Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
For, on the whole, it is the lot of Chiefs everywhere, this same.
No Chief in the most despotic country but was a Servant withal;
at once an absolute commanding General, and a poor Orderly-
Sergeant, ordered by the very men in the ranks,--obliged to
collect the vote of the ranks too, in some articulate or
inarticulate shape, and weigh well the same. The proper name of
all Kings is Minister, Servant. In no conceivable Government can
a lay-figure get forward! _This_ Worker, surely he above all
others has to 'spread out his Gideon's Fleece,' and collect the
monitions of Immensity; the poor Localities, as we said, and
parishes of Palace-yard or elsewhere, having no due monition in
them. A Prime Minister, even here in England, who shall dare
believe the heavenly omens, and address himself like a man and
hero to the great dumb-struggling heart of England; and speak
out for it, and act out for it, the God's-justice it is writhing
to get uttered and perishing for want of,--yes, he too will see
awaken round him, in passionate burning all-defiant loyalty, the
heart of England, and such a 'support' as no Division-List or
Parliamentary Majority was ever yet known to yield a man! Here
as there, now as then, he who can and dare trust the heavenly
Immensities, all earthly Localities are subject to him. We will
pray for such a Man and First-Lord;--yes, and far better, we will
strive and incessantly make ready, each of us, to be worthy to
serve and second such a First-Lord! We shall then be as good
as sure of his arriving; sure of many things, let him arrive
or not.
Who can despair of Governments that passes a Soldiers'
Guardhouse, or meets a redcoated man on the streets! That a body
of men could be got together to kill other men when you bade
them: this, _a priori,_ does it not seem one of the impossiblest
things? Yet look, behold it: in the stolidest of Donothing
Governments, that impossibility is a thing done. See it there,
with buff-belts, red coats on its back; walking sentry at
guardhouses, brushing white breeches in barracks; an
indisputable palpable fact. Out of grey Antiquity, amid all
finance-difficulties, _scaccarium_-tallies, ship-monies, coat-
and-conduct monies, and vicissitudes of Chance and Time, there,
down to the present blessed hour, it is.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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