Gulliver's Travels | Chapter VII - Page 2
No law of that country must exceed in words the number of letters in their alphabet, which consists only in two-and-twenty. But, indeed, few of them extend even to that length. They are expressed in the most plain and simple terms, wherein those people are not mercurial enough to discover above one interpretation; and to write a comment upon any law is a capital crime. As to the decision of civil causes or proceedings against criminals, their precedents are so few that they have little reason to boast of any extraordinary skill in them.
They have had the art of printing, as well as the Chinese, time out of mind; but their libraries are not very large; for that of the King's, which is reckoned the biggest, doth not amount to above a thousand volumes, placed in a gallery of twelve hundred feet long, from whence I had liberty to borrow what books I pleased. The Queen's joiner had contrived, in one of Glumdalclitch's rooms, a kind of wooden machine five-and-twenty feet high, formed like a standing-ladder; the steps were each fifty feet long; it was, indeed, a moveable pair of stairs, the lowest end placed at ten feet distance from the wall of the chamber. The book I had a mind to read was put up leaning against the wall; I first mounted to the upper step of the ladder, and, turning my face toward the book, began at the top of the page, and so walking to the right and left, about eight or ten paces, according to the length of the lines, till I had gotten a little below the level of mine eyes, and then descending gradually till I came to the bottom; after which I mounted again and began the other page in the same manner, and so turned over the leaf, which I could easily do with both my hands, for it was as thick and stiff as a paste-board, and in the largest folios not above eighteen or twenty feet long.
Their style is clear, masculine, and smooth, but not florid; for they avoid nothing more than multiplying unnecessary words or using various expressions. I have perused many of their books, especially those in history and morality. Among the rest I was much diverted with a little old treatise which always lay in Glumdalclitch's bedchamber and belonged to her governess, a grave, elderly gentlewoman who dealt in writings of morality and devotion. The book treats of the weakness of humankind, and is in little esteem, except among the women and the vulgar. However, I was curious to see what an author of that country could say upon such a subject. This writer went through all the usual topics of European moralists, showing how diminutive, contemptible, and helpless an animal was man in his own nature; how unable to defend himself from inclemencies of the air or the fury of wild beasts; how much he was excelled by one creature in strength, by another in speed, by a third in foresight, by a fourth in industry. He added that nature was degenerated in these latter declining ages of the world, and could now produce only small abortive births in comparison of those in ancient times. He said it was very reasonable to think, not only that the species of men were originally much larger, but also that there must have been giants in former ages, which, as it is asserted by history and tradition, so it hath been confirmed by huge bones and skulls casually dug up in several parts of the kingdom, far exceeding the common dwindling race of man in our days. He argued that the very laws of Nature absolutely required we should have been made in the beginning of a size more large and robust, not so liable to destruction from every little accident of a tile falling from a house or a stone cast from the hand of a boy or being drowned in a little brook. From this way of reasoning the author drew several moral applications useful in the conduct of life, but needless here to repeat. For my own part I could not avoid reflecting how universally this talent was spread, of drawing lectures in morality, or, indeed, rather matter of discontent and repining, from the quarrels we raise with Nature. And, I believe, upon a strict inquiry those quarrels might be shown as ill-grounded among us as they are among that people.
As to their military affairs, they boast that the King's army consists of a hundred and seventy-six thousand foot and thirty-two thousand horse, if that may be called an army which is made up of tradesmen in the several cities and farmers in the country, whose commanders are only the nobility and gentry, without pay or reward. They are, indeed, perfect enough in their exercises, and under very good discipline, wherein I saw no great merit; for how should it be otherwise, where every farmer is under the command of his own landlord, and every citizen under that of the principal men in his own city, chosen after the manner of Venice by ballot!
I have often seen the militia of Lorbrulgrud drawn out to exercise in a great field near the city, of twenty miles square. They were, in all, not above twenty-five thousand foot and six thousand horse; but it was impossible for me to compute their number, considering the space of ground they took up. A cavalier, mounted on a large steed, might be about ninety feet high. I have seen this whole body of horse, upon a word of command, draw their swords at once and brandish them in the air. Imagination can figure nothing so grand, so surprising, and so astonishing! It looked as if ten thousand flashes of lightning were darting at the same time from every quarter of the sky.
I was curious to know how this Prince, to whose dominions there is no access from any other country, came to think of armies, or to teach his people the practice of military discipline. But I was soon informed, both by conversation and reading their histories; for in the course of many ages they have been troubled with the same disease to which the whole race of mankind is subject; the nobility often contending for power, the people for liberty, and the King for absolute dominion. All which, however, happily tempered by the laws of that kingdom, have been sometimes violated by each of the three parties, and have once, or more, occasioned civil wars, the last whereof was happily put an end to by this Prince's grandfather in a general composition; and the militia, then settled with common consent, hath been ever since kept in the strictest duty.
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