r as it
teaches him vigilance, patience, courage, toughness of lungs or of soul,
and skill in any kind of swimming, it is a good school. In so far as it
forces him to speak where Nature orders silence; and even, lest all the
world should learn his secret (which often enough would kill his secret,
and little profit the world), forces him to speak falsities, vague
ambiguities, and the froth-dialect usual in Parliaments in these times,
it may be considered one of the worst schools ever devised by man; and,
I think, may almost challenge the OEil-de-Boeuf to match it in badness.

Parliament will train your men to the manners required of a statesman;
but in a much less degree to the intrinsic functions of one. To these
latter, it is capable of mistraining as nothing else can. Parliament
will train you to talk; and above all things to hear, with patience,
unlimited quantities of foolish talk. To tell a good story for yourself,
and to make it _appear_ that you have done your work: this, especially
in constitutional countries, is something;--and yet in all countries,
constitutional ones too, it is intrinsically nothing, probably even
less. For it is not the function of any mortal, in Downing Street or
elsewhere here below, to wag the tongue of him, and make it appear that
he has done work; but to wag some quite other organs of him, and to
do work; there is no danger of his work's appearing by and by. Such an
accomplishment, even in constitutional countries, I grieve to say, may
become much less than nothing. Have you at all computed how much less?
The human creature who has once given way to satisfying himself with
"appearances," to seeking his salvation in "appearances," the moral life
of such human creature is rapidly bleeding out of him. Depend upon it,
Beelzebub, Satan, or however you may name the too authentic Genius of
Eternal Death, has got that human creature in his claws. By and by you
will have a dead parliamentary bagpipe, and your living man fled away
without return!

Such parliamentary bagpipes I myself have heard play tunes, much to the
satisfaction of the people. Every tune lies within their compass; and
their mind (for they still call it _mind_) is ready as a hurdy-gurdy
on turning of the handle: "My Lords, this question now before the
House"--Ye Heavens, O ye divine Silences, was there in the womb of
Chaos, then, such a product, liable to be evoked by human art, as that
same? While the galleries were all applau