University of Virginia Library

Scene VII.—Night. Manorial Hall in the Castle of Orval. Arms, blazons, and family portraits along the walls. In the foreground a marble table lighted by a brazen lamp. On the table a chart outspread, and beside the chart a sword and pistols, richly jewelled. In the background a smaller table, carved and gilded; the coverlet splendidly embroidered. Thereon a silver wine flagon and goblets. One side of the scene is closed by a carved screenwork, through which is the entrance to the hall, an open archway hung with tapestried curtains. On the other side a vast hearth, surmountea by an antique clock. Orval is seated at the table studying the chart. He looks up as the hand of the dial points to midnight.
Orval.
Midnight! It was, methinks, at this same hour,
Upon the eve of battle and of death,
That the last Brutus, if the tale be true,
Beheld his Evil Genius. I await
A like encounter, haply a like fate;
Who, ere that unreturning traveller, Time,
Add to lost hours this night's now neighbour'd noon,
Here in my fathers' hall must, face to face,
Behold a being of no fathers' born;
A man without a birthplace or a name,
An apparition from the immense abyss
Of nothingness arisen (who knows?) to be
Perchance the father of an age not mine;
If I, lone champion of the kingly past,
Whose ghostly armies are the dead and gone,
Whose battle-cry is a world's epitaph,
Now fail to hurl this human portent back
Into the blackness of the bottomless pit,
From whence it issues. I? Ay, there's the point
Where stealthy thought creeps in to steal the heart
Of hardiest enterprise. What is my blood
To consecrate? Or is it yet so well
Worth saving from the slough wherein it sinks,
This marrowless and miserable frame
Of things, that styles itself Society?
The unkingly tenancy of kingly thrones,
The coalesced and concrete egotisms
Of Class, the unintelligence of Power,
The Church's great uncharity, and all
The organized hypocrisy of things!
Can man's wit cheat, against such desperate odds,
Nature's remorseless wisdom? Am I not
Leading a self-surrender'd host to fight
For an already-abdicated cause?
It may be. I devote myself to death
For that which haply cannot live. So be it!
Why, this is as I will. This is my strength,
This the respect that saves my self-respect.
For what I do, I do because I must,
With manly made-up mind, foursquare to fate,
Possessing perfectly what is mine own,
The deed; and careless of what is not mine,
Fate's dealing with it after it is done.
To calculate the gain or loss of it,
That would spoil all. What's failure? or success?
Nothing. They have no value in themselves.
They are base counters. What gives worth to them
Is just the so much of a man's own self
As he can stake upon them. Any man
May be a martyr to whatever cause
Can pay the price of martyrs' crowns. But he
That's martyr to his faith in martyrdom,
And gives himself to death, because he deems
To die for any cause is, in itself,
A nobler thing than any cause men die for,
That man hath surely won the perfect palm,
And I will win it! Were it possible
To contemplate success as being made
The measure of the value of the act
And its prescribed repayment, I might pause.
For who that champions any human hope
Through life's inhuman battle could accept,
Here in the witness of Eternal God,
Unscared, the dread responsibility
Of being answerable for success?
But loyalty to failure is at least
Absolved from shame, whatever be the event.
Souls of my dead forefathers, me, an arm'd
Lone watcher by your knightly tombs, inspire
With that undaunted scorn of doubt that once
I' the wondrous ages whence, with duteous rites,
My spirit invokes ye, did inspire yourselves
To those high deeds whereof I am the heir!
Last of the lion-hearts whose lordly life
Once fill'd those hollow images of men
With helmèd heads from yonder wall down bent
Above my own,—sole guardian of the hearth
Which your renown makes honourable yet,
Sole resolute remnant of your race and mine,
Fallen upon times that are not ours,—behold
In me whatever now remains on earth
To represent your virtues and your faults!
(Clock strikes.)
Be nigh me now! I am prepared.

Master Andrew
(entering.)
My lord,
The man that was expected is arrived.

Orval.
Admit him.

Panurge
(entering).
'Give good even to your lordship!
(Exit Master Andrew.)
'Faith, I am ill at ceremonious turns
Of language,—phrases, titles!

(Throws down his cap and mantle; and, gazing round him, eyes impatiently the arms and portraits on the walls.)
Orval.
Sir, be seated!
I thank you for the faith you have reposed
In the reputed honour of this roof;
And thus, after the fashion of my fathers,
I pledge my guest.

(Goes to the table in the background; pours wine; and offers a goblet to Panurge.)
Panurge
(taking the goblet mechanically; his eye still fixed on the armorial bearings, &c.)
Humph! ha! .... If I mistake not,
Yon daub of red and blue along the wall
Is, in the language of the dead and buried,
Call'd an escutcheon. 'Tis a kind of painting
Will soon be out of fashion.

Orval.
Sir, all fashions.
That go come back again. What seems the newest
Is but the oldest, which, when it returns,
Is least remember'd: God having been pleased
To economize the invention of mankind.

Panurge.
There spoke the son o' the Old Nobility!
I know the man .... opinionated, proud,
Arrogant, supercilious, nice in speech,
Reckless in deed, self-confident: whose thoughts
Are brazen gods the braggart Vanity,
That makes them, worships: and the man himself,
Her proselyte, prays to them never more
Than when no soldier in the field, no coin
Is left him in the coffer. Desperate men
Are ever frantic in their trust in God,
Not finding in themselves what can be trusted.
Their fears are fathers to their faiths.

Orval.
All force
Begins in fear; else fear were purposeless:
The force of forethrift in the fear of want,
The force of honour in the fear of shame.
But who fears God of all men least fears man.
Belief is nourisht at the mother breast
Of Providence: the beggar Unbelief
Lives on the alms of Fortune.

Panurge.
Show me, then,
But so much only as the nether spark
Of that fire-barbèd bolt which is to fall,
Blasting the rabble and republican heads
Of our stark-naked unbelieving host;
Or but a feather of the wings of one
Of all those harness'd angels that are pledged,
Upon the invocation of your priests,
To smite our revolutionary ranks
And raise the siege about your harass'd halls.
Bid the bolt fall, or bid the angel smite:
And if, by fast or prayer, cross sign'd, hymn sung,
Or any other pious conjuring,
Thou canst compel them to perform the task
Assign'd them by the priesthood of thy faith,
Be that faith mine, Lord Orval!

Orval.
Friend, methinks
Thy humour lacks originality.
So old is Atheism, and so stale
That creed's vocabulary, I confess
That I had hoped speech newer from the man
Of the new epoch.

Panurge.
Tut! all speech is trash
That takes transmitted value from the man
That speaks it, as from what to speak it moves him
He takes his own. Be what I represent,
Not how I represent it, thy concern.
My creed and its vocabulary both,
If old, are also new, as nature. Cries
Of half a world's intolerable wrong,
The wail of unrequited toil, the moan
Of martyr'd patience, the tumultuous shout
For knowledge from long-pining Ignorance pour'd,
The howl of human hunger, and the shriek
Of irrepressible protest, power no more
Can stifle in the angry heart of man,
—Demanding recognition of a race
In prejudice imprison'd, dogg'd by doubt,
By fear tormented, and by custom bound
To bestial habitudes; .. all these, light lord,
Are but the broken scatter'd utterances
Of that indignant Truth whose creed I preach,
Whose hand I arm, and whose retributive
Dominion trumpet-tongued I have proclaim'd
Above the annihilation of thine own!
This is the faith of millions that in me
Hath found a voice. As for myself, the sole
Divinity that I acknowledge now
Is the all-procreant intellect that rules
This restless brain; whose power, whate'er it be,
Suffices to give meat to starving mouths,
And hope to stricken hearts. Canst thou aver
The God thou worshipest hath ever been
As helpful to His worshippers?

Orval.
The God
My sires before me worshipt, with the faith
Which they bequeathed unspotted to their son,
I worship still. And He, that gave to them
Power and glory in their days of pride,
To me hath given, in mine hour of trial,
Patience to bear, and courage to withstand.

Panurge.
Nay, then, but I will swear thee, by the book
Of thy good deeds, thou dost a devil serve.
Leave we, however, these absurd disputes
Unto the theologians; if, in truth,
There be yet theologians to dispute them.
To business, noble sir!

Orval.
Speak. I am dumb
To learn the cause and object of this most
Unsought and unintelligible honour.
Citizen God, I wait thine oracle.

Panurge
(musingly).
Ay. Wherefore am I here ... thou askest.

Orval.
I?
Nay, sir, I did not question you.

Panurge.
Proud host,
I question then myself: and to myself
Make answer: first, because I wisht to know thee
As man may know man, and to judge of thee
As man may judge of man.

Orval.
Licet videre
Virgilium ... an interest, Virgil shared,
Doubtless, with each Numidian lion last
Arrived in Rome ...

Panurge.
In the next place, because
I wisht to save thee (do not frown, Lord Orval!)
As man would save man, if he could.

Orval.
Save me?
For thy first wish I thank thee. For the second
My thanks I needs must keep, sir, for my God,
And my good sword.

Panurge.
Thy sword? thy God? words, names,
Nothings! But hearken. Multitudes of mouths
Shriek for thy blood. Strong hands, gaunt arms, are stretcht
To seize thee. What is thy defence? A few
Handfuls of men, ill arm'd, ill fed, a few
Handfuls of earth—scant room for tall men's graves.
Where is thine ordnance? where thy foundries,—stores
Of siege? thy muniments of war? Where, most
Of all, the valour of thy followers—troops
They are not? Where the manliness in whose
Behalf thou dost thy manhood sacrifice?
Come, come! I talk, my lord, to no blind fool,
No blundering blockhead. Were I in thy place,
I know what it were best that I should do.

Orval.
Sir! ... I am patient.

Panurge.
Well, then ... hark! Were I
Lord Orval, I would say to this man here,
This man that had a whim—a trick o' the heart,
A start of nature—call it what you will—
To so think of me, that he came by night
Out of my foeman's camp, companionless,
With no guard but his faith in my good word,
To save my life ... this man who offers me,
In the frank name of Friend, a title won
From something nobler than the gewgaws daub'd
On yonder garish wall .. a title, man,
Refused to thousands that revere him, even
As God, and follow him as Destiny,
—Were I the man that you, Lord Orval, seem,
And you the friend I speak of—I to him
Would say “Alliance between thee and me!
Mine army I disband, my lordship keep,
Lands, manors, seignories, and titles all,
Upon the faith of his full-plighted word,
Who fearless trusted to my own his life.”
Thine age, Lord Orval?

Orval.
Whatsoever age
Hath grace of God to be the least like yours, sir.
Inquisitor, what is mine age to thee?

Panurge.
Methinks, if nothing but the timely frost
Of life's eventual winter should in thee
Obstruct the springs of nature, they have yet,
Ere they shoot o'er the fall, some fifteen years
Through which to flow. For life in men like thee
Flows fast, and soon flows out. Thou should'st be young.
On that pale face passion, not time, hath prey'd,
And thy frame, firmly mason'd in the form
Of noblest manhood, might defy decay
For yet another half of human life
Stretcht to the longest, if the life that frets
Its fiery channels through those violent veins
Were of more sluggish element.
(He muses.)
So be it!
Be one gap golden in the iron rule
Of the inexorable Necessity,
One head exempted from the curse of all!
What harm in that? No! live, Lord Orval! live
The last of all the nobles of this land!
Keep thy broad fields and thine ancestral halls,
Thy bright excepted title keep. To us
Surrender but the drivellers, dotards, dolts
Of that doom'd class thou canst not save. Stand off,
Or at my side stand safe. Leave room and way
For the arm'd Justice of the Revolution,
Whose victims, they: whose pontiffs I and thou,
Co-Cæsars, partners in the purple robe
Of more than Roman power. To thee I pour
This first libation!

(Drinks.)
Orval.
Grant me patience, Heaven!
Sir, I have listen'd. Are we at the end?
Each word that, in the pictured presences
Of my dead fathers, you have dared to speak
To me their son, has been an insult. Well,
I have listen'd. Have you more to add? But no,
By Heaven, Citizen General, forbear!
Patience is human, and must end at last.
Inflict no more upon my knowledge that
You stand here safe, sir, in my knightly word,
And under the asylum of my roof.

Panurge.
Thy roof! thy word! O Pride, thou hast many names!
What? with the old and tatter'd rags long dropt
From the broad banner of Humanity,
Think'st thou to patch and purfle and trick out
The naked Vanity that still goes bare?
Tinsel! still tinsel! and still shame behind!
Man, man, there's life in that fast-swelling vein,
Warm life in that flusht brow and flashing eye.
And yet I tell thee all this vigorous life
Thou hast coupled to a corpse. Go to! To me
Names are but nothings. Dost thou think I wince?
No, for thou canst not look me in the face
And swear, by the oath of a gentleman, that thou
And thine deserve not death: and, after death,—
Oblivion!

Orval.
Ha! And thou and thine, what else
Have ye deserved?

Panurge.
Life! Victory! Hearken why.
There's but one law of things immutable,
Invincible. 'Tis that which doth compel
The world to pass out of one phase of life
Into another, and so ever on.
And by this law already thou and thine
Have been condemn'd, as old, weak, overfull,
To pass away, and so make room for us
That be young, strong, and hungry. Strive no more
With fate. Væ victis! Yield; for we must have.

Orval.
Ah, boaster! sole of mortal men, to thee
Hath Destiny her hidden mind reveal'd?
That thou should'st menace me with victory?
Thou man of clay, thou creature of a chance!
Not less than all that are of woman born
Mark for the first ball in the battle-hour,
Or the first stroke of any sabre slasht
At hazard through the cannon's smoky breath!

Panurge.
Do not deceive thyself, Lord Orval. Me
Fate, my wise mother, head and foot, hath dipt
In the invulnerable lake. Along
The paths I tread Chance walks not. Mortal foes
I scorn. Nor sword can strike, nor bullet pierce
Me that am mail'd in Nature's iron, until
My being shall have ceased to be to thine
A dread Necessity. When from my path
Hath perisht all obstruction, wheresoe'er
That path may lead me matters not. My work
Will have been done. But hark! Time mocks at us.
(Clock strikes.)
Man, I must leave thee to thy fate. One word!
If thou be weary of thine own life, still
Thou hast a son. Save him.

Orval.
The safety, sir,
Of that pure soul is in God's keeping. Here,
On earth, the son's place is beside the sire.

(Buries his face in his hands.)
Panurge.
Ay, meditate! For meditation is
Fit neighbour to the grave.

Orval.
Away, wild fool!
Thou knowest not what passes here,—nor canst!
Sir, if in your low nature there be depths
I fathom not, there yet are heights in mine
You cannot scale. Keep thou thy world. Leave mine
To me.

Panurge.
My world? I have none. I keep nothing.
Slave of one thought, and bondsman to one form!
With every impulse of my will I make,
And, having made, destroy a hundred worlds.
Nor can thy fancy image, even in dream,
My mind's unfrontier'd realm.

Orval.
Abortion born
Of Nature in decline! thy boasted sense
Is barren to conceive what is the strength
Of those whose noble fixity of faith
O'er fortune's fleeting sands is founded firm
Under the present in the solid past.
Look yonder on the images of those
Whose life in me is living. Scan their forms,
Their faces mark! On every noble brow
The selfsame blood is eloquent: the same
High thought shines clear from every kingly eye.
That blood in me yet flows, and in my heart
That thought, the patriarchal heritage
Of honour'd lives, is resolute. But thou,
Man of the day that hath no yesterday,
Where is thy native land? thy homestead where?
Thy wandering tent is every evening pitcht
Upon the ruins of thy neighbour's hearth,
Thy march is every morn to rapine new.
But home of thine thou hast not, wheresoe'er
Men honour yet the memory of their sires.

Panurge.
Honour their memory by all means! Well
Have I been studying all this while, my lord,
The list of your illustrious ancestors.
See if I have not... “mark'd their faces, scann'd
Their forms” exactly! This grave Councillor
Grill'd Jews and roasted witches to the taste
Of priestly palates,—the approved head-cook
And caterer to that cannibal, the Church.
Well, I admire the beard of him, and praise
The barber's skill that trimm'd it. This one here
Was a King's Chancellor, and had in charge
The Great Seal, and sign manual. They served him,
Upon occasion, to forge documents,
Falsify acts and deeds, buy judges, rob
The public treasure, and appropriate
The private property of lesser men.
Yonder fine fellow, with the soft black eyes,
White ruffles, and smooth chin, only seduced
The wives and daughters of his friends. But here
Comes next a Patriot who proudly wears
The Golden Fleece, which paid the services
Of his sword's hiring by the Spanish King.
That noble lady in the stainless silks,
With swanlike throat, and stately brow serene,
She was her footman's mistress. This one here,
With such a glory of gold curls, and such
Unstinted revelation of rich charms,
Was a king's concubine. Behold, my lord,
The spotless fountains of your lineage fair
And noble! But the Judgment Day draws nigh.
And O be sure that we ignoble men,
Whose mean task is to ply the rope and axe,
Shall not forget these most illustrious lords,
Nor yet their worthy offspring.

Orval.
Slanderer!
Son of our serfs, thou liest in thy throat!
Had not my noble fathers shelter'd thine,
Thou hadst not stood before me to blaspheme
Their honest names. And when, from out the herd
Of animal brutes they had for ages been,
Thy base begetters did at last begin
To emerge into humanity, it was
Our fathers that for thine built churches, schools,
And taught them human duties. Wretch! thy curse,
Shatter'd, from off their ancient glory falls
As once of old in fragments fell the brand
Of the black Painim from the stainless shield
Of Christendom's pure Knighthood. Thee and thine,
Do I not know ye? Sir, I have visited
Your rabble camp. I know you all. Your mad
Philosophers, your atheistic priests,
Your consecrated murderers, horrible
And sexless harlots ... under every mask
Of your abominable devil's dance
Last night, sir, I detected and I scorn'd
The face of every worn-out villany
And wither'd vice of the old world, smear'd o'er
With the coarse barbarous war-paint of the new.
I heard your new songs, and I recognized
In all the same old burden, “Blood and gold!”
“Rapine and wrong!” But you, sir, you yourself
I saw not. Why? Because you did not deign,
And rightly did not deign, sir, to descend
From where the folly of your worshippers
Above their heads, on your dishonest throne,
Hath raised you, back to your low native place
In the rank filth and ordure at their feet.
Because you, in your secret soul, despised
The dupes of your imposture. What remains?
But if one spark of man yet in thee burns,
Look on my face, Panurge,—'tis the face
Of one whom thou canst neither dupe nor daunt,
And not less thoroughly despise thyself
Than those whom thou despisest.

(He seats himself, under the arms of his Family.)
Panurge
(musingly).
True. My world
Is not yet in the actual developed.
'Tis but the rough sketch of the future time.
An infant giant ... must be nurst and taught:
It grows apace—will grow up in good time
From cubhood into manhood. It hath need
Of nourishment—care—and it may be, too,
No gentle discipline. But mark me, Orval,
The time shall come when this brute world of mine
Will thoroughly acquire the consciousness
Of its existence as a fact in time
Indisputable: when it will cry out
“I am!” and then in all the universe
Of Nature shall no other voice be left
To answer “I am too.”

Orval.
Well, sir? and then?

Panurge.
And then, Lord Orval, from the life in me
This night incarnate shall a race arise,
Such as the teeming earth has never yet
Rear'd from her fruitful bosom. Men as gods,
Knowing both good and evil: masters they
Both of themselves and of their home, this globe;
Which globe itself shall be to them one vast
Palace of Pleasure, by the Spirits of Art
And Science rear'd into the golden light
Of the glad time, a happy fabric fair
In the wide-porchèd doors of whose serene
Dominion shall the elements of earth
And heaven await the bidding of their lords!

Orval.
Thou liest, impostor! and thy strain'd voice fails
To hit the pitch of inspiration. Slave
Of Reason, she thou servest hath scaled up
The springs of prophecy and oracle.

Panurge.
Man, interrupt me not! Millions of hearts
Have hunger'd for this prophecy, vouchsafed
To thee alone. I tell thee, in that time,
Mankind shall commune with a god—a god
Unlike to thine—incapable of death—
Wrench'd from the bosom of the vast unknown
By the strong toil and trouble infinite
Of centuries of unappeased desire.
From his long hiding-place in heaven at last
Torn down and welcomed to this world of theirs
By his stout human children, in the day
When man shall have attain'd the age at which
Knowledge of Truth is man's inheritance.
Then shall Humanity both save itself
And save its God.

Orval.
Blasphemer, centuries
Have flow'd already from the fount of time,
Since when the God, of whom thou feelest now
The inevitable necessity, revealed
Himself to those who, of his earthly sons,
Have eyes to see, or ears to hear. And ere
Thy birth was to the service of his foes
Permitted, by that God Humanity
Hath—even from thee—been saved.

Panurge.
A brave god! Count
The nigh two thousand years of human pain
And degradation irremediable
Since—

Orval.
On the summit of the seven hills,
In the strong heart of sempiternal Rome,
Over the lost dominion of the Cæsars,
Above the ruin'd remnants of a power
More powerful than thine,—girt by fall'n gods
Nobler than those thou worshipest—fall'n gods
That dared not lift up from the dust of time
Their hopeless heads, to gaze upon the feet
Of their excruciated Conqueror—there,
Once—in the morning of my life—I saw
That Cross, and Him that hung thereon, with arms
Outstretcht to east and west in the embrace
Of infinite benediction!

Panurge.
(Strikes the armour.)

Orval
(in great agitation).
Tempter! Son
Of the old Serpent! .. But no. These are dreams.
The first man perish'd in the wilderness
Among the brutes: and their lost Paradise
Men may not now recapture.

Panurge.
(Ha? have I hit
At last the weak spot in Pride's buckler! Fool
Not to have seen this sooner? He is troubled.
Have I, by a mere blunder, toucht at last,
The sensitive nerve of poesy—the chord
That sounds in golden unison with hope
To the man's inmost heart? Victoria!)

Orval.
I too have dream'd ... Ah, if my blood, even yet,
Could purchase .. if my head ... man, you should have it!
But no, the days are past. It is too late.

Panurge.
Listen! We cannot put back time. The dead
Their dead must bury. Think! A leech forbids
His patient to take any exercise:
Warns him that movement may to life be fatal.
The patient disobeys, and walks a mile.
What think you of that leech, if, to repair
The mischief done, he make his patient walk
The whole mile back? The People's sick, my lord,
Your friends forbade it stir. But it does stir:
Moves forward somehow. And its doctors now,
Who had forbidden it to move at all,
Insist upon its moving back again.
Is motion backward less injurious
Than motion forward?

Orval.
Grant your simile.
Forward .. to what?

Panurge.
Ay, there's the point to which
I sought to bring this talk. When two wise men
Discuss dispassionately such a point
They cannot fail to agree upon it.

Orval.
Well?

Panurge.
I take it there's no grounded difference
Between, what on the surface seem opposed,
Our real opinions.

Orval.
Sir, proceed.

Panurge.
I will.
The point. What kind of Government is best?
Government by the best.

Orval.
But who are they?

Panurge.
The real aristoi: the most capable
Of governing: the wise men: I and thou.

Orval.
And, sir, if you and I be knaves, being wise,
What power is it likely we shall leave
To that most dangerous class—the honest men?

Panurge.
If all start fair, the power a man attains
Is proof of his capacity for power.
And never in the history of mankind
Was such a field for power as I have clear'd.
Think! is it nothing to have swept away
Parliament, Church, and Aristocracy?
All's even now. And o'er the level waste
What rises but supreme necessity
For the superior mind and stronger hand?
For men must still be govern'd.

Orval.
You grant that?

Panurge.
Of course. And govern'd by the best, I say.

Orval.
So the old obsolete, much abused device
Of Aristocracy has yet some part
To play in the new system?

Panurge.
Yes, renew'd
Itself, though, in the person of its new
And better representatives.

Orval.
Of course.
But what becomes then of Equality?

Panurge.
Think not that I suppose any one man
Is worth as much as any other man.
No fool am I. The wise and noble-minded
Are worth more than the ignorant and base.
Equality means equal start for all;
Not equal prizes for the swift and slow.
The true great men should get the true great power.

Orval.
Yes. But great men, sir, are a kind of fruit
That does not grow on every common tree.
God grants them to us rarely. When they come,
They come to power in their own great way,
Do what we will, by nature's force in them;
And when they come not, there's no kind of care
Or forcing culture can from sapless stocks
Make such fruits grow. Sir, no philosophy,
If nature makes but little men, can turn
Those little men to great men—'tis to save
The little men from being slaves and tools
Not to true great men, but untrue great rogues,
Which little men for great men oft mistake,
That the Philosophy of Government
Should be applied. Science? what need of that,
To know a giant when he strides in view?
Or move on swiftly, mounted on his back?
Or trample monsters vanquisht by his club?
But if the race of giants be extinct,
As travellers tell, till giants grow again,
Let Science help us to make seven-league boots,
And clubs mechanical that, fitly plied,
May in a dwarf's hand deal a giant's blow,
Skill eking out the thrift of force. This Church,
This Parliament, this Aristocracy,
Contrivances which Science had devised
To do the business of society,
You have abolish'd . . . what! in the wild wish
That some great man, who has not yet appear'd,
Should, when he comes, if he should ever come,
Find round him ample room in which to try
His hand at renovating ruin? Sir,
Call you this prospect progress? You put back
The world, not forward; leaving all to Chance,
The blind brute-headed, unintelligent god,
Placed on his old barbarian throne again.
Sir, better to my thinking, a bad King
Check'd by a not much better Parliament,
A loose Nobility, and a lazy Church,
Than such an absolute Chaos as you make,
With no more hopeful prospect in reserve
Than ultimate Order in that worst of shapes,
A single-handed Despotism, crown'd
And robed i' the name of wrong'd Democracy.

Panurge.
Not Despotism, if the canvass'd choice
Of the free Many crown the chosen One.

Orval.
Whom having crown'd, if the free Many then
Should, being human, haply change its mind,
Repent its choice, and wish the chosen One
A chosen Other, shall this most free Many
Be free to uncrown, as 'twas free to crown?
Is the free Many free to change as choose?
If so, then where is your stability?
If only free to give, but, having given,
Not free to take again its gift abused,
Where is your liberty?

Panurge.
We cannot quite
Leave time out of the account. Men must improve
Ere things can be improved. But one wise man,
Wielding the power which many thousand fools
May in a lucky moment be induced
To delegate to him on their behalf,
Can in a year improve things, more than they
Can in a century improve themselves.
I say, Make way for the strong men.

Orval.
And I,
Leave room, sir, for the weak. They have God's leave
To live as well as we. Alas, Panurge,
Do we not strangely seem to have changed parts?
For you, my Citizen Guest, have all this while
Been speaking for Aristocratic Rights;
For Popular Privileges, I. 'Tis there
The hopelessness, the misery of it all!
Ages,—perchance a hundred years ago—
That might have then been possible, which now
Our fates forbid, and we made common cause
Who now must be no common foes. Too late!
We can no longer understand each other,
Never forgive each other for the past.
The hour hath struck for both: and both must fight,
And one must fall. Nature and time, in strange
Conspiracy, have made us enemies
Beyond all reconcilement. Now farewell,
My Citizen Guest. 'Tis time that we should part.
My vassals shall conduct thee to thy friends.

Panurge.
Farewell, Lord Orval! Till we meet once more
On the storm'd ramparts. Then, when thou hast left
Nor ball nor powder . . .

Orval.
We will then cross swords, sir.
Ho, Herman! Andrew!

(Enter Andrew and Herman.)
Panurge.
Madman! Be it so.
I am sad. I would have saved thee. Thou and I
Are eagles of one feather. But the bolt
Of heaven hath on thine eirie fall'n. Behold,
In yonder purple Oriel, while we speak,
The sun is rising. To the sun I soar.
Adieu!

Orval.
(Exit Panurge, escorted by Andrew and Herman. Orval remains lost in thought: then with a heavy sigh,)