saw. Nay, his problem is not an impossible
one: he will infallibly _arrive_ at that same country of Nowhere; his
indistinct Whitherward will be a _Thither_ward! In the Ocean Abysses
and Locker of Davy Jones, there certainly enough do he and _his_
ship's company, and all their cargo and navigatings, at last find
lodgment.

Oliver knew that his America lay There, Westward Ho;--and it was not
entirely by _friendship_ of the Water-Alps, and yeasty insane
Froth-Oceans, that he meant to get thither! He sailed accordingly; had
compass-card, and Rules of Navigation,--older and greater than these
Froth-Oceans, old as the Eternal God! Or again, do but think of this.
Windbag in these his probable five years of office has to prosper and
get Paragraphs: the Paragraphs of these five years must be his
salvation, or he is a lost man; redemption nowhere in the Worlds or in
the Times discoverable for him. Oliver too would like his Paragraphs;
successes, popularities in these five years are not undesirable to
him: but mark, I say, this enormous circumstance: _after_ these five
years are gone and done, comes an Eternity for Oliver! Oliver has to
appear before the Most High Judge: the utmost flow of Paragraphs, the
utmost ebb of them, is now, in strictest arithmetic, verily no matter
at all; its exact value _zero_; an account altogether erased!
Enormous;--which a man, in these days, hardly fancies with an effort!
Oliver's Paragraphs are all done, his battles, division-lists,
successes all summed: and now in that awful unerring Court of Review,
the real question first rises, Whether he has succeeded at all;
whether he has not been defeated miserably forevermore? Let him come
with world-wide _Io-Paeans_, these avail him not. Let him come covered
over with the world's execrations, gashed with ignominious
death-wounds, the gallows-rope about his neck: what avails that? The
word is, Come thou brave and faithful; the word is, Depart thou quack
and accursed!

O Windbag, my right honourable friend, in very truth I pity thee. I
say, these Paragraphs, and low or loud votings of thy poor
fellow-blockheads of mankind, will never guide thee in any enterprise
at all. Govern a country on such guidance? Thou canst not make a pair
of shoes, sell a pennyworth of tape, on such. No, thy shoes are vamped
up falsely to meet the market; behold, the leather only _seemed_ to be
tanned; thy shoes melt under me to rubbishy pulp, and are not
veritable mud-defying