I saw a portion of this system, called (of all things) EQUITY, which was ruin to suitors, ruin to property, a shield for wrong-doers having money, a rack for right-doers having none: a by-word for delay, slow agony of mind, despair, impoverishment, trickery, confusion, insupportable injustice. A main part of it, I saw prisoners wasting in jail; mad people babbling in hospitals; suicides chronicled in the yearly records; orphans robbed of their inheritance; infants righted (perhaps) when they were gray. Certain lawyers and laymen came together, and said to one another, "In only one of these our Courts of Equity, there are years of this dark perspective before us at the present moment. We must change this." Uprose, immediately, a throng of others, Secretaries, Petty Bags, Hanapers, Chaffwaxes, and what not, singing (in answer) "Rule Britannia," and "God save the Queen;" making flourishing speeches, pronouncing hard names, demanding committees, commissions, commissioners, and other scarecrows, and terrifying the little band of innovators out of their five wits. Then, the whisper went among the latter, as they shrunk back, saying, "If there is any wrong within the universal knowledge, this wrong is. Go on! Set it right!" Whereon, each of them sorrowfully thrust his hands in his pockets, and replied, "It is indeed a great wrong--BUT IT WILL LAST MY TIME!" and so _they_ put it from them. The Spirit, with its face concealed, summoned all the people who had used this phrase about their time, into its presence. Then it said, beginning with the minister of state, "Of what duration is _your_ time?" The minister of state replied, "My ancient family has always been long-lived. My father died at eighty-four; my grandfather, at ninety-two. We have the gout, but bear it (like our honors) many years." "And you," said the Spirit to the priests and teachers, "what may _your_ time be?" Some believed they were so strong, as that they should number many more years than three-score and ten; others, were the sons of old incumbents, who had long outlived youthful expectants. Others, for any means they had of calculating, might be long-lived or short-lived--generally (they had a strong persuasion) long. So, among the well-clothed lookers on. So, among the lawyers and laymen. "But, every man, as I understand you, one and all," said the Spirit, "has his time?" "Yes!" they exclaimed together. "Yes," said the Spirit; "and it is--ETERNITY! Whosoever is a consenting party to a wrong, comforting himself with the base reflection that it will last his time, shall bear his portion of that wrong throughout ALL TIME. And, in the hour when he and I stand face to face, he shall surely know it, as my name is Death!" It departed, turning its shaded face hither and thither as it passed along upon its ceaseless work, and blighting all on whom it looked.