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CHAPTER IV.

HELOTAGE.

Ar this point we determine on adverting shortly, or rather reverting, to a certain Tract of Hofrath Heuschrecke's, entitled Institute for the Repression of Population; which lies, dishonourably enough (with torn leaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetic drugs), stuffed into the Bag Pisces. Not indeed for the sake of the Tract itself, which we admire little; but of the marginal Notes, evidently in Teufelsdröckh's hand, which rather copiously fringe it. A few of these may be in the right place here.

Into the Hofrath's Institute, with its extraordinary schemes, and machinery of Corresponding Boards and the like, we shall not so much as glance. Enough for us to understand that Heuschrecke is a disciple of Malthus; and so zealous for the doctrine, that his zeal almost literally eats him up. A deadly fear of Population possesses the Hofrath; something like a fixed-idea; undoubtedly akin to the more diluted forms of Madness. Nowhere, in that quarter of his intellectual world, is there light; nothing but a grim shadow of Hunger; open mouths opening wider and wider; a world to terminate by the frightfulest consummation; by its too dense inhabitants, famished into delirium, universally eating one another. To make air for himself in which strangulation, choking enough to a benevolent heart, the Hofrath founds, or proposes to found, this Institute of his, as the best he can do. It is only with our Professor's comments thereon that we concern ourselves.

First, then, remark that Teufelsdröckh, as a speculative Radical, has his own notions about human dignity; that the Zähdarm palaces and courtesies have not made him forgetful of the Futteral cottages. On the blank cover of Heuschrecke's Tract, we find the following indistinctly engrossed:

'Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toilworn Crafts'man that with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the Earth, and makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard Hand; crooked, coarse; wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning 'virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the Sceptre of this Planet. Ven'erable too is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, with 'its rude intelligence; for it is the face of a Man living manlike. 'Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and 'fingers so deformed: thou wert our Conscript, on whom the lot 'fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee too lay a god-created Form, but it was not to be unfolded; encrust'ed must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of Labour; and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom. 'Yet toil on, toil on: thou art in thy duty, be out of it who may; 'thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, for daily bread.

'A second man I honour, and still more highly: Him who is 'seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable; not daily bread, 'but the Bread of Life. Is not he too in his duty; endeavour 'ing towards inward Harmony; revealing this by act, or by word, 'through all his outward endeavours, be they high or low? High'est of all, when his outward and his inward endeavour are one: 'when we can name him Artist; not earthly Craftsman only, but 'inspired Thinker, who with heaven-made Implement conquers 'Heaven for us! If the poor and humble toil that we have Food, 'must not the high and glorious toil for him in return, that he 'have Light, have Guidance, Freedom, Immortality?—These two, ' in all their degrees, I honour: all else is chaff and dust, which 'let the wind blow whither it listeth.

'Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both digni'ties united; and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of 'man's wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer ' in this world know I nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such 'now any where be met with. Such a one will take thee back to 'Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendour of Heaven spring 'forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like a light shining in 'great darkness'

And again: 'It is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor we must all toil, or steal (howsoever we name our 'stealing), which is worse; no faithful workman finds his task a 'pastime. The poor is hungry and athirst; but for him also 'there is food and drink he is heavy-laden and weary; but for him also the Heavens send Sleep, and of the deepest; in his 'smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest envelopes him, and fit'ful glitterings of cloud-skirted Dreams. But what I do mourn ' over is, that the lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of 'heavenly, or even of earthly knowledge, should visit him; but 'only, in the haggard darkness, like two spectres, Fear and In'dignation bear him company. Alas, while the Body stands so 'broad and brawny, must the Soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupified, 'almost annihilated! Alas, was this too a Breath of God; be'stowed in Heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded!-That 'there should one Man die Ignorant who had capacity for Know'ledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty 'times in the minute, as by some computations it does. The mis'erable fraction of Science which our united Mankind, in a wide 'Universe of Nescience, has acquired, why is not this, with all 'diligence, imparted to all?'

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Quite in an opposite strain is the following: The old Spartans 'had a wiser method; and went out and hunted down their Helots, and speared and spitted them, when they grew too numer6 ous. With our improved fashions of hunting, Herr Hofrath, 6 now after the invention of fire-arms, and standing armies, how 'much easier were such a hunt! Perhaps in the most thickly'peopled country, some three days annually might suffice to 'shoot all the able-bodied Paupers that had accumulated within 'the year. Let Governments think of this. The expense were 'trifling: nay, the very carcasses would pay it. Have them salt'ed and barrelled; could not you victual therewith, if not Army 'and Navy, yet richly such infirm Paupers, in workhouses and 'elsewhere, as enlightened Charity, dreading no evil of them, 'might see good to keep alive?'

'And yet,' writes he farther on, there must be something 'wrong. A full-formed Horse will, in any market, bring from 'twenty to as high as two hundred Friedrichs d'or: such is his

'worth to the world. A full-formed Man is not only worth nothing to the world, but the world could afford him a round sum 'would he simply engage to go and hang himself. Nevertheless, 'which of the two was the more cunningly-devised article, even as 'an Engine? Good Heavens! A white European Man, stand'ing on his two Legs, with his two five-fingered Hands at his 'shackle-bones, and miraculous Head on his shoulders, is worth, 'I should say, from fifty to a hundred Horses!'

'True, thou Gold-Hofrath,' cries the Professor elsewhere: 'too 'crowded indeed! Meanwhile, what portion of this inconsidera'ble terraqueous Globe have ye actually tilled and delved, till it 'will grow no more? How thick stands your Population in the 'Pampas and Savannas of America; round ancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa; on both slopes of the Altaic chain, in 'the central Platform of Asia; in Spain, Greece, Turkey, Crim 'Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare? One man, in one year, as I 'have understood it, if you lend him Earth, will feed himself and 'nine others. Alas, where now are the Hengsts and Alarics of ' our still glowing, still expanding Europe; who, when their home 'is grown too narrow, will enlist and, like Fire-pillars, guide on'wards those superfluous masses of indomitable living Valour; ' equipped, not now with the battle-axe and war-chariot, but with 'the steam-engine and ploughshare? Where are they?-Pre'serving their Game!'

CHAPTER V.

THE PHOENIX.

PUTTING Which four singular Chapters together, and alongside of them numerous hints, and even direct utterances, scattered over these Writings of his, we come upon the startling yet not quite unlooked-for conclusion, that Teufelsdröckh is one of those who consider Society, properly so called, to be as good as extinct; and that only the Gregarious feelings, and old inherited habitudes, at this juncture, hold us from Dispersion, and universal national, civil, domestic and personal war! He says expressly: 'For the last three centuries, above all, for the last three quarters 'of a century, that same Pericardial Nervous Tissue (as we named 'it) of Religion, where lies the Life-essence of Society, has been 'smote at and perforated, needfully and needlessly; till now it is 'quite rent into shreds; and Society, long pining, diabetic, con'sumptive, can be regarded as defunct; for those spasmodic, gal'vanic sprawlings are not life; neither indeed will they endure, 'galvanise as you may, beyond two days.'

'Call ye that a Society,' cries he again, 'where there is no 'longer any Social Idea extant; not so much as the Idea of a 'common Home, but only of a common, over-crowded Lodging'house? Where each, isolated, regardless of his neighbour, ' turned against his neighbour, clutches what he can get, and cries "Mine!" and calls it Peace, because, in the cut-purse and cut'throat Scramble, no steel knives, but only a far cunninger sort, 'can be employed? Where Friendship, Communion, has become 'an incredible tradition; and your holiest Sacramental Supper is 'a smoking Tavern Dinner, with Cook for Evangelist? Where 'your Priest has no tongue but for plate-licking: and your high 'Guides and Governors cannot guide; but on all hands hear it 'passionately proclaimed: Laissez faire; Leave us alone of your

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