accordingly, in these sad times of doubt and cowardly sloth, he
has long everywhere been endeavoring to reduce to its minimum,
and has in fact in most cases nearly escaped altogether. It is
an ungoverned world; a world which we flatter ourselves will
henceforth need no governing. On the dust of our heroic
ancestors we too sit ballot-boxing, saying to one another, It is
well, it is well! By inheritance of their noble struggles, we
have been permitted to sit slothful so long. By noble toil , not
by shallow laughter and vain talk, they made this English
Existence from a savage forest into an arable inhabitable field
for us; and we, idly dreaming it would grow spontaneous crops
forever,--find it now in a too questionable state; peremptorily
requiring real labor and agriculture again. Real "agriculture"
is not pleasant; much pleasanter to reap and winnow (with
ballot-box or otherwise) than to plough!

Who would govern that can get along without governing? He that
is fittest for it, is of all men the unwillingest unless
constrained. By multifarious devices we have been endeavoring to
dispense with governing; and by very superficial speculations, of
_laissez-faire_, supply-and-demand, &c. &c. to persuade ourselves
that it is best so. The Real Captain, unless it be some Captain
of mechanical Industry hired by Mammon, where is he in these
days? Most likely, in silence, in sad isolation somewhere, in
remote obscurity; trying if, in an evil ungoverned time, he
cannot at least govern himself. The Real Captain undiscoverable;
the Phantasm Captain everywhere very conspicuous:--it is thought
Phantasm Captains, aided by ballot-boxes, are the true method,
after all. They are much the pleasantest for the time being!
And so no _Dux_ or Duke of any sort, in any province of our