alter things?

C. Wal. We cannot alter them, Sir--but they will be altered, never
fear.

Omnes. How? How?

C. Wal. Do you see this hour-glass?--Here's the state:
This air stands for the idlers;--this sand for the workers.
When all the sand has run to the bottom, God in heaven just turns
the hour-glass, and then--

C. Hugo. The world's upside down.

C. Wal. And the Lord have mercy upon us!

Omnes. On us? Do you call us the idlers?

C. Wal. Some dare to do so--But fear not--In the fulness of time,
all that's lightest is sure to come to the top again.

C. Hugo. But what rascal calls us idlers?

Omnes. Name, name.

C. Wal. Why, if you ask me--I heard a shrewd sermon the other day
on that same idleness and immorality text of the Abbot's.--'Twas
Conrad, the Princess's director, preached it. And a fashionable cap
it is, though it will fit more than will like to wear it. Shall I
give it you? Shall I preach?

C. Hugo. A tub for Varila! Stand on the table, now, toss back thy
hood like any Franciscan, and preach away.

C. Wal. Idleness, quoth he [Conrad, mind you],--idleness and
immorality? Where have they learnt them, but from your nobles?
There was a saucy monk for you. But there's worse coming.
Religion? said he, how can they respect it, when they see you,
'their betters,' fattening on church lands, neglecting sacraments,
defying excommunications, trading in benefices, hiring the clergy
for your puppets and flatterers, making the ministry, the episcopate
itself, a lumber-room wherein to stow away the idiots and
spendthrifts of your families, the confidants of your mistresses,
the cast-off pedagogues of your boys?

Omnes. The scoundrel!

C. Wal. Was he not?--But hear again--Immorality? roars he; and who
has corrupted them but you? Have you not made every castle a weed-
bed, from which the newest corruptions of the Court stick like
thistle-down, about the empty heads of stable-boys and serving
maids? Have you not kept the poor worse housed than your dogs and
your horses, worse fed than your pigs and your sheep? Is there an
ancient house among you, again, of which village gossips do not
whisper some dark story of lust and oppression, of decrepit
debauchery, of hereditary doom?

Omnes. We'll hang this monk.

C. Wal. Hear me out, and you'll burn him. His sermon was like a
hailstorm, the tail of the shower the sharpest. Idleness? he asked
next of us all: how will they work, wh