but in pride,
that he and his have done no work, time out of mind. It is the
law of the land, and is thought to be the law of the Universe,
that he, alone of recorded men, shall have no task laid on him,
except that of eating his cooked victuals, and not flinging
himself out of window. Once more I will say, there was no
stranger spectacle ever shewn under this Sun. A veritable fact
in our England of the Nineteenth Century. His victuals he does
eat: but as for keeping in the inside of the window,--have not
his friends, like me, enough to do? Truly, looking at his Corn-
Laws, Game-Laws, Chandos-Clauses, Bribery-Elections and much
else, you do shudder over the tumbling and plunging he makes,
held back by the lappelles and coatskirts; only a thin fence of
window-glass before him,--and in the street mere horrid iron
spikes! My sick brother, as in hospital-maladies men do, thou
dreamest of Paradises and Eldorados, which are far from thee.
'Cannot I do what I like with my own?' Gracious Heaven, my
brother, this that thou seest with those sick eyes is no firm
Eldorado, 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. Desce