uacks when we see them; cant, when
we hear it, shall be horrible to us! We will say, with the poor
Frenchman at the Bar of the Convention, though in wiser style than he,
and 'for the space' not 'of an hour' but of a lifetime: "_Je demande
l'arrestation des coquins et des laches_." 'Arrestment of the knaves
and dastards:' ah, we know what a work that is; how long it will be
before _they_ are all or mostly got 'arrested:'--but here is one;
arrest him, in God's name; it is one fewer! We will, in all
practicable ways, by word and silence, by act and refusal to act,
energetically demand that arrestment,--"_je demande cette
arrestation-la!_"--and by degrees infallibly attain it. Infallibly:
for light spreads; all human souls, never so bedarkened, love light;
light once kindled spreads, till all is luminous;--till the cry,
"_Arrest_ your knaves and dastards" rises imperative from millions of
hearts, and rings and reigns from sea to sea. Nay how many of them may
we not 'arrest' with our own hands, even now; we! Do not countenance
them, thou there: turn away from their lacquered sumptuosities, their
belauded sophistries, their serpent graciosities, their spoken and
acted cant, with a sacred horror, with an _Apage Satanas_.--Bobus and
Company, and all men will gradually join us. We demand arrestment of
the knaves and dastards, and begin by arresting our own poor selves
out of that fraternity. There is no other reform conceivable. Thou and
I, my friend, can, in the most flunky world, make, each of us, _one_
non-flunky, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin
with:--Courage! even that is a whole world of heroes to end with, or
what we poor Two can do in furtherance thereof!

Yes, friends: Hero-kings, and a whole world not unheroic,--there lies
the port and happy haven, towards which, through all these stormtost
seas, French Revolutions, Chartisms, Manchester Insurrections, that
make the heart sick in these bad days, the Supreme Powers are driving
us. On the whole, blessed be the Supreme Powers, stern as they are!
Towards that haven will we, O friends; let all true men, with what of
faculty is in them, bend valiantly, incessantly, with thousandfold
endeavour, thither, thither! There, or else in the Ocean-abysses, it
is very clear to me, we shall arrive.

Well; here truly is no answer to the Sphinx-question; not the answer
a disconsolate public, inquiring at the College of Health, was in
hopes of! A total change of r