Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
It is with the hope of awakening here and there a British man to
know himself for a man and divine soul, that a few words of
parting admonition, to all persons to whom the Heavenly Powers
have lent power of any kind in this land, may now be addressed.
And first to those same Master-Workers, Leaders of Industry; who
stand nearest, and in fact powerfulest, though not most
prominent, being as yet in too many senses a Virtuality rather
than an Actuality.
The Leaders of Industry, if Industry is ever to be led, are
virtually the Captains of the World; if there be no nobleness in
them, there will never be an Aristocracy more. But let the
Captains of Industry consider: once again, are they born of
other clay than the old Captains of Slaughter; doomed forever to
be no Chivalry, but a mere gold-plated _Doggery,_--what the
French well name _Canaille,_ 'Doggery' with more or less gold
carrion at its disposal? Captains of Industry are the true
Fighters, henceforth recognisable as the only true ones:
Fighters against Chaos, Necessity and the Devils and Jotuns; and
lead on Mankind in that great, and alone true, and universal
warfare; the stars in their courses fighting for them, and all
Heaven and all Earth saying audibly, Well-done! Let the Captains
of Industry retire into their own hearts, and ask solemnly, If
there is nothing but vulturous hunger, for fine wines, valet
reputation and gilt carriages, discoverable there? Of hearts
made by the Almighty God.
I will not believe such a thing. Deep-hidden under wretchedest
god-forgetting Cants, Epicurisms, Dead-Sea Apisms; forgotten as
under foulest fat Lethe mud and weeds, there is yet, in all
hearts born into this God's-World, a spark of the Godlike
slumbering. Awake, O nightmare sleepers; awake, arise, or be
forever fallen! This is not playhouse poetry; it is sober fact.
Our England, our world cannot live as it is. It will connect
itself with a God again, or go down with nameless throes and
fire-consummation to the Devils. Thou who feelest aught of such
a Godlike stirring in thee, any faintest intimation of it as
through heavy-laden dreams, follow it, I conjure thee. Arise,
save thyself, be one of those that save thy country.
Bucaniers, Chactaw Indians, whose supreme aim in fighting is that
they may get the scalps, the money, that they may amass scalps
and money: out of such came no Chivalry, and never will! Out of
such came only gore and wreck, infernal rage and misery;
desperation quenched in annihilation. Behold it, I bid thee,
behold there, and consider! What is it that thou have a hundred
thousand-pound bills laid up in thy strong-room, a hundred scalps
hung up in thy wigwam? I value not them or thee. Thy scalps and
thy thousand-pound bills are as yet nothing, if no nobleness from
within irradiate them; if no Chivalry, in action, or in embryo
ever struggling towards birth and action, be there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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