and women cut down,--the number of the slain and
maimed is very countable: but the treasury of rage, burning hidden or
visible in all hearts ever since, more or less perverting the effort
and aim of all hearts ever since, is of unknown extent. "How ye came
among us, in your cruel armed blindness, ye unspeakable County
Yeomanry, sabres flourishing, hoofs prancing, and slashed us down at
your brute pleasure; deaf, blind to all _our_ claims and woes and
wrongs; of quick sight and sense to your own claims only! There lie
poor sallow work-worn weavers, and complain no more now; women
themselves are slashed and sabred, howling terror fills the air; and
ye ride prosperous, very victorious,--ye unspeakable: give _us_ sabres
too, and then come-on a little!" Such are Peterloos. In all hearts
that witnessed Peterloo, stands written, as in fire-characters, or
smoke-characters prompt to become fire again, a legible
balance-account of grim vengeance; very unjustly balanced, much
exaggerated, as is the way with such accounts: but payable readily at
sight, in full with compound interest! Such things should be avoided
as the very pestilence! For men's hearts ought not to be set against
one another; but set _with_ one another, and all against the Evil
Thing only. Men's souls ought to be left to see clearly; not
jaundiced, blinded, twisted all awry, by revenge, mutual abhorrence,
and the like. An Insurrection that can announce the disease, and then
retire with no such balance-account opened anywhere, has attained the
highest success possible for it.

And this was what these poor Manchester operatives, with all the
darkness that was in them and round them, did manage to perform. They
put their huge inarticulate question, "What do you mean to do with
us?" in a manner audible to every reflective soul in this kingdom;
exciting deep pity in all good men, deep anxiety in all men whatever;
and no conflagration or outburst of madness came to cloud that feeling
anywhere, but everywhere it operates unclouded. All England heard the
question: it is the first practical form of _our_ Sphinx-riddle.
England will answer it; or, on the whole, England will perish;--one
does not yet expect the latter result!

For the rest, that the Manchester Insurrection could yet discern no
radiance of Heaven on any side of its horizon; but feared that all
lights, of the O'Connor or other sorts, hitherto kindled, were but
deceptive fish-oil transparencies, or bog will-o