* *

Truly, I think the man who goes about pothering and uproaring for his
'happiness,'--pothering, and were it ballot-boxing, poem-making, or in
what way soever fussing and exerting himself,--he is not the man that
will help us to 'get our knaves and dastards arrested'! No; he rather
is on the way to increase the number,--by at least one unit and his
tail! Observe, too, that this is all a modern affair; belongs not to
the old heroic times, but to these dastard new times. 'Happiness our
being's end and aim,' all that very paltry speculation is at bottom,
if we will count well, not yet two centuries old in the world.

The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with asking much
about was, happiness enough to get his work done. Not "I can't eat!"
but "I can't work!" that was the burden of all wise complaining among
men. It is, after all, the one unhappiness of a man, That he cannot
work; that he cannot get his destiny as a man fulfilled. Behold, the
day is passing swiftly over, our life is passing swiftly over; and the
night cometh, wherein no man can work. The night once come, our
happiness, our unhappiness,--it is all abolished; vanished, clean
gone; a thing that has been: 'not of the slightest consequence'
whether we were happy as eupeptic Curtis, as the fattest pig of
Epicurus, or unhappy as Job with potsherds, as musical Byron with
Giaours and sensibilities of the heart; as the unmusical Meat-jack
with hard labour and rust! But our work,--behold that is not
abolished, that has not vanished: our work, behold, it remains, or the
want of it remains;--for endless Times and Eternities, remains; and
that is now the sole question with us forevermore! Brief brawling Day,
with its noisy phantasms, its poor paper-crowns tinsel-gilt, is gone;
and divine everlasting Night, with her star-diadems, with her silences
and her veracities, is come! What hast thou done, and how? Happiness,
unhappiness: all that was but the _wages_ thou hadst; thou hast spent
all that, in sustaining thyself hitherward; not a coin of it remains
with thee, it is all spent, eaten: and now thy work, where is thy
work? Swift, out with it; let us see thy work!

* * * * *

Of a truth, if man were not a poor hungry dastard, and even much of a
blockhead withal, he would cease criticising his victuals to such
extent; and criticise himself rather, what he does with his victuals!

CHAPTER V.

THE ENGLISH.