hat it was before any constitution was yet
heard of, or the first official wig had budded out of nothing: namely,
to ascertain what the truth of your question, in Nature, really is!
Verily so. In this time and place, as in all past and in all future
times and places. To-day in St. Stephen's, where constitutional,
philanthropical, and other great things lie in the mortar-kit; even as
on the Plain of Shinar long ago, where a certain Tower, likewise of a
very philanthropic nature, indeed one of the desirablest towers I ever
heard of, was to be built,--but couldn't! My friends, I do not laugh;
truly I am more inclined to weep.

Get, by six hundred and fifty-eight votes, or by no vote at all, by
the silent intimation of your own eyesight and understanding given you
direct out of Heaven, and more sacred to you than anything earthly, and
than all things earthly,--a correct image of the fact in question, as
God and Nature have made it: that is the one thing needful; with that it
shall be well with you in whatsoever you have to do with said fact. Get,
by the sublimest constitutional methods, belauded by all the world, an
incorrect image of the fact: so shall it be other than well with you; so
shall you have laud from able editors and vociferous masses of mistaken
human creatures; and from the Nature's Fact, continuing quite silently
the same as it was, contradiction, and that only. What else? Will Nature
change, or sulphuric acid become sweet milk, for the noise of vociferous
blockheads? Surely not. Nature, I assure you, has not the smallest
intention of doing so.

On the contrary, Nature keeps silently a most exact Savings-bank,
and official register correct to the most evanescent item, Debtor and
Creditor, in respect to one and all of us; silently marks down, Creditor
by such and such an unseen act of veracity and heroism; Debtor to such
a loud blustery blunder, twenty-seven million strong or one unit strong,
and to all acts and words and thoughts executed in consequence of
that,--Debtor, Debtor, Debtor, day after day, rigorously as Fate (for
this is Fate that is writing); and at the end of the account you
will have it all to pay, my friend; there is the rub! Not the
infinitesimalest fraction of a farthing but will be found marked there,
for you and against you; and with the due rate of interest you will have
to pay it, neatly, completely, as sure as you are alive. You will have
to pay it even in money if you live:--and, poor