Hopeless forevermore such a project.These abject,ape,wolf,ox,imp and other diabolic-animal specimens of humanity,who of the very gods could ever have commanded them by love?A collar round the neck,and a cart-whip flourished over the back;these,in a just and steady human hand,were what the gods would have appointed them;and when,by long misconduct and neglect,they had sworn themselves into the Devil's regiments of the line,and got the seal of Chaos impressed on their visage,it was very doubtful whether even these would be of avail for the unfortunate commander of twelve hundred men!By "love,"without hope except of peaceably teasing oakum,or fear except of a temporary loss of dinner,he was to guide these men,and wisely constrain them,--whitherward?whither:that was his goal,if you will think well of it;that was a second fundamental falsity in his problem.False in the warp and false in the woof,thought one of us;about as false a problem as any I have seen a good man set upon lately!To guide scoundrels by "love;"that is a false woof,I take it,a method that will hold together;hardly for the flower of men will love alone do;and for the sediment and scoundrelism of men it has even a chance to do.And then to guide any class of men,scoundrel or other,whither ,which was this poor Captain's problem,in this Prison with oakum for its one element of hope or outlook,how can that prosper by "love"or by any conceivable method?That is a warp wholly false.Out of which false warp,or originally false condition to start from,combined and daily woven into by your false woof,or methods of "love"and such like,there arises for our poor Captain the falsest of problems,and for a man of his faculty the unfairest of situations.His problem was,to command good men to do something,but bad men to do (with superficial disguises)hing.
On the whole,what a beautiful Establishment here fitted up for the accommodation of the scoundrel-world,male and female!As Isaid,Duke in England is,for all rational purposes which a human being can or ought to aim at,lodged,fed,tended,taken care of,with such perfection.Of poor craftsmen that pay rates and taxes from their day's wages,of the dim millions that toil and moil continually under the sun,we k what is the lodging and the tending.Of the Johnsons,Goldsmiths,lodged in their squalid garrets;working often egh amid famine,darkness,tumult,dust and desolation,what work they have to do:--of these as of "spiritual backwoodsmen,"understood to be preappointed to such a life,and like the pigs to killing,"quite used to it,"I say hing.But of Dukes,which Duke,I could ask,has cocoa,soup,meat,and food in general made ready,so fit for keeping him in health,in ability to do and to enjoy?
Which Duke has a house so thoroughly clean,pure and airy;lives in an element so wholesome,and perfectly adapted to the uses of soul and body as this same,which is provided here for the Devil's regiments of the line?Duke that I have ever kn.
Dukes are waited on by deleterious French cooks,by perfunctory grooms of the chambers,and expensive crowds of eye-servants,more imaginary than real:while here,Science,Human Intellect and Beneficence have searched and sat studious,eager to do their very best;they have chosen a real Artist in Governing to see their best,in all details of it,done.Happy regiments of the line,what soldier to any earthly or celestial Power has such a lodging and attendance as you here?soldier or servant direct or indirect of God or of man,in this England at present.Joy to you,regiments of the line.Your Master,I am told,has his Elect,and professes to be "Prince of the Kingdoms of this World;"and truly I see he has power to do a good turn to those he loves,in England at least.Shall we say,May he ,may the Devil give you good of it,ye Elect of Scoundrelism?I will rather pass by,uttering prayer at all;musing rather in silence on the singular "worship of God,"or practical "reverence done to Human Worth"(which is the outcome and essence of all real "worship"whatsoever)among the Posterity of Adam at this day.
For all round this beautiful Establishment,or Oasis of Purity,intended for the Devil's regiments of the line,lay continents of dingy poor and dirty dwellings,where the unfortunate yet enlisted into that Force were struggling manifoldly,--in their workshops,in their marble-yards and timber-yards and tan-yards,in their close cellars,cobbler-stalls,hungry garrets,and poor dark trade-shops with red-herrings and tobacco-pipes crossed in the window,--to keep the Devil out-of-doors,and enlist with him.And it was by a tax on these that the Barracks for the regiments of the line were kept up.Visiting Magistrates,impelled by Exeter Hall,by Able-Editors,and the Philanthropic Movement of the Age,had given orders to that effect.Rates on the poor servant of God and of her Majesty,who still serves both in his way,painfully selling red-herrings;rates on him and his red-herrings to boil right soup for the Devil's declared Elect!
Never in my travels,in any age or clime,had I fallen in with such Visiting Magistrates before.Reserved they,I should suppose,for these ultimate or penultimate ages of the world,rich in all prodigies,political,spiritual,--ages surely with such a length of ears as was never paralleled before.