ll to be concerned in image-breaking and
down-pulling; for the Great Man, _more_ a man than we, it is doubly
tragical.

Thus too all human things, maddest French Sansculottisms, do and must
work towards Order. I say, there is not a _man_ in them, raging in the
thickest of the madness, but is impelled withal, at all moments, towards
Order. His very life means that; Disorder is dissolution, death. No
chaos but it seeks a _centre_ to revolve round. While man is
man, some Cromwell or Napoleon is the necessary finish of a
Sansculottism.--Curious: in those days when Hero-worship was the most
incredible thing to every one, how it does come out nevertheless, and
assert itself practically, in a way which all have to credit. Divine
_right_, take it on the great scale, is found to mean divine _might_
withal! While old false Formulas are getting trampled everywhere into
destruction, new genuine Substances unexpectedly unfold themselves
indestructible. In rebellious ages, when Kingship itself seems dead and
abolished, Cromwell, Napoleon step forth again as Kings. The history of
these men is what we have now to look at, as our last phasis of Heroism.
The old ages are brought back to us; the manner in which Kings were
made, and Kingship itself first took rise, is again exhibited in the
history of these Two.

We have had many civil wars in England; wars of Red and White Roses,
wars of Simon de Montfort; wars enough, which are not very memorable.
But that war of the Puritans has a significance which belongs to no one
of the others. Trusting to your candor, which will suggest on the other
side what I have not room to say, I will call it a section once more of
that great universal war which alone makes up the true History of the
World,--the war of Belief against Unbelief! The struggle of men intent
on the real essence of things, against men intent on the semblances and
forms of things. The Puritans, to many, seem mere savage Iconoclasts,
fierce destroyers of Forms; but it were more just to call them haters of
_untrue_ Forms. I hope we know how to respect Laud and his King as well
as them. Poor Laud seems to me to have been weak and ill-starred, not
dishonest an unfortunate Pedant rather than anything worse. His "Dreams"
and superstitions, at which they laugh so, have an affectionate, lovable
kind of character. He is like a College-Tutor, whose whole world is
forms, College-rules; whose notion is that these are the life and safety
of t