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第11章

latter-day pamphlets-第11章

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 you (I bid you observe) have proved that you cannot do it!  You lie there plainly in the ditch。  And I am to pick you up again; on these mad terms; help you ever again; as with our best heart's…blood; to do what; once for all; the gods have made impossible?  To load the fatal _chain_ with your perpetual staggerings and sprawlings; and ever again load it; till we all lie sprawling?  My indigent incompetent friends; I will not!  Know that; whoever may be 'sons of freedom;' you for your part are not and cannot be such。  Not 'free' you; I think; whoever may be free。  You palpably are fallen captive;_caitiff_; as they once named it:you do; silently but eloquently; demand; in the name of mercy itself; that some genuine command be taken of you。

〃Yes; my indigent incompetent friends; some genuine practical command。 Such;if I rightly interpret those mad Chartisms; Repeal Agitations; Red Republics; and other delirious inarticulate howlings and bellowings which all the populations of the world now utter; evidently cries of pain on their and your part;is the demand which you; Captives; make of all men that are not Captive; but are still Free。  Free men;alas; had you ever any notion who the free men were; who the not…free; the incapable of freedom!  The free men; if you could have understood it; they are the wise men; the patient; self…denying; valiant; the Nobles of the World; who can discern the Law of this Universe; what it is; and piously _obey_ it; these; in late sad times; having cast you loose; you are fallen captive to greedy sons of profit…and…loss; to bad and ever to worse; and at length to Beer and the Devil。  Algiers; Brazil or Dahomey hold nothing in them so authentically _slave_ as you are; my indigent incompetent friends!

〃Good Heavens; and I have to raise some eight or nine millions annually; six for England itself; and to wreck the morals of my working population beyond all money's worth; to keep the life from going out of you:  a small service to you; as I many times bitterly repeat!  Alas; yes; before high Heaven I must declare it such。  I think the old Spartans; who would have killed you instead; had shown more 'humanity;' more of manhood; than I thus do!  More humanity; I say; more of manhood; and of sense for what the dignity of man demands imperatively of you and of me and of us all。  We call it charity; beneficence; and other fine names; this brutish Workhouse Scheme of ours; and it is but sluggish heartlessness; and insincerity; and cowardly lowness of soul。  Not 'humanity' or manhood; I think; perhaps _ape_hood rather;paltry imitancy; from the teeth outward; of what our heart never felt nor our understanding ever saw; dim indolent adherence to extraneous and extinct traditions; traditions now really about extinct; not living now to almost any of us; and still haunting with their spectralities and gibbering _ghosts_ (in a truly baleful manner) almost all of us! Making this our struggling 'Twelfth Hour of the Night' inexpressibly hideous!…

〃But as for you; my indigent incompetent friends; I have to repeat with sorrow; but with perfect clearness; what is plainly undeniable; and is even clamorous to get itself admitted; that you are of the nature of slaves;or if you prefer the word; of _nomadic; and now even vagrant and vagabond; servants that can find no master on those terms_; which seems to me a much uglier word。  Emancipation?  You have been 'emancipated' with a vengeance! Foolish souls; I say the whole world cannot emancipate you。  Fealty to ignorant Unruliness; to gluttonous sluggish Improvidence; to the Beer…pot and the Devil; who is there that can emancipate a man in that predicament? Not a whole Reform Bill; a whole French Revolution executed for his behoof alone:  nothing but God the Maker can emancipate him; by making him anew。

〃To forward which glorious consummation; will it not be well; O indigent friends; that you; fallen flat there; shall henceforth learn to take advice of others as to the methods of standing?  Plainly I let you know; and all the world and the worlds know; that I for my part mean it so。  Not as glorious unfortunate sons of freedom; but as recognized captives; as unfortunate fallen brothers requiring that I should command you; and if need were; control and compel you; can there henceforth be a relation between us。  Ask me not for Indian meal; you shall be compelled to earn it first; know that on other terms I will not give you any。  Before Heaven and Earth; and God the Maker of us all; I declare it is a scandal to see _such_ a life kept in you; by the sweat and heart's…blood of your brothers; and that; if we cannot

mend it; death were preferable!  Go to; we must get out of thisunutterable coil of nonsenses; constitutional; philanthropical; &c。; in which (surely without mutual hatred; if with less of 'love' than is supposed) we are all strangling one another!  Your want of wants; I say; is that you be _commanded_ in this world; not being able to command yourselves。  Know therefore that it shall be so with you。  Nomadism; I give you notice; has ended; needful permanency; soldier…like obedience; and the opportunity and the necessity of hard steady labor for your living; have begun。  Know that the Idle Workhouse is shut against you henceforth; you cannot enter there at will; nor leave at will; you shall enter a quite other Refuge; under conditions strict as soldiering; and not leave till I have done with you。  He that prefers the glorious (or perhaps even the rebellious _in_glorious) 'career of freedom;' let him prove that he can travel there; and be the master of himself; and right good speed to him。 He who has proved that he cannot travel there or be the master of himself;let him; in the name of all the gods; become a servant; and accept the just rules of servitude!

〃Arise; enlist in my Irish; my Scotch and English 'Regiments of the New Era;'which I have been concocting; day and night; during these three Grouse…seasons (taking earnest incessant counsel; with all manner of Industrial Notabilities and men of insight; on the matter); and have now brought to a kind of preparation for incipiency; thank Heaven!  Enlist there; ye poor wandering banditti; obey; work; suffer; abstain; as all of us have had to do:  so shall you be useful in God's creation; so shall you be helped to gain a manful living for yourselves; not otherwise than so。 Industrial Regiments '_Here numerous persons; with big wigs many of them; and austere aspect; whom I take to be Professors of the Dismal Science; start up in an agitated vehement manner:  but the Premier resolutely beckons them down again_'Regiments not to fight the French or others; who are peaceable enough towards us; but to fight the Bogs and Wildernesses at home and abroad; and to chain the Devils of the Pit which are walking too openly among us。

〃Work; for you?  Work; surely; is not quite undiscoverable in an Earth so wide as ours; if we will take the right methods for it!  Indigent friends; we will adopt this new relation (which is _old_ as the world); this will lead us towards such。  Rigorous conditions; not to be violated on either side; lie in this relation; conditions planted there by God Himself; which woe will betide us if we do not discover; gradually more and more discover; and conform to!  Industrial Colonels; Workmasters; Task…masters; Life…commanders; equitable as Rhadamanthus and inflexible as he:  such; I perceive; you do need; and such; you being once put under law as soldiers are; will be discoverable for you。  I perceive; with boundless alarm; that I shall have to set about discovering such;I; since I am at the top of affairs; with all men looking to me。  Alas; it is my new task in this New Era; and God knows; I too; little other than a red…tape Talking…machine; and unhappy Bag of Parliamentary Eloquence hitherto; am far behind with it! But street…barricades rise everywhere:  the hour of Fate has come。  In Connemara there has sprung a leak; since the potato died; Connaught; if it were not for Treasury…grants and rates…in…aid; would have to recur to Cannibalism even now; and Human Society would cease to pretend that it existed there。  Done this thing must be。  Alas; I perceive that if I cannot do it; then surely I shall die; and

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