HELOTAGE
At this point we determine on adverting shortly, or rather reverting,
to a certain Tract of Hofrath Heuschrecke's, entitled _Institute for
the Repression of Population_; which lies, dishonourable enough (with
torn leaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetic drugs), stuffed into
the Bag _Pisces_. Not indeed for the sake of the Tract itself, which
we admire little; but of the marginal Notes, evidently in
Teufelsdröckh's hand, which rather copiously fringe it. A few of these
may be in their right place here.
Into the Hofrath's _Institute_, with its extraordinary schemes, and
machinery of Corresponding Boards and the like, we shall not so much
as glance. Enough for us to understand that Heuschrecke is a disciple
of Malthus; and so zealous for the doctrine, that his zeal almost
literally eats him up. A deadly fear of Population possesses the
Hofrath; something like a fixed-idea; undoubtedly akin to the more
diluted forms of Madness. Nowhere, in that quarter of his intellectual
world, is there light; nothing but a grim shadow of Hunger; open
mouths opening wider and wider; a world to terminate by the
frightfullest consummation: by its too dense inhabitants, famished
into delirium, universally eating one another. To make air for himself
in which strangulation, choking enough to a benevolent heart, the
Hofrath founds, or proposes to found, this _Institute_ of his, as the
best he can do. It is only with our Professor's comments thereon that
we concern ourselves.
First, then, remark that Teufelsdröckh, as a speculative Radical, has
his own notions about human dignity; that the Zähdarm palaces and
courtesies have not made him forgetful of the Futteral cottages. On
the blank cover of Heuschrecke's Tract we find the following
indistinctly engrossed:
'Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toil-worn Craftsman that
with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the Earth, and makes
her man's. Venerable to me is the hard Hand; crooked, coarse; wherein
notwithstanding lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the
Sceptre of this Planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, all
weather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence; for it is the
face of a Man living manlike. O, but the more venerable for thy
rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee!
Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy
straight limbs and fingers so deformed: thou wert our Conscript, on
whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred. For in
thee too lay a god-created Form, but it was not to be unfolded;
encrusted must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of
Labour: and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom. Yet toil
on, toil on: _thou_ art in thy duty, be out of it who may; thou
toilest for the altogether indispensable, for daily bread.
'A second man I honour, and still more highly: Him who is seen toiling
for the spiritually indispensable; not daily bread, but the bread of
Life. Is not he too in his duty; endeavouring towards inward Harmony;
revealing this, by act or by word, through all his outward endeavours,
be they high or low? Highest of all, when his outward and his inward
endeavour are one: when we can name him Artist; not earthly Craftsman
only, but inspired Thinker, who with heaven-made Implement conquers
Heaven for us! If the poor and humble toil that we have Food, must not
the high and glorious toil for him in return, that he have Light, have
Guidance, Freedom, Immortality?--These two, in all their degrees, I
honour: all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither it
listeth.
'Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities
united; and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants,
is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know
I nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such now anywhere be met with.
Such a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the
splendour of Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth,
like a light shining in great darkness.'
And again: 'It is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor:
we must all toil, or steal (howsoever we name our stealing), which is
worse; no faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The poor is
hungry and a-thirst; but for him also there is food and drink: he is
heavy-laden and weary; but for him also the Heavens send Sleep, and of
the deepest; in his smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest envelops
him, and fitful glitterings of cloud-skirted Dreams. But what I do
mourn over is, that the lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of
heavenly, or even of earthly knowledge, should visit him; but only, in
the haggard darkness, like two spectres, Fear and Indignation bear him
company. Alas, while the Body stands so broad and brawny, must the
soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupefied, almost annihilated! Alas, was
this too a Breath of God; bestowed in Heaven, but on earth never to be
unfolded!--That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for
Knowledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty
times in the minute, as by some computations it does. The miserable
fraction of Science which our united Mankind, in a wide Universe of
Nescience, has acquired, why is not this, with all diligence, imparted
to all?'
Quite in an opposite strain is the following: 'The old Spartans had a
wiser method; and went out and hunted-down their Helots, and speared
and spitted them, when they grew too numerous. With our improved
fashions of hunting, Herr Hofrath, now after the invention of
fire-arms, and standing-armies, how much easier were such a hunt!
Perhaps in the most thickly-peopled country, some three days annually
might suffice to shoot all the able-bodied Paupers that had
accumulated within the year. Let Governments think of this. The
expense were trifling: nay the very carcasses would pay it. Have them
salted and barrelled; could not you victual therewith, if not Army and
Navy, yet richly such infirm Paupers, in workhouses and elsewhere, as
enlightened Charity, dreading no evil of them, might see good to keep
alive?'
'And yet,' writes he farther on, 'there must be something wrong. A
full-formed Horse will, in any market, bring from twenty to as high as
two-hundred Friedrichs d'or: such is his worth to the world. A
full-formed Man is not only worth nothing to the world, but the world
could afford him a round sum would he simply engage to go and hang
himself. Nevertheless, which of the two was the more cunningly-devised
article, even as an Engine? Good Heavens! A white European Man,
standing on his two Legs, with his two five-fingered Hands at his
shackle-bones, and miraculous Head on his shoulders, is worth, I
should say, from fifty to a hundred Horses!'
'True, thou Gold-Hofrath,' cries the Professor elsewhere: 'too crowded
indeed! Meanwhile, what portion of this inconsiderable terraqueous
Globe have ye actually tilled and delved, till it will grow no more?
How thick stands your Population in the Pampas and Savannas of
America; round ancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa; on
both slopes of the Altaic chain, in the central Platform of Asia; in
Spain, Greece, Turkey, Crim Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare? One man,
in one year, as I have understood it, if you lend him Earth, will feed
himself and nine others. Alas, where now are the Hengsts and Alarics
of our still-glowing, still-expanding Europe; who, when their home is
grown too narrow, will enlist, and, like Fire-pillars, guide onwards
those superfluous masses of indomitable living Valour; equipped, not
now with the battle-axe and war-chariot, but with the steam-engine and
ploughshare? Where are they?--Preserving their Game!'