Nay, what is best of all, he cannot rebel if he would. Superiors whom God has made for us we cannot order to withdraw! Not in the least. No Grand Turk himself, thickest-quilted tailor-made Brother of the Sun and Moon, can do it but an Arab man, in cloak of his own clouting, with black-beaming eyes, with flaming sovereign-heart direct from the centre of the Universe; and also, I am told, with terrible "horse-shoe vein " of swelling wrath in his brow, and lightning (if you will not have it as light) tingling through every vein of himhe rises; says authoritatively: "Thickest-quilted Grand Turk, tailor-made Brother of the Sun and Moom, No: I withdraw not; thou shalt obey me or withdraw!" And so accordingly it is thickest-quilted Grand Turks and all their progeny, to this hour, obey that man in the remarkablest manner; preferring not to withdraw.

Oh, brother, it is an endless consolation to me, in this disorganic, as yet so quack-ridden, what you may well call hag-ridden and hell-ridden world, to find that disobedience to the Heavens, when they send any messenger whatever, is, and remains, impossible. It cannot be done; no Turk grand or small can do it. "Show the dullest clodpole," says my invaluable German Friend, "show the haughtiest featherhead, that a soul higher than himself is here; were his knees stiffened into brass, he must down and worship."

CHAPTER VII.

THE GIFTED.

YES, in what tumultuous huge anarchy soever a Noble human Principle may dwell and strive, such tumult is in the way of being calmed into a fruitful Sovereignty It is inevitable. No chaos can continue chaotic with a soul in it. Besouled with earnest human Nobleness, did not slaughter, violence and fire-god fury, grow into a Chivalry; into a blessed Loyalty of Governor and Governed? And in Work, which is of itself noble, and the only true fighting, there shall be no such possibility? Believe it not; it is incredible; the whole Universe contradicts it. Here too the Choctaw Principle will be subordinated; the Man Principle will, by degrees, become superior, become supreme.

I know Mammon too; Banks-of-England, Credit-systems, world-wide possibilities of work and trafic; and applaud and admire them. Mammon is like Fire; the usefullest of all servants, if the frightfullest of all masters! The Cliffords, Fitzadelins, and Chivalry Fighters wished to gain victory," never doubt it but victory, unless gained in a certain spirit, was no victory; defeat, sustained in a certain spirit, was itself victory. I say again and again, had they counted the scalps alone, they had continued Choctaws, and no Chivalry or lasting victory had been. And in Industrial Fighters and Captains is there no nobleness discoverable? To these alone of Men shall there for ever be no blessedness but in swollen coffers! To see beauty, order, gratitude, loyal human hearts around them, shall be of no moment; to see fuliginous deformity, nutiny, hatred and despair, with the addition of half a million guineas, shall be better? Heaven's blessedness not there; Hell's cursedness, and your halfmillion bits of metal a substitute for that! Is there no profit in diffusing Heaven's blessedness, but only in gaining gold? If so, I apprise the Mill-owner and Millionaire that he too must prepare for vanishing; that neither is he born to be of the sovereigns of this world; but to be trampled and chained down, in whatever terrible methods and brass-collared safe, among the born thralls of this world! We cannot have Canailles and Doggeries that will not make some Chivalry of themselves: our noble Planet is impatient of such; in the end, totally intolerant of such!

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 Cottonlaw-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! Suck 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 predoom 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, mutinous Tradesunionist gin-vanquished, undeliverable; Oh, 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 Farth 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 by killing him; the case of Anaxarchus thou canst kill; but not the self of Anaxarchus, the word or act of Anaxarchus. To this man death is not a bugbear; to this man life is already as earnest and ́awful, and beautiful and terrible as death.

Not a may-game is this man's life; but a battle and a march, a warfare with principalities and powers. No idle promenade through fragrant orange-groves and green flowery spaces, waited on by the choral Muses and the rosy Hours: it is a stern pilgrimage through burning sandy solitudes, through regions of thickribbed ice. He walks among men; loves men, with inexpressible soft pity-as they cannot love him: but his soul dwells in solitude, in the uttermost parts of Creation. In green cases, by the palm-tree wells, he rests a space; but anon he has to journey forward, escorted by the Terrors and the Splendours, the Archdemons and Archangels. All Heaven, all Pandemonium are his escort. The stars, keen-glancing, from the Immensities, send tidings to him; the graves, silent with their dead, from the Eternities. Deep calls for him unto Deep.

Thou, O world, how wilt thou secure thyself against this man? Thou canst not hire him by thy guineas; not by thy gibbets and law-penalties restrain him. He eludes thee like a spirit. Thou canst not forward him, thou canst not hinder him. Thy penalties, thy poverties, neglects, contumelies: behold, all these are good for him. Come to him as an enemy; turn from him as an unfriend; only do not this one thing- infect him not with thy own delusion: the benign Genius, were it by very death, shall guard him against this! What wilt thou do with him? He is above thee like a god. Thou, in thy stupendous three-inch patiens, art under him. He is thy born king, thy conqueror and supreme Lawgiver not all the guineas, and cannons, and leather and prunella under the sky can save thee from him. Hardest thick-skinned Mammon-world, ruggedest Caliban, shall obey him, or become not Caliban but a cramp Oh, if in this man, whose eyes can flash Heaven's Lightning, and make ail Calibans into a cramp, there dwelt not, as the essence of his very being, a God's Justice, human Nobleness, Veracity, and Mercy-I should tremble for the World. But his strength, let us rejoice to understand, is even this; The quantity of Justice, of Valour, and Pity that is in him. To hypocrites and tailored quacks in high places, his eyes are lightning; but they melt in dewy Pity softer than a mother's to the down-pressed, maltreated; in his heart, in his great thought, is a sanctuary for all the wretched. This world's improvement is for ever sure.

"Man of Genius?" Thou hast small notion, meseems, Oh, Mecenas Twiddledee, of what a Man of Genius is! Read in thy New Testament, and elsewhere-if, with floods of mealy-mouthed inanity, with miserable froth-vortices of Cant now several centuries old, thy New Testament is not all bedimmed for thee. Canst thou read in thy New Testament at all? The Highest Man of Genius, knowst thou Him; Godlike and a God to this hour? His crown a Crown of Thorns? Thou fool, with thy empty Godhoods, Apotheoses edge gilt; the Crown of Thorns made into a poor jewel-room Crown, fit for the head of blockheads; the bearing of the Cross changed to a riding in the Long-Acre Gig! Pause in thy mass-chauntings, in thy litanyings, and Calmuch-prayings by machinery; and pray, if noisily, at least in a more human manner. How, with thy rubrics and dalmatics, and cloth webs and cobwebs, and with thy stupidities and grovelling base-heartedness, hast thou hidden the Holiest into all but invisibility!

"Man of Genius:" Oh, Mecanas Twiddledee, hast thou any notion what a Man of Genius is? Genius is "the inspired gift of God!" It is the clearer presence of God Most High in a man. Dim, potential in all men; in this man it has become clear, actual. So says John Milton, who ought to be a judge; so answer him the Voices of all Ages and all Worlds. Wouldst thou commune with such a one-be his real peer then; does that lie in thee? Know thyself, and thy real and thy apparent place, and know him and his real and his apparent place; and act in some noble conformity therewith. What! The star-fire of the Empyrean shall eclipse itself, and illuminate magic lanterns to amuse grown children? He, the God-inspired, is to twang harps for thee, and blow through scrannel-pipes; sooth thy stated soul with visions of new, still wider Eldorados, Houri Paradises, richer Lands of Cockaigne? Brother, this is not he; this is a counterfeit, this twangling, jangling, vain, acrid, scrannel-piping man. Thou dost well to say with sick Saul, "It is naught, such harping!" and, in sudden rage, grasp thy spear, and try if thou canst pin such a one to the wall. King Saul was mistaken in his man, but thou art right in thine. It is the due of such a one; nail him to the wall, and leave him there. So ought copper shillings to be nailed on counters; copper geniuses on walls, and left there for a sign!

I conclude that the Men of Letters too may become a Chivalry," an actual instead of a virtual Priesthood, with result immeasurable-so soon as there is nobleness in themselves for that, and to a certainty not sooner! Of intrinsic Valetisms you cannot, with whole Parliaments to help you, make a Heroism. Doggeries never so gold-plated, Doggeries never so escutcheoned, Doggeries never so diplomaed, bepuffed, gas-lighted, continue Doggeries, and must take the fate of such.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DIDACTIC.

CERTAINLY it were a fond imagination to expect that any preaching of mine could abate Mammonism; that Bobus of Houndsditch will love his guineas less, or his poor soul more, for any preaching of mine! But there is one Preacher who does preach with effect, and gradually persuade all persons; his name is Destiny, is Divino Providence, and his Sermon the inflexible Course of Things. Experience does take dreadfully high school-wages; but he teaches like no other!

I revert to Friend Prudence the good Quaker's refusal of "seven thousand pounds to boot." Friend Prudence's practical conclusion will, by degrees, become that of all rational practical men whatsoever. On the present scheme and principle, Work cannot continue. Trades' Strikes, Trades' Unions, Chartisms; mutiny, squalor, rage, and desperate revolt, growing ever more desperate, will go on their way. As dark misery settles down on us, and our refuges of lies fall in pieces one after one, the hearts of men, now at last serious, will turn to refuges of truth. The eternal stars shine out again, so soon as it is dark enough.

Begirt with desperate Trades' Unionism and anarchic mutiny, many an Industrial Law-word, by and by, who has neglected to make laws and keep them, will be heard saying to himself: "Why have I realized five hundred thousand pounds? I rose early and sat late, I toiled and moiled, and, in the sweat of my brow and of my soul, I strove to gain this money, that I might become conspicuous, and have some honour among my fellow-creatures. I wanted them to honour me, to love me. The money is here, earned with my best Life-blood; but the honour? I am encircled with squalor, with hunger, rage, and sooty desperation. Not honoured, hardly even envied; only fools and the flunkeyspecies so much as envy me. I am conspicuous-as a mark for curses and brickbats. What good is it? My five hundred scalps hang here in my wigwam; would to Heaven I had sought something else than the scalps; would to Heaven I had been a Christian Fighter, not a Choctaw one! To have ruled and fought, not in a Mammonish, but in a Godlike spirit; to have had the hearts of the people bless me, as a true ruler and Captain of my people; to have felt my own heart bless me, and that God above instead of Mammon below was blessing me-this had been something. Out of my sight, ye beggarly five hundred scalps of bankers-thousands; I will try for something other, or account my life a <ragical futility!"

Friend Prudence's "rock-ledge," as we called it, will gradually disclose itself to many a man; to all men. Gradually, assaulted from beneath and from above, the Stygian mud-deluge of Laissez-faire, Supply-and-demand, Cashpayment the one Duty, will abate on all hands; and the everlasting mountaintops, and secure rock-foundations that reach to the Centre of the World, and rest on Nature's Self, will again emerge, to found on, and to build on. When Mammon-worshippers here and there begin to be God-worshippers, and bipedsof-prey become men, and there is a Soul felt once more in the huge-pulsing elephantine mechanic Animalism of this Earth, it will be again a blessed Earth. "Men cease to regard money?" cries Bobus of Houndsditch: "What else do all men strive for? The very Bishop informs me that Christianity cannot get on without a minimum of Four thousand five hundred in its pocket. Cease to regard money? That will be at Doomsday in the afternoon!"Oh, Bobus, my opinion is somewhat different. My opinion is that the Upper Powers have not yet determined on destroying this Lower World. A respectable, everincreasing minority who do strive for something higher than money, I with confidence anticipate; ever increasing, till there be a sprinkling of them found in all quarters, as salt of the Earth once more. The Christianity that cannot get on without a minimum of Four thousand five hundred will give place to something better that can. Thou wilt not join our small minority, thou? Not till Doomsday in the afternoon? Well; then, at least, thou wilt join it, thou and the majority in mass!

But truly it is beautiful to see the brutish empire of Mammon cracking everywhere, giving sure promise of dying or of being changed. A strange chill, almost ghastly dayspring strikes up in Yankeeland itself: my Transcendal friends announce there, in a distinct, though somewhat lank-haired ungainly manner, that the Demiurgus Dollar is dethroned; that new unheard-of Demiur. gusships, Priesthoods, Aristocracies, Growths, and Destructions are already visible in the gray of coming Time. Chronos is dethroned by Jove; Odin by St. Olaf; the Dollar cannot rule in Heaven for ever. No; I reckon not. Socinian Preachers quit their pulpits in Yankeeland, saying, "Friends, this is all gone to a coloured cobweb, we regret to say !" and retire into the fields to cultivate onion-beds, and live frugally on vegetables. It is very notable. Old godlike Calvinism declares that its old body is now fallen to tatters and done; and its mournful ghost, disimbodied, seeking new imbodiment, pipes again in the winds; a ghost and spirit as yet, but heralding new Spirit-worlds, and better Dynasties than the Dollar one.

Yes, here as there, light is coming into the world; men love not darkness, they do love light. A deep feeling of the eternal nature of Justice looks out among us everywhere-even through the dull eyes of Exeter Hall; an unspeakable religiousness struggles, in the most helpless manner, to speak itself in Puseyisms and the like. Of our Cant, all condemnable, how much is not condemnable without pity, we had almost said, without respect! The inarticulate worth and truth that is in England goes down yet to the Foundations.

Some "Chivalry of Labour," some noble Humanity and practical Divineness of Labour, will yet be realized on this Earth. Or why will, why do we pray to Heaven without setting our own shoulder to the wheel? The Present, if it will have the Future accomplish, shall itself commence. Thou who prophesiest, who believest, begin thou to fulfil. Here or nowhere, now equally as at any time! That outcast help-needing thing or person, trampled down under vulgar feet or hoofs, no help "possible" for it, no prize offered for the saving of it, canst not thou save it, then, without prize? Put forth thy hand, in God's name; know that "impossible," where Truth and Mercy and the everlasting Voice of Nature order, has no place in the brave man's dictionary. That when all men have said "Impossible," and tumbled noiselessly else-whither, and thou alone art left, then first thy time and possibility have come. It is for thee now: do thou that, and ask no man's counsel, but thy own only and God's. Brother, thou hast possibility in thee for much: the possibility of writing on the eternal skies the record of a heroic life. That noble downfallen or yet unborn "Impossibility" thou canst lift it up, thou canst, by the soul's travail, bring it into clear being. That loud inane Actuality, with millions in its pocket, too "possible" that, which rolls along there, with quilted trumpeters blaring round it, and all the world escorting it as mute or vocal flunkey-escort it not thou; say to it, either nothing, or else deeply in thy heart: "Loud-blaring Nonentity, no force of trumpets, cash, Long-acre art, or universal flunkeyhood of men,

makes thee an Entity; thou art a Nonenity, and deceptive Simulacrum, more accursed than thou seemest. Pass on, in the Devil's name, unworshipped by at least one man, and leave the thoroughfare clear!"

Not on Ilion's or Latium's plains; on far other plains and places henceforth, can noble deeds be now done. Not on Ilion's plains; how much less in Mayfair's drawing-rooms! Not in victory over poor brother French or Phrygians; but in victory over Frost-jötuns, Marsh-giants, over demons of Discord, Idleness, Injustice, Unreason, and Chaos come again. None of the old Epics is longer possible. The Epic of French and Phrygians was comparatively a small Epic: but that of Flirts and Fribbles, what is that? A thing that vanishes at cock-crowing-that already begins to scent the morning air! Game-preserving Aristocracies, let them "bush" never so effectually, cannot escape the Subtle Fowler. Game seasons will be excellent, and again will be indifferent, and by and by they will not be at all. The Last Partridge of England, of an England where millions of men can get no corn to eat, will be shot and ended. Aristocracies with beards on their chins will find other to do than amuse themselves with trundling-hoops.

But it is to you ye Workers, who do already work, and are as grown men, noble and honourable in a sort, that the whole world calls for new work and nobleness. Subdue Mutiny, Discord, wide-spread Despair, by manfulness, justice, mercy, and wisdom. Chaos is dark, deep as Hell; let light be, and there is instead a green flowery World. Oh, it is great, and there is no other greatness. To make some nook of God's Creation a little fruitfuller, better, more worthy of God; to make some human hearts a little wiser, manfuller, happier-more blessed, less accursed! It is work for a God. Sooty Hell of Mutiny and Savagery and despair can, by man's energy, be made a kind of Heaven; cleared of its soot, of its Mutiny, of its need to mutiny; the everlasting arch of Heaven's azure o'erspanning it too, and its cunning mechanisms and tall chimney-steeples, as a birth of Heaven; God and all men looking on it well pleased.

Unstained by wasteful deformities, by wasted tears or heart's-blood of men, or any defacement of the Pit, noble fruitful Labour, growing ever nobler, will come forth the grand sole miracle of Man; whereby man has risen from the low places of this Earth, very literally, into divine Heavens. Ploughers, Spinners, Builders; Prophets, Poets, Kings; Brindleys and Goëthes, Odins and Arkwrights; all martyrs, and noble men, and gods are of one grand Host: immeasurable; marching ever forward since the Beginnings of the World. The enormous, all-conquering, flame-crowned Host: noble every soldier in it, sacred, and alone noble. Let him who is not of it hide himself; let him tremble for himself. Stars at every button cannot make him noble; sheaves of Bath-garters, nor bushels of Georges; nor any other contrivance but manfully enlisting in it, valiantly taking place and step in it. Oh, Heavens, will he not bethink himself; he too is so needed in the Host! It were so blessed, thriceblessed, for himself, and for us all! In hope of the Last Partridge, and some Duke of Weimar, among our English Dukes, we will be patient yet awhile.

The Future hides in it
Good hap and sorrow;
We press still thorow,
Naught that abides in it
Daunting us-onward.

THE END.