one thing, to remind thee of such a fact; which all manner of
Mahometans, old Pagan Romans, Jews, Scythians and heathen Greeks,
and indeed more or less all men that God made, have managed at
one time to see into; nay which thou thyself, till 'redtape'
strangled the inner life of thee, hadst once some inkling of:
That there is justice here below; and even, at bottom, that
there is nothing else but justice! Forget that, thou hast
forgotten all. Success will never more attend thee: how can it
now? Thou hast the whole Universe against thee. No more
success: mere sham-success, for a day and days; rising ever
higher,--towards its Tarpeian Rock. Alas, how, in thy soft-hung
Longacre vehicle, of polished leather to the bodily eye, of
redtape philosophy, of expediencies, clubroom moralities,
Parliamentary majorities to the mind's eye, thou beautifully
rollest: but knowest thou whitherward? It is towards the
_road's end._ Old use-and-wont; established methods, habitudes,
once true and wise; man's noblest tendency, his perseverance,
and man's ignoblest, his inertia; whatsoever of noble and
ignoble Conservatism there is in men and Nations, strongest
always in the strongest men and Nations: all this is as a road
to thee, paved smooth through the abyss,--till all this _end._
Till men's bitter necessities can endure thee no more. Till
Nature's patience with thee is done; and there is no road or
footing any farther, and the abyss yawns sheer--

Parliament and the Courts of Westminster are venerable to me;
how venerable; grey with a thousand years of honourable age!
For a thousand years and more, Wisdom and faithful Valour,
struggling amid much Folly and greedy Baseness, not without most
sad distortions in the struggle, have built them up; and they