Sacrifice to "the mob," O poet! Sacrifice to that unfortunate, disinherited, vanquished, vagabond, shoeless, famished, repudiated, despairing mob; sacrifice to it, if it must be and when it must be, thy repose, thy fortune, thy joy, thy country, thy liberty, thy life. The mob is the human race in misery. The mob is the mournful commencement of the people. The mob is the great victim of darkness. Sacrifice to it! Sacrifice thyself! Let thyself be hunted, let thyself be exiled as Voltaire to Ferney, as D'Aubigné to Geneva, as Dante to Verona, as Juvenal to Syene, as Tacitus to Methymna, as Æschylus to Gela, as John to Patmos, as Elias to Horeb, as Thucydides to Thrace, as Isaiah to Esiongeber! Sacrifice to the mob. Sacrifice to it thy gold, and thy blood which is more than thy gold, and thy thought which is more than thy blood, and thy love which is more than thy thought; sacrifice to it everything except justice. Receive its complaint; listen to its faults, and to the faults of others. Listen to what it has to confess and to denounce to thee. Stretch forth to it the ear, the hand, the arm, the heart. Do everything for it, excepting evil. Alas! it suffers so much, and it knows nothing. Correct it, warm it, instruct it, guide it, bring it up. Put it to the school of honesty. Make it spell truth; show it that alphabet, reason; teach it to read virtue, probity, generosity, mercy. Hold thy book wide open. Be there, attentive, vigilant, kind, faithful, humble. Light up the brain, inflame the mind, extinguish egotism, show good example. The poor are privation: be abnegation. Teach! irradiate! They need thee; thou art their great thirst To learn is the first step; to live is but the second. Be at their order, dost thou hear? Be ever there, light! For it is beautiful, on this sombre earth, during this dark life, short passage to something else, it is beautiful that Force should have Right for a master, that Progress should have Courage as a chief, that Intelligence should have Honour as a sovereign, that Conscience should have Duty as a despot, that Civilization should have Liberty as a queen, that Ignorance should have a servant,--Light. BOOK V. THE MINDS AND THE MASSES, CHAPTER I. For the last eighty years memorable things have been done. A wonderful heap of demolished materials covers the pavement. What is done is but little by the side of what remains to be done. To destroy is the task: to build is the work. Progress demolishes with the left hand; it is with the right hand that it builds. The left hand of Progress is called Force; the right hand is called Mind. There is at this hour a great deal of useful destruction accomplished; all the old cumbersome civilization is, thanks to our fathers, cleared away. It is well, it is finished, it is thrown down, it is on the ground. Now, up with you all, intellects! to work, to labour, to fatigue, to duty; it is necessary to construct.