Clocks | Page 3

friends
now, and two of them carriage-folks!) agree that we really must be
spending seven hundred, or at all events, running into debt up to that
figure; but the butcher and baker, who have gone into the matter with
the housemaid, know better.
After awhile, having learned the trick, we launch out boldly and spend
like Indian Princes--or rather seem to spend; for we know, by this time,
how to purchase the seeming with the seeming, how to buy the
appearance of wealth with the appearance of cash. And the dear old
world--Beelzebub bless it! for it is his own child, sure enough; there is
no mistaking the likeness, it has all his funny little ways--gathers round,
applauding and laughing at the lie, and sharing in the cheat, and
gloating over the thought of the blow that it knows must sooner or later
fall on us from the Thor-like hammer of Truth.
And all goes merry as a witches' frolic--until the gray morning dawns.
Truth and fact are old-fashioned and out-of-date, my friends, fit only
for the dull and vulgar to live by. Appearance, not reality, is what the
clever dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the dull-brown
solid earth; we build our lives and homes in the fair-seeming
rainbow-land of shadow and chimera.
To ourselves, sleeping and waking there, behind the rainbow, there is
no beauty in the house; only a chill damp mist in every room, and, over
all, a haunting fear of the hour when the gilded clouds will melt away,
and let us fall--somewhat heavily, no doubt--upon the hard world
underneath.
But, there! of what matter is our misery, our terror? To the stranger,
our home appears fair and bright. The workers in the fields below look
up and envy us our abode of glory and delight! If theythink it pleasant,
surely we should be content. Have we not been taught to live for others
and not for ourselves, and are we not acting up bravely to the

teaching--in this most curious method?
Ah! yes, we are self-sacrificing enough, and loyal enough in our
devotion to this new-crowned king, the child of Prince Imposture and
Princess Pretense. Never before was despot so blindly worshiped!
Never had earthly sovereign yet such world-wide sway!
Man, if he would live, must worship. He looks around, and what to him,
within the vision of his life, is the greatest and the best, that he falls
down and does reverence to. To him whose eyes have opened on the
nineteenth century, what nobler image can the universe produce than
the figure of Falsehood in stolen robes? It is cunning and brazen and
hollow-hearted, and it realizes his souls ideal, and he falls and kisses
its feet, and clings to its skinny knees, swearing fealty to it for
evermore!
Ah! he is a mighty monarch, bladder-bodied King Humbug! Come, let
us build up temples of hewn shadows wherein we may adore him, safe
from the light. Let us raise him aloft upon our Brummagem shields.
Long live our coward, falsehearted chief!--fit leader for such soldiers
as we! Long live the Lord-of-Lies, anointed! Long live poor King
Appearances, to whom all mankind bows the knee!
But we must hold him aloft very carefully, oh, my brother warriors! He
needs much "keeping up." He has no bones and sinews of his own, the
poor old flimsy fellow! If we take our hands from him, he will fall a
heap of worn-out rags, and the angry wind will whirl him away, and
leave us forlorn. Oh, let us spend our lives keeping him up, and serving
him, and making him great--that is, evermore puffed out with air and
nothingness--until he burst, and we along with him!
Burst one day he must, as it is in the nature of bubbles to burst,
especially when they grow big. Meanwhile, he still reigns over us, and
the world grows more and more a world of pretense and exaggeration
and lies; and he who pretends and exaggerates and lies the most
successfully, is the greatest of us all.
The world is a gingerbread fair, and we all stand outside our booths

and point to the gorgeous-colored pictures, and beat the big drum and
brag. Brag! brag! Life is one great game of brag!
"Buy my soap, oh ye people, and ye will never look old, and the hair
will grow again on your bald places, and ye will never be poor or
unhappy again,; and mine is the only true soap. Oh, beware of spurious
imitations!"
"Buy my lotion, all ye that suffer from pains in the head, or the stomach,
or the feet, or that have broken arms, or broken hearts, or
objectionable mothers-in-law; and drink one bottle a day, and all your
troubles will be ended."