Past and Present | Page 2

which reminds us of the morals of the Oriental or early
Greek masters, and of no modern book. Truly in these things is great
reward. It is not by sitting so at a grand distance and calling the human
race larvae, that men are to be helped, nor by helping the depraved
after their own foolish fashion; but by doing
unweariedly the
particular work we were born to do. Let no man think himself absolved
because he does a generous action and befriends the poor, but let him
see whether he so holds his property that a benefit goes from it to all. A
man's diet should be what is simplest and readiest to be had, because it
is so private a good. His house should be better, because that is for the
use of hundreds, perhaps of thousands, and is the property of the
traveler. But his speech is a perpetual and public
instrument; let that
always side with the race and yield neither a lie nor a sneer. His
manners,--let them be hospitable and civilising, so that no Phidias or
Raphael shall have taught anything better in canvas or stone; and his
acts should be representative of the human race, as one who makes
them rich in his having, and poor in his want.
It requires great courage in a man of letters to handle the contemporary
practical questions; not because he then has all men for his rivals, but
because of the infinite entanglements of the problem, and the waste of
strength in gathering unripe
fruits. The task is superhuman; and the

poet knows well that a little time will do more than the most puissant
genius. Time stills the loud noise of opinions, sinks the small, raises the
great, so that the true emerges without effort and in perfect harmony to
all eyes; but the truth of the present hour, except in particulars and
single relations, is unattainable. Each man can very well know his own
part of duty, if he will; but to bring out the truth for beauty, and as
literature, surmounts the powers of art. The most elaborate history of
today will have the oddest dislocated look in the next generation. The
historian of today is yet three ages off. The poet cannot descend into
the turbid present without injury to his rarest gifts. Hence that necessity
of isolation which genius has always felt. He must stand on his glass
tripod, if he would keep his electricity.
But when the political aspects are so calamitous that the
sympathies
of the man overpower the habits of the poet, a higher than Literary
inspiration may succour him. It is a costly proof of character, that the
most renowned scholar of England should take his reputation in his
hand and should descend into the ring; and he has added to his love
whatever honour his opinions may forfeit. To atone for this departure
from the vows of the
scholar and his eternal duties to this secular
charity, we have at least this gain, that here is a message which those to
whom it was addressed cannot choose but hear. Though they die, they
must listen. It is plain that whether by hope or by fear, or were it only
by delight in this panorama of brilliant images; all the great classes of
English society must read, even those whose existence it proscribes.
Poor Queen Victoria--poor Sir Robert Peel--poor Primate and
Bishops--poor Dukes and Lords! There is no help in place or pride or in
looking another way; a grain of wit is more penetrating than the
lightning of the night-storm, which no curtains or shutters will keep out.
Here is a book which will be read, no thanks to anybody but itself.
What pains, what hopes, what vows, shall come of the reading! Here is
a book as full of treason as an egg is full of meat, and every lordship
and worship and high form and ceremony of English conservatism
tossed like a football into the air, and kept in the air, with merciless
kicks and rebounds, and yet not a word is punishable by statute. The
wit has eluded all official zeal; and yet these dire jokes, these cunning
thrusts, this darning sword of Cherubim waved high in air, illuminates

the whole horizon, and shows to the eyes of the universe every wound
it inflicts. Worst of all for the party attacked, it bereaves them
beforehand of all
sympathy, by anticipating the plea of poetic and
humane
conservatism, and impressing the reader with the conviction
that the satirist himself has the truest love for everything old and
excellent in English land and institutions, and a genuine respect for the
basis of truth in those whom he exposes.
We are at some loss how to state what strikes us as the fault of this