PAST AND PRESENT By Thomas Carlyle

Appreciation by Ralph Waldo Emerson

First published 1843

THOMAS CARLYLE, born in 1795 at Ecclefechan, the son of astonemason. Educated at Edinburgh University. Schoolmaster fora short time, but decided on a literary career, visiting Parisand London. Retired in 1828 to Dumfriesshire to write. In 1834moved to Cheyne Row, Chelsea, and died there in 1881. 

INTRODUCTION Being an appreciation from "The Dial" (July 1843) by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Here is Carlyle's new poem, his _Iliad_ of English woes, tofollow his poem on France, entitled the _History of the FrenchRevolution. _ In its first aspect it is a political tract, andsince Burke, since Milton, we have had nothing to compare withit. It grapples honestly with the facts lying before all men, groups and disposes them with a master's mind, and, with a heartfull of manly tenderness, offers his best counsel to hisbrothers. Obviously it is the book of a powerful andaccomplished thinker, who has looked with naked eyes at thedreadful political signs in England for the last few years, hasconversed much on these topics with such wisemen of all ranks andparties as are drawn to a scholar's house, until, such daily andnightly meditation has grown into a great connection, if not asystem of thoughts; and the topic of English politics becomesthe best vehicle for the expression of his recent thinking, recommended to him by the desire to give some timely counsels, and to strip the worst mischiefs of their plausibility. It is abrave and just book, and not a semblance. "No new truth, " saythe critics on all sides. Is it so? Truth is very old, but themerit of seers is not to invent but to dispose objects in theirright places, and he is the commander who is always in the mount, whose eye not only sees details, but throws crowds of detailsinto their right arrangement and a larger and juster totalitythan any other. The book makes great approaches to truecontemporary history, a very rare success, and firmly holds up todaylight the absurdities still tolerated in the English andEuropean system. It is such an appeal to the conscience andhonour of England as cannot be forgotten, or be feigned to beforgotten. It has the merit which belongs to every honest book, that it was self-examining before it was eloquent, and so hitsall other men, and, as the country people say of good preaching, "comes bounce down into every pew. " Every reader shall carryaway something. The scholar shall read and write, the farmer andmechanic shall toil, with new resolution, nor forget the bookwhen they resume their labour. 

Though no theocrat, and more than most philosophers, a believerin political systems, Mr. Carlyle very fairly finds the calamityof the times, not in bad bills of Parliament, nor the remedy ingood bills, but the vice in false and superficial aims of thepeople, and the remedy in honesty and insight. Like every workof genius, its great value is in telling such simple truths. Aswe recall the topics, we are struck with force given to the plaintruths; the picture of the English nation all sitting enchanted, the poor, enchanted so that they cannot work, the rich, enchantedso that they cannot enjoy, and are rich in vain; the exposure ofthe progress of fraud into all arts and social activities; theproposition that the labourer must have a greater share in hisearnings; that the principle of permanence shall be admittedinto all contracts of mutual service; that the state shallprovide at least schoolmaster's education for all the citizens;the exhortation to the workman that he shall respect the work andnot the wages; to the scholar that he shall be there for light;to the idle, that no man shall sit idle; the picture of AbbotSamson, the true governor, who "is not there to expect reason andnobleness of others, he is there to give them of his own reasonand nobleness;" the assumption throughout the book, that a newchivalry and nobility, namely the dynasty of labour, is replacingthe old nobilities. These things strike us with a force whichreminds us of the morals of the Oriental or early Greek masters, and of no modern book. Truly in these things is great reward. It is not by sitting so at a grand distance and calling the humanrace _larvae, _ that men are to be helped, nor by helping thedepraved after their own foolish fashion; but by doingunweariedly the particular work we were born to do. Let no manthink himself absolved because he does a generous action andbefriends the poor, but let him see whether he so holds hisproperty that a benefit goes from it to all. A man's diet shouldbe what is simplest and readiest to be had, because it is soprivate a good. His house should be better, because that is forthe use of hundreds, perhaps of thousands, and is the property ofthe traveler. But his speech is a perpetual and publicinstrument; let that always side with the race and yield neithera lie nor a sneer. His manners, --let them be hospitable andcivilising, so that no Phidias or Raphael shall have taughtanything better in canvas or stone; and his acts should berepresentative of the human race, as one who makes them rich inhis having, and poor in his want. 

It requires great courage in a man of letters to handle thecontemporary practical questions; not because he then has allmen for his rivals, but because of the infinite entanglements ofthe problem, and the waste of strength in gathering unripefruits. The task is superhuman; and the poet knows well that alittle time will do more than the most puissant genius. Timestills the loud noise of opinions, sinks the small, raises thegreat, so that the true emerges without effort and in perfectharmony to all eyes; but the truth of the present hour, exceptin particulars and single relations, is unattainable. Each mancan very well know his own part of duty, if he will; but tobring out the truth for beauty, and as literature, surmounts thepowers of art. The most elaborate history of today will have theoddest dislocated look in the next generation. The historian oftoday is yet three ages off. The poet cannot descend into theturbid present without injury to his rarest gifts. Hence thatnecessity of isolation which genius has always felt. He muststand on his glass tripod, if he would keep his electricity. 

But when the political aspects are so calamitous that thesympathies of the man overpower the habits of the poet, a higherthan Literary inspiration may succour him. It is a costly proofof character, that the most renowned scholar of England shouldtake his reputation in his hand and should descend into the ring;and he has added to his love whatever honour his opinions mayforfeit. To atone for this departure from the vows of thescholar and his eternal duties to this secular charity, we haveat least this gain, that here is a message which those to whom itwas addressed cannot choose but hear. Though they die, they mustlisten. It is plain that whether by hope or by fear, or were itonly by delight in this panorama of brilliant images; all thegreat classes of English society must read, even those whoseexistence it proscribes. Poor Queen Victoria--poor Sir RobertPeel--poor Primate and Bishops--poor Dukes and Lords! There isno help in place or pride or in looking another way; a grain ofwit is more penetrating than the lightning of the night-storm, which no curtains or shutters will keep out. Here is a bookwhich will be read, no thanks to anybody but itself. What pains, what hopes, what vows, shall come of the reading! Here is a bookas full of treason as an egg is full of meat, and every lordshipand worship and high form and ceremony of English conservatismtossed like a football into the air, and kept in the air, withmerciless kicks and rebounds, and yet not a word is punishable bystatute. The wit has eluded all official zeal; and yet thesedire jokes, these cunning thrusts, this darning sword of Cherubimwaved high in air, illuminates the whole horizon, and shows tothe eyes of the universe every wound it inflicts. Worst of allfor the party attacked, it bereaves them beforehand of allsympathy, by anticipating the plea of poetic and humaneconservatism, and impressing the reader with the conviction thatthe satirist himself has the truest love for everything old andexcellent in English land and institutions, and a genuine respectfor the basis of truth in those whom he exposes. 

We are at some loss how to state what strikes us as the fault ofthis remarkable book, for the variety and excellence of thetalent displayed in it is pretty sure to leave all specialcriticism in the wrong. And we may easily fail in expressing thegeneral objection which we feel. It appears to us as a certaindisproportion in the picture, caused by the obtrusion of thewhims of the painter. In this work, as in his former labours, Mr. Carlyle reminds us of a sick giant. His humours are expressed with so much force of constitution that hisfancies are more attractive and more credible than the sanity ofduller men. But the habitual exaggeration of the tone wearieswhilst it stimulated. 

It is felt to be so much deduction from the universality of thepicture. It is not serene sunshine, but everything is seen inlurid storm lights. Every object attitudinises, to the verymountains and stars almost, under the refraction of thiswonderful humorist; and instead of the common earth and sky, wehave a Martin's Creation or Judgment Day. A crisis has alwaysarrived which requires a _deus ex machina. _ One can hardlycredit, whilst under the spell of this magician, that the worldalways had the same bankrupt look, to foregoing ages as to us--asof a failed world just re-collecting its old withered forces tobegin again and try to do a little business. It was perhapsinseparable from the attempt to write a book of wit andimagination on English politics, that a certain local emphasisand love of effect, such as is the vice of preaching, shouldappear, producing on the reader a feeling of forlornness by theexcess of value attributed to circumstances. But the splendourof wit cannot out--dazzle the calm daylight, which always showsevery individual man in balance with his age, and able to workout his own salvation from all the follies of that, and no suchglaring contrasts or severalties in that or this. Each age hasits own follies, as its majority is made up of foolish youngpeople; its superstitions appear no superstitions to itself;and if you should ask the contemporary, he would tell you, withpride or with regret (according as he was practical or poetic), that he had none. But after a short time, down go its folliesand weakness and the memory of them; its virtues alone remain, and its limitation assumes the poetic form of a beautifulsuperstition, as the dimness of our sight clothes the objects inthe horizon with mist and colour. The revelation of Reason isthis of the un-changeableness of the fate of humanity under allits subjective aspects; that to the cowering it always cowers, to the daring it opens great avenues. The ancients are onlyvenerable to us because distance has destroyed what was trivial;as the sun and stars affect us only grandly, because we cannotreach to their smoke and surfaces and say, Is that all?

And yet the gravity of the times, the manifold and increasingdangers of the English State, may easily excuse some over-colouring of the picture; and we at this distance are not so farremoved from any of the specific evils, and are deeplyparticipant in too many, not to share the gloom and thank thelove and the courage of the counselor. This book is full ofhumanity, and nothing is more excellent in this as in all Mr. Carlyle's works than the attitude of the writer. He has thedignity of a man of letters, who knows what belongs to him, andnever deviates from his sphere; a continuer of the great line ofscholars, and sustains their office in the highest credit andhonour. If the good heaven have any good word to impart to thisunworthy generation, here is one scribe qualified and clothed forits occasion. One excellence he has in an age of Mammon and ofcriticism, that he never suffers the eye of his wonder to close. Let who will be the dupe of trifles, he cannot keep his eye oftfrom that gracious Infinite which embosoms us. 

As a literary artist he has great merits, beginning with the mainone that he never wrote one dull line. How well-read, howadroit, what thousand arts in his one art of writing; with hisexpedient for expressing those unproven opinions which heentertains but will not endorse, by summoning one of his men ofstraw from the cell, --and the respectable Sauerteig, orTeufelsdrockh, or Dryasdust, or Picturesque Traveler, says whatis put into his mouth, and disappears. That morbid temperamenthas given his rhetoric a somewhat bloated character; a luxury tomany imaginative and learned persons, like a showery south-windwith its sunbursts and rapid chasing of lights and glooms overthe landscape, and yet its offensiveness to multitudes ofreluctant lovers makes us often wish some concession werepossible on the part of the humorist. Yet it must not beforgotten that in all his fun of castanets, or playing of tuneswith a whip-lash like some renowned charioteers, --in all thisglad and needful venting of his redundant spirits, he does yetever and anon, as if catching the glance of one wise man in thecrowd, quit his tempestuous key, and lance at him in clear leveltone the very word, and then with new glee return to his game. He is like a lover or an outlaw who wraps up his message in aserenade, which is nonsense to the sentinel, but salvation to theear for which it is meant. He does not dodge the question, butgives sincerity where it is due. 

One word more respecting this remarkable style. We have inliterature few specimens of magnificence. Plato is the purpleancient, and Bacon and Milton the moderns of the richest strains. Burke sometimes reaches to that exuberant fullness, thoughdeficient in depth. Carlyle in his strange, half mad way, hasentered the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and shown a vigour andwealth of resource which has no rival in the tourney play ofthese times--the indubitable champion of England. Carlyle is thefirst domestication of the modern system, with its infinity ofdetails, into style. We have been civilising very fast, buildingLondon and Paris, and now planting New England and India, NewHolland and Oregon--and it has not appeared in literature; therehas been no analogous expansion and recomposition in books. Carlyle's style is the first emergence of all this wealth andlabour with which the world has gone with child so long. Londonand Europe, tunneled, graded corn-lawed, with trade-nobility, andEast and West Indies for dependencies, and America, with theRocky Hills in the horizon, have never before been conquered inliterature. This is the first invasion and conquest. How likean air-balloon or bird of Jove does he seem to float over thecontinent, and stooping here and there pounce on a fact as asymbol which was never a symbol before. This is the firstexperiment, and something of rudeness and haste must be pardonedto so great an achievement. It will be done again and again, sharper, simpler; but fortunate is he who did it first, thoughnever so giant-like and fabulous. This grandiose characterpervades his wit and his imagination. We have never had anythingin literature so like earthquakes as the laughter of Carlyle. He"shakes with his mountain mirth. " It is like the laughter of theGenii in the horizon. These jokes shake down Parliament-houseand Windsor Castle, Temple and Tower, and the future shall echothe dangerous peals. The other particular of magnificence is inhis rhymes. Carlyle is a poet who is altogether too burly in hisframe and habit to submit to the limits of metre. Yet he is fullof rhythm, not only in the perpetual melody of his periods, butin the burdens, refrains, and returns of his sense and music. Whatever thought or motto has once appeared to him fraught withmeaning, becomes an omen to him henceforward, and is sure toreturn with deeper tones and weightier import, now as threat, nowas confirmation, in gigantic reverberation, as if the hills, thehorizon, and the next ages returned the sound. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Life of Schiller (Lond. Mag. , 1823-4), 1825, 1845. (Supplementpublished in the People's Edition, 1873) Wilhelm Meister'sApprenticeship, 1824. Elements of Geometry and Trigonometry(from the French of Legendre), 1824. German Romance, 1827. Sartor Resartus (Fraser's Mag. , 1833-4), 1835 (Boston) 1838. French Revolution, 1837, 1839. Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, 1839, 1840, 1847, 1857. (In these were reprinted Articles fromEdinburgh Review, Foreign Review, Foreign Quarterly Review, Fraser's Magazine, Westminster Review, New Monthly Magazine, London and Westminster Review, Keepsake, Proceedings of theSociety of Antiquaries of Scotland, Times. ) Chartism, 1840. Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History, 1841. Past andPresent, 1843. Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches; withElucidations, 1845. Thirty-five Unpublished Letters of OliverCromwell, 1847 (Fraser). Original Discourses on the NegroQuestion (Fraser, 1849), 1853. Latter-day Pamphlets, 1850. Lifeof John Sterling, 1851. History of Friedrich II. Of Prussia, 1858-65. Inaugural Address at Edinburgh, 1866. ShootingNiagara; and After? 1867 (from Macmillan). The Early Kings ofNorway; also an Essay on the Portraits of John Knox, 1875. 

There were also contributions to Brewster's EdinburghEncyclopaedia, vols. Xiv. Xv. , and xvi. ; to New EdinburghReview, 1821, 1822; Fraser's Magazine, 1830, 1831; The Times, 19 June, 1844 (Mazzini); 28 November, 1876; 5 May, 1877;Examiner, 1848; Spectator 1848. 

First Collected Edition of Works, 1857-58 (16 vols. )

Reminiscences (ed. J. A. Froude), 1881; (ed. C. E. Norton, 1887, and preprinted in Everyman's Library; 1932, with an addedarticle on Professor John Wilson--"Christopher North")Reminiscences of my Irish journey in 1849, 1882. Last Words ofThomas Carlyle, 1882 (ed. By J. C. A. ) Last Words of ThomasCarlyle, 1892. Rescued Essays (ed. P. Newberry) 1892. Historical Sketches of Notable Persons and Events in the Reign ofJames I. And Charles I. (ed. A. Carlyle), 1898. 

Sir Leslie Stephen's article on Carlyle in the Dictionary ofNational Biography gives a list of his occasional writings whichhave never been collected or reprinted. 

Contents

Book I--Proem

I. Midas. II. The SphinxIII. Manchester InsurrectionIV. Morrison's PillV. Aristocracy of TalentVI. Hero-Worship

Book II--The Ancient Monk

I. Jocelin of BrakelondII. St. EdmundsburyIII. Landlord EdmundIV. Abbot HugoV. Twelfth CenturyVI. Monk SamsonVII. The CanvassingVIII. The ElectionIX. Abbot SamsonX. GovernmentXI. The Abbot's WaysXII. The Abbot's TroublesXIII. In ParliamentXIV. Henry of EssexXV. Practical-DevotionalXVI St. EdmundXVII The Beginnings

Book III--The Modern Worker

I. Phenomena, II. Gospel of MammonismIII. Gospel of DilettantismXV. HappyV. The EnglishVI. Two CenturiesVII. Over-ProductionVIII. Unworking AristocracyIX. Working AristocracyX. Plugson of UndershotXI. LabourXII RewardXIII. DemocracyXIV Sir Jabesh WindbagXV. Morrison Again

Book IV--Horoscope

I. AristocraciesII. Bribery CommitteeIII. The One InstitutionIV Captains of IndustryV. PermanenceVI. The LandedVII. The GiftedVIII The Didactic

Summary

Book I--Proem

Chapter I

Midas

The condition of England, on which many pamphlets are now in thecourse of publication, and many thoughts unpublished are going onin every reflective head, is justly regarded as one of the mostominous, and withal one of the strangest, ever seen in thisworld. England is full of wealth, of multifarious produce, supply for human want in every kind; yet England is dying ofinanition. With unabated bounty the land of England blooms andgrows; waving with yellow harvests; thick-studded withworkshops, industrial implements, with fifteen millions ofworkers, understood to be the strongest, the cunningest and thewillingest our Earth ever had; these men are here; the workthey have done, the fruit they have realised is here, abundant, exuberant on every hand of us: and behold, some baleful fiat asof Enchantment has gone forth, saying, "Touch it not, ye workers, ye master-workers, ye master-idlers; none of you can touch it, no man of you shall be the better for it; this is enchantedfruit!" On the poor workers such fiat falls first, in its rudestshape; but on the rich masterworkers too it falls; neither canthe rich master-idlers, nor any richest or highest man escape, but all are like to be brought low with it, and made 'poor'enough, in the money-sense or a far fataller one. 

Of these successful skillful workers some two millions, it is nowcounted, sit in Workhouses, Poor-law Prisons; or have 'out-doorrelief' flung over the wall to them, --the workhouse Bastillebeing filled to bursting, and the strong Poor-law broken asunderby a stronger. * They sit there, these many months now; theirhope of deliverance as yet small. In workhouses, pleasantly sonamed, because work cannot be done in them. Twelve hundredthousand workers in England alone; their cunning right-handlamed, lying idle in their sorrowful bosom; their hopes, outlooks, share of this fair world, shut in by narrow walls. They sit there, pent up, as in a kind of horrid enchantment;glad to be imprisoned and enchanted, that they may not perishstarved. The picturesque Tourist, in a sunny autumn day, through this bounteous realm of England, describes the UnionWorkhouse on his path. 'Passing by the Workhouse of St. Ivesin Huntingdonshire, on a bright day last autumn, ' says thepicturesque Tourist, 'I saw sitting on wooden benches, in frontof their Bastille and within their ringwall and its railings, some half-hundred or more of these men. Tall robust figures, young mostly or of middle age; of honest countenance, many ofthem thoughtful and even intelligent-looking men. They satthere, near by one another; but in a kind of torpor, especiallyin a silence, which was very striking. In silence: for, alas, what word was to be said? An Earth all lying round, crying, Comeand till me, come and reap me;--yet we here sit enchanted! Inthe eyes and brows of these men hung the gloomiest expression, not of anger, but of grief and shame and manifold inarticulatedistress and weariness; they returned my glance with a glancethat seemed to say, "Do not look at us. We sit enchanted here, we know not why. The Sun shines and the Earth calls; and, bythe governing Powers and Impotences of this England, we areforbidden to obey. It is impossible, they tell us!" There wassomething that reminded me of Dante's Hell in the look of allthis; and I rode swiftly away. 

---------* The Return of Paupers for England and Wales, at Ladyday, 1842, is, "In-door 221, 687, Out-door 1, 207, 402, Total 1, 429, 089. "--(_Official Report_)---------

So many hundred thousands sit in workhouses: and other hundredthousands have not yet got even workhouses; and in thriftyScotland itself, in Glasgow or Edinburgh City, in theirdark lanes, hidden from all but the eye of God, and of rareBenevolence the minister of God, there are scenes of woe anddestitution and desolation, such as, one may hope, the Sun neversaw before in the most barbarous regions where men dwelt. Competent witnesses, the brave and humane Dr. Alison, who speakswhat he knows, whose noble Healing Art in his charitable handsbecomes once more a truly sacred one, report these things for us:these things are not of this year, or of last year, have noreference to our present state of commercial stagnation, but onlyto the common state. Not in sharp fever-fits, but in chronicgangrene of this kind is Scotland suffering. A Poor-law, any andevery Poor-law, it may be observed, is but a temporary measure;an anodyne, not a remedy: Rich and Poor, when once the nakedfacts of their condition have come into collision, cannot longsubsist together on a mere Poor-law. True enough:--and yet, human beings cannot be left to die! Scotland too, till somethingbetter come, must have a Poor-law, if Scotland is not to be abyword among the nations. O, what a waste is there; of nobleand thrice-noble national virtues; peasant Stoicisms, Heroisms;valiant manful habits, soul of a Nation's worth, --which all themetal of Potosi cannot purchase back; to which the metal ofPotosi, and all you can buy with _it, _ is dross and dust!

Why dwell on this aspect of the matter? It is too indisputable, not doubtful now to any one. Descend where you will into thelower class, in Town or Country, by what avenue you will, byFactory Inquiries, Agricultural Inquiries, by Revenue Returns, byMining-Labourer Committees, by opening your own eyes and looking, the same sorrowful result discloses itself: you have to admitthat the working body of this rich English Nation has sunk or isfast sinking into a state, to which, all sides of it considered, there was literally never any parallel. At Stockport Assizes, --and this too has no reference to the present state of trade, being of date prior to that, --a Mother and a Father are arraignedand found guilty of poisoning three of their children, to defrauda 'burial-society' of some _31. 8s. _ due on the death of eachchild: they are arraigned, found guilty; and the officialauthorities, it is whispered, hint that perhaps the case is notsolitary, that perhaps you had better not probe farther into thatdepartment of things. This is in the autumn of 1841; the crimeitself is of the previous year or season. "Brutal savages, degraded Irish, " mutters the idle reader of Newspapers; hardlylingering on this incident. Yet it is an incident worthlingering on; the depravity, savagery and degraded Irishismbeing never so well admitted. In the British land, a humanMother and Father, of white skin and professing the Christianreligion, had done this thing; they, with their Irishism andnecessity and savagery, had been driven to do it. Such instancesare like the highest mountain apex emerged into view; underwhich lies a whole mountain region and land, not yet emerged. Ahuman Mother and Father had said to themselves, What shall we doto escape starvation? We are deep sunk here, in our dark cellar;and help is far. --Yes, in the Ugolino Hungertower stern thingshappen; best-loved little Gaddo fallen dead on his Father'sknees!--The Stockport Mother and Father think and hint: Our poorlittle starveling Tom, who cries all day for victuals, who willsee only evil and not good in this world: if he were out ofmisery at once; he well dead, and the rest of us perhaps keptalive? It is thought, and hinted; at last it is done. And nowTom being killed, and all spent and eaten, Is it poor littlestarveling Jack that must go, or poor little starveling Will?--What an inquiry of ways and means!

In starved sieged cities, in the uttermost doomed ruin of oldJerusalem fallen under the wrath of God, it was prophesied andsaid, 'The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their ownchildren. ' The stern Hebrew imagination could conceive noblacker gulf of wretchedness; that was the ultimatum of degradedgod-punished man. And we here, in modern England, exuberant withsupply of all kinds, besieged by nothing if it be not byinvisible Enchantments, are we reaching that?--How come thesethings? Wherefore are they, wherefore should they be?

Nor are they of the St. Ives workhouses, of the Glasgow lanes, and Stockport cellars, the only unblessed among us. Thissuccessful industry of England, with its plethoric wealth, has asyet made nobody rich; it is an enchanted wealth, and belongs yetto nobody. We might ask, Which of us has it enriched? We canspend thousands where we once spent hundreds; but can purchasenothing good with them. In Poor and Rich, instead of noblethrift and plenty, there is idle luxury alternating with meanscarcity and inability. We have sumptuous garnitures for ourLife, but have forgotten to _live_ in the middle of them. It isan enchanted wealth; no man of us can yet touch it. The classof men who feel that they are truly better off by means of it, let them give us their name!

Many men eat finer cookery, drink dearer liquors, --with whatadvantage they can report, and their Doctors can: but in theheart of them, if we go out of the dyspeptic stomach, whatincrease of blessedness is there? Are they better, beautifuller, stronger, braver? Are they even what they call 'happier? Dothey look with satisfaction on more things and human faces inthis God's Earth; do more things and human faces look withsatisfaction on them? Not so. Human faces gloom discordantly, disloyally on one another. Things, if it be not mere cotton andiron things, are growing disobedient to man. The Master Workeris enchanted, for the present, like his Workhouse Workman;clamours, in vain hitherto, for a very simple sort of 'Liberty:'the liberty 'to buy where he finds it cheapest, to sell where hefinds it dearest. ' With guineas jingling in every pocket, he wasno whit richer; but now, the very guineas threatening to vanish, he feels that he is poor indeed. Poor Master Worker! And theMaster Unworker, is not he in a still fataller situation?Pausing amid his game-preserves, with awful eye, --as he well may!Coercing fifty-pound tenants; coercing, bribing, cajoling;doing what he likes with his own. His mouth full of loudfutilities, and arguments to prove the excellence of hisCorn-law;* and in his heart the blackest misgiving, a desperatehalf-consciousness that his excellent Corn-law is indefensible, that his loud arguments for it are of a kind to strike men tooliterally _dumb. _

-------------[* Digital transcriber note: The "corn-law" that Carlylerepeatedly refers to was an English sliding-scale tariff ongrain, which kept the price of bread artificially inflated. ]-------------

To whom, then, is this wealth of England wealth? Who is it thatit blesses; makes happier, wiser, beautifuller, in any waybetter? Who has got hold of it, to make it fetch and carry forhim, like a true servant, not like a false mock-servant; to dohim any real service whatsoever? As yet no one. We have moreriches than any Nation ever had before; we have less good ofthem than any Nation ever had before. Our successful industry ishitherto unsuccessful; a strange success, if we stop here! Inthe midst of plethoric plenty, the people perish; with goldwalls, and full barns, no man feels himself safe or satisfied. Workers, Master Workers, Unworkers, all men, come to a pause;stand fixed, and cannot farther. Fatal paralysis spreadinginwards, from the extremities, in St. Ives workhouses, inStockport cellars, through all limbs, as if towards the heartitself. Have we actually got enchanted, then; accursed bysome god?--

Midas longed for gold, and insulted the Olympians. He got gold, so that whatsoever he touched became gold, --and he, with his longears, was little the better for it. Midas had misjudged thecelestial music-tones; Midas had insulted Apollo and the gods:the gods gave him his wish, and a pair of long ears, which alsowere a good appendage to it. What a truth in these old Fables!

Chapter II

The Sphinx

How true, for example, is that other old Fable of the Sphinx, whosat by the wayside, propounding her riddle to the passengers, which if they could not answer she destroyed them! Such a Sphinxis this Life of ours, to all men and societies of men. Nature, like the Sphinx, is of womanly celestial loveliness andtenderness; the face and bosom of a goddess, but ending in clawsand the body of a lioness. There is in her a celestial beauty, --which means celestial order, pliancy to wisdom; but there isalso a darkness, a ferocity, fatality, which are infernal. She is a goddess, but one not yet disimprisoned; one stillhalf-imprisoned, --the inarticulate, lovely still encased in theinarticulate, chaotic. How true! And does she not propound herriddles to us? Of each man she asks daily, in mild voice, yetwith a terrible significance, "Knowest thou the meaning of thisDay? What thou canst do Today; wisely attempt to do?" Nature, Universe, Destiny, Existence, howsoever we name this grandunnameable Fact in the midst of which we live and struggle, is asa heavenly bride and conquest to the wise and brave, to them whocan discern her behests and do them; a destroying fiend to themwho cannot. Answer her riddle, it is well with thee. Answer itnot, pass on regarding it not, it will answer itself; thesolution for thee is a thing of teeth and claws; Nature is adumb lioness, deaf to thy pleadings, fiercely devouring. Thouart not now her victorious bridegroom; thou art her mangledvictim, scattered on the precipices, as a slave found treacherous, recreant, ought to be and must. 

With Nations it is as with individuals: Can they rede the riddleof Destiny? This English Nation, will it get to know the meaningof _its_ strange new Today? Is there sense enough extant, discoverable anywhere or anyhow, in our united twenty-sevenmillion heads to discern the same; valour enough in ourtwenty-seven million hearts to dare and do the bidding thereof?It will be seen!--

The secret of gold Midas, which he with his long ears never coulddiscover, was, That he had offended the Supreme Powers;--that hehad parted company with the eternal inner Facts of this Universe, and followed the transient outer Appearances thereof; and so wasarrived _here. _ Properly it is the secret of all unhappy men andunhappy nations. Had they known Nature's right truth, Nature'sright truth would have made them free. They have becomeenchanted; stagger spell-bound, reeling on the brink of hugeperil, because they were not wise enough. They have forgottenthe right Inner True, and taken up with the Outer Sham-true. They answer the Sphinx's question wrong. Foolish men cannotanswer it aright! Foolish men mistake transitory semblance foreternal fact, and go astray more and more. 

Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing isdelayed, there is no justice, but an accidental one, here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death!In the centre of the world-whirlwind, verily now as in the oldestdays, dwells and speaks a God. The great soul of the world is_just. _ O brother, can it be needful now, at this late epoch ofexperience, after eighteen centuries of Christian preaching forone thing, to remind thee of such a fact; which all manner ofMahometans, old Pagan Romans, Jews, Scythians and heathen Greeks, and indeed more or less all men that God made, have managed atone time to see into; nay which thou thyself, till 'redtape'strangled the inner life of thee, hadst once some inkling of:That there is justice here below; and even, at bottom, thatthere is nothing else but justice! Forget that, thou hastforgotten all. Success will never more attend thee: how can itnow? Thou hast the whole Universe against thee. No moresuccess: mere sham-success, for a day and days; rising everhigher, --towards its Tarpeian Rock. Alas, how, in thy soft-hungLongacre vehicle, of polished leather to the bodily eye, ofredtape philosophy, of expediencies, clubroom moralities, Parliamentary majorities to the mind's eye, thou beautifullyrollest: but knowest thou whitherward? It is towards the_road's end. _ Old use-and-wont; established methods, habitudes, once true and wise; man's noblest tendency, his perseverance, and man's ignoblest, his inertia; whatsoever of noble andignoble Conservatism there is in men and Nations, strongestalways in the strongest men and Nations: all this is as a roadto thee, paved smooth through the abyss, --till all this _end. _Till men's bitter necessities can endure thee no more. TillNature's patience with thee is done; and there is no road orfooting any farther, and the abyss yawns sheer--

Parliament and the Courts of Westminster are venerable to me;how venerable; grey with a thousand years of honourable age!For a thousand years and more, Wisdom and faithful Valour, struggling amid much Folly and greedy Baseness, not without mostsad distortions in the struggle, have built them up; and theyare as we see. For a thousand years, this English Nation hasfound them useful or supportable; they have served this EnglishNation's want; _been_ a road to it through the abyss of Time. They are venerable, they are great and strong. And yet it isgood to remember always that they are not the venerablest, northe greatest, nor the strongest! Acts of Parliament arevenerable; but if they correspond not with the writing on theAdamant Tablet, what are they? Properly their one element ofvenerableness, of strength or greatness, is, that they at alltimes correspond therewith as near as by human possibility theycan. They are cherishing destruction in their bosom every hourthat they continue otherwise. 

Alas, how many causes that can plead well for themselves in theCourts of Westminster; and yet in the general Court of theUniverse, and free Soul of Man, have no word to utter!Honourable Gentlemen may find this worth considering, in timeslike ours. And truly, the din of triumphant Law-logic, and allshaking of horse-hair wigs and learned-sergeant gowns havingcomfortably ended, we shall do well to ask ourselves withal, Whatsays that high and highest Court to the verdict? For it is theCourt of Courts, that same; where the universal soul of Fact andvery Truth sits President;--and thitherward, more and moreswiftly, with a really terrible increase of swiftness, all causesdo in these days crowd for revisal, --for confirmation, formodification, for reversal with costs. Dost thou know thatCourt; hast thou had any Law-practice there? What, didst thounever enter; never file any petition of redress, reclaimer, disclaimer or demurrer, written as in thy heart's blood, for thyown behoof or another's; and silently await the issue? Thouknowest not such a Court? Hast merely heard of it by fainttradition as a thing that was or had been? Of thee, I think, weshall get little benefit. 

For the gowns of learned-sergeants are good: parchment records, fixed forms, and poor terrestrial justice, with or withouthorse-hair, what sane man will not reverence these? And yet, behold, the man is not sane but insane, who considers these aloneas venerable. Oceans of horse-hair, continents of parchment, andlearned-sergeant eloquence, were it continued till the learnedtongue wore itself small in the indefatigable learned mouth, cannot make unjust just. The grand question still remains, Wasthe judgment just? If unjust, it will not and cannot get harbourfor itself, or continue to have footing in this Universe, whichwas made by other than One Unjust. Enforce it by never suchstatuting, three readings, royal assents; blow it to the fourwinds with all manner of quilted trumpeters and pursuivants, inthe rear of them never so many gibbets and hangmen, it will notstand, it cannot stand. From all souls of men, from all ends ofNature, from the Throne of God above, there are voices biddingit: Away, away! Does it take no warning; does it stand, strongin its three readings, in its gibbets and artillery-parks? Themore woe is to it, the frightfuller woe. It will continuestanding, for its day, for its year, for its century, doingevil all the while; but it has One enemy who is Almighty:dissolution, explosion, and the everlasting Laws of Natureincessantly advance towards it; and the deeper its rooting, moreobstinate its continuing, the deeper also and huger will its ruinand overturn be. 

In this God's-world, with its wild-whirling eddies and madfoam-oceans, where men and nations perish as if without law, andjudgment for an unjust thing is sternly delayed, dost thou thinkthat there is therefore no justice? It is what the fool hathsaid in his heart. It is what the wise, in all times, were wisebecause they denied, and knew forever not to be. I tell theeagain, there is nothing else but justice. One strong thing Ifind here below: the just thing, the true thing. My friend, ifthou hadst all the artillery of Woolwich trundling at thy back insupport of an unjust thing; and infinite bonfires visiblywaiting ahead of thee, to blaze centuries long for thy victory onbehalf of it, --I would advise thee to call halt, to fling downthy baton, and say, "In God's name, No!" Thy 'success?' Poordevil, what will thy success amount to? If the thing is unjust, thou hast not succeeded; no, not though bonfires blazedfrom North to South, and bells rang, and editors wroteleading-articles, and the just thing lay trampled out of sight, to all mortal eyes an abolished and annihilated thing. Success?In few years, thou wilt be dead and dark, --all cold, eyeless, deaf; no blaze of bonfires, ding-dong of bells or leading-articlesvisible or audible to thee again at all forever: What kind ofsuccess is that!--

It is true all goes by approximation in this world; with any notinsupportable approximation we must be patient. There is a nobleConservatism as well as an ignoble. Would to Heaven, for thesake of Conservatism itself, the noble alone were left, and theignoble, by some kind severe hand, were ruthlessly lopped away, forbidden ever more to skew itself! For it is the right andnoble alone that will have victory in this struggle; the rest iswholly an obstruction, a postponement and fearful imperilment ofthe victory. Towards an eternal centre of right and nobleness, and of that only, is all this confusion tending. We already knowwhither it is all tending; what will have victory, what willhave none! The Heaviest will reach the centre. The Heaviest, sinking through complex fluctuating media and vortices, has itsdeflexions, its obstructions, nay at times its resiliences, itsreboundings; whereupon some blockhead shall be heard jubilating, "See, your Heaviest ascends!"--but at all moments it is movingcentreward, fast as is convenient for it; sinking, sinking; and, by laws older than the World, old as the Maker's first Plan ofthe World, it has to arrive there. 

Await the issue. In all battles, if you await the issue, eachfighter has prospered according to his right. His right and hismight, at the close of the account, were one and the same. Hehas fought with all his might, and in exact proportion to all hisright he has prevailed. His very death is no victory over him. He dies indeed; but his work lives, very truly lives. A heroicWallace, quartered on the scaffold, cannot hinder that hisScotland become, one day, a part of England: but he does hinderthat it become, on tyrannous unfair terms, a part of it;commands still, as with a god's voice, from his old Valhalla andTemple of the Brave, that there be a just real union as ofbrother and brother, not a false and merely semblant one as ofslave and master. If the union with England be in fact one ofScotland's chief blessings, we thank Wallace withal that it wasnot the chief curse. Scotland is not Ireland: no, because bravemen rose there, and said, "Behold, ye must not tread us down likeslaves; and ye shall not, --and cannot!" Fight on, thou bravetrue heart, and falter not, through dark fortune and throughbright. The cause thou fightest for, so far as it is true, nofarther, yet precisely so far, is very sure of victory. Thefalsehood alone of it will be conquered, will be abolished, as itought to be: but the truth of it is part of Nature's own Laws, cooperates with the World's eternal Tendencies, and cannotbe conquered. 

The _dust_ of controversy, what is it but the _falsehood_ flyingoff from all manner of conflicting true forces, and making such aloud dust-whirlwind, --that so the truths alone may remain, andembrace brother-like in some true resulting-force! It is everso. Savage fighting Heptarchies: their fighting is anascertainment, who has the right to rule over whom; that out ofsuch waste-bickering Saxondom a peacefully cooperating Englandmay arise. Seek through this Universe; if with other than owl'seyes, thou wilt find nothing nourished there, nothing kept inlife, but what has right to nourishment and life. The rest, lookat it with other than owl's eyes, is not living; is all dying, all as good as dead! Justice was ordained from the foundationsof the world; and will last with the world and longer. 

From which I infer that the inner sphere of Fact, in this presentEngland as elsewhere, differs infinitely from the outer sphereand spheres of Semblance. That the Temporary, here as elsewhere, is too apt to carry it over the Eternal. That he who dwells inthe temporary Semblances, and does not penetrate into the eternalSubstance, will _not_ answer the Sphinx-riddle of Today, or ofany Day. For the substance alone is substantial; that is thelaw of Fact: if you discover not that, Fact, who already knowsit, will let you also know it by and by!

What is justice? that, on the whole, is the question of theSphinx to us. The law of Fact is, that justice must and will bedone. The sooner the better; for the Time grows stringent, frightfully pressing! "What is justice?" ask many, to whom cruelFact alone will be able to prove responsive. It is like jestingPilate asking, What is Truth? Jesting Pilate had not thesmallest chance to ascertain what was Truth. He could not haveknown it, had a god shewn it to him. Thick serene opacity, thicker than amaurosis, veiled those smiling eyes of his toTruth; the inner _retina_ of them was gone paralytic, dead. Helooked at Truth; and discerned her not, there where she stood. "What is justice?" The clothed embodied justice that sits inWestminster Hall, with penalties, parchments, tipstaves, is veryvisible. But the unembodied justice, whereof that other iseither an emblem, or else is a fearful indescribability, is notso visible! For the unembodied Justice is of Heaven; a Spirit, and Divinity of Heaven, --invisible to all but the noble and pureof soul. The impure ignoble gaze with eyes, and she is notthere. They will prove it to you by logic, by endless HansardDebatings, by bursts of Parliamentary eloquence. It is notconsolatory to behold! For properly, as many men as there are ina Nation who _can_ withal see Heaven's invisible Justice, andknow it to be on Earth also omnipotent, so many men are there whostand between a Nation and perdition. So many, and no more. Heavy-laden England, how many hast thou in this hour? TheSupreme Power sends new and ever new, all _born_ at least withhearts of flesh and not of stone;--and heavy Misery itself, onceheavy enough, will prove didactic!--

Chapter III

Manchester Insurrection

Blusterowski, Colacorde, and other Editorial prophets of theContinental Democratic Movement, have in their leading-articlesshewn themselves disposed to vilipend the late ManchesterInsurrection, as evincing in the rioters an extreme backwardnessto battle; nay as betokening, in the English People itself, perhaps a want of the proper animal-courage indispensable inthese ages. A million hungry operative men started up, in utmostparoxysm of desperate protest against their lot; and, askColacorde and company, How many shots were fired? Very few incomparison! Certain hundreds of drilled soldiers sufficed tosuppress this million-headed hydra's and tread it down, withoutthe smallest appeasement or hope of such, into its subterraneansettlements again, there to reconsider itself. Comparedwith our revolts in Lyons, in Warsaw and elsewhere, to saynothing of incomparable Paris City past or present, what alamblike Insurrection!--

The present Editor is not here, with his readers, to vindicatethe character of Insurrections; nor does it matter to us whetherBlusterowski and the rest may think the English a courageouspeople or not courageous. In passing, however, let us mentionthat, to our view, this was not an unsuccessful Insurrection;that as Insurrections go, we have not heard lately of any thatsucceeded so well. 

A million of hungry operative men, as Blusterowski says, roseall up, came all out into the streets, and--stood there. Whatother could they do? Their wrongs and griefs were bitter, insupportable, their rage against the same was just: but who arethey that cause these wrongs, who that will honestly make effortto redress them? Our enemies are we know not who or what; ourfriends are we know not where! How shall we attack any one, shoot or be shot by any one? O, if the accursed invisibleNightmare, that is crushing out the life of us and ours, wouldtake a shape; approach us like the Hyrcanian tiger, the Behemothof Chaos, the Archfiend himself; in any shape that we could see, and fasten on!--A man can have himself shot with cheerfulness;but it needs first that he see clearly for what. Shew him thedivine face of justice, then the diabolic monster which iseclipsing that: he will fly at the throat of such monster, neverso monstrous, and need no bidding to do it. Woolwich grapeshotwill sweep clear all streets, blast into invisibility so manythousand men: but if your Woolwich grapeshot be but eclipsingDivine justice, and the God's-radiance itself gleam recognisableathwart such grapeshot, --then, yes then is the time come forfighting and attacking. All artillery-parks have become weak, and are about to dissipate: in the God's-thunder, their poorthunder slackens, ceases; finding that it is, in all senses ofthe term, a _brute_ one!--

That the Manchester Insurrection stood still, on the streets, with an indisposition to fire and bloodshed, was wisdom for iteven as an Insurrection. Insurrection, never so necessary, is amost sad necessity; and governors who wait for that to instructthem, are surely getting into the fatallest courses, --provingthemselves Sons of Nox and Chaos, of blind Cowardice, not ofseeing Valour! How can there be any remedy in insurrection? Itis a mere announcement of the disease, --visible now even to Sonsof Night. Insurrection usually 'gains' little; usually wasteshow much! One of its worst kinds of waste, to say nothing of therest, is that of irritating and exasperating men against eachother, by violence done; which is always sure to be injusticedone, for violence does even justice unjustly. 

Who shall compute the waste and loss, the obstruction of everysort, that was produced in the Manchester region by Peterlooalone! Some thirteen unarmed men and women cut down, --the numberof the slain and maimed is very countable: but the treasury ofrage, burning hidden or visible in all hearts ever since, more orless perverting the effort and aim of all hearts ever since, isof unknown extent. "How ye came among us, in your cruel armedblindness, ye unspeakable County Yeomanry, sabres flourishing, hoofs prancing, and slashed us down at your brute pleasure;deaf, blind to all _our_ claims and woes and wrongs; of quicksight and sense to your own claims only! There lie poor sallowworkworn weavers, and complain no more now; women themselves areslashed and sabred, howling terror fills the air; and ye rideprosperous, very victorious, --ye unspeakable: give us sabrestoo, and then come-on a little!" Such are Peterloos. Inall hearts that witnessed Peterloo, stands written, as infire-characters, or smoke-characters prompt to become fire again, a legible balance-account of grim vengeance; very unjustlybalanced, much exaggerated, as is the way with such accounts;but payable readily at sight, in full with compound interest!Such things should be avoided as the very pestilence. For men'shearts ought not to be set against one another; but set _with_one another, and all against the Evil Thing only. Men's soulsought to be left to see clearly; not jaundiced, blinded, twistedall awry, by revenge, mutual abhorrence, and the like. AnInsurrection that can announce the disease, and then retire withno such balance-account opened anywhere, has attained the highestsuccess possible for it. 

And this was what these poor Manchester operatives, with all thedarkness that was in them and round them, did manage to perform. They put their huge inarticulate question, "What do you mean todo with us?" in a manner audible to every reflective soul in thiskingdom; exciting deep pity in all good men, deep anxiety in allmen whatever; and no conflagration or outburst of madness cameto cloud that feeling anywhere, but everywhere it operatesunclouded. All England heard the question: it is the firstpractical form of our Sphinx-riddle. England will answer it;or, on the whole, England will perish;--one does not yet expectthe latter result!

For the rest, that the Manchester Insurrection could yet discernno radiance of Heaven on any side of its horizon; but fearedthat all lights, of the O'Connor or other sorts, hithertokindled, were but deceptive fish-oil transparencies, or bogwill-o'-wisp lights, and no dayspring from on high: for thisalso we will honour the poor Manchester Insurrection, and augurwell of it. A deep unspoken sense lies in these strong men, --inconsiderable, almost stupid, as all they can articulate of itis. Amid all violent stupidity of speech, a right noble instinctof what is doable and what is not doable never forsakes them:the strong inarticulate men and workers, whom _Fact_ patronises;of whom, in all difficulty and work whatsoever, there is goodaugury! This work too is to be done: Governors and GoverningClasses that _can_ articulate and utter, in any measure, what thelaw of Fact and Justice is, may calculate that here is a GovernedClass who will listen. 

And truly this first practical form of the Sphinx-question, inarticulately and so audibly put there, is one of the mostimpressive ever asked in the world. "Behold us here, so manythousands, millions, and increasing at the rate of fifty everyhour. We are right willing and able to work; and on the PlanetEarth is plenty of work and wages for a million times as many. We ask, If you mean to lead us towards work; to try to lead us, --by ways new, never yet heard of till this new unheard-of Time?Or if you declare that you cannot lead us? And expect that weare to remain quietly unled, and in a composed manner perish ofstarvation? What is it you expect of us? What is it you mean todo with us?" This question, I say, has been put in the hearingof all Britain; and will be again put, and ever again, till someanswer be given it. 

Unhappy Workers, unhappier Idlers, unhappy men and women of thisactual England! We are yet very far from an answer, and therewill be no existence for us without finding one. "A fairday's-wages for a fair day's-work:" it is as just a demand asGoverned men ever made of Governing. It is the everlastingright of man. Indisputable as Gospels, as arithmeticalmultiplication-tables: it must and will have itself fulfilled;--and yet, in these times of ours, with what enormous difficulty, next-door to impossibility! For the times are really strange;of a complexity intricate with all the new width of theever-widening world; times here of half-frantic velocity ofimpetus, there of the deadest-looking stillness and paralysis;times definable as shewing two qualities, Dilettantism andMammonism;--most intricate obstructed times! Nay, if therewere not a Heaven's radiance of justice, prophetic, clearlyof Heaven, discernible behind all these confused worldwideentanglements, of Landlord interests, Manufacturing interests, Tory-Whig interests, and who knows what other interests, expediencies, vested interests, established possessions, inveterate Dilettantisms, Midas-eared Mammonisms, --it wouldseem to everyone a flat impossibility, which all wise menmight as well at once abandon. If you do not know eternaljustice from momentary Expediency, and understand in yourheart of hearts how justice, radiant, beneficent, as theall-victorious Light-element, is also in essence, if need be, an all-victorious _Fire_-element, and melts all manner of vestedinterests, and the hardest iron cannon, as if they were soft wax, and does ever in the long-run rule and reign, and allows nothingelse to rule and reign, --you also would talk of impossibility!But it is only difficult, it is not impossible. Possible? Itis, with whatever difficulty, very clearly inevitable. 

Fair day's-wages for fair-day's-work! exclaims a sarcastic man;alas, in what corner of this Planet, since Adam first awoke onit, was that ever realised? The day's-wages of John Milton'sday's-work, named _Paradise Lost_ and _Milton's Works, _ were TenPounds paid by instalments, and a rather close escape from deathon the gallows. Consider that: it is no rhetorical flourish;it is an authentic, altogether quiet fact, --emblematic, quietlydocumentary of a whole world of such, ever since human historybegan. Oliver Cromwell quitted his farming; undertook aHercules' Labour and lifelong wrestle with that LerneanHydracoil, wide as England, hissing heaven-high through itsthousand crowned, coroneted, shovel-hatted quackheads; and hedid wrestle with it, the truest and terriblest wrestle I haveheard of; and he wrestled it, and mowed and cut it down a goodmany stages, so that its hissing is ever since pitiful incomparison, and one can walk abroad in comparative peace fromit;--and his wages, as I understand, were burial under thegallows-tree near Tyburn Turnpike, with his head on the gable ofWestminster Hall, and two centuries now of mixed cursing andridicule from all manner of men. His dust lies under theEdgeware Road, near Tyburn Turnpike, at this hour; and hismemory is--Nay, what matters what his memory is? His memory, atbottom, is or yet shall be as that of a god: a terror and horrorto all quacks and cowards and insincere persons; an everlastingencouragement, new memento, battleword, and pledge of victory toall the brave. It is the natural course and history of theGodlike, in every place, in every time. What god ever carried itwith the Tenpound Franchisers; in Open Vestry, or with anySanhedrim of considerable standing? When was a god foundagreeable to everybody? The regular way is to hang, kill, crucify your gods, and execrate and trample them under yourstupid hoofs for a century or two; till you discover that theyare gods, --and then take to braying over them, still in a verylong-eared manner!--So speaks the sarcastic man; in his wildway, very mournful truths. 

Day's-wages for day's-work? continues he: The Progress of HumanSociety consists even in this same. The better and betterapportioning of wages to work. Give me this, you have given meall. Pay to every man accurately what he has worked for, what hehas earned and done and deserved, --to this man broad lands andhonours, to that man high gibbets and treadmills: what more haveI to ask? Heaven's Kingdom, which we daily pray for, _has_ come;God's will is done on Earth even as it is in Heaven! This _is_the radiance of celestial justice; in the light or in the fireof which all impediments, vested interests, and iron cannon, aremore and more melting like wax, and disappearing fromthe pathways of men. A thing ever struggling forward;irrepressible, advancing inevitable; perfecting itself, alldays, more and more, --never to be _perfect_ till that generalDoomsday, the ultimate Consummation, and Last of earthly Days. 

True, as to 'perfection' and so forth, answer we; true enough!And yet withal we have to remark, that imperfect Human Societyholds itself together, and finds place under the Sun, in virtuesimply of some _approximation_ to perfection being actually madeand put in practice. We remark farther, that there aresupportable approximations, and then likewise insupportable. With some, almost with any, supportable approximation men areapt, perhaps too apt, to rest indolently patient, and say, Itwill do. Thus these poor Manchester manual workers mean only, byday's-wages for day's-work, certain coins of money adequate tokeep them living;--in return for their work, such modicum offood, clothes and fuel as will enable them to continue their workitself! They as yet clamour for no more; the rest, stillinarticulate, cannot yet shape itself into a demand at all, andonly lies in them as a dumb wish; perhaps only, still moreinarticulate, as a dumb, altogether unconscious want. _This_ isthe supportable approximation they would rest patient with, Thatby their work they might be kept alive to work more!--_This_ oncegrown unattainable, I think, your approximation may consideritself to have reached the insupportable stage; and may prepare, with whatever difficulty, reluctance and astonishment, for one oftwo things, for changing or perishing! With the millions nolonger able to live, how can the units keep living? It is tooclear the Nation itself is on the way to suicidal death. 

Shall we say then, The world has retrograded in its talent ofapportioning wages to work, in late days? The world had always atalent of that sort, better or worse. Time was when the mere_hand_worker needed not announce his claim to the world byManchester Insurrections!--The world, with its Wealth of Nations, Supply-and-demand and such like, has of late days been terriblyinattentive to that question of work and wages. We will not say, the poor world has retrograded even here: we will say rather, the world has been rushing on with such fiery animation to getwork and ever more work done, it has had no time to think ofdividing the wages; and has merely left them to be scrambled forby the Law of the Stronger, law of Supply-and-demand, law ofLaissez-faire, and other idle Laws and Un-laws, --saying, in itsdire haste to get the work done, That is well enough!

And now the world will have to pause a little, and take up thatother side of the problem, and in right earnest strive for somesolution of that. For it has become pressing. What is the useof your spun shirts? They hang there by the million unsaleable;and here, by the million, are diligent bare backs that can get nohold of them. Shirts are useful for covering human backs;useless otherwise, an unbearable mockery otherwise. You havefallen terribly behind with that side of the problem! ManchesterInsurrections, French Revolutions, and thousandfold phenomenagreat and small, announce loudly that you must bring it forward alittle again. Never till now, in the history of an Earth whichto this hour nowhere refuses to grow corn if you will plough it, to yield shirts if you will spin and weave in it, did the meremanual two-handed worker (however it might fare with otherworkers) cry in vain for such "wages" as _he_ means by "fairwages, " namely food and warmth! The Godlike could not and cannotbe paid; but the Earthly always could. Gurth, a mere swineherd, born thrall of Cedric the Saxon, tended pigs in the wood, and didget some parings of the pork. Why, the four-footed worker hasalready got all that this two-handed one is clamouring for! Howoften must I remind you? There is not a horse in England, ableand willing to work, but _has_ due food and lodging; and goesabout sleek-coated, satisfied in heart. And you say, It isimpossible. Brothers, I answer, if for you it be impossible, what is to become of you? It is impossible for us to believe itto be impossible. The human brain, looking at these sleekEnglish horses, refuses to believe in such impossibility forEnglish men. Do you depart quickly; clear the ways soon, lestworse befall. We for our share do purpose, with full view of theenormous difficulty, with total disbelief in the impossibility, to endeavour while life is in us, and to die endeavouring, we andour sons, till we attain it or have all died and ended. 

Such a Platitude of a World, in which all working horses could bewell fed, and innumerable working men should die starved, were itnot best to end it; to have done with it, and restore it oncefor all to the _Jotuns, _ Mud-giants, Frost-giants and ChaoticBrute-gods of the Beginning? For the old Anarchic Brute-gods itmay be well enough, but it is a Platitude which Men should beabove countenancing by their presence in it. We pray you, letthe word _impossible_ disappear from your vocabulary in thismatter. It is of awful omen; to all of us, and to yourselvesfirst of all. 

Chapter IV

Morrison's Pill

What is to be done, what would you have us do? asks many a one, with a tone of impatience, almost of reproach; and then, if youmention some one thing, some two things, twenty things that mightbe done, turns round with a satirical tehee, and, "These are yourremedies!" The state of mind indicated by such question, andsuch rejoinder, is worth reflecting on. 

It seems to be taken for granted, by these interrogativephilosophers, that there is some 'thing, ' or handful of 'things, 'which could be done; some Act of Parliament, 'remedial measureor the like, which could be passed, whereby the social maladywere fairly fronted, conquered, put an end to; so that, withyour remedial measure in your pocket, you could then go ontriumphant, and be troubled no farther. "You tell us the evil, "cry such persons, as if justly aggrieved, "and do not tell us howit is to be cured!"

How it is to be cured? Brothers, I am sorry I have gotno Morrison's Pill for curing the maladies of Society. Itwere infinitely handier if we had a Morrison's Pill, Act ofParliament, or remedial measure, which men could swallow, onegood time, and then go on in their old courses, cleared from allmiseries and mischiefs! Unluckily we have none such; unluckilythe Heavens themselves, in their rich pharmacopoeia, contain nonesuch. There will no 'thing' be done that will cure you. Therewill a radical universal alteration of your regimen and way oflife take place; there will a most agonising divorce between youand your chimeras, luxuries and falsities, take place; a mosttoilsome, all but 'impossible' return to Nature, and herveracities, and her integrities, take place: that so the innerfountains of life may again begin, like eternal Light-fountains, to irradiate and purify your bloated, swollen, foul existence, drawing nigh, as at present, to nameless death! Either death orelse all this will take place. Judge if, with such diagnosis, any Morrison's Pill is like to be discoverable!

But the Life-fountain within you once again set flowing, what innumerable 'things, ' whole sets and classes and continentsof 'things, ' year after year, and decade after decade, andcentury after century, will then be doable and done! NotEmigration, Education, Corn-Law Abrogation, Sanitary Regulation, Land Property-Tax; not these alone, nor a thousand times as muchas these. Good Heavens, there will then be light in the innerheart of here and there a man, to discern what is just, what iscommanded by the Most High God, what _must_ be done, were itnever so 'impossible. ' Vain jargon in favour of the palpablyunjust will then abridge itself within limits. Vain jargon, onHustings, in Parliaments or wherever else, when here and there aman has vision for the essential God's-Truth of the thingsjargoned of, will become very vain indeed. The silence of hereand there such a man, how eloquent in answer to such jargon!Such jargon, frightened at its own gaunt echo, will unspeakablyabate; nay, for a while, may almost in a manner disappear, --thewise answering it in silence, and even the simple taking cue fromthem to hoot it down wherever heard. It will be a blessed time;and many 'things' will become doable, --and when the brains areout, an absurdity will die! Not easily again shall a Corn-Lawargue ten years for itself; and still talk and argue, whenimpartial persons have to say with a sigh that, for so long back, they have heard no 'argument' advanced for it but such as mightmake the angels and almost the very jackasses weep!--

Wholly a blessed time: when jargon might abate, and here andthere some genuine speech begin. When to the noble opened heart, as to such heart they alone do, all noble things began to growvisible; and the difference between just and unjust, betweentrue and false, between work and sham-work, between speech andjargon, was once more, what to our happier Fathers it used to be, _infinite, _--as between a Heavenly thing and an Infernal: theone a thing which you were _not_ to do, which you were wise notto attempt doing; which it were better for you to have amillstone tied round your neck, and be cast into the sea, thanconcern yourself with doing!--Brothers, it will not be aMorrison's Pill, or remedial measure, that will bring all thisabout for us. 

And yet, very literally, till, in some shape or other, it bebrought about, we remain cureless; till it begin to be broughtabout, the cure does not begin. For Nature and Fact, not Redtapeand Semblance, are to this hour the basis of man's life; and onthose, through never such strata of these, man and his life andall his interests do, sooner or later, infallibly come to rest, --and to be supported or be swallowed according as they agree withthose. The question is asked of them, not, How do you agree withDowning-streets and accredited Semblance? but, How do you agreewith God's Universe and the actual Reality of things? ThisUniverse _has_ its Laws. If we walk according to the Law, theLaw-Maker will befriend us; if not, not. Alas, by no ReformBill, Ballot-box, Five-point Charter, by no boxes or bills orcharters, can you perform this alchemy: 'Given a world of Knavesto produce an Honesty from their united action!' It is adistillation, once for all, not possible. You pass it throughalembic after alembic, it comes out still a Dishonesty, with anew dress on it, a new colour to it. 'While we ourselvescontinue valets, how can any hero come to govern us?' We aregoverned, very infallibly, by the 'sham-hero, '--whose name isQuack, whose work and governance is Plausibility, and also isFalsity and Fatuity; to which Nature says, and must say when itcomes to _her_ to speak, eternally No! Nations cease to bebefriended of the Law-Maker, when they walk _not_ according tothe Law. The Sphinx-question remains unsolved by them, becomesever more insoluble. 

If thou ask again, therefore, on the Morrison's-Pill hypothesis, What is to be done? allow me to reply: By thee, for the present, almost nothing. Thou there, the thing for thee to do is, ifpossible, to cease to be a hollow sounding-shell of hearsays, egoisms, purblind dilettantisms; and become, were it on theinfinitely small scale, a faithful discerning soul. Thou shaltdescend into thy inner man, and see if there be any traces of a_soul_ there; till then there can be nothing done! O brother, we must if possible resuscitate some soul and conscience in us, exchange our dilettantisms for sincerities, our dead hearts ofstone for living hearts of flesh. Then shall we discern, not onething, but, in clearer or dimmer sequence, a whole endless hostof things that can be done. _Do_ the first of these; do it;the second will already have become clearer, doabler; thesecond, third and three-thousandth will then have begun to bepossible for us. Not any universal Morrison's Pill shall wethen, either as swallowers or as venders, ask after at all; buta far different sort of remedies: Quacks shall no more havedominion over us, but true Heroes and Healers!

Will not that be a thing worthy of 'doing;' to deliver ourselvesfrom quacks, sham-heroes; to deliver the whole world more andmore from such? They are the one bane of the world. Once clearthe world of them, it ceases to be a Devil's-world, in all fibresof it wretched, accursed; and begins to be a God's-world, blessed, and working hourly towards blessedness. Thou for onewilt not again vote for any quack, do honour to any edge-giltvacuity in man's shape: cant shall be known to thee by the soundof it;--thou wilt fly from cant with a shudder never felt before;as from the opened litany of Sorcerers' Sabbaths, the true Devil-worship of this age, more horrible than any other blasphemy, profanity or genuine blackguardism elsewhere audible among men. It is alarming to witness, --in its present completed state! AndQuack and Dupe, as we must ever keep in mind, are upper-side andunder of the selfsame substance; convertible personages: turnup your dupe into the proper fostering element, and hehimself can become a quack; there is in him the due prurientinsincerity, open voracity for profit, and closed sense fortruth, whereof quacks too, in all their kinds, are made. 

Alas, it is not to the hero, it is to the sham-hero that, ofright and necessity, the valet-world belongs. 'What is to bedone?' The reader sees whether it is like to be the seeking andswallowing of some 'remedial measure!'

Chapter V

Aristocracy of Talent

When an individual is miserable, what does it most of all behovehim to do? To complain of this man or of that, of this thing orof that? To fill the world and the street with lamentation, objurgation? Not so at all; the reverse of so. All moralistsadvise him not to complain of any person or of any thing, but ofhimself only. He is to know of a truth that being miserable hehas been unwise, he. Had he faithfully followed Nature and herLaws, Nature, ever true to her Laws, would have yielded fruit andincrease and felicity to him: but he has followed other thanNature's Laws; and now Nature, her patience with him beingended, leaves him desolate; answers with very emphaticsignificance to him: No. Not by this road, my son; by anotherroad shalt thou attain well-being: this, thou perceivest is theroad to ill-being; quit this!--So do all moralists advise: thatthe man penitently say to himself first of all, Behold I was notwise enough; I quitted the laws of Fact, which are also calledthe Laws of God, and mistook for them the laws of Sham andSemblance, which are called the Devil's Laws; therefoream I here!

Neither with Nations that become miserable is it fundamentallyotherwise. The ancient guides of Nations, Prophets, Priests, orwhatever their name, were well aware of this; and, down to alate epoch, impressively taught and inculcated it. The modernguides of Nations, who also go under a great variety of names, journalists, Political Economists, Politicians, Pamphleteers, have entirely forgotten this, and are ready to deny this. But itnevertheless remains eternally undeniable: nor is there anydoubt but we shall all be taught it yet, and made again toconfess it: we shall all be striped and scourged till we dolearn it; and shall at last either get to know it, or be stripedto death in the process. For it is undeniable! When a Nation isunhappy, the old Prophet was right and not wrong in saying to it:Ye have forgotten God, ye have quitted the ways of God, or yewould not have been unhappy. It is not according to the laws ofFact that ye have lived and guided yourselves, but according tothe laws of Delusion, Imposture, and wilful and unwilful_Mistake_ of Fact; behold therefore the Unveracity is worn out;Nature's long-suffering with you is exhausted; and ye are here!

Surely there is nothing very inconceivable in this, even to theJournalist, to the Political Economist, Modern Pamphleteer, orany two-legged animal without feathers! If a country findsitself wretched, sure enough that country has been _mis_guided:it is with the wretched Twenty-seven Millions, fallen wretched, as with the Unit fallen wretched: they as he have quitted thecourse prescribed by Nature and the Supreme Powers, and so arefallen into scarcity, disaster, infelicity; and pausing toconsider themselves, have to lament and say, Alas, we were notwise enough. We took transient superficial Semblance foreverlasting central Substance; we have departed far away fromthe _Laws_ of this Universe, and behold now lawless Chaos andinane Chimera is ready to devour us!--'Nature in late centuries, 'says Sauerteig, 'was universally supposed to be dead; an oldeight-day clock, made many thousand years ago, and still ticking, but dead as brass, --which the Maker, at most, sat looking at, ina distant, singular, and indeed incredible manner: but now I amhappy to observe, she is everywhere asserting herself to be notdead and brass at all, but alive and miraculous, celestial-infernal, with an emphasis that will again penetrate the thickesthead of this Planet by and by!--

Indisputable enough to all mortals now, the guidance of thiscountry has not been sufficiently wise: men too foolish havebeen set to the guiding and governing of it, and have guided ithither; we must find wiser, --_wiser, _ or else we perish! Tothis length of insight all England has now advanced; but as yetno farther. All England stands wringing its hands, askingitself, nigh desperate, What farther? Reform Bill proves to be afailure; Benthamee Radicalism, the gospel of 'EnlightenedSelfishness, ' dies out, or dwindles into Five-point Chartism, amid the tears and hootings of men: what next are we to hope ortry? Five-point Charter, Freetrade; Church-extension, Sliding-scale; what, in Heaven's name, are we next to attempt, that wesink not in inane Chimera, and be devoured of Chaos?--The case ispressing, and one of the most complicated in the world. A God's-message never came to thicker-skinned people; never had a God's-message to pierce through thicker integuments, into heavier ears. It is Fact, speaking once more, in miraculous thunder-voice, fromout of the centre of the world;--how unknown its language to thedeaf and foolish many; how distinct, undeniable, terrible andyet beneficent, to the hearing few: Behold, ye shall grow wiser, or ye shall die! Truer to Nature's Fact, or inane Chimera willswallow you; in whirlwinds of fire, you and your Mammonisms, Dilettantisms, your Midas-eared philosophies, double-barreledAristocracies, shall disappear!--Such is the God's-message to_us, _ once more; in these modern days. 

We must have more Wisdom to govern us, we must be governed by theWisest, we must have an Aristocracy of Talent! cry many. True, most true; but how to get it? The following extract from ouryoung friend of the _Houndsditch Indicator_ is worth perusing:'At this time, ' says he, 'while there is a cry everywhere, articulate or inarticulate, for an "Aristocracy of Talent, " aGoverning Class namely which did govern, not merely which tookthe wages of governing, and could not with all our industry bekept from misgoverning, corn-lawing, and playing the very deucewith us, --it may not be altogether useless to remind some of thegreener-headed sort what a dreadfully difficult affair thegetting of such an Aristocracy is! Do you expect, my friends, that your indispensable Aristocracy of Talent is to be enlistedstraightway, by some sort of recruitment aforethought, out of thegeneral population; arranged in supreme regimental order; andset to rule over us? That it will be got sifted, like wheat outof chaff, from the Twenty-seven Million British subjects; thatany Ballot-box, Reform Bill, or other Political Machine, withForce of Public Opinion never so active on it, is likely toperform said process of sifting? Would to Heaven that we had asieve; that we could so much as fancy any kind of sieve, wind-fanners, or ne-plus-ultra of machinery, devisable by man, thatwould do it!

'Done nevertheless, sure enough, it must be; it shall and willbe. We are rushing swiftly on the road to destruction; everyhour bringing us nearer, until it be, in some measure, done. Thedoing of it is not doubtful; only the method and the costs! NayI will even mention to you an infallible sifting-process wherebyhe that has ability will be sifted out to rule among us, and thatsame blessed Aristocracy of Talent be verily, in an approximatedegree, vouchsafed us by and by: an infallible sifting-process;to which, however, no soul can help his neighbour, but each must, with devout prayer to Heaven, endeavour to help himself. It is, O friends, that all of us, that many of us, should acquire thetrue eye for talent, which is dreadfully wanting at present! Thetrue _eye_ for talent presupposes the true reverence for it, --OHeavens, presupposes so many things!

'For example, you Bobus Higgins, Sausage-maker on the greatscale, who are raising such a clamour for this Aristocracy ofTalent, what is it that you do, in that big heart of yours, chiefly in very fact pay reverence to? Is it to talent, intrinsic manly worth of any kind, you unfortunate Bobus? Themanliest man that you saw going in a ragged coat, did you everreverence him; did you so much as know that he was a manly manat all, till his coat grew better? Talent! I understand you tobe able to worship the fame of talent, the power, cash, celebrityor other success of talent; but the talent itself is a thing younever saw with eyes. Nay what is it in yourself that youare proudest of, that you take most pleasure in surveyingmeditatively in thoughtful moments? Speak now, is it the bareBobus stript of his very name and shirt, and turned loose uponsociety, that you admire and thank Heaven for; or Bobus withhis cash-accounts and larders dropping fatness, with hisrespectabilities, warm garnitures, and pony-chaise, admirable insome measure to certain of the flunkey species? Your own degreeof worth and talent, is it of _infinite_ value to you; or onlyof finite, --measurable by the degree of currency, and conquest ofpraise or pudding, it has brought you to? Bobus, you are in avicious circle, rounder than one of your own sausages; and willnever vote for or promote any talent, except what talent or sham-talent has already _got_ itself voted for!'--We here cut shortthe _Indicator;_ all readers perceiving whither he now tends. 

'More Wisdom' indeed: but where to find more Wisdom? We havealready a Collective Wisdom, after its kind, --though 'class-legislation, ' and another thing or two, affect it somewhat! Onthe whole, as they say, Like people like priest; so we may say, Like people like king. The man gets himself appointed andelected who is ablest--to be appointed and elected. What can theincorruptiblest _Bobuses_ elect, if it be not some _Bobissimus, _should they find such?

Or, again, perhaps there is not, in the whole Nation, Wisdomenough, 'collect' it as we may, to make an adequate Collective!That too is a case which may befall: a ruined man staggers downto ruin because there was not wisdom enough in him; so, clearlyalso, may Twenty-seven Million collective men!--But indeed one ofthe infalliblest fruits of Unwisdom in a Nation is that it cannotget the use of what Wisdom is actually in it: that it is notgoverned by the wisest it has, who alone have a divine right togovern in all Nations; but by the sham-wisest, or even by theopenly not-so-wise if they are handiest otherwise! This is theinfalliblest result of Unwisdom; and also the balefullest, immeasurablest, --not so much what we can call a poison-_fruit, _as a universal death-disease, and poisoning of the whole tree. For hereby are fostered, fed into gigantic bulk, all manner ofUnwisdoms, poison-fruits; till, as we say, the life-treeeverywhere is made a upas-tree, deadly Unwisdom overshadowing allthings; and there is done what lies in human skill to stifle allWisdom everywhere in the birth, to smite our poor world barren ofWisdom, --and make your utmost Collective Wisdom, were itcollected and elected by Rhadamanthus, AEacus and Minos, not tospeak of drunken Tenpound Franchisers with their ballot-boxes, aninadequate Collective! The Wisdom is not now there: how willyou 'collect' it? As well wash Thames mud, by improved methods, to find more gold in it. 

Truly, the first condition is indispensable, That Wisdom bethere: but the second is like unto it, is properly one with it:these two conditions act and react through every fibre of them, and go inseparably together. If you have much Wisdom in yourNation, you will get it faithfully collected; for the wise loveWisdom, and will search for it as for life and salvation. If youhave little Wisdom, you will get even that little ill-collected, trampled under foot, reduced as near as possible to annihilation;for fools do not love Wisdom; they are foolish, first of all, because they have never loved Wisdom, --but have loved their ownappetites, ambitions, their coroneted coaches, tankards of heavy-wet. Thus is your candle lighted at both ends, and the progresstowards consummation is swift. Thus is fulfilled that saying inthe Gospel: To him that hath shall be given; and from him thathath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Veryliterally, in a very fatal manner, that saying is here fulfilled. 

Our 'Aristocracy of Talent' seems at a considerable distance yet;does it not, O Bobus?

Chapter VI

Hero-Worship

To the present Editor, not less than to Bobus, a Government ofthe Wisest, what Bobus calls an Aristocracy of Talent, seems theone healing remedy: but he is not so sanguine as Bobus withrespect to the means of realizing it. He thinks that we have atonce missed realising it, and come to need it so pressingly, by departing far from the inner eternal Laws and taking upwith the temporary outer semblances of Laws. He thinks that'enlightened Egoism, ' never so luminous, is not the rule bywhich man's life can be led. That 'Laissez-faire, ' 'Supply-and-demand, ' 'Cash-payment for the sole nexus, ' and so forth, werenot, are not, and will never be, a practicable Law of Union for aSociety of Men. That Poor and Rich, that Governed and Governing, cannot long live together on any such Law of Union. Alas, hethinks that man has a soul in him, _different_ from the stomachin any sense of this word; that if said soul be asphyxied, andlie quietly forgotten, the man and his affairs are in a bad way. He thinks that said soul will have to be resuscitated from itsasphyxia; that if it prove irresuscitable, the man is not longfor this world. In brief, that Midas-eared Mammonism, double-barreled Dilettantism, and their thousand adjuncts and corollaries, are not the Law by which God Almighty has appointed this hisUniverse to go. That, once for all, these are not the Law:and then farther that we shall have to return to what isthe Law, --not by smooth flowery paths, it is like, and with'tremendous cheers' in our throat; but over steep untroddenplaces, through stormclad chasms, waste oceans, and the bosom oftornadoes; thank Heaven, if not through very Chaos and theAbyss! The resuscitating of a soul that has gone to asphyxia isno momentary or pleasant process, but a long and terrible one. 

To the present Editor 'Hero-worship, ' as he has elsewhere namedit, means much more than an elected Parliament, or statedAristocracy, of the Wisest; for, in his dialect, it is thesummary, ultimate essence, and supreme practical perfection ofall manner of 'worship, ' and true worships and noblenesseswhatsoever. Such blessed Parliament and, were it once inperfection, blessed Aristocracy of the Wisest, god-honoured andman-honoured, he does look for, more and more perfected, --as thetopmost blessed practical apex of a whole world reformed fromsham-worship, informed anew with worship, with truth andblessedness! He thinks that Hero-worship, done differently inevery different epoch of the world, is the soul of all socialbusiness among men; that the doing of it well, or the doing ofit ill, measures accurately what degree of well-being or of ill-being there is in the world's affairs. He thinks that we, on thewhole, do our Hero-worship worse than any Nation in this worldever did it before: that the Burns an Exciseman, the Byron aLiterary Lion, are intrinsically, all things considered, a baserand falser phenomenon than the Odin a God, the Mahomet a Prophetof God. It is this Editor's clear opinion, accordingly, that wemust learn to do our Hero-worship better; that to do it betterand better, means the awakening of the Nation's soul from itsasphyxia, and the return of blessed life to us, --Heaven's blessedlife, not Mammon's galvanic accursed one. To resuscitate theAsphyxied, apparently now moribund, and in the last agony if notresuscitated: such and no other seems the consummation. 

'Hero-worship, ' if you will, --yes, friends; but, first of all, by being ourselves of heroic mind. A whole world of Heroes; aworld not of Flunkeys, where no Hero-King _can_ reign: that iswhat we aim at! We, for our share, will put away all Flunkeyism, Baseness, Unveracity from us; we shall then hope to haveNoblenesses and Veracities set over us; never till then. LetBobus and Company sneer, "That is your Reform!" Yes, Bobus, thatis our Reform; and except in that, and what will follow out ofthat, we have no hope at all. Reform, like Charity, O Bobus, must begin at home. Once well at home, how will it radiateoutwards, irrepressible, into all that we touch and handle, speakand work; kindling ever new light, by incalculable contagion, spreading in geometric ratio, far and wide, --doing good only, wheresoever it spreads, and not evil. 

By Reform Bills, Anti-Corn-Law Bills, and thousand other billsand methods, we will demand of our Governors, with emphasis, andfor the first time not without effect, that they cease to bequacks, or else depart; that they set no quackeries andblockheadisms anywhere to rule over us, that they utter or act nocant to us, --that it will be better if they do not. For we shallnow know quacks when we see them; cant, when we hear it, shallbe horrible to us! We will say, with the poor Frenchman at theBar of the Convention, though in wiser style than he, and 'forthe space' not 'of an hour' but of a lifetime: _"Je demandel'arrestation des coquins et des laches. "_ 'Arrestment of theknaves and dastards:' ah, we know what a work that is; how longit will be before _they_ are all or mostly got 'arrested:'--buthere is one; arrest him, in God's name; it is one fewer! Wewill, in all practicable ways, by word and silence, by actand refusal to act, energetically demand arrestment, --_"ledemande cette arrestation-la!"_--and by degrees infalliblyattain it. Infallibly: for light spreads; all humansouls, never so bedarkened, love light; light once kindledspreads, till all is luminous;--till the cry, "_Arrest_ yourknaves and dastards rises imperative from millions of hearts, andrings and reigns from sea to sea. Nay, how many of them may wenot 'arrest' with our own hands, even now; we! Do notcountenance them, thou there: turn away from their lackeredsumptuosities, their belauded sophistries, their serpentgraciosities, their spoken and acted cant, with a sacred horror, with an _Apage Satanas. _--Bobus and Company, and all men willgradually join us. We demand arrestment of the knaves anddastards, and begin by arresting our own poor selves out of thatfraternity. There is no other reform conceivable. Thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, _one_ non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroesto begin with:--Courage! even that is a whole world of heroes toend with, or what we poor Two can do in furtherance thereof!

Yes, friends: Hero-kings and a whole world not unheroic, therelies the port and happy haven, towards which, through all thesestormtost seas, French Revolutions, Chartisms, ManchesterInsurrections, that make the heart sick in these bad days, theSupreme Powers are driving us. On the whole, blessed be theSupreme Powers, stern as they are! Towards that haven will we, Ofriends; let all true men, with what of faculty is in them, bendvaliantly, incessantly, with thousandfold endeavour, thither, thither! There, or else in the Ocean-abysses, it is very clearto me, we shall arrive. 

Well; here truly is no answer to the Sphinx-question; not theanswer a disconsolate Public, inquiring at the College of Health, was in hopes of! A total change of regimen, change of constitutionand existence from the very centre of it; a new body to be got, with resuscitated soul, --not without convulsive travail-throes;as all birth and new-birth presupposes travail! This is sad newsto a disconsolate discerning Public, hoping to have got off bysome Morrison's Pill, some Saint-John's corrosive mixtures andperhaps a little blistery friction on the back!--We were preparedto part with our Corn-Law, with various Laws and Unlaws: butthis, what is this?

Nor has the Editor forgotten how it fares with your ill-bodingCassandras in Sieges of Troy. Imminent perdition is not usuallydriven away by words of warning. Didactic Destiny has othermethods in store; or these would fail always. Such wordsshould, nevertheless, be uttered, when they dwell truly in thesoul of any man. Words are hard, are importunate; but how muchharder the importunate events they foreshadow! Here and there ahuman soul may listen to the words, --who knows how many humansouls? whereby the importunate events, if not diverted andprevented, will be rendered _less_ hard. The present Editor'spurpose is to himself full of hope. 

For though fierce travails, though wide seas and roaring gulfslie before us, is it not something if a Loadstar, in the eternalsky, do once more disclose itself; an everlasting light, shiningthrough all cloud-tempests and roaring billows, ever as we emergefrom the trough of the sea: the blessed beacon, far off on theedge of far horizons, towards which we are to steer incessantlyfor life? Is it not something; O Heavens, is it not all? Therelies the Heroic Promised Land; under that Heaven's-light, mybrethren, bloom the Happy Isles, --there, O there! Thitherwill we;

 There dwells the great Achilles whom we knew. *

-------------* Tennyson's _Poems_ (Ulysses)-----------

There dwell all Heroes, and will dwell: thither, all ye heroic-minded!--The Heaven's Loadstar once clearly in our eye, how willeach true man stand truly to _his_ work in the ship; how, withundying hope, will all things be fronted, all be conquered. Nay, with the ship's prow once turned in that direction, is not all, as it were, already well? Sick wasting misery has become noblemanful effort with a goal in our eye. 'The choking Nightmarechokes us no longer; for we _stir_ under it; the Nightmare hasalready fled. '--

Certainly, could the present Editor instruct men how to knowWisdom, Heroism, when they see it, that they might do reverenceto it only, and loyally make it ruler over them, --yes, he werethe living epitome of all Editors, Teachers, Prophets, thatnow teach and prophesy; he were an _Apollo_-Morrison, aTrismegistus! and _effective_ Cassandra! Let no Able Editor hopesuch things. It is to be expected the present laws of copyright, rate of reward per sheet, and other considerations, will save himfrom that peril. Let no Editor hope such things: no;--and yetlet all Editors aim towards such things, and even towards suchalone! One knows not what the meaning of editing and writing is, if even this be not it. 

Enough, to the present Editor it has seemed possible someglimmering of light, for here and there a human soul, might liein these confused Paper-Masses now intrusted to him; whereforehe determines to edit the same. Out of old Books, new Writings, and much Meditation not of yesterday, he will endeavour to selecta thing or two; and from the Past, in a circuitous way, illustrate the Present and the Future. The Past is a dimindubitable fact: the Future too is one, only dimmer; nayproperly it is the same fact in new dress and development. Forthe Present holds in it both the whole Past and the wholeFuture;--as the LIFE-TREE IGDRASIL, wide-waving, many-toned, hasits roots down deep in the Death-kingdoms, among the oldest deaddust of men, and with its boughs reaches always beyond the stars;and in all times and places is one and the same Life-tree!

Book II--The Ancient Monk

Chapter I

Jocelin of Brakelond

We will, in this Second Portion of our Work, strive to penetratea little, by means of certain confused Papers, printed and other, into a somewhat remote Century; and to look face to face on it, in hope of perhaps illustrating our own poor Century thereby. Itseems a circuitous way; but it may prove a way nevertheless. For man has ever been a striving, struggling, and, in spite ofwide-spread calumnies to the contrary, a veracious creature: theCenturies too are all lineal children of one another; and often, in the portrait of early grandfathers, this and the otherenigmatic feature of the newest grandson shall disclose itself, to mutual elucidation. This Editor will venture on such a thing. 

Besides, in Editors' Books, and indeed everywhere else in theworld of Today, a certain latitude of movement grows more andmore becoming for the practical man. Salvation lies not in tightlacing, in these times;--how far from that, in any provincewhatsoever! Readers and men generally are getting into strangehabits of asking all persons and things, from poor Editors' Booksup to Church Bishops and State Potentates, not, By whatdesignation are thou called; in what wig and black triangle dostthou walk abroad? Heavens, I know thy designation and blacktriangle well enough! But, in God's name, what _art_ thou? NotNothing, sayest thou! Then if not, How much and what? This isthe thing I would know; and even _must_ soon know, such a passam I come to!--What weather-symptoms, --not for the poor Editor ofBooks alone! The Editor of Books may understand withal that if, as is said, 'many kinds are permissible, ' there is one kind notpermissible, 'the kind that has nothing in it, _le genreennuyeux;'_ and go on his way accordingly. 

A certain Jocelinus de Brakelonda, a natural-born Englishman, hasleft us an extremely foreign Book, * which the labours of theCamden Society have brought to light in these days. Jocelin'sBook, the 'Chronicle, ' or private Boswellean Notebook, ofJocelin, a certain old St. Edmundsbury Monk and Boswell, nowseven centuries old, how remote is it from us; exotic, extraneous; in all ways, coming from far abroad! The languageof it is not foreign only but dead: Monk-Latin lies across notthe British Channel, but the ninefold Stygian Marshes, Stream ofLethe, and one knows not where! Roman Latin itself, stillalive for us in the Elysian Fields of Memory, is domesticin comparison. And then the ideas, life-furniture, wholeworkings and ways of this worthy Jocelin; covered deeper thanPompeii with the lava-ashes and inarticulate wreck of sevenhundred years!

----------* _Chronica Jocelini de Brakelonda, de rebus gestis SamsonisAbbatis Monasterii Sancti Edmundi: nunc primum typis mandata, curante Johanne Gage Rokewood. _ (Camden Society, London, 1840)----------

Jocelin of Brakelond cannot be called a conspicuous literarycharacter; indeed few mortals that have left so visible a work, or footmark, behind them can be more obscure. One other of thosevanished Existences, whose work has not yet vanished;--almost apathetic phenomenon, were not the whole world full of such! Thebuilders of Stonehenge, for example:--or alas, what say we, Stonehenge and builders? The writers of the _Universal Review_and _Homer's Iliad;_ the paviers of London streets;--sooneror later, the entire Posterity of Adam! It is a patheticphenomenon; but an irremediable, nay, if well meditated, aconsoling one. 

By his dialect of Monk-Latin, and indeed by his name, thisJocelin seems to have been a Norman Englishman; the surname deBrakelonda indicates a native of St. Edmundsbury itself, _Brakelond_ being the known old name of a street or quarter inthat venerable Town. Then farther, sure enough, our Jocelin wasa Monk of St. Edmundsbury Convent; held some _'obedientia, '_subaltern officiality there, or rather, in succession several;was, for one thing, 'chaplain to my Lord Abbot, living beside himnight and day for the space of six years;'--which last, indeed, is the grand fact of Jocelin's existence, and properly the originof this present Book, and of the chief meaning it has for us now. He was, as we have hinted, a kind of born _Boswell, _ though aninfinitesimally small one; neither did he altogether want his_Johnson_ even there and then. Johnsons are rare; yet, as hasbeen asserted, Boswels perhaps still rarer, --the more is the pityon both sides! This Jocelin, as we can discern well, was aningenious and ingenuous, a cheery-hearted, innocent, yet withalshrewd, noticing, quick-wilted man; and from under his monk'scowl has looked out on that narrow section of the world in areally _human_ manner; not in any _simial, _ canine, ovine, orotherwise inhuman manner, --afflictive to all that have humanity!The man is of patient, peaceable, loving, clear-smiling nature;open for this and that. A wise simplicity is in him; muchnatural sense; a _veracity_ that goes deeper than words. Veracity: it is the basis of all; and, some say, means geniusitself; the prime essence of all genius whatsoever. OurJocelin, for the rest, has read his classical manuscripts, hisVirgilius, his Flaccus, Ovidius Naso; of course still more, hisHomilies and Breviaries, and if not the Bible, considerableextracts of the Bible. Then also he has a pleasant wit; andloves a timely joke, though in mild subdued manner: very amiableto see. A learned grown man, yet with the heart of a goodchild; whose whole life indeed has been that of a child, --St. Edmundsbury Monastery a larger kind of cradle for him, in whichhis whole prescribed duty was to _sleep_ kindly, and love hismother well! This is the Biography of Jocelin; 'a man ofexcellent religion, ' says one of his contemporary Brother Monks, _'eximiae religionis, potens sermone et opere. '_

For one thing, he had learned to write a kind of Monk or Dog-Latin, still readable to mankind; and, by good luck for us, hadbethought him of noting down thereby what things seemed notablestto him. Hence gradually resulted a _Chronica Jocelini;_ newManuscript in the _Liber Albus_ of St. Edmundsbury. WhichChronicle, once written in its childlike transparency, in itsinnocent good-humour, not without touches of ready pleasant witand many kinds of worth, other men liked naturally to read:whereby it failed not to be copied, to be multiplied, to beinserted in the _Liber Albus;_ and so surviving Henry theEighth, Putney Cromwell, the Dissolution of Monasteries, and allaccidents of malice and neglect for six centuries or so, it gotinto the _Harleian Collection, _--and has now therefrom, by Mr. Rokewood of the Camden Society, been deciphered into clear print;and lies before us, a dainty thin quarto, to interest for a fewminutes whomsoever it can. 

Here too it will behove a just Historian gratefully to say thatMr. Rokewood, Jocelin's Editor, has done his editorial functionwell. Not only has he deciphered his crabbed Manuscript intoclear print; but he has attended, what his fellow editors arenot always in the habit of doing, to the important truth that theManuscript so deciphered ought to have a meaning for the reader. Standing faithfully by his text, and printing its very errors inspelling, in grammar or otherwise, he has taken care by some noteto indicate that they are errors, and what the correction of themought to be. Jocelin's Monk-Latin is generally transparent, asshallow limpid water. But at any stop that may occur, of whichthere are a few, and only a very few, we have the comfortableassurance that a meaning does lie in the passage, and may byindustry be got at; that a faithful editor's industry hadalready got at it before passing on. A compendious usefulGlossary is given; nearly adequate to help the uninitiatedthrough: sometimes one wishes it had been a trifle larger;but, with a Spelman and Ducange at your elbow, how easy to havemade it far too large! Notes are added, generally brief;sufficiently explanatory of most points. Lastly, a copiouscorrect Index; which no such Book should want, and whichunluckily very few possess. And so, in a word, the _Chronicle ofJocelin_ is, as it professes to be, unwrapped from its thickcerements, and fairly brought forth into the common daylight, sothat he who runs, and has a smattering of grammar, may read. 

We have heard so much of Monks; everywhere, in real andfictitious History, from Muratori Annals to Radcliffe Romances, these singular two-legged animals, with their rosaries andbreviaries, with their shaven crowns, hair-cilices, and vows ofpoverty, masquerade so strangely through our fancy; and they arein fact so very strange an extinct species of the human family, --a veritable Monk of Bury St. Edmunds is worth attending to, if bychance made visible and audible. Here he is; and in his hand amagical speculum, much gone to rust indeed, yet in fragmentsstill clear; wherein the marvelous image of his existence doesstill shadow itself, though fitfully, and as with an intermittentlight! Will not the reader peep with us into this singular_camera lucida, _ where an extinct species, though fitfully, canstill be seen alive? Extinct species, we say; for the livespecimens which still go about under that character are tooevidently to be classed as spurious in Natural History: theGospel of Richard Arkwright once promulgated, no Monk of the oldsort is any longer possible in this world. But fancy a deep-buried Mastodon, some fossil Megatherion, Ichthyosaurus, wereto begin to speak from amid its rock-swathings, never soindistinctly! The most extinct fossil species of Men or Monkscan do, and does, this miracle, --thanks to the Letters of theAlphabet, good for so many things. 

Jocelin, we said, was somewhat of a Boswell; but unfortunately, by Nature, he is none of the largest, and distance has nowdwarfed him to an extreme degree. His light is most feeble, intermittent, and requires the intensest kindest inspection;otherwise it will disclose mere vacant haze. It must be owned, the good Jocelin, spite of his beautiful childlike character, isbut an altogether imperfect 'mirror' of these old-world things!The good man, he looks on us so clear and cheery, and in hisneighbourly soft-smiling eyes we see so well our _own_ shadow, --we have a longing always to cross-question him, to force from himan explanation of much. But no; Jocelin, though he talks withsuch clear familiarity, like a next-door neighbour, will notanswer any question: that is the peculiarity of him, dead thesesix hundred and fifty years, and quite deaf to us, though stillso audible! The good man, he cannot help it, nor can we. 

But truly it is a strange consideration this simple one, as we goon with him, or indeed with any lucid simple-hearted soul likehim: Behold therefore, this England of the Year 1200 was nochimerical vacuity or dreamland, peopled with mere vaporousFantasms, Rymer's Foedera, and Doctrines of the Constitution, buta green solid place, that grew corn and several other things. The Sun shone on it; the vicissitude of seasons and humanfortunes. Cloth was woven and worn; ditches were dug, furrowfields ploughed, and houses built. Day by day all men andcattle rose to labour, and night by night returned home weary totheir several lairs. In wondrous Dualism, then as now, livednations of breathing men; alternating, in all ways, betweenLight and Dark; between joy and sorrow, between rest and toil, between hope, hope reaching high as Heaven, and fear deep as veryHell. Not vapour Fantasms, Rymer's Foedera at all! Coeur-de-Lion was not a theatrical popinjay with greaves and steelcap onit, but a man living upon victuals, --_not_ imported by Peel'sTariff. Coeur-de-Lion came palpably athwart this Jocelin at St. Edmundsbury; and had almost peeled the sacred gold _'Feretrum, '_or St. Edmund Shrine itself, to ransom him out of the Danube Jail. 

These clear eyes of neighbour Jocelin looked on the bodilypresence of King John; the very John _Sansterre, _ or Lackland, who signed _Magna Charta_ afterwards in Runnymead. Lackland, with a great retinue, boarded once, for the matter of afortnight, in St. Edmundsbury Convent; daily in the veryeyesight, palpable to the very fingers of our Jocelin: OJocelin, what did he say, what did he do; how looked he, livedhe;--at the very lowest, what coat or breeches had he on?Jocelin is obstinately silent. Jocelin marks down what interests_him;_ entirely deaf to _us. _ With Jocelin's eyes we discernalmost nothing of John Lackland. As through a glass darkly, wewith our own eyes and appliances, intensely looking, discern atmost: A blustering, dissipated, human figure, with a kind ofblackguard quality air, in cramoisy velvet, or other uncertaintexture, uncertain cut, with much plumage and fringing; amidnumerous other human figures of the like; riding abroad withhawks; talking noisy nonsense;--tearing out the bowels of St. Edmundsbury Convent (its larders namely and cellars) in the mostruinous way, by living at rack and manger there. Jocelin notesonly, with a slight subacidity of manner, that the King'sMajesty, _Dominus Rex, _ did leave, as gift for our St. EdmundShrine, a handsome enough silk cloak, --or rather pretended toleave, for one of his retinue borrowed it of us, and we never gotsight of it again; and, on the whole, that the _Dominus Rex, _ atdeparting, gave us 'thirteen _sterlingii, '_ one shilling and onepenny, to say a mass for him; and so departed, --like a shabbyLackland as he was! 'Thirteen pence sterling, ' this was what theConvent got from Lackland, for all the victuals he and his hadmade away with. We of course said our mass for him, havingcovenanted to do it, --but let impartial posterity judge with whatdegree of fervour!

And in this manner vanishes King Lackland; traverses swiftly ourstrange intermittent magic-mirror, jingling the shabby thirteenpence merely; and rides with his hawks into Egyptian nightagain. It is Jocelin's manner with all things; and it is men'smanner and men's necessity. How intermittent is our goodJocelin; marking down, without eye to _us, _ what _he_ findsinteresting! How much in Jocelin, as in all History, and indeedin all Nature, is at once inscrutable and certain; so dim, yetso indubitable; exciting us to endless considerations. For KingLackland was there, verily he; and did leave these _tredecimsterlingii_ if nothing more, and did live and look in one wayor the other, and a whole world was living and looking alongwith him! There, we say, is the grand peculiarity; theimmeasurable one; distinguishing, to a really infinite degree, the poorest historical Fact from all Fiction whatsoever. Fiction, 'Imagination, ' 'Imaginative Poetry, ' &c. &c. , except as thevehicle for truth, or _fact_ of some sort, --which surely a manshould first try various other ways of vehiculating, andconveying safe, --what is it? Let the Minerva and other Pressesrespond!--But it is time we were in St. Edmundsbury Monastery, and Seven good Centuries off. If indeed it be possible, by anyaid of Jocelin, by any human art, to get thither, with a readeror two still following us?

Chapter II

St. Edmundsbury

The _Burg, _ Bury, or 'Berry' as they call it, of St. Edmund isstill a prosperous brisk Town; beautifully diversifying, withits clear brick houses, ancient clean streets, and twenty orfifteen thousand busy souls, the general grassy face of Suffolk;looking out right pleasantly, from its hill-slope, towards therising Sun: and on the eastern edge of it, still runs, long, black and massive, a range of monastic ruins; into the wideinternal spaces of which the stranger is admitted on payment ofone shilling. Internal spaces laid out, at present, as a botanicgarden. Here stranger or townsman, sauntering at his leisureamid these vast grim venerable ruins, may persuade himself thatan Abbey of St. Edmundsbury did once exist; nay there isno doubt of it: see here the ancient massive Gateway, ofarchitecture interesting to the eye of Dilettantism; and fartheron, that other ancient Gateway, now about to tumble, unlessDilettantism, in these very months, can subscribe money to crampit and prop it!

Here, sure enough, is an Abbey; beautiful in the eye ofDilettantism. Giant Pedantry also will step in, with its huge_Dugdale_ and other enormous _Monasticons_ under its arm, andcheerfully apprise you. That this was a very great Abbey, ownerand indeed creator of St. Edmund's Town itself, owner of widelands and revenues; nay that its lands were once a county ofthemselves; that indeed King Canute or Knut was very kind to it;and gave St. Edmund his own gold crown off his head, on oneoccasion: for the rest, that the Monks were of such and such agenus, such and such a number; that they had so many Carucatesof land in this hundred, and so many in that; and then fartherthat the large Tower or Belfry was built by such a one, and thesmaller Belfry was built by &c. &c. --Till human nature can standno more of it; till human nature desperately take refuge inforgetfulness, almost in flat disbelief of the whole business, Monks, Monastery, Belfries, Carucates and all! Alas, whatmountains of dead ashes, wreck and burnt bones, does assiduousPedantry dig up from the Past Time, and name it History, andPhilosophy of History; till, as we say, the human soul sinkswearied and bewildered; till the Past Time seems all oneinfinite incredible grey void, without sun, stars, hearth-fires, or candle-light; dim offensive dust-whirlwinds filling universalNature; and over your Historical Library, it is as if all theTitans had written for themselves: DRY RUBBISH SHOT HERE!

And yet these grim old walls are not a dilettantism and dubiety;they are an earnest fact. It was a most real and serious purposethey were built for! Yes, another world it was, when these blackruins, white in their new mortar and fresh chiseling, first sawthe sun as walls, long ago. Gauge not, with thy dilettantecompasses, with that placid dilettante simper, the Heaven's-Watchtower of our Fathers, the fallen God's-Houses, the Golgothaof true Souls departed!

Their architecture, belfries, land-carucates? Yes, --and that isbut a small item of the matter. Does it never give thee pause, this other strange item of it, that men then had a _soul, _--notby hearsay alone, and as a figure of speech; but as a truth thatthey knew, and practically went upon! Verily it was anotherworld then. Their Missals have become incredible, a sheerplatitude, sayest thou? Yes, a most poor platitude; and even, if thou wilt, an idolatry and blasphemy, should any one persuade_thee_ to believe them, to pretend praying by them. But yet itis pity we had lost tidings of our souls:--actually we shallhave to go in quest of them again, or worse in all ways willbefall! A certain degree of soul, as Ben Jonson reminds us, isindispensable to keep the very body from destruction of thefrightfullest sort; to 'save us, ' says he, 'the expense of_salt. '_ Ben has known men who had soul enough to keep theirbody and five senses from becoming carrion, and save salt:--men, and also Nations. You may look in Manchester Hunger-mobs andCorn-law Commons Houses, and various other quarters, andsay whether either soul or else salt is not somewhat wantedat present!--

Another world, truly: and this present poor distressed worldmight get some profit by looking wisely into it, instead offoolishly. But at lowest, O dilettante friend, let us knowalways that it was a world, and not a void infinite of grey hazewith fantasms swimming in it. These old St. Edmundsbury walls, Isay, were not peopled with fantasms; but with men of flesh andblood, made altogether as we are. Had thou and I then been, whoknows but we ourselves had taken refuge from an evil Time, andfled to dwell here, and meditate on an Eternity, in such fashionas we could? Alas, how like an old osseous fragment, a brokenblackened shin-bone of the old dead Ages, this black ruin looksout, not yet covered by the soil; still indicating what a oncegigantic Life lies buried there! It is dead now, and dumb; butwas alive once, and spake. For twenty generations, here was theearthly arena where painful living men worked out their life-wrestle, --looked at by Earth, by Heaven and Hell. Bells tolledto prayers; and men, of many humours, various thoughts, chantedvespers, matins;--and round the little islet of their life rolledforever (as round ours still rolls, though we are blind and deaf)the illimitable Ocean, tinting all things with _its_ eternal huesand reflexes; making strange prophetic music! How silent now;all departed, clean gone. The World-Dramaturgist has written:_Exeunt. _ The devouring Time-Demons have made away with it all:and in its stead, there is either nothing; or what is worse, offensive universal dustclouds, and grey eclipse of Earth andHeaven, from 'dry rubbish shot here!'--

Truly, it is no easy matter to get across the chasm of SevenCenturies, filled with such material. But here, of all helps, isnot a Boswell the welcomest; even a small Boswell? Veracity, true simplicity of heart, how valuable are these always! He thatspeaks what _is_ really in him, will find men to listen, thoughunder never such impediments. Even gossip, springing free andcheery from a human heart, this too is a kind of veracity and_speech;_--much preferable to pedantry and inane grey haze!Jocelin is weak and garrulous, but he is human. Through the thinwatery gossip of our Jocelin, we do get some glimpses of thatdeep-buried Time; discern veritably, though in a fitfulintermittent manner, these antique figures and their life-method, face to face! Beautifully, in our earnest loving glance, the oldcenturies melt from opaque to partially translucent, transparenthere and there; and the void black Night, one finds, is but thesumming up of innumerable peopled luminous _Days. _ Not parchmentChartularies, Doctrines of the Constitution, O Dryasdust; notaltogether, my erudite friend!--

Readers who please to go along with us into this poor _JoceliniChronica_ shall wander inconveniently enough, as in wintrytwilight, through some poor stript hazel-grove, rustling withfoolish noises, and perpetually hindering the eyesight; butacross which, here and there, some real human figure is seenmoving: very strange; whom we could hail if he would answer;--and we look into a pair of eyes deep as our own, _imaging_ ourown, but all unconscious of us; to whom we for the time arebecome as spirits and invisible!

Chapter III

Landlord Edmund

Some three centuries or so had elapsed since _Beodric's-worth_*became St. Edmund's _Stow, _ St. Edmund's _Town_ and Monastery, before Jocelin entered himself a Novice there. 'It was, ' sayshe, 'the year after the Flemings were defeated at Fornham St. Genevieve. '

-------------* Dryasdust puzzles and pokes for some biography of this Beodric;and repugns to consider him a mere East-Anglian Person ofCondition, not in need of a biography, --whose [script] _weorth_or _worth, _ that is to say, _Growth, _ Increase, or as we shouldnow name it, _Estate, _ that same Hamlet and wood Mansion, now St. Edmund's Bury, originally was. For, adds our erudite Friend, theSaxon [script], equivalent to the German _werden, _ means to_grow, _ to _become;_ traces of which old vocable are still foundin the North-country dialects, as, 'What is _word_ of him?meaning 'What is become of him?' and the like. Nay we in modernEnglish still say, 'Woe _worth_ the hour' (Woe _befall_ thehour), and speak of the _'Weird_ Sisters;' not to mention theinnumerable other names of places still ending in _weorth_ or_worth. _ And indeed, our common noun _worth, _ in the sense of_value, _ does not this mean simply, What a thing has _grown_ to, What a man has _grown_ to, How much he amounts to, --by theThreadneedle-street standard or another!--------------

Much passes away into oblivion: this glorious victory overthe Flemings at Fornham has, at the present date, greatlydimmed itself out of the minds of men. A victory and battlenevertheless it was, in its time: some thrice-renowned Earl ofLeicester, not of the De Montfort breed, (as may be read inPhilosophical and other Histories, could any human memory retainsuch things, ) had quarreled with his sovereign, Henry Second ofthe name; had been worsted, it is like, and maltreated, andobliged to fly to foreign parts; but had rallied there into newvigour; and so, in the year 1173, returns across the German Seawith a vengeful army of Flemings. Returns, to the coast ofSuffolk; to Framlingham Castle, where he is welcomed; westwardtowards St. Edmundsbury and Fornham Church, where he is met bythe constituted authorities with _posse comitatus;_ and swiftlycut in pieces, he and his, or laid by the heels; on the rightbank of the obscure river Lark, --as traces still existingwill verify. 

For the river Lark, though not very discoverably, still runs orstagnates in that country; and the battle-ground is there;serving at present as a pleasure-ground to his Grace ofNewcastle. Copper pennies of Henry II are still found there;--rotted out from the pouches of poor slain soldiers, who had nothad _time_ to buy liquor with them. In the river Lark itself wasfished up, within man's memory, an antique gold ring; which fondDilettantism can almost believe may have been the very ringCountess Leicester threw away, in her flight, into that same Larkriver or ditch. * Nay, few years ago, in tearing out an enormoussuperannuated ash-tree, now grown quite corpulent, bursten, superfluous, but long a fixture in the soil, and not to bedislodged without revolution, --there was laid bare, under itsroots, 'a circular mound of skeletons wonderfully complete, ' allradiating from a centre, faces upwards, feet inwards; a'radiation' not of Light, but of the Nether Darkness rather; andevidently the fruit of battle; for 'many of the heads werecleft, or had arrow-holes in them. The Battle of Fornham, therefore, is a fact, though a forgotten one; no less obscurethan undeniable, --like so many other facts. 

----------*Lyttelton's _History of Henry II. _ (2nd Edition), v. 169, &c. ----------

Like the St. Edmund's Monastery itself! Who can doubt, afterwhat we have said, that there was a Monastery here at one time?No doubt at all there was a Monastery here; no doubt, some threecenturies prior to this Fornham Battle, there dwelt a man inthese parts, of the name of Edmund, King, Landlord, Duke orwhatever his title was, of the Eastern Counties;--and a verysingular man and landlord he must have been. 

For his tenants, it would appear, did not complain of him in theleast; his labourers did not think of burning his wheatstacks, breaking into his game-preserves; very far the reverse of allthat. Clear evidence, satisfactory even to my friend Dryasdust, exists that, on the contrary, they honoured, loved, admired thisancient Landlord to a quite astonishing degree, --and indeed atlast to an immeasurable and inexpressible degree; for, findingno limits or utterable words for their sense of his worth, theytook to beatifying and adoring him! 'Infinite admiration, ' weare taught, 'means worship. '

Very singular, --could we discover it! What Edmund's specificduties were; above all, what his method of discharging them withsuch results was, would surely be interesting to know; but are_not_ very discoverable now. His Life has become a poetic, nay areligious _Mythus;_ though, undeniably enough, it was once aprose Fact, as our poor lives are; and even a very ruggedunmanageable one. This landlord Edmund did go about in leathershoes, with _femoralia_ and bodycoat of some sort on him; anddaily had his breakfast to procure; and daily had contradictoryspeeches, and most contradictory facts not a few, to reconcilewith himself. No man becomes a Saint in his sleep. Edmund, forinstance, instead of _reconciling_ those same contradictory factsand speeches to himself; which means _subduing, _ and, in amanlike and godlike manner, conquering them to himself, --mighthave merely thrown new contention into them, new unwisdom intothem, and so been conquered _by_ them; much the commoner case!In that way he had proved no 'Saint, ' or Divine-looking Man, buta mere Sinner, and unfortunate, blameable, more or less Diabolic-looking man! No landlord Edmund becomes infinitely admirable inhis sleep. 

With what degree of wholesome rigour his rents were collected wehear not. Still less by what methods he preserved his game, whether by 'bushing' or how, --and if the partridge-seasons were'excellent, ' or were indifferent. Neither do we ascertain whatkind of Corn-bill he passed, or wisely-adjusted Sliding-scale:--but indeed there were few spinners in those days; and thenuisance of spinning, and other dusty labour, was not yet soglaring a one. 

How then, it may be asked, did this Edmund rise into favour;become to such astonishing extent a recognised Farmer's Friend?Really, except it were by doing justly and loving mercy, to anunprecedented extent, one does not know. The man, it would seem, 'had walked, ' as they say, 'humbly with God;' humbly andvaliantly with God; struggling to make the Earth heavenly, as hecould: instead of walking sumptuously and pridefully withMammon, leaving the Earth to grow hellish as it liked. Notsumptuously with Mammon? How then could he 'encourage trade, '--cause Howel and James, and many wine-merchants to bless him, andthe tailor's heart (though in a very short-sighted manner) tosing for joy? Much in this Edmund's Life is mysterious. 

That he could, on occasion, do what he liked with his own is, meanwhile, evident enough. Certain Heathen Physical-Force Ultra-Chartists, 'Danes' as they were then called, coming into histerritory with their 'five points, ' or rather with their five-and-twenty thousand _points_ and edges too, of pikes namely andbattleaxes; and proposing mere Heathenism, confiscation, spoliation, and fire and sword, --Edmund answered that he wouldoppose to the utmost such savagery. They took him prisoner;again required his sanction to said proposals. Edmund againrefused. Cannot we kill you? cried they. --Cannot I die? answeredhe. My life, I think, is my own to do what I like with! And hedied, under barbarous tortures, refusing to the last breath; andthe Ultra-Chartist Danes _lost_ their propositions;--and wentwith their 'points' and other apparatus, as is supposed, to theDevil, the Father of them. Some say, indeed, these Danes werenot Ultra-Chartists, but Ultra-Tories, demanding to reap wherethey had not sown, and live in this world without working, thoughall the world should starve for it; which likewise seems apossible hypothesis. Be what they might, they went, as we say, to the Devil; and Edmund doing what he liked with his own, theEarth was got cleared of them. 

Another version is, that Edmund on this and the like occasionsstood by his order; the oldest, and indeed only true order ofNobility known under the stars, that of just Men and Sons of God, in opposition to Unjust and Sons of Belial, --which latter indeedare _second_-oldest, but yet a very unvenerable order. This, truly, seems the likeliest hypothesis of all. Names andappearances alter so strangely, in some half-score centuries;and all fluctuates chameleon-like, taking now this hue, now that. Thus much is very plain, and does not change hue: LandlordEdmund was seen and felt by all men to have done verily a man'spart in this life-pilgrimage of his; and benedictions, andoutflowing love and admiration from the universal heart, were hismeed. Well-done! Well-done! cried the hearts of all men. Theyraised his slain and martyred body; washed its wounds with fast-flowing universal tears; tears of endless pity, and yet of asacred joy and triumph. The beautifullest kind of tears, --indeedperhaps the beautifullest kind of thing: like a sky all flashingdiamonds and prismatic radiance; all weeping, yet shone on bythe everlasting Sun:--and _this_ is not a sky, it is a Soul andliving Face! Nothing liker the _Temple of the Highest, _ brightwith some real effulgence of the Highest, is seen in this world. 

O, if all Yankee-land follow a small good 'Schnuspel thedistinguished Novelist' with blazing torches, dinner-invitations, universal hep-hep-hurrah, feeling that he, though small, issomething; how might all Angle-land once follow a hero-martyrand great true Son of Heaven! It is the very joy of man's heartto admire, where he can; nothing so lifts him from all his meanimprisonments, were it but for moments, as true admiration. Thusit has been said, 'all men, especially all women, are bornworshipers;' and will worship, if it be but possible. Possibleto worship a Something, even a small one; not so possible a mereloud-blaring Nothing! What sight is more pathetic than that ofpoor multitudes of persons met to gaze at King's Progresses, 'Lord Mayor's Shews, and other gilt-gingerbread phenomena of theworshipful sort, in these times; each so eager to worship;each, with a dim fatal sense of disappointment, finding that hecannot rightly here! These be thy gods, O Israel? And thou artso _willing_ to worship, --poor Israel!

In this manner, however, did the men of the Eastern Counties takeup the slain body of their Edmund, where it lay cast forth in thevillage of Hoxne; seek out the severed head, and reverentlyreunite the same. They embalmed him with myrrh and sweet spices, with love, pity, and all high and awful thoughts; consecratinghim with a very storm of melodious adoring admiration, and sun-dyed showers of tears;--joyfully, yet with awe (as all deep joyhas something of the awful in it), commemorating his noble deedsand godlike walk and conversation while on Earth. Till, atlength, the very Pope and Cardinals at Rome were forced to hearof it; and they, summing up as correctly as they well could, with _Advocatus-Diaboli_ pleadings and their other forms ofprocess, the general verdict of mankind, declared: That he had, in very fact, led a hero's life in this world; and being now_gone, _ was gone as they conceived to God above, and reaping hisreward _there. _ Such, they said, was the best judgment theycould form of the case;--and truly not a bad judgment. Acquiesced in, zealously adopted, with full assent of 'privatejudgment, ' by all mortals. 

The rest of St. Edmund's history, for the reader sees he has nowbecome a _Saint, _ is easily conceivable. Pious munificenceprovided him a _loculus, _ a _feretrum_ or shrine; built for hima wooden chapel, a stone temple, ever widening and growing by newpious gifts;--such the overflowing heart feels it a blessednessto solace itself by giving. St. Edmund's Shrine glitters nowwith diamond flowerages, with a plating of wrought gold. Thewooden chapel, as we say, has become a stone temple. Statelymasonries, longdrawn arches, cloisters, sounding aisles buttressit, begirdle it far and wide. Regimented companies of men, ofwhom our Jocelin is one, devote themselves, in every generation, to meditate here on man's Nobleness and Awfulness, and celebrateand shew forth the same, as they best can, --thinking they will doit better here, in presence of God the Maker, and of the so Awfuland so Noble made by Him. In one word, St. Edmund's Body hasraised a Monastery round it. To such length, in such manner, hasthe Spirit of the Time visibly taken body, and crystalliseditself here. New gifts, houses, farms, _katalla_*--come ever in. King Knut, whom men call Canute, whom the Ocean-tide would not beforbidden to wet, --we heard already of this wise King, with hiscrown and gifts; but of many others, Kings, Queens, wise men andnoble loyal women, let Dryasdust and divine Silence be therecord! Beodric's-Worth has become St. Edmund's _Bury;_--andlasts visible to this hour. All this that thou now seest, andnamest Bury Town, is properly the Funeral Monument of Saint orLandlord Edmund. The present respectable Mayor of Bury may besaid, like a Fakeer (little as he thinks of it), to have hisdwelling in the extensive, many-sculptured Tombstone of St. Edmund; in one of the brick niches thereof dwells the presentrespectable Mayor of Bury. 

---------* Goods, properties; what we now call _chattels, _ and still moresingularly _cattle, _ says my erudite friend!---------

Certain Times do crystallise themselves in a magnificent manner;and others, perhaps, are like to do it in rather a shabby one!--But Richard Arkwright too will have his Monument, a thousandyears hence: all Lancashire and Yorkshire, and how many othershires and countries, with their machineries and industries, forhis monument! A true _pyr_amid or _'flame_-mountain, ' flamingwith steam fires and useful labour over wide continents, usefullytowards the Stars, to a certain height;--how much grander thanyour foolish Cheops Pyramids or Sakhara clay ones! Let us withalbe hopeful, be content or patient. 

Chapter IV

Abbot Hugo

It is true, all things have two faces, a light one and a dark. It is true, in three centuries much imperfection accumulates;many an Ideal, monastic or other, shooting forth into practice asit can, grows to a strange enough Reality; and we have to askwith amazement, Is this your Ideal! For, alas, the Ideal alwayshas to grow in the Real, and to seek out its bed and board there, often in a very sorry way. No beautifullest Poet is a Bird-of-Paradise, living on perfumes; sleeping in the aether withoutspread wings. The Heroic, _independent_ of bed and board, isfound in Drury Lane Theatre only; to avoid disappointments, letus bear this in mind. 

By the law of Nature, too, all manner of Ideals have their fatallimits and lot; their appointed periods, of youth, of maturityor perfection, of decline, degradation, and final death anddisappearance. There is nothing born but has to die. Idealmonasteries, once grown real, do seek bed and board in thisworld; do find it more and more successfully; do get at lengthtoo intent on finding it, exclusively intent on that. They arethen like diseased corpulent bodies fallen idiotic, which merelyeat and sleep; _ready_ for 'dissolution, ' by a Henry the Eighthor some other. Jocelin's St. Edmundsbury is still far from thislast dreadful state: but here too the reader will preparehimself to see an Ideal not sleeping in the nether like a bird-of-paradise, but roosting as the common woodfowl do, in animperfect, uncomfortable, more or less contemptible manner!--

Abbot Hugo, as Jocelin, breaking at once into the heart of thebusiness, apprises us, had in those days grown old, grown ratherblind, and his eyes were somewhat darkened, _aliquantulumcaligaverunt oculi ejus. _ He dwelt apart very much, in his_Talamus_ or peculiar Chamber; got into the hands of flatterers, a set of mealy-mouthed persons who strove to make the passinghour easy for him, --for him easy, and for themselves profitable;accumulating in the distance mere mountains of confusion. OldDominus Hugo sat inaccessible in this way, far in the interior, wrapt in his warm flannels and delusions; inaccessible to allvoice of Fact; and bad grew ever worse with us. Not that ourworthy old _Dominus Abbas_ was inattentive to the divine offices, or to the maintenance of a devout spirit in us or in himself;but the Account-Books of the Convent fell into the frightfulleststate, and Hugo's annual Budget grew yearly emptier, or filledwith futile expectations, fatal deficit, wind and debts!

His one worldly care was to raise ready money; sufficient forthe day is the evil thereof. And how he raised it: Fromusurious insatiable Jews; every fresh Jew sticking on him like afresh horseleech, sucking his and our life out; cryingcontinually, Give, Give! Take one example instead of scores. Our _Camera_ having fallen into ruin, William the Sacristanreceived charge to repair it; strict charge, but no money;Abbot Hugo would, and indeed could, give him no fractionof money. The _Camera_ in ruins, and Hugo penniless andinaccessible, Willelmus Sacrista borrowed Forty Mares (someSeven-and-twenty Pounds) of Benedict the Jew, and patched up ourCamera again. But the means of repaying him? There were nomeans. Hardly could _Sacrista, Cellerarius, or any publicofficer, get ends to meet, on the indispensablest scale, withtheir shrunk allowances: ready money had vanished. 

Benedict's Twenty-seven pounds grew rapidly at compound-interest;and at length, when it had amounted to One hundred pounds, he, ona day of settlement, presents the account to Hugo himself. Hugoalready owed him another One hundred of his own; and so here ithas become Two hundred! Hugo, in a fine frenzy, threatens todepose the Sacristan, to do this and do that; but, in the meanwhile, How to quiet your insatiable Jew? Hugo, for this coupleof hundreds, grants the Jew his bond for Four hundred payable atthe end of four years. At the end of four years there is, ofcourse, still no money; and the Jew now gets a bond for Eighthundred and eighty pounds, to be paid by installments, Four-scorepounds every year. Here was a way of doing business!

Neither yet is this insatiable Jew satisfied or settled with: hehad papers against us of 'small debts fourteen years old;' hismodest claim amounts finally to 'Twelve hundred pounds besidesinterest;'--and one hopes he never got satisfied in this world;one almost hopes he was one of those beleaguered Jews who hangedthemselves in York Castle shortly afterwards, and had his usancesand quittances and horseleech papers summarily set fire to! Forapproximate justice will strive to accomplish itself; if not inone way, then in another. Jews, and also Christians andHeathens, who accumulate in this manner, though furnished withnever so many parchments, do, at times, 'get their grinder-teethsuccessively pulled out of their head, each day a new grinder, till they consent to disgorge again. A sad fact, --worthreflecting on. 

Jocelin, we see, is not without secularity: Our _Dominus Abbas_was intent enough on the divine offices; but then his Account-Books--?--One of the things that strike us most, throughout, inJocelin's Chronicle, and indeed in Eadmer's _Anselm, _ and otherold monastic Books, written evidently by pious men, is this, Thatthere is almost no mention whatever of 'personal religion' inthem; that the whole gist of their thinking and speculationseems to be the 'privileges of our order, ' 'strict exaction ofour dues, ' 'God's honour' (meaning the honour of our Saint), andso forth. Is not this singular? A body of men, set apart forperfecting and purifying their own souls, do not seem disturbedabout that in any measure: the 'Ideal' says nothing about itsidea; says much about finding bed and board for itself! Howis this?

Why, for one thing, bed and board are a matter very apt to cometo speech: it is much easier to _speak_ of them than of ideas;and they are sometimes much more pressing with some! Nay, foranother thing, may not this religious reticence, in these devoutgood souls, be perhaps a merit, and sign of health in them?Jocelin, Eadmer, and such religious men, have as yet nothing of'Methodism;' no Doubt or even root of Doubt. Religion is not adiseased self-introspection, an agonising inquiry: their dutiesare clear to them, the way of supreme good plain, indisputable, and they are traveling on it. Religion lies over them like anall-embracing heavenly canopy, like an atmosphere and life-element, which is not spoken of, which in all things ispresupposed without speech. Is not serene or complete Religionthe highest aspect of human nature; as serene Cant, or completeNo-religion, is the lowest and miserablest? Between which two, all manner of earnest Methodisms, introspections, agonisinginquiries, never so morbid, shall play their respective parts, not without approbation. 

But let any reader fancy himself one of the Brethren in St. Edmundsbury Monastery under such circumstances! How can a LordAbbot, all stuck over with horse-leeches of this nature, frontthe world? He is fast losing his life-blood, and the Conventwill be as one of Pharaoh's lean kine. Old monks of experiencedraw their hoods deeper down; careful what they say: the monk'sfirst duty is obedience. Our Lord the King, hearing of suchwork, sends down his Almoner to make investigations: but whatboots it? Abbot Hugo assembles us in Chapter; asks, "If thereis any complaint?" Not a soul of us dare answer, "Yes, thousands!" but we all stand silent, and the Prior even says thatthings are in a very comfortable condition. Whereupon old AbbotHugo, turning to the royal messenger, says, "You see!"--and thebusiness terminates in that way. I, as a brisk-eyed, noticingyouth and novice, could not help asking of the elders, asking ofMagister Samson in particular: Why he, well-instructed and aknowing man, had not spoken out, and brought matters to abearing? Magister Samson was Teacher of the Novices, appointedto breed us up to the rules, and I loved him well. _"Fili mi, "_answered Samson, "the burnt child shuns the fire. Dost thou notknow, our Lord the Abbot sent me once to Acre in Norfolk, tosolitary confinement and bread and water, already? The Hinghams, Hugo and Robert, have just got home from banishment for speaking. This is the hour of darkness: the hour when flatterers rule andare believed. _Videat Dominus, _ let the Lord see, and judge. "

In very truth, what could poor old Abbot Hugo do? A frail oldman; and the Philistines were upon him, --that is to say, theHebrews. He had nothing for it but to shrink away from them;get back into his warm flannels, into his warm delusions again. Happily, before it was quite too late, he bethought him ofpilgriming to St. Thomas of Canterbury. He set out, with a fittrain, in the autumn days of the year 1180; near Rochester City, his mule threw him, dislocated his poor kneepan, raised incurableinflammatory fever; and the poor old man got his dismissal fromthe whole coil at once. St. Thomas a Becket, though in acircuitous way, had _brought_ deliverance! Neither Jew usurers, nor grumbling monks, nor other importunate despicability of menor mud-elements afflicted Abbot Hugo any more; but he dropt hisrosaries, closed his account-books, closed his old eyes, and laydown into the long sleep. Heavy-laden hoary old Dominus Hugo, fare thee well. 

One thing we cannot mention without a due thrill of horror:namely, that, in the empty exchequer of Dominus Hugo, there wasnot found one penny to distribute to the Poor that they mightpray for his soul! By a kind of godsend, Fifty shillings did, inthe very nick of time, fall due, or seem to fall due, from one ofhis Farmers (the _Firmarius_ de Palegrava), and he paid it, andthe Poor had it; though, alas, this too only _seemed_ to falldue, and we had it to pay again afterwards. Dominus Hugo'sapartments were plundered by his servants, to the last portablestool, in a few minutes after the breath was out of his body. Forlorn old Hugo, fare thee well forever. 

Chapter V

Twelfth Century

Our Abbot being dead, the _Dominus Rex, _ Henry II, or Ranulf deGlanvill _Justiciarius_ of England for him, set Inspectors orCustodiars over us;--not in any breathless haste to appoint a newAbbot, our revenues coming into his own Scaccarium, or royalExchequer, in the meanwhile. They proceeded with some rigour, these Custodiars; took written inventories, clapt-on seals, exacted everywhere strict tale and measure: but wherefore shoulda living monk complain? The living monk has to do his devotionaldrill-exercise; consume his allotted _pitantia, _ what wecall _pittance, _ or ration of victual; and possess his soulin patience. 

Dim, as through a long vista of Seven Centuries, dim and verystrange looks that monk-life to us; the ever-surprisingcircumstance this, That it is a _fact_ and no dream, that we seeit there, and gaze into the very eyes of it! Smoke rises dailyfrom those culinary chimney-throats; there are living humanbeings there, who chant, loud-braying, their matins, nones, vespers; awakening echoes, not to the bodily ear alone. St. Edmund's Shrine, perpetually illuminated, glows ruddy throughthe Night, and through the Night of Centuries withal; St. Edmundsbury Town paying yearly Forty pounds for that express end. Bells clang out; on great occasions, all the bells. We haveProcessions, Preachings, Festivals, Christmas Plays, _Mysteries_shewn in the Churchyard, at which latter the Townsfolk sometimesquarrel. Time was, Time is, as Friar Bacon's Brass Headremarked; and withal Time will be. There are three Tenses, _Tempora, _ or Times; and there is one Eternity; and as for us, 'We are such stuff as Dreams are made of!'

Indisputable, though very dim to modern vision, rests on its hill-slope that same _Bury, _ _Stow, _ or Town of St. Edmund; already aconsiderable place, not without traffic, nay manufactures, wouldJocelin only tell us what. Jocelin is totally careless oftelling: but, through dim fitful apertures, we can see_Fullones, _ 'Fullers, ' see cloth-making; looms dimly going, dye-vats, and old women spinning yarn. We have Fairs too, _Nundinae, _ in due course; and the Londoners give us muchtrouble, pretending that they, as a metropolitan people, areexempt from toll. Besides there is Field-husbandry, withperplexed settlement of Convent rents: comricks pile themselveswithin burgh, in their season; and cattle depart and enter; andeven the poor weaver has his cow, --'dung-heaps' lying quiet atmost doors (_ante foras, _ says the incidental Jocelin), for theTown has yet no improved police. Watch and ward nevertheless wedo keep, and have Gates, --as what Town must not; thieves soabounding; war, _werra, _ such a frequent thing! Our thieves, atthe Abbot's judgment bar, deny; claim wager of battle; fight, are beaten, and _then_ hanged. 'Ketel, the thief, ' took thiscourse; and it did nothing for him, --merely brought us, andindeed himself, new trouble!

Every way a most foreign Time. What difficulty, for example, hasour Cellerarius to collect the _repselver, _ 'reaping silver, ' orpenny, which each householder is by law bound to pay for cuttingdown the Convent grain! Richer people pretend that it iscommuted, that it is this and the other; that, in short, theywill not pay it. Our _Cellerarius_ gives up calling on the rich. In the houses of the poor, our _Cellerarius_ finding, in likemanner, neither penny nor good promise, snatches, withoutceremony, what _vadium_ (pledge, _wad_) he can come at: a joint-stool, kettle, nay the very house-door, _'hostium;'_ and oldwomen, thus exposed to the unfeeling gaze of the public, rush outafter him with their distaffs and the angriest shrieks:_'vetulae exibant cum colis suis, '_ says Jocelin, 'minanteset exprobrantes. '_

What a historical picture, glowing visible, as St. Edmund'sShrine by night, after Seven long Centuries or so! _Vetulae cumcolis:_ My venerable ancient spinning grandmothers, --ah, and yetoo have to shriek, and rush out with your distaffs; and becomeFemale Chartists, and scold all evening with void doorway;--andin old Saxon, as we in modern, would fain demand some Five-pointCharter, could it be fallen in with, the Earth being tootyrannous!--Wise Lord Abbots, hearing of such phenomena, did intime abolish or commute the reap-penny, and one nuisance wasabated. But the image of these justly offended old women, intheir old wool costumes, with their angry features, and spindlesbrandished, lives forever in the historical memory. Thanks tothee, Jocelin Boswell. Jerusalem was taken by the Crusaders, andagain lost by them; and Richard Coeur-de-Lion 'veiled his face'as he passed in sight of it: but how many other things went on, the while!

Thus, too, our trouble with the Lakenheath eels is very great. King Knut, namely, or rather his Queen who also did herselfhonour by honouring St. Edmund, decreed by authentic deed yetextant on parchment, that the Holders of the Town Fields, onceBeodric's, should, for one thing, go yearly and catch us fourthousand eels in the marsh-pools of Lakenheath. Well, they went, they continued to go; but, in later times, got into the way ofreturning with a most short account of eels. Not the due six-score apiece; no, Here are two-score, Here are twenty, ten, --sometimes, Here are none at all; Heaven help us, we _could_catch no more, they were not there! What is a distressed_Cellerarius_ to do? We agree that each Holder of so many acresshall pay one penny yearly, and let go the eels as too slippery. But alas, neither is this quite effectual: the Fields, in mytime, have got divided among so many hands, there is no catchingof them _either_; I have known our Cellarer get seven and twentypence formerly, and now it is much if he get ten pence farthing(_vix decem denarios et obolum_). And then their sheep, whichthey are bound to fold nightly in our pens, for the manure'ssake; and, I fear, do not always fold: and their _aver-pennies, _ and their _avragiums, _ and their _foder-corns, _ andmill-and-market dues! Thus, in its undeniable but dim manner, does old St. Edmundsbury spin and till, and laboriously keep itspot boiling, and St. Edmund's Shrine lighted, under suchconditions and averages as it can. 

How much is still alive in England; how much has not yet comeinto life! A Feudal Aristocracy is still alive, in the prime oflife; superintending the cultivation of the land, and lessconsciously the distribution of the produce of the land, theadjustment of the quarrels of the land; judging, soldiering, adjusting; everywhere governing the people, --so that even aGurth born thrall of Cedric lacks not his due parings of the pigshe tends. Governing;--and, alas, also game-preserving, so that aRobert Hood, a William Scarlet and others have, in these days, put on Lincoln coats, and taken to living, in some universal-suffrage manner, under the greenwood tree!

How silent, on the other hand, lie all Cotton-trades and suchlike; not a steeple-chimney yet got on end from sea to sea!North of the Humber, a stern Willelmus Conquestor burnt theCountry, finding it unruly, into very stern repose. Wild fowlscream in those ancient silences, wild cattle roam in thoseancient solitudes; the scanty sulky Norse-bred population allcoerced into silence, --feeling that, under these new NormanGovernors, their history has probably as good as _ended. _ Menand Northumbrian Norse populations know little what has ended, what is but beginning! The Ribble and the Aire roll down, as yetunpolluted by dyers' chemistry; tenanted by merry trouts andpiscatory otters; the sunbeam and the vacant wind's-blast alonetraversing those moors. Side by side sleep the coal-strata andthe iron-strata for so many ages; no Steam-Demon has yet risensmoking into being. Saint Mungo rules in Glasgow; James Wattstill slumbering in the deep of Time. _Mancunium, _ Manceaster, what we now call Manchester, spins no cotton, --if it be not_wool_ 'cottons, ' clipped from the backs of mountain sheep. TheCreek of the Mersey gurgles, twice in the four-and-twenty hours, with eddying brine, clangorous with sea-fowl; and is a _Lither_-Pool, a _lazy_ or sullen Pool, no monstrous pitchy City, andSeahaven of the world! The Centuries are big; and the birth-hour is coming, not yet come. _Tempus ferax, tempus edax rerum. _

Chapter VI

Monk Samson

Within doors, down at the hill-foot, in our Convent here, we area peculiar people, --hardly conceivable in the Arkwright Corn-Lawages, of mere Spinning-Mills and Joe-Mantons! There is yet noMethodism among us, and we speak much of Secularities: noMethodism; our Religion is not yet a horrible restless Doubt, still less a far horribler composed Cant; but a great heaven-high Unquestionability, encompassing, interpenetrating the wholeof Life. Imperfect as we may be, we are here, with our litanies, shaven crowns, vows of poverty, to testify incessantly andindisputably to every heart, That this Earthly Life, andits riches and possessions, and good and evil hap, are notintrinsically a reality at all, but _are_ a shadow of realitieseternal, infinite; that this Time-world, as an air-image, fearfully _emblematic, _ plays and flickers in the grand stillmirror of Eternity; and man's little Life has Duties that aregreat, that are alone great, and go up to Heaven and down toHell. This, with our poor litanies, we testify and struggleto testify. 

Which, testified or not, remembered by all men, or forgotten byall men, does verily remain the fact, even in Arkwright JoeManton ages! But it is incalculable, when litanies have grownobsolete; when _fodercorns, _ _avragiums, _ and all human dues andreciprocities have been fully changed into one great due of _cashpayment;_ and man's duty to man reduces itself to handing himcertain metal coins, or covenanted money-wages, and then shovinghim out of doors; and man's duty to God becomes a cant, a doubt, a dim inanity, a 'pleasure of virtue' or such like; and thething a man does infinitely fear (the real _Hell_ of a man) is'that he do not make money and advance himself, '--I say, it isincalculable what a change has introduced itself everywhere intohuman affairs! How human affairs shall now circulate everywherenot healthy life-blood in them, but, as it were, a detestablecopperas banker's ink; and all is grown acrid, divisive, threatening dissolution; and the huge tumultuous Life of Societyis galvanic, devil-ridden, too truly possessed by a devil! For, in short, Mammon _is_ not a god at all; but a devil, and even avery despicable devil. Follow the Devil faithfully, you are sureenough to _go_ to the Devil: whither else _can_ you go?--In suchsituations, men look back with a kind of mournful recognitioneven on poor limited Monk-figures, with their poor litanies; andreflect, with Ben Jonson, that soul is indispensable, some degreeof soul, even to save you the expense of salt!--

For the rest, it must be owned, we Monks of St. Edmundsbury arebut a limited class of creatures, and seem to have a somewhatdull life of it. Much given to idle gossip; having indeed noother work, when our chanting is over. Listless gossip, for mostpart, and a mitigated slander; the fruit of idleness, not ofspleen. We are dull, insipid men, many of us; easy-minded;whom prayer and digestion of food will avail for a life. We haveto receive all strangers in our Convent, and lodge them gratis;such and such sorts go by rule to the Lord Abbot and his specialrevenues; such and such to us and our poor Cellarer, howeverstraitened. Jews themselves send their wives and little oneshither in war-time, into our _Pitanceria;_ where they abidesafe, with due _pittances, _--for a consideration. We have thefairest chances for collecting news. Some of us have a turn forreading Books; for meditation, silence; at times we even writeBooks. Some of us can preach, in English-Saxon, in NormanFrench, and even in Monk-Latin; others cannot in any language orjargon, being stupid. 

Failing all else, what gossip about one another! This is aperennial resource. How one hooded head applies itself to theear of another, and whispers--_tacenda. _ Willelmus Sacrista, forinstance, what does he nightly, over in that Sacristy of his?Frequent bibations, _'frequentes bibationes et quaedam tacenda, '_--eheu! We have _'tempora minutionis, '_ stated seasons ofbloodletting, when we are all let blood together; and thenthere is a general free-conference, a sanhedrim of clatter. Forall our vow of poverty, we can by rule amass to the extent of'two shillings;' but it is to be given to our necessitouskindred, or in charity. Poor Monks! Thus too a certainCanterbury Monk was in the habit of 'slipping, _clanculo_ fromhis sleeve, ' five shillings into the hand of his mother, when shecame to see him, at the divine offices, every two months. Once, slipping the money clandestinely, just in the act of takingleave, he slipt it not into her hand but on the floor, andanother had it; whereupon the poor Monk, coming to know it, looked mere despair for some days; till, Lanfranc the nobleArchbishop, questioning his secret from him, nobly made the sum_seven_ shillings, and said, Never mind!

One Monk of a taciturn nature distinguishes himself among thesebabbling ones: the name of him Samson; he that answeredJocelin, "_Fili mi, _ a burnt child shuns the fire. " They call him'Norfolk _Barrator, '_ or litigious person; for indeed, being ofgrave taciturn ways, he is not universally a favourite; he hasbeen in trouble more than once. The reader is desired to markthis Monk. A personable man of seven-and-forty; stout-made, stands erect as a pillar; with bushy eyebrows, the eyes of himbeaming into you in a really strange way; the face massive, grave, with 'a very eminent nose;' his head almost bald, itsauburn remnants of hair, and the copious ruddy beard, gettingslightly streaked with grey. This is Brother Samson; a manworth looking at. 

He is from Norfolk, as the nickname indicates; from Tottingtonin Norfolk, as we guess; the son of poor parents there. He hastold me, Jocelin, for I loved him much, That once in his ninthyear he had an alarming dream;--as indeed we are all somewhatgiven to dreaming here. Little Samson, lying uneasily in hiscrib at Tottington, dreamed that he saw the Arch Enemy in person, just alighted in front of some grand building, with outspreadbat-wings, and stretching forth detestable clawed hands to griphim, little Samson, and fly off with him: whereupon the littledreamer shrieked desperate to St. Edmund for help, shrieked andagain shrieked; and St. Edmund, a reverend heavenly figure, didcome, --and indeed poor little Samson's mother, awakened by hisshrieking, did come; and the Devil and the Dream both fled awayfruitless. On the morrow, his mother, pondering such an awfuldream, thought it were good to take him over to St. Edmund's ownShrine, and pray with him there. See, said little Samson atsight of the Abbey-Gate; see, mother, this is the building Idreamed of! His poor mother dedicated him to St. Edmund, --lefthim there with prayers and tears: what better could she do? Theexposition of the dream, Brother Samson used to say, was this:_Diabolus_ with outspread bat-wings shadowed forth the pleasuresof this world, _voluptates hujus saeculi, _ which were about tosnatch and fly away with me, had not St. Edmund flung his armsround me, that is to say, made me a monk of his. A monk, accordingly, Brother Samson is; and here to this day where hismother left him. A learned man, of devout grave nature; hasstudied at Paris, has taught in the Town Schools here, and donemuch else; can preach in three languages, and, like Dr. Caius, 'has had losses' in his time. A thoughtful, firm-standing man;much loved by some, not loved by all; his clear eyes flashinginto you, in an almost inconvenient way!

Abbot Hugo, as we said, has his own difficulties with him; AbbotHugo had him in prison once, to teach him what authority was, andhow to dread the fire in future. For Brother Samson, in the timeof the Antipopes, had been sent to Rome on business; and, returning successful, was too late, --the business had all misgonein the interim! As tours to Rome are still frequent with usEnglish, perhaps the reader will not grudge to look at the methodof traveling thither in those remote ages. We happily have, insmall compass, a personal narrative of it. Through the cleareyes and memory of Brother Samson, one peeps direct into the verybosom of that Twelfth Century, and finds it rather curious. Theactual _Papa, _ Father, or universal President of Christendom, asyet not grown chimerical, sat there; think of that only!Brother Samson went to Rome as to the real Light-fountain of thislower world; we now--!--But let us hear Brother Samson, as tohis mode of traveling:

'You know what trouble I had for that Church of Woolpit; how Iwas despatched to Rome in the time of the Schism between PopeAlexander and Octavian; and passed through Italy at that season, when all clergy carrying letters for our Lord Pope Alexander werelaid hold of, and some were clapt in prison, some hanged; andsome, with nose and lips cut off, were sent forward to our Lordthe Pope, for the disgrace and confusion of him (_in dedecus etconfusionem ejus_). I, however, pretended to be Scotch, andputting on the garb of a Scotchman, and taking the gesture ofone, walked along; and when anybody mocked at me, I wouldbrandish my staff in the manner of that weapon they call_gaveloc, _* uttering comminatory words after the way of theScotch. To those that met and questioned me who I was, I made noanswer but: _Ride, ride Rome; turne Cantwereberei. _ ** Thus didI, to conceal myself and my errand, and get safer to Rome underthe guise of a Scotchman. 

----------* Javelin, missile pike. _Gaveloc_ is still the Scotch name for_crowbar. _

** Does this mean, "Rome forever; Canterbury _not"_ (whichclaims an unjust Supremacy _over_ us)! Mr. Rokewood is silent. Dryasdust would perhaps explain it, --in the course of a week ortwo of talking; did one dare to question him!----------

'Having at last obtained a Letter from our Lord the Popeaccording to my wishes, I turned homewards again. I had to passthrough a certain strong town on my road; and lo, the soldiersthereof surrounded me, seizing me, and saying: "This vagabond(_iste solivagus_), who pretends to be Scotch, is either a spy, or has Letters from the false Pope Alexander. " And whilst theyexamined every stitch and rag of me, my leggings (_caligas_), breeches, and even the old shoes that I carried over my shoulderin the way of the Scotch, --I put my hand into the leather scrip Iwore, wherein our Lord the Pope's Letter lay, close by a littlejug (_ciffus_) I had for drinking out of; and the Lord God sopleasing, and St. Edmund, I got out both the Letter and the jugtogether; in such a way that, extending my arm aloft, I held theLetter hidden between jug and hand: they saw the jug, but theLetter they saw not. And thus I escaped out of their hands inthe name of the Lord. Whatever money I had they took from me;wherefore I had to beg from door to door, without any payment(_sine omni expensa_) till I came to England again. But hearingthat the Woolpit Church was already given to Geoffry Ridell, mysoul was struck with sorrow because I had laboured in vain. 

'Coming home, therefore, I sat me down secretly under the Shrineof St. Edmund, fearing lest our Lord Abbot should seize andimprison me, though I had done no mischief; nor was there a monkwho durst speak to me, nor a laic who durst bring me food exceptby stealth. 

Such resting and welcoming found Brother Samson, with his wornsoles, and strong heart! He sits silent, revolving manythoughts, at the foot of St. Edmund's Shrine. In the wide Earth, if it be not Saint Edmund, what friend or refuge has he? OurLord Abbot, hearing of him, sent the proper officer to lead himdown to prison, clap 'foot-gyves on him' there. Another poorofficial furtively brought him a cup of wine; bade him "becomforted in the Lord. " Samson utters no complaint; obeys insilence. 'Our Lord Abbot, taking counsel of it, banished me toAcre, and there I had to stay long. '

Our Lord Abbot next tried Samson with promotions; made himSubsacristan, made him Librarian, which he liked best of all, being passionately fond of Books: Samson, with many thoughts inhim, again obeyed in silence; discharged his offices toperfection, but never thanked our Lord Abbot, --seemed rather asif looking into him, with those clear eyes of his. WhereuponAbbot Hugo said, _Se nunquam vidisse, _ he had never seen such aman; whom no severity would break to complain, and no kindnesssoften into smiles or thanks:--a questionable kind of man!

In this way, not without troubles, but still in an erect clear-standing manner, has Brother Samson reached his forty-seventhyear; and his ruddy beard is getting slightly grizzled. He isendeavouring, in these days, to have various broken thingsthatched in; nay perhaps to have the Choir itself completed, forhe can bear nothing ruinous. He has gathered 'heaps of lime andsand;' has masons, slaters working, he and _Warinus monachusnoster, _ who are joint keepers of the Shrine; paying out themoney duly, --furnished by charitable burghers of St. Edmundsbury, they say. Charitable burghers of St. Edmundsbury? To me Jocelinit seems rather, Samson and Warinus, whom he leads, have privilyhoarded the oblations at the Shrine itself, in these lateyears of indolent dilapidation, while Abbot Hugo sat wraptinaccessible; and are struggling, in this prudent way, to havethe rain kept out!--Under what conditions, sometimes, has Wisdomto struggle with Folly; get Folly persuaded to so much as thatchout the rain from itself! For, indeed, if the Infant governthe Nurse, what dexterous practice on the Nurse's part willnot be necessary!

It is regret to us that, in these circumstances, our Lord theKing's Custodiars, interfering, prohibited all building orthatching from whatever source; and no Choir shall be completed, and Rain and Time, for the present, shall have their way. Willelmus Sacrista, he of 'the frequent bibations and some thingsnot to be spoken of;' he, with his red nose, I am of opinion, had made complaint to the Custodiars; wishing to do Samson anill turn:--Samson his _Sub_-sacristan, with those clear eyes, could not be a prime favourite of his! Samson again obeysin silence. 

Chapter VII

The Canvassing

Now, however, come great news to St. Edmundsbury: That there isto be an Abbot elected; that our interlunar obscuration is tocease; St. Edmund's Convent no more to be a doleful widow, butjoyous and once again a bride! Often in our widowed state had weprayed to the Lord and St. Edmund, singing weekly a matter of'one-and-twenty penitential Psalms, on our knees in the Choir, 'that a fit Pastor might be vouchsafed us. And, says Jocelin, hadsome known what Abbot we were to get, they had not been sodevout, I believe!--Bozzy Jocelin opens to mankind the floodgatesof authentic Convent gossip; we listen, as in a Dionysius' Ear, to the inanest hubbub, like the voices at Virgil's Horn-Gate ofDreams. Even gossip, seven centuries off, has significance. List, list, how like men are to one another in all centuries:

_`Dixit quidam de quodam, _ A certain person said of a certainperson, "He, that _Frater, _ is a good monk, _probabilis persona;_knows much of the order and customs of the church; and thoughnot so perfect a philosopher as some others, would make a verygood Abbot. Old Abbot Ording, still famed among us, knew littleof letters. Besides, as we read in Fables, it is better tochoose a log for king, than a serpent, never so wise, that willvenomously hiss and bite his subjects. "--"Impossible!" answeredthe other: "How can such a man make a sermon in the chapter, orto the people on festival days, when he is without letters? Howcan he have the skill to bind and to loose, he who does notunderstand the Scriptures? How--?"'

And then `another said of another, _alius de alio, _ "That_Frater_ is a _homo literatus, _ eloquent, sagacious; vigorousin discipline; loves the Convent much, has suffered much forits sake. " To which a third party answers, "From all yourgreat clerks good Lord deliver us! From Norfolk barrators, andsurly persons, That it would please thee to preserve us, Webeseech thee to hear us, good Lord!"' Then `another _quidam_said of another _quodam, _ "That _Frater_ is a good manager(_husebondus_);" but was swiftly answered, "God forbid that aman who can neither read nor chant, nor celebrate the divineoffices, an unjust person withal, and grinder of the faces of thepoor, should ever be Abbot!"' One man, it appears, is nice inhis victuals. Another is indeed wise; but apt to slightinferiors; hardly at the pains to answer, if they argue with himtoo foolishly. And so each _aliquis_ concerning his _aliquo, _--through whole pages of electioneering babble. `For, ' saysJocelin, `So many men, as many minds. Our Monks at time ofblood-letting, _tempore minutionis, _' holding their sanhedrim ofbabble, would talk in this manner: Brother Samson, I remarked, never said anything; sat silent, sometimes smiling; but he tookgood note of what others said, and would bring it up, onoccasion, twenty years after. As for me Jocelin, I was ofopinion that `some skill in Dialectics, to distinguish true fromfalse, ' would be good in an Abbot. I spake, as a rash Novice inthose days, some conscientious words of a certain benefactor ofmine; `and behold, one of those sons of Belial' ran and reportedthem to him, so that he never after looked at me with the sameface again! Poor Bozzy!--

Such is the buzz and frothy simmering ferment of the general mindand no-mind; struggling to `make itself up, ' as the phrase is, or ascertain what _it_ does really want: no easy matter, in mostcases. St. Edmundsbury, in that Candlemas season of the year1182, is a busily fermenting place. The very clothmakers sitmeditative at their looms; asking, Who shall be Abbot? The_sochemanni_ speak of it, driving their ox-teams afield; the oldwomen with their spindles: and none yet knows what the days willbring forth. 

The Prior, however, as our interim chief, must proceed to work;get ready 'Twelve Monks, ' and set off with them to his Majesty atWaltham, there shall the election be made. An election, whethermanaged directly by ballot-box on public hustings, or indirectlyby force of public opinion, or were it even by open alehouses, landlords' coercion, popular club-law, or whatever electoralmethods, is always an interesting phenomenon. A mountaintumbling in great travail, throwing up dustclouds and absurdnoises, is visibly there; uncertain yet what mouse or monster itwill give birth to. 

Besides it is a most important social act; nay, at bottom, theone important social act. Given the men a People choose, thePeople itself, in its exact worth and worthlessness, is given. Aheroic people chooses heroes, and is happy; a valet or flunkeypeople chooses sham-heroes, what are called quacks, thinking themheroes, and is not happy. The grand summary of a man's spiritualcondition, what brings out all his herohood and insight, or allhis flunkeyhood and horn-eyed dimness, is this question put tohim, What man dost thou honour? Which is thy ideal of a man; ornearest that? So too of a People: for a People too, everyPeople, _speaks_ its choice, --were it only by silently obeying, and not revolting, --in the course of a century or so. Nor areelectoral methods, Reform Bills and such like, unimportant. APeople's electoral methods are, in the long-run, the expressimage of its electoral _talent;_ tending and gravitatingperpetually, irresistibly, to a conformity with that: and are, at all stages, very significant of the People. Judiciousreaders, of these times, are not disinclined to see howMonks elect their Abbot in the Twelfth Century: how the St. Edmundsbury mountain manages its midwifery; and what mouse orman the outcome is. 

Chapter VIII

The Election

Accordingly our Prior assembles us in Chapter; and, we adjuringhim before God to do justly, nominates, not by our selection, yetwith our assent, Twelve Monks, moderately satisfactory. Of whomare Hugo Third-Prior, Brother Dennis a venerable man, Walter the_Medicus, _ Samson _Subsacrista, _ and other esteemed characters, --though Willelmus _Sacrista, _ of the red nose, too is one. Theseshall proceed straightway to Waltham; elect the Abbot as theymay and can. Monks are sworn to obedience; must not speak tooloud, under penalty of foot-gyves, limbo, and bread and water:yet monks too would know what it is they are obeying. The St. Edmundsbury Community has no hustings, ballot-box, indeed no openvoting: yet by various vague manipulations, pulse-feelings, westruggle to ascertain what its virtual aim is, and succeed betteror worse. 

This question, however, rises; alas, a quite preliminaryquestion: Will the _Dominus Rex_ allow us to choose freely? Itis to be hoped! Well, if so, we agree to choose one of our ownConvent. If not, if the _Dominus Rex_ will force a stranger onus, we decide on demurring, the Prior and his Twelve shall demur:we can appeal, plead, remonstrate; appeal even to the Pope, buttrust it will not be necessary. Then there is this otherquestion, raised by Brother Samson: What if the Thirteen shouldnot themselves be able to agree? Brother Samson _Subsacrista, _one remarks, is ready oftenest with some question, somesuggestion, that has wisdom in it. Though a servant of servants, and saying little, his words all tell, having sense in them;it seems by his light mainly that we steer ourselves in thisgreat dimness. 

What if the Thirteen should not themselves be able to agree?Speak, Samson, and advise. --Could not, hints Samson, Six of ourvenerablest elders be chosen by us, a kind of electoralcommittee, here and now: of these, `with their hand on theGospels, with their eye on the _Sacrosancta, '_ we take oath thatthey will do faithfully; let these, in secret and as before God, agree on Three whom they reckon fittest; write their names in aPaper, and deliver the same sealed, forthwith, to the Thirteen:one of those Three the Thirteen shall fix on, if permitted. Ifnot permitted, that is to say, if the _Dominus Rex_ force us todemur, --the Paper shall be brought back unopened, and publiclyburned, that no man's secret bring him into trouble. 

So Samson advises, so we act; wisely, in this and in othercrises of the business. Our electoral committee, its eye on theSacrosancta, _ is soon named, soon sworn; and we striking up theFifth Psalm, _'Verba mea, _

 `Give ear unto my words, O Lord, My meditation weigh, '

march out chanting, and leave the Six to their work in theChapter here. Their work, before long, they announce asfinished: they, with their eye on the Sacrosancta, imprecatingthe Lord to weigh and witness their meditation, have fixed onThree Names, and written them in this Sealed Paper. Let SamsonSubsacrista, general servant of the party, take charge of it. Onthe morrow morning, our Prior and his Twelve will be ready to getunder way. 

This then is the ballot-box and electoral winnowing-machine theyhave at St. Edmundsbury: a mind fixed on the Thrice Holy, anappeal to God on high to witness their meditation: by far thebest, and indeed the only good electoral winnowing-machine, --Ifmen have souls in them. Totally worthless, it is true, and evenhideous and poisonous, if men have no souls. But without soul, alas what winnowing-machine in human elections, can be ofavail? We cannot get along without soul; we stick fast, themournfullest spectacle; and salt itself will not save us!

On the morrow morning, accordingly, our Thirteen set forth; orrather our Prior and Eleven; for Samson, as general servant ofthe party, has to linger, settling many things. At length he toogets upon the road; and, 'carrying the sealed Paper in a leatherpouch hung round his neck; and _froccum bajulans in ulnis'_(thanks to thee Bozzy Jocelin), 'his frock-skirts looped over hiselbow, ' skewing substantial stern-works, tramps stoutly along. Away across the Heath, not yet of Newmarket and horse-jockeying;across your Fleam-dike and Devil's-dike, no longer useful as aMercian East-Anglian boundary or bulwark: continually towardsWaltham, and the Bishop of Winchester's House there, for hisMajesty is in that. Brother Samson, as purse-bearer, has thereckoning always, when there is one, to pay; 'delays arenumerous, ' progress none of the swiftest. 

But, in the solitude of the Convent, Destiny thus big and in herbirthtime, what gossiping, what babbling, what dreaming ofdreams! The secret of the Three our electoral elders alone know:some Abbot we shall have to govern us; but which Abbot, O which!One Monk discerns in a vision of the night-watches, that we shallget an Abbot of our own body, without needing to demur: aprophet appeared to him clad all in white, and said, "Ye shallhave one of yours, and he will rage among you like a wolf, _saeviet ut lupus. "_ Verily!--then which of ours? Another Monknow dreams: he has seen clearly which; a certain Figure tallerby head and shoulders than the other two, dressed in alb and_pallium, _ and with the attitude of one about to fight;--whichtall Figure a wise Editor would rather not name at this stage ofthe business! Enough that the vision is true: that Saint Edmundhimself, pale and awful, seemed to rise from his Shrine, withnaked feet, and say audibly, "He, _ille, _ shall veil my feet;"which part of the vision also proves true. Such guessing, visioning, dim perscrutation of the momentous future: the veryclothmakers, old women, all townsfolk speak of it, 'and more thanonce it is reported in St. Edmundsbury, This one is elected; andthen, This one and That other. ' Who knows?

But now, sure enough, at Waltham 'on the Second Sunday ofQuadragesima, ' which Dryasdust declares to mean the 22d day ofFebruary, year 1182, Thirteen St. Edmundsbury Monks are, at last, seen processioning towards the Winchester Manorhouse; and insome high Presence-chamber, and Hall of State, get access toHenry II in all his glory. What a Hall, --not imaginary in theleast, but entirely real and indisputable, though so extremelydim to us; sunk in the deep distances of Night! The WinchesterManorhouse has fled bodily, like a Dream of the old Night; notDryasdust himself can skew a wreck of it. House and people, royal and episcopal, lords and varlets, where are they? Why_there, _ I say, Seven Centuries off; sunk so far in the Night, there they _are;_ peep through the blankets of the old Night, and thou wilt seel King Henry himself is visibly there, a vivid, noble-looking man, with grizzled beard, in glittering uncertaincostume, with earls round him, and bishops and dignitaries, inthe like. The Hall is large, and has for one thing an altar nearit, --chapel and altar adjoining it; but what gilt seats, carvedtables, carpeting of rush-cloth, what arras-hangings, and a hugefire of logs:--alas, it has Human Life in it; and is not thatthe grand miracle, in what hangings or costume soever?--

The _Dominus Rex, _ benignantly receiving our Thirteen with theirobeisance, and graciously declaring that he will strive to actfor God's honour, and the Church's good, commands, 'by the Bishopof Winchester and Geoffrey the Chancellor, '--_GalfridesCancellarius, _ Henry's and the Fair Rosamond's authentic Sonspresent here!--commands, "That they, the said Thirteen, do nowwithdraw, and fix upon Three from their own Monastery. " A worksoon done; the Three hanging ready round Samson's neck, in thatleather pouch of his. Breaking the seal, we find the names, --what think _ye_ of it, ye higher dignitaries, thou indolentPrior, thou Willelmus _Sacrista_ with the red bottle-nose?--thenames, in this order: of Samson _Subsacrista, _ of Roger thedistressed Cellarer, of Hugo _Tertius-Prior. _

The higher dignitaries, all omitted here, 'flush suddenly red inthe face;' but have nothing to say. One curious fact andquestion certainly is, How Hugo Third-Prior, who was of theelectoral committee, came to nominate _himself_ as one of theThree? A curious fact, which Hugo Third-Prior has never yetentirely explained; that I know of!--However, we return, andreport to the King our Three names; merely altering the order;putting Samson last, as lowest of all. The King, at recitationof our Three, asks us: "Who are they? Were they born in mydomain? Totally unknown to me! You must nominate three others. "Whereupon Willelmus Sacrista says, "Our Prior must be named, _quia caput nostrum est, _ being already our head. " And the Priorresponds, "Willelmus Sacrista is a fit man, _bonus vir est, "_--for all his red nose. Tickle me Toby, and I'll tickle thee!Venerable Dennis too is named; none in his conscience can saynay. There are now Six on our List. "Well, " said the King, "they have done it swiftly, they! _Deus est cum eis. "_ TheMonks withdraw again; and Majesty revolves, for a little, withhis _Pares_ and _Episcopi, _ Lords or _'Law-wards'_* and Soul-Overseers, the thoughts of the royal breast. The Monks waitsilent in an outer room. 

--------* or "Lawyers"--digital editor--------

In short while, they are next ordered, To add yet another three;but not from their own Convent; from other Convents, "for thehonour of my kingdom. " Here, --what is to be done here? We willdemur, if need be! We do name three, however, for the nonce:the Prior of St. Faith's, a good Monk of St. Neot's, a good Monkof St. Alban's; good men all; all made abbots and dignitariessince, at this hour. There are now Nine upon our List. What thethoughts of the Dominus Rex may be farther? The Dominus Rex, thanking graciously, sends out word that we shall now strike offthree. The three strangers are instantly struck off. WillelmusSacrista adds, that he will of his own accord decline, --a touchof grace and respect for the _Sacrosancta, _ even in Willelmus!The King then orders us to strike off a couple more; then yetone more: Hugo Third-Prior goes, and Roger _Cellerarius, _ andvenerable Monk Dennis;--and now there remain on our List twoonly, Samson Subsacrista and the Prior. 

Which of these two? It were hard to say, --by Monks who may getthemselves foot-gyved and thrown into limbo, for speaking! Wehumbly request that the Bishop of Winchester and Geoffrey theChancellor may again enter, and help us to decide. "Which do youwant?" asks the Bishop. Venerable Dennis made a speech, 'commending the persons of the Prior and Samson; but always inthe corner of his discourse, in _angulo sui sermonis, _ broughtSamson in. ' "I see!" said the Bishop: "We are to understandthat your Prior is somewhat remiss; that you want to have himyou call Samson for Abbot. " "Either of them is good, " saidvenerable Dennis, almost trembling; "but we would have thebetter, if it pleased God. " "Which of the two _do_ you want?"inquires the Bishop pointedly. "Samson!" answered Dennis;"Samson!" echoed all of the rest that durst speak or echoanything: and Samson is reported to the King accordingly. HisMajesty, advising of it for a moment, orders that Samson bebrought in with the other Twelve. 

The King's Majesty, looking at us somewhat sternly, then says:"You present to me Samson; I do not know him: had it been yourPrior, whom I do know, I should have accepted him: however, Iwill now do as you wish. But have a care of yourselves. By thetrue eyes of God, _per veros oculos Dei, _ if you manage badly, Iwill be upon you!" Samson, therefore, steps forward, kisses theKing's feet; but swiftly rises erect again, swiftly turnstowards the altar, uplifting with the other Twelve, in cleartenor-note, the Fifty-first Psalm, _'Miserere mei Deus, _

 'After thy loving-kindness, Lord, Have mercy upon _me;'_

with firm voice, firm step and head, no change in his countenancewhatever. "By God's eyes, " said the King, "that one, I think, will govern the Abbey well. " By the same oath (charged to yourMajesty's account), I too am precisely of that opinion! It issome while since I fell in with a likelier man anywhere than thisnew Abbot Samson. Long life to him, and may the Lord _have_mercy on him as Abbot!

Thus, then, have the St. Edmundsbury Monks, without expressballot-box or other good winnowing-machine, contrived toaccomplish the most important social feat a body of men can do, to winnow out the man that is to govern them: and truly one seesnot that, by any winnowing-machine whatever, they could have doneit better. O ye kind Heavens, there is in every Nation andCommunity, a _fittest, _ a wisest, bravest, best; whom could wefind and make King over us, all were in very truth well;--thebest that God and Nature had permitted _us_ to make it! By whatart discover him? Will the Heavens in their pity teach us noart; for our need of him is great!

Ballot-boxes, Reform Bills, winnowing-machines: all these aregood, or are not so good;--alas, brethren, how _can_ these, Isay, be other than inadequate, be other than failures, melancholyto behold? Dim all souls of men to the divine, the high andawful meaning of Human Worth and Truth, we shall never, by allthe machinery in Birmingham, discover the True and Worthy. It iswritten, 'if we are ourselves valets, there shall exist no herofor us; we shall not know the hero when we see him;'--weshall take the quack for a hero; and cry, audibly throughall ballot-boxes and machinery whatsoever, Thou art he; bethou King over us!

What boots it? Seek only deceitful Speciosity, godlike Realitywill be forever far from you. The Quack shall be legitimateinevitable King of you; no earthly machinery able to exclude theQuack. Ye shall be born thralls of the Quack, and suffer underhim, till you hearts are near broken, and no French Revolution orManchester Insurrection, or partial or universal volcaniccombustions and explosions; never so many, can do more than'change the _figure_ of your Quack;' the essence of himremaining, for a time and times. --"How long, O Prophet?" saysome, with a rather melancholy sneer. Alas, ye _un_prophetic, ever till this come about: Till deep misery, if nothing softerwill, have driven you out of your Speciosites _into_ yourSincerities; and you find there either is a Godlike in theworld, or else ye are an unintelligible madness; that there is aGod, as well as a Mammon and a Devil, and a Genius of Luxuriesand canting Dilettantisms and Vain Shows! How long that will be, compute for yourselves. My unhappy brothers!--

Chapter IX

Abbot Samson

So then the bells of St. Edmundsbury clang out one and all, andin church and chapel the organs go: Convent and Town, and allthe west side of Suffolk, are in gala; knights, viscounts, weavers, spinners, the entire population, male and female, youngand old, the very sockmen with their chubby infants, --out to havea holiday, and see the Lord Abbot arrive! And there is'stripping barefoot' of the Lord Abbot at the Gate, and solemnleading of him in to the High Altar and Shrine; with sudden'silence of all the bells and organs, ' as we kneel in deep prayerthere; and again with outburst of all the bells and organs, andloud _Te Deum_ from the general human windpipe; and speeches bythe leading viscount, and giving of the kiss of brotherhood; thewhole wound up with popular games, and dinner within doors ofmore than a thousand strong, _plus quam mille comedentibus ingaudio magno. _

In such manner is the selfsame Samson once again returningto us, welcomed on _this_ occasion. He that went away with hisfrock-skirts looped over his arm, comes back riding high;suddenly made one of the dignitaries of this world. Reflectivereaders will admit that here was a trial for a man. Yesterday apoor mendicant, allowed to possess not above two shillings ofmoney, and without authority to bid a dog run for him, this mantoday finds himself a _Dominus Abbas, _ mitred Peer of Parliament, Lord of manorhouses, farms, manors, and wide lands; a man with'Fifty Knights under him, ' and dependent swiftly obedientmultitudes of men. It is a change greater than Napoleon's; sosudden withal. As if one of the Chandos daydrudges had, onawakening some morning, found that he overnight was become Duke!Let Samson with his clear-beaming eyes see into that, and discernit if he can. We shall now get the measure of him by a new scaleof inches, considerably more rigorous than the former was. Forif a noble soul is rendered tenfold beautifuller by victory andprosperity, springing now radiant as into his own due element andsunthrone; an ignoble one is rendered tenfold and hundredfolduglier, pitifuller. Whatsoever vices, whatsoever weaknesses werein the man, the parvenu will shew us them enlarged, as in thesolar microscope, into frightful distortion. Nay, how many mereseminal principles of vice, hitherto all wholesomely kept latent, may we now see unfolded, as in the solar hothouse, into growth, into huge universally-conspicuous luxuriance and development!

But is not this, at any rate, a singular aspect of what politicaland social capabilities, nay let us say what depth and opulenceof true social vitality, lay in those old barbarous ages, Thatthe fit Governor could be met with under such disguises, could berecognised and laid hold of under such? Here he is discoveredwith a maximum of two shillings in his pocket, and a leatherscrip round his neck; trudging along the highway, his frock-skirts looped over his arm. They think this is he nevertheless, the true Governor; and he proves to be so. Brethren, have we noneed of discovering true Governors, but will sham ones forever dofor us? These were absurd superstitious blockheads of Monks;and we are enlightened Tenpound Franchisers, without taxes onknowledge! Where, I say, are our superior, are our similar or atall comparable discoveries? We also have eyes, or ought to have;we have hustings, telescopes; we have lights, link-lights andrushlights of an enlightened free Press, burning and dancingeverywhere, as in a universal torch-dance; singeing yourwhiskers as you traverse the public thoroughfares in town andcountry. Great souls, true Governors, go about under all mannerof disguises now as then. Such telescopes, such enlightenment, --and such discovery! How comes it, I say; how comes it? Is itnot lamentable; is it not even, in some sense, amazing?

Alas, the defect, as we must often urge and again urge, is less adefect of telescopes than of some eyesight. Those superstitiousblockheads of the Twelfth Century had no telescopes, but they hadstill an eye: not ballot-boxes; only reverence for Worth, abhorrence of Unworth. It is the way with all barbarians. ThusMr. Sale informs me, the old Arab Tribes would gather inliveliest _gaudeamus, _ and sing, and kindle bonfires, and wreathecrowns of honour, and solemnly thank the gods that, in theirTribe too, a Poet had shewn himself. As indeed they well might;for what usefuller, I say not nobler and heavenlier thing couldthe gods, doing their very kindest, send to any Tribe or Nation, in any time or circumstances? I declare to thee, my afflictedquack-ridden brother, in spite of thy astonishment, it is verylamentable! We English find a Poet, as brave a man as has beenmade for a hundred years or so anywhere under the Sun; and do wekindle bonfires, thank the gods? Not at all. We, taking duecounsel of it, set the man to gauge ale-barrels in the Burgh ofDumfries; and pique ourselves on our 'patronage of genius. '

Genius, Poet: do we know what these words mean? An inspiredSoul once more vouchsafed us, direct from Nature's own greatfire-heart, to see the Truth, and speak it, and do it; Nature'sown sacred voice heard once more athwart the dreary boundlesselement of hearsaying and canting, of twaddle and poltroonery, inwhich the bewildered Earth, nigh perishing, has _lost its way. _Hear once more, ye bewildered benighted mortals; listen onceagain to a voice from the inner Light-sea and Flame-sea, Nature'sand Truth's own heart; know the Fact of your Existence what itis, put away the Cant of it which it is not; and knowing, do, and let it be well with you!--

George the Third is Defender of something we call 'the Faith' inthose years; George the Third is head charioteer of theDestinies of England, to guide them through the gulf of FrenchRevolutions, American Independences; and Robert Burns is Gaugerof ale in Dumfries. It is an Iliad in a nutshell. Thephysiognomy of a world now verging towards dissolution, reducednow to spasms and death-throes, lies pictured in that one fact, --which astonishes nobody, except at me for being astonished at it. The fruit of long ages of confirmed Valethood, entirely confirmedas into a Law of Nature; cloth-worship and quack-worship:entirely _confirmed_ Valethood, --which will have to unconfirmitself again; God knows, with difficulty enough!--

Abbot Samson had found a Convent all in dilapidation; rainbeating through it, material rain and metaphorical, from allquarters of the compass. Willelmus Sacrista sits drinkingnightly, and doing mere _tacenda. _ Our larders are reduced toleanness, Jew Harpies and unclean creatures our purveyors; inour basket is no bread. Old women with their distaffs rush outon a distressed Cellarer in shrill Chartism. 'You cannot stirabroad but Jews and Christians pounce upon you with unsettledbonds;' debts boundless seemingly as the National Debt ofEngland. For four years our new Lord Abbot never went abroad butJew creditors and Christian, and all manner of creditors, wereabout him; driving him to very despair. Our Prior is remiss;our Cellarers, officials are remiss, our monks are remiss: whatman is not remiss? Front this, Samson, thou alone art there tofront it; it is thy task to front and fight this, and to die orkill it. May the Lord have mercy on thee!

To our antiquarian interest in poor Jocelin and his Convent, where the whole aspect of existence, the whole dialect, ofthought, of speech, of activity, is so obsolete, strange, long-vanished, there now superadds itself a mild glow of humaninterest for Abbot Samson; a real pleasure, as at sight of man'swork, especially of governing, which is man's highest work, done_well. _ Abbot Samson had no experience in governing; had servedno apprenticeship to the trade of governing, --alas, only thehardest apprenticeship to that of obeying. He had never in anycourt given _vadium_ or _plegium, _ says Jocelin; hardly everseen a court, when he was set to preside in one. But it isastonishing, continues Jocelin, how soon he learned the ways ofbusiness; and, in all sort of affairs, became expert beyondothers. Of the many persons offering him their service 'heretained one Knight skilled in taking _vadia_ and _plegia;'_ andwithin the year was himself well skilled. Nay, by and by, thePope appoints him Justiciary in certain causes; the King one ofhis new Circuit judges: official Osbert is heard saying, "ThatAbbot is one of your shrewd ones, _disputator est;_ if he go onas he begins, he will cut out every lawyer of us!"

Why not? What is to hinder this Samson from governing? There isin him what far transcends all apprenticeships; in the manhimself there exists a model of governing, something to governby! There exists in him a heart-abhorrence of whatever isincoherent, pusillanimous, unveracious, --that is to say, chaotic, _un_governed; of the Devil, not of God. A man of this kindcannot help governing! He has the living ideal of a governor inhim; and the incessant necessity of struggling to unfold thesame out of him. Not the Devil or Chaos, for any wages, will heserve; no, this man is the born servant of Another than them. Alas, how little avail all apprenticeships, when there is in yourgovernor himself what we may well call _nothing_ to govern by:nothing;--a general grey twilight, looming with shapes ofexpediencies, parliamentary traditions, division-lists, election-funds, leading-articles; this, with what of vulpine alertnessand adroitness soever, is not much!

But indeed what say we, apprenticeship? Had not this Samsonserved, in his way, a right good apprenticeship to governing;namely, the harshest slave-apprenticeship to obeying! Walk thisworld with no friend in it but God and St. Edmund, you willeither fall into the ditch, or learn a good many things. Tolearn obeying is the fundamental art of governing. How muchwould many a Serene Highness have learned, had he traveledthrough the world with water-jug and empty wallet, _sine omniexpensa;_ and, at his victorious return, sat down not tonewspaper-paragraphs and city-illuminations, but at the foot ofSt. Edmund's Shrine to shackles and bread and water! He thatcannot be servant of many, will never be master, true guide anddeliverer of many;--that is the meaning of true mastership. Hadnot the Monk-life extraordinary 'political capabilities' in it;if not imitable by us, yet enviable? Heavens, had a Duke ofLogwood, now rolling sumptuously to his place in the CollectiveWisdom, but himself happened to plough daily, at one time, onseven-and-sixpence a week, with no out-door relief, --what alight, unquenchable by logic and statistic and arithmetic, wouldit have thrown on several things for him!

In all cases, therefore, we will agree with the judicious Mrs. Glass: 'First catch your hare!' First get your man; all isgot: he can learn to do all things, from making boots, todecreeing judgments, governing communities; and will do themlike a man. Catch your no-man, --alas, have you not caught theterriblest Tartar in the world! Perhaps all the terribler, thequieter and gentler he looks. For the mischief that oneblockhead, that every blockhead does, in a world so feracious, teeming with endless results as ours, no ciphering will sum up. The quack bootmaker is considerable; as corn-cutters cantestify, and desperate men reduced to buckskin and list-shoes. But the quack priest, quack high-priest, the quack king! Why donot all just citizens rush, half-frantic, to stop him, as theywould a conflagration? Surely a just citizen _is_ admonished byGod and his own Soul, by all silent and articulate voices of thisUniverse, to do what in _him_ lies towards relief of this poorblockhead-quack, and of a world that groans under him. Runsswiftly; relieve him, --were it even by extinguishing him! Forall things have grown so old, tinder-dry, combustible; and he ismore ruinous than conflagration. Sweep him _down, _ at least;keep him strictly within the hearth: he will then cease to beconflagration; he will then become useful, more or less, asculinary fire. Fire is the best of servants; but what a master!This poor blockhead too is born for uses: why, elevating him tomastership, will you make a conflagration, a parish-curse orworld-curse of him?

Chapter X

Government

How Abbot Samson, giving his new subjects seriatim the kiss offatherhood in the St. Edmundsbury chapterhouse, proceeded withcautious energy to set about reforming their disjointeddistracted way of life; how he managed with his Fifty rough_Milites_ (Feudal Knights), with his lazy Farmers, remissrefractory Monks, with Pope's Legates, Viscounts, Bishops, Kings;how on all sides he laid about him like a man, and puttingconsequence on premiss, and everywhere the saddle on the righthorse, struggled incessantly to educe organic method out oflazily fermenting wreck, --the careful reader will discern, notwithout true interest, in these pages of Jocelin Boswell. Inmost antiquarian quaint costume, not of garments alone, but ofthought, word, action, outlook and position, the substantialfigure of a man with eminent nose, bushy brows and clear-flashingeyes, his russet beard growing daily greyer, is visible, engagedin true governing of men. It is beautiful how the chrysalisgoverning-soul, shaking off its dusty slough and prison, startsforth winged, a true royal soul! Our new Abbot has a righthonest unconscious feeling, without insolence as without fear orflutter, of what he is and what others are. A courage to quellthe proudest, an honest pity to encourage the humblest. Withalthere is a noble reticence in this Lord Abbot: much vainunreason he hears; lays up without response. He is not there toexpect reason and nobleness of others; he is there to give themof his own reason and nobleness. Is he not their servant, as wesaid, who can suffer from them, and for them; bear the burdentheir poor spindle-limbs totter and stagger under; and in virtue_thereof_ govern them, lead them out of weakness into strength, out of defeat into victory!

One of the first Herculean Labours Abbot Samson undertook, or thevery first, was to institute a strenuous review and radicalreform of his economics. It is the first labour of everygoverning man, from _Paterfamilias_ to _Dominus Rex. _ To get therain thatched out from you is the preliminary of whateverfarther, in the way of speculation or of action, you may mean todo. Old Abbot Hugo's budget, as we saw, had become empty, filledwith deficit and wind. To see his account-books clear, bedelivered from those ravening flights of Jew and Christiancreditors, pouncing on him like obscene harpies wherever heshewed face, was a necessity for Abbot Samson. 

On the morrow after his instalment, he brings in a load of money-bonds, all duly stamped, sealed with this or the other ConventSeal: frightful, unmanageable, a bottomless confusion of Conventfinance. There they are;--but there at least they all are; allthat shall be of them. Our Lord Abbot demands that all theofficial seals in use among us be now produced and delivered tohim. Three-and-thirty seals turn up; are straightway broken, and shall seal no more: the Abbot only, and those dulyauthorised by him shall seal any bond. There are but two ways ofpaying debt: increase of industry in raising income, increase ofthrift in laying it out. With iron energy, in slow but steadyundeviating perseverance, Abbot Samson sets to work in bothdirections. His troubles are manifold: cunning _milites, _unjust bailiffs, lazy sockmen, he an inexperienced Abbot;relaxed lazy monks, not disinclined to mutiny in mass: butcontinued vigilance, rigorous method, what we call 'the eye ofthe master, ' work wonders. The clear-beaming eyesight of AbbotSamson, steadfast, severe, all-penetrating, --it is like _Fiatluxe_ in that inorganic waste whirlpool; penetrates gradually toall nooks, and of the chaos makes a _kosmos_ or ordered world!

He arranges everywhere, struggles unweariedly to arrange, andplace on some intelligible footing, the 'affairs and dues, _res ac redditus, '_ of his dominion. The Lakenheath eelscease to breed squabbles between human beings; the penny of_reap-silver_ to explode into the streets the Female Chartism ofSt. Edmundsbury. These and innumerable greater things. Wheresoever Disorder may stand or lie, let it have a care; hereis the man that has declared war with it, that never will makepeace with it. Man is the Missionary of Order; he is theservant not of the Devil and Chaos, but of God and the Universe!Let all sluggards and cowards, remiss, false-spoken, unjust, andotherwise diabolic persons have a care: this is a dangerous manfor them. He has a mild grave face; a thoughtful sternness, asorrowful pity: but there is a terrible flash of anger in himtoo; lazy monks often have to murmur, _"Saevit ut lupus, _ Herages like a wolf; was not our Dream true!" "To repress andhold-in such sudden anger he was continually careful, " andsucceeded well:--right, Samson; that it may become in thee asnoble central heat, fruitful, strong, beneficent; not blaze out, or the seldomest possible blaze out, as wasteful volcanoism toscorch and consume!

"We must first creep, and gradually learn to walk, " had AbbotSamson said of himself, at starting. In four years he has becomea great walker; striding prosperously along; driving muchbefore him. In less than four years, says Jocelin, the ConventDebts were all liquidated: the harpy Jews not only settledwith, but banished, bag and baggage, out of the _Bannaleuca_(Liberties, _Banlieue_) of St. Edmundsbury, --so has the King'sMajesty been persuaded to permit. Farewell to _you, _ at anyrate; let us, in no extremity, apply again to you! Armed menmarch them over the borders, dismiss them under stern penalties, --sentence of excommunication on all that shall again harbour themhere: there were many dry eyes at their departure. 

New life enters everywhere, springs up beneficent, the Incubus ofDebt once rolled away. Samson hastes not; but neither does hepause to rest. This of the Finance is a life-long business withhim;--Jocelin's anecdotes are filled to weariness with it. Asindeed to Jocelin it was of very primary interest. 

But we have to record also, with a lively satisfaction, thatspiritual rubbish is as little tolerated in Samson's Monastery asmaterial. With due rigour, Willelmus Sacrista, and his bibationsand _tacenda_ are, at the earliest opportunity, softly, yetirrevocably put an end to. The bibations, namely, had to end;even the building where they used to be carried on was razed fromthe soil of St. Edmundsbury, and 'on its place grow rows ofbeams:' Willelmus himself, deposed from the Sacristry and alloffices, retires into obscurity, into absolute taciturnityunbroken thenceforth to this hour. Whether the poor Willelmusdid not still, by secret channels, occasionally get some slightwetting of vinous or alcoholic liquor, --now grown, in a manner, indispensable to the poor man? Jocelin hints not; one knows nothow to hope, what to hope! But if he did, it was in silence anddarkness; with an ever-present feeling that teetotalism was hisonly true course. 

Drunken dissolute Monks are a class of persons who had betterkeep out of Abbot Samson's way. _Saevit ut lupus;_ was not theDream true! murmured many a Monk. Nay Ranulf de Glanville, Justiciary in Chief, took umbrage at him, seeing these strictways; and watched farther with suspicion: but discernedgradually that there was nothing wrong, that there was much theopposite of wrong. 

Chapter XI

The Abbot's Ways

Abbot Samson shewed no extraordinary favour to the Monks who hadbeen his familiars of old; did not promote them to offices, --_nisi essent idonei, _ unless they chanced to be fit men! Whencegreat discontent among certain of these, who had contributed tomake him Abbot: reproaches, open and secret, of his being'ungrateful, hard-tempered, unsocial, a Norfolk _barrator_and _paltenerius. '_

Indeed, except it were for _idonei, _ 'fit men, ' in all kinds, itwas hard to say for whom Abbot Samson had much favour. He lovedhis kindred well, and tenderly enough acknowledged the poor partof them; with the rich part, who in old days had neveracknowledged him, he totally refused to have any business. Buteven the former he did not promote into offices; finding none ofthem _idonei. _ 'Some whom he thought suitable he put intosituations in his own household, or made keepers of his countryplaces: if they behaved ill, he dismissed them without hope ofreturn. In his promotions, nay almost in his benefits, you wouldhave said there was a certain impartiality. 'The official personwho had, by Abbot Hugo's order, put the fetters on him at hisreturn from Italy, was now supported with food and clothes to theend of his days at Abbot Samson's expense. '

Yet he did not forget benefits; far the reverse, when anopportunity occurred of paying them at his own cost. How paythem at the public cost;--how, above all, by _setting fire_ tothe public, as we said; clapping 'conflagrations' on the public, which the services of blockheads, _non-idonei, _ intrinsicallyare! He was right willing to remember friends, when it could bedone. Take these instances: 'A certain chaplain who hadmaintained him at the Schools of Paris by the sale of holy water, _quaestu aquae benedictae;_--to this good chaplain he did give avicarage, adequate to the comfortable sustenance of him. 'TheSon of Elias, too, that is, of old Abbot Hugo's Cupbearer, comingto do homage for his Father's land, our Lord Abbot said to him infull court: "I have, for these seven years, put off taking thyhomage for the land which Abbot Hugo gave thy Father, becausethat gift was to the damage of Elmswell, and a questionable one:but now I must profess myself overcome; mindful of the kindnessthy Father did me when I was in bonds; because he sent me a cupof the very wine his master had been drinking, and bade me becomforted in God. "'

'To Magister Walter, son of Magister William de Dice, who wantedthe vicarage of Chevington, he answered: "Thy Father was Masterof the Schools; and when I was an indigent _clericus, _ hegranted me freely and in charity an entrance to his School, andopportunity of learning; wherefore I now, for the sake of God, grant to thee what thou askest. "' Or lastly, take this goodinstance, --and a glimpse, along with it, into long-obsoletetimes: 'Two _Milites_ of Risby, Willelm and Norman, beingadjudged in Court to come under his mercy, _in misericordiaejus, '_ for a certain very considerable fine of twenty shillings, 'he thus addressed them publicly on the spot: "When I was aCloister-monk, I was once sent to Durham on business of ourChurch; and coming home again, the dark night caught me atRisby, and I had to beg a lodging there. I went to DominusNorman's, and he gave me a flat refusal. Going then to DominusWillelm's, and begging hospitality, I was by him honourablyreceived. The twenty shillings therefore of _mercy, _ I, withoutmercy, will exact from Dominus Norman; to Dominus Willelm, onthe other hand, I, with thanks, will wholly remit the said sum. "'Men know not always to whom they refuse lodgings; men havelodged Angels unawares!--

It is clear Abbot Samson had a talent; he had learned to judgebetter than Lawyers, to manage better than bred Bailiffs:--atalent shining out indisputable, on whatever side you took him. 'An eloquent man he was, ' says Jocelin, 'both in French andLatin; but intent more on the substance and method of what wasto be said, than on the ornamental way of saying it. He couldread English Manuscripts very elegantly, _elegantissime:_ he waswont to preach to the people in the English tongue, thoughaccording to the dialect of Norfolk, where he had been broughtup; wherefore indeed he had caused a Pulpit to be erected in ourChurch both for ornament of the same, and for the use of hisaudiences. ' There preached he, according to the dialect ofNorfolk: a man worth going to hear. 

That he was a just clear-hearted man, this, as the basis of alltrue talent, is presupposed. How can a man, without clear visionin his heart first of all, have any clear vision in the head? Itis impossible! Abbot Samson was one of the justest of judges;insisted on understanding the case to the bottom, and thenswiftly decided without feud or favour. For which reason, indeed, the Dominus Rex, searching for such men, as for hiddentreasure and healing to his distressed realm, had made him one ofthe new Itinerant judges, --such as continue to this day. "Mycurse on that Abbot's court, " a suitor was heard imprecating, _"Maledicta sit curia istius Abbatis, _ where neither gold norsilver can help me to confound my enemy!" And old friendshipsand all connexions forgotten, when you go to seek an office fromhim! "A kinless loon, " as the Scotch said of Cromwell's newjudges, --intent on mere indifferent fair-play!

Eloquence in three languages is good; but it is not the best. To us, as already hinted, the Lord Abbot's eloquence is lessadmirable than his ineloquence, his great invaluable 'talent ofsilence!' _'"Deus, Deus, "_ said the Lord Abbot to me once, whenhe heard the Convent were murmuring at some act of his, "I havemuch need to remember that Dream they had of me, that I was torage among them like a wolf. Above all earthly things I dreadtheir driving me to do it. How much do I hold in, and wink at;raging and shuddering in my own secret mind, and not outwardly atall!" He would boast to me at other times: "This and that Ihave seen, this and that I have heard; yet patiently stood it. "He had this way, too, which I have never seen in any other man, that he affectionately loved many persons to whom he never orhardly ever shewed a countenance of love. Once on my venturingto expostulate with him on the subject, he reminded me ofSolomon: "Many sons I have; it is not fit that I should smileon them. " He would suffer faults, damage from his servants, andknow what he suffered, and not speak of it; but I think thereason was, he waited a good time for speaking of it, and in awise way amending it. He intimated, openly in chapter to us all, that he would have no eavesdropping: "Let none, " said he, "cometo me secretly accusing another, unless he will publicly stand tothe same; if he come otherwise, I will openly proclaim the nameof him. I wish, too, that every Monk of you have free access tome, to speak of your needs or grievances when you will. "'

The kinds of people Abbot Samson liked worst were these three:_`Mendaces, ebriosi, verbosi, _ Liars, drunkards, and wordy orwindy persons;'--not good kinds, any of them! He also muchcondemned 'persons given to murmur at their meat or drink, especially Monks of that disposition. We remark, from the veryfirst, his strict anxious order to his servants to providehandsomely for hospitality, to guard 'above all things that therebe no shabbiness in the matter of meat and drink; no look ofmean parsimony, in _novitate mea, _ at the beginning of myAbbotship;' and to the last he maintains a due opulence of tableand equipment for others: but he is himself in the highestdegree indifferent to all such things. 

'Sweet milk, honey, and other naturally sweet kinds of food, werewhat he preferred to eat: but he had this virtue, ' says Jocelin, 'he never changed the dish (_ferculum_) you set before him, bewhat it might. Once when I, still a novice, happened to bewaiting table in the refectory, it came into my head' (rogue thatI was!) `to try if this were true; and I thought I would placebefore him a _ferculum_ that would have displeased any otherperson, the very platter being black and broken. But he, seeingit, was as one that saw it not: and now some little delay takingplace, my heart smote me that I had done this; and so, snatchingup the platter (_discus_), I changed both it and its contents fora better, and put down that instead; which emendation he wasangry at, and rebuked me for, '--the stoical monastic man! 'Forthe first seven years he had commonly four sorts of dishes on histable; afterwards only three, except it might be presents, orvenison from his own parks, or fishes from his ponds. And if, atany time, he had guests living in his house at the request ofsome great person, or of some friend, or had public messengers, or had harpers (_citharoedos_), or any one of that sort, he tookthe first opportunity of shifting to another of his Manor-houses, and so got rid of such superfluous individuals, '--very prudently, I think. 

As to his parks, of these, in the general repair of buildings, general improvement and adornment of the St. Edmund Domains, 'hehad laid out several, and stocked them with animals, retaining aproper huntsman with hounds: and, if any guest of great qualitywere there, our Lord Abbot with his Monks would sit in someopening of the woods, and see the dogs run; but he himself nevermeddled with hunting, that I saw. '

'In an opening of the woods;'--for the country was still darkwith wood in those days; and Scotland itself still rustledshaggy and leafy, like a damp black American Forest, with clearedspots and spaces here and there. Dryasdust advances severalabsurd hypotheses as to the insensible but almost totaldisappearance of these woods; the thick wreck of which now liesas peat, sometimes with huge heart-of-oak timber logs imbedded init, on many a height and hollow. The simplest reason doubtlessis, that by increase of husbandry, there was increase of cattle;increase of hunger for green spring food; and so, more and more, the new seedlings got yearly eaten out in April; and the oldtrees, having only a certain length of life in them, diedgradually, no man heeding it, and disappeared into _peat. _

A sorrowful waste of noble wood and umbrage! Yes, --but avery common one; the course of most things in this world. Monachism itself, so rich and fruitful once, is now all rottedinto peat; lies sleek and buried, --and a most feeble bog-grassof Dilettantism all the crop we reap from it! That also wasfrightful waste; perhaps among the saddest our England ever saw. Why will men destroy noble Forests, even when in part a nuisance, in such reckless manner; turning loose four-footed cattle andHenry-the-Eighths into them! The fifth part of our English soil, Dryasdust computes, lay consecrated to 'spiritual uses, ' betteror worse; solemnly set apart to foster spiritual growth andculture of the soul, by the methods then known: and now--it too, like the four-fifths, fosters what? Gentle shepherd, tell me what!

Chapter XII

The Abbot's Troubles

The troubles of Abbot Samson, as he went along in thisabstemious, reticent, rigorous way, were more than tongue cantell. The Abbot's mitre once set on his head, he knew rest nomore. Double, double, toil and trouble; that is the life of allgovernors that really govern: not the spoil of victory, only theglorious toil of battle can be theirs. Abbot Samson found allmen more or less headstrong, irrational, prone to disorder;continually threatening to prove ungovernable. 

His lazy Monks gave him most trouble. 'My heart is tortured, 'said he, 'till we get out of debt, _cor meum cruciatum est. '_Your heart, indeed;--but not altogether ours! By no devisablemethod, or none of three or four that he devised, could AbbotSamson get these Monks of his to keep their accounts straight;but always, do as he might, the Cellerarius at the end of theterm is in a coil, in a flat deficit, --verging again towards debtand Jews. The Lord Abbot at last declares sternly he will keepour accounts too himself; will appoint an officer of his own tosee our Cellerarius keep them. Murmurs thereupon among us: Wasthe like ever heard? Our Cellerarius a cipher; the veryTownsfolk know it: _subsannatio et derisio sumus, _ we havebecome a laughingstock to mankind. The Norfolk barratorand paltener!

And consider, if the Abbot found such difficulty in the mereeconomic department, how much in more complex ones, in spiritualones perhaps! He wears a stern calm face; raging and gnashingteeth, _fremens_ and _frendens, _ many times, in the secret of hismind. Withal, however, there is noble slow perseverance in him;a strength of 'subdued rage' calculated to subdue most things:always, in the long-run, he contrives to gain his point. 

Murmurs from the Monks, meanwhile, cannot fail; ever deepermurmurs, new grudges accumulating. At one time, on slight cause, some drop making the cup run over, they burst into open mutiny:the Cellarer will not obey, prefers arrest on bread and water toobeying; the Monks thereupon strike work; refuse to do theregular chanting of the day, at least the younger part of themwith loud clamour and uproar refuse:--Abbot Samson has withdrawnto another residence, acting only by messengers: the awfulreport circulates through St. Edmundsbury that the Abbot is indanger of being murdered by the Monks with their knives! Howwilt thou appease this, Abbot Samson? Return; for the Monasteryseems near catching fire!

Abbot Samson returns; sits in his _Thalamus_ or inner room, hurls out a bolt or two of excommunication: lo, one disobedientMonk sits in limbo, excommunicated, with foot-shackles on him, all day; and three more our Abbot has gyved 'with the lessersentence, to strike fear into the others!' Let the others thinkwith whom they have to do. The others think; and fear entersinto them. 'On the morrow morning we decide on humblingourselves before the Abbot, by word and gesture, in order tomitigate his mind. And so accordingly was done. He, on theother side, replying with much humility, yet always alleging hisown justice and turning the blame on us, when he saw that we wereconquered, became himself conquered. And bursting into tears, _perfusus lachrymis, _ he swore that he had never grieved so muchfor anything in the world as for this, first on his own account, and then secondly and chiefly for the public scandal which hadgone abroad, that St. Edmund's Monks were going to kill theirAbbot. And when he had narrated how he went away on purpose tillhis anger should cool, repeating this word of the philosopher, "Iwould have taken vengeance on thee, had not I been angry, " hearose weeping, and embraced each and all of us with the kiss ofpeace. He wept; we all wept:'--what a picture! Behave better, ye remiss Monks, and thank Heaven for such an Abbot; or know atleast that ye must and shall obey him. 

Worn down in this manner, with incessant toil and tribulation, Abbot Samson had a sore time of it; his grizzled hair and beardgrew daily greyer. Those Jews, in the first four years, had'visibly emaciated him:' Time, Jews, and the task of Governing, will make a man's beard very grey! 'In twelve years, ' saysJocelin, 'our Lord Abbot had grown wholly white as snow, _totusefficitur albus sicut nix. '_ White, atop, like the granitemountains:--but his clear-beaming eyes still look out, in theirstern clearness, in their sorrow and pity; the heart within himremains unconquered. 

Nay sometimes there are gleams of hilarity too; little snatchesof encouragement granted even to a Governor. 'Once my Lord Abbotand I, coming down from London through the Forest, I inquired ofan old woman whom we came up to, Whose wood this was, and of whatmanor; who the master, who the keeper?'--All this I knew verywell beforehand, and my Lord Abbot too, Bozzy that I was! But'the old woman answered, The wood belonged to the new Abbot ofSt. Edmund's, was of the manor of Harlow, and the keeper of itwas one Arnald. How did he behave to the people of the manor? Iasked farther. She answered that he used to be a devilincarnate, _daemon vivus_, an enemy of God, and flayer of thepeasants' skins, '--skinning them like live eels, as the manner ofsome is: but that now he dreads the new Abbot, knowing him to bea wise and sharp man, and so treats the people reasonably, _tractat homines pacifice. '_ Whereat the Lord Abbot _factus esthilaris, _--could not but take a triumphant laugh for himself;and determines to leave that Harlow manor yet unmeddled with, fora while. 

A brave man, strenuously fighting, fails not of a little triumph, now and then, to keep him in heart. Everywhere we try at leastto give the adversary as good as he brings; and, with swiftforce or slow watchful manoeuvre, extinguish this and the othersolecism, leave one solecism less in God's Creation; and so_proceed_ with our battle, not slacken or surrender in it! TheFifty feudal Knights; for example, were of unjust greedy temper, and cheated us, in the Installation-day, of ten knights'-fees;--but they know now whether that has profited them aught, and IJocelin know. Our Lord Abbot for the moment had to endure it, and say nothing; but he watched his time. 

Look also how my Lord of Clare, coming to claim his undue 'debt'in the Court at Witham, with barons and apparatus, gets a Rowlandfor his Oliver! Jocelin shall report: 'The Earl, crowded round(_constipatus_) with many barons and men at arms, Earl Albericand others standing by him, said, "That his bailiffs had givenhim to understand they were wont annually to receive for hisbehoof, from the Hundred of Risebridge and the bailiffs thereof, a sum of five shillings, which sum was now unjustly held back;"and he alleged farther that his predecessors had been infeft, atthe Conquest, in the lands of Alfric son of Wisgar, who was Lordof that Hundred, as may be read in Domesday Book by all persons. --The Abbot, reflecting for a moment, without stirring from hisplace, made answer: "A wonderful deficit, my Lord Earl, thisthat thou mentionest! King Edward gave to St. Edmund that entireHundred, and confirmed the same with his Charter; nor is thereany mention there of those five shillings. It will behove theeto say, for what service, or on what ground, thou exactest thosefive shillings. " Whereupon the Earl, consulting with hisfollowers, replied, That he had to carry the Banner of St. Edmundin war-time, and for this duty the five shillings were his. Towhich the Abbot: "Certainly, it seems inglorious, if so great aman, Earl of Clare no less, receive so small a gift for such aservice. To the Abbot of St. Edmund's it is no unbearable burdento give five shillings. But Roger Earl Bigot holds himself dulyseised, and asserts that he by such seisin has the office ofcarrying St. Edmund's Banner; and he did carry it when the Earlof Leicester and his Flemings were beaten at Fornham. Then againThomas de Mendham says that the right is his. When you have madeout with one another, that this right is thine, come then andclaim the five shillings, and I will promptly pay them!"Whereupon the Earl said, He would speak with Earl Roger hisrelative; and so the matter _cepit dilationem, '_ and liesundecided to the end of the world. Abbot Samson answers by wordor act, in this or the like pregnant manner, having justice onhis side, innumerable persons: Pope's Legates, King's Viscounts, Canterbury Archbishops, Cellarers, _Sochemanni;_--and leaves manya solecism extinguished. 

On the whole, however, it is and remains sore work. 'One time, during my chaplaincy, I ventured to say to him: _"Domane, _ Iheard thee, this night after matins, wakeful, and sighing deeply, _valde suspirantem, _ contrary to thy usual wont. " He answered:"No wonder. Thou, son Jocelin, sharest in my good things, infood and drink, in riding and such like; but thou littlethinkest concerning the management of House and Family, thevarious and arduous businesses of the Pastoral Care, which harassme, and make my soul to sigh and be anxious. " Whereto I, liftingup my hands to Heaven: "From such anxiety, Omnipotent MercifulLord deliver me!"--I have heard the Abbot say, If he had been ashe was before he became a Monk, and could have anywhere got fiveor six mares of income, ' some three pound ten of yearly revenue, 'whereby to support himself in the schools, he would never havebeen Monk nor Abbot. Another time he said with an oath, If hehad known what a business it was to govern the Abbey, he wouldrather have been Almoner, how much rather Keeper of the Books, than Abbot and Lord. That latter office he said he had alwayslonged for, beyond any other. _Quis talia crederet, '_ concludesJocelin, 'Who can believe such things?'

Three pound ten, and a life of Literature, especially of quietLiterature, without copyright, or world-celebrity of literary-gazettes, --yes, thou brave Abbot Samson, for thyself it had beenbetter, easier, perhaps also nobler! But then, for thydisobedient Monks, unjust Viscounts; for a Domain of St. Edmundovergrown with Solecisms, human and other, it had not been sowell. Nay neither could _thy_ Literature, never so quiet, havebeen easy. Literature, when noble, is not easy; but only whenignoble. Literature too is a quarrel, and internecine duel, withthe whole World of Darkness that lies without one and withinone;--rather a hard fight at times, even with the three pound tensecure. Thou, there where thou art, wrestle and duel along, cheerfully to the end; and make no remarks!

Chapter XIII

In Parliament

Of Abbot Samson's public business we say little, though that alsowas great. He had to judge the people as justice Errant, todecide in weighty arbitrations and public controversies; toequip his _milites, _ send them duly in war-time to the King;--strive every way that the Commonweal, in his quarter of it, takeno damage. 

Once, in the confused days of Lackland's usurpation, while Coeur-de-Lion was away, our brave Abbot took helmet himself, havingfirst excommunicated all that should favour Lackland; and ledhis men in person to the siege of _Windleshora_, what we now callWindsor; where Lackland had entrenched himself, the centre ofinfinite confusions; some Reform Bill, then as now, beinggreatly needed. There did Abbot Samson 'fight the battle ofreform, '--with other ammunition, one hopes, than 'tremendouscheering' and such like! For these things he was called 'themagnanimous Abbot'

He also attended duly in his place in Parliament _de arduisregni;_ attended especially, as in _arduissimo, _ when 'the newsreached London that King Richard was a captive in Germany. ' Here'while all the barons sat to consult, ' and many of them lookedblank enough, 'the Abbot started forth, _prosiliit coramomnibus, _ in his place in Parliament, and said, That _he_ wasready to go and seek his Lord the King, either clandestinely bysubterfuge (_in tapinagio_), or by any other method; and searchtill he found him, and got certain notice of him; he for one!By which word, ' says Jocelin, 'he acquired great praise forhimself, '--unfeigned commendation from the Able Editors ofthat age. 

By which word;--and also by which _deed:_ for the Abbot actuallywent 'with rich gifts to the King in Germany;' Usurper Lacklandbeing first rooted out from Windsor, and the King's peacesomewhat settled. 

As to these 'rich gifts, ' however, we have to note one thing: Inall England, as appeared to the Collective Wisdom, there was notlike to be treasure enough for ransoming King Richard; in whichextremity certain Lords of the Treasury, _Justiciarii adScaccarium, _ suggested that St. Edmund's Shrine, covered withthick gold, was still untouched. Could not it, in thisextremity, be peeled off, at least in part; under condition, ofcourse, of its being replaced, when times mended? The Abbot, starting plumb up, _se erigens, _ answered: "Know ye for certain, that I will in no wise do this thing; nor is there any man whocould force me to consent thereto. But I will open the doors ofthe Church: Let him that likes enter; let him that dares comeforward!" Emphatic words, which created a sensation round thewoolsack. For the Justiciaries of the _Scaccarium_ answered, 'with oaths, each for himself: "I won't come forward, for myshare; nor will I, nor I! The distant and absent who offendedhim, Saint Edmund has been known to punish fearfully; much morewill he those close by, who lay violent hands on his coat, andwould strip it off!" These things being said, the Shrine was notmeddled with, nor any ransom levied for it. 

For Lords of the Treasury have in all times their impassablelimits, be it by 'force of public opinion' or otherwise; and inthose days a Heavenly Awe overshadowed and encompassed, as itstill ought and must, all earthly Business whatsoever. 

Chapter XIV

Henry of Essex

Of St. Edmund's fearful avengements have they not theremarkablest instance still before their eyes? He that will goto Reading Monastery may find there, now tonsured into a mournfulpenitent Monk, the once proud Henry Earl of Essex; and discernhow St. Edmund punishes terribly, yet with mercy! This Narrativeis too significant to be omitted as a document of the Time. OurLord Abbot, once on a visit at Reading, heard the particularsfrom Henry's own mouth; and thereupon charged one of his monksto write it down;--as accordingly the Monk has done, in ambitiousrhetorical Latin; inserting the same, as episode, amongJocelin's garrulous leaves. Read it here; with ancient yet withmodern eyes. 

Henry Earl of Essex, standard-bearer of England, had high placesand emoluments; had a haughty high soul, yet with various flaws, or rather with one many-branched flaw and crack, running throughthe texture of it. For example, did he not treat Gilbert deCereville in the most shocking manner? He cast Gilbert intoprison; and, with chains and slow torments, wore the life out ofhim there. And Gilbert's crime was understood to be only that ofinnocent Joseph: the Lady Essex was a Potiphar's Wife, and hadaccused poor Gilbert! Other cracks, and branches of thatwidespread flaw in the Standard-bearer's soul we could point out:but indeed the main stem and trunk of all is too visible in this, That he had no right reverence for the Heavenly in Man, --that farfrom shewing due reverence to St. Edmund, he did not even shewhim common justice. While others in the Eastern Counties wereadorning and enlarging with rich gifts St. Edmund's resting-place, which had become a city of refuge for many things, thisEarl of Essex flatly defrauded him, by violence or quirk of law, of five shillings yearly, and converted said sum to his own pooruses! Nay, in another case of litigation, the unjust Standardbearer, for his own profit, asserting that the cause belonged notto St. Edmund's Court, but to _his_ in Lailand Hundred, 'involvedus in travelings and innumerable expenses, vexing the servants ofSt. Edmund for a long tract of time: In short, he is withoutreverence for the Heavenly, this Standard-bearer; reveres onlythe Earthly, Gold-coined; and has a most morbid lamentable flawin the texture of him. It cannot come to, good. 

Accordingly, the same flaw, or St. -Vitus' _tic, _ manifests itselfere long in another way. In the year 1157, he went with hisStandard to attend King Henry, our blessed Sovereign (whom _we_saw afterwards at Waltham), in his War with the Welsh. Asomewhat disastrous War; in which while King Henry and his forcewere struggling to retreat Parthian-like, endless clouds ofexasperated Welshmen hemming them in, and now we had come to the'difficult pass of Coleshill, ' and as it were to the nick ofdestruction, --Henry Earl of Essex shrieks out on a sudden(blinded doubtless by his inner flaw, or 'evil genius' as somename it), That King Henry is killed, That all is lost, --andflings down his Standard to shift for itself there! And, certainly enough, all _had_ been lost, had all men been as he;--had not brave men, without such miserable jerking _tic-douloureux_ in the souls of them, come dashing up, with blazingswords and looks, and asserted That nothing was lost yet, thatall must be regained yet. In this manner King Henry and hisforce got safely retreated, Parthian-like, from the pass ofColeshill and the Welsh War. * But, once home again, Earl Robertde Montfort, a kinsman of this Standard-bearer's, rises up in theKing's Assembly to declare openly that such a man is unfit forbearing English Standards, being in fact either a specialtraitor, or something almost worse, a coward namely, or universaltraitor. Wager of Battle in consequence; solemn Duel, by theKing's appointment, 'in a certain Island of the Thames-stream atReading, _apud Radingas, _ short way from the Abbey there. King, Peers, and an immense multitude of people, on such scaffoldingsand heights as they can come at, are gathered round, to see whatissue the business will take. The business takes this bad issue, in our Monk's own words faithfully rendered:

----------*See Lyttelton's _Henry II. , _ ii: 384. ----------

'And it came to pass, while Robert de Montfort thundered on himmanfully (_viriliter intonasset_) with hard and frequent strokes, and a valiant beginning promised the fruit of victory, Henry ofEssex, rather giving way, glanced round on all sides; and lo, atthe rim of the horizon, on the confines of the River and land, hediscerned the glorious King and Martyr Edmund, in shining armour, and as if hovering in the air; looking towards him with severecountenance, nodding his head with a mien and motion of austereanger. At St. Edmund's hand there stood also another Knight, Gilbert de Cereville, whose armour was not so splendid, whosestature was less gigantic; casting vengeful looks at him. Thishe seeing with his eyes, remembered that old crime brings newshame. And now wholly desperate, and changing reason intoviolence, he took the part of one blindly attacking, notskillfully defending. Who while he struck fiercely was morefiercely struck; and so, in short, fell down vanquished, and itwas thought, slain. As he lay there for dead, his kinsmen, Magnates of England, besought the King, that the Monks of Readingmight have leave to bury him. However, he proved not to be dead, but got well again among them; and now, with recovered health, assuming the Regular Habit, he strove to wipe out the stain ofhis former life, to cleanse the long week of his dissolutehistory by at least a purifying sabbath, and cultivate thestudies of Virtue into fruits of eternal Felicity:

Thus does the Conscience of man project itself athwart whatsoeverof knowledge or surmise, of imagination, understanding, faculty, acquirement, or natural disposition he has in him; and, likelight through coloured glass, paint strange pictures 'on the rimof the horizon' and elsewhere! Truly, this same 'sense of theInfinite nature of Duty' is the central part of all with us; aray as of Eternity and Immortality, immured in dusky many-coloured Time, and its deaths and births. Your 'coloured glass'varies so much from century to century;--and, in certain money-making, game-preserving centuries, it gets so terribly opaque!Not a Heaven with cherubim surrounds you then, but a kind ofvacant leaden-coloured Hell. One day it will again cease to beopaque, this 'coloured glass. ' Nay, may it not become at oncetranslucent and uncoloured? Painting no Pictures more for us, but only the everlasting Azure itself? That will be a rightglorious consummation!--

Saint Edmund from the horizon's edge, in shining armour, threatening the misdoer in his hour of extreme need: it isbeautiful, it is great and true. So old, yet so modern, actual;true yet for every one of us, as for Henry the Earl and Monk! Aglimpse as of the Deepest in Man's Destiny, which is the same forall times and ages. Yes, Henry my brother, there in thy extremeneed, thy soul _is lamed;_ and behold thou canst not so much asfight! For justice and Reverence _are_ the everlasting centralLaw of this Universe; and to forget them, and have all theUniverse against one, God and one's own Self for enemies, andonly the Devil and the Dragons for friends, is not that a'lameness' like few? That some shining armed St. Edmund hangminatory on thy horizon, that infinite sulphur-lakes hangminatory, or do not now hang, --this alters no whit the eternalfact of the thing. I say, thy soul is lamed, and the God and allGodlike in it marred: lamed, paralytic, tending towards balefuleternal death, whether thou know it or not;--nay hadst thou neverknown it, that surely had been worst of all!--

Thus, at any rate, by the heavenly Awe that overshadows earthlyBusiness, does Samson, readily in those days, save St. Edmund'sShrine, and innumerable still more precious things. 

Chapter XV

Practical--Devotional

Here indeed, perhaps, by rule of antagonisms, may be the place tomention that, after King Richard's return, there was a liberty oftourneying given to the fighting men of England: that aTournament was proclaimed in the Abbot's domain, 'betweenThetford and St. Edmundsbury, '--perhaps in the Euston region, onFakenham Heights, midway between these two localities: that itwas publicly prohibited by our Lord Abbot; and nevertheless washeld in spite of him, --and by the parties, as would seem, considered 'a gentle and free passage of arms. '

Nay, next year, there came to the same spot four-and-twenty youngmen, sons of Nobles, for another passage of arms; who, havingcompleted the same, all rode into St. Edmundsbury to lodge forthe night. Here is modesty! Our Lord Abbot, being instructed ofit, ordered the Gates to be closed; the whole party shut in. The morrow was the Vigil of the Apostles Peter and Paul; nooutgate on the morrow. Giving their promise not to departwithout permission, those four-and-twenty young bloods dieted allthat day (_manducaverunt_) with the Lord Abbot, waiting for trialon the morrow. 'But after dinner, '--mark it, posterity!--'theLord Abbot retiring into his _Thalamus, _ they all started up, andbegan caroling and singing (_carolare et cantare_); sendinginto the Town for wine; drinking, and afterwards howling(_ululantes_);--totally depriving the Abbot and Convent of theirafternoon's nap; doing all this in derision of the Lord Abbot, and spending in such fashion the whole day till evening, norwould they desist at the Lord Abbot's order! Night coming on, they broke the bolts of the Town-Gates, and went off byviolence!' Was the like ever heard of? The roysterous youngdogs; caroling, howling, breaking the Lord Abbot's sleep, --afterthat sinful chivalry cock-fight of theirs! They too are afeature of distant centuries, as of near ones. St. Edmund on theedge of your horizon, or whatever else there, young scamps, inthe dandy state, whether cased in iron or in whalebone, beginto caper and carol on the green Earth! Our Lord Abbotexcommunicated most of them; and they gradually came infor repentance. 

Excommunication is a great recipe with our Lord Abbot; theprevailing purifier in those ages. Thus when the Townsfolk andMonks-menials quarreled once at the Christmas Mysteries in St. Edmund's Churchyard, and 'from words it came to cuffs, and fromcuffs to cuttings and the effusion of blood, '--our Lord Abbotexcommunicates sixty of the rioters, with bell, book and candle(_accensis candelis_), at one stroke. Whereupon they all comesuppliant, indeed nearly naked, 'nothing on but their breeches, _omnino nudi praeter femoralia, _ and prostrate themselves at theChurch-door. ' Figure that!

In fact, by excommunication or persuasion, by impetuosity ofdriving or adroitness in leading, this Abbot, it is now becomingplain everywhere, is a man that generally remains master at last. He tempers his medicine to the malady, now hot, now cool;prudent though fiery, an eminently practical man. Nay sometimesin his adroit practice there are swift turns almost of asurprising nature! Once, for example, it chanced that GeoffreyRiddell Bishop of Ely, a Prelate rather troublesome to our Abbot, made a request of him for timber from his woods towards certainedifices going on at Glemsford. The Abbot, a great builderhimself, disliked the request; could not however give it anegative. While he lay, therefore, at his Manorhouse of Melfordnot long after, there comes to him one of the Lord Bishop's menor monks, with a message from his Lordship, "That he now beggedpermission to cut down the requisite trees in Elmswell Wood, " sosaid the monk: Elm_swell, _ where there are no trees but scrubsand shrubs, instead of Elm_set, _ our true _nemus, _ and high-towering oak-wood, here on Melford Manor! Elmswell? The LordAbbot, in surprise, inquires privily of Richard his Forester;Richard answers that my Lord of Ely has already had his_carpentarii_ in Elmset, and marked out for his own use all thebest trees in the compass of it. Abbot Samson thereupon answersthe monk: "Elmswell? Yes surely, be it as my Lord Bishopwishes. " The successful monk, on the morrow morning, hastenshome to Ely; but, on the morrow morning, 'directly after mass, 'Abbot Samson too was busy! The successful monk, arriving at Ely, is rated for a goose and an owl; is ordered back to say thatElmset was the place meant. Alas, on arriving at Elmset, hefinds the Bishop's trees, they 'and a hundred more, ' all felledand piled, and the stamp of St. Edmund's Monastery burnt intothem, --for roofing of the great tower we are building there!Your importunate Bishop must seek wood for Glemsford edifices insome other _nemus_ than this. A practical Abbot!

We said withal there was a terrible flash of anger in him:witness his address to old Herbert the Dean, who in a too thriftymanner has erected a wind-mill for himself on his glebe-lands atHaberdon. On the morrow, after mass, our Lord Abbot orders theCellerarius to send off his carpenters to demolish the saidstructure _brevi manu, _ and lay up the wood in safe keeping. OldDean Herbert, hearing what was toward, comes tottering alonghither, to plead humbly for himself and his mill. The Abbotanswers: "I am obliged to thee as if thou hadst cut off both myfeet! By God's face, _per os Dei, _ I will not eat bread tillthat fabric be torn in pieces. Thou art an old man, and shouldsthave known that neither the King nor his Justiciary dare changeaught within the Liberties, without consent of Abbot and Convent:and thou hast presumed on such a thing? I tell thee, it will notbe without damage to my mills; for the Townsfolk will go to thymill, and grind their corn (_bladum suum_) at their own goodpleasure; nor can I hinder them, since they are free men. Iwill allow no new mills on such principle. Away, away; beforethou gettest home again, thou wilt see what thy mill has grownto!"--The very reverend, the old Dean totters home again, in allhaste; tears the mill in pieces by his own _carpentarii_, tosave at least the timber; and Abbot Samson's workmen, coming up, find the ground already clear of it. 

Easy to bully down poor old rural Deans, and blow their windmillsaway: but who is the man that dare abide King Richard's anger;cross the Lion in his path, and take him by the whiskers! AbbotSamson too; he is that man, with justice on his side. The casewas this. Adam de Cokefield, one of the chief feudatories of St. Edmund, and a principal man in the Eastern Counties, died, leaving large possessions, and for heiress a daughter of threemonths; who by clear law, as all men know, became thus AbbotSamson's ward; whom accordingly he proceeded to dispose of tosuch person as seemed fittest. But now King Richard has anotherperson in view, to whom the little ward and her great possessionswere a suitable thing. He, by letter, requests that Abbot Samsonwill have the goodness to give her to this person. Abbot Samson, with deep humility, replies that she is already given. Newletters from Richard, of severer tenor; answered with new deephumilities, with gifts and entreaties, with no promise ofobedience. King Richard's ire is kindled; messengers arrive atSt. Edmundsbury, with emphatic message to obey or tremble! AbbotSamson, wisely silent as to the King's threats, makes answer:"The King can send if he will, and seize the ward: force andpower he has to do his pleasure, and abolish the whole Abbey. Inever can be bent to wish this that he seeks, nor shall it by mebe ever done. For there is danger lest such things be made aprecedent of, to the prejudice of my successors. _VideatAltissimus, _ Let the Most High look on it. Whatsoever thingshall befall I will patiently endure. "

Such was Abbot Samson's deliberate decision. Why not? Coeur-de-Lion is very dreadful, but not the dreadfulest. _VideatAltissimus. _ I reverence Coeur-de-Lion to the marrow of my bones, and will in all right things be _homo suus;_ but it is not, properly speaking, with terror, with any fear at all. On thewhole, have I not looked on the face of 'Satan with outspreadwings;' steadily into Hellfire these seven-and-forty years;--andwas not melted into terror even at that, such the Lord's goodnessto me? Coeur-de-Lion!

Richard swore tornado oaths, worse than our armies in Flanders, To be revenged on that proud Priest. But in the end hediscovered that the Priest was right; and forgave him, and evenloved him. 'King Richard wrote, soon after, to Abbot Samson, That he wanted one or two of the St. Edmundsbury dogs, which heheard were good. Abbot Samson sent him dogs of the best;Richard replied by the present of a ring, which Pope Innocent theThird had given him. Thou brave Richard, thou brave Samson!Richard too, I suppose, 'loved a man, ' and knew one when hesaw him. 

No one will accuse our Lord Abbot of wanting worldly wisdom, dueinterest in worldly things. A skillful man; full of cunninginsight, lively interests; always discerning the road to hisobject, be it circuit, be it short-cut, and victoriouslytraveling forward thereon. Nay rather it might seem, fromJocelin's Narrative, as if he had his eye all but exclusivelydirected on terrestrial matters, and was much too secular for adevout man. But this too, if we examine it, was right. For itis in the world that a man, devout or other, has his life tolead, his work waiting to be done. The basis of Abbot Samson's, we shall discover, was truly religion, after all. Returning fromhis dusty pilgrimage, with such welcome as we saw, 'he sat downat the foot of St. Edmund's Shrine. ' Not a talking theory that;no, a silent practice: Thou St. Edmund with what lies in thee, thou now must help me, or none will!

This also is a significant fact: the zealous interest our Abbottook in the Crusades. To all noble Christian hearts of that era, what earthly enterprise so noble? 'When Henry II. , having takenthe cross, came to St. Edmund's, to pay his devotions beforesetting out, the Abbot secretly made for himself a cross of linencloth: and, holding this in one hand and a threaded needle inthe other, asked leave of the King to assume it!' The King couldnot spare Samson out of England;--the King himself indeed neverwent. But the Abbot's eye was set on the Holy Sepulchre, as onthe spot of this Earth where the true cause of Heaven wasdeciding itself. 'At the retaking of Jerusalem by the Pagans, Abbot Samson put on a cilice and hair-shirt, and wore under-garments of hair-cloth ever after; he abstained also from fleshand fleshmeats (_carne et carneis_) thenceforth to the end of hislife. ' Like a dark cloud eclipsing the hopes of Christendom, those tidings cast their shadow over St. Edmundsbury too: ShallSamson Abbas take pleasure while Christ's Tomb is in the hands ofthe Infidel? Samson, in pain of body, shall daily be reminded ofit, admonished to grieve for it. 

The great antique heart: how like a child's in its simplicity, like a man's in its earnest solemnity and depth! Heaven liesover him wheresoever he goes or stands on the Earth; making allthe Earth a mystic Temple to him, the Earth's business all a kindof worship. Glimpses of bright creatures flash in the commonsunlight; angels yet hover doing God's messages among men: thatrainbow was set in the clouds by the hand of God! Wonder, miracle encompass the man; he lives in an element of miracle;Heaven's splendour over his head, Hell's darkness under his feet. A great Law of Duty, high as these two Infinitudes, dwarfing allelse, annihilating all else, --making royal Richard as small aspeasant Samson, smaller if need be!--The 'imaginative faculties?''Rude poetic ages?' The 'primeval poetic element?' O for God'ssake, good reader, talk no more of all that! It was not aDilettantism this of Abbot Samson. It was a Reality, and it isone. The garment only of it is dead; the essence of it livesthrough all Time and all Eternity!

And truly, as we said above, is not this comparative silence ofAbbot Samson as to his religion, precisely the healthiest sign ofhim and of it? 'The Unconscious is the alone Complete. ' AbbotSamson all along a busy working man, as all men are bound to be, his religion, his worship was like his daily bread to him;--whichhe did not take the trouble to talk much about; which he merelyate at stated intervals, and lived and did his work upon! Thisis Abbot Samson's Catholicism of the Twelfth Century;--somethinglike the _Ism_ of all true men in all true centuries, I fancy!Alas, compared with any of the _Isms_ current in these poor days, what a thing! Compared with the respectablest, morbid, struggling Methodism, never so earnest; with the respectablest, ghastly, dead or galvanised Dilettantism, never so spasmodic!

Methodism with its eye forever turned on its own navel; askingitself with torturing anxiety of Hope and Fear, "Am I right, am Iwrong? Shall I be saved, shall I not be damned?"--what is this, at bottom, but a new phasis of _Egoism, _ stretched out into theInfinite; not always the heavenlier for its infinitude!Brother, so soon as possible, endeavour to rise above all that. "Thou art wrong; thou art like to be damned:" consider that asthe fact, reconcile thyself even to that, if thou be a man;--thenfirst is the devouring Universe subdued under thee, and from theblack murk of midnight and noise of greedy Acheron; dawn as ofan everlasting morning, how far above all Hope and all Fear, springs for thee, enlightening thy steep path, awakening in thyheart celestial Memnon's music!

But of our Dilettantisms, and galvanised Dilettantisms; ofPuseyism--O Heavens, what shall we say of Puseyism, in comparisonto Twelfth-Century Catholicism? Little or nothing; for indeedit is a matter to strike one dumb. 

 The Builder of this Universe was wise, He plann'd all souls, all systems, planets, particles: The Plan He shap'd His Worlds and Aeons by Was--Heavens!--Was thy small Nine-and-thirty Articles?

That certain human souls, living on this practical Earth, shouldthink to save themselves and a ruined world by noisy theoreticdemonstrations and laudations of _the_ Church, instead of someunnoisy, unconscious, but _practical, _ total, heart-and-souldemonstration of _a_ Church: this, in the circle of revolvingages, this also was a thing we were to see. A kind ofpenultimate thing, precursor of very strange consummations; lastthing but one? If there is no atmosphere, what will it serve aman to demonstrate the excellence of lungs? How much profitablerwhen you can, like Abbot Samson, breathe; and go along your way!

Chapter XVI

St. Edmund

Abbot Samson built many useful, many pious edifices; humandwellings, churches, church-steeples, barns;--all fallen now andvanished, but useful while they stood. He built and endowed 'theHospital of Babwell;' built 'fit houses for the St. EdmundsburySchools: Many are the roofs once 'thatched with reeds' which he'caused to be covered with tiles;' or if they were churches, probably 'with lead. ' For all ruinous incomplete things, buildings or other, were an eye-sorrow to the man. We saw his'great tower of St. Edmund's;' or at least the roof-timbers ofit, lying cut and stamped in Elmset Wood. To change combustibledecaying reed-thatch into tile or lead, and material, still more, moral wreck into rain-tight order, what a comfort to Samson!

One of the things he could not in any wise but rebuild was thegreat Altar, aloft on which stood the Shrine itself; the greatAltar, which had been damaged by fire, by the careless rubbishand careless candle of two somnolent Monks, one night, --theShrine escaping almost as if by miracle! Abbot Samson read hisMonks a severe lecture: "A Dream one of us had, that he saw St. Edmund naked and in lamentable plight. Know ye theinterpretation of that Dream? St. Edmund proclaims himselfnaked, because ye defraud the naked Poor of your old clothes, andgive with reluctance what ye are bound to give them of meat anddrink: the idleness moreover and negligence of the Sacristan andhis people is too evident from the late misfortune by fire. Wellmight our Holy Martyr seem to be cast out from his Shrine, andsay with groans that he was stript of his garments, and wastedwith hunger and thirst!"

This is Abbot Samson's interpretation of the Dream;--diametrically the reverse of that given by the Monks themselves, who scruple not to say privily, "It is we that are the naked andfamished limbs of the Martyr; we whom the Abbot curtails of allour privileges, setting his own official to control our veryCellarer!" Abbot Samson adds, that this judgment by fire hasfallen upon them for murmuring about their meat and drink. 

Clearly enough, meanwhile, the Altar, whatever the burning of itmean or foreshadow, must needs be reedified. Abbot Samsonreedifies it, all of polished marble; with the highest stretchof art and sumptuosity, reembellishes the Shrine for which it isto serve as pediment. Nay farther, as had ever been among hisprayers, he enjoys, he sinner, a glimpse of the glorious Martyr'svery Body in the process; having solemnly opened the Loculus, Chest or sacred Coffin, for that purpose. It is the culminatingmoment of Abbot Samson's life. Bozzy Jocelin himself rises intoa kind of Psalmist solemnity on this occasion; the laziest monk'weeps' warm tears, as _Te Deum_ is sung. 

Very strange;--how far vanished from us in these unworshipingages of ours! The Patriot Hampden, best beatified man we have, had lain in like manner some two centuries in his narrow home, when certain dignitaries of us, 'and twelve grave-diggers withpulleys, ' raised him also up, under cloud of night; cut off hisarm with penknifes, pulled the scalp off his head, --and otherwiseworshiped our Hero Saint in the most amazing manner! Let themodern eye look earnestly on that old midnight hour in St. Edmundsbury Church, shining yet on us, ruddy-bright, through thedepths of seven hundred years; and consider mournfully what ourHero-worship once was, and what it now is! We translate with allthe fidelity we can:

'The Festival of St. Edmund now approaching, the marble blocksare polished, and all things are in readiness for lifting of theShrine to its new place. A fast of three days was held by allthe people, the cause and meaning thereof being publicly setforth to them. The Abbot announces to the Convent that all mustprepare themselves for transferring of the Shrine, and appointstime and way for the work. Coming therefore that night tomatins, we found the great Shrine (_feretrum magnum_) raised uponthe Altar, but empty; covered all over with white doeskinleather, fixed to the wood with silver nails; but one panel ofthe Shrine was left down below, and resting thereon, beside itsold column of the Church, the Loculus with the Sacred Body yetlay where it was wont. Praises being sung, we all proceeded tocommence our disciplines (_ad disciplinas suscipiendas_). Thesefinished, the Abbot and certain with him are clothed in theiralbs; and, approaching reverently, set about uncovering theLoculus. There was an outer cloth of linen, enwrapping theLoculus and all; this we found tied on the upper side withstrings of its own: within this was a cloth of silk, and thenanother linen cloth, and then a third; and so at last theLoculus was uncovered, and seen resting on a little tray of wood, that the bottom of it might not be injured by the stone. Overthe breast of the Martyr, there lay, fixed to the surface of theLoculus, a Golden Angel about the length of a human foot;holding in one hand a golden sword, and in the other a banner:under this there was a hole in the lid of the Loculus, on whichthe ancient servants of the Martyr had been wont to lay theirhands for touching the Sacred Body. And over the figure of theAngel was this verse inscribed:

 _Martiris ecce zoma servat Michaelis agalma_ *

At the head and foot of the Loculus were iron rings whereby itcould be lifted. 

--------------* This is the Martyr's Garment, which Michael's Image guards. --------------

'Lifting the Loculus and Body, therefore, they carried it to theAltar; and I put-to my sinful hand to help in carrying, thoughthe Abbot had commanded that none should approach except called. And the Loculus was placed in the Shrine; and the panel it hadstood on was put in its place, and the Shrine for the presentclosed. We all thought that the Abbot would shew the Loculus tothe people; and bring out the Sacred Body again, at a certainperiod of the Festival. But in this we were woefully mistaken, as the sequel shews. 

'For in the fourth holiday of the Festival, while the Conventwere all singing _Completorium, _ our Lord Abbot spoke privilywith the Sacristan and Walter the Medicus; and order was takenthat twelve of the Brethren should be appointed against midnight, who were strong for carrying the panel-planks of the Shrine, andskillful in unfixing them, and putting them together again. TheAbbot then said that it was among his prayers to look once uponthe Body of his Patron; and that he wished the Sacristan andWalter the Medicus to be with him. The Twelve appointed Brethrenwere these: The Abbot's two Chaplains, the two Keepers of theShrine, the two Masters of the Vestry; and six more, namely, theSacristan Hugo, Walter the Medicus, Augustin, William of Dice, Robert, and Richard. I, alas, was not of the number. 

'The Convent therefore being all asleep, these Twelve, clothed intheir albs, with the Abbot, assembled at the Altar; and openinga panel of the Shrine, they took out the Loculus; laid it on atable, near where the Shrine used to be; and made ready forunfastening the lid, which was joined and fixed to the Loculuswith sixteen very long nails. Which when, with difficulty, theyhad done, all except the two forenamed associates are ordered todraw back. The Abbot and they two were alone privileged to lookin. The Loculus was so filled with the Sacred Body that youcould scarcely put a needle between the head and the wood, orbetween the feet and the wood: the head lay united to the body, a little raised with a small pillow. But the Abbot, lookingclose, found now a silk cloth veiling the whole Body, and then alinen cloth of wondrous whiteness; and upon the head was spreada small linen cloth, and then another small and most fine silkcloth, as if it were the veil of a nun. These coverings beinglifted off, they found now the Sacred Body all wrapt in linen;and so at length the lineaments of the same appeared. But herethe Abbot stopped; saying he durst not proceed farther, or lookat the sacred flesh naked. Taking the head between his hands, hethus spake groaning: "Glorious Martyr, holy Edmund, blessed bethe hour when thou wert born. Glorious Martyr, turn it not to myperdition that I have so dared to touch thee, I miserable andsinful; thou knowest my devout love, and the intention of mymind. " And proceeding, he touched the eyes; and the nose, whichwas very massive and prominent (_valde grossum et valdeeminentem_); and then he touched the breast and arms; andraising the left arm he touched the fingers, and placed his ownfingers between the sacred fingers. And proceeding he found thefeet standing stiff up, like the feet of a man dead yesterday;and he touched the toes, and counted them (_tangendo numeravit_). 

'And now it was agreed that the other Brethren should be calledforward to see the miracles; and accordingly those ten nowadvanced, and along with them six others who had stolen inwithout the Abbot's assent, namely, Walter of St. Alban's, Hughthe Infirmirarius, Gilbert brother of the Prior, Richard ofHenham, Jocellus our Cellarer, and Turstan the Little; and allthese saw the Sacred Body, but Turstan alone of them put forthhis hand, and touched the Saint's knees and feet. And that theremight be abundance of witnesses, one of our Brethren, John ofDice, sitting on the roof of the Church, with the servants of theVestry, and looking through, clearly saw all these things. 

What a scene; shining luminous effulgent, as the lamps of St. Edmund do, through the dark Night; John of Dice, with vestrymen, clambering on the roof to look through; the Convent all asleep, and the Earth all asleep, --and since then, Seven Centuries ofTime mostly gone to sleep! Yes, there, sure enough, is themartyred Body of Edmund landlord of the Eastern Counties, who, nobly doing what he liked with his own, was slain three hundredyears ago: and a noble awe surrounds the memory of him, symboland promoter of many other right noble things. 

But have not we now advanced to strange new stages of Hero-worship, now in the little Church of Hampden, with our penknivesout, and twelve grave-diggers with pulleys? The manner of men'sHero-worship, verily it is the innermost fact of their existence, and determines all the rest, --at public hustings, in privatedrawing-rooms, in church, in market, and wherever else. Havetrue reverence, and what indeed is inseparable therefrom, reverence the right man, all is well; have sham-reverence, andwhat also follows, greet with it the wrong man, then all is ill, and there is nothing well. Alas, if Hero-worship becomeDilettantism, and all except Mammonism be a vain grimace, howmuch, in this most earnest Earth, has gone and is evermore goingto fatal destruction, and lies wasting in quiet lazy ruin, no manregarding it! Till at length no heavenly _Ism_ any longer comingdown upon us, _Isms_ from the other quarter have to mount up. For the Earth, I say, is an earnest place; Life is no grimace, but a most serious fact. And so, under universal Dilettantismmuch having been stript bare, not the souls of men only, buttheir very bodies and bread-cupboards having been stript bare, and life now no longer possible, --all is reduced to desperation, to the iron law of Necessity and very Fact again; and to temperDilettantism, and astonish it, and burn it up with infernal fire, arises Chartism, _Bare-backism, _ Sansculottism so-called! Maythe gods, and what of unworshiped heroes still remain among us, avert the omen. --

But however this may be, St. Edmund's Loculus, we find, has theveils of silk and linen reverently replaced, the lid fasteneddown again with its sixteen ancient nails; is wrapt in a newcostly covering of silk, the gift of Hubert Archbishop ofCanterbury: and through the sky-window John of Dice sees itlifted to its place in the Shrine, the panels of this latter dulyrefixed, fit parchment documents being introduced withal;--andnow John and his vestrymen can slide down from the roof, for allis over, and the Convent wholly awakens to matins. 'When weassembled to sing matins, ' says Jocelin, 'and understood what hadbeen done, grief took hold of all that had not seen these things, each saying to himself, "Alas, I was deceived. " Matins over, theAbbot called the Convent to the great Altar; and brieflyrecounting the matter, alleged that it had not been in his power, nor was it permissible or fit, to invite us all to the sight ofsuch things. At hearing of which, we all wept, and with tearssang _Te Deum laudamus;_ and hastened to toll the bells inthe Choir. 

Stupid blockheads, to reverence their St. Edmund's dead Body inthis manner? Yes, brother;--and yet, on the whole, who knows howto reverence the Body of a Man? It is the most reverendphenomenon under this Sun. For the Highest God dwells visible inthat mystic unfathomable Visibility, which calls itself "I" onthe Earth. 'Bending before men, ' says Novalis, 'is a reverencedone to this Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven when welay our hand on a human Body. ' And the Body of one Dead;--atemple where the Hero-soul once was and now is not: Oh, allmystery, all pity, all mute awe and wonder; Supernaturalismbrought home to the very dullest; Eternity laid open, and thenether Darkness and the upper Light-Kingdoms;--do conjoin there, or exist nowhere! Sauerteig used to say to me, in his peculiarway: "A Chancery Lawsuit; justice, nay justice in mere money, denied a man, for all his pleading, till twenty, till forty yearsof his Life are gone seeking it: and a Cockney Funeral, Deathreverenced by hatchments, horsehair, brass-lacker, andunconcerned bipeds carrying long poles and bags of blacksilk:--are not these two reverences, this reverence for Deathand that reverence for Life, a notable pair of reverences amongyou English?"

Abbot Samson, at this culminating point of his existence, may, and indeed must, be left to vanish with his Life-scenery from theeyes of modern men. He had to run into France, to settle withKing Richard for the military service there of his St. Edmundsbury Knights; and with great labour got it done. He hadto decide on the dilapidated Coventry Monks; and with greatlabour, and much pleading and journeying, got them reinstated;dined with them all, and with the 'Masters of the Schools ofOxneford, '--the veritable Oxford _Caput_ sitting there at dinner, in a dim but undeniable manner, in the City of Peeping Tom! Hehad, not without labour, to controvert the intrusive Bishop ofEly, the intrusive Abbot of Cluny. Magnanimous Samson, his lifeis but a labour and a journey; a bustling and a justling, tillthe still Night come. He is sent for again, over sea, to adviseKing Richard touching certain Peers of England, who had taken theCross, but never followed it to Palestine; whom the Pope isinquiring after. The magnanimous Abbot makes preparation fordeparture; departs, and--And Jocelin's Boswellean Narrative, suddenly shorn through by the scissors of Destiny, ends. Thereare no words more; but a black line, and leaves of blank paper. Irremediable: the miraculous hand that held all this theatric-machinery suddenly quits hold; impenetrable Time-Curtains rushdown; in the mind's eye all is again dark, void; with louddinning in the mind's ear, our real-phantasmagory of St. Edmundsbury plunges into the bosom of the Twelfth Century again, and all is over. Monks, Abbot, Hero-worship, Government, Obedience, Coeur-de-Lion and St. Edmund's Shrine, vanish likeMirza's Vision; and there is nothing left but a mutilated blackRuin amid green botanic expanses, and oxen, sheep and dilettantipasturing in their places. 

Chapter XVII

The Beginnings

What a singular shape of a Man; shape of a Time, have we in thisAbbot Samson and his history; how strangely do modes, creeds, formularies, and the date and place of a man's birth, modify thefigure of the man!

Formulas too, as we call them, have a _reality_ in Human Life. They are real as the very _skin_ and _muscular tissue_ of a Man'sLife; and a most blessed indispensable thing, so long as theyhave _vitality_ withal, and are a living skin and tissue to him!No man, or man's life, can go abroad and do business in the worldwithout skin and tissues. No; first of all, these have tofashion themselves, --as indeed they spontaneously and inevitablydo. Foam itself, and this is worth thinking of, can harden intooyster-shell; all living objects do by necessity form tothemselves a skin. 

And yet, again, when a man's Formulas become _dead;_ as allFormulas, in the progress of living growth, are very sure to do!When the poor man's integuments, no longer nourished from within, become dead skin, mere adscititious leather and callosity, wearing thicker and thicker, uglier and uglier; till no _heart_any longer can be felt beating through them, so thick, callous, calcified are they; and all over it has now grown mere calcifiedoystershell, or were it polished mother-of-pearl, inwards almostto the very heart of the poor man:--yes then, you may say, hisusefulness once more is quite obstructed; once more, he cannotgo abroad and do business in the world; it is time that_he_ take to bed, and prepare for departure, which cannot nowbe distant!

_Ubi homines sunt modi sunt. _ Habit is the deepest law of humannature. It is our supreme strength; if also, in certaincircumstances, our miserablest weakness. --From Stoke to Stowe isas yet a field, all pathless, untrodden: from Stoke where Ilive, to Stowe where I have to make my merchandises, perform mybusinesses, consult my heavenly oracles, there is as yet no pathor human footprint; and I, impelled by such necessities, mustnevertheless undertake the journey. Let me go once, scanning myway with any earnestness of outlook, and successfully arriving, my footprints are an invitation to me a second time to go by thesame way. It is easier than any other way: the industry of'scanning' lies already invested in it for me; I can go thistime with less of scanning, or without scanning at all. Nay thevery sight of my footprints, what a comfort for me; and in adegree, for all my brethren of mankind! The footprints aretrodden and retrodden; the path wears ever broader, smoother, into a broad highway, where even wheels can run; and many travelit;--till--till the Town of Stowe disappear from that locality(as towns have been known to do), or no merchandising, heavenlyoracle, or real business any longer exist for one there: thenwhy should anybody travel the way?--Habit is our primal, fundamental law; Habit and Imitation, there is nothing moreperennial in us than these two. They are the source of allWorking and all Apprenticeship, of all Practice and all Learning, in this world. 

Yes, the wise man too speaks, and acts, in Formulas; all men doso. In general the more completely cased with Formulas a man maybe, the safer, happier is it for him. Thou who, in an All ofrotten Formulas, seemest to stand nigh bare, having indignantlyshaken off the superannuated rags and unsound callosities ofFormulas, --consider how thou too art still clothed! This EnglishNationality, whatsoever from uncounted ages is genuine and a factamong thy native People, and their words and ways: all this, hasit not made for thee a skin or second-skin, adhesive actually asthy natural skin? This thou hast not stript off, this thou wiltnever strip off: the humour that thy mother gave thee has toshew itself through this. A common, or it may be an uncommonEnglishman thou art: but good Heavens, what sort of Arab, Chinaman, Jew-Clothesman, Turk, Hindoo, African Mandingo, wouldst_thou_ have been, thou with those mother-qualities of thine!

It strikes me dumb to look over the long series of faces, such asany full Church, Courthouse, London-Tavern Meeting, or miscellanyof men will shew them. Some score or two of years ago, all thesewere little red-coloured pulpy infants; each of them capable ofbeing kneaded, baked into any social form you chose: yet see nowhow they are fixed and hardened, --into artisans, artists, clergy, gentry, learned sergeants, unlearned dandies, and can and shallnow be nothing else henceforth!

Mark on that nose the colour left by too copious port and viands;to which the profuse cravat with exorbitant breastpin, and thefixed, forward, and as it were menacing glance of the eyescorrespond. That is a 'Man of Business;' prosperousmanufacturer, house-contractor, engineer, law-manager; his eye, nose, cravat have, in such work and fortune, got such acharacter: deny him not thy praise, thy pity. Pity him too, theHard-handed, with bony brow, rudely combed hair, eyes looking outas in labour, in difficulty and uncertainty; rude mouth, thelips coarse, loose, as in hard toil and lifelong fatigue theyhave got the habit of hanging:--hast thou seen aught moretouching than the rude intelligence, so cramped, yet energetic, unsubduable, true, which looks out of that marred visage? Alas, and his poor wife, with her own hands, washed that cottonneckcloth for him, buttoned that coarse shirt, sent him forthcreditably trimmed as she could. In such imprisonment lives he, for his part; man cannot now deliver him: the red pulpy infanthas been baked and fashioned so. 

Or what kind of baking was it that this other brother-mortal got, which has baked him into the genus Dandy? Elegant Vacuum;serenely looking down upon all Plenums and Entities, as low andpoor to his serene Chimeraship and _Non_entity laboriouslyattained! Heroic Vacuum; inexpugnable, while purse and presentcondition of society hold out; curable by no hellebore. Thedoom of Fate was, Be thou a Dandy! Have thy eye-glasses, opera-glasses, thy Long-Acre cabs with white-breeched tiger, thyyawning impassivities, pococurantisms; fix thyself in Dandyhood, undeliverable; it is thy doom. 

And all these, we say, were red-coloured infants; of the samepulp and stuff, few years ago; now irretrievably shaped andkneaded as we see! Formulas? There is no mortal extant, out ofthe depths of Bedlam, but lives all skinned, thatched, coveredover with Formulas; and is, as it were, held in from deliriumand the Inane by his Formulas! They are withal the mostbeneficent, indispensable of human equipments: blessed he whohas a skin and tissues, so it be a living one, and the heart-pulse everywhere discernible through it. Monachism, Feudalism, with a real King Plantagenet, with real Abbots Samson, and theirother living realities, how blessed!--

Not without a mournful interest have we surveyed this authenticimage of a Time now wholly swallowed. Mournful reflections crowdon us; and yet consolatory. How many brave men have livedbefore Agamemnon! Here is a brave governor Samson, a man fearingGod, and fearing nothing else; of whom as First Lord of theTreasury, as King, Chief Editor, High Priest, we could be so gladand proud; of whom nevertheless Fame has altogether forgotten tomake mention! The faint image of him, revived in this hour, isfound in the gossip of one poor Monk, and in Nature nowhere else. Oblivion had so nigh swallowed him altogether, even to the echoof his ever having existed. What regiments and hosts andgenerations of such has Oblivion already swallowed! Theircrumbled dust makes up the soil our life-fruit grows on. Said Inot, as my old Norse Fathers taught me, The Life-tree Igdrasil, which waves round thee in this hour, whereof thou in this hourart portion, has its roots down deep in the oldest Death-Kingdoms; and grows; the Three Nornas, or _Times, _ Past, Present, Future, watering it from the Sacred Well!

For example, who taught thee to _speak?_ From the day when twohairy-naked or fig-leaved Human Figures began, as uncomfortabledummies, anxious no longer to be dumb, but to impart themselvesto one another; and endeavoured, with gaspings, gesturings, withunsyllabled cries, with painful pantomime and interjections, in avery unsuccessful manner, --up to the writing of this presentcopyright Book, which also is not very successful! Between thatday and this, I say, there has been a pretty space of time; apretty spell of work, which _somebody_ has done! Thinkest thouthere were no poets till Dan Chaucer? No heart burning with athought, which it could not hold, and had no word for; andneeded to shape and coin a word for, --what thou callest ametaphor, trope, or the like? For every word we have, there wassuch a man and poet. The coldest word was once a glowing newmetaphor, and bold questionable originality. 'Thy veryATTENTION, does it not mean an _attentio, _ a STRETCHING-TO?'Fancy that act of the mind, which all were conscious of, whichnone had yet named, --when this new 'poet' first felt bound anddriven to name it! His questionable originality, and new glowingmetaphor, was found adoptable, intelligible; and remains ourname for it to this day. 

Literature:--and look at Paul's Cathedral, and the Masonries andWorships and Quasi-Worships that are there; not to speak ofWestminster Hall and its wigs! Men had not a hammer to beginwith, not a syllabled articulation: they had it all to make;--and they have made it. What thousand thousand articulate, semi-articulate, earnest-stammering _Prayers_ ascending up to Heaven, from hut and cell, in many lands, in many centuries, from thefervent kindled souls of innumerable men, each struggling to pouritself forth incompletely as it might, before the incompletest_Liturgy_ could be compiled! The Liturgy, or adoptable andgenerally adopted Set of Prayers and Prayer-Method, was what wecan call the Select Adoptabilities, 'Select Beauties' well-edited(by Oecumenic Councils and other Useful-Knowledge Societies) fromthat wide waste imbroglio of Prayers already extant andaccumulated, good and bad. The good were found adoptable by men;were gradually got together, well-edited, accredited: the bad, found inappropriate, unadoptable, were gradually forgotten, disused and burnt. It is the way with human things. The firstman who, looking with opened soul on this August Heaven andEarth, this Beautiful and Awful, which we name Nature, Universeand such like, the essence of which remains forever UNNAMEABLE;he who first, gazing into this, fell on his knees awestruck, insilence as is likeliest, --he, driven by inner necessity, the'audacious original' that he was, had done a thing, too, whichall thoughtful hearts saw straightway to be an expressive, altogether adoptable thing! To bow the knee was ever since theattitude of supplication. Earlier than any spoken Prayers, _Litanias, _ or Leitourgias;_ the beginning of all Worship, --which needed but a beginning, so rational was it. What a poethe! Yes, this bold original was a successful one withal. Thewellhead this one, hidden in the primeval dusks and distances, from whom as from a Nile-source all _Forms of Worship_ flow:--such a Nile-river (somewhat muddy and malarious now!) of Forms ofWorship sprang there, and flowed, and flows, down to Puseyism, Rotatory Calabash, Archbishop Laud at St. Catherine Creed's, andperhaps lower!

Things rise, I say, in that way. The _Iliad_ Poem, and indeedmost other poetic, especially epic things, have risen as theLiturgy did. The great _Iliad_ in Greece, and the small _RobinHood's Garland_ in England, are each, as I understand, the well-edited 'Select Beauties' of an immeasurable waste imbroglio ofHeroic Ballads in their respective centuries and countries. Think what strumming of the seven-stringed heroic lyre, torturingof the less heroic fiddle-catgut, in Hellenic Kings' Courts, andEnglish wayside Public Houses; and beating of the studiousPoetic brain, and gasping here too in the semi-articulatewindpipe of Poetic men, before the Wrath of a Divine Achilles, the Prowess of a Will Scarlet or Wakefield Pinder, could beadequately sung! Honour to you, ye nameless great and greatestones, ye long-forgotten brave!

Nor was the Statute _De Tallagio non concedendo, _ nor anyStatute, Law-method, Lawyer's-wig, much less were the Statute-Book and Four Courts, with Coke upon Lyttleton and Three Estatesof Parliament in the rear of them, got together without humanlabour, --mostly forgotten now! From the time of Cain's slayingAbel by swift head-breakage, to this time of killing your man inChancery by inches, and slow heart-break for forty years, --theretoo is an interval! Venerable justice herself began by Wild-justice; all Law is as a tamed furrowfield, slowly worked out, and rendered arable, from the waste jungle of Club-Law. ValiantWisdom tilling and draining; escorted by owl-eyed Pedantry, byowlish and vulturish and many other forms of Folly;--the valianthusbandman assiduously tilling; the blind greedy enemy _too_assiduously sowing tares! It is because there is yet invenerable wigged justice some wisdom, amid such mountains ofwiggeries and folly, that men have not cast her into the River;that she still sits there, like Dryden's Head in the _Battle ofthe Books, _--a huge helmet, a huge mountain of greased parchment, of unclean horsehair, first striking the eye; and then in theinnermost corner, visible at last, in size as a hazelnut, a realfraction of God's justice, perhaps not yet unattainable to some, surely still indispensable to all;--and men know not what to dowith her! Lawyers were not all pedants, voluminous voraciouspersons; Lawyers too were poets, were heroes, --or their Law hadbeen past the Nore long before this time. Their Owlisms, Vulturisms, to an incredible extent, will disappear by and by, their Heroisms only remaining, and the helmet be reduced tosomething like the size of the head, we hope!--

It is all work and forgotten work, this peopled, clothed, articulate-speaking, high-towered, wide-acred World. The handsof forgotten brave men have made it a World for us; they, --honour to them; they, in _spite_ of the idle and the dastard. This English Land, here and now, is the summary of what was foundof wise, and noble, and accordant with God's Truth, in all thegenerations of English Men. Our English Speech is speakablebecause there were Hero-Poets of our blood and lineage;speakable in proportion to the number of these. This Land ofEngland has its conquerors, possessors, which change from epochto epoch, from day to day; but its real conquerors, creators, and eternal proprietors are these following, and theirrepresentatives if you can find them: All the Heroic Souls thatever were in England, each in their degree; all the men thatever cut a thistle, drained a puddle out of England, contrived awise scheme in England, did or said a true and valiant thing inEngland. I tell thee, they had not a hammer to begin with; andyet Wren built St. Paul's: not an articulated syllable; and yetthere have come English Literatures, Elizabethan Literatures, Satanic-School, Cockney-School, and other Literatures;--oncemore, as in the old time of the _Leitourgia, _ a most wasteimbroglio, and world-wide jungle and jumble; waiting terribly tobe 'well-edited, ' and 'well-burnt!' Arachne started withforefinger and thumb, and had not even a distaff; yet thou seestManchester, and Cotton Cloth, which will shelter naked backs, attwo-pence an ell. 

Work? The quantity of done and forgotten work that lies silentunder my feet in this world, and escorts and attends me, andsupports and keeps me alive, wheresoever I walk or stand, whatsoever I think or do, gives rise to reflections! Is it notenough, at any rate, to strike the thing called 'Fame' into totalsilence for a wise man? For fools and unreflective persons, sheis and will be very noisy, this 'Fame, ' and talks of her'immortals' and so forth: but if you will consider it, what isshe? Abbot Samson was not nothing because nobody _said_ anythingof him. Or thinkest thou, the Right Honourable Sir JabeshWindbag can be made something by Parliamentary Majorities andLeading Articles? Her 'immortals!' Scarcely two hundred yearsback can Fame recollect articulately at all; and there she butmaunders and mumbles. She manages to recollect a Shakspeare orso; and prates, considerably like a goose, about him;--and inthe rear of that, onwards to the birth of Theuth, to Hengst'sInvasion, and the bosom of Eternity, it was all blank; and therespectable Teutonic Languages, Teutonic Practices, Existencesall came of their own accord, as the grass springs, as the treesgrow; no Poet, no work from the inspired heart of a Man neededthere; and Fame has not an articulate word to say about it! Orask her, What, with all conceivable appliances and mnemonics, including apotheosis and human sacrifices among the number, shecarries in her head with regard to a Wodan, even a Moses, orother such? She begins to be uncertain as to what they were, whether spirits or men of mould, --gods, charlatans; beginssometimes to have a misgiving that they were mere symbols, ideasof the mind; perhaps nonentities, and Letters of the Alphabet!She is the noisiest, inarticulately babbling, hissing, screaming, foolishest, unmusicalest of fowls that fly; and needs no'trumpet, ' I think, but her own enormous goose-throat, --measuringseveral degrees of celestial latitude, so to speak. Her 'wings, 'in these days, have grown far swifter than ever; but her goose-throat hitherto seems only larger; louder and foolisher thanever. _She_ is transitory, futile, a goose-goddess:--if she werenot transitory, what would become of us! It is a chief comfortthat she forgets us all; all, even to the very Wodans; andgrows to consider us, at last, as probably nonentities andLetters of the Alphabet. 

Yes, a noble Abbot Samson resigns himself to Oblivion too; feelsit no hardship, but a comfort; counts it as a still resting-place, from much sick fret and fever and stupidity, which in thenight-watches often made his strong heart sigh. Your most sweetvoices, making one enormous goose-voice, O Bobus and Company, howcan they be a guidance for any Son of Adam? In _silence_ of youand the like of you, the 'small still voices' will speak to himbetter; in which does lie guidance. 

My friend, all speech and rumour is shortlived, foolish, untrue. Genuine WORK alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal, as the Almighty Founder and World-Builder himself. Stand thouby that; and let 'Fame' and the rest of it go prating. 

 "Heard are the Voices, Heard are the Sages, The Worlds and the Ages: "Choose well, your choice is Brief and yet endless. 

 Here eyes do regard you, In Eternity's stillness; Here is all fulness, Ye brave, to reward you; Work, and despair not. " --Goethe

Book III--The Modern Worker

Chapter I

Phenomena

But, it is said, our religion is gone: we no longer believe inSt. Edmund, no longer see the figure of him 'on the rim of thesky, ' minatory or confirmatory! God's absolute Laws, sanctionedby an eternal Heaven and an eternal Hell, have become MoralPhilosophies, sanctioned by able computations of Profit andLoss, by weak considerations of Pleasures of Virtue and theMoral Sublime. 

It is even so. To speak in the ancient dialect, we 'haveforgotten God;'--in the most modern dialect and very truth of thematter, we have taken up the Fact of this Universe as it _isnot. _ We have quietly closed our eyes to the eternal Substanceof things, and opened them only to the Shews and Shams of things. We quietly believe this Universe to be intrinsically a greatunintelligible PERHAPS; extrinsically, clear enough, it is agreat, most extensive Cattlefold and Workhouse, with mostextensive Kitchen-ranges, Dining-tables, --whereat he is wise whocan find a place! All the Truth of this Universe is uncertain;only the profit and loss of it, the pudding and praise of it, areand remain very visible to the practical man. 

There is no longer any God for us! God's Laws are become aGreatest-Happiness Principle, a Parliamentary Expediency: theHeavens overarch us only as an Astronomical Time-keeper; a buttfor Herschel-telescopes to shoot science at, to shootsentimentalities at:--in our and old Jonson's dialect, man haslost the _soul_ out of him; and now, after the due period, --begins to find the want of it! This is verily the plague-spot;centre of the universal Social Gangrene, threatening all modernthings with frightful death. To him that will consider it, hereis the stem, with its roots and taproot, with its world-wideupas-boughs and accursed poison-exudations, under which the worldlies writhing in atrophy and agony. You touch the focal-centreof all our disease, of our frightful nosology of diseases, whenyou lay your hand on this. There is no religion; there is noGod; man has lost his soul, and vainly seeks antiseptic salt. Vainly: in killing Kings, in passing Reform Bills, in FrenchRevolutions, Manchester Insurrections, is found no remedy. Thefoul elephantine leprosy, alleviated for an hour, reappears innew force and desperateness next hour. 

For actually this is _not_ the real fact of the world; the worldis not made so, but otherwise!--Truly, any Society setting outfrom this No-God hypothesis will arrive at a result or two. TheUnveracities, escorted, each Unveracity of them by itscorresponding Misery and Penalty; the Phantasms, and Fatuities, and ten-years Corn-Law Debatings, that shall walk the Earth atnoonday, --must needs be numerous! The Universe _being_intrinsically a Perhaps, being too probably an 'infinite Humbug, 'why should any minor Humbug astonish us? It is all according tothe order of Nature; and Phantasms riding with huge clatteralong the streets, from end to end of our existence, astonishnobody. Enchanted St. Ives' Workhouses and Joe-MantonAristocracies; giant Working Mammonism near strangled in thepartridge-nets of giant-looking Idle Dilettantism, --this, in allits branches, in its thousand thousand modes and figures, is asight familiar to us. 

The Popish Religion, we are told, flourishes extremely in theseyears; and is the most vivacious-looking religion to be met withat present. _"Elle a trois cents ans dans le ventre, "_ counts M. Jouffroy; _"c'est pourquoi je la respecte!"_--The old Pope ofRome, finding it laborious to kneel so long while they cart himthrough the streets to bless the people on _Corpus-Christi_ Day, complains of rheumatism; whereupon his Cardinals consult;--construct him, after some study, a stuffed cloaked figure, ofiron and wood, with wool or baked hair; and place it in akneeling posture. Stuffed figure, or rump of a figure; to thisstuffed rump he, sitting at his ease on a lower level, joins, bythe aid of cloaks and drapery, his living head and outspreadhands: the rump with its cloaks kneels, the Pope looks, andholds his hands spread; and so the two in concert bless theRoman population on _Corpus-Christi_ Day, as well as they can. 

I have considered this amphibious Pope, with the wool-and-ironback, with the flesh head and hands; and endeavoured tocalculate his horoscope. I reckon him the remarkablest Pontiffthat has darkened God's daylight, or painted himself in the humanretina, for these several thousand years. Nay, since Chaos firstshivered, and 'sneezed, ' as the Arabs say, with the first shaftof sunlight shot through it, what stranger product was there ofNature and Art working together? Here is a Supreme Priest whobelieves God to be--What in the name of God _does_ he believe Godto be?--and discerns that all worship of God is a scenicphantasmagory of wax-candles, organ-blasts, Gregorian Chants, mass-brayings, purple monsignori, wool-and-iron rumps, artistically spread out, --to save the ignorant from worse. 

O reader, I say not who are Belial's elect. This poor amphibiousPope too gives loaves to the Poor; has in him more good latentthan he is himself aware of. His poor Jesuits, in the lateItalian Cholera, were, with a few German Doctors, the onlycreatures whom dastard terror had not driven mad: they descendedfearless into all gulfs and bedlams; watched over the pillow ofthe dying, with help, with counsel and hope; shone as luminousfixed stars, when all else had gone out in chaotic night: honourto them! This poor Pope, --who knows what good is in him? In aTime otherwise too prone to forget, he keeps up the mournfulestghastly memorial of the Highest, Blessedest, which once was;which, in new fit forms, will again partly have to be. Is he notas a perpetual death's-head and cross-bones, with their_Resurgam, _ on the grave of a Universal Heroism, --grave of aChristianity? Such Noblenesses, purchased by the world's bestheart's-blood, must not be lost; we cannot afford to lose them, in what confusions soever. To all of us the day will come, to afew of us it has already come, when no mortal, with his heartyearning for a 'Divine Humility, ' or other 'Highest form ofValour, ' will need to look for it in death's-heads, but will seeit round him in here and there a beautiful living head. 

Besides, there is in this poor Pope, and his practice of theScenic Theory of Worship, a frankness which I rather honour. Nothalf and half, but with undivided heart does _he_ set aboutworshiping by stage-machinery; as if there were now, and couldagain be, in Nature no other. He will ask you, What other?Under this my Gregorian Chant, and beautiful wax-lightPhantasmagory, kindly hidden from you is an Abyss, of blackDoubt, Scepticism, nay Sansculottic Jacobinism; an Orcus thathas no bottom. Think of that. 'Groby Pool _is_ thatched withpancakes, '--as Jeannie Deans's Innkeeper defied it to be! TheBottomless of Scepticism, Atheism, Jacobinism, behold, it isthatched over, hidden from your despair, by stage-propertiesjudiciously arranged. This stuffed rump of mine saves not meonly from rheumatism, but you also from what other _isms!_ Inthis your Life-pilgrimage Nowhither, a fine Squallacci marching-music, and Gregorian Chant, accompanies you, and the hollow Nightof Orcus is well hid!

Yes truly, few men that worship by the rotatory Calabash of theCalmucks do it in half so great, frank or effectual a way. Drury-lane, it is said, and that is saying much, may learn fromhim in the dressing of parts, in the arrangement of lights andshadows. He is the greatest Play-actor that at present drawssalary in this world. Poor Pope; and I am told he is fastgrowing bankrupt too; and will, in a measurable term of years (agreat way _within_ the 'three hundred'), not have a penny to makehis pot boil! His old rheumatic back will then get to rest; andhimself and his stage-properties sleep well in Chaos forevermore. 

Or, alas, why go to Rome for Phantasms walking the streets?Phantasms, ghosts, in this midnight hour, hold jubilee, andscreech and jabber; and the question rather were, What highReality anywhere is yet awake? Aristocracy has become Phantasm-Aristocracy, no longer able to _do_ its work, not in the leastconscious that it has any work longer to do. Unable, totallycareless to _do_ its work; careful only to clamour for the_wages_ of doing its work, --nay for higher, and _palpably_ unduewages, and Corn-Laws and _increase_ of rents; the old rate ofwages not being adequate now! In hydra-wrestle, giant_'Millo_cracy' so-called, a real giant, though as yet a blind oneand but half-awake, wrestles and wrings in choking nightmare, 'like to be strangled in the partridge-nets of Phantasm-Aristocracy, ' as we said, which fancies itself still to be agiant. Wrestles, as under nightmare, till it do awaken; andgasps and struggles thousandfold, we may say, in a truly painfulmanner, through all fibres of our English Existence, in thesehours and years! Is our poor English Existence wholly becoming aNightmare; full of mere Phantasms?--

The Champion of England, cased in iron or tin, rides intoWestminster Hall, 'being lifted into his saddle with littleassistance, ' and there asks, If in the four quarters of theworld, under the cope of Heaven, is any man or demon that darequestion the right of this King? Under the cope of Heaven no manmakes intelligible answer, --as several men ought already to havedone. Does not this Champion too know the world; that it is ahuge Imposture, and bottomless Inanity, thatched over with brightcloth and other ingenious tissues? Him let us leave there, questioning all men and demons. 

Him we have left to his destiny; but whom else have we found?From this the highest apex of things, downwards through allstrata and breadths, how many fully awakened Realities have wefallen in with:--alas, on the contrary, what troops andpopulations of Phantasms, not God-Veracities but Devil-Falsities, down to the very lowest stratum, --which now, by suchsuperincumbent weight of Unveracities, lies enchanted in St. Ives' Workhouses, broad enough, helpless enough! You will walkin no public thoroughfare or remotest byway of English Existencebut you will meet a man, an interest of men, that has given uphope in the Everlasting, True, and placed its hope in theTemporary, half or wholly False. The Honourable Member complainsunmusically that there is 'devil's-dust' in Yorkshire cloth. Yorkshire cloth, --why, the very Paper I now write on is made, itseems, partly of plaster-lime well-smoothed, and obstructs mywriting! You are lucky if you can find now any good Paper, --anywork really _done;_ search where you will, from highest Phantasmapex to lowest Enchanted basis!

Consider, for example, that great Hat seven-feet high, which nowperambulates London Streets; which my Friend Sauerteig regardedjustly as one of our English notabilities; "the topmost point asyet, " said he, "would it were your culminating and returningpoint, to which English Puffery has been observed to reach!"--TheHatter in the Strand of London, instead of making better felt-hats than another, mounts a huge lath-and-plaster Hat, seven-feethigh, upon wheels; sends a man to drive it through the streets;hoping to be saved _thereby. _ He has not attempted to _make_better hats, as he was appointed by the Universe to do, and aswith this ingenuity of his he could very probably have done; buthis whole industry is turned to persuade us that he has madesuch! He too knows that the Quack has become God. Laugh not athim, O reader; or do not laugh only. He has ceased to be comic;he is fast becoming tragic. To me this all-deafening blast ofPuffery, of poor Falsehood grown necessitous, of poor Heart-Atheism fallen now into Enchanted Workhouses, sounds too surelylike a Doom's-blast! I have to say to myself in old dialect:"God's blessing is not written on all this, His curse is writtenon all this!" Unless perhaps the Universe be a chimera;--someold totally deranged eightday clock, dead as brass; whichthe Maker, if there ever was any Maker, has long ceased tomeddle with?--To my Friend Sauerteig this poor seven-feetHat-manufacturer, as the topstone of English Puffery, wasvery notable. 

Alas, that we natives note him little, that we view him as athing of course, is the very burden of the misery. We take itfor granted, the most rigorous of us, that all men who have madeanything are expected and entitled to make the loudest possibleproclamation of it; call on a discerning public to reward themfor it. Every man his own trumpeter; that is, to a reallyalarming extent, the accepted rule. Make loudest possibleproclamation of your Hat: true proclamation if that will do; ifthat will not do, then false proclamation, --to such extent offalsity as will serve your purpose; as will not seem too falseto be credible!--I answer, once for all, that the fact is not so. Nature requires no man to make proclamation of his doings andhat-makings; Nature forbids all men to make such. There is nota man or hat-maker born into the world but feels, at first, thathe is degrading himself if he speak of his excellencies andprowesses, and supremacy in his craft: his inmost heart says tohim, "Leave thy friends to speak of these; if possible, thyenemies to speak of these; but at all events, thy friends!" Hefeels that he is already a poor braggart; fast hastening to be afalsity and speaker of the Untruth. 

Nature's Laws, I must repeat, are eternal: her small stillvoice, speaking from the inmost heart of us, shall not, underterrible penalties, be disregarded. No one man can depart fromthe truth without damage to himself; no one million of men; noTwenty-seven Millions of men. Shew me a Nation fallen everywhereinto this course, so that each expects it, permits it to othersand himself, I will shew you a Nation traveling with one assenton the broad way. The broad way, however many Banks of England, Cotton-Mills and Duke's Palaces it may have! Not at happyElysian fields, and everlasting crowns of victory, earned bysilent Valour, will this Nation arrive; but at precipices, devouring gulfs, if it pause not. Nature has appointed happyfields, victorious laurel-crowns; but only to the brave andtrue: _Un_nature, what we call Chaos, holds nothing in it butvacuities, devouring gulfs. What are Twenty-seven Millions, andtheir unanimity? Believe them not: the Worlds and the Ages, Godand Nature and All Men say otherwise. 

'Rhetoric all this?' No, my brother, very singular to say, it isFact all this. Cocker's Arithmetic is not truer. Forgotten inthese days, it is old as the foundations of the Universe, andwill endure till the Universe cease. It is forgotten now; andthe first mention of it puckers thy sweet countenance into asneer: but it will be brought to mind again, --unless indeed theLaw of Gravitation chance to cease, and men find that they canwalk on vacancy. Unanimity of the Twenty-seven Millions will donothing: walk not thou with them; fly from them as for thylife. Twenty-seven Millions traveling on such courses, with goldjingling in every pocket, with vivats heaven-high, areincessantly advancing, let me again remind thee, towards the_firm-land's end, _--towards the end and extinction of whatFaithfulness, Veracity, real Worth, was in their way of life. Their noble ancestors have fashioned for them a 'life-road!'--inhow many thousand senses, this! There is not an old wise Proverbon their tongue, an honest Principle articulated in their heartsinto utterance, a wise true method of doing and despatching anywork or commerce of men, but helps yet to carry them forward. Life is still possible to them, because all is not yet Puffery, Falsity, Mammon-worship and Unnature; because somewhat is yetFaithfulness, Veracity and Valour. With a certain veryconsiderable finite quantity of Unveracity and Phantasm, sociallife is still possible; not with an infinite quantity! Exceedyour certain quantity, the seven-feet Hat, and all things upwardsto the very Champion cased in tin, begin to reel and flounder, --in Manchester Insurrections, Chartisms, Sliding-scales; the Lawof Gravitation not forgetting to act. You advance incessantlytowards the land's end; you are, literally enough, 'consumingthe way. ' Step after step, Twenty-seven Million unconsciousmen;--till you are at the land's end; till there is notFaithfulness enough among you any more: and the next step now islifted _not_ over land, but into air, over ocean-deeps androaring abysses:--unless perhaps the Law of Gravitation haveforgotten to act?

O, it is frightful when a whole Nation, as our Fathers used tosay, has 'forgotten God;' has remembered only Mammon, and whatMammon leads to! When your self-trumpeting Hatmaker is theemblem of almost all makers, and workers, and men, that makeanything, --from soul-overseerships, body-overseerships, epicpoems, acts of parliament, to hats and shoe-blacking! Not onefalse man but does uncountable mischief: how much, in ageneration or two, will Twenty-seven Millions, mostly false, manage to accumulate? The sum of it, visible in every street, marketplace, senate-house, circulating-library, cathedral, cotton-mill, and union-workhouse, fills one _not_ with acomic feeling!

Chapter II

Gospel of Mammonism

Reader, even Christian Reader as thy title goes, hast thou anynotion of Heaven and Hell? I rather apprehend, not. Often asthe words are on our tongue, they have got a fabulous orsemifabulous character for most of us, and pass on like a kind oftransient similitude, like a sound signifying little. 

Yet it is well worth while for us to know, once and always, thatthey are not a similitude, nor a fable nor semi-fable; that theyare an everlasting highest fact! "No Lake of Sicilian or othersulphur burns now anywhere in these ages, " sayest thou? Well, and if there did not! Believe that there does not; believe itif thou wilt, nay hold by it as a real increase, a rise to higherstages, to wider horizons and empires. All this has vanished, orhas not vanished; believe as thou wilt as to all this. But thatan Infinite of Practical Importance, speaking with strictarithmetical exactness, an _Infinite, _ has vanished or can vanishfrom the Life of any Man: this thou shalt not believe! Obrother, the Infinite of Terror, of Hope, of Pity, did it not atany moment disclose itself to thee, indubitable, unnameable?Came it never, like the gleam of preternatural eternal Oceans, like the voice of old Eternities, far-sounding through thy heartof hearts? Never? Alas, it was not thy Liberalism then; it wasthy Animalism! The Infinite is more sure than any other fact. But only men can discern it; mere building beavers, spinningarachnes, much more the predatory vulturous and vulpine species, do not discern it well!--

'The word Hell, ' says Sauerteig, 'is still frequently in useamong the English People: but I could not without difficultyascertain what they meant by it. Hell generally signifies theInfinite Terror, the thing a man is infinitely afraid of, andshudders and shrinks from, struggling with his whole soul toescape from it. There is a Hell therefore, if you will consider, which accompanies man, in all stages of his history, andreligious or other development: but the Hells of men and Peoplesdiffer notably. With Christians it is the infinite terror ofbeing found guilty before the just Judge. With old Romans, Iconjecture, it was the terror not of Pluto, for whom probablythey cared little, but of doing unworthily, doing unvirtuously, which was their word for un_man_fully. And now what is it, ifyou pierce through his Cants, his oft-repeated Hearsays, what hecalls his Worships and so forth, --what is it that the modernEnglish soul does, in very truth, dread infinitely, andcontemplate with entire despair? What is his Hell; after allthese reputable, oft-repeated Hearsays, what is it? Withhesitation, with astonishment, I pronounce it to be: The terrorof "Not succeeding;" of not making money, fame, or some otherfigure in the world, --chiefly of not making money! Is not that asomewhat singular Hell?

Yes, O Sauerteig, it is very singular. If we do not 'succeed, 'where is the use of us? We had better never have been born. "Tremble intensely, " as our friend the Emperor of China says:_there_ is the black Bottomless of Terror; what Sauerteig callsthe 'Hell of the English!'--But indeed this Hell belongsnaturally to the Gospel of Mammonism, which also has itscorresponding Heaven. For there is one Reality among so manyPhantasms; about one thing we are entirely in earnest: Themaking of money. Working Mammonism does divide the world withidle game-preserving Dilettantism:--thank Heaven that there iseven a Mammonism, anything we are in earnest about! Idleness isworst, Idleness alone is without hope: work earnestly atanything, you will by degrees learn to work at almost all things. There is endless hope in work, were it even work at making money. 

True, it must be owned, we for the present, with our Mammon-Gospel, have come to strange conclusions. We call it a Society;and go about professing openly the totalest separation, isolation. Our life is not a mutual helpfulness; but rather, cloaked under due laws-of-war, named 'fair competition' and soforth, it is a mutual hostility. We have profoundly forgotteneverywhere that _Cash-payment_ is not the sole relation of humanbeings; we think, nothing doubting, that it absolves andliquidates all engagements of man. "My starving workers?"answers the rich Mill-owner: "Did not I hire them fairly in themarket? Did I not pay them, to the last sixpence, the sumcovenanted for? What have I to do with them more?"--VerilyMammon-worship is a melancholy creed. When Cain, for his ownbehoof, had killed Abel, and was questioned, "Where is thybrother" he too made answer, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Did Inot pay my brother _his_ wages, the thing he had merited from me?

O sumptuous Merchant-Prince, illustrious game-preserving Duke, isthere no way of 'killing' thy brother but Cain's rude way! 'Agood man by the very look of him, by his very presence with us asa fellow wayfarer in this Life-pilgrimage, _promises_ so much:'woe to him if he forget all such promises, if he never know thatthey were given! To a deadened soul, seared with the bruteIdolatry of Sense, to whom going to Hell is equivalent to notmaking money, all 'promises, ' and moral duties, that cannot bepleaded for in Courts of Requests, address themselves in vain. Money he can be ordered to pay, but nothing more. I have notheard in all Past History, and expect not to hear in all FutureHistory, of any Society anywhere under God's Heaven supportingitself on such Philosophy. The Universe is not made so; it ismade otherwise than so. The man or nation of men that thinks itis made so, marches forward nothing doubting, step after step;but marches--whither we know! In these last two centuries ofAtheistic Government (near two centuries now, since the blessedrestoration of his Sacred Majesty, and Defender of the Faith, Charles Second), I reckon that we have pretty well exhausted whatof 'firm earth' there was for us to march on;--and are now, veryominously, shuddering, reeling, and let us hope trying to recoil, on the cliff's edge!--

For out of this that we call Atheism come so many other _isms_and falsities, each falsity with its misery at its heels!--A SOULis not like wind (_spiritus, _ or breath) contained within acapsule; the ALMIGHTY MAKER is not like a Clockmaker that once, in old immemorial ages, having _made_ his Horologe of a Universe, sits ever since and sees it go! Not at all. Hence comesAtheism; come, as we say, many other _isms;_ and as the sum ofall, comes Valetism, the _reverse_ of Heroism; sad root of allwoes whatsoever. For indeed, as no man ever saw the above-saidwind-element enclosed within its capsule, and finds it at bottommore deniable than conceivable; so too he finds, in spite ofBridgewater Bequests, your Clockmaker Almighty an entirelyquestionable affair, a deniable affair;--and accordingly deniesit, and along with it so much else. Alas, one knows not what andhow much else! For the faith in an Invisible, Unnameable, Godlike, present everywhere in all that we see and work andsuffer, is the essence of all faith whatsoever; and that oncedenied, or still worse, asserted with lips only, and out of boundprayerbooks only, what other thing remains believable? That Cantwell-ordered is marketable Cant; that Heroism means gas-lightedHistrionism; that seen with 'clear eyes' (as they call Valet-eyes), no man is a Hero, or ever was a Hero, but all men areValets and Varlets. The accursed practical quintessence of allsorts of Unbelief! For if there be now no Hero, and the Histriohimself begin to be seen into, what hope is there for the seed ofAdam here below? We are the doomed everlasting prey of theQuack; who, now in this guise, now in that, is to filch us, topluck and eat us, by such modes as are convenient for him. Forthe modes and guises I care little. The Quack once inevitable, let him come swiftly, let him pluck and eat me;--swiftly, that Imay at least have done with him; for in his Quack-world I canhave no wish to linger. Though he slay me, yet will I despisehim. Though he conquer nations, and have all the Flunkeys of theUniverse shouting at his heels, yet will I know well that _he_ isan Inanity; that for him and his there is no continuanceappointed, save only in Gehenna and the Pool. Alas, the Atheistworld, from its utmost summits of Heaven and Westminster Hall, downwards through poor sevenfeet Hats and 'Unveracities fallenhungry, ' down to the lowest cellars and neglected hunger-dens ofit, is very wretched. 

One of Dr. Alison's Scotch facts struck us much. * A poorIrish Widow, her husband having died in one of the Lanes ofEdinburgh, went forth with her three children, bare of allresource, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments ofthat City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that shewas refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none;--till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heartfailed her: she sank down in typhus-fever; died, and infectedher Lane with fever, so that 'seventeen other persons' died offever there in consequence. The humane Physician asks thereupon, as with a heart too full for speaking, Would it not have been_economy_ to help this poor Widow? She took typhus-fever, andkilled seventeen of you!--Very curious. The forlorn Irish Widowapplies to her fellow-creatures, as if saying, "Behold I amsinking, bare of help: ye must help me! I am your sister, boneof your bone; one God made us: ye must help me!" They answer, "No; impossible: thou art no sister of ours. " But she provesher sisterhood; her typhus-fever kills _them:_ they actuallywere her brothers, though denying it! Had man ever to go lowerfor a proof?

------------* _Observations on the Management of the Poor in Scotland:_ ByWilliam Pulteney Alison, M. D. (Edinburgh, 1840)------------

For, as indeed was very natural in such case, all government ofthe Poor by the Rich has long ago been given over to Supply-and-demand, Laissez-faire and such like, and universally declared tobe 'impossible. ' "You are no sister of ours; what shadow ofproof is there? Here are our parchments, our padlocks, provingindisputably our money-safes to be _ours, _ and you to have nobusiness with them. Depart! It is impossible!"--Nay, whatwouldst thou thyself have us do? cry indignant readers. Nothing, my friends, --till you have got a soul for yourselves again. Tillthen all things are 'impossible. ' Till then I cannot even bidyou buy, as the old Spartans would have done, two-pence worth ofpowder and lead, and compendiously shoot to death this poor IrishWidow: even that is 'impossible' for you. Nothing is left butthat she prove her sisterhood by dying, and infecting you withtyphus. Seventeen of you lying dead will not deny such proofthat she was flesh of your flesh; and perhaps some of the livingmay lay it to heart. 

'Impossible:' of a certain two-legged animal with feathers, itis said if you draw a distinct chalk-circle round him, he sitsimprisoned, as if girt with the iron ring of Fate; and will diethere, though within sight of victuals, --or sit in sick miserythere, and be fatted to death. The name of this poor two-leggedanimal is--Goose; and they make of him, when well fattened, _Pate de foie gras, _ much prized by some!

Chapter III

Gospel of Dilettantism

But after all, the Gospel of Dilettantism, producing a GoverningClass who do not govern, nor understand in the least that theyare bound or expected to govern, is still mournfuler than that ofMammonism. Mammonism, as we said, at least works; this goesidle. Mammonism has seized some portion of the message of Natureto man; and seizing that, and following it, will seize andappropriate more and more of Nature's message: but Dilettantismhas missed it wholly. 'Make money:' that will mean withal, 'Dowork in order to make money. ' But, 'Go gracefully idle inMayfair, ' what does or can that mean? An idle, game-preservingand even corn-Jawing Aristocracy, in such an England as ours:has the world, if we take thought of it, ever seen such aphenomenon till very lately? Can it long continue to see such?

Accordingly the impotent, insolent Donothingism in Practice, andSaynothingism in Speech, which we have to witness on that side ofour affairs, is altogether amazing. A Corn-Law demonstratingitself openly, for ten years or more, with 'arguments' to makethe angels, and some other classes of creatures, weep! For menare not ashamed to rise in Parliament and elsewhere, and speakthe things they do _not_ think. 'Expediency, ' 'Necessities ofParty, ' &c. &c. ! It is not known that the Tongue of Man is asacred organ; that Man himself is definable in Philosophy as an'Incarnate _Word;'_ the Word not there, you have no Man thereeither, but a Phantasm instead! In this way it is thatAbsurdities may live long enough, --still walking, and talking forthemselves, years and decades after the brains are quite out!How are 'the knaves and dastards' ever to be got 'arrested' atthat rate?--

"No man in this fashionable London of yours, " friend Sauerteigwould say, "speaks a plain word to me. Every man feels bound tobe something more than plain; to be pungent withal, witty, ornamental. His poor fraction of sense has to be perked intosome epigrammatic shape, that it may prick into me;--perhaps(this is the commonest) to be topsyturvied, left standing on itshead, that I may remember it the better! Such grinning inanityis very sad to the soul of man. Human faces should not grin onone like masks; they should look on one like faces! I lovehonest laughter, as I do sunlight; but not dishonest: mostkinds of dancing too; but the St. -Vitus kind not at all! Afashionable wit, ach Himmel, if you ask, Which, he or a Death's-head, will be the cheerier company for me? pray send _not_ him!"

Insincere Speech, truly, is the prime material of insincereAction. Action hangs, as it were, _dissolved_ in Speech, inThought whereof Speech is the shadow; and precipitates itselftherefrom. The kind of Speech in a man betokens the kind ofAction you will get from him. Our Speech, in these modern days, has become amazing. Johnson complained, "Nobody speaks inearnest, Sir; there is no serious conversation. " To us allserious speech of men, as that of Seventeenth-Century Puritans, Twelfth-Century Catholics, German Poets of this Century, hasbecome jargon, more or less insane. Cromwell was mad and aquack; Anselm, Becket, Goethe, _ditto ditto. _

Perhaps few narratives in History or Mythology are moresignificant than that Moslem one, of Moses and the Dwellers bythe Dead Sea. A tribe of men dwelt on the shores of that sameAsphaltic Lake; and having forgotten, as we are all too prone todo, the inner facts of Nature, and taken up with the falsitiesand outer semblances of it, were fallen into sad conditions, --verging indeed towards a certain far deeper Lake. Whereupon itpleased kind Heaven to send them the Prophet Moses, with aninstructive word of warning, out of which might have sprung'remedial measures' not a few. But no: the men of the Dead Seadiscovered, as the valet-species always does in heroes orprophets, no comeliness in Moses; listened with real tedium toMoses, with light grinning, or with splenetic sniffs and sneers, affecting even to yawn; and signified, in short, that they foundhim a humbug, and even a bore. Such was the candid theory thesemen of the Asphalt Lake formed to themselves of Moses, Thatprobably he was a humbug, that certainly he was a bore. 

Moses withdrew; but Nature and her rigorous veracities did notwithdraw. The men of the Dead Sea, when we next went to visitthem, were all 'changed into Apes;'* sitting on the trees there, grinning now in the most _un_affected manner; gibbering andchattering _complete_ nonsense; finding the whole Universe now amost indisputable Humbug! The Universe has _become_ a Humbug tothese Apes who thought it one! There they sit and chatter, tothis hour: only, I think, every Sabbath there returns to them abewildered half-consciousness, half-reminiscence; and they sit, with their wizened smoke-dried visages, and such an air ofsupreme tragicality as Apes may; looking out, through thoseblinking smoke-bleared eyes of theirs, into the wonderfulestuniversal smoky Twilight and undecipherable disordered Dusk ofThings; wholly an Uncertainty, Unintelligibility, they and it;and for commentary thereon, here and there an unmusical chatteror mew:--truest, tragicalest Humbug conceivable by the mind ofman or ape! They made no use of their souls; and so have lostthem. Their worship on the Sabbath now is to roost there, withunmusical screeches, and half-remember that they had souls. 

Didst thou never, O Traveler, fall in with parties of this tribe?Meseems they are grown somewhat numerous in our day. 

---------* Sale's _Koran_ (_Introduction_). 

Chapter IV

Happy

All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone noble:be that here said and asserted once more. And in like manner tooall dignity is painful; a life of ease is not for any man, norfor any god. The life of all gods figures itself to us as aSublime Sadness--earnestness of Infinite Battle against InfiniteLabour. Our highest religion is named the 'Worship of Sorrow. 'For the son of man there is no noble crown, well worn, or evenill worn, but is a crown of thorns!--These things, in spokenwords, or still better, in felt instincts alive in every heart, were once well known. 

Does not the whole wretchedness, the whole _Atheism_ as I callit, of man's ways, in these generations, shadow itself for us inthat unspeakable Life-philosophy of his: The pretension to bewhat he calls 'happy?' Every pitifulest whipster that walkswithin a skin has his head filled with the notion that he is, shall be, or by all human and divine laws ought to be, 'happy. 'His wishes, the pitifulest whipster's, are to be fulfilled forhim; his days, the pitifulest whipster's, are to flow on inever-gentle current of enjoyment, impossible even for the gods. The prophets preach to us, Thou shalt be happy; thou shalt lovepleasant things, and find them. The people clamour, Why have wenot found pleasant things?

We construct our theory of Human Duties, not on any Greatest-Nobleness Principle, never so mistaken; no, but on a Greatest-Happiness Principle. 'The word _Soul_ with us, as in someSlavonic dialects, seems to be synonymous with _Stomach. _ Weplead and speak, in our Parliaments and elsewhere, not as fromthe Soul, but from the Stomach;--wherefore, indeed, our pleadingsare so slow to profit. We plead not for God's justice; we arenot ashamed to stand clamouring and pleading for our own'interests, ' our own rents and trade-profits; we say, They arethe 'interests' of so many; there is such an intense desire forthem in us! We demand Free-Trade, with much just vociferationand benevolence, That the poorer classes, who are terribly ill-off at present, may have cheaper New-Orleans bacon. Men ask onFree-trade platforms, How can the indomitable spirit ofEnglishmen be kept up without plenty of bacon? We shall become aruined Nation!--Surely, my friends, plenty of bacon is good andindispensable: but, I doubt, you will never get even bacon byaiming only at that. You are men, not animals of prey, well-usedor ill-used! Your Greatest-Happiness Principle seems to me fastbecoming a rather unhappy one. --What if we should cease babblingabout 'happiness, ' and leave _it_ resting on its own basis, as itused to do!

A gifted Byron rises in his wrath; and feeling too surely thathe for his part is not 'happy, ' declares the same in very violentlanguage, as a piece of news that may be interesting. Itevidently has surprised him much. One dislikes to see a man andpoet reduced to proclaim on the streets such tidings: but on thewhole, as matters go, that is not the most dislikable. Byronspeaks the _truth_ in this matter. Byron's large audienceindicates how true it is felt to be. 

'Happy, ' my brother? First of all, what difference is it whetherthou art happy or not! Today becomes Yesterday so fast, allTomorrows become Yesterdays; and then there is no questionwhatever of the 'happiness, ' but quite another question. Nay, thou hast such a sacred pity left at least for thyself, thy verypains once gone over into Yesterday become joys to thee. Besides, thou knowest not what heavenly blessedness andindispensable sanative virtue was in them; thou shalt only knowit after many days, when thou art wiser!--A benevolent oldSurgeon sat once in our company, with a Patient fallen sick bygourmandising, whom he had just, too briefly in the Patient'sjudgment, been examining. The foolish Patient still at intervalscontinued to break in on our discourse, which rather promised totake a philosophic turn: "But I have lost my appetite, " said he, objurgatively, with a tone of irritated pathos; "I have noappetite; I can't eat!"--"My dear fellow, " answered the Doctorin mildest tone, "it isn't of the slightest consequence;"--andcontinued his philosophical discoursings with us!

Or does the reader not know the history of that Scottish ironMisanthrope? The inmates of some town-mansion, in those Northernparts, were thrown into the fearfulest alarm by indubitablesymptoms of a ghost inhabiting the next house, or perhaps eventhe partition-wall! Ever at a certain hour, with preternaturalgnarring, growling and screeching, which attended as runningbass, there began, in a horrid, semi-articulate, unearthly voice, this song: "Once I was hap-hap-happy, but now I'm _mees_-erable!Clack-clack-clack, gnarr-r-r, whuz-z: Once I was hap-hap-happy, but now I'm _mees_-erable!"--Rest, rest, perturbed spirit;--orindeed, as the good old Doctor said: My dear fellow, it isn't ofthe slightest consequence! But no; the perturbed spirit couldnot rest; and to the neighbours, fretted, affrighted, or atleast insufferably bored by him, it _was_ of such consequencethat they had to go and examine in his haunted chamber. In hishaunted chamber, they find that the perturbed spirit is anunfortunate--Imitator of Byron? No, is an unfortunate rustyMeat-jack, gnarring and creaking with rust and work; and this, in Scottish dialect, is _its_ Byronian musical Life-philosophy, sung according to ability!

Truly, I think the man who goes about pothering and uproaring forhis 'happiness, '--pothering, and were it ballot-boxing, poem-making, or in what way soever fussing and exerting himself, --heis not the man that will help us to 'get our knaves and dastardsarrested!' No; he rather is on the way to increase the number, --by at least one unit and _his_ tail! Observe, too, that this isall a modern affair; belongs not to the old heroic times, but tothese dastard new times. 'Happiness our being's end and aim' isat bottom, if we will count well, not yet two centuries old inthe world. 

The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with askingmuch about was, happiness enough to get his work done. Not "Ican't eat!" but "I can't work!" that was the burden of all wisecomplaining among men. It is, after all, the one unhappiness ofa man. That he cannot work; that he cannot get his destiny as aman fulfilled. Behold, the day is passing swiftly over, our lifeis passing swiftly over; and the night cometh, wherein no mancan work. The night once come, our happiness, our unhappiness, --it is all abolished; vanished, clean gone; a thing that hasbeen: 'not of the slightest consequence' whether we were happyas eupeptic Curtis, as the fattest pig of Epicurus, or unhappy asjob with potsherds, as musical Byron with Giaours andsensibilities of the heart; as the unmusical Meat-jack with hardlabour and rust! But our work, --behold that is not abolished, that has not vanished: our work, behold, it remains, or the wantof it remains;--for endless Times and Eternities, remains; andthat is now the sole question with us forevermore! Briefbrawling Day, with its noisy phantasms, its poor paper-crownstinsel-gilt, is gone; and divine everlasting Night, with herstar-diadems, with her silences and her veracities, is come!What hast thou done, and how? Happiness, unhappiness: all thatwas but the _wages_ thou hadst; thou hast spent all that, insustaining thyself hitherward; not a coin of it remains withthee, it is all spent, eaten: and now thy work, where is thywork? Swift, out with it, let us see thy work!

Of a truth, if man were not a poor hungry dastard, and evenmuch of a blockhead withal, he would cease criticising hisvictuals to such extent; and criticise himself rather, whathe does with his victuals!

Chapter V

The English

And yet, with all thy theoretic platitudes, what a depth ofpractical sense in thee, great England! A depth of sense, ofjustice, and courage; in which, under all emergencies and world-bewilderments, and under this most complex of emergencies we nowlive in, there is still hope, there is still assurance!

The English are a dumb people. They can do great acts, but notdescribe them. Like the old Romans, and some few others, _their_Epic Poem is written on the Earth's surface: England her Mark!It is complained that they have no artists: one Shakspeareindeed; but for Raphael only a Reynolds; for Mozart nothing buta Mr. Bishop: not a picture, not a song. And yet they didproduce one Shakspeare: consider how the element of Shakspeareanmelody does lie imprisoned in their nature; reduced to unfolditself in mere Cotton-mills, Constitutional Governments, and suchlike;--all the more interesting when it does become visible, aseven in such unexpected shapes it succeeds in doing! Goethespoke of the Horse, how impressive, almost affecting it was thatan animal of such qualities should stand obstructed so; itsspeech nothing but an inarticulate neighing, its handiness mere_hoof_iness, the fingers all constricted, tied together, thefingernails coagulated into a mere hoof, shod with iron. Themore significant, thinks he, are those eye-flashings of thegenerous noble quadruped; those prancings, curvings of the neckclothed with thunder. 

A Dog of Knowledge has _free_ utterance; but the Warhorse isalmost mute, very far from free! It is even so. Truly, yourfreest utterances are not by any means always the best: they arethe worst rather; the feeblest, trivialest; their meaningprompt, but small, ephemeral. Commend me to the silent English, to the silent Romans. Nay, the silent Russians too I believe tobe worth something: are they not even now drilling, under muchobloquy, an immense semi-barbarous half-world from Finland toKamtschatka, into rule, subordination, civilisation, --really inan old Roman fashion; speaking no word about it; quietly hearingall manner of vituperative Able Editors speak! While your ever-talking, ever-gesticulating French, for example, what are they atthis moment drilling?--Nay, of all animals, the freest ofutterance, I should judge, is the genus Simia:_ go into theIndian woods, say all Travelers, and look what a brisk, adroit, unresting Ape-population it is!

The spoken Word, the written Poem, is said to be an epitome ofthe man; how much more the done Work. Whatsoever of moralityand of intelligence; what of patience, perseverance, faithfulness, of method, insight, ingenuity, energy; in a word, whatsoever of Strength the man had in him will lie written in theWork he does. To work: why, it is to try himself againstNature, and her everlasting unerring Laws; these will tell atrue verdict as to the man. So much of virtue and of faculty did_we_ find in him; so much and no more! He had such capacity ofharmonising himself with _me_ and my unalterable ever-veraciousLaws; of cooperating and working as _I_ bade him;--and hasprospered, and has not prospered, as you see!--Working as greatNature bade him: does not that mean virtue of a kind; nay, ofall kinds? Cotton can be spun and sold, Lancashire operativescan be got to spin it, and at length one has the woven webs andsells them, by following Nature's regulations in that matter: bynot following Nature's regulations, you have them not. You havethem not;--there is no Cotton-web to sell: Nature finds a billagainst you; your 'Strength' is not Strength, but Futility! Letfaculty be honoured, so far as it is faculty. A man that cansucceed in working is to me always a man. 

How one loves to see the burly figure of him, this thick-skinned, seemingly opaque, perhaps sulky, almost stupid Man of Practice, pitted against some light--adroit Man of Theory, all equipt withclear logic, and able anywhere to give you Why for Wherefore! Theadroit Man of Theory, so light of movement, clear of utterance, with his bow full-bent and quiver full of arrow-arguments, --surely he will strike down the game, transfix everywhere theheart of the matter; triumph everywhere, as he proves that heshall and must do? To your astonishment, it turns out oftenestNo. The cloudy-browed, thick-soled, opaque Practicality, with nologic-utterance, in silence mainly, with here and there a lowgrunt or growl, has in him what transcends all logic-utterance:a Congruity with the Unuttered! The Speakable, which lies atop, as a superficial film, or outer skin, is his or is not his: butthe Doable, which reaches down to the World's centre, you findhim there!

The rugged Brindleys has little to say for himself; the ruggedBrindley, when difficulties accumulate on him, retires silent, 'generally to his bed;' retires 'sometimes for three daystogether to his bed, that he may be in perfect privacy there, 'and ascertain in his rough head how the difficulties can beovercome. The ineloquent Brindley, behold he _has_ chained seastogether; his ships do visibly float over valleys, invisiblythrough the hearts of mountains; the Mersey and the Thames, theHumber and the Severn have shaken hands: Nature most audiblyanswers, Yea! The man of Theory twangs his full-bent bow:Nature's Fact ought to fall stricken, but does not: his logic-arrow glances from it as from a scaly dragon, and the obstinateFact keeps walking its way. How singular! At bottom, you willhave to grapple closer with the dragon; take it home to you, byreal faculty, not by seeming faculty; try whether you arestronger or it is stronger. Close with it, wrestle it: sheerobstinate toughness of muscle; but much more, what we calltoughness of heart, which will mean persistance hopeful and evendesperate, unsubduable patience, composed candid openness, clearness of mind: all this shall be 'strength' in wrestlingyour dragon; the whole man's real strength is in this work, weshall get the measure of him here. 

Of all the Nations in the world at present we English are thestupidest in speech, the wisest in action. As good as a 'dumb'Nation, I say, who cannot speak, and have never yet spoken, --spite of the Shakspeares and Miltons who skew us whatpossibilities there are!--O Mr. Bull, I look in that surly faceof thine with a mixture of pity and laughter, yet also withwonder and veneration. Thou complainest not, my illustriousfriend; and yet I believe the heart of thee is full of sorrow, of unspoken sadness, seriousness, --profound melancholy (as somehave said) the basis of thy being. Unconsciously, for thouspeakest of nothing, this great Universe is great to thee. Notby levity of floating, but by stubborn force of swimming, shaltthou make thy way. The Fates sing of thee that thou shalt manytimes be thought an ass and a dull ox, and shalt with a god-likeindifference believe it. My friend, --and it is all untrue, nothing ever falser in point of fact! Thou art of those greatones whose greatness the small passer-by does not discern. Thyvery stupidity is wiser than their wisdom. A grand _visinertiae_ is in thee; how many grand qualities unknown to smallmen! Nature alone knows thee, acknowledges the bulk and strengthof thee: thy Epic, unsung in words, is written in hugecharacters on the face of this Planet, --sea-moles, cotton-trades, railways, fleets and cities, Indian Empires, Americas, New-Hollands; legible throughout the Solar System!

But the dumb Russians too, as I said, they, drilling all wildAsia and wild Europe into military rank and file, a terrible yethitherto a prospering enterprise, are still dumber. The oldRomans also could not _speak, _ for many centuries:--not till theworld was theirs; and so many speaking Greekdoms, their logic-arrows all spent, had been absorbed and abolished. The logic-arrows, how they glanced futile from obdurate thick-skinnedFacts; Facts to be wrestled down only by the real vigour ofRoman thews!--As for me, I honour, in these loud-babbling days, all the Silent rather. A grand Silence that of Romans;--nay thegrandest of all, is it not that of the gods! Even Triviality, Imbecility, that can sit silent, how respectable is it incomparison! The 'talent of silence' is our fundamental one. Great honour to him whose Epic is a melodious hexameter Iliad;not a jingling Sham-Iliad, nothing true in it but the hexametersand forms merely. But still greater honour, if his Epic be amighty Empire slowly built together, a mighty Series of HeroicDeeds, --a mighty Conquest over Chaos; _which_ Epic the 'EternalMelodies' have, and must have, informed and dwelt in, as it sungitself! There is no mistaking that latter Epic. Deeds aregreater than Words. Deeds have such a life, mute but undeniable, and grow as living trees and fruit-trees do; they people thevacuity of Time, and make it green and worthy. Why should theoak prove logically that it ought to grow, and will grow? Plantit, try it; what gifts of diligent judicious assimilation andsecretion it has, of progress and resistance, of _force_ to grow, will then declare themselves. My much-honoured, illustrious, extremely inarticulate Mr. Bull!--

Ask Bull his spoken opinion of any matter, --oftentimes the forceof dulness can no farther go. You stand silent, incredulous, asover a platitude that borders on the Infinite. The man'sChurchisms, Dissenterisms, Puseyisms, Benthamisms, CollegePhilosophies, Fashionable Literatures, are unexampled in thisworld. Fate's prophecy is fulfilled; you call the man an ox andan ass. But set him once to work, --respectable man! His spokensense is next to nothing, nine-tenths of it palpable _nonsense:_but his unspoken sense, his inner silent feeling of what is true, what does agree with fact, what is doable and what is notdoable, --this seeks its fellow in the world. A terrible worker;irresistible against marshes, mountains, impediments, disorder, in civilisation; everywhere vanquishing disorder, leaving itbehind him as method and order. He 'retires to his bed threedays, ' and considers!

Nay withal, stupid as he is, our dear John, --ever, after infinitetumblings, and spoken platitudes innumerable from barrelheads andparliament-benches, he does settle down somewhere about the justconclusion; you are certain that his jumblings and tumblingswill end, after years or centuries, in the stable equilibrium. Stable equilibrium, I say; centre-of-gravity lowest;--not theunstable, with centre-of-gravity highest, as I have known it doneby quicker people! For indeed, do but jumble and tumblesufficiently, you avoid that worst fault, of settling with yourcentre-of-gravity highest; your centre-of-gravity is certain tocome lowest, and to stay there. If slowness, what we in ourimpatience call 'stupidity, ' be the price of stable equilibriumover unstable, shall we grudge a little slowness? Not the leastadmirable quality of Bull is, after all, that of remaininginsensible to logic; holding out for considerable periods, tenyears or more, as in this of the Corn-Laws, after all argumentsand shadow of arguments have faded away from him, till the veryurchins on the street titter at the arguments he brings. Logic, --[Greek] the 'Art of Speech, '--does indeed speak so and so;clear enough: nevertheless Bull still shakes his head; will seewhether nothing else _illogical, _ not yet 'spoken, ' not yet ableto be 'spoken, ' do not lie in the business, as there so oftendoes!--My firm belief is, that, finding himself now enchanted, hand-shackled, foot-shackled, in Poor-Law Bastilles andelsewhere, he will retire three days to his bed, and _arrive_ ata conclusion or two! His three-years total stagnation of trade, alas, is not that a painful enough 'lying in bed to considerhimself?' Poor Bull!

Bull is a born Conservative; for this too I inexpressibly honourhim. All great Peoples are conservative; slow to believe innovelties; patient of much error in actualities; deeply andforever certain of the greatness that is in LAW, in Custom oncesolemnly established, and now long recognised as just and final. --True, O Radical Reformer, there is no Custom that can, properlyspeaking, be final; none. And yet thou seest _Customs_ which, in all civilised countries, are accounted final; nay, under theOld Roman name of _Mores, _ are accounted _Morality, _ Virtue, Lawsof God Himself. Such, I assure thee, not a few of them are;such almost all of them once were. And greatly do I respect thesolid character, --a blockhead, thou wilt say; yes, but a well-conditioned blockhead, and the best-conditioned, --who esteems all'Customs once solemnly acknowledged' to be ultimate, divine, andthe rule for a man to walk by, nothing doubting, not inquiringfarther. What a time of it had we, were all men's life and tradestill, in all parts of it, a problem, a hypothetic seeking, to besettled by painful Logics and Baconian Inductions! The Clerk inEastcheap cannot spend the day in verifying his Ready-Reckoner;he must take it as verified, true and indisputable; or his Book-keeping by Double Entry will stand still. "Where is your PostedLedger?" asks the Master at night. --"Sir, " answers the other, "Iwas verifying my Ready-Reckoner, and find some errors. TheLedger is--!"--Fancy such a thing!

True, all turns on your Ready-Reckoner being moderately correct, --being _not_ insupportably incorrect! A Ready-Reckoner which hasled to distinct entries in your Ledger such as these:_'Creditor_ an English People by fifteen hundred years of goodLabour; and _Debtor_ to lodging in enchanted Poor-Law Bastilles:_Creditor_ by conquering the largest Empire the Sun ever saw;and _Debtor_ to Donothingism and "Impossible" written on alldepartments of the government thereof: _Creditor_ by mountainsof gold ingots earned; and _Debtor_ to No Bread purchasable bythem:'--_such_ Ready-Reckoner, methinks, is beginning to besuspect; nay is ceasing, and has ceased, to be suspect! SuchReady-Reckoner is a Solecism in Eastcheap; and must, whatever bethe press of business, and will and shall be rectified a little. Business can go on no longer with _it. _ The most ConservativeEnglish People, thickest-skinned, most patient of Peoples, isdriven alike by its Logic and its Unlogic, by things 'spoken, 'and by things not yet spoken or very speakable, but only felt andvery unendurable, to be wholly a Reforming People. Their Life asit is has ceased to be longer possible for them. 

Urge not this noble silent People; rouse not the Berserkir-ragethat lies in them! Do you know their Cromwells, Hampdens, theirPyms and Bradshaws? Men very peaceable, but men that can be madevery terrible! Men who, like their old Teutsch Fathers inAgrippa's days, 'have a soul that despises death;' to whom'death, ' compared with falsehoods and injustices, is light;--'inwhom there is a range unconquerable by the immortal gods!'Before this, the English People have taken very preternatural-looking Spectres by the beard; saying virtually: "And if thou_wert_ 'preternatural?' Thou with thy 'divine-rights' growndiabolic wrongs? Thou, --not even 'natural;' decapitable;totally extinguishable!"--Yes, just so godlike as this People'spatience was, even so godlike will and must its impatience be. Away, ye scandalous Practical Solecisms, children actually of thePrince of Darkness; ye have near broken our hearts; we can andwill endure you no longer. Begone, we say; depart, while theplay is good! By the Most High God, whose sons and bornmissionaries true men are, ye shall not continue here! You andwe have become incompatible; can inhabit one house no longer. Either you must go, or we. Are ye ambitious to try _which_ itshall be?

O my Conservative friends, who still specially name and struggleto approve yourselves 'Conservative, ' would to Heaven I couldpersuade you of this world-old fact, than which Fate is notsurer, That Truth and justice alone are _capable_ of being'conserved' and preserved! The thing which is unjust, which isnot according to God's Law, will you, in a God's Universe, try toconserve that? It is so old, say you? Yes, and the hotter hasteought _you, _ of all others, to be in to let it grow no older! Ifbut the faintest whisper in your hearts intimate to you that itis not fair, --hasten, for the sake of Conservatism itself, toprobe it rigorously, to cast it forth at once and forever ifguilty. How will or can you preserve _it, _ the thing that is notfair? 'Impossibility' a thousandfold is marked on that. And yecall yourselves Conservatives, Aristocracies:--ought not honourand nobleness of mind, if they had departed from all the Earthelsewhere, to find their last refuge with you? Ye unfortunate!

The bough that is dead shall be cut away, for the sake of thetree itself. Old? Yes, it is too old. Many a weary winter hasit swung and creaked there, and gnawed and fretted, with its deadwood, the organic substance and still living fibre of this goodtree; many a long summer has its ugly naked brown defaced thefair green umbrage; every day it has done mischief, and thatonly: off with it, for the tree's sake, if for nothing more;let the Conservatism that would preserve cut _it_ away. Did nowood-forester apprise you that a dead bough with its dead rootleft sticking there is extraneous, poisonous; is as a dead ironspike, some horrid rusty ploughshare driven into the livingsubstance;--nay is far worse; for in every windstorm('commercial crisis' or the like), it frets and creaks, joltsitself to and fro, and cannot lie quiet as your dead ironspike would!

If I were the Conservative Party of England (which is anotherbold figure of speech), I would not for a hundred thousand poundsan hour allow those Corn-Laws to continue! Potosi and Golcondaput together would not purchase my assent to them. Do you countwhat treasuries of bitter indignation they are laying up for youin every just English heart? Do you know what questions, not asto Corn-prices and Sliding-scales alone, they are _forcing_ everyreflective Englishman to ask himself? Questions insoluble, orhitherto unsolved; deeper than any of our Logic-plummetshitherto will sound: questions deep enough, --which it werebetter that we did not name even in thought! You are forcing usto think of them, to begin uttering them. The utterance of themis begun; and where will it be ended, think you? When twomillions of one's brother-men sit in Workhouses, and fivemillions, as is insolently said, 'rejoice in potatoes, ' there arevarious things that must be begun, let them end where they can. 

Chapter VI

Two Centuries

The Settlement effected by our 'Healing Parliament' in the Yearof Grace 1660, though accomplished under universal acclamationsfrom the four corners of the British Dominions, turns out to havebeen one of the mournfulest that ever took place in this land ofours. It called and thought itself a Settlement of brightesthope and fulfilment, bright as the blaze of universal tar-barrelsand bonfires could make it: and we find it now, on looking backon it with the insight which trial has yielded, a Settlement asof despair. Considered well, it was a settlement to governhenceforth without God, with only some decent Pretence of God. 

Governing by the Christian Law of God had been found a thing ofbattle, convulsion, confusion, an infinitely difficult thing:wherefore let us now abandon it, and govern only by so much ofGod's Christian Law as--as may prove quiet and convenient for us. What is the end of Government? To guide men in the way whereinthey should go; towards their true good in this life, the portalof infinite good in a life to come? To guide men in such way, and ourselves in such way, as the Maker of men, whose eye is uponus, will sanction at the Great Day?--Or alas, perhaps at bottom_is_ there no Great Day, no sure outlook of any life to come;but only this poor life, and what of taxes, felicities, Nell-Gwyns and entertainments, we can manage to muster here? In thatcase, the end of Government will be, To suppress all noise anddisturbance, whether of Puritan preaching, Cameronian psalm-singing, thieves'-riot, murder, arson, or what noise soever, and--be careful that supplies do not fail! A very notableconclusion, if we will think of it; and not without an abundanceof fruits for us. Oliver Cromwell's body hung on the Tyburn-gallows, as the type of Puritanism found futile, inexecutable, execrable, --yes, that gallows-tree has been a fingerpost intovery strange country indeed. Let earnest Puritanism die; letdecent Formalism, whatsoever cant it be or grow to, live! Wehave had a pleasant journey in that direction; and are--arrivingat our inn?

To support the Four Pleas of the Crowns and keep Taxes coming in:in very sad seriousness, has not this been, ever since, even inthe best times, almost the one admitted end and aim ofGovernment? Religion, Christian Church, Moral Duty; the factthat man had a soul at all; that in man's life there was anyeternal truth or justice at all, --has been as good as leftquietly out of sight. Church indeed, --alas, the endless talk andstruggle we have had of High-Church, Low-Church, Church-Extension, Church-in-Danger: we invite the Christian reader tothink whether it has not been a too miserable screech-owlphantasm of talk and struggle, as for a 'Church, '--which one hadrather not define at present!

But now in these godless two centuries, looking at England andher efforts and doings, if we ask, What of England's doings theLaw of Nature had accepted, Nature's King had actually furtheredand pronounced to have truth in them, --where is our answer?Neither the 'Church' of Hurd and Warburton, nor the Anti-churchof Hume and Paine; not in any shape the Spiritualism of England:all this is already seen, or beginning to be seen, for what itis; a thing that Nature does _not_ own. On the one side isdreary Cant, with a _reminiscence_ of things noble and divine;on the other is but acrid Candour, with a _prophecy_ of thingsbrutal, infernal. Hurd and Warburton are sunk into the sere andyellow leaf; no considerable body of true-seeing men looksthitherward for healing: the Paine-and-Hume Atheistic theory, of'things well let alone, ' with Liberty, Equality and the like, isalso in these days declaring itself naught, unable to keep theworld from taking fire. 

The theories and speculations of both these parties, and, we maysay, of all intermediate parties and persons, prove to be thingswhich the Eternal Veracity did not accept; things superficial, ephemeral, which already a near Posterity, finding them alreadydead and brown-leafed, is about to suppress and forget. TheSpiritualism of England, for those godless years, is, as it were, all forgettable. Much has been written: but the perennialScriptures of Mankind have had small accession: from all EnglishBooks, in rhyme or prose, in leather binding or in paperwrappage, how many verses have been added to these? Our mostmelodious Singers have sung as from the throat outwards: fromthe inner Heart of Man, from the great Heart of Nature, throughno Pope or Philips, has there come any tone. The Oracles havebeen dumb. In brief, the Spoken Word of England has not beentrue. The Spoken Word of England turns out to have been trivial;of short endurance; not valuable, not available as a Word, except for the passing day. It has been accordant withtransitory Semblance; discordant with eternal Fact. It has beenunfortunately not a Word, but a Cant; a helpless involuntaryCant, nay too often a cunning voluntary one: either way, a verymournful Cant; the Voice not of Nature and Fact, but ofsomething other than these. 

With all its miserable shortcomings, with its wars, controversies, with its trades-unions, famine-insurrections, --itis her Practical Material Work alone that England has to shew forherself! This, and hitherto almost nothing more; yet actuallythis. The grim inarticulate veracity of the English People, unable to speak its meaning in words, has turned itself silentlyon things; and the dark powers of Material Nature have answered:Yes, this at least is true, this is not false! So answersNature. Waste desert-shrubs of the Tropical swamps have becomeCotton-trees; and here, under my furtherance, are verily wovenshirts, --hanging unsold, undistributed, but capable to bedistributed, capable to cover the bare backs of my children ofmen. Mountains, old as the Creation, I have permitted to bebored through: bituminous fuel-stores, the wreck of forests thatwere green a million years ago, --I have opened them from mysecret rock-chambers, and they are yours, ye English. Your hugefleets, steamships, do sail the sea: huge Indias do obey you;from huge _New_ Englands and Antipodal Australias, comes profitand traffic to this Old England of mine! So answers Nature. ThePractical Labour of England is _not_ a chimerical Triviality: itis a Fact, acknowledged by all the Worlds; which no man and nodemon will contradict. It is, very audibly, though veryinarticulately as yet, the one God's Voice we have heard in thesetwo atheistic centuries. 

And now to observe with what bewildering obscurations andimpediments all this as yet stands entangled, and is yetintelligible to no man! How, with our gross Atheism, we hear itnot to be the Voice of God to us, but regard it merely as a Voiceof earthly Profit-and-Loss. And have a Hell in England, --theHell of not making money. And coldly see the all-conqueringvaliant Sons of Toil sit enchanted, by the million, in theirPoor-Law Bastille, as if this were Nature's Law;--mumbling toourselves some vague janglement of Laissez-faire, Supply-and-demand, Cash-payment the one nexus of man to man: Free-trade, Competition, and Devil take the hindmost, our latest Gospelyet preached!

As if, in truth, there were no God of Labour; as if godlikeLabour and brutal Mammonism were convertible terms. A serious, most earnest Mammonism grown Midas-eared; an unseriousDilettantism, earnest about nothing, grinning with inarticulateincredulous incredible jargon about all things, as the_enchanted_ Dilettanti do by the Dead Sea! It is mournfulenough, for the present hour; were there not an endless hope init withal. Giant LABOUR, truest emblem there is of God theWorld-Worker, Demiurgus, and Eternal Maker; noble LABOUR, whichis yet to be the King of this Earth, and sit on the highestthrone, --staggering hitherto like a blind irrational giant, hardly allowed to have his common place on the street-pavements;idle Dilettantism, Dead-Sea Apism, crying out, "Down with him, heis dangerous!"

Labour must become a seeing rational giant, with a soul in thebody of him, and take his place on the throne of things, --leavinghis Mammonism, and several other adjuncts, on the lower steps ofsaid throne. 

Chapter VII

Over-Production

But what will reflective readers say of a Governing Class, suchas ours, addressing its Workers with an indictment of'Overproduction!' Over-production: runs it not so? "Yemiscellaneous, ignoble manufacturing individuals, ye haveproduced too much! We accuse you of making above two-hundredthousand shirts for the bare backs of mankind. Your trouserstoo, which you have made, of fustian, of cassimere, of Scotch-plaid, of jane, nankeen and woollen broadcloth, are they notmanifold? Of hats for the human head, of shoes for the humanfoot, of stools to sit on, spoons to eat with--Nay, what say wehats or shoes? You produce gold-watches, jewelleries, silver-forks and epergnes, commodes, chiffoniers, stuffed sofas--Heavens, the Commercial Bazaar and multitudinous Howel-and-Jameses cannot contain you. You have produced, produced;--hethat seeks your indictment, let him look around. Millions ofshirts, and empty pairs of breeches, hang there in judgmentagainst you. We accuse you of over-producing: you arecriminally guilty of producing shirts, breeches, hats, shoes andcommodities, in a frightful overabundance. And now there is aglut, and your operatives cannot be fed!"

Never surely, against an earnest Working Mammonism was therebrought, by Game-preserving aristocratic Dilettantism, a strangeraccusation, since this world began. My lords and gentlemen, --why, it was _you_ that were appointed, by the fact and by thetheory of your position on the Earth, to 'make and administerLaws, '--that is to say, in a world such as ours, to guard against'gluts;' against honest operatives, who had done their work, remaining unfed! I say, _you_ were appointed to preside over theDistribution and Apportionment of the Wages of Work done; and tosee well that there went no labourer without his hire, were it ofmoney-coins, were it of hemp gallows-ropes: that function wasyours, and from immemorial time has been; yours, and as yet noother's. These poor shirt-spinners have forgotten much, which bythe virtual unwritten law of their position they should haveremembered: but by any written recognised law of their position, what have they forgotten? They were set to make shirts. TheCommunity with all its voices commanded them, saying, "Makeshirts;"--and there the shirts are! Too many shirts? Well, thatis a novelty, in this intemperate Earth, with its nine-hundredmillions of bare backs! But the Community commanded you, saying, "See that the shirts are well apportioned, that our Human Laws beemblem of God's Laws;"--and where is the apportionment? Twomillion shirtless or ill-shirted workers sit enchanted inWorkhouse Bastilles, five million more (according to some) inUgolino Hunger-cellars; and for remedy, you say, what say you?--"Raise _our_ rents!" I have not in my time heard any strangerspeech, not even on the Shores of the Dead Sea. You continueaddressing those poor shirt-spinners and over-producers, inreally a _too_ triumphant manner:

"Will you bandy accusations, will you accuse us ofoverproduction? We take the Heavens and the Earth to witnessthat we have produced nothing at all. Not from us proceeds thisfrightful _over_plus of shirts. In the wide domains of createdNature, circulates no shirt or thing of our producing. Certainfox-brushes nailed upon our stable-door, the fruit of fairaudacity at Melton Mowbray; these we have produced, and they areopenly nailed up there. He that accuses us of producing, let himshew himself, let him name what and when. We are innocent ofproducing;--ye ungrateful, what mountains of things have we not, on the contrary, had to 'consume, ' and make away with! Mountainsof those your heaped manufactures, wheresoever edible orwearable, have they not disappeared before us, as if we had thetalent of ostriches, of cormorants, and a kind of divine facultyto eat? Ye ungrateful!--and did you not grow under the shadow ofour wings? Are not your filthy mills built on these fields ofours; on this soil of England, which belongs to--whom think you?And we shall not offer you our own wheat at the price thatpleases us, but that partly pleases you? A precious notion!What would become of you, if we chose, at any time, to decide ongrowing no wheat more?"

Yes, truly, here is the ultimate rock-basis of all Corn-Laws;whereon, at the bottom of much arguing, they rest, as securely asthey can: What would become of you, if we decided, some day, ongrowing no more wheat at all? If we chose to grow only partridgeshenceforth, and a modicum of wheat for our own uses? Cannot wedo what we like with our own?--Yes, indeed! For my share, if Icould melt Gneiss Rock, and create Law of Gravitation; if Icould stride out to the Doggerbank, some morning, and strikingdown my trident there into the mudwaves, say, "Be land, befields, meadows, mountains and fresh-rolling streams!" by Heaven, I should incline to have the letting of _that_ land inperpetuity, and sell the wheat of it, or burn the wheat of it, according to my own good judgment! My Corn-Lawing friends, youaffright me. 

To the 'Millo-cracy' so-called, to the Working Aristocracy, steeped too deep in mere ignoble Mammonism, and as yet allunconscious of its noble destinies, as yet but an irrational orsemirational giant, struggling to awake some soul in itself, --theworld will have much to say, reproachfully, reprovingly, admonishingly. But to the Idle Aristocracy, what will the worldhave to say? Things painful and not pleasant!

To the man who _works, _ who attempts, in never so ungraciousbarbarous a way, to get forward with some work, you will hastenout with furtherances, with encouragements, corrections; youwill say to him: "Welcome, thou art ours; our care shall be ofthee. " To the idler, again, never so gracefully going idle, coming forward with never so many parchments, you will not hastenout; you will sit still, and be disinclined to rise. You willsay to him: "Not welcome, O complex Anomaly; would thou hadststaid out of doors: for who of mortals knows what to do withthee? Thy parchments: yes, they are old, of venerableyellowness; and we too honour parchment, old-establishedsettlements, and venerable use and wont. Old parchments in verytruth:--yet on the whole, if thou wilt remark, they are young tothe Granite Rocks, to the Groundplan of God's Universe! Weadvise thee to put up thy parchments; to go home to thy place, and make no needless noise whatever. Our heart's wish is to savethee: yet there as thou art, hapless Anomaly, with nothing butthy yellow parchments, noisy futilities, and shotbelts and fox-brushes, who of gods or men can avert dark Fate? Be counselled, ascertain if no work exist for thee on God's Earth; if thou findno commanded-duty there but that of going gracefully idle? Ask, inquire earnestly, with a half-frantic earnestness; for theanswer means Existence or Annihilation to thee. We apprise theeof the world-old fact, becoming sternly disclosed again in thesedays, That he who cannot work in this Universe cannot get existedin it: had he parchments to thatch the face of the world, these, combustible fallible sheepskin, cannot avail him. Home, thouunfortunate; and let us have at least no noise from thee!"

Suppose the unfortunate Idle Aristocracy, as the unfortunateWorking one has done, were to 'retire three days to _its_ bed, 'and consider itself there, what o'clock it had become?--

How have we to regret not only that men have 'no religion, ' butthat they have next to no reflection; and go about with headsfull of mere extraneous noises, with eyes wide-open butvisionless, --for most part, in the somnambulist state!

Chapter VIII

Unworking Aristocracy

It is well said, 'Land is the right basis of an Aristocracy;'whoever possesses the Land, he, more emphatically than any other, is the Governor, Viceking of the people on the Land. It is inthese days as it was in those of Henry Plantagenet and AbbotSamson; as it will in all days be. The Land is _Mother_ of usall; nourishes, shelters, gladdens, lovingly enriches us all;in how many ways, from our first wakening to our last sleep onher blessed mother-bosom, does she, as with blessed mother-arms, enfold us all!

The Hill I first saw the Sun rise over, when the Sun and I andall things were yet in their auroral hour, who can divorce mefrom it? Mystic, deep as the world's centre, are the roots Ihave struck into my Native Soil; no _tree_ that grows is rootedso. From noblest Patriotism to humblest industrial Mechanism;from highest dying for your country, to lowest quarrying andcoal-boring for it, a Nation's Life depends upon its Land. Againand again we have to say, there can be no true Aristocracy butmust possess the Land. 

Men talk of 'selling' Land. Land, it is true, like Epic Poemsand even higher things, in such a trading world, has to bepresented in the market for what it will bring, and as we say be'sold:' but the notion of 'selling, ' for certain bits of metal, the _Iliad_ of Homer, how much more the _Land_ of the World-Creator, is a ridiculous impossibility! We buy what is saleableof it; nothing more was ever buyable. Who can, or could, sellit to us? Properly speaking, the Land belongs to these two: Tothe Almighty God; and to all His Children of Men that have everworked well on it, or that shall ever work well on it. Nogeneration of men can or could, with never such solemnity andeffort, sell Land on any other principle: it is not the propertyof any generation, we say, but that of all the past generationsthat have worked on it, and of all the future ones that shallwork on it. Again, we hear it said, The soil of England, or ofany country, is properly worth nothing, except the labourbestowed on it: This, speaking even in the language ofEastcheap, is not correct. The rudest space of country equal inextent to England, could a whole English Nation, with all theirhabitudes, arrangements, skills, with whatsoever they do carrywithin the skins of them, and cannot be stript of, suddenly takewing, and alight on it, --would be worth a very considerablething! Swiftly, within year and day, this English Nation, withits multiplex talents of ploughing, spinning, hammering, mining, road-making and trafficking, would bring a handsome value out ofsuch a space of country. On the other hand, fancy what anEnglish Nation, once 'on the wing, ' could have done with itself, had there been simply no soil, not even an inarable one, toalight on? Vain all its talents for ploughing, hammering, andwhatever else; there is no Earth-room for this Nation with itstalents: this Nation will have to keep hovering on the wing, dolefully shrieking to and fro; and perish piecemeal; buryingitself, down to the last soul of it, in the waste unfirmamentedseas. Ah yes, soil, with or without ploughing, is the gift ofGod. The soil of all countries belongs evermore, in a veryconsiderable degree, to the Almighty Maker! The last stroke oflabour bestowed on it is not the making of its value, but onlythe increasing thereof. 

It is very strange, the degree to which these truisms areforgotten in our days; how, in the ever-whirling chaos ofFormulas, we have quietly lost sight of Fact, --which it is soperilous not to keep forever in sight! Fact, if we do not seeit, will make us _feel_ it by and by!--From much loud controversyand Corn-Law debating there rises, loud though inarticulate, oncemore in these years, this very question among others, Who madethe Land of England? Who made it, this respectable English Land, wheat-growing, metalliferous, carboniferous, which will letreadily hand over head for seventy millions or upwards, as ithere lies: who did make it?--"We!" answer the much-_consuming_Aristocracy; "We!" as they ride in, moist with the sweat ofMelton Mowbray: "It is we that made it; or are the heirs, assigns and representatives of those who did!"--My brothers, You?Everlasting honour to you, then; and Corn-Laws as many as youwill, till your own deep stomachs cry Enough, or some voice ofhuman pity for our famine bids you Hold! Ye are as gods, thatcan create soil. Soil-creating gods there is no withstanding. They have the might to sell wheat at what price they list; andthe right, to all lengths, and famine-lengths, --if they bepitiless infernal gods! Celestial gods, I think, would stopshort of the famine-price; but no infernal nor any kind of godcan be bidden stop!--Infatuated mortals, into what questions areyou driving every thinking man in England?

I say, you did _not_ make the Land of England; and, by thepossession of it, you _are_ bound to furnish guidance andgovernance to England! That is the law of your position on thisGod's-Earth; an everlasting act of Heaven's Parliament, notrepealable in St. Stephen's or elsewhere! True government andguidance; not no-government and Laissez-faire; how much less, misgovernment and Corn-Law! There is not an imprisoned Workerlooking out from these Bastilles but appeals, very audibly inHeaven's High Courts, against you, and me, and every one who isnot imprisoned, "Why am I here?" His appeal is audible inHeaven; and will become audible enough on Earth too, if itremain unheeded here. His appeal is against you, foremost ofall; you stand in the front-rank of the accused; you, by thevery place you hold, have first of all to answer him and Heaven!

What looks maddest, miserablest in these mad and miserable Corn-Laws is independent altogether of their 'effect on wages, ' theireffect on 'increase of trade, ' or any other such effect: it isthe continual maddening proof they protrude into the faces of allmen, that our Governing Class, called by God and Nature and theinflexible law of Fact, either to do something towards governing, or to die and be abolished, --have not yet learned even to sitstill, and do no mischief! For no Anti-Corn-Law League yet asksmore of them than this;--Nature and Fact, very imperatively, asking so much more of them. Anti-Corn-Law League asks not, Dosomething; but, Cease your destructive misdoing, Do ye nothing!

Nature's message will have itself obeyed: messages of mere Free-Trade, Anti-Corn-Law League and Laissez-faire, will then needsmall obeying!--Ye fools, in name of Heaven, work, work, at theArk of Deliverance for yourselves and us, while hours are stillgranted you! No: instead of working at the Ark, they say, "Wecannot get our hands kept rightly warm;" and _sit obstinatelyburning the planks. _ No madder spectacle at present exhibitsitself under this Sun. 

The Working Aristocracy; Mill-owners, Manufacturers, Commandersof Working Men: alas, against them also much shall be brought inaccusation; much, --and the freest Trade in Corn, total abolitionof Tariffs, and uttermost 'Increase of Manufactures' and'Prosperity of Commerce, ' will permanently mend no jot of it. The Working Aristocracy must strike into a new path; mustunderstand that money alone is _not_ the representative either ofman's success in the world, or of man's duties to man; andreform their own selves from top to bottom, if they wish Englandreformed. England will not be habitable long, unreformed. 

The Working Aristocracy--Yes, but on the threshold of all this, it is again and again to be asked, What of the Idle Aristocracy?Again and again, what shall we say of the Idle Aristocracy, theOwners of the Soil of England; whose recognised function is thatof handsomely consuming the rents of England, shooting thepartridges of England, and as an agreeable amusement (if thepurchase-money and other conveniences serve), dilettante-ing inParliament and Quarter-Sessions for England? We will saymournfully, in the presence of Heaven and Earth, --that we standspeechless, stupent, and know not what to say! That a class ofmen entitled to live sumptuously on the marrow of the earth;permitted simply, nay entreated, and as yet entreated in vain, todo nothing at all in return, was never heretofore seen on theface of this Planet. That such a class is transitory, exceptional, and, unless Nature's Laws fall dead, cannotcontinue. That it has continued now a moderate while; has, forthe last fifty years, been rapidly attaining its state ofperfection. That it will have to find its duties and do them;or else that it must and will cease to be seen on the face ofthis Planet, which is a Working one, not an Idle one. 

Alas, alas, the Working Aristocracy, admonished by Trades-unions, Chartist conflagrations, above all by their own shrewd sense keptin perpetual communion with the fact of things, will assuredlyreform themselves, and a working world will still be possible:--but the fate of the Idle Aristocracy, as one reads its horoscopehitherto in Corn-Laws and such like, is an abyss that fills onewith despair. Yes, my rosy fox-hunting brothers, a terrible_Hippocratic look_ reveals itself (God knows, not to my joy)through those fresh buxom countenances of yours. Through yourCorn-Law Majorities, Sliding-Scales, Protecting-Duties, Bribery-Elections and triumphant Kentish-fires a thinking eye discernsghastly images of ruin, too ghastly for words; a handwriting asof MENE, MENE? Men and brothers, on your Sliding-scale you seemsliding, and to have slid, --you little know whither! Good God!did not a French Donothing Aristocracy, hardly above half acentury ago, declare in like manner, and in its featherheadbelieve in like manner, "We cannot exist, and continue to dressand parade ourselves, on the just rent of the soil of France;but we must have farther payment than rent of the soil, we mustbe exempted from taxes too, "--we must have a Corn-Law to extendour rent? This was in 1789: in four years more--Did you lookinto the Tanneries of Meudon, and the long-naked making forthemselves breeches of human skins! May the merciful Heavensavert the omen; may we be wiser, that so we be less wretched. 

A High Class without duties to do is like a tree planted onprecipices; from the roots of which all the earth has beencrumbling. Nature owns no man who is not a Martyr withal. Isthere a man who pretends to live luxuriously housed up; screenedfrom all work, from want, danger, hardship, the victory overwhich is what we name work;--he himself to sit serene, amid down-bolsters and appliances, and have all his work and battling doneby other men? And such man calls himself a _noble_-man? Hisfathers worked for him, he says; or successfully gambled forhim: here _he_ sits; professes, not in sorrow but in pride, that he and his have done no work, time out of mind. It is thelaw of the land, and is thought to be the law of the Universe, that he, alone of recorded men, shall have no task laid on him, except that of eating his cooked victuals, and not flinginghimself out of window. Once more I will say, there was nostranger spectacle ever shewn under this Sun. A veritable factin our England of the Nineteenth Century. His victuals he doeseat: but as for keeping in the inside of the window, --have nothis friends, like me, enough to do? Truly, looking at his Corn-Laws, Game-Laws, Chandos-Clauses, Bribery-Elections and muchelse, you do shudder over the tumbling and plunging he makes, held back by the lappelles and coatskirts; only a thin fence ofwindow-glass before him, --and in the street mere horrid ironspikes! My sick brother, as in hospital-maladies men do, thoudreamest of Paradises and Eldorados, which are far from thee. 'Cannot I do what I like with my own?' Gracious Heaven, mybrother, this that thou seest with those sick eyes is no firmEldorado, and Corn-Law Paradise of Donothings, but a dream of thyown fevered brain. It is a glass-window, I tell thee, so manystories from the street; where are iron spikes and the lawof gravitation!

What is the meaning of nobleness, if this be 'noble?' In avaliant suffering for others, not in a slothful making otherssuffer for us, did nobleness ever lie. The chief of men is hewho stands in the van of men; fronting the peril which frightensback all others; which, if it be not vanquished, will devour theothers. Every noble crown is, and on Earth will forever be, acrown of thorns. The Pagan Hercules, why was he accounted ahero? Because he had slain Nemean Lions, cleansed AugeanStables, undergone Twelve Labours only not too heavy for a god. In modern, as in ancient and all societies, the Aristocracy, theythat assume the functions of an Aristocracy, doing them or not, have taken the post of honour; which is the post of difficulty, the post of danger, --of death, if the difficulty be not overcome. _Il faut payer de sa vie. _ Why was our life given us, if notthat we should manfully give it? Descend, O Donothing Pomp;quit thy down-cushions; expose thyself to learn what wretchesfeel, and how to cure it! The Czar of Russia became a dustytoiling shipwright; worked with his axe in the Docks of Saardam;and his aim was small to thine. Descend thou: undertake thishorrid 'living chaos of Ignorance and Hunger' weltering round thyfeet; say, "I will heal it, or behold I will die foremost init. " Such is verily the law. Everywhere and everywhen a man hasto _'pay_ with his life;' to do his work, as a soldier does, atthe expense of life. In no Piepowder earthly Court can you suean Aristocracy to do its work, at this moment: but in the HigherCourt, which even it calls 'Court of Honour, ' and which is theCourt of Necessity withal, and the eternal Court of the Universe, in which all Fact comes to plead, and every Human Soul is anapparitor, --the Aristocracy is answerable, and even nowanswering, _there. _

Parchments? Parchments are venerable: but they ought at alltimes to represent, as near as they by possibility can, thewriting of the Adamant Tablets; otherwise they are not sovenerable! Benedict the Jew in vain pleaded parchments; hisusuries were too many. The King said, "Go to, for all thyparchments, thou shalt pay just debt; down with thy dust, orobserve this tooth-forceps!" Nature, a far juster Sovereign, hasfar terribler forceps. Aristocracies, actual and imaginary, reach a time when parchment pleading does not avail them. "Goto, for all thy parchments, thou shalt pay due debt!" shouts theUniverse to them, in an emphatic manner. They refuse to pay, confidently pleading parchment: their best grinder-tooth, withhorrible agony, goes out of their jaw. Wilt thou pay now? Asecond grinder, again in horrible agony, goes: a second, and athird, and if need be, all the teeth and grinders, and the lifeitself with them;--and _then_ there is free payment, and ananatomist-subject into the bargain!

Reform Bills, Corn-Law Abrogation Bills, and then Land-Tax Bill, Property-Tax Bill, and still dimmer list of _etceteras;_ grinderafter grinder:---my lords and gentlemen, it were better foryou to arise, and begin doing your work, than sit there andplead parchments!

We write no Chapter on the Corn-Laws, in this place; the Corn-Laws are too mad to have a Chapter. There is a certainimmorality, when there is not a necessity, in speaking aboutthings finished; in chopping into small pieces the alreadyslashed and slain. When the brains are out, why does not aSolecism die! It is at its own peril if it refuse to die; itought to make all conceivable haste to die, and get itselfburied! The trade of Anti-Corn-Law Lecturer in these days, stillan indispensable, is a highly tragic one. 

The Corn-Laws will go, and even soon go: would we were all assure of the Millennium as they are of going! They go swiftly inthese present months; with an increase of velocity, an ever-deepening, ever-widening sweep of momentum, truly notable. It isat the Aristocracy's own damage and peril, still more than at anyother's whatsoever, that the Aristocracy maintains them;--at adamage, say only, as above computed, of a 'hundred thousandpounds an hour!' The Corn-Laws keep all the air hot: fosteredby their fever-warmth, much that is evil, but much also, howmuch that is good and indispensable, is rapidly coming to lifeamong us!

Chapter IX

Working Aristocracy

A poor Working Mammonism getting itself 'strangled in thepartridge-nets of an Unworking Dilettantism, ' and bellowingdreadfully, and already black in the face, is surely a disastrousspectacle! But of a Midas-eared Mammonism, which indeed atbottom all pure Mammonisms are, what better can you expect? Nobetter;--if not this, then something other equally disastrous, ifnot still more disastrous. Mammonisms, grown asinine, have tobecome human again, and rational; they have, on the whole, tocease to be Mammonisms, were it even on compulsion, and pressureof the hemp round their neck!--My friends of the WorkingAristocracy, there are now a great many things which you also, inyour extreme need, will have to consider. 

The Continental people, it would seem, are 'exporting ourmachinery, beginning to spin cotton and manufacture forthemselves, to cut us out of this market and then out of that!'Sad news indeed; but irremediable;--by no means the saddestnews. The saddest news is, that we should find our NationalExistence, as I sometimes hear it said, depend on sellingmanufactured cotton at a farthing an ell cheaper than any otherPeople. A most narrow stand for a great Nation to base itselfon! A stand which, with all the Corn-Law Abrogationsconceivable, I do not think will be capable of enduring. 

My friends, suppose we quitted that stand; suppose we camehonestly down from it, and said: "This is our minimum ofcottonprices. We care not, for the present, to make cotton anycheaper. Do you, if it seem so blessed to you, make cottoncheaper. Fill your lungs with cotton-fuzz, your hearts withcopperas-fumes, with rage and mutiny; become ye the generalgnomes of Europe, slaves of the lamp!"--I admire a Nation whichfancies it will die if it do not undersell all other Nations, tothe end of the world. Brothers, we will cease to _under_sellthem; we will be content to _equal_-sell them; to be happyselling equally with them! I do not see the use of undersellingthem. Cotton-cloth is already two-pence a yard or lower; andyet bare backs were never more numerous among us. Let inventivemen cease to spend their existence incessantly contriving howcotton can be made cheaper; and try to invent, a little, howcotton at its present cheapness could be somewhat justlierdivided among us! Let inventive men consider, Whether the Secretof this Universe, and of Man's Life there, does, after all, as werashly fancy it, consist in making money? There is One God, just, supreme, almighty: but is Mammon the name of him?--With aHell which means 'Failing to make money, ' I do not think there isany Heaven possible that would suit one well; nor so much as anEarth that can be habitable long! In brief, all this Mammon-Gospel, of Supply-and-demand, Competition, Laissez-faire, andDevil take the hindmost, begins to be one of the shabbiestGospels ever preached on Earth; or altogether the shabbiest. Even with Dilettante partridge-nets, and at a horribleexpenditure of pain, who shall regret to see the entirelytransient, and at best somewhat despicable life strangled out of_it?_ At the best, as we say, a somewhat despicable, unvenerablething, this same 'Laissez-faire;' and now, at the worst, fastgrowing an altogether detestable one!

"But what is to be done with our manufacturing population, withour agricultural, with our ever-increasing population?" crymany. --Aye, what? Many things can be done with them, a hundredthings, and a thousand things, --had we once got a soul, and begunto try. This one thing, of doing for them by 'underselling allpeople, ' and filling our own bursten pockets and appetites by theroad; and turning over all care for any 'population, ' or humanor divine consideration except cash only, to the winds, with a"Laissez-faire" and the rest of it: this is evidently not thething. 'Farthing cheaper per yard:' no great Nation can standon the apex of such a pyramid; screwing itself higher andhigher; balancing itself on its great-toe! Can England notsubsist without being _above_ all people in working? Englandnever deliberately purposed such a thing. If England work betterthan all people, it shall be well. England, like an honestworker, will work as well as she can; and hope the gods mayallow her to live on that basis. Laissez-faire and much elsebeing once well dead, how many 'impossibles' will becomepossible! They are 'impossible, ' as cotton-cloth at two-pence anell was--till men set about making it. The inventive genius ofgreat England will not forever sit patient with mere wheels andpinions, bobbins, straps and billy-rollers whirring in the headof it. The inventive genius of England is not a Beaver's, or aSpinner's or Spider's genius: it is a _Man's_ genius, I hope, with a God over him!

Supply-and-demand? One begins to be weary of such work. Leaveall to egoism, to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure, ofapplause:--it is the Gospel of Despair! Man is a Patent-Digester, then: only give him Free Trade, Free digesting-room;and each of us digest what he can come at, leaving the rest toFate! My unhappy brethren of the Working Mammonism, my unhappierbrethren of the Idle Dilettantism, no world was ever heldtogether in that way for long. A world of mere Patent-Digesterswill soon have nothing to digest: such world ends, and by Law ofNature must end, in 'over-population;' in howling universalfamine, 'impossibility, ' and suicidal madness, as of endless dog-kennels run rabid. Supply-and-demand shall do its full part, andFree Trade shall be free as air;--thou of the shotbelts, see thouforbid it not, with those paltry, _worse_ than 'Mammonish'swindleries and Sliding-scales of thine, which are seen to beswindleries for all thy canting, which in times like ours arevery scandalous to see! And Trade never so well freed, and allTariffs settled or abolished, and Supply-and-demand in fulloperation, --let us all know that we have yet done nothing; thatwe have merely cleared the ground for doing. 

Yes, were the Corn-Laws ended tomorrow, there is nothing yetended; there is only room made for all manner of thingsbeginning. The Corn-Laws gone, and Trade made free, it is asgood as certain this paralysis of industry will pass away. Weshall have another period of commercial enterprise, of victoryand prosperity; during which, it is likely, much money willagain be made, and all the people may, by the extant methods, still for a space of years, be kept alive and physically fed. The strangling band of Famine will be loosened from our necks;we shall have room again to breathe; time to bethink ourselves, to repent and consider! A precious and thrice-precious space ofyears; wherein to struggle as for life in reforming our foulways; in alleviating, instructing, regulating our people;seeking, as for life, that something like spiritual food beimparted them, some real governance and guidance be providedthem! It will be a priceless time. For our new period orparoxysm of commercial prosperity will and can, on the oldmethods of 'Competition and Devil take the hindmost, ' prove but aparoxysm: a new paroxysm, --likely enough, if we do not use itbetter, to be our _last. _ In this, of itself, is no salvation. If our Trade in twenty years, 'flourishing' as never Tradeflourished, could double itself; yet then also, by the oldLaissez-faire method, our Population is doubled: we shallthen be as we are, only twice as many of us, twice and tentimes as unmanageable!

All this dire misery, therefore; all this of our poor WorkhouseWorkmen, of our Chartisms, Trades-strikes, Corn-Laws, Toryisms, and the general downbreak of Laissez-faire in these days, --may wenot regard it as a voice from the dumb bosom of Nature, saying tous: Behold! Supply-and-demand is not the one Law of Nature;Cash-payment is not the sole nexus of man with man, --how far fromit! Deep, far deeper than Supply-and-demand, are Laws, Obligations sacred as Man's Life itself: these also, if you willcontinue to do work, you shall now learn and obey. He that willlearn them, behold Nature is on his side, he shall yet work andprosper with noble rewards. He that will not learn them, Natureis against him; he shall not be able to do work in Nature'sempire, --not in hers. Perpetual mutiny, contention, hatred, isolation, execration shall wait on his footsteps, till all mendiscern that the thing which he attains, however golden it lookor be, is not success, but the want of success. 

Supply-and-demand, --alas! For what noble work was there ever yetany audible 'demand' in that poor sense? The man of Macedonia, speaking in vision to an Apostle Paul, "Come over and help us, "did not specify what rate of wages he would give! Or was theChristian Religion itself accomplished by Prize-Essays, Bridgewater Bequests, and a 'minimum of Four thousand fivehundred a year?'' No demand that I heard of was made then, audible in any Labour-market, Manchester Chamber of Commerce, orother the like emporium and hiring establishment; silent wereall these from any whisper of such demand;--powerless were allthese to 'supply' it, had the demand been in thunder andearthquake, with gold Eldorados and Mahometan Paradises for thereward. Ah me, into what waste latitudes, in this Time-Voyage, have we wandered; like adventurous Sindbads;--where the men goabout as if by galvanism, with meaningless glaring eyes, and haveno soul, but only a beaver-faculty and stomach! The haggarddespair of Cotton-factory, Coal-mine operatives, Chandos Farm-labourers, in these days, is painful to behold; but not sopainful, hideous to the inner sense, as the brutish god-forgetting Profit-and-Loss Philosophy, and Life-theory, which wehear jangled on all hands of us, in senate-houses, spouting-clubs, leading-articles, pulpits and platforms, everywhere as theUltimate Gospel and candid Plain-English of Man's Life, from thethroats and pens and thoughts of all but all men!--

Enlightened Philosophies, like Moliere Doctors, will tell you:"Enthusiasms, Self-sacrifice, Heaven, Hell and such like: yes, all that was true enough for old stupid times; all that used tobe true: but we have changed all that, _nous avons change toutcela!"_ Well; if the heart be got round now into the right side, and the liver to the left; if man have no heroism in him deeperthan the wish to eat, and in his soul there dwell now no Infiniteof Hope and Awe, and no divine Silence can become imperativebecause it is not Sinai Thunder, and no tie will bind if it benot that of Tyburn gallows-ropes, --then verily you have changedall that; and for it, and for you, and for me, behold the Abyssand nameless Annihilation is ready. So scandalous a beggarlyUniverse deserves indeed nothing else; I cannot say I would saveit from Annihilation. Vacuum, and the serene Blue, will be muchhandsomer; easier too for all of us. I, for one, decline livingas a Patent-Digester. Patent-Digester, Spinning-Mule, MayfairClothes-Horse: many thanks, but your Chaosships will have thegoodness to excuse me!

Chapter X

Plugson of Undershot

One thing I do know: Never, on this Earth, was the relation ofman to man long carried on by Cash-payment alone. If, at anytime, a philosophy of Laissez-faire, Competition and Supply-and-demand, start up as the exponent of human relations, expect thatit will soon end. 

Such philosophies will arise: for man's philosophies are usuallythe 'supplement of his practice;' some ornamental Logic-varnish, some outer skin of Articulate Intelligence, with which he strivesto render his dumb Instinctive Doings presentable when they aredone. Such philosophies will arise; be preached as Mammon-Gospels, the ultimate Evangel of the World; be believed, withwhat is called belief, with much superficial bluster, and a kindof shallow satisfaction real in its way:--but they are ominousgospels! They are the sure, and even swift, forerunner of greatchanges. Expect that the old System of Society is done, is dyingand fallen into dotage, when it begins to rave in that fashion. Most Systems that I have watched the death of, for the last threethousand years, have gone just so. The Ideal, the True and Noblethat was in them having faded out, and nothing now remaining butnaked Egoism, vulturous Greediness, they cannot live; they arebound and inexorably ordained by the oldest Destinies, Mothers ofthe Universe, to die. Curious enough: they thereupon, as I havepretty generally noticed, devise some light comfortable kind of'wine-and-walnuts philosophy' for themselves, this of Supply-and-demand or another; and keep saying, during hours of masticationand rumination, which they call hours of meditation: "Soul, takethy ease, it is all _well_ that thou art a vulture-soul;"--and pangs of dissolution come upon them, oftenest before theyare aware!

Cash-payment never was, or could except for a few years be, theunion-bond of man to man. Cash never yet paid one man fully hisdeserts to another; nor could it, nor can it, now or henceforthto the end of the world. I invite his Grace of Castle-Rackrentto reflect on this;--does he think that a Land Aristocracy whenit becomes a Land Auctioneership can have long to live? Or thatSliding-scales will increase the vital stamina of it? Theindomitable Plugson too, of the respected Firm of Plugson, Hunksand Company, in St. Dolly Undershot, is invited to reflect onthis; for to him also it will be new, perhaps even newer. Bookkeeping by double entry is admirable, and records severalthings in an exact manner. But the Mother-Destinies also keeptheir Tablets; in Heaven's Chancery also there goes on arecording; and things, as my Moslem friends say, are 'written onthe iron leaf. '

Your Grace and Plugson, it is like, go to Church occasionally:did you never in vacant moments, with perhaps a dull parsondroning to you, glance into your New Testament, and the cash-account stated four times over, by a kind of quadruple entry, --inthe Four Gospels there? I consider that a cash-account, andbalance-statement of work done and wages paid, worth attendingto. Precisely _such, _ though on a smaller scale, go on at allmoments under this Sun; and the statement and balance of them inthe Plugson Ledgers and on the Tablets of Heaven's Chancery arediscrepant exceedingly;--which ought really to teach, and to havelong since taught, an indomitable common-sense Plugson ofUndershot, much more an unattackable _un_common-sense Grace ofRackrent, a thing or two!--In brief, we shall have to dismiss theCash-Gospel rigorously into its own place: we shall have toknow, on the threshold, that either there is some infinitelydeeper Gospel, subsidiary, explanatory and daily and hourlycorrective, to the Cash one; or else that the Cash one itselfand all others are fast traveling!

For all human things do require to have an Ideal in them; tohave some Soul in them, as we said, were it only to keep the Bodyunputrefied. And wonderful it is to see how the Ideal or Soul, place it in what ugliest Body you may, will irradiate said Bodywith its own nobleness; will gradually, incessantly, mould, modify, new-form or reform said ugliest Body, and make it at lastbeautiful, and to a certain degree divine!--O, if you coulddethrone that Brute-god Mammon, and put a Spirit-god in hisplace! One way or other, he must and will have to be dethroned. Fighting, for example, as I often say to myself, Fighting withsteel murder-tools is surely a much uglier operation thanWorking, take it how you will. Yet even of Fighting, inreligious Abbot Samson's days, see what a Feudalism there hadgrown, --a 'glorious Chivalry, ' much besung down to the presentday. Was not that one of the 'impossiblest' things? Under thesky is no uglier spectacle than two men with clenched teeth, andhellfire eyes, hacking one another's flesh; converting preciousliving bodies, and priceless living souls, into nameless massesof putrescence, useful only for turnip-manure. How did aChivalry ever come out of that; how anything that was nothideous, scandalous, infernal? It will be a question worthconsidering by and by. 

I remark, for the present, only two things: first, that theFighting itself was not, as we rashly suppose it, a Fightingwithout cause, but more or less with cause. Man is created tofight; he is perhaps best of all definable as a born soldier;his life 'a battle and a march, ' under the right General. It isforever indispensable for a man to fight: now with Necessity, with Barrenness, Scarcity, with Puddles, Bogs, tangled Forests, unkempt Cotton;--now also with the hallucinations of his poorfellow Men. Hallucinatory visions rise in the head of my poorfellow man; make him claim over me rights which are not his. All Fighting, as we noticed long ago, is the dusty conflict ofstrengths each thinking itself the strongest, or, in other words, the justest;--of Mights which do in the long-run, and foreverwill in this just Universe in the long-run, mean Rights. Inconflict the perishable part of them, beaten sufficiently, fliesoff into dust: this process ended, appears the imperishable, thetrue and exact. 

And now let us remark a second thing: how, in these balefuloperations, a noble devout-hearted Chevalier will comforthimself, and an ignoble godless Bucanier and Chactaw Indian. Victory is the aim of each. But deep in the heart of the nobleman it lies forever legible, that, as an Invisible just God madehim, so will and must God's justice and this only, were it neverso invisible, ultimately prosper in all controversies andenterprises and battles whatsoever. What an Influence; ever-present, --like a Soul in the rudest Caliban of a body; like aray of Heaven, and illuminative creative _Fiat-Lux, _ in thewastest terrestrial Chaos! Blessed divine Influence, traceableeven in the horror of Battlefields and garments rolled in blood:how it ennobles even the Battlefield; and, in place of a ChactawMassacre, makes it a Field of Honour! A Battlefield too isgreat. Considered well, it is a kind of Quintessence of Labour;Labour distilled into its utmost concentration; the significanceof years of it compressed into an hour. Here too thou shalt bestrong, and not in muscle only, if thou wouldst prevail. Heretoo thou shalt be strong of heart, noble of soul; thou shaltdread no pain or death, thou shalt not love ease or life; inrage, thou shalt remember mercy, justice;--thou shalt be a Knightand not a Chactaw, if thou wouldst prevail! It is the rule ofall battles, against hallucinating fellow Men, against unkemptCotton, or whatsoever battles they may be which a man in thisworld has to fight. 

Howel Davies' dyes the West Indian Seas with blood, piles hisdecks with plunder; approves himself the expertest Seaman, thedaringest Seafighter: but he gains no lasting victory, lastingvictory is not possible for him. Not, had he fleets larger thanthe combined British Navy all united with him in bucaniering. He, once for all, cannot prosper in his duel. He strikes downhis man: yes; but his man, or his man's representative, has nonotion to lie struck down; neither, though slain ten times, willhe keep so lying;--nor has the Universe any notion to keep him solying! On the contrary, the Universe and he have, at allmoments, all manner of motives to start up again, and desperatelyfight again. Your Napoleon is flung out, at last, to St. Helena;the latter end of him sternly compensating the beginning. TheBucanier strikes down a man, a hundred or a million men: butwhat profits it? He has one enemy never to be struck down; naytwo enemies: Mankind and the Maker of Men. On the great scaleor on the small, in fighting of men or fighting of difficulties, I will not embark my venture with Howel Davies: it is not theBucanier, it is the Hero only that can gain victory, that can domore than seem to succeed. These things will deserve meditating;for they apply to all battle and soldiership, all struggle andeffort whatsoever in this Fight of Life. It is a poor Gospel, Cash-Gospel or whatever name it have, that does not, with cleartone, uncontradictable, carrying conviction to all hearts, forever keep men in mind of these things. 

Unhappily, my indomitable friend Plugson of Undershot has, in agreat degree, forgotten them;--as, alas, all the world has; as, alas, our very Dukes and Soul-Overseers have, whose special tradeit was to remember them! Hence these tears. --Plugson, who hasindomitably spun Cotton merely to gain thousands of pounds, Ihave to call as yet a Bucanier and Chactaw; till there comesomething better, still more indomitable from him. His hundredThousand-pound Notes, if there be nothing other, are to me but asthe hundred Scalps in a Chactaw wigwam. The blind Plugson: hewas a Captain of Industry, born member of the Ultimate genuineAristocracy of this Universe, could he have known it! Thesethousand men that span and toiled round him, they were a regimentwhom he had enlisted, man by man; to make war on a very genuineenemy: Bareness of back, and disobedient Cotton-fibre, whichwill not, unless forced to it, consent to cover bare backs. Hereis a most genuine enemy; over whom all creatures will wish himvictory. He enlisted his thousand men; said to them, "Come, brothers, let us have a dash at Cotton!" They follow withcheerful shout; they gain such a victory over Cotton as theEarth has to admire and clap hands at: but, alas, it is yet onlyof the Bucanier or Chactaw sort, --as good as no victory! FoolishPlugson of St. Dolly Undershot: does he hope to becomeillustrious by hanging up the scalps in his wigwam, the hundredthousands at his banker's, and saying, Behold my scalps? Why, Plugson, even thy own host is all in mutiny: Cotton isconquered; but the 'bare backs'--are worse covered than ever!Indomitable Plugson, thou must cease to be a Chactaw; thou andothers; thou thyself, if no other!

Did William the Norman Bastard, or any of his Taillefers, _Ironcutters, _ manage so? Ironcutter, at the end of thecampaign, did not turn off his thousand fighters, but said tothem: "Noble fighters, this is the land we have gained; be ILord in it, --what we will call _Law-ward, _ maintainer and_keeper_ of Heaven's _Laws:_ be I _Law-ward, _ or in brieforthoepy _Lord_ in it, and be ye Loyal Men around me in it; andwe will stand by one another, as soldiers round a captain, foragain we shall have need of one another!" Plugson, bucanier-like, says to them: "Noble spinners, this is the HundredThousand we have gained, wherein I mean to dwell and plantvineyards; the hundred thousand is mine, the three and sixpencedaily was yours: adieu, noble spinners; drink my health withthis groat each, which I give you over and above!" The entirelyunjust Captain of Industry, say I; not Chevalier, but Bucanier!'Commercial Law' does indeed acquit him; asks, with wide eyes, What else? So too Howel Davies asks, Was it not according to thestrictest Bucanier Custom? Did I depart in any jot or tittlefrom the Laws of the Bucaniers?

After all, money, as they say, is miraculous. Plugson wantedvictory; as Chevaliers and Bucaniers, and all men alike do. Hefound money recognised, by the whole world with one assent, asthe true symbol, exact equivalent and synonym of victory;--andhere we have him, a grim-browed, indomitable Bucanier, cominghome to us with a 'victory, ' which the whole world is _ceasing_to clap hands at! The whole world, taught somewhat impressively, is beginning to recognise that such victory is but half avictory; and that now, if it please the Powers, we must--havethe other half!

Money is miraculous. What miraculous facilities has it yielded, will it yield us; but also what never-imagined confusions, obscurations has it brought in; down almost to total extinctionof the moral-sense in large masses of mankind! 'Protection ofproperty, ' of what is _'mine, '_ means with most men protection ofmoney, --the thing which, had I a thousand padlocks over it, isleast of all _mine;_ is, in a manner, scarcely worth callingmine! The symbol shall be held sacred, defended everywhere withtipstaves, ropes and gibbets; the thing signified shall becomposedly cast to the dogs. A human being who has worked withhuman beings clears all scores with them, cuts himself withtriumphant completeness forever loose from them, by paying downcertain shillings and pounds. Was it not the wages I promisedyou? There they are, to the last sixpence, --according to theLaws of the Bucaniers!--Yes, indeed;--and, at such times, itbecomes imperatively necessary to ask all persons, bucaniers andothers, Whether these same respectable Laws of the Bucaniers arewritten on God's eternal Heavens at all, on the inner Heart ofMan at all; or on the respectable Bucanier Logbook merely, forthe convenience of bucaniering merely? What a question;--whereatWestminster Hall shudders to its driest parchment; and on thedead wigs each particular horsehair stands on end!

The Laws of Laissez-faire, O Westminster, the laws of industrialCaptain and industrial Soldier, how much more of idle Captain andindustrial Soldier, will need to be remodelled, and modified, andrectified in a hundred and a hundred ways, --and _not_ in theSliding-scale direction, but in the totally opposite one! Withtwo million industrial Soldiers already sitting in Bastilles, andfive million pining on potatoes, methinks Westminster cannotbegin too soon!--A man has other obligations laid on him, inGod's Universe, than the payment of cash: these alsoWestminster, if it will continue to exist and have board-wages, must contrive to take some charge of:--by Westminster or byanother, they must and will be taken charge of; be, withwhatever difficulty, got articulated, got enforced, and to acertain approximate extent, put in practice. And, as I say, itcannot be too soon! For Mammonism, left to itself, has becomeMidas-eared; and with all its gold mountains, sits starving forwant of bread: and Dilettantism with its partridge-nets, in thisextremely earnest Universe of ours, is playing somewhat too higha game. 'A man by the very look of him promises so much:' yes;and by the rent-roll of him does he promise nothing?--

Alas, what a business will this be, which our Continentalfriends, groping this long while somewhat absurdly about it andabout it, call 'Organisation of Labour;'--which must be taken outof the hands of absurd windy persons, and put into the hands ofwise, laborious, modest and valiant men, to begin with itstraightway: to proceed with it, and succeed in it more andmore, if Europe, at any rate if England, is to continue habitablemuch longer. Looking at the kind of most noble Corn-Law Dukes orPractical _Duces_ we have, and also of right reverend Soul-Overseers, Christian Spiritual _Duces_ 'on a minimum of fourthousand five hundred, ' one's hopes are a little chilled. Courage, nevertheless; there are many brave men in England! Myindomitable Plugson, --nay is there not even in thee some hope?Thou art hitherto a Bucanier, as it was written and prescribedfor thee by an evil world: but in that grim brow, in thatindomitable heart which _can_ conquer Cotton, do there notperhaps lie other ten times nobler conquests?

Chapter XI

Labour

For there is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in Work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, thereis always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: inIdleness alone is there perpetual despair. Work, never soMammonish, mean, is in communication with Nature; the realdesire to get Work done will itself lead one more and more totruth, to Nature's appointments and regulations, which are truth. The latest Gospel in this world is, Know thy work and do it. 'Know thyself:' long enough has that poor 'self' of thinetormented thee; thou wilt never get to 'know' it, I believe!Think it not thy business, this of knowing thyself; thou art anunknowable individual: know what thou canst work at; and workat it, like a Hercules! That will be thy better plan. 

It has been written, 'an endless significance lies in Work;' aman perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared away, fair seedfields rise instead, and stately cities; and withal theman himself first ceases to be a jungle and foul unwholesomedesert thereby. Consider how, even in the meanest sorts ofLabour, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of realharmony, the instant he sets himself to work! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these likehelldogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor dayworker, as ofevery man: but he bends himself with free valour against histask, and all these are stilled, all these shrink murmuring faroff into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed glowof Labour in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein allpoison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is madebright blessed flame!

Destiny, on the whole, has no other way of cultivating us. Aformless Chaos, once set it _revolving, _ grows round and everrounder; ranges itself, by mere force of gravity, into strata, spherical courses; is no longer a Chaos, but a round compactedWorld. What would become of the Earth, did she cease to revolve?In the poor old Earth, so long as she revolves, all inequalities, irregularities disperse themselves; all irregularities areincessantly becoming regular. Hast thou looked on the Potter'swheel, --one of the venerablest objects; old as the ProphetEzechiel and far older? Rude lumps of clay, how they spinthemselves up, by mere quick whirling, into beautiful circulardishes. And fancy the most assiduous Potter, but without hiswheel; reduced to make dishes, or rather amorphous botches, bymere kneading and baking! Even such a Potter were Destiny, witha human soul that would rest and lie at ease, that would not workand spin! Of an idle unrevolving man the kindest Destiny, likethe most assiduous Potter without wheel, can bake and kneadnothing other than a botch; let her spend on him what expensivecolouring, what gilding and enamelling she will, he is but abotch. Not a dish; no, a bulging, kneaded, crooked, shambling, squint-cornered, amorphous botch, --a mere enamelled vessel ofdishonour! Let the idle think of this. 

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no otherblessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, and will follow it! How, as a free-flowing channel, dug and tornby noble force through the sour mud-swamp of one's existence, like an ever-deepening river there, it runs and flows;--drainingoff the sour festering water, gradually from the root of theremotest grass-blade; making, instead of pestilential swamp, agreen fruitful meadow with its clear-flowing stream. How blessedfor the meadow itself, let the stream and _its_ value be great orsmall! Labour is Life: from the inmost heart of the Workerrises his god-given Force, the sacred celestial Life-essencebreathed into him by Almighty God; from his inmost heart awakenshim to all nobleness, --to all knowledge, 'self-knowledge' andmuch else, so soon as Work fitly begins. Knowledge? Theknowledge that will hold good in working, cleave thou to that;for Nature herself accredits that, says Yea to that. Properlythou hast no other knowledge but what thou hast got by working:the rest is yet all a hypothesis of knowledge; a thing to beargued of in schools, a thing floating in the clouds, in endlesslogic-vortices, till we try it and fix it. 'Doubt, of whateverkind, can be ended by Action alone. '

And again, hast thou valued Patience, Courage, Perseverance, Openness to light; readiness to own thyself mistaken, to dobetter next time? All these, all virtues, in wrestling with thedim brute Powers of Fact, in ordering of thy fellows in suchwrestle, there and elsewhere not at all, thou wilt continuallylearn. Set down a brave Sir Christopher in the middle of blackruined Stoneheaps, of foolish unarchitectural Bishops, redtapeOfficials, idle Nell-Gwyn Defenders of the Faith; and seewhether he will ever raise a Paul's Cathedral out of all that, yea or no! Rough, rude, contradictory are all things andpersons, from the mutinous masons and Irish hodmen, up to theidle Nell-Gwyn Defenders, to blustering redtape Officials, foolish unarchitectural Bishops. All these things and personsare there not for Christopher's sake and his Cathedral's; theyare there for their own sake mainly! Christopher will have toconquer and constrain all these, --if he be able. All these areagainst him. Equitable Nature herself, who carries hermathematics and architectonics not on the face of her, but deepin the hidden heart of her, --Nature herself is but partially forhim; will be wholly against him, if he constrain her not! Hisvery money, where is it to come from? The pious munificence ofEngland lies far-scattered, distant, unable to speak, and say, "Iam here;"--must be spoken to before it can speak. Piousmunificence, and all help, is so silent, invisible like the gods;impediment, contradictions manifold are so loud and near! Obrave Sir Christopher, trust thou in those, notwithstanding, andfront all these; understand all these; by valiant patience, noble effort, insight, by man's strength, vanquish and compel allthese, --and, on the whole, strike down victoriously the lasttopstone of that Paul's Edifice; thy monument for certaincenturies, the stamp 'Great Man' impressed very legibly onPortland-stone there!--Yes, all manner of help, and piousresponse from Men or Nature, is always what we call silent;cannot speak or come to light, till it be seen, till it be spokento. Every noble work is at first impossible. In very truth, forevery noble work the possibilities will lie diffused throughImmensity; inarticulate, undiscoverable except to faith. LikeGideon thou shalt spread out thy fleece at the door of thy tent;see whether under the wide arch of Heaven there be any bounteousmoisture, or none. Thy heart and life-purpose shall be as amiraculous Gideon's fleece, spread out in silent appeal toHeaven; and from the kind Immensities, what from the poor unkindLocalities and town and country Parishes there never could, blessed dew-moisture to suffice thee shall have fallen!

Work is of a religious nature:--work is of a _brave_ nature;which it is the aim of all religion to be. 'All work of man isas the swimmer's:' a waste ocean threatens to devour him; if hefront it not bravely, it will keep its word. By incessant wisedefiance of it, lusty rebuke and buffet of it, behold how itloyally supports him, bears him as its conqueror along. 'Itis so, ' says Goethe, with all things that man undertakes inthis world. '

Brave Sea-captain, Norse Sea-king, --Columbus, my hero, royalestSea-king of all! It is no friendly environment this of thine, inthe waste deep waters; around thee mutinous discouraged souls, behind thee disgrace and ruin, before thee the unpenetrated veilof Night. Brother, these wild water-mountains, bounding fromtheir deep bases (ten miles deep, I am told), are not entirelythere on thy behalf! Meseems _they_ have other work thanfloating thee forward:--and the huge Winds, that sweep from UrsaMajor to the Tropics and Equators, dancing their giant-waltzthrough the kingdoms of Chaos and Immensity, they care littleabout filling rightly or filling wrongly the small shoulder-of-mutton sails in this cockle-skiff of thine! Thou art not amongarticulate-speaking friends, my brother; thou art amongimmeasurable dumb monsters, tumbling, howling wide as the worldhere. Secret, far off, invisible to all hearts but thine, therelies a help in them: see how thou wilt get at that. Patientlythou wilt wait till the mad Southwester spend itself, savingthyself by dexterous science of defence, the while; valiantly, with swift decision, wilt thou strike in, when the favouringEast, the Possible, springs up. Mutiny of men thou wilt sternlyrepress; weakness, despondency, thou wilt cheerily encourage:thou wilt swallow down complaint, unreason, weariness, weaknessof others and thyself;--how much wilt thou swallow down! Thereshall be a depth of Silence in thee, deeper than this Sea, whichis but ten miles deep: a Silence unsoundable; known to Godonly. Thou shalt be a Great Man. Yes, my World-Soldier, thou ofthe World Marine-service, --thou wilt have to be _greater_ thanthis tumultuous unmeasured World here round thee is: thou, inthy strong soul, as with wrestler's arms, shalt embrace it, harness it down; and make it bear thee on, --to new Americas, orwhither God wills!

Chapter XII

Reward

'Religion, ' I said; for properly speaking, all true Work isReligion: and whatsoever Religion is not Work may go and dwellamong the Brahmins, Antinomians, Spinning Dervishes, or where itwill; with me it shall have no harbour. Admirable was that ofthe old Monks, _'Laborare est Orare, _ Work is Worship. '

Older than all preached Gospels was this unpreached, inarticulate, but ineradicable, forever-enduring Gospel: Work, and therein have well-being. Man, Son of Earth and of Heaven, lies there not, in the innermost heart of thee, a Spirit ofactive Method, a Force for Work;--and burns like a painfullysmouldering fire, giving thee no rest till thou unfold it, tillthou write it down in beneficent Facts around thee! What isimmethodic, waste, thou shalt make methodic, regulated, arable;obedient and productive to thee. Wheresoever thou findestDisorder, there is thy eternal enemy; attack him swiftly, subduehim; make Order of him, the subject not of Chaos, but ofIntelligence, Divinity and Thee! The thistle that grows in thypath, dig it out, that a blade of useful grass, a drop ofnourishing milk, may grow there instead. The waste cotton-shrub, gather its waste white down, spin it, weave it; that, in placeof idle litter, there may be folded webs, and the naked skin ofman be covered. 

But above all, where thou findest Ignorance, Stupidity, Brute-mindedness, --yes, there, with or without Church-tithes andShovel-hat, with or without Talfourd-Mahon Copyrights, or were itwith mere dungeons and gibbets and crosses, attack it, I say;smite it wisely, unweariedly, and rest not while thou livest andit lives; but smite, smite, in the name of God! The HighestGod, as I understand it, does audibly so command thee; stillaudibly, if thou have ears to hear. He, even He, with his_un_spoken voice, awfuler than any Sinai thunders or syllabledspeech of Whirlwinds; for the SILENCE of deep Eternities, ofWorlds from beyond the morning-stars, does it not speak to thee?The unborn Ages; the old Graves, with their long-moulderingdust, the very tears that wetted it now all dry, --do not thesespeak to thee, what ear hath not heard? The deep Death-kingdoms, the Stars in their never-resting courses, all Space and all Time, proclaim it to thee in continual silent admonition. Thou too, ifever man should, shalt work while it is called Today. For theNight cometh, wherein no man can work. 

All true Work is sacred; in all true Work, were it but truehand-labour, there is something of divineness. Labour, wide asthe Earth, has its summit in Heaven. Sweat of the brow; and upfrom that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; whichincludes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, allSciences, all spoken Epics, all acted Heroisms, Martyrdoms, --upto that 'Agony of bloody sweat, ' which all men have calleddivine! O brother, if this is not 'worship, ' then I say, themore pity for worship; for this is the noblest thing yetdiscovered under God's sky. Who art thou that complainest of thylife of toil? Complain not. Look up, my wearied brother; seethy fellow Workmen there, in God's Eternity; surviving there, they alone surviving: sacred Band of the Immortals, celestialBodyguard of the Empire of Mankind. Even in the weak HumanMemory they survive so long, as saints, as heroes, as gods; theyalone surviving; peopling, they alone, the unmeasured solitudesof Time! To thee Heaven, though severe, is _not_ unkind; Heavenis kind, --as a noble Mother; as that Spartan Mother, sayingwhile she gave her son his shield, "With it, my son, or upon it!"Thou too shalt return _home_ in honour; to thy far-distant Home, in honour; doubt it not, --if in the battle thou keep thy shield!Thou, in the Eternities and deepest Death-kingdoms, art not analien; thou everywhere art a denizen! Complain not; the verySpartans did not _complain. _

And who art thou that braggest of thy life of Idleness;complacently shewest thy bright gilt equipages; sumptuouscushions; appliances for folding of the hands to mere sleep?Looking up, looking down, around, behind or before, discernestthou, if it be not in Mayfair alone, any _idle_ hero, saint, god, or even devil? Not a vestige of one. In the Heavens, in theEarth, in the Waters, under the Earth, is none like unto thee. Thou art an original figure in this Creation; a denizen inMayfair alone, in this extraordinary Century or Half-Centuryalone! One monster there is in the world: the idle man. What ishis 'Religion?' That Nature is a Phantasm, where cunning, beggary or thievery may sometimes find good victual. That God isa lie; and that Man and his Life are a lie. --Alas, alas, who ofus _is_ there that can say, I have worked? The faithfulest of usare unprofitable servants; the faithfulest of us know that best. The faithfulest of us may say, with sad and true old Samuel, "Much of my life has been trifled away!" But he that has, andexcept 'on public occasions' professes to have, no function butthat of going idle in a graceful or graceless manner; and ofbegetting sons to go idle; and to address Chief Spinners andDiggers, who at least _are_ spinning and digging, "Ye scandalouspersons who produce too much"--My Corn-Law friends, on whatimaginary still richer Eldorados, and true iron-spikes with lawof gravitation, are ye rushing!

As to the Wages of Work there might innumerable things be said;there will and must yet innumerable things be said and spoken, inSt. Stephen's and out of St. Stephen's; and gradually not a fewthings be ascertained and written, on Law-parchment, concerningthis very matter:--'Fair day's-wages for a fair day's-work' isthe most unrefusable demand! Money-wages 'to the extent ofkeeping your worker alive that he may work more;' these, unlessyou mean to dismiss him straightway out of this world, areindispensable alike to the noblest Worker and to the least noble!

One thing only I will say here, in special reference to theformer class, the noble and noblest; but throwing light on allthe other classes and their arrangements of this difficultmatter: The 'wages' of every noble Work do yet lie in Heaven orelse Nowhere. Not in Bank-of-England bills, in Owen's Labour-bank, or any the most improved establishment of banking andmoney-changing, needest thou, heroic soul, present thy account ofearnings. Human banks and labour-banks know thee not; or knowthee after generations and centuries have passed away, and thouart clean gone from 'rewarding, '--all manner of bank-drafts, shoptills, and Downing-street Exchequers lying very invisible, sofar from thee! Nay, at bottom, dost thou need any reward? Wasit thy aim and life-purpose to be filled with good things for thyheroism; to have a life of pomp and ease, and be what men call'happy, ' in this world, or in any other world? I answer for theedeliberately, No. The whole spiritual secret of the new epochlies in this, that thou canst answer for thyself, with thy wholeclearness of head and heart, deliberately, No. 

My brother, the brave man has to give his Life away. Give it, Iadvise thee;--thou dost not expect to _sell_ thy Life in anadequate manner? What price, for example, would content thee?The just price of thy LIFE to thee, --why, God's entire Creationto thyself, the whole Universe of Space, the whole Eternity ofTime, and what they hold: that is the price which would contentthee; that, and if thou wilt be candid, nothing short of that!It is thy all; and for it thou wouldst have all. Thou art anunreasonable mortal;--or rather thou art a poor _infinite_mortal, who, in thy narrow clay-prison here, _seemest_ sounreasonable! Thou wilt never sell thy Life, or any part of thyLife, in a satisfactory manner. Give it, like a royal heart;let the price be Nothing: thou _hast_ then, in a certain sense, got All for it! The heroic man, --and is not every man, God bethanked, a potential hero?--has to do so, in all times andcircumstances. In the most heroic age, as in the most unheroic, he will have to say, as Burns said proudly and humbly of hislittle Scottish Songs, little dewdrops of Celestial Melody in anage when so much was unmelodious: "By Heaven, they shall eitherbe invaluable or of no value; I do not need your guineas forthem!" It is an element which should, and must, enter deeplyinto all settlements of wages here below. They never will be'satisfactoy' otherwise; they cannot, O Mammon Gospel, theynever can! Money for my little piece of work 'to the extent thatwill allow me to keep working;' yes, this, --unless you mean thatI shall go my ways _before_ the work is all taken out of me: butas to 'wages'--!--

On the whole, we do entirely agree with those old Monks, _Laborare est Orare. _ In a thousand senses, from one end of itto the other, true Work is Worship. He that works, whatsoever behis work, he bodies forth the form of Things Unseen; a smallPoet every Worker is. The idea, were it but of his poor DelfPlatter, how much more of his Epic Poem, is as yet 'seen, 'halfseen, only by himself; to all others it is a thing unseen, impossible; to Nature herself it is a thing unseen, a thingwhich never hitherto was;--very 'impossible, ' for it is as yet aNo-thing! The Unseen Powers had need to watch over such a man;he works in and for the Unseen. Alas, if he look to the SeenPowers only, he may as well quit the business; his No-thing willnever rightly issue as a Thing, but as a Deceptivity, a Sham-thing, --which it had better not do!

Thy No-thing of an Intended Poem, O Poet who hast looked merelyto reviewers, copyrights, booksellers, popularities, behold ithas not yet become a Thing; for the truth is not in it! Thoughprinted, hot-pressed, reviewed, celebrated, sold to the twentiethedition: what is all that? The Thing, in philosophicaluncommercial language, is still a No-thing, mostly semblance, anddeception of the sight;--benign Oblivion incessantly gnawing atit, impatient till chaos to which it belongs do reabsorb it!--

He who takes not counsel of the Unseen and Silent, from him willnever come real visibility and speech. Thou must descend to the_Mothers, _ to the _Manes, _ and Hercules-like long suffer andlabour there, wouldst thou emerge with victory into the sunlight. As in battle and the shock of war, --for is not this a battle?--thou too shalt fear no pain or death, shalt love no ease or life;the voice of festive Lubberlands, the noise of greedy Acheronshall alike lie silent under thy victorious feet. Thy work, likeDante's, shall 'make thee lean for many years. ' The world andits wages, its criticisms, counsels, helps, impediments, shall beas a waste ocean-flood; the chaos through which thou art to swimand sail. Not the waste waves and their weedy gulf-streams, shalt thou take for guidance: thy star alone, --'Se to segui tuastella!' Thy star alone, now clear-beaming over Chaos, nay nowby fits gone out, disastrously eclipsed: this only shalt thoustrive to follow. O, it is a business, as I fancy, that ofweltering your way through Chaos and the murk of Hell! Green-eyed dragons watching you, three-headed Cerberuses, --not withoutsympathy of their sort! "Eccovi l'uom ch'e stato all'Inferno. "For in fine, as Poet Dryden says, you do walk hand in hand withsheer Madness, all the way, --who is by no means pleasant company!You look fixedly into Madness, and her undiscovered, boundless, bottomless Night-empire; that you may extort new Wisdom out ofit, as an Eurydice from Tartarus. The higher the Wisdom, thecloser was its neighbourhood and kindred with mere Insanity;literally so;--and thou wilt, with a speechless feeling, observehow highest Wisdom, struggling up into this world, has oftentimescarried such tinctures and adhesions of Insanity still cleavingto it hither!

All Works, each in their degree, are a making of Madness sane;--truly enough a religious operation; which cannot be carried onwithout religion. You have not work otherwise; you have eye-service, greedy grasping of wages, swift and ever swiftermanufacture of semblances to get hold of wages. Instead ofbetter felt-hats to cover your head, you have bigger lath-and-plaster hats set traveling the streets on wheels. Instead ofheavenly and earthly Guidance for the souls of men, you have'Black or White Surplice' Controversies, stuffed hair-and-leatherPopes;--terrestrial _Law-wards, _ Lords and Law-bringers, 'organising Labour' in these years, by passing Corn-Laws. Withall which, alas, this distracted Earth is now full, nigh tobursting. Semblances most smooth to the touch and eye; mostaccursed nevertheless to body and soul. Semblances, be they ofSham-woven Cloth or of Dilettante Legislation, which are _not_real wool or substance, but Devil's-dust, accursed of God andman! No man has worked, or can work, except religiously; noteven the poor day-labourer, the weaver of your coat, the sewer ofyour shoes. All men, if they work not as in a Great Taskmaster'seye, will work wrong, work unhappily for themselves and you. 

Industrial work, still under bondage to Mammon, the rational soulof it not yet awakened, is a tragic spectacle. Men in therapidest motion and self-motion; restless, with convulsiveenergy, as if driven by Galvanism, as if possessed by a Devil;tearing asunder mountains, --to no purpose, for Mammonism isalways Midas-eared! This is sad, on the face of it. Yetcourage: the beneficent Destinies, kind in their sternness, areapprising us that this cannot continue. Labour is not a devil, even while encased in Mammonism; Labour is ever an imprisonedgod, writhing unconsciously or consciously to escape out ofMammonism! Plugson of Undershot, like Taillefer of Normandy, wants victory; how much happier will even Plugson be to have aChivalrous victory than a Chactaw one. The unredeemed uglinessis that of a slothful People. Shew me a People energeticallybusy; heaving, struggling, all shoulders at the wheel; theirheart pulsing, every muscle swelling, with man's energy andwill;--I Shew you a People of whom great good is alreadypredicable; to whom all manner of good is yet certain, if theirenergy endure. By very working, they will learn; they have, Antaeus-like, their foot on Mother Fact: how can they but learn?

The vulgarest Plugson of a Master-Worker, who can command Workersand get work out of them, is already a considerable man. Blessedand thrice-blessed symptoms I discern of Master-Workers who arenot vulgar men; who are Nobles, and begin to feel that they mustact as such: all speed to these, they are England's hope atpresent! But in this Plugson himself, conscious of almost nonobleness whatever, how much is there! Not without man'sfaculty, insight, courage, hard energy, is this rugged figure. His words none of the wisest; but his actings cannot bealtogether foolish. Think, how were it, stoodst thou suddenly inhis shoes! He has to command a thousand men. And not imaginarycommanding; no, it is real, incessantly practical. The evilpassions of so many men (with the Devil in them, as in all of us)he has to vanquish; by manifold force of speech and of silence, to repress or evade. What a force of silence, to say nothing ofthe others, is in Plugson! For these his thousand men he has toprovide raw-material, machinery, arrangement, house-room; andever at the week's end, wages by due sale. No Civil-List, orGoulburn-Baring Budget has he to fall back upon, for paying ofhis regiment; he has to pick his supplies from this confusedface of the whole Earth and Contemporaneous History, by hisdexterity alone. There will be dry eyes if he fail to do it!--Heexclaims, at present, 'black in the face, ' near strangled withDilettante Legislation: "Let me have elbow-room, throat-room, and I will not fail! No, I will spin yet, and conquer like agiant: what 'sinews of war' lie in me, untold resources towardsthe Conquest of this Planet, if instead of hanging me, youhusband them, and help me!"--My indomitable friend, it is _true;_and thou shalt and must be helped. 

This is not a man I would kill and strangle by Corn-Laws, even ifI could! No, I would fling my Corn-Laws and Shotbelts to theDevil; and try to help this man. I would teach him, by nobleprecept and law-precept, by noble example most of all, thatMammonism was not the essence of his or of my station in God'sUniverse; but the adscititious excrescence of it; the gross, terrene, godless embodiment of it; which would have to become, more or less, a godlike one. By noble _real_ legislation, bytrue _noble's_-work, by unwearied, valiant, and were it wagelesseffort, in my Parliament and in my Parish, I would aid, constrain, encourage him to effect more or less this blessedchange. I should know that it would have to be effected; thatunless it were in some measure effected, he and I and all of us, I first and soonest of all, were doomed to perdition!--Effectedit will be; unless it were a Demon that made this Universe;which I, for my own part, do at no moment, under no form, in theleast believe. 

May it please your Serene Highnesses, your Majesties, Lordshipsand Law-wardships, the proper Epic of this world is not now 'Armsand the Man;' how much less, 'Shirt-frills and the Man:' no, itis now 'Tools and the Man:' that, henceforth to all time is nowour Epic;--and you, first of all others, I think, were wise totake note of that!

Chapter XIII

Democracy

If the Serene Highnesses and Majesties do not take note of that, then, as I perceive, _that_ will take note of itself! The timefor levity, insincerity, and idle babble and play-acting, in allkinds, is gone by; it is a serious, grave time. Old long-vexedquestions, not yet solved in logical words or parliamentary laws, are fast solving themselves in facts, somewhat unblessed tobehold! This largest of questions, this question of Work andWages, which ought, had we heeded Heaven's voice, to have beguntwo generations ago or more, cannot be delayed longer withouthearing Earth's voice. 'Labour' will verily need to be somewhat'organised, ' as they say, --God knows with what difficulty. Manwill actually need to have his debts and earnings a little betterpaid by man; which, let Parliaments speak of them or be silentof them, are eternally his due from man, and cannot, withoutpenalty and at length not without death-penalty, be withheld. How much ought to cease among us straightway; how much ought tobegin straightway, while the hours yet are!

Truly they are strange results to which this of leaving all to'Cash;' of quietly shutting up the God's Temple, and graduallyopening wide-open the Mammon's Temple, with 'Laissez-faire, andEvery man for himself, '--have led us in these days! We haveUpper, speaking Classes, who indeed do 'speak' as never man spakebefore; the withered flimsiness, the godless baseness andbarrenness of whose Speech might of itself indicate what kind ofDoing and practical Governing went on under it! For Speech isthe gaseous element out of which most kinds of Practice andPerformance, especially all kinds of moral Performance, condensethemselves, and take shape; as the one is, so will the other be. Descending, accordingly, into the Dumb Class in its StockportCellars and Poor-Law Bastilles, have we not to announce that theyalso are hitherto unexampled in the History of Adam's Posterity?

Life was never a May-game for men: in all times the lot of thedumb millions born to toil was defaced with manifold sufferings, injustices, heavy burdens, avoidable and unavoidable; not playat all, but hard work that made the sinews sore, and the heartsore. As bond-slaves, _villani, bordarii, sochemanni, _ nayindeed as dukes, earls and kings, men were oftentimes made wearyof their life; and had to say, in the sweat of their brow and oftheir soul, Behold it is not sport, it is grim earnest, and ourback can bear no more! Who knows not what massacrings andharryings there have been; grinding, long-continuing, unbearableinjustices, --till the heart had to rise in madness, and some _"EuSachsen, nimith euer sachses, _ You Saxons, out with your gully-knives then!" You Saxons, some 'arrestment, ' partial 'arrestmentof the Knaves and Dastards' has become indispensable!--The pageof Dryasdust is heavy with such details. 

And yet I will venture to believe that in no time, since thebeginnings of Society, was the lot of those same dumb millions oftoilers so entirely unbearable as it is even in the days nowpassing over us. It is not to die, or even to die of hunger, that makes a man wretched; many men have died; all men mustdie, --the last exit of us all is in a Fire-Chariot of Pain. Butit is to live miserable we know not why; to work sore and yetgain nothing; to be heart-worn, weary, yet isolated, unrelated, girt in with a cold universal Laissez-faire: it is to die slowlyall our life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, InfiniteInjustice, as in the accursed iron belly of a Phalaris' Bull!This is and remains forever intolerable to all men whom Godhas made. Do we wonder at French Revolutions, Chartisms, Revolts of Three Days? The times, if we will consider them, are really unexampled. 

Never before did I hear of an Irish Widow reduced to 'prove hersisterhood by dying of typhus-fever and infecting seventeenpersons, '--saying in such undeniable way, "You see, I was yoursister!" Sisterhood, brotherhood was often forgotten; but nottill the rise of these ultimate Mammon and Shotbelt Gospels, didI ever see it so expressly denied. If no pious Lord or _Law-ward_ would remember it, always some pious Lady (_'Hlaf-dig, '_Benefactress, _'Loaf-giveress, '_ they say she is, --blessings onher beautiful heart!) was there, with mild mother-voice and hand, to remember it; some pious thoughtful _Elder, _ what we now call'Prester, ' _Presbyter_ or 'Priest, ' was there to put all men inmind of it, in the name of the God who had made all. 

Not even in Black Dahomey was it ever, I think, forgotten to thetyphus-fever length. Mungo Park, resourceless, had sunk down todie under the Negro Village-Tree, a horrible White object in theeyes of all. But in the poor Black Woman, and her daughter whostood aghast at him, whose earthly wealth and funded capitalconsisted of one small calabash of rice, there lived a heartricher than _'Laissez-faire:'_ they, with a royal munificence, boiled their rice for him; they sang all night to him, spinningassiduous on their cotton distaffs, as he lay to sleep: "Let uspity the poor white man; no mother has he to fetch him milk, nosister to grind him corn!" Thou poor black Noble One, --thou_Lady_ too: did not a God make thee too; was there not in theetoo something of a God!--

Gurth born thrall of Cedric the Saxon has been greatly pitied byDryasdust and others. Gurth with the brass collar round hisneck, tending Cedric's pigs in the glades of the wood, is notwhat I call an exemplar of human felicity: but Gurth, with thesky above him, with the free air and tinted boscage and umbrageround him, and in him at least the certainty of supper and sociallodging when he came home; Gurth to me seems happy, incomparison with many a Lancashire and Buckinghamshire man, ofthese days, not born thrall of anybody! Gurth's brass collar didnot gall him: Cedric _deserved_ to be his Master. The pigs wereCedric's, but Gurth too would get his parings of them. Gurth hadthe inexpressible satisfaction of feeling himself relatedindissolubly, though in a rude brass-collar way, to his fellow-mortals in this Earth. He had superiors, inferiors, equals. --Gurth is now 'emancipated' long since; has what we call'Liberty. ' Liberty, I am told, is a Divine thing. Liberty whenit becomes the 'Liberty to die by starvation' is not so divine!

Liberty? The true liberty of a man, you would say, consisted inhis finding out, or being forced to find out the right path, andto walk thereon. To learn, or to be taught, what work heactually was able for; and then, by permission, persuasion, andeven compulsion, to set about doing of the same! That is histrue blessedness, honour, 'liberty' and maximum of wellbeing: ifliberty be not that, I for one have small care about liberty. You do not allow a palpable madman to leap over precipices; youviolate his liberty, you that are wise; and keep him, were it instrait-waistcoats, away from the precipices! Every stupid, everycowardly and foolish man is but a less palpable madman: his trueliberty were that a wiser man, that any and every wiser man, could, by brass collars, or in whatever milder or sharper way, lay hold of him when he was going wrong, and order and compel himto go a little righter. O if thou really art my _Senior, _Seigneur, my _Elder, _ Presbyter or Priest, --if thou art in verydeed my Wiser, may a beneficent instinct lead and impel thee to'conquer' me, to command me! If thou do know better than I whatis good and right, I conjure thee in the name of God, force me todo it; were it by never such brass collars, whips and handcuffs, leave me not to walk over precipices! That I have been called, by all the Newspapers, a 'free man' will avail me little, if mypilgrimage have ended in death and wreck. O that the Newspapershad called me slave, coward, fool, or what it pleased their sweetvoices to name me, and I had attained not death, but life!--Liberty requires new definitions. 

A conscious abhorrence and intolerance of Folly, of Baseness;Stupidity, Poltroonery and all that brood of things, dwells deepin some men: still deeper in others an unconscious abhorrenceand intolerance, clothed moreover by the beneficent SupremePowers in what stout appetites, energies, egoisms so-called, aresuitable to it;--these latter are your Conquerors, Romans, Normans Russians, Indo-English; Founders of what we callAristocracies: Which indeed have they not the most 'divineright' to found;--being themselves very truly [greek], BRAVEST, BEST; and conquering generally a confused rabble of WORST, or atlowest; clearly enough, of WORSE? I think their divine right, tried, with affirmatory verdict, in the greatest Law-Court knownto me, was good! A class of men who are dreadfully exclaimedagainst by Dryasdust; of whom nevertheless beneficent Nature hasoftentimes had need; and may, alas, again have need. 

When, across the hundredfold poor scepticisms, trivialisms, andconstitutional cobwebberies of Dryasdust, you catch anyglimpse of a William the Conqueror, a Tancred of Hauteville orsuch like, --do you not discern veritably some rude outline of atrue God-made King; whom not the Champion of England cased intin, but all Nature and the Universe were calling to the throne?It is absolutely necessary that he get thither. Nature does notmean her poor Saxon children to perish, of obesity, stupor orother malady, as yet: a stern Ruler and Line of Rulers thereforeis called in, --a stern but most beneficent _Perpetual House-Surgeon_ is called in, by Nature, and even the appropriate feesare provided for him! Dryasdust talks lamentably about Herewardand the Fen Counties; fate of Earl Waltheof; Yorkshire and theNorth reduced to ashes; all which is undoubtedly lamentable. But even Dryasdust apprises me of one fact: 'A child; in thisWilliam's reign, might have carried a purse of gold from end toend of England. My erudite friend, it is a fact which outweighsa thousand! Sweep away thy constitutional, sentimental and othercobwebberies; look eye to eye, if thou still have any eye, inthe face of this big burly William Bastard: thou wilt see afellow of most flashing discernment, of most strong lionheart;--in whom, as it were, within a frame of oak and iron, the godshave planted the soul of 'a man of genius!' Dost thou call thatnothing? I call it an immense thing!--Rage enough was in thisWillelmus Conquestor, rage enough for his occasions;--and yet theessential element of him, as of all such men, is not scorching_fire, _ but shining illuminative _light. _ Fire and light arestrangely interchangeable; nay, at bottom, I have found themdifferent forms of the same most godlike 'elementary substance'in our world: a thing worth stating in these days. Theessential element of this Conquestor is, first of all, the mostsun-eyed perception of what is really what on this God's-Earth;--which, thou wilt find, does mean at bottom 'Justice, ' and'Virtues' not a few: _Conformity_ to what the Maker has seengood to make; that, I suppose, will mean Justice and a Virtueor two?--

Dost thou think Willelmus Conquestor would have tolerated tenyears' jargon, one hour's jargon, on the propriety of killingCotton-manufactures by partridge Corn-Laws? I fancy, this wasnot the man to knock out of his night's-rest with nothing but anoisy bedlamism in your mouth! "Assist us still better to bushthe partridges; strangle Plugson who spins the shirts?"--_"Parla Splendeur de Dieu!"_--Dost thou think Willelmus Conquestor, inthis new time, with Steam-engine Captains of Industry on one handof him, and Joe-Manton Captains of Idleness on the other, wouldhave doubted which _was_ really the BEST; which did deservestrangling, and which not?

I have a certain indestructible regard for Willelmus Conquestor. A resident House-Surgeon, provided by Nature for her belovedEnglish People, and even furnished with the requisite 'fees, ' asI said; for he by no means felt himself doing Nature's work, this Willelmus, but his own work exclusively! And his own workwithal it was; informed _'par la Splendeur de Dieu. '_--I say, itis necessary to get the work out of such a man, however harshthat be! When a world, not yet doomed for death, is rushing downto ever-deeper Baseness and Confusion, it is a dire necessity ofNature's to bring in her ARISTOCRACIES, her BEST, even byforcible methods. When their descendants or representativescease entirely to _be_ the Best, Nature's poor world will verysoon rush down again to Baseness; and it becomes a direnecessity of Nature's to cast them out. Hence FrenchRevolutions, Five-point Charters, Democracies, and a mournfullist of _Etceteras, _ in these our afflicted times. 

To what extent Democracy has now reached, how it advancesirresistible with ominous, ever-increasing speed, he that willopen his eyes on any province of human affairs may discern. Democracy is everywhere the inexorable demand of these ages, swiftly fulfilling itself. From the thunder of Napoleon battles, to the jabbering of Open-vestry in St. Mary Axe, all thingsannounce Democracy. A distinguished man, whom some of my readerswill hear again with pleasure, thus writes to me what in thesedays he notes from the Wahngasse of Weissnichtwo, where ourLondon fashions seem to be in full vogue. Let us hear the HerrTeufelsdrockh again, were it but the smallest word!

'Democracy, which means despair of finding any Heroes to governyou, and contented putting up with the want of them, --alas, thoutoo, _mein Lieber, _ seest well how close it is of kin to_Atheism, _ and other sad _Isms:_ he who discovers no Godwhatever, how shall he discover Heroes, the visible Temples ofGod?--Strange enough meanwhile it is, to observe with whatthoughtlessness, here in our rigidly Conservative Country, menrush into Democracy with full cry. Beyond doubt, his Excellenzthe Titular-Herr Ritter Kauderwalsch von Pferdefuss-Quacksalber, he our distinguished Conservative Premier himself, and all butthe thicker-headed of his Party, discern Democracy to beinevitable as death, and are even desperate of delaying it much!

'You cannot walk the streets without beholding Democracy announceitself: the very Tailor has become, if not properlySansculottic, which to him would be ruinous, yet a Tailorunconsciously symbolising, and prophesying with his scissors, thereign of Equality. What now is our fashionable coat? A thing ofsuperfinest texture, of deeply meditated cut; with Malineslacecuffs; quilted with gold; so that a man can carry, withoutdifficulty, an estate of land on his back? _Keineswegs, _ By nomanner of means! The Sumptuary Laws have fallen into such astate of desuetude as was never before seen. Our fashionablecoat is an amphibium between barn-sack and drayman's doublet. The cloth of it is studiously coarse; the colour a speckledsootblack or rust-brown grey;--the nearest approach to aPeasant's. And for shape, --thou shouldst see it! The lastconsummation of the year now passing over us is definable asThree Bags: a big bag for the body, two small bags for the arms, and by way of collar a hem! The first Antique Cheruscan who, offelt-cloth or bear's-hide, with bone or metal needle, set aboutmaking himself a coat, before Tailors had yet awakened out ofNothing, --did not he make it even so? A loose wide poke forbody, with two holes to let out the arms; this was his originalcoat: to which holes it was soon visible that two small loosepokes, or sleeves, easily appended, would be an improvement. 

'Thus has the Tailor-art, so to speak, overset itself, like mostother things; changed its centre-of-gravity; whirled suddenlyover from zenith to nadir. Your Stulz, with huge Somerset, vaults from his high shopboard down to the depths of primalsavagery, --carrying much along with him! For I will invite theeto reflect that the Tailor, as topmost ultimate froth of HumanSociety, is indeed swift-passing, evanescent, slippery todecipher; yet significant of much, nay of all. Topmostevanescent froth, he is churned up from the very lees, and fromall intermediate regions of the liquor. The general outcome he, visible to the eye, of what men aimed to do, and were obliged andenabled to do, in this one public department of symbolisingthemselves to each other by covering of their skins. A smack ofall Human Life lies in the Tailor: its wild struggles towardsbeauty, dignity, freedom, victory; and how, hemmed in by Sedanand Huddersfield, by Nescience, Dulness, Prurience, and other sadnecessities and laws of Nature, it has attained just to this:Grey Savagery of Three Sacks with a hem!

'When the very Tailor verges towards Sansculottism, is it notominous? The last Divinity of poor mankind dethroning himself;sinking _his_ taper too, flame downmost, like the Genius of Sleepor of Death; admonitory that Tailor-time shall be no more!--Forlittle as one could advise Sumptuary Laws at the present epoch, yet nothing is clearer than that where ranks do actually exist, strict division of costumes will also be enforced; that if weever have a new Hierarchy and Aristocracy, acknowledged veritablyas such, for which I daily pray Heaven, the Tailor will reawaken;and be, by volunteering and appointment, consciously andunconsciously, a safeguard of that same. '--Certain fartherobservations, from the same invaluable pen, on our never-endingchanges of mode, our 'perpetual nomadic and even ape-likeappetite for change and mere change' in all the equipments of ourexistence, and the 'fatal revolutionary character' therebymanifested, we suppress for the present. It may be admitted thatDemocracy, in all meanings of the word, is in full career;irresistible by any Ritter Kauderwalsch or other Son of Adam, astimes go. 'Liberty' is a thing men are determined to have. 

But truly, as I had to remark in the meanwhile, 'the liberty ofnot being oppressed by your fellow man' is an indispensable, yetone of the most insignificant fractional parts of Human Liberty. No man oppresses thee, can bid thee fetch or carry, come or go, without reason shewn. True; from all men thou art emancipated:but from Thyself and from the Devil--? No man, wiser, unwiser, can make thee come or go: but thy own futilities, bewilderments, thy false appetites for Money, Windsor Georges and such like? Noman oppresses thee, O free and independent Franchiser: but doesnot this stupid Porter-pot oppress thee? No Son of Adam can bidthee come or go; but this absurd Pot of Heavy-wet, this can anddoes! Thou art the thrall not of Cedric the Saxon, but of thyown brutal appetites, and this scoured dish of liquor. And thoupratest of thy liberty? Thou entire blockhead!

Heavy-wet and gin: alas, these are not the only kinds ofthraldom. Thou who walkest in a vain shew, looking out withornamental dilettante sniff and serene supremacy at all Life andall Death; and amblest jauntily; perking up thy poor talk intocrotchets, thy poor conduct into fatuous somnambulisms;--and artas an 'enchanted Ape' under God's sky, where thou mightest havebeen a man, had proper Schoolmasters and Conquerors, andConstables with cat-o'-nine tails, been vouchsafed thee: dostthou call that 'liberty?' Or your unreposing Mammon-worshipper, again, driven, as if by Galvanisms, by Devils and Fixed-Ideas, who rises early and sits late, chasing the impossible; strainingevery faculty 'to fill himself with the east wind '--how mercifulwere it, could you, by mild persuasion or by the severest tyrannyso-called, check him in his mad path, turn him into a wiser one!All painful tyranny, in that case again, were but mild 'surgery;'the pain of it cheap, as health and life, instead of galvanismand fixed-idea, are cheap at any price. 

Sure enough, of all paths a man could strike into, there is, atany given moment, a _best path_ for every man; a thing which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do;--whichcould he be but led or driven to do, he were then doing 'like aman, ' as we phrase it; all men and gods agreeing with him, thewhole Universe virtually exclaiming Well-done to him! Hissuccess, in such case, were complete; his felicity a maximum. This path, to find this path and walk in it, is the one thingneedful for him. Whatsoever forwards him in that, let it come tohim even in the shape of blows and spurnings, is liberty:whatsoever hinders him, were it wardmotes, open-vestries, pollbooths, tremendous cheers, rivers of heavy-wet, is slavery. 

The notion that a man's liberty consists in giving his vote atelection-hustings, and saying, "Behold now I too have my twenty-thousandth part of a Talker in our National Palaver; will notall the gods be good to me?"--is one of the pleasantest! Naturenevertheless is kind at present; and puts it into the heads ofmany, almost of all. The liberty especially which has topurchase itself by social isolation, and each man standingseparate from the other, having 'no business with him' but acash-account: this is such a liberty as the Earth seldom saw;--as the Earth will not long put up with, recommend it how you may. This liberty turns out, before it have long continued in action, with all men flinging up their caps round it, to be, for theWorking Millions a liberty to die by want of food; for the IdleThousands and Units, alas, a still more fatal liberty to live inwant of work; to have no earnest duty to do in this God's-Worldany more. What becomes of a man in such predicament? Earth'sLaws are silent; and Heaven's speak in a voice which is notheard. No work, and the ineradicable need of work, give rise tonew very wondrous life-philosophies, new very wondrous life-practices! Dilettantism, Pococurantism, Beau-Brummelism, withperhaps an occasional, half-mad, protesting burst of Byronism, establish themselves: at the end of a certain period, --if you goback to 'the Dead Sea, ' there is, say our Moslem friends, a verystrange 'Sabbath-day' transacting itself there!--Brethren, weknow but imperfectly yet, after ages of ConstitutionalGovernment, what Liberty is and Slavery is. 

Democracy, the chase of Liberty in that direction, shall go itsfull course; unrestrainable by him of Pferdefuss-Quacksalber, orany of _his_ household. The Toiling Millions of Mankind, in mostvital need and passionate instinctive desire of Guidance, shallcast away False-Guidance; and hope, for an hour, that No-Guidance will suffice them: but it can be for an hour only. Thesmallest item of human Slavery is the oppression of man by hisMock-Superiors; the palpablest, but I say at bottom thesmallest. Let him shake off such oppression, trample itindignantly under his feet; I blame him not, I pity and commendhim. But oppression by your Mock-Superiors well shaken off, thegrand problem yet remains to solve: That of finding governmentby your Real-Superiors! Alas, how shall we ever learn thesolution of that, benighted, bewildered, sniffing, sneering, godforgetting unfortunates as we are? It is a work forcenturies; to be taught us by tribulations, confusions, insurrections, obstructions; who knows if not by conflagrationand despair! It is a lesson inclusive of all other lessons; thehardest of all lessons to learn. 

One thing I do know: Those Apes chattering on the branches bythe Dead Sea never got it learned; but chatter there to thisday. To them no Moses need come a second time; a thousandMoseses would be but so many painted Phantasms, interestingFellow-Apes of new strange aspect, --whom they would 'invite todinner, ' be glad to meet with in lion-soirees. To them the voiceof Prophecy, of heavenly monition, is quite ended. They chatterthere, all Heaven shut to them, to the end of the world. Theunfortunates! O, what is dying of hunger, with honest tools inyour hand, with a manful purpose in your heart, and much reallabour lying round you done, in comparison? You honestly quityour tools; quit a most muddy confused coil of sore work, shortrations, of sorrows, dispiritments and contradictions, having nowhonestly done with it all;--and await, not entirely in adistracted manner, what the Supreme Powers, and the Silences andthe Eternities may have to say to you. 

A second thing I know: This lesson will have to be learned, --under penalties! England will either learn it, or England alsowill cease to exist among Nations. England will either learn toreverence its Heroes, and discriminate them from its Sham-Heroesand Valets and gaslighted Histrios; and to prize them as theaudible God's-voice, amid all inane jargons and temporary market-cries, and say to them with heart-loyalty, "Be ye King andPriest, and Gospel and Guidance for us:" or else England willcontinue to worship new and ever-new forms of Quackhood, --and so, with what resiliences and reboundings matters little, go down tothe Father of Quacks! Can I dread such things of England?Wretched, thick-eyed, gross-hearted mortals, why will ye worshiplies, and 'Stuffed Clothes-suits, created by the ninth-parts ofmen!' It is not your purses that suffer; your farm-rents, yourcommerces, your mill-revenues, loud as ye lament over these; no, it is not these alone, but a far deeper than these: it is yourSouls that lie dead, crushed down under despicable Nightmares, Atheisms, Brain-fumes; and are not Souls at all, but meresuccedanea for _salt_ to keep your bodies and their appetitesfrom putrefying! Your cotton-spinning and thrice-miraculousmechanism, what is this too, by itself, but a larger kind ofAnimalism? Spiders can spin, Beavers can build and shewcontrivance; the Ant lays up accumulation of capital, and has, for aught I know, a Bank of Antland. If there is no soul in manhigher than all that, did it reach to sailing on the cloud-rackand spinning sea-sand; then I say, man is but an animal, a morecunning kind of brute: he has no soul, but only a succedaneumfor salt. Whereupon, seeing himself to be truly of the beaststhat perish, he ought to admit it, I think;--and also straightwayuniversally kill himself; and so, in a manlike manner, at least, _end, _ and wave these bruteworlds _his_ dignified farewell!--

Chapter XIV

Sir Jabesh Windbag

Oliver Cromwell, whose body they hung on their Tyburn Gallowsbecause he had found the Christian Religion inexecutable in thiscountry, remains to me by far the remarkablest Governor we havehad here for the last five centuries or so. For the last fivecenturies, there has been no Governor among us with anything likesimilar talent; and for the last two centuries, no Governor, wemay say, with the possibility of similar talent, --with an idea inthe heart of him capable of inspiring similar talent, capable ofcoexisting therewith. When you consider that Oliver believed ina God, the difference between Oliver's position and that of anysubsequent Governor of this Country becomes, the more you reflecton it, the more immeasurable!

Oliver, no volunteer in Public Life, but plainly a ballottedsoldier strictly ordered thither, enters upon Public Life;comports himself there like a man who carried his own life itselfin his hand; like a man whose Great Commander's eye was alwayson him. Not without results. Oliver, well-advanced in years, finds now, by Destiny and his own Deservings, or as he himselfbetter phrased it, by wondrous successive 'Births of Providence, 'the Government of England put into his hands. In senate-houseand battle-field, in counsel and in action, in private and inpublic, this man has proved himself a man: England and the voiceof God, through waste awful whirlwinds and environments, speakingto his great heart, summon him to assert formally, in the way ofsolemn Public Fact and as a new piece of English Law, whatinformally and by Nature's eternal Law needed no asserting, Thathe, Oliver, was the Ablest-Man of England, the King of England;that he, Oliver, would undertake governing England. His way ofmaking this same 'assertion, ' the one way he had of making it, has given rise to immense criticism: but the assertion itself inwhat way soever 'made, ' is it not somewhat of a solemn one, somewhat of a tremendous one!

And now do but contrast this Oliver with my right honourablefriend Sir Jabesh Windbag, Mr. Facing-both-ways, ViscountMealymouth, Earl of Windlestraw, or what other Cagliostro, Cagliostrino, Cagliostraccio, the course of Fortune andParliamentary Majorities has constitutionally guided to thatdignity, any time during these last sorrowful hundred-and-fiftyyears! Windbag, weak in the faith of a God, which he believesonly at Church on Sundays, if even then; strong only in thefaith that Paragraphs and Plausibilities bring votes; that Forceof Public Opinion, as he calls it, is the primal Necessity ofThings, and highest God we have:--Windbag, if we will considerhim, has a problem set before him which may be ranged in theimpossible class. He is a Columbus minded to sail to theindistinct country of NOWHERE, to the indistinct country ofWHITHERWARD, by the _friendship_ of those same waste-tumblingWater-Alps and howling waltz of All the Winds; not by conquestof them and in spite of them, but by friendship of them, whenonce _they_ have made up their mind! He is the most originalColumbus I ever saw. Nay, his problem is not an impossible one:he will infallibly _arrive_ at that same country of NOWHERE; hisindistinct Whitherward will be a _Thither_ward! In the OceanAbysses and Locker of Davy Jones, there certainly enough do heand _his_ ship's company, and all their cargo and navigatings, atlast find lodgement. 

Oliver knew that his America lay THERE, Westward Ho;--and it wasnot entirely by _friendship_ of the Water-Alps, and yeasty insaneFroth-Oceans, that he meant to get thither! He sailedaccordingly; had compass-card, and Rules of Navigation, --olderand greater than these Froth-Oceans, old as the Eternal God! Oragain, do but think of this. Windbag in these his probable fiveyears of office has to prosper and get Paragraphs: theParagraphs of these five years must be his salvation, or he is alost man; redemption nowhere in the Worlds or in the Timesdiscoverable for him. Oliver too would like his Paragraphs;successes, popularities in these five years are not undesirableto him: but mark, I say, this enormous circumstance: _after_these five years are gone and done, comes an Eternity for Oliver!Oliver has to appear before the Most High judge: the utmost flowof Paragraphs, the utmost ebb of them, is now, in strictestarithmetic, verily no matter at all; its exact value _zero;_ anaccount altogether erased! Enormous;--which a man, in thesedays, hardly fancies with an effort! Oliver's Paragraphs are alldone, his battles, division-lists, successes all summed: and nowin that awful unerring Court of Review, the real question firstrises, Whether he has succeeded at all; whether he has not beendefeated miserably forevermore? Let him come with world-wide_Io-Paens, _ these avail him not. Let him come covered over withthe world's execrations, gashed with ignominious death-wounds, the gallows-rope about his neck: what avails that? The wordis, Come thou brave and faithful; the word is, Depart thouquack and accursed!

O Windbag, my right honourable friend, in very truth I pity thee. I say, these Paragraphs, and low or loud votings of thy poorfellow-blockheads of mankind, will never guide thee in anyenterprise at all. Govern a country on such guidance? Thoucanst not make a pair of shoes, sell a pennyworth of tape, onsuch. No, thy shoes are vamped up falsely to meet the market;behold, the leather only _seemed_ to be tanned; thy shoes meltunder me to rubbishy pulp, and are not veritable mud-defyingshoes, but plausible vendible similitudes of shoes, --thouunfortunate, and I! O my right honourable friend, when theParagraphs flowed in, who was like Sir Jabesh? On the swellingtide he mounted; higher, higher, triumphant, heaven-high. Butthe Paragraphs again ebbed out, as unwise Paragraphs needs must:Sir Jabesh lies stranded, sunk and forever sinking in ignominiousooze; the Mud-nymphs, and ever-deepening bottomless Oblivion, his portion to eternal time. 'Posterity?' Thou appealest toPosterity, thou? My right honourable friend, what will Posteritydo for thee! The voting of Posterity, were it continued throughcenturies in thy favour, will be quite inaudible, extra-forensic, without any effect whatever. Posterity can do simply nothing fora man; nor even seem to do much, if the man be not brainsick. Besides, to tell thee truth, the bets are a thousand to one, Posterity will not hear of thee, my right honourable friend!Posterity, I have found, has generally his own Windbagssufficiently trumpeted in all market-places, and no leisure toattend to ours. Posterity, which has made of Norse Odin asimilitude, and of Norman William a brute monster, what will orcan it make of English Jabesh? O Heavens, 'Posterity!'

"These poor persecuted Scotch Covenanters, " said I to my inquiringFrenchman, in such stinted French as stood at command, _"ilss'en appelaient a"_--_"A la Posterite, "_ interrupted he, helpingme out. --_"Ah, Monsieur, non, mille fois non!_ They appealed tothe Eternal God; not to Posterity at all! _C'etait different. "_

Chapter XV

Morrison Again

Nevertheless, O Advanced Liberal, one cannot promise thee any'New Religion, ' for some time; to say truth, I do not think wehave the smallest chance of any! Will the candid reader, by wayof closing this Book Third, listen to a few transient remarks onthat subject?

Candid readers have not lately met with any man who had lessnotion to interfere with their Thirty-Nine, or other Church-Articles; wherewith, very helplessly as is like, they may havestruggled to form for themselves some not inconceivablehypothesis about this Universe, and their own Existence there. Superstition, my friend, is far from me; Fanaticism, for any_Fanum_ likely to arise soon on this Earth, is far. A man'sChurch-Articles are surely articles of price to him; and inthese times one has to be tolerant of many strange 'Articles, 'and of many still stranger 'No-articles, ' which go aboutplacarding themselves in a very distracted manner, --the numerouslong placard-poles, and questionable infirm paste-pots, interfering with one's peaceable thoroughfare sometimes!

Fancy a man, moreover, recommending his fellow men to believe inGod, that so Chartism might abate, and the Manchester Operativesbe got to spin peaceably! The idea is more distracted than anyplacard-pole seen hitherto in a public thoroughfare of men! Myfriend, if thou ever do come to believe in God, thou wilt findall Chartism, Manchester riot, Parliamentary incompetence, Ministries of Windbag, and the wildest Social Dissolutions, andthe burning up of this entire Planet, a most small matter incomparison. Brother, this Planet, I find, is but aninconsiderable sandgrain in the continents of Being: thisPlanet's poor temporary interests, thy interests and my intereststhere, when I look fixedly into that eternal Light-Sea and Flame-Sea with _its_ eternal interests, dwindle literally into Nothing;my speech of it is--silence for the while. I will as soon thinkof making Galaxies and Star Systems to guide little herring-vessels by, as of preaching Religion that the Constable maycontinue possible. O my Advanced-Liberal friend, this new secondprogress, of proceeding 'to invent God, ' is a very strange one!Jacobinism unfolded into Saint-Simonism bodes innumerable blessedthings; but the thing itself might draw tears from a Stoic!--Asfor me, some twelve or thirteen New Religions, heavy Packets, most of them unfranked, having arrived here from various parts ofthe world, in a space of six calendar months, I have instructedmy invaluable friend the Stamped Postman to introduce no more ofthem, if the charge exceed one penny. 

Henry of Essex, duelling in that Thames Island, near to ReadingAbbey, had a religion. But was it in virtue of his seeing armedPhantasms of St. Edmund 'on the rim of the horizon, ' lookingminatory on him? Had that, intrinsically, anything to do withhis religion at all? Henry of Essex's religion was the InnerLight or Moral Conscience of his own soul; such as is vouchsafedstill to all souls of men;--which Inner Light shone here 'throughsuch intellectual and other media' as there were; producing'Phantasms, ' Kircherean Visual-Spectra, according tocircumstances! It is so with all men. The clearer my InnerLight may shine, through the _less_ turbid media; the _fewer_Phantasms it may produce, --the gladder surely shall I be, and notthe sorrier! Hast thou reflected, O serious reader, Advanced-Liberal or other, that the one end, essence, use of all religionpast, present and to come, was this only: To keep that sameMoral Conscience or Inner Light of ours alive and shining--whichcertainly the 'Phantasms' and the 'turbid media' were notessential for! All religion was here to remind us, better orworse, of what we already know better or worse, of the quite_infinite_ difference there is between a Good man and a Bad; tobid us love infinitely the one, abhor and avoid infinitely theother, --strive infinitely to _be_ the one, and not to be theother. 'All religion issues in due Practical Hero-worship: Hethat has a soul unasphyxied will never want a religion; he thathas a soul asphyxied, reduced to a succedaneum for salt, willnever find any religion, though you rose from the dead to preachhim one. 

But indeed, when men and reformers ask for 'a religion, ' it isanalogous to their asking, 'What would you have us to do?' andsuch like. They fancy that their religion too shall be a kind ofMorrison's Pill, which they have only to swallow once, and allwill be well. Resolutely once gulp down your Religion, yourMorrison's Pill, you have it all plain sailing now; you canfollow your affairs, your no-affairs, go along money-hunting, pleasure-hunting, dilettanteing, dangling, and miming andchattering like a Dead-Sea Ape: your Morrison will do yourbusiness for you. Men's notions are very strange!--Brother, Isay there is not, was not, nor will ever be, in the wide circleof Nature, any Pill or Religion of that character. Man cannotafford thee such; for the very gods it is impossible. I advisethee to renounce Morrison; once for all, quit hope of theUniversal Pill. For body, for soul, for individual or society, there has not any such article been made. _Non extat. _ InCreated Nature it is not, was not, will not be. In the voidimbroglios of Chaos only, and realms of Bedlam, does some shadowof it hover, to bewilder and bemock the poor inhabitants _there. _

Rituals, Liturgies, Creeds, Hierarchies: all this is notreligion; all this, were it dead as Odinism, as Fetishism, doesnot kill religion at all! It is Stupidity alone, with never somany rituals, that kills religion. Is not this still a World?Spinning Cotton under Arkwright and Adam Smith; founding Citiesby the Fountain of Juturna, on the Janiculum Mount; tillingCanaan under Prophet Samuel and Psalmist David, man is ever man;the missionary of Unseen Powers; and great and victorious, whilehe continues true to his mission; mean, miserable, foiled, andat last annihilated and trodden out of sight and memory, when heproves untrue. Brother, thou art a Man, I think; thou are not amere building Beaver, or two-legged Cotton-Spider; thou hastverily a Soul in thee, asphyxied or otherwise! SootyManchester, --it too is built on the infinite Abysses;overspanned by the skyey Firmaments; and there is birth in it, and death in it;--and it is every whit as wonderful, as fearful, unimaginable, as the oldest Salem or Prophetic City. Go orstand, in what time, in what place we will, are there notImmensities, Eternities over us, around us, in us:

 'Solemn before us, Veiled, the dark Portal, Goal of all mortal:-- Stars silent rest o'er us, Graves under us silent'

Between _these_ two great Silences, the hum of all our spinningcylinders, Trades-Unions, Anti-Corn-Law Leagues and Carlton Clubsgoes on. Stupidity itself ought to pause a little, and considerthat. I tell thee, through all thy Ledgers, Supply-and-demandPhilosophies, and daily most modern melancholy Business and Cant, there does shine the presence of a Primeval Unspeakable; andthou wert wise to recognise, not with lips only, that same!

The Maker's Laws, whether they are promulgated in Sinai Thunder, to the ear or imagination, or quite otherwise promulgated, arethe Laws of God; transcendant, everlasting, imperativelydemanding obedience from all men. This, without any thunder, orwith never so much thunder, thou, if there be any soul left inthee, canst know of a truth. The Universe, I say, is made byLaw; the great Soul of the World is just and not unjust. Lookthou, if thou have eyes or soul left, into this great shorelessIncomprehensible: in the heart of its tumultuous Appearances, Embroilments, and mad Time-vortexes, is there not, silent, eternal, an All-just, an All-beautiful; sole Reality andultimate controlling Power of the whole? This is not a figure ofspeech; this is a fact. The fact of Gravitation known to allanimals, is not surer than this inner Fact, which may be known toall men. He who knows this, it will sink, silent, awful, unspeakable, into his heart. He will say with Faust: "Who_dare_ name HIM?" Most rituals or 'namings' he will fall in withat present, are like to be 'namings'--which shall be nameless!In silence, in the Eternal Temple, let him worship, if there beno fit word. Such knowledge, the crown of his whole spiritualbeing, the life of his life, let him keep and sacredly walk by. He has a religion. Hourly and daily, for himself and for thewhole world, a faithful, unspoken, but not ineffectual prayerrises, "Thy will be done. " His whole work on Earth is anemblematic spoken or acted prayer, Be the will of God done onEarth, --not the Devil's will, or any of the Devil's servants'wills! He has a religion, this man; an everlasting Loadstarthat beams the brighter in the Heavens, the darker here on Earthgrows the night around him. Thou, if thou know not this, whatare all rituals, liturgies, mythologies, mass-chantings, turningsof the rotatory calabash? They are as nothing; in a good manyrespects they are as _less. _ Divorced from this, getting half-divorced from this, they are a thing to fill one with a kind ofhorror; with a sacred inexpressible pity and fear. The mosttragical thing a human eye can look on. It was said to theProphet, "Behold, I will shew thee worse things than these:women weeping to Thammuz. " That was the acme of the Prophet'svision, --then as now. 

Rituals, Liturgies, Credos, Sinai Thunder: I know more or lessthe history of these; the rise, progress, decline and fall ofthese. Can thunder from all the thirty-two azimuths, repeateddaily for centuries of years, make God's Laws more godlike to me?Brother, No. Perhaps I am grown to be a man now; and do notneed the thunder and the terror any longer! Perhaps I am abovebeing frightened; perhaps it is not Fear, but Reverence alone, that shall now lead me!--Revelations, Inspirations? Yes: andthy own god-created Soul; dost thou not call that a`revelation?' Who made THEE? Where didst Thou come from? TheVoice of Eternity, if thou be not a blasphemer and poor asphyxiedmute, speaks with that tongue of thine! _Thou_ art the latestBirth of Nature; it is 'the Inspiration of the Almighty' thatgiveth thee understanding! My brother, my brother!--

Under baleful Atheisms, Mammonisms, Joe-Manton Dilettantisms, with their appropriate Cants and Idolisms, and whatsoeverscandalous rubbish obscures and all but extinguishes the soul ofman, --religion now is; its Laws, written if not on stone tables, yet on the Azure of Infinitude, in the inner heart of God'sCreation, certain as Life, certain as Death! I say the Laws arethere, and thou shalt not disobey them. It were better for theenot. Better a hundred deaths than yes. Terrible 'penalties'withal, if thou still need 'penalties, ' are there for disobeying. Dost thou observe, O redtape Politician, that fiery infernalPhenomenon, which men name FRENCH REVOLUTION, sailing, unlooked-for, unbidden; through thy inane Protocol Dominion:--far-seen, with splendour not of Heaven? Ten centuries will see it. Therewere Tanneries at Meudon for human skins. And Hell, very trulyHell, had power over God's upper Earth for a season. Thecruelest Portent that has risen into created Space these tencenturies: let us hail it, with awestruck repentant hearts, asthe voice once more of a God, though of one in wrath. Blessed bethe God's-voice; for _it_ is true, and Falsehoods have to ceasebefore it! But for that same preternatural quasi-infernalPortent; one could not know what to make of this wretched world, in these days' at all. The deplorablest quack-ridden, and nowhunger-ridden, downtrodden Despicability and _Flebile Ludibrium, _of redtape Protocols, rotatory Calabashes, Poor-Law Bastilles:who is there that could think of _its_ being fated to continue?--

Penalties enough, my brother! This penalty inclusive of all:Eternal Death to thy own hapless Self, if thou heed no other. Eternal Death, I say, --with many meanings old and new, of whichlet this single one suffice us here: The eternal impossibilityfor thee to _be_ aught but a Chimera, and swift-vanishingdeceptive Phantasm, in God's Creation;--swift-vanishing, never toreappear: why should it reappear! Thou hadst one chance, thouwilt never have another. Everlasting ages will roll on, and noother be given thee. The foolishest articulate-speaking soul nowextant, may not he say to himself: "A whole Eternity I waited tobe born; and now I have a whole Eternity waiting to see what Iwill do when born!" This is not Theology, this is Arithmetic. And thou but half-discernest this; thou but half-believest it?Alas, on the shores of the Dead Sea on Sabbath, there goes ona Tragedy!--

But we will leave this of 'Religion;' of which, to say truth, itis chiefly profitable in these unspeakable days to keep silence. Thou needest no 'New Religion;' nor art thou like to get any. Thou hast already more 'religion' than thou makest use of. Thisday, thou knowest ten commanded duties, seest in thy mind tenthings which should be done, for one that thou doest! Do one ofthem; this of itself will skew thee ten others which can andshall be done. "But my future fate?" Yes, thy future fate, indeed? Thy future fate, while thou makest _it_ the chiefquestion, seems to me--extremely questionable! I do not think itcan be good. Norse Odin, immemorial centuries ago, did not he, though a poor Heathen, in the dawn of Time, teach us that, forthe Dastard there was and could be no good fate; no harbouranywhere, save down with Hela, in the pool of Night! Dastards, Knaves, are they that lust for Pleasure, that tremble at Pain. For this world and for the next, Dastards are a class ofcreatures made to be 'arrested;' they are good for nothing else, can look for nothing else. A greater than Odin has been here. Agreater than Odin has taught us--not a greater Dastardism, Ihope! My brother, thou must pray for a _soul;_ struggle, aswith life-and-death energy, to get back thy soul! Know that'religion' is no Morrison's Pill from without, but a reawakeningof thy own Self from within:--and, above all, leave me alone ofthy 'religions' and 'new religions' here and elsewhere! I amweary of this sick croaking for a Morrison's-Pill religion; forany and for every such. I want none such; and discern all suchto be impossible. The resuscitation of old liturgies fallendead; much more, the manufacture of new liturgies that willnever be alive: how hopeless Stylitisms, eremite fanaticisms andfakeerisms; spasmodic agonistic posturemakings, and narrow, cramped, morbid, if forever noble wrestlings: all this is not athing desirable to me. It is a thing the world _has_ done once, --when its beard was not grown as now!

And yet there is, at worst, one Liturgy which does remain foreverunexceptionable: that of _Praying_ (as the old Monks did withal)_by Working. _ And indeed the Prayer which accomplished itself inspecial chapels at stated hours, and went not with a man, risingup from all his Work and Action, at all moments sanctifying thesame, --what was it ever good for? 'Work is Worship:' yes, in ahighly considerable sense, --which, in the present state of all'worship, ' who is there that can unfold! He that understands itwell, understands the Prophecy of the whole Future; the lastEvangel, which has included all others. Its cathedral the Domeof Immensity, --hast thou seen it? coped with the star-galaxies;paved with the green mosaic of land and ocean; and for altar, verily, the Star-throne of the Eternal! Its litany and psalmodythe noble acts, the heroic work and suffering, and true Heart-utterance of all the Valiant of the Sons of Men. Its choir-musicthe ancient Winds and Oceans, and deep-toned, inarticulate, butmost speaking voices of Destiny and History, --supernal ever as ofold. Between two great Silences:

 'Stars silent rest o o'er us, Graves under us silent!'

Between which two great Silences, do not, as we said, all humanNoises, in the naturalest times, most preternaturally marchand roll?--

I will insert this also, in a lower strain, from Sauerteig's_Aesthetische Springwurzel. _ 'Worship?' says he: 'Before thatinane tumult of Hearsay filled men's heads, while the world layyet silent, and the heart true and open, many things wereWorship! To the primeval man whatsoever good came, descended onhim (as, in mere fact, it ever does) direct from God; whatsoeverduty lay visible for him, this a Supreme God had prescribed. Tothe present hour I ask thee, Who else? For the primeval man, inwhom dwelt Thought, this Universe was all a Temple; Lifeeverywhere a Worship. 

'What Worship, for example, is there not in mere Washing!Perhaps one of the most moral things a man, in common cases, hasit in his power to do. Strip thyself, go into the bath, or wereit into the limpid pool and running brook, and there wash and beclean; thou wilt step out again a purer and a better man. Thisconsciousness of perfect outer pureness, that to thy skin therenow adheres no foreign speck of imperfection, how it radiates inon thee, with cunning symbolic influences, to thy very soul!Thou hast an increase of tendency towards all good thingswhatsoever. The oldest Eastern Sages, with joy and holygratitude, had felt it so, --and that it was the Maker's gift andwill. Whose else is it? It remains a religious duty, fromoldest times, in the East. --Nor could Herr Professor Strauss, when I put the question, deny that for us at present it is stillsuch here in the West! To that dingy fuliginous Operative, emerging from his soot-mill, what is the first duty I willprescribe, and offer help towards? That he clean the skin ofhim. _Can_ he pray, by any ascertained method? One knows notentirely:--but with soap and a sufficiency of water, he can wash. Even the dull English feel something of this; they have asaying, "Cleanliness is near of kin to Godliness:"--yet never, inany country, saw I operative men worse washed, and, in a climatedrenched with the softest cloud-water, such a scarcity ofbaths!'--Alas, Sauerteig, our 'operative men' are at presentshort even of potatoes: what 'duty' can you prescribe to them!

Or let us give a glance at China. Our new friend, the Emperorthere, is Pontiff of three hundred million men; who do all liveand work, these many centuries now; authentically patronised byHeaven so far; and therefore must have some 'religion' of akind. T his Emperor-Pontiff has, in fact, a religious belief ofcertain Laws of Heaven; observes, with a religious rigour, his'three thousand punctualities, ' given out by men of insight, somesixty generations since, as a legible transcript of the same, --the Heavens do seem to say, not totally an incorrect one. He hasnot much of a ritual, this Pontiff-Emperor; believes, it islikest, with the old Monks, that 'Labour is Worship. ' His mostpublic Act of Worship, it appears, is the drawing solemnly at acertain day, on the green bosom of our Mother Earth, when theHeavens, after dead black winter, have again with their vernalradiances awakened her, a distinct red Furrow with the Plough, --signal that all the Ploughs of China are to begin ploughing andworshipping! It is notable enough. He, in sight of the Seen andUnseen Powers, draws his distinct red Furrow there; saying, andpraying, in mute symbolism, so many most eloquent things!

If you ask this Pontiff, "Who made him? What is to become of himand us?" he maintains a dignified reserve; waves his hand andpontiff-eyes over the unfathomable deep of Heaven, the 'Tsien, 'the azure kingdoms of Infinitude; as if asking, "is it doubtfulthat we are right _well_ made? Can aught that is _wrong_ becomeof us?"--He and his three hundred millions (it is their chief'punctuality') visit yearly the Tombs of their Fathers; each manthe Tomb of his Father and his Mother: alone there, in silence, with what of 'worship' or of other thought there may be, pausessolemnly each man; the divine Skies all silent over him; thedivine Graves, and this divinest Grave, all silent under him;the pulsings of his own soul, if he have any soul, alone audible. Truly it may be a kind of worship! Truly, if a man cannot getsome glimpse into the Eternities, looking through this portal, --through what other need he try it?

Our friend the Pontiff-Emperor permits cheerfully, though withcontempt, all manner of Buddhists, Bonzes, Talapoins and suchlike, to build brick Temples, on the voluntary principle; toworship with what of chantings, paper-lanterns and tumultuousbrayings, pleases them; and make night hideous, since they findsome comfort in so doing. Cheerfully, though with contempt. Heis a wiser Pontiff than many persons think! He is as yet the oneChief Potentate or Priest in this Earth who has made a distinctsystematic attempt at what we call the ultimate result of allreligion, _'Practical_ Hero-worship:' he does incessantly, withtrue anxiety, in such way as he can, search and sift (it wouldappear) his whole enormous population for the Wisest born amongthem; by which Wisest, as by born Kings, these three hundredmillion men are governed. The Heavens, to a certain extent, doappear to countenance him. These three hundred millions actuallymake porcelain, souchong tea, with innumerable other things; andfight, under Heaven's flag, against Necessity;--and have fewerSeven-Years Wars, Thirty-Years Wars, French-Revolution Wars, andinfernal fightings with each other, than certain millionselsewhere have!

Nay, in our poor distracted Europe itself, in these newest times, have there not religious voices risen, --with a religion new andyet the oldest; entirely indisputable to all hearts of men?Some I do know, who did not call or think themselves 'Prophets, 'far enough from that; but who were, in very truth, melodiousVoices from the eternal Heart of Nature once again; soulsforever venerable to all that have a soul. A French Revolutionis one phenomenon; as complement and spiritual exponent thereof, a Poet Goethe and German Literature is to me another. The oldSecular or Practical World, so to speak, having gone up in fire, is not here the prophecy and dawn of a new Spiritual World, parent of far nobler, wider, new Practical Worlds? A Life ofAntique devoutness, Antique veracity and heroism, has againbecome possible, is again _seen_ actual there, for the mostmodern man. A phenomenon, as quiet as it is, comparable forgreatness to no other! 'The great event for the world is, now asalways, the arrival in it of a new Wise Man. ' Touches there are, be the Heavens ever thanked, of new Sphere-melody; audible oncemore, in the infinite jargoning discords and poor scrannel-pipings of the thing called Literature;--priceless there, as thevoice of new Heavenly Psalms! Literature, like the old Prayer-Collections of the first centuries, were it 'well selected fromand burnt, ' contains precious things. For Literature, with allits printing-presses, puffing-engines and shoreless deafeningtriviality, is yet 'the Thought of Thinking Souls. ' A sacred'religion, ' if you like the name, does live in the heart of thatstrange froth-ocean, not wholly froth, which we call Literature;and will more and more disclose itself therefrom;--not now asscorching Fire: the red smoky scorching Fire has purified itselfinto white sunny Light. Is not Light grander than Fire? It isthe same element in a state of purity. 

My ingenuous readers, we will march out of this Third Book with arhythmic word of Goethe's on our tongue; a word which perhapshas already sung itself, in dark hours and in bright, throughmany a heart. To me, finding it devout yet wholly credible andveritable, full of piety yet free of cant; to me joyfullyfinding much in it, and joyfully missing so much in it, thislittle snatch of music, by the greatest German Man, sounds like astanza in the grand _Road-Song_ and _Marching-Song_ of our greatTeutonic Kindred, wending, wending, valiant and victorious, through the undiscovered Deeps of Time! He calls it _Mason-Lodge, _--not Psalm or Hymn:

 The Mason's ways are A type of Existence, And his persistance Is as the days are Of men in this world. 

 The Future hides in it Good hap and sorrow; We press still thorow, Nought that abides in it Daunting us, --onward. 

 And solemn before us, Veiled, the dark Portal, Goal of all mortal:-- Stars silent rest o'er us, Graves under us silent. 

 While earnest thou gazest, Comes boding of terror, Comes phantasm and error, Perplexes the bravest With doubt and misgiving. 

 But heard are the Voices, -- Heard are the Sages, The Worlds and the Ages: "Choose well, your choice is Brief and yet endless:

 Here eyes do regard you, In Eternity's stilness; Here is all fulness, Ye brave, to reward you; Work, and despair not. "

Book IV--Horoscope

Chapter I

Aristocracies

To predict the Future, to manage the Present, would not be soimpossible, had not the Past been so sacrilegiously mishandled;effaced, and what is worse, defaced! The Past cannot be seen;the Past, looked at through the medium of 'Philosophical History'in these times, cannot even be _not_ seen: it is misseen;affirmed to have existed, --and to have been a godlessImpossibility. Your Norman Conquerors, true royal souls, crownedkings as such, were vulturous irrational tyrants: your Becketwas a noisy egoist and hypocrite; getting his brains spilt onthe floor of Canterbury Cathedral, to secure the main chance, --somewhat uncertain how! "Enthusiasm, " and even "honestEnthusiasm, "--yes, of course:

 'The Dog, to gain his private ends, _Went_ mad, and bit the Man!'--

For in truth, the eye sees in all things 'what it brought with itthe means of seeing. ' A godless century, looking back oncenturies that were godly, produces portraitures more miraculousthan any other. All was inane discord in the Past; brute Forcebore rule everywhere; Stupidity, savage Unreason, fitter forBedlam than for a human World! Whereby indeed it becomessufficiently natural that the like qualities, in new sleekerhabiliments, should continue in our time to rule. Millionsenchanted in Bastille Workhouses; Irish Widows proving theirrelationship by typhus-fever: what would you have? It was everso, or worse. Man's History, was it not always even this: Thecookery and eating up of imbecile Dupedom by successfulQuackhood; the battle, with various weapons, of vulturous Quackand Tyrant against vulturous Tyrant and Quack? No God was in thePast Time; nothing but. Mechanisms and Chaotic Brute-gods:--howshall the poor 'Philosophic Historian, ' to whom his own centuryis all godless, see any God in other centuries?

Men believe in Bibles, and disbelieve in them: but of all Biblesthe frightfulest to disbelieve in is this 'Bible of UniversalHistory. ' This is the Eternal Bible and God's-Book, 'which everyborn man, ' till once the soul and eyesight are distinguished inhim, 'can and must, with his own eyes, see the God's-Fingerwriting!' To discredit this, is an _infidelity_ like no other. Such infidelity you would punish, if not by fire and faggot, which are difficult to manage in our times, yet by the mostperemptory order, To hold its peace till it got something wiserto say. Why should the blessed Silence be broken into noises, tocommunicate only the like of this? If the Past have no God's-Reason in it, nothing but Devil's-Unreason, let the Past beeternally forgotten: mention it no more;--we whose ancestorswere all hanged, why should we talk of ropes!

It is, in brief, not true that men ever lived by Delirium, Hypocrisy, Injustice, or any form of Unreason, since they came toinhabit this Planet. It is not true that they ever did, or everwill, live except by the reverse of these. Men will again betaught this. Their acted History will then again be a Heroism;their written History, what it once was, an Epic. Nay, foreverit is either such; or else it virtually is--Nothing. Were itwritten in a thousand volumes, the Unheroic of such volumeshastens incessantly to be forgotten; the net content of anAlexandrian Library of Unheroics is, and will ultimately shewitself to be, _zero. _ What man is interested to remember _it, _have not all men, at all times, the liveliest interest to forgetit?--'Revelations, ' if not celestial, then infernal, will teachus that God is; we shall then, if needful, discern withoutdifficulty that He has always been! The Dryasdust Philosophismsand enlightened Scepticisms of the Eighteenth Century, historicaland other, will have to survive for a while with thePhysiologists, as a memorable _Nightmare-Dream. _ All thishaggard epoch, with its ghastly Doctrines, and death's-headPhilosophies 'teaching by example' or otherwise, will one dayhave become, what to our Moslem friends their godless ages are, 'the Period of Ignorance. 

If the convulsive struggles of the last Half-Century have taughtpoor struggling convulsed Europe any truth, it may perhaps bethis as the essence of innumerable others: That Europe requiresa real Aristocracy, a real Priesthood, or it cannot continue toexist. Huge French Revolutions, Napoleonisms, then Bourbonismswith their corollary of Three Days, finishing in very unfinalLouis-Philippisms: all this ought to be didactic! All this mayhave taught us, That False Aristocracies are insupportable;that No-Aristocracies, Liberty-and-Equalities are impossible;that True Aristocracies are at once indispensable and noteasily attained. 

Aristocracy and Priesthood, a Governing Class and a TeachingClass: these two, sometimes separate, and endeavouring toharmonise themselves, sometimes conjoined as one, and the King aPontiff-King:--there did no Society exist without these two vitalelements, there will none exist. It lies in the very nature ofman: you will visit no remotest village in the most republicancountry of the world, where virtually or actually you do not findthese two powers at work. Man, little as he may suppose it, isnecessitated to obey superiors. He is a social being in virtueof this necessity; nay he could not be gregarious otherwise. Heobeys those whom he esteems better than himself, wiser, braver;and will forever obey such; and even be ready and delighted todo it. 

The Wiser, Braver: these, a Virtual Aristocracy everywhere andeverywhen, do in all Societies that reach any articulate shape, develop themselves into a ruling class, an Actual Aristocracy, with settled modes of operating, what are called laws and even_private-laws_ or privileges, and so forth; very notable to lookupon in this world. --Aristocracy and Priesthood, we say, aresometimes united. For indeed the Wiser and the Braver areproperly but one class; no wise man but needed first of all tobe a brave man, or he never had been wise. The noble Priest wasalways a noble Aristos to begin with, and something more to endwith. Your Luther, your Knox, your Anselm, Becket, Abbot Samson, Samuel Johnson, if they had not been brave enough, by whatpossibility could they ever have been wise?--If, from accident orforethought, this your Actual Aristocracy have got discriminatedinto Two Classes, there can be no doubt but the Priest Class isthe more dignified; supreme over the other, as governing head isover active hand. And yet in practice again, it is likeliest thereverse will be found arranged;--a sign that the arrangement isalready vitiated; that a split is introduced into it, which willwiden and widen till the whole be rent asunder. 

In England, in Europe generally, we may say that these twoVirtualities have unfolded themselves into Actualities, in by farthe noblest and richest manner any region of the world ever saw. A spiritual Guideship, a practical Governorship, fruit of thegrand conscious endeavours, say rather of the immeasurableunconscious instincts and necessities of men, have establishedthemselves; very strange to behold. Everywhere, while so muchhas been forgotten, you find the King's Palace, and theViceking's Castle, Mansion, Manorhouse; till there is not aninch of ground from sea to sea but has both its King andViceking, long due series of Viceking, its Squire, Earl, Duke orwhatever the title of him, --to whom you have given the land thathe may govern you in it. 

More touching still, there is not a hamlet where poor peasantscongregate, but by one means and another a Church-Apparatus hasbeen got together, --roofed edifice, with revenues and belfries;pulpit, reading-desk, with Books and Methods: possibility, inshort, and strict prescription, That a man stand there and speakof spiritual things to men. It is beautiful;--even in its greatobscuration and decadence, it is among the beautifulest, mosttouching objects one sees on the Earth. This Speaking Man hasindeed, in these times, wandered terribly from the point; has, alas, as it were totally lost sight of the point: yet, atbottom, whom have we to compare with him? Of all publicfunctionaries boarded and lodged on the Industry of ModernEurope, is there one worthier of the board he has? A man evenprofessing, and never so languidly making still some endeavour, to save the souls of men: contrast him with a man professing todo little but shoot the partridges of men! I wish he could findthe point again, this Speaking One; and stick to it withtenacity, with deadly energy; for there is need of him yet! TheSpeaking Function, this of Truth coming to us with a livingvoice, nay in a living shape, and as a concrete practicalexemplar: this, with all our Writing and Printing Functions, hasa perennial place. Could he but find the point again, --take theold spectacles off his nose, and looking up discover, almost incontact with him, what the _real_ Satanas, and soul-devouring, world-devouring _Devil, _ now is! Original Sin and such like arebad enough, I doubt not: but distilled Gin, dark Ignorance, Stupidity, dark Corn-Law, Bastille and Company, what are they!_Will_ he discover our new real Satan, whom he has to fight; orgo on droning through his old nose-spectacles about old extinctSatans; and never see the real one, till he _feel_ him at hisown throat and ours? That is a question, for the world! Let usnot intermeddle with it here. 

Sorrowful, phantasmal as this same Double Aristocracy of Teachersand Governors now looks, it is worth all men's while to know thatthe purport of it is and remains noble and most real. Dryasdust, looking merely at the surface, is greatly in error as to thoseancient Kings. William Conqueror, William Rufus or Redbeard, Stephen Curthose himself, much more Henry Beauclerc and our bravePlantagenet Henry: the life of these men was not a vulturousFighting; it was a valorous Governing, --to which occasionallyFighting did, and alas must yet, though far seldomer now, superadd itself as an accident, a distressing impedimentaladjunct. The fighting too was indispensable, for ascertainingwho had the might over whom, the right over whom. By much hardfighting, as we once said, 'the unrealities, beaten into dust, flew gradually off;' and left the plain reality and fact, "Thoustronger than I; thou wiser than I; thou king, and subject I, "in a somewhat clearer condition. 

Truly we cannot enough admire, in those Abbot-Samson and William-Conqueror times, the arrangement they had made of their GoverningClasses. Highly interesting to observe how the sincere insight, on their part, into what did, of primary necessity, behove to beaccomplished, had led them to the way of accomplishing it, and inthe course of time to get it accomplished! No imaginaryAristocracy would serve their turn; and accordingly theyattained a real one. The Bravest men, who, it is ever to berepeated and remembered, are also on the whole the Wisest, Strongest, every way Best, had here, with a respectable degree ofaccuracy, been got selected; seated each on his piece ofterritory, which was lent him, then gradually given him, thathe might govern it. These Vicekings, each on his portion ofthe common soil of England, with a Head King over all, werea 'Virtuality perfected into an Actuality' really to anastonishing extent. 

For those were rugged stalwart ages; full of earnestness, of arude God's-truth:--nay, at any rate, their _quilting_ was sounspeakably _thinner_ than ours; Fact came swiftly on them, ifat any time they had yielded to Phantasm! 'The Knaves andDastards' had to be 'arrested' in some measure; or the world, almost within year and day, found that it could not live. TheKnaves and Dastards accordingly were got arrested. Dastards uponthe very throne had to be got arrested, and taken off thethrone, --by such methods as there were; by the roughest method, if there chanced to be no smoother one! Doubtless there was muchharshness of operation, much severity; as indeed government andsurgery are often somewhat severe. Gurth born thrall of Cedric, it is like; got cuffs as often as pork-parings, if hemisdemeaned himself; but Gurth did belong to Cedric: no humancreature then went about connected with nobody; left to go hisways into Bastilles or worse, under _Laissez-faire;_ reduced toprove his relationship by dying of typhus-fever!--Days come whenthere is no King in Israel, but every man is his own king, doingthat which is right in his own eyes;--and tarbarrels are burnt to'Liberty, ' 'Tenpound Franchise' and the like, with considerableeffect in various ways!--

That Feudal Aristocracy, I say, was no imaginary one. To arespectable degree, its _Jarls, _ what we now call Earls, were_Strong-Ones_ in fact as well as etymology; its Dukes _Leaders, _its Lords _Law-wards. _ They did all the Soldiering and Police ofthe country, all the judging, Law-making, even the Church-Extension; whatsoever in the way of Governing, of Guiding andProtecting could be done. It was a Land Aristocracy; it managedthe Governing of this English People, and had the reaping of theSoil of England in return. It is, in many senses, the Law ofNature, this same Law of Feudalism;--no right Aristocracy but aLand one! The curious are invited to meditate upon it in thesedays. Soldiering, Police and Judging, Church-Extension, nay realGovernment and Guidance, all this was actually _done_ by theHolders of the Land in return for their Land. How much of it isnow done by them; done by anybody? Good Heavens, "Laissez-faire, Do ye nothing, eat your wages and sleep, " is everywherethe passionate half-wise cry of this time; and they will not somuch as do nothing, but must do mere Corn-Laws! We raise Fifty-two millions, from the general mass of us, to get our Governingdone, --or, alas, to get ourselves persuaded that it is done: andthe 'peculiar burden of the Land' is to pay, not all this, but topay, as I learn, one twenty-fourth part of all this. Our firstChartist Parliament, or Oliver _Redivivus, _ you would say, willknow where to lay the new taxes of England!--Or, alas, taxes? Ifwe made the Holders of the Land pay every shilling still of theexpense of Governing the Land, what were all that? The Land, bymere hired Governors, cannot be got governed. You cannot hiremen to govern the Land: it is by a mission not contracted for inthe Stock-Exchange, but felt in their own hearts as coming out ofHeaven, that men can govern a Land. The mission of a LandAristocracy is a sacred one, in both the senses of that old word. The footing it stands on, at present, might give rise to thoughtsother than of Corn-Laws!--

But truly a 'Splendour of God, ' as in William Conqueror's roughoath, did dwell in those old rude veracious ages; did inform, more and more, with a heavenly nobleness, all departments oftheir work and life. Phantasms could not yet walk abroad in mereCloth Tailorage; they were at least Phantasms 'on the rim of thehorizon, ' pencilled there by an eternal Light-beam from within. A most 'practical' Hero-worship went on, unconsciously or half-consciously, everywhere. A Monk Samson, with a maximum of twoshillings in his pocket, could, without ballot-box, be made aViceking of, being seen to be worthy. The difference between agood man and a bad man was as yet felt to be, what it forever is, an immeasurable one. Who _durst_ have elected a Pandarus Dog-draught, in those days, to any office, Carlton Club, Senatorship, or place whatsoever? It was felt that the arch Satanas and noother had a clear right of property in Pandarus; that it werebetter for you to have no hand in Pandarus, to keep out ofPandarus his neighbourhood! Which is, to this hour, the merefact; though for the present, alas, the forgotten fact. I thinkthey were comparatively blessed times those, in their way!'Violence, ' 'war, ' 'disorder:' well, what is war, and deathitself, to such a perpetual life-in-death, and 'peace and peacewhere there is no peace!' Unless some Hero-worship, in its newappropriate form, can return, this world does not promise to bevery habitable long. 

Old Anselm, exiled Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the purest-minded 'men of genius, ' was traveling to make his appeal to Romeagainst King Rufus, --a man of rough ways, in whom the 'innerLight-beam' shone very fitfully. It is beautiful to read, inMonk Eadmer, how the Continental populations welcomed andvenerated this Anselm, as no French population now veneratesJean-Jacques or giant-killing Voltaire; as not even an Americanpopulation now venerates a Schnuspel the distinguished Novelist!They had, by phantasy and true insight, the intensest convictionthat a God's Blessing dwelt in this Anselm, --as is my convictiontoo. They crowded round, with bent knees and enkindled hearts, to receive his blessing, to hear his voice, to see the light ofhis face. My blessings on them and on him!--But the notablestwas a certain necessitous or covetous Duke of Burgundy, instraitened circumstances we shall hope, --who reflected that inall likelihood this English Archbishop, going towards Rome toappeal, must have taken store of cash with him to bribe theCardinals. Wherefore he of Burgundy, for his part, decided tolie in wait and rob him. 'In an open space of a wood, ' some'wood' then green and growing, eight centuries ago, in BurgundianLand, --this fierce Duke, with fierce steel followers, shaggy, savage, as the Russian Bear, dashes out on the weak old Anselm;who is riding along there, on his small quiet-going pony;escorted only by Eadmer and another poor Monk on ponies; and, except small modicum of roadmoney, not a gold coin in hispossession. The steelclad Russian Bear emerges, glaring: theold whitebearded man starts not, --paces on unmoved, looking intohim with those clear old earnest eyes, with that venerablesorrowful time-worn face; of whom no man or thing need beafraid, and who also is afraid of no created man or thing. Thefire-eyes of his Burgundian Grace meet these clear eye-glances, convey them swift to his heart: he bethinks him that probablythis feeble, fearless, hoary Figure has in it something of theMost High God; that probably he shall be damned if he meddlewith it, --that, on the whole, he had better not. He plunges, therough savage, from his warhorse, down to his knees; embraces thefeet of old Anselm: he too begs his blessing; orders men toescort him, guard him from being robbed, and under dreadpenalties see him safe on his way. _Per os Dei, _ as his Majestywas wont to ejaculate!

Neither is this quarrel of Rufus and Anselm, of Henry and Becket, uninstructive to us. It was, at bottom, a great quarrel. For, admitting that Anselm was full of divine blessing, he by no meansincluded in him all forms of divine blessing:--there were farother forms withal, which he little dreamed of; and WilliamRedbeard was unconsciously the representative and spokesman ofthese. In truth, could your divine Anselm, your divine PopeGregory have had their way, the results had been very notable. Our Western World had all become a European Thibet, with oneGrand Lama sitting at Rome; our one honourable business that ofsinging mass, all day and all night. Which would not in theleast have suited us! The Supreme Powers willed it not so. 

It was as if King Redbeard unconsciously, addressing Anselm, Becket and the others, had said: "Right Reverend, your Theory ofthe Universe is indisputable by man or devil. To the core of ourheart we feel that this divine thing, which you call MotherChurch, does fill the whole world hitherto known, and is andshall be all our salvation and all our desire. And yet--and yet--Behold, though it is an unspoken secret, the world is _wider_than any of us think, Right Reverend! Behold, there are yetother immeasurable Sacrednesses in this that you call Heathenism, Secularity! On the whole I, in an obscure but most rootedmanner, feel that I cannot comply with you. Western Thibet andperpetual mass-chanting, --No. I am, so to speak, in the family-way; with child, of I know not what, --certainly of something fardifferent from this! I have--_Per os Dei, _ I have ManchesterCotton-trades, Bromwicham Iron-trades, American Commonwealths, Indian Empires, Steam Mechanisms and Shakspeare Dramas, in mybelly; and cannot do it, Right Reverend!"--So accordingly it wasdecided: and Saxon Becket spilt his life in Canterbury Cathedral, as Scottish Wallace did on Tower-Hill, and as generally a nobleman and martyr has to do, --not for nothing; no, but for a divinesomething, other than _he_ had altogether calculated. We willnow quit this of the hard, organic, but limited Feudal Ages; andglance timidly into the immense Industrial Ages, as yet allinorganic, and in a quite pulpy condition, requiring desperatelyto harden themselves into some organism!

Our Epic having now become _Tools and the Man, _ it is more thanusually impossible to prophesy the Future. The boundless Futuredoes lie there, predestined, nay already extant though unseen;hiding, in its Continents of Darkness, 'good hap and sorrow:'but the supremest intelligence of man cannot prefigure much ofit:--the united intelligence and effort of All Men in all cominggenerations, this alone will gradually prefigure it, and figureand form it into a seen fact! Straining our eyes hitherto, theutmost effort of intelligence sheds but some most glimmeringdawn, a little way into its dark enormous Deeps: only hugeoutlines loom uncertain on the sight; and the ray of prophecy, at a short distance, expires. But may we not say, here asalways, Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof! To shape thewhole Future is not our problem; but only to shape faithfully asmall part of it, according to rules already known. It isperhaps possible for each of us, who will with due earnestnessinquire, to ascertain clearly what he, for his own part, ought todo: this let him, with true heart, do, and continue doing. Thegeneral issue will, as it has always done, rest well with aHigher Intelligence than ours. 

One grand 'outline, ' or even two, many earnest readers mayperhaps, at this stage of the business, be able to prefigure forthemselves, --and draw some guidance from. One prediction, oreven two, are already possible. For the Life-tree Igdrasil, inall its new developments, is the selfsame world-old Life-tree:having found an element or elements there, running from the veryroots of it in Hela's Realms, in the Well of Mimer and of theThree Nornas or TIMES, up to this present hour of it in our ownhearts, we conclude that such will have to continue. A man has, in his own soul, an Eternal; can read something of the Eternalthere, if he will look! He already knows what will continue;what cannot, by any means or appliance whatsoever, be madeto continue!

One wide and widest 'outline' ought really, in all ways, to bebecoming clear to us; this namely: That a 'Splendour of God, 'in one form or other, will have to unfold itself from the heartof these our Industrial Ages too; or they will never getthemselves 'organised;' but continue chaotic, distressed, distracted evermore, and have to perish in frantic suicidaldissolution. A second 'outline' or prophecy, narrower, but alsowide enough, seems not less certain: That there will again _be_a King in Israel; a system of Order and Government; and everyman shall, in some measure, see himself constrained to do thatwhich is right in the King's eyes. This too we may call a sureelement of the Future; for this too is of the Eternal;--this toois of the Present, though hidden from most; and without it nofibre of the Past ever was. An actual new Sovereignty, Industrial Aristocracy, real not imaginary Aristocracy, isindispensable and indubitable for us. 

But what an Aristocracy; on what new, far more complex andcunningly devised conditions than that old Feudal fighting one!For we are to bethink us that the Epic verily is not _Arms andthe Man, _ but _Tools and the Man, _--an infinitely wider kind ofEpic. And again we are to bethink us that men cannot now bebound to men by _brass-collars, _--not at all: that this brass-collar method, in all figures of it, has vanished out of Europeforevermore! Huge Democracy, walking the streets everywhere inits Sack Coat, has asserted so much; irrevocably, brooking noreply! True enough, man _is_ forever the 'born thrall' ofcertain men, born master of certain other men, born equal ofcertain others, let him acknowledge the fact or not. It isunblessed for him when he cannot acknowledge this fact; he is inthe chaotic state, ready to perish, till he do get the factacknowledged. But no man is, or can henceforth be, the brass-collar thrall of any man; you will have to bind him by other, far nobler and cunninger methods. Once for all, he is to beloose of the brass-collar, to have a scope as wide as hisfaculties now are:--will he not be all the usefuler to you, inthat new state? Let him go abroad as a trusted one, as a freeone; and return home to you with rich earnings at night! Gurthcould only tend pigs; this one will build cities, conquer wasteworlds. --How, in conjunction with inevitable Democracy, indispensable Sovereignty is to exist: certainly it is thehugest question ever heretofore propounded to Mankind! Thesolution of which is work for long years and centuries. Yearsand centuries, of one knows not what complexion;--blessed orunblessed, according as they shall, with earnest valiant effort, make progress therein, or, in slothful unveracity anddilettantism, only talk of making progress. For either progresstherein, or swift and ever swifter progress towards dissolution, is henceforth a necessity. 

It is of importance that this grand reformation were begun; thatCorn-Law Debatings and other jargon, little less than deliriousin such a time, had fled far away, and left us room to begin!For the evil has grown practical, extremely conspicuous; if itbe not seen and provided for, the blindest fool will have to feelit ere long. There is much that can wait; but there issomething also that cannot wait. With millions of eager WorkingMen imprisoned in 'Impossibility' and Poor-Law Bastilles, it istime that some means of dealing with them were trying to become'possible!' Of the Government of England, of all articulate-speaking functionaries, real and imaginary Aristocracies, of meand of thee, it is imperatively demanded, "How do you mean tomanage these men? Where are they to find a supportableexistence? What is to become of them, --and of you!"

Chapter II

Bribery Committee

In the case of the late Bribery Committee, it seemed to be theconclusion of the soundest practical minds that Bribery could notbe put down; that Pure Election was a thing we had seen the lastof, and must now go on without, as we best could. A conclusionnot a little startling; to which it requires a practical mind ofsome seasoning to reconcile yourself at once! It seems, then, weare henceforth to get ourselves constituted Legislators notaccording to what merit we may have, or even what merit we mayseem to have, but according to the length of our purse, and ourfrankness, impudence and dexterity in laying out the contents ofthe same. Our theory, written down in all books and law-books, spouted forth from all barrel-heads, is perfect purity ofTenpound Franchise, absolute sincerity of question put and answergiven;--and our practice is irremediable bribery; irremediable, unpunishable, which you will do more harm than good by attemptingto punish! Once more, a very startling conclusion indeed;which, whatever the soundest practical minds in parliamentmay think of it, invites all British men to meditations ofvarious kinds. 

A Parliament, one would say, which proclaims itself elected andeligible by bribery, tells the Nation that is governed by it apiece of singular news. Bribery: have we reflected what briberyis? Bribery means not only length of purse, which is neitherqualification nor the contrary for legislating well; but itmeans dishonesty, and even impudent dishonesty;--brazeninsensibility to lying and to making others lie; total oblivion, and flinging overboard, for the nonce, of any real thing you cancall veracity, morality; with dexterous putting on the cast-clothes of that real thing, and strutting about in them! WhatLegislating can you get out of a man in that fatal situation?Nonce that will profit much, one would think! A Legislator whohas left his veracity lying on the door threshold, he, why verily_he_--ought to be sent out to seek it again!

Heavens, what an improvement, were there once fairly, in Downing-street, an Election-Office opened, with a Tariff of Boroughs!Such and such a population, amount of property-tax, ground-rental, extent of trade; returns two Members, returns oneMember, for so much money down: Ipswich so many thousands, Nottingham so many, --as they happened, one by one, to fall intothis new Downing-street Schedule A! An incalculable improvement, in comparison: for now at least you have it fairly by length ofpurse, and leave the dishonesty, the impudence, the unveracityall handsomely aside. Length of purse and desire to be aLegislator ought to get a man into Parliament, not with, but ifpossible _without_ the unveracity, the impudence and thedishonesty! Length of purse and desire, these are, as intrinsicqualifications, correctly equal to zero; but they are not yetless than zero, --as the smallest addition of that latter sortwill make them!

And is it come to this? And does our venerable Parliamentannounce itself elected and eligible in this manner? Surely sucha Parliament promulgates strange horoscopes of itself. What isto become of a Parliament elected or eligible in this manner?Unless Belial and Beelzebub have got possession of the throne ofthis Universe, such Parliament is preparing itself for newReform-bills. We shall have to try it by Chartism, or anyconceivable _ism, _ rather than put up with this! There isalready in England 'religion' enough to get six hundred andfifty-eight Consulting Men brought together who do _not_ beginwork with a lie in their mouth. Our poor old Parliament, thousands of years old, is still good for something, for severalthings;--though many are beginning to ask, with ominous anxiety, in these days: For what thing? But for whatever thing andthings Parliament be good, indisputably it must start with otherthan a lie in its mouth! On the Whole, a Parliament working witha lie in its mouth, will have to take itself away. To noParliament or thing, that one has heard of, did this Universeever long yield harbour on that footing. At all hours of the dayand night, some Chartism is advancing, some armed Cromwell isadvancing, to apprise such Parliament: "Ye are no Parliament. In the name of God, --go!"

In sad truth, once more, how is our whole existence, in thesepresent days, built on Cant, Speciosity, Falsehood, Dilettantism;with this one serious Veracity in it: Mammonism! Dig down whereyou will, through the Parliament-floor or elsewhere, howinfallibly do you, at spade's depth below the surface, come uponthis universal _Liars_-rock substratum! Much else is ornamental;true on barrel-heads, in pulpits, hustings, Parliamentarybenches; but this is forever true and truest: "Money does bringmoney's worth; Put money in your purse. " Here, if nowhere else, is the human soul still in thorough earnest; sincere with aprophet's sincerity: and 'the Hell of the English, ' as Sauerteigsaid, 'is the infinite terror of Not getting on, especially ofNot making money. ' With results!

To many persons the horoscope of Parliament is more interestingthan to me: but surely all men with souls must admit thatsending members to Parliament by bribery is an infamous solecism;an act entirely immoral, which no man can have to do with, moreor less, but he will soil his fingers more or less. No CarltonClubs, Reform Clubs, nor any sort of clubs or creatures, or ofaccredited opinions or practices, can make a Lie Truth, can makeBribery a Propriety. The Parliament should really either punishand put away Bribery, or legalise it by some Office in Downing-street. As I read the Apocalypses, a Parliament that can doneither of these things is not in a good way. --And yet, alas, what of Parliaments and their Elections? Parliamentary Electionsare but the topmost ultimate outcome of an electioneering whichgoes on at all hours, in all places, in every meeting of two ormore men. It is _we_ that vote wrong, and teach the poor raggedFreemen of Boroughs to vote wrong. We pay respect to thoseworthy of no respect. 

Is not Pandarus Dogdraught a member of select clubs, and admittedinto the drawingrooms of men? Visibly to all persons he is ofthe offal of Creation; but he carries money in his purse, duelacker on his dog-visage, and it is believed will not stealspoons. The human species does not with one voice, like theHebrew Psalmist, 'shun to sit' with Dogdraught, refuse totally todine with Dogdraught; men called of honour are willing enough todine with him, his talk being lively, and his champagneexcellent. We say to ourselves, "The man is in good society, "--others have already voted for him; why should not I? We_forget_ the indefeasible right of property that Satan has inDogdraught, --we are not afraid to be near Dogdraught! It is wethat vote wrong; blindly, nay with falsity prepense! It is wethat no longer know the difference between Human Worth and HumanUnworth; or feel that the one is admirable and alone admirable, the other detestable, damnable! How shall _we_ find out a Heroand Viceking Samson with a maximum of two shillings in hispocket? We have no chance to do such a thing. We have got outof the Ages of Heroism, deep into the Ages of Flunkeyism, --andmust return or die. What a noble set of mortals are we, who, because there is no Saint Edmund threatening us at the rim of thehorizon, are not afraid to be whatever, for the day and hour, issmoothest for us!

And now, in good sooth, why should an indigent discerning Freemangive his vote without bribes? Let us rather honour the poor manthat he does discern clearly wherein lies, for him, the truekernel of the matter. What is it to the ragged grimy Freeman ofa Tenpound-Franchise Borough, whether Aristides Rigmarole Esq. Ofthe Destructive, or the Hon. Alcides Dolittle of the ConservativeParty be sent to Parliament;--much more, whether the two-thousandth part of them be sent, for that is the amount of hisfaculty in it? Destructive or Conservative, what will either ofthem destroy or conserve of vital moment to this Freeman? Has hefound either of them care, at bottom, a sixpence for him or hisinterests, or those of his class or of his cause, or of any classor cause that is of much value to God or to man? Rigmarole andDolittle have alike cared for themselves hitherto; and for theirown clique, and self-conceited crotchets, --their greasy dishonestinterests of pudding, or windy dishonest interests of praise;and not very perceptibly for any other interest whatever. Neither Rigmarole nor Dolittle will accomplish any good or anyevil for this grimy Freeman, like giving him a five-pound note, or refusing to give it him. It will be smoothest to voteaccording to value received. That is the veritable fact; and heindigent, like others that are not indigent, acts conformablythereto. 

Why, reader, truly, if they asked thee or me, Which way we meantto vote?--were it not our likeliest answer: Neither way! I, asa Tenpound Franchiser, will receive no bribe; but also I willnot vote for either of these men. Neither Rigmarole nor Dolittleshall, by furtherance of mine, go and make laws for this country. I will have no hand in such a mission. How dare I! If other mencannot be got in England, a totally other sort of men, differentas light is from dark, as star-fire is from street-mud, what isthe use of votings, or of Parliaments in England? England oughtto resign herself; there is no hope or possibility for England. If England cannot get her Knaves and Dastards 'arrested, ' insome degree, but only get them 'elected, ' what is to becomeof England?

I conclude, with all confidence, that England will verily have toput an end to briberies on her Election Hustings and elsewhere, at what cost soever;--and likewise that we, Electors andEligibles, one and all of us, for our own behoof and hers, cannottoo soon begin, at what cost soever, to put an end to_bribeabilities_ in ourselves. The death-leprosy, attacked inthis manner, by purifying lotions from without, and by rallyingof the vital energies and purities from within, will probablyabate somewhat! It has otherwise no chance to abate. 

Chapter III

The One Institution

What our Government can do in this grand Problem of the WorkingClasses of England? Yes, supposing the insane Corn-Laws totallyabolished, all speech of them ended, and 'from ten to twentyyears of new possibility to live and find wages' conceded us inconsequence: What the English Government might be expected toaccomplish or attempt towards rendering the existence of ourLabouring Millions somewhat less anomalous, somewhat lessimpossible, in the years that are to follow those 'ten ortwenty, ' if either 'ten' or 'twenty' there be?

It is the most momentous question. For all this of the Corn-LawAbrogation, and what can follow therefrom, is but as the shadowon King Hezekiah's Dial: the shadow has gone back twenty years;but will again, in spite of Free-Trades and Abrogations, travelforward its old fated way. With our present system of individualMammonism, and Government by Laissez-faire, this Nation cannotlive. And if, in the priceless interim, some new life andhealing be not found, there is no second respite to be countedon. The shadow on the Dial advances thenceforth without pausing. What Government can do? This that they call 'Organising ofLabour' is, if well understood, the Problem of the whole Future, for all who will in future pretend to govern men. But our firstpreliminary stage of it, How to deal with the Actual LabouringMillions of England? this is the imperatively pressing Problem ofthe Present, pressing with a truly fearful intensity andimminence in these very years and days. No Government can longerneglect it: once more, what can our Government do in it?

Governments are of various degrees of activity: some, altogetherLazy Governments, in 'free countries' as they are called, seem inthese times almost to profess to do, if not nothing, one knowsnot at first what. To debate in Parliament, and gain majorities;and ascertain who shall be, with a toil hardly second to Ixion's, the Prime Speaker and Spoke-holder, and keep the Ixion's-Wheelgoing, if not forward, yet round? Not altogether so:--much, tothe experienced eye, is not what it seems! Chancery and certainother Law-Courts seem nothing; yet in fact they are, the worstof them, something: chimneys for the devilry and contention ofmen to escape by;--a very considerable something!--Parliament toohas its tasks, if thou wilt look; fit to wear out the lives oftoughest men. The celebrated Kilkenny Cats, through theirtumultuous congress, cleaving the ear of Night, could they besaid to do nothing? Hadst thou been of them, thou hadst seen!The feline heart laboured, as with steam up-to the burstingpoint; and death-doing energy nerved every muscle: they had awork there; and did it! On the morrow, two tails were foundleft, and peaceable annihilation; a neighbourhood _delivered_from despair. 

Again, are not Spinning-Dervishes an eloquent emblem, significantof much? Hast thou noticed him, that solemn-visaged Turk, theeyes shut; dingy wool mantle circularly hiding his figure;--bell-shaped; like a dingy bell set spinning on the _tongue_ ofit? By centrifugal force the dingy wool mantle heaves itself;spreads more and more, like upturned cup widening into upturnedsaucer: thus spins he, to the praise of Allah and advantage ofmankind, fast and faster, till collapse ensue, and sometimesdeath!--

A Government such as ours, consisting of from seven to eighthundred Parliamentary Talkers, with their escort of Able Editorsand Public Opinion; and for head, certain Lords and Servants ofthe Treasury, and Chief Secretaries and others, who findthemselves at once Chiefs and No-Chiefs, and often commandedrather than commanding, --is doubtless a most complicate entity, and none of the alertest for getting on with business! Clearlyenough, if the Chiefs be not self-motive and what we call men, but mere patient lay-figures without self-motive principle, theGovernment will not move anywhither; it will tumbledisastrously, and jumble, round its own axis, as for many yearspast we have seen it do. --And yet a self-motive man who is not alay-figure, place him in the heart of what entity you may, willmake it move more or less! The absurdest in Nature he will makea little _less_ absurd; he. The unwieldiest he will make tomove;--that is the use of his existing there. He will at leasthave the manfulness to depart out of it, if not; to say: "Icannot move in thee, and be a man; like a wretched drift-logdressed in man's clothes and minister's clothes, doomed to a lotbaser than belongs to man, I will not continue with thee, tumbling aimless on the Mother of Dead Dogs here:--Adieu!"

For, on the whole, it is the lot of Chiefs everywhere, this same. No Chief in the most despotic country but was a Servant withal;at once an absolute commanding General, and a poor Orderly-Sergeant, ordered by the very men in the ranks, --obliged tocollect the vote of the ranks too, in some articulate orinarticulate shape, and weigh well the same. The proper name ofall Kings is Minister, Servant. In no conceivable Government cana lay-figure get forward! _This_ Worker, surely he above allothers has to 'spread out his Gideon's Fleece, ' and collect themonitions of Immensity; the poor Localities, as we said, andparishes of Palace-yard or elsewhere, having no due monition inthem. A Prime Minister, even here in England, who shall darebelieve the heavenly omens, and address himself like a man andhero to the great dumb-struggling heart of England; and speakout for it, and act out for it, the God's-justice it is writhingto get uttered and perishing for want of, --yes, he too will seeawaken round him, in passionate burning all-defiant loyalty, theheart of England, and such a 'support' as no Division-List orParliamentary Majority was ever yet known to yield a man! Hereas there, now as then, he who can and dare trust the heavenlyImmensities, all earthly Localities are subject to him. We willpray for such a Man and First-Lord;--yes, and far better, we willstrive and incessantly make ready, each of us, to be worthy toserve and second such a First-Lord! We shall then be as goodas sure of his arriving; sure of many things, let him arriveor not. 

Who can despair of Governments that passes a Soldiers'Guardhouse, or meets a redcoated man on the streets! That a bodyof men could be got together to kill other men when you badethem: this, _a priori, _ does it not seem one of the impossiblestthings? Yet look, behold it: in the stolidest of DonothingGovernments, that impossibility is a thing done. See it there, with buff-belts, red coats on its back; walking sentry atguardhouses, brushing white breeches in barracks; anindisputable palpable fact. Out of grey Antiquity, amid allfinance-difficulties, _scaccarium_-tallies, ship-monies, coat-and-conduct monies, and vicissitudes of Chance and Time, there, down to the present blessed hour, it is. 

Often, in these painfully decadent and painfully nascent Times, with their distresses, inarticulate gaspings and'impossibilities;' meeting a tall Lifeguardsmans in his snow-white trousers, or seeing those two statuesque Lifeguardsmen intheir frowning bearskins, pipe-clayed buckskins, on their coal-black sleek-fiery quadrupeds, riding sentry at the Horse-Guards, '--it strikes one with a kind of mournful interest, how, in such universal down-rushing and wrecked impotence of almostall old institutions, this oldest Fighting Institution is stillso young! Fresh-complexioned, firm-limbed, six feet by thestandard, this fighting-man has verily been got up, and canfight. While so much has not yet got into being; while so muchhas gone gradually out of it, and become an empty Semblance orClothes-suit; and highest king's-cloaks, mere chimeras paradingunder them so long, are getting unsightly to the earnest eye, unsightly, almost offensive, like a costlier kind of scarecrow's-blanket, --here still is a reality!

The man in horsehair wig advances, promising that he will get me'justice:' he takes me into Chancery Law-Courts, into decades, half-centuries of hubbub, of distracted jargon; and does getme--disappointment, almost desperation; and one refuge: that ofdismissing him and his 'justice' altogether out of my head. ForI have work to do; I cannot spend my decades in mere arguingwith other men about the exact wages of my work: I will workcheerfully with no wages, sooner than with a ten-years gangreneor Chancery Lawsuit in my heart! He of the horsehair wig is asort of failure; no substance, but a fond imagination of themind. He of the shovel-hat, again, who comes forward professingthat he will save my soul--O ye Eternities, of him in this placebe absolute silence!--But he of the red coat, I say, is a successand no failure! He will veritably, if he get orders, draw out along sword and kill me. No mistake there. He is a fact and nota shadow. Alive in this Year Forty-three, able and willing to dohis work. In dim old centuries, with William Rufus, William ofIpres, or far earlier, he began; and has come down safe so far. Catapult has given place to cannon, pike has given place tomusket, iron mail-shirt to coat of red cloth, saltpetre ropematchto percussion cap; equipments, circumstances have all changed, and again changed: but the human battle-engine, in the inside ofany or of each of these, ready still to do battle, stands there, six feet in standard size. There are Pay-Offices, WoolwichArsenals, there is a Horse-Guards, War-Office, Captain-General;persuasive Sergeants, with tap of drum, recruit in market-townsand villages;--and, on the whole, I say, here is your actualdrilled fightingman; here are your actual Ninety-thousand ofsuch, ready to go into any quarter of the world and fight!

Strange, interesting, and yet most mournful to reflect on. Wasthis, then, of all the things mankind had some talent for, theone thing important to learn well, and bring to perfection; thisof, successfully killing one another? Truly you have learned itwell, and carried the business to a high perfection. It isincalculable what, by arranging, commanding and regimenting, youcan make of men. These thousand straight-standing firm-setindividuals, who shoulder arms, who march, wheel, advance, retreat; and are, for your behoof, a magazine charged with fierydeath, in the most perfect condition of potential activity: fewmonths ago, till the persuasive sergeant came, what were they?Multiform ragged losels, runaway apprentices, starved weavers, thievish valets; an entirely broken population, fast tendingtowards the treadmill. But the persuasive sergeant came; by tapof drum enlisted, or formed lists of them, took heartily todrilling them;--and he and you have made them this! Most potent, effectual for all work whatsoever, is wise planning, firmcombining and commanding among men. Let no man despair ofGovernments who looks on these two sentries at the Horse-Guards, and our United-Service Clubs! I could conceive an EmigrationService, a Teaching Service, considerable varieties of United andSeparate Services, of the due thousands strong, all effective asthis Fighting Service is; all doing _their_ work, like it;--which work, much more than fighting, is henceforth the necessityof these New Ages we are got into! Much lies among us, convulsively, nigh desperately _struggling to be born. _

But mean Governments, as mean-limited individuals do, have stoodby the physically indispensable; have realised that and nothingmore. The Soldier is perhaps one of the most difficult things torealise; but Governments, had they not realised him, could nothave existed: accordingly he is here. O Heavens, if we saw anarmy ninety-thousand strong, maintained and fully equipt, incontinual real action and battle against Human Starvation, against Chaos, Necessity, Stupidity, and our real 'naturalenemies, ' what a business were it! Fighting and molesting not'the French, ' who, poor men, have a hard enough battle of theirown in the like kind, and need no additional molesting from us;but fighting and incessantly spearing down and destroyingFalsehood, Nescience, Delusion, Disorder, and the Devil and hisAngels! Thou thyself, cultivated reader, hast done something inthat alone true warfare; but, alas, under what circumstances wasit? Thee no beneficent drill-sergeant, with any effectiveness, would rank in line beside thy fellows; train, like a truedidactic artist, by the wit of all past expedience, to do thysoldiering; encourage thee when right, punish thee when wrong, and everywhere with wise word-of-command say, Forward on thishand, Forward on that! Ah, no: thou hadst to learn thy small-sword and platoon exercise where and how thou couldst; to allmortals but thyself it was indifferent whether thou shouldst everlearn it. And the rations, and shilling a day, were theyprovided thee, --reduced as I have known brave Jean-Pauls, learning their exercise, to live on 'water _without_ the bread?'The rations; or any furtherance of promotion to corporalship, lance-corporalship, or due cato'-nine tails, with the slightestreference to thy deserts, were not provided. Forethought, evenas of a pipe-clayed drill-sergeant, did not preside over thee. To corporalship, lance-corporalship, thou didst attain; alas, also to the halberts and cat: but thy rewarder and punisherseemed blind as the Deluge: neither lancecorporalship, noreven drummer's cat, because both appeared delirious, broughtthee due profit. 

It was well, all this, we know;--and yet it was not well! Fortysoldiers, I am told, will disperse the largest Spitalfields mob:forty to ten-thousand, that is the proportion between drilled andundrilled. Much there is which cannot yet be organised in thisworld; but somewhat also which can, somewhat also which must. When one thinks, for example, what Books are becoming for us, what Operative Lancashires are become; what a Fourth Estate, andinnumerable Virtualities not yet got to be Actualities are becomeand becoming, --one sees Organisms enough in the dim huge Future;and 'United Services' quite other than the redcoat one; andmuch, even in these years, struggling to be born!

Of Time-Bill, Factory-Bill and other such Bills the presentEditor has no authority to speak. He knows not, it is for othersthan he to know, in what specific ways it may be feasible tointerfere, with Legislation, between the Workers and the Master-Workers;--knows only and sees, what all men are beginning to see, that Legislative interference, and interferences not a few areindispensable; that as a lawless anarchy of supply-and-demand, on market-wages alone, this province of things cannot longer beleft. Nay interference has begun: there are already FactoryInspectors, --who seem to have no _lack_ of work. Perhaps theremight be Mine-Inspectors too:--might there not be FurrowfieldInspectors withal, and ascertain for us how on seven and sixpencea week a human family does live! Interference has begun; itmust continue, must extensively enlarge itself, deepen andsharpen itself. Such things cannot longer be idly lapped indarkness, and suffered to go on unseen: the Heavens do see them;the curse, not the blessing of the Heavens is on an Earth thatrefuses to see them. 

Again, are not Sanitary Regulations possible for a Legislature?The old Romans had their Aediles; who would, I think, in directcontravention to supply-and-demand, have rigorously seen rammedup into total abolition many a foul cellar in our Southwarks, Saint-Gileses, and dark poison-lanes; saying sternly, "Shall aRoman man dwell there?" The Legislature, at whatever cost ofconsequences, would have had to answer, "God forbid!"--TheLegislature, even as it now is, could order all dingyManufacturing Towns to cease from their soot and darkness; tolet in the blessed sunlight, the blue of Heaven, and become clearand clean; to burn their coal-smoke, namely, and make flame ofit. Baths, free air, a wholesome temperature, ceilings twentyfeet high, might be ordained by Act of Parliament, in allestablishments licensed as Mills. There are such Mills alreadyextant;--honour to the builders of them! The Legislature can sayto others: Go ye and do likewise; better if you can. 

Every toiling Manchester, its smoke and soot all burnt, ought itnot, among so many world-wide conquests, to have a hundred acresor so of free greenfield, with trees on it, conquered, for itslittle children to disport in; for its all-conquering workers totake a breath of twilight air in? You would say so! A willingLegislature could say so with effect. A willing Legislaturecould say very many things! And to whatsoever 'vested interest, 'or such like, stood up, gainsaying merely, "I shall loseprofits, "--the willing Legislature would answer, "Yes, but mysons and daughters will gain health, and life, and a soul. "--"What is to become of our Cotton-trade?" cried certain Spinners, when the Factory-Bill was proposed; "What is to become of ourinvaluable Cotton-trade?" The Humanity of England answeredsteadfastly: "Deliver me these rickety perishing souls ofinfants, and let your Cotton-trade take its chance. God Himselfcommands the one thing; not God especially the other thing. Wecannot have prosperous Cotton-trades at the expense of keepingthe Devil a partner in them!"--

Bills enough, were the Corn-Law Abrogation Bill once passed, anda Legislature willing! Nay this one Bill, which lies yetunenacted, a right Education Bill, is not this of itself the sureparent of innumerable wise Bills, --wise regulations, practicalmethods and proposals, gradually ripening towards the state ofBills? To irradiate with intelligence, that is to say, withorder, arrangement and all blessedness, the Chaotic, Unintelligent: how, except by educating, _can_ you-accomplishthis? That thought, reflection, articulate utterance andunderstanding be awakened in these individual million heads, which are the atoms of your Chaos: there is no other way ofilluminating any Chaos! The sum-total of intelligence that isfound in it, determines the extent of order that is possible foryour Chaos, --the feasibility and rationality of what your Chaoswill dimly demand from you, and will gladly obey when proposed byyou! It is an exact equation; the one accurately measures theother. --If the whole English People, during these 'twenty yearsof respite, ' be not educated, with at least schoolmaster'seducating, a tremendous responsibility, before God and men, willrest somewhere! How dare any man, especially a man callinghimself minister of God, stand up in any Parliament or place, under any pretext or delusion, and for a day or an hour forbidGod's Light to come into the world, and bid the Devil's Darknesscontinue in it one hour more! For all light and science, underall shapes, in all degrees of perfection, is of God; alldarkness, nescience, is of the Enemy of God. 'The schoolmaster'screed is somewhat awry?' Yes, I have found few creeds entirelycorrect; few light-beams shining white, pure of admixture: butof all creeds and religions now or ever before known, was notthat of thoughtless thriftless Animalism, of Distilled Gin, andStupor and Despair, unspeakably the least orthodox? We willexchange it even with Paganism, with Fetishism; and, on thewhole, must exchange it with something. 

An effective 'Teaching Service' I do consider that there must be;some Education Secretary, Captain-General of Teachers, who willactually contrive to get us _taught. _ Then again, why shouldthere not be an 'Emigration Service, ' and Secretary, withadjuncts, with funds, forces, idle Navy-ships, and ever-increasing apparatus; in fine an _effective system_ ofEmigration; so that, at length, before our twenty years ofrespite ended, every honest willing Workman who found England toostrait, and the 'Organisation of Labour' not yet sufficientlyadvanced, might find likewise a bridge built to carry him intonew Western Lands, there to 'organise' with more elbow-room somelabour for himself? There to be a real blessing, raising newcorn for us, purchasing new webs and hatchets from us; leavingus at least in peace;--instead of staying here to be a Physical-Force Chartist, unblessed and no blessing! Is it not scandalousto consider that a Prime Minister could raise within the year, asI have seen it done, a Hundred and Twenty Millions Sterling toshoot the French; and we are stopt short for want of thehundredth part of that to keep the English living? The bodies ofthe English living; and the souls of the English living:--thesetwo 'Services, ' an Education Service and an Emigration Service, these with others will actually have to be organised!

A free bridge for Emigrants: why, we should then be on a parwith America itself, the most favoured of all lands that have nogovernment; and we should have, besides, so many traditions andmementos of priceless things which America has cast away. Wecould proceed deliberately to 'organise Labour, ' not doomed toperish unless we effected it within year and day;--every willingWorker that proved superfluous, finding a bridge ready for him. This verily will have to be done; the Time is big with this. Our little Isle is grown too narrow for us; but the world iswide enough yet for another Six Thousand Years. England's suremarkets will be among new Colonies of Englishmen in all quartersof the Globe. All men trade with all men, when mutuallyconvenient; and are even bound to do it by the Maker of men. Our friends of China, who guiltily refused to trade, in thesecircumstances, --had we not to argue with them, in cannon-shot atlast, and convince them that they ought to trade! 'HostileTariffs' will arise, to shut us out; and then again will fall, to let us in: but the Sons of England, speakers of the Englishlanguage were it nothing more, will in all times have theineradicable predisposition to trade with England. Mycale wasthe _Pan-Ionian, _ rendezvous of all the Tribes of Ion, for oldGreece: why should not London long continue the _All-Saxon-home, _ rendezvous of all the 'Children of the Harz-Rock, 'arriving, in select samples, from the Antipodes and elsewhere, bysteam and otherwise, to the 'season' here!--What a Future; wideas the world, if we have the heart and heroism for it, --which, byHeaven's blessing, we shall:

'Keep not standing fixed and rooted, Briskly venture, briskly roam;Head and hand, where'er thou foot it, And stout heart are still at home. 

In what land the sun does visit, Brisk are we, whate'er betide:To give space for wandering is itThat the world was made so wide?' *

--------* Goethe, _Wilhelm Meister_--------

Fourteen hundred years ago, it was by a considerable 'EmigrationService, ' never doubt it, by much enlistment, discussion andapparatus, that we ourselves arrived in this remarkable Island, --and got into our present difficulties among others!

It is true the English Legislature, like the English People, isof slow temper; essentially conservative. In our wildest periodsof reform, in the Long Parliament itself, you notice always theinvincible instinct to hold fast by the Old; to admit theminimum of New; to expand, if it be possible, some old habit ormethod, already found fruitful, into new growth for the new need. It is an instinct worthy of all honour; akin to all strength andall wisdom. The Future hereby is not dissevered from the Past, but based continuously on it; grows with all the vitalities ofthe Past, and is rooted down deep into the beginnings of us. TheEnglish Legislature is entirely repugnant to believe in 'newepochs. ' The English Legislature does not occupy itself withepochs; has, indeed, other business to do than looking at theTime-Horologe and hearing it tick! Nevertheless new epochs doactually come; and with them new imperious peremptorynecessities; so that even an English Legislature has to look up, and admit, though with reluctance, that the hour has struck. Thehour having struck, let us not say 'impossible:'--it will have tobe possible! 'Contrary to the habits of Parliament, the habitsof Government?' Yes: but did any Parliament or Government eversit in a Year Forty-three before? One of the most original, unexampled years and epochs; in several important respects, totally unlike any other! For Time, all-edacious and all-feracious, does run on: and the Seven Sleepers, awakening hungryafter a hundred years, find that it is not their old nurses whocan now give them suck!

For the rest, let not any Parliament, Aristocracy, Millocracy, orMember of the Governing Class, condemn with much triumph thissmall specimen of 'remedial measures;' or ask again, with theleast anger, of this Editor, What is to be done, How thatalarming problem of the Working Classes is to be managed?Editors are not here, foremost of all, to say How. A certainEditor thanks the gods that nobody pays him three hundredthousand pounds a year, two hundred thousand, twenty thousand, orany similar sum of cash for saying How;--that his wages are verydifferent, his work somewhat fitter for him. An Editor'sstipulated work is to apprise thee that it must be done. The'way to do it, ' is to try it, knowing that thou shalt die if itbe not done. There is the bare back, there is the web of cloth;thou shalt cut me a coat to cover the bare back, thou whose tradeit is. 'Impossible?' Hapless Fraction, dost thou discern Fatethere, half unveiling herself in the gloom of the future, withher gibbet-cords, her steel-whips, and very authentic Tailor'sHell; waiting to see whether it is 'possible?' Out with thyscissors, and cut that cloth or thy own windpipe!

Chapter IV

Captains of Industry

If I believed that Mammonism with its adjuncts was to continuehenceforth the one serious principle of our existence, I shouldreckon it idle to solicit remedial measures from any Government, the disease being insusceptible of remedy. Government can domuch, but it can in no wise do all. Government, as the mostconspicuous object in Society, is called upon to give signal ofwhat shall be done; and, in many ways, to preside over, further, and command the doing of it. But the Government cannot do, byall its signalling and commanding, what the Society is radicallyindisposed to do. --In the long-run every Government is the exactsymbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have tosay, Like People like Government. --The main substance of thisimmense Problem of Organising Labour, and first of all ofManaging the Working Classes, will, it is very clear, have to besolved by those who stand practically in the middle of it; bythose who themselves work and preside over work. Of all that canbe enacted by any Parliament in regard to it, the germs mustalready lie potentially extant in those two Classes, who are toobey such enactment. A Human Chaos in which there is no light, you vainly attempt to irradiate by light shed on it: order nevercan arise there. 

But it is my firm conviction that the 'Hell of England' will_cease_ to be that of 'not making money;' that we shall get anobler Hell and a nobler Heaven! I anticipate light _in_ theHuman Chaos, glimmering, shining more and more; under manifoldtrue signals from without That light shall shine. Our deity nolonger being Mammon, --O Heavens, each man will then say tohimself: "Why such deadly haste to make money? I shall not goto Hell, even if I do not make money! There is another Hell, Iam told!" Competition, at railway-speed, in all branches ofcommerce and work will then abate:--good felt-hats for the head, in every sense, instead of seven-feet lath-and-plaster hats onwheels, will then be discoverable! Bubble-periods, with theirpanics and commercial crises, will again become infrequent;steady modest industry will take the place of gamblingspeculation. To be a noble Master, among noble Workers, willagain be the first ambition with some few; to be a rich Masteronly the second. How the Inventive Genius of England, with thewhirr of its bobbins and billy-rollers shoved somewhat into thebackgrounds of the brain, will contrive and devise, not cheaperproduce exclusively, but fairer distribution of the produce atits present cheapness! By degrees, we shall again have a Societywith something of Heroism in it, something of Heaven's Blessingon it; we shall again have, as my German friend asserts, 'instead of Mammon-Feudalism with unsold cotton-shirts andPreservation of the Game, noble just Industrialism and Governmentby the Wisest!'

It is with the hope of awakening here and there a British man toknow himself for a man and divine soul, that a few words ofparting admonition, to all persons to whom the Heavenly Powershave lent power of any kind in this land, may now be addressed. And first to those same Master-Workers, Leaders of Industry; whostand nearest, and in fact powerfulest, though not mostprominent, being as yet in too many senses a Virtuality ratherthan an Actuality. 

The Leaders of Industry, if Industry is ever to be led, arevirtually the Captains of the World; if there be no nobleness inthem, there will never be an Aristocracy more. But let theCaptains of Industry consider: once again, are they born ofother clay than the old Captains of Slaughter; doomed forever tobe no Chivalry, but a mere gold-plated _Doggery, _--what theFrench well name _Canaille, _ 'Doggery' with more or less goldcarrion at its disposal? Captains of Industry are the trueFighters, henceforth recognisable as the only true ones:Fighters against Chaos, Necessity and the Devils and Jotuns; andlead on Mankind in that great, and alone true, and universalwarfare; the stars in their courses fighting for them, and allHeaven and all Earth saying audibly, Well-done! Let the Captainsof Industry retire into their own hearts, and ask solemnly, Ifthere is nothing but vulturous hunger, for fine wines, valetreputation and gilt carriages, discoverable there? Of heartsmade by the Almighty God. 

I will not believe such a thing. Deep-hidden under wretchedestgod-forgetting Cants, Epicurisms, Dead-Sea Apisms; forgotten asunder foulest fat Lethe mud and weeds, there is yet, in allhearts born into this God's-World, a spark of the Godlikeslumbering. Awake, O nightmare sleepers; awake, arise, or beforever fallen! This is not playhouse poetry; it is sober fact. Our England, our world cannot live as it is. It will connectitself with a God again, or go down with nameless throes andfire-consummation to the Devils. Thou who feelest aught of sucha Godlike stirring in thee, any faintest intimation of it asthrough heavy-laden dreams, follow it, I conjure thee. Arise, save thyself, be one of those that save thy country. 

Bucaniers, Chactaw Indians, whose supreme aim in fighting is thatthey may get the scalps, the money, that they may amass scalpsand money: out of such came no Chivalry, and never will! Out ofsuch came only gore and wreck, infernal rage and misery;desperation quenched in annihilation. Behold it, I bid thee, behold there, and consider! What is it that thou have a hundredthousand-pound bills laid up in thy strong-room, a hundred scalpshung up in thy wigwam? I value not them or thee. Thy scalps andthy thousand-pound bills are as yet nothing, if no nobleness fromwithin irradiate them; if no Chivalry, in action, or in embryoever struggling towards birth and action, be there. 

Love of men cannot be bought by cash-payment; and without love, men cannot endure to be together. You cannot lead a FightingWorld without having it regimented, chivalried: the thing, in aday, becomes impossible; all men in it, the highest at first, the very lowest at last, discern consciously, or by a nobleinstinct, this necessity. And can you any more continue to leada Working World unregimented, anarchic? I answer, and theHeavens and Earth are now answering, No! The thing becomes not'in a day' impossible; but in some two generations it does. Yes, when fathers and mothers, in Stockport hunger-cellars, beginto eat their children, and Irish widows have to prove theirrelationship by dying of typhus-fever; and amid Governing'Corporations of the Best and Bravest, ' busy to preserve theirgame by 'bushing, ' dark millions of God's human creatures startup in mad Chartisms, impracticable Sacred-Months, and ManchesterInsurrections;--and there is a virtual Industrial Aristocracy asyet only half-alive, spellbound amid money-bags and ledgers; andan actual Idle Aristocracy seemingly near dead in somnolentdelusions, in trespasses and double-barrels; 'sliding, ' as oninclined-planes, which every new year they _soap_ with newHansard's-jargon under God's sky, and so are 'sliding' everfaster, towards a 'scale' and balance-scale whereon is written_Thou art found Wanting:_--in such days, after a generation ortwo, I say, it does become, even to the low and simple, verypalpably impossible! No Working World, any more than a FightingWorld, can be led on without a noble Chivalry of Work, and lawsand fixed rules which follow out of that, --far nobler than anyChivalry of Fighting was. As an anarchic multitude on mereSupply-and-demand, it is becoming inevitable that we dwindle inhorrid suicidal convulsion, and self-abrasion, frightful to theimagination, into _Chactaw_ Workers. With wigwam and scalps, --with palaces and thousand-pound bills; with savagery, depopulation, chaotic desolation! Good Heavens, will not oneFrench Revolution and Reign of Terror suffice us, but must therebe two? There will be two if needed; there will be twenty ifneeded; there will be precisely as many as are needed. The Lawsof Nature will have themselves fulfilled. That is a thingcertain to me. 

Your gallant battle-hosts and work-hosts, as the others did, willneed to be made loyally yours; they must and will be regulated, methodically secured in their just share of conquest under you;--joined with you in veritable brotherhood, sonhood, by quite otherand deeper ties than those of temporary day's wages! How wouldmere redcoated regiments, to say nothing of chivalries, fight foryou, if you could discharge them on the evening of the battle, onpayment of the stipulated shillings, --and they discharge you onthe morning of it! Chelsea Hospitals, pensions, promotions, rigorous lasting covenant on the one side and on the other, areindispensable even for a hired fighter. The Feudal Baron, muchmore, --how could he subsist with mere temporary mercenaries roundhim, at sixpence a day; ready to go over to the other side, ifsevenpence were offered? He could not have subsisted;--and hisnoble instinct saved him from the necessity of even trying! TheFeudal Baron had a Man's Soul in him; to which anarchy, mutiny, and the other fruits of temporary mercenaries, were intolerable:he had never been a Baron otherwise, but had continued a Chactawand Bucanier. He felt it precious, and at last it becamehabitual, and his fruitful enlarged existence included it as anecessity, to have men round him who in heart loved him; whoselife he watched over with rigour yet with love; who wereprepared to give their life for him, if need came. It wasbeautiful; it was human! Man lives not otherwise, nor can livecontented, anywhere or anywhen. Isolation is the sum-total ofwretchedness to man. To be cut off, to be left solitary: tohave a world alien, not your world; all a hostile camp for you;not a home at all, of hearts and faces who are yours, whose youare! It is the frightfulest enchantment; too truly a work ofthe Evil One. To have neither superior, nor inferior, nor equal, united manlike to you. Without father, without child, withoutbrother. Man knows no sadder destiny. 'How is each of us, 'exclaims Jean Paul, 'so lonely, in the wide bosom of the All!'Encased each as in his transparent 'ice-palace;' our brothervisible in his, making signals and gesticulations to us;--visible, but forever unattainable: on his bosom we shall neverrest, nor he on ours. It was not a God that did this; no!

Awake, ye noble Workers, warriors in the one true war: all thismust be remedied. It is you who are already half-alive, whom Iwill welcome into life; whom I will conjure in God's name toshake off your enchanted sleep, and live wholly! Cease to countscalps, gold-purses; not in these lies your or our salvation. Even these, if you count only these, will not long be left. Letbucaniering be put far from you; alter, speedily abrogate alllaws of the bucaniers, if you would gain any victory that shallendure. Let God's justice, let pity, nobleness and manly valour, with more gold-purses or with fewer, testify themselves in thisyour brief Life-transit to all the Eternities, the Gods andSilences. It is to you I call; for ye are not dead, ye arealready half-alive: there is in you a sleepless dauntlessenergy, the prime-matter of all nobleness in man. Honour to youin your kind. It is to you I call: ye know at least this, Thatthe mandate of God to His creature man is: Work! The futureEpic of the World rests not with those that are near dead, butwith those that are alive, and those that are coming into life. 

Look around you. Your world-hosts are all in mutiny, inconfusion, destitution; on the eve of fiery wreck and madness!They will not march farther for you, on the sixpence a day andsupply-and-demand principle: they will not; nor ought they, norcan they. Ye shall reduce them to order, begin reducing them. To order, to just subordination; noble loyalty in return fornoble guidance. Their souls are driven nigh mad; let yours besane and ever saner. Not as a bewildered bewildering mob; butas a firm regimented mass, with real captains over them, willthese men march any more. All human interests, combined humanendeavours, and social growths in this world, have, at a certainstage of their development, required organising: and Work, thegrandest of human interests, does now require it. 

God knows, the task will be hard: but no noble task was evereasy. This task will wear away your lives, and the lives of yoursons and grandsons: but for what purpose, if not for tasks likethis, were lives given to men? Ye shall cease to count yourthousand-pound scalps, the noble of you shall cease! Nay thevery scalps, as I say, will not long be left if you count onlythese. Ye shall cease wholly to be barbarous vulturous Chactaws, and become noble European Nineteenth-Century Men. Ye shall knowthat Mammon, in never such gigs and flunky 'respectabilities, ' isnot the alone God; that of himself he is but a Devil, and evena Brute-god. 

Difficult? Yes, it will be difficult. The short-fibre cotton;that too was difficult. The waste cotton-shrub, long useless, disobedient, as the thistle by the wayside, --have ye notconquered it; made it into beautiful bandana webs; white wovenshirts for men; bright-tinted air-garments wherein flitgoddesses? Ye have shivered mountains asunder, made the hardiron pliant to you as soft putty: the Forest-giants, Marsh-jotuns bear sheaves of golden grain; Aegir the Sea-demon himselfstretches his back for a sleek highway to you, and on Firehorsesand Windhorses ye career. Ye are most strong. Thor red-bearded, with his blue sun-eyes, with his cheery heart and strong thunder-hammer, he and you have prevailed. Ye are most strong, ye Sonsof the icy North, of the far East, --far marching from your ruggedEastern Wildernesses, hitherward from the grey Dawn of Time! Yeare Sons of the _Jotun_-land; the land of DifficultiesConquered. Difficult? You must try this thing. Once try itwith the understanding that it will and shall have to be done. Try it as ye try the paltrier thing, making of money! I will beton you once more, against all Jotuns, Tailor-gods, Double-barrelled Law-wards, and Denizens of Chaos whatsoever!

Chapter V

Permanence

Standing on the threshold, nay as yet outside the threshold, of a'Chivalry of Labour, ' and an immeasurable Future which it is tofill with fruitfulness and verdant shade; where so much has notyet come even to the rudimental state, and all speech of positiveenactments were hasardous in those who know this business only bythe eye, --let us here hint at simply one widest universalprinciple, as the basis from which all organisation hitherto hasgrown up among men, and all henceforth will have to grow: Theprinciple of Permanent Contract instead of Temporary. 

Permanent not Temporary:--you do not hire the mere redcoatedfighter by the day, but by the score of years' Permanence, persistance is the first condition of all fruitfulness in theways of men. The 'tendency to persevere, ' to persist in spite ofhindrances, discouragements and 'impossibilities:' it is thisthat in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak;the civilised burgher from the nomadic savage, --the Species Manfrom the Genus Ape! The Nomad has his very house set on wheels;the Nomad, and in a still higher degree the Ape, are all for'liberty;' the privilege to flit continually is indispensablefor them. Alas, in how many ways, does our humour, in thisswift-rolling self-abrading Time, shew itself nomadic, apelike;mournful enough to him that looks on it with eyes! This humourwill have to abate; it is the first element of all fertility inhuman things, that such 'liberty' of apes and nomads do byfreewill or constraint abridge itself, give place to a better. The civilised man lives not in wheeled houses. He builds stonecastles, plants lands, makes lifelong marriage-contracts;--haslong-dated hundred-fold possessions, not to be valued in themoney-market; has pedigrees, libraries, law-codes; has memoriesand hopes, even for this Earth, that reach over thousands ofyears. Life-long marriage-contracts: how much preferable wereyear-long or month-long--to the nomad or ape!

Month-long contracts please me little, in any province wherethere can by possibility be found virtue enough for more. Month-long contracts do not answer well even with your house-servants;the liberty on both sides to change every month is growing veryapelike, nomadic;--and I hear philosophers predict that it willalter, or that strange results will follow: that wise men, pestered with nomads, with unattached ever-shifting spies andenemies rather than friends and servants, will gradually, weighing substance against semblance, with indignation, dismisssuch, down almost to the very shoeblack, and say, "Begone; Iwill serve myself rather, and have peace!" Gurth was hired forlife to Cedric, and Cedric to Gurth. O Anti-Slavery Convention, loud-sounding long-eared Exeter-Hall--But in thee too is a kindof instinct towards justice, and I will complain of nothing. Only, black Quashee over the seas being once sufficientlyattended to, wilt thou not perhaps open thy dull sodden eyes tothe 'sixty-thousand valets in London itself who are yearlydismissed to the streets, to be what they can, when the seasonends;'--or to the hunger-stricken, pallid, _yellow_-coloured'Free Labourers' in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Buckinghamshire, andall other shires! These Yellow-coloured, for the present, absorball my sympathies: if I had a Twenty Millions, with Model-Farmsand Niger Expeditions, it is to these that I would give it!Quashee has already victuals, clothing; Quashee is not dying ofsuch despair as the yellow-coloured pale man's. Quashee, it mustbe owned, is hitherto a kind of blockhead. The Haiti Duke ofMarmalade, educated now for almost half a century, seems to havenext to no sense in him. Why, in one of those LancashireWeavers, dying of hunger, there is more thought and heart, agreater arithmetical amount of misery and desperation, than inwhole gangs of Quashees. It must be owned, thy eyes are of thesodden sort; and with thy emancipations, and thy twenty-millionings and long-eared clamourings, thou, like Robespierrewith his pasteboard _Etre Supreme, _ threatenest to become a boreto us, _Avec ton Etre Supreme tu commences m'embeter!--

In a Printed Sheet of the assiduous, much-abused, and trulyuseful Mr. Chadwick's, containing queries and responses from farand near, as to this great question, 'What is the effect ofEducation on workingmen, in respect of their value as mereworkers?' the present Editor, reading with satisfaction adecisive unanimous verdict as to Education, reads withinexpressible interest this special remark, put in by way ofmarginal incidental note, from a practical manufacturing Quaker, whom, as he is anonymous, we will call Friend Prudence. Prudencekeeps a thousand workmen; has striven in all ways to attach themto him; has provided conversational soirees; playgrounds, bandsof music for the young ones; went even 'the length of buyingthem a drum:' all which has turned out to be an excellentinvestment. For a certain person, marked here by a black stroke, whom we shall name Blank, living over the way, --he also keepssomewhere about a thousand men; but has done none of thesethings for them, nor any other thing, except due payment of thewages by supply-and-demand. Blank's workers are perpetuallygetting into mutiny, into broils and coils: every six months, we suppose, Blank has a strike; every one month, every dayand every hour, they are fretting and obstructing the short-sightedBlank; pilfering from him, wasting and idling for him, omittingand committing for him. "I would not, " says Friend Prudence, "exchange my workers for his _with seven thousand pounds to boot. "_

------------*Report on the Training of Pauper Children (1841), p. 18. ------------

Right, O honourable Prudence; thou art wholly in the right:Seven thousand pounds even as a matter of profit for this world, nay for the mere cash-market of this worrd! And as a matter ofprofit not for this world only, but for the other world and allworlds, it outweighs the Bank of England!--Can the sagaciousreader descry here, as it were the outmost inconsiderablerockledge of a universal rock-foundation, deep once more as theCentre of the World, emerging so, in the experience of this goodQuaker, through the Stygian mud-vortexes and general Mother ofDead Dogs, whereon, for the present, all swags and insecurelyhovers, as if ready to be swallowed?

Some Permanence of Contract is already almost possible; theprinciple of Permanence, year by year, better seen into andelaborated, may enlarge itself, expand gradually on every sideinto a system. This once secured, the basis of all good resultswere laid. Once permanent, you do not quarrel with the firstdifficulty on your path, and quit it in weak disgust; youreflect that it cannot be quitted, that it must be conquered, awise arrangement fallen on with regard to it. Ye foolish WeddedTwo, who have quarrelled, between whom the Evil Spirit hasstirred up transient strife and bitterness, so that'incompatibility' seems almost nigh, ye are nevertheless the Twowho, by long habit, were it by nothing more, do best of allothers suit each other: it is expedient for your own two foolishselves, to say nothing of the infants, pedigrees and public ingeneral, that ye agree again; that ye put away the EvilSpirit, and wisely on both hands struggle for the guidance ofa Good Spirit!

The very horse that is permanent, how much kindlier do his riderand he work, than the temporary one, hired on any hack principleyet known! I am for permanence in all things, at the earliestpossible moment, and to the latest possible. Blessed is he thatcontinueth where he is. Here let us rest, and lay outseedfields; here let us learn to dwell. Here, even here, theorchards that we plant will yield us fruit; the acorns will bewood and pleasant umbrage, if we wait. How much growseverywhere, if we do but wait! Through the swamps we will shapecauseways, force purifying drains; we will learn to thread therocky inaccessibilities; and beaten tracks, worn smooth by meretraveling of human feet, will form themselves. Not a difficultybut can transfigure itself into a triumph; not even a deformitybut, if our own soul have imprinted worth on it, will grow dearto us. The sunny plains and deep indigo transparent skies ofItaly are all indifferent to the great sick heart of a Sir WalterScott: on the back of the Apennines, in wild spring weather, thesight of bleak Scotch firs, and snow-spotted heath anddesolation, brings tears into his eyes. *

-----------*Lockhart's _Life of Scott_-----------

O unwise mortals that forever change and shift, and say, Yonder, not Here! Wealth richer than both the Indies lies everywhere forman, if he will endure. Not his oaks only and his fruit-trees, his very heart roots itself wherever he will abide;--rootsitself, draws nourishment from the deep fountains of UniversalBeing! Vagrant Sam-Slicks, who rove over the Earth doing'strokes of trade, ' what wealth have they? Horseloads, shiploadsof white or yellow metal: in very sooth, what are these? Slickrests nowhere, he is homeless. He can build stone or marblehouses; but to continue in them is denied him. The wealth of aman is the number of things which he loves and blesses, which heis loved and blessed by! The herdsman in his poor clay shealing, where his very cow and dog are friends to him, and not a cataractbut carries memories for him, and not a mountain-top but nods oldrecognition: his life, all encircled as in blessed mother's-arms, is it poorer than Slick's with the ass-loads of yellowmetal on his back? Unhappy Slick! Alas, there has so much grownnomadic, apelike, with us: so much will have, with whateverpain, repugnance and 'impossibility, ' to alter itself, to fixitself again, --in some wise way, in any not delirious way!

A question arises here: Whether, in some ulterior, perhaps somenot far-distant stage of this 'Chivalry of Labour, ' your Master-Worker may not find it possible, and needful, to grant hisWorkers permanent _interest_ in his enterprise and theirs? Sothat it become, in practical result, what in essential fact andjustice it ever is, a joint enterprise; all men, from the ChiefMaster down to the lowest Overseer and Operative, economically aswell as loyally concerned for it?--Which question I do notanswer. The answer, near or else far, is perhaps, Yes;--and yetone knows the difficulties. Despotism is essential in mostenterprises; I am told, they do not tolerate 'freedom of debate'on board a Seventy-four! Republican senate and _plebiscita_would not answer well in Cotton-Mills. And yet observe theretoo: Freedom, not nomad's or ape's Freedom, but man's Freedom;this is indispensable. We must have it, and will have it! Toreconcile Despotism with Freedom:--well, is that such a mystery?Do you not already know the way? It is to make your Despotism_just. _ Rigorous as Destiny; but just too, as Destiny and itsLaws. The Laws of God: all men obey these, and have no'Freedom' at all but in obeying them. The way is already known, part of the way;--and courage and some qualities are needed forwalking on it!

Chapter VI

The Landed

A man with fifty, with five hundred, with a thousand pounds aday, given him freely, without condition at all, --on condition, as it now runs, that he will sit with his hands in his pocketsand do no mischief, pass no Corn-Laws or the like, --he too, youwould say, is or might be a rather strong Worker! He is a Workerwith such tools as no man in this world ever before had. But inpractice, very astonishing, very ominous to look at, he provesnot a strong Worker;--you are too happy if he will prove but aNo-worker, do nothing, and not be a Wrong-worker. 

You ask him, at the year's end: "Where is your three-hundredthousand pound; what have you realised to us with that?" Heanswers, in indignant surprise: "Done with it? Who are you thatask? I have eaten it; I and my flunkeys, and parasites, andslaves two-footed and four-footed, in an ornamental manner; andI am here alive by it; _I_ am realised by it to you!"--It is, aswe have often said, such an answer as was never before givenunder this Sun. An answer that fills me with bodingapprehension, with foreshadows of despair. O stolid Use-and-wontof an atheistic Half-century, O Ignavia, Tailor-godhood, soul-killing Cant, to what passes art thou bringing us!--Out of theloud-piping whirlwind, audibly to him that has ears, the HighestGod is again announcing in these days: "Idleness shall not be. "God has said it, man cannot gainsay. 

Ah, how happy were it, if he this Aristocrat Worker would, inlike manner, see _his_ work and do it! It is frightful seekinganother to do it for him. Guillotines, Meudon Tanneries, andhalf-a-million men shot dead, have already been expended in thatbusiness; and it is yet far from done. This man too issomething; nay he is a great thing. Look on him there: a manof manful aspect; something of the 'cheerfulness of pride' stilllingering in him. A free air of graceful stoicism, of easysilent dignity sits well on him; in his heart, could we reachit, lie elements of generosity, self-sacrificing justice, truehuman valour. Why should he, with such appliances, stand anincumbrance in the Present; perish disastrously out of theFuture! From no section of the Future would we lose these noblecourtesies, impalpable yet all-controlling; these dignifiedreticences, these kingly simplicities;--lose aught of what thefruitful Past still gives us token of, memento of, in this man. Can we not save him:--can he not help us to save him! A braveman he too; had not undivine Ignavia, Hearsay, Speech withoutmeaning, --had not Cant, thousandfold Cant within him and aroundhim, enveloping him like choke-damp, like thick Egyptiandarkness, thrown his soul into asphyxia, as it were extinguishedhis soul; so that he sees not, hears not, and Moses and all theProphets address him in vain. 

Will he awaken, be alive again, and have a soul; or is thisdeath-fit very death? It is a question of questions, for himselfand for us all! Alas, is there no noble work for this man too?Has he not thick-headed ignorant boors; lazy, enslaved farmers;weedy lands? Lands! Has he not weary heavy-laden ploughers ofland; immortal souls of men, ploughing, ditching, day-drudging;bare of back, empty of stomach, nigh desperate of heart; andnone peaceably to help them but he, under Heaven? Does he find, with his three hundred thousand pounds, no noble thing troddendown in the thoroughfares, which it were godlike to help up? Canhe do nothing for his Burns but make a Gauger of him; lionisehim, bedinner him, for a foolish while; then whistle him downthe wind, to desperation and bitter death?--His work too isdifficult, in these modern, far-dislocated ages. But it may bedone; it may be tried;--it must be done. 

A modern Duke of Weimar, not a god he either, but a human duke, levied, as I reckon, in rents and taxes and all incomingswhatsoever, less than several of our English Dukes do in rentalone. The Duke of Weimar, with these incomings, had to govern, judge, defend, every way administer _his_ Dukedom. He does allthis as few others did: and he improves lands besides all this, makes river-embankments, maintains not soldiers only butUniversities and Institutions;--and in his Court were these fourmen: Wieland, Herder, Schiller, Goethe. Not as parasites, whichwas impossible; not as table-wits and poetic Katerfeltoes; butas noble Spiritual Men working under a noble Practical Man. Shielded by him from many miseries; perhaps from manyshortcomings, destructive aberrations. Heaven had sent, oncemore, heavenly Light into the world; and this man's honour wasthat he gave it welcome. A new noble kind of Clergy, under anold but still noble kind of King! I reckon that this one Duke ofWeimar did more for the Culture of his Nation than all theEnglish Dukes and _Duces_ now extant, or that were extant sinceHenry the Eighth gave them the Church Lands to eat, have done fortheirs!--I am ashamed, I am alarmed for my English Dukes: whatword have I to say?

_If_ our Actual Aristocracy, appointed 'Best-and-Bravest, ' willbe wise, how inexpressibly happy for us! If not, --the voice ofGod from the whirlwind is very audible to me. Nay, I will thankthe Great God, that He has said, in whatever fearful ways, andjust wrath against us, "Idleness shall be no more!" Idleness?The awakened soul of man, all but the asphyxied soul of man, turns from it as from worse than death. It is the life-in-deathof Poet Coleridge. That fable of the Dead-Sea Apes ceases to bea fable. The poor Worker starved to death is not the saddest ofsights. He lies there, dead on his shield; fallen down into thebosom of his old Mother; with haggard pale face, sorrow-worn, but stilled now into divine peace, silently appeals to theEternal God and all the Universe, --the most silent, the mosteloquent of men. 

Exceptions, --ah yes, thank Heaven, we know there are exceptions. Our case were too hard, were there not exceptions, and partialexceptions not a few, whom we know, and whom we do not know. Honour to the name of Ashley, --honour to this and the othervaliant Abdiel, found faithful still; who would fain, by workand by word, admonish their Order not to rush upon destruction!These are they who will, if not save their Order, postpone thewreck of it;--by whom, under blessing of the Upper Powers, 'aquiet euthanasia spread over generations, instead of a swifttorture-death concentred into years, ' may be brought about formany things. All honour and success to these. The noble man canstill strive nobly to save and serve his Order;--at lowest, hecan remember the precept of the Prophet: "Come out of her, mypeople; come out of her!"

To sit idle aloft, like living statues, like absurd Epicurus'-gods, in pampered isolation, in exclusion from the gloriousfateful battlefield of this God's-World: it is a poor life for aman, when all Upholsterers and French-Cooks have done theirutmost for it!--Nay, what a shallow delusion is this we have allgot into. That any man should or can keep himself apart frommen, have 'no business' with them, except a cash-accountbusiness!' It is the silliest tale a distressed generation ofmen ever took to telling one another. Men cannot live isolated:we _are_ all bound together, for mutual good or else for mutualmisery, as living nerves in the same body. No highest man candisunite himself from any lowest. Consider it. Your poor'Werter blowing out his distracted existence because Charlottewill not have the keeping thereof:' this is no peculiar phasis;it is simply the highest expression of a phasis traceablewherever one human creature meets another! Let the meanestcrookbacked Thersites teach the supremest Agamemnon that heactually does not reverence him, the supremest Agamemnon's eyesflash fire responsive; a real pain, and partial insanity, hasseized Agamemnon. Strange enough: a many-counselled Ulysses isset in motion by a scoundrel-blockhead; plays tunes, like abarrel-organ, at the scoundrel-blockhead's touch, --has to snatch, namely, his sceptre cudgel, and weal the crooked back with bumpsand thumps! Let a chief of men reflect well on it. Not inhaving 'no business' with men, but in having no unjust businesswith them, and in _having_ all manner of true and just business, can either his or their blessedness be found possible, and thiswaste world become, for both parties, a home and peopled garden. 

Men do reverence men. Men do worship in that 'one temple of theworld, ' as Novalis calls it, the Presence of a Man! Hero-worship, true and blessed, or else mistaken, false and accursed, goes on everywhere and everywhen. In this world there is onegodlike thing, the essence of all that was or ever will be ofgodlike in this world: the veneration done to Human Worth by thehearts of men. Hero-worship, in the souls of the heroic, of theclear and wise, --it is the perpetual presence of Heaven in ourpoor Earth: when it is not there, Heaven is veiled from us; andall is under Heaven's ban and interdict, and there is no worship, or worthship, or worth or blessedness in the Earth any more!--

Independence, 'lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye'--alas, yes, he is a lord we have got acquainted with in these late times: avery indispensable lord, for spurning off with due energyinnumerable sham-superiors, Tailor-made: honour to him, entiresuccess to him! Entire success is sure to him. But he must notstop there, at that small success, with his eagle-eye. He hasnow a second far greater success to gain: to seek out his realsuperiors, whom not the Tailor but the Almighty God has madesuperior to him, and see a little what he will do with these!Rebel against these also? Pass by with minatory eagle-glance, with calm-sniffing mockery, or even without any mockery or sniff, when these present themselves? The lion-hearted will never dreamof such a thing. Forever far be it from him! His minatoryeagle-glance will veil itself in softness of the dove: his lion-heart will become a lamb's; all is just indignation changed intojust reverence, dissolved in blessed floods of noble humble love, how much heavenlier than any pride, nay, if you will, how muchprouder! I know him, this lion-hearted, eagle-eyed one; havemet him, rushing on, 'with bosom bare, ' in a very distracteddishevelled manner, the times being hard;--and can say, andguarantee on my life, That in him is no rebellion; that in himis the reverse of rebellion, the needful preparation forobedience. For if you do mean to obey God-made superiors, yourfirst step is to sweep out the Tailormade ones; order them, under penalties, to vanish, to make ready for vanishing!

Nay, what is best of all, he cannot rebel, if he would. Superiors whom God has made for us we cannot order to withdraw!Not in the least. No Grand-Turk himself, thickest-quiltedtailor-made Brother of the Sun and Moon can do it: but an ArabMan, in cloak of his own clouting; with black beaming eyes, withflaming sovereign-heart direct from the centre of the Universe;and also, I am told, with terrible 'horse-shoe vein' of swellingwrath in his brow, and lightning (if you will not have it aslight) tingling through every vein of him, --he rises; saysauthoritatively: "Thickest-quilted Grand-Turk, tailor-madeBrother of the Sun and Moon, No:--_I_ withdraw not; thou shaltobey me or withdraw!" And so accordingly it is: thickest-quilted Grand-Turks and all their progeny, to this hour, obey that man in the remarkablest manner; preferring _not_to withdraw. 

O brother, it is an endless consolation to me, in thisdisorganic, as yet so quack-ridden, what you may well call hag-ridden and hell-ridden world, to find that disobedience to theHeavens, when they send any messenger whatever, is and remainsimpossible. It cannot be done; no Turk grand or small can doit. 'Skew the dullest clodpole, ' says my invaluable Germanfriend, 'shew the haughtiest featherhead, that a soul higher thanhimself is here; were his knees stiffened into brass, he mustdown and worship. 

Chapter VII

The Gifted

Yes, in what tumultuous huge anarchy soever a Noble humanPrinciple may dwell and strive, such tumult is in the way ofbeing calmed into a fruitful sovereignty. It is inevitable. NoChaos can continue chaotic with a soul in it. Besouled withearnest human Nobleness, did not slaughter, violence and fire-eyed fury, grow into a Chivalry; into a blessed Loyalty ofGovernor and Governed? And in Work, which is of itself noble, and the only true fighting, there shall be no such possibility?Believe it not; it is incredible; the whole Universecontradicts it. Here too the Chactaw Principle will besubordinated; the Man Principle will, by degrees, becomesuperior, become supreme. 

I know Mammon too; Banks-of-England, Credit-Systems, worldwidepossibilities of work and traffic; and applaud and admire them. Mammon is like Fire; the usefulest of all servants, if thefrightfulest of all masters! The Cliffords, Fitzadelms andChivalry Fighters 'wished to gain victory, ' never doubt it: butvictory, unless gained in a certain spirit, was no victory;defeat, sustained in a certain spirit, was itself victory. I sayagain and again, had they counted the scalps alone, they hadcontinued Chactaws, and no Chivalry or lasting victory had been. And in Industrial Fighters and Captains is there no noblenessdiscoverable? To them, alone of men, there shall forever be noblessedness but in swollen coffers? To see beauty, order, gratitude, loyal human hearts around them, shall be of no moment;to see fuliginous deformity, mutiny, hatred and despair, with theaddition of half a million guineas, shall be better? Heaven'sblessedness not there; Hell's cursedness, and your half-millionbits of metal, a substitute for that! Is there no profit indiffusing Heaven's blessedness, but only in gaining gold?--If so, I apprise the Mill-owner and Millionaire, that he too mustprepare for vanishing; that neither is _he_ born to be of thesovereigns of this world; that he will have to be trampled andchained down in whatever terrible ways, and brass-collared safe, among the born thralls of this worrd! We cannot have _Canailles_and Doggeries that will not make some Chivalry of themselves:our noble Planet is impatient of such; in the end, totallyintolerant of such!

For the Heavens, unwearying in their bounty, do send other soulsinto this world, to whom yet, as to their forerunners, in OldRoman, in Old Hebrew and all noble times, the omnipotent guineais, on the whole, an impotent guinea. Has your half-deadavaricious Corn-Law Lord, your half-alive avaricious Cotton-LawLord, never seen one such? Such are, not one, but several; are, and will be, unless the gods have doomed this world to swift direruin. These are they, the elect of the world; the bornchampions, strong men, and liberatory Samsons of this poor world:whom the poor Delilah-world will not always shear of theirstrength and eyesight, and set to grind in darkness at _its_ poorgin-wheel! Such souls are, in these days, getting somewhat outof humour with the world. Your very Byron, in these days, is atleast driven mad; flatly refuses fealty to the world. The worldwith its injustices, its golden brutalities, and dull yellowguineas, is a disgust to such souls: the ray of Heaven that isin them does at least pre-doom them to be very miserable here. Yes:--and yet all misery is faculty misdirected, strength thathas not yet found its way. The black whirlwind is mother of thelightning. No _smoke, _ in any sense, but can become flame andradiance! Such soul, once graduated in Heaven's sternUniversity, steps out superior to your guinea. 

Dost thou know, O sumptuous Corn-Lord, Cotton-Lord, O mutinousTrades-Unionist, gin-vanquished, undeliverable; O much-enslavedWorld, --this man is not a slave with thee! None of thypromotions is necessary for him. His place is with the stars ofHeaven: to thee it may be momentous, to him it is indifferent, whether thou place him in the lowest hut, or forty feet higher atthe top of thy stupendous high tower, while here on Earth. Thejoys of Earth that are precious, they depend not on thee and thypromotions. Food and raiment, and, round a social hearth, soulswho love him, whom he loves: these are already his. He wantsnone of thy rewards; behold also, he fears none of thypenalties. Thou canst not answer even by killing him: the caseof Anaxarchus thou canst kill; but the self of Anaxarchus, theword or act of Anaxarchus, in no wise whatever. To this mandeath is not a bugbear; to this man life is already as earnestand awful, and beautiful and terrible, as death. 

Not a May-game is this man's life; but a battle and a march, awarfare with principalities and powers. No idle promenadethrough fragrant orange-groves and green flowery spaces, waitedon by the choral Muses and the rosy Hours: it is a sternpilgrimage through burning sandy solitudes, through regions ofthick-ribbed ice. He walks among men; loves men, withinexpressible soft pity, --as they _cannot_ love him: but hissoul dwells in solitude, in the uttermost parts of Creation. Ingreen oases by the palm-tree wells, he rests a space; but anonhe has to journey forward, escorted by the Terrors and theSplendours, the Archdemons and Archangels. All Heaven, allPandemonium are his escort. The stars keen-glancing, from theImmensities, send tidings to him; the graves, silent with theirdead, from the Eternities. Deep calls for him unto Deep. 

Thou, O World, how wilt thou secure thyself against this man?Thou canst not hire him by thy guineas; nor by thy gibbets andlaw-penalties restrain him. He eludes thee like a Spirit. Thoucanst not forward him, thou canst not hinder him. Thy penalties, thy poverties, neglects, contumelies: behold, all these are goodfor him. Come to him as an enemy; turn from him as an unfriend;only do not this one thing, --infect him not with thy owndelusion: the benign Genius, were it by very death, shall guardhim against this!--What wilt thou do with him? He is above thee, like a god. Thou, in thy stupendous three-inch pattens, artunder him. He is thy born king, thy conqueror and supremelawgiver: not all the guineas and cannons, and leather andprunella, under the sky can save thee from him. Hardestthickskinned Mammon-world, ruggedest Caliban shall obey him, orbecome not Caliban but a cramp. Oh, if in this man, whose eyescan flash Heaven's lightning, and make all Calibans into a cramp, there dwelt not, as the essence of his very being, a God'sjustice, human Nobleness, Veracity and Mercy, --I should tremblefor the world. But his strength, let us rejoice to understand, is even this: The quantity of Justice, of Valour and Pity thatis in him. To hypocrites and tailored quacks in high places, hiseyes are lightning; but they melt in dewy pity softer than amother's to the downpressed, maltreated; in his heart, in hisgreat thought, is a sanctuary for all the wretched. This world'simprovement is forever sure. 

'Man of Genius?' Thou hast small notion, meseems, O MecaenasTwiddledee, of what a Man of Genius is! Read in thy NewTestament and elsewhere, --if, with floods of mealymouthedinanity, with miserable froth-vortices of Cant now severalcenturies old, thy New Testament is not all bedimmed for thee. _Canst_ thou read in thy New Testament at all? The Highest Manof Genius, knowest thou him; Godlike and a God to this hour?His crown a Crown of Thorns? Thou fool, with _thy_ emptyGodhoods, Apotheoses _edgegilt;_ the Crown of Thorns made into apoor jewel-room crown, fit for the head of blockheads; thebearing of the Cross changed to a riding in the Long-Acre Gig!Pause in thy mass-chantings, in thy litanyings, and Calmuckprayings by machinery; and pray, if noisily, at least in amore human manner. How with thy rubrics and dalmatics, andclothwebs and cobwebs, and with thy stupidities and grovellingbaseheartedness, hast thou hidden the Holiest into allbut invisibility!--

'Man of Genius:' O Mecaenas Twiddledee, hast thou any notionwhat a Man of Genius is? Genius is 'the inspired gift of God. 'It is the clearer presence of God Most High in a man. Dim, potential in all men; in this man it has become clear, actual. So says John Milton, who ought to be a judge; so answer him theVoices of all Ages and all Worlds. Wouldst thou commune withsuch a one, --_be_ his real peer then: does that lie in thee?Know thyself and thy real and thy apparent place, and know himand his real and his apparent place, and act in some nobleconformity therewith. What! The star-fire of the Empyrean shalleclipse itself, and illuminate magic-lanterns to amuse grownchildren? He, the god-inspired, is to twang harps for thee, andblow through scrannel-pipes; soothe thy sated soul with visionsof new, still wider Eldorados, Houri Paradises, richer Lands ofCockaigne? Brother, this is not he; this is a counterfeit, thistwangling, jangling, vain, acrid, scrannel-piping man. Thou dostwell to say with sick Saul, "It is naught, such harping!"--and insudden rage grasp thy spear, and try if thou canst pin such a oneto the wall. King Saul was mistaken in his man, but thou artright in thine. It is the due of such a one: nail him to thewall, and leave him there. So ought copper shillings to benailed on counters; copper geniuses on walls, and left there fora sign!--

I conclude that the Men of Letters too may become a 'Chivalry, 'an actual instead of a virtual Priesthood, with resultimmeasurable, --so soon as there is nobleness in themselves forthat. And, to a certainty, not sooner! Of intrinsic Valetismsyou cannot, with whole Parliaments to help you, make a Heroism. Doggeries never so gold-plated, Doggeries never so escutcheoned, Doggeries never so diplomaed, bepuffed, gas-lighted, continueDoggeries, and must take the fate of such. 

Chapter VIII

The Didactic

Certainly it were a fond imagination to expect that any preachingof mine could abate Mammonism; that Bobus of Houndsditch willlove his guineas less, or his poor soul more, for any preachingof mine! But there is one Preacher who does preach with effect, and gradually persuade all persons: his name is Destiny, isDivine Providence, and his Sermon the inflexible Course ofThings. Experience does take dreadfully high school-wages; buthe teaches like no other!

I revert to Friend Prudence the good Quaker's refusal of 'seventhousand pounds to boot. ' Friend Prudence's practical conclusionwill, by degrees, become that of all rational practical menwhatsover. On the present scheme and principle, Work cannotcontinue. Trades' Strikes, Trades' Unions, Chartisms; mutiny, squalor, rage and desperate revolt, growing ever more desperate, will go on their way. As dark misery settles down on us, and ourrefuges of lies fall in pieces one after one, the hearts of men, now at last serious, will turn to refuges of truth. The eternalstars shine out again, so soon as it is dark _enough. _

Begirt with desperate Trades' Unionism and Anarchic Mutiny, manyan Industrial _Law-ward, _ by and by, who has neglected to makelaws and keep them, will be heard saying to himself: "Why have Irealised five hundred thousand pounds? I rose early and satlate, I toiled and moiled, and in the sweat of my brow and of mysoul I strove to gain this money, that I might becomeconspicuous, and have some honour among my fellow-creatures. Iwanted them to honour me, to love me. The money is here, earnedwith my best lifeblood: but the honour? I am encircled withsqualor, with hunger, rage, and sooty desperation. Not honoured, hardly even envied; only fools and the flunkey-species so muchas envy me. I am conspicuous, --as a mark for curses andbrickbats. What good is it? My five hundred scalps hang here inmy wigwam: would to Heaven I had sought something else than thescalps; would to Heaven I had been a Christian Fighter, not aChactaw one! To have ruled and fought not in a Mammonish but ina Godlike spirit; to have had the hearts of the people bless me, as a true ruler and captain of my people; to have felt my ownheart bless me, and that God above instead of Mammon below wasblessing me, --this had been something. Out of my sight, yebeggarly five hundred scalps of banker's-thousands: I will tryfor something other, or account my life a tragical futility!"

Friend Prudence's 'rock-ledge, ' as we called it, will graduallydisclose itself to many a man; to all men. Gradually, assaultedfrom beneath and from above, the Stygian mud-deluge of Laissez-faire, Supply-and-demand, Cash-payment the one Duty, will abateon all hands; and the everlasting mountain-tops, and securerock-foundations that reach to the centre of the world, and reston Nature's self, will again emerge, to found on, and to buildon. When Mammon-worshippers here and there begin to be God-worshippers, and bipeds-of-prey become men, and there is a Soulfelt once more in the huge-pulsing elephantine mechanic Animalismof this Earth, it will be again a blessed Earth. 

"Men cease to regard money?" cries Bobus of Houndsditch: "Whatelse do all men strive for? The very Bishop informs me thatChristianity cannot get on without a minimum of Four thousandfive hundred in its pocket. Cease to regard money? That will beat Doomsday in the afternoon!"--O Bobus, my opinion is somewhatdifferent. My opinion is, that the Upper Powers have not yetdetermined on destroying this Lower World. A respectable, ever-increasing minority, who do strive for something higher thanmoney, I with confidence anticipate; ever-increasing, till therebe a sprinkling of them found in all quarters, as salt of theEarth' once more. The Christianity that cannot get on without aminimum of Four thousand five hundred, will give place tosomething better that can. Thou wilt not join our smallminority, thou? Not till Doomsday in the afternoon? Well;_then, _ at least, thou wilt join it, thou and the majorityin mass!

But truly it is beautiful to see the brutish empire of Mammoncracking everywhere; giving sure promise of dying, or of beingchanged. A strange, chill, almost ghastly dayspring strikes upin Yankeeland itself: my Transcendental friends announce there, in a distinct, though somewhat lankhaired, ungainly manner, thatthe Demiurgus Dollar is dethroned; that new unheard-ofDemiurgusships, Priesthoods, Aristocracies, Growths andDestructions, are already visible in the grey of coming Time. Chronos is dethroned by Jove; Odin by St. Olaf: the Dollarcannot rule in Heaven forever. No; I reckon, not. SocinianPreachers quit their pulpits in Yankeeland, saying, "Friends, this is all gone to a coloured cobweb, we regret to say!"--andretire into the fields to cultivate onion-beds, and live frugallyon vegetables. It is very notable. Old godlike Calvinismdeclares that its old body is now fallen to tatters, and done;and its mournful ghost, disembodied, seeking new embodiment, pipes again in the winds;--a ghost and spirit as yet, butheralding new Spirit-worlds, and better Dynasties than theDollar one. 

Yes, here as there, light is coming into the world; men love notdarkness, they do love light. A deep feeling of the eternalnature of justice looks out among us everywhere, --even throughthe dull eyes of Exeter Hall; an unspeakable religiousnessstruggles, in the most helpless manner, to speak itself, inPuseyisms and the like. Of our Cant, all condemnable, how muchis not condemnable without pity; we had almost said, withoutrespect! The inarticulate worth and truth that is in Englandgoes down yet to the Foundations. 

Some 'Chivalry of Labour, ' some noble Humanity and practicalDivineness of Labour, will yet be realised on this Earth. Or why_will;_ why do we pray to Heaven, without setting our ownshoulder to the wheel? The Present, if it will have the Futureaccomplish, shall itself commence. Thou who prophesiest, whobelievest, begin thou to fulfil. Here or nowhere, now equally asat any time! That outcast help-needing thing or person, trampleddown under vulgar feet or hoofs, no help 'possible' for it, noprize offered for the saving of it, --canst not thou save it, then, without prize? Put forth thy hand, in God's name; knowthat 'impossible, ' where Truth and Mercy and the everlastingVoice of Nature order, has no place in the brave man'sdictionary. That when all men have said "Impossible, " andtumbled noisily elsewhither, and thou alone art left, then firstthy time and possibility have come. It is for thee now: do thouthat, and ask no man's counsel, but thy own only and God's. Brother, thou hast possibility in thee for much: the possibilityof writing on the eternal skies the record of a heroic life. That noble downfallen or yet unborn 'Impossibility, ' thou canstlift it up, thou canst, by thy soul's travail, bring it intoclear being. That loud inane Actuality, with millions in itspocket, too 'possible' that, which rolls along there, withquilted trumpeters blaring round it, and all the world escortingit as mute or vocal flunkey, --escort it not thou; say to it, either nothing, or else deeply in thy heart: "Loud-blaringNonentity, no force of trumpets, cash, Long-Acre art, oruniversal flunkeyhood of men, makes thee an Entity; thou art a_Non_entity, and deceptive Simulacrum, more accursed than thouseemest. Pass on in the Devil's name, unworshipped by at leastone man, and leave the thoroughfare clear!"

Not on Ilion's or Latium's plains; on far other plains andplaces henceforth can noble deeds be now done. Not on Ilion'splains; how much less in Mayfair's drawingrooms! Not in victoryover poor brother French or Phrygians; but in victory overFrost-jotuns, Marsh-giants, over demons of Discord, Idleness, Injustice, Unreason, and Chaos come again. None of the old Epicsis longer possible. The Epic of French and Phrygians wascomparatively a small Epic: but that of Flirts and Fribbles, what is that? A thing that vanishes at cock-crowing, --thatalready begins to scent the morning air! Game-preservingAristocracies, let them 'bush' never so effectually, cannotescape the Subtle Fowler. Game seasons will be excellent, andagain will be indifferent, and by and by they will not be at all. The Last Partridge of England, of an England where millions ofmen can get no corn to eat, will be shot and ended. Aristocracies with beards on their chins will find other work todo than amuse themselves with trundling-hoops. 

But it is to you, ye Workers, who do already work, and are asgrown men, noble and honourable in a sort, that the whole worldcalls for new work and nobleness. Subdue mutiny, discord, widespread despair, by manfulness, justice, mercy and wisdom. Chaos is dark, deep as Hell; let light be, and there is insteada green flowery World. O, it is great, and there is no othergreatness. To make some nook of God's Creation a littlefruitfuler, better, more worthy of God; to make some humanhearts a little wiser, manfuler, happier, --more blessed, lessaccursed! It is work for a God. Sooty Hell of mutiny andsavagery and despair can, by man's energy, be made a kind ofHeaven; cleared of its soot, of its mutiny, of its need tomutiny; the everlasting arch of Heaven's azure overspanning _it_too, and its cunning mechanisms and tall chimney-steeples, as abirth of Heaven; God and all men looking on it well pleased. 

Unstained by wasteful deformities, by wasted tears or heart's-blood of men, or any defacement of the Pit, noble fruitfulLabour, growing ever nobler, will come forth, --the grand solemiracle of Man; whereby Man has risen from the low places ofthis Earth, very literally, into divine Heavens. Ploughers, Spinners, Builders; Prophets, Poets, Kings; Brindleys andGoethes, Odins and Arkwrights; all martyrs, and noble men, andgods are of one grand Host: immeasurable; marching ever forwardsince the Beginnings of the World. The enormous, all-conquering, flame-crowned Host, noble every soldier in it; sacred, and alonenoble. Let him who is not of it hide himself; let him tremblefor himself. Stars at every button cannot make him noble;sheaves of Bath-garters, nor bushels of Georges; nor any othercontrivance but manfully enlisting in it, valiantly taking placeand step in it. O Heavens, will he not bethink himself; he toois so needed in the Host! It were so blessed, thrice-blessed, for himself and for us all! In hope of the Last Partridge, andsome Duke of Weimar among our English Dukes, we will be patientyet a while. 

 The Future hides in it Gladness and sorrow; We press still thorow, Nought that abides in it Daunting us, --onward. 

THE END

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Summary

Book I--Proem

Chap. I _Midas_

The condition of England one of the most ominous ever seen inthis world: Full of wealth in every kind, yet dying ofinanition; Workhouses, in which no work cane be done. Destitution in Scotland. Stockport Assizes. England'sunprofitable success: Human faces glooming discordantly on oneanother. Midas longed for gold, and the gods gave it him. 

Chap. II. _The Sphinx_

The grand unnamable Sphinx-riddle, which each man is called uponto solve. Notions of the foolish concerning justice andjudgment. Courts of Westminster, and the general High Court ofthe Universe. The one strong thing, the just thing, the truething. A noble Conservatism, as well as an ignoble. In allbattles of men each fighter, in the end, prospers according tohis right: Wallace of Scotland. Fact and Semblance. What isjustice? As many men as there are in a Nation who can _see_Heaven's justice, so many are there who stand between itand perdition. 

Chap. III. _Manchester Insurrection_

Peterloo not an unsuccessful Insurrection. Governors who waitfor Insurrection to instruct them, getting into the fatalestcourses. Unspeakable County Yeomanry. Poor Manchesteroperatives, and their huge inarticulate question: UnhappyWorkers, unhappier idlers, of this actual England! Fair day's-wages for fair day's-work: Milton's 'wages;' Cromwell's. Payto each man what he has earned and done and deserved; what morehave we to ask? Some not _in_supportable approximationindispensable and inevitable. 

Chap. IV. _Morrison's Pill_

A state of mind worth reflecting on. No Morrison's Pill forcuring the maladies of Society: Universal alteration of regimenand way of life: Vain jargon giving place to some genuine Speechagain. If we walk according to the Law of this Universe, theLaw-Maker will befriend us; if not, not. Quacks, sham heroes, the one bane of the world. Quack and Dupe, upper side and underof the selfsame substance. 

Chap. V. _Aristocracy of Talent_

All misery the fruit of unwisdom: Neither with individuals norwith Nations is it fundamentally otherwise. Nature in latecenturies universally supposed to be dead; but now everywhereasserting herself to be alive and miraculous. That guidance ofthis country not sufficiently wise. Aristocracy of talent, orgovernment by the Wisest, a dreadfully difficult affair to getstarted. The true _eye_ for talent; and the flunky eye forrespectabilities, warm garnitures andlarders dropping fatness: Bobus and Bobissimus. 

Chap. VI. _Hero-worship_

Enlightened Egoism, never so luminous, not the rule by whichman's life can be led: A _soul, _ different from a stomach in anysense of the word. Hero-worship done differently in everydifferent epoch of the world. Reform, like Charity, must beginat home. Arrestment of the knaves and dastards, beginning byarresting our own poor selves out of that fraternity. Thepresent Editor's purpose to himself full of hope. A Loadstarin the eternal sky: glimmering of light, for here and therea human soul. 

Book II--The Ancient Monk

Chap. I. _Jocelin of Brakelond_

How the Centuries stand lineally related to each other. The oneBook not permissible, the kind that has nothing in it. Jocelin's'Chronicle, ' a private Boswellean Note-book, now seven centuriesold. How Jocelin, from under his monk's cowl, looked out on thatnarrow section of the world in a really _human_ manner: A wisesimplicity in him; a _veracity_ that goes deeper than words. Jocelin's Monk-Latin; and Mr. Rokewood's editorial helpfulnessand fidelity. A veritable Monk of old Bury St. Edmunds worthattending to. This England of ours, of the year 1200: Coeur-de-Lion: King Lackland, and his thirteenpenny mass. The pooresthistorical Fact, and the grandest imaginative Fiction. 

Chap. II. _St. Edmundsbury_

St. Edmund's Bury, a prosperous brisk Town: Extensive ruins ofthe Abbey still visible. Assiduous Pedantry, and its rubbish-heaps called 'History. ' Another world it was, when those blackruins first saw the sun as walls. At lowest, O dilettantefriend, let us know always that it _was_ a world. No easy matterto get across the chasm of Seven Centuries: Of all helps; aBoswell, even a small Boswell, the welcomest. 

Chap. III. _Landlord Edmund_

'Battle of Fornham, ' a fact, though a forgotten one. Edmund, Landlord of the Eastern Counties: A very singular kind of'landlord. ' How he came to be 'sainted. ' Seen and felt to havedone verily a man's part in this life pilgrimage of his. Howthey took up the slain body of their Edmund, and reverentlyembalmed it. Pious munificence, ever growing by new pious gifts. Certain Times do crystallise themselves in a magnificent manner;others in a rather shabby one. 

Chap. IV. _Abbot Hugo_

All things have two faces, a light one and dark: The Ideal hasto grow in the Real, and to seek its bed and board there, oftenin a very sorry manner. Abbot Hugo, grown old and feeble. Jewdebts and Jew creditors. How approximate justice strives toaccomplish itself. In the old monastic Books almost no Mentionwhatever of 'personal religion. ' A poor Lord Abbot, all stuck-over with horse-leeches: A 'royal commission of inquiry, ' to nopurpose. A monk's first duty, obedience. Magister Samson, Teacher of the Novices. The Abbot's providential death. 

Chap. V. _Twelfth Century_

Inspectors of Custodiars; the King not in any breathless hasteto appoint a new Abbot. Dim and very strange looks that monk-life to us. Our venerable ancient spinning grandmothers, shrieking, and rushing out with their distaffs. Lakenheath eelstoo slippery to be caught. How much is alive in England, in thatTwelfth Century; how much, not yet come into life. FeudalAristocracy; Willelmus conquaestor: Not a steeple-chimney yetgot on end from sea to sea. 

Chap. VI. _Monk Samson_

Monk-Life and Monk-Religion: A great heaven-highUnquestionability, encompassing, interpenetrating all humanDuties. Our modern Arkwright Joe-Manton ages: All human duesand reciprocities, changed into one great due of 'cash-payment'The old monks but a limited class of creatures, with a somewhatdull life of it. One Monk of a taciturn nature distinguisheshimself among those babling ones. A Son of poor Norfolk parents. Little Samson's awful dream: His poor Mother dedicates him toSt. Edmund. He grows to be a learned man, of devout gravenature. Sent to Rome on business; and returns _too_ successful:Method of traveling thither in those days. His tribulations athome: Strange conditions under which Wisdom has sometimes tostruggle with folly. 

Chap. VII. _The Canvassing_

A new Abbot to be elected. Even gossip, seven centuries off, hassignificance. The Prior with Twelve Monks, to wait on hisMajesty at Waltham. An 'election' the on important social act:Given the Man a People choose, the worth and worthlessness of thePeople itself is given. 

Chap. VIII. _The Election_

Electoral methods and manipulations. Brother Samson readyoftenest with some question, some suggestion that his wisdom init. The Thirteen off to Waltham, to choose their Abott: In thesolitude of the Convent, Destiny thus big and in her birthtime, what gossiping, babbling, dreaming of dreams! King Henry II inhis high Presence-chamber. Samson chosen Abbot: the King'sroyal acceptation. St. Edmundsbury Monks, without express ballotbox or other winnowing machine. In every nation and Communitythere is at all times _a fittest, _ wisest, bravest, best. HumanWorth and human Worthlessness. 

Chap. IX. _Abbot Samson_

The Lord Abbot's arrival at St. Edmundsbury: The self-sameSamson yesterday a poor mendicant, this day, finds himself a_Dominus Abbas_ and mitred Peer of Parliament. Depth andopulence of true social vitality in those old barbarous ages. True Governors go about under all manner of disguises now asthen. Genius, Poet; what these words mean. George the Third, head charioteer of England; and Robert Burns, gauger of ale inDumfries. How Abbot Samson found a Convert all in dilapidation. His life-long harsh apprenticeship to governing, namely obeying. First get your Man; all is got. Danger of blockheads. 

Chap. X. _Government_

Beautiful, how the chrysalis governing-soul, shaking off itsdusty slough and prison, starts forth winged, a true royal soul!One first labour, to institute a strenuous review and radicalreform of his economics. Wheresoever Disorder may stand or lie, let it have a care; here is a man that has declared war with it. In less than four years the Convent debts are all liquidated, andthe harpy Jews banished from St. Edmundsbury. New life springsbeneficent everywhere: Spiritual rubbish as little toleratedas material. 

Chap. XI. _The Abbot's Ways_

Reproaches, open and secret, of ingratitude, unsociability;Except for 'fit men' in all kinds, hard to say for whom AbbotSamson had much favour. Remembrance of benefits. An eloquentman, but intent more on substance than on ornament. A just clearheart the basis of all true talent. One of the justest ofjudges; His invaluable 'talent of silence. ' Kind of people heliked worst. Hospitality and stocism. The country in those daysstill dark with noble wood and umbrage; How the old treesgradually died out, no man heeding it. Monachism itself, so richand fruitful once, now all rotted into _peat. _ Devastations offour-footed cattle and Henry-the-Eighths. 

Chap. XII. _The Abbot's Troubles_

The troubles of Abbot Samson more than tongue can tell. Not thespoil of victory, only the glorious toil of battle, can be theirswho really govern. An insurrection of the Monks: Behave better, ye remiss Monks, and thank Heaven for such an Abbot. Worn downwith incessant toil and tribulation: Gleams of hilarity too;little snatches of encouragement granted even to a Governor. Howmy Lord of Clare, coming to claim his _un_due 'debt, ' gets aRoland for his Oliver. A Life of Literature, noble and ignoble. 

Chap. XIII. _In Parliament_

Confused days of Lackland's usurpation, while Coeur-de-Lion wasaway: Our brave Abbot took helmet himself, excommunicating allwho should favour Lackland. Kind Richard a captive in Germany. St. Edmund's Shrine not meddled with: A heavenly Aweovershadowed and encompassed, as it still ought and must, allearthly Business whatsoever. 

Chap. XIV. _Henry of Essex_

How St. Edmund punished terribly, yet with mercy; A Naraticesignificant of the time. Henry Earl of Essex, standard-bearer ofEngland: No right reverence for the Heavenly in Man. A traitoror coward. Solemn Duel, by the King's appointment. An evilConscience doth make cowards of us all. 

Chap. XV. _Practical-Devotional_

A Tournament proclaimed and held in the Abbot's domain, in spiteof him. Roystering young dogs brought to reason. The Abbot aman that generally remains master at last: The importunateBishop of Ely outwitted. A man that dare abide King Richard'sanger, with justice on his side. Thou brave Richard, thou braveSamson! The basis of Abbot Samson's life truly religion. Hiszealous interest in the Crusades. The great antique heart, likea child's in its simplicity, like a man's in its earnestsolemnity and depth. His comparative silence as to his religionprecisely the healthiest sign of him and it. Methodism, dilettantism, Puseyism. 

Chap. XVI. _St. Edmund_

Abbot Samson built many useful, many pious edifices: Allruinous, incomplete things an eye-sorrow to him. Rebuilding thegreat Altar: A glimpse of the glorious Martyr's very Body. Whata scene; how far vanished from us, in these unworshipping agesof ours! The manner of men's Hero-worship, verily the innermostfact of their existence, determining all the rest. On the whole, who knows how to reverence the Body of man? Abbot Samson, at theculminating point of his existence: Our real-phantasmagory ofSt. Edmundsbury plunges into the bosom of the Twelfth Centuryagain, and all is over. 

Chap. XVII. _The Beginnings_

Formulas the very skin and muscular tissue of a Man's Life:Living Formulas and dead. Habit the deepest law of human nature. A pathway through the pathless. Nationalities. Pulpy infancy, kneaded, baked into any form you choose: The Man of business;the hard-handed Labourer; the genus Dandy. No Mortal out of thedepths of Bedlam but lives by Formulas. The hosts andgenerations of brave men Oblivion has swallowed: Their crumbleddust, the soil our life-fruit grows on. Invention of Speech;Forms of Worship; Methods of Justice. This English Land, hereand now, the summary of what was wise and noble, and accordantwith God's Truth, in all the generations of English Men. Thething called 'Fame. '

Book III. --The Modern Worker

Chap. I. _Phenomena_

How men have 'forgotten God;' taken the Fact of this Universe asit is _not;_ God's Laws become a Greatest-happiness Principle, aParliamentary Expediency. Man has lost the _soul_ out of him, and begins to find the want of it. The old Pope of Rome, withhis stuffed dummy to do the kneeling for him. Few men thatworship by the rotatory Calabash, do it in half so great, frankor effectual a way. Our Aristocracy no longer able to _do_ itswork, and not in the least conscious that it has any work to do. The Champion of England 'lifted into his saddle. ' The hatter inthe Strand, mounting a huge lath-and-plaster Hat. Our nobleancestors have fashioned for us, in how many thousand sense, a'life-road;' and we their sons are madly, literally enough, 'consuming the way. '

Chap. II. _Gospel of Mammonism_

Heaven and Hell, often as the words are on our tongue, got to befabulous or semi-fabulous for most of us. The real 'Hell' of theEnglish. Cash-payment, _not_ the sole or even chief relation ofhuman beings. Practical Atheism, and its despicable fruits. Oneof Dr. Alison's melancholy facts: A poor Irish widow, in theLanes of Endinburgh, _proving_ her sisterhood. Until we get ahuman _soul_ within us, all things are _im_possible: Infatuatedgeese, with feathers and without. 

Chap. III. _Gospel of Dilettantism_

Mammonism at least works; but 'Go gracefully idle in Mayfair, 'what does or can that mean?--Impotent, insolent Donothingism inPractice and Saynothingism in Speech. No man now speaks a plainword: Insincere Speech the prime material of insincere Action. Moslem parable of Moses and the Dwellers by the Dead sea: TheUniverse _become_ a Humbug to the Apes that thought it one. 

Chap. IV. _Happy_

All work noble; and every noble crown a crown of thorns. Man'spitiful pretension to be what he calls "happy;" His Greatest-Happiness Principle fast becoming a rather unhappy one. Byron'slarge audience. A philosophical Doctor: A disconsolate Meat-jack, gnarring and creaking with rust and work. The only'happiness' a brave man ever troubled himself much about, thehappiness to get his work done. 

Chap. V. _The English_

With all thy theoretic platitudes, what a depth of practicalsense in thee, great England! A dumb people, who can do greatacts, but not describe them. The noble Warhorse, and the Dog ofKnowledge: The freest utterances not by any means the best. Thedone Work, much more than the spoken Word, an epitome of the man. The Man of Practice, and the Man of Theory: Ineloquent Brindley. The English, of all Nations the stupidest in speech, the wisestin action: Sadness and seriousness: Unconsciously this greatUniverse is great to them. The silent Romans. John Bull'sadmirable insensibility to Logic. All great Peoplesconservative. Kind of Ready-Reckoner a Solecism in East-cheap. Berserkir rage. Truth and Justice alone _capable_ of being'conserved. ' Bitter indignation engendered by the Corn-Laws inevery just English heart. 

Chap. VI. _Two Centuries_

The 'Settlement' of the year 1660 one of the mournfulest thatever took place in this land of ours. The true end of Governmentto guide men in the way they should go: The true good of thislife, the portal of infinite good in the life to come. OliverCromwell's body hung on the Tyburn gallows, the type ofPuritanism found futil, inexecutable, execrable. TheSpiritualism of England, for two godless centuries, utterlyforgettable: Her practical material Work alone memorable. Bewildering obscurations and impediments: Valiant Sons of Toilenchanted, by the million, in their Poor-Law Bastille. GiantLabour yet to be King of this Earth. 

Chap. VII. _Over-Production_

An idle Governing Class addressing its Workers with an indictmentof 'Over-production. ' Duty of justly apportioning the Wagesof Work done. A game-preserving Aristocracy, guiltless ofproducing or apportioning anything. Owning the soil of England. The Working Aristocracy steeped in ignoble Mammonism: The IdleAristocracy, with its yellow parchments and pretentious futilities. 

Chap. VIII. _Unworking Aristocracy_

Our Land the _Mother_ of us all: No true Aristocracy but mustpossess the Land. Men talk of 'selling' Land: Whom it belongsto. Our much-consuming Aristocracy: By the law of theirposition bound to furnish guidance and governance. Man andmiserable Corn-Laws. The Working Aristocracy, and its terribleNew-Work: The Idle Aristocracy, and its horoscope of despair. AHigh Class without duties to do, like a tree planted onprecipices. In a valiant suffering for others, not in a slothfulmaking others suffer for us, did nobleness ever lie. The paganHercules; the Czar of Russia. Parchments, venerable and notvenerable. Benedict the Jew, and his usuries. No Chapter on theCorn-Laws: The Corn-Laws too mad to have a Chapter. 

Chap. IX. _Working Aristocracy_

Many things for the Working Aristocracy, in their exteme need, toconsider. A national Existence supposed to depend on 'sellingcheaper' than any other People. Let inventive men try to inventa little how cotton at its present cheapness could be somewhatjustlier divided. Many 'imposibilities' will have to becomepossible. Supply-and-demand: For what noble work was there everyet any audible 'demand' in that poor sense?

Chap. X. _Plugson of Undershot_

Man's Philosophies usually the 'supplement of his practice:'Symptoms of social death. Cash-Payment: The Plugson Ledger, andthe Tablets of heaven's Chancery, discrepant exceedingly. Allhuman things do require to have an Ideal in them. How murderousfighting became a 'glorious Chivalry. ' Noble devout-heartedChevaliers. Ignoble Bucaniers and Chactaw Indians: HowelDavies, Napoleon flung out, at last, to St. Helena; the latterend of him sternly compensating for the beginning. Theindomitable Plugson, as yet a Bacanier and Chactaw. WilliamConqueror and his Norman followers. Organisation of Labour:Courage, there are yet many brave men in England!

Chap. XI. _Labour_

A perennial nobleness and even sacredness in Work. Significanceof the Potter's Wheel. Blessed is he who has found his Work;let him ask no other blessedness. A brave Sir Christopher, andhis Paul's Cathedral: Every noble work at first 'impossible. 'Columbus royalest Sea-king of all: a depth of Silence, deeperthan the Sea; a silence unsoundable; known to God only. 

Chap. XII. _Reward_

Work is worship: Labour, wide as the earth, has its summit inHeaven. One monster there is in the world, the idle man. 'Fairday's-wages for a fair day's-work, ' the most unrefusable demand. The 'wages' of every noble Work in Heaven, or else Nowhere: Thebrave man has to _give_ his Life away. He that works bodiesforth the form of Things Unseen. Strange mystic affinity ofWisdom and Insanity: All Work, in its degree, a making ofMadness sane. Labour not a devil, even when encased inMammonism: The unredeemed ugliness, a slothful People. Thevulgarist Plugson of a Master-Worker, not a man to strangle byCorn-Laws and Shotbelts. 

Chap. XIII. _Democracy_

Man must actually have his debts and earnings a little betterpaid by man. At no time was the lot of the dumb millions oftoilers so entirely unbearable as now. Sisterhood, brotherhoodoften forgotten, but never before so expressly denied. MungoPark and his poor Black Benefactress. Gurth, born thrall ofCedric the Saxon: Liberty a divine thing; but 'liberty to dieby starvation' not so divine. Nature's Aristocracies. WilliamConqueror, a resident House-Surgeon provided by nature for herbeloved English People. Democracy, the despair of finding Heroesto govern us, and contented putting-up with the want of them. The very Tailor unconsciously symbolising the reign of Equality. Wherever ranks do actually exist, strict division of costumeswill also be enforced. Freedom from oppression, an indispensableyet most insignificant portion of Human Liberty. A _best path_does exist for every man; a thing which, here and now, itwere of all things _wisest_ for him to do. Mock Superiors andReal Superiors. 

Chap. XIV. _Sir Jabesh Windbag_

Oliver Cromwell, the remarkablest Governor we have had for thelast five centuries or so: No vulunteer in Public Life, butplainly a balloted soldier: The Government of England put intohis hands. Windbag, weak in the faith of a God; strong only inthe faith that Paragraphs and Plausibilities bring votes. Fiveyears of popularity or unpopularity; and _after_ those fiveyears, an Eternity. Oliver has to appear before the Most HighJudge: Windbag, appealing to 'Posterity. '

Chap. XV. _Morison Again_

New Religions: This new stage of progress, proceeding 'to inventGod, ' a very strange one indeed. Religion, the Inner Light orMoral Conscience of a man's soul. Infinite difference between aGood man and a Bad. The Great soul of the World, just and notunjust: Faithful, unspoken, but not ineffectual 'prayer. 'Penalities: The French Revolution; cruelest Portent that hasrisen into created Space these ten centuries. Man needs no "NewReligion;" nor is like to get it: spiritual Dastardism, andsick folly. One Liturgy which does remain foreverunexceptionable, that of _Praying by Working. _ Sauerteig on thesymbolic influences of Washing. Chinese Pontiff-Emperor and hissignificant 'punctualities. ' Goethe and German Literature. Thegreat event for the world, now as always, the arrival in it of anew Wise Man. Goethe's _Mason-Lodge. _

Book IV. --Horoscope

Chap. I. _Aristocracies_

To predict the Future, to manage the Present, would not be soimpossible, had not the Past been so sacrilegiously mishandled:a godless century, looking back to centuries that were godly. Anew real Aristocracy and Priesthood. The noble Priest always anoble _Aristos_ to begin with, and something more to end with. Modern Preachers, and the _real_ Satanas that now is. Abbot-Samson and William-Conqueror times. The mission of a LandAristocracy a _sacred_ one, in both senses of that old word. Truly a 'Splendor of God' did dwell in those old rude veraciousages. Old Anselm traveling to Rome, to appeal against KingRufus. Their quarrel at bottom a great quarrel. The boundlessfuture, predestined, nay already extant though unseen. OurEpic, not _Arms and the Man, _ but _Tools and the Man;_ aninfinitely wider kind of Epic. Important that our grandReformation were begun. 

Chap. II. _Bribery Committee_

Our theory, perfect purity of Tenpound Franchise; our practice, irremediable bribery. Bribery, indicative not only of length ofpurse, but of brazen dishonesty: Proposed improvements. Aparliament, starting with a lie in its mouth, promulgates stragehoroscopes of itself. Respect paid to those worthy of norespect: Pandarus Dogdraught. The indigent discerning Freeman;and the kind of men he is called upon to vote for. 

Chap. III. _The One Institution_

The 'Organisation of Labour, ' if well understood, the Problem ofthe whole Future. Governments of various degrees of utility. Kilkenny Cats; spinning-Dervishes; Parliamentary eloquence. Aprime-Minister who would dare believe the heavenly omens. Whocan despair of Governments, that passes a Soldier's Guardhouse?--Incalculable what, by arranging, commanding and regimenting, canbe made of men. Organisms enough in the dim huge Future; and'United Services' quite other than the red-coat one. Legislativeinterference between Workers and master-Workers increasinglyindispensable. Sanitary Reform: People's Parks: A rightEducation Bill, and effective Teaching Service. Free bridge foremigrants: England's sure markets among her colonies. Londonthe _All-Saxon-Home, _ rendezvous of all the 'Children of theHarz-Rock. ' The English essentially conservative: Always theinvincible instinct to hold fast by the Old, to admit the_minimum_ of New. Yet new epochs do actually come; andwith them new peremptory necessities. A certain Editor'sstipulated work. 

Chap. IV. _Captains of Industry_

Government can do much, but it can in nowise do all. Fall ofMammon: to be a noble Master among noble Workers, will again bethe first ambition with some few. The Leaders of Industry, virtually the Captains of the world: doggeries and Chivalries. Isolation, the sum-total of wretchedness to man. All socialgrowths in the world have required organising; and work, thegrandest of human interests, does now require it. 

Chap. V. _Permanence_

The 'tendency to persevere, ' to persist in spite of hindrances, discouragements and 'impossibilities, ' that which distinguishesthe Species Man from the Genus Ape. Month-long contracts, andExeter-Hall purblindness. A practical manufacturing Quaker's carefor his workmen. Blessing of permanent Contract: Permanence inall things, at the earliest possible moment, and to the latestpossible. Vagrant Sam-Slicks. The wealth of a man the number ofthings he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed by. The Worker's _interest_ in the enterprise with which he isconnected. How to reconcile Despotism with Freedom. 

Chap. VI. _The Landed_

A man with fifty, with five hundred, with a thousand pounds aday, given him freely, without condition at all, might be arather strong Worker: The sad reality, very ominous to look at. Will he awaken, be alive again; or is this death-fit verydeath?--Goeth's Duke of Weimar. Doom of Idleness. To sit idlealoft, like absurd Epicurus'-gods, a poor life for a man. Independence 'lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye:' Rejectionof sham Superiors, the needful preparation for obedience to_real_ Superiors. 

Chap. VII _The gifted_

Tumultuous anarchy calmed by noble effort into fruitfulsovereignty. Mammon, like Fire, the usefulest of servants, ifthe frightfulest of masters. Souls to whom the omnipotent guineais, on the whole, an impotent guinea: Not a May-game is thisman's life; but a battle and stern pilgrimage: God's justice, human Nobleness, Veracity and Mercy, the essence of his verybeing. What a man of Genius is. The Highest 'Man of Genius. 'Genius, the clearer presence of God Most High in a man. Ofintrinsic Valetism you cannot, with whole Parliaments to helpyou, make a heroism. 

Chap. VIII. _The Didactic_

One preacher who does preach with effect, and gradually persuadeall persons. Repentant Captains of Industry: A Chactaw Fighterbecomes a Christian Fighter. Doomsday in the afternoon. The'Christianity' that cannot get on without a minimum of Four-thousand-five-hundred, will give place to something better thatcan. Beautiful to see the brutish empire of Mammon crackingeverywhere: A strange, chill, almost ghastly dayspring inYankeeland itself. Here as there, Light is coming into theworld. Whoso believes, let him begin to fulfil: 'Impossible, 'where Truth and Mercy and the everlasting Voice of Nature order, can have no place in the brave man's dictionary. Not on Ilion'sor Latium's plains; on far other plains and places henceforthcan noble deeds be done. The last Partridge of England shot andended: Aristocracies with beards on their chins. O, it isgreat, and there is no other greatness: To make some nook ofgod's Creation a little fruitfuler; to make some human hearts alittle wiser, manfuler, happier: It is work for a God!