, glance into your New Testament, and the cash- +account stated four times over, by a kind of quadruple entry,--in +the Four Gospels there? I consider that a cash-account, and +balance-statement of work done and wages paid, worth attending +to. Precisely _such,_ though on a smaller scale, go on at all +moments under this Sun; and the statement and balance of them in +the Plugson Ledgers and on the Tablets of Heaven's Chancery are +discrepant exceedingly;--which ought really to teach, and to have +long since taught, an indomitable common-sense Plugson of +Undershot, much more an unattackable _un_common-sense Grace of +Rackrent, a thing or two!--In brief, we shall have to dismiss the +Cash-Gospel rigorously into its own place: we shall have to +know, on the threshold, that either there is some infinitely +deeper Gospel, subsidiary, explanatory and daily and hourly +corrective, to the Cash one; or else that the Cash one itself +and all others are fast traveling! + + +For all human things do require to have an Ideal in them; to +have some Soul in them, as we said, were it only to keep the Body +unputrefied. And wonderful it is to see how the Ideal or Soul, +place it in what ugliest Body you may, will irradiate said Body +with its own nobleness; will gradually, incessantly, mould, +modify, new-form or reform said ugliest Body, and make it at last +beautiful, and to a certain degree divine!--O, if you could +dethrone that Brute-god Mammon, and put a Spirit-god in his +place! One way or other, he must and will have to be dethroned. +Fighting, for example, as I often say to myself, Fighting with +steel murder-tools is surely a much uglier operation than +Working, take it how you will. Yet even of Fighting, in +religious Abbot Samson's days, see what a Feudalism there had +grown,--a 'glorious Chivalry,' much besung down to the present +day. Was not that one of the 'impossiblest' things? Under the +sky is no uglier spectacle than two men with clenched teeth, and +hellfire eyes, hacking one another's flesh; converting precious +living bodies, and priceless living souls, into nameless masses +of putrescence, useful only for turnip-manure. How did a +Chivalry ever come out of that; how anything that was not +hideous, scandalous, infernal? It will be a question worth +considering by and by. + +I remark, for the present, only two things: first, that the +Fighting itself was not, as we rashly suppose it, a Fighting +without cause, but more or less with cause. Man is created to +fight; he is perhaps best of all definable as a born soldier; +his life 'a battle and a march,' under the right General. It is +forever indispensable for a man to fight: now with Necessity, +with Barrenness, Scarcity, with Puddles, Bogs, tangled Forests, +unkempt Cotton;--now also with the hallucinations of his poor +fellow Men. Hallucinatory visions rise in the head of my poor +fellow man; make him claim over me rights which are not his. +All Fighting, as we noticed long ago, is the dusty conflict of +strengths each thinking itself the strongest, or, in other words, +the justest;--of Mights which do in the long-run, and forever +will in this just Universe in the long-run, mean Rights. In +conflict the perishable part of them, beaten sufficiently, flies +off into dust: this process ended, appears the imperishable, the +true and exact. + +And now let us remark a second thing: how, in these baleful +operations, a noble devout-hearted Chevalier will comfort +himself, and an ignoble godless Bucanier and Chactaw Indian. +Victory is the aim of each. But deep in the heart of the noble +man it lies forever legible, that, as an Invisible just God made +him, so will and must God's justice and this only, were it never +so invisible, ultimately prosper in all controversies and +enterprises and battles whatsoever. What an Influence; ever- +present,--like a Soul in the rudest Caliban of a body; like a +ray of Heaven, and illuminative creative _Fiat-Lux,_ in the +wastest terrestrial Chaos! Blessed divine Influence, traceable +even in the horror of Battlefields and garments rolled in blood: +how it ennobles even the Battlefield; and, in place of a Chactaw +Massacre, makes it a Field of Honour! A Battlefield too is +great. Considered well, it is a kind of Quintessence of Labour; +Labour distilled into its utmost concentration; the significance +of years of it compressed into an hour. Here too thou shalt be +strong, and not in muscle only, if thou wouldst prevail. Here +too thou shalt be strong of heart, noble of soul; thou shalt +dread no pain or death, thou shalt not love ease or life; in +rage, thou shalt remember mercy, justice;--thou shalt be a Knight +and not a Chactaw, if thou wouldst prevail! It is the rule of +all battles, against hallucinating fellow Men, against unkempt +Cotton, or whatsoever battles they may be which a man in this +world has to fight. + +Howel Davies' dyes the West Indian Seas with blood, piles his +decks with plunder; approves himself the expertest Seaman, the +daringest Seafighter: but he gains no lasting victory, lasting +victory is not possible for him. Not, had he fleets larger than +the combined British Navy all united with him in bucaniering. +He, once for all, cannot prosper in his duel. He strikes down +his man: yes; but his man, or his man's representative, has no +notion to lie struck down; neither, though slain ten times, will +he keep so lying;--nor has the Universe any notion to keep him so +lying! On the contrary, the Universe and he have, at all +moments, all manner of motives to start up again, and desperately +fight again. Your Napoleon is flung out, at last, to St. Helena; +the latter end of him sternly compensating the beginning. The +Bucanier strikes down a man, a hundred or a million men: but +what profits it? He has one enemy never to be struck down; nay +two enemies: Mankind and the Maker of Men. On the great scale +or on the small, in fighting of men or fighting of difficulties, +I will not embark my venture with Howel Davies: it is not the +Bucanier, it is the Hero only that can gain victory, that can do +more than seem to succeed. These things will deserve meditating; +for they apply to all battle and soldiership, all struggle and +effort whatsoever in this Fight of Life. It is a poor Gospel, +Cash-Gospel or whatever name it have, that does not, with clear +tone, uncontradictable, carrying conviction to all hearts, +forever keep men in mind of these things. + +Unhappily, my indomitable friend Plugson of Undershot has, in a +great degree, forgotten them;--as, alas, all the world has; as, +alas, our very Dukes and Soul-Overseers have, whose special trade +it was to remember them! Hence these tears.--Plugson, who has +indomitably spun Cotton merely to gain thousands of pounds, I +have to call as yet a Bucanier and Chactaw; till there come +something better, still more indomitable from him. His hundred +Thousand-pound Notes, if there be nothing other, are to me but as +the hundred Scalps in a Chactaw wigwam. The blind Plugson: he +was a Captain of Industry, born member of the Ultimate genuine +Aristocracy of this Universe, could he have known it! These +thousand men that span and toiled round him, they were a regiment +whom he had enlisted, man by man; to make war on a very genuine +enemy: Bareness of back, and disobedient Cotton-fibre, which +will not, unless forced to it, consent to cover bare backs. Here +is a most genuine enemy; over whom all creatures will wish him +victory. He enlisted his thousand men; said to them, "Come, +brothers, let us have a dash at Cotton!" They follow with +cheerful shout; they gain such a victory over Cotton as the +Earth has to admire and clap hands at: but, alas, it is yet only +of the Bucanier or Chactaw sort,--as good as no victory! Foolish +Plugson of St. Dolly Undershot: does he hope to become +illustrious by hanging up the scalps in his wigwam, the hundred +thousands at his banker's, and saying, Behold my scalps? Why, +Plugson, even thy own host is all in mutiny: Cotton is +conquered; but the 'bare backs'--are worse covered than ever! +Indomitable Plugson, thou must cease to be a Chactaw; thou and +others; thou thyself, if no other! + +Did William the Norman Bastard, or any of his Taillefers, +_Ironcutters,_ manage so? Ironcutter, at the end of the +campaign, did not turn off his thousand fighters, but said to +them: "Noble fighters, this is the land we have gained; be I +Lord in it,--what we will call _Law-ward,_ maintainer and +_keeper_ of Heaven's _Laws:_ be I _Law-ward,_ or in brief +orthoepy _Lord_ in it, and be ye Loyal Men around me in it; and +we will stand by one another, as soldiers round a captain, for +again we shall have need of one another!" Plugson, bucanier- +like, says to them: "Noble spinners, this is the Hundred +Thousand we have gained, wherein I mean to dwell and plant +vineyards; the hundred thousand is mine, the three and sixpence +daily was yours: adieu, noble spinners; drink my health with +this groat each, which I give you over and above!" The entirely +unjust Captain of Industry, say I; not Chevalier, but Bucanier! +'Commercial Law' does indeed acquit him; asks, with wide eyes, +What else? So too Howel Davies asks, Was it not according to the +strictest Bucanier Custom? Did I depart in any jot or tittle +from the Laws of the Bucaniers? + +After all, money, as they say, is miraculous. Plugson wanted +victory; as Chevaliers and Bucaniers, and all men alike do. He +found money recognised, by the whole world with one assent, as +the true symbol, exact equivalent and synonym of victory;--and +here we have him, a grim-browed, indomitable Bucanier, coming +home to us with a 'victory,' which the whole world is _ceasing_ +to clap hands at! The whole world, taught somewhat impressively, +is beginning to recognise that such victory is but half a +victory; and that now, if it please the Powers, we must--have +the other half! + +Money is miraculous. What miraculous facilities has it yielded, +will it yield us; but also what never-imagined confusions, +obscurations has it brought in; down almost to total extinction +of the moral-sense in large masses of mankind! 'Protection of +property,' of what is _'mine,'_ means with most men protection of +money,--the thing which, had I a thousand padlocks over it, is +least of all _mine;_ is, in a manner, scarcely worth calling +mine! The symbol shall be held sacred, defended everywhere with +tipstaves, ropes and gibbets; the thing signified shall be +composedly cast to the dogs. A human being who has worked with +human beings clears all scores with them, cuts himself with +triumphant completeness forever loose from them, by paying down +certain shillings and pounds. Was it not the wages I promised +you? There they are, to the last sixpence,--according to the +Laws of the Bucaniers!--Yes, indeed;--and, at such times, it +becomes imperatively necessary to ask all persons, bucaniers and +others, Whether these same respectable Laws of the Bucaniers are +written on God's eternal Heavens at all, on the inner Heart of +Man at all; or on the respectable Bucanier Logbook merely, for +the convenience of bucaniering merely? What a question;--whereat +Westminster Hall shudders to its driest parchment; and on the +dead wigs each particular horsehair stands on end! + +The Laws of Laissez-faire, O Westminster, the laws of industrial +Captain and industrial Soldier, how much more of idle Captain and +industrial Soldier, will need to be remodelled, and modified, and +rectified in a hundred and a hundred ways,--and _not_ in the +Sliding-scale direction, but in the totally opposite one! With +two million industrial Soldiers already sitting in Bastilles, and +five million pining on potatoes, methinks Westminster cannot +begin too soon!--A man has other obligations laid on him, in +God's Universe, than the payment of cash: these also +Westminster, if it will continue to exist and have board-wages, +must contrive to take some charge of:--by Westminster or by +another, they must and will be taken charge of; be, with +whatever difficulty, got articulated, got enforced, and to a +certain approximate extent, put in practice. And, as I say, it +cannot be too soon! For Mammonism, left to itself, has become +Midas-eared; and with all its gold mountains, sits starving for +want of bread: and Dilettantism with its partridge-nets, in this +extremely earnest Universe of ours, is playing somewhat too high +a game. 'A man by the very look of him promises so much:' yes; +and by the rent-roll of him does he promise nothing?-- + + +Alas, what a business will this be, which our Continental +friends, groping this long while somewhat absurdly about it and +about it, call 'Organisation of Labour;'--which must be taken out +of the hands of absurd windy persons, and put into the hands of +wise, laborious, modest and valiant men, to begin with it +straightway: to proceed with it, and succeed in it more and +more, if Europe, at any rate if England, is to continue habitable +much longer. Looking at the kind of most noble Corn-Law Dukes or +Practical _Duces_ we have, and also of right reverend Soul- +Overseers, Christian Spiritual _Duces_ 'on a minimum of four +thousand five hundred,' one's hopes are a little chilled. +Courage, nevertheless; there are many brave men in England! My +indomitable Plugson,--nay is there not even in thee some hope? +Thou art hitherto a Bucanier, as it was written and prescribed +for thee by an evil world: but in that grim brow, in that +indomitable heart which _can_ conquer Cotton, do there not +perhaps lie other ten times nobler conquests? + + + + +Chapter XI + +Labour + + +For there is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in Work. +Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there +is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in +Idleness alone is there perpetual despair. Work, never so +Mammonish, mean, is in communication with Nature; the real +desire to get Work done will itself lead one more and more to +truth, to Nature's appointments and regulations, which are truth. +The latest Gospel in this world is, Know thy work and do it. +'Know thyself:' long enough has that poor 'self' of thine +tormented thee; thou wilt never get to 'know' it, I believe! +Think it not thy business, this of knowing thyself; thou art an +unknowable individual: know what thou canst work at; and work +at it, like a Hercules! That will be thy better plan. + +It has been written, 'an endless significance lies in Work;' a +man perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared away, +fair seedfields rise instead, and stately cities; and withal the +man himself first ceases to be a jungle and foul unwholesome +desert thereby. Consider how, even in the meanest sorts of +Labour, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real +harmony, the instant he sets himself to work! Doubt, Desire, +Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these like +helldogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor dayworker, as of +every man: but he bends himself with free valour against his +task, and all these are stilled, all these shrink murmuring far +off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed glow +of Labour in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all +poison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is made +bright blessed flame! + +Destiny, on the whole, has no other way of cultivating us. A +formless Chaos, once set it _revolving,_ grows round and ever +rounder; ranges itself, by mere force of gravity, into strata, +spherical courses; is no longer a Chaos, but a round compacted +World. What would become of the Earth, did she cease to revolve? +In the poor old Earth, so long as she revolves, all inequalities, +irregularities disperse themselves; all irregularities are +incessantly becoming regular. Hast thou looked on the Potter's +wheel,--one of the venerablest objects; old as the Prophet +Ezechiel and far older? Rude lumps of clay, how they spin +themselves up, by mere quick whirling, into beautiful circular +dishes. And fancy the most assiduous Potter, but without his +wheel; reduced to make dishes, or rather amorphous botches, by +mere kneading and baking! Even such a Potter were Destiny, with +a human soul that would rest and lie at ease, that would not work +and spin! Of an idle unrevolving man the kindest Destiny, like +the most assiduous Potter without wheel, can bake and knead +nothing other than a botch; let her spend on him what expensive +colouring, what gilding and enamelling she will, he is but a +botch. Not a dish; no, a bulging, kneaded, crooked, shambling, +squint-cornered, amorphous botch,--a mere enamelled vessel of +dishonour! Let the idle think of this. + +Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other +blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, +and will follow it! How, as a free-flowing channel, dug and torn +by noble force through the sour mud-swamp of one's existence, +like an ever-deepening river there, it runs and flows;--draining +off the sour festering water, gradually from the root of the +remotest grass-blade; making, instead of pestilential swamp, a +green fruitful meadow with its clear-flowing stream. How blessed +for the meadow itself, let the stream and _its_ value be great or +small! Labour is Life: from the inmost heart of the Worker +rises his god-given Force, the sacred celestial Life-essence +breathed into him by Almighty God; from his inmost heart awakens +him to all nobleness,--to all knowledge, 'self-knowledge' and +much else, so soon as Work fitly begins. Knowledge? The +knowledge that will hold good in working, cleave thou to that; +for Nature herself accredits that, says Yea to that. Properly +thou hast no other knowledge but what thou hast got by working: +the rest is yet all a hypothesis of knowledge; a thing to be +argued of in schools, a thing floating in the clouds, in endless +logic-vortices, till we try it and fix it. 'Doubt, of whatever +kind, can be ended by Action alone.' + + +And again, hast thou valued Patience, Courage, Perseverance, +Openness to light; readiness to own thyself mistaken, to do +better next time? All these, all virtues, in wrestling with the +dim brute Powers of Fact, in ordering of thy fellows in such +wrestle, there and elsewhere not at all, thou wilt continually +learn. Set down a brave Sir Christopher in the middle of black +ruined Stoneheaps, of foolish unarchitectural Bishops, redtape +Officials, idle Nell-Gwyn Defenders of the Faith; and see +whether he will ever raise a Paul's Cathedral out of all that, +yea or no! Rough, rude, contradictory are all things and +persons, from the mutinous masons and Irish hodmen, up to the +idle Nell-Gwyn Defenders, to blustering redtape Officials, +foolish unarchitectural Bishops. All these things and persons +are there not for Christopher's sake and his Cathedral's; they +are there for their own sake mainly! Christopher will have to +conquer and constrain all these,--if he be able. All these are +against him. Equitable Nature herself, who carries her +mathematics and architectonics not on the face of her, but deep +in the hidden heart of her,--Nature herself is but partially for +him; will be wholly against him, if he constrain her not! His +very money, where is it to come from? The pious munificence of +England lies far-scattered, distant, unable to speak, and say, "I +am here;"--must be spoken to before it can speak. Pious +munificence, and all help, is so silent, invisible like the gods; +impediment, contradictions manifold are so loud and near! O +brave Sir Christopher, trust thou in those, notwithstanding, and +front all these; understand all these; by valiant patience, +noble effort, insight, by man's strength, vanquish and compel all +these,--and, on the whole, strike down victoriously the last +topstone of that Paul's Edifice; thy monument for certain +centuries, the stamp 'Great Man' impressed very legibly on +Portland-stone there!--Yes, all manner of help, and pious +response from Men or Nature, is always what we call silent; +cannot speak or come to light, till it be seen, till it be spoken +to. Every noble work is at first impossible. In very truth, for +every noble work the possibilities will lie diffused through +Immensity; inarticulate, undiscoverable except to faith. Like +Gideon thou shalt spread out thy fleece at the door of thy tent; +see whether under the wide arch of Heaven there be any bounteous +moisture, or none. Thy heart and life-purpose shall be as a +miraculous Gideon's fleece, spread out in silent appeal to +Heaven; and from the kind Immensities, what from the poor unkind +Localities and town and country Parishes there never could, +blessed dew-moisture to suffice thee shall have fallen! + +Work is of a religious nature:--work is of a _brave_ nature; +which it is the aim of all religion to be. 'All work of man is +as the swimmer's:' a waste ocean threatens to devour him; if he +front it not bravely, it will keep its word. By incessant wise +defiance of it, lusty rebuke and buffet of it, behold how it +loyally supports him, bears him as its conqueror along. 'It +is so,' says Goethe, with all things that man undertakes in +this world.' + +Brave Sea-captain, Norse Sea-king,--Columbus, my hero, royalest +Sea-king of all! It is no friendly environment this of thine, in +the waste deep waters; around thee mutinous discouraged souls, +behind thee disgrace and ruin, before thee the unpenetrated veil +of Night. Brother, these wild water-mountains, bounding from +their deep bases (ten miles deep, I am told), are not entirely +there on thy behalf! Meseems _they_ have other work than +floating thee forward:--and the huge Winds, that sweep from Ursa +Major to the Tropics and Equators, dancing their giant-waltz +through the kingdoms of Chaos and Immensity, they care little +about filling rightly or filling wrongly the small shoulder-of- +mutton sails in this cockle-skiff of thine! Thou art not among +articulate-speaking friends, my brother; thou art among +immeasurable dumb monsters, tumbling, howling wide as the world +here. Secret, far off, invisible to all hearts but thine, there +lies a help in them: see how thou wilt get at that. Patiently +thou wilt wait till the mad Southwester spend itself, saving +thyself by dexterous science of defence, the while; valiantly, +with swift decision, wilt thou strike in, when the favouring +East, the Possible, springs up. Mutiny of men thou wilt sternly +repress; weakness, despondency, thou wilt cheerily encourage: +thou wilt swallow down complaint, unreason, weariness, weakness +of others and thyself;--how much wilt thou swallow down! There +shall be a depth of Silence in thee, deeper than this Sea, which +is but ten miles deep: a Silence unsoundable; known to God +only. Thou shalt be a Great Man. Yes, my World-Soldier, thou of +the World Marine-service,--thou wilt have to be _greater_ than +this tumultuous unmeasured World here round thee is: thou, in +thy strong soul, as with wrestler's arms, shalt embrace it, +harness it down; and make it bear thee on,--to new Americas, or +whither God wills! + + + + +Chapter XII + +Reward + + +'Religion,' I said; for properly speaking, all true Work is +Religion: and whatsoever Religion is not Work may go and dwell +among the Brahmins, Antinomians, Spinning Dervishes, or where it +will; with me it shall have no harbour. Admirable was that of +the old Monks, _'Laborare est Orare,_ Work is Worship.' + +Older than all preached Gospels was this unpreached, +inarticulate, but ineradicable, forever-enduring Gospel: Work, +and therein have well-being. Man, Son of Earth and of Heaven, +lies there not, in the innermost heart of thee, a Spirit of +active Method, a Force for Work;--and burns like a painfully +smouldering fire, giving thee no rest till thou unfold it, till +thou write it down in beneficent Facts around thee! What is +immethodic, waste, thou shalt make methodic, regulated, arable; +obedient and productive to thee. Wheresoever thou findest +Disorder, there is thy eternal enemy; attack him swiftly, subdue +him; make Order of him, the subject not of Chaos, but of +Intelligence, Divinity and Thee! The thistle that grows in thy +path, dig it out, that a blade of useful grass, a drop of +nourishing milk, may grow there instead. The waste cotton-shrub, +gather its waste white down, spin it, weave it; that, in place +of idle litter, there may be folded webs, and the naked skin of +man be covered. + +But above all, where thou findest Ignorance, Stupidity, Brute- +mindedness,--yes, there, with or without Church-tithes and +Shovel-hat, with or without Talfourd-Mahon Copyrights, or were it +with mere dungeons and gibbets and crosses, attack it, I say; +smite it wisely, unweariedly, and rest not while thou livest and +it lives; but smite, smite, in the name of God! The Highest +God, as I understand it, does audibly so command thee; still +audibly, if thou have ears to hear. He, even He, with his +_un_spoken voice, awfuler than any Sinai thunders or syllabled +speech of Whirlwinds; for the SILENCE of deep Eternities, of +Worlds from beyond the morning-stars, does it not speak to thee? +The unborn Ages; the old Graves, with their long-mouldering +dust, the very tears that wetted it now all dry,--do not these +speak to thee, what ear hath not heard? The deep Death-kingdoms, +the Stars in their never-resting courses, all Space and all Time, +proclaim it to thee in continual silent admonition. Thou too, if +ever man should, shalt work while it is called Today. For the +Night cometh, wherein no man can work. + +All true Work is sacred; in all true Work, were it but true +hand-labour, there is something of divineness. Labour, wide as +the Earth, has its summit in Heaven. Sweat of the brow; and up +from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; which +includes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, all +Sciences, all spoken Epics, all acted Heroisms, Martyrdoms,--up +to that 'Agony of bloody sweat,' which all men have called +divine! O brother, if this is not 'worship,' then I say, the +more pity for worship; for this is the noblest thing yet +discovered under God's sky. Who art thou that complainest of thy +life of toil? Complain not. Look up, my wearied brother; see +thy fellow Workmen there, in God's Eternity; surviving there, +they alone surviving: sacred Band of the Immortals, celestial +Bodyguard of the Empire of Mankind. Even in the weak Human +Memory they survive so long, as saints, as heroes, as gods; they +alone surviving; peopling, they alone, the unmeasured solitudes +of Time! To thee Heaven, though severe, is _not_ unkind; Heaven +is kind,--as a noble Mother; as that Spartan Mother, saying +while she gave her son his shield, "With it, my son, or upon it!" +Thou too shalt return _home_ in honour; to thy far-distant Home, +in honour; doubt it not,--if in the battle thou keep thy shield! +Thou, in the Eternities and deepest Death-kingdoms, art not an +alien; thou everywhere art a denizen! Complain not; the very +Spartans did not _complain._ + +And who art thou that braggest of thy life of Idleness; +complacently shewest thy bright gilt equipages; sumptuous +cushions; appliances for folding of the hands to mere sleep? +Looking up, looking down, around, behind or before, discernest +thou, if it be not in Mayfair alone, any _idle_ hero, saint, god, +or even devil? Not a vestige of one. In the Heavens, in the +Earth, in the Waters, under the Earth, is none like unto thee. +Thou art an original figure in this Creation; a denizen in +Mayfair alone, in this extraordinary Century or Half-Century +alone! One monster there is in the world: the idle man. What is +his 'Religion?' That Nature is a Phantasm, where cunning, +beggary or thievery may sometimes find good victual. That God is +a lie; and that Man and his Life are a lie.--Alas, alas, who of +us _is_ there that can say, I have worked? The faithfulest of us +are unprofitable servants; the faithfulest of us know that best. +The faithfulest of us may say, with sad and true old Samuel, +"Much of my life has been trifled away!" But he that has, and +except 'on public occasions' professes to have, no function but +that of going idle in a graceful or graceless manner; and of +begetting sons to go idle; and to address Chief Spinners and +Diggers, who at least _are_ spinning and digging, "Ye scandalous +persons who produce too much"--My Corn-Law friends, on what +imaginary still richer Eldorados, and true iron-spikes with law +of gravitation, are ye rushing! + + +As to the Wages of Work there might innumerable things be said; +there will and must yet innumerable things be said and spoken, in +St. Stephen's and out of St. Stephen's; and gradually not a few +things be ascertained and written, on Law-parchment, concerning +this very matter:--'Fair day's-wages for a fair day's-work' is +the most unrefusable demand! Money-wages 'to the extent of +keeping your worker alive that he may work more;' these, unless +you mean to dismiss him straightway out of this world, are +indispensable alike to the noblest Worker and to the least noble! + +One thing only I will say here, in special reference to the +former class, the noble and noblest; but throwing light on all +the other classes and their arrangements of this difficult +matter: The 'wages' of every noble Work do yet lie in Heaven or +else Nowhere. Not in Bank-of-England bills, in Owen's Labour- +bank, or any the most improved establishment of banking and +money-changing, needest thou, heroic soul, present thy account of +earnings. Human banks and labour-banks know thee not; or know +thee after generations and centuries have passed away, and thou +art clean gone from 'rewarding,'--all manner of bank-drafts, +shoptills, and Downing-street Exchequers lying very invisible, so +far from thee! Nay, at bottom, dost thou need any reward? Was +it thy aim and life-purpose to be filled with good things for thy +heroism; to have a life of pomp and ease, and be what men call +'happy,' in this world, or in any other world? I answer for thee +deliberately, No. The whole spiritual secret of the new epoch +lies in this, that thou canst answer for thyself, with thy whole +clearness of head and heart, deliberately, No. + +My brother, the brave man has to give his Life away. Give it, I +advise thee;--thou dost not expect to _sell_ thy Life in an +adequate manner? What price, for example, would content thee? +The just price of thy LIFE to thee,--why, God's entire Creation +to thyself, the whole Universe of Space, the whole Eternity of +Time, and what they hold: that is the price which would content +thee; that, and if thou wilt be candid, nothing short of that! +It is thy all; and for it thou wouldst have all. Thou art an +unreasonable mortal;--or rather thou art a poor _infinite_ +mortal, who, in thy narrow clay-prison here, _seemest_ so +unreasonable! Thou wilt never sell thy Life, or any part of thy +Life, in a satisfactory manner. Give it, like a royal heart; +let the price be Nothing: thou _hast_ then, in a certain sense, +got All for it! The heroic man,--and is not every man, God be +thanked, a potential hero?--has to do so, in all times and +circumstances. In the most heroic age, as in the most unheroic, +he will have to say, as Burns said proudly and humbly of his +little Scottish Songs, little dewdrops of Celestial Melody in an +age when so much was unmelodious: "By Heaven, they shall either +be invaluable or of no value; I do not need your guineas for +them!" It is an element which should, and must, enter deeply +into all settlements of wages here below. They never will be +'satisfactoy' otherwise; they cannot, O Mammon Gospel, they +never can! Money for my little piece of work 'to the extent that +will allow me to keep working;' yes, this,--unless you mean that +I shall go my ways _before_ the work is all taken out of me: but +as to 'wages'--!-- + +On the whole, we do entirely agree with those old Monks, +_Laborare est Orare._ In a thousand senses, from one end of it +to the other, true Work is Worship. He that works, whatsoever be +his work, he bodies forth the form of Things Unseen; a small +Poet every Worker is. The idea, were it but of his poor Delf +Platter, how much more of his Epic Poem, is as yet 'seen,' +halfseen, only by himself; to all others it is a thing unseen, +impossible; to Nature herself it is a thing unseen, a thing +which never hitherto was;--very 'impossible,' for it is as yet a +No-thing! The Unseen Powers had need to watch over such a man; +he works in and for the Unseen. Alas, if he look to the Seen +Powers only, he may as well quit the business; his No-thing will +never rightly issue as a Thing, but as a Deceptivity, a Sham- +thing,--which it had better not do! + +Thy No-thing of an Intended Poem, O Poet who hast looked merely +to reviewers, copyrights, booksellers, popularities, behold it +has not yet become a Thing; for the truth is not in it! Though +printed, hot-pressed, reviewed, celebrated, sold to the twentieth +edition: what is all that? The Thing, in philosophical +uncommercial language, is still a No-thing, mostly semblance, and +deception of the sight;--benign Oblivion incessantly gnawing at +it, impatient till chaos to which it belongs do reabsorb it!-- + +He who takes not counsel of the Unseen and Silent, from him will +never come real visibility and speech. Thou must descend to the +_Mothers,_ to the _Manes,_ and Hercules-like long suffer and +labour there, wouldst thou emerge with victory into the sunlight. +As in battle and the shock of war,--for is not this a battle?-- +thou too shalt fear no pain or death, shalt love no ease or life; +the voice of festive Lubberlands, the noise of greedy Acheron +shall alike lie silent under thy victorious feet. Thy work, like +Dante's, shall 'make thee lean for many years.' The world and +its wages, its criticisms, counsels, helps, impediments, shall be +as a waste ocean-flood; the chaos through which thou art to swim +and sail. Not the waste waves and their weedy gulf-streams, +shalt thou take for guidance: thy star alone,--'Se to segui tua +stella!' Thy star alone, now clear-beaming over Chaos, nay now +by fits gone out, disastrously eclipsed: this only shalt thou +strive to follow. O, it is a business, as I fancy, that of +weltering your way through Chaos and the murk of Hell! Green- +eyed dragons watching you, three-headed Cerberuses,--not without +sympathy of their sort! "Eccovi l'uom ch'e stato all'Inferno." +For in fine, as Poet Dryden says, you do walk hand in hand with +sheer Madness, all the way,--who is by no means pleasant company! +You look fixedly into Madness, and her undiscovered, boundless, +bottomless Night-empire; that you may extort new Wisdom out of +it, as an Eurydice from Tartarus. The higher the Wisdom, the +closer was its neighbourhood and kindred with mere Insanity; +literally so;--and thou wilt, with a speechless feeling, observe +how highest Wisdom, struggling up into this world, has oftentimes +carried such tinctures and adhesions of Insanity still cleaving +to it hither! + +All Works, each in their degree, are a making of Madness sane;-- +truly enough a religious operation; which cannot be carried on +without religion. You have not work otherwise; you have eye- +service, greedy grasping of wages, swift and ever swifter +manufacture of semblances to get hold of wages. Instead of +better felt-hats to cover your head, you have bigger lath-and- +plaster hats set traveling the streets on wheels. Instead of +heavenly and earthly Guidance for the souls of men, you have +'Black or White Surplice' Controversies, stuffed hair-and-leather +Popes;--terrestrial _Law-wards,_ Lords and Law-bringers, +'organising Labour' in these years, by passing Corn-Laws. With +all which, alas, this distracted Earth is now full, nigh to +bursting. Semblances most smooth to the touch and eye; most +accursed nevertheless to body and soul. Semblances, be they of +Sham-woven Cloth or of Dilettante Legislation, which are _not_ +real wool or substance, but Devil's-dust, accursed of God and +man! No man has worked, or can work, except religiously; not +even the poor day-labourer, the weaver of your coat, the sewer of +your shoes. All men, if they work not as in a Great Taskmaster's +eye, will work wrong, work unhappily for themselves and you. + + +Industrial work, still under bondage to Mammon, the rational soul +of it not yet awakened, is a tragic spectacle. Men in the +rapidest motion and self-motion; restless, with convulsive +energy, as if driven by Galvanism, as if possessed by a Devil; +tearing asunder mountains,--to no purpose, for Mammonism is +always Midas-eared! This is sad, on the face of it. Yet +courage: the beneficent Destinies, kind in their sternness, are +apprising us that this cannot continue. Labour is not a devil, +even while encased in Mammonism; Labour is ever an imprisoned +god, writhing unconsciously or consciously to escape out of +Mammonism! Plugson of Undershot, like Taillefer of Normandy, +wants victory; how much happier will even Plugson be to have a +Chivalrous victory than a Chactaw one. The unredeemed ugliness +is that of a slothful People. Shew me a People energetically +busy; heaving, struggling, all shoulders at the wheel; their +heart pulsing, every muscle swelling, with man's energy and +will;--I Shew you a People of whom great good is already +predicable; to whom all manner of good is yet certain, if their +energy endure. By very working, they will learn; they have, +Antaeus-like, their foot on Mother Fact: how can they but learn? + +The vulgarest Plugson of a Master-Worker, who can command Workers +and get work out of them, is already a considerable man. Blessed +and thrice-blessed symptoms I discern of Master-Workers who are +not vulgar men; who are Nobles, and begin to feel that they must +act as such: all speed to these, they are England's hope at +present! But in this Plugson himself, conscious of almost no +nobleness whatever, how much is there! Not without man's +faculty, insight, courage, hard energy, is this rugged figure. +His words none of the wisest; but his actings cannot be +altogether foolish. Think, how were it, stoodst thou suddenly in +his shoes! He has to command a thousand men. And not imaginary +commanding; no, it is real, incessantly practical. The evil +passions of so many men (with the Devil in them, as in all of us) +he has to vanquish; by manifold force of speech and of silence, +to repress or evade. What a force of silence, to say nothing of +the others, is in Plugson! For these his thousand men he has to +provide raw-material, machinery, arrangement, house-room; and +ever at the week's end, wages by due sale. No Civil-List, or +Goulburn-Baring Budget has he to fall back upon, for paying of +his regiment; he has to pick his supplies from this confused +face of the whole Earth and Contemporaneous History, by his +dexterity alone. There will be dry eyes if he fail to do it!--He +exclaims, at present, 'black in the face,' near strangled with +Dilettante Legislation: "Let me have elbow-room, throat-room, +and I will not fail! No, I will spin yet, and conquer like a +giant: what 'sinews of war' lie in me, untold resources towards +the Conquest of this Planet, if instead of hanging me, you +husband them, and help me!"--My indomitable friend, it is _true;_ +and thou shalt and must be helped. + +This is not a man I would kill and strangle by Corn-Laws, even if +I could! No, I would fling my Corn-Laws and Shotbelts to the +Devil; and try to help this man. I would teach him, by noble +precept and law-precept, by noble example most of all, that +Mammonism was not the essence of his or of my station in God's +Universe; but the adscititious excrescence of it; the gross, +terrene, godless embodiment of it; which would have to become, +more or less, a godlike one. By noble _real_ legislation, by +true _noble's_-work, by unwearied, valiant, and were it wageless +effort, in my Parliament and in my Parish, I would aid, +constrain, encourage him to effect more or less this blessed +change. I should know that it would have to be effected; that +unless it were in some measure effected, he and I and all of us, +I first and soonest of all, were doomed to perdition!--Effected +it will be; unless it were a Demon that made this Universe; +which I, for my own part, do at no moment, under no form, in the +least believe. + +May it please your Serene Highnesses, your Majesties, Lordships +and Law-wardships, the proper Epic of this world is not now 'Arms +and the Man;' how much less, 'Shirt-frills and the Man:' no, it +is now 'Tools and the Man:' that, henceforth to all time is now +our Epic;--and you, first of all others, I think, were wise to +take note of that! + + + + +Chapter XIII + +Democracy + + +If the Serene Highnesses and Majesties do not take note of that, +then, as I perceive, _that_ will take note of itself! The time +for levity, insincerity, and idle babble and play-acting, in all +kinds, is gone by; it is a serious, grave time. Old long-vexed +questions, not yet solved in logical words or parliamentary laws, +are fast solving themselves in facts, somewhat unblessed to +behold! This largest of questions, this question of Work and +Wages, which ought, had we heeded Heaven's voice, to have begun +two generations ago or more, cannot be delayed longer without +hearing Earth's voice. 'Labour' will verily need to be somewhat +'organised,' as they say,--God knows with what difficulty. Man +will actually need to have his debts and earnings a little better +paid by man; which, let Parliaments speak of them or be silent +of them, are eternally his due from man, and cannot, without +penalty and at length not without death-penalty, be withheld. +How much ought to cease among us straightway; how much ought to +begin straightway, while the hours yet are! + +Truly they are strange results to which this of leaving all to +'Cash;' of quietly shutting up the God's Temple, and gradually +opening wide-open the Mammon's Temple, with 'Laissez-faire, and +Every man for himself,'--have led us in these days! We have +Upper, speaking Classes, who indeed do 'speak' as never man spake +before; the withered flimsiness, the godless baseness and +barrenness of whose Speech might of itself indicate what kind of +Doing and practical Governing went on under it! For Speech is +the gaseous element out of which most kinds of Practice and +Performance, especially all kinds of moral Performance, condense +themselves, and take shape; as the one is, so will the other be. +Descending, accordingly, into the Dumb Class in its Stockport +Cellars and Poor-Law Bastilles, have we not to announce that they +also are hitherto unexampled in the History of Adam's Posterity? + +Life was never a May-game for men: in all times the lot of the +dumb millions born to toil was defaced with manifold sufferings, +injustices, heavy burdens, avoidable and unavoidable; not play +at all, but hard work that made the sinews sore, and the heart +sore. As bond-slaves, _villani, bordarii, sochemanni,_ nay +indeed as dukes, earls and kings, men were oftentimes made weary +of their life; and had to say, in the sweat of their brow and of +their soul, Behold it is not sport, it is grim earnest, and our +back can bear no more! Who knows not what massacrings and +harryings there have been; grinding, long-continuing, unbearable +injustices,--till the heart had to rise in madness, and some _"Eu +Sachsen, nimith euer sachses,_ You Saxons, out with your gully- +knives then!" You Saxons, some 'arrestment,' partial 'arrestment +of the Knaves and Dastards' has become indispensable!--The page +of Dryasdust is heavy with such details. + +And yet I will venture to believe that in no time, since the +beginnings of Society, was the lot of those same dumb millions of +toilers so entirely unbearable as it is even in the days now +passing over us. It is not to die, or even to die of hunger, +that makes a man wretched; many men have died; all men must +die,--the last exit of us all is in a Fire-Chariot of Pain. But +it is to live miserable we know not why; to work sore and yet +gain nothing; to be heart-worn, weary, yet isolated, unrelated, +girt in with a cold universal Laissez-faire: it is to die slowly +all our life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, Infinite +Injustice, as in the accursed iron belly of a Phalaris' Bull! +This is and remains forever intolerable to all men whom God +has made. Do we wonder at French Revolutions, Chartisms, +Revolts of Three Days? The times, if we will consider them, +are really unexampled. + +Never before did I hear of an Irish Widow reduced to 'prove her +sisterhood by dying of typhus-fever and infecting seventeen +persons,'--saying in such undeniable way, "You see, I was your +sister!" Sisterhood, brotherhood was often forgotten; but not +till the rise of these ultimate Mammon and Shotbelt Gospels, did +I ever see it so expressly denied. If no pious Lord or _Law- +ward_ would remember it, always some pious Lady (_'Hlaf-dig,'_ +Benefactress, _'Loaf-giveress,'_ they say she is,--blessings on +her beautiful heart!) was there, with mild mother-voice and hand, +to remember it; some pious thoughtful _Elder,_ what we now call +'Prester,' _Presbyter_ or 'Priest,' was there to put all men in +mind of it, in the name of the God who had made all. + +Not even in Black Dahomey was it ever, I think, forgotten to the +typhus-fever length. Mungo Park, resourceless, had sunk down to +die under the Negro Village-Tree, a horrible White object in the +eyes of all. But in the poor Black Woman, and her daughter who +stood aghast at him, whose earthly wealth and funded capital +consisted of one small calabash of rice, there lived a heart +richer than _'Laissez-faire:'_ they, with a royal munificence, +boiled their rice for him; they sang all night to him, spinning +assiduous on their cotton distaffs, as he lay to sleep: "Let us +pity the poor white man; no mother has he to fetch him milk, no +sister to grind him corn!" Thou poor black Noble One,--thou +_Lady_ too: did not a God make thee too; was there not in thee +too something of a God!-- + + +Gurth born thrall of Cedric the Saxon has been greatly pitied by +Dryasdust and others. Gurth with the brass collar round his +neck, tending Cedric's pigs in the glades of the wood, is not +what I call an exemplar of human felicity: but Gurth, with the +sky above him, with the free air and tinted boscage and umbrage +round him, and in him at least the certainty of supper and social +lodging when he came home; Gurth to me seems happy, in +comparison with many a Lancashire and Buckinghamshire man, of +these days, not born thrall of anybody! Gurth's brass collar did +not gall him: Cedric _deserved_ to be his Master. The pigs were +Cedric's, but Gurth too would get his parings of them. Gurth had +the inexpressible satisfaction of feeling himself related +indissolubly, though in a rude brass-collar way, to his fellow- +mortals in this Earth. He had superiors, inferiors, equals.-- +Gurth is now 'emancipated' long since; has what we call +'Liberty.' Liberty, I am told, is a Divine thing. Liberty when +it becomes the 'Liberty to die by starvation' is not so divine! + +Liberty? The true liberty of a man, you would say, consisted in +his finding out, or being forced to find out the right path, and +to walk thereon. To learn, or to be taught, what work he +actually was able for; and then, by permission, persuasion, and +even compulsion, to set about doing of the same! That is his +true blessedness, honour, 'liberty' and maximum of wellbeing: if +liberty be not that, I for one have small care about liberty. +You do not allow a palpable madman to leap over precipices; you +violate his liberty, you that are wise; and keep him, were it in +strait-waistcoats, away from the precipices! Every stupid, every +cowardly and foolish man is but a less palpable madman: his true +liberty were that a wiser man, that any and every wiser man, +could, by brass collars, or in whatever milder or sharper way, +lay hold of him when he was going wrong, and order and compel him +to go a little righter. O if thou really art my _Senior,_ +Seigneur, my _Elder,_ Presbyter or Priest,--if thou art in very +deed my Wiser, may a beneficent instinct lead and impel thee to +'conquer' me, to command me! If thou do know better than I what +is good and right, I conjure thee in the name of God, force me to +do it; were it by never such brass collars, whips and handcuffs, +leave me not to walk over precipices! That I have been called, +by all the Newspapers, a 'free man' will avail me little, if my +pilgrimage have ended in death and wreck. O that the Newspapers +had called me slave, coward, fool, or what it pleased their sweet +voices to name me, and I had attained not death, but life!-- +Liberty requires new definitions. + +A conscious abhorrence and intolerance of Folly, of Baseness; +Stupidity, Poltroonery and all that brood of things, dwells deep +in some men: still deeper in others an unconscious abhorrence +and intolerance, clothed moreover by the beneficent Supreme +Powers in what stout appetites, energies, egoisms so-called, are +suitable to it;--these latter are your Conquerors, Romans, +Normans Russians, Indo-English; Founders of what we call +Aristocracies: Which indeed have they not the most 'divine +right' to found;--being themselves very truly [greek], BRAVEST, +BEST; and conquering generally a confused rabble of WORST, or at +lowest; clearly enough, of WORSE? I think their divine right, +tried, with affirmatory verdict, in the greatest Law-Court known +to me, was good! A class of men who are dreadfully exclaimed +against by Dryasdust; of whom nevertheless beneficent Nature has +oftentimes had need; and may, alas, again have need. + +When, across the hundredfold poor scepticisms, trivialisms, and +constitutional cobwebberies of Dryasdust, you catch any +glimpse of a William the Conqueror, a Tancred of Hauteville or +such like,--do you not discern veritably some rude outline of a +true God-made King; whom not the Champion of England cased in +tin, but all Nature and the Universe were calling to the throne? +It is absolutely necessary that he get thither. Nature does not +mean her poor Saxon children to perish, of obesity, stupor or +other malady, as yet: a stern Ruler and Line of Rulers therefore +is called in,--a stern but most beneficent _Perpetual House- +Surgeon_ is called in, by Nature, and even the appropriate fees +are provided for him! Dryasdust talks lamentably about Hereward +and the Fen Counties; fate of Earl Waltheof; Yorkshire and the +North reduced to ashes; all which is undoubtedly lamentable. +But even Dryasdust apprises me of one fact: 'A child; in this +William's reign, might have carried a purse of gold from end to +end of England. My erudite friend, it is a fact which outweighs +a thousand! Sweep away thy constitutional, sentimental and other +cobwebberies; look eye to eye, if thou still have any eye, in +the face of this big burly William Bastard: thou wilt see a +fellow of most flashing discernment, of most strong lionheart;-- +in whom, as it were, within a frame of oak and iron, the gods +have planted the soul of 'a man of genius!' Dost thou call that +nothing? I call it an immense thing!--Rage enough was in this +Willelmus Conquestor, rage enough for his occasions;--and yet the +essential element of him, as of all such men, is not scorching +_fire,_ but shining illuminative _light._ Fire and light are +strangely interchangeable; nay, at bottom, I have found them +different forms of the same most godlike 'elementary substance' +in our world: a thing worth stating in these days. The +essential element of this Conquestor is, first of all, the most +sun-eyed perception of what is really what on this God's-Earth;-- +which, thou wilt find, does mean at bottom 'Justice,' and +'Virtues' not a few: _Conformity_ to what the Maker has seen +good to make; that, I suppose, will mean Justice and a Virtue +or two?-- + +Dost thou think Willelmus Conquestor would have tolerated ten +years' jargon, one hour's jargon, on the propriety of killing +Cotton-manufactures by partridge Corn-Laws? I fancy, this was +not the man to knock out of his night's-rest with nothing but a +noisy bedlamism in your mouth! "Assist us still better to bush +the partridges; strangle Plugson who spins the shirts?"--_"Par +la Splendeur de Dieu!"_--Dost thou think Willelmus Conquestor, in +this new time, with Steam-engine Captains of Industry on one hand +of him, and Joe-Manton Captains of Idleness on the other, would +have doubted which _was_ really the BEST; which did deserve +strangling, and which not? + +I have a certain indestructible regard for Willelmus Conquestor. +A resident House-Surgeon, provided by Nature for her beloved +English People, and even furnished with the requisite 'fees,' as +I said; for he by no means felt himself doing Nature's work, +this Willelmus, but his own work exclusively! And his own work +withal it was; informed _'par la Splendeur de Dieu.'_--I say, it +is necessary to get the work out of such a man, however harsh +that be! When a world, not yet doomed for death, is rushing down +to ever-deeper Baseness and Confusion, it is a dire necessity of +Nature's to bring in her ARISTOCRACIES, her BEST, even by +forcible methods. When their descendants or representatives +cease entirely to _be_ the Best, Nature's poor world will very +soon rush down again to Baseness; and it becomes a dire +necessity of Nature's to cast them out. Hence French +Revolutions, Five-point Charters, Democracies, and a mournful +list of _Etceteras,_ in these our afflicted times. + +To what extent Democracy has now reached, how it advances +irresistible with ominous, ever-increasing speed, he that will +open his eyes on any province of human affairs may discern. +Democracy is everywhere the inexorable demand of these ages, +swiftly fulfilling itself. From the thunder of Napoleon battles, +to the jabbering of Open-vestry in St. Mary Axe, all things +announce Democracy. A distinguished man, whom some of my readers +will hear again with pleasure, thus writes to me what in these +days he notes from the Wahngasse of Weissnichtwo, where our +London fashions seem to be in full vogue. Let us hear the Herr +Teufelsdrockh again, were it but the smallest word! + +'Democracy, which means despair of finding any Heroes to govern +you, and contented putting up with the want of them,--alas, thou +too, _mein Lieber,_ seest well how close it is of kin to +_Atheism,_ and other sad _Isms:_ he who discovers no God +whatever, how shall he discover Heroes, the visible Temples of +God?--Strange enough meanwhile it is, to observe with what +thoughtlessness, here in our rigidly Conservative Country, men +rush into Democracy with full cry. Beyond doubt, his Excellenz +the Titular-Herr Ritter Kauderwalsch von Pferdefuss-Quacksalber, +he our distinguished Conservative Premier himself, and all but +the thicker-headed of his Party, discern Democracy to be +inevitable as death, and are even desperate of delaying it much! + +'You cannot walk the streets without beholding Democracy announce +itself: the very Tailor has become, if not properly +Sansculottic, which to him would be ruinous, yet a Tailor +unconsciously symbolising, and prophesying with his scissors, the +reign of Equality. What now is our fashionable coat? A thing of +superfinest texture, of deeply meditated cut; with Malineslace +cuffs; quilted with gold; so that a man can carry, without +difficulty, an estate of land on his back? _Keineswegs,_ By no +manner of means! The Sumptuary Laws have fallen into such a +state of desuetude as was never before seen. Our fashionable +coat is an amphibium between barn-sack and drayman's doublet. +The cloth of it is studiously coarse; the colour a speckled +sootblack or rust-brown grey;--the nearest approach to a +Peasant's. And for shape,--thou shouldst see it! The last +consummation of the year now passing over us is definable as +Three Bags: a big bag for the body, two small bags for the arms, +and by way of collar a hem! The first Antique Cheruscan who, of +felt-cloth or bear's-hide, with bone or metal needle, set about +making himself a coat, before Tailors had yet awakened out of +Nothing,--did not he make it even so? A loose wide poke for +body, with two holes to let out the arms; this was his original +coat: to which holes it was soon visible that two small loose +pokes, or sleeves, easily appended, would be an improvement. + +'Thus has the Tailor-art, so to speak, overset itself, like most +other things; changed its centre-of-gravity; whirled suddenly +over from zenith to nadir. Your Stulz, with huge Somerset, +vaults from his high shopboard down to the depths of primal +savagery,--carrying much along with him! For I will invite thee +to reflect that the Tailor, as topmost ultimate froth of Human +Society, is indeed swift-passing, evanescent, slippery to +decipher; yet significant of much, nay of all. Topmost +evanescent froth, he is churned up from the very lees, and from +all intermediate regions of the liquor. The general outcome he, +visible to the eye, of what men aimed to do, and were obliged and +enabled to do, in this one public department of symbolising +themselves to each other by covering of their skins. A smack of +all Human Life lies in the Tailor: its wild struggles towards +beauty, dignity, freedom, victory; and how, hemmed in by Sedan +and Huddersfield, by Nescience, Dulness, Prurience, and other sad +necessities and laws of Nature, it has attained just to this: +Grey Savagery of Three Sacks with a hem! + +'When the very Tailor verges towards Sansculottism, is it not +ominous? The last Divinity of poor mankind dethroning himself; +sinking _his_ taper too, flame downmost, like the Genius of Sleep +or of Death; admonitory that Tailor-time shall be no more!--For +little as one could advise Sumptuary Laws at the present epoch, +yet nothing is clearer than that where ranks do actually exist, +strict division of costumes will also be enforced; that if we +ever have a new Hierarchy and Aristocracy, acknowledged veritably +as such, for which I daily pray Heaven, the Tailor will reawaken; +and be, by volunteering and appointment, consciously and +unconsciously, a safeguard of that same.'--Certain farther +observations, from the same invaluable pen, on our never-ending +changes of mode, our 'perpetual nomadic and even ape-like +appetite for change and mere change' in all the equipments of our +existence, and the 'fatal revolutionary character' thereby +manifested, we suppress for the present. It may be admitted that +Democracy, in all meanings of the word, is in full career; +irresistible by any Ritter Kauderwalsch or other Son of Adam, as +times go. 'Liberty' is a thing men are determined to have. + + +But truly, as I had to remark in the meanwhile, 'the liberty of +not being oppressed by your fellow man' is an indispensable, yet +one of the most insignificant fractional parts of Human Liberty. +No man oppresses thee, can bid thee fetch or carry, come or go, +without reason shewn. True; from all men thou art emancipated: +but from Thyself and from the Devil--? No man, wiser, unwiser, +can make thee come or go: but thy own futilities, bewilderments, +thy false appetites for Money, Windsor Georges and such like? No +man oppresses thee, O free and independent Franchiser: but does +not this stupid Porter-pot oppress thee? No Son of Adam can bid +thee come or go; but this absurd Pot of Heavy-wet, this can and +does! Thou art the thrall not of Cedric the Saxon, but of thy +own brutal appetites, and this scoured dish of liquor. And thou +pratest of thy liberty? Thou entire blockhead! + +Heavy-wet and gin: alas, these are not the only kinds of +thraldom. Thou who walkest in a vain shew, looking out with +ornamental dilettante sniff and serene supremacy at all Life and +all Death; and amblest jauntily; perking up thy poor talk into +crotchets, thy poor conduct into fatuous somnambulisms;--and art +as an 'enchanted Ape' under God's sky, where thou mightest have +been a man, had proper Schoolmasters and Conquerors, and +Constables with cat-o'-nine tails, been vouchsafed thee: dost +thou call that 'liberty?' Or your unreposing Mammon-worshipper, +again, driven, as if by Galvanisms, by Devils and Fixed-Ideas, +who rises early and sits late, chasing the impossible; straining +every faculty 'to fill himself with the east wind '--how merciful +were it, could you, by mild persuasion or by the severest tyranny +so-called, check him in his mad path, turn him into a wiser one! +All painful tyranny, in that case again, were but mild 'surgery;' +the pain of it cheap, as health and life, instead of galvanism +and fixed-idea, are cheap at any price. + +Sure enough, of all paths a man could strike into, there is, at +any given moment, a _best path_ for every man; a thing which, +here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do;--which +could he be but led or driven to do, he were then doing 'like a +man,' as we phrase it; all men and gods agreeing with him, the +whole Universe virtually exclaiming Well-done to him! His +success, in such case, were complete; his felicity a maximum. +This path, to find this path and walk in it, is the one thing +needful for him. Whatsoever forwards him in that, let it come to +him even in the shape of blows and spurnings, is liberty: +whatsoever hinders him, were it wardmotes, open-vestries, +pollbooths, tremendous cheers, rivers of heavy-wet, is slavery. + +The notion that a man's liberty consists in giving his vote at +election-hustings, and saying, "Behold now I too have my twenty- +thousandth part of a Talker in our National Palaver; will not +all the gods be good to me?"--is one of the pleasantest! Nature +nevertheless is kind at present; and puts it into the heads of +many, almost of all. The liberty especially which has to +purchase itself by social isolation, and each man standing +separate from the other, having 'no business with him' but a +cash-account: this is such a liberty as the Earth seldom saw;-- +as the Earth will not long put up with, recommend it how you may. +This liberty turns out, before it have long continued in action, +with all men flinging up their caps round it, to be, for the +Working Millions a liberty to die by want of food; for the Idle +Thousands and Units, alas, a still more fatal liberty to live in +want of work; to have no earnest duty to do in this God's-World +any more. What becomes of a man in such predicament? Earth's +Laws are silent; and Heaven's speak in a voice which is not +heard. No work, and the ineradicable need of work, give rise to +new very wondrous life-philosophies, new very wondrous life- +practices! Dilettantism, Pococurantism, Beau-Brummelism, with +perhaps an occasional, half-mad, protesting burst of Byronism, +establish themselves: at the end of a certain period,--if you go +back to 'the Dead Sea,' there is, say our Moslem friends, a very +strange 'Sabbath-day' transacting itself there!--Brethren, we +know but imperfectly yet, after ages of Constitutional +Government, what Liberty is and Slavery is. + +Democracy, the chase of Liberty in that direction, shall go its +full course; unrestrainable by him of Pferdefuss-Quacksalber, or +any of _his_ household. The Toiling Millions of Mankind, in most +vital need and passionate instinctive desire of Guidance, shall +cast away False-Guidance; and hope, for an hour, that No- +Guidance will suffice them: but it can be for an hour only. The +smallest item of human Slavery is the oppression of man by his +Mock-Superiors; the palpablest, but I say at bottom the +smallest. Let him shake off such oppression, trample it +indignantly under his feet; I blame him not, I pity and commend +him. But oppression by your Mock-Superiors well shaken off, the +grand problem yet remains to solve: That of finding government +by your Real-Superiors! Alas, how shall we ever learn the +solution of that, benighted, bewildered, sniffing, sneering, +godforgetting unfortunates as we are? It is a work for +centuries; to be taught us by tribulations, confusions, +insurrections, obstructions; who knows if not by conflagration +and despair! It is a lesson inclusive of all other lessons; the +hardest of all lessons to learn. + +One thing I do know: Those Apes chattering on the branches by +the Dead Sea never got it learned; but chatter there to this +day. To them no Moses need come a second time; a thousand +Moseses would be but so many painted Phantasms, interesting +Fellow-Apes of new strange aspect,--whom they would 'invite to +dinner,' be glad to meet with in lion-soirees. To them the voice +of Prophecy, of heavenly monition, is quite ended. They chatter +there, all Heaven shut to them, to the end of the world. The +unfortunates! O, what is dying of hunger, with honest tools in +your hand, with a manful purpose in your heart, and much real +labour lying round you done, in comparison? You honestly quit +your tools; quit a most muddy confused coil of sore work, short +rations, of sorrows, dispiritments and contradictions, having now +honestly done with it all;--and await, not entirely in a +distracted manner, what the Supreme Powers, and the Silences and +the Eternities may have to say to you. + +A second thing I know: This lesson will have to be learned,-- +under penalties! England will either learn it, or England also +will cease to exist among Nations. England will either learn to +reverence its Heroes, and discriminate them from its Sham-Heroes +and Valets and gaslighted Histrios; and to prize them as the +audible God's-voice, amid all inane jargons and temporary market- +cries, and say to them with heart-loyalty, "Be ye King and +Priest, and Gospel and Guidance for us:" or else England will +continue to worship new and ever-new forms of Quackhood,--and so, +with what resiliences and reboundings matters little, go down to +the Father of Quacks! Can I dread such things of England? +Wretched, thick-eyed, gross-hearted mortals, why will ye worship +lies, and 'Stuffed Clothes-suits, created by the ninth-parts of +men!' It is not your purses that suffer; your farm-rents, your +commerces, your mill-revenues, loud as ye lament over these; no, +it is not these alone, but a far deeper than these: it is your +Souls that lie dead, crushed down under despicable Nightmares, +Atheisms, Brain-fumes; and are not Souls at all, but mere +succedanea for _salt_ to keep your bodies and their appetites +from putrefying! Your cotton-spinning and thrice-miraculous +mechanism, what is this too, by itself, but a larger kind of +Animalism? Spiders can spin, Beavers can build and shew +contrivance; the Ant lays up accumulation of capital, and has, +for aught I know, a Bank of Antland. If there is no soul in man +higher than all that, did it reach to sailing on the cloud-rack +and spinning sea-sand; then I say, man is but an animal, a more +cunning kind of brute: he has no soul, but only a succedaneum +for salt. Whereupon, seeing himself to be truly of the beasts +that perish, he ought to admit it, I think;--and also straightway +universally kill himself; and so, in a manlike manner, at least, +_end,_ and wave these bruteworlds _his_ dignified farewell!-- + + + + +Chapter XIV + +Sir Jabesh Windbag + + +Oliver Cromwell, whose body they hung on their Tyburn Gallows +because he had found the Christian Religion inexecutable in this +country, remains to me by far the remarkablest Governor we have +had here for the last five centuries or so. For the last five +centuries, there has been no Governor among us with anything like +similar talent; and for the last two centuries, no Governor, we +may say, with the possibility of similar talent,--with an idea in +the heart of him capable of inspiring similar talent, capable of +coexisting therewith. When you consider that Oliver believed in +a God, the difference between Oliver's position and that of any +subsequent Governor of this Country becomes, the more you reflect +on it, the more immeasurable! + +Oliver, no volunteer in Public Life, but plainly a ballotted +soldier strictly ordered thither, enters upon Public Life; +comports himself there like a man who carried his own life itself +in his hand; like a man whose Great Commander's eye was always +on him. Not without results. Oliver, well-advanced in years, +finds now, by Destiny and his own Deservings, or as he himself +better phrased it, by wondrous successive 'Births of Providence,' +the Government of England put into his hands. In senate-house +and battle-field, in counsel and in action, in private and in +public, this man has proved himself a man: England and the voice +of God, through waste awful whirlwinds and environments, speaking +to his great heart, summon him to assert formally, in the way of +solemn Public Fact and as a new piece of English Law, what +informally and by Nature's eternal Law needed no asserting, That +he, Oliver, was the Ablest-Man of England, the King of England; +that he, Oliver, would undertake governing England. His way of +making this same 'assertion,' the one way he had of making it, +has given rise to immense criticism: but the assertion itself in +what way soever 'made,' is it not somewhat of a solemn one, +somewhat of a tremendous one! + +And now do but contrast this Oliver with my right honourable +friend Sir Jabesh Windbag, Mr. Facing-both-ways, Viscount +Mealymouth, Earl of Windlestraw, or what other Cagliostro, +Cagliostrino, Cagliostraccio, the course of Fortune and +Parliamentary Majorities has constitutionally guided to that +dignity, any time during these last sorrowful hundred-and-fifty +years! Windbag, weak in the faith of a God, which he believes +only at Church on Sundays, if even then; strong only in the +faith that Paragraphs and Plausibilities bring votes; that Force +of Public Opinion, as he calls it, is the primal Necessity of +Things, and highest God we have:--Windbag, if we will consider +him, has a problem set before him which may be ranged in the +impossible class. He is a Columbus minded to sail to the +indistinct country of NOWHERE, to the indistinct country of +WHITHERWARD, by the _friendship_ of those same waste-tumbling +Water-Alps and howling waltz of All the Winds; not by conquest +of them and in spite of them, but by friendship of them, when +once _they_ have made up their mind! He is the most original +Columbus I ever saw. Nay, his problem is not an impossible one: +he will infallibly _arrive_ at that same country of NOWHERE; his +indistinct Whitherward will be a _Thither_ward! In the Ocean +Abysses and Locker of Davy Jones, there certainly enough do he +and _his_ ship's company, and all their cargo and navigatings, at +last find lodgement. + +Oliver knew that his America lay THERE, Westward Ho;--and it was +not entirely by _friendship_ of the Water-Alps, and yeasty insane +Froth-Oceans, that he meant to get thither! He sailed +accordingly; had compass-card, and Rules of Navigation,--older +and greater than these Froth-Oceans, old as the Eternal God! Or +again, do but think of this. Windbag in these his probable five +years of office has to prosper and get Paragraphs: the +Paragraphs of these five years must be his salvation, or he is a +lost man; redemption nowhere in the Worlds or in the Times +discoverable for him. Oliver too would like his Paragraphs; +successes, popularities in these five years are not undesirable +to him: but mark, I say, this enormous circumstance: _after_ +these five years are gone and done, comes an Eternity for Oliver! +Oliver has to appear before the Most High judge: the utmost flow +of Paragraphs, the utmost ebb of them, is now, in strictest +arithmetic, verily no matter at all; its exact value _zero;_ an +account altogether erased! Enormous;--which a man, in these +days, hardly fancies with an effort! Oliver's Paragraphs are all +done, his battles, division-lists, successes all summed: and now +in that awful unerring Court of Review, the real question first +rises, Whether he has succeeded at all; whether he has not been +defeated miserably forevermore? Let him come with world-wide +_Io-Paens,_ these avail him not. Let him come covered over with +the world's execrations, gashed with ignominious death-wounds, +the gallows-rope about his neck: what avails that? The word +is, Come thou brave and faithful; the word is, Depart thou +quack and accursed! + +O Windbag, my right honourable friend, in very truth I pity thee. +I say, these Paragraphs, and low or loud votings of thy poor +fellow-blockheads of mankind, will never guide thee in any +enterprise at all. Govern a country on such guidance? Thou +canst not make a pair of shoes, sell a pennyworth of tape, on +such. No, thy shoes are vamped up falsely to meet the market; +behold, the leather only _seemed_ to be tanned; thy shoes melt +under me to rubbishy pulp, and are not veritable mud-defying +shoes, but plausible vendible similitudes of shoes,--thou +unfortunate, and I! O my right honourable friend, when the +Paragraphs flowed in, who was like Sir Jabesh? On the swelling +tide he mounted; higher, higher, triumphant, heaven-high. But +the Paragraphs again ebbed out, as unwise Paragraphs needs must: +Sir Jabesh lies stranded, sunk and forever sinking in ignominious +ooze; the Mud-nymphs, and ever-deepening bottomless Oblivion, +his portion to eternal time. 'Posterity?' Thou appealest to +Posterity, thou? My right honourable friend, what will Posterity +do for thee! The voting of Posterity, were it continued through +centuries in thy favour, will be quite inaudible, extra-forensic, +without any effect whatever. Posterity can do simply nothing for +a man; nor even seem to do much, if the man be not brainsick. +Besides, to tell thee truth, the bets are a thousand to one, +Posterity will not hear of thee, my right honourable friend! +Posterity, I have found, has generally his own Windbags +sufficiently trumpeted in all market-places, and no leisure to +attend to ours. Posterity, which has made of Norse Odin a +similitude, and of Norman William a brute monster, what will or +can it make of English Jabesh? O Heavens, 'Posterity!' + +"These poor persecuted Scotch Covenanters," said I to my inquiring +Frenchman, in such stinted French as stood at command, _"ils +s'en appelaient a"_--_"A la Posterite,"_ interrupted he, helping +me out.--_"Ah, Monsieur, non, mille fois non!_ They appealed to +the Eternal God; not to Posterity at all! _C'etait different."_ + + + + +Chapter XV + +Morrison Again + + +Nevertheless, O Advanced Liberal, one cannot promise thee any +'New Religion,' for some time; to say truth, I do not think we +have the smallest chance of any! Will the candid reader, by way +of closing this Book Third, listen to a few transient remarks on +that subject? + +Candid readers have not lately met with any man who had less +notion to interfere with their Thirty-Nine, or other Church- +Articles; wherewith, very helplessly as is like, they may have +struggled to form for themselves some not inconceivable +hypothesis about this Universe, and their own Existence there. +Superstition, my friend, is far from me; Fanaticism, for any +_Fanum_ likely to arise soon on this Earth, is far. A man's +Church-Articles are surely articles of price to him; and in +these times one has to be tolerant of many strange 'Articles,' +and of many still stranger 'No-articles,' which go about +placarding themselves in a very distracted manner,--the numerous +long placard-poles, and questionable infirm paste-pots, +interfering with one's peaceable thoroughfare sometimes! + +Fancy a man, moreover, recommending his fellow men to believe in +God, that so Chartism might abate, and the Manchester Operatives +be got to spin peaceably! The idea is more distracted than any +placard-pole seen hitherto in a public thoroughfare of men! My +friend, if thou ever do come to believe in God, thou wilt find +all Chartism, Manchester riot, Parliamentary incompetence, +Ministries of Windbag, and the wildest Social Dissolutions, and +the burning up of this entire Planet, a most small matter in +comparison. Brother, this Planet, I find, is but an +inconsiderable sandgrain in the continents of Being: this +Planet's poor temporary interests, thy interests and my interests +there, when I look fixedly into that eternal Light-Sea and Flame- +Sea with _its_ eternal interests, dwindle literally into Nothing; +my speech of it is--silence for the while. I will as soon think +of making Galaxies and Star Systems to guide little herring- +vessels by, as of preaching Religion that the Constable may +continue possible. O my Advanced-Liberal friend, this new second +progress, of proceeding 'to invent God,' is a very strange one! +Jacobinism unfolded into Saint-Simonism bodes innumerable blessed +things; but the thing itself might draw tears from a Stoic!--As +for me, some twelve or thirteen New Religions, heavy Packets, +most of them unfranked, having arrived here from various parts of +the world, in a space of six calendar months, I have instructed +my invaluable friend the Stamped Postman to introduce no more of +them, if the charge exceed one penny. + + +Henry of Essex, duelling in that Thames Island, near to Reading +Abbey, had a religion. But was it in virtue of his seeing armed +Phantasms of St. Edmund 'on the rim of the horizon,' looking +minatory on him? Had that, intrinsically, anything to do with +his religion at all? Henry of Essex's religion was the Inner +Light or Moral Conscience of his own soul; such as is vouchsafed +still to all souls of men;--which Inner Light shone here 'through +such intellectual and other media' as there were; producing +'Phantasms,' Kircherean Visual-Spectra, according to +circumstances! It is so with all men. The clearer my Inner +Light may shine, through the _less_ turbid media; the _fewer_ +Phantasms it may produce,--the gladder surely shall I be, and not +the sorrier! Hast thou reflected, O serious reader, Advanced- +Liberal or other, that the one end, essence, use of all religion +past, present and to come, was this only: To keep that same +Moral Conscience or Inner Light of ours alive and shining--which +certainly the 'Phantasms' and the 'turbid media' were not +essential for! All religion was here to remind us, better or +worse, of what we already know better or worse, of the quite +_infinite_ difference there is between a Good man and a Bad; to +bid us love infinitely the one, abhor and avoid infinitely the +other,--strive infinitely to _be_ the one, and not to be the +other. 'All religion issues in due Practical Hero-worship: He +that has a soul unasphyxied will never want a religion; he that +has a soul asphyxied, reduced to a succedaneum for salt, will +never find any religion, though you rose from the dead to preach +him one. + +But indeed, when men and reformers ask for 'a religion,' it is +analogous to their asking, 'What would you have us to do?' and +such like. They fancy that their religion too shall be a kind of +Morrison's Pill, which they have only to swallow once, and all +will be well. Resolutely once gulp down your Religion, your +Morrison's Pill, you have it all plain sailing now; you can +follow your affairs, your no-affairs, go along money-hunting, +pleasure-hunting, dilettanteing, dangling, and miming and +chattering like a Dead-Sea Ape: your Morrison will do your +business for you. Men's notions are very strange!--Brother, I +say there is not, was not, nor will ever be, in the wide circle +of Nature, any Pill or Religion of that character. Man cannot +afford thee such; for the very gods it is impossible. I advise +thee to renounce Morrison; once for all, quit hope of the +Universal Pill. For body, for soul, for individual or society, +there has not any such article been made. _Non extat._ In +Created Nature it is not, was not, will not be. In the void +imbroglios of Chaos only, and realms of Bedlam, does some shadow +of it hover, to bewilder and bemock the poor inhabitants _there._ + +Rituals, Liturgies, Creeds, Hierarchies: all this is not +religion; all this, were it dead as Odinism, as Fetishism, does +not kill religion at all! It is Stupidity alone, with never so +many rituals, that kills religion. Is not this still a World? +Spinning Cotton under Arkwright and Adam Smith; founding Cities +by the Fountain of Juturna, on the Janiculum Mount; tilling +Canaan under Prophet Samuel and Psalmist David, man is ever man; +the missionary of Unseen Powers; and great and victorious, while +he continues true to his mission; mean, miserable, foiled, and +at last annihilated and trodden out of sight and memory, when he +proves untrue. Brother, thou art a Man, I think; thou are not a +mere building Beaver, or two-legged Cotton-Spider; thou hast +verily a Soul in thee, asphyxied or otherwise! Sooty +Manchester,--it too is built on the infinite Abysses; +overspanned by the skyey Firmaments; and there is birth in it, +and death in it;--and it is every whit as wonderful, as fearful, +unimaginable, as the oldest Salem or Prophetic City. Go or +stand, in what time, in what place we will, are there not +Immensities, Eternities over us, around us, in us: + + 'Solemn before us, + Veiled, the dark Portal, + Goal of all mortal:-- + Stars silent rest o'er us, + Graves under us silent' + +Between _these_ two great Silences, the hum of all our spinning +cylinders, Trades-Unions, Anti-Corn-Law Leagues and Carlton Clubs +goes on. Stupidity itself ought to pause a little, and consider +that. I tell thee, through all thy Ledgers, Supply-and-demand +Philosophies, and daily most modern melancholy Business and Cant, +there does shine the presence of a Primeval Unspeakable; and +thou wert wise to recognise, not with lips only, that same! + +The Maker's Laws, whether they are promulgated in Sinai Thunder, +to the ear or imagination, or quite otherwise promulgated, are +the Laws of God; transcendant, everlasting, imperatively +demanding obedience from all men. This, without any thunder, or +with never so much thunder, thou, if there be any soul left in +thee, canst know of a truth. The Universe, I say, is made by +Law; the great Soul of the World is just and not unjust. Look +thou, if thou have eyes or soul left, into this great shoreless +Incomprehensible: in the heart of its tumultuous Appearances, +Embroilments, and mad Time-vortexes, is there not, silent, +eternal, an All-just, an All-beautiful; sole Reality and +ultimate controlling Power of the whole? This is not a figure of +speech; this is a fact. The fact of Gravitation known to all +animals, is not surer than this inner Fact, which may be known to +all men. He who knows this, it will sink, silent, awful, +unspeakable, into his heart. He will say with Faust: "Who +_dare_ name HIM?" Most rituals or 'namings' he will fall in with +at present, are like to be 'namings'--which shall be nameless! +In silence, in the Eternal Temple, let him worship, if there be +no fit word. Such knowledge, the crown of his whole spiritual +being, the life of his life, let him keep and sacredly walk by. +He has a religion. Hourly and daily, for himself and for the +whole world, a faithful, unspoken, but not ineffectual prayer +rises, "Thy will be done." His whole work on Earth is an +emblematic spoken or acted prayer, Be the will of God done on +Earth,--not the Devil's will, or any of the Devil's servants' +wills! He has a religion, this man; an everlasting Loadstar +that beams the brighter in the Heavens, the darker here on Earth +grows the night around him. Thou, if thou know not this, what +are all rituals, liturgies, mythologies, mass-chantings, turnings +of the rotatory calabash? They are as nothing; in a good many +respects they are as _less._ Divorced from this, getting half- +divorced from this, they are a thing to fill one with a kind of +horror; with a sacred inexpressible pity and fear. The most +tragical thing a human eye can look on. It was said to the +Prophet, "Behold, I will shew thee worse things than these: +women weeping to Thammuz." That was the acme of the Prophet's +vision,--then as now. + +Rituals, Liturgies, Credos, Sinai Thunder: I know more or less +the history of these; the rise, progress, decline and fall of +these. Can thunder from all the thirty-two azimuths, repeated +daily for centuries of years, make God's Laws more godlike to me? +Brother, No. Perhaps I am grown to be a man now; and do not +need the thunder and the terror any longer! Perhaps I am above +being frightened; perhaps it is not Fear, but Reverence alone, +that shall now lead me!--Revelations, Inspirations? Yes: and +thy own god-created Soul; dost thou not call that a +`revelation?' Who made THEE? Where didst Thou come from? The +Voice of Eternity, if thou be not a blasphemer and poor asphyxied +mute, speaks with that tongue of thine! _Thou_ art the latest +Birth of Nature; it is 'the Inspiration of the Almighty' that +giveth thee understanding! My brother, my brother!-- + +Under baleful Atheisms, Mammonisms, Joe-Manton Dilettantisms, +with their appropriate Cants and Idolisms, and whatsoever +scandalous rubbish obscures and all but extinguishes the soul of +man,--religion now is; its Laws, written if not on stone tables, +yet on the Azure of Infinitude, in the inner heart of God's +Creation, certain as Life, certain as Death! I say the Laws are +there, and thou shalt not disobey them. It were better for thee +not. Better a hundred deaths than yes. Terrible 'penalties' +withal, if thou still need 'penalties,' are there for disobeying. +Dost thou observe, O redtape Politician, that fiery infernal +Phenomenon, which men name FRENCH REVOLUTION, sailing, unlooked- +for, unbidden; through thy inane Protocol Dominion:--far-seen, +with splendour not of Heaven? Ten centuries will see it. There +were Tanneries at Meudon for human skins. And Hell, very truly +Hell, had power over God's upper Earth for a season. The +cruelest Portent that has risen into created Space these ten +centuries: let us hail it, with awestruck repentant hearts, as +the voice once more of a God, though of one in wrath. Blessed be +the God's-voice; for _it_ is true, and Falsehoods have to cease +before it! But for that same preternatural quasi-infernal +Portent; one could not know what to make of this wretched world, +in these days' at all. The deplorablest quack-ridden, and now +hunger-ridden, downtrodden Despicability and _Flebile Ludibrium,_ +of redtape Protocols, rotatory Calabashes, Poor-Law Bastilles: +who is there that could think of _its_ being fated to continue?-- + +Penalties enough, my brother! This penalty inclusive of all: +Eternal Death to thy own hapless Self, if thou heed no other. +Eternal Death, I say,--with many meanings old and new, of which +let this single one suffice us here: The eternal impossibility +for thee to _be_ aught but a Chimera, and swift-vanishing +deceptive Phantasm, in God's Creation;--swift-vanishing, never to +reappear: why should it reappear! Thou hadst one chance, thou +wilt never have another. Everlasting ages will roll on, and no +other be given thee. The foolishest articulate-speaking soul now +extant, may not he say to himself: "A whole Eternity I waited to +be born; and now I have a whole Eternity waiting to see what I +will do when born!" This is not Theology, this is Arithmetic. +And thou but half-discernest this; thou but half-believest it? +Alas, on the shores of the Dead Sea on Sabbath, there goes on +a Tragedy!-- + +But we will leave this of 'Religion;' of which, to say truth, it +is chiefly profitable in these unspeakable days to keep silence. +Thou needest no 'New Religion;' nor art thou like to get any. +Thou hast already more 'religion' than thou makest use of. This +day, thou knowest ten commanded duties, seest in thy mind ten +things which should be done, for one that thou doest! Do one of +them; this of itself will skew thee ten others which can and +shall be done. "But my future fate?" Yes, thy future fate, +indeed? Thy future fate, while thou makest _it_ the chief +question, seems to me--extremely questionable! I do not think it +can be good. Norse Odin, immemorial centuries ago, did not he, +though a poor Heathen, in the dawn of Time, teach us that, for +the Dastard there was and could be no good fate; no harbour +anywhere, save down with Hela, in the pool of Night! Dastards, +Knaves, are they that lust for Pleasure, that tremble at Pain. +For this world and for the next, Dastards are a class of +creatures made to be 'arrested;' they are good for nothing else, +can look for nothing else. A greater than Odin has been here. A +greater than Odin has taught us--not a greater Dastardism, I +hope! My brother, thou must pray for a _soul;_ struggle, as +with life-and-death energy, to get back thy soul! Know that +'religion' is no Morrison's Pill from without, but a reawakening +of thy own Self from within:--and, above all, leave me alone of +thy 'religions' and 'new religions' here and elsewhere! I am +weary of this sick croaking for a Morrison's-Pill religion; for +any and for every such. I want none such; and discern all such +to be impossible. The resuscitation of old liturgies fallen +dead; much more, the manufacture of new liturgies that will +never be alive: how hopeless Stylitisms, eremite fanaticisms and +fakeerisms; spasmodic agonistic posturemakings, and narrow, +cramped, morbid, if forever noble wrestlings: all this is not a +thing desirable to me. It is a thing the world _has_ done once, +--when its beard was not grown as now! + + +And yet there is, at worst, one Liturgy which does remain forever +unexceptionable: that of _Praying_ (as the old Monks did withal) +_by Working._ And indeed the Prayer which accomplished itself in +special chapels at stated hours, and went not with a man, rising +up from all his Work and Action, at all moments sanctifying the +same,--what was it ever good for? 'Work is Worship:' yes, in a +highly considerable sense,--which, in the present state of all +'worship,' who is there that can unfold! He that understands it +well, understands the Prophecy of the whole Future; the last +Evangel, which has included all others. Its cathedral the Dome +of Immensity,--hast thou seen it? coped with the star-galaxies; +paved with the green mosaic of land and ocean; and for altar, +verily, the Star-throne of the Eternal! Its litany and psalmody +the noble acts, the heroic work and suffering, and true Heart- +utterance of all the Valiant of the Sons of Men. Its choir-music +the ancient Winds and Oceans, and deep-toned, inarticulate, but +most speaking voices of Destiny and History,--supernal ever as of +old. Between two great Silences: + + 'Stars silent rest o o'er us, + Graves under us silent!' + +Between which two great Silences, do not, as we said, all human +Noises, in the naturalest times, most preternaturally march +and roll?-- + +I will insert this also, in a lower strain, from Sauerteig's +_Aesthetische Springwurzel._ 'Worship?' says he: 'Before that +inane tumult of Hearsay filled men's heads, while the world lay +yet silent, and the heart true and open, many things were +Worship! To the primeval man whatsoever good came, descended on +him (as, in mere fact, it ever does) direct from God; whatsoever +duty lay visible for him, this a Supreme God had prescribed. To +the present hour I ask thee, Who else? For the primeval man, in +whom dwelt Thought, this Universe was all a Temple; Life +everywhere a Worship. + +'What Worship, for example, is there not in mere Washing! +Perhaps one of the most moral things a man, in common cases, has +it in his power to do. Strip thyself, go into the bath, or were +it into the limpid pool and running brook, and there wash and be +clean; thou wilt step out again a purer and a better man. This +consciousness of perfect outer pureness, that to thy skin there +now adheres no foreign speck of imperfection, how it radiates in +on thee, with cunning symbolic influences, to thy very soul! +Thou hast an increase of tendency towards all good things +whatsoever. The oldest Eastern Sages, with joy and holy +gratitude, had felt it so,--and that it was the Maker's gift and +will. Whose else is it? It remains a religious duty, from +oldest times, in the East.--Nor could Herr Professor Strauss, +when I put the question, deny that for us at present it is still +such here in the West! To that dingy fuliginous Operative, +emerging from his soot-mill, what is the first duty I will +prescribe, and offer help towards? That he clean the skin of +him. _Can_ he pray, by any ascertained method? One knows not +entirely:--but with soap and a sufficiency of water, he can wash. +Even the dull English feel something of this; they have a +saying, "Cleanliness is near of kin to Godliness:"--yet never, in +any country, saw I operative men worse washed, and, in a climate +drenched with the softest cloud-water, such a scarcity of +baths!'--Alas, Sauerteig, our 'operative men' are at present +short even of potatoes: what 'duty' can you prescribe to them! + +Or let us give a glance at China. Our new friend, the Emperor +there, is Pontiff of three hundred million men; who do all live +and work, these many centuries now; authentically patronised by +Heaven so far; and therefore must have some 'religion' of a +kind. T his Emperor-Pontiff has, in fact, a religious belief of +certain Laws of Heaven; observes, with a religious rigour, his +'three thousand punctualities,' given out by men of insight, some +sixty generations since, as a legible transcript of the same,-- +the Heavens do seem to say, not totally an incorrect one. He has +not much of a ritual, this Pontiff-Emperor; believes, it is +likest, with the old Monks, that 'Labour is Worship.' His most +public Act of Worship, it appears, is the drawing solemnly at a +certain day, on the green bosom of our Mother Earth, when the +Heavens, after dead black winter, have again with their vernal +radiances awakened her, a distinct red Furrow with the Plough,-- +signal that all the Ploughs of China are to begin ploughing and +worshipping! It is notable enough. He, in sight of the Seen and +Unseen Powers, draws his distinct red Furrow there; saying, and +praying, in mute symbolism, so many most eloquent things! + +If you ask this Pontiff, "Who made him? What is to become of him +and us?" he maintains a dignified reserve; waves his hand and +pontiff-eyes over the unfathomable deep of Heaven, the 'Tsien,' +the azure kingdoms of Infinitude; as if asking, "is it doubtful +that we are right _well_ made? Can aught that is _wrong_ become +of us?"--He and his three hundred millions (it is their chief +'punctuality') visit yearly the Tombs of their Fathers; each man +the Tomb of his Father and his Mother: alone there, in silence, +with what of 'worship' or of other thought there may be, pauses +solemnly each man; the divine Skies all silent over him; the +divine Graves, and this divinest Grave, all silent under him; +the pulsings of his own soul, if he have any soul, alone audible. +Truly it may be a kind of worship! Truly, if a man cannot get +some glimpse into the Eternities, looking through this portal,-- +through what other need he try it? + +Our friend the Pontiff-Emperor permits cheerfully, though with +contempt, all manner of Buddhists, Bonzes, Talapoins and such +like, to build brick Temples, on the voluntary principle; to +worship with what of chantings, paper-lanterns and tumultuous +brayings, pleases them; and make night hideous, since they find +some comfort in so doing. Cheerfully, though with contempt. He +is a wiser Pontiff than many persons think! He is as yet the one +Chief Potentate or Priest in this Earth who has made a distinct +systematic attempt at what we call the ultimate result of all +religion, _'Practical_ Hero-worship:' he does incessantly, with +true anxiety, in such way as he can, search and sift (it would +appear) his whole enormous population for the Wisest born among +them; by which Wisest, as by born Kings, these three hundred +million men are governed. The Heavens, to a certain extent, do +appear to countenance him. These three hundred millions actually +make porcelain, souchong tea, with innumerable other things; and +fight, under Heaven's flag, against Necessity;--and have fewer +Seven-Years Wars, Thirty-Years Wars, French-Revolution Wars, and +infernal fightings with each other, than certain millions +elsewhere have! + + +Nay, in our poor distracted Europe itself, in these newest times, +have there not religious voices risen,--with a religion new and +yet the oldest; entirely indisputable to all hearts of men? +Some I do know, who did not call or think themselves 'Prophets,' +far enough from that; but who were, in very truth, melodious +Voices from the eternal Heart of Nature once again; souls +forever venerable to all that have a soul. A French Revolution +is one phenomenon; as complement and spiritual exponent thereof, +a Poet Goethe and German Literature is to me another. The old +Secular or Practical World, so to speak, having gone up in fire, +is not here the prophecy and dawn of a new Spiritual World, +parent of far nobler, wider, new Practical Worlds? A Life of +Antique devoutness, Antique veracity and heroism, has again +become possible, is again _seen_ actual there, for the most +modern man. A phenomenon, as quiet as it is, comparable for +greatness to no other! 'The great event for the world is, now as +always, the arrival in it of a new Wise Man.' Touches there are, +be the Heavens ever thanked, of new Sphere-melody; audible once +more, in the infinite jargoning discords and poor scrannel- +pipings of the thing called Literature;--priceless there, as the +voice of new Heavenly Psalms! Literature, like the old Prayer- +Collections of the first centuries, were it 'well selected from +and burnt,' contains precious things. For Literature, with all +its printing-presses, puffing-engines and shoreless deafening +triviality, is yet 'the Thought of Thinking Souls.' A sacred +'religion,' if you like the name, does live in the heart of that +strange froth-ocean, not wholly froth, which we call Literature; +and will more and more disclose itself therefrom;--not now as +scorching Fire: the red smoky scorching Fire has purified itself +into white sunny Light. Is not Light grander than Fire? It is +the same element in a state of purity. + +My ingenuous readers, we will march out of this Third Book with a +rhythmic word of Goethe's on our tongue; a word which perhaps +has already sung itself, in dark hours and in bright, through +many a heart. To me, finding it devout yet wholly credible and +veritable, full of piety yet free of cant; to me joyfully +finding much in it, and joyfully missing so much in it, this +little snatch of music, by the greatest German Man, sounds like a +stanza in the grand _Road-Song_ and _Marching-Song_ of our great +Teutonic Kindred, wending, wending, valiant and victorious, +through the undiscovered Deeps of Time! He calls it _Mason- +Lodge,_--not Psalm or Hymn: + + The Mason's ways are + A type of Existence, + And his persistance + Is as the days are + Of men in this world. + + The Future hides in it + Good hap and sorrow; + We press still thorow, + Nought that abides in it + Daunting us,--onward. + + And solemn before us, + Veiled, the dark Portal, + Goal of all mortal:-- + Stars silent rest o'er us, + Graves under us silent. + + While earnest thou gazest, + Comes boding of terror, + Comes phantasm and error, + Perplexes the bravest + With doubt and misgiving. + + But heard are the Voices,-- + Heard are the Sages, + The Worlds and the Ages: + "Choose well, your choice is + Brief and yet endless: + + Here eyes do regard you, + In Eternity's stilness; + Here is all fulness, + Ye brave, to reward you; + Work, and despair not." + + + + +Book IV--Horoscope + + + +Chapter I + +Aristocracies + + +To predict the Future, to manage the Present, would not be so +impossible, had not the Past been so sacrilegiously mishandled; +effaced, and what is worse, defaced! The Past cannot be seen; +the Past, looked at through the medium of 'Philosophical History' +in these times, cannot even be _not_ seen: it is misseen; +affirmed to have existed,--and to have been a godless +Impossibility. Your Norman Conquerors, true royal souls, crowned +kings as such, were vulturous irrational tyrants: your Becket +was a noisy egoist and hypocrite; getting his brains spilt on +the floor of Canterbury Cathedral, to secure the main chance,-- +somewhat uncertain how! "Enthusiasm," and even "honest +Enthusiasm,"--yes, of course: + + 'The Dog, to gain his private ends, + _Went_ mad, and bit the Man!'-- + +For in truth, the eye sees in all things 'what it brought with it +the means of seeing.' A godless century, looking back on +centuries that were godly, produces portraitures more miraculous +than any other. All was inane discord in the Past; brute Force +bore rule everywhere; Stupidity, savage Unreason, fitter for +Bedlam than for a human World! Whereby indeed it becomes +sufficiently natural that the like qualities, in new sleeker +habiliments, should continue in our time to rule. Millions +enchanted in Bastille Workhouses; Irish Widows proving their +relationship by typhus-fever: what would you have? It was ever +so, or worse. Man's History, was it not always even this: The +cookery and eating up of imbecile Dupedom by successful +Quackhood; the battle, with various weapons, of vulturous Quack +and Tyrant against vulturous Tyrant and Quack? No God was in the +Past Time; nothing but. Mechanisms and Chaotic Brute-gods:--how +shall the poor 'Philosophic Historian,' to whom his own century +is all godless, see any God in other centuries? + +Men believe in Bibles, and disbelieve in them: but of all Bibles +the frightfulest to disbelieve in is this 'Bible of Universal +History.' This is the Eternal Bible and God's-Book, 'which every +born man,' till once the soul and eyesight are distinguished in +him, 'can and must, with his own eyes, see the God's-Finger +writing!' To discredit this, is an _infidelity_ like no other. +Such infidelity you would punish, if not by fire and faggot, +which are difficult to manage in our times, yet by the most +peremptory order, To hold its peace till it got something wiser +to say. Why should the blessed Silence be broken into noises, to +communicate only the like of this? If the Past have no God's- +Reason in it, nothing but Devil's-Unreason, let the Past be +eternally forgotten: mention it no more;--we whose ancestors +were all hanged, why should we talk of ropes! + +It is, in brief, not true that men ever lived by Delirium, +Hypocrisy, Injustice, or any form of Unreason, since they came to +inhabit this Planet. It is not true that they ever did, or ever +will, live except by the reverse of these. Men will again be +taught this. Their acted History will then again be a Heroism; +their written History, what it once was, an Epic. Nay, forever +it is either such; or else it virtually is--Nothing. Were it +written in a thousand volumes, the Unheroic of such volumes +hastens incessantly to be forgotten; the net content of an +Alexandrian Library of Unheroics is, and will ultimately shew +itself to be, _zero._ What man is interested to remember _it,_ +have not all men, at all times, the liveliest interest to forget +it?--'Revelations,' if not celestial, then infernal, will teach +us that God is; we shall then, if needful, discern without +difficulty that He has always been! The Dryasdust Philosophisms +and enlightened Scepticisms of the Eighteenth Century, historical +and other, will have to survive for a while with the +Physiologists, as a memorable _Nightmare-Dream._ All this +haggard epoch, with its ghastly Doctrines, and death's-head +Philosophies 'teaching by example' or otherwise, will one day +have become, what to our Moslem friends their godless ages are, +'the Period of Ignorance. + + +If the convulsive struggles of the last Half-Century have taught +poor struggling convulsed Europe any truth, it may perhaps be +this as the essence of innumerable others: That Europe requires +a real Aristocracy, a real Priesthood, or it cannot continue to +exist. Huge French Revolutions, Napoleonisms, then Bourbonisms +with their corollary of Three Days, finishing in very unfinal +Louis-Philippisms: all this ought to be didactic! All this may +have taught us, That False Aristocracies are insupportable; +that No-Aristocracies, Liberty-and-Equalities are impossible; +that True Aristocracies are at once indispensable and not +easily attained. + +Aristocracy and Priesthood, a Governing Class and a Teaching +Class: these two, sometimes separate, and endeavouring to +harmonise themselves, sometimes conjoined as one, and the King a +Pontiff-King:--there did no Society exist without these two vital +elements, there will none exist. It lies in the very nature of +man: you will visit no remotest village in the most republican +country of the world, where virtually or actually you do not find +these two powers at work. Man, little as he may suppose it, is +necessitated to obey superiors. He is a social being in virtue +of this necessity; nay he could not be gregarious otherwise. He +obeys those whom he esteems better than himself, wiser, braver; +and will forever obey such; and even be ready and delighted to +do it. + +The Wiser, Braver: these, a Virtual Aristocracy everywhere and +everywhen, do in all Societies that reach any articulate shape, +develop themselves into a ruling class, an Actual Aristocracy, +with settled modes of operating, what are called laws and even +_private-laws_ or privileges, and so forth; very notable to look +upon in this world.--Aristocracy and Priesthood, we say, are +sometimes united. For indeed the Wiser and the Braver are +properly but one class; no wise man but needed first of all to +be a brave man, or he never had been wise. The noble Priest was +always a noble Aristos to begin with, and something more to end +with. Your Luther, your Knox, your Anselm, Becket, Abbot Samson, +Samuel Johnson, if they had not been brave enough, by what +possibility could they ever have been wise?--If, from accident or +forethought, this your Actual Aristocracy have got discriminated +into Two Classes, there can be no doubt but the Priest Class is +the more dignified; supreme over the other, as governing head is +over active hand. And yet in practice again, it is likeliest the +reverse will be found arranged;--a sign that the arrangement is +already vitiated; that a split is introduced into it, which will +widen and widen till the whole be rent asunder. + +In England, in Europe generally, we may say that these two +Virtualities have unfolded themselves into Actualities, in by far +the noblest and richest manner any region of the world ever saw. +A spiritual Guideship, a practical Governorship, fruit of the +grand conscious endeavours, say rather of the immeasurable +unconscious instincts and necessities of men, have established +themselves; very strange to behold. Everywhere, while so much +has been forgotten, you find the King's Palace, and the +Viceking's Castle, Mansion, Manorhouse; till there is not an +inch of ground from sea to sea but has both its King and +Viceking, long due series of Viceking, its Squire, Earl, Duke or +whatever the title of him,--to whom you have given the land that +he may govern you in it. + +More touching still, there is not a hamlet where poor peasants +congregate, but by one means and another a Church-Apparatus has +been got together,--roofed edifice, with revenues and belfries; +pulpit, reading-desk, with Books and Methods: possibility, in +short, and strict prescription, That a man stand there and speak +of spiritual things to men. It is beautiful;--even in its great +obscuration and decadence, it is among the beautifulest, most +touching objects one sees on the Earth. This Speaking Man has +indeed, in these times, wandered terribly from the point; has, +alas, as it were totally lost sight of the point: yet, at +bottom, whom have we to compare with him? Of all public +functionaries boarded and lodged on the Industry of Modern +Europe, is there one worthier of the board he has? A man even +professing, and never so languidly making still some endeavour, +to save the souls of men: contrast him with a man professing to +do little but shoot the partridges of men! I wish he could find +the point again, this Speaking One; and stick to it with +tenacity, with deadly energy; for there is need of him yet! The +Speaking Function, this of Truth coming to us with a living +voice, nay in a living shape, and as a concrete practical +exemplar: this, with all our Writing and Printing Functions, has +a perennial place. Could he but find the point again,--take the +old spectacles off his nose, and looking up discover, almost in +contact with him, what the _real_ Satanas, and soul-devouring, +world-devouring _Devil,_ now is! Original Sin and such like are +bad enough, I doubt not: but distilled Gin, dark Ignorance, +Stupidity, dark Corn-Law, Bastille and Company, what are they! +_Will_ he discover our new real Satan, whom he has to fight; or +go on droning through his old nose-spectacles about old extinct +Satans; and never see the real one, till he _feel_ him at his +own throat and ours? That is a question, for the world! Let us +not intermeddle with it here. + +Sorrowful, phantasmal as this same Double Aristocracy of Teachers +and Governors now looks, it is worth all men's while to know that +the purport of it is and remains noble and most real. Dryasdust, +looking merely at the surface, is greatly in error as to those +ancient Kings. William Conqueror, William Rufus or Redbeard, +Stephen Curthose himself, much more Henry Beauclerc and our brave +Plantagenet Henry: the life of these men was not a vulturous +Fighting; it was a valorous Governing,--to which occasionally +Fighting did, and alas must yet, though far seldomer now, +superadd itself as an accident, a distressing impedimental +adjunct. The fighting too was indispensable, for ascertaining +who had the might over whom, the right over whom. By much hard +fighting, as we once said, 'the unrealities, beaten into dust, +flew gradually off;' and left the plain reality and fact, "Thou +stronger than I; thou wiser than I; thou king, and subject I," +in a somewhat clearer condition. + +Truly we cannot enough admire, in those Abbot-Samson and William- +Conqueror times, the arrangement they had made of their Governing +Classes. Highly interesting to observe how the sincere insight, +on their part, into what did, of primary necessity, behove to be +accomplished, had led them to the way of accomplishing it, and in +the course of time to get it accomplished! No imaginary +Aristocracy would serve their turn; and accordingly they +attained a real one. The Bravest men, who, it is ever to be +repeated and remembered, are also on the whole the Wisest, +Strongest, every way Best, had here, with a respectable degree of +accuracy, been got selected; seated each on his piece of +territory, which was lent him, then gradually given him, that +he might govern it. These Vicekings, each on his portion of +the common soil of England, with a Head King over all, were +a 'Virtuality perfected into an Actuality' really to an +astonishing extent. + +For those were rugged stalwart ages; full of earnestness, of a +rude God's-truth:--nay, at any rate, their _quilting_ was so +unspeakably _thinner_ than ours; Fact came swiftly on them, if +at any time they had yielded to Phantasm! 'The Knaves and +Dastards' had to be 'arrested' in some measure; or the world, +almost within year and day, found that it could not live. The +Knaves and Dastards accordingly were got arrested. Dastards upon +the very throne had to be got arrested, and taken off the +throne,--by such methods as there were; by the roughest method, +if there chanced to be no smoother one! Doubtless there was much +harshness of operation, much severity; as indeed government and +surgery are often somewhat severe. Gurth born thrall of Cedric, +it is like; got cuffs as often as pork-parings, if he +misdemeaned himself; but Gurth did belong to Cedric: no human +creature then went about connected with nobody; left to go his +ways into Bastilles or worse, under _Laissez-faire;_ reduced to +prove his relationship by dying of typhus-fever!--Days come when +there is no King in Israel, but every man is his own king, doing +that which is right in his own eyes;--and tarbarrels are burnt to +'Liberty,' 'Tenpound Franchise' and the like, with considerable +effect in various ways!-- + +That Feudal Aristocracy, I say, was no imaginary one. To a +respectable degree, its _Jarls,_ what we now call Earls, were +_Strong-Ones_ in fact as well as etymology; its Dukes _Leaders,_ +its Lords _Law-wards._ They did all the Soldiering and Police of +the country, all the judging, Law-making, even the Church- +Extension; whatsoever in the way of Governing, of Guiding and +Protecting could be done. It was a Land Aristocracy; it managed +the Governing of this English People, and had the reaping of the +Soil of England in return. It is, in many senses, the Law of +Nature, this same Law of Feudalism;--no right Aristocracy but a +Land one! The curious are invited to meditate upon it in these +days. Soldiering, Police and Judging, Church-Extension, nay real +Government and Guidance, all this was actually _done_ by the +Holders of the Land in return for their Land. How much of it is +now done by them; done by anybody? Good Heavens, "Laissez- +faire, Do ye nothing, eat your wages and sleep," is everywhere +the passionate half-wise cry of this time; and they will not so +much as do nothing, but must do mere Corn-Laws! We raise Fifty- +two millions, from the general mass of us, to get our Governing +done,--or, alas, to get ourselves persuaded that it is done: and +the 'peculiar burden of the Land' is to pay, not all this, but to +pay, as I learn, one twenty-fourth part of all this. Our first +Chartist Parliament, or Oliver _Redivivus,_ you would say, will +know where to lay the new taxes of England!--Or, alas, taxes? If +we made the Holders of the Land pay every shilling still of the +expense of Governing the Land, what were all that? The Land, by +mere hired Governors, cannot be got governed. You cannot hire +men to govern the Land: it is by a mission not contracted for in +the Stock-Exchange, but felt in their own hearts as coming out of +Heaven, that men can govern a Land. The mission of a Land +Aristocracy is a sacred one, in both the senses of that old word. +The footing it stands on, at present, might give rise to thoughts +other than of Corn-Laws!-- + +But truly a 'Splendour of God,' as in William Conqueror's rough +oath, did dwell in those old rude veracious ages; did inform, +more and more, with a heavenly nobleness, all departments of +their work and life. Phantasms could not yet walk abroad in mere +Cloth Tailorage; they were at least Phantasms 'on the rim of the +horizon,' pencilled there by an eternal Light-beam from within. +A most 'practical' Hero-worship went on, unconsciously or half- +consciously, everywhere. A Monk Samson, with a maximum of two +shillings in his pocket, could, without ballot-box, be made a +Viceking of, being seen to be worthy. The difference between a +good man and a bad man was as yet felt to be, what it forever is, +an immeasurable one. Who _durst_ have elected a Pandarus Dog- +draught, in those days, to any office, Carlton Club, Senatorship, +or place whatsoever? It was felt that the arch Satanas and no +other had a clear right of property in Pandarus; that it were +better for you to have no hand in Pandarus, to keep out of +Pandarus his neighbourhood! Which is, to this hour, the mere +fact; though for the present, alas, the forgotten fact. I think +they were comparatively blessed times those, in their way! +'Violence,' 'war,' 'disorder:' well, what is war, and death +itself, to such a perpetual life-in-death, and 'peace and peace +where there is no peace!' Unless some Hero-worship, in its new +appropriate form, can return, this world does not promise to be +very habitable long. + +Old Anselm, exiled Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the purest- +minded 'men of genius,' was traveling to make his appeal to Rome +against King Rufus,--a man of rough ways, in whom the 'inner +Light-beam' shone very fitfully. It is beautiful to read, in +Monk Eadmer, how the Continental populations welcomed and +venerated this Anselm, as no French population now venerates +Jean-Jacques or giant-killing Voltaire; as not even an American +population now venerates a Schnuspel the distinguished Novelist! +They had, by phantasy and true insight, the intensest conviction +that a God's Blessing dwelt in this Anselm,--as is my conviction +too. They crowded round, with bent knees and enkindled hearts, +to receive his blessing, to hear his voice, to see the light of +his face. My blessings on them and on him!--But the notablest +was a certain necessitous or covetous Duke of Burgundy, in +straitened circumstances we shall hope,--who reflected that in +all likelihood this English Archbishop, going towards Rome to +appeal, must have taken store of cash with him to bribe the +Cardinals. Wherefore he of Burgundy, for his part, decided to +lie in wait and rob him. 'In an open space of a wood,' some +'wood' then green and growing, eight centuries ago, in Burgundian +Land,--this fierce Duke, with fierce steel followers, shaggy, +savage, as the Russian Bear, dashes out on the weak old Anselm; +who is riding along there, on his small quiet-going pony; +escorted only by Eadmer and another poor Monk on ponies; and, +except small modicum of roadmoney, not a gold coin in his +possession. The steelclad Russian Bear emerges, glaring: the +old whitebearded man starts not,--paces on unmoved, looking into +him with those clear old earnest eyes, with that venerable +sorrowful time-worn face; of whom no man or thing need be +afraid, and who also is afraid of no created man or thing. The +fire-eyes of his Burgundian Grace meet these clear eye-glances, +convey them swift to his heart: he bethinks him that probably +this feeble, fearless, hoary Figure has in it something of the +Most High God; that probably he shall be damned if he meddle +with it,--that, on the whole, he had better not. He plunges, the +rough savage, from his warhorse, down to his knees; embraces the +feet of old Anselm: he too begs his blessing; orders men to +escort him, guard him from being robbed, and under dread +penalties see him safe on his way. _Per os Dei,_ as his Majesty +was wont to ejaculate! + +Neither is this quarrel of Rufus and Anselm, of Henry and Becket, +uninstructive to us. It was, at bottom, a great quarrel. For, +admitting that Anselm was full of divine blessing, he by no means +included in him all forms of divine blessing:--there were far +other forms withal, which he little dreamed of; and William +Redbeard was unconsciously the representative and spokesman of +these. In truth, could your divine Anselm, your divine Pope +Gregory have had their way, the results had been very notable. +Our Western World had all become a European Thibet, with one +Grand Lama sitting at Rome; our one honourable business that of +singing mass, all day and all night. Which would not in the +least have suited us! The Supreme Powers willed it not so. + +It was as if King Redbeard unconsciously, addressing Anselm, +Becket and the others, had said: "Right Reverend, your Theory of +the Universe is indisputable by man or devil. To the core of our +heart we feel that this divine thing, which you call Mother +Church, does fill the whole world hitherto known, and is and +shall be all our salvation and all our desire. And yet--and yet +--Behold, though it is an unspoken secret, the world is _wider_ +than any of us think, Right Reverend! Behold, there are yet +other immeasurable Sacrednesses in this that you call Heathenism, +Secularity! On the whole I, in an obscure but most rooted +manner, feel that I cannot comply with you. Western Thibet and +perpetual mass-chanting,--No. I am, so to speak, in the family- +way; with child, of I know not what,--certainly of something far +different from this! I have--_Per os Dei,_ I have Manchester +Cotton-trades, Bromwicham Iron-trades, American Commonwealths, +Indian Empires, Steam Mechanisms and Shakspeare Dramas, in my +belly; and cannot do it, Right Reverend!"--So accordingly it was +decided: and Saxon Becket spilt his life in Canterbury Cathedral, +as Scottish Wallace did on Tower-Hill, and as generally a noble +man and martyr has to do,--not for nothing; no, but for a divine +something, other than _he_ had altogether calculated. We will +now quit this of the hard, organic, but limited Feudal Ages; and +glance timidly into the immense Industrial Ages, as yet all +inorganic, and in a quite pulpy condition, requiring desperately +to harden themselves into some organism! + + +Our Epic having now become _Tools and the Man,_ it is more than +usually impossible to prophesy the Future. The boundless Future +does lie there, predestined, nay already extant though unseen; +hiding, in its Continents of Darkness, 'good hap and sorrow:' +but the supremest intelligence of man cannot prefigure much of +it:--the united intelligence and effort of All Men in all coming +generations, this alone will gradually prefigure it, and figure +and form it into a seen fact! Straining our eyes hitherto, the +utmost effort of intelligence sheds but some most glimmering +dawn, a little way into its dark enormous Deeps: only huge +outlines loom uncertain on the sight; and the ray of prophecy, +at a short distance, expires. But may we not say, here as +always, Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof! To shape the +whole Future is not our problem; but only to shape faithfully a +small part of it, according to rules already known. It is +perhaps possible for each of us, who will with due earnestness +inquire, to ascertain clearly what he, for his own part, ought to +do: this let him, with true heart, do, and continue doing. The +general issue will, as it has always done, rest well with a +Higher Intelligence than ours. + +One grand 'outline,' or even two, many earnest readers may +perhaps, at this stage of the business, be able to prefigure for +themselves,--and draw some guidance from. One prediction, or +even two, are already possible. For the Life-tree Igdrasil, in +all its new developments, is the selfsame world-old Life-tree: +having found an element or elements there, running from the very +roots of it in Hela's Realms, in the Well of Mimer and of the +Three Nornas or TIMES, up to this present hour of it in our own +hearts, we conclude that such will have to continue. A man has, +in his own soul, an Eternal; can read something of the Eternal +there, if he will look! He already knows what will continue; +what cannot, by any means or appliance whatsoever, be made +to continue! + +One wide and widest 'outline' ought really, in all ways, to be +becoming clear to us; this namely: That a 'Splendour of God,' +in one form or other, will have to unfold itself from the heart +of these our Industrial Ages too; or they will never get +themselves 'organised;' but continue chaotic, distressed, +distracted evermore, and have to perish in frantic suicidal +dissolution. A second 'outline' or prophecy, narrower, but also +wide enough, seems not less certain: That there will again _be_ +a King in Israel; a system of Order and Government; and every +man shall, in some measure, see himself constrained to do that +which is right in the King's eyes. This too we may call a sure +element of the Future; for this too is of the Eternal;--this too +is of the Present, though hidden from most; and without it no +fibre of the Past ever was. An actual new Sovereignty, +Industrial Aristocracy, real not imaginary Aristocracy, is +indispensable and indubitable for us. + +But what an Aristocracy; on what new, far more complex and +cunningly devised conditions than that old Feudal fighting one! +For we are to bethink us that the Epic verily is not _Arms and +the Man,_ but _Tools and the Man,_--an infinitely wider kind of +Epic. And again we are to bethink us that men cannot now be +bound to men by _brass-collars,_--not at all: that this brass- +collar method, in all figures of it, has vanished out of Europe +forevermore! Huge Democracy, walking the streets everywhere in +its Sack Coat, has asserted so much; irrevocably, brooking no +reply! True enough, man _is_ forever the 'born thrall' of +certain men, born master of certain other men, born equal of +certain others, let him acknowledge the fact or not. It is +unblessed for him when he cannot acknowledge this fact; he is in +the chaotic state, ready to perish, till he do get the fact +acknowledged. But no man is, or can henceforth be, the brass- +collar thrall of any man; you will have to bind him by other, +far nobler and cunninger methods. Once for all, he is to be +loose of the brass-collar, to have a scope as wide as his +faculties now are:--will he not be all the usefuler to you, in +that new state? Let him go abroad as a trusted one, as a free +one; and return home to you with rich earnings at night! Gurth +could only tend pigs; this one will build cities, conquer waste +worlds.--How, in conjunction with inevitable Democracy, +indispensable Sovereignty is to exist: certainly it is the +hugest question ever heretofore propounded to Mankind! The +solution of which is work for long years and centuries. Years +and centuries, of one knows not what complexion;--blessed or +unblessed, according as they shall, with earnest valiant effort, +make progress therein, or, in slothful unveracity and +dilettantism, only talk of making progress. For either progress +therein, or swift and ever swifter progress towards dissolution, +is henceforth a necessity. + + +It is of importance that this grand reformation were begun; that +Corn-Law Debatings and other jargon, little less than delirious +in such a time, had fled far away, and left us room to begin! +For the evil has grown practical, extremely conspicuous; if it +be not seen and provided for, the blindest fool will have to feel +it ere long. There is much that can wait; but there is +something also that cannot wait. With millions of eager Working +Men imprisoned in 'Impossibility' and Poor-Law Bastilles, it is +time that some means of dealing with them were trying to become +'possible!' Of the Government of England, of all articulate- +speaking functionaries, real and imaginary Aristocracies, of me +and of thee, it is imperatively demanded, "How do you mean to +manage these men? Where are they to find a supportable +existence? What is to become of them,--and of you!" + + + + +Chapter II + +Bribery Committee + + +In the case of the late Bribery Committee, it seemed to be the +conclusion of the soundest practical minds that Bribery could not +be put down; that Pure Election was a thing we had seen the last +of, and must now go on without, as we best could. A conclusion +not a little startling; to which it requires a practical mind of +some seasoning to reconcile yourself at once! It seems, then, we +are henceforth to get ourselves constituted Legislators not +according to what merit we may have, or even what merit we may +seem to have, but according to the length of our purse, and our +frankness, impudence and dexterity in laying out the contents of +the same. Our theory, written down in all books and law-books, +spouted forth from all barrel-heads, is perfect purity of +Tenpound Franchise, absolute sincerity of question put and answer +given;--and our practice is irremediable bribery; irremediable, +unpunishable, which you will do more harm than good by attempting +to punish! Once more, a very startling conclusion indeed; +which, whatever the soundest practical minds in parliament +may think of it, invites all British men to meditations of +various kinds. + +A Parliament, one would say, which proclaims itself elected and +eligible by bribery, tells the Nation that is governed by it a +piece of singular news. Bribery: have we reflected what bribery +is? Bribery means not only length of purse, which is neither +qualification nor the contrary for legislating well; but it +means dishonesty, and even impudent dishonesty;--brazen +insensibility to lying and to making others lie; total oblivion, +and flinging overboard, for the nonce, of any real thing you can +call veracity, morality; with dexterous putting on the cast- +clothes of that real thing, and strutting about in them! What +Legislating can you get out of a man in that fatal situation? +Nonce that will profit much, one would think! A Legislator who +has left his veracity lying on the door threshold, he, why verily +_he_--ought to be sent out to seek it again! + +Heavens, what an improvement, were there once fairly, in Downing- +street, an Election-Office opened, with a Tariff of Boroughs! +Such and such a population, amount of property-tax, ground- +rental, extent of trade; returns two Members, returns one +Member, for so much money down: Ipswich so many thousands, +Nottingham so many,--as they happened, one by one, to fall into +this new Downing-street Schedule A! An incalculable improvement, +in comparison: for now at least you have it fairly by length of +purse, and leave the dishonesty, the impudence, the unveracity +all handsomely aside. Length of purse and desire to be a +Legislator ought to get a man into Parliament, not with, but if +possible _without_ the unveracity, the impudence and the +dishonesty! Length of purse and desire, these are, as intrinsic +qualifications, correctly equal to zero; but they are not yet +less than zero,--as the smallest addition of that latter sort +will make them! + +And is it come to this? And does our venerable Parliament +announce itself elected and eligible in this manner? Surely such +a Parliament promulgates strange horoscopes of itself. What is +to become of a Parliament elected or eligible in this manner? +Unless Belial and Beelzebub have got possession of the throne of +this Universe, such Parliament is preparing itself for new +Reform-bills. We shall have to try it by Chartism, or any +conceivable _ism,_ rather than put up with this! There is +already in England 'religion' enough to get six hundred and +fifty-eight Consulting Men brought together who do _not_ begin +work with a lie in their mouth. Our poor old Parliament, +thousands of years old, is still good for something, for several +things;--though many are beginning to ask, with ominous anxiety, +in these days: For what thing? But for whatever thing and +things Parliament be good, indisputably it must start with other +than a lie in its mouth! On the Whole, a Parliament working with +a lie in its mouth, will have to take itself away. To no +Parliament or thing, that one has heard of, did this Universe +ever long yield harbour on that footing. At all hours of the day +and night, some Chartism is advancing, some armed Cromwell is +advancing, to apprise such Parliament: "Ye are no Parliament. +In the name of God,--go!" + +In sad truth, once more, how is our whole existence, in these +present days, built on Cant, Speciosity, Falsehood, Dilettantism; +with this one serious Veracity in it: Mammonism! Dig down where +you will, through the Parliament-floor or elsewhere, how +infallibly do you, at spade's depth below the surface, come upon +this universal _Liars_-rock substratum! Much else is ornamental; +true on barrel-heads, in pulpits, hustings, Parliamentary +benches; but this is forever true and truest: "Money does bring +money's worth; Put money in your purse." Here, if nowhere else, +is the human soul still in thorough earnest; sincere with a +prophet's sincerity: and 'the Hell of the English,' as Sauerteig +said, 'is the infinite terror of Not getting on, especially of +Not making money.' With results! + + +To many persons the horoscope of Parliament is more interesting +than to me: but surely all men with souls must admit that +sending members to Parliament by bribery is an infamous solecism; +an act entirely immoral, which no man can have to do with, more +or less, but he will soil his fingers more or less. No Carlton +Clubs, Reform Clubs, nor any sort of clubs or creatures, or of +accredited opinions or practices, can make a Lie Truth, can make +Bribery a Propriety. The Parliament should really either punish +and put away Bribery, or legalise it by some Office in Downing- +street. As I read the Apocalypses, a Parliament that can do +neither of these things is not in a good way.--And yet, alas, +what of Parliaments and their Elections? Parliamentary Elections +are but the topmost ultimate outcome of an electioneering which +goes on at all hours, in all places, in every meeting of two or +more men. It is _we_ that vote wrong, and teach the poor ragged +Freemen of Boroughs to vote wrong. We pay respect to those +worthy of no respect. + +Is not Pandarus Dogdraught a member of select clubs, and admitted +into the drawingrooms of men? Visibly to all persons he is of +the offal of Creation; but he carries money in his purse, due +lacker on his dog-visage, and it is believed will not steal +spoons. The human species does not with one voice, like the +Hebrew Psalmist, 'shun to sit' with Dogdraught, refuse totally to +dine with Dogdraught; men called of honour are willing enough to +dine with him, his talk being lively, and his champagne +excellent. We say to ourselves, "The man is in good society,"-- +others have already voted for him; why should not I? We +_forget_ the indefeasible right of property that Satan has in +Dogdraught,--we are not afraid to be near Dogdraught! It is we +that vote wrong; blindly, nay with falsity prepense! It is we +that no longer know the difference between Human Worth and Human +Unworth; or feel that the one is admirable and alone admirable, +the other detestable, damnable! How shall _we_ find out a Hero +and Viceking Samson with a maximum of two shillings in his +pocket? We have no chance to do such a thing. We have got out +of the Ages of Heroism, deep into the Ages of Flunkeyism,--and +must return or die. What a noble set of mortals are we, who, +because there is no Saint Edmund threatening us at the rim of the +horizon, are not afraid to be whatever, for the day and hour, is +smoothest for us! + +And now, in good sooth, why should an indigent discerning Freeman +give his vote without bribes? Let us rather honour the poor man +that he does discern clearly wherein lies, for him, the true +kernel of the matter. What is it to the ragged grimy Freeman of +a Tenpound-Franchise Borough, whether Aristides Rigmarole Esq. of +the Destructive, or the Hon. Alcides Dolittle of the Conservative +Party be sent to Parliament;--much more, whether the two- +thousandth part of them be sent, for that is the amount of his +faculty in it? Destructive or Conservative, what will either of +them destroy or conserve of vital moment to this Freeman? Has he +found either of them care, at bottom, a sixpence for him or his +interests, or those of his class or of his cause, or of any class +or cause that is of much value to God or to man? Rigmarole and +Dolittle have alike cared for themselves hitherto; and for their +own clique, and self-conceited crotchets,--their greasy dishonest +interests of pudding, or windy dishonest interests of praise; +and not very perceptibly for any other interest whatever. +Neither Rigmarole nor Dolittle will accomplish any good or any +evil for this grimy Freeman, like giving him a five-pound note, +or refusing to give it him. It will be smoothest to vote +according to value received. That is the veritable fact; and he +indigent, like others that are not indigent, acts conformably +thereto. + +Why, reader, truly, if they asked thee or me, Which way we meant +to vote?--were it not our likeliest answer: Neither way! I, as +a Tenpound Franchiser, will receive no bribe; but also I will +not vote for either of these men. Neither Rigmarole nor Dolittle +shall, by furtherance of mine, go and make laws for this country. +I will have no hand in such a mission. How dare I! If other men +cannot be got in England, a totally other sort of men, different +as light is from dark, as star-fire is from street-mud, what is +the use of votings, or of Parliaments in England? England ought +to resign herself; there is no hope or possibility for England. +If England cannot get her Knaves and Dastards 'arrested,' in +some degree, but only get them 'elected,' what is to become +of England? + +I conclude, with all confidence, that England will verily have to +put an end to briberies on her Election Hustings and elsewhere, +at what cost soever;--and likewise that we, Electors and +Eligibles, one and all of us, for our own behoof and hers, cannot +too soon begin, at what cost soever, to put an end to +_bribeabilities_ in ourselves. The death-leprosy, attacked in +this manner, by purifying lotions from without, and by rallying +of the vital energies and purities from within, will probably +abate somewhat! It has otherwise no chance to abate. + + + + +Chapter III + +The One Institution + + +What our Government can do in this grand Problem of the Working +Classes of England? Yes, supposing the insane Corn-Laws totally +abolished, all speech of them ended, and 'from ten to twenty +years of new possibility to live and find wages' conceded us in +consequence: What the English Government might be expected to +accomplish or attempt towards rendering the existence of our +Labouring Millions somewhat less anomalous, somewhat less +impossible, in the years that are to follow those 'ten or +twenty,' if either 'ten' or 'twenty' there be? + +It is the most momentous question. For all this of the Corn-Law +Abrogation, and what can follow therefrom, is but as the shadow +on King Hezekiah's Dial: the shadow has gone back twenty years; +but will again, in spite of Free-Trades and Abrogations, travel +forward its old fated way. With our present system of individual +Mammonism, and Government by Laissez-faire, this Nation cannot +live. And if, in the priceless interim, some new life and +healing be not found, there is no second respite to be counted +on. The shadow on the Dial advances thenceforth without pausing. +What Government can do? This that they call 'Organising of +Labour' is, if well understood, the Problem of the whole Future, +for all who will in future pretend to govern men. But our first +preliminary stage of it, How to deal with the Actual Labouring +Millions of England? this is the imperatively pressing Problem of +the Present, pressing with a truly fearful intensity and +imminence in these very years and days. No Government can longer +neglect it: once more, what can our Government do in it? + + +Governments are of various degrees of activity: some, altogether +Lazy Governments, in 'free countries' as they are called, seem in +these times almost to profess to do, if not nothing, one knows +not at first what. To debate in Parliament, and gain majorities; +and ascertain who shall be, with a toil hardly second to Ixion's, +the Prime Speaker and Spoke-holder, and keep the Ixion's-Wheel +going, if not forward, yet round? Not altogether so:--much, to +the experienced eye, is not what it seems! Chancery and certain +other Law-Courts seem nothing; yet in fact they are, the worst +of them, something: chimneys for the devilry and contention of +men to escape by;--a very considerable something!--Parliament too +has its tasks, if thou wilt look; fit to wear out the lives of +toughest men. The celebrated Kilkenny Cats, through their +tumultuous congress, cleaving the ear of Night, could they be +said to do nothing? Hadst thou been of them, thou hadst seen! +The feline heart laboured, as with steam up-to the bursting +point; and death-doing energy nerved every muscle: they had a +work there; and did it! On the morrow, two tails were found +left, and peaceable annihilation; a neighbourhood _delivered_ +from despair. + +Again, are not Spinning-Dervishes an eloquent emblem, significant +of much? Hast thou noticed him, that solemn-visaged Turk, the +eyes shut; dingy wool mantle circularly hiding his figure;-- +bell-shaped; like a dingy bell set spinning on the _tongue_ of +it? By centrifugal force the dingy wool mantle heaves itself; +spreads more and more, like upturned cup widening into upturned +saucer: thus spins he, to the praise of Allah and advantage of +mankind, fast and faster, till collapse ensue, and sometimes +death!-- + +A Government such as ours, consisting of from seven to eight +hundred Parliamentary Talkers, with their escort of Able Editors +and Public Opinion; and for head, certain Lords and Servants of +the Treasury, and Chief Secretaries and others, who find +themselves at once Chiefs and No-Chiefs, and often commanded +rather than commanding,--is doubtless a most complicate entity, +and none of the alertest for getting on with business! Clearly +enough, if the Chiefs be not self-motive and what we call men, +but mere patient lay-figures without self-motive principle, the +Government will not move anywhither; it will tumble +disastrously, and jumble, round its own axis, as for many years +past we have seen it do.--And yet a self-motive man who is not a +lay-figure, place him in the heart of what entity you may, will +make it move more or less! The absurdest in Nature he will make +a little _less_ absurd; he. The unwieldiest he will make to +move;--that is the use of his existing there. He will at least +have the manfulness to depart out of it, if not; to say: "I +cannot move in thee, and be a man; like a wretched drift-log +dressed in man's clothes and minister's clothes, doomed to a lot +baser than belongs to man, I will not continue with thee, +tumbling aimless on the Mother of Dead Dogs here:--Adieu!" + +For, on the whole, it is the lot of Chiefs everywhere, this same. +No Chief in the most despotic country but was a Servant withal; +at once an absolute commanding General, and a poor Orderly- +Sergeant, ordered by the very men in the ranks,--obliged to +collect the vote of the ranks too, in some articulate or +inarticulate shape, and weigh well the same. The proper name of +all Kings is Minister, Servant. In no conceivable Government can +a lay-figure get forward! _This_ Worker, surely he above all +others has to 'spread out his Gideon's Fleece,' and collect the +monitions of Immensity; the poor Localities, as we said, and +parishes of Palace-yard or elsewhere, having no due monition in +them. A Prime Minister, even here in England, who shall dare +believe the heavenly omens, and address himself like a man and +hero to the great dumb-struggling heart of England; and speak +out for it, and act out for it, the God's-justice it is writhing +to get uttered and perishing for want of,--yes, he too will see +awaken round him, in passionate burning all-defiant loyalty, the +heart of England, and such a 'support' as no Division-List or +Parliamentary Majority was ever yet known to yield a man! Here +as there, now as then, he who can and dare trust the heavenly +Immensities, all earthly Localities are subject to him. We will +pray for such a Man and First-Lord;--yes, and far better, we will +strive and incessantly make ready, each of us, to be worthy to +serve and second such a First-Lord! We shall then be as good +as sure of his arriving; sure of many things, let him arrive +or not. + + +Who can despair of Governments that passes a Soldiers' +Guardhouse, or meets a redcoated man on the streets! That a body +of men could be got together to kill other men when you bade +them: this, _a priori,_ does it not seem one of the impossiblest +things? Yet look, behold it: in the stolidest of Donothing +Governments, that impossibility is a thing done. See it there, +with buff-belts, red coats on its back; walking sentry at +guardhouses, brushing white breeches in barracks; an +indisputable palpable fact. Out of grey Antiquity, amid all +finance-difficulties, _scaccarium_-tallies, ship-monies, coat- +and-conduct monies, and vicissitudes of Chance and Time, there, +down to the present blessed hour, it is. + +Often, in these painfully decadent and painfully nascent Times, +with their distresses, inarticulate gaspings and +'impossibilities;' meeting a tall Lifeguardsmans in his snow- +white trousers, or seeing those two statuesque Lifeguardsmen in +their frowning bearskins, pipe-clayed buckskins, on their coal- +black sleek-fiery quadrupeds, riding sentry at the Horse- +Guards,'--it strikes one with a kind of mournful interest, how, +in such universal down-rushing and wrecked impotence of almost +all old institutions, this oldest Fighting Institution is still +so young! Fresh-complexioned, firm-limbed, six feet by the +standard, this fighting-man has verily been got up, and can +fight. While so much has not yet got into being; while so much +has gone gradually out of it, and become an empty Semblance or +Clothes-suit; and highest king's-cloaks, mere chimeras parading +under them so long, are getting unsightly to the earnest eye, +unsightly, almost offensive, like a costlier kind of scarecrow's- +blanket,--here still is a reality! + +The man in horsehair wig advances, promising that he will get me +'justice:' he takes me into Chancery Law-Courts, into decades, +half-centuries of hubbub, of distracted jargon; and does get +me--disappointment, almost desperation; and one refuge: that of +dismissing him and his 'justice' altogether out of my head. For +I have work to do; I cannot spend my decades in mere arguing +with other men about the exact wages of my work: I will work +cheerfully with no wages, sooner than with a ten-years gangrene +or Chancery Lawsuit in my heart! He of the horsehair wig is a +sort of failure; no substance, but a fond imagination of the +mind. He of the shovel-hat, again, who comes forward professing +that he will save my soul--O ye Eternities, of him in this place +be absolute silence!--But he of the red coat, I say, is a success +and no failure! He will veritably, if he get orders, draw out a +long sword and kill me. No mistake there. He is a fact and not +a shadow. Alive in this Year Forty-three, able and willing to do +his work. In dim old centuries, with William Rufus, William of +Ipres, or far earlier, he began; and has come down safe so far. +Catapult has given place to cannon, pike has given place to +musket, iron mail-shirt to coat of red cloth, saltpetre ropematch +to percussion cap; equipments, circumstances have all changed, +and again changed: but the human battle-engine, in the inside of +any or of each of these, ready still to do battle, stands there, +six feet in standard size. There are Pay-Offices, Woolwich +Arsenals, there is a Horse-Guards, War-Office, Captain-General; +persuasive Sergeants, with tap of drum, recruit in market-towns +and villages;--and, on the whole, I say, here is your actual +drilled fightingman; here are your actual Ninety-thousand of +such, ready to go into any quarter of the world and fight! + +Strange, interesting, and yet most mournful to reflect on. Was +this, then, of all the things mankind had some talent for, the +one thing important to learn well, and bring to perfection; this +of, successfully killing one another? Truly you have learned it +well, and carried the business to a high perfection. It is +incalculable what, by arranging, commanding and regimenting, you +can make of men. These thousand straight-standing firm-set +individuals, who shoulder arms, who march, wheel, advance, +retreat; and are, for your behoof, a magazine charged with fiery +death, in the most perfect condition of potential activity: few +months ago, till the persuasive sergeant came, what were they? +Multiform ragged losels, runaway apprentices, starved weavers, +thievish valets; an entirely broken population, fast tending +towards the treadmill. But the persuasive sergeant came; by tap +of drum enlisted, or formed lists of them, took heartily to +drilling them;--and he and you have made them this! Most potent, +effectual for all work whatsoever, is wise planning, firm +combining and commanding among men. Let no man despair of +Governments who looks on these two sentries at the Horse-Guards, +and our United-Service Clubs! I could conceive an Emigration +Service, a Teaching Service, considerable varieties of United and +Separate Services, of the due thousands strong, all effective as +this Fighting Service is; all doing _their_ work, like it;-- +which work, much more than fighting, is henceforth the necessity +of these New Ages we are got into! Much lies among us, +convulsively, nigh desperately _struggling to be born._ + +But mean Governments, as mean-limited individuals do, have stood +by the physically indispensable; have realised that and nothing +more. The Soldier is perhaps one of the most difficult things to +realise; but Governments, had they not realised him, could not +have existed: accordingly he is here. O Heavens, if we saw an +army ninety-thousand strong, maintained and fully equipt, in +continual real action and battle against Human Starvation, +against Chaos, Necessity, Stupidity, and our real 'natural +enemies,' what a business were it! Fighting and molesting not +'the French,' who, poor men, have a hard enough battle of their +own in the like kind, and need no additional molesting from us; +but fighting and incessantly spearing down and destroying +Falsehood, Nescience, Delusion, Disorder, and the Devil and his +Angels! Thou thyself, cultivated reader, hast done something in +that alone true warfare; but, alas, under what circumstances was +it? Thee no beneficent drill-sergeant, with any effectiveness, +would rank in line beside thy fellows; train, like a true +didactic artist, by the wit of all past expedience, to do thy +soldiering; encourage thee when right, punish thee when wrong, +and everywhere with wise word-of-command say, Forward on this +hand, Forward on that! Ah, no: thou hadst to learn thy small- +sword and platoon exercise where and how thou couldst; to all +mortals but thyself it was indifferent whether thou shouldst ever +learn it. And the rations, and shilling a day, were they +provided thee,--reduced as I have known brave Jean-Pauls, +learning their exercise, to live on 'water _without_ the bread?' +The rations; or any furtherance of promotion to corporalship, +lance-corporalship, or due cato'-nine tails, with the slightest +reference to thy deserts, were not provided. Forethought, even +as of a pipe-clayed drill-sergeant, did not preside over thee. +To corporalship, lance-corporalship, thou didst attain; alas, +also to the halberts and cat: but thy rewarder and punisher +seemed blind as the Deluge: neither lancecorporalship, nor +even drummer's cat, because both appeared delirious, brought +thee due profit. + +It was well, all this, we know;--and yet it was not well! Forty +soldiers, I am told, will disperse the largest Spitalfields mob: +forty to ten-thousand, that is the proportion between drilled and +undrilled. Much there is which cannot yet be organised in this +world; but somewhat also which can, somewhat also which must. +When one thinks, for example, what Books are becoming for us, +what Operative Lancashires are become; what a Fourth Estate, and +innumerable Virtualities not yet got to be Actualities are become +and becoming,--one sees Organisms enough in the dim huge Future; +and 'United Services' quite other than the redcoat one; and +much, even in these years, struggling to be born! + + +Of Time-Bill, Factory-Bill and other such Bills the present +Editor has no authority to speak. He knows not, it is for others +than he to know, in what specific ways it may be feasible to +interfere, with Legislation, between the Workers and the Master- +Workers;--knows only and sees, what all men are beginning to see, +that Legislative interference, and interferences not a few are +indispensable; that as a lawless anarchy of supply-and-demand, +on market-wages alone, this province of things cannot longer be +left. Nay interference has begun: there are already Factory +Inspectors,--who seem to have no _lack_ of work. Perhaps there +might be Mine-Inspectors too:--might there not be Furrowfield +Inspectors withal, and ascertain for us how on seven and sixpence +a week a human family does live! Interference has begun; it +must continue, must extensively enlarge itself, deepen and +sharpen itself. Such things cannot longer be idly lapped in +darkness, and suffered to go on unseen: the Heavens do see them; +the curse, not the blessing of the Heavens is on an Earth that +refuses to see them. + +Again, are not Sanitary Regulations possible for a Legislature? +The old Romans had their Aediles; who would, I think, in direct +contravention to supply-and-demand, have rigorously seen rammed +up into total abolition many a foul cellar in our Southwarks, +Saint-Gileses, and dark poison-lanes; saying sternly, "Shall a +Roman man dwell there?" The Legislature, at whatever cost of +consequences, would have had to answer, "God forbid!"--The +Legislature, even as it now is, could order all dingy +Manufacturing Towns to cease from their soot and darkness; to +let in the blessed sunlight, the blue of Heaven, and become clear +and clean; to burn their coal-smoke, namely, and make flame of +it. Baths, free air, a wholesome temperature, ceilings twenty +feet high, might be ordained by Act of Parliament, in all +establishments licensed as Mills. There are such Mills already +extant;--honour to the builders of them! The Legislature can say +to others: Go ye and do likewise; better if you can. + +Every toiling Manchester, its smoke and soot all burnt, ought it +not, among so many world-wide conquests, to have a hundred acres +or so of free greenfield, with trees on it, conquered, for its +little children to disport in; for its all-conquering workers to +take a breath of twilight air in? You would say so! A willing +Legislature could say so with effect. A willing Legislature +could say very many things! And to whatsoever 'vested interest,' +or such like, stood up, gainsaying merely, "I shall lose +profits,"--the willing Legislature would answer, "Yes, but my +sons and daughters will gain health, and life, and a soul."-- +"What is to become of our Cotton-trade?" cried certain Spinners, +when the Factory-Bill was proposed; "What is to become of our +invaluable Cotton-trade?" The Humanity of England answered +steadfastly: "Deliver me these rickety perishing souls of +infants, and let your Cotton-trade take its chance. God Himself +commands the one thing; not God especially the other thing. We +cannot have prosperous Cotton-trades at the expense of keeping +the Devil a partner in them!"-- + +Bills enough, were the Corn-Law Abrogation Bill once passed, and +a Legislature willing! Nay this one Bill, which lies yet +unenacted, a right Education Bill, is not this of itself the sure +parent of innumerable wise Bills,--wise regulations, practical +methods and proposals, gradually ripening towards the state of +Bills? To irradiate with intelligence, that is to say, with +order, arrangement and all blessedness, the Chaotic, +Unintelligent: how, except by educating, _can_ you-accomplish +this? That thought, reflection, articulate utterance and +understanding be awakened in these individual million heads, +which are the atoms of your Chaos: there is no other way of +illuminating any Chaos! The sum-total of intelligence that is +found in it, determines the extent of order that is possible for +your Chaos,--the feasibility and rationality of what your Chaos +will dimly demand from you, and will gladly obey when proposed by +you! It is an exact equation; the one accurately measures the +other.--If the whole English People, during these 'twenty years +of respite,' be not educated, with at least schoolmaster's +educating, a tremendous responsibility, before God and men, will +rest somewhere! How dare any man, especially a man calling +himself minister of God, stand up in any Parliament or place, +under any pretext or delusion, and for a day or an hour forbid +God's Light to come into the world, and bid the Devil's Darkness +continue in it one hour more! For all light and science, under +all shapes, in all degrees of perfection, is of God; all +darkness, nescience, is of the Enemy of God. 'The schoolmaster's +creed is somewhat awry?' Yes, I have found few creeds entirely +correct; few light-beams shining white, pure of admixture: but +of all creeds and religions now or ever before known, was not +that of thoughtless thriftless Animalism, of Distilled Gin, and +Stupor and Despair, unspeakably the least orthodox? We will +exchange it even with Paganism, with Fetishism; and, on the +whole, must exchange it with something. + +An effective 'Teaching Service' I do consider that there must be; +some Education Secretary, Captain-General of Teachers, who will +actually contrive to get us _taught._ Then again, why should +there not be an 'Emigration Service,' and Secretary, with +adjuncts, with funds, forces, idle Navy-ships, and ever- +increasing apparatus; in fine an _effective system_ of +Emigration; so that, at length, before our twenty years of +respite ended, every honest willing Workman who found England too +strait, and the 'Organisation of Labour' not yet sufficiently +advanced, might find likewise a bridge built to carry him into +new Western Lands, there to 'organise' with more elbow-room some +labour for himself? There to be a real blessing, raising new +corn for us, purchasing new webs and hatchets from us; leaving +us at least in peace;--instead of staying here to be a Physical- +Force Chartist, unblessed and no blessing! Is it not scandalous +to consider that a Prime Minister could raise within the year, as +I have seen it done, a Hundred and Twenty Millions Sterling to +shoot the French; and we are stopt short for want of the +hundredth part of that to keep the English living? The bodies of +the English living; and the souls of the English living:--these +two 'Services,' an Education Service and an Emigration Service, +these with others will actually have to be organised! + +A free bridge for Emigrants: why, we should then be on a par +with America itself, the most favoured of all lands that have no +government; and we should have, besides, so many traditions and +mementos of priceless things which America has cast away. We +could proceed deliberately to 'organise Labour,' not doomed to +perish unless we effected it within year and day;--every willing +Worker that proved superfluous, finding a bridge ready for him. +This verily will have to be done; the Time is big with this. +Our little Isle is grown too narrow for us; but the world is +wide enough yet for another Six Thousand Years. England's sure +markets will be among new Colonies of Englishmen in all quarters +of the Globe. All men trade with all men, when mutually +convenient; and are even bound to do it by the Maker of men. +Our friends of China, who guiltily refused to trade, in these +circumstances,--had we not to argue with them, in cannon-shot at +last, and convince them that they ought to trade! 'Hostile +Tariffs' will arise, to shut us out; and then again will fall, +to let us in: but the Sons of England, speakers of the English +language were it nothing more, will in all times have the +ineradicable predisposition to trade with England. Mycale was +the _Pan-Ionian,_ rendezvous of all the Tribes of Ion, for old +Greece: why should not London long continue the _All-Saxon- +home,_ rendezvous of all the 'Children of the Harz-Rock,' +arriving, in select samples, from the Antipodes and elsewhere, by +steam and otherwise, to the 'season' here!--What a Future; wide +as the world, if we have the heart and heroism for it,--which, by +Heaven's blessing, we shall: + +'Keep not standing fixed and rooted, +Briskly venture, briskly roam; +Head and hand, where'er thou foot it, +And stout heart are still at home. + +In what land the sun does visit, +Brisk are we, whate'er betide: +To give space for wandering is it +That the world was made so wide?' * + +-------- +* Goethe, _Wilhelm Meister_ +-------- + +Fourteen hundred years ago, it was by a considerable 'Emigration +Service,' never doubt it, by much enlistment, discussion and +apparatus, that we ourselves arrived in this remarkable Island,-- +and got into our present difficulties among others! + + +It is true the English Legislature, like the English People, is +of slow temper; essentially conservative. In our wildest periods +of reform, in the Long Parliament itself, you notice always the +invincible instinct to hold fast by the Old; to admit the +minimum of New; to expand, if it be possible, some old habit or +method, already found fruitful, into new growth for the new need. +It is an instinct worthy of all honour; akin to all strength and +all wisdom. The Future hereby is not dissevered from the Past, +but based continuously on it; grows with all the vitalities of +the Past, and is rooted down deep into the beginnings of us. The +English Legislature is entirely repugnant to believe in 'new +epochs.' The English Legislature does not occupy itself with +epochs; has, indeed, other business to do than looking at the +Time-Horologe and hearing it tick! Nevertheless new epochs do +actually come; and with them new imperious peremptory +necessities; so that even an English Legislature has to look up, +and admit, though with reluctance, that the hour has struck. The +hour having struck, let us not say 'impossible:'--it will have to +be possible! 'Contrary to the habits of Parliament, the habits +of Government?' Yes: but did any Parliament or Government ever +sit in a Year Forty-three before? One of the most original, +unexampled years and epochs; in several important respects, +totally unlike any other! For Time, all-edacious and all- +feracious, does run on: and the Seven Sleepers, awakening hungry +after a hundred years, find that it is not their old nurses who +can now give them suck! + +For the rest, let not any Parliament, Aristocracy, Millocracy, or +Member of the Governing Class, condemn with much triumph this +small specimen of 'remedial measures;' or ask again, with the +least anger, of this Editor, What is to be done, How that +alarming problem of the Working Classes is to be managed? +Editors are not here, foremost of all, to say How. A certain +Editor thanks the gods that nobody pays him three hundred +thousand pounds a year, two hundred thousand, twenty thousand, or +any similar sum of cash for saying How;--that his wages are very +different, his work somewhat fitter for him. An Editor's +stipulated work is to apprise thee that it must be done. The +'way to do it,' is to try it, knowing that thou shalt die if it +be not done. There is the bare back, there is the web of cloth; +thou shalt cut me a coat to cover the bare back, thou whose trade +it is. 'Impossible?' Hapless Fraction, dost thou discern Fate +there, half unveiling herself in the gloom of the future, with +her gibbet-cords, her steel-whips, and very authentic Tailor's +Hell; waiting to see whether it is 'possible?' Out with thy +scissors, and cut that cloth or thy own windpipe! + + + + +Chapter IV + +Captains of Industry + + +If I believed that Mammonism with its adjuncts was to continue +henceforth the one serious principle of our existence, I should +reckon it idle to solicit remedial measures from any Government, +the disease being insusceptible of remedy. Government can do +much, but it can in no wise do all. Government, as the most +conspicuous object in Society, is called upon to give signal of +what shall be done; and, in many ways, to preside over, further, +and command the doing of it. But the Government cannot do, by +all its signalling and commanding, what the Society is radically +indisposed to do.--In the long-run every Government is the exact +symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to +say, Like People like Government.--The main substance of this +immense Problem of Organising Labour, and first of all of +Managing the Working Classes, will, it is very clear, have to be +solved by those who stand practically in the middle of it; by +those who themselves work and preside over work. Of all that can +be enacted by any Parliament in regard to it, the germs must +already lie potentially extant in those two Classes, who are to +obey such enactment. A Human Chaos in which there is no light, +you vainly attempt to irradiate by light shed on it: order never +can arise there. + +But it is my firm conviction that the 'Hell of England' will +_cease_ to be that of 'not making money;' that we shall get a +nobler Hell and a nobler Heaven! I anticipate light _in_ the +Human Chaos, glimmering, shining more and more; under manifold +true signals from without That light shall shine. Our deity no +longer being Mammon,--O Heavens, each man will then say to +himself: "Why such deadly haste to make money? I shall not go +to Hell, even if I do not make money! There is another Hell, I +am told!" Competition, at railway-speed, in all branches of +commerce and work will then abate:--good felt-hats for the head, +in every sense, instead of seven-feet lath-and-plaster hats on +wheels, will then be discoverable! Bubble-periods, with their +panics and commercial crises, will again become infrequent; +steady modest industry will take the place of gambling +speculation. To be a noble Master, among noble Workers, will +again be the first ambition with some few; to be a rich Master +only the second. How the Inventive Genius of England, with the +whirr of its bobbins and billy-rollers shoved somewhat into the +backgrounds of the brain, will contrive and devise, not cheaper +produce exclusively, but fairer distribution of the produce at +its present cheapness! By degrees, we shall again have a Society +with something of Heroism in it, something of Heaven's Blessing +on it; we shall again have, as my German friend asserts, +'instead of Mammon-Feudalism with unsold cotton-shirts and +Preservation of the Game, noble just Industrialism and Government +by the Wisest!' + +It is with the hope of awakening here and there a British man to +know himself for a man and divine soul, that a few words of +parting admonition, to all persons to whom the Heavenly Powers +have lent power of any kind in this land, may now be addressed. +And first to those same Master-Workers, Leaders of Industry; who +stand nearest, and in fact powerfulest, though not most +prominent, being as yet in too many senses a Virtuality rather +than an Actuality. + + +The Leaders of Industry, if Industry is ever to be led, are +virtually the Captains of the World; if there be no nobleness in +them, there will never be an Aristocracy more. But let the +Captains of Industry consider: once again, are they born of +other clay than the old Captains of Slaughter; doomed forever to +be no Chivalry, but a mere gold-plated _Doggery,_--what the +French well name _Canaille,_ 'Doggery' with more or less gold +carrion at its disposal? Captains of Industry are the true +Fighters, henceforth recognisable as the only true ones: +Fighters against Chaos, Necessity and the Devils and Jotuns; and +lead on Mankind in that great, and alone true, and universal +warfare; the stars in their courses fighting for them, and all +Heaven and all Earth saying audibly, Well-done! Let the Captains +of Industry retire into their own hearts, and ask solemnly, If +there is nothing but vulturous hunger, for fine wines, valet +reputation and gilt carriages, discoverable there? Of hearts +made by the Almighty God. + +I will not believe such a thing. Deep-hidden under wretchedest +god-forgetting Cants, Epicurisms, Dead-Sea Apisms; forgotten as +under foulest fat Lethe mud and weeds, there is yet, in all +hearts born into this God's-World, a spark of the Godlike +slumbering. Awake, O nightmare sleepers; awake, arise, or be +forever fallen! This is not playhouse poetry; it is sober fact. +Our England, our world cannot live as it is. It will connect +itself with a God again, or go down with nameless throes and +fire-consummation to the Devils. Thou who feelest aught of such +a Godlike stirring in thee, any faintest intimation of it as +through heavy-laden dreams, follow it, I conjure thee. Arise, +save thyself, be one of those that save thy country. + +Bucaniers, Chactaw Indians, whose supreme aim in fighting is that +they may get the scalps, the money, that they may amass scalps +and money: out of such came no Chivalry, and never will! Out of +such came only gore and wreck, infernal rage and misery; +desperation quenched in annihilation. Behold it, I bid thee, +behold there, and consider! What is it that thou have a hundred +thousand-pound bills laid up in thy strong-room, a hundred scalps +hung up in thy wigwam? I value not them or thee. Thy scalps and +thy thousand-pound bills are as yet nothing, if no nobleness from +within irradiate them; if no Chivalry, in action, or in embryo +ever struggling towards birth and action, be there. + +Love of men cannot be bought by cash-payment; and without love, +men cannot endure to be together. You cannot lead a Fighting +World without having it regimented, chivalried: the thing, in a +day, becomes impossible; all men in it, the highest at first, +the very lowest at last, discern consciously, or by a noble +instinct, this necessity. And can you any more continue to lead +a Working World unregimented, anarchic? I answer, and the +Heavens and Earth are now answering, No! The thing becomes not +'in a day' impossible; but in some two generations it does. +Yes, when fathers and mothers, in Stockport hunger-cellars, begin +to eat their children, and Irish widows have to prove their +relationship by dying of typhus-fever; and amid Governing +'Corporations of the Best and Bravest,' busy to preserve their +game by 'bushing,' dark millions of God's human creatures start +up in mad Chartisms, impracticable Sacred-Months, and Manchester +Insurrections;--and there is a virtual Industrial Aristocracy as +yet only half-alive, spellbound amid money-bags and ledgers; and +an actual Idle Aristocracy seemingly near dead in somnolent +delusions, in trespasses and double-barrels; 'sliding,' as on +inclined-planes, which every new year they _soap_ with new +Hansard's-jargon under God's sky, and so are 'sliding' ever +faster, towards a 'scale' and balance-scale whereon is written +_Thou art found Wanting:_--in such days, after a generation or +two, I say, it does become, even to the low and simple, very +palpably impossible! No Working World, any more than a Fighting +World, can be led on without a noble Chivalry of Work, and laws +and fixed rules which follow out of that,--far nobler than any +Chivalry of Fighting was. As an anarchic multitude on mere +Supply-and-demand, it is becoming inevitable that we dwindle in +horrid suicidal convulsion, and self-abrasion, frightful to the +imagination, into _Chactaw_ Workers. With wigwam and scalps,-- +with palaces and thousand-pound bills; with savagery, +depopulation, chaotic desolation! Good Heavens, will not one +French Revolution and Reign of Terror suffice us, but must there +be two? There will be two if needed; there will be twenty if +needed; there will be precisely as many as are needed. The Laws +of Nature will have themselves fulfilled. That is a thing +certain to me. + +Your gallant battle-hosts and work-hosts, as the others did, will +need to be made loyally yours; they must and will be regulated, +methodically secured in their just share of conquest under you;-- +joined with you in veritable brotherhood, sonhood, by quite other +and deeper ties than those of temporary day's wages! How would +mere redcoated regiments, to say nothing of chivalries, fight for +you, if you could discharge them on the evening of the battle, on +payment of the stipulated shillings,--and they discharge you on +the morning of it! Chelsea Hospitals, pensions, promotions, +rigorous lasting covenant on the one side and on the other, are +indispensable even for a hired fighter. The Feudal Baron, much +more,--how could he subsist with mere temporary mercenaries round +him, at sixpence a day; ready to go over to the other side, if +sevenpence were offered? He could not have subsisted;--and his +noble instinct saved him from the necessity of even trying! The +Feudal Baron had a Man's Soul in him; to which anarchy, mutiny, +and the other fruits of temporary mercenaries, were intolerable: +he had never been a Baron otherwise, but had continued a Chactaw +and Bucanier. He felt it precious, and at last it became +habitual, and his fruitful enlarged existence included it as a +necessity, to have men round him who in heart loved him; whose +life he watched over with rigour yet with love; who were +prepared to give their life for him, if need came. It was +beautiful; it was human! Man lives not otherwise, nor can live +contented, anywhere or anywhen. Isolation is the sum-total of +wretchedness to man. To be cut off, to be left solitary: to +have a world alien, not your world; all a hostile camp for you; +not a home at all, of hearts and faces who are yours, whose you +are! It is the frightfulest enchantment; too truly a work of +the Evil One. To have neither superior, nor inferior, nor equal, +united manlike to you. Without father, without child, without +brother. Man knows no sadder destiny. 'How is each of us,' +exclaims Jean Paul, 'so lonely, in the wide bosom of the All!' +Encased each as in his transparent 'ice-palace;' our brother +visible in his, making signals and gesticulations to us;-- +visible, but forever unattainable: on his bosom we shall never +rest, nor he on ours. It was not a God that did this; no! + +Awake, ye noble Workers, warriors in the one true war: all this +must be remedied. It is you who are already half-alive, whom I +will welcome into life; whom I will conjure in God's name to +shake off your enchanted sleep, and live wholly! Cease to count +scalps, gold-purses; not in these lies your or our salvation. +Even these, if you count only these, will not long be left. Let +bucaniering be put far from you; alter, speedily abrogate all +laws of the bucaniers, if you would gain any victory that shall +endure. Let God's justice, let pity, nobleness and manly valour, +with more gold-purses or with fewer, testify themselves in this +your brief Life-transit to all the Eternities, the Gods and +Silences. It is to you I call; for ye are not dead, ye are +already half-alive: there is in you a sleepless dauntless +energy, the prime-matter of all nobleness in man. Honour to you +in your kind. It is to you I call: ye know at least this, That +the mandate of God to His creature man is: Work! The future +Epic of the World rests not with those that are near dead, but +with those that are alive, and those that are coming into life. + +Look around you. Your world-hosts are all in mutiny, in +confusion, destitution; on the eve of fiery wreck and madness! +They will not march farther for you, on the sixpence a day and +supply-and-demand principle: they will not; nor ought they, nor +can they. Ye shall reduce them to order, begin reducing them. +To order, to just subordination; noble loyalty in return for +noble guidance. Their souls are driven nigh mad; let yours be +sane and ever saner. Not as a bewildered bewildering mob; but +as a firm regimented mass, with real captains over them, will +these men march any more. All human interests, combined human +endeavours, and social growths in this world, have, at a certain +stage of their development, required organising: and Work, the +grandest of human interests, does now require it. + +God knows, the task will be hard: but no noble task was ever +easy. This task will wear away your lives, and the lives of your +sons and grandsons: but for what purpose, if not for tasks like +this, were lives given to men? Ye shall cease to count your +thousand-pound scalps, the noble of you shall cease! Nay the +very scalps, as I say, will not long be left if you count only +these. Ye shall cease wholly to be barbarous vulturous Chactaws, +and become noble European Nineteenth-Century Men. Ye shall know +that Mammon, in never such gigs and flunky 'respectabilities,' is +not the alone God; that of himself he is but a Devil, and even +a Brute-god. + +Difficult? Yes, it will be difficult. The short-fibre cotton; +that too was difficult. The waste cotton-shrub, long useless, +disobedient, as the thistle by the wayside,--have ye not +conquered it; made it into beautiful bandana webs; white woven +shirts for men; bright-tinted air-garments wherein flit +goddesses? Ye have shivered mountains asunder, made the hard +iron pliant to you as soft putty: the Forest-giants, Marsh- +jotuns bear sheaves of golden grain; Aegir the Sea-demon himself +stretches his back for a sleek highway to you, and on Firehorses +and Windhorses ye career. Ye are most strong. Thor red-bearded, +with his blue sun-eyes, with his cheery heart and strong thunder- +hammer, he and you have prevailed. Ye are most strong, ye Sons +of the icy North, of the far East,--far marching from your rugged +Eastern Wildernesses, hitherward from the grey Dawn of Time! Ye +are Sons of the _Jotun_-land; the land of Difficulties +Conquered. Difficult? You must try this thing. Once try it +with the understanding that it will and shall have to be done. +Try it as ye try the paltrier thing, making of money! I will bet +on you once more, against all Jotuns, Tailor-gods, Double- +barrelled Law-wards, and Denizens of Chaos whatsoever! + + + + +Chapter V + +Permanence + + +Standing on the threshold, nay as yet outside the threshold, of a +'Chivalry of Labour,' and an immeasurable Future which it is to +fill with fruitfulness and verdant shade; where so much has not +yet come even to the rudimental state, and all speech of positive +enactments were hasardous in those who know this business only by +the eye,--let us here hint at simply one widest universal +principle, as the basis from which all organisation hitherto has +grown up among men, and all henceforth will have to grow: The +principle of Permanent Contract instead of Temporary. + + +Permanent not Temporary:--you do not hire the mere redcoated +fighter by the day, but by the score of years' Permanence, +persistance is the first condition of all fruitfulness in the +ways of men. The 'tendency to persevere,' to persist in spite of +hindrances, discouragements and 'impossibilities:' it is this +that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak; +the civilised burgher from the nomadic savage,--the Species Man +from the Genus Ape! The Nomad has his very house set on wheels; +the Nomad, and in a still higher degree the Ape, are all for +'liberty;' the privilege to flit continually is indispensable +for them. Alas, in how many ways, does our humour, in this +swift-rolling self-abrading Time, shew itself nomadic, apelike; +mournful enough to him that looks on it with eyes! This humour +will have to abate; it is the first element of all fertility in +human things, that such 'liberty' of apes and nomads do by +freewill or constraint abridge itself, give place to a better. +The civilised man lives not in wheeled houses. He builds stone +castles, plants lands, makes lifelong marriage-contracts;--has +long-dated hundred-fold possessions, not to be valued in the +money-market; has pedigrees, libraries, law-codes; has memories +and hopes, even for this Earth, that reach over thousands of +years. Life-long marriage-contracts: how much preferable were +year-long or month-long--to the nomad or ape! + +Month-long contracts please me little, in any province where +there can by possibility be found virtue enough for more. Month- +long contracts do not answer well even with your house-servants; +the liberty on both sides to change every month is growing very +apelike, nomadic;--and I hear philosophers predict that it will +alter, or that strange results will follow: that wise men, +pestered with nomads, with unattached ever-shifting spies and +enemies rather than friends and servants, will gradually, +weighing substance against semblance, with indignation, dismiss +such, down almost to the very shoeblack, and say, "Begone; I +will serve myself rather, and have peace!" Gurth was hired for +life to Cedric, and Cedric to Gurth. O Anti-Slavery Convention, +loud-sounding long-eared Exeter-Hall--But in thee too is a kind +of instinct towards justice, and I will complain of nothing. +Only, black Quashee over the seas being once sufficiently +attended to, wilt thou not perhaps open thy dull sodden eyes to +the 'sixty-thousand valets in London itself who are yearly +dismissed to the streets, to be what they can, when the season +ends;'--or to the hunger-stricken, pallid, _yellow_-coloured +'Free Labourers' in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Buckinghamshire, and +all other shires! These Yellow-coloured, for the present, absorb +all my sympathies: if I had a Twenty Millions, with Model-Farms +and Niger Expeditions, it is to these that I would give it! +Quashee has already victuals, clothing; Quashee is not dying of +such despair as the yellow-coloured pale man's. Quashee, it must +be owned, is hitherto a kind of blockhead. The Haiti Duke of +Marmalade, educated now for almost half a century, seems to have +next to no sense in him. Why, in one of those Lancashire +Weavers, dying of hunger, there is more thought and heart, a +greater arithmetical amount of misery and desperation, than in +whole gangs of Quashees. It must be owned, thy eyes are of the +sodden sort; and with thy emancipations, and thy twenty- +millionings and long-eared clamourings, thou, like Robespierre +with his pasteboard _Etre Supreme,_ threatenest to become a bore +to us, _Avec ton Etre Supreme tu commences m'embeter!-- + +In a Printed Sheet of the assiduous, much-abused, and truly +useful Mr. Chadwick's, containing queries and responses from far +and near, as to this great question, 'What is the effect of +Education on workingmen, in respect of their value as mere +workers?' the present Editor, reading with satisfaction a +decisive unanimous verdict as to Education, reads with +inexpressible interest this special remark, put in by way of +marginal incidental note, from a practical manufacturing Quaker, +whom, as he is anonymous, we will call Friend Prudence. Prudence +keeps a thousand workmen; has striven in all ways to attach them +to him; has provided conversational soirees; playgrounds, bands +of music for the young ones; went even 'the length of buying +them a drum:' all which has turned out to be an excellent +investment. For a certain person, marked here by a black stroke, +whom we shall name Blank, living over the way,--he also keeps +somewhere about a thousand men; but has done none of these +things for them, nor any other thing, except due payment of the +wages by supply-and-demand. Blank's workers are perpetually +getting into mutiny, into broils and coils: every six months, +we suppose, Blank has a strike; every one month, every day +and every hour, they are fretting and obstructing the short-sighted +Blank; pilfering from him, wasting and idling for him, omitting +and committing for him. "I would not," says Friend Prudence, +"exchange my workers for his _with seven thousand pounds to boot."_ + +------------ +*Report on the Training of Pauper Children (1841), p. 18. +------------ + +Right, O honourable Prudence; thou art wholly in the right: +Seven thousand pounds even as a matter of profit for this world, +nay for the mere cash-market of this worrd! And as a matter of +profit not for this world only, but for the other world and all +worlds, it outweighs the Bank of England!--Can the sagacious +reader descry here, as it were the outmost inconsiderable +rockledge of a universal rock-foundation, deep once more as the +Centre of the World, emerging so, in the experience of this good +Quaker, through the Stygian mud-vortexes and general Mother of +Dead Dogs, whereon, for the present, all swags and insecurely +hovers, as if ready to be swallowed? + + +Some Permanence of Contract is already almost possible; the +principle of Permanence, year by year, better seen into and +elaborated, may enlarge itself, expand gradually on every side +into a system. This once secured, the basis of all good results +were laid. Once permanent, you do not quarrel with the first +difficulty on your path, and quit it in weak disgust; you +reflect that it cannot be quitted, that it must be conquered, a +wise arrangement fallen on with regard to it. Ye foolish Wedded +Two, who have quarrelled, between whom the Evil Spirit has +stirred up transient strife and bitterness, so that +'incompatibility' seems almost nigh, ye are nevertheless the Two +who, by long habit, were it by nothing more, do best of all +others suit each other: it is expedient for your own two foolish +selves, to say nothing of the infants, pedigrees and public in +general, that ye agree again; that ye put away the Evil +Spirit, and wisely on both hands struggle for the guidance of +a Good Spirit! + +The very horse that is permanent, how much kindlier do his rider +and he work, than the temporary one, hired on any hack principle +yet known! I am for permanence in all things, at the earliest +possible moment, and to the latest possible. Blessed is he that +continueth where he is. Here let us rest, and lay out +seedfields; here let us learn to dwell. Here, even here, the +orchards that we plant will yield us fruit; the acorns will be +wood and pleasant umbrage, if we wait. How much grows +everywhere, if we do but wait! Through the swamps we will shape +causeways, force purifying drains; we will learn to thread the +rocky inaccessibilities; and beaten tracks, worn smooth by mere +traveling of human feet, will form themselves. Not a difficulty +but can transfigure itself into a triumph; not even a deformity +but, if our own soul have imprinted worth on it, will grow dear +to us. The sunny plains and deep indigo transparent skies of +Italy are all indifferent to the great sick heart of a Sir Walter +Scott: on the back of the Apennines, in wild spring weather, the +sight of bleak Scotch firs, and snow-spotted heath and +desolation, brings tears into his eyes.* + +----------- +*Lockhart's _Life of Scott_ +----------- + +O unwise mortals that forever change and shift, and say, Yonder, +not Here! Wealth richer than both the Indies lies everywhere for +man, if he will endure. Not his oaks only and his fruit-trees, +his very heart roots itself wherever he will abide;--roots +itself, draws nourishment from the deep fountains of Universal +Being! Vagrant Sam-Slicks, who rove over the Earth doing +'strokes of trade,' what wealth have they? Horseloads, shiploads +of white or yellow metal: in very sooth, what are these? Slick +rests nowhere, he is homeless. He can build stone or marble +houses; but to continue in them is denied him. The wealth of a +man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, which he +is loved and blessed by! The herdsman in his poor clay shealing, +where his very cow and dog are friends to him, and not a cataract +but carries memories for him, and not a mountain-top but nods old +recognition: his life, all encircled as in blessed mother's- +arms, is it poorer than Slick's with the ass-loads of yellow +metal on his back? Unhappy Slick! Alas, there has so much grown +nomadic, apelike, with us: so much will have, with whatever +pain, repugnance and 'impossibility,' to alter itself, to fix +itself again,--in some wise way, in any not delirious way! + + +A question arises here: Whether, in some ulterior, perhaps some +not far-distant stage of this 'Chivalry of Labour,' your Master- +Worker may not find it possible, and needful, to grant his +Workers permanent _interest_ in his enterprise and theirs? So +that it become, in practical result, what in essential fact and +justice it ever is, a joint enterprise; all men, from the Chief +Master down to the lowest Overseer and Operative, economically as +well as loyally concerned for it?--Which question I do not +answer. The answer, near or else far, is perhaps, Yes;--and yet +one knows the difficulties. Despotism is essential in most +enterprises; I am told, they do not tolerate 'freedom of debate' +on board a Seventy-four! Republican senate and _plebiscita_ +would not answer well in Cotton-Mills. And yet observe there +too: Freedom, not nomad's or ape's Freedom, but man's Freedom; +this is indispensable. We must have it, and will have it! To +reconcile Despotism with Freedom:--well, is that such a mystery? +Do you not already know the way? It is to make your Despotism +_just._ Rigorous as Destiny; but just too, as Destiny and its +Laws. The Laws of God: all men obey these, and have no +'Freedom' at all but in obeying them. The way is already known, +part of the way;--and courage and some qualities are needed for +walking on it! + + + + +Chapter VI + +The Landed + + +A man with fifty, with five hundred, with a thousand pounds a +day, given him freely, without condition at all,--on condition, +as it now runs, that he will sit with his hands in his pockets +and do no mischief, pass no Corn-Laws or the like,--he too, you +would say, is or might be a rather strong Worker! He is a Worker +with such tools as no man in this world ever before had. But in +practice, very astonishing, very ominous to look at, he proves +not a strong Worker;--you are too happy if he will prove but a +No-worker, do nothing, and not be a Wrong-worker. + +You ask him, at the year's end: "Where is your three-hundred +thousand pound; what have you realised to us with that?" He +answers, in indignant surprise: "Done with it? Who are you that +ask? I have eaten it; I and my flunkeys, and parasites, and +slaves two-footed and four-footed, in an ornamental manner; and +I am here alive by it; _I_ am realised by it to you!"--It is, as +we have often said, such an answer as was never before given +under this Sun. An answer that fills me with boding +apprehension, with foreshadows of despair. O stolid Use-and-wont +of an atheistic Half-century, O Ignavia, Tailor-godhood, soul- +killing Cant, to what passes art thou bringing us!--Out of the +loud-piping whirlwind, audibly to him that has ears, the Highest +God is again announcing in these days: "Idleness shall not be." +God has said it, man cannot gainsay. + +Ah, how happy were it, if he this Aristocrat Worker would, in +like manner, see _his_ work and do it! It is frightful seeking +another to do it for him. Guillotines, Meudon Tanneries, and +half-a-million men shot dead, have already been expended in that +business; and it is yet far from done. This man too is +something; nay he is a great thing. Look on him there: a man +of manful aspect; something of the 'cheerfulness of pride' still +lingering in him. A free air of graceful stoicism, of easy +silent dignity sits well on him; in his heart, could we reach +it, lie elements of generosity, self-sacrificing justice, true +human valour. Why should he, with such appliances, stand an +incumbrance in the Present; perish disastrously out of the +Future! From no section of the Future would we lose these noble +courtesies, impalpable yet all-controlling; these dignified +reticences, these kingly simplicities;--lose aught of what the +fruitful Past still gives us token of, memento of, in this man. +Can we not save him:--can he not help us to save him! A brave +man he too; had not undivine Ignavia, Hearsay, Speech without +meaning,--had not Cant, thousandfold Cant within him and around +him, enveloping him like choke-damp, like thick Egyptian +darkness, thrown his soul into asphyxia, as it were extinguished +his soul; so that he sees not, hears not, and Moses and all the +Prophets address him in vain. + +Will he awaken, be alive again, and have a soul; or is this +death-fit very death? It is a question of questions, for himself +and for us all! Alas, is there no noble work for this man too? +Has he not thick-headed ignorant boors; lazy, enslaved farmers; +weedy lands? Lands! Has he not weary heavy-laden ploughers of +land; immortal souls of men, ploughing, ditching, day-drudging; +bare of back, empty of stomach, nigh desperate of heart; and +none peaceably to help them but he, under Heaven? Does he find, +with his three hundred thousand pounds, no noble thing trodden +down in the thoroughfares, which it were godlike to help up? Can +he do nothing for his Burns but make a Gauger of him; lionise +him, bedinner him, for a foolish while; then whistle him down +the wind, to desperation and bitter death?--His work too is +difficult, in these modern, far-dislocated ages. But it may be +done; it may be tried;--it must be done. + +A modern Duke of Weimar, not a god he either, but a human duke, +levied, as I reckon, in rents and taxes and all incomings +whatsoever, less than several of our English Dukes do in rent +alone. The Duke of Weimar, with these incomings, had to govern, +judge, defend, every way administer _his_ Dukedom. He does all +this as few others did: and he improves lands besides all this, +makes river-embankments, maintains not soldiers only but +Universities and Institutions;--and in his Court were these four +men: Wieland, Herder, Schiller, Goethe. Not as parasites, which +was impossible; not as table-wits and poetic Katerfeltoes; but +as noble Spiritual Men working under a noble Practical Man. +Shielded by him from many miseries; perhaps from many +shortcomings, destructive aberrations. Heaven had sent, once +more, heavenly Light into the world; and this man's honour was +that he gave it welcome. A new noble kind of Clergy, under an +old but still noble kind of King! I reckon that this one Duke of +Weimar did more for the Culture of his Nation than all the +English Dukes and _Duces_ now extant, or that were extant since +Henry the Eighth gave them the Church Lands to eat, have done for +theirs!--I am ashamed, I am alarmed for my English Dukes: what +word have I to say? + +_If_ our Actual Aristocracy, appointed 'Best-and-Bravest,' will +be wise, how inexpressibly happy for us! If not,--the voice of +God from the whirlwind is very audible to me. Nay, I will thank +the Great God, that He has said, in whatever fearful ways, and +just wrath against us, "Idleness shall be no more!" Idleness? +The awakened soul of man, all but the asphyxied soul of man, +turns from it as from worse than death. It is the life-in-death +of Poet Coleridge. That fable of the Dead-Sea Apes ceases to be +a fable. The poor Worker starved to death is not the saddest of +sights. He lies there, dead on his shield; fallen down into the +bosom of his old Mother; with haggard pale face, sorrow-worn, +but stilled now into divine peace, silently appeals to the +Eternal God and all the Universe,--the most silent, the most +eloquent of men. + +Exceptions,--ah yes, thank Heaven, we know there are exceptions. +Our case were too hard, were there not exceptions, and partial +exceptions not a few, whom we know, and whom we do not know. +Honour to the name of Ashley,--honour to this and the other +valiant Abdiel, found faithful still; who would fain, by work +and by word, admonish their Order not to rush upon destruction! +These are they who will, if not save their Order, postpone the +wreck of it;--by whom, under blessing of the Upper Powers, 'a +quiet euthanasia spread over generations, instead of a swift +torture-death concentred into years,' may be brought about for +many things. All honour and success to these. The noble man can +still strive nobly to save and serve his Order;--at lowest, he +can remember the precept of the Prophet: "Come out of her, my +people; come out of her!" + + +To sit idle aloft, like living statues, like absurd Epicurus'- +gods, in pampered isolation, in exclusion from the glorious +fateful battlefield of this God's-World: it is a poor life for a +man, when all Upholsterers and French-Cooks have done their +utmost for it!--Nay, what a shallow delusion is this we have all +got into. That any man should or can keep himself apart from +men, have 'no business' with them, except a cash-account +business!' It is the silliest tale a distressed generation of +men ever took to telling one another. Men cannot live isolated: +we _are_ all bound together, for mutual good or else for mutual +misery, as living nerves in the same body. No highest man can +disunite himself from any lowest. Consider it. Your poor +'Werter blowing out his distracted existence because Charlotte +will not have the keeping thereof:' this is no peculiar phasis; +it is simply the highest expression of a phasis traceable +wherever one human creature meets another! Let the meanest +crookbacked Thersites teach the supremest Agamemnon that he +actually does not reverence him, the supremest Agamemnon's eyes +flash fire responsive; a real pain, and partial insanity, has +seized Agamemnon. Strange enough: a many-counselled Ulysses is +set in motion by a scoundrel-blockhead; plays tunes, like a +barrel-organ, at the scoundrel-blockhead's touch,--has to snatch, +namely, his sceptre cudgel, and weal the crooked back with bumps +and thumps! Let a chief of men reflect well on it. Not in +having 'no business' with men, but in having no unjust business +with them, and in _having_ all manner of true and just business, +can either his or their blessedness be found possible, and this +waste world become, for both parties, a home and peopled garden. + +Men do reverence men. Men do worship in that 'one temple of the +world,' as Novalis calls it, the Presence of a Man! Hero- +worship, true and blessed, or else mistaken, false and accursed, +goes on everywhere and everywhen. In this world there is one +godlike thing, the essence of all that was or ever will be of +godlike in this world: the veneration done to Human Worth by the +hearts of men. Hero-worship, in the souls of the heroic, of the +clear and wise,--it is the perpetual presence of Heaven in our +poor Earth: when it is not there, Heaven is veiled from us; and +all is under Heaven's ban and interdict, and there is no worship, +or worthship, or worth or blessedness in the Earth any more!-- + + +Independence, 'lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye'--alas, yes, +he is a lord we have got acquainted with in these late times: a +very indispensable lord, for spurning off with due energy +innumerable sham-superiors, Tailor-made: honour to him, entire +success to him! Entire success is sure to him. But he must not +stop there, at that small success, with his eagle-eye. He has +now a second far greater success to gain: to seek out his real +superiors, whom not the Tailor but the Almighty God has made +superior to him, and see a little what he will do with these! +Rebel against these also? Pass by with minatory eagle-glance, +with calm-sniffing mockery, or even without any mockery or sniff, +when these present themselves? The lion-hearted will never dream +of such a thing. Forever far be it from him! His minatory +eagle-glance will veil itself in softness of the dove: his lion- +heart will become a lamb's; all is just indignation changed into +just reverence, dissolved in blessed floods of noble humble love, +how much heavenlier than any pride, nay, if you will, how much +prouder! I know him, this lion-hearted, eagle-eyed one; have +met him, rushing on, 'with bosom bare,' in a very distracted +dishevelled manner, the times being hard;--and can say, and +guarantee on my life, That in him is no rebellion; that in him +is the reverse of rebellion, the needful preparation for +obedience. For if you do mean to obey God-made superiors, your +first step is to sweep out the Tailormade ones; order them, +under penalties, to vanish, to make ready for vanishing! + +Nay, what is best of all, he cannot rebel, if he would. +Superiors whom God has made for us we cannot order to withdraw! +Not in the least. No Grand-Turk himself, thickest-quilted +tailor-made Brother of the Sun and Moon can do it: but an Arab +Man, in cloak of his own clouting; with black beaming eyes, with +flaming sovereign-heart direct from the centre of the Universe; +and also, I am told, with terrible 'horse-shoe vein' of swelling +wrath in his brow, and lightning (if you will not have it as +light) tingling through every vein of him,--he rises; says +authoritatively: "Thickest-quilted Grand-Turk, tailor-made +Brother of the Sun and Moon, No:--_I_ withdraw not; thou shalt +obey me or withdraw!" And so accordingly it is: thickest- +quilted Grand-Turks and all their progeny, to this hour, +obey that man in the remarkablest manner; preferring _not_ +to withdraw. + +O brother, it is an endless consolation to me, in this +disorganic, as yet so quack-ridden, what you may well call hag- +ridden and hell-ridden world, to find that disobedience to the +Heavens, when they send any messenger whatever, is and remains +impossible. It cannot be done; no Turk grand or small can do +it. 'Skew the dullest clodpole,' says my invaluable German +friend, 'shew the haughtiest featherhead, that a soul higher than +himself is here; were his knees stiffened into brass, he must +down and worship. + + + + +Chapter VII + +The Gifted + + +Yes, in what tumultuous huge anarchy soever a Noble human +Principle may dwell and strive, such tumult is in the way of +being calmed into a fruitful sovereignty. It is inevitable. No +Chaos can continue chaotic with a soul in it. Besouled with +earnest human Nobleness, did not slaughter, violence and fire- +eyed fury, grow into a Chivalry; into a blessed Loyalty of +Governor and Governed? And in Work, which is of itself noble, +and the only true fighting, there shall be no such possibility? +Believe it not; it is incredible; the whole Universe +contradicts it. Here too the Chactaw Principle will be +subordinated; the Man Principle will, by degrees, become +superior, become supreme. + +I know Mammon too; Banks-of-England, Credit-Systems, worldwide +possibilities of work and traffic; and applaud and admire them. +Mammon is like Fire; the usefulest of all servants, if the +frightfulest of all masters! The Cliffords, Fitzadelms and +Chivalry Fighters 'wished to gain victory,' never doubt it: but +victory, unless gained in a certain spirit, was no victory; +defeat, sustained in a certain spirit, was itself victory. I say +again and again, had they counted the scalps alone, they had +continued Chactaws, and no Chivalry or lasting victory had been. +And in Industrial Fighters and Captains is there no nobleness +discoverable? To them, alone of men, there shall forever be no +blessedness but in swollen coffers? To see beauty, order, +gratitude, loyal human hearts around them, shall be of no moment; +to see fuliginous deformity, mutiny, hatred and despair, with the +addition of half a million guineas, shall be better? Heaven's +blessedness not there; Hell's cursedness, and your half-million +bits of metal, a substitute for that! Is there no profit in +diffusing Heaven's blessedness, but only in gaining gold?--If so, +I apprise the Mill-owner and Millionaire, that he too must +prepare for vanishing; that neither is _he_ born to be of the +sovereigns of this world; that he will have to be trampled and +chained down in whatever terrible ways, and brass-collared safe, +among the born thralls of this worrd! We cannot have _Canailles_ +and Doggeries that will not make some Chivalry of themselves: +our noble Planet is impatient of such; in the end, totally +intolerant of such! + +For the Heavens, unwearying in their bounty, do send other souls +into this world, to whom yet, as to their forerunners, in Old +Roman, in Old Hebrew and all noble times, the omnipotent guinea +is, on the whole, an impotent guinea. Has your half-dead +avaricious Corn-Law Lord, your half-alive avaricious Cotton-Law +Lord, never seen one such? Such are, not one, but several; are, +and will be, unless the gods have doomed this world to swift dire +ruin. These are they, the elect of the world; the born +champions, strong men, and liberatory Samsons of this poor world: +whom the poor Delilah-world will not always shear of their +strength and eyesight, and set to grind in darkness at _its_ poor +gin-wheel! Such souls are, in these days, getting somewhat out +of humour with the world. Your very Byron, in these days, is at +least driven mad; flatly refuses fealty to the world. The world +with its injustices, its golden brutalities, and dull yellow +guineas, is a disgust to such souls: the ray of Heaven that is +in them does at least pre-doom them to be very miserable here. +Yes:--and yet all misery is faculty misdirected, strength that +has not yet found its way. The black whirlwind is mother of the +lightning. No _smoke,_ in any sense, but can become flame and +radiance! Such soul, once graduated in Heaven's stern +University, steps out superior to your guinea. + +Dost thou know, O sumptuous Corn-Lord, Cotton-Lord, O mutinous +Trades-Unionist, gin-vanquished, undeliverable; O much-enslaved +World,--this man is not a slave with thee! None of thy +promotions is necessary for him. His place is with the stars of +Heaven: to thee it may be momentous, to him it is indifferent, +whether thou place him in the lowest hut, or forty feet higher at +the top of thy stupendous high tower, while here on Earth. The +joys of Earth that are precious, they depend not on thee and thy +promotions. Food and raiment, and, round a social hearth, souls +who love him, whom he loves: these are already his. He wants +none of thy rewards; behold also, he fears none of thy +penalties. Thou canst not answer even by killing him: the case +of Anaxarchus thou canst kill; but the self of Anaxarchus, the +word or act of Anaxarchus, in no wise whatever. To this man +death is not a bugbear; to this man life is already as earnest +and awful, and beautiful and terrible, as death. + +Not a May-game is this man's life; but a battle and a march, a +warfare with principalities and powers. No idle promenade +through fragrant orange-groves and green flowery spaces, waited +on by the choral Muses and the rosy Hours: it is a stern +pilgrimage through burning sandy solitudes, through regions of +thick-ribbed ice. He walks among men; loves men, with +inexpressible soft pity,--as they _cannot_ love him: but his +soul dwells in solitude, in the uttermost parts of Creation. In +green oases by the palm-tree wells, he rests a space; but anon +he has to journey forward, escorted by the Terrors and the +Splendours, the Archdemons and Archangels. All Heaven, all +Pandemonium are his escort. The stars keen-glancing, from the +Immensities, send tidings to him; the graves, silent with their +dead, from the Eternities. Deep calls for him unto Deep. + +Thou, O World, how wilt thou secure thyself against this man? +Thou canst not hire him by thy guineas; nor by thy gibbets and +law-penalties restrain him. He eludes thee like a Spirit. Thou +canst not forward him, thou canst not hinder him. Thy penalties, +thy poverties, neglects, contumelies: behold, all these are good +for him. Come to him as an enemy; turn from him as an unfriend; +only do not this one thing,--infect him not with thy own +delusion: the benign Genius, were it by very death, shall guard +him against this!--What wilt thou do with him? He is above thee, +like a god. Thou, in thy stupendous three-inch pattens, art +under him. He is thy born king, thy conqueror and supreme +lawgiver: not all the guineas and cannons, and leather and +prunella, under the sky can save thee from him. Hardest +thickskinned Mammon-world, ruggedest Caliban shall obey him, or +become not Caliban but a cramp. Oh, if in this man, whose eyes +can flash Heaven's lightning, and make all Calibans into a cramp, +there dwelt not, as the essence of his very being, a God's +justice, human Nobleness, Veracity and Mercy,--I should tremble +for the world. But his strength, let us rejoice to understand, +is even this: The quantity of Justice, of Valour and Pity that +is in him. To hypocrites and tailored quacks in high places, his +eyes are lightning; but they melt in dewy pity softer than a +mother's to the downpressed, maltreated; in his heart, in his +great thought, is a sanctuary for all the wretched. This world's +improvement is forever sure. + +'Man of Genius?' Thou hast small notion, meseems, O Mecaenas +Twiddledee, of what a Man of Genius is! Read in thy New +Testament and elsewhere,--if, with floods of mealymouthed +inanity, with miserable froth-vortices of Cant now several +centuries old, thy New Testament is not all bedimmed for thee. +_Canst_ thou read in thy New Testament at all? The Highest Man +of Genius, knowest thou him; Godlike and a God to this hour? +His crown a Crown of Thorns? Thou fool, with _thy_ empty +Godhoods, Apotheoses _edgegilt;_ the Crown of Thorns made into a +poor jewel-room crown, fit for the head of blockheads; the +bearing of the Cross changed to a riding in the Long-Acre Gig! +Pause in thy mass-chantings, in thy litanyings, and Calmuck +prayings by machinery; and pray, if noisily, at least in a +more human manner. How with thy rubrics and dalmatics, and +clothwebs and cobwebs, and with thy stupidities and grovelling +baseheartedness, hast thou hidden the Holiest into all +but invisibility!-- + +'Man of Genius:' O Mecaenas Twiddledee, hast thou any notion +what a Man of Genius is? Genius is 'the inspired gift of God.' +It is the clearer presence of God Most High in a man. Dim, +potential in all men; in this man it has become clear, actual. +So says John Milton, who ought to be a judge; so answer him the +Voices of all Ages and all Worlds. Wouldst thou commune with +such a one,--_be_ his real peer then: does that lie in thee? +Know thyself and thy real and thy apparent place, and know him +and his real and his apparent place, and act in some noble +conformity therewith. What! The star-fire of the Empyrean shall +eclipse itself, and illuminate magic-lanterns to amuse grown +children? He, the god-inspired, is to twang harps for thee, and +blow through scrannel-pipes; soothe thy sated soul with visions +of new, still wider Eldorados, Houri Paradises, richer Lands of +Cockaigne? Brother, this is not he; this is a counterfeit, this +twangling, jangling, vain, acrid, scrannel-piping man. Thou dost +well to say with sick Saul, "It is naught, such harping!"--and in +sudden rage grasp thy spear, and try if thou canst pin such a one +to the wall. King Saul was mistaken in his man, but thou art +right in thine. It is the due of such a one: nail him to the +wall, and leave him there. So ought copper shillings to be +nailed on counters; copper geniuses on walls, and left there for +a sign!-- + +I conclude that the Men of Letters too may become a 'Chivalry,' +an actual instead of a virtual Priesthood, with result +immeasurable,--so soon as there is nobleness in themselves for +that. And, to a certainty, not sooner! Of intrinsic Valetisms +you cannot, with whole Parliaments to help you, make a Heroism. +Doggeries never so gold-plated, Doggeries never so escutcheoned, +Doggeries never so diplomaed, bepuffed, gas-lighted, continue +Doggeries, and must take the fate of such. + + + + +Chapter VIII + +The Didactic + + +Certainly it were a fond imagination to expect that any preaching +of mine could abate Mammonism; that Bobus of Houndsditch will +love his guineas less, or his poor soul more, for any preaching +of mine! But there is one Preacher who does preach with effect, +and gradually persuade all persons: his name is Destiny, is +Divine Providence, and his Sermon the inflexible Course of +Things. Experience does take dreadfully high school-wages; but +he teaches like no other! + +I revert to Friend Prudence the good Quaker's refusal of 'seven +thousand pounds to boot.' Friend Prudence's practical conclusion +will, by degrees, become that of all rational practical men +whatsover. On the present scheme and principle, Work cannot +continue. Trades' Strikes, Trades' Unions, Chartisms; mutiny, +squalor, rage and desperate revolt, growing ever more desperate, +will go on their way. As dark misery settles down on us, and our +refuges of lies fall in pieces one after one, the hearts of men, +now at last serious, will turn to refuges of truth. The eternal +stars shine out again, so soon as it is dark _enough._ + +Begirt with desperate Trades' Unionism and Anarchic Mutiny, many +an Industrial _Law-ward,_ by and by, who has neglected to make +laws and keep them, will be heard saying to himself: "Why have I +realised five hundred thousand pounds? I rose early and sat +late, I toiled and moiled, and in the sweat of my brow and of my +soul I strove to gain this money, that I might become +conspicuous, and have some honour among my fellow-creatures. I +wanted them to honour me, to love me. The money is here, earned +with my best lifeblood: but the honour? I am encircled with +squalor, with hunger, rage, and sooty desperation. Not honoured, +hardly even envied; only fools and the flunkey-species so much +as envy me. I am conspicuous,--as a mark for curses and +brickbats. What good is it? My five hundred scalps hang here in +my wigwam: would to Heaven I had sought something else than the +scalps; would to Heaven I had been a Christian Fighter, not a +Chactaw one! To have ruled and fought not in a Mammonish but in +a Godlike spirit; to have had the hearts of the people bless me, +as a true ruler and captain of my people; to have felt my own +heart bless me, and that God above instead of Mammon below was +blessing me,--this had been something. Out of my sight, ye +beggarly five hundred scalps of banker's-thousands: I will try +for something other, or account my life a tragical futility!" + +Friend Prudence's 'rock-ledge,' as we called it, will gradually +disclose itself to many a man; to all men. Gradually, assaulted +from beneath and from above, the Stygian mud-deluge of Laissez- +faire, Supply-and-demand, Cash-payment the one Duty, will abate +on all hands; and the everlasting mountain-tops, and secure +rock-foundations that reach to the centre of the world, and rest +on Nature's self, will again emerge, to found on, and to build +on. When Mammon-worshippers here and there begin to be God- +worshippers, and bipeds-of-prey become men, and there is a Soul +felt once more in the huge-pulsing elephantine mechanic Animalism +of this Earth, it will be again a blessed Earth. + +"Men cease to regard money?" cries Bobus of Houndsditch: "What +else do all men strive for? The very Bishop informs me that +Christianity cannot get on without a minimum of Four thousand +five hundred in its pocket. Cease to regard money? That will be +at Doomsday in the afternoon!"--O Bobus, my opinion is somewhat +different. My opinion is, that the Upper Powers have not yet +determined on destroying this Lower World. A respectable, ever- +increasing minority, who do strive for something higher than +money, I with confidence anticipate; ever-increasing, till there +be a sprinkling of them found in all quarters, as salt of the +Earth' once more. The Christianity that cannot get on without a +minimum of Four thousand five hundred, will give place to +something better that can. Thou wilt not join our small +minority, thou? Not till Doomsday in the afternoon? Well; +_then,_ at least, thou wilt join it, thou and the majority +in mass! + +But truly it is beautiful to see the brutish empire of Mammon +cracking everywhere; giving sure promise of dying, or of being +changed. A strange, chill, almost ghastly dayspring strikes up +in Yankeeland itself: my Transcendental friends announce there, +in a distinct, though somewhat lankhaired, ungainly manner, that +the Demiurgus Dollar is dethroned; that new unheard-of +Demiurgusships, Priesthoods, Aristocracies, Growths and +Destructions, are already visible in the grey of coming Time. +Chronos is dethroned by Jove; Odin by St. Olaf: the Dollar +cannot rule in Heaven forever. No; I reckon, not. Socinian +Preachers quit their pulpits in Yankeeland, saying, "Friends, +this is all gone to a coloured cobweb, we regret to say!"--and +retire into the fields to cultivate onion-beds, and live frugally +on vegetables. It is very notable. Old godlike Calvinism +declares that its old body is now fallen to tatters, and done; +and its mournful ghost, disembodied, seeking new embodiment, +pipes again in the winds;--a ghost and spirit as yet, but +heralding new Spirit-worlds, and better Dynasties than the +Dollar one. + +Yes, here as there, light is coming into the world; men love not +darkness, they do love light. A deep feeling of the eternal +nature of justice looks out among us everywhere,--even through +the dull eyes of Exeter Hall; an unspeakable religiousness +struggles, in the most helpless manner, to speak itself, in +Puseyisms and the like. Of our Cant, all condemnable, how much +is not condemnable without pity; we had almost said, without +respect! The inarticulate worth and truth that is in England +goes down yet to the Foundations. + +Some 'Chivalry of Labour,' some noble Humanity and practical +Divineness of Labour, will yet be realised on this Earth. Or why +_will;_ why do we pray to Heaven, without setting our own +shoulder to the wheel? The Present, if it will have the Future +accomplish, shall itself commence. Thou who prophesiest, who +believest, begin thou to fulfil. Here or nowhere, now equally as +at any time! That outcast help-needing thing or person, trampled +down under vulgar feet or hoofs, no help 'possible' for it, no +prize offered for the saving of it,--canst not thou save it, +then, without prize? Put forth thy hand, in God's name; know +that 'impossible,' where Truth and Mercy and the everlasting +Voice of Nature order, has no place in the brave man's +dictionary. That when all men have said "Impossible," and +tumbled noisily elsewhither, and thou alone art left, then first +thy time and possibility have come. It is for thee now: do thou +that, and ask no man's counsel, but thy own only and God's. +Brother, thou hast possibility in thee for much: the possibility +of writing on the eternal skies the record of a heroic life. +That noble downfallen or yet unborn 'Impossibility,' thou canst +lift it up, thou canst, by thy soul's travail, bring it into +clear being. That loud inane Actuality, with millions in its +pocket, too 'possible' that, which rolls along there, with +quilted trumpeters blaring round it, and all the world escorting +it as mute or vocal flunkey,--escort it not thou; say to it, +either nothing, or else deeply in thy heart: "Loud-blaring +Nonentity, no force of trumpets, cash, Long-Acre art, or +universal flunkeyhood of men, makes thee an Entity; thou art a +_Non_entity, and deceptive Simulacrum, more accursed than thou +seemest. Pass on in the Devil's name, unworshipped by at least +one man, and leave the thoroughfare clear!" + +Not on Ilion's or Latium's plains; on far other plains and +places henceforth can noble deeds be now done. Not on Ilion's +plains; how much less in Mayfair's drawingrooms! Not in victory +over poor brother French or Phrygians; but in victory over +Frost-jotuns, Marsh-giants, over demons of Discord, Idleness, +Injustice, Unreason, and Chaos come again. None of the old Epics +is longer possible. The Epic of French and Phrygians was +comparatively a small Epic: but that of Flirts and Fribbles, +what is that? A thing that vanishes at cock-crowing,--that +already begins to scent the morning air! Game-preserving +Aristocracies, let them 'bush' never so effectually, cannot +escape the Subtle Fowler. Game seasons will be excellent, and +again will be indifferent, and by and by they will not be at all. +The Last Partridge of England, of an England where millions of +men can get no corn to eat, will be shot and ended. +Aristocracies with beards on their chins will find other work to +do than amuse themselves with trundling-hoops. + +But it is to you, ye Workers, who do already work, and are as +grown men, noble and honourable in a sort, that the whole world +calls for new work and nobleness. Subdue mutiny, discord, +widespread despair, by manfulness, justice, mercy and wisdom. +Chaos is dark, deep as Hell; let light be, and there is instead +a green flowery World. O, it is great, and there is no other +greatness. To make some nook of God's Creation a little +fruitfuler, better, more worthy of God; to make some human +hearts a little wiser, manfuler, happier,--more blessed, less +accursed! It is work for a God. Sooty Hell of mutiny and +savagery and despair can, by man's energy, be made a kind of +Heaven; cleared of its soot, of its mutiny, of its need to +mutiny; the everlasting arch of Heaven's azure overspanning _it_ +too, and its cunning mechanisms and tall chimney-steeples, as a +birth of Heaven; God and all men looking on it well pleased. + +Unstained by wasteful deformities, by wasted tears or heart's- +blood of men, or any defacement of the Pit, noble fruitful +Labour, growing ever nobler, will come forth,--the grand sole +miracle of Man; whereby Man has risen from the low places of +this Earth, very literally, into divine Heavens. Ploughers, +Spinners, Builders; Prophets, Poets, Kings; Brindleys and +Goethes, Odins and Arkwrights; all martyrs, and noble men, and +gods are of one grand Host: immeasurable; marching ever forward +since the Beginnings of the World. The enormous, all-conquering, +flame-crowned Host, noble every soldier in it; sacred, and alone +noble. Let him who is not of it hide himself; let him tremble +for himself. Stars at every button cannot make him noble; +sheaves of Bath-garters, nor bushels of Georges; nor any other +contrivance but manfully enlisting in it, valiantly taking place +and step in it. O Heavens, will he not bethink himself; he too +is so needed in the Host! It were so blessed, thrice-blessed, +for himself and for us all! In hope of the Last Partridge, and +some Duke of Weimar among our English Dukes, we will be patient +yet a while. + + The Future hides in it + Gladness and sorrow; + We press still thorow, + Nought that abides in it + Daunting us,--onward. + + +THE END + +------------------- + + +Summary + + +Book I--Proem + +Chap. I _Midas_ + +The condition of England one of the most ominous ever seen in +this world: Full of wealth in every kind, yet dying of +inanition; Workhouses, in which no work cane be done. +Destitution in Scotland. Stockport Assizes. England's +unprofitable success: Human faces glooming discordantly on one +another. Midas longed for gold, and the gods gave it him. + + +Chap. II. _The Sphinx_ + +The grand unnamable Sphinx-riddle, which each man is called upon +to solve. Notions of the foolish concerning justice and +judgment. Courts of Westminster, and the general High Court of +the Universe. The one strong thing, the just thing, the true +thing. A noble Conservatism, as well as an ignoble. In all +battles of men each fighter, in the end, prospers according to +his right: Wallace of Scotland. Fact and Semblance. What is +justice? As many men as there are in a Nation who can _see_ +Heaven's justice, so many are there who stand between it +and perdition. + + +Chap. III. _Manchester Insurrection_ + +Peterloo not an unsuccessful Insurrection. Governors who wait +for Insurrection to instruct them, getting into the fatalest +courses. Unspeakable County Yeomanry. Poor Manchester +operatives, and their huge inarticulate question: Unhappy +Workers, unhappier idlers, of this actual England! Fair day's- +wages for fair day's-work: Milton's 'wages;' Cromwell's. Pay +to each man what he has earned and done and deserved; what more +have we to ask? Some not _in_supportable approximation +indispensable and inevitable. + + +Chap. IV. _Morrison's Pill_ + +A state of mind worth reflecting on. No Morrison's Pill for +curing the maladies of Society: Universal alteration of regimen +and way of life: Vain jargon giving place to some genuine Speech +again. If we walk according to the Law of this Universe, the +Law-Maker will befriend us; if not, not. Quacks, sham heroes, +the one bane of the world. Quack and Dupe, upper side and under +of the selfsame substance. + + +Chap. V. _Aristocracy of Talent_ + +All misery the fruit of unwisdom: Neither with individuals nor +with Nations is it fundamentally otherwise. Nature in late +centuries universally supposed to be dead; but now everywhere +asserting herself to be alive and miraculous. That guidance of +this country not sufficiently wise. Aristocracy of talent, or +government by the Wisest, a dreadfully difficult affair to get +started. The true _eye_ for talent; and the flunky eye for +respectabilities, warm garnitures and +larders dropping fatness: Bobus and Bobissimus. + + +Chap. VI. _Hero-worship_ + +Enlightened Egoism, never so luminous, not the rule by which +man's life can be led: A _soul,_ different from a stomach in any +sense of the word. Hero-worship done differently in every +different epoch of the world. Reform, like Charity, must begin +at home. Arrestment of the knaves and dastards, beginning by +arresting our own poor selves out of that fraternity. The +present Editor's purpose to himself full of hope. A Loadstar +in the eternal sky: glimmering of light, for here and there +a human soul. + + +Book II--The Ancient Monk + + +Chap. I. _Jocelin of Brakelond_ + +How the Centuries stand lineally related to each other. The one +Book not permissible, the kind that has nothing in it. Jocelin's +'Chronicle,' a private Boswellean Note-book, now seven centuries +old. How Jocelin, from under his monk's cowl, looked out on that +narrow section of the world in a really _human_ manner: A wise +simplicity in him; a _veracity_ that goes deeper than words. +Jocelin's Monk-Latin; and Mr. Rokewood's editorial helpfulness +and fidelity. A veritable Monk of old Bury St. Edmunds worth +attending to. This England of ours, of the year 1200: Coeur-de- +Lion: King Lackland, and his thirteenpenny mass. The poorest +historical Fact, and the grandest imaginative Fiction. + + +Chap. II. _St. Edmundsbury_ + +St. Edmund's Bury, a prosperous brisk Town: Extensive ruins of +the Abbey still visible. Assiduous Pedantry, and its rubbish- +heaps called 'History.' Another world it was, when those black +ruins first saw the sun as walls. At lowest, O dilettante +friend, let us know always that it _was_ a world. No easy matter +to get across the chasm of Seven Centuries: Of all helps; a +Boswell, even a small Boswell, the welcomest. + + +Chap. III. _Landlord Edmund_ + +'Battle of Fornham,' a fact, though a forgotten one. Edmund, +Landlord of the Eastern Counties: A very singular kind of +'landlord.' How he came to be 'sainted.' Seen and felt to have +done verily a man's part in this life pilgrimage of his. How +they took up the slain body of their Edmund, and reverently +embalmed it. Pious munificence, ever growing by new pious gifts. +Certain Times do crystallise themselves in a magnificent manner; +others in a rather shabby one. + + +Chap. IV. _Abbot Hugo_ + +All things have two faces, a light one and dark: The Ideal has +to grow in the Real, and to seek its bed and board there, often +in a very sorry manner. Abbot Hugo, grown old and feeble. Jew +debts and Jew creditors. How approximate justice strives to +accomplish itself. In the old monastic Books almost no Mention +whatever of 'personal religion.' A poor Lord Abbot, all stuck- +over with horse-leeches: A 'royal commission of inquiry,' to no +purpose. A monk's first duty, obedience. Magister Samson, +Teacher of the Novices. The Abbot's providential death. + + +Chap. V. _Twelfth Century_ + +Inspectors of Custodiars; the King not in any breathless haste +to appoint a new Abbot. Dim and very strange looks that monk- +life to us. Our venerable ancient spinning grandmothers, +shrieking, and rushing out with their distaffs. Lakenheath eels +too slippery to be caught. How much is alive in England, in that +Twelfth Century; how much, not yet come into life. Feudal +Aristocracy; Willelmus conquaestor: Not a steeple-chimney yet +got on end from sea to sea. + + +Chap. VI. _Monk Samson_ + +Monk-Life and Monk-Religion: A great heaven-high +Unquestionability, encompassing, interpenetrating all human +Duties. Our modern Arkwright Joe-Manton ages: All human dues +and reciprocities, changed into one great due of 'cash-payment' +The old monks but a limited class of creatures, with a somewhat +dull life of it. One Monk of a taciturn nature distinguishes +himself among those babling ones. A Son of poor Norfolk parents. +Little Samson's awful dream: His poor Mother dedicates him to +St. Edmund. He grows to be a learned man, of devout grave +nature. Sent to Rome on business; and returns _too_ successful: +Method of traveling thither in those days. His tribulations at +home: Strange conditions under which Wisdom has sometimes to +struggle with folly. + + +Chap. VII. _The Canvassing_ + +A new Abbot to be elected. Even gossip, seven centuries off, has +significance. The Prior with Twelve Monks, to wait on his +Majesty at Waltham. An 'election' the on important social act: +Given the Man a People choose, the worth and worthlessness of the +People itself is given. + +Chap. VIII. _The Election_ + +Electoral methods and manipulations. Brother Samson ready +oftenest with some question, some suggestion that his wisdom in +it. The Thirteen off to Waltham, to choose their Abott: In the +solitude of the Convent, Destiny thus big and in her birthtime, +what gossiping, babbling, dreaming of dreams! King Henry II in +his high Presence-chamber. Samson chosen Abbot: the King's +royal acceptation. St. Edmundsbury Monks, without express ballot +box or other winnowing machine. In every nation and Community +there is at all times _a fittest,_ wisest, bravest, best. Human +Worth and human Worthlessness. + + +Chap. IX. _Abbot Samson_ + +The Lord Abbot's arrival at St. Edmundsbury: The self-same +Samson yesterday a poor mendicant, this day, finds himself a +_Dominus Abbas_ and mitred Peer of Parliament. Depth and +opulence of true social vitality in those old barbarous ages. +True Governors go about under all manner of disguises now as +then. Genius, Poet; what these words mean. George the Third, +head charioteer of England; and Robert Burns, gauger of ale in +Dumfries. How Abbot Samson found a Convert all in dilapidation. +His life-long harsh apprenticeship to governing, namely obeying. +First get your Man; all is got. Danger of blockheads. + + +Chap. X. _Government_ + +Beautiful, how the chrysalis governing-soul, shaking off its +dusty slough and prison, starts forth winged, a true royal soul! +One first labour, to institute a strenuous review and radical +reform of his economics. Wheresoever Disorder may stand or lie, +let it have a care; here is a man that has declared war with it. +In less than four years the Convent debts are all liquidated, and +the harpy Jews banished from St. Edmundsbury. New life springs +beneficent everywhere: Spiritual rubbish as little tolerated +as material. + + +Chap. XI. _The Abbot's Ways_ + +Reproaches, open and secret, of ingratitude, unsociability; +Except for 'fit men' in all kinds, hard to say for whom Abbot +Samson had much favour. Remembrance of benefits. An eloquent +man, but intent more on substance than on ornament. A just clear +heart the basis of all true talent. One of the justest of +judges; His invaluable 'talent of silence.' Kind of people he +liked worst. Hospitality and stocism. The country in those days +still dark with noble wood and umbrage; How the old trees +gradually died out, no man heeding it. Monachism itself, so rich +and fruitful once, now all rotted into _peat._ Devastations of +four-footed cattle and Henry-the-Eighths. + + +Chap. XII. _The Abbot's Troubles_ + +The troubles of Abbot Samson more than tongue can tell. Not the +spoil of victory, only the glorious toil of battle, can be theirs +who really govern. An insurrection of the Monks: Behave better, +ye remiss Monks, and thank Heaven for such an Abbot. Worn down +with incessant toil and tribulation: Gleams of hilarity too; +little snatches of encouragement granted even to a Governor. How +my Lord of Clare, coming to claim his _un_due 'debt,' gets a +Roland for his Oliver. A Life of Literature, noble and ignoble. + + +Chap. XIII. _In Parliament_ + +Confused days of Lackland's usurpation, while Coeur-de-Lion was +away: Our brave Abbot took helmet himself, excommunicating all +who should favour Lackland. Kind Richard a captive in Germany. +St. Edmund's Shrine not meddled with: A heavenly Awe +overshadowed and encompassed, as it still ought and must, all +earthly Business whatsoever. + + +Chap. XIV. _Henry of Essex_ + +How St. Edmund punished terribly, yet with mercy; A Naratice +significant of the time. Henry Earl of Essex, standard-bearer of +England: No right reverence for the Heavenly in Man. A traitor +or coward. Solemn Duel, by the King's appointment. An evil +Conscience doth make cowards of us all. + + +Chap. XV. _Practical-Devotional_ + +A Tournament proclaimed and held in the Abbot's domain, in spite +of him. Roystering young dogs brought to reason. The Abbot a +man that generally remains master at last: The importunate +Bishop of Ely outwitted. A man that dare abide King Richard's +anger, with justice on his side. Thou brave Richard, thou brave +Samson! The basis of Abbot Samson's life truly religion. His +zealous interest in the Crusades. The great antique heart, like +a child's in its simplicity, like a man's in its earnest +solemnity and depth. His comparative silence as to his religion +precisely the healthiest sign of him and it. Methodism, +dilettantism, Puseyism. + + +Chap. XVI. _St. Edmund_ + +Abbot Samson built many useful, many pious edifices: All +ruinous, incomplete things an eye-sorrow to him. Rebuilding the +great Altar: A glimpse of the glorious Martyr's very Body. What +a scene; how far vanished from us, in these unworshipping ages +of ours! The manner of men's Hero-worship, verily the innermost +fact of their existence, determining all the rest. On the whole, +who knows how to reverence the Body of man? Abbot Samson, at the +culminating point of his existence: Our real-phantasmagory of +St. Edmundsbury plunges into the bosom of the Twelfth Century +again, and all is over. + + +Chap. XVII. _The Beginnings_ + +Formulas the very skin and muscular tissue of a Man's Life: +Living Formulas and dead. Habit the deepest law of human nature. +A pathway through the pathless. Nationalities. Pulpy infancy, +kneaded, baked into any form you choose: The Man of business; +the hard-handed Labourer; the genus Dandy. No Mortal out of the +depths of Bedlam but lives by Formulas. The hosts and +generations of brave men Oblivion has swallowed: Their crumbled +dust, the soil our life-fruit grows on. Invention of Speech; +Forms of Worship; Methods of Justice. This English Land, here +and now, the summary of what was wise and noble, and accordant +with God's Truth, in all the generations of English Men. The +thing called 'Fame.' + + + +Book III.--The Modern Worker + + +Chap. I. _Phenomena_ + +How men have 'forgotten God;' taken the Fact of this Universe as +it is _not;_ God's Laws become a Greatest-happiness Principle, a +Parliamentary Expediency. Man has lost the _soul_ out of him, +and begins to find the want of it. The old Pope of Rome, with +his stuffed dummy to do the kneeling for him. Few men that +worship by the rotatory Calabash, do it in half so great, frank +or effectual a way. Our Aristocracy no longer able to _do_ its +work, and not in the least conscious that it has any work to do. +The Champion of England 'lifted into his saddle.' The hatter in +the Strand, mounting a huge lath-and-plaster Hat. Our noble +ancestors have fashioned for us, in how many thousand sense, a +'life-road;' and we their sons are madly, literally enough, +'consuming the way.' + + +Chap. II. _Gospel of Mammonism_ + +Heaven and Hell, often as the words are on our tongue, got to be +fabulous or semi-fabulous for most of us. The real 'Hell' of the +English. Cash-payment, _not_ the sole or even chief relation of +human beings. Practical Atheism, and its despicable fruits. One +of Dr. Alison's melancholy facts: A poor Irish widow, in the +Lanes of Endinburgh, _proving_ her sisterhood. Until we get a +human _soul_ within us, all things are _im_possible: Infatuated +geese, with feathers and without. + + +Chap. III. _Gospel of Dilettantism_ + +Mammonism at least works; but 'Go gracefully idle in Mayfair,' +what does or can that mean?--Impotent, insolent Donothingism in +Practice and Saynothingism in Speech. No man now speaks a plain +word: Insincere Speech the prime material of insincere Action. +Moslem parable of Moses and the Dwellers by the Dead sea: The +Universe _become_ a Humbug to the Apes that thought it one. + + +Chap. IV. _Happy_ + +All work noble; and every noble crown a crown of thorns. Man's +pitiful pretension to be what he calls "happy;" His Greatest- +Happiness Principle fast becoming a rather unhappy one. Byron's +large audience. A philosophical Doctor: A disconsolate Meat- +jack, gnarring and creaking with rust and work. The only +'happiness' a brave man ever troubled himself much about, the +happiness to get his work done. + + +Chap. V. _The English_ + +With all thy theoretic platitudes, what a depth of practical +sense in thee, great England! A dumb people, who can do great +acts, but not describe them. The noble Warhorse, and the Dog of +Knowledge: The freest utterances not by any means the best. The +done Work, much more than the spoken Word, an epitome of the man. +The Man of Practice, and the Man of Theory: Ineloquent Brindley. +The English, of all Nations the stupidest in speech, the wisest +in action: Sadness and seriousness: Unconsciously this great +Universe is great to them. The silent Romans. John Bull's +admirable insensibility to Logic. All great Peoples +conservative. Kind of Ready-Reckoner a Solecism in East-cheap. +Berserkir rage. Truth and Justice alone _capable_ of being +'conserved.' Bitter indignation engendered by the Corn-Laws in +every just English heart. + + +Chap. VI. _Two Centuries_ + +The 'Settlement' of the year 1660 one of the mournfulest that +ever took place in this land of ours. The true end of Government +to guide men in the way they should go: The true good of this +life, the portal of infinite good in the life to come. Oliver +Cromwell's body hung on the Tyburn gallows, the type of +Puritanism found futil, inexecutable, execrable. The +Spiritualism of England, for two godless centuries, utterly +forgettable: Her practical material Work alone memorable. +Bewildering obscurations and impediments: Valiant Sons of Toil +enchanted, by the million, in their Poor-Law Bastille. Giant +Labour yet to be King of this Earth. + + +Chap. VII. _Over-Production_ + +An idle Governing Class addressing its Workers with an indictment +of 'Over-production.' Duty of justly apportioning the Wages +of Work done. A game-preserving Aristocracy, guiltless of +producing or apportioning anything. Owning the soil of England. +The Working Aristocracy steeped in ignoble Mammonism: The Idle +Aristocracy, with its yellow parchments and pretentious futilities. + + +Chap. VIII. _Unworking Aristocracy_ + +Our Land the _Mother_ of us all: No true Aristocracy but must +possess the Land. Men talk of 'selling' Land: Whom it belongs +to. Our much-consuming Aristocracy: By the law of their +position bound to furnish guidance and governance. Man and +miserable Corn-Laws. The Working Aristocracy, and its terrible +New-Work: The Idle Aristocracy, and its horoscope of despair. A +High Class without duties to do, like a tree planted on +precipices. In a valiant suffering for others, not in a slothful +making others suffer for us, did nobleness ever lie. The pagan +Hercules; the Czar of Russia. Parchments, venerable and not +venerable. Benedict the Jew, and his usuries. No Chapter on the +Corn-Laws: The Corn-Laws too mad to have a Chapter. + + +Chap. IX. _Working Aristocracy_ + +Many things for the Working Aristocracy, in their exteme need, to +consider. A national Existence supposed to depend on 'selling +cheaper' than any other People. Let inventive men try to invent +a little how cotton at its present cheapness could be somewhat +justlier divided. Many 'imposibilities' will have to become +possible. Supply-and-demand: For what noble work was there ever +yet any audible 'demand' in that poor sense? + + +Chap. X. _Plugson of Undershot_ + +Man's Philosophies usually the 'supplement of his practice:' +Symptoms of social death. Cash-Payment: The Plugson Ledger, and +the Tablets of heaven's Chancery, discrepant exceedingly. All +human things do require to have an Ideal in them. How murderous +fighting became a 'glorious Chivalry.' Noble devout-hearted +Chevaliers. Ignoble Bucaniers and Chactaw Indians: Howel +Davies, Napoleon flung out, at last, to St. Helena; the latter +end of him sternly compensating for the beginning. The +indomitable Plugson, as yet a Bacanier and Chactaw. William +Conqueror and his Norman followers. Organisation of Labour: +Courage, there are yet many brave men in England! + + +Chap. XI. _Labour_ + +A perennial nobleness and even sacredness in Work. Significance +of the Potter's Wheel. Blessed is he who has found his Work; +let him ask no other blessedness. A brave Sir Christopher, and +his Paul's Cathedral: Every noble work at first 'impossible.' +Columbus royalest Sea-king of all: a depth of Silence, deeper +than the Sea; a silence unsoundable; known to God only. + + +Chap. XII. _Reward_ + +Work is worship: Labour, wide as the earth, has its summit in +Heaven. One monster there is in the world, the idle man. 'Fair +day's-wages for a fair day's-work,' the most unrefusable demand. +The 'wages' of every noble Work in Heaven, or else Nowhere: The +brave man has to _give_ his Life away. He that works bodies +forth the form of Things Unseen. Strange mystic affinity of +Wisdom and Insanity: All Work, in its degree, a making of +Madness sane. Labour not a devil, even when encased in +Mammonism: The unredeemed ugliness, a slothful People. The +vulgarist Plugson of a Master-Worker, not a man to strangle by +Corn-Laws and Shotbelts. + + +Chap. XIII. _Democracy_ + +Man must actually have his debts and earnings a little better +paid by man. At no time was the lot of the dumb millions of +toilers so entirely unbearable as now. Sisterhood, brotherhood +often forgotten, but never before so expressly denied. Mungo +Park and his poor Black Benefactress. Gurth, born thrall of +Cedric the Saxon: Liberty a divine thing; but 'liberty to die +by starvation' not so divine. Nature's Aristocracies. William +Conqueror, a resident House-Surgeon provided by nature for her +beloved English People. Democracy, the despair of finding Heroes +to govern us, and contented putting-up with the want of them. +The very Tailor unconsciously symbolising the reign of Equality. +Wherever ranks do actually exist, strict division of costumes +will also be enforced. Freedom from oppression, an indispensable +yet most insignificant portion of Human Liberty. A _best path_ +does exist for every man; a thing which, here and now, it +were of all things _wisest_ for him to do. Mock Superiors and +Real Superiors. + + +Chap. XIV. _Sir Jabesh Windbag_ + +Oliver Cromwell, the remarkablest Governor we have had for the +last five centuries or so: No vulunteer in Public Life, but +plainly a balloted soldier: The Government of England put into +his hands. Windbag, weak in the faith of a God; strong only in +the faith that Paragraphs and Plausibilities bring votes. Five +years of popularity or unpopularity; and _after_ those five +years, an Eternity. Oliver has to appear before the Most High +Judge: Windbag, appealing to 'Posterity.' + + +Chap. XV. _Morison Again_ + +New Religions: This new stage of progress, proceeding 'to invent +God,' a very strange one indeed. Religion, the Inner Light or +Moral Conscience of a man's soul. Infinite difference between a +Good man and a Bad. The Great soul of the World, just and not +unjust: Faithful, unspoken, but not ineffectual 'prayer.' +Penalities: The French Revolution; cruelest Portent that has +risen into created Space these ten centuries. Man needs no "New +Religion;" nor is like to get it: spiritual Dastardism, and +sick folly. One Liturgy which does remain forever +unexceptionable, that of _Praying by Working._ Sauerteig on the +symbolic influences of Washing. Chinese Pontiff-Emperor and his +significant 'punctualities.' Goethe and German Literature. The +great event for the world, now as always, the arrival in it of a +new Wise Man. Goethe's _Mason-Lodge._ + + + +Book IV.--Horoscope + + +Chap. I. _Aristocracies_ + +To predict the Future, to manage the Present, would not be so +impossible, had not the Past been so sacrilegiously mishandled: +a godless century, looking back to centuries that were godly. A +new real Aristocracy and Priesthood. The noble Priest always a +noble _Aristos_ to begin with, and something more to end with. +Modern Preachers, and the _real_ Satanas that now is. Abbot- +Samson and William-Conqueror times. The mission of a Land +Aristocracy a _sacred_ one, in both senses of that old word. +Truly a 'Splendor of God' did dwell in those old rude veracious +ages. Old Anselm traveling to Rome, to appeal against King +Rufus. Their quarrel at bottom a great quarrel. The boundless +future, predestined, nay already extant though unseen. Our +Epic, not _Arms and the Man,_ but _Tools and the Man;_ an +infinitely wider kind of Epic. Important that our grand +Reformation were begun. + + +Chap. II. _Bribery Committee_ + +Our theory, perfect purity of Tenpound Franchise; our practice, +irremediable bribery. Bribery, indicative not only of length of +purse, but of brazen dishonesty: Proposed improvements. A +parliament, starting with a lie in its mouth, promulgates strage +horoscopes of itself. Respect paid to those worthy of no +respect: Pandarus Dogdraught. The indigent discerning Freeman; +and the kind of men he is called upon to vote for. + + +Chap. III. _The One Institution_ + +The 'Organisation of Labour,' if well understood, the Problem of +the whole Future. Governments of various degrees of utility. +Kilkenny Cats; spinning-Dervishes; Parliamentary eloquence. A +prime-Minister who would dare believe the heavenly omens. Who +can despair of Governments, that passes a Soldier's Guardhouse?-- +Incalculable what, by arranging, commanding and regimenting, can +be made of men. Organisms enough in the dim huge Future; and +'United Services' quite other than the red-coat one. Legislative +interference between Workers and master-Workers increasingly +indispensable. Sanitary Reform: People's Parks: A right +Education Bill, and effective Teaching Service. Free bridge for +emigrants: England's sure markets among her colonies. London +the _All-Saxon-Home,_ rendezvous of all the 'Children of the +Harz-Rock.' The English essentially conservative: Always the +invincible instinct to hold fast by the Old, to admit the +_minimum_ of New. Yet new epochs do actually come; and +with them new peremptory necessities. A certain Editor's +stipulated work. + + +Chap. IV. _Captains of Industry_ + +Government can do much, but it can in nowise do all. Fall of +Mammon: to be a noble Master among noble Workers, will again be +the first ambition with some few. The Leaders of Industry, +virtually the Captains of the world: doggeries and Chivalries. +Isolation, the sum-total of wretchedness to man. All social +growths in the world have required organising; and work, the +grandest of human interests, does now require it. + + +Chap. V. _Permanence_ + +The 'tendency to persevere,' to persist in spite of hindrances, +discouragements and 'impossibilities,' that which distinguishes +the Species Man from the Genus Ape. Month-long contracts, and +Exeter-Hall purblindness. A practical manufacturing Quaker's care +for his workmen. Blessing of permanent Contract: Permanence in +all things, at the earliest possible moment, and to the latest +possible. Vagrant Sam-Slicks. The wealth of a man the number of +things he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed by. +The Worker's _interest_ in the enterprise with which he is +connected. How to reconcile Despotism with Freedom. + + +Chap. VI. _The Landed_ + +A man with fifty, with five hundred, with a thousand pounds a +day, given him freely, without condition at all, might be a +rather strong Worker: The sad reality, very ominous to look at. +Will he awaken, be alive again; or is this death-fit very +death?--Goeth's Duke of Weimar. Doom of Idleness. To sit idle +aloft, like absurd Epicurus'-gods, a poor life for a man. +Independence 'lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye:' Rejection +of sham Superiors, the needful preparation for obedience to +_real_ Superiors. + + +Chap. VII _The gifted_ + +Tumultuous anarchy calmed by noble effort into fruitful +sovereignty. Mammon, like Fire, the usefulest of servants, if +the frightfulest of masters. Souls to whom the omnipotent guinea +is, on the whole, an impotent guinea: Not a May-game is this +man's life; but a battle and stern pilgrimage: God's justice, +human Nobleness, Veracity and Mercy, the essence of his very +being. What a man of Genius is. The Highest 'Man of Genius.' +Genius, the clearer presence of God Most High in a man. Of +intrinsic Valetism you cannot, with whole Parliaments to help +you, make a heroism. + +Chap. VIII. _The Didactic_ + +One preacher who does preach with effect, and gradually persuade +all persons. Repentant Captains of Industry: A Chactaw Fighter +becomes a Christian Fighter. Doomsday in the afternoon. The +'Christianity' that cannot get on without a minimum of Four- +thousand-five-hundred, will give place to something better that +can. Beautiful to see the brutish empire of Mammon cracking +everywhere: A strange, chill, almost ghastly dayspring in +Yankeeland itself. Here as there, Light is coming into the +world. Whoso believes, let him begin to fulfil: 'Impossible,' +where Truth and Mercy and the everlasting Voice of Nature order, +can have no place in the brave man's dictionary. Not on Ilion's +or Latium's plains; on far other plains and places henceforth +can noble deeds be done. The last Partridge of England shot and +ended: Aristocracies with beards on their chins. O, it is +great, and there is no other greatness: To make some nook of +god's Creation a little fruitfuler; to make some human hearts a +little wiser, manfuler, happier: It is work for a God! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Past and Present, by Thomas Carlyle + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAST AND PRESENT *** + +***** This file should be named 13534.txt or 13534.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/5/3/13534/ + +Produced by Jake Jaqua + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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