"Dogs should be taught to eat leather ,says the old adage:--and where,by general fault and error,and the inevitable nemesis of things,the universal kennel is set to diet upon leather ;and from its keepers,its 'Liberal Premiers,'or whatever their title is,will accept or expect hing else,and calls it by the pleasant name of progress,reform,emancipation,abolition-principles,and the like,--I consider the fate of said kennel and of said keepers to be a thing settled.Red republic in Phrygian nightcap,organization of labor a la Louis Blanc;street-barricades,and then murderous can-volleys a la Cavaignac and Windischgratz,follow out of one aher,as grapes,must,new wine,and sour all-splitting vinegar do:vinegar is but vin-aigre ,or the self-same 'wine'grown sharp !If,moreover,I find the Worship of Human leness abolished in any country,and a new astonishing Phallus-Worship,with universal Balzac-Sand melodies and litanies in treble and in bass,established in its stead,what can Icompute but that Nature,in horrible throes,will repugn against such substitution,--that,in short,the astonishing new Phallus-Worship,with its finer sensibilities of the heart,and 'great satisfying loves,'with its sacred kiss of peace for scoundrel and hero alike,with its all-embracing Brotherhood,and universal Sacrament of Divorce,will have to take itself away again!"The Ancient Germans,it appears,had scruple about public executions;on the contrary,they thought the just gods themselves might fitly preside over these;that these were a solemn and highest act of worship,if justly done.When a German man had done a crime deserving death,they,in solemn general assembly of the tribe,doomed him,and considered that Fate and all Nature had from the beginning doomed him,to die with iginy.Certain crimes there were of a supreme nature;him that had perpetrated one of these,they believed to have declared himself a prince of scoundrels.Him once convicted they laid hold of,hing doubting;bore him,after judgment,to the deepest convenient Peat-bog;plunged him in there,drove an oaken frame down over him,solemnly in the name of gods and men:
"There,prince of scoundrels,that is what we have had to think of thee,on clear acquaintance;our grim good-night to thee is that!In the name of all the gods lie there,and be our partnership with thee dissolved henceforth.It will be better for us,we imagine!"My friends,after all this beautiful whitewash and humanity and prison-discipline;and such blubbering and whimpering,and soft Litany to divine and also to quite other sorts of Pity,as we have had for a century ,--give me leave to admonish you that that of the Ancient Germans too was a thing inexpressibly necessary to keep in mind.If that is kept in mind,the universal Litany to Pity is a mere universal nuisance,and torpid blasphemy against the gods.I do much respect it,that purblind blubbering and litanying,as it is seen at present;and the litanying over scoundrels I go the length of disrespecting,and in some cases even of detesting.Yes,my friends,scoundrel is scoundrel:that remains forever a fact;and there exists in the earth whitewash that can make the scoundrel a friend of this Universe;he remains an enemy if you spent your life in whitewashing him.He won't whitewash;this one won't.The one method clearly is,That,after fair trial,you dissolve partnership with him;send him,in the name of Heaven,whither he is striving all this while and have done with him.And,in a time like this,I would advise you,see likewise that you be speedy about it!For there is immense work,and of a far hopefuler sort,to be done elsewhere .
Alas,alas,to see once the "prince of scoundrels,"the Supreme Scoundrel,him whom of all men the gods liked worst,solemnly laid hold of,and hung upon the gallows in sight of the people;what a lesson to all the people!Sermons might be preached;the Son of Thunder and the Mouth of Gold might turn their periods with some hope;for here,in the most impressive way,is a divine sermon acted.Didactic as spoken sermon could be.Didactic,devotional too;--in awed solemnity,a recognition that Eternal Justice rules the world;that at the call of this,human pity shall fall silent,and man be stern as his Master and Mandatory is!--Understand too that except upon a basis of even such rigor,sorrowful,silent,inexorable as that of Destiny and Doom,there is true pity possible.The pity that proves so possible and plentiful without that basis,is mere ignavia and cowardly effeminacy;maudlin laxity of heart,grounded on blinkard dimness of head--contemptible as a drunkard's tears.
