e on
platforms, what a road have we travelled!

A foolish stump-orator, perorating on his platform mere benevolences,
seems a pleasant object to many persons; a harmless or insignificant
one to almost all. Look at him, however; scan him till you discern the
nature of him, he is not pleasant, but ugly and perilous. That
beautiful speech of his takes captive every long ear, and kindles into
quasi-sacred enthusiasm the minds of not a few; but it is quite in the
teeth of the everlasting facts of this Universe, and will come only
to mischief for every party concerned. Consider that little spouting
wretch. Within the paltry skin of him, it is too probable, he holds few
human virtues, beyond those essential for digesting victual: envious,
cowardly, vain, splenetic hungry soul; what heroism, in word or thought
or action, will you ever get from the like of him? He, in his necessity,
has taken into the benevolent line; warms the cold vacuity of his inner
man to some extent, in a comfortable manner, not by silently doing some
virtue of his own, but by fiercely recommending hearsay pseudo-virtues
and respectable benevolences to other people. Do you call that a good
trade? Long-eared fellow-creatures, more or less resembling himself,
answer, "Hear, hear! Live Fiddlestring forever!" Wherefrom follow
Abolition Congresses, Odes to the Gallows;--perhaps some dirty little
Bill, getting itself debated next Session in Parliament, to waste
certain nights of our legislative Year, and cause skipping in our
Morning Newspaper, till the abortion can be emptied out again and sent
fairly floating down the gutters.

Not with entire approbation do I, for one, look on that eloquent
individual. Wise benevolence, if it had authority, would order that
individual, I believe, to find some other trade: "Eloquent individual,
pleading here against the Laws of Nature,--for many reasons, I bid thee
close that mouth of thine. Enough of balderdash these long-eared have
now drunk. Depart thou; _do_ some benevolent work; at lowest, be silent.
Disappear, I say; away, and jargon no more in that manner, lest a worst
thing befall thee." _Exeat_ Fiddlestring!--Beneficent men are not they
who appear on platforms, pleading against the Almighty Maker's Laws;
these are the maleficent men, whose lips it is pity that some authority
cannot straightway shut. Pandora's Box is not more baleful than the
gifts these eloquent benefactors are pressing on us. Close your pedler's
pa