“Progress and speed!” he cried—“Rush on, world, with me!—rush on! There is but one End—hasten we to reach it! No halt by the way to gather the flowers of thought,—the fruits of feeling—no pause for a lifting of the eyes to the wide firmament, where millions of spheres, more beautiful than this which men make wretched, sail on their courses like fair ships bound for God’s golden harbours! No time to listen to the singing of the birds of hope, the ripple of the sweet waters of refreshment, the murmur of cool grasses waving in the field of peace;—no time, no stop,—no lull for quiet breathing,—on!—for ever on!”
“Up and ride with me all ye who would reach the goal! Come, ye fools of avarice! Come, ye blown and bursting windbags of world’s conceit and vain pretension! Come, ye greedy maws of gluttony—ye human pottles of drink,—ye wolves of vice! Come, ye shameless women of lusts and lies and vanities! Come, false hearts and treacherous tongues and painted faces!—come, dear demons all, and ride with me! Come, ye pretenders to holiness—ye thieves of virtue, who give ‘charity’ to the poor with the right hand, and cheat your neighbour with the left! Come, ye gamblers with a Nation’s honour, stake your last throw! Come, all ye morphia-fed vampires and slaves to poison!—grasp at my wheels and cling! On—on—over the fragments of mighty Empires,—over the hearts of kings and queens,—over the lives of the brave, the good and the wise!—trample them all down and crush them into dust and ashes! What shall we do with wisdom, we who have done with God? What with purity?—what with courage? Naught are these but reproach and bitterness—mere obstacles in the road way which leadeth to destruction;—ride them down! On—on! to the destined end!—on with rush and hurry and panting eagerness to reach the only goal—the last of winning-posts—the close of Certainties,—the GRAVE!”
Like a flashing blur of fiery wheels the Car now spun along in the blackness of the night, and the drifting Phantoms round about it were as great grey sails swelling with the angry blast, and sweeping it onward through the dark.
“Pray no more—hope no more—love no more!” cried the Fiend. “Be as the shifting sands, or as the trembling quicksilver—inconstant, capricious,—ever in motion, never at rest! Change—change and revolt! All ye who weary of old things, behold I give you new! Bodies shall be pampered and souls killed for your pleasure;—foulest vices shall be called merely “sensations,”—each to be tried, excused and condemned in turn,—and virtues shall have no more place at all in the scale of feeling! The music of life shall clash into wild discord—the love of home shall be a lost glory,—tenderness for the young, and reverence for the old, shall be the faded sentiments of the past, only fit for a mummer’s jest! Change—change and sensation! Roll out your columns of vaporous notoriety, ye printing-presses of the world!—spread wide the fame of the Anarchist and the Courtesan,—mock and revile the spirits of the wise and true,—noise abroad the name of the Murderer, and treat the Poet with derision—give flattery to the rich and scorn to the humble,—teach nothing but the art of lying,—add venom to the tongue of scandal,—dig up the graves of the great, and kill the reputations of the brave and pure!”
“Help nothing on that is noble—nothing that is honest,—nothing that is of God, or for God,—print every lie, grudge every truth, and let your trumpet-note be that of blatant Atheism and Devilry to the end! Set trade against trade,—community against community,—nation against nation,—until with your windy bombast and senseless twaddle you fill your witches’ cauldron of mischief and contention to the full! Up and ride with me, ye Plotters against Peace!—ye whose hands are against every man!—there is no time to be lost—up and away with a rush and a roar!—for the Great Star has fallen from Heaven to Earth, and to Him is given the key of the bottomless pit! The pit is open—the gate stands wide—up, and speed on with Me!”
