Eliot's Theory of Tolerance

Toleration is the practice of deliberately
allowing or permitting a thing of which one
disapproves.

One can meaningfully speak of tolerating
only if one is in a position to disallow.

In 1988, in the spirit of Glasnost, Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev
promised increased religious toleration.

In 1986, the ﬁrst World Day of Prayer for Peace
was held in Assisi. Representatives of one hundred
and twenty different religions came together for
prayer to their God or gods.

In 1965, The Roman Catholic Church Vatican II
Council issued the decree Dignitatis Humanae
(Religious Freedom) that states that all people
must have the right to religious freedom.

In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly
adopted Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.

Mill
John Stuart Mill's arguments in "On Liberty" (1859) in support of the freedom of speech were phrased to include a defense of religious
toleration:
Let the opinions impugned be the belief of God and in a future state, or any of the commonly received doctrines of morality... But I must be
permitted to observe that it is not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it may) which I call an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking
to decide that question for others, without allowing them to hear what can be said on the contrary side. And I denounce and reprobate this
pretension not the less if it is put forth on the side of my most solemn convictions.

Catholic Relief Act
The Catholic Relief Act adopted by the Parliament in 1829 repealed the last of the criminal laws aimed at Catholic citizens of Great Britain.

The First Amendment to the United
States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratiﬁed along with the rest of the Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791, included the
following words:"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
In 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptists Association in which he said: "...I contemplate with sovereign reverence that
act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

Declaration of the Rights of Man
and the Citizen
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789), adopted by the National Constituent Assembly during the French Revolution,
states in Article 10: "No-one shall be interfered with for his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their practice doesn't disturb public
order as established by the law."

Lessing
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781), German dramatist and philosopher, trusted in a "Christianity of Reason", in which human reason
(initiated by criticism and dissent) would develop, even without help by divine revelation. His plays about Jewish characters and themes, such
as "Die Juden" and "Nathan der Weise", "have usually been considered impressive pleas for social and religious toleration".[36] The latter
work contains the famous parable of the three rings, in which three sons represent the three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism, and
Islam. Each son believes he has the one true ring passed down by their father, but judgment on which is correct is reserved to God.[

Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet, the French writer, historian and philosopher known as Voltaire (1694-1778) published his "Treatise on Toleration" in
1763. In it he attacked religious superstition, but also said, "It does not require great art, or magniﬁcently trained eloquence, to prove that
Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my
brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the
same God?"

Act of Toleration
The Act of Toleration, adopted by the British Parliament in 1689, allowed freedom of worship to Nonconformists who had pledged to the oaths
of Allegiance and Supremacy and rejected transubstantiation The Nonconformists were Protestants who dissented from the Church of
England such as Baptists and Congregationalists. They were allowed their own places of worship and their own teachers, if they accepted
certain oaths of allegiance.
The Act did not apply to Catholics and non-trinitarians and continued the existing social and political disabilities for Dissenters, including their
exclusion from political ofﬁce and also from universities.

Bayle
Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) was a French Protestant scholar and philosopher who went into exile in Holland. In his "Dictionnaire historique and
critique" and "Commentaire Philosophique" he advanced arguments for religious toleration (though, like some others of his time, he was not
anxious to extend the same protection to Catholics he would to differing Protestant sects). Among his arguments were that every church
believes it is the right one so "a heretical church would be in a position to persecute the true church". Bayle wrote that “the erroneous
conscience procures for error the same rights and privileges that the orthodox conscience procures for truth.” [33]
Bayle was repelled by the use of scripture to justify coercion and violence: "One must transcribe almost the whole New Testament to collect all
the Proofs it affords us of that Gentleness and Long-suffering, which constitute the distinguishing and essential Character of the Gospel." He
did not regard toleration as a danger to the state, but to the contrary: "If the Multiplicity of Religions prejudices the State, it proceeds from their
not bearing with one another but on the contrary endeavoring each to crush and destroy the other by methods of Persecution. In a word, all
the Mischief arises not from Toleration, but from the want of it."

Locke
English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) published A Letter Concerning Toleration in 1689. Locke's work appeared amidst a fear that
Catholicism might be taking over England, and responds to the problem of religion and government by proposing religious toleration as the
answer. Unlike Thomas Hobbes, who saw uniformity of religion as the key to a well-functioning civil society, Locke argued that more religious
groups actually prevent civil unrest. In his opinion, civil unrest results from confrontations caused by any magistrate's attempt to prevent
different religions from being practiced, rather than tolerating their proliferation. However, Locke denies religious tolerance for Catholics, for
political reasons, and also for atheists because 'Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold
upon an atheist'. A passage Locke later added to the Essay concerning Human Understanding, questioned whether atheism was necessarily
inimical to political obedience.

Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. He published the Theological-Political Treatise anonymously in 1670, arguing
(according to the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) that "the freedom to philosophize can not only be granted without injury to piety and
the peace of the Commonwealth, but that the peace of the Commonwealth and Piety are endangered by the suppression of this freedom",
and defending, "as a political ideal, the tolerant, secular, and democratic polity". After analyzing certain Biblical texts, Spinoza opted for
tolerance and freedom of thought in his conclusion that "every person is in duty bound to adapt these religious dogmas to his own
understanding and to interpret them for himself in whatever way makes him feel that he can the more readily accept them with full conﬁdence
and conviction."

In the American colonies
The Maryland Toleration Act, passed in 1649.
In 1636, Roger Williams and companions at the foundation of Rhode Island entered into a compact binding themselves "to be obedient to the
majority only in civil things". Lucian Johnston writes, "Williams' intention was to grant an inﬁnitely greater religious liberty than then existed
anywhere in the world outside of the Colony of Maryland". In 1663, Charles II granted the colony a charter guaranteeing complete religious
toleration. [30]
In 1649 Maryland passed the Maryland Toleration Act, also known as the Act Concerning Religion, a law mandating religious tolerance for
Trinitarian Christians only (excluding Nontrinitarian faiths). Passed on September 21, 1649 by the assembly of the Maryland colony, it was the
ﬁrst law requiring religious tolerance in the British North American colonies. The Calvert family sought enactment of the law to protect Catholic
settlers and some of the other religions that did not conform to the dominant Anglicanism of Britain and her colonies.
In 1657, New Amsterdam granted religious toleration to Jews.

Rudolph II
In 1609, Rudolph II decreed religious toleration in Bohemia.

Milton
John Milton (1608-1674), English Protestant poet and essayist, called in the Aeropagitica for "the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely
according to conscience, above all liberties" (applied however, only to the conﬂicting Protestant sects, and not to atheists, Jews, Moslems or
even Catholics). "Milton argued for disestablishment as the only effective way of achieving broad toleration. Rather than force a man's
conscience, government should recognize the persuasive force of the gospel."

Edict of Nantes
The Edict of Nantes, issued on April 13, 1598, by Henry IV of France, granted the Protestants of France (also known as Huguenots)
substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholic. The main concern was civil unity;[25] the Edict separated civil from religious
unity, treated some Protestants for the first time as more than mere schismatics and heretics, and opened a path for secularism and
tolerance. In offering general freedom of conscience to individuals, the edict offered many specific concessions to the Protestants, such as
amnesty and the reinstatement of their civil rights, including the right to work in any field or for the State and to bring grievances directly to the
king. It marked the end of the religious wars that tore apart the population of France during the second half of the 16th century.
The Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685 by King Louis XIV, leading to a renewal of the persecution of Protestants in France.

The Warsaw Confederation
The Warsaw Confederation of 1573 was a private compact signed by representatives of all the major religions in Polish and Lithuanian
society, in which they pledged each other mutual support and tolerance. The confederation was incorporated into the Henrican articles, which
constituted a virtual Polish constitution.

Maximilian II
In 1571, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II granted religious toleration to the nobles of Lower Austria, their families and workers.

Edict of Torda
In 1568, King John II Sigismund of Hungary, encouraged by his Unitarian Minister Francis David (Dávid Ferenc), issued the Edict of Torda
decreeing religious toleration.

Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), French Catholic essayist and statesman, moderated between the Catholic and Protestant sides in the
Wars of Religion. Montaigne's theory of skepticism led to the conclusion that we cannot precipitously decide the error of other's views.
Montaigne wrote in his famous "Essais": "It is putting a very high value on one's conjectures, to have a man roasted alive because of
them...To kill people, there must be sharp and brilliant clarity."

Bodin
Jean Bodin (1530–1596) was a French Catholic jurist and political philosopher. His Latin work Colloquium heptaplomeres de rerum sublimium
arcanis abditis ("The Colloqium of the Seven") portrays a conversation about the nature of truth between seven cultivated men from diverse
religious or philosophical backgrounds: a natural philosopher, a Calvinist, a Muslim, a Roman Catholic, a Lutheran, a Jew, and a skeptic. All
agree to live in mutual respect and tolerance.

Castellio
Sebastian Castellio (1515-1563) was a French Protestant theologian who in 1554 published under a pseudonym the pamphlet Whether
heretics should be persecuted (De haereticis, an sint persequendi) criticizing John Calvin's execution of Michael Servetus: "When Servetus
fought with reasons and writings, he should have been repulsed by reasons and writings." Castellio concluded: "We can live together
peacefully only when we control our intolerance. Even though there will always be differences of opinion from time to time, we can at any rate
come to general understandings, can love one another, and can enter the bonds of peace, pending the day when we shall attain unity of
faith."[21] Castellio is remembered for the often quoted statement, "To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man.

More
Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), Catholic Lord Chancellor of King Henry VIII and author, described a world of almost complete religious
toleration in Utopia (1516), in which the Utopians "can hold various religious beliefs without persecution from the authorities."[19] Later, in his
three years as Lord Chancellor, however, More waged "unrelenting war against the enemies of the faith."."[

Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (1466–1536), was a Dutch Renaissance humanist and Catholic whose works laid a foundation for religious
toleration. For example, in De libero arbitrio, opposing certain views of Martin Luther, Erasmus noted that religious disputants should be
temperate in their language, "because in this way the truth, which is often lost amidst too much wrangling may be more surely perceived."
Gary Remer writes, "Like Cicero, Erasmus concludes that truth is furthered by a more harmonious relationship between interlocutors." [17]
Although Erasmus did not oppose the punishment of heretics, in individual cases he generally argued for moderation and against the death
penalty. He wrote, "It is better to cure a sick man than to kill him."

Vladimiri
Paulus Vladimiri (ca. 1370-1435) was a Polish scholar and rector who at the Council of Constance in 1414, presented a thesis, Tractatus de
potestate papae et imperatoris respectu inﬁdelium (Treatise on the Power of the Pope and the Emperor Respecting Inﬁdels). In it he argued
that pagan and Christian nations could coexist in peace and criticized the Teutonic Order for its wars of conquest of native non-Christian
peoples in Prussia and Lithuania. Vladimiri strongly supported the idea of conciliarism and pioneered the notion of peaceful coexistence
among nations – a forerunner of modern theories of human rights. Throughout his political, diplomatic and university career, he expressed the
view that a world guided by the principles of peace and mutual respect among nations was possible and that pagan nations had a right to
peace and to possession of their own lands.

Tolerance of the Jews
In 1348, Pope Clement VI (1291–1352) issued a bull pleading with Catholics not to murder Jews, whom they blamed for the Black Death. He
noted that Jews died of the plague like anyone else, and that the disease also flourished in areas where there were no Jews. Christians who
blamed and killed Jews had been “seduced by that liar, the Devil”. He took Jews under his personal protection at Avignon, but his calls for
other clergy to do so failed to be heeded. [14]
Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522) was a German humanist and a scholar of Greek and Hebrew who opposed efforts by Johannes Pfefferkorn,
backed by the Dominicans of Cologne, to confiscate all religious texts from the Jews as a first step towards their forcible conversion to the
Catholic religion. [15]
Despite occasional spontaneous episodes of pogroms and killings, as during the Black Death, Poland was a relatively tolerant home for the
Jews in the medieval period. In 1264, the Statute of Kalisz guaranteed safety, personal liberties, freedom of religion, trade, and travel to Jews.
By the mid-16th century, Poland was home to 80% of the world's Jewish population. Jewish worship was officially recognized, with a Chief
Rabbi originally appointed by the monarch. Jewish property ownership was also protected for much of the period, and Jews entered into
business partnerships with members of the nobility.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

1) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

On 10 December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted
and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, at the Palais de
Chaillot in Paris. Following this historic act, the Assembly called upon all
Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be
disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other
educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of
countries or territories."
The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and
represents the ﬁrst global expression of rights to which all human beings are
entitled.

2) The Preamble
■ Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of
the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
■ Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have
outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy
freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest
aspiration of the common people,
■ Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion
against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
■ Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
■ Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental
human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and
women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger
freedom,
■ Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations,
the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
■ Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the
full realization of this pledge,
■ Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual
and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and
education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national
and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the
peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Article 1

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity
and rights. They are endowed with reason and
conscience and should act towards one another in a
spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms
set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of
any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language,
religion, political or other opinion, national or social
origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore,
no distinction shall be made on the basis of the
political, jurisdictional or international status of the
country or territory to which a person belongs,
whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing
or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of
person.

Article 4

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery
and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their
forms.

Article 5

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as
a person before the law.

Article 7

All are equal before the law and are entitled without
any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All
are entitled to equal protection against any
discrimination in violation of this Declaration and
against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the
competent national tribunals for acts violating the
fundamental rights granted him by the constitution
or by law.

Article 9

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest,
detention or exile.

Article 10

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and
public hearing by an independent and impartial
tribunal, in the determination of his rights and
obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11

Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right
to be presumed innocent until proved guilty
according to law in a public trial at which he has had
all the guarantees necessary for his defence. No one
shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account
of any act or omission which did not constitute a
penal offence, under national or international law, at
the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier
penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable
at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference
with his privacy, family, home or correspondence,
nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation.
Everyone has the right to the protection of the law
against such interference or attacks.

Article 13

Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and
residence within the borders of each state. Everyone
has the right to leave any country, including their
own, and to return to their country.

Article 14

Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other
countries asylum from persecution. This right may
not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely
arising from non-political crimes or from acts
contrary to the purposes and principles of the United
Nations.

Article 15

Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall
be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied
the right to change his nationality.

Article 16

Men and women of full age, without any limitation
due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to
marry and to found a family. They are entitled to
equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at
its dissolution. Marriage shall be entered into only
with the free and full consent of the intending
spouses. The family is the natural and fundamental
group unit of society and is entitled to protection by
society and the State.

Article 17

Everyone has the right to own property alone as well
as in association with others. No one shall be
arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion; this right includes freedom
to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either
alone or in community with others and in public or
private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching,
practice, worship and observance.

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and
expression; this right includes freedom to hold
opinions without interference and to seek, receive
and impart information and ideas through any media
and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20

Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful
assembly and association. No one may be compelled
to belong to an association.

Article 21

Everyone has the right to take part in the
government of their country, directly or through
freely chosen representatives. Everyone has the right
of equal access to public service in their country. The
will of the people shall be the basis of the authority
of government; this will shall be expressed in
periodic and genuine elections which shall be by
universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by
secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to
social security and is entitled to realization, through
national effort and international co-operation and in
accordance with the organisation and resources of
each State, of the economic, social and cultural
rights indispensable for his dignity and the free
development of his personality.

Article 23

Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of
employment, to just and favourable conditions of
work and to protection against unemployment.
Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right
to equal pay for equal work. Everyone who works has
the right to just and favourable remuneration
ensuring for himself and his family an existence
worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if
necessary, by other means of social protection.
Everyone has the right to form and to join trade
unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including
reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic
holidays with pay.

Article 25

Everyone has the right to a standard of living
adequate for the health and well-being of himself
and of his family, including food, clothing, housing
and medical care and necessary social services, and
the right to security in the event of unemployment,
sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other
lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his
control. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to
special care and assistance. All children, whether
born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same
social protection.

Article 26
Everyone has the right to education. Education shall
be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental
stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory.
Technical and professional education shall be made
generally available and higher education shall be
equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
Education shall be directed to the full development
of the human personality and to the strengthening of
respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
It shall promote understanding, tolerance and
friendship among all nations, racial or religious
groups, and shall further the activities of the United
Nations for the maintenance of peace. Parents have a
prior right to choose the kind of education that shall
be given to their children.

Article 27

Everyone has the right freely to participate in the
cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and
to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral
and material interests resulting from any scientific,
literary or artistic production of which he is the
author.

Article 28

Everyone is entitled to a social and international
order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in
this Declaration can be fully realised.

Article 29

Everyone has duties to the community in which alone
the free and full development of his personality is
possible. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms,
everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as
are determined by law solely for the purpose of
securing due recognition and respect for the rights
and freedoms of others and of meeting the just
requirements of morality, public order and the
general welfare in a democratic society. These rights
and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary
to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as
implying for any State, group or person any right to
engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at
the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set
forth herein.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1792 – 1822)

Critically regarded among the ﬁnest lyric
poets in the English language.

" " " 1) unconventional life and

" " " 2) uncompromising idealism,

" " " 3) strong disapproving voice,

made him an authoritative and much-
denigrated ﬁgure during his life and
afterward.

He was not tolerated by even his father.

Shelley never lived to see the extent of his
success and inﬂuence.

He didnʼt care much about his
success and inﬂuence.

daily < quarterly < yearly < mortally < immortality

bodily < business < every < celebrity < artistry

Some of his works were published, but they
were often suppressed upon publication.

Shelley's conventional following did not expand until a
generation after his passing, unlike Lord Byron, who was
popular among all classes during his lifetime despite his
radical views.

For decades after his death, Shelley was mainly only
appreciated by the major Victorian poets, the pre-
Raphaelites, the socialists and the labour movement.

He became an icon of the next two or three or even four
generations of poets, including the important Victorian and
Pre-Raphaelite poets Robert Browning, Alfred Lord
Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles
Swinburne, as well as Lord Byron, Henry David Thoreau,
William Butler Yeats, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, and
poets in other languages such as Jan Kasprowicz,
Jibanananda Das and Subramanya Bharathy.

Henry David Thoreau's civil disobedience and Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi's passive confrontation were
influenced and inspired by Shelley's nonviolence in
objection and political action.

It is known that Gandhi would often quote Shelley's
Masque of Anarchy, which has been called "perhaps the
first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent
resistance."

He was accepted by Mahatma Gandhi, Alfred Nobel, C. S.
Lewis, Karl Marx, Henry Stephens Salt, George Bernard
Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Isadora Duncan, Jiddu
Krishnamurti ("Shelley is as sacred as the Bible."),Upton
Sinclair and William Butler Yeats.

Ralph Vaughan Williams, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Roger
Quilter, John Vanderslice and Samuel Barber composed
music based on his poems.

Although Shelley's works were banned from reputable
Victorian households, his political writings were pirated by
men such as Richard Carlile who frequently went to jail for
printing 'seditious and profane libel' (i.e. material
proscribed by the government) and these cheap pirate
editions reached hundreds of activists and workers
throughout the nineteenth century.

"Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import
than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of
universals, whereas those of history are singulars."
- Aristotle

The Mask of Anarchy

1819

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
age 27

I.
As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.

II.
I met Murder on the way-
He had a mask like Castlereagh-
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:

III.
All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.

IV.
Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Eldon, an ermined gown;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

V.
And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.

VI.
Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.

VII.
And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

VIII.
Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

IX.
And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw-
'I am God, and King, and Law!'

X.
With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.

XI.
And a mighty troop around,
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.

XII.
And with glorious triumph, they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.

XIII.
O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down;
Till they came to London town.

XIV.
And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.

XV.
For with pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
'Thou art God, and Law, and King.

XVI.
'We have waited, weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our purses are empty, our swords are cold,
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.'

XVII.
Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed;
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering-'Thou art Law and God.'-

XVIII.
Then all cried with one accord,
'Thou art King, and God, and Lord;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!'

XIX.
And Anarchy, the Skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost ten millions to the nation.

XX.
For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his;
His the sceptre, crown, and globe,
And the gold-inwoven robe.

XXI.
So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned Parliament

XXII.
When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air:

XXIII.
'My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!

XXIV.
'He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me-
Misery, oh, Misery!'

XXV.
Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses' feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

XXVI.
When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose,
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale:

XXVII.
Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky,

XXVIII.
It grew-a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper's scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.

XXIX.
On its helm, seen far away,
A planet, like the Morning's, lay;
And those plumes its light rained through
Like a shower of crimson dew.

XXX.
With step as soft as wind it passed
O'er the heads of men-so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked,-but all was empty air.

XXXI.
As flowers beneath May's footstep waken,
As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.

XXXII.
And the prostrate multitude
Looked-and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien:

XXXIII.
And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.

XXXIV.
A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt-and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose

XXXV.
As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother's throe

XXXVI.
Had turnèd every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood,-
As if her heart had cried aloud:

XXXVII.
'Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;

XXXVIII.
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many-they are few.

XXXIX.
'What is Freedom?-ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well-
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

XL.
''Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell,

XLI.
'So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.

XLII.
''Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak,-
They are dying whilst I speak.

XLIII.
''Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;

XLIV.
''Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More than e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.

XLV.
'Paper coin-that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.

XLVI.
''Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.

XLVII.
'And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you-
Blood is on the grass like dew.

XLVIII.
'Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood-and wrong for wrong-
Do not thus when ye are strong.

XLIX.
'Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their wingèd quest;
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.

L.
'Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed;
All things have a home but one-
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!

LI.
'This is Slavery-savage men,
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do-
But such ills they never knew.

LII.
'What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand-tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery:

LIII.
'Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.

LIV.
'For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.

LV.
'Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude-
No-in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.

LVI.
'To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.

LVII.
'Thou art Justice-ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England-thou
Shield'st alike the high and low.

LVIII.
'Thou art Wisdom-Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.

LIX.
'Thou art Peace-never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.

LX.
'What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee.

LXI.
'Thou art Love-the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,

LXII.
'Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy belovèd sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud-whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.

LXIII.
'Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.

LXIV.
'Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou-let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness.

LXV.
'Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.

LXVI.
'Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.

LXVII.
'From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan
For others' misery or their own,

LXVIII.
'From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold-

LXIX.
'From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares-

LXX.
'Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around

LXXI.
'Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale-

LXXII.
'Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold-

LXXIII.
'Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free-

LXXIV.
'Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.

LXXV.
'Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.

LXXVI.
'Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.

LXXVII.
'Let the fixèd bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.

LXXVIII.
'Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.

LXXIX.
'Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,

LXXX.
'And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armèd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.

LXXXI.
'Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,

LXXXII.
'The old laws of England-they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo-Liberty!

LXXXIII.
'On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.

LXXXIV.
'And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew,-
What they like, that let them do.

LXXXV.
'With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.

LXXXVI.
'Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

LXXXVII.
'Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand-
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.

LXXXVIII.
'And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.

LXXXIX.
'And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.

XC.
'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again-again-again-

XCI.
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number-
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many-they are few.'

“Good travels at a snail’s pace. Those who want to do
good are not selfish, they are not in a hurry, they know
that to impregnate people with good requires a long
time.”
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Eliot's Theory of Tolerance

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