diff options
Diffstat (limited to '18788-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 18788-h/18788-h.htm | 6014 |
1 files changed, 6014 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/18788-h/18788-h.htm b/18788-h/18788-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9158fd --- /dev/null +++ b/18788-h/18788-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6014 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Post-Prandial Philosophy, by Grant Allen + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + + p.one {text-indent: -1em; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-left: 1em;} + P.two {text-indent: -2em; margin-left: 1em;} + + + h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; font-weight: normal; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + h1 {text-align: left; font-weight: normal;margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em;} + + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + tbody{margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 0%; + } + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + td.cell_1 {vertical-align: top; width: 8%; text-align: right;} + td.cell_2 {vertical-align: top; width: 85%; text-align: left;} + td.cell_3 {vertical-align: top; width: 7%; text-align: right;} + td.cell_4 {vertical-align: top; width: 15%; text-align: left;} + + + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .smcapi {font-variant: small-caps; display: inline;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Post-Prandial Philosophy, by Grant Allen + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Post-Prandial Philosophy + +Author: Grant Allen + +Release Date: July 8, 2006 [EBook #18788] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POST-PRANDIAL PHILOSOPHY *** + + + + +Produced by Clare Boothby, Turgut Dincer and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1> </h1> +<div class="smcapi"><h1>Post-Prandial</h1></div> +<div class="smcapi"><h1>Philosophy</h1></div> +<h1> </h1> + +<h3>By GRANT ALLEN</h3> + + +<h5>AUTHOR OF</h5> +<h6>"THE EVOLUTIONIST AT LARGE," ETC.</h6> + +<h4>LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS</h4> +<h5>1894</h5> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>These Essays appeared originally in <i>The Westminster +Gazette</i>, and have only been so far modified +here as is necessary for purposes of volume +publication. They aim at being suggestive rather +than exhaustive: I shall be satisfied if I have +provoked thought without following out each train +to a logical conclusion. Most of the Essays are +just what they pretend to be—crystallisations into +writing of ideas suggested in familiar conversation.</p> + +<table summary="Signed" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" +style="width: 90%;"> +<tbody> +<tr> + <td class="cell_2"></td> + <td class="cell_4">G. A.</td> +</tr> +</tbody> +</table> + +<p><small> Hind Head,</small> <i>March</i> 1894.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<table summary="Contents" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="6" border="0" +style="width: 100%; font-size: small;"> +<tbody> +<tr> + <td class="cell_1"></td> + <td class="cell_2"></td> + <td class="cell_3">PAGE</td> +</tr> + + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">I.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE AMONG LANGUAGES</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#I">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">II.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">IN THE MATTER OF ARISTOCRACY</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#II">9</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">III.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">SCIENCE IN EDUCATION</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#III">18</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">IV.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">THE THEORY OF SCAPEGOATS</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#IV">27</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">V.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">AMERICAN DUCHESSES</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#V">35</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">VI.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">IS ENGLAND PLAYED OUT?</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#VI">44</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">VII.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">THE GAME AND THE RULES</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#VII">53</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">VIII.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">THE RÔLE OF PROPHET</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#VIII">61</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">IX.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">THE ROMANCE OF THE CLASH OF RACES</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#IX">70</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">X.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">THE MONOPOLIST INSTINCTS</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#X">79</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XI.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">"MERE AMATEURS"</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XI">87</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XII.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">A SQUALID VILLAGE</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XII">95</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XIII.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">CONCERNING ZEITGEIST</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XIII">104</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XIV.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">THE DECLINE OF MARRIAGE</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XIV">112</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XV.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">EYE <i>versus</i> EAR</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XV">122</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XVI.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">THE POLITICAL PUPA</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XVI">130</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XVII.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">ON THE CASINO TERRACE</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XVII">138</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XVIII.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">THE CELTIC FRINGE</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XVIII">147</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XIX.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">IMAGINATION AND RADICALS</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XIX">156</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XX.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">ABOUT ABROAD</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XX">165</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XXI.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">WHY ENGLAND IS BEAUTIFUL</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XXI">173</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XXII.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">ANENT ART PRODUCTION</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XXII">182</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XXIII.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">A GLIMPSE INTO UTOPIA</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XXIII">190</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XXIV.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">OF SECOND CHAMBERS</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XXIV">199</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="cell_1">XXV.</td> + <td class="cell_2"><p class="one">A POINT OF CRITICISM</p></td> + <td class="cell_3"><a href="#XXV">207</a></td> +</tr> + +</tbody> + +</table> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>POST-PRANDIAL PHILOSOPHY</h2> + +<h3><a name="I" id="I" ></a>I.</h3> + +<h4><i>THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE AMONG LANGUAGES.</i></h4> + + +<p>A distinguished Positivist friend of mine, who is +in most matters a practical man of the world, +astonished me greatly the other day at Venice, +by the grave remark that Italian was destined +to be the language of the future. I found on +inquiry he had inherited the notion direct from +Auguste Comte, who justified it on the purely +sentimental and unpractical ground that the +tongue of Dante had never yet been associated +with any great national defeat or disgrace. The +idea surprised me not a little; because it displays +such a profound misconception of what language +is, and why people use it. The speech of the +world will not be decided on mere grounds of +sentiment: the tongue that survives will not survive +because it is so admirably adapted for the +manufacture of rhymes or epigrams. Stern need +compels. Frenchmen and Germans, in congress +assembled, and looking about them for a means +of intercommunication, might indeed agree to +accept Italian then and there as an international +compromise. But congresses don't make or unmake +the habits of everyday life; and the growth +or spread of a language is a thing as much beyond +our deliberate human control as the rise or fall +of the barometer.</p> + +<p>My friend's remark, however, set me thinking +and watching what are really the languages now +gaining and spreading over the civilised world; +it set me speculating what will be the outcome +of this gain and spread in another half century. +And the results are these: Vastly the most growing +and absorbing of all languages at the present +moment is the English, which is almost everywhere +swallowing up the overflow of German, Scandinavian, +Dutch, and Russian. Next to it, probably, +in point of vitality, comes Spanish, which is +swallowing up the overflow of French, Italian, +and the other Latin races. Third, perhaps, ranks +Russian, destined to become in time the spoken +tongue of a vast tract in Northern and Central +Asia. Among non-European languages, three +seem to be gaining fast: Chinese, Malay, Arabic. +Of the doomed tongues, on the other hand, the +most hopeless is French, which is losing all round; +while Italian, German, and Dutch are either quite +at a standstill or slightly retrograding. The +world is now round. By the middle of the +twentieth century, in all probability, English will +be its dominant speech; and the English-speaking +peoples, a heterogeneous conglomerate of all +nationalities, will control between them the destinies +of mankind. Spanish will be the language +of half the populous southern hemisphere. Russian +will spread over a moiety of Asia. Chinese, +Malay, Arabic, will divide among themselves the +less civilised parts of Africa and the East. But +French, German, and Italian will be insignificant +and dwindling European dialects, as numerically +unimportant as Flemish or Danish in our own +day.</p> + +<p>And why? Not because Shakespeare wrote +in English, but because the English language +has already got a firm hold of all those portions +of the earth's surface which are most absorbing +the overflow of European populations. Germans +and Scandinavians and Russians emigrate by the +thousand now to all parts of the United States +and the north-west of Canada. In the first +generation they may still retain their ancestral +speech; but their children have all to learn +English. In Australia and New Zealand the +same thing is happening. In South Africa Dutch +had got a footing, it is true; but it is fast losing +it. The newcomers learn English, and though +the elder Boers stick with Boer conservatism to +their native tongue, young Piet and young Paul +find it pays them better to know and speak the +language of commerce—the language of Cape +Town, of Kimberley, of the future. The reason +is the same throughout. Whenever two tongues +come to be spoken in the same area one of them +is sure to be more useful in business than the +other. Every French-Canadian who wishes to do +things on a large scale is obliged to speak English. +So is the Creole in Louisiana; so earlier were the +Knickerbocker Dutch in New York. Once let English +get in, and it beats all competing languages +fairly out of the field in a couple of generations.</p> + +<p>Like influences favour Spanish in South America +and elsewhere. English has annexed most of +North America, Australia, South Africa, the +Pacific; Spanish has annexed South America, +Central America, the Philippines, Cuba, and a +few other places. For the most part these areas +are less suited than the English-speaking districts +for colonisation by North Europeans; but they +absorb a large number of Italians and other +Mediterranean races, who all learn Spanish in +the second generation. As to the other dominant +languages, the points in their favour are +different. Conquest and administrative needs are +spreading Russian over the steppes of Asia; the +Arab merchant and the growth of Mahommedanism +are importing Arabic far into the heart +of Africa; the Chinaman is carrying his own +monosyllables with him to California, Australia, +Singapore. These tongues in future will divide +the world between them.</p> + +<p>The German who leaves Germany becomes an +Anglo-American. The Italian who leaves Italy +becomes a Spanish-American.</p> + +<p>There is another and still more striking way +of looking at the rapid increase of English. No +other language will carry you through so many +ports in the world. It suffices for London, +Liverpool, Glasgow, Belfast, Southampton, Cardiff; +for New York, Boston, Montreal, Charleston, New +Orleans, San Francisco; for Sydney, Melbourne, +Auckland, Hong Kong, Yokohama, Honolulu; for +Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Kurrachi, Singapore, +Colombo, Cape Town, Mauritius. Spanish with +Cadiz, Barcelona, Havana, Callao, Valparaiso, +cannot touch that record; nor can French with +Marseilles, Bordeaux, Havre, Algiers, Antwerp, +Tahiti. The most commercially useful language +in the world, thus widely diffused in so many +great mercantile and shipping centres, is certain +to win in the struggle for existence among the +tongues of the future.</p> + +<p>The old Mediterranean civilisation teaches us +a useful lesson in this respect. Two languages +dominated the Mediterranean basin. The East +spoke Greek, not because Plato and Æschylus +spoke Greek, but because Greek was the tongue +of the great commercial centres—of Athens, +Syracuse, Alexandria, Antioch, Byzantium. The +West spoke Latin, not because Catullus and Virgil +spoke Latin, but because Latin was the administrative +tongue, the tongue of Rome, of Italy, +and later of Gaul, of Spain, of the great towns +in Dacia, Pannonia, Britain. Whoever wanted +to do anything on the big scale then, had to +speak Greek or Latin; so much so that the +native languages of Gaul and Spain died utterly +out, and Latin dialects are now the spoken +tongue in all southern Europe. In our own +time, again, educated Hindoos from different +parts of India have to use English as a means +of intercommunication; and native merchants +must write their business correspondence with +distant houses in English. To put an extreme +contrast: in the last century French was spoken +by far more people than English; at the present +day French is only just keeping up its numbers +in France, is losing in Canada and the United +States, is not advancing to any extent in Africa. +English is spoken by a hundred million people +in Europe and America; is over-running Africa; +has annexed Australasia and the Pacific Isles; +has ousted, or is ousting, Dutch at the Cape, +French in Louisiana, even Spanish itself in +Florida, California, New Mexico. In Egyptian +mud villages, the aspiring Copt, who once learnt +French, now learns English. In Scandinavia, +our tongue gains ground daily. Everywhere in +the world it takes the lead among the European +languages, and by the middle of the next century +will no doubt be spoken over half the globe by a +cosmopolitan mass of five hundred million people.</p> + +<p>And all on purely Darwinian principles! It +is the best adapted tongue, and therefore it +survives in the struggle for existence. It is +the easiest to learn, at least orally. It has got +rid of the effete rubbish of genders; simplified +immensely its declensions and conjugations; +thrown overboard most of the nonsensical ballast +we know as grammar. It is only weighted now +by its grotesque and ridiculous spelling—one of +the absurdest among all the absurd English +attempts at compromise. The pressure of the +newer speakers will compel it to make jetsam +of that lumber also; and then the tongue of +Shelley and Newton will march onward unopposed +to the conquest of humanity.</p> + +<p>I pen these remarks, I hope, "without prejudice." +Patriotism is a vulgar vice of which +I have never been guilty.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="II" id="II"></a>II.</h3> + +<h4><i>IN THE MATTER OF ARISTOCRACY.</i></h4> + + +<p>Aristocracies, as a rule, all the world over, +consist, and have always consisted, of barbaric +conquerors or their descendants, who remain to +the last, on the average of instances, at a lower +grade of civilisation and morals than the democracy +they live among.</p> + +<p>I know this view is to some extent opposed +to the common ideas of people at large (and +especially of that particular European people +which "dearly loves a lord") as to the relative +position of aristocracies and democracies in the +sliding scale of human development. There is a +common though wholly unfounded belief knocking +about the world, that the aristocrat is better +in intelligence, in culture, in arts, in manners, +than the ordinary plebeian. The fact is, being, +like all barbarians, a boastful creature, he has +gone on so long asserting his own profound +superiority by birth to the world around him—a +superiority as of fine porcelain to common clay—that +the world around him has at last actually +begun to accept him at his own valuation. Most +English people in particular think that a lord is +born a better judge of pictures and wines and +books and deportment than the human average +of us. But history shows us the exact opposite. +It is a plain historical fact, provable by simple +enumeration, that almost all the aristocracies the +world has ever known have taken their rise in +the conquest of civilised and cultivated races by +barbaric invaders; and that the barbaric invaders +have seldom or never learned the practical arts +and handicrafts which are the civilising element +in the life of the conquered people around +them.</p> + +<p>To begin with the aristocracies best known to +most of us, the noble families of modern and +mediæval Europe sprang, as a whole, from the +Teutonic invasion of the Roman Empire. In +Italy, it was the Lombards and the Goths who +formed the bulk of the great ruling families; all +the well-known aristocratic names of mediæval +Italy are without exception Teutonic. In Gaul +it was the rude Frank who gave the aristocratic +element to the mixed nationality, while it was +the civilised and cultivated Romano-Celtic provincial +who became, by fate, the mere <i>roturier</i>. +The great revolution, it has been well said, was, +ethnically speaking, nothing more than the revolt +of the Celtic against the Teutonic fraction; and, +one might add also, the revolt of the civilised +Romanised serf against the barbaric <i>seigneur</i>. In +Spain, the hidalgo is just the <i>hi d'al Go</i>, the son +of the Goth, the descendant of those rude Visigothic +conquerors who broke down the old civilisation +of Iberian and Romanised Hispania. And +so on throughout. All over Europe, if you care +to look close, you will find the aristocrat was +the son of the intrusive barbarian; the democrat +was the son of the old civilised and educated +autochthonous people.</p> + +<p>It is just the same elsewhere, wherever we turn. +Take Greece, for example. Its most aristocratic +state was undoubtedly Sparta, where a handful of +essentially barbaric Dorians held in check a much +larger and Helotised population of higher original +civilisation. Take the East: the Persian was a +wild mountain adventurer who imposed himself as +an aristocrat upon the far more cultivated Babylonian, +Assyrian, and Egyptian. The same sort +of thing had happened earlier in time in Babylonia +and Assyria themselves, where barbaric conquerors +had similarly imposed themselves upon the first +known historical civilisations. Take India under +the Moguls, once more; the aristocracy of the time +consisted of the rude Mahommedan Tartar, who +lorded it over the ancient enchorial culture of +Rajpoot and Brahmin. Take China: the same +thing over again—a Tartar horde imposing its +savage rule over the most ancient civilised people +of Asia. Take England: its aristocracy at different +times has consisted of the various barbaric +invaders, first the Anglo-Saxon (if I must use that +hateful and misleading word)—a pirate from +Sleswick; then the Dane, another pirate from +Denmark direct; then the Norman, a yet younger +Danish pirate, with a thin veneer of early French +culture, who came over from Normandy to better +himself after just two generations of Christian +apprenticeship. Go where you will, it matters +not where you look; from the Aztec in Mexico +to the Turk at Constantinople or the Arab in +North Africa, the aristocrat belongs invariably to +a lower race than the civilised people whom he +has conquered and subjugated.</p> + +<p>"That may be true, perhaps," you object, "as +to the remote historical origin of aristocracies; but +surely the aristocrat of later generations has +acquired all the science, all the art, all the polish +of the people he lives amongst. He is the flower +of their civilisation." Don't you believe it! There +isn't a word of truth in it. From first to last the +aristocrat remains, what Matthew Arnold so justly +called him, a barbarian. I often wonder, indeed, +whether Arnold himself really recognised the literal +and actual truth of his own brilliant generalisation. +For the aristocratic ideas and the aristocratic pursuits +remain to the very end essentially barbaric. +The "gentleman" never soils his high-born hands +with dirty work; in other words, he holds himself +severely aloof from the trades and handicrafts +which constitute civilisation. The arts that train +and educate hand, eye, and brain he ignorantly +despises. In the early middle ages he did not +even condescend to read and write, those inferior +accomplishments being badges of serfdom. If you +look close at the "occupations of a gentleman" in +the present day, you will find they are all of purely +barbaric character. They descend to us direct from +the semi-savage invaders who overthrew the structure +of the Roman empire, and replaced its civilised +organisation by the military and barbaric +system of feudalism. The "gentleman" is above +all things a fighter, a hunter, a fisher—he preserves +the three simplest and commonest barbaric +functions. He is <i>not</i> a practiser of any civilised +or civilising art—a craftsman, a maker, a worker +in metal, in stone, in textile fabrics, in pottery. +These are the things that constitute civilisation; +but the aristocrat does none of them; in the +famous words of one who now loves to mix with +English gentlemen, "he toils not, neither does he +spin." The things he <i>may</i> do are, to fight by sea +and land, like his ancestor the Goth and his ancestor +the Viking; to slay pheasant and partridge, +like his predatory forefathers; to fish for salmon +in the Highlands; to hunt the fox, to sail the +yacht, to scour the earth in search of great game—lions, +elephants, buffalo. His one task is to kill—either +his kind or his quarry.</p> + +<p>Observe, too, the essentially barbaric nature of +the gentleman's home—his trappings, his distinctive +marks, his surroundings, his titles. He lives +by choice in the wildest country, like his skin-clad +ancestors, demanding only that there be game and +foxes and fish for his delectation. He loves the +moors, the wolds, the fens, the braes, the Highlands, +not as the painter, the naturalist, or the searcher +after beauty of scenery loves them—for the sake +of their wild life, their heather and bracken, their +fresh keen air, their boundless horizon—but for +the sake of the thoroughly barbarous existence he +and his dogs and his gillies can lead in them. +The fact is, neither he nor his ancestors have ever +been really civilised. Barbarians in the midst of +an industrial community, they have lived their own +life of slaying and playing, untouched by the culture +of the world below them. Knights in the +middle ages, squires in the eighteenth century, +they have never received a tincture of the civilising +arts and crafts and industries; they have +fought and fished and hunted in uninterrupted +succession since the days when wild in woods the +noble savage ran, to the days when they pay extravagant +rents for Scottish grouse moors. Their +very titles are barbaric and military—knight and +earl and marquis and duke, early crystallised names +for leaders in war or protectors of the frontier. +Their crests and coats of arms are but the totems +of their savage predecessors, afterwards utilised by +mediæval blacksmiths as distinguishing marks for +the summit of a helmet. They decorate their halls +with savage trophies of the chase, like the Zulu or +the Red Indian; they hang up captured arms and +looted Chinese jars from the Summer Palace in +their semi-civilised drawing-rooms. They love to +be surrounded by grooms and gamekeepers and +other barbaric retainers; they pass their lives in +the midst of serfs; their views about the position +and rights of women—especially the women of the +"lower orders"—are frankly African. They share +the sentiments of Achilles as to the individuality +of Chryseis and Briseis.</p> + +<p>Such is the actual aristocrat, as we now behold +him. Thus, living his own barbarous life in the +midst of a civilised community of workers and +artists and thinkers and craftsmen, with whom he +seldom mingles, and with whom he has nothing in +common, this chartered relic of worse days preserves +from first to last many painful traits of the +low moral and social ideas of his ancestors, from +which he has never varied. He represents most +of all, in the modern world, the surviving savage. +His love of gewgaws, of titles, of uniform, of dress, +of feathers, of decorations, of Highland kilts, and +stars and garters, is but one external symbol of his +lower grade of mental and moral status. All over +Europe, the truly civilised classes have gone on +progressing by the practice of peaceful arts from +generation to generation; but the aristocrat has +stood still at the same half-savage level, a hunter +and fighter, an orgiastic roysterer, a killer of wild +boars and wearer of absurd mediæval costumes, too +childish for the civilised and cultivated commoner.</p> + +<p>Government by aristocrats is thus government +by the mentally and morally inferior. And yet—a +Bill for giving at last some scant measure of +self-government to persecuted Ireland has to run +the gauntlet, in our nineteenth-century England, of +an irresponsible House of hereditary barbarians!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="III" id="III"></a>III.</h3> + +<h4><i>SCIENCE IN EDUCATION.</i></h4> + + +<p>I mean what I say: science in education, not +education in science.</p> + +<p>It is the last of these that all the scientific +men of England have so long been fighting for. +And a very good thing it is in its way, and I +hope they may get as much as they want of it. +But compared to the importance of science in +education, education in science is a matter of very +small national moment.</p> + +<p>The difference between the two is by no means +a case of tweedledum and tweedledee. Education +in science means the systematic teaching of science +so as to train up boys to be scientific men. Now +scientific men are exceedingly useful members of +a community; and so are engineers, and bakers, +and blacksmiths, and artists, and chimney-sweeps. +But we can't all be bakers, and we can't all be +painters in water-colours. There is a dim West +Country legend to the effect that the inhabitants +of the Scilly Isles eke out a precarious livelihood +by taking in one another's washing. As a matter +of practical political economy, such a source of +income is worse than precarious—it's frankly +impossible. "It takes all sorts to make a world." +A community entirely composed of scientific men +would fail to feed itself, clothe itself, house itself, +and keep itself supplied with amusing light literature. +In one word, education in science produces +specialists; and specialists, though most useful and +valuable persons in their proper place, are no more +the staple of a civilised community than engine-drivers +or ballet-dancers.</p> + +<p>What the world at large really needs, and will +one day get, is not this, but due recognition of +the true value of science in education. We don't +all want to be made into first-class anatomists +like Owen, still less into first-class practical surgeons, +like Sir Henry Thompson. But what we +do all want is a competent general knowledge +(amongst other things) of anatomy at large, and +especially of human anatomy; of physiology at +large, and especially of human physiology. We +don't all want to be analytical chemists: but what +we do all want is to know as much about oxygen +and carbon as will enable us to understand the +commonest phenomena of combustion, of chemical +combination, of animal or vegetable life. We +don't all want to be zoologists, and botanists of +the type who put their names after "critical +species:" but what we do all want to know is +as much about plants and animals as will enable +us to walk through life intelligently, and to +understand the meaning of the things that surround +us. We want, in one word, a general +acquaintance with the <i>results</i> rather than with +the <i>methods</i> of science.</p> + +<p>"In short," says the specialist, with his familiar +sneer, "you want a smattering."</p> + +<p>Well, yes, dear Sir Smelfungus, if it gives you +pleasure to put it so—just that; a smattering, +an all-round smattering. But remember that in +this matter the man of science is always influenced +by ideas derived from his own pursuits as +specialist. He is for ever thinking what sort of +education will produce more specialists in future; +and as a rule he is thinking what sort of education +will produce men capable in future of advancing +science. Now to advance science, to discover +new snails, or invent new ethyl compounds, is +not and cannot be the main object of the mass +of humanity. What the mass wants is just unspecialised +knowledge—the kind of knowledge +that enables men to get comfortably and creditably +and profitably through life, to meet emergencies +as they rise, to know their way through +the world, to use their faculties in all circumstances +to the best advantage. And for this +purpose what is wanted is, not the methods, but +the results of science.</p> + +<p>One science, and one only, is rationally taught +in our schools at present. I mean geography. +And the example of geography is so eminently +useful for illustrating the difference I am trying +to point out, that I will venture to dwell upon +it for a moment in passing. It is good for us +all to know that the world is round, without its +being necessary for every one of us to follow in +detail the intricate reasoning by which that result +has been arrived at. It is good for us all to +know the position of New York and Rio and +Calcutta on the map, without its being necessary +for us to understand, far less to work out for +ourselves, the observations and calculations which +fixed their latitude and longitude. Knowledge +of the map is a good thing in itself, though it is +a very different thing indeed from the technical +knowledge which enables a man to make a chart +of an unknown region, or to explore and survey +it. Furthermore, it is a form of knowledge far +more generally useful. A fair acquaintance with +the results embodied in the atlas, in the gazetteer, +in Baedeker, and in Bradshaw, is much oftener +useful to us on our way through the world than +a special acquaintance with the methods of map-making. +It would be absurd to say that because +a man is not going to be a Stanley or a Nansen, +therefore it is no good for him to learn geography. +It would be absurd to say that unless he learned +geography in accordance with its methods instead +of its results, he could have but a smattering, +and that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. +A little knowledge of the position of New York +is indeed a dangerous thing, if a man uses it +to navigate a Cunard vessel across the Atlantic. +But the absence of the smattering is a much more +dangerous and fatal thing if the man wishes to +do business with the Argentine and the Transvaal, +or to enter into practical relations of any sort +with anybody outside his own parish. The results +of geography are useful and valuable in themselves, +quite apart from the methods employed in obtaining +them.</p> + +<p>It is just the same with all the other sciences. +There is nothing occult or mysterious about them. +No just cause or impediment exists why we +should insist on being ignorant of the orbits of +the planets because we cannot ourselves make +the calculations for determining them; no reason +why we should insist on being ignorant of the +classification of plants and animals because we +don't feel able ourselves to embark on anatomical +researches which would justify us in coming to +original conclusions about them. I know the +mass of scientific opinion has always gone the +other way; but then scientific opinion means +only the opinion of men of science, who are themselves +specialists, and who think most of the +education needed to make men specialists, not of +the education needed to fit them for the general +exigencies and emergencies of life. We don't +want authorities on the Cucurbitaceæ, but well-informed +citizens. Professor Huxley is not our +best guide in these matters, but Mr. Herbert +Spencer, who long ago, in his book on Education, +sketched out a radical programme of instruction +in that knowledge which is of most +worth, such as no country, no college, no school +in Europe has ever yet been bold enough to put +into practice.</p> + +<p>What common sense really demands, then, is +education in the main results of all the sciences—a +knowledge of what is known, not necessarily +a knowledge of each successive step by which +men came to know it. At present, of course, in +all our schools in England there is no systematic +teaching of knowledge at all; what replaces it +is a teaching of the facts of language, and for +the most part of useless facts, or even of exploded +fictions. Our public schools, especially (by which +phrase we never mean real public schools like +the board schools at all, but merely schools for +the upper and the middle classes) are in their +existing stage primarily great gymnasiums—very +good things, too, in their way, against which I +have not a word of blame; and, secondarily, +places for imparting a sham and imperfect knowledge +of some few philological facts about two +extinct languages. Pupils get a smattering of +Homer and Cicero. That is literally all the +equipment for life that the cleverest and most +industrious boys can ever take away from them. +The sillier or idler don't take away even that. +As to the "mental training" argument, so often +trotted out, it is childish enough not to be +worth answering. Which is most practically +useful to us in life—knowledge of Latin grammar +or knowledge of ourselves and the world we +live in, physical, social, moral? That is the +question.</p> + +<p>The truth is, schoolmastering in Britain has +become a vast vested interest in the hands of men +who have nothing to teach us. They try to +bolster up their vicious system by such artificial +arguments as the "mental training" fallacy. +Forced to admit the utter uselessness of the +pretended knowledge they impart, they fall back +upon the plea of its supposed occult value as +intellectual discipline. They say in effect:—"This +sawdust we offer you contains no food, we +know: but then see how it strengthens the jaws +to chew it!" Besides, look at our results! The +typical John Bull! pig-headed, ignorant, brutal. +Are we really such immense successes ourselves +that we must needs perpetuate the mould that +warped us?</p> + +<p>The one fatal charge brought against the public +school system is that "after all, it turns out +English gentlemen!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV.</h3> + +<h4><i>THE THEORY OF SCAPEGOATS.</i></h4> + + +<p>"Alas, how easily things go wrong!" says Dr. +George MacDonald. And all the world over, when +things do go wrong, the natural and instinctive +desire of the human animal is—to find a scapegoat. +When the great French nation in the +lump embarks its capital in a hopeless scheme for +cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Panama, +and then finds out too late that Nature has +imposed insuperable barriers to its completion on +the projected scale—what does the great French +nation do, in its collective wisdom, but turn +round at once to rend the directors? It cries, +"A Mazas!" just as in '71 it cried "Bazaine +à la lanterne!" I don't mean to say the directors +don't deserve all they have got or ever will get, +and perhaps more also; I don't mean to deny +corruption extraordinary in many high places; +as a rule the worst that anybody alleges about +anything is only a part of what might easily be +alleged if we were all in the secret. Which of +us, indeed, would 'scape whipping? But what +I do mean is, that we should never have heard +of Reinach or Herz, of the corruption and peculation, +at all if things had gone well. It is the +crash that brought them out. The nation wants +a scapegoat. "Ain't nobody to be whopped for +this 'ere?" asked Mr. Sam Weller on a critical +occasion. The question embodies the universal +impulse of humanity.</p> + +<p>Tracing the feeling back to its origin, it seems +due to this: minds of the lower order can never +see anything go wrong without experiencing a +certain sense of resentment; and resentment, by +its very nature, desires to vent itself upon some +living and sentient creature, by preference a +fellow human being. When the child, running +too fast, falls and hurts itself, it gets instantly +angry. "Naughty ground to hurt baby!" says +the nurse: "Baby hit it and hurt it." And +baby promptly hits it back, with vicious little +fist, feeling every desire to revenge itself. By-and-by, +when baby grows older and learns that +the ground can't feel to speak of, he wants to +put the blame upon somebody else, in order to +have an object to expend his rage upon. "You +pushed me down!" he says to his playmate, and +straightway proceeds to punch his playmate's head +for it—not because he really believes the playmate +did it, but because he feels he <i>must</i> have +some outlet for his resentment. When once +resentment is roused, it will expend its force +on anything that turns up handy, as the man +who has quarrelled with his wife about a question +of a bonnet, will kick his dog for trying to follow +him to the club as he leaves her.</p> + +<p>The mob, enraged at the death of Cæsar, meets +Cinna the poet in the streets of Rome. "Your +name, sir?" inquires the Third Citizen. "Truly, +my name is Cinna," says the unsuspecting author. +"Tear him to pieces!" cries the mob; "he's a +conspirator!" "I am Cinna the poet," pleads +the unhappy man; "I am not Cinna the conspirator!" +But the mob does not heed such +delicate distinctions at such a moment. "Tear +him for his bad verses!" it cries impartially. +"Tear him for his bad verses!"</p> + +<p>Whatever sort of misfortune falls upon persons +of the lower order of intelligence is always met +in the same spirit. Especially is this the case +with the deaths of relatives. Fools who have lost +a friend invariably blame somebody for his fatal +illness. To hear many people talk, you would +suppose they were unaware of the familiar proposition +that all men are mortal (including +women); you might imagine they thought an +ordinary human constitution was calculated to +survive nine hundred and ninety-nine years unless +some evil-disposed person or persons took the +trouble beforehand to waylay and destroy it. +"My poor father was eighty-seven when he +died; and he would have been alive still if it +weren't for that nasty Mrs. Jones: she put him +into a pair of damp sheets." Or, "My husband +would never have caught the cold that killed +him, if that horrid man Brown hadn't kept him +waiting so long in the carriage at the street +corner." The doctor has to bear the brunt of +most such complaints; indeed, it is calculated by +an eminent statistician (who desires his name to +remain unpublished) that eighty-three per cent. +of the deaths in Great Britain might easily have +been averted if the patient had only been treated +in various distinct ways by all the members of +his family, and if that foolish Dr. Squills hadn't +so grossly mistaken and mistreated his malady.</p> + +<p>The fact is, the death is regarded as a misfortune, +and somebody must be blamed for it. +Heaven has provided scapegoats. The doctor +and the hostile female members of the family are +always there—laid on, as it were, for the express +purpose.</p> + +<p>With us in modern Europe, resentment in such +cases seldom goes further than vague verbal outbursts +of temper. We accuse Mrs. Jones of misdemeanours +with damp sheets; but we don't get +so far as to accuse her of tricks with strychnine. +In the Middle Ages, however, the pursuit of the +scapegoat ran a vast deal further. When any +great one died—a Black Prince or a Dauphin—it +was always assumed on all hands that he must +have been poisoned. True, poisoning may then +have been a trifle more frequent; certainly the +means of detecting it were far less advanced than +in the days of Tidy and Lauder Brunton. Still, +people must often have died natural deaths even +in the Middle Ages—though nobody believed it. +All the world began to speculate what Jane +Shore could have poisoned them. A little earlier, +again, it was not the poisoner that was looked +for, but his predecessor, the sorcerer. Whoever +fell ill, somebody had bewitched him. Were the +cattle diseased? Then search for the evil eye. +Did the cows yield no milk? Some neighbour, +doubtless, knew the reason only too well, and could +be forced to confess it by liberal use of the thumb-screw +and the ducking-stool. No misfortune was +regarded as due to natural causes; for in their +philosophy there were no such things as natural +causes at all; whatever ill-luck came, somebody +had contrived it; so you had always your scapegoat +ready to hand to punish. The Athenians, +indeed, kept a small collection of public scapegoats +always in stock, waiting to be sacrificed at +a moment's notice.</p> + +<p>More even than that. Go one step further +back, and you will find that man in his early +stages has no conception of such a thing as +natural death in any form. He doesn't really +know that the human organism is wound up like +a clock to run at best for so many years, or +months, or hours, and that even if nothing unexpected +happens to cut short its course prematurely, +it can only run out its allotted period. +Within his own experience, almost all the deaths +that occur are violent deaths, and have been +brought about by human agency or by the attacks +of wild beasts. There you have a cause with +whose action and operation the savage is personally +familiar; and it is the only one he believes +in. Even old age is in his eyes no direct +cause of death; for when his relations grow old, +he considerately clubs them, to put them out +of their misery. When, therefore, he sees his +neighbour struck down before his face by some +invisible power, and writhing with pain as though +unseen snakes and tigers were rending him, what +should he naturally conclude save that demon or +witch or wizard is at work? and if he cares +about the matter at all, what should he do save +endeavour to find the culprit out and inflict condign +punishment? In savage states, whenever +anything untoward happens to the king or chief, +it is the business of the witch-finder to disclose +the wrong-doer; and sooner or later, you may +be sure, "somebody gets whopped for it." Whopping +in Dahomey means wholesale decapitation.</p> + +<p>Now, is it not a direct survival from this primitive +state of mind that entails upon us all the +desire to find a scapegoat? Our ancestors really +believed there was always somebody to blame—man, +witch, or spirit—if only you could find him; +and though we ourselves have mostly got beyond +that stage, yet the habit it engendered in our race +remains ingrained in the nervous system, so that +none but a few of the naturally highest and most +civilised dispositions have really outgrown it. Most +people still think there is somebody to blame for +every human misfortune. "Who fills the butcher's +shops with large blue flies?" asked the poet of the +Regency. He set it down to "the Corsican ogre." +For the Tory Englishmen of the present day it is +Mr. Gladstone who is most often and most popularly +envisaged as the author of all evil. For the +Pope, it is the Freemasons. There are just a few +men here and there in the world who can see that +when misfortunes come, circumstances, or nature, +or (hardest of all) we ourselves have brought them. +The common human instinct is still to get into a +rage, and look round to discover whether there's +any other fellow standing about unobserved, whose +head we can safely undertake to punch for it.</p> + +<p>"It's all the fault of those confounded paid +agitators."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="V" id="V"></a>V.</h3> + +<h4><i>AMERICAN DUCHESSES.</i></h4> + + +<p>Every American woman is by birth a duchess.</p> + +<p>There, you see, I have taken you in. When +you saw the heading, "American Duchesses," +you thought I was going to purvey some piquant +scandal about high-placed ladies; and you straightway +began to read my essay. That shows I +rightly interpreted your human nature. There's +a deal of human nature flying about unrecognised. +Yet when I said duchesses, I actually meant it. +For the American woman is the only real aristocrat +now living in America.</p> + +<p>These remarks are forced upon me by a brilliant +afternoon on the Promenade des Anglais. All +Nice is there, in its cosmopolitan butterfly variety, +flaunting itself in the sun in the very ugly dresses +now in fashion. I don't know why, but the +mode of the moment consists in making everything +as exaggerated as possible, and sedulously +hiding the natural contours of the human figure. +But let that pass; the day is too fine for a man +to be critical. The band is playing Mascagni's +last in the Jardin Public; the carriages are +drawn up beside the palms and judas-trees that +fringe the Paillon; the <i>sous-officiers</i> are strolling +along the wall with their red caps stuck jauntily +just a trifle on one side, as though to mow down +nursemaids were the one legitimate occupation of +the <i>brav' militaire</i>. And among them all, proud, +tall, disdainful, glide the American duchesses, +cold, critical, high-toned, yet ready to strike up, +should opportunity serve, appropriate acquaintance +with their natural equals, the dukes of +Europe.</p> + +<p>"And the American dukes?"—There aren't +any. "But these ladies' husbands and fathers +and brothers?"—Oh, <i>they're</i> business men, working +hard for the duchesses in Wall Street, or on +'Change in Chicago. And that's why I say quite +seriously the American woman is the only real +aristocrat now living in America. Everybody +who has seen much of Americans must have +noticed for himself how really superior American +women are, on the average, to the men of their +kind. I don't mean merely that they are better +dressed, and better groomed, and better got up, +and better mannered than their brothers. I mean +that they have a real superiority in the things +worth having—the things that are more excellent—in +education, culture, knowledge, taste, good +feeling. And the reason is not far to seek. They +represent the only leisured class in America. They +are the one set of people from Maine to California +who have time to read, to think, to travel, to +look at good pictures, to hear good music, to +mix with society that can improve and elevate +them. They have read Daudet; they have seen +the Vatican. The women thus form a natural +aristocracy—the only aristocracy the country +possesses.</p> + +<p>I am aware that in saying this I take my life +in my hands. I shall be prepared to defend +myself from the infuriated Westerner with the +usual argument, which I shall carry about loaded +in all its chambers in my right-hand pocket. +I am also aware that less infuriated Easterners, +choosing their own more familiar weapon, will +inundate my leisure with sardonic inquiries whether +I don't consider Oliver Wendell Holmes or Charles +Eliot Norton (thus named in full) the equal in +culture of the average American woman. Well, +I frankly admit these cases and thousands like +them; indeed I have had the good fortune to +number among my personal acquaintances many +American gentlemen whose chivalrous breeding +would have been conspicuous (if you will believe +it) even at Marlborough House. I will also +allow that in New York, in Boston, and less +abundantly in other big towns of America, men +of leisure, men of culture, and men of thought +are to be found, as wide-minded and as gentle-natured +as this race of ours makes them. But +that doesn't alter the general fact that, taking +them in the lump, American men stand a step +or two lower in the scale of humanity than +American women. One need hardly ask why. +It is because the men are almost all immersed +and absorbed in business, while the women are +fine ladies who stop at home, and read, and see, +and interest themselves widely in numberless +directions.</p> + +<p>The consequence is that nowhere, as a rule, +does the gulf between the sexes yawn so wide +as in America. One can often observe it in the +brothers and sisters of the same family. And +it runs in the opposite direction from the gulf +in Europe. With us, as a rule, the men are +better educated, and more likely to have read +and seen and thought widely, than the women. +In America, the men are generally so steeped +in affairs as to be materialised and encysted; +they take for the most part a hard-headed, solid-silver +view of everything, and are but little influenced +by abstract conceptions. Their horizon +is bounded by the rim of the dollar. Nay, owing +to the eager desire to get a good start by beginning +life early, their education itself is generally +cut short at a younger age than their sisters'; +so that, even at the outset, the girls have often +a decided superiority in knowledge and culture. +Amanda reads Paul Bourget and John Oliver +Hobbes; she has some slight tincture of Latin, +Greek, and German; while Cyrus knows nothing +but English and arithmetic, the quotations for +prime pork and the state of the market for +Futures. Add to this that the women are more +sensitive, more delicate, more naturally refined, +as well as unspoilt by the trading spirit, and +you get the real reasons for the marked and, in +some ways, unusual superiority of the American +woman.</p> + +<p>That, I think, in large part explains the fascination +which American women undoubtedly exercise +over a considerable class of European men. In +the European man the American woman often +recognises for the first time the male of her +species. Unaccustomed at home to as general +a level of culture and feeling as she finds among +the educated gentlemen of Europe, she likes their +society and makes her preference felt by them. +Now man is a vain animal. You are a man +yourself, and must recognise at once the truth +of the proposition. As soon as he sees a woman +likes him, he instantly returns the compliment +with interest. In point of fact, he usually falls +in love with her. Of course I admit the large +number of concomitant circumstances which disturb +the problem; I admit on the one hand the +tempting shekels of the Californian heiress, and +on the other hand the glamour and halo that +still surround the British coronet. Nevertheless, +after making all deductions for these disturbing +factors, I submit there remains a residual phenomenon +thus best interpreted. If anybody denies +it, I would ask him one question—how does it +come that so many Englishmen, Frenchmen, and +Italians marry American women, while so few +Englishwomen, French women, or Italian women +marry American men? Surely the American +men have also the shekels; surely it is something +even in Oregon or Montana to have inspired an +honourable passion in a Lady Elizabeth or a +dowager countess. I think the true explanation +is that our men are attracted by American women, +but our women are not equally attracted by +American men, and that the quality of the articles +has something to do with it.</p> + +<p>The American duchess, I take it, comes over +to Europe, and desires incontinently to drag the +European duke at the wheels of her chariot. And +the European duke is fascinated in turn, partly by +this very fact, partly by the undeniable freshness, +brightness, and delicate culture of the American +woman. For there is no burking the truth that +in many respects the American woman carries +about her a peculiar charm ungranted as yet to +her European sisters. It is the charm of freedom, +of ease, of a certain external and skin-deep emancipation—an +emancipation which goes but a little +way down, yet adds a quaint and piquant grace +of manner. What she conspicuously lacks, on the +other hand, is essential femininity; by which I +don't mean womanliness—of that she has enough +and to spare—but the wholesome physical and +instinctive qualities which go to make up a sound +and well-equipped wife and mother. The lack of +these underlying muliebral qualities more than +counterbalances to not a few Europeans the undoubted +vivacity, originality, and freshness of the +American woman. She is a dainty bit of porcelain, +unsuited for use; a delicate exotic blossom, for +drawing-room decoration, where many would prefer +robust fruit-bearing faculties.</p> + +<p>I dropped into the Opera House here at Nice +the other night, and found they were playing +"Carmen"—which is always interesting. Well, +you may perhaps remember that when that +creature of passion, the gipsy heroine, wishes to +gain or retain a man's affections, she throws a rose +at him, and then he cannot resist her. That is +Mérimée's symbolism. Art is full of these sacrifices +of realism to reticence. Outside the opera, +it is not with roses that women enslave us. But +the American duchess relies entirely upon the use +of the rose; and that is just where she fails to +interest so many of us in Europe.</p> + +<p>And now I think it's almost time for me to go +and hunt up the material arguments for that rusty +six-shooter.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI.</h3> + +<h4><i>IS ENGLAND PLAYED OUT?</i></h4> + + +<p>Britain is now the centre of civilisation. Will +it always be so? Is our commercial supremacy +decaying or not? Have we begun to reach the +period of inevitable decline? Or is decline indeed +inevitable at all? Might a nation go on being +great for ever? If so, are <i>we</i> that nation? If +not, have we yet arrived at the moment when retrogression +becomes a foregone conclusion? These +are momentous questions. Dare I try, under the +mimosas on the terrace, to resolve them?</p> + +<p>Most people have talked of late as though +the palmy days of England were fairly over. +The down grade lies now before us. But, then, +so far as I can judge, most people have talked +so ever since the morning when Hengist and +Horsa, Limited, landed from their three keels +in the Isle of Thanet. Gildas is the oldest +historian of these islands, and his work consists +entirely of a good old Tory lament in the Ashmead-Bartlett +strain upon the degeneracy of the times +and the proximate ruin of the British people. +Gildas wrote some fourteen hundred years ago +or thereabouts—and the country is not yet quite +visibly ruined. On the contrary, it seems to the +impartial eye a more eligible place of residence +to-day than in the stirring times of the Saxon +invasion. Hence, for the last two or three +centuries, I have learned to discount these recurrent +Jeremiads of Toryism, and to judge the +question of our decadence or progress by a more +rational standard.</p> + +<p>There is only one such rational standard; and +that is, to discover the causes and conditions of our +commercial prosperity, and then to inquire whether +those causes and conditions are being largely +altered or modified by the evolution of new phases. +If they are, England must begin to decline; if +they are not, her day is not yet come. Home Rule +she will survive; even the Eight Hours bogey, we +may presume, will not finally dispose of her.</p> + +<p>Now, the centre of civilisation is not a fixed +point. It has varied from time to time, and +may yet vary. In the very earliest historical +period, there was hardly such a thing as a centre +of civilisation at all. There were civilisations in +Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Etruria; discrete civilisations +of the river valleys, mostly, which scarcely +came into contact with one another in their +first beginnings; any more than our own came +into contact once with the civilisations of China, +of Japan, of Peru, of Mexico. As yet there was +no world-commerce, no mutual communication of +empire with empire. It was in the Ægean and +the eastern basin of the Mediterranean that +navigation first reached the point where great +commercial ports and free intercourse became +possible. The Phoenicians, and later the Greeks, +were the pioneers of the new era. Tyre, Athens, +Miletus, Rhodes, occupied the centre of the nascent +world, and bound together Assyria, Babylonia, +Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, Sicily, and Italy in +one mercantile system. A little later, Hellas +itself enlarged, so as to include Syracuse, Byzantium, +Alexandria, Cyrene, Cumae, Neapolis, +Massilia. The inland sea became "a Greek lake." +But as navigation thus slowly widened to the +western Mediterranean basin, the centre of commerce +had to shift perforce from Hellas to the +mid-point of the new area. Two powerful trading +towns occupied such a mid-point in the Mediterranean—Rome +and Carthage; and they were +driven to fight out the supremacy of the world +(the world as it then existed) between them. +With the Roman Empire, the circle extended +so as to take in the Atlantic coasts, Gaul, Spain, +and Britain, which then, however, lay not at the +centre but on the circumference of civilisation. +During the Middle Ages, when navigation began +to embrace the great open sea as well as the +Mediterranean, a double centre sprang up: the +Italian Republics, Venice, Florence, Genoa, Pisa, +were still the chief carriers; but the towns of +Flanders, Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp began to +compete with them, and the Atlantic states, +France, England, the Low Countries, rose into +importance. By and by, as time goes on, the +discoveries of Columbus and of Vasco di Gama +open out new tracks. Suddenly commerce is +revolutionised. France, England, Spain, become +nearer to America and India than Italy; so Italy +declines; while the Atlantic states usurp the first +place as the centres of civilisation.</p> + +<p>Our own age brings fresh seas into the circle +once more. It is no longer the Atlantic, the +Mediterranean, or the Indian Ocean that alone +count; the Pacific also begins to be considered. +China, Japan, the Cape; Chili, Peru, the Argentine; +California, British Columbia, Australia, New +Zealand; all of them are parts of the system of +to-day; civilisation is world-wide.</p> + +<p>Has this change of area altered the central position +of England? Not at all, save to strengthen +it. If you look at the hemisphere of greatest +land, you will see that England occupies its exact +middle. Insular herself, and therefore all made +up of ports, she is nearer all ports in the world +than any other country is or ever can be. I +don't say that this insures for her perpetual +dominion, such as Virgil prophesied for the Roman +Empire; but I do say it makes her a hard country +to beat in commercial competition. It accounts for +Liverpool, London, Glasgow, Newcastle; it even +accounts in a way for Manchester, Birmingham, +Leeds, and Sheffield. England now stands at the +mathematical centre of the practical world, and +unless some Big Thing occurs to displace her, she +must continue to stand there. It takes a great +deal to upset the balance of an entire planet.</p> + +<p>Is anything now displacing her? Well, there +is the fact that railways are making land-carriage +to-day more important relatively to water-carriage +than at any previous period. That may, perhaps, +in time shift the centre of the world from an island +like England to the middle of a great land area, +like Chicago or Moscow. And, no doubt, if ever +the centre shifts at all, it will shift towards Western +America, or rather the prairie region. But, just +at present, what are the greatest commercial towns +of the world? All ports to a man. And the day +when it will be otherwise, if ever, seems still far +distant. Look at the newest countries. What are +their great focal points? Every one of them ports. +Melbourne and Sydney; Rio, Buenos Ayres, and +Valparaiso; Cape Town, San Francisco, Bombay, +Calcutta, Yokohama. Chicago itself, the most vital +and the quickest grower among modern towns, +owes half its importance to the fact that there +water-carriage down the Great Lakes begins; +though it owes the other half, I admit, to the +converse fact that all the great trans-continental +railways have to bend south at that point to +avoid Lake Michigan. Still, on the whole, I +think, as long as conditions remain what they are, +the commercial supremacy of England is in no +immediate danger. It is these great permanent +geographical factors that make or mar a country, +not Eight Hours Bills or petty social reconstructions. +Said the Lord Mayor of London to +petulant King James, when he proposed to remove +the Court to Oxford, "May it please your +Majesty not to take away the Thames also."</p> + +<p>"But our competitors? We are being driven +out of our markets." Oh, yes, if that's all you +mean, I don't suppose we shall always be able in +everything to keep up our exclusive position. Our +neighbours, who (bar the advantage of insularity, +which means a coast and a port always close at +hand) seem nearly as well situated as we are for +access to the world-markets, are beginning to +wake up and take a slice of the cake from us. +Germany is manufacturing; Belgium is smelting; +Antwerp is exporting; America is occupying her +own markets. But that's a very different thing +indeed from national decadence. We may have +to compete a little harder with our rivals, that's +all. The Boom may be over; but the Thames +remains: the geographical facts are still unaltered. +And notice that all the time while there's been +this vague talk about "bad times"—income-tax +has been steadily increasing, London has been +steadily growing, every outer and visible sign of +commercial prosperity has been steadily spreading. +Have our watering-places shrunk? Have our +buildings been getting smaller and less luxurious? +If Antwerp has grown, how about Hull and +Cardiff? "Well, perhaps the past is all right; +but consider the future! Eight hours are going +to drive capital out of the country!" Rubbish! +I'm not a political economist, thank God; I never +sank quite so low as that. And I'm not speaking +for or against Eight Hours: I'm only discounting +some verbose nonsense. But I know enough to +see that the capital of a country can no more be +exported than the land or the houses. Can you +drive away the London and North-Western Railway? +Can you drive away the factories of Manchester, +the mines of the Black Country, the +canals, the buildings, the machinery, the docks, +the plant, the apparatus? Impossible, on the +very face of it! Most of the capital of a country +is fixed in its soil, and can't be uprooted. People +fall into this error about driving away capital +because they know you can sell particular railway +shares or a particular factory and leave the country +with the proceeds, provided somebody else is willing +to buy; but you can't sell all the railways and all +the factories in a lump, and clear out with the +capital. No, no; England stands where she does, +because God put her there; and until He invents +a new order of things (which may, of course, +happen any day—as, for example, if aerial navigation +came in) she must continue, in spite of +minor changes, to maintain in the main her present +position.</p> + +<p>But a truce to these frivolities! The little +Italian boy next door calls me to play ball with +him, with a green lemon from the garden. Vengo, +Luigi, vengo! I return at once to the realities of +life, and dismiss such shadows.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII.</h3> + +<h4><i>THE GAME AND THE RULES.</i></h4> + + +<p>A sportive friend of mine, a mighty golfer, is +fond of saying, "You Radicals want to play the +game without the rules." To which I am accustomed +mildly to retort, "Not at all; but we +think the rules unfair, and so we want to see +them altered."</p> + +<p>Now life is a very peculiar game, which differs +in many important respects even from compulsory +football. The Rugby scrimmage is mere child's +play by the side of it. There's no possibility of +shirking it. A medical certificate won't get you +off; whether you like it or not, play you must +in your appointed order. We are all unwilling +competitors. Nobody asks our naked little souls +beforehand whether they would prefer to be born +into the game or to remain, unfleshed, in the +limbo of non-existence. Willy nilly, every one +of us is thrust into the world by an irresponsible +act of two previous players; and once there, we +must play out the set as best we may to the +bitter end, however little we like it or the rules +that order it.</p> + +<p>That, it must be admitted, makes a grave distinction +from the very outset between the game +of human life and any other game with which +we are commonly acquainted. It also makes it +imperative upon the framers of the rules so to +frame them that no one player shall have an unfair +or unjust advantage over any of the others. +And since the penalty of bad play, or bad success +in the match, is death, misery, starvation, +it behoves the rule-makers to be more scrupulously +particular as to fairness and equity than in any +other game like cricket or tennis. It behoves +them to see that all start fair, and that no hapless +beginner is unduly handicapped. To compel men +to take part in a match for dear life, whether +they wish it or not, and then to insist that some +of them shall wield bats and some mere broom-sticks, +irrespective of height, weight, age, or bodily +infirmity, is surely not fair. It justifies the +committee in calling for a revision.</p> + +<p>But things are far worse than even that in +the game as actually played in Europe. What +shall we say of rules which decide dogmatically +that one set of players are hereditarily entitled +to be always batting, while another set, less lucky, +have to field for ever, and to be fined or imprisoned +for not catching? What shall we say +of rules which give one group a perpetual right +to free lunch in the tent, while the remainder +have to pick up what they can for themselves by +gleaning among the stubble? How justify the +principle in accordance with which the captain +on one side has an exclusive claim to the common +ground of the club, and may charge every player +exactly what he likes for the right to play upon +it?—especially when the choice lies between +playing on such terms, or being cast into the +void, yourself and your family. And then to +think that the ground thus tabooed by one particular +member may be all Sutherlandshire, or, +still worse, all Westminster! Decidedly, these +rules call for instant revision; and the unprivileged +players must be submissive indeed who +consent to put up with them.</p> + +<p>Friends and fellow-members, let us cry with +one voice, "The links for the players!"</p> + +<p>Once more, just look at the singular rule in +our own All England club, by which certain +assorted members possess a hereditary right to +veto all decisions of the elective committee, merely +because they happen to be their fathers' sons, +and the club long ago very foolishly permitted +the like privilege to their ancestors! That +is an irrational interference with the liberty of +the players which hardly anybody nowadays ventures +to defend in principle, and which is only +upheld in some half-hearted way (save in the +case of that fossil anachronism, the Duke of +Argyll) by supposed arguments of convenience. +It won't last long now; there is talk in the +committee of "mending or ending it." It shows +the long-suffering nature of the poor blind players +at this compulsory game of national football that +they should ever for one moment permit so monstrous +an assumption—permit the idea that one +single player may wield a substantive voice and +vote to outweigh tens of thousands of his fellow-members!</p> + +<p>These questions of procedure, however, are +after all small matters. It is the real hardships +of the game that most need to be tackled. Why +should one player be born into the sport with +a prescriptive right to fill some easy place in the +field, while another has to fag on from morning +to night in the most uninteresting and fatiguing +position? Why should <i>pâté de foie gras</i> and +champagne-cup in the tent be so unequally distributed? +Why should those who have made +fewest runs and done no fielding be admitted +to partake of these luxuries, free of charge, while +those who have borne the brunt of the fight, those +who have suffered from the heat of the day, those +who have contributed most to the honour of the +victory, are turned loose, unfed, to do as they +can for themselves by hook or by crook somehow? +These are the questions some of us players are +now beginning to ask ourselves; and we don't +find them efficiently answered by the bald statement +that we "want to play the game without +the rules," and that we ought to be precious glad +the legislators of the club haven't made them a +hundred times harder against us.</p> + +<p>No, no; the rules themselves must be altered. +Time was, indeed, when people used to think +they were made and ordained by divine authority. +"Cum privilegio" was the motto of the captains. +But we know very well now that every club settles +its own standing orders, and that it can alter +and modify them as fundamentally as it pleases. +Lots of funny old saws are still uttered upon +this subject—"There must always be rich and +poor;" "You can't interfere with economical +laws;" "If you were to divide up everything +to-morrow, at the end of a fortnight you'd find +the same differences and inequalities as ever." +The last-named argument (I believe it considers +itself by courtesy an argument) is one which no +self-respecting Radical should so much as deign +to answer. Nobody that I ever heard of for +one moment proposed to "divide up everything," +or, for that matter, anything: and the imputation +that somebody did or does is a proof either of +intentional malevolence or of crass stupidity. +Neither should be encouraged; and you encourage +them by pretending to take them seriously. It +is the initial injustices of the game that we +Radicals object to—the injustices which prevent +us from all starting fair and having our even +chance of picking up a livelihood. We don't +want to "divide up everything"—a most futile +proceeding; but we do want to untie the legs +and release the arms of the handicapped players. +To drop metaphor at last, it is the conditions we +complain about. Alter the conditions, and there +would be no need for division, summary or gradual. +The game would work itself out spontaneously +without your intervention.</p> + +<p>The injustice of the existing set of rules simply +appals the Radical. Yet oddly enough, this injustice +itself appeals rather to the comparative +looker-on than to the heavily-handicapped players +in person. They, poor creatures, dragging their +log in patience, have grown so accustomed to regarding +the world as another man's oyster, that +they put up uncomplainingly for the most part +with the most patent inequalities. Perhaps 'tis +their want of imagination that makes them unable +to conceive any other state of things as even +possible—like the dog who accepts kicking as the +natural fate of doghood. At any rate, you will +find, if you look about you, that the chief reformers +are not, as a rule, the ill-used classes themselves, +but the sensitive and thinking souls who hate and +loathe the injustice with which others are treated. +Most of the best Radicals I have known were men +of gentle birth and breeding. Not all: others, +just as earnest, just as eager, just as chivalrous, +sprang from the masses. Yet the gently-reared +preponderate. It is a common Tory taunt to say +that the battle is one between the Haves and the +Have-nots. That is by no means true. It is +between the selfish Haves, on one side, and the +unselfish Haves, who wish to see something done +for the Have-nots, on the other. As for the poor +Have-nots themselves, they are mostly inarticulate. +Indeed, the Tory almost admits as much when he +alters his tone and describes the sympathising and +active few as "paid agitators."</p> + +<p>For myself, however, I am a born Conservative. +I hate to see any old custom or practice changed; +unless, indeed, it is either foolish or wicked—like +most existing ones.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII.</h3> + +<h4><i>THE RÔLE OF PROPHET.</i></h4> + + +<p>One great English thinker and artist once tried +the rash experiment of being true to himself—of +saying out boldly, without fear or reserve, the +highest and noblest and best that was in him. +He gave us the most exquisite lyrics in the English +language; he moulded the thought of our first +youth as no other poet has ever yet moulded it; he +became the spiritual father of the richest souls in +two succeeding generations of Englishmen. And +what reward did he get for it? He was expelled +from his university. He was hounded out of his +country. He was deprived of his own children. +He was denied the common appeal to the law +and courts of justice. He was drowned, an exile, +in a distant sea, and burned in solitude on a +foreign shore. And after his death he was vilified +and calumniated by wretched penny-a-liners, +or (worse insult still) apologised for, with half-hearted +shrugs, by lukewarm advocates. The +purest in life and the most unselfish in purpose +of all mankind, he was persecuted alive with the +utmost rancour of hate, and pursued when dead +with the vilest shafts of malignity. He never +even knew in his scattered grave the good he +was to do to later groups of thinkers.</p> + +<p>It was a noble example, of course; but not, +you will admit, an alluring one for others to +follow.</p> + +<p>"Be true to yourself," say the copy-book +moralists, "and you may be sure the result will +at last be justified." No doubt; but in how many +centuries? And what sort of life will you lead +yourself, meanwhile, for your allotted space of +threescore years and ten, unless haply hanged, or +burned, or imprisoned before it? What the copy-book +moralists mean is merely this—that sooner or +later your principles will triumph, which may or +may not be the case according to the nature of +the principles. But even suppose they do, are you +to ignore yourself in the interim—you, a human +being with emotions, sensations, domestic affections, +and, in the majority of instances, wife and children +on whom to expend them? Why should it be +calmly taken for granted by the world that if you +have some new and true thing to tell humanity +(which humanity, of course, will toss back in your +face with contumely and violence) you are bound +to blurt it out, with childish unreserve, regardless +of consequences to yourself and to those who depend +upon you? Why demand of genius or exceptional +ability a gratuitous sacrifice which you +would deprecate as wrong and unjust to others in +the ordinary citizen? For the genius, too, is a +man, and has his feelings.</p> + +<p>The fact is, society considers that in certain +instances it has a right to expect the thinker will +martyrise himself on its account, while it stands +serenely by and heaps faggots on the pile, with +every mark of contempt and loathing. But society +is mistaken. No man is bound to martyrise himself; +in a great many cases a man is bound to do +the exact opposite. He has given hostages to +Fortune, and his first duty is to the hostages. +"We ask you for bread," his children may well +say, "and you give us a noble moral lesson. We +ask you for clothing, and you supply us with a +beautiful poetical fancy." This is not according +to bargain. Wife and children have a first mortgage +on a man's activities; society has only a +right to contingent remainders.</p> + +<p>A great many sensible men who had truths of +deep import to deliver to the world must have +recognised these facts in all times and places, and +must have held their tongues accordingly. Instead +of speaking out the truths that were in them, they +must have kept their peace, or have confined themselves +severely to the ordinary platitudes of their +age and nation. Why ruin yourself by announcing +what you feel and believe, when all the reward you +will get for it in the end will be social ostracism, +if not even the rack, the stake, or the pillory? +The Shelleys and Rousseaus there's no holding, of +course; they <i>will</i> run right into it; but the +Goethes—oh, no, they keep their secret. Indeed, +I hold it as probable that the vast majority of +men far in advance of their times have always +held their tongues consistently, save for mere +common babble, on Lord Chesterfield's principle +that "Wise men never say."</p> + +<p>The <i>rôle</i> of prophet is thus a thankless and difficult +one. Nor is it quite certainly of real use to +the community. For the prophet is generally +too much ahead of his times. He discounts the +future at a ruinous rate, and he takes the consequences. +If you happen ever to have read the +Old Testament you must have noticed that the +prophets had generally a hard time of it.</p> + +<p>The leader is a very different stamp of person. +<i>He</i> stands well abreast of his contemporaries, and +just half a pace in front of them; and he has +power to persuade even the inertia of humanity +into taking that one half-step in advance he himself +has already made bold to adventure. His post +is honoured, respected, remunerated. But the +prophet gets no thanks, and perhaps does mankind +no benefit. He sees too quick. And there can +be very little good indeed in so seeing. If one of +us had been an astronomer, and had discovered +the laws of Kepler, Newton, and Laplace in the +thirteenth century, I think he would have been +wise to keep the discovery to himself for a few +hundred years or so. Otherwise, he would have +been burned for his trouble. Galileo, long after, +tried part of the experiment a decade or so too +soon, and got no good by it. But in moral and +social matters the danger is far graver. I would +say to every aspiring youth who sees some political +or economical or ethical truth quite clearly: +"Keep it dark! Don't mention it! Nobody will +listen to you; and you, who are probably a person +of superior insight and higher moral aims than +the mass, will only destroy your own influence for +good by premature declarations. The world will +very likely come round of itself to your views in +the end; but if you tell them too soon, you will +suffer for it in person, and will very likely do +nothing to help on the revolution in thought +that you contemplate. For thought that is too +abruptly ahead of the mass never influences +humanity."</p> + +<p>"But sometimes the truth will out in spite of +one!" Ah, yes, that's the worst of it. Do as I +say, not as I do. If possible, repress it.</p> + +<p>It is a noble and beautiful thing to be a martyr, +especially if you are a martyr in the cause of truth, +and not, as is often the case, of some debasing and +degrading superstition. But nobody has a right +to demand of you that you should be a martyr. +And some people have often a right to demand +that you should resolutely refuse the martyr's +crown on the ground that you have contracted +prior obligations, inconsistent with the purely +personal luxury of martyrdom. 'Tis a luxury for +a few. It befits only the bachelor, the unattached, +and the economically spareworthy.</p> + +<p>"These be pessimistic pronouncements," you say. +Well, no, not exactly. For, after all, we must +never shut our eyes to the actual; and in the +world as it is, meliorism, not optimism, is the +true opposite of pessimism. Optimist and pessimist +are both alike in a sense, seeing they are +both conservative; they sit down contented—the +first with the smug contentment that says "All's +well; I have enough; why this fuss about others?" +the second with the contentment of blank despair +that says, "All's hopeless; all's wrong; why try +uselessly to mend it?" The meliorist attitude, on +the contrary, is rather to say, "Much is wrong; +much painful; what can we do to improve it?" +And from this point of view there is something +we can all do to make martyrdom less inevitable +in the end, for the man who has a thought, a discovery, +an idea, to tell us. Such men are rare, +and their thought, when they produce it, is sure +to be unpalatable. For, if it were otherwise, it +would be thought of our own type—familiar, +banal, commonplace, unoriginal. It would encounter +no resistance, as it thrilled on its way +through our brain, from established errors. What +the genius and the prophet are there for is just +that—to make us listen to unwelcome truths, +to compel us to hear, to drive awkward facts +straight home with sledge-hammer force to the +unwilling hearts and brains of us. Not what <i>you</i> +want to hear, or what <i>I</i> want to hear, is good and +useful for us; but what we <i>don't</i> want to hear, +what we can't bear to think, what we hate to +believe, what we fight tooth and nail against. +The man who makes us listen to <i>that</i> is the seer +and the prophet; he comes upon us like Shelley, +or Whitman, or Ibsen, and plumps down horrid +truths that half surprise, half disgust us. He +shakes us out of our lethargy. To such give +ear, though they say what shocks you. Weigh +well their hateful ideas. Avoid the vulgar vice of +sneering and carping at them. Learn to examine +their nude thought without shrinking, and examine +it all the more carefully when it most repels you. +Naked verity is an acquired taste; it is never +beautiful at first sight to the unaccustomed vision. +Remember that no question is finally settled; that +no question is wholly above consideration; that +what you cherish as holiest is most probably +wrong; and that in social and moral matters +especially (where men have been longest ruled by +pure superstitions) new and startling forms of +thought have the highest <i>a priori</i> probability in +their favour. Dismiss your idols. Give every +opinion its fair chance of success—especially when +it seems to you both wicked and ridiculous, recollecting +that it is better to let five hundred crude +guesses run loose about the world unclad, than to +crush one fledgling truth in its callow condition. To +the Greeks, foolishness: to the Jews, a stumbling-block. +If you can't be one of the prophets yourself, +you can at least abstain from helping to +stone them.</p> + +<p>Dear me! These reflections to-day are anything +but post-prandial. The <i>gnocchi</i> and the +olives must certainly have disagreed with me. +But perhaps it may some of it be "wrote sarcastic." +I have heard tell there is a thing +called irony.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX.</h3> + +<h4><i>THE ROMANCE OF THE CLASH OF RACES.</i></h4> + + +<p>The world has expanded faster in the last thirty +years than in any previous age since "the spacious +days of great Elizabeth." And with its +expansion, of course, our ideas have widened. I +believe Europe is now in the midst of just such +an outburst of thought and invention as that +which followed the discovery of America, and of +the new route to India by the Cape of Good +Hope. But I don't want to insist too strongly +upon that point, because I know a great many +of my contemporaries are deeply hurt by the +base and spiteful suggestion that they and their +fellows are really quite as good as any fish that +ever came out of the sea before them. I only +desire now to call attention for a moment to one +curious result entailed by this widening of the +world upon our literary productivity—a result +which, though obvious enough when one comes to +look at it, seems to me hitherto to have strangely +escaped deliberate notice.</p> + +<p>In one word, the point of which I speak is +the comparative cosmopolitanisation of letters, and +especially the introduction into literary art of the +phenomena due to the Clash of Races.</p> + +<p>This Clash itself is the one picturesque and +novel feature of our otherwise somewhat prosaic +and machine-made epoch; and, therefore, it has +been eagerly seized upon, with one accord, by +all the chief purveyors of recent literature, and +especially of fiction. They have espied in it, +with technical instinct, the best chance for obtaining +that fresh interest which is essential to the +success of a work of art. We were all getting +somewhat tired, it must be confessed, of the old +places and the old themes. The insipid loves +of Anthony Trollope's blameless young people were +beginning to pall upon us. The jaded palate of +the Anglo-Celtic race pined for something hot, +with a touch of fresh spice in it. It demanded +curried fowl and Jamaica peppers. Hence, on +the one hand, the sudden vogue of the novelists +of the younger countries—Tolstoi and Tourgenieff, +Ibsen and Bjornson, Mary Wilkins and Howells +—who transplanted us at once into fresh scenes, +new people: hence, on the other hand, the tendency +on the part of our own latest writers—the +Stevensons, the Hall Caines, the Marion Crawfords, +the Rider Haggards—to go far afield among the +lower races or the later civilisations for the themes +of their romances.</p> + +<p>Alas, alas, I see breakers before me! Must I +pause for a moment in the flowing current of a +paragraph to explain, as in an aside, that I include +Marion Crawford of set purpose among "our +own" late writers, while I count Mary Wilkins +and Howells as Transatlantic aliens? Experience +teaches me that I must; else shall I have that +annoying animalcule, the microscopic critic, coming +down upon me in print with his petty objection +that "Mr. Crawford is an American." Go to, oh, +blind one! And Whistler also, I suppose, and +Sargent, and, perhaps, Ashmead Bartlett! What! +have you read "Sarracinesca" and not learnt that +its author is European to the core? 'Twas for such +as you that the Irishman invented his brilliant +retort: "And if I was born in a stable would I +be a horse?"</p> + +<p>Not merely, however, do our younger writers go +into strange and novel places for the scenes of +their stories; the important point to notice in the +present connection is that, consciously or unconsciously +to themselves, they have perceived the +mighty influence of this Clash of Races, and have +chosen the relations of the civilised people with +their savage allies, or enemies, or subjects, as the +chief theme of their handicraft. 'Tis a momentous +theme, for it encloses in itself half the problems +of the future. The old battles are now well-nigh +fought out; but new ones are looming ahead for +us. The cosmopolitanisation of the world is introducing +into our midst strange elements of discord. +A conglomerate of unwelded ethnical elements +usurps the stage of history. America and South +Africa have already their negro question; California +and Australia have already their Chinese +question; Russia is fast getting her Asiatic, her +Mahommedan question. Even France, the most +narrowly European in interest of European +countries, has yet her Algeria, her Tunis, her +Tonquin. Spain has Cuba and the Philippines. +Holland has Java. Germany is burdening herself +with the unborn troubles of a Hinterland. And +as for England, she staggers on still under the +increasing load of India, Hong Kong, Singapore, +South Africa, the West Indies, Fiji, New Guinea, +North Borneo—all of them rife with endless race-questions, +all pregnant with difficulties.</p> + +<p>Who can be surprised that amid this seething +turmoil of colours, instincts, creeds, and languages, +art should have fastened upon the race-problems as +her great theme for the moment? And she has +fastened upon them everywhere. France herself +has not been able to avoid the contagion. Pierre +Loti is the most typical French representative of +this vagabond spirit; and the question of the +peoples naturally envisages itself to his mind in +true Gallic fashion in the "Mariage de Loti" and +in "Madame Chrysanthème." He sees it through +a halo of vague sexual sentimentalism. In England, +it was Rider Haggard from the Cape who +first set the mode visibly; and nothing is more +noteworthy in all his work than the fact that the +interest mainly centres in the picturesque juxtaposition +and contrast of civilisation and savagery. +Once the cue was given, what more natural than +that young Rudyard Kipling, fresh home from +India, brimming over with genius and with +knowledge of two concurrent streams of life that +flow on side by side yet never mingle, should +take up his parable in due course, and storm +us all by assault with his light field artillery? +Then Robert Louis Stevenson, born a wandering +Scot, with roving Scandinavian and fiery Celtic +blood in his veins, must needs settle down, like +a Viking that he is, in far Samoa, there to +charm and thrill us by turns with the romance of +Polynesia. The example was catching. Almost +without knowing it, other writers have turned +for subjects to similar fields. "Dr. Isaacs," +"Paul Patoff," "By Proxy," were upon us. Even +Hall Caine himself, in some ways a most insular +type of genius, was forced in "The Scapegoat" +to carry us off from Cumberland and Man to +Morocco. Sir Edwin Arnold inflicts upon us +the tragedies of Japan. I have been watching +this tendency long myself with the interested eye +of a dealer engaged in the trade, and therefore +anxious to keep pace with every changing breath +of popular favour: and I notice a constant increase +from year to year in the number of +short stories in magazines and newspapers dealing +with the romance of the inferior races. I +notice, also, that such stories are increasingly +successful with the public. This shows that, +whether the public knows it or not itself, the +question of race is interesting it more and more. +It is gradually growing to understand the magnitude +of the change that has come over civilisation +by the inclusion of Asia, Africa, and +Australasia within its circle. Even the Queen +is learning Hindustani.</p> + +<p>There is a famous passage in Green's "Short +History of the English People" which describes +in part that strange outburst of national expansion +under Elizabeth, when Raleigh, Drake, and +Frobisher scoured the distant seas, and when at +home "England became a nest of singing birds," +with Shakespeare, Spenser, Fletcher, and Marlow. +"The old sober notions of thrift," says the picturesque +historian, "melted before the strange +revolutions of fortune wrought by the New +World. Gallants gambled away a fortune at a +sitting, and sailed off to make a fresh one in the +Indies." (Read rather to-day at Kimberley, +Johannesburg, Vancouver.) "Visions of galleons +loaded to the brim with pearls and diamonds +and ingots of silver, dreams of El Dorados where +all was of gold, threw a haze of prodigality and +profusion over the imagination of the meanest +seaman. The wonders, too, of the New World +kindled a burst of extravagant fancy in the Old. +The strange medley of past and present which +distinguishes its masques and feastings only reflected +the medley of men's thoughts.... A +'wild man' from the Indies chanted the Queen's +praises at Kenilworth, and Echo answered him. +Elizabeth turned from the greetings of sibyls and +giants to deliver the enchanted lady from her +tyrant, 'Sans Pitie.' Shepherdesses welcomed +her with carols of the spring, while Ceres and +Bacchus poured their corn and grapes at her +feet." Oh, gilded youth of the Gaiety, <i>mutato +nomine de te Fabula narratur</i>. Yours, yours is +this glory!</p> + +<p>For our own age, too, is a second Elizabethan. +It blossoms out daily into such flowers of fancy +as never bloomed before, save then, on British +soil. When men tell you nowadays we have +"no great writers left," believe not the silly +parrot cry. Nay, rather, laugh it down for +them. We move in the midst of one of the +mightiest epochs earth has ever seen, an epoch +which will live in history hereafter side by side +with the Athens of Pericles, the Rome of +Augustus, the Florence of Lorenzo, the England +of Elizabeth. Don't throw away your birthright +by ignoring the fact. Live up to your privileges. +Gaze around you and know. Be a conscious partaker +in one of the great ages of humanity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="X" id="X"></a>X.</h3> + +<h4><i>THE MONOPOLIST INSTINCTS.</i></h4> + + +<p>In the first of these after-dinner <i>causeries</i> I ventured +humbly to remark that Patriotism was a +vulgar vice of which I had never been guilty. +That innocent indiscretion of mine aroused at the +moment some unfavourable comment. I confess +I was sorry for it. But I passed it by at the +time, lest I should speak too hastily and lose my +temper. I recur to the subject now, at the hour +of the cigarette, when man can discourse most +genially of his bitterest enemy. And Monopoly +is mine. Its very name is hateful.</p> + +<p>I don't often say what I think. At least, not +much of it. I don't often get the chance. And, +besides, being a timid and a modest man, I'm +afraid to. But just this once, I'm going to +"try it on." Object to my opinions as you will. +But still, let me express them. Strike—but +hear me!</p> + +<p>Has it ever occurred to you that one object +of reading is to learn things you never thought of +before, and would never think of now, unless you +were told them?</p> + +<p>Patriotism is one of the Monopolist Instincts. +And the Monopolist Instincts are the greatest +enemies of the social life in humanity. They +are what we have got in the end to outlive. +The test of a man's place in the scale of being +is how far he has outlived them. They are +surviving relics of the ape and tiger. But we +must let the ape and tiger die. We must begin +to be human.</p> + +<p>I will take Patriotism first, because it is the +most specious of them all, and has still a self-satisfied +way of masquerading as a virtue. But +after all what is Patriotism? "My country, +right or wrong; and just because it is <i>my</i> +country." It is nothing more than a wider form +of selfishness. Often enough, indeed, it is even +a narrow one. It means, "My business interests +against the business interests of other people; +and let the taxes of my fellow-citizens pay to +support them." At other times it is pure +Jingoism. It means, "<i>My</i> country against other +countries! <i>My</i> army and navy against other +fighters! <i>My</i> right to annex unoccupied territory +over the equal right of all other people! <i>My</i> +power to oppress all weaker nationalities, all +inferior races!" It <i>never</i> means anything good. +For if a cause is just, like Ireland's, or once +Italy's, then 'tis the good man's duty to espouse +it with warmth, be it his own or another's. +And if a cause be bad, then 'tis the good man's +duty to oppose it tooth and nail, irrespective of +your "Patriotism." True, a good man will feel +more sensitively anxious that justice should be +done by the particular State of which he happens +himself to be a member than by any other, +because he is partly responsible for the corporate +action; but then, people who feel deeply this +joint moral responsibility of all the citizens are +not praised as patriots but reviled as unpatriotic. +To urge that our own country should strive with +all its might to be better, higher, purer, nobler, +juster than other countries around it—the only +kind of Patriotism worth a brass farthing in a +righteous man's eyes—is accounted by most men +both wicked and foolish.</p> + +<p>Patriotism, then, is the collective or national +form of the Monopolist Instincts. And like all +those Instincts, it is a relic of savagery, which +the Man of the Future is now engaged in out-living.</p> + +<p>Property is the next form. That, on the +very face of it, is a viler and more sordid one. +For Patriotism at least can lay claim to some +expansiveness beyond mere individual interest; +whereas property stops dead short at the narrowest +limits. It is not "Us against the +world!" but "Me against my fellow-citizens!" +It is the final result of the industrial war in +its most hideous avatar. Look how it scars +the fair face of our England with its anti-social +notice-boards, "Trespassers will be prosecuted!" +It says, in effect, "This is my land. God made +it; but I have acquired it and tabooed it. +The grass on it grows green; but only for me. +The mountains rise beautiful; no foot of man, +save mine and my gamekeepers', shall tread +them. The waterfalls gleam fresh and cool in the +glen: avaunt there, you non-possessors; <i>you</i> shall +never see them! All this is my own. And I +choose to monopolise it."</p> + +<p>Or is it the capitalist? "I will add field +to field," he says, in despite of his own scripture; +"I will join railway to railway. I will +juggle into my own hands all the instruments +for the production of wealth that I can +lay hold of; and I will use them for myself +against the producer and the consumer. I will +enrich myself by 'corners' on the necessaries +of life; I will make food dear for the poor, +that I myself may roll in needless luxury. +I will monopolise whatever I can seize, and +the people may eat straw." That temper, too, +humanity must outlive. And those who can't +outlive it of themselves, or be warned in time, +must be taught by stern lessons that their race +has outstripped them.</p> + +<p>As for slavery, 'tis now gone. That was the +vilest of them all. It was the naked assertion +of the Monopolist platform: "You live, not for +yourself, but wholly and solely for me. I disregard +your life entirely, and use you as my +chattel." It died at last of the moral indignation +of humanity. It died when a Southern court +of so-called justice formulated in plain words the +underlying principle of its hateful creed: "A +black man has no rights which a white man is +bound to respect." That finally finished it. We +no longer allow every man to "wallop his own +nigger." And though the last relics of it die +hard in Queensland, South Africa, Demerara, we +have at least the satisfaction of knowing that +one Monopolist Instinct out of the group is pretty +well bred out of us.</p> + +<p>Except as regards women! There, it lingers +still. The Man says even now to himself:—"This +woman is mine. If she ventures to have +a heart or a will of her own, woe betide her! I +have tabooed her for life; let any other man +touch her, let her look at any other man—and—knife, +revolver, or law court, they shall both +of them answer for it!" There you have in all +its natural ugliness another Monopolist Instinct—the +deepest-seated of all, the vilest, the most +barbaric. She is not yours: she is her own: +unhand her! The Turk takes his offending +slave, sews her up in a sack, and flings her into +the Bosphorus. The Christian Englishman drags +her shame before an open court, and divorces +her with contumely. Her shame, I say, in the +common phrase, because though to me it is no +shame that any human being should follow the +dictates of his or her own heart, it is a shame +to the woman in the eyes of the world, and a +life of disgrace she must live thenceforward. +All this is Monopoly and essentially slavery. +As man lives down the Ape and Tiger stage, +he will learn to say, rather: "Be mine while +you can; but the day you cease to feel you +can be mine willingly, don't disgrace your own +body by yielding it up where your soul feels +loathing; don't consent to be the mother of +children by a father you despise or dislike or +are tired of. Let us kiss and part. Go where +you will; and my good will go with you!" +Till the man can say that with a sincere heart, +why, to borrow a phrase from George Meredith, +he may have passed Seraglio Point, but he hasn't +rounded Cape Turk yet.</p> + +<p>You find that a hard saying, do you? You +kick against freedom for wife or daughter? Well, +yes, no doubt; you are still a Monopolist. But, +believe me, the earnest and solemn expression +of a profound belief never yet did harm to any +one. I look forward to the time when women +shall be as free in every way as men, not by +levelling down, but by levelling up; not, as +some would have us think, by enslaving the men, +but by elevating, emancipating, unshackling the +women.</p> + +<p>There is a charming little ditty in Louis +Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verse," which +always seems to me to sum up admirably the +Monopolist attitude. Here it is. Look well +at it:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"When I am grown to man's estate</span> +<span class="i2">I shall be very proud and great,</span> +<span class="i2">And tell the other girls and boys,</span> +<span class="i2">Not to meddle with <i>my</i> toys."</span> +</div> +</div> + +<p>That is the way of the Monopolist. It catches +him in the very act. He says to all the world: +"Hands off! My property! Don't walk on +my grass! Don't trespass in my park! Beware +of my gunboats! No trifling with my women! +I am the king of the castle. You meddle with +me at your peril."</p> + +<p>"Ours!" not "Mine!" is the watchword of the +future.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI.</h3> + +<h4>"<i>MERE AMATEURS.</i>"</h4> + + +<p>"He was a mere amateur; but still, he did some +good work in science."</p> + +<p>Increasingly of late years I have heard these +condescending words uttered, in the fatherland of +Bacon, of Newton, of Darwin, when some Bates +or Spottiswoode has been gathered to his fathers. +It was not so once. Time was when all English +science was the work of amateurs—and very +well indeed the amateurs did it. I don't think +anybody who does me the honour to cognise my +humble individuality at all will ever be likely +to mistake me for a <i>laudator temporis acti</i>. On +the contrary, so far as I can see, the past seems +generally to have been such a distinct failure +all along the line that the one lesson we +have to learn from it is, to go and do otherwise. +I am one on that point with Shelley +and Rousseau. But it does not follow, because +most old things are bad, that all new things +and rising things are necessarily and indisputably +in their own nature excellent. Novelties, +too, may be retrograde. And even our great-grandfathers +occasionally blundered upon something +good in which we should do well to +imitate them. The amateurishness of old English +science was one of these good things now in +course of abolition by the fashionable process +of Germanisation.</p> + +<p>Don't imagine it was only for France that 1870 +was fatal. The sad successes of that deadly +year sent a wave of triumphant Teutonism over +the face of Europe.</p> + +<p>I suppose it is natural to man to worship +success; but ever since 1870 it is certainly +the fact that if you wish to gain respect and +consideration for any proposed change of system +you must say, "They do it so in Germany." +In education and science this is especially the +case. Pedants always admire pedants. And +Germany having shown herself to be easily +first of European States in her pedant-manufacturing +machinery, all the assembled dominies +of all the rest of the world exclaimed with one +voice, "Go to! Let us Germanise our educational +system!"</p> + +<p>Now, the German is an excellent workman in +his way. Patient, laborious, conscientious, he has +all the highest qualities of the ideal brick-maker. +He produces the best bricks, and you can generally +depend upon him to turn out both honest +and workmanlike articles. But he is not an +architect. For the architectonic faculty in its +highest developments you must come to England. +And he is not a teacher or expounder. +For the expository faculty in its purest form, +the faculty that enables men to flash forth +clearly and distinctly before the eyes of others +the facts and principles they know and perceive +themselves, you must go to France. Oh, dear, +yes; we may well be proud of England. Remember, +I have already disclaimed more than once in +these papers the vulgar error of patriotism. But +freedom from that narrow vice does not imply +inability to recognise the good qualities of one's +own race as well as the bad ones. And the +Englishman, left to himself and his own native +methods, used to cut a very respectable figure +indeed in the domain of science. No other nation +has produced a Newton or a Darwin. The +Englishman's way was to get up an interest in a +subject first; and then, working back from the +part of it that specially appealed to his own +tastes, to make himself master of the entire field +of inquiry. This natural and thoroughly individualistic +English method enabled him to arrive +at new results in a way impossible to the +pedantically educated German—nay, even to the +lucidly and systematically educated Frenchman. +It was the plan to develop "mere amateurs," +I admit; but it was also the plan to develop +discoverers and revolutionisers of science. For +the man most likely to advance knowledge is +not the man who knows in an encyclopædic +rote-work fashion the whole circle of the +sciences, but the man who takes a fresh interest +for its own sake in some particular branch of +inquiry.</p> + +<p>Darwin was a "mere amateur." He worked +at things for the love of them. So were Murchison, +Lyell, Benjamin Franklin, Herschel. So +were or are Bates, Herbert Spencer, Alfred +Russel Wallace. "Mere amateurs!" every man +of them.</p> + +<p>In an evil hour, however, our pastors and +masters in conclave assembled said to one another, +"Come now, let us Teutonise English +scientific education." And straightway they Teutonised +it. And there began to arise in England +a new brood of patent machine-made scientists—excellent +men in their way, authorities on +the Arachnida, knowing all about everything +that could be taught in the schools, but lacking +somehow the supreme grace of the old English +originality. They are first-rate specialists, I +allow; and I don't deny that a civilised country +has all need of specialists. Nay, I even admit +that the day of the specialist has only just +begun. He will yet go far; he will impose +himself and his yoke upon us. But don't let +us therefore make the grand mistake of concluding +that our fine old English birthright in +science—the birthright that gave us our Newtons, +our Cavendishes, our Darwins, our Lyells—was +all folly and error. Don't let us spoil ourselves +in order to become mere second-hand Germans. +Let us recognise the fact that each nation has +a work of its own to do in the world; and +that as star from star, so one nation differeth +from another in glory. Let each of us thank +the goodness and the grace that on his birth +have smiled, that he was born of English breed, +and not a German child.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think," a military gentleman once +said to me, "the Germans are wonderful organisers?" +"No," I answered, "I don't; but I think +they're excellent drill-sergeants."</p> + +<p>There are people who drop German authorities +upon you as if a Teutonic name were +guarantee enough for anything. They say, "Hausberger +asserts," or "According to Schimmelpenninck." +This is pure fetichism. Believe me, +your man of science isn't necessarily any the +better because he comes to you with the label, +"Made in Germany." The German instinct is +the instinct of Frederick William of Prussia—the +instinct of drilling. Very thorough and +efficient men in their way it turns out; men +versed in all the lore of their chosen subject. +If they are also men of transcendent ability +(as often happens), they can give us a comprehensive +view of their own chosen field such +as few Englishmen (except Sir Archibald Geikie, +and he's a Scot) can equal. If I wanted to +select a learned man for a special Government +post—British Museum, and so forth—I dare +say I should often be compelled to admit, as +Government often admits, that the best man +then and there obtainable is the German. But +if I wanted to train Herbert Spencers and +Faradays, I would certainly <i>not</i> send them to +Bonn or to Berlin. John Stuart Mill was an +English Scotchman, educated and stuffed by his +able father on the German system; and how +much of spontaneity, of vividness, of <i>verve</i>, we +all of us feel John Stuart Mill lost by it! +One often wonders to what great, to what still +greater, things that lofty brain might not have +attained, if only James Mill would have given it +a chance to develop itself naturally!</p> + +<p>Our English gift is originality. Our English +keynote is individuality. Let us cling to those +precious heirlooms of our Celtic ancestry, and +refuse to be Teutonised. Let us discard the +lessons of the Potsdam grenadiers. Let us write +on the pediment of our educational temple, "No +German need apply." Let us disclaim that silly +phrase "A mere amateur." Let us return to +the simple faith in direct observation that made +English science supreme in Europe.</p> + +<p>And may the Lord gi'e us Britons a guid +conceit o' oorsel's!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII.</h3> + +<h4><i>A SQUALID VILLAGE.</i></h4> + + +<p>Strange that the wealthiest class in the wealthiest +country in the world should so long have been +content to inhabit a squalid village!</p> + +<p>I'm not going to compare London, as Englishmen +often do, with Paris or Vienna. I won't +do two great towns that gross injustice. And, +indeed, comparison here is quite out of the +question. You don't compare Oxford with Little +Peddlington, or Edinburgh with Thrums, and +then ask which is the handsomest. Things must +be alike in kind before you can begin to compare +them. And London and Paris are not +alike in kind. One is a city, and a noble city; +the other is a village, and a squalid village.</p> + +<p>No; I will not even take a humbler standard +of comparison, and look at London side by side +with Brussels, Antwerp, Munich, Turin. Each +of those is a city, and a fine city in its way; +but each of them is small. Still, even by their +side, London is again but a squalid village. I +insist upon that point, because, misled by their +ancient familiarity with London, most Englishmen +have had their senses and understandings +so blunted on this issue, that they really don't +know what is meant by a town, or a fine town, +when they see one. And don't suppose it's +because London is in Britain and these other +towns out of it that I make these remarks: for +Bath is a fine town, Edinburgh is a fine town, +even Glasgow and Newcastle are towns, while +London is still a straggling, sprawling, invertebrate, +inchoate, overgrown village. I am as +free, I hope, from anti-patriotic as from patriotic +prejudice. The High Street in Oxford, Milsom +Street in Bath, Princes Street in Edinburgh, +those are all fine streets that would attract +attention even in France or Germany. But the +Strand, Piccadilly, Regent Street, Oxford Street—good +Lord, deliver us!</p> + +<p>One more <i>caveat</i> as to my meaning. When I +cite among real towns Brussels, Antwerp, and +Munich, I am not thinking of the treasures of +art those beautiful places contain; that is another +and altogether higher question. Towns supreme +in this respect often lag far behind others of +less importance—lag behind in those external +features and that general architectural effectiveness +which rightly entitle us to say in a broad +sense, "This is a fine city." Florence, for +example, contains more treasures of art in a +small space than any other town of Europe; +yet Florence, though undoubtedly a town, and +even a fine town, is not to be compared in this +respect, I do not say with Venice or Brussels, +but even with Munich or Milan. On the other +hand, London contains far more treasures of art +in its way than Boston, Massachusetts; but +Boston is a handsome, well-built, regular town, +while London—well, I will spare you the further +repetition of the trite truism that London is a +squalid village. In one word, the point I am +seeking to bring out here is that a town, as a +town, is handsome or otherwise, not in virtue +of the works of art or antiquity it contains, but +in virtue of its ground-plan, its architecture, its +external and visible decorations and places—the +Louvre, the Boulevards, the Champs Elysées, the +Place de l'Opéra.</p> + +<p>Now London has no ground-plan. It has no +street architecture. It has no decorations, though +it has many uglifications. It is frankly and simply +and ostentatiously hideous. And being wholly +wanting in a system of any sort—in organic +parts, in idea, in views, in vistas—it is only a +village, and a painfully uninteresting one.</p> + +<p>Most Englishmen see London before they see +any other great town. They become so familiarised +with it that their sense of comparison is +dulled and blunted. I had the good fortune to +have seen many other great towns before I ever +saw London: and I shall never forget my first +sense of surprise at its unmitigated ugliness.</p> + +<p>Get on top of an omnibus—I don't say in +Paris, from the Palais Royal to the Arc de +Triomphe, but in Brussels, from the Gare du +Nord to the Palais de Justice—and what do +you see? From end to end one unbroken succession +of noble and open prospects. I'm not +thinking now of the Grande Place in the old +town, with its magnificent collection of mediæval +buildings; the Great Fire effectively deprived +us of our one sole chance of such an element of +beauty in modern London. I confine myself on +purpose to the parts of Brussels which are purely +recent, and might have been imitated at a distance +in London, if there had been any public +spirit or any public body in England to imitate +them. (But unhappily there was neither.) Recall +to mind as you read the strikingly handsome +street view that greets you as you emerge +from the Northern Station down the great central +Boulevards to the Gare du Midi—all built within +our own memory. Then think of the prospects +that gradually unfold themselves as you rise on +the hill; the fine vista north towards Sainte +Marie de Schaarbeck; the beautiful Rue Royale, +bounded by that charming Parc; the unequalled +stretch of the Rue de la Régence, starting from +the Place Royale with Godfrey of Bouillon, and +ending with the imposing mass of the Palais de +Justice. It is to me a matter for mingled surprise +and humiliation that so many Englishmen +can look year after year at that glorious street—perhaps +the finest in the world—and yet never +think to themselves, "Mightn't we faintly imitate +some small part of this in our wealthy, ugly, uncompromising +London?"</p> + +<p>I always say to Americans who come to +Europe: "When you go to England, don't see our +towns, but see our country. Our country is something +unequalled in the world: while our towns!—well, +anyway, keep away from London!"</p> + +<p>With the solitary and not very brilliant exception +of the Embankment, there isn't a street in +London where one could take a stranger to admire +the architecture. Compare that record with the +new Boulevards in Antwerp, where almost every +house is worth serious study: or with the Ring +at Cologne (to keep close home all the time), +where one can see whole rows of German Renaissance +houses of extraordinary interest. What +street in London can be mentioned in this respect +side by side with Commonwealth Avenue +or Beacon Street in Boston; with Euclid Avenue +in Cleveland, Ohio; with the upper end of Fifth +Avenue, New York; nay, even with the new Via +Roma at Genoa? Why is it that we English +can't get on the King's Road at Brighton anything +faintly approaching that splendid sea front +on the Digue at Ostend, or those coquettish white +villas that line the Promenade des Anglais at +Nice? The blight of London seems to lie over +all Southern England.</p> + +<p>Paris looks like the capital of a world-wide +empire. London, looks like a shapeless neglected +suburb, allowed to grow up by accident anyhow. +And that's just the plain truth of it. 'Tis a fortuitous +concourse of hap-hazard houses.</p> + +<p>"But we are improving somewhat. The County +Council is opening out a few new thoroughfares +piecemeal." Oh yes, in an illogical, unsystematic, +English patchwork fashion, we are driving a badly-designed, +unimpressive new street or two, with no +expansive sense of imperial greatness, through the +hopelessly congested and most squalid quarters. +But that is all. No grand, systematic, reconstructive +plan, no rising to the height of the +occasion and the Empire! You tinker away at +a Shaftesbury Avenue. Parochial, all of it. And +there you get the real secret of our futile attempts +at making a town out of our squalid village. The +fault lies all at the door of the old Corporation, +and of the people who made and still make the +old Corporation possible. For centuries, indeed, +there was really no London, not even a village; +there was only a scratch collection of contiguous +villages. The consequence was that here, at the +centre of national life, the English people grew +wholly unaccustomed to the bare idea of a town, +and managed everything piecemeal, on the petty +scale of a country vestry. The vestryman intelligence +has now overrun the land; and if the +London County Council ever succeeds at last in +making the congeries of villages into—I do not +say a city, for that is almost past praying for, +but something analogous to a second-rate Continental +town, it will only be after long lapse +of time and violent struggles with the vestryman +level of intellect and feeling.</p> + +<p>London had many great disadvantages to start +with. She lay in a dull and marshy bottom, +with no building stone at hand, and therefore +she was forecondemned by her very position to +the curse of brick and stucco, when Bath, Oxford, +Edinburgh, were all built out of their own +quarries. Then fire destroyed all her mediæval +architecture, leaving her only Westminster Abbey +to suggest the greatness of her losses. But +brick-earth and fire have been as nothing in +their way by the side of the evil wrought by +Gog and Magog. When five hundred trembling +ghosts of naked Lord Mayors have to answer +for their follies and their sins hereafter, I confidently +expect the first question in the appalling +indictment will be, "Why did you allow the +richest nation on earth to house its metropolis +in a squalid village?"</p> + +<p>We have a Moloch in England to whom we +sacrifice much. And his hateful name is Vested +Interest.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII.</h3> + +<h4><i>CONCERNING ZEITGEIST.</i></h4> + + +<p>A certain story is told about Mr. Ruskin, no +doubt apocryphal, but at any rate characteristic. +A young lady, fresh from the Abyss of Bayswater, +met the sage one evening at dinner—a +gushing young lady, as many such there be—who, +aglow with joy, boarded the Professor at +once with her private art-experiences. "Oh, Mr. +Ruskin," she cried, clasping her hands, "do you +know, I hadn't been two days in Florence before +I discovered what you meant when you spoke +about the supreme unapproachableness of Botticelli." +"Indeed?" Ruskin answered. "Well, +that's very remarkable; for it took me, myself, +half a lifetime to discover it."</p> + +<p>The answer, of course, was meant to be crushing. +How should <i>she</i>, a brand plucked from +the burning of Bayswater, be able all at once, +on the very first blush, to appreciate Botticelli? +And it took the greatest critic of his age half +a lifetime! Yet I venture to maintain, for all +that, that the young lady was right, and that the +critic was wrong—if such a thing be conceivable. +I know, of course, that when we speak of Ruskin +we must walk delicately, like Agag. But still, +I repeat it, the young lady was right; and it +was largely the unconscious, pervasive action of +Mr. Ruskin's own personality that enabled her +to be so.</p> + +<p>It's all the Zeitgeist: that's where it is. The +slow irresistible Zeitgeist. Fifty years ago, men's +taste had been so warped and distorted by current +art and current criticism that they <i>couldn't</i> see +Botticelli, however hard they tried at it. He +was a sealed book to our fathers. In those days +it required a brave, a vigorous, and an original +thinker to discover any merit in any painter +before Raffael, except perhaps, as Goldsmith wisely +remarked, Perugino. The man who went then +to the Uffizi or the Pitti, after admiring as in +duty bound his High Renaissance masters, found +himself suddenly confronted with the Judith or +the Calumny, and straightway wondered what +manner of strange wild beasts these were that +some insane early Tuscan had once painted to +amuse himself in a lucid interval. They were +not in the least like the Correggios and the +Guidos, the Lawrences and the Opies, that the +men of that time had formed their taste upon, +and accepted as their sole artistic standards. +To people brought up upon pure David and +Thorvaldsen, the Primavera at the Belle Arti +must naturally have seemed like a wild freak of +madness. The Zeitgeist then went all in the +direction of cold lifeless correctness; the idea +that the painter's soul counted for something in +art was an undreamt of heresy.</p> + +<p>On your way back from Paris some day, stop a +night at Amiens and take the Cathedral seriously. +Half the stately interior of that glorious thirteenth +century pile is encrusted and overlaid by hideous +gewgaw monstrosities of the flashiest Bernini and +<i>baroque</i> period. There they sprawl their obtrusive +legs and wave their flaunting theatrical wings +to the utter destruction of all repose and consistency +in one of the noblest and most perfect +buildings of Europe. Nowadays, any child, any +workman can see at a glance how ugly and +how disfiguring those floppy creatures are; it is +impossible to look at them without saying to +oneself: "Why don't they clear away all this +high-faluting rubbish, and let us see the real +columns and arches and piers as their makers +designed them?" Yet who was it that put +them there, those unspeakable angels in muslin +drapery, those fly-away nymphs and graces and +seraphim? Why, the best and most skilled +artists of their day in Europe. And whence +comes it that the merest child can now see instinctively +how out of place they are, how disfiguring, +how incongruous? Why, because the +Gothic revival has taught us all by degrees to +appreciate the beauty and delicacy of a style +which to our eighteenth century ancestors was +mere barbaric mediævalism; has taught us to +admire its exquisite purity, and to dislike the +obstrusive introduction into its midst of incongruous +and meretricious Bernini-like flimsiness.</p> + +<p>The Zeitgeist has changed, and we have +changed with it.</p> + +<p>It is just the same with our friend Botticelli. +Scarce a dozen years ago, it was almost an affectation +to pretend you admired him. It is no affectation +now. Hundreds of assorted young women +from the Abyss of Bayswater may rise any morning +here in sacred Florence and stand genuinely +enchanted before the Adoration of the Kings, or +the Venus who floats on her floating shell in a +Botticellian ocean. And why? Because Leighton, +Holman Hunt, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Madox +Brown, Strudwick, have led them slowly up to +it by golden steps innumerable. Thirty years ago +the art of the early Tuscan painters was something +to us Northerners exotic, strange, unconnected, +archæological. Gradually, it has been +brought nearer and nearer to us on the walls of +the Grosvenor and the New Gallery, till now +he that runs may read; the ingenuous maiden, +fished from the Abyss of Bayswater, can drink +in at a glance what it took a Ruskin many years +of his life and much slow development to attain +to piecemeal.</p> + +<p>That is just what all great men are for—to +make the world accept as a truism in the generation +after them what it rejected as a paradox in +the generation before them.</p> + +<p>Not, of course, that there isn't a little of affectation, +and still more of fashion, to the very end +in all of it. An immense number of people, +incapable of genuinely admiring anything for its +own sake at all, are anxious only to be told +what they "ought to admire, don't you know," +and will straightway proceed as conscientiously +as they can to get up an admiration for it. +A friend of mine told me a beautiful example. +Two aspiring young women, of the limp-limbed, +short-haired, æsthetic species, were standing rapt +before the circular Madonna at the Uffizi. They +had gazed at it long and lovingly, seeing it bore +on its frame the magic name of Botticelli. Of +a sudden one of the pair happened to look a +little nearer at the accusing label. "Why, this +is not Sandro," she cried, with a revulsion of +disgust; "this is only Aless." And straightway +they went off from the spot in high dudgeon +at having been misled as they supposed into +examining the work of "another person of the +same name."</p> + +<p>Need I point the moral of my apologue, in +this age of enlightenment, by explaining, for the +benefit of the junior members, that the gentleman's +full name was really Alessandro, and that +both abbreviations are impartially intended to +cover his one and indivisible personality? The +first half is official, like Alex.; the second affectionate +and familiar, like Sandy.</p> + +<p>Still, even after making due allowance for +such humbugs as these, a vast residuum remains +of people who, if born sixty years ago, could +never by any possibility have been made to see +there was anything admirable in Lippi, Botticelli, +Giotto; but who, having been born thirty years +ago, see it without an effort. Hundreds who read +these lines must themselves remember the unmistakable +thrill of genuine pleasure with which +they first gazed upon the Fra Angelicos at San +Marco, the Memlings at Bruges, the Giottos in +the Madonna dell' Arena at Padua. To many +of us, those are real epochs in our inner life. +To the men of fifty years ago, the bare avowal +itself would have seemed little short of affected +silliness.</p> + +<p>Is the change all due to the teaching of the +teachers and the preaching of the preachers? I +think not entirely. For, after all, the teachers +and the preachers are but a little ahead of the +age they live in. They see things earlier; they +help to lead us up to them; but they do not +wholly produce the revolutions they inaugurate. +Humanity as a whole develops consistently +along certain pre-established and predestined lines. +Sooner or later, a certain point must inevitably +be reached; but some of us reach it sooner, +and most of us later. That's all the difference. +Every great change is mainly due to the fact +that we have all already attained a certain point +in development. A step in advance becomes inevitable +after that, and one after another we are +sure to take it. In one word, what it needed +a man of genius to see dimly thirty years ago, +it needs a singular fool not to see clearly nowadays.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV.</h3> + +<h4><i>THE DECLINE OF MARRIAGE.</i></h4> + + +<p>Men don't marry nowadays. So everybody tells +us. And I suppose we may therefore conclude, +by a simple act of inference, that women in +turn don't marry either. It takes two, of course, +to make a quarrel—or a marriage.</p> + +<p>Why is this? "Young people nowadays want +to begin where their fathers left off." "Men +are made so comfortable at present in their +clubs." "College-bred girls have no taste for +housekeeping." "Rents are so high and manners +so luxurious." Good heavens, what silly trash, +what puerile nonsense! Are we all little boys +and girls, I ask you, that we are to put one +another off with such transparent humbug? +Here we have to deal with a primitive instinct—the +profoundest and deepest-seated instinct of +humanity, save only the instincts of food and +drink and of self-preservation. Man, like all +other animals, has two main functions: to feed +his own organism, and to reproduce his species. +Ancestral habit leads him, when mature, to choose +himself a mate—because he loves her. It drives +him, it urges him, it goads him irresistibly. If +this profound impulse is really lacking to-day +in any large part of our race, there must be +some correspondingly profound and adequate reason +for it. Don't let us deceive ourselves with shallow +platitudes which may do for drawing-rooms. +This is philosophy, even though post-prandial. +Let us try to take a philosophic view of the +question at issue, from the point of vantage of a +biological outlook.</p> + +<p>Before you begin to investigate the causes of a +phenomenon <i>quelconque</i>, 'tis well to decide whether +the phenomenon itself is there to investigate.</p> + +<p>Taking society throughout—<i>not</i> in the sense +of those "forty families" to which the term is +restricted by Lady Charles Beresford—I doubt +whether marriage is much out of fashion. Statistics +show a certain decrease, it is true, but not +an alarming one. Among the labouring classes, +I imagine men, and also women, still wed pretty +frequently. When people say, "Young men won't +marry nowadays," they mean young men in a +particular stratum of society, roughly bounded by +a silk hat on Sundays. Now, when you and +I were young (I take it for granted that you +and I are approaching the fifties) young men did +marry; even within this restricted area, 'twas +their wholesome way in life to form an attachment +early with some nice girl in their own set, +and to start at least with the idea of marrying +her. Toward that goal they worked; for that +end they endured and sacrificed many things. +True, even then, the long engagement was the +rule; but the long engagement itself meant some +persistent impulse, some strong impetus marriage-wards. +The desire of the man to make this +woman his own, the longing to make this woman +happy—normal and healthy endowments of our +race—had still much driving-power. Nowadays, +I seriously think I observe in most young men +of the middle class around me a distinct and +disastrous weakening of the impulse. They don't +fall in love as frankly, as honestly, as irretrievably +as they used to do. They shilly-shally, +they pick and choose, they discuss, they criticise. +They say themselves these futile foolish +things about the club, and the flat, and the cost +of living. They believe in Malthus. Fancy a +young man who believes in Malthus! They seem +in no hurry at all to get married. But thirty or +forty years ago, young men used to rush by blind +instinct into the toils of matrimony—because they +couldn't help themselves. Such Laodicean luke-warmness +betokens in the class which exhibits it +a weakening of impulse. That weakening of impulse +is really the thing we have to account for.</p> + +<p>Young men of a certain type don't marry, +because—they are less of young men than +formerly.</p> + +<p>Wild animals in confinement seldom propagate +their kind. Only a few caged birds will +continue their species. Whatever upsets the +balance of the organism, in an individual or a +race tends first of all to affect the rate of reproduction. +Civilise the red man, and he begins +to decrease at once in numbers. Turn the +Sandwich Islands into a trading community, and +the native Hawaiian refuses forthwith to give +hostages to fortune. Tahiti is dwindling. From +the moment the Tasmanians were taken to Norfolk +Island, not a single Tasmanian baby was +born. The Jesuits made a model community of +Paraguay; but they altered the habits of the +Paraguayans so fast that the reverend fathers, +who were, of course, themselves celibates, were +compelled to take strenuous and even grotesque +measures to prevent the complete and immediate +extinction of their converts. Other cases in abundance +I might quote an I would; but I limit +myself to these. They suffice to exhibit the +general principle involved; any grave upset in +the conditions of life affects first and at once the +fertility of a species.</p> + +<p>"But colonists often increase with rapidity." +Ay, marry, do they, where the conditions of life +are easy. At the present day most colonists go +to fairly civilised regions; they are transported +to their new home by steamboat and railway; +they find for the most part more abundant provender +and more wholesome surroundings than +in their native country. There is no real upset. +Better food and easier life, as Herbert Spencer +has shown, result (other things equal) in increased +fertility. His chapters on this subject in the +"Principles of Biology" should be read by everybody +who pretends to talk on questions of population. +But in new and difficult colonies the increase +is slight. Whatever compels greater wear +and tear of the nervous system proves inimical +to the reproductive function. The strain and +stress of co-ordination with novel circumstances +and novel relations affect most injuriously the +organic balance. The African negro has long +been accustomed to agricultural toil and to certain +simple arts in his own country. Transported to +the West Indies and the United States, he found +life no harder than of old, if not, indeed, easier. +He had abundant food, protection, security, a kind +of labour for which he was well adapted. Instead +of dying out, therefore, he was fruitful, +and multiplied, and replenished the earth amazingly. +But the Red Indian, caught blatant in +the hunting stage, refused to be tamed, and +could not swallow civilisation. He pined and +dwined and decreased in his "reservations." The +change was too great, too abrupt, too brusque +for him. The papoose before long became an +extinct animal.</p> + +<p>Is not the same thing true of the middle class +of England? Civilisation and its works have come +too quickly upon us. The strain and stress of +correlating and co-ordinating the world we live +in are getting too much for us. Railways, telegraphs, +the penny post, the special edition, have +played havoc at last with our nervous systems. +We are always on the stretch, rushing and tearing +perpetually. We bolt our breakfasts; we +catch the train or 'bus by the skin of our +teeth, to rattle us into the City; we run down +to Scotland or over to Paris on business; we +lunch in London and dine in Glasgow, Belfast, +or Calcutta. (Excuse imagination.) The +tape clicks perpetually in our ears the last quotation +in Eries; the telephone rings us up at +inconvenient moments. Something is always happening +somewhere to disturb our equanimity; we +tear open the <i>Times</i> with feverish haste, to learn +that Kimberleys or Jabez Balfour have fallen, +that Matabeleland has been painted red, that +shares have gone up, or gone down, or evaporated. +Life is one turmoil of excitement and +bustle. Financially, 'tis a series of dissolving +views; personally 'tis a rush; socially, 'tis a +mosaic of deftly-fitted engagements. Drop out +one piece, and you can never replace it. You +are full next week from Monday to Saturday—business +all day, what calls itself pleasure (save +the mark!) all evening. Poor old Leisure is dead. +We hurry and scurry and flurry eternally. One +whirl of work from morning till night: then +dress and dine: one whirl of excitement from +night till morning. A snap of troubled sleep, +and again <i>da capo</i>. Not an hour, not a minute, +we can call our own. A wire from a patient +ill abed in Warwickshire! A wire from a client +hard hit in Hansards! Endless editors asking +for more copy! more copy! Alter to suit your +own particular trade, and 'tis the life of all +of us.</p> + +<p>The first generation after Stephenson and the +Rocket pulled through with it somehow. They +inherited the sound constitutions of the men who +sat on rustic seats in the gardens of the twenties. +The second generation—that's you and me—felt +the strain of it more severely: new machines +had come in to make life still more complicated: +sixpenny telegrams, Bell and Edison, submarine +cables, evening papers, perturbations pouring in +from all sides incessantly; the suburbs growing, +the hubbub increasing, Metropolitan railways, +trams, bicycles, innumerable: but natheless we +still endured, and presented the world all the same +with a third generation. That third generation—ah +me! there comes the pity of it! One +fancies the impulse to marry and rear a family +has wholly died out of it. It seems to have +died out most in the class where the strain and +stress are greatest. I don't think young men of +that class to-day have the same feelings towards +women of their sort as formerly. Nobody, I +trust, will mistake me for a reactionary: in most +ways, the modern young man is a vast improvement +on you and me at twenty-five. But I +believe there is really among young men in +towns less chivalry, less devotion, less romance +than there used to be. That, I take it, is the +true reason why young men don't marry. With +certain classes and in certain places a primitive +instinct of our race has weakened. They say +this weakening is accompanied in towns by an +increase in sundry hateful and degrading vices. +I don't know if that is so; but at least one +would expect it. Any enfeeblement of the normal +and natural instinct of virility would show itself +first in morbid aberrations. On that I say +nothing. I only say this—that I think the +present crisis in the English marriage market +is due, not to clubs or the comfort of bachelor +quarters, but to the cumulative effect of nervous +over-excitement.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV.</h3> + +<h4><i>EYE</i> <small>VERSUS</small> <i>EAR</i>.</h4> + + +<p>It is admitted on all hands by this time, I suppose, +that the best way of learning is by eye, not +by ear. Therefore the authorities that prescribe +for us our education among all classes have decided +that we shall learn by ear, not by eye. +Which is just what one might expect from a +vested interest.</p> + +<p>Of course this superiority of sight over hearing +is pre-eminently true of natural science—that is +to say, of nine-tenths among the subjects worth +learning by humanity. The only real way to +learn geology, for example, is not to mug it up +in a printed text-book, but to go into the field +with a geologist's hammer. The only real way to +learn zoology and botany is not by reading a +volume of natural history, but by collecting, dissecting, +observing, preserving, and comparing specimens. +Therefore, of course, natural science has +never been a favourite study in the eyes of school-masters, +who prefer those subjects which can be +taught in a room to a row of boys on a bench, +and who care a great deal less than nothing +for any subject which isn't "good to examine +in." Educational value and importance in after +life have been sacrificed to the teacher's ease and +convenience, or to the readiness with which the +pupil's progress can be tested on paper. Not +what is best to learn, but what is least trouble +to teach in great squads to boys, forms the +staple of our modern English education. They +call it "education," I observe in the papers, and +I suppose we must fall in with that whim of +the profession.</p> + +<p>But even the subjects which belong by rights +to the ear can nevertheless be taught by the eye +more readily. Everybody knows how much easier +it is to get up the history and geography of a +country when you are actually in it than when +you are merely reading about it. It lives and +moves before you. The places, the persons, the +monuments, the events, all become real to you. +Each illustrates each, and each tends to impress +the other on the memory. Sight burns them +into the brain without conscious effort. You can +learn more of Egypt and of Egyptian history, +culture, hieroglyphics, and language in a few +short weeks at Luxor or Sakkarah than in a +year at the Louvre and the British Museum. +The Tombs of the Kings are worth many papyri. +The mere sight of the temples and obelisks and +monuments and inscriptions, in the places where +their makers originally erected them, gives a sense +of reality and interest to them all that no amount +of study under alien conditions can possibly equal. +We have all of us felt that the only place to +observe Flemish art to the greatest advantage is +at Ghent and Bruges and Brussels and Antwerp; +just as the only place to learn Florentine art as +it really was is at the Uffizi and the Bargello.</p> + +<p>These things being so, the authorities who have +charge of our public education, primary, secondary, +and tertiary, have decided in their wisdom—to do +and compel the exact contrary. Object-lessons +and the visible being admittedly preferable to +rote-lessons and the audible, they have prescribed +that our education, so called, shall be mainly an +education not in things and properties, but in +books and reading. They have settled that it +shall deal almost entirely and exclusively with +language and with languages; that words, not +objects, shall be the facts it impresses on the +minds of the pupils. In our primary schools +they have insisted upon nothing but reading and +writing, with just a smattering of arithmetic by +way of science. In our secondary schools they +have insisted upon nothing but Greek and Latin, +with about an equal leaven of algebra and geometry. +This mediæval fare (I am delighted that +I can thus agree for once with Professor Ray +Lankester) they have thrust down the throats of +all the world indiscriminately; so much so that +nowadays people seem hardly able at last to conceive +of any other than a linguistic education as +possible. You will hear many good folk who talk +with contempt of Greek and Latin; but when you +come to inquire what new mental pabulum they +would substitute for those quaint and grotesque +survivals of the Dark Ages, you find what they +want instead is—modern languages. The idea +that language of any sort forms no necessary +element in a liberal education has never even +occurred to them. They take it for granted that +when you leave off feeding boys on straw and +oats you must supply them instead with hay +and sawdust.</p> + +<p>Not that I rage against Greek and Latin as such. +It is well we should have many specialists among +us who understand them, just as it is well we +should have specialists in Anglo-Saxon and Sanskrit. +I merely mean that they are not the sum +and substance of educational method. They are +at best but two languages of considerable importance +to the student of purely human evolution.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, even these comparatively useless +linguistic subjects could themselves be taught far +better by sight than by hearing. A week at +Rome would give your average boy a much clearer +idea of the relations of the Capitol with the +Palatine than all the pretty maps in Dr. William +Smith's Smaller Classical Dictionary. It would +give him also a sense of the reality of the Latin +language and the Latin literature, which he could +never pick up out of a dog-eared Livy or a +thumb-marked Æneid. You have only to look +across from the top of the Janiculum, towards the +white houses of Frascati, to learn a vast deal more +about the Alban hills and the site of Tusculum +than ever you could mug up from all the geography +books in the British Museum. The way +to learn every subject on earth, even book-lore +included, is not out of books alone, but by actual +observation.</p> + +<p>And yet it is impossible for any one among us +to do otherwise than acquiesce in this vicious +circle. Why? Just because no man can dissociate +himself outright from the social organism +of which he forms a component member. He +can no more do so than the eye can dissociate +itself from the heart and lungs, or than the legs +can shake themselves free from the head and +stomach. We have all to learn, and to let our +boys learn, what authority decides for us. We +can't give them a better education than the average, +even if we know what it is and desire to +impart it, because the better education, though +abstractly more valuable, is now and here the +inlet to nothing. Every door is barred with +examinations, and opens but to the golden key +of the crammer. Not what is of most real use +and importance in life, but what "pays best" in +examination, is the test of desirability. We are +the victims of a system; and our only hope of +redress is not by sporadic individual action but +by concerted rebellion. We must cry out against +the abuse till at last we are heard by dint of our +much speaking. In a world so complex and so +highly organised as ours, the individual can only +do anything in the long run by influencing the +mass—by securing the co-operation of many +among his fellows.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, I believe it is gradually becoming +the fact that our girls, who till lately were so +very ill-taught, are beginning to know more of +what is really worth knowing than their public-school-bred +brothers. For the public school still +goes on with the system of teaching it has derived +direct from the thirteenth century; while the +girls' schools, having started fair and fresh, are +beginning to assimilate certain newer ideas belonging +to the seventeenth and even the eighteenth. +In time they may conceivably come down to the +more elementary notions of the present generation. +Less hampered by professions and examinations +than the boys, the girls are beginning to +know something now, not indeed of the universe +in which they live, its laws and its properties, +but of literature and history, and the principal +facts about human development. Yet all the +time, the boys go on as ever with Musa, Musæ, +like so many parrots, and are turned out at last, +in nine cases out of ten, with just enough smattering +of Greek and Latin grammar to have acquired +a life-long distaste for Horace and an inconquerable +incapacity for understanding Æschylus. One +year in Italy with their eyes open would be +worth more than three at Oxford; and six months +in the fields with a platyscopic lens would teach +them strange things about the world around them +that all the long terms at Harrow and Winchester +have failed to discover to them. But that would +involve some trouble to the teacher.</p> + +<p>What a misfortune it is that we should thus +be compelled to let our boys' schooling interfere +with their education!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI.</h3> + +<h4><i>THE POLITICAL PUPA.</i></h4> + + +<p>I have picked up on the moor the chrysalis of +a common English butterfly. As I sit on the +heather and turn it over attentively, while it +wriggles in my hands, I can't help thinking how +closely it resembles the present condition of our +British commonwealth. It is a platitude, indeed, +to say that "this is an age of transition." But +it would be truer and more graphic perhaps to +put it that this is an age in which England, +and for the matter of that every other European +country as well, is passing through something like +the chrysalis stage in its evolution.</p> + +<p>But, first of all, do you clearly understand what +a chrysalis is driving at? It means more than +it seems; the change that goes on within that +impassive case is a great deal more profound +than most people imagine. When the caterpillar +is just ready to turn into a butterfly it lies +by for a while, full of internal commotion, and +feels all its organs slowly melting one by one +into a sort of indistinguishable protoplasmic pulp; +chaos precedes the definite re-establishment of a +fresh form of order. Limbs and parts and nervous +system all disappear for a time, and then gradually +grow up again in new and altered types. +The caterpillar, if it philosophised on its own +state at all (which seems to be very little the +habit of well-conducted caterpillars, as of well-conducted +young ladies), might easily be excused +for forming just at first the melancholy impression +that a general dissolution was coming over it +piecemeal. It must begin by feeling legs and +eyes and nervous centres melt away by degrees +into a common indistinguishable organic pulp, +out of which the new organs only slowly form +themselves in obedience to the law of some +internal impulse. But when the process is all +over, and—hi, presto!—the butterfly emerges at +last from the chrysalis condition, what does it +find but that instead of having lost everything +it has new and stronger legs in place of the +old and feeble ones; it has nerves and brain +more developed than before; it has wings for +flight instead of mere creeping little feet to +crawl with? What seemed like chaos was really +nothing more than the necessary kneading up +of all component parts into a plastic condition +which precedes every fresh departure in evolution. +The old must fade before the new can +replace it.</p> + +<p>Now I am not going to work this perhaps +somewhat fanciful analogy to death, or pretend +it is anything more than a convenient metaphor. +Still, taken as such, it is not without its luminosity. +For a metaphor, by supplying us with +a picturable representation, often enables us really +to get at the hang of the thing a vast deal +better than the most solemn argument. And +I fancy communities sometimes pass through just +such a chrysalis stage, when it seems to the +timid and pessimistic in their midst as if every +component element of the State (but especially +the one in which they themselves and their +friends are particularly interested) were rushing +violently down a steep place to eternal perdition. +Chaos appears to be swallowing up everything. +"The natural relations of classes" disappear. +Faiths melt; churches dissolve; morals fade; +bonds fail; a universal magma of emancipated +opinion seems to take the place of old-established +dogma. The squires and the parsons of the +period—call them scribes or augurs—wring their +hands in despair, and cry aloud that they don't +know what the world is coming to. But, after +all, it is only the chrysalis stage of a new system. +The old social order must grow disjointed and +chaotic before the new social order can begin to +evolve from it. The establishment of a plastic +consistency in the mass is the condition precedent +of the higher development.</p> + +<p>Not, of course, that this consideration will ever +afford one grain of comfort to the squires and +the parsons of each successive epoch; for what +<i>they</i> want is not the reasonable betterment of the +whole social organism, but the continuance of just +this particular type of squiredom and parsonry. +That is what they mean by "national welfare;" +and any interference with it they criticise in all +ages with the current equivalent for the familiar +Tory formula that "the country is going to the +devil."</p> + +<p>Sometimes these great social reconstructions of +which I speak are forced upon communities by +external factors interfering with their fixed internal +order, as happened when the influx of +northern barbarians broke up the decaying and +rotten organism of the Roman Empire. Sometimes, +again, they occur from internal causes, in +an acute, and so to speak, inflammatory condition, +as at the French Revolution. But sometimes, +as in our own time and country, they are slowly +brought about by organic development, so as really +to resemble in all essential points the chrysalis +type of evolution. Politically, socially, theologically, +ethically, the old fixed beliefs seem at such +periods to grow fluid or plastic. New feelings +and habits and aspirations take their place. For +a while a general chaos of conflicting opinions +and nascent ideas is produced. The mass for +the moment seems formless and lawless. Then +new order supervenes, as the magma settles down +and begins to crystallise; till at last, I'm afraid, +the resulting social organism becomes for the most +part just as rigid, just as definite, just as dogmatic, +just as exacting, as the one it has superseded. +The caterpillar has grown into a particular +butterfly.</p> + +<p>Through just such a period of reconstruction +Europe in general and Britain in particular are +now in all likelihood beginning to pass. And +they will come out at the other end translated +and transfigured. Laws and faiths and morals +will all of them have altered. There will be +a new heaven and a new earth for the men +and women of the new epoch. Strange that +people should make such a fuss about a detail +like Home Rule, when the foundations of society +are all becoming fluid. Don't flatter yourself for +a moment that your particular little sect or your +particular little dogma is going to survive the +gentle cataclysm any more than my particular +little sect or my particular little dogma. All +alike are doomed to inevitable reconstruction. +"We can't put the Constitution into the melting-pot," +said Mr. John Morley, if I recollect his words +aright. But at the very moment when he said +it, in my humble opinion, the Constitution was +already well into the melting-pot, and even beginning +to simmer merrily. Federalism, or something +extremely like it, may with great probability +be the final outcome of that particular melting; +though anything else is perhaps just as probable, +and in any case the melting is general, not special. +The one thing we can guess with tolerable certainty +is that the melting-pot stage has begun to overtake +us, socially, ethically, politically, ecclesiastically; +and that what will emerge from the pot at the +end of it must depend at last upon the relative +strength of those unknown quantities—the various +formative elements.</p> + +<p>Being the most optimistic of pessimists, however, +I will venture (after this disclaimer of +prophecy) to prophesy one thing alone: 'Twill +be a butterfly, not a grub, that comes out of +our chrysalis.</p> + +<p>Beyond that, I hold all prediction premature. +We may guess and we may hope, but we can +have no certainty. Save only the certainty that +no element will outlive the revolution unchanged—not +faiths, nor classes, nor domestic relations, +nor any other component factor of our complex +civilisation. All are becoming plastic in the +organic plasm; all are losing features in the +common mass of the melting-pot. For that +reason, I never trouble my head for a moment +when people object to me that this, that, or the +other petty point of detail in Bellamy's Utopia or +William Morris's Utopia, or my own little private +and particular Utopia, is impossible, or unrealisable, +or wicked, or hateful. For these, after all, +are mere Utopias; their details are the outcome +of individual wishes; what will emerge must be, +not a Utopia at all, either yours or mine, but a +practical reality, full of shifts and compromises +most unphilosophical and illogical—a practical +reality distasteful in many ways to all us Utopia-mongers. +"The Millennium by return of post" +is no more realisable to-day than yesterday. The +greatest of revolutions can only produce that unsatisfactory +result, a new human organisation.</p> + +<p>Yet, it is something, after all, to believe at +least that the grub will emerge into a full-fledged +butterfly. Not, perhaps, quite as glossy in the +wings as we could wish; but a butterfly all the +same, not a crawling caterpillar.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII.</h3> + +<h4><i>ON THE CASINO TERRACE.</i></h4> + + +<p>I have always regarded Monte Carlo as an +Influence for Good. It helps to keep so many +young men off the Stock Exchange.</p> + +<p>Let me guard against an obvious but unjust +suspicion. These remarks are not uttered under +the exhilarating effect of winning at the tables. +Quite the contrary. It is the Bank that has +broken the Man to-day at Monte Carlo. They +are rather due to the chastening and thought-compelling +influence of persistent loss, not altogether +unbalanced by a well-cooked lunch at +perhaps the best restaurant in any town of +Europe. I have lost my little pile. The eight +five-franc pieces which I annually devote out of +my scanty store to the tutelary god of roulette +have been snapped up, one after another, in +breathless haste, by the sphinx-like croupiers, +impassive priests of that rapacious deity, and +now I am sitting, cleaned out, by the edge of +the terrace, on a brilliant, cloudless, February +afternoon, looking across the zoned and belted +bay towards the beautiful grey hills of Rocca-bruna +and the gleaming white spit of Bordighera +in the distance. 'Tis a modest tribute, my poor +little forty francs. Surely the veriest puritan, +the oiliest Chadband of them all, will allow a +humble scribbler, at so cheap a yearly rate, to +purchase wisdom, not unmixed with tolerance, at +the gilded shrine of Fors Fortuna!</p> + +<p>For what a pother, after all, the unwise of +this world are wont to make about one stranded +gambling-house, in a remote corner of Liguria! +If they were in earnest or sincere, how small a +matter they would think it! Of course, when +I say so, hypocrisy holds up its hands in holy +horror. But that is the way with the purveyors +of mint, cumin, and anise; they raise a mighty +hubbub over some unimportant detail—in order +to feel their consciences clear when business +compels them to rob the widow and the orphan. +In reality, though Monte Carlo is bad enough +in its way—do I not pay it unwilling tribute +myself twice a year out of the narrow resources +of The Garret, Grub Street?—it is but a skin-deep +surface symptom of a profound disease +which attacks the heart and core in London +and Paris. Compared with Panama, Argentines, +British South Africans, and Liberators, Monte +Carlo is a mole on the left ankle.</p> + +<p>"The Devil's advocate!" you say. Well, +well, so be it. The fact is, the supposed moral +objection to gambling as such is a purely commercial +objection of a commercial nation; and +the reason so much importance is attached to +it in certain places is because at that particular +vice men are likely to lose their money. It +is largely a fetish, like the sinfulness of cards, +of dice, of billiards. Moreover, the objection is +only to the <i>kind</i> of gambling. There is another +kind, less open, at which you stand a better +chance to win yourself, while other parties stand +a better chance to lose; and that kind, which +is played in great gambling-houses known as +the Stock Exchange and the Bourse, is considered, +morally speaking, as quite innocuous. Large +fortunes are made at this other sort of gambling, +which, of course, sanctifies and almost canonises +it. Indeed, if you will note, you will find +not only that the objection to gambling pure +and simple is commonest in the most commercial +countries, but also that even there it is +commonest among the most commercial classes. +The landed aristocracy, the military, and the +labouring men have no objection to betting; +nor have the Neapolitan lazzaroni, the Chinese +coolies. It is the respectable English counting-house +that discourages the vice, especially among +the clerks, who are likely to make the till or +the cheque-book rectify the little failures of their +flutter on the Derby.</p> + +<p>Observe how artificial is the whole mild out-cry: +how absolutely it partakes of the nature of +damning the sins you have no mind to! Here, +on the terrace where I sit, and where ladies in +needlessly costly robes are promenading up and +down to exhibit their superfluous wealth ostentatiously +to one another, my ear is continuously +assailed by the constant <i>ping, ping, ping</i> of the +pigeon-shooting, and my peace disturbed by the +flapping death-agonies of those miserable victims. +Yet how many times have you heard the tables +at Monte Carlo denounced to once or never that +you have heard a word said of the poor mangled +pigeons? And why? Because nobody loses +much money at pigeon-matches. That is legitimate +sport, about as good and as bad as pheasant +or partridge shooting—no better, no worse, in +spite of artificial distinctions; and nobody (except +the pigeons) has any interest in denouncing it. +Legend has it at Monte Carlo, indeed, that when +the proprietors of the Casino wished to take +measures "pour attirer les Anglais" they held +counsel with the wise men whether it was best +to establish and endow an English church or a +pigeon-shooting tournament. And the church was +in a minority. Since then, I have heard more +than one Anglican Bishop speak evil of the +tables, but I have never heard one of them say +a good word yet for the boxed and slaughtered +pigeons.</p> + +<p>Let me take a more striking because a less +hackneyed case—one that still fewer people would +think of. Everybody who visits Monte Carlo gets +there, of course, by the P.L.M. If you know +this coast at all you will know that P.L.M. is +the curt and universal abbreviation for the Paris, +Lyon, Méditerranée Railway Company—in all +probability the most gigantic and wickedest monopoly +on the face of this planet. Yet you never +once heard a voice raised yet against the company +as a company. Individual complaints get +into the <i>Times</i>, of course, about the crowding of +the <i>train de luxe</i>, the breach of faith as to places, +and the discomforts of the journey; but never a +glimmering conception seems to flit across the +popular mind that here is a Colossal Wrong, +compared to which Monte Carlo is but as a flea-bite +to the Asiatic cholera. This chartered abuse +connects the three biggest towns in France—Paris, +Lyon, Marseilles—and is absolutely without competitors. +It can do as it likes; and it does it, +regardless—I say "regardless," without qualification, +because the P.L.M. regards nobody and +nothing. Yet one hears of no righteous indignation, +no uprising of the people in their angry +thousands, no moral recognition of the monopoly +as a Wicked Thing, to be fought tooth and nail, +without quarter given. It probably causes a +greater aggregate of human misery in a week +than Monte Carlo in a century. Besides, the +one is compulsory, the other optional. You +needn't risk a louis on the tables unless you +choose, but, like it or lump it, if you're bound +for Nice or Cannes or Mentone, you must open +your mouth and shut your eyes and see what +P.L.M. will send you. Our own railways, indeed, +are by no means free from blame at the hands +of the Democracy: the South-Eastern has not +earned the eternal gratitude of its season-ticket +holders; the children of the Great Western do +not rise up and call it blessed. (Except, indeed, +in the most uncomplimentary sense of blessing.) +But the P.L.M. goes much further than these; +and I have always held that the one solid argument +for eternal punishment consists in the improbability +that its Board of Directors will be +permitted to go scot-free for ever after all their +iniquities.</p> + +<p>I am not wholly joking. I mean the best +part of it. Great monopolies that abuse their +trust are far more dangerous enemies of public +morals than an honest gambling-house at every +corner. Monte Carlo as it stands is just a concentrated +embodiment of all the evils of our anti-social +system, and the tables are by far the least +serious among them. It is an Influence for Good, +because it mirrors our own world in all its naked, +all its over-draped hideousness. There it rears +its meretricious head, that gaudy Palace of Sin, +appropriately decked in its Haussmanesque architecture +and its coquettish gardens, attracting to +itself all the idle, all the vicious, all the rich, +all the unworthy, from every corner of Europe +and America. But Monte Carlo didn't make +them; it only gathers to its bosom its own +chosen children from the places where they are +produced—from London, Paris, Brussels, New +York, Berlin, St. Petersburg. The vices of our +organisation begot these over-rich folk, begot +their diamond-decked women, and their clipped +French poodles with gold bangles spanning their +aristocratic legs. These are the spawn of land-owning, +of capitalism, of military domination, +of High Finance, of all the social ills that flesh +is heir to. I feel as I pace the terrace in the +broad Mediterranean sunshine, that I am here +in the midst of the very best society Europe +affords. That is to say, the very worst. The +dukes and the money-lenders, the Jay Goulds +and the Reinachs. The idlest, the cruellest: the +hereditary drones, the successful blood-suckers. +But to find fault with them only for trying to +win one another's ill-gotten gold at a fair and open +game of <i>trente-et-quarante</i>, with the odds against +them, and then to say nothing about the way +they came by it, is to make a needless fuss about +a trifle of detail, while overlooking the weightiest +moral problems of humanity.</p> + +<p>Whoever allows red herrings like these to be +trailed across the path of his moral consciousness, +to the detriment of the scent which should lead +him straight on to the lairs of gigantic evils, +deserves little credit either for conscience or sagacity. +My son, be wise. Strike at the root of the +evil. Let Monte Carlo go, but keep a stern eye +on London ground-rents.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII.</h3> + +<h4><i>THE CELTIC FRINGE.</i></h4> + + +<p>We Celts henceforth will rule the roost in +Britain.</p> + +<p>What is that you mutter? "A very inopportune +moment to proclaim the fact." Well, no, +I don't think so. And I'm sorry to hear you +say it, for if there <i>is</i> a quality on which I plume +myself, it's the delicate tact that makes me +refrain from irritating the susceptibilities of the +sensitive Saxon. See how polite I am to him! +I call him sensitive. But, opportune or inopportune, +Lord Salisbury says we are a Celtic fringe. +I beg to retort, we are the British people.</p> + +<p>"Conquered races," say my friends. Well, +grant it for a moment. But in civilised societies, +conquerors have, sooner or later, to amalgamate +with the conquered. And where the vanquished +are more numerous, they absorb the victors instead +of being absorbed by them. That is the +Nemesis of conquest. Rome annexed Etruria; +and Etruscan Mæcenas, Etruscan Sejanus organised +and consolidated the Roman Empire. Rome +annexed Italy; and the <i>Jus Italicum</i> grew at +last to be the full Roman franchise. Rome +annexed the civilised world; and the provinces +under Cæsar blotted out the Senate. Britain +is passing now through the self-same stage. One +inevitable result of the widening of the electorate +has been the transfer of power from the Teutonic +to the Celtic half of Britain. I repeat, we are +no longer a Celtic fringe: at the polls, in Parliament, +we are the British people. Lord Salisbury +may fail to perceive that fact, or, as I hold +more probable, may affect to ignore it. What will +such tactics avail? The ostrich is not usually +counted among men as a perfect model of political +wisdom.</p> + +<p>And <i>are</i> we, after all, the conquered peoples? +Meseems, I doubt it. They say we Celts dearly +love a paradox—which is perhaps only the +sensible Saxon way of envisaging the fact that +we catch at new truths somewhat quicker than +other people. At any rate, 'tis a pet little +paradox of my own that we have never been +conquered, and that to our unconquered state we +owe in the main our Radicalism, our Socialism, +our ingrained love of political freedom. We are +tribal not feudal; we think the folk more important +than his lordship. The Saxon of the +south-east is the conquered man: he has felt +on his neck for generations the heel of feudalism. +He is slavish; he is snobbish; he dearly loves a +lord. He shouts himself hoarse for his Beaconsfield +or his Salisbury. Till lately, in his rural +avatar, he sang but one song—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"God bless the squire and his relations,</span> +<span class="i2">And keep us in our proper stations."</span> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Trite, isn't it? but so is the Saxon intelligence.</p> + +<p>Seriously—for at times it is well to be serious—South-Eastern +England, the England of the +plains, has been conquered and enslaved in a +dozen ages by each fresh invader. Before the +dawn of history, Heaven knows what shadowy +Belgæ and Iceni enslaved it. But historical time +will serve our purpose. The Roman enslaved it, +but left Caledonia and Hibernia free, the Cambrian, +the Silurian, the Cornishman half-subjugated. +The Saxon and Anglian enslaved the +east, but scarcely crossed over the watershed of +the western ocean. The Dane, in turn, enslaved +the Saxon in East Anglia and Yorkshire. The +Norman ground all down to a common servitude +between the upper and nether millstones of the +feudal system—the king and the nobleman. At +the end of it all, Teutonic England was reduced +to a patient condition of contented serfdom: it +had accommodated itself to its environment: no +wish was left in it for the assertion of its freedom. +To this day, the south-east, save where leavened +and permeated by Celtic influences, hugs its chains +and loves them. It produces the strange portent +of the Conservative working-man, who yearns to +be led by Lord Randolph Churchill.</p> + +<p>With the North and the West, things go wholly +otherwise. Even Cornwall, the earliest Celtic +kingdom to be absorbed, was rather absorbed +than conquered. I won't go into the history of +the West Welsh of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall +at full length, because it would take ten +pages to explain it; and I know that readers +are too profoundly interested in the Shocking +Murder in the Borough Road to devote half-an-hour +to the origin and evolution of their own +community. It must suffice to say that the +Devonian and Cornubian Welsh coalesced with +the West Saxon for resistance to their common +enemy the Dane, and that the West Saxon +kingdom was made supreme in Britain by the +founder of the English monarchy—one Dunstan, +a monk from the West Welsh Abbey of Glastonbury. +Wales proper, overrun piecemeal by +Norman filibusterers, was roughly annexed by +the Plantagenet kings; but it was only pacified +under the Welsh Tudors, and was never at any +time thoroughly feudalised. Glendower's rebellion, +Richmond's rebellion, the Wesleyan revolt, the +Rebecca riots, the tithe war, are all continuous +parts of the ceaseless reaction of gallant little +Wales against Teutonic aggression. "An alien +Church" still disturbs the Principality. The +Lake District and Ayrshire—Celtic Cumbria and +Strathclyde—only accepted by degrees the supremacy +of the Kings of England and Scotland. +The brother of a Scotch King was Prince of +Cumbria, as the elder son of an English King +was Prince of Wales. Indeed, David of Cumbria, +who became David I. of Scotland, was the real +consolidator of the Scotch kingdom. Cumbria +was no more conquered by the Saxon Lothians +than Scotland was conquered by the accession of +James I. or by the Act of Union. That means +absorption, conciliation, a certain degree of tribal +independence. For Ireland, we know that the +"mere Irish" were never subjugated at all till the +days of Henry VII.; that they had to be reconquered +by Cromwell and by William of Orange; +that they rebelled more or less throughout the +eighteenth century; and that they have been +thorns in the side of Tory England through the +whole of the nineteenth. As for the Highlands, +they held out against the Stuarts till England +had rejected that impossible dynasty; and then +they rallied round the Stuarts as the enemies of +the Saxon. General Wade's roads and the forts +in the Great Glen, aided by a few trifles of +Glencoe massacres, kept them quiet for a moment. +But it was only for a moment. The North is +once more in open revolt. Dr. Clark and the +crofters are its mode of expressing itself.</p> + +<p>Nor is that all. The Celtic ideas have remained +unaltered. Of course, I am not silly +enough to believe there is any such thing as a +Celtic race. I use the word merely as a convenient +label for the league of the unconquered +peoples in Britain. Ireland alone contains half-a-dozen +races; and none of them appear to have +anything in common with the Pict of Aberdeenshire +or the West-Welsh of Cornwall. All I +mean when I speak of Celtic ideas and Celtic +ideals is the ideas and ideals proper and common +to unconquered races. As compared with the +feudalised and contented serf of South-Eastern +England, are not the Irish peasant, the Scotch +clansman, the "statesman" of the dales, the +Cornish miner, free men every soul of them? +English landlordism, imposed from without upon +the crofter of Skye or the rack-rented tenant of +a Connemara hillside, has never crushed out the +native feeling of a right to the soil, the native +resistance to an alien system. The south-east, +I assert, has been brutalised into acquiescent +serfdom by a long course of feudalism; the west +and north still retain the instincts of freemen.</p> + +<p>As long as South-Eastern England and the Normanised +or feudalised Saxon lowlands of Scotland +contained all the wealth, all the power, and most +of the population of Britain, the Celtic ideals had +no chance of realising themselves. But the industrial +revolution of the present century has +turned us right-about-face, has transferred the +balance of power from the secondary strata to the +primary strata in Britain; from the agricultural +lowlands to the uplands of coal and iron, the +cotton factories, the woollen trade. Great industrial +cities have grown up in the Celtic or +semi-Celtic area—Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, +Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Belfast, Aberdeen, Cardiff. +The Celt—that is to say, the mountaineer +and the man of the untouched country—reproduces +his kind much more rapidly than the +Teuton. The Highlander and the Irishman swarm +into Glasgow; the Irishman and the Welshman +swarm into Liverpool; the west-countryman into +Bristol; Celts of all types into London, Southampton, +Newport, Birmingham, Sheffield. This +eastward return-wave of Celts upon the Teuton +has leavened the whole mass; if you look at the +leaders of Radicalism in England you will find +they bear, almost without exception, true Celtic +surnames. Chartists and Socialists of the first +generation were marshalled by men of Cymric +descent, like Ernest Jones and Robert Owen, or +by pure-blooded Irishmen like Fergus O'Connor. +It is not a mere accident that the London +Socialists of the present day should be led by +Welshmen like William Morris, or by the eloquent +brogue of Bernard Shaw's audacious oratory. We +Celts now lurk in every corner of Britain; we +have permeated it with our ideas; we have inspired +it with our aspirations; we have roused +the Celtic remnant in the south-east itself to a +sense of their wrongs; and we are marching to-day, +all abreast, to the overthrow of feudalism. +If Lord Salisbury thinks we are a Celtic fringe he +is vastly mistaken. But he doesn't really think +so: 'tis a piece of his ponderous Saxon humour. +Talk of "Batavian grace," indeed! Well, the +Cecils came first from the fens of Lincolnshire.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX.</h3> + +<h4><i>IMAGINATION AND RADICALS.</i></h4> + + +<p>Conservatism, I believe, is mainly due to want +of imagination.</p> + +<p>In saying this, I do not for a moment mean +to deny the other and equally obvious truth that +Conservatism, in the lump, is a euphemism for +selfishness. But the two ideas have much in +common. Selfish people are apt to be unimaginative: +unimaginative people are apt to be selfish. +Clearly to realise the condition of the unfortunate +is the beginning of philanthropy. Clearly +to realise the rights of others is the beginning +of justice. "Put yourself in his place" strikes +the keynote of ethics. Stupid people can only +see their own side of a question: they cannot +even imagine any other side possible. So, as a +rule, stupid people are Conservative. They cling +to what they have; they dread revision, redistribution, +justice. Also, if a man has imagination +he is likely to be Radical, even though selfish; +while if he has no imagination he is likely +to be Conservative, even though otherwise good +and kind-hearted. Some men are Conservative +from defects of heart, while some are Conservative +from defects of head. Conversely, most imaginative +people are Radical; for even a bad man may +sometimes uphold the side of right because he +has intelligence enough to understand that things +might be better managed in the future for all +than they are in the present.</p> + +<p>But when I say that Conservatism is mainly +due to want of imagination, I mean more than +that. Most people are wholly unable to conceive +in their own minds any state of things very +different from the one they have been born and +brought up in. The picturing power is lacking. +They can conceive the past, it is true, more or +less vaguely—because they have always heard +things once were so, and because the past is +generally realisable still by the light of the +relics it has bequeathed to the present. But +they can't at all conceive the future. Imagination +fails them. Innumerable difficulties crop up +for them in the way of every proposed improvement. +Before there was any County Council for +London, such people thought municipal government +for the metropolis an insoluble problem. +Now that Home Rule quivers trembling in the +balance, they think it would pass the wit of +man to devise in the future a federal league for +the component elements of the United Kingdom; +in spite of the fact that the wit of man has +already devised one for the States of the Union, +for the Provinces of the Dominion, for the component +Cantons of the Swiss Republic. To the +unimaginative mind difficulties everywhere seem +almost insuperable. It shrinks before trifles. "Impossible!" +said Napoleon. "There is no such +word in my dictionary!" He had been trained +in the school of the French Revolution—which +was <i>not</i> carried out by unimaginative pettifoggers.</p> + +<p>To people without imagination any change you +propose seems at once impracticable. They are +ready to bring up endless objections to the mode +of working it. There would be this difficulty in +the way, and that difficulty, and the other one. +You would think, to hear them talk, the world +as it stands was absolutely perfect, and moved +without a hitch in all its bearings. They don't +see that every existing institution just bristles +with difficulties—and that the difficulties are met +or got over somehow. Often enough while they +swallow the camel of existing abuses they strain +at some gnat which they fancy they see flying +in at the window of Utopia or of the Millennium. +"If your reform were carried," they say in effect, +"we should, doubtless, get rid of such and such +flagrant evils; but the streets in November would +be just as muddy as ever, and slight inconvenience +might be caused in certain improbable +contingencies to the duke or the cotton-spinner, +the squire or the mine-owner." They omit to +note that much graver inconvenience is caused +at present to the millions who are shut out from +the fields and the sunshine, who are sweated all +day for a miserable wage, or who are forced to +pay fancy prices for fuel to gratify the rapacity +of a handful of coal-grabbers.</p> + +<p>Lack of imagination makes people fail to see +the evils that are; makes them fail to realise the +good that might be.</p> + +<p>I often fancy to myself what such people would +say if land had always been communal property, +and some one now proposed to hand it over absolutely +to the dukes, the squires, the game-preservers, +and the coal-owners. "'Tis impossible," +they would exclaim; "the thing wouldn't be workable. +Why, a single landlord might own half +Westminster! A single landlord might own all +Sutherlandshire! The hypothetical Duke of Westminster +might put bars to the streets; he might +impede locomotion; he might refuse to let certain +people to whom he objected take up their residence +in any part of his territory; he might +prevent them from following their own trades or +professions; he might even descend to such petty +tyranny as tabooing brass plates on the doors of +houses. And what would you do then? The +thing isn't possible. The Duke of Sutherland, +again, might shut up all Sutherlandshire; might +turn whole vast tracts into grouse-moor or deer-forest; +might prevent harmless tourists from walking +up the mountains. And surely free Britons +would never submit to <i>that</i>. The bare idea is +ridiculous. The squire of a rural parish might +turn out the Dissenters; might refuse to let land +for the erection of chapels; might behave like a +petty King Augustus of Scilly. Indeed, there +would be nothing to prevent an American alien +from buying up square miles of purple heather +in Scotland, and shutting the inhabitants of these +British Isles out of their own inheritance. Sites +might be refused for needful public purposes; +fancy prices might be asked for pure cupidity. +Speculators would job land for the sake of unearned +increment; towns would have to grow as +landlords willed, irrespective of the wants or convenience +of the community. Theoretically, I don't +even see that Lord Rothschild mightn't buy up +the whole area of Middlesex, and turn London +into a Golden House of Nero. Your scheme can't +be worked. The anomalies are too obvious."</p> + +<p>They are indeed. Yet I doubt whether the +unimaginative would quite have foreseen them: +the things they foresee are less real and possible. +But they urge against every reform such objections +as I have parodied; and they urge them +about matters of far less vital importance. The +existing system exists; they know its abuses, its +checks and its counter-checks. The system of +the future does not yet exist; and they can't +imagine how its far slighter difficulties could +ever be smoothed over. They are not the least +staggered by the appalling reality of the Duke +of Westminster or the Duke of Sutherland; not +the least staggered by the sinister power of a conspiracy +of coal-owners to paralyse a great nation +with the horrors of a fuel famine. But they <i>are</i> +staggered by their bogey that State ownership of +land might give rise to a certain amount of +jobbery and corruption on the part of officials. +They think it better that the dukes and the +squires should get all the rent than that the +State should get most of it, with the possibility +of a percentage being corruptly embezzled by the +functionaries who manage it. This shows want of +imagination. It is as though one should say to +one's clerk, "All your income shall be paid in +future to the Duke of Westminster, and not to +yourself, for his sole use and benefit; because +we, your employers, are afraid that if we give +you your salary in person, you may let some of +it be stolen from you or badly invested." How +transparently absurd! We want our income ourselves, +to spend as we please. We would rather +risk losing one per cent. of it in bad investments +than let all be swallowed up by the dukes and +the landlords.</p> + +<p>It is the same throughout. Want of imagination +makes people exaggerate the difficulties and +dangers of every new scheme, because they can't +picture constructively to themselves the details +of its working. Men with great picturing power, +like Shelley or Robespierre, are always very +advanced Radicals, and potentially revolutionists. +The difficulty <i>they</i> see is not the difficulty of +making the thing work, but the difficulty of convincing +less clear-headed people of its desirability +and practicability. A great many Conservatives, +who are Conservative from selfishness, would be +Radicals if only they could feel for themselves +that even their own petty interests and pleasures +are not really menaced. The squires and the +dukes can't realise how much happier even they +would be in a free, a beautiful, and a well-organised +community. Imaginative minds can picture a +world where everything is so ordered that life +comes as a constant æsthetic delight to everybody. +They know that that world could be realised +to-morrow—if only all others could picture it +to themselves as vividly as they do. But they +also know that it can only be attained in the +end by long ages of struggle, and by slow evolution +of the essentially imaginative ethical faculty. +For right action depends most of all, in the last +resort, upon a graphic conception of the feelings +of others.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX.</h3> + +<h4><i>ABOUT ABROAD.</i></h4> + + +<p>The place known as Abroad is not nearly so +nice a country to live in as England. The people +who inhabit Abroad are called Foreigners. They +are in every way and at all times inferior to +Englishmen.</p> + +<p>These Post-Prandials used once to be provided +with a sting in their tail, like the common +scorpion. By way of change, I turn them out +now with a sting in their head, like the common +mosquito. Mosquitoes are much less dangerous +than scorpions, but they're a deal more irritating.</p> + +<p>Not that I am sanguine enough to expect I +shall irritate Englishmen. Your Englishman is +far too cock-sure of the natural superiority of +Britons to Foreigners, the natural superiority of +England to Abroad, ever to be irritated by even +the gentlest criticism. He accepts it all with +lordly indifference. He brushes it aside as the +elephant might brush aside the ineffective gadfly. +No proboscis can pierce that pachydermatous hide +of his. If you praise him to his face, he accepts +your praise as his obvious due, with perfect composure +and without the slightest elation. If you +blame him in aught, he sets it down to your +ignorance and mental inferiority. You say to +him, "Oh, Englishman, you are great; you are +wise; you are rich beyond comparison. You are +noble; you are generous; you are the prince +among nations." He smiles a calm smile, and +thinks you a very sensible fellow. But you add, +"Oh, my lord, if I may venture to say so, there +is a smudge on your nose, which I make bold +to attribute to the settlement of a black on your +intelligent countenance." He is not angry. He +is not even contemptuously amused. He responds, +"My friend, you are wrong. There is never a +smudge on my immaculate face. No blacks fly +in London. The sky is as clear there in November +as in August. All is pure and serene and +beautiful." You answer, "Oh, my lord, I admit +the force of your profound reasoning. You light +the gas at ten in the morning only to show all +the world you can afford to burn it." At that, he +gropes his way along Pall Mall to his club, and +tells the men he meets there how completely he +silenced you.</p> + +<p>And yet, My Lord Elephant, there is use in +mosquitoes. Mr. Mattieu Williams once discovered +the final cause of fleas. Certain people, +said he, cannot be induced to employ the harmless +necessary tub. For them, Providence designed +the lively flea. He compels them to scratch +themselves. By so doing they rouse the skin to +action and get rid of impurities. Now, this British +use of the word Abroad is a smudge on the face +of the otherwise perfect Englishman. Perchance +a mosquito-bite may induce him to remove it with +a little warm water and a cambric pocket-handkerchief.</p> + +<p>To most Englishmen, the world divides itself +naturally into two unequal and non-equivalent +portions—Abroad and England. Of these two, +Abroad is much the larger country; but England, +though smaller, is vastly more important. Abroad +is inhabited by Frenchmen and Germans, who +speak their own foolish and chattering languages. +Part of it is likewise pervaded by Chinamen, who +wear pigtails; and the outlying districts belong +to the poor heathen, chiefly interesting as a field +of missionary enterprise, and a possible market +for Manchester piece-goods. We sometimes invest +our money abroad, but then we are likely to get +it swallowed up in Mexicans or Egyptian Unified. +If you ask most people what has become of Tom, +they will answer at once with the specific information, +"Oh, Tom has gone Abroad." I have one +stereotyped rejoinder to an answer like that. +"What part of Abroad, please?" That usually +stumps them. Abroad is Abroad; and like the +gentleman who was asked in examination to +"name the minor prophets," they decline to make +invidious distinctions. It is nothing to them +whether he is tea-planting in the Himalayas, or +sheep-farming in Australia, or orange-growing in +Florida, or ranching in Colorado. If he is not in +England, why then he is elsewhere; and elsewhere +is Abroad, one and indivisible.</p> + +<p>In short, Abroad answers in space to that well-known +and definite date, the Olden Time, in +chronology.</p> + +<p>People will tell you, "Foreigners do this"; +"Foreigners do that"; "Foreigners smoke so +much"; "Foreigners always take coffee for breakfast." +"Indeed," I love to answer; "I've never +observed it myself in Central Asia." 'Tis Parson +Adams and the Christian religion. Nine English +people out of ten, when they talk of Abroad, mean +what they call the Continent; and when they +talk of the Continent, they mean France, Germany, +Switzerland, Italy; in short, the places +most visited by Englishmen when they consent +now and again to go Abroad for a holiday. "I +don't like Abroad," a lady once said to me +on her return from Calais. Foreigners, in like +manner, means Frenchmen, Germans, Swiss, Italians. +In the country called Abroad, the most important +parts are the parts nearest England; of the people +called Foreigners, the most important are those +who dress like Englishmen. The dim black +lands that lie below the horizon are hardly worth +noticing.</p> + +<p>Would it surprise you to learn that most people +live in Asia? Would it surprise you to learn +that most people are poor benighted heathen, +and that, of the remainder, most people are +Mahommedans, and that of the Christians, who +come next, most people are Roman Catholics, and +that, of the other Christian sects, most people +belong to the Greek Church, and that, last of all, +we get Protestants, more particularly Anglicans, +Wesleyans, Baptists? Have you ever really +realised the startling fact that England is an +island off the coast of Europe? that Europe is +a peninsula at the end of Asia? that France, +Germany, Italy, are the fringe of Russia? Have +you ever really realised that the English-speaking +race lives mostly in America? that the country +is vastly more populous than London? that our +class is the froth and the scum of society? +Think these things out, and try to measure them +on the globe. And when you speak of Abroad, +do please specify what part of it.</p> + +<p>Abroad is not all alike. There are differences +between Poland, Peru, and Palestine. What is +true of France is not true of Fiji. Distinguish +carefully between Timbuctoo, Tobolsk, and Toledo.</p> + +<p>It is not our insularity that makes us so insular. +'Tis a gift of the gods, peculiar to Englishmen. +The other inhabitants of these Isles of Britain +are comparatively cosmopolitan. The Scotchman +goes everywhere; the world is his oyster. Ireland +is an island still more remote than Great Britain; +but the Irishman has never been so insular as +the English. I put that down in part to his +Catholicism: his priests have been wheels in a +world-wide system; his relations have been with +Douai, St. Omer, and Rome; his bishops have +gone pilgrimages and sat on Vatican Councils; +his kinsmen are the MacMahons in France, the +O'Donnels in Spain, the Taafes in Austria. Even +in the days of the Regency this was so: look at +Lever and his heroes! When England drank +port, County Clare drank claret. But ever since +the famine, Ireland has expanded. Every Irishman +has cousins in Canada, in Australia, in New +York, in San Francisco. The Empire is Irish, +with the exception of India; and India, of course, +is a Scotch dependency. Irishmen and Scotchmen +have no such feelings about Abroad and its +Foreigners as Londoners entertain. But Englishmen +never quite get over the sense that everybody +must needs divide the world into England and +Elsewhere. To the end no Englishman really +grasps the fact that to Frenchmen and Germans +he himself is a foreigner. I have met John Bulls +who had passed years in Italy, but who spoke of +the countrymen of Cæsar and Dante and Leonardo +and Garibaldi with the contemptuous toleration +one might feel towards a child or an Andaman +Islander. These Italians could build Giotto's +campanile; could paint the Transfiguration; could +carve the living marble on the tombs of the +Medici; could produce the Vita Nuova; could +beget Galileo, Galvani, Beccaria; but still—they +were Foreigners. Providence in its wisdom has +decreed that they must live Abroad—just as it +has decreed that a comprehension of the decimal +system and its own place in the world should be +limitations eternally imposed upon the English +intellect.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI.</h3> + +<h4><i>WHY ENGLAND IS BEAUTIFUL.</i></h4> + + +<p>As I strolled across the moor this afternoon +towards Waverley, I saw Jones was planting out +that bare hillside of his with Douglas pines and +Scotch firs and new strains of silver birches. +They will improve the landscape. And I thought +as I scanned them, "How curious that most people +entirely overlook this constant betterment and +beautifying of England! You hear them talk +much of the way bricks and mortar are invading +the country; you never hear anything of this +slow and silent process of planting and developing +which has made England into the prettiest and +one of the most beautiful countries in Europe."</p> + +<p>What's that you say? "Astonished to find +I have a good word of any sort to put in for +England!" Why, dear me, how irrational you +are! I just <i>love</i> England. Can any man with +eyes in his head and a soul for beauty do otherwise? +England and Italy—there you have the +two great glories of Europe. Italy for towns, for +art, for man's handicraft; England for country, +for nature, for green lanes and lush copses. Was +it not one that loved Italy well who sighed in +Italy—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"Oh, to be in England now that April's there?"</span> +</div> +</div> + +<p>And who that loves Italy, and knows England, too, +does not echo Browning's wish when April comes +round again on dusty Tuscan hilltops? At +Perugia, last spring, through weeks of tramontana, +how one yearned for the sight of yellow English +primroses! Not love England, indeed! Milton's +England, Shelley's England; the England of the +skylark, the dog-rose, the honeysuckle! Not love +England, forsooth! Why, I love every flower, +every blade of grass in it. Devonshire lane, close-cropped +down, rich water-meadow, bickering brooklet: +ah me, how they tug at one's heartstrings in +Africa! No son of the soil can love England as +those love her very stones who have come from +newer lands over sea to her ivy-clad church-towers, +her mouldering castles, her immemorial elms, the +berries on her holly, the may in her hedgerows. +Are not all these bound up in our souls with +each cherished line of Shakespeare and Wordsworth? +do they not rouse faint echoes of Gray +and Goldsmith? Even before I ever set foot +in England, how I longed to behold my first +cowslip, my first foxglove! And now, I have +wandered through the footpaths that run obliquely +across English pastures, picking meadowsweet and +fritillaries, for half a lifetime, till I have learned +by heart every leaf and every petal. You think +because I dislike one squalid village—"The Wen," +stout English William Cobbett delighted to call +it—I don't love England. You think because +I see some spots on the sun of the English character, +I don't love Englishmen. Why, how can +any man who speaks the English tongue, and +boasts one drop of English blood in his veins, +not be proud of England? England, the mother +of poets and thinkers; England, that gave us +Newton, Darwin, Spencer; England, that holds in +her lap Oxford, Salisbury, Durham; England of +daisy and heather and pine-wood! Are we hewn +out of granite, to be cold before England?</p> + +<p>Upon my soul, your unseasonable interruption +has almost made me forget what I was going to +say; it has made me grow warm, and drop into +poetry.</p> + +<p>England, I take it, is certainly the prettiest +country in Europe. It is almost the most beautiful. +I say "almost," because I bethink me of +Norway and Switzerland. I say "country," because +I bethink me of Rome, Venice, Florence. +But, taking it as country, and as country alone, +nothing else approaches it. Have you ever +thought why? Man made the town, says the +proverb, and God made the country. Not so in +England. There, man made the country, and +beautified it exceedingly. In itself, the land of +south-eastern England is absolutely the same as +the land of Northern France—that hideous tract +about Boulogne and Amiens which we traverse in +silence every time we run across by Calais to +Paris. Chalk and clay and sandstone stretch +continuously under sea from Kent and Sussex +to Flanders and Picardy. The Channel burst +through, and made the Straits of Dover; but the +land on either side was and still is geologically +and physically identical. What has made the +difference? Man, the planter and gardener. +England is beautiful by copse and hedgerow, by +pine-clad ridge and willow-covered hollow, by +meadows interspersed with great spreading oaks, +by pastures where drowsy sheep, deep-fleeced and +ruddy-stained, huddle under the shade of ancestral +beech-trees. Its loveliness is human. In itself, +I believe, the actual contour of England cannot +once have been much better than the contour of +northern France—though nowadays it is hard +indeed to realise it. Judicious planting, and a +constant eye to picturesque effect in scenery, +have made England what she is—the garden of +Europe.</p> + +<p>Of course there are parts of the country which +owed, and still owe, their beauty to their wildness—Dartmoor, +Exmoor, the West Riding of Yorkshire, +the Surrey hills, the Peak in Derbyshire. +Yet even these depend more than you would +believe, when you take them in detail, on the +art of the forester. The view from Leith Hill +embraces John Evelyn's woods at Wotton: the +larches that cover one Jura-like gorge were set +there well within your and my memory. But +elsewhere in England the hand of man has done +absolutely everything. The American, when he +first visits England, is charmed on his way up +from Liverpool to London by the exquisite air of +antique cultivation and soft rural beauty. The +very sward is moss-like. Thoroughly wild country, +indeed, unless bold and mountainous, does not +often please one. It is apt to be bare, unattractive, +and desolate. Witness the Veldt, the Steppes, +the prairies. You may go through miles and miles +of the States and Canada, where the wildness for +the most part rather repels than delights you. I +do not say everywhere; in places the wilderness +will blossom like a rose; boggy margins of lakes, +fallen trunks in the forest overgrown with wild +flowers, make scenes unattainable in our civilised +England. Even our roughest scenery is comparatively +man-made: our heaths are game preserves; +our woodlands are thinned of superfluous underbrush; +our moors are relieved by deliberate plantations. +But England in her own way is unique +and unrivalled. Such parks, such greensward, +such grassy lawns, such wooded tilth, are wholly +unknown elsewhere. Compare the blank fields +and long poplar-fringed high roads of central +France with our Devon or our Warwickshire, and +you get at once a just measure of the vast, the +unspeakable difference.</p> + +<p>And man has done it all. Alone he did it. +Often as I take my walks abroad—and when I +say abroad I mean in England—I see men at +work dotting about exotics of variegated foliage +on some barren hillside, and I say to myself, +"There, before my eyes, goes on the beautifying +of England." Thirty years ago, the North Downs +near Dorking were one bare stretch of white +chalky sheep-walk; half of them still remain so; +the other half has been planted irregularly with +copses and spinneys, which serve to throw up +and enhance the beauty of the unaltered intervals. +Beech and larch in autumn tints set off smooth +patches of grass and juniper. Within the last +few years, the downs about Leatherhead have +been similarly diversified. Much of the loveliness +of rural England is due, one must frankly +confess, to the big landlords. Though the great +houses love us not, we must allow at least that +the great houses have cared for the trees in the +hedge-rows, and for the timber in the meadows, +as well as for the covert that sheltered their +pheasants, their foxes, and their gamekeepers. +But almost as much of England's charm is due +to individual small owners or occupiers. 'Tis +they who have planted the grounds about villa +or cottage; they who have stocked the sweet +old gardens of yew and box, of hollyhock and +peony; they who have given us the careless +rustic grace of the English village. Still, one +way or another, man has done it all, whether in +grange or in manor-house, in palatial estate or +in labourer's holding. Look at the French or +Belgian hamlet by the side of the English one; +look at the French or Belgian farm by the side +of our English wealth in wooded glen or sheltered +homestead. Bricks and mortar are <i>not</i> covering +the whole of England. That is only true of the +squalid purlieus and outliers of London, whither +Londoners gravitate by mutual attraction. If you +<i>will</i> go and live in a dingy suburb, you can't +reasonably complain that all the world's suburban. +Being the most cheerful of pessimists, a dweller +in the country all the days of my life, I have no +hesitation in expressing my profound conviction +that within my memory more has been done +to beautify than to uglify England. Only, the +beautification has been quiet and unobtrusive, +while the uglification has been obvious and concentrated. +It takes half a year to jerry-build a +dingy street, but it takes a decade for newly-planted +trees to give the woodland air by imperceptible +stages to a stretch of country.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII.</h3> + +<h4><i>ANENT ART PRODUCTION.</i></h4> + + +<p>Yesterday, at Bordighera, I strolled up the hills +behind the town to Sasso. It is a queer little +cluster of gleaming white-washed houses that top +the crest of a steep ridge; and, like many other +Italian villages, it makes a brave show from a +distance, though within it is full of evil smells +and all uncleanness. But I found it had a church—a +picturesquely ugly and dilapidated church; +and without and within, this church was decorated +by inglorious hands with very naïve and rudimentary +frescoes. The Four Evangelists were +there, in flowing blue robes; and the Four Greater +Prophets, with long white beards; and the Madonna, +appearing in most wooden clouds; and +the Patron Saint tricked out for his Festa in +gorgeous holiday episcopal vestments. That was +all—just the common everyday Italian country +church that everybody has seen turned out to +pattern with manufacturing regularity a hundred +times over! Yet, as I sat among the olive-terraces +looking down the steep slope into the Borghetto +valley, and across the gorge to the green pines +on the Cima, it set me thinking. 'Tis a bad +habit one falls into when one has nothing better +to turn one's mind to.</p> + +<p>We English, coming to Italy with our ideas +fully formed about everything on heaven and +earth, naturally say to ourselves, "Great heart +alive, what sadly degraded frescoes! To think +the art of Raphael and Andrea del Sarto should +degenerate even here, in their own land, to such +a childish level!" But we are wrong, for all +that. It is Raphael and Andrea who rose, not +my poor nameless Sasso artists who sank and +degenerated. Italy was capable of producing her +great painters in her own great day, just because +in thousands of such Italian villages there were +work-a-day artisans in form and colour capable +of turning out such ridiculous daubs as those +that decorate this tawdry church on the Ligurian +hilltop.</p> + +<p>We English, in short, think of it all the wrong +way uppermost. We think of it topsy-turvy, +beginning at the end, while evolution invariably +begins at the beginning. The Raphaels and +Andreas, to put it in brief, were the final flower +and fullest outcome of whole races of church +decorators in infantile fresco.</p> + +<p>Everywhere you go in Italy, this truth is +forced upon your attention even to the present +day. Art here is no exotic. It smacks of the +soil; it springs spontaneous, like a weed; it +burgeons of itself out of the heart of the people. +Not high art, understand well; not the art of +Burne-Jones and Whistler and Puvis de Chavannes +and Sar Peladan. Commonplace everyday art, +that is a trade and a handicraft, like the joiner's +or the shoemaker's. Look up at your ceiling; +it's overrun with festoons of crude red and blue +flowers, or it's covered with cupids and graces, +or it bristles with arabesques and unmeaning +phantasies. Every wall is painted; every grotto +decorated. Sham landscapes, sham loggias, sham +parapets are everywhere. The sham windows +themselves are provided, not only with sham +blinds and sham curtains, but even with sham +coquettes making sham eyes or waving sham +handkerchiefs at passers-by below them. Open-air +fresco painting is still a living art, an art +practised by hundreds and thousands of craftsmen, +an art as alive as cookery or weaving. The +Italian decorates everything; his pottery, his house, +his church, his walls, his palaces. And the only +difference he feels between the various cases is, +that in some of them a higher type of art is +demanded by wealth and skill than in the others. +No wonder, therefore, he blossomed out at last +into Michael Angelo's frescoes in the Sistine +Chapel!</p> + +<p>To us English, on the contrary, high art is +something exotic, separate, alone, <i>sui generis</i>. We +never think of the plaster star in the middle of +our ceiling as belonging even to the same range +of ideas as, say, the frescoes in the Houses of +Parliament.</p> + +<p>A nation in such a condition as that is never +truly artistic. The artist with us, even now, is +an exceptional product. Art for a long time in +England had nothing at all to do with the life +of the people. It was a luxury for the rich, a +curious thing for ladies' and gentlemen's consumption, +as purely artificial as the stuccoed Italian +villa in which they insisted on shivering in our +chilly climate. And the pictures it produced were +wholly alien to the popular wants and the popular +feelings; they were part of an imported French, +Italian, and Flemish tradition. English art has +only slowly outgrown this stage, just in proportion +as truly artistic handicrafts have sprung up here +and there, and developed themselves among us. +Go into the Cantagalli or the Ginori potteries at +Florence, and you will see mere boys and girls, +untrained children of the people, positively disporting +themselves, with childish glee, in painting +plates and vases. You will see them, not slavishly +copying a given design of the master's, but letting +their fancy run riot in lithe curves and lines, in +griffons and dragons and floral twists-and-twirls +of playful extravagance. They revel in ornament. +Now, it is out of the loins of people like these +that great artists spring by nature—not State-taught, +artificial, made-up artists, but the real +spontaneous product, the Lippi and Botticelli, the +hereditary craftsmen, the born painters. And in +England nowadays it is a significant fact that a +large proportion of the truest artists—the innovators, +the men who are working out a new style +of English art for themselves, in accordance with +the underlying genius of the British temperament, +have sprung from the great industrial towns—Birmingham, +Manchester, Leicester—where artistic +handicrafts are now once more renascent. I won't +expose myself to further ridicule by repeating here +(what I nevertheless would firmly believe, were it +not for the scoffers) that a large proportion of +them are of Celtic descent—belong, in other +words, to that section of the complex British +nationality in which the noble traditions of decorative +art never wholly died out—that section +which was never altogether enslaved and degraded +by the levelling and cramping and soul-destroying +influences of manufacturing industrialism.</p> + +<p>In Italy, art is endemic. In England, in spite +of all we have done to stimulate it of late years +with guano and other artificial manures, it is still +sporadic.</p> + +<p>The case of music affords us an apt parallel. +Till very lately, I believe, our musical talent in +Britain came almost entirely from the cathedral +towns. And why? Because there, and there +alone, till quite a recent date, there existed a +hereditary school of music, a training of musicians +from generation to generation among the mass +of the people. Not only were the cathedral +services themselves a constant school of taste in +music, but successive generations of choristers and +organists gave rise to something like a musical +caste in our episcopal centres. It is true, our +vocalists have always come mainly from Wales, +from the Scotch Highlands, from Yorkshire, from +Ireland. But for that there is, I believe, a sufficient +physical reason. For these are clearly the +most mountainous parts of the United Kingdom; +and the clear mountain air seems to produce +on the average a better type of human larynx +than the mists of the level. The men of the +lowland, say the Tyrolese, croak like frogs in +their marshes; but the men of the upland sing +like nightingales on their tree-tops. And indeed, +it would seem as if the mountain people were +always calling to one another across intervening +valleys, always singing and whistling and shouting +over their work in a way that gives tone to the +whole vocal mechanism. Witness Welsh penillion +singing. And wherever this fine physical endowment +goes hand in hand with a delicate ear and +a poetic temperament, you get your great vocalist, +your Sims Reeves or your Patti. But in England +proper it was only in the cathedral towns that +music was a living reality to the people; and it +was in the cathedral towns, accordingly, during +the dark ages of art, that exceptional musical +ability was most likely to show itself. More +particularly was this so on the Welsh border, +where the two favouring influences of race and +practice coincided—at Gloucester, Worcester, +Hereford, long known for the most musical towns +in England.</p> + +<p>Cause and effect act and react. Art is a product +of the artistic temperament. The artistic +temperament is a product of the long hereditary +cultivation of art. And where a broad basis of +this temperament exists among the people, owing +to intermixture of artistically-minded stocks, one is +liable to get from time to time that peculiar combination +of characteristics—sensuous, intellectual, +spiritual—which results in the highest and truest +artist.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII.</h3> + +<h4><i>A GLIMPSE INTO UTOPIA.</i></h4> + + +<p>You ask me what would be the position of women +in an ideal community. Well, after dinner, imagination +may take free flight. Suppose, till the +coffee comes, we discuss that question.</p> + +<p>Woman, I take it, differs from man in being +the sex sacrificed to reproductive necessities.</p> + +<p>Whenever I say this, I notice my good friends, +the women's-rights women, with whom I am generally +in pretty close accord, look annoyed and hurt. +I can never imagine why. I regard this point +as an original inequality of nature, which it +should be the duty of human society to redress +as far as possible, like all other inequalities. +Women are not on the average as tall as men; +nor can they lift as heavy weights, or undergo, +as a rule, so much physical labour. Yet civilised +society recognises their equal right to the protection +of our policemen, and endeavours to neutralise +their physical inequality by the collective guarantee +of all the citizens. In the same way I hold +that women in the lump have a certain disadvantage +laid upon them by nature, in the necessity +that some or most among them should bear +children; and this disadvantage I think the men +in a well-ordered State would do their best to +compensate by corresponding privileges. If women +endure on our behalf the great public burden of +providing future citizens for the community, the +least we can do for them in return is to render +that burden as honourable and as little onerous +as possible. I can never see that there is anything +unchivalrous in frankly admitting these +facts of nature; on the contrary, it seems to me +the highest possible chivalry to recognise in +woman, as woman, high or low, rich or poor, the +potential mother, who has infinite claims on that +ground alone to our respect and sympathy.</p> + +<p>Nor do I mean to deny, either, that the right +to be a mother is a sacred and peculiar privilege +of women. In a well-ordered community, I believe, +that privilege will be valued high, and will be +denied to no fitting mother by any man. While +maternity is from one point of view a painful +duty, a burden imposed upon a single sex for +the good of the whole, it is from another point of +view a privilege and a joy, and from a third point +of view the natural fulfilment of a woman's own +instincts, the complement of her personality, the +healthy exercise of her normal functions. Just +as in turn the man's part in providing physically +for the support of the woman and the children is +from one point of view a burden imposed upon +him, but from another point of view a precious +privilege of fatherhood, and from a third point of +view the proper outlet for his own energy and +his own faculties.</p> + +<p>In an ideal State, then, I take it, almost every +woman would be a mother, and almost every +woman a mother of not more than about four +children. An average of something like four is +necessary, we know, to keep up population, and +to allow for infant mortality, inevitable celibates, +and so forth. Few women in such a State would +abstain from maternity, save those who felt themselves +physically or morally unfitted for the task; +for in proportion as they abstained, either the +State must lack citizens to carry on its life, or an +extra and undue burden would have to be cast +upon some other woman. And it may well be +doubted whether in a well-ordered and civilised +State any one woman could adequately bear, +bring up, and superintend the education of more +than four young citizens. Hence we may conclude +that while no woman save the unfit would +voluntarily shirk the duties and privileges of +maternity, few (if any) women would make themselves +mothers of more than four children. Four +would doubtless grow to be regarded in such a +community as the moral maximum; while it +is even possible that improved sanitation, by +diminishing infant mortality and adult ineffectiveness, +might make a maximum of three sufficient +to keep up the normal strength of the population.</p> + +<p>In an ideal community, again, the woman who +looked forward to this great task on behalf of +the race would strenuously prepare herself for it +beforehand from childhood upward. She would +not be ashamed of such preparation; on the +contrary, she would be proud of it. Her duty +would be no longer "to suckle fools and chronicle +small beer," but to produce and bring up strong, +vigorous, free, able, and intelligent citizens. Therefore, +she must be nobly educated for her great +and important function—educated physically, intellectually, +morally. Let us forecast her future. +She will be well clad in clothes that allow of +lithe and even development of the body; she +will be taught to run, to play games, to dance, to +swim; she will be supple and healthy, finely +moulded and knit in limb and organ, beautiful +in face and features, splendid and graceful in the +native curves of her lissom figure. No cramping +conventions will be allowed to cage her; no worn-out +moralities will be tied round her neck like a +mill-stone to hamper her. Intellectually she will +be developed to the highest pitch of which in +each individual case she proves herself capable—educated, +not in the futile linguistic studies +which have already been tried and found wanting +for men, but in realities and existences, in the +truths of life, in recognition of her own and our +place among immensities. She will know something +worth knowing of the world she lives in, +its past and its present, the material of which +it is made, the forces that inform it, the energies +that thrill through it. Something, too, of the +orbs that surround it, of the sun that lights it, +of the stars that gleam upon it, of the seasons +that govern it. Something of the plants and +herbs that clothe it, of the infinite tribes of beast +and bird that dwell upon it. Something of the +human body, its structure and functions, the +human soul, its origin and meaning. Something +of human societies in the past, of institutions +and laws, of creeds and ideas, of the birth of +civilisation, of progress and evolution. Something, +too, of the triumphs of art, of sculpture +and painting, of the literature and the poetry of +all races and ages. Her mind will be stored +with the best thoughts of the thinkers. Morally, +she will be free; her emotional development, +instead of being narrowly checked and curbed, +will have been fostered and directed. She will +have a heart to love, and be neither ashamed nor +afraid of it. Thus nurtured and trained, she will +be a fit mate for a free man, a fit mother for +free children, a fit citizen for a free and equal +community.</p> + +<p>Her life, too, will be her own. She will know +no law but her higher instincts. No man will +be able to buy or to cajole her. And in order +that she may possess this freedom to perfection, +that she may be no husband's slave, no father's +obedient and trembling daughter, I can see but +one way: the whole body of men in common +must support in perfect liberty the whole body +of women. The collective guarantee must protect +them against individual tyranny. Thus only can +women be safe from the bribery of the rich +husband, from the dictation of the father from +whom there are "expectations." In the ideal +State, I take it, every woman will be absolutely +at liberty to dispose of herself as she will, and +no man will be able to command or to purchase +her, to influence her in any way, save by pure +inclination.</p> + +<p>In such a State, most women would naturally +desire to be mothers. Being healthy, strong, and +free, they would wish to realise the utmost potentialities +of their own organisms. And when they +had done their duty as mothers, they would not +care much, I imagine, for any further outlets for +their superfluous energy. I don't doubt they +would gratify to the full their artistic sensibilities +and their thirst for knowledge. They would also +perform their duties to the State as citizens, no +less than the men. But having done these things +I fancy they would have done enough; the margin +of their life would be devoted to dignified and +cultivated leisure. They would leave to men the +tilling of the soil, the building and navigation of +marine or aerial ships, the working of mines and +metals, the erection of houses, the construction +of roads, railways, and communications, perhaps +even the entire manufacturing work of the community. +Medicine and the care of the sick might +still be a charge to some; education to most; art, +in one form or another, to almost all. But the +hard work of the world might well be left to +men, upon whom it more naturally and fitly +devolves. No hateful drudgery of "earning a +livelihood." Women might rest content with +being free and beautiful, cultivated and artistic, +good citizens to the State, the mothers and +guardians of the coming generations. If any +woman asks more than this, she is really asking +less—for she is asking that a heavier burden +should be cast on some or most of her sex, in +order to relieve the minority of a duty which to +well-organised women ought to be a privilege.</p> + +<p>"But all this has no practical bearing!" I +beg your pardon. An ideal has often two practical +uses. In the first place, it gives us a +pattern towards which we may approximate. In +the second place, it gives us a standard by which +we may judge whether any step we propose to take +is a step forward or a step backward.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV.</h3> + +<h4><i>OF SECOND CHAMBERS.</i></h4> + + +<p>A Second Chamber acts as a drag. Progress is +always uphill work. So we are at pains to provide +a drag beforehand—for an uphill journey.</p> + +<p>There, in one word, you have the whole philosophy +of Second Chambers.</p> + +<p>How, then, did the nations of Europe come to +hamper their legislative systems with such a +useless, such an illogical adjunct? In sackcloth +and ashes, let us confess the truth—we English +led them astray: on us the shame; to us the +dishonour. Theorists, indeed (wise after the fact, +as is the wont of theorists), have discovered or invented +an imaginary function for Second Chambers. +They are to preserve the people, it seems, from +the fatal consequences of their own precipitancy. +As though the people—you and I—the vast body +of citizens, were a sort of foolish children, to be +classed with infants, women, criminals, and imbeciles +(I adopt the chivalrous phraseology of an +Act of Parliament), incapable of knowing their +own minds for two minutes together, and requiring +to be kept straight by the fatherly intervention of +Dukes of Marlborough or Marquises of Ailesbury. +The ideal picture of the level-headed peers restraining +the youthful impetuosity of the representatives +of the people from committing to-day some +rash act which they would gladly repent and +repeal to-morrow, is both touching and edifying. +But it exists only in the minds of the philosophers, +who find a reason for everything just because it is +there. Members of Parliament, I have observed, +seem to know their own minds every inch as well +as earls—nay, even as marquises.</p> + +<p>The plain fact of the matter is, all the Second +Chambers in the world are directly modelled upon +the House of Lords, that Old Man of the Sea whom +England, the weary Titan, is now striving so hard +to shake off her shoulders. The mother of Parliaments +is responsible for every one of them. +Senates and Upper Houses are just the result +of irrational Anglomania. When constitutional +government began to exist, men turned unanimously +to the English Constitution as their model +and pattern. That was perfectly natural. Evolutionists +know that evolution never proceeds on any +other plan than by reproduction, with modification, +of existing structures. America led the way. She +said, "England has a House of Commons; therefore +we must have a House of Representatives. +England has also a House of Lords; nature has +not dowered us with those exalted products, but +we will do what we can; we will imitate it by a +Senate." Monarchical France followed her lead; +so did Belgium, Italy, civilisation in general. I +believe even Japan rejoices to-day in the august +dignity of a Second Chamber. But mark now the +irony of it. They all of them did this thing to be +entirely English. And just about the time when +they had completed the installation of their peers +or their senators, England, who set the fashion, +began to discover in turn she could manage a great +deal better herself without them.</p> + +<p>And then what do the philosophers do? Why, +they prove to you the necessity of a Second +Chamber by pointing to the fact that all civilised +nations have got one—in imitation of England. +Furthermore, it being their way to hunt up abstruse +and recondite reasons for what is on the +face of it ridiculous, they argue that a Second +Chamber is a necessary wheel in the mechanism +of popular representative government. A foolish +phrase, which has come down to us from antiquity, +represents the populace as inevitably "fickle," a +changeable mob, to be restrained by the wisdom +of the seniors and optimates. As a matter of +fact, the populace is never anything of the sort. +It is dogged, slow, conservative, hard to move; +it advances step by step, a patient, sure-footed +beast of burden; and when once it has done a +thing, it never goes back upon it. I believe this +silly fiction of the "fickleness" of the mob is +mainly due to the equally silly fictions of prejudiced +Greek oligarchs about the Athenian assembly—which +was an assembly of well-to-do and cultivated +slave-owners. I do not swallow all that +Thucydides chooses to tell us in his one-sided +caricature about Cleon's appointment to the command +at Sphacteria, or about the affair of Mitylene; +and even if I did, I think it has nothing +to do with the question. But on such utterly +exploded old-world ideas is the whole modern +argument of the Second Chamber founded.</p> + +<p>Does anybody really believe great nations are +so incapable of managing their own affairs for +themselves through their duly-elected representatives +that they are compelled to check their own +boyish ardour by means of the acts of an irresponsible +and non-elective body? Does anybody +believe that the House of Commons works too +fast, and gets through its public business too +hurriedly? Does anybody believe we improve +things in England at such a break-neck pace that +we require the assistance of Lord Salisbury and +Lord St. Leonards to prevent us from rushing +straight down a steep place into the sea, like the +swine of Gadara? If they do, I congratulate them +on their psychological acumen and their political +wisdom.</p> + +<p>What the Commons want is not a drag, but a +goad—nay, rather, a snow-plough.</p> + +<p>No; the plain truth of the matter is this: all +the Second Chambers in the world owe their existence, +not to any deliberate plan or reason, but to +the mere accident that the British nobles, not +having a room big enough to sit in with the Commons, +took to sitting separately, and transacted +their own business as a distinct assembly. With +so much wisdom are the kingdoms of the earth +governed! How else could any one in his senses +have devised the idea of creating one deliberative +body on purpose to mutilate or destroy the work +of another? to produce from time to time a periodical +crisis or a periodical deadlock? There is +not a country in the world with a Second Chamber +that doesn't twice a year kick and plunge to get +rid of it.</p> + +<p>The House of Lords was once a reality. It consisted +of the ecclesiastical hierarchy—the bishops +and mitred abbots; with the official hierarchy—the +great nobles, who were also great satraps of provinces, +and great military commanders. It was +thus mainly made up of practical life-members, +appointed by merit. The peers, lay and spiritual, +were the men who commended themselves to the +sovereign as able administrators. Gradually, with +prolonged peace, the hereditary element choked +and swamped the nominated element. The abbots +disappeared, the lords multiplied. The peer ceased +to be the leader of a shire, and sank into a mere +idle landowner. Wealth alone grew at last to +be a title to the peerage. The House of Lords +became a House of Landlords. And the English +people submitted to the claim of irresponsible +wealth or irresponsible acres to exercise a veto +upon national legislation. The anomaly, utterly +indefensible in itself, had grown up so slowly that +the public accepted it—nay, even defended it. +And other countries, accustomed to regard England—the +Pecksniff among nations—as a perfect +model of political wisdom, swallowed half the +anomaly, and all the casuistical reasoning that +was supposed to justify it, without a murmur. +But if we strip the facts bare from the glamour +that surrounds them, the plain truth is this—England +allows an assembly of hereditary nobodies +to retard or veto its legislation nowadays, simply +because it never noticed the moment when a +practical House of administrative officers lapsed +into a nest of plutocrats.</p> + +<p>Mend or end? As it stands, the thing is +a not-even-picturesque mediæval relic. If we +English were logical, we would arrange that any +man who owned so many thousand acres of land, +or brewed so many million bottles of beer per +annum, should <i>ipso facto</i> be elevated to the peerage. +Why should not gallons of gin confer an earldom +direct, and Brighton A's be equivalent to a marquisate? +Why not allow the equal claim of +screws and pills with coal and iron? Why disregard +the native worth of annatto and nitrates? +Baron Beecham or Lord Sunlight is a first-rate +name. As it is, we make petty and puerile +distinctions. Beer is in, but whiskey is out; +and even in beer itself, if I recollect aright, +Dublin stout wore a coronet for some months or +years before English pale ale attained the dignity +of a barony. No Minister has yet made chocolate +a viscount. At present, banks and minerals go +in as of right, while soap is left out in the cold, +and even cotton languishes. If the Chancellor +of the Exchequer put up titles to auction, while +abolishing the legislative function of the Lords, +there would be millions in it. But as we English +are not logical, our mending would probably resolve +itself into fatuous tinkering. We might +get rid of the sons, but leave the fathers. We +might flood the Lords with life peers, but leave +the veto. Such tactics are too Britannic. "Stone +dead hath no fellow!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV.</h3> + +<h4><i>A POINT OF CRITICISM.</i></h4> + + +<p>A few pages back, I ventured to remark that in +Utopia or the Millennium the women of the community +would probably be supported in common +by the labour of the men, and so be secured complete +independence of choice and action. When +these essays first appeared in a daily newspaper, +a Leader among Women wrote to me in reply, +"What a paradise you open up to us! Alas +for the reality! The question is—could women +ever be really independent if men supplied the +means of existence? They would always feel they +had the right to control us. The difference of +the position of a woman in marriage when she +has got a little fortune of her own is something +miraculous. Men adore money, and the possession +of it inspires them with an involuntary respect for +the happy possessor."</p> + +<p>Now I got a great many letters in answer to +these Post-Prandials as they originally came out—some +of them, strange to say, not wholly complimentary. +As a rule, I am too busy a man to +answer letters: and I take this opportunity of +apologising to correspondents who write to tell me +I am a knave or a fool, for not having acknowledged +direct their courteous communications. But +this friendly criticism seems to call for a reply, +because it involves a question of principle which +I have often noted in all discussions of Utopias +and Millennia.</p> + +<p>For my generous critic seems to take it for +granted that women are not now dependent on +the labour of men for their support—that some, or +even most of them, are in a position of freedom. +The plain truth of it is—almost all women depend +for everything upon one man, who is or may be +an absolute despot. A very small number of +women have "money of their own," as we quaintly +phrase it—that is to say, are supported by the +labour of many among us, either in the form of +rent or in the form of interest on capital bequeathed +to them. A woman with five thousand +a year from Consols, for example, is in the strictest +sense supported by the united labour of all of +us—she has a first mortgage to that amount upon +the earnings of the community. You and I are +taxed to pay her. But is she therefore more +dependent than the woman who lives upon what +she can get out of the scanty earnings of a +drunken husband? Does the community therefore +think it has a right to control her? Not a bit +of it. She is in point of fact the only free woman +among us. My dream was to see all women +equally free—inheritors from the community of +so much of its earnings; holders, as it were, of +sufficient world-consols to secure their independence.</p> + +<p>That, however, is not the main point to which +I desire just now to direct attention. I want +rather to suggest an underlying fallacy of all so-called +individualists in dealing with schemes of +so-called Socialism—for to me your Socialist is +the true and only individualist. My correspondent's +argument is written from the standpoint of +the class in which women have or may have +money. But most women have none; and schemes +of reconstruction must be for the benefit of the +many. So-called individualists seem to think that +under a more organised social state they would +not be so able to buy pictures as at present, not +so free to run across to California or Kamschatka. +I doubt their premiss, for I believe we should all +of us be better off than we are to-day; but let +that pass; 'tis a detail. The main thing is this: +they forget that most of us are narrowly tied and +circumscribed at present by endless monopolies and +endless restrictions of land or capital. I should +like to buy pictures; but I can't afford them. I +long to see Japan; but I shall never get there. +The man in the street may desire to till the +ground: every acre is appropriated. He may +wish to dig coal: Lord Masham prevents him. +He may have a pretty taste in Venetian glass: +the flints on the shore are private property; the +furnace and the implements belong to a capitalist. +Under the existing <i>régime</i>, the vast mass of us +are hampered at every step in order that a few +may enjoy huge monopolies. Most men have no +land, so that one man may own a county. And +they call this Individualism!</p> + +<p>In considering any proposed change, whether +imminent or distant, in practice or in day-dream, +it is not fair to take as your standard of reference +the most highly-favoured individuals under +existing conditions. Nor is it fair to take the +most unfortunate only. You should look at the +average.</p> + +<p>Now the average man, in the world as it wags, +is a farm-labourer, an artisan, a mill-hand, a +navvy. He has untrammelled freedom of contract +to follow the plough on another man's land, +or to work twelve hours a day in another man's +factory, for that other man's benefit—provided +always he can only induce the other man to +employ him. If he can't, he is at perfect liberty +to tramp the high road till he drops with fatigue, +or to starve, unhindered, on the Thames Embankment. +He may live where he likes, as far as +his means permit; for example, in a convenient +court off Seven Dials. He may make his own +free bargain with grasping landlord or exacting +sweater. He may walk over every inch of English +soil, with the trifling exception of the millions +of acres where trespassers will be prosecuted. +Even travel is not denied him: Florence and +Venice are out of his beat, it is true; but if he +saves up his loose cash for a couple of months, +he may revel in the Oriental luxury of a third-class +excursion train to Brighton and back for +three shillings. Such advantages does the <i>régime</i> +of landlord-made individualism afford to the average +run of British citizen. If he fails in the +race, he may retire at seventy to the ease and +comfort of the Union workhouse, and be buried +inexpensively at the cost of his parish.</p> + +<p>The average woman in turn is the wife of +such a man, dependent upon him for what fraction +of his earnings she can save from the public-house. +Or she is a shop-girl, free to stand all day from +eight in the morning till ten at night behind +a counter, and to throw up her situation if it +doesn't suit her. Or she is a domestic servant, +enjoying the glorious liberty of a Sunday out +every second week, and a walk with her young +man every alternate Wednesday after eight in +the evening. She has full leave to do her love-making +in the open street, and to get as wet +as she chooses in Regent's Park on rainy nights +in November. Look the question in the face, +and you will see for yourself that the mass of +mothers in every community are dependent for +support, not upon men in general, but upon a +single man, their husband, against whose caprices +and despotism they have no sort of protection. +Even the few women who are, as we say, "independent," +how are they supported, save by the +labour of many men who work to keep them +in comfort or luxury? They are landowners, +let us put it; and then they are supported by +the labour of their farmers and ploughmen. Or +they hold North-Western shares; and then they +are supported by the labour of colliers, and stokers, +and guards, and engine-drivers. And so on +throughout. The plain fact is, either a woman +must earn her own livelihood by work, which, +in the case of the mothers in a community, is +bad public policy; or else she must be supported +by a man or men, her husband, or her labourers.</p> + +<p>My day-dream was, then, to make every woman +independent, in precisely the same sense that +women of property are independent at present. +Would it give them a consciousness of being +unduly controlled if they derived their support +from the general funds of the body politic, of +which they would be free and equal members +and voters? Well, look at similar cases in our +own England. The Dukes of Marlborough derive +a heavy pension from the taxes of the country; +but I have never observed that any Duke of Marlborough +of my time felt himself a slave to the +imperious taxpayer. Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace +is justly the recipient of a Civil List annuity; +but that hasn't prevented his active and essentially +individualist brain from inventing Land Nationalisation. +Mr. Robert Buchanan very rightly draws +another such annuity for good work done; but +Mr. Buchanan's name is not quite the first that +rises naturally to my lips as an example of cowed +and cringing sycophancy to the ideas and ideals +of his fellow-citizens. No, no; be sure of it, +this terror is a phantom. One master is real, +realisable, instant; but to be dependent upon ten +million is just what we always describe as independence.</p> + + +<p>THE END.</p> + +<p> +PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.<br /> +EDINBURGH AND LONDON.<br /> +</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Post-Prandial Philosophy, by Grant Allen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POST-PRANDIAL PHILOSOPHY *** + +***** This file should be named 18788-h.htm or 18788-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/7/8/18788/ + +Produced by Clare Boothby, Turgut Dincer and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** + + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> + |