Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/355

 institutions and ways of things by purely abstract standards, and a vulgar habit of testing every venerable traditional heritage, with all its rich incidence of peculiarity, by the mere practical-merits ideal of to-day, as though a thousand years' life had no merits or rights of its own to set up, the article, in conclusion, went on to say, that the challenge, even on the cold modern basis of "the merits," was fearlessly accepted. Yes, even on the merits, let the battle then be finally fought out. Far too much, nowadays, was it chattered, with all the cheapness of irresponsibility and inexperience, that our Lottery-box might be safely swept away; while a profane levity of spirit would go even so far as to look slightingly upon our grand old system of the supremacy of Accident. But the too readily assumed injustice of the public law, in the first of these cases, might be fairly met by the consideration, that the lucky one of the family, to whom the cast of the dice gave all the estate, was probably, with his plethora of means superseding all further need for either mental or bodily exertion, with his enslavement to all the absorbing social demands of his position, and with possibly some twinge of conscience embittering all, not really one jot happier, or one tittle less miserable, than the rest who were made destitute. Then, again, as to their ancient and dignified institution of the Accidents, did it not strikingly resemble the fairy's wand, which called, peaceably, into ready-made existence, all the hill and dale scenery of the Marsian system of rank, instead of the one monotonous dead level of mere Principle, varied only, perhaps, by the alternative of a tempestuous ocean of everlasting rivalry, strife, and unrest, if rank