er came to thicker-skinned people; never had a
God's-message to pierce through thicker integuments, into heavier
ears. It is Fact, speaking once more, in miraculous thunder-voice,
from out of the centre of the world;--how unknown its language to the
deaf and foolish many; how distinct, undeniable, terrible and yet
beneficent, to the hearing few: Behold, ye shall grow wiser, or ye
shall die! Truer to Nature's Fact, or inane Chimera will swallow you;
in whirlwinds of fire, you and your Mammonisms, Dilettantisms, your
Midas-eared philosophies, double-barrelled Aristocracies, shall
disappear!--Such is the God's-message to _us_, once more, in these
modern days.

We must have more Wisdom to govern us, we must be governed by the
Wisest, we must have an Aristocracy of Talent! cry many. True, most
true; but how to get it? The following extract from our young friend
of the _Houndsditch Indicator_ is worth perusing: 'At this time,' says
he, 'while there is a cry everywhere, articulate or inarticulate, for
an "Aristocracy of Talent," a Governing Class namely which did govern,
not merely which took the wages of governing, and could not with all
our industry be kept from misgoverning, corn-lawing, and playing the
very deuce with us,--it may not be altogether useless to remind some
of the greener-headed sort what a dreadfully difficult affair the
getting of such an Aristocracy is! Do you expect, my friends, that
your indispensable Aristocracy of Talent is to be enlisted
straightway, by some sort of recruitment aforethought, out of the
general population; arranged in supreme regimental order; and set to
rule over us? That it will be got sifted, like wheat out of chaff,
from the Twenty-seven Million British subjects; that any Ballot-box,
Reform Bill, or other Political Machine, with Force of Public Opinion
never so active on it, is likely to perform said process of sifting?
Would to Heaven that we had a sieve; that we could so much as fancy
any kind of sieve, wind-fanners, or ne-plus-ultra of machinery,
devisable by man, that would do it!

'Done nevertheless, sure enough, it must be; it shall and will be. We
are rushing swiftly on the road to destruction; every hour bringing us
nearer, until it be, in some measure, done. The doing of it is not
doubtful; only the method and the costs! Nay I will even mention to
you an infallible sifting process whereby he that has ability will be
sifted out to rule among us, and that same blessed Arist