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Past and Present
From the text“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.”
- Book I. Proem
- IMidas~9 min read
The condition of England one of the most ominous ever seen in this world: Full of wealth in every kind, yet dying of inanition. Workhouses, in which no work can be done. Destitution in Scotland. Stockport Assizes.…
- IIThe Sphinx~12 min read
The grand unnamable Sphinx-riddle, which each man is called upon to solve. Notions of the foolish concerning justice and judgment. Courts of Westminster, and the general High Court of the Universe. The one strong thing,…
- IIIManchester Insurrection~13 min read
Peterloo not an unsuccessful Insurrection. Governors who wait for Insurrection to instruct them, getting into the fatalest courses. Unspeakable County Yeomanry. Poor Manchester operatives, and their huge inarticulate…
- IVMorrison's Pill~6 min read
A state of mind worth reflecting on. No Morrison's Pill for curing the maladies of Society: Universal alteration of regimen and way of life: Vain jargon giving place to some genuine Speech again. If we walk according to…
- VAristocracy of Talent~9 min read
All misery the fruit of unwisdom: Neither with individuals nor with Nations is it fundamentally otherwise. Nature in late centuries universally supposed to be dead; but now everywhere asserting herself to be alive and…
- VIHero-Worship~8 min read
Enlightened Egoism, never so luminous, not the rule by which man's life can be led. A soul, different from a stomach in any sense of the word. Hero-worship done differently in every different epoch of the world. Reform,…
- Book II. The Ancient Monk
- IJocelin of Brakelond~11 min read
How the Centuries stand lineally related to each other. The one Book not permissible, the kind that has nothing in it. Jocelin's 'Chronicle,' a private Boswellean Notebook, now seven centuries old. How Jocelin, from…
- IISt. Edmundsbury~6 min read
St. Edmund's Bury, a prosperous brisk Town: Extensive ruins of the Abbey still visible. Assiduous Pedantry, and its rubbish-heaps called 'History.' Another world it was, when those black ruins first saw the sun as…
- IIILandlord Edmund~10 min read
'Battle of Fornham,' a fact, though a forgotten one. Edmund, Landlord of the Eastern Counties: A very singular kind of 'landlord.' How he came to be 'sainted.' Seen and felt to have done verily a man's part in this…
- IVAbbot Hugo~8 min read
All things have two faces, a light one and a dark: The Ideal has to grow in the Real, and to seek its bed and board there, often in a very sorry manner. Abbot Hugo, grown old and feeble. Jew debts and Jew creditors. How…
- VTwelfth Century~6 min read
Inspectors or Custodiars; the King not in any breathless haste to appoint a new Abbot. Dim and very strange looks that monk-life to us. Our venerable ancient spinning grandmothers, shrieking, and rushing out with their…
- VIMonk Samson~11 min read
Monk-Life and Monk-Religion: A great heaven-high Unquestionability, encompassing, interpenetrating all human Duties. Our modern Arkwright Joe-Manton ages: All human dues and reciprocities changed into one great due of…
- VIIThe Canvassing~4 min read
A new Abbot to be elected. Even gossip, seven centuries off, has significance. The Prior with Twelve Monks, to wait on his Majesty at Waltham. An 'election' the one important social act. Given the Man a People choose,…
- VIIIThe Election~11 min read
Electoral methods and manipulations. Brother Samson ready oftenest with some question, some suggestion that has wisdom in it. The Thirteen off to Waltham, to choose their Abbot: In the solitude of the Convent, Destiny…
- IXAbbot Samson~9 min read
The Lord Abbot's arrival at St. Edmundsbury: The selfsame Samson yesterday a poor mendicant, this day finds himself a Dominus Abbas and mitred Peer of Parliament. Depth and opulence of true social vitality in those old…
- XGovernment~5 min read
Beautiful, how the chrysalis governing-soul, shaking off its dusty slough and prison, starts forth winged, a true royal soul! One first labour, to institute a strenuous review and radical reform of his economics.…
- XIThe Abbot's Ways~9 min read
Reproaches, open and secret, of ingratitude, unsociability: Except for 'fit men' in all kinds, hard to say for whom Abbot Samson had much favour. Remembrance of benefits. An eloquent man, but intent more on substance…
- XIIThe Abbot's Troubles~8 min read
The troubles of Abbot Samson more than tongue can tell. Not the spoil of victory, only the glorious toil of battle, can be theirs who really govern. An insurrection of the Monks. Behave better, ye remiss Monks, and…
- XIIIIn Parliament~2 min read
Confused days of Lackland's usurpation, while Coeur-de-Lion was away: Our brave Abbot took helmet himself, excommunicating all who should favour Lackland. King Richard a captive in Germany. St. Edmund's Shrine not…
- XIVHenry of Essex~6 min read
How St. Edmund punished terribly, yet with mercy: A Narrative significant of the Time. Henry Earl of Essex, standard-bearer of England: No right reverence for the Heavenly in Man. A traitor or a coward. Solemn Duel, by…
- XVPractical-Devotional~11 min read
A Tournament proclaimed and held in the Abbot's domain, in spite of him. Roystering young dogs brought to reason. The Abbot a man that generally remains master at last: The importunate Bishop of Ely outwitted. A man…
- XVISt. Edmund~12 min read
Abbot Samson built many useful, many pious edifices: ALL ruinous, incomplete things an eye-sorrow to him. Rebuilding the great Altar: A glimpse of the glorious Martyr's very Body. What a scene; how far vanished from us,…
- XVIIThe Beginnings~14 min read
Formulas the very skin and muscular tissue of a Man's Life: Living Formulas and dead. Habit the deepest law of human nature. A pathway through the pathless. Nationalities. Pulpy infancy, kneaded, baked into any form you…
- Book III. The Modern Worker
- IPhenomena~13 min read
How men have 'forgotten God;' taken the Fact of this Universe as it is not, God's Laws become a Greatest-Happiness Principle, a Parliamentary Expediency. Man has lost the soul out of him, and begins to find the want of…
- IIGospel of Mammonism~9 min read
Heaven and Hell, often as the words are on our tongue, got to be fabulous or semi-fabulous for most of us. The real 'Hell' of the English. Cash-payment, not the sole or even chief relation of human beings. Practical…
- IIIGospel of Dilettantism~4 min read
Mammonism at least works, but 'Go gracefully idle in Mayfair,' what does or can that mean? Impotent, insolent Donothingism in Practice and Saynothingism in Speech. No man now speaks a plain word: Insincere Speech the…
- IVHappy~6 min read
All work noble; and every noble crown a crown of thorns. Man's pitiful pretension to be what he calls 'happy.' His Greatest-Happiness Principle fast becoming a rather unhappy one. Byron's large audience. A philosophical…
- VThe English~13 min read
With all thy theoretic platitudes, what a depth of practical sense in thee, great England! A dumb people, who can do great acts, but not describe them. The noble Warhorse, and the Dog of Knowledge: The freest utterances…
- VITwo Centuries~6 min read
The 'Settlement' of the year 1660 one of the mournfulest that ever took place in this land of ours. The true end of Government, to guide men in the way they should go: The true good of this life, the portal of infinite…
- VIIOver-Production~6 min read
An idle Governing Class addressing its Workers with an indictment of 'Over-production.' Duty of justly apportioning the Wages of Work done. A game-preserving Aristocracy, guiltless of producing or apportioning anything.…
- VIIIUnworking Aristocracy~12 min read
Our Land the Mother of us all: No true Aristocracy but must possess the Land. Men talk of 'selling' Land: Whom it belongs to. Our much-consuming Aristocracy: By the law of their position bound to furnish guidance and…
- IXWorking Aristocracy~8 min read
Many things for the Working Aristocracy, in their extreme need, to consider. A National Existence supposed to depend on 'selling cheaper' than any other People. Let inventive men try to invent a little how cotton at its…
- XPlugson of Undershot~12 min read
Man's philosophies usually the 'supplement of his practice:' Symptoms of social death. Cash-Payment: The Plugson Ledger, and the Tablets of Heaven's Chancery, discrepant exceedingly. All human things do require to have…
- XILabour~7 min read
A perennial nobleness and even sacredness in Work. Significance of the Potter's Wheel. Blessed is he who has found his Work; let him ask no other blessedness. A brave Sir Christopher, and his Paul's Cathedral: Every…
- XIIReward~13 min read
Work is Worship: Labour, wide as the Earth, has its summit in Heaven. One monster there is in the world, the idle man. 'Fair day's-wages for a fair days-work,' the most unrefusable demand. The 'wages' of every noble…
- XIIIDemocracy~19 min read
Man must actually have his debts and earnings a little better paid by man. At no time was the lot of the dumb millions of toilers so entirely unbearable as now. Sisterhood, brotherhood often forgotten, but never before…
- XIVSir Jabesh Windbag~5 min read
Oliver Cromwell, the remarkablest Governor we have had for the last five centuries or so: No volunteer in Public Life, but plainly a balloted soldier: The Government of England put into his hands. Windbag, weak in the…
- XVMorrison Again~18 min read
New Religions: This new stage of progress, proceeding 'to invent God,' a very strange one indeed. Religion, the Inner Light or Moral Conscience of a man's soul. Infinite difference between a Good man and a Bad. The…
- Book IV. Horoscope
- IAristocracies~20 min read
To predict the Future, to manage the Present, would not be so impossible, had not the Past been so sacrilegiously mishandled: A godless century, looking back to centuries that were godly. A new real Aristocracy and…
- IIBribery Committee~8 min read
Our theory, perfect purity of Tenpound Franchise; our practice, irremediable bribery. Bribery, indicative not only of length of purse, but of brazen dishonesty: Proposed improvements. A Parliament, starting with a lie…
- IIIThe One Institution~18 min read
The 'Organisation of Labour,' if well understood, the Problem of the whole Future. Governments of various degrees of utility. Kilkenny Cats; Spinning-Dervishes; Parliamentary Eloquence. A Prime-Minister who would dare…
- IVCaptains of Industry~10 min read
Government can do much, but it can in nowise do all. Fall of Mammon: To be a noble Master among noble Workers, will again be the first ambition with some few. The leaders of Industry, virtually the Captains of the…
- VPermanence~8 min read
The 'tendency to persevere,' to persist in spite of hindrances, discouragements and 'impossibilities,' that which distinguishes the Species Man from the Genus Ape. Month-long contracts, and Exeter-Hall purblindness. A…
- VIThe Landed~9 min read
A man with fifty, with five hundred, with a thousand pounds a day, given him freely, without condition at all, might be a rather strong Worker: The sad reality, very ominous to look at. Will he awaken, be alive again;…
- VIIThe Gifted~7 min read
Tumultuous anarchy calmed by noble effort into fruitful sovereignty. Mammon, like Fire, the usefulest of servants, if the frightfulest of masters. Souls to whom the omnipotent guinea is, on the whole, an impotent…
- VIIIThe Didactic~8 min read
One preacher who does preach with effect, and gradually persuade all persons. Repentant Captains of Industry: A Chactaw Fighter become a Christian Fighter Doomsday in the afternoon. The 'Christianity' that cannot get on…