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diff --git a/28260-h/28260-h.htm b/28260-h/28260-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6b933d6 --- /dev/null +++ b/28260-h/28260-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2710 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Captain Sword and Captain Pen, by Leigh Hunt.. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1.25em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + img {border: 0;} + .tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + ins {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + .copyright {text-align: center; font-size: 70%;} + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%; text-align: justify;} + + .bbox {border: solid 2px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold; font-size: 70%;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .unindent {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + .right {text-align: right;} + .poem {margin-left: 25%; text-align: left;} + .poem2 {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 10%; text-align: left;} + .sig {margin-right: 10%; text-align: right;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align:baseline; + position: relative; + bottom: 0.33em; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + .hang1 {text-indent: -3em; margin-left: 3em;} + .cap:first-letter {float: left; clear: left; margin: -0.2em 0.1em 0; margin-top: 0%; + padding: 0; line-height: .75em; font-size: 300%; text-align: justify;} + .cap {text-align: justify;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Sword and Captain Pen, by Leigh Hunt + +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: Captain Sword and Captain Pen + A Poem + +Author: Leigh Hunt + +Release Date: March 6, 2009 [EBook #28260] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN SWORD AND CAPTAIN PEN *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 305px;"> +<img src="images/i001.jpg" width="305" height="400" alt="[To face the Title." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">[<i>To face the Title.</i></span></span> +</div> + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> + +<h1>CAPTAIN SWORD AND CAPTAIN PEN.</h1> + +<h3><b>A Poem.</b></h3> + +<h2>BY LEIGH HUNT.</h2> + +<div class='center'><small>WITH SOME REMARKS ON</small><br /> + +WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.<br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<div class='poem'> +—If there be in glory aught of good,<br /> +It may by means far different be attained,<br /> +Without ambition, war, or violence.—<span class="smcap">Milton.</span><br /> +</div> + + +<div class='center'><br /><br /><br /> +LONDON:<br /> +<br /> +CHARLES KNIGHT, LUDGATE STREET.<br /> +<br /> +1835.<br /> +</div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> + + + + +<div class='center'> +<small>TO</small><br /> +<br /> +<small>THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE</small><br /> +<br /> +<big>LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX,</big><br /> +<br /> +<small>WITH WHOM THE WRITER HUMBLY DIFFERS ON SOME POINTS,</small><br /> +<br /> +<small>BUT DEEPLY RESPECTS FOR HIS MOTIVES ON ALL;</small><br /> +<br /> +<small>GREAT IN OFFICE FOR WHAT HE DID FOR THE WORLD,</small><br /> +<br /> +<small>GREATER OUT OF IT IN CALMLY AWAITING HIS TIME TO DO MORE;</small><br /> +<br /> +<small>THE PROMOTER OF EDUCATION; THE EXPEDITER OF JUSTICE;</small><br /> +<br /> +<small>THE LIBERATOR FROM SLAVERY;</small><br /> +<br /> +<small>AND (WHAT IS THE RAREST VIRTUE IN A STATESMAN)</small><br /> +<br /> +ALWAYS A DENOUNCER OF WAR,<br /> +<br /> +<b>These Pages are Inscribed</b><br /> +<br /> +<small>BY HIS EVER AFFECTIONATE SERVANT,</small><br /> +<br /> +Jan. 30, 1835. LEIGH HUNT.<br /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>ADVERTISEMENT.</h2> + + +<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>This</span> Poem is the result of a sense of duty, +which has taken the Author from quieter studies +during a great public crisis. He obeyed the +impulse with joy, because it took the shape of +verse; but with more pain, on some accounts, +than he chooses to express. However, he has +done what he conceived himself bound to do; +and if every zealous lover of his species were +to express his feelings in like manner, to the +best of his ability, individual opinions, little in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> +themselves, would soon amount to an overwhelming +authority, and hasten the day of reason +and beneficence.</div> + +<p>The measure is regular with an irregular +aspect,—four accents in a verse,—like that of +Christabel, or some of the poems of Sir Walter +Scott:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +Càptain Swòrd got ùp one dày—<br /> +And the flàg full of hònour, as thòugh it could feèl—<br /> +</div> + +<div class='unindent'>He mentions this, not, of course, for readers +in general, but for the sake of those daily +acceders to the list of the reading public, whose +knowledge of books is not yet equal to their +love of them.</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/i002.jpg" width="400" height="440" alt="STEPPING IN MUSIC AND THUNDER SWEET, WHICH HIS DRUMS SENT BEFORE HIM INTO THE STREET. Canto I. p. 1." title="" /> +</div> + +<div class='poem2'> +STEPPING IN MUSIC AND THUNDER SWEET,<br /> +WHICH HIS DRUMS SENT BEFORE HIM INTO THE STREET.<br /> +<div class='sig'> +<a href="#Page_1"><i>Canto</i> I. <i>p.</i> 1.</a><br /> +</div></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + +<h2>CAPTAIN SWORD AND CAPTAIN PEN.</h2> + + +<h2>I.</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">How Captain Sword marched to War.</span></h3> + +<div class='poem'> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class='smcap'>Captain</span> Sword got up one day,</span><br /> +Over the hills to march away,<br /> +Over the hills and through the towns,<br /> +They heard him coming across the downs,<br /> +Stepping in music and thunder sweet,<br /> +Which his drums sent before him into the street.<br /> +And lo! 'twas a beautiful sight in the sun;<br /> +For first came his foot, all marching like one,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>With tranquil faces, and bristling steel,<br /> +And the flag full of honour as though it could feel,<br /> +And the officers gentle, the sword that hold<br /> +'Gainst the shoulder heavy with trembling gold,<br /> +And the massy tread, that in passing is heard,<br /> +Though the drums and the music say never a word.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And then came his horse, a clustering sound</span><br /> +Of shapely potency, forward bound,<br /> +Glossy black steeds, and riders tall,<br /> +Rank after rank, each looking like all,<br /> +Midst moving repose and a threatening charm,<br /> +With mortal sharpness at each right arm,<br /> +And hues that painters and ladies love,<br /> +And ever the small flag blush'd above.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And ever and anon the kettle-drums beat</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>Hasty power midst order meet;<br /> +And ever and anon the drums and fifes<br /> +Came like motion's voice, and life's;<br /> +Or into the golden grandeurs fell<br /> +Of deeper instruments, mingling well,<br /> +Burdens of beauty for winds to bear;<br /> +And the cymbals kiss'd in the shining air,<br /> +And the trumpets their visible voices rear'd,<br /> +Each looking forth with its tapestried beard,<br /> +Bidding the heavens and earth make way<br /> +For Captain Sword and his battle-array.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He, nevertheless, rode indifferent-eyed,</span><br /> +As if pomp were a toy to his manly pride,<br /> +Whilst the ladies lov'd him the more for his scorn,<br /> +And thought him the noblest man ever was born,<br /> +And tears came into the bravest eyes,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>And hearts swell'd after him double their size,<br /> +And all that was weak, and all that was strong,<br /> +Seem'd to think wrong's self in him could not be wrong;<br /> +Such love, though with bosom about to be gored,<br /> +Did sympathy get for brave Captain Sword.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So, half that night, as he stopp'd in the town,</span><br /> +'Twas all one dance, going merrily down,<br /> +With lights in windows and love in eyes,<br /> +And a constant feeling of sweet surprise;<br /> +But all the next morning 'twas tears and sighs;<br /> +For the sound of his drums grew less and less,<br /> +Walking like carelessness off from distress;<br /> +And Captain Sword went whistling gay,<br /> +"Over the hills and far away."<br /></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> + +<h2>II.</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">How Captain Sword won a Great Victory.</span></h3> + + +<div class='poem'> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class='smcap'>Through</span> fair and through foul went Captain Sword,</span><br /> +Pacer of highway and piercer of ford,<br /> +Steady of face in rain or sun,<br /> +He and his merry men, all as one;<br /> +Till they came to a place, where in battle-array<br /> +Stood thousands of faces, firm as they,<br /> +Waiting to see which could best maintain<br /> +Bloody argument, lords of pain;<br /> +And down the throats of their fellow-men<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>Thrust the draught never drunk again.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It was a spot of rural peace,</span><br /> +Ripening with the year's increase<br /> +And singing in the sun with birds,<br /> +Like a maiden with happy words—<br /> +With happy words which she scarcely hears<br /> +In her own contented ears,<br /> +Such abundance feeleth she<br /> +Of all comfort carelessly,<br /> +Throwing round her, as she goes,<br /> +Sweet half-thoughts on lily and rose,<br /> +Nor guesseth what will soon arouse<br /> +All ears—that murder's in the house;<br /> +And that, in some strange wrong of brain,<br /> +Her father hath her mother slain.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Steady! steady! The masses of men</span><br /> +Wheel, and fall in, and wheel again,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>Softly as circles drawn with pen.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then a gaze there was, and valour, and fear,</span><br /> +And the jest that died in the jester's ear,<br /> +And preparation, noble to see,<br /> +Of all-accepting mortality;<br /> +Tranquil Necessity gracing Force;<br /> +And the trumpets danc'd with the stirring horse;<br /> +And lordly voices, here and there,<br /> +Call'd to war through the gentle air;<br /> +When suddenly, with its voice of doom,<br /> +Spoke the cannon 'twixt glare and gloom,<br /> +Making wider the dreadful room:<br /> +On the faces of nations round<br /> +Fell the shadow of that sound.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Death for death! The storm begins;</span><br /> +Rush the drums in a torrent of dins;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>Crash the muskets, gash the swords;<br /> +Shoes grow red in a thousand fords;<br /> +Now for the flint, and the cartridge bite;<br /> +Darkly gathers the breath of the fight,<br /> +Salt to the palate and stinging to sight;<br /> +Muskets are pointed they scarce know where,<br /> +No matter: Murder is cluttering there.<br /> +Reel the hollows: close up! close up!<br /> +Death feeds thick, and his food is his cup.<br /> +Down go bodies, snap burst eyes;<br /> +Trod on the ground are tender cries;<br /> +Brains are dash'd against plashing ears;<br /> +Hah! no time has battle for tears;<br /> +Cursing helps better—cursing, that goes<br /> +Slipping through friends' blood, athirst for foes'.<br /> +What have soldiers with tears to do?—<br /> +We, who this mad-house must now go through,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>This twenty-fold Bedlam, let loose with knives—<br /> +To murder, and stab, and grow liquid with lives—<br /> +Gasping, staring, treading red mud,<br /> +Till the drunkenness' self makes us steady of blood?<br /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/i003.jpg" width="400" height="467" alt="DOWN GO BODIES—SNAP BURST EYES— TROD ON THE GROUND ARE TENDER CRIES. Canto II. p. 8." title="" /> +</div> + +<div class='poem'> +DOWN GO BODIES—SNAP BURST EYES—<br /> +TROD ON THE GROUND ARE TENDER CRIES.<br /> +<div class='sig'> +<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><a href="#Page_8"><i>Canto</i> II. <i>p.</i> 8.</a></span><br /> +</div></div> + + +<div class='poem'><br /><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">[Oh! shrink not thou, reader! Thy part's in it too;</span><br /> +Has not thy praise made the thing they go through<br /> +Shocking to read of, but noble to do?]<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No time to be "breather of thoughtful breath"</span><br /> +Has the giver and taker of dreadful death.<br /> +See where comes the horse-tempest again,<br /> +Visible earthquake, bloody of mane!<br /> +Part are upon us, with edges of pain;<br /> +Part burst, riderless, over the plain,<br /> +Crashing their spurs, and twice slaying the slain.<br /> +See, by the living God! see those foot<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>Charging down hill—hot, hurried, and mute!<br /> +They loll their tongues out! Ah-hah! pell-mell!<br /> +Horses roll in a human hell;<br /> +Horse and man they climb one another—<br /> +Which is the beast, and which is the brother?<br /> +Mangling, stifling, stopping shrieks<br /> +With the tread of torn-out cheeks,<br /> +Drinking each other's bloody breath—<br /> +Here's the fleshliest feast of Death.<br /> +An odour, as of a slaughter-house,<br /> +The distant raven's dark eye bows.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Victory! victory! Man flies man;</span><br /> +Cannibal patience hath done what it can—<br /> +Carv'd, and been carv'd, drunk the drinkers down,<br /> +And now there is one that hath won the crown:<br /> +One pale visage stands lord of the board—<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>Joy to the trumpets of Captain Sword!<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His trumpets blow strength, his trumpets neigh,</span><br /> +They and his horse, and waft him away;<br /> +They and his foot, with a tir'd proud flow,<br /> +Tatter'd escapers and givers of woe.<br /> +Open, ye cities! Hats off! hold breath!<br /> +To see the man who has been with Death;<br /> +To see the man who determineth right<br /> +By the virtue-perplexing virtue of might.<br /> +Sudden before him have ceas'd the drums,<br /> +And lo! in the air of empire he comes!<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All things present, in earth and sky,</span><br /> +Seem to look at his looking eye.<br /></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p> + +<h2>III.</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Of the Ball that was given to Captain Sword.</span></h3> + + +<div class='poem'> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class='smcap'>But</span> Captain Sword was a man among men,</span><br /> +And he hath become their playmate again:<br /> +Boot, nor sword, nor stern look hath he,<br /> +But holdeth the hand of a fair ladye,<br /> +And floweth the dance a palace within,<br /> +Half the night, to a golden din,<br /> +Midst lights in windows and love in eyes,<br /> +And a constant feeling of sweet surprise;<br /> +And ever the look of Captain Sword<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>Is the look that's thank'd, and the look that's ador'd.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There was the country-dance, small of taste;</span><br /> +And the waltz, that loveth the lady's waist;<br /> +And the galopade, strange agreeable tramp,<br /> +Made of a scrape, a hobble, and stamp;<br /> +And the high-stepping minuet, face to face,<br /> +Mutual worship of conscious grace;<br /> +And all the shapes in which beauty goes<br /> +Weaving motion with blithe repose.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And then a table a feast displayed,</span><br /> +Like a garden of light without a shade,<br /> +All of gold, and flowers, and sweets,<br /> +With wines of old church-lands, and sylvan meats,<br /> +Food that maketh the blood feel choice;<br /> +Yet all the face of the feast, and the voice,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>And heart, still turn'd to the head of the board;<br /> +For ever the look of Captain Sword<br /> +Is the look that's thank'd, and the look that's ador'd.<br /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 339px;"> +<img src="images/i004.jpg" width="339" height="450" alt="THERE WAS THE COUNTRY DANCE, SMALL OF TASTE; AND THE WALTZ, THAT LOVETH THE LADY'S WAIST. Canto III. p. 14." title="" /> +</div> + +<div class='poem2'> +THERE WAS THE COUNTRY DANCE, SMALL OF TASTE;<br /> +AND THE WALTZ, THAT LOVETH THE LADY'S WAIST.<br /> + +<div class='sig'><a href="#Page_14"><i>Canto</i> III. <i>p.</i> 14.</a></div><br /> +</div> + + + +<div class='poem'><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Well content was Captain Sword;</span><br /> +At his feet all wealth was pour'd;<br /> +On his head all glory set;<br /> +For his ease all comfort met;<br /> +And around him seem'd entwin'd<br /> +All the arms of womankind.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when he had taken his fill</span><br /> +Thus, of all that pampereth will,<br /> +In his down he sunk to rest,<br /> +Clasp'd in dreams of all its best.<br /></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> + +<h2>IV.</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">On What took place on the Field of Battle the +Night after the Victory.</span></h3> + + +<div class='poem'> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class='smcap'>'Tis</span> a wild night out of doors;</span><br /> +The wind is mad upon the moors,<br /> +And comes into the rocking town,<br /> +Stabbing all things, up and down,<br /> +And then there is a weeping rain<br /> +Huddling 'gainst the window-pane,<br /> +And good men bless themselves in bed;<br /> +The mother brings her infant's head<br /> +Closer, with a joy like tears,<br /> +And thinks of angels in her prayers;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>Then sleeps, with his small hand in hers.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Two loving women, lingering yet</span><br /> +Ere the fire is out, are met,<br /> +Talking sweetly, time-beguil'd,<br /> +One of her bridegroom, one her child,<br /> +The bridegroom he. They have receiv'd<br /> +Happy letters, more believ'd<br /> +For public news, and feel the bliss<br /> +The heavenlier on a night like this.<br /> +They think him hous'd, they think him blest,<br /> +Curtain'd in the core of rest,<br /> +Danger distant, all good near;<br /> +Why hath their "Good night" a tear?<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Behold him! By a ditch he lies</span><br /> +Clutching the wet earth, his eyes<br /> +Beginning to be mad. In vain<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>His tongue still thirsts to lick the rain,<br /> +That mock'd but now his homeward tears;<br /> +And ever and anon he rears<br /> +His legs and knees with all their strength,<br /> +And then as strongly thrusts at length.<br /> +Rais'd, or stretch'd, he cannot bear<br /> +The wound that girds him, weltering there:<br /> +And "Water!" he cries, with moonward stare.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">["I will not read it!" with a start,</span><br /> +Burning cries some honest heart;<br /> +"I will not read it! Why endure<br /> +Pangs which horror cannot cure?<br /> +Why—Oh why? and rob the brave<br /> +And the bereav'd of all they crave,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>A little hope to gild the grave?"<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ask'st thou why, thou honest heart?</span><br /> +'Tis <i>because</i> thou dost ask, and because thou dost start.<br /> +'Tis because thine own praise and fond outward thought<br /> +Have aided the shews which this sorrow have wrought.]<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A wound unutterable—Oh God!</span><br /> +Mingles his being with the sod.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">["I'll read no more."—Thou must, thou must:</span><br /> +In thine own pang doth wisdom trust.]<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His nails are in earth, his eyes in air,</span><br /> +And "Water!" he crieth—he may not forbear.<br /> +Brave and good was he, yet now he dreams<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>The moon looks cruel; and he blasphemes.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">["No more! no more!" Nay, this is but one;</span><br /> +Were the whole tale told, it would not be done<br /> +From wonderful setting to rising sun.<br /> +But God's good time is at hand—be calm,<br /> +Thou reader! and steep thee in all thy balm<br /> +Of tears or patience, of thought or good will,<br /> +For the field—the field awaiteth us still.]<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Water! water!" all over the field:</span><br /> +To nothing but Death will that wound-voice yield.<br /> +One, as he crieth, is sitting half bent;<br /> +What holds he so close?—his body is rent.<br /> +Another is mouthless, with eyes on cheek;<br /> +Unto the raven he may not speak.<br /> +One would fain kill him; and one half round<br /> +The place where he writhes, hath up beaten the ground.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>Like a mad horse hath he beaten the ground,<br /> +And the feathers and music that litter it round,<br /> +The gore, and the mud, and the golden sound.<br /> +Come hither, ye cities! ye ball-rooms, take breath!<br /> +See what a floor hath the dance of death!<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The floor is alive, though the lights are out;</span><br /> +What are those dark shapes, flitting about?<br /> +Flitting about, yet no ravens they,<br /> +Not foes, yet not friends—mute creatures of prey;<br /> +Their prey is lucre, their claws a knife,<br /> +Some say they take the beseeching life.<br /> +Horrible pity is theirs for despair,<br /> +And they the love-sacred limbs leave bare.<br /> +Love will come to-morrow, and sadness,<br /> +Patient for the fear of madness,<br /> +And shut its eyes for cruelty,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>So many pale beds to see.<br /> +Turn away, thou Love, and weep<br /> +No more in covering his last sleep;<br /> +Thou hast him—blessed is thine eye!<br /> +Friendless Famine has yet to die.<br /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;"> +<img src="images/i005.jpg" width="350" height="395" alt="COME HITHER, YE CITIES! YE BALL-ROOMS TAKE BREATH!" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class='poem2'> +COME HITHER, YE CITIES! YE BALL-ROOMS TAKE BREATH!<br /> +SEE WHAT A FLOOR HATH THE DANCE OF DEATH.<br /> +<div class='right'> +<a href="#Page_22"><i>Canto</i> IV. <i>p.</i> 22.</a><br /> +</div></div> + + +<div class='poem'><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A shriek!—Great God! what superhuman</span><br /> +Peal was that? Not man, nor woman,<br /> +Nor twenty madmen, crush'd, could wreak<br /> +Their soul in such a ponderous shriek.<br /> +Dumbly, for an instant, stares<br /> +The field; and creep men's dying hairs.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O friend of man! O noble creature!</span><br /> +Patient and brave, and mild by nature,<br /> +Mild by nature, and mute as mild,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>Why brings he to these passes wild<br /> +Thee, gentle horse, thou shape of beauty?<br /> +Could he not do his dreadful duty,<br /> +(If duty it be, which seems mad folly)<br /> +Nor link thee to his melancholy?<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Two noble steeds lay side by side,</span><br /> +One cropp'd the meek grass ere it died;<br /> +Pang-struck it struck t' other, already torn,<br /> +And out of its bowels that shriek was born.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now see what crawleth, well as it may,</span><br /> +Out of the ditch, and looketh that way.<br /> +What horror all black, in the sick moonlight,<br /> +Kneeling, half human, a burdensome sight;<br /> +Loathly and liquid, as fly from a dish;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>Speak, Horror! thou, for it withereth flesh.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The grass caught fire; the wounded were by;</span><br /> +Writhing till eve did a remnant lie;<br /> +Then feebly this coal abateth his cry;<br /> +But he hopeth! he hopeth! joy lighteth his eye,<br /> +For gold he possesseth, and Murder is nigh!"<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O goodness in horror! O ill not all ill!</span><br /> +In the worst of the worst may be fierce Hope still.<br /> +To-morrow with dawn will come many a wain,<br /> +And bear away loads of human pain,<br /> +Piles of pale beds for the 'spitals; but some<br /> +Again will awake in home-mornings, and some,<br /> +Dull herds of the war, again follow the drum.<br /> +From others, faint blood shall in families flow,<br /> +With wonder at life, and young oldness in woe,<br /> +Yet hence may the movers of great earth grow.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>Now, even now, I hear them at hand,<br /> +Though again Captain Sword is up in the land,<br /> +Marching anew for more fields like these<br /> +In the health of his flag in the morning breeze.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sneereth the trumpet, and stampeth the drum,</span><br /> +And again Captain Sword in his pride doth come;<br /> +He passeth the fields where his friends lie lorn,<br /> +Feeding the flowers and the feeding corn,<br /> +Where under the sunshine cold they lie,<br /> +And he hasteth a tear from his old grey eye.<br /> +Small thinking is his but of work to be done,<br /> +And onward he marcheth, using the sun:<br /> +He slayeth, he wasteth, he spouteth his fires<br /> +On babes at the bosom, and bed-rid sires;<br /> +He bursteth pale cities, through smoke and through yell,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>And bringeth behind him, hot-blooded, his hell.<br /> +Then the weak door is barr'd, and the soul all sore,<br /> +And hand-wringing helplessness paceth the floor,<br /> +And the lover is slain, and the parents are nigh—<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh God! let me breathe, and look up at thy sky!</span><br /> +Good is as hundreds, evil as one;<br /> +Round about goeth the golden sun.<br /></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> + +<h2>V.</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">How Captain Sword, in Consequence of his Great +Victories, became infirm in his Wits.</span></h3> + + +<div class='poem'> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class='smcap'>But</span> to win at the game, whose moves are death,</span><br /> +It maketh a man draw too proud a breath:<br /> +And to see his force taken for reason and right,<br /> +It tendeth to unsettle his reason quite.<br /> +Never did chief of the line of Sword<br /> +Keep his wits whole at that drunken board.<br /> +He taketh the size, and the roar, and fate,<br /> +Of the field of his action, for soul as great:<br /> +He smiteth and stunneth the cheek of mankind,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>And saith "Lo! I rule both body and mind."<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Captain Sword forgot his own soul,</span><br /> +Which of aught save itself, resented controul;<br /> +Which whatever his deeds, ordained them still,<br /> +Bodiless monarch, enthron'd in his will:<br /> +He forgot the close thought, and the burning heart,<br /> +And pray'rs, and the mild moon hanging apart,<br /> +Which lifteth the seas with her gentle looks,<br /> +And growth, and death, and immortal books,<br /> +And the Infinite Mildness, the soul of souls,<br /> +Which layeth earth soft 'twixt her silver poles;<br /> +Which ruleth the stars, and saith not a word;<br /> +Whose speed in the hair of no comet is heard;<br /> +Which sendeth the soft sun, day by day,<br /> +Mighty, and genial, and just alway,<br /> +Owning no difference, doing no wrong,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>Loving the orbs and the least bird's song,<br /> +The great, sweet, warm angel, with golden rod,<br /> +Bright with the smile of the distance of God.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Captain Sword, like a witless thing,</span><br /> +Of all under heaven must needs be king,<br /> +King of kings, and lord of lords,<br /> +Swayer of souls as well as of swords,<br /> +Ruler of speech, and through speech, of thought;<br /> +And hence to his brain was a madness brought.<br /> +He madden'd in East, he madden'd in West,<br /> +Fiercer for sights of men's unrest,<br /> +Fiercer for talk, amongst awful men,<br /> +Of their new mighty leader, Captain Pen,<br /> +A conqueror strange, who sat in his home<br /> +Like the wizard that plagued the ships of Rome,<br /> +Noiseless, show-less, dealing no death,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>But victories, winged, went forth from his breath.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Three thousand miles across the waves<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></span><br /> +Did Captain Sword cry, bidding souls be slaves:<br /> +Three thousand miles did the echo return<br /> +With a laugh and a blow made his old cheeks burn.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then he call'd to a wrong-maddened people, and swore<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a></span><br /> +Their name in the map should never be more:<br /> +Dire came the laugh, and smote worse than before.<br /> +Were earthquake a giant, up-thrusting his head<br /> +And o'erlooking the nations, not worse were the dread.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then, lo! was a wonder, and sadness to see;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>For with that very people, their leader, stood he,<br /> +Incarnate afresh, like a Cæsar of old;<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a><br /> +But because he look'd back, and his heart was cold,<br /> +Time, hope, and himself for a tale he sold.<br /> +Oh largest occasion, by man ever lost!<br /> +Oh throne of the world, to the war-dogs tost!<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He vanished; and thinly there stood in his place</span><br /> +The new shape of Sword, with an humbler face,<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a><br /> +Rebuking his brother, and preaching for right,<br /> +Yet aye when it came, standing proud on his might,<br /> +And squaring its claims with his old small sight;<br /> +Then struck up his drums, with ensign furl'd,<br /> +And said, "I will walk through a subject world:<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>Earth, just as it is, shall for ever endure,<br /> +The rich be too rich, and the poor too poor;<br /> +And for this I'll stop knowledge. I'll say to it, 'Flow<br /> +Thus far; but presume no farther to flow:<br /> +For me, as I list, shall the free airs blow.'"<br /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 375px;"> +<img src="images/i006.jpg" width="375" height="440" alt="THEN SUDDENLY CAME HE WITH GOWNED MEN" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class='poem2'> +THEN SUDDENLY CAME HE WITH GOWNED MEN,<br /> +AND SAID, "NOW OBSERVE ME—I'M CAPTAIN PEN."<br /> +<div class='sig'> +<a href="#Page_34"><i>Canto</i> V. <i>p.</i> 34.</a><br /> +</div></div> + + +<div class='poem'><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laugh'd after him loudly that land so fair,<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a></span><br /> +"The king thou set'st over us, by a free air<br /> +Is swept away, senseless." And old Sword then<br /> +First knew the might of great Captain Pen.<br /> +So strangely it bow'd him, so wilder'd his brain,<br /> +That now he stood, hatless, renouncing his reign;<br /> +Now mutter'd of dust laid in blood; and now<br /> +'Twixt wonder and patience went lifting his brow.<br /> +Then suddenly came he, with gowned men,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>And said, "Now observe me—<i>I'm</i> Captain Pen:<br /> +<i>I'll</i> lead all your changes—I'll write all your books—<br /> +I'm every thing—all things—I'm clergymen, cooks,<br /> +Clerks, carpenters, hosiers—I'm Pitt—I'm Lord Grey."<br /> +<br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Twas painful to see his extravagant way;</span><br /> +But heart ne'er so bold, and hand ne'er so strong,<br /> +What are they, when truth and the wits go wrong?<br /><br /><br /></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> The American War.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> The French War.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> Napoleon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> The Duke of Wellington, or existing Military Toryism.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> The Glorious Three Days.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<h2>VI.</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Of Captain Pen, and how he fought with Captain Sword.</span></h3> + + +<div class='poem'> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class='smcap'>Now</span> tidings of Captain Sword and his state</span><br /> +Were brought to the ears of Pen the Great,<br /> +Who rose and said, "His time is come."<br /> +And he sent him, but not by sound of drum,<br /> +Nor trumpet, nor other hasty breath,<br /> +Hot with questions of life and death,<br /> +But only a letter calm and mild;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>And Captain Sword he read it, and smil'd,<br /> +And said, half in scorn, and nothing in fear,<br /> +(Though his wits seem'd restor'd by a danger near,<br /> +For brave was he ever) "Let Captain Pen<br /> +Bring at his back a million men,<br /> +And I'll talk with his wisdom, and not till then."<br /> +Then replied to his messenger Captain Pen,<br /> +"I'll bring at my back a <i>world</i> of men."<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Out laugh'd the captains of Captain Sword,</span><br /> +But their chief look'd vex'd, and said not a word,<br /> +For thought and trouble had touch'd his ears<br /> +Beyond the bullet-like sense of theirs,<br /> +And wherever he went, he was 'ware of a sound<br /> +Now heard in the distance, now gathering round,<br /> +Which irk'd him to know what the issue might be;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>But the soul of the cause of it well guess'd he.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Indestructible souls among men</span><br /> +Were the souls of the line of Captain Pen;<br /> +Sages, patriots, martyrs mild,<br /> +Going to the stake, as child<br /> +Goeth with his prayer to bed;<br /> +Dungeon-beams, from quenchless head;<br /> +Poets, making earth aware<br /> +Of its wealth in good and fair;<br /> +And the benders to their intent,<br /> +Of metal and of element;<br /> +Of flame the enlightener, beauteous,<br /> +And steam, that bursteth his iron house;<br /> +And adamantine giants blind,<br /> +That, without master, have no mind.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Heir to these, and all their store,</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>Was Pen, the power unknown of yore;<br /> +And as their might still created might,<br /> +And each work'd for him by day and by night,<br /> +In wealth and wondrous means he grew,<br /> +Fit to move the earth anew;<br /> +Till his fame began to speak<br /> +Pause, as when the thunders wake,<br /> +Muttering, in the beds of heaven:<br /> +Then, to set the globe more even,<br /> +Water he call'd, and Fire, and Haste,<br /> +Which hath left old Time displac'd—<br /> +And Iron, mightiest now for Pen,<br /> +Each of his steps like an army of men—<br /> +(Sword little knew what was leaving him then)<br /> +And out of the witchcraft of their skill,<br /> +A creature he call'd, to wait on his will—<br /> +Half iron, half vapour, a dread to behold—<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>Which evermore panted and evermore roll'd,<br /> +And uttered his words a million fold.<br /> +Forth sprang they in air, down raining like dew,<br /> +And men fed upon them, and mighty they grew.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ears giddy with custom that sound might not hear,</span><br /> +But it woke up the rest, like an earthquake near;<br /> +And that same night of the letter, some strange<br /> +Compulsion of soul brought a sense of change;<br /> +And at midnight the sound grew into a roll<br /> +As the sound of all gath'rings from pole to pole,<br /> +From pole unto pole, and from clime to clime,<br /> +Like the roll of the wheels of the coming of time;—<br /> +A sound as of cities, and sound as of swords<br /> +Sharpening, and solemn and terrible words,<br /> +And laughter as solemn, and thunderous drumming,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>A tread as if all the world were coming.<br /> +And then was a lull, and soft voices sweet<br /> +Call'd into music those terrible feet,<br /> +Which rising on wings, lo! the earth went round<br /> +To the burn of their speed with a golden sound;<br /> +With a golden sound, and a swift repose,<br /> +Such as the blood in the young heart knows;<br /> +Such as Love knows, when his tumults cease;<br /> +When all is quick, and yet all is at peace.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when Captain Sword got up next morn,</span><br /> +Lo! a new-fac'd world was born;<br /> +For not an anger nor pride would it shew,<br /> +Nor aught of the loftiness now found low,<br /> +Nor would his own men strike a single blow:<br /> +Not a blow for their old, unconsidering lord<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>Would strike the good soldiers of Captain Sword;<br /> +But weaponless all, and wise they stood,<br /> +In the level dawn, and calm brotherly good;<br /> +Yet bowed to him they, and kiss'd his hands,<br /> +For such were their new lord's commands,<br /> +Lessons rather, and brotherly plea;<br /> +Reverence the past, quoth he;<br /> +Reverence the struggle and mystery,<br /> +And faces human in their pain;<br /> +Nor his the least, that could sustain<br /> +Cares of mighty wars, and guide<br /> +Calmly where the red deaths ride.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"But how! what now?" cried Captain Sword;</span><br /> +"Not a blow for your gen'ral? not even a word?<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>What! traitors? deserters?"<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">"Ah no!" cried they;</span><br /> +"But the 'game's' at an end; the 'wise' wont play."<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"And where's your old spirit?"</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"The same, though another;</span><br /> +Man may be strong without maiming his brother."<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"But enemies?"</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">"Enemies! Whence should they come,</span><br /> +When all interchange what was known but to some?"<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"But famine? but plague? worse evils by far."</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"O last mighty rhet'ric to charm us to war!</span><br /> +Look round—what has earth, now it equably speeds,<br /> +To do with these foul and calamitous needs?<br /> +Now it equably speeds, and thoughtfully glows,<br /> +And its heart is open, never to close?<br /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/i007.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="AND SO, LIKE THE TOOL OF A DISUS'D ART" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class='poem2'> +AND SO, LIKE THE TOOL OF A DISUS'D ART,<br /> +HE STOOD AT HIS WALL, AND RUSTED APART.<br /> +<div class='sig'> +<a href="#Page_44"><i>Canto</i> VI. <i>p.</i> 44.</a><br /> +</div></div> + + + +<div class='poem'><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Still I can govern," said Captain Sword;</span><br /> +"Fate I respect; and I stick to my word."<br /> +And in truth so he did; but the word was one<br /> +He had sworn to all vanities under the sun,<br /> +To do, for their conq'rors, the least could be done.<br /> +Besides, what had <i>he</i> with his worn-out story,<br /> +To do with the cause he had wrong'd, and the glory?<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No: Captain Sword a sword was still,</span><br /> +He could not unteach his lordly will;<br /> +He could not attemper his single thought;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>It might not be bent, nor newly wrought:<br /> +And so, like the tool of a disus'd art,<br /> +He stood at his wall, and rusted apart.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Twas only for many-soul'd Captain Pen</span><br /> +To make a world of swordless men.<br /></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> + +<h2>POSTSCRIPT;</h2> + +<h3>CONTAINING SOME REMARKS +ON WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> + +<h2>POSTSCRIPT;</h2> + +<h3>CONTAINING SOME REMARKS<br /> +ON WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.</h3> + + +<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>The</span> object of this poem is to show the horrors +of war, the false ideas of power produced +in the minds of its leaders, and, by inference, +the unfitness of those leaders for the government +of the world.</div> + +<p>The author intends no more offence to any +one than can be helped: he feels due admiration +for that courage and energy, the supposed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +misdirection of which it deplores; he heartily +acknowledges the probability, that that supposed +misdirection has been hitherto no misdirection, +but a necessity—but he believes that the time +is come when, by encouraging the disposition to +question it, its services and its sufferings may be +no longer required, and he would fain tear asunder +the veil from the sore places of war,—would +show what has been hitherto kept concealed, or +not shown earnestly, and for the purpose,—would +prove, at all events, that the time has come for +putting an end to those phrases in the narratives +of warfare, by which a suspicious delicacy is +palmed upon the reader, who is told, after everything +has been done to excite his admiration of +war, that his feelings are "spared" a recital of +its miseries—that "a veil" is drawn over them—a +"truce" given to descriptions which only +"harrow up the soul," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>&c.</p> + +<p>Suppose it be necessary to "harrow up the +soul," in order that the soul be no longer harrowed? +Moralists and preachers do not deal after +this tender fashion with moral, or even physical +consequences, resulting from other evils. Why +should they spare these? Why refuse to look +their own effeminacy in the face,—their own +gaudy and overweening encouragement of what +they dare not contemplate in its results? Is a murder +in the streets worth attending to,—a single +wounded man worth carrying to the hospital,—and +are all the murders, and massacres, and fields of +wounded, and the madness, the conflagrations, the +famines, the miseries of families, and the rickety +frames and melancholy bloods of posterity, only +fit to have an embroidered handkerchief thrown +over them? Must "ladies and gentlemen" be +called off, that they may not "look that way," +the "sight is so shocking"? Does it become<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +us to let others endure, what we cannot bear +even to think of?</p> + +<p>Even if nothing else were to come of inquiries +into the horrors of war, surely they would +cry aloud for some better provision against their +extremity <i>after</i> battle,—for some regulated and +certain assistance to the wounded and agonized,—so +that we might hear no longer of men left +in cold and misery all night, writhing with torture,—of +bodies stripped by prowlers, perhaps +murderers,—and of frenzied men, the other +day the darlings of their friends, dying, two and +even several days after the battle, of famine! +The field of Waterloo was not completely cleared +of its dead and dying till nearly a week! Surely +large companies of men should be organized for +the sole purpose of assisting and clearing away the +field after battle. They should be steady men,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +not lightly admitted, nor unpossessed of some +knowledge of surgery, and they should be attached +to the surgeon's staff. Both sides would +respect them for their office, and keep them +sacred from violence. Their duties would be too +painful and useful to get them disrespected for +not joining in the fight—and possibly, before long, +they would help to do away their own necessity, +by detailing what they beheld. Is that the reason +why there is no such establishment? The question +is asked, not in bitterness, but to suggest a self-interrogation +to the instincts of war.</p> + +<p>I have not thought proper to put notes to the +poem, detailing the horrors which I have touched +upon; nor even to quote my authorities, which +are unfortunately too numerous, and contain worse +horrors still. They are furnished by almost every +history of a campaign, in all quarters of the world. +Circumstances so painful, in a first attempt to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> +render them public for their own sakes, would, +I thought, even meet with less attention in prose +than in verse, however less fitted they may appear +for it at first sight. Verse, if it has any +enthusiasm, at once demands and conciliates attention; +it proposes to say much in little; and +it associates with it the idea of something consolatory, +or otherwise sustaining. But there is +one prose specimen of these details, which I will +give, because it made so great an impression on +me in my youth, that I never afterwards could +help calling it to mind when war was spoken of; +and as I had a good deal to say on that subject, +having been a public journalist during one of the +most interesting periods of modern history, and +never having been blinded into an admiration +of war by the dazzle of victory, the circumstance +may help to show how salutary a record +of this kind may be, and what an impression +the subject might be brought to make on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +society. The passage is in a note to one of +Mr Southey's poems, the "Ode to Horror," +and is introduced by another frightful record, +less horrible, because there is not such agony +implied in it, nor is it alive.</p> + +<p>"I extract" (says Mr Southey) "the following +picture of consummate horror from notes to a +poem written in twelve-syllable verse, upon the +campaign of 1794 and 1795: it was during the +retreat to Deventer. 'We could not proceed a +hundred yards without perceiving the dead bodies +of men, women, children, and horses, in every +direction. One scene made an impression upon +my memory which time will never be able to +efface. Near another cart we perceived a stout-looking +man and a beautiful young woman, with +an infant, about seven months old, at the breast, +all three frozen and dead. The mother had most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +certainly expired in the act of suckling her child; +as with one breast exposed she lay upon the +drifted snow, the milk to all appearance in a +stream drawn from the nipple by the babe, and +instantly congealed. The infant seemed as if its +lips had but just then been disengaged, and it +reposed its little head upon the mother's bosom, +with an overflow of milk, frozen as it trickled from +the mouth. Their countenances were perfectly +composed and fresh, resembling those of persons +in a sound and tranquil slumber.'"</p> + +<p>"The following description (he continues) of a +field of battle is in the words of one who passed +over the field of Jemappe, after Doumourier's +victory: 'It was on the third day after the victory +obtained by general Doumourier over the Austrians, +that I rode across the field of battle. The scene lies +on a waste common, rendered then more dreary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> +by the desertion of the miserable hovels before +occupied by peasants. Everything that resembled +a human habitation was desolated, and for the +most part they had been burnt or pulled down, +to prevent their affording shelter to the posts of +the contending armies. The ground was ploughed +up by the wheels of the artillery and waggons; +everything like herbage was trodden into mire; +broken carriages, arms, accoutrements, dead horses +and men, were strewed over the heath. <i>This was +the third day after the battle: it was the beginning +of November, and for three days a bleak wind +and heavy rain had continued incessantly.</i> There +were still remaining alive several hundreds of +horses, and of the human victims of that dreadful +fight. I can speak with certainty of having seen +more than four hundred men <i>still living</i>, unsheltered, +<i>without food</i>, and without any human +assistance, most of them confined to the spot +where they had fallen <i>by broken limbs</i>. The two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +armies had proceeded, and abandoned these +miserable wretches to their fate. <i>Some of the +dead persons appeared to have expired in the act +of embracing each other.</i> Two young French +officers, who were brothers, had crawled under +the side of a dead horse, where they had contrived +a kind of shelter by means of a cloak: they were +both mortally wounded, and groaning <i>for each +other</i>. One very fine young man had just strength +enough to drag himself out of a hollow partly +filled with water, and was laid upon a little hillock +groaning with agony; <span class="smcap">a grape-shot had cut +across the upper part of his belly, and he +was keeping in his bowels with a handkerchief +and hat</span>. He begged of me to end his +misery! He complained of dreadful thirst. I filled +him the hat of a dead soldier with water, which +he nearly drank off at once, and left him to that +end of his wretchedness which could not be far +distant.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I hope (concludes Mr Southey), I have +always felt and expressed an honest and Christian +abhorrence of wars, and of the systems that produce +them; but my ideas of their immediate +horrors fell infinitely short of this authentic +picture."</p> + +<p>Mr Southey, in his subsequent lives of conquerors, +and his other writings, will hardly be +thought to have acted up to this "abhorrence of +wars, and of the systems that produce them." Nor +is he to be blamed for qualifying his view of the +subject, equally blameless (surely) as they are to +be held who have retained their old views, especially +by him who helped to impress them. His +friend Mr Wordsworth, in the vivacity of his +admonitions to hasty complaints of evil, has +gone so far as to say that "Carnage is God's +daughter," and thereby subjected himself to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +scoffs of a late noble wit. He is addressing the +Deity himself:—</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"But thy most dreaded instrument,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In working out a pure intent,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Is man, array'd for mutual slaughter:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Yea, Carnage is thy daughter."</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class='unindent'>Mr Wordsworth is a great poet and a philosophical +thinker, in spite of his having here paid a tremendous +compliment to a rhyme (for unquestionably +the word "slaughter" provoked him into that +imperative "Yea," and its subsequent venturous +affiliation); but the judgment, to say no more of +it, is rash. Whatever the Divine Being intends, +by his permission or use of evil, it becomes us to +think the best of it; but not to affirm the appropriation +of the particulars to him under their worst +appellation, seeing that he has implanted in us +a horror of them, and a wish to do them away. +What it is right in him to do, is one thing;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> +what it is proper in us to affirm that he actually +does, is another. And, above all, it is idle to +affirm what he intends to do for ever, and to have +us eternally venerate and abstain from questioning +an evil. All good and evil, and vice and virtue +themselves, might become confounded in the human +mind by a like daring; and humanity sit down +under every buffet of misfortune, without attempting +to resist it: which, fortunately, is impossible. +Plato cut this knotty point better, by regarding +evil as a thing senseless and unmalignant (indeed +no philosopher regards anything as malignant, or +malignant for malignity's sake); out of which, or +notwithstanding it, good is worked, and to be +worked, perhaps, finally to the abolition of evil. +But whether this consummation be possible or not, +and even if the dark horrors of evil be necessary +towards the enjoyment of the light of good, still the +horror must be maintained, where the object is +really horrible; otherwise, we but the more idly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +resist the contrast, if necessary—and, what is +worse, endanger the chance of melioration, if +possible.</div> + +<p>Did war appear to me an inevitable evil, I +should be one of the last men to shew it in any +other than its holiday clothes. I can appeal to +writings before the public, to testify whether I am +in the habit of making the worst of anything, or of +not making it yield its utmost amount of good. +My inclinations, as well as my reason, lie all that +way. I am a passionate and grateful lover of all +the beauties of the universe, moral and material; +and the chief business of my life is to endeavour +to give others the like fortunate affection. But, +on the same principle, I feel it my duty to look +evil in the face, in order to discover if it be capable +of amendment; and I do not see why the miseries +of war are to be spared this interrogation, simply +because they are frightful and enormous. Men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> +get rid of smaller evils which lie in their way—nay, +of great ones; and there appears to be no +reason why they should not get rid of the greatest, +if they will but have the courage. We have +abolished inquisitions and the rack, burnings for +religion, burnings for witchcraft, hangings for forgery +(a great triumph in a commercial country), +much of the punishment of death in some countries, +all of it in others. Why not abolish war? +Mr Wordsworth writes no odes to tell us that the +Inquisition was God's daughter; though Lope de +Vega, who was one of its officers, might have done +so—and Mr Wordsworth too, had he lived under its +dispensation. Lope de Vega, like Mr Wordsworth +and Mr Southey, was a good man, as well as a celebrated +poet: and we will concede to his memory +what the English poets will, perhaps, not be equally +disposed to grant (for they are severe on the Romish +faith) that even the Inquisition, <i>like War</i>, might +possibly have had some utility in its evil, were it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +no other than a hastening of Christianity by its +startling contradictions of it. Yet it has gone. +The Inquisition, as War may be hereafter, is no +more. Daughter if it was of the Supreme Good, +it was no immortal daughter. Why should +"Carnage" be,—especially as God has put it in +our heads to get rid of it?</p> + +<p>I am aware of what may be said on these occasions, +to "puzzle the will;" and I concede of course, +that mankind may entertain false views of their +power to change anything for the better. I concede, +that all change may be only in appearance, +and not make any real difference in the general +amount of good and evil; that evil, to a certain +invariable amount, may be necessary to the amount +of good (the overbalance of which, with a most +hearty and loving sincerity, I ever acknowledge); +and finally, that all which the wisest of men could +utter on any such subject, might possibly be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> +nothing but a jargon,—the witless and puny voice +of what we take to be a mighty orb, but which, +after all, is only a particle in the starry dust +of the universe.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, all this may be something +very different from what we take it to be, setting +aside even the opinions which consider mind as +everything, and time and space themselves as +only modifications of it, or breathing-room in +which it exists, weaving the thoughts which it calls +life, death, and materiality.</p> + +<p>But be his metaphysical opinions what they +may, who but some fantastic individual, or ultra-contemplative +scholar, ever thinks of subjecting +to them his practical notions of bettering his condition! +And how soon is it likely that men will +leave off endeavouring to secure themselves against +the uneasier chances of vicissitude, even if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +Providence ordains them to do so for no other +end than the preservation of vicissitude itself, +and not in order to help them out of the husks +and thorns of action into the flowers of it, and +into the air of heaven? Certain it is, at all +events, that the human being is incited to increase +his amount of good: and that when he is endeavouring +to do so, he is at least not fulfilling +the worst part of his necessity. Nobody tells +us, when we attempt to put out a fire and to +save the lives of our neighbours, that Conflagration +is God's daughter, or Murder God's daughter. +On the contrary, these are things which Christendom +is taught to think ill off, and to wish +to put down; and therefore we should put +down war, which is murder and conflagration by +millions.</p> + +<p>To those who tell us that nations would grow +cowardly and effeminate without war, we answer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +"Try a reasonable condition of peace first, and +then prove it. Try a state of things which mankind +have never yet attained, because they had +no press, and no universal comparison of notes; +and consider, in the meanwhile, whether so +cheerful, and intelligent, and just a state, seeing +fair play between body and mind, and educated +into habits of activity, would be likely to uneducate +itself into what was neither respected nor +customary. Prove, in the meanwhile, that nations +are cowardly and effeminate, that have been long +unaccustomed to war; that the South Americans +are so; or that all our robust countrymen, who do +not "go for soldiers," are timid agriculturists and +manufacturers, with not a quoit to throw on the +green, or a saucy word to give to an insult. +Moral courage is in self-respect and the sense +of duty; physical courage is a matter of health +or organization. Are these predispositions likely +to fail in a community of instructed freemen?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +Doubters of advancement are always arguing from +a limited past to an unlimited future; that is to +say, from a past of which they know but a point, +to a future of which they know nothing. They +stand on the bridge "between two eternities," +seeing a little bit of it behind them, and nothing +at all of what is before; and uttering those +words unfit for mortal tongue, "man ever was" +and "man ever will be." They might as well +say what is beyond the stars. It appears to be +a part of the necessity of things, from what +we see of the improvements they make, that all +human improvement should proceed by the co-operation +of human means. But what blinker +into the night of next week,—what luckless prophet +of the impossibilities of steam-boats and +steam-carriages,—shall presume to say how far +those improvements are to extend? Let no man +faint in the co-operation with which God has +honoured him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p> + +<p>As to those superabundances of population +which wars and other evils are supposed to be +necessary in order to keep down, there are questions +which have a right to be put, long before +any such necessity is assumed: and till those +questions be answered, and the experiments dependent +upon them tried, the interrogators have +a right to assume that no such necessity exists. +I do not enter upon them—for I am not bound to +do so; but I have touched upon them in the +poem; and the "too rich," and other disingenuous +half-reasoners, know well what they are. All +passionate remedies for evil are themselves evil, +and tend to re-produce what they remedy. It is +high time for the world to show that it has come +to man's estate, and can put down what is wrong +without violence. Should the wrong still return, +we should have a right to say with the Apostle, +"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" for +meanwhile we should "not have done evil that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +good may come." That "good" may come! nay, +that evil may be perpetuated; for what good, superior +to the alternatives denounced, is achieved +by this eternal round of war and its causes? Let +us do good in a good and kind manner, and trust +to the co-operation of Providence for the result. +It seems the only real way of attaining to the +very best of which our earth is capable; and +at the very worst, necessity, like the waters, +will find its level, and the equity of things be +justified.</p> + +<p>I firmly believe, that war, or the sending thousands +of our fellow-creatures to cut one another +to bits, often for what they have no concern in, +nor understand, will one day be reckoned far +more absurd than if people were to settle an +argument over the dinner-table with their knives,—a +logic indeed, which was once fashionable in +some places during the "good old times." The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +world has seen the absurdity of that practice: +why should it not come to years of discretion, +with respect to violence on a larger scale? The +other day, our own country and the United States +agreed to refer a point in dispute to the arbitration +of the king of Holland; a compliment (if +we are to believe the newspapers) of which his +majesty was justly proud. He struck a medal +on the strength of it, which history will show +as a set-off against his less creditable attempts +to force his opinions upon the Belgians. Why +should not every national dispute be referred, in +like manner, to a third party? There is reason +to suppose, that the judgment would stand a good +chance of being impartial; and it would benefit +the character of the judge, and dispose him to +receive judgments of the same kind; till at length +the custom would prevail, like any other custom; +and men be astonished at the customs that preceded +it. In private life, none but school-boys<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> +and the vulgar settle disputes by blows; even +duelling is losing its dignity.</p> + +<p>Two nations, or most likely two governments, +have a dispute; they reason the point backwards and +forwards; they cannot determine it; perhaps they +do not wish to determine; so, like two carmen in +the street, they fight it out; first, however, dressing +themselves up to look fine, and pluming themselves +on their absurdity; just as if the two carmen +were to go and put on their Sunday clothes, and +stick a feather in their hat besides, in order to +be as dignified and fantastic as possible. They +then "go at it," and cover themselves with mud, +blood, and glory. Can anything be more ridiculous? +Yet, apart from the habit of thinking +otherwise, and being drummed into the notion by +the very toys of infancy, the similitude is not one +atom too ludicrous; no, nor a thousandth part +enough so. I am aware that a sarcasm is but a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> +sarcasm, and need not imply any argument; never +includes all;—but it acquires a more respectable +character when so much is done to keep it out of +sight,—when so many questions are begged against +it by "pride, pomp, and circumstance," and allegations +of necessity. Similar allegations may +be, and are brought forward, by other nations of +the world, in behalf of customs which we, for our +parts, think very ridiculous, and do our utmost to +put down; never referring them, as we refer our +own, to the mysterious ordinations of Providence; +or, if we do, never hesitating to suppose, that Providence, +in moving us to interfere, is varying its +ordinations. Now, all that I would ask of the +advocates of war, is to apply the possible justice of +this supposition to their own case, for the purpose +of thoroughly investigating the question.</p> + +<p>But they will exultingly say, perhaps, "Is this +a time for investigating the question, when military<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +genius, even for civil purposes, has regained +its ascendancy in the person of the Duke of Wellington? +When the world has shown that it +cannot do without him? When whigs, radicals, +liberals of all sorts, have proved to be but idle +talkers, in comparison with this man of few words +and many deeds?" I answer, that it remains to +be proved whether the ascendancy be gained or +not; that I have no belief it will be regained; +and that, in the meanwhile, never was time fitter +for questioning the merits of war, and, by inference, +those of its leaders. The general peacefulness +of the world presents a fair opportunity for +laying the foundations of peaceful opinion; and +the alarm of the moment renders the interrogation +desirable for its immediate sake.</p> + +<p>The re-appearance of a military administration, +or of an administration <i>barely civil</i>, and military at +heart, may not, at first sight, be thought the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> +promising one for hastening a just appreciation of +war, and the ascendancy of moral over physical +strength. But is it, or can it be, lasting? +Will it not provoke—is it not now provoking—a +re-action still more peremptory against the +claims of Toryism, than the state of things which +preceded it? Is it anything but a flash of success, +still more indicative of expiring life, and +caused only by its convulsive efforts?</p> + +<p>If it be, this it is easy enough to predict, +that Sir Robert Peel, notwithstanding his abilities, +and the better ambition which is natural to them, +and which struggles in him with an inferior one, +impatient of his origin, will turn out to be nothing +but a servant of the aristocracy, and (more or +less openly) of a barrack-master. He will be +the servant, not of the King, not of the House +of Commons, but of the House of Lords, and +(as long as such influence lasts, which can be but a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +short while), of its military leader. He will do +nothing whatsoever contrary to their dictation, +upon peril of being treated worse than Canning; +and all the reform which he is permitted to +bring about will be only just as much as will +serve to keep off the spirit of it as long as possible, +and to continue the people in that state of +comparative ignorance, which is the only safeguard +of monopoly. Every unwilling step of +reform will be accompanied with some retrograde +or bye effort in favour of the abuses reformed: +cunning occasion will be seized to convert boons, +demanded by the age, into gifts of party favour, +and bribes for the toleration of what is withheld; +and as knowledge proceeds to extort public +education (for extort it it will, and in its own +way too at last), mark, and see what attempts +will be made to turn knowledge against itself, +and to catechise the nation back into the schoolboy +acquiescence of the good people of Germany.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> +Much good is there in that people—I would not +be thought to undervalue it—much <i>bonhommie</i>—and +in the most despotic districts, as much sensual +comfort as can make any people happy who know +no other happiness. But England and France, +the leaders of Europe, the peregrinators of the +world, cannot be confined to those lazy and +prospectless paths. They have gone through the +feudal reign; they must now go through the +commercial (God forbid that for any body's sake +they should stop there!), and they will continue +to advance, till all are instructed, and all are +masters; and government, in however gorgeous +a shape, be truly their servant. The problem of +existing governments is how to prepare for this +inevitable period, and to continue to be its masters, +by converting themselves frankly and truly into +its friends. For my part, as one of the people, +I confess I like the colours and shows of feudalism, +and would retain as much of them as would adorn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +nobler things. I would keep the tiger's skin, +though the beast be killed; the painted window, +though the superstition be laid in the tomb. +Nature likes external beauty, and man likes it. +It softens the heart, enriches the imagination, and +helps to show us that there are other goods in the +world besides bare utility. I would fain see the +splendours of royalty combined with the cheapness +of a republic and the equal knowledge of all +classes. Is such a combination impossible? I +would exhort the lovers of feudal splendour to +be the last men to think so; for a thousand +times more impossible will they find its retention +under any other circumstances. Their +royalties, their educations, their accomplishments +of all sorts, must go along with the Press and +its irresistible consequences, or they will be set +aside like a child in a corner, who has insisted +on keeping the toys and books of his brothers +to himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, there is nothing that irritates a just cause +so much as a threatening of force; and all impositions +of a military chief on a state, where civil +directors will, at least, do as well, is a threatening +of force, disguise it, or pretend to laugh at it, as its +imposers may. This irritation in England will +not produce violence. Public opinion is too +strong, and the future too secure. But deeply +and daily will increase the disgust and the ridicule; +and individuals will get laughed at and catechised +who cannot easily be sent out of the way as +ambassadors, and who might as well preserve their +self-respect a little better. To attempt, however +quietly, to overawe the advance of improvement, +by the aspect of physical force, is as idle as if +soldiers were drawn out to suppress the rising +of a flood. The flood rises quietly, irresistibly, +without violence—it cannot help it—the waters +of knowledge are out, and will "cover the earth." +Of what use is it to see the representative of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> +a by-gone influence—a poor individual mortal +(for he is nothing else in the comparison), fretting +and fuming on the shore of this mighty sea, and +playing the part of a Canute reversed,—an antic +really taking his flatterers at their word?</p> + +<p>The first thirty-five years of the nineteenth +century have been rich in experiences of the +sure and certain failure of all soldiership and +Toryism to go heartily along in the cause of the +many. There has been the sovereign instance +of Napoleon Bonaparte himself—of the allies +after him—of Charles the Tenth—of Louis +Philippe, albeit a "schoolmaster,"—and lastly, +of this strange and most involuntary Reformer +the Duke of Wellington, who refused to do, under +Canning, or for principle's sake, what he consented +to do when Canning died, for the sake of regaining +power, and of keeping it with as few concessions +as possible. Canning perished because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +Toryism, or the principle of power for its own +sake, to which he had been a servant, could not +bear to acknowledge him as its master. His +intellect was just great enough (as his birth was +small enough) to render it jealous of him under +that aspect. There is an instinct in Toryism +which renders pure intellect intolerable to it, +except in some inferior or mechanical shape, or in +the flattery of voluntary servitude. But, by a +like instinct, it is not so jealous of military +renown. It is glad of the doubtful amount of +intellect in military genius, and knows it to be +a good ally in the preservation of power, and in +the substitution of noise and show for qualities +fearless of inspection. Is it an ascendancy of +this kind which the present age requires, or will +permit? Do we want a soldier at the head of +us, when there is nobody abroad to fight with? +when international as well as national questions +can manifestly settle themselves without him?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +and when his appearance in the seat of power +can indicate nothing but a hankering after those +old substitutions of force for argument, or at +best of "an authority for a reason," which every +step of reform is hoping to do away? Do we +want him to serve in our shops? to preside over +our studies? to cultivate "peace and good will" +among nations? wounding no self love—threatening +no social?</p> + +<p>There never was a soldier, purely brought +up as such—and it is of such only I speak, and +not of rare and even then perilous exceptions,—men +educated in philosophy like Epaminondas, +or in homely household virtues and citizenship +like Washington—but there never was a soldier +such as I speak of, who did more for the world +than was compatible with his confined and arbitrary +breeding. I do not speak, of course, with +reference to the unprofessional part of his character.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> +Circumstances, especially the participation +of dangers and vicissitude, often conspire +with naturally good qualities to render soldiers +the most amiable of men; and nothing is more +delightful to contemplate than an old military +veteran, whose tenderness of heart has survived +the shocks of the rough work it has been tried in, +till twenty miserable sights of war and horror +start up to the imagination as a set-off against +its attractiveness. But, publicly speaking, the +more a soldier succeeds, the more he looks upon +soldiership as something superior to all other +kinds of ascendancy, and qualified to dispense with +them. He always ends in considering the flower +of the art of government as consisting in issuing +"orders," and that of popular duty as comprised +in "obedience." Cities with him are barracks, +and the nation a conquered country. He is at +best but a pioneer of civilization. When he +undertakes to be the civilizer himself, he makes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> +mistakes that betray him to others, even supposing +him self-deceived. Napoleon, though +he was the accidental instrument of a popular +re-action, was one of the educated tools of the +system that provoked it,—an officer brought up at +a Royal Military College; and in spite of his +boasted legislation and his real genius, such he +ever remained. He did as much for his own +aggrandizement as he could, and no more for the +world than he thought compatible with it. The +same military genius which made him as great as +he was, stopped him short of a greater greatness; +because, quick and imposing as he was in acting +the part of a civil ruler, he was in reality a soldier +and nothing else, and by the excess of the soldier's +propensity (aggrandizement by force), he over-toppled +himself, and fell to pieces. Soldiership +appears to have narrowed or hardened the public +spirit of every man who has spent the chief part +of his life in it, who has died at an age which gives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> +final proofs of its tendency, and whose history +is thoroughly known. We all know what Cromwell +did to an honest parliament. Marlborough +ended in being a miser and the tool of his wife. +Even good-natured, heroic Nelson condescended +to become an executioner at Naples. Frederick +did much for Prussia, as a power; but what became +of her as a people, or power either, before +the popular power of France? Even Washington +seemed not to comprehend those who thought +that negro-slaves ought to be freed.</p> + +<p>In the name of common sense then, what do +we want with a soldier who was born and bred +in circumstances the most arbitrary; who never +advocated a liberal measure as long as he could +help it; and who (without meaning to speak +presumptuously, or in one's own person unauthorized +by opinion) is one of the merest +soldiers, though a great one, that ever existed,—without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> +genius of any other sort,—with scarcely +a civil public quality either commanding or engaging +(as far as the world in general can see),—and +with no more to say for himself than the most +mechanical clerk in office? In what respect is +the Duke of Wellington better fitted to be a parliamentary +leader, than the Sir Arthur Wellesley +of twenty years back? Or what has re-cast the +habits and character of the Colonel Wellesley of +the East Indies, to give him an unprofessional +consideration for the lives and liberties of his +fellow-creatures?</p> + +<p>And yet the Duke of Wellington (it is said) +<i>may</i>, after all, be in earnest in his professions of +reform and advancement. If so, he will be the +most remarkable instance that ever existed, of +the triumph of reason over the habits of a +life, and the experience of mankind. I have +looked for some such man through a very remarkable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> +period of the world, when an honest +declaration to this effect would have set him at +the top of mankind, to be worshipped for ever; +and I never found the glorious opportunity +seized,—not by Napoleon when he came from +Elba,—not by the allies when they conquered +him,—not by Louis Philippe, though he was educated +in adversity. I mean that he has shown +himself a prince born, of the most aristocratic +kind; and evidently considers himself as nothing +but the head of a new dynasty. When the +Duke of Wellington had the opportunity of +being a reformer, of his own free will, he +resisted it as long as he could. He opposed +reform up to the last moment of its freedom +from his dictation; he declared that ruin would +follow it; that the institutions of the country +were perfect without it; and that, at the very +least, the less of it the better. And for this +enmity, even if no other reason existed,—even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> +if his new light were sincere,—the Duke of Wellington +ought not to have the <i>honour</i> of leading +reform. It is just as if a man had been doing +all he could to prevent another from entering his +own house, and then, when he found that the +by-standers would insist on his having free passage, +were to turn to them, smiling, and say, +"Well, since it must be so, allow me to do +the honours of the mansion." Everybody knows +what this proposal would be called by the by-standers. +And if the way in which greatness is +brought up and spoilt gives it a right to a less +homely style of rebuke (as I grant it does), still +the absurdity of the Duke's claim is not the less +evident, nor the air of it less provoking.</p> + +<p>I can imagine but two reasons for the remotest +possible permission of this glaring anomaly—this +government of anti-reforming reformers—this hospital +of sick guides for the healthy, supported<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> +by involuntary contributions: first, sheer necessity +(which is ludicrous); and second, a facilitation +of church reform through the Lords and +the bench of Bishops; the desirableness of which +facilitation appears to be in no proportion to the +compromise it is likely to make with abuses. I +have read, I believe, all the utmost possible things +that can be said in its favour, the articles, for +instance, written by the <i>Times</i> newspaper (admirable, +as far as a rotten cause can let them +be, and when not afflicted by some portentous +mystery of personal resentment); and though I +trust I may lay claim to as much willingness +to be convinced, as most men who have suffered +and reflected, I have not seen a single argument +which did not appear to me fully answered by +the above objection alone (about the "honour"); +setting aside the innumerable convincing ones +urged by reasoners on the other side: for +as to any dearth of statesmen in a country like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> +this, it never existed, nor ever can, till education +and public spirit have entirely left it. There +have been the same complaints at every change +in the history of administrations; and the crop +has never failed.</p> + +<p>Allow me to state here, that any appearance +of personality in this book is involuntary. Public +principles are sometimes incarnate in individual +shapes; and, in attacking them, the individual may +be seemingly attacked, where, to eyes which look +a little closer, there is evidently no such intention. +I have been obliged to identify, in some measure, +the Power of the Sword with several successive +individuals, and with the Duke of Wellington +most, because he is the reigning shape, and includes +all its pretensions. But as an individual +who am nothing, except in connexion with +what I humanly feel, I dare to affirm, that I +have not only the consideration that becomes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +me for all human beings, but a flesh and +blood regard for every body; and that I as +truly respect in the Noble Duke the possession of +military science, of a straight-forward sincerity, +and a valour of which no circumstances or years +can diminish the ready firmness, as I doubt the +fitness of a man of his education, habits, and political +principles, for the guidance of an intellectual +age.</p> + +<p>I dislike Toryism, because I think it an unjust, +exacting, and pernicious thing, which tends to +keep the interests of the many in perpetual subjection +to those of the few; but far be it from +me, in common modesty, to dislike those who have +been brought up in its principles, and taught to +think them good,—far less such of them as adorn +it by intellectual or moral qualities, and who +justly claim for it, under its best aspect in private +life, that ease and urbanity of behaviour which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> +implies an acknowledgment of its claims to respect, +even where those claims are partly grounded +in prejudice. I heartily grant to the privileged +classes, that, enjoying in many respects the best +educations, they have been conservators of polished +manners, and of the other graces of intercourse. +My quarrel with them is, that the inferior part +of their education induces them to wish to keep +these manners and graces to themselves, together +with a superabundance, good for nobody, of all +other advantages; and that thus, instead of being +the preservers of a beautiful and genial +flame, good for all, and in due season partakeable +by all, they would hoard and make an idolatrous +treasure of it, sacred to one class alone, and such +as the diffusion of knowledge renders it alike +useless and exasperating to endeavour to withhold.</p> + +<p>I will conclude this Postscript with quotations +from three writers of the present day, who may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +be fairly taken to represent the three distinct +classes of the leaders of knowledge, and who +will show what is thought of the feasibility +of putting an end to war,—the Utilitarian, or +those who are all for the tangible and material—the +Metaphysical, or those who recognize, in +addition, the spiritual and imaginative wants of +mankind—and lastly (in no offensive sense), the +Men of the World, whose opinion will have the +greatest weight of all with the incredulous, and +whose speaker is a soldier to boot, and a man +who evidently sees fair play to all the weaknesses +as well as strengths of our nature.</p> + +<p>The first quotation is from the venerable Mr +Bentham, a man who certainly lost sight of no +existing or possible phase of society, such as the +ordinary disputants on this subject contemplate. +I venture to think him not thoroughly philosophical +on the point, especially in what he says in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> +reproach of men educated to think differently +from himself. But the passage will show the +growth of opinion in a practical and highly influential +quarter.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Nothing can be worse," says Mr Bentham, +"than the general feeling on the subject of war. +The Church, the State, the ruling few, the subject +many, all seem to have combined, in order +to patronise vice and crime in their very widest +sphere of evil. Dress a man in particular garments, +call him by a particular name, and he +shall have authority, on divers occasions, to commit +every species of offence, to pillage, to murder, +to destroy human felicity, and, for so doing, he +shall be rewarded.</p> + +<p>"Of all that is pernicious in admiration, the +admiration of heroes is the most pernicious; and +how delusion should have made us admire what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +virtue should teach us to hate and loathe, is among +the saddest evidences of human weakness and +folly. The crimes of heroes seem lost in the +vastness of the field they occupy. A lively idea +of the mischief they do, of the misery they create, +seldom penetrates the mind through the delusions +with which thoughtlessness and falsehood have surrounded +their names and deeds. Is it that the +magnitude of the evil is too gigantic for entrance? +We read of twenty thousand men killed in a +battle, with no other feeling than that 'it was +a glorious victory.' Twenty thousand, or ten +thousand, what reck we of their sufferings? The +hosts who perished are evidence of the completeness +of the triumph; and the completeness of +the triumph is the measure of merit, and the +glory of the conqueror. Our schoolmasters, and +the immoral books they so often put into our +hands, have inspired us with an affection for +heroes; and the hero is more heroic in proportion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> +to the numbers of the slain—add a cypher, not one +iota is added to our disapprobation. Four or two +figures give us no more sentiment of pain than +one figure, while they add marvellously to the +grandeur and splendour of the victor. Let us +draw forth one individual from those thousands, +or tens of thousands,—his leg has been shivered +by one ball, his jaw broken by another—he is +bathed in his own blood, and that of his fellows—yet +he lives, tortured by thirst, fainting, +famishing. He is but one of the twenty thousand—one +of the actors and sufferers in the scene of +the hero's glory—and of the twenty thousand +there is scarcely one whose suffering or death will +not be the centre of a circle of misery. Look +again, admirers of that hero! Is not this wretchedness? +Because it is repeated ten, ten hundred, +ten thousand times, is not this wretchedness?</p> + +<p>"The period will assuredly arrive, when better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +instructed generations will require all the evidence +of history to credit, that, in times deeming themselves +enlightened, human beings should have +been honoured with public approval, in the very +proportion of the misery they caused, and the +mischiefs they perpetrated. They will call upon +all the testimony which incredulity can require, +to persuade them that, in passed ages, men there +were—men, too, deemed worthy of popular recompense—who, +for some small pecuniary retribution, +hired themselves out to do any deeds of +pillage, devastation, and murder, which might be +demanded of them. And, still more will it shock +their sensibilities to learn, that such men, such +men-destroyers, were marked out as the eminent +and the illustrious—as the worthy of laurels and +monuments—of eloquence and poetry. In that +better and happier epoch, the wise and the good +will be busied in hurling into oblivion, or dragging +forth for exposure to universal ignominy and obloquy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +many of the heads we deem <i>heroic</i>; while +the true fame and the perdurable glories will +be gathered around the creators and diffusers of +happiness."—<i>Deontology.</i></p></div> + +<p>Our second quotation is from one of the +subtilest and most universal thinkers now living—Thomas +Carlyle—chiefly known to the public +as a German scholar and the friend of Goethe, +but deeply respected by other leading intellects +of the day, as a man who sees into the utmost +recognized possibilities of knowledge. See what +he thinks of war, and of the possibility of putting +an end to it. We forget whether we got the +extract from the <i>Edinburgh</i> or the <i>Foreign +Quarterly Review</i>, having made it sometime back +and mislaid the reference; and we take a liberty +with him in mentioning his name as the writer, +for which his zeal in the cause of mankind will +assuredly pardon us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The better minds of all countries," observes +Mr Carlyle, "begin to understand each other, +and, which follows naturally, to love each other +and help each other, by whom ultimately all +countries in all their proceedings are governed.</p> + +<p>"Late in man's history, yet clearly, at length, +it becomes manifest to the dullest, that mind is +stronger than matter—that mind is the creator +and shaper of matter—that not brute force, but +only persuasion and faith, is the King of this +world. The true poet, who is but an inspired +thinker, is still an Orpheus whose lyre tames +the savage beasts, and evokes the dead rocks +to fashion themselves into palaces and stately +inhabited cities. It has been said, and may be +repeated, that literature is fast becoming all in +all to us—our Church, our Senate, our whole +social constitution. The true Pope of Christendom +is not that feeble old man in Rome, nor is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +its autocrat the Napoleon, the Nicholas, with its +half million even of obedient bayonets; such +autocrat is himself but a more cunningly-devised +bayonet and military engine in the hands of a +mightier than he. The true autocrat, or Pope, +is that man, the real or seeming wisest of the last +age; crowned after death; who finds his hierarchy +of gifted authors, his clergy of assiduous journalists: +whose decretals, written, not on parchment, +but on the living souls of men, it were +an inversion of the laws of nature to disobey. +In these times of ours, all intellect has fused +itself into literature; literature—printed thought, +is the molten sea and wonder-bearing chaos, +in which mind after mind casts forth its opinion, +its feeling, to be molten into the general mass, +and to be worked there; interest after interest +is engulfed in it, or embarked in it; higher, +higher it rises round all the edifices of existence; +they must all be molten into it, and anew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> +bodied forth from it, or stand unconsumed among +its fiery surges. Woe to him whose edifice is +not built of true asbest, and on the everlasting +rock, but on the false sand and the drift-wood of +accident, and the paper and parchment of antiquated +habit! For the power or powers exist +not on our earth that can say to that sea—roll +back, or bid its proud waves be still.</p> + +<p>"What form so omnipotent an element will +assume—how long it will welter to and fro as +a wild democracy, a wilder anarchy—what constitution +and organization it will fashion for itself, +and for what depends on it in the depths of +time, is a subject for prophetic conjecture, wherein +brightest hope is not unmingled with fearful +apprehensions and awe at the boundless unknown. +The more cheering is this one thing, +which we do see and know—that its tendency +is to a universal European commonweal; that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> +wisest in all nations will communicate and co-operate; +whereby Europe will again have its +true Sacred College and council of Amphictyons; +wars will become rarer, less inhuman; and in +the course of centuries, such delirious ferocity +in nations, as in individuals it already is, may +be proscribed and become obsolete for ever."</p></div> + +<p>My last and not least conclusive extract (for +it shows the actual hold which these speculations +have taken of the minds of practical men—of men +out in the world, and even of <i>soldiers</i>) is from a +book popular among all classes of readers—the +<i>Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau</i>, written by +Major Sir Francis Head. What he says of one +country's educating another, by the natural progress +of books and opinion, and of the effect +which this is likely to have upon governments +even as remote and unwilling as Russia, is particularly +worthy of attention.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> + +<p>The author is speaking of some bathers at whom +he had been looking, and of a Russian Prince, +who lets us into some curious information respecting +the leading-strings in which grown gentlemen +are kept by despotism:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"For more than half an hour I had been indolently +watching this amphibious scene, when the +landlord entering my room said, that the Russian +Prince, G——n, wished to speak to me on some +business; and the information was scarcely communicated, +when I perceived his Highness standing +at the threshold of my door. With the attention +due to his rank, I instantly begged he would +do me the honour to walk in; and, after we had +sufficiently bowed to each other, and that I had +prevailed on my guest to sit down, I gravely requested +him, as I stood before him, to be so good +as to state in what way I could have the good +fortune to render him any service. The Prince<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +very briefly replied, that he had called upon me, +considering that I was the person in the hotel best +capable (he politely inclined his head) of informing +him by what route it would be most adviseable +for him to proceed to London, it being his wish to +visit my country.</p> + +<p>"In order at once to solve this very simple problem, +I silently unfolded and spread out upon the +table my map of Europe; and each of us, as we +leant over it, placing a forefinger on or near Wiesbaden +(our eyes being fixed upon Dover), we remained +in this reflecting attitude for some seconds, +until the Prince's finger first solemnly began to +trace its route. In doing this, I observed that his +Highness's hand kept swerving far into the Netherlands, +so, gently pulling it by the thumb towards +Paris, I used as much force as I thought +decorous, to induce it to advance in a straight line; +however, finding my efforts ineffectual, I ventured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> +with respectful astonishment, to ask, 'Why travel +by so uninteresting a route'?</p> + +<p>"The Prince at once acknowledged that the +route I had recommended would, by visiting Paris, +afford him the greatest pleasure; but he frankly +told me that no Russian, not even a personage of +his rank, could enter that capital, without first obtaining +a written permission from the Emperor.</p> + +<p>"These words were no sooner uttered, than I +felt my fluent civility suddenly begin to coagulate; +the attention I paid my guest became +forced and unnatural. I was no longer at my +ease; and though I bowed, strained, and endeavoured +to be, if possible, more respectful than +ever, yet I really could hardly prevent my lips +from muttering aloud, that I had sooner die a +homely English peasant than live to be a Russian +prince!—in short, his Highness's words acted upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> +my mind like thunder upon beer. And, moreover, +I could almost have sworn that I was an +old lean wolf, contemptuously observing a bald +ring rubbed by the collar, from the neck of a +sleek, well-fed mastiff dog; however, recovering +myself, I managed to give as much information +as it was in my humble power to afford; and +my noble guest then taking his departure, I +returned to my open window, to give vent in +solitude (as I gazed upon the horse bath) to my +own reflection upon the subject.</p> + +<p>"Although the petty rule of my life has been +never to trouble myself about what the world +calls 'politics'—(a fine word, by the by, much +easier expressed than understood)—yet, I must +own, I am always happy when I see a nation +enjoying itself, and melancholy when I observe +any large body of people suffering pain or imprisonment. +But of all sorts of imprisonment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> +that of the mind is, to my taste, the most cruel; +and, therefore, when I consider over what immense +dominions the Emperor of Russia presides, and +how he governs, I cannot help sympathizing most +sincerely with those innocent sufferers, who have +the misfortune to be born his subjects; for if a +Russian Prince be not freely permitted to go to +Paris, in what a melancholy state of slavery and +debasement must exist the minds of what we +call the lower classes?</p> + +<p>"As a sovereign remedy for this lamentable +political disorder, many very sensible people in +England prescribe, I know, that we ought to +have resource to arms. I must confess, however, +it seems to me that one of the greatest political +errors England could commit would be to declare, +or to join in declaring, war with Russia; in short, +that an appeal to brute force would, at this moment, +be at once most unscientifically to stop an immense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> +moral engine, which, if left to its work, is +quite powerful enough, without bloodshed, to gain +for humanity, at no expense at all, its object. +The individual who is, I conceive, to overthrow +the Emperor of Russia—who is to direct his +own legions against himself—who is to do what +Napoleon had at the head of his great army failed +to effect, is the little child, who, lighted by the +single wick of a small lamp, sits at this moment +perched above the great steam press of the +'Penny Magazine,' feeding it, from morning till +night, with blank papers, which, at almost every +pulsation of the engine, comes out stamped on +both sides with engravings, and with pages of +plain, useful, harmless knowledge, which, by +making the lower orders acquainted with foreign +lands, foreign productions, various states of society, +&c., tend practically to inculcate 'Glory to God +in the highest, and on earth peace—good will +towards men.' It has already been stated, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> +what proceeds from this press is now greedily +devoured by the people of Europe; indeed, even +at Berlin, we know it can hardly be reprinted +fast enough.</p> + +<p>"This child, then,—'this sweet little cherub +that sits up aloft,'—is the only army that an +enlightened country like ours should, I humbly +think, deign to oppose to one who reigns in +darkness—who trembles at day-light, and whose +throne rests upon ignorance and despotism. +Compare this mild, peaceful intellectual policy, +with the dreadful, savage alternative of going +to war, and the difference must surely be evident +to everyone. In the former case, we calmly +enjoy, first of all, the pleasing reflection, that +our country is generously imparting to the nations +of Europe the blessing she is tranquilly deriving +from the purification of civilization to her own +mind;—far from wishing to exterminate, we are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> +gradually illuminating the Russian peasant, we +are mildly throwing a gleam of light upon the +fetters of the Russian Prince; and surely every +well-disposed person must see, that if we will +only have patience, the result of this noble, +temperate conduct, must produce all that reasonable +beings can desire."—<i>Bubbles from the Brunnens +of Nassau</i>, p. 164.</p></div> + +<p>By the 'Penny Magazine,' our author means, +of course, not only that excellent publication, +but all cheaply-diffused knowledge—all the tranquil +and enlightening deeds of "Captain Pen" +in general—of whom it is pleasant to see the +gallant Major so useful a servant, the more so +from his sympathies with rank and the aristocracy. +But "Pen" will make it a matter of necessity, +by and by, for all ranks to agree with him, in +vindication of their own wit and common sense; +and when once this necessity is felt, and fastidiousness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> +shall find out that it will be considered +"absurd" to lag behind in the career of knowledge +and the common good, the cause of the +world is secure.</p> + +<p>May princes and people alike find it out by +the kindliest means, and without further violence. +May they discover that no one set of human +beings, perhaps no single individual, can be +thoroughly secure and content, or enabled to +work out his case with equal reasonableness, +<i>till all are so</i>,—a subject for reflection, which +contains, we hope, the beneficent reason <i>why all +are restless</i>. The solution of the problem is co-operation—the +means of solving it is the Press. +If the Greeks had had a press, we should probably +have heard nothing of the inconsiderate question, +which demands, why they, with all their philosophy, +did not alter the world. They had not +the means. They could not command a general<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +hearing. Neither had Christianity come up, to +make men think of one another's wants, as well +as of their own accomplishments. Modern times +possess those means, and inherit that divine incitement. +May every man exert himself accordingly, +and show himself a worthy inhabitant of +this beautiful and most capable world!</p> + +<h3>THE END.</h3> +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<div class='center'><br /><br /><br /> +LONDON:<br /> +<small>Printed by C. and W. <span class="smcap">Reynell</span>,</small><br /> +<small>Little Pulteney Street.</small><br /></div><hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 324px;"> +<img src="images/i008.jpg" width="324" height="425" alt="P. 112." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 22em;"><a href="#Page_112"><i>P.</i> 112.</a></span></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class='tnote'> +<p>Transcriber's Note: On <a href="#Page_67">page 67</a>, a quote begins but has no end that this +transcriber can find. It was retained as printed. ("Try a reasonable +condition)</p></div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Captain Sword and Captain Pen, by Leigh Hunt + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN SWORD AND CAPTAIN PEN *** + +***** This file should be named 28260-h.htm or 28260-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/2/6/28260/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +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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