Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
Such a Platitude of a World, in which all working horses could be
well fed, and innumerable working men should die starved, were it
not best to end it; to have done with it, and restore it once
for all to the _Jotuns,_ Mud-giants, Frost-giants and Chaotic
Brute-gods of the Beginning? For the old Anarchic Brute-gods it
may be well enough, but it is a Platitude which Men should be
above countenancing by their presence in it. We pray you, let
the word _impossible_ disappear from your vocabulary in this
matter. It is of awful omen; to all of us, and to yourselves
first of all.
Chapter IV
Morrison's Pill
What is to be done, what would you have us do? asks many a one,
with a tone of impatience, almost of reproach; and then, if you
mention some one thing, some two things, twenty things that might
be done, turns round with a satirical tehee, and, "These are your
remedies!" The state of mind indicated by such question, and
such rejoinder, is worth reflecting on.
It seems to be taken for granted, by these interrogative
philosophers, that there is some 'thing,' or handful of 'things,'
which could be done; some Act of Parliament, 'remedial measure
or the like, which could be passed, whereby the social malady
were fairly fronted, conquered, put an end to; so that, with
your remedial measure in your pocket, you could then go on
triumphant, and be troubled no farther. "You tell us the evil,"
cry such persons, as if justly aggrieved, "and do not tell us how
it is to be cured!"
How it is to be cured? Brothers, I am sorry I have got
no Morrison's Pill for curing the maladies of Society. It
were infinitely handier if we had a Morrison's Pill, Act of
Parliament, or remedial measure, which men could swallow, one
good time, and then go on in their old courses, cleared from all
miseries and mischiefs! Unluckily we have none such; unluckily
the Heavens themselves, in their rich pharmacopoeia, contain none
such. There will no 'thing' be done that will cure you. There
will a radical universal alteration of your regimen and way of
life take place; there will a most agonising divorce between you
and your chimeras, luxuries and falsities, take place; a most
toilsome, all but 'impossible' return to Nature, and her
veracities, and her integrities, take place: that so the inner
fountains of life may again begin, like eternal Light-fountains,
to irradiate and purify your bloated, swollen, foul existence,
drawing nigh, as at present, to nameless death! Either death or
else all this will take place. Judge if, with such diagnosis,
any Morrison's Pill is like to be discoverable!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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