pampered isolation, in exclusion from the glorious fateful battlefield
of this God's-World: it is a poor life for a man, when all
Upholsterers and French-Cooks have done their utmost for it!--Nay
what a shallow delusion is this we have all got into, That any man
should or can keep himself apart from men, have 'no business' with
them, except a cash-account 'business'! It is the silliest tale a
distressed generation of men ever took to telling one another. Men
cannot live isolated: we _are_ all bound together, for mutual good or
else for mutual misery, as living nerves in the same body. No highest
man can disunite himself from any lowest. Consider it. Your poor
'Werter blowing out his distracted existence because Charlotte will
not have the keeping thereof:' this is no peculiar phasis; it is
simply the highest expression of a phasis traceable wherever one human
creature meets another! Let the meanest crookbacked Thersites teach
the supremest Agamemnon that he actually does not reverence him, the
supremest Agamemnon's eyes flash fire responsive; a real pain and
partial insanity has seized Agamemnon. Strange enough: a
many-counselled Ulysses is set in motion by a scoundrel-blockhead;
plays tunes, like a barrel-organ, at the scoundrel-blockhead's
touch,--has to snatch, namely, his sceptre-cudgel, and weal the
crooked back with bumps and thumps! Let a chief of men reflect well on
it. Not in having 'no business' with men, but in having no unjust
business with them, and in _having_ all manner of true and just
business, can either his or their blessedness be found possible, and
this waste world become, for both parties, a home and peopled garden.
Men do reverence men. Men do worship in that 'one temple of the
world,' as Novalis calls it, the Presence of a Man! Hero-worship, true
and blessed, or else mistaken, false and accursed, goes on everywhere
and everywhen. In this world there is one godlike thing, the essence
of all that was or ever will be of godlike in this world: the
veneration done to Human Worth by the hearts of men. Hero-worship, in
the souls of the heroic, of the clear and wise,--it is the perpetual
presence of Heaven in our poor Earth: when it is not there, Heaven is
veiled from us; and all is under Heaven's ban and interdict, and there
is no worship, or worth-ship, or worth or blessedness in the Earth any
more!--
* * * * *
Independence, 'lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye,'--alas, yes, he
is one we have got acquainted with in these late times: a very
indispensable one, for spurning-off with due energy innumerable
sham-superiors, Tailor-made: honour to him, entire success to him!
Entire success is sure to him. But he must not stop there, at that
small success, with his eagle-eye. He has now a second far greater
success to gain: to seek out his real superiors, whom not the Tailor
but the Almighty God has made superior to him, and see a little what
he will do with these! Rebel against these also? Pass by with minatory
eagle-glance, with calm-sniffing mockery, or even without any mockery
or sniff, when these present themselves? The lion-hearted will never
dream of such a thing. Forever far be it from him! His minatory
eagle-glance will veil itself in softness of the dove: his lion-heart
will become a lamb's; all its just indignation changed into just
reverence, dissolved in blessed floods of noble humble love, how much
heavenlier than any pride, nay, if you will, how much prouder! I know
him, this lion-hearted, eagle-eyed one; have met him, rushing on,
'with bosom bare,' in a very distracted dishevelled manner, the times
being hard;--and can say, and guarantee on my life, That in him is no
rebellion; that in him is the reverse of rebellion, the needful
preparation for obedience. For if you do mean to obey God-made
superiors, your first step is to sweep out the Tailor-made ones;
order them, under penalties, to vanish, to make ready for vanishing!
Nay, what is best of all, he cannot rebel, if he would. Superiors whom
God has made for us we cannot order to withdraw! Not in the least. No
Grand-Turk himself, thickest-quilted tailor-made Brother of the Sun
and Moon can do it: but an Arab Man, in cloak of his own clouting;
with black beaming eyes, with flaming sovereign-heart direct from the
centre of the Universe; and also, I am told, with terrible 'horse-shoe
vein' of swelling wrath in his brow, and lightning (if you will not
have it as light) tingling through every vein of him,--he rises; says
authoritatively: "Thickest-quilted Grand-Turk, tailor-made Brother of
the Sun and Moon, No:--_I_ withdraw not; thou shalt obey me or
withdraw!" And so accordingly it is: thickest-quilted Grand-Turks and
all their progeny, to this hour, obey that man in the remarkablest
manner; preferring _not_ to withdraw.
O brother, it is an endless consolation to me, in this disorganic, as
yet so quack-ridden, what you may well call hag-ridden and hell-ridden
world, to find that disobedience to the Heavens, when they send any
messenger whatever, is and remains impossible. It cannot be done; no
Turk grand or small can do it. 'Show the dullest clodpole,' says my
invaluable German friend, 'show the haughtiest featherhead, that a
soul higher than himself is here; were his knees stiffened into brass,
he must down and worship.'
CHAPTER VII.
THE GIFTED.
Yes, in what tumultuous huge anarchy soever a Noble human Principle
may dwell and strive, such tumult is in the way of being calmed into a
fruitful sovereignty. It is inevitable. No Chaos can continue chaotic
with a soul in it. Besouled with earnest human Nobleness, did not
slaughter, violence and fire-eyed fury, grow into a Chivalry; into a
blessed Loyalty of Governor and Governed? And in Work, which is of
itself noble, and the only true fighting, there shall be no such
possibility? Believe it not; it is incredible; the whole Universe
contradicts it. Here too the Chactaw Principle will be subordinated;
the Man Principle will, by degrees, become superior, become supreme.
I know Mammon too; Banks-of-England, Credit-Systems, world-wide
possibilities of work and traffic; and applaud and admire them. Mammon
is like Fire; the usefulest of all servants, if the frightfulest of
all masters! The Cliffords, Fitzadelms and Chivalry Fighters 'wished
to gain victory,' never doubt it: but victory, unless gained in a
certain spirit, was no victory; defeat, sustained in a certain spirit,
was itself victory. I say again and again, had they counted the scalps
alone, they had continued Chactaws, and no Chivalry or lasting victory
had been. And in Industrial Fighters and Captains is there no
nobleness discoverable? To them, alone of men, there shall forever be
no blessedness but in swollen coffers? To see beauty, order,
gratitude, loyal human hearts around them, shall be of no moment; to
see fuliginous deformity, mutiny, hatred and despair, with the
addition of half-a-million guineas, shall be better? Heaven's
blessedness not there; Hell's cursedness, and your half-million bits
of metal, a substitute for that! Is there no profit in diffusing
Heaven's blessedness, but only in gaining gold?--If so, I apprise the
Mill-owner and Millionaire, that he too must prepare for vanishing;
that neither is _he_ born to be of the sovereigns of this world; that
he will have to be trampled and chained down in whatever terrible
ways, and brass-collared safe, among the born thralls of this world!
We cannot have _Canailles_ and Doggeries that will not make some
Chivalry of themselves: our noble Planet is impatient of such; in the
end, totally intolerant of such!
For the Heavens, unwearying in their bounty, do send other souls into
this world, to whom yet, as to their forerunners, in Old Roman, in Old
Hebrew and all noble times, the omnipotent guinea is, on the whole, an
impotent guinea. Has your half-dead avaricious Corn-Law Lord, your
half-alive avaricious Cotton-Law Lord, never seen one such? Such are,
not one, but several; are, and will be, unless the gods have doomed
this world to swift dire ruin. These are they, the elect of the world;
the born champions, strong men, and liberatory Samsons of this poor
world: whom the poor Delilah-world will not always shear of their
strength and eyesight, and set to grind in darkness at _its_ poor
gin-wheel! Such souls are, in these days, getting somewhat out of
humour with the world. Your very Byron, in these days, is at least
driven mad; flatly refuses fealty to the world. The world with its
injustices, its golden brutalities, and dull yellow guineas, is a
disgust to such souls: the ray of Heaven that is in them does at least
predoom them to be very miserable here. Yes:--and yet all misery is
faculty misdirected, strength that has not yet found its way. The
black whirlwind is mother of the lightning. No _smoke_, in any sense,
but can become flame and radiance! Such soul, once graduated in
Heaven's stern University, steps out superior to your guinea.
Dost thou know, O sumptuous Corn-Lord, Cotton-Lord, O mutinous
Trades-Unionist, gin-vanquished, undeliverable; O much-enslaved
World,--this man is not a slave with thee! None of thy promotions is
necessary for him. His place is with the stars of Heaven: to thee it
may be momentous, to thee it may be life or death, to him it is
indifferent, whether thou place him in the lowest hut, or forty feet
higher at the top of thy stupendous high tower, while here on Earth.
The joys of Earth that are precious, they depend not on thee and thy
promotions. Food and raiment, and, round a social hearth, souls who
love him, whom he loves: these are already his. He wants none of thy
rewards; behold also, he fears none of thy penalties. Thou canst not
answer even by killing him: the case of Anaxarchus thou canst kill;
but the self of Anaxarchus, the word or act of Anaxarchus, in no wise
whatever. To this man death is not a bugbear; to this man life is
already as earnest and awful, and beautiful and terrible, as death.
Not a May-game is this man's life; but a battle and a march, a warfare
with principalities and powers. No idle promenade through fragrant
orange-groves and green flowery spaces, waited on by the choral Muses
and the rosy Hours: it is a stern pilgrimage through burning sandy
solitudes, through regions of thick-ribbed ice. He walks among men;
loves men, with inexpressible soft pity,--as they _cannot_ love him:
but his soul dwells in solitude, in the uttermost parts of Creation.
In green oases by the palm-tree wells, he rests a space; but anon he
has to journey forward, escorted by the Terrors and the Splendours,
the Archdemons and Archangels. All Heaven, all Pandemonium are his
escort. The stars keen-glancing, from the Immensities, send tidings to
him; the graves, silent with their dead, from the Eternities. Deep
calls for him unto Deep.
Thou, O World, how wilt thou secure thyself against this man? Thou
canst not hire him by thy guineas; nor by thy gibbets and
law-penalties restrain him. He eludes thee like a Spirit. Thou canst
not forward him, thou canst not hinder him. Thy penalties, thy
poverties, neglects, contumelies: behold, all these are good for him.
Come to him as an enemy; turn from him as an unfriend; only do not
this one thing,--infect him not with thy own delusion: the benign
Genius, were it by very death, shall guard him against this!--What
wilt thou do with him? He is above thee, like a god. Thou, in thy
stupendous three-inch pattens, art under him. He is thy born king, thy
conqueror and supreme lawgiver: not all the guineas and cannons, and
leather and prunella, under the sky can save thee from him. Hardest
thick-skinned Mammon-world, ruggedest Caliban shall obey him, or
become not Caliban but a cramp. Oh, if in this man, whose eyes can
flash Heaven's lightning, and make all Calibans into a cramp, there
dwelt not, as the essence of his very being, a God's justice, human
Nobleness, Veracity and Mercy,--I should tremble for the world. But
his strength, let us rejoice to understand, is even this: The quantity
of Justice, of Valour and Pity that is in him. To hypocrites and
tailored quacks in high places his eyes are lightning; but they melt
in dewy pity softer than a mother's to the downpressed, maltreated; in
his heart, in his great thought, is a sanctuary for all the wretched.
This world's improvement is forever sure.
'Man of Genius?' Thou hast small notion, meseems, O Maecenas
Twiddledee, of what a Man of Genius is. Read in thy New Testament and
elsewhere,--if, with floods of mealymouthed inanity; with miserable
froth-vortices of Cant now several centuries old, thy New Testament is
not all bedimmed for thee. _Canst_ thou read in thy New Testament at
all? The Highest Man of Genius, knowest thou him; Godlike and a God to
this hour? His crown a Crown of Thorns? Thou fool, with _thy_ empty
Godhoods, Apotheoses _edgegilt_; the Crown of Thorns made into a poor
jewel-room crown, fit for the head of blockheads; the bearing of the
Cross changed to a riding in the Long-Acre Gig! Pause in thy
mass-chantings, in thy litanyings, and Calmuck prayings by machinery;
and pray, if noisily, at least in a more human manner. How with thy
rubrics and dalmatics, and clothwebs and cobwebs, and with thy
stupidities and grovelling baseheartedness, hast thou hidden the
Holiest into all but invisibility!--
'Man of Genius:' O Maecenas Twiddledee, hast thou any notion what a Man
of Genius is? Genius is 'the inspired gift of God.' It is the clearer
presence of God Most High in a man. Dim, potential in all men; in this
man it has become clear, actual. So says John Milton, who ought to be
a judge; so answer him the Voices of all Ages and all Worlds. Wouldst
thou commune with such a one? _Be_ his real peer, then: does that lie
in thee? Know thyself and thy real and thy apparent place, and know
him and his real and his apparent place, and act in some noble
conformity with all that. What! The star-fire of the Empyrean shall
eclipse itself, and illuminate magic-lanterns to amuse grown children?
He, the god-inspired, is to twang harps for thee, and blow through
scrannel-pipes, to soothe thy sated soul with visions of new, still
wider Eldorados, Houri Paradises, richer Lands of Cockaigne? Brother,
this is not he; this is a counterfeit, this twangling, jangling,
vain, acrid, scrannel-piping man. Thou dost well to say with sick
Saul, "It is nought, such harping!"--and in sudden rage, to grasp thy
spear, and try if thou canst pin such a one to the wall. King Saul was
mistaken in his man, but thou art right in thine. It is the due of
such a one: nail him to the wall, and leave him there. So ought copper
shillings to be nailed on counters; copper geniuses on walls, and left
there for a sign!--
I conclude that the Men of Letters too may become a 'Chivalry,' an
actual instead of a virtual Priesthood, with result immeasurable,--so
soon as there is nobleness in themselves for that. And, to a
certainty, not sooner! Of intrinsic Valetisms you cannot, with whole
Parliaments to help you, make a Heroism. Doggeries never so
gold-plated, Doggeries never so escutcheoned, Doggeries never so
diplomaed, bepuffed, gas-lighted, continue Doggeries, and must take
the fate of such.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DIDACTIC.
Certainly it were a fond imagination to expect that any preaching of
mine could abate Mammonism; that Bobus of Houndsditch will love his
guineas less, or his poor soul more, for any preaching of mine! But
there is one Preacher who does preach with effect, and gradually
persuade all persons: his name is Destiny, is Divine Providence, and
his Sermon the inflexible Course of Things. Experience does take
dreadfully high school-wages; but he teaches like no other!
I revert to Friend Prudence the good Quaker's refusal of 'seven
thousand pounds to boot.' Friend Prudence's practical conclusion will,
by degrees, become that of all rational practical men whatsoever. On
the present scheme and principle, Work cannot continue. Trades'
Strikes, Trades' Unions, Chartisms; mutiny, squalor, rage and
desperate revolt, growing ever more desperate, will go on their way.
As dark misery settles down on us, and our refuges of lies fall in
pieces one after one, the hearts of men, now at last serious, will
turn to refuges of truth. The eternal stars shine out again, so soon
as it is dark _enough_.
Begirt with desperate Trades' Unionism and Anarchic Mutiny, many an
Industrial _Law-ward_, by and by, who has neglected to make laws and
keep them, will be heard saying to himself: "Why have I realised five
hundred thousand pounds? I rose early and sat late, I toiled and
moiled, and in the sweat of my brow and of my soul I strove to gain
this money, that I might become conspicuous, and have some honour
among my fellow-creatures. I wanted them to honour me, to love me. The
money is here, earned with my best lifeblood: but the honour? I am
encircled with squalor, with hunger, rage, and sooty desperation. Not
honoured, hardly even envied; only fools and the flunky-species so
much as envy me. I am conspicuous,--as a mark for curses and
brickbats. What good is it? My five hundred scalps hang here in my
wigwam: would to Heaven I had sought something else than the scalps;
would to Heaven I had been a Christian Fighter, not a Chactaw one! To
have ruled and fought not in a Mammonish but in a Godlike spirit; to
have had the hearts of the people bless me, as a true ruler and
captain of my people; to have felt my own heart bless me, and that God
above instead of Mammon below was blessing me,--this had been
something. Out of my sight, ye beggarly five hundred scalps of
banker's-thousands: I will try for something other, or account my life
a tragical futility!"
Friend Prudence's 'rock-ledge,' as we called it, will gradually
disclose itself to many a man; to all men. Gradually, assaulted from
beneath and from above, the Stygian mud-deluge of Laissez-faire,
Supply-and-demand, Cash-payment the one Duty, will abate on all hands;
and the everlasting mountain-tops, and secure rock-foundations that
reach to the centre of the world, and rest on Nature's self, will
again emerge, to found on, and to build on. When Mammon-worshippers
here and there begin to be God-worshippers, and bipeds-of-prey become
men, and there is a Soul felt once more in the huge-pulsing
elephantine mechanic Animalism of this Earth, it will be again a
blessed Earth.
"Men cease to regard money?" cries Bobus of Houndsditch: "What else
do all men strive for? The very Bishop informs me that Christianity
cannot get on without a minimum of Four thousand five hundred in its
pocket. Cease to regard money? That will be at Doomsday in the
afternoon!"--O Bobus, my opinion is somewhat different. My opinion is,
that the Upper Powers have not yet determined on destroying this Lower
World. A respectable, ever-increasing minority, who do strive for
something higher than money, I with confidence anticipate;
ever-increasing, till there be a sprinkling of them found in all
quarters, as salt of the Earth once more. The Christianity that cannot
get on without a minimum of Four thousand five hundred, will give
place to something better that can. Thou wilt not join our small
minority, thou? Not till Doomsday in the afternoon? Well; _then_, at
least, thou wilt join it, thou and the majority in mass!
But truly it is beautiful to see the brutish empire of Mammon cracking
everywhere; giving sure promise of dying, or of being changed. A
strange, chill, almost ghastly dayspring strikes up in Yankeeland
itself: my Transcendental friends announce there, in a distinct,
though somewhat lankhaired, ungainly manner, that the Demiurgus Dollar
is dethroned; that new unheard-of Demiurgusships, Priesthoods,
Aristocracies, Growths and Destructions, are already visible in the
gray of coming Time. Chronos is dethroned by Jove; Odin by St. Olaf:
the Dollar cannot rule in Heaven forever. No; I reckon, not. Socinian
Preachers quit their pulpits in Yankeeland, saying, "Friends, this is
all gone to coloured cobweb, we regret to say!"--and retire into the
fields to cultivate onion-beds, and live frugally on vegetables. It is
very notable. Old godlike Calvinism declares that its old body is now
fallen to tatters, and done; and its mournful ghost, disembodied,
seeking new embodiment, pipes again in the winds;--a ghost and spirit
as yet, but heralding new Spirit-worlds, and better Dynasties than the
Dollar one.
Yes, here as there, light is coming into the world; men love not
darkness, they do love light. A deep feeling of the eternal nature of
Justice looks out among us everywhere,--even through the dull eyes of
Exeter Hall; an unspeakable religiousness struggles, in the most
helpless manner, to speak itself, in Puseyisms and the like. Of our
Cant, all condemnable, how much is not condemnable without pity; we
had almost said, without respect! The _in_articulate worth and truth
that is in England goes down yet to the Foundations.
Some 'Chivalry of Labour,' some noble Humanity and practical
Divineness of Labour, will yet be realised on this Earth. Or why
_will_; why do we pray to Heaven, without setting our own shoulder to
the wheel? The Present, if it will have the Future accomplish, shall
itself commence. Thou who prophesiest, who believest, begin thou to
fulfil. Here or nowhere, now equally as at any time! That outcast
help-needing thing or person, trampled down under vulgar feet or
hoofs, no help 'possible' for it, no prize offered for the saving of
it,--canst not thou save it, then, without prize? Put forth thy hand,
in God's name; know that 'impossible,' where Truth and Mercy and the
everlasting Voice of Nature order, has no place in the brave man's
dictionary. That when all men have said "Impossible," and tumbled
noisily elsewhither, and thou alone art left, then first thy time and
possibility have come. It is for thee now; do thou that, and ask no
man's counsel, but thy own only, and God's. Brother, thou hast
possibility in thee for much: the possibility of writing on the
eternal skies the record of a heroic life. That noble downfallen or
yet unborn 'Impossibility,' thou canst lift it up, thou canst, by thy
soul's travail, bring it into clear being. That loud inane Actuality,
with millions in its pocket, too 'possible' that, which rolls along
there, with quilted trumpeters blaring round it, and all the world
escorting it as mute or vocal flunky,--escort it not thou; say to it,
either nothing, or else deeply in thy heart: "Loud-blaring Nonentity,
no force of trumpets, cash, Long-acre art, or universal flunkyhood of
men, makes thee an Entity; thou art a _Non_entity, and deceptive
Simulacrum, more accursed than thou seemest. Pass on in the Devil's
name, unworshipped by at least one man, and leave the thoroughfare
clear!"
Not on Ilion's or Latium's plains; on far other plains and places
henceforth can noble deeds be now done. Not on Ilion's plains; how
much less in Mayfair's drawingrooms! Not in victory over poor brother
French or Phrygians; but in victory over Frost-joetuns, Marsh-giants,
over demons of Discord, Idleness, Injustice, Unreason, and Chaos come
again. None of the old Epics is longer possible. The Epic of French
and Phrygians was comparatively a small Epic: but that of Flirts and
Fribbles, what is that? A thing that vanishes at cock-crowing,--that
already begins to scent the morning air! Game-preserving
Aristocracies, let them 'bush' never so effectually, cannot escape the
Subtle Fowler. Game seasons will be excellent, and again will be
indifferent, and by and by they will not be at all. The Last Partridge
of England, of an England where millions of men can get no corn to
eat, will be shot and ended. Aristocracies with beards on their chins
will find other work to do than amuse themselves with trundling-hoops.
* * * * *
But it is to you, ye Workers, who do already work, and are as grown
men, noble and honourable in a sort, that the whole world calls for
new work and nobleness. Subdue mutiny, discord, wide-spread despair,
by manfulness, justice, mercy and wisdom. Chaos is dark, deep as Hell;
let light be, and there is instead a green flowery World. Oh, it is
great, and there is no other greatness. To make some nook of God's
Creation a little fruitfuller, better, more worthy of God; to make
some human hearts a little wiser, manfuler, happier,--more blessed,
less accursed! It is work for a God. Sooty Hell of mutiny and savagery
and despair can, by man's energy, be made a kind of Heaven; cleared of
its soot, of its mutiny, of its need to mutiny; the everlasting arch
of Heaven's azure overspanning _it_ too, and its cunning mechanisms
and tall chimney-steeples, as a birth of Heaven; God and all men
looking on it well pleased.
Unstained by wasteful deformities, by wasted tears or heart's-blood of
men, or any defacement of the Pit, noble fruitful Labour, growing ever
nobler, will come forth,--the grand sole miracle of Man; whereby Man
has risen from the low places of this Earth, very literally, into
divine Heavens. Ploughers, Spinners, Builders; Prophets, Poets, Kings;
Brindleys and Goethes, Odins and Arkwrights; all martyrs, and noble
men, and gods are of one grand Host; immeasurable; marching ever
forward since the beginnings of the World. The enormous,
all-conquering, flame-crowned Host, noble every soldier in it; sacred,
and alone noble. Let him who is not of it hide himself; let him
tremble for himself. Stars at every button cannot make him noble;
sheaves of Bath-garters, nor bushels of Georges; nor any other
contrivance but manfully enlisting in it, valiantly taking place and
step in it. O Heavens, will he not bethink himself; he too is so
needed in the Host! It were so blessed, thrice-blessed, for himself
and for us all! In hope of the Last Partridge, and some Duke of Weimar
among our English Dukes, we will be patient yet a while.
'The Future hides in it
Gladness and sorrow;
We press still thorow,
Nought that abides in it
Daunting us,--onward.'
SUMMARY AND INDEX.
SUMMARY.
BOOK I.--PROEM.
Chap. I. _Midas._
The condition of England one of the most ominous ever seen in this
world: Full of wealth in every kind, yet dying of inanition.
Workhouses, in which no work can be done. Destitution in Scotland.
Stockport Assizes. (p. 3.)--England's unprofitable success: Human
faces glooming discordantly on one another. Midas longed for gold, and
the gods gave it him. (7.)
Chap. II. _The Sphinx._
The grand unnamable Sphinx-riddle, which each man is called upon to
solve. Notions of the foolish concerning justice and judgment. Courts
of Westminster, and the general High Court of the Universe. The one
strong thing, the just thing, the true thing. (p. 10.)--A noble
Conservatism, as well as an ignoble. In all battles of men each
fighter, in the end, prospers according to his right: Wallace of
Scotland. (15.)--Fact and Semblance. What is Justice? As many men as
there are in a Nation who can _see_ Heaven's Justice, so many are
there who stand between it and perdition. (17.)
Chap. III. _Manchester Insurrection._
Peterloo not an unsuccessful Insurrection. Governors who wait for
Insurrection to instruct them, getting into the fatalest courses.
Unspeakable County Yeomanry. Poor Manchester operatives, and their
huge inarticulate question: Unhappy Workers, unhappier Idlers, of this
actual England! (p. 19.)--Fair day's-wages for fair day's-work:
Milton's 'wages,' Cromwell's. Pay to each man what he has earned and
done and deserved; what more have we to ask?--Some not _in_supportable
approximation indispensable and inevitable. (24.)
Chap. IV. _Morrisons Pill._
A state of mind worth reflecting on. No Morrison's Pill for curing the
maladies of Society: Universal alteration of regimen and way of life:
Vain jargon giving place to some genuine Speech again. (p. 29.)--If we
walk according to the Law of this Universe, the Law-Maker will
befriend us; if not, not. Quacks, sham heroes, the one bane of the
world. Quack and Dupe, upper side and under of the selfsame substance.
(31.)
Chap. V. _Aristocracy of Talent._
All misery the fruit of unwisdom: Neither with individuals nor with
Nations is it fundamentally otherwise. Nature in late centuries
universally supposed to be dead; but now everywhere asserting herself
to be alive and miraculous. The guidance of this country not
sufficiently wise. (p. 34.)--Aristocracy of talent, or government by
the Wisest, a dreadfully difficult affair to get started. The true
_eye_ for talent; and the flunky eye for respectabilities, warm
garnitures and larders dropping fatness: Bobus and Bobissimus. (37.)
Chap VI. _Hero-worship._
Enlightened Egoism, never so luminous, not the rule by which man's
life can be led. A _soul_, different from a stomach in any sense of
the word. Hero-worship done differently in every different epoch of
the world. Reform, like Charity, must begin at home. 'Arrestment of
the knaves and dastards,' beginning by arresting our own poor selves
out of that fraternity. (p. 41.)--The present Editor's purpose to
himself full of hope. A Loadstar in the eternal sky: A glimmering of
light, for here and there a human soul. (45.)
BOOK II.--THE ANCIENT MONK.
Chap. I. _Jocelin of Brakelond._
How the Centuries stand lineally related to each other. The one Book
not permissible, the kind that has nothing in it. Jocelin's
'Chronicle,' a private Boswellean Notebook, now seven centuries old.
How Jocelin, from under his monk's cowl, looked out on that narrow
section of the world in a really _human_ manner: A wise simplicity in
him; a _veracity_ that goes deeper than words. Jocelin's Monk-Latin;
and Mr. Rokewood's editorial helpfulness and fidelity. (p. 51.)--A
veritable Monk of old Bury St. Edmunds worth attending to. This
England of ours, of the year 1200: Coeur-de-Lion: King Lackland, and
his thirteenpenny mass. The poorest historical Fact, and the grandest
imaginative Fiction. (55.)
Chap. II. _St. Edmundsbury._
St. Edmund's Bury, a prosperous brisk Town: Extensive ruins of the
Abbey still visible. Assiduous Pedantry, and its rubbish-heaps called
'History.' Another world it was, when those black ruins first saw the
sun as walls. At lowest, O dilettante friend, let us know always that
it _was_ a world. No easy matter to get across the chasm of Seven
Centuries: Of all helps, a Boswell, even a small Boswell, the
welcomest. (p. 60.)
Chap. III. _Landlord Edmund._
'Battle of Fornham,' a fact, though a forgotten one. Edmund, Landlord
of the Eastern Counties: A very singular kind of 'landlord.' How he
came to be 'sainted.' Seen and felt to have done verily a man's part
in this life-pilgrimage of his. How they took up the slain body of
their Edmund, and reverently embalmed it. (p. 65.)--Pious munificence,
ever growing by new pious gifts. Certain Times do crystallise
themselves in a magnificent manner, others in a rather shabby one.
(71.)
Chap. IV. _Abbot Hugo._
All things have two faces, a light one and a dark: The Ideal has to
grow in the Real, and to seek its bed and board there, often in a very
sorry manner. Abbot Hugo, grown old and feeble. Jew debts and Jew
creditors. How approximate justice strives to accomplish itself. (p.
73.)--In the old monastic Books almost no mention whatever of
'personal religion.' A poor Lord Abbot, all stuck-over with
horse-leeches: A 'royal commission of inquiry,' to no purpose. A
monk's first duty, obedience. Magister Samson, Teacher of the Novices.
The Abbot's providential death. (76.)
Chap. V. _Twelfth Century._
Inspectors or Custodiars; the King not in any breathless haste to
appoint a new Abbot. Dim and very strange looks that monk-life to us.
Our venerable ancient spinning grandmothers, shrieking, and rushing
out with their distaffs. Lakenheath eels too slippery to be caught.
(p. 79.)--How much is alive in England, in that Twelfth Century; how
much not yet come into life. Feudal Aristocracy; Willelmus Conquaestor:
Not a steeple-chimney yet got on end from sea to sea. (82.)
Chap. VI. _Monk Samson._
Monk-Life and Monk-Religion: A great heaven-high Unquestionability,
encompassing, interpenetrating all human Duties. Our modern Arkwright
Joe-Manton ages: All human dues and reciprocities changed into one
great due of 'cash-payment.' The old monks but a limited class of
creatures, with a somewhat dull life of it. (p. 84.)--One Monk of a
taciturn nature distinguishes himself among those babbling ones. A Son
of poor Norfolk parents. Little Samson's awful dream: His poor Mother
dedicates him to St. Edmund. He grows to be a learned man, of devout
grave nature. Sent to Rome on business; and returns _too_ successful:
Method of travelling thither in those days. His tribulations at home.
Strange conditions under which Wisdom has sometimes to struggle with
folly. (86.)
Chap. VII. _The Canvassing._
A new Abbot to be elected. Even gossip, seven centuries off, has
significance. The Prior with Twelve Monks, to wait on his Majesty at
Waltham. An 'election' the one important social act. Given the Man a
People choose, the worth and worthlessness of the People itself is
given. (p. 92.)
Chap. VIII. _The Election._
Electoral methods and manipulations. Brother Samson ready oftenest
with some question, some suggestion that has wisdom in it. The
Thirteen off to Waltham, to choose their Abbot: In the solitude of the
Convent, Destiny thus big and in her birthtime, what gossiping,
babbling, dreaming of dreams! (p. 96.)--King Henry II. in his high
Presence-chamber. Samson chosen Abbot: the King's royal acceptation.
(99.)--St. Edmundsbury Monks, without express ballot-box or other
winnowing machine. In every Nation and Community there is at all times
_a fittest_, wisest, bravest, best. Human Worth and human
Worthlessness. (103.)
Chap. IX. _Abbot Samson._
The Lord Abbot's arrival at St. Edmundsbury: The selfsame Samson
yesterday a poor mendicant, this day finds himself a _Dominus Abbas_
and mitred Peer of Parliament. (p. 105.)--Depth and opulence of true
social vitality in those old barbarous ages. True Governors go about
under all manner of disguises now as then. Genius, Poet; what these
words mean George the Third, head charioteer of England; and Robert
Burns, gauger of ale in Dumfries. (106.)--How Abbot Samson found a
Convent all in dilapidation. His life-long harsh apprenticeship to
governing, namely obeying. First get your Man; all is got. Danger of
blockheads. (108.)
Chap. X. _Government._
Beautiful, how the chrysalis governing-soul, shaking off its dusty
slough and prison, starts forth winged, a true royal soul! One first
labour, to institute a strenuous review and radical reform of his
economics. Wheresoever Disorder may stand or lie, let it have a care;
here is a man that has declared war with it. (p. 112.)--In less than
four years the Convent debts are all liquidated, and the harpy Jews
banished from St. Edmundsbury. New life springs beneficent everywhere:
Spiritual rubbish as little tolerated as material. (114.)
Chap. XI. _The Abbot's Ways._
Reproaches, open and secret, of ingratitude, unsociability: Except for
'fit men' in all kinds, hard to say for whom Abbot Samson had much
favour. Remembrance of benefits. (p. 117.)--An eloquent man, but
intent more on substance than on ornament. A just clear heart the
basis of all true talent. One of the justest of judges: His invaluable
'talent of silence.' Kind of people he liked worst. Hospitality and
stoicism. (119.)--The country in those days still dark with noble wood
and umbrage: How the old trees gradually died out, no man heeding it.
Monachism itself, so rich and fruitful once, now all rotted into
_peat_. Devastations of four-footed cattle and Henry-the-Eighths.
(122.)
Chap. XII. _The Abbot's Troubles._
The troubles of Abbot Samson more than tongue can tell. Not the spoil
of victory, only the glorious toil of battle, can be theirs who really
govern. An insurrection of the Monks. Behave better, ye remiss Monks,
and thank Heaven for such an Abbot. (p. 124.)--Worn down with
incessant toil and tribulation: Gleams of hilarity too; little
snatches of encouragement granted even to a Governor. How my Lord of
Clare, coming to claim his _un_due 'debt,' gets a Roland for his
Oliver. A Life of Literature, noble and ignoble. (126.)
Chap. XIII. _In Parliament._
Confused days of Lackland's usurpation, while Coeur-de-Lion was
away: Our brave Abbot took helmet himself, excommunicating all who
should favour Lackland. King Richard a captive in Germany. (p.
131.)--St. Edmund's Shrine not meddled with: A heavenly Awe
overshadowed and encompassed, as it still ought and must, all earthly
Business whatsoever. (132.)
Chap. XIV. _Henry of Essex._
How St. Edmund punished terribly, yet with mercy: A Narrative
significant of the Time. Henry Earl of Essex, standard-bearer of
England: No right reverence for the Heavenly in Man. A traitor or a
coward. Solemn Duel, by the King's appointment. An evil Conscience
doth make cowards of us all. (p. 134.)
Chap. XV. _Practical-Devotional._
A Tournament proclaimed and held in the Abbot's domain, in spite of
him. Roystering young dogs brought to reason. The Abbot a man that
generally remains master at last: The importunate Bishop of Ely
outwitted. A man that dare abide King Richard's anger, with justice on
his side. Thou brave Richard, thou brave Samson! (p. 139.)--The basis
of Abbot Samson's life truly religion. His zealous interest in the
Crusades. The great antique heart, like a child's in its simplicity,
like a man's in its earnest solemnity and depth. His comparative
silence as to his religion precisely the healthiest sign of him and
it. Methodism, Dilettantism, Puseyism. (144.)
Chap. XVI. _St. Edmund._
Abbot Samson built many useful, many pious edifices: ALL ruinous,
incomplete things an eye-sorrow to him. Rebuilding the great Altar: A
glimpse of the glorious Martyr's very Body. What a scene; how far
vanished from us, in these unworshipping ages of ours! The manner of
men's Hero-worship, verily the innermost fact of their existence,
determining all the rest. (p. 148.)--On the whole, who knows how to
reverence the Body of Man? Abbot Samson, at the culminating point of
his existence: Our real-phantasmagory of St. Edmundsbury plunges into
the bosom of the Twelfth Century again, and all is over. (154.)
Chap. XVII. _The Beginnings._
Formulas the very skin and muscular tissue of a Man's Life: Living
Formulas and dead. Habit the deepest law of human nature. A pathway
through the pathless. Nationalities. Pulpy infancy, kneaded, baked
into any form you choose: The Man of Business; the hard-handed
Labourer; the genus Dandy. No Mortal out of the depths of Bedlam but
lives by Formulas. (p. 157.)--The hosts and generations of brave men
Oblivion has swallowed: Their crumbled dust, the soil our life-fruit
grows on. Invention of Speech, Forms of Worship; Methods of Justice.
This English Land, here and now, the summary of what was wise and
noble, and accordant with God's Truth, in all the generations of
English Men. The thing called 'Fame.' (161.)
BOOK III--THE MODERN WORKER.
Chap. I. _Phenomena._
How men have 'forgotten God;' taken the Fact of this Universe as it
_is not_, God's Laws become a Greatest-Happiness Principle, a
Parliamentary Expediency. Man has lost the _soul_ out of him, and
begins to find the want of it. (p. 171.)--The old Pope of Rome, with
his stuffed dummy to do the kneeling for him. Few men that worship by
the rotatory Calabash, do it in half so great, frank or effectual a
way. (173.)--Our Aristocracy no longer able to _do_ its work, and not
in the least conscious that it has any work to do. The Champion of
England 'lifted into his saddle.' The Hatter in the Strand, mounting a
huge lath-and-plaster Hat. Our noble ancestors have fashioned for us,
in how many thousand senses, a 'life-road;' and we their sons are
madly, literally enough, 'consuming the way.' (175.)
Chap. II. _Gospel of Mammonism._
Heaven and Hell, often as the words are on our tongue, got to be
fabulous or semi-fabulous for most of us. The real 'Hell' of the
English. Cash-payment, _not_ the sole or even chief relation of human
beings. Practical Atheism, and its despicable fruits. (p. 181.)--One
of Dr. Alison's melancholy facts: A poor Irish Widow, in the Lanes of
Edinburgh, _proving_ her sisterhood. Until we get a human _soul_
within us, all things are _im_possible: Infatuated geese, with
feathers and without. (185.)
Chap. III. _Gospel of Dilettantism._
Mammonism at least works, but 'Go gracefully idle in Mayfair,' what
does or can that mean?--Impotent, insolent Donothingism in Practice
and Saynothingism in Speech. No man now speaks a plain word: Insincere
Speech the prime material of insincere Action. (p. 188.)--Moslem
parable of Moses and the Dwellers by the Dead Sea: The Universe
_become_ a Humbug to the Apes that thought it one. (190.)
Chap. IV. _Happy._
All work noble; and every noble crown a crown of thorns. Man's pitiful
pretension to be what he calls 'happy.' His Greatest-Happiness
Principle fast becoming a rather unhappy one. Byron's large audience.
A philosophical Doctor: A disconsolate Meat-jack, gnarring and
creaking with rust and work. (p. 192.)--The only 'happiness' a brave
man ever troubled himself much about, the happiness to get his work
done. (195.)
Chap. V. _The English._
With all thy theoretic platitudes, what a depth of practical sense in
thee, great England! A dumb people, who can do great acts, but not
describe them. The noble Warhorse, and the Dog of Knowledge: The
freest utterances not by any means the best. (p. 197.)--The done Work,
much more than the spoken Word, an epitome of the man. The Man of
Practice, and the Man of Theory: Ineloquent Brindley. The English, of
all Nations the stupidest in speech, the wisest in action: Sadness and
seriousness: Unconsciously this great Universe is great to them. The
silent Romans. John Bull's admirable insensibility to Logic.
(198.)--All great Peoples conservative. Kind of Ready-Reckoner a
Solecism in Eastcheap. Berserkir rage. Truth and Justice alone
_capable_ of being 'conserved.' Bitter indignation engendered by the
Corn-Laws in every just English heart. (203.)
Chap. VI. _Two Centuries._
The 'Settlement' of the year 1660 one of the mournfulest that ever
took place in this land of ours. The true end of Government, to guide
men in the way they should go: The true good of this life, the portal
of infinite good in the life to come. Oliver Cromwell's body hung on
the Tyburn gallows, the type of Puritanism found futile, inexecutable,
execrable. The Spiritualism of England, for two godless centuries,
utterly forgettable: Her practical material Work alone memorable. (p.
208.)--Bewildering obscurations and impediments: Valiant Sons of Toil
enchanted, by the million, in their Poor-Law Bastille. Giant Labour
yet to be King of this Earth. (211.)
Chap. VII. _Over-Production._
An idle Governing Class addressing its Workers with an indictment of
'Over-production.' Duty of justly apportioning the Wages of Work
done. A game-preserving Aristocracy, guiltless of producing or
apportioning anything. Owning the soil of England. (p. 213.)--The
Working Aristocracy steeped in ignoble Mammonism: The Idle
Aristocracy, with its yellow parchments and pretentious futilities.
(216.)
Chap. VIII. _Unworking Aristocracy._
Our Land the _Mother_ of us all: No true Aristocracy but must possess
the Land. Men talk of 'selling' Land: Whom it belongs to. Our
much-consuming Aristocracy: By the law of their position bound to
furnish guidance and governance. Mad and miserable Corn-Laws. (p.
218.)--The Working Aristocracy, and its terrible New-Work: The Idle
Aristocracy, and its horoscope of despair. (222.)--A High Class
without duties to do, like a tree planted on precipices. In a valiant
suffering for others, not in a slothful making others suffer for us,
did nobleness ever lie. The Pagan Hercules; the Czar of Russia.
(223.)--Parchments, venerable and not venerable. Benedict the Jew, and
his usuries. No Chapter on the Corn-Laws: The Corn-Laws too mad to
have a Chapter. (225.)
Chap. IX. _Working Aristocracy._
Many things for the Working Aristocracy, in their extreme need, to
consider. A National Existence supposed to depend on 'selling cheaper'
than any other People. Let inventive men try to invent a little
how cotton at its present cheapness could be somewhat justlier
divided. Many 'impossibles' will have to become possible. (p.
228.)--Supply-and-demand: For what noble work was there ever yet any
audible 'demand' in that poor sense? (232.)
Chap. X. _Plugson of Undershot._
Man's philosophies usually the 'supplement of his practice:' Symptoms
of social death. Cash-Payment: The Plugson Ledger, and the Tablets of
Heaven's Chancery, discrepant exceedingly. (p. 235.)--All human things
do require to have an Ideal in them. How murderous Fighting became a
'glorious Chivalry.' Noble devout-hearted Chevaliers. Ignoble
Bucaniers and Chactaw Indians: Howel Davies. Napoleon flung out, at
last, to St. Helena; the latter end of him sternly compensating for
the beginning. (237.)--The indomitable Plugson, as yet a Bucanier and
Chactaw. William Conqueror and his Norman followers. Organisation of
Labour: Courage, there are yet many brave men in England! (240.)
Chap. XI. _Labour._
A perennial nobleness and even sacredness in Work. Significance of the
Potter's Wheel. Blessed is he who has found his Work; let him ask no
other blessedness. (p. 244.)--A brave Sir Christopher, and his Paul's
Cathedral: Every noble work at first 'impossible.' Columbus royalest
Sea-king of all: A depth of Silence, deeper than the Sea; a Silence
unsoundable; known to God only. (246.)
Chap. XII. _Reward._
Work is Worship: Labour, wide as the Earth, has its summit in Heaven.
One monster there is in the world, the idle man. (p. 250.)--'Fair
day's-wages for a fair days-work,' the most unrefusable demand. The
'wages' of every noble Work in Heaven, or else Nowhere: The brave man
has to _give_ his Life away. He that works bodies forth the form of
Things Unseen. Strange mystic affinity of Wisdom and Insanity: All
Work, in its degree, a making of Madness sane. (253.)--Labour not a
devil, even when encased in Mammonism: The unredeemed ugliness, a
slothful People. The vulgarest Plugson of a Master-Worker, not a man
to strangle by Corn-Laws and Shotbelts. (257.)
Chap. XIII. _Democracy._
Man must actually have his debts and earnings a little better paid by
man. At no time was the lot of the dumb millions of toilers so
entirely unbearable as now. Sisterhood, brotherhood often forgotten,
but never before so expressly denied. Mungo Park and his poor Black
Benefactress. (p. 260.)--Gurth, born thrall of Cedric the Saxon:
Liberty a divine thing; but 'liberty to die by starvation' not so
divine. Nature's Aristocracies. William Conqueror, a resident
House-Surgeon provided by Nature for her beloved English People.
(263.)--Democracy, the despair of finding Heroes to govern us, and
contented putting-up with the want of them. The very Tailor
unconsciously symbolising the reign of Equality. Wherever ranks do
actually exist, strict division of costumes will also be enforced.
(267.)--Freedom from oppression, an indispensable yet most
insignificant portion of Human Liberty. A _best path_ does exist for
every man; a thing which, here and now, it were of all things _wisest_
for him to do. Mock Superiors and Real Superiors. (269.)
Chap. XIV. _Sir Jabesh Windbag._
Oliver Cromwell, the remarkablest Governor we have had for the last
five centuries or so: No volunteer in Public Life, but plainly a
balloted soldier: The Government of England put into his hands. (p.
275.)--Windbag, weak in the faith of a God; strong only in the faith
that Paragraphs and Plausibilities bring votes. Five years of
popularity or unpopularity; and _after_ those five years, an Eternity.
Oliver has to appear before the Most High Judge: Windbag, appealing to
'Posterity.' (276.)
Chap. XV. _Morrison again._
New Religions: This new stage of progress, proceeding 'to invent God,'
a very strange one indeed. (p. 280.)--Religion, the Inner Light or
Moral Conscience of a man's soul. Infinite difference between a Good
man and a Bad. The great Soul of the World, just and not unjust:
Faithful, unspoken, but not ineffectual 'prayer.' Penalties: The
French Revolution, cruelest Portent that has risen into created Space
these ten centuries. Man needs no 'New Religion;' nor is like to get
it: Spiritual Dastardism, and sick folly. (281.)--One Liturgy which
does remain forever unexceptionable, that of _Praying by Working_.
Sauerteig on the symbolic influences of Washing. Chinese
Pontiff-Emperor and his significant 'punctualities.' (287.)--Goethe
and German Literature. The great event for the world, now as always,
the arrival in it of a new Wise Man. Goethe's _Mason-Lodge_. (292.)
BOOK IV.--HOROSCOPE.
Chap. I. _Aristocracies._
To predict the Future, to manage the Present, would not be so
impossible, had not the Past been so sacrilegiously mishandled: A
godless century, looking back to centuries that were godly. (p.
297.)--A new real Aristocracy and Priesthood. The noble Priest always
a noble _Aristos_ to begin with, and something more to end with.
Modern Preachers, and the _real_ Satanas that now is. Abbot-Samson and
William-Conqueror times. The mission of a Land Aristocracy a _sacred_
one, in both senses of that old word. Truly a 'Splendour of God' did
dwell in those old rude veracious ages. Old Anselm travelling to Rome,
to appeal against King Rufus. Their quarrel at bottom a great quarrel.
(299.)--The boundless Future, predestined, nay already extant though
unseen. Our Epic, not _Arms and the Man_, but _Tools and the Man_; an
infinitely wider kind of Epic. Important that our grand Reformation
were begun. (308.)
Chap. II. _Bribery Committee._
Our theory, perfect purity of Tenpound Franchise; our practice,
irremediable bribery. Bribery, indicative not only of length of purse,
but of brazen dishonesty: Proposed improvements. A Parliament,
starting with a lie in its mouth, promulgates strange horoscopes of
itself. (p. 312.)--Respect paid to those worthy of no respect:
Pandarus Dogdraught. The indigent discerning Freeman; and the kind of
men he is called upon to vote for. (315.)
Chap. III. _The one Institution._
The 'Organisation of Labour,' if well understood, the Problem of the
whole Future. Governments of various degrees of utility. Kilkenny
Cats; Spinning-Dervishes; Parliamentary Eloquence. A Prime-Minister
who would dare believe the heavenly omens. (p. 318.)--Who can despair
of Governments, that passes a Soldier's Guard-house?--Incalculable
what, by arranging, commanding and regimenting, can be made of men.
Organisms enough in the dim huge Future; and 'United Services' quite
other than the red-coat one. (321.)--Legislative interference between
Workers and Master-Workers increasingly indispensable. Sanitary
Reform: People's Parks: A right Education Bill, and effective Teaching
Service. Free bridge for Emigrants: England's sure markets among her
Colonies. London the _All-Saxon-Home_, rendezvous of all the 'Children
of the Harz-Rock.' (326.)--The English essentially conservative:
Always the invincible instinct to hold fast by the Old, to admit the
_minimum_ of New. Yet new epochs do actually come; and with them new
peremptory necessities. A certain Editor's stipulated work. (330.)
Chap. IV. _Captains of Industry._
Government can do much, but it can in nowise do all. Fall of Mammon:
To be a noble Master among noble Workers, will again be the first
ambition with some few. (p. 333.)--The leaders of Industry, virtually
the Captains of the World: Doggeries and Chivalries. Isolation, the
sum-total of wretchedness to man. All social growths in this world
have required organising; and Work, the grandest of human interests,
does now require it. (335.)
Chap V. _Permanence._
The 'tendency to persevere,' to persist in spite of hindrances,
discouragements and 'impossibilities,' that which distinguishes the
Species Man from the Genus Ape. Month-long contracts, and Exeter-Hall
purblindness. A practical manufacturing Quaker's care for his workmen.
(p. 341.)--Blessing of Permanent Contract: Permanence in all things,
at the earliest possible moment, and to the latest possible. Vagrant
Sam-Slicks. The wealth of a man the number of things he loves and
blesses, which he is loved and blessed by. (344.) The Worker's
_interest_ in the enterprise with which he is connected. How to
reconcile Despotism with Freedom. (346.)
Chap. VI. _The Landed._
A man with fifty, with five hundred, with a thousand pounds a day,
given him freely, without condition at all, might be a rather strong
Worker: The sad reality, very ominous to look at. Will he awaken, be
alive again; or is this death-fit very death?--Goethe's Duke of
Weimar. Doom of Idleness. (p. 348.)--To sit idle aloft, like absurd
Epicurus'-gods, a poor life for a man. Independence, 'lord of the
lion-heart and eagle-eye:' Rejection of sham Superiors, the needful
preparation for obedience to _real_ Superiors. (351.)
Chap. VII. _The Gifted._
Tumultuous anarchy calmed by noble effort into fruitful sovereignty.
Mammon, like Fire, the usefulest of servants, if the frightfulest of
masters. Souls to whom the omnipotent guinea is, on the whole, an
impotent guinea: Not a May-game is this man's life, but a battle and
stern pilgrimage: God's justice, human Nobleness, Veracity and Mercy,
the essence of his very being. (p. 355.)--What a man of Genius is.
The Highest 'Man of Genius.' Genius, the clearer presence of God Most
High in a man. Of intrinsic Valetisms you cannot, with whole
Parliaments to help you, make a Heroism. (359.)
Chap. VIII. _The Didactic._
One preacher who does preach with effect, and gradually persuade
all persons. Repentant Captains of Industry: A Chactaw Fighter
become a Christian Fighter (p. 361.)--Doomsday in the afternoon.
The 'Christianity' that cannot get on without a minimum of
Four-thousand-five-hundred, will give place to something better that
can. Beautiful to see the brutish empire of Mammon cracking
everywhere: A strange, chill, almost ghastly dayspring in Yankeeland
itself. Here as there, Light is coming into the world. Whoso believes,
let him begin to fulfil: 'Impossible,' where Truth and Mercy and the
everlasting Voice of Nature order, can have no place in the brave
man's dictionary. (364.)--Not on Ilion's or Latium's plains; on far
other plains and places henceforth can noble deeds be done. The last
Partridge of England shot and ended: Aristocracies with beards on
their chins. O, it is great, and there is no other greatness: To make
some nook of God's Creation a little fruitfuler; to make some human
hearts a little wiser, manfuler, happier: It is work for a God! (365.)
INDEX.
Alison, Dr., 5, 185.
Anger, 114.
Anselm, travelling to Rome, 306.
Apes, Dead-Sea, 190, 270, 272.
Arab Poets, 107.
Aristocracy of Talent, 34;
dreadfully difficult to attain, 37, 41, 299;
our Phantasm-Aristocracy, 175, 215, 220, 242, 252, 270, 348, 364;
duties of an Aristocracy, 213, 220, 240;
Working Aristocracy, 216, 222, 335, 366;
no true Aristocracy, but must possess the Land, 218, 304;
Nature's Aristocracies, 264;
a Virtual Aristocracy everywhere and everywhen, 300;
the Feudal Aristocracy no imaginary one, 304, 338.
Army, the, 321.
Arrestment of the knaves and dastards, 43, 303.
Atheism, practical, 184, 192.
Battlefield, a, 238.
See Fighting.
Becket, 297, 307.
Beginnings, 157.
Benefactresses, 262.
Benthamee Radicalism, 36.
Berserkir rage, 205.
Bible of Universal History, 298.
Blockheads, danger of, 111.
Bobus of Houndsditch, 38, 41, 363.
Bonaparte flung out to St. Helena, 239.
Books, 51.
Bribery, 312.
Brindley, 199.
Bucaniering, 239.
Burns, 42, 108, 254, 350.
Byron's life-weariness, 193, 356.
Cant, 76.
Canute, King, 60.
Cash-payment not the sole relation of human beings, 183, 235, 242;
love of men cannot be bought with cash, 336.
Centuries, the, lineally related to each other, 51, 63.
Chactaw Indian, 238.
Champion of England, the, 'lifted into his saddle,' 176.
Chancery Law-Courts, 319, 322.
China, Pontiff-Emperor of, 290.
Chivalry of Labour, 237, 336, 341, 346, 355, 364.
Christianity, grave of, 174;
the Christian Law of God found difficult and inconvenient, 208;
the Christian Religion not accomplished by Prize-Essays, 233, 236, 251;
or by a minimum of Four-thousand-five-hundred, 363.
See New Testament.
Church, the English, 209, 322;
Church Articles, 280;
what a Church-Apparatus _might_ do, 301.
Coeur-de-Lion, 57, 131;
King Richard, too, knew a man when he saw him, 144.
Colonies, England's sure markets among her, 329.
Columbus, royalest Sea-king of all, 248.
Competition and Devil take the hindmost, 229, 233;
abatement of, 334.
Conscience, 137, 281.
Conservatism, noble and ignoble, 12, 15;
John Bull a born Conservative, 203;
Justice alone _capable_ of being 'conserved,' 205.
Corn-Laws, unimaginable arguments for the, 8, 30, 188, 203;
bitter indignation in every just English heart, 206;
ultimate basis of, 215;
mischief and danger of, 220, 226, 258;
after the Corn-Laws are ended, 231, 311, 318;
what William Conqueror would have thought of them, 266.
Cromwell, and his terrible lifelong wrestle, 24;
by far our remarkablest Governor, 275.
Crusades, the, 144.
Custom, reverence for, 203.
Dandy, the genus, 160.
Death, eternal, 286.
See Life.
Debt, 113.
Democracy, 260;
close of kin to Atheism, 267;
walking the streets everywhere, 310.
Despotism reconciled with Freedom, 346.
Destiny, didactic, 45.
Dilettantism, 60, 146, 154, 212;
gracefully idle in Mayfair, 188.
Dupes and Quacks, 33.
Duty, infinite nature of, 137, 145.
Economics, necessity of, 113.
Editor's, the purpose to himself full of hope, 46;
his stipulated work, 331.
Edmund, St., 65;
on the rim of the horizon, 136;
opening the Shrine of, 148.
Edmundsbury, St., 60.
Education Service, an effective, possible, 328.
Election, the one important social act, 94;
electoral winnowing-machines, 98, 106.
Emigration, 329.
England, full of wealth, yet dying of inanition, 3;
the guidance of, not wise enough, 34, 335;
England of the year '1200,' 57, 62, 79, 139, 303;
disappearance of our English Forests, 122;
this England, the practical summary of English Heroism, 165;
now nearly eaten up by puffery and unfaithfulness, 180;
real Hell of the English, 182;
of all Nations, the stupidest in speech, the wisest in action, 197, 211;
unspoken sadness, 200;
conservatism, 203;
Berserkir rage, 205;
a Future, wide as the world, if we have heart and heroism for it, 330.
Essex, Henry Earl of, 134, 281.
Experience, 361.
Fact and Semblance, 17; and Fiction, 59.
Fame, the thing called, 161, 166.
See Posterity.
Fighting, all, an ascertainment who has the right to rule over
whom, 17, 302;
murderous Fighting become a 'glorious Chivalry,' 237.
Flunkies, whom no Hero-King _can_ reign over, 43.
See Valets.
Forests, disappearance of, 122.
Formulas, the very skin and muscular tissue of Man's Life, 157, 160.
Fornham, battle of, 65.
French Donothing Aristocracy, 223;
the French Revolution a voice of God, though in wrath, 286, 337.
Funerals, Cockney, 155.
Future, the, already extant though unseen, 308;
England's Future, 330.
See Past.
Geese, with feathers and without, 187.
Genius, what meant by, 107, 359.
Gideon's fleece, 247.
Gifted, the, 355.
God, forgetting, 171;
God's Justice, 238, 284;
belief in God, 275;
proceeding 'to invent God,' 281.
Goethe, 292, 350;
his _Mason-Lodge_, 293.
Gossip preferable to pedantry, 63;
seven centuries off, 92, 97.
Governing, art of, 110, 112;
Lazy Governments, 319;
every Government the symbol of its People, 333.
Great Man, a, 249.
See Wisdom.
Gurth, born thrall of Cedric the Saxon, 263, 303, 310.
Habit, the deepest law of human nature, 158.
Hampden's coffin opened, 149.
Happy, pitiful pretensions to be, 192;
happiness of getting one's work done, 195.
Hat, perambulating, seven-feet high, 177.
Healing Art, the, a sacred one, 5.
Heaven and Hell, our notions of, 181.
Heaven's Chancery, 236, 242.
Hell, real, of a man, 85;
Hell of the English, 182, 334.
Henry II. choosing an Abbot, 99;
his Welsh wars, 135;
on his way to the Crusades, 144;
our brave Plantagenet Henry, 302.
Henry VIII., 123.
Hercules, 225, 255.
Heroic Promised-Land, 45.
Hero-worship, 41, 70, 150, 153, 282, 305, 352;
what Heroes have done for us, 165, 179.
History, Philosophical, 297, 298.
Horses, able and willing to work, 28;
Goethe's thoughts about the Horse, 197.
Howel Davies, the Bucanier, 239.
Hugo, Abbot, old, feeble and improvident, 73;
his death, 78;
difficulties with Monk Samson, 90.
Ideal, the, in the Real, 73, 237.
Idleness alone without hope, 183;
Idle Aristocracy, 216, 222, 252, 348.
Igdrasil, the Life-Tree, 47, 161, 309.
Ignorance, our Period of, 299.
Iliad, the, 163.
Impossible, 24, 28;
without _soul_, all things impossible, 186;
every noble
work at first 'impossible,' 247, 255, 364.
Independence, 353.
Industry, Captains of, 240, 258, 335, 355, 362;
our Industrial Ages, 309.
Infancy and Maturity, 159.
Injustice the one thing intolerable, 262.
Insanity, strange affinity of Wisdom and, 256.
Insurrections, 19.
Invention, 161.
Irish Widow, an, _proving_ her sisterhood, 186, 262.
Isolation the sum-total of wretchedness, 338.
Jew debts and creditors, 74, 113, 115;
Benedict and the tooth-forceps, 225.
Jocelm of Brakelond, 51;
his Boswellean Notebook seven centuries old, 52.
John, King, 57, 131.
Justice, the basis of all things, 12, 24, 138, 205;
what is Justice, 17, 266;
a just judge, 119;
venerable Wigged-Justice began in Wild-Justice, 164;
God's Justice alone strong, 238, 358.
See Parchments.
Kilkenny Cats, 319.
King, the true and the sham, 103, 110, 273;
the Ablest Man, the virtual King, 276;
again _be_ a King, 310;
the proper name of all Kings, Minister, Servant, 320.
'Know thyself,' 244.
Labour, to be King of this Earth, 212;
Organisation of, 243, 260, 318;
perennial nobleness and sacredness in, 244.
See Chivalry, Work.
_Laissez-faire_, 229;
general breakdown of, 232, 233.
Lakenheath eels, 81.
Landlords, past and present, 67;
Landowning, 215;
whom the Land belongs to, 218;
the mission of a Land Aristocracy a _sacred_ one, 305, 348.
Laughter, 189.
Law, gradual growth of, 163;
the Maker's Laws, 284.
See Chancery.
Legislative interference, 326.
Liberty, true meaning of, 263, 269.
Life, the, to come, 208, 286;
Life never a May-game for men, 261, 357.
Literature, noble and ignoble, 129.
Liturgies, 162.
Liverpool, 83.
Loadstar, a, in the eternal sky, 15.
Logical futilities, 199, 202.
Machinery, exporting, 228.
Mahomet, 351.
Mammon, not a god at all, 85;
Gospel of Mammonism, 181, 236;
Working Mammonism better than Idle Dilettantism, 183, 188, 257;
getting itself strangled, 228;
fall of Mammon, 334, 362;
Mammon like Fire, 355.
See Economics.
Man the Missionary of Order, 114, 285;
sacredness of the human Body, 155;
a born Soldier, 238;
a God-created Soul, 285.
See Great Man.
Manchester Insurrection, 19;
poor Manchester operatives, 22, 62;
Manchester in the twelfth century, 83;
even sooty Manchester built on the infinite Abysses, 283.
Marriage-contracts, 342, 344.
Master, eye of the, 114.
Meat-jack, a disconsolate, 195.
Methodism, 76, 84, 146.
Midas, 3, 9.
Mights and Rights, 238.
Millocracy, our giant, 175.
Milton's 'wages,' 24.
Misery, all, the fruit of unwisdom, 34;
strength, that has not yet found its way, 357.
Monks, ancient and modern, 55;
the old monks not without secularity, 76, 84;
insurrection of monks, 125.
Morality, 203.
Morrison's Pill, 29;
men's 'Religion' a kind of, 282.
Moses and the Dwellers by the Dead-Sea, 190.
Mungo Park, 262.
National Misery the result of national misguidance, 34.
Nationality, 159.
Nature, not dead, but alive and miraculous, 36.
Negro Slavery and White Nomadism, 342.
New Testament, 236, 359.
Nobleness, meaning of, 224.
Obedience, 110.
Oblivion a still resting-place, 166.
Organising, what may be done by, 323, 336.
Originality, 162.
See Path-making.
Over-production, charge of, 213, 253.
Pandarus Dogdraught, 305, 315.
Parchments, venerable and not venerable, 216, 225.
Parliament and the Courts of Westminster, 12, 319;
a Parliament starting with a lie in its mouth, 314.
Past, Present and Future, 47, 298, 310, 331.
Path-making, 158.
Pedantry, 61.
Permanence the first condition of all fruitfulness, 341, 344.
Peterloo, 21.
Pilate, 17.
Pity, 70.
Plugson of Undershot, 235, 257.
Pope, the old, with stuffed devotional rump, 173.
Posterity, appealing to, 279.
See Fame.
Potter's Wheel, significance of the, 245.
Practice, the Man of, 199.
Prayer, faithful unspoken, 284;
praying _by working_, 288.
Premier, what a wise, might do, 321.
See Windbag.
Priest, the noble, 300.
Puffery, all-deafening blast of, 177.
Puritanism, giving way to decent Formalism, 209.
Puseyism, 146, 364.
Quacks and sham-heroes, 33, 103, 177, 185, 277.
Quaker's, a manufacturing, care for his workmen, 343, 361.
Ready-Reckoner, strange state of our, 204.
Reform, like Charity, must begin at home, 43.
Religion, a great heaven-high Unquestionability, 76, 84, 145;
our religion gone, 171;
all true Work, Religion, 250;
foolish craving for a 'New Religion,' 280, 287;
inner light of a man's soul, 281.
See Prayer, Worship.
Richard I. See Coeur-de-Lion.
Robert de Montfort, 136.
Rokewood, Mr., 55.
Roman Conquests, 201.
Rome, a tour to, in the twelfth century, 88.
Russians, the silent, worth something, 198, 201;
the Czar of Russia, 225.
Saints and Sinners, 68.
Sam-Slicks, vagrant, 346.
Samson, Monk, teacher of the Novices, 77;
his parentage, dream, and dedication to St. Edmund, 87;
sent to Rome, 88;
home-tribulations, 90;
silence and weariness, 93;
though a servant of servants, his words all tell, 97;
elected Abbot, 102;
arrival at St. Edmundsbury, 105;
getting to work, 108, 112;
his favour for fit men, 117;
not unmindful of kindness, 118;
a just clear-hearted man, 119;
hospitality and stoicism, 121;
troubles and triumphs, 124;
in Parliament, 131;
practical devotion, 139;
Bishop of Ely outwitted, 141;
King Richard withstood, 143;
zealous interest in the Crusades, 144;
a glimpse of the Body of St. Edmund, 149;
the culminating point of his existence, 155.
Sanitary Reform, 326.
Satanas, the true, that now is, 302.
Sauerteig, on Nature, 35;
our reverence for Death and for Life, 155;
the real Hell of the English, 182;
fashionable Wits, 189;
symbolic influences of Washing, 289.
Saxon Heptarchy, 17.
Schnuespel, the distinguished Novelist, 70.
Scotch Covenanters, 278.
Scotland, destitution in, 5.
Scott, Sir W., on the Apennines, 345.
Selfishness, 36, 41.
Silence, invaluable talent of, 120, 201, 298;
unsounded depth of, 249, 251;
two Silences of Eternity, 283.
Sliding-Scales, 223, 231.
See Corn-Laws.
Soldier, the, 321.
Sorrow, Worship of, 192.
Soul and conscience, need for some, 32, 98, 237, 287;
to save the 'expense of salt,' 62;
man has lost the _soul_ out of him, 172, 191.
Speech and jargon, difference between, 31;
invention of articulate speech, 161;
insincere speech, 189;
the Speaking Man wandering terribly from the point, 301.
See Silence.
Sphinx-riddle of Life, the, 10, 17;
_our_ Sphinx-riddle, 22.
Spinning Dervishes, 319.
Sumptuary Laws, 269.
Supply-and-demand, 232.
Tailor-art, symbolism of the, 267.
Taxes, where to lay the new, 304.
Tears, beautifulest kind of, 70.
Teufelsdroeckh on Democracy, 267.
Theory, the Man of, 199.
Thersites, 352.
Thirty-nine Articles, 280.
Tools and the Man, 308, 310.
Unanimity in folly, 179.
Unconscious, the, the alone complete, 145.
Universe, general High Court of the, 13, 31, 225;
a great unintelligible 'Perhaps,' 171;
_become_ the Humbug it was thought to be, 190;
a beggarly Universe, 234;
the Universe made by Law, 284.
Unseen, the, 255.
Unwisdom, infallible fruits of, 39.
Vacuum, and the serene Blue, 234.
Valets and Heroes, 32, 103, 185, 273, 360;
London valets dismissed annually to the streets, 342.
See Flunkies.
Wages, fair day's, for fair day's work, 24, 253.
Wallace, Scotland's debt to, 16.
Washing, symbolic influences of, 289.
Wealth, true, 345, 362.
Weimar, Duke of, 350.
Willelmus Conquaestor; 83, 241;
a man of most flashing discernment and strong lion-heart, 265;
not a vulturous Fighter, but a valorous Governor, 302.
Willelmus Sacrista, 74, 86, 91, 101, 115.
William Rufus; 302, 306;
the quarrel of Rufus and Anselm a great quarrel, 307.
Windbag, Sir Jabesh, 166, 275.
Wisdom, how, has to struggle with Folly, 91, 92, 97, 163, 264;
the higher the Wisdom the closer its kindred with Insanity, 256;
a _wisest path_ for every man, 271;
the Wise and Brave properly but one class, 300, 303, 366;
the life of the Gifted not a May-game, but a battle and stern
pilgrimage, 357.
Wits, fashionable, 189.
Women, born worshippers, 70.
Work, world-wide accumulated, 164;
endless hope in work, 183, 244;
all work noble, 192;
and eternal, 195;
the work he has done, an epitome of the Man, 198, 246;
Work is Worship, 250, 288;
all Work a making of Madness sane, 256.
See Labour.
Workhouses, in which no work can be done, 4.
Working Aristocracy, 216, 222, 335, 366;
getting strangled, 228.
Workmen, English, unable to find work, 4, 23;
intolerable lot, 261.
Worship, Forms of, 162;
Scenic Theory of, 174;
Apelike, 190;
the truest, 250, 288.
See Religion.
Worth, human, and Worthlessness, 103.
See Pandarus.
Yankee Transcendentalists, 363.
END OF PAST AND PRESENT.
Transcriber's Notes:
There are many inconsistently hyphenated words. I have left them the
way they were in the original scans.
The "w" letter in the Old English words is a wynn.