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diff --git a/11079-0.txt b/11079-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d2216e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/11079-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10084 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11079 *** + +ESSAYS IN REBELLION + +BY + +HENRY W. NEVINSON + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + + NEIGHBOURS OF OURS: Scenes of East End Life. + + IN THE VALLEY OF TOPHET: Scenes of Black Country Life. + + THE THIRTY DAYS' WAR: Scenes in the Greek and Turkish War of 1897. + + LADYSMITH: a Diary of the Siege. + + CLASSIC GREEK LANDSCAPE AND ARCHITECTURE: Text to John Fulleylove's + Pictures of Greece. + + THE PLEA OF PAN. + + BETWEEN THE ACTS: Scenes in the Author's Experience. + + ON THE OLD ROAD THROUGH FRANCE TO FLORENCE: French Chapters to + Hallam Murray's Pictures. + + BOOKS AND PERSONALITIES: a volume of Criticism. + + A MODERN SLAVERY: an Investigation of the Slave System in Angola + and the Islands of San Thomé and Principe. + + THE DAWN IN RUSSIA: Scenes in the Revolution of 1905-1906. + + THE NEW SPIRIT IN INDIA: Scenes during the Unrest of 1907-1908. + + ESSAYS IN FREEDOM. + + THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM: a Summary of the History of Democracy. + + +[Illustration: HENRY W. NEVINSON] + + + + +ESSAYS IN REBELLION + +BY + +HENRY W. NEVINSON + + + +AUTHOR OF "ESSAYS IN FREEDOM" + + + +LONDON + +JAMES NISBET & CO., LIMITED + +22 BERNERS STREET, W. + +1913 + +_First published in_ 1913 + + + + +PREFACE + + +When writers are so different, it is queer that every age should have a +distinguishing spirit. Each writer is as different in "style" as in +look, and his words reveal him just as the body reveals the soul, +blazoning its past or its future without possibility of concealment. +Paint a face, no matter how delicately or how thick; the very paint--the +very choice of colours red or white--betrays the nature lurking beneath +it, and no amount of artifice or imitation in a writer can obscure the +secret of self. Artifice and imitation reveal the finikin or uncertain +soul as surely as deliberate bareness reveals a conscious austerity. +Except, perhaps, in mathematics, there seems no escape from this +revelation. I am told that even in the "exact sciences" there is no +escape; even in physics the exposition is a matter of imagination, of +personality, of "style." + +Next to mathematics and the exact sciences, I suppose, Bluebooks and +leading articles are taken as representing truth in the most absolute +and impersonal manner. We appeal to Bluebooks as confidently as to +astronomers, assuming that their statements will be impersonally true, +just as the curve of a comet will be the same for the Opposition as for +the Government, for Anarchists as for Fabians. Yet what a difference may +be detected in Bluebooks on the selfsame subject, and what an exciting +hide-and-seek for souls we may there enjoy! Behind one we catch sight of +the cautiously official mind, obsequious to established power, +observant of accepted fictions, contemptuous of zeal, apprehensive of +trouble, solicitous for the path of least resistance. Behind another we +feel the stirring spirit that no promotion will subdue, pitiless to +abomination, untouched by smooth excuses, regardless of official +sensibilities, and untamed to comfortable routine, which, in his case, +will probably be short. + +Or take the leading article: hardly any form of words would appear less +personal. It is the abstract product of what the editor wants, what the +proprietor wants, what the Party wants, and what the readers want, just +flavoured sometimes with the very smallest suspicion of what the writer +wants. And yet, in leaders upon the same subject and in the same paper, +what a difference, again! Peruse leaders for a week, and in the week +following, with as much certainty as if you saw the animals emerging +from the Ark, you will be able to say, "Here comes the laboured Ox, here +the Wild Ass prances, here trips the Antelope with fairy footfall, here +the Dromedary froths beneath his hump; there soars the Crested Screamer, +there bolts the circuitous Hare, there old Behemoth wallows in the ooze, +and there the swivel-eyed Chameleon clings along the fence." + +If even the writers of Bluebooks and leading articles are thus as +distinguishable as the animals which Noah had no difficulty in sorting +into couples, such writers as poets, essayists, and novelists, who have +no limit imposed upon their distinction, are likely to be still more +distinct. Indeed, we find it so, for their work needs no signature, +since the "style"--their way of looking at things--reveals it. And yet, +though it is only the sum of all these separate personalities so +diverse and distinct, each age or generation possesses a certain +"style" of its own, unconsciously revealing a kind of general +personality. Everyone knows it is as unnecessary to date a book as a +church or a candlestick, since church and candlestick and book always +bear the date written on the face. The literature of the last three or +four generations, for instance, has been distinguished by Rebellion as a +"style." Rebellion has been the characteristic expression of its most +vital self. + +It has been an age of rebels in letters as in life. Of course, +acquiescent writers have existed as well, just as in the Ark (to keep up +the illustration) vegetarians stood side by side with carnivors, and +hoofs were intermixed with claws. The great majority have, as usual, +supported traditional order, have eulogised the past or present, and +been, not only at ease in their generation, but enraptured at the vision +of its beneficent prosperity. Such were the writers and orators whom +their contemporaries hailed as the distinctive spokesmen of a happy and +glorious time, leaping and bounding with income and population. But, on +looking back, we see their contemporaries were entirely mistaken. The +people of vital power and prolonged, far-reaching influence--the +"dynamic" people--have been the rebels. Wordsworth (it may seem strange +to include that venerable figure among rebels, but so long as he was +more poetic than venerable he stood in perpetual rebellion against the +motives, pursuits, and satisfactions of his time)--Wordsworth till he +was forty-five, Byron all his short life, Newman, Carlyle, Dickens, +Matthew Arnold, Ruskin--among English writers those have proved +themselves the dynamic people. There are many others, and many later; +but we need recall only these few great names, far enough distant to be +clearly visible. It was they who moved the country, shaking its torpor +like successive earthquakes. Risen against the conceit of riches, and +the hypocrisies of Society, against unimpassioned and unimaginative +religion, against ignoble success and the complacent economics that +hewed mankind into statistics to fit their abstractions--one and all, in +spite of their variety or mutual hostility, they were rebels, and their +personality expressed itself in rebellion. That was the common +characteristic of their "style." + +In other parts of Europe, from _Faust_, which opened the nineteenth +century, onward through _Les Miserables_ to _The Doll's House_ and +_Resurrection_, it was the same. As, in political action, Russia hardly +ceased to rebel, France freed herself three times, Ireland gave us the +line of rebels from Robert Emmet to Michael Davitt, and all rebellion +culminated in Garibaldi, so the most vital spirits in every literature +of Europe were rebels. Perhaps it is so in all the greatest periods of +word and deed. For examples, one could point rapidly to Euripides, +Dante, Rabelais, Milton, Swift, Rousseau--men who have few attributes in +common except greatness and rebellion. But, to limit ourselves to the +familiar period of the last three or four generations, the words, +thoughts, and actions most pregnant with dynamic energy have been marked +with one mark. Rebellion has been the expression of a century's +personality. + +Of course, it is very lamentable. _Otium divos_--the rebel, like the +storm-swept sailor, cries to heaven for tranquillity. It is not the +hardened warrior, but only the elegant writer who, having never seen +bloodshed, clamours to shed blood. All rebels long for a peace in which +it would be possible to acquiesce, while they cultivated their minds and +their gardens, employing the shining hour upon industry and intellectual +pursuits. "I can say in the presence of God," cried Cromwell, in the +last of his speeches, "I can say in the presence of God, in comparison +with whom we are but poor creeping ants upon the earth,--I would have +been glad to have lived under my woodside, to have kept a flock of +sheep, rather than undertaken such a Government as this." Every rebel is +a Quietist at heart, seeking peace and ensuing it, willing to let the +stream of time glide past without his stir, dreading the onset of +indignation's claws, stopping his ears to the trumpet-call of action, +and always tempted to leave vengeance to Him who has promised to repay. +If reason alone were his guide, undisturbed by rage he would enjoy such +pleasure as he could clutch, or sit like a Fakir in blissful isolation, +contemplating the aspect of eternity under which the difference between +a mouse and a man becomes imperceptible. But the age has grown a skin +too sensitive for such happiness. "For myself," said Goethe, in a +passage I quote again later in this book, "For myself, I am happy +enough. Joy comes streaming in upon me from every side. Only, for +others, I am not happy." So it is that the Hound of another's Hell gives +us no rest, and we are pursued by Furies not our own. + +In spite of the longing for tranquillity, then, we cannot confidently +hope that rebellion will be less the characteristic of the present +generation than of the past. It is true, we are told that, in this +country at all events, the necessity for active and political rebellion +is past. However much a man may detest the Government, he is now, in a +sense, governed with his own consent, since he is free to persuade his +fellow-citizens that the Government is detestable, and, as far as his +vote goes, to dismiss his paid servants in the Ministry and to appoint +others. Such securities for freedom are thought to have made active and +political rebellion obsolete. This appears to be proved even by the +increasingly rebellious movement among women, as unenfranchised people, +excluded from citizenship and governed without consent. For women are in +rebellion only because they possess none of those securities, and the +moment that the securities are ensured them, their rebellion ceases. It +has only arisen because they are compelled to pay for the upkeep of the +State (including the upkeep of the statesmen) and to obey laws which +interfere increasingly more and more with their daily life, while they +are allowed no voice in the expenditure or the legislation. Whence have +originated, not only tangible and obvious hardships, but those feelings +of degradation, as of beings excluded from privileges owing to some +inferiority supposed inherent--those feelings of subjection, impotence, +and degradation which, more even than actual hardships, kindle the +spirit to the white-hot point of rebellion. + +This democratic rising against a masculine oligarchy ceases when the +cause is removed, and the cause is simple. Similarly, the revolts of +nationalism against Imperial power, though the motives are more +complicated, usually cease at the concession of self-government. But +even if these political and fairly simple motives to rebellion are +likely soon to become obsolete in our country and Empire, other and +vaguer rebellious forms, neither nationalist nor directly political, +appear to stand close in front of us, and no one is yet sure what line +of action they will follow. Their line of action is still obscure, +though both England and Europe have felt the touch of general or +sympathetic strikes, and of "sabotage," or wilful destruction of +property rather than life--the method advocated by Syndicalists and +Suffragettes to rouse the sleepy world from indifference to their +wrongs. In this collection of essays, contributed during the last year +or two, as occasion arose, to the _Nation_ and other periodicals, I have +included some descriptions of the causes likely to incite people to +rebellion of this kind. Such causes, I mean, as the inequality that +comes from poverty alone--the physical unfitness or lack of mental +opportunity that is due only to poverty. Those things make happiness +impossible, for they frustrate the active exercise of vital powers, and +give life no scope. During a generation or so, people have looked to the +Government to mitigate the oppression of poverty, but some different +appeal now seems probable. For many despair of the goodwill or the power +of the State, finding little in it but hurried politicians, inhuman +officials, and the "experts" who docket and label the poor for +"institutional treatment," with results shown in my example of a +workhouse school. + +The troubling and persistent alarum of rebellion calls from many sides, +and as instances of its call I have introduced mention of various +rebels, whether against authority or custom. I have once or twice +ventured also into those twilit regions where the spirit itself stands +rebellious against its limits, and questions even the ultimate insane +triumph of flesh and circumstance, closing its short-lived interlude. +The rebellion may appear to be vain, but when we consider the primitive +elements of life from which our paragon of animals has ascended, the +mere attempt at rebellion is more astonishing than the greatest recorded +miracle, and since man has grown to think that he possesses a soul, +there is no knowing what he may come to. + +I have added a few other scenes from old times and new, just for +variety, or just to remind ourselves that, in the midst of all chaos and +perturbation and rage, it is possible for the world to go upon its way, +preserving, in spite of all, its most excellent gift of sanity. + +H.W.N. + +LONDON, _Easter_, 1913. + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAP. + I. THE CATFISH + II. REBELLION + III. "EITHER COWARDS OR UNHAPPY" + IV. DEEDS NOT WORDS. + V. THE BURNING BOOK. + VI. "WHERE CRUEL RAGE" + VII. THE CHIEF OF REBELS + VIII. THE IRON CROWN + IX. "THE IMPERIAL RACE" + X. THE GREAT UNKNOWN + XI. THE WORTH OF A PENNY + XII. "FIX BAYONETS!" + XIII. "OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US" + XIV. THE GRAND JURY + XV. A NEW CONSCRIPTION + XVI. THE LAST OF THE RUNNYMEDES + XVII. CHILDREN OF THE STATE. + XVIII. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS. + XIX. ABDUL'S RETREAT + XX. "NATIVES" + XXI. UNDER THE YOKE. + XXII. BLACK AND WHITE + XXIII. PEACE AND WAR IN THE BALANCE + XXIV. THE MAID + XXV. THE HEROINE + XXVI. THE PENALTY OF VIRTUE + XXVII. "THE DAILY ROUND" + XXVIII. THE CHARM OF COMMONPLACE + XXIX. THE PRIEST OF NEMI. + XXX. THE UNDERWORLD OF TIME. + XXXI. MENTAL EUGENICS + XXXII. THE MEDICINE OF THE MIND + XXXIII. THE LAST FENCE + XXXIV. THE ELEMENT OF CALM + XXXV. "THE KING OF TERRORS" + XXXVI. STRULDBRUGS + XXXVII. "LIBERTÉ, LIBERTÉ, CHÉRIE!" + XXXVIII. A FAREWELL TO FLEET STREET. + INDEX + + + +ESSAYS IN REBELLION + + + + +I + + +THE CATFISH + +Before the hustling days of ice and of "cutters" rushing to and fro +between Billingsgate and our fleets of steam-trawlers on the Dogger +Bank, most sailing trawlers and long-line fishing-boats were built with +a large tank in their holds, through which the sea flowed freely. Dutch +eel-boats are built so still, and along the quays of Amsterdam and +Copenhagen you may see such tanks in fishing-boats of almost every kind. +Our East Coast fishermen kept them chiefly for cod. They hoped thus to +bring the fish fresh and good to market, for, unless they were +overcrowded, the cod lived quite as contentedly in the tanks as in the +open sea. But in one respect the fishermen were disappointed. They found +that the fish arrived slack, flabby, and limp, though well fed and in +apparent health. + +Perplexity reigned (for the value of the catch was much diminished) +until some fisherman of genius conjectured that the cod lived only too +contentedly in those tanks, and suffered from the atrophy of calm. The +cod is by nature a lethargic, torpid, and plethoric creature, prone to +inactivity, content to lie in comfort, swallowing all that comes, with +cavernous mouth wide open, big enough to gulp its own body down if that +could be. In the tanks the cod rotted at ease, rapidly deteriorating in +their flesh. So, as a stimulating corrective, that genius among +fishermen inserted one catfish into each of his tanks, and found that +his cod came to market firm, brisk, and wholesome. Which result remained +a mystery until his death, when the secret was published and a strange +demand for catfish arose. For the catfish is the demon of the deep, and +keeps things lively. + +This irritating but salutary stimulant in the tank (to say nothing of +the myriad catfishes in the depths of ocean!) has often reminded me of +what the Lord says to Mephistopheles in the Prologue to _Faust_. After +observing that, of all the spirits that deny, He finds a knave the least +of a bore, the Lord proceeds: + + "Des Menschen Thätigkeit kann allzuleicht erschlaffen, + Er liebt sich bald die unbedingte Ruh; + Drum geb' ich ihm gern den Gesellen zu, + Der reizt und wirkt und muss als Teufel, schaffen." + +Is not the parallel remarkable? Man's activity, like the cod's, turns +too readily to slumber; he is much too fond of unconditioned ease; and +so the Lord gives him a comrade like a catfish, to stimulate, rouse, and +drive to creation, as a devil may. There sprawls man, by nature +lethargic and torpid as a cod, prone to inactivity, content to lie in +comfort swallowing all that comes, with wide-open mouth, big enough to +gulp himself down, if that could be. There he sprawls, rotting at ease, +and rapidly deteriorating in body and soul, till one little demon of the +spiritual deep is inserted into his surroundings, and makes him firm, +brisk, and wholesome in a trice--"in half a jiffy," as people used to +say. + +"Der reizt und wirkt"--the words necessarily recall a much older parable +than the catfish--the parable of the little leaven inserted in a piece +of dough until it leavens the whole lump by its "working," as cooks and +bakers know. Goethe may have been thinking of that. Leaven is a sour, +almost poisonous kind of stuff, working as though by magic, moving in a +mysterious way, causing the solid and impracticable dough to upheave, to +rise, expand, bubble, swell, and spout like a volcano. To all races +there has been something devilish, or at least demonic, in the action of +leaven. It is true that in the ancient parable the comparison lay +between leaven and the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven was like +a little leaven that leavens the whole lump, and Goethe says that +Mephisto, one of the Princes of Evil, also works like that. But whether +we call the leaven a good or evil thing makes little difference. The +effect of its mysterious powers of movement and upheaval is in the end +salutary. It works upon the lump just as the catfish, that demon of the +deep, preserves the lumpish cod from the apathy and degeneration of +comfort, and as Mephisto, that demon of the world, acts upon the +lethargy of mankind working within him, stimulating, driving to +production as a devil may. + +"A society needs to have a ferment in it," said Professor Sumner of +Yale, in his published essays. Sometimes, he said, the ferment takes the +form of an enthusiastic delusion or an adventurous folly; sometimes +merely of economic opportunity and hope of luxury; in other ages +frequently of war. And, indeed, it was of war that he was writing, +though himself a pacific man, and in all respects a thinker of +obstinate caution. A society needs to have a ferment in it--a leaven, a +catfish, a Mephisto, the queer, unpleasant, disturbing touch of the +kingdom of heaven. Take any period of calm and rest in the life of the +world or the history of the arts. Take that period which great +historians have agreed to praise as the happiest of human ages--the age +of the Antonines. How benign and unruffled it was! What bland and +leisurely culture could be enjoyed in exquisite villas beside the +Mediterranean, or in flourishing municipalities along the Rhone! Many a +cultivated and comfortable man must have wished that reasonable peace to +last for ever. The civilised world was bathed in the element of calm, +the element of gentle acquiescence. All looked so quiet, so +imperturbable; and yet all the time the little catfish of Christianity +(or the little leaven, if you will) was at its work, irritating, +disturbing, stimulating with salutary energy to upheaval, to rebellion, +to the soul's activity that saves from bland and reasonable despair. +Like a fisherman over-anxious for the peace of the cod in his tank, the +philosophic Emperor tried to stamp the catfish down, and hoped to +preserve a philosophic quietude by the martyrdom of Christians in those +flourishing municipalities on the Rhone. Of course he failed, as even +the most humane and philosophic persecutors usually fail, but had he +succeeded, would not the soul of Europe have degenerated into a +flabbiness, lethargy, and desperate peace? + +Take history where you will, when a new driving force enters the world, +it is a nuisance, a disturbing upheaval, a troubling agitation, a +plaguey fish. Think how the tiresome Reformation disturbed the artists +of Italy and Renaissance scholars; or how Cromwell disgusted the +half-way moderates, how the Revolution jogged the sentimental theorists +of France, how Kant shattered the Supreme Being of the Deists, and Byron +set the conventions of art and life tottering aghast. Take it where you +will, the approach of the soul's catfish is watched with apprehension +and violent dislike, all the more because it saves from torpor. It saves +from what Hamlet calls-- + + "That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat-- + Of habits devil." + +In the Futurist exhibition held in Sackville Street in 1912, one of the +most notable pictures was called "Rebellion." The catalogue told us that +it represented "the collision of two forces, that of the revolutionary +element made up of enthusiasm and red lyricism against the force of +inertia and the reactionary resistance of tradition." The picture showed +a crowd of scarlet figures rushing forward in a wedge. Before them went +successive wedge-shaped lines, impinging upon dull blue. They +represented, we were told, the vibratory waves of the revolutionary +element in motion. The force of inertia and the reactionary resistance +of tradition were pictured as rows on rows of commonplace streets. The +waves of the revolutionary element had knocked them all askew. Though +they still stood firmly side by side to all appearance (to keep up +appearances, as we say) they were all knocked aslant, "just as a boxer +is bent double by receiving a blow in the wind." + +We may be sure that inertia in all its monotonous streets does not like +such treatment. It likes it no more than the plethoric cod likes the +catfish close behind its tail. And it is no consolation either to +inertia or cod to say that this disturbing element serves an ultimate +good, rendering it alert, firm, and wholesome of flesh. However +salutary, the catfish is far from popular among the placid residents of +the tank, and it is fortunate that neither in tanks nor streets can the +advisability of catfish or change be submitted to the referendum of the +inert. In neither case would the necessary steps for advance in health +and activity be adopted. To be sure, it is just possible to overdo the +number of catfish in one tank. At present in this country, for instance, +and, indeed, in the whole world, there seem to be more catfish than cod, +and the resulting liveliness is perhaps a little excessive, a little +"jumpy." But in the midst of all the violence, turmoil, and upheaval, it +is hopeful to remember that of the deepest and most salutary change +which Europe has known it was divinely foretold that it would bring not +peace but a sword. + + + + +II + + +REBELLION + +For certain crimes mankind has ordained penalties of exceptional +severity, in order to emphasise a general abhorrence. In Rome, for +example, a parricide, or the murderer of any near relation, was thrown +into deep water, tied up in a sack together with a dog, a cock, a viper, +and a monkey, which were probably symbols of his wickedness, and must +have given him a lively time before death supervened. Similarly, the +English law, always so careful of domestic sanctitude in women, provided +that a wife who killed her husband should be dragged by a horse to the +place of execution and burnt alive. We need not recall the penalties +considered most suitable for the crime of religious difference--the +rack, the fire, the boiling oil, the tearing pincers, the embrace of the +spiky virgin, the sharpened edge of stone on which the doubter sat, with +increasing weights tied to his feet, until his opinions upon heavenly +mysteries should improve under the stress of pain. When we come to +rebellion, the ordinance of English law was more express. In the case of +a woman, the penalty was the same as for killing her husband--that crime +being defined as "petty treason," since the husband is to her the sacred +emblem of God and King. So a woman rebel was burnt alive as she stood, +head, quarters, and all. But male rebels were specially treated, as may +be seen from the sentence passed upon them until the reign of George +III.[1] These were the words that Judge Jeffreys and Scroggs, for +instance, used to roll out with enjoyable eloquence upon the dazed +agricultural labourer before them: + + "The sentence of the Court now is that you be conveyed + from hence to the place from where you came, and from there + be drawn to the place of execution upon hurdles; that you be + hanged by the neck; that you be cut down alive; that your + bowels be taken out and burnt in your view; that your head + be severed from your body; that your body be divided into + four quarters, and your quarters be at the disposition of the + King: and may the God of infinite mercy be merciful to your + soul. Amen." + +"Why all this cookery?" once asked a Scottish rebel, quoted by Swift. +But the sentence, with its confiding appeal to a higher Court than +England's, was literally carried out upon rebels in this country for at +least four and a half centuries. Every detail of it (and one still more +disgusting) is recorded in the execution of Sir William Wallace, the +national hero of Scotland, more generally known to the English of the +time as "the man of Belial," who was executed at Tyburn in 1305.[2] The +rebels of 1745 were, apparently, the last upon whom the full ritual was +performed, and Elizabeth Gaunt, burnt alive at Tyburn in 1685 for +sheltering a conspirator in the Rye House Plot, was the last woman up to +now intentionally put to death in this country for a purely political +offence. The long continuance of so savage a sentence is proof of the +abhorrence in which the crime of rebellion has been held. And in many +minds the abhorrence still subsists. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, for +instance, one of our greatest authorities on criminal law, wrote in +1880: + + "My opinion is that we have gone too far in laying capital + punishment aside, and that it ought to be inflicted in many + cases not at present capital. I think, for instance, that political + offences should in some cases be punished with death. People + should be made to understand that to attack the existing state + of society is equivalent to risking their own lives."[3] + +Among ourselves the opinion of this high authority has slowly declined. +No one supposed that Doctor Lynch, for instance, would be executed as a +rebel for commanding the Irish Brigade that fought for the Boers during +the South African War, though he was condemned to death by the highest +Court in the kingdom. No Irish rebel has been executed for about a +century, unless his offence involved some one's death. On the other +hand, during the Boer War, the devastation of the country and the +destruction of the farms were frequently defended on the ground that, +after the Queen's proclamations annexing the two Republics, all the +inhabitants were rebels; and some of the extreme newspapers even urged +that for that reason no Boer with arms in his hand should be given +quarter. On the strength of a passage in Scripture, Mr. Kipling, at the +time, wrote a pamphlet identifying rebellion with witchcraft. A few Cape +Boers who took up arms for the assistance of their race were shot +without benefit of prisoners of war. And in India during 1907 and 1908 +men of unblemished private character were spirited away to jail without +charge or trial and kept there for months--a fate that could not have +befallen any but political prisoners. + +Outside our own Empire, I have myself witnessed the suppression of +rebellions in Crete and Macedonia by the destruction of villages, the +massacre of men, women, and children, and the violation of women and +girls, many of whom disappeared into Turkish harems. And I have +witnessed similar suppressions of rebellion by Russia in Moscow, in the +Baltic Provinces, and the Caucasus, by the burning of villages, the +slaughter of prisoners, and the violation of women. All this has +happened within the last sixteen years, the worst part within nine and a +half. Indeed, in Russia the punishments of exile, torture, and hanging +have not ceased since 1905, though the death penalty has been long +abolished there except for political offences. In the summer of 1909 I +was also present during the suppression of the outbreak in Barcelona, +which culminated in the execution of Señor Ferrer under a military +Court. + +From these recent events it is evident that Sir James Stephen's +attitude towards rebellion is shared by many civilised governments. +Belligerents--that is to say, subjects of one State engaged in war with +another State--have now nominally secured certain rights under +International Law. The first Hague Conference (1899) framed a +"Convention with respect to the Laws and Customs of Wars on Land" which +forbade the torture or cruel treatment of prisoners, the refusal of +quarter, the destruction of private property, unless such destruction +were imperatively demanded by the necessities of war, the pillage of +towns taken by assault, disrespect to religion and family honour +(including, I suppose, the honour of women and girls), and the +infliction of penalties on the population owing to the acts of +individuals for which it could not be regarded as collectively +responsible. + +In actual war this Convention is not invariably observed, as was seen at +Tripoli in 1911, but in the case of rebellion there is no such +Convention at all. I have known all those regulations broken with +impunity, and in most cases without protest from the other Powers. Just +as, under the old law of England, the rebel was executed with +circumstances of special atrocity, so at the present time, under the +name of crushing rebellion, men are tortured and flogged, no quarter is +given, they are executed without trial, their private property is +pillaged, their towns and villages are destroyed, their women violated, +their children killed, penalties are imposed on districts owing to acts +for which the population is not collectively responsible--and nothing +said. That each Power is allowed to deal with its own subjects in its +own way is becoming an accepted rule of international amenity. It was +not the rule of Cromwell, nor of Canning, nor of Gladstone, but it has +now been consecrated by the Liberal Government which came into power in +1906. + +In the summer of 1909, it is true, the rule was broken. Mulai Hafid, +Sultan of Morocco, was reported to be torturing his rebel prisoners +according to ancestral custom, and rumours came that he had followed a +French king's example in keeping the rebel leader, El Roghi, in a cage +like a tame eagle, or had thrown him to the lions to be torn in pieces +before the eyes of the royal concubines. Then the European Powers +combined to protest in the name of humanity. It was something gained. +But no great courage was required to rebuke the Sultan of Morocco, if +England, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, and Spain combined to do it; +and his country was so desirable for its minerals, barley, and dates +that a little courage in dealing with him might even prove lucrative in +the end. When Russia treated her rebellious subjects with tortures and +executions more horrible than anything reported from Morocco, the case +was very different. Then alliances and understandings were confirmed, +substantial loans were arranged in France and England, Kings and +Emperors visited the Tsar, and the cannon of our fleet welcomed him to +our waters amid the applause of our newspapers and the congratulations +of a Liberal Government. + +It is evident, then, that, in Sir James Stephen's words, subjects are in +most countries still made to understand that to attack the existing +state of society is equivalent to risking their own lives. Under our own +rule, no matter what statesmen like Gladstone and John Morley have in +past years urged in favour of the mitigation of penalties for political +offences, such offences are, as a matter of fact, punished with special +severity; unless, of course, the culprit is intimately connected with +great riches, like Dr. Jameson, who was imprisoned as a first-class +misdemeanant for the incalculable crime of making private war upon +another State; or unless the culprit is intimately connected with votes, +like Mr. Ginnell, the Irish cattle-driver, who was treated with similar +politeness. Otherwise, until quite lately, even in this country we +executed a political criminal with unusual pain. In India we recently +kept political suspects imprisoned without charge or trial. And in +England we have lately sentenced women to terms of imprisonment that +certainly would never have been imposed for their offences on any but +political offenders. + +This exceptional severity springs from a primitive and natural +conception of the State--a conception most logically expressed by +Hobbes of Malmesbury under the similitude of a "mortal God" or +Leviathan, the almost omnipotent and unlimited source of authority. + + "The Covenant of the State," says Hobbes, "is made in such + a manner as if every man should say to every man: 'I authorise + and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to + this assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy + right to him and authorise all his actions in like manner.' This + done, the multitude so united is called a Commonwealth, in + Latin Civitas. This is the generation of that great Leviathan, + that mortal God, to whom we owe, under the immortal God, + our peace and defence." + +Hobbes considered the object of this Covenant to be peace and common +defence. "Without a State," he said, "the life of man is solitary, poor, +nasty, brutish, and short." The preservation of the State was to him of +transcendent importance. + + "Loss of liberty," he wrote, "is really no inconvenience, for + it is the only means by which we have any possibility of preserving + ourselves. For if every man were allowed the liberty + of following his own conscience, in such differences of consciences, + they would not live together in peace an hour." + +Under such a system, it follows that rebellion is the worst of crimes. +Hobbes calls it a war renewed--a renouncing of the Covenant. He was so +terrified of it that he dwelt upon the danger of reading Greek and Roman +history (probably having Plutarch and his praise of rebels most in +mind)--"which venom," he says, "I will not doubt to compare to the +biting of a mad dog." In all leaders of rebellion he found only three +conditions--to be discontented with their own lot, to be eloquent +speakers, and to be men of mean judgment and capacity _(De Corpore +Politico_, II.). And as to punishment: + + "On rebels," he said, "vengeance is lawfully extended, not + only to the fathers, but also to the third and fourth generations + not yet in being, and consequently innocent of the fact for + which they are afflicted." + +We may take Hobbes as the philosopher of the extreme idea of the State +and the consequent iniquity of rebellion. His is the ideal of the Hive, +in which the virgin workers devote their whole lives without complaint +to the service of the Queen and her State-supported grubs, while the +drones are mercilessly slaughtered as soon as one of them has fulfilled +his rapturous but suicidal functions for the future swarm. This ideal +found its highest human example in the Spartan State, which trained its +men to have no private existence at all, and even to visit their own +wives by stealth. But we find the ideal present in some degree among +Central Africans when they bury valuable slaves and women alive with +their chief; and among the Japanese when mothers kill themselves if +their sons are prevented from dying for their country; and among the +Germans when the drill-sergeant shouts his word of command. + +In fact, all races and countries are disciples of Hobbes when they +address the Head of the State as "Your Majesty" or "Your Excellence," +when they decorate him with fur and feathers, and put a gold hat on his +head and a gold walking-stick in his hand, and gird him with a sword +that he never uses, and play him the same tune wherever he goes, and +spread his platform with crimson though it is clean, and bow before him +though he is dishonourable, and call him gracious though he is +nasty-tempered, and august though he may be a fool. In the first +instance, we go through all this make-believe because the Leviathan of +the State is necessary for peace and self-defence, and without it our +life would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. But we further +endow the State with a personality we can almost see and handle, and we +regard it as something that is able not only to protect our peace but to +shed a reflected splendour on ourselves, giving us an importance not our +own--just as schoolboys glory in their school, or Churchmen in their +Church, or cricketers in their county, or fox-hunters in their pack of +hounds. + +It is this conception that makes rebellion so rare and so dangerous. In +hives it seems never to occur. In rookeries, the rebels are pecked to +death and their homes torn in pieces. In human communities we have seen +how they are treated. Rebellion is the one crime for which there is no +forgiveness--the one crime for which hanging is too good. + +Why is it, then, that all the world loves a rebel? Provided he is +distant enough in time and space, all the world loves a rebel. Who are +the figures in history round whom the people's imagination has woven the +fondest dreams? Are they not such rebels as Deborah and Judith[4] and +Joan of Arc; as Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the Gracchi and Brutus, +William Tell, William Wallace, Simon de Montfort, Rienzi, Wat Tyler, +Jack Cade, Shan O'Neill, William the Silent, John Hampden and Pym, the +Highlanders of the Forty-five, Robert Emmet and Wolf Tone and Parnell, +Bolivar, John Brown of Harper's Ferry, Kossuth, Mazzini and Garibaldi, +Danton, Victor Hugo, and the Russian revolutionists? These are haphazard +figures of various magnitude, but all have the quality of rebellion in +common, and all have been honoured with affectionate glory, romance, and +even a mythology of worship. + +So, too, the most attractive periods in history have been times of +rebellion--the Reformation in Germany, the Revolt of the Netherlands +from Spain, the Civil Wars in England, the War of Independence in +America, the prolonged revolution in Russia. Within the last hundred +years alone, how numerous the rebellions have been, as a rule how +successful, and in every case how much applauded, except by the dominant +authority attacked! We need only recall the French revolutions of 1832, +1848, and 1870 to 1871, including the Commune; the Greek War of +Independence up to 1829; the Polish insurrections of 1830, 1863, and +1905; the liberation of the Danubian Principalities, 1858; of Bulgaria +and Thessaly, 1878; of Crete, 1898; the revolution in Hungary, 1848; the +restoration of Italy, 1849 to 1860; the revolution in Spain, 1868; the +independence of the South American States, 1821 to 1825; the revolution +in Russia, Finland, the Caucasus and Baltic Provinces, 1905; the +revolution in Persia, 1907 to 1909; and the revolution of the Young +Turks, 1908 to 1909. Among these we must also count the Nationalist +movements in Ireland, Egypt, and India, as well as the present movement +of women against the Government in our own country. + +Under these various instances two distinct kinds of rebellion are +obviously included--the rising of subject nationalities against a +dominant power, as in Greece, Italy, the Caucasus, India, and Ireland; +and the rising of subjects against their own Government, as in France, +Russia, Persia, and Turkey, or in England in the case of the +Suffragettes. It is difficult to say which kind is the more detested and +punished with the greater severity by the central authority attacked. +Was the Nationalist rising in the Caucasus or the Baltic Provinces +suppressed with greater brutality than the almost simultaneous rising of +Russian subjects in Moscow? I witnessed all three, and I think it was; +chiefly because soldiers have less scruple in the slaughter and +violation of people whose language they do not understand. Did our +Government feel greater animosity towards the recent Indian movement or +the Irish movement of thirty years ago than towards the rioters for the +Reform Bills of 1832 and 1867? I think they did. Vengeance upon +external or Nationalist rebels is incited by racial antipathy. But, on +the other hand, the outside world is more ready to applaud a Nationalist +rebellion, especially if it succeeds, and we feel a more romantic +affection for William Tell or Garibaldi than for Oliver Cromwell or +Danton; I suppose because it is easier to imagine the splendour of +liberty when a subject race throws off a foreign yoke. + +So the history of rebellion involves us in a mesh of contradictions. +Rebels have been generally regarded as deserving more terrible penalties +than other criminals, yet all the world loves a rebel, at a distance. +Nationalist rebellions are crushed with even greater ferocity than the +internal rebellions of a State, and yet the leaders of Nationalist +rebellions are regarded by the common world with a special affection of +hero-worship. Obviously, we are here confronted with two different +standards of conduct. On one side is the standard of Government, the +States and Law, which denounces the rebel, and especially the +Nationalist rebel, as the worst of sinners; on the other side we have +the standard of the individual, the soul and liberty, which loves a +rebel, especially a Nationalist rebel, and denies that he is a sinner at +all. + +Let us leave the Nationalist rebel, whose justification is now almost +universally admitted (except by the dominant Power), even if he is +unsuccessful, and consider only the rebel inside the State--the rebel +against his own Leviathan--whose position is far more dubious. Job's +Leviathan appears to have been a more fearsome and powerful beast than +the elephant, but in India the elephant is taken as the symbol of +wisdom, and when an Indian boy goes in for a municipal examination, he +prays to the elephant-god for assistance. Now the ideal State of the +elephant is the herd, and yet this herd of wisdom sometimes develops a +rebel or "rogue" who seems to be striving after some fresh manner of +existence and works terrible havoc among the elephantine conventions. +Usually the herd combines to kill him and there is an end of the matter. +Yet I sometimes think that the occasional and inexplicable appearance of +the "rogue" at intervals during many thousand years may really have been +the origin of that wisdom to which the Indians pray. + +Similarly, mankind, which sometimes surpasses even the elephant in +wisdom, has been continually torn between the idol of the Herd and the +profanity of the rebel or Rogue, and it is perhaps through the +rebel--the variation, as Darwin would call him--that man makes his +advance. The rebel is what distinguishes our States and cities from the +beehives and ant-heaps to which they are commonly compared. The progress +of ants and bees appears to have been arrested. They seem to have +developed a completely socialised polity thousands of years ago, perhaps +before man existed, and then to have stopped--stopped _dead_, as we say. +But mankind has never stopped. If a country's progress is arrested--if a +people becomes simply conservative in habits, they may die slowly, like +Egypt, or quickly, likes Sparta, but they die and disappear, unless +inspired by new life, like Japan, or by revolution, like France and +possibly Russia. For, as we are almost too frequently told, change is +the law of human life. + +And may not this be just the very reason we are seeking for--the very +reason why all the world loves a rebel, at a distance? Perhaps the world +unconsciously recognises in him a symbol of change, a symbol of the law +of life. We may not like him very near us--not uncomfortably near, as we +say. For most change is uncomfortable. When I was shut up for many weeks +in a London hospital, I felt a shrinking horror of going out, as though +my skin had become too tender for this rough world. After I had been +shut up for four months in a siege, daily exposed to shells, bullets, +fever, and starvation, I felt no relief when the relief came, but rather +a dread of confronting the perils of ordinary life. So quickly does the +curse of stagnation fall upon us. And in support of stagnation are +always ranged the immense forces of Society, the prosperous, the +well-to-do, the people who are content if to-morrow is exactly like +to-day. In support of stagnation stands the power of every kind of +government--the King who sticks to his inherited importance, the Lords +who stick to their lands and titles, the experts who stick to their +theories, the officials who stick to their incomes, routine, and +leisure, the Members of Parliament who stick to their seats. + +But even more powerful than all these forces in support of stagnation is +the enormous host of those whose first thought is necessarily their +daily bread--men and women who dare not risk a change for fear of +to-morrow's hunger--people for whom the crust is too uncertain for its +certainty to be questioned. We often ask why it is that the poor--the +working-people--endure their poverty and perpetual toil without +overwhelming revolt. The reason is that they have their eyes fixed on +the evening meal, and for the life of them they dare not lose sight of +it. + +So the rebel need never be afraid of going too fast. The violence of +inertia--the suction of the stagnant bog--is almost invincible. Like +the horse, we are creatures of cast-iron habit. We abandon ourselves +easily to careless acquiescence. We make much of external laws, and, +like a mother bemused with torpid beer when she overlays her child, we +stifle the law of the soul because its crying is such a nuisance. Like a +new baby, a new thought is fractious, restless, and incalculable. It +saps our strength; it gives us no peace; it exposes a wider surface to +pain. There is something indecent, uncontrolled, and unconscionable +about it. Our friends like it best when it is asleep, and they like us +better when it is buried. + +There is very little danger of rebellion going too far. The barriers +confronting it are too solid, and the Idol of the Herd is too carefully +enshrined. A perpetual rebellion of every one against everything would +give us an insecure, though exciting, existence, and we are protected by +man's disposition to obedience and his solid love of custom. Against the +first vedettes of rebellion the army of routine will always muster, and +it gathers to itself the indifferent, the startled cowards, the thinkers +whose thought is finished, the lawyers whose laws are fixed--an +innumerable host. They proceed to treat the rebels as we have seen. In +all ages, rebellion has been met by the standing armies of permanence. +If captured, it is put to the ordeal of fire and water, so as to try +what stuff it is made of. Faith is rebellion's only inspiration and +support, and a deal of faith is needed to resist the battle and the +test. It was in thinking of the faith of rebels that an early Christian +writer told of those who, having walked by faith, have in all ages been +tortured, not accepting deliverance; and others have had trial of +mockings and scourgings, and of bonds and imprisonment; they were +stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; +they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, +afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not worthy); they wandered +in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.[5] That +is the test and the reward of faith. So strong is the grip of the +Leviathan, so determined is mankind to allow no change in thought or +life to survive if he can possibly choke it. + +One of the most learned and inspiring of writers on political philosophy +has said in a book published in 1910: + + "It is advantageous to the organism [of the Slate] that + the rights of suggestion, protest, veto, and revolt should be + accorded to its members."[6] + +That sounds very simple. We should all like to agree with it. But under +that apparently innocent sentence one of the most perplexing of human +problems lies hidden: what are the rights of liberty, what are the +limits of revolt? Only in a State of ideal anarchy can liberty be +complete and revolt universal, because there would be nothing to revolt +against. And anarchy, though it is the goal of every man's desire, seems +still far away, being, indeed, the Kingdom of Heaven, which that God +rules whose service is perfect freedom and which only angels are +qualified to inhabit. For though the law of the indwelling spirit is the +only law that ought to count, not many of us are so little lower than +the angels as to be a law unto ourselves. + +In a really democratic State, where the whole people had equal voices +in the government and all could exercise free power of persuasion, +active rebellion, I think, would be very rare and seldom justified. But +there are, I believe, only four democratic States in the world. All four +are small, and of these Finland is overshadowed by despotism, and +Australia and New Zealand have their foreign relations controlled and +protected by the mother country. Hitherto the experiment of a really +democratic government has never been tried on this planet, except since +1909 in Norway, and even there with some limitations; and though +democracy might possibly avert the necessity of rebellion, I rather +doubt whether it can be called advantageous to any State to accord to +its members the right of revolt. The State that allows revolt--that +takes no notice of it--has abdicated; it has ceased to exist. But +whether advantageous or not, no State has ever accorded that right in +matters of government; nor does mankind accord it, without a prolonged +struggle, even in religious doctrine and ordinary life. Every revolt is +tested as by fire, and we do not otherwise know the temper of the rebels +or the value of their purpose. Is it a trick? Is it a fad? Is it a plot +for contemptible ends? Is it a riot--a moment's effervescence--or a +revolution glowing from volcanic depths? We only know by the tests of +ridicule, suffering, and death. In his "Ode to France," written in 1797, +Coleridge exclaimed: + + "The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain, + Slaves by their own compulsion." + +They rebel in vain because the Sensual and the Dark cannot hold out long +against the pressure of the Herd--against the taunts of Society, against +poverty, the loss of friends, the ruin of careers, the discomforts of +prison, the misery of hunger and ill-treatment, and the terror of death. +It is only by the supreme triumph over such obstacles that revolt +vindicates its righteousness. + +And so, if any one among us is driven to rebellion by an irresistible +necessity of soul, I would not have him wonder at the treatment he will +certainly receive. Such treatment is the hideous but inevitable test of +his rebellion's value, for so persecuted they the rebels that were +before him. Whether he rebels against a despotism like the Naples of +fifty years ago or the Russia of to-day; or whether he rebels against +the opinions or customs of his fellow-citizens, he will inevitably +suffer, and the success that justifies rebellion may not be of this +world. But if his cause is high, the shame of his suffering will +ultimately be attributed to the government or to the majority, never to +himself. There is a sense in which rebellion never fails. It is almost +always a symptom of intolerable wrong, for the penalties are so terrible +that it would not be attempted without terrible provocation. +"Rebellion," as Burke said, "does not arise from a desire for change, +but from the impossibility of suffering more." It concentrates attention +upon the wrong. At the worst, though it be stamped into a grave, its +spirit goes marching on, and the inspiration of all history would be +lost were it not for rebellions, no matter whether they have succeeded +or failed. + +It may be said that if the State cannot accord the right of revolt, the +door is left open to all the violences, cruelty, and injustice with +which Rebellion is at present suppressed. But that does not follow. The +Liberal leaders of the last generation endeavoured to draw a +distinction whereby political offenders should be treated better than +ordinary criminals rather than worse, and, though their successors went +back from that position, we may perhaps discern a certain uneasiness +behind their appearance of cruelty, at all events in the case of titled +and distinguished offenders. In war we have lately introduced definite +rules for the exclusion of cruelty and injustice, and in some cases the +rules are observed. The same thing could be done in rebellion. I have +often urged that the rights of war, now guaranteed to belligerents, +should be extended to rebels. The chances are that a rebellion or civil +war has more justice on its side than international war, and there is no +more reason why men should be tortured and refused quarter, or why women +should be violated and have their children killed before their eyes by +the agents of their own government than by strangers. Yet these things +are habitually done, and my simple proposal appears ludicrously +impossible. Just in the same way, sixty years ago, it was thought +ludicrously impossible to deprive a man of his right to whip his slave. + +But in any case, whether or not the rebel is to remain for all time an +object of special vengeance to the State and Society, he has +compensations. If he wins, the more barbarous his suppression has been, +so much the finer is his triumph, so much the sweeter the wild justice +of his revenge. It is a high reward when the slow world comes swinging +round to your despised and persecuted cause, while the defeated +persecutor whines at your feet that at heart he was with you all the +time. If the rebel fails--well, it is a terrible thing to fail in +rebellion. Bodily or social execution is almost inevitably the result. +But, if his cause has been high, whether he wins or loses, he will have +enjoyed a comradeship such as is nowhere else to be found--a +comradeship in a common service that transfigures daily life and takes +suffering and disgrace for honour. His spirit will have been illumined +by a hope and an indignation that make the usual aims and satisfactions +of the world appear trivial and fond. To him it has been granted to hand +on the torch of that impassioned movement and change by which the soul +of man appears slowly to be working out its transfiguration. And if he +dies in the race, he may still hope that some glimmer of freedom will +shine where he is buried. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: The following extract from _Drakard's Paper_ for Feb. 23, +1813, shows the attempt at reform just a century ago, and the opposition +to reform characteristic of officials: "House of Commons, Wed., Feb. 17. +Sir Samuel Romilly rose, in pursuance of his notice, to move for leave +to bring in a bill to repeal an Act of King William, making it capital +to steal property above the value of 5s. in a dwelling house, &c..... + +"The next bill he proposed to introduce related to a part of the +punishment for the crime of high treason, which was not at present +carried into execution. The sentence for this crime, however, was, that +the criminal should be dragged upon a hurdle to the place of execution, +that he should be hanged by the neck, but cut down before he was dead, +that his bowels should then be taken out and burnt before his face. As +to that part of the sentence which relates to embowelling, it was never +executed now, but this omission was owing to accident, or to the mercy +of the executioner, not to the discretion of the judge. + +"The Solicitor-General stated general objections to the plan of his +learned friend. + +"Leave was given to bring in the bills."] + +[Footnote 2: See _The History of Tyburn_, by Alfred Marks.] + +[Footnote 3: _History of the Criminal Law of England_, vol. i. p. 478.] + +[Footnote 4: Judith was not strictly a rebel, except that Nabuchodonosor +claimed sovereignty over all the world and was avenging himself on all +the earth. See Judith ii. 1.] + +[Footnote 5: Hebrews xi. 35-38.] + +[Footnote 6: _The Crisis of Liberalism_, by J.A. Hobson, p. 82.] + + + + +III + + +"EITHER COWARDS OR UNHAPPY" + +Present grandeur is always hard to realise. The past and the distant are +easily perceived. Like a far-off mountain, their glory is conspicuous, +and the iridescent vapours of romance quickly gather round it. The main +outline of a distant peak is clear, for rival heights are plainly +surpassed, and sordid details, being invisible, cannot detract from it +or confuse. The comfortable spectator may contemplate it in peace. It +does not exact from him quick decisions or disquieting activity. The +storms that sweep over it contribute to his admiration without wetting +his feet, and his high estimate of its beauty and greatness may be +enjoyed without apprehension of an avalanche. So the historian is like a +picturesque spectator cultivating his sense of the sublime upon a +distant prospect of the Himalayas. It is easy for him to admire, and the +appreciation of a far-off heroic movement gives him quite a pleasant +time. At his leisure he may descant with enthusiasm upon the forlorn +courage of sacrificed patriots, and hymn, amidst general applause, the +battles of freedom long since lost or won. + +But in the thick of present life it is different. The air is obscured by +murky doubt, and unaccustomed shapes stand along the path, +indistinguishable under the light malign. Uncertain hope scarcely +glimmers, nor can the termination of the struggle be divined. +Tranquillity, giving time for thought, and the security that leaves the +judgment clear, have both gone, and may never return. The ears are +haunted with the laughter of vulgarity, and the judicious discouragement +of prudence. Is there not as much to be said for taking one line as +another? If there is talk of conflict, were it not better to leave the +issue in the discriminating hands of One whose judgment is indisputable? +Yet in the very midst of hesitations, mockery, and good advice, the next +step must be taken, the decision must be swift, the choice is brief but +eternal. There is no clear evidence of heroism around. The lighters do +not differ much from the grotesque, the foolish, and the braggart ruck +of men. No wonder that culture smiles and passes aloof upon its pellucid +and elevating course. Culture smiles; the valet de chambre lurking in +most hearts sniffs at the name of hero; hideous applause comes from +securely sheltered crowds who hound victims to the combat, bloodthirsty +as spectators at a bull-fight. In the sweat and twilight and crudity of +the actual event, when so much is merely ludicrous and discomforting, +and all is enveloped in the element of fear, it is rare to perceive a +glory shining, or to distinguish greatness amid the mud of contumely and +commonplace. + +Take the story of Italy's revival--the "Resurrection," as Italians call +it. In the summer of 1911, Italy was celebrating her jubilee of national +rebellion, and English writers who spend their years, day by day or week +by week, sneering at freedom, betraying nationality, and demanding +vengeance on rebels, burst into ecstatic rhapsodies about that glorious +but distant uprising. They raised the old war-cry of liberty over +battle-fields long silent; they extolled to heaven the renown of the +rebellious dead; their very periods glowed with Garibaldian red, white, +and green; and rising to Byronic exaltation they concluded their +nationalist effusions by adjuring freedom's weather-beaten flag: + + "Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, + Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind!" + +So they cried, echoing the voice of noble ghosts. But where in the +scenes of present life around them have they hailed that torn but flying +banner? What have they said or done for freedom's emblem in Persia, or +in Morocco, or in Turkey? What support have they given it in Finland, or +in the Caucasus, or in the Baltic Provinces? To come within our own +sphere, what ecstatic rhapsodies have they composed to greet the rising +nationalism of Ireland, or of India, or of Egypt? Or, in this country +herself, what movement of men or of women striving to be free have they +welcomed with their paeans of joy? Not once have they perceived a glory +in liberty's cause to-day. Wherever a rag of that torn banner fluttered, +they have denounced and stamped it down, declaring it should fly no +more. Their admiration and enthusiasm are reserved for a buried past, +and over triumphant rebellion they will sentimentalise for pages, +provided it is securely bestowed in some historic age that can trouble +them no more. + +Leaving them to their peace, let us approach a great name among our +English singers of liberty. Swinburne stands in the foremost rank. In a +collection of "English Songs of Italian Freedom," edited by Mr. George +Trevelyan, who himself has so finely narrated the epic of Italy's +redemption--in that collection Swinburne occupies a place among the very +highest. No one has paid nobler tribute to the heroes of that amazing +revolution. No one has told the sorrow of their failures with more +sympathetic rage, or has poured so burning a scorn and so deep an +obloquy upon their oppressors, whether in treacherous Church or alien +State. It is magnificent, but alas! it was not war. By the time he +wrote, the war was over, the victory won. By that time, not only the +British crowd, but even people of rank, office, and culture could hardly +fail to applaud. The thing had become definite and conspicuous. It was +finished. It stood in quite visible splendour at a safe and comfortable +distance. Ridicule had fallen impotent. Hesitation could now put down +its foot. Superiority could smile, not in doubt, but in welcome. The +element of fear was dissipated. The coward could shout, "I was your +friend all along!" If a man wrote odes at all, he could write them to +freedom then. + + "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, + Remembering Thee, + That for ages of agony hast endured and slept, + And would'st not see." + +How superb! But when that was written the weeping and agony were over, +the sleeper had awakened, the eyes saw. It was easy then to sing the +heroism of rebellious sorrow. But afterwards, while an issue was still +doubtful, while the cry of freedom was rising amid the obscurity, the +dust, and uncertainty of actual combat, with how blind a scorn did that +great poet of freedom pour upon Irishman and Boer a poison as virulent +as he had once poured upon the priests and kings of Italy! + +Let us emerge from the depression of such common blindness, and recall +the memory of one whose vision never failed even in the midst of present +gloom to detect the spark of freedom. A few great names stand beside +his. Shelley, Landor, the Brownings, all gave the cause of Italy great +and, in one case, the most exquisite verse, while the conflict was +uncertain still. Even the distracted and hesitating soul of Clough, amid +the dilettante contemplation of the arts in Rome, was rightly stirred. +The poem that declared, "'Tis better to have fought and lost than never +to have fought at all," displayed in him a rare decision, while, even +among his hideous hexameters, we find the great satiric line--fit motto +for spectators at the bull-fights of freedom--"So that I 'list not, +hurrah for the glorious army of martyrs!" But the name of Byron rises +above them all, not merely that he alone showed himself capable of deed, +but that the deed gave to his words a solidity and concrete power such +as deeds always give. First of Englishmen, as Mr. Trevelyan says, Byron +perceived that a living Italy was struggling beneath the outward +semblance of Metternich's "order"; and as early as 1821 he prepared to +join the Carbonari of Naples in their revolt for Italian liberty: + + "I suppose that they consider me," he wrote, "as a depot + to be sacrificed, in case of accidents. It is no great matter, + supposing that Italy would he liberated, who or what is sacrificed. + It is a grand object--the very _poetry_ of politics. Only + think--a free Italy!" + +That was written in freedom's darkest age, between Waterloo and the +appearance of Mazzini, and that grand object was not to be reached for +forty years. In the meantime, true to his guiding principle: + + "Then battle for freedom whenever you can, + And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted," + +Byron had sacrificed himself for Greece as nobly as he was prepared to +sacrifice himself for Italy. It was a time of darkness hardly visible. +In the very year when Byron witnessed the collapse of the Carbonari +rebellion, Leopardi, as Mr. Trevelyan tells us, wrote to his sister on +her marriage: "The children you will have must be either cowards or +unhappy; choose the unhappy." The hope of freedom appeared extinct. +Tyrants, as Byron wrote, could be conquered but by tyrants, and freedom +found no champion. The Italians themselves were merged in the slime of +despairing satisfaction, and he watched them creeping, "crouching, and +crab-like," along their streets. But through that dark gate of +unhappiness which Leopardi named as the one choice for all but cowards, +led the thin path that freedom must always take. Great as were Mazzini's +services to all Europe, his greatest service to his countrymen lay in +arousing them from the slough of contentment to a life of hardship, +sacrifice, and unhappiness. When, after the loss of Rome in 1849, +Garibaldi called for volunteers to accompany his hazardous retreat, he +said to them: "I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor provisions; I +offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles, and death." Swinburne +himself may have had those words in mind when, writing also of +Garibaldi, he said of freedom: + + "She, without shelter or station, + She, beyond limit or bar, + Urges to slumberless speed + Armies that famish, that bleed, + Sowing their lives for her seed, + That their dust may rebuild her a nation, + That their souls may relight her a star." + +"Happy are all they that follow her," he continued, and in a sense we +may well deem their fate happiness. But it is in the sense of what +Carlyle in a memorable passage called the allurements to action. "It is +a calumny on men," he wrote, "to say they are roused to heroic action by +ease, hope of pleasure, reward in this world or the next. Difficulty, +abnegation, martyrdom, death are the allurements that act on the heart +of man." Under the spell and with the reward of those grim allurements +the battles of freedom, so visible in the resurrection of Italy, so +unrecognised in freedom's recurrent and contemporary conflicts, must +invariably be fought. We may justly talk, if we please, of the joy in +such conflicts, but Thermopylae was a charnel, though, as Byron said, it +was a proud one; and it is always against the wind that the banner of +freedom streams. + + + + +IV + + +DEEDS NOT WORDS + +As he wrote--as he wrote his best, while the shafts of the spirit +lightened in his brain--Heine would sometimes feel a mysterious figure +standing behind him, muffled in a cloak, and holding, beneath the cloak, +something that gleamed now and then like an executioner's axe. For a +long while he had not perceived that strange figure, when, on visiting +Germany, after fourteen years' exile in Paris, as he crossed the +Cathedral Square in Cologne one moonlight night, he became aware that it +was following him again. Turning impatiently, he asked who he was, why +he followed him, and what he was hiding under his cloak. In reply, the +figure, with ironic coolness, urged him not to get excited, nor to give +way to eloquent exorcism: + + "I am no antiquated ghost," he continued. "I'm quite a + practical person, always silent and calm. But I must tell you, + the thoughts conceived in your soul--I carry them out, I bring + them to pass. + + "And though years may go by, I take no rest until I transform + your thoughts into reality. You think; I act. + + "You are the judge, I am the gaoler, and, like an obedient + servant, I fulfil the sentence which you have ordained, even if + it is unjust. + + "In Rome of ancient days they carried an axe before the + Consul. You also have your Lictor, but the axe is carried + behind you. + + "I am your Lictor, and I walk perpetually with bare executioner's + axe behind you--I am the deed of your thought." + +No artist--no poet or writer, at all events--could enjoy a more +consolatory vision. The powerlessness of the word is the burden of +writers, and "Who hath believed our report?" cry all the prophets in +successive lamentation. They so naturally suppose that, when truth and +reason have spoken, truth and reason will prevail, but, as the years go +by, they mournfully discover that nothing of the kind occurs. Man, they +discover, does not live by truth and reason: he rather resents the +intrusion of such quietly argumentative forms. When they have spoken, +nothing whatever is yet accomplished, and the conflict has still to +begin. The dog returns to his own vomit; the soul convicted of sin +continues sinning, and he that was filthy is filthy still. Thence comes +the despair of all the great masters of the word. The immovable world +admires them, it praises their style, it forms aesthetic circles for +their perusal, and dines in their honour when they are dead. But it goes +on its way immovable, grinding the poor, enslaving the slave, admiring +hideousness, adulating vulgarity for its wealth and insignificance for +its pedigree. Grasping, pleasure-seeking, indifferent to reason, and +enamoured of the lie, so it goes on, and the masters of the word might +just as well have hushed their sweet or thunderous voices. For, though +they speak with the tongue of men and angels, and have not action, what +are they but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal? + +To such a mood, how consolatory must be the vision of that muffled +figure, with the two-handed engine, always following close! And to +Heine himself the consolation came with especial grace. He had been +virulently assailed by the leaders of the party to which he regarded +himself as naturally belonging--the party for whose sake he endured the +charming exile of Paris, then at the very height of her intellectual +supremacy. The exile was charming, but unbearable dreams and memories +would come. "When I am happy in your arms," he wrote, "you must never +speak to me of Germany, I cannot bear it; I have my reasons. I implore +you, leave Germany alone. You must not plague me with these eternal +questions about home, and friends, and the way of life. I have my +reasons; I cannot bear it." All this was suffered--for a quarter of a +century it was suffered--just for an imaginary and unrealised German +revolution. And, if Heine was not to be counted as a German +revolutionist, what was the good of it all? What did the sorrows of +exile profit him, if he had no part in the cause? He might just as well +have gone on eating, drinking, and being merry on German beer. Yet +Ludwig Börne, acknowledged leader of German revolutionists, had +scornfully written of him (I translate from Heine's own quotation, in +his pamphlet on Börne): + + "I can make allowance for child's-play, and for the passions + of youth. But when, on the day of bloody conflict, a boy who + is chasing butterflies on the battle-field runs between my legs; + or when, on the day of our deepest need, while we are praying + earnestly to God, a young dandy at our side can see nothing + in the church but the pretty girls, and keeps whispering to + them and making eyes--then, I say, in spite of all philosophy + and humanity, one cannot restrain one's indignation." + +Much more followed, but in those words lay the sting of the scorn. It +is a scorn that many poets and writers suffer when confronted by the man +of action, or even by the man of affairs. When it comes to action, all +the finest words ever spoken, and all the most beautiful poems and books +ever written, seem so irrelevant, as Hilda Wangel said of reading. "How +beggarly all arguments appear before a defiant deed!" cried Walt +Whitman. "Every man," said Ruskin, "feels instinctively that all the +beautiful sentiments in the world count less than a single lovely +action." The powerlessness of the word--that, as I said, has been the +burden of speakers and writers. That is what drove Dante to politics, +and Byron to Greece, and Goethe to the study of bones. + +But Heine laid himself open more than most to such scorn as Börne's. +There was little of the active revolutionist in his nature. About the +revolutionist hangs something Hebraic (if we may still use Heine's own +distinction, never very definite, and now worn so thin), but Heine +prided himself upon a sunlit cheerfulness that he called Greek. He loved +the garish world; he was in love with every woman; but the true +revolutionist must be the modern monk. It is no good asking the +revolutionist out to dinner; he will neither say anything amusing, nor +know the difference between chalk and cheese. But Heine's good sayings +went the round of Parisian society, and he loved the subtleties of wine +and the table. "That dish," he said once, "should be eaten on one's +knees." Only on paper, and then rarely, was his heart lacerated by +savage indignation. Except for brief periods of poverty, in the Zion of +exile he lived very much at ease, nor did the zeal of the Lord ever +consume him. Did it not seem that a true revolutionist was justified in +comparing him to a boy chasing butterflies on the battle-field? Here, if +anywhere, one might have thought, was one of those charming poets whom +the Philosopher would have honoured, and feasted, and loaded with +beautiful gifts, and then conducted, laurel-crowned, far outside the +walls of the perfect city, to the sound of flutes and soft recorders. + +To such scorn Heine attempted the artist's common answer. He replied to +Börne's revolutionary scorn of the mere poet, with a poet's fastidious +scorn of the smudgy revolutionist. He tells us of his visit to Börne's +rooms, where he found such a menagerie as could hardly be seen in the +Jardin des Plantes--German polar bears, a Polish wolf, a French ape. Or +we read of the one revolutionary assembly he attended, and how up till +then he had always longed to be a popular orator, and had even practised +on oxen and sheep in the fields; but that one meeting, with its dirt, +and smells, and stifling tobacco smoke, sickened him of oratory. "I +saw," he writes, + + "I saw that the path of a German tribune is not strewn + with roses--not with clean roses. For example, you have to + shake hands vigorously with all your auditors, your 'dear + brothers and cousins.' Perhaps Börne means it metaphorically + when he says that, if a king shook him by the band, he would + at once hold it in the fire, so as to clean it; but I mean it + literally, and not metaphorically, when I say that, if the people + shook me by the hand, I should at once wash it." + +We all know those meetings now--the fraternal handshake, the menagerie +smell, the reek of tobacco, the indistinguishable hubbub of tongues, the +frothy violence, the bottomless inanity of abstract dissensions, that +have less concern with human realities than the curve of the hyperbola +through space. We all know that, and sometimes, perhaps, at the sight of +some artist or poet like Heine--or, shall we say? like William +Morris--in the sulphurous crater of that volcanic tumult, we may have +been tempted to exclaim, "Not here, O Apollo, are haunts meet for thee!" +But we had best restrain such exclamation, for we have had quite enough +of the artistic or philanthropic temperaments that talk a deal about +fighting the battle of the poor and the oppressed, but take very good +care to keep at a clean and comfortable distance from those whose battle +they are fighting, and appear more than content to live among the +tyrants and oppressors they denounce. And we remind ourselves, further, +that what keeps the memory of William Morris sweet is not his +wall-papers, his beaten work of bronze or silver, his dreamy tapestries +of interwoven silks or verse, but just that strange attempt of his, +however vain, however often deceived, to convert the phrases of liberty +into realities, and to learn something more about democracy than the +spelling of its name. + +Heine's first line of defence was quite worthless. It was the cheap and +common defence of the commonplace, fastidious nature that has hardly +courage to exist outside its nest of culture. His second line was +stronger, and it is most fully set out in the preface to his _Lutetia_, +written only a year before his death. He there expresses the artist's +fear of beauty's desecration by the crowd. He dreads the horny hand laid +upon the statues he had loved. He sees the laurel groves, the lilies, +the roses--"those idle brides of nightingales"--destroyed to make room +for useful potato-patches. He sees his _Book of Songs_ taken by the +grocer to wrap up coffee and snuff for old women, in a world where the +victorious proletariat triumphs. But that line of defence he voluntarily +abandons, knowing in his heart, as he said, that the present social +order could not endure, and that all beauty it preserved was not to be +counted against its horror. + +It is at the end of the same preface that the well-known passage occurs, +thus translated by Matthew Arnold: + + "I know not if I deserve that a laurel-wreath should one + day be laid on my coffin. Poetry, dearly as I have loved it, + has always been to me but a divine plaything. I have never + attached any great value to poetical fame; and I trouble myself + very little whether people praise my verses or blame them. + But lay on my coffin a _sword_; for I was a brave soldier in the + war of liberation of humanity." + +The words appear strangely paradoxical. No one questions Heine's place +among the poets of the world. As a matter of fact, he was quite as +sensitive to criticism as other poets, and his courage was not more +conspicuous than most people's. But, nevertheless, those words contain +his last and true defence against the scorn of revolutionists, or men of +affairs, like Börne. There is no need to make light of Börne's +achievement; that also has its high place in the war of liberation. But, +powerless as the word may seem, there was in Heine's word a liberating +force that is felt in our battle to this day. He did not wield the axe +himself, but behind him has moved a mysterious figure, muffled in a +cloak--a Lictor following his footsteps with an axe--the deed of Heine's +thought. + + + + +V + + +THE BURNING BOOK + +"How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!" cried Walt +Whitman, as I quoted in the last essay. He was thinking, perhaps, of +Harper's Ferry and of John Brown hanging on the crab-apple tree, while +his soul went marching on. It is the lament of all writers and speakers +who are driven by inward compulsion to be something more than artists in +words, and who seek to jog the slow-pacing world more hurriedly forward. +How long had preachers, essayists, orators, and journalists argued +slavery round and round before the defiant deed crashed and settled it! +"Who hath believed our report?" the prophets have always cried, until +the arm of the Lord was revealed; and the melancholy of all prophetic +writers is mainly due to the conscious helplessness of their words. If +men would only listen to reason--if they would listen even to the +appeals of justice and compassion, we suppose our prophets would grow +quite cheerful at last. But to justice and compassion men listen only at +a distance, and the prophet is near. + +Nevertheless, in his address as Chancellor of Manchester University in +June 1912, Lord Morley, who has himself often sounded the prophetic +note, asserted that "a score of books in political literature rank as +acts, not books." He happened to be speaking on the anniversary of +Rousseau's birth, two hundred years ago, and in no list of such books +could Rousseau's name be forgotten. "Whether a score or a hundred," Lord +Morley went on, "the _Social Contract_ was one," and, as though to rouse +his audience with a spark, he quoted once more the celebrated opening +sentence, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." That +sentence is not true either in history or in present life. It would be +truer to say that man has everywhere been born in chains and, very +slowly, in some few parts of the world, he is becoming free. The +sentence is neither scientific as historic theory nor true to present +life, and yet Lord Morley rightly called it electrifying. And the same +is true of the book which it so gloriously opens. As history and as +philosophy, it is neither original nor exact. It derived directly from +Locke, and many aspects of the world and thought since Darwin's time +confute it. But, however much anticipated, and however much exposed to +scientific ridicule, it remains one of the burning books of the +world--one of those books which, as Lord Morley said, rank as acts, not +books. + +"Let us realise," he continued, "with what effulgence such a book burst +upon communities oppressed by wrong, sunk in care, inflamed by passions +of religion or of liberty, the two eternal fields of mortal struggle." +So potent an influence depends much upon the opportunity of time--the +fulfilment of the hour's need. A book so abstract, so assertive of +theory, and standing so far apart from the world's actual course, would +hardly find an audience now. But in the eighteenth century, so gaily +confident in the power of reason, so trustful of good intentions, so +ready to acclaim noble phrase and generality, and so ignorant of the +past and of the poor--in the midst of such a century the _Social +Contract_ was born at the due time. Add the vivid imagination and the +genuine love for his fellow-men, to which Lord Morley told us Maine +attributed Rousseau's ineffaceable influence on history, and we are +shown some of the qualities and reasons that now and again make words +burn with that effulgence, and give even to a book the power of a deed. + +Lord Morley thought there might be a score, or perhaps even a hundred, +of such books in political literature. He himself gave two other +instances beside the _Social Contract_. He mentioned _The Institutions of +the Christian Religion_, of Calvin, "whose own unconquerable will and +power to meet occasion made him one of the commanding forces in the +world's history." And he mentioned Tom Paine's _Common Sense_ as "the +most influential political piece ever composed." I could not, offhand, +give a list of seventeen other books of similar power to make up the +score. I do not believe so many exist, and as to ninety-seven, the idea +need not be considered. There have been books of wide and lasting +political influence--Plato's _Republic_, Aristotle's _Politics_, +Machiavelli's _Prince_, Hobbes's _Leviathan_, Locke's _Civil +Government_, Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, Paine's _Right of Man_, +Mill's _Liberty_ and _The Subjection of Women_, Green's _Political +Obligation_, and many more. But these are not burning books in the sense +in which the _Social Contract_ was a burning book. With the possible +exception of _The Subjection of Women_, they were cool and philosophic. +With the possible exception of Machiavelli, their writers might have +been professors. The effect of the books was fine and lasting, but they +were not aflame. They did not rank as acts. The burning books that rank +as acts and devour like purifying fire must be endowed with other +qualities. + +Such books appear to have been very few, though, in a rapid survey, one +is likely to overlook some. In all minds there will arise at once the +great memory of Swift's _Drapier's Letters_, passionately uttering the +simple but continually neglected law that "all government without the +consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery." Carlyle's +_French Revolution_ and _Past and Present_ burnt with similar flame; so +did Ruskin's _Unto this Last_ and the series of _Fors Clavigera;_ so did +Mazzini's _God and the People_, Karl Marx's _Kapital_, Henry George's +_Progress and Poverty_, Tolstoy's _What shall we do?_ and so did +Proudhon's _Qu'est ce que la Propriété?_ at the time of its birth. Nor +from such a list could one exclude _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, by which Mrs. +Beecher Stowe anticipated the deed of Harper's Ferry nine years before +it came. + +These are but few books and few authors. With Lord Morley's three thrown +in, they still fall far short of a score. Readers will add other names, +other books that ranked as acts and burnt like fire. To their brief but +noble roll, I would also add one name, and one brief set of speeches or +essays that hardly made a book, but to which Lord Morley himself, at all +events, would not be likely to take exception. He mentioned Burke's +famous denunciation of Rousseau, and, indeed, the natures and aspects of +no two distinguished and finely-tempered men could well be more opposed. +But none the less, I believe that in Burke, before growing age and +growing fears and habits chilled his blood, there kindled a fire +consuming in its indignation, and driving him to words that, equally +with Rousseau's, may rank among the acts of history. In support of what +may appear so violent a paradox when speaking of one so often claimed as +a model of Conservative moderation and constitutional caution, let me +recall a few actual sentences from the speech on "Conciliation with +America," published three years before Rousseau's death. The grounds of +Burke's imagination were not theoretic. He says nothing about abstract +man born free; but, as though quietly addressing the House of Commons +to-day, he remarks: + + "The Colonies complain that they have not the characteristic + mark and seal of British freedom. They complain that they + are taxed in a Parliament in which they are not represented." + +That simple complaint had roused in the Colonies, thus deprived of the +mark and seal of British freedom, a spirit of turbulence and disorder. +Already, under a policy of negation and suppression, the people were +driving towards the most terrible kind of war--a war between the members +of the same community. Already the cry of "no concession so long as +disorders continue" went up from the central Government, and, with +passionate wisdom, Burke replied: + + "The question is not whether their spirit deserves blame or + praise, but what, in the name of God, shall we do with it?" + +Then come two brief passages which ought to be bound as watchwords and +phylacteries about the foreheads of every legislator who presumes to +direct our country's destiny, and which stand as a perpetual indictment +against all who endeavour to exclude the men or women of this country +from constitutional liberties: + + "In order to prove that the Americans have no right to + their liberties, we are every day endeavouring to subvert the + maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our own. To prove + that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to + depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we never seem to + gain a paltry advantage over them in debate without attacking + some of those principles or deriding some of those feelings for + which our ancestors have shed their blood." + +The second passage is finer still, and particularly apt to the present +civil contest over Englishwomen's enfranchisement: + + "The temper and character which prevail in our Colonies + are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We cannot, + I fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce people, and persuade + them that they are not sprung from a nation in whose veins + the blood of freedom circulates. The language in which they + would hear you tell them this tale would detect the imposition. + Your speech would betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest + person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery." + +It may be said that these words, unlike the words with which Rousseau +kindled revolution, failed of their purpose. The Government remained +deaf and blind to the demand of British freedom; a terrible war was not +averted; one of the greatest disasters in our history ensued. None the +less, they glow with the true fire, and the book that contains them +ranks with acts, and, indeed, with battles. That we should thus be +coupling Rousseau and Burke--two men of naturally violent antipathy--is +but one of the common ironies of history, which in the course of years +obliterates differences and soothes so many hatreds. To be accepted and +honoured by the same mind, and even for similar service, the two +apparent opposites must have had something in common. What they had in +common was the great qualities that Maine discovered in Rousseau--the +vivid imagination and the genuine love for their fellow-men; and by +imagination I mean the power of realising the thoughts, feelings, and +sufferings of others. Thus from these two qualities combined in the +presence of oppression, cruelty, or the ordinary stupid and callous +denial of freedom, there sprang that flame of indignation from which +alone the burning book derives its fire. Examine those other books whose +titles I have mentioned, and their origin will in every case be found +the same. They are the flaming children of rage, and rage is begotten by +imaginative power out of love for the common human kind. + + + + +VI + + +"WHERE CRUEL RAGE" + +"Fret not thyself," sang the cheerful Psalmist--"fret not thyself +because of evildoers." For they shall soon be cut down like the grass; +they shall be rooted out; their sword shall go through their own heart; +their arms shall be broken; they shall consume as the fat of lambs, and +as the smoke they shall consume away; though they flourish like a green +bay-tree, they shall be gone, and though we seek them, their place shall +nowhere be found. + +A soothing consolation lies in the thought. Why should we fluster +ourselves, why wax so hot, when time thus brings its inevitable +revenges? Composed in mind, let us pursue our own unruffled course, with +calm assurance that justice will at length prevail. Let us comply with +the dictates of sweetness and light, in reasonable expectation that +iniquity will melt away of itself, like a snail before the fire. If we +have confidence that vengeance is the Lord's and He will repay, where +but in that faith shall we find an outlet for our indignation at once so +secure, so consolatory, and so cheap? + +It was the pious answer made by Dr. Delany to Swift at the time when, +torn by cruel rage, Swift was entering upon the struggle against +Ireland's misery. Swift appealed to him one day "whether the +corruptions and villainies of men in power did not eat his flesh and +exhaust his spirits?" But Delany answered, "That in truth they did not." +"Why--why, how can you help it? How can you avoid it?" asked the +indignant heart. And the judicious answer came: "Because I am commanded +to the contrary; 'Fret not thyself because of the ungodly.'" Under the +qualities revealed in Swift and Delany by that characteristic scene, is +also revealed a deeply-marked distinction between two orders of mankind, +and the two speakers stand as their types. Dr. Delany we all know. He +may be met in any agreeable society--himself agreeable and tolerant, +unwilling to judge lest he be judged, solicitous to please, careful not +to lose esteem, always welcome among his numerous acquaintances, sweetly +reasonable, and devoutly confident that the tale of hideous wrong will +right itself without his stir. No figure is more essential for social +intercourse, or moves round the cultivated or political circle of his +life with more serene success. + +To the great comfort of cultivated and political circles, the type of +Swift is not so frequent or so comprehensible. What place have those who +fret not themselves because of evildoers--what place in their tolerant +society have they for uncouth personalities, terrible with indignation? +It is true that Swift was himself accounted a valued friend among the +best wits and writers of his time. Bolingbroke wrote to him: "I loved +you almost twenty years ago; I thought of you as well as I do now, +better was beyond the power of conception." Pope, also after twenty +years of intimate friendship, could write of him: "My sincere love of +that valuable, indeed incomparable, man will accompany him through life, +and pursue his memory were I to live a hundred lives." Arbuthnot could +write to him: + + "DEAR FRIEND,--The last sentence of your letter plunged + a dagger in my heart. Never repeat those sad, but tender, + words, that you will try to forget me. For my part, I can never + forget you--at least till I discover, which is impossible, another + friend whose conversation could procure me the pleasure I + have found in yours." + +The friends of Swift--the men who could write like this--men like +Bolingbroke, Pope, Arbuthnot, Addison, Steele, and Gay--were no +sentimentalists; they rank among the shrewdest and most clear-eyed +writers of our literature. And, indeed, to me at all events, the +difficulty of Swift's riddle lies, not in his savagery, but in his +charm. When we think of that tiger burning in the forests of the night, +how shall we reconcile his fearful symmetry with eyes "azure as the +heavens," which Pope describes as having a surprising archness in them? +Or when a man is reputed the most embittered misanthrope in history, how +was it that his intimate friend, Sheridan, could speak of that "spirit +of generosity and benevolence whose greatness, and vigour, when pent up +in his own breast by poverty and dependence, served only as an evil +spirit to torment him"? Of his private generosity, and his consideration +for the poor, for servants, and animals, there are many instances +recorded. For divergent types of womanhood, whether passionate, witty, +or intellectual, he possessed the attraction of sympathetic intimacy. A +woman of peculiar charm and noble character was his livelong friend from +girlhood, risking reputation, marriage, position, and all that many +women most value, just for that friendship and nothing more. Another +woman loved him with more tragic destiny. To Stella, in the midst of his +political warfare, he could write with the playfulness that nursemaids +use for children, and most men keep for their kittens or puppies. In the +"Verses on his own Death," how far removed from the envy, hatred, and +malice of the literary nature is the affectionate irony of those verses +beginning: + + "In Pope I cannot read a line, + But with a sigh I wish it mine; + When he can in one couplet fix + More sense than I can do in six, + It gives me such a jealous fit, + I cry, 'Plague take him and his wit.' + I grieve to be outdone by Gay + In my own humorous biting way; + Arbuthnot is no more my friend + Who dares to irony pretend, + Which I was born to introduce; + Refined it first, and showed its use." + +And so on down to the lines: + + "If with such talents Heaven has blest 'em, + Have I not reason to detest 'em?" + +To damn with faint praise is the readiest defence of envious failure; +but to praise with jealous damnation reveals a delicate generosity that +few would look for in the hater of his kind. Nor let us forget that +Swift was himself the inventor of the phrase "Sweetness and light." + +These elements of charm and generosity have been too much overlooked, +and they could not redeem the writer's savagery in popular opinion, +being overshadowed by that cruel indignation which ate his flesh and +exhausted his spirit. Yet it was, perhaps, just from such elements of +intuitive sympathy and affectionate goodwill that the indignation +sprang. Like most over-sensitive natures, he found that every new +relation in life, even every new friendship that he formed, only opened +a gate to new unhappiness. The sorrows of others were more to him than +to themselves, and, like a man or woman that loves a child, he +discovered that his affection only exposed a wider surface to pain. On +the death of a lady with whom he was not very intimately acquainted, "I +hate life," he cried, "when I think it exposed to such accidents: and to +see so many thousand wretches burdening the earth while such as her die, +makes me think God did never intend life for a blessing." It was not any +spirit of hatred or cruelty, but an intensely personal sympathy with +suffering, that tore his heart and kindled that furnace of indignation +against the stupid, the hateful, and the cruel to whom most suffering is +due; and it was a furnace in which he himself was consumed. Writing +whilst he was still a youth, in _The Tale of a Tub_, he composed a +terrible sentence, in which all his rage and pity and ironical bareness +of style seem foretold: "Last week," he says, "I saw a woman flayed, and +you will hardly believe how much it altered her person for the worse." +"Only a woman's hair," was found written on the packet in which the +memorial of Stella was preserved, and I do not know in what elegy there +breathes a prouder or more poignant sorrow. + +When he wrote the _Drapier Letters_, Ireland lay before him like a woman +flayed. Of the misery of Ireland it was said (I think by Sheridan): + + "It fevered his blood, it broke his rest, it drove him at times + half frantic with furious indignation, it sunk him at times in + abysses of sullen despondency, it awoke in him emotions + which in ordinary men are seldom excited save by personal + injuries." + +This cruel rage over the wrongs of a people whom he did not love, and +whom he repeatedly disowned, drove him to the savage denunciations in +which he said of England's nominee: "It is no dishonour to submit to the +lion, but who, with the figure of a man, can think with patience of +being devoured alive by a rat?" It drove him also to the great +principle, still too slowly struggling into recognition in this country, +that "all government without the consent of the governed is the very +definition of slavery." It inspired his _Proposal for the Universal Use +of Irish Manufactures_, in which the advice to "burn everything that +came from England except the coals and the people," might serve as the +motto of the Sinn Fein movement. And it inspired also that other "Modest +Proposal for Preventing the Children of Ireland from being a burden to +their Parents and Country, and making them beneficial to the Public. +Fatten them up for the Dublin market; they will be delicious roast, +baked, or boiled." + +As wave after wave of indignation passed over him, his wrath at +oppression extended to all mankind. In _Gulliver's Travels_ it is the +human race that lies before him, how much altered for the worse by being +flayed! But it is not pity he feels for the victim now. In man he only +sees the littleness, the grossness, the stupidity, or the brutal +degradation of Yahoos. Unlike other satirists--unlike Juvenal or Pope or +the author of _Penguin Island_, who comes nearest to his manner--he +pours his contempt, not upon certain types of folly or examples of vice, +but upon the race of man as a whole. "I heartily hate," he wrote to +Pope soon after _Gulliver_ was published, "I heartily hate and detest +that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, +and so forth." The philanthropist will often idealise man in the +abstract and hate his neighbour at the back door, but that was not +Swift's way. He has been called an inverted hypocrite, as one who makes +himself out worse than he is. I should rather call him an inverted +idealist, for, with high hopes and generous expectations, he entered +into the world, and lacerated by rage at the cruelty, foulness, and +lunacy he there discovered, he poured out his denunciations upon the +crawling forms of life whose filthy minds were well housed in their +apelike and corrupting flesh--a bag of loathsome carrion, animated by +various lusts. + +"Noli aemulari," sang the cheerful Psalmist; "Fret not thyself because +of evildoers." How easy for most of us it is to follow that comfortable +counsel! How little strain it puts upon our popularity or our courage! +And how amusing it is to watch the course of human affairs with tolerant +acquiescence! Yes, but, says Swift, "amusement is the happiness of those +who cannot think," and may we not say that acquiescence is the cowardice +of those who dare not feel? There will always be some, at least, in the +world whom savage indignation, like Swift's, will continually torment. +It will eat their flesh and exhaust their spirits. They would gladly be +rid of it, for, indeed, it stifles their existence, depriving them alike +of pleasure, friends, and the objects of ambition--isolating them in the +end as Swift was isolated. If only the causes of their indignation might +cease, how gladly they would welcome the interludes of quiet! But hardly +is one surmounted than another overtops them like a wave, nor have the +stern victims of indignation the smallest hope of deliverance from their +suffering, until they lie, as Swift has now lain for so many years, +where cruel rage can tear the heart no more--"Ubi saeva indignatio +ulterius cor lacerare nequit." + + + + +VII + + +THE CHIEF OF REBELS + +"It is time that I ceased to fill the world," said the dying Victor +Hugo, and we recognise the truth of the saying, though with a smile. For +each generation must find its own way, nor would it be a consolation to +have even the greatest of ancient prophets living still. But yet there +breathes from the living a more intimate influence, for which an +immortality of fame cannot compensate. When men like Tolstoy die, the +world is colder as well as more empty. They have passed outside the +common dangers and affections of man's warm-blooded circle, lighted by +the sun and moon. Their spirit may go marching on; it may become +immortal and shine with an increasing radiance, perpetual as the sweet +influences of the Pleiades. But their place in the heavens is fixed. We +can no longer watch how they will meet the glorious or inglorious +uncertainties of the daily conflict. We can no longer make appeal for +their succour against the new positions and new encroachments of the +eternal adversary. The sudden splendour of action is no longer theirs, +and if we would know the loss implied in that difference, let us imagine +that Tolstoy had died before the summer of 1908, when he uttered his +overwhelming protest against the political massacres ordained by Russia. +In place of that protest, in place of the poignant indignation which +appealed to Stolypin's hangmen to fix their well-soaped noose around his +own old neck, since, if any were guilty, it was he--in place of the +shame and wrath that cried, "I cannot be silent!" we should have had +nothing but our own memory and regret, murmuring to ourselves, "If only +Tolstoy had been living now! But perhaps, for his sake, it is better he +is not." + +And now that he is dead, and the world is chilled by the loss of its +greatest and most fiery personality, the adversary may breathe more +freely. As Tolstoy was crossing a city square--I suppose the "Red +Square" in Moscow--on the day when the Holy Synod of Russia +excommunicated him from the Church, he heard someone say, "Look! There +goes the devil in human form!" And for the next few weeks he continued +to receive letters clotted with anathemas, damnations, threats, and +filthy abuse. It was no wonder. To all thrones, dominions, +principalities, and powers, to all priests of established religions, to +the officials of every kind of government, to the Ministers, whether of +parliaments or despots, to all naval and military officers, to all +lawyers, judges, jurymen, policemen, gaolers, and executioners, to all +tax-collectors, speculators, and financiers, Tolstoy was, indeed, the +devil in human form. To them he was the gainsayer, the destroyer, the +most shattering of existent forces. And, in themselves, how large and +powerful a section of every modern State they are! They may almost be +called the Church and State incarnate, and they seldom hesitate to call +themselves so. But, against all their authorities, formulae, and +traditions, Tolstoy stood in perpetual rebellion. To him their +parchments and wigs, their cells and rods and hang-ropes, their mitres, +chasubles, vestments, incense, chantings, services, bells, and books +counted as so much trumpery. For him external law had no authority. If +it conflicted with the law of the soul, it was the soul's right and duty +to disregard or break it. Speaking of the law which ordained the +flogging of peasants for taxes, he wrote: "There is but one thing to +say--that no such law can exist; that no ukase, or insignia, or seals, +or Imperial commands can make a law out of a crime." Similarly, the +doctrines of the Church, her traditions, sacraments, rituals, and +miracles--all that appeared to him to conflict with human intelligence +and the law of his soul--he disregarded or denied. "I deny them all," he +wrote in his answer to the Holy Synod's excommunication (1901); "I +consider all the sacraments to be coarse, degrading sorcery, +incompatible with the idea of God or with the Christian teaching." And, +as the briefest statement of the law of his soul, he added: + + "I believe in this: I believe in God, whom I understand + as Spirit, as Love, as the Source of all. I believe that he is + in me, and I in him. I believe that the will of God is most + clearly and intelligibly expressed in the teaching of the man + Jesus, whom to consider as God, and pray to I esteem the + greatest blasphemy. I believe that man's true welfare lies + in fulfilling God's will, and his will is that men should love + one another, and should consequently do to others as they wish + others to do to them--of which it is said in the Gospels that this + is the law and the prophets." + +The world has listened to rebels against Church and State before, and +still it goes shuffling along as best it can under external laws and +governments, seeking from symbols, rituals, and miraculous manifestation +such spiritual consolation as it may imbibe. To such rebels the world, +after burning, hanging, and quartering them for several centuries, has +now become fairly well accustomed, though it still shoots or hangs them +now and then as a matter of habit. But Tolstoy's rebellion did not stop +at Church and State. He rebelled against all the ordinary proposals and +ideals of rebels themselves, and to him there was not very much to +choose between the Socialism of Marxists and the despotism of Tsars. +Liberals, Radicals, Social Democrats, Social Revolutionists, and all the +rest of the reforming or rebellious parties--what were they doing but +struggling to re-establish external laws, external governments, +officials, and authorities under different forms and different names? In +the Liberal movements of the day he took no part, and he had little +influence upon the course of revolution. He formed no party; no band of +rebels followed the orders of the rebel-in-chief; among all the groups +of the first Duma there was no Tolstoyan group, nor could there have +been any. When we touch government, he would say, we touch the devil, +and it is only by admitting compromise or corruption that men seek to +maintain or readjust the power of officials over body and soul. "It +seems to me," he wrote to the Russian Liberals in 1896, + + "It seems to me now specially important to do what is + right quietly and persistently, not only without asking permission + from Government, but consciously avoiding participation + in it.... What can a Government do with a man who + will not publicly lie with uplifted hand, or will not send his + children to a school he thinks bad, or will not learn to kill + people, or will not take part in idolatry, or in coronations, + deputations, and addresses, or who says and writes what he + thinks and feels?... It is only necessary for all these good, + enlightened, and honest people whose strength is now wasted + in Revolutionary, Socialistic, or Liberal activity (harmful to + themselves and to their cause) to begin to act thus, and a nucleus + of honest, enlightened, and moral people would form around + them, united in the same thoughts and the same feelings. + Public opinion--the only power which subdues Governments--would + become evident, demanding freedom of speech, freedom + of conscience, justice, and humanity." + +From a distance, the bustling politicians and reformers of happier lands +might regard this quietism or wise passiveness as a mere counsel of +despair, suitable enough as a shelter in the storm of Russia's tyranny, +but having little significance for Western men of affairs. Yet even so +they had not silenced the voice of this persistent rebel; for he rose in +equal rebellion against the ideals, methods, and standards of European +cities. Wealth, commerce, industrial development, inventions, luxuries, +and all the complexity of civilisation were of no more account to him +than the toys of kings and the tag-rag of the churches. Other rebels had +preached the gospel of pleasure to the poor, and had themselves acted on +their precepts. Other reformers, even religious reformers, had extolled +the delights of women, wine, and song. But here was a man despising +these as the things after which the Gentiles seek. Love intrigues, +banquets, wealthy establishments, operas, theatres, poetry, and +fashionable novels--what had they to do with the kingdom of God that is +within? He touched nothing from which he did not strip the adornment. He +left life bare and stern as the starry firmament, and he felt awe at +nothing, not even at the starry firmament, but only at the sense of +right and wrong in man. He did not summon the poor to rise against "the +idle rich," but he summoned the idle rich, the well-to-do, the gentry of +independent means, the comfortable annuitants, the sportsmen, the +writers and dramatists of pleasure, the artists of triviality, the +pretty rhymers, and the people who are too busy for thought, to rise +against themselves. It was a much harder summons to obey, and generally +they answered with a shrug and a mutter of "madness," "mere asceticism," +or "a fanatic's intolerance." + +Yet they could not choose but hear. Mr. Kipling, in agreement with an +earlier prophet, once identified rebellion with the sin of witchcraft, +and about Tolstoy there was certainly a witching power, a magic or +demonic attraction, that gave the hearer no peace. Perhaps more even +than from his imaginative strength, it arose from his whole-hearted +sincerity, always looking reality straight in the face, always refusing +compromise, never hesitating to follow where reason led. Compromise and +temporise and choose the line of least resistance, as we habitually do, +there still remains in most people a fibre that vibrates to that iron +sincerity. And so it was that, from the first, Tolstoy brought with him +a disturbing and incalculable magic--an upheaving force, like leaven +stirring in the dough, or like a sword in unconditioned and unchartered +peace. + +Critics have divided his life into artistic and prophetic hemispheres; +they have accused him of giving up for man what was meant for artistic +circles. But the seas of both hemispheres are the same, and there was no +division in Tolstoy's main purpose or outlook upon life from first to +last. In his greatest imaginative works (and to me they appear the +highest achievement that the human imagination has yet accomplished in +prose)--in the struggles and perplexities and final solutions of +Petroff, Nekhludoff, and Levin; in the miserable isolation of Ivan +Ilyitch; in the resurrection of the prostitute Maslova; and in the +hardly endurable tragedy of Anna Karénin herself, there runs exactly the +same deep undercurrent of thought and exactly the same solution of +life's question as in the briefer and more definite statements of the +essays and letters. The greatest men are generally all of a piece, and +of no one is this more true than of Tolstoy. Take him where you please, +it is strange if after a few lines you are not able to say, "That is the +finger of Tolstoy; there is the widely sympathetic and compassionate +heart, so loving mankind that in all his works he has drawn hardly one +human soul altogether detested or contemptible. But at the same time +there is the man whose breath is sincerity, and to whom no compromise is +possible, and no mediocrity golden." + +To the philosophers of the world his own solution may appear a simple +issue, indeed, out of all his questioning, struggles, and rebellions. It +was but a return to well-worn commandments. "Do not be angry, do not +lust, do not swear obedience to external authority, do not resist evil, +but love your enemies"--these commands have a familiar, an almost +parochial, sound. Yet in obedience to such simple orders the chief of +rebels found man's only happiness, and whether we call it obedience to +the voice of the soul or the voice of God, he would not have minded +much. "He lives for his soul; he does not forget God," said one peasant +of another in Levin's hearing; and Tolstoy takes those quiet words as +Levin's revelation in the way of peace. For him the soul, though finding +its highest joy of art and pleasure only in noble communion with other +souls, stood always lonely and isolated, bare to the presence of God. +The only submission possible, and the only possible hope of peace, lay +in obedience to the self thus isolated and bare. "O that thou hadst +hearkened unto my commandments!" cried the ancient poet, uttering the +voice that speaks to the soul in loneliness; "O that thou hadst +hearkened unto my commandments! Then had thy peace been as a river." + + + + +VIII + + +THE IRON CROWN + +When we read of a man who, for many years, wore on his left arm an iron +bracelet, with spikes on the inside which were pressed into the flesh, +we feel as though we had taken a long journey from our happy land. When +we read that the bracelet was made of steel wire, with the points +specially sharpened, and the whole so clamped on to the arm that it +could never come off, but had to be cut away after death, we might +suppose that we had reached the world where Yogi and Sanyasi wander in +the saffron robe, or sit besmeared with ashes, contemplating the eternal +verities, unmoved by outward things. Like skeletons of death they sit; +thorns tear their skin, their nails pierce into their hands, day and +night one arm is held uplifted, iron grows embedded in their flesh, like +a railing in a tree trunk, they hang in ecstasy from hooks, they count +their thousand miles of pilgrimage by the double yard-measure of head to +heel, moving like a geometer caterpillar across the burning dust. To +overcome the body so that the soul may win her freedom, to mortify--to +murder the flesh so that the spirit may reach its perfect life, to +torture sense so that the mind may dwell in peace, to obliterate the +limits of space, to silence the ticking of time, so that eternity may +speak, and vistas of infinity be revealed--that is the purport of their +existence, and in hope of attaining to that consummation they submit +themselves with deliberate resolve to the utmost anguish and abasement +that the body can endure. + +Contemplating from a philosophic distance the Buddhist monasteries that +climb the roof of the world, or the indistinguishable multitudes +swarming around the shrines on India's coral strand, we think all this +sort of thing is natural enough for unhappy natives to whom life is +always poor and hard, and whose bodies, at the best, are so +insignificant and so innumerable that they may well regard them with +contempt, and suffer their torments with indifference. But the man of +whose spiky bracelet we read was not in search of Nirvana's +annihilation, nor had he ever prayed in nakedness beside the Ganges. +Cardinal Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster, was as little like a +starveling Sanyasi as any biped descendant of the anthropoids could +possibly be. A noticeable man, singularly handsome, of conspicuous, +indeed of almost precarious, personal attraction, a Prince of the +Church, clothed, quite literally, in purple and fine linen, faring as +sumptuously as he pleased every day, welcome at the tables of the +society that is above religion, irreproachable in address, a courtier in +manner, a diplomatist in mind, moving in an entourage of state and +worldly circumstance, occupied in the arts, constructing the grandest +building of his time, learned without pedantry, agreeably cultivated in +knowledge, urbane in his judgment of mankind, a power in the councils of +his country, a voice in the destinies of the world--so we see him moving +in a large and splendid orbit, complete in fine activities, dominant in +his assured position, almost superhuman in success. And as he moves, he +presses into the flesh of his left arm those sharpened points of steel. + +"Remember!" We hear again the solemn tone, warning of mortality. We see +again the mummy, drawn between tables struck silent in their revelry. We +listen to the slave whispering in the ear while the triumph blares. +"Remember!" he whispers. "Remember thou art man. Thou shalt go! Thou +shalt go! Thy triumph shall vanish as a cloud. Time's chariot hurries +behind thee. It comes quicker than thine own!" So from the iron bracelet +a voice tells of the transitory vision. All shall go; the jewelled +altars and the dim roofs fragrant with incense; the palaces, the towers, +and domed cathedrals; the refined clothing, the select surroundings, the +courteous receptions of the great; the comfortable health, the noble +presence, the satisfactory estimation of the world--all shall go. They +shall fade away; they shall be removed as a vesture, and like a garment +they shall be rolled up. Press the spikes into thy mouldering flesh. +Remember! Even while it lives, it is corrupting, and the end keeps +hurrying behind. Remember! Remember thou art man. + +But below that familiar voice which warns the transient generations of +their mortality, we may find in those sharpened spikes a more profound +and nobler intention. "Remember thou art man," they say; but it is not +against overweening pride that they warn, nor do they remind only of +death's wings. "Remember thou art man," they say, "and as man thou art +but a little lower than the angels, being crowned with glory and honour. +This putrefying flesh into which we eat our way--this carrion cart of +your paltry pains and foolish pleasures--is but the rotten relic of an +animal relationship. Remember thou art man. Thou art the paragon of +animals, the slowly elaborated link between beast and god, united by +this flesh with tom-cats, swine, and hares, but united by the spirit +with those eternal things that move fresh and strong as the ancient +heavens in their courses, and know not fear. What pain of spikes and +sharpened points, what torment that this body can endure from cold or +hunger, from human torture and burning flame, what pleasure that it can +enjoy from food and wine and raiment and all the satisfactions of sense +is to be compared with the glory that may be revealed at any moment in +thy soul? Subdue that bestial and voracious body, ever seeking to +extinguish in thee the gleam of heavenly fire. Press the spikes into the +lumpish and uncouth monster of thy flesh. Remember! Remember thou art +God." + +"Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this +death?" We have grown so accustomed to the cry that we hardly notice it, +and yet that the cry should ever have been raised--that it should have +arisen in all ages and in widely separated parts of the world--is the +most remarkable thing in history. Pleasure is so agreeable, and none too +common; or, if one wanted pain for salt, are there not pains enough in +life's common round? Does it not take us all our time to mitigate the +cold, the heat, and hunger; to escape the beasts and rocks and +thunderbolts that bite and break and blast us; to cure the diseases that +rack and burn and twist our poor bodies into hoops? Why should we seek +to add pain to pain, and raise a wretched life to the temperature of a +torture-room? It is the most extraordinary thing, at variance alike with +the laws of reason and moderation. Certainly, there is a kind of +self-denial--a carefulness in the selection of pleasure--which all the +wise would practise. To exercise restraint, to play the aristocrat in +fastidious choice, to guard against satiety, and allow no form of +grossness to enter the walled garden or to drink at the fountain +sealed--those are to the wise the necessary conditions of calm and +radiant pleasure, and in outward behaviour the Epicurean and the Stoic +are hardly to be distinguished. For the Epicurean knows well that +asceticism stands before the porch of happiness, and the smallest touch +of excess brings pleasure tumbling down. + +But mankind seems not to trouble itself about this delicate adjustment, +this cautious selection of the more precious joy. In matters of the +soul, man shows himself unreasonable and immoderate. He forgets the laws +of health and chastened happiness. The salvation of his spirit possesses +him with a kind of frenzy, making him indifferent to loss of pleasure, +or to actual pain and bodily distress. He will seek out pain as a lover, +and use her as a secret accomplice in his conspiracy against the body's +domination. Under the stress of spiritual passion he becomes an +incalculable force, carried we know not where by his determination to +preserve his soul, to keep alight just that little spark of fire, to +save that little breath of life from stifling under the mass of +superincumbent fat. We may call him crazy, inhuman, a fanatic, a +devil-worshipper; he does not mind what we call him. His eyes are full +of a vision before which the multitude of human possessions fade. He is +engaged in a contest wherein his soul must either overcome or perish +everlastingly; and we may suppose that, even if the soul were not +immortal, it would still be worth the saving. + +It is true that in this happy country examples of ascetic frenzy are +comparatively rare. There is little fear of overdoing the mortification +of the flesh. We practise a self-denial that takes the form of training +for sport, but, like the spectators at a football match, we do our +asceticism chiefly by proxy, and are fairly satisfied if the clergy do +not drink or give other cause for scandal. It is very seldom that +Englishmen have been affected by spiritual passion of any kind, and that +is why our country, of all the eastern hemisphere, has been least +productive of saints. But still, in the midst of our discreet comfort +and sanity of moderation, that spiky bracelet of steel, eating into the +flesh of the courtly and sumptuous Archbishop, may help to remind us +that, whether in war, or art, or life, it is only by the passionate +refusal of comfort and moderation that the high places of the spirit are +to be reached. "Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the +ground!" is the song of all pioneers, and if man is to be but a little +lower than the angels, and crowned with glory and honour, the crown will +be made of iron or, perhaps, of thorns. + + + + +IX + + +"THE IMPERIAL RACE" + +"The public are particularly requested not to tease the Cannibals." So +ran one of the many flaming notices outside the show. Other notices +proclaimed the unequalled opportunity of beholding "The Dahomey Warriors +of Savage South Africa; a Rare and Peculiar Race of People; all there is +Left of them"--as, indeed, it might well be. Another called on the +public "not to fail to see the Coloured Beauties of the Voluptuous +Harem," no doubt also the product of Savage South Africa. But of all the +gilded placards the most alluring, to my mind, was the request not to +tease the Cannibals. It suggested so appalling a result. + +I do not know who the Cannibals were. Those I saw appeared to be +half-caste Jamaicans, but there may have been something more savage +inside, and certainly a Dahomey warrior from South Africa would have to +be ferocious indeed if his fierceness was to equal his rarity. But the +particular race did not matter. The really interesting thing was that +the English crowd was assumed to be as far superior to the African +savage as to a wild beast in a menagerie. The proportion was the same. +The English crowd was expected to extend to the barbarians the same +inquisitive patronage as to jackals and hyenas in a cage, when in front +of the cages it is written, "Do not irritate these animals. They bite." + +The facile assumption of superiority recalled a paradoxical remark that +Huxley made about thirty years ago, when that apostle of evolution +suddenly scandalised progressive Liberalism by asserting that a Zulu, if +not a more advanced type than a British working man, was at all events +happier. "I should rather be a Zulu than a British workman," said Huxley +in his trenchant way, and the believers in industrialism were not +pleased. By the continual practice of war, and by generations of +infanticide, under which only the strongest babies survived, the Zulus +had certainly at that time raised themselves to high physical +excellence, traces of which still remain in spite of the degeneracy that +follows foreign subjection. I have known many African tribes between +Dahomey and Zululand too well to idealise them into "the noble savage." +I know how rapidly they are losing both their bodily health and their +native virtues under the deadly contact of European drink, clothing, +disease, and exploitation. Yet, on looking round upon the London crowds +that were particularly requested not to tease the cannibals, my first +thought was that Huxley's paradox remained true. + +The crowds that swarmed the Heath were not lovely things to look at. +Newspapers estimated that nearly half a million human beings were +collected on the patch of sand that Macaulay's imagination transfigured +into "Hampstead's swarthy moor." But even if we followed the safe rule +and divided the estimated number by half, a quarter of a million was +quite enough. "Like bugs--the more, the worse," Emerson said of city +crowds, and certainly the most enthusiastic social legislator could +hardly wish to make two such men or women stand where one stood before. +Scarlet and yellow booths, gilded roundabouts, sword-swallowers in +purple fleshings, Amazons in green plush and spangles were gay enough. +Booths, roundabouts, Amazon queens, and the rest are the only chance of +colour the English people have, and no wonder they love them. But in +themselves and in mass the crowds were drab, dingy, and black. Even +"ostridges" and "pearlies," that used to break the monotony like the +exchange of men's and women's hats, are thought to be declining. America +may rival that dulness, but in no other country of Europe, to say +nothing of the East and Africa, could so colourless a crowd be seen--a +mass of people so devoid of character in costume, or of tradition and +pride in ornament. + +But it was not merely the absence of colour and beauty in dress, or the +want of national character and distinction--a plainness that would +afflict even a Russian peasant from the Ukraine or a Tartar from the +further Caspian. It was the uncleanliness of the garments themselves +that would most horrify the peoples not reckoned in the foremost ranks +of time. A Hindu thinks it disgusting enough for a Sahib to put on the +same coat and trousers that he wore yesterday without washing them each +morning in the tank, as the Hindu washes his own garment. But that the +enormous majority of the Imperial race should habitually wear second, +third, and fourth-hand clothes that have been sweated through by other +people first, would appear to him incredible. If ever he comes to +England, he finds that he must believe it. It is one of the first shocks +that strike him with horror when he emerges from Charing Cross. "Can +these smudgy, dirty, evil-smelling creatures compose the dominant race?" +is the thought of even the most "loyal" Indian as he moves among the +crowd of English workpeople. And it is only the numbing power of habit +that silences the question in ourselves. Cheap as English clothing is, +second-hand it is cheaper still, and I suppose that out of that +quarter-million people on the Heath every fine Bank Holiday hardly one +per cent. wears clothes that no one has worn before him. Hence the +sickening smell that not only pervades an English crowd but hangs for +two or three days over an open space where the crowd has been. "I can +imagine a man keeping a dirty shirt on," said Nietzsche, "but I cannot +imagine him taking it off and putting it on again." He was speaking in +parables, as a philosopher should; but if he had stood among an English +working crowd, his philosophic imagination would have been terribly +strained by literal fact. + +Scrubby coat and trousers, dirty shirt, scarf, and cap, socks more like +anklets for holes, and a pair of split boots; bedraggled hat, frowsy +jacket, blouse and skirt, squashy boots, and perhaps a patchy "pelerine" +or mangy "boa"--such is accepted as the natural costume for the heirs of +all the ages. Prehistoric man, roaming through desert and forest in his +own shaggy pelt, was infinitely better clad. So is the aboriginal +African with a scrap of leopard skin, or a single bead upon a cord. To +judge by clothing, we may wonder to what purpose evolution ever started +upon its long course of groaning and travailing up to now. And more than +half-concealed by that shabby clothing, what shabby forms and heads we +must divine! How stunted, puny, and ill-developed the bodies are! How +narrow-shouldered the men, how flat-breasted the women! And the faces, +how shapeless and anaemic! How deficient in forehead, nose, and jaw! +Compare them with an Afghan's face; it is like comparing a chicken with +an eagle. Writing in the _Standard_ of April 8, 1912, a well-known +clergyman assured us that "when a woman enters the political arena, the +bloom is brushed from the peach, never to be restored." That may seem a +hard saying to Primrose Dames and Liberal Women, but the thousands of +peaches that entered the arena (as peaches will) on Hampstead Heath, had +no bloom left to brush, and no political arena could brush it more. + +Deficient in blood and bone, the products of stuffy air, mean food, and +casual or half-hearted parentage, often tainted with hereditary or +acquired disease, the faces are; but, worse than all, how insignificant +and indistinguishable! It is well known that a Chinaman can hardly +distinguish one Englishman from another, just as we can hardly +distinguish the Chinese. But in an English working crowd, even an +Englishman finds it difficult to distinguish face from face. Yet as a +nation we have always been reckoned conspicuous for strong and even +eccentric individuality. Our well-fed upper and middle classes--the +public school, united services, and university classes--reach a high +physical average. Perhaps, on the whole, they are still the best +specimens of civilised physique. Within thirty years the Germans have +made an astonishing advance. They are purging off their beer, and +working down their fat. But, as a rule, the well-fed and carefully +trained class in England still excels in versatility, decision, and +adventure. Unhappily, it is with few--only with a few millions of +well-to-do people, a fraction of the whole English population--and with +a few country-bred people and open-air workers, that we succeed. The +great masses of the English nation are tending to become the +insignificant, indistinguishable, unwholesome, and shabby crowd that +becomes visible at football matches and on Bank Holidays upon the Heath. + +It is true that familiarity breeds respect. It is almost impossible for +the average educated man to know anything whatever about the working +classes. The educated and the workpeople move, as it were, in worlds of +different dimensions, incomprehensible to each other. Very few men and +women from our secondary schools and universities, for instance, can +long enjoy solemnly tickling the faces of passing strangers with a bunch +of feathers, or revolving on a wooden horse to a steam organ, or gazing +at a woman advertised as "a Marvel of Flesh, Fat, and Beauty." The +educated seldom appreciate such joys in themselves. If they like trying +them, it is only "in the second intention." They enjoy out of patronage, +or for literary sensation, rather than in grave reality. They are +excluded from the mind to which such things genuinely appeal. But let +not education mock, nor culture smile disdainfully at the short and +simple pleasures of the poor. If by some miracle of revelation culture +could once become familiar from the inside with one of those scrubby and +rather abhorrent families, the insignificance would be transfigured, the +faces would grow distinguishable, and all manner of admired and even +lovable characteristics would be found. How sober people are most days +of the week; how widely charitable; how self-sacrificing in hopes of +saving the pence for margarine or melted fat upon the children's bread! +They are shabby, but they have paid for every scrap of old clothing with +their toil; they are dirty, but they try to wash, and would be clean if +they could afford the horrible expense of cleanliness; they are +ignorant, but within twenty years how enormously their manners to each +other have improved! And then consider their Christian thoughtlessness +for the morrow, how superb and spiritual it is! How different from the +things after which the Gentiles of the commercial classes seek! On a +Bank Holiday I have known a mother and a daughter, hanging over the very +abyss of penury, to spend two shillings in having their fortunes told. +Could the lilies of the field or Solomon in all his glory have shown a +finer indifference to worldly cares? + +Mankind, as we know, in the lump is bad, but that it is not worse +remains the everlasting wonder. It is not the squalor of such a crowd +that should astonish; it is the marvel that they are not more squalid. +For, after all, what is the root cause of all this dirt and ignorance +and shabbiness and disease? It is not drink, nor thriftlessness, nor +immorality, as the philanthropists do vainly talk; still less is it +crime. It is the "inequality" of which Canon Barnett has often +written--the inequality that Matthew Arnold said made a high +civilisation impossible. But such inequality is only another name for +poverty, and from poverty we have yet to discover the saviour who will +redeem us. + + + + +X + + +THE GREAT UNKNOWN + +There are strange regions where the monotony of ignoble streets is +broken only by an occasional church, a Board School, or a public-house. +From the city's cathedral to every point of the compass, except the +west, they stretch almost without limit till they reach the bedraggled +fields maturing for development. They form by far the larger part of an +Empire's capital. Each of them is, in fact, a vast town, great enough, +as far as numbers go, to make the Metropolis of a powerful State. Out of +half a dozen of them, such as Islington, Bethnal Green, or Bermondsey, +the County Council could build half a score of Italian republics like +the Florence or Pisa of old days, if only it had the mind. Each +possesses a character, a peculiar flavour, or, at the worst, a separate +smell. Many of them are traversed every day by thousands of rich and +well-educated people, passing underground or overhead. Yet to nearly all +of us they remain strange and almost untrodden. We do not think of them +when we think of London. Them no pleasure-seeker counts among his +opportunities, no foreigner visits as essential for his study of the +English soul. Not even our literary men and Civil Servants, who talk so +much about architecture, discuss their architecture in the clubs. Not +one in a thousand of us has ever known a human soul among their +inhabitants. To the comfortable classes the Libyan desert is more +familiar. + +At elections, even politicians remember their existence. From time to +time a philanthropist goes down there to share God's good gifts with his +poorer brethren, or to elevate the masses with tinkling sounds or +painted boards. From time to time an adventurous novelist is led round +the opium-shops, dancing-saloons, and docks, returning with copy for +tales of lust and murder that might just as well be laid in Siberia or +Timbuctoo. When we scent an East End story on its way, do we not +patiently await the battered head, the floating corpse, the dynamiter's +den, or a woman crying over her ill-begotten babe? Do we not always get +one or other of the lot? To read our story-tellers from Mr. Kipling +downward, one might suppose the East End to be inhabited by bastards +engaged in mutual murder, and the marvel is that anyone is left alive to +be the subject of a tale. You may not bring an indictment against a +whole nation, but no sensational writer hesitates to libel three million +of our fellow-citizens. Put it in Whitechapel, and you may tell what +filthy lie you please. + +About once in a generation some "Bitter Cry" pierces through custom, and +the lives of "the poor" become a subject for polite conversation and +amateur solicitude. For three months, or even for six, that subject +appears as the intellectual "_rôti_" at dinner-tables; then it is found +a little heavy, and cultured interest returns to its natural courses of +plays, pictures, politics, a dancing woman, and the memorials of Kings. +It is almost time now that the poor came up again, for a quarter of a +century has gone since they were last in fashion, and men's collars and +women's skirts have run their full orbit since. Excellent books have +appeared, written with intimate knowledge of working life--books such as +Charles Booth's _London_ or Mr. Richard Free's _Seven Years Hard_, to +mention only two; but either the public mind was preoccupied with other +amusements, or it had not recovered from the lassitude of the last +philanthropic debauch. Nothing has roused that fury of charitable +curiosity which accompanies a true social revival, and leaves its +victims gasping for the next excitement. The time was, perhaps, ripe, +but no startling success awaited Mr. Alexander Paterson's book, _Across +the Bridges_. Excellent though it was, its excellence excluded it from +fashion. For it was written with the restraint of knowledge, and +contained no touch of melodrama from beginning to end. Not by knowledge +or restraint are the insensate sensations of fashion reached. + +Mr. Paterson's experience lay on the south side of the river, and the +district possesses peculiarities of its own. On the whole, I think, the +riverside streets there are rather more unhealthy than those in the East +End. Many houses stand below water-level, and in digging foundations I +have sometimes seen the black sludge of old marshes squirting up through +the holes, and even bringing with it embedded reeds that perhaps were +growing when Shakespeare acted there. The population is more distinctly +English than on the north side. Where the poverty is extreme it is more +helpless. Work as a whole is rather steadier, but not so good. The smell +is different and very characteristic, partly owing to the hop-markets. +Life seems to me rather sadder and more depressing there, with less of +gaiety and independence; but that may be because I am more intimate with +the East End, and intimacy with working people nearly always improves +their aspect. It is, indeed, fortunate for our sensational novelists +that they remain so ignorant of their theme, for otherwise murders, +monsters, and mysteries would disappear from their pages, and goodness +knows how they would make a living then! + +It is not crime and savagery that characterise the unknown lands where +the working classes of London chiefly live. Matthew Arnold said our +lower classes were brutalised, and he was right, but not if by brutality +he meant cruelty, violence, or active sin. What characterises them and +their streets is poverty. Poverty and her twins, unhappiness and waste. +Under unhappiness, we may include the outward conditions of +discomfort--the crowded rooms, the foul air, the pervading dirt, the +perpetual stench of the poor. In winter the five or six children in a +bed grow practised in turning over all at the same time while still +asleep, so as not to disturb each other. In a hot summer the bugs drive +the families out of the rooms to sleep on the doorstep. Cleanliness is +an expensive luxury almost as far beyond poverty's reach as diamonds. +The foul skin, the unwashed clothes, the layer of greasy smuts, the +boots that once fitted someone, and are now held on by string, the +scraps of food bought by the pennyworth, the tea, condensed milk, fried +fish, bread and "strawberry flavour," the coal bought by the +"half-hundred," the unceasing noise, the absence of peace or rest, the +misery of sickness in a crowd--all such things may be counted among the +outward conditions of unhappiness, and only people who have never known +them would call them trivial. But by the unhappiness that springs from +poverty I mean far worse than these. + +The definition of happiness as "an energy of the soul along the lines +of excellence, in a fully developed life" is ancient now, but I have +never found a better. From happiness so defined, poverty excludes our +working-classes in the lump, almost without exception. For them an +energy of the soul along the lines of excellence is almost unknown, and +a fully developed life impossible. In both these respects their +condition has probably become worse within the last century. If there is +a word of truth in what historians tell us, a working-man must certainly +have had a better chance of exercising an energy of his soul before the +development of factories and machinery. What energy of the personal soul +is exercised in a mill-hand, a tea-packer, a slop-tailor, or the watcher +of a thread in a machine? How can a man or woman engaged in such labour +for ten hours a day at subsistence wage enjoy a fully developed life? It +seems likely that the old-fashioned workman who made things chiefly with +his own hands and had some opportunity of personal interest in the work, +stood a better chance of the happiness arising from an energy of the +soul. His life was also more fully developed by the variety and interest +of his working material and surroundings. This is the point to which our +prophets who pour their lamentations over advancing civilisation should +direct their main attack, as, indeed, the best of them have done. For +certainly it is an unendurable result if the enormous majority of +civilised mankind are for ever to be debarred from the highest possible +happiness. + +The second offspring of poverty in these working regions of our city is +waste. And I have called waste the twin brother of unhappiness because +the two are very much alike. By waste I do not here mean the death-rate +of infants, though that stands at one in four. No one, except an +exploiter of labour, would desire a mere increase in the workpeople's +number without considering the quality of the increase. But by waste I +mean the multitudes of boys and girls who never get a chance of +fulfilling their inborn capacities. The country's greatest shame and +disaster arise from the custom which makes the line between the educated +and the uneducated follow the line between the rich and the poor, almost +without deviation. That a nature capable of high development should be +precluded by poverty from all development is the deepest of personal and +national disasters, though it happen, as it does happen, several +thousand times a year. Physical waste is bad enough--the waste of +strength and health that could easily be retained by fresh air, open +spaces, and decent food, and is so retained among well-to-do children. +This physical waste has already created such a broad distinction that +foreigners coming among us detect two species of the English people. But +the mental waste is worse. It is a subject that Mr. Paterson dwells +upon, and he speaks with authority, as one who has taught in the Board +Schools and knows the life of the people across the bridges from the +banana-box to the grave. + + "Boys who might become classical scholars," he writes, + "stick labels on to parcels for ten years, others who have + literary gifts clear out a brewer's vat. Real thinkers work as + porters in metal warehouses, and after shouldering iron fittings + for eleven hours a day, find it difficult to set their minds in + order.... With even the average boy there is a marked waste + of mental capital between the ages of ten and thirty, and the + aggregate loss to the country is heavy indeed." + +At fourteen, just when the "education" of well-to-do boys is beginning, +the working boy's education stops. For ten or eleven years he has been +happy at school. He has looked upon school as a place of enjoyment--of +interest, kindliness, warmth, cleanliness, and even quiet of a kind. The +school methods of education may not be the best. Mr. Paterson points out +all that is implied in the distinction between the "teachers" of the +Board Schools and the "masters" of the public schools. Too much is put +in, not enough drawn out from the child's own mind. The teacher cannot +think much of individual natures, when faced with a class of sixty. Yet +it would be difficult to overrate the service of the Board Schools as +training grounds for manners, and anyone who has known the change in our +army within twenty-five years will understand what I mean. At fourteen +the boy has often reached his highest mental and spiritual development. +When he leaves school, shades of the prison-house begin to close upon +him. He jumps at any odd job that will bring in a few shillings to the +family fund. He becomes beer-boy, barber's boy, van-boy, paper-boy, and +in a year or two he is cut out by the younger generation knocking at the +door. He has learnt nothing; he falls out of work; he wanders from place +to place. By the time he is twenty-two, just when the well-to-do are +"finishing their education," his mind is dulled, his hope and interest +gone, his only ambition is to get a bit of work and keep it. At the best +he develops into the average working-man of the regions I have called +unknown. Mr. Paterson thus describes the class: + + "These are the steady bulk of the community, insuring the + peace of the district by their habits and opinions far more + effectively than any vigilance of police or government. Yet, + if they are indeed satisfactory, how low are the civic standards + of England, how fallen the ideals and beauties of Christianity! + No man that has dreams can rest content because the English + worker has reached his high level of regular work and rare + intoxication." + +One does not rest content; far from it. But the perpetual wonder is, not +that "the lower classes are brutalised," but that this brutality is so +tempered with generosity and sweetness. It is not their crime that +surprises, but their virtue; not their turbulence or discontent, but +their inexplicable acquiescence. And yet there are still people who +sneer at "the mob," "the vulgar herd," "the great unwashed," as though +principles, gentility, and soap were privileges in reward of merit, and +not the accidental luck of money's chaotic distribution. + + + + +XI + + +THE WORTH OF A PENNY + +A year or two ago, some wondered why strike had arisen out of strike; +why the whole world of British labour had suddenly and all at once begun +to heave restlessly as though with earthquake; why the streams of +workpeople had in quick succession left the grooves along which they +usually ran from childhood to the grave. "It is entirely ridiculous," +said the _Times_, with the sneer of educated scorn, "it is entirely +ridiculous to suppose that the whole industrial community has been +patiently enduring real grievances which are simultaneously discovered +to be intolerable." But to all outside the circle of the _Times_, the +only ridiculous part of the situation was that the industrial community +should patiently have endured their grievances so long. + +That working people should simultaneously discover them to be +intolerable, is nothing strange. It is all very well to lie in gaol, +from which there seems no chance of escape. Treadmill, oakum, skilly, +and the rest--one may as well go through with them quietly, for fear of +something worse. But if word goes round that one or two prisoners have +crept out of gaol, who would not burn to follow? Would not grievances +then be simultaneously discovered to be intolerable? The seamen were but +a feeble lot; their union was poor, their combination loose. They were +cooped up within the walls of a great Employers' Federation, which +laughed at their efforts to scramble out. Yet they escaped; the walls +were found to be not so very high and strong; in one place or another +they crumbled away, and the prisoners escaped. They gained what they +wanted; their grievances were no longer intolerable. What working man or +woman on hearing of it did not burn to follow, and did not feel the +grievances of life harder to be tolerated than before? If that feeble +lot could win their pennyworth of freedom, who might not expect +deliverance? People talk of "strike fever" as though it were an +infection; and so it is. It is the infection of a sudden hope. + +After the sneer, the _Times_ proceeded to attribute the strikes to a +natural desire for idleness during the hot weather. Seldom has so base +an accusation been brought against our country, even by her worst +enemies. The country consists almost entirely of working people, the +other classes being a nearly negligible fraction in point of numbers. +The restlessness and discontent were felt far and wide among nearly all +the working people, and to suggest that hundreds of thousands +contemplated all the risks and miseries of stopping work because they +wanted to be idle in the shade displayed the ignorance our educated +classes often display in speaking of the poor. For I suppose the thing +was too cruel for a joke. + +Hardly less pitiable than such ignorance was the nonchalant excuse of +those who pleaded: "We have our grievances too. We all want something +that we haven't got. We should all like our incomes raised. But we don't +go about striking and rioting." It reminds one of Lord Rosebery's +contention, some fifteen years ago, that in point of pleasure all men +are fairly equal, and the rich no happier than the poor. It sounds very +pretty and philosophic, but those who know what poverty is know it to be +absolutely untrue. If Lord Rosebery had ever tried poverty, he would +have known it was untrue. All the working people know it, and they know +that the grievances in which one can talk about income are never to be +compared with the grievances which hang on the turn of a penny, or the +chance of a shilling more or a shilling less per week. + +To a man receiving £20 a week the difference of £2 one way or other is +important, but it is not vital. If his income drops to £18 a week he and +his family have just as much to eat and drink and wear; probably they +live in the same house as before; the only change is a different place +for the summer holiday, and, perhaps, the dress-circle instead of the +stalls at a theatre. To a man with £200 a week the loss of £20 a week +hardly makes any difference at all. He may grumble; he may drop a motor, +or a yacht, but in his ordinary daily life he feels no change. To a +docker making twenty shillings a week the difference of two shillings is +not merely important, it is vital. The addition of it may mean three +rooms for the family instead of two; it may mean nine shillings a week +instead of seven to feed five mouths; it may mean meat twice a week, or +half as much more bread and margarine than before, or a saving for +second-hand clothes, and perhaps threepenn'orth of pleasure. In full +work a docker at the old 7d. an hour would make more than twenty +shillings a week; but the full weeks are rare, and about eighteen +shillings would be all he could get on an average. The extra penny an +hour for three days' work might bring him in about half a crown. To him +and to his wife and children the difference was not merely important, it +was vital. + +Or take the case of the 15,000 women who struck for a rise in South +London, and got it. We may put their average wage at nine shillings a +week. In the accounts of a woman who is keeping a family of three, +including herself, on that wage, a third of the money goes to the rent +of one room. Two shillings of the rest go for light, fuel, and soda. +That leaves four shillings a week to feed and clothe three people. Even +Lord Rosebery could hardly maintain that the opportunities for pleasure +on that amount were equal to his own. But the women jam-makers won an +advance of two shillings by their strike; the box-makers from 1_s_. +3_d_. to three shillings; even the glue and size workers got a shilling +rise. It was hardly up to Lord Rosebery's standard yet. It did not +represent the _Times_ paradise of sitting idle in the shade. But think +what it means when week by week you have jealously watched nine solid +pennies going in bread, nine more in meat, and another six in tea! Or +think what such an addition means to those working-women from the North, +who at the same time protested in Trafalgar Square against the +compulsory insurance because the payment of threepence a week would lose +them two of their dinners--twice the penn'orth of bread and ha'porth of +cheese that they always enjoyed for dinner! + +When I was assisting in an inquiry into wages and expenditure some years +ago, one head of a family added as a note at the foot of his budget: "I +see that we always spend more than we earn, but as we are never in debt +I attribute this result to the thriftiness of my wife." Behind that +sentence a history of grievances patiently endured is written, but only +the _Times_ would wonder that such grievances are discovered to be +intolerable the moment a gleam of hope appears. When the _Times_, in the +same article, went on to protest that if the railwaymen struck, they +would be kicking not only against the Companies but "against the nature +of things," I have no clear idea of the meaning. The nature of things is +no doubt very terrible and strong, but for working people the most +terrible and strongest part of it is poverty. All else is sophisticated; +here is the thing itself. One remembers two sentences in Mr. Shaw's +preface to _Major Barbara_: + + "The crying need of the nation is not for better morals, + cheaper bread, temperance, liberty, culture, redemption of + fallen sisters and erring brothers, nor the grace, love, and + fellowship of the Trinity, but simply for enough money. And + the evil to be attacked is not sin, suffering, greed, priestcraft, + kingcraft, demagogy, monopoly, ignorance, drink, war, pestilence, + nor any other of the scapegoats which reformers sacrifice, + but simply poverty." + +Strikes are the children of Poverty by Hope. For a long time past the +wealth of the country has rapidly increased. Gold has poured into it +from South Africa, dividends from all the world; trade has boomed, great +fortunes have been made; luxury has redoubled; the standard of living +among the rich has risen high. The working people know all this; they +can see it with their eyes, and they refuse to be satisfied with the +rich man's blessing on the poor. What concerns them more than the +increase in the quantity of gold is the natural result in the shrinkage +of the penny. It is no good getting sevenpence an hour for your work if +it does not buy so much as the "full, round orb of the docker's +tanner," which Mr. John Burns saw rising over the dock gates more than +twenty years ago, when he stood side by side with Ben Tillett and Tom +Mann, and when Sir H. Llewellyn Smith and Mr. Vaughan Nash wrote the +story of the contest. If prosperity has increased, so have prices, and +what cost a tanner then costs eightpence now, or more than that. To keep +pace with such a change is well worth a strike, since nothing but +strikes can avail. So vital is the worth of a penny; so natural is it to +kick against the nature of things, when their nature takes the form of +steady poverty amid expanding wealth. That is the simultaneous discovery +which raised the ridicule of the _Times_--that, and the further +discovery that, in Carlyle's phrase, "the Empire of old Mammon is +everywhere breaking up." The intangible walls that resisted so +obstinately are fading away. The power of wealth is suspected. Strike +after strike secures its triumphant penny, and no return of Peterloo, or +baton charges on the Liverpool St. George's Hall, driving the silent +crowd over the edge of its steep basis "as rapidly and continually as +water down a steep rock," as was seen during the strikes of August 1911, +can now check the infection of such a hope. It was an old saying of the +men who won our political liberties that the redress of grievances must +precede supply. The working people are standing now for a different +phase of liberty, but their work is their supply, and having +simultaneously discovered their grievances to be intolerable, they are +making the same old use of the ancient precept. + + + + +XII + + +"FIX BAYONETS!" + +"Oh, que j'aime le militaire!" sighed the old French song, no doubt with +a touch of frivolity; but the sentiment moves us all. Sages have thought +the army worth preserving for a dash of scarlet and a roll of the +kettledrum; in every State procession it is the implements of death and +the men of blood that we parade; and not to nursemaids only is the +soldier irresistible. The glamour of romance hangs round him. Terrible +with knife and spike and pellet he stalks through this puddle of a +world, disdainful of drab mankind. Multitudes may toil at keeping alive, +drudging through their scanty years for no hope but living and giving +life; he shares with very few the function of inflicting death, and +moves gaily clad and light of heart. "No doubt, some civilian +occupations are very useful," said the author of an old drill-book; I +think it was Lord Wolseley, and it was a large admission for any officer +to have made. It was certainly Lord Wolseley who wrote in his _Soldier's +Pocket-Book_ that the soldier "must believe his duties are the noblest +that fall to man's lot": + + "He must be taught to despise all those of civil life. Soldiers, + like missionaries, must be fanatics. An army thoroughly imbued + with fanaticism can be killed, but never suffer disgrace; + Napoleon, in speaking of it, said, 'Il en faut pour se faire tuer.'" + +And not only to get himself killed, but to kill must the soldier be +imbued with this fanaticism and self-glory. In the same spirit Mr. +Kipling and Mr. Fletcher have told us in their _History of England_ that +there is only one better trade than being a soldier, and that is being a +sailor: + + "To serve King and country in the army is the second best + profession for Englishmen of all classes; to serve in the navy, + I suppose we all admit, is the best." + +As we all admit it, certainly it does seem very hard on all classes that +there should be anything else to do in the world besides soldiering and +sailoring. It is most deplorable that, in Lord Wolseley's words, some +civilian occupations are very useful; for, if they were not, we might +all have a fine time playing at soldiers--real soldiers, with +guns!--from a tumultuous cradle to a bloody grave. If only we could +abolish the civilian and his ignoble toil, what a rollicking life we +should all enjoy upon this earthly field of glory! + +Such was the fond dream of many an innocent heart, when in August of +1911 we saw the soldiers distributed among the city stations or posted +at peaceful junctions where suburb had met suburb for years in the +morning, and parted at evening without a blow. There the sentry stood, +let us say, at a gate of Euston station. There he stood, embodying +glory, enjoying the second best profession for Englishmen of all +classes. He was dressed in clean khaki and shiny boots. On his head he +bore a huge dome of fluffy bearskin, just the thing for a fashionable +muff; oppressive in the heat, no doubt, but imparting additional +grandeur to his mien. There he stood, emblematic of splendour, and on +each side of him were encamped distressful little families, grasping +spades and buckets and seated on their corded luggage, unable to move +because of the railway strike, while behind him flared a huge +advertisement that said, "The Sea is Calling you." Along the kerbstone a +few yards in front were ranged the children of the district, row upon +row, uncombed, in rags, filthy from head to foot, but silent with joy +and admiration as they gazed upon the face of war. For many a gentle +girl and boy that Friday and Saturday were the days of all their +lives--the days on which the pretty soldiers came. + +Nor was it only the charm of nice clothes and personal appearance that +attracted them. Horror added its tremulous delight. There the sentry +stood, ready to kill people at a word. His right knee was slightly bent, +and against his right foot he propped the long wooden instrument that he +killed with. In little pouches round his belt he carried the pointed +bits of metal that the instrument shoots out quicker than arrows. It was +whispered that some of them were placed already inside the gun itself, +and could be fired as fast as a teacher could count, and each would kill +a man. And at the end of the gun gleamed a knife, about as long as a +butcher's carving-knife. It would go through a fattish person's body as +through butter, and the point would stick a little way through the +clothes at his back. Down each side of the knife ran a groove to let the +blood out, so that the man might die quicker. It was a pleasure to look +at such a thing. It was better than watching the sheep and oxen driven +into the Aldgate slaughter-houses. It was almost as good as the glimpse +of the executioner driving up to Pentonville in his dog-cart the evening +before an execution. + +Few have given the Home Office credit for the amount of interesting and +cheap amusement it then afforded by parcelling out the country among the +military authorities. In a period of general lassitude and holiday, it +supplied the populace with a spectacle more widely distributed than the +Coronation, and equally encouraging to loyalty. For it is not only +pleasure that the sight of the soldiers in their midst provides: it +gives every man and woman and child an opportunity of realising the +significance of uniforms. Here are soldiers, men sprung from the working +classes, speaking the same language, and having the same thoughts; men +who have been brought up in poor homes, have known hunger, and have +nearly all joined the army because they were out of work. And now that +they are dressed in a particular way, they stand there with guns and +those beautiful gleaming knives, ready, at a word, to kill people--to +kill their own class, their own friends and relations, if it so happens. +The word of command from an officer is alone required, and they would do +it. People talk about the reading of the Riot Act and the sounding of +the bugles in warning before the shooting begins; but no such warning is +necessary. Lord Mansfield laid it down in 1780 that the Riot Act was but +"a step in terrorism and of gentleness." There is no need for such +gentleness. At an officer's bare word, a man in uniform must shoot. And +all for a shilling a day, with food and lodging! To the inexperienced +intelligence of men and women, the thing seems incredible, and the +country owes a debt of gratitude to the Home Office for showing the +whole working population that it is true. Certainly, the soldiers +themselves strongly object to being put to this use. Their Red Book of +instructions insists that the primary duty of keeping order rests with +the civil power. It lays it down that soldiers should never be required +to act except in cases where the riot cannot reasonably be expected to +be quelled without resorting to the risk of inflicting death. But the +Home Office, in requiring soldiers to act throughout the whole country +at points where no riot at all was reasonably expected, gave us all +during that railway strike an object-lesson in the meaning of uniform +more impressive than the pictures on a Board School wall. Mr. Brailsford +has well said, "the discovery of tyrants is that, for a soldier's +motive, a uniform will serve as well as an idea." + +Not a century has passed since the days when, as the noblest mind of +those times wrote, a million of hungry operative men rose all up, came +all out into the streets, and--stood there. "Who shall compute," he +asked: + + "Who shall compute the waste and loss, the destruction of + every sort, that was produced in the Manchester region by + Peterloo alone! Some thirteen unarmed men and women cut + down--the number of the slain and maimed is very countable; + but the treasury of rage, burning, hidden or visible, in all hearts + ever since, more or less perverting the effort and aim of all + hearts ever since, is of unknown extent. 'How came ye among + us, in your cruel armed blindness, ye unspeakable County + Yeomanry, sabres flourishing, hoofs prancing, and slashed us + down at your brute pleasure; deaf, blind to all _our_ claims and + woes and wrongs; of quick sight and sense to your own claims + only! There lie poor, sallow, work-worn weavers, and complain + no more now; women themselves are slashed and sabred; + howling terror fills the air; and ye ride prosperous, very + victorious--ye unspeakable: give _us_ sabres too, and then come + on a little!' Such are Peterloos." + +The parallel, if not exact, is close enough. During popular movements +in Germany and Russia, the party of freedom has sometimes hoped that the +troops would come over to their side--would "fraternise," as the +expression goes. The soldiers in those countries are even more closely +connected with the people than our own, for about one in three of the +young men pass into the army, whether they like it or not, and in two or +three years return to ordinary life. Yet the hope of "fraternisation" +has nearly always been in vain. Half a dozen here and there may stand +out to defend their brothers and their homes. But the risk is too great, +the bonds of uniform and habit too strong. Hitherto in England, we have +jealously preserved our civil liberties from the dragooning of military +districts, and the few Peterloos of our history, compared with the +suppressions in other countries, prove how justified our jealousy has +been. It may be true--we wish it were always true, that, as Carlyle +says, "if your Woolwich grapeshot be but eclipsing Divine Justice, and +the God's radiance itself gleam recognisable athwart such grapeshot, +then, yes, then, is the time coming for fighting and attacking." We all +wish that were always true, and that the people of every country would +always act upon it. But for the moment, we are grateful for the reminder +that, whether it eclipses Divine Justice or not, the grapeshot is still +there, and that a man in uniform, at a word of command, will shoot his +mother. + + + + +XIII + + +"OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US" + +We have forgotten, else it would be impossible they should try to befool +us. We have forgotten the terrible years when England lay cold and +starving under the clutch of the landlords and their taxes on food. +Terror is soon forgotten, for otherwise life could not endure. Not +seventy years have gone since that clutch was loosened, but the iron +which entered into the souls of our fathers is no more remembered. How +many old labourers, old operatives, or miners are now left to recall the +wretchedness of that toiling and starving childhood before the corn-tax +was removed? Few are remaining now, and they speak little and will soon +be gone. The horror of it is scattered like the night, and we think no +more of it, nor imagine its reality. It seems very long ago, like +Waterloo or the coach to York--so long ago that we can almost hope it +was not true. + +And yet our fathers have told us of it. They and their fathers lived +through it at its worst. Only six years have passed since Mrs. Cobden +Unwin collected the evidence of aged labourers up and down the country, +and issued their piteous memories in the book called _The Hungry +'Forties_. Ill-spelt, full of mistakes, the letters are stronger +documents than the historian's eloquence. In every detail of misery, one +letter agrees with the other. In one after another we read of the +quartern loaf ranging from 7_d_. to 11-1/2_d_., and heavy, sticky, +stringy bread at that; or we read of the bean porridge or grated potato +that was their chief food; or, if they were rather better off, they told +of oatmeal and a dash of red herring--one red herring among three people +was thought a luxury. And then there was the tea--sixpence an ounce, and +one ounce to last a family for a week, eked out with the scrapings of +burnt crusts to give the water a colour. One man told how his parents +went to eat raw snails in the fields. Another said the look of a +butcher's shop was all the meat they ever got. "A ungry belly makes a +man desprit," wrote one, but for poaching a pheasant the hungry man was +imprisoned fourteen years. Seven shillings to nine shillings a week was +the farm labourer's wage, and it took twenty-six shillings then to buy +the food that seven would buy now. What a vivid and heartrending picture +of cottage life under the landlord's tax is given in one old man's +memory of his childish hunger and his mother's pitiful self-denial! "We +was not allowed free speech," he writes, "so I would just pull mother's +face when at meals, and then she would say, 'Boy, I can't eat this +crust,' and O! the joy it would bring my little heart." + +We have forgotten it. Wretched as is the daily life of a large part of +our working people--the only people who really count in a country's +prosperity--we can no longer realise what it was when wages were so low +and food so dear that the struggle with starvation never ceased. But in +those days there were men who saw and realised it. The poor die and +leave no record. Their labour is consumed, their bodies rot unnamed, and +their habitations are swept away. They do not tell their public secret, +and at the most their existence is recorded in the registers of the +parish, the workhouse, or the gaol. But from time to time men have +arisen with the heart to see and the gift of speech, and in the years +when the oppression of the landlords was at its worst a few such men +arose. We do not listen to them now, for no one cares to hear of misery. +And we do not listen, because most of them wrote in verse, and verse is +not liked unless it tells of love or beauty or the sticky pathos of +drawing-room songs. But it so happens that two of the first who saw and +spoke also sang of love and beauty with a power and sweetness that +compel us to listen still. And so, in turning their well-known pages, we +suddenly come upon things called "The Masque of Anarchy" or "The Age of +Bronze," and, with a moment's wonder what they are all about, we pass on +to "The Sensitive Plant," or "When We Two Parted." As we pass, we may +just glance at the verses and read: + + "What is Freedom?--ye can tell + That which slavery is, too well-- + For its very name has grown + To an echo of your own. + 'Tis to work and have such pay + As just keeps life from day to day + In your limbs.... + + 'Tis to see your children weak + With their mothers pine and peak, + When the winter winds are bleak-- + They are dying whilst I speak." + +Or, turning on, perhaps, in search of the "Ode to the West Wind," we +casually notice the song beginning: + + "Men of England, wherefore plough + For the lords who lay you low? + Wherefore weave with toil and care + The rich robes your tyrants wear? + + Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save, + From the cradle to the grave, + Those ungrateful drones who would + Drain your sweat--nay, drink your blood?" + +And so to the conclusion: + + "With plough and spade, and hoe and loom, + Trace your grave, and build your tomb, + And weave your winding-sheet, till fair + England be your sepulchre." + +Or else, in looking once more for that exquisite scene between Haidée +and Don Juan on the beach, we fall unawares upon these lines: + + "Year after year they voted cent. per cent., + Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions--why? for rent! + They roared, they dined, they drank, they swore they meant + To die for England--why then live?--for rent! + + * * * * * + + And will they not repay the treasures lent? + No; down with everything, and up with rent! + Their good, ill, health, wealth, joy, or discontent, + Being, end, aim, religion--rent, rent, rent!" + +The men who uttered such lines were driven from their class, their +homes, and their country. They were despised and hated, like all who +protest against oppression and remind the smug world of uncomfortable +things. But they were great poets. One of them was our sweetest singer, +the other was, when he wrote, the most conspicuous figure in Europe, and +the most shattering force. Even England, which cares so little for her +greatest inheritance of passionate intellect, cannot yet forget them. +But others who sang the same terrible theme she has long forgotten, or +she keeps them only on the shelves of curious and dusty investigators. +Such men, I mean, as Ebenezer Elliot, Ebenezer Jones, Ernest Jones, +Thomas Cooper, William James Linton, and Gerald Massey, who so lately +died. + +They were not high-born, nor were they shining poets like the twin stars +of freedom whom I have quoted. Little scholarship was theirs, little +perfection of song. Some had taught themselves their letters at the +forge, some in the depths of the mine, some sang their most daring lines +in prison cells where they were not allowed even to write down the +words. Nearly all knew poverty and hunger at first hand; nearly all were +persecuted for righteousness' sake. For maintaining the cause of the +poor and the helpless they were mocked and reviled; scorn was their +reward. The governing classes whose comfort they disturbed wished them +dead; so did the self-righteous classes whose conscience they ruffled. +That is the common fate of any man or woman who probes a loathsome evil, +too long skimmed over. The peculiarity of these men was that, when they +were driven to speak, they spoke in lines that flew on wings through the +country. Indignation made their verse, and the burning memory of the +wrongs they had seen gave it a power beyond its own expression. Which +shall we recall of those ghostly poems, once so quick with flame? Still, +at moments of deep distress or public wrong-doing, we may hear the echo +of the Corn-law Rhymer's anthem: + + "When wilt thou save the people? + O God of mercy! when? + Not kings and lords, but nations! + Not thrones and crowns, but men!" + +Or if we read his first little book of rhymes, that may be had for +twopence now, we shall find the pictures of the life that was lived +under Protection--the sort of life the landlords and their theorists +invite us to enact again. From his "Black Hole of Calcutta" we take the +lines: + + "Bread-tax'd weaver, all can see + What that tax hath done for thee, + And thy children, vilely led, + Singing hymns for shameful bread, + Till the stones of every street + Know their little naked feet." + +Or let us take one verse from the lines, "O Lord, how long?" + + "Child, what hast thou with sleep to do? + Awake, and dry thine eyes! + Thy tiny hands must labour too; + Our bread is tax'd--arise! + Arise, and toil long hours twice seven, + For pennies two or three; + Thy woes make angels weep in Heaven-- + But England still is free." + +Or we might recall "The Coming Cry," by Ebenezer Jones, with its great +refrain: + + "Perhaps it's better than starvation,--once we'll pray, and then + We'll all go building workhouses, million, million men!" + +Or we might recall Ernest Jones and his "Song of the 'Lower Classes,'" +where the first verse runs: + + "We plow and sow, we're so very, very low, + That we delve in the dirty clay; + Till we bless the plain with the golden grain + And the vale with the fragrant hay. + Our place we know, we're so very, very low, + 'Tis down at the landlord's feet; + We're not too low the grain to grow, + But too low the bread to eat." + +Or shall we take one verse from the terrible "Easter Hymn," written by +the same true-hearted prisoner for freedom: + + "Like royal robes on the King of Jews, + We're mocked with rights that we may not use; + 'Tis the people so long have been crucified, + But the thieves are still wanting on either side. + + _Chorus_--Mary and Magdalen, Peter and John, + Swell the sad burden, and bear it on." + +The iteration of the idea throughout the poem is tremendous in effect, +and the idea comes close to Swinburne's ode, "Before a Crucifix": + + "O sacred head, O desecrate, + O labour-wounded feet and hands, + O blood poured forth in pledge to fate + Of nameless lives in divers lands, + O slain and spent and sacrificed + People, the grey-grown speechless Christ." + +Time would fail to tell of Linton's "Torch-Dance of Liberty," or of +Massey's "Men of Forty-eight," and there are many more--the utterance of +men who spoke from the heart, knowing in their own lives what suffering +was. But let us rather turn for a moment to the prose of a man who, also +reared in hardship's school, had learnt to succour misery. Speaking at +the time when Protection was biting and clawing the ground in the last +death-struggle, as all men but the landlords hoped, Carlyle asked this +question of the people: + + "From much loud controversy, and Corn-law debating, there + rises, loud though inarticulate, once more in these years, this + very question among others, Who made the Land of England? + Who made it, this respectable English Land, wheat-growing, + metalliferous, carboniferous, which will let readily, hand over + hand, for seventy millions or upwards, as it here lies: who did + make it? 'We,' answer the much-consuming Aristocracy; + 'We!' as they ride in, moist with the sweat of Melton Mowbray: + 'It is we that made it, or are the heirs, assigns and representatives + of those who did!'--My brothers, You? Everlasting honour + to you, then; and Corn-laws many as you will, till your own + deep stomachs cry Enough, or some voice of Human pity for + our famine bids you Hold!" + +So our fathers have told us, and we have forgotten. It is all very long +ago, and the Protectionist says that times have changed. Certainly times +have changed, and it was deliverance from Protection that changed them +most. But if landowners have changed, if they are now more alien from +the people, and richer from other sources than land, we have no reason +to suppose them less greedy or more pitiful; nor can a nation live on +the off-chance of pity. Seventy years ago the net encompassed the land. +We have seen how the people suffered under its entanglement. In the +sight of all, landowners and speculators are now trying to spread that +net again. Are we to suppose the English people have not the hereditary +instinct of sparrows to keep them outside its meshes? + + + + +XIV + + +THE GRAND JURY + +When Mr. Clarkson, of the Education Office, received a summons to attend +the Grand Jury, or to answer the contrary at his peril, he was glad. +"For now," he thought, "I shall share in the duties of democracy and be +brought face to face with the realities of life." + +"Mrs. Wilson," he said to the landlady, as she brought in his breakfast, +"what does this summons mean by describing the Court as being in the +suburbs of the City of London? Is there a Brixton Branch?" + +"O Lordy me!" cried the landlady, "I do hope, sir, as you've not got +yourself mixed up with no such things; but the Court's nigh against St. +Paul's, as I know from going there just before my poor nephew passed +into retirement, as done him no good." + +"The summons," Mr. Clarkson went on, "the summons says I'm to inquire, +present, do, and execute all and singular things with which I may be +then and there enjoined. Why should only the law talk like that?" + +"Begging your pardon, sir," replied the landlady, "I sometimes do think +it comes of their dressing so old-fashioned. But I'd ask it of you not +to read me no more of such like, if you'd be so obliging. For it do make +me come over all of a tremble." + +"I wonder if her terror arises from the hideousness of the legal style +or from association of ideas?" thought Mr. Clarkson as he opened a +Milton, of which he always read a few lines every morning to dignify the +day. + +On the appointed date, he set out eastward with an exhilarating sense of +change, and thoroughly enjoyed the drive down Holborn among the crowd of +City men. "It's rather strangely like going to the seaside," he remarked +to the man next him on the motor-'bus. The man asked him if he had come +from New Zealand to see the decorations, and arrived late. "Oh no," said +Mr. Clarkson, "I seldom think the Colonies interesting, and I distrust +decoration in every form." + +It was unfortunate, but the moment he mounted the Court stairs, the +decoration struck him. There were the expected scenes, historic and +emblematic of Roman law, blindfold Justice, the Balance, the Sword, and +other encouraging symbols. But in one semicircle he especially noticed a +group of men, women, and children, dancing to the tabor's sound in naked +freedom. "Please, could you tell me," he asked of a stationary +policeman, "whether that scene symbolises the Age of Innocence, before +Law was needed, or the Age of Anarchy, when Law will be needed no +longer?" + +"Couldn't rightly say," answered the policeman, looking up sideways; +"but I do wish they'd cover them people over more decent. They're a +houtrage on respectable witnesses." + +"All art--" Mr. Clarkson was beginning, when the policeman said "Grand +Jury?" and pushed him through a door into a large court. A vision of +middle-age was there gathering, and a murmur of complaint filled the +room--the hurried breakfast, the heat, the interrupted business, the +reported large number of prisoners, likely to occupy two days, or even +three. + +Silence was called, and four or five elderly gentlemen in +black-and-scarlet robes--"wise in their wigs, and flamboyant as +flamingoes," as a daily paper said of the judges at the Coronation--some +also decorated with gilded chains and deep fur collars, in spite of the +heat, entered from a side door and took their seats upon a raised +platform. Each carried in his hand a nosegay of flowers, screwed up +tight in a paper frill with lace-work round the edges, like the bouquets +that enthusiasts or the management throw to actresses. + +"Are those flowers to cheer the prisoners?" Mr. Clarkson whispered, "or +are they the rudimentary survivals of the incense that used to +counteract the smell and infection of gaol-fever?" + +"Covent Garden," was the reply, and the list of jurors was called. The +first twenty-three were sent into another room to select their foreman, +and, though Mr. Clarkson had not the slightest desire to be chosen, he +observed that the other jurors did not even look in his direction. +Finally, a foreman was elected, no one knew for what reasons, and all +went back to the Court to be "charged." A gentleman in black-and-scarlet +made an hour's speech, reviewing the principal cases with as much +solemnity as if the Grand Jury's decisions would affect the Last +Judgment, and Mr. Clarkson began to realise his responsibility so +seriously that when the jurors were dismissed to their duties, he took +his seat before a folio of paper, a pink blotting-pad, and two clean +quill pens, with a resolve to maintain the cause of justice, whatever +might befall. + +"Page eight, number twenty-one," shouted the black-robed usher, who +guided the jurors as a dog guides sheep, and wore the cheerful air of +congenial labour successfully performed. Turning up the reference in the +book of cases presented to each juror, Mr. Clarkson found: "Charles +Jones, 35, clerk; forging and uttering, knowing the same to be forged, a +receipt for money, to wit, a receipt for fees on a plaint note of the +Fulham County Court, with intent to defraud." + +"This threatens to be a very abstruse case," he remarked to a red-faced +juror on his right. + +"A half of bitter would elucidate it wonderful to my mind," was the +answer. + +But already a policeman had been sworn, and given his evidence with the +decisiveness of a gramophone. + +"Any questions?" said the foreman, looking round the table. No one +spoke. + +"Signify, gentlemen, signify!" cried the genial usher, and all but Mr. +Clarkson held up a hand. + +"Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve," counted the usher, totting up the +hands till he reached a majority. "True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page +eleven, number fifty-two." + +"Do you mean to tell me that is all?" asked Mr. Clarkson, turning to his +neighbour. + +"Say no more, and I'll make it a quart," replied the red-faced man, +ticking off the last case and turning up the new one, in which a doctor +was already giving his evidence against a woman charged with the wilful +murder of her newly-born male child. + +"Signify, gentlemen, signify!" cried the usher. "Two, four, six, eight, +ten, twelve. True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page fourteen, number +seventy-two." + +"Stop a moment," stammered Mr. Clarkson, half rising; "if you please, +stop one moment. I wish to ask if we are justified in rushing through +questions of life and death in this manner. What do we know of this +woman, for instance--her history, her distress, her state of mind?" + +"Sit down!" cried some. "Oh, shut it!" cried others. All looked at him +with the amused curiosity of people in a tramcar looking at a talkative +child. The usher bustled across the room, and said in a loud and +reassuring whisper: "All them things has got nothing to do with you, +sir. Those is questions for the Judge and Petty Jury upstairs. The +magistrates have sat on all these cases already and committed them for +trial; so all you've got to do is to find a True Bill, and you can't go +wrong." + +"If we can't go wrong, there's no merit in going right," protested Mr. +Clarkson. + +"Next case. Page fourteen, number seventy-two," shouted the usher again, +and as the witness was a Jew, his hat was sent for. "There's a lot of +history behind that hat," said Mr. Clarkson, wishing to propitiate +public opinion. + +"Wish that was all there was behind it," said the juror on his left. The +Jew finished his evidence and went away. The foreman glanced round, and +the usher had already got as far as "Signify," when a venerable juror, +prompted by Mr. Clarkson's example, interposed. + +"I should like to ask that witness one further question," he said in a +fine Scottish accent, and after considerable shouting, the Jew was +recalled. + +"I should like to ask you, my man," said the venerable juror, "how you +spell your name?" The name was spelt, the juror carefully inscribed it +on a blank space opposite the charge, sighed with relief, and looked +round. "Signify, gentlemen, signify!" cried the usher. "Two, four, six, +eight, ten, twelve. True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page six, number +eleven." + +Number eleven was a genuine murder case, and sensation pervaded the room +when the murdered man's wife was brought in, weeping. She sobbed out the +oath, and the foreman, wishing to be kind, said, encouragingly, "State +briefly what you know of this case." + +She sobbed out her story, and was led away. The foreman glanced round +the tables. + +"I think we ought to hear the doctor," said the red-faced man. The +doctor was called and described a deep incised wound, severing certain +anatomical details. + +"I think we ought to hear the constable," said the red-faced man, and +there was a murmur of agreement. A policeman came in, carrying a brown +paper parcel. Having described the arrest, he unwrapped a long knife, +which was handed round the tables for inspection. When it reached the +red-faced juror, he regarded the blade closely up and down, with +gloating satisfaction. "Are those stains blood?" he asked the policeman. + +"Yes, sir; them there is the poor feller's blood." + +The red-faced man looked again, and suddenly turning upon Mr. Clarkson, +went through a pantomime of plunging the knife into his throat. At Mr. +Clarkson's horrified recoil he laughed himself purple. + +"Well said the Preacher you may know a man by his laughter," Mr. +Clarkson murmured, while the red-faced man patted him amicably on the +back. + +"No offence, I hope; no offence!" he said. "Come and have some lunch. I +always must, and I always do eat a substantial lunch. Nice, juicy cut +from the joint, and a little dry sherry? What do you say?" + +"Thank you very much indeed," said Mr. Clarkson, instantly benign. "You +are most kind, but I always have coffee and a roll and butter." + +"O my God!" exclaimed the red-faced man, and speaking across Mr. +Clarkson to another substantial juror, he entered into discussion on the +comparative merits of dry sherry and champagne-and-bitters. + +Soon after two they both returned in the comfortable state of mind +produced by the solution of doubt. But Mr. Clarkson's doubts had not +been solved, and his state of mind was far from comfortable. All through +the lunch hour he had been tortured by uncertainty. A plain duty +confronted him, but how could he face it? He hated a scene. He abhorred +publicity as he abhorred the glaring advertisements in the streets. He +had never suffered so much since the hour before he had spoken at the +Oxford Union on the question whether the sense for beauty can be +imparted by instruction. He closed his eyes. He felt the sweat standing +on his forehead. And still the cases went on. "Two, four, six, eight, +ten, twelve. True Bill. True Bill. Two, four, six, eight...." + +"Now then, sleepy!" cried the red-faced man in his ear, giving him a +genial dig with his elbow. Mr. Clarkson quivered at the touch, but he +rose. + +"Gentlemen," he began, "I wish to protest against the continuation of +this farce." + +The jury became suddenly alert, and his voice was drowned in chaos. +"Order, order! Chair, chair!" they shouted. "Everybody's doing it!" sang +one. + +"I call that gentleman to order," said the foreman, rising with +dignity. "He has previously interrupted and delayed our proceedings, +without bringing fresh light to bear upon our investigations. After the +luncheon interval, I was pleased to observe that for one cause or +another--I repeat, for one cause or another--he was distinctly--shall I +say somnolent, gentlemen? Yes, I will say somnolent. And I wish to +inform him that the more somnolent he remains, the better we shall all +be pleased." + +"Hear, hear! Quite true!" shouted the jury. + +"Does it appear to you, sir, fitting to sit here wasting time?" Mr. +Clarkson continued, with diminishing timidity. "Does it seem to you a +proper task for twenty-three apparently rational beings--" + +"Twenty-two! Twenty-two!" cried the red-faced man, adding up the jurors +with the end of a pen, and ostentatiously omitting Mr. Clarkson. + +The jurors shook with laughter. They wiped tears from their eyes. They +rolled their heads on the pink blotting-paper in their joy. When quiet +was restored, the foreman proceeded: + +"I have already ruled that gentleman out of order, and I warn him that +if he perseveres in his contumacious disregard of common decency and the +chair, I shall proceed to extremities as the law directs. We are here, +gentlemen, to fulfil a public duty as honourable British citizens, and +here we will remain until that duty is fulfilled, or we will know the +reason why." + +He glanced defiantly round, assuming an aspect worthy of the last stand +at Maiwand. Looking at Mr. Clarkson as turkeys might look at a stray +canary, the jurors expressed their applause. + +But the genial usher took pity, and whispered across the table to him, +"It'll all come right, sir; it'll all come right. You wait a bit. The +Grand Jury always rejects one case before it's done; sometimes two." + +And sure enough, next morning, while Mr. Clarkson was reading Burke's +speeches which he had brought with him, one of the jurors objected to +the evidence in the eighty-seventh case. "We cannot be too cautious, +gentlemen," he said, "in arriving at a decision in these delicate +matters. The apprehension of blackmail in relation to females hangs over +every living man in this country." + +"Delicate matters; blackmail; relation to females; great apprehension of +blackmail in these delicate matters," murmured the jury, shaking their +heads, and they threw out the Bill with the consciousness of an +independent and righteous deed. + +Soon after midday, the last of the cases was finished, and having +signified a True Bill for nearly the hundredth time, the jurors were +conducted into the Court where a prisoner was standing in the dock for +his real trial. As though they had saved a tottering State, the Judge +thanked them graciously for their services, and they were discharged. + +"Just a drop of something to show there's no ill-feeling?" said the +red-faced man as they passed into the street. + +"Thank you very much," replied Mr. Clarkson warmly. "I assure you I have +not the slightest ill-feeling of any kind. But I seldom drink." + +"Bless my soul!" said the red-faced man. "Then, what _do_ you do?" + + + + +XV + + +A NEW CONSCRIPTION + +When the Territorial exclaims that, for his part, he would refuse to +inhabit a planet on which there was no hope of war, the peaceful +listener shudderingly charges the inventor of Territorials with +promoting a bloodthirsty mind. After all the prayers for peace in our +time--prayers in which even Territorials are expected to join on church +parade--it appears an impious folly to appraise war as a necessity for +human happiness. Or if indeed it be a blessing, however much in +disguise, why not boldly pray to have the full benefit of it in our +time, instead of passing it on, like unearned increment, for the +advantage of posterity? Such a thing is unimaginable. A prayer for war +would make people jump; it would empty a church quicker than the +collection. Nevertheless, it is probable that the great majority of +every congregation does in its heart share the Territorial's opinion, +and, if there were no possibility of war ever again anywhere in the +world, they would find life upon this planet a trifle flat. + +The impulse to hostilities arises not merely from the delight in scenes +of blood enjoyed at a distance, though that is the commonest form of +military ardour, and in many a bloody battle the finest fruits of +victory are reaped over newspapers and cigars at the bar or in the back +garden. There is no such courage as glows in the citizen's bosom when he +peruses the telegrams of slaughter, just as there is no such ferocity as +he imbibes from the details of a dripping murder. "War! War! Bloody war! +North, South, East, or West!" cries the soldier in one of Mr. Kipling's +pretty tales; but in real life that cry arises rather from the +music-halls than from the soldier, and many a high-souled patriot at +home would think himself wronged if perpetual peace deprived him of his +one opportunity of displaying valour to his friends, his readers, or his +family. All these imaginative people, whose bravery may be none the less +genuine for being vicarious, must be reckoned as the natural supporters +of war, and, indeed, one can hardly conceive any form of distant +conflict for which they would not stand prepared. + +But still, the widespread dislike of peace is not entirely derived from +their prowess; nor does it spring entirely from the nursemaid's love of +the red coat and martial gait, though this is on a far nobler plane, and +comes much nearer to the heart of things. The gleam of uniforms in a +drab world, the upright bearing, the rattle of a kettledrum, the boom of +a salute, the murmur of the "Dead March," the goodnight of the "Last +Post" sounding over the home-faring traffic and the quiet cradles--one +does not know by what substitutes eternal peace could exactly replace +them. For they are symbols of a spiritual protest against the +degradation of security. They perpetually re-assert the claim of a +beauty and a passion that have no concern with material advantages. They +sound defiance in the dull ears of comfort, and proclaim woe unto them +that are at ease in the city of life. Dimly the nursemaid is aware of +the protest; most people are dimly aware of it; and the few who +seriously labour for an unending reign of peace must take it into +account. + +It is useless to allure mankind by promises of a pig's paradise. Much +has been rightly written about the horrors of war. Everyone knows them +to be sudden, hideous, and overwhelming; those who have seen them can +speak also of the squalor, the filthiness, the murderous swindling, and +the inconceivable absurdity of the whole monstrous performance. But the +horrors of peace, if not so obvious, come nearer to our daily life, and +we are naturally terrified at its softness, its monotony, and its +enfeebling relaxation. Of all people in the world the wealthy classes of +England and America are probably the furthest removed from danger, and +no one admires them in the least; no one in the least envies their +treadmill of successive pleasures. The most unwarlike of men are haunted +by the fear that perpetual peace would induce a general degeneration of +soul and body such as they now behold amid the rich man's sheltered +comforts. They dread the growth of a population slack of nerve, soft of +body, cruel through fear of pain, and incapable of endurance or high +endeavour. They dread the entire disappearance of that clear +decisiveness, that disregard of pleasure, that quiet devotion of self in +the face of instant death, which are to be found, now and again, in the +course of every war. Even peace, they say, may be bought too dear, and +what shall it profit a people if it gain a swill-tub of comforts and +lose its own soul? + +The same argument is chosen by those who would persuade the whole +population to submit to military training, whether it is needful for the +country's defence or not. Under such training, they suppose, the +virtues that peace imperils would be maintained; a sense of equality and +comradeship would pervade all classes, and for two or three years of +life the wealthy would enjoy the realities of labour and discomfort. It +is a tempting vision, and if this were the only means of escape from +such a danger as is represented, the wealthy would surely be the first +to embrace it for their own salvation. But is there no other means? +asked Professor William James, and his answer to the question was that +distinguished psychologist's last service. What we are looking for, he +rightly said, is a moral equivalent for war, and he suddenly found it in +a conscription, not for fighting, but for work. After showing that the +life of many is nothing else but toil and pain, while others "get no +taste of this campaigning life at all," he continued: + + "If now--and this is my idea--there were, instead of military + conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population + to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted + against _nature_, the injustice would tend to be evened out, and + numerous other benefits to the commonwealth would follow. + The military ideals of hardihood and discipline would be wrought + into the growing fibre of the people; no one would remain + blind, as the luxurious classes now are blind, to man's real + relations to the globe he lives on, and to the permanently solid + and hard foundations of his higher life. To coal and iron mines, + to freight trains, to fishing fleets in December, to dish-washing, + clothes-washing, and window-washing, to road-building and + tunnel-making, to foundries and stoke-holes, and to the frames + of skyscrapers, would our gilded youths be drafted off, according + to their choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and + to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer + ideas." + +Here, indeed, is a vision more tempting than ever conscription was. To +be sure, it is not new, for Ruskin had a glimpse of it, and that was why +he induced the Oxford undergraduates to vary their comfortable Greek +studies and games at ball with a little honest work upon the Hinksey +road. But the vision is irresistible. There cannot be the smallest doubt +it will be realised, and when the young dukes, landed proprietors, +financiers, motorists, officers in the Guards, barristers, and curates +are marched off in gangs to their apportioned labour in the stoke-holes, +coal-mines, and December fishing fleets, how the workmen will laugh, how +exult! + +Nor let it be supposed that the conscription would subject even the most +luxurious conscripts to any unendurable hardship. So hateful is idleness +to man that the toil of the poor is continually being adopted by the +rich as sport. To climb a mountain was once the irksome duty of the +shepherd and wandering hawker; now it is the privilege of wealth to hang +by the finger-nails over an abyss. Once it was the penalty of slaves to +pull the galleys; now it is only the well-to-do who labour day by day at +the purposeless oar, and rack their bodies with a toil that brings home +neither fish nor merchandise. Once it fell to the thin bowman and +despised butcher to provide the table with flesh and fowl; now, at +enormous expense, the rich man plays the poulterer for himself, and +statesmen seek the strenuous life in the slaughter of a scarcely edible +rhinoceros. Let the conscripts of comfort take heart. They will run more +risks in the galleries of the mines than on the mountain precipice, and +one night's trawl upon the Dogger Bank would provide more weight of fish +than if they whipped the Tay from spring to winter. + +Under this great conscription, a New Model would, indeed, be initiated, +as far superior to the conscript armies as Cromwell's Ironsides were to +the mercenaries of their time. The whole nation from prince to beggar +would by this means be transformed, labour would cease to be despised or +riches to be worshipped, the reproach of effeminacy would be removed, +the horrors of peace mitigated, and the moral equivalent of war +discovered. For the first time a true comradeship between class and +class would arise, for, as Goethe said, work makes the comrade, and +democracy might have a chance of becoming a reality instead of a party +phrase. After three years' service down the sewers or at the smelting +works, our men of leisure would no longer raise their wail over national +degeneracy or the need of maintaining the standard of hardihood by +barrack-square drill. As things are now, it is themselves who chiefly +need the drill. "Those who live at ease," said Professor James, "are an +island on a stormy ocean." In the summing up of the nation they, in +their security, would hardly count, were they not so vocal; but the +molten iron, the flaming mine, the whirling machine, the engulfing sea, +and hunger always at the door take care that, for all but a very few +among the people, the discipline of danger and perpetual effort shall +not be wanting. You do not find the pitman, the dustman, or the bargee +puling for bayonet exercise to make them hard, and if our nervous +gentlemen were all serving the State in those capacities, they might +even approach their addition sums in "Dreadnoughts" without a tremor. +Besides, as Professor James added for a final inducement, the women +would value them more highly. + + + + +XVI + + +THE LAST OF THE RUNNYMEDES + +The high debate was over, and Lord Runnymede issued from the House, +proud in his melancholy, like a garrison withdrawing from a fortress +with colours flying and all the honours of war. He had sent a messenger +(he called him an "orderly") for his carriage. He might have telephoned, +but he disliked the Board-School voice that said "Number, please!" and +he still more disliked the idea of a coachman speaking down a tube (as +he imagined it) into his ear. Not that he was opposed to inventions, or +the advance of science as such. He recognised the necessity of progress, +and had not openly reproached his own sister when she instituted a motor +in place of her carriage. But for himself the two dark bays were +waiting--heads erect, feet firmly planted on the solid earth. For he +loved horses, and the Runnymede stables maintained the blood of King +Charles's importations from Arabian chivalry. Besides, what manners, +what sense, could be expected of a chauffeur, occupied with oily wheels +and engines, instead of living things and corn? + +Some of the small crowd standing about the gate recognised him as he +came out, and one called his name and said "What ho!" For his appearance +was fairly well known through political caricatures, which usually +represented him in plate-armour, holding a spear, and wearing a +coat-of-arms. He had once instructed his secretary to write privately to +an editor pointing out that the caricaturist had committed a gross error +in heraldry; but in his heart he rather enjoyed the pictures, and it was +the duty of one of his maids to stick them into a scrap-book, inscribed +with the proper dates, for the instruction and entertainment of his +descendants. In fact, he had lately been found showing the book to a boy +of three, who picked out his figure by its long nose, and said "Granpa!" +with unerring decision. + +But what was the good of son or grandchild now? He had nothing to hand +down to them but the barren title, the old estate, and wealth safely +invested in urban land and financial enterprises which his stockbroker +recommended. Titles, estates, and wealth were but shadows without the +vitalising breath of power. Cotton-spinners, boot-finishers, purveyors +of food at popular prices could now possess such things, and they +appeared to enjoy them. There were people, he believed, satisfied with +comfort, amusements, rounds of visits, social ambitions, and domestic or +luxurious joys. But for a Runnymede thus to decline would be worse than +extinction. + +For six centuries the Runnymedes had served their country. Edward I had +summoned one of them to his "model Parliament," and the present lord +could still spell out a word or two of the ancient writ that hung framed +in the hall at Stennynge, with the royal seal attached. Two of his +ancestors had died by public violence (one killed in battle, fighting +for the Yorkists, who Lord Runnymede inclined to think represented the +Legitimist side; the other executed under Elizabeth, apparently by +mistake), and regretting there were not more, he had searched the +records of the Civil Wars and the 'Forty-five in vain. But never had a +Runnymede failed in Parliament, or the Council of the King, as he +preferred to call it; and their name had frequently appeared among the +holders of subordinate but dignified offices, such as the Mastership of +the Buckhounds, to which special knowledge gave an honourable claim. + +Trained from his first pony in political tradition, and encouraged by +every gamekeeper to follow the footsteps of his ancestors, Lord +Runnymede had inevitably taken "Noblesse oblige" as his private motto. +But of what service was nobility if its obligations were abolished? He +sometimes pictured with a shudder the fate of the surviving French +nobility--retaining their titles by courtesy, and compelled to fritter +away their lives upon châteaux, travelling, aeroplanes, or amatory +intrigues, instead of directing their wisdom and influence to the right +government of the State. The guillotine was better. He could not imagine +his descendants without a House of Lords to sit in. Without the Lords, +he was indeed the last of the Runnymedes, and upon the scaffold he might +at least die worthy of his name. + +Compromise he despised as the artifice of lawyers and upstart +politicians. It had been a dagger in his heart to hear his leader +speaking of some readjustment between the two Houses as inevitable. He +denied the necessity, unless the readjustment augmented the power of the +Lords. Planting himself on Edward I's statute, he had vehemently +maintained the right of the Lords to control finance, though he was +willing to allow the commercial gentlemen in the Commons the privilege +of working out the figures of national income and expenditure. He now +regarded the threatened creation of Peers as a gross insult to public +decency. Properly speaking, he protested, Peers cannot be created. You +might as well put terriers into kennels and call them foxhounds. Now and +then a distinguished soldier or even a statesman could be ennobled +without much harm; and he supposed there was something to be said for a +learned man, and a writer or two, though he preferred them to be +childless. He had once published a book himself, with the Runnymede arms +on the cover. But the thought of making Lords by batches vulgarised the +King's majesty, and reversed the order of nature. "Are we worse than +Chinamen," he asked, "that we seek to confer nobility on fellows sprung +from unknown forefathers?" The Archbishop of Canterbury had appealed to +the House to approach the question with mutual consideration and +respect, high public spirit and common sense. But on such a question +consideration was dangerous, and common sense fatal. He wished the +Bishops had stuck to their own Convocation from Plantagenet times, +instead of intruding their inharmonious white sleeves where they were +not wanted. He was sorry he had subscribed so handsomely to the +restoration of Stennynge Church. He ought to have ear-marked his +contribution for the Runnymede aisle. + +Worse still, the Archbishop had mentioned "the average voter in tramcar +or railway train," and the words had called up a haunting vision of +disgust. He often said that he had no objection to the working classes +as such. He rather liked them. He found them intelligent and +unpretentious. He could converse with them without effort, and they +always had the interest of sport in common. He felt no depression in +passing through the working quarters of the city, and at Stennynge he +was well acquainted with all the cottagers and farmers alike. In one +family he had put out a puppy at walk; in another he had let off a man +who had poached a pheasant when his wife was ill; in a third he had +stood godfather to the baby when the father was killed falling from a +stack. He felt a kind of warmth towards the poor whenever he saw them +upon his own estate. + +But of the average voter, such as the Archbishop described, he could not +think without pain and apprehension. Coming to London from any part of +the country, he always closed his eyes as the train entered the suburbs. +Those long rows of monotonous little houses--so decent, so uneventful, +so temporary--oppressed him like a physical disease. If he contemplated +them, they induced violent dyspepsia, such as he had once incurred by +visiting the Crystal Palace. The consciousness that they were there, +even as he passed through tunnels, lowered his vitality until he reached +his town house or club in the centre of things. Not even the +considerable income he derived from land on the outskirts of a large +manufacturing town consoled him for the horror of the town's extension. +In those uniform houses--in their railings, their Venetian blinds, +indiarubber plants, and stained-glass panels to the doors--he beheld the +coming degradation of his country. He saw them, like great armies of +white or red ants, creeping over the land, devouring all that was +beautiful in it, or ancient, or redolent of grandeur. Bit by bit, street +by street, the ignoble, the tidy, the pettiness of the parlour, was +gaining upon splendour and renown, and the anticipation of the change +cast a foreboding sadness over the beauty of his own ancestral home. It +tainted even his unuttered pride in his son, who had been at Eton +without expulsion, and served two years in the Foot Guards without +discredit. And now, there was his grandson. + +What future could be theirs? Should a Runnymede sit in a House shorn of +its prerogatives, bound to impotence, reduced to a mere echo of popular +caprice, with hardly the delaying power of a chaperon at a ball? Or +should a son of his trot round from door to door, seeking the suffrages +of those distressing suburbs at the polls--a son whose ancestry had +known the favour of princes, and withstood foes and traitors upon the +field? Lord Runnymede himself had never thought of election, even before +the House of Lords received him. Yet if you wanted representatives, who +was more truly representative of his own estates and the interests of +every soul upon it--interests identical with his own? Who was more fit +to control the country than a man who had breathed the atmosphere of +State from childhood, and learnt history from the breast-plates, the +swords, the cloaks, the wigs, and the side-whisker portraits of men +whose very blood beat in his heart? + +As the carriage went down Piccadilly, he was overwhelmed with the +darkness of the prospect. He saw an ancient country staggering from side +to side on its road to ruin, while the hands which had directed and +steadied it for centuries lay bound or idle. He saw coverts and meadows +and cornfields eaten away by desirable residences, angular garden +cities, and Socialist communities. He saw his own Stennynge advertised +for plots, and its relics catalogued for a museum, while factories +spouted smoke from its lawns and shrubberies, and if a Runnymede +survived, he lived in a rough-cast villa, like an eagle in a cage at +the Zoo. The soul of all his ancestors rose within him. Never should it +happen while he had a sword to draw. At least he could display the +courage of the fine old stock. If he submitted to the degradation, he +would feel himself a coward, unfit for the position he and his fathers +had occupied. Let the enemy do their worst; they should find him steady +at his post. Before him lay one solemn duty still to be performed for +God and country. The spirit of noble sacrifice was not dead. The +populace should see how an aristocrat still could die. Come what might, +he would vote against the third reading of the Bill! + +Dismounting from his carriage, he approached the entrance-porch of his +house with so proud and resolute a bearing that three hatless +working-girls passing by, in white frocks, with arms interlaced, all +cried out "Percy!" as their ironic manner is. + + + + +XVII + + +CHILDREN OF THE STATE + + +I + +Mrs. Reeve was an average widow with encumbrances. Ten years before she +had married a steady-going man--a cabinet-maker during working hours, +and something of a Dissenter and a Radical in the evenings and on +Sundays. His wages had touched thirty shillings, and they had lived in +three rooms, first floor, in a quiet neighbourhood, keeping themselves +to themselves, as they boasted without undue pride. In their living-room +was a flowery tablecloth; a glass shade stood on the mantelpiece; there +were a few books in a cupboard. They had thoughts of buying a live +indiarubber plant to stand by the window, when unexpectedly the man +died. + +He had followed the advice of economists. He had practised thrift. +During his brief illness his society had supplied a doctor, and it +provided a comfortable funeral. His widow was left with a small sum in +hand to start her new life upon, and she increased it by at once pawning +the superfluous furniture and the books. She lost no time hanging about +the old home. Within a week she had dried her eyes, washed out her +handkerchiefs, made a hatchment of her little girl's frock with +quarterings of crape, piled the few necessities of existence on a +barrow and settled in a single room in the poorest street of the +district. + +It was not much of a place, and it cost her half a crown a week, but in +six months she had come to think of it as a home. She had brushed the +ceiling and walls, and scrubbed the boards, the children helping. She +had added the touch of art with advertisements and picture almanacs. A +bed for the three children stood in one corner--a big green iron bed, +once her own. On the floor was laid a mattress for herself and the baby. +Round it she hung her shawl and petticoats as a screen over some lengths +of cords. Right across the room ran a line for the family's bits of +washing. A tiny looking-glass threw mysterious rays on to the ceiling at +night. On the whole, it really was not so bad, she thought, as she +looked round the room one evening. Only unfortunately her capital had +been slipping away shilling by shilling, and the first notice to quit +had been served that day. She was what she called "upset" about it. + +"Now, Alfred," she said to her eldest boy, "it's time I got to my work, +and it won't do for you to start gettin' 'ungry again after yer teas. So +you put yerself and Lizzie to bed, and I'll make a race of it with Hen +and the baby." + +"There now," she said when the race was over, "that's what's called a +dead 'eat, and that's a way of winnin' as saves the expense of givin' a +prize." + +With complete disregard for the theorising of science, she then stuck +the poker up in front of the bars to keep the fire bright. + +"Now, Alfred," she said, "you mind out for baby cryin', and if she +should 'appen to want for anythink, just give a call to Mrs. Thomas +through the next door." + +"Right you are," said Alfred, feeling as important as a 'bus conductor. + +Mrs. Reeve hurried towards the City to her work. Office cleaning was the +first thing that had offered itself, and she could arrange the hours so +as to look after the children between whiles. Late at night and again +early in the morning she was in the offices, and she earned a fraction +over twopence an hour. + +"You're not seemin' exackly saloobrious to-night, my dear," said the old +woman who had lately come to the same staircase, as they began to scour +the stone with whitening. "I do 'ope 'e ain't been layin' 'is 'and on +yer." + +"My 'usband didn't 'appen to be one of them sort, thankin' yer kindly," +said Mrs. Reeve. + +"Oh, a widder, and beggin' yer pardon. And you'll 'ave children, of +course?" + +"Four," said Mrs. Reeve, and she thought of them asleep in the +firelight. + +The old woman--a mere bundle with a pair of eyes in it--looked at her +for a moment, and pretending out of delicacy to be talking to herself, +she muttered loud enough to be heard: "Oh, that's where it is, is it? +There's four, same as I've buried. And a deal too many to bring up +decent on ten shillin' a week. Why, I'd sooner let the Poor Law 'ave +'em, though me and the old man 'ad to go into the 'Ouse for it. And +that's what I said to Mrs. Green when Mrs. Turner was left with six. And +Mrs. Turner she went and done it. An uncommon sensible woman, was Mrs. +Turner, not like some as don't care what comes to their children, so +long as they're 'appy theirselves." + +In the woman's words Mrs. Reeve heard the voice of mankind condemning +her. She knew it was all true. The thought had haunted her for days, +and that she might not hear more, she drowned the words by sousing about +the dirty water under the hiss of the scouring brush. + +But when she reached home just before midnight, her mind was made up. +Her husband had always insisted that the children should be well fed and +healthy. He had spoken with a countryman's contempt of the meagre +Cockney bodies around them. One at least should go. She lit the candle, +and stood listening to their sleep. Suddenly the further question +came--which of the four? Should it be Alfred, the child of her girlhood, +already so like his father, though he was only just nine? She couldn't +get on without him, he was so helpful, could be trusted to light the +lire, sweep the room and wash up. It could not possibly be Alfred. +Should it be Lizzie, her little girl of five, so pretty and nice to +dress in the old days when even her father would look up from his book +with a grunt of satisfaction at her bits of finery on Sundays? But a +girl must always need the mother's care. It couldn't possibly be Lizzie. +Or should it be little Ben, lying there with eyes sunk deep in his head, +and one arm outside the counterpane? Why, Ben was only three. A few +months ago he had been the baby. It couldn't possibly be little Ben. And +then there was the baby herself--well, of course, it couldn't be the +baby. + +So the debate went on, in a kind of all-night sitting. At half-past five +she started for the offices again, sleepless and undecided. + +That afternoon she went to the relieving officer at the workhouse. Two +days later she was waiting among other "cases" in a passage there, under +an illuminated text: "I have not seen the righteous forsaken." In her +turn she was ushered into the presence of the Board from behind a black +screen. A few questions were put with all the delicacy which time and +custom allowed. There was a brief discussion. + +"Quite a simple case," said the chairman. "My good woman, the Guardians +will undertake to relieve you of two children to prevent the whole lot +of you coming on the rates. Send the two eldest to the House at once, +and they will be drafted into our school in due course. Good morning to +you. Next case, please." + +She could do nothing but obey. Alfred and Lizzie were duly delivered at +the gate. Bewildered and terrified, hoping every hour to be taken home, +they hung about the workhouse, and became acquainted with the flabby +pallor and desperate sameness of the pauper face. After two days they +were whirled away, they knew not where, in something between a brougham +and an ambulance cart. + +"You lay, Liz, they're goin' to make us Lord Mayors of London, same as +Whittington, and we'll all ride in a coach together," said Alfred, +excited by the drive, and amazed at the two men on the box. Then they +both laughed with the cheerful irony of London children. + + +II + +It was an afternoon in early October, the day after Alfred and Lizzie +had been removed from the workhouse. They were now in the probation ward +of one of the great district schools. Lizzie was sitting in the girls' +room, whimpering quietly to herself, and every now and then saying, "I +want my mother." To which the female officer replied, "Oh, you'll soon +get over that." + +Alfred was standing on the outside of a little group of boys gathered +in idleness round a stove in a large whitewashed room on the opposite +side of the building. Nearest the warmth stood Clem Bowler, conscious of +the dignity which experience gives. For Clem had a reputation to +maintain. He was a redoubtable "in and out." Four times already within a +year his parents had entrusted themselves and him to the care of the +State, and four times, overcome by individualistic considerations, they +had recalled him to their own protection. His was not an unusual case. +The superintendent boasted that his "turn-over" ran to more than five +hundred children a year. But there was distinction about Clem, and +people remembered him. + +"You 'ear, now," he said, looking round with a veteran's contempt upon +the squad of recruits in pauperism, "if none on yer don't break out with +somethink before the week's over, I'll flay the lot. I'm not pertikler +for what it is. Last time it was measles first, and then ringworm. Nigh +on seven weeks I stopt 'ere with nothink to do only eat, and never got +so much as a smell of the school. What's them teachers got to learn +_me_, I'd like to know?" + +He paused with rhetorical defiance, but as no one answered he proceeded +to express the teachers and officers in terms of unmentionable +quantities. Suddenly he turned upon a big, vacant-looking boy at his +side. + +"What's yer name, fat-'ead?" he asked. + +The boy backed away a pace or two, and stood gently moving his head +about, and staring with his large pale eyes, as a calf stares at a dog. + +"Speak, you dyin' oyster!" said Clem, kicking his shins. + +"Ernest," said the boy, with a sudden gasp, turning fiery red and +twisting his fingers into knots. + +"Ernest what?" said Clem. "But it don't matter, for your sort always +belongs to the fine old family of Looney. You're a deal too good for the +likes of us. Why, you ought to 'ave a private asylum all to yerself. Hi, +Missus!" he shouted to the porter's wife who was passing through the +room. "This young nobleman's name's Looney, isn't it?" + +"Looks as if it 'ad ought to be," she answered, with a smile, for she +avoided unnecessary difficulties. It was her duty to act as mother to +the children in the probation ward, and she had already mothered about +five thousand. + +"Well, Looney," Clem went on as soon as she had gone, "I'll give you a +fair run for your money. By next Sunday week you must 'ave a sore 'ead +or sore eyes, or I'll see as you get both. But p'raps I may as well take +two of the lot of yer in 'and at once." + +He seized the daft creature and Alfred by the short hair at the back of +their heads, and began running them up and down as a pair of ponies. The +others laughed, partly for flattery, partly for change. + +"That don't sound as if they was un'appy, do it, sir?" said the porter's +wife, coming in again at that moment with one of the managers, who was +paying a "surprise visit" to the school. + +"No, indeed!" he answered heartily. "Well, boys, having a real good +time, are you? That's right. Better being here than starving outside, +isn't it?" + +"Oh yuss, sir, a deal better!" said Clem. "Plenty to eat 'ere, sir, and +nobody to be crule to yer, and nice little lessons for an hour in the +afternoon!" + +It was getting dark, and as the gas was lit and cast its yellow glare +over the large room, Alfred thought how his mother must just then be +lighting the candle to give Ben and the baby their tea. + + +III + +So the children waited the due fortnight for the appearance of disease. +But no one "broke out." Looney, it is true, developed a very sore head, +but the doctor declared there was nothing contagious about it; at which +neglect of scientific precaution Clem expressed justifiable disgust. +For, indeed, he could have diagnosed the case completely himself, as a +sore due to compulsory friction of the epidermis against an iron +bedstead. But as science remained deaf to his protests, he hastened to +get first pick of the regulation suits and shoes, and when fairly +satisfied with the fit, he bit private marks on their various parts, +helped to put on Looney's waistcoat wrong way before, split Alfred's +shirt down the back to test its age, and with an emphatic remark upon +the perversity of mortal things, marched stoically up to the school with +the rest of the little band. Little Lizzie followed with the girls about +a hundred yards behind. Alfred pretended not to see her. Somehow he was +now becoming rather ashamed of having a sister. + +The great bell was just ringing for dinner. Alfred and the other new +boys were at once arranged according to height in the phalanx of fours +mustered in the yard. At the word of command the whole solid mass put +itself in motion, shortest in front, and advanced towards the hall with +the little workhouse shuffle. Dividing this way and that, the boys filed +along the white tables. At the same moment the girls entered from +another door, and the infants from a third. By a liberal concession, +"the sexes" had lately been allowed to look at each other from a safe +distance at meals. + +A gong sounded: there was instant silence. It sounded again: all stood +up and clasped their hands. Many shut their eyes and assumed an +expression of intensity, as though preparing to wrestle with the Spirit. +Clem, having planted both heels firmly on Looney's foot, screwed up his +face, and appeared to wrestle more than any. A note was struck on the +harmonium. All sang the grace. The gong sounded: all sat down. It +sounded again: all talked. + +"Yes, we allow them to talk at meals now," said the superintendent to a +visitor who was standing with him in the middle of the room. "We find it +helps to counteract the effects of over-feeding on the digestion." + +"What a beautiful sight it all is!" said the visitor. "Such precision +and obedience! Everything seems satisfactory." + +"Yes," said the superintendent, "we do our very best to make it a happy +home. Don't we, Ma?" + +"We do, indeed," said the matron. "You see, sir, it has to be a home as +well as a school." + +The superintendent had been employed in workhouse schools for many +years, and had gradually worked himself up to the highest position. On +his appointment he had hoped to introduce many important changes in the +system. Now, at the end of nine years, he could point to a few +improvements in the steam-laundry, and the substitution of a decent +little cap for the old workhouse Glengarry. At one time he had conceived +the idea of allowing the boys brushes and combs instead of having their +hair cropped short to the skin. But in this and other points he had +found it better to let things slide rather than throw the whole place +out of gear for a trifle. Changes received little encouragement; and the +public didn't really care what happened until some cruel scandal in the +evening papers made their blood boil for half a minute as they went home +to dinner in the suburbs. + +The gong sounded. All stood up again with clasped hands, and again +Looney suffered while Clem joined in the grace. As the boys marched out +at one door, Alfred looked back and caught sight of Lizzie departing +flushed and torpid with the infants after her struggle to make a "clean +plate" of her legal pound of flesh and solid dough. In the afternoon he +was sent to enjoy the leisure of school with his "standard," or to creep +about in the howling chaos of play-time in the yard. After tea he was +herded with four hundred others into a day-room quite big enough to +allow them to stand without touching each other. Hot pipes ran round the +sides under a little bench, and the whitewashed walls were relieved by +diagrams of the component parts of a sweet pea and scenes from the life +of Abraham. As usual an attempt was made at hide-and-seek under strange +conditions. Some inglorious inventor had solved the problem of playing +that royal game in an empty oblong room. His method was to plant out the +"juniors" in clusters or copses on the floor, whilst the "seniors" +lurked and ran and hunted in and out their undergrowth. To add zest to +the chase, Clem now let Looney slip as a kind of bag-fox, and the +half-witted creature went lumbering and blubbering about in real terror +of his life, whilst his pursuers encouraged his speed with artifices in +which the animated spinnies and coverts deferentially joined. Unnoticed +and lonely in the crowd, Alfred was almost sorry he was not half-witted +too. + +At last he was marched off to his dormitory with fifty-five others, and +lay for a long time listening with the fascination of innocence whilst +Clem in a low voice described with much detail the scenes of "human +nature" which he had recently witnessed down hopping with his people. +Almost before he was well asleep, as it seemed, the strange new life +began again with the bray of a bugle and the flaring of gas, and he had +to hurry down to the model lavatory to wash under his special little jet +of warm spray, so elaborately contrived in the hope of keeping +ophthalmia in check. + +So, with drills and scrubbings and breakfasts and schools, the great +circles of childhood's days and nights went by, each distinguished from +another only by the dinner and the Sunday services. And from first to +last the pauper child was haunted by the peculiar pauper smell, +containing elements of whitewash, damp boards, soap, steam, hot pipes, +the last dinner and the next, corduroys, a little chlorate of lime, and +the bodies of hundreds of children. It was not unwholesome. + + +IV + +One thing shed a light over the days as it approached, and then left +them dark till the hope of its return brought a dubious twilight. Once a +month, on a Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Reeve had promised to come and see +the two children. She might have come oftener, for considerable +allowance was made for family affection. But it was difficult enough in +four weeks to lay by the few pence which would take her down to the +suburb. Punctually at two she was at the gate, and till four she might +sit with the children in the lodge. Not much was said. They clung to +each other in silence. Or she undid the boy's stiff waistcoat, and +looked at his grey shirt, and tried to accustom herself to her Lizzie's +short hair and heavy blue dress. Many others came too, and sat in the +same room--eloquent drunkards appealing to heaven, exuberant relatives +with apples and sweets, unsatisfied till the children howled in answer +to their pathos, girls half-ashamed to be seen, and quiet working +mothers. As four struck, good-bye was said, and with Lizzie's crying in +her ears Mrs. Reeve walked blindly back through the lines of suburban +villas to the station. Twice she came, and, counting the days and weeks, +the children had made themselves ready for the third great Saturday. +Carefully washed and brushed, they sat in their separate day-rooms, and +waited. Two o'clock struck, but no message came. All the afternoon they +waited, sick with disappointment and loneliness. At last, seeing the +matron go by, Alfred said: "Please, mum, my mother ain't come to-day." + +"Not come?" she answered. "Oh, that _is_ a cruel mother! But they're all +the same. Each time, sure as fate, there's somebody forgotten, so you're +no worse off than anybody else. Look, here's a nice big sweet for you +instead! Oh yes, I'll tell them about your little sister. What's your +name, did you say?" + +As he went out along the corridor, Alfred came upon Looney hiding behind +an iron column, and crying to himself. "Why, what's the matter with +you?" he asked. + +"My mother ain't been to see me," whined Looney, with unrestrained sobs; +"and Clem says 'e's wrote to tell 'er she'd best not come no more, 'cos +I'm so bad." + +His mother had been for years at the school herself, and after serving +in a brief series of situations, had calculated the profit and loss, and +gone on the streets. + +"Mine didn't come neither," said Alfred. "Matron says they're all like +that. But never you mind, 'ere's a nice sweet for you instead." + +He took the sweet out of his own mouth. Looney received it cautiously, +and his great watery eyes gazed at Alfred with the awe of a biologist +who watches a new law of nature at work. + +Next day after dinner Lizzie and Alfred met in the hall, as brothers and +sisters were allowed to meet for an hour on Sundays. They sat side by +side with their backs to the long tablecloths left on for tea. + +"She never come," said Alfred after the growing shyness of meeting had +begun to pass off. + +"You don't know what _I've_ got!" she answered, holding up her clenched +fist. + +"I s'pose she won't never come no more," said Alfred. + +"Look!" she answered, opening her fingers and disclosing a damp penny, +the bribe of one of the nurses. + +"Matron says she's cruel, and 'as forgot about us, same as they all do," +said Alfred. + +Then Lizzie took up her old wail. The penny dropped and rolled in a fine +curve along the boards. + +"There, don't 'e cry, Liz," he said. And they sat huddled together +overcome by the dull exhaustion of childish grief. The chapel bell began +to ring. Alfred took a corner of her white pinafore, wetted it, and +tried to wash off the marks of tears. And as they hurried away Lizzie +stooped and picked up the penny. + +A few minutes later they were at service in their brick and iron chapel, +which suburban residents sometimes attended instead of going to church +in the evening. + +"My soul doth magnify the Lord," they sang, following the choir, of +which the head-master was justly proud. And the chaplain preached on the +text, "Thou hast clothed me in scarlet, yea, I have a goodly heritage," +demonstrating that there was no peculiar advantage about scarlet, but +that dark blue would serve quite as well for thankfulness, if only the +children would live up to its ideal. + +"This is a wonderful institution," said the chaplain's friend after +service, as they sat at tea by the fire. "It is a kind of little Utopia +in itself, a modern Phalanstery. How Plato would have admired it! I'm +sure he'd have enjoyed this afternoon's service." + +"Yes, I daresay he would," said the chaplain. "But you must excuse me +for an hour or so. I make a point of running through the infirmary and +ophthalmic ward on Sundays. Oh yes, we have a permanent ward for +ophthalmia. Please make yourself comfortable till I come back." + +His friend spent the time in jotting down heads for an essay on the +advantages of communal nurture for the young. He was a lecturer on +social subjects, and liked to be able to appeal to experience in his +lectures. + + +V + +Next morning came a letter written in a large and careful hand: "My dear +Alfred,--I hope these few lines find you well, as they don't leave me at +present. I fell down the office stairs last night and got a twist to my +inside, so can't come to-day. Kiss Liz from me, and tell her to be good. +From your loving mother, Mrs. Reeve." + +Day followed day, and the mother did not come. The children lived on, +almost without thought of change in the daily round, the common task. + +It was early in Christmas week, and the female officers were doing their +best to excite merriment over the decorations. Snow was falling, but the +flakes, after hesitating for a moment, thawed into sludge on the surface +of the asphalte yard. Seeing Alfred shivering about under the shed, the +superintendent sent him to the office for a plan of the school drainage, +which had lately been reconstructed on the most sanitary principles. The +boy found the plan on the table, under a little brass dog which someone +had given the superintendent as a paper-weight. + +"A dog!" he said to himself, taking it up carefully. It was a setter +with a front paw raised as though it sighted game. Alfred stroked its +back and felt its muzzle. Then he pushed it along the polished table, +and thought of all the things he could make it do, if only he had it for +a bit. He put it down, patted its head again with his cold hand, and +took up the plan. But somehow the dog suddenly looked at him with a +friendly smile, and seemed to move its tail and silky ears. He caught it +up, glanced round, slipped it up his waistcoat, and ran as hard as he +could go. + +"Thank you my boy," said the superintendent, taking the plan. "You've +not been here long, have you?" + +"Oh yes, sir, a tremenjus long time!" said Alfred, shaking all over, +whilst the dog's paw kept scratching through his shirt. + +"My memory isn't what it was," sighed the superintendent to himself, and +he thought of the days when he had struggled to learn the name at least +of every boy in his charge. + +That afternoon Alfred went into school filled with mixed shame, +apprehension, and importance, such as Eve might have felt if she could +have gone back to a girls' school with the apple. Lessons began with a +"combined recitation" from Shakespeare. + +"Now," said the teacher, "go on at 'Mercy on me.'" + +"'Methinks nobody should be sad but I,'" shouted seventy mouths, opening +like one in a unison of sing-song. + +"Now, you there!" cried the teacher. "You with your hand up your +waistcoat! You're not attending. Go on at 'Only for wantonness.'" + +"'By my Christendom,'" Alfred blurted out, almost bringing dog and all +to light in his terror: + + "'So I were out of prison and kept sheep, + I should be merry as the day is long. + And so I should be here, but that I doubt--'" + +"That'll do," said the teacher, "Now attend." + +The seventy joined in with "My uncle practises," and Alfred turned from +red to white. + +At tea the table jammed the hidden dog against his chest. When he sought +relief by sitting back over the form, Clem corrected the irregular +posture with a pin. At bedtime he undressed in terror lest the creature +should jump out and patter on the boards as live things will. But at +last the gas was turned off at the main, and he cautiously groped for +his pet among his little heap of clothes under the bed. That night +Clem's most outrageous story could not attract him. He roamed Elysian +fields with his dog. Like all toys, it was something better than alive. +And certainly no mortal setter ever played so many parts. It hunted rats +up the nightgown sleeves, and caught burglars by the throat as they +stole into bed. It tracked murderers over the sheet's pathless waste. +It coursed deer up and down the hills and valleys of his knees. It drove +sheep along the lanes of the striped blanket. It rescued drowning +sailors from the vasty deep around the bed. It dug out frozen travellers +from the snowdrifts of the pillow. And at last it slept soundly, +kennelled between two warm hands, and continued its adventures in +dreams. + +At the first note of the bugle Alfred sprang up in bed, sure that the +drill-sergeant would come to pull him out first. As he marched +listlessly up and down the yard at drill, the wind blew pitilessly, and +the dog gnawed at him till he was red and sore. At meals and in school +he was sure that secret eyes were watching him. He searched everywhere +for some hole where he might hide the thing. But the building was too +irreproachable to shelter a mouse. + +Next day was Christmas Eve. He had heard from the "permanents" that at +Christmas each child received an apple, an orange, and twelve nuts in a +paper bag. He hungered for them. Even the ordinary meals had become the +chief points of interest in life, and the days were named from the +dinners. He was forgetting the scanty and uncertain food of his home, +now that dinner came as regularly as in a rich man's house or the Zoo. +And Christmas promised something far beyond the ordinary. There was to +be pork. At Christmas, at all events, he would lay himself out for +perfect enjoyment, undisturbed by terrors. He would take the dog back, +and be at peace again. + +Just before tea-time he saw the superintendent pass over to the infants' +side. He stole along the sounding corridors to the office, and +noiselessly opened the door. There was somebody there. But it was only +Looney, who, being able to count like a calculating machine because no +other thoughts disturbed him, had been set to tie up in bundles of a +hundred each certain pink and blue envelopes which lay in heaps on the +floor. Each envelope contained a Christmas card with a text, and every +child on Christmas morning found one laid ready on its plate at +breakfast. A wholesale stationer supplied them, and a benevolent lady +paid the bill. + +"Leave me alone," cried Looney from habit, "I ain't doin' nuffin." + +"All right," said Alfred airily; "I've only come to fetch somethink." + +But just at that moment he heard the superintendent's footstep coming +along the passage. There was no escape and no time for thought. With the +instinct of terror he put the dog down noiselessly beside Looney on the +carpet, drew quickly back, and stood rigid beside the door as it opened. + +"Hullo!" said the superintendent, "what are you doing here?" + +"Nothink, sir, only somethink," Alfred stammered. + +"What's the meaning of that?" said the superintendent. + +"I wanted to speak to that boy very pertikler, sir," said Alfred. + +The superintendent looked at Looney. But Looney in turning round had +caught sight of the dog at his side, and was gazing at it open-mouthed, +as a countryman gazes at a pigeon produced from a conjuror's hat. +Suddenly he pounced upon it as though he was afraid it would fly away, +and kept it close hidden under his hands. + +"Oh, that's what you wanted to speak about so particular, is it?" said +the superintendent. "That paperweight's been lost these two or three +days, and it was you who stole it, was it?" + +"Please sir," said Alfred, beginning to cry, "'e never done it, and I +didn't mean no 'arm." + +"Oh, enough of that," said the superintendent. "I've got other things to +do besides standing here arguing with you all night. I'll send for you +both at bed-time, and then I'll teach you to come stealing about here, +you young thieves. Now drop that, and clear out!" he added more angrily +to Looney, who was still chuckling with astonishment over his prize. + +So they were both well beaten that night, and Looney never knew why, but +took it as an incident in his chain of dim sensations. Next day they +alone did not receive either the Christmas card or the paper bag. But +after dinner Clem had them up before him, and gave them each a nutshell +and a piece of orange-peel, adding the paternal advice: "Look 'ere, my +sons, if you two can't pinch better than that, you'd best turn up +pinchin' altogether till you see yer father do it." + +On Boxing Day Mrs. Reeve at last contrived to come again. She was +informed that she could not see her son because he was kept indoors for +stealing. + +After this the machinery of the institution had its own way with him. It +was as though he were passed through each of its scientific appliances +in turn--the steam washing machine, the centrifugal steam wringer, the +hot-air drying horse, the patent mangle, the gas ovens, the heating +pipes, the spray baths, the model bakery, and the central engine. After +drifting through the fourth standard he was sent every other day to a +workshop to fit him for after life. Looney joined a squad of little +gardeners which shuffled about the walks, two deep, with spades +shouldered like rifles. Alfred was sent to the shoemaker's, as there +was a vacancy there. He did such work as he was afraid not to do, and +all went well as long as nothing happened. + +Only two events marked the lapse of time. Mrs. Reeve did not recover +from the "twist in her inside." In answer to her appeal, a +brother-in-law in the north took charge of her two remaining children, +and then she died. It was about three years after Alfred had entered the +school. He was sorry; but the next day came, and the next, and there was +no visible change. The bell rang: breakfast, dinner, and tea succeeded +each other. It was difficult to imagine that he had suffered any loss. + +The other event was more startling, and it helped to obliterate the last +thought of his mother's death. After a brief interval of parental +guidance, Clem had returned to the school for about the tenth time. As +usual he devoted his vivacious intellect chiefly to Looney, in whose +progress he expressed an almost grandmotherly interest. Looney sputtered +and made sport as usual, till one night an unbaptized idea was somehow +wafted into the limbo of his brain. He was counting over the faggots in +the great store-room under his dormitory when the thought came. Soon +afterwards he went upstairs, and quietly got into bed. It was a model +dormitory. So many cubic feet of air were allowed for each child. The +temperature was regulated according to thermometers hung on the wall. +Windows and ventilators opened on each side of the room to give a +thorough draught across the top. The beds had spring mattresses of +steel, and three striped blankets each, and spotted red and white +counterpanes such as give pauper dormitories such a cheerful look. +Looney and Clem slept side by side. Before midnight the dormitory was +full of suffocating smoke. The alarm was raised. For a time it was +thought that all the boys had escaped down an iron staircase lately +erected outside the building. But when the flames had been put out in +the store-room below, the bodies of Looney and Clem were found clasped +together on Clem's bed. Looney's arms were twisted very tightly around +Clem's neck, and people said he had perished in trying to save his +friend. Next Sunday the chaplain preached on the text, "And in death +they were not divided." Their names were inscribed side by side on a +little monument set up to commemorate the event, and underneath was +carved a passage from the Psalms: "Except the Lord keep the city, the +watchman waketh but in vain." + + +EPILOGUE + +At last Alfred's discharge paper came from the workhouse, and he trudged +down the road to the station, carrying a wooden box with his outfit, +valued at £7. He had been in charge of the State for six years, and had +quite forgotten the outside world. His nurture and education had cost +the ratepayers £180. He was now going to a home provided by benevolent +persons as a kind of featherbed to catch the falling workhouse boy. Here +the manager found him a situation with a shoemaker, since shoemaking was +his trade, but after a week's trial his master called one evening at the +home. + +"Look 'ere, Mr. Waterton," he said to the manager. "I took on that there +boy Reeve to do yer a kindness, but it ain't no manner of good. I +suppose the boy 'ad parents of some sort, most likely bad, but 'e seems +to me kind of machine-made, same as a Leicester boot. I can't make out +whether you'd best call 'im a sucklin' duck or a dummercyle. And as for +bootmakin'--I only wish 'e knowed nothing at all." + +So now Alfred is pushing a truck for an oilman in the Isle of Dogs at a +shilling a day. But the oilman thinks him "kind of dormant," and it is +possible that he may be sent back to the school for a time. Next year he +will be sixteen, and entitled to the privileges of a "pauper in his own +right." + +Meanwhile little Lizzie is slowly getting her outfit ready for her +departure also. A society of thoughtful and energetic ladies will spend +much time and money in placing her out in service at £6 a year. And, as +the pious lady said to herself when she wrote out a good character for +her servant, God help the poor mistress who gets her! + +But in all countries there is a constant demand of one kind or another +for pretty girls, even for the foster-children of the State. + + + + +XVIII + + +THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS + +Mr. Clarkson, of the Education Office, was coming back from a Garden +Suburb, where the conversation had turned upon Eugenics. Photographs of +the most beautiful Greek statues had stood displayed along the +overmantel; Walter Pater's praise of the Parthenon frieze had been read; +and a discussion had arisen upon the comparative merits of masculine and +feminine beauty, during which Mr. Clarkson maintained a modest silence. +He did, however, support the contention of his hostess that the human +form was the most beautiful of created things, and he shared her regret +that it is so seldom seen in London to full advantage. He also agreed +with the general conclusion that, in the continuance of the race, +quality was the first thing to be considered, and that the chief aim of +civilisation should be to restore Hellenic beauty by selecting parentage +for the future generation. + +Meditating over the course of the discussion, and regretting, as he +always did, that he had not played a distinguished part in it, Mr. +Clarkson became conscious of a certain dissatisfaction. "Should not one +question," he asked himself, "the possibility of creating beauty by +preconcerted design? Conscious and deliberate endeavours to manipulate +the course of Nature often frustrate their own purpose, and the action +of cultivated intelligence might conduce to a delicate peculiarity +rather than a beauty widely diffused. Such a sense for form as pervaded +Greece must spring, unconscious as a flower, from a passion for the +beautiful implanted in the heart of the populace themselves." + +His motor-'bus was passing through a region unknown to him--one of those +regions where raw vegetables and meat, varied with crockery and old +books, exuberate into booths and stalls along the pavement, and salesmen +shout to the heedless passer-by prophetic warnings of opportunities +eternally lost. Contemplating the scene with a sensitive loathing +against which his better nature struggled in vain, Mr. Clarkson had his +gaze suddenly arrested by a flaunting placard which announced: + + TO-NIGHT AT 10.30! + + UNEXAMPLED ATTRACTION!! + + OUR BEAUTY SHOW!!! + + UNEQUALLED IN THE WORLD! + + PRIZES OF UNPRECEDENTED VALUE!! + + ENCOURAGE HOME LOVELINESS!!! + +"The very thing!" thought Mr. Clarkson, rapidly descending from his +seat. "Sometimes one is almost compelled to believe in a Divinity that +shapes our criticism of life." + +"Shillin'," said the box-office man, when Mr. Clarkson asked for a +stall. "Evenin' dress hoptional" And Mr. Clarkson entered the vast +theatre. + +It was crammed throughout. Every seat was taken, and excited crowds of +straw-hatted youths, elderly men, and sweltering women stood thick at +the back of the pit and down the sides of the stalls. "'Not here, O +Apollo,'" quoted Mr. Clarkson sadly, as he squeezed on to the end of a +seat beside a big man who had spread himself over two. "But still, even +in the lower middle, beauty may have its place." + +"Warm," said the big man conversationally. + +"Unavoidably, with so fine an audience," replied Mr. Clarkson, with his +grateful smile for any sign of friendliness. + +"Like it warm?" asked the big man, turning upon Mr. Clarkson, as though +he had said he preferred babies scolloped. + +"Well, I rather enjoy the sense of common humanity," said Mr. Clarkson, +apologising. + +"Enjoy common humanity?" said the big man, mopping his head. "Can't say +I do. 'Cos why, I was born perticler." + +For a moment Mr. Clarkson was tempted to claim a certain fastidiousness +himself. But he refrained, and only remarked, "What _is_ a Beauty Show?" + +The big man turned slowly to contemplate him again, and then, slowly +turning back, regarded his empty pipe with sad attention. + +"'Ear that, Albert?" he whispered at last, leaning over to a smart +little fellow in front, who was dressed in a sportsmanlike manner, and +displayed a large brass horseshoe and hunting crop stuck sideways in his +tie. + +"The ignorance of the upper classes is somethink shockin'," the +sportsman replied, imitating Mr. Clarkson's Oxford accent. Then turning +back half an eye upon Mr. Clarkson, like a horse that watches its rider, +he added, "You wait and see, old cock, same as the Honourable Asquith." + +"Isn't the retort a trifle middle-aged?" suggested Mr. Clarkson, with +friendly cheerfulness. + +"Who's that he's callin' middle-aged?" cried a girl, sharply facing +round, and removing the sportsman's arm from her waist. + +"I only meant," pleaded Mr. Clarkson, "that an obsolescent jest is, like +middle-age, occasionally vapid, possessing neither the interest of +antiquity nor the freshness of surprise." + +"Very well, then," said the girl, flouncing back and seeking Albert's +arm again; "you just keep your tongue to yourself, same as me mine, or +_I'll_ surprise you!" + +At that moment the rising curtain revealed a cinematograph scene, +representing a bull-dog which stole a mutton chop, was at once pursued +by a policeman and the village population, rushed down streets and round +corners, leapt through a lawyer's office, ran up the side of a house, +followed by all his pursuers, and was finally discovered in a child's +cot, where the child, with one arm round his neck, was endeavouring to +make him say grace before meat. The audience was profoundly moved. Cries +of "Bless his 'eart!" and "Good old Ogden!" rang through the house. + +"Great!" said the big man. + +"It illustrates," replied Mr. Clarkson, "the popular sympathy with the +fugitive, combined with the public's love of vicarious piety." + +"Fine dog," said the sportsmanly Albert. + +"It was a clever touch," Mr. Clarkson agreed, "to introduce so hideous a +creature immediately before a Beauty Show. The strange thing is that the +dog's ugliness only enhanced the sympathetic affection of the audience. +Yet beauty leads us by a single hair." + +"You wait before you start talkin' about beauty or hair either!" said +Albert. + +The curtain then rose upon a long green-baize table placed at the back +of the stage. Behind it were sitting eleven respectable and portly +gentlemen in black coats. One in the centre, venerable for gold +eye-glasses and grey side-whiskers, acted as chairman. + +"Are those the beauties?" asked Mr. Clarkson ironically, recalling the +Garden Suburb discussion as to the superiority of the masculine form. + +"'Ear that, Albert?" said the big man again. "Judges," he added, in +solemn pity. + +"On what qualification are they selected as critics?" Mr. Clarkson +asked. + +"Give prizes," said the big man. + +"That qualifies them for Members of Parliament rather than judges of +beauty," said Mr. Clarkson, but he was shown that on the table before +each judge stood a case of plated articles, a vase, a candlestick, or +something, which he had contributed as a prize. + +An authoritative person in a brown suit and a heavy watch-chain +festooned across his waistcoat came forward and was greeted with +applause, varied by shouts of "Bluebeard!" "Crippen!" and "Father +Mormon!" In the brief gasps of silence he explained the rules of the +competition, remarking that the entries were already unusually numerous, +the standard of beauty exceptionally high and accordingly he called upon +the audience by their applause or the reverse to give the judges every +assistance in allotting as desirable a set of prizes as he had ever +handled. + +"The first prize," he went on, "is a silver-plated coffee-set, presented +by our ardent and lifelong supporter, Mr. Joseph Croke, proprietor of +the celebrated grocery store, who now occupies the chair. The second +prize is presented by our eminent butcher, Mr. James Collins, who +considers his own stock unsuitable for the occasion, and has therefore +substituted a turquoise necklace, equivalent in value to a prime +sirloin. For third prize Mr. Watkins, the conspicuous hairdresser of the +High Street, offers a full-sized plait of hair of the same colour as +worn by the lady." + +"Thoughtful!" observed the big man approvingly. + +"He could hardly give black hair to a yellow-haired woman," Mr. Clarkson +replied. + +"I said thoughtful," the big man repeated; "always thoughtful is +Watkins, more especial towards females." + +"Besides these superb rewards," the showman continued, "the rest of the +judges present sixteen consolation prizes, and Mr. Crawley, the +eminently respected provision-merchant round the corner, invites all +competitors to supper at twelve o'clock to-night, without distinction of +personal appearance." + +"Jolly good blow-out!" said Albert's girl, with satisfaction. + +"Rather a gross reward for beauty," Mr. Clarkson observed. + +"And why shouldn't nice-lookin' people have a good blow-out, same as +you?" inquired the girl, with a flash of indignation. "They deserves it +more, I 'ope!" + +"I entirely agree," said Mr. Clarkson; "my remark was Victorian." + +A babel of yells, screams, and howlings greeted the appearance of the +two first candidates. The Master of the Ceremonies led them forward, by +the right and left hand. Pointing at one, he shouted her name, and a +wild outburst of mingled applause and derision rent the air. Shouting +again, he pointed at the other, and exactly the same turmoil of noise +arose. Then he faced the girls round to the judges, and they instantly +became conscious of the backs of their dresses, and put their hands up +to feel if their blouses were hooked. + +But the chairman, with responsible solemnity, having contemplated the +girls through his eyeglasses, holding his head slightly on one side, +briefly consulted the other judges, and signalled one girl to pass +behind the table on his right, the other on his left. The one on his +left was recognised as winner, and the house applauded with tumult, the +supporters of the defeated yielding to success. + +Before the applause had died, two more girls were led forward, and the +storm of shouts and yells arose again. One of the candidates was dressed +in pink, with a shiny black belt round her waist, a huge pink bow in her +fluffy, light hair, and white stockings very visible. When the Master +shouted her name, she cocked her head on one side, giggled, and writhed +her shoulders. Cries of "Saucy!" "Mabel!" "Ain't I a nice little girl?" +and "There's a little bit of all right!" saluted her, and the approval +was beyond question. He pointed to the other, and a rage of execration +burst forth, "O Ginger!" "Ain't she got a cheek?" "Lock her up for the +night!" "Oh, you giddy old thing!" were the chief cries that Mr. +Clarkson could distinguish in the general howling. A band of youths +behind him began singing, "Tell me the old, old story." In the gallery +they sang "Sit down, sit down," to the tune of the Westminster chimes. +Half the theatre joined in one song, half in the other, and the singing +ended in cat-calls, whistles, and shrieks of mockery. The red-haired +girl stood pale and motionless, her eyes fixed on some point of vacancy +beyond the yelling crowd. + +"Terribly painful position for a woman!" said Mr. Clarkson. + +"Ill-advised," said the big man, shaking his head; "very ill-advised." + +"Good lesson for her," remarked Albert. "These shows teach the ugly ones +to know their place. Improve the breed these shows do--same as +'orse-racing." And having shouted "Ginger!" again, he added, "Bandy!" + +"Ain't it wicked for a woman to have such an imperence?" cried Albert's +girl, joining in the yell as the candidate was marched off to the side +of the losers. + +"Isn't this all a little personal?" Mr. Clarkson protested; "a +trifle--what should I say?--Oriental, perhaps?" + +"She don't know how hidjus she is," the big man explained. "No female +don't." + +"Nor no man neither, I should 'ope!" said Albert's girl, and wriggling +out of the encircling arm, she suddenly sprang up, put her hat straight, +and forced her way towards the stage. + +"Now the fat's on!" observed the big man, with a foreboding sigh. + +"You may pull her 'ead off," Albert answered resignedly. "There ain't no +'oldin' of her." + +"Dangerous, very dangerous!" whispered the big man to Mr. Clarkson. "A +terror is Albert when she's beat! Bloodshed frequent outside! She's +always beat--always starts, and always beat." + +"Celtic, I suppose," Mr. Clarkson observed. + +"Dangerous, very dangerous!" repeated the big man with a sigh. + +And so, indeed, it proved. Pair after pair were led forward, and when +the turn of Albert's girl came, she won the heat easily. Then the +process of selection among the forty or fifty of the first set of +winners began, and she won the second heat. At last the competitors +were reduced to six, and she stood on the right, in line with the +others, while the showman pointed to each in turn, and called for the +judgment of the audience. Then, indeed, passion rose to hurricane. +Tumultuous storms of admiration and fury received each girl. Again and +again each was presented, and the same seething chaos of sound ensued. +The whole theatre stood howling together, waving hats and handkerchiefs, +blowing horns and whistles, carried beyond all limits of reason by the +rage for the beautiful. + +Albert gathered his friends round him, conducted them like an orchestra, +and made them yell, "The one on the right! The one on the right! We want +the one on the right, or well never go home to-night!" + +"Shout!" he screamed to Mr. Clarkson, who was contemplating the scene +with his habitual interest. + +"Certainly, I will, though the lady is not a Dreadnought," Mr. Clarkson +replied soothingly, and he began saying "Brava! Brava!" quite loud. +Instantly, Albert's opponents caught up the word, and echoed it in +mockery, imitating his correct pronunciation. Mincing syllables of +"Brava! Brava!" were heard on every side. + +"You just let me catch you booin' my girl!" shouted Albert, springing in +frenzy upon the seat, and shaking his fist close to Mr. Clarkson's eyes. +"You let me catch you! Ever since you came in, you've been layin' odds +against my girl, you and your rotten talk!" + +"On the contrary," replied Mr. Clarkson, smiling, "even apart from +aesthetic grounds, I should be delighted to see her victorious." + +"Then put up your dukes or take that on your silly jaw," cried Albert, +preparing to strike. + +"The beautiful is always hard," Mr. Clarkson observed, still smiling. + +"Best come away with me, mister," said the big man, pushing between +them. "Avoid unpleasantness." + +"Race as good as over," he added, as he forced Mr. Clarkson down the +gangway. "Places: pink first, 'cos she puts her 'ead a' one side; +factory girl second, 'cos they likes her bein' dressed common; blue +third, 'cos of her openwork stockin's; Albert's girl nowhere, 'cos she +never is." + +They mounted one of the cars that are fed on the County Council's +lightning. + +"Certainly a remarkable phase," Mr. Clarkson observed, "although I +concluded that, in regard to beauty, the voice of the people is not +necessarily identical with the voice of God." + +"Coachman!" said the big man, calling down to the driver, and imitating +the voice of a duchess. "Coachman! drive slowly twice round the Park, +and then 'ome." + + + + +XIX + + +ABDUL'S RETREAT + +"No nasty shells here, Sire! No more screaming shells, and we are both +alive!" said the jester, lying on the ground at his master's feet. + +It was in May 1909, and the large room was littered with bundles and +various kinds of luggage. Several women, covered from head to foot in +long cloaks and veils, lay about the floor or on the divans round the +walls, hardly distinguishable from the bundles except that now and then +they moaned or uttered some brief lamentation. From other parts of the +house came sounds of hammering and the hurried swish of cleaning walls. +From the long windows a deep and quiet harbour could be seen, and a few +orange lights were beginning to glimmer from the quay and anchored +boats. Across the purple of the water rose the blue mass of Olympus, its +craggy edges sharp against the sunset sky, and over Olympus a filmy +cloud was blown at intervals across the crescent moon. + +"No more shells, Sire!" the jester kept repeating, and at the word +"shells" the women groaned. But the man whom he addressed was silent. +Since dawn he had said nothing. + +"Last night no one thought we should be alive this evening, Sire," said +the jester. "We have gained a day of life. Who could have given us a +finer present?" + +The half-moon disappeared behind Olympus, and out of the gathering +darkness in the chamber a voice was at last heard: "They have killed +other Sultans," it said. "They will kill me too." + +At the sound of the voice the women stirred and whispered. One cried, "I +am hungry;" another said, "Water, O give me water!" but no one answered +her. + +"Death is coming," the voice went on. "Every minute for thirty years I +have escaped death, and to-night it will come. What is so terrible as +death?" + +"One thing is more terrible," said the jester, "it is death's brother, +fear." + +"When death is quick, they say you feel nothing," said the voice, "but +they lie. The shock that stops life--the crash of the bullet into the +brain, the stab of the long, cold dagger piercing the heart between the +ribs, the slice of the axe through the neck, the stifling of breath when +someone kicks away the stool and the noose runs tight--do you not feel +that? To think of life ending! One moment I am alive, I am well, I can +talk and eat; next moment life is going--going--and it is no use to +struggle. Thought stops, breath stops, I can see and hear no more. One +second, and I am nothing for ever." + +"Your Majesty is pleased to overlook Paradise," said the jester. + +"Let me live! Only let me live!" the voice continued. "I am not old. +Many men have lived twenty or even thirty years longer than I have. They +say when you are really old death comes like sleep. Nothing is so +terrible as death. That is why I have shown myself merciful in my power. +What other Sultan has kept his own brother alive for thirty years? Did I +not give him a great palace to live in, and gardens where he could walk +with few to watch his safety? Did I not send him every day delicate food +from my own table? Did I not grant him such women as he desired, and +books to read, and musicians to delight his soul? His were the joys of +Paradise, and he was alive as well. He had life--the one thing needful, +the one thing that can never be restored! And now my own brother turns +against me. He will let them take my life. The shock of death will +strike me down, and I shall be nothing any more." + +"Truly," said the jester, "the joys of the Prophet's Paradise are +nothing to be compared with the blessedness of your Majesty's happy +reign. Yet men say that where there is life there is sorrow." + +"Have I not watched over my people? Have I not upheld the city against +the enemy? Have I not toiled? What pleasure have I given myself? When +have I been drunk with wine as the Infidels are drunken? What excess of +delight have I taken with the women sent me as presents year by year? +They dwelt in their beautiful chambers, and I saw them no more. I have +neglected no duty to God or man. Week by week I risked my life to +worship God. From dawn till evening I have laboured, taking no rest and +seeking no pleasure, though the right to all pleasure was mine. Whatever +passed in my Empire, I knew it. Whatever was whispered in secret, I +heard. The breath of treason could not escape, me, and where treachery +thrust out its head to look, my sword was ready." + +"Truly, Sire," said the jester, "from the days of Midhat it was ready, +and there are peacemakers more silent than the sword." + +"The Powers of the Infidel stood waiting. Like vultures round a dying +sheep they stood waiting round the dominions of Islam. Here and there +one snatched a living piece and devoured it as though it were carrion, +while the others screamed with gluttonous fury and threatened with wings +and claws." + +"Ah, Sire," said the jester, "you have shown us how these Christians +love one another!" + +"One war," the voice went on, "one war I have lost, but the enemy did +not receive the fruits of victory. In one war I was victorious, and the +Crescent would again be flying over Athens if the Infidel Powers had not +barred the way. I have not lived without glory. From east to west the +moon of Islam shines brighter now. The sons of Islam are gathering side +by side. They stand again for the glory of the Prophet and his Khalif. I +see the brown peoples of Asia, I see the black hordes from African +deserts and forests. They pass quick messages. They pledge their faith +on the Sacred Book. They issue out again to the conquest of the world, +and it is I who have gathered the might of Islam into one hand. It is I +who have swept away the princes, the ministers, the governors, and the +agents who divided the power of Islam and squandered its riches. It is I +who have stored up wealth for the great day when the sword of Islam +shall again be drawn." + +"Forget not, Sire," said the jester, "the names of Fehim and Izzet, who +stood beside you and also stored up the wealth of Islam against the +coming of that great day. If I could find where it is stored now, Islam +would be more secure, and I less hungry." + +"I held the city of the world," said the voice from the darkness: "I +kept the breath of life moving throughout the Empire when all said it +must perish. For thirty years my one brain outmatched the diplomacy of +all the Embassies. Emperors have been proud the dominions of Islam. +Here and there one snatched a living piece and devoured it as though it +were carrion, while the others screamed with gluttonous fury and +threatened with wings and claws." + +"Ah, Sire," said the jester, "you have shown us how these Christians +love one another!" + +"One war," the voice went on, "one war I have lost, but the enemy did +not receive the fruits of victory. In one war I was victorious, and the +Crescent would again be flying over Athens if the Infidel Powers had not +barred the way. I have not lived without glory. From east to west the +moon of Islam shines brighter now. The sons of Islam are gathering side +by side. They stand again for the glory of the Prophet and his Khalif. I +see the brown peoples of Asia, I see the black hordes from African +deserts and forests. They pass quick messages. They pledge their faith +on the Sacred Book. They issue out again to the conquest of the world, +and it is I who have gathered the might of Islam into one hand. It is I +who have swept away the princes, the ministers, the governors, and the +agents who divided the power of Islam and squandered its riches. It is I +who have stored up wealth for the great day when the sword of Islam +shall again be drawn." + +"Forget not, Sire," said the jester, "the names of Fehim and Izzet, who +stood beside you and also stored up the wealth of Islam against the +coming of that great day. If I could find where it is stored now, Islam +would be more secure, and I less hungry." + +"I held the city of the world," said the voice from the darkness: "I +kept the breath of life moving throughout the Empire when all said it +must perish. For thirty years my one brain outmatched the diplomacy of +all the Embassies. Emperors have been proud to visit my palace. Kings +have called me venerable. I have worshipped God, I have protected my +people, and now I must die." + +"Ah, Sire," said the jester, "even in your blessed reign men have died. +Their life was sweet, but they managed to die, and what is so common can +hardly be intolerable. People have even been murdered before, and if +together with the women we should now be murdered in the dark--" + +He was interrupted by the cries of the women. "We shall be +murdered--murdered in the dark," they moaned. "We knew how it would end! +Death is the honour of a Sultan's wives." + +A rifle-shot sounded from the street and, dark in the darkness, a form +cowered back upon the divan, making the draperies shake. + +"They are quick," he gasped. "They are always so quick! They do not +leave time for my plans. The sword of Islam is at work in Asia now. My +orders were to slay and slay. They must be dead by now--thousands of +them dead--thousands of cursed men and women--as many thousands as once +made the quays so red--as many thousands as in the churches and villages +long ago, or on the mountains of Monastir. Europe will not endure it. +The Powers will intervene. They will save my life. They will come to set +me free. They will give me back my power--my power and my life. I alone +can govern this people. They know it. I am the only chance of peace. I +have toiled without ceasing. I have never harmed a living soul. They +themselves say I am merciful. It is no pleasure to me to have people +killed. The Powers will come to save me. They will not let me die. Why +are those rebels so quick? They do not give me time, and all my plans +were ready! Far down in Asia the killing has begun. Why does not the +telegraph speak? The Powers will intervene. They will not let me die." + +"Sire," said the jester, "people are lighting lamps in the street. They +are firing guns. They are crying 'Long live the new Sultan!' Your +Majesty's brother is proclaimed." + +"I am the Sultan," cried the voice; "I am the Khalif, I am the successor +of the Prophet. Tell them I am the successor of the Prophet! Tell them +they dare not kill me!" + +"Sire," said the jester, "greatness shares the common fate. The will of +the Eternal is above all monarchs." + +The firing of many rifles was heard in the street below. The door of the +large chamber was flung wide, open, and a flood of yellow light revealed +the piled up luggage, the muffled forms of women, and a dark little +figure curled upon the divan, his head hidden in his arms. + +"Oh, be merciful," he cried. "Spare my life, only spare my life! What, +would you kill a ruler like me? Would you kill an old, old man?" + +"Your Highness," said an officer in a quiet voice, "dinner is served." + + + + +XX + + +"NATIVES" + +No doubt the Gods laughed when Macaulay went to India. Among the +millions who breathed religion, and whose purpose in life was the +contemplation of eternity, a man intruded himself who could not even +meditate, and regarded all religion, outside the covers of the Bible, as +a museum of superstitious relics. Into the midst of peoples of an +immemorial age, which seemed to them as unworthy of reckoning as the +beating wings of a parrot's flight from one temple to the next, there +came a man in whose head the dates of European history were arranged in +faultless compartments, and to whom the past presented itself as a +series of Ministerial crises, diversified by oratory and political +songs. To Indians the word progress meant the passage of the soul +through aeons of reincarnation towards a blissful absorption into the +inconceivable void of indistinctive existence, as when at last a jar is +broken and the space inside it returns to space. For Macaulay the word +progress called up a bustling picture of mechanical inventions, an +increasing output of manufactured goods, a larger demand for improving +literature, and a growth of political clubs to promulgate the blessings +of Reform. The Indian supposed success in life to lie in patiently +following the labour and the observances of his fathers before him, +dwelling in the same simple home, suppressing all earthly desire, and +saving a little off the daily rice or the annual barter in the hope +that, when the last furrow was driven, or the last brazen pot hammered +out, there might still be time for the glory of pilgrimage and the +sanctification of a holy river. To Macaulay, success in life was the +going shop, the growing trade, a seat on the Treasury Bench, the +applause of listening Senates, and the eligible residence of deserving +age. + +Thus equipped, he was instructed by the Reform Government which he +worshipped, to mark out the lines for Indian education upon a basis of +the wisdom common to East and West. Though others were dubious, he never +hesitated. From childhood he had never ceased to praise the goodness and +the grace that made the happy English child. As far as in him lay, he +would extend that gracious advantage to the teeming populations of +India. In spite of accidental differences of colour, due to climatic +influences, they too should grow as happy English children, lisping of +the poet's mountain lamb, and hearing how Horatius kept the bridge in +the brave days of old. They should advance to a knowledge of Party +history from the Restoration down to the Reform Bill. The great masters +of the progressive pamphlet, such as Milton and Burke, should be placed +in their hands. Those who displayed scientific aptitude should be +instructed in the miracle of the steam-engine, and economic minds should +early acquaint themselves with the mysteries of commerce, upon which, as +upon the Bible, the greatness of their conquerors was founded. Under +such influence, the soul of India would be elevated from superstitious +degradation, factories would supersede laborious handicrafts, artists, +learning to paint like young Landseer, would perpetuate the appearance +of the Viceregal party with their horses and dogs on the Calcutta +racecourse, and it might be that in the course of years the estimable +Whigs of India would return their own majority to a Front Bench in +Government House. + +It was an enviable vision--enviable in its imperturbable +self-confidence. It no more occurred to Macaulay to question the +benefaction of English education and the supremacy of England's commerce +and Constitution than it occurred to him to question the contemptible +inferiority of the race among whom he was living, and for whom he mainly +legislated. In his essay on Warren Hastings he wrote: + + "A war of Bengalis against Englishmen was like a war of + sheep against wolves, of men against demons.... Courage, + independence, veracity, are qualities to which his constitution + and his situation are equally unfavourable.... All those arts + which are the natural defence of the weak are more familiar + to this subtle race than to the Ionian of the time of Juvenal, + or to the Jew of the Dark Ages. What the horns are to the + buffalo, what the paw is to the tiger, what the sting is to the + bee, what beauty, according to the old Greek song, is to woman, + deceit is to the Bengali." + +And yet, impenetrable as Macaulay's own ignorance of the Indian peoples +remained, his Minute of 1835, "to promote English literature and +science," and to decree that "all funds appropriated for education +should be employed in English education alone," has marked in Indian +history an era from which the present situation of the country dates. + +It is true that the education has not gone far. The Government spends +less than twopence per head upon it; less than a tenth of what it spends +on the army. Only ten per cent. of the males in India can write or +read; only seven per thousand of the females. But, thanks chiefly to +Macaulay's conviction that if everyone were like himself the world would +be happy and glorious, there are now about a million Indians (or one in +three hundred) who can to some extent communicate with each other in +English as a common tongue, and there are some thousands who have become +acquainted with the history of English liberties, and the writings of a +few political thinkers. Together with railways, the new common language +has increased the sense of unity; the study of our political thinkers +has created the sense of freedom, and the knowledge of our history has +shown how stern and prolonged a struggle may be required to win that +possession which our thinkers have usually regarded as priceless. "The +one great contribution of the West to the Indian Nationalist movement," +writes Mr. Ramsay Macdonald with emphasis, "is its theory of political +liberty." + +It is a contribution of which we may well be proud--we of whom +Wordsworth wrote that we must be free or die. Whatever the failures of +unsympathetic self-esteem, Macaulay's spirit could point to this +contribution as sufficient counterbalance. From the works of such +teachers as Mill, Cobbett, Bagehot, and Morley, the mind of India has +for the first time derived the principles of free government. But of all +its teachers, I suppose the greatest and most influential has been +Burke. Since we wished to encourage the love of freedom and the +knowledge of constitutional government, no choice could have been +happier than that which placed the writings and speeches of Burke upon +the curriculum of the five Indian universities. Fortunately for India, +the value of Burke has been eloquently defined by Lord Morley, who has +himself contributed more to the future constitutional freedom of India +than any other Secretary of State. In one passage in his well-known +volume on Burke, he has spoken of his "vigorous grasp of masses of +compressed detail, his wide illumination from great principles of human +experience, the strong and masculine feeling for the two great political +ends of Justice and Freedom, his large and generous interpretation of +expediency, the morality, the vision, the noble temper." Writing of +Burke's three speeches on the American War, Lord Morley declares: + + "It is no exaggeration to say that they compose the most + perfect manual in our literature, or in any literature, for one + who approaches the study of public affairs, whether for knowledge + or for practice. They are an example without fault of + all the qualities which the critic, whether a theorist or an + actor, of great political situations should strive by night and + day to possess." + +For political education, one could hardly go further than that. "The +most perfect manual in any literature"--let us remember that decisive +praise. Or if it be said that students require style rather than +politics, let us recall what Lord Morley has written of Burke's style: + + "A magnificence and elevation of expression place him + among the highest masters of literature, in one of its highest + and most commanding senses." + +But it is frequently asserted that what Indian students require is, not +political knowledge, or literary power, but a strengthening of +character, an austerity both of language and life, such as might +counteract the natural softness, effeminacy, and the tendency to +deception which Macaulay and Lord Curzon so freely informed them of. For +such strengthening and austerity, on Lord Morley's showing, no teacher +could be more serviceable than Burke: + + "The reader is speedily conscious," he writes, "of the precedence + in Burke of the facts of morality and conduct, of the + many interwoven affinities of human affection and historical + relation, over the unreal necessities of mere abstract logic.... + Besides thus diffusing a strong light over the awful tides of + human circumstance, Burke has the sacred gift of inspiring men + to use a grave diligence in caring for high things, and in making + their lives at once rich and austere." + +Here are the considered judgments of a man who, by political experience, +by literary power, and the study of conduct, has made himself an +unquestioned judge in the affairs of State, in letters, and in morality. +As examples of the justice of his eulogy let me quote a few sentences +from those very speeches which Lord Morley thus extols--the speeches on +the American War of Independence. Speaking on Conciliation with the +Colonies in 1775, Burke said: + + "Permit me to observe that the use of force alone is but + temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it does not + remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not + governed which is perpetually to be conquered.... Terror is + not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory." + +Speaking of the resistance of a subject race to the predominant power, +Burke ironically suggested: + + "Perhaps a more smooth and accommodating spirit of + freedom in them would be more acceptable to us. Perhaps + ideas of liberty might be desired more reconcilable with an + arbitrary and boundless authority. Perhaps we might wish + the colonists to be persuaded that their liberty is more secure + when held in trust for them by us (as their guardians during + a perpetual minority) than with any part of it in their own + hands." + +And, finally, speaking of self-taxation as the very basis of all our +liberties, Burke exclaimed: + + "They (British statesmen) took infinite pains to inculcate + as a fundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people + must in effect themselves, mediately or immediately, possess + the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty + could subsist." + +It was the second of these noble passages that I once heard declaimed on +the sea-beach at Madras to an Indian crowd by an Indian speaker, who, +following the precepts of Lord Morley, then Secretary of State for +India, had made Burke's speeches his study by day and night. That phrase +describing the ruling Power as the guardians of a subject race during a +perpetual minority has stuck in my mind, and it recurred to me when I +read that Burke's writings and speeches had been removed from the +University curriculum in India. Carlyle's _Heroes_ and Cowper's +_Letters_ have been substituted--excellent books, the one giving the +Indians in rather portentous language very dubious information about +Odin, Luther, Rousseau, and other conspicuous people; the other telling +them, with a slightly self-conscious simplicity, about a melancholy +invalid's neckcloths, hares, dog, and health. Such subjects are all very +well, but where in them do we find the magnificence and elevation of +expression, the sacred gift of inspiring men to make their lives at once +rich and austere, and the other high qualities that Lord Morley found in +"the most perfect manual in any literature"? Reflecting on this new +decision of the Indian University Council, or whoever has taken on +himself to cut Burke out of the curriculum, some of us may find two +passages coming into the memory. One is a passage from those very +speeches of Burke, where he said, "To prove that the Americans ought not +to be free, we were obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself." +The other is Biglow's familiar verse, beginning "I du believe in +Freedom's cause, Ez fur away ez Payris is," and ending: + + "It's wal enough agin a king + To dror resolves an' triggers,-- + But libbaty's a kind o' thing + Thet don't agree with niggers." + + + + +XXI + + +UNDER THE YOKE + +If ever there was a nation which ought to have a fellow-feeling with +subject races it is the inhabitants of England. I have heard of no land +so frequently subjected, unless, perhaps, it were northern India. +Long-headed builders of long tombs were subjected by round-headed +builders of round tombs; and round-headed builders of tombs were +subjected by builders of Stonehenge; for five hundred years the builders +of Stonehenge were a subject race to Rome; Roman-British civilisation +was subjected to barbarous Jutes and heavy Saxons; Britons, Jutes and +Saxons became the subjects of Danes; Britons, Jutes, Saxons and Danes +lay as one subject race at the feet of the Normans. As far as subjection +goes, English history is like a house that Jack built: + + "This is the Norman nobly born, + Who conquered the Dane that drank from a horn. + Who harried the Saxon's kine and corn, + Who banished the Roman all forlorn, + Who tidied the Celt so tattered and torn," + +and so on, back to the prehistoric Jack who built the long house of the +dead. + +Our later subjections to the French, the Scots, the Dutch and the +Germans, who have in turn ruled our courts and fattened on their +favours, have not been so violent or so complete; but for some +centuries they depressed our people with a sense of humiliation, and +they have left their mark upon our national character and language. +Indeed, our language is a synopsis of conquests, a stratification of +subjections. We can hardly speak a sentence without recording a certain +number of the subject races from which we have sprung. The only one ever +left out is the British, and that survives in the names of our most +beautiful rivers and mountains. It is true that all of our conquerors +have come to stay--all with the one exception of Rome. We have never +formed part of a distant and foreign empire except the Roman. Even our +Norman invaders soon regarded our country as the centre of their power +and not as a province. Nevertheless, nearly every strand of our +interwoven ancestry has at one time or other suffered as a subject race, +and perhaps from that source we derive the quality that Mark Twain +perceived when at the Jubilee Procession of our Empire he observed, +"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Perhaps also +for this reason we raise the Recessional prayer for a humble and +contrite heart, lest we forget our history--lest we forget. + +We pray in contrite humility to remember, but we have forgotten. In +speaking of Finland's loss of liberty, Madame Malmberg, the Finnish +patriot, once said that in old days, when their liberties seemed secure, +the Finns felt no sympathy with other nationalities--the Poles, the +Georgians, or the Russians themselves--struggling to be free. They did +not know what it was to be a subject race. They could not realise the +degrading loss of nationality. They were soon to learn, and they know +now. We have not learned. We have forgotten our lesson. That is why we +remain so indifferent to the cry of freedom, and to the suppression of +nationality all over the world. + +Let us for a moment imagine that something terrible has happened; that +our statesmen have at last got their addition sums in Dreadnoughts +right, and have learned by hard experience that we have less than two to +one and therefore are wiped from the seas; or that our august Russian +ally, using Finland as a base, has established an immense naval port in +the Norwegian fiords and thence poured the Tartar and Cossack hordes +over our islands. Let us imagine anything that might leave some dominant +Power supreme in London and reduce us for the sixth or seventh time to +the position of a subject race. Where should we feel the difference +most? Let us suppose that the conqueror retained our country as part of +his empire, just as we have retained Ireland, India, Egypt, and the +South-African Dutch republics; or as Russia has retained Poland, +Georgia, Finland, the Baltic Provinces and Siberia, and is on the point +of retaining Persia; or as Germany has retained Poland and +Alsace-Lorraine; or as France has retained Tonquin and an enormous +empire in north-west Africa and is on the point of retaining Morocco; or +as Austria has retained Bohemia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, and many +other nationalities, and is constantly plotting to retain Albania. Let +us only judge of what might happen to us by observing what is actually +happening in other instances at this moment. + + * * * * * + +The dominant Power--let us call it Germany for short and merely as an +illustration--would at once appoint its own subjects to all the high +positions of State. England would be divided into four sections under +German Governor-Generals and there would be German Governor-Generals in +Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Germans would be appointed as District +Commissioners to collect revenue, try cases, and control the police. A +Council of Germans, with a proportion of nominated British lords and +squires, would legislate for each province, and perhaps, after a century +or so, as a great concession a small franchise might be granted, with +special advantages to Presbyterians, so as to keep religious differences +alive, the German Governor-General retaining the right to reject any +candidate and to veto all legislation. A German Viceroy, surrounded by a +Council in which the majority was always German, and the chief offices +of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Commander-in-Chief of the army, and so +forth, were always filled by Germans, would hold a Court at Windsor or +at Balmoral in summer and Buckingham Palace in winter. We should have to +undertake the support of Lutheran Churches for the spiritual consolation +of our rulers. We should be given a German Lord Mayor. German would be +the official language of the country, though interpreters might be +allowed in the law courts. Public examinations would be conducted in +German, and all candidates for the highest civilian posts would have to +go to Germany to be educated. The leading newspapers would be published +in German and a strict censorship established over the _Times_ and other +rebellious organs. The smallest criticism of the German Government would +be prosecuted as sedition. English papers would be confiscated, English +editors heavily fined or imprisoned, English politicians deported to the +Orkneys without trial or cause shown. Writers on liberty, such as +Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Burke, Mill, and Lord Morley would be +prohibited. The works of even German authors like Schiller, Heine, and +Karl Marx would be forbidden, and a pamphlet written by a German and +founded on official evidence to prove the injustice and tortures to +which the English people were exposed under the German system of police +would be destroyed. On our railways English gentlemen and ladies would +be expected to travel second or third class, or, if they travelled +first, they would be exposed to the Teutonic insolence of the dominant +race, and would probably be turned out by some German official. Public +buildings would be erected in the German style. English manufacturers +and all industries would be hampered by an elaborate system of excise +which would flood our markets with German goods. Such art as England +possesses would disappear. Arms would be prohibited. The common people, +especially in Scotland and the North-West Provinces, would be encouraged +to recruit in the native army under the command of German officers, and +the Scottish regiments would maintain their proud tradition; but no +British officer would be allowed to rise above the rank of +sergeant-major. The Territorials would be disbanded. The Boy Scouts +would be declared seditious associations. If a party of German officers +went fox-shooting in Leicestershire, and the villagers resisted the +slaughter of the sacred animal, some of the leading villagers would be +hanged and others flogged during the execution. Our National Anthem +would begin: "God save our German king! Long live our foreign king!" The +singing of "Rule, Britannia," would be regarded as a seditious act. + +I am not saying that so complete a subjection of England is possible. We +may believe that in a powerful, wealthy, proud, and highly civilised +country like ours it would not be possible. All I say is that, if we +assume it possible, something like that would be our condition if we +were treated by the dominant Power as we ourselves are treating other +races which were powerful, wealthy, proud and, in their own estimation, +highly civilised when we invaded or otherwise obtained the mastery over +them. I am only trying to suggest to ourselves the mood and feelings of +a subject race--the humble and contrite heart for which we pray as God's +ancient sacrifice. If we wish to be done by as we do, these are some +incidents in the government we should wish to lie under when we were +reduced beneath a dominant Power, as India and Egypt are reduced beneath +ourselves. I have not taken the worst instances of the treatment of +subject races I could find. I have not spoken of the old methods of +partial or complete extermination whether in Roman Europe or Spanish and +British Americas; nor have I spoken of the partial or complete +enslavement of subject races in the Dutch, British, Portuguese, Belgian, +and French regions of Africa. I have not dwelt upon the hideous scenes +of massacre, torture, devastation and lust which I have myself witnessed +in Macedonia under the Turks, and in the Caucasus, the Baltic Provinces, +and Poland under Russia when subject races attempted some poor effort to +regain their freedom. I have not even mentioned the old ruin and +slaughter of Ireland, or the latest murder of a nation in Finland or in +Persia. I have taken my comparison from the government of subject races +at what is probably its very best; at all events, at what the English +people regard as its best--the administration of India and Egypt--and we +have no reason to suppose that Germany would administer England better +if we were a subject race under the German Empire. + + * * * * * + +If Germany did as well she would have something to say for herself. She +might lay stress on the great material advantages she would bestow on +this country. Such industries as she left us she would reorganise on the +Kartel system. She would much improve our railways by unifying them as a +State property, so that even our South-Eastern trains might arrive in +time. She would overhaul our education, ending the long wrangle between +religious sects by abolishing all distinctions. She would erect an +entirely new standard of knowledge, especially in natural science, +chemistry, and book-keeping. She would institute special classes for +prospective chauffeurs and commercial travellers. She would abolish +Eton, Harrow, and the other public schools, together with the college +buildings of Oxford and Cambridge, converting them all into barracks, +while the students would find their own lodgings in the towns and stand +on far greater equality in regard to wealth. German is not a very +beautiful language, but it has a literature, and we should have the +advantage of speaking German and learning something of German literature +and history. Great improvements would be introduced in sanitation, +town-planning, and municipal government, and we should all learn to eat +black bread, which is much more wholesome than white. + +In a large part of the country peasant proprietors would be established, +and the peasants as a whole would be far better protected against the +exactions and petty tyranny of the landlords than they are at present. +Under the pressure of external rule, all the troublesome divisions and +small animosities between English, Scots, Irish, and Welsh would tend to +disappear, though the Germans might show special favour to the Scots and +Presbyterians generally on the principle of "Divide and Rule," just as +we show special favour to the Mohammedans of India. We should, of +course, be compelled to contribute to the defence of the Empire, and +should pay the expenses of the large German garrisons quartered in our +midst and of the German cruisers that patrolled our shores. But as we +should have no fleet of our own to maintain, and in case of foreign +aggression could draw upon the vast resources of the German Empire, our +taxation for defence would probably be considerably reduced from its +present figure of something over seventy millions a year. + +That, I think, is an impartial statement of the reasons which some +dominant Power, such as Germany, might fairly advance in defence of her +rule if we were included in a foreign Empire. At all events, they very +closely resemble the reasons we put forward to glorify the services of +our Empire to India and Egypt. I suppose also that the Fabians among +ourselves would support the foreign domination, just as their leaders +supported the overthrow of the Boer republics, on the ground that larger +states bring the Fabian--the very Fabian--revolution nearer. And, +perhaps, the Social Democrats would support it by an extension of their +theory that the social millennium can best arrive out of a condition of +general enslavement. The Cosmopolitans would support it as tending to +obliterate the old-fashioned distinctions of nationality that impede the +unity of mankind, while a host of German pedants and poets would pour +out libraries in praise of the Anglo-Teutonic races united at last in +irresistible brotherhood and standing ready to take up the Teuton's +burden imposed upon the Blood by the special ordinance of the Lord. + +The parallel is false, some may say; the conditions are not the same; in +spite of all material and educational advantages, we in England would +never endure such subjection; we should live in a state of perpetual +rebellion; our troops would mutiny; much as we all detest assassination, +the lives of our foreign Governors would hardly be secure. I agree. I +hope there is implanted in all of us such a hatred of subjection that we +should conspire to die rather than endure it. I only wish to suggest the +mood of a subject race, under the best actual conditions of +subjection--to suggest that other peoples may possibly feel an equal +hatred toward foreign domination--and to supply in ourselves something +of that imaginative sympathy which Madame Malmberg tells us the Finns +only learned after their own freedom had been overthrown. + +We feel at once that something far more valuable than all the material, +or even moral, advantages which a dominant Power might give us would be +involved in the overthrow of our independent nationality. That something +is nationality itself. But what is nationality? Like the camel in the +familiar saying, it is difficult to define, but we know it when we see +it. Or, as St. Augustine said of Time, "I know what it is when you don't +ask me." Nationality implies a stock or race, an inborn temperament, +with certain instincts and capacities. It is the slow production of +forgotten movements and obscure endeavours that cannot be repeated or +restored. It is sanctified by the long struggles of growth, and by the +affection that has gathered round its history. If nationality has +kindled and maintained the light of freedom, it is illuminated by a +glory that transforms mountain poverty into splendour. If it has endured +tyranny, its people are welded together by a common suffering and a +common indignation. At the lowest, the people of the same nationality +have their customs, their religion, generally their language--that most +intimate bond--and always the familiar outward scenes of earth and +water, hill and plain and sky, breathing with memories. Nationality +enters into the soul of each man or woman who possesses it. Mr. +Chesterton has well described it as a sacrament. It is a silent oath, an +invisible mark. Life receives from it a particular colour. It is felt as +an influence in action and in emotion, almost in every thought. In +freedom it sustains conduct with a proud assurance of community and +reputation. Under oppression, it may fuse all the pleasant uses of +existence into one consuming impulse of fanatical devotion. It has +inspired the noblest literature and all the finest forms of art, and +chiefly in countries where the flame of nationality burned strong and +clear has the human mind achieved its greatest miracles of beauty, +thought, and invention. + +Nationality possesses that demonic and incalculable quality from which +almost anything may be expected in the way of marvel, just as certain +spiky plants that have not varied winter or summer for years in their +habitual unattractiveness will suddenly shoot up a ten-foot spire of +radiant blossom abounding in honey. Partly by nationality has the human +race been preserved from the dreariness of ant-like uniformity and has +retained the power of variation which appears to be essential for the +highest development of life. With what pleasure, during our travels, we +discover the evidences of nationality even in such things as dress, +ornaments, food, songs, and dancing; still more in thought, speech, +proverbs, literature, music, and the higher arts! With what regret we +see those characteristics swept away by the advancing tide of dominant +monotony and Imperial dullness! The loss may seem trivial compared with +the loss of personal or political freedom, but it is not trivial. It is +a symptom of spiritual ruin. How deep a degradation of intellect and +personality is shown by the introduction of English music-hall songs +among a highly poetic people like the Irish, or by the vulgar corruption +of India's superb manufactures and forms of art under the blight of +British commerce! You know the Persian carpets, of what magical beauty +they are in design and colour. When I was on the borders of Persia in +1907 the Persian carpet merchants were selling one kind of carpet with a +huge red lion being shot by a sportsman in the middle of it to please +the English, and another kind decorated with a Parisian lady in a motor +to please the Russians. From those carpets one may realise what the +English Government's acquiescence in the subjection of Persia really +involves. + +No subject race can entirely escape this degradation. No matter how good +the government may be or how protective, all forms of subjection involve +a certain loss of manhood. Under an alien Power the nature of the +subject nationality becomes soft and dependent. Instead of working out +its own salvation, it looks to the government for direction or +assistance in every difficulty. Atrophy destroys its power of action. It +loses the political sense and grows incapable of self-help or +self-reliance. The stronger faculties, if not extinguished, become +mutilated. In Ireland, even to-day, we see the result of domination in +the continued belief that the British Government which has brought the +country to ruin possesses the sole power of restoring it to prosperity. +In India we see a people so enervated by alien and paternal government +that they have hardly the courage or energy to take up such small +responsibilities in local government as may be granted them. This is +what a true Liberal statesman, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, meant by +his wise saying that self-government is better than good government. And +it might be further illustrated by the present condition of the largest +subject race in the world--the race of women--to whom all the protective +legislation and boasted chivalry and lap-dog petting, fondly supposed to +be lavished upon them by men, are not to be compared in personal value +with just the small right to a voice in the management of their own and +national affairs. + +Such mutilation of character is the penalty of subjection at its best. +At its worst the subject race pays the penalty in tormenting rancour, +undying hatred, and the savage indignation that tears the heart. It may +be said that indignation is at all events better than loss of manhood, +and again I agree. Where there is despotism it may well be that for this +reason a cruel despotism is less harmful than a paternal despotism--less +harmful, I mean, to the individual soul, which is the only thing that +counts. But the soul that is choked by hatred and torn by indignation is +not at its best. Its functions go wrong, its sight is distorted, its +judgment perturbed, its sweetness poisoned, its laughter killed. The +whole being suffers and is changed. For a time it may blaze with a +fierce, a magnificent intensity. But we talk of a "consuming rage," and +the phrase is terribly true. Rage is a consuming fire, always a glorious +fire, a wild beacon in the night of darkness, but it consumes to ashes +the nature that is its fuel. + +Loss of manhood or perpetual rancour--those are the penalties imposed on +the soul of a subject race. Nor does the dominant race escape scot free. +Far from it. On the whole, it suffers a deeper degradation. A dominant +race, like a domineering person, is always disagreeable and always a +bore, and the nearer it is to the scene of domination the more +disagreeable and wearisome it becomes, just as a tyrannical man is worst +at home. I have known English people start as quiet, pleasing, modest, +and amiable passengers in a P. & O. from Marseilles, but become less +endurable every twenty-four hours of the fortnight to Bombay. There are +noble and conspicuous exceptions alike in the army, the Indian Civil +Service, and among the officials scattered over the Empire. But, as a +rule, we may say that the worst characteristics not only of our own but +of all dominant races, such as the French, Germans, and Russians, are +displayed among their subject peoples. If, indeed, the subjects are on a +level with spaniels that can be beaten or patted alternately and retain +a constant affection and respect, the English son of squires thoroughly +enjoys his position and does the beating and patting well. But it is +always with a certain loss of humour and common humanity: it brings a +kind of stiffness and pedantry such as Charles Lamb complained of in the +old-fashioned type of schoolmaster. It exaggerates a sense of +Heaven-born superiority which the English squire has no need to +exaggerate. + +I am not one of those who set out to "crab" their countrymen. We have +lately had so much criticism and contempt poured upon us by more +intelligent people like the Irish, the Germans, and an ex-President of +the United States that sometimes I have been driven to wonder whether we +may not somewhere possess some element worthy of respect. But, keeping +the lash in our own discriminating hands, we should all perhaps confess +that in regard to other people's feelings and ideas we are rather +insensitive as a nation. This form of unimaginative obtuseness +undoubtedly increased during the extension of our grip upon subject +races between the overthrow of Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill and the +end of the Boer War. Perhaps those fifteen years were the most entirely +vulgar period of our history, and vulgarity springs from an insensitive +condition of mind. It will be a terrible recompense if the price of our +world-wide Empire is an Imperial vulgarity upon which the sun never +sets. + +There is another danger, not so subtle and pervading, but more likely to +escape the notice of people who are not themselves acquainted with the +frontiers of Empire. It is the production and encouragement of a set of +scoundrels and wasters who trade upon our country's prestige to rob, +harry, and even enslave the members of a subject race while they pose as +pioneers of Empire and are held up by sentimental travellers, like Mr. +Roosevelt, as examples of toughness and courage to the victims of +monotonous toil who live at home at ease. There is no call either for +Mr. Roosevelt's pity or admiration. I have known those wasters well, and +have studied all their tricks for turning a dirty half-crown. They enjoy +more pleasure and greater ease in a day than any London shop assistant +or bank clerk in a month. They take up the white man's burden and find +it light, because it is the black man who carries it. Of all the +impostors that nestle under our flag, I have found none more contented +with their lot or more harmful to our national repute than the "toughs" +who devour our subject races and stand in photographic attitudes for Mr. +Kipling to slobber over. These scoundrels and wasters are a far worse +evil than most people think, for they erect a false ideal which easily +corrupts youth with its attraction, and they furnish ready instruments +for land-grabbers and company directors, as is too often seen in their +onslaughts upon Zulus, Basutos, and other half-savage peoples whom they +desire to exterminate or enslave. They are a singularly poisonous +by-product of Empire, all the more poisonous for their brag; and though +they belong to the class whom their relations gladly contribute to +emigrate, they are far worse employed in debauching and plundering our +so-called fellow-subjects in Africa than they would be in the +public-houses, gambling-dens, pigeon-shooting enclosures, workhouses, +and jails of their native land. Of course, it is very useful to have +dumping-grounds for our wasters, and it is pleasant to reflect upon the +seven thousand miles of sea between one's self and one's worthless +nephew, but a dumping-ground for nepotism can scarcely be considered the +noblest aim of conquest. + +Why is it, then, that one nation desires to subjugate another at all? +Sometimes the object has simply been space--the pressure of population +upon the extent of ground. Pastoral and nomad hordes, like the +"Barbarians" and Tartars, have had that object, but, as a rule, it has +ended in their own absorption. The motives of the Roman Empire were +strangely mixed. Plunder certainly came in; trade came in; in later +times the slave-trade and the supply of corn to Rome were great +incentives. The personal advantage and ambition of prominent statesmen +like Sulla or Caesar were among the aims of many conquests. The +extension of religion had little to do with it, for the Romans had the +decency to keep their gods to themselves and never slaughtered in the +name of Jove. But they were compelled to Empire by a peculiar conviction +of destiny. They did not destroy or subdue other peoples so much for +glory as from a sense of duty. It was their Heaven-sent mission to +rule. Their poet advised other nations to occupy themselves with wisdom, +learning, statuary, the arts, or what other trivialities they pleased; +it was the Roman's task to hold the world in sway. To the Roman the +object of Empire was Empire. It seemed to him the natural thing to +conquer every other nation, making the world one Rome. That was, in +fact, his true religion, and we can but congratulate him on the unshaken +faith of his self-esteem. The Turk, on the other hand, who was the next +Imperial race, boasted no city and no self-conscious superiority of laws +or race. He subdued the nations only in the name of God, and to all who +accepted God he nobly extended the vision of Paradise and a complete +equality of earthly squalor. The motives of mediaeval and more recent +conquests were the strangest of all. They were usually dynastic. They +depended on the family claim of some family man to a title implying +actual possession of another country and all its population. There was +always one claimant contending against another claimant, this heir +against that heir, as though the destinies of nationality could be +settled by a strip of parchment or a love-affair with a princess. People +grew so accustomed to this folly that even now we hardly realise its +absurdity. Yet I suppose if the King of Spain left his kingdom by will +to his well-beloved cousin George of England, not an English wherry +would stir to take possession, and our newspapers would merely remark +that there was always a strain of insanity in the Spanish branch of the +Bourbons. Two hundred years ago such a will would have produced a +prolonged and devastating war. Something is gained. We have eliminated +royal dynasties from the motives of conquest. + +In the extension and maintenance of our own Empire all previous motives +have been combined. We have pleaded want of space; we have sought slaves +either for export or for local labour; we have sought plunder and also +trade or "markets"; we have sought dumping-grounds for our wasters, and +careers for our public school-boys; like the Turks and Spaniards, we +have sought to promote the knowledge of God by the slaughter and +enslavement of His creatures; like the Romans, we have thought it our +manifest duty to paint the world red and rule it. But within the last +sixty or seventy years we have added the further motive most aptly +expressed by the late King Leopold of Belgium in the document by which +he obtained his rights over the Congo: I mean "the moral and material +amelioration" of the subject peoples. That was a motive unknown to the +ancients, though the Romans came near it when they granted equal +citizenship to all provincials--a measure far in advance of any +concession of ours. And it was unknown to the Middle Ages, though Turks +and Spaniards came near it when they destroyed the infidels for their +good and opened heaven to converted slaves and corpses. To subjugate a +nationality for its own moral and material advantage is something almost +new in history. It sounds the true modern note. That is not a pleasant +note, but it is a sign of change, an evidence of hope. In the Boer War +our real objects were to paint the country red on the maps and to +exploit the gold-mines. But some people said we were fighting for equal +rights; some said it was to insure good treatment for the natives; some +thought we were Christianising the Boers; one man told me "the Boers +wanted washing." Those excuses may have been false and hypocritical, +but, at all events, they were tributes to virtue. They were a +recognition that the old motives of Empire no longer sufficed. They +exposed the hypocrites themselves to the retort of serious and innocent +people: "Very well, then. If these were your motives, give equal rights, +protect the natives, Christianise the Boers, wash them if you can." It +is a retort against which hypocrisy cannot long stand out. It proves +that a new standard of judgment is slowly forming in the world. But for +this new standard, where would be the Congo agitation, or the movement +against the Portuguese cocoa slavery, or such sympathy as exists with +the Nationalists of India, Egypt, and Persia? When the doctrines of +equal rights or even of moral and material amelioration are assumed, +honesty will at last raise her protest and hypocrites be no longer +allowed to reap the harvest of a quiet lie. + +It is an advance. As history counts time it is a rapid advance. Now that +Russia is reducing Finland to a state of entire subjection without even +a pretext of right or the shadow of a pretence at improved civilisation, +a general feeling of shame and loss pervades Europe. The governments do +not move, but here and there the peoples raise a protest. Not even the +most thorough-going champions of Imperialism, such as the _Times_, have +ventured to defend the action. They have contented themselves with +Cain's excuse that the murder was no affair of ours. A century and a +half ago they would not have needed an excuse. No protest would have +been raised, for it did not matter what nationality was enslaved. There +is an advance, and we have now to extend it. In regard to races already +subject, we have but to act up to the pleadings of our own hypocrisy; we +have to maintain among them equal justice, equal rights and equal +consideration as members of one great community, instead of depriving +them of their manhood and kicking them out of their own railway +carriages. We have to train them on the way to self-government, instead +of clapping them into prison if they mention the subject. + +And in regard to nationalities that still retain their freedom, we must +bring our governments up into line with the leading thought of the day. +We must show them that the destruction of a free people like Finland or +Persia is not a local or distant disaster only, but affects the whole +community of nations and spreads like a poison, blighting the growth of +freedom in every land and encouraging all the black forces of tyranny, +darkness, and suppression. Rapidly growing among us, there is already a +certain solidarity between free States, and the problem of the immediate +future is how to make their common action effective on the side of +liberty. When I saw Tolstoy during the Russian revolution of 1905 he +said to me: + + "The present movement in Russia is not a riot; it is not even + a revolution; it is the end of an age. The age that is ending + is the age of Empires--the collection of smaller States under + one large State. There is no true community of heart or thought + between Russia, Finland, Poland, the Caucasus and all our + other States and races. And what has Hungary, Bohemia, + Syria, or the Tyrol to do with Austria? No more than Canada, + Australia, India, or Ireland has to do with England. People + are now beginning to see the absurdity of these things, and in + the end people are reasonable. That is why the age of Empires + is passing away." + +It was a bold prophecy, but it contains the root of the whole matter. +Only where there is community of heart and thought is national or +personal life possible in any worthy sense. Unless that community exists +between the various nationalities within an Empire, we may be sure the +Empire is moribund. It is dying, as Napoleon said, of indigestion, and +that other community of the world which is slowly taking shape among +free and reasonable peoples will demand its dissolution. Our hope is +that the other community will further proceed to demand that these +disastrous experiments in the overthrow and subjection of free +nationalities shall no longer be tolerated by the combined forces of +liberty. + + + + +XXII + + +BLACK AND WHITE + +One night Mr. Clarkson, of the Education Office, was rather late in +leaving the Savile Club. He always makes a point of selecting the best +articles in the _Nineteenth Century_, the _Fortnightly_, and the +_Contemporary_ on the first Monday of every month, and, owing to a +suspension of political activity in the House of Commons, he had lately +spent more time than usual over the daily papers as well, since they +could now afford greater space for subjects of interest. He noticed with +some regret that it was half-past eleven as he came up Piccadilly and +admired, as he never failed to admire, that urbane aspect of nature's +charm presented by the Green Park. + +It was late, but the evening was cool and dry. He wished to follow up a +train of thought suggested by the question: "Should Aristotle be left +out?" but, to preserve his mind from exclusiveness, he now and then +considered it advantageous to plunge into what he called the full tide +of humanity at Charing Cross. So that night, instead of making his way +by the shortest route to his rooms in Westminster, he strolled, with a +pleasurable sense of sympathetic abandonment, through the usual crowds +that were hurrying home from theatres or supper-room. + +But he soon perceived that all the crowds were not usual. Some were not +hurrying; they were stationary. They were nearly all men, unrelieved by +that subdued feminine radiance which Mr. Clarkson so much valued in the +colour scheme of London. They were mainly silent. They appeared to be +waiting for something. + +"Is the King returning from the Opera?" he asked a policeman near King +Charles's statue. But the policeman regarded him with a silent pity so +profound that he suddenly remembered a King's recent death and the +mourning in which the country was still partially immersed. No, it could +not be royalty, and, feeling for the first time like a stranger in the +centre of existence, Mr. Clarkson hurriedly crossed the road. + +Between the top of Northumberland Avenue and Charing Cross Station he +observed another crowd of the same character, but in thicker numbers +still. Unwilling to eschew any emotion that thus stirred his fellow +citizens, he approached the outskirts and waited, in hopes of gathering +information without further inquiry. But the crowd was doggedly silent. +Nearly all were reading the evening papers, and the few snatches of +conversation that Mr. Clarkson caught appeared to be meaningless. At +last he ventured to accost a harmless-looking, pale-faced youth in a +straw hat, who was reading the latest _Star_, and asked him what he was +waiting for. + +The youth looked him up and down from head to foot, and then slowly +uttered the words: "I don't think!" + +"I'm so very sorry for that," said Mr. Clarkson, a little irritated, +but, as he turned hastily away he reflected with a smile that, after +all, one should be grateful to find imbecility so frankly acknowledged. + +Next time he was more diplomatic. Standing quietly for a while beside a +good-tempered-looking man, who was evidently an out-of-work cab-driver, +he yawned two or three times, and said at last: "How long shall we have +to wait, do you think?" + +"Depends on cable," said the cab-driver. "Got a bit on?" + +"Well, no; I haven't exactly got anything on," said Mr. Clarkson, +uneasily; "but may I ask what cable you mean?" + +"Don't be silly," said the cabman, and spat between his feet. + +"Cheer up, long-face!" said another man, who had been listening. "He +only means the cable from the States. Perhaps you've never heard of the +White Man's Hope?" + +Light at last broke upon Mr. Clarkson. "Of course," he said, "it's +Independence Day! I've seen the American flag flying from several +buildings. It has always appeared a most remarkable thing to me that we +English people should thus ungrudgingly accept the celebration of our +most disastrous national defeat. Such entire disappearance of racial +animosity is, indeed, full of future promise. I suppose, if you liked, +you might without exaggeration call it the White Man's Hope?" + +"Stow it," said the cabman. + +"No doubt the day is being marked in the United States by some special +event," Mr. Clarkson continued, "and you are waiting for the account?" + +No one answered. An American was reading aloud from a newspaper: "If the +Imperturbable Colossus gets knocked out, a general assault upon all +negroes throughout the States may be expected to ensue. The wail that +goes up from Reno will be re-echoed from every land where the black +problem sits like a nightmare on the chest. It is not too much to say +that a new chapter in the world's history will open before our +astonished eyes, so adequately is the gigantic struggle between the +black and white races prefigured in the persons of their chosen +champions." + +All listened with attention. + +"That's what I call thickened truth," said the American, looking +solemnly round. "If that coloured gentleman with a yellow streak worries +our battle-hardened veteran and undefeated hero of all time, the negro +will grow scarce." + +"They've been praying for Jeffries in all the American churches," said +one, in the solemn pause that followed this announcement. + +"So they have for Johnson in the negro churches," said another, "but he +counts most on his mother's prayers. She lives in Chicago." + +"It is peculiar in modern and Christianised countries," said Mr. +Clarkson, anxious to show that he now fully understood the point at +issue; "it is peculiar that the opposing parties in a war or other +contest implore with equal confidence the assistance of the same deity." + +"Millionaires is sleeping three in a bed at Reno. There's a thing!" said +the man who was most anxious to impart information. + +"The gate comes to £50,000, let alone the pictures," said another. "Each +of them's going to get £500 a minute for the time they fight." + +"Beats taxis," said the cabman. + +"It's hardly fair to criticise the amount," Mr. Clarkson expostulated +pleasantly; "the £500 represents prolonged training and practice in the +art. As Whistler said, the payment is not for a day's work, but for a +lifetime." + +"Who are you calling the Whistler?" asked the cabman; "Jim Corbett, or +John Sullivan?" + +"Jeffries ate five lamb chops to his breakfast this morning," said the +man of information, "and Johnson ate a chicken." + +"Wish I'd eat both," said the cabman. + +"What do you think of the upper-cut?" said the other, turning to Mr. +Clarkson to escape the cabman's frivolity. + +"Well, I suppose it's a matter of taste--upper-cut or under-cut," Mr. +Clarkson answered, smiling at his seriousness. "Most people, I think, +prefer under-cut." + +"Johnson's right upper-cut is described as the piston of an ocean +greyhound making twenty-seven knots," said the man, taking no notice of +the answer, and speaking in awestruck tones. "Do you know, one paper +describes Johnson as the best piece of fighting machinery the world has +ever seen!" + +"I thought that was the last _Dreadnought_?" said Mr. Clarkson. + +"Perhaps you don't study the literature of the Ring," the other +answered, with cold superiority. + +"Oh, indeed I do!" cried Mr. Clarkson eagerly. "It is rather remarkable +what a fascination the art of boxing has frequently exercised upon the +masters of literature. Even the Greeks, in spite of their artistic +reverence for the human body, practised boxing with extreme severity, +and on their statues, you know, we sometimes find a recognised +distortion which they called 'the boxer's ear.' It seems to show that +they hit round rather than straight from the shoulder. The ancient +boxing-gloves were intended, not to diminish, but to increase the +severity of the blow, being made of seven or eight strands of cow-hide, +heavily weighted with iron and lead. There is that fine description of a +prize-fight in Virgil, where the veteran--'the imperturbable colossus' +of his time, I suppose we may call him--almost knocks the life out of +the younger man, and sends him from the contest swinging his head to and +fro, and spitting out teeth mingled with blood--rather a horrible +picture!" + +"Ten to six on the boiler-maker," said the cabman; "I'll take ten to +six." + +"And then, of course," Mr. Clarkson continued, "in recent times there +are splendid accounts of the fights in _Lavengro_ and Meredith's +_Amazing Marriage_, and Browning once refers to the Tipton Slasher, and +we all know Conan Doyle." + +"No, we don't," said the cabman. + +"It seems rather hard to explain the attraction of prize-fighting," Mr. +Clarkson went on, meditatively; "perhaps it comes simply from the +dramatic element of battle. It is a war in brief, a concentrated +militancy. Or perhaps it is the more barbaric delight in vicarious pain +and endurance; and I think sometimes we ought to include the pleasure of +our race in fair play and the just and equal rigour of the game." + +What other reasons Mr. Clarkson might have found were lost in the +yelling of newsboys tearing down the Strand. Too excited to speak, the +crowd engulfed them. The papers were torn from their hands. Short cries, +short sentences followed. Here and there Mr. Clarkson caught an +intelligible word: "Revolvers taken at gate"; "Expected Johnson would be +shot if victorious"; "Opening spar almost academic in its calmness"; +"Old wound on Jeffries's right eye opened"; "Both cheeks gashed to the +bone"; "Jack handed out some wicked lefts"; "Terrible gruelling"; "Both +shutters out of working order"; "Defeat certain after eighth round"; +"Johnson hooked his left"; "The Circassian remained on his knees"; +"Counting went on"; "Fatal ten was reached." + +The crowd gasped. Then it shouted, it swore, it broke up swearing. + +"Negroes had best crawl underground to-night," said the American; "it +ain't good for negroes when their heads grow through their hair." + +"Another proof," sighed Mr. Clarkson, "another proof that, on +Roosevelt's principle, the United States are unfit for self-government." + +When he reached his rooms it was nearly one, but a door opened softly on +the top floor, and the landlady's little boy looked over the banisters +and asked: "Please, sir, did Jim win, sir?" + +"Let me see," said Mr. Clarkson, "which was Jim?" + + + + +XXIII + + +PEACE AND WAR IN THE BALANCE[7] + +When your Committee invited me to deliver the Moncure Conway address +this year, I was even more surprised at their choice of subject than at +their choice of person. For the chosen subject was Peace, and my chief +study, interest, and means of livelihood for some twenty years past has +been War. It seemed to me like inviting a butcher to lecture on +vegetarianism. So I wrote, with regret, to refuse. But your Committee +very generously repeated the invitation, giving me free permission to +take my own line upon the subject; and then I perceived that you did not +ask for the mere celebration of an established doctrine, but were still +prepared to join in pursuit, following the track of reason wherever it +might lead, as became the traditions of this classic building, which I +sometimes think of as reason's last lair. I perceived that what you +demanded was not panegyric, or immutable commonplace, but, above all +things, sincerity. And sincerity is a dog with nose to the ground, +uncertain of the trail, often losing the scent, often harking back, but +possessed by an honest determination to hunt down the truth, if by any +means it can be caught. + +It is one of my many regrets for wasted opportunity that I never heard +Moncure Conway; but, with a view to this address, I have lately read a +good deal of his writings. Especially I have read the _Autobiography_, +an attractive record and commentary on the intellectual history of +rapidly-changing years, most of which I remember. On the question of +peace Moncure Conway was uncompromising--very nearly uncompromising. +Many Americans feel taller when they think of Lexington and the shot +that echoed round the world. Moncure Conway only saw lynchers in the +champions of freedom who flung the tea-chests into the sea; and in the +War of Independence he saw nothing but St. George Washington spearing a +George the Third dragon.[8] He quotes with approval the saying of Quaker +Mifflin to Washington: "General, the worst peace is better than the best +war."[9] Many Americans regard the Civil War between North and South +with admiration as a stupendous contest either for freedom and unity, or +for self-government and good manners. Moncure Conway was strongly and +consistently opposed to it. The question of slavery did not affect his +opposition. He thought few men had wrought so much evil as John Brown of +Harper's Ferry, whose soul marched with the Northern Armies.[10] "I +hated violence more than slavery," he wrote, "and much as I disliked +President Buchanan, I thought him right in declining to coerce the +seceding States."[11] Just before the war began, he wrote in a famous +pamphlet: "War is always wrong; it is because the victories of Peace +require so much more courage than those of war that they are rarely +won."[12] "I see in the Union War," he wrote, "a great catastrophe." +"Alas! the promises of the sword are always broken--always." And in the +concluding pages of his _Autobiography_, as though uttering his final +message to the world, he wrote: + + "There can arise no important literature, nor art, nor real + freedom and happiness, among any people until they feel + their uniform a livery, and see in every battlefield an inglorious + arena of human degradation.... The only cause that can + uplift the genius of a people as the anti-slavery cause did in + America is the war against war." + +For the very last words of his _Autobiography_ he wrote: + + "And now, at the end of my work, I offer yet a new plan + for ending war--namely, that the friends of peace and justice + shall insist on a demand that every declaration of war shall be + regarded as a sentence of death by one people on another; and + shall be made only after a full and formal judicial inquiry and + trial, at which the accused people shall be fairly represented.... The + meanest prisoner cannot be executed without a trial. A + declaration of war is the most terrible of sentences: it sentences + a people to be slain and mutilated, their women to be widowed, + their children orphaned, their cities burned, their commerce + destroyed. The real motives of every declaration of war are + unavowed and unavowable. Let them be dragged into the + light! No war would ever occur after a fair judicial trial by a + tribunal in any country open to its citizens. + + "Implore peace, O my reader, from whom I now part. Implore + peace, not of deified thunderclouds, but of every man, + woman, or child thou shalt meet. Do not merely offer the + prayer, 'Give peace in our time,' but do thy part to answer it! + Then, at least, though the world be at strife, there shall be + peace in thee."[13] + +That sounds uncompromising. We cannot doubt that one of the main motives +of Conway's life was "War against War." He suffered for peace; he lost +friends and influence for peace; we may almost say he was exiled for +peace. Those are the marks of sincerity. He, if anyone, we might +suppose, was a "Peace-at-any-price man." But let us remember one passage +in an address delivered only a few months before his death. In that +address, on William Penn, given in April 1907 (he died in the following +November), speaking of Mr. Carnegie's proposal for a compulsory Court of +International Arbitration, he said: + +"In order to prevent swift attacks of one nation on another without +notice, or outrages on weak and helpless tribes, there shall be selected +from the armaments of the world a combination armament to act as the +international police.... Even if in the last resort there were needed +such united force of mankind to prevent any one nation from breaking the +peace in which the interests of all nations are involved, that would not +be an act of war, but civilisation's self-defence. Self-defence is not +war, although the phrase is often used to disguise aggression."[14] + +Speaking with all respect for a distinguished man's memory, I disagree +with every word of those sentences. An international police, directed by +the combined Powers, would almost certainly develop into a tremendous +engine of injustice and oppression. The Holy Alliance after Napoleon's +overthrow aimed at an international police, and we want no more Holy +Alliances. I would not trust a single government in the world to enter +into such a combination. I would rather trust Satan to combine with sin. +Think of the fate of Egypt from Arabi's time up to the present, or of +Turkey controlled by the Powers, or of Persia and Morocco to-day! But +the point to notice is that you cannot alter things by altering names. +The united force of civilisation brought to bear upon any nation, +however guilty, would be an act of war, however much you called it +international police. Civilisation's self-defence would be war. Every +form of self-defence by violence, whether it disguises aggression or +not, is war. For many generations every war has been excused as +self-defence of one kind or another. I can hardly imagine a modern war +that would not be excused by both sides as defensive. By making these +admissions--by maintaining that self-defence is not war--Moncure +Conway gives away the whole case of the "peace-at-any-price man," He +comes down from the ideal positions of the early Quakers, the modern +Tolstoyans, and the Salvation Army. They preach non-resistance to evil +consistently. Like all extremists who have no reservations, but will +trust to their principle though it slay them, they have gained a certain +glow, a fervour of life, which shrivels up our ordinary compromises and +political considerations. But by advocating civilisation's self-defence +in the form of a combined international armament, Moncure Conway +abandoned that vantage ground. He became sensible, arguable, uncertain, +submitting himself to the balances of reason and expediency like the +rest of us. + +A certain glow, a fervour of life--those are signs that always +distinguish extremists--men and women who are willing literally to die +for their cause. I did not find those signs at the Hague Peace +Conference, when I was sent there in 1907 as being a war correspondent. +Such an assembly ought to have marked an immense advance in human +history. It was the sort of thing that last-century poets dreamed of as +the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World. It surpassed Prince +Albert's vision of an eternity of International Exhibitions. One would +have expected such an occasion to be heralded by Schiller's _Ode to Joy_ +sounding through the triumph of the Choral Symphony. Long and dubious +has been the music's struggle with pain, but at last, in great +simplicity, the voices of the men give out the immortal theme, and the +whole universe joins in harmony with a thunder of exultation: + + "Seid umschlungen, Millionen, + Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt!" + +Surely at the Hague Conference, in the fulfilment of time, peace had +come on earth and goodwill among men. Here once more would sound the +song that the morning stars sang together, when all the sons of God +shouted for joy. + +As loaders in that celestial chorus, I found about 400 frock-coated, +top-hatted gentlemen from various parts of the world--elderly +diplomatists, ambassadors inured to the stifling atmosphere of courts, +Foreign Ministers who had served their time of intrigue, professors who +worshipped law, worthy officials primed with a stock of phrases about +"the noble sentiments of justice and humanity," but reared in the +deadening circle of uniforms, decorations, and insincere courtesy, +having no more knowledge of the people's desires than of the people's +bacon, and instructed to maintain the cause of peace chiefly by +safeguarding their country's military interests. An atmosphere of +suspicion and secrecy surrounded them, more dense than the fog of war. +For their president they elected an ambassador who had grown old in the +service of three Tsars, and now represented a tyrant who refused the +first principles of peace to his own people, and repressed the struggle +for freedom by methods of barbarism such as no general could use against +a belligerent in the stress of war without incurring the execration of +mankind. + +With commendable industry, those delegates at this Second Peace +Conference devoted themselves to careful preparations for the next war, +especially for the next naval war. They appeared to me like two farmers +making arrangements to abstain from burning each other's hay-ricks. +"Look here," says one, "this rick-burning's a dangerous and expensive +job. Let us give up wax vestas, and stick to safety matches." "Done!" +says the other. "Now mind! Only safety matches in future!" and they part +with mutual satisfaction, conscious of thrift and Christian forbearance. +Or, again, I thought the situation might be expressed in the form of a +fable, how the Fox of the Conference said to the Rabbit of Peace, "With +what sauce, Brer Rabbit, would you like to be eaten?" "Please, Mr. Fox, +I don't want to be eaten at all," said the Rabbit "Now," answered the +Fox, "you are gettin' away from the pint." + +Something, no doubt, has been gained. Even the jealous diplomatists and +cautious lawyers at The Hague have secured something. Mankind had +gradually learnt that certain forms of horror were too horrible for +average civilisation, and The Hague confirmed man's veto, in some +particulars. Laying mines at sea and the destruction of private property +at sea were not forbidden, nor were the rights of belligerents extended +to subject races or rebels. Men and women are still exposed to every +kind of torture and brutality, provided the brutalities are practised by +their own superior government. But it is something, certainly, to have +gained a permanent Court of Arbitration for the trial of disputed points +between nations. The points are at present minor, it is true. Questions +affecting honour, vital interests, and independence are expressly +excluded. But the habit of referring any question at all to arbitration +is a gain, if only we could trust the members of the Court. So long as +those members are appointed by the present governments of Europe, there +is danger of the Court becoming merely another engine in the hands of +despotism, as was proved by the conduct of the Savarkar case at The +Hague in February 1911. But the field of reference will grow +imperceptibly, and we have had President Taft protesting that he desires +an Arbitration Treaty with England from which even questions of honour, +vital interests, and independence shall not be excluded.[15] Out of the +eater cometh forth meat. Even a blood-stained Tsar's proposals for peace +have not been entirely without effect. But in the midst of the warring +diplomatists at The Hague one could discover none of that glow, that +fervour of devotion to peace, which distinguished the early Quakers and +is still felt among a few fine enthusiasts. The first duty imposed upon +every representative at The Hague was to get everyone to do as much as +possible for peace, except himself. It is not so that the world is +moved. + +Neither in the representatives nor in their governments can we find any +principle or passionate desire for peace. The emperors, kings, and men +of wealth, birth, and leisure who impudently claim the right of deciding +questions of peace and war in all nations, display no objection to war, +provided it looks profitable. Provided it looks profitable--what a vista +of devilry those words call up! What a theme for satire! But also, to +some extent, and in the present day, what ground for hope! + +They bring us suddenly face to face with a little book which will leave +its mark, not only on the mind, but, perhaps, on the actual and external +history of man. In my opinion, the next Nobel prize should be shared +equally between Mr. J.A. Hobson and Mr. Lane, the younger writer who +calls himself Norman Angell. Between them they have completely analysed +the motives, the pretexts, the hypocrisies, the deceptions, the +corruptions, and the fallacies of modern war.[16] When we say that the +men who impudently claim the control of foreign politics among the +nations display no objection to war, provided it looks profitable, we +enter at once the sphere of that "Great Illusion" which is the +distinguishing theme of Norman Angell's pamphlet. + +His main contention is that in modern times, owing to the +interdependence of nations, especially in trade, the readiness of +communication, the conduct of commerce and finance almost entirely by +the exchange of bills and cheques, the complicated banking relations, +and the solidarity of credit in all great capitals, so that if London +credit is shaken the finance of Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, and New +York feels the shock almost equally--for all these reasons modern war +cannot be profitable even to the victorious Power. + +To advocates of peace, here comes a gleam of hope at last--perhaps the +strongest gleam that has reached us yet. Upon the kings of the earth, +sitting, as Milton said, with awful eye; upon diplomatists, ambassadors, +Foreign Office officials, courtiers, clergy, and the governing class in +general, appeals to pity, mercy, humanity, religion, or reason have had +no effect whatever. If you think I speak too strongly, look around you. +Name within the last century any ruler or minister who has been guided +by humanity or religion in the question of peace or war. Name any ruler +who has abstained from war because force is no argument. With the +possible exception of Mr. Gladstone in the cases of the _Alabama_ and +Majuba Hill, I can think of none. Against that one possible exception +place all the wars of a century past, including three that were among +the most terrible in human history--the Napoleonic war, the +Franco-German, and the Russo-Japanese. And as to the sweet influences of +Christianity, remember the Russian Archbishops, how they blessed the +sacred Icons that were to lead the Russian peasants to the slaughter of +Japanese peasants. Remember our Archbishop of Canterbury in February +1911 deeply regretting that a previous engagement prevented him from +passing on the blessing of the Apostles to the battleship _Thunderer_. +Remember how he sent his wife as a substitute to occupy the Apostolic +position in the hope that the hand which rocks the cradle might prove +equally efficacious. + +Against the pugnacity and courage which urge our rulers to send other +people to die for them, the claims of humanity, reason, and religion +have no effect. The new hope is that self-interest may succeed where the +motives that act upon most decent people almost invariably fail. Norman +Angell's appeal goes straight to the pocket, and his choice of that +objective inspires hope. If rulers can no longer plead that by war they +are advancing the material interests of their State, if it is recognised +that even a victorious war involves as great disaster as defeat, or even +greater (and it is remarkable that, in one of his latest speeches, +Moltke maintained that, next to defeat, the greatest disaster which +could befall any State was victory)--if it can be shown that, in a war +between great nations, trade does not follow the flag, but moves rapidly +in the other direction, then one of the pretexts of our rulers will be +removed, one veil of hypocrisy will be stripped off. To that extent the +hope of peace will have grown brighter, and that extent is large. + +On the whole, it is the brightest hope that has lately risen--or the +brightest but one which we will speak of later on. I would only hint at +two considerations which may obscure it. Granted that in modern times +war-power or victory does not give prosperity; that the invader cannot +destroy or capture the enemy's trade; that his own finance is equally +disturbed; and that the most enormous indemnity can add nothing to the +victorious nation's actual wealth--granted all this, nevertheless, the +warlike, though vicarious, heroism of our rulers might not on this +account be restrained. In many, if not most, recent wars the object has +not been national aggrandisement, or even national commerce, but private +gain. We have but to think of the South African War, so cleverly +engineered in the gold-mining interest, or of the Russo-Japanese war, +where so many thousands died for the Russian aristocracy's timber +concessions on the Yalu. Or, as permanent incitements to warfare, we may +think of all the manufacturers of armaments, the enormous companies that +fatten on blood and iron, the contractors, purveyors, horse-breeders, +tailors, advertisers, army-coaches, landowners, and well-to-do families +whose wealth, livelihood, or position depends mainly upon the +continuance of warlike preparations, and whose personal interests are +enormously increased by actual war. When a nation is pouring out its +wealth at the rate of £2,000,000 or even £10,000,000 a week, as in the +future it may well do, much of it will run away to waste, but most of it +will stick to one finger or another; and the dirtier the finger the more +will stick. It seems silly, it seems almost incredible, that, only a few +generations ago, the peoples of Europe were engaged in killing each +other as fast as possible over a question of dynasty--whether this or +that poor forked radish of a mortal should be called King of Spain or +King of France. But in our own days men kill each other for dynasties of +cash--for wealthy firms and intermarried families. Nations fight that +private companies may show a higher percentage on dividends. It is +silly; it is almost incredible. But to shareholders and speculators +instigated by these motives Norman Angell's appeal is futile. Even a +victorious war may spell disaster to the nation; but even defeat spells +cash for them. + +Holland was in February 1911 compelled to buy twenty-four inferior big +guns from Krupp, without contract or competition, for the defence of her +Javanese possessions, which no one thinks of attacking. Do you suppose +that Krupp's Company regards war as disadvantageous, or circulates +Norman Angell's book for a new gospel? "What plunder!" cried Blücher, +looking over London from St. Paul's. Nowadays he would not wait to +plunder a foreign nation; he would invest in a Dreadnought company, and +plunder his own. Our naval expenditure in 1911-12 amounted to +£46,000,000; our army expenditure to nearly £28,000,000--a total of +£73,650,000 for what is called defence! Ten years ago we were in the +midst of a most expensive war. Nevertheless, in ten years the annual +expenditure upon armaments has increased by £14,000,000--far more than +enough to double our Old Age Pensions. Within thirty years the naval +estimates have more than quadrupled. Are we to suppose that no one grows +fat on the people's money? _Quidquid delirant reges_. The kings of the +earth stood up and violently raged together; their subjects died. But +now the kings of the earth are raging financiers with a shrewd eye to +business, and their subjects starve to pay them. We used to be told that +the man who paid the piper called the tune. Do the people call the tune +of peace or war? Not at all. The ruling classes both call the tune and +pocket the pay. + +There is one other point that may obscure the hope arising from Norman +Angell's book. His main contention concerns wars between great Powers, +nearly equally matched--Powers of high civilisation, with elaborate +systems of credit and complicated interdependence of trade. But most +recent wars have been attacks--defensive attacks, of course--upon small, +powerless, and semi-civilised nations by the great Powers. Under the +pretext of extending law and order, justice, peace, good government, +and the blessings of the Christian faith, a great Power attacks a small +and half-organised people with the object of taking up the White Man's +Burden, capturing markets, contracting for railways, and extending +territory. To wars of this kind, I think, Norman Angell's comforting +theory does not apply--the great illusion does not come in. A strong +Power may conquer Morocco, or Persia, or seize Bosnia, or enslave +Finland, or penetrate Tibet, or maintain its hold on India, or occupy +Egypt, or even destroy the Dutch Republics of South Africa, without +disorganising its own commerce or raising a panic on its own credit. +Most actual fighting has lately been of this character. It aims at the +suppression of freedom in small or unarmed nationalities, the absorption +of independent countries into great empires. It is the modern +counterpart of the slave-trade. It is supported by similar arguments, +and may be quite lucrative, as the slave-trade was. + +Actual warfare generally takes this form now, but behind it one may +always feel the latent or diplomatic warfare that consists in the +calculation of armaments. A great Power says: "How much of Persia, +Turkey, China, or Morocco do I dare to swallow? Germany, Russia, France, +Japan, England, or Spain (as the case may be) will not like it if I +swallow much. But what force could she bring against me, if it came to +extremities, and what force could I set against hers?" Then the Powers +set to counting up army corps and Dreadnoughts. In Dreadnoughts they +seldom get their addition-sums right, but they do their poor best, +strike a balance, and declare that a satisfactory agreement has been +come to. This latent war is expensive, but cheaper than real war--and it +is not bloody; it does not shock credit, though it weakens it; it does +not ruin commerce, though it hampers it. The drain upon the nations is +exhausting, but it does not kill men so horribly, and our rulers do not +feel it; for the people pay, and the concession-hunters, the +contractors, the company directors, and suchlike people with whom our +rulers chiefly associate, grow very fat. + +If, then, Norman Angell's hopeful theory applies only partially to these +common wars of Imperial aggrandisement and the perpetual diplomatic war +by comparison of armaments, to what may we look for hope? Lord Rosebery +would be the last person to whom one would look for hope in general. His +hope is too like despair for prudence to smother. Yet, in his speech at +the Press banquet during the Imperial Conference of 1909, when he spoke +of our modern civilisation "rattling into barbarism," he gave a hint of +the movement to which alone I am inclined to trust. "I can only +foresee," he exclaimed, "the working-classes of Europe uniting in a +great federation to cry: 'We will have no more of this madness and +foolery, which is grinding us to powder!'" The words may not have been +entirely sincere--something had to be said for the Liberal Press tables, +which cheered while the Imperialists sat glum; but there, I believe, +lies the ultimate and only possible chance of hope. We must +revolutionise our Governments; we must recognise the abject folly of +allowing these vital questions of peace, war, and armaments to be +decided according to the caprice or advantage of a single man, a clique +of courtiers, a gang of adventurers, or the Cabal of a Cabinet formed +from the very classes which have most to gain and least to lose, whether +from actual war or the competition in armaments. Over this Executive, +whether it is called Emperor, King, Court, or Cabinet, the people of the +nation has no control--or nothing like adequate control--in foreign +affairs and questions of war. In England in the year 1910 not a single +hour was allowed for Foreign Office debate in the Commons. In no country +of Europe have the men and women of the State a real voice in a matter +which touches every man and every woman so closely as war touches +them--even distant war, but far more the kind of war that devastates the +larder, sweeps out the drawing-room, encamps in the back garden, and at +any moment may reduce the family by half.[17] One remembers that picture +in Carlyle, how thirty souls from the British village of Dumdrudge are +brought face to face with thirty souls from a French Dumdrudge, after +infinite effort. The word "Fire!" is given, and they blow the souls out +of one another: + + "Had these men any quarrel?" asks the Sartor. "Busy as + the Devil is, not the smallest! They lived far enough apart--were + the entirest strangers; nay, in so wide a Universe there + was even, unconsciously, by Commerce, some mutual helpfulness + between them. How then? Simpleton! their Governors had + fallen out; and, instead of shooting one another, had the + cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot." + + +Slowly and dimly the Dumdrudges of the world--the peasants and +artisans, the working people, the people who have most right to +count--are beginning to recognise the absurdity of paying and dying for +wars of which they know nothing, and in the quarrels of kings and +ministers for whom they have neither reverence nor love. "What is the +British Empire to me," I heard a Whitechapel man say, "when I have to +open the window before I get room to put on my trousers?" A section of +the country was opposed to the Crimean War; a far larger section was +opposed to the Boer War. Both were ridiculed, persecuted, and +maltreated; but nearly everyone now admits that both were right. In the +next unjust or unreasonable war the peace party will be stronger still. +Something has thus been gained; but the greatest gain ever yet won for +the cause of peace was the refusal of the Catalonian reservists to serve +in the war against the Riff mountaineers of Morocco in July 1909. "Risk +our lives and the subsistence of our little families to secure dividends +for shareholders in mining concessions illegally inveigled from a +semi-savage chieftain? Never! We will raise hell rather, and die in +revolution upon our native streets." So Barcelona flared to heaven, and +for nearly a week the people held the vast city. I have seen many noble, +as well as many terrible, events, but none more noble or of finer +promise for mankind than the sudden uprising of the Catalan working +people against a dastardly and inglorious war, waged for the benefit of +a few speculators in Paris and Madrid. Ferrer had no direct part in that +rising; his only part lay in sowing the seed of freedom by his writings. +It was a pity he had no other part. He lost an opportunity such as comes +in few men's lives--and he was executed just the same.[18] + +The event was small and brief, but it was one of the most significant in +modern times. If the working classes refuse to fight, what will the +kings, ministers, speculators, and contractors do? Will they go out to +fight each other? Then, indeed, warfare would become a blessing +undisguised, and we could freely join the poet in calling carnage God's +daughter. When I was a child I drew up a scheme for a vast British army +recruited from our lunatic asylums. With lunatic soldiers, as I +explained to my mother, the heavier our losses, the greater would be our +gain. It seems to me still a promising idea. But an army recruited from +kings, lords, Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament, speculators, +contractors, and officials--the people who are the primary originators +of our wars--would have even greater advantages, and the losses in +battle would be balanced by still greater compensations. + +The Barcelona rising was, indeed, full of promise. It marked the gradual +approach of a time when the working-people, who always supply most of +the men to be killed in war, will refuse to fight for the ruling +classes, as they would now refuse to fight for dynasties. If they refuse +to fight in the ordinary Government wars, either war will cease, or it +will rise to the higher stage of war between class and class. It will +become either civil war--the most terrible and difficult, but the finest +kind of war, because some principle of the highest value must be at +stake before civil war can arise; or it will become a combined war of +the classes in various countries between whom there is a feeling of +sympathy and common interest. That would take the form of a civil war +extended throughout Europe, and perhaps America and the highly-developed +parts of Asia. The allied forces in the various countries would then +strike where the need was greatest, the French or English army corps of +working-men going to the assistance of Russian or German working-men +against the forces of despotism or capital. But a social war on that +scale, however desirable, is like the Spanish fleet in the _Critic_--it +is not yet in sight. The growing perfection of modern arms gives too +enormous an advantage to established forces. The movement is much more +likely to take the Barcelona form of refusal to fight; and if the +peoples of Europe could combine in that determination, the effect would +be irresistible. This international movement is, in fact, very slowly, +growing. The telegraph, the railway, cheap tickets, Cook's tours, the +power of reading, and even the peculiar language taught as French in our +schools, combine to wear away the hostility of peoples. The "beastly +foreigner" is almost extinct. The man who has been for a week in +Germany, or for a trip to lovely Lucerne, feels a reflected glory in +saying those foreigners are not so bad. There was a fine old song with a +refrain, "He's a good 'un when you know him, but you've got to know him +first." Well, we are getting to know the foreigner whom we once called +"beastly." + +Ultimately the best, the only hope for peace lies in the determination +of the peoples not to do anything so silly as to settle the quarrels of +their rulers by killing each other. But then come the deeper questions: +Do people love peace? Do they hate war? Would the total abolition of war +be a good thing for the world? After a lengthy period of peace there +usually arises a craving for battle. Nearly fifty years of peace +followed the defeat of the Persians in Greece, and at the end of that +time, just before the Peloponnesian War, which was to bring ruin on the +country, Thucydides tells us that all Greece, being ignorant of the +realities of war, stood a-tiptoe with excitement. It was the same in +England just before our disastrous South African War, when readers of +Kipling glutted themselves with imaginary slaughter, and Henley cried to +our country that her whelps wanted blooding. In England this martial +spirit was more violent than in Greece, because, when war actually came, +the Greeks were themselves exposed to all its horrors and sufferings, +but in England the bloodthirsty mind could enjoy the conflict in a +suburban train with a half-penny paper. As in bull-fights or +gladiatorial shows, the spectators watched the expensive but +entertaining scene of blood and death from a safe and comfortable +distance. They gave the cash and let the credit go; they thoroughly +appreciated the rumble of a distant drum. "Blood! blood!" they cried. +"Give us more blood to make our own blood circulate more agreeably under +our unbroken skins!" Christianity joined in the cry through the mouths +of its best accredited representatives. As at the Crucifixion it is +written, "On that day Herod and Pilate were friends," so on the outbreak +of a singularly unjust, avaricious, and cruel war, the Christian +Churches of England displayed for the first and last time some signs of +unity. Canterbury and Armagh kissed each other, and the City Temple +applauded the embraces of unrighteousness and war. Dean Farrar of +Canterbury, concluding his glorification of the hell which I then saw +enacted in South Africa, quoted with heartfelt approval the Archbishop +of Armagh's poem:-- + + "And, as I note how nobly natures form + Under the war's red rain, I deem it true + That He who made the earthquake and the storm + Perhaps makes battles too. + + Thus as the heaven's many-coloured flames + At sunset are but dust in rich disguise, + The ascending earthquake-dust of battle frames + God's picture in the skies."[19] + +We are no longer compelled to regard the dogmas of Christianity or the +opinions of eminent Christians as authoritative. The appeal to +Christianity, which used to be regarded as decisive in favour of peace, +is no longer decisive one way or other. Christ's own teaching is +submitted to critical examination like any other teacher's, and I should +be the last to decry the representatives of the Prince of Peace for +acclaiming the virtues of war, if they think their Master was mistaken. +When bishops and deans and leading Nonconformists thirst for war's red +rain, we must take account of their craving as part of man's nature. We +must remember also that war has popular elements sometimes overlooked in +its general horror. It is believed that in the American Civil War nearly +a million men lost their lives; but against this loss we must set the +peculiar longevity with which the survivors have been endowed, and the +increasing number of heroes who enjoyed the State's reward for their +services of fifty years before. Even during the South African War +certain compensations were found. A charitable lady went on a visit of +condolence to a poor woman whose husband's name had just appeared in the +list of the killed at Spion Kop. "Ah, Mum," exclaimed the widow with +feeling, "you don't know how many happy homes this war has made!" + +Before we absolutely condemn war we must take account of these +religious, medicinal, and domestic considerations. On the side of peace +I think it is of little avail to plead the horrors and unreason of war. +We all know how horrible and silly it is for two countries to pretend to +settle a dispute by ordering large numbers of innocent men to kill each +other. If horrors would stop it, anyone who has known war could a tale +unfold surpassing all that the ghost of Hamlet's father had seen in +hell. There are sights on a battlefield under shell-fire, and in a +country devastated by troops, so horrible that even war correspondents +have silently agreed to leave them undescribed. But the truth is that +people who are not present in war enjoy the horror. That is what they +like reading about in their back-gardens, clubs, and city offices. The +more you talk of the horrors of war the more warlike they become, and I +have met no one quite so bloodthirsty as the warrior of peace. Nor is it +any good pleading for reason when about ninety-nine per cent. of every +man's motives are not reasonable, but spring from passion, taste, or +interest. The appeal even to expense falls flat in a country like ours, +where about 200,000 horses, valued at £12,000,000, and maintained at a +charge of £8,000,000 a year, are kept entirely for the pursuit of foxes, +which are preserved alive at great cost in order that they may be +pursued to death.[20] Protests against the horrors, the unreason, and +even the expense of war have hitherto had very small effect. + +The real argument in favour of war welcomes horror, defies reason, and +disregards expense. There are certain military qualities and aspects of +life, it says, that are worth preserving at the cost of all the horror, +unreason, and waste of war. The stern military character, brave but +tender, is a type of human nature for which we cannot pay too much. +Consider physical courage alone, how valuable it is, and how rare. With +what speed the citizen runs at the first glimpse of danger! With what +pleasure or shamefaced cowardice citizens look on while women are being +violently and indecently assaulted when attempting to vindicate their +political rights! How gladly everyone shouts with the largest crowd! +Consider how many noble actions men leave undone through fear of being +hurt or killed. "Dogs! would you live for ever?" cried Frederick the +Great to his soldiers, in defeat; and most of us would certainly answer: +"Yes, we would, if you please!" Only through war, or the training for +war, says the argument, can this loathly cowardice be kept in check. +Only by war can the spirit be maintained that redeems the world from +sinking into a Pigs' Paradise. Only in the expectation or reality of war +can life be kept sweet, strong, and at its height. War is life in +extremes; it is worth preserving even for its discipline and training. + + "Manhood training [said Mr. Garvin, editor of the _Observer_, + in the issue of January 22, 1911]--manhood training has become + the basis of public life, not only in every great European + State, but in young democratic countries, like Australia and + South Africa. 'One vote, one rifle,' says ex-President Steyn.... As + a means of developing the physical efficiency of whole + nations, of increasing their patriotic cohesion, of implanting in + individuals the sense of political reality and responsibility, no + substitute for manhood training has yet been discovered." + +This kind of argument implies despair of perpetual, or even of +long-continued, peace. It is true that those who advocate a national +training of all our manhood for war generally urge upon us that it is +the best security for peace. In the same way, peaceful Anarchists might +plead that they maintained several enormous bomb-factories in order to +impress upon rulers the advantages of freedom. But if peace were the +real and only object of Conscription, and if Conscription precluded the +probability of war, military training, after some years, would almost +certainly decline, and its supposed advantages would be lost. When you +breed game-cocks, they will fight; but if you forbid cock-fighting, the +breed will decline. You cannot have training for war without the +expectation of war. For many years I was a strong advocate of national +service, even though I knew it would never be adopted in this country +until we had seen the realities of war in our very midst, and had sat in +morning trains to the City stopped by the enemy's batteries outside +Liverpool Street and London Bridge. I also foresaw the extreme +difficulty of enforcing military training upon Quakers, the Salvation +Army, the Peace Society, and many Nonconformists and Rationalists. +Nevertheless, twenty-five years ago I advocated Conscription in a +carefully-reasoned article that appeared in Mr. Stead's _Pall Mall +Gazette_. It was received with a howl of rage and derision by both +parties in the State, and by all newspapers that noticed it at all. It +is significant--perhaps terribly significant--that it would not be +received with derision now, but that nearly the whole of one party and +the great majority of newspapers would welcome it only too gladly. + +It seemed to me at that time--and it seems to me still--one of the most +horrible things in modern British life that we bribe the unemployed, +that we compel them by fear of starvation, to do our killing and dying +for us. I have passed more men into the army, probably, than any +recruiting sergeant, and I have never known a man who wished to recruit +unless he was unemployed. The Recruiting Report issued by the War Office +for 1911 shows ninety per cent. of the recruits "out of work." I should +have put the percentage still higher. But when you next see a full +company of a hundred soldiers, and reflect that ninety of them have been +persuaded to kill and die for you simply through fear of starvation +under our country's social system--I say, whether you seek peace or +admire war, the thought is horrible; it is hardly to be endured. + +To wipe out this hideous shame, to put ourselves all in one boat, and, +if war is licensed murder, at all events to share the murder that we +license, and not to starve the poor into criminals for our own relief, +perhaps Conscription would not be too high a price to pay. Other +advantages are more obvious--the physical advantage of two years' +regular food and healthy air and exercise for rich and poor alike, the +social advantage of the mixture of all classes in the ranks, the moral +advantage of giving the effeminate sons of luxury a stern and bitter +time. For all this we would willingly pay a very heavy price. I would +pay almost any price. + +But should we pay the price of compulsion? That is the only price that +makes me hesitate. I used to cherish a frail belief in discipline and +obedience to authority and the State. My belief in discipline is still +alive--discipline in the sense of entire mutual confidence between +comrades fighting for the same cause; but I have come to regard +obedience to external authority as one of the most dangerous virtues. I +doubt if any possible advantage could balance an increase of that +danger; and every form of military life is almost certain to increase +it. To me the chief peril of our time is the growing power of the State, +its growing interference in personal opinion and personal life, the +intrusion of an inhuman being called an expert or official into the most +intimate, inexplicable, and changing affairs of our lives and souls, and +the arrogant social legislation of a secret and self-appointed Cabal or +Cabinet, which refuses even to consult the wishes of that half of the +population which social restrictions touch most nearly. If general +military service would tend to increase respect and obedience to +external authority of this kind, it might be too big a price to pay for +all its other advantages. And I do think it would tend to increase that +abhorrent virtue of indiscriminate obedience. Put a man in uniform, and +ten to one he will shoot his mother, if you order him. Yet the shame of +our present enlistment by hunger is so overwhelming that I confess I +still hesitate between the two systems, if we must assume that the +continuance of war is inevitable, or to be desired. + +Is it inevitable? Is it to be desired? If it were dying out in the +world, should we make efforts to preserve war artificially, as we +preserve sport, which would die out unless we maintained it at great +expense? The sportsman is an amateur butcher--a butcher for love. Ought +we to maintain soldiers for love--for fear of losing the advantages of +war? Those advantages are thought considerable. War has inspired much +art and much literature. It is the background or foreground in nearly +all history; it sheds a gleam of uniforms and romance upon a drab world; +it delivers us from the horrors of peace--the softness, the monotony, +the sensual corruption, the enfeebling relaxation. No one desires a +population slack of nerve, soft of body, cruel through fear of pain, and +incapable of endurance or high endeavour. + + "It is a calumny on men," said Carlyle, "to say they are + roused to heroic action by ease, hope of pleasure, recompense + in this world or the next. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, + death, are the allurements that act on the heart of man."[21] + +At times war appears as a kind of Last Judgment, sentencing folly and +sensuality to hell. The shame of France was consumed by the fire of +1870, and her true genius was restored. Abominable as the Boer War was, +the mind of England was less pestilential after it than before. Passion +purifies, and surely there can be no passion stronger than one which +drives you to kill or die. + +The trouble is that, in modern wars, passion does not drive _you_, but +you drive someone else, who probably feels no passion at all. It is +thought a reproach against an unwarlike soldier that "he has never seen +a shot fired in anger." But in these days he might have been through +many battles without seeing a shot fired in anger. Except in the +Balkans, few fire in anger now. What passion can an unemployed workman +feel when he is firing at an invisible unemployed workman or semi-savage +in the interest of a mining concession? Nor is it true that war in these +days encourages eugenics by promoting the survival of the fittest. On +the contrary, the fittest, the bravest, and the biggest are the most +likely to be killed. The smallest, the cowards, the men who get behind +stones and stick there, will probably survive. And as to the dangers of +effeminate peace, it is only the very small circle of the rich, the +overfed, the over-educated, and the over-sensitive who are exposed to +them. There is no present fear of the working classes becoming too soft. +The molten iron, the flaming mine, the whirling machine, the engulfing +sea, and hunger always at the door take care of that. Every working man +lives in perpetual danger. Compared to him, and compared to any woman in +childbirth, a soldier is secure, even under fire. The daily peril, the +daily toil, the fear for the daily bread harden most working men and +women enough, and for that very reason we should welcome the fine +suggestion of Professor William James--his last great service--that the +rich and highly educated should pass through a conscription of labour +side by side with the working classes, who would heartily enjoy the +sight of young dukes, capitalists, barristers, and curates toiling in +the stokeholes, coal-mines, factories, and fishing-fleets, to the +incalculable advantage of their souls and bodies. + +So the balance swings this way and that, and neither scale will +definitely settle down. It is very likely that the bias of temperament +makes us incapable of decision. What is called the personal equation +holds the two scales of our minds painfully equal, and while we meditate +perpetual peace we suddenly hear the trumpet blowing. In many of us a +primitive instinct survives which blinds and warps the reason, and calls +us like a bugle to the silly and atrocious field. For the immediate +future, I can only hope, as I confidently believe, that the present age +of capitalist war will pass, as the age of dynastic war has passed, for +ever into the inferno where slavery and religious persecution now lie +burning, though they seemed so natural and strong. I think it will not +much longer be possible to fool the working classes into wars for +concessions or the extension of empires. I believe that already the +peoples of the greatest countries are awakening to the folly of +entrusting their foreign politics, involving questions of peace and war, +to the guidance of rulers, Ministers, and diplomatists who serve the +interests of their own class, and have no knowledge or care for the +desires or interests of the vast populations beneath them. I look +forward to the time when the extreme arbitrament of war will be resorted +to mainly in the form of civil or class contentions, involving one or +other of the noblest and most profound principles of human existence. Or +if war is to be international, we may hope that the finest peoples of +the world will resolve only to declare it in defence of the threatened +independence of some small but gallant race, or for the assistance of +rebel peoples in revolt for freedom against an intolerable tyranny. + +I suppose a man's truest happiness lies in the keenest energy, the +conquest of difficulties, the highest fulfilment of his own nature; and +I think it possible that, under the conditions of our existence as men, +the finest happiness--the happiness of ecstasy--can only exist against a +very dark background, or in quick succession after extreme toil and +danger. It can only blaze like lightning against the thunder-cloud, or +like the sun's radiance after storm. For most of us other perils or +disasters or calls for energy supply that terrific background to joy; +but it is none the less significant that most people who have shared in +perilous and violent contests would, in retrospect, choose to omit any +part of active and happy lives rather than the wars and revolutions in +which they have been present, no matter how terrible the misery, the +sickness, the hunger and thirst, the fear and danger, the loss of +friends, the overwhelming horror, and even the defeat. + +We must not take as argument a personal note that may sound only from a +primitive and unregenerate mind. But when I look back upon the long +travail of our race, it appears to me still impossible to adopt the +peace position of non-resistance. As a matter of bare fact, in reviewing +history would not all of us most desire to have chased the enslaving +Persian host into the sea at Marathon, to have driven the Austrians back +from the Swiss mountains, to have charged with Joan of Arc at Orleans, +to have gone with Garibaldi and his Thousand to the wild redemption of +Sicily's freedom, to have severed the invader's sinews with De Wet, to +have shaken an ancient tyranny with the Russian revolutionists, or to +have cleaned up the Sultan's shambles with the Young Turks? Probably +there is no man or woman who would not choose scenes and actions like +those, if the choice were offered. To very few do such opportunities +come; but we must hold ourselves in daily readiness. We do well to extol +peace, to confront the dangers, labour, and temptations of peace, and +to hope for the general happiness of man in her continuance. But from +time to time there come awful moments to which Heaven has joined great +issues, when the fire kindles, the savage indignation tears the heart, +and the soul, arising against some incarnate symbol of iniquity, +exclaims, "By God, you shall not do that. I will kill you rather. I will +rather die!" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 7: An address delivered at South Place Institute in London on +Moncure Conway's birthday, March 17, 1911.] + +[Footnote 8: Address on William Penn at Dickinson College, April 1907 +(_Addresses and Reprints_, p. 415).] + +[Footnote 9: _Ibid_., p. 411.] + +[Footnote 10: _Autobiography_, vol. i. p. 239.] + +[Footnote 11: _Ibid_., vol. i. p. 320.] + +[Footnote 12: _Autobiography_, vol. i. p. 341 (from "The Rejected +Stone").] + +[Footnote 13: _Autobiography_, vol. ii. pp. 453, 454.] + +[Footnote 14: _Addresses and Reprints_, p. 432.] + +[Footnote 15: Speech before the American International Arbitration +Society, January 1911.] + +[Footnote 16: See Mr. Hobson's _Imperialism_ and _The Psychology of +Jingoism_; Norman Angell's _The Great Illusion_.] + +[Footnote 17: "It is especially in the domain of war that we, the +bearers of men's bodies, who supply its most valuable munition, who, not +amid the clamour and ardour of battle, but singly and alone, with a +three-in-the-morning courage, shed our blood and face death that the +battlefield may have its food--a food more precious to us than our +heart's blood; it is we especially who, in the domain of war, have our +word to say--a word no man can say for us. It is our intention to enter +into the domain of war, and to labour there till, in the course of +generations, we have extinguished it"--Olive Schreiner's _Woman and +Labour_, p. 178.] + +[Footnote 18: Of course, other causes combined for the Barcelona +outbreak--hatred of the religious orders, chiefly economic, and the +Catalonian hatred of Castile; but the refusal of reservists to embark +for Melilla was the occasion and the main cause.] + +[Footnote 19: Quoted in J.A. Hobson's _Psychology of Jingoism_, p. 52.] + +[Footnote 20: Figures from an article by Mr. Leonard Willoughby in the +_Pall Mall Magazine_ for November 1910.] + +[Footnote 21: _The Hero as Prophet_, p. 65.] + + + + +XXIV + + +THE MAID + +From the early morning of Sunday, August 18, 1909, till evening came, +the Square of St. Peter's in Rome and the interior of the great basilica +itself were thronged from end to end with worshippers and pilgrims. The +scene was brilliant with innumerable lamps, with the robes of many +cardinals and the vestments of bishops, archbishops, and all the ranks +of priesthood. The ceremony of adding one more to the calendar of the +Blessed was performed, a solemn "Te Deum" was sung in praise of God's +eternal greatness, and Pontifical Mass was celebrated, with all the +splendour of ancient ritual and music of the grandest harmony. In the +afternoon Christ's Vicar himself entered from his palace, attended by +fifteen cardinals, seventy of the archbishops and bishops of France, +with an equal number of their rank from elsewhere, and, amid the +gleaming lights of scarlet and gold, of green and violet, of jewels and +holy flames, he prostrated himself before the figure of the Blessed One, +to whom effectual prayer might now be offered even by the Head of the +Church militant here on earth. Till late at night the vast cathedral was +crowded with increasing multitudes assembled for the honour of one whom +the Church which judges securely as the world, commanded them to revere. + +It was a simple peasant girl--"just the simplest peasant you could ever +see"--whom the Head of the Church thus worshipped and crowds delighted +to honour. Short and deep-chested she was, capable of a man's endurance, +and with black hair cut like a boy's. She could not write or read, was +so ignorant as to astonish ladies, and had only the peasant arts. The +earliest description tells of her "common red frock carefully patched." +"I could beat any woman in Rouen at spinning and stitching," she said to +her judges, who, to be sure, had no special knowledge of anything beyond +theology. "I'm only a poor girl, and can't ride or fight," she said when +first she conceived her mission, and she had just the common instincts +of the working woman. We may suppose her fond of children, for wherever +she went she held the newborn babies at the font. She hated death and +cruelty. "The sight of French blood," she said, "always makes my hair +stand on end," and even to the enemy she always offered peace. "Or, if +you want to fight," she sent a message to the Duke of Burgundy, "you +might go and fight the Saracens." She never killed anyone, she said at +her trial. Just an ordinary peasant girl she seemed--"la plus simple +bergerette qu'on veit onques"--with no apparent distinction but a sweet +and attractive voice. To be sure, she could put that sweet voice to +shrewd use when she pleased. "What tongue do your Visions speak?" a +theologian kept asking her. "A better tongue than yours!" she answered +with the retort of an open-air meeting. But in those days there were +theologians who would try the patience of a saint, and Joan of Arc is +not a saint even yet, having been only Beatified on that Sunday, nearly +five centuries after her death. + +And she was only nineteen when they burnt her. At least, she thought +she was about nineteen, but was not quite sure. Few years had passed +since she was a child dancing under the big trees which fairies haunted +still. Her days of glory had lasted only a few months, and now she had +lain week after week in prison, weighed down with chains and balls of +iron, watched day and night by men in the cell, because she always +claimed a prisoner's right to escape if she could. Her trial before the +Bishop of Beauvais and all the learning and theology of Paris University +lasted nearly three months. Sometimes forty men were present, sometimes +over sixty, for it was a remarkable case, and gave fine opportunity for +the display of the superhuman knowledge and wisdom upon which divines +exist. Human compassion they displayed also, hurrying away just before +the burning began one May morning, and shedding tears of pity over the +sins of one so young. Indeed, their preachings and exhortations to her +whilst the stake and fire were being arranged continued so long that the +rude English soldiers, so often deaf to the beauty of theology, asked +whether they were going to be kept waiting there past dinner-time. + +However, the verdict of divine and human law could never be really +doubtful from the first, for the charges on which she was found guilty +comprehended many grievous sins. The inscription placed over her head as +she stood while the flames were being kindled declared this Joan, who +called herself the Maid, to be a liar, a plague, a deceiver of the +people, a sorceress, superstitious, a blasphemer of God, presumptuous, a +misbeliever in the faith of Christ, a boaster, idolatress, cruel, +dissolute, a witch of devils, apostate, schismatic, and heretic. It was +a heavy crime-sheet for a mere girl, and there was no knowing into what +a monster she might grow up. So the Bishop of Beauvais could not well +hesitate in pronouncing the final sentence whereby, to avoid further +infection to its members, this rotten limb, Joan, was cast out from the +unity of the Church, torn from its body, and delivered to the secular +power, with a request for moderation in the execution of the sentence. +Accordingly she was burnt alive, and the Voices and Visions to which she +had trusted did not save her from the agony of flames. + +At first sight the contrast between these two scenes, enacted by the +authority of the same Church, may appear a little bewildering. It might +tempt us to criticise the consistency of ecclesiastic judgment, did we +not know that in theology, as in metaphysics, extreme contradictions are +capable of ultimate reconciliation. The Church's attitude was, in fact, +definitely fixed in January 1909 by the Papal proclamation declaring +that the girl's virtues were heroic and her miracles authentic. One can +only regret that the discovery was not made sooner, in time to save her +from the fire, when her clerical judges came to the very opposite +conclusion. Yet we must not hastily condemn them for an error which, +even apart from theological guidance, most of us laymen would probably +have committed. + +Let us for a moment imagine Joan herself appearing in the England of +to-day on much the same mission. It is not difficult to picture the +contempt, the derision, the ribaldry, with which she would be greeted. +In nearly every point her reception would be the same as it was, except +that fewer people would believe in her inspiration. We have only to read +her trial, or even the account given in _Henry VI_, to know what we +should say of her now. There would be the same reproaches of +unwomanliness, the same reminders that a woman's sphere is the home, the +same plea that she should leave serious affairs to men, who, indeed, had +carried them on so well that the whole country was tormented with +perpetual panic of an enemy over sea. There would be the same taunts of +immodesty, the same filthy songs. Since science has presumed to take the +place of theology, we should talk about hysteria instead of witchcraft, +and hallucination instead of demoniacal possession. Physiologists would +expound her enthusiasm as functional disorder of the thyroid gland. +Historians would draw parallels between her recurring Voices and the +"tarantism" of the Middle Ages. Superior people would smile with polite +curiosity. The vulgar would yell in crowds and throw filth in her face. +The scenes of the fifteenth century in France would be exactly repeated, +except that we should not actually burn her in Trafalgar Square. If she +escaped the madhouse, the gaol and forcible feeding would be always +ready. + +So that we must not be hard on that theological conclave which made the +mistake of burning a Blessed One alive. They were inspired by the +highest motives, political and divine, and they made the fullest use of +their knowledge of spiritual things. Being under divine direction, they +could not allow any weak sentiment of pity or human consideration to +influence their judgment. Their only error was in their failure to +discern the authenticity of the girl's miracles, and we must call that a +venial error, since it has taken the Church nearly five centuries to +give a final decision on the point. The authenticity of miracles! Of all +questions that is the most difficult for a contemporary to decide. In +the case of Joan's judges, indeed, the solution of this mystery must +have been almost impossible, unless they were gifted with prophecy; for +most of her miracles were performed only after her death, or at least +only then became known. And as to the bare facts they knew of her +life--the realities that everyone might have seen or heard, and many +thousands had shared in--there was nothing miraculous about them, +nothing to detain the attention of theologians. They were natural +events. + +For a hundred years the country had been rent and devastated by foreign +war. The enemy still clutched its very centre. The south-west quarter of +the kingdom was his beyond question. By treaty his young king was heir +to the whole. The land was depopulated by plague and impoverished by +vain revolution. Continuous civil strife tore the people asunder, and +the most powerful of the factions fought for the invader's claim. Armies +ate up the years like locusts, and there was no refuge for the poor, no +preservation of wealth for men or honour for women. Even religion was +distracted by schism, divided against herself into two, perhaps into +three, conflicting churches. In the midst of the misery and tumult this +girl appears, possessed by one thought only--the pity for her country. +Modest beyond all common decency; most sensitive to pain, for it always +made her cry; conscious, as she said, that in battle she ran as much +risk of being killed as anyone else, she rode among men as one of +themselves, bareheaded, swinging her axe, charging with her standard +which all must follow, heartening her countrymen for the cause of +France, striking the invading enemy with the terrors of a spirit. Just a +clear-witted, womanly girl, except that her cause had driven fear from +her heart, and occupied all her soul, to the exclusion of lesser things. +"Pity she isn't an Englishwoman!" said one of the enemy who was near her +after a battle, and he meant it for the most delicate praise. In a few +months she changed the face of her country, revived the hope, inspired +the courage, rekindled the belief, re-established the unity, staggered +the invader with a blow in the heart, and crowned her king as the symbol +of national glory. Within a few months she had set France upon the +assured road to future greatness. Little over twenty years after they +burnt her there was hardly a trace of foreign foot upon French soil. + +It was all quite natural, of course. The theologians who condemned her +to death, and those who have now raised her to Beatitude, were concerned +with the authenticity of her miracles, and there is nothing miraculous +in thus raising a nation from the dead. Considering the difficulty of +their task, we may forgive the clergy some apparent inconsistency in +their treatment. But for myself, as a mere layman, I should be content +to call any human being Blessed for the natural magic of such a history; +and compared with that deed of hers, I would not turn my head to witness +the most astonishing miracle ever performed in all the records of the +saints. + + + + +XXV + + +THE HEROINE + +It is strange to think that up to August of 1910, a woman was alive who +had won the highest fame many years before most people now living were +born. To remember her is like turning the pages of an illustrated +newspaper half-a-century old. Again we see the men with long and pointed +whiskers, the women with ballooning skirts, bag nets for the hair, and +little bonnets or porkpie hats, a feather raking fore and aft. Those +were the years when Gladstone was still a subordinate statesman, earning +credit for finance, Dickens was writing _Hard Times_, Carlyle was +beginning his _Frederick_, Ruskin was at work on _Modern Painters_, +Browning composing his _Men and Women_, Thackeray publishing _The +Newcomes_, George Eliot wondering whether she was capable of +imagination. It all seems very long ago since that October night when +that woman sailed for Boulogne with her thirty-eight chosen nurses on +the way to Scutari. I suppose that never in the world's history has the +change in thought and manners been so rapid and far-reaching as in the +two generations that have arisen in our country since that night. And it +is certain that Florence Nightingale, when she embarked without fuss in +the packet, was quite unconscious how much she was contributing to so +vast a transformation. + +One memory almost alone still keeps a familiar air, suggesting +something that lies perhaps permanently at the basis of man's nature. +The present-day detractors of all things new, of every step in advance, +every breach in routine, every promise of emancipation, and every +departure from the commonplace, would feel themselves quite at home +among the evil tongues that spewed their venom upon a courageous and +noble-hearted woman. They would recognise as akin to themselves the +calumny, scandal, ridicule, and malignity with which their natural +predecessors pursued her from the moment that she took up her heroic +task to the time when her glory stilled their filthy breath. She went +under Government direction; the Queen mentioned her with interest in a +letter; even the _Times_ supported her, for in those days the _Times_ +frequently stood as champion for some noble cause, and its own +correspondent, William Russell, had himself first made the suggestion +that led to her departure. But neither the Queen, the Government, nor +the _Times_ could silence the born backbiters of greatness. Cowards, +startled at the sight of courage, were alert with jealousy. +Pleasure-seekers, stung in the midst of comfort, sniffed with +depreciation. Culture, in pursuit of prettiness, passed by with artistic +indifference. The narrow mind attributed motives and designs. The snake +of disguised concupiscence sounded its rattle. That refined and +respectable women should go on such an errand--how could propriety +endure it? No lady could thus expose herself without the loss of +feminine bloom. If decent women took to this kind of service, where +would the charm of womanhood be fled? "They are impelled by vanity, and +seek the notoriety of scandal," said the envious. "None of them will +stand the mere labour of it for a month, if we know anything," said the +physiologists. "They will run at the first rat," said masculine wit. +"Let them stay at home and nurse babies," cried the suburbs. "These +Nightingales will in due time become ringdoves," sneered _Punch_. + +With all that sort of thing we are familiar, and every age has known it. +The shifts to which the _Times_ was driven in defence show the nature of +the assaults: + + "Young," it wrote of Florence Nightingale, "young (about + the age of our Queen), graceful, feminine, rich, popular, she holds + a singularly gentle and persuasive influence over all with whom + she comes in contact. Her friends and acquaintance are of all + classes and persuasions, but her happiest place is at home, in + the centre of a very large band of accomplished relatives, and + in simplest obedience to her admiring parents." + +"About the age of our Queen," "rich," "feminine," "happiest at home," +"with accomplished relatives," and "simply obedient to her parents," she +being then thirty-five--those were the points that the _Times_ knew +would weigh most in answer to her accusers. With all that sort of thing, +as I said, we are familiar still; but there was one additional line of +abuse that has at last become obsolete. For weeks after her arrival at +Scutari, the papers rang with controversy over her religious beliefs. +She had taken Romish Sisters with her; she had been partly trained in a +convent. She was a Papist in disguise, they cried; her purpose was to +clutch the dying soldier's spirit and send it to a non-existent +Purgatory, instead of to the Hell it probably deserved. She was the +incarnation of the Scarlet Woman; she was worse, she was a Puseyite, a +traitor in the camp of England's decent Church. "No," cried the others, +"she is worse even than a Puseyite. She is a Unitarian; it is doubtful +whether her father's belief in the Athanasian Creed is intelligent and +sincere." Finally, the climax in her iniquities of mind and conduct +reached its height and she was publicly denounced as a Supralapsarian. I +doubt whether, at the present day, the coward's horror at the sight of +courage, the politician's alarm at the sound of principle, or envy's +utmost malignity would go so far as to call a woman that. + +I dwell on the opposition and abuse that beset Florence Nightingale's +undertaking, because they are pleasanter and more instructive than the +sentimentality into which her detractors converted their abuse when her +achievement was publicly glorified. It is significant that, in its +minute account of the Crimean War, the _Annual Register_ of the time +appears to have made no mention of her till the war was over and she had +received a jewel from the Queen. Then it uttered its little complaint +that "the gentler sex seems altogether excluded from public reward." +Well, it is matter for small regret that a great woman should not be +offered such titles as are bestowed upon the failures in Cabinets, the +contributors to party funds, and the party traitors whom it is hoped to +restrain from treachery. But whether a peerage would have honoured her +or not, there is no question of the disservice done to the truth of her +character by those whose sentimental titles of "Lady with the Lamp," +"Leader of the Angel Band," "Queen of the Gracious Dynasty," +"Ministering angel, thou!" and all the rest of it have created an ideal +as false as it is mawkish. Did the sentimentalists, at first so +horrified at her action, really suppose that the service which in the +end they were compelled to admire could ever have been accomplished by a +soft and maudlin being such as their imagination created, all brimming +eyes and heartfelt sighs, angelic draperies and white-winged shadows +that hairy soldiers turned to kiss? + +To those who have read her books and the letters written to her by one +of the sanest and least ecstatic men of her day, or have conversed with +people who knew her well, it is evident that Florence Nightingale was at +no point like that. Her temptations led to love of mastery and +impatience with fools. Like all great organisers, quick and practical in +determination, she found extreme difficulty in suffering fools gladly. +To relieve her irritation at their folly, she used to write her private +opinions of their value on the blotting-paper while they chattered. It +was not for angelic sympathy or enthusiasm that Sidney Herbert chose her +in his famous invitation, but for "administrative capacity and +experience." Those were the real secrets of her great accomplishment, +and one remembers her own scorn of "the commonly received idea that it +requires nothing but a disappointment in love, or incapacity for other +things, to turn a woman into a good nurse." It was a practical and +organising power for getting things done that distinguished the +remarkable women of the last century, and perhaps of all ages, far more +than the soft and sugary qualities which sentimentality has delighted to +plaster on its ideal of womanhood, while it talks its pretty nonsense +about chivalry and the weakness of woman being her strength. As +instances, one could recall Elizabeth Fry, Sister Dora, Josephine +Butler, Mary Kingsley, Octavia Hill, Dr. Garrett Anderson, Mrs. F.G. +Hogg (whose labour secured the Employment of Children Act and the +Children's Courts), and a crowd more in education, medicine, natural +science, and political life. But, indeed, we need only point to Queen +Victoria herself, her strong but narrow nature torn by the false ideal +which made her protest that no good woman was fit to reign, while all +the time she was reigning with a persistent industry, a mastery of +detail, and a truthfulness of dealing rare among any rulers, and at +intervals illuminated by sudden glory. + +"Woman is the practical sex," said George Meredith, almost with +over-emphasis, and certainly the saying was true of Florence +Nightingale. In far the best appreciation of her that has appeared--an +appreciation written by Harriet Martineau, who herself died about forty +years ago--that distinguished woman says: "She effected two great +things--a mighty reform in the cure of the sick, and an opening for her +sex into the region of serious business." The reform of hospital life +and sick nursing, whether military or civil, is near fulfilment now, and +it is hard to imagine such a scene as those Scutari wards where, in +William Russell's words, the sick were tended by the sick and the dying +by the dying, while rats fed upon the corpses and the filth could not be +described. But though her other and much greater service is, owing to +its very magnitude, still far from fulfilment, it is perhaps even harder +for us to imagine the network of custom, prejudice, and sentiment +through which she forced the opening of which Harriet Martineau speaks. + + + + +XXVI + + +THE PENALTY OF VIRTUE + +His crime was that he actually married the girl. It had always been the +fashion for an Austrian Archduke to keep an opera-dancer, whether he +liked it or not, just as he always kept a racehorse, even though he +cared nothing about racing. For any scion of the Imperial House she was +a necessary part of the surroundings, an item in the entourage of Court. +He maintained her just as our Royal Family pay subscriptions to +charities, or lay the foundation-stone of a church. It was expected of +him. _Noblesse oblige_. Descent from the House of Hapsburg involves its +duties as well as its rights. The opera-dancer was as essential to +Archducal existence as the seventy-seventh quartering on the Hapsburg +arms. She was the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual +Imperialness. She justified the title of "Transparency." She was the +mark of true heredity, like the Hapsburg lip. As the advertisements say, +no Archduke should be without one. + +But really to love an opera-dancer was a scandal for derision, moving +all the Courts of the Empire to scorn. Actually to marry her was a crime +beyond forgiveness. It shook the Throne. It came very near the sin of +treason, for which the penalties prescribed may hardly be whispered in +polite ears. To mingle the Imperial blood with a creature born without +a title, and to demand human and divine sanction for the deed! It +brought a blush to the cheek of heraldry. What of the possible results +of a union with a being from the stage? Only if illegitimate, could such +results legitimately be recognised; only if ignoble in the eyes of +morality, could they be received without censure among the nobility. It +was not fair to put all one's Imperial relations, to say nothing of the +Court officials, the Lord High Chamberlain, the Keepers of the Pedigree, +the Diamond Sticks in Waiting, the Grooms of the Bedchamber, and the +Valets Extraordinary--it was not fair to put their poor brains into such +a quandary of contradiction and perplexity. And who shall tell the +divine wrath of that august figure, obscurely visible in the recesses of +ancestral homes, upon whose brow had descended the diadem of Roman +Emperors, the crown of Christ's Vicar in things terrestrial, and who, +when he was not actually wearing the symbol of Imperial supremacy, +enjoyed the absolute right to assume the regalia of eight kingdoms in +turn, including the sacred kingdom of Jerusalem, and possessed +forty-three other titles to pre-eminent nobility, not counting the +etceteras with which each separate string of titles was concluded? Who, +without profanity, shall tell his wrath? + +It was the Archduke Johann Salvator of Austria, head of the Tuscan +branch of the House of Hapsburg, who confronted in his own person that +Imperial wrath, and committed the inexpiable crime of marriage. It is +true that he was not entirely to blame. He did not succumb without a +struggle, and his efforts to resist the temptation to legality appear to +have been sincere. Indeed, as has so often happened since the days of +Eve, it was chiefly the woman's fault. He honestly endeavoured to make +her his mistress, in accordance with all Archducal precedent, but she +persistently, nay, obstinately, refused the honour of Imperial shame. +With a rigidity that in other circumstances might, perhaps, have been +commended, but, in relation to an Archduke, can only be described as +designing, she insisted upon marriage. She was but Fraulein Milli +Stubel, light-skirted dancer at the Court Opera-House, but, with +unexampled hardihood, she maintained her headlong course along the +criminal path of virtue. What could a man do when exposed to temptation +so severe? + +The Archduke was in love, and love is an incalculable force, driving all +of us at times irresistibly to deeds of civil and ecclesiastical +wedlock. He was a soldier, a good soldier, in itself an unusual and +suspicious characteristic in one of the Hapsburg blood. He was a +musician and a man of culture--qualities that, in a prince, must be +taken as dangerous indications of an unbalanced mind. He was an intimate +friend of the Crown Prince Rudolph, that bewildering personality, whose +own fate was so unhappy, so obscure. Skill in war, intelligence, +knowledge, friendship all marked him out as a man only too likely to +bring discredit on Archducal tradition. His peers in birth shook their +heads, and muttered the German synonym for "crank." Worse than all, he +was in love--in love with a woman of dangerous virtue. What could such a +man do against temptation? Struggle as he might, he could not long repel +the seductive advances of honourable action. He loved, he fell, he +married. + +In London, of all places, this crime against all the natural dictates of +Society was ultimately perpetrated. We do not know what church lent +itself to the deed, or what hotel gave shelter to the culprits' shame. +By hunting up the marriage register of Johann Orth (to such shifts may +an Archduke be reduced in the pursuit of virtue), one might, perhaps, +discover the name of the officiating clergyman, and we can confidently +assume he will not be found upon the bench of Bishops. But it is all +many years ago now, and directly after the marriage, as though in the +vain hope of concealing every trace of his offence, Johann Orth +purchased a little German ship, which he called by the symbolic name of +_Santa Margherita_--for St. Margaret suffered martyrdom for the sin of +rejecting a ruler's dishonourable proposals--and so they sailed for +South America. By what means the wedded fugitives purposed there to +support their guiltless passion, is uncertain. But we know that they +arrived, that the captain gave himself out as ill, and left the ship, +together with most of the crew, no doubt in apprehension of divine +vengeance, if they should seem any longer to participate in the breach +of royal etiquette. We further know that, in July 1890, the legal lovers +sailed from Buenos Ayres, with a fresh crew, the Archduke himself in +command, and were never heard of more. + +An Austrian cruiser was sent to search the coasts, in vain. No letters +came; no ship has ever hailed the vessel of their iniquity. The +insurance companies have long paid the claims upon the Archduke's +premiums for his life, and that fact alone is almost as desirable an +evidence as a death-certificate to his heir. But one Sunday in July +1910, the Imperial Court of Austria also issued an edict to appear +simultaneously in the chief official gazettes of the habitable globe, +declaring that, unless within six months further particulars were +supplied concerning one, namely, the Archduke Johann Salvator, of the +House of Austria and Tuscany, otherwise and hereinafter known as Johann +Orth, master mariner, and concerning his alleged decease, together with +that of one Milli Orth, _née_ Stubel, his reputed accomplice in +matrimony, the property, estates, effects, titles, jewels, family +vaults, and other goods of the aforesaid Johann Orth, should forthwith +and therewithal pass into the possession of the Archduke Joseph +Ferdinand, nephew and presumptive heir of the aforesaid Johann Orth, to +the estimated value of £150,000 sterling, in excess or defect thereof as +the case might be, it being thereafter presumed that the aforesaid +Johann Orth, together with the aforesaid Milli Orth, his reputed +accomplice in matrimony, did meet or encounter their death upon the high +seas by the act or other intervention of God. + +Oh, never believe it! There is an unsuspected island in untravelled +seas. Like the island of Tirnanog, which is the Irish land of eternal +youth, it lies below the sunset, brighter than the island-valley of +Avilion: + + "Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, + Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies + Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns + And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea." + +To that island have those star-like lovers fared, since they gave the +world and all its Imperial Courts the slip. There they have discovered +an innocent and lovely race, adorned only with shells and the flowers of +hibiscus; and, intermingled with that race, in accordance with +indigenous marriage ceremonies, the crew of the _Santa Margherita_ now +rear a dusky brood. In her last extant letter, addressed to the leader +of the _corps de ballet_ at the Ring Theatre in Vienna, Madame Milli +Orth herself hinted at a No-Man's Land, which they were seeking as the +home of their future happiness. They have found it now, having trodden +the golden path of rays. There palls not wealth, or state, or any rank, +nor ever Court snores loudly, but men and women meet each evening to +discuss the next day's occupation, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer +collects the unearned increment in the form of the shell called Venus' +ear. For a time, indeed, Johann Orth attempted to maintain a kind of +kingship, on the strength of his superior pedigree. But when a +democratic cabin-boy one day turned and told him to stow his Hapsburg +lip, the beautiful ex-opera-dancer burst out laughing, and Johann agreed +in future to be called Archduke only on Sundays. With their eldest son, +now a fine young man coming to maturity, the title is expected to +expire. + + + + +XXVII + + +"THE DAILY ROUND, THE COMMON TASK" + +Mr. Clarkson, of the Education Office, was enjoying his breakfast with +his accustomed equanimity and leisure. Having skimmed the Literary +Supplement of the _Times_, and recalled a phrase from a symphony on his +piano, he began opening his letters. But at the third he paused in +sudden perplexity, holding his coffee-cup half raised. After a while the +brightness of adventurous decision came into his eyes, and he set the +cup down, almost too violently, on the saucer. + +"I'll do it!" he cried, with the resolute air of an explorer +contemplating the Antarctic. "The world is too much with me. I will +recover my true personality in the wilderness. I will commune with my +own heart and be still!" + +He rang the bell hurriedly, lest his purpose should weaken. + +"Oh, Mrs. Wilson," he said carelessly, "I am going away for a few days." + +"Visiting at some gentleman's seat to shoot the gamebirds, I make no +doubt," answered the landlady. + +"Why, no; not precisely that," said Mr. Clarkson. "The fact is, Mr. +Davies, a literary friend of mine--quite the best authority on Jacobean +verse--offers me his house, just by way of a joke. The house will be +empty, and he says he only wants me to defend his notes on the _History +of the Masque_ from burglary. I shall take him at his word." + +"You alone in a house, sir? There's a thing!" exclaimed the landlady. + +"A thing to be thankful for," Mr. Clarkson replied. "George Sand always +longed to inhabit an empty house." + +"Mr. Sand's neither here nor there," answered the landlady firmly. "But +you're not fit, sir, begging your pardon. Unless a person comes in the +morning to do for you." + +"I shall prefer complete solitude," said Mr. Clarkson. "The calm of the +uninterrupted morning has for me the greatest attraction." + +"You'll excuse me mentioning such things," she continued, "but there's +the washing-up and bed-making." + +"Excellent athletic exercises!" cried Mr. Clarkson. "In Xenophon's +charming picture of married life we see the model husband instructing +the young wife to leave off painting and adorning herself, and to seek +the true beauty of health and strength by housework and turning beds." + +"There's many on us had ought to be beauties, then, without paint nor +yet powder," said the landlady, turning away with a little sigh. And +when Mr. Clarkson drove off that evening with his bag, she stood by the +railings and said to the lady next door: "There goes my gentleman, and +him no more fit to do for hisself than a babe unborn, and no more idea +of cooking than a crocodile!" + +The question of cooking did not occur to Mr. Clarkson till he had +entered the semi-detached suburban residence with his friend's latchkey, +groped about for the electric lights, and discovered there was nothing +to eat in the house, whereas he was accustomed to a biscuit or two and a +little whisky and soda before going to bed. + +"Never mind," he thought. "Enterprise implies sacrifice, and hunger will +be a new experience. I can buy something for breakfast in the morning." + +So he spent a placid hour in reading the titles of his friend's books, +and then retired to the bedroom prepared for him. + +He woke in the morning with a sense of profound tranquillity, and +thought with admiration of the Dean of his College, whose one rule of +life was never to allow anyone to call him. "This is worth a little +subsequent trouble, if, indeed, trouble is involved," he murmured to +himself, as he turned over and settled down to sleep again. But hardly +had he dozed off when he was startled by an aggressive double-knock at +the front door. He hoped it would not recur; but it did recur, and was +accompanied by prolonged ringing of an electric bell. Feeling that his +peace was broken, he put on his slippers and crept downstairs. + +"What do you want?" he said at the door. + +"Post," came a voice. Undoing the bolts, he put out a naked arm. "Even +if you are the post," he remarked, "you need not sound the Last +Trumpet!" + +"Davies," said the postman, crammed a bundle of proofs into the +expectant hand, and departed. + +Mr. Clarkson turned into the kitchen. It presented a rather dreary +aspect. The range and fire-irons looked as though they had been out all +night. The grate was piled with ashes, like a crater. + +"No wonder," said Mr. Clarkson, "that ashes are the popular comparison +for a heart of extinguished affections. Could anything be more +desolate, more hopeless, or, I may say, more disagreeable? To how many a +disappointed cook that simile must come home when first she gets down in +the morning!" + +He took the poker and began raking gently between the bars. But no +matter how tenderly he raked, his hands appeared to grow black of +themselves, and great clouds of dust floated about the room and covered +him. + +"This _must_ be the way to do it," he said, pausing in perplexity; "I +suppose a certain amount of dirt is inevitable when you are grappling +with reality. But my pyjamas will be in a filthy state." + +Taking them off, he hung them on the banisters, and, with a passing +thought of Lady Godiva, closed the kitchen door and advanced again +towards the grate, still grasping the poker in his hand. Then he set +himself to grapple with reality in earnest. The ashes crashed together, +dust rose in columns, iron rang on iron, as in war's smithy. But little +by little the victory was achieved, and lines of paper, wood, and coal +gave promise of brighter things. He wiped his sweating brow, tingeing it +with a still deeper black, and, catching sight of himself in a servant's +looking-glass over the mantelpiece, he said, "There is no doubt man was +intended by nature to be a coloured race." + +But while he was thinking what wisdom the Vestal Virgins showed in never +letting their fire go out, another crash came at the door, followed by +the war-whoop of a scalp-hunter. "I seem to recognise that noise," he +thought, "but I can't possibly open the door in this condition." + +Creeping down the passage, he said "Who's there?" through the +letter-box. + +"Milko!" came the repeated yell. + +"Would there be any objection to your depositing the milk upon the +doorstep?" asked Mr. Clarkson. + +"Righto!" came the answer, and steps retreated with a clang of pails. + +"Why do the common people love to add 'o' to their words?" Mr. Clarkson +reflected. "Is it that they unconsciously appreciate 'o' as the most +beautiful of vowel sounds? But I wonder whether I ought to have blacked +that range before I lighted the fire? The ironwork certainly looks +rather pre-Dreadnought! What I require most just now is a hot bath, and +I'd soon have one if I only knew which of these little slides to pull +out. But if I pulled out the wrong one, there might be an explosion, and +then what would become of the _History of the Masque?_" + +So he put on a kettle, and waited uneasily for it to sing as a kettle +should. "Now I'll shave," he said; "and when I am less like that too +conscientious Othello, I'll go out and buy something for breakfast." + +The bath was distinctly cool, but when he got out there was a +satisfaction in the water's hue, and, though chilled to the bone, he +carried his pyjamas upstairs with a feeling of something accomplished. +On entering his bedroom, he was confronted by his disordered pillow, and +a bed like a map of Switzerland in high relief. "Courage!" he cried, "I +will make it at once. The secret of labour-saving is organisation." + +So, with a certain asperity, he dragged off the clothes, and flung the +mattress over, while the bedstead rolled about under the unaccustomed +violence. "Rightly does the Scot talk about sorting a bed!" he thought, +as he wrenched the blankets asunder, and stood wondering whether the +black border should be tucked in at the sides or the feet. At last he +pulled the counterpane fairly smooth, but in an evil moment, looking +under the bed, he perceived large quantities of fluffy and coagulated +dust. + +"I know what that is," he said. "That's called flue, and it must be +removed. Swift advised the chambermaid, if she was in haste, to sweep +the dust into a corner of the room, but leave her brush upon it, that it +might not be seen, for that would disgrace her. Well, there is no one to +see me, so I must do it as I can." + +He crawled under the bed, and gathering the flue together in his two +hands, began throwing it out of the window. "Pity it isn't nesting +season for the birds," he said, as he watched it float away. But this +process was too slow; so taking his towel, he dusted the drawers, the +washing-stand, and the greater part of the floor, shaking the towel out +of the window, until, in his eagerness, he dropped it into the back +garden, and it lay extended upon the wash-house roof. + +Tranquillity had now vanished, and solitude was losing some of its +charm. It was quite time he started for the office, but he had not begun +to dress, and, except for the kettle, which he could hear boiling over +downstairs, there was not a gleam of breakfast. After washing again, he +put on his clothes hurriedly, and determined to postpone the remainder +of his physical exercise till his return in the evening. + +Running downstairs, he saw his dirty boots staring him in the face. "Is +there any peace in ever climbing up the climbing wave?" he quoted, with +a sinking heart. There was no help for it. The things had to be +cleaned, or people would wonder where he had been. Searching in a +cupboard full of oily rags, grimy leathers, and other filthy +instruments, he found the blacking and the brushes, and presently the +boots began to shine in patches here and there. Then he washed again, +and as he flung open the front door, he kicked the milk all down the +steps. It ran in a broad, white stream along the tiled pavement to the +gate. + +"There goes breakfast!" he thought, but the disaster reached further. +Hastily fetching a pail of water, he soused it over the steps, with the +result that all the whitening came off and mingled with the milk upon +the tiles. A second pail only heightened the deplorable aspect, and he +splashed large quantities of the water over his trousers and boots. He +felt it running through his socks. It was impossible to go to the office +like that, or to leave his friend's house in such a state. + +He took off his coat and began pushing the milky water to and fro with a +broom. Seeing the maid next door making great wet curves on her steps +with a sort of stone, he called to her to ask how she did it. + +"Same as other people, saucy," she retorted at once. + +"Is that a bath-brick you are manipulating?" Mr. Clarkson asked. + +"Bath-brick, indeed! What do you take me for?" she replied, and +continued swirling the stuff round and round. + +After a further search in the cupboard, Mr. Clarkson discovered a +similar piece of stone, and stooping down, began to swirl it about in +the same manner. The stuff was deposited in yellowish curves, which he +believed would turn white. But it showed the marks so obviously that, to +break up the outlines, he carefully dabbed the steps all over with the +flat of his hands. "The effect will be like an Academician's stippling," +he thought, but when he had swept the surface of the garden path into +the road, he scrutinised his handiwork with some satisfaction. + +Hardly had he cleaned his boots again, washed again, and changed his +socks, when there came another knocking at the door, polite and +important this time. He found a well-dressed man, with tall hat, +frock-coat, and umbrella, who inquired if he could speak to the +proprietor. + +"Mr. Davies is away," said Mr. Clarkson, fixing his eyes on the +stranger's boots. "I beg your pardon, but may I remind you that you are +standing on my steps? I'm afraid you will whiten the soles of your +boots, I mean." + +"Thank you, that's of no consequence," said the stranger, entering, and +leaving two great brown footprints on the step and several white ones on +the passage. "But I thought I might venture to submit to your +consideration a pound of our unsurpassable tea." + +"Tea?" cried Mr. Clarkson, with joyous eagerness. "I suppose you don't +happen to have milk, sugar, bread and butter, and an egg or two +concealed about your person, do you?" + +"I am not a conjuror," said the stranger, resuming his hat with some +_hauteur_. + +An hour later, Mr. Clarkson was enjoying at his Club a meal that he +endeavoured to regard as lunch, and on reaching the office in the +afternoon he apologised for having been unavoidably detained at home. + +"There's no place like home," replied his elderly colleague, with his +usual inanity. + +"Perhaps fortunately, there is not," said Mr. Clarkson, and attempting +to straighten his aching back and ease his suffering limbs, he added, "I +am coming to the conclusion that woman's place is the home." + + + + +XXVIII + + +THE CHARM OF COMMONPLACE + +George Eliot warned us somewhere not to expect Isaiah and Plato in every +country house, and the warning was characteristic of the time when one +really might have met Ruskin or Herbert Spencer. How uncalled for it +would be now! If Isaiah or Plato were to appear at any country house, +what a shock it would give the company, even if no one present had heard +of their names and death before! We do not know how prophets and +philosophers would behave in a country house, but, to judge from their +books, their conversation could not fail to embarrass. What would they +say when the daughter of the house inquired if her Toy-Pom was not +really rather a darling, or the host proclaimed to the world that he +never took potatoes with fish? What would the host and daughter say if +their guest began to prophesy or discuss the nature of justice? There is +something irreligious in the incongruity of the scene. + +The age of the wise, in those astonishing eighteen-seventies, was +succeeded by the age of the epigram, when someone was always expected to +say something witty, and it was passed on, like a sporting tip, through +widening circles. Such sayings as "I can resist everything but +temptation" were much sought after. Common sense became piquant if +reversed, and the good, plain man disappeared in laughter. When a +languid creature told him it was always too late to mend, and never too +young to learn, he was disconcerted. The bases of existence were shaken +by little earthquakes, and he did not know where to stand or what to +say. He felt it was nonsense, but as everyone laughed and applauded he +supposed they were all too clever for him--too clever by half, and he +went away sadder, but no wiser. "If Christ were again on earth," said +Carlyle, of an earlier generation, "Mr. Milnes (Lord Houghton) would ask +him to breakfast, and the clubs would all be talking of the good things +he had said." Frivolity only changes its form, but the epigrams of the +early 'nineties were not Christlike, and Mr. Milnes would have been as +much astray among them as the good, plain man. + +The epigrammatist still lingers, and sometimes dines; but his roses have +faded, and the weariness of his audience is no longer a pose. A tragic +ghost, he feels like one who treads alone some banquet-hall, not, +indeed, deserted, but filled with another company, and that is so much +drearier. The faces that used to smile on him are gone, the present +faces only stare and if he told them now that it may be better to have +loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but both are good, they +would conceal a shiver of boredom under politeness. It is recognised +that life with an epigrammatist has become unendurable. "Witty?" (if one +may quote again the Carlyle whom English people are forgetting) "O be +not witty: none of us is bound to be witty under penalties. A +fashionable wit? If you ask me which, he or a death's head, will be the +cheerier company for me, pray send _not_ him." + +Evidently there are some creatures too bright if not too good for human +nature's daily food. They are like the pudding that was all raisins, +because the cook had forgotten to put in the suet. Sensible people put +in the suet pretty thick, and they find it fortifying. Here in England, +for instance, it has been the standing sneer of upstart pertness that +ordinary men and women always set out upon their conversations with the +weather. Well, and why on earth should they not? In every part of the +world the weather is the most important subject. India may suffer from +unrest, but the Indian's first thought is whether she suffers from +drought. Russia may seethe with revolution, but ninety-nine per cent. of +Russians are thinking of the crops. France may be disturbed about +Germany, but Frenchmen know the sun promises such a vintage as never +was. War may threaten Russia, but the outbreak depends upon the harvest. +Certainly, in our barren wildernesses of city it does not much matter +whether it rains or shines, except to the top hats and long skirts of +the inhabitants. But mankind cannot live on smuts and sulphur, and our +discussions on the weather keep us in touch with the kindly fruits of +the earth; we show we are not weaned from Nature, but still remember the +cornfields and orchards by which we live. Every cloud and wind, every +ray of sunshine comes filled with unconscious memories, and secret +influences extend to our very souls with every change in weather. Like +fishes, we do not bite when the east wind blows; like ducks and eels, we +sicken or go mad in thunder. + +Why should we fuddle our conversation with paradoxes and intellectual +interests when nature presents us with this sempiternal theme? Ruskin +observed that Pusey never seemed to know what sort of a day it was. That +showed a mind too absent from terrestrial things, too much occupied +with immortality. Here in England the variety of the weather affords a +special incitement to discussion. It is like a fellow-creature or a +race-meeting; the sporting element is added, and you never know what a +single day may bring forth. Shallow wits may laugh at such talk, but +neither the publishers' lists nor the Cowes Regatta, neither the Veto +nor the Insurance Act can compare for a moment with the question whether +it will rain this week. Why, then, should we not talk about rain, and +leave plays and books and pictures and politics and scandal to narrow +and abnormal minds? To adapt a Baconian phrase, the weather is the one +subject that you cannot dull by jading it too far. + +Nor does it arouse the evil passions of imparting information or +contradicting opinions. When someone says, "It is a fine day," or "It's +good weather for ducks," he does not wish to convey a new fact. I have +known only one man who desired to contradict such statements, and, +looking up at the sky, would have liked to order the sun in or out +rather than agree; and he was a Territorial officer, so that command was +in his nature. But mention the Lords, or the Church, or the Suffrage, +and what a turmoil and tearing of hair! What sandstorms of information, +what semi-courteous contradiction! Whither has the sweet gregariousness +of human converse strayed? Black looks flash from the miracle of a +seeing eye; bad blood rushes to thinking foreheads; the bonds of hell +are loosed; pale gods sit trembling in their twilight. "O sons of Adam, +the sun still shines, and a spell of fair weather never did no harm, as +we heard tell on; but don't you think a drop of rain to-night would +favour the roots? You'll excuse a farmer's grumbling." + +People do not associate in order to receive epigrammatic shocks, nor to +be fed up with information and have their views put right. They +associate for society. They feel more secure, more open-hearted and +cheerful, when together. Sheep know in their hearts that numbers are no +protection against the dog, who is so much cleverer and more terrible +than they; but still they like to keep in the flock. It is always +comfortable to sit beside a man as foolish as oneself and hear him say +that East is East and West is West; or that men are men, and women are +women; or that the world is a small place after all, truth is stranger +than fiction, listeners never hear any good of themselves, and a true +friend is known in adversity. That gives the sense of perfect +comradeship. There is here no tiresome rivalry of wits, no plaguy +intellectual effort. One feels one's proper level at once, and needs no +longer go scrambling up the heights with banners of strange devices. At +such moments of pleasant and unadventurous intercourse, it will be found +very soothing to reply that cold hands show a warm heart, that only +town-dwellers really love the country, that night is darkest before the +dawn, that there are always faults on both sides, that an Englishman's +home is his castle, but travel expands the mind, and marriage is a +lottery. + +Such sentences, delivered alternately, will supply all the requisites of +intercourse. The philosopher rightly esteemed no knowledge of value +unless it was known already, and all these things have been known a very +long time. Sometimes, it is true, a conversation may become more +directly informative and yet remain amicable, as when the man on the +steamer acquaints you with the facts that lettuce contains opium, that +Lincoln's Inn Fields is the size of the Great Pyramid's base, that Mr. +Gladstone took sixty bites to the mouthful, that hot tea is a cooling +drink, that a Frenchwoman knows how to put on her clothes, that the +engineer on board is sure to be a Scotsman, that fish is good for the +brain because it contains phosphorus, that cheese will digest everything +but itself, that there are more acres in England than words in the +Bible, and that the cigars smoked in a year would go ten thousand and a +quarter times round the earth if placed end to end. These facts are also +familiar to everyone beforehand, and they present a solid basis for +gregarious conversation. They put the merest stranger at his ease. They +make one feel at home. + +Some of the trades and professions secure the same object by special +phrases. When you hear that the horses are fat as butter, the men keen +as mustard, and everything right as rain, you know you are back to the +army again. The kindly mention of the Great Lexicographer, the Wizard of +the North, the Sage of Chelsea, and London's Particular calls up the +vision of a street descending into the vale of St. Paul's. But such +phrases are fleeting. They hardly last four generations of mankind, and +already they wither to decay. "Every cloud has a silver lining," "It's a +poor heart that never rejoices," "There are as good fish in the sea as +ever were caught"--those are the observations that give stability and +permanence to the intercourse of man. They are not clever; they contain +no paradox; like the Ugly Duckling, they cannot emit sparks. But one's +heart leaps up at hearing them, as at the sight of a rainbow. For, like +the rainbow, they are an assurance that while the earth remaineth, +seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, +shall never cease. + + + + +XXIX + + +THE PRIEST OF NEMI + +Here it is cool under thick alders, close to the water's edge, where +frogs are doing their very best to sing. Hidden in some depth of the +sky, the Dog Star rages, and overhead the mid-day sun marches across his +blazing barrack-square. Far away the heathen violently rage; the world +is full of rumours of war, and the kings of the earth take counsel +together against liberty and peace. But here under thick alders it is +cool, and the deep water of the lake that lies brooding within the +silent crater of these Alban hills, stretches before us an unruffled +surface of green and indigo profoundly mingled. Wandering about among +overgrown and indistinguishable gardens under the woods, women and girls +are gathering strawberries and loading them up in great wicker baskets +for the market of Rome. The sound of sawing comes from a few old houses +by the lake-side, that once were mills turned by the nymph Egeria's +stream, where Ovid drank. Opposite, across the lake, on the top of the +old crater's edge, stands a brown village--the church tower, unoccupied +"palace," huddled walls and roofs piled up the steep, as Italian +villages are made. That is Genzano. On the precipitous crag high above +our heads stands a more ancient village, with fortress tower, unoccupied +castle, crumbling gates, and the walls and roofs of dwellings huddled +around them. That is Nemi, the village of the sacred wood. + +Except where the rock is too steep for growth, the slopes of the deep +hollow are covered with trees and bushes on every side. But the trees +are thickest where the slope falls most gently--so gently that from the +foot of the crater to the water's edge the ground for a few hundred +yards might almost be called a bit of plain. Under the trees there the +best strawberries grow, and there stood the temple of mysterious and +blood-stained rites. Prowling continually round and round one of the +trees, the ghastly priest was for centuries there to be seen: + + "The priest who slew the slayer, + And shall himself be slain." + +No one can tell in what prehistoric age the succession of murdering and +murdered priests first began that vigil for their lives. It continued +with recurrent slaughter through Rome's greatest years. About the time +when Virgil was still alive, or perhaps just after Christ himself was +born, the geographer Strabo appears actually to have seen that living +assassin and victim lurking in the wood; for he vividly describes him +"with sword always drawn, turning his eyes on every side, ready to +defend himself against an onslaught." Possibly the priest suspected +Strabo himself for his outlandish look and tongue, for only a runaway +slave might murder and succeed him. Possibly it was that self-same +priest whom Caligula, a few years after Christ's death, hired a stalwart +ruffian to finish off, because he was growing old and decrepit, having +defended himself from onslaughts too long. Upon the lake the Emperor +constructed two fine house-boats, devoted to the habits that +house-boats generally induce (you may still fish up bits of their +splendour from the bottom, if you have luck), and very likely it was +annoying to watch the old man still doddering round his tree with drawn +sword. One would like to ask whether the crazy tyrant was aware how well +he was fulfilling the ancient rite by ordaining the slaughter of +decrepitude. And one would like to ask also whether the stalwart ruffian +himself took up the line of consecrated and ghastly succession. Someone, +at all events, took it up; for in the bland age of the Antonines the +priest was still there, pacing with drawn sword, turning his eyes in +every direction, lest his successor should spring upon him unawares. + +In the opening chapter, which states the central problem, still slowly +being worked out in the great series of _The Golden Bough_, Dr. Frazer +has drawn the well-known picture of that haunted man. "The dreamy blue," +he writes: + + "The dreamy blue of Italian skies, the dappled shade of + summer woods, and the sparkle of waves in the sun, can have + accorded but ill with that stern and sinister figure. Rather + we picture to ourselves the scene as it may have been witnessed + by a belated wayfarer on one of those wild autumn nights + when the dead leaves are falling thick, and the winds seem to + sing the dirge of the dying year. It is a sombre picture, set to + melancholy music--the background of forest showing black and + jagged against a lowering and stormy sky, the sighing of the + wind in the branches, the rustle of the withered leaves under + foot, the lapping of the cold water on the shore, and, in the + foreground, pacing to and fro, now in twilight and now in + gloom, a dark figure with a glitter of steel at the shoulder + whenever the pale moon, riding clear of the cloud-rack, peers + down at him through the matted boughs." + +For the priest himself it can hardly have been a happy life. Thanks to +Dr. Frazer, we now partly know how much of man's religious hope and fear +that sinister figure represented. But he himself had no conception of +all this, nor can we suppose that even if he had possessed Dr. Frazer's +own wealth of knowledge, it would have cheered him much. When violent +death impends on every moment and lurks in every shade, it is small +consolation to reflect that you stand as a holy emblem, protector of a +symbolic tree, the mystic mate both of the tree itself and of the +goddess of fertility in man and beast and plant. There is no comfort in +the knowledge that the slave who waits to kill you, as you killed your +predecessor in the office, only obeys the widespread injunction of +primitive religion whereby the divine powers incarnate in the priest are +maintained active and wholesome with all the fervour and sprightliness +of youth. Such knowledge would not relax the perpetual strain of terror, +nor could the priest have displayed an intelligent and scientific +interest in all the queer mythologies forcibly dragged in and combined +to explain his presence there--Orestes fleeing like a runaway from the +blood-stained Euxine shore; or Hippolytus, faithful worshipper of the +unwedded goddess, rent by wild horses, and by Diana's prayer to the +medicine-god subsequently pieced together into life; or Virbius, +counterpart of Hippolytus; or perhaps even the two-faced Janus himself, +looking before and after. The finest conjectures of research, though +illustrated in the person of the priest himself, could have supplied him +with no antidote to those terrors of ambushed assassination. + +In his investigations among the "sword-dancers" of Northern England, Mr. +Cecil Sharp has discovered that at Earsdon, after the usual captain's +song, a strange interlude occurs, in which two of the dancers feign a +quarrel, and one is killed and carried out for burial amid the +lamentations of the "Bessy." A travelled doctor, however, arrives, and +calls to the dead man, "Jack! take a drop of my bottle, that'll go down +your thrittle-throttle." Whereupon up jumps Jack and shakes his sword, +and the dance proceeds amid the rejoicings of Bessy and the rest. So +priest slays priest, the British Diana laments her hero slain, the +British Aesculapius, in verse inferior to Euripides, tends him back to +life, and who in that Northumbrian dance could fail to recognise a rite +sprung from the same primitive worship as the myths of Nemi? But if one +had been able to stand beside that murderous and apprehensive priest, +and to foretell to him that in future centuries, long after his form of +religion had died away, far off in Britain, beside the wall of the +Empire's frontier, his tragedy would thus be burlesqued by Bessy, Jack, +and the doctor, one may doubt if he would have expressed any kind of +scientific interest, or have even smiled, as, sword in hand, he prowled +around his sacred tree, peering on every side. + +Why, then, did he do it? How came it that there was always a candidate +for that bloody deed and disquieting existence? It is true that the +competition for the post appears to have decreased with years. +Originally, the priest's murder seems to have been an annual affair, +regular as the "grotter" which we are called upon to remember every +August in London streets, or as the Guy Faux, whose fires will in future +ages be connected with autumnal myths or with the disappearance of +Adonis or Thammuz yearly wounded. The virtues of fertility's god had to +be renewed each spring; year by year the priest was slain; and only by +a subsequent concession to human weakness was he allowed to retain his +life till he could no longer defend it. The change seems to show that, +as time went on, the privileges of the office were regarded with less +eagerness, and it was more difficult to find one man a year anxious to +be killed. + +But with what motive, century after century, no matter at what interval +of years, did a volunteer always come forward to slay and to be slain? +Certainly, the priest had to be a runaway slave; but was Roman slavery +so hideous that a life of unending terror by day and night was to be +preferred--a life enslaved as a horse's chained to the grinding mill in +a brickyard, and without the horse's hours of stabled peace? Hunger will +drive to much, but even when the risky encounter with one's predecessor +had been successfully accomplished, what enjoyment could there be in +meals eaten in bitter haste, with one hand upon the sword? As to money, +what should all the wealth of the shrine profit a man compelled, in +Bishop Ken's language, to live each day as it were his last? Promise of +future and eternal bliss? The religion held out no sure and certain hope +of such a state. Joy in the divine service? It is not to vigorous +runaway slaves that we look for ecstatic rapture in performing heaven's +will. Upon the priest was bestowed the title of "King of the Wood." Can +it be that for that barren honour a human being dyed his hands with +murder and risked momentary assassination for the remainder of his +lifetime? Well, we have heard of the Man who would be King, and empty +titles still are sought by political services equally repellent. + +But, for ourselves, in that forlorn and hag-ridden figure we more +naturally see a symbol of the generations that slay the slayer and shall +themselves be slain. It is thus that each generation comes knocking at +the door--comes, rather, so suddenly and unannounced, clutching at the +Tree of Life, and with the glittering sword of youth beating down its +worn-out defenders. New blood, new thoughts and hopes each generation +brings to resuscitate the genius of fertility and growth. Often it longs +imperiously to summon a stalwart ruffian, who will finish off +decrepitude and make an end; but hardly has the younger generation +itself assumed the office and taken its stand as the Warder of the Tree, +when its life and hopes in turn are threatened, and among the +ambuscading woods it hears a footstep coming and sees the gleam of a +drawn sword. Let us not think too precisely on such events. But rather +let us climb the toilsome track up to the little town, where Cicero once +waited to meet the assassin Brutus after the murder of the world's +greatest man; and there, in the ancient inn still called "Diana's +Looking-glass" from the old name of the beautiful and mysterious lake +which lies in profoundly mingled green and indigo below it, let us +forget impending doom over a twopenny quart of wine and a plate of +little cuttlefish stewed in garlic, after which any priest might +confront his successor with equanimity. + + + + +XXX + + +THE UNDERWORLD OF TIME + +Sometimes, for a moment, the curtain of the past is rolled up, the seven +seals of its book are loosened, and we are allowed to know more of the +history than the round number of soldiers with which a general crossed a +river, or the succession that brought one crazy voluptuary to follow +another upon the Imperial throne. We do not refuse gratitude for what we +ordinarily receive. To the general it made all the difference whether he +had a thousand soldiers more or less, and to us it makes some. To the +Imperial maniac it was of consequence that his predecessor in the +government of civilised mankind was slain before him, and for us the +information counts for something, too; just as one meets travellers who +satisfy an artistic craving by enumerating the columns of a ruined +shrine, and seeing that they agree with the guidebook. But it is not +often that historians tell us what we really want to know, or that +artists will stoop to our questionings. We would willingly go wrong over +a thousand or two of those soldiers, if we might catch the language of +just one of them as he waded into the river; and how many a simpering +Venus would we grind into face-powder if we could follow for just one +day the thoughts of a single priest who once guarded her temple! But, +occupied with grandeur and beauty, the artists and historians move upon +their own elevated plane, and it is only by furtive glimpses that we +catch sight of the common and unclean underworld of life, always +lumbering along with much the same chaotic noise of hungry desires and +incessant labour, of animalism and spiritual aspiration. + +One such glimpse we are given in that book of _The Golden Ass_, now +issued by the Clarendon Press, in Mr. H.E. Butler's English version, but +hitherto best known through a chapter in Walter Pater's _Marius_, or by +William Adlington's sixteenth century rendering, included among _The +Tudor Translations_. It is a strange and incoherent picture that the +book presents. Pater well compares it to a dream: "Story within +story--stories with the sudden, unlooked-for changes of dreams." And, as +though to suit this dream-like inconsequence, the scene is laid in +Thessaly, the natural home of witchcraft--where, in fact, I was myself +laid under a witch's incantation little more than ten years ago, and +might have been transformed into heaven knows what, if a remembered +passage from this same book of Apuleius had not caused an outburst of +laughter that broke the spell only just in time. It is a savage country, +running into deep glens of forest and precipitous defiles among the +mountains, fit haunt for the robber bands with which the few roads were +infested. The region where the Lucius of the book wandered, either as +man, or after his own curiosity into mysterious things had converted him +into an ass (whereas he had wished to become a beautiful bird)--the +region recalls some wild picture of Salvator Rosa's. We are surrounded +by gloomy shades, sepulchral caverns, and trees writhing in storm, nor +are cut-throat bandits ever far away. Violence and murder threaten at +every turn. Through the narrow and filthy streets young noblemen, flown +with wine, storm at midnight. When a robber chief is nailed through the +hand to a door, his devoted followers hew off his arm and set him free. +They capture girls for ransom, and sell them to panders. When one is +troublesome, they propose to sew her up in the paunch of the yet living +ass, and expose her to the mid-day sun. One of the gang, disguised as a +bear, slays all his keepers, and is himself torn in pieces by men and +dogs. All the band are finally slaughtered or flung from precipices. +Gladiatorial beasts are kept as sepulchres for criminals. A slave is +smeared with honey and slowly devoured by ants till only his white +skeleton remains tied to a tree. A dragon eats one of the party, quite +cursorily. What with bears, wolves, wild boars, and savage dogs, each +step in life would seem a peril, were not the cruelty of man more +perilous still. Continued existence in that region was, indeed, so +insecure, that men and women in large numbers ended the torments of +anxiety by cutting life short. + +And then there were the witches, perpetually adding to the uncertainty +by rendering it dubious in what form one might awake, if one awoke at +all. During sleep, a witch could draw the heart out through a hole in +the neck, and, stopping up the orifice with a sponge, allow her victim +to pine in wonder why he felt so incomplete. With ointments compounded +of dead men's flesh she could transform a lover into a beaver, or an +innkeeper into a frog swimming in his own vat of wine and with doleful +croak inviting his former customers to drink; or herself, with the aid +of a little shaking, she could convert into a feathered owl uttering a +queasy note as it flitted out of the window. Indeed, the whole of +nature was uncertain, especially if disaster impended, and sometimes a +chicken would be born without the formality of an egg, or a bottomless +abyss spurted with gore under the dining-room table, or the wine began +to boil in the bottles, or a green frog leapt out of the sheepdog's +mouth. + +So life was a little trying, a little perplexing; but it afforded wide +scope for curiosity, and Apuleius, an African, brought up in Athens, and +living in Rome, was endlessly curious. In his attraction to horrors, to +bloodshed, and the shudder of grisly phantoms there was, perhaps, +something of the man of peace. It is only the unwarlike citizen who +could delight in imagining a brigand nurtured from babyhood on human +blood. He was, indeed, writing in the very period which the historian +fixed upon as the happiest and most prosperous that the human race has +ever enjoyed--those two or three benign generations when, under the +Antonines, provincials combined with Romans in celebrating "the +increasing splendours of the cities, the beautiful face of the country, +cultivated and adorned like an immense garden, and the long festival of +peace, which was enjoyed by so many nations, forgetful of their ancient +animosities, and delivered from the apprehension of future danger." The +slow and secret poison that Gibbon says was introduced by the long peace +into the vitals of the Empire, was, perhaps, among the causes that +turned the thoughts of Apuleius to scenes of violence and terror--to the +"macabre," as Pater said--just as it touched his style with the +preciosity of decadence, and prompted him to occupy a page with rapture +over the "swift lightnings" flashed against the sunlight from women's +hair. He was, in fact, writing for citizens much like the English of +twenty years ago, when the interest of readers, protected from the harsh +realities of danger and anxiety, was flattered equally by bloodthirsty +slaughters, the shimmer of veiled radiance, and haunted byways for +access to the unknown gods. + +Those byways to unknown gods were much affected by Apuleius himself. The +world was at the slack, waiting, as it were, for the next tide to flow, +and seldom has religion been so powerless or religions so many. Of one +abandoned woman it is told as the climax of her other wickednesses that +she blasphemously proclaimed her belief in one god only. Apuleius seems +to have been initiated into every cult of religious mystery, and in his +story he exultingly shows us the dog-faced gods of Egypt triumphing on +the soil that Apollo and Athene had blessed. Here was Anubis, their +messenger, and unconquered Osiris, supreme father of gods, and another +whose emblem no mortal tongue might expound. So it came that at the +great procession of Isis through a Greek city the ass was at last able, +after unutterable sufferings, to devour the chaplet of roses destined to +restore him to human shape; and thereupon he took the vows of chastity +and abstinence (so difficult for him to observe) until at length he was +worthy to be initiated into the mysteries of the goddess, and, in his +own words, "drew nigh to the confines of death, trod the threshold of +Proserpine, was borne through all the elements, and returned to earth +again, saw the sun gleaming with bright splendour at dead of night, +approached the gods above and the gods below, and worshipped them face +to face." + +It was this redemption by roses, and the initiation into virtue's path, +that caused Adlington in his introduction to call the book "a figure of +man's life, egging mortal men forward from their asinal form to their +human and perfect shape, that so they might take a pattern to regenerate +their lives from brutish and beastly custom," And, indeed, the book is, +in a wider sense, the figure of man's life, for almost alone among the +writings of antiquity it reveals to us every phase of that dim +underworld which persists, as we have supposed, almost unnoticed and +unchanged from one generation of man to another, and takes little +account either of government, the arts, or the other interests of +intellectual classes. It is a world of incessant toil and primitive +passion, yet laughter has place in it, and Apuleius shows us how two +slave cooks could laugh as they peered through a chink at their ass +carefully selecting the choicest dainties from the table; and how the +whole populace of a country town roared with delight at the trial of a +man who thought he had killed three thieves, but had really pierced +three wine skins; and how the ass in his distress appealed unto Caesar +for the rights of a Roman citizen, but could get no further with his +best Greek than "O!" It is a world of violence and obscenity and +laughter, but, above all, a world of pity. Virgil, too, was touched with +the pity of mortal things, but towards the poor and the labouring man he +rather affected a pastoral envy. Apuleius had looked poverty nearer in +the eyes, and he knew the piteous terror on its face. To him we must +turn if we would know how the poor lived in the happiest and most +prosperous age that mankind has enjoyed. In the course of his +adventures, the ass was sold to a mill--a great flour factory employing +numerous hands--and, with his usual curiosity, he there observed, as he +says, the way in which that loathsome workshop was conducted: + + "What stunted little men met my eye, their skin all striped + with livid scars, their backs a mass of sores, with tattered + patchwork clothing that gave them shade rather than covering! + ... Letters were branded on their foreheads, their heads were + half shaven, iron rings were welded about their ankles, they + were hideously pale, and the smoky darkness of that steaming, + gloomy den had ulcerated their eyelids: their sight was impaired, + and their bodies smeared and filthy white with the + powdered meal, making them look like boxers who sprinkle + themselves with dust before they fight." + +Even to animals the same pity for their sufferings is extended--a pity +unusual among the ancients, and still hardly known around the +Mediterranean. Yet Apuleius counted the sorrows of the ill-used ass, +and, speaking of the same flour mill, he describes the old mules and +pack-horses labouring there, with drooping heads, their necks swollen +with gangrenes and putrid sores, their nostrils panting with the harsh +cough that continually racked them, their chests ulcerated by the +ceaseless rubbing of their hempen harness, their hoofs swollen to an +enormous size as the result of their long journeys round the mill, their +ribs laid bare even to the bone by their endless floggings, and all +their hides rough with the scab of neglect and decay. + +The first writer of the modern novel--first of romanticists--Apuleius +has been called. Romance! If we must keep those rather futile +distinctions, it is as the first of realists that we would remember him. +For, as in a dream, he has shown us the actual life that mankind led in +the temple, the workshop, the market-place, and the forest, during the +century after the Apostles died. And we find it much the same as the +actual life of toiling mankind in all ages--full of unwelcome labour and +suffering and continual apprehension, haunted by ghostly fears and +self-imagined horrors, but illuminated by sudden laughter, and +continually goaded on by an inexplicable desire to submit itself to that +hard service of perfection under which, as the priest of the goddess +informed Lucius in the story, man may perceive most fully the greatness +of his liberty. + + + + +XXXI + + +MENTAL EUGENICS + +It is horrible. We are being overpopulated with spirits. Day by day, +hundreds of newly-created ghosts issue into the world--not the poor +relics and incorporeal shadows of the dead, but real living ghosts, who +never had any other existence except as they now appear. They are +creations of the mind--figments they are sometimes called--but they have +as real an existence as any other created thing. We love them or hate +them, we talk about them, we quote them, we discuss their characters. To +many people they are much more alive than the solid human beings whom in +some respects they resemble. Obviously they are more interesting, else +the travellers in a railway carriage would converse instead of reading. +Some minds cannot help producing them. They produce them as easily as +the queen bee produces the eggs that hatch into drones. And both the +number and productivity of such minds are terribly on the increase. A +few years ago Anatole France told us that, in Paris alone, fifty volumes +a day were published, not to mention the newspapers; and the rate has +gone up since then. He called it a monstrous orgy. He said it would end +in driving us mad. He called books the opium of the West. They devour +us, he said. He foresaw the day when we shall all be librarians. We are +rushing, he said, through study into general paralysis. + +Does it not remind one of the horror with which the wise and prudent +about a century ago began to regard the birth-rate? They beheld the +geometrical progression of life catching up the arithmetical progression +of food with fearful strides. Mankind became to them a devouring mouth, +always agape, like a nestling's, and incessantly multiplying, like a +bacillus. What was the good of improving the condition of Tom and Sal, +if Tom and Sal, in consequence of the improvement, went their way and in +a few years produced Dick, Poll, Bill, and Meg, who proceeded to eat up +the improvement, and in a generation produced sixteen other devourers +hungrier than themselves? It was an awesome picture, that ravenous and +reduplicating mouth! It cast a chill over humanity, and blighted the +hope of progress for many years. To some it is still a bodeful portent, +presaging eternal famine. It still hangs ominously over the nations. +But, on the whole, its terrors have lately declined; one cannot exactly +say why. Either the mouth is not so hungry, or it gets more to eat, or, +for good or evil, it does not multiply so fast. And now there are these +teachers of Eugenics, always insisting on quality. + +The question is whether some similar means might not check the +multiplication of the ghosts that threaten to devour the mind of man. +The progression of man's mind can hardly be called even arithmetical, +and the increase of ghosts accelerates frightfully in comparison. If +Paris produced fifty books a day some years ago, London probably +produces a hundred now. And then there is Berlin, and all the German +Universities, where professors must write or die. And there are New +York and Boston. Rome and Athens still count for something, and so does +Madrid. Scandinavia is no longer sterile, and a few of Russia's mournful +progeny escape strangulation at their birth. Not every book, it is true, +embodies a living soul. Many are stillborn; many are like dolls, +bleeding sawdust. But in most there dwells some kind of life, hungry for +the human brain, and day by day its share of sustenance diminishes, if +shares are equal. They are not equal, but the inequality only increases +the clamour of the poor among the ghosts. + +Take the case of novels, which make up the majority of books in the +modern world. We will assume the average of souls in a novel to be five, +the same as the average of a human family. Probably it is considerably +higher, but take it at five. Let us suppose that fifty novels are +produced per day in London, Paris, New York, Berlin, and other large +cities together, which I believe to be a low estimate. Not counting +Sundays and Bank holidays, this will give us rather more than 75,000 +newly created souls a year--cannibal souls, ravening for the brains of +men and women similar to the brains that gave them birth, and each able +to devour as many brains as it can catch. It is no good saying that +nearly all are short-lived, dying in six months like summer flies. The +dead are but succeeded by increasing hordes. They swarm about us; they +bite us at every turn. They sit in our chairs, and hover round our +tables. They speak to us on mountain tops, and if we descend into the +Tube, they are there. They absorb the solid world, making it of no +account beside the spirit world in which we dwell, so that we neither +see nor hear nor handle the realities of outward life, but perceive them +only, if at all, through filmy veils and apparitions, the haunting +offspring of another's mind. And remember, we are now speaking of the +spirits in novels alone. Besides novels, there are the breeding grounds +of the drama, the essay, the lyric, and every other kind of spiritual +and imaginative book. In every corner the spirits lurk, ready to spring +upon us unaware. We are ghost-ridden. The witches tear us. Our life is +no longer our own. It has become a nebula of alien dreams. O wretched +men that we are! Who shall deliver us from the body of these shades? + +To what can we look? Prudence may save us in the end, for if the spirits +utterly devour us, they will find they cannot live themselves. In the +end, Nature may adjust their birthrate. But at what cost, after how +cruel a struggle for existence! Might not teachers of eugenics do +something drastic, and at once? Critics are the teachers of spiritual +eugenics. Could not a few timely words from them hold the productive +powers of certain brains in check? It is easily said, but the result is +very doubtful. Mr. Walkley, in an unintentionally despairing article in +the _Times_, once maintained that the critics were powerless to stem the +increasing flood that pours in upon us, like that hideous stream of +babies that Mr. Wells once saw pouring down some gutter or rain-pipe. +Mr. Walkley said no real and industrious artist ever stops to listen to +criticism. He said the artist simply cannot help it; the creature is +bound to go on creating, whatever people say. Mr. Walkley went further, +and told us the critic himself is an artist; that he also cannot help +it, but is bound to create. So we go on from bad to worse, the creative +artist not only producing shadows on his own account, but the shades of +shadows through the critics. Our state is becoming a bewildered horror; +and yet we cannot deny that Mr. Walkley was right, though we may regard +his pessimism as exaggerated. There are one or two cases on record in +which criticism, or the fear of it, has really checked the production of +peculiarly sensitive and fastidious minds. I will not mention Keats, for +after the savage and Tartarly article he went on producing in greater +quantity and finer quality than ever before, and would have so continued +but for a very natural death. Robert Montgomery, whom Macaulay killed, +is a happier instance. And there may here and there also have been a +poet or novelist like that "Pictor Ignotus" of Browning's, who cried: + + "I could have painted pictures like that youth's + Ye praise so!" + +He would have had a painter's fame: + + "But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sights + Have scared me, like the revels through a door + Of some strange house of idols at its rites! + This world seemed not the world it was, before: + Mixed with my loving, trusting ones, there trooped + ... Who summoned those cold faces that begun + To press on me and judge me? Though I stooped + Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, + They drew me forth, and spite of me ... enough!" + +Unhappily, there are few souls so humble, so conventual as that. George +Eliot, as Mr. Walkley recalled, was terrified lest ill-judged blame or +ill-judged praise should discourage her production; but then she made it +a strict rule never to read any criticism, so that, of course, it had no +restraining effect upon her. Wordsworth seems to have read his critics, +but though they did their utmost to restrain or silence him, he paid no +heed. "Too petulant to be passive to a genuine poet," he called them: + + "Too petulant to be passive to a genuine poet, and too + feeble to grapple with him;--men of palsied imagination and + indurated hearts; in whose minds all healthy action is languid, + who therefore feed as the many direct them, or, with the many, + are greedy after vicious provocatives;--judges, whose censure + is auspicious, and whose praise ominous!" + +In them there was no restraining power for such a man, any more than in +Christopher North for Tennyson: + + "When I heard from whom it came, + I forgave you all the blame; + I could not forgive the praise, + Rusty Christopher!" + +On this line, then, there is not much to be hoped from the critics. +Over-sensitive writers are too rare, and the productive impulse of the +others is too self-confident for prudence to smother. Obviously, they +care no more for the critics than Tom and Sal a century ago cared for +Malthus. They disregard them. The most savage criticism only confirms +their belief in the beauty and necessity of their progeny, just as a +mother always fondles the child that its aunts consider plain. Against +such obstinacy, what headway can the critics make? May we not advise +them to drop the old method of frontal attack altogether? Let them adopt +the methods of these new teachers of Eugenics, whom we have described as +insisting on quality. For the teachers of Eugenics, as I understand, do +not go about saying, "O parents, what inferior and degenerate children +you have! How goose-faced, rabbit-mouthed, lantern-jawed, pot-bellied, +spindle-shanked, and splay-footed they are! It was a most anti-social +action to produce these puny monstrosities, and when you found +yourselves falling in love, you ought to have run to opposite +antipodes." That, I believe, is no longer the method of the Eugenic +teacher. He now shows beforehand wherein the beauty and excellence of +human development may lie. He insists upon quality, he raises a +standard, he diffuses an unconscious fastidiousness of selection. He +does not prevent Tom and Sal from falling in love, but he makes Tom, and +especially Sal, less satisfied with the first that comes, less easily +bemused with the tenth-rate rubbish of a man or girl. + +By similar methods, it seems to us, the critics might even now relieve +humanity from the oncoming host of spirits that threatens to overwhelm +us. They find it useless to tell creative writers how hideous and +mis-begotten their productions are--how deeply tainted with erotics, +neurotics, hysteria, consumption, or fatty degeneration. Either the +writers do not listen, or they reply, "Thank you, but neurotics and +degeneracy are in the fashion, and we like them." Let the critics change +their method by widely extending their action. Let them insist upon +quality, and show beforehand what quality means. Let them rise from the +position of reviewers, and apply to the general thought of the world +that critical power of which Matthew Arnold was thinking when he wrote: + + "The best spiritual work of criticism is to keep man from + self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarising, to lead him + towards perfection by making his mind dwell upon what is + excellent in itself, and the absolute beauty and fitness of things." + +Such criticism, if persisted in by all critics for a generation, would +act as so wholesome and tonic a course of Eugenic instruction, would so +strongly insist upon quality, and so widely diffuse an unconscious +fastidiousness of selection, that the locust cloud of phantoms which now +darken the zenith might be dissipated, and again we should behold the +sky which is the home of stars. For we may safely suppose that +excellence will never be super-abundant, nor quality be found in hordes. +No one can tell how fine, how fit, and few the children of our creative +artists might then become. But, as in prophetic vision, we can picture +the rarity of their beauty, and when they come knocking at our door, we +will share with them the spiritual food that they demand from our +brains, and give them a drink of our brief and irrevocable time. + + + + +XXXII + + +THE MEDICINE OF THE MIND + +There are minds that run to maxims as Messrs. Holloway and Beecham ran +to pills. From the fields and mines of experience they cull their secret +ingredients, concentrate them in the alembic of wit, mould them into +compact and serviceable form, and put them upon the market of publicity +for the universal benefit of mankind. Such essence of wisdom will surely +cure all ills; such maxims must be worth a guinea a box. When the wise +and the worldly have condensed their knowledge and observation into +portable shape, why go further and pay more for a medicine of the soul, +or, indeed, for the soul's sustenance? Pills, did we say? Are there not +tabloids that supply the body with oxygen, hydrogen, calorics, or +whatever else is essential to life in the common hundredweights and +gallons of bread, meat, and drink? Why not feed our souls on maxims, +like those who spread the board for courses of a bovril lozenge apiece, +two grains of phosphorus, three of nitrogen, one of saccharine, a +dewdrop of alcohol, and half a scruple of caffeine to conclude? + +It is a stimulating thought, encouraging to economy of time and space. +We read to acquire wisdom, and no one grudges zeal in that pursuit. But +still, the time spent upon it, especially in our own country, is what +old journalists used to call "positively appalling," and in some books, +perhaps, we may draw blank. Read only maxims, and in the twinkling of an +eye you catch the thing that you pursue. It is not "Wisdom while you +wait"; there is no waiting at all. It is a "lightning lunch," a "kill" +without the risk and fatigue of hunting. The find and the death are +simultaneous. And as to space, a poacher's pocket will hold your +library; where now the sewers of Bloomsbury crack beneath the +accumulating masses of superfluous print, one single shelf will contain +all that man needs to know; and Mr. Carnegie's occupation will be gone. + +For these reasons, one heartily welcomes Messrs. Methuen's re-issue of +an old and excellent translation of Rochefoucauld's _Maxims_, edited by +Mr. George Powell. The book is a little large for tabloids. It runs to +nearly two hundred pages, and it might have been more conveniently +divided by ten or even by a hundred. But still, as Rochefoucauld is the +very medicine-man of maxims, we will leave it at that. He united every +quality of the moral and intellectual pill-doctor. He lived in an +artificial and highly intellectualised society. He was a contemporary +and friend of great wits. He haunted salons, and was graciously received +by perceptive ladies, who never made a boredom of virtue. He mingled in +a chaos of political intrigue, and was involved in burlesque rebellion. +He was intimate with something below the face-value of public men, and +he used the language that Providence made for maxims. But, above all, he +had the acid or tang of poison needed to make the true, the medicinal +maxim. His present editor compares him with Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, +and Bacon--great names, but gnomic philosophers rather than authors of +maxims proper. Nor were the splendid figures of the eighteenth century, +who wrote so eloquently about love, virtue, and humanity, real +inventors of maxims. Their sugar-coating was spread too thick. Often +their teaching was sugar to the core--a sweetmeat, not a pill; or, like +the fraudulent patents in the trade, it revealed soft soap within the +covering, and nothing more. George Meredith had a natural love of +maxims, and an instinct for them. One remembers the "Pilgrim's Scrip" in +_Richard Feverel_, and the Old Buccaneer in _The Amazing Marriage_. But +usually his maxims want the bitter tang: + + "Who rises from Prayer a better man, his Prayer is answered." + + "For this reason so many fall from God, who have attained + to Him; that they cling to Him with their weakness, not with + their strength." + + "No regrets; they unman the heart we want for to-morrow." + + "My foe can spoil my face; he beats me if he spoils my + temper." + +One sees at once that these are not medicinal maxims, but excellent +advice--concentrated sermons, after our English manner. "Friends may +laugh: I am not roused. My enemy's laugh is a bugle blown in the +night"--that has a keener flavour. So has "Never forgive an injury +without a return blow for it." Among the living, Mr. Bernard Shaw is +sometimes infected by an English habit of sermonising. "Never resist +temptation: prove all things: hold fast that which is good," is a +sermon. But he has the inborn love of maxims, all the same, and, though +they are too often as long as a book, or even as a preface, his maxims +sometimes have the genuine medicinal taste. These from _The +Revolutionist's Handbook_, for instance, are true maxims: + + "Vulgarity in a king flatters the majority of the nation." + + "He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches." + + "Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of + temptation with the maximum of opportunity." + + "When a man wants to murder a tiger, he calls it sport; + when the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity. The + distinction between Crime and Justice is no greater." + + "Home is the girl's prison, and the woman's workhouse." + + "Decency is Indecency's Conspiracy of Silence." + +But among the masters of the maxim, I suppose no one has come so near as +Chamfort to the Master himself. There is a difference. If Chamfort +brings rather less strength and bitterness to his dose, he presents it +with a certain grace, a sense of mortal things, and a kind of pity +mingled with his contempt that Rochefoucauld would have despised: + + "Il est malheureux pour les hommes que les pauvres n'aient + pas l'instinct ou la fierté de l'éléphant, qui ne se reproduit pas + dans la servitude." + + "Otez l'amour-propre de l'amour, il en reste très peu de + chose." + + "Il n'y a que l'inutilité du premier déluge qui empêche + Dieu d'en envoyer un second." + + "L'homme arrive novice à chaque âge de la vie." + + "Sans le gouvernement on ne rirait plus en France." + +With a difference, these come very near Rochefoucauld's own. "Take +self-love from love, and little remains," might be an extract from that +Doomsday Book of Egoism in which Rochefoucauld was so deeply read. +"Self-love is the Love of a man's own Self, and of everything else, for +his own Sake": so begins his terrible analysis of human motives, and no +man escapes from a perusal of it without recognition of himself, just as +there is no escape from Meredith's Egoist. All of us move darkly in that +awful abyss of Self, and as the fourth Maxim says, "When a Man hath +travelled never so far, and discovered never so much in the world of +Self-love, yet still the Terra Incognita will take up a considerable +part of the Map." On the belief that self-love prompts and pervades all +actions, the greater part of the maxims are founded. The most famous of +them all is the saying that "Hypocrisy is a sort of Homage which Vice +pays to Virtue," but there are others that fly from mouth to mouth, and +treat more definitely of self-love. "The reason why Ladies and their +Lovers are at ease in one another's company, is because they never talk +of anything but themselves"; or "There is something not unpleasing to us +in the misfortunes of our best friends." These are, perhaps, the three +most famous, though we doubt whether the last of them has enough truth +in it for a first-rate maxim. Might one not rather say that the +perpetual misfortunes of our friends are the chief plague of existence? +Goethe came nearer the truth when he wrote: "I am happy enough for +myself. Joy comes streaming in upon me from every side. Only, for +others, I am not happy." But Rochefoucauld had to play the cynic, and a +dash of cynicism adds a fine ingredient to a maxim. + +Nevertheless, after reading this book of _Maxims_ through again, all the +seven hundred and more (a hideous task, almost as bad as reading a whole +volume of _Punch_ on end), I incline to think Rochefoucauld's reputation +for cynicism much exaggerated. It may be that the world grows more +cynical with age, unlike a man, whose cynical period ends with youth. At +all events, in the last twenty years we have had half a dozen writers +who, as far as cynicism goes, could give Rochefoucauld fifty maxims in a +hundred. In all artificial and inactive times and places, as in +Rochefoucauld's France, Queen Anne's England, the London of the end of +last century, and our Universities always, epigram and a dandy cynicism +are sure to flourish until they often sicken us with the name of +literature. But in Rochefoucauld we perceive glimpses of something far +deeper than the cynicism that makes his reputation. It is not to a +cynic, or to the middle of the seventeenth century in France, that we +should look for such sayings as these: + + "A Man at some times differs as much from himself as he + does from other People." + + "Eloquence is as much seen in the Tone and Cadence of + the Eyes, and the Air of the Face, as in the Choice of proper + Expressions." + + "When we commend good Actions heartily, we make them + in some measure our own." + +Such sayings lie beyond the probe of the cynic, or the wit of the +literary man. They spring from sympathetic observation and a quietly +serious mind. And there is something equally fresh and unexpected in +some of the sayings upon passion: + + "The Passions are the only Orators that are always successful + in persuading." + + "It is not in the Power of any the most crafty Dissimulation + to conceal Love long where it really is, nor to counterfeit it + long where it is not." + + "Love pure and untainted with any other Passions (if such + a Thing there be) lies hidden in the Bottom of our Heart, so + exceedingly close that we scarcely know it ourselves." + + "The more passionately a Man loves his Mistress, the readier + he is to hate her." (Compare Catullus's "Odi et amo.") + + "The same Resolution which helps to resist Love, helps to + make it more violent and lasting too. People of unsettled + Minds are always driven about with Passions, but never absolutely + filled with any." + +No one who knew Rochefoucauld only by reputation would guess such +sentences to be his. They reveal "the man differing from himself"; or, +rather, perhaps, they reveal the true nature, that usually put on a thin +but protective armour of cynicism when it appeared before the world. +Here we see the inward being of the man who, twice in his life, was +overwhelmed by that "violent and lasting passion," and was driven by it +into strange and dangerous courses where self-love was no guide. But to +quote more would induce the peculiar weariness that maxims always +bring--the weariness that comes of scattered, disconnected, and abstract +thought, no matter how wise. "Give us instances," we cry. "Show us the +thing in the warmth of flesh and blood." Nor will we any longer be put +off by pillules from seeking the abundance of life's great feast. + + + + +XXXIII + + +THE LAST FENCE + +He was riding May Dolly, a Cheshire six-year-old, and one of his own +breeding; for just as some people think that everyone should go to his +own parish church, it was a principle with Mr. James Tomkinson that a +man should ride a horse from his own county. Straight, lithe, and ruddy, +he trotted to the starting-post, and the crowd cheered him as he went, +for they liked to see a bit of pluck. He modestly enjoyed their +applause: "I think I never saw anybody so pleased," said Mr. Justice +Grantham, who was judge in the race. It was known that the old man had +passed the limit of seventy, but only five years before he won a +steeplechase on his own, and if ever a rider fulfilled Montaigne's ideal +of a life spent in the saddle, it was he. So he rode to the +starting-post, happy in himself and modestly confident--the very model +of what a well-to-do English countryman should wish to be--a Rugby and +Balliol man, above suspicion for honesty, a busy man of affairs, a +consummate horseman, a bad speaker, and a true-hearted Liberal, holding +an equally unblemished record for courage in convictions and at fences. + +The race was three and a half miles--twice round the circuit. The first +circuit was run, the last fence of it safely cleared. The second circuit +was nearly complete: only that last fence remained. It was three +hundred yards away, and he rode fast for it along the bottom. Someone +was abreast of him, someone close behind. May Dolly rushed forward, and +the fence drew nearer and nearer. He was leading; once over that fence +and victory was his--the latest victory, always worth all the rest. He +felt the moving saddle between his thighs; he heard the quick beating of +the hoofs. Something happened; there was a swerve, a sideways jump, a +vain effort at recovery, a crashing fall too quick for thought; and +before the joy of victory had died, the darkness came. + +Who would not choose to plunge out of life like that? A sudden end at +the moment of victory has always been the commonplace of human desire. +When the antique sage was asked to select the happiest man in history, +his choice fell on one whose destiny resembled that of the Member for +Crewe; for Tellus the Athenian had lived a full and well-contented life, +had seen fine and gentlemanly sons and many grandchildren growing up +around him, had shared the honour and prosperity of his country, and +died fighting at Eleusis when victory was assured. Next in happiness to +Tellus came the two Argive boys, who, for want of oxen, themselves drew +their mother in a cart up the hill to worship, and, as though in answer +to her prayer for blessings on them, died in the temple that night. It +has always been so. The leap of Rome's greatest treasure into the Gulf +of earthquake was accounted an enviable opportunity. When they asked +Caesar what death he would choose, he answered, "A sudden one," and he +had his wish. "Oh, happy he whom thou in battles findest," cried Faust +to Death in the midst of all his learning; and "Let me like a soldier +fall" is the natural marching song of our Territorials. + +The advantages of these hot-blooded ends are so obvious that they need +hardly be recalled, and, indeed, they have provided a theme for many of +our most inspiriting writers. To go when life is strongest and passion +is at its height; to avoid the terrors of expectation and escape the +lingering paraphernalia of sick chambers and deathbed scenes; to shirk +the stuffy and inactive hours, marked by nothing but medicines and +unwelcome meals; to elude the doctor's feigned encouragements, the +sympathy of relations anxious to resume their ordinary pursuits, the +buzzing of the parson in the ear, the fading of the casement into that +"glimmering square"--should we not all go a long way round to seek so +merciful a deliverance? "I will not die in my bed like a cow!" cried the +Northumbrian king, and was set on his feet in full armour to confront +the Arch Fear face to face. There was some poor comfort in a pose like +that; it was better than our helpless collapse into a middle-aged +cradle, with pap-boat for feeding-bottle, and a last sleep in the +nurse's arms, younger and less muscular than our own. But how much finer +to die like Romeo with a kiss, quick as the true apothecary's drugs; to +sink like Shelley in the blue water, with mind still full of the Greek +poet whom he tucked against his heart; to pass hot with fever, like +Byron, from the height of fame, while thunder presaged to the +mountaineers the loss of their great champion in freedom's war! + +There is no question of it; these are axioms that all mankind is agreed +upon. Every mortal soul would choose a quick and impassioned death; all +admire a certain recklessness, an indifference to personal safety or +existence, especially in the old, to whom recklessness is most natural, +since they have less of life to risk. That was why the crowd cheered +Mr. James Tomkinson as he trotted to the starting-post, and that was why +everybody envied his rapid and victorious end. In his _Tales from a +Field Hospital_, Sir Frederick Treves told of a soldier who was brought +down from Spion Kop as a mere fragment, his limbs shattered, his face +blown away, incapable of speech or sight. When asked if he had any +message to send home before he died, he wrote upon the paper, "Did we +win?" In those words lives the very spirit of that enviable death which +all men think they long for--the death which takes no thought of self, +and swallows up fear in victory. Such a man Stevenson would have +delighted to include in his brave roll-call, and of him those final, +well-known words in _Aes Triplex_ might have been written: + + "In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of being, + he passes at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the + mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets are hardly + done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of glory, this + happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots into the spiritual + land." + +Yes, it is all very beautiful, and all very true. Stevenson himself, +like Caesar, received the death he wished for, and, whether in reason or +in passion, every soul among us would agree that death in the midst of +life is the most desirable end. And yet--and yet--we hardly know how it +is, but, as a matter of fact, we do not seek it, and when the thing +comes our way, we prefer, if possible, to walk in the opposite +direction. The Territorial may sing himself hoarse with his prayer to +fall like a soldier, but when the bullets begin to wail around him, it +is a thousand to one that he will duck his head. A man may be reasonably +convinced that, since he must die some day, and his reprieve cannot be +extended long, it is best to die in battle and shoot full-blooded into +the spiritual land; nevertheless, if the shadow of a rock gives some +shelter from the guns, he will crawl behind it. A few years ago there +was a great Oxford philosopher who, after lecturing all morning on the +beauty of being absorbed by death into the absolute and eternal, was +granted the opportunity of being wrecked on a lake in the afternoon, but +displayed no satisfaction at the immediate prospect of such absorption. + +In the same way, despite our natural and reasonable desires for a death +like Mr. Tomkinson's, we still continue to speak, not only of sleeping +in our beds, but of dying in them, as one of the chief objects of a +virtuous and happy existence. The longest and most devotional part of +the Anglican Common Prayer contains a special petition entreating that +we may be delivered from the sudden death which we have all agreed is so +excellent a piece of fortune. That we are not set free from love of +living is shown by what Matthew Arnold called a bloodthirsty clinging to +life at a moment of crisis. I shall not forget the green terror on the +faces of all the men in a railway carriage when I accidentally set fire +to the train, nor have I found it really appetising to suspect even the +quickest poison in my soup. Instead of leaping gallantly into death +while the trumpets are still blowing, nearly every civilised man +deliberately plots out his existence so as to die, like Tolstoy's Ivan +Ilyitch, amid the pitiful squalor of domestic indifference or +solicitude. We think health universally interesting, we meditate on +diet, we measure our exercise, and shun all risks more carefully than +sin. Praising with our lips the glories of the soldier's death, we +tread with minute observance the bath-chair pathway to the sick-rooms of +old age. + +Are our praises of death in victory, then, all cant, and are all the +eloquent rhapsodies of poets and essayists a sham? Montaigne seems to +have thought so, for, writing of those who talk fine of dying bravely, +he says: + +"It happeneth that most men set a stern countenance on the matter, look +big, and speak stoutly, thereby to acquire reputation, which, if they +chance to live, they hope to enjoy." + +The case of our eloquent rhapsodists who hymn the joys of sudden and +courageous death is evidently more favourable still, since they have +every chance of living for a time, and so of enjoying a reputation for +bravery without much risk. But rather than accuse mankind of purposely +dissembling terror in the hope of braggart fame, we would lay the charge +upon a queer divergence between the mind and the bodily will. No matter +what the mind may say in commendation of swift and glorious death, the +bodily will continues to maintain its life to the utmost, and is the +last and savages enemy that the mind can overcome. So it is that no one +should reckon beforehand upon courageous behaviour when the supreme +summons for courage comes, and only those are faultlessly brave who have +never known peril. In reason everyone is convinced that all mankind is +mortal, and we hear with vague sympathy of the hosts of dead whose +skulls went to pile the pyramids of Tamerlane, or of the thousands that +the sea engulfs and earthquakes shatter. But few realise that the life +of each among those thousands was as dear to him as our life is, and, +though we congratulate heroes upon the opportunity of their death, the +moment when that opportunity would be most happy for ourselves never +seems exactly to arrive. Hardly anyone really thinks he will die, or is +persuaded that the limit to his nature has now come. But it is through +realising the incalculable craving of this bodily will to survive that +men who have themselves known danger will pay the greater reverence to +those who, conscious of mortal fears, and throbbing with the fullness of +existence, none the less in the calm ecstasy of their devotion commit +themselves to the battle, the firing squad, or the prison death as to a +chariot of fire. + + + + +XXXIV + + +THE ELEMENT OF CALM + +All are aware that we have no abiding city here, but that, says the +hymn-writer, is a truth which should not cost the saint a tear, and our +politicians appear to lament it as little as the saints. Their eyes are +dry; it does not distress their mind, it seems hardly to occur to them, +unless, perhaps, they are defeated candidates. One might suppose from +their manner that eternal truths depended on their efforts, and that the +city they seek to build would abide for ever. Could all this toil and +expenditure be lavished on a transitory show, all this eloquence upon +the baseless fabric of a vision, all this hatred and malice upon things +that wax old as doth a garment and like a vesture are rolled up? One +would think from his preoccupied zeal that every politician was laying +the foundation stone of an everlasting Jerusalem, did not reason and +experience alike forbid the possibility. + +May it not rather be that the politicians, like the saints, keep the +tears of mortality out of their eyes by contemplating this passing dream +under the aspect of eternal realities? In months when the heavens at +night are filled with constellations of peculiar beauty, may we not +suppose that the politician, emerging from the Town Hall amid the cheers +and execrations of the voice that represents the voice of God, lifts up +his eyes unto the heavens, where prone Orion still grasps his sword, +and Auriga drives his chariot of fire, and the pole star hangs +immovable, by which Ulysses set his helm? And as he gazes, he recognises +with joy in his heart that the stars themselves, with all their +recurrent comets and flaming meteors and immovable constellations, +hardly cast a stain upon the white radiance of eternity, under which he +has been striving and crying and perpetrating comparatively trifling +deviations from exactness. + +It is a consolation which a large proportion, probably more than half, +of mankind shares with our politicians. Like them, the greater part of +mankind is aware that there is peace somewhere beyond these voices, that +life with all its unsatisfied longings and its repetition of care is +transitory as a summer cloud, and that the only way of escape from the +pain and misery, the foulness and corruption, of this material universe +is by the destruction of all desires, except the one engrossing desire +for non-existence. That is why the majority of mankind has set itself to +overcome the unholy urgings of ambition, the pleasure of selfish and +revengeful purposes, and the deeply-implanted delight in cruelty and +unkindness. Such conquest is the essential part of the Fourfold Path by +which the bliss of extinction may be attained. Let him cease to be +ambitious, let him purge himself of selfish aims and revengeful or +unkind thoughts, and a man may at last enter into Nirvana, even a +politician may slowly be extinguished. Life follows life, and each life +fulfils its Karma of destined expiation, working out the earthly stain +of previous existences. "Quisque suos patimur manes." The sin that most +easily besets us fixes the shape of our next incarnation, and, did not a +politician strictly follow the guidance of the Fourfold Path, the first +election after his death might see him re-appear as a sheep, a +cave-dweller, or a rat. + +Never to have been born is best; never to be born again is the hope and +motive of all good men among the greater part of mankind. It is not only +the teaching of the most famous Buddha which has told them so. A +Preacher more familiar to us has said the same, and our Western churches +do but repeat an echo from the East. "I praised the dead who are already +dead more than the living who are yet alive," he wrote; "yea, better is +he than both they which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil +work that is done under the sun." Wherefore is light given to him that +is in misery? asked Job. From age to age the question has been asked by +far more than half the human race, and yet the human race continues, +miserable and unholy though it is. + +But the widest expression of this common cry is found in Buddhism, and +therein is found also a doctrine of peace that seeks to answer it. From +the turmoil of the street and market-place, from the atomic vortex of +public meetings, ballot stations, and motors decked with flags, let us +turn to the "Psalms of the Sisters," those Buddhist nuns whose +utterances Mrs. Rhys Davids has edited for the Pali Text Society. In +this inextricable error of existence--this charnel-house of corrupting +bodies wherein the soul lies imprisoned too long--time and space do not +seriously matter. Let us turn from Haggerston and Battersea and the +Parliamentary squabbles of to-day, and visit the regions where the great +mountains were standing and the holy Ganges flowed within two or three +centuries before or after the birth of Christ. Somewhere about that +time, somewhere about that place, these women, having in most cases, +fulfilled their various parts in wives, mothers, or courtesans, retired +to the Homeless Life in mountains, forests, or the banks of streams +where they might seek deliverance for their souls. With shaven heads, +and clad in the deep saffron cloth such as the ascetic wanderer of India +still wears, furnished only with a bowl for the unasked offerings of the +pious and compassionate, they went their way, free from the cares and +desires of this putrefying world. As one of them--a goldsmith's +daughter, to whom the Master himself had taught the Norm of the Fourfold +Path--as one of them explained to the tiresome relations who tried to +call her back: + + "Why herewithal, my kinsmen--nay, my foes-- + Why yoke me in your minds with sense desires? + Know me as her who fled the life of sense, + Shorn of her hair, wrapt in her yellow robe. + The food from hand to mouth, glean'd here and there, + The patchwork robe--these things are meet for me, + The base and groundwork of the homeless life." + +Some sought escape from the depression of luxury, some from the +wretchedness of the poor, some from the abominations of the wanton, some +from the boredom of tending an indifferent husband. One of them thus +utters her complaint with frank simplicity: + + "Rising betimes, I went about the house, + Then, with my hands and feet well cleansed I went + To bring respectful greeting to my lord, + And taking comb and mirror, unguents, soap, + I dressed and groomed him as a handmaid might. + I boiled the rice, I washed the pots and pans; + And as a mother on her only child, + So did I minister to my good man. + For me, who with toil infinite then worked, + And rendered service with a humble mind, + Rose early, ever diligent and good, + For me he nothing felt, save sore dislike." + +Others sought freedom of intellect, others the free development of +personality; but, in the end, it was deliverance from earthly desires +that all were seeking, for it is only through such deliverance that the +final blessedness of total extinction can be reached. Then, as they cry, +they cease to wander in the jungles of the senses, rebirth comes no +more, and the peace of Nirvana is won. A poor Brahmin's daughter who had +been married to a cripple, thus exults in a multiplied redemption: + + "O free, indeed! O gloriously free + Am I in freedom from three crooked things:-- + From quern, from mortar, from my crook-back'd lord! + Ay, but I'm free from rebirth and from death, + And all that dragged me back is hurled away." + +But more truly characteristic of the spiritual mind is the joyful advice +of one who, having perfected herself in meditation, could thus commune +with her soul: + + "Hast thou not seen sorrow and ill in all + The springs of life? Come thou not back to birth! + Cast out the passionate desire again to Be. + So shalt thou go thy ways calm and serene." + +Thus only by the recognition of the sorrow of the world, by the conquest +of all desires, and by the exercise of kindliness to all that breathe +this life of misery, is that Path to be trodden of which the fourth +stage enters Nirvana's peace. Thus only can we escape from this +repulsive carcass--"this bag of skin with carrion filled," as one of the +Sisters called it--and so be merged into the element of calm, just as +the space inside a bowl is merged into the element of space when at last +the bowl is broken and will never need scrubbing more. + +It is thought that Gautama, the great Buddha, whose effigy in the calm +of contemplation is the noblest work of Indian art, fondly believed that +all mankind would seek deliverance along the path he pointed out, and +that so, within a few generations, the human race, together, perhaps, +with every living thing that breathes beneath the law of Karma, would +pass from sorrow into nothingness. Mankind has not fulfilled his +expectation. The task of expiation is not yet completed, and, in the +midst of anguish, corruption, and the flux of all material things, the +human race goes swarming on. I suppose it is about as numerous as ever, +and, though something like half of it accepts the teaching of the Buddha +as divine, they seem in no more hurry to fulfil its precepts than are +the followers of other Founders. We cannot say that mankind has gone +very far along the Fourfold Path, for there are still many of us who +would rather be a mouse than nothing; yet it remains an accepted truth +of the Buddhistic doctrine, that above this fleeting and variegated +world there abides the element of calm. As the final Chorus "Mysticus" +of _Faust_ proclaims: "All things transitory are but a symbol," and if +any politician during the storm of worldly desires has for a moment lost +sight of truth's eternal stars that guide his way, let him now turn to +the "Psalms of the Sisters." Even if he has been successful in his +ambition, he will there find peace, discovering in Nirvana the quiet +Chiltern Hundreds of the soul. + + + + +XXXV + + +"THE KING OF TERRORS" + +Skulls may not affright us, nor present fashion ordain cross-bones upon +our sepulchres; but still in the face of death the commonplaces of +comfort shrivel, and philosophy's consolations strike cold as the +symbolism of the tomb. All that lives must die; we know it, but that +death is common does not assuage particular grief, nor can the +contemplation of prehistoric ruins soften regret for one baby's smile. +Man's dogma has proved vain as his philosophy. Age after age has +composed some vision of continued life, and sought to allay its fear or +sorrow with suitable imaginations. Mummies of death outlive their +granite; vermilion and the scalping-knife lie ready for the happy +hunting grounds; beside the royal carcass two score of concubines and +warriors are buried quick; Walhalla rings with clashing swords whose +wounds close up again at sunset; heroes tread the fields of shadowy +asphodel, and on Elysian plains attenuated poets welcome the sage +newcomer to their converse; houris reward the faithful for holy +slaughter; prophets reveal a gorgeous city and pearly gates beyond the +river; the poet tells of circles winding downward to the abyss, and +upward to the Rose of Paradise; upon the bishop's tomb in St. Praxed's +one Pan is carved, and Moses with the tables; upon the gravestone of an +Albanian chief they scratch his rifle and his horse; and over the +slave's low mound in Angola plantations his basket and mattock are laid, +lest he should miss them. So various are the devices contrived for the +solace of mankind, or for his instruction. But one by one, like the dead +themselves, those devices have passed and passed away, leaving mankind +unwitting and unconsoled. For there is still one road that each +traveller must discover afresh, and death's door, at which all men +stand, opens only inwards. + +Maurice Maeterlinck has always remained very conscious of that door. How +often in his whispering dramas we are made aware of it! How often, +without even the knock of warning, it suddenly gapes or stands ajar, and +unseen hands are pulling, and children are drawn in, and young girls are +drawn in, and wise men, and the old, while the living world remains +outside, still at breakfast, still busy with its evening games and +sewing, still blindly groping for its departed guide! From the outset, +Maeterlinck has been an amateur of death. In a little volume that bears +Death's name, he utters his meditation upon death's nature and +significance. Like other philosophers and all old wives, he also +attempts our consolation. Mankind demands a consolation, for without it, +perhaps, the species could hardly have survived their foreknowledge of +the end. But in treating the first two terrors to which he applies his +comfortable arguments, Maeterlinck's reasoning appears to me almost +irrelevant, almost obsolete. He attributes the terrified apprehension of +death, first, to the fear of pain in dying, and, secondly, to the fear +of anguish hereafter. In neither fear, I think, does the essential +horror of death now lie. All who have witnessed various forms of death, +whether on the field or in the sick chamber, will agree that the +process of dying is seldom more difficult or more painful than taking +off one's clothes. The blood ebbs, the senses sleep, "the casement +slowly grows a glimmering square," breath gradually fails, +unconsciousness faints into deeper unconsciousness, and that is all. +Even in terrible wounds and cases of extreme pain, medicine can now +alleviate the worst, nor, in any case, do I believe that the expectation +of physical agony, however severe, has much share in the instinct that +stands aghast at death. If fear of pain thus preoccupied the soul, +martyrs would not have sown the Church, nor would births continue. + +In combating the dread of future torment, Maeterlinck may have better +cause for giving comfort. Long generations have been haunted by that +terror. "Ay, but to die," cries Claudio in _Measure for Measure_: + + "Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; + To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot; + This sensible warm motion to become + A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit + To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside + In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice; + To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, + And blown with restless violence round about + The pendant world; or to be worse than worst + Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts + Imagine howling!" + +Nor were such terrors mediaeval only. Till quite recent years they cast +a gloom over the existence of honourable and laborious men. Remember +that scene in Oxford when Dr. Johnson, with a look of horror, +acknowledged that he was much oppressed by the fear of death, and when +the amiable Dr. Adams suggested that God was infinitely good, he +replied: + +"'As I cannot be sure that I have fulfilled the conditions on which +salvation is granted, I am afraid I may be one of those who shall be +damned' (looking dismally). Dr. Adams: 'What do you mean by damned?' +Johnson (passionately and loudly): 'Sent to Hell, Sir, and punished +everlastingly.'" + +No one disputes that for many ages the lives of even the just and good +were burdened by such oppressive fears. Perhaps, indeed, the just and +good were more burdened than the wicked; for to the wicked their own +sins seldom appear so deadly black, and when a Balkan priest lately +displayed pictures of eternal torment as warnings to a savage +mountaineer's enormities, he was met by the reply, "Even we should not +be so cruel." But to the greater part of thinking mankind, Maeterlinck's +reassurances upon the subject, even if they could be established, would +appear a little out-of-date, and I do not believe that, even where they +linger, such terrors form the basis of the fear of death. Was there not, +at all events, one strenuous Canon of the Established Church who +defiantly proclaimed that he would rather be damned than annihilated? + +"Men fear death," says Bacon's familiar sentence; "men fear death, as +children fear to go in the dark." It is not the dread of pain and +torment; it is the dark that terrifies; it is Kingsley's horror of +annihilation; it is the hot life's fear of ceasing to be. I grant that +many are unconscious of this fear. In word, at all events, there are +multitudes, perhaps the greater part of mankind, who long for the +annihilation of self, who direct their lives by the great hope of +becoming in the end absorbed into the Universe. Their perpetual prayer +is to be rid of personality at the last, no matter through what strange +embodiments the self must pass before it reach the bliss of nothingness. +Similar, though less doctrinal, was the prayer of Job when he counted +himself among those who long for death, but it cometh not, and dig for +it more than for hid treasures; who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad +when they can find the grave. "Why died I not from the womb?" he cried: + + "For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should + have slept; then, had I been at rest, with kings and counsellors + of the earth, which built solitary places for themselves." + +How far the loss of personal consciousness by absorption into universal +infinity is identical with the eternal rest desired by Job might be long +disputed. Sir Thomas Browne, having heard of the Brahmin or Buddhist +conceptions of futurity, would draw a thin distinction: + + "Others," he says, "rather than be lost in the uncomfortable + night of nothing, were content to recede into the common + being; and make one particle of the public soul of all things, + which was no more than to return into their unknown and divine + original again." + +In effect this doctrine comes very near Maeterlinck's plea of comfort. +Annihilation, he says, is impossible, because nothing is destructible. +But when confronted with the eternal antinomy of death, that both the +end and the survival of personality are equally inconceivable, he +hesitates. He admits that survival without consciousness would be the +same as the annihilation o self (in which case he maintains death could +be no evil, bringing only eternal sleep). But he rejects this solution +as flattering only to ignorance, and has visions of a new ego collecting +a fresh nucleus round itself and developing in infinity. For the "narrow +ego" which we partly know--the humble self of memories and identity, the +soul that sums up experience into some kind of unity--he expresses +considerable contempt, as a frail and forgetful thing; and he seeks to +waft us away into an intellect devoid of senses, which he says almost +certainly exists, and into an infinity which is "nothing if it be not +felicity." + +I do not know. A man may say what he pleases about intellect devoid of +senses, or about the felicity of infinity. One statement may be as true +as the other, or the reverse of both may be true. Talk of that kind +rests on no sounder basis than the old assertions about the houris and +the happy hunting-grounds, and it brings no surer consolation. Even when +Maeterlinck tells us that it is impossible for the universe to be a +mistake, and that our own reason necessarily corresponds with the +eternal laws of the universe, we may answer that we hope, and even +believe, that he is right, but on such a basis we can found no certainty +whatever. Nor does the self, when, warm with life, inspired with vital +passion, and energising for its own fulfilment, it stands horrified +before the gulf of death, fearing no conceivable torment, but only the +cessation of its power and identity--at such a moment that inward and +isolated self can derive no reassurance from the dim possibility of some +future nucleus, under cover of which it may pass into the felicity of +the universal infinite, stripped of its memory, its present personality, +and its flesh. + +Fear of annihilation, or of the loss of identity, which is the same +thing, I take to be one of the remaining terrors in European minds +meditating on death. Of all the imagined forms of survival, only one is +obviously more horrible than the night of nothing, and that is the state +in which Beethoven twangs a banjo and Gladstone utters the political +forecasts of a distinguished journalist. It may be that my affection for +the "narrow ego" is too violent, but, for myself, I do not find M. +Maeterlinck's consolations more genuinely consoling than other +philosophy. On the second and far more poignant terror that still +survives in the very nature of death, he hardly touches. I mean the +severance of love, the disappearance of the beloved. "No, no, no life," +cries Lear: + + "Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, + And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, + Never, never, never, never, never!" + +It is the cry of all mankind when love is thus slit in twain; nor is +sorrow comforted because coral is made of love's bones, or violets +spring from his flesh, and the vanished self is possibly absorbed into +the felicity of an infinite and everlasting azure. + + + + +XXXVI + + +STRULDBRUGS + +What a fuss they make, proclaiming the secret of long life! We must stay +abed till noon, they say; we must take life slowly and comfortably; we +must avoid worry, live moderately, drink wine, smoke cigars, and read +the _Times_. Yes; there is one who, in a letter to the _Times_, boasted +his grandfather sustained life for a hundred and one years by reading +all the leading and special articles of that paper; his father got to +eighty-eight on the same diet; himself follows their footsteps on fare +that is new every morning. Another writer has subscribed to the _Times_ +for sixty-seven years, and now is ninety-two on the strength of it. +Avoid worry, fret not yourself because of evildoers, let not indignation +lacerate your heart, take the sensible and solid view of things, read +the _Times_, and you will surpass the Psalmist's limit of threescore +years and ten. + +What a picture of beneficent comfort it calls up! The breakfast-room +furniture fit to outlast the Pyramids, the maroon leather of deep +armchairs, the marble clock ticking to half-past nine beneath the bronze +figure with the scythe and hourglass, the boots set to warm upon the +hearthrug, the crisp bacon sizzling gently beneath its silver cover, the +pleasant wife murmuring gently behind the silver urn, the paper set +beside the master's plate. Isaiah knew not of such regimen, else he +would not have cried that all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness +thereof as the flower of the field. + +Others there are whom poverty precludes from silver, and the narrow +estate of home from daily sustenance on the _Times_. Some study +diuturnity upon two meals a day, or pursue old age by means of "unfired +food," Others devour roots by moonlight, or savagely dine upon a pocket +of raw beans. These are intemperate on water, or bewail the touch of +salt as sacrilege against the sacrifice of eggs. These grovel for nuts +like the Hampshire hog, or impiously celebrate the fruitage by which man +fell. Some cast away their coats, some their hosen, some their hats. +They go barefoot but for sandals. They wander about in sheepskins and +goatskins, eschewing flesh for their food, and vegetables for their +clothing. They plunge distracted into boiling water. Shudderingly, they +break the frosty Serpentine. They absorb the sun's rays like pigeons +upon the housetops, or shiver naked in suburban chambers that they may +recover the barbaric tang. They walk through rivers fully clothed, and +shake their vesture as a dog his coat; or are hydrophobic for their +skins, fearing to wash lest they disturb essential oils. They shave +their heads as a cure for baldness, or in gentle gardens emulate the +raging lion's mane. One dreads to miss his curdled milk by the fraction +of a minute; another, at the semblance of a cold, puts off his supper +for three weeks and a day. One calculates upon longevity by means of +bare knees, another apprehends the approach of death through the orifice +in the palm of a leather glove. + +Of course, it is all right. Life is of inestimable value, and nothing +can compensate a corpse for the loss of it. Falstaff knew that, and, +like the Magpie Moth, wisely counterfeited death to avoid the +irretrievable step of dying. Our prudent livers display an equal wisdom, +not exactly counterfeiting death, but living gingerly--living, as it +were, at half-cock, lest life should go off suddenly with a flash and +bang, leaving them nowhere. Of course, they are quite right. Life being +pleasurable, it is well to spread it out as far as it will go. As to +honour, the hoary head in itself is a crown of glory, and when a man +reaches ninety, people will call him wonderful, though for ninety years +he has been a fool. The objects of living are, for the most part, +obscure and variable, and prudent livers may well ask why for the +obscure and variable objects of life they should lose life +itself--"Propter causas vivendi perdere vitam," if we may reverse the +old quotation. + +So they are quite justified in eating the bread of carefulness, and no +one who has known danger will condemn their solicitude for safely. But +yet, in hearing of those devices, or perusing the _Sour Milk Gazette_ +and the _Valetudinarian's Handbook_, somehow there come to my mind the +words, "Insanitas Sanitutum, omnia Insanitas!" And suddenly the picture +of those woeful islanders whom Gulliver discovered rises before me. For, +as we remember, in the realm of Laputa, he found a certain number of +both sexes (about eleven hundred) who were called Struldbrugs, or +Immortals, because, being born with a certain spot over the left +eyebrow, they were destined never to know the common visitation of +death. We remember how Gulliver envied them, accounting them the +happiest of human beings, since they had obtained in perpetuity the +blessing of life, for which all men struggle so hard that whoever has +one foot in the grave is sure to hold back the other as strongly as he +can. But in the end, he concluded that their lot was not really +enviable, seeing that increasing years only brought an increase of their +dullness and incapacity: + + "They were not only opinionative," he writes, "peevish, + covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, + and dead to all natural affections, which never descended below + their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their + prevailing passions. But those objects against which their + envy seems principally directed are the vices of the younger + sort, and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former + they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; + and whenever they see a funeral they lament and repine that + others have gone to a harbour of rest, to which they themselves + never can hope to arrive." + +The explorer further discovered that, after the age of eighty, the +marriages of the Struldbrugs were dissolved, because the law thought it +a reasonable indulgence that those who were condemned, without any fault +of their own, to a perpetual continuance in the world, should not have +their misery doubled by the load of a wife; also that they could never +amuse themselves with reading, because their memory would not serve to +carry them from the beginning of a sentence to the end; and after about +two hundred years, they could not hold conversation with their +neighbours, the mortals, because the language of the country was always +upon the flux. + +It is a pity that the laws of Laputa stringently forbade the export of +Struldbrugs, else, Gulliver tells us, he would gladly have brought a +couple to this country, to arm our people against the fear of death. +Had he only done so, what a lot of letters to the _Times_, +advertisements of patent medicines; and Eugenic discussions we should +have been spared! If earthly immortality were known to be such a curse, +we could more easily convince the most scrupulous devotee of health that +old age was little better than immortality. + +It is not, therefore, as though great age were such a catch that it +should demand all these delicate manipulations of diet, sleep, +rest-cures, health-resorts, scourings, and temperatures, for its +attainment. How refreshing to escape from this hospital atmosphere into +the free air, blowing whither it lists, and to fling oneself carelessly +upon existence, as Sir George Birdwood, for instance, has done! He also +wrote to the _Times_, but in a very different tone. Like another +Gulliver, he pictured the calamity of millionaires living on till their +heirs are senile. It is all nonsense, he said, to prescribe rules for +life. One of his oldest friends drank a bottle of cognac a day, and, as +for himself--well, we know that he is eighty, has lived a varied and +dangerous life in many lands, has written on carrots, chestnuts, +carpets, art, scholarship, all manner of absorbing subjects, and yet he +heartily survives: + + "I attribute my senility--let others say senectitude," he + shouts in his cheery way, "to a certain playful devilry of spirit, + a ceaseless militancy, quite suffragettic, so that when I left the + Indian Office on a bilked pension I swore by all the gods I + would make up for it by living on ten years, instead of one, + which was all an insurance society told me I was worth." + +That sounds the true note, blowing the horn of old forests and battles. +"A playful devilry of spirit," "a ceaseless militancy"--how stirring to +the stagnant lives of prudent regularity! "Lie in bed till noon-day!" +he goes on; "I would rather be some monstrous flat-fish at the bottom of +the Atlantic than accept human life on such terms." Who in future will +hear of rest-cures, retirements, retreats, nursings, comforts, and +attention to health, without beholding in his mind that monstrous +flat-fish, blind and deaf with age, rotting at ease upon the Atlantic +slime? Life is not measured by the ticking of a clock, and it is no new +thing to discover eternity in a minute. "I have not time to make money," +said the naturalist, Agassiz, when his friends advised some pecuniary +advantage; and, in the same way, every really fortunate man says he has +no time to bother about living. So soon as a human being does anything +simply because he thinks it will "do him good," and not for pleasure, +interest, or service, he should withdraw from this present world as +gracefully as he can. Of course, we all want to live, but even in death +there can hardly be anything so very awful, since it is so common. + +"The Kingdom of Heaven is not meat and drink." "He that loses his life +shall find it," said one Teacher. "Live dangerously," said another; and +"Try to be killed" is still the best advice for a soldier who would +rise. For life is to be measured by its intensity, and not by the +tapping of a death-watch beetle. "I've lost my appetite. I can't eat!" +groaned the patient whom Carlyle knew. "My dear sir, that is not of the +slightest consequence," replied the good physician; and how wise are +those scientists who deny to invalids the existence of their pain! Sir +George Birdwood recalled the saying of Plato that attention to health is +one of the greatest hindrances to life, and I vaguely remember Plato's +commendation of the working-man, who, in illness, just takes a dose, and +if that doesn't cure him, remarks, "If I must die, I must die," and +dies accordingly. That is how the working-man dies still; though +sometimes he is now buoyed up by the thought of his funeral's grandeur. +"A certain playful devilry of spirit," "a ceaseless militancy"--for life +or death those are the best regulations. + + + + +XXXVII + + +"LIBERTÉ, LIBERTÉ, CHÉRIE!" + +Just escaped from the prison-house of Russia, I had reached Marseilles. +The whole city, the bay, and the surrounding hills, bright with villas +and farms, glittered in sunshine. So did the spidery bridge that swings +the ferry across the Old Harbour's mouth. Even the fortifications looked +quite amiable under such a sky. Booming sirens sounded the approach of +great liners, moving slowly to their appointed docks. Little steamers +hurried from point to point along the shores with crowded decks, and the +lighthouses stood white against the Mediterranean blue. + +The streets were thronged with busy people. The shops and cafés were +thronged. At all the bathing places along the bay crowds of men, women, +and children were plunging with joy into the cool, transparent water. +The walls and kiosks were covered with gay advertisements of balls, +concerts, theatres, and open air music-halls. Flaunting and flirting to +and fro, women recalled what pleasure was. Electric trams went clanging +down the lines. Motors hooted as they set off for tours in the Alps. +Little carriages, with many-coloured hoods, loitered temptingly beside +tine pavements. The stalls along the quay shone with every variety of +gleaming fish, and every produce of the kindly earth. The sun went +smiling through the air; the sea smiled in answer. And over all, high +upon her rocky hill, watched the great image of Notre Dame de la Garde. + +"This is civilisation! This is liberty!" cried a Frenchman, who had +joined our ship in Turkey, and was now seated beside me, enjoying the +return to security, peace, and the comfort of his own language. + +Yes; it was civilisation, and it was liberty. Has not the name of +Marseilles breathed the very spirit of liberty all over the world? And +yet his words recalled to me another scene, and the remark of another +native of Marseilles. + +We were steaming slowly along the West Coast of Africa, landing cargo at +point after point, or calling for it as required. Day by day we wallowed +through the oily water, under a misty sun, that did not roast, but +boiled. Day by day we watched the low-lying shore--the unvarying line of +white beach, almost as white as the foam which dashed against it; and +beyond the beach, the long black line of unbroken forest. Nothing was to +be seen but those parallel lines of white beach and black forest, +stretching both ways to the horizon. At dawn they were partly concealed +by serpentining ghosts of mist that slowly vanished under the increasing +heat; and at sunset the mists stole silently over them again. But all +day and all night the sickly stench of vegetation, putrefying in the +steam of those forests from age to age, pervaded the ship as with the +breath of plague. + +One morning the scream of our whistle and the bang of our little +signal-gun, followed by the prolonged rattle of the anchor-chain running +through the hawse-pipe, showed that we had reached some point of call. +The ship lay about half a mile off shore, and one could see black +figures running about the beach and pushing off a big black boat. The +spray shot high in the air as the bow dived through the surf, and soon +we could hear the hiss and gasp of the rowers as they drew near. They +were naked negroes, shining with oil and sweat. Standing up in the boat, +with face to bow, they plunged their paddles perpendicularly into the +water with a hiss, and drew them out with a gasp. A swirling circle of +foam marked where each stroke had fallen, and the boat surged nearer +through the swell, till, with a swish of backing paddles, it stopped +alongside the ship's ladder, like a horse reined up. Out of the stern +there stepped a little figure, just recognisable as a white man. His +helmet was soaked and battered out of shape. The tattered relics of his +white-duck suit were plastered with yellow palm-oil and various kinds of +grease. So was the singlet, which was his only other clothing. So were +his face and hands. But he was a white man, and he came up the ship's +side with the confident air of Europe. + +The purser greeted him on deck, and they disappeared into the purser's +cabin to make out the bill of lading. The hatch was opened, and the +steam crane began hauling barrels and sacks out of the boat, and then +depositing other great barrels in their place, according to the simplest +form of barter. The barrels we took smelt of palm-oil; the barrels we +gave smelt of rum. When the boat could hold no more, the little man +reappeared with the purser, and was introduced to me as Mr. Jacks. + +He took off his battered helmet, inclined his body from the middle of +his back, and said, "Enchanted, sair!" + +Then he gave me his oily hand, which wanted rubbing down with a bit of +deck swabbing. + +"You fit for go shore one time?" he asked in the pidjin English of the +Coast, still keeping his helmet politely raised. + +"Oui, certainement, toute suite," I replied in the pidjin French of +England. + +If I had been the King conferring on him the title of Duke with a +corresponding income, his face could not have expressed greater surprise +and ecstasy. + +He replied with a torrent of French, of which I understood nearly all, +except the point. + +Taking my arm (the coat-sleeve never recovered from the oily stain), he +led me to the ship's side and steadied the rope ladder while I went +down, the purser following behind, or rather on my head. We sat on the +barrels, M. Jacques took a paddle to steer, and hissing and gasping, the +queer-smelling crew started for the beach. When we came near, M. Jacques +turned with his pleasant smile to the purser, and said, "Surf no good! +Plenty purser live for drown this one place." + +"That's all right," said the purser. Then the paddling stopped, and M. +Jacques looked over the stern to watch the swell. For a long time we +hung there, the waves rolling smoothly under us and crashing against the +steep bank of sand just in front, as a stormy sea crashes against a +south-coast esplanade at full tide under a south-west wind. Gently +moving his paddle this way and that, M. Jacques held the stern to the +swell, till suddenly he shouted "One time!" and the natives drove their +paddles Into the water like spears. On the top of a huge billow we +rushed forward. It broke, and we crashed down upon the beach. In a dome +of green and white the surge passed clean over us, and then, with a roar +like a torrent, it dragged us back. Another great wave broke over the +stern, and again we were hurled forward beneath it. This time a crowd of +natives rushed into the foam and, clinging to the gunwale, held us +steady against the backwash. Out we all sprang into two feet of rushing +water, and hauled the boat clear up the shore. + +"Surf no good!" observed M. Jacques; "but purser live this time," Then +he shook himself like a dog, rolled on the fine sand, shook himself +again, and with the smile of all the angels, remarked, "Now we fit for +go get one dilly drink." + +Leaving the natives to roll up the great barrels from the boat, we +climbed the beach to a long but narrow strip of fairly hard ground, on +which one solitary thorn-tree had contrived to grow. The further side of +the bank fell steeply into the vast swamp of the coast. There the +mangrove trees stood rotting in black water and slimy ooze, so thick +together that the misty sun never penetrated half-way down their +inextricable branches, and even from the edge of the forest one looked +into darkness. On the top of that thin plateau between the roaring sea +and the impenetrable swamp, M. Jacques had made his home. It was a +ramshackle little house, run together of boards and corrugated iron, and +bearing evidence of all the mistakes of which a West African native is +capable. At midday the solitary thorn afforded a transparent shade; for +the rest of daylight the dwelling sweltered and boiled unprotected. +Round house and tree ran a mud wall, about five feet high, loop-holed at +intervals. And just inside the house door was fastened a rack of three +rifles, kept tolerably clean. + +"Plenty pom-pom," said M. Jacques, as I looked at them (he returned to +the language that I evidently understood better than his own). "Black +man he cut throats too plenty much." + +Opening a padlocked trap-door in the flooring, he disappeared into an +underground cavern. Calling to me, he struck a match, and I looked down +into a kind of dungeon cell, smelling of damp like a vault There I saw a +broken camp-bed, covered with a Kaffir blanket. + +"Here live for catch dilly sleep," he cried triumphantly, as though +exhibiting a palace. "Plenty cool night here." + +Then, with a bottle in one hand, he came up the ladder, and carefully +locking the trap-door and pulling a table over it, he observed, "Black +man he thief too plenty much." + +With one thought only--the longing for liquid of any kind but salt +water-we sat in crazy deck-chairs under the iron verandah, where a few +starved chickens pecked unhappily at the dust. Presently there came the +padding sound of naked feet upon the hard-baked earth, and a dark figure +emerged from an inner kitchen. It was a young negress. Her short, woolly +hair was cut into sections, like a melon, by lines that showed the paler +skin below. The large dark eyes were filmy as a seal's, and the heavy +black lips projected far in front of the flat nostrils, slit sideways +like a bull-dog's. From breast to knee she was covered with a length of +dark blue cotton, wound twice round her body, and fastened with two +safety pins. In her hands, which were pinkish inside and on the palm +like a monkey's, she held a tray, and coming close to us, she stood, +silent and motionless, in front of M. Jacques. + +Into three meat-tins that served for cups, he poured out wine from the +bottle he had brought up from his subterranean bedroom. Then he filled +up his own cup from a larger meat-tin of water fresh from the marsh. We +did the same to make the wine go further, and at last we drank. It was +the vilest wine the chemists of Hamburg ever made, though German +education favours chemistry; and the water tasted like the bilge of +Charon's boat. But it was liquid, and when we had drained the tins--I +will not say to the dregs, for Hamburg wine has no dregs--M. Jacques lay +back with a sigh and said, "Drink fine too much." + +The girl handed us sticky slabs of Africa's maize bread, and then padded +off with the tray. Coming out again, she crouched down on her heels +against the doorpost, and silently watched us with impenetrable eyes, +that never blinked or turned aside, no matter how much one stared. + +Meantime, the natives from the beach, with many sighs and groans, were +rolling up the cargo of barrels, and setting them, one by one, in a +barricaded storehouse. "That's Bank of France," said M. Jacques, locking +the door securely when all the barrels were stowed. "Plenty rum all the +same good for plenty gold." + +Their spell of labour finished, the natives stretched themselves in the +shadow of the enclosure wall, and slept, while we sat languidly looking +over the steaming water at the ship, now dim in the haze. The heat was +so intense that, in spite of our drenching in the surf, the sweat was +running down our faces and backs again. The repeated crash and drag of +the waves were the only sounds, except when now and again a parrot +shrieked from the forest, or some great trunk, rotted right through at +last, fell heavily into the swamp among the tangled roots and slime. +Even the mosquitoes were still, and the only movement was the hovering +of giant hornets, attracted by the smell of the wine. + +"Holiday fine too much," said M. Jacques, smiling at us dreamily, and +stretching out his legs as he sank lower into his creaking chair. + +"One month, one ship; holiday same time," he explained, and he went on +to tell us he worked too plenty hard the rest of the month, stowing the +palm-oil and kernels as the natives brought them in by hardly +perceptible tracks from their villages far across the swamp. + +"Bit slow, isn't it, old man?" said the purser. + +"Not slow," he answered quickly; "plenty black man go thief, go kill; +plenty fever, plenty live for die." + +"I should think you miss the French cafés and concerts and dancing and +all that sort of thing," I remarked. + +"No matter for them things," he answered. "Liberty here. Liberty live +for this one place." + +"'Where there ain't no Ten Commandments,'" I quoted. + +"No ten? No _one_," he cried, shaking one finger in my face excitedly, +so as to make the meaning of "one" quite clear. + +Just then the steamer sounded her siren. + +"The old man's getting in a stew," said the purser, slowly standing up +and mopping his face. + +The crew stretched themselves, tightened their wisps of cotton, and +slowly stood up too. + +As M. Jacques led us politely down to the surf-boat again, I heard him +quietly singing in an undertone, "Liberté, Liberté, chérie!" + +"What part of France do you come from?" I asked. + +"From Marseilles, monsieur," he answered, and having helped push off +the boat, he stood with raised hat, watching us dive through the +breakers. Then he slowly climbed the sand again, and I saw him pass into +the gate of his fortified wall. + +It was strange. Against that man every possible Commandment could be +broken, but there was only one which he could have had any pleasure in +breaking himself. And as I sat at Marseilles, watching the happy crowds +of men and women pass to and fro, it appeared to me that he would have +been at liberty to break that Commandment without leaving his native +city. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +A FAREWELL TO FLEET STREET + +It is still early, but dinner is over--not the club dinner with its +buzzing conversation, nor yet the restaurant dinner, hurried into the +ten minutes between someone's momentous speech and the leader that has +to be written on it. The suburban dinner is over, and there was no need +to hurry. They tell me I shall be healthier now. What do I care about +being healthier? + +Shall I sit with a novel over the fire? Shall I take life at second-hand +and work up an interest in imaginary loves and the exigencies of +shadows? What are all the firesides and fictions of the world to me that +I should loiter here and doze, doze, as good as die? + +They tell me it is a fine thing to take a little walk before bed-time. I +go out into the suburban street. A thin, wet mist hangs over the silent +and monotonous houses, and blurs the electric lamps along our road. +There will be a fog in Fleet Street to-night, but everyone is too busy +to notice it. How friendly a fog made us all! How jolly it was that +night when I ran straight into a _Chronicle_ man, and got a lead of him +by a short head over the same curse! There's no chance of running into +anyone here, let alone cursing! A few figures slouch past and disappear; +the last postman goes his round, knocking at one house in ten; up and +down the asphalt path leading into the obscurity of the Common a +wretched woman wanders in vain; the long, pointed windows of a chapel +glimmer with yellowish light through the dingy air, and I hear the faint +groans of a harmonium cheering the people dismally home. The groaning +ceases, the lights go out, service is over; it will soon be time for +decent people to be in bed. + +In Fleet Street the telegrams will now be falling thick as--No, I won't +say it! No Vallombrosa for me, nor any other journalistic tag! I +remember once a young sub-editor had got as far as, "The cry is still--" +when I took him by the throat. I have done the State some service. + +Our sub-editors' room is humming now: a low murmur of questions, rapid +orders, the rustle of paper, the quick alarum of telephones. Boys keep +bringing telegrams in orange envelopes. Each sub-editor is bent over his +little lot of news. One sorts out the speeches from bundles of flimsy. +The middle of Lloyd George's speech has got mixed up with Balfour's +peroration. If he left them mixed, would anyone be the less wise? +Perhaps the speakers might notice it, and that man from Wiltshire would +be sure to write saying he had always supported Mr. Balfour, and +heartily welcomed this fresh evidence of his consistency. + +"Six columns speeches in already; how much?" asks the sub-editor. +"Column and quarter," comes answer from the head of the table, and the +cutting begins. Another sub-editor pieces together an interview about +the approaching comet. "Keep comet to three sticks," comes the order, +and the comet's perihelion is abbreviated. Another guts a blue-book on +prison statistics as savagely as though he were disembowelling the whole +criminal population. + +There's the telephone ringing. "Hullo, hullo!" calls a sub-editor +quietly. "Who are you? Margate mystery? Go ahead. They've found the +corpse? All right. Keep it to a column, but send good story. Horrible +mutilations? Good. Glimpse the corpse yourself if you can. Yes. Send +full mutilations. Will call for them at eleven. Good-bye." "You doing +the Archbishop, Mr. Jones?" asks the head of the table. "Cup-tie at +Sunderland," answers Mr. Jones, and all the time the boys go in and out +with those orange-coloured bulletins of the world's health. + +What's a man to do at night out here? Let's have a look at all these +posters displayed in front of the Free Library, where a few poor +creatures are still reading last night's news for the warmth. Next week +there's a concert of chamber-music in the Town Hall I suppose I might go +to that, just to "kill time" as they say. Think of a journalist wanting +to kill time! Or to kill anything but another fellow's "stuff," and +sometimes an editor! Then there's a boxing competition at the St. John's +Arms, and a subscription dance in the Nelson Rooms, and a lecture on +Dante, with illustrations from contemporary art, for working men and +women, at the Institute. Also there's something called the +Why-Be-Lonesome Club for promoting friendly social intercourse among the +young and old of all classes. I suppose I might go to that too. It +sounds comprehensive. + +There seems no need to be dull in the suburbs. A man in a cart is still +crying coke down the street. Another desires to sell clothes-props. A +brace of lovers come stealing out of the Common through the mist, +careless of mud and soaking grass. I suppose people would say I'm too +old to make love on a County Council bench. In love's cash-books the +balance-sheet of years is kept with remorseless accuracy. + +The foreign editors are waiting now in their silent room, and the +telegrams come to them from the ends of the world. They fold them in +packets together by countries or continents--the Indian stuff, the +Russian stuff, the Egyptian, Balkan, Austrian, South African, Persian, +Japanese, American, Spanish, and all the rest. They'll have pretty +nearly seven columns by this time, and the order will come +"Two-and-a-half foreign," Then the piecing and cutting will begin. One +of them sits in a telephone box with bands across his head, and repeats +a message from our Paris correspondent. Through our Paris man we can +talk with Berlin and Rome. + +From this rising ground I can see the light of the city reflected on the +misty air, and somewhere mingled in that light are the big lamps down in +Fleet Street. The City's voice comes to me like a confused murmur +through a telephone when the words are unintelligible. The only distinct +sounds are the dripping of the moisture from the trees in suburban +gardens, and the voice of an old lady imploring her pet dog to return +from his evening walk. + +The voice of all the world is now heard in that silent room. From moment +to moment news is coming of treaties and revolutions, of sultans deposed +and kings enthroned, of commerce and failures, of shipwrecks, +earthquakes, and explorations, of wars and flooded camps and sieges, of +intrigue, diplomacy, and assassination, of love, murder, revenge, and +all the public joy and sorrow and business of mankind. All the voices of +fear, hope, and lamentation echo in that silent little room; and maps +hang on the walls, and guide-books are always ready, for who knows +where the next event may come to pass upon this energetic little earth, +already twisting for a hundred million years around the sun? + +The editor must be back by now. Calm and decisive, he takes his seat in +his own room, like the conductor of an orchestra preparing to raise his +baton now that the tuning-up is finished. The leader-writers are coming +in for their instructions. No need for much consultation to-night--not +for the first leader anyhow. For the second--well, there are a good many +things one could suggest: Turkey or Persia or the eternal German +Dreadnought for a foreign subject; the stage censorship or the price of +cotton; and the cup-ties, or the extinction of hats for both sexes as a +light note to finish with. He's always labouring to invent "something +light," is the editor. He says we must sometimes consider the public; +just as though we wrote the rest of the paper for our own private fun. + +But there's no doubt about the first leader to-night. There's only one +subject on which it would be a shock to every reader in the morning not +to find it written. And, my word! what a subject it is! What seriousness +and indignation and conviction one could get into it! I should begin by +restating the situation. You must always assume that the reader's +ignorance is new every morning, as love should be; and anyone who +happens to know something about it likes to see he was right. I should +work in adroit references to this evening's speeches, and that would +fill the first paragraph--say, three sides of my copy, or something +over. In the second paragraph I'd show the immense issues involved in +the present contest, and expose the fallacies of our opponents who +attempt to belittle the matter as temporary and unlikely to recur--say, +three sides of my copy again, but not a word more. And, then, in the +third paragraph, I'd adjure the Government, in the name of all their +party hold sacred, to stand firm, and I'd appeal to the people of this +great Empire never to allow their ancient liberties to be encroached +upon or overridden by a set of irresponsible--well, in short, I should +be like General Sherman when at the crisis of a battle he used to say, +"Now, let everything go in"--four sides of my copy, or even five if the +stuff is running well. + +Somebody must be writing that leader now. Possibly he is doing it better +than I should, but I hope not. When Hannibal wandered all those years in +Asia at the Court of silly Antiochus this or stupid Prusias the other, +and knew that Carthage was falling to ruin while he alone might have +saved her if only she had allowed him, would he have rejoiced to hear +that someone else was succeeding better than himself--had traversed the +Alps with a bigger army, had won a second Cannae, and even at Zama +snatched a decisive victory? Hannibal might have rejoiced. He was a very +exceptional man. + +But here's a poor creature still playing the clarionet down the street, +on the pretence of giving pleasure worth a penny. Yes, my boy, I know +you're out of work, and that is why you play the "Last Rose of Summer" +and "When other Lips." I am out of work, too, and I can't play anything. +You say you learnt when a boy, and once played in the orchestra at Drury +Lane; but now you've come to wandering about suburban streets, and +having finished "When other Lips," you will quite naturally play "My +Lodging's on the Cold Ground." Only last night I was playing in an +orchestra myself, not a hundred miles (obsolete journalistic tag!)--not +a hundred miles from Drury Lane. It was a grand orchestra, that of ours. +Night by night it played the symphony of the world, and each night a new +symphony was performed, without rehearsal. The drums of our orchestra +were the echoes of thundering wars; the flutes and soft recorders were +the eloquence of an Empire's statesmen; and our 'cellos and violins +wailed with the pity of all mankind. In that vast orchestra I played the +horn that sounds the charge, or with its sharp réveillé vexes the ear of +night before the sun is up. Here is your penny, my brother in +affliction. I, too, have once joined in the music of a star, and now +wander the suburban streets. + +That leader-writer has not finished yet, but the proofs of the beginning +of his article will be coming down. In an hour or so his work will be +over, and he will pass out into the street exhausted, but happy with the +sense of function fulfilled. Fleet Street is quieter now. The lamps +gleam through the fog, a motor-'bus thunders by, a few late messengers +flit along with the latest telegrams, and some stragglers from the +restaurants come singing past the Temple. For a few moments there is +silence but for the leader-writer's quick footsteps on the pavement. He +is some hours in front of the morning's news, and in a few hours more +half a million people will be reading what he has just written, and will +quote it to each other as their own. How often I have had whole +sentences of my stuff thrown at me as conclusive arguments almost before +the printing ink was dry! + +Here I stand, beside a solitary lamp-post upon a suburban acclivity. The +light of the city's existence I think my successor would say, of her +pulsating and palpitating or ebullient existence--is pale upon the sky, +and the murmur of her voice sounds like large but distant waves. I stand +alone, and near me there is no sound but the complaint of a homeless +tramp swearing at the cold as he settles down upon a bench for the +night. + +How I used to swear at that boy for not coming quick enough to fetch my +copy! I knew the young scoundrel's step--I knew the step of every man +and boy in that office. I knew the way each of them went up and down the +stairs, and coughed or whistled or spat. What knowledge dies with me now +that I am gone! _Qualis artifex pereo!_ But that boy--how I should love +to be swearing at him now! I wonder whether he misses me? I hope he +does. "It would be an assurance most dear," as an old song of exile used +to say. + + + + +INDEX + + + A + + Abdul Hamid, + Angell, Norman, + Antonines, Age of the, + Apuleius, _Golden Ass_ of, + Arbuthnot, Dr., + Aristotle, definition of happiness, + Arnold, Matthew, quoted, + Augustine, Saint, + Austria, Archduke Johann Salvator of, + + + B + + Barcelona, + Barnett, Canon, quoted, + Birdwood, Sir George, quoted, + Boer War, + Börne, Ludwig, quoted, + Bolivar, + Booth, Charles, + Brailsford, H.N., quoted, + Brown, John, + Browne, Sir Thomas, quoted, + Browning, Robert, + Buddhist Nuns, + Burke, Edmund, + Burns, John, + Byron, as catfish, + quoted, + as rebel, + in Greece, + on the poor, + death, + + + C + + Cade, Jack, + Calvin, + Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, + Canning, + Canterbury, Archbishop of, + Carlyle, Thomas, on allurements, + burning book, + on Mammon, + on Peterloo, + on landowners, + on heroes, + on war, + on Christ, + on invalids, + Chamfort, + Clarkson, Mr., of the Education Office, + Clough, Arthur, + Coleridge, + Conway, Moncure, + Cooper, Thomas, + Cowper, William, + Cromwell, + Curzon, Lord, + + + D + + Dante, + Danton, + Darwin, + Davids, Mrs. Rhys, + Davitt, Michael, + Deborah, + Delany, + + + E + + Eliot, George, quoted, + Elliot, Ebenezer, + Emerson, quoted, + Emmet, Robert, + + + F + + Farrar, Dean, + Ferrer, of Barcelona, + Finland, + France, Anatole, + Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, quoted, + Free, Richard, + Futurists, + + + G + + Garibaldi, + Gaunt, Elizabeth, burnt, + George, Henry, + Germany, her conquest of England imagined, + Gibbon, quoted, + Ginnell, Lawrence, M.P., + Gladstone, + foreign policy, + arbitration, + Goethe, + preface, + _Faust_, quoted, + science, + + + H + + Hague, The, Conferences, + Hampden, John, + Harmodius and Aristogeiton, + Hebrews, Epistle to, quoted, + Heine, Heinrich, + Henley, W.E., quoted, + Hobbes, + Hobson, J.A., + Hugo, Victor, + Huxley, Thomas H., + + + I + + Ibsen, quoted, + India, + treatment of rebels, + our government of, + Anglo-Indians, + Ireland, + Italy, + + + J + + Jacques, M., of the West Coast, + James, Prof. William, + Jameson, Sir L. Starr, + Joan of Arc, + Johnson, Dr., on Hell, + Jones, Ebenezer, + Jones, Ernest, + Judith, + + + K + + Kant, quoted, + Kingsley, Charles, quoted, + Kipling, Rudyard, quoted or referred to, + Kossuth, + + + L + + Landor, quoted, + Leopardi, quoted, + Linton, William James, + Lowell, J.R., quoted, + Lynch, Dr., M.P., + + + M + + Macaulay, + quoted, + in India, + MacDonald, J. Ramsay, M.P. + Machiavelli, + Maeterlinck, + Malmberg, Mme., of Finland, + Malthus, + Mann, Tom, + Martineau, Harriet, + Marx, Karl, + Massey, Gerald, + Mazzini, + Meredith, George, quoted, + Mill, John Stuart, + Montfort, Simon de, + Morley, Lord, + on political offenders, + on books, + on government, + Morocco, Sultan of, + Morris, William, + + + N + + Nash, Vaughan, + Nietzsche, quoted, + Norway, the only democracy, + + + O + + O'Neill, Shan, + Orth, Johann. _See_ Archduke + + + P + + Paine, Tom, + Parnell, Charles Stuart, + Pater, Walter, quoted, + Paterson, Alexander, + Pope, + Proudhon, + + + R + + Rienzi, + Rochefoucauld, + Roosevelt, Theodore, + Rosebery, Lord, quoted, + Rousseau, Jean Jacques, + Ruskin, + on deeds, + the burning book, + Hinksey road, + on Pusey, + Russell, Sir William, + Russia, + treatment of rebels, + revolution in, + Finland, + subject races, + our alliance with, + Japanese war, + + + S + + Schiller, + Sharp, Cecil, + Shaw, George Bernard, + Shelley, + Smith, Sir H. Llewellyn, + Stead, W.T., + Stephen, Sir James, quoted, + Stevenson, R.L., quoted, + Stowe, Mrs. Beecher, + Stubel, Milli. _See_ Archduke + Suffrage, women's, + penalties for demanding, + suffragettes, + in Norway, + subject race, + parallels in past, + in conversation, + woman's place the home + Sumner, Prof., quoted, + Swift, quoted; + _Drapier's Letters_, + indignation, + his lovable nature, + _Gulliver_, quoted, + + + T + + Tell, William, + Tennyson, quoted, + Tillett, Ben, + Tolstoy, the burning book, + death, + as rebel, + on Empires, + on death, + Tomkinson, James, + Tone, Wolfe, + Trevelyan, George M., + Treves, Sir Frederick, quoted, + Tripoli, + Turkey, + Twain, Mark, quoted, + Tyler, Wat, + + + U + + Unwin, Mrs. Cobden, quoted, + + + V + + Vaughan, Cardinal, + Victoria, Queen, + + + W + + Walkley, A.W., + Wallace, Sir William, + Weils, H.G., + Whitman, Walt, quoted, + William the Silent, + Wolseley, Lord, quoted, + Wordsworth, + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Essays in Rebellion, by Henry W. Nevinson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11079 *** |