258 A SUNDAY IN CHEYNE ROW. 



ing, ascertain these conditions, and valiantly conform 

 to them, you will get around the Cape ; if you cannot, 

 the ruffian winds will blow you ever back again ; 

 the inexorable Icebergs, dumb privy -councilors from 

 Chaos, will nudge you with most chaotic ' admoni- 

 tion ; ' you will be flung half frozen on the Patago- 

 nian cliffs, or admonished into shivers by your iceberg 

 councilors and sent sheer down to Davy Jones, and 

 will never get around Cape Horn at all ! Unanimity 

 on board ship ; yes, indeed, the ship's crew may be 

 very unanimous, which, doubtless, for the time being, 

 will be very comfortable to the ship's crew and to 

 their Phantasm Captain, if they have one ; but if the 

 tack they unanimously steer upon is guiding them 

 into the belly of the Abyss, it will not profit them 

 much ! Ships, accordingly, do not use the ballot-box 

 at all ; and they reject the Phantasm species of Cap- 

 tain. One wishes much some other Entities since 

 all entities lie under the same rigorous set of laws 

 could be brought to show as much wisdom and sense 

 at least of self-preservation, the first command of na- 

 ture. Phantasm Captains with unanimous votings ; 

 this is considered to be all the law and all the proph- 

 ets at present." 



This has the real crushing Carlylean wit and pic- 

 turesqueness of statement, but is it the case of de- 

 mocracy, of universal suffrage fairly put ? The eter- 

 nal verities appear again, as they appear everywhere 

 in our author in connection with this subject. They 

 recur in his pages like "minute guns," as if in de- 



