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Article . THE SiaNS OF ENGLAND; ← Page 3 of 5 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
. The Sians Of England;
finest social principles or the greatest philosophic acumen be taken in satisfaction of our taxes . Men think ( and very sensibly think ) that the operations of life are confined to the earning bread for their wives and families . These cannot live on politics ; and , in regard to these , there is no truth so triumphant as that the public weal must yield to the private necessity—patriotism and public justice to pabulum .
It is , then , this universal selfishness , this sad , this dreary necessity that we should each take care of ourself , —it is this compelled holding on and clutching at the main chance , which hardens our hearts and dulls our understandings . We have no real political blood in us : we are made up of mechanical muscles , and with a heart-case stuffed with paper . Our eyes are of glass , and our vital pulses are clockwork . We are mere machines , in fact ; darting in
and out of our places of business and walking about the streets . The show is ghastly ! We are as the automata of some commercial Magus—some Cobden , or apostle of expediency—some aristocratic or successful spouter , with a mouth of wood , rattling fine words like peas , and a dry nut , full of dust , for a political heart . We are scarcely freemen . We are prepared—in our commercial frights—to yield our opinions , as Sancho his soul , in mortal terror , to the first Newspaper that asks them of us . And since the Newspaper
has grown as the rug to our hearth—the glass in which every man trims his beard in the morning—we believe in it , and yearn towards it—count it as one of our household gods—decline into its arms as our political Dalilah—and permit our mind to take its tone from its felicitations ; nay , from the reveries that linger about it , and are as a sort of atmosphere that we carry about us .
Nor is this all . Every man feels so the money-pressure upon him that he cannot convert himself into a politician . This his extremity becomes therefore the Journal ' s opportunity ; and it readily avails itself of it , by pouring its own views into the minds of its readers as into cups . From his commercial dependence , in such innumerable instances , a man cannot afford to have an independent opinion in England ; and for this reason we verv rarely hear any independent
view of things expressed . Of a political system whose utilities every moment convince us lie so remote from us , we can little care . What are Lords and Commons to us ? We must live . Our smallcorner light , in the great battle of life , is to be found in our shop , our warehouse , or our office . We suppose that , somehow , public affairs will be carried on . We imagine that if a man is knocked down , somebody will be taken up for it : there is that great public
functionary , the policeman , to see to all this . We look out upon the world , and the first tiring we find is , that fine feelings are Quixotic ; that they stand dreadfully in the way of a man ' s advance ; that it " you would secure a forward place in the procession , you must not stop by the way to pity those unfortunate passengers that sit or lie groaning , with their hurts on their foreheads , by the side of the road . Every morning that we open our eyes , we see that the world
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
. The Sians Of England;
finest social principles or the greatest philosophic acumen be taken in satisfaction of our taxes . Men think ( and very sensibly think ) that the operations of life are confined to the earning bread for their wives and families . These cannot live on politics ; and , in regard to these , there is no truth so triumphant as that the public weal must yield to the private necessity—patriotism and public justice to pabulum .
It is , then , this universal selfishness , this sad , this dreary necessity that we should each take care of ourself , —it is this compelled holding on and clutching at the main chance , which hardens our hearts and dulls our understandings . We have no real political blood in us : we are made up of mechanical muscles , and with a heart-case stuffed with paper . Our eyes are of glass , and our vital pulses are clockwork . We are mere machines , in fact ; darting in
and out of our places of business and walking about the streets . The show is ghastly ! We are as the automata of some commercial Magus—some Cobden , or apostle of expediency—some aristocratic or successful spouter , with a mouth of wood , rattling fine words like peas , and a dry nut , full of dust , for a political heart . We are scarcely freemen . We are prepared—in our commercial frights—to yield our opinions , as Sancho his soul , in mortal terror , to the first Newspaper that asks them of us . And since the Newspaper
has grown as the rug to our hearth—the glass in which every man trims his beard in the morning—we believe in it , and yearn towards it—count it as one of our household gods—decline into its arms as our political Dalilah—and permit our mind to take its tone from its felicitations ; nay , from the reveries that linger about it , and are as a sort of atmosphere that we carry about us .
Nor is this all . Every man feels so the money-pressure upon him that he cannot convert himself into a politician . This his extremity becomes therefore the Journal ' s opportunity ; and it readily avails itself of it , by pouring its own views into the minds of its readers as into cups . From his commercial dependence , in such innumerable instances , a man cannot afford to have an independent opinion in England ; and for this reason we verv rarely hear any independent
view of things expressed . Of a political system whose utilities every moment convince us lie so remote from us , we can little care . What are Lords and Commons to us ? We must live . Our smallcorner light , in the great battle of life , is to be found in our shop , our warehouse , or our office . We suppose that , somehow , public affairs will be carried on . We imagine that if a man is knocked down , somebody will be taken up for it : there is that great public
functionary , the policeman , to see to all this . We look out upon the world , and the first tiring we find is , that fine feelings are Quixotic ; that they stand dreadfully in the way of a man ' s advance ; that it " you would secure a forward place in the procession , you must not stop by the way to pity those unfortunate passengers that sit or lie groaning , with their hurts on their foreheads , by the side of the road . Every morning that we open our eyes , we see that the world