It is thus everywhere that foolish Rumour babbles not of what was done, but of what was misdone or undone; and foolish History (ever, more or less, the written epitomised synopsis of Rumour) knows so little that were not as well unknown.  Attila Invasions, Walter-the-Penniless Crusades, Sicilian Vespers, Thirty-Years Wars:  mere sin and misery; not work, but hindrance of work!  For the Earth, all this while, was yearly green and yellow with her kind harvests; the hand of the craftsman, the mind of the thinker rested not:  and so, after all, and in spite of all, we have this so glorious high-domed blossoming World; concerning which, poor History may well ask, with wonder, Whence it came?  She knows so little of it, knows so much of what obstructed it, what would have rendered it impossible.  Such, nevertheless, by necessity or foolish choice, is her rule and practice; whereby that paradox, ’Happy the people whose annals are vacant,’ is not without its true side.

And yet, what seems more pertinent to note here, there is a stillness, not of unobstructed growth, but of passive inertness, and symptom of imminent downfall.  As victory is silent, so is defeat.  Of the opposing forces the weaker has resigned itself; the stronger marches on, noiseless now, but rapid, inevitable:  the fall and overturn will not be noiseless.  How all grows, and has its period, even as the herbs of the fields, be it annual, centennial, millennial!  All grows and dies, each by its own wondrous laws, in wondrous fashion of its own; spiritual things most wondrously of all.  Inscrutable, to the wisest, are these latter; not to be prophesied of, or understood.  If when the oak stands proudliest flourishing to the eye, you know that its heart is sound, it is not so with the man; how much less with the Society, with the Nation of men!  Of such it may be affirmed even that the superficial aspect, that the inward feeling of full health, is generally ominous.  For indeed it is of apoplexy, so to speak, and a plethoric lazy habit of body, that Churches, Kingships, Social Institutions, oftenest die.  Sad, when such Institution plethorically says to itself, Take thy ease, thou hast goods laid up;—­like the fool of the Gospel, to whom it was answered, Fool, this night thy life shall be required of thee!

Is it the healthy peace, or the ominous unhealthy, that rests on France, for these next Ten Years?  Over which the Historian can pass lightly, without call to linger:  for as yet events are not, much less performances.  Time of sunniest stillness;—­shall we call it, what all men thought it, the new Age of God?  Call it at least, of Paper; which in many ways is the succedaneum of Gold.  Bank-paper, wherewith you can still buy when there is no gold left; Book-paper, splendent with Theories, Philosophies, Sensibilities,—­beautiful art, not only of revealing Thought, but also of so beautifully hiding from us the want of Thought!  Paper is made from the rags of things that did once