Oliver Cromwell, the remarkablest Governor we have had for the last five centuries or so: No vulunteer in Public Life, but plainly a balloted soldier: The Government of England put into his hands. Windbag, weak in the faith of a God; strong only in the faith that Paragraphs and Plausibilities bring votes. Five years of popularity or unpopularity; and after those five years, an Eternity. Oliver has to appear before the Most High Judge: Windbag, appealing to 'Posterity.'
Chap. XV. Morison Again
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 Great soul of the World, just and not unjust: Faithful, unspoken, but not ineffectual 'prayer.' Penalities: The French Revolution; cruelest Portent that has risen into created Space these ten centuries. Man needs no "New Religion;" nor is like to get it: spiritual Dastardism, and sick folly. One Liturgy which does remain forever unexceptionable, that of Praying by Working. Sauerteig on the symbolic influences of Washing. Chinese Pontiff-Emperor and his significant 'punctualities.' Goethe and German Literature. The great event for the world, now as always, the arrival in it of a new Wise Man. Goethe's Mason-Lodge.
Book IV.—Horoscope
Chap. I. Aristocracies
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 Priesthood. The noble Priest always a noble Aristos to begin with, and something more to end with. Modern Preachers, and the real Satanas that now is. Abbot- Samson and William-Conqueror times. The mission of a Land Aristocracy a sacred one, in both senses of that old word. Truly a 'Splendor of God' did dwell in those old rude veracious ages. Old Anselm traveling to Rome, to appeal against King Rufus. Their quarrel at bottom a great quarrel. The boundless future, predestined, nay already extant though unseen. Our Epic, not Arms and the Man, but Tools and the Man; an infinitely wider kind of Epic. Important that our grand Reformation were begun.
Chap. II. Bribery Committee
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 in its mouth, promulgates strage horoscopes of itself. Respect paid to those worthy of no respect: Pandarus Dogdraught. The indigent discerning Freeman; and the kind of men he is called upon to vote for.
Chap. III. The One Institution
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 believe the heavenly omens. Who can despair of Governments, that passes a Soldier's Guardhouse?— Incalculable what, by arranging, commanding and regimenting, can be made of men. Organisms enough in the dim huge Future; and 'United Services' quite other than the red-coat one. Legislative interference between Workers and master-Workers increasingly indispensable. Sanitary Reform: People's Parks: A right Education Bill, and effective Teaching Service. Free bridge for emigrants: England's sure markets among her colonies. London the All-Saxon-Home, rendezvous of all the 'Children of the Harz-Rock.' The English essentially conservative: Always the invincible instinct to hold fast by the Old, to admit the minimum of New. Yet new epochs do actually come; and with them new peremptory necessities. A certain Editor's stipulated work.