by Charles Dickens (uncredited).
Originally published in Household Words (Bradbury & Evans) vol.1 #4 (20 Apr 1850).
Supposing, we were to change the Property and Income Tax a little, and make it somewhat heavier on realised property, and somewhat lighter on mere income, fixed and uncertain, I wonder whether we should be committing any violent injustice!
Supposing, we were to be more Christian and less mystical, agreeing more about the spirit and fighting less about the letter, I wonder whether we should present a very irreligious and indecent spectacle to the mass of mankind!
Supposing, the Honorable Member for White troubled his head a little less about the Honorable Member for Black, and vice versa, and that both applied themselves a little more in earnest to the real business of the honorable people and the honorable country, I wonder whether it would be unparliamentary!
Supposing, that, when there was a surplus in the Public Treasury, we laid aside our own particular whims, and all agreed that there were four elements necessary to the existence of our fellow creatures, to wit, earth, air, fire, and water, and that these were the first grand necessaries to be uncooped and untaxed, I wonder whether it would be unreasonable!
Supposing, we had at this day a Baron Jenner, or a Viscount Watt, or an Earl Stephenson, or a Marquess of Brunei, or a dormant Shakespeare peerage, or a Hogarth baronetcy, I wonder whether it would be cruelly disgraceful to our old nobility!
Supposing, we were all of us to come off our pedestals and mix a little more with those below us, with no fear but that genius, rank, and wealth, would always sufficiently assert their own superiority, I wonder whether we should lower ourselves beyond retrieval!
Supposing, we were to have less botheration and more real education, I wonder whether we should have less or more compulsory colonisation, and Cape of Good Hope very natural indignation!
Supposing, we were materially to simplify the laws, and to abrogate the absurd fiction that everybody is supposed to be acquainted with them, when we know very well that such acquaintance is the study of a life in which some fifty men may have been proficient perhaps in five times fifty years, I wonder whether laws would be respected less?
Supposing, we maintained too many of such fictions altogether, and found their stabling come exceedingly expensive!
Supposing, we looked about us, and seeing a cattle-market originally established in an open place, standing in the midst of a great city because of the unforeseen growth of that great city all about it, and, hearing it asserted that the market was still adapted to the requirements and conveniences of the great city, made up our minds to say that this was stark-mad nonsense and we wouldn't bear it, I wonder whether we should be revolutionary!
Supposing, we were to harbour a small suspicion that there was too much doing in the diplomatic line of business, and that the world would get on better with that shop shut up three days a-week, I wonder whether it would be a huge impiety!
Supposing, Governments were to consider public questions less with reference to their own time, and more with reference to all time, I wonder how we should get on then!
Supposing, the wisdom of our ancestors should turn out to be a mere phrase, and that if there were any sense in it, it should follow that we ought to be believers in the worship of the Druids at this hour, I wonder whether any people would have talked mere moonshine all their lives!
Supposing, we were clearly to perceive that we cannot keep some men out of their share in the administration of affairs, and were to say to them, 'Come, brothers, let us take counsel together, and see how we can best manage this; and don't expect too much from what you get; and let us all in our degree put our shoulders to the wheel, and strive; and let us all improve ourselves and all abandon something of our extreme opinions for the general harmony,' I wonder whether we should want so many special constables on any future tenth of April, or should talk so much about it any more!
I wonder whether people who are quite easy about anything, usually do talk quite so much about it!
Mr. Lane, the traveller, tells us of a superstition the Egyptians have, that the mischievous Genii are driven away by iron, of which they have an instinctive dread. Supposing, this should foreshadow the disappearance of the evil spirits and ignorances besetting this earth, before the iron steam-engines and roads, I wonder whether we could expedite their flight at all by iron energy!
Supposing, we were just to try two or three of these experiments!