more from such? They are the one bane of the world. Once clear
the world of them, it ceases to be a Devil's-world, in all fibres
of it wretched, accursed; and begins to be a God's-world,
blessed, and working hourly towards blessedness. Thou for one
wilt not again vote for any quack, do honour to any edge-gilt
vacuity in man's shape: cant shall be known to thee by the sound
of it;--thou wilt fly from cant with a shudder never felt before;
as from the opened litany of Sorcerers' Sabbaths, the true Devil-
worship of this age, more horrible than any other blasphemy,
profanity or genuine blackguardism elsewhere audible among men.
It is alarming to witness,--in its present completed state! And
Quack and Dupe, as we must ever keep in mind, are upper-side and
under of the selfsame substance; convertible personages: turn
up your dupe into the proper fostering element, and he
himself can become a quack; there is in him the due prurient
insincerity, open voracity for profit, and closed sense for
truth, whereof quacks too, in all their kinds, are made.

Alas, it is not to the hero, it is to the sham-hero that, of
right and necessity, the valet-world belongs. 'What is to be
done?' The reader sees whether it is like to be the seeking and
swallowing of some 'remedial measure!'




Chapter V

Aristocracy of Talent