Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
What this Law of the Universe, or Law made by God, is? Men at one time
read it in their Bible. In many Bibles, Books, and authentic symbols
and monitions of Nature and the World (of Fact, that is, and of
Human Speech, or Wise Interpretation of Fact), there are still clear
indications towards it. Most important it is, for this and for some
other reasons, that men do, in some way, get to see it a little! And if
no man could now see it by any Bible, there is written in the heart of
every man an authentic copy of it direct from Heaven itself: there, if
he have learnt to decipher Heaven's writing, and can read the sacred
oracles (a sad case for him if he altogether cannot), every born man may
still find some copy of it.
"Revenge," my friends! revenge, and the natural hatred of scoundrels,
and the ineradicable tendency to _revancher_ oneself upon them, and
pay them what they have merited: this is forevermore intrinsically a
correct, and even a divine feeling in the mind of every man. Only
the excess of it is diabolic; the essence I say is manlike, and even
godlike,--a monition sent to poor man by the Maker himself. Thou, poor
reader, in spite of all this melancholy twaddle, and blotting out of
Heaven's sunlight by mountains of horsehair and officiality, hast still
a human heart. If, in returning to thy poor peaceable dwelling-place,
after an honest hard day's work, thou wert to find, for example, a
brutal scoundrel who for lucre or other object of his, had slaughtered
the life that was dearest to thee; thy true wife, for example, thy true
old mother, swimming in her blood; the human scoundrel, or two-legged
wolf, standing over such a tragedy: I hope a man would have so much
divine rage in his heart as to snatch the nearest weapon, and put a
conclusion upon said human wolf, for one! A palpable messenger of Satan,
that one; accredited by all the Devils, to be put an end to by all the
children of God. The soul of every god-created man flames wholly into
one divine blaze of sacred wrath at sight of such a Devil's-messenger;
authentic firsthand monition from the Eternal Maker himself as to what
is next to be done. Do it, or be thyself an ally of Devil's-messengers;
a sheep for two-legged human wolves, well deserving to be eaten, as thou
soon wilt be!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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