Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/448

 people; said to them, ‘My faithful People, the gods do not dwell in that burning-mountain in the centre of our Isle. That is not God; no, that is a common burning-mountain,—mere culinary fire burning under peculiar circumstances. See, I will walk before you to that burning-mountain; will empty my wash-bowl into it, cast my slipper over it, defy it to the uttermost, and stand the consequences!’—She walked accordingly, this South-Sea Heroine, nerved to the sticking-place; her people following in pale horror and expectancy: she did her experiment;—and, I am told, they have truer notions of the gods in that Island ever since! Experiment which it is now very easy to repeat, and very needless. Honour to the Brave who deliver us from Phantom-dynasties, in South-Sea Islands and in North!

This action of the English Regicides did in effect strike a damp like death through the heart of Flunkyism universally in this world. Whereof Flunkyism, Cant, Cloth-worship, or whatever ugly name it have, has gone about incurably sick ever since; and is now at length, in these generations, very rapidly dying. ‘The like of which action will not be needed for a thousand years again. Needed, alas—not till a new genuine Hero-worship has arisen, has perfected itself; and had time to degenerate into a Flunkyism and Cloth-worship again! Which I take to be a very long date indeed.

Thus ends the Second Civil War. In Regicide, in a Commonwealth and Keepers of the Liberties of England. In punishment of Delinquents, in abolition of Cobwebs;—if it be possible, in a Government of Heroism and Veracity; at lowest, of Anti-Flunkyism, Anti-Cant, and the endeavour after Heroism and Veracity.