s in Mayfair's drawingrooms! Not in victory over poor brother
French or Phrygians; but in victory over Frost-joetuns, Marsh-giants,
over demons of Discord, Idleness, Injustice, Unreason, and Chaos come
again. None of the old Epics is longer possible. The Epic of French
and Phrygians was comparatively a small Epic: but that of Flirts and
Fribbles, what is that? A thing that vanishes at cock-crowing,--that
already begins to scent the morning air! Game-preserving
Aristocracies, let them 'bush' never so effectually, cannot escape the
Subtle Fowler. Game seasons will be excellent, and again will be
indifferent, and by and by they will not be at all. The Last Partridge
of England, of an England where millions of men can get no corn to
eat, will be shot and ended. Aristocracies with beards on their chins
will find other work to do than amuse themselves with trundling-hoops.

* * * * *

But it is to you, ye Workers, who do already work, and are as grown
men, noble and honourable in a sort, that the whole world calls for
new work and nobleness. Subdue mutiny, discord, wide-spread despair,
by manfulness, justice, mercy and wisdom. Chaos is dark, deep as Hell;
let light be, and there is instead a green flowery World. Oh, it is
great, and there is no other greatness. To make some nook of God's
Creation a little fruitfuller, better, more worthy of God; to make
some human hearts a little wiser, manfuler, happier,--more blessed,
less accursed! It is work for a God. Sooty Hell of mutiny and savagery
and despair can, by man's energy, be made a kind of Heaven; cleared of
its soot, of its mutiny, of its need to mutiny; the everlasting arch
of Heaven's azure overspanning _it_ too, and its cunning mechanisms
and tall chimney-steeples, as a birth of Heaven; God and all men
looking on it well pleased.

Unstained by wasteful deformities, by wasted tears or heart's-blood of
men, or any defacement of the Pit, noble fruitful Labour, growing ever
nobler, will come forth,--the grand sole miracle of Man; whereby Man
has risen from the low places of this Earth, very literally, into
divine Heavens. Ploughers, Spinners, Builders; Prophets, Poets, Kings;
Brindleys and Goethes, Odins and Arkwrights; all martyrs, and noble
men, and gods are of one grand Host; immeasurable; marching ever
forward since the beginnings of the World. The enormous,
all-conquering, flame-crowned Host, noble every soldier in it; sacred,
and alone