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154

MUNERA PULVERIS.

of that endurance and suffering, its own fruit

will be born with time; [not abolition of slavery, however. See § 130] and Carlyle's prophecy of them (June, 1850), as it has now come true in the first clause, will, in the last:—

"America, too, will find that caucuses, division-lists, stump-oratory, and speeches to Buncombe will not carry men to the immortal gods; that the Washington Congress, and constitutional battle of Kilkenny cats is there, as here, naught for such objects; quite incompetent for such; and, in fine, that said sublime constitutional arrangement will require to be (with terrible throes, and travail such as few expect yet) remodelled, abridged, extended, suppressed, torn asunder, put together again;—not without heroic labour and effort, quite other than that of the stump-orator and the revival preacher, one day."

125.[1] Understand, then, once for all, that no form of government, provided it be a government at all, is, as such, to be either condemned or praised, or contested for in anywise, but by fools. But all forms of government are good just so far as they attain this one vital

  1. [This paragraph contains the gist of all that precede.]
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