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diff --git a/old/64692-0.txt b/old/64692-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1ba26d0..0000000 --- a/old/64692-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7264 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Australian Essays, by Francis W. L. Adams - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Australian Essays - -Author: Francis W. L. Adams - -Release Date: March 04, 2021 [eBook #64692] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Nick Wall and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive/American - Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUSTRALIAN ESSAYS *** - - - - - - _TWO SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE_ - - AUSTRALIAN - ESSAYS. - - BY - FRANCIS W. L. ADAMS. - _AUTHOR OF - “LEICESTER, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.”_ - - Contents: - - PREFACE. - MELBOURNE AND HER CIVILIZATION. - THE POETRY OF ADAM LINDSAY GORDON. - THE SALVATION ARMY. - SYDNEY AND HER CIVILIZATION. - CULTURE. - “DAWNWARDS:” A DIALOGUE. - - PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY - WILLIAM INGLIS & CO., 37, 38, & 39 FLINDERS STREET EAST, - MELBOURNE. - - LONDON: GRIFFITH, FARRAN & CO. - - 1886. - - - - -AUSTRALIAN ESSAYS. - - - - -_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ - - -LEICESTER, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. (REDWAY, Publisher, York Street, Covent -Garden, London; 6_s_.) - -POEMS. (ELLIOT STOCK, Publisher, Paternoster Row, London; 5_s._) - -THE BRUCES, A Novel. (_Shortly_). - -MODERN ENGLISH POETS. (_Shortly_). - -VOYAGE ON THE ADELAIDE. (_Shortly_). - - - - - AUSTRALIAN ESSAYS. - - BY - FRANCIS W. L. ADAMS. - _AUTHOR OF - “LEICESTER, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.”_ - - Melbourne: - WILLIAM INGLIS & CO., FLINDERS STREET EAST. - LONDON PUBLISHERS: GRIFFITH, FARRAN & CO. - - MDCCCLXXXVI. - - MELBOURNE: - WILLIAM INGLIS AND CO., PRINTERS, - FLINDERS STREET EAST. - - - - -_TO MATTHEW ARNOLD IN ENGLAND._ - - - ‘_Master, with this I send you, as a boy_ - _that watches from below some cross-bow bird_ - _swoop on his quarry carried up aloft,_ - _and cries a cry of victory to his flight_ - _with sheer joy of achievement—So to you_ - _I send my voice across the sundering sea,_ - _weak, lost within the winds and surfy waves,_ - _but with all glad acknowledgment fulfilled_ - _and honour to you and to sovran Truth!_’ - - _January, 1886._ - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - PAGE. - - PREFACE ix. - - MELBOURNE AND HER CIVILIZATION 1 - - THE POETRY OF ADAM LINDSAY GORDON 11 - - THE SALVATION ARMY 27 - - SYDNEY AND HER CIVILIZATION 50 - - CULTURE 73 - - “DAWNWARDS,” A DIALOGUE - - INTRODUCTION 90 - - I. 97 - - II. 105 - - III. 114 - - IV. 122 - - V. 138 - - VI. 146 - - - - -PREFACE. - - -It would be absurd to suppose that it will not seem clear, to whatever -readers this little book may find here, that one of the principal -characters of the Dialogue is a man for whom we all, I think, feel more -interest, admiration, and respect than any other among us. That this -is so in reality, I must beg to deny, and I hope that, when I state -that I neither have myself, nor know anyone who has, the honour of -his acquaintance—nay, that I have never even _seen_ him—I hope that I -shall stand acquitted of all charges of personality. As for the other -characters, there will too, I daresay, be found people ready to declare -who are the originals, and to explain everything which is inconsistent -with their theory by ascribing it to designed mystification on the part -of the Author. For this, it seems, is an occupation like another. The -Author believes that so much of a man’s life as is public belongs to -the public, and is at the fair use of the public’s literary analysts, -_videlicet_ the critics, and that it is by no means an unfair use, to -take such a life and freely present it in that individual form which -it actually has to us in our moments of imagination and reflection. It -seems, then, to him foolish, in considering, (to take it in the form of -a well-known example), a book like D’Israeli’s “Lothair” or “Endymion,” -to be trying to identify the characters with actual men. D’Israeli simply -uses as much of actual men and actual events as he requires for his -criticism of the time he is portraying, and is careless of the rest. I -see here no attempt at mystification. I simply see an artist picking out -the choicest materials he has to hand. - -As regards both the Dialogue and the Essays, I would like to point out -that they are professedly didactic, and, as such, are of course cast -into the form which I believe most calculated to achieve their object. -I am sure that I have neither the intention nor the wish to impugn the -competency of the australian Press to deal with things australian. I am -myself a member, a very humble member of it, and am quite ready to do -myself the sincere pleasure of praising it. At the same time I cannot -blind myself to the fact that its criticism is not (let us say) ideal. -The “business of criticism,” says the first of living critics, “is simply -_to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its -turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas_.” -Well now, I cannot, I say, look upon this australian Press, of which I -am so humble a member, as the creator of such a current; and, (I will -make a clean breast of it at once!), bright and charming as I have always -found him in the “Echoes of the Week” and places of like resort, I have -viewed the triumphal approach of Mr. Sala to us, and his even more -triumphal progress among us, with (as someone will presently be saying -of me)—“with a jaundiced eye.” And why? The truth, the real truth, is, -(May I be forgiven for saying so?), that I do not believe that even Mr. -Sala can help us australian pressmen, (since I dare to place myself in a -company which includes such stupendous personages as “The Vagabond” and -the Editor of the Melbourne _Herald_), to create that “current of true -and fresh ideas” to which we have alluded. Truth, alas, is the private -property of no man—not even of Mr. George Augustus Sala. And I confess -to finding myself at the point of wishing that, even for mere variety’s -sake, we should hear more than we do of the ideas of such personages as -Goethe, Emerson, Renan, Arnold, and so on: writers, of course, familiar -to us all, and whom I, at any rate, must still continue to consider -as not wholly exhausted. They may not have the depth of thought, the -accuracy of detail, the exquisite tact of expression which distinguish -the genial _littérateur_, and make his work, as one of my fellow pressmen -said the other day, “epoch-making,” but I really do still continue—I -_must_ still continue—to think that, despite all these disadvantages, -they are still capable of helping us a little to that critical haven -where our souls would be—to the source of “a current of true and fresh -ideas.” - - _September, 1885._ - - - - -AUSTRALIAN ESSAYS. - - - - -MELBOURNE, AND HER CIVILIZATION, AS THEY STRIKE AN ENGLISHMAN. - - -It is difficult to speak of Melbourne fitly. The judgment of neither -native nor foreigner can escape the influence of the phenomenal aspect -of the city. Not fifty years ago its first child, Batman’s, was born; -not forty, it was a city; a little over thirty, it was the metropolis -of a colony; and now (as the inscription on Batman’s grave tells us) -“_Circumspice!_” To natives their Melbourne is, and is only, “the -magnificent city, classed by Sir George Bowen as the ninth in the world,” -“one of the wonders of the world.” They cannot criticise, they can only -praise it. To a foreigner, however, who, with all respect and admiration -for the excellencies of the Melbourne of to-day as compared with the -Melbourne of half-a-century ago, has travelled and seen and read, and -cares very little for glorifying the _amour-propre_ of this class or of -that, and very much for really arriving at some more or less accurate -idea of the significance of this city and its civilization; to such a -man, I say, the native melodies in the style of “Rule Britannia” which he -hears everywhere and at all times are distasteful. Nay, he may possibly -have at last to guard himself against the opposite extreme, and hold off -depreciation with the one hand as he does laudation with the other! - -The first thing, I think, that strikes a man who knows the three great -modern cities of the world—London, Paris, New York—and is walking -observingly about Melbourne is, that Melbourne is made up of curious -elements. There is something of London in her, something of Paris, -something of New York, and something of her own. Here is an attraction to -start with. Melbourne has, what might be called, the _metropolitan tone_. -The look on the faces of her inhabitants is the _metropolitan look_. -These people live quickly: such as life presents itself to them, they -know it: as far as they can see, they have no prejudices. “I was born in -Melbourne,” said the wife of a small bootmaker to me once, “I was born in -Melbourne, and I went to Tasmania for a bit, but I soon came back again. -_I like to be in a place where they go ahead._” The wife of a small -bootmaker, you see, has the _metropolitan tone_, the _metropolitan look_ -about her; she sees that there is a greater pleasure in life than sitting -under your vine and your fig-tree; she likes to be in a place where they -go ahead. And she is a type of her city. Melbourne likes to “go ahead.” -Look at her public buildings, her New Law Courts not finished yet, her -Town Hall, her Hospital, her Library, her Houses of Parliament, and -above all her Banks! Nay, and she has become desirous of a fleet and has -established a “Naval Torpedo Corps” with seven electricians. All this is -well, very well. Melbourne, I say, lives quickly: such as life presents -itself to her, she knows it: as far as she can see, she has no prejudices. - -_As far as she can see._—The limitation is important. The real question -is, _how_ far can she see? how far does her civilization answer the -requirements of a really fine civilization? what scope in it is there (as -Mr. Arnold would say) for the satisfaction of the claims of conduct, of -intellect and knowledge, of beauty and manners? Now in order the better -to answer this question, let us think for a moment what are the chief -elements that have operated and are still operating in this Melbourne and -her civilization. - -This is an English colony: it springs, as its poet Gordon (of whom there -will presently be something to be remarked) says, in large capitals, it -springs from “_the Anglo-Saxon race ... the Norman blood_.” Well, if -there is one quality which distinguishes this race, this blood, it is -its determined strength. Wherever we have gone, whatever we have done, -we have gone and we have done with all our heart and soul. We have made -small, if any, attempt to conciliate others. Either they have had to -give way before, or adapt themselves to us. India, America, Australia, -they all bear witness to our determined, our pitiless strength. What -is the state of the weaker nations that opposed us there? In America -and Australia they are perishing off the face of the earth; even in New -Zealand, where the aborigines are a really fine and noble race, we are, -it seems, swiftly destroying them. In India, whose climate is too extreme -for us ever to make it a colony in the sense that America and Australia -are colonies; in India, since we could neither make the aborigines give -way, nor make them adapt themselves to us, we have simply let them alone. -They do not understand us, nor we them. Of late, it is true, an interest -in them, in their religion and literature, has been springing up, but -what a strange aspect do we, the lords of India for some hundred and -thirty years, present! “In my own experience among Englishmen,” says an -Indian scholar writing to the _Times_ in 1874, “I have found no general -indifference to India, but I have found a Cimmerian darkness about the -manners and habits of my countrymen, an almost poetical description -of our customs, and a conception no less wild and startling than the -vagaries of Mandeville and Marco Polo concerning our religion.” Do we -want any further testimony than this to the determined, the pitiless -strength of “the Anglo-Saxon race ... the Norman blood?” - -Well, and how does all this concern Australia in general and Melbourne -in particular? It concerns them in this way, that the civilization of -Australia, of Melbourne, is an Anglo-Saxon civilization, a civilization -of the Norman blood, and that, with all the good attendant on such a -civilization, there is also all the evil. All? Well, I will not say all, -for that would be to contradict one of the first and chief statements -I made about her, namely that “as far as she can see Melbourne has no -prejudices,” a statement which I could not make of England. “_This our -native or adopted land_,” says an intelligent Australian critic, the -late Mr. Marcus Clarke, “_has no past, no story. No poet speaks to us._” -“_No_,” we might add, “_and (thus far happily for you) neither, as far -as you can see, does any direct preacher of prejudice_.” And here, as I -take it, we have put our finger upon what is at once the strength and the -weakness of this civilization. - -Let us consider it for a moment. The Australians have no prejudice about -an endowed Church, as we English have, and hence they have, what we have -not, religious liberty. As far as I can make out, there is no reason why -the wife of a clergyman of the Church of England should in this colony -look down upon the wife of a dissenting minister as her social inferior, -and this is, on the whole, I think, well, for it tends to break up the -notion of caste that exists between the two sects; it tends, I mean, to -their mutual benefit, to the interchange of the church’s sense of “the -beauty of holiness” with the chapel’s sense of the passion of holiness. -Here, then, you are better off than we. On the other hand, you have no -prejudice, as we at last have, against Protection, and consequently you -go on benefiting a class at the expense of the community in a manner that -can only, I think, be defined as short-sighted and foolish. Here we are -better off than you. Again, however, you have not the prejudice that we -have against the intervention of the State. You have nationalized your -railways, and are attempting, as much as possible, to nationalize your -land.[1] You are beginning to see that a land tax, at any given rate of -annual value, would be (as Mr. Fawcett puts it) “a valuable national -resource, which might be utilized in rendering unnecessary the imposition -of many taxes which will otherwise have to be imposed.” Here you are -better off than we, better off both in fortune and general speculation. -Again, you have not yet arrived at Federalism, and what a waste of time -and all time’s products is implied in the want of central unity! Now the -first and third of these instances show the strength that is in this -civilization, and the second shows a portion of the weakness, at present -only a small portion, but, unless vigorous measures are resorted to and -soon, this Protection will become the great evil that it is in America. -There is just the same cry there as here: “Protect the native industries -until they are strong enough to stand alone”—as if an industry that has -once been protected will ever care to stand alone again until it is -compelled to! as if a class benefited at the expense of the community -will ever give up its benefit until the community takes it away again! - -On one of the first afternoons I spent in Melbourne, I remember strolling -into a well-known book-mart, the book-mart “at the sign of the rainbow.” -I was interested both in the books and the people who were looking at -or buying them. Here I found, almost at the London prices (for we get -our twopence or threepence in the shilling on books now in London), -all, or almost all, of the average London books of the day. The popular -scientific, theological, and even literary books were to hand, somewhat -cast into the shade, it is true, by a profusion of cheap English novels -and journals, but still they were to hand. And who were the people that -were buying them? The people of the dominant class, the middle-class. I -began to enquire at what rate the popular, scientific, and even literary -books were selling. Fairly, was the answer. “And how do Gordon’s poems -sell?” “_Oh they sell well_,” was the answer, “_he’s the only poet we’ve -turned out_.” - -This pleased me, it made me think that the “go-ahead” element in -Victorian and Melbourne life had gone ahead in this direction also. If, -in a similar book-mart in Falmouth (say), I had asked how the poems of -Charles Kingsley were selling, it is a question whether much more than -the name would have been recognized. And yet the middle-class here is as, -and perhaps more, badly—more appallingly badly—off for a higher education -than the English provincial middle class is. Whence comes it, then, that -a poet like Gordon with the cheer and charge of our chivalry in him, with -his sad “trust and only trust,” and his - - “weary longings and yearnings - for the mystical better things:” - -Whence comes it that he is a popular poet here? Let him answer us English -for himself and Melbourne: - - “You are slow, very slow, in discerning - that book-lore and wisdom are twain:” - -Yes, indeed, to Melbourne, such as life presents itself to her, she -knows it, and, what is more, she knows that she knows it, and her -self-knowledge gives her a contempt for the pedantry of the old world. -Walk about in her streets, look at her private buildings, these banks -of hers, for instance, and you will see this. They _mean_ something, -they _express_ something: they do not (as Mr. Arnold said of our British -Belgravian architecture) “only express the impotence of the artist to -express anything.” They express a certain sense of movement, of progress, -of conscious power. They say: “Some thirty years ago the first gold -nuggets made their entry into William Street. Well, many more nuggets -have followed, and wealth of other sorts has followed the nuggets, and we -express that wealth—we express movement, progress, conscious power.—_Is -that, now, what your English banks express?_” And we can only say that -it is not, that our English banks express something quite different; -something, if deeper, slower; if stronger, more clumsy. - -But the matter does not end here. When we took the instance of the books -and the people “at the sign of the rainbow,” we took also the abode -itself of the rainbow; when we took the best of the private buildings, we -took also the others. Many of them are hideous enough, we know; this is -what Americans, English, and Australians have in common, this inevitable -brand of their civilization, of their determined, their pitiless -strength. The same horrible “pot hat,” “frock coat,” and the rest, are to -be found in London, in Calcutta, in New York, in Melbourne. - -Let us sum up. “The Anglo-Saxon race, the Norman blood:” a colony made -of this: a city into whose hands wealth and its power is suddenly -phenomenally cast: a general sense of movement, of progress, of conscious -power. This, I say, is Melbourne—Melbourne with its fine public buildings -and tendency towards banality, with its hideous houses and tendency -towards anarchy. And Melbourne is, after all, the Melbournians. Alas, -then, how will this city and its civilization stand the test of a -really fine city and fine civilization? how far will they answer the -requirements of such a civilization? what scope is there in them for the -satisfaction of the claims of conduct, of intellect and knowledge, of -beauty, and manners? - -Of the first I have only to say that, so far as I can see, its claims -are satisfied, satisfied as well as in a large city, and in a city of -the above-mentioned composition, they can be. But of the second, of the -claims of intellect and knowledge, what enormous room for improvement -there is! What a splendid field for culture lies in this middle-class -that makes a popular poet of Adam Lindsay Gordon! It tempts one to -prophesy that, given a higher education for this middle-class, and -fifty—forty—thirty years to work it through a generation, and it will -leave the English middle-class as far behind in intellect and knowledge -as, at the present moment, it is left behind by the middle-class, or -rather the one great educated upper-class, of France. - -There is still the other claim, that of beauty and manners. And it is -here that your Australian, your Melbourne civilization is, I think, -most wanting, is most weak; it is here that one feels the terrible need -of “a past, a story, a poet to speak to you.” With the Library are a -sculpture gallery and a picture gallery. What an arrangement in them -both! In the sculpture gallery “are to be seen,” we are told, “admirably -executed casts of ancient and modern sculpture, from the best European -sources, copies of the Elgin marbles from the British Museum, and other -productions from the European Continent.” Yes, and Summers stands side by -side with Michaelangelo! And poor busts of Moore and Goethe come between -Antinous and the Louvre Apollo the Lizard slayer! But this, it may be -said, is after all only an affair of an individual, the arranger. Not -altogether so. If an audience thinks that a thing is done badly, they -express their opinion, and the failure has to vanish. And how large a -portion of the audience of Melbourne city, pray, is of opinion that quite -half of its architecture is a failure, is hideous, is worthy only, as -architecture, of abhorrence? how many are shocked by the atrocity of the -Medical College building at the University? how many feel that Bourke -Street, taken as a whole, is simply an insult to good taste? - -“Yes, all this,” it is said, “may be true, as abstract theory, but it is -at present quite out of the sphere of practical application. You would -talk of Federalism, and here is our good ex-Premier of New South Wales, -Sir Henry Parkes, making it the subject of a farewell denunciation. ‘I -venture to say now,’ says Sir Henry Parkes, ‘here amongst you what I -said when I had an opportunity in London, what I ventured to say to Lord -Derby himself, that this federation scheme must prove a failure.’ You -talk of Free-trade and here is what an intelligent writer in the _Argus_ -says _apropos_ of ‘the promised tariff negotiations with Tasmania.’ ‘In -America,’ he says, ‘there is no difficulty in inducing the States to see -that, whatever may be their policy as regards the outside world, they -should interchange as between each other in order that they may stand on -as broad a base as possible, but we can only speculate on the existence -of such a national spirit here.’—These facts, my good sir,” it is said, -“as indicative of the amount of opposition that the nation feels to the -ideas of Free-trade and Federalism, are not encouraging.”—They are not, -let us admit it at once, but there are others which are; others, some -of which we have been considering, and, above and beyond everything, -there is one invaluable and in the end irresistible ally of these -ideas: there is _the Tendency of the Age_—_the Time-Spirit_, as Goethe -calls it. Things move more quickly now than they used to do: ideas, -the modern ideas, are permeating the masses swiftly and thoroughly and -universally. We cannot tell, we can only speculate as to what another -fifty—forty—thirty years will actually bring forth. - -Free-trade—Federalism—Higher Education, they all go together. The -necessities of life are cheap here, wonderfully cheap; a man can get a -dinner here for sixpence that he could not get in England for twice or -thrice the amount. “There are not,” says the _Australasian Schoolmaster_, -the organ of the State Schools, “there are not many under-fed children in -the Australian [as there are in the English] schools.” But the luxuries -of life (and let us remember that what we call the luxuries of life -are, after all, necessities; they are the things which go to make up -our civilization, the things which make us feel that there is a greater -pleasure in life than sitting under your vine and your fig-tree, whatever -Mr. George may have to say to the contrary)—the luxuries of life, I say, -are dear here, very dear, owing to, what I must be permitted to call, an -exorbitant tariff, and, consequently, the money that would be spent in -fostering a higher ideal of life, in preparing the way for a national -higher education, is spent on these luxuries, and the claims of intellect -and knowledge, and of beauty and manners, have to suffer for it. Here -is your Mr. Marcus Clarke, for instance, talking grimly, not to say -bitterly, of “the capacity of this city to foster poetic instinct,” of -his “astonishment that such work” as Gordon’s “was ever produced here.” -He is astonished, you see, that the claims of intellect and knowledge, -and of beauty and manners are enough satisfied in this city to produce a -talent of this sort; he is astonished, because he does not see that there -is an element in this city which, in its way, is making for at any rate -the intellect and knowledge—an element which is a product, not of England -but of Australia; a general sense of movement, of progress, of conscious -power. - -Free-trade—Federalism—Higher Education, they all, I say, go together; -but if one is more important than the other, then it is the last. -Improvement, real improvement, must always be from within outwards, -not from without inwards. All abiding good comes, as it has been well -said, by evolution not by revolution. “Our chief, our gravest want in -this country at present,” says Arnold, “our _unum necessarium_, is a -middle-class, homogeneous, intelligent, civilized, brought up in good -public schools, and on the first plane.” How true is this of Australia -too, of Melbourne! There are State schools for the lower-class, but what -is there for the great upper educated class of the nation? The voluntary -schools, the “private adventure schools.” And what sort of education do -_they_ supply either in England or here? “The voluntary schools,” says -a happy shallow man in some Publishers’ circular I lit on the other -day, “the voluntary schools of the country” [of England] “have reached -the highest degree of efficiency.” This, to those who have taken the -trouble to study the question, not to say to have considerable absolute -experience in the English voluntary schools—this is intelligence as -surprising as it ought to be gratifying. To such men, the idea they had -arrived at of the English voluntary schools was somewhat different; their -idea being that these schools were, both socially and intellectually, -the most inadequate that fall to the lot of any middle class among the -civilized nations of Europe. “Comprehend,” says Arnold to us Englishmen, -and he might as well be saying it to you Australians, “comprehend that -middle-class education—the higher education, as we have put it, of the -great upper educated class—is a great democratic reform, of the truest, -surest, safest description.” - -“But there are many difficulties to be overcome—so many, that we -doubt these abstract theories to be at present within the sphere of -practical application. There is such a mass of opposition to the idea of -Federalism. And, as for the idea of Free-trade, we can only speculate on -the existence of a national spirit here. The thinking public is quite -content with its State schools for the lower class, and cares little or -nothing about State schools and a higher education for the upper class. -They are much more interested in the religious questions of the day—the -Catholic attitude, the conflict between Mr. Strong and his Presbytery -on the subject of Religious Liberalism or Latitudinarianism, as you may -please to call it, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.”—All this is so, let -us admit it at once, but it does not discourage us. We know, or think -we know (which is, after all, almost the same thing), that these three -questions—Free-trade, Federalism, Higher Education—are the three great, -the three vital questions for Australia, for Melbourne. We know that, -sooner or later, they will have to be properly considered and decided -upon, and that, if Melbourne is to keep the place which she now holds -as the leading city, intellectually and commercially, of Australia, -they will have to be decided upon in that way which conforms with “the -intelligible law of things,” with the _Tendency of the Age_, with -the _Time-Spirit_. For this is the one invaluable and, in the end, -irresistible ally of Progress—of Progress onward and upward. - - _December, 1884._ - -NOTE.—No one, speaking of Free-trade and Federalism in Australia, can -omit a tribute of thanks to the _Argus_ and the _Federal Australian_ for -what they have respectively done for the two causes. The cause of Higher -Education, however, still waits for a champion in the Press. - -[Illustration] - - - - -THE POETRY OF ADAM LINDSAY GORDON. - - -“In the whole range of English literature,” says an Australian critic -reviewing the complete edition of Gordon’s poems, “in the whole range -of English literature there have been few poets possessed of a finer -lyrical faculty than Adam Lindsay Gordon.... ‘Ashtaroth,’” continues our -critic now warm at his work, “‘Ashtaroth’ is worthy to rank with any of -Tennyson’s songs, and is far more musical than the best of Browning’s.” -Then there is “the beauty of his ballad poetry, such as ‘Fauconshawe’ and -‘Rippling Water,’ which are perfect of their style;” and so on in the -same strain, more or less, until the reader is surprised that our critic -ends up with no further claim for his poet than that he “deserves to be -ranked with the genuine poets of his generation.” One does not propose -to criticise, verbally, criticism of this sort: it would be unkind to do -so, and, above all, it would be useless. This is a native melody in the -style of “Rule Britannia:” “Australia, and especially Victoria, is great -and therefore her poet must be great also. Let us say that Melbourne is -the equal of any English city save London, and Gordon the equal of any -English poet save Shakspere and Milton!” - -Now let us hear what another Australian critic, one who cares more about -finding out the real deep true significance of Gordon and his poetry -than of glorifying the _amour-propre_ of this class or of that: let -us hear what Mr. Marcus Clarke has to say. “Written as they were” (as -Gordon’s poems were) “at odd times in leisure moments of a stirring -and adventurous life, it is not to be wondered at if they are unequal -and unfinished. The astonishment of those who knew the man, and can -gauge the capacity of this city to foster poetic instinct, is, that -such work was ever produced here at all.”—What a different tone is -this from that of our first and enthusiastic critic! “_Unequal and -unfinished_”—“_astonishment that such work was ever produced here at -all!_” But this is not all that Mr. Clarke has to say about Gordon’s -poetry: he has also to notice what influence was at work in it, and -(most important of all!) what is its real deep true significance. He -talks of Gordon “owning nothing but a love for horsemanship and a head -full of Browning and Shelley,” and follows this up by saying that -“the influence of Browning and of Swinburne” (who, as we all know, -has been, creatively and demonstratively, the chief prophet in his -generation of the poet who, he likes to think, is ‘beloved above all -other poets, being beyond all other poets—in one word, and the only -proper word,—divine’)—“the influence of Browning and of Swinburne upon -the writer’s taste is plain. There is plainly visible also, however, a -keen sense of natural beauty and a manly admiration for healthy living.” -Well, and the conclusion of the whole matter? “The student of these -unpretending volumes will be repaid for his labour. _He will find in them -something very like the beginnings of a national school of Australian -poetry._” - -Let us hasten to offer up our small tribute of praise and thanks to Mr. -Clarke for his critical sagacity here, and let us venture to hope that -the “Poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon” may go down to posterity accompanied -always by this small “Preface” of Mr. Clarke, who both “knew the man” and -was yet the first to appreciate this aspect of his work. - -What, however, Mr. Clarke has to say about the facts of Gordon’s life -is, at best, inaccurate. It is Mr. Sutherland to whom our gratitude is -due here, gratitude for having discovered for us all the details of the -poet’s life which it is necessary for us to know.[2] - -What, then, remains for any other critic to do? There remains to him, -as it seems to me, the task of doing what Mr. Clarke tells us he did -not propose to do, “of criticising these volumes,” and also of trying, -as befits one who comes later, and to whom, therefore, the events of -the past have fallen into that symmetry and proper proportion that the -events of the present can scarcely ever fall into: of trying, I say, to -bring out more clearly (one aspect of which he has done little more than -indicate), the real, deep, true significance of the poet’s work; in a -word, of trying to understand, instead of being “astonished” at it. - -The first thing to notice about Gordon’s poetry is, that it is almost -all in regular and rymed rhythms. There is not a line of blank verse in -it. Now, a “fine faculty” for regular and rymed rhythms is by no means -a synonym for a “fine lyrical faculty.” Shelley, our greatest master -in poetry of pure melody, has a “fine faculty” for regular and rymed -rhythms, but has also a fine faculty for irregular rhythms: lines in -which the regular rhythm is broken, in order that a more subtle melody -may be expressed, are frequent in him. In Mr. Swinburne such lines are -rare—he has a fine faculty for regular and rymed rhythms, but his faculty -for irregular rhythms is (let us say) less fine. Gordon, who is the -disciple of this first side of Mr. Swinburne’s technical talent, who, in -his turn, is a disciple of the first side of Shelley’s—Gordon, I say, is -in this respect to Mr. Swinburne what Mr. Swinburne is to Shelley. - -Mr. Hammersley, one of the few survivors of that peculiar phase of -colonial and Victorian feeling which produced the poetry of Gordon, and -who “may say he knew him intimately” —tells us[3] how he “was often -amused to hear him quote from the poets, and his recitations used to make -me laugh outright. One day I said, ‘Hang it, Gordon, you can write good -poetry, but you can’t read.’” What was the matter with his “reading,” -then? He used to “read” in “a sing-song fashion.” Mr. Woods, too, tells -us[4] that “Gordon had an odd way of reciting poetry, and his delivery -was monotonous; but,” he adds, “his way of emphasising the beautiful -portions of what he recited was charming from its earnestness.” Gordon’s -criticism on his own verses was: “They don’t _ring_ so badly after all, -old fellow, do they?” He had no faculty for irregular rhythms. He cannot, -then, be said to possess a “fine lyrical faculty;” he possessed a fine -faculty for regular and rymed rhythms. (As for his rymes, as rymes, they -are as a rule excellent, although there is often too little of the “poet -or prophet,” as he says, in them, and too much of the “jingler of rymes,” -the dealer in “verse-jingle chimes.”) Since, however, this faculty of -his is a fine faculty, it must not be described as (in the usual and -bad sense of the word) imitative. There are, I think, passages in him -that Byron might have written (“To my Sister”), that Lord Tennyson might -have written (“The Road to Avernus,” scene x.), that Mr. Swinburne might -have written (“A Dedication”), and the latter are frequent. In no other -poets, save Wordsworth and the earlier works of Mr. Arnold, do I find -precisely this same sort of (shall I say) parallelism of feeling and -expression on certain subjects that I do in Mr. Swinburne and Gordon. But -it is, I think, very open to question whether Gordon would have grown, -as Mr. Arnold has, into a purely distinctive style of his own. Gordon -is terribly lacking in variety: to live with a close study of him for -several days is one of the most trying of critical tasks. “My rymes,” he -asks— - - “My rymes, are they stale? If my metre - is varied, one chime rings through all; - one chime—though I sing more or sing less, - I have but one string to my lute.” - -I doubt, I say, whether under any circumstances Gordon would have -produced, as Mr. Hammersley thought, “poems worthy to be ranked with some -of the masterpieces of the English language.” He had not patience enough, -he had not clear-sightedness enough! “A more dare-devil rider,” says Mr. -Hammersley, “never crossed a horse.... As a steeplechase rider he was, of -course, in the very first rank, and his name is indelibly associated with -many of the most famous chases run in Victoria, although in my opinion, -and I think in that of many good judges too, he was deficient in what -is termed ‘good hands,’ and when it came to a finish was far behind a -Mount or a Watson.” (And, considering his shortsightedness, which Mr. -Woods designates as “painful,” this is not to be wondered at). It is the -same with his poetry. All in his poetry that is good has been done at -a rush; the rest is inferior, poor, and sometimes quite worthless. He -has little, if any, sense of real artistic workmanship either in whole -or in parts: “he is deficient in what is termed ‘good hands.’” Take, -for instance, his dramatic lyric, “Ashtaroth.” It is worth reading. -There are two beautiful songs in it, “On the Current,” and “Oh! days -and years departed.” There are a few fine passages, a few fine dramatic -touches, in it, and one splendid outburst of Orion’s (“I hate thee not, -thy grievous plight”), but the poem, taken as a whole is, I say, worth -reading. Many of the speeches are weak, and some are not poetry at all, -but rymed prose, and bad at that. A sustained effort, such as a piece -like this requires, was impossible to him. I say nothing of the ludicrous -attempt at an adaptation of Faust, Mephistopheles and Margarete, which -is the basis of the poem: I merely remark that, judged by its own poor -standard of judgment, it is quite a failure. Perhaps some day we shall -have a selection from the poet’s work, from which what is worthless will -be eliminated, in order that all our attention may be fixed on what is -good, and perhaps the selector will have the courage to dismiss all this -poem, save some dozen or so of extracts, into the gulf of oblivion or -an appendix. Encumbered as Gordon at present is with such an amount of -worthless work, there is a danger that much of what is good may perish -also. - -All his poetry that is good, I say, has been done at a rush. The dramatic -touches in it are as frequent as they are fine. Take, for instance, this -from the “Rhyme of Joyous Guard.”—Lancelot, old, worn-out, feeling that -“there is nothing good for him under the sun but to perish as” (his -bright past) “has perished,” is thinking of the close of his career -and Arthur’s: of the discovery of his amour with Guinevere, his siege -in Joyous Guard, his encounters with “brave Gawain,” whom he virtually -slew, and then “the crime of Modred,” and “the king by the knave’s hand -stricken”— - - “And the once-loved knight, was he there to save - that knightly king who that knighthood gave? - _Ah, Christ! will he greet me as knight or knave_ - _in the day when the dust shall quicken?_” - -This is splendid! And, as I have said, it by no means stands alone. As -a set-off against this excellence of his, is the defect of prolixity. -Byron had it, but Byron was an unsurpassed improviser, not an artist. -Like, too, his technical master of the “Poems and Ballads” when he gets -hold of a regular or rymed rhythm that pleases him, Gordon will go on -making it “ring,” listening as the “verse-jingle chimes,” till we are all -quite weary of it. He is regardless of what Goethe calls “the æsthetic -whole.” Indeed, it may justly be said that few, very few, of his poems -are “æsthetic wholes” at all, but only passages. - -So much, then, for the outward form of his poetry. We have now to -consider what is the significance to us of his life and work, of his -personality, and of his “criticism of life.” - -In the first place, let us begin by stating that Gordon _has_ a -personality. Mr. Hammersley tells us how “at times Gordon was the -strangest, most weird, mysterious man I ever saw, and I could not help -feeling almost afraid of him, and yet there was a fascination about him -that made me like to see him.” There was the fascination of his converse. -“He was one of the few men I have known in the colonies,” asseverates -Mr. Hammersley, “that never made me tire of listening to him.” And there -was the fascination of his individuality: “His wild haunting eye,” “a -look something like what is termed the evil eye.” (This reminds one -of what Mr. Clarke has to say about “the dominant note of Australian -scenery: Weird Melancholy.”) Mr. Woods’ whole article bears witness -to this personal fascination of Gordon’s. Well, it is the same in his -poetry: I mean, that it is the same as Mr. Hammersley _means_. There is -attraction in Gordon. We want to go to see anything that he has had to do -with. We seek out his grave and brood over it.[5] He is the Australian -fellow to Baudelaire and James Thomson, the last martyrs, let us hope, -to our terrible period of transition from the Old World into the New, -from Mediævalism into Modernity. There is attraction in Gordon. We should -like to have seen and known the original of Laurence Raby, of Maurice, -of the man of the “Sea-spray and Smoke-Drift,” and “Bush Ballads and -Galloping Rhymes.” He is an individuality, and a modern and a colonial -individuality. He looks at life as it is, not as it is represented. - - “In thy grandeur, oh sea! we acknowledge, - in thy fairness, oh earth! we confess, - hidden truths that are taught in no college, - hidden songs that no parchment express.” - -And, as for the pedants of the Old World, why! (as we know) - - “They are slow, very slow, in discerning - that book-lore and wisdom are twain.” - -Here, then, is the first charm in Gordon, and his work; they are -modern, they represent the main-current of the age, not some side-water -or back-water, that are perhaps nice enough in their way, but -still—side-waters or back-waters, and _only_ side-waters or back-waters. - -Gordon and his work are modern, but not wholly modern; he belongs, as I -have said, to a period of transition. Like Mary Magdalene, he feels that -“they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.” -He has lost the Old, and he has not won the New Faith. He is a poet of -the twilight and the dawn. “On this earth so rough,” he says, - - “on this earth so rough, we know quite enough, - _and, I sometimes fancy, a little too much_,” - -and so, we have to suffer! Burns, Byron, Leopardi, Heine, Musset, -Baudelaire, Clough, Thomson—greater and lesser, this is true of them all! -Their early life is embittered by it, their later life made desperate. -“Years back,” says Gordon, - - “Years back I believed a little, - and as I believed I spoke.” - -Years back he could utter prayer, years back when he was a child. He -cannot utter it now: “For prayer must die since hope is dead.” _Now_ he -can only wonder - - “Is there nothing real but confusion? - is nothing certain but death? - is nothing fair, save illusion? - is nothing good that has breath?...” - -“I can hardly vouch,” he says, again, - - “I can hardly vouch - for the truth of what little I see.... - On earth there’s little worth a sigh, - and nothing worth a tear.” - -But ah, - - “the restless throbbings and burnings - that hope unsatisfied brings, - the weary longings and yearnings - for the mystical better things.... - There are others toiling and straining - ’neath burdens graver than mine— - They are weary, yet uncomplaining— - I know it, yet I repine. - I know it, how time will ravage, - how time will level, and yet - I long with a longing savage, - I regret with a fierce regret....” - -We are sorely tired, “we, with our bodies thus weakly, with hearts hard -and dangerous.” - - “We have suffered and striven - till we have grown reckless of pain, - though feeble of heart, and of brain.” - -Who has expressed the malady of our time better? “Our burdens are heavy, -our natures weak,” he says again. We cannot escape from them: - - “Round about one fiery centre - wayward thoughts like moths revolve;” - -We cannot write a description of a horse-race without letting them come -in, without calling our description by a name expressive of them—“_Ex -fumo dare lucem:_” - - “_Till the good is brought forth from evil,_ - _as day is brought forth from night._— - Vain dreams! for our fathers cherished - high hopes in the days that were; - and these men wondered and perished, - nor better than these we fare; - And our due at least is their due, - they fought against odds and fell; - “_En avant les enfants perdus!_” - We fight against odds as well.” - -_Enfant perdu_: so the dying Heine calls himself. _Enfants perdus_, that -is what they were! The storms of our terrible period of transition raged -about them: “they could not wait their passing,” as Arnold says— - - “they could not wait their passing, they are dead.” - -“I am slow,” says Gordon, - - “I am slow in learning, and swift in - forgetting, and I have grown - so weary with long sand-sifting! - T’wards the mist, where the breakers moan - the rudderless bark is drifting, - through the shoals of the quick-sands shifting— - In the end shall the night-rack lifting, - discover the shores unknown?” - -The idea of killing himself seems to have been with him from almost the -first. It was not “bitter” to him: “man in his blindness” taught so; but, -to him that - - “mystic hour - when the wings of the shadowy angel lower,” - -was not without its charm. “When I first heard the sad news,” Mr. -Hammersley tells us, “I was not the least surprised. I really expected -that what did happen would happen.” We all know Gordon’s poem, “De Te.” -The last two verses of it are the best criticism that we have to offer -“of him,” “found dead in the heather, near his home, with a bullet from -his own rifle in his brain:” - - “No man may shirk the allotted work, - the deed to do, the death to die; - at least I think so—neither Turk, - nor Jew, nor infidel am I— - And yet I wonder when I try - to solve one question, may or must, - and shall I solve it by-and-bye, - beyond the dark, beneath the dust? - _I trust so, and I only trust._ - - “Aye what they will, such trifles kill. - Comrade, for one good deed of yours, - your history shall not help to fill - the mouths of many brainless boors. - It may be death absolves or cures - the sin of life. ’Twere hazardous - to assert so. If the sin endures, - say only, ‘_God, who has judged him thus,_ - _be merciful to him, and us:_’” - -And his work, his “criticism of life?” Is there nothing in it but -this “_trust and only trust_?” There is more, much more! “There is -plainly visible,” says Mr. Clarke, “a keen sense of natural beauty, -and a manly admiration for healthy living ... a very clear perception -of the loveliness of duty and of labour.” Let us see if this, too, is -so, or if any qualification of this remark is needed; and, if so, what -qualification. - -Gordon’s life and work were a failure. He himself would, I am sure, have -been the first to admit it and have assigned the cause, and rightly, to -bad luck in general and certain failings in himself in particular. Is it -not bad luck to be born into an age that makes of its poets its martyrs? -Gordon struggled and schemed. He was a livery-stable keeper, a landowner, -a member of assembly, a keeper of racehorses, and a failure in all. -It was only as jockey and stockrider that he was a success—that is to -say, an object of admiration to others and of happiness to himself. “He -sometimes,” says Mr. Woods, “compared the lot of a bushman with that of -other states of mankind, saying that it was in many ways preferable to -any one,” and for himself he was right. Let us not lament his failure in -what he was not meant to be a success. Gordon, happy in life and love, -might well have become at best a _dilettante_, at worst a materialized -blockhead, he has so little patience, so little clear-sightedness! -Perhaps it is, after all, better as it is. The axe cuts down the sandal -tree, and the tree sheds forth its perfume. - - “Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought.” - -We love a poet more for what he has suffered than what he has done, and -yet ultimately, if we will only see it, what he suffers and what he does -are the same. As boys we love our Byron and our Shelley; as men our -Goethe and our Shakspere. Gordon, I say, as poet and failure is better -than prose-man and success. But see now what he has to say about this -life in which he failed so. - -Firstly, there is all the doubt and bewilderment of a period of -transition: - - “We are children lost in the wood.” - -“Lord,” prays this woman that loves Laurence Raby, - - “Lord, lead us out of this tangled wild, - where the wise and the prudent have been beguiled, - and only the babes have stood.” - -Meantime, - - “Onward! onward! still we wander, - nearer draws the goal; - Half the riddle’s read, we ponder - vainly on the whole.... - Onward! onward! toiling ever, - weary steps and slow; - doubting oft, despairing never, - to the goal we go!” - -To what goal? Well, - - “The chances are I go where most men go.” - -Let us leave the rest with God—God whose “dealings with us” are -unfathomable, God who is “fathomless.” Thus he achieves his resignation. -But he never blinds himself to things; he never answers “the painful -riddle of the earth” by “stopping up his mouth with a clod” (as Heine -says). This world is a - - “world of rapine and wrong, - where the weak and the timid seem lawful prey - for the resolute and the strong.” - -Sometimes there rises in him the - - “wail of discordant sadness for the wrongs he never can right,” - -for the brothers, and ah for the sisters, he cannot help. But sometimes, -also, he bursts forth into “a song of gladness, a pæan of joyous might.” -Both are in him: the wail for the lost Lord and the thanksgiving to God -for his “GLORIOUS OXYGEN.” (The capitals are his own.) With the first, we -have done: let us look at the second and see what he has to show us of -living and loving, of action and women, and then see what he has to show -us of life as a whole, “the conclusion of the whole matter.” - -I have said elsewhere that there is in Gordon the cheer and charge of our -chivalry. There is. He was well worthy of a place in the charge of our -cavalry at Waterloo, or Balaclava. There is in him that “magnificence” -which now, alas, as the Frenchman truly said, “is not war.” These men -“glory in daring that dies or prevails.” And when, as at Balaclava, they -die, their poet exclaims (in capitals)— - - “not in vain, - as a type of our chivalry!” - -What exclamations of rapture such a sight draws from him! - - “Oh! the moments of yonder maddening ride, - long years of life outvie!... - God send me an ending as fair as his, - who died in his stirrups there!...” - -Here is a race:— - - “They came with the rush of the southern surf, - on the bar of the storm-girt bay; - and like muffled drums on the sounding turf - their hoof-strokes echo away.” - -I know no poetry that describes the rush of horsemen quite as Gordon -does. Take this description of the Balaclava charge from his “Lay of the -Last Charger.” - - “Now we were close to them, every horse striding - madly;—St. Luce pass’t with never a groan;— - Sadly my master look’d round—he was riding— - on the boy’s right, with a line of his own. - - “Thrusting his hand in his breast or breast-pocket, - while from his wrist the sword swung by a chain, - swiftly he drew out some trinket or locket, - kiss’t it (I think) and replaced it again. - - “Burst, while his fingers reclined on the haft, - jarring concussion and earth-shaking din, - Horse counter’d horse, and I reel’d, _but he laugh’t,_ - _down went his man, cloven clean to the chin_!” - -Lord Tennyson has watched his charge through Mr. Russell’s field-glass, -and we follow his view of it, but Gordon has ridden it and takes us with -him. Old and miserable, the friend of the man who had ridden this “Last -Charger,” offers up the same prayer as the man who had “visioned it in -the smoke:” - - “Would to God I had died with your master, old man,” - -for— - - “he was never more happy in life than in death.” - -What I find so admirable in Gordon, and in almost all his characters is, -that they are _men_, I mean _men_ as opposed to dreamers or students. -His Lancelot _is_ Lancelot, the knight who has lived and loved largely. -Tennyson’s is not. I must confess that I really think that “The Rhyme -of Joyous Guard” is worth all the other “Idylls of the King,” save -“Lancelot and Elaine,” and “The Passing of Arthur,” put together. I mean -that I really think it has more real deep true significance. Take this -conclusion, the last prayer of Lancelot, old and passed from the world: - - “If ever I smote as a man should smite, - if I struck one stroke that seem’d good in Thy sight, - by Thy loving mercy prevailing, - Lord! let her stand in the light of Thy face, - cloth’d with Thy love, and crown’d with Thy grace, - when I gnash my teeth in the terrible place - that is fill’d with weeping and wailing.” - -This is splendid! His men, I say, are _men_, men such as we find in -Byron. Orion (Satan) says that - - “The angel Michael was once my foe; - _He had a little the best of our strife,_ - _yet he never could deal so stark a blow._” - -The lover in “No Name,” thinking of meeting “the slayer of the soul” he -loved, says: - - “And I know that if, here or there, alone, - I found him fairly, and face to face, - _having slain his body, I would slay my own,_ - _that my soul to Satan his soul might chase_:” - -a remark in the strain of Heathcliff. Most of his lovers love -passionately and sensuously, and only passionately and sensuously: The -poet “revels in the rosy whiteness of that golden-headed girl:” if one -thing is harder to forgive to a successful rival than another it is that - - “he has held her long in his arms, - and has kissed her over and over again:” - -his chief regret over a dear dead girl is - - “for the red that never was fairly kiss’d— - for the white that never was fairly press’d:” - -and, when he leaves his love for ever, he is in anguish at the thought -that - - “’twill, doubtless, be another’s lot - those very lips to press:” - -a remark in the more morbid strain of Keats to Fanny Brawne. - -When Lancelot first kisses Guinevere, he, the mighty knight, “well nigh -swoons.” Love, with Gordon’s lovers, “consumes their hearts with a fiery -drought.” “Laurence,” says Estelle to her lover, - - “Laurence, you kiss me too hard:” - -and the man of “Britomarte” is at hand with the appropriate criticism that - - “men at the bottom are merely brutes.” - -But we must not think that _all_ Gordon’s lovers love in this way, any -more than that all his men merely charge and cheer. The battle is over. - - “And what then? The colours reversed, the drums muffled, - the black nodding plumes, the dead march and the pall, - the stern faces, soldier-like, silent, unruffled, - the slow sacred music that floats over all.” - -This is beautiful, and no less beautiful is the tenderness of his love. - - “A grim grey coast, and a sea-board ghastly, - and shores trod seldom by feet of men— - where the batter’d hulk and the broken mast lie, - they have lain embedded these long years ten. - _Love! when we wandered here together,_ - _hand in hand through the sparkling weather,_ - _from the heights and hollows of fern and heather,_ - _God surely loved us a little then._” - -Nor is it rare to find passages in him - - “with the song like the song of a maiden, - with the scent like the scent of a flower.” - -For “dark and true and tender is the north” with all its storm and stress. - -Poor “sick stock-rider” and poet, with his wild eyes and wild words, -and that “shyness and reserve which kept him locked up, as it were, in -himself!” Our proud, passionate heart “out-wore its breast” as “the -sword outwears its sheath,” and so we “took our rest,” but not before we -had won our resignation and known, or almost known, the truth, even as -Empedocles did, and yet died because “he was come too late”—or too soon— - - “and the world hath the day, and must break thee, - not thou the world.” - -Gordon won his resignation, and knew, or almost knew, the truth. The -“criticism of life” that we find in the first two scenes of “The Road -to Avernus” is almost ripe: pessimistic, it is true, but almost ripe. -Laurence has lost his love, (and Laurence, let us remember, is the lover -that “kisses too hard!”) Does he despair in the strain of “Rolla,” or -“bluster,” and take refuge in the breast of “the wondrous mother age,” -and the “vision of the world” in the strain of the man of “Locksley -Hall?” No, he has lost his love, and the loss is bitter, but - - “such has been, and such shall still be, here as there, in sun or star. - These things are to be and will be; those things were to be and are.” - -“As it was so,” he says again, - - “as it was so in the beginning, - it shall be so in the end.” - -There is the feeling here of a man who is striving to see things as they -are. He will not blind himself to things: he will not answer “the painful -riddle of the earth” by “stopping up his mouth with a clod.” He will have -true faith, or no faith. Fate rules us, he sees: - - “Man thinks, discarding the beaten track, - that the sins of his youth are slain, - when he seeks fresh sins, but he soon comes back - to his old pet sins again.... - Some flashes like faint sparks from heaven, - come rarely with rushing of wings; - We are conscious at times, we have striven, - though seldom, to grasp better things; - These pass, leaving hearts that have faltered, - good angels with faces estranged, - and the skin of the Æthiop unalter’d, - and the spots of the leopard unchanged.” - -And yet life, life as life, independent of living and loving, of activity -and women, is not altogether hopeless: - - “Doubtless all are bad, yet few are - cruel, false, and dissolute.” - -He never gets any farther than this. He sees, or almost sees, truth, as -Moses saw Canaan, and then he fails. He has not had patience enough, -not clear-sightedness enough! He cannot enter the Promised Land. “In -defiance of pain and terror he has pressed resolutely across the howling -deserts of Infidelity;” but he has not the strength left to do more -than reach “the new, firm lands of Faith beyond.” He has loved life, -living and loving, activity and women, and he has not feared to look -into the reality of things, man and Nature and God, their sunshine and -their shadow, their life and their death, and there is no hesitation in -his message to us—“Onward! Onward!”—But that is all. He knows nothing -of _how_ we are to go onward, or to _where_. He has had enough to do to -get himself as far as he has got, to achieve what he has achieved. His -life and work are a failure. We cannot for a moment think of calling -him a great poet: his claim on our interest as a poet is that he is one -of the poets, one of the martyrs, of our terrible period of transition, -and that in him is to be found “something very like the beginnings of a -national school of Australian poetry.” Of this second aspect of him—of -how he is representative of what I have taken to be the distinctive marks -of this Australian, this Melbourne civilisation, its general sense of -movement, of progress, of conscious power: of this aspect of him I have -spoken elsewhere, too, and there seems no need to do more here than to -repeat the assertion. But, for my part, I cannot lay the stress on either -this aspect of him, or the other which makes him “the poet of Australian -scenery,” that I do on the first aspect of him. Gordon’s life and work -are a failure, but they are a failure with enough redeeming points to -raise them from local, or even colonial, into general interest. As our -first and enthusiastic critic puts it: “he deserves to be ranked with -the genuine poets of his generation,” and I feel sure that he ultimately -will be. For he is representative not only of Australian, but of -modern feeling: he tells not only of Australia from the fifties to the -seventies, but of our terrible period of transition from the Old World -into the New, from Mediævalism into Modernity. - -Poor “sick stock-rider” and poet, with his wild eyes and wild words—Our -proud, passionate heart “outwore its breast,” as “the sword outwears -its sheath,” and so we “took our rest.” “Sleep!” says Mr. Swinburne, in -the most beautiful and satisfactory of his poems, “Ave atque Vale,” the -lament over another of the martyrs—the author of “Les Fleurs du Mal:”— - - “Sleep; and, if life were bitter to thee, pardon, - if sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; - and to give thanks is good, and to forgive ... - Content thee, howsoe’er, whose days are done; - There lies not any troublous thing before, - nor sight nor sound to war against thee more, - for whom all winds are quiet as the sun, - all waters as the shore.” - - _January, 1885._ - -[Illustration] - - - - -THE SALVATION ARMY. - - -I. - -When a man speaks of Modern Europe, he is generally taken to mean the -Europe of steam and electricity. As a matter of fact, Modern Europe -really dates back to about the middle of the last century, when certain -ideas which we call “modern” first began to be promulgated. And these -ideas were not, as in this expression “Modern Europe” it is tacitly -supposed, merely scientific; they were not only concerned with steam and -electricity; they were social. And thus, when we use the expression, -if we are to use it, in this particular sense, we should remember that -it means, not only that the whole world is netted with railways and -telegraphs, but also that, speaking generally, the European races are -no longer governed by kings or aristocracies, but by middle-classes or, -as some prefer to put it, by peoples. And this, as I take it, is far -the more important fact of the two. I will go further, and say that it -is the most important fact of our civilization—nay, that it _is_ our -civilization, and that, therefore, whoever would seek to understand the -meaning of any movement, great or small, which is taking place in our -civilization, must seek it here, and here only! Our civilization is our -government by the Middle-class or, as some prefer to put it, by the -People. But that these individuals who prefer to put it so are, let us -say, if not mistaken, at any rate inaccurate, is precisely what I want -in this little article to try to show, and in as striking a manner as I -can, so that, not only may I try to do something towards making clear -to us the real deep true significance of a much misunderstood movement, -but also that of a much more misunderstood power—the Middle-class of the -European races. I do not propose to go through my subject thoroughly: to -do so would require more time and more space than any editor could afford -me. I shall merely touch on one phase of the great spiritual movement -which is at present permeating the European races, and then turn to -consider another phase of it—a phase which is of peculiar interest to us -of England, America, and Australia. - - -II. - -In Europe there is but one country that still suffers the despotism of -an aristocracy, and that country is Russia. The modern ideas, the modern -social ideas, have taken all this time to pass from France, Germany, -and England into Russia, and have seized on what, for lack of a better -word, I might call, its nascent middle-class. The results have been, and -still are, wonderful and terrible. A group of men (for they are little -more) has suddenly realised that the immense mass of the People is being -despotised over in the interest of a group in reality little larger than -itself. All, I will not say freedom, but possibilities of freedom are -resolutely withheld. Russia at present has not the guaranteed protection -of its men’s and women’s liberties which the English of the fourteenth, -the thirteenth, the twelfth, the eleventh, the tenth centuries had! -This to-day is a state of things which cannot continue. The group of -men who see and feel this, not clearly and quietly as we outsiders can, -but intensely and passionately, is waging a duel to the death with the -other group, with the despotism, for the bare principles of freedom. -On the one hand are knowledge and light, on the other ignorance and -darkness, the modern against the ancient spirit. But, thanks to the -fact that there are men whose whole interest is to resist the one and -support the other to the last, the light has become lightning and not -only irradiates but strikes. It is considered by some a question whether -this despotism, armed with all resources of wealth and military power, -will be able to stamp out this group before the immense mass of the -People is awakened to the meaning of it all. Others, however, merely -consider whether the Russian government will be destroyed by a revolution -or constitutionalized by a reform. We English, you see, consider it all -clearly and quietly as mere outsiders, and so, as regards the _aspect_ of -the problem, we are; but not, not as regards the problem itself! These -modern ideas, these social ideas, are working not only in Russia, where -the abuses which surround them make them burn so fiercely, but more or -less all over Europe, and in England rather more than less. Ireland, -we all see, smoulders with them. And why, pray? Because England and -Ireland are always snarling at one another, “it being their nature to?” -Not so. It is because that aspect of the problem which is presented to -Great Britain generally is a little more pressing in Ireland than in -England or Scotland. The trouble in Ireland is not national but social. -The strife is not between Irish and English: it is between peasants and -landlords. Unhappily many landlords are English: unhappily many peasants -believe that the English as a nation support the landlords as a class. -Hence whatever Irish hatred of England there may be; but the trouble is -not, I repeat, national, it is social. It is the People rising against -the Middle-class. - -Well, this movement, whether it be in Russia, in England, in Germany, -in France, in America, we are all pretty well agreed to call the -Socialistic movement. It represents the effort of the People after social -improvement. It took its rise not from _within_ the people, but from -_without_. The French, English, and German Socialists were originally -groups of men who suddenly realized that the immense mass of the People -was being despotized over in the interest of the Middle-class. Each -country has its peculiar aspect of this fact, but the fact is the same -in each. In France the Middle-class made and supported the Empire, and, -having stamped out the People’s wild attempt at power in ’71, made and -supports the Republic. In Germany—dismembered Germany—the problem was -pushed back before the apparently greater one of national unity, but now -it arises again and demands solution. In England the landed proprietors, -and still more the capitalists, are beginning to have qualms; but the -real struggle does not lie between them and the Socialists: they are but -overgrown individuals of a class. There will be no more Tories and no -more Conservatives: the future lies in the struggle between Liberals and -Socialists, the Middle-class and the People. - -This Socialistic movement, then, took its rise not from _within_ the -People but from _without_, and not in connection with Religion, the -great ally of the powers that were, the Middle-class, but on the whole -antagonistic to it. This movement took its rise in men of intellect who -had little or no care for Religion, and its tendency is intellectual and -careless of Religion. The Middle-class has shown nothing but dislike to -this movement: the Middle-class has understood enough of the ideas of -this movement to know that they are subversive of its own superiority. -As for the People, they have understood little or nothing. Socialists -tell them, what is indeed the truth, that they are the masters: -that to-morrow, if they pleased, they could send a parliament up to -Westminster that should dictate what terms they pleased to “their lords -and masters, the landowners and the capitalists.” The People does not -happily believe it. They are so hopeless: they have been deceived so -often by those who said they would help them. (Bill here, you see, with -a wife and six children, all living in a den that the Zoological people -would consider unfit for a hyena—Bill cannot be made to understand how -the question comes home to _him_!) Besides which, let us say it at once -and insist upon it, the People is the most long-suffering of all things: -it desires to despoil no man, it only desires the happiness which mere -food, clothing, and a house will give it. - -In this state of affairs—the powerlessness of the Socialists to bring -home to the People the great idea of social improvement—lie the causes of -the religious movement whose best-known and best representative is the -Salvation Army. - - -III. - -Consider it—first generally and then particularly. - -In Russia the People has religion and no freedom. In England the People -has freedom and no religion. (In both, let us add, the People has misery -unspeakable). The one question presses for solution in the one country, -the other in the other. The two most piteous spectacles in Europe are -the religious People of Russia, and the free People of England. The -Aristocracy which governs the one, the Middle-class which governs the -other, both are equally indifferent to the People. Add to the fact of -the utter want of religion of the English People (it is understood that -by People I mean the masses), the fact of their utter want of, I will -not say the comforts, but the necessities of life, and you have a field -for revolution such as nowhere else, I believe, presents itself save -in Russia herself.—I speak in the present, as if the problem presented -itself to me to-day just as it did years ago, and I am delighted to -notice that at last the English Middle-class is awakening to the fact of -the misery of the People, and also of the danger of letting that misery -continue. But it is quite a mistake to suppose that either the one or the -other is mitigated, not to say ended, or that it will be so for years to -come. - -Religion in England—and Religion has, inaptly enough, become a -synonym for Christianity, in which general sense of the term I use it -here—Religion in England, just like everything else, is conducted in -the interest of the Middle-class. Go into the London back-streets on -a sunday morning. You will find the men leaning against the walls, the -women at the doors, the children in the gutters. The public-houses, -you observe, are closed: the Middle-class does not like that the -People should be drinking beer and spirits while they themselves are -indulging in religious worship. Enter the church or the chapel. What are -the services like? We all know them—a performance on the part of the -choir, or a discreet, sibilant, half-articulate murmur on the part of -the congregation. The clergyman or minister reads out a portion of the -wonderful and beautiful history of Jesus in a fine meaningless monotone, -and “here endeth the second lesson.” But of the passion and the peace -of the Galilean story, what does _he_ know? He has forgotten or never -known Jesus, but he can tell you plenty about Christ. Listen to the -sermons. What do they treat of? Matters that are likely to interest the -men and women outside there? The sermons are empty of Jesus and full -of Christ—empty of the truth of the Master and full of the dogmas of -the Pupils. Theology, theological dogmas, Catholic or Protestant, are -perhaps interesting to men and women who are well to do, and like to -have something to argue about; but what does poverty care for them? The -man who has eaten a good breakfast and is waiting for a good dinner may -care to have it shown to him, that he and his fellows are the one body -of Christians that is absolutely and entirely orthodox; but the man with -an empty belly, and little or no prospect of filling it, may perhaps be -forgiven for not caring a jot whether these are blasts of true or false -doctrine, or not. The matter does not affect him: he stops outside. So -should we. - -Now, I would not for a moment imply that there are not priests, -clergymen, and ministers who have done, and are doing, fine and noble -work among the People. There are many such. But what I do say is, that, -speaking generally, the church and the chapel have both utterly failed -to seriously affect the mass of the People, and that they have done -so for the reasons I have given above.—“In the year 1865,” says Mr. -Booth in one of the Salvation Army pamphlets, “Mr. Booth was led, by -the Providence of God, by no plan or idea of his own, to the East of -London, where the appalling fact that the enormous bulk of the population -were totally ignorant and deficient of real religion, and altogether -uninfluenced by the existing religious organizations, so impressed him -that he determined to devote his life to _making_ these people _hear_ -and _know_ God, and thus save them from the abyss of misery in which they -were plunged, and rescue them from the damnation that was before them. -The Salvation Army is the result.” _The Salvation Army is the result._ He -simply states the fact. It was “by no plan or idea of his own.” He has, -so far as I know, never explained more than the phenomena of it.[6] I -have talked with one of his sons on the subject, and all he has to tell -me in explanation of 859 corps or stations, 2041 paid officials, and -_War Cry_ newspapers with a weekly circulation of 550,000, is _how_, as -he takes it, the Salvationists “get at” the People; but he knows, and -probably cares, absolutely nothing about the _why_. “The grate was set,” -I say, “You were the match, and behold the fire!” “It is the Lord,” he -says, and I do not think of contradicting him. It is not natural that a -man who takes part in a movement should know more than the _how_ of it, -should know the _why_. If he did, he would not be as unhesitating as he -is in his belief that his movement is so good. To achieve little we must -aim at much. He who lives passionately in the present must leave the dead -to bury their dead and the babes unborn to consider their suckling: he -must create, he has not time to criticise. At the same time how important -it is that there should be not only doers but watchers; not only creators -but critics; not only those who concern themselves with the _how_ but -also those who concern themselves with the _why_, for the _why_ unlocks -the gates of both the past and the future: it tells us not only the -_whence_ but also the _whither_. - -Now, as I have said, in a certain state of affairs which we have noticed -lies _this why_, and there, if we can only look well enough, we shall -find it. The Salvation Army is, like everything else an organism. It -has its seed, and all its stages of development up to its maturity and -down into its decay, when it, too, like everything else, will go to form -nutriment for other organisms, just as others have for its own. - -Now, nothing will help us more in our search after this _why_ than a -knowledge of the _how_, and, since this knowledge is, at any rate among -the governing classes, wonderfully limited, I propose giving a short -account of how the Salvation Army and its work has struck me personally. -It seems almost needless to state that I am an unprejudiced observer. -The Salvation Army, as the Salvation Army, is literally nothing to me: -my only interest in it lies in the influence which it exerts, whether -for good or evil, on the People. I have no cause to plead. If anyone can -point out mistakes of mine, or even demonstrate to me that my whole view -of this matter is an illusion, no one, I am sure, will be more pleased -and grateful than myself. Those are our real benefactors who demonstrate -to us an illusion and open the way to a better view of things. - - -IV. - -I propose, I said, giving a short account of how the Salvation Army and -its work has struck me personally. When I was in England I studied it, -as I study all movements that are going on around me, with more or less -care. Since I have been in Australia I have done the same, and, as I have -found the differences between the English and Australian Salvation Armies -to be immaterial ones, and as I am now addressing an Australian audience, -I shall speak of the Salvation Army as I have seen it here, so that he -who cares may go and see for himself whether I am correct or incorrect in -my view of it. This, too, will enable him more easily, if he desires it, -to point out my mistakes and even demonstrate to me that my whole view is -an illusion, and make me his pleased and grateful debtor for life. First, -however, let me just notice what these differences between the English -and Australian Salvation Armies are. In one word the Australian is less -exaggerative. The People in Australia breathes free: it does not feel -the weight of the two great divisions of the Middle-class that is above -it, the well-to-do and the gentlemen. Workmen here do not go slouching -down the streets, as they do in England, crushed under the sense of -their inferiority. This is a true republic, the truest, as I take it, -in the world. In England the average man feels that he is an inferior: -in America he feels that he is a superior: in Australia he feels that -he is an equal. This is indeed delightful. It is the first thing that -strikes a new arrival in this country, and although Australia’s sins—sins -against true civilization, I mean—are as many as they are heinous, still -a multitude of them, as it seems to me, is covered by this—namely, that -here the People is neither servile nor insolent, but only shows its -respect of itself by its respect of others. Nowhere else but in France is -there, I think, anything quite like it. - -There is, then, naturally less exaggerativeness in the Australian than -the English Salvation Army. When a man is, as they say, “saved” there, -it is from a far deeper “abyss of misery” than it is here. The very -atmosphere of England is heavy with the degradation of the People. For a -man to become, no longer passively, but actively aware of this, is almost -overwhelming, and so is his feeling when he believes that he has escaped -from it. Hence those wild words and acts of the Salvationists which have -offended so many. Add to this the excitement caused by a large gathering, -religious emulation, etc., etc., and the matter is a simple one. - -Now let us go to a Salvationist popular service, and see their manner of -work there. The hall is crowded. The great bulk of the congregation is -made up of the upper stratum of the People, servants, small shopkeepers, -etc. There are also a not inconsiderable number of the lower stratum of -the People, labourers. Many outsiders have come from curiosity. On the -stage or platform are a certain number of the regular paid officials in -their uniforms, and of “hallelujah lasses” in their straight dresses -and poke-bonnets. Considering these men and women attentively, what -most strikes us is that the generality are, as Jeffrey said lightly of -Carlyle, “terribly in earnest.” Some have the business-like air of all -officials, religious or otherwise: some have a somewhat disgusted air, -as if they were rather wearying of it all, now that the novelty has worn -off. But the generality of them are, there is no doubt of it, “terribly -in earnest.” Presently the head officials enter, and the service is -opened with a hymn. The Salvationists sing well: I remember that, at the -first Salvationist service at which I was present, this singing of theirs -was something like a revelation to me. It was not its “go,” as we say, -that affected me: it was its depth and sweetness. It comes from the heart -and goes to the heart. This is the only language the People can either -use or understand. - -Just beside me a little boy of four or five, standing between his -father’s knees with shut eyes and waving arm, is shouting and bawling -out the words of the hymn, so that he may attract attention and be an -“edification.” It is painful. (Later on during a prayer he lies along -the floor on his stomach and eats a green apple and pinches a bigger -boy’s legs. Myself, I prefer him like that.) During the prayers there -are frequent interruptions, chiefly from the platform, of “Hallelujah,” -“Praise God,” and so on, for the most part in a business-like fashion, -quite formal. A man cannot repeat the same words and acts for long with -impunity.—These, and things like these, are the inevitable accompaniments -of all services, religious or otherwise. We take them for granted, and -pass on. - -Presently a man is brought forward to give his testimony. He begins by -saying that he never thought to address such a gathering as this, that he -is a poor ignorant man, and so on, but that he trusts in Jesus to help -him through alright. He tells his tale. It is a tale for ever old and for -ever new. He was a drunkard, he was debauched, a blasphemer. He used his -wife and children ill, he paid no heed to the clergyman and the minister. -Then a Salvationist came to him and told him about Jesus. And that -converted him, and now, etc., etc., etc. His excitement grows: his voice -rises to a high-pitched monotone. He implores, he begs, he entreats, he -abjures. “Come to Jesus, come to Jesus! It’s only him can make you happy! -You don’t know how he loves you!—O dear people,” he bursts out at length, -“I could _die_ for you, if you would only come to him!” In the end, it is -painful: the high-pitched monotone oppresses us, and we are glad when he -has ended. - -Another follows, but with little or no variety. Then a girl speaks, -“happy Janet” (say). She has just the same tale to tell: it is all Jesus, -nothing but Jesus! “To think,” I heard one of these girls say, hushed -and awed, “to think that the Son of God loved us so that he suffered all -this for _us_! To think of the thorns wounding his beautiful brow!” and -her voice broke.—Janet cannot say too much about the suffering of Jesus, -because it was because he loved us all so, that he suffered. Then she -tells how she had a brother, and the brother thought he was old enough to -be by hisself, and do for hisself, and he went away, away to Màn-chester, -and they were all very sad about it, e-specially mother. And the days -and the weeks and the months went by, and they never heard anythink -about him, and they went out and up and down the town, hoping he might -come back and they might see him again, for he might be ashamed, they -thought, to come into the house. And sometimes mother’d come to wake her -up early in the morning, and say: “Come, Janet, let’s go out and look for -Tom: maybe we’ll find him _this_ morning.” And they used to go out and -look for him in the early morning, and they couldn’t find him. But at -last he _did_ come back, and O, dear people, how thin he was! Yes, he’d -had enough of it! He found he couldn’t do for hisself after all, so he -came back to mother and us, and we loved him more than ever.—And O, dear -people, that’s the way with _us_ and Jesus. We think we’re old enough -to be by ourselves and to do for ourselves. But we ar’n’t: we’re never -old enough to do without Jesus! He’s always loving us and strengthening -us and giving us peace. So come to him; don’t wait any longer but come -to him! Don’t think you’re too wicked. No one’s too wicked for Jesus: -he suffered for us and he died for us, for _you_ and _me_, and he loves -us more than all the others do, and we can’t tell how glad it makes him -when we come to him! Here, as in the singing, it is not the “go,” the -excitement, which affects us most, it is the depth and sweetness. It -comes from the heart and goes to the heart. It is the only language the -People can either use or understand. - -_Jesus!_—It is always Jesus, I say, never or very rarely Christ. These -Salvationists feel and know their Master. With them he lives: with -us he exists. And Jesus is to them as some one dowered with all the -possibilities of mortal happiness who yet renounced everything from his -great love for the People, and suffered and died for them a cruel death. -Herein is the secret of the sempiternal influence of Jesus: he is the -great Lover. I do not for a moment think that these Salvationists have -any connected scheme of the character or life of Jesus. They cannot -argue about him, they would say: they know that he _lives_. They lay -little or no stress on the risen Jesus, the Christ. Their concern is -with the living Jesus, him who loved the flowers and the children and -the publicans and the harlots, him who showed his love by his life and -above all by his cruel death. This Jesus was not a philanthropist: he -was better, he was a lover. “He, who might have been a great king, -actually preferred to come and suffer and die a cruel death because -he loved us so!” This love, this pity seems to them unique, godlike. -“_To think of the thorns wounding his beautiful brow._” Hence the power -of Jesus to awaken in men a sense of sin, and, still more, a hope of -salvation. “Why,” they ask, “did this wonderful beautiful Jesus suffer -all this?—_why?_” Then comes the answer. “_Because he saw that I was a -sinner and he loved and pitied me so, that he suffered all this for my -sake._” It is an overwhelming fact. Once get a man to see it and his life -is revolutionised: he believes in Love. - -Napoleon, we remember, was puzzled by this sempiternal influence of -Jesus. He remarked that he himself understood how to awaken in his -own behalf the enthusiasm of men, but he was alive, whereas Jesus was -dead. “_O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and -stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered -thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her -wings, but ye would not!_” Yearning love like this was a mystery to -our wonderful destructive Emperor: he would have called it foolish. -And to many others beside him this sempiternal influence of Jesus has -been, is, and will be the same. Here is our good Man of Science, the -immortal dunce who dates knowledge from “Social Statics” and the “Origin -of Species,” who thinks Jesus was a very fine character, you know, but -full of superstition and delusion. And here is our most irrational of -Rationalists who has a pathetic faith in the method of the late lamented -Bishop Colenso, a method which consists in the profound consideration -of the geometry of the empyrean and the colour of mathematical figures. -And lastly, here is our dear blatant Secularist whose discourse so -pleasantly shows us how a man who was a blockhead as a Christian can be -doubly a blockhead as a Secularist.—Here, I say, are these three types, -or let us take them as individuals. Here is our good friend Mr. Caffyn, -who was writing such brilliant letters to the _Argus_ the other day, -letters which show a nice acquaintance with the books of Dr. Maudsley and -the rudiments of modern physiology; and here is the late lamented Sir -Richard Hanson of Adelaide, whose mantle is just now descending on Mr. -Justice Williams; and, lastly, here is our loquacious friend at the Hall -of Science, Mr. Joseph Symes. All these gather around the poor ignorant -labourer who is “saved,” and demonstrate to him his foolishness in -believing in such an outworn piece of nonsense as Christianity. “As for -this Jesus of yours, my good man,” they say after their several fashions, -“he was a very fine character, you know, but—_he was only a man just like -you or me_!” To whom the poor ignorant labourer answers with a smile: -“Whether he be a fine character or not, I know not: one thing I know, -that, _whereas I was blind, now I see_.” Come away, Mr. Caffyn: come -away, ghost of Sir Richard: come away, Mr. Symes. It is quite useless -to talk with a besotted Christo-maniac like this. Why, he absolutely -believes that he has a spiritual experience of which you are ignorant, -and can afford to smile at you! After this, the deluge!—Gentlemen, hadn’t -you better go home to dinner, and leave the poor devil alone? - -To return to the meeting, which is not yet concluded.—When the -testimonies are all given, those who feel that they have been leading a -life of sin are exhorted to come forward and profess. The hall empties. -Ten or twelve, men and women, young men and girls, come forward and -kneel down at a bench in front of the platform. Some are inclined to be -hysterical. The Salvationists, men and women, come and talk to them, -leaning against them, their arms round their shoulders, exhorting and -encouraging. This, you see, is Religious Socialism. No one can love -Jesus, “the divine Communist” (as Heine calls him), with impunity. If you -love, and to love is to know, Jesus, you must get others to love and to -know him, and your desire to get others fills you with the same yearning -love for them that Jesus has for you: “_O dear people, I could ~die~ for -you, if you would only come to him_!” - -Then, when no more will come forward, the service concludes with each of -those who is “saved,” speaking before them all—saying what has come to -him to make him repent, and expressing his firm determination to lead -a better life. The first step has now been taken—the man by his public -confession is compromised. He cannot now so easily fall back. He is known -to his fellows, who will exhort and encourage him. He has every incentive -to date a new life from to-day, not to put it off over and over again to -“to-morrow.” - -What, is all this, then, a trap? Yes, if you care to call it so. Men, -to whom the “saved” and the “unsaved” life, the bliss of heaven and the -anguish of hell, is a passionate reality, speak of it passionately to -the ignorant or the careless, and then (like true guilefully guileless -religionists) take advantage of the moment of realization which they have -aroused in a soul, to compromise that soul before the world to lead a new -life of continual realization. You see, these Salvationists are of the -men and women of the People and they know the men and women, not only -of the People, but of each and every class of us: they know how frail -is unaided resolution, and they act on their knowledge. Do not think, -though, that they believe that weakness of will is to be found only -among the People. Far from it! They attack Respectability, they attack -the hypocrisy of the Middle-class, as fearlessly as they attack the open -sin of the People. Our good clergymen and ministers, for whom I have, in -many respects, so much admiration, are afraid to attack the Middle-class: -the Middle-class is the payer of pew-rents. Alas, alas, ye cannot serve -God and Mammon! It is really a great nuisance; but ye cannot! Now these -Salvationists do not happen to have pews: so they need not stand hat -in hand before Respectability. They can say boldly that the Publican -is as good as the Pharisee: that hypocrisy is no better, if it is not -far worse, than open sin. Look, to it, my in-so-many-respects-admirable -clergymen and ministers, you are not masters here but pupils! - - -V. - -I am not going to discuss the question of Salvationist ritual. Brass -bands and concertinas give but a poor idea of “the beauty of holiness:” -a dissenting chapel does the same. Banners and handkerchiefs and so -on are apt to be tawdry: so are dressed statues, standards, incense, -and the rest. But who, considering the hideousness of Protestantism -and the tawdriness of Catholicism, would therefore call Protestantism -hideous and Catholicism tawdry? Certainly not I who am so sincere an -admirer of them both. Neither, then, considering what we hear called the -Christy-Minstrelism and Music-Hallism of the Salvation Army, must we -think that, when we have called their meetings Christy Minstrels or Music -Halls, we have quite disposed of them. Alas, my dear Middle-class, cannot -you see that the People is what you, who govern the People, have made -it? Might I, a humble unit of your millions, suggest to you that it is -just because, what you call, your Upper Ten Thousand is hideous that you -are more hideous? and that it is just because you, my dear Middle-class, -are more hideous that the People is most hideous? Will it be many ages, -I wonder, before you can be got to see this?—to see that you had better -take the mote out of your own eye before you are so enthusiastic about -taking the beams out of the eyes of your neighbours? - -If, however, anyone wants to see what Mr. Booth himself has to say -in defence of his “Colours, Bands of Music, Processions, and other -sensational methods employed” (as he says), I would refer him to a -little penny pamphlet called “All about the Salvation Army,” which -can be got at the Salvation Army Head-quarters in Russell Street. For -myself, I have nothing to do with this side of the question: I profess -that I consider most church-bells are as bad as most brass-bands, and am -profoundly indifferent as to whether they are, as Mr. Booth would like -to know, “unscriptural” or not. I am of opinion that the admirers of -church-bells and brass-bands had better fight it out among themselves. - -I have as good as said that what makes the outer strength of the -Salvationists is their realization of Jesus as liver and lover. Love, -yearning love, is undoubtedly the chief characteristic of Jesus. But, -just as the sun gives forth not only heat but light, so did he. His -life was love: his death was peace. “_My peace I leave with you._” And -it is just here, just in their realization of “the mildness and sweet -reasonableness” of Jesus that the Salvationists are apt to be lacking: -and it is just here that the Church of England more than any other -Christian sect is, as it seems to me, so strong. The _Hymns Ancient and -Modern_ are, on the whole, the best song-book extant of this “mildness -and sweet reasonableness.” We must not, however, think that this -demand for the peace as well as the love of Jesus is not recognised -by the Salvationists: it is, but I cannot think that it is recognised -adequately. As soon as a man is “saved” and has “professed,” there are -open to him, what they call, the Holiness Meetings. These are the answer -to the demand for peace. But they differ only particularly from the other -meetings. They are smaller, and hence quieter, than the others; but there -is, so to speak, too much heat and too little light in them. Here is the -weak point in the Salvationist movement, just as it is the strong point -in (I always take the best example our Christianity can give us) the -Church of England. Here it is the turn of the Salvationists to be not -masters, but pupils. Let us hope that they will see this, and not only -teach, but also (which is so much more difficult) be ready to learn from, -us. - - -VI. - -There are still two parts of the work of the Salvationists to -consider—their work with the inmates of the prisons, and their work with -the inmates of the brothels. Here again we have everything to learn -from them, from them the true disciples of “the divine Communist.” The -former work they have made a speciality of, and they are rapidly making -the latter. I doubt very much that our churches and chapels (I am not -speaking now of the Catholics, whose work is almost exclusively among the -Irish, and the Irish are of a race that, save in the matter of agrarian -crime and a curious cruelty to dumb animals, is truly admirable for the -honesty of its men and the chastity of its women): I doubt very much, -I say, that our churches and chapels will ever get much at either the -criminals or the prostitutes. Our clergymen, who are so gentlemanly, and -our ministers who are so respectable, can neither speak nor understand -much the language of the People, the language of the heart. The clergymen -are shocked by the foulness, the ministers by the ferocity, of the -People. Both feel that they are condescending—the one from the height of -refinement, the other from the height of righteousness. The people has no -love for condescension of this sort. There are few words that stink more -in its nostrils than that of charity, and indeed charity, when it means a -gift from a superior to an inferior, is hateful enough. It is a popular -delusion with the “charitable” that street beggars and the inmates of -the workhouses are the People. Far otherwise is it, O “charitable” ones: -these are not independent animals, they are parasites: they are (if you -will pardon me saying so) your spiritual lice; so please make the best of -them, since it is not only on account of, but _on_, you that they live. - -Well, now, wherein is it that these fanatical ignorant Salvationists _do_ -get at the People? One of them answers us at once: “_No one’s too wicked -for Jesus, and so no one’s too wicked for me who am the simple follower -of Jesus._ If _he_ could do with publicans and harlots, why cannot I?” -They say, as Walt Whitman says to “a common prostitute,” - - “Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you, - Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to rustle - for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you.” - -This, you see, is Religious Socialism. It proclaims the spiritual -equality of all men. The _spiritual_ equality, let us notice; it will -have nothing to do with the social equality. “_My kingdom is not of -this world.... Give unto Cæsar the things which be Cæsar’s, and to God -the things which be God’s._” “Honour all men,” says Peter, “love the -brotherhood, fear God, honour the king.” And more: Religious Socialism -has a tendency to be careless of the dogmas of the creeds. “Is the Army -hostile,” asks Mr. Booth, “to the existing evangelical denominations? -Just the contrary. Numbers of its converts go to swell the membership -of the churches. More than 400 persons, converted and trained in its -ranks, have been engaged by other different religious organisations -as Evangelists, Ministers,” etc., etc., etc. We notice that he says -“_evangelical_ denominations?” The Catholics, of course, from (who shall -I say?) Augustine to Pascal and Newman, are poor belated idolaters, only -slightly better than the heathen. This, you see, is where Mr. Booth, -like Mr. Spurgeon and the rest, so pleasantly shows us what nonsense an -earnest short-sighted man is capable of believing and brandishing about -the world with a godless blatancy. Personally, I cannot make myself angry -with any of them for it. For what would an earnest man be without his -faults? without, as D’Israeli puts it, a single redeeming vice? - -In Melbourne there is a tendency now to let the Salvation Army have its -own way unmolested with the criminals and the prostitutes. “It can’t -do any harm,” people say, “and it may do good, and really, you know, -the—the Social Evil wants looking to.” Nay, more: having made this -nice expression “Social Evil,” we are at last plucking up courage to -acknowledge that it exists, and that it is not necessarily a sign of -filthy-mindedness to wish to discuss it. We speak of it now in papers -which come under the eye of those dear creatures about whose stainless -purity of mind we are all so anxious (even that Puritanic print, the -_Melbourne Bulletin_ is anxious, and the _Sydney Bulletin_, also, for -all I know to the contrary)—“our wives and daughters.” Why, possibly -there are those among us who will live to see the day when the expression -“fearful sinner,” as applied to some poor girl driven out into the -miseries of the streets, will be confined to the utterance of our good -friends of the Scotch Presbytery, and other few such like. Then, it will -be amusing: at present, it is only detestable. - - -VII. - -Now let us go to the Barracks of the Prison Brigade, and see what has -to be seen there. The officials (all, I believe, old criminals) and the -men that they have just got hold of, are gathered for a sort of home -service. Man after man, boy after boy, rises to give his “experience.” -The “experiences” can be pretty easily imagined. Then there are hymns, -choruses, addresses by the higher officials present. All, or almost -all here, there is no doubt of it, are “terribly in earnest.” The -interruptions, “Hallelujah,” “Praise God,” and so on, are all earnest. -One boy with a maimed face gets up and says: “I was miserable in the -streets, I’m very happy now. God bless the Major,” and sits down again. -For me, I confess that, over and over again, I have not known whether -to answer the word and acts of these men, or shall I say children, with -smiles or tears. Now and then I have answered them with both. - -Afterwards we are shown the bedrooms, observing that we do not want -to see them. I have seen many bedrooms that were delightful, and many -keepers thereof whose hearts were as clean and hard as the floors. -Also I have seen bedrooms that were poor and crowded, and the keepers -thereof whose hearts were as rich as love and as soft as pity. I prefer -the latter, myself, if I must choose between them, but tastes of course -are different. Then the boy with the maimed face is brought in, to tell -his tale and show his wounded leg. The People like you to look at their -wounds and sores and casualties generally. It is painful. It is like the -young ladies of the Middle-class who like you to look at their drawings -and paintings, or listen to their playing and singing. I do not know -which habit is the more painful of the two—perhaps, on the whole, the -latter. The first only hurts my senses: the second hurts my soul. It -makes me lose hope in my ideas for the future of the Middle-class: it -makes me think it is doomed to the hideousness of clap-trap for ever. It -is like a visit to the sculpture at the Melbourne Public Library. - -They show us the rooms and bring us the boy, you notice, in that -practical English spirit which is intent on making it clear that their -cry is proportionate to their wool, a fact of which we are not altogether -ignorant. Hence our carelessness about more than a glance at the rooms, -or a short talk with the boy with the maimed face. I think I could tell -him as much about himself as he can tell me. I have known him many times -before. - -It is pleasing to notice here how much they insist on the new life, how -comparatively little stress they lay on the “conversion,” on the being -“saved.” Also, that the Salvationists know how to laugh. It is only men -who keep their religion for a fine heavy diet on sunday who cannot pray -at one moment and laugh at another. If my religion is a part of _me_, it -is also clearly a part of my laughter. - -Now let us go the rounds of the opium dens and brothels round about -Little Bourke Street. We walk, my Salvationist and I, into any house that -we wish. No one opposes us: only once in the whole evening are we spoken -to other than respectfully. “_You see_,” says the mistress of the most -facially contorted Chinee I have yet seen, “_You see, the Salvationists -helps the girls, that’s why we likes ’em!_” Here we are in a den, a girl -lying on one side of the bed (the Chinese beds are like large alcoves. -In the middle is the opium-tray, containing the pipe, a lamp, etc.), a -Chinee on the other, getting her pipe ready for her. We sit and chat -with her. She tells us about herself simply enough, showing no signs -of wishing to alter her condition. Then the other girl comes in, and -we chat with her. My Salvationist recognises her: she was at Bella’s -funeral. (Bella was a girl who fell down dead in the brothel opposite, -and the Army buried her. All “the girls” about clubbed together, hired -cabs, and went to the funeral.) “O yes,” says the girl to him, “you said -the service for Bella.” She too tells us about herself simply enough. -Her mother is at Ballarat.—“Does she know you’re here?”—“O yes, she -knows.”—“Does she think you’re in service?”—“O no, _she_ knows what I’m -doing;” and so on. Presently I go into the other room and talk pigeon -English with the remarkable spectacled Chinee, who is like a venerable -old ape. Why will the English girls come and live with the Chinese? The -answer is simple: the Chinese both pay them well and are kind to them. -These girls are not bruised on the face and arms as most of the others -are. - -You perceive now how the Salvationists work here? They are the “friends” -of the girls: they “help” them. Find out from a girl if she is miserable: -find out if she would sooner go back to a respectable life. Go everywhere -fearlessly: Find out if any girl is being detained against her wishes. Be -gentle with them as with equals. Make them feel that you care for them -for their own sakes. Work upon their feelings—speak of their home, their -mother, their father, their brothers, their sisters. Offer them a new -start. Then, the moment that of their own free will they are ready to -come, put them into a cab and drive straight away with them to the Home. -Here they come under the influence of the women officials of the Army, -(some of whom, however, also do visiting work), the same system being -pursued with them as with the men. They are not made to feel that they -are dealing with people more loftily refined or more loftily righteous -than themselves. They are not made to feel that they are “fearful -sinners.” They are made to feel that sin is fearful and that they have -sinned fearfully, but that they have every hope before them, hope of a -new life before God and man. As for the women officials of the Salvation -Army, I will say this, that in no body of female religionists, except -the Catholic Sisters, have I found so many sweet true women. I have also -known Anglican Sisters who were well worthy of a place beside them. -Such women are the essence of Christianity. They are the true children -of Mary Magdalene and Monica, of the love and of the affection of the -soul. Preference for any one of these three classes, there can be none. -I cannot exalt true love above true affection any more than I can exalt -heat above light: their joy is equal. But in one respect the Salvationist -women have an advantage over the others, just as the Salvationist men -have over the celibate priests—in just that, in the fact that they need -not be celibates. Many of these Salvationist girls and women are the -sweethearts or wives of their fellow-workers. This, I think, is as it -should be. He who neglects or despises that great law of Nature and God, -passion, will be assuredly punished for it. To make a large body of men -and women celibates is to put a premium on immorality and hypocrisy. This -great rock the Salvation Army has avoided, and herein it has done most -wisely. Here, where Rome is weak, it is strong. We must not, however, -think that there is nothing to be said in behalf of celibacy: there is -much, very much. If we were all men like Francis of Assissi or Vincent -de Paul, it would be perfect; but unfortunately we are not. At the same -time, he who has seen the work of Catholic priests and of Protestant -clergymen or ministers in times of plague and pest must feel how great -a clog to perfect courage are those hostages a man has given to fate in -wife and children. On the other hand, observe that times of pest and -plague are comparatively rare, and that every great idea when put into -practice is but a mixed good. What we have to do is to choose that which -has least evil, or shall we say most good, and this can, we feel sure, be -only chosen in conformity with all of those few great primeval laws which -are the guides of life, which are the direct words of Nature and of God. - - -VIII. - -So much, then, for the _how_ of the Salvation Army. Let us now consider -if it has helped us to the _why_—nay, if it has not absolutely told us -the _why_! Did we not instinctively catch at something we saw two or -three times rising before us as with small but teleological significance -in it? Did we not feel, as we uttered that expression with which this -something inspired us, that here was the _why_ in propria persona? -_Religious Socialism._ - -In this state of affairs—the powerlessness of the Socialists to bring -home to the People the great idea of social improvement: in the misery -unspeakable of the People; in the atmosphere heavy with the degradation -of the People—what is it that the People has done? _It has evolved a -movement_, _no longer from_ without, _but from_ within _itself_. _It has -sought for consolation for its unspeakable wretchedness in the perennial -spring of Religion, of the yearning love of Jesus. It has, at the touch -of the first match that came to it, blazed up into the flaming fire of -Religious Socialism._ - -In the early part of the thirteenth century the People did the same, the -People of Italy. But what a heaven lies between the man who led _that_ -movement and the man that is leading this! O my eloquent Rationalists, O -my loquacious Secularists, both of you whom I esteem so much—how ready -are you to talk of the degradation which that gigantic superstition and -delusion, Christianity, wrought upon the People! Whenever are you tired -of brandishing “starry Galileo” and scattering the scattered dust of -poor old Copernicus in the face of Catholicism, making it to tremble and -sneeze fearfully? Does it never occur to you that that divine Goddess -Scientia, whom you worship with such noble devotion, has wrought a -far deeper degradation on the people than Catholicism ever did? Have -you never seen, crouching under the shadow of your railways and your -telegraphs and all your improved machinery, the unspeakable wretchedness -of London, of Birmingham, of Manchester, of Glasgow? And now that this -People, whose lives your Goddess has made of such a sort that they will -not stand too favourable a comparison with those of dogs—now that this -People, in its passionate searching after some consolation, however -slight, of whatever sort, seizes on this creature of superstition and -delusion, this Jesus who is _only a man, just like you or me_, and -whom you have so triumphantly proved so, and makes him the text for -this flaming fire of Religious Socialism—has it never struck you, O my -eloquent Rationalists, O my loquacious Secularists, what an appalling -difference there is between Salvation Army banners, handkerchiefs, -brass-bands, and concertinas, and the “green boughs, flags, music, and -songs of gladness” that came forth from the Umbrian towns and villages -to welcome Francis of Assissi? have you never felt that there is any -essential difference between the perpetual Revivalist hymn of “My Jesus -to know and to feel his blood flow,” and the “Canticle of the Creatures?” -But, above all, have you never felt that it is more to that divine -Goddess Scientia, whom you worship with such noble devotion, than to -anything else that this appalling difference is due? - -And you, O my Middle-class, of whom I am so humble a unit, did it -ever occur to you that it is rather a foolish thing to paint a boy’s -face black and then be shocked at it? If the People, its foulness and -its ferocity, makes you shiver and shudder, who pray made it foul and -fierce but you who govern it?—What do you say? “It was no business of -yours?” That was what Cain said, but respectable Christians like you -are not surely going to take that eminent casuist as your mouth-piece? -If you were Atheists or Agnostics, now, worshippers of “the struggle -for existence and survival of the fittest,” of course that would be -another matter, but you are Christians, respectable Christians who -always wear black coats on Sundays, and object to having the Library and -Picture-Gallery open. - -Well, there! I cannot make myself angry with you, my dear Middle-class. -I admire your good qualities too much for that—too much indeed, as I -often tell myself; for who shall say but that my belief in your ultimate -regeneration and new birth unto a really glorious place in a true -civilization be not, after all, but infatuation? Here is Carlyle, whom -we all love and admire so, trying to be our benefactor by demonstrating -to us our illusions on this matter, and telling us, ever since 1830, of -the “steady approach of democracy with revolution (probably explosive) -and a finis incomputable to man; steady decay of all morality, political, -social, individual; this once noble England getting more and more -ignoble, and untrue in every fibre of it, till the gold (Goethe’s -composite king) will all be eaten out, and noble England will have to -collapse in shapeless ruin, whether for ever or not none of us can -know.” Really there are hours when I am made quite to suffer by thinking -of what is going to happen to my dear Middle-class when the People rise -unanimously against it,—“roaring million-headed unreflecting, darkly -suffering, darkly sinning ‘Demos’” (as Carlyle says again), “come to call -its old superiors to account at its maddest of tribunals.” It will, I -fear, be little good for the Mr. Caffyns of those times to write letters -to the _Argus_ of those times, explaining the physiological aspects of -the movement. On such an occasion in Paris, in 1793, Mr. Caffyns went up -into the arms of La Guillotine for much less heinous offences than that, -and who would be left capable of recording whether, in this case, they -went up “with a tripping movement” (as Mr. Caffyn tells us the fanatical -“Hallelujah lasses” go), or whether they marched, as perhaps Mr. Caffyn -himself marches to church or chapel every Sunday morning, to the -edification of all beholders? But let us not think of such an appalling -spectacle. Mr. Caffyn is still with us, and the _Argus_ is still with us, -and perhaps some morning we shall have some more brilliant letters on the -physiological aspects of Mr. Caffyn’s friends, the hallelujah lasses. - -I cannot, I say, make myself angry with you, my dear Middle-class of -England (and you might plausibly suggest that it would not matter much if -I did), and how then shall I even frown at this Middle-class of Victoria, -about whom (if Carlyle is right) I am more infatuate still? Does not -the People breathe free in Australia? Are we not liberated here from -that charming “Upper Ten Thousand” which monopolises the best of the bad -education England has to offer, the Public Schools and the Universities? -Is there not a hope that, now that the primary education of the People is -progressing so satisfactorily, some of our young rising politicians, (or -even some of the old ones), may bring home to us the fact that we want -equally—nay, far more!—a secondary education for the Middle-class? so -that Victoria may step forward as a competitor with the most universally -civilized nation in the world, France, and teach England the unspeakable -glory and advantage of (we should call it) an Upper-class, “homogeneous, -intelligent, civilized, brought up in good public schools” (and not, -as now, in more or less good, or more or less bad, denominational, and -“private adventure” schools) “and on the first plane.” - -If only this Upper-class of Victoria and of Australia generally could be -brought to see it! If only it would confess its sins, many and heinous, -against true civilization and be “converted” and lead a new life! -Nothing, I think, strikes an Englishman more, coming out here, than the -brightness and intelligence of the Victorian girls! (“Our daughters,” you -know.) And how heart-rending to discover that all this brightness and -intelligence is wasted on the mere accidents and incidents of every-day -existence! Two-shilling novels are her idea of literature: “Some day” and -“Ehren on the Rhine” her idea of music: the coloured illustrations of the -illustrated papers, her idea of art. And her brother is in a worse state! -The tortoise English girl is, after all, better than the Australian hare, -and the young male bull-dog than the kangaroo. - -Everything cries out for the education, for the civilization, of the -Upper-class, the ruling class. Educate it, civilize it, let it know what -Truth is and what Beauty is, and abolish the bells and the brass-bands -for ever! If the Upper-class is beautiful, its beauty will react on -the Lower-class. Give us public schools for the Upper-class, as there -are public schools for the Lower-class. Fight tooth and nail against -any attempts after an “Upper Ten Thousand,” whether it be of land or -of wealth. Keep clearly before us the ideal of an Upper-class that -is _homogeneous_. Let us have the man of business as cultured as the -professional man, and the professional man as cultured as the man of -means. Let us be a true Republic, offering every opportunity to the -intelligence of the Lower-class to attain to the culture of the Upper. -Let us not have ten thousand aristocrats, but ten hundred thousand, -ever more and more, and never less and less! On the other hand, let us -learn from the People the great lesson which they have to teach us—the -lesson of the language of the heart. Let us learn from them the softness -of pity, yea and the richness of love. Let us give them our _Social -Socialism_ and let us take their _Religious_; for, in the perfect -marriage of light and heat, is the perfect day, the true civilization, -the beauty of the truth of Nature and of God. - - _February, 1885._ - - - - -SYDNEY AND HER CIVILIZATION, AS THEY STRIKE AN ENGLISHMAN. - - -It was in 1770 that Cook entered the bay to which he gave the name of -Botany: in ’88 that Philip landed in Port Jackson with his convict -settlement: in 1849 that the settlers refused to receive any more -convicts: and in ’56 that the settlement was acknowledged as a colony -and dowered with a constitution. These few facts have a very different -significance to those which correspond to them in the history of -Melbourne. The epithet phenomenal cannot be applied to the former in the -same sense as to the latter; nor yet, let us hasten to add, the epithet -premature. English people, who carry to a quite quaint degree their -modern representative poet’s dislike of - - “Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay,” - -find Melbourne “too American,” as they say, and reserve all their praise -for “picturesque Sydney” and the harbour about whose description Mr. -Trollope went (as we are all never likely to be able, at any rate in -Sydney, to forget) into diffuse despair. “The business thoroughfares,” -says a simple English traveller, “as well as the shops themselves, have a -far more English appearance than those of the capital of Victoria,” and -shuns all comment as superfluous. Let us not think of contradicting him. -That elemental characteristic of the British architect, “the impotence -to express anything,” is in no danger of disappearing in Sydney, nor -yet, let us again hasten to add, in Melbourne; but, if it be possible to -distinguish the matter thus, I should say that in Sydney he had found his -happy hunting-grounds, whereas in Melbourne he was just beginning to feel -that there was a rival about. - -No, it is just where Sydney is _un_-English that she has charm. I do -not now refer to her natural position, nor to her age—age which will -tone down, and perhaps some day almost mellow, the masterpieces of even -the British architect. I refer to those buildings in the town, few and -far between enough, it is true, in which the Sydney perception of its -individual life has striven to express itself. The Sydney perception of -its individual life is not strong. As a local guide-book puts it more -particularly, “in the nomenclature of the streets Sydney shows intense -loyalty, and the lover of history will be delighted by the associations -which some of the names will summon to his memory. For instance, his -historical predilections will be gratified in noticing that the principal -street is named after George the Third, during whose reign the colony -was founded.” Of course, when the local guide-book tells us that a thing -is so, it _is_ so; and when it says that our predilections, historical -or otherwise, will be gratified and delighted, they _are_ gratified and -delighted. But these Sydney men and women, with their intense loyalty, -or rather what the writer in the local guide-books means thereby, have -not, what we called, the metropolitan look—have not the metropolitan -feeling. Mr. Marcus Clarke, in the cleverest and also the most fantastic -of his clever but often fantastic criticisms, “The Future Australian -Race,” says boldly: “It is more than likely that what should be the -Australian Empire will be cut in half by a line drawn through the centre -of the continent.... All beneath this line will be a Republic, having -the mean climate, and, in consequence, the development of Greece. The -intellectual capital of the Republic will be in Victoria; the fashionable -and luxurious capital on the shore of Sydney Harbour.” Then he adds that -“the Australians will be a fretful, clever, perverse, irritable race,” -showing us what, under all their superficial differences, the people of -Victoria and of New South Wales have, he thinks, in common. I do not -believe that the whole secret of the matter is here laid open before us. -Mr. Marcus Clarke had an admirable acuteness of perception, but he was -apt, having swiftly perceived one aspect of a thing, to write it down -at once as _the_ aspect without staying for a second or third look at -the thing itself. The consequence is that he rarely reaches the whole -secret of a thing: witness, for instance, his view of Christianity, -(but Mr. Arnold notices how even a critic of Sainte-Beuve’s calibre was -capable of illusion here), or of the significance of Gordon’s poetry, -which I have spoken of elsewhere; and it is lamentable to think how much -of this false tendency in him was due to the circumstance that he was a -man of letters, and an Australian man of letters. I do not believe, I -say, that, when he tells us that the really distinctive characteristic -of Sydney is (for “will be” is only “is” unmaterialized) fashion and -luxury, and Melbourne intellect, he has laid open before us the _whole_ -secret of the present tendencies of these cities, or yet when he sees -them united with the common characteristics of fretfulness, cleverness, -perverseness, irritability. But here, undoubtedly, is one aspect of the -matter expressed admirably. The men and women of Sydney do not live so -fast mentally as the men and women of Melbourne: they give more free play -to their emotional passions. As we say, they “take things easier.” They -cling to the past which Melbourne throws away: they consider the present, -which Melbourne has very little time for. Their attachment to “the old -country” is deeper; they have intense loyalty, as the writer in the local -guide-book says. They are much more possessed by the affairs of Melbourne -than Melbourne is about theirs. The _Sydney Morning Herald_ and the -_Sydney Mail_ do not hold the same position in Melbourne as the _Argus_ -and the _Australasian_ do in Sydney. The Sydney people are captious in -their criticism on the younger capital, just as Boston is on New York: -they talk about being “dragged at the chariot wheels of Victoria,” and -asseverate that they will not endure it. Melbourne people criticise -Sydney good-humouredly, and justly so, since in that aspect of them both, -which people seem to think is alone worth criticising, Melbourne is -undoubtedly far superior. Intellect in the modern world is the master: -emotion is the handmaid. Or, to put it in another way, our best average -work at present is being done in clear, nervous prose, while poetry is -praised and left to starve. Science is a better paymaster than Art, and -nearly all the best average intelligence of the world has turned to the -rising, and from the setting, sun. And Melbourne, I say, Melbourne with -her perception of movement, progress, conscious power, has out-stripped -this Sydney, whose perception of her individual life is so weak that all -she has to point to are her natural advantages, her age, and the meagre -fact that her “business thoroughfares, as well as the shops themselves, -have a far more English appearance than those of the capital of -Victoria.” And yet, undoubtedly, Sydney has—or so it seems to me—a rich -and rare possession of her own, and one which is worth as much as that of -Melbourne, even as emotion is worth as much as intellect, as poetry is -worth as much as prose. And there are, as we know, good judges who would -change the “as much” into “more.” I, however, who have no pretentions -to be a good judge, and am, as an acute English critic of mine so aptly -put it once, only “Whitman and water:” I must still cling to the belief -that perfection is to be found, and only to be found, in the _union_ of -these two qualities—of emotion and intellect, of poetry and prose. Or, as -I said the other day,[7] true science (which is essentially intellectual) -and true faith (which is essentially emotional) are to be, as they must -be, harmonies, eternal harmonies, the “perfect music” and “noble words” -of truth. - -Well now, let us try and find out a little more definitely wherein -these men and women of Sydney, these who have not the metropolitan -look, the metropolitan feeling, show themselves, at any rate to the -disinterested seeker after a really fine civilization, as the equals of -our intellectual men and women of Melbourne. (“Intellectual,” we are -agreed, is here used as meaning that spiritual quality which is opposed -to emotional). First of all, however, let us examine this phrase of ours, -metropolitan look, metropolitan feeling, for fear it should be nothing -but a phrase, a mere catchword, and, as such, worthy only the places -where sawdust is stored. - -Nothing is more certain than that our individual lives form, if not our -faces, the expression of them. Our eyes and all the facial muscles are -at the command of our natural inherited dispositions as modified by the -circumstances of our lives. The average man who spends his days in the -open air in companionship with the inanimate things about him, or in -the settled intercourse of country life, married or single, will have a -quite different look, a quite different _tone_, from the man whose days -are passed in the brisk interchange of words and thoughts of the life -of the city. And how much will this difference be accentuated by the -fact that the city is a seat of large and intense ideas, that the very -air is impregnated with the passionate thoughts, words, and acts of the -whole civilized world! It is in such men that we find the metropolitan -look, the metropolitan feeling. Their faces seem stripped of all useless -flesh like the body of an athlete: their eyes are quick and clear, ready -servants of the quick clear brain behind them. This is what we call the -average intelligent man, the labourer of the past, the partner of the -present, the master of the future! Put this man, however, into a state -of stress, intellectual or emotional, in his business or in his private -life, and that fine nervous face of his will become lean and rigid, those -quick clear eyes hard and naked. And, just as it is the pleasure of -our civilization to see this man in the first stage, so is it the pain -thereof to see him, alas too often, in the second. These are the most -dread spectres that haunt metropolises: their anguish wrings the heart -with an intensity, with an abidingness that the sight of mere misery -brutal and degraded does not and cannot inspire us. London and New York -swarm with such, and our miniature Australian intellectual capital, too, -knows them only too well. They press the stamp of their struggle into the -very brow of their city. It is they who bring home to us the lean and -rigid, the hard and naked side of the best life of their city. While it -is to their successful brothers that we owe what of us is phenomenal, it -is to them, the unsuccessful, that we owe what of us is premature. They -are the men who have formulated that exceeding bitter cry of “_Cruel -London_.” Yes, London is cruel in this sense of the word, and so, to -a less degree (In a hundred years shall we be able to say this?) is -Melbourne. I do not think anyone would call Sydney cruel. - -“Well,” retorts the metropolitan, “perhaps not; but, on the other hand, -the provincial look, the dull look of intellectual death, is far more -common with such towns than with us. For me, I would sooner have heaven -with hell than purgatory by itself.—Pah,” he says, “Sydney is the city of -smells and shopkeepers!” And I for my part, with all my admiration for -the intellect of the average intelligent metropolitan in general and the -Melbourne metropolitan in particular, should not think of contradicting -him here. My only wish here is, as I have said, to find out wherein -these people whom he calls, with such fine scorn, “provincials” and -“shopkeepers,” show themselves his equals, and whether they _do_ show -themselves his equals, or that I shall stand convicted of a delusion on -the subject. - -I believe much in first impressions (good ones, that is) provided only -that we bring, what I have called, a second and third look to bear on -the thing which has impressed us. And since I am graceless enough to -speak of my own little private beliefs, let me add that I often find -some difficulty in making my last impressions as good as my first, which -is provoking to anyone who has a dread and dislike of “impressionists” -and an attraction and affection towards “students.” Hence I find myself -quite ready, when in the latter humour, to call my first impressions -shallow and careless, and when in the former, to call my last impressions -dead-dark and pedantic, so that Mr. Marcus Clarke delights me not nor -(some laborious scholar of the Australasian future) neither, and all -is vanity and vexation of spirit! Let me, however, on this occasion -retail my first impressions with a trustful pen, for, as they were -unselfconscious and therefore unconnected with any theory on the subject -in hand, I believe they are really the best offering I have to make on -its altar. - -The first thing, then, that struck me on walking about Sydney one -afternoon, looking at the place and the people, was the appalling -strength of the British civilization. In Melbourne, for reasons spoken -of elsewhere, this fact is not so striking. Melbourne, I have said, has -something of London, Paris, New York, and of its own. The prevailing -characteristic of Sydney is its Britishness—the happy hunting grounds -of the British architect with his “impotence to express anything,” the -intense and gratifying and delightful loyalty of the nomenclature of the -streets, and the rest. Everywhere are the thumb marks and the great toe -marks of the six-fingered six-toed giant, Mr. Arnold’s life-long foe, the -British Philistine! I call this strength appalling; for observe that this -is a country lying in a band of some five or six degrees south of the -tropic of Capricorn, whereas England is a country lying in a band of some -twenty-five or six degrees north of the corresponding tropic of Cancer, -and yet here are the two peoples living lives almost identic! Rome -changed her Jupiter into Ammon when the Tiber flowed into the Nile: Woden -and the God of the Christians blended into one another; but the Jehovah -(or shall we say the Moloch?) of Puritanism, of Calvinism, is the same -in Sydney as in London, in Melbourne as in Edinburgh! There is nothing -like it, save in the history of that wonderful people which produced this -God that is “a jealous God.” And further. These people in Sydney have -clung, not only to the faith but to the very raiment of their giant. The -same gloomy dresses, cumbrous on the women, hideous on the men, that we -see in England! Now in Melbourne, where those dear “old-country” days, -wherein spring, summer, autumn, and winter alternate with a fifth -season excruciatingly peculiar to the place itself, are not infrequent; -in Melbourne, I say, an attachment to the very tricks of one of the -worst climates in the world might not be so unnatural; but in Sydney -such an attachment becomes positively monstrous. The same food, the same -overeating and overdrinking, and (observe how careful we are) at the same -hours! If there is one thing, I believe, that the people of Sydney really -grudge to Melbourne, it is her factories. If they could only make the -atmosphere of Sydney (they do their best, however, with their steamers -for the harbour) as supremely filthy as that of London, Birmingham, -Manchester, Glasgow, the people, the intensely loyal people of Sydney, -would be happy. As it is, they have reluctantly to concede a point in -favour of, what the newspapers call, “her younger rival.” And yet how can -I say this in the face of their eminently successful pollution of their -harbour and their very streets with their drainage? - -It is no wonder, then, we see, that, unlike Melbourne, Sydney’s -perception of her individual life is weak, miserably weak, all but -imperceptible. She has to point to her natural advantages and her age. -Now it is very nice to have a fine harbour, and Mr. Trollope is in his -grave and we may safely say that he had a profuse literary talent, like -many writers who lived before and many who will live after him; but the -chief point of interest in the harbour, at any rate to your disinterested -enquirer into the present and future social state of the owners, is, -_what effect does it, and the climate generally, have upon them?_ not -whether Mr. Trollope or anyone else “despairs of being able to convey to -any reader his own idea of the beauty” of either. Now we all know what -effect the “sabbath rest” has on the Middle class and People of England, -and we all know how zealously all those “pious and simple-minded” people -who, as Dr. Moorhouse puts it so well, live “entrenched in the old -fortifications of unintelligent orthodoxy,” are striving that that effect -should not be in any way lessened—striving, not only in London but in -Melbourne, and, so far, with considerable success in both. But here in -Sydney, where, at first sight, one would least expect it, they are more -liberal in these matters: their public institutions, Museums, Picture -Gallery, and so on, are thrown open to the public on sundays.[8] No -neighbouring town, so far as I know, partakes in the virtuous hatred of -Geelong to sunday boats. The harbour is plied by a large number of small -steamboats. The Middle-class and the People, thanks to the short hours -of work (hence in large part Australia’s excellence in sports) and the -saturday half-holiday, can disport themselves on its banks or where they -please. “Our harbour,” then, and _our parks_ too, are of more real use -than merely, as they say, to blow about; and so far, so good. Pleasure, -that light fair Pleasure which should find its natural home in every fine -climate, is undoubtedly drawing breath in the Sydney air. Mr. Marcus -Clarke’s acuteness of perception did not deceive him when he followed up -this pallid plant into the full-grown tree with its flower and fruit of -fashion and luxury. Yes, climate will ultimately work a transformation -upon even the six-fingered six-toed giant. Moloch’s fire will cease to -burn and brand: Jehovah’s jealousy will lose its harshness, and the sweet -bright love of the White Christ will brood over and temper the hearts -of this people to beauty and melody. Meantime, down there in Melbourne, -Pleasure when it opens its mouth to breathe, will also open it to bite: -the taint of cruelty will be upon it as it is upon all things purely -intellectual, all things in which emotion has no part. “Melbourne,” the -wise man of Sydney will say then, “Melbourne is the city of stew-pans -and stockbrokers. They know how to make money, but not how to spend it. -If they have pleasure, it borders on pain as lust does on love. All the -beauty they know is the beauty of light; heat is a stranger to them. -Their music lacks the minor keys. Years ago their one poet, Gordon, ran -away from the city, and took refuge in the bush: if he were alive now, he -would come to Sydney. No poet, no painter, no musician will be brought -forth out of Melbourne.—You will make fine logicians, you Melbournians, -and it does a man’s heart good to think of your cog-wheels; but believe -me that you know no more of life than that it is an existence, or -of death than that it is the stopping of a mouse-wheel.” Thus our -problematical “provincial,” returning fine pity for the fine scorn of our -problematical “metropolitan.” Or, to drop the symbolism, thus my first -impressions of the actual or inherent melody and beauty of the Sydney -life, as evolved from my last impressions of the leanness and rigidness, -the hardness and nakedness that is to be found so easily in life in -Melbourne. - -More than once that afternoon did this melody of beauty come back to me -wandering, like a sweet far-off chime. It is years since I heard that -chime, the chime of Pleasure light and fair, breathing around me—years -ago, in its imperial haunt of Paris. Other chimes have their several -melodies and beauties, melodies and beauties perhaps above compare with -this one, but this one is pre-eminent for sweetness, and sweetness is a -rich and rare offering to the soul. The afternoon was not a fine one, and -I had just been spending two months in peerless weather by the Riverina. -I had, then, no meteorological “pathetic fallacy,” as Mr. Ruskin says, -to help me to a thoughtless faith in the actual or inherent melody of -Sydney. On the contrary, the rain rained, and the wind blew, and the -bursts of sunshine were few and far between, so that the Genius of the -place had to speak out if he wished to be heard. And, as we have noticed, -he did speak out, and was heard, and was, and is, approved of. - -Pass now from the outer public world into the inner: pass from -the parks and streets into the Picture Gallery, and think of a -similar passage in Melbourne. It is quite useless to murmur here, -“_Melbourne_—_movement_—_progress_—_conscious power_;” the words only -pass into a dry tuneless jingle, like Gordon at his worst, wherein -nothing can be heard but, “_Leanness and rigidness_—_hardness and -nakedness_.” We see the throng of the virtuous wives of the Bourke Street -tradespeople and of “our wealthy lower orders” moving about in that badly -constructed room, with its badly chosen and badly hung pictures. We think -of the low, low ebb at which the intellect of the metropolis has left -its sense of melody and beauty. We wonder what Adelaide Ironsides, whom -Mr. Brunton Stephens has told us of in some charming verses,[9] would -have made of that people, of that city, whose capacity to foster poetic -instinct was “gauged” with such grimness by Mr. Clarke.[10] And then -we turn to this room, this people, and this city, and the fatuity of -their intense loyalty seems a venial offence beside the arid barrenness -of their intellectual neighbours. Such a construction (and, alas, not a -merely temporary but a quite everlasting one) as the Melbourne Picture -and Sculpture Galleries, such a choice, such an arrangement of pictures -and statues, would not satisfy these men and women of Sydney, as it -does the virtuous wives of the Bourke Street tradespeople and of “our -wealthy lower orders.” I do not say that the _Morning Herald_ would -burst out into correspondence on the subject, nor yet that that company -of eminent men who legislate for an ungrateful country would speak with -scorn or pity of these things. The chime of melody and beauty here is, -if sweet, far off. Pleasure light and fair is as yet but drawing breath. -The outer public life and the inner are but feeling their way to a -perception of an individuality, to an individuality that seeks after -that form of happiness whose chief expression is in melody and beauty. -But in Melbourne there is nothing, or scarcely anything, of this. If -no one would think of calling Sydney cruel, neither would anyone think -of calling Melbourne sweet. The average intelligent man in Melbourne -worships at the master-shrine alone: Intellect is his god, Intellect with -its speech of clear nervous prose and its poetry of vigorous, if rather -meretricious metres and “galloping rymes.” He has no, or very little, -care for Art as Art: that is an affair for women, and, as the only -organised female public opinion is that of the virtuous tradeswoman and -the wife of the wealthy lower orders, spiritual leanness and rigidness, -hardness and nakedness are the popular product of the day. - -Now there is, I will venture to say, not one social phenomenon, good or -evil, in Victoria and New South Wales that cannot be traced to these -their spiritual conditions which I have been trying to express. Let us -take, what I have called, the three vital questions of the day—Free -Trade—Federalism—Higher Education. New South Wales is in favour of Free -Trade. Her perception of her individual life is weak: she clings to the -past, she considers the present. Whereas Victoria—Victoria with her swarm -of intelligent labourers and men of business—strong in her reliance on -her intellect, resolutely turns to the future from which she thinks she -will be able to carve out all her desires. Like America, she wants no -help from without, she will brook no interference. She will not let her -mineral products lie idle as New South Wales does. She is impatient of -the true British characteristic, the slow patient evolution of things, the - - “broadening down - From precedent to precedent.” - -She believes in the modern scientific spirit, and in none other. “Let -us, then,” she says, in her heart, “let us, then, by all means, move -towards Federalism. Union is strength.” But the eager grasping nature of -her swarm of intelligent labourers will not let her see that the wisdom -of her penny tariffs is but the foolishness of the pounds to come. New -South Wales, on the other hand, is adverse to Federalism. She does not -understand this modern scientific spirit—she dreads it, is jealous of it, -and admires it! It is so self-reliant, so self-confident! And she, poor -thing, is too much under the sway of the ancient historical spirit to -perceive that there is also a modern historical spirit, and that it is -good and at her doors. Hence her changeableness, hence her irresolution -in the matter. Like her clever unscrupulous politician, Sir Henry Parkes, -yesterday she wanted Federalism, to-day she does not: she will not be -dragged at the chariot wheels of this dreadful modern scientific spirit -which she does not understand, with Victoria shouting and cracking a -stockwhip to urge on the horses faster and faster. Is she not the “Queen -of the Pacific?” did not Governor Philip tell her she would be “the -centre of the southern hemisphere—the brightest gem of the Southern -Ocean?” and who shall say he counted her chickens before they were -hatched? - -To the disinterested seeker, then, after a really fine civilization, -it is hard to say which is the more painful sight—Victoria, with her -resolute pursuit of a purely intellectual future, which must end in -arid barrenness, or New South Wales with her fatuous attachment to -the monstrous aspect of the past and present. Which, after all, is the -better or the worse, illusion or delusion? Is Victoria never going to -perceive that logicians and engineers are not the highest product of -civilization? Will New South Wales never shake off the British architect, -spiritual and material, and begin to evolve an individual life of her -own? Is Mr. Marcus Clarke right when he tells us that “in another hundred -years the average Australasian will be a tall, coarse, strong-jawed, -greedy, pushing, talented man, excelling in swimming and horsemanship. -His religion will be a form of Presbyterianism, his national policy a -democracy tempered by the rate of exchange. His wife will be a thin, -narrow woman, very fond of dress and idleness, caring little for her -children, but without sufficient brain-power to sin with zest.” Yes, this -is indeed the future of the two tendencies, which are represented by -the illuded progress of Victorian, the deluded stagnation of New South -Wales. “_The virtuous tradeswoman and the wife of the wealthy lower -orders, walking in the happy hunting-grounds of the British architect!_” -What a picture! It is a satisfaction to think that, if it is to be, we -shall never live to see it. But the question arises, “Is _it to be_?” -Has not this acute perceiver of ours been once more writing down one -aspect of the thing as _the_ aspect, without staying for a second or -third look at the thing itself? is not this a clever view of a part, -but a fantastic view of the whole? has not Mr. Clarke, in a word, been -leaving us this appalling picture of our future in much the same spirit -as the world-wounded Hamlet left his cruel dowry to Ophelia? This, we -are agreed, was indeed the future of the two tendencies, which are -represented by the illuded progress of Victoria, the deluded stagnation -of New South Wales; but we should add—_only if they are left to -themselves_. - -_Only if they are left to themselves_; and it is our hope, our trust that -they will not be. We hope, we believe, that these two countries will -learn from one another, each the lesson which the other will be competent -to teach: that Victoria will awake to the vital importance of giving her -Upper Class a Higher Education to correspond to the Elementary Education -that she is giving her Lower Class, and that this Higher Education may -be one filled with what we have called the modern historical spirit, -with culture, with literary Culture: that New South Wales, leading and -instructing Victoria here, having first learned from her example to -have the courage to evolve an individual life of her own, will in her -turn imbibe the modern scientific spirit, will imbibe what I may call -scientific Culture; and thus we shall be brought on to the day in which -the people of Victoria and New South Wales shall, from their superficial -differences, be united by common qualities better than those of -fretfulness, cleverness, perverseness, irritability: For in this people -lies the possibility of a really fine civilization, in the marriage in -them of emotion and intellect, of poetry and prose. - - “Is the goal so far away? - Far, how far no tongue can say. - _Let us dream our dream to-day._” - -One last word on the last of the three vital questions of the day—Higher -Education. When, on 1st April, Mr. Patterson, who presides over the -Victorian Education Department, went down to Malmsbury to lay a -foundation-stone for the Wesleyan denomination, and favoured us with -his views on this question, or rather on the education system as it -at present stands in Victoria, we had a hope (a faint hope) that he -would do something more than sing the praises of the denominational -schools in general, and the state schools (“those majestic monuments to -enlightenment,” as he says in his profuse political way, “that adorn -and bless even the remotest portions of this colony”)—the state schools -in particular. Our hope was destined to disappointment. Mr. Patterson -had something to say about “the only legitimate checks on the abuse -of political power when conferred upon the masses,” and about “the -unscrupulousness, as well as the boldness beyond reason” of that man who -“would deny that the rising Australians, for sobriety and unassuming -intelligence, would compare favourably with the old stock,” so that he -“was bound to record his conviction that the future of Australia would -be quite safe in the hands of the Australians.” He had also ready a -defence of the secular character of the teaching in the state schools, -and some nice little left-handed compliments for our good Wesleyans, _et -hoc genus omne_, but not a word, and apparently not a thought, for the -legitimate checks on “the abuses of _educational_ power when conferred” -on a middle-class as unprepared for rule as the worst education in the -world can make it. “The Australian public,” he says, “desires, above -all things, to ensure good citizenship.” The Australian public cares -little that, in the state schools which it has founded for that especial -purpose, dead dry intellectual knowledge is rampant—“that asinine feast -of sow-thistles and brambles,” as Milton disgustedly puts it, “which is -commonly set before our youth as all the food and entertainment of their -tenderest and most docile age”—“inanimate mechanical gerund-grinding,” -as Carlyle equally disgustedly called it—gerund-grinding and spiritual -cockatoo screeching. Nor yet does it care that, in the denominational -schools in which its own children are being brought up, the only -supplement to the dead dry educational knowledge of the gerund and the -cockatoo, is the merest flimsy smattering of Science caricatured and -Literature misunderstood. Let us not, however, despair because our -sucking colonial statesmen cannot see more than a few educational inches -in front of their noses. Have we not got Dr. Moorhouse, our good Bishop -of Melbourne, with us, “a mighty man with broad and sinewy hands?” And -does he not, on every available opportunity, batter against the brazen -walls of the gerund and the cockatoo, and bid them leave off grinding -and screeching, and listen to reason? And here, too, is our good Roman -Catholic Bishop of Sydney, Dr. Moran (whom we are all so sorry to think -of losing), expressing his “fears that the atmosphere of the public -schools is too chilly for a great many of our youth?” Perhaps one of -these mornings the Victorian public will wake up, tired of listening to -the chatter of the religious and secular dogmatists gathered together -like eagles over the carcase of “Religion without Superstition,” and -there may arise a curiosity and a care for Higher Education and High -Schools; and we will hope, then, that no one will be foolish enough to -say that they have been a very doubtful success in New South Wales and in -Sydney—in Sydney, the home-elect of the six-fingered and six-toed giant -of British Philistinism! And, perhaps, some day poor little Culture, -putting off the cumbrous armour with which the gerund and the cockatoo -want to load him, taking his sling in his hand and a few smooth stones -from the brook, may smite great Goliath in the forehead, and cut off his -head, and there be a signal rout of all the Philistines, even unto Gath -and Gaza and the utmost borders of the land. - - _May, 1885._ - -[NOTE.—I am tempted to republish here a letter, which I sent lately -to the _Sydney Morning Herald_ wherein one aspect of the secondary -education question was (more or less unconsciously) being discussed. -No one, so far as I am aware, thought the letter worth serious -consideration: at any rate no one thought it worth replying to, perhaps -the reasons for its insertion were simply those which the “able Editor” -assigned to me for the insertion of all his correspondence, namely that -it be not either too illiterate or too offensive for publication. Well, -I am sure that for my own part I am grateful for even so much toleration -as this, and shall strive, as becomes my humble position in this great -Australian press, to continue to deserve it.] - - A RUGBY FOR NEW SOUTH WALES. - - (_To the Editor of the Herald._) - - SIR,—In your issue of Saturday, May 9th, Mr. Edwin Bean, of All - Saints’ College, Bathurst, brought under serious consideration - the suggestion made by your correspondent “A. N.,” as regards - what he called “A Rugby for New South Wales.” Anything that - a schoolmaster of Mr. Bean’s talent and experience has to - say must be interesting to those of us (alas, too few!) to - whom the question of secondary education, whether in England - or Australia, is a care. He will understand, then, that when - I pass over, almost without notice, his criticisms on the - individual aspects of the “reproduction” here “of that which is - certainly best,” as he says, “in the English Public schools, - viz., what is called the Public school spirit”—that the only - reason of my doing so is the fear of encroaching too much on - your “valuable space.” For, interesting as these criticisms - are, the interest which lies in what I take to be the two - real points at question here is, I must think, greater: these - two points being (_1_), _the growing sense in all competent - judges of discontent with the present condition of middle-class - secondary education in Australia_; (_2_), _the means of - ameliorating this condition_. - - As regards the first point, I must here almost take it for - granted, in the face of the fact that, so far as I am aware, - there is not a single colonial politician who seems to realise - that if the education of the People, the rulers of the future, - is of vital importance to us all, the education of the Middle-, - or, as we should say now, the Upper-class, the rulers of the - present, is of importance at least quite as vital. The mass - of intelligent men here, then, or, as we are wont to say, the - intelligent public, naturally enough, holds the same opinion - about upper-class secondary education that their political - representatives do. “It is all right,” they say. “What are you - grumbling at in these ‘private adventure schools,’ as you - call them? They do well enough, we think, for us upper-class - people; and if you want your son to have a really first-rate - education, why, are there not plenty of fine Denominational - schools about—the King’s School, Newington, and so on, and our - splendid Grammar-school?” The only answer to “prophesyings” of - this sort is, that the Upper-class, as a class, are, whatever - they may think themselves, simply abominably educated; their - education is, even when judged by its own miserable standard, - superficial, incoherent, impalpable; and the sole necessary - proof of this is, that a good three-quarters of the knowledge - acquired by an average boy at an average private adventure - school is of no subsequent use whatever to him, either in the - culture of himself or in the prosecution of his business or - trade. As for the best Denominational schools where a secondary - education is to be obtained, if inadequate, at any rate much - superior to that of the private adventure schools, these are - out of the reach of the pockets of the average upper-class - people, who, even if they appreciate this misfortune (which, as - a rule, they do not), are unable to remedy it. - - Here, then, as it seems to me, lies the difficulty; and we - have now to look at the solution which the apparent tendency - of things is proffering to us. “If ‘A. N.,’” says Mr. Bean, - “had resided in Victoria, he would have learnt that the Public - schools (as they are there called) of Geelong and Melbourne - are already taking something of the position, and aspiring to - fulfil the functions, of the English public schools.... And,” - he goes on, “at Paramatta, Stanmore, Bathurst, Bowenfels, and - elsewhere, there are already boarding-schools, not private, but - belonging to Denominational corporations, which, if fostered - by private assistance, will eventually grow into something - resembling the Public schools of England.” Mr. Bean is, of - course, right. If things progress in the way in which they - are now progressing, if our colonial statesmen turn all their - attention, and as much of ours as we will give them, _to_ the - education of the People, and _from_ that of the Upper-class, - then, I say, more and more will the Upper-class be thrown into - the hands of schools which are mere private speculations, - which are really under no control but that of personal caprice - (and the personal caprice, great heavens! of what a stamp of - intellectual and spiritual man), which, accordingly, provide - an education, even when judged by its own miserable standard, - superficial, incoherent, impalpable. And these other schools, - I say, the best Denominational and Corporation schools, the - Australian Public schools of the future, will become more and - more the educational monopoly of the professional and wealthy - portion of the Upper-class, just as in England they have become - that of the aristocracy and these portions of the Middle-class. - These “_great schools_,” exclaims Mr. Bean justly of the - English Public schools—“_which have done so much to form the - character of the English gentleman_.” Of the English gentleman? - Yes, and alas! of the English middle-class man, that terrible - and pathetic being whom Mr. Arnold has taught us to know as - the British Philistine. “I declare,” says General Gordon, the - hero-elect of this very class, “I declare I think there is more - happiness among these miserable (Soudan) blacks, who have not a - meal from day to day, than among our middle-classes. The blacks - are glad of a little handful of maize, and live in the greatest - discomfort. They have not a strip to cover them; but you do not - see them grunting and groaning all day long as we see scores - and scores in England, with their wretched dinner-parties and - attempts at gaiety where all is hollow and miserable.” - - What a future for the Upper-class, the by far largest class - of Australia! What an appalling solution to an educational - difficulty is this:—_A small class made up of our squatters, - professional men, and wealthy tradesmen, forming a sort of - intellectual and spiritual aristocracy; our Upper-class not - only itself intellectually and spiritually dull and debased, - but debasing and dulling all the better spirits which, in - their social ascension, pass into it from the ranks of the - People._ The thought of such a future to those of us to whom - the progress onward and upward, whether of England or of - Australia, is a care, is appalling, heartrending, unendurable! - There is nothing that we could do, by the devotion of our - powers, energies, and means, that we should not, would not, - do to prevent it. And we should be, and are, encouraged in - our struggle against it by the reflection that the real deep - true spirit of the time is against all monopoly, practical and - physical, intellectual and spiritual—that once the Upper-class, - and after them the People, is aroused to the realisation of - the fact that there is a danger here of the formation of a new - aristocracy, an aristocracy which, with all its charm (let us - suppose) of social manners and of intellectual and spiritual - culture (and this is supposing a very great deal), means - nothing less than the materialisation, the dulling and the - debasing, of everything beneath it—when the Upper-class and the - People, I say, are aroused to the realisation of this, we may - be sure that they will not rest till they have prevented it. - - And how, it is asked, is such a future to be prevented? how - such a present to be ameliorated? By the formation, not of - Denominational and Corporation schools at a charge which places - them out of the reach of all save the richer among us, but by - the formation of Public State schools that provide a secondary - education as good, and, we will hope, better, than that of - these others, and at a charge that is within the reach of the - average upper-class people. “Yes, but,” at once is answered, - “such schools already exist in the High schools, and they have - not been a success.” I will not here contest, although I well - might, the first assertion; but I cannot, if I would, contest - the second. I began by noticing the cause of it, this general - satisfaction of “the intelligent public” with the educational - pabulum provided for its offspring. I deplore it; I hope for - the day of its removal to the gulf of oblivion. In the meantime - all that can be done is to strive to assist this “consummation - devoutly to be desired” earnestly and perpetually. - - One word more. No one is more in sympathy (if I may be pardoned - for speaking of such an unimportant entity) than _I_ am, with - the efforts of such men as “A. N.” and Mr. Edwin Bean to - reproduce, or try to reproduce, in Australia as far as may be, - “that which is certainly best in the English Public schools, - viz., what is called the Public school spirit.” I have not the - least prejudice against English Public schools, at one of the - oldest and most conservative of which I was myself educated, - and from which I almost entirely derived the circle of my - most valued friends; nor yet against the Denominational and - Corporation schools here. I have only to remark to Mr. Bean, - what I am sure he will at once admit, that if the danger of - State schools is the excessive interference of the State, - the danger—nay, the absolute abuse—of endowed Public schools - is that they become mere feeders of the universities; and in - England to such an appalling extent was this the case that - the State absolutely had to alter and narrow its Indian Civil - Service examinations in order to bring them within reach of the - Public schools, which were being quite left out in the cold! - Doubtless, then, the Australian endowed Public schools would - have their danger too, a danger which “even no less a thinker - than Herbert Spencer,” as Mr. Bean says, has not perhaps, in - the application to artificial civilization of the laws of the - natural “struggle for existence and survival of the fittest,” - quite comprehended. - - With all apologies to you for the amount of your “valuable - space” on which I have encroached in even this far too - perfunctory consideration of the matter in hand, - - I am, etc., - -There is no one whose opinion on this question of secondary education is -more worthy of our attention than that of Mr. Matthew Arnold. Our debt -of gratitude to him for the general advancement of the Idea of Culture, -not only at home, but everywhere where our language is spoken, is so -great that we have begun to accept it almost as an impersonal fact. The -work which he did long ago, and has never ceased to recapitulate, for -the cause of middle-class secondary education, can only be appreciated -by those whose attention has been turned to it more especially. This, -I hope, will hold me excused to him for quoting here from a letter of -his to me, some expressions of his, and the more so as they seem to -show something like a modification of the view he has so far publicly -enunciated. “I think,” he says, “I see signs that the education question -is likely to present itself at no distant date in this wise: ‘Shall -the majority give public money for any education except the education -necessary for every citizen?’ The education necessary for every citizen -will be somewhat extended in scope, but no account will be taken of the -higher culture hitherto deemed necessary for a leisured and governing -class, and to which so great a mass of endowment has been made to -contribute. On the Continent of Europe a great change will be produced -if this new view prevails, for the endowments have in general been -seized by the State, and the State has directly subsidised secondary and -superior instruction. In England it has not, but the endowments which -these instructions enjoyed have been left to them. Probably they will -not be taken away, but further public aid will hardly be given. Nor do -I think it will be given in the Colonies; and as there the endowment of -secondary and superior instruction is inconsiderable, these instructions -will be, as they are now, at a great disadvantage. The wealthiest people -will send their sons to be educated in England; private schools will, of -course, exist locally, but I do not think they will have influence enough -to create a class and a power out of those they train. Society will -thus be, on the whole, much more homogeneous than with the old nations -of Europe; but, as in the United States, this condition of things will -have its own dangers and drawbacks. The best way to meet them is for -individuals to keep up a love of genuine culture in themselves, and so to -create an even larger force in the nation to favour it.” Of the truth, -or very probable truth, of the educational future here drawn out, there -can, alas, be little question. M. Renan, whose work for France can well -be paralleled with that of Mr. Arnold for us, takes an even gloomier -view. We may count ourselves lucky, he says, if Democracy will consent, -not to encourage, but to tolerate independent study. Democracy, he says, -again, is the advent of universal mediocrity, of that most terrible of -mediocrities, the aggressive. “Great qualities,” cried Empedocles, facing -the same problem as we do, - - “Great qualities are trodden down, - and littleness united - is become invincible.” - -If this, then, is to be the case in Europe, what will it be in America, -and still more in Australia? Aristocracies may not be ideal, but they -have their use: they establish a certain high tone of social intercourse -which is certainly valuable as one element in a really fine civilization; -and, when they have passed away, it still lives as a tacit influence. -France to-day, for instance, is a republic, but her outward manners, -despite all that has happened, bear something of the mark of the Grand -Siècle. England, again, is swinging away with heavy speed from her -old ideal of Puritanism, and yet, as Mr. Arnold says so well, “the -seriousness, solemness, and devout energy of Puritanism are a prize once -won, never to be lost; they are a possession to our race for ever.” -But America? but Australia? America is not leavened by Puritanism as -England is, neither has she any hereditary tone of social intercourse -to be compared with that of England, not to say of France. America must -settle her own problem for herself, despite all the outer influence which -is brought to bear on her: two hundred miles out from the Amazon mouth -the water is still fresh, but it is salt at last. But consider this -Australia where the Puritanism only began to operate when its sincerity -was souring into cant, where the tone of social intercourse flourishes -in the hands of those who attain to it as the imitation of an imitation! -What can be so disastrous for Australia as the thrusting into power of -a class of this sort, to be followed by a class which is to the first -as the first is to its prototype in England? How this future presents -itself has already been considered here. Mr. Marcus Clarke’s picture -of it stands like a perpetual nightmare. What hope, then, remains to -us except in that very “higher culture hitherto deemed necessary for -a leisured and governing class,” which Mr. Arnold tells us our local -private schools will not have influence enough to create as “a class and -a power?” Is the only aristocracy possible to us to be, not a broad one -like that of Athens, but a narrow one like that of Rome? We all know the -picture Juvenal has painted of the decadence of this last, and Johnson’s -application of it to the London of his time is not a memory altogether -pleasant. “The lustre of a capital,” says M. Renan, with his eye on -that of his own country, “springs from a vast provincial dung-heap, -where millions of men lead an obscure life, in order to bring forth some -brilliant butterflies which come to burn themselves in the light.” And -if for capital we substitute plutocracy, and for butterflies creatures -of a nature less savoury, we see something like the sort of future with -which we are threatened here. Political life at present in Europe can -scarcely be called noble, but here in Australia it is positively so base -that there is a danger of its becoming the monopoly of men whose verbose -incompetence is only equalled by their jovial corruption. The Plutocracy, -such as it is, is being thrown in upon itself. Its present generation, -it is true, is content to work—and, indeed, can find its only happiness -in work; but this will not be so with the next, and still less with -the third, generation. The desire to enjoy will grow into a lust, and -this lust will spread. The end of this we know, and there will not lack -writers to look back upon the present, even as so many of us look forward -to the future, with a sort of eager envy. Well, and what is to be done to -prevent this, if it is to be prevented? To cease from trying to obtain a -secondary education for the Upper-class? to obtain Australian Rugbies, -not only for the Plutocracy, but for the Upper-class, and for any one of -the People that has the care to climb up to them and the best education -which his age and country can afford him? to create a class and power -that shall, in their turn, create a really fine civilization?—are we to -cease from all direct struggle for this, and meet the present crisis by -simply trying “to keep up the love of genuine culture in ourselves, and -so to create an ever larger force in the nation to favour it?” I cannot -believe that this is so; I cannot even believe that, good way as it is, -it is “the best way.” We have all been reading lately what Mr. Arnold had -to say in favour of this indirect method, this creation of a Remnant that -should at last become a power, and I am sure I should be the last person -to say a word against it. All I have to say is, that I have too much -belief in the power of institutions (a power “the benefits of which,” Mr. -Arnold has just been telling us, “he had not properly appreciated” before -his trip to America) to neglect anything that could bring them to the -side of Culture. I appreciate the indirect method, and I believe that, -in the long run, it is the method which gives permanent solidity, but I -cannot blind myself to the immense importance of the direct method. If -it is necessary to conduct a river into a city, the pipes must first be -made, and care taken that they are not too small. The French Revolution -was a violent attempt and a premature one, and yet, such as it was, it -brought a greater volume of happiness into France than the abortive -attempt that we made in England. _We_ have still to face the problem of -the happiness of the few and the debasement of the many, and I cannot see -that it is an easier problem to resolve than that which is presenting -itself to the French just at present. I still, then, must continue to -believe that it is not wise in England, and how much more in America, -and how much more in Australia, to refrain from the direct struggle for -a higher education for our Upper-class. Our aim is not for the few but -for the many, and not for elementary Culture for the many, but for the -possibilities of a really fine Culture. We have, too, our distrust of -Remnants. We dread their tendency to take to lotus-eating. They are apt -to care so little for the propagation of either their species or their -Culture. - - “Let us alone! What pleasure can we have - to war with evil? Is there any peace - in ever climbing up the climbing wave?” - -It is with difficulty, with great and perpetual difficulty, that a Goethe -can keep his duty to his art and his duty to his neighbour at the perfect -poise. It is so hard to keep your duty to yourself from running into your -duty to your selfishness. Light, and the love of light, and the love -of bringing light to others, is after all impossible without a certain -admixture of heat. Let us, then, still continue to nourish our enthusiasm -for a direct purpose, which shall be the future to that great mass of -average human beings who are thoughtlessly moulded by whatever they find -is strong enough to mould them. Let us be jealous of individuals. “_Non -Angli, sed angeli._” - - “_Leave not a human soul_ - _to grow old in darkness and pain!_” - - _October, 1885._ - -[Illustration] - - - - -CULTURE. - - -Everyone nowadays has something to say about Culture. Even the -politicians have heard of it, and some morning we may read in our -newspapers that one of them is of opinion that there is some meaning in -the term. Naturally enough we have all of us for some time been groping -after the thing itself. The Time-Spirit is like a skilful driver of -sheep. He may have considerable trouble with his flock, but, thanks -to his unruffled intelligence and the ceaseless exertions of his dog -Genius, he brings them all in in time for the market. It is now almost a -century since the Idea of Culture took definite shape in the mind of a -single man, and ever since then the number of its followers has kept on -increasing, until at last everyone, as I remarked, has now something to -say about it. If, however, one enquires of people, not what they _think_ -of Culture, (For everyone from the Vatican Œcumenical Council[11] to -the author of “In Memoriam”[12] is agreed as to the advantage of it), -but what culture _is_, one may go far for a satisfactory answer. Women -are growing dissatisfied with the sphere of their work. What is it that -they need? “More breadth of culture,” answers the Prince of Tennyson’s -Princess readily enough, “more breadth of culture!” And it will be said -that it is easy to see that what the Prince means is, that women should -have thrown open to them the education that has so far been the monopoly -of men. But is this Culture? is this the whole truth about it?—simply the -giving to the many—to women, to the Middle-class and to the People—what -is the education of the few? would that man in whose mind the Idea of -Culture first took definite shape have been satisfied with the sight -of ubiquitous Harrows and Etons and Grammar Schools of Melbourne and -Geelong? There can be no doubt but that such a sight would have pleased, -but it certainly would not have satisfied him. “Schools,” he would -have said, “are of high importance, but what is taught in them is of -importance still higher.” - -And so we come back again to our question as to what Culture _is_ with a -sense that the ready answers to it are only half answers. Now everyone -has heard of Goethe, and everyone has read some of his writings—“Faust,” -at any rate—and, as it is to Goethe that we owe the Idea of Culture (as -indeed most things that are really good in the sphere of modern thought), -it would be best to at once quote his own words on the matter, and see -if we cannot find a definition, or at any rate a description, of Culture -that shall satisfy us. Poetry, however, does not exactly lend itself to -definitions of such things as this, or even to descriptions. In Faust -himself the idea may be more or less, as they say, incarnated, but we -plain practical people, who like things put as much in black and white -as may be, have some difficulty in these matters, and would far rather -hear of them in simple English prose which means what it says and says -what it means, than in poetry (and particularly German poetry) which -seems to us to do exactly the reverse. Well, then, let us turn away from -this parabolic Goethe for a little, and see if we cannot find someone who -shall be his expounder to us. And who else should this be, at any rate -in this case, than he whom the newspapers like to call the Apostle of -Culture, Mr. Matthew Arnold? Let us go to Mr. Matthew Arnold, and say: -“Sir, you are constantly talking about Culture, and you have said many -uncomplimentary things to us all about our want of it. Now would you be -so kind as to tell us precisely what you _mean_ by it? And we warn you -that we are plain practical people who like things put as much in black -and white as may be, and that we have a decidedly poor opinion of your -efforts to make us believe that ‘the Eternal not ourselves that makes for -righteousness’ is the same thing as our ‘loving and intelligent Governor -of the Universe,’ and that it makes no difference to us when we eat our -Christmas goose and plum-pudding whether we believe that we do so because -those shepherds and those Three Kings _did_ come that day to Christ in -the Bethlehem manger, to the accompaniment of an angelic concert, or did -not. We want, Sir, a definition of this Culture of yours, or, if you -cannot give us that (But, really now, you are so clever at definitions -that we shall be quite disappointed if you cannot!), then you must give -us a good description of it, so that we may be able to arrive at a proper -decision about it.” Then an expression of bland patience would cross -Mr. Arnold’s countenance, as he sat in his study chair, listening with -that “native modesty” of which he has told us all, to the words of our -curious foreman; and, after a short pause, he would perhaps answer: -“Gentlemen, I am much honoured by this deputation and inquiry. Long ago -in some remarks of mine on translating Homer.... But I will refer you to -a more recent period. A new and revised edition of a little book of mine -called ‘Literature and Dogma’ has just been issued in a cheap form by -Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. You will find that in the Preface to it the -following words occur, which I venture to think may, on investigation, -be found to answer the question with which I am now honoured. But, as -you possibly may not remember it, (for I cannot expect you, any more -than myself, to be always studying my works), I will quote it to you. -‘_Culture_,’ I said (Culture in italics)—‘_Culture_, knowing the best -that has been thought and known in the world.’ I can give no better -definition than this. ‘True Culture,’ I say again, ‘true Culture implies -not only knowledge, but right tact and justness of judgment, forming -themselves by and with judgment.’ Or, yet again: ‘Culture is _reading_’ -(Reading in italics), ‘but reading with a purpose to guide it, and with -system.’”—And with this, and a renewal of compliments on both sides, our -jury bows itself out, and presently the sound of the closing hall-door -mounts up to the silent chamber. - - “But an awful pleasure bland - spreading o’er the Poet’s face, - when the sound climbs near his seat, - the encircled library sees; - as he lets his lax right hand - which the lightnings doth embrace - sink upon his mighty knees.” - -This, then, it seems, is Culture—_knowing the best that has been thought -and known in the world—not only knowledge, but right tact and justness of -judgment, forming themselves by and with judgment_—reading, _but reading -with a purpose to guide it, and with system_. And is not this something -like what Goethe meant in that enigmatic sentence of his, which we have -heard so often quoted by people who understood it as much as we did: -“Vom Halben zu entwöhnen; Im Ganzen, Guten, Schönen resolut zu leben.” -“I resolved to wean myself from halves, and to live for the Whole, the -Good, the Beautiful.” But even now, even now that we know what it is (And -after all, we say, what much more is it than saying that we ought to try -for the best article, and not rest content with anything but the best -article?), wherein are we, we plain practical people with our attachment -to black and white, helped to the attainment of it? Culture, we are told, -is reading, but reading with a purpose to guide it and with system. The -purpose, it is presumed, is attainment, but what is the system? We are -to have knowledge, and not only knowledge but right tact and justness of -judgment, forming themselves by and with judgment. All very nice, we say, -but how are we to get them? You say to a man who hobbles, “Run:” he is -quite as capable of saying it as you are. Either show him how to run, or -hold your tongue!—unless it be that he thinks he _is_ running, and even -then it seems useless enough to undeceive him without you can teach him -how to do what he now thinks he is. What, then, is this system of which -you speak? what is the receipt for it? is it a system possible to _us_? - -Well, I really have not the courage to go and face Mr. Arnold again. -Handlers of the lightnings like he is can be so disagreeable when they -please. Where is the joy of figuring in some ludicrous or contemptible -attitude in their writings for the next few hundred years or so? It is -all very well to say that we shall all of us be in our graves presently, -and all equally ignorant of what our descendants may think of us, but the -truth is no one likes to be held up to the nations as a fool or a knave, -and especially if he be both. I see nothing for it but to let the oracle -alone. I for one will have nothing to do with stirring up Phoibos again. -I have done so more than once already, and am too grateful for a whole -hide to tempt the arrows further. We must be our own Oidipous. At most -we can reverently finger the Sibylline leaves, and see if anything of -“pleasant to the eye and good for food” can be extracted therefrom. - -To begin with, however, does it not seem best to say at once that, after -all, there is no receipt for not saying and doing foolish things except -not to be foolish? No system in the world will give wings to a worm. On -the other hand, there is really no reason why the descendants of that -worm should not one day navigate the sky; and, as a matter of fact, they -do. Similarly with the stupidest and the most degraded of us, I cannot -see why a single moment should be lost in attempting to better them. The -earth is likely to be inhabitable for the next eight millions of years -or so, it seems, and I am sure that is long enough for us. We need not -be in such a hurry as the Socialists would have us, nor yet creep along -on all fours in the Conservative manner; but we must not, of course, -undervalue either fashion or progress, since both wheels and a drag are -important parts of a carriage in uneven country. But here again, as is -always the case, we are brought face to face with the question, not only -of the wheels and the drag, not only of the carriage itself, and not only -of even the driver of it, but of the end of the journey. “The purpose,” -we said a moment ago in our ready way, “is, it is presumed, attainment, -but what is the system?—Never mind,” we say, “about where we are going -to: let us hear about the carriage we are going in! Let us have Etons and -Harrows and Melbourne and Geelong Grammar Schools everywhere, and then we -shall be alright. Let us resolve to have the best article, and not rest -content with anything but the best article, and that’s all!” - -Alas, for the impatience of mankind! In order to _try_ for the best -article, not to say to _have_ it, must we not first know what the best -article _is_? should we not know where we are going to, before we -construct our carriage and purchase our horses? And yet, in ninety-nine -cases out of a hundred, are we not content to _go_, and leave more or -less to chance where we are going _to_? do we not waste half our lives in -overcoming difficulties with which we ought to have had nothing to do? -It is so easy to talk and to act: it is so difficult to think, and mould -your words and actions to your thoughts rather than your thoughts to your -words and actions. It is the weary old tale of the more haste and the -less speed, the weary old tale that is for ever new. And yet we will not -listen to it. Sooner than trouble ourselves with the _whys_ of things, -we will throw ourselves with energy into the first _hows_ that present -themselves, and leave the rest to chance, or, as Dr. Moorhouse’s good -“unintelligent orthodox” people say, to God. But nothing real, nothing -lasting, is achieved in this way. Nature does not work in this way: God -does not work in this way. The beasts do and the vast majority of men do, -and that is why, in Hamlet’s words, life is such “an unweeded garden that -grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.” No, -if we are to understand, not only Culture but anything at all, we must -begin at the very beginning: we must learn the _whys_. Take care of the -_whys_, we might say, and the _hows_ will take care of themselves. And -let us not for a moment be deceived by those who tell us that our fathers -got along very well without inquiring into the _whys_, into the causes of -things, and so can we. This is not so. Whatever success has been achieved -has been achieved by a recognition, conscious or unconscious it may be, -of the causes of the thing worked upon. Instead of our fathers having had -any success from their ignorance of causes, or their reliance on good -fortune, they have had success in despite in these, and only so far as -they banished the one and knew how to turn to account the other. - -And Culture? what has this to do with Culture? Everything!—In this, as -in so many other cases, we concentrate all our attention on the _how_ -and leave the _why_ to take care of itself. “More breadth of Culture, -more breadth of Culture,” cry the Princes and the Priests, and everyone -else, in emulous chorus. But when they are asked what they _mean_ by -Culture—what Culture _is_, then they have no answer ready save one (as -Shelley says), - - “pinnacled dim in the intense inane;” - -and this sort of thing will, in the end, satisfy no man. - -Well, we have heard what Culture _is—knowing the best that has been -thought and known in the world_. But we have been brought up sharply at -the very next step: _Culture is reading, but reading with a purpose to -guide it_. What is the purpose? Attainment. Yes, but _how_? _how_ and -_why_? - -But before we try to answer that, let us think a moment whether the -expounder of our parabolic Goethe has given us a definition that is -quite satisfactory. We have nothing to say against his definition of -Culture itself. It expresses Goethe’s “the Whole, the Good and the -Beautiful” perfectly. But what about this second definition? what about -Culture being reading, but reading with a purpose to guide it? Is -this a pure parallel equivalent of the first, or has it something of -a limitation in it? Can we, indeed (supposing us the happy possessors -of a certain purpose and system), achieve a knowledge of the best that -has been thought and known in the world—of the Whole, the Good and the -Beautiful—by reading, and by reading only? is this what Goethe has to -say to us? is this the lesson of Goethe’s life? If it is, why is it that -he lays such stress on the absolute personal experience of things? If -Faust could have achieved Truth in his study, why does Goethe show us -his achievement of it by taking him away from his reading, and flinging -him in the arms, first of Love and then of Life? Faust does not leave -his reading and his thinking behind him: they accompany him everywhere, -from Margarete’s bedroom to the witch-revel on the Brocken. And what does -this mean but that, to achieve a knowledge of the best that the world -has thought and known, two things are necessary—reading and experience; -or, in the same words, thought and knowledge. No amount of reading will -compensate for want of experience. It is useless for me to think I -have attained to Truth, if I have never felt her absolute presence. Is -idealization the essence of true love? Is there a more real inspiration -to be found in the faëry princesses of Shelley, than in the breathing -women of Wordsworth? Idealization is good, but it must have a firm -foundation in reality, or it is barren of anything but fantasticality. So -it is with thought and knowledge. No man who has not himself lived and -loved can tell us the truth of love and life. Gibbon had immense reading, -and a purpose and a system in it (I do not here enter upon their precise -nature), and his history of the Decline and Fall of Rome is in many -respects quite admirable, but he does not attain to truth in it. And why? -Because he has not experience, he has not knowledge. All his reading, all -his purpose, all his system will not compensate for the want of their -corollary. No, Culture, the achieving of the best that has been thought -in the world, is not reading, not reading with any purpose or system that -has been or will ever be devised. Culture is the combination of reading -with experience, of thought with knowledge. The one thing acts as a check -on the other; the one is the spirit and the other the body; the one, -in Shakspere’s words, the “judgment” and the other the “blood,” and in -their “co-mingling” is found the perfect man. The purpose, the system -remain unchanged. We have only, as it seems to me, to develop our second -definition: to say that Culture _is reading and experience, but reading -and experience with a purpose to guide them, and a system_. - -And so, having disposed somewhat of the _why_, we come back to the _how_, -the purpose and the system. In reality the two are one. Mr. Arnold -speaks once of Goethe’s “profound impartiality,” and elsewhere he lays -the greatest stress on that which alone can help criticism “to produce -fruit for the future”—_disinterestedness_. By _disinterestedness_ he -means the sincere endeavour, the pure and simple endeavour, to get at the -truth of things, to see them as they really are. And what is this but -Goethe’s determination to “wean himself from halves,” from partial views -of things? Now nothing is easier than to say that you seek for Truth -and Truth only, and nothing is more difficult to do. Who is there that -does not make this profession? And yet how few, how infinitely few, are -those who turn it into practice! And why is this? The answer of course is -because, say what they may, the pursuit of most men is merely relative. -I no more attain to Truth by saying “Go to, I will attain to it,” than I -should fly over the moon by a like formula. It is only the really honest -and sincere, the really pure and simple endeavour to find Truth that -makes me competent to even set out in search of it, and it is only by -the ceaseless use of a system of resolute patience and clear-sightedness -that I can hope to proceed with any success upon my way. This is indeed a -hard saying; but who, except him who ought to feel it least, feels that -Truth is a goal to be won by rose-crowned processions to the sound of -cymbals and dances? Some people, indeed, have a conviction that a special -exception has been made in their case, and that what has been hidden -from the wise and prudent has been revealed to babes and sucklings; and -I am sure it is a pleasant sight enough to see the way the babes and -sucklings enjoy this idea, and will continue to do so as long as the -milk lasts. (And, indeed, at this very hour when the milk is running -rather low, what a dismal howl the poor little things are setting up, and -how on earth are we ever going to wean them?) No, it is only by utter -and unwearying honesty, by the obstinate determination to admit of no -delusion or illusion, however attractive, however pleasant to our souls, -that we can hope to attain to anything like Truth. How often, when we -think we have found the jewel, must we put it down and remove ourselves, -now to this side, now to that, to be sure that the cutting is indeed -flawless! how much must we give up, and how much must we win, before our -mind is trained to, as it were, of itself, effortlessly, spontaneously, -look at things with that patient clear-sightedness which reaches to their -essence! This, then, is our purpose in Culture, and this our system, and -this is the fruit of it—a habit of thought which shall have _not only -thought and knowledge, but right tact and justness of judgment, forming -themselves by and with judgment_. And so our scheme is complete. - -Now, leave this theoretical consideration of it for a moment, and see -with what result it has been applied to actual things. It has been -applied, it is being applied, everywhere and to almost everything. Take -the domain of Science, where it has, so far, been applied in a manner -which appeals most to most people—practical success, as we call it. There -is no need for me to sing the praises of this practical success. It rises -all round me in choruses and peans and hosannas. What I want to say -about it is, that all this practical success is due solely and entirely -to the fact that its creators have applied that purpose and system of -ours on, it is true, a more virgin soil than most, but also with a more -thoroughness than any. Look at the patience and clear-sightedness that -breathes and shines in every page Darwin wrote! It was well said of him, -that you could be sure no one would state the case against anything he -had to say more fully than he did himself. What a serenity the man had, -what depths of power and peace! It was my privilege to have had for -father one who, to his own depths of serenity, and power, and peace, -added those drawn from his friendship with this great Darwin, and from -an unrivalled appreciation of his work. When I think of that method of -the pursuit of the truth of things which I have myself seen in the late -Professor Leith Adams, my father, I seem to myself to despair of ever -thoroughly mastering the reality of anything at all. I am overwhelmed -with the mystery of Butters’ Spelling Book: I dare not lift up my eyes -to criticise a barrel-organ, and the young lady so painfully practising -scales there is a whole heaven above me. We cannot too much praise the -complete singleness of heart and soul with which the Scientists have -faced their problems. When I compare Lord Tennyson’s consideration of -the Struggle in Nature in _In Memoriam_, with Darwin’s in his _Descent -of Man_, the radical insincerity of the former, I confess, disgusts me, -and I fear to do some one or other of its good qualities an injustice. -What intellectual exercise all this despair is! The poet’s mind is made -up before he starts, and all this paraphernalia of doubt is really simply -to show that he can enter into the opposite point of view to his own, -and yet retain his original convictions! What is the sum total of it? -That here is a man of the past, born into a present from which none but -those of the future can evolve that future. Five are five and ten are -ten, and he adds them together and makes seven! With how different a -temper does Darwin face his problem! He has become “as a little child” -in his simple attitude towards things. “Where’er thou leadest, will I -follow thee.” And it was just because this was so, that what he had to -say to us prevails more and more; for, having attained to the secret of -the purpose and system of patience and clear-sightedness, he had not only -knowledge but right tact and justness of judgment, forming themselves by -and with judgment; and so he achieved Truth for himself and for others. -Nor does the good of such a man, his life and his work, end here. He has -communicated to all who have anything to do with his work, his secret -or something of his secret, even as Goethe did before him. Why, here -we have Professor Huxley warning the coming race of Scientists against -taking for granted the very things in the discovery and revelation of -which he has himself toiled all his life, and the cry has been taken up -with enthusiasm. “All is possible,” said Professor Clifford, “to him -who doubts.” What an admirable temper is this. Imagine Cardinal Newman -warning the young Catholics against taking the Infallibility of the -Church for granted! Or Lord Tennyson assuring us that that fine personal -individuality theory of his (“I am I, thou art thou,” and so on) must -not be considered by young Churchmen as finally settled! And yet it is -in the possession or non-possession of this temper, I say, that lies -the essential difference between the men of the past and the men of the -future. Mr. Arnold laments that Cardinal Newman, “that exquisite and -delicate genius,” was not born a little later, so that the Time-Spirit -might have touched and transformed him. The same may be said of Lord -Tennyson, and will be said in another fifty years. But let us have an -end to such laments. To these men, as to their contemporaries, the light -came, and they chose the twilight where others chose the dawn, and, -having had their hour of victory in the applause of the mass of their -time, the doubters and the believers, let us recognize that, at any rate -as influences on thought, they are but ghosts in the bright daytime, -speechless and ineffectual. - -I have, despite myself, been singing the praises of the Scientists. -And why not? Have they not shown us that they have (as Darwin says so -gracefully of Mr. Wallace) “an innate genius for solving difficulties?” -But they, too, have their assailable side. I have spoken of Professor -Clifford. His talent we were all bound to admire, and his sincerity; -but how wonderfully inept he was when he came to consider things -outside his own immediate sphere! We all remember what he had to say -about Christianity. He had the same narrowness towards Christianity -that the Christians have towards Science. In them it is excusable, -perhaps. Circumstances have been all against them. They have had such -little opportunity of attaining to the secret of the purpose and system -of Culture. It has taken its rise outside their pale, and has been -combated as a foe, and is still combated. But in a man who _had_ this -secret, how inexcusable the not being able to apply it outside his own -immediate sphere! and how doubly inexcusable to apply to his opponents -that very method which had made them so! Really he should have known -better. And unfortunately there are so many of the young Scientists that -are following in his footsteps, and not in the footsteps of Darwin. And -this is a great misfortune, and should be struggled against with all -our powers. But otherwise (since I cannot end here with the note of -blame), how truly admirable is the temper of these men when they are only -let alone in their own sphere! Compare the teaching of Science in our -colleges and universities with that of Literature! And yet, slow as is -the progress of Literature in its application of the purpose and system -of Culture to things, it _is_ a progress. The success of that charming -series of biographies, the English Men of Letters—nay, of the little -shilling Literature Primers—is a sign of it. And the same thing, too, is -being done with regard to Philosophy; but, so far, the men of Science -have the lead, and they deserve it; for, as I have said, theirs has been -the most complete singleness of heart and soul with which Truth has been -sought out, they have the most thoroughly applied the secret of the -purpose and system of Culture. - -Now, let us again leave our consideration of these things, and see -wherein this question of Culture concerns us plain practical people with -our attachment to black and white; how does it, in a word, come into our -daily life. I can only answer as before, everywhere!—The other day the -son of a friend of mine, (say) Jones, wished to apprentice himself as -a brewer, or, rather, wished to start as a brewer at once. His father -sent him to a well-known brewer to be, as the father said, put through -his paces. The young man returned crestfallen. What was the matter? The -father could not understand it, and I was set to find it out.—“_Tom -hasn’t enough Culture_,” I reported.—“What do you mean?” asked the -father.—“He doesn’t know the best that has been thought and known in the -world in the matter of brewing,” I replied, “I should advise a course of -practical chemistry.”—“But I’m sure X ..., the brewer’s father, didn’t -know anything about chemistry, or his father before him.”—“Probably; but, -if _X_ ... didn’t, I expect he’d have to give up brewing,” I said. And it -is the same in everything. More and more the perception that things move -by fixed laws, which must be obeyed if we would direct ourselves with -success, spreads and intensifies. The necessity of moulding our words -and actions to our thoughts, rather than our thoughts to our words and -actions, is becoming apparent to all men who would avoid the workhouse, -actual or metaphorical. The _whys_ of things press upon us. It is no use -contenting ourselves with the _hows_. If we do, someone else finds out -the _whys_, and we are left in the lurch. The other day an intelligent -sheep-breeder told me an amusing tale. He had with much trouble and -cost purchased in Tasmania a small stud of prize sheep, which he took -up to his station in the North. The flower of the first generation he -sent to a neighbouring show. The wool of the sheep was thick and close, -unlike that of the locky sheep which are considered the best there. His -sheep was laughed at by all the judges, who wondered such a sensible man -should have sent such a senseless sheep! These judges were deficient -in Culture: they did not know the best that has been thought and known -in the world in the matter of sheep-breeding. The sheep of these men -were shearing on an average less by more than two pounds of wool than -the sheep of the more scientific sheep-breeders further south! It is a -question, then, whether their children will be so jubilant when they are -brought face to face with the competition of an enormously increased home -wool-production, and a still more enormously increased wool-production -from South America. You cannot now with impunity be wanting in Culture. -The stream of life flows too fast for the straws that want to go -exploring back-waters, or stopping to admire the scenery. - -And Australia—this Australia in which we live—what a need for Culture is -here! I see nothing here of the best, and much of the worst. Take this -very question of sheep-breeding. Australia is in advance of England, -for sheep-breeding is the staple support of the one country, and only -an item in the produce of the other. But in what a backward state it is -to what, as a staple support, it ought to be! By what rough and ready -methods things are still done here. What a dearth of real intelligence -there is! of that patience and clear-sightedness which is the secret of -the purpose and system of Culture. Who seems to see that in this, as in -all matters, the _why_ is the important matter on which the _how_ will -follow, and not the reverse? There is abundance of shrewdness to hand, -and finger and thumb wisdom, but who sees that the great necessity is -sheer knowledge? Australia was made by men of this stamp, and they still -rule it, but their rule is passing, as it was bound to pass, before -the unruffled intelligence of the Time-Spirit. These were the men who -gave us our absurd nomenclature of birds and flowers. If they saw a -bird was black and had one dissonant cry, they called it a jay, and it -sufficed. A flower is yellow and little: call it a primrose. And so on. -Then their children arose in their turn, and found themselves rich, and -took to building cities, and we have (what Mr. Sala calls) Marvellous -Melbourne, with the Picture-gallery and Statue-gallery which we know, -and the crowning glory of its Government House, perhaps the most hideous -hospital in existence. Or the good Sydney people would like to decorate -their Post-office with emblematic sculpture, and the result is, what has -at last become, the mockery of a Continent. And at last, too, the Picture -Gallery at Melbourne is coming into disrepute, and some day, perhaps, the -Government House will do the same. It would be pleasant, I think, to see -it turned into an asylum. No nation that calls itself civilized stands -in more need of Culture, of the best that has been thought and known in -the world, in each and every branch of it, than Australia does. Some -faint perception of this seems positively to be beginning to dawn upon -its complacency. Let us do all we can to forward this. “The Australians,” -said an Australian to me the other day, “are much more fond of beautiful -things than the English.” “Alas,” I answered, “that is not saying much, -but I have not yet remarked it.” No, the one commendable wish that the -Australians have, is that they really do want the best article in things, -and for the best article they are ready to pay. The unfortunate thing is, -that there seems nothing in which they are yet qualified to know the best -article when they see it! “We want fine pictures,” say the Victorians, -and they are befooled by ship-loads of London tea-trays, which no one but -members of Assembly and the wives of tradespeople and squatters would -take for anything else.—And yet, how is it possible for me to continue to -pile up anathemas like this against these Australians for whom I hope so -much, unless it be that I think in this way to do the little best I can -towards helping to the realization of my hopes? But this is an old tale -now, and we will say no more of it. - -In every aspect of life, then, from its highest to its lowest, let us -remember this idea of Culture, let us make for the best article, and -be secure in its possession. The other day a Melbourne lady was saying -to me how pretty and charming a place the Fitzroy Gardens were as a -public park. “But the brown plaster statues,” I said, “and the concrete -water-shrines.” And this Melbourne lady frankly declared her allegiance -to these things, and, when in my disagreeable unsatisfied way I began to -compare them with the marble copies from the Antique which are to be seen -in the Inner Domain and Botanical Gardens in Sydney, she frankly told me -that _after all_ it was only _a matter of opinion_, and _my_ opinion was -this and _hers_ was that! “And so,” I said, “my dear lady, it is, _after -all_, only _a matter of opinion_ whether the Apollo of the Belvidere or -the Venus of Milo is more beautiful or less beautiful than the statue of -Burke and Wills in Collins Street, not to say the brown-plaster statues -in the Fitzroy Gardens?” And then this Melbourne lady, who had read many -novels and magazines, and several volumes of sermons and even popular -“philosophy books,” maintained her original assertion with the charming -assurance of her sex; and I could only think that it was a pity she had -not Culture—did not know the best, or even the second or third best, of -what has been known and thought in the world in the matter of sculptural -beauty, for then she would not have helped to persuade her husband to -vote for the erection of any more brown-plaster statues and concrete -water-shrines in the public places of his city. But, as it is, I am -so thankful that the Sydney people have decorated one of their public -places with really fine marble copies from the Antique (which none of -these Australians, with their superior love for beautiful things has -yet, so far as I am aware, thought of defacing), that I wonder at myself -for thinking of saying it is a pity to see beside these so many poor -modern and perhaps colonial products; for who can be wise—do I say in an -hour, in a day, in a year, in a life-time? nay, rather, in a generation? -Certainly not the architects and public decorators of Australia. Let -us be thankful for what we have got, and diligently go on showing our -thankfulness by asking for more. - -But no; the time has passed when silly people can say that silliness is, -_after all_, only a _matter of opinion_—or, if it has not passed, then we -ought all of us to be striving our utmost to make it be passed. Culture -is possible to so many! Its text-books are no longer in the hands of the -incompetent: we have really no excuse for thinking Mr. Martin Tupper -is preferable as a poet to Lord Tennyson, or Miss Eliza Cook to Mr. -Arnold; and I will confess that I look with suspicion on the intellectual -attainments of a man who sees no difference in the _opinion_ of Darwin -or Professor Huxley and of the popular Theologians and Mr. Lilly. Look, -I say, at the text-books of Culture now, of the best which has been -known and thought in the world. We have all seen Professor Huxley’s -little primer of Physiology. Well, that is for Science. Then there is -Mr. Stopford Brooke’s little primer of English Literature. That is for -Literature; and these are only examples. Really, now, we _have_ no excuse -for reading the wrong books and thinking the wrong thoughts any more. -And we have not, either, to confine ourselves to the thought of our own -language. Everywhere excellent translations of noteworthy works are to be -found. We would get to know something of the literature of Greece? At the -end of Mr. Jebbs’ excellent little primer of Greek Literature, we shall -find a list of the best translations. We have heard people talking of -Professor Haeckel and his wonderful physiological work? Good translations -of his best-known books are to hand. And so on throughout the whole -domain of thought. - -Let us sum up and conclude. We see, then, I think, what Culture is, and -what is the purpose and system which should form and guide it. There -is only one thing more to say about it, and that is that Culture, in -this sense of the word, is the distinct product of our own times. No -other country at no other time possessed it. The Jews possessed an -unrivalled insight into Religion, into the sense of Righteousness. It is -to a Jew that we owe most of what is best in Religion. Indeed, to the -great majority of us his name is still a synonyme for Religion. But -Righteousness is not the sole necessity of life—there is also Beauty. -“Beauty,” says Keats, - - “beauty is truth, truth beauty: this is all - ye know on earth or that ye need to know.” - -But Keats, we remember, was a Pagan, a modern Greek, and men like -this are quite as apt to think that Beauty is “the one thing needful” -as the other stamp of man is to think that Righteousness is “the one -thing needful;” whereas the real fact is that both are needful. What an -advantage, then, have we over both Jews and Greeks in our appreciation of -this! At the best, it is not possible to look upon either Paul or Plato -as exponents of anything final. It requires two wings to soar with, and -who can think that this “ugly little Jew,” as M. Renan has it, who talked -nonsense about an Art which at best seemed to him mostly diabolical, -was dowered with two? Nor yet can we think this of that “high Athenian -gentleman,” as Carlyle retorts, with his illustrious Master who would -have been so “terribly at ease in Zion.” Let us recognize it at once: -the Jews are great and the Greeks are great, but neither of them by -themselves can satisfy us. Nay, further; to the sense of Righteousness -and Beauty must now be added that sense which Bacon first brought with -any fertility to us—the sense of Science. “And we,” says Arnold, - - “and we have been on many thousand lines, - and we have shown, in each, spirit and power.” - -And it is just from the combination of the results of our spirit and -power on these many thousand lines that this Culture of ours, this unique -product of our times, springs. It was not before this possible. How could -Paul understand the Greek Art? how could Plato have understood the Hebrew -Righteousness? It was not till the Renascence, till Shakspere, that such -a thing was possible, and it was not till Modernity, till Goethe, that -it was possible to find these two senses, the sense of Beauty and of -Righteousness, united to that third great sense, the sense of Science. -I do not say that our age is necessarily a peculiarly great age: you -may call it the dwarf on the giant’s shoulders, if you please; but what -I do say is, that it is the first age which has been able to attain to -anything like a really comprehensive Culture, a knowledge of the best -that has been known and thought in the world. Possibly we are only on the -threshold of Truth: possibly it will be left to another age to work out -and complete what we have but begun; but this I think is certain: We -_are_ on the threshold, and the sooner we realize it, the sooner shall -we realize that we are men in whom it is incumbent to put off childish -things, the sooner shall we advance into the palace and very home. - -Ah, then, let us no longer content ourselves with anything less than -the best article! Let us live for the Idea of Culture, for and by -it—for the best that has been thought and known in the world! Let us, -too, like Goethe, resolve to wean ourselves from halves, from partial -and prejudiced views of things, and to live “_im Ganzen, Guten, -Schönen_”—“for the Whole, the Good, the Beautiful!” - - _December, 1885._ - -[Illustration] - - - - -“DAWNWARDS:” - -AN AUSTRALIAN DIALOGUE. - - -INTRODUCTION. - -Horace Gildea was the grandson of one of those self-reliant energetic -men of the English upper Middle-class, who at an early period of life -conceive a particular ambition, and devote themselves wholly to the -successful achievement of it. Edward Gildea, the man in question, -desired, or we may even say intended, to possess both wealth and -position, and he was, as the expression goes, still young (between forty -and fifty years of age, that is) when his intentions were fulfilled. A -baronetcy was conferred on him by a grateful Conservative government: -his marriage with the only daughter of Lord Mainwaring had already -brought him a considerable amount of landed property; and now, having -bought more, he retired from the troublous and busy world to the “easeful -dignity” of the life of a rich and respected English country magnate. Our -Aristocracy is adaptive (here, indeed, lies its strength, as compared, -for instance, with that of France): it will enrol among its members of -to-day an outgrowth of the Middle-class, upper and lower, professional -or trading, with the same ready complacency with which it enrolled among -its members of yesterday the offspring of some poor royal amour or other; -and this is not surprising, when we perceive how little difference there -is, intellectually speaking, between the three classes. The aristocratic -ideal in England does not, or did not, soar much higher than grouse to -shoot, land to shoot them on, and savoury cooking to eat them with; -and the aristocratic ideal is, with slight modifications, the ideal -of the country at large. In one generation the Gildeas were counted -among, what is called, the best people. The two sons of Sir Edward -were educated at public schools and Oxford and Cambridge, and passed, -the one into parliament, the other into the Diplomatic-service, where -neither distinguished themselves. Horace Gildea, too, an only child, -was sent to a public school and Oxford, and with the same result. At -Oxford, however, although he did nothing more, educationally, than take -his degree, he did not spend his time in mere amusement. Thanks to the -friendship of Sir James Gwatkin, the well-known æsthetic critic, Gildea -learned to appreciate the delights of that wonderful modern production -which we call Culture. He had sufficient knowledge of Greek and Latin to -enter into the spirit of their art and poetry, and he learned French, -German, and Italian in the pleasant sexual manner prescribed by Byron. He -travelled more or less all over Europe, “living and loving largely,” but -(unlike Byron) saved from that excess whose inevitable fruit is satiety, -by the talisman with which Sir James had dowered him. Gildea had, too, -what the Romans called _curiositas_. The merely physical ideal of the -English viveur did not satisfy him: he used to say that, if he was to be -a blackguard, he should like to be a fine blackguard, and how can you be -a fine blackguard if you know nothing but what can be known by any fool -that can pay for it? - -Several years after the death of his father, Gildea, living a life of -considerable enjoyment between the pleasures of the countries and the -capitals of Europe, began to perceive that, after all, his talisman -was not omnipotent: it could not lay, it could only distance, that -ancient spectre which he now for the first time learned to face, if -not to dread, Satiety. At this point, however, Fortune, whose child he -seemed, came to the rescue: he fell in love. The best definition of -love is, perhaps, the care of someone else more than yourself, and (the -passionate would add) than anything. Gildea, then, did indeed fall in -love; but as his care for himself or for anything was not very great, -it cannot be said that he fell in love deeply. But Fortune, having -given him a spell with which to once more distance the ancient spectre, -now deserted him. The lady he loved did not love him in return: her -friendship—and friendship from so sweet and passionate a nature as hers -was of a somewhat intense character, partaking more of the warm sunlight -than the clear moonlight—her friendship she eagerly gave to him, but her -love was, past recall, given to someone else. On the day on which he -first realized this, Gildea, who had hoped otherwise, left England in -his little yacht the “Petrel,” alone. He had intended visiting the east -with her, returning by Naples, Rome, and Paris, with many sweet years, -nomadic or otherwise, in the radiant future. Now he was quite careless -where he went: for the first time in his life he knew what it was to feel -miserable. The loss of this woman was a loss from himself. He felt a void -in his soul, in his future. “And yet,” he used to tell himself, “she was -not ‘the twin soul that halved my own:’ we should not have made perfect -lovers, passionate, deep, abiding! None the less do I—or did I—long for -her. She is the most beautiful soul I have yet seen, or probably shall -ever see. Who would not straightway go and sell all that he had to -possess her?—and willingly chance the rest!” - -A violent storm caught the “Petrel” as she was about halfway down the Bay -of Biscay, and hurried her past Gibraltar. When Gildea perceived this, -and was asked by his skipper if they should put back, he kept silence for -a moment. Then, looking up with an amused smile, said: - -“No, Barry. We’ll go straight on to Madeira for provisions—from thence to -St. Helena, and then double the Cape and make for Australia.” - -Gildea had not been to Australia: it was one of the few places in the -world to which he had not been. He might, he thought now, as well go -there as anywhere. Several things in Australia interested him, and this -was enough reason to make him, in his present state, care to go. - -One bright, showery november afternoon, then, the “Petrel” passed Port -Phillip Heads: was piloted up the harbour to Port Melbourne pier, and -Gildea disembarked. He knew one person in Melbourne, and only one, -Charles Maddock. Maddock, and his father before him, had been friends -of the Gildea family. Maddock was some fifteen years older than Gildea, -whom he had known well as a boy at Katharinasbury, he himself at that -time being in the midst of his brilliant scholastic career at Cambridge. -Almost immediately after his ordination, Maddock came out to a high -ecclesiastical position in Australia. It had been the wish of his life to -work in one of the Pacific Colonies, and now his wish was fulfilled. The -appointment of one so young to the post he had at first held, had caused -a little murmuring both at home and in the Colony, it being known that -he was possessed of the highest influence; but the murmuring had soon -passed into pleasant greeting, and was now swelled to a regular chorus -of applause from friends, foes, and indifferent alike. Maddock had great -charm of manner: he was a more or less refined scholar, yet was not -lacking in that spiritual robustness which goes so far to make up what -is called a personality. It would not be too much to say that he was the -most popular man in the colony. Society delighted in the gentleman: the -outer world in the man, and both were right, for (here was the secret!) -he sympathized with both. - -Gildea on his arrival took up his abode at an hotel until he saw rooms -that pleased him, and began, after his fashion, to examine the city -and its inhabitants. He went everywhere and saw everything, happy to -find that his _curiositas_ was not after all dead in him. Pleasure, in -the sense of _living_, is in Melbourne but, what Tennyson says of the -pleasure of London, “gross mud-honey,” and had not much attraction to -one who had been through the best specimens thereof in London, Paris, -New York, and Vienna. Gildea, however, if he did not go through it here, -mingled with it as an amused half-spectator half-actor, seeking out -its meaning as regards this dawning civilization which was interesting -him just at present. He fell in with Sydney Medwin, a squatter’s son -and ex-Cambridge undergraduate, whom he had known by repute as an -inter-university runner and would-be rake, and they spent some pleasant -days together. Medwin’s father wished him to take to station work, but -Medwin, having tasted the “gross mud-honey” of London, Paris, and the -Continent generally, was doggedly determined to do no such thing. - -“Damn it all,” he said once in his half-acute way to Gildea, “there’s -quite enough money made already in the family, and now it’s time to spend -it. If my governor had wanted me to look after sheep, he shouldn’t have -sent me to Europe.” - -Europe was to Medwin—to Medwin held down by his inexorable “governor” -to an allowance and a place in the home establishment—a sort of far-off -beautiful dream which had once to a certain extent been his and, he -feared, would never be his again. His life was reckless: he was knowingly -doing his best to spoil a fine constitution by his excesses, and looked -forward to death within ten or fifteen years with stupid stoicism. - -After a little Gildea thought that he would like to see something of -colonial society, social and intellectual, and presented himself to -Maddock. Maddock knew the Medwins well, and even Sydney Medwin who, in -his unreflective way, had a great respect for him. - -“The governor,” Medwin said once to Gildea, “the governor has ruined -my life! I had an ambition—I was _ambitious_; yes, I was _ambitious_! -But I had to keep it dark! I can’t argue about it, you know: I haven’t -thought for years, and now I can’t. But if Christianity’s good enough for -Maddock, it’s good enough for me. I believe in Maddock.” - -Accordingly, whenever Maddock was to be met at the Medwins’, Sydney -Medwin was to be seen listening attentively to everything the Doctor -said, trying to think, trying to understand, the look of intelligence -varying on his face with the look of puzzlement. - -“A fuddled intelligence,” said Gildea once, smiling and laughing; “now -he’ll be off and get drunk with one of his girls at Dicks’.” (Dicks’ -was a private hotel where “the set,” as Medwin and his friends called -themselves, often met for the purposes of recreation.) - -Maddock was very pleased to meet Gildea again, and during the next month -they saw much of each other. Gildea mingled with the Colonial society -as he had mingled with the outer world, but with less interest. The -Colonial outer world is at any rate original: it does not imitate, it -_is_. Colonial society, on the other hand, imitates and imitates badly. -It is a case of the new wine in the old bottles. The young people wish -to break away from all the old social convenances and bien-séances: they -have almost a contempt for the old people; but the old people rule, and -their rule is as yet too strong to be openly disobeyed. The young people, -therefore, lack social self-reliance: they have no distinctive “style” -of their own as in America. “Indeed,” as Medwin used to say, “no one -_has_ any style out here, except the people at Government House.—And -they,” he would add, admiringly, “look down upon us all as louts.” The -young people, then, feel their ideas of happiness to be frail, immature: -pleasure is not, as in the European capitals, provided for them; they -must provide it for themselves. Pleasure, however, is their aim, and -pleasure, so soon as they rule in their turn, they will have. The -question is whether this pleasure is to be “mud-honey”—“mud-honey” with -its grossness drained somewhat, but still “mud-honey”—or whether that -wonderful modern production which we call Culture is going to intervene -and complicate matters. - -Gildea soon wearied of a society in such a painful state of transition. -Having arrived at these conclusions on its tendencies, or what he took -to be its tendencies, the painfulness of it began to afflict him. At the -same time his interest in the problem of this small social hot-house did -not, somewhat to his surprise, show signs of leaving him. - -One evening, at a large ball, he had been dancing and talking with a -singularly bright and intelligent girl, who had pleased him by herself -expressing her consciousness of this state of social transition of -theirs, and ascribing the true reasons for it. They sat out several -dances together, he enjoying her talk as that of a clever child, she with -her woman’s vanity pleased to be monopolizing the most distinguished -man in the room, and also glad of his mental appreciation of her. He -half lay in a low chair beside her, looking at her with smiling eyes and -smiling lips, amused. She was a little excited, just enough to give extra -brilliance to her words and acts. She was not speaking to him alone: she -was aware of the audience of guests, all of whom, she felt, were noticing -her, and some catching parts of the conversation. He, who read her soul -as if it were transparent, became more and more amused as she proceeded, -and by an occasional movement helped her out with the impression he -saw she wished to give her friends, namely, that he was more or less -entranced by her. The thought of taking her to Paris and introducing her -to its society, of watching her intense capacities of social pleasure -expanding there in their natural atmosphere, occurred to him and pleased -him. He had arrived at that spiritual state when much of our pleasure is -in watching the pleasure of other people. - -“Well,” he said at last, “and do you not find yourself lonely here, -with all these wonderful ideas of yours, Miss Shepherd? All the other -Melbourne young ladies do not, surely, participate in them?” - -She was not quite sure for a moment whether he was mocking at her or not; -but, looking at his face, decided in the negative. - -“Yes,” she said, “I _am_ lonely—rather. The other girls want to see -things. They want to go to Europe—London, Paris, and all that. But they -say it’s such a bother, and they’ve no memory. They don’t know _what_ -they want: they only know that they don’t want what they’ve got.—But -I—,” she added, turning to him, and catching her lower lip lightly with -her pretty visible teeth, one hand on her knee closing slightly. - -“But you?” - -“_I_ want to—_live_!” - -A pause. - -“Ah,” he said, “that means that some day you will want to die.” - -“I daresay! But I shall have lived _first_!—This Melbourne is just waking -up. I wish, O I wish I had not come into it till it was awake!” - -“You would like to go to Paris, then?” - -“Paris!” (She stopped breathing.)—“O that,” she said, looking at him -again, “is simply heaven!” - -“How do you know that, Miss Shepherd?” - -“Oh, I have read it! I have read all Alphonse Daudet’s novels, and a lot -of Balzac’s.” - -As Gildea strolled through the warm night streets, smoking a cigar, he -thought of her again for a moment, and laughed to himself. - -“The one Parisienne I have met out of Paris,” he said to himself, “She is -of the tribe of the fine steel-pearl mangeuses who rend life with their -dear little white teeth for the pleasure of rending. She should have been -born in a concierge’s lodge, with a future in ermine—and the Morgue. -And yet she is better than the mere mangeuse: she has intelligence. She -has to thank Australia for that. For a month, or even two, she would -be supportable—but the “Petrel” would take three to get her to Naples, -perhaps, and it would be more trouble to loose her and let her go then -than now.” - -He had been strolling about the streets for more than an hour. He was not -quite sure where he was. He stopped for a moment to look about him. A -short well-moulded figure in a close dress and a poke bonnet passed him -and turned down a narrow street ten or twelve yards ahead. He threw away -his cigar. - -“Janet,” he said to himself, “sweet child! And she recognized me and went -on.” - -Janet, a Salvation Army “lass,” going down into the Little Bourke Street -slums had indeed recognised him. The figure of a man, in a light overcoat -open in front showing that he was in evening dress, was remarkable -enough, to have attracted anyone’s attention there. She had looked up for -a moment: caught a glimpse of his face and, with a wild throbbing heart -and quivering lips, hurried by, and on, and away. Gildea’s investigations -into the social condition of the place had made him many unexpected -friends. Here was one who was something more than a friend, a lover, and -he knew it. - -“I am sick of it,” he said to himself, almost bitterly, “I will go away. -I want change.” - -At about five o’clock that morning Sir Horace Gildea was rowed aboard -of the “Petrel,” which passed out of the Heads a little after one, and -turned to the east, making for Sydney. - - -I. - -It was about eleven o’clock in the morning of a day late in april. The -sun shone with bright warmth, a fresh breeze blowing in from the sea. -Great deep masses of cloud, luminous-white or here and there shaded with -that slaty black which denotes incipient rain, were moving in the blue -vault of the heavens. Gildea was descending the steps of the entrance to -St. Mary’s Cathedral, accompanied by a young man of about his own age. At -the foot of the steps they both paused. - -“Well,” said Gildea with a look, “You will be at my rooms in time for -lunch, you say?” - -The other nodded, and, in a few moments, saluting one another with a -movement of the hand, they parted. The young man went with a quick firm -step in the direction of St. James’ Church, while Gildea sauntered across -the road into the Domain. He was thinking of the young man, Francis -Fitzgerald, a young Jesuit whom he had met years ago at a seaside place -in the south of France, and who, as he said, for the sake of his health, -had come out on a voyage to Australia. - -“It is wonderful,” said Gildea to himself, “how quickly and thoroughly -the religious bodies are waking up to the intellectual necessities of the -time. Romans—Anglicans—Lutherans, and even Calvinists are sucking lustily -at the two paps of the Modern Spirit which we call Science and Culture. -It is the instinct of self-preservation. If they do not suck they will -starve. But ah, how many of us are cross-tempered enough to prefer to -starve rather than imbibe the milk of a cross-tempered mother!” He looked -up with a fine smile, suddenly realizing his humour of thought. “I am -quite serious,” he said to himself, the smile deepening and broadening, -lighting up his face with amusement, “which shows how adaptive I am. -Really now, I listened to Fitzgerald’s hopes and beliefs in the future -of Romanism with quite as much interest as if I were a Romanist myself. -I can quite conceive of myself taking very considerable pains to forward -a cause in which somebody else believed. This surely was the central -idea of my attachment to Olivia Bruce? I used to think I should be -quite satisfied to live the life of a poet in that of my poetess? So -far, this power of living your own life in the life of one you love has -been a female gift. And indeed I have often thought that I should have -been better as a woman. I can quite imagine myself as Lady Bellfield -or d’Israeli’s delightful Berengaria; whereas now, I am but an aimless -wanderer on the face of an aimless planet, a pilgrim without a shrine.” - -He walked on half-thoughtful half-amused, till he had crossed the Domain -and found himself opposite the Picture Gallery and the Botanical Gardens. -He entered the gardens, and was proceeding down one of the walks when, -some fifteen yards before him, he beheld a well-known figure. It was -Maddock, Maddock standing at the side of the walk, observing a plant -through his pince-nez with serene interest. Gildea came up to him with -pleasure. - -“Ah, Doctor,” he said, “you here! This is a surprise!” - -They shook hands: greeted one another, and exchanged health notes both of -themselves and Mrs. Maddock, as they went on down the walk together, the -Doctor rubbing his glasses with his silk handkerchief and keeping step. - -“The truth is, my dear fellow,” he said, his head up and moving from side -to side as he drew into himself the enjoyment of the fine morning air -and scene, “the truth is, I am here for a holiday—or rather, for half -a holiday. Sydney is a favourite place of mine.—But,” he added in his -humorous confidential way, “you know I don’t care for the _people_! They -are not in earnest enough! I would sooner, I believe, have an earnest -atheist than a lukewarm orthodox man. Isn’t it your friend Renan who says -somewhere, that the atheist has an idea of things, a quite inadequate -idea, it is true, but still an idea, whereas ‘the average sensual man’ -has none?—or something to that effect.” - -“Yes,” said Gildea, “he says so; and he adds elsewhere that ‘atheism is -one sense the grossest of anthropomorphisms. The atheist sees justly -that God does not act in this world after the manner of man; hence -he concludes that he does not exist; he would believe if he beheld a -miracle—in other words, if God acted as a finite force with a determinate -object in view.’” - -“That is good,” said Maddock, “I did not give Renan credit for saying -such a thing.” - -“No,” said Gildea, “you have never got much further in Biblical criticism -than the Germans. Strauss satisfies you as the great _Against_, and poor -Westcott as the gigantic _For_!” - -They both laughed. - -“Come, come,” said Maddock, “you must not poke fun at me!” - -“It is impossible,” Gildea answered, “to poke fun at an ecclesiastic who -calls Heine ‘a great poet and brilliant philosopher.’” - -“Ah, you have been reading my last polemic, I see?—Yes, you _must_ have -been reading it; for no newspaper man would ever think of quoting an -opinion like that.” - -“I have been reading it with admiration and wonder: admiration at its -excellence as polemical work, and wonder that you should take the -trouble to castigate a production which you yourself declare to be, as a -contribution to theological knowledge, utterly useless.” - -“Yes, but did I not explain myself? The book is fundamentally vicious. -It confirms the shallow heterodox in their heterodoxy, the shallow -orthodox in their orthodoxy. It gives forth light to no one and darkness -to everyone. Progress in foolishness and stupidity, that is all that it -signalises; the foolishness of ‘go-aheadism,’ the stupidity of re-action. -I have no patience with a man of presumable intelligence who could write -such a book.” - -“But do you not think that your attack on it will only, by bringing it -into public notice, increase its powers of mischief?” - -“I hope not. I hope that I have sufficiently laid bare its gross -ignorance of the subject of which it treats to bring it into that -contempt whose fruit is oblivion.” - -“In England—in London or in any country or capital where there is a -large intellectual life—this might be so. But am I not right, Doctor, -in believing that this Victorian Melbourne of yours is a place where -pure intellectual life scarcely exists? You have the mass of intelligent -money-makers who care, or who do not care, for things (I will not say -religious but) sectarian. Then there are those who care for things -political; but where will you find any number of men who aim at making -their life the purely intellectual life? They are all partizans here. -When, therefore, you attack a Rationalist like Judge Parker, all the -Rationalists rally round him, just as the orthodox rally round you; and -the result is, as the _Argus_ says, a boxing match, wherein the great -thing is to at all price shout down their man and shout up your own. -Truth turns away in disgust from such an exhibition of blind deaf bawling -partizanary. These men are not of the sort that are open to reason: you -cannot lay bare to such as these the gross ignorance or perfect science -of their champion; they will only hiss or applaud as you blame or praise -him. I may be wrong: my observation of your so-called intelligent public, -is, you know, necessarily but small.” - -Maddock kept silence with rumpled brows. At last: - -“I do not know,” he said, “that you are not, after all, to a large degree -right. We are very narrow here. A thing done in the street is done in the -city, and indeed in the whole country!” - -“And am I not right in thinking that the only two native subjects, -which are capable of arousing public interest and curiosity here, are -those which appeal to the two portions of your mass of intelligent -money-makers—things pertaining to business, and things sectarian?” - -The Doctor suddenly regained his humour. - -“Are,” he said, the deep humorous smile playing about his mouth, “are all -the fashionable young men who come out here in yachts as acute observers -as you, Sir Horace?—But I object to your word sectarian: you should say -religious. I am quite ready to admit that (to put it as a Melbourne -printer put it to me the other day) the only subject that will pay for -book-printing here is Religion, and Religion, alas, in its polemical -aspect. But I cannot look upon this, as you seem to do, as a great -misfortune. I—I ... well, I may say _candidly_, that I rather _like_ a -bit of polemics now and then, and the shouts of the men round the ropes -do not altogether disgust me, as of course” (his eyebrows went up) “they -ought to do! No, I do not look upon that purely intellectual life of -yours as by any means the ideal for us to aim at. It smacks too much of -dilettantism for _me_!” - -Gildea smiled. - -“Dear Doctor,” he said, “we all know that you prefer a climate where -the sky is not always a cloudless vault of blue insipidity. The sound -and feel of a buffeting wind is pleasant to you. As I said just now, -you prefer Strauss to Renan, and the good secular Saint Matthew Arnold -finds small favour in your eyes. Now too that you are taking to science, -I expect every day to hear you tell us Cuvier was a greater man than -Darwin, and that Huxley is an impudent young amphioxus that has no place -beside the dignity of our dear old behemoth, Owen.” - -“Now I really won’t let you poke fun at me,” said the Doctor, “I really -won’t! The next thing is, that you will be saying something rude about -Professor Mosley and his “Ruling Ideas in Early Ages,” and scoffing at my -idea of having some of his essays reproduced in our _Daily Telegraph_.” - -“Oh no, Doctor, I will not do that. Even Mosley’s essays are better than -the sermons of the local ecclesiastics.” - -“You are very impudent,” said Maddock, his face all beaming, “to call me -a local ecclesiastic! I shall have to get you to write a pamphlet on my -review of ‘Religionless Religion,’ so as to be able to denounce you _ex -cathedra_!” - -“Well, I should very much like to do so, only ... you know my cowardice: -I cannot write——” - -“Even letters to your best friends, to explain that you have only gone -off to sea at an hour’s notice, and are not, as they anxiously expected, -drowned, or murdered and secreted in some hole in the slums.” - -“I prostrated myself in apology to Mrs. Maddock.” - -“Yes, in over a week! As for Dr. Maddock, of course such a casual -acquaintance as _he_ could not expect.... Ah, you are a quite too -eccentric young man, Sir Horace! I wish you were well married, with a -definite aim in life. Someday one of your wild freaks will end you, and -then, what, what will have been the result of those great abilities with -which God has gifted you?—Now,” proceeded the Doctor, “this is not an -extract from the _Daily Telegraph_ sermon corner, but only the expression -of the affectionate anxiety of one who hopes you will allow him to call -himself your true friend.” - -Gildea kept silence for a moment. Talk of this sort only served to show -him how completely his real inner view of things was unknown to his -companion, and so the idea of making an answer did not occur to him: he -felt how useless it would be. Then he genially thanked the Doctor for his -friendship and its kind wishes, and added lightly: - -“You ask what will be the result of, as you are pleased to say, those -great abilities with which God has gifted me. The result (you perceive -it) will be nothing; but, Doctor, what, let me ask you, in a hundred -years will be the result of those great abilities with which God has -gifted _you_? In the hundred and first year we shall start equal; and -I, who have not a belief in a personal God and a personal immortality -as _you_ have, find the whole matter, I confess, rather absurd! This -would not probably have been so always. If I had lived in the days when -action indeed contained the highest stakes of life, I should have played -for them; but, as it is, the highest stakes now belong to the thinker, -the writer, and I—I cannot write ... even letters! I, like all my -contemporaries, am more or less under the sad dominion of the perception -of, what Leopardi calls, the ‘infinita vanità del tutto,’ but, unlike the -best of them, I have no care for the only immortality we have left, the -immortality of Art or Science. I think of the hundred, or thousand, or -million and first year, and find myself smiling.” - -Gildea was soliloquising, Maddock forgotten. He had, then, after all, -drifted into making the answer, the idea of making which had, by reason -of its clear uselessness, not occurred to him; and yet he had not made -it to Maddock, but to himself. Maddock, indeed, did not altogether -understand it, but the feeling of it, the belief that inspired it, he -felt and hastened to reply to. He laid his hand gently on Gildea’s arm, -bringing him to a pause, and said simply: - -“_Look!_” - -They had come down as far as Farm Cove—skirted it, turning off along Lady -Macquarie’s Walk—then mounted up onto the drive, and, having passed by -the Chair, were now standing on the brow of the slope with an open view -of Garden Island (Clark Island being hidden), the harbour, and the woody -hills behind it. Great deep masses of cloud, luminous-white or here and -there shaded with that slaty black which denotes incipient rain, were -moving in the blue vault of the heavens. Light and shade lay everywhere -in alternate streaks or patches. One round piece of water to the left -was like a burnished blazing mirror of steel. Other parts were blue, -gray, or dark, reflecting the cloud-colours above them. The anchored -ships rose and fell gently, their flags fluttering. A steamer came -stealing out of one of the harbour arms into the open. The only sounds -of life were the far-off hammer-strokes of the builders, the occasional -cry of the white fleeting sea-gulls, the striking of a ship’s bells, the -cricket humming at their feet. - -“And,” Maddock said, in his deep voice of earnestness, “in the face of -such a scene as this—the free glory of nature so great and so glad, -the wonderful toil and effort and happiness of mankind—you will say to -yourself: ‘_There is no soul in me, for there is no God to give it!_’ -Ah, my dear Sir Horace, you surprise and grieve me! Are you not—you, oh -heavens, _you_!—at heart an atheist? are you not guilty of that grossest -of anthropomorphisms yourself?” - -Gildea smiled, a fine sweet smile of sadness that made even the strong -steady heart of his companion turn faint for a moment and sick. There was -something so absolutely inevitably hopeless, as it seemed to Maddock, in -this strange soul that he saw before him, now for the first time laid -bare. Here was a patient for which the physician felt he had no power -of healing or even alleviation. What view of christian faith and hope -and love did not this strange soul know? Maddock, for the first time in -his life, felt himself in the presence of one, the breadth and depth -and height of whose spiritual experience encompassed him like an ocean. -The words of remonstrance died on his lips: exhortation lay lifeless in -him: silence and sorrow possessed him. He turned away with a heavy sigh, -a sigh which was the unconscious acknowledgment to himself that life -and death, time and eternity, man and God, could indeed be read in two -diametrically different ways. For the first time in his life he realized -the truth of “the Everlasting No” in a human soul greater than his own. - -They walked on together for a little in silence. Then Gildea said as -simply and naturally as if nothing unusual had happened: - -“Now, Doctor, tell me will you come and have lunch with me? Mrs. Maddock, -you say, has shaken you off for the sake of a long morning with Lady -Whitfield, and why should you not retort on her spinster’s déjeuner with -a bachelor’s lunch? I ought to have thought of it before.” - -The Doctor again suddenly regained his humour. - -“Thank you,” he said, “I shall be charmed.” - -“Nay,” said Gildea, smiling, “but I must bid you pause a moment, aimless -dreamer that I am, and tell you who you will meet there. Perhaps you will -want your assent back again.” - -“Speak on,” said Maddock, “and, provided it is not some one who will -object to my smoking afterwards, I ... I don’t think I shall!” - -“The guests, then, are three in number. Firstly, James Alcock, who, they -tell me, is the most secular and scientific member of all the Australian -Legislative Assemblies——” - -“Go on,” said Maddock. - -“Doctor,” Gildea said, “he reads Haeckel and swears by no other prophet -of Science. Pause before it is too late. They say too that he sleeps -every saturday and sunday with Mill “On Liberty” under his pillow, and -all Spencer’s “Principles” strewed about the counterpane. He knew my -father years ago in England, and his heart warms towards me as towards an -incipient disciple.” - -“Secondly—” - -“Secondly, Francis Fitzgerald, a young man learned with all the learning -of the Egyptians; a pilgrim and devotee at that simple west-England -shrine which holds the Catholic pearl beyond all price, John Henry -Newman; a scholar of the Parisian seminaries; a pupil of the inner Jesuit -circle—” - -“Thirdly—” - -“Frank Hawkesbury, the young Australian poet; a Socialist, delighting in -Trades-Unions, Religious Revivals (the Salvation Army is a hobby of his), -and Secular Organizations with a grand impartiality! Nay, it is even -whispered that he had dealings with Holden and the Irish and Continental -Nihilists two years ago in London. Our friend Mrs. Medwin almost fainted -when Sydney Medwin asked her if she would care to know him.” - -“I have looked through one of the young man’s books of poems,” Maddock -said, serenely, “and rather liked them. He is in earnest. Your lunch -will be amusing.—It smacks to me,” he added, with a touch of grimness -in his humour, “a little of those shows one sees now and then at the -street-corners. They call them, I believe, happy families.” - -Gildea laughed. - -“Yes, Doctor,” he said, “but what if the animals should take to fighting? -Alas, then, for the canaries and the mice, who will be worried and eaten -by the dogs and the cats.” - -“Which are who, or who are which?” - -“Let us say that Alcock is a dog, and Fitzgerald a canary.” - -“Then _you_, I suppose, are the mouse and _I_ the cat? But what is your -young Australian poet to be? You have left him out.” - -“Oh, he will be a rabbit. You will see that he can burrow. It is the -forte of Socialists, burrowing.—Now,” he proceeded, “we must go this way -if we are to get to my rooms in time. And as we go, will you let me first -express some tentative thoughts of mine, and then ask you a few questions -about your friend Mr. Parker and yourself?” - -“Ask on,” said Maddock, getting into step, “and I will do my best to -answer you.” - - -II. - -“It is about this little book of his,” Gildea said, with slow -reflectiveness, “‘Religionless Religion.’ I found it interesting.” - -“Indeed?” said Maddock, “As interesting as the production of your dear -continental sceptics?” - -“Well now,” Gildea said, in a tone that implied a certain amount of -candour, “to tell, what the French call, the true truth, I was struck -by several things both in it and in your reply to it. I thought that it -would have been difficult to have found a more typical example of the -average intelligent secular view of theological Christianity than that of -our good Judge.” - -“I agree with you, and that was one of the reasons that made me decide to -attack it. It is typical.” - -“And, therefore, to anyone who is, though only as an amateur, an observer -of things contemporary, it is interesting. Its very deficiencies will be -instructive. Well, what I want you to do, Doctor, if you will be so good, -is to help me with your superior knowledge of the things treated of to -arrive at the spiritual condition of the treater. Perhaps you will not -find the attempt too uninteresting, or....” He paused with a movement of -courtesy. - -Maddock, who had a faint suspicion that Gildea was mocking, half grumbled -out humorously: - -“Go on, then! Qualify yourself as a psychologist, my dear fellow, and -then we will have a plunge into social metaphysics. It is refreshing in a -country where they are all partizans, and Matthew Arnold and the purely -intellectual life are not appreciated. _Sic itur ad astra._ In the name -of all the lucidities, forward!” - -“In the first place, then, we have to notice, have we not, that the -little book is polemical, which, at any rate to the amateur observer of -things contemporary, detracts somewhat from its historical value; for, -after all, is not a polemist, to a large extent a man who defends the -delusions of his friends against the delusions of his enemies, and leaves -Truth, like the proverbial pounds, to look after herself? But, if we -always remember to take off a percentage for the polemics, we need not -miss what it is that the polemist really means and feels?” - -“Πως γαρ οὐ?” said Maddock. - -“And the more easily, as our Parker is in earnest about, what he calls, -‘his most serious and difficult task.’” - -“Forensic flourishes!” - -“—In earnest as far as suits the disposition of a theistic polemist.” - -“—Microscopically, that is to say. The lawyer’s, and especially the -successful lawyer’s, habit of thought tends towards earnestness as the -sparks fly downwards.” - -“For the average lawyer’s habit of thought is perhaps the most typical -example of the average intelligent secular view of things. Is it not -the final fruit of what is called common-sense, that is to say of the -sense of common people? Our good Judge more than once speaks of himself -and his audience as “persons of ordinary common-sense,” as opposed to -“metaphysicians,” and especially “ecclesiastical metaphysicians.” He -wants clear solid statements which his mind can see, and as it were, -touch and handle. He scoffs at all statements other than these, looking -upon them as at bottom sophistical. It follows that, when he comes to -criticise the Bible, he claims the right to criticise it, not only with -the same spirit, but with the same manner, as he would criticise any -other book. He will not only look at it straight, fearlessly, logically, -but he will demand of its statements that they be clear and solid, that -they bear the ordinary interpretation of ordinary statements. He will -apply the same principles of examination to Moses and Jesus as he would -do to Blackstone or Chitty. And all the secular persons of ordinary -common-sense cry out: ‘Hear, hear!’” - -“With the Judge,” said Maddock, “a metaphysician is a man who examines -the Bible by the aid of principles other than those of one who is -ignorant of all contemporary history save that which the Bible gives him.” - -“The consequence of which is, that he is capable of such a statement as, -that ‘without question early Christianity was far more free from paganism -and from the taint of superstition than the Christianity of our own -time,’ and others of a like force.” - -“He has no notion whatever of the philosophy of history—of, what I call, -the development of divine Truth.” - -“And yet he is contradictory enough, while asserting the degradation -of the Christian ideal, to lay much stress on the development of -Divine truth in a civilization that has, till comparatively lately, -been Christianic. Yes, he sees the development of divine Truth, but -he does not understand the forms which that development has taken in -Christianity. The Trinity—the Atonement—the Deity of Christ—are to him -‘mere crude superstitions which disfigure and obscure pure and true -religion.’ It never seems to have occurred to him that, although these -doctrines may be empty formulæ to him, they were and are passionate -realities to others.” - -“That is very true.” - -“He will talk with the same ignorance of what he would call Jesuolatry -as a Protestant will of what he calls Mariolatry, neither he nor the -Protestant understanding any more of a deep spiritual truth than its -cut-and-dried dogmatical letter.” The Doctor assented, though with a -movement of slight qualification. - -“We agree at starting, then, that his criticism as that of an historical -Bible student does not exist. The authorities he quotes are, as you point -out in your Reply, ludicrous. They culminate in his poor little some -‘celebrated Unitarian minister’ or other, than whom the habit of thought -of the legal Biblical critic can, it is to be hoped, no further go! He -is too, we agree, careless and superficial even in his own style, but -we must not lay too much stress on individual cases of this in the face -of his request for ‘indulgence’ for his ‘doubtless many imperfections -here.’” - -“When a man speaks publicly of such a grave matter as religion,” said -Maddock, “he should _not_ be careless, he should _not_ be superficial! We -have a right to demand of those who make explosives, that they, at any -rate, do not smoke in the magazine.” - -“True; but, if we all got our deserts, who, you know, should -escape whipping? Certainly not the producers of orthodox religious -literature.”—(The Doctor, after a pause, assented as before).—“Well, -we will proceed further against our good Judge, and say that his -appreciation of what is, as he says, ‘good and ennobling’ is ludicrously -inadequate. What can be said of a man who seriously speaks of Jesus, -‘when, in the garden of Gethsemane, he went apart and prayed, three -times over, the same prayer to God, within a short period,’—of Jesus -thus ‘_doing that which he told his disciples not to do—“use not vain_ -repetitions, _as the heathen do,” for the reason that your heavenly -Father knoweth what things ye have need of_ before _ye_ ask _Him_.’ -Habemus confitentem asinum! We can only burst out laughing: a reply to -such a statement is impossible! The lawyer’s habit of thought is at its -apogee, and (as Heine says) ‘_Gegen die Dummheit kämpfen wir Götter -selbst vergebens._’—Against stupidity the very gods themselves struggle -in vain.” The Doctor assented smiling. - -“And statements similar to this are not scarce here. Our good Judge, -then, has not, it is clear, much experience of the spiritual life, of -those who live in the spirit. The ‘sudden conversion of Paul,’ for -instance, strikes him as one of the (it is supposed) ‘improbabilities so -forcible that no sane _thinking_ man or woman can accept’ the inspiration -of the Scriptures which relate them. Now, any one who knows anything -of human nature other than that of ‘persons of ordinary common-sense,’ -knows that such ‘sudden conversions’ are not only not improbable, but -passably frequent. In some cases, as in that of Staniforth, quoted by -Arnold in his ‘St. Paul and Protestantism,’ the circumstances approach -so closely to those of Paul’s that we are enabled to assign to them a -definite place in the science of psychology. Nor are our good Judge’s -‘errors,’ as you say, exhausted yet. We have still to bring against him -the charge of, what Celsus calls, κουφοτης, and Arnold translates ‘want -of intellectual seriousness.’ So confused and incoherent is his knowledge -of the real position that the secular biblical critic takes up, that he -absolutely calls the position taken up by the orthodox biblical critic -(that is to say, biblical _critics_ who are orthodox; as, for instance, -you yourself, my dear Doctor): he absolutely calls this position -critically ‘untenable,’ not perceiving that it is his own only differing -in degree!—This is simply appalling! The κουφοτης of the Secularists is -not a whit better, after all, than that of the Christians!” - -“Yes,” said Maddock, disregarding the last remark, “but then you must -remember that the Judge ‘does not intend to resort to any process of -subtle argument, nor to make any display of scholastic knowledge, nor to -indulge in learned disquisitions.’ He merely writes ‘popular, clear, and -simple’ nonsense for ‘the doubter who is trying to grope his way to the -light, but cannot; to the Atheist who believes in nothing, neither in a -Supreme Power, nor in a future life.’ And your secular ingratitude to -him, Sir Horace, strikes me, I must confess, as keener-toothed than the -winter wind of orthodoxy!” - -“Doctor,” said Sir Horace, “you are poking fun at me! But I, who am, as -Shelley said of himself ‘rather serious’—I proceed in my examination, -whose sole confirmation as truth I find in your words or gestures of -approval. You will, I hope, forgive me for any repetition I may make of -your own criticism, as a master should a humble disciple? It is only a -proof of attention and admiration.” - -“Go on,” said Maddock, “mocker!” - -“All these faults, then, which we have remarked in our good Judge—his -polemically; his ignorance of the grammar (or, perhaps, as your Reply -says, the alphabet) of historical criticism; his ludicrously inadequate -conception of the good and the ennobling, of the spiritual calibre of -such men as, for instance, St. Paul; his superficial acquaintance with -the data of the subject of which it is treating; and, finally, his -κουφοτης, his want of intellectual seriousness—all these faults, are we -not agreed, are the faults of the average intelligent secular view, in -its negative consideration of Christian Theology? The question that now -arises is, has this view nothing but faults?—has it no excellencies? -Does there remain, after the attack on it of so admirable a theological -polemist as Dr. Maddock is, no residuum of real and vital truth? -Let us try and see.—To begin with, did we not find that, despite a -contradiction, our good Judge perceived the reality of, what you so -finely call, the development of divine Truth?— - - “_Yet I doubt not thro’ the ages one increasing purpose runs,_ - _and the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns._” - -“No,” said Maddock, “I cannot grant him even that! A faint glimmering of -a thing cannot be called a perception. Consider this very contradiction -of his! Consider, again, his unspeakably gross and ignorant treatment of -the Old Testament which he brands with blood-thirstiness and impurity. He -works by a rule of thumb. The higher spiritual mathematics are mere names -to him. He is—I must declare—too much of a blockhead to ever rise beyond -the spiritual Rule of Three.” - -“I agree to a large extent, dear Doctor; but you will admit, I think, -that even the Rule of Three is not without its use, without its real and -vital truth?” - -“Not when the schoolboy cannot use it properly! I have pointed out, for -example, that, in attacking the doctrine of the Divine Sonship, he only -attacks a dummy doctrine of his own. Your schoolboy does not know which -of the three is his third quantity! He wants, then, to be whipped and put -onto the dunce’s stool—to encourage the others!” The Doctor spoke for the -first time with a little testiness. - -“Be it so,” Gildea said, “our good Judge is not to be allowed more than a -faint glimmering of that fine theory of ours of the world’s unseen τελος. -The ‘divine far-off event’ is not more than a fog-lamp to him, which he -will not, then, mistake for the moon, or its light for moonshine. But -that he is too much of a blockhead to even rise beyond the spiritual -rule of thumb, the spiritual Rule of Three, seems to me, I confess, dear -Doctor ... well, a rather strong statement. The average intelligent -secular view of things is, is it not, less pedantic, less given to -accepting the conventional value of things as their true value, than the -average intelligent orthodox view? Are not, indeed, these tears a most -convincing proof of it? Is it not just because our good Judge refuses, -for instance, to accept the orthodox view of Jesus and of God that he -wrote his little book, and you replied to it? Now the orthodox view of -God is, if you will let me say so, excessively pedantic: it adheres to -the expressions of a belief in which in its heart it does _not_ believe -at all. Parker’s criticism on this is excellent. ‘It is impossible,’ he -says, ‘to lay down any definition of God which will even satisfy man’s -conception of God.’ What, then, is the good, he asks, of holding up this -‘magnified non-natural man’ of yours, and asking me to fall down and -worship it? Common-sense revolts against such an idea and common-sense, -dear Doctor, is, will you not agree, for once right?” - -“You surprise me, Sir Horace,” said Maddock. “Are you too going to spend -your time and trouble in demolishing the survivals of verbal inspiration?” - -“Certainly _not_! I am only trying to see wherein common-sense is a safe -guide as a biblical critic. We are agreed, then,—you, that is, the Judge -and I—that we must unite in opposing many of ‘the statements which,’ as -the Judge says, ‘the orthodox are pleased to call evidence.’ Because, for -instance (to continue with the Judge’s own words), ‘the fallible man Paul -says in a letter to Timothy that the Scriptures were inspired, it does -not make them so.’ We are agreed here?” - -“We are agreed here,” said Maddock, with deliberation. - -“Or again, to take another instance, when Matthew and Luke, for whatever -purpose, strive in their genealogical tables ‘to give Jesus’ (I always -use the Judge’s words) ‘a divine origin, conceived of a virgin by the -Holy Ghost, and yet to connect him with David by making Joseph the -natural father of Jesus.’—are we not here faced by two ideas which ‘no -one short of an ecclesiastical metaphysician,’ or, as you say, a ‘very -bad critic,’ would or could ‘reconcile?’—We are still agreed, of course.” - -“We are still agreed—to a certain extent.” - -“Nay, let us go further, then, and chime in with the Judge to the effect -that ‘on far stronger evidence (if evidence it can be called) than that -which supports’—let us say, almost all—‘of the events or miracles’ of -the Scriptures, ‘the Roman Catholic Church propound to the world their -miracles,’ which ‘the Protestant section of Christianity reject as -incredulous.’” - -“Proceed,” said Maddock. - -“Nay, let us go further still, and notice how we no longer look on the -Genesis account of the Creation as more than allegory, of the Flood as -being strictly accurate; of the tower of Babel as, again, more than -allegory, and so on in many other similar cases. And how in the same way -we do not look upon the statements of Christ, and after him of the author -of the ‘Revelations,’ of the close approach of the Apocalypse, as literal -but only figurative. ‘The statement of Jesus,’ as the Judge puts it, ‘as -to his coming again before the then generation have passed away does not -mean that he will so come: ‘generation’ being merely used figuratively, -but when he does come he is still to come in the clouds of heaven, and -with great glory, sounds of trumpets, rushings of winds, and mourning -of tribes; for’ (Gildea paused)—‘all this has not yet been falsified by -the event.’ This is, I think, undoubtedly the conclusion at which common -sense arrives, but common sense is of course wrong.” - -“Common-sense is wrong,” said Maddock. - -“Common-sense too, as exemplified in this its typical blockhead -who cannot ever rise beyond the spiritual Rule of thumb and Three; -common-sense observes of the development of divine Truth, as exemplified -in the Christian theology of yesterday and to-day, that its ‘golden -rule apparently is to adopt those interpretations’ of its Scriptures -‘which best satisfy the exigency of the particular position of the time -being,’ and thus we have no further guarantee that the God of to-day -will be the God of to-morrow than that the God of yesterday is certainly -not the God of to-day. ‘Heaven forgive me,’ exclaims ‘that great poet -and brilliant philosopher,’ Heine, ‘but I often feel as if the Mosaic -God were but a reflected image of Moses himself.’ And we all remember -with what contempt Taine speaks of this God of Christianity, revised -and amended to suit the latest edition of scientific and historical -discovery—rooted up out of the earth and momentary intercourse with -man—driven out of the clouds and the occasional interposition of his -strong right hand—spied and telescoped from the radiant bowers of the -stars, and finally lodged out of sight, and all but out of mind, in the -eternal infinitudes of Time and Space! After all, then, may not our good -Judge have had, not of course a perception, but a faint glimmering, of -sapience, when he spoke of the position taken up by the orthodox biblical -criticism as critically ‘not only untenable, but absolutely suicidal?’ -The thought is, as we agreed before, simply appalling. Spirits of Butler, -Paley, Neander, Weiss, Westcott, Lightfoot, and many another mortal or -immortal immortal, rise and thunder ‘_No!_’ When this exponent of the -average secular intelligence declares that contemporary Theology is an -impossible compromise between Reason and Absurdity; that the Protestant -is quite inconsistent who with one face rejects ‘the events or miracles -propounded by the Roman Catholic Church because they involve a violation -or suspension of unvarying natural laws; because such things do not -happen, and because _reason_ refuses to give credence to them,’ and with -another face accepts as truth the sojourn of Jonah in the belly of some -sea-monster (at present conveniently extinct, even to the bones), or the -communications of, what Gordon describes as, - - ‘that duffer at walls, - the talkative roadster of Balaam:—’ - -rise, I say, and in Olympian accents demonstrate to him and his benighted -audience, that these were but links ‘in the development of divine Truth,’ -and that ‘one lesson at a time of this difficult kind was enough, and as -history shows more than enough, for human weakness.’” - -“You are a treacherous and malicious young man,” said Maddock, laughing -in spite of himself, “and have no right to quote my words in such an -irreverent and grotesque manner!” - -“It is my orthodox ingratitude,” said Gildea, “—And yet,” he added -suddenly, with a complete change of tone and manner, “in less than fifty -years polemics like these will be looked upon as childish, and, those who -spent their life and energy upon them, as we now look on the mediæval -Schoolmen. It is a sad thought.” - -Maddock was a little puzzled at these swift chameleon changes in his -friend. - -“And now,” said Gildea, looking up with yet another change of tone and -manner, “and now we have done with the negative side of the good Judge’s -criticism and can turn to the affirmative.—But that,” he added, “must, I -am afraid, be after lunch—if you will, Doctor?” - -“I will,” said Maddock, “and you shall not then find me so passive, for -your treachery and malice are now quite laid bare to me.” - -Gildea smiled. - -“But not my loyalty and admiration? Believe me, Doctor, that, if it were -only for this one remark of yours, I could never fail in my interest and -gratitude to you. ‘Our blackfellows,’ you say, ‘had no punishment for -offences against their elementary ideas of purity but spearing. _And -it was infinitely better that they should spear for impurity than lose -their first step towards a higher life._’ ... But here we are,” he said, -“This is the house. Fitzgerald and Hawkesbury have to leave us soon -after lunch. Mrs. Medwin and her niece, Miss Medwin, are coming later -to make tea for me, and then we are going out for a sail in the yacht. -Mr. Medwin is thinking of a legislative career, and so Alcock is to be -cultivated. Can you come with us? You know how pleased it would make us -all.” - -The Doctor explained that he was due at his hotel at half-past three to -meet Mrs. Maddock, and both he and Gildea expressed their due regrets at -his not being able to make one of the party on the yacht. - - -III. - -Gildea led the way upstairs and ushered Maddock into the sitting-room. It -was in reality two rooms joined together by a large folding-door, which -was now thrown open and draped with four looped-up curtains, two of some -dark-red material behind two of delicately-wrought muslin. The two rooms -were of the whole depth of the house, the large bay-windows, open and -with a glass-door in the middle of them open also, at one end looking -out over the city, at the other over the harbour. A grass-slope, and a -garden with flower-beds and rustling trees, spread all round and down to -the water’s edge; while, a little way out, the “Petrel” rode at peaceful -anchorage, her boat behind her. Maddock was for the moment so taken up -with the beauty of the place within and without—the room with all its -harmonies of form and colour, the garden and harbour scene—that he did -not notice that someone was standing, half hidden by the curtains, in -the next room on the hearth-rug. Then Gildea passed through and greeted -this person whom he brought forward and introduced to Maddock as Mr. -Hawkesbury. - -Hawkesbury was a small but well-made man with a tendency to muscular -leanness. His face was striking and interesting, and betrayed a -strongly-defined individuality. At one moment he might have been called -handsome, and his manner frank, free, and open: at another his features -took such a contracted intensified look, and his movements were so -nervously acute, that the whole man seemed to have suffered distortion. -It seemed as if he were suddenly seized by some keen pain, spiritual and -physical, and was being racked by it. When Gildea entered, there was -for a moment a trace of this latter manner in Hawkesbury: his sensitive -pride found something antagonistic in, what seemed to him, the consummate -luxury which surrounded him and even in the consummate culture of its -owner: he was almost asking himself what right this man had to spend so -much money and care in decorating a few rooms for a few months, this -man whose life was so radically selfish? Hawkesbury’s was, he might -have said, the feeling of one who was a socialist and worker by intense -conviction, finding himself opposed to one who was an aristocrat and -hedonist by the mere chance of birth and fortune. But, when Gildea met -and greeted him with the frank sweet unconscious cordiality of an equal -whose acquaintance is pleasant, the dark look passed from Hawkesbury’s -face and he gave himself up to the simple pleasure of the situation. -His unexpected introduction to Maddock, who represented to him the more -or less sumptuous aristocrat of religion, for a moment, it is true, -threatened to bring back the evil spirit to him; but Maddock, with his -fine social tact, almost divining the state of affairs, was equally -frank, sweet, unconscious and cordial in his manner, and Hawkesbury was -at his ease. - -The three men stood talking together, Maddock in the middle, in the -bay-window that looked out over the harbour. - -“Why, Sir Horace,” said Maddock, “you will never be able to get away from -this enchanting place again! Are you sure you do not intend to make it -into a home? You did not honour your Melbourne rooms with such care—such -choice of furniture, and....” (He raised his arm and outspread hand, -smiling humorously). - -“‘Man delights not me,’” answered Gildea, “‘No, nor woman neither, though -by your smiling you seem to say so.’” The smile broke out on Hawkesbury’s -face too. It was soothing and very pleasant to find these two talking in -his presence of such an intimate matter as that alluded to here: he was -not accustomed, in the company of, what in Australia and even England -goes by the name of, ladies and gentlemen to this complete absence of -social and individual constraint. - -Then Edgar, Gildea’s valet, ushered in someone else, Mr. Fitzgerald, and -there was a movement and introductions between Maddock, Hawkesbury, and -the new-comer, the three being left alone for a moment while Gildea was -giving some directions to Edgar about domestic arrangements. - -Maddock and Fitzgerald fell almost immediately into a conversation, -Hawkesbury playing the part of silent member. The Doctor was interested -in finding out what the impressions of a cultured Roman Catholic were -of Australia and more particularly of Victoria and New South Wales. -He asked a few questions, the answer to which, he thought, would show -him whether Fitzgerald had observed things with care and sympathy, and -was answered with a gentle readiness that pleased and satisfied him. -The two men felt themselves to a certain extent on common ground, and, -Fitzgerald touching incidentally on the education question, they began to -parallelise each other’s views with cordiality. - -“We quite recognise,” said Fitzgerald, “all the difficulties of -the case—the danger of the unfair influence of catholic teaching -over protestant children, or vice versa, just as each happens to be -stronger in the particular place and school. But we would accept this -danger—accept it, even supposing we were the losers by it—rather than -have the present state of things continue. As our Archbishop said only -the other day at Leichardt: ‘Besides the faculties of intellect and of -reason, there are certain passions of the soul,’ and to develop the -former and wholly neglect the latter is to send a boy out into the world -with _only one eye_. You have prepared him for the temporary business of -life, and unfitted him for the glorious service of eternity: you have -given his ship fine sails, and forgotten to add a rudder! He may be an -acute man of business, but he will be a bad citizen; for, in taking away -from him his sense of religion, you will take away from him his sense of -morality, of honesty, of integrity! We can, at the present stage, see for -Australia no future save that of corruption—a corrupt political life, a -corrupt national life, the unlimited worship of Mammon!” - -“I agree with you to a large extent,” said Maddock, “and we all know -that, practically speaking, the talk about ‘religious education at home’ -is mere verbiage. If the education of a child is secular, his spiritual -lungs, so to speak, end in being able to inhale no other air and thrive -on it.” - -“And,” Fitzgerald said, “the education _is_ secular! Every effort is -being made to drive the voluntary schools out of the field. Their state -aid here in New South Wales is withdrawn: in England it is reduced to -a pittance and hedged about with annoyance. And this, although the -educational reports, drawn up by a secular commission, show that, at -any rate the catholic schools educate on the average both better and -more cheaply than the state-schools do! We only ask for fair play, and -now it has come to this pass that we cannot get it! All over England -the protestant voluntary schools are failing and disappearing. But we, -we Catholics, who cannot, as Protestants do, console ourselves with the -reflection that the atmosphere of the state-schools, if secular, will be -tempered by that of our own beliefs—we _will_ not fail and disappear! We -are the poorest of all religious bodies in England; but I will venture -to say, that not a single case can be found of a catholic school which -has surrendered itself up, as these others did, into the hands of the -Secularists. Our educating priests and laymen have to suffer much -privation: I know, shall I say hundreds, of them who deny themselves all -but the bare necessities of life; but—_we stand our ground_!... You see,” -he added smiling gently, “we Catholics cannot labour under any delusion -here. We recognize that this is a stupendous crisis in the world’s -history. We will have no compromise and secular tempering of the wind to -the shorn Christian. We will stand to our guns, and, if we must perish, -perish there!” - -Maddock was impressed, and so even was Hawkesbury. This man’s enthusiasm -was so quiet, so clear, and yet so radiant. Gildea returned and joined -them. - -“We were speaking of the popular education,” said Fitzgerald, turning to -him, “and I would persuade Dr. Maddock that his cause and ours are here -identic.” - -“I need no persuading,” said Maddock, “I have for some time been -persuading _myself_!” - -“And yet,” Fitzgerald put in gently, “the alliance between us and you -seems farther off than between us and the Dissenters.” - -“And that, I think,” Gildea said, “is because you have more in common. -You are afraid of one another. In the one case, you know that the -frontier of your alliance will be observed, in the other there is a -chance that it may not. At present the most dangerous opponents of -Catholicism in England are, what they call, the High Churchmen. The -Church of England is a compromise between Catholicism and Protestantism; -hence its adaptiveness, hence its strength! It more nearly, in my -opinion, approaches ideal Christianity than any other sect in existence. -It unites the Faith, the Poetry, of Catholicism, with the Freedom, the -Prose, of Protestantism.” - -“We thank you,” said Maddock. - -“Logically speaking, however,” added Gildea, “it is an absurdity.” - -They all began to laugh. - -“Ah,” said Maddock, “I was right when, even while thanking you, Sir -Horace, I thought to myself: _Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes_.” - -“The Christianity of the Future,” Gildea proceeded gravely, “lies, I -believe, in two transformations—in Catholicism learning that its kingdom -is not of this world, that it no longer requires a Pope, a Rome, as a -Palladium whereby it may fight; in a word, in learning the lesson of -Protestantism, of Freedom: and in Protestantism doing the converse, and -absorbing into itself the catholic Faith, the catholic Poetry!” - -“And what are the Secularists going to do in your Future?” asked -Hawkesbury, “are Messrs. Arnold and Huxley to be put up on a shelf in -your spiritual Museum, in two large spirit bottles, labelled respectively -‘Culture’ and ‘Science?’” - -“Culture,” answered Gildea, “is, after all, but Secular Catholicism, just -as Science is but Secular Protestantism. They too will each learn their -lesson of the other.” - -“Humph!” said Maddock, who again had a faint suspicion that Gildea was -mocking, “and so, after all, Sir Horace is an optimist.” - -“We do not lay stress,” Fitzgerald said gently, “on the temporal power -of the Holy Father. As Sir Horace implied, this temporal power was once -the one shining light in a chaotic world, and it was well that it should -be set on a hill. But now the light is diffusing itself. It is our -wish that, as the Vatican Œcumenical Council declared: ‘Intelligence, -Knowledge, and Wisdom may grow and perfect themselves—as much with the -mass as with individuals, with one man as with the whole church!’ We are -no foes to Freedom. What we _are_ foes to, is Anarchy! At the Reformation -you gave the right of deciding on the deepest religious questions to -every ignorant man that chose to discuss them, and the seamless robe of -Christianity was rent into a hundred pieces! Look at all these miserable -little protestant sects and sub-sects, Plymouth Brethren, Primitive -Methodists, Ana-baptists, and I know not what noisy, ignorant fanatics. -At the Revolution, you did the same for social questions, and what is -the result? The Dynamiters of Russia, of Germany, of Ireland, initiated -by what you, Dr. Maddock, so well call ‘such gentleness as was revealed -in the diabolical deeds of the Commune,’—to say nothing of those of the -Reign of Terror.” - -Maddock half-deprecated, half-approved by a gesture and an inarticulate -sound. - -“Yes, but,” said Hawkesbury with the thrilled voice of suppressed -passion, “has not history justified the Reformation? and how can you say -that it will not justify the Revolution? These, as it seems to me, are -the two fiery portals which lead to Religious and Social Liberty. But you -are right to depreciate them: they knew nothing of the poetry of Culture -and Catholicism, or of the prose of Protestantism and Science. They were -volcanic eruptions of the People. Heine says well, when he talks of ‘the -divine brutality’ of Luther, and we do not shrink from the same phrase -for Hugo or Whitman. Sir Horace has painted us a Future which is indeed -heavenly. It is thronged with sweet-singing angels, and there is not a -shadow in its perfect light. But what has become of the _men_, and what, -O what, has become of the _devils_? They have no place in this Future. -You do not care for the People, I say, except as you care for your dog -which, if he is quiet and docile, shall have a kennel and the bones and -scraps from your table; or, if he is surly, shall be chained up; or, if -he goes mad, shall be shot! Ah believe me, gentlemen, the People _has_ -a place in the Future, for the People, and none other, _is_ the Future! -‘_All for the modern_,’ cries Whitman, ‘_all for the average man of -to-day_.’ But you—you only care for the Upper and the Middle-class. Your -scheme of civilization does not reach to the People. The Upper-class is -exhausted: it needs invigorating. ‘_Cultivate the Middle-class_,’ is the -cry, ‘_Give us Higher Education for the Middle-class!_’ This is the whole -social teaching of the best representative man you have, Matthew Arnold. -Now we, we Socialists as you call us, _love_ the People, and (you will -pardon me) _hate_ the Middle-class;—the dispossessed, the sufferers, -_not_ the possessors, the usurpers! The People is the Prodigal Son. What -sympathy have we, then, with a man like Arnold who has devoted himself -to the edification of the Elder Brother? Arnold says once that he has -evolved that perfect style of his which we know so well—that style which -encloses a minimum of ideas in a maximum of catch-words—or, as he likes -to call it, ‘plain popular exposition’—for the especial benefit of the -British Philistine, the divine Middle-class, who otherwise could not be -got to read him! He would have done better, perhaps, if he had not turned -to the setting, but to the rising sun. The People are the masters of the -Future, and the People’s great men will be the great men of the Future.” - -There was a pause. Then: - -“There is much truth in what Mr. Hawkesbury says,” says Gildea, “Just at -present we think too much of the ultimate Culture of the Middle-class -and too little of that of the People. But the fact is, that the question -of the Middle-class is pressing: they are, as you say, Hawkesbury, the -possessors; they are the Present! And this, I think, is why men like -Arnold, who believe that, in the organization of the Present, lies -the only hope of the success of the Future, are so anxious about it. -It is a case, as he believes, of ‘Culture or Anarchy’—Culture now or -Anarchy then. And Carlyle, a disciple of whom Mr. Hawkesbury has, in -the admirable Preface to his second book of Poems, declared himself to -be; Carlyle too, who laid much stress on what he calls ‘the radical -element’ in himself, yet mocks at ‘Mill and Co.’ as he says, in whom he -declares the opposite element was ‘so miserably lacking.’ Carlyle had no -respect for ‘Rousseau fanaticisms,’ even in a man like Mazzini: he saw -that, if the Middle-class were purblind and slow, the Socialists were -only purblind and quick. Supposing that we grant that the Dynamiters -of Russia are justified in meeting an absolutely dense despotism with -violence, what excuse but impatience can we find for the Dynamiters of -Ireland? The first have no means of free agitation, the second have every -means. Ireland has been wronged: no one denies it; and never, in the -whole course of her history, has England shown such alacrity as she is -doing now to right the wrong; never, not even for herself. But the Irish -Socialists are impatient: their cry is for everything to-day, this very -hour! To grant it them would be the greatest unkindness possible. Well, -they too have taken to dynamite as a hypochondriac takes to opium. The -Russian Nihilists are noble people, none nobler, but they taught fools -and knaves an appalling lesson when they inaugurated the reign of terror -in Petersburg. At the present moment, as Heine clearly foresaw, the -Civilization, not of Europe, but of the whole world is in danger.” - -“You speak well, Sir Horace,” said Maddock, “and express my opinions -better than I could myself, but—_Timeo_.” - -He, Gildea, and Fitzgerald smiled. Hawkesbury was grave. There was a -pause. Then: - -“I think,” he said, “that you do the People wrong. These extreme -Socialists, the Nihilists as they are called, are not from the People, -but from the Middle-class. They are, as a rule, men who have received the -best education of the time, and who yet find themselves unrecognized and -unrewarded. Most of them are journalists. It would astonish you, I think, -to see the amount of really first-rate talent that is being flogged to -death in the shafts of the modern Press. These men cannot work in shops -and banks: the narrow material life has been made impossible to them. -The only opening for the life they would—nay, that they _must_ live, or -perish, is that of Literature. Literature caters for the Middle-class, -the ruling class. These men, then, are the slaves of the great caterers, -the newspaper editors. One of the most thorough Socialists I ever knew, -Holden, in fact, was on the regular staff of the English _Spectator_, -the organ of the enlightened portion of the Middle-class; and there, as -he said to me, he went as near Socialism as he could for threepence! -(Threepence is the price of the paper.) This same man wrote, too, -political articles for a distinguished radical politician, and I have -seen the proof-sheets of these hacked and mauled by the patron to -suit the palates of the Radicals. It was this man who once seriously -contemplated dropping a bomb in the House of Lords, to show that herd of -hereditary liars, as he put it, that there was such a thing as justice -in the world! He loved the People: he hated the Middle-class, but the -People cared nothing for him. It is, then, I think, a mistake to lay the -paternity of Nihilism to the charge of any but the over-fed tyrannous -Middle-class.” - -“What you say,” Maddock said slowly and courteously, “is very interesting -and instructive, Mr. Hawkesbury, and I perceive that the ground which -you, and I think I may say Mr. Fitzgerald,” (Fitzgerald smiled and -bowed), “and myself have in common is large enough to admit of our -working—at any rate not in opposition to one another. Is not our mutual -object the enlightenment of the unintelligent mass of the People and of -the Middle-class? I am, I am sure, grateful to you, sir, for the manner -in which you have brought this home to me. I always felt that underneath -all our differences—I mean, the differences of our beliefs, religious -or social—we had a common ground, the advancement of a really good and -true Civilization, and now, I think, I know this. He renders us a great -service who makes our feelings self-conscious, who turns them into the -articulate thought of words.” - -There was a slight pause. - -“And now,” said Gildea, in his half-amused way, “we will, if you please, -go down to lunch. Mr. Alcock particularly asked me not to wait for him, -and we have waited, it seems unconsciously, for over half-an-hour.” - -They went down together into the dining-room, chatting lightly and -pleasantly. - - -IV. - -The dining-room was the corresponding room on the ground story to the -sitting-room up above. It was quite as well furnished, but in a different -style. A fine rather than an exquisite form of beauty had been sought -after. It was a saying of Gildea’s that a dining-room ought to give you -an impression somewhat similar to that of a beach-brake in spring: the -architecture and furniture should have clear outlines, the colours should -be clear, the lights should be clear. All massiveness and duskiness was -to be avoided. A meal ought to be a repast, not a feast: we should rise -pleasantly satisfied, not dully satiated. In a sitting-room, on the other -hand, the sworn abode of the sweet and delicate talk and music of women, -just as the dining-room was that of the serene discussions of men, there -should be something of the lush luxuriance in shape and colour of the -midsummer woods, knights and ladies and all the figures of romance and -fairy-tale passing together. But such an arrangement of rooms as this, -he would say with his bright half-mocking smile, was at present like a -damsel of the Middle Ages suddenly awakened in the dull derisive streets -of London or Manchester. This will only come to pass in that wonderful -Future, when we have all learned that Beauty and Truth are synonyms, and -Keats has statues and altars like Sophokles of old. - -Considerable time, wealth and trouble had been spent on this house. -Sydney and Melbourne had been ransacked for beautiful things worthy -of Gildea’s ideas of “the nest,” as he called it to himself, that he -desired; for this was indeed one, and not the least remarkable, of his -freaks. It had been aroused in this fashion. One afternoon, sauntering -across a road in the Domain, he had almost been run over by someone -riding a splendid bay horse. Looking up, with a fine touch of anger, he -had perceived that it was a lady, who was looking down at him with a -look, he suddenly felt, so precisely his own that, the ludicrous aspect -of the thing coming upon him, he smiled. She too, at once following his -change of feeling, smiled, and then in a moment, with a slight courteous -movement of hand and body, had passed. It had all taken place in a few -seconds. Her face and form made up between them, he thought, the most -beautiful woman he had ever seen, and he had not seen few so-called -whether in Europe or elsewhere. Beauty in women was, according to Gildea, -a thing which was not _in reality_ to be seen in the present world, -implying, as it did, perfection of form and perfection of spirit, καλον -κἀγαθον. The Athens of Perikles had produced female beauty; in the -face and form of the Venus of Milo the highest physical and spiritual -perfection of the time is apparent. Florence too, in such a woman as -Vittoria Colonna, had produced female beauty, and the Renascence had -incarnated it in a Marie Stuart; but, so far, our Modernity was not ripe -for it. Lovely female faces it, as all times, had in abundance, but these -faces knew nothing of spiritual perfection: they knew nothing of life, -they were not beautiful. And the female faces that _did_ know of life, -the faces of women like George Sand, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, -were quite wanting in physical perfection. They imply mental passion, -the struggle of pain: they have not reached to the serene pleasure of -spiritual sovereignty. No, Beauty, καλον κἀγαθον, is to be a produce of -the Future when Modernity has passed through the pangs of its travail -and, in the bright light of health and youthfulness, “grows in wisdom -and stature” to the perfect self.—But this face that he had seen for a -moment, was, he thought, really beautiful. - -A few yards from him a man was standing looking back at the rider passing -along under the trees. Gildea came to him, and asked him courteously if -he happened to know who the lady was? - -“No,” said the man, “I don’t know who she is, but I often see her.” - -And on this incident Gildea had founded a freak which had for some time -amused him. He intended to see this woman again, and, if he was correct -in his supposition (which he used amusedly to doubt to himself) that -she was some phenomenal anticipation of the Future, to possess her. He -set about choosing and furnishing a house, therefore, which should, as -far as possible, be worthy of such an individual, and much amusement -it occasionally afforded him. A private enquiry-office was meantime -seeking her out; and, about a month ago, Gildea to his surprise had -been informed that she was, beyond doubt, a Miss Medwin, niece of the -well-known squatter, english, eccentric even to the extent of riding -about and shooting in man’s clothes on one of Mr. Medwin’s stations in -New South Wales, and, moreover, strongly suspected of having had, and -of still having, an intrigue with a Mr. Frank Hawkesbury, a writer and -man of uncertain means, in Melbourne. Gildea laughed much on receiving -this unasked-for report, (He had just by accident made the acquaintance -of Hawkesbury), and his interest in his freak somewhat revived; but his -all but conviction that he was incorrect in his view of Miss Medwin (if -it were indeed she), prevented him from having any great interest in the -matter or any great anticipations of success. As usual, however, he was -satisfied to find that he had any interest or anticipations at all. He -learned from Mrs. Medwin that she was in a short time coming to Sydney -for a week or so on her road up to one of Mr. Medwin’s New South Wales -stations to which she had not been for years, and would be pleased to -see him. A few days ago, then, she and Miss Medwin had arrived, and were -waiting for Mr. Medwin who was detained by business in Melbourne. Hence -Gildea’s invitation to Mrs. Medwin and her niece, to come and make tea -for him and go for a sail in the “Petrel.” - -The party arranged itself round the table, Maddock at one end, Gildea at -the other, an empty place on Gildea’s right hand for Alcock, Hawkesbury -on his left with Fitzgerald next to him. Maddock, as before, could not -help observing with admiration the beautiful room in which they were -sitting. Hawkesbury, however, following out a train of thought suggested -by his own last words, sat serious, looking at the table-cloth. - -The lunch began. Gildea and Fitzgerald could both, when they pleased, -excel in that graceful sweetness of manner which is supposed to be the -peculiar gift of women. They pleased now. The talk flowed lightly and -pleasantly, and soon returned to, what seemed to be to them all, the most -interesting topic—the People. Fitzgerald spoke of the far greater ease -and leisure of the People here than in England, and that led on to a -consideration of the question of Labour here. - -“Carlyle declared long ago,” said Hawkesbury suddenly, “that the great -question of the time was no other than the organization of Labour. Well, -Labour is at last organizing. The consequence is that, as Mr. Fitzgerald -remarked, there is greater ease and leisure among the People, not only -here in Australia where Labour is comparatively scarce, but even in -England where it is plentiful.—The question here, however,” he added, -“shows signs of complication. The employers are to form—nay, have already -formed—a union: ‘The Victorian Employers’ Union.’ The only wonder is -that it is in Victoria and not in England that this idea has first been -adopted. In Trades-Unionism in England, let me say it at once, there have -been many abuses; but, let me hasten to add, not nearly so many abuses as -there were under the old despotism of Capital. Trades-Unionism, which so -few people seem to understand, originally meant the combination of many -oppressed small units against a great oppressing unit. _Now_ it means -more: it means the determined effort of the People after happiness.” - -“That is very true, I think,” said Gildea, “The People, ever since the -deception practised upon them by the compromise Reform Bill of ’32, have -been slowly learning to organize themselves and to rely on themselves -alone. Such a fact soon makes itself apparent. There is not a single -considerable political measure since ’32 which has not a socialistic -tendency.” - -Hawkesbury acknowledged Gildea’s remark, and proceeded: - -“The People, and by the People I mean of course the masses, is everywhere -realizing that there is something better worth living for than frantic -competition and the scramble for wealth. Trades-Unionism, then, is -the sworn foe of all this. I am not speaking either for or against -Trades-Unionism: I am simply stating what it _wants_, what it _is_! The -Trades-hall delegates, in the late conference anent the Bootmakers’ -strike in Melbourne, refused to let a bootmaker work for more than eight -hours a day, although, by so doing, he might better himself, and by not -so doing might keep himself for ever a mere journeyman. ‘Further argument -with men of such a way of thinking,’ says Mr. Bruce Smith, the chief -mover of the ‘Victorian Employers’ Union,’ ‘further argument seemed -useless.’ And it was indeed as it seemed; for these men were of opinion -that if, in the frantic competition and scramble for wealth, one or two -journeymen _did_ rise and become rich, hundreds and thousands would have -to lead lives which would not stand too favourable a comparison with -those of dogs. ‘Therefore,’ the delegates would say, ‘we will check this -frantic competition and scramble for wealth, and we will even be so -wicked as to sacrifice the one or two possible journeymen who might rise -and become rich, for the sake of the actual hundreds and thousands whose -lives otherwise would not stand too favourable a comparison with those -of dogs.’ Well, and what will be the end of this new phase of the great -battle of Capital _versus_ Labour on which we seem to be now entering -here? Let me not be thought a terrorist, if I remark, what is indeed -patent to all, that, in a country with a franchise like ours, Labour, if -driven into a corner and confronted by Capital triumphantly brandishing -its sword of ‘Frantic-competition-and-the-scramble-for-wealth—Labour, -I say, might make things excessively uncomfortable for the community -in general and Capital in particular. I am not hinting at mobs and -sticks and stones. I am merely stating a fact that is patent to all. -Our good friends the Landed-proprietors, videlicet the squatters, have -experienced in Victoria and elsewhere—are indeed now experiencing even in -Queensland[13]—the undoubted benefits of a little judicious legislation. -Might not someone suggest to the ‘Victorian Employers’ Union’ and Mr. -Bruce Smith, who seem to have such quaint notions of what Trades-Unionism -really wants and is, that the same fate may possibly be in store for our -other good friends, the Capitalists?” - -“It is a pity,” said Gildea smiling, “that we have not a Capitalist here -to answer you. But, I think, I know what one of them, Mr. Alcock, would -say. He would say that the great law of Nature is this very frantic -struggle which you deprecate, and that, if you attempt to put a check -on it, you will only end by first arresting and then destroying all -progress. He would oppose the interference of organized Labour quite as -much as of organized public opinion, that is to say the State. He would -of course recognize all the evils of the frantic struggle, but he would -say that it yet contained the great ascending and progressive power of -Nature, it was yet capable of Evolution; whereas the artificial state of -popular leisure and ease contains the great de-scending and retrogressive -power of Nature, Dissolution.—But here,” he said, “at the very nick of -time, he comes himself.” - -Edgar, who had just left them, returned ushering in Alcock, who came -forward with somewhat off-hand apologies to shake hands with Gildea. He -was then introduced to Maddock and shook hands with him, compromising -the matter, as he thought, with the others by a bow and an expression -of his pleasure at making their acquaintance. He sat down in his place -and, having told Edgar what he chose to eat, was ready for a few moments’ -talk before setting somewhat vigorously to work on the victuals. Gildea -explained to him the conversational context, and what he himself had -ventured to say in the person of the typical scientific capitalist. - -“Well,” Alcock said, with a half-pleased half-amused look on his face, -when Gildea had finished, “I will observe that, on the whole, you didn’t -put my sentiments so badly, Sir Horace.—I am opposed to all state -interference,” he declared, turning to Maddock, “It doesn’t pay in the -long run; it enervates people! Look at this New South Wales here. They -can’t put a bridge across a creek now, without petitioning government for -assistance! In England a half-dozen men or so would have got together and -settled the matter themselves. And they want more state interference in -Victoria! Why, it’ll drain out all their independence, and energy; and, -in twenty years, they’ll be as lazy and lackadaisical as they are here in -New South Wales! Competition’s the law of Nature.” By this time Alcock’s -mouth was full, and he was beginning to enjoy the delicate food and -wines, for he was hungry and thirsty. There was a pause. - -“True,” said Fitzgerald, gently breaking it, “but does not Mr. Alcock -too think, that it is just where the law of Nature ends that the law of -Humanity begins? Surely this is the essential position of Christianity, -that it says to the brutality of Nature: ‘Thus far shalt thou go, and no -further.’” - -“You can’t,” answered Alcock with his mouth full, too intent on the -victuals to be more explicit, “You can’t interfere—impunity—great -law—nature—struggle—existence—survival—fittest.” - -“Here, then,” said Fitzgerald who ate little and drank less, turning -to Hawkesbury, “_we_ are at one, I think, as opposed to the pure -Scientists?” - -“I do not believe,” Hawkesbury said, “and I do not think any Socialist -believes, in carrying the initiative of the individual to the extent -that Herbert Spencer would like. But we are not in favour of state -interference. We want to nationalize things, the land, the unearned -increment, the great public enterprises, but we include in this term the -State also. The State at present means the tool of the Middle-class, -worked by Capital and the Land Interest. This arrangement partakes -too much of the nature of a political joint-stock company to please -Socialists.” - -“And you think,” asked Gildea, his hand on his wine glass, looking -at Hawkesbury, “you think that when the People wins, as it of course -ultimately will win, the control of things, that it will not work the -State in its own interest, just as the Aristocracy did and as the -Middle-class does?” - -“You know,” Hawkesbury said, “I _believe_ in the People! The People is -the only unselfish part of society. Their one desire is for justice and -mercy; and, when they could not get it themselves, they have always died -readily for those who, they believed, wished to give it them. Herein lies -the secret of all great popular devotions—from that of Christ to that of -Napoleon.” - -“I,” said Alcock, “do _not_ believe in the People, as you call them, -and their unselfishness has not yet come under my notice. The People, -like everyone else, are led by what they believe to be their interests, -their immediate interests, and our great effort should be, by giving them -a good sound practical education, to get them to see that their true -interest lies in e-volution and not in re-volution. Let us have a fair -chance for everybody, and let the best men win.” - -“Yes,” said Hawkesbury, with suppressed eagerness, “but the trouble is -that, in this so-called free competition of yours, the best _don’t_ -win! In Nature the best win, I agree; but Civilization has complicating -clauses that modify and all but change, what you rightly call, her great -law—the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest.” - -“I do not see that,” said Alcock, returning to his victuals which he had -left for a few moments. - -“I will give you an instance,” said Hawkesbury, “A, B, and C are three -men who start as beggars in the market of free competition. A has the -best wits, and A accordingly wins, and makes a fortune. Good: we applaud! -Then A, B, and C all die, leaving sons D, E, and F, the best-witted -of whom does not happen to be D, A’s son, but E, the son of B. Does E -therefore win and make a fortune, and D sink down to his proper level -with F? Not a bit of it! D has not only his own second-rate powers to -help him: he has also the wealth which he inherits from his father. -E, then, has no chance against him: the second-rate man with wealth -overwhelms the first-rate man with beggary. What are the consequences, -generally speaking? Why, that, instead of the best surviving, the second -or third or fourth or fifth-best survive, and the market is drugged with -successful mediocrity. Here, I think, is the delusion under which Herbert -Spencer’s social philosophy labours: he does not see that Civilization, -as we know it at present, is not a natural but an artificial state, and -that therefore the laws which hold good in Nature by no means necessarily -hold good in Civilization. Look at the bees or ants, whose Civilization -is a natural and not, as ours is, an artificial one: do _they_ encourage -free competition with its inevitable concomitants of wealth and power -accumulated in the hands of a few to the prejudice of the community? Not -so. To each is assigned an equal, if varying, share in the economy of -the community. With them work has its duty, and, as for idleness, it is -not possible. But what duty has the successful business man, except to -his own success? what duty has the wealthy aristocrat, except to his own -pleasure?” There was a slight pause. - -“It won’t _work_,” said Alcock, his eyes a little opened, sitting -considering this young man with sudden interest. (Alcock had so far -thought that, in the present company, nothing would be acceptable save, -what he called, a popular exposition of his own views)—“Believe me,” -he added with gravity to Hawkesbury, “I have gone through all this at -length, repeatedly, and with care, and I am convinced that, with many -drawbacks, free competition within and without is the only thing which -will give us a civilization of progress. The real tendency of everything -else, I say, is towards stagnation or retrogression. Free competition -universal, the great problem of which is to be the dominant race will -proceed to settle itself quickly and thoroughly. Until that problem is -settled, we cannot hope for a Civilization worthy of the name. All the -inferior races must be stamped out, all the stagnatory or retrogressive -ideas eliminated, and the best men with the best knowledge left masters -of the situation. It is impossible to foresee what such men may achieve. -We may yet, perhaps, open communications with the planets and even modify -the courses of the stars.” - -“Well,” said Fitzgerald smiling, “we have had the Vision of the Future -from the Christian, the Cultured, the Socialistic point of view, and now -we see that Science too has her dreams. I have no objection myself to any -of these Visions which, as I take it, all contain a not inconsiderable -amount of truth. I would only observe that I believe them to be all -impossible solely and individually. The Socialistic Future that would -banish Christ, the Scientific that would also banish God, can no more -exist as, in Mr. Alcock’s phrase, masters of the situation, than the -Future of Christianity that would ignore the glory of our discoveries in -Natural Law, or the Future of Culture that would deny to the People our -highest joy.” - -“No,” said Alcock drily, “we don’t want Superstition mixed up with -Religion, _that_ is clear enough.” - -“Nor yet,” added Fitzgerald sweetly, “do we want Superstition mixed -up _without_ Religion.” (Alcock, with the look of a man who does not -understand a thing and does not much care to, took a drink at his -champagne, which, it was evident from the new expression on his face, -was to his taste. Fitzgerald proceeded suavely to the table at large and -more particularly to Maddock.) “For, as perhaps Mr. Alcock,” (with a -slight bend of the head to Alcock), “will permit me to say, the purely -scientific view of things, which sees, in the unrestrained application -to civilized life of the brutality of Nature, the undoubted parent of a -Civilization worthy of the name, may be after all, and I believe is, a -great superstition. Is not a superstition a belief in a thing not worthy -of that belief? And is it not, then, a superstition, in calculating the -progress of Humanity, to leave out of all account, as the pure Scientists -seem to me to do, the most distinctive thing in Humanity—Religion.” - -“_I_ should say,” observed Alcock, “that _Reason_ is the most distinctive -thing in Humanity.” - -“Indeed?” asked Fitzgerald, “You surprise me! Is it not generally -admitted now that the rudiments of Reason, and considerably more than -the rudiments, are to be found in the animals? But I am not aware that -anyone, not even Ernst Haeckel, has discovered in them the rudiments of -Religion. Can we not, then, agree with Max Müller that it is ‘certain -that what makes man man, is that he alone can turn his face to heaven; -certain that he alone yearns for something that neither sense nor reason -can supply?’” - -Alcock had the look of a man who feels the prompting of flippancy -and, restraining it, is amused at what his flippancy would have said. -Fitzgerald, perceiving this, answered it: - -“Müller,” he proceeded, “in criticising Kant, who is of course the Father -of all the worshippers of Reason, again says finely that ‘he closed the -ancient gates through which man had gazed into Infinity; but, in spite of -himself, he was driven, in his “Criticism of Practical Reason,” to open a -side-door through which to admit the sense of duty, and with it the sense -of the Divine.—This is the vulnerable point in Kant’s philosophy,’ he -goes on, ‘and if philosophy has to explain what is, not what ought to be, -there will be and can be no rest till we admit, which cannot be denied, -that there is in man a third faculty, which I call simply the faculty -of apprehending the Infinite, not only in religion but in all things, -a power independent of sense and reason, a power in a certain sense -contradicted by sense and reason, but yet a very real power, which has -held its own from the beginning of the world, neither sense nor reason -being able to overcome it, while it alone is able to overcome both reason -and sense.’” - -“That it has held its own from the beginning of the world,” said Alcock, -“is no proof that it will do so to the end.” - -Fitzgerald smiled. - -“What you say,” he answered, “makes clear to me, then, that you do not -accept this ‘faculty of apprehending the Infinite,’ and philosophically -make the best of it, but you wish to call it mere childishness or, as you -say, superstition and—‘eliminate’ it! And yet you talk of Religion! What, -may I ask, does a pure Scientist, as you seem to be, Mr. Alcock, _mean_ -by Religion?” - -“Well,” said Alcock frankly, “I confess that, to me, it means little -more than credulity. I am not, of course, hostile to Religion; on the -contrary, I support it. It helps to keep society together.” - -“It will do,” said Hawkesbury, “for the People! Pending the arrival of -that education, which is to teach them the high satisfaction of social -evolution, the masses may amuse themselves with such used-out mummeries -as the Devil, Christ, and God. The People is grateful. It has, it knows, -as much to expect from Science as from Culture.” - -Fitzgerald was quite amused. - -“Mr. Alcock,” he said, “since you pure Scientists are generally reckoned -as the foes of us Christians, we can ask you to do us no kinder service -than to nail these colours of yours to the mast in the sight of all men. -I do not alone mean your belief that Religion is all but a synonyme for -credulity; but this general conception of things of yours which includes -no further consideration for Religion than elimination. We can have no -doubt of the results. The world will doubtless find in _our_ conception -of things a certain amount of, what Mr. Hawkesbury has called, used-out -mummery (for man’s free-will has ever turned use into abuse), but it will -find also things which savour of the kindly earth and the genial sun; -whereas, if you will let me say so, in _yours_ all that it will find -will be the steel-cold atmosphere of some heatless planet, filled with -the dreary whirr of abstract machinery. Superstition _with_ Religion, -they will say, is better than Superstition _without_. And then, after -they have given you a trial—and a trial they will give you, and such a -great and long trial that we shall be eliminated almost as much as even -you, Mr. Alcock, could wish us to be—then they will come back to us, -and, having been driven by sore anguish of soul to re-discover, as their -Father did, the sense of duty and of the Divine, they will find that this -first step leads inevitably to another, and that to yet another. And, -in the end, all high souls, and after them of course all other souls -(for the wisdom of to-day is the common sense of to-morrow), will see -that their best and truest Father was a man who, passing through all -this before them, has these years stood with clear and radiant faith, -his longing hands held out to all that would take their strong help and -guidance to that place of joy and of peace!” - -Alcock, supposing this man to be Jesus and having made it a rule never -in mixed company to speak of that to him, under such circumstances, -embarrassing personage, kept silence, looking at the table-cloth. -Hawkesbury too did not understand the allusion, which even Maddock, -unless he had been warned by Gildea of Fitzgerald’s connection with -Cardinal Newman, might have missed. As it was, Gildea, perceiving and -amused at Alcock’s misunderstanding, was ready to at once dissipate it. - -“Newman,” he said, “is indeed the great modern example of a man of high -intellect and all spiritual powers giving, not only, as Heine did, -‘his tribute of admiration,’ but everything he had, ‘to the splendid -consistency of the Roman Catholic doctrine.’ I remember once hearing a -rather able High-churchman say that he could not see, any more after -than before reading the celebrated _Apologia_, why Newman had joined the -Church of Rome: which is to say, that he could not see that, to a certain -type of mind, the only two logical positions for a man of thought to-day -are those of Scientific Atheism or of Catholic Faith.” - -“He leaves no place, then,” said Hawkesbury, “for the Theists or the -Pantheists?” - -“The Theists,” answered Gildea, “leave no place for themselves—except -in the spiritual out-houses and the Unitarian chapels. There is not, I -think, in modern times, one man of first, or second, or even third-class -intellectual power that has believed in a personal God and not believed -in a divine Christ. All men of thought are really now divided into two -classes, Christians and Atheists: the first believing in a personal -Christ and a personal God, the second in Law. All other differences -are, as it seems to me, at heart mere divergences of symbolism. We are -accustomed, for instance, to call those who hold that matter produces -spirit Materialists, and those who hold that spirit produces matter -Idealists, and those who hold that matter and spirit are identic and -divine, Pantheists; but really they are all Atheists. There is no -Atheism, no disbelief in a personal God, more intense than that of our -Idealists, Renan, Arnold, Emerson, who never cease, however, to talk of -God and bid us find in Him our only comfort and guide: they are the true -children of Goethe whose conception of God was Humanity in Nature, and of -Religion Humanity in Art.” - -“So we Catholics feel,” said Fitzgerald, “and this is, as I have implied, -the great truth which we owe to the life and work of Newman. He has saved -us from any temptation to compromise with Atheism. We are to stand to our -guns, and, if we must perish, perish there!” - -“The only thing is,” Gildea answered ruefully, “that no great spiritual -movement, religious or otherwise, was ever yet produced, retained, or -destroyed by the action of logic, and they have all partaken largely of -the nature of compromise. Voltaire and the philosophes sent such a douche -of logic onto Christianity in France that they literally beat it out of -the country, but it came back again. And why? Because it contained the -satisfaction of the demands of one side of Humanity which Logic had not, -and could not have. Well, they compromised the matter, and the result -is, (Dare I declare it, Fitzgerald?), none other than men like the fine -and intellectual ecclesiastics who presided over the education of that -lay priest, as he calls himself, Ernest Renan. History repeats itself. -What Logic tried to do yesterday, Science is trying to do to-day. And, -as you,” (he turned his eyes to Fitzgerald), “foresee, Christianity, -and Religion generally will suffer a defeat and even decapitation, only -to return with processions, ringing of bells and the glad shouts of the -populace. Then the Parliament will shut up all the sunday theatres, and -the skeletons of Professor Huxley and Herbert Spencer will be removed -from the Pantheon at Westminster and lodged in Madame Tussaud’s, and the -land have rest—for the space of forty years!” - -“Well,” said Alcock, “you young gentlemen are getting too far head -for steady-going seniors like Dr. Maddock and myself. We will ask -for matches, and smoke a cigar, while you tell us all about our -great-great-grandchildren.” - -Cigars, cigarettes, and lights were brought and, with some pleasant small -talk, the party loosened and eased its position at table and physical and -mental state generally. - -“Talking of compromise,” said Hawkesbury, taking his cigarette from -his lips and leaning the elbow of the hand that held it on the table, -“between Religion and Logic, or Reason, is not, what is called, -Positivism an attempt to organise such a compromise?” - -Gildea began to laugh. - -“Ah,” he said, “is not Arnold’s ‘grotesque old french pedant,’ a late -foolish Monsieur Comte, as Carlyle would say, to leave me alone even -beyond ‘the long wash of Australian seas?’ Am I to be persecuted even -here by his tiresome adaptations and school-boy notions, all bundled up -in superlatively bad French?—You do not know,” he added, “what I chance -to have suffered at the hands of my positivist friends at home, or I am -sure you would not ask me to discuss them here where I am come for a -holiday. They and Mr. Mallock are the most tiresome people in existence. -You have heard of Mr. Mallock out here? and of his tilts with the junior -Positivists?” - -Hawkesbury acquiesced. - -“We have heard of everything out here,” he said smiling. - -“Mr. Mallock,” said Gildea, “was a young man who wrote a charming book -called ‘The New Republic,’ one of the most charming books that had been -written for several years, and then took to polemics, and has been -logically agonizing there ever since. For this too we all ought to owe -this religio-intellectual pedantry called Positivism a grudge. And, when -we remember what Positivism did for George Eliot,—reduced a good quarter -of herself and her characters into edificatory machines—I think that all -of us, to whom Nature and Art are precious, should look upon Positivism -as the contemporary accursèd thing.” Gildea spoke with a certain -exaggerativeness of tone and manner that to Maddock, observing and -listening to everything with humour, was somewhat puzzling. Maddock with -average profundity suspected that here was a case of some personal memory -of a more or less disagreeable character; but average profundity, when it -has to deal with that which is out of the range of the average, nearly -always makes mistakes. Gildea was subject to sudden losses of interest -in what he was saying or doing, spiritual twinges of that terrible wound -from which he suffered: to those to whom “the endless emptiness of all -things” is a reality, moments of acute weariness and disgust are ever -lying in wait, and then the harness of life and living is often resumed -with impatience or even pettishness. It had been so just now with Gildea. -He had looked forward to his meeting with Miss Medwin, and heard those -beautiful lips open and sounds come forth that showed that, however -fine the harp, its strings were unattuned. The sense of his intense and -perpetual loneliness had rushed upon him, and he had gone back again into -his surroundings with an irritation that in a few moments amused him at -himself. - -The talk passed onwards, Maddock for the first time taking his share -in it. And yet again it came round to the People. It was clear that -the strongest impression that had been given to the party was that of -Hawkesbury’s Socialism. - -“If I had been speaking of it some five or six years ago,” said -Fitzgerald, “I should have certainly said that I thought the Secularists -had made most impression on the People of late years. But, in the face of -the American Revivalist meetings and the Salvation Army, I have had to -modify my views.” - -“These movements or rather this movement,” said Gildea, “strikes me as -reactionary. British Middle-class Liberalism and Secularism have been -at work, with much cry, and the egregious littleness of the wool has -disgusted the People who have rushed off into the opposite extreme. The -workmen, the skilled workmen, are I think secular. I remember hearing a -lecturer on art who had been on a tour in America say, that the American -workmen all asked him if he knew Darwin or Huxley or Tyndall, and -expressed little or no care about anyone else, which seemed to surprise -him.” - -“Cardinal Manning,” Fitzgerald remarked, “said well, then, that ‘the -spiritual desolation of London alone would make the Salvation Army -possible’—‘this zealous but defiant movement.’ Are we right in our -supposition, do you think, Mr. Hawkesbury?” - -Hawkesbury assented. - -“There are three movements,” he said, “at present going on among the -People—the Socialistic, the Religious, and the Secular. They are all -strong. In Ireland I have seen the two first clash, and the first was -almost invariably victorious. If the priests will not go with the People -in their socialistic views, (For of course the Irish Question is really a -socialistic one, although it is not spoken of as such), then the priests -are given up. Usually, however, the priests, being themselves of the -People, are in full sympathy with them. The Socialists are by no means -necessarily Atheists, but they are not Christians. ‘The sooner,’ I heard -one of them say once, when pressed on the point, ‘the sooner Christ is -made a thing of the past and Jesus a thing of the present, the better it -will be for all of us.’ That expresses them excellently. The same idea -lies at bottom in the popular Religious movement.—We Socialists,” he -added with a touch of bright humour, “like the Booths better than we like -the Bradlaughs, but we recognise that both are in earnest and working for -the People.” - -“And what, religiously speaking,” asked Fitzgerald, “do you believe is to -be the future state of the People, and of us all?” - -Hawkesbury had another touch of bright humour. - -“Socialism,” he said, “nothing but Socialism! We are all Socialists, -whether we know it or not. Just, then, as in the first and second -centuries the platonistic Time-spirit radically influenced before it -was absorbed into the christianic: so in the eighteenth and nineteenth -centuries has the christianic Time-spirit radically influenced, before -it shall be finally absorbed in, the socialistic. Socialism has, after -all, its universal modern expounder in Goethe. Goethe was the first to -look upon Civilization as a great organic whole, every part of which has -fixed pleasures and duties. He was the first, we believe, to conceive -a natural as opposed to an artificial Civilization. Carlyle, too, felt -something of the sort, although he could not express it, any more than he -could not express what he took God to be. But we know Carlyle loved us, -and therefore we love Carlyle. As for your Idealists, Sir Horace,—Renan, -Emerson, and Arnold—we have no care for them, nor they for us. I remember -once hearing Holden call Arnold ‘the man who slew so many Philistines -with the jawbone of an ass.’ Well, the remark is expressive of his -attitude towards Culture.” Gildea and Fitzgerald were laughing, Maddock -smiling. - -“The end of it all,” said Maddock, “seems to be, then, Mr. Hawkesbury, -that ‘the People,’ as we say, is the great unknown quantity of the social -equation. We all more or less feel its power, and we all more or less -wish that power to be arrayed on our side, but no one quite knows what it -is and everyone is a little afraid of it.” - -“You say truly,” said Hawkesbury, “The People is the great unknown power, -and it puzzles us. Pharaoh has dreamed a dream, and there is none of all -the magicians of Egypt and all the wise men thereof that can interpret -it unto him. What to make of the People’s noisy Tichborne or Salvation -Army devotions but political and religious infatuations? Be it so! But I -will say this, that the People has a shrewd humorous instinct for both -politics and religion that is a whole heaven above the purblind prudence -of the Middle-class.” He sighed, the sigh of a man who has somewhat -outspoken himself. “‘—And all these things,’ he added as if to conclude -the matter, ‘are only known to the Deity.’” - -Gildea smiled. - -“Well,” he said, “Are there not those among us who look forward to what -is to come with the brightest faith or with the darkest despair? And -there are those who dream and those who doubt,—and those too who possess -their souls with patience, nourishing a modest hope. For - - “what was before we know not, - and we know not what shall succeed. - - “Haply the river of Time— - as it grows, as the towns on its marge - fling their wavering lights - on a wider, statelier stream— - may acquire, if not the calm - of its early mountainous shore, - yet a solemn peace of its own.” - -Little more was said after this of the chief subjects of their talk, and -presently both Fitzgerald and Hawkesbury took their leave, Maddock and -Fitzgerald, and Alcock and Hawkesbury, expressing mutual hopes of seeing -one another again. - - -V. - -Maddock went out into the balcony and stood there, leaning on the rails, -reflectively smoking his cigar and looking out at the scene stretched -before him like a panorama. Alcock held quiet converse with Gildea for a -few moments, apologetically asking permission to go and write a letter, -the importance of which he would have explained at length, had not Gildea -interposed. - -“By all means,” said he; and, with a word of excuse to and gesture of -acknowledgment from Maddock, took Alcock off into a room opposite, a -study, where he ensconced him at the desk and, having pointed out the -position of all the epistolatory necessities and told him to ring the -bell for Edgar who would see that the letter was posted at once, withdrew -and rejoined Maddock on the balcony. - -“You will excuse Alcock,” Gildea said, lighting a cigarette, “He has a -letter of importance to write, which he does not care to leave till we -come back.” - -Maddock at once acquiesced. There was a pause, both smoking with leisure. - -At last: - -“Well,” said Gildea, taking his cigarette from his lips, “and how did you -like the happy family? You were a very quiet member of it.” - -“Yes,” said Maddock, “I refrained from mewing and sat still, purring and -pleasantly watching the others. It struck me, shortly after Alcock came -in, that we were a very representative happy family.” - -“We only wanted a genial Theist to make the pile complete. Your good -Judge is a Theist. Now if we could only....” - -“Ay, ay,” said Maddock with something like a chuckle, “Judge Parker is a -Theist! As your friend the _Argus_ said, he was ‘the learned gentleman -who discovered Unitarianism in the early months of 1885.’—Come now,” he -proceeded with a sudden concentration of interest, “what are you going -to say of the affirmative side of this man’s criticism, after your -remark that there was not, in modern times, one man of real intellectual -power that has believed in a personal God and not believed in a divine -Christ? Are you going to turn upon me again with your precious purely -intellectual view of things, and say: ‘The question that now arises is, -has not Theism, after all,’ et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?” - -“Certainly I am,” said Gildea laughing, “but all hope of utilizing -the purely intellectual view seems lost after my unwary committal of -myself.—No,” he added more seriously, “I have of course little more left -to do than to try and get you to join me in abuse of the good Judge for -his superstition, that is to say his Theism, and that other egregious -vice of his—his ludicrously inadequate conception of what is ‘good -and ennobling.’ To take the last first, I will say, as I once heard -Hawkesbury say on a like occasion, that I would far sooner believe in -the Orthodox Christ than in the Unitarian Jesus. Indeed I might broaden -my saying, and declare to the whole Rationalistic conception of Christ -and Christianity generally, what Carlyle declared to Voltaire: ‘Cease, -my much respected Herr Von Voltaire, shut thy sweet voice; for the task -appointed thee seems finished. Sufficiently hast thou demonstrated this -proposition, considerable or otherwise: That the Mythus of the Christian -Religion looks not in the eighteenth century as it did in the eighth.... -Take our thanks, then, and—thyself away.’” - -“Judge Parker’s view of Our Lord,” said Maddock frowning, “is,—not to -say blasphemous,—simply _fatuous_! I do not know whether indignation at -impudence or contempt at stupidity the most possesses a man, when he is -told, by such an one as this, that ‘the Christian Theist, who regards -Jesus as man, considers, and rightly from his point of view, that it _is_ -within his power to attain to the life of, and to follow the example -of, Christ.’ Imagine Judge Parker attaining to the life of anyone but a -blatantly successful lawyer in the truculent spiritual quagmires of a -colonial capital!” - -“Our good Judge’s discovery and investigation of the character of Jesus,” -said Gildea, almost ready to laugh outright at Maddock’s concluding -dythramb, “are certainly not unlike those of a man who should charter a -penny steam-boat for a trip up the Nile, and proceed, on his return to -England, to give a lengthy description of certain large triangular-shaped -buildings which, he should say, bore considerable resemblance to the -common-sense conception of pyramids! And it _is_ possible perhaps to -denominate such a description as fatuous. His conception of Jesus _is_, -we are agreed—inadequate: ‘an exemplar ... who merits all praise, all -esteem, and love, and admiration for that, _being human_, he led so pure, -so blameless, so noble and unselfish a life.’ This, what this with our -good Judge _means_, is an inadequate conception of Jesus. He perceives -nothing of the real essence of Jesus. Anything that Arnold, whom he -quotes so often, may have said of ‘the mildness and sweet reasonableness’ -of Jesus, or that Renan may have said of the wonderful powers of personal -attraction that are in Jesus—all this has fallen like water on the -judicial back of our duck here! It is for none of these that our good -Judge, our typical man of common-sense, goes to his New Testament. -‘Mildness and sweet reasonableness,’ the yearning of a consuming personal -love, are not clear solid spiritual qualities which his mind can see and -touch and handle. They have no place in the copy-books of the soul, nor -yet in the sum-books thereof, and you shall search its ‘Little Arthur’s -History’ from beginning to end and find no mention of them. Their only -place is in the thoughts, words, and actions of the men and women who -have moved thousands and millions of their fellows, in the radiant days -of high civilizations, in the agonies of the travail or the destruction -of peoples and races. ‘It is apparent,’ says he, ‘that we can collect -from the Christian Bible, a purer, more beautiful, and more advanced -ethical code, than is to be obtained from any other book or books.’ -O good Judge, O belovèd Judge, if all that is to be got out of the -Christian Bible is an ‘ethical code,’ then the sooner Martin Tupper and -Mr. Harrison are deified, the sooner will the human soul have reached its -apogee!” - -“That is well,” said Maddock, “but, at the same time, there are few -things that disgust me more than the man of the opposite sort—he who, -like so many of these Socialists of yours, will sing the love of Christ -with passion, and then go out and commit a hundred of the grossest sins. -Christ is morality.” - -“Ah no,” said Gildea, “he is something better; he is religion! It is -immoral to commit adultery: it is moral to punish it: (‘Infinitely better -that they should atone for it, than lose a step towards a higher life’): -it is religious, not to condemn it, but to bid go and sin no more. It is -immoral to take your share in your father’s substance and waste it in -violent living: it is moral to punish this prodigal, to whom repentance -has only come with a belly that was fain to fill itself with the husks of -the swine: it is religious to kill the fatted calf for such a penitent, -and rejoice and make glad. Jesus’ sole criticism on practical morality, -on the realization of an ethical code in everyday life, is, that ‘it was -not so from the beginning.’” - -“Just so; but this is precisely the difference of the ethical code of the -Old and of the New Dispensation.” - -“Will you let me say, that it has nothing to do with any ethical code -at all? For, surely, the essence of ethical codes is justice, and the -essence of the religious code, of the code of Jesus, is love. The Amazon -may be a big river, but you shall compass all time in trying to put into -it the unspeakable ocean.—No, it is just here that, as Fitzgerald would -say, all these good people are superstitious. They believe that the -spiritual progress of humanity is synonymous with the progress of one -portion of the spirit of humanity, namely the ethical portion; and this, -being a belief in a thing not worthy of that belief, may justly, as it -seems to me, be denominated a superstition. It is superstition without -religion.” - -“And what, then,” asked Maddock, “do you call the belief of men like your -friend Hawkesbury?” - -“Those who are immoral? men and women who, as most of these Socialists, -work in the spirit of Jesus and act (as a polemist would say) in the -manner of Bradlaugh?—what is _their_ belief?” - -“Yes,” said Maddock. - -“Why, clearly,” answered Gildea smiling, “religion _with_ superstition! -The men of enthusiasm like Hawkesbury, and the men of morality like Judge -Parker, are surely both of them right, and surely both of them wrong: -right in their appreciation of the truth of one portion of the spiritual -life, wrong in their ignorance of another portion. They both possess -truth, and they both possess superstition.” - -“And what of a man like our friend Alcock here, who is ignorant of -religion and more or less lax as regards morality?” - -“He too,” answered Gildea, “as Fitzgerald clearly demonstrated, is -a victim of superstition. But he is not, for all that, without his -belief, without his appreciation of truth. He believes in that portion -of the spiritual life which we call intellect. Men like him have their -enthusiasm, for which they are ready to suffer and do suffer all things; -and that enthusiasm is the enthusiasm for that portion of truth which we -call Science.” - -“And your Fitzgerald—is he too both right and wrong?” - -“Of course he is; for has he not both belief and negation? All belief is -truth, not _the whole_ truth, but _a part_ of the truth. There is but one -thing that is the whole truth.” - -“God?” - -“No, not God, for God does not include Nature, from which He is the -outcome—not God, not Nature, but that which contains them both, -Everything, the All!” - -“Pooh,” said Maddock, “flat Pantheism!” - -“_And suppose_,” cried Gildea, “_it were_ Pot-_theism, if the thing is -true_!” (He laughed outright.) “—That answer of Carlyle’s,” he said, “is -immortal.” - -“Oh, it was Carlyle said it?” said Maddock, “I had forgotten.—And so,” he -proceeded, “the secret is out, and Sir Horace Gildea ‘stands confessed a -Pantheist in all his charms!’” - -“Two of the happy family still remain unaccounted for,” Gildea said, -“although they too have not probably attained to perfect truth.” - -“Oh, that is you and I. As for me, I can describe myself without your -aid. I believe in morality and religion, with a touch of superstition in -both.” - -“Worse,” said Gildea, “worse!” - -“What, then?” - -“You believe in theology which is as bad a superstition as, what Judge -Parker calls, ‘the calm blissful sea of pure _theistic_ belief.’ (You -notice how emphatic he is about his superstition and casual about his -truth?)” - -“Stop a moment now, my bright Apollo, and explain to me, what you have -not yet attempted to, what the superstition of Theism is?” - -“_What is Theism?_—‘It is a faith,’ answers our good Judge, ‘which is -_the_ faith of all others’ (that is to say the faith of Judge Parker and -all the ‘celebrated unitarian ministers’), ‘to be clung to, cherished -and maintained as long as man exists—belief, trust in, and love for -the All-loving, All-righteous, All-wise Universal Spirit of God.’ Now -observe that this faith, this unique faith of faiths, is ‘refreshing, -and invigorating in its simplicity’—(as, we might add, is also its -formulator, if we did not shun flippancy as we would the pest)—‘warm and -glowing in its absolute unclouded devotion to, love for, and perfect -trust in God alone—_proclaimed by_ NATURE!’ O wise Judge, O upright -Judge, O Judge much more elder than thy looks, where, when, and how, -in the name of all observers of Nature from Darwin through Haeckel to -Tennyson, did you discover therein either this love or righteousness of -which you make such mention? ‘The struggle for existence and survival of -the fittest,’ the parent of theistic righteousness and love! ‘_Proclaimed -by_ NATURE!’—and Nature in italics! O immemorial phrase that eats up -all the others even as Aaron’s rod swallowed up all the rods of the -magicians!—Who, after this, would care to trouble himself with all the -other potent items of this faith of faiths? The idea of God, God ‘the -All-loving, All-righteous, All-wise Universal Spirit’ ‘originated in -instinct,’ and is not the slow and painful growth of time? Think of the -love of Jehovah! the righteousness of Baal! the wisdom of Moloch!—The -beauty and sympathy and warmth of the theistic form of belief,” he -added, “are recognizable as a half-hearted mixture of the clap-trap of -Religion and Science—Superstition, which knows that it is naked, and sews -fig-leaves together, and make itself an apron!” - -Maddock, however, could have no confidence in the expressed views of this -man, from whose face the light of amusement, amusement at others and -himself, seemed never to be absent long. There had, indeed, been moments -when it required all Maddock’s intuition to prevent his perception rising -in absolute revolt against what seemed Gildea’s flagrant insincerity: -then his perception had said to him that this was but a youth, endowed -with brilliant abilities, the mere exercise of which was a pleasure -and satisfaction to him, caring too little for any one thing to owe it -loyalty. Whereto his intuition had replied that this was not a youth but -a man, and a man whose secret could not thus be read. And the feeling -that Maddock had, once before that day, felt towards Gildea returned -now with an intensity and strangeness that seemed to Maddock, when -he afterwards considered it, as little short of wonderful. Maddock’s -profundity was often beyond the average, and herein indeed lay his -secret, herein nestled “the heart of his mystery.” - -“And yet,” said Gildea, “here, as in the other case, the common-sense -view of belief has, of course, its excellence. ‘To take nothing else,’ -says the Judge, ‘the very idea of “space” and “distance” that astronomy -has given us fills the mind with wonder and with awe, clothing nature -with a sublimity, a majesty, and a beauty which, otherwise, we had never -known.’ For observe that _Space_ and _Time_, these two inexhaustible -ideas, are not, to our average intelligent secular view of things, -the mere words that they are to the orthodox: they are realities thus -far, that they help us to perceive that ‘there exists throughout -space,—throughout the vast limitless universe,—motion, order, beauty; -that there is behind all motion, all order, all beauty, a force that -produces the motion, the order, and the beauty.’ And further. They are -realities thus far, that they help us to be (whatever Dr. Maddock, in -a polemico-theological spirit, may declare) earnest in our life and -earnest in our wish to bring home to others the truth of that life, a -‘most serious and difficult task!’ They help us to all this, and an -unrecognized intuitional belief in the essence which, in other forms -and other men whom we fail to appreciate, not to say understand, we -condemn—our intuitional belief, I say, in the Faith, Hope, and Love, -which are the great movers of the progress of Humanity both upward and -onward, will not let the forms that portions of this belief may take in -us make the whole grow cold, lifeless, petrified, but the beauty and -melody of our acts will often be found to contradict the deformity and -discord of our words.” - -“I confess, Sir Horace,” said Maddock, “that you are a puzzle to me. I -really should not be surprised to see you some day walking side by side -with the Judge, the best friends in the world!” - -“And perhaps,” said Gildea, “the Judge would not subsequently be -surprised to see me doing the same with yourself! For that indeed is the -only use of such poor creatures as I: we see the good in opponents and -serve as links in the spiritual bridge of Humanity.” - -“I should very much like,” said Maddock, “to hear how you would abuse me -to him. I think I see the urbane expression with which you would delight -him by shewing how, in this ecclesiastical, metaphysical, theological -polemist here, habemus confitentem asinum; and then turn upon him and -say: ‘The question that now arises, my dear Judge, is, has this man -nothing but faults—has he no excellencies? does there remain, after the -attack on him of so eminent a biblical critic as Judge Parker is, no -residuum of real and vital truth? Let us see.’” - -“Doctor, Doctor,” said Gildea, “to make me laugh so, is cruel!” - -“You do not consider me,” said Maddock, “in the least.” - -They both laughed heartily. - -“And now,” said Maddock, “in order to complete the matter, tell me, what -is _your_ superstition? Here are Alcock and Parker with their respective -superstitions of Atheism and Theism, of purely scientific and purely -ethical progress. Here is Hawkesbury with his superstition about the -unselfishness of the People and the practical neglect of Morality. Here -is Fitzgerald with his superstitious belief in a Church whose splendid -logical consistency will prove its ruin. Here am I, a member of a sect -that more nearly approaches ideal Christianity than any other sect in -existence, and is a logical absurdity—blessed with the superstition of -theology and, worse, of polemical theology, with.... But I cannot express -all my superstitions: they seem more in number than the hairs of my head!” - -“Let us say broadly, then, that Alcock and the Judge are those who have -superstition _without_, and Fitzgerald, you, and to a certain degree -Hawkesbury, those who have superstition _with_, Religion.” - -“And that you?” - -“And that _I_ am he who unites in my proper person the superstitions of -all with the actualities of none.” - -There was a pause. Then: - -“Sir Horace,” said Maddock, “I take you seriously. And I will confess -that I would sooner, far sooner, be any one of us than you.—Verily and -indeed,” he added, solemnly, “I cannot see why you should care to live.” - -“Nor yet,” said Gildea, “why I should care to die?” - -Maddock was possessed by sadness. The absolute, inevitable hopelessness -of this man made him again turn faint and sick at heart. - -“Nor yet,” he said, “why you should care to die.” - -There was a long pause. Never again could Maddock be illuded into -momentary misunderstanding of this man: he had now not only seen this -strange soul laid bare before him and felt the influence of that sight, -but had felt as if he had, as it were, almost received it into his own, -almost made it a part of himself. - -At last: - -“I asked you to believe,” he said with a touch of wistfulness in face -and tone, “that I was your true friend. You will perhaps, forgive me if -I ... if I offer you the one token of it that seems left to me to offer. -Some day—I cannot tell, but so I trust—you may care to think that, each -night you close your eyes in sleep, there is one whose prayers for you -are rising, as he believes, to the God and Father of us all, to bless and -keep you, to lift up the light of his countenance upon you, and to give -you peace.” - -The two men stood facing each other for a few moments in silence: then -their hands met in a close, long clasp, and parted; and they turned, -standing almost touching each other, looking out over the lovely scene of -earth and water and sky. - -At last: - -“Those clouds,” said Gildea softly, “they have a peerless radiancy. One -seems to understand how the men of the past days saw a spirit therein, -and held converse with it with wonder and delight and awe. Those were -days of a music and beauty and sweetness such as we shall never know -again.” - -“_If not_,” said Maddock as softly, - - “_if not the calm_ - _of its early mountainous shore,_ - _yet a solemn peace of its own._” - -A footstep was heard behind them. It was Edgar, come to say that Mrs. and -Miss Medwin had arrived and were up in the drawing-room with Mr. Alcock. - -Gildea stepped out onto the lawn. - -“Let us go up by the balcony,” he said to Maddock. - - -VI. - -Mrs. Medwin was the only native-born australian lady who was “good -style.” So at least a Governor’s wife, about the “goodness” of whose -“style” there could be no question, had declared. It was not, this -Governor’s wife had explained, that there were no ladies in Australia, -(There were not however many, par parenthèse, and such style as they had -was at best but second-rate american), but they none of them had that -manner of dressing, moving, and speaking which characterizes what (to use -this rather objectional term again, for want of a better) we call “good -style.” This Governor’s wife, with her usual delicate feminine instinct, -had felt on the occasion of this now socially celebrated description -of Mrs. Medwin, that she had not quite satisfied herself, that the -description did not contain the truth, all the truth, and nothing but -the truth, of the matter; and she was right, it did not. Mrs. Medwin -undoubtedly possessed that serene refinement of movement and speech which -go so far to making up that all but defunct individuality, a “lady,” but -she was wanting in the final gift of a “lady,” social charm. The flower -was scentless, or rather the scent it had was of another description. -Her life had not, indeed, been favourable to the development of this -final gift. She had been married early, a ready enough victim to the -convenience of her family, to a man with whom she had little in common -and much in opposition. He was liked by none and feared by all those -who had any personal dealings with him: his savage outbursts of passion -recalled to memory the dark stories that were told of his father who had, -as the Australians euphemistically put it, come out at the government -expense. But she, having calmly decided to accept Medwin and life with -him, set herself by the sheer intrepidity of her sweet high beauty, to -dominate them. She succeeded. And she won, not only the control, but -the deep, admiring love, of the man. Then came the catastrophe which -those who knew him had prophesied and recanted. In one of his savage -outbursts of passion, he struck her. The blow was a cruel one and its -results life-long. Much as she then suffered in body and soul, she could -have no other feeling for him than that of pity. For days he would take -no food, but sat in a chair outside her door, like a dog that waits in -silence on an idolized master; and, when he was first permitted to enter, -flung himself onto his knees by the bedside, sobbing and moaning and -covering her hand with kisses. And she, who had had little or no care for -him before, save as the principal incident in her life, now to her own -surprise found that from out this appalling misery was born affection -for him and even love. Her life from then onwards had been spent in -a struggle far more terrible than that which she had waged with him. -At first the idea of wasting away inch by inch on a diseased sick-bed -almost overwhelmed her: she longed, she prayed for death. But death -did not come; and then her spiritual pride began to reassert itself, -and, like the captain of a battered ship, she once more thought how she -could rule these waters that had ruled her. For long it seemed as if -the effort would be too much for her: she said to herself one sleepless -horrible night that she was being consumed alive. Her very latest gift -seemed but as an added thorn to her; for now that she had affection -and even love, she had also jealousy. The spell of her sweet, fearless -health and strength and beauty was passed from him save as a memory: his -love, deepened it might be by his abiding remorse, was (as she thought) -deprived of that admiration which had been her first and strongest -hold on him. Nothing more pitiful, than to see the womanliness in her -assert itself against her pride and speak in jealousy! With wonderful -intuition, however, she divined and with wonderful determination carried -out, what was the only plan of still keeping for herself his admiration. -She, who since she had married him had not given his business affairs -a thought, now gave herself up to the mastery of them. She had herself -taught all arithmetic thoroughly, and, in little less than three years -after her misfortune, knew more of all his business affairs than he did -himself. And more. She stirred up in him the ambition to become the -leader of that great amorphous section of colonial society of which he -was a member, the land-owners, the “squatters.” She had a certain liking -for society, and when she was in England went into it as much as her -extremely delicate health would permit her: in Australia, however, where, -as she said, there was no society, or only of a sort which she did not -like, she yet entertained a good deal, as she wished her husband to be -popular in view of his entering parliament and attempting to organize his -party. But her entertainment was more after the fashion of a listless -social empress than an interested hostess: she did not care enough about -these people to make, what would have been to her, a painful physical -effort to attract them. She had indeed something of the feeling of one -of the old aristocrats forced by the pressure of the time to open their -houses to the Middle-class; she acknowledged the salute of her guests, -and provided them with fine rooms, music, amusement, foods and drinks, -and what more could they want? Her coldness was generally ascribed to -her notorious ill-health, but the young people felt instinctively that -she condemned them, and were not drawn to her. Between her and Gildea, -however, there was an understanding that was not without either charm or -brightness to both. He understood her, and she half-felt this and, never -having been really understood before, was in a way pleased at it and -drawn to him. She amused him and at times, thanks to the pity with which -her sweet courage inspired him, affected him. He was not too without -respect for her intuitional capacities. He said once to Sydney Medwin, -who was complaining that his mother was fifty years behind the time, -(Mrs. Medwin supported her husband in his views for their elder son), -that, on the contrary, she was fifty years before; for she was the only -person he had met or heard of in the Colony who clearly saw that the Land -Question was upon them. Mrs. Medwin indeed, as has been noticed, saw that -the attempt of the Australian land-owners to repeat the performance of -those of England and form a dominant aristocracy, would be met with keen -opposition, and that the only hope of success lay in creating out of an -amorphous class a party, and organizing it. The feeling of possession -and caste had grown a strong one in her, in her more or less absorbed in -the life of her husband. Hers, then, with all its powers of passionate -attachment to an individual, was one of those not frequent female souls -that see beyond a man into the cause which he represents. Her elder son -she looked upon as a failure, as useless, as worth no more than making -behave himself. Her younger son, Stephen, she was training with some -care, and to him the far greater bulk of his father’s wealth and property -was at present destined. Miss Medwin, whom Mrs. Medwin called her niece, -and who called Mr. and Mrs. Medwin respectively uncle and aunt, but who -was in reality no such relation, being the daughter of Mr. Medwin’s -father’s brother’s son; of Miss Medwin it will perhaps be enough to -state, that the report which Gildea had unexpectedly received of her from -the Private Enquiry Office was correct, and that she was the possessor -of a moderate fortune who had come out to Australia, half for a change -from her English life of which she was weary, half in search of an old -schoolfellow to whom she was much attached. - -Gildea and Maddock stepped out together along the lawn and mounted the -steps that led up to the sitting-room balcony. The sunlight, intercepted -by an angle of the house, covered half of this portion of it, almost so -exactly half that the glass door, open in the middle of the bay window, -was partly in the sun and partly in the shade. As they reached the -balcony, Gildea, with the gesture of a courteous host, indicated to -Maddock to enter first, but he, with the no less courteous gesture of -a guest, refused and returned the indication. Gildea stepped into the -open doorway and, as he stood there for a moment with the sunlight and -shade playing upon him, met the gaze of Miss Medwin, seated upright, -looking almost proudly before her. Behind her was the dark red of the -curtain with its subdued white of delicately wrought muslin. Two rays of -sunlight lay along the rich variegated colours of the carpet, diffusing -a little light about her. She was very beautiful. They had recognized -one another at once. And more. They both were undergoing that feeling -of half-forgotten recollection that affects us with such unprepared and -mystic strangeness. Had they, then, seen one another before that day -when she had almost ridden over him under the Domain trees? had they met -in some way similar to their meeting now? At such moments the past, the -present, and the future, all half unknown, seem to join hands, and kiss, -and part with eyes dimmed with a regretless regret. - -It had passed in a few moments. Gildea, with something that might be -called a sudden freak of tact, stepped into the room, turning a quite -self-possessed face to Mrs. Medwin. She was sitting on a sofa dispensing -serene little nothings to Alcock, whose face and manner beamed with -social polish. Gildea came straight to her and made his greetings with -winning grace: then, obeying a slight gesture of hers, moved aside and -she introduced him to her niece, Miss Medwin. With the same winning -grace, head courteously bowed, he stepped to Miss Medwin, and lightly -raised the hand she held up to him. Maddock was greeting Mrs. Medwin. - -“I think,” said Gildea smiling slightly, “I think, Miss Medwin, that we -are not quite strangers.” - -“And how is Mrs. Maddock?” asked Mrs. Medwin, “I hope she is quite well.” -Gildea sat down in a chair by Miss Medwin. - -“No,” answered Miss Medwin gravely, “I was careless enough to have almost -ridden onto you.” - -“The carelessness was mine. I was dreaming. Day-dreamers should be -awakened.” Maddock was assuring Mrs. Medwin that Mrs. Maddock was -in excellent health, and at this very moment enjoying herself quite -satisfactorily without the society of her lord and master. - -“Indeed,” said Mrs. Medwin, “I hope we shall be able to see her before we -leave Sydney. We are stopping at Winslow’s.” - -“That,” Miss Medwin said gravely again, “seems to me to depend a good -deal on the day.” - -“Mr. Medwin is _with_ you, Mrs. Medwin?” interrogated Alcock with his -politest manner, “I understood that I should not have the pleasure of -seeing him till monday or tuesday?” - -“It is true,” said Gildea, “that to-day the reality of things is so -troubling to the peace and pleasure of many of us, that it is cruel to -wake us from our dreams.” - -“Oh no!” said Mrs. Medwin with her usual unruffled serenity, “Mr. Medwin -is not coming up till tuesday or perhaps wednesday.” - -A swift sense of the humour of a social scene like this, where the -tendency of things is for the dramatis personæ to beat unlimited time -with musical voices, graceful gestures, and a charming expression of -countenance, dawned upon Gildea as a memory of almost distant days. The -poetry of society is mostly expended in its common-places. To be able to -do this is an art, an art of which provincial and colonial society is -ignorant. Hence Gildea’s sense of the humour of the present scene was as -an almost distant memory. “Here,” he thought, “we have four excellent -musicians who would make the most charmingly meaningless quartet -possible, Alcock being reduced to the part of accidental audience.” -It was not, of course, that Gildea’s talk with Miss Medwin was social -time-beating: it was, rather, spiritual time-beating, rendered in a -manner that partook of the social. Miss Medwin had not recovered from the -to her strange sensations of this second sudden meeting with him: she was -neither as consummate a master of her emotions as he was, nor careful of -becoming one, nor yet was she prepared, as he was, for their meeting: she -was left by it as one is who has had some swift revelation of good or -evil in himself—considering himself if he really was this, is that, and -will be something that contains them both. The individualities of other -men she had known had touched her as much, or almost as much, as his had -on that day in the Domain, but none had ever entered into her and, as it -were, “blown a thrilling summons to her will” as his had, as he stood -looking at her in the shadowy sunlit doorway there. And her will had -answered that summons, and instantaneously. To him that sight of her, -sitting upright, looking almost proudly before her, was ever to be as the -sight of an Antigone, one who felt “it was better not to be than not be -noble,” the depth of whose scorn for unworthiness was equal to her love, -high as the everlasting hills, deep as the unplumbed sea. - -“Yes,” she said, “it is sometimes cruel to wake us from our dreams, and -yet it is best, I think.” - -“—You think it is best to modify our poetry with prose? Was it better to -have awakened Shelley, and given us his ‘Prometheus’ with wooden limbs of -a day’s social dogmatism, than to have let him make delicate music in the -italian woods and by the italian shores, for ever sweet and fair?” - -“So he told me,” said Alcock, “and I was very glad to hear it. The -interests of all wealth, whether in land or in money, is identic. But -we have no organization.—And Labour,” he added with a look to Maddock, -“as Mr. Hawkesbury just told us, is organizing, if it is not already -organized.” - -If it had been possible for Mrs. Medwin to be amazed at anything, she -would have been amazed at this. Hawkesbury had a few years ago been an -employé on one of Medwin’s stations, the very station to which she was -now on her road. This was a reflection which was positively annoying -to her. “It would,” she had once simply remarked, “have been as well -perhaps, if he had eaten some poisoned meat when he was there, as they -used to say the troublesome blacks did. He is a danger to society.” -Sydney Medwin, who liked to do his best to ruffle his mother’s serenity -now and then, used not unfrequently to speak in praise of Hawkesbury -(his friend Hawkesbury, a clever fellow too, and who would make his mark -out here yet!) and had once even, as Gildea told Maddock, offered to -introduce him to her. “You know, Sydney,” said Mrs. Medwin simply, “I am -not interested in Mr. Hawkesbury. If you like to make up a shooting-party -at Lathong,” (a station of Medwin’s in Victoria), “with all the men on -the station, I daresay he would be pleased to join you.”—What, then, was -the meaning of Mr. Alcock’s remark that this firebrand socialist, this -impertinent journalist and pamphleteer, had been _just telling_ something -to Mr. Alcock, Dr. Maddock, and presumably Sir Horace? - -“I’m sure,” said Alcock with his politest manner again, “that we all -of us cannot be too—too pleased to have found a lady who realized -this, and could help us to what we so much want—a ... a sort of general -rallying-point.—Nothing,” he proceeded, “struck me so much in England -as the use that the political parties made of their social gatherings, -and they tell me that this was much more the case once than it is at -present.” Alcock found a certain amount of difficulty in saying that he -thought women might, after all, be made of some use in political life, in -a manner that should be pleasing to _this_ woman. - -The talk progressed more or less easily, Maddock, with a humorous -perception of the effect Alcock’s innocent allusion to Hawkesbury had -produced on Mrs. Medwin, playing the part of conversational mediator -between the two. - -“You are not, then,” said Gildea, in answer to a remark of Miss Medwin’s, -“in sympathy with dreams and dreamers?” - -“No,” she answered shaking her head, “not if they take their dreams for -realities. It is just, I think, because we have been dreaming so long and -dreaming so much, that our waking is so miserable.—You speak of prose -and poetry,” she continued, turning her head a little and looking at -him, “as if the prose had something disagreeable in it. Well, so it may -have—to the dreamers. I too am a dreamer, of course, in my way; but I -dream about the earth and the things of the earth, and so my dreams are -real as the wind is real, or the sunlight, or the moonlight, or the light -of the stars, none of which fear the contact of the earth or the water. -But these people seem to me to dream of the things of heaven, filling all -space with them. But space is empty—at any rate of things like theirs.” - -“You do not believe,” he said, “as Taine does, that ‘at bottom there is -nothing truly sweet and beautiful in our life but our dreams?’” - -“Yes,” she said, “yes and no! But what does it matter _what_ I believe? -I have no opinion of my own in this way. You would make me dogmatic. Now -I shall always try not to be dogmatic. I rebel against defining things, -especially things that I like; they are never the same afterwards. But -I am often doing this, and I have to suffer for it. This comes of being -born in an age which can describe everything and do nothing.—You see, you -make me petulant!” - -It flashed across Gildea’s mind as she finished speaking that there -was a great difference between the manner of his talk with this girl -and with that bright intelligent girl in Melbourne. He perceived the -difference, and the greatness of the difference, but not much farther. -It was many years, and in point of spiritual time many ages, since -Gildea had been blind to the fact that another nature was influencing -and being influenced by his own with the force of fatality. It is the -distinguishing mark of the moderns that they are not blind in this -respect. None of Shakspere’s men, not even the intellectual Hamlet, -get beyond a suspicion that Fate is playing upon them. The chief cause -of Hamlet’s delay lies in this suspicion and his antagonism to it: the -others submit blindly, and only recognise fatality when the “wheel has -come full circle,” but _the process_ of fatality is all unknown to them, -not even a mystery. Miss Medwin too was in the same state as Gildea but -even deeper in it. She spoke to him as she had never spoken to anyone -else in her life, as to a comrade, without leaning, without supporting, -with complete simplicity. The spell that compels a mutual truthfulness is -the perception that you understand and are understood. - -“I see,” he said, “that _you_ complain of your age because its senses are -deranged, and idlers like me because the gifts that it assigns to the -doers, as opposed to the thinkers, are not gold but tinsel.” - -“No, no,” she said, “I do not complain of my age! If I complained of -anything, it would be of myself who am unfit for my age. And I do not -think that the gifts of our actions are tinsel.” - -“Perhaps you are right, and the fault is mine because _my_ senses are -deranged?” - -“There is great room for action now, as it seems to me. If a man appeared -to-morrow with the secret of attraction in him—the secret that Napoleon -had or Byron—he would control us as much as they did. They are ours too, -these men.” - -“But we think too much? we can describe everything, and do nothing?” - -“I do not know,” she said, “I have no opinion!” - -“Alice,” said Mrs. Medwin. - -“Yes, aunt,” answered Miss Medwin. - -“Will you please make the tea?” she said. - -Miss Medwin rose at once, Gildea rising too, smiling. It was Mrs. -Medwin’s peculiar charm that, at certain apparently eccentric moments, -she would speak and act with the pretty spontaneous sweetness of a young -girl. This was the scent this wonderful flower had retained, despite all -the terrible heats of the noontide and frosts of the dawn that had fallen -upon its life. She had spoken in this manner now. - -Miss Medwin went behind the tea-table which Edgar had just brought in -and on which he was placing the bright silver tea-urn, and the water-can -with its blue-violet-flamed spirit-lamp; then, at a nod from Gildea, -disappeared. Miss Medwin poured out a cup of tea which Gildea took to -Mrs. Medwin, returning for the milk and sugar, while Miss Medwin took the -second cup to Maddock, who received it with suave and charming thanks. -Mrs. Medwin thanked Gildea, who passed on with the milk and sugar to -Maddock, and, as he returned to the tea-table for the cakes and biscuits, -passed Miss Medwin with the third cup on her way to Alcock. Alcock -received her with thanks profuse and jocular. - -“Do you take milk and sugar?” asked Miss Medwin. - -“No, no, thank you, Miss Medwin,” returned Alcock, “I take neither!” - -Gildea arrived, with a plate of cakes in one hand and a plate of biscuits -in the other. Mrs. Medwin recognised in the biscuits those of a sort to -which she was somewhat addicted, and divined that Gildea had noticed the -fact. - -“Thank you, Sir Horace,” she said, with her manner of pretty spontaneous -sweetness, “And presently Alice shall play for you. I know you will find -her style of playing a treat.” - -Sir Horace made a suitable reply and passed on with the cakes and -biscuits. Mrs. Medwin and Maddock began to talk together, Alcock playing -the part of silent member. - -“There is your tea,” Miss Medwin said to Gildea as he came back to the -tea-table. She was standing with her own cup in her hand as if about to -move away to a seat. Gildea proffered the biscuits. She took one. He put -down the plates and took up his cup. - -“You are an epicure in tea,” she said, sipping a little of hers from her -tea-spoon, “are you not?” - -“I do not know,” he answered with a slightly amused look, “but I believe -that the Russians are the only people in Europe who understand it.” - -“They take neither sugar nor milk, do they? and a slice of lemon floating -in the tea?” - -They were moving back to their places. He assented. - -“And who are the only people in Europe who understand coffee?” she asked. - -“Undoubtedly the French.” - -“Ah, you mean the café au lait—with the milk and coffee both boiling and -poured in together? I like it that way, but not with too much milk. We -had a french cook once who used to make it for us, and, as I liked it, of -course I found out how to make it myself.” - -“Yes,” he said, “certainly coffee with cold milk is a barbarism; but the -shape in which I like coffee best is as, what the French call, café noir.” - -Miss Medwin said she had never seen it in that way, and, in answer to -Gildea’s slight expression of surprise, explained that she had never been -in France. Gildea described the café noir and the proper manner in which -to drink it. - -“You fill the spoon with cognac,” he said, “into which you put a lump of -sugar—In France the sugar is in little thin slabs, not, as with us, in -squares—and then you set the cognac alight. This melts down the sugar -and, when all the spirit is burnt up, except that which saturates the -sugar, and goes out, you put in your spoon. The flavour of burnt sugar -and cognac is pleasant.” - -“It is indeed, Sir Horace,” said Alcock, tired of playing the part of -silent member in the other conversation, “I drank it that way myself -in Paris. A friend of mine, an American told me of it. Paris is a very -pleasant place. You have a treat in store for you, going there, Miss -Medwin.” - -“Yes,” she answered, “I should like to go to Paris; the Louvre is there.” - -“A very fine collection,” said Alcock, “I was much struck with it! -Unfortunately all the best works of art are now either in collections, or -so expensive that they are out of the reach of us Australians who have -claims upon us more pressing. You saw the Picture Gallery in Melbourne?” - -“Yes, I saw it. I think it is rather painful. I liked the Library better.” - -“The building—the room, you mean?” - -“No, I meant the books. I used to go and sit there and read.” - -“Oh indeed?” said Alcock. “And what now do you think of the Picture -Gallery here?” - -“Alice,” said Mrs. Medwin, “you are not to say! I won’t have you say that -the things in Sydney are better than in Melbourne!” - -“Very well, aunt,” said Alice, “then I will not say it.” - -“And now,” said Mrs. Medwin, “I want you to play for us.” - -Miss Medwin rose at once with a look for the piano, which was on the -other side of the curtains. Both she and Gildea were amused and delighted -by Mrs. Medwin’s characteristic interruption and command: Maddock -was amused: even Alcock, who did not yet know her ways, was too much -influenced by the charm of this her happiest manner to think it rude or -imperious. “She is such an invalid,” he said, recounting this incident -as an anecdote to a friend of his at the Melbourne Club, “and rules -everyone about her like a little empress. But her manner is irresistible, -really irresistible; and it doesn’t offend you in the least—in fact you -rather like it. There is no woman in Melbourne who could help us to -consolidate a party in the english social manner as _she_ could. And I -really attach—I really do!—considerable importance to the idea.” Such -was the subsequent expression of the thoughts which were passing through -the mind of Alcock as Gildea, having held back the curtain for Miss -Medwin to pass, was opening the piano for her. Mrs. Medwin sat in serene -unconsciousness of the possibility of her manners being considered as -otherwise than her own, and would have been surprised if she had heard -that anyone thought they were open to question. - -“Is there any piece, aunt,” asked Miss Medwin, bending back so as to see -Mrs. Medwin through the curtains, “that you would like me to play?” - -“Oh no!” Mrs. Medwin said, “Why, I wanted you to play for Sir Horace, not -for me!” - -Miss Medwin smiled assent, and, after a few moments’ pause to consider -what piece she would play and to collect her thoughts, began. The piece -was the one which she considered would most please her audience, and -which of course she knew. It was Chopin’s Eleventh Nocturne. It suited -her humour at many times, but particularly at the present. The Nocturne -is divided into two parts: passionate and half-weary wandering, and rest -in which passion is merged in peace. To her it conjured up the vision of -a twilight road winding up between woody rolling fields and a plantation. -The dark figure of the man, whose passionate and half-weary wandering is -here expressing itself, is coming slowly up the road. Low down and far -away behind the close straight stems of the plantation lie a few pallid -veins of sunset light. The shadows are stealing swiftly around him. He is -near to hopelessness, near to the wish to - - lie down like a tired child, - and weep away the life of care - which he has borne and yet must bear: - -but passion and yearning are still too strong in him for self-abandonment. -Then he hears sounds—a strain of music and voices—the nuns or monks -perhaps, singing an evening hymn to the blessèd Mary, mother of passion -and of peace! He moves on slowly and softly, listening. His hopelessness, -his weariness are soothed into rest: trust enters into him, trust in the -aims of life, that general life in which his own is now merged, even as -the yearning of passion is lost in the sweetness of peace.... - -When she had finished, there was a long pause, and then Gildea thanked -her for the pleasure she had given him. Mrs. Medwin and Maddock began -to speak of the piece, Maddock expressing his pleasure at it and his -admiration for Miss Medwin’s playing. - -“You are, then, a lover of this Chopin?” said Gildea to Miss Medwin. “But -he is not your Master, as you would say?” - -“No,” she answered, “he is not my Master.—I suppose you mean Beethoven by -that?” she added, looking up at him. He assented. - -“And yet,” she said, “I cannot somehow call even him Master. I do not -love music as I ought to do—especially Beethoven and Wagner. They are -great, these men, very great, but I cannot lose myself in their spirit as -I should do. I often feel this.” - -“It was one of Heine’s few fantastic sayings,” said Gildea, “that -Chopin was the Raphael of the piano, and indeed a piece like this, or -the stately opening of the Thirteenth Nocturne—You remember it?” (She -assented)—“or the Marche Funèbre, help to see what he meant; but to call -him a Raphael seems to me inapt. No Raphael, for instance, would have -dreamed of so entirely giving himself up to the influence of his passion -as Chopin does. Surely it is not in _his_ spirit that you can lose -yourself?” - -“No,” she said, “less than in Beethoven’s. But perhaps Heine only meant -his expression about Chopin comparatively. Chopin, you remember, is the -only great composer who devoted himself to the piano. Certainly he is a -master of it, but his style of art is not like Raphael’s—at least so far -as I know of Raphael.” - -They came back talking into the other room, where Gildea, from a glance -at Mrs. Medwin’s face, perceived that she now wished them to go down -to the yacht. In a few minutes he brought the conversation round to -the subject and, having asked and she having expressed her wish, the -party was presently crossing the lawn on its way down to the small -landing-stage, close to which the “Petrel” had now been brought in. Mrs. -Medwin, between Maddock and Alcock, was some yards ahead of Gildea and -Miss Medwin who were following them. - -“You did not know,” Gildea was saying to her, “that Mr. Hawkesbury was a -friend of mine? He has been having lunch with us, and only just went away -before you arrived. He, and another friend of mine whom you perhaps have -met in Melbourne, Mr. Fitzgerald—No?—were unable to stay.” - -“So I supposed,” said Miss Medwin, “or something like that.—You do not -perhaps know,” she added, “that my aunt has a dislike for him that really -almost amounts to antipathy?” - -“Yes,” said Gildea, “I was aware of it: his social opinions are too much -for her, and Sydney Medwin annoys her by constantly mentioning both -them and him. A meeting would have been awkward indeed, but I made my -calculations carefully, and I should have regretted not giving my friend -Fitzgerald the opportunity of making Hawkesbury’s acquaintance. In a few -days one will be going due north and the other due south, but I hope they -will meet again later on. Two more charming examples of the two species -of enthusiast it would be hard to find.” - -“What do you call the two species?” - -“The enthusiast of heat and the enthusiast of light: both are to me -equally beautiful, equally charming!” - -“Mr. Hawkesbury, then,” she said, “is the enthusiast of heat? I have -never known any man so much in earnest as he is. He seems to understand -nothing but devotion or abhorrence; and yet how well he generally -conceals this from those whom he thinks unworthy of the knowledge of -it! His patience and courtesy have often astonished and filled me with -admiration. I have heard him arguing with a stupid opponent, and I have -heard him addressing a crowd. His self-restraint, his clearness, were -simply wonderful. Has he ever spoken to you of his friend and Master, as -he says,—James Holden?” - -“No,” answered Gildea, “but I happen to have seen Holden myself.—But here -we are!” - -Alcock from the deck and Maddock from the shore had assisted Mrs. Medwin -over the plank into the “Petrel,” and now Miss Medwin, after shaking -hands, expressing her regrets that he could not come, and saying good-bye -to Maddock, followed. - -Mrs. Medwin, Miss Medwin, Alcock and Gildea gathered opposite Maddock, -with whom they talked while the ropes were being cast loose and the yacht -got ready for starting. Then, as she glided away, bending slightly as -the wind caught and filled her sails, Maddock took off his hat and stood -bare-headed, bowing and waving farewell. - -A more charming day for such a trip, it would have been hard to choose. -The air was warmer than in the morning, but the breeze was still strong -enough to prevent the volumes of foul smoke which issued from the funnels -of the harbour steamers from polluting the air and spoiling the view. -The “Petrel” made straight for the main channel of the harbour in the -direction of the Heads. - -While Gildea was away talking with his skipper about the arrangements -that had been made for the trip, the other three passengers moved about -looking at the yacht, praising and admiring its neatness and cleanness. -And it was worthy too both of the praise and admiration which they -bestowed on its general completeness, that namely of silence, and of -the praise and admiration which they who were skilled in such matters -bestowed on its sailing-powers. - -Presently Gildea rejoined them, and the conversation flowed on lightly -and pleasantly. - -“I notice,” said Miss Medwin, “that you carry very little gear up aloft. -Your masts too are unusually tall, are they not?” - -Gildea gave a pleased smile. - -“Yes,” he said, “they call her the ghost yacht at Cowes. I use as little -hempen rope as I can. When the great point is speed, every extra inch -that you give to the prise of the wind is of importance. The steel, you -see, does not offer half as much resistance as the ordinary hempen rope. -Besides which, I have in several cases done away with a rope altogether -where I believed one, if properly handled, could do for two.” - -Miss Medwin, who knew the rigging and handling of a sailing-ship fairly -well, asked for an explanation of how one or two things were done, which -he gave her with a certain pleasure. - -“And what,” she said, “do your sailors think of your alterations?” - -He laughed. - -“They say the Old Man—that is my name with them—” - -“It is the name of all skippers with their sailors, is it not?” she asked -smiling. - -He assented. - -“—They say, or rather used to say, that I had a twist that way. The -conservatism of sailors and builders as regards ships is quite wonderful. -Imagine that, when they came to build iron sailing ships instead of wood, -they actually had and have the stupidity to put up masts of the same -circumference as the old wooden ones, although thereby they gain no extra -strength, and expose square yards on yards needlessly to the prise of the -wind! I would venture to say that this alone makes a difference of three -or four knots per hour in a head wind to the speed of the vessel.” - -Miss Medwin thought Gildea more charming in his capacity of intelligent -amateur captain than as consummate master of things social. They moved -down together towards the stern, and stood there talking and looking -forward. Mrs. Medwin and Alcock were standing together talking a little -way in front of them. Then Edgar appeared with seats and rugs, which he -offered to Mrs. Medwin and Alcock, who sat down, Mrs. Medwin with a rug -over her knees, and then came aft to the other two, who accepted two -chairs, but for the present remained standing as they talked. - -Presently there came a pause in the conversation and Miss Medwin sat -down, Gildea following suit. The pause became a silence. At last he broke -it. - -“You have noticed,” he said, “how different is the effect on you of the -sea, in a steamer and in a boat?” - -“Yes,” she said, “I have noticed it. The steamer goes its own determined -way, breaking its sympathy with winds and waters, and you—you are so high -up that you cannot mingle in the being of the spirits, the breathings of -their lips, the wavings of their hands, the tossings of their hair.” - -“_Where_,” he said smiling, - - “_where the wild white horses play,_ - _champ and chafe and toss in the spray._” - -She smiled in turn. She was looking before her across the sunny rolling -billows to where, against some high brown jagged rocks, the foam-mantle -of the breakers rose ever silently and fell. She was breathing in gently -and serenely the delight of the sea, the bright breeze, the movement of -the yacht, the divine blue free expansion of the clouds and skies. There -was a silence. - -“You are not fond of steamers, then?” he asked with a side-look. - -“No,” she said, “except in rough weather, and then I too feel the elation -of my kind,—the frail race of men which can yet dominate the winds and -waters and make their paths along the neck of the untameable sea.—You do -not know,” she added, leaving her extraneous delight for a moment and -looking at him with a touch of self-amusement, “you do not know how I -swell with pride when I watch a great man-of-war sailing on and on with -such serene confidence, dominating the expanse of water like a thing -of self-evident strength and beauty. I remember once making sand-forts -with some children in England in a little rock-girt cove, and suddenly -I looked up and there, almost filling our narrow horizon, was a great -white troop-ship passing close to the shore. It struck me quite dumb -for a moment; and then I began to applaud and shout like a Bacchant, -the children following suit.” She turned her face away again, laughing, -looking here and there, delighting again in what she felt and saw. - -“You are a true daughter of kindly men,” he said, laughing too, all -suspicion of mockery passed away from look and tone. There was another -silence. Gildea was beginning to perceive in himself a feeling he had -never felt before, the feeling that he was in the presence and even in -the influence of a girl-woman, (such was the idea presented to him), -of a spiritual force as consummate as, but wholly differing from, his -own. In a few moments he had recognized this, and by a wonderful stroke -of intuition divined the meaning of it. It partook of the nature of a -revelation. He seemed to see all his past life in a new light. He felt -that she—she, this woman, this girl, this child here—had, by some unknown -wonderful means, won the true talisman of life, that talisman whose -omnipotence is perpetuity. It was, then, possible, after all, to combine -perfect knowledge of life with the radiant joy and peace of perfect trust -in it!—It partook of the nature of a revelation and, to second thoughts, -of a delusion. His lip curled: he almost despised himself for the swift -speed with which a suddenly begotten hope had leaped to a birth whose -form and pressure was but the mask of credulity. “There has been no man,” -he said to himself, “save Goethe, who knew what life was and yet could -have a weariless joy in it. Carlyle well said that this man was to have -no imitators or successors.—_Nostra vita a che val? solo a spregiarla._” -And yet the idea of a new life, a life wherein might be found something -more than sweet resignation, hedonistic merely or even optimistic, -but supplying thought, action, and speech with a motive-power whose -strength should be in its truth—the idea would not be shaken off by mere -self-contempt at credulity in it. - -“To tell you the truth,” he said to her, “I could almost envy you your -pure free joy in things.” - -She looked at him, surprise passing swiftly into serene observation. - -“What troubles you,” she said, “that you should not have it yourself?” - -He smiled slightly as he answered her. - -“Pleasure, however sweet, however clear, is not joy.—And yet,” he added -quickly, “I would not change my pleasure for your joy.” - -“No?” - -“A child has joy, a man has pleasure: joy, then, is a step backward. It -may excel in height, as we should say, but breadth is the finer quality. -The mountains are noble, but the sea, encompassing all lands, is great.” - -“The sea also is deep, it has its valleys whose shadow is nadir to the -zenith peaks and light. I will not grant you your simile. You must not -mock at joy, for joy is the gift not only of childhood which precedes, -but of maturity which follows, manhood. I would sooner be a Christian and -have joy than a Heathen with only pleasure.” - -“Christianity,” said Gildea, “is spiritual opium. You do not eat it?” - -“No,” she said, “I see no use in drugs. But, as I said, I would sooner -take drugs that give me joy than live on meats and wines that only gave -me pleasure. Joy is mine, but pleasure is every one’s.” - -“You had, then, once the temptation of drugs?” - -“Yes,” she assented a little dreamily, “I had the temptation.—And yet,” -she added with a sudden return of interest, “it is wonderful how little -of _these_ drugs you can take, and live with energy and joy. Are the -lips of Monica pallid or her eyes stony? Theresa has a clear mind: she -can set her house in order. The songs and glories of the Creatures, do -they not pass purely and freely, as you say, through the lips of Saint -Francis?” - -“True, but for us this aspect of the thing is past. The central trust in -the Christ-God is a skeletoned shadow, that the grate holds up a moment -beyond its time of falling in. You see it lying, a pile of shapeless ash, -and wonder it ever stood. The Mother of Love and Grief appears no more -save in the brilliant burning of distorted vision. It is a case of opium -or nothing!” - -“You are right,” she said, “and so I saw it.” - -“What, then, remains,” he asked, “but resignation? There is no joy in -patience. Nay, worse, there is little pleasure. I too take drugs, and -I have more than once thought that, if Fate had not kindly given me -the wherewithal to buy them, I should have ended the dreary business -for ever. What is the good of our life except to despise it? says -Leopardi. It is just bearable with drugs, but, without, I cannot think -it worth the bearing. Pure indifference keeps more of its high souls -alive now than the world wots of. They are careless of life, but they -are equally careless of death. They live merely waiting for chance to -kill them, or for life to become unendurable enough for them to care -to kill themselves. Such men are not miserable. Sometimes, it is true, -they suffer disgust; but they know nothing of despair, for despair means -illusion, and they have the truth. Sometimes, again they have pleasure. -But how, tell me, is it possible to have at once both truth and joy?” - -“All this,” she said, “I too felt, and not so long ago—although I could -not have put it to myself so clearly. You, I think, have learned your -belief more by living than by reading: with me it was different. Before -I began properly to live,—to be free, that is, to examine and try -everything for myself,—I had arrived at my belief, and all my living has -only confirmed me in it.” - -“_What_ is your belief?” he asked. - -She smiled and shook her head. - -“I will not try to tell it you explicitly,” she said, “for fear of -harming it. Analysis is a mistake, and now I have so long known this, -that I have little temptation to give way to it. You, it seems, have -tried to be a Heathen. You gave yourself up to the natural joy of your -youth and fortune, your health and strength and riches and powers, until -the joy turned to pleasure and the pleasure to almost pain. Then you went -for interest to the spiritual life of those about you, and again joy -turned to pleasure and pleasure to almost pain. But _you_—you were not -one that knew how to be resigned! You could not, as your great Master -could, add to the ‘Vanity of Vanities, all is vanity’ the ‘Fear God and -keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.’ Far otherwise -with _you_, as you have told me, was ‘the conclusion of the whole -matter.’” - -“And you?” he said with the tone of comrade to comrade, “and you?” - -“I had a revelation. It took place in a London fog in front of a fire in -a little backroom where I had my books. And, as it were, scales fell from -my eyes, and I saw men as trees walking.” Gildea, the true arch-mocker, -for the first time in his life had to undergo the sensation of doubt -whether or no he was being mocked at. - -“Well?” he said. - -“Well, I was in a rather miserable state at the time. Someone to whom I -was attached had had to leave me. I was sick of trying to satisfy myself -with the life of pleasure as pleasure, and I had the temptation to take -spiritual drugs, for I felt an appalling loneliness of soul. I thought -that no one had ever looked at things as I felt I should like to look -at them, and I was at times almost afraid that I was suffering under a -delusion that might end in something very like madness. Then I had my -revelation. I found out that there had been a whole race whose central -belief was the one I was stretching out my arms to.” - -“Greece?” said Gildea, “Greece?” - -“Yes, Greece! Here I found were men who realized the secret of life, who -knew what Truth was. They looked at life as it was, and they saw calmly -and clearly that the butterfly’s life is enough for the butterfly, and -the man’s for the man. They took no spiritual opium as the Christians do: -they have no yearning love. They have not resignation as the Heathens -have, resignation that sullenly accepts the evil, or that brightly -determines to make the best of the good in things. They have better; -they have truth and light and joy! Take, then, your Christian Faith and -Love: your Heathen Trust and Hope: _I_ am a Pagan, and my care is Truth -and Light!—And I found,” she went on, “I found, after a time, that there -had been others in these later days that had looked, or striven to look -at things, as I did. Such was Goethe, such was Keats. With Goethe the -freedom of his Paganism was bought at a great price, but Keats was born -free. When Goethe recognised what it was to have been a Christian, to be -a Heathen, and to wish to be a Pagan, he renounced his past and present -with all the strength of his soul, and fixed his eyes resolutely on his -future. But he never won it—that is to say, as he had won the others. He -was never a Pagan as he was a Heathen or a Christian. The Second Part -of Faust is not like the First. It is not with impunity that we have -passed through the Christianity of Catholicism and the Heathenism of the -Renascence. A Dante or a Shakspere could not be shaken off by a Goethe, -and a Sophokles wholly put on. Is a great pagan soul possible yet? How -shall we say no with what Keats might have become before us?—Sometimes I -think,” she said a little dreamily, “that I am the only one of my time -who understood these great men; Goethe, the god of the Transition, Keats, -the Herakles of Modernity, strangled in his cradle by the serpents of -Hera! And, for either of them, I would readily have given my life.” ... - -Mrs. Medwin turned round towards them, Alcock turning too, as if they had -reached a point in their conversation in which a break was expedient. -Then Mrs. Medwin and Alcock rose and came up to them. - -“Is not the water exquisitely clear?” she said to Gildea, “It reminds me -of Capreae. It only wants the beautiful coral rocks.” - -Gildea smilingly assented. He remembered a remark of Mrs. Medwin’s to the -effect that, as you approached Melbourne from the north, it was like the -bay of Naples with Vesuvius. - -“Miss Medwin,” he said, with the smile changing on his face and becoming -sweet and radiant, “Miss Medwin has just been explaining to me a passage -from Goethe which I never understood.” - -“Indeed?” said Mrs. Medwin, “I did not know you read German, Alice. Was -it a passage from Faust? I think Faust is very difficult, and I do not -understand the Second Part in the least.” - -“No,” answered Gildea, “It was not from Faust.— - - Vom Halben zu entwöhnen; - im Ganzen, Guten, Schönen - resolut zu leben.” - -“That is not very difficult, Sir Horace,” said Mrs. Medwin. - -Gildea, in answer to the dumb look on Alcock’s face, who did not happen -to know German, translated it with courtesy: - -“‘I resolved to wean myself,’” he said, “‘from halves, and to live for -the Whole, the Good, the Beautiful.’” - -“And what does it _mean_?” asked Alcock. - -“Ah,” answered Gildea smiling, “Miss Medwin must tell you that!” - - _April, 1885._ - - -THE END. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] The remark is, of course, general. Most of Victoria, as we all know, -is unfortunately definitely sold. - -[2] _Melbourne Review_, October, 1883. (No. 32.) - -[3] _Victorian Review_, May, 1884. (No. 55). - -[4] _Melbourne Review_, April, 1884. (No. 34). - -[5] I may parenthetically remark that the idea that Gordon is buried -in St. Kilda Cemetery is incorrect, as my doing so may perhaps save -others from the trouble of a fruitless pilgrimage there, not to say an -examination of all the Cemetery books. He is buried in Brighton Cemetery. -The tombstone is a block of blue-stone, topped with a shattered column -crowned with a laurel-wreath. The four sides of the block have marble -tablets let into them, on which are severally written: “The Poet Gordon. -Died June 24, 1870, aged 37 years;” “Sea-Spray and Smoke-Drift;” “Bush -Ballads and Galloping Rhymes;” “Ashtaroth.” The Cemetery is wooded -and wild, the vegetation, including the grave-flowers, stragglingly -luxuriant. Not altogether an unfitting “sleeping place” for him. - -[6] His little article on it in the _Contemporary Review_ is a mere -circular. - -[7] _Victorian Review_, February, 1885, in a series of articles on -contemporary English poets. - -[8] It is gratifying to notice at the Technological Museum, where one -would least expect it, the number of sunday visitors more than halves -that of all the other days put together. - -[9] A volume of his, in which is included his “Miscellaneous Poems” and -“Convict Once,” has lately appeared—at last another book, out of so much -of this hopelessly worthless colonial literature, which counts! - -[10] Three of Miss Ironsides’ pictures were, when I was in Sydney, housed -in a sort of shed behind the temporary Picture Gallery. On one side of -it the windows were open to the dust and rain! One of the pictures, the -“Ars Longa, Vita Brevis,” was much spoiled; another, the “Adoration of -the Magi,” a little. I did what I could to alter this state of affairs, -but I could do nothing. The Trustees do not know to whom the pictures -belong, and there is not room enough in the Gallery, as it is, for even -the purchased pictures. Perhaps when these three pictures are permanently -spoiled, something will be done. For me, I must confine myself to -pointing out the wonderful depth of quiet feeling which is the chief -characteristic of the work of this remarkable girl. This is to be noticed -most in the “Marriage” picture and the “Ars Longa.” At the same time -there is something of passionate—of passion suppressed, but none the less -existent and strong, which adds a peculiar flavour and attraction to her -work. The mother’s face in the “Adoration” and the girl playing on the -harp in the “Marriage” are really beautiful in thought and execution. -For pure execution, however, I would direct attention to the drapery of -the angel in the former picture, or, in a particular shape, the thorns -in the “Ars Longa.” I suppose that there is such a plethora of work like -this of Miss Ironsides’ in both Sydney and Melbourne that only one or two -mentally impoverished people like myself can be expected to trouble about -it, and it is in the hope of attracting the attention of one or two such -that I write this. There are, however, three pictures by Mr. Folingsby in -the Melbourne Gallery which would, I am sure, look quite nice in one of -our new æsthetically furnished hotels, Mr. Hosie’s (say) or the Grand, -and then perhaps someone might put Miss Ironsides’ in their places. This -would be a gain for both the Hotels and the Gallery. - -[11] Crescat et proficiat tam singulorum quam omnium, tam unius hominis -quam totius Ecclesiæ, Intelligentia Scientia Sapientia. - -[12] “In Memoriam,” cxiv. - -[13] In the Land Act that came into force in March, 1885. - - MELBOURNE: - WILLIAM INGLIS AND CO., PRINTERS, - FLINDERS STREET EAST. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUSTRALIAN ESSAYS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. 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