Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
For the Heavens, unwearying in their bounty, do send other souls
into this world, to whom yet, as to their forerunners, in Old
Roman, in Old Hebrew and all noble times, the omnipotent guinea
is, on the whole, an impotent guinea. Has your half-dead
avaricious Corn-Law Lord, your half-alive avaricious Cotton-Law
Lord, never seen one such? Such are, not one, but several; are,
and will be, unless the gods have doomed this world to swift dire
ruin. These are they, the elect of the world; the born
champions, strong men, and liberatory Samsons of this poor world:
whom the poor Delilah-world will not always shear of their
strength and eyesight, and set to grind in darkness at _its_ poor
gin-wheel! Such souls are, in these days, getting somewhat out
of humour with the world. Your very Byron, in these days, is at
least driven mad; flatly refuses fealty to the world. The world
with its injustices, its golden brutalities, and dull yellow
guineas, is a disgust to such souls: the ray of Heaven that is
in them does at least pre-doom them to be very miserable here.
Yes:--and yet all misery is faculty misdirected, strength that
has not yet found its way. The black whirlwind is mother of the
lightning. No _smoke,_ in any sense, but can become flame and
radiance! Such soul, once graduated in Heaven's stern
University, steps out superior to your guinea.
Dost thou know, O sumptuous Corn-Lord, Cotton-Lord, O mutinous
Trades-Unionist, gin-vanquished, undeliverable; O much-enslaved
World,--this man is not a slave with thee! None of thy
promotions is necessary for him. His place is with the stars of
Heaven: to thee it may be momentous, to him it is indifferent,
whether thou place him in the lowest hut, or forty feet higher at
the top of thy stupendous high tower, while here on Earth. The
joys of Earth that are precious, they depend not on thee and thy
promotions. Food and raiment, and, round a social hearth, souls
who love him, whom he loves: these are already his. He wants
none of thy rewards; behold also, he fears none of thy
penalties. Thou canst not answer even by killing him: the case
of Anaxarchus thou canst kill; but the self of Anaxarchus, the
word or act of Anaxarchus, in no wise whatever. To this man
death is not a bugbear; to this man life is already as earnest
and awful, and beautiful and terrible, as death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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