O Democracy, I shout for you!

* * * * *

Back! Make me a space round me, you kid-gloved rotten-breathed paralytic world, with miserable antics mimicking the appearance of life.

England! for good or evil it is useless to attempt to conceal yourself—I know you too well.

I am the very devil. I will tear your veils off, your false shows and pride I will trail in the dust,—you shall be utterly naked before me, in your beauty and in your shame.

For who better than I should know your rottenness, your self-deceit, your delusion, your hideous grinning corpse-chattering death-in-life business at top? (and who better than I the wonderful hidden sources of your strength beneath?)

Deceive yourself no longer.

* * * * *

Do you think your smooth-faced Respectability will save you? or that Cowardice carries a master-key of the universe in its pocket—scrambling miserably out of the ditch on the heads of those beneath it?

Do you think that it is a fine thing to grind cheap goods out of the hard labor of ill-paid boys? and do you imagine that all your Commerce Shows and Manufactures are anything at all compared with the bodies and souls of these?

Do you suppose I have not heard your talk about Morality and Religion and set it face to face in my soul to the instinct of one clean naked unashamed Man? or that I have not seen your coteries of elegant and learned people put to rout by the innocent speech of a child, and the apparition of a mother suckling her own babe!

Do you think that there ever was or could be Infidelity greater than this?

Do you grab interest on Money and lose all interest in Life? Do you found a huge system of national Credit on absolute personal Distrust? Do you batten like a ghoul on the dead corpses of animals, and then expect to be of a cheerful disposition? Do you put the loving beasts to torture as a means of promoting your own health and happiness? Do you, O foolishest one, fancy to bind men together by Laws (of all ideas the most laughable), and set whole tribes of unbelievers at work year after year patching that rotten net? Do you live continually farther and farther from Nature, till you actually doubt if there be any natural life, or any avenging instinct in the dumb elements?— And then do you wonder that your own Life is slowly ebbing—that you have lost all gladness and faith?

I do not a bit. I am disgusted with you, and will not cease till I have absolutely floored you. I do not care; you may struggle; but I am the stronger.

* * * * *

Ah, England! Have I not seen, do I not see now, plain as day, through thy midst the genius of thy true life wandering—he who can indeed, who can alone, save thee—

Seeking thy soul, thy real life, out of so much rubbish to disentangle?

Plaintive the Divine Child haply a moment by some cottage door, or by the side of some mechanic at his bench, lingering, passes on;

Through the great magnificent land, through its parks and country palaces and bewildering splendors of the resorts of wealth and learning, shy and plaintive, passes:

Is there no hand held out?

Do not the learned people know him? Have the wealthy nothing to give? Will not the philanthropic reach a hand to this one?

* * * * *

The guides are all talking. They are settling the affairs of the universe. [They never cease.]

They have not settled yet which way to go themselves: how shall they give help to an ignorant child?

They are busy moreover distributing money and pamphlets: and surely nothing more can be needed.

They are very busy. They are worn out and rest not. Their faces are without sleep.

Nevertheless they go on. Was it said that any man could be contented? It is a lie;—or happy? It is mere foolishness. These things are the dreams of youthful ignorance.

The affairs of the universe and the continual fluctuations of the Stock Exchange are too great an anxiety.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the old woman was staggering homeward under a load of sticks—but none offered to relieve her of her burden. But indeed when you think of it, how could they? for it would have spoiled their clothes.

The poor boy was taken with a fit upon the doorstep, but it was best not to take him all dirty and slavering into the nicely-carpeted house!

The criminal had suffered shipwreck in life and was deserted; but of course it would not have done to be seen consorting with him.

O happy happy guides! to whom such mighty issues are confided!

Happy happy Child! who need not stay to hear the end of their talk! whom I saw, in vision, silent and musing within itself, pass away from among those people.