The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
advanced, (and observe, never answered, for that literature admits no
controversialists, and the writer has it all his own way) may be
rubbish; but it is out of such rubbish that operatives build barricades
for attack, and legislators prisons for defence.
Our poor friend Lenny drew plenty of this stuff from the Tinker's bag.
He thought it very clever and very eloquent; and he supposed the
statistics were as true as mathematical demonstrations.
A famous knowledge-diffuser is looking over my shoulder, and tells me,
"Increase education, and cheapen good books, and all this rubbish will
disappear!" Sir, I don't believe a word of it. If you printed Ricardo
and Adam Smith at a farthing a volume, I still believe that they would
be as little read by the operatives as they are now-a-days by a very
large proportion of highly cultivated men. I still believe that, while
the press works, attacks on the rich, and propositions for heave-a-hoys,
will always form a popular portion of the Literature of Labor. There's
Lenny Fairfield reading a treatise on hydraulics, and constructing a
model for a fountain into the bargain; but that does not prevent his
acquiescence in any proposition for getting rid of a National Debt,
which he certainly never agreed to pay, and which he is told makes sugar
and tea so shamefully dear. No. I tell you what does a little counteract
those eloquent incentives to break his own head against the strong walls
of the Social System--it is, that he has two eyes in that head, which
are not always employed in reading. And, having been told in print that
masters are tyrants, parsons hypocrites or drones in the hive, and
land-owners vampires and bloodsuckers, he looks out into the little
world around him, and, first, he is compelled to acknowledge that his
master is not a tyrant, (perhaps because he is a foreigner and a
philosopher, and, for what I and Lenny know, a republican.) But then
Parson Dale, though High Church to the marrow, is neither hypocrite nor
drone. He has a very good living, it is true--much better than he ought
to have, according to the "political" opinions of those tracts; but
Lenny is obliged to confess that, if Parson Dale were a penny the
poorer, he would do a pennyworth's less good; and, comparing one parish
with another, such as Roodhall and Hazeldean, he is dimly aware that
there is no greater CIVILIZER than a parson tolerably well off. Then,
too, Squire Hazeldean, though as arrant a Tory as ever stood upon
shoe-leather, is certainly not a vampire nor bloodsucker. He does not
feed on the public; a great many of the public feed upon him; and,
therefore, his practical experience a little staggers and perplexes
Lenny Fairfield as to the gospel accuracy of his theoretical dogmas.
Masters, parsons, and land-owners! having at the risk of all popularity,
just given a _coup de patte_ to certain sages extremely the fashion at
present, I am not going to let you off without an admonitory flea in the
ear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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