cord, Idleness,
Injustice, Unreason, and Chaos come again. None of the old Epics
is longer possible. The Epic of French and Phrygians was
comparatively a small Epic: but that of Flirts and Fribbles,
what is that? A thing that vanishes at cock-crowing,--that
already begins to scent the morning air! Game-preserving
Aristocracies, let them 'bush' never so effectually, cannot
escape the Subtle Fowler. Game seasons will be excellent, and
again will be indifferent, and by and by they will not be at all.
The Last Partridge of England, of an England where millions of
men can get no corn to eat, will be shot and ended.
Aristocracies with beards on their chins will find other work to
do than amuse themselves with trundling-hoops.

But it is to you, ye Workers, who do already work, and are as
grown men, noble and honourable in a sort, that the whole world
calls for new work and nobleness. Subdue mutiny, discord,
widespread despair, by manfulness, justice, mercy and wisdom.
Chaos is dark, deep as Hell; let light be, and there is instead
a green flowery World. O, it is great, and there is no other
greatness. To make some nook of God's Creation a little
fruitfuler, better, more worthy of God; to make some human
hearts a little wiser, manfuler, happier,--more blessed, less
accursed! It is work for a God. Sooty Hell of mutiny and
savagery and despair can, by man's energy, be made a kind of
Heaven; cleared of its soot, of its mutiny, of its need to
mutiny; the everlasting arch of Heaven's azure overspanning _it_
too, and its cunning mechanisms and tall chimney-steeples, as a
birth of Heaven; God and all men looking on it well pleased.

Unstained by wasteful deformities, by wasted tears or heart's-
blood of men, or any defacement of the Pit, noble fruitful
Labour, growing ever nobler, will come forth,--the grand sole
miracle of Man; whereby Man has risen from the low places of
this Earth, very literally, into divine Heavens. Ploughers,
Spinners, Builders; Prophets, Poets, Kings; Brindleys and
Goethes, Odins and Arkwrights; all martyrs, and noble men, and
gods are of one grand Host: immeasurable; marching ever forward
since the Beginnings of the World. The enormous, all-conquering,
flame-crowned Host, noble every soldier in it; sacred, and alone
noble. Let him who is not of it hide himself; let him tremble
for himself. Stars at every button cannot make him noble;
sheaves of Bath-garters, nor bushels of Geo