University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

—A Street. Waning.
Wan.
Why, what a tumult everywhere he makes!
Rage-struck, he should not thus have matched himself
Against the wise-set customs of mankind!—
The eye-mark of the thousand vexing shafts
That bearded Use, Ulysses-like, lets slip
At him who doubts or dares antiquity!—
Is he the sole man that lives in nature,
Disfurnishing to make him up and feed his pride
The universal world?—Is there no other
Chamber but Calmstorm, where truth may dwell
And be at home? A strength majestic
As the pillared heavens, he needs, in truth—
And some something of it, too, perhaps he has—
To live in the deep flood and everlasting surge
That breaks against the single and unbannered man.
I would not take my cap from off my head,
To have the great world change its orbed course,
And run back from the West unto the East,
All the days 't has yet to come!—Fie, fie—
'T is better, I know, to keep a close-shut cell
Where comes a single ray, than rush into the sun,
And be burned up: he must not ask his friends
To come into the blaze with him, in sport,
When he is howling; no, that will not do.

[Exit Waning.
Enter First Citizen, Second Citizen, &c.
Third Cit.
I say,
That man from man, each by himself a world,
Is so by nature set apart, that each,
E'en by his shadow, may be known at once
From every other.

First Cit.
Now who is that, that sits
Within, whose image paints itself against
The curtain of the tavern window yonder?

Third Cit.
The bowed one with the broken hat?
Lifeless, I guess.

First Cit.
He rises and moves toward the door.

Third Cit.
It is; and see, no longer he lifts his head
With his old manner, nor has a word to speak!
Clerkless, and officeless, and houseless—loosed
Of every link that makes him man with men,
See how he droops and downward shambles
On his way, as if a hand invisible
Pushed him to the end.

First Cit.
He is in truth less than his shadow's shadow—
The lingering of himself: but where is Calmstorm?
This man's is special to himself, a hap particular,
But Calmstorm I seek, for that have I seen this day
Which will arouse his spirit to the depth,
And shake the fell hair of all his lion strength;
A firmamented wrong, within whose blaze
This pales to nothing!

Third Cit.
You'll find him, I think,
On the great square, near by the river
On the East; for this is the hour he's used
To walk there.

Second Cit.
You'll not disturb his walk;
'Tis there he listens for whatsoe'er of wrong
The wide world has to tell.

[Exeunt, severally, First Citizen, &c.
Enter First Politician, Second Politician, &c.
First Pol.
You're on your way to market, are you?
You'll soon be stopped in that—by this perfect honest man,
That seeks to rob us of our dear-won rights;
Who would that in its old order should no longer run
The round of office, the old good-will of people
And servant, officer and citizen. A comet he
That would disturb the harmony of the world:
Would have laws made at once, and once for all,
(So pure and elemental in their principle),
Who from men's arms would take the steadying chain
Of tax, restraint and guidance, whereby
'T is made to do its work neither too fast,
Nor yet too slow.

Second Pol.
'T is said, indeed, he would have no law,
But let each, by his self-kept conscience,
His neighbor and himself adjudge.

Third Pol.
And that all houses and lodgments should be
As like as beavers' huts or rabbits' burrows.

First Pol.
Remove but once, my friends, the wheel-pins
Which make society run even now,
And we shall all, you must perceive, tumble
In the mud together.

Second Pol.
Of course, of course,
And you would lose the trust that now you hold.

[To First Politician.
Third Pol.
And you ne'er gain the one you look for.

[To Second Politician.
First Pol.
And you no longer be the firm good friend
Of both, in farming out the public contracts.

[To Third Politician.
Third Pol.
This Calmstorm is a dangerous man,
To be put down speedily, fair means or foul,
The public good demands it: a perfect honest man's
Too great a monster for these difficult
Times in which we live.

First Pol.
Open to all men, on all sides,
He walks the streets, and sits in public halls,
Unclaimed by any, benched by himself,
And with himself communing, belongs
To neither faction; and in assemblies popular,
He stands apart, a moon-like power, to make
The baser world look coward in his light.

Second Pol.
And as in scorn he holds us nothing,
'T is just that we, in hate, hold him for all
That's rash and serviceless.

Third Pol.
A monstrous man, this no man's man,
Unnatural and strange, who has no party,
No rout of followers, and no creed to swear by!
We'll have him yet! The secret committees
Shall work like the sly otter in the dark!

[Exeunt First Politician, &c