The Walk
It was an old custom in Headlong Hall to have breakfast ready at
eight, and continue it till two; that the various guests might rise at
their own hour, breakfast when they came down, and employ the morning
as they thought proper; the squire only expecting that they should
punctually assemble at dinner. During the whole of this period, the
little butler stood sentinel at a side-table near the fire, copiously
furnished with all the apparatus of tea, coffee, chocolate, milk,
cream, eggs, rolls, toast, muffins, bread, butter, potted beef, cold
fowl and partridge, ham, tongue, and anchovy. The Reverend Doctor
Gaster found himself rather _queasy_ in the morning, therefore
preferred breakfasting in bed, on a mug of buttered ale and an anchovy
toast. The three philosophers made their appearance at eight, and
enjoyed _les premices des depouilles_. Mr Foster proposed that, as it
was a fine frosty morning, and they were all good pedestrians, they
should take a walk to Tremadoc, to see the improvements carrying on in
that vicinity. This being readily acceded to, they began their walk.
After their departure, appeared Squire Headlong and Mr Milestone, who
agreed, over their muffin and partridge, to walk together to a ruined
tower, within the precincts of the squire's grounds, which Mr
Milestone thought he could improve.
The other guests dropped in by ones and twos, and made their
respective arrangements for the morning. Mr Panscope took a little
ramble with Mr Cranium, in the course of which, the former professed a
great enthusiasm for the science of craniology, and a great deal of
love for the beautiful Cephalis, adding a few words about his
expectations; the old gentleman was unable to withstand this triple
battery, and it was accordingly determined--after the manner of the
heroic age, in which it was deemed superfluous to consult the opinions
and feelings of the lady, as to the manner in which she should be
disposed of--that the lovely Miss Cranium should be made the happy
bride of the accomplished Mr Panscope. We shall leave them for the
present to settle preliminaries, while we accompany the three
philosophers in their walk to Tremadoc.
The vale contracted as they advanced, and, when they had passed the
termination of the lake, their road wound along a narrow and romantic
pass, through the middle of which an impetuous torrent dashed over
vast fragments of stone. The pass was bordered on both sides by
perpendicular rocks, broken into the wildest forms of fantastic
magnificence.
"These are, indeed," said Mr Escot, "_confracti mundi rudera_[7.1]:
yet they must be feeble images of the valleys of the Andes, where the
philosophic eye may contemplate, in their utmost extent, the effects
of that tremendous convulsion which destroyed the perpendicularity of
the poles, and inundated this globe with that torrent of physical
evil, from which the greater torrent of moral evil has issued, that
will continue to roll on, with an expansive power and an accelerated
impetus, till the whole human race shall be swept away in its vortex."
"The precession of the equinoxes," said Mr Foster, "will gradually
ameliorate the physical state of our planet, till the ecliptic shall
again coincide with the equator, and the equal diffusion of light and
heat over the whole surface of the earth typify the equal and happy
existence of man, who will then have attained the final step of pure
and perfect intelligence."
"It is by no means clear," said Mr Jenkison, "that the axis of the
earth was ever perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, or that it
ever will be so. Explosion and convulsion are necessary to the
maintenance of either hypothesis: for La Place has demonstrated, that
the precession of the equinoxes is only a secular equation of a very
long period, which, of course, proves nothing either on one side or
the other."
They now emerged, by a winding ascent, from the vale of Llanberris,
and after some little time arrived at Bedd Gelert. Proceeding through
the sublimely romantic pass of Aberglaslynn, their road led along the
edge of Traeth Mawr, a vast arm of the sea, which they then beheld in
all the magnificence of the flowing tide. Another five miles brought
them to the embankment, which has since been completed, and which, by
connecting the two counties of Meirionnydd and Caernarvon, excludes
the sea from an extensive tract. The embankment, which was carried on
at the same time from both the opposite coasts, was then very nearly
meeting in the centre. They walked to the extremity of that part of it
which was thrown out from the Caernarvonshire shore. The tide was now
ebbing: it had filled the vast basin within, forming a lake about five
miles in length and more than one in breadth. As they looked upwards
with their backs to the open sea, they beheld a scene which no other
in this country can parallel, and which the admirers of the
magnificence of nature will ever remember with regret, whatever
consolation may be derived from the probable utility of the works
which have excluded the waters from their ancient receptacle. Vast
rocks and precipices, intersected with little torrents, formed the
barrier on the left: on the right, the triple summit of Moelwyn reared
its majestic boundary: in the depth was that sea of mountains, the
wild and stormy outline of the Snowdonian chain, with the giant Wyddfa
towering in the midst. The mountain-frame remains unchanged,
unchangeable: but the liquid mirror it enclosed is gone.
The tide ebbed with rapidity: the waters within, retained by the
embankment, poured through its two points an impetuous cataract,
curling and boiling in innumerable eddies, and making a tumultuous
melody admirably in unison with the surrounding scene. The three
philosophers looked on in silence; and at length unwillingly turned
away, and proceeded to the little town of Tremadoc, which is built on
land recovered in a similar manner from the sea. After inspecting the
manufactories, and refreshing themselves at the inn on a cold saddle
of mutton and a bottle of sherry, they retraced their steps towards
Headlong Hall, commenting as they went on the various objects they had
seen.
_Mr Escot._
I regret that time did not allow us to see the caves on the sea-shore.
There is one of which the depth is said to be unknown. There is a
tradition in the country, that an adventurous fiddler once resolved to
explore it; that he entered, and never returned; but that the
subterranean sound of a fiddle was heard at a farm-house seven miles
inland. It is, therefore, concluded that he lost his way in the
labyrinth of caverns, supposed to exist under the rocky soil of this
part of the country.
_Mr Jenkison._
A supposition that must always remain in force, unless a second
fiddler, equally adventurous and more successful, should return with
an accurate report of the true state of the fact.
_Mr Foster._
What think you of the little colony we have just been inspecting; a
city, as it were, in its cradle?
_Mr Escot._
With all the weakness of infancy, and all the vices of maturer age. I
confess, the sight of those manufactories, which have suddenly sprung
up, like fungous excrescences, in the bosom of these wild and desolate
scenes, impressed me with as much horror and amazement as the sudden
appearance of the stocking manufactory struck into the mind of
Rousseau, when, in a lonely valley of the Alps, he had just
congratulated himself on finding a spot where man had never been.
_Mr Foster._
The manufacturing system is not yet purified from some evils which
necessarily attend it, but which I conceive are greatly overbalanced
by their concomitant advantages. Contemplate the vast sum of human
industry to which this system so essentially contributes: seas covered
with vessels, ports resounding with life, profound researches,
scientific inventions, complicated mechanism, canals carried over deep
valleys, and through the bosoms of hills: employment and existence
thus given to innumerable families, and the multiplied comforts and
conveniences of life diffused over the whole community.
_Mr Escot._
You present to me a complicated picture of artificial life, and
require me to admire it. Seas covered with vessels: every one of which
contains two or three tyrants, and from fifty to a thousand slaves,
ignorant, gross, perverted, and active only in mischief. Ports
resounding with life: in other words, with noise and drunkenness, the
mingled din of avarice, intemperance, and prostitution. Profound
researches, scientific inventions: to what end? To contract the sum of
human wants? to teach the art of living on a little? to disseminate
independence, liberty, and health? No; to multiply factitious desires,
to stimulate depraved appetites, to invent unnatural wants, to heap up
incense on the shrine of luxury, and accumulate expedients of selfish
and ruinous profusion. Complicated machinery: behold its blessings.
Twenty years ago, at the door of every cottage sate the good woman
with her spinning-wheel: the children, if not more profitably employed
than in gathering heath and sticks, at least laid in a stock of health
and strength to sustain the labours of maturer years. Where is the
spinning-wheel now, and every simple and insulated occupation of the
industrious cottager? Wherever this boasted machinery is established,
the children of the poor are death-doomed from their cradles. Look for
one moment at midnight into a cotton-mill, amidst the smell of oil,
the smoke of lamps, the rattling of wheels, the dizzy and complicated
motions of diabolical mechanism: contemplate the little human machines
that keep play with the revolutions of the iron work, robbed at that
hour of their natural rest, as of air and exercise by day: observe
their pale and ghastly features, more ghastly in that baleful and
malignant light, and tell me if you do not fancy yourself on the
threshold of Virgil's hell, where
Continuo auditae voces, vagitus et ingens,
_Infantumque animae flentes_, in limine primo,
Quos _dulcis vitae exsortes_, et ab ubere raptos,
_Abstulit atra dies_, et FUNERE MERSIT ACERBO!
As Mr Escot said this, a little rosy-cheeked girl, with a basket of
heath on her head, came tripping down the side of one of the rocks on
the left. The force of contrast struck even on the phlegmatic spirit
of Mr Jenkison, and he almost inclined for a moment to the doctrine of
deterioration. Mr Escot continued:
_Mr Escot._
Nor is the lot of the parents more enviable. Sedentary victims of
unhealthy toil, they have neither the corporeal energy of the savage,
nor the mental acquisitions of the civilised man. Mind, indeed, they
have none, and scarcely animal life. They are mere automata, component
parts of the enormous machines which administer to the pampered
appetites of the few, who consider themselves the most valuable
portion of a state, because they consume in indolence the fruits of
the earth, and contribute nothing to the benefit of the community.
_Mr Jenkison._
That these are evils cannot be denied; but they have their
counterbalancing advantages. That a man should pass the day in a
furnace and the night in a cellar, is bad for the individual, but good
for others who enjoy the benefit of his labour.
_Mr Escot._
By what right do they so?
_Mr Jenkison._
By the right of all property and all possession: _le droit du plus
fort_.
_Mr Escot._
Do you justify that principle?
_Mr Jenkison._
I neither justify nor condemn it. It is practically recognised in all
societies; and, though it is certainly the source of enormous evil, I
conceive it is also the source of abundant good, or it would not have
so many supporters.
_Mr Escot._
That is by no means a consequence. Do we not every day see men
supporting the most enormous evils, which they know to be so with
respect to others, and which in reality are so with respect to
themselves, though an erroneous view of their own miserable
self-interest induces them to think otherwise?
_Mr Jenkison._
Good and evil exist only as they are perceived. I cannot therefore
understand, how that which a man perceives to be good can be in
reality an evil to him: indeed, the word _reality_ only signifies
_strong belief_.
_Mr Escot._
The views of such a man I contend are false. If he could be made to
see the truth----
_Mr Jenkison._
He sees his own truth. Truth is that which a man _troweth_. Where
there is no man there is no truth. Thus the truth of one is not the
truth of another.[7.2]
_Mr Foster._
I am aware of the etymology; but I contend that there is an universal
and immutable truth, deducible from the nature of things.
_Mr Jenkison._
By whom deducible? Philosophers have investigated the nature of things
for centuries, yet no two of them will agree in _trowing_ the same
conclusion.
_Mr Foster._
The progress of philosophical investigation, and the rapidly
increasing accuracy of human knowledge, approximate by degrees the
diversities of opinion; so that, in process of time, moral science
will be susceptible of mathematical demonstration; and, clear and
indisputable principles being universally recognised, the coincidence
of deduction will necessarily follow.
_Mr Escot._
Possibly when the inroads of luxury and disease shall have
exterminated nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and
ninety-nine of every million of the human race, the remaining
fractional units may congregate into one point, and come to something
like the same conclusion.
_Mr Jenkison._
I doubt it much. I conceive, if only we three were survivors of the
whole system of terrestrial being, we should never agree in our
decisions as to the cause of the calamity.
_Mr Escot._
Be that as it may, I think you must at least assent to the following
positions: that the many are sacrificed to the few; that ninety-nine
in a hundred are occupied in a perpetual struggle for the preservation
of a perilous and precarious existence, while the remaining one
wallows in all the redundancies of luxury that can be wrung from their
labours and privations; that luxury and liberty are incompatible; and
that every new want you invent for civilised man is a new instrument
of torture for him who cannot indulge it.
They had now regained the shores of the lake, when the conversation
was suddenly interrupted by a tremendous explosion, followed by a
violent splashing of water, and various sounds of tumult and
confusion, which induced them to quicken their pace towards the spot
whence they proceeded.