would, except for didactic objects? Know only that it does of a
truth whirl there; and fancy always, if you can, that certain
things and Human Figures, a Friedrich, a Chatham and some others,
have it for their Life-Element. Which, I often think, is their
principal misfortune with Posterity; said Life-Element having gone
to such an unutterable condition for gods and men.

"One other thing surprises us in those Old Pamphlets," says my
Constitutional Friend: "How the phrase, 'Cause of Liberty' ever and
anon turns up, with great though extinct emphasis, evidently
sincere. After groping, one is astonished to find it means Support
of the House of Austria; keeping of the Hapsburgs entire in their
old Possessions among mankind! That, to our great-grandfathers, was
the 'Cause of Liberty;'--said 'Cause' being, with us again,
Electoral Suffrage and other things; a notably different
definition, perhaps still wider of the mark.

"Our great-grandfathers lived in perpetual terror that they would
be devoured by France; that French ambition would overset the
Celestial Balance, and proceed next to eat the British Nation.
Stand upon your guard then, one would have said: Look to your
ships, to your defences, to your industries; to your virtues first
of all,--your VIRTUTES, manhoods, conformities to the Divine Law
appointed you; which are the great and indeed sole strength to any
Man or Nation! Discipline yourselves, wisely, in all kinds;
more and more, till there be no anarchic fibre left in you.
Unanarchic, disciplined at all points, you might then, I should
say, with supreme composure, let France, and the whole World at its
back, try what they could do upon you and the unique little Island
you are so lucky as to live in?--Foolish mortals: what Potentiality