I foresee,too,that,long before the waste lands are full,the very street-constable,on these poor terms,will have become impossible:without the waste lands,as here in our Europe,I do see how he could continue possible many weeks.Cease to brag to me of America,and its model institutions and constitutions.
To men in their sleep there is hing granted in this world:hing,or as good as hing,to men that sit idly caucusing and ballot-boxing on the graves of their heroic ancestors,saying,"It is well,it is well!"Corn and bacon are granted:a very sublime boon,on such conditions;a boon moreover which,on such conditions,can last!--America too will have to strain its energies,in quite other fashion than this;to crack its sinews,and all but break its heart,as the rest of us have had to do,in thousand-fold wrestle with the Pythons and mud-demons,before it can become a habitation for the gods.
America's battle is yet to fight;and we,sorrowful though hing doubting,will wish her strength for it.New Spiritual Pythons,plenty of them;emous Megatherions,as ugly as were ever born of mud,loom huge and hideous out of the twilight Future on America;and she will have her own agony,and her own victory,but on other terms than she is yet quite aware of.
Hitherto she but ploughs and hammers,in a very successful manner;hitherto,in spite of her "roast-goose with apple-sauce,"she is much."Roast-goose with apple-sauce for the poorest workingman:"well,surely that is something,thanks to your respect for the street-constable,and to your continents of fertile waste land;--but that,even if it could continue,is by means egh;that is even an instalment towards what will be required of you.My friend,brag yet of our American cousins!Their quantity of cotton,dollars,industry and resources,I believe to be almost unspeakable;but I can by means worship the like of these.What great human soul,what great thought,what great le thing that one could worship,or loyally admire,has yet been produced there?e:the American cousins have yet done e of these things."What they have done?"growls Smelfungus,tired of the subject:"They have doubled their population every twenty years.They have begotten,with a rapidity beyond recorded example,Eighteen Millions of the greatest bores ever seen in this world before,--that hitherto is their feat in History!"--And so we leave them,for the present;and can predict the success of Democracy,on this side of the Atlantic,from their example.
Alas,on this side of the Atlantic and on that,Democracy,we apprehend,is forever impossible!So much,with certainty of loud astonished contradiction from all manner of men at present,but with sure appeal to the Law of Nature and the ever-abiding Fact,may be suggested and asserted once more.The Universe itself is a Monarchy and Hierarchy;large liberty of "voting"there,all manner of choice,utmost free-will,but with conditions inexorable and immeasurable annexed to every exercise of the same.A most free commonwealth of "voters;"but with Eternal Justice to preside over it,Eternal Justice enforced by Almighty Power!This is the model of "constitutions;"this:in any Nation where there has yet (in some supportable and withal some constantly increasing degree)been confided to the lest ,with his select series of ler ,the divine everlasting duty of directing and controlling the Igle,has the "Kingdom of God,"which we all pray for,"come,"can "His will"even tend to be "done on Earth as it is in Heaven"till then.My Christian friends,and indeed my Sham-Christian and Anti-Christian,and all manner of men,are invited to reflect on this.They will find it to be the truth of the case.The le in the high place,the Igle in the low;that is,in all times and in all countries,the Almighty Maker's Law.
To raise the Sham-lest,and solemnly consecrate him by whatever method,new-devised,or slavishly adhered to from old wont,this,little as we may regard it,is,in all times and countries,a practical blasphemy,and Nature will in ise forget it.Alas,there lies the origin,the fatal necessity,of modern Democracy everywhere.It is the lest,the Sham-lest;it is God-Almighty's le,the Court-Tailor's le,the Able-Editor's le,that must,in some approximate degree,be raised to the supreme place;he and a counterfeit,--under penalties!Penalties deep as death,and at length terrible as hell-on-earth,my constitutional friend!--Will the ballot-box raise the lest to the chief place;does any sane man deliberately believe such a thing?That nevertheless is the indispensable result,attain it how we may:if that is attained,all is attained;if that,hing.He that can believe the ballot-box to be attaining it,will be comparatively indifferent to the ballot-box.Excellent for keeping the ship's crew at peace under their Phantasm Captain;but unserviceable,under such,for getting round Cape Horn.Alas,that there should be human beings requiring to have these things argued of,at this late time of day!
I say,it is the everlasting privilege of the foolish to be governed by the wise;to be guided in the right path by those who k it better than they.This is the first "right of man;"compared with which all other rights are as hing,--mere superfluities,corollaries which will follow of their own accord out of this;if they be contradictions to this,and less than hing!To the wise it is a privilege;far other indeed.