SUMMARY.

Chap. I. Midas.

The condition of England one of the most ominous ever seen in this world: Full of wealth in every kind, yet dying of inanition. Workhouses, in which no work can be done. Destitution in Scotland. Stockport Assizes. (.) — England’s unprofitable success: Human faces glooming discordantly on one another. Midas longed for gold, and the gods gave it him. (7.)

Chap. II. The Sphinx.

The grand unnamable Sphinx-riddle, which each man is called upon to solve. Notions of the foolish concerning justice and judgment. Courts of Westminster, and the general High Court of the Universe. The one strong thing, the just thing, the true thing. (.) — A noble Conservatism, as well as an ignoble. In all battles of men each fighter, in the end, prospers according to his right: Wallace of Scotland. (15.) — Fact and Semblance. What is Justice? As many men as there are in a Nation who can see Heaven’s Justice, so many are there who stand between it and perdition. (17.)

Chap. III. Manchester Insurrection.

Peterloo not an unsuccessful Insurrection. Governors who wait for Insurrection to instruct them, getting into the fatalest courses. Unspeakable County Yeomanry. Poor Manchester operatives, and their huge inarticulate question: Unhappy Workers, unhappier Idlers, of this actual England! (.) — Fair day’s-wages for fair day’s-work: Milton’s ‘wages,’ Cromwell’s. Pay to each man what he has earned and done and deserved; what more have we to ask? — Some not insupportable approximation indispensable and inevitable. (24.)

Chap. IV. Morrisons Pill.

A state of mind worth reflecting on. No Morrison’s Pill for curing the maladies of Society: Universal alteration of regimen and way of life: Vain jargon giving place to some genuine Speech again. (.) — If we walk according to the Law of this Universe, the Law-Maker will befriend us; if not, not. Quacks, sham heroes, the one bane of the world. Quack and Dupe, upper side and under of the selfsame substance. (31.)

Chap. V. Aristocracy of Talent.

All misery the fruit of unwisdom: Neither with individuals nor with Nations is it fundamentally otherwise. Nature in late centuries universally supposed to be dead; but now everywhere asserting herself to be alive and miraculous. The guidance of this country not sufficiently wise. (.) — Aristocracy of talent, or government by the Wisest, a dreadfully difficult affair to get started. The true eye for talent; and the flunky eye for respectabilities, warm garnitures and larders dropping fatness: Bobus and Bobissimus. (37.)

Chap VI. Hero-worship.

Enlightened Egoism, never so luminous, not the rule by which man’s life can be led. A soul, different from a stomach in any sense of the word. Hero-worship done differently in every different epoch of the world. Reform, like Charity, must begin at home. ‘Arrestment of the knaves and dastards,’ beginning by arresting our own poor selves out of that fraternity. (.) — The present Editor’s purpose to himself full of hope. A Loadstar in the eternal sky: A glimmering of light, for here and there a human soul. (45.)

 

BOOK II. — THE ANCIENT MONK.

Chap. I. Jocelin of Brakelond.

How the Centuries stand lineally related to each other. The one Book not permissible, the kind that has nothing in it. Jocelin’s ‘Chronicle,’ a private Boswellean Notebook, now seven centuries old. How Jocelin, from under his monk’s cowl, looked out on that narrow section of the world in a really human manner: A wise simplicity in him; a veracity that goes deeper than words. Jocelin’s Monk-Latin; and Mr. Rokewood’s editorial helpfulness and fidelity. (.) — A veritable Monk of old Bury St. Edmunds worth attending to. This England of ours, of the year 1200: Cœur-de-Lion: King Lackland, and his thirteenpenny mass. The poorest historical Fact, and the grandest imaginative Fiction. (55.)

Chap. II. St. Edmundsbury.

St. Edmund’s Bury, a prosperous brisk Town: Extensive ruins of the Abbey still visible. Assiduous Pedantry, and its rubbish-heaps called ‘History.’ Another world it was, when those black ruins first saw the sun as walls. At lowest, O dilettante friend, let us know always that it was a world. No easy matter to get across the chasm of Seven Centuries: Of all helps, a Boswell, even a small Boswell, the welcomest. (.)

Chap. III. Landlord Edmund.

‘Battle of Fornham,’ a fact, though a forgotten one. Edmund, Landlord of the Eastern Counties: A very singular kind of ‘landlord.’ How he came to be ‘sainted.’ Seen and felt to have done verily a man’s part in this life-pilgrimage of his. How they took up the slain body of their Edmund, and reverently embalmed it. (.) — Pious munificence, ever growing by new pious gifts. Certain Times do crystallise themselves in a magnificent manner, others in a rather shabby one. (71.)

Chap. IV. Abbot Hugo.

All things have two faces, a light one and a dark: The Ideal has to grow in the Real, and to seek its bed and board there, often in a very sorry manner. Abbot Hugo, grown old and feeble. Jew debts and Jew creditors. How approximate justice strives to accomplish itself. (.) — In the old monastic Books almost no mention whatever of ‘personal religion.’ A poor Lord Abbot, all stuck-over with horse-leeches: A ‘royal commission of inquiry,’ to no purpose. A monk’s first duty, obedience. Magister Samson, Teacher of the Novices. The Abbot’s providential death. (76.)

Chap. V. Twelfth Century.

Inspectors or Custodiars; the King not in any breathless haste to appoint a new Abbot. Dim and very strange looks that monk-life to us. Our venerable ancient spinning grandmothers, shrieking, and rushing out with their distaffs. Lakenheath eels too slippery to be caught. (.) — How much is alive in England, in that Twelfth Century; how much not yet come into life. Feudal Aristocracy; Willelmus Conquæstor: Not a steeple-chimney yet got on end from sea to sea. (82.)

Chap. VI. Monk Samson.

Monk-Life and Monk-Religion: A great heaven-high Unquestionability, encompassing, interpenetrating all human Duties. Our modern Arkwright Joe-Manton ages: All human dues and reciprocities changed into one great due of ‘cash-payment.’ The old monks but a limited class of creatures, with a somewhat dull life of it. (.) — One Monk of a taciturn nature distinguishes himself among those babbling ones. A Son of poor Norfolk parents. Little Samson’s awful dream: His poor Mother dedicates him to St. Edmund. He grows to be a learned man, of devout grave nature. Sent to Rome on business; and returns too successful: Method of travelling thither in those days. His tribulations at home. Strange conditions under which Wisdom has sometimes to struggle with folly. (86.)

 

Chap. VII. The Canvassing.

A new Abbot to be elected. Even gossip, seven centuries off, has significance. The Prior with Twelve Monks, to wait on his Majesty at Waltham. An ‘election’ the one important social act. Given the Man a People choose, the worth and worthlessness of the People itself is given. (.)

Chap. VIII. The Election.

Electoral methods and manipulations. Brother Samson ready oftenest with some question, some suggestion that has wisdom in it. The Thirteen off to Waltham, to choose their Abbot: In the solitude of the Convent, Destiny thus big and in her birthtime, what gossiping, babbling, dreaming of dreams! (.) — King Henry II. in his high Presence-chamber. Samson chosen Abbot: the King’s royal acceptation. (99.) — St. Edmundsbury Monks, without express ballot-box or other winnowing machine. In every Nation and Community there is at all times a fittest, wisest, bravest, best. Human Worth and human Worthlessness. (103.)

Chap. IX. Abbot Samson.

The Lord Abbot’s arrival at St. Edmundsbury: The selfsame Samson yesterday a poor mendicant, this day finds himself a Dominus Abbas and mitred Peer of Parliament. (.) — Depth and opulence of true social vitality in those old barbarous ages. True Governors go about under all manner of disguises now as then. Genius, Poet; what these words mean George the Third, head charioteer of England; and Robert Burns, gauger of ale in Dumfries. (106.) — How Abbot Samson found a Convent all in dilapidation. His life-long harsh apprenticeship to governing, namely obeying. First get your Man; all is got. Danger of blockheads. (108.)

Chap. X. Government.

Beautiful, how the chrysalis governing-soul, shaking off its dusty slough and prison, starts forth winged, a true royal soul! One first labour, to institute a strenuous review and radical reform of his economics. Wheresoever Disorder may stand or lie, let it have a care; here is a man that has declared war with it. (.) — In less than four years the Convent debts are all liquidated, and the harpy Jews banished from St. Edmundsbury. New life springs beneficent everywhere: Spiritual rubbish as little tolerated as material. (114.)

Chap. XI. The Abbot’s Ways.

Reproaches, open and secret, of ingratitude, unsociability: Except for ‘fit men’ in all kinds, hard to say for whom Abbot Samson had much favour. Remembrance of benefits. (.) — An eloquent man, but intent more on substance than on ornament. A just clear heart the basis of all true talent. One of the justest of judges: His invaluable ‘talent of silence.’ Kind of people he liked worst. Hospitality and stoicism. (119.) — The country in those days still dark with noble wood and umbrage: How the old trees gradually died out, no man heeding it. Monachism itself, so rich and fruitful once, now all rotted into peat. Devastations of four-footed cattle and Henry-the-Eighths. (122.)

Chap. XII. The Abbot’s Troubles.

The troubles of Abbot Samson more than tongue can tell. Not the spoil of victory, only the glorious toil of battle, can be theirs who really govern. An insurrection of the Monks. Behave better, ye remiss Monks, and thank Heaven for such an Abbot. (.) — Worn down with incessant toil and tribulation: Gleams of hilarity too; little snatches of encouragement granted even to a Governor. How my Lord of Clare, coming to claim his undue ‘debt,’ gets a Roland for his Oliver. A Life of Literature, noble and ignoble. (126.)

Chap. XIII. In Parliament.

Confused days of Lackland’s usurpation, while Cœur-de-Lion was away: Our brave Abbot took helmet himself, excommunicating all who should favour Lackland. King Richard a captive in Germany. (.) — St. Edmund’s Shrine not meddled with: A heavenly Awe overshadowed and encompassed, as it still ought and must, all earthly Business whatsoever. (132.)

Chap. XIV. Henry of Essex.

How St. Edmund punished terribly, yet with mercy: A Narrative significant of the Time. Henry Earl of Essex, standard-bearer of England: No right reverence for the Heavenly in Man. A traitor or a coward. Solemn Duel, by the King’s appointment. An evil Conscience doth make cowards of us all. (.)

Chap. XV. Practical-Devotional.

A Tournament proclaimed and held in the Abbot’s domain, in spite of him. Roystering young dogs brought to reason. The Abbot a man that generally remains master at last: The importunate Bishop of Ely outwitted. A man that dare abide King Richard’s anger, with justice on his side. Thou brave Richard, thou brave Samson! (.) — The basis of Abbot Samson’s life truly religion. His zealous interest in the Crusades. The great antique heart, like a child’s in its simplicity, like a man’s in its earnest solemnity and depth. His comparative silence as to his religion precisely the healthiest sign of him and it. Methodism, Dilettantism, Puseyism. (144.)

Chap. XVI. St. Edmund.

Abbot Samson built many useful, many pious edifices: ALL ruinous, incomplete things an eye-sorrow to him. Rebuilding the great Altar: A glimpse of the glorious Martyr’s very Body. What a scene; how far vanished from us, in these unworshipping ages of ours! The manner of men’s Hero-worship, verily the innermost fact of their existence, determining all the rest. (.) — On the whole, who knows how to reverence the Body of Man? Abbot Samson, at the culminating point of his existence: Our real-phantasmagory of St. Edmundsbury plunges into the bosom of the Twelfth Century again, and all is over. (154.)

Chap. XVII. The Beginnings.

Formulas the very skin and muscular tissue of a Man’s Life: Living Formulas and dead. Habit the deepest law of human nature. A pathway through the pathless. Nationalities. Pulpy infancy, kneaded, baked into any form you choose: The Man of Business; the hard-handed Labourer; the genus Dandy. No Mortal out of the depths of Bedlam but lives by Formulas. (.) — The hosts and generations of brave men Oblivion has swallowed: Their crumbled dust, the soil our life-fruit grows on. Invention of Speech, Forms of Worship; Methods of Justice. This English Land, here and now, the summary of what was wise and noble, and accordant with God’s Truth, in all the generations of English Men. The thing called ‘Fame.’ (161.)

 

BOOK III — THE MODERN WORKER.

Chap. I. Phenomena.

How men have ‘forgotten God;’ taken the Fact of this Universe as it is not, God’s Laws become a Greatest-Happiness Principle, a Parliamentary Expediency. Man has lost the soul out of him, and begins to find the want of it. (.) — The old Pope of Rome, with his stuffed dummy to do the kneeling for him. Few men that worship by the rotatory Calabash, do it in half so great, frank or effectual a way. (173.) — Our Aristocracy no longer able to do its work, and not in the least conscious that it has any work to do. The Champion of England ‘lifted into his saddle.’ The Hatter in the Strand, mounting a huge lath-and-plaster Hat. Our noble ancestors have fashioned for us, in how many thousand senses, a ‘life-road;’ and we their sons are madly, literally enough, ‘consuming the way.’ (175.)

Chap. II. Gospel of Mammonism.

Heaven and Hell, often as the words are on our tongue, got to be fabulous or semi-fabulous for most of us. The real ‘Hell’ of the English. Cash-payment, not the sole or even chief relation of human beings. Practical Atheism, and its despicable fruits. (.) — One of Dr. Alison’s melancholy facts: A poor Irish Widow, in the Lanes of Edinburgh, proving her sisterhood. Until we get a human soul within us, all things are impossible: Infatuated geese, with feathers and without. (185.)

 

Chap. III. Gospel of Dilettantism.

Mammonism at least works, but ‘Go gracefully idle in Mayfair,’ what does or can that mean? — Impotent, insolent Donothingism in Practice and Saynothingism in Speech. No man now speaks a plain word: Insincere Speech the prime material of insincere Action. (.) — Moslem parable of Moses and the Dwellers by the Dead Sea: The Universe become a Humbug to the Apes that thought it one. (190.)

Chap. IV. Happy.

All work noble; and every noble crown a crown of thorns. Man’s pitiful pretension to be what he calls ‘happy.’ His Greatest-Happiness Principle fast becoming a rather unhappy one. Byron’s large audience. A philosophical Doctor: A disconsolate Meat-jack, gnarring and creaking with rust and work. (.) — The only ‘happiness’ a brave man ever troubled himself much about, the happiness to get his work done. (195.)

Chap. V. The English.

With all thy theoretic platitudes, what a depth of practical sense in thee, great England! A dumb people, who can do great acts, but not describe them. The noble Warhorse, and the Dog of Knowledge: The freest utterances not by any means the best. (.) — The done Work, much more than the spoken Word, an epitome of the man. The Man of Practice, and the Man of Theory: Ineloquent Brindley. The English, of all Nations the stupidest in speech, the wisest in action: Sadness and seriousness: Unconsciously this great Universe is great to them. The silent Romans. John Bull’s admirable insensibility to Logic. (198.) — All great Peoples conservative. Kind of Ready-Reckoner a Solecism in Eastcheap. Berserkir rage. Truth and Justice alone capable of being ‘conserved.’ Bitter indignation engendered by the Corn-Laws in every just English heart. (203.)

Chap. VI. Two Centuries.

The ‘Settlement’ of the year 1660 one of the mournfulest that ever took place in this land of ours. The true end of Government, to guide men in the way they should go: The true good of this life, the portal of infinite good in the life to come. Oliver Cromwell’s body hung on the Tyburn gallows, the type of Puritanism found futile, inexecutable, execrable. The Spiritualism of England, for two godless centuries, utterly forgettable: Her practical material Work alone memorable. (.) — Bewildering obscurations and impediments: Valiant Sons of Toil enchanted, by the million, in their Poor-Law Bastille. Giant Labour yet to be King of this Earth. (211.)

Chap. VII. Over-Production.

An idle Governing Class addressing its Workers with an indictment of ‘Over-production.’ Duty of justly apportioning the Wages of Work done. A game-preserving Aristocracy, guiltless of producing or apportioning anything. Owning the soil of England. (.) — The Working Aristocracy steeped in ignoble Mammonism: The Idle Aristocracy, with its yellow parchments and pretentious futilities. (216.)

Chap. VIII. Unworking Aristocracy.

Our Land the Mother of us all: No true Aristocracy but must possess the Land. Men talk of ‘selling’ Land: Whom it belongs to. Our much-consuming Aristocracy: By the law of their position bound to furnish guidance and governance. Mad and miserable Corn-Laws. (.) — The Working Aristocracy, and its terrible New-Work: The Idle Aristocracy, and its horoscope of despair. (222.) — A High Class without duties to do, like a tree planted on precipices. In a valiant suffering for others, not in a slothful making others suffer for us, did nobleness ever lie. The Pagan Hercules; the Czar of Russia. (223.) — Parchments, venerable and not venerable. Benedict the Jew, and his usuries. No Chapter on the Corn-Laws: The Corn-Laws too mad to have a Chapter. (225.)

Chap. IX. Working Aristocracy.

Many things for the Working Aristocracy, in their extreme need, to consider. A National Existence supposed to depend on ‘selling cheaper’ than any other People. Let inventive men try to invent a little how cotton at its present cheapness could be somewhat justlier divided. Many ‘impossibles’ will have to become possible. (.) — Supply-and-demand: For what noble work was there ever yet any audible ‘demand’ in that poor sense? (232.)

Chap. X. Plugson of Undershot.

Man’s philosophies usually the ‘supplement of his practice:’ Symptoms of social death. Cash-Payment: The Plugson Ledger, and the Tablets of Heaven’s Chancery, discrepant exceedingly. (.) — All human things do require to have an Ideal in them. How murderous Fighting became a ‘glorious Chivalry.’ Noble devout-hearted Chevaliers. Ignoble Bucaniers and Chactaw Indians: Howel Davies. Napoleon flung out, at last, to St. Helena; the latter end of him sternly compensating for the beginning. (237.) — The indomitable Plugson, as yet a Bucanier and Chactaw. William Conqueror and his Norman followers. Organisation of Labour: Courage, there are yet many brave men in England! (240.)

Chap. XI. Labour.

A perennial nobleness and even sacredness in Work. Significance of the Potter’s Wheel. Blessed is he who has found his Work; let him ask no other blessedness. (.) — A brave Sir Christopher, and his Paul’s Cathedral: Every noble work at first ‘impossible.’ Columbus royalest Sea-king of all: A depth of Silence, deeper than the Sea; a Silence unsoundable; known to God only. (246.)

 

Chap. XII. Reward.

Work is Worship: Labour, wide as the Earth, has its summit in Heaven. One monster there is in the world, the idle man. (.)— ‘Fair day’s-wages for a fair days-work,’ the most unrefusable demand. The ‘wages’ of every noble Work in Heaven, or else Nowhere: The brave man has to give his Life away. He that works bodies forth the form of Things Unseen. Strange mystic affinity of Wisdom and Insanity: All Work, in its degree, a making of Madness sane. (253.) — Labour not a devil, even when encased in Mammonism: The unredeemed ugliness, a slothful People. The vulgarest Plugson of a Master-Worker, not a man to strangle by Corn-Laws and Shotbelts. (257.)

Chap. XIII. Democracy.

Man must actually have his debts and earnings a little better paid by man. At no time was the lot of the dumb millions of toilers so entirely unbearable as now. Sisterhood, brotherhood often forgotten, but never before so expressly denied. Mungo Park and his poor Black Benefactress. (.) — Gurth, born thrall of Cedric the Saxon: Liberty a divine thing; but ‘liberty to die by starvation’ not so divine. Nature’s Aristocracies. William Conqueror, a resident House-Surgeon provided by Nature for her beloved English People. (263.) — Democracy, the despair of finding Heroes to govern us, and contented putting-up with the want of them. The very Tailor unconsciously symbolising the reign of Equality. Wherever ranks do actually exist, strict division of costumes will also be enforced. (267.) — Freedom from oppression, an indispensable yet most insignificant portion of Human Liberty. A best path does exist for every man; a thing which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do. Mock Superiors and Real Superiors. (269.)

Chap. XIV. Sir Jabesh Windbag.

Oliver Cromwell, the remarkablest Governor we have had for the last five centuries or so: No volunteer in Public Life, but plainly a balloted soldier: The Government of England put into his hands. (.) — Windbag, weak in the faith of a God; strong only in the faith that Paragraphs and Plausibilities bring votes. Five years of popularity or unpopularity; and after those five years, an Eternity. Oliver has to appear before the Most High Judge: Windbag, appealing to ‘Posterity.’ (276.)

Chap. XV. Morrison again.

New Religions: This new stage of progress, proceeding ‘to invent God,’ a very strange one indeed. (.) — Religion, the Inner Light or Moral Conscience of a man’s soul. Infinite difference between a Good man and a Bad. The great Soul of the World, just and not unjust: Faithful, unspoken, but not ineffectual ‘prayer.’ Penalties: The French Revolution, cruelest Portent that has risen into created Space these ten centuries. Man needs no ‘New Religion;’ nor is like to get it: Spiritual Dastardism, and sick folly. (281.) — One Liturgy which does remain forever unexceptionable, that of Praying by Working. Sauerteig on the symbolic influences of Washing. Chinese Pontiff-Emperor and his significant ‘punctualities.’ (287.) — Goethe and German Literature. The great event for the world, now as always, the arrival in it of a new Wise Man. Goethe’s Mason-Lodge. (292.)

 

BOOK IV. — HOROSCOPE.

Chap. I. Aristocracies.

To predict the Future, to manage the Present, would not be so impossible, had not the Past been so sacrilegiously mishandled: A godless century, looking back to centuries that were godly. (.) — A new real Aristocracy and Priesthood. The noble Priest always a noble Aristos to begin with, and something more to end with. Modern Preachers, and the real Satanas that now is. Abbot-Samson and William-Conqueror times. The mission of a Land Aristocracy a sacred one, in both senses of that old word. Truly a ‘Splendour of God’ did dwell in those old rude veracious ages. Old Anselm travelling to Rome, to appeal against King Rufus. Their quarrel at bottom a great quarrel. (299.) — The boundless Future, predestined, nay already extant though unseen. Our Epic, not Arms and the Man, but Tools and the Man; an infinitely wider kind of Epic. Important that our grand Reformation were begun. (308.)

Chap. II. Bribery Committee.

Our theory, perfect purity of Tenpound Franchise; our practice, irremediable bribery. Bribery, indicative not only of length of purse, but of brazen dishonesty: Proposed improvements. A Parliament, starting with a lie in its mouth, promulgates strange horoscopes of itself. (.) — Respect paid to those worthy of no respect: Pandarus Dogdraught. The indigent discerning Freeman; and the kind of men he is called upon to vote for. (315.)

Chap. III. The one Institution.

The ‘Organisation of Labour,’ if well understood, the Problem of the whole Future. Governments of various degrees of utility. Kilkenny Cats; Spinning-Dervishes; Parliamentary Eloquence. A Prime-Minister who would dare believe the heavenly omens. (.) — Who can despair of Governments, that passes a Soldier’s Guard-house? — Incalculable what, by arranging, commanding and regimenting, can be made of men. Organisms enough in the dim huge Future; and ‘United Services’ quite other than the red-coat one. (321.) — Legislative interference between Workers and Master-Workers increasingly indispensable. Sanitary Reform: People’s Parks: A right Education Bill, and effective Teaching Service. Free bridge for Emigrants: England’s sure markets among her Colonies. London the All-Saxon-Home, rendezvous of all the ‘Children of the Harz-Rock.’ (326.) — The English essentially conservative: Always the invincible instinct to hold fast by the Old, to admit the minimum of New. Yet new epochs do actually come; and with them new peremptory necessities. A certain Editor’s stipulated work. (330.)

Chap. IV. Captains of Industry.

Government can do much, but it can in nowise do all. Fall of Mammon: To be a noble Master among noble Workers, will again be the first ambition with some few. (.) — The leaders of Industry, virtually the Captains of the World: Doggeries and Chivalries. Isolation, the sum-total of wretchedness to man. All social growths in this world have required organising; and Work, the grandest of human interests, does now require it. (335.)

Chap V. Permanence.

The ‘tendency to persevere,’ to persist in spite of hindrances, discouragements and ‘impossibilities,’ that which distinguishes the Species Man from the Genus Ape. Month-long contracts, and Exeter-Hall purblindness. A practical manufacturing Quaker’s care for his workmen. (.) — Blessing of Permanent Contract: Permanence in all things, at the earliest possible moment, and to the latest possible. Vagrant Sam-Slicks. The wealth of a man the number of things he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed by. (344.) The Worker’s interest in the enterprise with which he is connected. How to reconcile Despotism with Freedom. (346.)

Chap. VI. The Landed.

A man with fifty, with five hundred, with a thousand pounds a day, given him freely, without condition at all, might be a rather strong Worker: The sad reality, very ominous to look at. Will he awaken, be alive again; or is this death-fit very death? — Goethe’s Duke of Weimar. Doom of Idleness. (.) — To sit idle aloft, like absurd Epicurus’-gods, a poor life for a man. Independence, ‘lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye:’ Rejection of sham Superiors, the needful preparation for obedience to real Superiors. (351.)

Chap. VII. The Gifted.

Tumultuous anarchy calmed by noble effort into fruitful sovereignty. Mammon, like Fire, the usefulest of servants, if the frightfulest of masters. Souls to whom the omnipotent guinea is, on the whole, an impotent guinea: Not a May-game is this man’s life, but a battle and stern pilgrimage: God’s justice, human Nobleness, Veracity and Mercy, the essence of his very being. (.) — What a man of Genius is. The Highest ‘Man of Genius.’ Genius, the clearer presence of God Most High in a man. Of intrinsic Valetisms you cannot, with whole Parliaments to help you, make a Heroism. (359.)

Chap. VIII. The Didactic.

One preacher who does preach with effect, and gradually persuade all persons. Repentant Captains of Industry: A Chactaw Fighter become a Christian Fighter (.) — Doomsday in the afternoon. The ‘Christianity’ that cannot get on without a minimum of Four-thousand-five-hundred, will give place to something better that can. Beautiful to see the brutish empire of Mammon cracking everywhere: A strange, chill, almost ghastly dayspring in Yankeeland itself. Here as there, Light is coming into the world. Whoso believes, let him begin to fulfil: ‘Impossible,’ where Truth and Mercy and the everlasting Voice of Nature order, can have no place in the brave man’s dictionary. (364.) — Not on Ilion’s or Latium’s plains; on far other plains and places henceforth can noble deeds be done. The last Partridge of England shot and ended: Aristocracies with beards on their chins. O, it is great, and there is no other greatness: To make some nook of God’s Creation a little fruitfuler; to make some human hearts a little wiser, manfuler, happier: It is work for a God! (365.)