r feel of
late as if it were clearing. To fly in the teeth of English
Puseyism, and risk such shrill welcome as I am pretty sure of, is
questionable: yet at bottom why not? Dost thou not as entirely
reject this new Distraction of a Puseyism as man can reject a
thing,--and couldst utterly abjure it, and even abhor it,--were
the shadow of a cobweb ever likely to become momentous, the
cobweb itself being _beheaded,_ with axe and block on Tower Hill,
two centuries ago? I think it were as well to _tell_ Puseyism
that it has something of good, but also much of bad and even
worst. We shall see. If I print the thing, we shall surely take
in America again; either by stereotype or in some other way.
Fear not that!--Do you attend at all to this new _Laudism_ of
ours? It spreads far and wide among our Clergy in these days; a
most notable symptom, very cheering to me many ways; whether or
not one of the fatalest our poor Church of England has ever
exhibited, and betokening swifter ruin to it than any other, I do
not inquire. Thank God, men do discover at last that there is
still a God present in their affairs, and must be, or their
affairs are of the Devil, naught, and worthy of being sent to the
Devil! This once given, I find that all is given; daily
History, in Kingdom and in Parish, is an _experimentum crucis_ to
show what is the Devil's and what not. But on the whole are we
not the _formalest_ people ever created under this Sun? Cased
and overgrown with Formulas, like very lobsters with their
shells, from birth upwards; so that in the man we see only his
breeches, and believe and swear that wherever a pair of old
breeches are there is a man! I declare I could both laugh and
cry. These poor good men, merciful, zealous, with many
sympathies and thoughts, there do they vehemently appeal to me,
_Et tu, Brute?_ Brother, wilt thou too insist on the breeches
being old,--not ply a needle among us here?--To the naked
Caliban, gigantic, for whom such breeches would not be a glove,
who is stalking and groping there in search of new breeches and
accoutrements, sure to get them, and to tread into nonentity
whoever hinders him in the search,--they are blind as if they had
no eyes. Sartorial men; ninth-parts of a man:--enough of them.

The second Number of the _Dial_ has also arrived some days ago.
I like it decidedly better than the first; in fact, it is right
well worth being put on paper, and sent circulating;--I fi