egimen, change of constitution and
existence from the very centre of it; a new body to be got, with
resuscitated soul,--not without convulsive travail-throes; as all
birth and new-birth presupposes travail! This is sad news to a
disconsolate discerning Public, hoping to have got off by some
Morrison's Pill, some Saint-John's corrosive mixture and perhaps a
little blistery friction on the back!--We were prepared to part with
our Corn-Law, with various Laws and Unlaws: but this, what is this?

Nor has the Editor forgotten how it fares with your ill-boding
Cassandras in Sieges of Troy. Imminent perdition is not usually driven
away by words of warning. Didactic Destiny has other methods in store;
or these would fail always. Such words should, nevertheless, be
uttered, when they dwell truly in the soul of any man. Words are hard,
are importunate; but how much harder the importunate events they
foreshadow! Here and there a human soul may listen to the words,--who
knows how many human souls?--whereby the importunate events, if not
diverted and prevented, will be rendered _less_ hard. The present
Editor's purpose is to himself full of hope.

For though fierce travails, though wide seas and roaring gulfs lie
before us, is it not something if a Loadstar, in the eternal sky, do
once more disclose itself; an everlasting light, shining through all
cloud-tempests and roaring billows; ever as we emerge from the trough
of the sea: the blessed beacon, far off on the edge of far horizons,
towards which we are to steer incessantly for life? Is it not
something; O Heavens, is it not all? There lies the Heroic Promised
Land; under that Heaven's-light, my brethren, bloom the Happy
Isles,--there, O there! Thither will we;

'There dwells the great Achilles whom we knew.'[2]

There dwell all Heroes, and will dwell: thither, all ye
heroic-minded!--The Heaven's Loadstar once clearly in our eye, how
will each true man stand truly to _his_ work in the ship; how, with
undying hope, will all things be fronted, all be conquered. Nay, with
the ship's prow once turned in that direction, is not all, as it were,
already well? Sick wasting misery has become noble manful effort with
a goal in our eye. 'The choking Nightmare chokes us no longer; for we
_stir_ under it; the Nightmare has already fled.'--

Certainly, could the present Editor instruct men how to know Wisdom,
Heroism, when they see it, that they might do reverence to _it_ only,
and loy