it is a fatuity and chimera
mainly. Alas, in the never so heroic building of Montesquieu-Mably
card-castles, though shouted over by the world, what interest is there?
Occupied in that way, an august National Assembly becomes for us little
other than a Sanhedrim of pedants, not of the gerund-grinding, yet of no
fruitfuller sort; and its loud debatings and recriminations about Rights
of Man, Right of Peace and War, Veto suspensif, Veto absolu, what are
they but so many Pedant's-curses, 'May God confound you for your Theory
of Irregular Verbs!'

A Constitution can be built, Constitutions enough a la Sieyes: but the
frightful difficulty is that of getting men to come and live in them!
Could Sieyes have drawn thunder and lightning out of Heaven to sanction
his Constitution, it had been well: but without any thunder? Nay,
strictly considered, is it not still true that without some such
celestial sanction, given visibly in thunder or invisibly otherwise, no
Constitution can in the long run be worth much more than the waste-paper
it is written on? The Constitution, the set of Laws, or prescribed
Habits of Acting, that men will live under, is the one which images
their Convictions,--their Faith as to this wondrous Universe, and what
rights, duties, capabilities they have there; which stands sanctioned
therefore, by Necessity itself, if not by a seen Deity, then by an
unseen one. Other laws, whereof there are always enough ready-made, are
usurpations; which men do not obey, but rebel against, and abolish, by
their earliest convenience.

The question of questions accordingly were, Who is it that especially
for rebellers and abolishers, can make a Constitution? He that can image
forth the general Belief when there is one; that can impart one when,
as here, there is none. A most rare man; ever as of old a god-missioned
man! Here, however, in defect of such transcendent supreme man, Time
with its infinite succession of merely superior men, each yielding his
little contribution, does much. Force likewise (for, as Antiquarian
Philosophers teach, the royal Sceptre was from the first something of
a Hammer, to crack such heads as could not be convinced) will all along
find somewhat to do. And thus in perpetual abolition and reparation,
rending and mending, with struggle and strife, with present evil and the
hope and effort towards future good, must the Constitution, as all human
things do, build itself forward; or unbuild itself, and sin