ldorado, and Corn-Law Paradise of
Donothings, but a dream of thy own fevered brain. It is a
glass-window, I tell thee, so many stories from the street; where are
iron spikes and the law of gravitation!

What is the meaning of nobleness, if this be 'noble'? In a valiant
suffering for others, not in a slothful making others suffer for us,
did nobleness ever lie. The chief of men is he who stands in the van
of men; fronting the peril which frightens back all others; which, if
it be not vanquished, will devour the others. Every noble crown is,
and on Earth will forever be, a crown of thorns. The Pagan Hercules,
why was he accounted a hero? Because he had slain Nemean Lions,
cleansed Augean Stables, undergone Twelve Labours only not too heavy
for a god. In modern, as in ancient and all societies, the
Aristocracy, they that assume the functions of an Aristocracy, doing
them or not, have taken the post of honour; which is the post of
difficulty, the post of danger,--of death, if the difficulty be not
overcome. _Il faut payer de sa vie._ Why was our life given us, if not
that we should manfully give it? Descend, O Donothing Pomp; quit thy
down-cushions; expose thyself to learn what wretches feel, and how to
cure it! The Czar of Russia became a dusty toiling shipwright; worked
with his axe in the Docks of Saardam; and his aim was small to thine.
Descend thou: undertake this horrid 'living chaos of Ignorance and
Hunger' weltering round thy feet; say, "I will heal it, or behold I
will die foremost in it." Such is verily the law. Everywhere and
everywhen a man has to '_pay_ with his life;' to do his work, as a
soldier does, at the expense of life. In no Piepowder earthly Court
can you sue an Aristocracy to do its work, at this moment: but in the
Higher Court, which even _it_ calls 'Court of Honour,' and which is
the Court of Necessity withal, and the eternal Court of the Universe,
in which all Fact comes to plead, and every Human Soul is an
apparitor,--the Aristocracy is answerable, and even now answering,
_there_.

* * * * *

Parchments? Parchments are venerable: but they ought at all times to
represent, as near as they by possibility can, the writing of the
Adamant Tablets; otherwise they are not so venerable! Benedict the Jew
in vain pleaded parchments; his usuries were too many. The King said,
"Go to, for all thy parchments, thou shalt pay just debt; down with
thy dust, or observe this tooth-f