horsehair wig advances, promising that he will get me
'justice:' he takes me into Chancery Law-Courts, into decades,
half-centuries of hubbub, of distracted jargon; and does get
me--disappointment, almost desperation; and one refuge: that of
dismissing him and his 'justice' altogether out of my head. For
I have work to do; I cannot spend my decades in mere arguing
with other men about the exact wages of my work: I will work
cheerfully with no wages, sooner than with a ten-years gangrene
or Chancery Lawsuit in my heart! He of the horsehair wig is a
sort of failure; no substance, but a fond imagination of the
mind. He of the shovel-hat, again, who comes forward professing
that he will save my soul--O ye Eternities, of him in this place
be absolute silence!--But he of the red coat, I say, is a success
and no failure! He will veritably, if he get orders, draw out a
long sword and kill me. No mistake there. He is a fact and not
a shadow. Alive in this Year Forty-three, able and willing to do
his work. In dim old centuries, with William Rufus, William of
Ipres, or far earlier, he began; and has come down safe so far.
Catapult has given place to cannon, pike has given place to
musket, iron mail-shirt to coat of red cloth, saltpetre ropematch
to percussion cap; equipments, circumstances have all changed,
and again changed: but the human battle-engine, in the inside of
any or of each of these, ready still to do battle, stands there,
six feet in standard size. There are Pay-Offices, Woolwich
Arsenals, there is a Horse-Guards, War-Office, Captain-General;
persuasive Sergeants, with tap of drum, recruit in market-towns
and villages;--and, on the whole, I say, here is your actual
drilled fightingman; here are your actual Ninety-thousand of
such, ready to go into any quarter of the world and fight!

Strange, interesting, and yet most mournful to reflect on. Was
this, then, of all the things mankind had some talent for, the
one thing important to learn well, and bring to perfection; this
of, successfully killing one another? Truly you have learned it
well, and carried the business to a high perfection. It is
incalculable what, by arranging, commanding and regimenting, you
can make of men. These thousand straight-standing firm-set
individuals, who shoulder arms, who march, wheel, advance,
retreat; and are, for your behoof, a magazine charged with fiery
death, in the most perfect condition of potential activi