If I had a commonwealth to reform or to govern,certainly it should be the Devil's regiments of the line that I would first of all concentrate my attention on!With them I should be apt so make rather brief work;to them one would apply the besom,try to sweep them ,with some rapidity into the dust-bin,and well out of one's road,I should rather say.Fill your thrashing-floor with docks,ragweeds,mugworths,and ply your flail upon them,--that is the method to obtain sacks of wheat.Away,you;begone swiftly,ye regiments of the line:in the name of God and of His poor struggling servants,sore put to it to live in these bad days,I mean to rid myself of you with some degree of brevity.To feed you in palaces,to hire captains and schoolmasters and the choicest spiritual and material artificers to expend their industries on you,by the Eternal!
I have quite other work for that class of artists;Seven-and-twenty Millions of neglected mortals who have yet quite declared for the Devil.Mark it,my diabolic friends,Imean to lay leather on the backs of you,collars round the necks of you;and will teach you,after the example of the gods,that this world is your inheritance,or glad to see you in it.
You,ye diabolic canaille,what has a Gover much to do with you?You,I think,he will rather swiftly dismiss from his thoughts,--which have the whole celestial and terrestrial for their scope,and the subterranean of scoundreldom alone.
You,I consider,he will sweep pretty rapidly into some folk Island,into some special Convict Colony or remote domestic Moorland,into some stone-walled Silent-System,under hard drill-sergeants,just as Rhadamanthus,and inflexible as he,and there leave you to reap what you have sown;he meanwhile turning his endeavors to the thousand-fold immeasurable interests of men and gods,--dismissing the one extremely contemptible interest of scoundrels;sweeping that into the cesspool,tumbling that over London Bridge,in a very brief manner,if needful!Who are you,ye thriftless sweepings of Creation,that we should forever be pestered with you?Have we work to do but drilling Devil's regiments of the line?
If I had schoolmasters,my benevolent friend,do you imagine Iwould set them on teaching a set of unteachables,who as you perceive have already made up their mind that black is white,--that the Devil namely is the advantageous Master to serve in this world?My esteemed Benefactor of Humanity,it shall be far from me.Minds open to that particular conviction are the material I like to work upon.When once my schoolmasters have gone over all the other classes of society from top to bottom;and have other soul to try with teaching,all being thoroughly taught,--I will then send them to operate on these regiments of the line:then,and,assure yourself,never till then.The truth is,I am sick of scoundreldom,my esteemed Benefactor;it always was detestable to me;and here where I find it lodged in palaces and waited on by the benevolent of the world,it is more detestable,to say insufferable to me than ever.
Of Beneficence,Benevolence,and the people that come together to talk on platforms and subscribe five pounds,I will say hing here;indeed there is room here for the twentieth part of what were to be said of them.The beneficence,benevolence,and sublime virtue which issues in eloquent talk reported in the Newspapers,with the subion of five pounds,and the feeling that one is a good citizen and ornament to society,--concerning this,there were a great many unexpected remarks to be made;but let this one,for the present occasion,suffice:--My sublime benevolent friends,don't you perceive,for one thing,that here is a shockingly unfruitful investment for your capital of Benevolence;precisely the worst,indeed,which human ingenuity could select for you?"Laws are unjust,temptations great,"&c.&c.:alas,I k it,and mourn for it,and passionately call on all men to help in altering it.But according to every hypothesis as to the law,and the temptations and pressures towards vice,here are the individuals who,of all the society,have yielded to said pressure.These are of the worst substance for enduring pressure!The others yet stand and make resistance to temptation,to the law's injustice;under all the perversities and strangling impediments there are,the rest of the society still keep their feet,and struggle forward,marching under the banner of Cosmos,of God and Human Virtue;these select Few,as I explain to you,are they who have fallen to Chaos,and are sworn into certain regiments of the line.Asuperior proclivity to Chaos is declared in these,by the very fact of their being here!Of all the generation we live in,these are the worst stuff.These,I say,are the Elixir of the Infatuated among living mortals:if you want the worst investment for your Benevolence,here you accurately have it.Omy surprising friends!here so as here can you be certain that a given quantity of wise teaching bestowed,of benevolent trouble taken,will yield zero,or the net Minimum of return.
It is sowing of your wheat upon Irish quagmires;laboriously harrowing it in upon the sand of the seashore.O my astonishing benevolent friends!
Yonder,in those dingy habitations,and shops of red herring and tobacco-pipes,where men have yet quite declared for the Devil;there,I say,is land:here is mere sea-beach.Thither go with your benevolence,thither to those dingy caverns of the poor;and there instruct and drill and manage,there where some fruit may come from it.And,above all and inclusive of all,can you go to those Solemn human Shams,Phantasm Captains,and Supreme Quacks that ride prosperously in every thoroughfare;and with severe benevolence,ask them,What they are doing here?
They are the men whom it would behoove you to drill a little,and tie to the halberts in a benevolent manner,if you could!"We can,"say you?Yes,my friends,to a certain extent you can.