lodge in,--may have been properly my doing? Some one's doing, it
without doubt was; from some Idea, in some single Head, it did first of
all take beginning: why not from some Idea in mine?" Does Teufelsdrockh,
here glance at that "SOCIETY FOR THE CONSERVATION OF PROPERTY
(_Eigenthums-conservirende Gesellschaft_)," of which so many ambiguous
notices glide spectra-like through these inexpressible Paper-bags? "An
Institution," hints he, "not unsuitable to the wants of the time; as
indeed such sudden extension proves: for already can the Society number,
among its office-bearers or corresponding members, the highest Names, if
not the highest Persons, in Germany, England, France; and contributions,
both of money and of meditation pour in from all quarters; to, if
possible, enlist the remaining Integrity of the world, and, defensively
and with forethought, marshal it round this Palladium." Does
Teufelsdrockh mean, then, to give himself out as the originator of
that so notable _Eigenthums-conservirende_ ("Owndom-conserving")
_Gesellschaft_; and if so, what, in the Devil's name, is it? He again
hints: "At a time when the divine Commandment, _Thou shalt not steal_,
wherein truly, if well understood, is comprised the whole Hebrew
Decalogue, with Solon's and Lycurgrus's Constitutions, Justinian's
Pandects, the Code Napoleon, and all Codes, Catechisms, Divinities,
Moralities whatsoever, that man has hitherto devised (and enforced with
Altar-fire and Gallows-ropes) for his social guidance: at a time, I say,
when this divine Commandment has all but faded away from the general
remembrance; and, with little disguise, a new opposite Commandment,
_Thou shalt steal_, is everywhere promulgated,--it perhaps behooved, in
this universal dotage and deliration, the sound portion of mankind to
bestir themselves and rally. When the widest and wildest violations
of that divine right of Property, the only divine right now extant or
conceivable, are sanctioned and recommended by a vicious Press, and the
world has lived to hear it asserted that _we have no Property in our
very Bodies, but only an accidental Possession and Life-rent_, what
is the issue to be looked for? Hangmen and Catchpoles may, by their
noose-gins and baited fall-traps, keep down the smaller sort of vermin;
but what, except perhaps some such Universal Association, can protect
us against whole meat-devouring and man-devouring hosts of
Boa-constrictors. If, therefore, the more sequeste