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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7352-0.txt b/7352-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..27f26c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/7352-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7259 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of First and Last, by H. Belloc + +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: First and Last + +Author: H. Belloc + +Release Date: April 19, 2003 [eBook #7352] +[Most recently updated: May 1, 2023] + +Language: English + +Produced by: Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRST AND LAST *** + + + + +FIRST AND LAST + +BY H. BELLOC + + + + +CONTENTS + + ON WEIGHING ANCHOR + THE REVEILLON + ON CHEESES + THE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY + THE INVENTOR + THE VIEWS OF ENGLAND + THE LUNATIC + THE INHERITANCE OF HUMOUR + THE OLD GENTLEMAN’S OPINIONS + ON HISTORICAL EVIDENCE + THE ABSENCE OF THE PAST + ST. PATRICK + THE LOST THINGS + ON THE READING OF HISTORY + THE VICTORY + REALITY + ON THE DECLINE OF THE BOOK + JOSÉ MARIA DE HEREDIA + NORMANDY AND THE NORMANS + THE OLD THINGS + THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS + THE ROMAN ROADS IN PICARDY + THE REWARD OF LETTERS + THE EYE-OPENERS + THE PUBLIC + ON ENTRIES + COMPANIONS OF TRAVEL + ON THE SOURCES OF RIVERS + ON ERROR + THE GREAT SIGHT + THE DECLINE OF A STATE + ON PAST GREATNESS + MR. THE DUKE: THE MAN OF MALPLAQUET + THE GAME OF CARDS + “KING LEAR” + THE EXCURSION + THE TIDE + ON A GREAT WIND + THE LETTER + THE REGRET + THE END OF THE WORLD + + + + +FIRST AND LAST + + + + +On Weighing Anchor + + +Personally I should call it “Getting It up,” but I have always seen it +in print called “weighing anchor”—and if it is in print one must bow to +it. It does weigh. + +There are many ways of doing it. The best, like all good things, has +gone for ever, and this best way was for a thing called a capstan to +have sticking out from it, movable, and fitted into its upper rim, +other things called capstan-bars. These, men would push singing a song, +while on the top of the capstan sat a man playing the fiddle, or the +flute, or some other instrument of music. You and I have seen it in +pictures. Our sons will say that they wish they had seen it in +pictures. Our sons’ sons will say it is all a lie and was never in +anything but the pictures, and they will explain it by some myth or +other. + +Another way is to take two turns of a rope round a donkey-engine, +paying in and coiling while the engine clanks. And another way on +smaller boats is a sort of jack arrangement by which you give little +jerks to a ratchet and wheel, and at last It looses Its hold. Sometimes +(in this last way) It will not loose Its hold at all. + +Then there is a way of which I proudly boast that it is the only way I +know, which is to go forward and haul at the line until It comes—or +does not come. If It does not come, you will not be so cowardly or so +mean as to miss your tide for such a trifle. You will cut the line and +tie a float on and pray Heaven that into whatever place you run, that +place will have moorings ready and free. + +When a man weighs anchor in a little ship or a large one he does a +jolly thing! He cuts himself off and he starts for freedom and for the +chance of things. He pulls the jib a-weather, he leans to her slowly +pulling round, he sees the wind getting into the mainsail, and he feels +that she feels the helm. He has her on a slant of the wind, and he +makes out between the harbour piers. I am supposing, for the sake of +good luck, that it is not blowing bang down the harbour mouth, nor, for +the matter of that, bang out of it. I am supposing, for the sake of +good luck to this venture, that in weighing anchor you have the wind so +that you can sail with it full and by, or freer still, right past the +walls until you are well into the tide outside. You may tell me that +you are so rich and your boat is so big that there have been times when +you have anchored in the very open, and that all this does not apply to +you. Why, then, your thoughts do not apply to me nor to the little boat +I have in mind. + +In the weighing of anchor and the taking of adventure and of the sea +there is an exact parallel to anything that any man can do in the +beginning of any human thing, from his momentous setting out upon his +life in early manhood to the least decision of his present passing day. +It is a very proper emblem of a beginning. It may lead him to that kind +of muddle and set-back which attaches only to beginnings, or it may get +him fairly into the weather, and yet he may find, a little way outside, +that he has to run for it, or to beat back to harbour. Or, more +generously, it may lead him to a long and steady cruise in which he +shall find profit and make distant rivers and continue to increase his +log by one good landfall after another. But the whole point of weighing +anchor is that he has chosen his weather and his tide, and that he is +setting out. The thing is done. + +You will very commonly observe that, in land affairs, if good fortune +follows a venture it is due to the marvellous excellence of its +conductor, but if ill fortune, then to evil chance alone. Now, it is +not so with the sea. + +The sea drives truth into a man like salt. A coward cannot long pretend +to be brave at sea, nor a fool to be wise, nor a prig to be a good +companion, and any venture connected with the sea is full of venture +and can pretend to be nothing more. Nevertheless there is a certain +pride in keeping a course through different weathers, in making the +best of a tide, in using cats’ paws in a dull race, and, generally, in +knowing how to handle the thing you steer and to judge the water and +the wind. Just because men have to tell the truth once they get into +tide water, what little is due to themselves in their success thereon +they are proud of and acknowledge. + +If your sailing venture goes well, sailing reader, take a just pride in +it; there will be the less need for me to write, some few years hence, +upon the art of picking up moorings, though I confess I would rather +have written on that so far as the fun of writing was concerned. For +picking up moorings is a far more tricky and amusing business than +Getting It up. It differs with every conceivable circumstance of wind, +and tide, and harbour, and rig, and freeboard, and light; and then +there are so many stories to tell about it! As—how once a poor man +picked up a rich man’s moorings at Cowes and was visited by an +aluminium boat, all splendid in the morning sun. Or again—how a +stranger who had made Orford Haven (that very difficult place) on the +very top of an equinoctial springtide, picked up a racing mark-buoy, +taking it to be moorings, and dragged it with him all the way to +Aldborough, and that right before the town of Orford, so making himself +hateful to the Orford people. + +But I digress.... + + + + +The Reveillon + + +There was in the regiment with which I served a man called Frocot, +famous with his comrades because he had seen The Dead, for this +experience, though common among the Scotch, is rare among the French, a +sister nation. This man Frocot could neither write nor read, and was +also the strongest man I ever knew. He was quite short and exceedingly +broad, and he could break a penny with his hands, but this gift of +strength, though young men value it so much, was thought little of +compared with his perception of unseen things, for though the men, who +were peasants, professed to laugh at it, and him, in their hearts they +profoundly believed. It had been made clear to us that he could see and +hear The Dead one night in January during a snowstorm, when he came in +and woke me in barrack-room because he had heard the Loose Spur. Our +spurs were not buckled on like the officers’; they were fixed into the +heel of the boot, and if a nail loosened upon either side the spur +dragged with an unmistakable noise. There was a sergeant who (for some +reason) had one so loosened on the last night he had ever gone the +rounds before his death, for in the morning as he came off guard he +killed himself, and the story went about among the drivers that +sometimes on stable guard in the thick of the night, when you watched +all alone by the lantern (with your three comrades asleep in the straw +of an empty stall), your blood would stop and your skin tauten at the +sound of a loose spur dragging on the far side of the stable, in the +dark. But though many had heard the story, and though some had +pretended to find proof for it, I never knew a man to feel and know it +except this man Frocot on that night. I remember him at the foot of my +bed with his lantern waking me from the rooted sleep of bodily fatigue, +standing there in his dark blue driver’s coat and staring with terrible +eyes. He had undoubtedly heard and seen, but whether of himself from +within, imagining, or, as I rather believe, from without and +influenced, it is impossible to say. He was rough and poor, and he came +from the Forest of Ardennes. + +The reason I remember him and write of him at this season is not, +however, this particular and dreadful visitation of his, but a folly or +a vision that befell him at this time of the year, now seventeen years +ago; for he had Christmas leave and was on his way from garrison to his +native place, and he was walking the last miles of the wood. It was the +night before Christmas. It was clear, and there was no wind, but the +sky was overcast with level clouds and the evening was very dark. He +started unfed since the first meal of the day; it was dark three hours +before he was up into the high wood. He met no one during all these +miles, and his body and his mind were lonely; he hoped to press on and +be at his father’s door before two in the morning or perhaps at one. +The night was so still that he heard no noise in the high wood, not +even the rustling of a leaf or a twig crackling, and no animal ran in +the undergrowth. The moss of the ride was silent under his heavy tread, +but now and then the steel of his side-arm clicked against a metal +button of the great cloak he wore. This sharp sound made him so +conscious of himself that he seemed to fill that forest with his own +presence and to be all that was, there or elsewhere. He was in a mood +of unreal and not holy things. The mood, remaining, changed its aspect, +and now he was so far from alone that all the trunks around him and the +glimmers of sky between bare boughs held each a spirit of its own, and +with the powerful imagination of the unlearned he could have spoken and +held communion with the trees; but it would have an evil communion, for +he felt this mood of his take on a further phase as he went deeper and +deeper still into these forests. He felt about him uneasily the sense +of doom. He was in that exaltation of fancy or dream when faint appeals +are half heard far off, but not by our human ears, and when whatever +attempts to pierce the armour of our mortality appeals to us by wailing +and by despairing sighs. It seemed to him that most unhappy things +passed near him in the air, and that the wood about him was full of +sobbing. Then, again, he felt his own mind within him begin to be +occupied by doubtful troubles worse than these terrors, an anxious +straining for ill news, for bitter and dreadful news, mixed with a +confused certitude that such news had come indeed, disturbed and +haunted him; and all the while about him in that stillness the rushing +of unhappy spirits went like a secret storm. He was clouded with the +mingled emotions of apprehension and of fatal mourning; he attempted to +remember the expectations that had failed him, friends untrue, and the +names of parents dead; but he was now the victim of this strange night +and unable (whether from hunger or fatigue, or from that unique power +of his to discern things beyond the world) to remember his life or his +definite aims at all, or even his own name. He was mixed with the whole +universe about him, and was suffering some loss so grievous that very +soon the gait of his march and his whole being were informed by a large +and final despair. + +It was in this great and universal mood (granted to him as a seer, +though he was a common man) that he saw down the ride, but somewhat to +one side of it in the heart of the high wood, a great light shining +from a barn or shed that stood there in the undergrowth, and to this +light, though his way naturally led him to it, he felt also impelled by +an influence as strong as or stronger than the despair that had filled +his soul and all the woods around. He went on therefore quickly, +straining with his eyes, and when he came into the light that shone out +from this he saw a more brilliant light within, and men of his own kind +adoring; but the vision was confused, like light on light or like +vapours moving over bright metals in a cauldron, and as he gazed his +mind became still and the dread left him altogether. He said it was +like shutting a gentleman’s great oaken door against a driving storm. + +This is the story he told me weeks after as we rode together in the +battery, for he hid it in his heart till the spring. As I say, I +believed him. + +He was an unlearned man and a strong; he never worshipped. He was of +that plain stuff and clay on which has worked since all recorded time +the power of the Spirit. + +He said that when he left (as he did rapidly leave) that light, peace +also left him, but that the haunting terror did not return. He found +the clearing and his father’s hut; fatigue and the common world indeed +returned, but with them a permanent memory of things experienced. + +Every word I have written of him is true. + + + + +On Cheeses + + +If antiquity be the test of nobility, as many affirm and none deny +(saving, indeed, that family which takes for its motto “Sola Virtus +Nobilitas,” which may mean that virtue is the only nobility, but which +may also mean, mark you, that nobility is the only virtue—and anyhow +denies that nobility is tested by the lapse of time), _if_, I say, +antiquity be the only test of nobility, then cheese is a very noble +thing. + +But wait a moment: there was a digression in that first paragraph which +to the purist might seem of a complicated kind. + +Were I writing algebra (I wish I were) I could have analysed my +thoughts by the use of square brackets, round brackets, twiddly +brackets, and the rest, all properly set out in order so that a Common +Fool could follow them. + +But no such luck! I may not write of algebra here; for there is a rule +current in all newspapers that no man may write upon any matter save +upon those in which he is more learned than all his human fellows that +drag themselves so slowly daily forward to the grave. + +So I had to put the thing in the very common form of a digression, and +very nearly to forget that great subject of cheese which I had put at +the very head and title of this. + +Which reminds me: had I followed the rule set down by a London +journalist the other day (and of the proprietor of his paper I will say +nothing—though I might have put down the remark to his proprietor) I +would have hesitated to write that first paragraph. I would have +hesitated, did I say? Griffins’ tails! Nay—Hippogriffs and other things +of the night! I would not have dared to write it at all! For this +journalist made a law and promulgated it, and the law was this: that no +man should write that English which could not be understood if all the +punctuation were left out. Punctuation, I take it, includes brackets, +which the Lord of Printers knows are a very modern part of punctuation +indeed. + +Now let the horripilised reader look up again at the first paragraph +(it will do him no harm), and think how it would look all written out +in fair uncials like the beautiful Gospels of St. Chad, which anyone +may see for nothing in the cathedral of Lichfield, an English town +famous for eight or nine different things: as Garrick, Doctor Johnson, +and its two opposite inns. Come, read that first paragraph over now and +see what you could make of it if it were written out in uncials—that +is, not only without punctuation, but without any division between the +words. Wow! As the philosopher said when he was asked to give a plain +answer “Yes” or “No.” + +And now to cheese. I have had quite enough of digressions and of +follies. They are the happy youth of an article. They are the +springtime of it. They are its riot. I am approaching the middle age of +this article. Let us be solid upon the matter of cheese. + +I have premised its antiquity, which is of two sorts, as is that of a +nobleman. First, the antiquity of its lineage; secondly, the antiquity +of its self. For we all know that when we meet a nobleman we revere his +nobility very much if he be himself old, and that this quality of age +in him seems to marry itself in some mysterious way with the antiquity +of his line. + +The lineage of cheese is demonstrably beyond all record. What did the +faun in the beginning of time when a god surprised him or a mortal had +the misfortune to come across him in the woods? It is well known that +the faun offered either of them cheese. So he knew how to make it. + +There are certain bestial men, hangers-on of the Germans, who would +contend that this would prove cheese to be acquired by the Aryan race +(or what not) from the Dolichocephalics (or what not), and there are +certain horrors who descend to imitate these barbarians—though +themselves born in these glorious islands, which are so steep upon +their western side. But I will not detain you upon these lest I should +fall head foremost into another digression and forget that my article, +already in its middle age, is now approaching grey hairs. + +At any rate, cheese is very old. It is beyond written language. Whether +it is older than butter has been exhaustively discussed by several +learned men, to whom I do not send you because the road towards them +leads elsewhere. It is the universal opinion of all most accustomed to +weigh evidence (and in these I very properly include not only such +political hacks as are already upon the bench but sweepingly every +single lawyer in Parliament, since any one of them may tomorrow be a +judge) that milk is older than cheese, and that man had the use of milk +before he cunningly devised the trick of squeezing it in a press and by +sacrificing something of its sweetness endowed it with a sort of +immortality. + +The story of all this has perished. Do not believe any man who +professes to give it you. If he tells you some legend of a god who +taught the Wheat-eating Race, the Ploughers, and the Lords to make +cheese, tell him such tales are true symbols, but symbols only. If he +tells you that cheese was an evolution and a development, oh! +then!—bring up your guns! Open on the fellow and sweep his intolerable +lack of intelligence from the earth. Ask him if he discovers reality to +be a function of time, and Being to hide in clockwork. Keep him on the +hop with ironical comments upon how it may be that environment can act +upon Will, while Will can do nothing with environment—whose proper name +is mud. Pester the provincial. Run him off the field. + +But about cheese. Its noble antiquity breeds in it a noble diffusion. + +This happy Christendom of ours (which is just now suffering from an +indigestion and needs a doctor—but having also a complication of +insomnia cannot recollect his name) has been multifarious +incredibly—but in nothing more than in cheese! + +One cheese differs from another, and the difference is in sweeps, and +in landscapes, and in provinces, and in countrysides, and in climates, +and in principalities, and in realms, and in the nature of things. +Cheese does most gloriously reflect the multitudinous effect of earthly +things, which could not be multitudinous did they not proceed from one +mind. + +Consider the cheese of Rocquefort: how hard it is in its little box. +Consider the cheese of Camembert, which is hard also, and also lives in +a little box, but must not be eaten until it is soft and yellow. +Consider the cheese of Stilton, which is not made there, and of +Cheddar, which is. Then there is your Parmesan, which idiots buy rancid +in bottles, but which the wise grate daily for their use: you think it +is hard from its birth? You are mistaken. It is the world that hardens +the Parmesan. In its youth the Parmesan is very soft and easy, and is +voraciously devoured. + +Then there is your cheese of Wensleydale, which is made in Wensleydale, +and your little Swiss cheese, which is soft and creamy and eaten with +sugar, and there is your Cheshire cheese and your little Cornish +cheese, whose name escapes me, and your huge round cheese out of the +Midlands, as big as a fort whose name I never heard. There is your +toasted or Welsh cheese, and your cheese of Pont-l’evêque, and your +white cheese of Brie, which is a chalky sort of cheese. And there is +your cheese of Neufchâtel, and there is your Gorgonzola cheese, which +is mottled all over like some marbles, or like that Mediterranean soap +which is made of wood-ash and of olive oil. There is your Gloucester +cheese called the Double Gloucester, and I have read in a book of +Dunlop cheese, which is made in Ayrshire: they could tell you more +about it in Kilmarnock. Then Suffolk makes a cheese, but does not give +it any name; and talking of that reminds me how going to Le Quesnoy to +pass the people there the time of day, and to see what was left of that +famous but forgotten fortress, a young man there showed me a cheese, +which he told me also had no name, but which was native to the town, +and in the valley of Ste. Engrace, where is that great wood which shuts +off all the world, they make their cheese of ewe’s milk and sell it in +Tardets, which is their only livelihood. They make a cheese in +Port-Salut which is a very subtle cheese, and there is a cheese of +Limburg, and I know not how many others, or rather I know them, but you +have had enough: for a little cheese goes a long way. No man is a +glutton on cheese. + +What other cheese has great holes in it like Gruyere, or what other is +as round as a cannon-ball like that cheese called Dutch? which reminds +me:— + +Talking of Dutch cheese. Do you not notice how the intimate mind of +Europe is reflected in cheese? For in the centre of Europe, and where +Europe is most active, I mean in Britain and in Gaul and in Northern +Italy, and in the valley of the Rhine—nay, to some extent in Spain (in +her Pyrenean valleys at least)—there flourishes a vast burgeoning of +cheese, infinite in variety, one in goodness. But as Europe fades away +under the African wound which Spain suffered or the Eastern barbarism +of the Elbe, what happens to cheese? It becomes very flat and similar. +You can quote six cheeses perhaps which the public power of Christendom +has founded outside the limits of its ancient Empire—but not more than +six. I will quote you 253 between the Ebro and the Grampians, between +Brindisi and the Irish Channel. + +I do not write vainly. It is a profound thing. + + + + +The Captain of Industry + + +The heir of the merchant Mahmoud had not disappointed that great +financier while he still lived, and when he died he had the +satisfaction of seeing the young man, now twenty-five years of age, +successfully conducting his numerous affairs, and increasing (fabulous +as this may seem) the millions with which his uncle entrusted him. + +Shortly after Mahmoud’s death the prosperity of the firm had already +given rise to a new proverb, and men said: “Do you think I am +Mahmoud’s-Nephew?” when they were asked to lend money or in some other +way to jeopardize a few coppers in the service of God or their +neighbour. + +It was also a current expression, “He’s rich as Mahmoud’s-Nephew,” when +comrades would jest against some young fellow who was flusher than +usual, and could afford a quart or even a gallon of wine for the +company; while again the discontented and the oppressed would mutter +between their teeth: “Heaven will take vengeance at last upon these +Mahmoud’s-Nephews!” In a word, “Mahmoud’s-Nephew” came to mean +throughout the whole Caliphate and wherever the True Believers spread +their empire, an exceedingly wealthy man. But Mahmoud himself having +been dead ten years and his heir the fortunate head of the +establishment being now well over thirty years of age, there happened a +very inexplicable and outrageous accident: he died—and after his death +no instructions were discovered as to what should be done with this +enormous capital, no will could be found, and it happened moreover to +be a moment of great financial delicacy when the manager of each +department in the business needed all the credit he could get. + +In such a quandary the Chief Organizer and confidential friend, Ahmed, +upon whom the business already largely depended, and who was so +circumstanced that he could draw almost at will upon the balances, +imagined a most intelligent way of escaping from the difficulties that +would arise when the death of the principal was known. + +He caused a quantity of hay, of straw, of dust and of other worthless +materials to be stuffed into a figure of canvas; this he wrapped round +with the usual clothes that Mahmoud’s-Nephew had worn in the office, he +shrouded the face with the hood which his chief had commonly worn +during life, and having so dressed the lay figure and secretly buried +the real body, he admitted upon the morning after the death those who +first had business with his master. + +He met them at the door with smiles and bows, saying: “You know, +gentlemen, that like most really successful men, my chief is as silent +as his decisions are rapid; he will listen to what you have to say, and +it will be a plain yes or no at the end of it.” + +These gentlemen came with a proposal to sell to the firm for the sum of +one million dinars a barren rock in the Indian Sea, which was not even +theirs, and on which indeed not one of them had ever set eyes. Their +claim to advance so original a proposal was that to their certain +knowledge two thousand of the wealthiest citizens of their town were +willing to buy the rock again at a profit from whoever should be its +possessor during the next few weeks in the fond hope of selling it once +again to provincials, clerics, widows, orphans, and in general the +uninstructed and the credulous—among whom had been industriously spread +the report that the rock in question consisted of one solid and +flawless diamond. + +These gentlemen sitting round the table before the shrouded figure laid +down their proposals, whereupon the manager briefly summed up what they +had said, and having done so, replied: “Gentlemen, his lordship is a +man of few words; but you will have your answer in a moment if you will +be good enough to rise, as he is at this moment expecting a deputation +from the Holy Men who are entreating him to provide the cost of a +mosque in one of the suburbs.” + +The proposers of the bargain rose, greatly awed and pleased by the +silence and dignity of the financier who apparently remained for a +moment discussing their proposals without gesture and in a tone too low +for them to hear, while his manager bent over to listen. + +“It is ever so,” said one of them, “you may ever know the greatest men +by their silence.” + +“You are right,” said another, “he is not one to be easily deceived.” + +The manager in a moment or two rejoined them at the door. “Gentlemen,” +he said, smiling, “my chief has heard your arguments and has expressed +his assent to your conditions.” + +They went out, delighted at the success of their mission, and +congratulated Ahmed upon the financier’s genius. + +“He does not,” said the manager, laughing in hearty agreement, “bestow +himself as a present upon all and sundry. Nor is he often caught +indulging in short bouts of sleep, nor are flies diabolically left to +repose undisturbed upon his features—but you must excuse me, I hear the +Holy Men,” and indeed from the inner room came a noise of speechifying +in that doleful sing-song which is associated in Bagdad with the +practice of religion. + +The gentlemen who had thus had the luck to interview Mahmoud’s-Nephew +with such success in the matter of the Diamond Island, soon spread +about the news, and confirmed their fellow-citizens in the certitude +that a great financier is neither talkative nor vivacious. “Still +waters run deep,” they said, and all those to whom they said it nodded +in a wise acquiescence. Nor had the Manager the least difficulty in +receiving one set of customers after another and in negotiating within +three weeks an infinite amount of business, all of which confirmed +those who had the pleasure of an audience with the stuffed dummy that +great fortunes were made and retained by reticence and a contempt for +convivial weakness. + +At last the ingenious man of affairs, to whom the whole combination was +due, was not a little disturbed to receive from the Caliph a note +couched in the following terms: + +“The Commander of the Faithful and the Servant of the Merciful whose +name be exalted, to the Nephew of Mahmoud: + +“My Lord:— + +“It has been the custom since the days of my grandfather (May his soul +see God!) for the more wealthy of the Faithful to be called to my +councils, and upon my summoning them thither it has not been unusual +for them to present sums varying in magnitude but always proportionate +to their total fortunes. My court will receive signal honour if you +will present yourself after the morning prayer of the day after +to-morrow. My treasurer will receive from you with gratitude and +remembrance upon the previous day and not later than noon, the sum of +one million dinars.” + +Here, indeed, was a perplexity. The payment of the money was an easy +matter and was duly accomplished; but how should the lay figure which +did duty in such domestic scenes as the negotiation of loans, the +bullying of debtors, the purchase of options, and the cheating of the +innocent and the embarrassed, take his place in the Caliph’s council +and remain undiscovered? For great as was the reputation of +Mahmoud’s-Nephew for discretion and for golden silence, such as are +proper to the accumulation of great wealth, there would seem a +necessity in any political assembly to open the mouth from time to +time, if only for the giving of a vote. + +But Ahmed, who had by this time accumulated into his own hands the +millions formerly his master’s, finally solved the problem. Judicious +presents to the servants of the palace and the public criers made his +way the easier, and on the summoning of the council Mahmoud’s-Nephew, +whose troublesome affection of the throat was now publicly discussed, +was permitted to bring into the council-room his private secretary and +manager. + +Moreover at the council, as at his private office, the continued +taciturnity of the millionaire could not but impress the politicians as +it had already impressed the financial world. + +“He does not waste his breath in tub-thumping,” said one, looking +reverently at the sealed figure. + +“No,” another would reply, “they may ridicule our old-fashioned, +honest, quiet Mohammedan country gentlemen, but for common sense I will +back them against all the brilliant paradoxical young fellows of our +day.” + +“They say he is very kind at heart and lovable,” a third would then +add, upon which a fourth would bear his testimony thus: + +“Yes, and though he says nothing about it, his charitable gifts are +enormous.” + +By the second meeting of the council the lay figure had achieved a +reputation of so high a sort that the Caliph himself insisted upon +making him a domestic adviser, one of the three who perpetually +associated with the Commander of the _Faithful_ and directed his +policy. For the universal esteem in which the new councillor was held +had affected that Prince very deeply. + +Here there arose a crux from which there could be no escape, as one of +the three chief councillors, Mahmoud’s-Nephew, must speak at last and +deliver judgments! + +The Manager, first considering the whole business, and next adding up +his private gains, which he had carefully laid out in estates of which +the firm and its employés knew nothing, decided that he could afford to +retire. What might happen to the general business after his withdrawal +would not be his concern. + +He first gave out, therefore, that the millionaire was taken +exceedingly ill, and that his life was despaired of: later, within a +few hours, that he was dead. + +So far from attempting to allay the panic which ensued, Ahmed frankly +admitted the worst. + +With cries of despair and a confident appeal to the justice of Heaven +against such intrigues, the honest fellow permitted the whole of the +vast business to be wound up in favour of newcomers, who had not +forgotten to reward him, and soothing as best he could the ruined +crowds of small investors who thronged round him for help and advice, +he retired under an assumed name to his highly profitable estates, +which were situated in the most distant provinces of the known world. + +As for Mahmoud’s-Nephew, three theories arose about him which are still +disputed to this day: + +The first was that his magnificent brain with its equitable judgment +and its power of strict secrecy, had designed plans too far advanced +for his time, and that his bankruptcy was due to excess of wisdom. + +The second theory would have it that by “going into politics” (as the +phrase runs in Bagdad) he had dissipated his energies, neglected his +business, and that the inevitable consequences had followed. + +The third theory was far more reasonable. Mahmoud’s-Nephew, according +to this, had towards the end of his life lost judgment; his garrulous +indecision within the last few days before his death was notorious: in +the Caliph’s council, as those who should best know were sure, one +could hardly get a word in edgewise for his bombastic self-assurance; +while in matters of business, to conduct a bargain with him was more +like attending a public meeting than the prosecution of negotiations +with a respectable banker. + +In a word, it was generally agreed that Mahmoud’s-Nephew’s success had +been bound up with his splendid silence, his fall, bankruptcy, and +death, with a lesion of the brain which had disturbed this miracle of +self-control. + + + + +The Inventor + + +I had a day free between two lectures in the south-west of England, and +I spent it stopping at a town in which there was a large and very +comfortable old posting-house or coaching-inn. I had meant to stay some +few hours there and to take the last train out in the evening, and I +had meant to spend those hours alone and resting; but this was not +permitted me, for just as I had taken up the local paper, which was a +humble, reasonable thing, empty of any passion and violence and very +reposeful to read, a man came up and touched my left elbow sharply: a +gesture not at all to my taste nor, I think, to that of anyone who is +trying to read his paper. + +I looked up and saw a man who must have been quite sixty years of age. +He had on a soft, felt slouch hat, a very old and greenish black coat; +he stooped and shuffled; he was clean-shaven, with long grey hair, and +his eyes were astonishingly bright and piercing and set close together. + +He said, “I beg your pardon.” + +I said, “Eh, what?” + +He said again “I beg your pardon” in the tones of a man who almost +commands, and having said this he put his hat on the table, dragged a +chair quite close to mine, and pulled a folded bunch of foolscap sheets +out of his pocket. His manner was that of a man who engages your +attention and has a right to engage it. There were no preliminaries and +there was no introduction. This was apparently his manner, and I +submitted. + +“I have here,” he said, fixing me with his intense eyes, “the plans for +a speedometer.” + +“Oh!” said I. + +“You know what a speedometer is?” he asked suspiciously. + +I said yes. I said it was a machine for measuring the speed of +vehicles, and that it was compounded of two (or more) Greek words. + +He nodded; he was pleased that I knew so much, and could therefore +listen to his tale and understand it. He pulled his grey baggy trousers +up over the knee, settled himself, sitting forward, and opened his +document. He cleared his throat, still fixing me with those eyes of +his, and said— + +“Every speedometer up to now has depended upon the same principle as a +Watt’s governor; that is, there are two little balls attached to each +by a limb to a central shaft: they rise and fall according to their +speed of rotation, and this movement is indicated upon a dial.” + +I nodded. + +He cleared his throat again. “Of course, that is unsatisfactory.” + +“Damnably!” said I, but this reply did not check him. + +“It works tolerably well at high speeds; at low speeds it is useless; +and then again there is a very rapid fluctuation, and the instrument is +of only approximate precision.” + +“Not it!” said I to encourage him. + +“There is one exception,” he continued, “to this principle, and that is +a speedometer which depends upon the introduction of resistance into a +current generated by a small magneto. The faster the magneto turns the +stronger the current generated, and the change is indicated upon a +dial.” + +“Yes,” said I sadly, “as in the former case so in this; the change of +speed is indicated upon a dial.” And I sighed. + +“But this method also,” he went on tenaciously, “has its defects.” + +“You may lay to that,” I interrupted. + +“It has the defect that at high speeds its readings are not quite +correct, and at very low speeds still less so. Moreover, it is said +that it slightly deteriorates with the passage of time.” + +“Now that,” I broke in emphatically, “is a defect I have discovered +in——” + +But he put up his hand to stop me. “It slightly deteriorates, I say, +with the passage of time.” He paused a moment impressively. “No one has +hitherto discovered any system which will accurately record the speed +of a vehicle or of any rotary movement and register it at the lowest as +at the highest speeds.” He paused again for a still longer period in +order to give still greater emphasis to what he had to say. He +concluded in a new note of sober triumph: “I have solved the problem!” + +I thought this was the end of him, and I got up and beamed a +congratulation at him and asked if he would drink anything, but he only +said, “Please sit down again and I will explain.” + +There is no way of combating this sort of thing, and so I sat down, and +he went on: + +“It is perfectly simple....” He passed his hand over his forehead. “It +is so simple that one would say it must have been thought of before; +but that is what is always said of a great invention.... Now I have +here” (and he opened out his foolscap) “the full details. But I will +not read them to you; I will summarize them briefly.” + +“Have you a plan or anything I could watch?” said I a little anxiously. + +“No,” he answered sharply, “I have not, but if you like I will draw a +rough sketch as I go along upon the margin of your newspaper.” + +“Thank you,” I said. + +He drew the newspaper towards him and put it on his knee. He pulled out +a pencil; he held the foolscap up before his eye, and he began to +describe. + +“The general principle upon which my speedometer reposes,” he said +solemnly, “is the coordination of the cylinder and the cone upon an +angle which will have to be determined in practice, and will probably +vary for different types. But it will never fall below 15 nor rise over +43.” + +“I should have thought——” I began, but he told me I could not yet have +grasped it, and that he wished to be more explicit. + +“On a king bolt,” he said, occasionally consulting his notes, “runs a +pivot in bevel which is kept in place by a small hair-spring, which +spring fits loosely on the Conkling Shaft.” + +“Exactly,” said I, “I see what is coming.” + +But he wouldn’t let me off so easily. + +“Yes, of course you are going to say that the whole will be keyed +together, and that the T-pattern nuts on a movable shank will be my +method of attachment to the fixed portion next to the cam? Eh? So it +is, but” (and here his eye brightened), “_anyone_ could have arranged +that. My particularity is that I have a freedom of movement even at the +lowest speeds, and an accuracy of notation even at the highest, which +is secured in a wholly novel manner ... and yet so simply. What do you +think it is?” + +I affected to look puzzled, and thought for a moment. “I cannot +imagine,” said I, “unless——” + +“No,” he interrupted, “do not try to guess it, for you never will. _I +turn the flange inward_ on a Wilkinson lathe and give it a parabolic +section so that the axes are always parallel to each other and to the +shaft.... There!” + +I had no idea the man could be so moved: there was jubilation in his +voice. + +“There!” he said again, as though some effort of the brain had +exhausted him. “It can’t be touched, mind you,” he added suspiciously; +“I’ve taken out the provisional patents. There’s one man I know wants +to fight it in the courts as an infringement on Wilkinson’s own patent, +but it can’t be touched!” He shook his head decisively. “No! my +lawyer’s certain of that—and so’m I!” + +Here there was a break in his communications, so to speak, and he had +apparently run out. It was not for me to wind him up again. I watched +him with a sombre relief as he stood up again to full height, leaned +his head back, and sighed profoundly with satisfaction and with +completion. He folded up his specification and put it in his pocket +again. He tore off the incomprehensible sketch he had made with his +pencil while he was speaking, and put it by me on the mantelshelf. “You +might like to keep it,” he said pathetically; “it’s a document, that +is; it will be famous some day.” He looked at it lovingly, almost as +though he was going to take it back again: but he thought better of it. + +I was waiting, I will not say itching, for him to take his leave, when +a god or demon, that same perhaps which had treated the poor fellow as +a jest for a whole lifetime, inspired him to take a very false step +indeed. He had already taken up his hat and was turning as though to go +to the door, when the unfortunate thought struck him. + +“What would you do?” he said. + +“How do you mean?” I answered. + +“Why, what would you do to try and get it taken up and talked about?” + +Then it was my turn, and I let him have it. + +“You must get the Press and the Government to work together,” I said +rapidly, “and particularly in connection with the new Government +Service of Camion’s Fettle-Trains and Cursory Circuits.” + +He nodded like one who thoroughly understands and desires to hear more. + +“Speed,” I added nonchalantly, “and the measure of it are of course +essentials in their case.” + +He nodded again. + +“And they have never really settled the problem ... especially about +Fettle-Trains.” + +“No,” said he ponderously, “so I understand.” + +“Well now,” I went on, full of the chase, “you will naturally ask me +who are you to go to?” I scratched my nose. “You know the Fusionary +Office, as we call it? It is really, of course, a part of the +Stannaries. But the Chief Permanent Secretary likes to have it called +the Fusionary Office; it’s his vanity.” + +“Yes,” said he eagerly, “yes, go on!” + +“They always have the same hours,” I said, “four to eleven.” + +“Four to _what_?” he asked, looking up. + +“To eleven,” I repeated sharply; “but you’d much better call round +about three.” + +He looked bewildered. + +“Don’t interrupt,” I said, seeing him open his lips, “or I shall lose +the thread. It’s rather complicated. You call at three by the little +door in Whitehall on the Embankment side towards the Horse Guards +looking south, and _don’t_ ring the bell.” + +“Why not?” he asked. I thought for the moment he might begin to cry. + +“Oh, well,” I said testily, “you mustn’t ask those questions. All these +institutions are very old institutions with habits and prejudices of +their own. You mustn’t ring the bell, that’s all; they don’t like it; +you must just wait until they open; and then, if you take _my_ advice, +don’t write a note or ask to interview the First Analyist. Don’t do any +of the usual things, but just fill up one of the regular Treasury forms +and state that you have come with regard to the Perception and +Mensuration advertisements.” + +His face was pained and wrinkled as he heard me, but he said, “I beg +your pardon ... but shall I have it all explained to me at the office?” + +“Certainly not!” I said, aghast; “it’s just because you might have so +much difficulty there that I’m explaining everything to you.” + +“Yes, I know,” he said doubtfully; “thank you.” + +“I hope you’ll try and follow what I say,” I continued a little +wearily; “I have special opportunities for knowing.... Political, you +know.” + +“Certainly,” he said, “certainly; but about those forms?” + +“Well,” I said, “you didn’t suppose they supplied them, did you?” + +“I almost did,” he ventured. + +“Oh, you did,” said I, with a loud laugh, “well, you’re wrong there. +However, I dare say I’ve got one on me.” He looked up eagerly as I felt +in my pockets. I brought out a telegraph blank, two letters, and a +tobacco pouch. I looked at them for a moment. “No,” said I, “I haven’t +got one; it’s a pity, but I’ll tell you who will give you one; you know +the place opposite, where the bills are drafted?” + +“I’m afraid I don’t,” he said, admitting ignorance for the first time +in this conversation and perhaps in his life. + +“Well,” said I impatiently, “never mind, anyone will show you. Go +there, and if they don’t give you a form they’ll show you a copy of +Paper B, which is much the same thing.” + +“Thank you,” said he humbly, and he got up to move out. He was going a +little groggily, his eyes were dull and sodden. He presented all the +aspect of a man under a heavy strain. + +“You’ve got it all clear, I hope?” I asked cheerfully as he neared the +door. + +“Oh, yes!” he said. “Thank you; yes!” + +“Anything else?” I shouted as he passed out into the courtyard. +“Anything else I can do? You’ll always find me in the room over the +office, Room H, down the little iron staircase,” I nodded genially to +him as he disappeared. + +In this way did we exchange, the Inventor and I, those expert +confidences and mutual aids in either’s technical skill which are too +rarely discovered in modern travel. + + + + +The Views of England + + +England is a country with edges and with a core. It is a country very +small for the number of people who live in it, and very appreciable to +the eye for the traveller who travels on foot or in a boat from place +to place. Considering the part it has in the making of the world, it +might justly be compared to a jewel which is very small and very +valuable and can almost be held in the hand. The physical appreciation +of England is to be reached by an appreciation of landscape. + +It so happens that England is traversed by remarkable and sudden +ranges; hills with a sharp escarpment overlooking great undulating +plains. This is not true of any other one country of Europe, but it is +true of England, and a man who professes to consider, to understand, to +criticize, to defend, and to love this country, must know the Pennines, +the Cotswolds, the North and the South Downs, the Chilterns, the +Mendips, and the Malverns; he must know Delamere Forest, and he must +know the Hill of Beeston, from which all Cheshire may be perceived. If +he knows these heights and has long considered the prospects which they +afford, he can claim to have seen the face of England. + +It is deplorable that our modern method of travel does cut us off from +such experiences. They were not only common to, they were necessary to +our fathers; the roads would not be at the expense of tunnelling +through hills, and (what is more important) when those men who most +mould the knowledge of the country by the country (the people who deal +with its soil, who live separate upon its separate farms) visited each +other upon horses; and horses, unlike railway trains, cannot climb +hills. They puff, they heave, they snort, as do railway trains, but +they climb them well. + +On this account, because the roads for the carriages went over hills, +and because the method of visiting even a near neighbour would permit +you to go over hills, the England of quite a little time ago was +familiar with the half-dozen great landscapes of England. You may see +it in that most individual, that most peculiar, and, I think, that most +glorious school of painters, the English landscape painter, Constable +with his thick colours, Turner with his wonderment, and even the +portrait painters in their backgrounds depend upon the view of the +plains from a height. To-day our landscape painters sometimes do the +same, but the market for that emotion is capricious, it is no longer +the secure and natural way of presenting England to English eyes. + +If you will consider these plains at the foot of the English hills you +will find in them the whole history of the country, and the whole +meaning of it as well. Two occur to me first: The view of the Weald +(both Kentish and Sussex) through which the influence of Europe +perpetually approached the island, not only in the crisis of the Roman +or the Norman invasions, but in a hundred episodes stretched out +through two thousand years—and the view of the Thames Valley as one +gets it on a clear day from the summits of the North Downs when one +looks northward and sees very faintly the Chilterns along the horizon. + +This last is obscured by London. One needs a very particular +circumstance in which to appreciate it. The air must be dry and clear, +there must be little or no wind, or if there is a wind it must be a +strong one from the south and west that has already driven the smoke +from the western edge of the town. When this is so, a man looks right +across to the sandy heights just north of the Thames, and far beyond he +sees the Chilterns, like a landfall upon the rim of the world. He looks +at all that soil on which the government of this country has been +rooted. He sees the hill of Windsor. He overlooks, though he cannot +perceive at so great a distance, the two great schools of the rich; he +has within one view the principal Castle of the Kings, the place of +their council, and the cathedral of their capital city: so true is it +that the Thames made England. + +Then, if you consider the upper half of that valley, the view is from +the ridge of the Berkshire hills, or, better still, from Cumnor, or +from the clump of trees above Faringdon. From such look-outs the +astonishing loneliness which England has had the strength to preserve +in this historic belt of land profoundly strikes a man. You can see to +your left and, a long way off, the hill where, as is most probable, +Alfred thrust back the Pagans, and so saved one-half of Christendom. +Oxford is within your landscape. The roll upwards in a glacis of the +Cotswold, the nodal point of the Roman roads at Cirencester, and the +ancient crossings of the Thames. + +From the Cotswold again westward you look over a sheer wall and see one +of those differences which make up England. For the passage from the +Upper Thames to the flat and luxuriant valley floor of the Severn is a +transition (if it be made by crossing the hills) more sudden than that +between many countries abroad. Had our feudalism cut England into +provinces we should here have two marked provincial histories marching +together, for the natural contrast is greater than between Normandy and +Brittany at any part of their march or between Aragon and Castile at +any part of theirs. I do not know what it is, but the view of the +jagged Malvern seen above the happy mists of autumn, when these mists +lie like a warm fleece upon the orchards of the vale, preserving them +of a morning until the strengthening of the sun, the sudden aspect, I +say, of those jagged peaks strikes one like a vision of a new world. +How many men have thought it! How often it ought to be written down! It +hangs in the memory of the traveller like a permanent benediction, and +remains in his mind a standing symbol of peace. + +I have no space to speak of how from Beeston you see all Cheshire; the +Vale Royal to your left, and the main plain of the county to your +right. The whole stretch is framed in with definite hills, the last and +highly marked line of the Pennines bounds the view upon the east; upon +the west the first of the Welsh hills stands sharply in a long even +line against the fading sun; and on the north you see the height of +Delamere. There are three other views in the North of England, the +first easy, the last two difficult to obtain, all between them making +up a true picture of what the North of England is. The first (and it is +very famous) is the view over the industrial ferment of South +Lancashire, seen from the complete silence of the hills round the Peak. +No matter where you cross that summit, even if you take the high road +from the Snake Inn to Glossop, where the easiest, and therefore the +least striking, passage has been chosen, much more if you follow the +wild heights a little to the south until you come to a more abrupt +descent on which there are not even paths, there comes a point where +there is presented to you in one great offering, without introduction, +a vision of the vast energies of England. + +I remember once in winter when the sun sets early (it was December, and +seven years ago) coming upon this sight. The clouds were so arranged +after an Atlantic storm that all the heaven (which here is always +spacious and noble) was covered with a rolling curtain as though a man +had pulled it with his hands. But far off, westward, there was a broad +red band of sunset, and against this the smoke, the tall stacks, the +violence and the wealth of that cauldron. One could almost hear the +noise. It did arrest one; it was as though someone had painted +something unreal, to be a mystical emblem, and to sum up in one picture +all those million despairs, misfortunes, chances, disciplines, and +acquirements which make up the character of Lancashire men. This vision +also many men have seen and many men shall write of. Very rarely upon +the surface of the earth does the soul take on so immediate and obvious +a physical body as does the soul of that industrial world in the view +of which I speak. + +And the two other views are, first, that difficult one which one must +pick and choose but which can be obtained from several sites +(especially at the end of Wensleydale), and which is the view of that +rich, old, and agricultural Yorkshire, from which the county draws its +traditions and in which, perhaps, the truest spirit of the county still +abides; for Yorkshire is at heart farmer, and possibly after three +generations of a town, a man from this part of England still looks more +lively when he sees a lively horse put before him for judgment. Second, +the view from Cross Fell, very, very difficult to obtain, for often +when one climbs Cross Fell in sunny weather, one gets up over the Scar +under the threat of cloud, and one only reaches the summit by the time +the evening or the mist has fallen; but if one has the luck to see the +view of which I speak, then one sees all that rugged remaining part of +the Northwest exactly as the Romans saw it, and as it has been for two +thousand years, with the high land of the lakes and the stony nature +and the sparseness of all the stretch about one, and the approach to a +foreign land. + +I have often thought when I have heard men blaming the story of England +or her present mood for false reasons, or, what is worse, praising her +for false reasons; when I have heard the men of the cities talking wild +talk got from maps and from print, or the disappointed men talking wild +talk of another kind, expecting impossible or foreign perfections from +their own kindred—I have often thought, I say, when I have heard the +folly upon either side (and the mass of it daily increases)—that it +would be a wholesome thing if one could take such a talker and make him +walk from Dover to the Solway, exercising some care that he should rise +before the sun, and that he should see in clear weather the views of +which I speak. A man who has done that has seen England—not the name or +the map or the rhetorical catchword, but the thing. And it does not +take so very long. + + + + +The Lunatic + + +Those who are interested in what simple straightforward people call the +Pathology of Consciousness have gathered a great body of evidence upon +the various manias that affect men, and there is an especially +interesting department of this which concerns illusion upon matters +which in the sane are determinable by the senses and common experience. +Thus one man will believe himself to be the Emperor of China, another +to be William Shakespeare or some other impossible person, though one +would imagine that his every accident of daily life would convince him +to the contrary. + +I had recently occasion to watch one of the most harmless and yet one +of the most striking of these illusions in a private asylum which has +specialized, if I may so express myself, upon men of letters. The case +was harmless and even benign, for the poor fellow was not of a +combative disposition to begin with, was of too careful and dignified a +temperament to show more than slight irritation if his delusion were +contradicted. This misfortune, however, very rarely overtook him, for +those who came to visit him were warned to humour his whim. This +eccentricity I will now describe. + +He imagined, nay he was convinced, that he was existing fifty years in +the future, and that the interest of his conversation for others would +lie in his reminiscence of the state of society in which we are +actually living today. If anyone who had not been warned was imprudent +enough to suggest that the conversation was taking place in 1909 would +smile gently, nod, and say rather bitterly, “Yes, I know, I know,” as +though recognizing a universal plot against him which he was too weary +to combat. But when he had said this he would continue to talk on as +though both parties to the conversation were equally convinced that the +year was really 1960 or thereabouts. Whether to add zest to what he +said or from some part of his malady consonant with all the rest, my +poor friend (who had been a journalist and will very possibly be a +journalist again) presupposed that the whole structure of society as we +now know it had changed and that his reminiscences were those of a past +time which, on account of some great revolution or other, men +imperfectly comprehended, so that it must be of the highest interest +and advantage to listen to the testimony of an eye-witness upon them. + +What especially delighted him (for he was a zealous admirer of the +society he described) was the method of government. + +“There was no possibility of going wrong,” he said to me with curious +zeal, “not a shadow of danger! It would be difficult for you to +understand now how easily the system worked!” And here he sighed +profoundly. “And why on earth,” he continued, “men should have +destroyed such an instrument when they had it is more than I can +understand. There it was in every country in Europe; there were +elections; all the men voted. And mind you, the elections were not so +very far apart. Most people living at one election could remember the +last, so there was no time for abuses to spring up.... Well, everybody +voted. If a man wanted one thing he voted one way, and if he wanted +another thing he voted the other way. The people for whom he voted +would then meet, and with a sense of duty which I cannot exaggerate +they would work month after month exactly to reproduce the will of +those who had appointed them. It was a great time!” + +“Yet,” said I, “even so there must have been occasional divergences +between what these people did and what the nation wanted.” + +“I see what you mean,” he said, musing, “you mean that all the devotion +in the world, the purest of motives and the most devoted sense of duty, +could not keep the elected always in contact with the electors. You are +right. But you must remember that in every country there was a +machinery, with regard to the most important measures at least, which +could throw the matter before the electors to be re-decided. I can +remember no important occasion upon which the machinery was not brought +into use.” + +“But, after all, the value of the decisions of the electorate you are +describing,” said I, continuing to humour him, “would depend upon the +information which the electorate had received as well as upon their +judgment.” + +“As for their judgment,” he said, a little shortly, “it is not for our +time to criticize theirs. Human judgment is not infallible, but I can +well remember how in every nation of Europe it was the fixed conviction +of the citizens that judgment was their chief characteristic, and +especially judgment in national affairs. I cannot believe that so +universal an attitude of the mind could have arisen had it not been +justified. But as for information, they had the Press ... a free +Press!” Here he fell into a reverie, so powerfully did his supposed +memories affect him. + +I was willing to lead him on, because this kind of illness is best met +by sympathy, and also because I was not uninterested to discover how +his own trade had affected him. + +“You would hardly understand it,” he said sadly; “what you hear from me +is nothing but words.... I wish I could have shown you one of those +great houses with information pouring in as rapid, as light, and as +clear, from every hidden corner of the world, digested by master brains +into the most lucid and terse presentment of it possible, and then +whirled out on great wheels to be distributed by the thousand and the +hundred thousand, to the hungry intelligence of Europe. There was +nothing escaped it—nothing. In every capital were crowds of men +dispatched from the other capitals of our civilization, moving with +ease in the wealthiest houses, and exquisitely in touch with the most +delicate phases of national life everywhere. And these men were such +experts in selection that a picture of Europe as a whole was presented +every morning to each particular part of Europe; and nowhere was this +more successfully accomplished than in my own beloved town of London.” + +“It must have been useful,” I said, “not only for the political +purposes you describe, but also for investors. Indeed, I should imagine +that the two things ran together.” + +“You are right,” he said with interest, “the wide knowledge which even +the poorest of the people possessed upon foreign affairs, through the +action of the Press, was, further, of the utmost and most beneficent +effect in teaching even the smallest proprietor what he need do with +his capital. A discovery of metallic ore—especially of gold—a new +invention, anything which might require development, was at once +presented in its most exact aspect to the reader.” + +“It was probably upon that account,” said I, “that property was so +equally distributed, and that so general a prosperity reigned as you +have often described to me.” + +“You are right,” said he; “it was mainly this accurate and universal +daily information which produced such excellent results.” + +“But it occurs to me,” said I, by way of stimulating his conversation +with an objection, “that if so passionate and tenacious a habit of +telling the exact truth upon innumerable things was present in this old +institution of which you speak, it cannot but have bred a certain +amount of dissension, and it must sometimes even have done definite +harm to individuals whose private actions were thus exposed.” + +“You are right,” said he; “the danger of such misfortunes was always +present, and with the greatest desire in the world to support only what +was worthy the writers of the journals of which I speak would +occasionally blunder against private interests; but there was a +remedy.” + +“What was that?” I asked. + +“Why, the law provided that in this matter twelve men called a jury, +instructed by a judge, after the matter had been fully explained to +them by two other men whose business it was to examine the truth boldly +for the sake of justice—I say the law provided that the twelve men +after this process should decide whether the person injured should +receive money from the newspaper or no, and if so, in what amount. And, +lest there should still be any manner of doubt, the judge was permitted +to set aside their verdict if he thought it unjust. To secure his +absolute impartiality as between rich and poor he was paid somewhat +over £100 a week, a large salary in those days, and he was further +granted the right of imprisoning people at will or of taking away their +property if he believed them to obstruct his judgment. Nor were these +the only safeguards. For in the case of very rich men, to whom justice +might not be done on account of the natural envy of their poorer +fellow-citizens, it was arranged that the jury should consist only of +rich men. In this way it was absolutely certain that a complete +impartiality would reign. We shall never see those days again,” he +concluded. + +“But do you not think,” I said before I left him, “that the social +perfection of the kind you have described must rather have been due to +some spirit of the time than to particular institutions? For after all +the zealous love of justice and the sense of duty which you describe +are not social elements to be produced by laws.” + +“Possibly,” he said, wearily, “possibly, but we shall never see it +again!” + +And I left him looking into the fire with infinite sadness and +reflecting upon his lost youth and the year 1909: a pathetic figure, +and one whose upkeep during the period of his deficiency was a very +serious drain upon the resources of his family. + + + + +The Inheritance of Humour + + +There are some truths which seem to get old almost as soon as they are +born, and that simply because they are so astonishingly true that +people soon get to feel as though they have known them all their lives; +and such a truth is that which first one writer and then another in the +last five years has been insisting upon, until it is already a perfect +commonplace that nations do not know their own qualities. The inmost, +the characteristic thing, that which differentiates one community from +another, as tastes or colours differentiate things—_that_ a nation +hardly ever knows until it is pointed out to it by some foreigner or by +some observer from within. It cannot know it, because one cannot tell +the very atmosphere in which one lives. It is universal and therefore +unnoticed. Now, if this is true of any nation, it is particularly true +of England. And English people need to be told morning, noon, and +night, not indeed the particular national characteristic which they +have, since for this no particular name could be found, but rather what +its evidences are; as, for instance, spontaneity in design, a passion +for the mystical in poetry and the arts; a power in water-colour, in +which they are perhaps quite alone, and certainly the first in Europe; +and, above all, the chief, the master thing of all, humour. + +There is not nor ever will be anything like English humour. It is a +thing quite apart, and by it for now more than two hundred years you +may know England. It does not puzzle the foreigner (as the more blatant +kind of intellectual man is too fond of boasting that it does); he +simply admires it as a rule and wonders at it always; sometimes he +actually dislikes it, but by it he knows that the thing he is reading +is English and has the savour and taste of England. + +It is impossible to define it, because it is so full of stuff and so +organic a quality; but in our own time it was principally the pencil of +Charles Keene that has summed it up and presented it in a moment and at +once to the eye—the pencil of Charles Keene and that profound instinct +whereby he chose the legends for his drawing, whether he found them by +his own sympathy with the people or whether they were suggested to him +by friends. + +It is the verdict of the men most competent perhaps to judge upon these +things that he had the greatest graphic power of his time, and that no +one had had that power to such an extent since Hogarth. Upon these +things the men of the trade must dispute; the layman cannot doubt that +he had here a genius and a genius comprehensively national. It is the +essence of a good draughtsman that what he wants to draw, that he +draws. The line that he desires to see upon the paper appears there as +his fingers move. It is a quality extremely rare in its perfection. And +Charles Keene had it in perfection, as in totally different manner had +the offensive and diseased talent of Beardsley. + +But more important than the power to do is the quality of the thing +done, and the work of Charles Keene, multitudinous, varied, always +great, is an inheritance for English people comparable to the +inheritance they have in Dickens. It has also what Dickens had, a power +of representing, as it were, the essential English. Just that which +makes people say (with some truth) that Dickens never drew a gentleman +would make them say with equal truth that what was interesting in the +gentlemen of Charles Keene (and he perpetually drew them) was not the +externals upon which gentlemen so pride themselves, but the soul. Thus +I have in mind one picture wherein Keene drew a gentleman; true, he was +a gentleman who had just swallowed a bad oyster, and therefore he was a +man as well. I recall another of an old gentleman complaining of the +caterpillar on his chop: he is a gentleman of the professional rather +than the territorial classes, and, great heavens! what a power of line! +All you see beneath the round of his hat is the end of his nose, the +curve of his mouth, and two bushy ends of whiskers. Yet one can tell +all about that man; one could write a book on him. One knows his +economics, his religion, his accent, and what he thought of the Third +Napoleon and what of Garibaldi. I have called draughtsmanship of this +quality an inheritance—I might have called it perhaps with better +propriety a monument. It is possible that England in the near future +will look back with great envy, as she will certainly look back with +great pride, to the generation preceding our own: they were a solid and +a happy community of men. How much they owed to fortune, how much to +themselves, it is not the place of such random stuff as mine to +consider. + +They were nearly impregnable in their island; they were not bellicose. +They made and sold for all the world. Whether the very different future +which we are now entering is to be laid to their door or to our own, +that generation will still remain one of the principal things in +English history, like the Elizabethan generation, or the group of men +who organized the Seven Years’ War, or the group of men who fought in +the Peninsula. And of that generation the note of health and of +stability is represented by its humour. I am not sure that of all +things educational to young men with no personal memory of that time, +and especially to young men with no family tradition of it to reflect +it in their books and their furniture; and—this yet more +particularly—to young men born out of England yet claiming communion +with England, the Anglo-Indians and the Colonials—I am not sure, I say, +that the thing most educational to these would not be some hundred of +Charles Keene’s drawings, for therein they would find what it was that +gave them the power and the wealth that can hardly be defended unless +its traditions are continued. Note how Victorian England dealt with the +humour of a Volunteer review; note how it dealt with the humour of +excessive wealth; and note how it dealt with the humour of schools and +of Dons. One might almost define it by negations. There is in all of it +no—but here I lack a word.... When things ring false it is because they +have got by exaggeration or by some other form of falsity _beside_ +themselves. Appreciation of rank or even of worth becomes snobbishness; +appreciation of another’s judgment false taste; and patriotism, the +most beautiful, the noblest, the most necessary of the great emotions, +corrupts into something very vile indeed. + +Well, the Victorians, and notably this man of whose power of the pencil +I am speaking, did lack that false savour, that savour of just missing +what one wishes to say or to feel, which haunts us to-day; and I should +imagine that whether it were cause or effect the salt present in the +preservation of the moral health of that society was humour. Let us +enjoy it like an heirloom. It is more national than the language; at +least it is more national than what the language has become under +foreign pressure; it is infinitely more national than our problems and +our tragedies. It is so national that—who knows?—it may crop up again +of itself one of these days; and may that not be long. + + + + +The Old Gentleman’s Opinions + + +I had occasion about a fortnight ago to meet a man more nearly ninety +than eighty years of age, who had had special opportunity for +discovering the changes of Europe during his long life. He was of the +English wealthier classes by lineage, but his mother had been of the +French nobility and a Huguenot. His father had been prominent in the +diplomacy of a couple of generations ago. He had travelled widely, read +perhaps less widely, but had known and appreciated an astonishing +number of his contemporaries. + +I was interested (without any power of my own to judge whether his +decisions were right or wrong) to discover what most struck him in the +changes produced by that great stretch of years, all of which he had +personally observed: he was born just after Waterloo, and he could +remember the Reform Bill. + +He surprised me by telling me, in the first place, that the material +changes and discoveries, enormous though they were in extent, were not, +in his view, the most striking. He was ready to leave it open whether +these material changes were the causes of moral changes more +remarkable, or merely effects concomitant with these. When I asked him +what had struck him most of the great material developments, he told me +the phonograph and the aeroplane among inventions; Mendel’s +observations in the sphere of experimental knowledge; and, in the +sphere of pure theory, the breakdown of many things that had been +dogmas of physical science in his early manhood. + +Since I did not quite understand what he meant by this last, he gave +me, after some hesitation, a few examples: That the interior of the +earth was molten; that a certain limited number of elements—not all yet +isolated, but certainly few in their total—were at the base of all +material forms, and were immutable; that the ultimate unit of each of +these was a certain indivisible, eternal thing called the Atom; and so +forth. + +He assured me that views of this sort, extending over a hundred or a +thousand other points, were so universally accepted in his time that to +dispute them was to be ranked with the unlettered or the fantastic. I +asked him if it were so in economics. He said: Yes, in England, where +there was a similar dogma of Free Trade: not abroad. + +When I asked him why Mendel’s published experiments and the theory +based upon them had so much impressed him, he said because it was +almost the first attempt to apply to the speculative dogmas of biology +some standard demonstrably true; and here he wandered off to explain to +me why the commonly accepted views upon biology, which had so changed +thought in the latter part of his life, were associated with the name +of Darwin. Darwin, he assured me, had brought forward no new discovery, +but only a new hypothesis, and that only a small and particular +hypothesis, whereby to explain the general theory of transformism. This +theory, he told me—the unbroken descent of living organisms and their +physical connection with one another and with common parents—had been a +favourite idea from the beginning of history with many great thinkers, +from Lucretius to Buffon and from Augustus of Hippo to Lamarck. +Darwin’s, the old gentleman assured me, which he had defended with +infinite toil, was that the method in which this continuity of descent +proceeded was by an infinitely slow process of very small changes +differentiating each minute step from the one before and the one after +it, and these small changes Darwin’s hypothesis referred to a natural +selection. Nothing else in Darwin’s work, he assured me, was novel, and +yet it was the one thing which subsequent research had rendered more +and more doubtful. Darwin (he said) said nothing new that was also +true. + +At this point I was moved to contradict the old gentleman, and to say +that one unquestioned contribution to science of Darwin, as novel as it +was secure, was his patient discovery of the work of earthworms, and of +its vast effect. The old gentleman was willing to admit that I was +right, but he said he was only speaking of Darwin in connection with +transformism and the whimsical way in which his private name (and his +errors) had become identified with evolution in general. + +I asked him, since he had such a knowledge of men from observation, why +this was so. + +“It seems at first sight,” he said, “as ridiculous as though we should +associate the theory of light with the name of Newton, who inclined to +the exploded corpuscular hypothesis, or the general conception of +orbital motion in the universe to the great Bacon, who, in point of +fact, rudely repudiated the Copernican theory in particular.” + +“Did he, indeed?” said I, interested. + +“I believe so,” said the old gentleman; “at any rate you were asking me +why Darwin, with his single contribution to the theory of transformism, +and that a doubtful one—or, to be accurate, an exploded one—should be +associated in the popular mind with the invention of so ancient a +theory as that of evolution. The reason is, I think, no more than that +he came at a particular moment when any man doing great quantities of +detailed work in this field was bound to stand out exaggeratedly. The +society in which he appeared had, until just before his day, accepted a +narrow cosmogony, quite unknown to its ancestors. Darwin’s book +certainly exploded that, and the mind of his time—ignorant as it was of +the past—was ready to accept the shattering of its father’s idols as a +new revelation.” + +“But you were saying,” said I, when he had thus dealt harshly with a +great name, “that not the material but the moral changes of your time +seemed to you the greatest. Which did you mean?” + +“Why, in the first place,” said the old man thoughtfully and with some +hesitation, “the curiously rapid decline of intelligence, or if you +will have it differently, the clouding of thought that has marked the +last thirty years. Men in my youth knew what they held and what they +did not hold. They knew why they held it or why they did not hold it; +but the attempt to enjoy the advantages of two contradictory systems at +the same time, and, what is worse, the consulting of a man as an +authority upon subjects he had never professed to know, are +intellectual phenomena quite peculiar to the later years of my life.” + +I said we of the younger generation had all noticed it, as, for +instance, when an honest but imperfectly intelligent chemist was +listened to in his exposition of the nature of the soul, or a well-paid +religious official was content to expound the consolations of +Christianity while denying that Christianity was true. + +“But,” I continued, “we are usually told that this unfortunate decline +in the express powers of the brain is due to the wide and imperfect +education of the populace at the present moment.” + +“That is not the case,” answered the old man sharply, when I had made +myself clear by repeating my remarks in a louder tone, for he was a +little deaf. + +“That is not the case. The follies of which I speak are not +particularly to be discovered among the poorer classes who have passed +through the elementary schools. _These_” (it was to the schools that he +was alluding with a comprehensive pessimism) “may account for the gross +decline apparent in the public manners of our people, but not for +faults which are peculiar to the upper and middle classes. It is not in +the populace, but in those wealthier ranks that you will find the sort +of intellectual decay of which I spoke.” + +I asked him whether he thought the tricks it was now considered +cultured to play with mathematics came within the category of this +intellectual decay. The old gentleman answered me a little abruptly +that he could not judge what I was talking about. + +“Why,” said I, “do you believe that parallel straight lines _converge_ +or _diverge_?” + +“Neither,” said he, a little bewildered. “If they are parallel they +cannot by definition either diverge or converge.” + +“You are, then,” said I, “an old-fashioned adherent of the theory of +the parabolic universe?” At which sensible reply of mine the old man +muttered rather ill-temperedly, and begged me to speak of something +else. + +I asked him whether the knowledge of languages had not declined in his +time. He said, somewhat emphatically, yes, and especially the knowledge +of French, assuring me that in his early years many a Fellow of a +College at Oxford or at Cambridge was capable of speaking that tongue +in such a fashion as to make himself understood. On the other hand, he +admitted that German and Spanish were more widely known than they had +been, and Arabic certainly far more widely diffused among those +officials of the Empire who took their work seriously. + +When I asked him whether politics were more corrupt as time proceeded, +he said No, but more cynical; and as to morals he would not judge, for +he was certain that as one vice was corrected another appeared in its +place. + +What he told me he most deplored in the social system of his country +was the power of the police and of the statistician by whom the +policeman was guided. This he ascribed to the growth of great towns, to +civic cowardice, and to a new taboo laid upon uniformed and labelled +public authorities, who are now regarded as sacred, and also +inordinately feared. + +“In my youth,” he said, “there was a joke that every man in Paris was +known to the police. Today that is universally true, and no joke with +regard to every man in London. Our movements are marked, our earnings, +our expenses, and our most private affairs known to the innumerable +officials of the Treasury, our records of every sort, however intimate, +are exactly and correctly maintained. The obtaining of work and a +livelihood is dependent upon strong organizations. There is hardly an +ailment or a domestic habit, from drinking wine to eating turnips, +which some crank who has obtained the ear of a politician does not +control or threaten in the immediate future to control.” + +“As for doctors!” he began, his voice cracking with indignation, “their +abominable....” but here the old gentleman fell into so violent a fit +of coughing that he nearly turned black in the face, and when I +respectfully slapped him on the back, in the hopes of granting him +relief, he made matters worse by shaking himself at me with an energy +worthy of 1842. His nurse rushed in, clapped him upon his pillows, and +was prepared to vent her wrath upon me for having caused this paroxysm, +when the old man’s exhaustion and laboured breathing captured all her +attention, and I had the opportunity to withdraw. + + + + +On Historical Evidence + + +The last book to be published upon the last Dauphin of France set me +thinking upon what seems to me the chief practical science in which +modern men should secure themselves. I mean the science of history—and +in this science almost all lies in the appreciation of evidence, for +one of the chief particular problems presented to the student of +history at the present moment is whether the Dauphin did or did not +survive his imprisonment in the Temple. + +Let me first say why, to so many of us, the science of history and the +appreciation of the evidence upon which it depends is of the first +moment. It is because, short of vision or revelation, history is our +only extension of human experience. It is true that a philosophy common +to all citizens is necessary for a State if it is to live—but short of +that necessity the next most necessary factor is a knowledge of the +stuff of mankind: of how men act under certain conditions and impulses. +This knowledge may be acquired, and is in some measure, during the +experience of one wise lifetime, but it is indefinitely extended by the +accumulation of experience which history affords. + +And what history so gives us is always of immediate and practical +moment. + +For instance, men sometimes speak with indifference of the rival +theories as to the origin of European land tenure; they talk as though +it were a mere academic debate whether the conception of private +property in land arose comparatively late among Europeans or was native +and original in our race. But you have only to watch a big popular +discussion on that very great and at the present moment very living +issue, the moral right to the private ownership in land, to see how +heavily the historic argument weighs with every type of citizen. The +instinct that gives that argument weight is a sound one, and not less +sound in those who have least studied the matter than in those who have +most studied it; for if our race from its immemorial origins has +desired to own land as a private thing side by side with communal +tenures, then it is pretty certain that we shall not modify that +intention, however much we change our laws. If, on the other hand, it +could be shown that before the advent of a complex civilization +Europeans had no conception of private property in land, but treated +land as a thing necessarily and always communal, then you could ascribe +modern Socialist theories with regard to the land to that general +movement of harking back to the origins which Europe has been assisting +at through over a hundred years of revolution and of change. + +It sounds cynical, but it is perfectly true, that much the largest +factor in the historical conception of men is assertion. It is +literally true that when men (with the exception of a very small +proportion of scholars who are also intelligent) consider the past, the +picture on which they dwell is a picture conveyed to them wholly by +authority and by unquestioned authority. There was never a time when +the original sources of history were more easily to be consulted by the +plain man; but whether because of their very number, or because the +habit is not yet formed, or because there are traditions of imaginary +difficulty surrounding such reading, original sources were perhaps +never less familiar to fairly educated opinion than they are today; and +therefore no type of book gives more pleasure when one comes across it +than those little cheap books, now becoming fairly numerous, in which +the original sources, and the original sources alone, are put before +the reader. Mr. Rait has already done such work in connection with Mary +Queen of Scots, and Mr. Archer did it admirably in connection with the +Third Crusade. + +But apart from the importance of consulting original sources—which is +like hearing the very witnesses themselves in court—there is a factor +in historical judgment which by some unhappy accident is peculiarly +lacking in the professional historian. It is a factor to which no +particular name can be attached, though it may be called a department +of common sense. But it is a mental power or attitude easily +recognizable in those who possess it, and perhaps atrophied by the very +atmosphere of the study. It goes with the open air with a general +knowledge of men and with that rapid recognition of the way in which +things “fit in” which is necessarily developed by active life. + +For instance, when you know the pace at which Harold marched down from +the north to Hastings you recognize, if you use that factor of historic +judgment of which I spake, that the affair was not barbaric. There must +have been fairly good roads, and there must have been a high +organization of transport. You have only to consider for a moment what +a column looks like, even if it be only a brigade, to see the truth of +that. Again, this type of judgment forbids anyone who uses it to +ascribe great popular movements (great massacres, great turmoils, and +so forth) to craft. It is a very common thing, especially in modern +history, to lay such things to the power of one or two wealthy or one +or two bloody leaders, but you have only to think for a few moments of +what a mob is to see the falsity of that. Craft can harness this sort +of explosive force, it can control it, or persuade it, or canalize it +to certain issues, but it cannot create it. + +Again, this sort of sense easily recognizes in historic types the +parallels of modern experience. It avoids the error of thinking history +a mistake and making of the men and women who appear there something +remote from humanity, extreme, and either stilted or grandiose. + +In aid of this last feature in historical judgment there is nothing of +such permanent value as a portrait. Obtain your conception (as, indeed, +most boys do) of the English early sixteenth century from a text, then +go and live with the Holbeins for a week and see what an enormously +greater thing you will possess at the end of it. It is indeed one of +the misfortunes of European history that from the fifth century to at +least the eleventh we are, so far as Western European history is +concerned, deprived of portraits. And by an interesting parallel the +writers of the dark time seemed to have had neither the desire nor the +gift of vivid description. Consider the dreariness of the +hagiographers, every one of them boasting the noble rank and the +conventional status of his hero, and you may say not one giving the +least conception of the man’s personality. You have the great +Gallo-Roman noble family of Ferreolus running down the centuries from +the Decline of the Empire to the climax of Charlemagne. Many of those +names stand for some most powerful individuality, yet all we have is a +formula, a lineage, with symbols and names in the place of living +beings, and even that established only by careful work, picking out and +sifting relationships from various lives. The men of that time did not +even think to tell us that there was such a thing as a family +tradition, nor did it seem important to them to establish its Roman +origin and its long succession in power. + +Next it must be protested that the smallness and particularity of the +questions upon which historical discussion rages are no proof either of +its general purposelessness nor of _their_ insignificance. All advance +of knowledge proceeds in this fashion. Physical science affords +innumerable examples of the way in which progress has depended upon a +curiosity directed towards apparently insignificant things, and there +is something in the mind which compels it to select a narrow field for +the exercise of its acutest powers. Moreover, special points, +discussion upon which must evidently be lengthy and may be indefinite, +are peculiarly attractive to just that kind of man who by a love of +prolonged research enlarges the bounds of knowledge and at the same +time strengthens and improves for his fellows by continual exercise all +the instruments of their common trade. Take, for instance, this case of +the little Dauphin, Louis XVII. It really does not matter to day +whether the boy got away or whether he died in prison. It does not +prolong the line of the Capetians—the heir to that is present in the +Duke of Orleans. It does not even affect our view of any other +considerable part of history—save possibly the policy of Louis +XVIII—and it is of no direct interest to our pockets or to our +affections. Yet the masses of work which have accumulated round that +one doubt have solved twenty other doubts. They have illuminated all +the close of the Terror; they are beginning to make us understand that +most difficult piece of political psychology, the reaction of +Thermidor, and with it how Europeans lose their balance and regain it +in the course of their quasi-religious wars; for all our wars have +something in them of religion. + +Three elements appear to enter into the judgment of history. First, +there is the testimony of human witnesses; next, there are the +non-human boundaries wherein the action took place, boundaries which, +by all our experience, impose fixed limits to action; thirdly, there is +that indefinable thing, that mystic power, which all nations deriving +from the theology of the Western Church have agreed to call, with the +schoolman, _common sense_; a general appreciation which transcends +particular appreciations and which can integrate the differentials of +evidence. Of this last it is quite impossible to afford a test or to +construct a measure; its presence in an argument is none the less as +readily felt as fresh air in a room; without it nothing is convincing +however laboured, with it, even though it rely upon slight evidence, +one has the feeling of walking on a firm road. But it must be “common +sense”—it must be of the sort, that is, which is common to man various +and general, and it is in this perhaps that history suffers most from +the charlatanism and ritual common to all great matters. + +Men will have pomp and mystery surrounding important things, and +therefore the historians must, consciously or unconsciously, tend to +strut, to quote solemn authorities in support, and to make out the +vulgar unworthy of their confidence. Hence, by the way, the plague of +footnotes. + +These had their origin in two sources: the desire to show that one was +honest and to prove it by a reference; the desire to elucidate some +point which it was not easy to elucidate in the text itself without +making the sentence too elaborate and clumsy. Either use may be seen at +its best in Gibbon. With the last generation they have served mainly, +and sometimes merely, for ritual adornment and terror, not to make +clearer or more honest, but to deceive. Thus Taine in his monstrously +false history of the Revolution revels in footnotes; you have but to +examine a batch of them with care to turn them completely against his +own conclusions—they are only put there as a sort of spiked paling to +warn off trespassers. Or, again, M. Thibaut, who writes under the name +of “Anatole France,” gives footnotes by the score in his romance of +Joan of Arc, apparently not even caring to examine whether they so much +as refer to his text, let alone support it. They seem to have been done +by contract. + +Another ailment in this department is the negative one, whereby an +historian will leave out some aspect which to him, cramped in a study, +seems unimportant, but which any plain man moving in the world would +have told him to be the essential aspect of the whole matter. For +instance, when Napoleon left Madrid on his forced march to intercept +Sir John Moore before that general should have reached Benevente, he +thought Moore was at Valladolid, when as a fact he was at Sahagun. In +Mr. Oman’s history of the Peninsular War the error is put thus: +“Napoleon had not the comparatively easy task of cutting the road +between Valladolid and Astorga, but the much harder one of intercepting +that between Sahagun and Astorga.” + +Why is this egregious nonsense? The facts are right and so are the +dates and the names, yet it makes one blush for Oxford history. Why? +Because the all-important element of _distance_ is omitted. The very +first question a plain man would ask about the case would be, “What +were the distances involved?” The academic historian doesn’t know, or, +at least, doesn’t say; yet without an appreciation of the distances the +statement has no value. As a fact the distances were such that in the +first case (supposing Moore had been at Valladolid) Napoleon would have +had to cover nearly three miles to Moore’s one to intercept him—an +almost superhuman task. In the second case (Moore being as a fact at +Sahagun) he would have had to go over _four miles_ to his opponent’s +one—an absolutely impossible feat. + +To march _three_ miles to the enemy’s _one_ is what Mr. Oman calls “a +comparatively easy task”; to march four to his one is what Mr. Oman +calls a “much harder” task; and to write like that is what an informed +critic calls bad history. + +The other two factors in an historical judgment can be more easily +measured. + +The non-human elements which, as I have said, are irremovable (save to +miracle), are topography, climate, season, local physical conditions, +and so forth. They have two valuable characters in aid of history; the +first is that they correct the errors of human memory and support the +accuracy of details; the second is that they enable us to complete a +picture. We can by their aid “see” the physical framework in which an +action took place, and such a landscape helps the judgment of things +past as it does of things contemporary. Thus the map, the date, the +soil, the contours of Crécy field make the traditional spot at which +the King of Bohemia fell doubtful; the same factors make it certain +that Drouet did not plunge haphazard through Argonne on the night of +June 21, 1791, but that he must have gone by one path—which can be +determined. + +Or, again, take that prime question, why the Prussians did not charge +at Valmy. On their failure to do so all the success of the Revolution +turned. A man may read Dumouriez, Kellermann, Pully, Botidoux, +Massenback, Goethe—there are fifty eye-witnesses at least whose +evidence we can collect, and I defy anyone to decide. (Brunswick +himself never knew.) But go to that roll of land between Valmy and the +high road; go after three days’ rain as the allies did, and you will +immediately learn. That field between the heights of “The Moon” and the +site of old Valmy mill, which is as hard as a brick in summer (when the +experts visit it), is a marsh of the worst under an autumn drizzle; no +one could have charged. + +As for human testimony, three things appear: first, that the witness is +not, as in a law court, circumscribed. His relation may vary infinitely +in degree of proximity of time or space to the action, from that of an +eye-witness writing within the hour to that of a partisan writing at +tenth hand a lifetime after. That question of proximity comes first, +from the known action of the human mind whereby it transforms colours +and changes remembered things. Next there is the character of the +witness _for the purposes of his testimony_. Historians write, too +often, as though virtue—or wealth (with which they often confound +it)—were the test. It is not, short of a known motive for lying; a +murderer or a thief casually witnessing to a thing with which he is +familiar is worth more than the best man witnessing in a matter which +he understands ill. It was this error which ruined Croker’s essay on +Charlotte Robespierre’s Memoirs. Croker thought, perhaps wisely, that +all radicals were scoundrels; he could not accept her editor’s +evidence, and (by the way) the view of this amateur collector without a +tincture of historical scholarship actually imposed itself on Europe +for nearly seventy years! + +And the third character in the witness is support: the support upon +converging lines of other human testimony, most of it indifferent, some +(this is essential) casual and by the way—deprived therefore of motive. + +When I shall find these canons satisfied to oppose the strong +probability and tradition of the Dauphin’s death in prison I shall +doubt that death, but not before. + + + + +The Absence of the Past + + +It is perhaps not possible to put into human language that emotion +which rises when a man stands upon some plot of European soil and can +say with certitude to himself: “Such and such great, or wonderful, or +beautiful things happened here.” + +Touch that emotion ever so lightly and it tumbles into the commonplace, +and the deadest of commonplace. Neglect it ever so little and the +Present (which is never really there, for even as you walk across +Trafalgar Square it is yesterday and tomorrow that are in your mind), +the Present, I say, or rather the immediate flow of things, occupies +you altogether. But there is a mood, and it is a mood common in men who +have read and who have travelled, in which one is overwhelmed by the +sanctity of a place on which men have done this or that a long, long +time ago. + +Here it is that the gentle supports which have been framed for human +life by that power which launched it come in and help a man. Time does +not remain, but space does, and though we cannot seize the Past +physically we can stand physically upon the site, and we can have (if I +may so express myself) a physical communion with the Past by occupying +that very spot which the past greatness of man or of event has +occupied. + +It was but the other day that, with an American friend at my side, I +stood looking at the little brass plate which says that here Charles +Stuart faced (he not only faced, but he refused) the authority of his +judges. I know not by what delicate mechanism of the soul that record +may seem at one moment a sort of tourist thing, to be neglected or +despised, and at another moment a portent. But I will confess that all +of a sudden, pointing out this very well-known record upon the brass +let into the stone in Westminster Hall, I suddenly felt the presence of +the thing. Here all that business was done: they were alive; they were +in the Present as we are. Here sat that tender-faced, courageous man, +with his pointed beard and his luminous eyes; here he was a living man +holding his walking-stick with the great jewel in the handle of it; +here was spoken in the very tones of his voice (and how a human voice +perishes!—how we forget the accents of the most loved and the most +familiar voices within a few days of their disappearance!); here the +small gestures, and all the things that make up a personality, marked +out Charles Stuart. When the soul is seized with such sudden and +positive conviction of the substantial past it is overwhelmed; and +Europe is full of such ghosts. + +As you take the road to Paradise, about halfway there you come to an +inn, which even as inns go is admirable. You go into the garden of it, +and see the great trees and the wall of Box Hill shrouding you all +around. It is beautiful enough (in all conscience) to arrest one +without the need of history or any admixture of the pride of race; but +as you sit there on a seat in that garden you are sitting where Nelson +sat when he said goodbye to his Emma, and if you will move a yard or +two you will be sitting where Keats sat biting his pen and thinking out +some new line of his poem. + +What has happened? These two men with their keen, feminine faces, these +two great heroes of a great time in the great story of a great people +of this world, are not there. They are nowhere. But the site remains. + +Philosophers can put in formulæ the crowd of suggestions that rush +into the mind when one’s soul contemplates the perpetual march and +passage of mortality. But they can do no more than give us formularies: +they cannot give us replies. What are we? What is all this business? +Why does the mere space remain and all the rest dissolve? + +There is a lonely place in the woods of Chilham, in the County of Kent, +above the River Stour, where a man comes upon an irregular earthwork +still plainly marked upon the brow of the bluff. Nobody comes near this +place. A vague country lane, or rather track; goes past the wet soil of +it, plunges into the valley beyond, and after serving a windmill joins +the high road to Canterbury. Well, that vague track is the ancient +British road, as old as anything in this Island, that took men from +Winchester to the Straits of Dover. That earthwork is the earthwork (I +could prove it, but this is not the place) where the British stood +against the charge of the Tenth Legion, and first heard, sounding on +their bronze, the arms of Caesar. Here the river was forded; here the +little men of the South went up in formation; here the Barbarian broke +and took his way, as the opposing General has recorded, through devious +woodland paths, scattering in the pursuit; here began the great history +of England. + +Is it not an enormous business merely to stand in such a place? I think +so. + +I know a field to the left of the Chalons Road, some few miles before +you get to Ste. Menehould. There used to be an inn by the roadside +called “The Sign of the Moon.” It has disappeared. There used to be a +ramshackle windmill beyond the field, a mile or so from the road, on an +upland swell of land, but that also has gone, and had been gone for +some time before I knew the field of which I write. It is a bare fold +of land with one or two little scrubby spinneys alongside the plough. +And for the rest, just the brown earth and the sky. There are days on +which you will see a man at work somewhere within that mile, others on +which it is completely deserted. Here it is that the French Revolution +was preserved. Here was the Prussian charge. On the deserted, ugly lump +of empty earth beyond you were the three batteries that checked the +invaders. It was all alive and crowded for one intense moment with the +fate of Christendom. Here, on the place in which you are standing and +gazing, young Goethe stood and gazed. That meaningless stretch of +coarse grass supported Brunswick and the King of Prussia, and the +brothers of the King of France, as they stood windswept in the rain, +watching the failure of the charge. It is the field of Valmy. Turn on +that height and look back westward and you see the plains rolling out +infinitely; they are the plains upon which Attila was crushed; but +there is no one there. + +All men have remarked that night and silence are august, and I think +that if this quality in night and silence be closely examined it will +be found to consist, in part at least, in this: that either of them +symbolizes Absence. By a paradox which I will not attempt to explain, +but which all have felt, it is in silence and in darkness that the Past +most vividly returns, and that this absence of what once was possesses, +nay, obtrudes itself upon the mind: it becomes almost a sensible thing. +There is much to be said for those who pretend, imagine, or perhaps +have experienced under such conditions the return of the dead. The mood +of darkness and of silence is a mood crammed with something that does +not remain, as space remains, that is limited by time, and is a +creature of time, and yet something that has an immortal right to +remain. + +Now, I suppose that in that sentence where I say things mortal have +immortal rights to permanence, the core of the whole business is +touched upon. And I suppose that the great men who could really think +and did not merely fire off fireworks to dazzle their contemporaries—I +suppose that Descartes, for instance, if he were here sitting at my +table—could help me to solve that contradiction; but I sit and think +and cannot solve it. + +“What,” says the man upon his own land, inherited perhaps and certainly +intended for his posterity—“what! Can you separate me from this? Are +not this and I bound up inextricably?” The answer is “No; you are not +so far as any observer of this world can discover. Space is in no way +possessed by man, and he who may render a site immortal in one of our +various ways, the captain who there conquered, the poet who there +established his sequence of words, cannot himself put forward a claim +to permanence within it at all.” + +There was a woman of charming vivacity, whose eyes were ever ready for +laughter, and whose tone of address of itself provoked the noblest of +replies. Many loved her; all admired. She passed (I will suppose) by +this street or by that; she sat at table in such and such a house; +Gainsborough painted her; and all that time ago there were men who had +the luck to meet her and to answer her laughter with their own. And the +house where she moved is there and the street in which she walked, and +the very furniture she used and touched with her hands you may touch +with your hands. You shall come into the rooms that she inhabited, and +there you shall see her portrait, all light and movement and grace and +beatitude. + +She is gone altogether, the voice will never return, the gestures will +never be seen again. She was under a law; she changed, she suffered, +she grew old, she died; and there was her place left empty. The not +living things remain; but what counted, what gave rise to them, what +made them all that they are, has pitifully disappeared, and the +greater, the infinitely greater, thing was subject to a doom +perpetually of change and at last of vanishing. The dead surroundings +are not subject to such a doom. Why? + +All those boys who held the line of the low ridge or rather swell of +land from Hougoumont through the Belle Alliance have utterly gone. More +than dust goes, more than wind goes; they will never be seen again. +Their voices will never be heard—they are not. But what is the mere +soil of the field without them? What meaning has it save for their +presence? + +I could wish to understand these things. + + + + +St. Patrick + + +If there is one thing that people who are not Catholic have gone wrong +upon more than another in the intellectual things of life, it is the +conception of a Personality. They are muddled about it where their own +little selves are concerned, they misappreciate it when they deal with +the problems of society, and they have a very weak hold of it when they +consider (if they do consider) the nature of Almighty God. + +Now, personality is everything. It was a Personal Will that made all +things, visible and invisible. Our hope of immortality resides in this, +that we are persons, and half our frailties proceed from a +misapprehension of the awful responsibilities which personality +involves or a cowardly ignorance of its powers of self-government. + +The hundred and one errors which this main error leads to include a bad +error on the nature of history. Your modern non-Catholic or +anti-Catholic historian is always misunderstanding, underestimating, or +muddling the role played in the affairs of men by great and individual +Personalities. That is why he is so lamentably weak upon the function +of legend; that is why he makes a fetish of documentary evidence and +has no grip upon the value of tradition. For traditions spring from +some personality invariably, and the function of legend, whether it be +a rigidly true legend or one tinged with make-believe, is to interpret +Personality. Legends have vitality and continue, because in their +origin they so exactly serve to explain or illustrate some personal +character in a man which no cold statement could give. + +Now St. Patrick, the whole story and effect of him, is a matter of +Personality. There was once—twenty or thirty years ago—a whole school +of dunderheads who wondered whether St. Patrick ever existed, because +the mass of legends surrounding his name troubled them. How on earth +(one wonders) do such scholars consider their fellow-beings! Have they +ever seen a crowd cheering a popular hero, or noticed the expression +upon men’s faces when they spoke of some friend of striking power +recently dead? A great growth of legends around a man is the very best +proof you could have not only of his existence but of the fact that he +was an origin and a beginning, and that things sprang from his will or +his vision. There were some who seemed to think it a kind of favour +done to the indestructible body of Irish Catholicism when Mr. Bury +wrote his learned Protestant book upon St. Patrick. It was a critical +and very careful bit of work, and was deservedly praised; but the +favour done us I could not see! It is all to the advantage of +non-Catholic history that it should be sane, and that a great +Protestant historian should make true history out of a great historical +figure was a very good sign. It was a long step back towards common +sense compared with the German absurdities which had left their victims +doubting almost all the solid foundation of the European story; but as +for us Catholics, we had no need to be told it. Not only was there a +St. Patrick in history, but there is a St. Patrick on the shores of his +eastern sea and throughout all Ireland to-day. It is a presence that +stares you in the face, and physically almost haunts you. Let a man +sail along the Leinster coast on such a day as renders the Wicklow +Mountains clear up-weather behind him, and the Mourne Mountains perhaps +in storm, lifted clearly above the sea down the wind. He is taking some +such course as that on which St. Patrick sailed, and if he will land +from time to time from his little boat at the end of each day’s +sailing, and hear Mass in the morning before he sails further +northward, he will know in what way St. Patrick inhabits the soil which +he rendered sacred. + +We know that among the marks of holiness is the working of miracles. +Ireland is the greatest miracle any saint ever worked. It is a miracle +and a nexus of miracles. Among other miracles it is a nation raised +from the dead. + +The preservation of the Faith by the Irish is an historical miracle +comparable to nothing else in Europe. There never was, and please God +never can be, so prolonged and insanely violent a persecution of men by +their fellow-men as was undertaken for centuries against the Faith in +Ireland: and it has completely failed. I know of no example in history +of failure following upon such effort. It had behind it in combination +the two most powerful of the evil passions of men, terror and greed. +And so amazing is it that they did not attain their end, that +perpetually as one reads one finds the authors of the dreadful business +now at one period, now at another, assuming with certitude that their +success is achieved. Then, after centuries, it is almost suddenly +perceived—and in our own time—that it has not been achieved and never +will be. + +What a complexity of strange coincidences combined, coming out of +nothing as it were, advancing like spirits summoned on to the stage, +all to effect this end! Think of the American Colonies; with one little +exception they were perhaps the most completely non-Catholic society of +their time. Their successful rebellion against the mother country meant +many things, and led to many prophecies. Who could have guessed that +one of its chief results would be the furnishing of a free refuge for +the Irish? + +The famine, all human opinion imagined, and all human judgment was +bound to conclude, was a mortal wound, coming in as the ally of the +vile persecution I have named. It has turned out the very contrary. +From it there springs indirectly the dispersion, and that power which +comes from unity in dispersion, of Irish Catholicism. + +Who, looking at the huge financial power that dominated Europe, and +England in particular, during the youth of our own generation, could +have dreamt that in any corner of Europe, least of all in the poorest +and most ruined corner of Christendom, an effective resistance could be +raised? + +Behind the enemies of Ireland, furnishing them with all their modern +strength, was that base and secret master of modern things, the usurer. +He it was far more than the gentry of the island who demanded toll, +and, through the mortgages on the Irish estates, had determined to +drain Ireland as he has drained and rendered desert so much else. Is it +not a miracle that he has failed? + +Ireland is a nation risen from the dead; and to raise one man from the +dead is surely miraculous enough to convince one of the power of a +great spirit. This miracle, as I am prepared to believe, is the last +and the greatest of St. Patrick’s. + +When I was last in Ireland, I bought in the town of Wexford a coloured +picture of St. Patrick which greatly pleased me. Most of it was green +in colour, and St. Patrick wore a mitre and had a crosier in his hand. +He was turning into the sea a number of nasty reptiles: snakes and +toads and the rest. I bought this picture because it seemed to me as +modern a piece of symbolism as ever I had seen: and that was why I +bought it for my children and for my home. + +There was a few pence change, but I did not want it. The person who +sold me the picture said they would spend the change in candles for St. +Patrick’s altar. So St. Patrick is still alive. + + + + +The Lost Things + + +I never remember an historian yet, nor a topographer either, who could +tell me, or even pretend to explain by a theory, how it was that +certain things of the past utterly and entirely disappear. + +It is a commonplace that everything is subject to decay, and a +commonplace which the false philosophy of our time is too apt to +forget. Did we remember that commonplace we should be a little more +humble in our guesswork, especially where it concerns prehistory; and +we should not make so readily certain where the civilization of Europe +began, nor limit its immense antiquity. But though it is a commonplace, +and a true one, that all human work is subject to decay, there seems to +be an inexplicable caprice in the method and choice of decay. + +Consider what a body of written matter there must have been to instruct +and maintain the technical excellence of Roman work. What a mass of +books on engineering and on ship-building and on road-making; what +quantities of tables and ready-reckoners, all that civilization must +have produced and depended upon. Time has preserved much verse, and not +only the best by any means, more prose, particularly the theological +prose of the end of the Roman time. The technical stuff, which must, in +the nature of things, have been indefinitely larger in amount, has +(save in one or two instances and allusions) gone. + +Consider, again, all that mass of seven hundred years which was called +Carthage. It was not only seven hundred years of immense wealth, of +oligarchic government, of a vast population, and of what so often goes +with commerce and oligarchy—civil and internal peace. A few stones to +prove the magnitude of its municipal work, a few ornaments, a few +graves—all the rest is absolutely gone. A few days’ marches away there +is an example I have quoted so often elsewhere that I am ashamed of +referring to it again, but it does seem to me the most amazing example +of historical loss in the world. It is the site of Hippo Regius. Here +was St. Augustine’s town, one of the greatest and most populous of a +Roman province. It was so large that an army of eighty thousand men +could not contain it, and even with such a host its siege dragged on +for a year. There is not a sign of that great town today. + +A suburb, well without the walls—to be more accurate, a neighbouring +village—carries on the name under the form of Bona, and that is all. A +vast, fertile plain of black rich earth, now largely planted with +vineyards, stands where Hippo stood. How can the stones have gone? How +can it have been worth while to cart away the marble columns? Why are +there no broken statues on such a ground, and no relics of the gods? + +Nay, the wells are stopped up from which the people drank, and the +lining of the wells is not to be discovered in the earth, and the +foundations of the walls, and even the ornaments of the people and +their coins, all these have been spirited away. + +Then there are the roads. Consider that great road which reached from +Amiens to the main port of Gaul, the Portus Itius at Boulogne. It is +still in use. It was in use throughout the Middle Ages. Up that road +the French Army marched to Crécy. It points straight to its goal upon +the sea coast. Its whole purpose lay in reaching the goal. For some +extraordinary reason, which I have never seen explained or even guessed +at, there comes a point as it nears the coast where it suddenly ceases +to be. + +No sand has blown over it. It runs through no marshes; the land is firm +and fertile. Why should that, the most important section of the great +road which led northward from Rome, have failed, and have failed so +recently, in the history of man? Where this great road crosses streams +and might reasonably be lost, at its _pontes_, its bridges, it has +remained, and is of such importance as to have given a name to a whole +countryside—_Ponthieu_. But north of that it is gone. + +Nearly every Roman road of Gaul and Britain presents something of the +same puzzle in some parts of its course. It will run clear and +followable enough, or form a modern highway for mile upon mile, and +then not at a marsh where one would expect its disappearance, nor in +some desolate place where it might have fallen out of use, but in the +neighbourhood of a great city and at the very chief of its purpose, it +is gone. It is so with the Stane Street that led up from the garrison +of Chichester and linked it with the garrison of London. You can +reconstruct it almost to a yard until you reach Epsom Downs. There you +find it pointing to London Bridge, and remaining as clear as in any +other part of its course: much clearer than in most other sections. But +try to follow it on from Epsom Racecourse, and you entirely fail. The +soil is the same; the conditions of that soil are excellent for its +retention; but a year’s work has taught me that there is no +reconstructing it save by hypothesis and guesswork from this point to +the crossing of the Thames. + +What happened to all that mass of local documents whereby we ought to +be able to build up the territorial scheme and the landed regime of old +France? Much remains, if you will, in the shape of chance charters and +family papers. Even in the archives of Paris you can get enough to whet +your curiosity. But not even in one narrow district can you obtain +enough to reconstruct the whole truth. There is not a scholar in Europe +who can tell you exactly how land was owned and held, even, let us say, +on the estates of Rheims or by the family of Condé. And men are ready +to quarrel as to how many peasants owned and how much of their present +ownership was due to the Revolution, evidence has already become so +wholly imperfect in that tiny stretch of historical time. + +But, after all, perhaps one ought not to wonder too much that material +things should thus capriciously vanish. Time, which has secured Timgad +so that it looks like an unroofed city of yesterday, has swept and +razed Laimboesis. The two towns were neighbours—one was taken and the +other left—and there is no sort of reason any man can give for it. +Perhaps one ought not too much to wonder, for a greater wonder still is +the sudden evaporation and loss of the great movements of the human +soul. That what our ancestors passionately believed or passionately +disputed should, by their descendants in one generation or in two, +become meaningless, absurd, or false—this is the greatest marvel and +the greatest tragedy of all. + + + + +On the Reading of History + + +Let me at the beginning of this short article present two facts to the +reader. Neither can be disputed, and that is why I call them facts and +put them in the forefront before I begin upon my theories. + +The first fact is that the record of what men have done in the past and +how they have done it is the chief positive guide to present action. +The second fact is that most men must now receive the impression of the +past through reading. + +Put these two facts together and you get the fundamental truth that +upon the right reading of history the right use of citizenship in +England today will depend. It will of course depend upon other things +as well: chiefly upon the human conscience; for if you were to pack off +to an island a hundred families as ignorant as any human families can +be of tradition, and wholly ignorant of positive history, those +families would yet be able to create a human society and the voice of +God within them would give just limits to their actions. + +Still, of those factors in civic action amenable to civic direction, +conscious and positively effective, there is nothing to compare with +the right teaching and the right reading of history. Now teaching is +today ruined. The old machinery by which the whole nation could be got +to know all essential human things, has been destroyed, and the +teaching of history in particular has been not only ruined but rendered +ridiculous. There is no historical school properly so-called in modern +England; that is, there is no organization framed with the sole object +of extending and co-ordinating historical knowledge and of choosing men +for their capacity to discover upon the one hand and to teach upon the +other. There is nothing approaching to it in the two ancient +universities, because the choice of teachers there depends upon a +multitude of considerations quite separate from those mentioned, and +the capacity to discover, to know, and to teach history, though it +_may_ be present in a tutor, will only be accidentally so present: +while as for co-ordination of knowledge, there is no attempt at it. +Even where very hard work is done, and, when it concerns local history, +very useful work, history as a general study is not grasped because the +universities have not grasped it. + +History is to be had by the modern Englishman from his own reading +only; and I am here concerned with the question how he shall read +history with profit. + +To read history with profit, history must be true, or at any rate the +reader must have a power of discerning what is true in the midst of +much that may be false. I will bargain, for instance, that in the +summer of 1899 the great mass of men, and especially the great mass of +men who had passed through the universities, were under the impression +that armies had left England for the purpose of conquest in distant +countries with invariable success: that that success had been unique, +unsupported and always decisive, and that the wealth of the country +after each success had increased, not diminished. In other words, had +history been studied even by the tiny minority who have education today +in England, Sir William Butler would have counted more than the Joels, +and the late Mr. Barnato (as he called himself); the South African War +would not have taken place in a society which knew its past. + +Again, you may pick almost any phrase referring to the Middle Ages out +of any newspaper—if you are a man read in the Middle Ages—and you will +find in it not only a definite historical falsehood with regard to the +fact referred to, or the analogy drawn, but also a false philosophy. + +For instance, the other day I read this phrase with regard to the +burial of a certain gentleman of my neighbourhood in Sussex: “We are +surely past the phase of mediaeval thought in which it was imagined +that a few words spoken over the lifeless clay would determine the fate +of the soul for all eternity.” Just notice the myriad falsehoods of a +phrase like that! I will not discuss what is connoted by the words +“past the phase of mediaeval thought”—it connotes of course that the +human mind changes fundamentally with the centuries, and therefore that +whatever we think is probably wrong, and that what we are sure of we +cannot be sure of, an absurd conclusion. I will only note the +historical falsehoods. When on earth did the “Middle Ages” lay down +that a “few words over lifeless clay determined the fate of the soul +for all eternity”? On the contrary, the Middle Ages laid it down—it was +their peculiar doctrine—that it was impossible to determine the fate of +the soul; that no one could tell the fate of any one individual soul; +that it was a grievous sin, among the most grievous of sins, to affirm +positive knowledge that any individual had lost his soul. More than +this, the Middle Ages were peculiar in their insistence upon the +doctrine that a man might have been very bad and might have had all the +appearance of having lost his soul so far as human judgment went, and +yet was liable to a midway place between salvation and damnation, and +they affirmed that this midway place did not lead to either fate but +necessarily to salvation and to salvation only. + +Again, whatever could help the human soul to salvation was by the most +rigorous theological definition of the Middle Ages applicable only +before death. After death the fate of the soul was sealed, and the man +once dead, the “lifeless clay” (as the journalist put it—and the Middle +Ages was the only source from which he got the idea of clay at all), +whether it were that of a Pope or of some random highwayman, had no +effect whatsoever upon the fate of the soul. The greatest saint might +have offered the most solemn sacrifice on its behalf for years, and if +the soul were damned his sacrifice would have been of no avail. + +I have taken this example absolutely at random. But the modern reader, +apart from sentences as clearly provocative of criticism as this, is +perpetually coming across references, allusions, and parallels which +take a certain course of human European and English history for +granted. How is he to distinguish when that course is rightly drawn +from when it is wrongly drawn? + +Thus in some newspaper article written by an able man, and dealing, let +us say, with the territorial army, one might come across a sentence +like this: “Napoleon himself used troops so raw that they were actually +drilled on the march to the battlefield.” That would be a perfectly +true statement. Any amount of criticism of it lies in connexion with +Mr. Haldane’s scheme, but still it is a true piece of history. Napoleon +did get raw recruits into his battalions just before any one of his +famous marches began, and drill them on the way to victory. In the next +column of the newspaper the reader may be presented with a sentence +like this: “The captures of English by privateers in the Revolutionary +War should teach us what foreign cruisers can do.” + +There were plenty of captures by privateers in the Revolutionary Wars; +if I remember rightly, many many hundreds, all discreetly hidden from +the common or garden reader until party politics necessitated their +resurrection a hundred years after the event, but they have nothing +whatsoever to do with modern circumstances. + +Both statements are true then, and yet one can be truthfully applied +today, while the other cannot. + +How is the plain reader to distinguish between two historical truths, +one of which is a useful modern analogy, the other of which is a +ludicrously misleading one? + +The reader, it would seem, has no criterion by which to distinguish +what has been withheld from him and what has been emphasized; he may, +from his knowledge of the historian’s character or bias, stand upon his +guard, but he can do little more. + +There is another difficulty. It is less subtle and less common, but it +exists. I mean brute lying. You do not often get the lie direct in +official history; it would be too dangerous a game to play in the face +of the critics, though some historians, and notably the French +historian Taine, have played it boldly enough, and have stated +dogmatically, as historical happenings, things that never happened and +that they knew never happened. But the plain or brute historical lie is +more commonly found in the pages of ephemeral journalism. Thus the +other day, with regard to the Budget, I saw some financial operation +alluded to as comparable with “the pulling out of Jews’ teeth for money +in the Middle Ages.” When did anyone in the Middle Ages pull out a +Jew’s teeth for money? There is just one very doubtful story told about +King John, and that story is told without proof by one of John’s worst +enemies, in a mass of other accusations many of which can be proved to +be false. + +Again, I turn to an Oxford History of the French Revolution, and I find +the remark that the massacres of September were organized by the men +from Marseilles. They were not organized by the men from Marseilles. +The men from Marseilles had nothing to do with them, and the fact has +been public property since the publication of Pollio and Marcel’s +monograph twenty years ago. + +What criterion can the ordinary reader choose when he is confronted by +difficulties of this sort? I will suggest to him one which seems to me +by far the most valuable. It is the reading of firsthand authorities. +It is all a matter of habit. When the original authorities upon which +history is based were difficult to get at, when few of those in foreign +tongues had been translated, and when those that had been published +were published in the most expensive form, the ordinary reader had to +depend upon an historian who would summarize for him the reading of +another. The ordinary reader was compelled to read secondary history or +none. Now secondary history is among the most valuable of literary +efforts; where evidence is slight, the judgment of an historian who +knows from other reading the general character of the period, is most +valuable. Where evidence is abundant, and therefore confusing, the +historian used to the selection and weighing of it performs a most +valuable function. Still, the reader who is not acquainted with +original authorities does not really know history and is at the mercy +of whatever myth or tradition may be handed to him in print. + +We should remember that today, even in England, original authorities +are quite easy to get at. Two little books, for instance, occur to me +out of hundreds: Mr. Rait’s book on Mary Stuart and Mr. Archer’s on the +Third Crusade. In each of these the reader gets in a cheap form, in +modern and readable English, the kind of evidence upon which historians +base their history, and he can use that evidence in the light of his +own knowledge of human nature and his own judgment of human life. + +Or again, if he wants to know what the Romans really knew or said they +knew about the German tribes who, as pirates, so greatly influenced the +history of England, let him get Mr. Rouse’s edition of Grenewey’s +translation of the Germania in Blackie’s series of English texts; it +will only cost sixpence, and for that money he will get a bit of +Caesar’s Gallic War and the Agricola as well. But the list nowadays is +a very long one, luckily, and the lay reader has only to choose what +period he would like to read up, and he will find for nearly every one +first-hand evidence ready, cheap and published in a readable modern +form. That he should take such first-hand evidence is the very best +advice that any honest historian can give. + + + + +The Victory + + +The study of history, like the exploration, the thorough exploration, +of any other field, leads one to perpetual novelties, miracles, and +unexpected things; and I, in the study of the revolutionary wars, came +across the story of a battle which completely possessed my spirit. + +It would not be to my purpose here to give its name. It is not among +the most famous; it is not Waterloo, nor Leipsic, nor Austerlitz, nor +even Jemappes. The more I read into the night the more I perceived that +upon the issue of that struggle depended the fate of the modern world. +So completely did the notes of Carnot and a few private letters that +had been put before me absorb my attention that I will swear the +bugle-calls of those two days (for it was a two-days’ struggle) sounded +more clearly in my ears than the rumble of the London streets, and, as +this died out with the advance of the night and the approach of +morning, I was living entirely upon that ridge in Flanders, watching, +as a man watches an arena, whether the new things or the old should be +victorious. It was the new that conquered. + +From that evening I was determined to visit this place of which so far +I had but read, and to see how far it might agree with the vision I had +had of it, and to people actual fields with the ghosts of dead +soldiers. And for the better appreciation of the drama I chose the +season and the days on which the fight had been driven across that +rolling land, and I came there, as the Republicans had come, a little +before the dawn. + +The hillside was silent and deserted, more even than are commonly such +places, though silence and desertion seem the common atmosphere of all +the fields on which such fates have been decided. A man looking over +Carthage Bay, especially a man looking at those sodden pools that were +the sound harbours of Carthage, might be in an uninhabited world; and +the loop of the Trebbia is the same, and the edge of Fontenoy; and even +here in England that hillside looking south up which the Normans +charged at Battle is a quiet and a drowsy sort of place.... So it was +here in Flanders. + +For two miles as I ascended by the little sunken lane which the extreme +right wing had followed in the last attack I saw neither man nor beast, +but only the same stubble of the same autumn fields, and the same +colder sun shining upon the empty uplands until I reached the crest +where the Hungarian and the Croat had met the charge, and had disputed +the little village for two hours—a dispute upon which hung your fate +and mine and that of Europe. + +It was a tiny little village, seven or eight houses together and no +more, with a crazy little wooden steeple to its church all twisted +awry, large barns, and comfortable hedgerows of the Northern kind; and +from it one looked out westwards over an infinity of country, following +low crest after low crest, down on to the French plains. I went into +the inn of the place to drink, and found the cobbler there complaining +that wealth disturbed the natural equality of men. Then I wandered out, +pacing this point and that which I knew accurately from my maps, and +thinking of the noise of the war. Behind the little church, upon a +ramshackle green not large enough to pitch the stumps for +single-wicket, was the modest monument, a cock in bronze, crowing, and +the word “Victory” stamped into the granite of the pedestal; the whole +thing, I suppose, not ten feet high. The bronze was very well done; it +savoured strongly of Paris and looked odd in this abandoned little +place. But every time my eyes sank from the bronze, to look at some +other point in the landscape to identify the emplacement of such and +such a battery or the gully that had concealed the advance of such and +such a troop, my glance perpetually returned to that word “VICTORY,” +sculptured by itself upon the stone. It was indeed a victory; it was a +victory which, for its huge unexpectedness, for the noise of it, for +the length of time during which it was in doubt, for its final success, +there is no parallel, and yet it is by no means among the famous +battles of the world. And though the French count it one among the +thousand of their battles, I doubt whether even in Paris most men would +recognize it for the hammer-blow it was. The men of the time hardly +knew it, though Carnot guessed at it, and now to-day in Sorbonne I +think that regal fight is taking its true place. + +So I went down the eight miles of front northward along the ridge; for +even that battle, a hundred and more years ago, had an extended front +of this kind. I recognized the tall majestic fringe of beeches from +which had issued the last of the Royalist regiments bearing for the +last time upon a European field the white flag of the Bourbon Monarchy; +I came beyond it to the combe fringed with its semicircle of underbrush +in which Coburg had massed his guns in the last effort to break the +French centre when his flank was turned. I came to the main highway, +very broad, straight, and paved, which cuts this battlefield in two, +and then beyond it to the central position whose capture had made the +final manoeuvre possible. + +All Wednesday the Grenadiers, German, tall, padded, smart, and stout, +had held their ground. It was not until Thursday, and by noon, that +they were slowly driven up the hill by the ragged lads, the Gauls, +shoeless, some not in uniform at all, half-mutinous, drunk with pain +and glory. And I remembered, as the scene returned to me, that this +battle, like so many of the Revolution, had been a battle of men +against boys; how grey and veteran and trained in arms were the +Austrians and the Prussians, their allies, how strict in orders, how +calm: and what children the Terror had called up by force from the +exhausted fields of remote French provinces, to break them here against +the frontier, like water against a wall...! + +There was a little chap, twelve years old, a drummer; he had crept and +crawled by hedgerows till he found himself behind the line of those +volleying Grenadiers. There, “before his side,” and breaking all rules, +he had sounded the roll of the charge. They cut him down and killed +him, and the roll of his drum ceased hard. A generation or more later, +digging for foundations at this spot, the builders of the Peace came +upon his bones, the little bones of a child heaped pell-mell with +skeletons of the fallen giants round him. + +I went back into the town in whose defence the battle had been waged, +and there I saw again in bronze this little lad, head high and mouth +open, a-beating of his drum, and again the word “VICTORY.” + +All that effort was undertaken, all those young men and children +killed, for something that was to happen for the salvation of the +world; it has not come. All that iron resistance of the German line had +been forged and organized till it almost conquered, till it almost +thwarted, the Republic, and it also had been organized for the defence, +and, as some thought, for the salvation, of the world. Some great good +was to have come by the storming of that hill, or some great good by +the defeat of the impetuous charge. Well, the hill was stormed, and (if +you will) at Leipsic the effort which had stormed it was rolled back. +What has happened to the High Goddess whom that youth followed, and +worshipped as they say, and what to the Gods whom their enemies +defended? The ridge is exactly the same. + + + + +Reality + + +A couple of generations ago there was a sort of man going mournfully +about who complained of the spread of education. He had an ill-ease in +his mind. He feared that book learning would bring us no good, and he +was called a fool for his pains. Not undeservedly—for his thoughts were +muddled, and if his heart was good it was far better than his head. He +argued badly or he merely affirmed, but he had strong allies (Ruskin +was one of them), and, like every man who is sincere, there was +something in what he said; like every type which is numerous, there was +a human feeling behind him: and he was very numerous. + +Now that he is pretty well extinct we are beginning to understand what +he meant and what there was to be said for him. The greatest of the +French Revolutionists was right—“After bread, the most crying need of +the populace is knowledge.” But what knowledge? + +The truth is that secondary impressions, impressions gathered from +books and from maps, are valuable as adjuncts to primary impressions +(that is, impressions gathered through the channel of our senses), or, +what is always almost as good and sometimes better, the interpreting +voice of the living man. For you must allow me the paradox that in some +mysterious way the voice and gesture of a living witness always convey +something of the real impression he has had, and sometimes convey more +than we should have received ourselves from our own sight and hearing +of the thing related. + +Well, I say, these secondary impressions are valuable as adjuncts to +primary impressions. But when they stand absolute and have hardly any +reference to primary impressions, then they may deceive. When they +stand not only absolute but clothed with authority, and when they +pretend to convince us even against our own experience, they are +positively undoing the work which education was meant to do. When we +receive them merely as an enlargement of what we know and make of the +unseen things of which we read, things in the image of the seen, then +they quite distort our appreciation of the world. + +Consider so simple a thing as a river. A child learns its map and +knows, or thinks it knows, that such and such rivers characterize such +and such nations and their territories. Paris stands upon the River +Seine, Rome upon the River Tiber, New Orleans on the Mississippi, +Toledo upon the River Tagus, and so forth. That child will know one +river, the river near his home. And he will think of all those other +rivers in its image. He will think of the Tagus and the Tiber and the +Seine and the Mississippi—and they will all be the river near his home. +Then let him travel, and what will he come across? The Seine, if he is +from these islands, may not disappoint him or astonish him with a sense +of novelty and of ignorance. It will indeed look grander and more +majestic, seen from the enormous forest heights above its lower course, +than what, perhaps, he had thought possible in a river, but still it +will be a river of water out of which a man can drink, with clear-cut +banks and with bridges over it, and with boats that ply up and down. +But let him see the Tagus at Toledo, and what he finds is brown rolling +mud, pouring solid after the rains, or sluggish and hardly a river +after long drought. Let him go down the Tiber, down the Valley of the +Tiber, on foot, and he will retain until the last miles an impression +of nothing but a turbid mountain torrent, mixed with the friable soil +in its bed. Let him approach the Mississippi in the most part of its +long course and the novelty will be more striking still. It will not +seem to him a river at all (if he be from Northern Europe); it will +seem a chance flood. He will come to it through marshes and through +swamps, crossing a deserted backwater, finding firm land beyond, then +coming to further shallow patches of wet, out of which the tree-stumps +stand, and beyond which again mud-heaps and banks and groups of reeds +leave undetermined, for one hundred yards after another, the limits of +the vast stream. At last, if he has a boat with him, he may make some +place where he has a clear view right across to low trees, tiny from +their distance, similarly half swamped upon a further shore, and behind +them a low escarpment of bare earth. That is the Mississippi nine times +out of ten, and to an Englishman who had expected to find from his +early reading or his maps a larger Thames it seems for all the world +like a stretch of East Anglian flood, save that it is so much more +desolate. + +The maps are coloured to express the claims of Governments. What do +they tell you of the social truth? Go on foot or bicycling through the +more populated upland belt of Algiers and discover the curious mixture +of security and war which no map can tell you of and which none of the +geographies make you understand. The excellent roads, trodden by men +that cannot make a road; the walls as ready loopholed for fighting; the +Christian church and the mosque in one town; the necessity for and the +hatred of the European; the indescribable difference of the sun, which +here, even in winter, has something malignant about it, and strikes as +well as warms; the mountains odd, unlike our mountains; the forests, +which stand as it were by hardihood, and seem at war against the +influence of dryness and the desert winds, with their trees far apart, +and between them no grass, but bare earth alone. + +So it is with the reality of arms and with the reality of the sea. Too +much reading of battles has ever unfitted men for war; too much talk of +the sea is a poison in these great town populations of ours which know +nothing of the sea. Who that knows anything of the sea will claim +certitude in connexion with it? And yet there is a school which has by +this time turned its mechanical system almost into a commonplace upon +our lips, and talks of that most perilous thing, the fortunes of a +fleet, as though it were a merely numerical and calculable thing! The +greatest of Armadas may set out and not return. + +There is one experience of travel and of the physical realities of the +world which has been so widely repeated, and which men have so +constantly verified, that I could mention it as a last example of my +thesis without fear of misunderstanding. I mean the quality of a great +mountain. + +To one that has never seen a mountain it may seem a full and a fine +piece of knowledge to be acquainted with its height in feet exactly, +its situation; nay, many would think themselves learned if they know no +more than its conventional name. But the thing itself! The curious +sense of its isolation from the common world, of its being the +habitation of awe, perhaps the brooding-place of a god! + +I had seen many mountains, I had travelled in many places, and I had +read many particular details in the books—and so well noted them upon +the maps that I could have re-drawn the maps—concerning the Cerdagne. +None the less the sight of that wall of the Cerdagne, when first it +struck me, coming down the pass from Tourcarol, was as novel as though +all my life had been spent upon empty plains. By the map it was 9000 +feet. It might have been 90,000! The wonderment as to what lay beyond, +the sense that it was a limit to known things, its savage +intangibility, its sheer silence! Nothing but the eye seeing could give +one all those things. + +The old complain that the young will not take advice. But the wisest +will tell them that, save blindly and upon authority, the young cannot +take it. For most of human and social experience is words to the young, +and the reality can come only with years. The wise complain of the +jingo in every country; and properly, for he upsets the plans of +statesmen, miscalculates the value of national forces, and may, if he +is powerful enough, destroy the true spirit of armies. But the wise +would be wiser still if, while they blamed the extravagance of this +sort of man, they would recognize that it came from that half-knowledge +of mere names and lists which excludes reality. It is maps and +newspapers that turn an honest fool into a jingo. + +It is so again with distance, and it is so with time. Men will not +grasp distance unless they have traversed it, or unless it be +represented to them vividly by the comparison of great landscapes. Men +will not grasp historical time unless the historian shall be at the +pains to give them what historians so rarely give, the measure of a +period in terms of a human life. It is from secondary impressions +divorced from reality that a contempt for the past arises, and that the +fatal illusion of some gradual process of betterment of “progress” +vulgarizes the minds of men and wastes their effort. It is from +secondary impressions divorced from reality that a society imagines +itself diseased when it is healthy, or healthy when it is diseased. And +it is from secondary impressions divorced from reality that springs the +amazing power of the little second-rate public man in those modern +machines that think themselves democracies. This last is a power which, +luckily, cannot be greatly abused, for the men upon whom it is thrust +are not capable even of abuse upon a great scale. It is none the less +marvellous in its falsehood. + +Now you will say at the end of this, Since you blame so much the power +for distortion and for ill residing in our great towns, in our system +of primary education and in our papers and in our books, what remedy +can you propose? Why, none, either immediate or mechanical. The best +and the greatest remedy is a true philosophy, which shall lead men +always to ask themselves what they really know and in what order of +certitude they know it; where authority actually resides and where it +is usurped. But, apart from the advent, or rather the recapture, of a +true philosophy by a European society, two forces are at work which +will always bring reality back, though less swiftly and less whole. The +first is the poet, and the second is Time. + +Sooner or later Time brings the empty phrase and the false conclusion +up against what is; the empty imaginary looks reality in the face and +the truth at once conquers. In war a nation learns whether it is strong +or no, and how it is strong and how weak; it learns it as well in +defeat as in victory. In the long processes of human lives, in the +succession of generations, the real necessities and nature of a human +society destroy any false formula upon which it was attempted to +conduct it. Time must always ultimately teach. + +The poet, in some way it is difficult to understand (unless we admit +that he is a seer), is also very powerful as the ally of such an +influence. He brings out the inner part of things and presents them to +men in such a way that they cannot refuse but must accept it. But how +the mere choice and rhythm of words should produce so magical an effect +no one has yet been able to comprehend, and least of all the poets +themselves. + + + + +On the Decline of the Book: [And Especially of the Historical Book] + + +It is an interesting speculation by what means the Book lost its old +position in this country. This is not only an interesting speculation, +but one which nearly concerns a vital matter. For if men fall into the +habit of neglecting true books in an old and traditional civilization, +the inaccuracy of their judgments and the illusions to which they will +be subject, must increase. + +To take but one example: history. The less the true historical book is +read and the more men depend upon ephemeral statement, the more will +legend crystallize, the harder will it be to destroy in the general +mind some comforting lie, and the great object-lesson of politics +(which is an accurate knowledge of how men have acted in the past) will +become at last unknown. + +There are many, especially among younger men, who would contest the +premiss upon which all this is founded. They may point out, for +instance, that the actual number of bound books bought in a given time +at present is much larger than ever it was before. They may point out +again, and with justice, that the proportion of the population which +reads books of any sort, though perhaps not larger than it was three +hundred years ago, is very much larger than it was one hundred years +ago. And it may further be affirmed with truth that the range of +subjects now covered by books produced and sold is much wider than ever +it was before. + +All this is true; and yet it is also true that the Book as a factor in +our civilization has not only declined but has almost disappeared. Were +many more dogs to be possessed in England than are now possessed, but +were they to be all mongrels, among which none could be found capable +of retrieving, or of following a fox or a hare with any discipline, one +would have a right to say that the dog as a factor of our civilization +had declined. Were many more men in England able to ride horses more or +less, but were the number of those who rode constantly and for pleasure +enormously to diminish, and were the new millions who could just manage +to keep on horseback to prefer animals without spirit on which they +would feel safe, one would have a right to say that the horse was +declining as a factor in our civilization; and this is exactly what has +happened with the Book. + +The excellence of a book and its value as a book depend upon two +factors, which are usually, though not always, united in varied +proportions: first, that it should put something of value to the +reader, whether of value as a discovery and an enlargement of wisdom or +of value as a new emphasis laid upon old and sound morals; secondly, +that this thing added or renewed in human life should be presented in +such a manner as to give permanent aesthetic pleasure. + +That is not a first-rate book which, while it is admirably written, +teaches something false or something evil; nor is that a first-rate +book which, though it discover a completely new thing, or emphasize the +most valuable department of morals, is so constructed as to be +unreadable. Now it will not be denied that as far as these two factors +are concerned—and I repeat they are almost always found in +combination—the position of the Book has dwindled almost to +nothingness. One could give examples of almost every kind: one could +show how poetry, no matter how appreciated or praised, no longer sells. +One could show—and this is one of the worst signs of all—how men will +buy by the hundred thousand anything at all which has the hall mark of +an established reputation, quite careless as to their love of it or +their appetite for it. One could further show how more than one book of +permanent value in English life has been discovered in our generation +outside England, and has been as it were thrust upon the English public +by foreign opinion. + +But for my purpose it will be sufficient to take one very important +branch which I can claim to have watched with some care, and that is +the branch of History. + +It may be said with truth that in our generation no single first-rate +piece of history has enjoyed an appreciable sale. That is not true of +France, it is not true of the United States, it is not even true of +Germany in her intellectual decline, but it is true of England. + +History is an excellent test. No man will read history, at least +history of an instructive sort, unless he is a man who can read a book, +and desires to possess one. To read History involves not only some +permanent interest in things not immediately sensible, but also some +permanent brain-work in the reader; for as one reads history one +cannot, if one is an intelligent being, forbear perpetually to contrast +the lessons it teaches with the received opinions of our time. Again, +History is valuable as an example in the general thesis I am +maintaining, because no good history can be written without a great +measure of hard work. To make a history at once accurate, readable, +useful, and new, is probably the hardest of all literary efforts; a man +writing such history is driving more horses abreast in his team than a +man writing any other kind of literary matter. He must keep his +imagination active; his style must be not only lucid, but also must +arrest the reader; he must exercise perpetually a power of selection +which plays over innumerable details; he must, in the midst of such +occupations, preserve unity of design, as much as must the novelist or +the playwright; and yet with all this there is not a verb, an adjective +or a substantive which, if it does not repose upon established +evidence, will not mar the particular type of work on which he is +engaged. + +As an example of what I mean, consider two sentences: The first is +taken from the 432nd page of that exceedingly unequal publication, the +_Cambridge History of the French Revolution_; the second I have made up +on the spur of the moment; both deal with the Battle of Wattignies. The +“Cambridge History” version runs as follows:— + +On October 15 the relieving force, 50,000 strong, attacked the Austrian +covering force at Wattignies; the battle raged all that day and was +most furious on the right, in front of the village of Wattignies, which +was taken and lost three times; on the 17th the French expected another +general engagement but the enemy had drawn off. + +There are here five great positive errors in six lines. The French were +not 50,000 strong, the attack on the 15th was not on Wattignies, but on +Dourlers; Wattignies was not taken and lost three times; the fight of +the 15th was _least_ pressed on the right (harder on the left and +hardest in the centre) and no one—not the least recruit—expected Coburg +to come _back_ on the 17th. Why, he had crossed the Sambre at every +point the day before! As for negative errors, or errors of omission, +they are capital, and the chief is that the victory was won on the +second day, the 16th, of which no mention is made. + +Now contrast such a sentence with the following:— + +On October 15th the relieving force, 42,000 strong, attacked the +Austrian centre at Dourlers, and made demonstrations upon its wings; +the attack upon Dourlers (which village had been taken and lost three +times) having failed, upon the following day, October 16th, the extreme +left of the enemy’s position at Wattignies was attacked and carried; +the enemy thus outflanked was compelled to retreat, and Maubeuge was +relieved the same evening. + +In the first sentence (which bears the hall mark of the University) +every error that could possibly be made in so few lines has been made. +The numbers are wrong; the nature of the fighting is misstated; the +village in the centre is confused with that on the extreme right; the +critical second day is altogether omitted, and every portion of the +sentence, verb, adjective, and substantive, is either directly +inaccurate or indirectly conveys an inaccurate impression. The second +sentence, bald in style and uninteresting in presentation as the first, +has the merit of telling the truth. But—and here is the point—it would +be impossible to criticize the first sentence unless someone had read +up the battle, and to read up that battle one has to depend on five or +six documents, some unpublished (like much of Jourdan’s Memoirs), some +of them involving a visit to Maubeuge itself, some, like Pierrat’s +book, very difficult to obtain (for it is neither in the British Museum +nor in the Bodleian) some few the writings of contemporary +eyewitnesses, and yet themselves demonstrably inaccurate. All these +must be read and collated, and if possible the actual ground of the +battle visited, before the first simple inaccurate sentence can be +properly criticized or the second bald but accurate sentence framed. +None of these authorities can have been so much as heard of by the +official historian I have quoted. + +It would be redundant to press the point. Most readers know well enough +what labour the just writing of history involves, and how excellent a +type it is of that “making of a book” which art is, as I have said, +imperilled by apathy at the present day. + +Consider for a moment who were those that purchased historical works in +this country in the past. There were, first of all, the landed gentry. +In almost every great country-house you will find a good old library, +and that good old library you will discover to be, as a rule, most +valuable and most complete in what concerns the end of the eighteenth +and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. A very large proportion +of history, and history of the best sort, is to be found upon those +shelves. The standard dwindles, though it is fairly well maintained +during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Then—as a +rule—it abruptly comes to an end. One may take as a sort of bourne, the +two great books Macaulay’s _History_ and Kinglake’s, for an earlier and +a later limit. Most of these libraries contain Macaulay; some few +Kinglake; hardly one possesses later works of value. + +It may be urged in defence of the buyer that no later works of value +exist. Put so broadly, the statement is erroneous; but the truth which +it contains is in itself dependent upon the lack of public support for +good historical work. When there is a fortune for the man who writes in +accordance with whatever form of self-appreciation happens for the +moment to be popular, while a steady view and an accurate presentation +of the past can find no sale, then that steady view and that accurate +presentation cannot be pursued save by men who are wealthy, or by men +who are endowed, but even wealthy men will hesitate to write what they +know will not be read, and for history no one is endowed. + +Our Universities were framed for many purposes, of which the +cultivation of learning was but one; in that one field, however, a +particular form of learning was taken very seriously, and was pursued +with admirable industry; I mean an acquaintance with and an imitation +of the Latin and Greek Classics. + +It was a particular character of this form of learning that proficiency +in it would lead to undisputed honours. The scholar recognized the +superior scholar; the field of inquiry was by convention highly +limited; it had been thoroughly explored; discussion upon such results +as were doubtful did not involve a difference in general philosophy. + +With history it is otherwise. Whether such things have or have not +happened, and, above all, if they have happened, the _way_ in which +they have happened, is to our general judgment of contemporary men what +evidence is to a criminal trial. Facts won’t give way. If, therefore, +there are vested interests, moral or material, to be maintained, +history is, of all the sciences or arts, that one most likely to suffer +at the hands of those connected with such interests. Even where the +truth will be of advantage to those interests, they are afraid of it, +because the thorough discussion of it will involve the presentation of +views disadvantageous to privilege. + +Where, as is much more commonly the case (for vested interests, moral +or material, are unreasoning and selfish things), the truth would +certainly offend them, they are the more determined to prevent its +appearance. + +But of all vested interests none deal with such assured incomes, none +are so immune by influence and tradition as the Universities. + +Now, if the rich man has no temptation by way of popular fame, and the +poor man no opportunity for endowment, in any branch of letters, there +remains but a third form of support, and that is the support of the +buying public. And the public will not buy. + +I will suppose the case of a popular novelist, who in a few months +shall write, not an historical novel, but a piece of so-called history. +He shall call it, for instance, “England’s Heroes.” Before you tell me +his name, or what he has written, I can tell you here and now what he +will write on any number of points. He will call Hastings Senlac. In +the Battle of Hastings he will make out Harold to be the head of a +highly patriotic nation called the “Anglo-Saxons”; they shall be +desperately defending themselves against certain French-speaking +Scandinavians called Normans. He will deplore the defeat, but will say +it was all for the best. Magna Charta he will have signed at +Runnymede—probably he will have it drawn up there as well. He will +translate the most famous clause by the modern words “Judgment of his +peers” and “law of the land.” He will represent the Barons as having +behind them the voice of the whole nation—and so forth. When he comes +to Crécy he will make Edward III speak English. When he comes to +Agincourt he will leave his readers as ignorant as himself upon the +boundaries, numbers and power of the Burgundian faction. In the Civil +War Oliver Cromwell will be an honest and not very rich gentleman of +the middle-classes. The Parliamentary force will be that of the mass of +the people against a few gallant but wicked aristocrats who follow the +perfidious Charles. He will make no mention of the pay of the +Ironsides. James II will be driven out by a popular uprising, in which +the great Churchill will play an honourable and chivalric part. The +loss of the American Colonies will be deplored, and will be ascribed to +the folly of attempting to tax men of “Anglo-Saxon” blood, unless you +grant them representation. The Continental troops will be treated as +the descendants of Englishmen! The guns at Saratoga will be Colonial +guns; the incapacity of the Fleet will not be touched upon. Here again, +as in the case of the Battle of Hastings, all will be for the best, and +there will be a few touching words upon the passionate affection now +felt for Great Britain by the inhabitants of the United States. The +defensive genius of Wellington will be represented as that of a general +particularly great in the offensive. Talavera will be a victory. The +Spanish Auxiliaries in the Peninsula will be contemptible. No guns will +be abandoned before Coruña, but what are left at Coruña will be +mentioned and re-embarked. The character of Nelson will receive a +curious sort of glutinous praise; Emma Hamilton, not Naples, will be +the stain upon his name; the Battle of Trafalgar will prevent the +invasion of England. + +This is a lengthy but not unjust description of what this gentleman +would write; it is rubbish from beginning to end. It would sell, +because every word of it would foster in the reader the illusion that +the community of which he is a member is invincible under all +circumstances, that effort and self-denial and suffering are spared him +alone out of all mankind, and that a little pleasurable excitement, +preferably that to be obtained from his favourite game, is the chief +factor in military success. + +I have omitted Alfred. Alfred in such a book will be the “teller of +truth”—but he will not go to Mass. + +Given that the name is sufficiently well known, there is hardly any +limit to the sale of a book modelled upon these lines. Contrast with +its fate the fate of a book, written no matter how powerfully, that +should insist upon truths, no matter how valuable to the English people +at the present moment. These truths need by no means be unpleasant, +though at the present moment an unpleasant truth is undoubtedly more +valuable than a pleasant one. They could make as much or more for the +glory of the country; they could be at any rate of infinitely greater +service, but they would not be received, simply because they would +compel close attention and brain-work in the reader as well as in the +writer of them. An established groove would have to be abandoned; to +use a strong metaphor, the reader would have to get out of bed, and +that is what the modern reader will not do. Tell him that the men who +fought on either side at Hastings’ plain cared nothing for national but +everything for feudal allegiance; that _lex terrae_ means the local +custom of ordeal and not the “law of the land”; tell him that _judicium +parium_ means the right of a noble to be judged by nobles, and has +nothing to do with the jury system; tell him that Magna Charta was +certainly drawn up before the meeting at Runnymede; that not until the +Lancastrians did English kings speak English; that Oliver Cromwell owed +his position to the enormous wealth of the Williamses, of whom had he +not been a cadet, he would never have been known; tell him that the +whole force of the Parliament resided in the squires and that the Civil +Wars turned England into an oligarchy; tell him the exact truth about +the infamy of Churchill; tell him what proportion of Englishmen during +the American War were taxed without being represented; tell him what +proportion of Washington’s troops were of English blood; tell him any +one illuminating and true thing about the history of his country, and +the novelty will so offend him that a direct insult would have pleased +him better. + +What is true of history is true of nearly all the rest, and the upshot +of the whole matter is that there is not, either in private patronage +or in popular demand, a chance for history in modern England. + +You can have excellent literature in journalism, and it will be widely +read. I would say more—I would say that the better literature a +newspaper admits, the more widely will that paper be read, or at any +rate the greater will its influence be on modern Englishmen. But when +it comes to the kneaded and wrought matter of the true Book, neither +the public nor the centres of learning will have any of it, and the +last medium which might make it possible, patronage, has equally +disappeared, because the modern patron does not work in the daylight in +the full view of the nation and with its full approbation, and he is no +longer a public man (though he is richer than ever he was before). His +patronage, therefore, though it is still considerable, is expended in +satisfying his private demand. Private architects build him doubtful +castles, private collectors get him manuscripts and jewels, but +Letters, which are a public thing, he can no longer command. + +It might be asked, by way of conclusion, whether there is any remedy +for this state of things. There is none. Its prime cause resides in a +certain attitude of the national mind, and this kind of broadly held +philosophy is not changed save by slow preaching or external shock. As +long as modern England remains what we know it, and follows the lines +of change which we see it following, the Book will necessarily decline +more and more, and we must make up our minds to it. + +Of other evil tendencies of our time, one can say of some that they are +obviously mending, of others that such and such an applicable remedy +would mend them. Our public architecture is certainly getting better; +so is our painting. Our gross and increasing contempt of +self-government (to take quite another sphere) is curable by one or two +simple reforms in procedure, registration, the expenses of election, +and voting at the polls, which would restore the House of Commons to +life, and give it power to express English will. But a regard for, a +cultivation of, above all a sinking of wealth upon, English Letters is +past praying for. We must wait until the tide changes; we can do +nothing, and the waiting will be long. + + + + +José Maria de Heredia + + +The French have a phrase “la beauté du verbe” by which they would +express a something in the sound and in the arrangement of words which +supplements whatever mere thought those words were intended to express. +It is evident that no definition of this beauty can be given, but it is +also evident that without it letters would not exist. How it arises we +cannot explain, yet the process is familiar to us in everything we do +when we are attempting to fulfil an impulse towards whatever is good. +An integration not of many small things but of an infinite series of +infinitely small things build up the perfect gesture, the perfect line, +the perfect intonation, and the perfect phrase. So indeed are all +things significant built up: every tone of the voice, every arrangement +of landscape or of notes in music which awake us and reveal the things +beyond. But when one says that this is especially true of perfect +expression one means that sometimes, rarely, the integration achieves a +steadfast and sufficient formula. The mind is satisfied rather than +replete. It asks no more; and if it desires to enjoy further the +pleasure such completion has given it, it does not attempt to prolong +or to develop the pleasure under which it has leapt; it is content to +wait a while and to return, knowing well that it has here a treasure +laid up for ever. + +All this may be expressed in two words: the Classical Spirit. That is +Classic of which it is true that the enjoyment is sufficient when it is +terminated and that in the enjoyment of it an entity is revealed. + +When men propose to bequeath to their fellows work of so supreme a kind +it is to be noticed that they choose by instinct a certain material. + +It has been said that the material in which he works affects the +achievement of the artist: it is truer to say that it helps him. A man +designing a sculpture in marble knows very well what he is about to do. +A man attempting the exact and restrained rendering of tragedy upon the +stage does not choose the stage as one among many methods, he is drawn +to it: he needs it; the audience, the light, the evening, the very +slope of the boards, all minister to his efforts. And so a man +determined to produce the greatest things in verse takes up by nature +exact and thoughtful words and finds that their rhythm, their +combination, and their sound turn under his hand to something greater +than he himself at first intended; he becomes a creator, and his name +is linked with the name of a masterpiece. The material in which he has +worked is hard; the price he has paid is an exceeding effect; the +reward he has earned is permanence. + +José de Heredia was an artist of this kind. The mass of the verse he +produced, or rather published, was small. It might have been very +large. It is not (as a foolish modern affectation will sometimes +pretend) necessary to the endurance or even the excellence of work that +it should be the product of exceptional moments; nor is it even true +(as the wise Ancients believed) that great length of time must always +mature it. But the small volume of Heredia’s legacy to European letters +does argue this at least in the poet, that he passionately loved +perfection and that, finding himself able to achieve it (for perfection +can be achieved) but now and then, he chose only to be remembered by +the contentment which, now and then, his own genius had given him. + +He worked upon verse as men work upon the harder metals; all that he +did was chiselled very finely, then sawn to an exact configuration and +at last inlaid, for when he published his completed volume it is true +to say that every piece fitted in with the sound of one before and of +one after. He was careful in the heroic degree. + +His blood and descent are worthy of notice. He was a Spaniard, +inheriting from the first Conquerors of the New World, nor was it +remarkable to those who have received a proper enthusiasm for the +classical spirit that the energy and even the violence natural to such +a lineage should express themselves in the coldest and the most exalted +form when, for the second time, a member of the family attempted verse. +It is in the essence of that spirit that it alone can dare to be +disciplined. It never doubts the motive power that will impel it; it is +afraid, if anything, of an excess of power, and consciously imposes +upon itself the limits which give it form. + +Heredia in his person expressed the activity which impelled him, for he +was strong, brown, erect, a rapid walker, and a man whose voice was +perpetually modulated in resonant and powerful tones. In his last years +during his administration of the Library at the Arsenal this vitality +of his took on an aspect of good nature very charming and very +fruitful. His organization of the place was thorough, his knowledge of +the readers intimate. He refused the manuscripts of none, he advised, +laughed, and consoled. His criticism was sure. Several, notably Marcel +Prevost, were launched by his authority. The same deep security of +literary judgment which had permitted him to chastise and to perfect +his impeccable sonnets into their final form permitted him also to hold +up before his eyes, grasp, and judge the work of every other man. + +His frailty, as must always be the frailty of such men, was +fastidiousness. The same sensitive consciousness which is said to have +all but lost us the Aeneid, and which certainly all but lost us the +Apologia, dominated his otherwise vigorous soul. It is more than forty +years since his first verse, written just upon achieving his majority, +appeared in the old _Revue de Paris_ and in the _Revue des Deux +Mondes_. It was not till 1893 that he collected in one volume the +scattered sonnets of his youth and middle age: the collection won him +somewhat tardily his chair in the Academy. There is irony in the +reminiscence that the man he defeated in that election was Zola. + +All the great men who saluted his advent are dead. Théophile Gautier, +who first established his fame; Hugo, who addressed to him, perhaps, +that vigorous appeal in which strict labour is deified, and the medal +and the marble bust are shown to outlive the greatest glories, are +sometimes quoted as the last among the great French writers. + +The immediate future will show that the stream of French excellence in +this department, as in any other of human activity, is full, deep, and +steady. The work of Heredia will help to prove it. He was a Spaniard, +and a Colonial Spaniard. No other nation, perhaps, except the modern +French, so inherit the romantic appetite of the later Roman Empire as +to be able to mould and absorb every exterior element of excellence. It +is remarkable that at the same moment Paris contemplated the funeral of +the Italian de Brazza and the death of the Cuban Heredia. It is +probable that those of us who are still young will live to see either +name at the head of a new tradition. Heredia proved it possible not so +much to imitate as to recapture the secure tradition of an older time. +Perhaps the truest generalization that can be made with regard to the +French people is to say that they especially in Western Europe (whose +quality it is ever to transform itself but never to die) discover new +springs of vitality after every period of defeat and aridity which they +are compelled to cross. Heredia will prove in the near future a capital +example of this power. He will increase silently in reputation until +we, in old age, shall be surprised to find our sons and grandsons +taking him for granted and speaking of him as one speaks of the +Majores, of the permanent lights of poetry. + + + + +Normandy and the Normans + + +There is no understanding a country unless one gets to know the nature +of its sub-units. In some way not easy to comprehend, impossible to +define, and yet very manifest, each of the great national organisms of +which Christendom is built up is itself a body of many regions whose +differences and interaction endow it with a corporate life. No one +could understand the past of England who did not grasp the local genius +of the counties—Lancashire, cut off eastward by the Pennines, southward +by the belt of marsh, with no natural entry save by the gate of +Stockport; Sussex, which was and is a bishopric and a kingdom; Kent, +Devon, the East Anglian meres. No one could (or does) understand modern +England who does not see its sub-units to have become by now the great +industrial towns, or who fails to seize the spirit of each group of +such towns—with London lying isolated in the south, a negative to the +rest. + +France is built of such sub-units: it is the peculiarity of French +development that these are not small territories mainly of an average +extent with government answerable in a long day’s ride to one centre, +such as most English counties are; nor city States such as form the +piles upon which the structure of Italy has been raised; nor kingdoms +such as coalesced to reform the Spanish people; but _provinces_, +differing greatly in area, from little plains enclosed, like the +Rousillon, to great stretches of landscape succeeding landscape like +the Bourbonnais or the Périgord. + +The real continuity with an immemorial past which inspires all Gallic +things is discoverable in this arrangement of Gaul. At the first glance +one might imagine a French province to be a chance growth of the feudal +ties and of the Middle Ages. A further effort of scholarship will prove +it essentially Roman. An intimate acquaintance with its customs and +with the site of its strongholds, coupled with a comparison of the most +recent and most fruitful hypotheses of historians, will convince you +that it is earlier than the Roman conquest; it is tribal, or the home +of a group of cognate tribes, and its roots are lost in prehistory. So +it is with Normandy. + +This vast territory—larger (I think) than all North England from the +Humber to Cheviot and from Chester to the Solway—has never formed a +nation. It is typical of the national idea in France that Normandy +should have “held” of the political centre of the country, probably +since the first Gallic confederations were formed, certainly since the +organization of the Empire. It is equally typical of the local life of +a French province that, thus dependent, Normandy should have strictly +preserved its manner and its spirit, and should have readily made war +upon the Crown and resisted, as it still resists and will perhaps for +ever, the centralizing forces of the national temper. + +If you will travel day after day, and afoot, westward across the length +of Normandy, you will have, if you are a good walker, a fortnight’s +task ahead of you; even if you are walking for a wager, a week’s. It is +the best way in which to possess a knowledge of that great land, and my +advice would be to come in from the Picards over the bridge of Aumale +across the little River Bresle (which is the boundary of Normandy to +the east), and to go out by way of Pontorson, there crossing into +Brittany over the little River Couesnon, which is the boundary of +Normandy upon the west and beyond which lie the Bretons. In this way +will you be best acquainted with the sharp differentiation of the +French provinces passing into Normandy from Picardy, brick-built, +horse-breeding, and slow, passing out of Normandy into the desolation +and dreams of Brittany, and having known between the one and the other +the chalk streams, the day-long beechen forests, the valley pastures, +and the flamboyant churches of the Normans. You will do well to go by +Neufchâtel, where the cheese is made, and by Rouen, then by Lisieux to +Falaise, where the Conqueror was born, and thence by Vive to Avranches +and so to the Breton border, taking care to choose the forests between +one town and another for your road, since these many and deep +woods—much wider than any we know in England—are in great part the soul +of the country. + +By this itinerary you will not have taken all you should into view; you +will not have touched the coast nor seen how Normandy is based upon the +sea, and you will not have known the Cotentin, which is a little State +of its own and is the quadrilateral which Normandy thrusts forth into +the Channel. If you have the leisure, therefore, return by the north. +Pass through Coutances and Valognes to Cherbourg, thence through Caen +and Bayeux to the crossing of Seine at Honfleur, and then on by the +chalk uplands and edges of the cliffs till you reach Eu upon the Bresle +again. In such a double journey the character of the whole will be +revealed, and if you have studied the past of the place before starting +you will find your journey full. Avranches, Coutances, Lisieux, Bayeux, +Rouen are not chance sites. Their great churches mark the bishoprics; +the bishoprics in turn were the administrative centres of Rome, and +Rome chose them because they were the strongholds or the sacred cities +each of a Gallic tribe. The wealth of the valleys permitted everywhere +that astonishing richness of detail which marks the stonework in +village after village; the connexion with England, especially the last +connexion under Henry V, explains the innumerable churches, splendid +even in hamlets as are our own. The Bresle and the Couesnon, those +little streams, are boundaries not of these last few centuries, but of +a time beyond view; the Romans found them so. Diocletian made them the +limits of the “Second Lyonesse,” “Lugdunensis Secunda,” which was the +last Roman name of the province. + +Here and there, near the west especially, you will discover names which +recall the chief adventure of Normandy, the accident which baptized it +with its Christian name, the landing of the Scandinavian pirates, the +thousandth anniversary of which is now being celebrated. They came—we +cannot tell in what numbers, some thousands—and harried the land. The +old policy of the Empire, the policy already seven hundred years old, +was had recourse to; the barbarians were granted settlement, +inheritance, marriage, and partnership with the Lords of the Villae; +their chief was permitted to hold local government, to tax and to levy +men as the administrator of the whole province; but there followed +something which wherever else the experiment had been tried had not +followed: something of a new race arose. In Burgundy, in the northeast, +in Visigothic Aquitaine the slight admixture of foreign blood had not +changed the people, it was absorbed; the slight admixture of +Scandinavian blood, coming so much later, in a time so degraded in +government and therefore so open to natural influence, did change the +Gallo-Romans of the Second Lyonesse. Few as the newcomers may have been +in number, the new element transformed the mass, and when a century had +permitted the union to work and settle, the great soldiers who founded +us appeared. The Norman lords ordered, surveyed, codified, and ruled. +They let Europe into England, they organized Sicily, they confirmed the +New Papacy, they were the framework of the Crusades. + +The phenomenon was brief. It lasted little more than a hundred years, +but it transformed Europe and launched the Middle Ages. When it had +passed, Normandy stood confirmed for centuries (and is still confirmed) +in a character of its own. No longer adventurous but mercantile, apt, +of a resisting courage, sober in thought, leaning upon tradition, not +imperially but domestically strong: the country of Corneille and of +Malesherbes, a reflection of that spirit in letters; the conservative +body of to-day—for in our generation that is the mark of Normandy—and, +in arms, the recruitment to which Napoleon addressed his short and +famous order that “the Normans that day should do their duty.” + + + + +The Old Things + + +Those who travel about England for their pleasure, or, for that matter, +about any part of Western Europe, rightly associate with such travel +the pleasure of history; for history adds to a man, giving him, as it +were, a great memory of things—like a human memory, but stretched over +a far longer space than that of one human life. It makes him, I do not +say wise and great, but certainly in communion with wisdom and +greatness. + +It adds also to the soil he treads, for to this it adds meaning. How +good it is when you come out of Tewkesbury by the Cheltenham road to +look upon those fields to the left and know that they are not only +pleasant meadows, but also the place in which a great battle of the +mediaeval monarchy was decided, or as you stand by that ferry, which is +not known enough to Englishmen (for it is one of the most beautiful +things in England), and look back and see Tewkesbury tower, framed +between tall trees over the level of the Severn, to see also the Abbey +buildings in your eye of the mind—a great mass of similar stone with +solid Norman walls, stretching on hugely to the right of the Minster. + +All this historical sense and the desire to marry History with Travel +is very fruitful and nourishing, but there is another interest, allied +to it, which is very nearly neglected, and which is yet in a way more +fascinating and more full of meaning. This interest is the interest in +such things as lie behind recorded history, and have survived into our +own times. For underneath the general life of Europe, with its splendid +epic of great Rome turned Christian, crusading, discovering, furnishing +the springs of the Renaissance, and flowering at last materially into +this stupendous knowledge of today, the knowledge of all the Arts, the +power to construct and to do—underneath all that is the foundation on +which Europe is built, the stem from which Europe springs; and that +stem is far, far older than any recorded history, and far, far more +vital than any of the phenomena which recorded history presents. + +Recorded history for this island and for Northern France and for the +Rhine Valley is a matter of two thousand years; for the Western +Mediterranean of three; but the things of which I speak are to be +reckoned in tens of thousands of years. Their interest does not lie +only nor even chiefly in things that have disappeared. It is indeed a +great pleasure to rummage in the earth and find polished stones wrought +by men who came so many centuries before us, and of whose blood we +certainly are; and it is a great pleasure to find, or to guess that we +find, under Canterbury the piles of a lake or marsh dwelling, proving +that Canterbury has been there from all time; and that the apparently +defenceless Valley City was once chosen as an impregnable site, when +the water-meadows of the Stour were impassable as marsh, or with +difficulty passable as a shallow lagoon. And it is delightful to stand +on the earthwork a few miles west and to say to oneself (as one can say +with a fair certitude), “Here was the British camp defending the +south-east; here the tenth legion charged.” All these are pleasant, but +more pleasant, I think, to follow the thing where it actually survives. + +Consider the track-ways, for instance. How rich is England in these! No +other part of Europe will afford the traveller so permanent and so +fascinating a problem. Elsewhere Rome hardened and straightened every +barbaric trail until the original line and level disappeared; but in +this distant province of Britain she could only afford just so much +energy as made them a foothold for her soldiery; and all over England +you can go, if you choose, foot by foot, along the ancient roads that +were made by the men of your blood before they had heard of brick or of +stone or of iron or of written laws. + +I wonder that more men do not set out to follow, let us say, the +Fosse-Way. There it runs right across Western England from the +south-west to the north-east in a line direct yet sinuous, characters +which are the very essence of a savage trail. It is a modern road for +many miles, and you are tramping, let us say, along the Cotswold on a +hard metalled modern English highway, with milestones and notices from +the County Council telling you that the culverts will not bear a +steam-engine, if so be you were to travel on one. Then suddenly this +road comes up against a cross-road and apparently ceases, making what +map draughtsmen call a “T”; but right in the same line you see a gate, +and beyond it a farm lane, and so you follow. You come to a spinney +where a ride has been cut through by the woodreeve, and it is all in +the same line. The Fosse-Way turns into a little path, but you are +still on it; it curves over a marshy brook-valley, picking out the firm +land, and as you go you see old stones put there heaven knows how many +(or how few) generations ago—or perhaps yesterday, for the tradition +remains, and the country-folk strengthen their wet lands as they have +strengthened them all these thousands of years; you climb up out of +that depression, you get you over a stile, and there you are again upon +a lane. You follow that lane, and once more it stops dead. This time +there is a field before you. No right of way, no trace of a path, +nothing but grass rounded into those parallel ridges which mark the +modern decay of the corn lands and pasture—alas!—taking the place of +ploughing. Now your pleasure comes in casting about for the trail; you +look back along the line of the Way; you look forward in the same line +till you find some indication, a boundary between two parishes, perhaps +upon your map, or two or three quarries set together, or some other +sign, and very soon you have picked up the line again. + +So you go on mile after mile, and as you tread that line you have in +the horizons that you see, in the very nature and feel of the soil +beneath your feet, in the skies of England above you, the ancient +purpose and soul of this Kingdom. Up this same line went the Clans +marching when they were called Northward to the host; and up this went +slow, creaking wagons with the lead of the Mendips or the tin of +Cornwall or the gold of Wales. + +And it is still there; it is still used from place to place as a high +road, it still lives in modern England. There are some of its peers, as +for instance the Ermine Street, far more continuous, and affording +problems more rarely; others like the ridgeway of the Berkshire Downs, +which Rome hardly touched, and of which the last two thousand years +has, therefore, made hardly anything; you may spend a delightful day +piecing out exactly where it crossed the Thames, making your guess at +it, and wondering as you sit there by Streatley Vicarage whether those +islands did not form a natural weir below which lay the ford. + +The roads are the most obvious things. There are many more; for +instance, thatch. The same laying of the straw in the same manner, with +the same art, has continued, we may be certain, from a time long before +the beginning of history. See how in the Fen Land they thatch with +reeds, and how upon the Chalk Downs with straw from the Lowlands. I +remember once being told of a record in a manor, which held of the +Church and which lay upon the southern slope of the Downs, that so much +was entered for “straw from the Lowlands”: then, years afterwards, when +I had to thatch a Bethlehem in an orchard underneath tall elms—a +pleasant place to write in, with the noise of bees in the air—the man +who came to thatch said to me: “We must have straw from the Lowlands; +this upland straw is no good for thatching.” Immediately when I heard +him say this there was added to me ten thousand years. And I know +another place in England, far distant from this, where a man said to me +that if I wished to cross in a winter mist, as I had determined to do, +Cross-Fell, that great summit of the Pennines, I must watch the drift +of the snow, for there was no other guide to one’s direction in such +weather. And I remember another man in a little boat in the North Sea, +as we came towards the Foreland, talking to me of the two tides, and +telling me how if one caught the tide all the way up to Long Nose and +then went round it on the end of the flood, one caught a new tide up +London river, and so made two tides in one day. He spoke with the same +pleasure that silly men show when they talk about an accumulation of +money. He felt wealthy and proud from the knowledge, for by this +knowledge he had two tides in one day. Now knowledge of this sort is +older than ten thousand years; and so is the knowledge of how birds +fly, and of how they call, and of how the weather changes with the +moon. + +Very many things a man might add to the list that I am making. Dew-pans +are older than the language or the religion; and the finding of water +with a stick; and the catching of that smooth animal, the mole; and the +building of flints into mortar, which if one does it in the old way (as +you may see at Pevensey) the work lasts for ever, but if you do it in +any new way it does not last ten years; then there is the knowledge of +planting during the crescent part of the month, but not before the new +moon shows; and there is the influence of the moon on cider, and to a +less extent upon the brewing of ale; and talking of ale, the knowledge +of how ale should be drawn from the brewing just when a man can see his +face without mist upon the surface of the hot brew. And there is the +knowledge of how to bank rivers, which is called “throwing the rives” +in the South, but in the Fen Land by some other name; and how to bank +them so that they do not silt, but scour themselves. There are these +things and a thousand others. All are immemorial. + + + + +The Battle of Hastings. Related in the Manner of Oxford and Dedicated +to that University + + +So careless were the French commanders (or more properly the French +commander, for the rest were cowed by the bullying swagger of William) +that the night, which should have been devoted to some sort of +reconnaissance, if not of a preparation of the ground, was devoted to +nothing more practical than the religious exercises peculiar to +foreigners. + +Their army, as we have seen, was not drawn from any one land, but it +was in the majority composed of Normans and Bretons; we can therefore +understand the extravagant superstition which must bear the blame for +what followed. + +Meanwhile, upon the heights above, the English host calmly prepared for +battle. Fires were lit each in its appointed place, and at these meat +was cooked under the stern but kindly eyes of the sergeant-majors. +These also distributed at an appointed price liquor, of which the +British soldier is never willing to be deprived, and as the hours +advanced towards morning, the songs in which our adventurous race has +ever delighted rose from the heights above the Brede. + +The morning was misty, as is often the case over damp and marshy lands +in the month of October, but the inclemency of the weather, or, to +speak more accurately, the superfluous moisture precipitated from an +already saturated atmosphere, was of no effect upon those silent and +tenacious troops of Harold. It was far other with the so-called +“Norman” host, who were full of forebodings—only too amply to be +justified—of the fate that lay before them upon the morrow. + +It is curious to contrast the quiet skill and sagacity which marked the +disposition of Harold with the almost childish simplicity of William’s +plan—if plan it may be called. + +The Saxon hosts were drawn along the ridge in a position chosen with +masterly skill. It afforded (as may still be seen) no dead ground for +an attacking force and little cover.[1] Their left was arranged _en +potence_, their right was drawn up in echelon. The centre followed the +plan usual at that time, reposing upon the wings to its right and left +and extended. The reserves were, of course, posted behind. Cavalry, as +at Omdurman, played but a slight role in this typically national action +and such mounted troops as were present seem to have been intermixed +with the line in the fashion later known, in the jargon of the service, +as “The Beggar’s Quadrille.” The Brigade of Guards is not mentioned in +any record that I can discover, but was probably set by reversed +companies in a square perpendicular to the main ravine and a little in +front of the salient angle which appears upon the map at the point +marked A. + +The terrain can be clearly determined at the present day in spite of +the changes that have taken place in the intervening years. It is a +fairly steep slope of hemispherical contour interspersed with low +bushes; the summit (upon which now stands our lovely English village of +Battle and the residence of one of those cultured and leisured men who +form the framework of our commonwealth) was then but a wild heath. + +Harold himself could be distinguished in the centre of the line by his +handsome features, restrained deportment, and unfailing gentlemanly +good sense as he spoke to staff officer, orderly, and even groom with +indefatigable skill. + +In spite of the determination observable from a great distance upon the +faces of the tall Saxon line, William with characteristic lack of +balance opened the action by ordering a charge uphill with cavalry +alone; it was a piece of tactics absurdly incongruous and one even he +would never have attempted had he understood the foe that was before +him, or the fate to which that foe had doomed him. + +The lesson dealt him was as immediate as it was severe. The foreigners +were thrust headlong down the hill, and a private letter tells us how +the Men of Kent in particular buffeted the Normans about “as though +they were boys.” But even in the heat of this initial success Harold +had the self-command to order the retirement upon the main position: +and with troops such as his the order was equivalent to its execution. + +This rude blow would have sufficed for any commander less vain than +William, but he seems to have lost all judgment in a fit of personal +vanity and to have ordered a second charge which could not but prove as +futile as the first, delivered as it was up a perfect glacis +strengthened by epaulements, reverses and countersunk galvon work and +one whose natural strength was heightened by the stockade which the +indomitable energy of Harold’s troops had perfected in the early hours +of the morning. Many of the stakes in this, the reader may note with +pardonable pride, were of English oak—sharpened at the tip. + +William’s plan (if plan it may be called) was, as we have seen, +necessarily futile and was foredoomed to failure. But Harold had no +intention to let the action bear no more fruit than a tactical victory +upon this particular field. The brain that had designed the exact +synchrony of Stamford Bridge and the famous march southward from the +Humber was of that sort which is only found once in many centuries of +the history of war and which is (it may be said without boasting) +peculiar to this island. + +Another general would have awaited the second charge with its useless +butchery and still more useless contest for the barren name of victory. +Not so Harold. Those commanding, cold grey eyes of his swept the line +in a comprehensive glance, and though no written record of the detail +remains, he must know little of the character of the man who does not +understand that from Harold certainly proceeded the order for what +followed. + +The forces at the centre, which he commanded in person, deftly withdrew +before the futile gallop of William’s cavalry, leaving, with that +coolness which has ever distinguished our troops, the laggards to their +fate. At the same moment, and with marvellous precision, the left and +right were withdrawn from the plateau rapidly and as by magic, and the +old-fashioned tactics of mere impact (which William of Normandy seems +seriously to have relied on!) were spent and wasted upon the now +evacuated summit of the hill. + +What followed is famous in history. + +The cohesion of the Saxon force and the exactitude and coolness with +which its great operation was performed is of good augury for the +future of our country. Though it was now thick night, by no set road +and with no cumbersome machinery of train and rear-guard, the whole of +the vast assembly masked itself behind the woodlands of the Weald. + +The Norman horsemen, bewildered and fatigued, gazed on the many that +had fallen in defence of the masking position and wondered whether such +novel happenings were victory or no, but the army whose concentration +upon the Thames it was William’s whole object to prevent, was already +miles northward, each unit proceeding by exactly co-ordinated routes +towards London. + +There is perhaps no more difficult task set before soldiers than the +quiet execution of such a manoeuvre after the heat of a heavy action, +and none have performed it more magnificently than the veteran troop of +Harold. + +When (luckily) all the orders had been finally distributed a great +tragedy marred the completeness of the day. + +Just before the execution of this masterpiece of strategy, and as the +autumn sun was sinking, the inevitable price which war demands of all +its darlings was paid. + +Harold himself, the artist of the great victory, fell. But we have no +reason to believe that his loss retarded the retrograding movement in +any degree. Men who create as Harold created have not their creations +spoilt by death. + + +The shameful history of the close of the campaign is familiar to every +schoolboy, and the military historian must be pardoned if he deals with +a purely civilian blunder in a few brief words. + +Parliament interfered—as it always does—with what should have been a +matter for soldiers alone. Intrigues, bribery, or worse (with which the +military historian has no concern) ruined what had been, in the field, +one of the principal achievements of the Saxon arms. And William, who +could not count to hold his own against regular forces and who was +astonished to find himself free to retreat precipitately on Dover, was +still more astonished to find himself accepted a few weeks later after +an aimless march to the west and north by the politicians—or worse—at +Berkhampstead. He and England were equally astounded to find that a +broken and defeated invader could actually be accepted by the +intriguers at Westminster and crowned King of England as the price of a +secret bargain. + +Such was the fruit of as great and successful an effort as ever Saxon +soldier made: the Battle of Senlac: for such—as I am now free to +reveal—was the true name of the field of action. + +The ineptitude or avarice of politicians had undone the work of +soldiers, and it is no wonder that the last of Harold’s veterans, who +retired in disgust to impregnable fortresses in Ely, Arthur’s Seat, and +Pudsey, are recorded to have gnashed their teeth and shed tears of +indignation at the dispatches from the metropolis. At Crécy they were +to be avenged. + + + + +The Roman Roads in Picardy + + +If a man were asked where he would find upon the map the sharpest +impress of Rome and of the memories of Rome, and where he would most +easily discover in a few days on foot the foundations upon which our +civilization still rests, he might, in proportion to his knowledge of +history and of Europe, be puzzled to reply. He might say that a week +along the wall from Tyne to Solway would be the answer; or a week in +the great Roman cities of Provence with their triumphal arches and +their vast arenas and their Roman stone cropping out everywhere: in old +quays, in ruined bridges, in the very pavement of the streets they use +to-day, and in the columns of their living churches. + +Now I was surprised to find myself after many years of dabbling in such +things, furnishing myself the answer in quite a different place. It was +in Picardy during the late manoeuvres of the French Army that, in the +intervals of watching those great buzzing flies, the aeroplanes, and in +the intervals of long tramps after the regiments or of watching the +massed guns, the necessity for perpetually consulting the map brought +home to me for the first time this truth—that Picardy is the +province—or to be more accurate, Picardy with its marches in the Île de +France, the edge of Normandy and the edge of Flanders—which retains +to-day the most vivid impress of Rome. For though the great buildings +are lacking, and the Roman work, which must here have been mainly of +brick, has crumbled, and though I can remember nothing upstanding and +patently of the Empire between the gate of Rheims and the frontier of +Artois, yet one feature—the Roman road—is here so evident, so multiple, +and so enduring that it makes up for all the rest. + +One discovers the old roads upon the map, one after the other, with a +sort of surprise. The scheme develops before one as one looks, and +always when one thinks one has completed the web another and yet +another straight arrow of a line reveals itself across the page. + +The map is a sort of palimpsest. A mass of fine modern roads, a whole +red blur of lanes and local ways, the big, rare black lines of the +railway—these are the recent writing, as it were; but underneath the +whole, more and more apparent and in greater and greater numbers as one +learns to discover them, are the strict, taut lines which Rome +stretched over all those plains. + +There is something most fascinating in noting them, and discovering +them one after the other. + +For they need discovering. No one of them is still in complete use. The +greater part must be pieced together from lengths of lanes which turn +into broad roads, and then suddenly sink again into footpaths, rights +of way, or green forest rides. + +Often, as with our rarer Roman roads in England, all trace of the thing +disappears under the plough or in the soft crossings of the river +valleys; one marks them by the straightness of their alignment, by the +place names which lie upon them (the repeated name Estrée, for +instance, which is like the place name “street” upon the Roman roads of +England); by the recovery of them after a gap; by the discoveries which +local archaeology has made. + +Different men have different pastimes, and I dare say that most of +those who read this will wonder that such a search should be a pastime +for any man, but I confess it is a pastime for me. To discover these +things, to recreate them, to dig out on foot the base upon which two +thousand years of history repose, is the most fascinating kind of +travel. + +And then, the number of them! You may take an oblong of country with +Maubeuge at one corner, Pontoise at another, Yvetot and some frontier +town such as Fumes for the other two corners, and in that stretch of +country a hundred and fifty miles by perhaps two hundred, you can build +up a scheme of Roman ways almost as complete as the scheme of the great +roads to-day. + +That one which most immediately strikes the eye is the great line which +darts upon Rouen from Paris. + +Twice broken at the crossing of the river valleys, and lost altogether +in the last twelve miles before the capital of Normandy, it still +stands on the modern map a great modern road with every aspect of +purpose and of intention in its going. + +From Amiens again they radiate out, these roads, some, like the way to +Cambray, in use every mile; some, like the old marching road to the +sea, to the Portus Itius, to Boulogne, a mere lane often wholly lost +and never used as a great modern road. This was the way along which the +French feudal cavalry trailed to the disaster of Crécy, and just beyond +Crécy it goes and loses itself in that exasperating but fascinating +manner which is the whole charm of Roman roads wherever the hunter +finds them. You may lay a ruler along this old forgotten track, all the +way past Domqueur, Novelle (which is called Novelle-en-Chaussée, that +is Novelle on the paved road), on past Estrée (where from the height +you overlook the battlefield of Crécy), and that ruler so lying on your +map points right at Boulogne Harbour, thirty odd miles away—and in all +those thirty odd remaining miles I could not find another yard of it. +But what an interest! What a hobby to develop! There is nothing like it +in all the kinds of hunting that have ever been invented for filling up +the whole of the mind. True, you will get no sauce of danger, but, on +the other hand, you will hunt for weeks and weeks, and you will come +back year after year and go on with your hunting, and sometimes you +actually find—which is more than can be said for hunting some animals +in the Weald. + +How was it lost, this great main road of Europe, this marching road of +the legions, linking up Gaul and Britain, the way that Hadrian went, +and the way down which the usurper Constantine III must have come +during that short adventure of his which lends such a romance to the +end of the Empire? One cannot conceive why it should have disappeared. +It is a sunken way down the hillside across the light railway which +serves Crécy, it gets vaguer and vaguer, for all the world like those +ridges upon the chalk that mark the Roman roads in England, and then it +is gone. It leaves you pointing, I say, at that distant harbour, thirty +odd miles off, but over all those miles it has vanished. The ghost of +the legends cannot march along it any more. In one place you find a few +yards of it about three miles south and east of Montreuil. It may be +that the little lane leading into Estrée shows where it crossed the +valley of the Cauche, but it is all guesswork, and therefore very +proper to the huntsman. + +Then there is that unbroken line by which St. Martin came, I think, +when he rode into Amiens, and at the gate of the town cut his cloak in +two to cover the beggar. It drives across country for Roye and on to +Noyon, the old centre of the Kings. It is a great modern road all the +way, and it stretches before you mile after mile after mile, until +suddenly, without explanation and for no reason, it ends sharply, like +the life of a man. It ends on the slopes of the hill called Choisy, at +the edge of the wood which is there. And seek as you will, you will +never find it again. + +From that road also, near Amiens, branches out another, whose object +was St. Quentin, first as a great high road, lost in the valley of the +Somme, a lesser road again, still in one strict alignment, it reaches +on to within a mile of Vermand, and there it stops dead. I do not think +that between Vermand and St. Quentin you will find it. Go out +north-westward from Vermand and walk perhaps five miles, or seven: +there is no trace of a road, only the rare country lanes winding in and +out, and the open plough of the rolling land. But continue by your +compass so and you will come (suddenly again and with no apparent +reason for its abrupt origin) upon the dead straight line that ran from +the capital of the Nervii, three days’ march and more, and pointing all +the time straight at Vermand. + +And so it is throughout the province and its neighbourhood. Here and +there, as at Bavai, a great capital has decayed. Here and there (but +more rarely), a town wholly new has sprung up since the Romans, but the +plan of the country is the same as that which they laid down, and the +roads as you discover them, mark it out and establish it. The armies +that you see marching to-day in their manoeuvres follow for half a +morning the line which was taken by the Legions. + + + + +The Reward of Letters + + +It has often been remarked that while all countries in the world +possess some sort of literature, as Iceland her Sagas, England her +daily papers, France her prose writers and dramatists, and even Prussia +her railway guides, one nation and one alone, the Empire of Monomotopa, +is utterly innocent of this embellishment or frill. + +No traveller records the existence of any Monomotopan quill-driver; no +modern visitor to that delightful island has come across a +_littérateur_ whether in the worse or in the best hotels; and such +reading as the inhabitants enjoy is entirely confined to works imported +by large steamers from the neighbouring Antarctic Continent. + +The causes of this singular and happy state of affairs were unknown +(since the common histories did not mention them) until the recent +discovery by Mr. Paley, the chief authority upon Monomotopan hieratic +script, of a very ancient inscription which clearly sets forth the +whole business. + +It seems that an Emperor of Monomotopa, whose date can be accurately +fixed by internal evidence to lie after the universal deluge and before +the building of the Pyramid of Cheops, was, upon his accession to the +throne, particularly concerned with the just repartition of taxes among +his beloved subjects. + +It would seem (if we are to trust the inscription) that in a past still +more remote the taxes were so light that even the richest men would +meet them promptly and without complaining, but this was at a period +when the enemies of Monomotopa were at once distant and actively +engaged in quarrelling among themselves. With sickening treachery these +distant rival nations had determined to produce wealth and to live in +amity, so that it was incumbent upon the Monomotopans not only to build +ships, but actually to provide an army, and at last (what broke the +camel’s back) to establish fortifications of a very useless but +expensive sort upon a dozen points of their Imperial coast. + +Under the increasing strain the old fiscal system broke down. The poor +were clearly embarrassed, as might be seen in their emaciated visages +and from the terrible condition of their boots. The rich had reached +the point after which it was inconvenient to them to pay any more. The +middle classes were spending the greater part of their time in devising +methods by which the exorbitant and intempestive demands of the +collectors could be either evaded or, more rarely, complied with. In a +word, a new and juster system of taxation was an imperative need, and +the Emperor, who had just ascended the throne at the age of eighteen, +and whom a sort of greenness had preserved from the iniquities of this +world, was determined to effect the great reform. + +With the advice of his Ministers (all of whom had had considerable +experience in the handling of money), the Emperor at last determined +that each man and woman should pay to the State one-tenth and no more +of the wealth which he or she produced; those who produced nothing it +was but common justice and reason to exempt, and the effect of this +tardy act of justice upon the very rich was observed in the sudden +increase of the death-rate from all those diseases that are the +peculiar product of luxury and evil living. Paupers also, the +unemployed, cripples, imbeciles, deaf mutes, and the clergy escaped +under this beneficent and equable statute, and we may sum up the whole +policy by saying that never was a law acclaimed with so much happy +bewilderment nor subject to less expressed criticism than this. + +It was, moreover, easy to estimate in this new fashion the total +revenue of the State, since its produce had been accurately set down by +statisticians of the utmost eminence, and one of these diverse +documents had been taken for the basis of the new fiscal regime. + +In practice also the collection was easy. Overseers would attend the +harvest with large carts, prong the tenth turnip, hoick up the tenth +sheaf of wheat, bucket out the tenth gallon of ale, and so forth. In +the markets every tenth animal was removed by Imperial officers, every +tenth newspaper was impounded as it left the press, and every tenth +drink about to be consumed in the hostelries of the Empire was, after a +simulacrum of proffering it, suddenly removed by the waiter and poured +into a receptacle, the keys of which were very jealously guarded. + +It was the same with the liberal professions: of the fee received by a +barrister in the Criminal Courts a tenth was regularly demanded at the +door when the verdict had been given and the prisoner whom he had +defended passed out to execution. The tenth knock-out in the prize ring +received by the professional pugilist was followed by the immediate +sequestration of his fee for that particular encounter, and the tenth +aria vibrating from the lips of a prima donna was either compounded for +at a certain rate or taken in kind by the official who attended at +every performance of grand opera. + +One form of wealth alone puzzled the beneficent monarch and his +Napoleonic advisers, and this was the production (for it then existed) +of literary matter. + +At first this seemed as simple to tax as any one of the other numerous +activities upon which the Emperor’s loyal and loving subjects were +engaged. A brief examination of the customs of the trade, conducted by +an army of officials who penetrated into the very dens and attics in +which Letters are evolved, reported that the method of payment was by +the measurement of a number of words. + +“It is, your Majesty,” wrote the permanent official of the department +in his minute, “the practice of those who charitably employ this sort +of person to pay them in classes by the thousand words; thus one man +gets one sequin a thousand, another two byzants, a third as much as a +ducat, while some who have singularly attracted the notice of the +public can command ten, twenty, nay forty scutcheons, and in some very +exceptional cases a thousand words command one of those beautiful +pieces of stiff paper which your Majesty in his bountiful provision +tenders to his dutiful subjects for acceptance as metal under diverse +penalties. The just taxation of these fellows can therefore be easily +achieved if your Majesty, in the exercise of his almost superhuman +wisdom, will but add a schedule to the Finance Act in which there shall +be set down fifteen or twenty classes of writers, with their price per +thousand words, and a compulsory registration of each class, enforced +by the rude hand of the police.” + +The Emperor of Monomotopa immediately nominated a Royal Commission +(unpaid), among whose sons, nephews, and private friends the salaried +posts connected with the work were distributed. This Commission +reported by a majority of one ere two years had elapsed. The schedule +was designed, and such _littérateurs_ as had not in the interval fled +the country were registered, while a further enactment strictly +forbidding their employers to make payment upon any other system +completed the scheme. + +But, alas! so full of low cunning and dirty dodges is this kind of man +(I mean what we call authors) that very soon after the promulgation of +the new law a marked deterioration in the quality of Monomotopan +letters was apparent upon every side! + +The citizen opening his morning paper would be astonished to find the +leading article consist of nothing more original than a portion of the +sacred Scriptures. A novel bought to ease the tedium of a journey would +consist of long catalogues for the most part, and when it came to +descriptions of scenery would fall into the most minute and detailed +category of every conceivable feature of the landscape. Some even took +advantage of the new regulation so far as to repeat one single word an +interminable number of times, while it was remarked with shame by the +Ministers of Religion that the morals of their literary friends +permitted them only to use words of one syllable, and those of the +shortest kind. And this they said was the only true and original +Monomotopan dialect. + +Such was the public inconvenience that next year a sharper and much +more drastic law was passed, by which it was laid down that every +literary composition should make sense within the meaning of the Act, +and should be original so far as the reading of the judge appointed for +the trial of the case extended. But though after the first few +executions this law was generally observed, the nasty fellows affected +by it managed to evade it in spirit, for by the use of obscure terms, +of words drawn from dead languages, and of bold metaphor transferred +from one art to another, they would deliberately invite prosecution, +and then in the witness-box make fools of those plain men, the judge +and jury, by showing that this apparently meaningless claptrap could, +with sufficient ingenuity, be made to yield some sort of sense, and +during this period no art critic was put to death. + +Driven to desperation, the Emperor changed the whole basis of the +Remuneration of Literary Labour, and ordered that it should be by the +length of the prose or poetry measured in inches. + +This reform, however, did but add to the confusion, for while the men +of the pen wrote their works entirely in short dialogue, asterisks, and +blanks, the publishers, who were now thoroughly organized, printed the +same in smaller and smaller type, in order to avoid the consequences of +the law. + +At this last piece of insolence the Emperor’s mind was quickly decided. +Arresting one night not only all those who had ever written, but all +those who had even boasted of letters, or who were so much as suspected +by their relatives of secretly indulging in them, he turned the whole +two million into a large but enclosed area, and (desiring to kill two +birds with one stone) offered the ensuing spectacle as an amusement to +the more sober and respectable sections of the community. + +It is well known that the profession of letters breeds in its followers +an undying hatred of each against his fellows. The public were +therefore entertained for a whole day with the pleasing sight of a +violent but quite disordered battle, in which each of the wretched +prisoners seemed animated by no desire but the destruction of as many +as possible of his hated rivals, until at last every soul of these +detestable creatures had left its puny body and the State was rid of +all. + +A law which carried to the universities the rule of the primary +schools—to wit, that men should be taught to read but not to +write—completed the good work. And there was peace. + + + + +The Eye-Openers + + +Without any doubt whatsoever, the one characteristic of the towns is +the lack of reality in the impressions of the many: now we live in +towns: and posterity will be astounded at us! It isn’t only that we get +our impressions for the most part as imaginary pictures called up by +printer’s ink—that would be bad enough; but by some curious perversion +of the modern mind, printer’s ink ends by actually preventing one from +seeing things that are there; and sometimes, when one says to another +who has not travelled, “Travel!” one wonders whether, after all, if he +does travel, he will see the things before his eyes? If he does, he +will find a new world; and there is more to be discovered in this +fashion to-day than ever there was. + +I have sometimes wished that every Anglo-Saxon who from these shores +has sailed and seen for the first time the other Anglo-Saxons in New +York or Melbourne, would write in quite a short letter what he really +felt. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred men only write what they have +read before they started, just as Rousseau in an eighteenth-century +village believed that every English yokel could vote and that his vote +conveyed a high initiative, making and unmaking the policy of the +State; or just as people, hearing that the birth-rate of France is low, +travel in that country and say they can see no children—though they +would hardly say it about Sussex or Cumberland where the birth-rate is +lower still. + +What travel does in the way of pleasure (the providing of new and fresh +sensations, and the expansion of experience), that it ought to do in +the way of knowledge. It ought to and it does, with the wise, provide a +complete course of unlearning the wretched tags with which the sham +culture of our great towns has filled us. For instance, of Barbary—the +lions do not live in deserts; they live in woods. The peasants of +Barbary are not Semitic in appearance or in character; Barbary is full +to the eye, not of Arab and Oriental buildings—they are not +striking—but of great Roman monuments: they are altogether the most +important things in the place. Barbary is not hot, as a whole: most of +Barbary is extremely cold between November and March. The inhabitants +of Barbary do not like a wild life, they are extremely fond of what +civilization can give them, such as _crème de menthe_, rifles, good +waterworks, maps, and railways: only they would like to have these +things without the bother of strict laws and of the police, and so +forth. Travel in Barbary with seeing eyes and you find out all this new +truth. + +Now it took the French forty years and more before each of these plain +facts (and I have only cited half a dozen out of as many hundred) got +into their letters and their print: they have not yet got into the +letters and the print of other nations. But an honest man travelling in +Barbary on his own account would pick up every one of these truths in +two or three days, except the one about the lions; to pick up that +truth you must go to the very edge of the country, for the lion is a +shy beast and withdraws from men. + +The wise man who really wants to see things as they are and to +understand them, does not say: “Here I am on the burning soil of +Africa.” He says: “Here I am stuck in a snowdrift and the train twelve +hours late”—as it was (with me in it) near Sétif in January, 1905. He +does not say as he looks on the peasant at his plough outside Batna: +“Observe yon Semite!” He says: “That man’s face is exactly like the +face of a dark Sussex peasant, only a little leaner.” He does not say: +“See those wild sons of the desert! How they must hate the new +artificial world around them!” Contrariwise, he says: “See those four +Mohammedans playing cards with a French pack of cards and drinking +liqueurs in the café! See, they have ordered more liqueurs!” He does +not say: “How strange and terrible a thing the railway must be to +them!” He says: “I wish I was rich enough to travel first, for the +natives pouring in and out of this third-class carriage, jabbering like +monkeys, and treading on my feet, disturb my tranquillity. Some +hundreds must have got in and out during the last fifty miles!” + +In other words, the wise man has permitted eye-openers to rain upon him +their full, beneficent, and sacramental influence. And if a man in +travelling will always maintain his mind ready for what he really sees +and hears, he will become a whole nest of Columbuses discovering a +perfectly interminable series of new worlds. + +A man can only talk of what he himself knows. Let me give further +examples. I had always heard until I visited the Pyrenees how French +civilization (especially in the matter of roads, motors, and things +like that) went up to the “Spanish” frontier and then stopped dead. It +doesn’t. The change is at the Aragonese frontier. On the Basque third +of the frontier the people are just as active and fond of wealth, and +of scraping of stone and of cleanliness, and of drawing straight lines, +to the north as to the south of it. They are all one people, as +industrious, as thrifty, and as prosperous as the Scots. So are the +Catalans one people, and you get much the same sort of advantages and +disadvantages (apart from the effect of government) with the Catalans +to the north as with the Catalans to the south of the border. + +So with religion. I had thought to find the Spanish churches crowded. I +found just the contrary. It was the French churches that were crowded, +not the Spanish; and the difference between the truth—what one really +sees and hears—and the printed legend happens to be very subtly +illustrated in this case of religion. The French have inherited (and +are by this time used to, and have, perhaps grown fond of) a big +religious debate. Those who side with the national religion and +tradition emphasize their opinion in every possible way—so do their +opponents. You pick up two newspapers from Toulouse, for instance, and +it is quite on the cards that the leading article of each will be a +disquisition upon the philosophy of religion, the one, the “Depêche” of +Toulouse, militantly, and often solently atheist; the other as +militantly Catholic. + +You don’t get that in Pamplona, and you don’t get it in Saragossa. What +you get there is a profound dislike of being interfered with, ancient +and lazy customs, wealth retained by the chapters, the monasteries, and +the colleges, and with all this a curious, all-pervading indifference. + +One might end this little train of thought by considering a converse +test of what the eye-opener is in travel; and that test is to talk to +foreigners when they first come to England and see how they tend to +discover in England what they have read of at home instead of what they +really see. There have been very few fogs in London of late, but your +foreigner nearly always finds London foggy. Kent does not show along +its main railway line the evidence of agricultural depression: it is +like a garden. Yet, in a very careful and thorough French book just +published by a French traveller, his bird’s-eye view of the country as +he went through Kent just after landing would make you think the place +a desert; he seems to have thought the hedges a sign of agricultural +decay. The same foreigner will discover a plebeian character in the +Commons and an aristocratic one in the House of Lords, though he shall +have heard but four speeches in each, and though every one of the eight +speeches shall have been delivered by members of one family group +closely intermarried, wealthy, titled, and perhaps (who knows?) of some +lineage as well. + +The moral is that one should tell the truth to oneself, and look out +for it outside one. It is quite as novel and as entertaining as the +discovery of the North Pole—or, in case that has come off (as some +believe), the discovery of the South Pole. + + + + +The Public + + +I notice a very curious thing in the actions particularly of business +men to-day, and of other men also, which is the projection outward from +their own inward minds of something which is called “The Public”—and +which is not there. + +I do not mean that a business man is wrong when he says that “the +public will demand” such and such an article, and on producing the +article finds it sells widely; he is obviously and demonstrably right +in his use of the word “public” in such a connexion. Nor is a man wrong +or subject to illusion when he says, “The public have taken to +cinematograph shows,” or “The public were greatly moved when the Hull +fishermen were shot at by the Russian fleet in the North Sea.” What I +mean is “The Public” as an excuse or scapegoat; the Public as a menace; +the Public as a butt. That Public simply does not exist. + +For instance, the publisher will say, as though he were talking of some +monster, “The Public will not buy Jinks’s work. It is first-class work, +so it is too good for the Public.” He is quite right in his statement +of fact. Of the very small proportion of our people who read only a +fraction buy books, and of the fraction that buy books very few indeed +buy Jinks’s. Jinks has a very pleasant up-and-down style. He loves to +use funny words dragged from the tomb, and he has delicate little +emotions. Yet hardly anybody will buy him—so the publisher is quite +right in one sense when he says, “The Public” won’t buy Jinks. But +where he is quite wrong and suffering from a gross illusion is in the +motive and the manner of his saying it. He talks of “The Public” as +something gravely to blame and yet irredeemably stupid. He talks of it +as something quite external to himself, almost as something which he +has never personally come across. He talks of it as though it were a +Mammoth or an Eskimo. Now, if that publisher would wander for a moment +into the world of realities he would perceive his illusion. Modern men +do not like realities, and do not usually know the way to come in +contact with them. I will tell the publisher how to do so in this case. + +Let him consider what books he buys himself, what books his wife buys; +what books his eldest son, his grandmother, his Aunt Jane, his old +father, his butler (if he runs to one), his most intimate friend, and +his curate buy. He will find that not one of these people buys Jinks. +Most of them will talk Jinks, and if Jinks writes a play, however dull, +they will probably go and see it once; but they draw the line at buying +Jinks’s books—and I don’t blame them. + +The moral is very simple. You yourselves are “The Public,” and if you +will watch your own habits you will find that the economic explanation +of a hundred things becomes quite clear. + +I have seen the same thing in the offices of a newspaper. Some simple +truth of commanding interest to this country, involving no attack upon +any rich man, and therefore not dangerous under our laws, comes up for +printing. It is discussed in the editor’s room. The editor says, “Yes, +of course, we know it is true, and of course it is important, but the +Public would not stand it.” + +I remember one newspaper office of my youth in which the Public was +visualized as a long file of people streaming into a Wesleyan chapel, +and another in which the Public was supposed to be made up without +exception of retired officers and maiden ladies, every one of whom was +a communicant of the English Established Church, every one of good +birth, and yet every one devoid of culture. + +Without the least doubt each of these absurd symbols haunted the brain +of each of the editors in question. The editor of the first paper would +print at wearisome length accounts of obscure Catholic clerical +scandals on the Continent, and would sweat with alarm if his +sub-editors had admitted a telegram concerning the trial of some +fraudulent Protestant missionary or other in China. + +Meanwhile his rather dull paper was being bought by you and me, and +bank clerks and foreign tourists, and doctors, and publicans, and +brokers, Catholics, Protestants, atheists, “peculiar people,” and every +kind of man for many reasons—because it had the best social statistics, +because it had a very good dramatic critic, because they had got into +the habit and couldn’t stop, because it came nearest to hand on the +bookstall. Of a hundred readers, ninety-nine skipped the clerical +scandal and either chuckled over the fraudulent missionary or were +bored by him and went on to the gambling news from the Stock Exchange. +But the type for whom all that paper was produced, the menacing god or +demon who was supposed to forbid publication of certain news in it, did +not exist. + +So it was with the second paper, but with this difference, that the +editor was right about the social position of those who read his sheet, +but quite wrong about the opinions and emotions of people in that +social position. + +It was all the more astonishing from the fact that the editor was born +in that very class himself and perpetually mixed with it. No one +perhaps read “The Stodge” (for under this device would I veil the true +name of the organ) more carefully than those retired officers of either +service who are to be found in what are called our “residential” towns. +The editor was himself the son of a colonel of guns who had settled +down in a Midland watering-place. He ought to have known that world, +and he did know that world, but he kept his illusion of his Public +quite apart from his experience of realities. + +Your retired officer (to take his particular section of this particular +paper’s audience) is nearly always a man with a hobby, and usually a +good scientific or literary hobby at that. He writes many of our best +books demanding research. He takes an active part in public work which +requires statistical study. He is always a travelled man, and nearly +always a well-read man. The broadest and the most complete questioning +and turning and returning of the most fundamental subjects—religion, +foreign policy, and domestic economics—are quite familiar to him. But +the editor was not selecting news for that real man; he was selecting +news for an imaginary retired officer of inconceivable stupidity and +ignorance, redeemed by a childlike simplicity. If a book came in, for +instance, on biology, and there was a chance of having it reviewed by +one of the first biologists of the day, he would say: “Oh, our Public +won’t stand evolution,” and he would trot out his imaginary retired +officer as though he were a mule. + +Artists, by which I mean painters, and more especially art critics, sin +in this respect. They say: “The public wants a picture to tell a +story,” and they say it with a sneer. Well, the public does want a +picture to tell a story, because you and I want a picture to tell a +story. Sorry. But so it is. The art critic himself wants it to tell a +story, and so does the artist. Each would rather die than admit it, but +if you set either walking, with no one to watch him, down a row of +pictures you would see him looking at one picture after another with +that expression of interest which only comes on a human face when it is +following a human relation. A mere splash of colour would bore him; +still more a mere medley of black and white. The story may have a very +simple plot; it may be no more than an old woman sitting on a chair, or +a landscape, but a picture, if a man can look at it all, tells a story +right enough. It must interest men, and the less of a story it tells +the less it will interest men. A good landscape tells so vivid a story +that children (who are unspoilt) actually transfer themselves into such +a landscape, walk about in it, and have adventures in it. + +They make another complaint against the public, that it desires +painting to be lifelike. Of course it does! The statement is accurate, +but the complaint is based on an illusion. It is you and I and all the +world that want painting to imitate its object. There is a wonderful +picture in the Glasgow Art Gallery, painted by someone a long time ago, +in which a man is represented in a steel cuirass with a fur tippet over +it, and the whole point of that picture is that the fur looks like fur +and the steel looks like steel. I never met a critic yet who was so +bold as to say that picture was a bad picture. It is one of the best +pictures in the world; but its whole point is the liveliness of the +steel and of the fur. + +Finally, there is one proper test to prove that all this jargon about +“The Public” is nonsense, which is that it is altogether modern. Who +quarrelled with the Public in the old days when men lived a healthy +corporate life, and painted, wrote, or sang for the applause of their +fellows? + +If you still suffer from the illusion after reading these magisterial +lines of mine, why, there is a drastic way to cure yourself, which is +to go for a soldier; take the shilling and live in a barracks for a +year; then buy yourself out. You will never despise the public again. +And perhaps a better way still is to go round the Horn before the mast. +But take care that your friends shall send you enough money to +Valparaiso for your return journey to be made in some comfort; I would +not wish my worst enemy to go back the way he came. + + + + +On Entries + + +I am always planning in my mind new kinds of guide books. Or, rather, +new features in guide books. + +One such new feature which I am sure would be very useful would be an +indication to the traveller of how he should approach a place. + +I would first presuppose him quite free and able to come by rail or by +water or by road or on foot across the fields, and then I would +describe how the many places I have seen stand quite differently in the +mind according to the way in which one approaches them. + +The value of travel, to the eye at least, lies in its presentation of +clear and permanent impressions, and these I think (though some would +quarrel with me for saying it) are usually instantaneous. It is the +first sharp vision of an unknown town, the first immediate vision of a +range of hills, that remains for ever and is fruitful of joy within the +mind, or, at least, that is one and perhaps the chief of the fruits of +travel. + +I remember once, for instance, waking from a dead sleep in a train (for +I was very tired) and finding it to be evening. What woke me was the +sudden stopping of the train. It was in Italy. A man in the carriage +said to me that there was some sort of accident and that we should be +waiting a while. The people got out and walked about by the side of the +track. I also got out of the carriage and took the air, and when I so +stepped out into the cool of that summer evening I was amazed at the +loneliness and tragedy of the place. + +There were no houses about me that I could see save one little place +built for the railway men. There was no cultivation either. + +Close before me began a sort of swamp with reeds which hardly moved to +the air, and this gradually merged into a sheet of water above and +beyond which were hills, barren and not very high, which took the last +of the daylight, for they looked both southward and to the west. The +more I watched the extraordinary and absolute scene the less I heard of +the low voices about me, and indeed a sort of positive silence seemed +to clothe the darkening landscape. It was full of something quite gone +down, and one had the impression that it would never be disturbed. + +As the light lessened, the hills darkened, the sky took on one broad +and tender colour, the sheet of water gleamed quite white, and the +reeds stood up like solid shadows against it. I wish I could express in +words the impression of recollection and of savage mourning which all +that landscape imposed, but from that impression I was recalled and +startled by the guard, who came along telling us that things were +righted and that the train would start again; soon we were in our +places and the rapid movement isolated for me the memory of a +singularly vivid scene. I thought the place must have a name, and I +asked a neighbour in the carriage what it was called; he told me it was +called Lake Trasimene. + +Now I do not say that this tragic site is to be visited thus. It was +but an accident, though an accident for which I am most grateful to my +fate. But what I have said here illustrates my meaning that the manner +of one’s approach to any place in travel makes all the difference. + +Thus one may note how very different is Europe seen from the water than +seen from any other opportunity for travel. So many of the great +cathedrals were built to dominate men who should watch them from the +wharves of the mediaeval towns, but I think it is almost a rule if you +have leisure and can take your choice to choose this kind of entry to +them. Amiens is quite a different thing seen from the river below it to +the north and east from what it is seen by a gradual approach along the +street of a modern town. The roofs climb up at it, and it stands +enthroned. So Chartres seen from the little Eure; but the Eure is so +small a river that he would be a bold man who would travel up it all +this way. Nevertheless it is a good piece of travel, and anyone who +will undertake it will see Louviers and will pass Anet, where the +greatest work of the Renaissance once stood, and will go through lonely +but rich pastures until at last he gets to Chartres by the right gate. +Thence he will see something astonishing for so flat a region as the +Beauce. The great church seems mountainous upon a mountain. Its apse +completes the unclimbable steepness of the hill and its buttresses +follow the lines of the fall of it. But if you do not come in by the +river, at least come in by the Orleans road. I suppose that nine people +out of ten, even to-day when the roads are in proper use again, come +into Chartres by that northern railway entry, which is for all the +world like coming into a great house by a big, neglected backyard. + +Then if ever you have business that takes you to Bayonne, come in by +river and from the sea, and how well you will understand the little +town and its lovely northern Gothic! + +Some of the great churches all the world knows must be seen from the +water, and most of the world so sees them. Ely is one, Cologne is +another, but how many people have looked right up at Durham as at a +cliff from that gorge below, or how many have seen the height of Albi +from the Tarn? + +As for famous cities with their walls, there is no doubt that a man +should approach them by the chief high road, which once linked them +with their capital, or with their nearest port, or with Rome—and that +although this kind of entry is nowadays often marred by ugly suburbs. +You will get much your finest sight of Segovia as you come in by the +road from the Guadarama and from Madrid. It is from that point that you +were meant to see the town, and you will get much your best grip on +Carcassonne, old Carcassonne, if you come in by the road from Toulouse +at morning as you were meant to come, and so Coucy should be approached +by that royal road from Soissons and from the south, while as for Laon +(the most famous of the hill towns), come to it from the east, for it +looks eastward, and its lords were Eastern lords. + +Ranges of hills, I think, are never best first seen from railways. +Indeed, I can remember no great sight of hills so seen, not even the +Alps. A railway must of necessity follow the floor of the valley and +tunnel and creep round the shoulders of the bulwarks. There is perhaps +one exception to this rule, which is the sight of the Pyrenees from the +train as one comes into Tarbes. It is a wise thing if you are visiting +those hills to come into Tarbes by night and sleep there, and then next +morning the train upon its way to Pau unfolds you all the wall of the +mountains. But this is an accident. It is because the railway runs upon +a sort of high platform that you see the mountains so. With all other +hills that I remember it is best to have them burst suddenly upon you +from the top of some pass lifted high above the level and coming, let +us say, to a height half their own. Certainly the Bernese Oberland is +more wonderful caught in one moment from the Jura than introduced in +any other way, and the snows on Atlas over the desert seem like part of +the sky when they come upon one after climbing the red rocks of the +high plateaux and you see them shining over the salt marshes. The +Vosges you cannot thus see from a half-height; there is no platform, +and that is perhaps why the Vosges have not impressed travellers as +they should. But you can so watch the grand chain of old volcanoes +which are the rampart of Auvergne. You can stand upon the high wooden +ridge of Foreze and see them take the morning across the mists and the +flat of the Limagne, where the Gauls fought Caesar. Further south from +the high table of the Velay you can see the steep backward escarpment +of the Cevennes, inky blue, desperately blue, blue like nothing else on +earth except the mountains in those painters of North Italy, of the +parts north and east of Venice, the name of whose school escapes me—or, +rather, I never knew it. + +Now, as for towns that live in a hollow, it is great fun to come upon +them from above. They are not used to being thus taken at a +disadvantage and they are both surprised and surprising. There are many +towns in holes and trenches of Europe which you can thus play “peep-bo” +with if you will come at them walking. By train they will mean nothing +to you. You will probably come upon them out of a long, shrieking +tunnel, and by the high road they mean little more, for the high road +will follow the vale. But if you come upon them from over their +guardian cliffs and scars you catch them unawares, and this is a good +way of approaching them, for you master them, as it were, and spy them +out before you enter in. You can act thus with Grenoble and with many a +town on the Meuse, and particularly with Aubusson, which lies in the +depths of so dreadful a trench that I could wonder how man ever dreamt +of living and building there. + +The most difficult of all places on which to advise, I think, would be +the very great cities, the capitals. They seem to have to-day no noble +entries and no proper approach. Perhaps we shall only deal with them +justly when we can circle down to them through the air and see their +vast activity splashed over the plain. Anyhow, there is no proper way +of entering them now that I know of. Berlin is not worth entering at +all. Rome (a man told me once) could be entered by some particular road +over the Janiculum, I think—which also, if I remember right, was the +way that Shelley came—but I despair of Paris, and certainly of London. +I cannot even recall an entry for Brussels, though Brussels is a +monumental city with great rewards for those who love the combination +of building and hills. + +Perhaps, after all, the happiest entries of all and the most easy are +those of our many market towns, small and not swollen in Britain and in +Northern Gaul and in the Netherlands and in the Valley of the Rhine. +These hardly ever fail us, and we come upon them in our travels as they +desire that we should come, and we know them properly as things should +properly be known—that is, from the beginning. + + + + +Companions of Travel + + +I write of travelling companions in general, and not in particular, +making of them a composite photograph, as it were, and finding what +they have in common and what is their type; and in the first place I +find them to be chance men. For there are some people who cannot travel +without a set companion who goes with them from Charing Cross all over +the world and back to Charing Cross again. And there is a pathos in +this: as Balzac said of marriage, “What a commentary on human life, +that human beings must associate to endure it.” So it is with many who +cannot endure to travel alone: and some will positively advertise for +another to go with them. + +In a glade of the Sierra Nevada, which, for awful and, as it were, +permanent beauty seemed not to be of this world, I came upon a man +slowly driving along the trail a ramshackle cart, in which were a few +chairs and tables and bedding. He had a long grey beard and wild eyes; +he was old, and very small like a gnome, but he had not the gnome’s +good-humour. I asked him where he was going, and I slowed down, so as +to keep pace with his ridiculous horse. For some time he would not +answer me, and then he said, “Out of this.” He added, “I am tired of +it.” And when I asked him, “Of what?” his only answer was an +old-fashioned oath. But from further complaints which he made I +gathered that what he was tired of was clearing forests, digging +ground, paying debts, and in general living upon this unhappy earth. He +did not like me very much, and though I would willingly have learned +more, he would tell me nothing further, so when we got to a place where +there was a little stream I went on and left him. + +I have never forgotten the sadness of this man. Where he was going, and +what he expected to do, or what opportunities he had, I have never +understood. Though some years after, in quite another place—namely, +Steyning, in Sussex—I came upon just such another, whose quarrel was +with the English climate, the rich and the poor, and the whole +constitution of God’s earth. These are the advantages of travel, that +one meets so many men whom one would otherwise never meet, and that one +feeds as it were upon the complexity of mankind. + +Thus in a village called Encamps, in the depths of Andorra, where no +man has ever killed another, I found a man with a blue face, who was a +fossil, the kind of man you would never find in the swelling life of +Western Europe. He was emancipated, he had studied in Perpignan, over +and beyond the great hills. He could not see why he should pay taxes to +support a priest. “The priests” he assured me, “say the most ridiculous +things. They narrate the most impossible fables. They affirm what +cannot possibly be true. All that they say is in opposition to science. +If I am ill, can a priest cure me? No. Can a priest tell me how to +build, or how to light my house? He is unable to do so. He is a useless +and a lying mouth, why should I feed him?” + +I questioned this man very closely, and discovered that in his view the +world slowly changed from worse to better, and to accelerate this +process enlightenment alone was needed. “But what do these brutes,” he +said, alluding to his fellow-countrymen, “know of enlightenment? They +do not even make roads, because the priests forbid them.” + +I could write at length upon this man. He was not a Sceptic as you may +imagine, nor had he adopted the Lucretian form of Epicureanism. Not a +bit of it. He was a hearty Atheist, with Positivist leanings. I further +found that he had married a woman older, wealthier, and if possible +uglier than himself. She kept the inn, and was very kind to him. His +life would have been quite happy had he not been tortured by the +monstrous superstitions of others. + +Then, again, in the town of Marseilles, only two years ago, I met a man +who looked well fed, and had a stalwart, square French face, and whose +politico-economic ideal, though it was not mine, greatly moved me. It +was just past midnight, and I was throwing little stones into the old +Greek harbour, the stench and the glory of which are nearly three +thousand years old; I was to be off at dawn upon a tramp steamer, and I +had so determined to pass the few hours of darkness. + +I was throwing pebbles into the water, I say, and thinking about +Ulysses, when this man came slouching up, with his hands in the pockets +of his enormous corduroy trousers, and, looking at me with some +contempt from above (for he was standing, I was sitting), he began to +converse with me. We talked first of ships, then of heat and cold, and +so on to wealth and poverty; and thus it was I came upon his views, +which were that there should be a sort of break up, and houses ought to +be burned, and things smashed, and people killed; and over and above +this, it should be made plain that no one had a right to govern: not +the people, because they were always being bamboozled; obviously not +the rich; least of all, the politicians, to whom he justly applied the +most derogatory epithets. He waved his arm out in the darkness at the +Phoceans, at the half-million of Marseilles, and said, “All that should +disappear.” The constructive side of his politico-economic scheme was +negative. He was a practical man. None of your fine theories for him. +One step at a time. Let there be a Chambardement—that is, a noisy +collapse, and he would think about what to do afterwards. + +His was not the narrow, deductive mind. He was objective and concrete. +Believe me or not, he was paid an excellent wage by the municipality to +prevent people like me, who sit up at night, from doing mischief in the +harbour. When I had come to an end of his politico-economic scheme—the +main lines of which were so clear and simple that a child could +understand them—we fell to talking of the tides, and I told him that in +my country the sea went up and down. He was no rustic, and would have +no such commonplace truths. He was well acquainted with the Phenomenon +of the Tides; it was due to the combined attraction of the sun and of +the moon. But when I told him I knew places where the tides fell thirty +or forty feet, we would have had a violent quarrel had I not prudently +admitted that that was romantic exaggeration, and that five or six was +the most that one ever saw it move. I avoided the quarrel, but the +little incident broke up our friendship, and he shuffled away. He did +not like having his leg pulled. + +There are many others I remember. Those I have written about elsewhere +I am ashamed to recall, as the man at Jedburgh, who first expounded to +me how one knew all about the fate of the individual soul, and then +objected to personal questions about his own; the German officer man at +Aix-la-Chapelle, who had hair the colour of tow, and gave me minute +details of the method by which England was to be destroyed; a man I met +upon the Appian Way, who told the most abominable lies; and another man +who met me outside Oxford station during the Vac. and offered to show +me the sights of the town for a consideration, which he did, but I +would not pay him because he was inaccurate, as I easily proved by a +few searching questions upon the exact site of Bocardo (of which he had +never heard), and the negative evidence against a Roman origin for the +site of the city. Moreover, he said that Trinity was St. John’s, which +was rubbish. + +Then there was another man who travelled with me from Birmingham, +pressed certain tracts upon me, and wanted to charge me sixpence each +at Paddington. But if I were to speak of even these few I should +exceed. + + + + +On the Sources of Rivers + + +There are certain customs in man the permanence of which gives infinite +pleasure. When the mood of the schools is against them these customs +lie in wait beneath the floors of society, but they never die, and when +a decay in pedantry or in despotism or in any other evil and inhuman +influence permits them to reappear they reappear. + +One of these customs is the religious attachment of man to isolated +high places, peaks, and single striking hills. On these he must build +shrines, and though he is a little furtive about it nowadays, yet the +instinct is there, strong as ever. I have not often come to the top of +a high hill with another man but I have seen him put a few stones +together when he got there, or, if he had not the moral courage so to +satisfy his soul, he would never fail on such an occasion to say +something ritual and quasi-religious, even if it were only about the +view; and another instinct of the same sort is the worship of the +sources of rivers. + +The Iconoclast and the people whose pride it is that their senses are +dead will see in a river nothing more than so much moisture gathered in +a narrow place and falling as the mystery of gravitation inclines it. +Their mood is the mood of that gentleman who despaired and wrote: + +A cloud’s a lot of vapour, + The sky’s a lot of air, +And the sea’s a lot of water + That happens to be there. + + +You cannot get further down than that. When you have got as far down as +that all is over. Luckily God still keeps his mysteries going for you, +and you can’t get rid, even in that mood, of the certitude that you +yourself exist and that things outside of you are outside of you. But +when you get into that modern mood you do lose the personality of +everything else, and you forget the sanctity of river heads. + +You have lost a great deal when you have forgotten that, and it behoves +you to recover what you have lost as quickly as possible, which is to +be done in this way: Visit the source of some famous stream and think +about it. There was a Scotchman once who discovered the sources of the +Nile, to the lasting advantage of mankind and the permanent glory of +his native land. He thought the source of the Nile looked rather like +the sources of the Till or the Tweed or some such river of Thule. He +has been ridiculed for saying this, but he was mystically very right. +The source of the greatest of rivers, since it was sacred to him, +reminded him of the sacred things of his home. + +When I consider the sources of rivers which I have seen, there is not +one, I think, which I do not remember to have had about it an influence +of awe. Not only because one could in imaginings see the kingdoms of +the cities which it was to visit and the way in which it would bind +them all together in one province and one story, but also simply +because it was an origin. + +The sources of the Rhone are famous: the Rhone comes out of a glacier +through a sort of ice cave, and if it were not for an enormous hotel +quite four-square it would be as lonely a place as there is in Europe, +and as remarkable a beginning for a great river as could anywhere be +found. Nor, when you come to think of it, does any European river have +such varied fortunes as the Rhone. It feeds such different religions +and looks on such diverse landscapes. It makes Geneva and it makes +Avignon; it changes in colour and in the nature of its going as it +goes. It sees new products appearing continually on its journey until +it comes to olives, and it flows past the beginning of human cities, +when it reflects the huddle of old Arles. + +The sources of the Garonne are well known. The Garonne rises by itself +in a valley from which there is no issue, like the fabled valleys shut +in by hills on every side. And if it were anything but the Garonne it +would not be able to escape: it would lie imprisoned there for ever. +Being the Garonne it tunnels a way for itself right under the High +Pyrenees and comes out again on the French side. There are some that +doubt this, but then there are people who would doubt anything. + +The sources of the River Arun are not so famous as these two last, and +it is a good thing, for they are to be found in one of the loneliest +places within an hour of London that any man can imagine, and if you +were put down there upon a windy day you would think yourself upon the +moors. There is nothing whatsoever near you at the beginnings of the +little sacred stream. + +Thames had a source once which was very famous. The water came out +plainly at a fountain under a bleak wood just west of the Fosse Way, +under which it ran by a culvert, a culvert at least as old as the +Romans. But when about a hundred years ago people began to improve the +world in those parts, they put up a pumping station and they pumped +Thames dry—since which time its gods have deserted the river. + +The sources of the Ribble are in a lonely place up in a corner of the +hills where everything has strange shapes and where the rocks make one +think of trolls. The great frozen Whernside stands up above it, and +Ingleborough Hill, which is like no other hill in England, but like the +flat-topped Mesas which you have in America, or (as those who have +visited it tell me) like the flat hills of South Africa; and a little +way off on the other side is Pen-y-ghent, or words to that effect. The +little River Ribble rises under such enormous guardianship. It rises +quite clean and single in the shape of a little spring upon the +hillside, and too few people know it. The other river that flows east +while the Ribble flows west is the River Ayr. It rises in a curious +way, for it imitates the Garonne, and finding itself blocked by +limestone burrows underneath at a place called Malham Tarn, after which +it has no more trouble. + +The River Severn, the River Wye, and a third unimportant river, or at +least important only for its beauty (and who would insist on that?) +rise all close together on the skirts of Plinlimmon, and the smallest +of them has the most wonderful rising, for it falls through the gorge +of Llygnant, which looks like, and perhaps is, the deepest cleft in +this island, or, at any rate, the most unexpected. And a fourth source +on the mountain, a tarn below its summit, is the source of Rheidol, +which has a short but adventurous life like Achilles. + +There is one source in Europe that is properly dealt with, and where +the religion due to the sources of rivers has free play, and this is +the source of the Seine. It comes out upon the northern side of the +hills which the French call the Hills of Gold, in a country of +pasturage and forest, very high up above the world and thinly peopled. +The River Seine appears there in a sort of miraculous manner, pouring +out of a grotto, and over this grotto the Parisians have built a votive +statue; and there is yet another of the hundred thousand things that +nobody knows. + + + + +On Error + + +There is an elusive idea that has floated through the minds of most of +us as we grew older and learnt more and more things. It is an idea +extremely difficult to get into set terms. It is an idea very difficult +to put so that we shall not seem nonsensical; and yet it is a very +useful idea, and if it could be realized its realization would be of +very practical value. It is the idea of a Dictionary of Ignorance and +Error. + +On the face of it a definition of the work is impossible. Strictly +speaking it would be infinite, for human knowledge, however far +extended, must always be infinitely small compared with all possible +knowledge, just as any given finite space is infinitely small compared +with all space. + +But that is not the idea which we entertain when we consider this +possible Dictionary of Ignorance and Error. What we really mean is a +Dictionary of the sort of Ignorance and the sort of Error which we know +ourselves to have been guilty of, which we have escaped by special +experience or learning as time went on, and against which we would warn +our fellows. + +Flaubert, I think, first put it down in words, and said that such an +encyclopaedia was very urgently needed. + +It will never exist, but we all know that it ought to exist. Bits of it +appear from time to time piecemeal and here and there, as for instance +in the annotations which modern scholarship attaches to the great text, +in the printed criticisms to which sundry accepted doctrines are +subjected by the younger men to-day, in the detailed restatement of +historical events which we get from modern research as our fathers +could never have them—but the work itself, the complete Encyclopaedia +or Dictionary of Ignorance and Error, will never be printed. It is a +great pity. + +Incidentally one may remark that the process by which a particular +error is propagated is as interesting to watch as the way in which a +plant grows. + +The first step seems to be the establishing of an authority and the +giving of that authority a name which comes to connote doctrinal +infallibility. A very good example of this is the title “Science.” Mere +physical research, its achievements, its certitudes, even its +conflicting and self-contradictory hypotheses, having got lumped +together in many minds under this one title Science, the title is now +sacred. It is used as a priestly title, as an immediate estopper to +doubt or criticism. + +The next step is a very interesting one for the student of psychical +pathology to note. It seems to be a disease as native and universal to +the human mind as is the decay of the teeth to the human body. It seems +as though we all must suffer somewhat from it, and most of us suffer a +great deal from it, though in a cool aspect we easily perceive it to be +a lesion of thought. And this second step is as follows: + +The whole lump having been given its sacred title and erected into an +infallible authority, which you are to accept as directly superior to +yourself and all personal sources of information, there is attributed +to this idol a number of attributes. We give it a soul, and a habit and +manners which do not attach to its stuff at all. The projection of this +imagined living character in our authority is comparable to what we +also do with mountains, statues, towns, and so forth. Our living +individuality lends individuality to them. I might here digress to +discuss whether this habit of the mind were not a distorted reflection +of some truth, and whether, indeed, there be not such beings as demons +or the souls of things. But, to leave that, we take our authority—this +thing “Science,” for instance—we clothe it with a creed and appetites +and a will, and all the other human attributes. + +This done, we set out in the third step in our progress towards fixed +error. We make the idol speak. Of course, being only an idol, it talks +nonsense. But by the previous steps just referred to we must believe +that nonsense, and believe it we do. Thus it is, I think, that fixed +error is most generally established. + +I have already given one example in the hierarchic title “Science.” + +It was but the other day that I picked up a weekly paper in which a +gentleman was discussing ghosts—that is, the supposed apparition of the +living and the dead: of the dead though dead, and of the living though +absent. + +Nothing has been more keenly discussed since the beginning of human +discussions. Are these phenomena (which undoubtedly happen) what modern +people call subjective, or are they what modern people call objective? +In old-fashioned English, Are the ghosts really there or are they not? +The most elementary use of the human reason persuades us that the +matter is not susceptible of positive proof. The criterion of certitude +in any matter of perception is an inner sense in the perceiver that the +thing he perceives is external to himself. He is the only witness; no +one can corroborate or dispute him. The seer may be right or he may be +wrong, but we have no proof—and only according to our temperament, our +fancy, our experience, our mood, do we decide with one or the other of +the two great schools. + +Well, the gentleman of whom I am speaking wrote and had printed in +plain English this phrase (read it carefully):—“Science teaches us that +these phenomena are purely subjective.” + +Now I am quite sure that of the thousands who read that phrase all but +a handful read it in the spirit in which one hears the oracle of a god. +Some read it with regret, some with pleasure, but all with +acquiescence. + +That physical science was not competent in the matter one way or the +other each of those readers would probably have discovered, if even so +simple a corrective as the use of the term “physical research” instead +of the sacred term “science” had been applied; the hierarchic title +“Science” did the trick. + +I might take another example out of many hundreds to show what I mean. +You have an authority which is called, where documents are concerned, +“The Best Modern Criticism.” “The Best Modern Criticism” decides that +“Tam o’ Shanter” was written by a committee of permanent officials of +the Board of Trade, or that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed. As a +matter of fact, the tomfoolery does not usually venture upon ground so +near home, but it talks rubbish just as monstrous about a poem a few +hundred or a few thousand years old, or a great personality a few +hundred or a few thousand years old. + +Now if you will look at that phrase “The Best Modern Criticism” you +will see at once that it simply teems with assumption and tautology. +But it does more and worse: it presupposes that an infallible authority +must of its own nature be perpetually wrong. + +Even supposing that I have the most “modern” (that is, merely the +latest) criticism to hand, and even supposing that by some omniscience +of mine I can tell which is “the best” (that is, which part of it has +really proved most ample, most painstaking, most general, and most +sincere), even then the phrase fatally condemns me. It is to say that +Wednesday is always infallible as compared with Tuesday, and Thursday +as compared with Wednesday, which is absurd. + +The B.M.C. tells me in 1875 that the Song of Roland could have no +origins anterior to the year 1030. But the B.M.C. of 1885 (being a +B.M.C. and nothing more valuable) has a changed opinion. It must change +its opinion, that is the law of its being, since an integral factor in +its value is its modernity. In 1885 B.M.C. tells me that the Song of +Roland can be traced to origins far earlier, let us say to 912. + +In 1895 B.M.C. has come to other conclusions—the Song of Roland is +certainly as late as 1115 ... and so forth. + +Now you would say that an idol of that absurdity could have no effect +upon sane men. Change the terms and give it another name, and you would +laugh at the idea of its having an effect upon any men. But we know as +a matter of fact that it commands the thoughts of nearly all men to-day +and makes cowards of the most learned. + +Perhaps you will ask me at the end of so long a criticism in what way +error may be corrected, since there is this sort of tendency in us to +accept it, to which I answer that things correct it, or as the +philosophers call things, “Reality.” Error does not wash. + +To go back to that example of ghosts. If ever you see a ghost (my poor +reader), I shall ask you afterwards whether he seemed subjective or no. +I think you will find the word “subjective” an astonishingly thin +one—if, at least, I catch you early after the experience. + + + + +The Great Sight + + +All night we had slept on straw in a high barn. The wood of its beams +was very old, and the tiles upon the roof were green with age; but +there hung from beam to beam, fantastically, a wire caught by nails, +and here and there from this wire hung an electric-light bulb. It was a +symbol of the time, and the place, and the people. There was no local +by-law to forbid such a thing, or if there was, no one dreamt of +obeying it. + +Just in the first dawn of that September day we went out, my companion +and I, at guesswork to hunt in the most amusing kind of hunting, which +is the hunting of an army. The lane led through one of those lovely +ravines of Picardy which travellers never know (for they only see the +plains), and in a little while we thought it wise to strike up the +steep bank from the valley on to the bare plateau above, but it was all +at random and all guesswork, only we wisely thought that we were +nearing the beginning of things, and that on the bare fields of the +high flat we should have a greater horizon and a better chance of +catching any indications of men or arms. + +When we had reached the height the sun had long risen, but it as yet +gave no shining and there were no shadows, for a delicate mist hung all +about the landscape, though immediately above us the sky was faintly +blue. + +It was the weirdest of sensations to go for mile after mile over that +vast plain, to know that it was cut in regular series by parallel +ravines which in all that extended view we could not guess at; to see +up to the limits of the plateau the spires of villages and the groups +of trees about them, and to know that somewhere in all this there lay +concealed a _corps d’armée_—and not to see or hear a soul. The only +human being that we saw was a man driving a heavy farm cart very slowly +up a side-way just as we came into the great road which has shot dead +across this country in one line ever since the Romans built it. As we +went along that road, leaving the fields, we passed by many men indeed, +and many houses, all in movement with the early morning; and the +chalked numbers on the doors, and here and there an empty tin of +polishing-paste or an order scrawled on paper and tacked to a wall +betrayed the passage of soldiers. But of the army there was nothing at +all. Scouting on foot (for that was what it was) is a desperate +business, and that especially if you have nothing to tell you whether +you will get in touch in five, or ten, or twenty miles. + +It was nine o’clock before a clatter of horse-hoofs came up the road +behind us. At first my companion and I wondered whether it were the +first riders of the Dragoons or Cuirassiers. In that case the advance +was from behind us. But very soon, as the sound grew clearer, we heard +how few they were, and then there came into view, trotting rapidly, a +small escort and two officers with the umpires’ badges, so there was +nothing doing; but when, half a mile ahead of us on the road, they +turned off to the left over plough, we knew that that was the way we +must follow too. Before we came to the turning-place, before we left +the road to take the fields on the left, there came from far off and on +our right the sound of a gun. + +It was my companion who heard it first. We strained to hear it again; +twice we thought we had caught it, and then again twice we doubted. It +is not so easily recognizable a sound as you might think in those great +plains cut by islands of high trees and steading walls. The little “75” +gun lying low makes a different sound altogether at a distance from the +old piece of “90.” At any rate there was here no doubt that there were +guns to the right and in front of us, and the umpire had gone to the +left. We were getting towards the thick, and we had only to go straight +on to find out where the front was. + +Just as we had so decided and were still pursuing the high road, there +came, not half a mile away and again to our right, in a valley below +us, that curious sound which is like nothing at all unless it be +dumping of flints out of a cart: rifle fire. It cracked and tore in +stretches. Then there were little gaps of silence like the gaps in +signalling, and then it cracked and tore in stretches again; and then, +fitfully, one individual shot and then another would be heard; and, +much further off, with little sounds like snaps, the replies began from +the hillside beyond the stream. So far so good. Here was contact in the +valley below us, and the guns, some way behind and far off northwards, +had opened. So we got the hang of it instantly—the front was a sort of +a crescent lying roughly north and south, and roughly parallel to the +great road, and the real or feigned mass of the advance was on the +extreme left of that front. We were in it now, and that anxious and +wearing business in all hunting, finding, was over; but we had been on +foot six mortal hours before coming across our luck, and more than half +the soldiers’ day was over. These men had been afoot since three, and +certain units on the left had already marched over twenty miles. + +After that coming in touch with our business, not only did everything +become plain, but the numbers we met, and what I have called “the thick +of things,” fed us with interest. We passed half the 38th, going down +the road singing, to extend the line, and in a large village we came to +the other half, slouching about in the traditional fashion of the +Service; they had been waiting for an hour. With them, and lined up all +along the village street, was one battery, with the drivers dismounted, +and all that body were at ease. There were men sitting on the doorsteps +of the houses and men trotting to the canteen-wagon or to the village +shops to buy food; and there were men reading papers which a pedlar had +brought round. Mud and dust had splashed them all; upon some there was +a look of great fatigue; they were of all shapes and sizes, and +altogether it was the sort of sight you would not see in any other +service in the world. It was the sort of sight which so disgusted the +Emperor Joseph when he made his little tour to spy out the land before +the Revolutionary Wars. It was the sort of sight which made Massenbach +before Grandpré marvel whether the French forces were soldiers at all, +and the sort of sight which made Valmy inexplicable to the King of +Prussia and his staff. It was the sort of sight which eighteen months +later still convinced Mack in Tournai that the Duke of York’s plan was +a plan “of annihilation.” It is a trap for judgment is the French +service. + +So they lounged about and bought bread, and shifted their packs, and so +the drivers stood by their horses, and so they all waited and slouched; +until there came, not a man with a bugle nor anything with the +slightest savour of drama but a little fellow running along thumping in +his loose leather leggings, who went up to a Major of Artillery and +saluted, and immediately afterwards the Major put his hand up, and then +down a village street, from a point which we could not see came a +whistle, and the whole of that mass of men began to swarm. The +grey-blue coats of the line swung round the corner of the village +street; they had yet a few miles before them. Anything more rapid or +less in step it would be difficult to conceive. The guns were off at a +right angle down the main road, making a prodigious clatter, and at the +same time appeared two parties, one of which it was easy to understand, +the other not. They were both parties of sappers. The one party had a +great roll of wire on a drum, and as quick as you could think they were +unreeling it, and as they unreeled it fastening it to eaves, +overhanging branches, and to corners of walls, stretching it out +forward. It was the field-telephone. The other party came along +carrying great beams upon their shoulders, but what they were to do +with these beams we did not know. + +We followed the tail of the line down into the valley, and all that +morning long and past the food time at midday, and so till the sun +declined in the afternoon, we went with the 38th in its gradual success +from crest to crest. And still the 38th slouched by companies, and mile +after mile with checks and halts, and it never seemed to get either +less or more tired. The men had had twelve hours of it when they came +at last, and we after them, on to the critical position. They had +carried (together with all the line to left and to the right of them) a +string of villages which crowned the crest of a further plateau, and +over this further plateau they were advancing against the main body of +the resistance—the other army corps which was set up against ours, to +simulate an enemy. + +A railway line ran here across the rolling hedgeless fields, and just +at the point where my companion and I struck it there was a dip in the +land and a high embankment which hid the plain beyond; but from that +plain beyond one heard the separate fire of the advancing line in its +scattered order. We climbed the embankment, and from its ridge we saw +over two miles or more of stubble, the little creeping bunches of the +attack. What was resisting, or where it lay, one could only guess. Some +hundreds of yards before us to the east, with the sloping sun full on +it, a line of thicket, one scattered wood and then another, an +imperceptible lifting of the earth here and there marked the opposing +firing line. Two pompoms could be spotted exactly, for the flashes were +clear through the underwood. And still the tide of the advance +continued to flow, and the little groups came up and fed it, one after +another and another, in the centre where we were, and far away to the +north and right away to the south the countryside was alive with it. +The action was beginning to take on something of that final movement +and decision which makes the climax of manoeuvres look so great a game. +But in a little while that general creeping forward was checked: there +were orders coming from the umpires, and a sort of lull fell over each +position held. My companion said to me: + +“Let us go forward now over the intervening zone and in among +Picquart’s men, and get well behind their line, and see whether there +is a rally or whether before the end of this day they begin to fall +back again.” + +So we did, walking a mile or so until we had long passed their outposts +and were behind their forward lines. And standing there, upon a little +eminence near a wood, we turned and looked over what we had come, +westward towards the sun which was now not far from its setting. Then +it was that we saw the last of the Great Sight. + +The level light, mellow and already reddening, illumined all that plain +strangely, and with the absolute stillness of the air contrasted the +opening of the guns which had been brought up to support the renewal of +the attack. We saw the isolated woods standing up like islands with low +steep cliffs, dotted in a sea of stubble for miles and miles, and first +from the cover of one and then from another the advance perpetually, +piercing and deploying. As we so watched there buzzed high above us, +like a great hornet, a biplane, circling well within our lines, beyond +attack from the advance, but overlooking all they concealed behind it. +In a few minutes a great Bleriot monoplane like a hawk followed, yet +further inwards. The two great birds shot round in an arc, parallel to +the firing line, and well behind it, and in a few minutes, that seemed +seconds, they were dots to the south and then lost in the air. And +perpetually, as the sun declined, Picquart’s men were falling back +north and south of us and before us, and the advance continued. Group +by group we saw it piercing this hedge, that woodland, now occupying a +nearer and a nearer roll of land. It was the greatest thing imaginable: +this enormous sweep of men, the dead silence of the air, and the +comparatively slight contrast of the ceaseless pattering rifle fire and +the slight intermittent accompaniment of the advancing batteries; until +the sun set and all this human business slackened. Then for the first +time one heard bugles, which were a command to cease the game. + +I would not have missed that day nor lose the memories of it for +anything in the world. + + + + +The Decline of a State + + +The decline of a State is not equivalent to a mortal sickness therein. +States are organisms subject to diseases and to decay as are the +organisms of men’s bodies; but they are not subject to a rhythmic rise +and fall as is the body of a man. A State in its decline is never a +State doomed or a State dying. States perish slowly or by violence, but +never without remedy and rarely without violence. + +The decline of a State differs with the texture of it. A democratic +State will decline from a lowering of its potential, that is of its +ever-ready energy to act in a crisis, to correct and to control its +servants in common times, to watch them narrowly and suspect them at +all times. A despotic State will decline when the despot is not in +point of fact the true depository of despotic power, but some other +acting in his name, of whom the people know little and cannot judge; or +when the despot, though fully in view and recognized, lacks will; or +when (which is rare) he is so inhuman as to miss the general sense of +his subjects. An oligarchic State, or aristocracy as it is called, will +decline principally through two agencies which are, first, illusion, +and secondly, lack of civic aptitude. For an oligarchic State tends +very readily to illusion, being conducted by men who live at leisure, +satisfy their passions, are immune from the laws, and prefer to shield +themselves from reality. Their capacity or appetite for illusion will +rapidly pervade those below them, for in an aristocracy the rulers are +subjected to a sort of worship from the rest of the community, and thus +it comes about that aristocracies in their decline accept fantastic +histories of their own past, conceive victory possible without armies, +wealth to be an indication of ability, and national security to be a +natural gift rather than a product of the will. Such communities +further fail from the lack of civic aptitude, as was said above, which +means that they deliberately elect to leave the mass of citizens +incompetent and irresponsible for generations, so that, when any more +strain is upon them, they look at once for some men other than +themselves to relieve them, and are incapable of corporate action upon +their own account. + +The decline of a State differs also according to whether it be a great +State or a small one, for in the first indifference, in the latter +faction, are a peril, and in the first ignorance, in the latter private +spite. + +Then again, the decline of a State will differ according to whether its +strength is rooted originally in commerce, in arms, or in production; +and if in production, then whether in the production of the artisan or +in that of the peasant. If arms be the basis of the State, then that +the army should become professional and apart is a symptom of decline +and a cause of it; if commerce, the substitution of hazards and +imaginaries for the transport of real goods and the search after real +demand; if production, the discontent or apathy of the producer; as +with peasants an ill system in the taxation of the land or in the +things necessary for its tillage, such as a misgovernment of its +irrigation in a dry country; the permission of private exactions and +tolls in a fertile one; the toleration of thieves and forestallers, and +so forth. Artisans, upon the other hand, may well flourish, though the +State be corrupt in such matters, but they must be secured in a high +wage and be given a vast liberty of protest, for if they sink to be +slaves in fact, they will from the nature of their toil grow both weak +and foolish. Yet is not the State endangered by the artisan’s throwing +off a refuse of ill-paid and starving men who are either too many for +the work or unskilful at it? Such an excretion would poison a +peasantry, remaining in their body as it were, but artisans are purged +thereby. This refuse it is for the State to decide upon. It may in an +artisan State be used for soldiery (since such States commonly maintain +but small armies and are commonly indifferent to military glory), or it +may be set to useful labour, or again, destroyed; but this last use is +repugnant to humanity, and so in the long run hurtful to the State. + +In the decline of a State, of whatever nature that State be, two vices +will immediately appear and grow: these are Avarice and Fear; and men +will more readily accept the imputation of Avarice than of Fear, for +Avarice is the less despicable of the two—yet in fact Fear will be by +far the strongest passion of the time. + +Avarice will show itself not indeed in a mere greed of gain (for this +is common to all societies whether flourishing or failing), but rather +in a sort of taking for granted and permeation of the mere love of +money, so that history will be explained by it, wars judged by their +booty or begun in order to enrich a few, love between men and women +wholly subordinated to it, especially among the rich: wealth made a +test for responsibility and great salaries invented and paid to those +who serve the State. This vice will also be apparent in the easy +acquaintance of all who are possessed of wealth and their segregation +from the less fortunate, for avarice cleaves society flatways, keeping +the scum of it quite clear of the middle, the middle of it quite clear +of the dregs, and so forth. It is a further mark of avarice in its last +stages that the rich are surrounded with lies in which they themselves +believe. Thus, in the last phase, there are no parasites but only +friends, no gifts but only loans, which are more esteemed favours than +gifts once were. No one vicious but only tedious, and no one a poltroon +but only slack. + +Of Fear in the decline of a State it may be said that it is so much the +master passion of such decline as to eat up all others. Coming by +travel from a healthy State to one diseased, Fear is the first point +you take. Men dare not print or say what they feel of the judges, the +public governors, the action of the police, the controllers of fortunes +and of news. This Fear will have about it something comic, providing +infinite joy to the foreigner, and modifying with laughter the lament +of the patriot. A miserable hack that never had a will of his own, but +ran to do what he was told for twenty years at the bidding of his +masters, being raised to the Bench will be praised for an impartial +virtue more than human. A drunken fellow, the son of a drunkard, having +stolen control over some half-dozen sheets, must be named under the +breath or not at all. A powerful minister may be accused with sturdy +courage of something which he did not do and no one would mind his +doing, but under the influence of Fear, to tell the least little truth +about him will put a whole assembly into a sort of blankness. + +This vice has for its most laughable effect the raising of a whole host +of phantoms, and when a State is so far gone that civic Fear is quite +normal to the citizens, then you will find them blenching with terror +at a piece of print, a whispered accusation. Bankruptcy, though they be +possessed of nothing, and even the ill-will of women. Moneylenders +under this influence have the greatest power, next after them, +blackmailers of all kinds, and next after these eccentrics who may +blurt or break out. Those who have least power in the decline of a +State, are priests, soldiers, the mothers of many children, the lovers +of one woman, and saints. + + + + +On Past Greatness + + +There lies in the North-East of France, close against the Belgian +frontier and within cannon shot of the famous battlefield of +Malplaquet, a little town called Bavai—I have written of it elsewhere. + +Coming into this little town you seem to be entering no more than a +decent, unimportant market borough, a larger village meant for country +folk, perhaps without a history and certainly without fame. + +As you come to look about you one thing after another enlivens your +curiosity and suggests something at once enormous and remote in the +destinies of the place. + +In the first place, seven great roads go out like the seven rays of a +star, plumb straight, darting along the line, across the vast, bare +fields of Flanders, past and along the many isolated woods of the +provinces, and making to great capitals far off—to Cologne, to Paris, +to Treves, and to the ports of the sea. + +These roads are deserted in great part. Some of them are metalled in +certain sections, and again in other sections are no more than lanes, +and again no more than footpaths, as you proceed along their miles of +way; but their exact design awfully impresses the mind. You know, as +you follow such strict alignment, that you are fulfilling the majestic +purpose of Imperial Rome. It was the Romans that made these things. + +Then, intrigued and excited by such remains of greatness, you read what +you can of the place.... And you find nothing but a dust of legend. You +find a story that once here a king, filled with ambition and +worshipping strange gods, thrust out these great roads to the ends of +the earth; desired his capital to be a hub and navel for the world. He +put them under the protection of the seven planets and of the deities +of those stars. Three he paved with black marble and four with white +marble, and where they met upon the market place he put up a golden +terminal. There the legend ends. + +It is only legend—a true product of the Dark Ages, when all that Rome +had done rose like a huge dream in the mind of Europe and took on +gorgeous and fantastic colouring. You learn (for the rest) very +little—that ornaments and money have been found dating from two +thousand years, that once great walls surrounded the place. It must +have had noble buildings and solemn courts. In strict history all you +will discover is that it was the capital of that tribe, the Nervii, +against whom Caesar fought, and whose territory was early conquered for +the Empire. You will find nothing more. There is no living tradition, +there is no voice; the little town is dumb. + +The place is a figure, and a striking one, of greatness long dead, and +a man visiting its small domestic interests to-day, and noting its +comfort, its humility, and its sleep, is reminded of many things +attaching to human fame. It would seem as though the ambitions of men, +and that exalted appetite for glory which has produced the chief things +of this world, suffer the effect of time somewhat as the body of an +animal slain will suffer that. + +One part of the organism and then another decays and mixes back with +nature. The effect of will has vanished. The thing is a prey to all +that environment which, once alive, it combated, conquered, and +transformed to its own use. One portion after another is lost, until at +last only the most resisting stands—the skeleton and hard framework, +the least expressive, the least personal part of the whole. This also +decays and perishes. Then there remains no more but a score of hardened +fragments that linger in their place, and what has passed away is +fortunate if even the slightest or most fantastic legend of itself +survives. + +The great dead are first forgotten in their physical habit; we lose the +nature of their voices, we forget their sympathies and their +affections. Bit by bit all that they intended to be eternal slips back +into the common thing around. A blurred image, growing fainter and +fainter, lingers. At last the person vanishes, and in its place some +public raising material things—a monument, a tomb, an ornament, or +weapon of enduring metal—is all that remains. + +If it were possible for the spring of appetite and quest to be dried up +in man, such a spectacle would dry up that spring. + +It is not possible, for it is providentially in the nature of man to +cherish these illusions of an immortal memory and of a life bestowed +upon the shade or the mere name of his living greatness. Those various +forms of fame which are young men’s goals, and to which the eager +creative power of early manhood so properly directs itself, seem each +in turn or each for its varying temperament to promise the desired +reward; and one imagines that his love, another that his discoveries, +another that his victories in the field or his conspicuous acts of +courage will remain permanently with his fellows long after he has left +their feast. + +As though to give some substance to the flattering cheat, there is one +kind of fame which men have been permitted to attain, and which does +give them a sort of fixed tenure—if not for ever, yet for generations +upon generations—in the human city. This sort of fame is the fame of +the great poets. There is nothing more enduring. It has for some who +were most blessed outlasted, you may say, all material things which +they handled or they knew—all fabrics, all instruments, all +habitations. It is comparable in its endurance to the years, and a man +reads the “Song of Roland” and can still look on that same unchanged +Cleft of Roncesvalles, or a man reads the Iliad and can look to-day +westward from the shores to Tenedos. But wait a moment. Are they indeed +blessed in this, the great poets? Ronsard debated it. He decided that +they were, and put into the mouth of the muses the great lines:—— + +Mais un tel accident n’arrive point a l’âme, +Qui sans matière vist immortelle là haut. + +Vela saigement dit, Ceux dont la fantaisie + Sera religieuse et devote envers Dieu +Tousjours acheveront quelque grand poésie, + Et dessus leur renom la Parque n’aura lieu. + + +But the matter is still undecided. + + + + +Mr. The Duke: The Man of Malplaquet + + +On the field of Malplaquet, that battlefield, I met a man. + +He was pointed out to me as a man who drove travellers to Bavai. His +name was Mr. The Duke, and he was very poor. + +If he comes across these lines (which is exceedingly unlikely) I offer +him my apologies. Anyhow, I can write about him freely, for he is not +rich, and, what is more, the laws of his country permit the telling of +the truth about our fellow-men, even when they are rich. + +Mr. The Duke was of some years, and his colour was that of cedar wood. +I met him in his farmyard, and I said to him: + +“Is it you, sir, that drive travellers to Bavai?” + +“No,” said he. + +Accustomed by many years of travel to this type of response, I +continued: + +“How much do you charge?” + +“Two francs fifty,” said he. + +“I will give you three francs,” I said, and when I had said this he +shook his head and replied: + +“You fall at an evil moment; I was about to milk the cows.” Having said +this he went to harness the horse. + +When the horse was harnessed to his little cart (it was an extremely +small horse, full of little bones and white in colour, with one eye +stronger than the other) he gave it to his little daughter to hold, and +himself sat down to table, proposing a meal. + +“It is but humble fare,” he said, “for we are poor.” + +This sounded familiar to me; I had both read and heard it before. The +meal was of bread and butter, pasty and beer, for Malplaquet is a +country of beer and not of wine. + +As he sat at table the old man pointed out to me that contraband across +the Belgian frontier, which is close by, was no longer profitable. + +“The Fraud,” he said, “is no longer a living for anyone.” + +Upon that frontier contraband is called “The Fraud”; it holds an +honourable place as a career. + +“The Fraud,” he continued, “has gone long ago; it has burst. It is no +longer to be pursued. There is not even any duty upon apples.... But +there is a duty upon pears. Had I a son I would not put him into The +Fraud.... Sometimes there is just a chance here and there.... One can +pick up an occasion. But take it all in all (and here he wagged his +head solemnly) there is nothing in it any more.” + +I said that I had no experience of contraband professionally, but that +I knew a very honest man who lived by it in the country of Andorra, and +that according to my morals a man had a perfect right to run the risk +and take his chance, for there was no contract between him and the +power he was trying to get round. This announcement pleased the old +gentleman, but it did not grip his mind. He was of your practical sort. +He was almost a Pragmatist. Abstractions wearied him. He put no faith +in the reality of ideas. I think he was a Nominalist like Abelard: and +whatever excuse you may make for him, Abelard was a Nominalist right +enough, for it was the intellectual thing to be at the time, though St. +Bernard utterly confuted him in arguments of enormous length and +incalculable boredom. + +The old man, then, I say, would have nothing to do with first +principles, and he reasserted his position that, in the concrete, in +the existent world, The Fraud no longer paid. + +This said for the sixth or seventh time, he drank some brandy to put +heart into him and climbed up into his little cart, I by his side. He +hit the white horse with a stick, making at the same time an +extraordinary shrill noise with his mouth, like a siren, and the horse +began to slop and sludge very dolefully towards Bavai. + +“This horse,” said Mr. The Duke, “is a wonderfully good horse. He goes +like the wind. He is of Arab extraction, and comes from Africa.” + +With these words he gave the horse another huge blow with his stick, +and once more emitted his piercing cry. The horse went neither faster +nor slower than before, and seemed very indifferent to the whole +performance. + +“He is from Africa,” said Mr. The Duke again, meditatively. “Do you +know Africa?” + +Africa with the French populace means Algiers. I answered that I knew +it, and that in particular I knew the road southward from Constantine. +At this he looked very pleased, and said: + +“I was a soldier in Africa. I deserted seven times.” + +To this I made no answer. I did not know how he wanted me to take it, +so I waited until he should speak again, which he soon did, and said: + +“The last time I deserted I was free for a year and a half. I used to +conduct beasts; that was my trade. When they caught me I was to have +been shot. I was saved by the tears of a woman!” + +Having said this the old man pulled out a very small pipe and filled it +with exceedingly black tobacco. He lit it, then he began talking again +rather more excitedly. + +“It is a terrible thing and an unhappy thing none the less,” he went +on, “that a man should be taken out to be shot and should be saved by +the tears of a woman.” Then he added, “Of what use are wars? How +foolish it is that men should kill each other! If there were a war I +would not fight. Would you?” + +I said I thought I would; but whether I should like to or not would +depend upon the war. + +He was eager to contradict and to tell me that war was wrong and +stupid. Having behind him the logical training of fifteen Christian +centuries he was in no way muddle-headed upon the matter. He saw very +well that his doctrine meant that it was wrong to have a country, and +wrong to love it, and that patriotism was all bosh, and that no ideal +was worth physical pain or trouble. To such conclusions had he come at +the end of his life. + +The white horse meanwhile slouched; Bavai grew somewhat nearer as we +sat in silence after his last sentence. He was turning many things over +in his mind. He veered off on to political economy. + +“When the rich man at the Manufactory here, the place where they sell +phosphates for the land, when he stands beer to all the workmen and to +the countryside, I always say, ‘Fools! All this will be put on to the +cost of the phosphates; they will cost you more!’” + +Mr. The Duke did not accept John Stuart Mill’s proposition upon the +cost of production nor the general theories of Ricardo upon which +Mill’s propositions were based. In his opinion rent was a factor in the +cost of production, for he told me that butter had gone up because the +price of land was rising near the towns. In what he next said I found +out that he was not a Collectivist, for he said a man should own enough +to live upon, but he said that this was impossible if rich people were +allowed to live. I asked him what the politics of the countryside were +and how people voted. He said: + +“The politicians trick the people. They are a heap of worthlessness.” + +I asked him if he voted, and he said “yes.” He said there was only one +way to vote, but I did not understand what this meant. + +Had time served I should have asked him further questions—upon the +nature of the soul, its ultimate fate, the origin of man and his +destiny, whether mortal or immortal; the proper constitution of the +State, the choice of the legislator, the prince, and the magistrate; +the function of art, whether it is subsidiary or primary in human life; +the family; marriage. Upon the State he had already informed me, and +also upon the institution of property, and upon his view of armies. +Upon all those other things he would equally have given me a clear +reply, for he was a man that knew his own mind, and that is more than +most people can say. + +But we were now in Bavai, and I had no time to discover more. We drank +together before we parted, and I was very pleased to see the honest +look in his face. With more leisure and born to greater opportunities +he would have been talked about, this Man of Malplaquet. He had come to +his odd conclusions as the funny people do in Scandinavia and in +Russia, and among the rich intellectuals and usurers in London and +Berlin; but he was a jollier man than they are, for he could drive a +horse and lie about it, and he could also milk a cow. As we parted he +used a phrase that wounded me, and which I had only heard once before +in my life. He said: + +“We shall never see each other again!” + +Another man had once said this thing to me before. This man was a +farmer in the Northumbrian hills, who walked with me a little way in +the days when I was going over Carter Fell to find the Scots people, +many, many years ago. He also said: “We shall never meet again!” + + + + +The Game of Cards + + +A youth of no more than twenty-three years entered a first-class +carriage at the famous station of Swindon in the county of Wiltshire, +proposing to travel to the uttermost parts of the West and to enjoy a +comfortable loneliness while he ruminated upon all things human and +divine; when he was sufficiently annoyed to discover that in the +further corner of the carriage was sitting an old gentleman of +benevolent appearance, or at any rate a gentleman of benevolent +appearance who appeared in his youthful eyes to be old. + +For though the old gentleman was, as a fact, but sixty, yet his virile +beard had long gone white and the fringes of hair attaching to his +ostrich egg of a head confirmed his venerable appearance. + +When the train had started the young man proceeded in no very good +temper and with great solemnity to fill a pipe. He turned to his +senior, who was watching him in a very paternal and happy manner, and +said formally: + +“I hope you do not mind my smoking, sir?” + +“Not at all,” said the old boy; “it is a habit I have long grown +accustomed to in others.” + +The young man bowed in a somewhat absurd fashion and felt for his +matches. He discovered to his no small mortification that he had none. +He was so used to his pipe after a meal that he really could not forgo +it. He came off his perch by at least three steps and asked the old man +very gently whether he had any matches. + +The older man produced a box and at the same time brought out with it a +little notebook and a playing card which happened to be in his pocket. +The young man took the matches and lit his pipe, surveying the old man +the while with a more complacent eye. + +“It is very kind of you, sir,” he said a little less stiffly. He handed +back the matches, wrapped his rug round his legs, sat down in his +place, and knowing that one should prolong the conversation for a +moment or two after a favour, said: “I see that you play cards.” + +“I do,” said the old man simply; “would you like a game?” + +“I don’t mind,” said the young man, who had always heard that it was +unmanly and ridiculous to refuse a game of cards in a railway carriage. + +The elder man laughed merrily in his strong beard as he saw his junior +begin to spread somewhat awkwardly a copy of a newspaper upon his +knees. “I’ll show you a trick worth two of that,” he said, and taking +one of the first-class cushions, which alone of railway cushions are +movable from its place, he came over to the corner opposite the young +man and made a table of the cushion between them. “Now,” said he +genially, “what’s it to be?” + +“Well,” said the young man like one who expounds new mysteries, “do you +know piquet?” + +“Oh, yes,” said his companion with another happy little laugh of +contentment with the world. “I’ll take you on. What shall it be?” + +“Pennies if you like,” said the young man nonchalantly. + +“Very well, and double for the Rubicon.” + +“How do you mean?” said the young man, puzzled. + +“You will see,” said the old man, and they began to play. + +The game was singularly absorbing. At first the young man won a few +pounds; then he lost rather heavily, then he won again, but not quite +enough to recoup. Then in the fourth game he won, so that he was a +little ahead, and meanwhile the old man chatted merrily during the +discarding or the shuffling: during the shuffling especially. He looked +out towards the downs with something of a sigh at one moment, and said: + +“It’s a happy world.” + +“Yes,” answered the younger man with the proper lugubriousness of +youth, “but it all comes to an end.” + +“It isn’t its coming to an end,” said the elder man, declaring a point +of six, “that’s not the tragedy; it’s the little bits coming to an end +meanwhile, before the whole comes to an end: that’s the tragedy....” +But he added with another of his jolly laughs: “We must play. Piquet +takes up all one’s grey matter.” + +They played and the young man lost again, but by a very narrow margin: +it was quite an absorbing game. As they shuffled again the young man +said: + +“What did you mean by the little bits stopping, or whatever it was?” + +“Oh,” said the old man as though he couldn’t remember, and then he +added: “Oh, yes, I mean you’ll find, as you grow older, people die and +affections change, and, though it seems silly to mention it in company +with higher things, there’s what Shelley called the ‘contagion of the +world’s slow stain.’” + +Then their conversation was interrupted by the ardour of the game; but +as they played the young man was ruminating, and he had come to the +conclusion that his senior was imperfectly educated and was probably of +the middle classes, whereas he himself was destined to be a naval +architect, and with that object had recently left the university for an +office in the city. The young man thought that a man properly educated +would never quote a tag: he was wrong there. As he had allowed his +thoughts to wander somewhat the young man lost that game rather +heavily, and at the end of it he was altogether about ten shillings to +the bad. It was his turn to shuffle. The older man was at leisure to +speak, and did so rather dreamily as he gazed at the landscape again. + +“Things change, you know,” he said, “and there is the contagion of the +world’s slow stain. One gets preoccupied: especially about money. When +men marry they get very much preoccupied upon that point. It’s bad for +them, but it can’t be helped.” + +“You cut,” said the young man. + +His elder cut and they played again. This time as they played their +game the old man broke his rule of silence and continued his +observations interruptedly: + +“Four kings,” he said.... “It isn’t that a man gets to think money +all-important, it is that he has to think of it all the time.... No, +three queens are no good. I said four kings.... four knaves.... The +little losses of money don’t affect one, but perpetual trouble about it +does, and” (closing up the majority of tricks which he had just gained) +“many a man goes on making more year after year and yet feels himself +in peril.... _And_ the last trick.” He took up the cards to shuffle +them. “Towards the very end of life,” he continued, “it gets less, I +suppose, but you’ll feel the burden of it.” He put the pack over for +the younger man to cut. When that was done he dealt them out slowly. As +he dealt he said: “One feels the loss of little material things: +objects to which one was attached, a walking-stick, or a ring, or a +watch which one has carried for years. Your declare.” + +The young man declared, and that game was played in silence. I regret +to say that the young man was Rubiconed, and was thirty shillings in +the elder’s debt. + +“We’ll stop if you like” said the elder man kindly. + +“Oh, no,” said the youth with nonchalance, “I’ll pay you now if you +like.” + +“Not at all, I didn’t mean that,” said the older man with a sudden +prick of honour. + +“Oh, but I will, and we’ll start fair again,” said the young man. +Whereupon he handed over his combined losses in gold, the older man +gave him change, they shuffled again, and they went on with their play. + +“After all,” said the older man, musing as he confessed to a point of +no more than five, “it’s all in the day’s work.... It’s just a day’s +work,” he repeated with a saddened look in his eyes, “it’s a game that +one plays like this game, and then when it’s over it’s over. It’s the +little losses that count.” + +That game again was unfortunate for the young man, and he had to shell +out fifteen and six. But the brakes were applied, Bristol was reached, +the train came to a standstill, and the young man, looking up a little +confused and hurried, said: “Hello, Bristol! I get out here.” + +“So do I,” said the older man. They both stood up together, and the +jolt of the train as it stopped dead threw them into each other’s arms. + +“I am really very sorry,” said the youth. + +“It’s my fault,” said the old chap like a good fellow, “I ought to have +caught hold. You get out and I’ll hand you your bag.” + +“It’s very kind of you,” said the young man. He was really flattered by +so much attention, but he knew himself what a good companion he was and +he could understand it; besides which they had made friends during that +little journey. He always liked a man to whom he had lost some money in +an honest game. + +There was a heavy crowd upon the platform, and two men barging up out +of it saluted the old man boisterously by the name of Jack. He twinkled +at them with his eyes as he began moving the luggage about, and stood +for a moment in the doorway with his own bag in his right hand and the +young man’s bag in his left. The young man so saw it for an instant, a +fine upstanding figure—he saw his bag handed by some mistake to the +second of the old man’s friends, a porter came by at the moment pushing +through the crowd with a trolley, an old lady made a scene, the porter +apologized, the crowd took sides, some for the porter, some for the old +lady; the young man, with the deference of his age, politely asked +several people to make way, but when he had emerged from the struggle +his companion, his companion’s friends, and his own bag could not be +found; or at any rate he could not make out where they were in the +great mass that pushed and surged upon the platform. + +He made himself a little conspicuous by asking too many questions and +by losing his temper twice with people who had done him no harm, when, +just as his excitement was growing more than querulous, a very heavy, +stupid-looking man in regulation boots tapped him on the shoulder and +said: “Follow me.” He was prepared with an oath by way of reply, but +another gentleman of equal weight, wearing boots of the same pattern, +linked his arm in his and between them they marched him away, to a +little private closet opening out of the stationmaster’s room. + +“Now, sir,” said he who had first tapped him on the shoulder, “be good +enough to explain your movements.” + +“I don’t know what you mean,” said the young man. + +“You were in the company,” said the older man severely, “of an old man, +bald, with a white beard and a blue sailor suit. He had come from +London; you joined him at Swindon. We have evidence that he was to be +met at this station and it will be to your advantage if you make a +clean breast of it.” + +The young man was violent and he was borne away. + +But he had friends at Bristol. He gave his references and he was +released. To this day he believes that he suffered not from folly, but +from injustice. He did not see his bag again, but after all it +contained no more than his evening clothes, for which he had paid or +rather owed six guineas, four shirts, as many collars and dress ties, a +silver-mounted set of brushes and combs, and useless cut-glass bottles, +a patented razor, a stick of shaving soap, and two very, very +confidential letters which he treasured. His watch, of course, was +gone, but not, I am glad to say, his chain, which hung dangling, though +in his flurry he had not noticed it. It made him look a trifle +ridiculous. As he wore no tie-pin he had not lost that, and beyond his +temper he had indeed lost nothing further save, possibly, a textbook +upon Thermodynamics. This book he _thought_ he remembered having put +into the bag, and if he had it belonged to his library, but he could +not quite remember this point, and when the Library claimed it he +stoutly disputed their claim. + +In this dispute he was successful, but it was the only profit he made +out of that journey, unless we are to count his experience, and +experience, as all the world knows, is a thing that men must buy. + + + + +“King Lear” + + +The great unity which was built up two thousand years ago and was +called Christendom in its final development split and broke in pieces. +The various civilizations of its various provinces drifted apart, and +it will be for the future historian to say at what moment the isolation +of each from all was farthest pushed. It is certain that that point is +passed. + +In the task of reuniting what was broken—it is the noblest work a +modern man can do—the very first mechanical act must be to explain one +national soul to another. That act is not final. The nations of Europe, +now so divided, still have more in common than those things by which +they differ, and it is certain that when they have at last revealed to +them their common origin they will return to it. They will return to +it, perhaps, under the pressure of war waged by some not Christian +civilization, but they will return. In the meanwhile, of those acts not +final, yet of immediate necessity in the task of establishing unity, is +the act of introducing one national soul to another. + +Now this is best accomplished in a certain way which I will describe. +You will take that part in the letters of a nation which you maturely +judge most or best to reflect the full national soul, with its +qualities, careless of whether these be great or little; you will take +such a work as reproduces for you as you read it, not only in its +sentiment, but in its very rhythm, the stuff and colour of the nation; +this you will present to the foreigner, who cannot understand. His +efforts must be laborious, very often unfruitful, but where it is +fruitful it will be of a decisive effect. + +Thus let anyone take some one of the immortal things that Racine wrote +and show them to an Englishman. He will hardly ever be able to make +anything of it at first. Here and there some violently emotional +passage may faintly touch him, but the mass of the verse will seem to +him dead. Now, if by constant reading, by association with those who +know what Racine is, he at last sees him—and these changes in the mind +come very suddenly—he will see into the soul of Gaul. For the converse +task, to-day not equally difficult but once almost impossible, of +presenting England to the French intelligence—or, indeed, to any other +alien intelligence—you may choose the play “King Lear.” + +That play has every quality which does reflect the soul of the +community in which and for which it was written. Note a few in their +order. + +First, it is not designed to its end; at least it is not designed +accurately to its end; it is written as a play and it is meant to be +acted as a play, and it is the uniform opinion of those versed in plays +and in acting that in its full form it could hardly be presented, while +in any form it is the hardest even of Shakespeare’s plays to perform. +Here you have a parallel with a thousand mighty English things to which +you can turn. Is there not institution after institution to decide on, +so lacking a complete fitness to its end, larger in a way than the end +it is to serve, and having, as it were, a life of its own which +proceeds apart from its effect? This quality which makes so many +English things growths rather than instruments is most evident in the +great play. + +Again, it has that quality which Voltaire noted, which he thought +abnormal in Shakespeare, but which is the most national characteristic +in him, that a sort of formlessness, if it mars the framework of the +thing and spoils it, yet also permits the exercise of an immeasurable +vitality. When a man has read “King Lear” and lays down the book he is +like one who has been out in one of those empty English uplands in a +storm by night. It is written as though the pen bred thoughts. It is +possible to conjecture as one reads, and especially in the diatribes, +that the pen itself was rapid and the brain too rapid for the pen. One +feels the rush of the air. Now, this quality is to be discovered in the +literature of many nations, but never with the fullness which it has in +the literature of England. And note that in those phases of the +national life when foreign models have constrained this instinct of +expansion in English verse, they never have restrained it for long, and +that even through the bonds established by those models the instinct of +expansion breaks. You see it in the exuberance of Dryden and in the +occasional running rhetoric of Pope, until it utterly loosens itself +with the end of the eighteenth century. + +The play is national, again, in that permanent curiosity upon knowable +things—nay, that mysterious half-knowledge of unknowable things—which, +in its last forms, produced the mystic, and which is throughout history +so plainly characteristic of these Northern Atlantic islands. Every +play of Shakespeare builds with that material, and no writer, even of +the English turn, has sent out points further into the region of what +is not known than Shakespeare has in sudden flashes of phrase. But +“King Lear,” though it contains a lesser number of lines of this +mystical and half-religious effect than, say, “Hamlet,” yet as a +general impression is the more mystical of the two plays. The element +of madness, which in “Hamlet” hangs in the background like a +storm-cloud ready to break, in “King Lear” rages; and it is the use of +this which lends its amazing psychical power to the play. It has been +said (with no great profundity of criticism) that English fiction is +chiefly remarkable for its power of particularization of character, and +that where French work, for instance, will present ideas, English will +present persons. The judgment is grossly insufficient, and therefore +false, but it is based upon a proof which is very salient in English +letters, which is that, say, in quite short and modern work the sense +of complete unity deadens the English mind. The same nerve which +revolts at a straight road and at a code of law revolts against one +tone of thought, and the sharp contrast of emotional character, not the +dual contrast which is common to all literatures, but the multiple +contrast, runs through “King Lear” and gives the work such a tone that +one seems as one reads it to be moving in a cloud. + +The conclusion is perhaps Shakespearean rather than English, and in a +fashion escapes from any national labelling. But the note of silence +which Shakespeare suddenly brings in upon the turmoil, and with which +he is so fond of completing what he has done, would not be possible +were not that spirit of expansion and of a kind of literary +adventurousness present in all that went before. + +It is indeed this that makes the play so memorable. And it may not be +fantastic to repeat and expand what has been said above in other words, +namely, that King Lear has something about him which seems to be a +product of English landscape and of English weather, and if its general +movement is a storm its element is one of those sudden silences that +come sometimes with such magical rapidity after the booming of the +wind. + + + + +The Excursion + + +It is so old a theme that I really hesitate to touch it; and yet it is +so true and so useful that I will. It is true all the time, and it is +particularly useful at this season of the year to men in cities: to all +repetitive men: to the men that read these words. What is more, true as +it is and useful as it is, no amount of hammering at people seems to +get this theme into their practice; though it has long ago entered into +their convictions they will not act upon it in their summers. And this +true and useful theme is the theme of little freedoms and discoveries, +the value of getting loose and away by a small trick when you want to +get your glimpse of Fairyland. + +Now how does one get loose and away? + +When a man says to himself that he must have a holiday he means that he +must see quite new things that are also old: he desires to open that +door which stood wide like a window in childhood and is now shut fast. +But where are the new things that are also the old? Paradoxical fellows +who deserve drowning tell one that they are at our very doors. Well, +that is true of the eager mind, but the mind is no longer eager when it +is in need of a holiday. And you can get at the new things that are +also the old by way of drugs, but drugs are a poor sort of holiday +fabric. If you have stored up your memory well with much experience you +can get these things from your memory—but only in a pale sort of way. + +I think the best avenue to recreation by the magical impressions of the +world upon the mind is this: To go to some place to which the common +road leads you and then to get just off the common road. You will be +astonished to find how strange the world becomes in the first mile—and +how strange it remains till the common road is reached again. + +It always sounds like a mockery for a man who has travelled to a great +many places, as I have, to advise his fellows to travel abroad; they +are most of them hard tied. Yet it is really a much easier thing than +men bound to the desk and the workshop understand. Britain is but one +great port, and its inward seas are narrow—and the fares are +ridiculously low. If you are a young man you can go almost anywhere for +almost anything, sitting up by night on deck, and not expecting too +much courtesy. But, of course, if you shirk the sea you are a prisoner. + +Well, then, supposing you abroad, or even in some other part of this +highly varied kingdom in which you live, and supposing you to have +reached some chosen place by some common road—what I desire to dilate +upon here is the truth which every little excursion of business or of +leisure (and precious few of leisure) makes me more certain of every +day: That just a little way off the road is fairyland. + +It was exactly three days ago that I had occasion to go down the +railway line that is the most frequented in Europe: I was on business, +not leisure, but in the business I had two days’ leisure, and I did +what I would advise all other men to do in such a circumstance. + +I took a train to nowhere, fixing my starting-point thus:— + +I first looked at the map and saw where nearest to me was a +quadrilateral bare of railways. This formula, to look for a +quadrilateral bare of railways, is a very useful formula for the man +who is seeking another world. Then I fixed at random upon one little +roadside station upon the main line; I determined to get out there and +to walk aimlessly and westward until I should strike the other side of +the quadrilateral. I made no plan, not even of the hours of the day. + +I came into my roadside station at half-past eight of the long summer +night, broad daylight that is, but with night advancing. I got out and +began my westward march. At once there crowded upon me any number of +unexpected and entertaining things! + +The first thing I found was a street which was used by horses as well +as by men, and yet was made up of broad steps. It was a sort of +stair-case going up a hill. At the top of it I found a woman leading a +child by the hand. I asked her the name of the steps. She told me they +were called “The Steps of St. John.” + +A quarter of a mile further down the narrow lane I saw to my +astonishment an enormous castle, ruined and open to the sky. There are +many such ruins famous in Europe, but of this one I had never even +heard. I went lonely under the evening and looked at its main gate and +saw on it a moulded escutcheon, carved, and the motto in French, +“Henceforward,” which word made me think a great deal, but resolved no +problem in my mind. + +I went on again westward as the darkness fell and saw what I had not +seen before, though my reading had told me of its existence, a long +line of trees marking a ridge on the horizon, which line was the border +of that ancient road the Roman soldiers built leading from the west +into Amiens. “Along that road,” thought I, “St. Martin rode before he +became a monk, and while he was yet a soldier and was serving under +Julian the Apostate. Along that road he came to the west gate of Amiens +and there cut his cloak in two and gave the half of it to a beggar.” + +The memory of St. Martin’s deed entertained me for some miles of my +way, and I remembered how, when I was a child, it had seemed to me +ridiculous to cut your coat in two whether for a beggar or for anybody +else. Not that I thought charity ridiculous—God forbid!—but that a coat +seemed to me a thing you could not cut in two with any profit to the +user of either half. You might cut it in latitude and turn it into an +Eton jacket and a kilt, neither of much use to a Gallo-Roman beggar. Or +you might cut it in meridian and leave but one sleeve: mere folly. + +Considering these things, I went on over the rolling plateau. I saw a +great owl flying before me against the sky, different from the owls of +home. I saw Jupiter shining above a cloud and Venus shining below one. +The long light lingered in the north above the English sea. At last I +came quite unexpectedly upon that delight and plaything of the French: +a light railway, or steam tram such as that people build in great +profusion to link up their villages and their streams. The road where I +came upon it made a level crossing, and there was a hut there, and a +woman living in it who kept the level crossing and warned the +passers-by. She told me no more trains, or rather little trams, would +pass that night, but that three miles further on I should come to a +place called “The Mills of the Vidame.” + +Now the name “Vidame” reminded me that a “Vidame” was the lay protector +of a Cathedral Chapter in feudal times, so the name gave me a renewed +pleasure. + +But it was now near midnight, and when I came to this village I +remembered how in similar night walks I had sometimes been refused +lodging. When I got among the few houses all was dark. I found, +however, in the darkness two young men, each bearing an enormous curled +trumpet of the kind which the French call _cors de chasse_, that is, +hunting horns, so I asked them where the inn was. They took me to it +and woke up the hostess, who received us with oaths. This she did lest +the young men with hunting horns should demand a commission. Her heart, +however, was better than her mouth, and she put me up, but she charged +me tenpence for my room, counting coffee in the morning, which was, I +am sure, more than her usual rate. + +Next day I took the little steam tram away from the place and went on +vaguely whither it should please God to take me, until the plateau +changed and the light railway fell into a charming valley, and, seeing +a town rooted therein, I got out and paid my fare and visited the town. +In this town I went to church, as it was early morning (you must excuse +the foible), and, coming out of church, I had an argument with a +working man upon the matter of religion, in which argument, as I +believe, I was the victor. I then went on north out of this town and +came into a wood of enormous size. It was miles and miles across, and +the trees were higher than anything I have seen outside of California. +It was an enchanted wood. The sun shone down through a hundred feet of +silence by little rounds between the leaves, and there was silence +everywhere. In this wood I sojourned all day long, making slowly +westward, till, in the very midst of it, I found a troubled man. He was +a man of middle age, short, intelligent, fat, and weary. He said to me: + +“Have you noticed any special mark upon the trees? A white mark of the +number 90?” + +“No,” said I. “Are there any wild boars in this forest?” + +“Yes,” he answered, “a few, but not of use. I am looking for trees +marked in white with the number 90. I have paid a price for them, and I +cannot find them.” + +I saluted him and went on my way. At last I came to an open clearing, +where there was a town, and in the town I found a very delightful inn, +where they would cook anything one felt inclined for, within reason, +and charged one very moderately indeed. I have retained its name. + +By this time I was completely lost, and in the heart of Fairyland, when +suddenly I remembered that everyone that strikes root in Fairyland +loses something, at the least his love and at the worst his soul, and +that it is a perilous business to linger there, so I asked them in that +hotel how they worked it when they wanted to go west into the great +towns. They put me into an omnibus, which charged me fourpence for a +journey of some two miles. It took me, as Heaven ordained, to a common +great railway, and that common great railway took me through the night +to the town of Dieppe, which I have known since I could speak and +before, and which was about as much of Fairyland to me as Piccadilly or +Monday morning. + +Thus ended those two days, in which I had touched again the unknown +places—and all that heaven was but two days, and cost me not fifty +shillings. + +Excuse the folly of this. + + + + +The Tide + + +I wish I had been one of those men who first sailed beyond the Pillars +of Hercules and first saw, as they edged northward along a barbarian +shore, the slow swinging of the sea. How much, I wonder, did they think +themselves enlarged? How much did they know that all the civilization +behind them, the very ancient world of the Mediterranean, was something +protected and enclosed from which they had escaped into an outer world? +And how much did they feel that here they were now physically caught by +the moving tides that bore them in the whole movement of things? + +For the tide is of that kind; and the movement of the sea four times +daily back and forth is a consequence, a reflection, and a part of the +ceaseless pulse and rhythm which animates all things made and which +links what seems not living to what certainly lives and feels and has +power over all movement of its own. The circuits of the planets stretch +and then recede. Their ellipses elongate and flatten again to the +semblance of circles. The Poles slowly nod once every many thousand +years, there is a libration to the moon; and in all this vast +harmonious process of come and go the units of it twirl and spin, and, +as they spin, run more gravely in ordered procession round their +central star: that star moves also to a beat, and all the stars of +heaven move each in times of its own as well, and their movement is one +thing altogether. Whoever should receive the mighty business moving in +one ear would get the music of it in a perfect series of chords, +superimposed the one upon the other, but not a tremble of them out of +tune. + +The great scheme is not infinite, for were it infinite such rhythms +could not be. It was made, and it moves in order to the scheme of its +making without caprice, not wayward anywhere, but in and out and back +and forth as to a figure set for it. It must be so, or these exact +arrangements could not be. + +Now with this regulated breathing and expiration, playing itself out in +a million ways and co-extensive with the universe of things, the tides +keep time, and they alone of earthly things bring its actual force to +our physical perception, to our daily life. We see the sea in movement +and power before us heaving up whatever it may bear, and we feel in an +immediate way its strong backward sagging when the rocks appear above +it as it falls. We have our hand on the throb of the current turning in +a salting river inland between green hills; we are borne upon it bodily +as we sail, its movement kicks the tiller in our grasp, and the +strength beneath us and around us, the rush and the compulsion of the +stream, its silence and as it were its purpose, all represent to us, +immediately and here, that immeasurable to and fro which rules the +skies. + +When the Roman soldiers came marching northward with Caesar and first +saw the shores of ocean: when, after that occupation of Gaul which has +changed the world, they first mounted guard upon the quays of the Itian +port under Gris-Nez, or the rocky inlets of the Veneti by St. Malo and +the Breton reefs, they were appalled to see what for centuries chance +traders and the few curious travellers, the men of Marseilles and of +the islands, had seen before them. They saw in numbers and in a +corporate way what hitherto individuals alone had seen; they saw the +sea like a living thing, advancing and retreating in an ordered dance, +alive with deep sighs and intakes, and ceaselessly proceeding about a +work and a doing which seemed to be the very visible action of an +unchanging will still pleased with calculated change. It was the +presence of the Roman army upon the shores of the Channel which brought +the Tide into the general conscience of Europe, and that experience, I +think, was among the greatest, perhaps the greatest, of those new +things which rushed upon the mind of the Empire when it launched itself +by the occupation of Gaul. + +The tide, when it is mentioned in brief historical records of times +long since, suddenly strikes one with vividness and with familiarity, +so that the past is introduced at once, presented to us physically, and +obtruded against our modern senses alive. I know of no other physical +thing mentioned in this fashion, in chronicle or biography, which has +so powerful an effect to restore the reality of a dead century. + +The Venerable Bede is speaking in one place of Southampton Water, in +his ecclesiastical history, or, rather, of the Isle of Wight, whence +those two Princes were baptized and died under Cadwalla. As the +historian speaks of the place he says: + +“In this sea” (which is the Solent) “comes a double tide out of the +seas which spring from the infinite ocean of the Arctic surrounding all +Britain.” + +And he tells us how these double tides rush together and fight +together, sweeping as they do round either side of the island by the +Needles and by Spithead into the land-locked sheet within. + +Now that passage in Bede’s fourth book is more real to me than anything +in all his chronicle, for in Southampton Water to-day the living thing +which we still note as we sail is the double tide. You take a falling +tide at the head of the water, near Southampton Town, and if you are +not quick with your business it is checked in two hours and you meet a +strange flood, the second flood, before you have rounded Calshott +Castle. + +Then there is a Charter of Newcastle. Or, rather, the inviolable +Customs of that town, very old, drawn up nearly eight hundred years +ago, but beginning from far earlier; and in these customs you find +written: + +“If a plea shall arise between a burgess and a merchant it must be +determined before the third flowing of the sea”—that is, within three +tides; a wise provision! For thus the merchant would not miss the last +tide of the day after the quarrel. How living it is, a phrase of that +sort coming in the midst of those other phrases! + +All the rest, worse luck, has gone. Burgage-tenure, and the economic +independence of the humble, and the busy, healthy life of men working +to enrich themselves, not others, and that corporate association which +was the blood of the Middle Ages, and the power of popular opinion, +and, in general, freedom. But out of all these things that have +perished, the tide remains, and in the eighteen clauses of the Customs, +the tidal clause alone stands fresh and still has meaning. The capital, +great clinching clause by which men owned their own land within the +town has gone utterly and altogether. The modern workman on the Tyne +would not understand you perhaps, to whom in that very place you should +say, “Many centuries ago the men that came before you here, your +fathers, were not working precariously at a wage, or paying rent to +others, but living under their own roofs and working for themselves.” +There is only one passage in the document that all could understand in +Newcastle to-day—the very few rich who are hardly secure, the myriads +of poor who are not secure at all—and that passage is the passage which +talks of the third tide; for even to-day there is some good we have +left undestroyed and the sea still ebbs and flows. + +This little note of the Newcastle men, and of the flowing and the +ebbing of their sea, is to be found, you say, in the archives of +England? Not at all! It is to be found in the Acts of the Parliament of +Scotland—at least, so my book assures me, but why I do not know. +Perhaps of the times when between Tyne and Tees, men looked northward +and of the times when they looked southward (for they alternately did +one and the other during many hundreds of years) those times when they +looked northward seemed the more natural to them. Anyhow, the reference +is to the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, and that is the end of +it. + + + + +On a Great Wind + + +It is an old dispute among men, or rather a dispute as old as mankind, +whether Will be a cause of things or no; nor is there anything novel in +those moderns who affirm that Will is nothing to the matter, save their +ignorant belief that their affirmation is new. + +The intelligent process whereby I know that Will not seems but is, and +can alone be truly and ultimately a cause, is fed with stuff and +strengthens sacramentally as it were, whenever I meet, and am made the +companion of, a great wind. + +It is not that this lively creature of God is indeed perfected with a +soul; this it would be superstition to believe. It has no more a person +than any other of its material fellows, but in its vagary of way, in +the largeness of its apparent freedom, in its rush of purpose, it seems +to mirror the action of mighty spirit. When a great wind comes roaring +over the eastern flats towards the North Sea, driving over the Fens and +the Wringland, it is like something of this island that must go out and +wrestle with the water, or play with it in a game or a battle; and +when, upon the western shores, the clouds come bowling up from the +horizon, messengers, outriders, or comrades of a gale, it is something +of the sea determined to possess the land. The rising and falling of +such power, its hesitations, its renewed violence, its fatigue and +final repose—all these are symbols of a mind; but more than all the +rest, its exultation! It is the shouting and the hurrahing of the wind +that suits a man. + +Note you, we have not many friends. The older we grow and the better we +can sift mankind, the fewer friends we count, although man lives by +friendship. But a great wind is every man’s friend, and its strength is +the strength of good-fellowship; and even doing battle with it is +something worthy and well chosen. If there is cruelty in the sea, and +terror in high places, and malice lurking in profound darkness, there +is no one of these qualities in the wind, but only power. Here is +strength too full for such negations as cruelty, as malice, or as fear; +and that strength in a solemn manner proves and tests health in our own +souls. For with terror (of the sort I mean—terror of the abyss or panic +at remembered pain, and in general, a losing grip of the succours of +the mind), and with malice, and with cruelty, and with all the forms of +that Evil which lies in wait for men, there is the savour of disease. +It is an error to think of such things as power set up in equality +against justice and right living. We were not made for them, but rather +for influences large and soundly poised; we are not subject to them but +to other powers that can always enliven and relieve. It is health in +us, I say, to be full of heartiness and of the joy of the world, and of +whether we have such health our comfort in a great wind is a good test +indeed. No man spends his day upon the mountains when the wind is out, +riding against it or pushing forward on foot through the gale, but at +the end of his day feels that he has had a great host about him. It is +as though he had experienced armies. The days of high winds are days of +innumerable sounds, innumerable in variation of tone and of intensity, +playing upon and awakening innumerable powers in man. And the days of +high wind are days in which a physical compulsion has been about us and +we have met pressure and blows, resisted and turned them; it enlivens +us with the simulacrum of war by which nations live, and in the just +pursuit of which men in companionship are at their noblest. + +It is pretended sometimes (less often perhaps now than a dozen years +ago) that certain ancient pursuits congenial to man will be lost to him +under his new necessities; thus men sometimes talk foolishly of horses +being no longer ridden, houses no longer built of wholesome wood and +stone, but of metal; meat no more roasted, but only baked; and even of +stomachs grown too weak for wine. There is a fashion of saying these +things, and much other nastiness. Such talk is (thank God!) mere folly; +for man will always at last tend to his end, which is happiness, and he +will remember again to do all those things which serve that end. So it +is with the uses of the wind, and especially the using of the wind with +sails. + +No man has known the wind by any of its names who has not sailed his +own boat and felt life in the tiller. Then it is that a man has most to +do with the wind, plays with it, coaxes or refuses it, is wary of it +all along; yields when he must yield, but comes up and pits himself +again against its violence; trains it, harnesses it, calls it if it +fails him, denounces it if it will try to be too strong, and in every +manner conceivable handles this glorious playmate. + +As for those who say that men did but use the wind as an instrument for +crossing the sea, and that sails were mere machines to them, either +they have never sailed or they were quite unworthy of sailing. It is +not an accident that the tall ships of every age of varying fashions so +arrested human sight and seemed so splendid. The whole of man went into +their creation, and they expressed him very well; his cunning, and his +mastery, and his adventurous heart. For the wind is in nothing more +capitally our friend than in this, that it has been, since men were +men, their ally in the seeking of the unknown and in their divine +thirst for travel which, in its several aspects—pilgrimage, conquest, +discovery, and, in general, enlargement—is one prime way whereby man +fills himself with being. + +I love to think of those Norwegian men who set out eagerly before the +north-east wind when it came down from their mountains in the month of +March like a god of great stature to impel them to the West. They +pushed their Long Keels out upon the rollers, grinding the shingle of +the beach at the fjord-head. They ran down the calm narrows, they +breasted and they met the open sea. Then for days and days they drove +under this master of theirs and high friend, having the wind for a sort +of captain, and looking always out to the sea line to find what they +could find. It was the springtime; and men feel the spring upon the sea +even more surely than they feel it upon the land. They were men whose +eyes, pale with the foam, watched for a landfall, that unmistakable +good sight which the wind brings us to, the cloud that does not change +and that comes after the long emptiness of sea days like a vision after +the sameness of our common lives. To them the land they so discovered +was wholly new. + +We have no cause to regret the youth of the world, if indeed the world +were ever young. When we imagine in our cities that the wind no longer +calls us to such things, it is only our reading that blinds us, and the +picture of satiety which our reading breeds is wholly false. Any man +to-day may go out and take his pleasure with the wind upon the high +seas. He also will make his landfalls to-day, or in a thousand years; +and the sight is always the same, and the appetite for such discoveries +is wholly satisfied even though he be only sailing, as I have sailed, +over seas that he has known from childhood, and come upon an island far +away, mapped and well known, and visited for the hundredth time. + + + + +The Letter + + +If you ask me why it is now three weeks since I received your letter +and why it is only today that I answer it, I must tell you the truth +lest further things I may have to tell you should not be worthy of your +dignity or of mine. It was because at first I dared not, then later I +reasoned with myself, and so bred delay, and at last took refuge in +more delay. I will offer no excuse: I will not tell you that I suffered +illness, or that some accident of war had taken me away from this old +house, or that I have but just returned from a journey to my hill and +my view over the Plain and the great River. + +Your messenger I have kept, and I have entertained him well. I looked +at him a little narrowly at his first coming, thinking perhaps he might +be a gentleman of yours, but I soon found that he was not such, and +that he bore no disguise, but was a plain rider of your household. I +put him in good quarters by the Hunting Stables. He has had nothing to +do but to await my resolution, which is now at last taken, and which +you receive in this. + +But how shall I begin, or how express to you what not distance but a +slow and bitter conclusion of the mind has done? + +I shall not return to Meudon. I shall not see the woods, the summer +woods turning to autumn, nor follow the hunt, nor take pleasure again +in what is still the best of Europe at Versailles. And now that I have +said it, you must read it so; for I am unalterably determined. Believe +me, it is something much more deep than courtesy which compels me to +give you my reasons for this final and irrevocable doom. + +We were children together. Though we leant so lightly in our +conversations of this spring upon all we knew in common, I know your +age and all your strong early experience—and you know mine. Your mother +will recall that day’s riding when I came back from my first leave and +you were home, not, I think, for good, from the convent. A fixed +domestic habit blinded her, so that she could then still see in us no +more than two children; yet I was proud of my sword, and had it on, and +you that day were proud of a beauty which could no longer be hidden +even from yourself; I would then have sacrificed, and would now, all I +had or was or had or am to have made that beauty immortal. + +I say, you remember that day’s riding, and how after it the world was +changed for you and me, and how that same evening the elders saw that +it was changed. + +You will remember that for two years we were not allowed to meet again. +When the two years were passed we met indeed by a mere accident of that +rich and tedious life wherein we were both now engaged. I was returned +from leave before Tournay; you had heard, I think, a false report that +I had been wounded in the dreadful business at Fontenoy (which to +remember even now horrifies me a little). I had heard and knew which of +the great names you now bore by marriage. The next day it was your +husband who rode with me to Marly. I liked him well enough. I have +grown to like him better. He is an honest man, though I confess his +philosophers weary me. When I say “an honest man” I am giving the +highest praise I know. + +My dear, that was sixteen years ago. + +You may not even now understand, so engrossing is the toilsome and +excited ritual of that rich world at Versailles, how blest you are: +your children are growing round you: your daughters are beginning to +reveal your own beauty, and your sons will show in these next years +immediately before us that temper which in you was a spirit and a +height of being, and in them, men, will show as plain courage. During +that long space of years your house has remained well ordered (it was +your husband’s doing). His great fortune and yours have jointly +increased: if I may tell you so, it is a pleasure to all who understand +fitness to know that this is so, and that your lineage and his will +hold so great a place in the State. + +As you review those sixteen years you may, if you will—I trust you will +not—recall those occasions when I saw the woods of Meudon and mixed by +chance with your world, and when we renewed the rides which had ended +our childhood. As for me I have not to recall those things. They are, +alas, myself, and beyond them there is nothing that I can call a memory +or a being at all. Nevertheless, as I have told you, I shall not come +to Meudon: I shall not hear again the delightful voices of those many +friends (now in mid-life as am I) who are my equals at Versailles. I +shall not see your face. + +I did not take service with the Empire from any pique or folly, but +from a necessity for adventure and for the refounding of my house. It +might have chanced that I should marry: the land demanded an heir. My +impoverishment weighed upon me like an ill deed, for all this belt of +land is dependent upon the old house, which I can with such difficulty +retain and from which I write to-day. I spent all those years in the +service of the Empire (and even of Russia) from no uncertain temper and +from no imaginary quarrel. It is so common or so necessary for men and +women to misjudge each other that I believe you thought me wayward, or +at least unstable. If you did so you did me a wrong. Those two good +seasons when we met again, and this last of but a month ago, were not +accidents or fitful recoveries. They were all I possessed in my life +and all that will perish with me when I die. + +But now, to tell you the very core of my decision, it is this: The +years that pass carry with them an increasing weight at once sombre and +majestic. There are things belonging to youth which habit continues +strangely longer than the season to which they properly belong: if, +when we discover them to be too prolonged as cling to their survival, +why, then, we eat dust. So long as we possess the illusion and so long +as the dearest things of youth maintain unchanged, in one chamber of +our life at least, our twentieth year, so long all is well. But there +is a cold river which we must pass in our advance towards nothingness +and age. In the passage of that stream we change: and you and I have +passed it. There is no more endurance in that young mood of ours than +in any other human thing. One always wakes from it at last. One sees +what it is. The soul sees and counts with hard eyes the price at which +a continuance of such high dreams must be purchased, and the heart has +a prevision of the evil that the happy cheat will work as maturity is +reached by each of us, and as each of us fully takes on the burden of +the world. + +Therefore I must not return. + +Foolishly and without thinking of real things, acting as though indeed +that life of dream and of illusion were still possible to me, I +yesterday cut with great care a rose, one from the many that have now +grown almost wild upon the great wall overlooking the Danube. Then ... +I could not but smile to myself when I remembered how by the time that +rose should have reached you every petal would be wasted and fallen in +the long week’s ride. There is a fixed term of life for roses also as +for men. I do not cite this to you by way of parable. I have no heart +for tricks of the pen to-night; but the two images came together, and +you will understand. If I do not return, it is for the same reason that +I could not send the rose. + + + + +The Regret + + +Everybody knows, I suppose, that kind of landscape in which hills seem +to lie in a regular manner, fold on fold, one range behind the other, +until, at last, behind them all some higher and grander range dominates +and frames the whole. + +The infinite variety of light and air and accident of soil provide all +men save those who live in the great plains with examples of this sort. +The traveller in the dry air of California or of Spain, watching great +distances from the heights, will recollect such landscapes all his +life. They were the reward of his long ascents and the visions which +attended his effort as he climbed up to the ridge of his horizon. Such +a landscape does a man see from the Western edges of the Guadarrama, +looking eastward and south toward the very distant hills that guard +Toledo and the Gulf of the Tagus. Such a landscape does a man see at +sunrise from the highest of the Cevennes looking right eastward to the +dawn as it comes up in the pure and cold air beyond the Alps, and shows +you the falling of the foothills to the Rhone. And by such a landscape +is a man gladdened when upon the escarpments of the Tuolumne he turns +back and looks westward over the plain towards the vast range. + +The experience of such a sight is one peculiar in travel, or, for that +matter, if a man is lucky enough to enjoy it at home, insistent and +reiterated upon the mind of the home-dwelling man. Such a landscape, +for instance, makes a man praise God if his house is upon the height of +Mendip, and he can look over falling hills right over the Vale of +Severn toward the ridge above ridge of the Welsh solemnities beyond, +until the straight line and high of the Black Mountains ends his view. + +It is the character of these landscapes to suggest at once a vastness, +diversity, and seclusion. When a man comes upon them unexpectedly he +can forget the perpetual toil of men and imagine that those who dwell +below in the near side before him are exempt from the necessities of +this world. When such a landscape is part of a man’s dwelling-place, +though he well knows that the painful life of men within those hills is +the same hard business that it is throughout the world, yet his +knowledge is modified and comforted by the permanent glory of the thing +he sees. + +The distant and high range that bounds his view makes a sort of +veiling, cutting it off and guarding it from whatever may be beyond. +The succession of lower ranges suggests secluded valleys, and the +reiterated woods, distant and more distant, convey an impression of +fertility more powerful than that of corn in harvest upon the lowlands. + +Sometimes it is a whole province that is thus grasped by the eye, +sometimes in the summer haze but a few miles; always this scenery +inspires the onlooker with a sense of completion and of repose, and at +the same time, I think, with worship and with awe. + +Now one such group of valleys there was, hill above hill, forest above +forest, and beyond it a great noble range, unwooded and high against +heaven, guarding it, which I for my part knew when first I knew +anything of this world. There is a high place under fir trees, a place +of sand and bracken, in South England whence such a view was always +present to eye in childhood and “There,” said I to myself (even in +childhood) “a man should make his habitation.” In those valleys is the +proper off-set for man. + +And so there was. + +It was a little place which had grown up as my county grows. The house +throwing out arms and layers. One room was panelled in the oak of the +seventeenth century—but that had been a novelty in its time, for the +walls upon which the panels stood were of the late fifteenth, oak and +brick intermingled. Another room was large and light built in the +manner of one hundred and fifty years ago, which people call Georgian. +It had been thrown out south (which is quite against our older custom, +for our older houses looked east and west to take all the sun and to +present a corner to the south-west and the storms. So they stand +still). It had round it a solid cornice which the modern men of the +towns would have called ugly, but there was ancestry in it. Then, +further on this house had modern roominess stretching in one new wing +after another; and it had a great steading and there was a copse and +some six acres of land. Over a deep ravine looked the little town that +was the mother of the place, and altogether it was enclosed, silent, +and secure. + +“The fish that misses the hook regrets the worm.” If this is not a +Chinese proverb it ought to be. That little farm and steading and those +six acres, that ravine, those trees, that aspect of the little +mothering town; the wooded hills fold above fold, the noble range +beyond, will not be mine. + +For all I know, some man quite unacquainted with that land took them +grumbling for a debt; or again, for all I know, they may have been +bought by a blind man who could not see the hills, or by some man who, +seeing them, perpetually regretted the flat marshes of the fens. One +day, up high on Egdean Side, not thinking of such things, through a gap +in the trees I saw again after so many years, set one behind the other, +the forests wave upon wave, the summer heat, the high, bare range +guarding all, and in the midst of that landscape, set like a toy, the +little Sabine Farm. + +Then I said to it, “Continue. Go and serve whom you will, my little +Sabine Farm. You were not mine because you would not be, and you are +not mine at all to-day. You will regret it perhaps, and perhaps you +will not. There was verse in you, perhaps, or prose, or—infinitely +more!—contentment for a man (for all I know). But you refused. You lost +your chance. Goodbye.” And with that I went on into the wood and beyond +the gap, and saw the sight no more. + +It was ten years since I had seen it last. It may be ten years before I +see it again, or it may be for ever. But as I went through the woods +saying to myself: + +“You lost your chance, my little Sabine Farm, you lost your chance!” +another part of me at once replied: + +“Ah! And so did _you_!” + +Then, by way of riposte, I answered in my mind: + +“Not at all, for the chance I never had, but what I lost was my +desire.” + +“No, not your desire,” said the voice to me within, “but the fulfilment +of it, in which you would have lost your desire.” And when that reply +came I naturally turned as all men do on hearing such interior replies, +to a general consideration of regret, and was prepared, if any honest +publisher should have come whistling through that wood, with an offer +proper to the occasion, namely, to produce no less than five volumes on +the Nature of Regret, its mortal sting, its bitter-sweetness, its power +to keep alive in man the pure passions of the soul, its hints at +immortality, its memory of Heaven. But the wood was empty of +publishers. The offer did not come. The moment was lost. The five +volumes will hardly now be written. In place of them I offer poor this, +which you may take or leave. But I beg leave before I end to cite +certain words very nobly attached to that great inn “The Griffin,” +which has its foundation set far off in another place, in the town of +March, in the Fen Land: + +“England my desire, what have you not refused?” + + + + +The End Of The World + + +One day I met a man who was sitting quite silent near Whitney, in the +Thames Valley, in a very large, long, low inn that stands in those +parts, or at least stood then, for whether it stands now or not depends +upon the Fussyites, whose business it is to Fuss, and in their Fussing +to disturb mankind. + +He had nothing to say for himself at all, and he looked not gloomy but +sad. He was tall and thin, with high cheekbones. His face was the +colour of leather that has been some time in the weather, and he +despised us altogether: he would not say a word to us, until one of the +company said, rising from his meat and drink: “Very well, there’s a +thing we shall never know till the end of the world” (he was talking +about some discussion or other which the young men had been holding +together). “There’s a thing we shall never know till the end of the +world—and about that nobody knows!” + +“You will pardon me,” said the tall, thin, and elderly man with a face +like leather that has been exposed to the weather, “I know about the +End of the World, for I have been there.” + +This was so interesting that we all sat down again to listen. + +“I wasn’t talking of place, but of time,” murmured the young man whom +the stranger had answered. + +“I cannot help that,” said the stranger decisively; “the End of the +World is the End of the World, and whether you are talking of space or +of time it does not matter, for when you have got to the end you have +got to the end, as may be proved in several ways.” + +“How did you get to it?” said one of our companions. + +“That is very simply answered,” said the elder man; “you get to it by +walking straight in front of you.” + +“Anyone could do that,” said the other. + +“Anyone could,” said the elder man, “but nobody does. I did.... When I +was quite a boy in my father’s parsonage (for my father was a parson), +having heard so much about the End of the World and seeing that +people’s descriptions of it differed so much and that everybody was +quite sure of his own, I used to take my father’s friends and guests +aside privately, for I was afraid to take my father himself, and I used +to ask them how they knew what the End of the World was really like, +and whether they had seen it. Some laughed, others were silent, and +others were angry; but no one gave me any information. At last I +decided (and it was very wise of me) that the only way to find out a +thing of that sort was to find it out for one’s self, and not to go by +hearsay, so I determined to go straight on without stopping until I got +to the End of the World.” + +“Which way did you walk?” said yet another of my companions. + +“Young man,” said the stranger, with solemnity, “I walked westward +toward the setting sun ... I walked and I walked and I walked, day +after day and year after year. Whenever I came to the seacoast I would +take work on board a ship—and remember it is always easy to get work if +you will take the wages that are offered, and always difficult to get +it if you will not. Well, then, I went in this way through all known +lands and over all known seas, until at last I came to the shore of a +sea beyond which (so the people told me who lived there) there was no +further shore. ‘I cannot help that,’ said I; ‘I have not yet come to +the End of the World, and it is common sense that such a lot of water +must have something at the back of it to hold it up; besides which +there is a strong wind blowing out of the gates of the west and from +the sunset. Now that wind must rise somewhere, and I am going on to see +where it rises.’ One of them was kind enough to lend me a boat with +oars; I thanked him prettily, and then I set out to row toward the End +of the World, taking with me two or three days’ provisions. + +“When I had rowed a long time I went asleep, and when I woke up next +morning I rowed again all day until the second night I went to sleep. +On the third day I rowed again: a little before sunset on the third day +I saw before me high hills, all in peaks like a great saw. On the very +highest of the peaks there were streaks of snow, and at about six +o’clock in the afternoon I grounded my boat upon that gravelly shore +and pulled it up upon the shingle, though it was evident either that +the tide was high or that there was no tide in these silent places. + +“I offered up a prayer to the genius of the land, and tied the painter +of the boat to two great stones, so that no wave reaching it might move +it, and then I went on inland. When I had gone a little way I saw a +signpost on which was written, ‘To the End of the World One Mile’ and +there was a rough track along which it pointed. I went along this +track. Everything was completely silent. There were no birds, there was +no wind, there was nothing in the sky. But one thing I did notice, +which was that the sun was much larger than it used to be, and that as +I went along this last mile or so it seemed to get larger still—but +that may have been my imagination, for I must tell you my imagination +is pretty strong. + +“Well then, gentlemen, when I had gone a mile or so I saw another +signpost, on which there was a large board marked ‘Danger,’ and a +hundred yards beyond the track went between two great dark rocks—and +there I was! The road had stopped short; it was broken off, jagged, +just like a torn bit of paper ... and there was the End of the World.” + +“How do you mean?” said one of the younger men in an awed tone. + +“What I say,” said the stranger decidedly. “I had come to the end; +there was nothing beyond. You looked down over a precipice where there +was moss and steep grass, and on the ledges trees far below, and then +more precipice, and then—oh, miles below—a few more trees or so +clinging to the steep, then more precipice, and then darkness; and far +away before me was the whole expanse of sky; and in the midst of it I +saw the broad red sun setting into the brume; it was not yet dark +enough to see the stars, and there was no moon in the sky. + +“I assure you it was a very wonderful sight, and I was awed though I +was not afraid. And how glad I was to find that the world had an edge +to it, and that all that talk about its being round was nonsense! + +“When the sun was set it grew dark, and I returned to find my boat; but +I must have missed my way, for the track became broader and better, and +at last I came to a gate of a human sort, with an initial on it, which +showed that it had been put up by some landlord. It was an open gate, +and after I had entered it I came upon a broad highway, beautifully +metalled, and when I had gone along this for less than half a mile I +came to this inn where I am now sitting. That was a week ago, and I +have been here ever since. They took me in kindly enough, but they +would not believe what I had to tell them about the End of the World. +It is a great pity, gentlemen, for that wonderful sight is to be +discovered somewhere hereabouts, and a mere accident of my losing my +way in the darkness makes it difficult for me to find it by daylight.” + +Having said all this, the stranger was silent. + +One of my companions whispered to me that the old man must be mad. The +stranger overheard him, and said with a thin smile: + +“Oh, I know all about that; several have suggested it already; but it +is no answer, for if I did not come from the End of the World, where +did I come from? No one has seen me hereabouts during the last few days +until I came to this inn. And all the first part of my journey I can +very easily explain, for I have notes of it, and it lasted for years. +It is only this last part which seems to me so difficult.... I tell you +I lost my way, and when a man has lost his way at night he can never +find it again in the daytime.” + +As he spoke he took a little piece of folded paper, rather dirty, out +of his inner pocket, on which a rough sketch-map was drawn, and he +began touching it with a stump of pencil that he held in his hand. His +eyes seemed to grow dimmer as he did so, and he leaned his head upon +his hand. “I think I have got hold of it, gentlemen,” he said. + +We did not get up or go too near him, for we thought he might be +dangerous. + +“I think, gentlemen,” he repeated in a more mumbling and lower and less +certain voice, “I think I have got hold of it. I go backwards again +through the gate to the right, just as then I went to the left, and +after that it cannot be very far, for I see those two rocks in front of +me. Besides which,” he muttered less and less coherently, “I ought to +have remembered of course those very high and silent hills with nothing +living upon them....” And he added, half asleep, as his head dropped +upon his hand, “It was westward.... I had forgotten that.” + +Having so spoken, he seemed to fall asleep altogether, and his head +fell back upon the corner of the wainscoting behind the bench where he +sat. He made no noise in breathing as he slept. + +It was the first time that any of us young men had come across this +fairly common sight of a man who took things within for things without; +some of us were frightened, and all of us wished to be rid of the place +and to get away. As we went out we told the landlord nothing either of +the old fellow’s vagaries or of his sleep, but we went out and reached +the town of Whitney, and when we had stayed there a couple of hours or +so we went out southward to the station and waited there for the train +which should take us back to Oxford. + +While we were waiting there in the station two farmers were talking +together. One said to the other: + +“Ar, if he’d paid them they wouldn’t have minded so much.” + +To which the other answered: + +“Ar, ’tisn’t only the paying: it’s always an awkward thing when a man +dies in your house, specially if it’s licensed. My wife’s brother was +caught that way.” + +Then as they went on talking we found that they were talking of the man +in the inn, who it seems had not slept very long, but was dead, and had +died in that same room. It was a shocking thing to hear. The first +farmer said to the second in the railway carriage when we had all got +in: + +“Where’d he come from?” + +The other, who was an old man, grinned and said: + +“Where we all come from, I suppose, and where we all go to.” He touched +his forehead with his hand. “He said he’d come from the End of the +World.” + +“Ar,” said the other gloomily in answer, “like enough!” And after that +they talked no more about the matter. + + + [1] The Rhododendrons on the great lawn are modern. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRST AND LAST *** + +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. 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Belloc</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: First and Last</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: H. Belloc</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April 19, 2003 [eBook #7352]<br /> +[Most recently updated: May 1, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRST AND LAST ***</div> + +<h1>FIRST AND LAST</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">BY H. BELLOC</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">ON WEIGHING ANCHOR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">THE REVEILLON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">ON CHEESES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">THE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">THE INVENTOR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">THE VIEWS OF ENGLAND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">THE LUNATIC</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">THE INHERITANCE OF HUMOUR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">THE OLD GENTLEMAN’S OPINIONS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">ON HISTORICAL EVIDENCE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">THE ABSENCE OF THE PAST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">ST. PATRICK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">THE LOST THINGS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">ON THE READING OF HISTORY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">THE VICTORY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">REALITY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">ON THE DECLINE OF THE BOOK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">JOSÉ MARIA DE HEREDIA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">NORMANDY AND THE NORMANS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">THE OLD THINGS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">THE ROMAN ROADS IN PICARDY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">THE REWARD OF LETTERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">THE EYE-OPENERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">THE PUBLIC</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">ON ENTRIES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">COMPANIONS OF TRAVEL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">ON THE SOURCES OF RIVERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">ON ERROR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">THE GREAT SIGHT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">THE DECLINE OF A STATE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">ON PAST GREATNESS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap33">MR. THE DUKE: THE MAN OF MALPLAQUET</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap34">THE GAME OF CARDS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap35">“KING LEAR”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap36">THE EXCURSION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap37">THE TIDE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap38">ON A GREAT WIND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap39">THE LETTER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap40">THE REGRET</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap41">THE END OF THE WORLD</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>FIRST AND LAST</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01">On Weighing Anchor</a></h2> + +<p> +Personally I should call it “Getting It up,” but I have always seen it in print +called “weighing anchor”—and if it is in print one must bow to it. It does +weigh. +</p> + +<p> +There are many ways of doing it. The best, like all good things, has gone for +ever, and this best way was for a thing called a capstan to have sticking out +from it, movable, and fitted into its upper rim, other things called +capstan-bars. These, men would push singing a song, while on the top of the +capstan sat a man playing the fiddle, or the flute, or some other instrument of +music. You and I have seen it in pictures. Our sons will say that they wish +they had seen it in pictures. Our sons’ sons will say it is all a lie and was +never in anything but the pictures, and they will explain it by some myth or +other. +</p> + +<p> +Another way is to take two turns of a rope round a donkey-engine, paying in and +coiling while the engine clanks. And another way on smaller boats is a sort of +jack arrangement by which you give little jerks to a ratchet and wheel, and at +last It looses Its hold. Sometimes (in this last way) It will not loose Its +hold at all. +</p> + +<p> +Then there is a way of which I proudly boast that it is the only way I know, +which is to go forward and haul at the line until It comes—or does not come. If +It does not come, you will not be so cowardly or so mean as to miss your tide +for such a trifle. You will cut the line and tie a float on and pray Heaven +that into whatever place you run, that place will have moorings ready and free. +</p> + +<p> +When a man weighs anchor in a little ship or a large one he does a jolly thing! +He cuts himself off and he starts for freedom and for the chance of things. He +pulls the jib a-weather, he leans to her slowly pulling round, he sees the wind +getting into the mainsail, and he feels that she feels the helm. He has her on +a slant of the wind, and he makes out between the harbour piers. I am +supposing, for the sake of good luck, that it is not blowing bang down the +harbour mouth, nor, for the matter of that, bang out of it. I am supposing, for +the sake of good luck to this venture, that in weighing anchor you have the +wind so that you can sail with it full and by, or freer still, right past the +walls until you are well into the tide outside. You may tell me that you are so +rich and your boat is so big that there have been times when you have anchored +in the very open, and that all this does not apply to you. Why, then, your +thoughts do not apply to me nor to the little boat I have in mind. +</p> + +<p> +In the weighing of anchor and the taking of adventure and of the sea there is +an exact parallel to anything that any man can do in the beginning of any human +thing, from his momentous setting out upon his life in early manhood to the +least decision of his present passing day. It is a very proper emblem of a +beginning. It may lead him to that kind of muddle and set-back which attaches +only to beginnings, or it may get him fairly into the weather, and yet he may +find, a little way outside, that he has to run for it, or to beat back to +harbour. Or, more generously, it may lead him to a long and steady cruise in +which he shall find profit and make distant rivers and continue to increase his +log by one good landfall after another. But the whole point of weighing anchor +is that he has chosen his weather and his tide, and that he is setting out. The +thing is done. +</p> + +<p> +You will very commonly observe that, in land affairs, if good fortune follows a +venture it is due to the marvellous excellence of its conductor, but if ill +fortune, then to evil chance alone. Now, it is not so with the sea. +</p> + +<p> +The sea drives truth into a man like salt. A coward cannot long pretend to be +brave at sea, nor a fool to be wise, nor a prig to be a good companion, and any +venture connected with the sea is full of venture and can pretend to be nothing +more. Nevertheless there is a certain pride in keeping a course through +different weathers, in making the best of a tide, in using cats’ paws in a dull +race, and, generally, in knowing how to handle the thing you steer and to judge +the water and the wind. Just because men have to tell the truth once they get +into tide water, what little is due to themselves in their success thereon they +are proud of and acknowledge. +</p> + +<p> +If your sailing venture goes well, sailing reader, take a just pride in it; +there will be the less need for me to write, some few years hence, upon the art +of picking up moorings, though I confess I would rather have written on that so +far as the fun of writing was concerned. For picking up moorings is a far more +tricky and amusing business than Getting It up. It differs with every +conceivable circumstance of wind, and tide, and harbour, and rig, and +freeboard, and light; and then there are so many stories to tell about it! +As—how once a poor man picked up a rich man’s moorings at Cowes and was visited +by an aluminium boat, all splendid in the morning sun. Or again—how a stranger +who had made Orford Haven (that very difficult place) on the very top of an +equinoctial springtide, picked up a racing mark-buoy, taking it to be moorings, +and dragged it with him all the way to Aldborough, and that right before the +town of Orford, so making himself hateful to the Orford people. +</p> + +<p> +But I digress.... +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02">The Reveillon</a></h2> + +<p> +There was in the regiment with which I served a man called Frocot, famous with +his comrades because he had seen The Dead, for this experience, though common +among the Scotch, is rare among the French, a sister nation. This man Frocot +could neither write nor read, and was also the strongest man I ever knew. He +was quite short and exceedingly broad, and he could break a penny with his +hands, but this gift of strength, though young men value it so much, was +thought little of compared with his perception of unseen things, for though the +men, who were peasants, professed to laugh at it, and him, in their hearts they +profoundly believed. It had been made clear to us that he could see and hear +The Dead one night in January during a snowstorm, when he came in and woke me +in barrack-room because he had heard the Loose Spur. Our spurs were not buckled +on like the officers’; they were fixed into the heel of the boot, and if a nail +loosened upon either side the spur dragged with an unmistakable noise. There +was a sergeant who (for some reason) had one so loosened on the last night he +had ever gone the rounds before his death, for in the morning as he came off +guard he killed himself, and the story went about among the drivers that +sometimes on stable guard in the thick of the night, when you watched all alone +by the lantern (with your three comrades asleep in the straw of an empty +stall), your blood would stop and your skin tauten at the sound of a loose spur +dragging on the far side of the stable, in the dark. But though many had heard +the story, and though some had pretended to find proof for it, I never knew a +man to feel and know it except this man Frocot on that night. I remember him at +the foot of my bed with his lantern waking me from the rooted sleep of bodily +fatigue, standing there in his dark blue driver’s coat and staring with +terrible eyes. He had undoubtedly heard and seen, but whether of himself from +within, imagining, or, as I rather believe, from without and influenced, it is +impossible to say. He was rough and poor, and he came from the Forest of +Ardennes. +</p> + +<p> +The reason I remember him and write of him at this season is not, however, this +particular and dreadful visitation of his, but a folly or a vision that befell +him at this time of the year, now seventeen years ago; for he had Christmas +leave and was on his way from garrison to his native place, and he was walking +the last miles of the wood. It was the night before Christmas. It was clear, +and there was no wind, but the sky was overcast with level clouds and the +evening was very dark. He started unfed since the first meal of the day; it was +dark three hours before he was up into the high wood. He met no one during all +these miles, and his body and his mind were lonely; he hoped to press on and be +at his father’s door before two in the morning or perhaps at one. The night was +so still that he heard no noise in the high wood, not even the rustling of a +leaf or a twig crackling, and no animal ran in the undergrowth. The moss of the +ride was silent under his heavy tread, but now and then the steel of his +side-arm clicked against a metal button of the great cloak he wore. This sharp +sound made him so conscious of himself that he seemed to fill that forest with +his own presence and to be all that was, there or elsewhere. He was in a mood +of unreal and not holy things. The mood, remaining, changed its aspect, and now +he was so far from alone that all the trunks around him and the glimmers of sky +between bare boughs held each a spirit of its own, and with the powerful +imagination of the unlearned he could have spoken and held communion with the +trees; but it would have an evil communion, for he felt this mood of his take +on a further phase as he went deeper and deeper still into these forests. He +felt about him uneasily the sense of doom. He was in that exaltation of fancy +or dream when faint appeals are half heard far off, but not by our human ears, +and when whatever attempts to pierce the armour of our mortality appeals to us +by wailing and by despairing sighs. It seemed to him that most unhappy things +passed near him in the air, and that the wood about him was full of sobbing. +Then, again, he felt his own mind within him begin to be occupied by doubtful +troubles worse than these terrors, an anxious straining for ill news, for +bitter and dreadful news, mixed with a confused certitude that such news had +come indeed, disturbed and haunted him; and all the while about him in that +stillness the rushing of unhappy spirits went like a secret storm. He was +clouded with the mingled emotions of apprehension and of fatal mourning; he +attempted to remember the expectations that had failed him, friends untrue, and +the names of parents dead; but he was now the victim of this strange night and +unable (whether from hunger or fatigue, or from that unique power of his to +discern things beyond the world) to remember his life or his definite aims at +all, or even his own name. He was mixed with the whole universe about him, and +was suffering some loss so grievous that very soon the gait of his march and +his whole being were informed by a large and final despair. +</p> + +<p> +It was in this great and universal mood (granted to him as a seer, though he +was a common man) that he saw down the ride, but somewhat to one side of it in +the heart of the high wood, a great light shining from a barn or shed that +stood there in the undergrowth, and to this light, though his way naturally led +him to it, he felt also impelled by an influence as strong as or stronger than +the despair that had filled his soul and all the woods around. He went on +therefore quickly, straining with his eyes, and when he came into the light +that shone out from this he saw a more brilliant light within, and men of his +own kind adoring; but the vision was confused, like light on light or like +vapours moving over bright metals in a cauldron, and as he gazed his mind +became still and the dread left him altogether. He said it was like shutting a +gentleman’s great oaken door against a driving storm. +</p> + +<p> +This is the story he told me weeks after as we rode together in the battery, +for he hid it in his heart till the spring. As I say, I believed him. +</p> + +<p> +He was an unlearned man and a strong; he never worshipped. He was of that plain +stuff and clay on which has worked since all recorded time the power of the +Spirit. +</p> + +<p> +He said that when he left (as he did rapidly leave) that light, peace also left +him, but that the haunting terror did not return. He found the clearing and his +father’s hut; fatigue and the common world indeed returned, but with them a +permanent memory of things experienced. +</p> + +<p> +Every word I have written of him is true. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03">On Cheeses</a></h2> + +<p> +If antiquity be the test of nobility, as many affirm and none deny (saving, +indeed, that family which takes for its motto “Sola Virtus Nobilitas,” which +may mean that virtue is the only nobility, but which may also mean, mark you, +that nobility is the only virtue—and anyhow denies that nobility is tested by +the lapse of time), <i>if</i>, I say, antiquity be the only test of nobility, +then cheese is a very noble thing. +</p> + +<p> +But wait a moment: there was a digression in that first paragraph which to the +purist might seem of a complicated kind. +</p> + +<p> +Were I writing algebra (I wish I were) I could have analysed my thoughts by the +use of square brackets, round brackets, twiddly brackets, and the rest, all +properly set out in order so that a Common Fool could follow them. +</p> + +<p> +But no such luck! I may not write of algebra here; for there is a rule current +in all newspapers that no man may write upon any matter save upon those in +which he is more learned than all his human fellows that drag themselves so +slowly daily forward to the grave. +</p> + +<p> +So I had to put the thing in the very common form of a digression, and very +nearly to forget that great subject of cheese which I had put at the very head +and title of this. +</p> + +<p> +Which reminds me: had I followed the rule set down by a London journalist the +other day (and of the proprietor of his paper I will say nothing—though I might +have put down the remark to his proprietor) I would have hesitated to write +that first paragraph. I would have hesitated, did I say? Griffins’ tails! +Nay—Hippogriffs and other things of the night! I would not have dared to write +it at all! For this journalist made a law and promulgated it, and the law was +this: that no man should write that English which could not be understood if +all the punctuation were left out. Punctuation, I take it, includes brackets, +which the Lord of Printers knows are a very modern part of punctuation indeed. +</p> + +<p> +Now let the horripilised reader look up again at the first paragraph (it will +do him no harm), and think how it would look all written out in fair uncials +like the beautiful Gospels of St. Chad, which anyone may see for nothing in the +cathedral of Lichfield, an English town famous for eight or nine different +things: as Garrick, Doctor Johnson, and its two opposite inns. Come, read that +first paragraph over now and see what you could make of it if it were written +out in uncials—that is, not only without punctuation, but without any division +between the words. Wow! As the philosopher said when he was asked to give a +plain answer “Yes” or “No.” +</p> + +<p> +And now to cheese. I have had quite enough of digressions and of follies. They +are the happy youth of an article. They are the springtime of it. They are its +riot. I am approaching the middle age of this article. Let us be solid upon the +matter of cheese. +</p> + +<p> +I have premised its antiquity, which is of two sorts, as is that of a nobleman. +First, the antiquity of its lineage; secondly, the antiquity of its self. For +we all know that when we meet a nobleman we revere his nobility very much if he +be himself old, and that this quality of age in him seems to marry itself in +some mysterious way with the antiquity of his line. +</p> + +<p> +The lineage of cheese is demonstrably beyond all record. What did the faun in +the beginning of time when a god surprised him or a mortal had the misfortune +to come across him in the woods? It is well known that the faun offered either +of them cheese. So he knew how to make it. +</p> + +<p> +There are certain bestial men, hangers-on of the Germans, who would contend +that this would prove cheese to be acquired by the Aryan race (or what not) +from the Dolichocephalics (or what not), and there are certain horrors who +descend to imitate these barbarians—though themselves born in these glorious +islands, which are so steep upon their western side. But I will not detain you +upon these lest I should fall head foremost into another digression and forget +that my article, already in its middle age, is now approaching grey hairs. +</p> + +<p> +At any rate, cheese is very old. It is beyond written language. Whether it is +older than butter has been exhaustively discussed by several learned men, to +whom I do not send you because the road towards them leads elsewhere. It is the +universal opinion of all most accustomed to weigh evidence (and in these I very +properly include not only such political hacks as are already upon the bench +but sweepingly every single lawyer in Parliament, since any one of them may +tomorrow be a judge) that milk is older than cheese, and that man had the use +of milk before he cunningly devised the trick of squeezing it in a press and by +sacrificing something of its sweetness endowed it with a sort of immortality. +</p> + +<p> +The story of all this has perished. Do not believe any man who professes to +give it you. If he tells you some legend of a god who taught the Wheat-eating +Race, the Ploughers, and the Lords to make cheese, tell him such tales are true +symbols, but symbols only. If he tells you that cheese was an evolution and a +development, oh! then!—bring up your guns! Open on the fellow and sweep his +intolerable lack of intelligence from the earth. Ask him if he discovers +reality to be a function of time, and Being to hide in clockwork. Keep him on +the hop with ironical comments upon how it may be that environment can act upon +Will, while Will can do nothing with environment—whose proper name is mud. +Pester the provincial. Run him off the field. +</p> + +<p> +But about cheese. Its noble antiquity breeds in it a noble diffusion. +</p> + +<p> +This happy Christendom of ours (which is just now suffering from an indigestion +and needs a doctor—but having also a complication of insomnia cannot recollect +his name) has been multifarious incredibly—but in nothing more than in cheese! +</p> + +<p> +One cheese differs from another, and the difference is in sweeps, and in +landscapes, and in provinces, and in countrysides, and in climates, and in +principalities, and in realms, and in the nature of things. Cheese does most +gloriously reflect the multitudinous effect of earthly things, which could not +be multitudinous did they not proceed from one mind. +</p> + +<p> +Consider the cheese of Rocquefort: how hard it is in its little box. Consider +the cheese of Camembert, which is hard also, and also lives in a little box, +but must not be eaten until it is soft and yellow. Consider the cheese of +Stilton, which is not made there, and of Cheddar, which is. Then there is your +Parmesan, which idiots buy rancid in bottles, but which the wise grate daily +for their use: you think it is hard from its birth? You are mistaken. It is the +world that hardens the Parmesan. In its youth the Parmesan is very soft and +easy, and is voraciously devoured. +</p> + +<p> +Then there is your cheese of Wensleydale, which is made in Wensleydale, and +your little Swiss cheese, which is soft and creamy and eaten with sugar, and +there is your Cheshire cheese and your little Cornish cheese, whose name +escapes me, and your huge round cheese out of the Midlands, as big as a fort +whose name I never heard. There is your toasted or Welsh cheese, and your +cheese of Pont-l’evêque, and your white cheese of Brie, which is a chalky sort +of cheese. And there is your cheese of Neufchâtel, and there is your Gorgonzola +cheese, which is mottled all over like some marbles, or like that Mediterranean +soap which is made of wood-ash and of olive oil. There is your Gloucester +cheese called the Double Gloucester, and I have read in a book of Dunlop +cheese, which is made in Ayrshire: they could tell you more about it in +Kilmarnock. Then Suffolk makes a cheese, but does not give it any name; and +talking of that reminds me how going to Le Quesnoy to pass the people there the +time of day, and to see what was left of that famous but forgotten fortress, a +young man there showed me a cheese, which he told me also had no name, but +which was native to the town, and in the valley of Ste. Engrace, where is that +great wood which shuts off all the world, they make their cheese of ewe’s milk +and sell it in Tardets, which is their only livelihood. They make a cheese in +Port-Salut which is a very subtle cheese, and there is a cheese of Limburg, and +I know not how many others, or rather I know them, but you have had enough: for +a little cheese goes a long way. No man is a glutton on cheese. +</p> + +<p> +What other cheese has great holes in it like Gruyere, or what other is as round +as a cannon-ball like that cheese called Dutch? which reminds me:— +</p> + +<p> +Talking of Dutch cheese. Do you not notice how the intimate mind of Europe is +reflected in cheese? For in the centre of Europe, and where Europe is most +active, I mean in Britain and in Gaul and in Northern Italy, and in the valley +of the Rhine—nay, to some extent in Spain (in her Pyrenean valleys at +least)—there flourishes a vast burgeoning of cheese, infinite in variety, one +in goodness. But as Europe fades away under the African wound which Spain +suffered or the Eastern barbarism of the Elbe, what happens to cheese? It +becomes very flat and similar. You can quote six cheeses perhaps which the +public power of Christendom has founded outside the limits of its ancient +Empire—but not more than six. I will quote you 253 between the Ebro and the +Grampians, between Brindisi and the Irish Channel. +</p> + +<p> +I do not write vainly. It is a profound thing. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04">The Captain of Industry</a></h2> + +<p> +The heir of the merchant Mahmoud had not disappointed that great financier +while he still lived, and when he died he had the satisfaction of seeing the +young man, now twenty-five years of age, successfully conducting his numerous +affairs, and increasing (fabulous as this may seem) the millions with which his +uncle entrusted him. +</p> + +<p> +Shortly after Mahmoud’s death the prosperity of the firm had already given rise +to a new proverb, and men said: “Do you think I am Mahmoud’s-Nephew?” when they +were asked to lend money or in some other way to jeopardize a few coppers in +the service of God or their neighbour. +</p> + +<p> +It was also a current expression, “He’s rich as Mahmoud’s-Nephew,” when +comrades would jest against some young fellow who was flusher than usual, and +could afford a quart or even a gallon of wine for the company; while again the +discontented and the oppressed would mutter between their teeth: “Heaven will +take vengeance at last upon these Mahmoud’s-Nephews!” In a word, +“Mahmoud’s-Nephew” came to mean throughout the whole Caliphate and wherever the +True Believers spread their empire, an exceedingly wealthy man. But Mahmoud +himself having been dead ten years and his heir the fortunate head of the +establishment being now well over thirty years of age, there happened a very +inexplicable and outrageous accident: he died—and after his death no +instructions were discovered as to what should be done with this enormous +capital, no will could be found, and it happened moreover to be a moment of +great financial delicacy when the manager of each department in the business +needed all the credit he could get. +</p> + +<p> +In such a quandary the Chief Organizer and confidential friend, Ahmed, upon +whom the business already largely depended, and who was so circumstanced that +he could draw almost at will upon the balances, imagined a most intelligent way +of escaping from the difficulties that would arise when the death of the +principal was known. +</p> + +<p> +He caused a quantity of hay, of straw, of dust and of other worthless materials +to be stuffed into a figure of canvas; this he wrapped round with the usual +clothes that Mahmoud’s-Nephew had worn in the office, he shrouded the face with +the hood which his chief had commonly worn during life, and having so dressed +the lay figure and secretly buried the real body, he admitted upon the morning +after the death those who first had business with his master. +</p> + +<p> +He met them at the door with smiles and bows, saying: “You know, gentlemen, +that like most really successful men, my chief is as silent as his decisions +are rapid; he will listen to what you have to say, and it will be a plain yes +or no at the end of it.” +</p> + +<p> +These gentlemen came with a proposal to sell to the firm for the sum of one +million dinars a barren rock in the Indian Sea, which was not even theirs, and +on which indeed not one of them had ever set eyes. Their claim to advance so +original a proposal was that to their certain knowledge two thousand of the +wealthiest citizens of their town were willing to buy the rock again at a +profit from whoever should be its possessor during the next few weeks in the +fond hope of selling it once again to provincials, clerics, widows, orphans, +and in general the uninstructed and the credulous—among whom had been +industriously spread the report that the rock in question consisted of one +solid and flawless diamond. +</p> + +<p> +These gentlemen sitting round the table before the shrouded figure laid down +their proposals, whereupon the manager briefly summed up what they had said, +and having done so, replied: “Gentlemen, his lordship is a man of few words; +but you will have your answer in a moment if you will be good enough to rise, +as he is at this moment expecting a deputation from the Holy Men who are +entreating him to provide the cost of a mosque in one of the suburbs.” +</p> + +<p> +The proposers of the bargain rose, greatly awed and pleased by the silence and +dignity of the financier who apparently remained for a moment discussing their +proposals without gesture and in a tone too low for them to hear, while his +manager bent over to listen. +</p> + +<p> +“It is ever so,” said one of them, “you may ever know the greatest men by their +silence.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are right,” said another, “he is not one to be easily deceived.” +</p> + +<p> +The manager in a moment or two rejoined them at the door. “Gentlemen,” he said, +smiling, “my chief has heard your arguments and has expressed his assent to +your conditions.” +</p> + +<p> +They went out, delighted at the success of their mission, and congratulated +Ahmed upon the financier’s genius. +</p> + +<p> +“He does not,” said the manager, laughing in hearty agreement, “bestow himself +as a present upon all and sundry. Nor is he often caught indulging in short +bouts of sleep, nor are flies diabolically left to repose undisturbed upon his +features—but you must excuse me, I hear the Holy Men,” and indeed from the +inner room came a noise of speechifying in that doleful sing-song which is +associated in Bagdad with the practice of religion. +</p> + +<p> +The gentlemen who had thus had the luck to interview Mahmoud’s-Nephew with such +success in the matter of the Diamond Island, soon spread about the news, and +confirmed their fellow-citizens in the certitude that a great financier is +neither talkative nor vivacious. “Still waters run deep,” they said, and all +those to whom they said it nodded in a wise acquiescence. Nor had the Manager +the least difficulty in receiving one set of customers after another and in +negotiating within three weeks an infinite amount of business, all of which +confirmed those who had the pleasure of an audience with the stuffed dummy that +great fortunes were made and retained by reticence and a contempt for convivial +weakness. +</p> + +<p> +At last the ingenious man of affairs, to whom the whole combination was due, +was not a little disturbed to receive from the Caliph a note couched in the +following terms: +</p> + +<p> +“The Commander of the Faithful and the Servant of the Merciful whose name be +exalted, to the Nephew of Mahmoud: +</p> + +<p> +“My Lord:— +</p> + +<p> +“It has been the custom since the days of my grandfather (May his soul see +God!) for the more wealthy of the Faithful to be called to my councils, and +upon my summoning them thither it has not been unusual for them to present sums +varying in magnitude but always proportionate to their total fortunes. My court +will receive signal honour if you will present yourself after the morning +prayer of the day after to-morrow. My treasurer will receive from you with +gratitude and remembrance upon the previous day and not later than noon, the +sum of one million dinars.” +</p> + +<p> +Here, indeed, was a perplexity. The payment of the money was an easy matter and +was duly accomplished; but how should the lay figure which did duty in such +domestic scenes as the negotiation of loans, the bullying of debtors, the +purchase of options, and the cheating of the innocent and the embarrassed, take +his place in the Caliph’s council and remain undiscovered? For great as was the +reputation of Mahmoud’s-Nephew for discretion and for golden silence, such as +are proper to the accumulation of great wealth, there would seem a necessity in +any political assembly to open the mouth from time to time, if only for the +giving of a vote. +</p> + +<p> +But Ahmed, who had by this time accumulated into his own hands the millions +formerly his master’s, finally solved the problem. Judicious presents to the +servants of the palace and the public criers made his way the easier, and on +the summoning of the council Mahmoud’s-Nephew, whose troublesome affection of +the throat was now publicly discussed, was permitted to bring into the +council-room his private secretary and manager. +</p> + +<p> +Moreover at the council, as at his private office, the continued taciturnity of +the millionaire could not but impress the politicians as it had already +impressed the financial world. +</p> + +<p> +“He does not waste his breath in tub-thumping,” said one, looking reverently at +the sealed figure. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” another would reply, “they may ridicule our old-fashioned, honest, quiet +Mohammedan country gentlemen, but for common sense I will back them against all +the brilliant paradoxical young fellows of our day.” +</p> + +<p> +“They say he is very kind at heart and lovable,” a third would then add, upon +which a fourth would bear his testimony thus: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and though he says nothing about it, his charitable gifts are enormous.” +</p> + +<p> +By the second meeting of the council the lay figure had achieved a reputation +of so high a sort that the Caliph himself insisted upon making him a domestic +adviser, one of the three who perpetually associated with the Commander of the +<i>Faithful</i> and directed his policy. For the universal esteem in which the +new councillor was held had affected that Prince very deeply. +</p> + +<p> +Here there arose a crux from which there could be no escape, as one of the +three chief councillors, Mahmoud’s-Nephew, must speak at last and deliver +judgments! +</p> + +<p> +The Manager, first considering the whole business, and next adding up his +private gains, which he had carefully laid out in estates of which the firm and +its employés knew nothing, decided that he could afford to retire. What might +happen to the general business after his withdrawal would not be his concern. +</p> + +<p> +He first gave out, therefore, that the millionaire was taken exceedingly ill, +and that his life was despaired of: later, within a few hours, that he was +dead. +</p> + +<p> +So far from attempting to allay the panic which ensued, Ahmed frankly admitted +the worst. +</p> + +<p> +With cries of despair and a confident appeal to the justice of Heaven against +such intrigues, the honest fellow permitted the whole of the vast business to +be wound up in favour of newcomers, who had not forgotten to reward him, and +soothing as best he could the ruined crowds of small investors who thronged +round him for help and advice, he retired under an assumed name to his highly +profitable estates, which were situated in the most distant provinces of the +known world. +</p> + +<p> +As for Mahmoud’s-Nephew, three theories arose about him which are still +disputed to this day: +</p> + +<p> +The first was that his magnificent brain with its equitable judgment and its +power of strict secrecy, had designed plans too far advanced for his time, and +that his bankruptcy was due to excess of wisdom. +</p> + +<p> +The second theory would have it that by “going into politics” (as the phrase +runs in Bagdad) he had dissipated his energies, neglected his business, and +that the inevitable consequences had followed. +</p> + +<p> +The third theory was far more reasonable. Mahmoud’s-Nephew, according to this, +had towards the end of his life lost judgment; his garrulous indecision within +the last few days before his death was notorious: in the Caliph’s council, as +those who should best know were sure, one could hardly get a word in edgewise +for his bombastic self-assurance; while in matters of business, to conduct a +bargain with him was more like attending a public meeting than the prosecution +of negotiations with a respectable banker. +</p> + +<p> +In a word, it was generally agreed that Mahmoud’s-Nephew’s success had been +bound up with his splendid silence, his fall, bankruptcy, and death, with a +lesion of the brain which had disturbed this miracle of self-control. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05">The Inventor</a></h2> + +<p> +I had a day free between two lectures in the south-west of England, and I spent +it stopping at a town in which there was a large and very comfortable old +posting-house or coaching-inn. I had meant to stay some few hours there and to +take the last train out in the evening, and I had meant to spend those hours +alone and resting; but this was not permitted me, for just as I had taken up +the local paper, which was a humble, reasonable thing, empty of any passion and +violence and very reposeful to read, a man came up and touched my left elbow +sharply: a gesture not at all to my taste nor, I think, to that of anyone who +is trying to read his paper. +</p> + +<p> +I looked up and saw a man who must have been quite sixty years of age. He had +on a soft, felt slouch hat, a very old and greenish black coat; he stooped and +shuffled; he was clean-shaven, with long grey hair, and his eyes were +astonishingly bright and piercing and set close together. +</p> + +<p> +He said, “I beg your pardon.” +</p> + +<p> +I said, “Eh, what?” +</p> + +<p> +He said again “I beg your pardon” in the tones of a man who almost commands, +and having said this he put his hat on the table, dragged a chair quite close +to mine, and pulled a folded bunch of foolscap sheets out of his pocket. His +manner was that of a man who engages your attention and has a right to engage +it. There were no preliminaries and there was no introduction. This was +apparently his manner, and I submitted. +</p> + +<p> +“I have here,” he said, fixing me with his intense eyes, “the plans for a +speedometer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“You know what a speedometer is?” he asked suspiciously. +</p> + +<p> +I said yes. I said it was a machine for measuring the speed of vehicles, and +that it was compounded of two (or more) Greek words. +</p> + +<p> +He nodded; he was pleased that I knew so much, and could therefore listen to +his tale and understand it. He pulled his grey baggy trousers up over the knee, +settled himself, sitting forward, and opened his document. He cleared his +throat, still fixing me with those eyes of his, and said— +</p> + +<p> +“Every speedometer up to now has depended upon the same principle as a Watt’s +governor; that is, there are two little balls attached to each by a limb to a +central shaft: they rise and fall according to their speed of rotation, and +this movement is indicated upon a dial.” +</p> + +<p> +I nodded. +</p> + +<p> +He cleared his throat again. “Of course, that is unsatisfactory.” +</p> + +<p> +“Damnably!” said I, but this reply did not check him. +</p> + +<p> +“It works tolerably well at high speeds; at low speeds it is useless; and then +again there is a very rapid fluctuation, and the instrument is of only +approximate precision.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not it!” said I to encourage him. +</p> + +<p> +“There is one exception,” he continued, “to this principle, and that is a +speedometer which depends upon the introduction of resistance into a current +generated by a small magneto. The faster the magneto turns the stronger the +current generated, and the change is indicated upon a dial.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said I sadly, “as in the former case so in this; the change of speed is +indicated upon a dial.” And I sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“But this method also,” he went on tenaciously, “has its defects.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may lay to that,” I interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“It has the defect that at high speeds its readings are not quite correct, and +at very low speeds still less so. Moreover, it is said that it slightly +deteriorates with the passage of time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now that,” I broke in emphatically, “is a defect I have discovered in——” +</p> + +<p> +But he put up his hand to stop me. “It slightly deteriorates, I say, with the +passage of time.” He paused a moment impressively. “No one has hitherto +discovered any system which will accurately record the speed of a vehicle or of +any rotary movement and register it at the lowest as at the highest speeds.” He +paused again for a still longer period in order to give still greater emphasis +to what he had to say. He concluded in a new note of sober triumph: “I have +solved the problem!” +</p> + +<p> +I thought this was the end of him, and I got up and beamed a congratulation at +him and asked if he would drink anything, but he only said, “Please sit down +again and I will explain.” +</p> + +<p> +There is no way of combating this sort of thing, and so I sat down, and he went +on: +</p> + +<p> +“It is perfectly simple....” He passed his hand over his forehead. “It is so +simple that one would say it must have been thought of before; but that is what +is always said of a great invention.... Now I have here” (and he opened out his +foolscap) “the full details. But I will not read them to you; I will summarize +them briefly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you a plan or anything I could watch?” said I a little anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he answered sharply, “I have not, but if you like I will draw a rough +sketch as I go along upon the margin of your newspaper.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +He drew the newspaper towards him and put it on his knee. He pulled out a +pencil; he held the foolscap up before his eye, and he began to describe. +</p> + +<p> +“The general principle upon which my speedometer reposes,” he said solemnly, +“is the coordination of the cylinder and the cone upon an angle which will have +to be determined in practice, and will probably vary for different types. But +it will never fall below 15 nor rise over 43.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought——” I began, but he told me I could not yet have grasped +it, and that he wished to be more explicit. +</p> + +<p> +“On a king bolt,” he said, occasionally consulting his notes, “runs a pivot in +bevel which is kept in place by a small hair-spring, which spring fits loosely +on the Conkling Shaft.” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly,” said I, “I see what is coming.” +</p> + +<p> +But he wouldn’t let me off so easily. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course you are going to say that the whole will be keyed together, and +that the T-pattern nuts on a movable shank will be my method of attachment to +the fixed portion next to the cam? Eh? So it is, but” (and here his eye +brightened), “<i>anyone</i> could have arranged that. My particularity is that +I have a freedom of movement even at the lowest speeds, and an accuracy of +notation even at the highest, which is secured in a wholly novel manner ... and +yet so simply. What do you think it is?” +</p> + +<p> +I affected to look puzzled, and thought for a moment. “I cannot imagine,” said +I, “unless——” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he interrupted, “do not try to guess it, for you never will. <i>I turn +the flange inward</i> on a Wilkinson lathe and give it a parabolic section so +that the axes are always parallel to each other and to the shaft.... There!” +</p> + +<p> +I had no idea the man could be so moved: there was jubilation in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” he said again, as though some effort of the brain had exhausted him. +“It can’t be touched, mind you,” he added suspiciously; “I’ve taken out the +provisional patents. There’s one man I know wants to fight it in the courts as +an infringement on Wilkinson’s own patent, but it can’t be touched!” He shook +his head decisively. “No! my lawyer’s certain of that—and so’m I!” +</p> + +<p> +Here there was a break in his communications, so to speak, and he had +apparently run out. It was not for me to wind him up again. I watched him with +a sombre relief as he stood up again to full height, leaned his head back, and +sighed profoundly with satisfaction and with completion. He folded up his +specification and put it in his pocket again. He tore off the incomprehensible +sketch he had made with his pencil while he was speaking, and put it by me on +the mantelshelf. “You might like to keep it,” he said pathetically; “it’s a +document, that is; it will be famous some day.” He looked at it lovingly, +almost as though he was going to take it back again: but he thought better of +it. +</p> + +<p> +I was waiting, I will not say itching, for him to take his leave, when a god or +demon, that same perhaps which had treated the poor fellow as a jest for a +whole lifetime, inspired him to take a very false step indeed. He had already +taken up his hat and was turning as though to go to the door, when the +unfortunate thought struck him. +</p> + +<p> +“What would you do?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you mean?” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what would you do to try and get it taken up and talked about?” +</p> + +<p> +Then it was my turn, and I let him have it. +</p> + +<p> +“You must get the Press and the Government to work together,” I said rapidly, +“and particularly in connection with the new Government Service of Camion’s +Fettle-Trains and Cursory Circuits.” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded like one who thoroughly understands and desires to hear more. +</p> + +<p> +“Speed,” I added nonchalantly, “and the measure of it are of course essentials +in their case.” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded again. +</p> + +<p> +“And they have never really settled the problem ... especially about +Fettle-Trains.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said he ponderously, “so I understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well now,” I went on, full of the chase, “you will naturally ask me who are +you to go to?” I scratched my nose. “You know the Fusionary Office, as we call +it? It is really, of course, a part of the Stannaries. But the Chief Permanent +Secretary likes to have it called the Fusionary Office; it’s his vanity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said he eagerly, “yes, go on!” +</p> + +<p> +“They always have the same hours,” I said, “four to eleven.” +</p> + +<p> +“Four to <i>what</i>?” he asked, looking up. +</p> + +<p> +“To eleven,” I repeated sharply; “but you’d much better call round about +three.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked bewildered. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t interrupt,” I said, seeing him open his lips, “or I shall lose the +thread. It’s rather complicated. You call at three by the little door in +Whitehall on the Embankment side towards the Horse Guards looking south, and +<i>don’t</i> ring the bell.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” he asked. I thought for the moment he might begin to cry. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” I said testily, “you mustn’t ask those questions. All these +institutions are very old institutions with habits and prejudices of their own. +You mustn’t ring the bell, that’s all; they don’t like it; you must just wait +until they open; and then, if you take <i>my</i> advice, don’t write a note or +ask to interview the First Analyist. Don’t do any of the usual things, but just +fill up one of the regular Treasury forms and state that you have come with +regard to the Perception and Mensuration advertisements.” +</p> + +<p> +His face was pained and wrinkled as he heard me, but he said, “I beg your +pardon ... but shall I have it all explained to me at the office?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not!” I said, aghast; “it’s just because you might have so much +difficulty there that I’m explaining everything to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know,” he said doubtfully; “thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll try and follow what I say,” I continued a little wearily; “I +have special opportunities for knowing.... Political, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” he said, “certainly; but about those forms?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” I said, “you didn’t suppose they supplied them, did you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I almost did,” he ventured. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you did,” said I, with a loud laugh, “well, you’re wrong there. However, I +dare say I’ve got one on me.” He looked up eagerly as I felt in my pockets. I +brought out a telegraph blank, two letters, and a tobacco pouch. I looked at +them for a moment. “No,” said I, “I haven’t got one; it’s a pity, but I’ll tell +you who will give you one; you know the place opposite, where the bills are +drafted?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I don’t,” he said, admitting ignorance for the first time in this +conversation and perhaps in his life. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said I impatiently, “never mind, anyone will show you. Go there, and if +they don’t give you a form they’ll show you a copy of Paper B, which is much +the same thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said he humbly, and he got up to move out. He was going a little +groggily, his eyes were dull and sodden. He presented all the aspect of a man +under a heavy strain. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got it all clear, I hope?” I asked cheerfully as he neared the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes!” he said. “Thank you; yes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything else?” I shouted as he passed out into the courtyard. “Anything else +I can do? You’ll always find me in the room over the office, Room H, down the +little iron staircase,” I nodded genially to him as he disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +In this way did we exchange, the Inventor and I, those expert confidences and +mutual aids in either’s technical skill which are too rarely discovered in +modern travel. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06">The Views of England</a></h2> + +<p> +England is a country with edges and with a core. It is a country very small for +the number of people who live in it, and very appreciable to the eye for the +traveller who travels on foot or in a boat from place to place. Considering the +part it has in the making of the world, it might justly be compared to a jewel +which is very small and very valuable and can almost be held in the hand. The +physical appreciation of England is to be reached by an appreciation of +landscape. +</p> + +<p> +It so happens that England is traversed by remarkable and sudden ranges; hills +with a sharp escarpment overlooking great undulating plains. This is not true +of any other one country of Europe, but it is true of England, and a man who +professes to consider, to understand, to criticize, to defend, and to love this +country, must know the Pennines, the Cotswolds, the North and the South Downs, +the Chilterns, the Mendips, and the Malverns; he must know Delamere Forest, and +he must know the Hill of Beeston, from which all Cheshire may be perceived. If +he knows these heights and has long considered the prospects which they afford, +he can claim to have seen the face of England. +</p> + +<p> +It is deplorable that our modern method of travel does cut us off from such +experiences. They were not only common to, they were necessary to our fathers; +the roads would not be at the expense of tunnelling through hills, and (what is +more important) when those men who most mould the knowledge of the country by +the country (the people who deal with its soil, who live separate upon its +separate farms) visited each other upon horses; and horses, unlike railway +trains, cannot climb hills. They puff, they heave, they snort, as do railway +trains, but they climb them well. +</p> + +<p> +On this account, because the roads for the carriages went over hills, and +because the method of visiting even a near neighbour would permit you to go +over hills, the England of quite a little time ago was familiar with the +half-dozen great landscapes of England. You may see it in that most individual, +that most peculiar, and, I think, that most glorious school of painters, the +English landscape painter, Constable with his thick colours, Turner with his +wonderment, and even the portrait painters in their backgrounds depend upon the +view of the plains from a height. To-day our landscape painters sometimes do +the same, but the market for that emotion is capricious, it is no longer the +secure and natural way of presenting England to English eyes. +</p> + +<p> +If you will consider these plains at the foot of the English hills you will +find in them the whole history of the country, and the whole meaning of it as +well. Two occur to me first: The view of the Weald (both Kentish and Sussex) +through which the influence of Europe perpetually approached the island, not +only in the crisis of the Roman or the Norman invasions, but in a hundred +episodes stretched out through two thousand years—and the view of the Thames +Valley as one gets it on a clear day from the summits of the North Downs when +one looks northward and sees very faintly the Chilterns along the horizon. +</p> + +<p> +This last is obscured by London. One needs a very particular circumstance in +which to appreciate it. The air must be dry and clear, there must be little or +no wind, or if there is a wind it must be a strong one from the south and west +that has already driven the smoke from the western edge of the town. When this +is so, a man looks right across to the sandy heights just north of the Thames, +and far beyond he sees the Chilterns, like a landfall upon the rim of the +world. He looks at all that soil on which the government of this country has +been rooted. He sees the hill of Windsor. He overlooks, though he cannot +perceive at so great a distance, the two great schools of the rich; he has +within one view the principal Castle of the Kings, the place of their council, +and the cathedral of their capital city: so true is it that the Thames made +England. +</p> + +<p> +Then, if you consider the upper half of that valley, the view is from the ridge +of the Berkshire hills, or, better still, from Cumnor, or from the clump of +trees above Faringdon. From such look-outs the astonishing loneliness which +England has had the strength to preserve in this historic belt of land +profoundly strikes a man. You can see to your left and, a long way off, the +hill where, as is most probable, Alfred thrust back the Pagans, and so saved +one-half of Christendom. Oxford is within your landscape. The roll upwards in a +glacis of the Cotswold, the nodal point of the Roman roads at Cirencester, and +the ancient crossings of the Thames. +</p> + +<p> +From the Cotswold again westward you look over a sheer wall and see one of +those differences which make up England. For the passage from the Upper Thames +to the flat and luxuriant valley floor of the Severn is a transition (if it be +made by crossing the hills) more sudden than that between many countries +abroad. Had our feudalism cut England into provinces we should here have two +marked provincial histories marching together, for the natural contrast is +greater than between Normandy and Brittany at any part of their march or +between Aragon and Castile at any part of theirs. I do not know what it is, but +the view of the jagged Malvern seen above the happy mists of autumn, when these +mists lie like a warm fleece upon the orchards of the vale, preserving them of +a morning until the strengthening of the sun, the sudden aspect, I say, of +those jagged peaks strikes one like a vision of a new world. How many men have +thought it! How often it ought to be written down! It hangs in the memory of +the traveller like a permanent benediction, and remains in his mind a standing +symbol of peace. +</p> + +<p> +I have no space to speak of how from Beeston you see all Cheshire; the Vale +Royal to your left, and the main plain of the county to your right. The whole +stretch is framed in with definite hills, the last and highly marked line of +the Pennines bounds the view upon the east; upon the west the first of the +Welsh hills stands sharply in a long even line against the fading sun; and on +the north you see the height of Delamere. There are three other views in the +North of England, the first easy, the last two difficult to obtain, all between +them making up a true picture of what the North of England is. The first (and +it is very famous) is the view over the industrial ferment of South Lancashire, +seen from the complete silence of the hills round the Peak. No matter where you +cross that summit, even if you take the high road from the Snake Inn to +Glossop, where the easiest, and therefore the least striking, passage has been +chosen, much more if you follow the wild heights a little to the south until +you come to a more abrupt descent on which there are not even paths, there +comes a point where there is presented to you in one great offering, without +introduction, a vision of the vast energies of England. +</p> + +<p> +I remember once in winter when the sun sets early (it was December, and seven +years ago) coming upon this sight. The clouds were so arranged after an +Atlantic storm that all the heaven (which here is always spacious and noble) +was covered with a rolling curtain as though a man had pulled it with his +hands. But far off, westward, there was a broad red band of sunset, and against +this the smoke, the tall stacks, the violence and the wealth of that cauldron. +One could almost hear the noise. It did arrest one; it was as though someone +had painted something unreal, to be a mystical emblem, and to sum up in one +picture all those million despairs, misfortunes, chances, disciplines, and +acquirements which make up the character of Lancashire men. This vision also +many men have seen and many men shall write of. Very rarely upon the surface of +the earth does the soul take on so immediate and obvious a physical body as +does the soul of that industrial world in the view of which I speak. +</p> + +<p> +And the two other views are, first, that difficult one which one must pick and +choose but which can be obtained from several sites (especially at the end of +Wensleydale), and which is the view of that rich, old, and agricultural +Yorkshire, from which the county draws its traditions and in which, perhaps, +the truest spirit of the county still abides; for Yorkshire is at heart farmer, +and possibly after three generations of a town, a man from this part of England +still looks more lively when he sees a lively horse put before him for +judgment. Second, the view from Cross Fell, very, very difficult to obtain, for +often when one climbs Cross Fell in sunny weather, one gets up over the Scar +under the threat of cloud, and one only reaches the summit by the time the +evening or the mist has fallen; but if one has the luck to see the view of +which I speak, then one sees all that rugged remaining part of the Northwest +exactly as the Romans saw it, and as it has been for two thousand years, with +the high land of the lakes and the stony nature and the sparseness of all the +stretch about one, and the approach to a foreign land. +</p> + +<p> +I have often thought when I have heard men blaming the story of England or her +present mood for false reasons, or, what is worse, praising her for false +reasons; when I have heard the men of the cities talking wild talk got from +maps and from print, or the disappointed men talking wild talk of another kind, +expecting impossible or foreign perfections from their own kindred—I have often +thought, I say, when I have heard the folly upon either side (and the mass of +it daily increases)—that it would be a wholesome thing if one could take such a +talker and make him walk from Dover to the Solway, exercising some care that he +should rise before the sun, and that he should see in clear weather the views +of which I speak. A man who has done that has seen England—not the name or the +map or the rhetorical catchword, but the thing. And it does not take so very +long. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07">The Lunatic</a></h2> + +<p> +Those who are interested in what simple straightforward people call the +Pathology of Consciousness have gathered a great body of evidence upon the +various manias that affect men, and there is an especially interesting +department of this which concerns illusion upon matters which in the sane are +determinable by the senses and common experience. Thus one man will believe +himself to be the Emperor of China, another to be William Shakespeare or some +other impossible person, though one would imagine that his every accident of +daily life would convince him to the contrary. +</p> + +<p> +I had recently occasion to watch one of the most harmless and yet one of the +most striking of these illusions in a private asylum which has specialized, if +I may so express myself, upon men of letters. The case was harmless and even +benign, for the poor fellow was not of a combative disposition to begin with, +was of too careful and dignified a temperament to show more than slight +irritation if his delusion were contradicted. This misfortune, however, very +rarely overtook him, for those who came to visit him were warned to humour his +whim. This eccentricity I will now describe. +</p> + +<p> +He imagined, nay he was convinced, that he was existing fifty years in the +future, and that the interest of his conversation for others would lie in his +reminiscence of the state of society in which we are actually living today. If +anyone who had not been warned was imprudent enough to suggest that the +conversation was taking place in 1909 would smile gently, nod, and say rather +bitterly, “Yes, I know, I know,” as though recognizing a universal plot against +him which he was too weary to combat. But when he had said this he would +continue to talk on as though both parties to the conversation were equally +convinced that the year was really 1960 or thereabouts. Whether to add zest to +what he said or from some part of his malady consonant with all the rest, my +poor friend (who had been a journalist and will very possibly be a journalist +again) presupposed that the whole structure of society as we now know it had +changed and that his reminiscences were those of a past time which, on account +of some great revolution or other, men imperfectly comprehended, so that it +must be of the highest interest and advantage to listen to the testimony of an +eye-witness upon them. +</p> + +<p> +What especially delighted him (for he was a zealous admirer of the society he +described) was the method of government. +</p> + +<p> +“There was no possibility of going wrong,” he said to me with curious zeal, +“not a shadow of danger! It would be difficult for you to understand now how +easily the system worked!” And here he sighed profoundly. “And why on earth,” +he continued, “men should have destroyed such an instrument when they had it is +more than I can understand. There it was in every country in Europe; there were +elections; all the men voted. And mind you, the elections were not so very far +apart. Most people living at one election could remember the last, so there was +no time for abuses to spring up.... Well, everybody voted. If a man wanted one +thing he voted one way, and if he wanted another thing he voted the other way. +The people for whom he voted would then meet, and with a sense of duty which I +cannot exaggerate they would work month after month exactly to reproduce the +will of those who had appointed them. It was a great time!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet,” said I, “even so there must have been occasional divergences between +what these people did and what the nation wanted.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see what you mean,” he said, musing, “you mean that all the devotion in the +world, the purest of motives and the most devoted sense of duty, could not keep +the elected always in contact with the electors. You are right. But you must +remember that in every country there was a machinery, with regard to the most +important measures at least, which could throw the matter before the electors +to be re-decided. I can remember no important occasion upon which the machinery +was not brought into use.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, after all, the value of the decisions of the electorate you are +describing,” said I, continuing to humour him, “would depend upon the +information which the electorate had received as well as upon their judgment.” +</p> + +<p> +“As for their judgment,” he said, a little shortly, “it is not for our time to +criticize theirs. Human judgment is not infallible, but I can well remember how +in every nation of Europe it was the fixed conviction of the citizens that +judgment was their chief characteristic, and especially judgment in national +affairs. I cannot believe that so universal an attitude of the mind could have +arisen had it not been justified. But as for information, they had the Press +... a free Press!” Here he fell into a reverie, so powerfully did his supposed +memories affect him. +</p> + +<p> +I was willing to lead him on, because this kind of illness is best met by +sympathy, and also because I was not uninterested to discover how his own trade +had affected him. +</p> + +<p> +“You would hardly understand it,” he said sadly; “what you hear from me is +nothing but words.... I wish I could have shown you one of those great houses +with information pouring in as rapid, as light, and as clear, from every hidden +corner of the world, digested by master brains into the most lucid and terse +presentment of it possible, and then whirled out on great wheels to be +distributed by the thousand and the hundred thousand, to the hungry +intelligence of Europe. There was nothing escaped it—nothing. In every capital +were crowds of men dispatched from the other capitals of our civilization, +moving with ease in the wealthiest houses, and exquisitely in touch with the +most delicate phases of national life everywhere. And these men were such +experts in selection that a picture of Europe as a whole was presented every +morning to each particular part of Europe; and nowhere was this more +successfully accomplished than in my own beloved town of London.” +</p> + +<p> +“It must have been useful,” I said, “not only for the political purposes you +describe, but also for investors. Indeed, I should imagine that the two things +ran together.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are right,” he said with interest, “the wide knowledge which even the +poorest of the people possessed upon foreign affairs, through the action of the +Press, was, further, of the utmost and most beneficent effect in teaching even +the smallest proprietor what he need do with his capital. A discovery of +metallic ore—especially of gold—a new invention, anything which might require +development, was at once presented in its most exact aspect to the reader.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was probably upon that account,” said I, “that property was so equally +distributed, and that so general a prosperity reigned as you have often +described to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are right,” said he; “it was mainly this accurate and universal daily +information which produced such excellent results.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it occurs to me,” said I, by way of stimulating his conversation with an +objection, “that if so passionate and tenacious a habit of telling the exact +truth upon innumerable things was present in this old institution of which you +speak, it cannot but have bred a certain amount of dissension, and it must +sometimes even have done definite harm to individuals whose private actions +were thus exposed.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are right,” said he; “the danger of such misfortunes was always present, +and with the greatest desire in the world to support only what was worthy the +writers of the journals of which I speak would occasionally blunder against +private interests; but there was a remedy.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was that?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, the law provided that in this matter twelve men called a jury, instructed +by a judge, after the matter had been fully explained to them by two other men +whose business it was to examine the truth boldly for the sake of justice—I say +the law provided that the twelve men after this process should decide whether +the person injured should receive money from the newspaper or no, and if so, in +what amount. And, lest there should still be any manner of doubt, the judge was +permitted to set aside their verdict if he thought it unjust. To secure his +absolute impartiality as between rich and poor he was paid somewhat over £100 a +week, a large salary in those days, and he was further granted the right of +imprisoning people at will or of taking away their property if he believed them +to obstruct his judgment. Nor were these the only safeguards. For in the case +of very rich men, to whom justice might not be done on account of the natural +envy of their poorer fellow-citizens, it was arranged that the jury should +consist only of rich men. In this way it was absolutely certain that a complete +impartiality would reign. We shall never see those days again,” he concluded. +</p> + +<p> +“But do you not think,” I said before I left him, “that the social perfection +of the kind you have described must rather have been due to some spirit of the +time than to particular institutions? For after all the zealous love of justice +and the sense of duty which you describe are not social elements to be produced +by laws.” +</p> + +<p> +“Possibly,” he said, wearily, “possibly, but we shall never see it again!” +</p> + +<p> +And I left him looking into the fire with infinite sadness and reflecting upon +his lost youth and the year 1909: a pathetic figure, and one whose upkeep +during the period of his deficiency was a very serious drain upon the resources +of his family. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08">The Inheritance of Humour</a></h2> + +<p> +There are some truths which seem to get old almost as soon as they are born, +and that simply because they are so astonishingly true that people soon get to +feel as though they have known them all their lives; and such a truth is that +which first one writer and then another in the last five years has been +insisting upon, until it is already a perfect commonplace that nations do not +know their own qualities. The inmost, the characteristic thing, that which +differentiates one community from another, as tastes or colours differentiate +things—<i>that</i> a nation hardly ever knows until it is pointed out to it by +some foreigner or by some observer from within. It cannot know it, because one +cannot tell the very atmosphere in which one lives. It is universal and +therefore unnoticed. Now, if this is true of any nation, it is particularly +true of England. And English people need to be told morning, noon, and night, +not indeed the particular national characteristic which they have, since for +this no particular name could be found, but rather what its evidences are; as, +for instance, spontaneity in design, a passion for the mystical in poetry and +the arts; a power in water-colour, in which they are perhaps quite alone, and +certainly the first in Europe; and, above all, the chief, the master thing of +all, humour. +</p> + +<p> +There is not nor ever will be anything like English humour. It is a thing quite +apart, and by it for now more than two hundred years you may know England. It +does not puzzle the foreigner (as the more blatant kind of intellectual man is +too fond of boasting that it does); he simply admires it as a rule and wonders +at it always; sometimes he actually dislikes it, but by it he knows that the +thing he is reading is English and has the savour and taste of England. +</p> + +<p> +It is impossible to define it, because it is so full of stuff and so organic a +quality; but in our own time it was principally the pencil of Charles Keene +that has summed it up and presented it in a moment and at once to the eye—the +pencil of Charles Keene and that profound instinct whereby he chose the legends +for his drawing, whether he found them by his own sympathy with the people or +whether they were suggested to him by friends. +</p> + +<p> +It is the verdict of the men most competent perhaps to judge upon these things +that he had the greatest graphic power of his time, and that no one had had +that power to such an extent since Hogarth. Upon these things the men of the +trade must dispute; the layman cannot doubt that he had here a genius and a +genius comprehensively national. It is the essence of a good draughtsman that +what he wants to draw, that he draws. The line that he desires to see upon the +paper appears there as his fingers move. It is a quality extremely rare in its +perfection. And Charles Keene had it in perfection, as in totally different +manner had the offensive and diseased talent of Beardsley. +</p> + +<p> +But more important than the power to do is the quality of the thing done, and +the work of Charles Keene, multitudinous, varied, always great, is an +inheritance for English people comparable to the inheritance they have in +Dickens. It has also what Dickens had, a power of representing, as it were, the +essential English. Just that which makes people say (with some truth) that +Dickens never drew a gentleman would make them say with equal truth that what +was interesting in the gentlemen of Charles Keene (and he perpetually drew +them) was not the externals upon which gentlemen so pride themselves, but the +soul. Thus I have in mind one picture wherein Keene drew a gentleman; true, he +was a gentleman who had just swallowed a bad oyster, and therefore he was a man +as well. I recall another of an old gentleman complaining of the caterpillar on +his chop: he is a gentleman of the professional rather than the territorial +classes, and, great heavens! what a power of line! All you see beneath the +round of his hat is the end of his nose, the curve of his mouth, and two bushy +ends of whiskers. Yet one can tell all about that man; one could write a book +on him. One knows his economics, his religion, his accent, and what he thought +of the Third Napoleon and what of Garibaldi. I have called draughtsmanship of +this quality an inheritance—I might have called it perhaps with better +propriety a monument. It is possible that England in the near future will look +back with great envy, as she will certainly look back with great pride, to the +generation preceding our own: they were a solid and a happy community of men. +How much they owed to fortune, how much to themselves, it is not the place of +such random stuff as mine to consider. +</p> + +<p> +They were nearly impregnable in their island; they were not bellicose. They +made and sold for all the world. Whether the very different future which we are +now entering is to be laid to their door or to our own, that generation will +still remain one of the principal things in English history, like the +Elizabethan generation, or the group of men who organized the Seven Years’ War, +or the group of men who fought in the Peninsula. And of that generation the +note of health and of stability is represented by its humour. I am not sure +that of all things educational to young men with no personal memory of that +time, and especially to young men with no family tradition of it to reflect it +in their books and their furniture; and—this yet more particularly—to young men +born out of England yet claiming communion with England, the Anglo-Indians and +the Colonials—I am not sure, I say, that the thing most educational to these +would not be some hundred of Charles Keene’s drawings, for therein they would +find what it was that gave them the power and the wealth that can hardly be +defended unless its traditions are continued. Note how Victorian England dealt +with the humour of a Volunteer review; note how it dealt with the humour of +excessive wealth; and note how it dealt with the humour of schools and of Dons. +One might almost define it by negations. There is in all of it no—but here I +lack a word.... When things ring false it is because they have got by +exaggeration or by some other form of falsity <i>beside</i> themselves. +Appreciation of rank or even of worth becomes snobbishness; appreciation of +another’s judgment false taste; and patriotism, the most beautiful, the +noblest, the most necessary of the great emotions, corrupts into something very +vile indeed. +</p> + +<p> +Well, the Victorians, and notably this man of whose power of the pencil I am +speaking, did lack that false savour, that savour of just missing what one +wishes to say or to feel, which haunts us to-day; and I should imagine that +whether it were cause or effect the salt present in the preservation of the +moral health of that society was humour. Let us enjoy it like an heirloom. It +is more national than the language; at least it is more national than what the +language has become under foreign pressure; it is infinitely more national than +our problems and our tragedies. It is so national that—who knows?—it may crop +up again of itself one of these days; and may that not be long. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09">The Old Gentleman’s Opinions</a></h2> + +<p> +I had occasion about a fortnight ago to meet a man more nearly ninety than +eighty years of age, who had had special opportunity for discovering the +changes of Europe during his long life. He was of the English wealthier classes +by lineage, but his mother had been of the French nobility and a Huguenot. His +father had been prominent in the diplomacy of a couple of generations ago. He +had travelled widely, read perhaps less widely, but had known and appreciated +an astonishing number of his contemporaries. +</p> + +<p> +I was interested (without any power of my own to judge whether his decisions +were right or wrong) to discover what most struck him in the changes produced +by that great stretch of years, all of which he had personally observed: he was +born just after Waterloo, and he could remember the Reform Bill. +</p> + +<p> +He surprised me by telling me, in the first place, that the material changes +and discoveries, enormous though they were in extent, were not, in his view, +the most striking. He was ready to leave it open whether these material changes +were the causes of moral changes more remarkable, or merely effects concomitant +with these. When I asked him what had struck him most of the great material +developments, he told me the phonograph and the aeroplane among inventions; +Mendel’s observations in the sphere of experimental knowledge; and, in the +sphere of pure theory, the breakdown of many things that had been dogmas of +physical science in his early manhood. +</p> + +<p> +Since I did not quite understand what he meant by this last, he gave me, after +some hesitation, a few examples: That the interior of the earth was molten; +that a certain limited number of elements—not all yet isolated, but certainly +few in their total—were at the base of all material forms, and were immutable; +that the ultimate unit of each of these was a certain indivisible, eternal +thing called the Atom; and so forth. +</p> + +<p> +He assured me that views of this sort, extending over a hundred or a thousand +other points, were so universally accepted in his time that to dispute them was +to be ranked with the unlettered or the fantastic. I asked him if it were so in +economics. He said: Yes, in England, where there was a similar dogma of Free +Trade: not abroad. +</p> + +<p> +When I asked him why Mendel’s published experiments and the theory based upon +them had so much impressed him, he said because it was almost the first attempt +to apply to the speculative dogmas of biology some standard demonstrably true; +and here he wandered off to explain to me why the commonly accepted views upon +biology, which had so changed thought in the latter part of his life, were +associated with the name of Darwin. Darwin, he assured me, had brought forward +no new discovery, but only a new hypothesis, and that only a small and +particular hypothesis, whereby to explain the general theory of transformism. +This theory, he told me—the unbroken descent of living organisms and their +physical connection with one another and with common parents—had been a +favourite idea from the beginning of history with many great thinkers, from +Lucretius to Buffon and from Augustus of Hippo to Lamarck. Darwin’s, the old +gentleman assured me, which he had defended with infinite toil, was that the +method in which this continuity of descent proceeded was by an infinitely slow +process of very small changes differentiating each minute step from the one +before and the one after it, and these small changes Darwin’s hypothesis +referred to a natural selection. Nothing else in Darwin’s work, he assured me, +was novel, and yet it was the one thing which subsequent research had rendered +more and more doubtful. Darwin (he said) said nothing new that was also true. +</p> + +<p> +At this point I was moved to contradict the old gentleman, and to say that one +unquestioned contribution to science of Darwin, as novel as it was secure, was +his patient discovery of the work of earthworms, and of its vast effect. The +old gentleman was willing to admit that I was right, but he said he was only +speaking of Darwin in connection with transformism and the whimsical way in +which his private name (and his errors) had become identified with evolution in +general. +</p> + +<p> +I asked him, since he had such a knowledge of men from observation, why this +was so. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems at first sight,” he said, “as ridiculous as though we should +associate the theory of light with the name of Newton, who inclined to the +exploded corpuscular hypothesis, or the general conception of orbital motion in +the universe to the great Bacon, who, in point of fact, rudely repudiated the +Copernican theory in particular.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he, indeed?” said I, interested. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe so,” said the old gentleman; “at any rate you were asking me why +Darwin, with his single contribution to the theory of transformism, and that a +doubtful one—or, to be accurate, an exploded one—should be associated in the +popular mind with the invention of so ancient a theory as that of evolution. +The reason is, I think, no more than that he came at a particular moment when +any man doing great quantities of detailed work in this field was bound to +stand out exaggeratedly. The society in which he appeared had, until just +before his day, accepted a narrow cosmogony, quite unknown to its ancestors. +Darwin’s book certainly exploded that, and the mind of his time—ignorant as it +was of the past—was ready to accept the shattering of its father’s idols as a +new revelation.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you were saying,” said I, when he had thus dealt harshly with a great +name, “that not the material but the moral changes of your time seemed to you +the greatest. Which did you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, in the first place,” said the old man thoughtfully and with some +hesitation, “the curiously rapid decline of intelligence, or if you will have +it differently, the clouding of thought that has marked the last thirty years. +Men in my youth knew what they held and what they did not hold. They knew why +they held it or why they did not hold it; but the attempt to enjoy the +advantages of two contradictory systems at the same time, and, what is worse, +the consulting of a man as an authority upon subjects he had never professed to +know, are intellectual phenomena quite peculiar to the later years of my life.” +</p> + +<p> +I said we of the younger generation had all noticed it, as, for instance, when +an honest but imperfectly intelligent chemist was listened to in his exposition +of the nature of the soul, or a well-paid religious official was content to +expound the consolations of Christianity while denying that Christianity was +true. +</p> + +<p> +“But,” I continued, “we are usually told that this unfortunate decline in the +express powers of the brain is due to the wide and imperfect education of the +populace at the present moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is not the case,” answered the old man sharply, when I had made myself +clear by repeating my remarks in a louder tone, for he was a little deaf. +</p> + +<p> +“That is not the case. The follies of which I speak are not particularly to be +discovered among the poorer classes who have passed through the elementary +schools. <i>These</i>” (it was to the schools that he was alluding with a +comprehensive pessimism) “may account for the gross decline apparent in the +public manners of our people, but not for faults which are peculiar to the +upper and middle classes. It is not in the populace, but in those wealthier +ranks that you will find the sort of intellectual decay of which I spoke.” +</p> + +<p> +I asked him whether he thought the tricks it was now considered cultured to +play with mathematics came within the category of this intellectual decay. The +old gentleman answered me a little abruptly that he could not judge what I was +talking about. +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” said I, “do you believe that parallel straight lines <i>converge</i> or +<i>diverge</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Neither,” said he, a little bewildered. “If they are parallel they cannot by +definition either diverge or converge.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are, then,” said I, “an old-fashioned adherent of the theory of the +parabolic universe?” At which sensible reply of mine the old man muttered +rather ill-temperedly, and begged me to speak of something else. +</p> + +<p> +I asked him whether the knowledge of languages had not declined in his time. He +said, somewhat emphatically, yes, and especially the knowledge of French, +assuring me that in his early years many a Fellow of a College at Oxford or at +Cambridge was capable of speaking that tongue in such a fashion as to make +himself understood. On the other hand, he admitted that German and Spanish were +more widely known than they had been, and Arabic certainly far more widely +diffused among those officials of the Empire who took their work seriously. +</p> + +<p> +When I asked him whether politics were more corrupt as time proceeded, he said +No, but more cynical; and as to morals he would not judge, for he was certain +that as one vice was corrected another appeared in its place. +</p> + +<p> +What he told me he most deplored in the social system of his country was the +power of the police and of the statistician by whom the policeman was guided. +This he ascribed to the growth of great towns, to civic cowardice, and to a new +taboo laid upon uniformed and labelled public authorities, who are now regarded +as sacred, and also inordinately feared. +</p> + +<p> +“In my youth,” he said, “there was a joke that every man in Paris was known to +the police. Today that is universally true, and no joke with regard to every +man in London. Our movements are marked, our earnings, our expenses, and our +most private affairs known to the innumerable officials of the Treasury, our +records of every sort, however intimate, are exactly and correctly maintained. +The obtaining of work and a livelihood is dependent upon strong organizations. +There is hardly an ailment or a domestic habit, from drinking wine to eating +turnips, which some crank who has obtained the ear of a politician does not +control or threaten in the immediate future to control.” +</p> + +<p> +“As for doctors!” he began, his voice cracking with indignation, “their +abominable....” but here the old gentleman fell into so violent a fit of +coughing that he nearly turned black in the face, and when I respectfully +slapped him on the back, in the hopes of granting him relief, he made matters +worse by shaking himself at me with an energy worthy of 1842. His nurse rushed +in, clapped him upon his pillows, and was prepared to vent her wrath upon me +for having caused this paroxysm, when the old man’s exhaustion and laboured +breathing captured all her attention, and I had the opportunity to withdraw. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10">On Historical Evidence</a></h2> + +<p> +The last book to be published upon the last Dauphin of France set me thinking +upon what seems to me the chief practical science in which modern men should +secure themselves. I mean the science of history—and in this science almost all +lies in the appreciation of evidence, for one of the chief particular problems +presented to the student of history at the present moment is whether the +Dauphin did or did not survive his imprisonment in the Temple. +</p> + +<p> +Let me first say why, to so many of us, the science of history and the +appreciation of the evidence upon which it depends is of the first moment. It +is because, short of vision or revelation, history is our only extension of +human experience. It is true that a philosophy common to all citizens is +necessary for a State if it is to live—but short of that necessity the next +most necessary factor is a knowledge of the stuff of mankind: of how men act +under certain conditions and impulses. This knowledge may be acquired, and is +in some measure, during the experience of one wise lifetime, but it is +indefinitely extended by the accumulation of experience which history affords. +</p> + +<p> +And what history so gives us is always of immediate and practical moment. +</p> + +<p> +For instance, men sometimes speak with indifference of the rival theories as to +the origin of European land tenure; they talk as though it were a mere academic +debate whether the conception of private property in land arose comparatively +late among Europeans or was native and original in our race. But you have only +to watch a big popular discussion on that very great and at the present moment +very living issue, the moral right to the private ownership in land, to see how +heavily the historic argument weighs with every type of citizen. The instinct +that gives that argument weight is a sound one, and not less sound in those who +have least studied the matter than in those who have most studied it; for if +our race from its immemorial origins has desired to own land as a private thing +side by side with communal tenures, then it is pretty certain that we shall not +modify that intention, however much we change our laws. If, on the other hand, +it could be shown that before the advent of a complex civilization Europeans +had no conception of private property in land, but treated land as a thing +necessarily and always communal, then you could ascribe modern Socialist +theories with regard to the land to that general movement of harking back to +the origins which Europe has been assisting at through over a hundred years of +revolution and of change. +</p> + +<p> +It sounds cynical, but it is perfectly true, that much the largest factor in +the historical conception of men is assertion. It is literally true that when +men (with the exception of a very small proportion of scholars who are also +intelligent) consider the past, the picture on which they dwell is a picture +conveyed to them wholly by authority and by unquestioned authority. There was +never a time when the original sources of history were more easily to be +consulted by the plain man; but whether because of their very number, or +because the habit is not yet formed, or because there are traditions of +imaginary difficulty surrounding such reading, original sources were perhaps +never less familiar to fairly educated opinion than they are today; and +therefore no type of book gives more pleasure when one comes across it than +those little cheap books, now becoming fairly numerous, in which the original +sources, and the original sources alone, are put before the reader. Mr. Rait +has already done such work in connection with Mary Queen of Scots, and Mr. +Archer did it admirably in connection with the Third Crusade. +</p> + +<p> +But apart from the importance of consulting original sources—which is like +hearing the very witnesses themselves in court—there is a factor in historical +judgment which by some unhappy accident is peculiarly lacking in the +professional historian. It is a factor to which no particular name can be +attached, though it may be called a department of common sense. But it is a +mental power or attitude easily recognizable in those who possess it, and +perhaps atrophied by the very atmosphere of the study. It goes with the open +air with a general knowledge of men and with that rapid recognition of the way +in which things “fit in” which is necessarily developed by active life. +</p> + +<p> +For instance, when you know the pace at which Harold marched down from the +north to Hastings you recognize, if you use that factor of historic judgment of +which I spake, that the affair was not barbaric. There must have been fairly +good roads, and there must have been a high organization of transport. You have +only to consider for a moment what a column looks like, even if it be only a +brigade, to see the truth of that. Again, this type of judgment forbids anyone +who uses it to ascribe great popular movements (great massacres, great +turmoils, and so forth) to craft. It is a very common thing, especially in +modern history, to lay such things to the power of one or two wealthy or one or +two bloody leaders, but you have only to think for a few moments of what a mob +is to see the falsity of that. Craft can harness this sort of explosive force, +it can control it, or persuade it, or canalize it to certain issues, but it +cannot create it. +</p> + +<p> +Again, this sort of sense easily recognizes in historic types the parallels of +modern experience. It avoids the error of thinking history a mistake and making +of the men and women who appear there something remote from humanity, extreme, +and either stilted or grandiose. +</p> + +<p> +In aid of this last feature in historical judgment there is nothing of such +permanent value as a portrait. Obtain your conception (as, indeed, most boys +do) of the English early sixteenth century from a text, then go and live with +the Holbeins for a week and see what an enormously greater thing you will +possess at the end of it. It is indeed one of the misfortunes of European +history that from the fifth century to at least the eleventh we are, so far as +Western European history is concerned, deprived of portraits. And by an +interesting parallel the writers of the dark time seemed to have had neither +the desire nor the gift of vivid description. Consider the dreariness of the +hagiographers, every one of them boasting the noble rank and the conventional +status of his hero, and you may say not one giving the least conception of the +man’s personality. You have the great Gallo-Roman noble family of Ferreolus +running down the centuries from the Decline of the Empire to the climax of +Charlemagne. Many of those names stand for some most powerful individuality, +yet all we have is a formula, a lineage, with symbols and names in the place of +living beings, and even that established only by careful work, picking out and +sifting relationships from various lives. The men of that time did not even +think to tell us that there was such a thing as a family tradition, nor did it +seem important to them to establish its Roman origin and its long succession in +power. +</p> + +<p> +Next it must be protested that the smallness and particularity of the questions +upon which historical discussion rages are no proof either of its general +purposelessness nor of <i>their</i> insignificance. All advance of knowledge +proceeds in this fashion. Physical science affords innumerable examples of the +way in which progress has depended upon a curiosity directed towards apparently +insignificant things, and there is something in the mind which compels it to +select a narrow field for the exercise of its acutest powers. Moreover, special +points, discussion upon which must evidently be lengthy and may be indefinite, +are peculiarly attractive to just that kind of man who by a love of prolonged +research enlarges the bounds of knowledge and at the same time strengthens and +improves for his fellows by continual exercise all the instruments of their +common trade. Take, for instance, this case of the little Dauphin, Louis XVII. +It really does not matter to day whether the boy got away or whether he died in +prison. It does not prolong the line of the Capetians—the heir to that is +present in the Duke of Orleans. It does not even affect our view of any other +considerable part of history—save possibly the policy of Louis XVIII—and it is +of no direct interest to our pockets or to our affections. Yet the masses of +work which have accumulated round that one doubt have solved twenty other +doubts. They have illuminated all the close of the Terror; they are beginning +to make us understand that most difficult piece of political psychology, the +reaction of Thermidor, and with it how Europeans lose their balance and regain +it in the course of their quasi-religious wars; for all our wars have something +in them of religion. +</p> + +<p> +Three elements appear to enter into the judgment of history. First, there is +the testimony of human witnesses; next, there are the non-human boundaries +wherein the action took place, boundaries which, by all our experience, impose +fixed limits to action; thirdly, there is that indefinable thing, that mystic +power, which all nations deriving from the theology of the Western Church have +agreed to call, with the schoolman, <i>common sense</i>; a general appreciation +which transcends particular appreciations and which can integrate the +differentials of evidence. Of this last it is quite impossible to afford a test +or to construct a measure; its presence in an argument is none the less as +readily felt as fresh air in a room; without it nothing is convincing however +laboured, with it, even though it rely upon slight evidence, one has the +feeling of walking on a firm road. But it must be “common sense”—it must be of +the sort, that is, which is common to man various and general, and it is in +this perhaps that history suffers most from the charlatanism and ritual common +to all great matters. +</p> + +<p> +Men will have pomp and mystery surrounding important things, and therefore the +historians must, consciously or unconsciously, tend to strut, to quote solemn +authorities in support, and to make out the vulgar unworthy of their +confidence. Hence, by the way, the plague of footnotes. +</p> + +<p> +These had their origin in two sources: the desire to show that one was honest +and to prove it by a reference; the desire to elucidate some point which it was +not easy to elucidate in the text itself without making the sentence too +elaborate and clumsy. Either use may be seen at its best in Gibbon. With the +last generation they have served mainly, and sometimes merely, for ritual +adornment and terror, not to make clearer or more honest, but to deceive. Thus +Taine in his monstrously false history of the Revolution revels in footnotes; +you have but to examine a batch of them with care to turn them completely +against his own conclusions—they are only put there as a sort of spiked paling +to warn off trespassers. Or, again, M. Thibaut, who writes under the name of +“Anatole France,” gives footnotes by the score in his romance of Joan of Arc, +apparently not even caring to examine whether they so much as refer to his +text, let alone support it. They seem to have been done by contract. +</p> + +<p> +Another ailment in this department is the negative one, whereby an historian +will leave out some aspect which to him, cramped in a study, seems unimportant, +but which any plain man moving in the world would have told him to be the +essential aspect of the whole matter. For instance, when Napoleon left Madrid +on his forced march to intercept Sir John Moore before that general should have +reached Benevente, he thought Moore was at Valladolid, when as a fact he was at +Sahagun. In Mr. Oman’s history of the Peninsular War the error is put thus: +“Napoleon had not the comparatively easy task of cutting the road between +Valladolid and Astorga, but the much harder one of intercepting that between +Sahagun and Astorga.” +</p> + +<p> +Why is this egregious nonsense? The facts are right and so are the dates and +the names, yet it makes one blush for Oxford history. Why? Because the +all-important element of <i>distance</i> is omitted. The very first question a +plain man would ask about the case would be, “What were the distances +involved?” The academic historian doesn’t know, or, at least, doesn’t say; yet +without an appreciation of the distances the statement has no value. As a fact +the distances were such that in the first case (supposing Moore had been at +Valladolid) Napoleon would have had to cover nearly three miles to Moore’s one +to intercept him—an almost superhuman task. In the second case (Moore being as +a fact at Sahagun) he would have had to go over <i>four miles</i> to his +opponent’s one—an absolutely impossible feat. +</p> + +<p> +To march <i>three</i> miles to the enemy’s <i>one</i> is what Mr. Oman calls “a +comparatively easy task”; to march four to his one is what Mr. Oman calls a +“much harder” task; and to write like that is what an informed critic calls bad +history. +</p> + +<p> +The other two factors in an historical judgment can be more easily measured. +</p> + +<p> +The non-human elements which, as I have said, are irremovable (save to +miracle), are topography, climate, season, local physical conditions, and so +forth. They have two valuable characters in aid of history; the first is that +they correct the errors of human memory and support the accuracy of details; +the second is that they enable us to complete a picture. We can by their aid +“see” the physical framework in which an action took place, and such a +landscape helps the judgment of things past as it does of things contemporary. +Thus the map, the date, the soil, the contours of Crécy field make the +traditional spot at which the King of Bohemia fell doubtful; the same factors +make it certain that Drouet did not plunge haphazard through Argonne on the +night of June 21, 1791, but that he must have gone by one path—which can be +determined. +</p> + +<p> +Or, again, take that prime question, why the Prussians did not charge at Valmy. +On their failure to do so all the success of the Revolution turned. A man may +read Dumouriez, Kellermann, Pully, Botidoux, Massenback, Goethe—there are fifty +eye-witnesses at least whose evidence we can collect, and I defy anyone to +decide. (Brunswick himself never knew.) But go to that roll of land between +Valmy and the high road; go after three days’ rain as the allies did, and you +will immediately learn. That field between the heights of “The Moon” and the +site of old Valmy mill, which is as hard as a brick in summer (when the experts +visit it), is a marsh of the worst under an autumn drizzle; no one could have +charged. +</p> + +<p> +As for human testimony, three things appear: first, that the witness is not, as +in a law court, circumscribed. His relation may vary infinitely in degree of +proximity of time or space to the action, from that of an eye-witness writing +within the hour to that of a partisan writing at tenth hand a lifetime after. +That question of proximity comes first, from the known action of the human mind +whereby it transforms colours and changes remembered things. Next there is the +character of the witness <i>for the purposes of his testimony</i>. Historians +write, too often, as though virtue—or wealth (with which they often confound +it)—were the test. It is not, short of a known motive for lying; a murderer or +a thief casually witnessing to a thing with which he is familiar is worth more +than the best man witnessing in a matter which he understands ill. It was this +error which ruined Croker’s essay on Charlotte Robespierre’s Memoirs. Croker +thought, perhaps wisely, that all radicals were scoundrels; he could not accept +her editor’s evidence, and (by the way) the view of this amateur collector +without a tincture of historical scholarship actually imposed itself on Europe +for nearly seventy years! +</p> + +<p> +And the third character in the witness is support: the support upon converging +lines of other human testimony, most of it indifferent, some (this is +essential) casual and by the way—deprived therefore of motive. +</p> + +<p> +When I shall find these canons satisfied to oppose the strong probability and +tradition of the Dauphin’s death in prison I shall doubt that death, but not +before. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11">The Absence of the Past</a></h2> + +<p> +It is perhaps not possible to put into human language that emotion which rises +when a man stands upon some plot of European soil and can say with certitude to +himself: “Such and such great, or wonderful, or beautiful things happened +here.” +</p> + +<p> +Touch that emotion ever so lightly and it tumbles into the commonplace, and the +deadest of commonplace. Neglect it ever so little and the Present (which is +never really there, for even as you walk across Trafalgar Square it is +yesterday and tomorrow that are in your mind), the Present, I say, or rather +the immediate flow of things, occupies you altogether. But there is a mood, and +it is a mood common in men who have read and who have travelled, in which one +is overwhelmed by the sanctity of a place on which men have done this or that a +long, long time ago. +</p> + +<p> +Here it is that the gentle supports which have been framed for human life by +that power which launched it come in and help a man. Time does not remain, but +space does, and though we cannot seize the Past physically we can stand +physically upon the site, and we can have (if I may so express myself) a +physical communion with the Past by occupying that very spot which the past +greatness of man or of event has occupied. +</p> + +<p> +It was but the other day that, with an American friend at my side, I stood +looking at the little brass plate which says that here Charles Stuart faced (he +not only faced, but he refused) the authority of his judges. I know not by what +delicate mechanism of the soul that record may seem at one moment a sort of +tourist thing, to be neglected or despised, and at another moment a portent. +But I will confess that all of a sudden, pointing out this very well-known +record upon the brass let into the stone in Westminster Hall, I suddenly felt +the presence of the thing. Here all that business was done: they were alive; +they were in the Present as we are. Here sat that tender-faced, courageous man, +with his pointed beard and his luminous eyes; here he was a living man holding +his walking-stick with the great jewel in the handle of it; here was spoken in +the very tones of his voice (and how a human voice perishes!—how we forget the +accents of the most loved and the most familiar voices within a few days of +their disappearance!); here the small gestures, and all the things that make up +a personality, marked out Charles Stuart. When the soul is seized with such +sudden and positive conviction of the substantial past it is overwhelmed; and +Europe is full of such ghosts. +</p> + +<p> +As you take the road to Paradise, about halfway there you come to an inn, which +even as inns go is admirable. You go into the garden of it, and see the great +trees and the wall of Box Hill shrouding you all around. It is beautiful enough +(in all conscience) to arrest one without the need of history or any admixture +of the pride of race; but as you sit there on a seat in that garden you are +sitting where Nelson sat when he said goodbye to his Emma, and if you will move +a yard or two you will be sitting where Keats sat biting his pen and thinking +out some new line of his poem. +</p> + +<p> +What has happened? These two men with their keen, feminine faces, these two +great heroes of a great time in the great story of a great people of this +world, are not there. They are nowhere. But the site remains. +</p> + +<p> +Philosophers can put in formulæ the crowd of suggestions that rush into the +mind when one’s soul contemplates the perpetual march and passage of mortality. +But they can do no more than give us formularies: they cannot give us replies. +What are we? What is all this business? Why does the mere space remain and all +the rest dissolve? +</p> + +<p> +There is a lonely place in the woods of Chilham, in the County of Kent, above +the River Stour, where a man comes upon an irregular earthwork still plainly +marked upon the brow of the bluff. Nobody comes near this place. A vague +country lane, or rather track; goes past the wet soil of it, plunges into the +valley beyond, and after serving a windmill joins the high road to Canterbury. +Well, that vague track is the ancient British road, as old as anything in this +Island, that took men from Winchester to the Straits of Dover. That earthwork +is the earthwork (I could prove it, but this is not the place) where the +British stood against the charge of the Tenth Legion, and first heard, sounding +on their bronze, the arms of Caesar. Here the river was forded; here the little +men of the South went up in formation; here the Barbarian broke and took his +way, as the opposing General has recorded, through devious woodland paths, +scattering in the pursuit; here began the great history of England. +</p> + +<p> +Is it not an enormous business merely to stand in such a place? I think so. +</p> + +<p> +I know a field to the left of the Chalons Road, some few miles before you get +to Ste. Menehould. There used to be an inn by the roadside called “The Sign of +the Moon.” It has disappeared. There used to be a ramshackle windmill beyond +the field, a mile or so from the road, on an upland swell of land, but that +also has gone, and had been gone for some time before I knew the field of which +I write. It is a bare fold of land with one or two little scrubby spinneys +alongside the plough. And for the rest, just the brown earth and the sky. There +are days on which you will see a man at work somewhere within that mile, others +on which it is completely deserted. Here it is that the French Revolution was +preserved. Here was the Prussian charge. On the deserted, ugly lump of empty +earth beyond you were the three batteries that checked the invaders. It was all +alive and crowded for one intense moment with the fate of Christendom. Here, on +the place in which you are standing and gazing, young Goethe stood and gazed. +That meaningless stretch of coarse grass supported Brunswick and the King of +Prussia, and the brothers of the King of France, as they stood windswept in the +rain, watching the failure of the charge. It is the field of Valmy. Turn on +that height and look back westward and you see the plains rolling out +infinitely; they are the plains upon which Attila was crushed; but there is no +one there. +</p> + +<p> +All men have remarked that night and silence are august, and I think that if +this quality in night and silence be closely examined it will be found to +consist, in part at least, in this: that either of them symbolizes Absence. By +a paradox which I will not attempt to explain, but which all have felt, it is +in silence and in darkness that the Past most vividly returns, and that this +absence of what once was possesses, nay, obtrudes itself upon the mind: it +becomes almost a sensible thing. There is much to be said for those who +pretend, imagine, or perhaps have experienced under such conditions the return +of the dead. The mood of darkness and of silence is a mood crammed with +something that does not remain, as space remains, that is limited by time, and +is a creature of time, and yet something that has an immortal right to remain. +</p> + +<p> +Now, I suppose that in that sentence where I say things mortal have immortal +rights to permanence, the core of the whole business is touched upon. And I +suppose that the great men who could really think and did not merely fire off +fireworks to dazzle their contemporaries—I suppose that Descartes, for +instance, if he were here sitting at my table—could help me to solve that +contradiction; but I sit and think and cannot solve it. +</p> + +<p> +“What,” says the man upon his own land, inherited perhaps and certainly +intended for his posterity—“what! Can you separate me from this? Are not this +and I bound up inextricably?” The answer is “No; you are not so far as any +observer of this world can discover. Space is in no way possessed by man, and +he who may render a site immortal in one of our various ways, the captain who +there conquered, the poet who there established his sequence of words, cannot +himself put forward a claim to permanence within it at all.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a woman of charming vivacity, whose eyes were ever ready for +laughter, and whose tone of address of itself provoked the noblest of replies. +Many loved her; all admired. She passed (I will suppose) by this street or by +that; she sat at table in such and such a house; Gainsborough painted her; and +all that time ago there were men who had the luck to meet her and to answer her +laughter with their own. And the house where she moved is there and the street +in which she walked, and the very furniture she used and touched with her hands +you may touch with your hands. You shall come into the rooms that she +inhabited, and there you shall see her portrait, all light and movement and +grace and beatitude. +</p> + +<p> +She is gone altogether, the voice will never return, the gestures will never be +seen again. She was under a law; she changed, she suffered, she grew old, she +died; and there was her place left empty. The not living things remain; but +what counted, what gave rise to them, what made them all that they are, has +pitifully disappeared, and the greater, the infinitely greater, thing was +subject to a doom perpetually of change and at last of vanishing. The dead +surroundings are not subject to such a doom. Why? +</p> + +<p> +All those boys who held the line of the low ridge or rather swell of land from +Hougoumont through the Belle Alliance have utterly gone. More than dust goes, +more than wind goes; they will never be seen again. Their voices will never be +heard—they are not. But what is the mere soil of the field without them? What +meaning has it save for their presence? +</p> + +<p> +I could wish to understand these things. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12">St. Patrick</a></h2> + +<p> +If there is one thing that people who are not Catholic have gone wrong upon +more than another in the intellectual things of life, it is the conception of a +Personality. They are muddled about it where their own little selves are +concerned, they misappreciate it when they deal with the problems of society, +and they have a very weak hold of it when they consider (if they do consider) +the nature of Almighty God. +</p> + +<p> +Now, personality is everything. It was a Personal Will that made all things, +visible and invisible. Our hope of immortality resides in this, that we are +persons, and half our frailties proceed from a misapprehension of the awful +responsibilities which personality involves or a cowardly ignorance of its +powers of self-government. +</p> + +<p> +The hundred and one errors which this main error leads to include a bad error +on the nature of history. Your modern non-Catholic or anti-Catholic historian +is always misunderstanding, underestimating, or muddling the role played in the +affairs of men by great and individual Personalities. That is why he is so +lamentably weak upon the function of legend; that is why he makes a fetish of +documentary evidence and has no grip upon the value of tradition. For +traditions spring from some personality invariably, and the function of legend, +whether it be a rigidly true legend or one tinged with make-believe, is to +interpret Personality. Legends have vitality and continue, because in their +origin they so exactly serve to explain or illustrate some personal character +in a man which no cold statement could give. +</p> + +<p> +Now St. Patrick, the whole story and effect of him, is a matter of Personality. +There was once—twenty or thirty years ago—a whole school of dunderheads who +wondered whether St. Patrick ever existed, because the mass of legends +surrounding his name troubled them. How on earth (one wonders) do such scholars +consider their fellow-beings! Have they ever seen a crowd cheering a popular +hero, or noticed the expression upon men’s faces when they spoke of some friend +of striking power recently dead? A great growth of legends around a man is the +very best proof you could have not only of his existence but of the fact that +he was an origin and a beginning, and that things sprang from his will or his +vision. There were some who seemed to think it a kind of favour done to the +indestructible body of Irish Catholicism when Mr. Bury wrote his learned +Protestant book upon St. Patrick. It was a critical and very careful bit of +work, and was deservedly praised; but the favour done us I could not see! It is +all to the advantage of non-Catholic history that it should be sane, and that a +great Protestant historian should make true history out of a great historical +figure was a very good sign. It was a long step back towards common sense +compared with the German absurdities which had left their victims doubting +almost all the solid foundation of the European story; but as for us Catholics, +we had no need to be told it. Not only was there a St. Patrick in history, but +there is a St. Patrick on the shores of his eastern sea and throughout all +Ireland to-day. It is a presence that stares you in the face, and physically +almost haunts you. Let a man sail along the Leinster coast on such a day as +renders the Wicklow Mountains clear up-weather behind him, and the Mourne +Mountains perhaps in storm, lifted clearly above the sea down the wind. He is +taking some such course as that on which St. Patrick sailed, and if he will +land from time to time from his little boat at the end of each day’s sailing, +and hear Mass in the morning before he sails further northward, he will know in +what way St. Patrick inhabits the soil which he rendered sacred. +</p> + +<p> +We know that among the marks of holiness is the working of miracles. Ireland is +the greatest miracle any saint ever worked. It is a miracle and a nexus of +miracles. Among other miracles it is a nation raised from the dead. +</p> + +<p> +The preservation of the Faith by the Irish is an historical miracle comparable +to nothing else in Europe. There never was, and please God never can be, so +prolonged and insanely violent a persecution of men by their fellow-men as was +undertaken for centuries against the Faith in Ireland: and it has completely +failed. I know of no example in history of failure following upon such effort. +It had behind it in combination the two most powerful of the evil passions of +men, terror and greed. And so amazing is it that they did not attain their end, +that perpetually as one reads one finds the authors of the dreadful business +now at one period, now at another, assuming with certitude that their success +is achieved. Then, after centuries, it is almost suddenly perceived—and in our +own time—that it has not been achieved and never will be. +</p> + +<p> +What a complexity of strange coincidences combined, coming out of nothing as it +were, advancing like spirits summoned on to the stage, all to effect this end! +Think of the American Colonies; with one little exception they were perhaps the +most completely non-Catholic society of their time. Their successful rebellion +against the mother country meant many things, and led to many prophecies. Who +could have guessed that one of its chief results would be the furnishing of a +free refuge for the Irish? +</p> + +<p> +The famine, all human opinion imagined, and all human judgment was bound to +conclude, was a mortal wound, coming in as the ally of the vile persecution I +have named. It has turned out the very contrary. From it there springs +indirectly the dispersion, and that power which comes from unity in dispersion, +of Irish Catholicism. +</p> + +<p> +Who, looking at the huge financial power that dominated Europe, and England in +particular, during the youth of our own generation, could have dreamt that in +any corner of Europe, least of all in the poorest and most ruined corner of +Christendom, an effective resistance could be raised? +</p> + +<p> +Behind the enemies of Ireland, furnishing them with all their modern strength, +was that base and secret master of modern things, the usurer. He it was far +more than the gentry of the island who demanded toll, and, through the +mortgages on the Irish estates, had determined to drain Ireland as he has +drained and rendered desert so much else. Is it not a miracle that he has +failed? +</p> + +<p> +Ireland is a nation risen from the dead; and to raise one man from the dead is +surely miraculous enough to convince one of the power of a great spirit. This +miracle, as I am prepared to believe, is the last and the greatest of St. +Patrick’s. +</p> + +<p> +When I was last in Ireland, I bought in the town of Wexford a coloured picture +of St. Patrick which greatly pleased me. Most of it was green in colour, and +St. Patrick wore a mitre and had a crosier in his hand. He was turning into the +sea a number of nasty reptiles: snakes and toads and the rest. I bought this +picture because it seemed to me as modern a piece of symbolism as ever I had +seen: and that was why I bought it for my children and for my home. +</p> + +<p> +There was a few pence change, but I did not want it. The person who sold me the +picture said they would spend the change in candles for St. Patrick’s altar. So +St. Patrick is still alive. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13">The Lost Things</a></h2> + +<p> +I never remember an historian yet, nor a topographer either, who could tell me, +or even pretend to explain by a theory, how it was that certain things of the +past utterly and entirely disappear. +</p> + +<p> +It is a commonplace that everything is subject to decay, and a commonplace +which the false philosophy of our time is too apt to forget. Did we remember +that commonplace we should be a little more humble in our guesswork, especially +where it concerns prehistory; and we should not make so readily certain where +the civilization of Europe began, nor limit its immense antiquity. But though +it is a commonplace, and a true one, that all human work is subject to decay, +there seems to be an inexplicable caprice in the method and choice of decay. +</p> + +<p> +Consider what a body of written matter there must have been to instruct and +maintain the technical excellence of Roman work. What a mass of books on +engineering and on ship-building and on road-making; what quantities of tables +and ready-reckoners, all that civilization must have produced and depended +upon. Time has preserved much verse, and not only the best by any means, more +prose, particularly the theological prose of the end of the Roman time. The +technical stuff, which must, in the nature of things, have been indefinitely +larger in amount, has (save in one or two instances and allusions) gone. +</p> + +<p> +Consider, again, all that mass of seven hundred years which was called +Carthage. It was not only seven hundred years of immense wealth, of oligarchic +government, of a vast population, and of what so often goes with commerce and +oligarchy—civil and internal peace. A few stones to prove the magnitude of its +municipal work, a few ornaments, a few graves—all the rest is absolutely gone. +A few days’ marches away there is an example I have quoted so often elsewhere +that I am ashamed of referring to it again, but it does seem to me the most +amazing example of historical loss in the world. It is the site of Hippo +Regius. Here was St. Augustine’s town, one of the greatest and most populous of +a Roman province. It was so large that an army of eighty thousand men could not +contain it, and even with such a host its siege dragged on for a year. There is +not a sign of that great town today. +</p> + +<p> +A suburb, well without the walls—to be more accurate, a neighbouring +village—carries on the name under the form of Bona, and that is all. A vast, +fertile plain of black rich earth, now largely planted with vineyards, stands +where Hippo stood. How can the stones have gone? How can it have been worth +while to cart away the marble columns? Why are there no broken statues on such +a ground, and no relics of the gods? +</p> + +<p> +Nay, the wells are stopped up from which the people drank, and the lining of +the wells is not to be discovered in the earth, and the foundations of the +walls, and even the ornaments of the people and their coins, all these have +been spirited away. +</p> + +<p> +Then there are the roads. Consider that great road which reached from Amiens to +the main port of Gaul, the Portus Itius at Boulogne. It is still in use. It was +in use throughout the Middle Ages. Up that road the French Army marched to +Crécy. It points straight to its goal upon the sea coast. Its whole purpose lay +in reaching the goal. For some extraordinary reason, which I have never seen +explained or even guessed at, there comes a point as it nears the coast where +it suddenly ceases to be. +</p> + +<p> +No sand has blown over it. It runs through no marshes; the land is firm and +fertile. Why should that, the most important section of the great road which +led northward from Rome, have failed, and have failed so recently, in the +history of man? Where this great road crosses streams and might reasonably be +lost, at its <i>pontes</i>, its bridges, it has remained, and is of such +importance as to have given a name to a whole countryside—<i>Ponthieu</i>. But +north of that it is gone. +</p> + +<p> +Nearly every Roman road of Gaul and Britain presents something of the same +puzzle in some parts of its course. It will run clear and followable enough, or +form a modern highway for mile upon mile, and then not at a marsh where one +would expect its disappearance, nor in some desolate place where it might have +fallen out of use, but in the neighbourhood of a great city and at the very +chief of its purpose, it is gone. It is so with the Stane Street that led up +from the garrison of Chichester and linked it with the garrison of London. You +can reconstruct it almost to a yard until you reach Epsom Downs. There you find +it pointing to London Bridge, and remaining as clear as in any other part of +its course: much clearer than in most other sections. But try to follow it on +from Epsom Racecourse, and you entirely fail. The soil is the same; the +conditions of that soil are excellent for its retention; but a year’s work has +taught me that there is no reconstructing it save by hypothesis and guesswork +from this point to the crossing of the Thames. +</p> + +<p> +What happened to all that mass of local documents whereby we ought to be able +to build up the territorial scheme and the landed regime of old France? Much +remains, if you will, in the shape of chance charters and family papers. Even +in the archives of Paris you can get enough to whet your curiosity. But not +even in one narrow district can you obtain enough to reconstruct the whole +truth. There is not a scholar in Europe who can tell you exactly how land was +owned and held, even, let us say, on the estates of Rheims or by the family of +Condé. And men are ready to quarrel as to how many peasants owned and how much +of their present ownership was due to the Revolution, evidence has already +become so wholly imperfect in that tiny stretch of historical time. +</p> + +<p> +But, after all, perhaps one ought not to wonder too much that material things +should thus capriciously vanish. Time, which has secured Timgad so that it +looks like an unroofed city of yesterday, has swept and razed Laimboesis. The +two towns were neighbours—one was taken and the other left—and there is no sort +of reason any man can give for it. Perhaps one ought not too much to wonder, +for a greater wonder still is the sudden evaporation and loss of the great +movements of the human soul. That what our ancestors passionately believed or +passionately disputed should, by their descendants in one generation or in two, +become meaningless, absurd, or false—this is the greatest marvel and the +greatest tragedy of all. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14">On the Reading of History</a></h2> + +<p> +Let me at the beginning of this short article present two facts to the reader. +Neither can be disputed, and that is why I call them facts and put them in the +forefront before I begin upon my theories. +</p> + +<p> +The first fact is that the record of what men have done in the past and how +they have done it is the chief positive guide to present action. The second +fact is that most men must now receive the impression of the past through +reading. +</p> + +<p> +Put these two facts together and you get the fundamental truth that upon the +right reading of history the right use of citizenship in England today will +depend. It will of course depend upon other things as well: chiefly upon the +human conscience; for if you were to pack off to an island a hundred families +as ignorant as any human families can be of tradition, and wholly ignorant of +positive history, those families would yet be able to create a human society +and the voice of God within them would give just limits to their actions. +</p> + +<p> +Still, of those factors in civic action amenable to civic direction, conscious +and positively effective, there is nothing to compare with the right teaching +and the right reading of history. Now teaching is today ruined. The old +machinery by which the whole nation could be got to know all essential human +things, has been destroyed, and the teaching of history in particular has been +not only ruined but rendered ridiculous. There is no historical school properly +so-called in modern England; that is, there is no organization framed with the +sole object of extending and co-ordinating historical knowledge and of choosing +men for their capacity to discover upon the one hand and to teach upon the +other. There is nothing approaching to it in the two ancient universities, +because the choice of teachers there depends upon a multitude of considerations +quite separate from those mentioned, and the capacity to discover, to know, and +to teach history, though it <i>may</i> be present in a tutor, will only be +accidentally so present: while as for co-ordination of knowledge, there is no +attempt at it. Even where very hard work is done, and, when it concerns local +history, very useful work, history as a general study is not grasped because +the universities have not grasped it. +</p> + +<p> +History is to be had by the modern Englishman from his own reading only; and I +am here concerned with the question how he shall read history with profit. +</p> + +<p> +To read history with profit, history must be true, or at any rate the reader +must have a power of discerning what is true in the midst of much that may be +false. I will bargain, for instance, that in the summer of 1899 the great mass +of men, and especially the great mass of men who had passed through the +universities, were under the impression that armies had left England for the +purpose of conquest in distant countries with invariable success: that that +success had been unique, unsupported and always decisive, and that the wealth +of the country after each success had increased, not diminished. In other +words, had history been studied even by the tiny minority who have education +today in England, Sir William Butler would have counted more than the Joels, +and the late Mr. Barnato (as he called himself); the South African War would +not have taken place in a society which knew its past. +</p> + +<p> +Again, you may pick almost any phrase referring to the Middle Ages out of any +newspaper—if you are a man read in the Middle Ages—and you will find in it not +only a definite historical falsehood with regard to the fact referred to, or +the analogy drawn, but also a false philosophy. +</p> + +<p> +For instance, the other day I read this phrase with regard to the burial of a +certain gentleman of my neighbourhood in Sussex: “We are surely past the phase +of mediaeval thought in which it was imagined that a few words spoken over the +lifeless clay would determine the fate of the soul for all eternity.” Just +notice the myriad falsehoods of a phrase like that! I will not discuss what is +connoted by the words “past the phase of mediaeval thought”—it connotes of +course that the human mind changes fundamentally with the centuries, and +therefore that whatever we think is probably wrong, and that what we are sure +of we cannot be sure of, an absurd conclusion. I will only note the historical +falsehoods. When on earth did the “Middle Ages” lay down that a “few words over +lifeless clay determined the fate of the soul for all eternity”? On the +contrary, the Middle Ages laid it down—it was their peculiar doctrine—that it +was impossible to determine the fate of the soul; that no one could tell the +fate of any one individual soul; that it was a grievous sin, among the most +grievous of sins, to affirm positive knowledge that any individual had lost his +soul. More than this, the Middle Ages were peculiar in their insistence upon +the doctrine that a man might have been very bad and might have had all the +appearance of having lost his soul so far as human judgment went, and yet was +liable to a midway place between salvation and damnation, and they affirmed +that this midway place did not lead to either fate but necessarily to salvation +and to salvation only. +</p> + +<p> +Again, whatever could help the human soul to salvation was by the most rigorous +theological definition of the Middle Ages applicable only before death. After +death the fate of the soul was sealed, and the man once dead, the “lifeless +clay” (as the journalist put it—and the Middle Ages was the only source from +which he got the idea of clay at all), whether it were that of a Pope or of +some random highwayman, had no effect whatsoever upon the fate of the soul. The +greatest saint might have offered the most solemn sacrifice on its behalf for +years, and if the soul were damned his sacrifice would have been of no avail. +</p> + +<p> +I have taken this example absolutely at random. But the modern reader, apart +from sentences as clearly provocative of criticism as this, is perpetually +coming across references, allusions, and parallels which take a certain course +of human European and English history for granted. How is he to distinguish +when that course is rightly drawn from when it is wrongly drawn? +</p> + +<p> +Thus in some newspaper article written by an able man, and dealing, let us say, +with the territorial army, one might come across a sentence like this: +“Napoleon himself used troops so raw that they were actually drilled on the +march to the battlefield.” That would be a perfectly true statement. Any amount +of criticism of it lies in connexion with Mr. Haldane’s scheme, but still it is +a true piece of history. Napoleon did get raw recruits into his battalions just +before any one of his famous marches began, and drill them on the way to +victory. In the next column of the newspaper the reader may be presented with a +sentence like this: “The captures of English by privateers in the Revolutionary +War should teach us what foreign cruisers can do.” +</p> + +<p> +There were plenty of captures by privateers in the Revolutionary Wars; if I +remember rightly, many many hundreds, all discreetly hidden from the common or +garden reader until party politics necessitated their resurrection a hundred +years after the event, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with modern +circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +Both statements are true then, and yet one can be truthfully applied today, +while the other cannot. +</p> + +<p> +How is the plain reader to distinguish between two historical truths, one of +which is a useful modern analogy, the other of which is a ludicrously +misleading one? +</p> + +<p> +The reader, it would seem, has no criterion by which to distinguish what has +been withheld from him and what has been emphasized; he may, from his knowledge +of the historian’s character or bias, stand upon his guard, but he can do +little more. +</p> + +<p> +There is another difficulty. It is less subtle and less common, but it exists. +I mean brute lying. You do not often get the lie direct in official history; it +would be too dangerous a game to play in the face of the critics, though some +historians, and notably the French historian Taine, have played it boldly +enough, and have stated dogmatically, as historical happenings, things that +never happened and that they knew never happened. But the plain or brute +historical lie is more commonly found in the pages of ephemeral journalism. +Thus the other day, with regard to the Budget, I saw some financial operation +alluded to as comparable with “the pulling out of Jews’ teeth for money in the +Middle Ages.” When did anyone in the Middle Ages pull out a Jew’s teeth for +money? There is just one very doubtful story told about King John, and that +story is told without proof by one of John’s worst enemies, in a mass of other +accusations many of which can be proved to be false. +</p> + +<p> +Again, I turn to an Oxford History of the French Revolution, and I find the +remark that the massacres of September were organized by the men from +Marseilles. They were not organized by the men from Marseilles. The men from +Marseilles had nothing to do with them, and the fact has been public property +since the publication of Pollio and Marcel’s monograph twenty years ago. +</p> + +<p> +What criterion can the ordinary reader choose when he is confronted by +difficulties of this sort? I will suggest to him one which seems to me by far +the most valuable. It is the reading of firsthand authorities. It is all a +matter of habit. When the original authorities upon which history is based were +difficult to get at, when few of those in foreign tongues had been translated, +and when those that had been published were published in the most expensive +form, the ordinary reader had to depend upon an historian who would summarize +for him the reading of another. The ordinary reader was compelled to read +secondary history or none. Now secondary history is among the most valuable of +literary efforts; where evidence is slight, the judgment of an historian who +knows from other reading the general character of the period, is most valuable. +Where evidence is abundant, and therefore confusing, the historian used to the +selection and weighing of it performs a most valuable function. Still, the +reader who is not acquainted with original authorities does not really know +history and is at the mercy of whatever myth or tradition may be handed to him +in print. +</p> + +<p> +We should remember that today, even in England, original authorities are quite +easy to get at. Two little books, for instance, occur to me out of hundreds: +Mr. Rait’s book on Mary Stuart and Mr. Archer’s on the Third Crusade. In each +of these the reader gets in a cheap form, in modern and readable English, the +kind of evidence upon which historians base their history, and he can use that +evidence in the light of his own knowledge of human nature and his own judgment +of human life. +</p> + +<p> +Or again, if he wants to know what the Romans really knew or said they knew +about the German tribes who, as pirates, so greatly influenced the history of +England, let him get Mr. Rouse’s edition of Grenewey’s translation of the +Germania in Blackie’s series of English texts; it will only cost sixpence, and +for that money he will get a bit of Caesar’s Gallic War and the Agricola as +well. But the list nowadays is a very long one, luckily, and the lay reader has +only to choose what period he would like to read up, and he will find for +nearly every one first-hand evidence ready, cheap and published in a readable +modern form. That he should take such first-hand evidence is the very best +advice that any honest historian can give. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15">The Victory</a></h2> + +<p> +The study of history, like the exploration, the thorough exploration, of any +other field, leads one to perpetual novelties, miracles, and unexpected things; +and I, in the study of the revolutionary wars, came across the story of a +battle which completely possessed my spirit. +</p> + +<p> +It would not be to my purpose here to give its name. It is not among the most +famous; it is not Waterloo, nor Leipsic, nor Austerlitz, nor even Jemappes. The +more I read into the night the more I perceived that upon the issue of that +struggle depended the fate of the modern world. So completely did the notes of +Carnot and a few private letters that had been put before me absorb my +attention that I will swear the bugle-calls of those two days (for it was a +two-days’ struggle) sounded more clearly in my ears than the rumble of the +London streets, and, as this died out with the advance of the night and the +approach of morning, I was living entirely upon that ridge in Flanders, +watching, as a man watches an arena, whether the new things or the old should +be victorious. It was the new that conquered. +</p> + +<p> +From that evening I was determined to visit this place of which so far I had +but read, and to see how far it might agree with the vision I had had of it, +and to people actual fields with the ghosts of dead soldiers. And for the +better appreciation of the drama I chose the season and the days on which the +fight had been driven across that rolling land, and I came there, as the +Republicans had come, a little before the dawn. +</p> + +<p> +The hillside was silent and deserted, more even than are commonly such places, +though silence and desertion seem the common atmosphere of all the fields on +which such fates have been decided. A man looking over Carthage Bay, especially +a man looking at those sodden pools that were the sound harbours of Carthage, +might be in an uninhabited world; and the loop of the Trebbia is the same, and +the edge of Fontenoy; and even here in England that hillside looking south up +which the Normans charged at Battle is a quiet and a drowsy sort of place.... +So it was here in Flanders. +</p> + +<p> +For two miles as I ascended by the little sunken lane which the extreme right +wing had followed in the last attack I saw neither man nor beast, but only the +same stubble of the same autumn fields, and the same colder sun shining upon +the empty uplands until I reached the crest where the Hungarian and the Croat +had met the charge, and had disputed the little village for two hours—a dispute +upon which hung your fate and mine and that of Europe. +</p> + +<p> +It was a tiny little village, seven or eight houses together and no more, with +a crazy little wooden steeple to its church all twisted awry, large barns, and +comfortable hedgerows of the Northern kind; and from it one looked out +westwards over an infinity of country, following low crest after low crest, +down on to the French plains. I went into the inn of the place to drink, and +found the cobbler there complaining that wealth disturbed the natural equality +of men. Then I wandered out, pacing this point and that which I knew accurately +from my maps, and thinking of the noise of the war. Behind the little church, +upon a ramshackle green not large enough to pitch the stumps for single-wicket, +was the modest monument, a cock in bronze, crowing, and the word “Victory” +stamped into the granite of the pedestal; the whole thing, I suppose, not ten +feet high. The bronze was very well done; it savoured strongly of Paris and +looked odd in this abandoned little place. But every time my eyes sank from the +bronze, to look at some other point in the landscape to identify the +emplacement of such and such a battery or the gully that had concealed the +advance of such and such a troop, my glance perpetually returned to that word +“VICTORY,” sculptured by itself upon the stone. It was indeed a victory; it was +a victory which, for its huge unexpectedness, for the noise of it, for the +length of time during which it was in doubt, for its final success, there is no +parallel, and yet it is by no means among the famous battles of the world. And +though the French count it one among the thousand of their battles, I doubt +whether even in Paris most men would recognize it for the hammer-blow it was. +The men of the time hardly knew it, though Carnot guessed at it, and now to-day +in Sorbonne I think that regal fight is taking its true place. +</p> + +<p> +So I went down the eight miles of front northward along the ridge; for even +that battle, a hundred and more years ago, had an extended front of this kind. +I recognized the tall majestic fringe of beeches from which had issued the last +of the Royalist regiments bearing for the last time upon a European field the +white flag of the Bourbon Monarchy; I came beyond it to the combe fringed with +its semicircle of underbrush in which Coburg had massed his guns in the last +effort to break the French centre when his flank was turned. I came to the main +highway, very broad, straight, and paved, which cuts this battlefield in two, +and then beyond it to the central position whose capture had made the final +manoeuvre possible. +</p> + +<p> +All Wednesday the Grenadiers, German, tall, padded, smart, and stout, had held +their ground. It was not until Thursday, and by noon, that they were slowly +driven up the hill by the ragged lads, the Gauls, shoeless, some not in uniform +at all, half-mutinous, drunk with pain and glory. And I remembered, as the +scene returned to me, that this battle, like so many of the Revolution, had +been a battle of men against boys; how grey and veteran and trained in arms +were the Austrians and the Prussians, their allies, how strict in orders, how +calm: and what children the Terror had called up by force from the exhausted +fields of remote French provinces, to break them here against the frontier, +like water against a wall...! +</p> + +<p> +There was a little chap, twelve years old, a drummer; he had crept and crawled +by hedgerows till he found himself behind the line of those volleying +Grenadiers. There, “before his side,” and breaking all rules, he had sounded +the roll of the charge. They cut him down and killed him, and the roll of his +drum ceased hard. A generation or more later, digging for foundations at this +spot, the builders of the Peace came upon his bones, the little bones of a +child heaped pell-mell with skeletons of the fallen giants round him. +</p> + +<p> +I went back into the town in whose defence the battle had been waged, and there +I saw again in bronze this little lad, head high and mouth open, a-beating of +his drum, and again the word “VICTORY.” +</p> + +<p> +All that effort was undertaken, all those young men and children killed, for +something that was to happen for the salvation of the world; it has not come. +All that iron resistance of the German line had been forged and organized till +it almost conquered, till it almost thwarted, the Republic, and it also had +been organized for the defence, and, as some thought, for the salvation, of the +world. Some great good was to have come by the storming of that hill, or some +great good by the defeat of the impetuous charge. Well, the hill was stormed, +and (if you will) at Leipsic the effort which had stormed it was rolled back. +What has happened to the High Goddess whom that youth followed, and worshipped +as they say, and what to the Gods whom their enemies defended? The ridge is +exactly the same. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16">Reality</a></h2> + +<p> +A couple of generations ago there was a sort of man going mournfully about who +complained of the spread of education. He had an ill-ease in his mind. He +feared that book learning would bring us no good, and he was called a fool for +his pains. Not undeservedly—for his thoughts were muddled, and if his heart was +good it was far better than his head. He argued badly or he merely affirmed, +but he had strong allies (Ruskin was one of them), and, like every man who is +sincere, there was something in what he said; like every type which is +numerous, there was a human feeling behind him: and he was very numerous. +</p> + +<p> +Now that he is pretty well extinct we are beginning to understand what he meant +and what there was to be said for him. The greatest of the French +Revolutionists was right—“After bread, the most crying need of the populace is +knowledge.” But what knowledge? +</p> + +<p> +The truth is that secondary impressions, impressions gathered from books and +from maps, are valuable as adjuncts to primary impressions (that is, +impressions gathered through the channel of our senses), or, what is always +almost as good and sometimes better, the interpreting voice of the living man. +For you must allow me the paradox that in some mysterious way the voice and +gesture of a living witness always convey something of the real impression he +has had, and sometimes convey more than we should have received ourselves from +our own sight and hearing of the thing related. +</p> + +<p> +Well, I say, these secondary impressions are valuable as adjuncts to primary +impressions. But when they stand absolute and have hardly any reference to +primary impressions, then they may deceive. When they stand not only absolute +but clothed with authority, and when they pretend to convince us even against +our own experience, they are positively undoing the work which education was +meant to do. When we receive them merely as an enlargement of what we know and +make of the unseen things of which we read, things in the image of the seen, +then they quite distort our appreciation of the world. +</p> + +<p> +Consider so simple a thing as a river. A child learns its map and knows, or +thinks it knows, that such and such rivers characterize such and such nations +and their territories. Paris stands upon the River Seine, Rome upon the River +Tiber, New Orleans on the Mississippi, Toledo upon the River Tagus, and so +forth. That child will know one river, the river near his home. And he will +think of all those other rivers in its image. He will think of the Tagus and +the Tiber and the Seine and the Mississippi—and they will all be the river near +his home. Then let him travel, and what will he come across? The Seine, if he +is from these islands, may not disappoint him or astonish him with a sense of +novelty and of ignorance. It will indeed look grander and more majestic, seen +from the enormous forest heights above its lower course, than what, perhaps, he +had thought possible in a river, but still it will be a river of water out of +which a man can drink, with clear-cut banks and with bridges over it, and with +boats that ply up and down. But let him see the Tagus at Toledo, and what he +finds is brown rolling mud, pouring solid after the rains, or sluggish and +hardly a river after long drought. Let him go down the Tiber, down the Valley +of the Tiber, on foot, and he will retain until the last miles an impression of +nothing but a turbid mountain torrent, mixed with the friable soil in its bed. +Let him approach the Mississippi in the most part of its long course and the +novelty will be more striking still. It will not seem to him a river at all (if +he be from Northern Europe); it will seem a chance flood. He will come to it +through marshes and through swamps, crossing a deserted backwater, finding firm +land beyond, then coming to further shallow patches of wet, out of which the +tree-stumps stand, and beyond which again mud-heaps and banks and groups of +reeds leave undetermined, for one hundred yards after another, the limits of +the vast stream. At last, if he has a boat with him, he may make some place +where he has a clear view right across to low trees, tiny from their distance, +similarly half swamped upon a further shore, and behind them a low escarpment +of bare earth. That is the Mississippi nine times out of ten, and to an +Englishman who had expected to find from his early reading or his maps a larger +Thames it seems for all the world like a stretch of East Anglian flood, save +that it is so much more desolate. +</p> + +<p> +The maps are coloured to express the claims of Governments. What do they tell +you of the social truth? Go on foot or bicycling through the more populated +upland belt of Algiers and discover the curious mixture of security and war +which no map can tell you of and which none of the geographies make you +understand. The excellent roads, trodden by men that cannot make a road; the +walls as ready loopholed for fighting; the Christian church and the mosque in +one town; the necessity for and the hatred of the European; the indescribable +difference of the sun, which here, even in winter, has something malignant +about it, and strikes as well as warms; the mountains odd, unlike our +mountains; the forests, which stand as it were by hardihood, and seem at war +against the influence of dryness and the desert winds, with their trees far +apart, and between them no grass, but bare earth alone. +</p> + +<p> +So it is with the reality of arms and with the reality of the sea. Too much +reading of battles has ever unfitted men for war; too much talk of the sea is a +poison in these great town populations of ours which know nothing of the sea. +Who that knows anything of the sea will claim certitude in connexion with it? +And yet there is a school which has by this time turned its mechanical system +almost into a commonplace upon our lips, and talks of that most perilous thing, +the fortunes of a fleet, as though it were a merely numerical and calculable +thing! The greatest of Armadas may set out and not return. +</p> + +<p> +There is one experience of travel and of the physical realities of the world +which has been so widely repeated, and which men have so constantly verified, +that I could mention it as a last example of my thesis without fear of +misunderstanding. I mean the quality of a great mountain. +</p> + +<p> +To one that has never seen a mountain it may seem a full and a fine piece of +knowledge to be acquainted with its height in feet exactly, its situation; nay, +many would think themselves learned if they know no more than its conventional +name. But the thing itself! The curious sense of its isolation from the common +world, of its being the habitation of awe, perhaps the brooding-place of a god! +</p> + +<p> +I had seen many mountains, I had travelled in many places, and I had read many +particular details in the books—and so well noted them upon the maps that I +could have re-drawn the maps—concerning the Cerdagne. None the less the sight +of that wall of the Cerdagne, when first it struck me, coming down the pass +from Tourcarol, was as novel as though all my life had been spent upon empty +plains. By the map it was 9000 feet. It might have been 90,000! The wonderment +as to what lay beyond, the sense that it was a limit to known things, its +savage intangibility, its sheer silence! Nothing but the eye seeing could give +one all those things. +</p> + +<p> +The old complain that the young will not take advice. But the wisest will tell +them that, save blindly and upon authority, the young cannot take it. For most +of human and social experience is words to the young, and the reality can come +only with years. The wise complain of the jingo in every country; and properly, +for he upsets the plans of statesmen, miscalculates the value of national +forces, and may, if he is powerful enough, destroy the true spirit of armies. +But the wise would be wiser still if, while they blamed the extravagance of +this sort of man, they would recognize that it came from that half-knowledge of +mere names and lists which excludes reality. It is maps and newspapers that +turn an honest fool into a jingo. +</p> + +<p> +It is so again with distance, and it is so with time. Men will not grasp +distance unless they have traversed it, or unless it be represented to them +vividly by the comparison of great landscapes. Men will not grasp historical +time unless the historian shall be at the pains to give them what historians so +rarely give, the measure of a period in terms of a human life. It is from +secondary impressions divorced from reality that a contempt for the past +arises, and that the fatal illusion of some gradual process of betterment of +“progress” vulgarizes the minds of men and wastes their effort. It is from +secondary impressions divorced from reality that a society imagines itself +diseased when it is healthy, or healthy when it is diseased. And it is from +secondary impressions divorced from reality that springs the amazing power of +the little second-rate public man in those modern machines that think +themselves democracies. This last is a power which, luckily, cannot be greatly +abused, for the men upon whom it is thrust are not capable even of abuse upon a +great scale. It is none the less marvellous in its falsehood. +</p> + +<p> +Now you will say at the end of this, Since you blame so much the power for +distortion and for ill residing in our great towns, in our system of primary +education and in our papers and in our books, what remedy can you propose? Why, +none, either immediate or mechanical. The best and the greatest remedy is a +true philosophy, which shall lead men always to ask themselves what they really +know and in what order of certitude they know it; where authority actually +resides and where it is usurped. But, apart from the advent, or rather the +recapture, of a true philosophy by a European society, two forces are at work +which will always bring reality back, though less swiftly and less whole. The +first is the poet, and the second is Time. +</p> + +<p> +Sooner or later Time brings the empty phrase and the false conclusion up +against what is; the empty imaginary looks reality in the face and the truth at +once conquers. In war a nation learns whether it is strong or no, and how it is +strong and how weak; it learns it as well in defeat as in victory. In the long +processes of human lives, in the succession of generations, the real +necessities and nature of a human society destroy any false formula upon which +it was attempted to conduct it. Time must always ultimately teach. +</p> + +<p> +The poet, in some way it is difficult to understand (unless we admit that he is +a seer), is also very powerful as the ally of such an influence. He brings out +the inner part of things and presents them to men in such a way that they +cannot refuse but must accept it. But how the mere choice and rhythm of words +should produce so magical an effect no one has yet been able to comprehend, and +least of all the poets themselves. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17">On the Decline of the Book: [And Especially of the +Historical Book]</a></h2> + +<p> +It is an interesting speculation by what means the Book lost its old position +in this country. This is not only an interesting speculation, but one which +nearly concerns a vital matter. For if men fall into the habit of neglecting +true books in an old and traditional civilization, the inaccuracy of their +judgments and the illusions to which they will be subject, must increase. +</p> + +<p> +To take but one example: history. The less the true historical book is read and +the more men depend upon ephemeral statement, the more will legend crystallize, +the harder will it be to destroy in the general mind some comforting lie, and +the great object-lesson of politics (which is an accurate knowledge of how men +have acted in the past) will become at last unknown. +</p> + +<p> +There are many, especially among younger men, who would contest the premiss +upon which all this is founded. They may point out, for instance, that the +actual number of bound books bought in a given time at present is much larger +than ever it was before. They may point out again, and with justice, that the +proportion of the population which reads books of any sort, though perhaps not +larger than it was three hundred years ago, is very much larger than it was one +hundred years ago. And it may further be affirmed with truth that the range of +subjects now covered by books produced and sold is much wider than ever it was +before. +</p> + +<p> +All this is true; and yet it is also true that the Book as a factor in our +civilization has not only declined but has almost disappeared. Were many more +dogs to be possessed in England than are now possessed, but were they to be all +mongrels, among which none could be found capable of retrieving, or of +following a fox or a hare with any discipline, one would have a right to say +that the dog as a factor of our civilization had declined. Were many more men +in England able to ride horses more or less, but were the number of those who +rode constantly and for pleasure enormously to diminish, and were the new +millions who could just manage to keep on horseback to prefer animals without +spirit on which they would feel safe, one would have a right to say that the +horse was declining as a factor in our civilization; and this is exactly what +has happened with the Book. +</p> + +<p> +The excellence of a book and its value as a book depend upon two factors, which +are usually, though not always, united in varied proportions: first, that it +should put something of value to the reader, whether of value as a discovery +and an enlargement of wisdom or of value as a new emphasis laid upon old and +sound morals; secondly, that this thing added or renewed in human life should +be presented in such a manner as to give permanent aesthetic pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +That is not a first-rate book which, while it is admirably written, teaches +something false or something evil; nor is that a first-rate book which, though +it discover a completely new thing, or emphasize the most valuable department +of morals, is so constructed as to be unreadable. Now it will not be denied +that as far as these two factors are concerned—and I repeat they are almost +always found in combination—the position of the Book has dwindled almost to +nothingness. One could give examples of almost every kind: one could show how +poetry, no matter how appreciated or praised, no longer sells. One could +show—and this is one of the worst signs of all—how men will buy by the hundred +thousand anything at all which has the hall mark of an established reputation, +quite careless as to their love of it or their appetite for it. One could +further show how more than one book of permanent value in English life has been +discovered in our generation outside England, and has been as it were thrust +upon the English public by foreign opinion. +</p> + +<p> +But for my purpose it will be sufficient to take one very important branch +which I can claim to have watched with some care, and that is the branch of +History. +</p> + +<p> +It may be said with truth that in our generation no single first-rate piece of +history has enjoyed an appreciable sale. That is not true of France, it is not +true of the United States, it is not even true of Germany in her intellectual +decline, but it is true of England. +</p> + +<p> +History is an excellent test. No man will read history, at least history of an +instructive sort, unless he is a man who can read a book, and desires to +possess one. To read History involves not only some permanent interest in +things not immediately sensible, but also some permanent brain-work in the +reader; for as one reads history one cannot, if one is an intelligent being, +forbear perpetually to contrast the lessons it teaches with the received +opinions of our time. Again, History is valuable as an example in the general +thesis I am maintaining, because no good history can be written without a great +measure of hard work. To make a history at once accurate, readable, useful, and +new, is probably the hardest of all literary efforts; a man writing such +history is driving more horses abreast in his team than a man writing any other +kind of literary matter. He must keep his imagination active; his style must be +not only lucid, but also must arrest the reader; he must exercise perpetually a +power of selection which plays over innumerable details; he must, in the midst +of such occupations, preserve unity of design, as much as must the novelist or +the playwright; and yet with all this there is not a verb, an adjective or a +substantive which, if it does not repose upon established evidence, will not +mar the particular type of work on which he is engaged. +</p> + +<p> +As an example of what I mean, consider two sentences: The first is taken from +the 432nd page of that exceedingly unequal publication, the <i>Cambridge +History of the French Revolution</i>; the second I have made up on the spur of +the moment; both deal with the Battle of Wattignies. The “Cambridge History” +version runs as follows:— +</p> + +<p> +On October 15 the relieving force, 50,000 strong, attacked the Austrian +covering force at Wattignies; the battle raged all that day and was most +furious on the right, in front of the village of Wattignies, which was taken +and lost three times; on the 17th the French expected another general +engagement but the enemy had drawn off. +</p> + +<p> +There are here five great positive errors in six lines. The French were not +50,000 strong, the attack on the 15th was not on Wattignies, but on Dourlers; +Wattignies was not taken and lost three times; the fight of the 15th was +<i>least</i> pressed on the right (harder on the left and hardest in the +centre) and no one—not the least recruit—expected Coburg to come <i>back</i> on +the 17th. Why, he had crossed the Sambre at every point the day before! As for +negative errors, or errors of omission, they are capital, and the chief is that +the victory was won on the second day, the 16th, of which no mention is made. +</p> + +<p> +Now contrast such a sentence with the following:— +</p> + +<p> +On October 15th the relieving force, 42,000 strong, attacked the Austrian +centre at Dourlers, and made demonstrations upon its wings; the attack upon +Dourlers (which village had been taken and lost three times) having failed, +upon the following day, October 16th, the extreme left of the enemy’s position +at Wattignies was attacked and carried; the enemy thus outflanked was compelled +to retreat, and Maubeuge was relieved the same evening. +</p> + +<p> +In the first sentence (which bears the hall mark of the University) every error +that could possibly be made in so few lines has been made. The numbers are +wrong; the nature of the fighting is misstated; the village in the centre is +confused with that on the extreme right; the critical second day is altogether +omitted, and every portion of the sentence, verb, adjective, and substantive, +is either directly inaccurate or indirectly conveys an inaccurate impression. +The second sentence, bald in style and uninteresting in presentation as the +first, has the merit of telling the truth. But—and here is the point—it would +be impossible to criticize the first sentence unless someone had read up the +battle, and to read up that battle one has to depend on five or six documents, +some unpublished (like much of Jourdan’s Memoirs), some of them involving a +visit to Maubeuge itself, some, like Pierrat’s book, very difficult to obtain +(for it is neither in the British Museum nor in the Bodleian) some few the +writings of contemporary eyewitnesses, and yet themselves demonstrably +inaccurate. All these must be read and collated, and if possible the actual +ground of the battle visited, before the first simple inaccurate sentence can +be properly criticized or the second bald but accurate sentence framed. None of +these authorities can have been so much as heard of by the official historian I +have quoted. +</p> + +<p> +It would be redundant to press the point. Most readers know well enough what +labour the just writing of history involves, and how excellent a type it is of +that “making of a book” which art is, as I have said, imperilled by apathy at +the present day. +</p> + +<p> +Consider for a moment who were those that purchased historical works in this +country in the past. There were, first of all, the landed gentry. In almost +every great country-house you will find a good old library, and that good old +library you will discover to be, as a rule, most valuable and most complete in +what concerns the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth +centuries. A very large proportion of history, and history of the best sort, is +to be found upon those shelves. The standard dwindles, though it is fairly well +maintained during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Then—as a +rule—it abruptly comes to an end. One may take as a sort of bourne, the two +great books Macaulay’s <i>History</i> and Kinglake’s, for an earlier and a +later limit. Most of these libraries contain Macaulay; some few Kinglake; +hardly one possesses later works of value. +</p> + +<p> +It may be urged in defence of the buyer that no later works of value exist. Put +so broadly, the statement is erroneous; but the truth which it contains is in +itself dependent upon the lack of public support for good historical work. When +there is a fortune for the man who writes in accordance with whatever form of +self-appreciation happens for the moment to be popular, while a steady view and +an accurate presentation of the past can find no sale, then that steady view +and that accurate presentation cannot be pursued save by men who are wealthy, +or by men who are endowed, but even wealthy men will hesitate to write what +they know will not be read, and for history no one is endowed. +</p> + +<p> +Our Universities were framed for many purposes, of which the cultivation of +learning was but one; in that one field, however, a particular form of learning +was taken very seriously, and was pursued with admirable industry; I mean an +acquaintance with and an imitation of the Latin and Greek Classics. +</p> + +<p> +It was a particular character of this form of learning that proficiency in it +would lead to undisputed honours. The scholar recognized the superior scholar; +the field of inquiry was by convention highly limited; it had been thoroughly +explored; discussion upon such results as were doubtful did not involve a +difference in general philosophy. +</p> + +<p> +With history it is otherwise. Whether such things have or have not happened, +and, above all, if they have happened, the <i>way</i> in which they have +happened, is to our general judgment of contemporary men what evidence is to a +criminal trial. Facts won’t give way. If, therefore, there are vested +interests, moral or material, to be maintained, history is, of all the sciences +or arts, that one most likely to suffer at the hands of those connected with +such interests. Even where the truth will be of advantage to those interests, +they are afraid of it, because the thorough discussion of it will involve the +presentation of views disadvantageous to privilege. +</p> + +<p> +Where, as is much more commonly the case (for vested interests, moral or +material, are unreasoning and selfish things), the truth would certainly offend +them, they are the more determined to prevent its appearance. +</p> + +<p> +But of all vested interests none deal with such assured incomes, none are so +immune by influence and tradition as the Universities. +</p> + +<p> +Now, if the rich man has no temptation by way of popular fame, and the poor man +no opportunity for endowment, in any branch of letters, there remains but a +third form of support, and that is the support of the buying public. And the +public will not buy. +</p> + +<p> +I will suppose the case of a popular novelist, who in a few months shall write, +not an historical novel, but a piece of so-called history. He shall call it, +for instance, “England’s Heroes.” Before you tell me his name, or what he has +written, I can tell you here and now what he will write on any number of +points. He will call Hastings Senlac. In the Battle of Hastings he will make +out Harold to be the head of a highly patriotic nation called the +“Anglo-Saxons”; they shall be desperately defending themselves against certain +French-speaking Scandinavians called Normans. He will deplore the defeat, but +will say it was all for the best. Magna Charta he will have signed at +Runnymede—probably he will have it drawn up there as well. He will translate +the most famous clause by the modern words “Judgment of his peers” and “law of +the land.” He will represent the Barons as having behind them the voice of the +whole nation—and so forth. When he comes to Crécy he will make Edward III speak +English. When he comes to Agincourt he will leave his readers as ignorant as +himself upon the boundaries, numbers and power of the Burgundian faction. In +the Civil War Oliver Cromwell will be an honest and not very rich gentleman of +the middle-classes. The Parliamentary force will be that of the mass of the +people against a few gallant but wicked aristocrats who follow the perfidious +Charles. He will make no mention of the pay of the Ironsides. James II will be +driven out by a popular uprising, in which the great Churchill will play an +honourable and chivalric part. The loss of the American Colonies will be +deplored, and will be ascribed to the folly of attempting to tax men of +“Anglo-Saxon” blood, unless you grant them representation. The Continental +troops will be treated as the descendants of Englishmen! The guns at Saratoga +will be Colonial guns; the incapacity of the Fleet will not be touched upon. +Here again, as in the case of the Battle of Hastings, all will be for the best, +and there will be a few touching words upon the passionate affection now felt +for Great Britain by the inhabitants of the United States. The defensive genius +of Wellington will be represented as that of a general particularly great in +the offensive. Talavera will be a victory. The Spanish Auxiliaries in the +Peninsula will be contemptible. No guns will be abandoned before Coruña, but +what are left at Coruña will be mentioned and re-embarked. The character of +Nelson will receive a curious sort of glutinous praise; Emma Hamilton, not +Naples, will be the stain upon his name; the Battle of Trafalgar will prevent +the invasion of England. +</p> + +<p> +This is a lengthy but not unjust description of what this gentleman would +write; it is rubbish from beginning to end. It would sell, because every word +of it would foster in the reader the illusion that the community of which he is +a member is invincible under all circumstances, that effort and self-denial and +suffering are spared him alone out of all mankind, and that a little +pleasurable excitement, preferably that to be obtained from his favourite game, +is the chief factor in military success. +</p> + +<p> +I have omitted Alfred. Alfred in such a book will be the “teller of truth”—but +he will not go to Mass. +</p> + +<p> +Given that the name is sufficiently well known, there is hardly any limit to +the sale of a book modelled upon these lines. Contrast with its fate the fate +of a book, written no matter how powerfully, that should insist upon truths, no +matter how valuable to the English people at the present moment. These truths +need by no means be unpleasant, though at the present moment an unpleasant +truth is undoubtedly more valuable than a pleasant one. They could make as much +or more for the glory of the country; they could be at any rate of infinitely +greater service, but they would not be received, simply because they would +compel close attention and brain-work in the reader as well as in the writer of +them. An established groove would have to be abandoned; to use a strong +metaphor, the reader would have to get out of bed, and that is what the modern +reader will not do. Tell him that the men who fought on either side at +Hastings’ plain cared nothing for national but everything for feudal +allegiance; that <i>lex terrae</i> means the local custom of ordeal and not the +“law of the land”; tell him that <i>judicium parium</i> means the right of a +noble to be judged by nobles, and has nothing to do with the jury system; tell +him that Magna Charta was certainly drawn up before the meeting at Runnymede; +that not until the Lancastrians did English kings speak English; that Oliver +Cromwell owed his position to the enormous wealth of the Williamses, of whom +had he not been a cadet, he would never have been known; tell him that the +whole force of the Parliament resided in the squires and that the Civil Wars +turned England into an oligarchy; tell him the exact truth about the infamy of +Churchill; tell him what proportion of Englishmen during the American War were +taxed without being represented; tell him what proportion of Washington’s +troops were of English blood; tell him any one illuminating and true thing +about the history of his country, and the novelty will so offend him that a +direct insult would have pleased him better. +</p> + +<p> +What is true of history is true of nearly all the rest, and the upshot of the +whole matter is that there is not, either in private patronage or in popular +demand, a chance for history in modern England. +</p> + +<p> +You can have excellent literature in journalism, and it will be widely read. I +would say more—I would say that the better literature a newspaper admits, the +more widely will that paper be read, or at any rate the greater will its +influence be on modern Englishmen. But when it comes to the kneaded and wrought +matter of the true Book, neither the public nor the centres of learning will +have any of it, and the last medium which might make it possible, patronage, +has equally disappeared, because the modern patron does not work in the +daylight in the full view of the nation and with its full approbation, and he +is no longer a public man (though he is richer than ever he was before). His +patronage, therefore, though it is still considerable, is expended in +satisfying his private demand. Private architects build him doubtful castles, +private collectors get him manuscripts and jewels, but Letters, which are a +public thing, he can no longer command. +</p> + +<p> +It might be asked, by way of conclusion, whether there is any remedy for this +state of things. There is none. Its prime cause resides in a certain attitude +of the national mind, and this kind of broadly held philosophy is not changed +save by slow preaching or external shock. As long as modern England remains +what we know it, and follows the lines of change which we see it following, the +Book will necessarily decline more and more, and we must make up our minds to +it. +</p> + +<p> +Of other evil tendencies of our time, one can say of some that they are +obviously mending, of others that such and such an applicable remedy would mend +them. Our public architecture is certainly getting better; so is our painting. +Our gross and increasing contempt of self-government (to take quite another +sphere) is curable by one or two simple reforms in procedure, registration, the +expenses of election, and voting at the polls, which would restore the House of +Commons to life, and give it power to express English will. But a regard for, a +cultivation of, above all a sinking of wealth upon, English Letters is past +praying for. We must wait until the tide changes; we can do nothing, and the +waiting will be long. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18">José Maria de Heredia</a></h2> + +<p> +The French have a phrase “la beauté du verbe” by which they would express a +something in the sound and in the arrangement of words which supplements +whatever mere thought those words were intended to express. It is evident that +no definition of this beauty can be given, but it is also evident that without +it letters would not exist. How it arises we cannot explain, yet the process is +familiar to us in everything we do when we are attempting to fulfil an impulse +towards whatever is good. An integration not of many small things but of an +infinite series of infinitely small things build up the perfect gesture, the +perfect line, the perfect intonation, and the perfect phrase. So indeed are all +things significant built up: every tone of the voice, every arrangement of +landscape or of notes in music which awake us and reveal the things beyond. But +when one says that this is especially true of perfect expression one means that +sometimes, rarely, the integration achieves a steadfast and sufficient formula. +The mind is satisfied rather than replete. It asks no more; and if it desires +to enjoy further the pleasure such completion has given it, it does not attempt +to prolong or to develop the pleasure under which it has leapt; it is content +to wait a while and to return, knowing well that it has here a treasure laid up +for ever. +</p> + +<p> +All this may be expressed in two words: the Classical Spirit. That is Classic +of which it is true that the enjoyment is sufficient when it is terminated and +that in the enjoyment of it an entity is revealed. +</p> + +<p> +When men propose to bequeath to their fellows work of so supreme a kind it is +to be noticed that they choose by instinct a certain material. +</p> + +<p> +It has been said that the material in which he works affects the achievement of +the artist: it is truer to say that it helps him. A man designing a sculpture +in marble knows very well what he is about to do. A man attempting the exact +and restrained rendering of tragedy upon the stage does not choose the stage as +one among many methods, he is drawn to it: he needs it; the audience, the +light, the evening, the very slope of the boards, all minister to his efforts. +And so a man determined to produce the greatest things in verse takes up by +nature exact and thoughtful words and finds that their rhythm, their +combination, and their sound turn under his hand to something greater than he +himself at first intended; he becomes a creator, and his name is linked with +the name of a masterpiece. The material in which he has worked is hard; the +price he has paid is an exceeding effect; the reward he has earned is +permanence. +</p> + +<p> +José de Heredia was an artist of this kind. The mass of the verse he produced, +or rather published, was small. It might have been very large. It is not (as a +foolish modern affectation will sometimes pretend) necessary to the endurance +or even the excellence of work that it should be the product of exceptional +moments; nor is it even true (as the wise Ancients believed) that great length +of time must always mature it. But the small volume of Heredia’s legacy to +European letters does argue this at least in the poet, that he passionately +loved perfection and that, finding himself able to achieve it (for perfection +can be achieved) but now and then, he chose only to be remembered by the +contentment which, now and then, his own genius had given him. +</p> + +<p> +He worked upon verse as men work upon the harder metals; all that he did was +chiselled very finely, then sawn to an exact configuration and at last inlaid, +for when he published his completed volume it is true to say that every piece +fitted in with the sound of one before and of one after. He was careful in the +heroic degree. +</p> + +<p> +His blood and descent are worthy of notice. He was a Spaniard, inheriting from +the first Conquerors of the New World, nor was it remarkable to those who have +received a proper enthusiasm for the classical spirit that the energy and even +the violence natural to such a lineage should express themselves in the coldest +and the most exalted form when, for the second time, a member of the family +attempted verse. It is in the essence of that spirit that it alone can dare to +be disciplined. It never doubts the motive power that will impel it; it is +afraid, if anything, of an excess of power, and consciously imposes upon itself +the limits which give it form. +</p> + +<p> +Heredia in his person expressed the activity which impelled him, for he was +strong, brown, erect, a rapid walker, and a man whose voice was perpetually +modulated in resonant and powerful tones. In his last years during his +administration of the Library at the Arsenal this vitality of his took on an +aspect of good nature very charming and very fruitful. His organization of the +place was thorough, his knowledge of the readers intimate. He refused the +manuscripts of none, he advised, laughed, and consoled. His criticism was sure. +Several, notably Marcel Prevost, were launched by his authority. The same deep +security of literary judgment which had permitted him to chastise and to +perfect his impeccable sonnets into their final form permitted him also to hold +up before his eyes, grasp, and judge the work of every other man. +</p> + +<p> +His frailty, as must always be the frailty of such men, was fastidiousness. The +same sensitive consciousness which is said to have all but lost us the Aeneid, +and which certainly all but lost us the Apologia, dominated his otherwise +vigorous soul. It is more than forty years since his first verse, written just +upon achieving his majority, appeared in the old <i>Revue de Paris</i> and in +the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>. It was not till 1893 that he collected in one +volume the scattered sonnets of his youth and middle age: the collection won +him somewhat tardily his chair in the Academy. There is irony in the +reminiscence that the man he defeated in that election was Zola. +</p> + +<p> +All the great men who saluted his advent are dead. Théophile Gautier, who first +established his fame; Hugo, who addressed to him, perhaps, that vigorous appeal +in which strict labour is deified, and the medal and the marble bust are shown +to outlive the greatest glories, are sometimes quoted as the last among the +great French writers. +</p> + +<p> +The immediate future will show that the stream of French excellence in this +department, as in any other of human activity, is full, deep, and steady. The +work of Heredia will help to prove it. He was a Spaniard, and a Colonial +Spaniard. No other nation, perhaps, except the modern French, so inherit the +romantic appetite of the later Roman Empire as to be able to mould and absorb +every exterior element of excellence. It is remarkable that at the same moment +Paris contemplated the funeral of the Italian de Brazza and the death of the +Cuban Heredia. It is probable that those of us who are still young will live to +see either name at the head of a new tradition. Heredia proved it possible not +so much to imitate as to recapture the secure tradition of an older time. +Perhaps the truest generalization that can be made with regard to the French +people is to say that they especially in Western Europe (whose quality it is +ever to transform itself but never to die) discover new springs of vitality +after every period of defeat and aridity which they are compelled to cross. +Heredia will prove in the near future a capital example of this power. He will +increase silently in reputation until we, in old age, shall be surprised to +find our sons and grandsons taking him for granted and speaking of him as one +speaks of the Majores, of the permanent lights of poetry. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19">Normandy and the Normans</a></h2> + +<p> +There is no understanding a country unless one gets to know the nature of its +sub-units. In some way not easy to comprehend, impossible to define, and yet +very manifest, each of the great national organisms of which Christendom is +built up is itself a body of many regions whose differences and interaction +endow it with a corporate life. No one could understand the past of England who +did not grasp the local genius of the counties—Lancashire, cut off eastward by +the Pennines, southward by the belt of marsh, with no natural entry save by the +gate of Stockport; Sussex, which was and is a bishopric and a kingdom; Kent, +Devon, the East Anglian meres. No one could (or does) understand modern England +who does not see its sub-units to have become by now the great industrial +towns, or who fails to seize the spirit of each group of such towns—with London +lying isolated in the south, a negative to the rest. +</p> + +<p> +France is built of such sub-units: it is the peculiarity of French development +that these are not small territories mainly of an average extent with +government answerable in a long day’s ride to one centre, such as most English +counties are; nor city States such as form the piles upon which the structure +of Italy has been raised; nor kingdoms such as coalesced to reform the Spanish +people; but <i>provinces</i>, differing greatly in area, from little plains +enclosed, like the Rousillon, to great stretches of landscape succeeding +landscape like the Bourbonnais or the Périgord. +</p> + +<p> +The real continuity with an immemorial past which inspires all Gallic things is +discoverable in this arrangement of Gaul. At the first glance one might imagine +a French province to be a chance growth of the feudal ties and of the Middle +Ages. A further effort of scholarship will prove it essentially Roman. An +intimate acquaintance with its customs and with the site of its strongholds, +coupled with a comparison of the most recent and most fruitful hypotheses of +historians, will convince you that it is earlier than the Roman conquest; it is +tribal, or the home of a group of cognate tribes, and its roots are lost in +prehistory. So it is with Normandy. +</p> + +<p> +This vast territory—larger (I think) than all North England from the Humber to +Cheviot and from Chester to the Solway—has never formed a nation. It is typical +of the national idea in France that Normandy should have “held” of the +political centre of the country, probably since the first Gallic confederations +were formed, certainly since the organization of the Empire. It is equally +typical of the local life of a French province that, thus dependent, Normandy +should have strictly preserved its manner and its spirit, and should have +readily made war upon the Crown and resisted, as it still resists and will +perhaps for ever, the centralizing forces of the national temper. +</p> + +<p> +If you will travel day after day, and afoot, westward across the length of +Normandy, you will have, if you are a good walker, a fortnight’s task ahead of +you; even if you are walking for a wager, a week’s. It is the best way in which +to possess a knowledge of that great land, and my advice would be to come in +from the Picards over the bridge of Aumale across the little River Bresle +(which is the boundary of Normandy to the east), and to go out by way of +Pontorson, there crossing into Brittany over the little River Couesnon, which +is the boundary of Normandy upon the west and beyond which lie the Bretons. In +this way will you be best acquainted with the sharp differentiation of the +French provinces passing into Normandy from Picardy, brick-built, +horse-breeding, and slow, passing out of Normandy into the desolation and +dreams of Brittany, and having known between the one and the other the chalk +streams, the day-long beechen forests, the valley pastures, and the flamboyant +churches of the Normans. You will do well to go by Neufchâtel, where the cheese +is made, and by Rouen, then by Lisieux to Falaise, where the Conqueror was +born, and thence by Vive to Avranches and so to the Breton border, taking care +to choose the forests between one town and another for your road, since these +many and deep woods—much wider than any we know in England—are in great part +the soul of the country. +</p> + +<p> +By this itinerary you will not have taken all you should into view; you will +not have touched the coast nor seen how Normandy is based upon the sea, and you +will not have known the Cotentin, which is a little State of its own and is the +quadrilateral which Normandy thrusts forth into the Channel. If you have the +leisure, therefore, return by the north. Pass through Coutances and Valognes to +Cherbourg, thence through Caen and Bayeux to the crossing of Seine at Honfleur, +and then on by the chalk uplands and edges of the cliffs till you reach Eu upon +the Bresle again. In such a double journey the character of the whole will be +revealed, and if you have studied the past of the place before starting you +will find your journey full. Avranches, Coutances, Lisieux, Bayeux, Rouen are +not chance sites. Their great churches mark the bishoprics; the bishoprics in +turn were the administrative centres of Rome, and Rome chose them because they +were the strongholds or the sacred cities each of a Gallic tribe. The wealth of +the valleys permitted everywhere that astonishing richness of detail which +marks the stonework in village after village; the connexion with England, +especially the last connexion under Henry V, explains the innumerable churches, +splendid even in hamlets as are our own. The Bresle and the Couesnon, those +little streams, are boundaries not of these last few centuries, but of a time +beyond view; the Romans found them so. Diocletian made them the limits of the +“Second Lyonesse,” “Lugdunensis Secunda,” which was the last Roman name of the +province. +</p> + +<p> +Here and there, near the west especially, you will discover names which recall +the chief adventure of Normandy, the accident which baptized it with its +Christian name, the landing of the Scandinavian pirates, the thousandth +anniversary of which is now being celebrated. They came—we cannot tell in what +numbers, some thousands—and harried the land. The old policy of the Empire, the +policy already seven hundred years old, was had recourse to; the barbarians +were granted settlement, inheritance, marriage, and partnership with the Lords +of the Villae; their chief was permitted to hold local government, to tax and +to levy men as the administrator of the whole province; but there followed +something which wherever else the experiment had been tried had not followed: +something of a new race arose. In Burgundy, in the northeast, in Visigothic +Aquitaine the slight admixture of foreign blood had not changed the people, it +was absorbed; the slight admixture of Scandinavian blood, coming so much later, +in a time so degraded in government and therefore so open to natural influence, +did change the Gallo-Romans of the Second Lyonesse. Few as the newcomers may +have been in number, the new element transformed the mass, and when a century +had permitted the union to work and settle, the great soldiers who founded us +appeared. The Norman lords ordered, surveyed, codified, and ruled. They let +Europe into England, they organized Sicily, they confirmed the New Papacy, they +were the framework of the Crusades. +</p> + +<p> +The phenomenon was brief. It lasted little more than a hundred years, but it +transformed Europe and launched the Middle Ages. When it had passed, Normandy +stood confirmed for centuries (and is still confirmed) in a character of its +own. No longer adventurous but mercantile, apt, of a resisting courage, sober +in thought, leaning upon tradition, not imperially but domestically strong: the +country of Corneille and of Malesherbes, a reflection of that spirit in +letters; the conservative body of to-day—for in our generation that is the mark +of Normandy—and, in arms, the recruitment to which Napoleon addressed his short +and famous order that “the Normans that day should do their duty.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20">The Old Things</a></h2> + +<p> +Those who travel about England for their pleasure, or, for that matter, about +any part of Western Europe, rightly associate with such travel the pleasure of +history; for history adds to a man, giving him, as it were, a great memory of +things—like a human memory, but stretched over a far longer space than that of +one human life. It makes him, I do not say wise and great, but certainly in +communion with wisdom and greatness. +</p> + +<p> +It adds also to the soil he treads, for to this it adds meaning. How good it is +when you come out of Tewkesbury by the Cheltenham road to look upon those +fields to the left and know that they are not only pleasant meadows, but also +the place in which a great battle of the mediaeval monarchy was decided, or as +you stand by that ferry, which is not known enough to Englishmen (for it is one +of the most beautiful things in England), and look back and see Tewkesbury +tower, framed between tall trees over the level of the Severn, to see also the +Abbey buildings in your eye of the mind—a great mass of similar stone with +solid Norman walls, stretching on hugely to the right of the Minster. +</p> + +<p> +All this historical sense and the desire to marry History with Travel is very +fruitful and nourishing, but there is another interest, allied to it, which is +very nearly neglected, and which is yet in a way more fascinating and more full +of meaning. This interest is the interest in such things as lie behind recorded +history, and have survived into our own times. For underneath the general life +of Europe, with its splendid epic of great Rome turned Christian, crusading, +discovering, furnishing the springs of the Renaissance, and flowering at last +materially into this stupendous knowledge of today, the knowledge of all the +Arts, the power to construct and to do—underneath all that is the foundation on +which Europe is built, the stem from which Europe springs; and that stem is +far, far older than any recorded history, and far, far more vital than any of +the phenomena which recorded history presents. +</p> + +<p> +Recorded history for this island and for Northern France and for the Rhine +Valley is a matter of two thousand years; for the Western Mediterranean of +three; but the things of which I speak are to be reckoned in tens of thousands +of years. Their interest does not lie only nor even chiefly in things that have +disappeared. It is indeed a great pleasure to rummage in the earth and find +polished stones wrought by men who came so many centuries before us, and of +whose blood we certainly are; and it is a great pleasure to find, or to guess +that we find, under Canterbury the piles of a lake or marsh dwelling, proving +that Canterbury has been there from all time; and that the apparently +defenceless Valley City was once chosen as an impregnable site, when the +water-meadows of the Stour were impassable as marsh, or with difficulty +passable as a shallow lagoon. And it is delightful to stand on the earthwork a +few miles west and to say to oneself (as one can say with a fair certitude), +“Here was the British camp defending the south-east; here the tenth legion +charged.” All these are pleasant, but more pleasant, I think, to follow the +thing where it actually survives. +</p> + +<p> +Consider the track-ways, for instance. How rich is England in these! No other +part of Europe will afford the traveller so permanent and so fascinating a +problem. Elsewhere Rome hardened and straightened every barbaric trail until +the original line and level disappeared; but in this distant province of +Britain she could only afford just so much energy as made them a foothold for +her soldiery; and all over England you can go, if you choose, foot by foot, +along the ancient roads that were made by the men of your blood before they had +heard of brick or of stone or of iron or of written laws. +</p> + +<p> +I wonder that more men do not set out to follow, let us say, the Fosse-Way. +There it runs right across Western England from the south-west to the +north-east in a line direct yet sinuous, characters which are the very essence +of a savage trail. It is a modern road for many miles, and you are tramping, +let us say, along the Cotswold on a hard metalled modern English highway, with +milestones and notices from the County Council telling you that the culverts +will not bear a steam-engine, if so be you were to travel on one. Then suddenly +this road comes up against a cross-road and apparently ceases, making what map +draughtsmen call a “T”; but right in the same line you see a gate, and beyond +it a farm lane, and so you follow. You come to a spinney where a ride has been +cut through by the woodreeve, and it is all in the same line. The Fosse-Way +turns into a little path, but you are still on it; it curves over a marshy +brook-valley, picking out the firm land, and as you go you see old stones put +there heaven knows how many (or how few) generations ago—or perhaps yesterday, +for the tradition remains, and the country-folk strengthen their wet lands as +they have strengthened them all these thousands of years; you climb up out of +that depression, you get you over a stile, and there you are again upon a lane. +You follow that lane, and once more it stops dead. This time there is a field +before you. No right of way, no trace of a path, nothing but grass rounded into +those parallel ridges which mark the modern decay of the corn lands and +pasture—alas!—taking the place of ploughing. Now your pleasure comes in casting +about for the trail; you look back along the line of the Way; you look forward +in the same line till you find some indication, a boundary between two +parishes, perhaps upon your map, or two or three quarries set together, or some +other sign, and very soon you have picked up the line again. +</p> + +<p> +So you go on mile after mile, and as you tread that line you have in the +horizons that you see, in the very nature and feel of the soil beneath your +feet, in the skies of England above you, the ancient purpose and soul of this +Kingdom. Up this same line went the Clans marching when they were called +Northward to the host; and up this went slow, creaking wagons with the lead of +the Mendips or the tin of Cornwall or the gold of Wales. +</p> + +<p> +And it is still there; it is still used from place to place as a high road, it +still lives in modern England. There are some of its peers, as for instance the +Ermine Street, far more continuous, and affording problems more rarely; others +like the ridgeway of the Berkshire Downs, which Rome hardly touched, and of +which the last two thousand years has, therefore, made hardly anything; you may +spend a delightful day piecing out exactly where it crossed the Thames, making +your guess at it, and wondering as you sit there by Streatley Vicarage whether +those islands did not form a natural weir below which lay the ford. +</p> + +<p> +The roads are the most obvious things. There are many more; for instance, +thatch. The same laying of the straw in the same manner, with the same art, has +continued, we may be certain, from a time long before the beginning of history. +See how in the Fen Land they thatch with reeds, and how upon the Chalk Downs +with straw from the Lowlands. I remember once being told of a record in a +manor, which held of the Church and which lay upon the southern slope of the +Downs, that so much was entered for “straw from the Lowlands”: then, years +afterwards, when I had to thatch a Bethlehem in an orchard underneath tall +elms—a pleasant place to write in, with the noise of bees in the air—the man +who came to thatch said to me: “We must have straw from the Lowlands; this +upland straw is no good for thatching.” Immediately when I heard him say this +there was added to me ten thousand years. And I know another place in England, +far distant from this, where a man said to me that if I wished to cross in a +winter mist, as I had determined to do, Cross-Fell, that great summit of the +Pennines, I must watch the drift of the snow, for there was no other guide to +one’s direction in such weather. And I remember another man in a little boat in +the North Sea, as we came towards the Foreland, talking to me of the two tides, +and telling me how if one caught the tide all the way up to Long Nose and then +went round it on the end of the flood, one caught a new tide up London river, +and so made two tides in one day. He spoke with the same pleasure that silly +men show when they talk about an accumulation of money. He felt wealthy and +proud from the knowledge, for by this knowledge he had two tides in one day. +Now knowledge of this sort is older than ten thousand years; and so is the +knowledge of how birds fly, and of how they call, and of how the weather +changes with the moon. +</p> + +<p> +Very many things a man might add to the list that I am making. Dew-pans are +older than the language or the religion; and the finding of water with a stick; +and the catching of that smooth animal, the mole; and the building of flints +into mortar, which if one does it in the old way (as you may see at Pevensey) +the work lasts for ever, but if you do it in any new way it does not last ten +years; then there is the knowledge of planting during the crescent part of the +month, but not before the new moon shows; and there is the influence of the +moon on cider, and to a less extent upon the brewing of ale; and talking of +ale, the knowledge of how ale should be drawn from the brewing just when a man +can see his face without mist upon the surface of the hot brew. And there is +the knowledge of how to bank rivers, which is called “throwing the rives” in +the South, but in the Fen Land by some other name; and how to bank them so that +they do not silt, but scour themselves. There are these things and a thousand +others. All are immemorial. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21">The Battle of Hastings. Related in the Manner of Oxford +and Dedicated to that University</a></h2> + +<p> +So careless were the French commanders (or more properly the French commander, +for the rest were cowed by the bullying swagger of William) that the night, +which should have been devoted to some sort of reconnaissance, if not of a +preparation of the ground, was devoted to nothing more practical than the +religious exercises peculiar to foreigners. +</p> + +<p> +Their army, as we have seen, was not drawn from any one land, but it was in the +majority composed of Normans and Bretons; we can therefore understand the +extravagant superstition which must bear the blame for what followed. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, upon the heights above, the English host calmly prepared for battle. +Fires were lit each in its appointed place, and at these meat was cooked under +the stern but kindly eyes of the sergeant-majors. These also distributed at an +appointed price liquor, of which the British soldier is never willing to be +deprived, and as the hours advanced towards morning, the songs in which our +adventurous race has ever delighted rose from the heights above the Brede. +</p> + +<p> +The morning was misty, as is often the case over damp and marshy lands in the +month of October, but the inclemency of the weather, or, to speak more +accurately, the superfluous moisture precipitated from an already saturated +atmosphere, was of no effect upon those silent and tenacious troops of Harold. +It was far other with the so-called “Norman” host, who were full of +forebodings—only too amply to be justified—of the fate that lay before them +upon the morrow. +</p> + +<p> +It is curious to contrast the quiet skill and sagacity which marked the +disposition of Harold with the almost childish simplicity of William’s plan—if +plan it may be called. +</p> + +<p> +The Saxon hosts were drawn along the ridge in a position chosen with masterly +skill. It afforded (as may still be seen) no dead ground for an attacking force +and little cover.<a href="#fn1" name="fnref1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> Their left was +arranged <i>en potence</i>, their right was drawn up in echelon. The centre +followed the plan usual at that time, reposing upon the wings to its right and +left and extended. The reserves were, of course, posted behind. Cavalry, as at +Omdurman, played but a slight role in this typically national action and such +mounted troops as were present seem to have been intermixed with the line in +the fashion later known, in the jargon of the service, as “The Beggar’s +Quadrille.” The Brigade of Guards is not mentioned in any record that I can +discover, but was probably set by reversed companies in a square perpendicular +to the main ravine and a little in front of the salient angle which appears +upon the map at the point marked A. +</p> + +<p> +The terrain can be clearly determined at the present day in spite of the +changes that have taken place in the intervening years. It is a fairly steep +slope of hemispherical contour interspersed with low bushes; the summit (upon +which now stands our lovely English village of Battle and the residence of one +of those cultured and leisured men who form the framework of our commonwealth) +was then but a wild heath. +</p> + +<p> +Harold himself could be distinguished in the centre of the line by his handsome +features, restrained deportment, and unfailing gentlemanly good sense as he +spoke to staff officer, orderly, and even groom with indefatigable skill. +</p> + +<p> +In spite of the determination observable from a great distance upon the faces +of the tall Saxon line, William with characteristic lack of balance opened the +action by ordering a charge uphill with cavalry alone; it was a piece of +tactics absurdly incongruous and one even he would never have attempted had he +understood the foe that was before him, or the fate to which that foe had +doomed him. +</p> + +<p> +The lesson dealt him was as immediate as it was severe. The foreigners were +thrust headlong down the hill, and a private letter tells us how the Men of +Kent in particular buffeted the Normans about “as though they were boys.” But +even in the heat of this initial success Harold had the self-command to order +the retirement upon the main position: and with troops such as his the order +was equivalent to its execution. +</p> + +<p> +This rude blow would have sufficed for any commander less vain than William, +but he seems to have lost all judgment in a fit of personal vanity and to have +ordered a second charge which could not but prove as futile as the first, +delivered as it was up a perfect glacis strengthened by epaulements, reverses +and countersunk galvon work and one whose natural strength was heightened by +the stockade which the indomitable energy of Harold’s troops had perfected in +the early hours of the morning. Many of the stakes in this, the reader may note +with pardonable pride, were of English oak—sharpened at the tip. +</p> + +<p> +William’s plan (if plan it may be called) was, as we have seen, necessarily +futile and was foredoomed to failure. But Harold had no intention to let the +action bear no more fruit than a tactical victory upon this particular field. +The brain that had designed the exact synchrony of Stamford Bridge and the +famous march southward from the Humber was of that sort which is only found +once in many centuries of the history of war and which is (it may be said +without boasting) peculiar to this island. +</p> + +<p> +Another general would have awaited the second charge with its useless butchery +and still more useless contest for the barren name of victory. Not so Harold. +Those commanding, cold grey eyes of his swept the line in a comprehensive +glance, and though no written record of the detail remains, he must know little +of the character of the man who does not understand that from Harold certainly +proceeded the order for what followed. +</p> + +<p> +The forces at the centre, which he commanded in person, deftly withdrew before +the futile gallop of William’s cavalry, leaving, with that coolness which has +ever distinguished our troops, the laggards to their fate. At the same moment, +and with marvellous precision, the left and right were withdrawn from the +plateau rapidly and as by magic, and the old-fashioned tactics of mere impact +(which William of Normandy seems seriously to have relied on!) were spent and +wasted upon the now evacuated summit of the hill. +</p> + +<p> +What followed is famous in history. +</p> + +<p> +The cohesion of the Saxon force and the exactitude and coolness with which its +great operation was performed is of good augury for the future of our country. +Though it was now thick night, by no set road and with no cumbersome machinery +of train and rear-guard, the whole of the vast assembly masked itself behind +the woodlands of the Weald. +</p> + +<p> +The Norman horsemen, bewildered and fatigued, gazed on the many that had fallen +in defence of the masking position and wondered whether such novel happenings +were victory or no, but the army whose concentration upon the Thames it was +William’s whole object to prevent, was already miles northward, each unit +proceeding by exactly co-ordinated routes towards London. +</p> + +<p> +There is perhaps no more difficult task set before soldiers than the quiet +execution of such a manoeuvre after the heat of a heavy action, and none have +performed it more magnificently than the veteran troop of Harold. +</p> + +<p> +When (luckily) all the orders had been finally distributed a great tragedy +marred the completeness of the day. +</p> + +<p> +Just before the execution of this masterpiece of strategy, and as the autumn +sun was sinking, the inevitable price which war demands of all its darlings was +paid. +</p> + +<p> +Harold himself, the artist of the great victory, fell. But we have no reason to +believe that his loss retarded the retrograding movement in any degree. Men who +create as Harold created have not their creations spoilt by death. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +The shameful history of the close of the campaign is familiar to every +schoolboy, and the military historian must be pardoned if he deals with a +purely civilian blunder in a few brief words. +</p> + +<p> +Parliament interfered—as it always does—with what should have been a matter for +soldiers alone. Intrigues, bribery, or worse (with which the military historian +has no concern) ruined what had been, in the field, one of the principal +achievements of the Saxon arms. And William, who could not count to hold his +own against regular forces and who was astonished to find himself free to +retreat precipitately on Dover, was still more astonished to find himself +accepted a few weeks later after an aimless march to the west and north by the +politicians—or worse—at Berkhampstead. He and England were equally astounded to +find that a broken and defeated invader could actually be accepted by the +intriguers at Westminster and crowned King of England as the price of a secret +bargain. +</p> + +<p> +Such was the fruit of as great and successful an effort as ever Saxon soldier +made: the Battle of Senlac: for such—as I am now free to reveal—was the true +name of the field of action. +</p> + +<p> +The ineptitude or avarice of politicians had undone the work of soldiers, and +it is no wonder that the last of Harold’s veterans, who retired in disgust to +impregnable fortresses in Ely, Arthur’s Seat, and Pudsey, are recorded to have +gnashed their teeth and shed tears of indignation at the dispatches from the +metropolis. At Crécy they were to be avenged. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22">The Roman Roads in Picardy</a></h2> + +<p> +If a man were asked where he would find upon the map the sharpest impress of +Rome and of the memories of Rome, and where he would most easily discover in a +few days on foot the foundations upon which our civilization still rests, he +might, in proportion to his knowledge of history and of Europe, be puzzled to +reply. He might say that a week along the wall from Tyne to Solway would be the +answer; or a week in the great Roman cities of Provence with their triumphal +arches and their vast arenas and their Roman stone cropping out everywhere: in +old quays, in ruined bridges, in the very pavement of the streets they use +to-day, and in the columns of their living churches. +</p> + +<p> +Now I was surprised to find myself after many years of dabbling in such things, +furnishing myself the answer in quite a different place. It was in Picardy +during the late manoeuvres of the French Army that, in the intervals of +watching those great buzzing flies, the aeroplanes, and in the intervals of +long tramps after the regiments or of watching the massed guns, the necessity +for perpetually consulting the map brought home to me for the first time this +truth—that Picardy is the province—or to be more accurate, Picardy with its +marches in the Île de France, the edge of Normandy and the edge of +Flanders—which retains to-day the most vivid impress of Rome. For though the +great buildings are lacking, and the Roman work, which must here have been +mainly of brick, has crumbled, and though I can remember nothing upstanding and +patently of the Empire between the gate of Rheims and the frontier of Artois, +yet one feature—the Roman road—is here so evident, so multiple, and so enduring +that it makes up for all the rest. +</p> + +<p> +One discovers the old roads upon the map, one after the other, with a sort of +surprise. The scheme develops before one as one looks, and always when one +thinks one has completed the web another and yet another straight arrow of a +line reveals itself across the page. +</p> + +<p> +The map is a sort of palimpsest. A mass of fine modern roads, a whole red blur +of lanes and local ways, the big, rare black lines of the railway—these are the +recent writing, as it were; but underneath the whole, more and more apparent +and in greater and greater numbers as one learns to discover them, are the +strict, taut lines which Rome stretched over all those plains. +</p> + +<p> +There is something most fascinating in noting them, and discovering them one +after the other. +</p> + +<p> +For they need discovering. No one of them is still in complete use. The greater +part must be pieced together from lengths of lanes which turn into broad roads, +and then suddenly sink again into footpaths, rights of way, or green forest +rides. +</p> + +<p> +Often, as with our rarer Roman roads in England, all trace of the thing +disappears under the plough or in the soft crossings of the river valleys; one +marks them by the straightness of their alignment, by the place names which lie +upon them (the repeated name Estrée, for instance, which is like the place name +“street” upon the Roman roads of England); by the recovery of them after a gap; +by the discoveries which local archaeology has made. +</p> + +<p> +Different men have different pastimes, and I dare say that most of those who +read this will wonder that such a search should be a pastime for any man, but I +confess it is a pastime for me. To discover these things, to recreate them, to +dig out on foot the base upon which two thousand years of history repose, is +the most fascinating kind of travel. +</p> + +<p> +And then, the number of them! You may take an oblong of country with Maubeuge +at one corner, Pontoise at another, Yvetot and some frontier town such as Fumes +for the other two corners, and in that stretch of country a hundred and fifty +miles by perhaps two hundred, you can build up a scheme of Roman ways almost as +complete as the scheme of the great roads to-day. +</p> + +<p> +That one which most immediately strikes the eye is the great line which darts +upon Rouen from Paris. +</p> + +<p> +Twice broken at the crossing of the river valleys, and lost altogether in the +last twelve miles before the capital of Normandy, it still stands on the modern +map a great modern road with every aspect of purpose and of intention in its +going. +</p> + +<p> +From Amiens again they radiate out, these roads, some, like the way to Cambray, +in use every mile; some, like the old marching road to the sea, to the Portus +Itius, to Boulogne, a mere lane often wholly lost and never used as a great +modern road. This was the way along which the French feudal cavalry trailed to +the disaster of Crécy, and just beyond Crécy it goes and loses itself in that +exasperating but fascinating manner which is the whole charm of Roman roads +wherever the hunter finds them. You may lay a ruler along this old forgotten +track, all the way past Domqueur, Novelle (which is called Novelle-en-Chaussée, +that is Novelle on the paved road), on past Estrée (where from the height you +overlook the battlefield of Crécy), and that ruler so lying on your map points +right at Boulogne Harbour, thirty odd miles away—and in all those thirty odd +remaining miles I could not find another yard of it. But what an interest! What +a hobby to develop! There is nothing like it in all the kinds of hunting that +have ever been invented for filling up the whole of the mind. True, you will +get no sauce of danger, but, on the other hand, you will hunt for weeks and +weeks, and you will come back year after year and go on with your hunting, and +sometimes you actually find—which is more than can be said for hunting some +animals in the Weald. +</p> + +<p> +How was it lost, this great main road of Europe, this marching road of the +legions, linking up Gaul and Britain, the way that Hadrian went, and the way +down which the usurper Constantine III must have come during that short +adventure of his which lends such a romance to the end of the Empire? One +cannot conceive why it should have disappeared. It is a sunken way down the +hillside across the light railway which serves Crécy, it gets vaguer and +vaguer, for all the world like those ridges upon the chalk that mark the Roman +roads in England, and then it is gone. It leaves you pointing, I say, at that +distant harbour, thirty odd miles off, but over all those miles it has +vanished. The ghost of the legends cannot march along it any more. In one place +you find a few yards of it about three miles south and east of Montreuil. It +may be that the little lane leading into Estrée shows where it crossed the +valley of the Cauche, but it is all guesswork, and therefore very proper to the +huntsman. +</p> + +<p> +Then there is that unbroken line by which St. Martin came, I think, when he +rode into Amiens, and at the gate of the town cut his cloak in two to cover the +beggar. It drives across country for Roye and on to Noyon, the old centre of +the Kings. It is a great modern road all the way, and it stretches before you +mile after mile after mile, until suddenly, without explanation and for no +reason, it ends sharply, like the life of a man. It ends on the slopes of the +hill called Choisy, at the edge of the wood which is there. And seek as you +will, you will never find it again. +</p> + +<p> +From that road also, near Amiens, branches out another, whose object was St. +Quentin, first as a great high road, lost in the valley of the Somme, a lesser +road again, still in one strict alignment, it reaches on to within a mile of +Vermand, and there it stops dead. I do not think that between Vermand and St. +Quentin you will find it. Go out north-westward from Vermand and walk perhaps +five miles, or seven: there is no trace of a road, only the rare country lanes +winding in and out, and the open plough of the rolling land. But continue by +your compass so and you will come (suddenly again and with no apparent reason +for its abrupt origin) upon the dead straight line that ran from the capital of +the Nervii, three days’ march and more, and pointing all the time straight at +Vermand. +</p> + +<p> +And so it is throughout the province and its neighbourhood. Here and there, as +at Bavai, a great capital has decayed. Here and there (but more rarely), a town +wholly new has sprung up since the Romans, but the plan of the country is the +same as that which they laid down, and the roads as you discover them, mark it +out and establish it. The armies that you see marching to-day in their +manoeuvres follow for half a morning the line which was taken by the Legions. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23">The Reward of Letters</a></h2> + +<p> +It has often been remarked that while all countries in the world possess some +sort of literature, as Iceland her Sagas, England her daily papers, France her +prose writers and dramatists, and even Prussia her railway guides, one nation +and one alone, the Empire of Monomotopa, is utterly innocent of this +embellishment or frill. +</p> + +<p> +No traveller records the existence of any Monomotopan quill-driver; no modern +visitor to that delightful island has come across a <i>littérateur</i> whether +in the worse or in the best hotels; and such reading as the inhabitants enjoy +is entirely confined to works imported by large steamers from the neighbouring +Antarctic Continent. +</p> + +<p> +The causes of this singular and happy state of affairs were unknown (since the +common histories did not mention them) until the recent discovery by Mr. Paley, +the chief authority upon Monomotopan hieratic script, of a very ancient +inscription which clearly sets forth the whole business. +</p> + +<p> +It seems that an Emperor of Monomotopa, whose date can be accurately fixed by +internal evidence to lie after the universal deluge and before the building of +the Pyramid of Cheops, was, upon his accession to the throne, particularly +concerned with the just repartition of taxes among his beloved subjects. +</p> + +<p> +It would seem (if we are to trust the inscription) that in a past still more +remote the taxes were so light that even the richest men would meet them +promptly and without complaining, but this was at a period when the enemies of +Monomotopa were at once distant and actively engaged in quarrelling among +themselves. With sickening treachery these distant rival nations had determined +to produce wealth and to live in amity, so that it was incumbent upon the +Monomotopans not only to build ships, but actually to provide an army, and at +last (what broke the camel’s back) to establish fortifications of a very +useless but expensive sort upon a dozen points of their Imperial coast. +</p> + +<p> +Under the increasing strain the old fiscal system broke down. The poor were +clearly embarrassed, as might be seen in their emaciated visages and from the +terrible condition of their boots. The rich had reached the point after which +it was inconvenient to them to pay any more. The middle classes were spending +the greater part of their time in devising methods by which the exorbitant and +intempestive demands of the collectors could be either evaded or, more rarely, +complied with. In a word, a new and juster system of taxation was an imperative +need, and the Emperor, who had just ascended the throne at the age of eighteen, +and whom a sort of greenness had preserved from the iniquities of this world, +was determined to effect the great reform. +</p> + +<p> +With the advice of his Ministers (all of whom had had considerable experience +in the handling of money), the Emperor at last determined that each man and +woman should pay to the State one-tenth and no more of the wealth which he or +she produced; those who produced nothing it was but common justice and reason +to exempt, and the effect of this tardy act of justice upon the very rich was +observed in the sudden increase of the death-rate from all those diseases that +are the peculiar product of luxury and evil living. Paupers also, the +unemployed, cripples, imbeciles, deaf mutes, and the clergy escaped under this +beneficent and equable statute, and we may sum up the whole policy by saying +that never was a law acclaimed with so much happy bewilderment nor subject to +less expressed criticism than this. +</p> + +<p> +It was, moreover, easy to estimate in this new fashion the total revenue of the +State, since its produce had been accurately set down by statisticians of the +utmost eminence, and one of these diverse documents had been taken for the +basis of the new fiscal regime. +</p> + +<p> +In practice also the collection was easy. Overseers would attend the harvest +with large carts, prong the tenth turnip, hoick up the tenth sheaf of wheat, +bucket out the tenth gallon of ale, and so forth. In the markets every tenth +animal was removed by Imperial officers, every tenth newspaper was impounded as +it left the press, and every tenth drink about to be consumed in the hostelries +of the Empire was, after a simulacrum of proffering it, suddenly removed by the +waiter and poured into a receptacle, the keys of which were very jealously +guarded. +</p> + +<p> +It was the same with the liberal professions: of the fee received by a +barrister in the Criminal Courts a tenth was regularly demanded at the door +when the verdict had been given and the prisoner whom he had defended passed +out to execution. The tenth knock-out in the prize ring received by the +professional pugilist was followed by the immediate sequestration of his fee +for that particular encounter, and the tenth aria vibrating from the lips of a +prima donna was either compounded for at a certain rate or taken in kind by the +official who attended at every performance of grand opera. +</p> + +<p> +One form of wealth alone puzzled the beneficent monarch and his Napoleonic +advisers, and this was the production (for it then existed) of literary matter. +</p> + +<p> +At first this seemed as simple to tax as any one of the other numerous +activities upon which the Emperor’s loyal and loving subjects were engaged. A +brief examination of the customs of the trade, conducted by an army of +officials who penetrated into the very dens and attics in which Letters are +evolved, reported that the method of payment was by the measurement of a number +of words. +</p> + +<p> +“It is, your Majesty,” wrote the permanent official of the department in his +minute, “the practice of those who charitably employ this sort of person to pay +them in classes by the thousand words; thus one man gets one sequin a thousand, +another two byzants, a third as much as a ducat, while some who have singularly +attracted the notice of the public can command ten, twenty, nay forty +scutcheons, and in some very exceptional cases a thousand words command one of +those beautiful pieces of stiff paper which your Majesty in his bountiful +provision tenders to his dutiful subjects for acceptance as metal under diverse +penalties. The just taxation of these fellows can therefore be easily achieved +if your Majesty, in the exercise of his almost superhuman wisdom, will but add +a schedule to the Finance Act in which there shall be set down fifteen or +twenty classes of writers, with their price per thousand words, and a +compulsory registration of each class, enforced by the rude hand of the +police.” +</p> + +<p> +The Emperor of Monomotopa immediately nominated a Royal Commission (unpaid), +among whose sons, nephews, and private friends the salaried posts connected +with the work were distributed. This Commission reported by a majority of one +ere two years had elapsed. The schedule was designed, and such +<i>littérateurs</i> as had not in the interval fled the country were +registered, while a further enactment strictly forbidding their employers to +make payment upon any other system completed the scheme. +</p> + +<p> +But, alas! so full of low cunning and dirty dodges is this kind of man (I mean +what we call authors) that very soon after the promulgation of the new law a +marked deterioration in the quality of Monomotopan letters was apparent upon +every side! +</p> + +<p> +The citizen opening his morning paper would be astonished to find the leading +article consist of nothing more original than a portion of the sacred +Scriptures. A novel bought to ease the tedium of a journey would consist of +long catalogues for the most part, and when it came to descriptions of scenery +would fall into the most minute and detailed category of every conceivable +feature of the landscape. Some even took advantage of the new regulation so far +as to repeat one single word an interminable number of times, while it was +remarked with shame by the Ministers of Religion that the morals of their +literary friends permitted them only to use words of one syllable, and those of +the shortest kind. And this they said was the only true and original +Monomotopan dialect. +</p> + +<p> +Such was the public inconvenience that next year a sharper and much more +drastic law was passed, by which it was laid down that every literary +composition should make sense within the meaning of the Act, and should be +original so far as the reading of the judge appointed for the trial of the case +extended. But though after the first few executions this law was generally +observed, the nasty fellows affected by it managed to evade it in spirit, for +by the use of obscure terms, of words drawn from dead languages, and of bold +metaphor transferred from one art to another, they would deliberately invite +prosecution, and then in the witness-box make fools of those plain men, the +judge and jury, by showing that this apparently meaningless claptrap could, +with sufficient ingenuity, be made to yield some sort of sense, and during this +period no art critic was put to death. +</p> + +<p> +Driven to desperation, the Emperor changed the whole basis of the Remuneration +of Literary Labour, and ordered that it should be by the length of the prose or +poetry measured in inches. +</p> + +<p> +This reform, however, did but add to the confusion, for while the men of the +pen wrote their works entirely in short dialogue, asterisks, and blanks, the +publishers, who were now thoroughly organized, printed the same in smaller and +smaller type, in order to avoid the consequences of the law. +</p> + +<p> +At this last piece of insolence the Emperor’s mind was quickly decided. +Arresting one night not only all those who had ever written, but all those who +had even boasted of letters, or who were so much as suspected by their +relatives of secretly indulging in them, he turned the whole two million into a +large but enclosed area, and (desiring to kill two birds with one stone) +offered the ensuing spectacle as an amusement to the more sober and respectable +sections of the community. +</p> + +<p> +It is well known that the profession of letters breeds in its followers an +undying hatred of each against his fellows. The public were therefore +entertained for a whole day with the pleasing sight of a violent but quite +disordered battle, in which each of the wretched prisoners seemed animated by +no desire but the destruction of as many as possible of his hated rivals, until +at last every soul of these detestable creatures had left its puny body and the +State was rid of all. +</p> + +<p> +A law which carried to the universities the rule of the primary schools—to wit, +that men should be taught to read but not to write—completed the good work. And +there was peace. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24">The Eye-Openers</a></h2> + +<p> +Without any doubt whatsoever, the one characteristic of the towns is the lack +of reality in the impressions of the many: now we live in towns: and posterity +will be astounded at us! It isn’t only that we get our impressions for the most +part as imaginary pictures called up by printer’s ink—that would be bad enough; +but by some curious perversion of the modern mind, printer’s ink ends by +actually preventing one from seeing things that are there; and sometimes, when +one says to another who has not travelled, “Travel!” one wonders whether, after +all, if he does travel, he will see the things before his eyes? If he does, he +will find a new world; and there is more to be discovered in this fashion +to-day than ever there was. +</p> + +<p> +I have sometimes wished that every Anglo-Saxon who from these shores has sailed +and seen for the first time the other Anglo-Saxons in New York or Melbourne, +would write in quite a short letter what he really felt. Ninety-nine times out +of a hundred men only write what they have read before they started, just as +Rousseau in an eighteenth-century village believed that every English yokel +could vote and that his vote conveyed a high initiative, making and unmaking +the policy of the State; or just as people, hearing that the birth-rate of +France is low, travel in that country and say they can see no children—though +they would hardly say it about Sussex or Cumberland where the birth-rate is +lower still. +</p> + +<p> +What travel does in the way of pleasure (the providing of new and fresh +sensations, and the expansion of experience), that it ought to do in the way of +knowledge. It ought to and it does, with the wise, provide a complete course of +unlearning the wretched tags with which the sham culture of our great towns has +filled us. For instance, of Barbary—the lions do not live in deserts; they live +in woods. The peasants of Barbary are not Semitic in appearance or in +character; Barbary is full to the eye, not of Arab and Oriental buildings—they +are not striking—but of great Roman monuments: they are altogether the most +important things in the place. Barbary is not hot, as a whole: most of Barbary +is extremely cold between November and March. The inhabitants of Barbary do not +like a wild life, they are extremely fond of what civilization can give them, +such as <i>crème de menthe</i>, rifles, good waterworks, maps, and railways: +only they would like to have these things without the bother of strict laws and +of the police, and so forth. Travel in Barbary with seeing eyes and you find +out all this new truth. +</p> + +<p> +Now it took the French forty years and more before each of these plain facts +(and I have only cited half a dozen out of as many hundred) got into their +letters and their print: they have not yet got into the letters and the print +of other nations. But an honest man travelling in Barbary on his own account +would pick up every one of these truths in two or three days, except the one +about the lions; to pick up that truth you must go to the very edge of the +country, for the lion is a shy beast and withdraws from men. +</p> + +<p> +The wise man who really wants to see things as they are and to understand them, +does not say: “Here I am on the burning soil of Africa.” He says: “Here I am +stuck in a snowdrift and the train twelve hours late”—as it was (with me in it) +near Sétif in January, 1905. He does not say as he looks on the peasant at his +plough outside Batna: “Observe yon Semite!” He says: “That man’s face is +exactly like the face of a dark Sussex peasant, only a little leaner.” He does +not say: “See those wild sons of the desert! How they must hate the new +artificial world around them!” Contrariwise, he says: “See those four +Mohammedans playing cards with a French pack of cards and drinking liqueurs in +the café! See, they have ordered more liqueurs!” He does not say: “How strange +and terrible a thing the railway must be to them!” He says: “I wish I was rich +enough to travel first, for the natives pouring in and out of this third-class +carriage, jabbering like monkeys, and treading on my feet, disturb my +tranquillity. Some hundreds must have got in and out during the last fifty +miles!” +</p> + +<p> +In other words, the wise man has permitted eye-openers to rain upon him their +full, beneficent, and sacramental influence. And if a man in travelling will +always maintain his mind ready for what he really sees and hears, he will +become a whole nest of Columbuses discovering a perfectly interminable series +of new worlds. +</p> + +<p> +A man can only talk of what he himself knows. Let me give further examples. I +had always heard until I visited the Pyrenees how French civilization +(especially in the matter of roads, motors, and things like that) went up to +the “Spanish” frontier and then stopped dead. It doesn’t. The change is at the +Aragonese frontier. On the Basque third of the frontier the people are just as +active and fond of wealth, and of scraping of stone and of cleanliness, and of +drawing straight lines, to the north as to the south of it. They are all one +people, as industrious, as thrifty, and as prosperous as the Scots. So are the +Catalans one people, and you get much the same sort of advantages and +disadvantages (apart from the effect of government) with the Catalans to the +north as with the Catalans to the south of the border. +</p> + +<p> +So with religion. I had thought to find the Spanish churches crowded. I found +just the contrary. It was the French churches that were crowded, not the +Spanish; and the difference between the truth—what one really sees and +hears—and the printed legend happens to be very subtly illustrated in this case +of religion. The French have inherited (and are by this time used to, and have, +perhaps grown fond of) a big religious debate. Those who side with the national +religion and tradition emphasize their opinion in every possible way—so do +their opponents. You pick up two newspapers from Toulouse, for instance, and it +is quite on the cards that the leading article of each will be a disquisition +upon the philosophy of religion, the one, the “Depêche” of Toulouse, +militantly, and often solently atheist; the other as militantly Catholic. +</p> + +<p> +You don’t get that in Pamplona, and you don’t get it in Saragossa. What you get +there is a profound dislike of being interfered with, ancient and lazy customs, +wealth retained by the chapters, the monasteries, and the colleges, and with +all this a curious, all-pervading indifference. +</p> + +<p> +One might end this little train of thought by considering a converse test of +what the eye-opener is in travel; and that test is to talk to foreigners when +they first come to England and see how they tend to discover in England what +they have read of at home instead of what they really see. There have been very +few fogs in London of late, but your foreigner nearly always finds London +foggy. Kent does not show along its main railway line the evidence of +agricultural depression: it is like a garden. Yet, in a very careful and +thorough French book just published by a French traveller, his bird’s-eye view +of the country as he went through Kent just after landing would make you think +the place a desert; he seems to have thought the hedges a sign of agricultural +decay. The same foreigner will discover a plebeian character in the Commons and +an aristocratic one in the House of Lords, though he shall have heard but four +speeches in each, and though every one of the eight speeches shall have been +delivered by members of one family group closely intermarried, wealthy, titled, +and perhaps (who knows?) of some lineage as well. +</p> + +<p> +The moral is that one should tell the truth to oneself, and look out for it +outside one. It is quite as novel and as entertaining as the discovery of the +North Pole—or, in case that has come off (as some believe), the discovery of +the South Pole. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25">The Public</a></h2> + +<p> +I notice a very curious thing in the actions particularly of business men +to-day, and of other men also, which is the projection outward from their own +inward minds of something which is called “The Public”—and which is not there. +</p> + +<p> +I do not mean that a business man is wrong when he says that “the public will +demand” such and such an article, and on producing the article finds it sells +widely; he is obviously and demonstrably right in his use of the word “public” +in such a connexion. Nor is a man wrong or subject to illusion when he says, +“The public have taken to cinematograph shows,” or “The public were greatly +moved when the Hull fishermen were shot at by the Russian fleet in the North +Sea.” What I mean is “The Public” as an excuse or scapegoat; the Public as a +menace; the Public as a butt. That Public simply does not exist. +</p> + +<p> +For instance, the publisher will say, as though he were talking of some +monster, “The Public will not buy Jinks’s work. It is first-class work, so it +is too good for the Public.” He is quite right in his statement of fact. Of the +very small proportion of our people who read only a fraction buy books, and of +the fraction that buy books very few indeed buy Jinks’s. Jinks has a very +pleasant up-and-down style. He loves to use funny words dragged from the tomb, +and he has delicate little emotions. Yet hardly anybody will buy him—so the +publisher is quite right in one sense when he says, “The Public” won’t buy +Jinks. But where he is quite wrong and suffering from a gross illusion is in +the motive and the manner of his saying it. He talks of “The Public” as +something gravely to blame and yet irredeemably stupid. He talks of it as +something quite external to himself, almost as something which he has never +personally come across. He talks of it as though it were a Mammoth or an +Eskimo. Now, if that publisher would wander for a moment into the world of +realities he would perceive his illusion. Modern men do not like realities, and +do not usually know the way to come in contact with them. I will tell the +publisher how to do so in this case. +</p> + +<p> +Let him consider what books he buys himself, what books his wife buys; what +books his eldest son, his grandmother, his Aunt Jane, his old father, his +butler (if he runs to one), his most intimate friend, and his curate buy. He +will find that not one of these people buys Jinks. Most of them will talk +Jinks, and if Jinks writes a play, however dull, they will probably go and see +it once; but they draw the line at buying Jinks’s books—and I don’t blame them. +</p> + +<p> +The moral is very simple. You yourselves are “The Public,” and if you will +watch your own habits you will find that the economic explanation of a hundred +things becomes quite clear. +</p> + +<p> +I have seen the same thing in the offices of a newspaper. Some simple truth of +commanding interest to this country, involving no attack upon any rich man, and +therefore not dangerous under our laws, comes up for printing. It is discussed +in the editor’s room. The editor says, “Yes, of course, we know it is true, and +of course it is important, but the Public would not stand it.” +</p> + +<p> +I remember one newspaper office of my youth in which the Public was visualized +as a long file of people streaming into a Wesleyan chapel, and another in which +the Public was supposed to be made up without exception of retired officers and +maiden ladies, every one of whom was a communicant of the English Established +Church, every one of good birth, and yet every one devoid of culture. +</p> + +<p> +Without the least doubt each of these absurd symbols haunted the brain of each +of the editors in question. The editor of the first paper would print at +wearisome length accounts of obscure Catholic clerical scandals on the +Continent, and would sweat with alarm if his sub-editors had admitted a +telegram concerning the trial of some fraudulent Protestant missionary or other +in China. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile his rather dull paper was being bought by you and me, and bank clerks +and foreign tourists, and doctors, and publicans, and brokers, Catholics, +Protestants, atheists, “peculiar people,” and every kind of man for many +reasons—because it had the best social statistics, because it had a very good +dramatic critic, because they had got into the habit and couldn’t stop, because +it came nearest to hand on the bookstall. Of a hundred readers, ninety-nine +skipped the clerical scandal and either chuckled over the fraudulent missionary +or were bored by him and went on to the gambling news from the Stock Exchange. +But the type for whom all that paper was produced, the menacing god or demon +who was supposed to forbid publication of certain news in it, did not exist. +</p> + +<p> +So it was with the second paper, but with this difference, that the editor was +right about the social position of those who read his sheet, but quite wrong +about the opinions and emotions of people in that social position. +</p> + +<p> +It was all the more astonishing from the fact that the editor was born in that +very class himself and perpetually mixed with it. No one perhaps read “The +Stodge” (for under this device would I veil the true name of the organ) more +carefully than those retired officers of either service who are to be found in +what are called our “residential” towns. The editor was himself the son of a +colonel of guns who had settled down in a Midland watering-place. He ought to +have known that world, and he did know that world, but he kept his illusion of +his Public quite apart from his experience of realities. +</p> + +<p> +Your retired officer (to take his particular section of this particular paper’s +audience) is nearly always a man with a hobby, and usually a good scientific or +literary hobby at that. He writes many of our best books demanding research. He +takes an active part in public work which requires statistical study. He is +always a travelled man, and nearly always a well-read man. The broadest and the +most complete questioning and turning and returning of the most fundamental +subjects—religion, foreign policy, and domestic economics—are quite familiar to +him. But the editor was not selecting news for that real man; he was selecting +news for an imaginary retired officer of inconceivable stupidity and ignorance, +redeemed by a childlike simplicity. If a book came in, for instance, on +biology, and there was a chance of having it reviewed by one of the first +biologists of the day, he would say: “Oh, our Public won’t stand evolution,” +and he would trot out his imaginary retired officer as though he were a mule. +</p> + +<p> +Artists, by which I mean painters, and more especially art critics, sin in this +respect. They say: “The public wants a picture to tell a story,” and they say +it with a sneer. Well, the public does want a picture to tell a story, because +you and I want a picture to tell a story. Sorry. But so it is. The art critic +himself wants it to tell a story, and so does the artist. Each would rather die +than admit it, but if you set either walking, with no one to watch him, down a +row of pictures you would see him looking at one picture after another with +that expression of interest which only comes on a human face when it is +following a human relation. A mere splash of colour would bore him; still more +a mere medley of black and white. The story may have a very simple plot; it may +be no more than an old woman sitting on a chair, or a landscape, but a picture, +if a man can look at it all, tells a story right enough. It must interest men, +and the less of a story it tells the less it will interest men. A good +landscape tells so vivid a story that children (who are unspoilt) actually +transfer themselves into such a landscape, walk about in it, and have +adventures in it. +</p> + +<p> +They make another complaint against the public, that it desires painting to be +lifelike. Of course it does! The statement is accurate, but the complaint is +based on an illusion. It is you and I and all the world that want painting to +imitate its object. There is a wonderful picture in the Glasgow Art Gallery, +painted by someone a long time ago, in which a man is represented in a steel +cuirass with a fur tippet over it, and the whole point of that picture is that +the fur looks like fur and the steel looks like steel. I never met a critic yet +who was so bold as to say that picture was a bad picture. It is one of the best +pictures in the world; but its whole point is the liveliness of the steel and +of the fur. +</p> + +<p> +Finally, there is one proper test to prove that all this jargon about “The +Public” is nonsense, which is that it is altogether modern. Who quarrelled with +the Public in the old days when men lived a healthy corporate life, and +painted, wrote, or sang for the applause of their fellows? +</p> + +<p> +If you still suffer from the illusion after reading these magisterial lines of +mine, why, there is a drastic way to cure yourself, which is to go for a +soldier; take the shilling and live in a barracks for a year; then buy yourself +out. You will never despise the public again. And perhaps a better way still is +to go round the Horn before the mast. But take care that your friends shall +send you enough money to Valparaiso for your return journey to be made in some +comfort; I would not wish my worst enemy to go back the way he came. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26">On Entries</a></h2> + +<p> +I am always planning in my mind new kinds of guide books. Or, rather, new +features in guide books. +</p> + +<p> +One such new feature which I am sure would be very useful would be an +indication to the traveller of how he should approach a place. +</p> + +<p> +I would first presuppose him quite free and able to come by rail or by water or +by road or on foot across the fields, and then I would describe how the many +places I have seen stand quite differently in the mind according to the way in +which one approaches them. +</p> + +<p> +The value of travel, to the eye at least, lies in its presentation of clear and +permanent impressions, and these I think (though some would quarrel with me for +saying it) are usually instantaneous. It is the first sharp vision of an +unknown town, the first immediate vision of a range of hills, that remains for +ever and is fruitful of joy within the mind, or, at least, that is one and +perhaps the chief of the fruits of travel. +</p> + +<p> +I remember once, for instance, waking from a dead sleep in a train (for I was +very tired) and finding it to be evening. What woke me was the sudden stopping +of the train. It was in Italy. A man in the carriage said to me that there was +some sort of accident and that we should be waiting a while. The people got out +and walked about by the side of the track. I also got out of the carriage and +took the air, and when I so stepped out into the cool of that summer evening I +was amazed at the loneliness and tragedy of the place. +</p> + +<p> +There were no houses about me that I could see save one little place built for +the railway men. There was no cultivation either. +</p> + +<p> +Close before me began a sort of swamp with reeds which hardly moved to the air, +and this gradually merged into a sheet of water above and beyond which were +hills, barren and not very high, which took the last of the daylight, for they +looked both southward and to the west. The more I watched the extraordinary and +absolute scene the less I heard of the low voices about me, and indeed a sort +of positive silence seemed to clothe the darkening landscape. It was full of +something quite gone down, and one had the impression that it would never be +disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +As the light lessened, the hills darkened, the sky took on one broad and tender +colour, the sheet of water gleamed quite white, and the reeds stood up like +solid shadows against it. I wish I could express in words the impression of +recollection and of savage mourning which all that landscape imposed, but from +that impression I was recalled and startled by the guard, who came along +telling us that things were righted and that the train would start again; soon +we were in our places and the rapid movement isolated for me the memory of a +singularly vivid scene. I thought the place must have a name, and I asked a +neighbour in the carriage what it was called; he told me it was called Lake +Trasimene. +</p> + +<p> +Now I do not say that this tragic site is to be visited thus. It was but an +accident, though an accident for which I am most grateful to my fate. But what +I have said here illustrates my meaning that the manner of one’s approach to +any place in travel makes all the difference. +</p> + +<p> +Thus one may note how very different is Europe seen from the water than seen +from any other opportunity for travel. So many of the great cathedrals were +built to dominate men who should watch them from the wharves of the mediaeval +towns, but I think it is almost a rule if you have leisure and can take your +choice to choose this kind of entry to them. Amiens is quite a different thing +seen from the river below it to the north and east from what it is seen by a +gradual approach along the street of a modern town. The roofs climb up at it, +and it stands enthroned. So Chartres seen from the little Eure; but the Eure is +so small a river that he would be a bold man who would travel up it all this +way. Nevertheless it is a good piece of travel, and anyone who will undertake +it will see Louviers and will pass Anet, where the greatest work of the +Renaissance once stood, and will go through lonely but rich pastures until at +last he gets to Chartres by the right gate. Thence he will see something +astonishing for so flat a region as the Beauce. The great church seems +mountainous upon a mountain. Its apse completes the unclimbable steepness of +the hill and its buttresses follow the lines of the fall of it. But if you do +not come in by the river, at least come in by the Orleans road. I suppose that +nine people out of ten, even to-day when the roads are in proper use again, +come into Chartres by that northern railway entry, which is for all the world +like coming into a great house by a big, neglected backyard. +</p> + +<p> +Then if ever you have business that takes you to Bayonne, come in by river and +from the sea, and how well you will understand the little town and its lovely +northern Gothic! +</p> + +<p> +Some of the great churches all the world knows must be seen from the water, and +most of the world so sees them. Ely is one, Cologne is another, but how many +people have looked right up at Durham as at a cliff from that gorge below, or +how many have seen the height of Albi from the Tarn? +</p> + +<p> +As for famous cities with their walls, there is no doubt that a man should +approach them by the chief high road, which once linked them with their +capital, or with their nearest port, or with Rome—and that although this kind +of entry is nowadays often marred by ugly suburbs. You will get much your +finest sight of Segovia as you come in by the road from the Guadarama and from +Madrid. It is from that point that you were meant to see the town, and you will +get much your best grip on Carcassonne, old Carcassonne, if you come in by the +road from Toulouse at morning as you were meant to come, and so Coucy should be +approached by that royal road from Soissons and from the south, while as for +Laon (the most famous of the hill towns), come to it from the east, for it +looks eastward, and its lords were Eastern lords. +</p> + +<p> +Ranges of hills, I think, are never best first seen from railways. Indeed, I +can remember no great sight of hills so seen, not even the Alps. A railway must +of necessity follow the floor of the valley and tunnel and creep round the +shoulders of the bulwarks. There is perhaps one exception to this rule, which +is the sight of the Pyrenees from the train as one comes into Tarbes. It is a +wise thing if you are visiting those hills to come into Tarbes by night and +sleep there, and then next morning the train upon its way to Pau unfolds you +all the wall of the mountains. But this is an accident. It is because the +railway runs upon a sort of high platform that you see the mountains so. With +all other hills that I remember it is best to have them burst suddenly upon you +from the top of some pass lifted high above the level and coming, let us say, +to a height half their own. Certainly the Bernese Oberland is more wonderful +caught in one moment from the Jura than introduced in any other way, and the +snows on Atlas over the desert seem like part of the sky when they come upon +one after climbing the red rocks of the high plateaux and you see them shining +over the salt marshes. The Vosges you cannot thus see from a half-height; there +is no platform, and that is perhaps why the Vosges have not impressed +travellers as they should. But you can so watch the grand chain of old +volcanoes which are the rampart of Auvergne. You can stand upon the high wooden +ridge of Foreze and see them take the morning across the mists and the flat of +the Limagne, where the Gauls fought Caesar. Further south from the high table +of the Velay you can see the steep backward escarpment of the Cevennes, inky +blue, desperately blue, blue like nothing else on earth except the mountains in +those painters of North Italy, of the parts north and east of Venice, the name +of whose school escapes me—or, rather, I never knew it. +</p> + +<p> +Now, as for towns that live in a hollow, it is great fun to come upon them from +above. They are not used to being thus taken at a disadvantage and they are +both surprised and surprising. There are many towns in holes and trenches of +Europe which you can thus play “peep-bo” with if you will come at them walking. +By train they will mean nothing to you. You will probably come upon them out of +a long, shrieking tunnel, and by the high road they mean little more, for the +high road will follow the vale. But if you come upon them from over their +guardian cliffs and scars you catch them unawares, and this is a good way of +approaching them, for you master them, as it were, and spy them out before you +enter in. You can act thus with Grenoble and with many a town on the Meuse, and +particularly with Aubusson, which lies in the depths of so dreadful a trench +that I could wonder how man ever dreamt of living and building there. +</p> + +<p> +The most difficult of all places on which to advise, I think, would be the very +great cities, the capitals. They seem to have to-day no noble entries and no +proper approach. Perhaps we shall only deal with them justly when we can circle +down to them through the air and see their vast activity splashed over the +plain. Anyhow, there is no proper way of entering them now that I know of. +Berlin is not worth entering at all. Rome (a man told me once) could be entered +by some particular road over the Janiculum, I think—which also, if I remember +right, was the way that Shelley came—but I despair of Paris, and certainly of +London. I cannot even recall an entry for Brussels, though Brussels is a +monumental city with great rewards for those who love the combination of +building and hills. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps, after all, the happiest entries of all and the most easy are those of +our many market towns, small and not swollen in Britain and in Northern Gaul +and in the Netherlands and in the Valley of the Rhine. These hardly ever fail +us, and we come upon them in our travels as they desire that we should come, +and we know them properly as things should properly be known—that is, from the +beginning. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27">Companions of Travel</a></h2> + +<p> +I write of travelling companions in general, and not in particular, making of +them a composite photograph, as it were, and finding what they have in common +and what is their type; and in the first place I find them to be chance men. +For there are some people who cannot travel without a set companion who goes +with them from Charing Cross all over the world and back to Charing Cross +again. And there is a pathos in this: as Balzac said of marriage, “What a +commentary on human life, that human beings must associate to endure it.” So it +is with many who cannot endure to travel alone: and some will positively +advertise for another to go with them. +</p> + +<p> +In a glade of the Sierra Nevada, which, for awful and, as it were, permanent +beauty seemed not to be of this world, I came upon a man slowly driving along +the trail a ramshackle cart, in which were a few chairs and tables and bedding. +He had a long grey beard and wild eyes; he was old, and very small like a +gnome, but he had not the gnome’s good-humour. I asked him where he was going, +and I slowed down, so as to keep pace with his ridiculous horse. For some time +he would not answer me, and then he said, “Out of this.” He added, “I am tired +of it.” And when I asked him, “Of what?” his only answer was an old-fashioned +oath. But from further complaints which he made I gathered that what he was +tired of was clearing forests, digging ground, paying debts, and in general +living upon this unhappy earth. He did not like me very much, and though I +would willingly have learned more, he would tell me nothing further, so when we +got to a place where there was a little stream I went on and left him. +</p> + +<p> +I have never forgotten the sadness of this man. Where he was going, and what he +expected to do, or what opportunities he had, I have never understood. Though +some years after, in quite another place—namely, Steyning, in Sussex—I came +upon just such another, whose quarrel was with the English climate, the rich +and the poor, and the whole constitution of God’s earth. These are the +advantages of travel, that one meets so many men whom one would otherwise never +meet, and that one feeds as it were upon the complexity of mankind. +</p> + +<p> +Thus in a village called Encamps, in the depths of Andorra, where no man has +ever killed another, I found a man with a blue face, who was a fossil, the kind +of man you would never find in the swelling life of Western Europe. He was +emancipated, he had studied in Perpignan, over and beyond the great hills. He +could not see why he should pay taxes to support a priest. “The priests” he +assured me, “say the most ridiculous things. They narrate the most impossible +fables. They affirm what cannot possibly be true. All that they say is in +opposition to science. If I am ill, can a priest cure me? No. Can a priest tell +me how to build, or how to light my house? He is unable to do so. He is a +useless and a lying mouth, why should I feed him?” +</p> + +<p> +I questioned this man very closely, and discovered that in his view the world +slowly changed from worse to better, and to accelerate this process +enlightenment alone was needed. “But what do these brutes,” he said, alluding +to his fellow-countrymen, “know of enlightenment? They do not even make roads, +because the priests forbid them.” +</p> + +<p> +I could write at length upon this man. He was not a Sceptic as you may imagine, +nor had he adopted the Lucretian form of Epicureanism. Not a bit of it. He was +a hearty Atheist, with Positivist leanings. I further found that he had married +a woman older, wealthier, and if possible uglier than himself. She kept the +inn, and was very kind to him. His life would have been quite happy had he not +been tortured by the monstrous superstitions of others. +</p> + +<p> +Then, again, in the town of Marseilles, only two years ago, I met a man who +looked well fed, and had a stalwart, square French face, and whose +politico-economic ideal, though it was not mine, greatly moved me. It was just +past midnight, and I was throwing little stones into the old Greek harbour, the +stench and the glory of which are nearly three thousand years old; I was to be +off at dawn upon a tramp steamer, and I had so determined to pass the few hours +of darkness. +</p> + +<p> +I was throwing pebbles into the water, I say, and thinking about Ulysses, when +this man came slouching up, with his hands in the pockets of his enormous +corduroy trousers, and, looking at me with some contempt from above (for he was +standing, I was sitting), he began to converse with me. We talked first of +ships, then of heat and cold, and so on to wealth and poverty; and thus it was +I came upon his views, which were that there should be a sort of break up, and +houses ought to be burned, and things smashed, and people killed; and over and +above this, it should be made plain that no one had a right to govern: not the +people, because they were always being bamboozled; obviously not the rich; +least of all, the politicians, to whom he justly applied the most derogatory +epithets. He waved his arm out in the darkness at the Phoceans, at the +half-million of Marseilles, and said, “All that should disappear.” The +constructive side of his politico-economic scheme was negative. He was a +practical man. None of your fine theories for him. One step at a time. Let +there be a Chambardement—that is, a noisy collapse, and he would think about +what to do afterwards. +</p> + +<p> +His was not the narrow, deductive mind. He was objective and concrete. Believe +me or not, he was paid an excellent wage by the municipality to prevent people +like me, who sit up at night, from doing mischief in the harbour. When I had +come to an end of his politico-economic scheme—the main lines of which were so +clear and simple that a child could understand them—we fell to talking of the +tides, and I told him that in my country the sea went up and down. He was no +rustic, and would have no such commonplace truths. He was well acquainted with +the Phenomenon of the Tides; it was due to the combined attraction of the sun +and of the moon. But when I told him I knew places where the tides fell thirty +or forty feet, we would have had a violent quarrel had I not prudently admitted +that that was romantic exaggeration, and that five or six was the most that one +ever saw it move. I avoided the quarrel, but the little incident broke up our +friendship, and he shuffled away. He did not like having his leg pulled. +</p> + +<p> +There are many others I remember. Those I have written about elsewhere I am +ashamed to recall, as the man at Jedburgh, who first expounded to me how one +knew all about the fate of the individual soul, and then objected to personal +questions about his own; the German officer man at Aix-la-Chapelle, who had +hair the colour of tow, and gave me minute details of the method by which +England was to be destroyed; a man I met upon the Appian Way, who told the most +abominable lies; and another man who met me outside Oxford station during the +Vac. and offered to show me the sights of the town for a consideration, which +he did, but I would not pay him because he was inaccurate, as I easily proved +by a few searching questions upon the exact site of Bocardo (of which he had +never heard), and the negative evidence against a Roman origin for the site of +the city. Moreover, he said that Trinity was St. John’s, which was rubbish. +</p> + +<p> +Then there was another man who travelled with me from Birmingham, pressed +certain tracts upon me, and wanted to charge me sixpence each at Paddington. +But if I were to speak of even these few I should exceed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28">On the Sources of Rivers</a></h2> + +<p> +There are certain customs in man the permanence of which gives infinite +pleasure. When the mood of the schools is against them these customs lie in +wait beneath the floors of society, but they never die, and when a decay in +pedantry or in despotism or in any other evil and inhuman influence permits +them to reappear they reappear. +</p> + +<p> +One of these customs is the religious attachment of man to isolated high +places, peaks, and single striking hills. On these he must build shrines, and +though he is a little furtive about it nowadays, yet the instinct is there, +strong as ever. I have not often come to the top of a high hill with another +man but I have seen him put a few stones together when he got there, or, if he +had not the moral courage so to satisfy his soul, he would never fail on such +an occasion to say something ritual and quasi-religious, even if it were only +about the view; and another instinct of the same sort is the worship of the +sources of rivers. +</p> + +<p> +The Iconoclast and the people whose pride it is that their senses are dead will +see in a river nothing more than so much moisture gathered in a narrow place +and falling as the mystery of gravitation inclines it. Their mood is the mood +of that gentleman who despaired and wrote: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +A cloud’s a lot of vapour,<br/> + The sky’s a lot of air,<br/> +And the sea’s a lot of water<br/> + That happens to be there. +</p> + +<p> +You cannot get further down than that. When you have got as far down as that +all is over. Luckily God still keeps his mysteries going for you, and you can’t +get rid, even in that mood, of the certitude that you yourself exist and that +things outside of you are outside of you. But when you get into that modern +mood you do lose the personality of everything else, and you forget the +sanctity of river heads. +</p> + +<p> +You have lost a great deal when you have forgotten that, and it behoves you to +recover what you have lost as quickly as possible, which is to be done in this +way: Visit the source of some famous stream and think about it. There was a +Scotchman once who discovered the sources of the Nile, to the lasting advantage +of mankind and the permanent glory of his native land. He thought the source of +the Nile looked rather like the sources of the Till or the Tweed or some such +river of Thule. He has been ridiculed for saying this, but he was mystically +very right. The source of the greatest of rivers, since it was sacred to him, +reminded him of the sacred things of his home. +</p> + +<p> +When I consider the sources of rivers which I have seen, there is not one, I +think, which I do not remember to have had about it an influence of awe. Not +only because one could in imaginings see the kingdoms of the cities which it +was to visit and the way in which it would bind them all together in one +province and one story, but also simply because it was an origin. +</p> + +<p> +The sources of the Rhone are famous: the Rhone comes out of a glacier through a +sort of ice cave, and if it were not for an enormous hotel quite four-square it +would be as lonely a place as there is in Europe, and as remarkable a beginning +for a great river as could anywhere be found. Nor, when you come to think of +it, does any European river have such varied fortunes as the Rhone. It feeds +such different religions and looks on such diverse landscapes. It makes Geneva +and it makes Avignon; it changes in colour and in the nature of its going as it +goes. It sees new products appearing continually on its journey until it comes +to olives, and it flows past the beginning of human cities, when it reflects +the huddle of old Arles. +</p> + +<p> +The sources of the Garonne are well known. The Garonne rises by itself in a +valley from which there is no issue, like the fabled valleys shut in by hills +on every side. And if it were anything but the Garonne it would not be able to +escape: it would lie imprisoned there for ever. Being the Garonne it tunnels a +way for itself right under the High Pyrenees and comes out again on the French +side. There are some that doubt this, but then there are people who would doubt +anything. +</p> + +<p> +The sources of the River Arun are not so famous as these two last, and it is a +good thing, for they are to be found in one of the loneliest places within an +hour of London that any man can imagine, and if you were put down there upon a +windy day you would think yourself upon the moors. There is nothing whatsoever +near you at the beginnings of the little sacred stream. +</p> + +<p> +Thames had a source once which was very famous. The water came out plainly at a +fountain under a bleak wood just west of the Fosse Way, under which it ran by a +culvert, a culvert at least as old as the Romans. But when about a hundred +years ago people began to improve the world in those parts, they put up a +pumping station and they pumped Thames dry—since which time its gods have +deserted the river. +</p> + +<p> +The sources of the Ribble are in a lonely place up in a corner of the hills +where everything has strange shapes and where the rocks make one think of +trolls. The great frozen Whernside stands up above it, and Ingleborough Hill, +which is like no other hill in England, but like the flat-topped Mesas which +you have in America, or (as those who have visited it tell me) like the flat +hills of South Africa; and a little way off on the other side is Pen-y-ghent, +or words to that effect. The little River Ribble rises under such enormous +guardianship. It rises quite clean and single in the shape of a little spring +upon the hillside, and too few people know it. The other river that flows east +while the Ribble flows west is the River Ayr. It rises in a curious way, for it +imitates the Garonne, and finding itself blocked by limestone burrows +underneath at a place called Malham Tarn, after which it has no more trouble. +</p> + +<p> +The River Severn, the River Wye, and a third unimportant river, or at least +important only for its beauty (and who would insist on that?) rise all close +together on the skirts of Plinlimmon, and the smallest of them has the most +wonderful rising, for it falls through the gorge of Llygnant, which looks like, +and perhaps is, the deepest cleft in this island, or, at any rate, the most +unexpected. And a fourth source on the mountain, a tarn below its summit, is +the source of Rheidol, which has a short but adventurous life like Achilles. +</p> + +<p> +There is one source in Europe that is properly dealt with, and where the +religion due to the sources of rivers has free play, and this is the source of +the Seine. It comes out upon the northern side of the hills which the French +call the Hills of Gold, in a country of pasturage and forest, very high up +above the world and thinly peopled. The River Seine appears there in a sort of +miraculous manner, pouring out of a grotto, and over this grotto the Parisians +have built a votive statue; and there is yet another of the hundred thousand +things that nobody knows. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29">On Error</a></h2> + +<p> +There is an elusive idea that has floated through the minds of most of us as we +grew older and learnt more and more things. It is an idea extremely difficult +to get into set terms. It is an idea very difficult to put so that we shall not +seem nonsensical; and yet it is a very useful idea, and if it could be realized +its realization would be of very practical value. It is the idea of a +Dictionary of Ignorance and Error. +</p> + +<p> +On the face of it a definition of the work is impossible. Strictly speaking it +would be infinite, for human knowledge, however far extended, must always be +infinitely small compared with all possible knowledge, just as any given finite +space is infinitely small compared with all space. +</p> + +<p> +But that is not the idea which we entertain when we consider this possible +Dictionary of Ignorance and Error. What we really mean is a Dictionary of the +sort of Ignorance and the sort of Error which we know ourselves to have been +guilty of, which we have escaped by special experience or learning as time went +on, and against which we would warn our fellows. +</p> + +<p> +Flaubert, I think, first put it down in words, and said that such an +encyclopaedia was very urgently needed. +</p> + +<p> +It will never exist, but we all know that it ought to exist. Bits of it appear +from time to time piecemeal and here and there, as for instance in the +annotations which modern scholarship attaches to the great text, in the printed +criticisms to which sundry accepted doctrines are subjected by the younger men +to-day, in the detailed restatement of historical events which we get from +modern research as our fathers could never have them—but the work itself, the +complete Encyclopaedia or Dictionary of Ignorance and Error, will never be +printed. It is a great pity. +</p> + +<p> +Incidentally one may remark that the process by which a particular error is +propagated is as interesting to watch as the way in which a plant grows. +</p> + +<p> +The first step seems to be the establishing of an authority and the giving of +that authority a name which comes to connote doctrinal infallibility. A very +good example of this is the title “Science.” Mere physical research, its +achievements, its certitudes, even its conflicting and self-contradictory +hypotheses, having got lumped together in many minds under this one title +Science, the title is now sacred. It is used as a priestly title, as an +immediate estopper to doubt or criticism. +</p> + +<p> +The next step is a very interesting one for the student of psychical pathology +to note. It seems to be a disease as native and universal to the human mind as +is the decay of the teeth to the human body. It seems as though we all must +suffer somewhat from it, and most of us suffer a great deal from it, though in +a cool aspect we easily perceive it to be a lesion of thought. And this second +step is as follows: +</p> + +<p> +The whole lump having been given its sacred title and erected into an +infallible authority, which you are to accept as directly superior to yourself +and all personal sources of information, there is attributed to this idol a +number of attributes. We give it a soul, and a habit and manners which do not +attach to its stuff at all. The projection of this imagined living character in +our authority is comparable to what we also do with mountains, statues, towns, +and so forth. Our living individuality lends individuality to them. I might +here digress to discuss whether this habit of the mind were not a distorted +reflection of some truth, and whether, indeed, there be not such beings as +demons or the souls of things. But, to leave that, we take our authority—this +thing “Science,” for instance—we clothe it with a creed and appetites and a +will, and all the other human attributes. +</p> + +<p> +This done, we set out in the third step in our progress towards fixed error. We +make the idol speak. Of course, being only an idol, it talks nonsense. But by +the previous steps just referred to we must believe that nonsense, and believe +it we do. Thus it is, I think, that fixed error is most generally established. +</p> + +<p> +I have already given one example in the hierarchic title “Science.” +</p> + +<p> +It was but the other day that I picked up a weekly paper in which a gentleman +was discussing ghosts—that is, the supposed apparition of the living and the +dead: of the dead though dead, and of the living though absent. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing has been more keenly discussed since the beginning of human +discussions. Are these phenomena (which undoubtedly happen) what modern people +call subjective, or are they what modern people call objective? In +old-fashioned English, Are the ghosts really there or are they not? The most +elementary use of the human reason persuades us that the matter is not +susceptible of positive proof. The criterion of certitude in any matter of +perception is an inner sense in the perceiver that the thing he perceives is +external to himself. He is the only witness; no one can corroborate or dispute +him. The seer may be right or he may be wrong, but we have no proof—and only +according to our temperament, our fancy, our experience, our mood, do we decide +with one or the other of the two great schools. +</p> + +<p> +Well, the gentleman of whom I am speaking wrote and had printed in plain +English this phrase (read it carefully):—“Science teaches us that these +phenomena are purely subjective.” +</p> + +<p> +Now I am quite sure that of the thousands who read that phrase all but a +handful read it in the spirit in which one hears the oracle of a god. Some read +it with regret, some with pleasure, but all with acquiescence. +</p> + +<p> +That physical science was not competent in the matter one way or the other each +of those readers would probably have discovered, if even so simple a corrective +as the use of the term “physical research” instead of the sacred term “science” +had been applied; the hierarchic title “Science” did the trick. +</p> + +<p> +I might take another example out of many hundreds to show what I mean. You have +an authority which is called, where documents are concerned, “The Best Modern +Criticism.” “The Best Modern Criticism” decides that “Tam o’ Shanter” was +written by a committee of permanent officials of the Board of Trade, or that +Napoleon Bonaparte never existed. As a matter of fact, the tomfoolery does not +usually venture upon ground so near home, but it talks rubbish just as +monstrous about a poem a few hundred or a few thousand years old, or a great +personality a few hundred or a few thousand years old. +</p> + +<p> +Now if you will look at that phrase “The Best Modern Criticism” you will see at +once that it simply teems with assumption and tautology. But it does more and +worse: it presupposes that an infallible authority must of its own nature be +perpetually wrong. +</p> + +<p> +Even supposing that I have the most “modern” (that is, merely the latest) +criticism to hand, and even supposing that by some omniscience of mine I can +tell which is “the best” (that is, which part of it has really proved most +ample, most painstaking, most general, and most sincere), even then the phrase +fatally condemns me. It is to say that Wednesday is always infallible as +compared with Tuesday, and Thursday as compared with Wednesday, which is +absurd. +</p> + +<p> +The B.M.C. tells me in 1875 that the Song of Roland could have no origins +anterior to the year 1030. But the B.M.C. of 1885 (being a B.M.C. and nothing +more valuable) has a changed opinion. It must change its opinion, that is the +law of its being, since an integral factor in its value is its modernity. In +1885 B.M.C. tells me that the Song of Roland can be traced to origins far +earlier, let us say to 912. +</p> + +<p> +In 1895 B.M.C. has come to other conclusions—the Song of Roland is certainly as +late as 1115 ... and so forth. +</p> + +<p> +Now you would say that an idol of that absurdity could have no effect upon sane +men. Change the terms and give it another name, and you would laugh at the idea +of its having an effect upon any men. But we know as a matter of fact that it +commands the thoughts of nearly all men to-day and makes cowards of the most +learned. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps you will ask me at the end of so long a criticism in what way error may +be corrected, since there is this sort of tendency in us to accept it, to which +I answer that things correct it, or as the philosophers call things, “Reality.” +Error does not wash. +</p> + +<p> +To go back to that example of ghosts. If ever you see a ghost (my poor reader), +I shall ask you afterwards whether he seemed subjective or no. I think you will +find the word “subjective” an astonishingly thin one—if, at least, I catch you +early after the experience. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap30">The Great Sight</a></h2> + +<p> +All night we had slept on straw in a high barn. The wood of its beams was very +old, and the tiles upon the roof were green with age; but there hung from beam +to beam, fantastically, a wire caught by nails, and here and there from this +wire hung an electric-light bulb. It was a symbol of the time, and the place, +and the people. There was no local by-law to forbid such a thing, or if there +was, no one dreamt of obeying it. +</p> + +<p> +Just in the first dawn of that September day we went out, my companion and I, +at guesswork to hunt in the most amusing kind of hunting, which is the hunting +of an army. The lane led through one of those lovely ravines of Picardy which +travellers never know (for they only see the plains), and in a little while we +thought it wise to strike up the steep bank from the valley on to the bare +plateau above, but it was all at random and all guesswork, only we wisely +thought that we were nearing the beginning of things, and that on the bare +fields of the high flat we should have a greater horizon and a better chance of +catching any indications of men or arms. +</p> + +<p> +When we had reached the height the sun had long risen, but it as yet gave no +shining and there were no shadows, for a delicate mist hung all about the +landscape, though immediately above us the sky was faintly blue. +</p> + +<p> +It was the weirdest of sensations to go for mile after mile over that vast +plain, to know that it was cut in regular series by parallel ravines which in +all that extended view we could not guess at; to see up to the limits of the +plateau the spires of villages and the groups of trees about them, and to know +that somewhere in all this there lay concealed a <i>corps d’armée</i>—and not +to see or hear a soul. The only human being that we saw was a man driving a +heavy farm cart very slowly up a side-way just as we came into the great road +which has shot dead across this country in one line ever since the Romans built +it. As we went along that road, leaving the fields, we passed by many men +indeed, and many houses, all in movement with the early morning; and the +chalked numbers on the doors, and here and there an empty tin of +polishing-paste or an order scrawled on paper and tacked to a wall betrayed the +passage of soldiers. But of the army there was nothing at all. Scouting on foot +(for that was what it was) is a desperate business, and that especially if you +have nothing to tell you whether you will get in touch in five, or ten, or +twenty miles. +</p> + +<p> +It was nine o’clock before a clatter of horse-hoofs came up the road behind us. +At first my companion and I wondered whether it were the first riders of the +Dragoons or Cuirassiers. In that case the advance was from behind us. But very +soon, as the sound grew clearer, we heard how few they were, and then there +came into view, trotting rapidly, a small escort and two officers with the +umpires’ badges, so there was nothing doing; but when, half a mile ahead of us +on the road, they turned off to the left over plough, we knew that that was the +way we must follow too. Before we came to the turning-place, before we left the +road to take the fields on the left, there came from far off and on our right +the sound of a gun. +</p> + +<p> +It was my companion who heard it first. We strained to hear it again; twice we +thought we had caught it, and then again twice we doubted. It is not so easily +recognizable a sound as you might think in those great plains cut by islands of +high trees and steading walls. The little “75” gun lying low makes a different +sound altogether at a distance from the old piece of “90.” At any rate there +was here no doubt that there were guns to the right and in front of us, and the +umpire had gone to the left. We were getting towards the thick, and we had only +to go straight on to find out where the front was. +</p> + +<p> +Just as we had so decided and were still pursuing the high road, there came, +not half a mile away and again to our right, in a valley below us, that curious +sound which is like nothing at all unless it be dumping of flints out of a +cart: rifle fire. It cracked and tore in stretches. Then there were little gaps +of silence like the gaps in signalling, and then it cracked and tore in +stretches again; and then, fitfully, one individual shot and then another would +be heard; and, much further off, with little sounds like snaps, the replies +began from the hillside beyond the stream. So far so good. Here was contact in +the valley below us, and the guns, some way behind and far off northwards, had +opened. So we got the hang of it instantly—the front was a sort of a crescent +lying roughly north and south, and roughly parallel to the great road, and the +real or feigned mass of the advance was on the extreme left of that front. We +were in it now, and that anxious and wearing business in all hunting, finding, +was over; but we had been on foot six mortal hours before coming across our +luck, and more than half the soldiers’ day was over. These men had been afoot +since three, and certain units on the left had already marched over twenty +miles. +</p> + +<p> +After that coming in touch with our business, not only did everything become +plain, but the numbers we met, and what I have called “the thick of things,” +fed us with interest. We passed half the 38th, going down the road singing, to +extend the line, and in a large village we came to the other half, slouching +about in the traditional fashion of the Service; they had been waiting for an +hour. With them, and lined up all along the village street, was one battery, +with the drivers dismounted, and all that body were at ease. There were men +sitting on the doorsteps of the houses and men trotting to the canteen-wagon or +to the village shops to buy food; and there were men reading papers which a +pedlar had brought round. Mud and dust had splashed them all; upon some there +was a look of great fatigue; they were of all shapes and sizes, and altogether +it was the sort of sight you would not see in any other service in the world. +It was the sort of sight which so disgusted the Emperor Joseph when he made his +little tour to spy out the land before the Revolutionary Wars. It was the sort +of sight which made Massenbach before Grandpré marvel whether the French forces +were soldiers at all, and the sort of sight which made Valmy inexplicable to +the King of Prussia and his staff. It was the sort of sight which eighteen +months later still convinced Mack in Tournai that the Duke of York’s plan was a +plan “of annihilation.” It is a trap for judgment is the French service. +</p> + +<p> +So they lounged about and bought bread, and shifted their packs, and so the +drivers stood by their horses, and so they all waited and slouched; until there +came, not a man with a bugle nor anything with the slightest savour of drama +but a little fellow running along thumping in his loose leather leggings, who +went up to a Major of Artillery and saluted, and immediately afterwards the +Major put his hand up, and then down a village street, from a point which we +could not see came a whistle, and the whole of that mass of men began to swarm. +The grey-blue coats of the line swung round the corner of the village street; +they had yet a few miles before them. Anything more rapid or less in step it +would be difficult to conceive. The guns were off at a right angle down the +main road, making a prodigious clatter, and at the same time appeared two +parties, one of which it was easy to understand, the other not. They were both +parties of sappers. The one party had a great roll of wire on a drum, and as +quick as you could think they were unreeling it, and as they unreeled it +fastening it to eaves, overhanging branches, and to corners of walls, +stretching it out forward. It was the field-telephone. The other party came +along carrying great beams upon their shoulders, but what they were to do with +these beams we did not know. +</p> + +<p> +We followed the tail of the line down into the valley, and all that morning +long and past the food time at midday, and so till the sun declined in the +afternoon, we went with the 38th in its gradual success from crest to crest. +And still the 38th slouched by companies, and mile after mile with checks and +halts, and it never seemed to get either less or more tired. The men had had +twelve hours of it when they came at last, and we after them, on to the +critical position. They had carried (together with all the line to left and to +the right of them) a string of villages which crowned the crest of a further +plateau, and over this further plateau they were advancing against the main +body of the resistance—the other army corps which was set up against ours, to +simulate an enemy. +</p> + +<p> +A railway line ran here across the rolling hedgeless fields, and just at the +point where my companion and I struck it there was a dip in the land and a high +embankment which hid the plain beyond; but from that plain beyond one heard the +separate fire of the advancing line in its scattered order. We climbed the +embankment, and from its ridge we saw over two miles or more of stubble, the +little creeping bunches of the attack. What was resisting, or where it lay, one +could only guess. Some hundreds of yards before us to the east, with the +sloping sun full on it, a line of thicket, one scattered wood and then another, +an imperceptible lifting of the earth here and there marked the opposing firing +line. Two pompoms could be spotted exactly, for the flashes were clear through +the underwood. And still the tide of the advance continued to flow, and the +little groups came up and fed it, one after another and another, in the centre +where we were, and far away to the north and right away to the south the +countryside was alive with it. The action was beginning to take on something of +that final movement and decision which makes the climax of manoeuvres look so +great a game. But in a little while that general creeping forward was checked: +there were orders coming from the umpires, and a sort of lull fell over each +position held. My companion said to me: +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go forward now over the intervening zone and in among Picquart’s men, +and get well behind their line, and see whether there is a rally or whether +before the end of this day they begin to fall back again.” +</p> + +<p> +So we did, walking a mile or so until we had long passed their outposts and +were behind their forward lines. And standing there, upon a little eminence +near a wood, we turned and looked over what we had come, westward towards the +sun which was now not far from its setting. Then it was that we saw the last of +the Great Sight. +</p> + +<p> +The level light, mellow and already reddening, illumined all that plain +strangely, and with the absolute stillness of the air contrasted the opening of +the guns which had been brought up to support the renewal of the attack. We saw +the isolated woods standing up like islands with low steep cliffs, dotted in a +sea of stubble for miles and miles, and first from the cover of one and then +from another the advance perpetually, piercing and deploying. As we so watched +there buzzed high above us, like a great hornet, a biplane, circling well +within our lines, beyond attack from the advance, but overlooking all they +concealed behind it. In a few minutes a great Bleriot monoplane like a hawk +followed, yet further inwards. The two great birds shot round in an arc, +parallel to the firing line, and well behind it, and in a few minutes, that +seemed seconds, they were dots to the south and then lost in the air. And +perpetually, as the sun declined, Picquart’s men were falling back north and +south of us and before us, and the advance continued. Group by group we saw it +piercing this hedge, that woodland, now occupying a nearer and a nearer roll of +land. It was the greatest thing imaginable: this enormous sweep of men, the +dead silence of the air, and the comparatively slight contrast of the ceaseless +pattering rifle fire and the slight intermittent accompaniment of the advancing +batteries; until the sun set and all this human business slackened. Then for +the first time one heard bugles, which were a command to cease the game. +</p> + +<p> +I would not have missed that day nor lose the memories of it for anything in +the world. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap31">The Decline of a State</a></h2> + +<p> +The decline of a State is not equivalent to a mortal sickness therein. States +are organisms subject to diseases and to decay as are the organisms of men’s +bodies; but they are not subject to a rhythmic rise and fall as is the body of +a man. A State in its decline is never a State doomed or a State dying. States +perish slowly or by violence, but never without remedy and rarely without +violence. +</p> + +<p> +The decline of a State differs with the texture of it. A democratic State will +decline from a lowering of its potential, that is of its ever-ready energy to +act in a crisis, to correct and to control its servants in common times, to +watch them narrowly and suspect them at all times. A despotic State will +decline when the despot is not in point of fact the true depository of despotic +power, but some other acting in his name, of whom the people know little and +cannot judge; or when the despot, though fully in view and recognized, lacks +will; or when (which is rare) he is so inhuman as to miss the general sense of +his subjects. An oligarchic State, or aristocracy as it is called, will decline +principally through two agencies which are, first, illusion, and secondly, lack +of civic aptitude. For an oligarchic State tends very readily to illusion, +being conducted by men who live at leisure, satisfy their passions, are immune +from the laws, and prefer to shield themselves from reality. Their capacity or +appetite for illusion will rapidly pervade those below them, for in an +aristocracy the rulers are subjected to a sort of worship from the rest of the +community, and thus it comes about that aristocracies in their decline accept +fantastic histories of their own past, conceive victory possible without +armies, wealth to be an indication of ability, and national security to be a +natural gift rather than a product of the will. Such communities further fail +from the lack of civic aptitude, as was said above, which means that they +deliberately elect to leave the mass of citizens incompetent and irresponsible +for generations, so that, when any more strain is upon them, they look at once +for some men other than themselves to relieve them, and are incapable of +corporate action upon their own account. +</p> + +<p> +The decline of a State differs also according to whether it be a great State or +a small one, for in the first indifference, in the latter faction, are a peril, +and in the first ignorance, in the latter private spite. +</p> + +<p> +Then again, the decline of a State will differ according to whether its +strength is rooted originally in commerce, in arms, or in production; and if in +production, then whether in the production of the artisan or in that of the +peasant. If arms be the basis of the State, then that the army should become +professional and apart is a symptom of decline and a cause of it; if commerce, +the substitution of hazards and imaginaries for the transport of real goods and +the search after real demand; if production, the discontent or apathy of the +producer; as with peasants an ill system in the taxation of the land or in the +things necessary for its tillage, such as a misgovernment of its irrigation in +a dry country; the permission of private exactions and tolls in a fertile one; +the toleration of thieves and forestallers, and so forth. Artisans, upon the +other hand, may well flourish, though the State be corrupt in such matters, but +they must be secured in a high wage and be given a vast liberty of protest, for +if they sink to be slaves in fact, they will from the nature of their toil grow +both weak and foolish. Yet is not the State endangered by the artisan’s +throwing off a refuse of ill-paid and starving men who are either too many for +the work or unskilful at it? Such an excretion would poison a peasantry, +remaining in their body as it were, but artisans are purged thereby. This +refuse it is for the State to decide upon. It may in an artisan State be used +for soldiery (since such States commonly maintain but small armies and are +commonly indifferent to military glory), or it may be set to useful labour, or +again, destroyed; but this last use is repugnant to humanity, and so in the +long run hurtful to the State. +</p> + +<p> +In the decline of a State, of whatever nature that State be, two vices will +immediately appear and grow: these are Avarice and Fear; and men will more +readily accept the imputation of Avarice than of Fear, for Avarice is the less +despicable of the two—yet in fact Fear will be by far the strongest passion of +the time. +</p> + +<p> +Avarice will show itself not indeed in a mere greed of gain (for this is common +to all societies whether flourishing or failing), but rather in a sort of +taking for granted and permeation of the mere love of money, so that history +will be explained by it, wars judged by their booty or begun in order to enrich +a few, love between men and women wholly subordinated to it, especially among +the rich: wealth made a test for responsibility and great salaries invented and +paid to those who serve the State. This vice will also be apparent in the easy +acquaintance of all who are possessed of wealth and their segregation from the +less fortunate, for avarice cleaves society flatways, keeping the scum of it +quite clear of the middle, the middle of it quite clear of the dregs, and so +forth. It is a further mark of avarice in its last stages that the rich are +surrounded with lies in which they themselves believe. Thus, in the last phase, +there are no parasites but only friends, no gifts but only loans, which are +more esteemed favours than gifts once were. No one vicious but only tedious, +and no one a poltroon but only slack. +</p> + +<p> +Of Fear in the decline of a State it may be said that it is so much the master +passion of such decline as to eat up all others. Coming by travel from a +healthy State to one diseased, Fear is the first point you take. Men dare not +print or say what they feel of the judges, the public governors, the action of +the police, the controllers of fortunes and of news. This Fear will have about +it something comic, providing infinite joy to the foreigner, and modifying with +laughter the lament of the patriot. A miserable hack that never had a will of +his own, but ran to do what he was told for twenty years at the bidding of his +masters, being raised to the Bench will be praised for an impartial virtue more +than human. A drunken fellow, the son of a drunkard, having stolen control over +some half-dozen sheets, must be named under the breath or not at all. A +powerful minister may be accused with sturdy courage of something which he did +not do and no one would mind his doing, but under the influence of Fear, to +tell the least little truth about him will put a whole assembly into a sort of +blankness. +</p> + +<p> +This vice has for its most laughable effect the raising of a whole host of +phantoms, and when a State is so far gone that civic Fear is quite normal to +the citizens, then you will find them blenching with terror at a piece of +print, a whispered accusation. Bankruptcy, though they be possessed of nothing, +and even the ill-will of women. Moneylenders under this influence have the +greatest power, next after them, blackmailers of all kinds, and next after +these eccentrics who may blurt or break out. Those who have least power in the +decline of a State, are priests, soldiers, the mothers of many children, the +lovers of one woman, and saints. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap32">On Past Greatness</a></h2> + +<p> +There lies in the North-East of France, close against the Belgian frontier and +within cannon shot of the famous battlefield of Malplaquet, a little town +called Bavai—I have written of it elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +Coming into this little town you seem to be entering no more than a decent, +unimportant market borough, a larger village meant for country folk, perhaps +without a history and certainly without fame. +</p> + +<p> +As you come to look about you one thing after another enlivens your curiosity +and suggests something at once enormous and remote in the destinies of the +place. +</p> + +<p> +In the first place, seven great roads go out like the seven rays of a star, +plumb straight, darting along the line, across the vast, bare fields of +Flanders, past and along the many isolated woods of the provinces, and making +to great capitals far off—to Cologne, to Paris, to Treves, and to the ports of +the sea. +</p> + +<p> +These roads are deserted in great part. Some of them are metalled in certain +sections, and again in other sections are no more than lanes, and again no more +than footpaths, as you proceed along their miles of way; but their exact design +awfully impresses the mind. You know, as you follow such strict alignment, that +you are fulfilling the majestic purpose of Imperial Rome. It was the Romans +that made these things. +</p> + +<p> +Then, intrigued and excited by such remains of greatness, you read what you can +of the place.... And you find nothing but a dust of legend. You find a story +that once here a king, filled with ambition and worshipping strange gods, +thrust out these great roads to the ends of the earth; desired his capital to +be a hub and navel for the world. He put them under the protection of the seven +planets and of the deities of those stars. Three he paved with black marble and +four with white marble, and where they met upon the market place he put up a +golden terminal. There the legend ends. +</p> + +<p> +It is only legend—a true product of the Dark Ages, when all that Rome had done +rose like a huge dream in the mind of Europe and took on gorgeous and fantastic +colouring. You learn (for the rest) very little—that ornaments and money have +been found dating from two thousand years, that once great walls surrounded the +place. It must have had noble buildings and solemn courts. In strict history +all you will discover is that it was the capital of that tribe, the Nervii, +against whom Caesar fought, and whose territory was early conquered for the +Empire. You will find nothing more. There is no living tradition, there is no +voice; the little town is dumb. +</p> + +<p> +The place is a figure, and a striking one, of greatness long dead, and a man +visiting its small domestic interests to-day, and noting its comfort, its +humility, and its sleep, is reminded of many things attaching to human fame. It +would seem as though the ambitions of men, and that exalted appetite for glory +which has produced the chief things of this world, suffer the effect of time +somewhat as the body of an animal slain will suffer that. +</p> + +<p> +One part of the organism and then another decays and mixes back with nature. +The effect of will has vanished. The thing is a prey to all that environment +which, once alive, it combated, conquered, and transformed to its own use. One +portion after another is lost, until at last only the most resisting stands—the +skeleton and hard framework, the least expressive, the least personal part of +the whole. This also decays and perishes. Then there remains no more but a +score of hardened fragments that linger in their place, and what has passed +away is fortunate if even the slightest or most fantastic legend of itself +survives. +</p> + +<p> +The great dead are first forgotten in their physical habit; we lose the nature +of their voices, we forget their sympathies and their affections. Bit by bit +all that they intended to be eternal slips back into the common thing around. A +blurred image, growing fainter and fainter, lingers. At last the person +vanishes, and in its place some public raising material things—a monument, a +tomb, an ornament, or weapon of enduring metal—is all that remains. +</p> + +<p> +If it were possible for the spring of appetite and quest to be dried up in man, +such a spectacle would dry up that spring. +</p> + +<p> +It is not possible, for it is providentially in the nature of man to cherish +these illusions of an immortal memory and of a life bestowed upon the shade or +the mere name of his living greatness. Those various forms of fame which are +young men’s goals, and to which the eager creative power of early manhood so +properly directs itself, seem each in turn or each for its varying temperament +to promise the desired reward; and one imagines that his love, another that his +discoveries, another that his victories in the field or his conspicuous acts of +courage will remain permanently with his fellows long after he has left their +feast. +</p> + +<p> +As though to give some substance to the flattering cheat, there is one kind of +fame which men have been permitted to attain, and which does give them a sort +of fixed tenure—if not for ever, yet for generations upon generations—in the +human city. This sort of fame is the fame of the great poets. There is nothing +more enduring. It has for some who were most blessed outlasted, you may say, +all material things which they handled or they knew—all fabrics, all +instruments, all habitations. It is comparable in its endurance to the years, +and a man reads the “Song of Roland” and can still look on that same unchanged +Cleft of Roncesvalles, or a man reads the Iliad and can look to-day westward +from the shores to Tenedos. But wait a moment. Are they indeed blessed in this, +the great poets? Ronsard debated it. He decided that they were, and put into +the mouth of the muses the great lines:—— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Mais un tel accident n’arrive point a l’âme,<br/> +Qui sans matière vist immortelle là haut. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="poem"> +Vela saigement dit, Ceux dont la fantaisie<br/> + Sera religieuse et devote envers Dieu<br/> +Tousjours acheveront quelque grand poésie,<br/> + Et dessus leur renom la Parque n’aura lieu. +</p> + +<p> +But the matter is still undecided. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap33">Mr. The Duke: The Man of Malplaquet</a></h2> + +<p> +On the field of Malplaquet, that battlefield, I met a man. +</p> + +<p> +He was pointed out to me as a man who drove travellers to Bavai. His name was +Mr. The Duke, and he was very poor. +</p> + +<p> +If he comes across these lines (which is exceedingly unlikely) I offer him my +apologies. Anyhow, I can write about him freely, for he is not rich, and, what +is more, the laws of his country permit the telling of the truth about our +fellow-men, even when they are rich. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. The Duke was of some years, and his colour was that of cedar wood. I met +him in his farmyard, and I said to him: +</p> + +<p> +“Is it you, sir, that drive travellers to Bavai?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +Accustomed by many years of travel to this type of response, I continued: +</p> + +<p> +“How much do you charge?” +</p> + +<p> +“Two francs fifty,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“I will give you three francs,” I said, and when I had said this he shook his +head and replied: +</p> + +<p> +“You fall at an evil moment; I was about to milk the cows.” Having said this he +went to harness the horse. +</p> + +<p> +When the horse was harnessed to his little cart (it was an extremely small +horse, full of little bones and white in colour, with one eye stronger than the +other) he gave it to his little daughter to hold, and himself sat down to +table, proposing a meal. +</p> + +<p> +“It is but humble fare,” he said, “for we are poor.” +</p> + +<p> +This sounded familiar to me; I had both read and heard it before. The meal was +of bread and butter, pasty and beer, for Malplaquet is a country of beer and +not of wine. +</p> + +<p> +As he sat at table the old man pointed out to me that contraband across the +Belgian frontier, which is close by, was no longer profitable. +</p> + +<p> +“The Fraud,” he said, “is no longer a living for anyone.” +</p> + +<p> +Upon that frontier contraband is called “The Fraud”; it holds an honourable +place as a career. +</p> + +<p> +“The Fraud,” he continued, “has gone long ago; it has burst. It is no longer to +be pursued. There is not even any duty upon apples.... But there is a duty upon +pears. Had I a son I would not put him into The Fraud.... Sometimes there is +just a chance here and there.... One can pick up an occasion. But take it all +in all (and here he wagged his head solemnly) there is nothing in it any more.” +</p> + +<p> +I said that I had no experience of contraband professionally, but that I knew a +very honest man who lived by it in the country of Andorra, and that according +to my morals a man had a perfect right to run the risk and take his chance, for +there was no contract between him and the power he was trying to get round. +This announcement pleased the old gentleman, but it did not grip his mind. He +was of your practical sort. He was almost a Pragmatist. Abstractions wearied +him. He put no faith in the reality of ideas. I think he was a Nominalist like +Abelard: and whatever excuse you may make for him, Abelard was a Nominalist +right enough, for it was the intellectual thing to be at the time, though St. +Bernard utterly confuted him in arguments of enormous length and incalculable +boredom. +</p> + +<p> +The old man, then, I say, would have nothing to do with first principles, and +he reasserted his position that, in the concrete, in the existent world, The +Fraud no longer paid. +</p> + +<p> +This said for the sixth or seventh time, he drank some brandy to put heart into +him and climbed up into his little cart, I by his side. He hit the white horse +with a stick, making at the same time an extraordinary shrill noise with his +mouth, like a siren, and the horse began to slop and sludge very dolefully +towards Bavai. +</p> + +<p> +“This horse,” said Mr. The Duke, “is a wonderfully good horse. He goes like the +wind. He is of Arab extraction, and comes from Africa.” +</p> + +<p> +With these words he gave the horse another huge blow with his stick, and once +more emitted his piercing cry. The horse went neither faster nor slower than +before, and seemed very indifferent to the whole performance. +</p> + +<p> +“He is from Africa,” said Mr. The Duke again, meditatively. “Do you know +Africa?” +</p> + +<p> +Africa with the French populace means Algiers. I answered that I knew it, and +that in particular I knew the road southward from Constantine. At this he +looked very pleased, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“I was a soldier in Africa. I deserted seven times.” +</p> + +<p> +To this I made no answer. I did not know how he wanted me to take it, so I +waited until he should speak again, which he soon did, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“The last time I deserted I was free for a year and a half. I used to conduct +beasts; that was my trade. When they caught me I was to have been shot. I was +saved by the tears of a woman!” +</p> + +<p> +Having said this the old man pulled out a very small pipe and filled it with +exceedingly black tobacco. He lit it, then he began talking again rather more +excitedly. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a terrible thing and an unhappy thing none the less,” he went on, “that +a man should be taken out to be shot and should be saved by the tears of a +woman.” Then he added, “Of what use are wars? How foolish it is that men should +kill each other! If there were a war I would not fight. Would you?” +</p> + +<p> +I said I thought I would; but whether I should like to or not would depend upon +the war. +</p> + +<p> +He was eager to contradict and to tell me that war was wrong and stupid. Having +behind him the logical training of fifteen Christian centuries he was in no way +muddle-headed upon the matter. He saw very well that his doctrine meant that it +was wrong to have a country, and wrong to love it, and that patriotism was all +bosh, and that no ideal was worth physical pain or trouble. To such conclusions +had he come at the end of his life. +</p> + +<p> +The white horse meanwhile slouched; Bavai grew somewhat nearer as we sat in +silence after his last sentence. He was turning many things over in his mind. +He veered off on to political economy. +</p> + +<p> +“When the rich man at the Manufactory here, the place where they sell +phosphates for the land, when he stands beer to all the workmen and to the +countryside, I always say, ‘Fools! All this will be put on to the cost of the +phosphates; they will cost you more!’” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. The Duke did not accept John Stuart Mill’s proposition upon the cost of +production nor the general theories of Ricardo upon which Mill’s propositions +were based. In his opinion rent was a factor in the cost of production, for he +told me that butter had gone up because the price of land was rising near the +towns. In what he next said I found out that he was not a Collectivist, for he +said a man should own enough to live upon, but he said that this was impossible +if rich people were allowed to live. I asked him what the politics of the +countryside were and how people voted. He said: +</p> + +<p> +“The politicians trick the people. They are a heap of worthlessness.” +</p> + +<p> +I asked him if he voted, and he said “yes.” He said there was only one way to +vote, but I did not understand what this meant. +</p> + +<p> +Had time served I should have asked him further questions—upon the nature of +the soul, its ultimate fate, the origin of man and his destiny, whether mortal +or immortal; the proper constitution of the State, the choice of the +legislator, the prince, and the magistrate; the function of art, whether it is +subsidiary or primary in human life; the family; marriage. Upon the State he +had already informed me, and also upon the institution of property, and upon +his view of armies. Upon all those other things he would equally have given me +a clear reply, for he was a man that knew his own mind, and that is more than +most people can say. +</p> + +<p> +But we were now in Bavai, and I had no time to discover more. We drank together +before we parted, and I was very pleased to see the honest look in his face. +With more leisure and born to greater opportunities he would have been talked +about, this Man of Malplaquet. He had come to his odd conclusions as the funny +people do in Scandinavia and in Russia, and among the rich intellectuals and +usurers in London and Berlin; but he was a jollier man than they are, for he +could drive a horse and lie about it, and he could also milk a cow. As we +parted he used a phrase that wounded me, and which I had only heard once before +in my life. He said: +</p> + +<p> +“We shall never see each other again!” +</p> + +<p> +Another man had once said this thing to me before. This man was a farmer in the +Northumbrian hills, who walked with me a little way in the days when I was +going over Carter Fell to find the Scots people, many, many years ago. He also +said: “We shall never meet again!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap34">The Game of Cards</a></h2> + +<p> +A youth of no more than twenty-three years entered a first-class carriage at +the famous station of Swindon in the county of Wiltshire, proposing to travel +to the uttermost parts of the West and to enjoy a comfortable loneliness while +he ruminated upon all things human and divine; when he was sufficiently annoyed +to discover that in the further corner of the carriage was sitting an old +gentleman of benevolent appearance, or at any rate a gentleman of benevolent +appearance who appeared in his youthful eyes to be old. +</p> + +<p> +For though the old gentleman was, as a fact, but sixty, yet his virile beard +had long gone white and the fringes of hair attaching to his ostrich egg of a +head confirmed his venerable appearance. +</p> + +<p> +When the train had started the young man proceeded in no very good temper and +with great solemnity to fill a pipe. He turned to his senior, who was watching +him in a very paternal and happy manner, and said formally: +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you do not mind my smoking, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said the old boy; “it is a habit I have long grown accustomed to +in others.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man bowed in a somewhat absurd fashion and felt for his matches. He +discovered to his no small mortification that he had none. He was so used to +his pipe after a meal that he really could not forgo it. He came off his perch +by at least three steps and asked the old man very gently whether he had any +matches. +</p> + +<p> +The older man produced a box and at the same time brought out with it a little +notebook and a playing card which happened to be in his pocket. The young man +took the matches and lit his pipe, surveying the old man the while with a more +complacent eye. +</p> + +<p> +“It is very kind of you, sir,” he said a little less stiffly. He handed back +the matches, wrapped his rug round his legs, sat down in his place, and knowing +that one should prolong the conversation for a moment or two after a favour, +said: “I see that you play cards.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” said the old man simply; “would you like a game?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind,” said the young man, who had always heard that it was unmanly +and ridiculous to refuse a game of cards in a railway carriage. +</p> + +<p> +The elder man laughed merrily in his strong beard as he saw his junior begin to +spread somewhat awkwardly a copy of a newspaper upon his knees. “I’ll show you +a trick worth two of that,” he said, and taking one of the first-class +cushions, which alone of railway cushions are movable from its place, he came +over to the corner opposite the young man and made a table of the cushion +between them. “Now,” said he genially, “what’s it to be?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the young man like one who expounds new mysteries, “do you know +piquet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said his companion with another happy little laugh of contentment +with the world. “I’ll take you on. What shall it be?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pennies if you like,” said the young man nonchalantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, and double for the Rubicon.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you mean?” said the young man, puzzled. +</p> + +<p> +“You will see,” said the old man, and they began to play. +</p> + +<p> +The game was singularly absorbing. At first the young man won a few pounds; +then he lost rather heavily, then he won again, but not quite enough to recoup. +Then in the fourth game he won, so that he was a little ahead, and meanwhile +the old man chatted merrily during the discarding or the shuffling: during the +shuffling especially. He looked out towards the downs with something of a sigh +at one moment, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a happy world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” answered the younger man with the proper lugubriousness of youth, “but +it all comes to an end.” +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t its coming to an end,” said the elder man, declaring a point of six, +“that’s not the tragedy; it’s the little bits coming to an end meanwhile, +before the whole comes to an end: that’s the tragedy....” But he added with +another of his jolly laughs: “We must play. Piquet takes up all one’s grey +matter.” +</p> + +<p> +They played and the young man lost again, but by a very narrow margin: it was +quite an absorbing game. As they shuffled again the young man said: +</p> + +<p> +“What did you mean by the little bits stopping, or whatever it was?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said the old man as though he couldn’t remember, and then he added: “Oh, +yes, I mean you’ll find, as you grow older, people die and affections change, +and, though it seems silly to mention it in company with higher things, there’s +what Shelley called the ‘contagion of the world’s slow stain.’” +</p> + +<p> +Then their conversation was interrupted by the ardour of the game; but as they +played the young man was ruminating, and he had come to the conclusion that his +senior was imperfectly educated and was probably of the middle classes, whereas +he himself was destined to be a naval architect, and with that object had +recently left the university for an office in the city. The young man thought +that a man properly educated would never quote a tag: he was wrong there. As he +had allowed his thoughts to wander somewhat the young man lost that game rather +heavily, and at the end of it he was altogether about ten shillings to the bad. +It was his turn to shuffle. The older man was at leisure to speak, and did so +rather dreamily as he gazed at the landscape again. +</p> + +<p> +“Things change, you know,” he said, “and there is the contagion of the world’s +slow stain. One gets preoccupied: especially about money. When men marry they +get very much preoccupied upon that point. It’s bad for them, but it can’t be +helped.” +</p> + +<p> +“You cut,” said the young man. +</p> + +<p> +His elder cut and they played again. This time as they played their game the +old man broke his rule of silence and continued his observations interruptedly: +</p> + +<p> +“Four kings,” he said.... “It isn’t that a man gets to think money +all-important, it is that he has to think of it all the time.... No, three +queens are no good. I said four kings.... four knaves.... The little losses of +money don’t affect one, but perpetual trouble about it does, and” (closing up +the majority of tricks which he had just gained) “many a man goes on making +more year after year and yet feels himself in peril.... <i>And</i> the last +trick.” He took up the cards to shuffle them. “Towards the very end of life,” +he continued, “it gets less, I suppose, but you’ll feel the burden of it.” He +put the pack over for the younger man to cut. When that was done he dealt them +out slowly. As he dealt he said: “One feels the loss of little material things: +objects to which one was attached, a walking-stick, or a ring, or a watch which +one has carried for years. Your declare.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man declared, and that game was played in silence. I regret to say +that the young man was Rubiconed, and was thirty shillings in the elder’s debt. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll stop if you like” said the elder man kindly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” said the youth with nonchalance, “I’ll pay you now if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all, I didn’t mean that,” said the older man with a sudden prick of +honour. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but I will, and we’ll start fair again,” said the young man. Whereupon he +handed over his combined losses in gold, the older man gave him change, they +shuffled again, and they went on with their play. +</p> + +<p> +“After all,” said the older man, musing as he confessed to a point of no more +than five, “it’s all in the day’s work.... It’s just a day’s work,” he repeated +with a saddened look in his eyes, “it’s a game that one plays like this game, +and then when it’s over it’s over. It’s the little losses that count.” +</p> + +<p> +That game again was unfortunate for the young man, and he had to shell out +fifteen and six. But the brakes were applied, Bristol was reached, the train +came to a standstill, and the young man, looking up a little confused and +hurried, said: “Hello, Bristol! I get out here.” +</p> + +<p> +“So do I,” said the older man. They both stood up together, and the jolt of the +train as it stopped dead threw them into each other’s arms. +</p> + +<p> +“I am really very sorry,” said the youth. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my fault,” said the old chap like a good fellow, “I ought to have caught +hold. You get out and I’ll hand you your bag.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very kind of you,” said the young man. He was really flattered by so much +attention, but he knew himself what a good companion he was and he could +understand it; besides which they had made friends during that little journey. +He always liked a man to whom he had lost some money in an honest game. +</p> + +<p> +There was a heavy crowd upon the platform, and two men barging up out of it +saluted the old man boisterously by the name of Jack. He twinkled at them with +his eyes as he began moving the luggage about, and stood for a moment in the +doorway with his own bag in his right hand and the young man’s bag in his left. +The young man so saw it for an instant, a fine upstanding figure—he saw his bag +handed by some mistake to the second of the old man’s friends, a porter came by +at the moment pushing through the crowd with a trolley, an old lady made a +scene, the porter apologized, the crowd took sides, some for the porter, some +for the old lady; the young man, with the deference of his age, politely asked +several people to make way, but when he had emerged from the struggle his +companion, his companion’s friends, and his own bag could not be found; or at +any rate he could not make out where they were in the great mass that pushed +and surged upon the platform. +</p> + +<p> +He made himself a little conspicuous by asking too many questions and by losing +his temper twice with people who had done him no harm, when, just as his +excitement was growing more than querulous, a very heavy, stupid-looking man in +regulation boots tapped him on the shoulder and said: “Follow me.” He was +prepared with an oath by way of reply, but another gentleman of equal weight, +wearing boots of the same pattern, linked his arm in his and between them they +marched him away, to a little private closet opening out of the stationmaster’s +room. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, sir,” said he who had first tapped him on the shoulder, “be good enough +to explain your movements.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you mean,” said the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“You were in the company,” said the older man severely, “of an old man, bald, +with a white beard and a blue sailor suit. He had come from London; you joined +him at Swindon. We have evidence that he was to be met at this station and it +will be to your advantage if you make a clean breast of it.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man was violent and he was borne away. +</p> + +<p> +But he had friends at Bristol. He gave his references and he was released. To +this day he believes that he suffered not from folly, but from injustice. He +did not see his bag again, but after all it contained no more than his evening +clothes, for which he had paid or rather owed six guineas, four shirts, as many +collars and dress ties, a silver-mounted set of brushes and combs, and useless +cut-glass bottles, a patented razor, a stick of shaving soap, and two very, +very confidential letters which he treasured. His watch, of course, was gone, +but not, I am glad to say, his chain, which hung dangling, though in his flurry +he had not noticed it. It made him look a trifle ridiculous. As he wore no +tie-pin he had not lost that, and beyond his temper he had indeed lost nothing +further save, possibly, a textbook upon Thermodynamics. This book he +<i>thought</i> he remembered having put into the bag, and if he had it belonged +to his library, but he could not quite remember this point, and when the +Library claimed it he stoutly disputed their claim. +</p> + +<p> +In this dispute he was successful, but it was the only profit he made out of +that journey, unless we are to count his experience, and experience, as all the +world knows, is a thing that men must buy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap35">“King Lear”</a></h2> + +<p> +The great unity which was built up two thousand years ago and was called +Christendom in its final development split and broke in pieces. The various +civilizations of its various provinces drifted apart, and it will be for the +future historian to say at what moment the isolation of each from all was +farthest pushed. It is certain that that point is passed. +</p> + +<p> +In the task of reuniting what was broken—it is the noblest work a modern man +can do—the very first mechanical act must be to explain one national soul to +another. That act is not final. The nations of Europe, now so divided, still +have more in common than those things by which they differ, and it is certain +that when they have at last revealed to them their common origin they will +return to it. They will return to it, perhaps, under the pressure of war waged +by some not Christian civilization, but they will return. In the meanwhile, of +those acts not final, yet of immediate necessity in the task of establishing +unity, is the act of introducing one national soul to another. +</p> + +<p> +Now this is best accomplished in a certain way which I will describe. You will +take that part in the letters of a nation which you maturely judge most or best +to reflect the full national soul, with its qualities, careless of whether +these be great or little; you will take such a work as reproduces for you as +you read it, not only in its sentiment, but in its very rhythm, the stuff and +colour of the nation; this you will present to the foreigner, who cannot +understand. His efforts must be laborious, very often unfruitful, but where it +is fruitful it will be of a decisive effect. +</p> + +<p> +Thus let anyone take some one of the immortal things that Racine wrote and show +them to an Englishman. He will hardly ever be able to make anything of it at +first. Here and there some violently emotional passage may faintly touch him, +but the mass of the verse will seem to him dead. Now, if by constant reading, +by association with those who know what Racine is, he at last sees him—and +these changes in the mind come very suddenly—he will see into the soul of Gaul. +For the converse task, to-day not equally difficult but once almost impossible, +of presenting England to the French intelligence—or, indeed, to any other alien +intelligence—you may choose the play “King Lear.” +</p> + +<p> +That play has every quality which does reflect the soul of the community in +which and for which it was written. Note a few in their order. +</p> + +<p> +First, it is not designed to its end; at least it is not designed accurately to +its end; it is written as a play and it is meant to be acted as a play, and it +is the uniform opinion of those versed in plays and in acting that in its full +form it could hardly be presented, while in any form it is the hardest even of +Shakespeare’s plays to perform. Here you have a parallel with a thousand mighty +English things to which you can turn. Is there not institution after +institution to decide on, so lacking a complete fitness to its end, larger in a +way than the end it is to serve, and having, as it were, a life of its own +which proceeds apart from its effect? This quality which makes so many English +things growths rather than instruments is most evident in the great play. +</p> + +<p> +Again, it has that quality which Voltaire noted, which he thought abnormal in +Shakespeare, but which is the most national characteristic in him, that a sort +of formlessness, if it mars the framework of the thing and spoils it, yet also +permits the exercise of an immeasurable vitality. When a man has read “King +Lear” and lays down the book he is like one who has been out in one of those +empty English uplands in a storm by night. It is written as though the pen bred +thoughts. It is possible to conjecture as one reads, and especially in the +diatribes, that the pen itself was rapid and the brain too rapid for the pen. +One feels the rush of the air. Now, this quality is to be discovered in the +literature of many nations, but never with the fullness which it has in the +literature of England. And note that in those phases of the national life when +foreign models have constrained this instinct of expansion in English verse, +they never have restrained it for long, and that even through the bonds +established by those models the instinct of expansion breaks. You see it in the +exuberance of Dryden and in the occasional running rhetoric of Pope, until it +utterly loosens itself with the end of the eighteenth century. +</p> + +<p> +The play is national, again, in that permanent curiosity upon knowable +things—nay, that mysterious half-knowledge of unknowable things—which, in its +last forms, produced the mystic, and which is throughout history so plainly +characteristic of these Northern Atlantic islands. Every play of Shakespeare +builds with that material, and no writer, even of the English turn, has sent +out points further into the region of what is not known than Shakespeare has in +sudden flashes of phrase. But “King Lear,” though it contains a lesser number +of lines of this mystical and half-religious effect than, say, “Hamlet,” yet as +a general impression is the more mystical of the two plays. The element of +madness, which in “Hamlet” hangs in the background like a storm-cloud ready to +break, in “King Lear” rages; and it is the use of this which lends its amazing +psychical power to the play. It has been said (with no great profundity of +criticism) that English fiction is chiefly remarkable for its power of +particularization of character, and that where French work, for instance, will +present ideas, English will present persons. The judgment is grossly +insufficient, and therefore false, but it is based upon a proof which is very +salient in English letters, which is that, say, in quite short and modern work +the sense of complete unity deadens the English mind. The same nerve which +revolts at a straight road and at a code of law revolts against one tone of +thought, and the sharp contrast of emotional character, not the dual contrast +which is common to all literatures, but the multiple contrast, runs through +“King Lear” and gives the work such a tone that one seems as one reads it to be +moving in a cloud. +</p> + +<p> +The conclusion is perhaps Shakespearean rather than English, and in a fashion +escapes from any national labelling. But the note of silence which Shakespeare +suddenly brings in upon the turmoil, and with which he is so fond of completing +what he has done, would not be possible were not that spirit of expansion and +of a kind of literary adventurousness present in all that went before. +</p> + +<p> +It is indeed this that makes the play so memorable. And it may not be fantastic +to repeat and expand what has been said above in other words, namely, that King +Lear has something about him which seems to be a product of English landscape +and of English weather, and if its general movement is a storm its element is +one of those sudden silences that come sometimes with such magical rapidity +after the booming of the wind. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap36">The Excursion</a></h2> + +<p> +It is so old a theme that I really hesitate to touch it; and yet it is so true +and so useful that I will. It is true all the time, and it is particularly +useful at this season of the year to men in cities: to all repetitive men: to +the men that read these words. What is more, true as it is and useful as it is, +no amount of hammering at people seems to get this theme into their practice; +though it has long ago entered into their convictions they will not act upon it +in their summers. And this true and useful theme is the theme of little +freedoms and discoveries, the value of getting loose and away by a small trick +when you want to get your glimpse of Fairyland. +</p> + +<p> +Now how does one get loose and away? +</p> + +<p> +When a man says to himself that he must have a holiday he means that he must +see quite new things that are also old: he desires to open that door which +stood wide like a window in childhood and is now shut fast. But where are the +new things that are also the old? Paradoxical fellows who deserve drowning tell +one that they are at our very doors. Well, that is true of the eager mind, but +the mind is no longer eager when it is in need of a holiday. And you can get at +the new things that are also the old by way of drugs, but drugs are a poor sort +of holiday fabric. If you have stored up your memory well with much experience +you can get these things from your memory—but only in a pale sort of way. +</p> + +<p> +I think the best avenue to recreation by the magical impressions of the world +upon the mind is this: To go to some place to which the common road leads you +and then to get just off the common road. You will be astonished to find how +strange the world becomes in the first mile—and how strange it remains till the +common road is reached again. +</p> + +<p> +It always sounds like a mockery for a man who has travelled to a great many +places, as I have, to advise his fellows to travel abroad; they are most of +them hard tied. Yet it is really a much easier thing than men bound to the desk +and the workshop understand. Britain is but one great port, and its inward seas +are narrow—and the fares are ridiculously low. If you are a young man you can +go almost anywhere for almost anything, sitting up by night on deck, and not +expecting too much courtesy. But, of course, if you shirk the sea you are a +prisoner. +</p> + +<p> +Well, then, supposing you abroad, or even in some other part of this highly +varied kingdom in which you live, and supposing you to have reached some chosen +place by some common road—what I desire to dilate upon here is the truth which +every little excursion of business or of leisure (and precious few of leisure) +makes me more certain of every day: That just a little way off the road is +fairyland. +</p> + +<p> +It was exactly three days ago that I had occasion to go down the railway line +that is the most frequented in Europe: I was on business, not leisure, but in +the business I had two days’ leisure, and I did what I would advise all other +men to do in such a circumstance. +</p> + +<p> +I took a train to nowhere, fixing my starting-point thus:— +</p> + +<p> +I first looked at the map and saw where nearest to me was a quadrilateral bare +of railways. This formula, to look for a quadrilateral bare of railways, is a +very useful formula for the man who is seeking another world. Then I fixed at +random upon one little roadside station upon the main line; I determined to get +out there and to walk aimlessly and westward until I should strike the other +side of the quadrilateral. I made no plan, not even of the hours of the day. +</p> + +<p> +I came into my roadside station at half-past eight of the long summer night, +broad daylight that is, but with night advancing. I got out and began my +westward march. At once there crowded upon me any number of unexpected and +entertaining things! +</p> + +<p> +The first thing I found was a street which was used by horses as well as by +men, and yet was made up of broad steps. It was a sort of stair-case going up a +hill. At the top of it I found a woman leading a child by the hand. I asked her +the name of the steps. She told me they were called “The Steps of St. John.” +</p> + +<p> +A quarter of a mile further down the narrow lane I saw to my astonishment an +enormous castle, ruined and open to the sky. There are many such ruins famous +in Europe, but of this one I had never even heard. I went lonely under the +evening and looked at its main gate and saw on it a moulded escutcheon, carved, +and the motto in French, “Henceforward,” which word made me think a great deal, +but resolved no problem in my mind. +</p> + +<p> +I went on again westward as the darkness fell and saw what I had not seen +before, though my reading had told me of its existence, a long line of trees +marking a ridge on the horizon, which line was the border of that ancient road +the Roman soldiers built leading from the west into Amiens. “Along that road,” +thought I, “St. Martin rode before he became a monk, and while he was yet a +soldier and was serving under Julian the Apostate. Along that road he came to +the west gate of Amiens and there cut his cloak in two and gave the half of it +to a beggar.” +</p> + +<p> +The memory of St. Martin’s deed entertained me for some miles of my way, and I +remembered how, when I was a child, it had seemed to me ridiculous to cut your +coat in two whether for a beggar or for anybody else. Not that I thought +charity ridiculous—God forbid!—but that a coat seemed to me a thing you could +not cut in two with any profit to the user of either half. You might cut it in +latitude and turn it into an Eton jacket and a kilt, neither of much use to a +Gallo-Roman beggar. Or you might cut it in meridian and leave but one sleeve: +mere folly. +</p> + +<p> +Considering these things, I went on over the rolling plateau. I saw a great owl +flying before me against the sky, different from the owls of home. I saw +Jupiter shining above a cloud and Venus shining below one. The long light +lingered in the north above the English sea. At last I came quite unexpectedly +upon that delight and plaything of the French: a light railway, or steam tram +such as that people build in great profusion to link up their villages and +their streams. The road where I came upon it made a level crossing, and there +was a hut there, and a woman living in it who kept the level crossing and +warned the passers-by. She told me no more trains, or rather little trams, +would pass that night, but that three miles further on I should come to a place +called “The Mills of the Vidame.” +</p> + +<p> +Now the name “Vidame” reminded me that a “Vidame” was the lay protector of a +Cathedral Chapter in feudal times, so the name gave me a renewed pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +But it was now near midnight, and when I came to this village I remembered how +in similar night walks I had sometimes been refused lodging. When I got among +the few houses all was dark. I found, however, in the darkness two young men, +each bearing an enormous curled trumpet of the kind which the French call +<i>cors de chasse</i>, that is, hunting horns, so I asked them where the inn +was. They took me to it and woke up the hostess, who received us with oaths. +This she did lest the young men with hunting horns should demand a commission. +Her heart, however, was better than her mouth, and she put me up, but she +charged me tenpence for my room, counting coffee in the morning, which was, I +am sure, more than her usual rate. +</p> + +<p> +Next day I took the little steam tram away from the place and went on vaguely +whither it should please God to take me, until the plateau changed and the +light railway fell into a charming valley, and, seeing a town rooted therein, I +got out and paid my fare and visited the town. In this town I went to church, +as it was early morning (you must excuse the foible), and, coming out of +church, I had an argument with a working man upon the matter of religion, in +which argument, as I believe, I was the victor. I then went on north out of +this town and came into a wood of enormous size. It was miles and miles across, +and the trees were higher than anything I have seen outside of California. It +was an enchanted wood. The sun shone down through a hundred feet of silence by +little rounds between the leaves, and there was silence everywhere. In this +wood I sojourned all day long, making slowly westward, till, in the very midst +of it, I found a troubled man. He was a man of middle age, short, intelligent, +fat, and weary. He said to me: +</p> + +<p> +“Have you noticed any special mark upon the trees? A white mark of the number +90?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said I. “Are there any wild boars in this forest?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he answered, “a few, but not of use. I am looking for trees marked in +white with the number 90. I have paid a price for them, and I cannot find +them.” +</p> + +<p> +I saluted him and went on my way. At last I came to an open clearing, where +there was a town, and in the town I found a very delightful inn, where they +would cook anything one felt inclined for, within reason, and charged one very +moderately indeed. I have retained its name. +</p> + +<p> +By this time I was completely lost, and in the heart of Fairyland, when +suddenly I remembered that everyone that strikes root in Fairyland loses +something, at the least his love and at the worst his soul, and that it is a +perilous business to linger there, so I asked them in that hotel how they +worked it when they wanted to go west into the great towns. They put me into an +omnibus, which charged me fourpence for a journey of some two miles. It took +me, as Heaven ordained, to a common great railway, and that common great +railway took me through the night to the town of Dieppe, which I have known +since I could speak and before, and which was about as much of Fairyland to me +as Piccadilly or Monday morning. +</p> + +<p> +Thus ended those two days, in which I had touched again the unknown places—and +all that heaven was but two days, and cost me not fifty shillings. +</p> + +<p> +Excuse the folly of this. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap37">The Tide</a></h2> + +<p> +I wish I had been one of those men who first sailed beyond the Pillars of +Hercules and first saw, as they edged northward along a barbarian shore, the +slow swinging of the sea. How much, I wonder, did they think themselves +enlarged? How much did they know that all the civilization behind them, the +very ancient world of the Mediterranean, was something protected and enclosed +from which they had escaped into an outer world? And how much did they feel +that here they were now physically caught by the moving tides that bore them in +the whole movement of things? +</p> + +<p> +For the tide is of that kind; and the movement of the sea four times daily back +and forth is a consequence, a reflection, and a part of the ceaseless pulse and +rhythm which animates all things made and which links what seems not living to +what certainly lives and feels and has power over all movement of its own. The +circuits of the planets stretch and then recede. Their ellipses elongate and +flatten again to the semblance of circles. The Poles slowly nod once every many +thousand years, there is a libration to the moon; and in all this vast +harmonious process of come and go the units of it twirl and spin, and, as they +spin, run more gravely in ordered procession round their central star: that +star moves also to a beat, and all the stars of heaven move each in times of +its own as well, and their movement is one thing altogether. Whoever should +receive the mighty business moving in one ear would get the music of it in a +perfect series of chords, superimposed the one upon the other, but not a +tremble of them out of tune. +</p> + +<p> +The great scheme is not infinite, for were it infinite such rhythms could not +be. It was made, and it moves in order to the scheme of its making without +caprice, not wayward anywhere, but in and out and back and forth as to a figure +set for it. It must be so, or these exact arrangements could not be. +</p> + +<p> +Now with this regulated breathing and expiration, playing itself out in a +million ways and co-extensive with the universe of things, the tides keep time, +and they alone of earthly things bring its actual force to our physical +perception, to our daily life. We see the sea in movement and power before us +heaving up whatever it may bear, and we feel in an immediate way its strong +backward sagging when the rocks appear above it as it falls. We have our hand +on the throb of the current turning in a salting river inland between green +hills; we are borne upon it bodily as we sail, its movement kicks the tiller in +our grasp, and the strength beneath us and around us, the rush and the +compulsion of the stream, its silence and as it were its purpose, all represent +to us, immediately and here, that immeasurable to and fro which rules the +skies. +</p> + +<p> +When the Roman soldiers came marching northward with Caesar and first saw the +shores of ocean: when, after that occupation of Gaul which has changed the +world, they first mounted guard upon the quays of the Itian port under +Gris-Nez, or the rocky inlets of the Veneti by St. Malo and the Breton reefs, +they were appalled to see what for centuries chance traders and the few curious +travellers, the men of Marseilles and of the islands, had seen before them. +They saw in numbers and in a corporate way what hitherto individuals alone had +seen; they saw the sea like a living thing, advancing and retreating in an +ordered dance, alive with deep sighs and intakes, and ceaselessly proceeding +about a work and a doing which seemed to be the very visible action of an +unchanging will still pleased with calculated change. It was the presence of +the Roman army upon the shores of the Channel which brought the Tide into the +general conscience of Europe, and that experience, I think, was among the +greatest, perhaps the greatest, of those new things which rushed upon the mind +of the Empire when it launched itself by the occupation of Gaul. +</p> + +<p> +The tide, when it is mentioned in brief historical records of times long since, +suddenly strikes one with vividness and with familiarity, so that the past is +introduced at once, presented to us physically, and obtruded against our modern +senses alive. I know of no other physical thing mentioned in this fashion, in +chronicle or biography, which has so powerful an effect to restore the reality +of a dead century. +</p> + +<p> +The Venerable Bede is speaking in one place of Southampton Water, in his +ecclesiastical history, or, rather, of the Isle of Wight, whence those two +Princes were baptized and died under Cadwalla. As the historian speaks of the +place he says: +</p> + +<p> +“In this sea” (which is the Solent) “comes a double tide out of the seas which +spring from the infinite ocean of the Arctic surrounding all Britain.” +</p> + +<p> +And he tells us how these double tides rush together and fight together, +sweeping as they do round either side of the island by the Needles and by +Spithead into the land-locked sheet within. +</p> + +<p> +Now that passage in Bede’s fourth book is more real to me than anything in all +his chronicle, for in Southampton Water to-day the living thing which we still +note as we sail is the double tide. You take a falling tide at the head of the +water, near Southampton Town, and if you are not quick with your business it is +checked in two hours and you meet a strange flood, the second flood, before you +have rounded Calshott Castle. +</p> + +<p> +Then there is a Charter of Newcastle. Or, rather, the inviolable Customs of +that town, very old, drawn up nearly eight hundred years ago, but beginning +from far earlier; and in these customs you find written: +</p> + +<p> +“If a plea shall arise between a burgess and a merchant it must be determined +before the third flowing of the sea”—that is, within three tides; a wise +provision! For thus the merchant would not miss the last tide of the day after +the quarrel. How living it is, a phrase of that sort coming in the midst of +those other phrases! +</p> + +<p> +All the rest, worse luck, has gone. Burgage-tenure, and the economic +independence of the humble, and the busy, healthy life of men working to enrich +themselves, not others, and that corporate association which was the blood of +the Middle Ages, and the power of popular opinion, and, in general, freedom. +But out of all these things that have perished, the tide remains, and in the +eighteen clauses of the Customs, the tidal clause alone stands fresh and still +has meaning. The capital, great clinching clause by which men owned their own +land within the town has gone utterly and altogether. The modern workman on the +Tyne would not understand you perhaps, to whom in that very place you should +say, “Many centuries ago the men that came before you here, your fathers, were +not working precariously at a wage, or paying rent to others, but living under +their own roofs and working for themselves.” There is only one passage in the +document that all could understand in Newcastle to-day—the very few rich who +are hardly secure, the myriads of poor who are not secure at all—and that +passage is the passage which talks of the third tide; for even to-day there is +some good we have left undestroyed and the sea still ebbs and flows. +</p> + +<p> +This little note of the Newcastle men, and of the flowing and the ebbing of +their sea, is to be found, you say, in the archives of England? Not at all! It +is to be found in the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland—at least, so my book +assures me, but why I do not know. Perhaps of the times when between Tyne and +Tees, men looked northward and of the times when they looked southward (for +they alternately did one and the other during many hundreds of years) those +times when they looked northward seemed the more natural to them. Anyhow, the +reference is to the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, and that is the end of +it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap38">On a Great Wind</a></h2> + +<p> +It is an old dispute among men, or rather a dispute as old as mankind, whether +Will be a cause of things or no; nor is there anything novel in those moderns +who affirm that Will is nothing to the matter, save their ignorant belief that +their affirmation is new. +</p> + +<p> +The intelligent process whereby I know that Will not seems but is, and can +alone be truly and ultimately a cause, is fed with stuff and strengthens +sacramentally as it were, whenever I meet, and am made the companion of, a +great wind. +</p> + +<p> +It is not that this lively creature of God is indeed perfected with a soul; +this it would be superstition to believe. It has no more a person than any +other of its material fellows, but in its vagary of way, in the largeness of +its apparent freedom, in its rush of purpose, it seems to mirror the action of +mighty spirit. When a great wind comes roaring over the eastern flats towards +the North Sea, driving over the Fens and the Wringland, it is like something of +this island that must go out and wrestle with the water, or play with it in a +game or a battle; and when, upon the western shores, the clouds come bowling up +from the horizon, messengers, outriders, or comrades of a gale, it is something +of the sea determined to possess the land. The rising and falling of such +power, its hesitations, its renewed violence, its fatigue and final repose—all +these are symbols of a mind; but more than all the rest, its exultation! It is +the shouting and the hurrahing of the wind that suits a man. +</p> + +<p> +Note you, we have not many friends. The older we grow and the better we can +sift mankind, the fewer friends we count, although man lives by friendship. But +a great wind is every man’s friend, and its strength is the strength of +good-fellowship; and even doing battle with it is something worthy and well +chosen. If there is cruelty in the sea, and terror in high places, and malice +lurking in profound darkness, there is no one of these qualities in the wind, +but only power. Here is strength too full for such negations as cruelty, as +malice, or as fear; and that strength in a solemn manner proves and tests +health in our own souls. For with terror (of the sort I mean—terror of the +abyss or panic at remembered pain, and in general, a losing grip of the +succours of the mind), and with malice, and with cruelty, and with all the +forms of that Evil which lies in wait for men, there is the savour of disease. +It is an error to think of such things as power set up in equality against +justice and right living. We were not made for them, but rather for influences +large and soundly poised; we are not subject to them but to other powers that +can always enliven and relieve. It is health in us, I say, to be full of +heartiness and of the joy of the world, and of whether we have such health our +comfort in a great wind is a good test indeed. No man spends his day upon the +mountains when the wind is out, riding against it or pushing forward on foot +through the gale, but at the end of his day feels that he has had a great host +about him. It is as though he had experienced armies. The days of high winds +are days of innumerable sounds, innumerable in variation of tone and of +intensity, playing upon and awakening innumerable powers in man. And the days +of high wind are days in which a physical compulsion has been about us and we +have met pressure and blows, resisted and turned them; it enlivens us with the +simulacrum of war by which nations live, and in the just pursuit of which men +in companionship are at their noblest. +</p> + +<p> +It is pretended sometimes (less often perhaps now than a dozen years ago) that +certain ancient pursuits congenial to man will be lost to him under his new +necessities; thus men sometimes talk foolishly of horses being no longer +ridden, houses no longer built of wholesome wood and stone, but of metal; meat +no more roasted, but only baked; and even of stomachs grown too weak for wine. +There is a fashion of saying these things, and much other nastiness. Such talk +is (thank God!) mere folly; for man will always at last tend to his end, which +is happiness, and he will remember again to do all those things which serve +that end. So it is with the uses of the wind, and especially the using of the +wind with sails. +</p> + +<p> +No man has known the wind by any of its names who has not sailed his own boat +and felt life in the tiller. Then it is that a man has most to do with the +wind, plays with it, coaxes or refuses it, is wary of it all along; yields when +he must yield, but comes up and pits himself again against its violence; trains +it, harnesses it, calls it if it fails him, denounces it if it will try to be +too strong, and in every manner conceivable handles this glorious playmate. +</p> + +<p> +As for those who say that men did but use the wind as an instrument for +crossing the sea, and that sails were mere machines to them, either they have +never sailed or they were quite unworthy of sailing. It is not an accident that +the tall ships of every age of varying fashions so arrested human sight and +seemed so splendid. The whole of man went into their creation, and they +expressed him very well; his cunning, and his mastery, and his adventurous +heart. For the wind is in nothing more capitally our friend than in this, that +it has been, since men were men, their ally in the seeking of the unknown and +in their divine thirst for travel which, in its several aspects—pilgrimage, +conquest, discovery, and, in general, enlargement—is one prime way whereby man +fills himself with being. +</p> + +<p> +I love to think of those Norwegian men who set out eagerly before the +north-east wind when it came down from their mountains in the month of March +like a god of great stature to impel them to the West. They pushed their Long +Keels out upon the rollers, grinding the shingle of the beach at the +fjord-head. They ran down the calm narrows, they breasted and they met the open +sea. Then for days and days they drove under this master of theirs and high +friend, having the wind for a sort of captain, and looking always out to the +sea line to find what they could find. It was the springtime; and men feel the +spring upon the sea even more surely than they feel it upon the land. They were +men whose eyes, pale with the foam, watched for a landfall, that unmistakable +good sight which the wind brings us to, the cloud that does not change and that +comes after the long emptiness of sea days like a vision after the sameness of +our common lives. To them the land they so discovered was wholly new. +</p> + +<p> +We have no cause to regret the youth of the world, if indeed the world were +ever young. When we imagine in our cities that the wind no longer calls us to +such things, it is only our reading that blinds us, and the picture of satiety +which our reading breeds is wholly false. Any man to-day may go out and take +his pleasure with the wind upon the high seas. He also will make his landfalls +to-day, or in a thousand years; and the sight is always the same, and the +appetite for such discoveries is wholly satisfied even though he be only +sailing, as I have sailed, over seas that he has known from childhood, and come +upon an island far away, mapped and well known, and visited for the hundredth +time. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap39">The Letter</a></h2> + +<p> +If you ask me why it is now three weeks since I received your letter and why it +is only today that I answer it, I must tell you the truth lest further things I +may have to tell you should not be worthy of your dignity or of mine. It was +because at first I dared not, then later I reasoned with myself, and so bred +delay, and at last took refuge in more delay. I will offer no excuse: I will +not tell you that I suffered illness, or that some accident of war had taken me +away from this old house, or that I have but just returned from a journey to my +hill and my view over the Plain and the great River. +</p> + +<p> +Your messenger I have kept, and I have entertained him well. I looked at him a +little narrowly at his first coming, thinking perhaps he might be a gentleman +of yours, but I soon found that he was not such, and that he bore no disguise, +but was a plain rider of your household. I put him in good quarters by the +Hunting Stables. He has had nothing to do but to await my resolution, which is +now at last taken, and which you receive in this. +</p> + +<p> +But how shall I begin, or how express to you what not distance but a slow and +bitter conclusion of the mind has done? +</p> + +<p> +I shall not return to Meudon. I shall not see the woods, the summer woods +turning to autumn, nor follow the hunt, nor take pleasure again in what is +still the best of Europe at Versailles. And now that I have said it, you must +read it so; for I am unalterably determined. Believe me, it is something much +more deep than courtesy which compels me to give you my reasons for this final +and irrevocable doom. +</p> + +<p> +We were children together. Though we leant so lightly in our conversations of +this spring upon all we knew in common, I know your age and all your strong +early experience—and you know mine. Your mother will recall that day’s riding +when I came back from my first leave and you were home, not, I think, for good, +from the convent. A fixed domestic habit blinded her, so that she could then +still see in us no more than two children; yet I was proud of my sword, and had +it on, and you that day were proud of a beauty which could no longer be hidden +even from yourself; I would then have sacrificed, and would now, all I had or +was or had or am to have made that beauty immortal. +</p> + +<p> +I say, you remember that day’s riding, and how after it the world was changed +for you and me, and how that same evening the elders saw that it was changed. +</p> + +<p> +You will remember that for two years we were not allowed to meet again. When +the two years were passed we met indeed by a mere accident of that rich and +tedious life wherein we were both now engaged. I was returned from leave before +Tournay; you had heard, I think, a false report that I had been wounded in the +dreadful business at Fontenoy (which to remember even now horrifies me a +little). I had heard and knew which of the great names you now bore by +marriage. The next day it was your husband who rode with me to Marly. I liked +him well enough. I have grown to like him better. He is an honest man, though I +confess his philosophers weary me. When I say “an honest man” I am giving the +highest praise I know. +</p> + +<p> +My dear, that was sixteen years ago. +</p> + +<p> +You may not even now understand, so engrossing is the toilsome and excited +ritual of that rich world at Versailles, how blest you are: your children are +growing round you: your daughters are beginning to reveal your own beauty, and +your sons will show in these next years immediately before us that temper which +in you was a spirit and a height of being, and in them, men, will show as plain +courage. During that long space of years your house has remained well ordered +(it was your husband’s doing). His great fortune and yours have jointly +increased: if I may tell you so, it is a pleasure to all who understand fitness +to know that this is so, and that your lineage and his will hold so great a +place in the State. +</p> + +<p> +As you review those sixteen years you may, if you will—I trust you will +not—recall those occasions when I saw the woods of Meudon and mixed by chance +with your world, and when we renewed the rides which had ended our childhood. +As for me I have not to recall those things. They are, alas, myself, and beyond +them there is nothing that I can call a memory or a being at all. Nevertheless, +as I have told you, I shall not come to Meudon: I shall not hear again the +delightful voices of those many friends (now in mid-life as am I) who are my +equals at Versailles. I shall not see your face. +</p> + +<p> +I did not take service with the Empire from any pique or folly, but from a +necessity for adventure and for the refounding of my house. It might have +chanced that I should marry: the land demanded an heir. My impoverishment +weighed upon me like an ill deed, for all this belt of land is dependent upon +the old house, which I can with such difficulty retain and from which I write +to-day. I spent all those years in the service of the Empire (and even of +Russia) from no uncertain temper and from no imaginary quarrel. It is so common +or so necessary for men and women to misjudge each other that I believe you +thought me wayward, or at least unstable. If you did so you did me a wrong. +Those two good seasons when we met again, and this last of but a month ago, +were not accidents or fitful recoveries. They were all I possessed in my life +and all that will perish with me when I die. +</p> + +<p> +But now, to tell you the very core of my decision, it is this: The years that +pass carry with them an increasing weight at once sombre and majestic. There +are things belonging to youth which habit continues strangely longer than the +season to which they properly belong: if, when we discover them to be too +prolonged as cling to their survival, why, then, we eat dust. So long as we +possess the illusion and so long as the dearest things of youth maintain +unchanged, in one chamber of our life at least, our twentieth year, so long all +is well. But there is a cold river which we must pass in our advance towards +nothingness and age. In the passage of that stream we change: and you and I +have passed it. There is no more endurance in that young mood of ours than in +any other human thing. One always wakes from it at last. One sees what it is. +The soul sees and counts with hard eyes the price at which a continuance of +such high dreams must be purchased, and the heart has a prevision of the evil +that the happy cheat will work as maturity is reached by each of us, and as +each of us fully takes on the burden of the world. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore I must not return. +</p> + +<p> +Foolishly and without thinking of real things, acting as though indeed that +life of dream and of illusion were still possible to me, I yesterday cut with +great care a rose, one from the many that have now grown almost wild upon the +great wall overlooking the Danube. Then ... I could not but smile to myself +when I remembered how by the time that rose should have reached you every petal +would be wasted and fallen in the long week’s ride. There is a fixed term of +life for roses also as for men. I do not cite this to you by way of parable. I +have no heart for tricks of the pen to-night; but the two images came together, +and you will understand. If I do not return, it is for the same reason that I +could not send the rose. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap40">The Regret</a></h2> + +<p> +Everybody knows, I suppose, that kind of landscape in which hills seem to lie +in a regular manner, fold on fold, one range behind the other, until, at last, +behind them all some higher and grander range dominates and frames the whole. +</p> + +<p> +The infinite variety of light and air and accident of soil provide all men save +those who live in the great plains with examples of this sort. The traveller in +the dry air of California or of Spain, watching great distances from the +heights, will recollect such landscapes all his life. They were the reward of +his long ascents and the visions which attended his effort as he climbed up to +the ridge of his horizon. Such a landscape does a man see from the Western +edges of the Guadarrama, looking eastward and south toward the very distant +hills that guard Toledo and the Gulf of the Tagus. Such a landscape does a man +see at sunrise from the highest of the Cevennes looking right eastward to the +dawn as it comes up in the pure and cold air beyond the Alps, and shows you the +falling of the foothills to the Rhone. And by such a landscape is a man +gladdened when upon the escarpments of the Tuolumne he turns back and looks +westward over the plain towards the vast range. +</p> + +<p> +The experience of such a sight is one peculiar in travel, or, for that matter, +if a man is lucky enough to enjoy it at home, insistent and reiterated upon the +mind of the home-dwelling man. Such a landscape, for instance, makes a man +praise God if his house is upon the height of Mendip, and he can look over +falling hills right over the Vale of Severn toward the ridge above ridge of the +Welsh solemnities beyond, until the straight line and high of the Black +Mountains ends his view. +</p> + +<p> +It is the character of these landscapes to suggest at once a vastness, +diversity, and seclusion. When a man comes upon them unexpectedly he can forget +the perpetual toil of men and imagine that those who dwell below in the near +side before him are exempt from the necessities of this world. When such a +landscape is part of a man’s dwelling-place, though he well knows that the +painful life of men within those hills is the same hard business that it is +throughout the world, yet his knowledge is modified and comforted by the +permanent glory of the thing he sees. +</p> + +<p> +The distant and high range that bounds his view makes a sort of veiling, +cutting it off and guarding it from whatever may be beyond. The succession of +lower ranges suggests secluded valleys, and the reiterated woods, distant and +more distant, convey an impression of fertility more powerful than that of corn +in harvest upon the lowlands. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes it is a whole province that is thus grasped by the eye, sometimes in +the summer haze but a few miles; always this scenery inspires the onlooker with +a sense of completion and of repose, and at the same time, I think, with +worship and with awe. +</p> + +<p> +Now one such group of valleys there was, hill above hill, forest above forest, +and beyond it a great noble range, unwooded and high against heaven, guarding +it, which I for my part knew when first I knew anything of this world. There is +a high place under fir trees, a place of sand and bracken, in South England +whence such a view was always present to eye in childhood and “There,” said I +to myself (even in childhood) “a man should make his habitation.” In those +valleys is the proper off-set for man. +</p> + +<p> +And so there was. +</p> + +<p> +It was a little place which had grown up as my county grows. The house throwing +out arms and layers. One room was panelled in the oak of the seventeenth +century—but that had been a novelty in its time, for the walls upon which the +panels stood were of the late fifteenth, oak and brick intermingled. Another +room was large and light built in the manner of one hundred and fifty years +ago, which people call Georgian. It had been thrown out south (which is quite +against our older custom, for our older houses looked east and west to take all +the sun and to present a corner to the south-west and the storms. So they stand +still). It had round it a solid cornice which the modern men of the towns would +have called ugly, but there was ancestry in it. Then, further on this house had +modern roominess stretching in one new wing after another; and it had a great +steading and there was a copse and some six acres of land. Over a deep ravine +looked the little town that was the mother of the place, and altogether it was +enclosed, silent, and secure. +</p> + +<p> +“The fish that misses the hook regrets the worm.” If this is not a Chinese +proverb it ought to be. That little farm and steading and those six acres, that +ravine, those trees, that aspect of the little mothering town; the wooded hills +fold above fold, the noble range beyond, will not be mine. +</p> + +<p> +For all I know, some man quite unacquainted with that land took them grumbling +for a debt; or again, for all I know, they may have been bought by a blind man +who could not see the hills, or by some man who, seeing them, perpetually +regretted the flat marshes of the fens. One day, up high on Egdean Side, not +thinking of such things, through a gap in the trees I saw again after so many +years, set one behind the other, the forests wave upon wave, the summer heat, +the high, bare range guarding all, and in the midst of that landscape, set like +a toy, the little Sabine Farm. +</p> + +<p> +Then I said to it, “Continue. Go and serve whom you will, my little Sabine +Farm. You were not mine because you would not be, and you are not mine at all +to-day. You will regret it perhaps, and perhaps you will not. There was verse +in you, perhaps, or prose, or—infinitely more!—contentment for a man (for all I +know). But you refused. You lost your chance. Goodbye.” And with that I went on +into the wood and beyond the gap, and saw the sight no more. +</p> + +<p> +It was ten years since I had seen it last. It may be ten years before I see it +again, or it may be for ever. But as I went through the woods saying to myself: +</p> + +<p> +“You lost your chance, my little Sabine Farm, you lost your chance!” another +part of me at once replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! And so did <i>you</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +Then, by way of riposte, I answered in my mind: +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all, for the chance I never had, but what I lost was my desire.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not your desire,” said the voice to me within, “but the fulfilment of it, +in which you would have lost your desire.” And when that reply came I naturally +turned as all men do on hearing such interior replies, to a general +consideration of regret, and was prepared, if any honest publisher should have +come whistling through that wood, with an offer proper to the occasion, namely, +to produce no less than five volumes on the Nature of Regret, its mortal sting, +its bitter-sweetness, its power to keep alive in man the pure passions of the +soul, its hints at immortality, its memory of Heaven. But the wood was empty of +publishers. The offer did not come. The moment was lost. The five volumes will +hardly now be written. In place of them I offer poor this, which you may take +or leave. But I beg leave before I end to cite certain words very nobly +attached to that great inn “The Griffin,” which has its foundation set far off +in another place, in the town of March, in the Fen Land: +</p> + +<p> +“England my desire, what have you not refused?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap41">The End Of The World</a></h2> + +<p> +One day I met a man who was sitting quite silent near Whitney, in the Thames +Valley, in a very large, long, low inn that stands in those parts, or at least +stood then, for whether it stands now or not depends upon the Fussyites, whose +business it is to Fuss, and in their Fussing to disturb mankind. +</p> + +<p> +He had nothing to say for himself at all, and he looked not gloomy but sad. He +was tall and thin, with high cheekbones. His face was the colour of leather +that has been some time in the weather, and he despised us altogether: he would +not say a word to us, until one of the company said, rising from his meat and +drink: “Very well, there’s a thing we shall never know till the end of the +world” (he was talking about some discussion or other which the young men had +been holding together). “There’s a thing we shall never know till the end of +the world—and about that nobody knows!” +</p> + +<p> +“You will pardon me,” said the tall, thin, and elderly man with a face like +leather that has been exposed to the weather, “I know about the End of the +World, for I have been there.” +</p> + +<p> +This was so interesting that we all sat down again to listen. +</p> + +<p> +“I wasn’t talking of place, but of time,” murmured the young man whom the +stranger had answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot help that,” said the stranger decisively; “the End of the World is +the End of the World, and whether you are talking of space or of time it does +not matter, for when you have got to the end you have got to the end, as may be +proved in several ways.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you get to it?” said one of our companions. +</p> + +<p> +“That is very simply answered,” said the elder man; “you get to it by walking +straight in front of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anyone could do that,” said the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Anyone could,” said the elder man, “but nobody does. I did.... When I was +quite a boy in my father’s parsonage (for my father was a parson), having heard +so much about the End of the World and seeing that people’s descriptions of it +differed so much and that everybody was quite sure of his own, I used to take +my father’s friends and guests aside privately, for I was afraid to take my +father himself, and I used to ask them how they knew what the End of the World +was really like, and whether they had seen it. Some laughed, others were +silent, and others were angry; but no one gave me any information. At last I +decided (and it was very wise of me) that the only way to find out a thing of +that sort was to find it out for one’s self, and not to go by hearsay, so I +determined to go straight on without stopping until I got to the End of the +World.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which way did you walk?” said yet another of my companions. +</p> + +<p> +“Young man,” said the stranger, with solemnity, “I walked westward toward the +setting sun ... I walked and I walked and I walked, day after day and year +after year. Whenever I came to the seacoast I would take work on board a +ship—and remember it is always easy to get work if you will take the wages that +are offered, and always difficult to get it if you will not. Well, then, I went +in this way through all known lands and over all known seas, until at last I +came to the shore of a sea beyond which (so the people told me who lived there) +there was no further shore. ‘I cannot help that,’ said I; ‘I have not yet come +to the End of the World, and it is common sense that such a lot of water must +have something at the back of it to hold it up; besides which there is a strong +wind blowing out of the gates of the west and from the sunset. Now that wind +must rise somewhere, and I am going on to see where it rises.’ One of them was +kind enough to lend me a boat with oars; I thanked him prettily, and then I set +out to row toward the End of the World, taking with me two or three days’ +provisions. +</p> + +<p> +“When I had rowed a long time I went asleep, and when I woke up next morning I +rowed again all day until the second night I went to sleep. On the third day I +rowed again: a little before sunset on the third day I saw before me high +hills, all in peaks like a great saw. On the very highest of the peaks there +were streaks of snow, and at about six o’clock in the afternoon I grounded my +boat upon that gravelly shore and pulled it up upon the shingle, though it was +evident either that the tide was high or that there was no tide in these silent +places. +</p> + +<p> +“I offered up a prayer to the genius of the land, and tied the painter of the +boat to two great stones, so that no wave reaching it might move it, and then I +went on inland. When I had gone a little way I saw a signpost on which was +written, ‘To the End of the World One Mile’ and there was a rough track along +which it pointed. I went along this track. Everything was completely silent. +There were no birds, there was no wind, there was nothing in the sky. But one +thing I did notice, which was that the sun was much larger than it used to be, +and that as I went along this last mile or so it seemed to get larger still—but +that may have been my imagination, for I must tell you my imagination is pretty +strong. +</p> + +<p> +“Well then, gentlemen, when I had gone a mile or so I saw another signpost, on +which there was a large board marked ‘Danger,’ and a hundred yards beyond the +track went between two great dark rocks—and there I was! The road had stopped +short; it was broken off, jagged, just like a torn bit of paper ... and there +was the End of the World.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you mean?” said one of the younger men in an awed tone. +</p> + +<p> +“What I say,” said the stranger decidedly. “I had come to the end; there was +nothing beyond. You looked down over a precipice where there was moss and steep +grass, and on the ledges trees far below, and then more precipice, and then—oh, +miles below—a few more trees or so clinging to the steep, then more precipice, +and then darkness; and far away before me was the whole expanse of sky; and in +the midst of it I saw the broad red sun setting into the brume; it was not yet +dark enough to see the stars, and there was no moon in the sky. +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you it was a very wonderful sight, and I was awed though I was not +afraid. And how glad I was to find that the world had an edge to it, and that +all that talk about its being round was nonsense! +</p> + +<p> +“When the sun was set it grew dark, and I returned to find my boat; but I must +have missed my way, for the track became broader and better, and at last I came +to a gate of a human sort, with an initial on it, which showed that it had been +put up by some landlord. It was an open gate, and after I had entered it I came +upon a broad highway, beautifully metalled, and when I had gone along this for +less than half a mile I came to this inn where I am now sitting. That was a +week ago, and I have been here ever since. They took me in kindly enough, but +they would not believe what I had to tell them about the End of the World. It +is a great pity, gentlemen, for that wonderful sight is to be discovered +somewhere hereabouts, and a mere accident of my losing my way in the darkness +makes it difficult for me to find it by daylight.” +</p> + +<p> +Having said all this, the stranger was silent. +</p> + +<p> +One of my companions whispered to me that the old man must be mad. The stranger +overheard him, and said with a thin smile: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know all about that; several have suggested it already; but it is no +answer, for if I did not come from the End of the World, where did I come from? +No one has seen me hereabouts during the last few days until I came to this +inn. And all the first part of my journey I can very easily explain, for I have +notes of it, and it lasted for years. It is only this last part which seems to +me so difficult.... I tell you I lost my way, and when a man has lost his way +at night he can never find it again in the daytime.” +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke he took a little piece of folded paper, rather dirty, out of his +inner pocket, on which a rough sketch-map was drawn, and he began touching it +with a stump of pencil that he held in his hand. His eyes seemed to grow dimmer +as he did so, and he leaned his head upon his hand. “I think I have got hold of +it, gentlemen,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +We did not get up or go too near him, for we thought he might be dangerous. +</p> + +<p> +“I think, gentlemen,” he repeated in a more mumbling and lower and less certain +voice, “I think I have got hold of it. I go backwards again through the gate to +the right, just as then I went to the left, and after that it cannot be very +far, for I see those two rocks in front of me. Besides which,” he muttered less +and less coherently, “I ought to have remembered of course those very high and +silent hills with nothing living upon them....” And he added, half asleep, as +his head dropped upon his hand, “It was westward.... I had forgotten that.” +</p> + +<p> +Having so spoken, he seemed to fall asleep altogether, and his head fell back +upon the corner of the wainscoting behind the bench where he sat. He made no +noise in breathing as he slept. +</p> + +<p> +It was the first time that any of us young men had come across this fairly +common sight of a man who took things within for things without; some of us +were frightened, and all of us wished to be rid of the place and to get away. +As we went out we told the landlord nothing either of the old fellow’s vagaries +or of his sleep, but we went out and reached the town of Whitney, and when we +had stayed there a couple of hours or so we went out southward to the station +and waited there for the train which should take us back to Oxford. +</p> + +<p> +While we were waiting there in the station two farmers were talking together. +One said to the other: +</p> + +<p> +“Ar, if he’d paid them they wouldn’t have minded so much.” +</p> + +<p> +To which the other answered: +</p> + +<p> +“Ar, ’tisn’t only the paying: it’s always an awkward thing when a man dies in +your house, specially if it’s licensed. My wife’s brother was caught that way.” +</p> + +<p> +Then as they went on talking we found that they were talking of the man in the +inn, who it seems had not slept very long, but was dead, and had died in that +same room. It was a shocking thing to hear. The first farmer said to the second +in the railway carriage when we had all got in: +</p> + +<p> +“Where’d he come from?” +</p> + +<p> +The other, who was an old man, grinned and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Where we all come from, I suppose, and where we all go to.” He touched his +forehead with his hand. “He said he’d come from the End of the World.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ar,” said the other gloomily in answer, “like enough!” And after that they +talked no more about the matter. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn1"></a> <a href="#fnref1">[1]</a> +The Rhododendrons on the great lawn are modern. +</p> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRST AND LAST ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +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. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..95a3b4c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #7352 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7352) diff --git a/old/7352-8.txt b/old/7352-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7e47ab6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7352-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7266 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of First and Last, by H. Belloc + +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'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: First and Last + +Author: H. Belloc + +Posting Date: February 2, 2015 [EBook #7352] +Release Date: January, 2005 +First Posted: April 19, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRST AND LAST *** + + + + +Produced by Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + +FIRST AND LAST + +BY + +H. BELLOC + + + + +CONTENTS + + +ON WEIGHING ANCHOR + +THE REVEILLON + +ON CHEESES + +THE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY + +THE INVENTOR + +THE VIEWS OF ENGLAND + +THE LUNATIC + +THE INHERITANCE OF HUMOUR + +THE OLD GENTLEMAN'S OPINIONS + +ON HISTORICAL EVIDENCE + +THE ABSENCE OF THE PAST + +ST. PATRICK + +THE LOST THINGS + +ON THE READING OF HISTORY + +THE VICTORY + +REALITY + +ON THE DECLINE OF THE BOOK + +JOS MARIA DE HEREDIA + +NORMANDY AND THE NORMANS + +THE OLD THINGS + +THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS + +THE ROMAN ROADS IN PICARDY + +THE REWARD OF LETTERS + +THE EYE-OPENERS + +THE PUBLIC + +ON ENTRIES + +COMPANIONS OF TRAVEL + +ON THE SOURCES OF RIVERS + +ON ERROR + +THE GREAT SIGHT + +THE DECLINE OF A STATE + +ON PAST GREATNESS + +MR. THE DUKE: THE MAN OF MALPLAQUET + +THE GAME OF CARDS + +"KING LEAR" + +THE EXCURSION + +THE TIDE + +ON A GREAT WIND + +THE LETTER + +THE REGRET + +THE END OF THE WORLD + + + + +FIRST AND LAST + + + + +On Weighing Anchor + + +Personally I should call it "Getting It up," but I have always seen it +in print called "weighing anchor"--and if it is in print one must bow to +it. It does weigh. + +There are many ways of doing it. The best, like all good things, has +gone for ever, and this best way was for a thing called a capstan to +have sticking out from it, movable, and fitted into its upper rim, other +things called capstan--bars. These, men would push singing a song, while +on the top of the capstan sat a man playing the fiddle, or the flute, or +some other instrument of music. You and I have seen it in pictures. Our +sons will say that they wish they had seen it in pictures. Our sons' +sons will say it is all a lie and was never in anything but the +pictures, and they will explain it by some myth or other. + +Another way is to take two turns of a rope round a donkey-engine, paying +in and coiling while the engine clanks. And another way on smaller boats +is a sort of jack arrangement by which you give little jerks to a +ratchet and wheel, and at last It looses Its hold. Sometimes (in this +last way) It will not loose Its hold at all. + +Then there is a way of which I proudly boast that it is the only way I +know, which is to go forward and haul at the line until It comes--or +does not come. If It does not come, you will not be so cowardly or so +mean as to miss your tide for such a trifle. You will cut the line and +tie a float on and pray Heaven that into whatever place you run, that +place will have moorings ready and free. + +When a man weighs anchor in a little ship or a large one he does a jolly +thing! He cuts himself off and he starts for freedom and for the chance +of things. He pulls the jib a-weather, he leans to her slowly pulling +round, he sees the wind getting into the mainsail, and he feels that she +feels the helm. He has her on a slant of the wind, and he makes out +between the harbour piers. I am supposing, for the sake of good luck, +that it is not blowing bang down the harbour mouth, nor, for the matter +of that, bang out of it. I am supposing, for the sake of good luck to +this venture, that in weighing anchor you have the wind so that you can +sail with it full and by, or freer still, right past the walls until you +are well into the tide outside. You may tell me that you are so rich and +your boat is so big that there have been times when you have anchored in +the very open, and that all this does not apply to you. Why, then, your +thoughts do not apply to me nor to the little boat I have in mind. + +In the weighing of anchor and the taking of adventure and of the sea +there is an exact parallel to anything that any man can do in the +beginning of any human thing, from his momentous setting out upon his +life in early manhood to the least decision of his present passing day. +It is a very proper emblem of a beginning. It may lead him to that kind +of muddle and set-back which attaches only to beginnings, or it may get +him fairly into the weather, and yet he may find, a little way outside, +that he has to run for it, or to beat back to harbour. Or, more +generously, it may lead him to a long and steady cruise in which he +shall find profit and make distant rivers and continue to increase his +log by one good landfall after another. But the whole point of weighing +anchor is that he has chosen his weather and his tide, and that he is +setting out. The thing is done. + +You will very commonly observe that, in land affairs, if good fortune +follows a venture it is due to the marvellous excellence of its +conductor, but if ill fortune, then to evil chance alone. Now, it is not +so with the sea. + +The sea drives truth into a man like salt. A coward cannot long pretend +to be brave at sea, nor a fool to be wise, nor a prig to be a good +companion, and any venture connected with the sea is full of venture and +can pretend to be nothing more. Nevertheless there is a certain pride in +keeping a course through different weathers, in making the best of a +tide, in using cats' paws in a dull race, and, generally, in knowing how +to handle the thing you steer and to judge the water and the wind. Just +because men have to tell the truth once they get into tide water, what +little is due to themselves in their success thereon they are proud of +and acknowledge. + +If your sailing venture goes well, sailing reader, take a just pride in +it; there will be the less need for me to write, some few years hence, +upon the art of picking up moorings, though I confess I would rather +have written on that so far as the fun of writing was concerned. For +picking up moorings is a far more tricky and amusing business than +Getting It up. It differs with every conceivable circumstance of wind, +and tide, and harbour, and rig, and freeboard, and light; and then there +are so many stories to tell about it! As--how once a poor man picked up +a rich man's moorings at Cowes and was visited by an aluminium boat, all +splendid in the morning sun. Or again--how a stranger who had made +Orford Haven (that very difficult place) on the very top of an +equinoctial springtide, picked up a racing mark-buoy, taking it to be +moorings, and dragged it with him all the way to Aldborough, and that +right before the town of Orford, so making himself hateful to the Orford +people. + +But I digress.... + + + + +The Reveillon + + +There was in the regiment with which I served a man called Frocot, +famous with his comrades because he had seen The Dead, for this +experience, though common among the Scotch, is rare among the French, a +sister nation. This man Frocot could neither write nor read, and was +also the strongest man I ever knew. He was quite short and exceedingly +broad, and he could break a penny with his hands, but this gift of +strength, though young men value it so much, was thought little of +compared with his perception of unseen things, for though the men, who +were peasants, professed to laugh at it, and him, in their hearts they +profoundly believed. It had been made clear to us that he could see and +hear The Dead one night in January during a snowstorm, when he came in +and woke me in barrack-room because he had heard the Loose Spur. Our +spurs were not buckled on like the officers'; they were fixed into the +heel of the boot, and if a nail loosened upon either side the spur +dragged with an unmistakable noise. There was a sergeant who (for some +reason) had one so loosened on the last night he had ever gone the +rounds before his death, for in the morning as he came off guard he +killed himself, and the story went about among the drivers that +sometimes on stable guard in the thick of the night, when you watched +all alone by the lantern (with your three comrades asleep in the straw +of an empty stall), your blood would stop and your skin tauten at the +sound of a loose spur dragging on the far side of the stable, in the +dark. But though many had heard the story, and though some had pretended +to find proof for it, I never knew a man to feel and know it except this +man Frocot on that night. I remember him at the foot of my bed with his +lantern waking me from the rooted sleep of bodily fatigue, standing +there in his dark blue driver's coat and staring with terrible eyes. He +had undoubtedly heard and seen, but whether of himself from within, +imagining, or, as I rather believe, from without and influenced, it is +impossible to say. He was rough and poor, and he came from the Forest of +Ardennes. + +The reason I remember him and write of him at this season is not, +however, this particular and dreadful visitation of his, but a folly or +a vision that befell him at this time of the year, now seventeen years +ago; for he had Christmas leave and was on his way from garrison to his +native place, and he was walking the last miles of the wood. It was the +night before Christmas. It was clear, and there was no wind, but the sky +was overcast with level clouds and the evening was very dark. He started +unfed since the first meal of the day; it was dark three hours before he +was up into the high wood. He met no one during all these miles, and his +body and his mind were lonely; he hoped to press on and be at his +father's door before two in the morning or perhaps at one. The night was +so still that he heard no noise in the high wood, not even the rustling +of a leaf or a twig crackling, and no animal ran in the undergrowth. The +moss of the ride was silent under his heavy tread, but now and then the +steel of his side-arm clicked against a metal button of the great cloak +he wore. This sharp sound made him so conscious of himself that he +seemed to fill that forest with his own presence and to be all that was, +there or elsewhere. He was in a mood of unreal and not holy things. The +mood, remaining, changed its aspect, and now he was so far from alone +that all the trunks around him and the glimmers of sky between bare +boughs held each a spirit of its own, and with the powerful imagination +of the unlearned he could have spoken and held communion with the trees; +but it would have an evil communion, for he felt this mood of his take +on a further phase as he went deeper and deeper still into these +forests. He felt about him uneasily the sense of doom. He was in that +exaltation of fancy or dream when faint appeals are half heard far off, +but not by our human ears, and when whatever attempts to pierce the +armour of our mortality appeals to us by wailing and by despairing +sighs. It seemed to him that most unhappy things passed near him in the +air, and that the wood about him was full of sobbing. Then, again, he +felt his own mind within him begin to be occupied by doubtful troubles +worse than these terrors, an anxious straining for ill news, for bitter +and dreadful news, mixed with a confused certitude that such news had +come indeed, disturbed and haunted him; and all the while about him in +that stillness the rushing of unhappy spirits went like a secret storm. +He was clouded with the mingled emotions of apprehension and of fatal +mourning; he attempted to remember the expectations that had failed him, +friends untrue, and the names of parents dead; but he was now the victim +of this strange night and unable (whether from hunger or fatigue, or +from that unique power of his to discern things beyond the world) to +remember his life or his definite aims at all, or even his own name. He +was mixed with the whole universe about him, and was suffering some loss +so grievous that very soon the gait of his march and his whole being +were informed by a large and final despair. + +It was in this great and universal mood (granted to him as a seer, +though he was a common man) that he saw down the ride, but somewhat to +one side of it in the heart of the high wood, a great light shining from +a barn or shed that stood there in the undergrowth, and to this light, +though his way naturally led him to it, he felt also impelled by an +influence as strong as or stronger than the despair that had filled his +soul and all the woods around. He went on therefore quickly, straining +with his eyes, and when he came into the light that shone out from this +he saw a more brilliant light within, and men of his own kind adoring; +but the vision was confused, like light on light or like vapours moving +over bright metals in a cauldron, and as he gazed his mind became still +and the dread left him altogether. He said it was like shutting a +gentleman's great oaken door against a driving storm. + +This is the story he told me weeks after as we rode together in the +battery, for he hid it in his heart till the spring. As I say, I +believed him. + +He was an unlearned man and a strong; he never worshipped. He was of +that plain stuff and clay on which has worked since all recorded time +the power of the Spirit. + +He said that when he left (as he did rapidly leave) that light, peace +also left him, but that the haunting terror did not return. He found the +clearing and his father's hut; fatigue and the common world indeed +returned, but with them a permanent memory of things experienced. + +Every word I have written of him is true. + + + + +On Cheeses + + +If antiquity be the test of nobility, as many affirm and none deny +(saving, indeed, that family which takes for its motto "Sola Virtus +Nobilitas," which may mean that virtue is the only nobility, but which +may also mean, mark you, that nobility is the only virtue--and anyhow +denies that nobility is tested by the lapse of time), _if_, I say, +antiquity be the only test of nobility, then cheese is a very noble +thing. + +But wait a moment: there was a digression in that first paragraph which +to the purist might seem of a complicated kind. + +Were I writing algebra (I wish I were) I could have analysed my thoughts +by the use of square brackets, round brackets, twiddly brackets, and the +rest, all properly set out in order so that a Common Fool could follow +them. + +But no such luck! I may not write of algebra here; for there is a rule +current in all newspapers that no man may write upon any matter save +upon those in which he is more learned than all his human fellows that +drag themselves so slowly daily forward to the grave. + +So I had to put the thing in the very common form of a digression, and +very nearly to forget that great subject of cheese which I had put at +the very head and title of this. + +Which reminds me: had I followed the rule set down by a London +journalist the other day (and of the proprietor of his paper I will say +nothing--though I might have put down the remark to his proprietor) I +would have hesitated to write that first paragraph. I would have +hesitated, did I say? Griffins' tails! Nay--Hippogriffs and other things +of the night! I would not have dared to write it at all! For this +journalist made a law and promulgated it, and the law was this: that no +man should write that English which could not be understood if all the +punctuation were left out. Punctuation, I take it, includes brackets, +which the Lord of Printers knows are a very modern part of punctuation +indeed. + +Now let the horripilised reader look up again at the first paragraph (it +will do him no harm), and think how it would look all written out in +fair uncials like the beautiful Gospels of St. Chad, which anyone may +see for nothing in the cathedral of Lichfield, an English town famous +for eight or nine different things: as Garrick, Doctor Johnson, and its +two opposite inns. Come, read that first paragraph over now and see what +you could make of it if it were written out in uncials--that is, not +only without punctuation, but without any division between the words. +Wow! As the philosopher said when he was asked to give a plain answer +"Yes" or "No." + +And now to cheese. I have had quite enough of digressions and of +follies. They are the happy youth of an article. They are the springtime +of it. They are its riot. I am approaching the middle age of this +article. Let us be solid upon the matter of cheese. + +I have premised its antiquity, which is of two sorts, as is that of a +nobleman. First, the antiquity of its lineage; secondly, the antiquity +of its self. For we all know that when we meet a nobleman we revere his +nobility very much if he be himself old, and that this quality of age in +him seems to marry itself in some mysterious way with the antiquity of +his line. + +The lineage of cheese is demonstrably beyond all record. What did the +faun in the beginning of time when a god surprised him or a mortal had +the misfortune to come across him in the woods? It is well known that +the faun offered either of them cheese. So he knew how to make it. + +There are certain bestial men, hangers-on of the Germans, who would +contend that this would prove cheese to be acquired by the Aryan race +(or what not) from the Dolichocephalics (or what not), and there are +certain horrors who descend to imitate these barbarians--though +themselves born in these glorious islands, which are so steep upon their +western side. But I will not detain you upon these lest I should fall +head foremost into another digression and forget that my article, +already in its middle age, is now approaching grey hairs. + +At any rate, cheese is very old. It is beyond written language. Whether +it is older than butter has been exhaustively discussed by several +learned men, to whom I do not send you because the road towards them +leads elsewhere. It is the universal opinion of all most accustomed to +weigh evidence (and in these I very properly include not only such +political hacks as are already upon the bench but sweepingly every +single lawyer in Parliament, since any one of them may tomorrow be a +judge) that milk is older than cheese, and that man had the use of milk +before he cunningly devised the trick of squeezing it in a press and by +sacrificing something of its sweetness endowed it with a sort of +immortality. + +The story of all this has perished. Do not believe any man who professes +to give it you. If he tells you some legend of a god who taught the +Wheat-eating Race, the Ploughers, and the Lords to make cheese, tell him +such tales are true symbols, but symbols only. If he tells you that +cheese was an evolution and a development, oh! then!--bring up your +guns! Open on the fellow and sweep his intolerable lack of intelligence +from the earth. Ask him if he discovers reality to be a function of +time, and Being to hide in clockwork. Keep him on the hop with ironical +comments upon how it may be that environment can act upon Will, while +Will can do nothing with environment--whose proper name is mud. Pester +the provincial. Run him off the field. + +But about cheese. Its noble antiquity breeds in it a noble diffusion. + +This happy Christendom of ours (which is just now suffering from an +indigestion and needs a doctor--but having also a complication of +insomnia cannot recollect his name) has been multifarious +incredibly--but in nothing more than in cheese! + +One cheese differs from another, and the difference is in sweeps, and in +landscapes, and in provinces, and in countrysides, and in climates, and +in principalities, and in realms, and in the nature of things. Cheese +does most gloriously reflect the multitudinous effect of earthly things, +which could not be multitudinous did they not proceed from one mind. + +Consider the cheese of Rocquefort: how hard it is in its little box. +Consider the cheese of Camembert, which is hard also, and also lives in +a little box, but must not be eaten until it is soft and yellow. +Consider the cheese of Stilton, which is not made there, and of Cheddar, +which is. Then there is your Parmesan, which idiots buy rancid in +bottles, but which the wise grate daily for their use: you think it is +hard from its birth? You are mistaken. It is the world that hardens the +Parmesan. In its youth the Parmesan is very soft and easy, and is +voraciously devoured. + +Then there is your cheese of Wensleydale, which is made in Wensleydale, +and your little Swiss cheese, which is soft and creamy and eaten with +sugar, and there is your Cheshire cheese and your little Cornish cheese, +whose name escapes me, and your huge round cheese out of the Midlands, +as big as a fort whose name I never heard. There is your toasted or +Welsh cheese, and your cheese of Pont-l'evque, and your white cheese of +Brie, which is a chalky sort of cheese. And there is your cheese of +Neufchatel, and there is your Gorgonzola cheese, which is mottled all +over like some marbles, or like that Mediterranean soap which is made of +wood-ash and of olive oil. There is your Gloucester cheese called the +Double Gloucester, and I have read in a book of Dunlop cheese, which is +made in Ayrshire: they could tell you more about it in Kilmarnock. Then +Suffolk makes a cheese, but does not give it any name; and talking of +that reminds me how going to Le Quesnoy to pass the people there the +time of day, and to see what was left of that famous but forgotten +fortress, a young man there showed me a cheese, which he told me also +had no name, but which was native to the town, and in the valley of Ste. +Engrace, where is that great wood which shuts off all the world, they +make their cheese of ewe's milk and sell it in Tardets, which is their +only livelihood. They make a cheese in Port-Salut which is a very subtle +cheese, and there is a cheese of Limburg, and I know not how many +others, or rather I know them, but you have had enough: for a little +cheese goes a long way. No man is a glutton on cheese. + +What other cheese has great holes in it like Gruyere, or what other is +as round as a cannon-ball like that cheese called Dutch? which reminds +me:-- + +Talking of Dutch cheese. Do you not notice how the intimate mind of +Europe is reflected in cheese? For in the centre of Europe, and where +Europe is most active, I mean in Britain and in Gaul and in Northern +Italy, and in the valley of the Rhine--nay, to some extent in Spain (in +her Pyrenean valleys at least)--there flourishes a vast burgeoning of +cheese, infinite in variety, one in goodness. But as Europe fades away +under the African wound which Spain suffered or the Eastern barbarism of +the Elbe, what happens to cheese? It becomes very flat and similar. You +can quote six cheeses perhaps which the public power of Christendom has +founded outside the limits of its ancient Empire--but not more than six. +I will quote you 253 between the Ebro and the Grampians, between +Brindisi and the Irish Channel. + +I do not write vainly. It is a profound thing. + + + + +The Captain of Industry + + +The heir of the merchant Mahmoud had not disappointed that great +financier while he still lived, and when he died he had the satisfaction +of seeing the young man, now twenty-five years of age, successfully +conducting his numerous affairs, and increasing (fabulous as this may +seem) the millions with which his uncle entrusted him. + +Shortly after Mahmoud's death the prosperity of the firm had already +given rise to a new proverb, and men said: "Do you think I am +Mahmoud's-Nephew?" when they were asked to lend money or in some other +way to jeopardize a few coppers in the service of God or their +neighbour. + +It was also a current expression, "He's rich as Mahmoud's-Nephew," when +comrades would jest against some young fellow who was flusher than +usual, and could afford a quart or even a gallon of wine for the +company; while again the discontented and the oppressed would mutter +between their teeth: "Heaven will take vengeance at last upon these +Mahmoud's-Nephews!" In a word, "Mahmoud's-Nephew" came to mean +throughout the whole Caliphate and wherever the True Believers spread +their empire, an exceedingly wealthy man. But Mahmoud himself having +been dead ten years and his heir the fortunate head of the establishment +being now well over thirty years of age, there happened a very +inexplicable and outrageous accident: he died--and after his death no +instructions were discovered as to what should be done with this +enormous capital, no will could be found, and it happened moreover to be +a moment of great financial delicacy when the manager of each department +in the business needed all the credit he could get. + +In such a quandary the Chief Organizer and confidential friend, Ahmed, +upon whom the business already largely depended, and who was so +circumstanced that he could draw almost at will upon the balances, +imagined a most intelligent way of escaping from the difficulties that +would arise when the death of the principal was known. + +He caused a quantity of hay, of straw, of dust and of other worthless +materials to be stuffed into a figure of canvas; this he wrapped round +with the usual clothes that Mahmoud's-Nephew had worn in the office, he +shrouded the face with the hood which his chief had commonly worn during +life, and having so dressed the lay figure and secretly buried the real +body, he admitted upon the morning after the death those who first had +business with his master. + +He met them at the door with smiles and bows, saying: "You know, +gentlemen, that like most really successful men, my chief is as silent +as his decisions are rapid; he will listen to what you have to say, and +it will be a plain yes or no at the end of it." + +These gentlemen came with a proposal to sell to the firm for the sum of +one million dinars a barren rock in the Indian Sea, which was not even +theirs, and on which indeed not one of them had ever set eyes. Their +claim to advance so original a proposal was that to their certain +knowledge two thousand of the wealthiest citizens of their town were +willing to buy the rock again at a profit from whoever should be its +possessor during the next few weeks in the fond hope of selling it once +again to provincials, clerics, widows, orphans, and in general the +uninstructed and the credulous--among whom had been industriously spread +the report that the rock in question consisted of one solid and flawless +diamond. + +These gentlemen sitting round the table before the shrouded figure laid +down their proposals, whereupon the manager briefly summed up what they +had said, and having done so, replied: "Gentlemen, his lordship is a man +of few words; but you will have your answer in a moment if you will be +good enough to rise, as he is at this moment expecting a deputation from +the Holy Men who are entreating him to provide the cost of a mosque in +one of the suburbs." + +The proposers of the bargain rose, greatly awed and pleased by the +silence and dignity of the financier who apparently remained for a +moment discussing their proposals without gesture and in a tone too low +for them to hear, while his manager bent over to listen. + +"It is ever so," said one of them, "you may ever know the greatest men +by their silence." + +"You are right," said another, "he is not one to be easily deceived." + +The manager in a moment or two rejoined them at the door. "Gentlemen," +he said, smiling, "my chief has heard your arguments and has expressed +his assent to your conditions." + +They went out, delighted at the success of their mission, and +congratulated Ahmed upon the financier's genius. + +"He does not," said the manager, laughing in hearty agreement, "bestow +himself as a present upon all and sundry. Nor is he often caught +indulging in short bouts of sleep, nor are flies diabolically left to +repose undisturbed upon his features--but you must excuse me, I hear the +Holy Men," and indeed from the inner room came a noise of speechifying +in that doleful sing-song which is associated in Bagdad with the +practice of religion. + +The gentlemen who had thus had the luck to interview Mahmoud's-Nephew +with such success in the matter of the Diamond Island, soon spread about +the news, and confirmed their fellow-citizens in the certitude that a +great financier is neither talkative nor vivacious. "Still waters run +deep," they said, and all those to whom they said it nodded in a wise +acquiescence. Nor had the Manager the least difficulty in receiving one +set of customers after another and in negotiating within three weeks an +infinite amount of business, all of which confirmed those who had the +pleasure of an audience with the stuffed dummy that great fortunes were +made and retained by reticence and a contempt for convivial weakness. + +At last the ingenious man of affairs, to whom the whole combination was +due, was not a little disturbed to receive from the Caliph a note +couched in the following terms: + +"The Commander of the Faithful and the Servant of the Merciful whose +name be exalted, to the Nephew of Mahmoud: + +"My Lord:-- + +"It has been the custom since the days of my grandfather (May his soul +see God!) for the more wealthy of the Faithful to be called to my +councils, and upon my summoning them thither it has not been unusual for +them to present sums varying in magnitude but always proportionate to +their total fortunes. My court will receive signal honour if you will +present yourself after the morning prayer of the day after to-morrow. My +treasurer will receive from you with gratitude and remembrance upon the +previous day and not later than noon, the sum of one million dinars." + +Here, indeed, was a perplexity. The payment of the money was an easy +matter and was duly accomplished; but how should the lay figure which +did duty in such domestic scenes as the negotiation of loans, the +bullying of debtors, the purchase of options, and the cheating of the +innocent and the embarrassed, take his place in the Caliph's council and +remain undiscovered? For great as was the reputation of Mahmoud's-Nephew +for discretion and for golden silence, such as are proper to the +accumulation of great wealth, there would seem a necessity in any +political assembly to open the mouth from time to time, if only for the +giving of a vote. + +But Ahmed, who had by this time accumulated into his own hands the +millions formerly his master's, finally solved the problem. Judicious +presents to the servants of the palace and the public criers made his +way the easier, and on the summoning of the council Mahmoud's-Nephew, +whose troublesome affection of the throat was now publicly discussed, +was permitted to bring into the council-room his private secretary and +manager. + +Moreover at the council, as at his private office, the continued +taciturnity of the millionaire could not but impress the politicians as +it had already impressed the financial world. + +"He does not waste his breath in tub-thumping," said one, looking +reverently at the sealed figure. + +"No," another would reply, "they may ridicule our old-fashioned, honest, +quiet Mohammedan country gentlemen, but for common sense I will back +them against all the brilliant paradoxical young fellows of our day." + +"They say he is very kind at heart and lovable," a third would then add, +upon which a fourth would bear his testimony thus: + +"Yes, and though he says nothing about it, his charitable gifts are +enormous." + +By the second meeting of the council the lay figure had achieved a +reputation of so high a sort that the Caliph himself insisted upon +making him a domestic adviser, one of the three who perpetually +associated with the Commander of the _Faithful_ and directed his +policy. For the universal esteem in which the new councillor was held +had affected that Prince very deeply. + +Here there arose a crux from which there could be no escape, as one of +the three chief councillors, Mahmoud's-Nephew, must speak at last and +deliver judgments! + +The Manager, first considering the whole business, and next adding up +his private gains, which he had carefully laid out in estates of which +the firm and its employs knew nothing, decided that he could afford to +retire. What might happen to the general business after his withdrawal +would not be his concern. + +He first gave out, therefore, that the millionaire was taken exceedingly +ill, and that his life was despaired of: later, within a few hours, that +he was dead. + +So far from attempting to allay the panic which ensued, Ahmed frankly +admitted the worst. + +With cries of despair and a confident appeal to the justice of Heaven +against such intrigues, the honest fellow permitted the whole of the +vast business to be wound up in favour of newcomers, who had not +forgotten to reward him, and soothing as best he could the ruined crowds +of small investors who thronged round him for help and advice, he +retired under an assumed name to his highly profitable estates, which +were situated in the most distant provinces of the known world. + +As for Mahmoud's-Nephew, three theories arose about him which are still +disputed to this day: + +The first was that his magnificent brain with its equitable judgment and +its power of strict secrecy, had designed plans too far advanced for his +time, and that his bankruptcy was due to excess of wisdom. + +The second theory would have it that by "going into politics" (as the +phrase runs in Bagdad) he had dissipated his energies, neglected his +business, and that the inevitable consequences had followed. + +The third theory was far more reasonable. Mahmoud's-Nephew, according to +this, had towards the end of his life lost judgment; his garrulous +indecision within the last few days before his death was notorious: in +the Caliph's council, as those who should best know were sure, one could +hardly get a word in edgewise for his bombastic self-assurance; while in +matters of business, to conduct a bargain with him was more like +attending a public meeting than the prosecution of negotiations with a +respectable banker. + +In a word, it was generally agreed that Mahmoud's-Nephew's success had +been bound up with his splendid silence, his fall, bankruptcy, and +death, with a lesion of the brain which had disturbed this miracle of +self-control. + + + + +The Inventor + + +I had a day free between two lectures in the south-west of England, and +I spent it stopping at a town in which there was a large and very +comfortable old posting-house or coaching-inn. I had meant to stay some +few hours there and to take the last train out in the evening, and I had +meant to spend those hours alone and resting; but this was not permitted +me, for just as I had taken up the local paper, which was a humble, +reasonable thing, empty of any passion and violence and very reposeful +to read, a man came up and touched my left elbow sharply: a gesture not +at all to my taste nor, I think, to that of anyone who is trying to read +his paper. + +I looked up and saw a man who must have been quite sixty years of age. +He had on a soft, felt slouch hat, a very old and greenish black coat; +he stooped and shuffled; he was clean-shaven, with long grey hair, and +his eyes were astonishingly bright and piercing and set close together. + +He said, "I beg your pardon." + +I said, "Eh, what?" + +He said again "I beg your pardon" in the tones of a man who almost +commands, and having said this he put his hat on the table, dragged a +chair quite close to mine, and pulled a folded bunch of foolscap sheets +out of his pocket. His manner was that of a man who engages your +attention and has a right to engage it. There were no preliminaries and +there was no introduction. This was apparently his manner, and I +submitted. + +"I have here," he said, fixing me with his intense eyes, "the plans for +a speedometer." + +"Oh!" said I. + +"You know what a speedometer is?" he asked suspiciously. + +I said yes. I said it was a machine for measuring the speed of vehicles, +and that it was compounded of two (or more) Greek words. + +He nodded; he was pleased that I knew so much, and could therefore +listen to his tale and understand it. He pulled his grey baggy trousers +up over the knee, settled himself, sitting forward, and opened his +document. He cleared his throat, still fixing me with those eyes of his, +and said-- + +"Every speedometer up to now has depended upon the same principle as a +Watt's governor; that is, there are two little balls attached to each by +a limb to a central shaft: they rise and fall according to their speed +of rotation, and this movement is indicated upon a dial." + +I nodded. + +He cleared his throat again. "Of course, that is unsatisfactory." + +"Damnably!" said I, but this reply did not check him. + +"It works tolerably well at high speeds; at low speeds it is useless; +and then again there is a very rapid fluctuation, and the instrument is +of only approximate precision." + +"Not it!" said I to encourage him. + +"There is one exception," he continued, "to this principle, and that is +a speedometer which depends upon the introduction of resistance into a +current generated by a small magneto. The faster the magneto turns the +stronger the current generated, and the change is indicated upon a +dial." + +"Yes," said I sadly, "as in the former case so in this; the change of +speed is indicated upon a dial." And I sighed. + +"But this method also," he went on tenaciously, "has its defects." + +"You may lay to that," I interrupted. + +"It has the defect that at high speeds its readings are not quite +correct, and at very low speeds still less so. Moreover, it is said that +it slightly deteriorates with the passage of time." + +"Now that," I broke in emphatically, "is a defect I have discovered +in----" + +But he put up his hand to stop me. "It slightly deteriorates, I say, +with the passage of time." He paused a moment impressively. "No one has +hitherto discovered any system which will accurately record the speed of +a vehicle or of any rotary movement and register it at the lowest as at +the highest speeds." He paused again for a still longer period in order +to give still greater emphasis to what he had to say. He concluded in a +new note of sober triumph: "I have solved the problem!" + +I thought this was the end of him, and I got up and beamed a +congratulation at him and asked if he would drink anything, but he only +said, "Please sit down again and I will explain." + +There is no way of combating this sort of thing, and so I sat down, and +he went on: + +"It is perfectly simple...." He passed his hand over his forehead. "It +is so simple that one would say it must have been thought of before; but +that is what is always said of a great invention.... Now I have here" +(and he opened out his foolscap) "the full details. But I will not read +them to you; I will summarize them briefly." + +"Have you a plan or anything I could watch?" said I a little anxiously. + +"No," he answered sharply, "I have not, but if you like I will draw a +rough sketch as I go along upon the margin of your newspaper." + +"Thank you," I said. + +He drew the newspaper towards him and put it on his knee. He pulled out +a pencil; he held the foolscap up before his eye, and he began to +describe. + +"The general principle upon which my speedometer reposes," he said +solemnly, "is the coordination of the cylinder and the cone upon an +angle which will have to be determined in practice, and will probably +vary for different types. But it will never fall below 15 nor rise over +43." + +"I should have thought----" I began, but he told me I could not yet have +grasped it, and that he wished to be more explicit. + +"On a king bolt," he said, occasionally consulting his notes, "runs a +pivot in bevel which is kept in place by a small hair-spring, which +spring fits loosely on the Conkling Shaft." + +"Exactly," said I, "I see what is coming." + +But he wouldn't let me off so easily. + +"Yes, of course you are going to say that the whole will be keyed +together, and that the T-pattern nuts on a movable shank will be my +method of attachment to the fixed portion next to the cam? Eh? So it is, +but" (and here his eye brightened), "_anyone_ could have arranged +that. My particularity is that I have a freedom of movement even at the +lowest speeds, and an accuracy of notation even at the highest, which is +secured in a wholly novel manner ... and yet so simply. What do you +think it is?" + +I affected to look puzzled, and thought for a moment. "I cannot +imagine," said I, "unless----" + +"No," he interrupted, "do not try to guess it, for you never will. _I +turn the flange inward_ on a Wilkinson lathe and give it a parabolic +section so that the axes are always parallel to each other and to the +shaft.... There!" + +I had no idea the man could be so moved: there was jubilation in his +voice. + +"There!" he said again, as though some effort of the brain had exhausted +him. "It can't be touched, mind you," he added suspiciously; "I've taken +out the provisional patents. There's one man I know wants to fight it in +the courts as an infringement on Wilkinson's own patent, but it can't be +touched!" He shook his head decisively. "No! my lawyer's certain of +that--and so'm I!" + +Here there was a break in his communications, so to speak, and he had +apparently run out. It was not for me to wind him up again. I watched +him with a sombre relief as he stood up again to full height, leaned his +head back, and sighed profoundly with satisfaction and with completion. +He folded up his specification and put it in his pocket again. He tore +off the incomprehensible sketch he had made with his pencil while he was +speaking, and put it by me on the mantelshelf. "You might like to keep +it," he said pathetically; "it's a document, that is; it will be famous +some day." He looked at it lovingly, almost as though he was going to +take it back again: but he thought better of it. + +I was waiting, I will not say itching, for him to take his leave, when a +god or demon, that same perhaps which had treated the poor fellow as a +jest for a whole lifetime, inspired him to take a very false step +indeed. He had already taken up his hat and was turning as though to go +to the door, when the unfortunate thought struck him. + +"What would you do?" he said. + +"How do you mean?" I answered. + +"Why, what would you do to try and get it taken up and talked about?" + +Then it was my turn, and I let him have it. + +"You must get the Press and the Government to work together," I said +rapidly, "and particularly in connection with the new Government Service +of Camion's Fettle-Trains and Cursory Circuits." + +He nodded like one who thoroughly understands and desires to hear more. + +"Speed," I added nonchalantly, "and the measure of it are of course +essentials in their case." + +He nodded again. + +"And they have never really settled the problem ... especially about +Fettle-Trains." + +"No," said he ponderously, "so I understand." + + +"Well now," I went on, full of the chase, "you will naturally ask me who +are you to go to?" I scratched my nose. "You know the Fusionary Office, +as we call it? It is really, of course, a part of the Stannaries. But +the Chief Permanent Secretary likes to have it called the Fusionary +Office; it's his vanity." + +"Yes," said he eagerly, "yes, go on!" + +"They always have the same hours," I said, "four to eleven." + +"Four to _what_?" he asked, looking up. + +"To eleven," I repeated sharply; "but you'd much better call round about +three." + +He looked bewildered. + +"Don't interrupt," I said, seeing him open his lips, "or I shall lose +the thread. It's rather complicated. You call at three by the little +door in Whitehall on the Embankment side towards the Horse Guards +looking south, and _don't_ ring the bell." + +"Why not?" he asked. I thought for the moment he might begin to cry. + +"Oh, well," I said testily, "you mustn't ask those questions. All these +institutions are very old institutions with habits and prejudices of +their own. You mustn't ring the bell, that's all; they don't like it; +you must just wait until they open; and then, if you take _my_ +advice, don't write a note or ask to interview the First Analyist. Don't +do any of the usual things, but just fill up one of the regular Treasury +forms and state that you have come with regard to the Perception and +Mensuration advertisements." + +His face was pained and wrinkled as he heard me, but he said, "I beg +your pardon ... but shall I have it all explained to me at the office?" + +"Certainly not!" I said, aghast; "it's just because you might have so +much difficulty there that I'm explaining everything to you." + +"Yes, I know," he said doubtfully; "thank you." + +"I hope you'll try and follow what I say," I continued a little wearily; +"I have special opportunities for knowing.... Political, you know." + +"Certainly," he said, "certainly; but about those forms?" + +"Well," I said, "you didn't suppose they supplied them, did you?" + +"I almost did," he ventured. + +"Oh, you did," said I, with a loud laugh, "well, you're wrong there. +However, I dare say I've got one on me." He looked up eagerly as I felt +in my pockets. I brought out a telegraph blank, two letters, and a +tobacco pouch. I looked at them for a moment. "No," said I, "I haven't +got one; it's a pity, but I'll tell you who will give you one; you know +the place opposite, where the bills are drafted?" + +"I'm afraid I don't," he said, admitting ignorance for the first time in +this conversation and perhaps in his life. + +"Well," said I impatiently, "never mind, anyone will show you. Go there, +and if they don't give you a form they'll show you a copy of Paper B, +which is much the same thing." + +"Thank you," said he humbly, and he got up to move out. He was going a +little groggily, his eyes were dull and sodden. He presented all the +aspect of a man under a heavy strain. + +"You've got it all clear, I hope?" I asked cheerfully as he neared the +door. + +"Oh, yes!" he said. "Thank you; yes!" + +"Anything else?" I shouted as he passed out into the courtyard. +"Anything else I can do? You'll always find me in the room over the +office, Room H, down the little iron staircase," I nodded genially to +him as he disappeared. + +In this way did we exchange, the Inventor and I, those expert +confidences and mutual aids in either's technical skill which are too +rarely discovered in modern travel. + + + + +The Views of England + + +England is a country with edges and with a core. It is a country very +small for the number of people who live in it, and very appreciable to +the eye for the traveller who travels on foot or in a boat from place to +place. Considering the part it has in the making of the world, it might +justly be compared to a jewel which is very small and very valuable and +can almost be held in the hand. The physical appreciation of England is +to be reached by an appreciation of landscape. + +It so happens that England is traversed by remarkable and sudden ranges; +hills with a sharp escarpment overlooking great undulating plains. This +is not true of any other one country of Europe, but it is true of +England, and a man who professes to consider, to understand, to +criticize, to defend, and to love this country, must know the Pennines, +the Cotswolds, the North and the South Downs, the Chilterns, the +Mendips, and the Malverns; he must know Delamere Forest, and he must +know the Hill of Beeston, from which all Cheshire may be perceived. If +he knows these heights and has long considered the prospects which they +afford, he can claim to have seen the face of England. + +It is deplorable that our modern method of travel does cut us off from +such experiences. They were not only common to, they were necessary to +our fathers; the roads would not be at the expense of tunnelling through +hills, and (what is more important) when those men who most mould the +knowledge of the country by the country (the people who deal with its +soil, who live separate upon its separate farms) visited each other upon +horses; and horses, unlike railway trains, cannot climb hills. They +puff, they heave, they snort, as do railway trains, but they climb them +well. + +On this account, because the roads for the carriages went over hills, +and because the method of visiting even a near neighbour would permit +you to go over hills, the England of quite a little time ago was +familiar with the half-dozen great landscapes of England. You may see it +in that most individual, that most peculiar, and, I think, that most +glorious school of painters, the English landscape painter, Constable +with his thick colours, Turner with his wonderment, and even the +portrait painters in their backgrounds depend upon the view of the +plains from a height. To-day our landscape painters sometimes do the +same, but the market for that emotion is capricious, it is no longer the +secure and natural way of presenting England to English eyes. + +If you will consider these plains at the foot of the English hills you +will find in them the whole history of the country, and the whole +meaning of it as well. Two occur to me first: The view of the Weald +(both Kentish and Sussex) through which the influence of Europe +perpetually approached the island, not only in the crisis of the Roman +or the Norman invasions, but in a hundred episodes stretched out through +two thousand years--and the view of the Thames Valley as one gets it on +a clear day from the summits of the North Downs when one looks northward +and sees very faintly the Chilterns along the horizon. + +This last is obscured by London. One needs a very particular +circumstance in which to appreciate it. The air must be dry and clear, +there must be little or no wind, or if there is a wind it must be a +strong one from the south and west that has already driven the smoke +from the western edge of the town. When this is so, a man looks right +across to the sandy heights just north of the Thames, and far beyond he +sees the Chilterns, like a landfall upon the rim of the world. He looks +at all that soil on which the government of this country has been +rooted. He sees the hill of Windsor. He overlooks, though he cannot +perceive at so great a distance, the two great schools of the rich; he +has within one view the principal Castle of the Kings, the place of +their council, and the cathedral of their capital city: so true is it +that the Thames made England. + +Then, if you consider the upper half of that valley, the view is from +the ridge of the Berkshire hills, or, better still, from Cumnor, or from +the clump of trees above Faringdon. From such look-outs the astonishing +loneliness which England has had the strength to preserve in this +historic belt of land profoundly strikes a man. You can see to your left +and, a long way off, the hill where, as is most probable, Alfred thrust +back the Pagans, and so saved one-half of Christendom. Oxford is within +your landscape. The roll upwards in a glacis of the Cotswold, the nodal +point of the Roman roads at Cirencester, and the ancient crossings of +the Thames. + +From the Cotswold again westward you look over a sheer wall and see one +of those differences which make up England. For the passage from the +Upper Thames to the flat and luxuriant valley floor of the Severn is a +transition (if it be made by crossing the hills) more sudden than that +between many countries abroad. Had our feudalism cut England into +provinces we should here have two marked provincial histories marching +together, for the natural contrast is greater than between Normandy and +Brittany at any part of their march or between Aragon and Castile at any +part of theirs. I do not know what it is, but the view of the jagged +Malvern seen above the happy mists of autumn, when these mists lie like +a warm fleece upon the orchards of the vale, preserving them of a +morning until the strengthening of the sun, the sudden aspect, I say, of +those jagged peaks strikes one like a vision of a new world. How many +men have thought it! How often it ought to be written down! It hangs in +the memory of the traveller like a permanent benediction, and remains in +his mind a standing symbol of peace. + +I have no space to speak of how from Beeston you see all Cheshire; the +Vale Royal to your left, and the main plain of the county to your right. +The whole stretch is framed in with definite hills, the last and highly +marked line of the Pennines bounds the view upon the east; upon the west +the first of the Welsh hills stands sharply in a long even line against +the fading sun; and on the north you see the height of Delamere. There +are three other views in the North of England, the first easy, the last +two difficult to obtain, all between them making up a true picture of +what the North of England is. The first (and it is very famous) is the +view over the industrial ferment of South Lancashire, seen from the +complete silence of the hills round the Peak. No matter where you cross +that summit, even if you take the high road from the Snake Inn to +Glossop, where the easiest, and therefore the least striking, passage +has been chosen, much more if you follow the wild heights a little to +the south until you come to a more abrupt descent on which there are not +even paths, there comes a point where there is presented to you in one +great offering, without introduction, a vision of the vast energies of +England. + +I remember once in winter when the sun sets early (it was December, and +seven years ago) coming upon this sight. The clouds were so arranged +after an Atlantic storm that all the heaven (which here is always +spacious and noble) was covered with a rolling curtain as though a man +had pulled it with his hands. But far off, westward, there was a broad +red band of sunset, and against this the smoke, the tall stacks, the +violence and the wealth of that cauldron. One could almost hear the +noise. It did arrest one; it was as though someone had painted something +unreal, to be a mystical emblem, and to sum up in one picture all those +million despairs, misfortunes, chances, disciplines, and acquirements +which make up the character of Lancashire men. This vision also many men +have seen and many men shall write of. Very rarely upon the surface of +the earth does the soul take on so immediate and obvious a physical body +as does the soul of that industrial world in the view of which I speak. + +And the two other views are, first, that difficult one which one must +pick and choose but which can be obtained from several sites (especially +at the end of Wensleydale), and which is the view of that rich, old, and +agricultural Yorkshire, from which the county draws its traditions and +in which, perhaps, the truest spirit of the county still abides; for +Yorkshire is at heart farmer, and possibly after three generations of a +town, a man from this part of England still looks more lively when he +sees a lively horse put before him for judgment. Second, the view from +Cross Fell, very, very difficult to obtain, for often when one climbs +Cross Fell in sunny weather, one gets up over the Scar under the threat +of cloud, and one only reaches the summit by the time the evening or the +mist has fallen; but if one has the luck to see the view of which I +speak, then one sees all that rugged remaining part of the Northwest +exactly as the Romans saw it, and as it has been for two thousand years, +with the high land of the lakes and the stony nature and the sparseness +of all the stretch about one, and the approach to a foreign land. + +I have often thought when I have heard men blaming the story of England +or her present mood for false reasons, or, what is worse, praising her +for false reasons; when I have heard the men of the cities talking wild +talk got from maps and from print, or the disappointed men talking wild +talk of another kind, expecting impossible or foreign perfections from +their own kindred--I have often thought, I say, when I have heard the +folly upon either side (and the mass of it daily increases)--that it +would be a wholesome thing if one could take such a talker and make him +walk from Dover to the Solway, exercising some care that he should rise +before the sun, and that he should see in clear weather the views of +which I speak. A man who has done that has seen England--not the name or +the map or the rhetorical catchword, but the thing. And it does not take +so very long. + + + + +The Lunatic + + +Those who are interested in what simple straightforward people call the +Pathology of Consciousness have gathered a great body of evidence upon +the various manias that affect men, and there is an especially +interesting department of this which concerns illusion upon matters +which in the sane are determinable by the senses and common experience. +Thus one man will believe himself to be the Emperor of China, another to +be William Shakespeare or some other impossible person, though one would +imagine that his every accident of daily life would convince him to the +contrary. + +I had recently occasion to watch one of the most harmless and yet one of +the most striking of these illusions in a private asylum which has +specialized, if I may so express myself, upon men of letters. The case +was harmless and even benign, for the poor fellow was not of a combative +disposition to begin with, was of too careful and dignified a +temperament to show more than slight irritation if his delusion were +contradicted. This misfortune, however, very rarely overtook him, for +those who came to visit him were warned to humour his whim. This +eccentricity I will now describe. + +He imagined, nay he was convinced, that he was existing fifty years in +the future, and that the interest of his conversation for others would +lie in his reminiscence of the state of society in which we are actually +living today. If anyone who had not been warned was imprudent enough to +suggest that the conversation was taking place in 1909 would smile +gently, nod, and say rather bitterly, "Yes, I know, I know," as though +recognizing a universal plot against him which he was too weary to +combat. But when he had said this he would continue to talk on as though +both parties to the conversation were equally convinced that the year +was really 1960 or thereabouts. Whether to add zest to what he said or +from some part of his malady consonant with all the rest, my poor friend +(who had been a journalist and will very possibly be a journalist again) +presupposed that the whole structure of society as we now know it had +changed and that his reminiscences were those of a past time which, on +account of some great revolution or other, men imperfectly comprehended, +so that it must be of the highest interest and advantage to listen to +the testimony of an eye-witness upon them. + +What especially delighted him (for he was a zealous admirer of the +society he described) was the method of government. + +"There was no possibility of going wrong," he said to me with curious +zeal, "not a shadow of danger! It would be difficult for you to +understand now how easily the system worked!" And here he sighed +profoundly. "And why on earth," he continued, "men should have destroyed +such an instrument when they had it is more than I can understand. There +it was in every country in Europe; there were elections; all the men +voted. And mind you, the elections were not so very far apart. Most +people living at one election could remember the last, so there was no +time for abuses to spring up.... Well, everybody voted. If a man wanted +one thing he voted one way, and if he wanted another thing he voted the +other way. The people for whom he voted would then meet, and with a +sense of duty which I cannot exaggerate they would work month after +month exactly to reproduce the will of those who had appointed them. It +was a great time!" + +"Yet," said I, "even so there must have been occasional divergences +between what these people did and what the nation wanted." + +"I see what you mean," he said, musing, "you mean that all the devotion +in the world, the purest of motives and the most devoted sense of duty, +could not keep the elected always in contact with the electors. You are +right. But you must remember that in every country there was a +machinery, with regard to the most important measures at least, which +could throw the matter before the electors to be re-decided. I can +remember no important occasion upon which the machinery was not brought +into use." + +"But, after all, the value of the decisions of the electorate you are +describing," said I, continuing to humour him, "would depend upon the +information which the electorate had received as well as upon their +judgment." + +"As for their judgment," he said, a little shortly, "it is not for our +time to criticize theirs. Human judgment is not infallible, but I can +well remember how in every nation of Europe it was the fixed conviction +of the citizens that judgment was their chief characteristic, and +especially judgment in national affairs. I cannot believe that so +universal an attitude of the mind could have arisen had it not been +justified. But as for information, they had the Press ... a free Press!" +Here he fell into a reverie, so powerfully did his supposed memories +affect him. + +I was willing to lead him on, because this kind of illness is best met +by sympathy, and also because I was not uninterested to discover how his +own trade had affected him. + +"You would hardly understand it," he said sadly; "what you hear from me +is nothing but words.... I wish I could have shown you one of those +great houses with information pouring in as rapid, as light, and as +clear, from every hidden corner of the world, digested by master brains +into the most lucid and terse presentment of it possible, and then +whirled out on great wheels to be distributed by the thousand and the +hundred thousand, to the hungry intelligence of Europe. There was +nothing escaped it--nothing. In every capital were crowds of men +dispatched from the other capitals of our civilization, moving with ease +in the wealthiest houses, and exquisitely in touch with the most +delicate phases of national life everywhere. And these men were such +experts in selection that a picture of Europe as a whole was presented +every morning to each particular part of Europe; and nowhere was this +more successfully accomplished than in my own beloved town of London." + +"It must have been useful," I said, "not only for the political purposes +you describe, but also for investors. Indeed, I should imagine that the +two things ran together." + +"You are right," he said with interest, "the wide knowledge which even +the poorest of the people possessed upon foreign affairs, through the +action of the Press, was, further, of the utmost and most beneficent +effect in teaching even the smallest proprietor what he need do with his +capital. A discovery of metallic ore--especially of gold--a new +invention, anything which might require development, was at once +presented in its most exact aspect to the reader." + +"It was probably upon that account," said I, "that property was so +equally distributed, and that so general a prosperity reigned as you +have often described to me." + +"You are right," said he; "it was mainly this accurate and universal +daily information which produced such excellent results." + +"But it occurs to me," said I, by way of stimulating his conversation +with an objection, "that if so passionate and tenacious a habit of +telling the exact truth upon innumerable things was present in this old +institution of which you speak, it cannot but have bred a certain amount +of dissension, and it must sometimes even have done definite harm to +individuals whose private actions were thus exposed." + +"You are right," said he; "the danger of such misfortunes was always +present, and with the greatest desire in the world to support only what +was worthy the writers of the journals of which I speak would +occasionally blunder against private interests; but there was a remedy." + +"What was that?" I asked. + +"Why, the law provided that in this matter twelve men called a jury, +instructed by a judge, after the matter had been fully explained to them +by two other men whose business it was to examine the truth boldly for +the sake of justice--I say the law provided that the twelve men after +this process should decide whether the person injured should receive +money from the newspaper or no, and if so, in what amount. And, lest +there should still be any manner of doubt, the judge was permitted to +set aside their verdict if he thought it unjust. To secure his absolute +impartiality as between rich and poor he was paid somewhat over 100 a +week, a large salary in those days, and he was further granted the right +of imprisoning people at will or of taking away their property if he +believed them to obstruct his judgment. Nor were these the only +safeguards. For in the case of very rich men, to whom justice might not +be done on account of the natural envy of their poorer fellow-citizens, +it was arranged that the jury should consist only of rich men. In this +way it was absolutely certain that a complete impartiality would reign. +We shall never see those days again," he concluded. + +"But do you not think," I said before I left him, "that the social +perfection of the kind you have described must rather have been due to +some spirit of the time than to particular institutions? For after all +the zealous love of justice and the sense of duty which you describe are +not social elements to be produced by laws." + +"Possibly," he said, wearily, "possibly, but we shall never see it +again!" + +And I left him looking into the fire with infinite sadness and +reflecting upon his lost youth and the year 1909: a pathetic figure, and +one whose upkeep during the period of his deficiency was a very serious +drain upon the resources of his family. + + + + +The Inheritance of Humour + + +There are some truths which seem to get old almost as soon as they are +born, and that simply because they are so astonishingly true that people +soon get to feel as though they have known them all their lives; and +such a truth is that which first one writer and then another in the last +five years has been insisting upon, until it is already a perfect +commonplace that nations do not know their own qualities. The inmost, +the characteristic thing, that which differentiates one community from +another, as tastes or colours differentiate things--_that_ a +nation hardly ever knows until it is pointed out to it by some foreigner +or by some observer from within. It cannot know it, because one cannot +tell the very atmosphere in which one lives. It is universal and +therefore unnoticed. Now, if this is true of any nation, it is +particularly true of England. And English people need to be told +morning, noon, and night, not indeed the particular national +characteristic which they have, since for this no particular name could +be found, but rather what its evidences are; as, for instance, +spontaneity in design, a passion for the mystical in poetry and the +arts; a power in water-colour, in which they are perhaps quite alone, +and certainly the first in Europe; and, above all, the chief, the master +thing of all, humour. + +There is not nor ever will be anything like English humour. It is a +thing quite apart, and by it for now more than two hundred years you may +know England. It does not puzzle the foreigner (as the more blatant kind +of intellectual man is too fond of boasting that it does); he simply +admires it as a rule and wonders at it always; sometimes he actually +dislikes it, but by it he knows that the thing he is reading is English +and has the savour and taste of England. + +It is impossible to define it, because it is so full of stuff and so +organic a quality; but in our own time it was principally the pencil of +Charles Keene that has summed it up and presented it in a moment and at +once to the eye--the pencil of Charles Keene and that profound instinct +whereby he chose the legends for his drawing, whether he found them by +his own sympathy with the people or whether they were suggested to him +by friends. + +It is the verdict of the men most competent perhaps to judge upon these +things that he had the greatest graphic power of his time, and that no +one had had that power to such an extent since Hogarth. Upon these +things the men of the trade must dispute; the layman cannot doubt that +he had here a genius and a genius comprehensively national. It is the +essence of a good draughtsman that what he wants to draw, that he draws. +The line that he desires to see upon the paper appears there as his +fingers move. It is a quality extremely rare in its perfection. And +Charles Keene had it in perfection, as in totally different manner had +the offensive and diseased talent of Beardsley. + +But more important than the power to do is the quality of the thing +done, and the work of Charles Keene, multitudinous, varied, always +great, is an inheritance for English people comparable to the +inheritance they have in Dickens. It has also what Dickens had, a power +of representing, as it were, the essential English. Just that which +makes people say (with some truth) that Dickens never drew a gentleman +would make them say with equal truth that what was interesting in the +gentlemen of Charles Keene (and he perpetually drew them) was not the +externals upon which gentlemen so pride themselves, but the soul. Thus I +have in mind one picture wherein Keene drew a gentleman; true, he was a +gentleman who had just swallowed a bad oyster, and therefore he was a +man as well. I recall another of an old gentleman complaining of the +caterpillar on his chop: he is a gentleman of the professional rather +than the territorial classes, and, great heavens! what a power of line! +All you see beneath the round of his hat is the end of his nose, the +curve of his mouth, and two bushy ends of whiskers. Yet one can tell all +about that man; one could write a book on him. One knows his economics, +his religion, his accent, and what he thought of the Third Napoleon and +what of Garibaldi. I have called draughtsmanship of this quality an +inheritance--I might have called it perhaps with better propriety a +monument. It is possible that England in the near future will look back +with great envy, as she will certainly look back with great pride, to +the generation preceding our own: they were a solid and a happy +community of men. How much they owed to fortune, how much to themselves, +it is not the place of such random stuff as mine to consider. + +They were nearly impregnable in their island; they were not bellicose. +They made and sold for all the world. Whether the very different future +which we are now entering is to be laid to their door or to our own, +that generation will still remain one of the principal things in English +history, like the Elizabethan generation, or the group of men who +organized the Seven Years' War, or the group of men who fought in the +Peninsula. And of that generation the note of health and of stability is +represented by its humour. I am not sure that of all things educational +to young men with no personal memory of that time, and especially to +young men with no family tradition of it to reflect it in their books +and their furniture; and--this yet more particularly--to young men born +out of England yet claiming communion with England, the Anglo-Indians +and the Colonials--I am not sure, I say, that the thing most educational +to these would not be some hundred of Charles Keene's drawings, for +therein they would find what it was that gave them the power and the +wealth that can hardly be defended unless its traditions are continued. +Note how Victorian England dealt with the humour of a Volunteer review; +note how it dealt with the humour of excessive wealth; and note how it +dealt with the humour of schools and of Dons. One might almost define it +by negations. There is in all of it no--but here I lack a word.... When +things ring false it is because they have got by exaggeration or by some +other form of falsity _beside_ themselves. Appreciation of rank or +even of worth becomes snobbishness; appreciation of another's judgment +false taste; and patriotism, the most beautiful, the noblest, the most +necessary of the great emotions, corrupts into something very vile +indeed. + +Well, the Victorians, and notably this man of whose power of the pencil +I am speaking, did lack that false savour, that savour of just missing +what one wishes to say or to feel, which haunts us to-day; and I should +imagine that whether it were cause or effect the salt present in the +preservation of the moral health of that society was humour. Let us +enjoy it like an heirloom. It is more national than the language; at +least it is more national than what the language has become under +foreign pressure; it is infinitely more national than our problems and +our tragedies. It is so national that--who knows?--it may crop up again +of itself one of these days; and may that not be long. + + + + +The Old Gentleman's Opinions + + +I had occasion about a fortnight ago to meet a man more nearly ninety +than eighty years of age, who had had special opportunity for +discovering the changes of Europe during his long life. He was of the +English wealthier classes by lineage, but his mother had been of the +French nobility and a Huguenot. His father had been prominent in the +diplomacy of a couple of generations ago. He had travelled widely, read +perhaps less widely, but had known and appreciated an astonishing number +of his contemporaries. + +I was interested (without any power of my own to judge whether his +decisions were right or wrong) to discover what most struck him in the +changes produced by that great stretch of years, all of which he had +personally observed: he was born just after Waterloo, and he could +remember the Reform Bill. + +He surprised me by telling me, in the first place, that the material +changes and discoveries, enormous though they were in extent, were not, +in his view, the most striking. He was ready to leave it open whether +these material changes were the causes of moral changes more remarkable, +or merely effects concomitant with these. When I asked him what had +struck him most of the great material developments, he told me the +phonograph and the aeroplane among inventions; Mendel's observations in +the sphere of experimental knowledge; and, in the sphere of pure theory, +the breakdown of many things that had been dogmas of physical science in +his early manhood. + +Since I did not quite understand what he meant by this last, he gave me, +after some hesitation, a few examples: That the interior of the earth +was molten; that a certain limited number of elements--not all yet +isolated, but certainly few in their total--were at the base of all +material forms, and were immutable; that the ultimate unit of each of +these was a certain indivisible, eternal thing called the Atom; and so +forth. + +He assured me that views of this sort, extending over a hundred or a +thousand other points, were so universally accepted in his time that to +dispute them was to be ranked with the unlettered or the fantastic. I +asked him if it were so in economics. He said: Yes, in England, where +there was a similar dogma of Free Trade: not abroad. + +When I asked him why Mendel's published experiments and the theory based +upon them had so much impressed him, he said because it was almost the +first attempt to apply to the speculative dogmas of biology some +standard demonstrably true; and here he wandered off to explain to me +why the commonly accepted views upon biology, which had so changed +thought in the latter part of his life, were associated with the name of +Darwin. Darwin, he assured me, had brought forward no new discovery, but +only a new hypothesis, and that only a small and particular hypothesis, +whereby to explain the general theory of transformism. This theory, he +told me--the unbroken descent of living organisms and their physical +connection with one another and with common parents--had been a +favourite idea from the beginning of history with many great thinkers, +from Lucretius to Buffon and from Augustus of Hippo to Lamarck. +Darwin's, the old gentleman assured me, which he had defended with +infinite toil, was that the method in which this continuity of descent +proceeded was by an infinitely slow process of very small changes +differentiating each minute step from the one before and the one after +it, and these small changes Darwin's hypothesis referred to a natural +selection. Nothing else in Darwin's work, he assured me, was novel, and +yet it was the one thing which subsequent research had rendered more and +more doubtful. Darwin (he said) said nothing new that was also true. + +At this point I was moved to contradict the old gentleman, and to say +that one unquestioned contribution to science of Darwin, as novel as it +was secure, was his patient discovery of the work of earthworms, and of +its vast effect. The old gentleman was willing to admit that I was +right, but he said he was only speaking of Darwin in connection with +transformism and the whimsical way in which his private name (and his +errors) had become identified with evolution in general. + +I asked him, since he had such a knowledge of men from observation, why +this was so. + +"It seems at first sight," he said, "as ridiculous as though we should +associate the theory of light with the name of Newton, who inclined to +the exploded corpuscular hypothesis, or the general conception of +orbital motion in the universe to the great Bacon, who, in point of +fact, rudely repudiated the Copernican theory in particular." + +"Did he, indeed?" said I, interested. + +"I believe so," said the old gentleman; "at any rate you were asking me +why Darwin, with his single contribution to the theory of transformism, +and that a doubtful one--or, to be accurate, an exploded one--should be +associated in the popular mind with the invention of so ancient a theory +as that of evolution. The reason is, I think, no more than that he came +at a particular moment when any man doing great quantities of detailed +work in this field was bound to stand out exaggeratedly. The society in +which he appeared had, until just before his day, accepted a narrow +cosmogony, quite unknown to its ancestors. Darwin's book certainly +exploded that, and the mind of his time--ignorant as it was of the +past--was ready to accept the shattering of its father's idols as a new +revelation." + +"But you were saying," said I, when he had thus dealt harshly with a +great name, "that not the material but the moral changes of your time +seemed to you the greatest. Which did you mean?" + +"Why, in the first place," said the old man thoughtfully and with some +hesitation, "the curiously rapid decline of intelligence, or if you will +have it differently, the clouding of thought that has marked the last +thirty years. Men in my youth knew what they held and what they did not +hold. They knew why they held it or why they did not hold it; but the +attempt to enjoy the advantages of two contradictory systems at the same +time, and, what is worse, the consulting of a man as an authority upon +subjects he had never professed to know, are intellectual phenomena +quite peculiar to the later years of my life." + +I said we of the younger generation had all noticed it, as, for +instance, when an honest but imperfectly intelligent chemist was +listened to in his exposition of the nature of the soul, or a well-paid +religious official was content to expound the consolations of +Christianity while denying that Christianity was true. + +"But," I continued, "we are usually told that this unfortunate decline +in the express powers of the brain is due to the wide and imperfect +education of the populace at the present moment." + +"That is not the case," answered the old man sharply, when I had made +myself clear by repeating my remarks in a louder tone, for he was a +little deaf. + +"That is not the case. The follies of which I speak are not particularly +to be discovered among the poorer classes who have passed through the +elementary schools. _These_" (it was to the schools that he was +alluding with a comprehensive pessimism) "may account for the gross +decline apparent in the public manners of our people, but not for faults +which are peculiar to the upper and middle classes. It is not in the +populace, but in those wealthier ranks that you will find the sort of +intellectual decay of which I spoke." + +I asked him whether he thought the tricks it was now considered cultured +to play with mathematics came within the category of this intellectual +decay. The old gentleman answered me a little abruptly that he could not +judge what I was talking about. + +"Why," said I, "do you believe that parallel straight lines +_converge_ or _diverge_?" + +"Neither," said he, a little bewildered. "If they are parallel they +cannot by definition either diverge or converge." + +"You are, then," said I, "an old-fashioned adherent of the theory of the +parabolic universe?" At which sensible reply of mine the old man +muttered rather ill-temperedly, and begged me to speak of something +else. + +I asked him whether the knowledge of languages had not declined in his +time. He said, somewhat emphatically, yes, and especially the knowledge +of French, assuring me that in his early years many a Fellow of a +College at Oxford or at Cambridge was capable of speaking that tongue in +such a fashion as to make himself understood. On the other hand, he +admitted that German and Spanish were more widely known than they had +been, and Arabic certainly far more widely diffused among those +officials of the Empire who took their work seriously. + +When I asked him whether politics were more corrupt as time proceeded, +he said No, but more cynical; and as to morals he would not judge, for +he was certain that as one vice was corrected another appeared in its +place. + +What he told me he most deplored in the social system of his country was +the power of the police and of the statistician by whom the policeman +was guided. This he ascribed to the growth of great towns, to civic +cowardice, and to a new taboo laid upon uniformed and labelled public +authorities, who are now regarded as sacred, and also inordinately +feared. + +"In my youth," he said, "there was a joke that every man in Paris was +known to the police. Today that is universally true, and no joke with +regard to every man in London. Our movements are marked, our earnings, +our expenses, and our most private affairs known to the innumerable +officials of the Treasury, our records of every sort, however intimate, +are exactly and correctly maintained. The obtaining of work and a +livelihood is dependent upon strong organizations. There is hardly an +ailment or a domestic habit, from drinking wine to eating turnips, which +some crank who has obtained the ear of a politician does not control or +threaten in the immediate future to control." + +"As for doctors!" he began, his voice cracking with indignation, "their +abominable...." but here the old gentleman fell into so violent a fit of +coughing that he nearly turned black in the face, and when I +respectfully slapped him on the back, in the hopes of granting him +relief, he made matters worse by shaking himself at me with an energy +worthy of 1842. His nurse rushed in, clapped him upon his pillows, and +was prepared to vent her wrath upon me for having caused this paroxysm, +when the old man's exhaustion and laboured breathing captured all her +attention, and I had the opportunity to withdraw. + + + + +On Historical Evidence + + +The last book to be published upon the last Dauphin of France set me +thinking upon what seems to me the chief practical science in which +modern men should secure themselves. I mean the science of history--and +in this science almost all lies in the appreciation of evidence, for one +of the chief particular problems presented to the student of history at +the present moment is whether the Dauphin did or did not survive his +imprisonment in the Temple. + +Let me first say why, to so many of us, the science of history and the +appreciation of the evidence upon which it depends is of the first +moment. It is because, short of vision or revelation, history is our +only extension of human experience. It is true that a philosophy common +to all citizens is necessary for a State if it is to, live--but short +of that necessity the next most necessary factor is a knowledge of the +stuff of mankind: of how men act under certain conditions and impulses. +This knowledge may be acquired, and is in some measure, during the +experience of one wise lifetime, but it is indefinitely extended by the +accumulation of experience which history affords. + +And what history so gives us is always of immediate and practical +moment. + +For instance, men sometimes speak with indifference of the rival +theories as to the origin of European land tenure; they talk as though +it were a mere academic debate whether the conception of private +property in land arose comparatively late among Europeans or was native +and original in our race. But you have only to watch a big popular +discussion on that very great and at the present moment very living +issue, the moral right to the private ownership in land, to see how +heavily the historic argument weighs with every type of citizen. The +instinct that gives that argument weight is a sound one, and not less +sound in those who have least studied the matter than in those who have +most studied it; for if our race from its immemorial origins has desired +to own land as a private thing side by side with communal tenures, then +it is pretty certain that we shall not modify that intention, however +much we change our laws. If, on the other hand, it could be shown that +before the advent of a complex civilization Europeans had no conception +of private property in land, but treated land as a thing necessarily and +always communal, then you could ascribe modern Socialist theories with +regard to the land to that general movement of harking back to the +origins which Europe has been assisting at through over a hundred years +of revolution and of change. + +It sounds cynical, but it is perfectly true, that much the largest +factor in the historical conception of men is assertion. It is literally +true that when men (with the exception of a very small proportion of +scholars who are also intelligent) consider the past, the picture on which +they dwell is a picture conveyed to them wholly by authority and by +unquestioned authority. There was never a time when the original sources +of history were more easily to be consulted by the plain man; but whether +because of their very number, or because the habit is not yet formed, or +because there are traditions of imaginary difficulty surrounding such +reading, original sources were perhaps never less familiar to fairly +educated opinion than they are today; and therefore no type of book gives +more pleasure when one comes across it than those little cheap books, now +becoming fairly numerous, in which the original sources, and the +original sources alone, are put before the reader. Mr. Rait has already +done such work in connection with Mary Queen of Scots, and Mr. Archer +did it admirably in connection with the Third Crusade. + +But apart from the importance of consulting original sources--which is +like hearing the very witnesses themselves in court--there is a factor +in historical judgment which by some unhappy accident is peculiarly +lacking in the professional historian. It is a factor to which no +particular name can be attached, though it may be called a department of +common sense. But it is a mental power or attitude easily recognizable +in those who possess it, and perhaps atrophied by the very atmosphere of +the study. It goes with the open air with a general knowledge of men and +with that rapid recognition of the way in which things "fit in" which is +necessarily developed by active life. + +For instance, when you know the pace at which Harold marched down from +the north to Hastings you recognize, if you use that factor of historic +judgment of which I spake, that the affair was not barbaric. There must +have been fairly good roads, and there must have been a high +organization of transport. You have only to consider for a moment what a +column looks like, even if it be only a brigade, to see the truth of +that. Again, this type of judgment forbids anyone who uses it to ascribe +great popular movements (great massacres, great turmoils, and so forth) +to craft. It is a very common thing, especially in modern history, to +lay such things to the power of one or two wealthy or one or two bloody +leaders, but you have only to think for a few moments of what a mob is +to see the falsity of that. Craft can harness this sort of explosive +force, it can control it, or persuade it, or canalize it to certain +issues, but it cannot create it. + +Again, this sort of sense easily recognizes in historic types the +parallels of modern experience. It avoids the error of thinking history +a mistake and making of the men and women who appear there something +remote from humanity, extreme, and either stilted or grandiose. + +In aid of this last feature in historical judgment there is nothing of +such permanent value as a portrait. Obtain your conception (as, indeed, +most boys do) of the English early sixteenth century from a text, then +go and live with the Holbeins for a week and see what an enormously +greater thing you will possess at the end of it. It is indeed one of the +misfortunes of European history that from the fifth century to at least +the eleventh we are, so far as Western European history is concerned, +deprived of portraits. And by an interesting parallel the writers of the +dark time seemed to have had neither the desire nor the gift of vivid +description. Consider the dreariness of the hagiographers, every one of +them boasting the noble rank and the conventional status of his hero, +and you may say not one giving the least conception of the man's +personality. You have the great Gallo-Roman noble family of Ferreolus +running down the centuries from the Decline of the Empire to the climax +of Charlemagne. Many of those names stand for some most powerful +individuality, yet all we have is a formula, a lineage, with symbols and +names in the place of living beings, and even that established only by +careful work, picking out and sifting relationships from various lives. +The men of that time did not even think to tell us that there was such a +thing as a family tradition, nor did it seem important to them to +establish its Roman origin and its long succession in power. + +Next it must be protested that the smallness and particularity of the +questions upon which historical discussion rages are no proof either of +its general purposelessness nor of _their_ insignificance. All +advance of knowledge proceeds in this fashion. Physical science affords +innumerable examples of the way in which progress has depended upon a +curiosity directed towards apparently insignificant things, and there is +something in the mind which compels it to select a narrow field for the +exercise of its acutest powers. Moreover, special points, discussion +upon which must evidently be lengthy and may be indefinite, are +peculiarly attractive to just that kind of man who by a love of +prolonged research enlarges the bounds of knowledge and at the same time +strengthens and improves for his fellows by continual exercise all the +instruments of their common trade. Take, for instance, this case of the +little Dauphin, Louis XVII. It really does not matter to day whether the +boy got away or whether he died in prison. It does not prolong the line +of the Capetians--the heir to that is present in the Duke of Orleans. It +does not even affect our view of any other considerable part of +history--save possibly the policy of Louis XVIII--and it is of no direct +interest to our pockets or to our affections. Yet the masses of work +which have accumulated round that one doubt have solved twenty other +doubts. They have illuminated all the close of the Terror; they are +beginning to make us understand that most difficult piece of political +psychology, the reaction of Thermidor, and with it how Europeans lose +their balance and regain it in the course of their quasi-religious wars; +for all our wars have something in them of religion. + +Three elements appear to enter into the judgment of history. First, +there is the testimony of human witnesses; next, there are the non-human +boundaries wherein the action took place, boundaries which, by all our +experience, impose fixed limits to action; thirdly, there is that +indefinable thing, that mystic power, which all nations deriving from +the theology of the Western Church have agreed to call, with the +schoolman, _common sense_; a general appreciation which transcends +particular appreciations and which can integrate the differentials of +evidence. Of this last it is quite impossible to afford a test or to +construct a measure; its presence in an argument is none the less as +readily felt as fresh air in a room; without it nothing is convincing +however laboured, with it, even though it rely upon slight evidence, one +has the feeling of walking on a firm road. But it must be "common +sense"--it must be of the sort, that is, which is common to man various +and general, and it is in this perhaps that history suffers most from +the charlatanism and ritual common to all great matters. + +Men will have pomp and mystery surrounding important things, and +therefore the historians must, consciously or unconsciously, tend to +strut, to quote solemn authorities in support, and to make out the +vulgar unworthy of their confidence. Hence, by the way, the plague of +footnotes. + +These had their origin in two sources: the desire to show that one was +honest and to prove it by a reference; the desire to elucidate some +point which it was not easy to elucidate in the text itself without +making the sentence too elaborate and clumsy. Either use may be seen at +its best in Gibbon. With the last generation they have served mainly, +and sometimes merely, for ritual adornment and terror, not to make +clearer or more honest, but to deceive. Thus Taine in his monstrously +false history of the Revolution revels in footnotes; you have but to +examine a batch of them with care to turn them completely against his +own conclusions--they are only put there as a sort of spiked paling to +warn off trespassers. Or, again, M. Thibaut, who writes under the name +of "Anatole France," gives footnotes by the score in his romance of Joan +of Arc, apparently not even caring to examine whether they so much as +refer to his text, let alone support it. They seem to have been done by +contract. + +Another ailment in this department is the negative one, whereby an +historian will leave out some aspect which to him, cramped in a study, +seems unimportant, but which any plain man moving in the world would +have told him to be the essential aspect of the whole matter. For +instance, when Napoleon left Madrid on his forced march to intercept Sir +John Moore before that general should have reached Benevente, he thought +Moore was at Valladolid, when as a fact he was at Sahagun. In Mr. Oman's +history of the Peninsular War the error is put thus: "Napoleon had not +the comparatively easy task of cutting the road between Valladolid and +Astorga, but the much harder one of intercepting that between Sahagun +and Astorga." + +Why is this egregious nonsense? The facts are right and so are the dates +and the names, yet it makes one blush for Oxford history. Why? Because +the all-important element of _distance_ is omitted. The very first +question a plain man would ask about the case would be, "What were the +distances involved?" The academic historian doesn't know, or, at least, +doesn't say; yet without an appreciation of the distances the statement +has no value. As a fact the distances were such that in the first case +(supposing Moore had been at Valladolid) Napoleon would have had to +cover nearly three miles to Moore's one to intercept him--an almost +superhuman task. In the second case (Moore being as a fact at Sahagun) +he would have had to go over _four miles_ to his opponent's one--an +absolutely impossible feat. + +To march _three_ miles to the enemy's _one_ is what Mr. Oman +calls "a comparatively easy task"; to march four to his one is what Mr. +Oman calls a "much harder" task; and to write like that is what an +informed critic calls bad history. + +The other two factors in an historical judgment can be more easily +measured. + +The non-human elements which, as I have said, are irremovable (save to +miracle), are topography, climate, season, local physical conditions, +and so forth. They have two valuable characters in aid of history; the +first is that they correct the errors of human memory and support the +accuracy of details; the second is that they enable us to complete a +picture. We can by their aid "see" the physical framework in which an +action took place, and such a landscape helps the judgment of things +past as it does of things contemporary. Thus the map, the date, the +soil, the contours of Crcy field make the traditional spot at which the +King of Bohemia fell doubtful; the same factors make it certain that +Drouet did not plunge haphazard through Argonne on the night of June 21, +1791, but that he must have gone by one path--which can be determined. + +Or, again, take that prime question, why the Prussians did not charge at +Valmy. On their failure to do so all the success of the Revolution +turned. A man may read Dumouriez, Kellermann, Pully, Botidoux, +Massenback, Goethe--there are fifty eye-witnesses at least whose +evidence we can collect, and I defy anyone to decide. (Brunswick himself +never knew.) But go to that roll of land between Valmy and the high +road; go after three days' rain as the allies did, and you will +immediately learn. That field between the heights of "The Moon" and the +site of old Valmy mill, which is as hard as a brick in summer (when the +experts visit it), is a marsh of the worst under an autumn drizzle; no +one could have charged. + +As for human testimony, three things appear: first, that the witness is +not, as in a law court, circumscribed. His relation may vary infinitely +in degree of proximity of time or space to the action, from that of an +eye-witness writing within the hour to that of a partisan writing at +tenth hand a lifetime after. That question of proximity comes first, +from the known action of the human mind whereby it transforms colours +and changes remembered things. Next there is the character of the +witness _for the purposes of his testimony_. Historians write, too +often, as though virtue--or wealth (with which they often confound +it)--were the test. It is not, short of a known motive for lying; a +murderer or a thief casually witnessing to a thing with which he is +familiar is worth more than the best man witnessing in a matter which he +understands ill. It was this error which ruined Croker's essay on +Charlotte Robespierre's Memoirs. Croker thought, perhaps wisely, that +all radicals were scoundrels; he could not accept her editor's evidence, +and (by the way) the view of this amateur collector without a tincture +of historical scholarship actually imposed itself on Europe for nearly +seventy years! + +And the third character in the witness is support: the support upon +converging lines of other human testimony, most of it indifferent, some +(this is essential) casual and by the way--deprived therefore of motive. + +When I shall find these canons satisfied to oppose the strong +probability and tradition of the Dauphin's death in prison I shall doubt +that death, but not before. + + + + +The Absence of the Past + + +It is perhaps not possible to put into human language that emotion +which rises when a man stands upon some plot of European soil and can +say with certitude to himself: "Such and such great, or wonderful, or +beautiful things happened here." + +Touch that emotion ever so lightly and it tumbles into the commonplace, +and the deadest of commonplace. Neglect it ever so little and the +Present (which is never really there, for even as you walk across +Trafalgar Square it is yesterday and tomorrow that are in your mind), +the Present, I say, or rather the immediate flow of things, occupies you +altogether. But there is a mood, and it is a mood common in men who have +read and who have travelled, in which one is overwhelmed by the sanctity +of a place on which men have done this or that a long, long time ago. + +Here it is that the gentle supports which have been framed for human +life by that power which launched it come in and help a man. Time does +not remain, but space does, and though we cannot seize the Past +physically we can stand physically upon the site, and we can have (if I +may so express myself) a physical communion with the Past by occupying +that very spot which the past greatness of man or of event has occupied. + +It was but the other day that, with an American friend at my side, I +stood looking at the little brass plate which says that here Charles +Stuart faced (he not only faced, but he refused) the authority of his +judges. I know not by what delicate mechanism of the soul that record +may seem at one moment a sort of tourist thing, to be neglected or +despised, and at another moment a portent. But I will confess that all +of a sudden, pointing out this very well-known record upon the brass let +into the stone in Westminster Hall, I suddenly felt the presence of the +thing. Here all that business was done: they were alive; they were in +the Present as we are. Here sat that tender-faced, courageous man, with +his pointed beard and his luminous eyes; here he was a living man +holding his walking-stick with the great jewel in the handle of it; here +was spoken in the very tones of his voice (and how a human voice +perishes!--how we forget the accents of the most loved and the most +familiar voices within a few days of their disappearance!); here the +small gestures, and all the things that make up a personality, marked +out Charles Stuart. When the soul is seized with such sudden and +positive conviction of the substantial past it is overwhelmed; and +Europe is full of such ghosts. + +As you take the road to Paradise, about halfway there you come to an +inn, which even as inns go is admirable. You go into the garden of it, +and see the great trees and the wall of Box Hill shrouding you all +around. It is beautiful enough (in all conscience) to arrest one without +the need of history or any admixture of the pride of race; but as you +sit there on a seat in that garden you are sitting where Nelson sat when +he said goodbye to his Emma, and if you will move a yard or two you will +be sitting where Keats sat biting his pen and thinking out some new line +of his poem. + +What has happened? These two men with their keen, feminine faces, these +two great heroes of a great time in the great story of a great people of +this world, are not there. They are nowhere. But the site remains. + +Philosophers can put in formulae the crowd of suggestions that rush into +the mind when one's soul contemplates the perpetual march and passage of +mortality. But they can do no more than give us formularies: they cannot +give us replies. What are we? What is all this business? Why does the +mere space remain and all the rest dissolve? + +There is a lonely place in the woods of Chilham, in the County of Kent, +above the River Stour, where a man comes upon an irregular earthwork +still plainly marked upon the brow of the bluff. Nobody comes near this +place. A vague country lane, or rather track; goes past the wet soil of +it, plunges into the valley beyond, and after serving a windmill joins +the high road to Canterbury. Well, that vague track is the ancient +British road, as old as anything in this Island, that took men from +Winchester to the Straits of Dover. That earthwork is the earthwork (I +could prove it, but this is not the place) where the British stood +against the charge of the Tenth Legion, and first heard, sounding on +their bronze, the arms of Caesar. Here the river was forded; here the +little men of the South went up in formation; here the Barbarian broke +and took his way, as the opposing General has recorded, through devious +woodland paths, scattering in the pursuit; here began the great history +of England. + +Is it not an enormous business merely to stand in such a place? I think +so. + +I know a field to the left of the Chalons Road, some few miles before +you get to Ste. Menehould. There used to be an inn by the roadside +called "The Sign of the Moon." It has disappeared. There used to be a +ramshackle windmill beyond the field, a mile or so from the road, on an +upland swell of land, but that also has gone, and had been gone for some +time before I knew the field of which I write. It is a bare fold of land +with one or two little scrubby spinneys alongside the plough. And for +the rest, just the brown earth and the sky. There are days on which you +will see a man at work somewhere within that mile, others on which it is +completely deserted. Here it is that the French Revolution was +preserved. Here was the Prussian charge. On the deserted, ugly lump of +empty earth beyond you were the three batteries that checked the +invaders. It was all alive and crowded for one intense moment with the +fate of Christendom. Here, on the place in which you are standing and +gazing, young Goethe stood and gazed. That meaningless stretch of coarse +grass supported Brunswick and the King of Prussia, and the brothers of +the King of France, as they stood windswept in the rain, watching the +failure of the charge. It is the field of Valmy. Turn on that height and +look back westward and you see the plains rolling out infinitely; they +are the plains upon which Attila was crushed; but there is no one there. + +All men have remarked that night and silence are august, and I think +that if this quality in night and silence be closely examined it will be +found to consist, in part at least, in this: that either of them +symbolizes Absence. By a paradox which I will not attempt to explain, +but which all have felt, it is in silence and in darkness that the Past +most vividly returns, and that this absence of what once was possesses, +nay, obtrudes itself upon the mind: it becomes almost a sensible thing. +There is much to be said for those who pretend, imagine, or perhaps have +experienced under such conditions the return of the dead. The mood of +darkness and of silence is a mood crammed with something that does not +remain, as space remains, that is limited by time, and is a creature of +time, and yet something that has an immortal right to remain. + +Now, I suppose that in that sentence where I say things mortal have +immortal rights to permanence, the core of the whole business is touched +upon. And I suppose that the great men who could really think and did +not merely fire off fireworks to dazzle their contemporaries--I suppose +that Descartes, for instance, if he were here sitting at my table--could +help me to solve that contradiction; but I sit and think and cannot +solve it. + +"What," says the man upon his own land, inherited perhaps and certainly +intended for his posterity--"what! Can you separate me from this? Are +not this and I bound up inextricably?" The answer is "No; you are not so +far as any observer of this world can discover. Space is in no way +possessed by man, and he who may render a site immortal in one of our +various ways, the captain who there conquered, the poet who there +established his sequence of words, cannot himself put forward a claim to +permanence within it at all." + +There was a woman of charming vivacity, whose eyes were ever ready for +laughter, and whose tone of address of itself provoked the noblest of +replies. Many loved her; all admired. She passed (I will suppose) by +this street or by that; she sat at table in such and such a house; +Gainsborough painted her; and all that time ago there were men who had +the luck to meet her and to answer her laughter with their own. And the +house where she moved is there and the street in which she walked, and +the very furniture she used and touched with her hands you may touch +with your hands. You shall come into the rooms that she inhabited, and +there you shall see her portrait, all light and movement and grace and +beatitude. + +She is gone altogether, the voice will never return, the gestures will +never be seen again. She was under a law; she changed, she suffered, she +grew old, she died; and there was her place left empty. The not living +things remain; but what counted, what gave rise to them, what made them +all that they are, has pitifully disappeared, and the greater, the +infinitely greater, thing was subject to a doom perpetually of change +and at last of vanishing. The dead surroundings are not subject to such +a doom. Why? + +All those boys who held the line of the low ridge or rather swell of +land from Hougoumont through the Belle Alliance have utterly gone. More +than dust goes, more than wind goes; they will never be seen again. +Their voices will never be heard--they are not. But what is the mere +soil of the field without them? What meaning has it save for their +presence? + +I could wish to understand these things. + + + + +St. Patrick + + +If there is one thing that people who are not Catholic have gone wrong +upon more than another in the intellectual things of life, it is the +conception of a Personality. They are muddled about it where their own +little selves are concerned, they misappreciate it when they deal with +the problems of society, and they have a very weak hold of it when they +consider (if they do consider) the nature of Almighty God. + +Now, personality is everything. It was a Personal Will that made all +things, visible and invisible. Our hope of immortality resides in this, +that we are persons, and half our frailties proceed from a +misapprehension of the awful responsibilities which personality involves +or a cowardly ignorance of its powers of self-government. + +The hundred and one errors which this main error leads to include a bad +error on the nature of history. Your modern non-Catholic or +anti-Catholic historian is always misunderstanding, underestimating, or +muddling the role played in the affairs of men by great and individual +Personalities. That is why he is so lamentably weak upon the function of +legend; that is why he makes a fetish of documentary evidence and has no +grip upon the value of tradition. For traditions spring from some +personality invariably, and the function of legend, whether it be a +rigidly true legend or one tinged with make-believe, is to interpret +Personality. Legends have vitality and continue, because in their origin +they so exactly serve to explain or illustrate some personal character +in a man which no cold statement could give. + +Now St. Patrick, the whole story and effect of him, is a matter of +Personality. There was once--twenty or thirty years ago--a whole school +of dunderheads who wondered whether St. Patrick ever existed, because +the mass of legends surrounding his name troubled them. How on earth +(one wonders) do such scholars consider their fellow-beings! Have they +ever seen a crowd cheering a popular hero, or noticed the expression +upon men's faces when they spoke of some friend of striking power +recently dead? A great growth of legends around a man is the very best +proof you could have not only of his existence but of the fact that he +was an origin and a beginning, and that things sprang from his will or +his vision. There were some who seemed to think it a kind of favour done +to the indestructible body of Irish Catholicism when Mr. Bury wrote his +learned Protestant book upon St. Patrick. It was a critical and very +careful bit of work, and was deservedly praised; but the favour done us +I could not see! It is all to the advantage of non-Catholic history that +it should be sane, and that a great Protestant historian should make +true history out of a great historical figure was a very good sign. It +was a long step back towards common sense compared with the German +absurdities which had left their victims doubting almost all the solid +foundation of the European story; but as for us Catholics, we had no +need to be told it. Not only was there a St. Patrick in history, but +there is a St. Patrick on the shores of his eastern sea and throughout +all Ireland to-day. It is a presence that stares you in the face, and +physically almost haunts you. Let a man sail along the Leinster coast on +such a day as renders the Wicklow Mountains clear up-weather behind him, +and the Mourne Mountains perhaps in storm, lifted clearly above the sea +down the wind. He is taking some such course as that on which St. +Patrick sailed, and if he will land from time to time from his little +boat at the end of each day's sailing, and hear Mass in the morning +before he sails further northward, he will know in what way St. Patrick +inhabits the soil which he rendered sacred. + +We know that among the marks of holiness is the working of miracles. +Ireland is the greatest miracle any saint ever worked. It is a miracle +and a nexus of miracles. Among other miracles it is a nation raised from +the dead. + +The preservation of the Faith by the Irish is an historical miracle +comparable to nothing else in Europe. There never was, and please God +never can be, so prolonged and insanely violent a persecution of men by +their fellow-men as was undertaken for centuries against the Faith in +Ireland: and it has completely failed. I know of no example in history +of failure following upon such effort. It had behind it in combination +the two most powerful of the evil passions of men, terror and greed. And +so amazing is it that they did not attain their end, that perpetually as +one reads one finds the authors of the dreadful business now at one +period, now at another, assuming with certitude that their success is +achieved. Then, after centuries, it is almost suddenly perceived--and in +our own time--that it has not been achieved and never will be. + +What a complexity of strange coincidences combined, coming out of +nothing as it were, advancing like spirits summoned on to the stage, all +to effect this end! Think of the American Colonies; with one little +exception they were perhaps the most completely non-Catholic society of +their time. Their successful rebellion against the mother country meant +many things, and led to many prophecies. Who could have guessed that one +of its chief results would be the furnishing of a free refuge for the +Irish? + +The famine, all human opinion imagined, and all human judgment was bound +to conclude, was a mortal wound, coming in as the ally of the vile +persecution I have named. It has turned out the very contrary. From it +there springs indirectly the dispersion, and that power which comes from +unity in dispersion, of Irish Catholicism. + +Who, looking at the huge financial power that dominated Europe, and +England in particular, during the youth of our own generation, could +have dreamt that in any corner of Europe, least of all in the poorest +and most ruined corner of Christendom, an effective resistance could be +raised? + +Behind the enemies of Ireland, furnishing them with all their modern +strength, was that base and secret master of modern things, the usurer. +He it was far more than the gentry of the island who demanded toll, and, +through the mortgages on the Irish estates, had determined to drain +Ireland as he has drained and rendered desert so much else. Is it not a +miracle that he has failed? + +Ireland is a nation risen from the dead; and to raise one man from the +dead is surely miraculous enough to convince one of the power of a great +spirit. This miracle, as I am prepared to believe, is the last and the +greatest of St. Patrick's. + +When I was last in Ireland, I bought in the town of Wexford a coloured +picture of St. Patrick which greatly pleased me. Most of it was green in +colour, and St. Patrick wore a mitre and had a crosier in his hand. He +was turning into the sea a number of nasty reptiles: snakes and toads +and the rest. I bought this picture because it seemed to me as modern a +piece of symbolism as ever I had seen: and that was why I bought it for +my children and for my home. + +There was a few pence change, but I did not want it. The person who sold +me the picture said they would spend the change in candles for St. +Patrick's altar. So St. Patrick is still alive. + + + + +The Lost Things + + +I never remember an historian yet, nor a topographer either, who could +tell me, or even pretend to explain by a theory, how it was that certain +things of the past utterly and entirely disappear. + +It is a commonplace that everything is subject to decay, and a +commonplace which the false philosophy of our time is too apt to forget. +Did we remember that commonplace we should be a little more humble in +our guesswork, especially where it concerns prehistory; and we should +not make so readily certain where the civilization of Europe began, nor +limit its immense antiquity. But though it is a commonplace, and a true +one, that all human work is subject to decay, there seems to be an +inexplicable caprice in the method and choice of decay. + +Consider what a body of written matter there must have been to instruct +and maintain the technical excellence of Roman work. What a mass of +books on engineering and on ship-building and on road-making; what +quantities of tables and ready-reckoners, all that civilization must +have produced and depended upon. Time has preserved much verse, and not +only the best by any means, more prose, particularly the theological +prose of the end of the Roman time. The technical stuff, which must, in +the nature of things, have been indefinitely larger in amount, has (save +in one or two instances and allusions) gone. + +Consider, again, all that mass of seven hundred years which was called +Carthage. It was not only seven hundred years of immense wealth, of +oligarchic government, of a vast population, and of what so often goes +with commerce and oligarchy--civil and internal peace. A few stones to +prove the magnitude of its municipal work, a few ornaments, a few +graves--all the rest is absolutely gone. A few days' marches away there +is an example I have quoted so often elsewhere that I am ashamed of +referring to it again, but it does seem to me the most amazing example +of historical loss in the world. It is the site of Hippo Regius. Here +was St. Augustine's town, one of the greatest and most populous of a +Roman province. It was so large that an army of eighty thousand men +could not contain it, and even with such a host its siege dragged on for +a year. There is not a sign of that great town today. + +A suburb, well without the walls--to be more accurate, a neighbouring +village--carries on the name under the form of Bona, and that is all. A +vast, fertile plain of black rich earth, now largely planted with +vineyards, stands where Hippo stood. How can the stones have gone? How +can it have been worth while to cart away the marble columns? Why are +there no broken statues on such a ground, and no relics of the gods? + +Nay, the wells are stopped up from which the people drank, and the +lining of the wells is not to be discovered in the earth, and the +foundations of the walls, and even the ornaments of the people and their +coins, all these have been spirited away. + +Then there are the roads. Consider that great road which reached from +Amiens to the main port of Gaul, the Portus Itius at Boulogne. It is +still in use. It was in use throughout the Middle Ages. Up that road the +French Army marched to Crcy. It points straight to its goal upon the +sea coast. Its whole purpose lay in reaching the goal. For some +extraordinary reason, which I have never seen explained or even guessed +at, there comes a point as it nears the coast where it suddenly ceases +to be. + +No sand has blown over it. It runs through no marshes; the land is firm +and fertile. Why should that, the most important section of the great +road which led northward from Rome, have failed, and have failed so +recently, in the history of man? Where this great road crosses streams +and might reasonably be lost, at its _pontes_, its bridges, it has +remained, and is of such importance as to have given a name to a whole +countryside--_Ponthieu_. But north of that it is gone. + +Nearly every Roman road of Gaul and Britain presents something of the +same puzzle in some parts of its course. It will run clear and +followable enough, or form a modern highway for mile upon mile, and then +not at a marsh where one would expect its disappearance, nor in some +desolate place where it might have fallen out of use, but in the +neighbourhood of a great city and at the very chief of its purpose, it +is gone. It is so with the Stane Street that led up from the garrison of +Chichester and linked it with the garrison of London. You can +reconstruct it almost to a yard until you reach Epsom Downs. There you +find it pointing to London Bridge, and remaining as clear as in any +other part of its course: much clearer than in most other sections. But +try to follow it on from Epsom Racecourse, and you entirely fail. The +soil is the same; the conditions of that soil are excellent for its +retention; but a year's work has taught me that there is no +reconstructing it save by hypothesis and guesswork from this point to +the crossing of the Thames. + +What happened to all that mass of local documents whereby we ought to be +able to build up the territorial scheme and the landed regime of old +France? Much remains, if you will, in the shape of chance charters and +family papers. Even in the archives of Paris you can get enough to whet +your curiosity. But not even in one narrow district can you obtain +enough to reconstruct the whole truth. There is not a scholar in Europe +who can tell you exactly how land was owned and held, even, let us say, +on the estates of Rheims or by the family of Cond. And men are ready to +quarrel as to how many peasants owned and how much of their present +ownership was due to the Revolution, evidence has already become so +wholly imperfect in that tiny stretch of historical time. + +But, after all, perhaps one ought not to wonder too much that material +things should thus capriciously vanish. Time, which has secured Timgad +so that it looks like an unroofed city of yesterday, has swept and razed +Laimboesis. The two towns were neighbours--one was taken and the other +left--and there is no sort of reason any man can give for it. Perhaps +one ought not too much to wonder, for a greater wonder still is the +sudden evaporation and loss of the great movements of the human soul. +That what our ancestors passionately believed or passionately disputed +should, by their descendants in one generation or in two, become +meaningless, absurd, or false--this is the greatest marvel and the +greatest tragedy of all. + + + + +On the Reading of History + + +Let me at the beginning of this short article present two facts to the +reader. Neither can be disputed, and that is why I call them facts and +put them in the forefront before I begin upon my theories. + +The first fact is that the record of what men have done in the past and +how they have done it is the chief positive guide to present action. The +second fact is that most men must now receive the impression of the past +through reading. + +Put these two facts together and you get the fundamental truth that upon +the right reading of history the right use of citizenship in England +today will depend. It will of course depend upon other things as well: +chiefly upon the human conscience; for if you were to pack off to an +island a hundred families as ignorant as any human families can be of +tradition, and wholly ignorant of positive history, those families would +yet be able to create a human society and the voice of God within them +would give just limits to their actions. + +Still, of those factors in civic action amenable to civic direction, +conscious and positively effective, there is nothing to compare with the +right teaching and the right reading of history. Now teaching is today +ruined. The old machinery by which the whole nation could be got to know +all essential human things, has been destroyed, and the teaching of +history in particular has been not only ruined but rendered ridiculous. +There is no historical school properly so-called in modern England; that +is, there is no organization framed with the sole object of extending +and co-ordinating historical knowledge and of choosing men for their +capacity to discover upon the one hand and to teach upon the other. +There is nothing approaching to it in the two ancient universities, +because the choice of teachers there depends upon a multitude of +considerations quite separate from those mentioned, and the capacity to +discover, to know, and to teach history, though it _may_ be present +in a tutor, will only be accidentally so present: while as for +co-ordination of knowledge, there is no attempt at it. Even where very +hard work is done, and, when it concerns local history, very useful +work, history as a general study is not grasped because the universities +have not grasped it. + +History is to be had by the modern Englishman from his own reading only; +and I am here concerned with the question how he shall read history with +profit. + +To read history with profit, history must be true, or at any rate the +reader must have a power of discerning what is true in the midst of much +that may be false. I will bargain, for instance, that in the summer of +1899 the great mass of men, and especially the great mass of men who had +passed through the universities, were under the impression that armies +had left England for the purpose of conquest in distant countries with +invariable success: that that success had been unique, unsupported and +always decisive, and that the wealth of the country after each success +had increased, not diminished. In other words, had history been studied +even by the tiny minority who have education today in England, Sir +William Butler would have counted more than the Joels, and the late Mr. +Barnato (as he called himself); the South African War would not have +taken place in a society which knew its past. + +Again, you may pick almost any phrase referring to the Middle Ages out +of any newspaper--if you are a man read in the Middle Ages--and you will +find in it not only a definite historical falsehood with regard to the +fact referred to, or the analogy drawn, but also a false philosophy. + +For instance, the other day I read this phrase with regard to the burial +of a certain gentleman of my neighbourhood in Sussex: "We are surely +past the phase of mediaeval thought in which it was imagined that a few +words spoken over the lifeless clay would determine the fate of the soul +for all eternity." Just notice the myriad falsehoods of a phrase like +that! I will not discuss what is connoted by the words "past the phase +of mediaeval thought"--it connotes of course that the human mind changes +fundamentally with the centuries, and therefore that whatever we think +is probably wrong, and that what we are sure of we cannot be sure of, an +absurd conclusion. I will only note the historical falsehoods. When on +earth did the "Middle Ages" lay down that a "few words over lifeless +clay determined the fate of the soul for all eternity"? On the contrary, +the Middle Ages laid it down--it was their peculiar doctrine--that it +was impossible to determine the fate of the soul; that no one could tell +the fate of any one individual soul; that it was a grievous sin, among +the most grievous of sins, to affirm positive knowledge that any +individual had lost his soul. More than this, the Middle Ages were +peculiar in their insistence upon the doctrine that a man might have +been very bad and might have had all the appearance of having lost his +soul so far as human judgment went, and yet was liable to a midway place +between salvation and damnation, and they affirmed that this midway +place did not lead to either fate but necessarily to salvation and to +salvation only. + +Again, whatever could help the human soul to salvation was by the most +rigorous theological definition of the Middle Ages applicable only +before death. After death the fate of the soul was sealed, and the man +once dead, the "lifeless clay" (as the journalist put it--and the Middle +Ages was the only source from which he got the idea of clay at all), +whether it were that of a Pope or of some random highwayman, had no +effect whatsoever upon the fate of the soul. The greatest saint might +have offered the most solemn sacrifice on its behalf for years, and if +the soul were damned his sacrifice would have been of no avail. + +I have taken this example absolutely at random. But the modern reader, +apart from sentences as clearly provocative of criticism as this, is +perpetually coming across references, allusions, and parallels which +take a certain course of human European and English history for granted. +How is he to distinguish when that course is rightly drawn from when it +is wrongly drawn? + +Thus in some newspaper article written by an able man, and dealing, let +us say, with the territorial army, one might come across a sentence like +this: "Napoleon himself used troops so raw that they were actually +drilled on the march to the battlefield." That would be a perfectly true +statement. Any amount of criticism of it lies in connexion with Mr. +Haldane's scheme, but still it is a true piece of history. Napoleon did +get raw recruits into his battalions just before any one of his famous +marches began, and drill them on the way to victory. In the next column +of the newspaper the reader may be presented with a sentence like this: +"The captures of English by privateers in the Revolutionary War should +teach us what foreign cruisers can do." + +There were plenty of captures by privateers in the Revolutionary Wars; +if I remember rightly, many many hundreds, all discreetly hidden from +the common or garden reader until party politics necessitated their +resurrection a hundred years after the event, but they have nothing +whatsoever to do with modern circumstances. + +Both statements are true then, and yet one can be truthfully applied +today, while the other cannot. + +How is the plain reader to distinguish between two historical truths, +one of which is a useful modern analogy, the other of which is a +ludicrously misleading one? + +The reader, it would seem, has no criterion by which to distinguish what +has been withheld from him and what has been emphasized; he may, from +his knowledge of the historian's character or bias, stand upon his +guard, but he can do little more. + +There is another difficulty. It is less subtle and less common, but it +exists. I mean brute lying. You do not often get the lie direct in +official history; it would be too dangerous a game to play in the face +of the critics, though some historians, and notably the French historian +Taine, have played it boldly enough, and have stated dogmatically, as +historical happenings, things that never happened and that they knew +never happened. But the plain or brute historical lie is more commonly +found in the pages of ephemeral journalism. Thus the other day, with +regard to the Budget, I saw some financial operation alluded to as +comparable with "the pulling out of Jews' teeth for money in the Middle +Ages." When did anyone in the Middle Ages pull out a Jew's teeth for +money? There is just one very doubtful story told about King John, and +that story is told without proof by one of John's worst enemies, in a +mass of other accusations many of which can be proved to be false. + +Again, I turn to an Oxford History of the French Revolution, and I find +the remark that the massacres of September were organized by the men +from Marseilles. They were not organized by the men from Marseilles. The +men from Marseilles had nothing to do with them, and the fact has been +public property since the publication of Pollio and Marcel's monograph +twenty years ago. + +What criterion can the ordinary reader choose when he is confronted by +difficulties of this sort? I will suggest to him one which seems to me +by far the most valuable. It is the reading of firsthand authorities. It +is all a matter of habit. When the original authorities upon which +history is based were difficult to get at, when few of those in foreign +tongues had been translated, and when those that had been published were +published in the most expensive form, the ordinary reader had to depend +upon an historian who would summarize for him the reading of another. +The ordinary reader was compelled to read secondary history or none. Now +secondary history is among the most valuable of literary efforts; where +evidence is slight, the judgment of an historian who knows from other +reading the general character of the period, is most valuable. Where +evidence is abundant, and therefore confusing, the historian used to the +selection and weighing of it performs a most valuable function. Still, +the reader who is not acquainted with original authorities does not +really know history and is at the mercy of whatever myth or tradition +may be handed to him in print. + +We should remember that today, even in England, original authorities are +quite easy to get at. Two little books, for instance, occur to me out of +hundreds: Mr. Rait's book on Mary Stuart and Mr. Archer's on the Third +Crusade. In each of these the reader gets in a cheap form, in modern and +readable English, the kind of evidence upon which historians base their +history, and he can use that evidence in the light of his own knowledge +of human nature and his own judgment of human life. + +Or again, if he wants to know what the Romans really knew or said they +knew about the German tribes who, as pirates, so greatly influenced the +history of England, let him get Mr. Rouse's edition of Grenewey's +translation of the Germania in Blackie's series of English texts; it +will only cost sixpence, and for that money he will get a bit of +Caesar's Gallic War and the Agricola as well. But the list nowadays is a +very long one, luckily, and the lay reader has only to choose what +period he would like to read up, and he will find for nearly every one +first-hand evidence ready, cheap and published in a readable modern +form. That he should take such first-hand evidence is the very best +advice that any honest historian can give. + + + + +The Victory + + +The study of history, like the exploration, the thorough exploration, of +any other field, leads one to perpetual novelties, miracles, and +unexpected things; and I, in the study of the revolutionary wars, came +across the story of a battle which completely possessed my spirit. + +It would not be to my purpose here to give its name. It is not among the +most famous; it is not Waterloo, nor Leipsic, nor Austerlitz, nor even +Jemappes. The more I read into the night the more I perceived that upon +the issue of that struggle depended the fate of the modern world. So +completely did the notes of Carnot and a few private letters that had +been put before me absorb my attention that I will swear the bugle-calls +of those two days (for it was a two-days' struggle) sounded more clearly +in my ears than the rumble of the London streets, and, as this died out +with the advance of the night and the approach of morning, I was living +entirely upon that ridge in Flanders, watching, as a man watches an +arena, whether the new things or the old should be victorious. It was +the new that conquered. + +From that evening I was determined to visit this place of which so far I +had but read, and to see how far it might agree with the vision I had +had of it, and to people actual fields with the ghosts of dead soldiers. +And for the better appreciation of the drama I chose the season and the +days on which the fight had been driven across that rolling land, and I +came there, as the Republicans had come, a little before the dawn. + +The hillside was silent and deserted, more even than are commonly such +places, though silence and desertion seem the common atmosphere of all +the fields on which such fates have been decided. A man looking over +Carthage Bay, especially a man looking at those sodden pools that were +the sound harbours of Carthage, might be in an uninhabited world; and +the loop of the Trebbia is the same, and the edge of Fontenoy; and even +here in England that hillside looking south up which the Normans charged +at Battle is a quiet and a drowsy sort of place.... So it was here in +Flanders. + +For two miles as I ascended by the little sunken lane which the extreme +right wing had followed in the last attack I saw neither man nor beast, +but only the same stubble of the same autumn fields, and the same colder +sun shining upon the empty uplands until I reached the crest where the +Hungarian and the Croat had met the charge, and had disputed the little +village for two hours--a dispute upon which hung your fate and mine and +that of Europe. + +It was a tiny little village, seven or eight houses together and no +more, with a crazy little wooden steeple to its church all twisted awry, +large barns, and comfortable hedgerows of the Northern kind; and from it +one looked out westwards over an infinity of country, following low +crest after low crest, down on to the French plains. I went into the inn +of the place to drink, and found the cobbler there complaining that +wealth disturbed the natural equality of men. Then I wandered out, +pacing this point and that which I knew accurately from my maps, and +thinking of the noise of the war. Behind the little church, upon a +ramshackle green not large enough to pitch the stumps for single-wicket, +was the modest monument, a cock in bronze, crowing, and the word +"Victory" stamped into the granite of the pedestal; the whole thing, I +suppose, not ten feet high. The bronze was very well done; it savoured +strongly of Paris and looked odd in this abandoned little place. But +every time my eyes sank from the bronze, to look at some other point in +the landscape to identify the emplacement of such and such a battery or +the gully that had concealed the advance of such and such a troop, my +glance perpetually returned to that word "VICTORY," sculptured by itself +upon the stone. It was indeed a victory; it was a victory which, for its +huge unexpectedness, for the noise of it, for the length of time during +which it was in doubt, for its final success, there is no parallel, and +yet it is by no means among the famous battles of the world. And though +the French count it one among the thousand of their battles, I doubt +whether even in Paris most men would recognize it for the hammer-blow it +was. The men of the time hardly knew it, though Carnot guessed at it, and +now to-day in Sorbonne I think that regal fight is taking its true place. + +So I went down the eight miles of front northward along the ridge; for +even that battle, a hundred and more years ago, had an extended front of +this kind. I recognized the tall majestic fringe of beeches from which +had issued the last of the Royalist regiments bearing for the last time +upon a European field the white flag of the Bourbon Monarchy; I came +beyond it to the combe fringed with its semicircle of underbrush in +which Coburg had massed his guns in the last effort to break the French +centre when his flank was turned. I came to the main highway, very +broad, straight, and paved, which cuts this battlefield in two, and then +beyond it to the central position whose capture had made the final +manoeuvre possible. + +All Wednesday the Grenadiers, German, tall, padded, smart, and stout, +had held their ground. It was not until Thursday, and by noon, that they +were slowly driven up the hill by the ragged lads, the Gauls, shoeless, +some not in uniform at all, half-mutinous, drunk with pain and glory. +And I remembered, as the scene returned to me, that this battle, like so +many of the Revolution, had been a battle of men against boys; how grey +and veteran and trained in arms were the Austrians and the Prussians, +their allies, how strict in orders, how calm: and what children the +Terror had called up by force from the exhausted fields of remote French +provinces, to break them here against the frontier, like water against a +wall...! + +There was a little chap, twelve years old, a drummer; he had crept and +crawled by hedgerows till he found himself behind the line of those +volleying Grenadiers. There, "before his side," and breaking all rules, +he had sounded the roll of the charge. They cut him down and killed him, +and the roll of his drum ceased hard. A generation or more later, +digging for foundations at this spot, the builders of the Peace came +upon his bones, the little bones of a child heaped pell-mell with +skeletons of the fallen giants round him. + +I went back into the town in whose defence the battle had been waged, +and there I saw again in bronze this little lad, head high and mouth +open, a-beating of his drum, and again the word "VICTORY." + +All that effort was undertaken, all those young men and children killed, +for something that was to happen for the salvation of the world; it has +not come. All that iron resistance of the German line had been forged +and organized till it almost conquered, till it almost thwarted, the +Republic, and it also had been organized for the defence, and, as some +thought, for the salvation, of the world. Some great good was to have +come by the storming of that hill, or some great good by the defeat of +the impetuous charge. Well, the hill was stormed, and (if you will) at +Leipsic the effort which had stormed it was rolled back. What has +happened to the High Goddess whom that youth followed, and worshipped as +they say, and what to the Gods whom their enemies defended? The ridge is +exactly the same. + + + + +Reality + + +A couple of generations ago there was a sort of man going mournfully +about who complained of the spread of education. He had an ill-ease in +his mind. He feared that book learning would bring us no good, and he +was called a fool for his pains. Not undeservedly--for his thoughts were +muddled, and if his heart was good it was far better than his head. He +argued badly or he merely affirmed, but he had strong allies (Ruskin was +one of them), and, like every man who is sincere, there was something in +what he said; like every type which is numerous, there was a human +feeling behind him: and he was very numerous. + +Now that he is pretty well extinct we are beginning to understand what +he meant and what there was to be said for him. The greatest of the +French Revolutionists was right--"After bread, the most crying need of +the populace is knowledge." But what knowledge? + +The truth is that secondary impressions, impressions gathered from books +and from maps, are valuable as adjuncts to primary impressions (that is, +impressions gathered through the channel of our senses), or, what is +always almost as good and sometimes better, the interpreting voice of +the living man. For you must allow me the paradox that in some +mysterious way the voice and gesture of a living witness always convey +something of the real impression he has had, and sometimes convey more +than we should have received ourselves from our own sight and hearing of +the thing related. + +Well, I say, these secondary impressions are valuable as adjuncts to +primary impressions. But when they stand absolute and have hardly any +reference to primary impressions, then they may deceive. When they stand +not only absolute but clothed with authority, and when they pretend to +convince us even against our own experience, they are positively undoing +the work which education was meant to do. When we receive them merely as +an enlargement of what we know and make of the unseen things of which we +read, things in the image of the seen, then they quite distort our +appreciation of the world. + +Consider so simple a thing as a river. A child learns its map and knows, +or thinks it knows, that such and such rivers characterize such and such +nations and their territories. Paris stands upon the River Seine, Rome +upon the River Tiber, New Orleans on the Mississippi, Toledo upon the +River Tagus, and so forth. That child will know one river, the river +near his home. And he will think of all those other rivers in its image. +He will think of the Tagus and the Tiber and the Seine and the +Mississippi--and they will all be the river near his home. Then let him +travel, and what will he come across? The Seine, if he is from these +islands, may not disappoint him or astonish him with a sense of novelty +and of ignorance. It will indeed look grander and more majestic, seen +from the enormous forest heights above its lower course, than what, +perhaps, he had thought possible in a river, but still it will be a +river of water out of which a man can drink, with clear-cut banks and +with bridges over it, and with boats that ply up and down. But let him +see the Tagus at Toledo, and what he finds is brown rolling mud, pouring +solid after the rains, or sluggish and hardly a river after long +drought. Let him go down the Tiber, down the Valley of the Tiber, on +foot, and he will retain until the last miles an impression of nothing +but a turbid mountain torrent, mixed with the friable soil in its bed. +Let him approach the Mississippi in the most part of its long course and +the novelty will be more striking still. It will not seem to him a river +at all (if he be from Northern Europe); it will seem a chance flood. He +will come to it through marshes and through swamps, crossing a deserted +backwater, finding firm land beyond, then coming to further shallow +patches of wet, out of which the tree-stumps stand, and beyond which +again mud-heaps and banks and groups of reeds leave undetermined, for +one hundred yards after another, the limits of the vast stream. At last, +if he has a boat with him, he may make some place where he has a clear +view right across to low trees, tiny from their distance, similarly half +swamped upon a further shore, and behind them a low escarpment of bare +earth. That is the Mississippi nine times out of ten, and to an +Englishman who had expected to find from his early reading or his maps a +larger Thames it seems for all the world like a stretch of East Anglian +flood, save that it is so much more desolate. + +The maps are coloured to express the claims of Governments. What do they +tell you of the social truth? Go on foot or bicycling through the more +populated upland belt of Algiers and discover the curious mixture of +security and war which no map can tell you of and which none of the +geographies make you understand. The excellent roads, trodden by men +that cannot make a road; the walls as ready loopholed for fighting; the +Christian church and the mosque in one town; the necessity for and the +hatred of the European; the indescribable difference of the sun, which +here, even in winter, has something malignant about it, and strikes as +well as warms; the mountains odd, unlike our mountains; the forests, +which stand as it were by hardihood, and seem at war against the +influence of dryness and the desert winds, with their trees far apart, +and between them no grass, but bare earth alone. + +So it is with the reality of arms and with the reality of the sea. Too +much reading of battles has ever unfitted men for war; too much talk of +the sea is a poison in these great town populations of ours which know +nothing of the sea. Who that knows anything of the sea will claim +certitude in connexion with it? And yet there is a school which has by +this time turned its mechanical system almost into a commonplace upon +our lips, and talks of that most perilous thing, the fortunes of a +fleet, as though it were a merely numerical and calculable thing! The +greatest of Armadas may set out and not return. + +There is one experience of travel and of the physical realities of the +world which has been so widely repeated, and which men have so +constantly verified, that I could mention it as a last example of my +thesis without fear of misunderstanding. I mean the quality of a great +mountain. + +To one that has never seen a mountain it may seem a full and a fine +piece of knowledge to be acquainted with its height in feet exactly, its +situation; nay, many would think themselves learned if they know no more +than its conventional name. But the thing itself! The curious sense of +its isolation from the common world, of its being the habitation of awe, +perhaps the brooding-place of a god! + +I had seen many mountains, I had travelled in many places, and I had +read many particular details in the books--and so well noted them upon +the maps that I could have re-drawn the maps--concerning the Cerdagne. +None the less the sight of that wall of the Cerdagne, when first it +struck me, coming down the pass from Tourcarol, was as novel as though +all my life had been spent upon empty plains. By the map it was 9000 +feet. It might have been 90,000! The wonderment as to what lay beyond, +the sense that it was a limit to known things, its savage intangibility, +its sheer silence! Nothing but the eye seeing could give one all those +things. + +The old complain that the young will not take advice. But the wisest +will tell them that, save blindly and upon authority, the young cannot +take it. For most of human and social experience is words to the young, +and the reality can come only with years. The wise complain of the jingo +in every country; and properly, for he upsets the plans of statesmen, +miscalculates the value of national forces, and may, if he is powerful +enough, destroy the true spirit of armies. But the wise would be wiser +still if, while they blamed the extravagance of this sort of man, they +would recognize that it came from that half-knowledge of mere names and +lists which excludes reality. It is maps and newspapers that turn an +honest fool into a jingo. + +It is so again with distance, and it is so with time. Men will not grasp +distance unless they have traversed it, or unless it be represented to +them vividly by the comparison of great landscapes. Men will not grasp +historical time unless the historian shall be at the pains to give them +what historians so rarely give, the measure of a period in terms of a +human life. It is from secondary impressions divorced from reality that +a contempt for the past arises, and that the fatal illusion of some +gradual process of betterment of "progress" vulgarizes the minds of men +and wastes their effort. It is from secondary impressions divorced from +reality that a society imagines itself diseased when it is healthy, or +healthy when it is diseased. And it is from secondary impressions +divorced from reality that springs the amazing power of the little +second-rate public man in those modern machines that think themselves +democracies. This last is a power which, luckily, cannot be greatly +abused, for the men upon whom it is thrust are not capable even of abuse +upon a great scale. It is none the less marvellous in its falsehood. + +Now you will say at the end of this, Since you blame so much the power +for distortion and for ill residing in our great towns, in our system of +primary education and in our papers and in our books, what remedy can +you propose? Why, none, either immediate or mechanical. The best and the +greatest remedy is a true philosophy, which shall lead men always to ask +themselves what they really know and in what order of certitude they +know it; where authority actually resides and where it is usurped. But, +apart from the advent, or rather the recapture, of a true philosophy by +a European society, two forces are at work which will always bring +reality back, though less swiftly and less whole. The first is the poet, +and the second is Time. + +Sooner or later Time brings the empty phrase and the false conclusion up +against what is; the empty imaginary looks reality in the face and the +truth at once conquers. In war a nation learns whether it is strong or +no, and how it is strong and how weak; it learns it as well in defeat as +in victory. In the long processes of human lives, in the succession of +generations, the real necessities and nature of a human society destroy +any false formula upon which it was attempted to conduct it. Time must +always ultimately teach. + +The poet, in some way it is difficult to understand (unless we admit +that he is a seer), is also very powerful as the ally of such an +influence. He brings out the inner part of things and presents them to +men in such a way that they cannot refuse but must accept it. But how +the mere choice and rhythm of words should produce so magical an effect +no one has yet been able to comprehend, and least of all the poets +themselves. + + + + +On the Decline of the Book: [And Especially of the Historical Book] + + +It is an interesting speculation by what means the Book lost its old +position in this country. This is not only an interesting speculation, +but one which nearly concerns a vital matter. For if men fall into the +habit of neglecting true books in an old and traditional civilization, +the inaccuracy of their judgments and the illusions to which they will +be subject, must increase. + +To take but one example: history. The less the true historical book is +read and the more men depend upon ephemeral statement, the more will +legend crystallize, the harder will it be to destroy in the general mind +some comforting lie, and the great object-lesson of politics (which is +an accurate knowledge of how men have acted in the past) will become at +last unknown. + +There are many, especially among younger men, who would contest the +premiss upon which all this is founded. They may point out, for +instance, that the actual number of bound books bought in a given time +at present is much larger than ever it was before. They may point out +again, and with justice, that the proportion of the population which +reads books of any sort, though perhaps not larger than it was three +hundred years ago, is very much larger than it was one hundred years +ago. And it may further be affirmed with truth that the range of +subjects now covered by books produced and sold is much wider than ever +it was before. + +All this is true; and yet it is also true that the Book as a factor in +our civilization has not only declined but has almost disappeared. Were +many more dogs to be possessed in England than are now possessed, but +were they to be all mongrels, among which none could be found capable of +retrieving, or of following a fox or a hare with any discipline, one +would have a right to say that the dog as a factor of our civilization +had declined. Were many more men in England able to ride horses more or +less, but were the number of those who rode constantly and for pleasure +enormously to diminish, and were the new millions who could just manage +to keep on horseback to prefer animals without spirit on which they +would feel safe, one would have a right to say that the horse was +declining as a factor in our civilization; and this is exactly what has +happened with the Book. + +The excellence of a book and its value as a book depend upon two +factors, which are usually, though not always, united in varied +proportions: first, that it should put something of value to the reader, +whether of value as a discovery and an enlargement of wisdom or of value +as a new emphasis laid upon old and sound morals; secondly, that this +thing added or renewed in human life should be presented in such a +manner as to give permanent aesthetic pleasure. + +That is not a first-rate book which, while it is admirably written, +teaches something false or something evil; nor is that a first-rate book +which, though it discover a completely new thing, or emphasize the most +valuable department of morals, is so constructed as to be unreadable. +Now it will not be denied that as far as these two factors are +concerned--and I repeat they are almost always found in combination--the +position of the Book has dwindled almost to nothingness. One could give +examples of almost every kind: one could show how poetry, no matter how +appreciated or praised, no longer sells. One could show--and this is one +of the worst signs of all--how men will buy by the hundred thousand +anything at all which has the hall mark of an established reputation, +quite careless as to their love of it or their appetite for it. One +could further show how more than one book of permanent value in English +life has been discovered in our generation outside England, and has been +as it were thrust upon the English public by foreign opinion. + +But for my purpose it will be sufficient to take one very important +branch which I can claim to have watched with some care, and that is the +branch of History. + +It may be said with truth that in our generation no single first-rate +piece of history has enjoyed an appreciable sale. That is not true of +France, it is not true of the United States, it is not even true of +Germany in her intellectual decline, but it is true of England. + +History is an excellent test. No man will read history, at least history +of an instructive sort, unless he is a man who can read a book, and +desires to possess one. To read History involves not only some permanent +interest in things not immediately sensible, but also some permanent +brain-work in the reader; for as one reads history one cannot, if one is +an intelligent being, forbear perpetually to contrast the lessons it +teaches with the received opinions of our time. Again, History is +valuable as an example in the general thesis I am maintaining, because +no good history can be written without a great measure of hard work. To +make a history at once accurate, readable, useful, and new, is probably +the hardest of all literary efforts; a man writing such history is +driving more horses abreast in his team than a man writing any other +kind of literary matter. He must keep his imagination active; his style +must be not only lucid, but also must arrest the reader; he must +exercise perpetually a power of selection which plays over innumerable +details; he must, in the midst of such occupations, preserve unity of +design, as much as must the novelist or the playwright; and yet with all +this there is not a verb, an adjective or a substantive which, if it +does not repose upon established evidence, will not mar the particular +type of work on which he is engaged. + +As an example of what I mean, consider two sentences: The first is taken +from the 432nd page of that exceedingly unequal publication, the +_Cambridge History of the French Revolution_; the second I have +made up on the spur of the moment; both deal with the Battle of +Wattignies. The "Cambridge History" version runs as follows:-- + +On October 15 the relieving force, 50,000 strong, attacked the Austrian +covering force at Wattignies; the battle raged all that day and was most +furious on the right, in front of the village of Wattignies, which was +taken and lost three times; on the 17th the French expected another +general engagement but the enemy had drawn off. + +There are here five great positive errors in six lines. The French were +not 50,000 strong, the attack on the 15th was not on Wattignies, but on +Dourlers; Wattignies was not taken and lost three times; the fight of +the 15th was _least_ pressed on the right (harder on the left and +hardest in the centre) and no one--not the least recruit--expected +Coburg to come _back_ on the 17th. Why, he had crossed the Sambre +at every point the day before! As for negative errors, or errors of +omission, they are capital, and the chief is that the victory was won on +the second day, the 16th, of which no mention is made. + +Now contrast such a sentence with the following:-- + +On October 15th the relieving force, 42,000 strong, attacked the +Austrian centre at Dourlers, and made demonstrations upon its wings; the +attack upon Dourlers (which village had been taken and lost three times) +having failed, upon the following day, October 16th, the extreme left of +the enemy's position at Wattignies was attacked and carried; the enemy +thus outflanked was compelled to retreat, and Maubeuge was relieved the +same evening. + +In the first sentence (which bears the hall mark of the University) +every error that could possibly be made in so few lines has been made. +The numbers are wrong; the nature of the fighting is misstated; the +village in the centre is confused with that on the extreme right; the +critical second day is altogether omitted, and every portion of the +sentence, verb, adjective, and substantive, is either directly +inaccurate or indirectly conveys an inaccurate impression. The second +sentence, bald in style and uninteresting in presentation as the first, +has the merit of telling the truth. But--and here is the point--it would +be impossible to criticize the first sentence unless someone had read up +the battle, and to read up that battle one has to depend on five or six +documents, some unpublished (like much of Jourdan's Memoirs), some of +them involving a visit to Maubeuge itself, some, like Pierrat's book, +very difficult to obtain (for it is neither in the British Museum nor in +the Bodleian) some few the writings of contemporary eyewitnesses, and +yet themselves demonstrably inaccurate. All these must be read and +collated, and if possible the actual ground of the battle visited, +before the first simple inaccurate sentence can be properly criticized +or the second bald but accurate sentence framed. None of these +authorities can have been so much as heard of by the official historian +I have quoted. + +It would be redundant to press the point. Most readers know well enough +what labour the just writing of history involves, and how excellent a +type it is of that "making of a book" which art is, as I have said, +imperilled by apathy at the present day. + +Consider for a moment who were those that purchased historical works in +this country in the past. There were, first of all, the landed gentry. +In almost every great country-house you will find a good old library, +and that good old library you will discover to be, as a rule, most +valuable and most complete in what concerns the end of the eighteenth +and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. A very large proportion +of history, and history of the best sort, is to be found upon those +shelves. The standard dwindles, though it is fairly well maintained +during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Then--as a +rule--it abruptly comes to an end. One may take as a sort of bourne, the +two great books Macaulay's _History_ and Kinglake's, for an earlier +and a later limit. Most of these libraries contain Macaulay; some few +Kinglake; hardly one possesses later works of value. + +It may be urged in defence of the buyer that no later works of value +exist. Put so broadly, the statement is erroneous; but the truth which +it contains is in itself dependent upon the lack of public support for +good historical work. When there is a fortune for the man who writes in +accordance with whatever form of self-appreciation happens for the +moment to be popular, while a steady view and an accurate presentation +of the past can find no sale, then that steady view and that accurate +presentation cannot be pursued save by men who are wealthy, or by men +who are endowed, but even wealthy men will hesitate to write what they +know will not be read, and for history no one is endowed. + +Our Universities were framed for many purposes, of which the cultivation +of learning was but one; in that one field, however, a particular form +of learning was taken very seriously, and was pursued with admirable +industry; I mean an acquaintance with and an imitation of the Latin and +Greek Classics. + +It was a particular character of this form of learning that proficiency +in it would lead to undisputed honours. The scholar recognized the +superior scholar; the field of inquiry was by convention highly limited; +it had been thoroughly explored; discussion upon such results as were +doubtful did not involve a difference in general philosophy. + +With history it is otherwise. Whether such things have or have not +happened, and, above all, if they have happened, the _way_ in which +they have happened, is to our general judgment of contemporary men what +evidence is to a criminal trial. Facts won't give way. If, therefore, +there are vested interests, moral or material, to be maintained, history +is, of all the sciences or arts, that one most likely to suffer at the +hands of those connected with such interests. Even where the truth will +be of advantage to those interests, they are afraid of it, because the +thorough discussion of it will involve the presentation of views +disadvantageous to privilege. + +Where, as is much more commonly the case (for vested interests, moral or +material, are unreasoning and selfish things), the truth would certainly +offend them, they are the more determined to prevent its appearance. + +But of all vested interests none deal with such assured incomes, none +are so immune by influence and tradition as the Universities. + +Now, if the rich man has no temptation by way of popular fame, and the +poor man no opportunity for endowment, in any branch of letters, there +remains but a third form of support, and that is the support of the +buying public. And the public will not buy. + +I will suppose the case of a popular novelist, who in a few months shall +write, not an historical novel, but a piece of so-called history. He +shall call it, for instance, "England's Heroes." Before you tell me his +name, or what he has written, I can tell you here and now what he will +write on any number of points. He will call Hastings Senlac. In the +Battle of Hastings he will make out Harold to be the head of a highly +patriotic nation called the "Anglo-Saxons"; they shall be desperately +defending themselves against certain French-speaking Scandinavians +called Normans. He will deplore the defeat, but will say it was all for +the best. Magna Charta he will have signed at Runnymede--probably he +will have it drawn up there as well. He will translate the most famous +clause by the modern words "Judgment of his peers" and "law of the +land." He will represent the Barons as having behind them the voice of +the whole nation--and so forth. When he comes to Crcy he will make +Edward III speak English. When he comes to Agincourt he will leave his +readers as ignorant as himself upon the boundaries, numbers and power of +the Burgundian faction. In the Civil War Oliver Cromwell will be an +honest and not very rich gentleman of the middle-classes. The +Parliamentary force will be that of the mass of the people against a few +gallant but wicked aristocrats who follow the perfidious Charles. He +will make no mention of the pay of the Ironsides. James II will be +driven out by a popular uprising, in which the great Churchill will play +an honourable and chivalric part. The loss of the American Colonies will +be deplored, and will be ascribed to the folly of attempting to tax men +of "Anglo-Saxon" blood, unless you grant them representation. The +Continental troops will be treated as the descendants of Englishmen! The +guns at Saratoga will be Colonial guns; the incapacity of the Fleet will +not be touched upon. Here again, as in the case of the Battle of +Hastings, all will be for the best, and there will be a few touching +words upon the passionate affection now felt for Great Britain by the +inhabitants of the United States. The defensive genius of Wellington +will be represented as that of a general particularly great in the +offensive. Talavera will be a victory. The Spanish Auxiliaries in the +Peninsula will be contemptible. No guns will be abandoned before Corua, +but what are left at Corua will be mentioned and re-embarked. The +character of Nelson will receive a curious sort of glutinous praise; Emma +Hamilton, not Naples, will be the stain upon his name; the Battle of +Trafalgar will prevent the invasion of England. + +This is a lengthy but not unjust description of what this gentleman +would write; it is rubbish from beginning to end. It would sell, because +every word of it would foster in the reader the illusion that the +community of which he is a member is invincible under all circumstances, +that effort and self-denial and suffering are spared him alone out of +all mankind, and that a little pleasurable excitement, preferably that +to be obtained from his favourite game, is the chief factor in military +success. + +I have omitted Alfred. Alfred in such a book will be the "teller of +truth"--but he will not go to Mass. + +Given that the name is sufficiently well known, there is hardly any +limit to the sale of a book modelled upon these lines. Contrast with its +fate the fate of a book, written no matter how powerfully, that should +insist upon truths, no matter how valuable to the English people at the +present moment. These truths need by no means be unpleasant, though at +the present moment an unpleasant truth is undoubtedly more valuable than +a pleasant one. They could make as much or more for the glory of the +country; they could be at any rate of infinitely greater service, but +they would not be received, simply because they would compel close +attention and brain-work in the reader as well as in the writer of them. +An established groove would have to be abandoned; to use a strong +metaphor, the reader would have to get out of bed, and that is what the +modern reader will not do. Tell him that the men who fought on either +side at Hastings' plain cared nothing for national but everything for +feudal allegiance; that _lex terrae_ means the local custom of +ordeal and not the "law of the land"; tell him that _judicium +parium_ means the right of a noble to be judged by nobles, and has +nothing to do with the jury system; tell him that Magna Charta was +certainly drawn up before the meeting at Runnymede; that not until the +Lancastrians did English kings speak English; that Oliver Cromwell owed +his position to the enormous wealth of the Williamses, of whom had he +not been a cadet, he would never have been known; tell him that the +whole force of the Parliament resided in the squires and that the Civil +Wars turned England into an oligarchy; tell him the exact truth about +the infamy of Churchill; tell him what proportion of Englishmen during +the American War were taxed without being represented; tell him what +proportion of Washington's troops were of English blood; tell him any +one illuminating and true thing about the history of his country, and +the novelty will so offend him that a direct insult would have pleased +him better. + +What is true of history is true of nearly all the rest, and the upshot +of the whole matter is that there is not, either in private patronage or +in popular demand, a chance for history in modern England. + +You can have excellent literature in journalism, and it will be widely +read. I would say more--I would say that the better literature a +newspaper admits, the more widely will that paper be read, or at any +rate the greater will its influence be on modern Englishmen. But when it +comes to the kneaded and wrought matter of the true Book, neither the +public nor the centres of learning will have any of it, and the last +medium which might make it possible, patronage, has equally disappeared, +because the modern patron does not work in the daylight in the full view +of the nation and with its full approbation, and he is no longer a public +man (though he is richer than ever he was before). His patronage, +therefore, though it is still considerable, is expended in satisfying his +private demand. Private architects build him doubtful castles, private +collectors get him manuscripts and jewels, but Letters, which are a public +thing, he can no longer command. + +It might be asked, by way of conclusion, whether there is any remedy for +this state of things. There is none. Its prime cause resides in a +certain attitude of the national mind, and this kind of broadly held +philosophy is not changed save by slow preaching or external shock. As +long as modern England remains what we know it, and follows the lines of +change which we see it following, the Book will necessarily decline more +and more, and we must make up our minds to it. + +Of other evil tendencies of our time, one can say of some that they are +obviously mending, of others that such and such an applicable remedy +would mend them. Our public architecture is certainly getting better; so +is our painting. Our gross and increasing contempt of self-government +(to take quite another sphere) is curable by one or two simple reforms +in procedure, registration, the expenses of election, and voting at the +polls, which would restore the House of Commons to life, and give it +power to express English will. But a regard for, a cultivation of, above +all a sinking of wealth upon, English Letters is past praying for. We +must wait until the tide changes; we can do nothing, and the waiting +will be long. + + + + +Jos Maria de Heredia + + +The French have a phrase "la beaut du verbe" by which they would +express a something in the sound and in the arrangement of words which +supplements whatever mere thought those words were intended to express. +It is evident that no definition of this beauty can be given, but it is +also evident that without it letters would not exist. How it arises we +cannot explain, yet the process is familiar to us in everything we do +when we are attempting to fulfil an impulse towards whatever is good. An +integration not of many small things but of an infinite series of +infinitely small things build up the perfect gesture, the perfect line, +the perfect intonation, and the perfect phrase. So indeed are all things +significant built up: every tone of the voice, every arrangement of +landscape or of notes in music which awake us and reveal the things +beyond. But when one says that this is especially true of perfect +expression one means that sometimes, rarely, the integration achieves a +steadfast and sufficient formula. The mind is satisfied rather than +replete. It asks no more; and if it desires to enjoy further the +pleasure such completion has given it, it does not attempt to prolong or +to develop the pleasure under which it has leapt; it is content to wait +a while and to return, knowing well that it has here a treasure laid up +for ever. + +All this may be expressed in two words: the Classical Spirit. That is +Classic of which it is true that the enjoyment is sufficient when it is +terminated and that in the enjoyment of it an entity is revealed. + +When men propose to bequeath to their fellows work of so supreme a kind +it is to be noticed that they choose by instinct a certain material. + +It has been said that the material in which he works affects the +achievement of the artist: it is truer to say that it helps him. A man +designing a sculpture in marble knows very well what he is about to do. +A man attempting the exact and restrained rendering of tragedy upon the +stage does not choose the stage as one among many methods, he is drawn +to it: he needs it; the audience, the light, the evening, the very slope +of the boards, all minister to his efforts. And so a man determined to +produce the greatest things in verse takes up by nature exact and +thoughtful words and finds that their rhythm, their combination, and +their sound turn under his hand to something greater than he himself at +first intended; he becomes a creator, and his name is linked with the +name of a masterpiece. The material in which he has worked is hard; the +price he has paid is an exceeding effect; the reward he has earned is +permanence. + +Jos de Heredia was an artist of this kind. The mass of the verse he +produced, or rather published, was small. It might have been very large. +It is not (as a foolish modern affectation will sometimes pretend) +necessary to the endurance or even the excellence of work that it should +be the product of exceptional moments; nor is it even true (as the wise +Ancients believed) that great length of time must always mature it. But +the small volume of Heredia's legacy to European letters does argue this +at least in the poet, that he passionately loved perfection and that, +finding himself able to achieve it (for perfection can be achieved) but +now and then, he chose only to be remembered by the contentment which, +now and then, his own genius had given him. + +He worked upon verse as men work upon the harder metals; all that he did +was chiselled very finely, then sawn to an exact configuration and at +last inlaid, for when he published his completed volume it is true to +say that every piece fitted in with the sound of one before and of one +after. He was careful in the heroic degree. + +His blood and descent are worthy of notice. He was a Spaniard, +inheriting from the first Conquerors of the New World, nor was it +remarkable to those who have received a proper enthusiasm for the +classical spirit that the energy and even the violence natural to such a +lineage should express themselves in the coldest and the most exalted +form when, for the second time, a member of the family attempted verse. +It is in the essence of that spirit that it alone can dare to be +disciplined. It never doubts the motive power that will impel it; it is +afraid, if anything, of an excess of power, and consciously imposes upon +itself the limits which give it form. + +Heredia in his person expressed the activity which impelled him, for he +was strong, brown, erect, a rapid walker, and a man whose voice was +perpetually modulated in resonant and powerful tones. In his last years +during his administration of the Library at the Arsenal this vitality of +his took on an aspect of good nature very charming and very fruitful. +His organization of the place was thorough, his knowledge of the readers +intimate. He refused the manuscripts of none, he advised, laughed, and +consoled. His criticism was sure. Several, notably Marcel Prevost, were +launched by his authority. The same deep security of literary judgment +which had permitted him to chastise and to perfect his impeccable +sonnets into their final form permitted him also to hold up before his +eyes, grasp, and judge the work of every other man. + +His frailty, as must always be the frailty of such men, was +fastidiousness. The same sensitive consciousness which is said to have +all but lost us the Aeneid, and which certainly all but lost us the +Apologia, dominated his otherwise vigorous soul. It is more than forty +years since his first verse, written just upon achieving his majority, +appeared in the old _Revue de Paris_ and in the _Revue des Deux +Mondes_. It was not till 1893 that he collected in one volume the +scattered sonnets of his youth and middle age: the collection won him +somewhat tardily his chair in the Academy. There is irony in the +reminiscence that the man he defeated in that election was Zola. + +All the great men who saluted his advent are dead. Thophile Gautier, +who first established his fame; Hugo, who addressed to him, perhaps, +that vigorous appeal in which strict labour is deified, and the medal +and the marble bust are shown to outlive the greatest glories, are +sometimes quoted as the last among the great French writers. + +The immediate future will show that the stream of French excellence in +this department, as in any other of human activity, is full, deep, and +steady. The work of Heredia will help to prove it. He was a Spaniard, +and a Colonial Spaniard. No other nation, perhaps, except the modern +French, so inherit the romantic appetite of the later Roman Empire as to +be able to mould and absorb every exterior element of excellence. It is +remarkable that at the same moment Paris contemplated the funeral of the +Italian de Brazza and the death of the Cuban Heredia. It is probable +that those of us who are still young will live to see either name at the +head of a new tradition. Heredia proved it possible not so much to +imitate as to recapture the secure tradition of an older time. Perhaps +the truest generalization that can be made with regard to the French +people is to say that they especially in Western Europe (whose quality +it is ever to transform itself but never to die) discover new springs of +vitality after every period of defeat and aridity which they are +compelled to cross. Heredia will prove in the near future a capital +example of this power. He will increase silently in reputation until we, +in old age, shall be surprised to find our sons and grandsons taking him +for granted and speaking of him as one speaks of the Majores, of the +permanent lights of poetry. + + + + +Normandy and the Normans + + +There is no understanding a country unless one gets to know the nature +of its sub-units. In some way not easy to comprehend, impossible to +define, and yet very manifest, each of the great national organisms of +which Christendom is built up is itself a body of many regions whose +differences and interaction endow it with a corporate life. No one could +understand the past of England who did not grasp the local genius of the +counties--Lancashire, cut off eastward by the Pennines, southward by the +belt of marsh, with no natural entry save by the gate of Stockport; +Sussex, which was and is a bishopric and a kingdom; Kent, Devon, the +East Anglian meres. No one could (or does) understand modern England who +does not see its sub-units to have become by now the great industrial +towns, or who fails to seize the spirit of each group of such +towns--with London lying isolated in the south, a negative to the rest. + +France is built of such sub-units: it is the peculiarity of French +development that these are not small territories mainly of an average +extent with government answerable in a long day's ride to one centre, +such as most English counties are; nor city States such as form the +piles upon which the structure of Italy has been raised; nor kingdoms +such as coalesced to reform the Spanish people; but _provinces_, +differing greatly in area, from little plains enclosed, like the +Rousillon, to great stretches of landscape succeeding landscape like the +Bourbonnais or the Prigord. + +The real continuity with an immemorial past which inspires all Gallic +things is discoverable in this arrangement of Gaul. At the first glance +one might imagine a French province to be a chance growth of the feudal +ties and of the Middle Ages. A further effort of scholarship will prove +it essentially Roman. An intimate acquaintance with its customs and with +the site of its strongholds, coupled with a comparison of the most +recent and most fruitful hypotheses of historians, will convince you +that it is earlier than the Roman conquest; it is tribal, or the home of +a group of cognate tribes, and its roots are lost in prehistory. So it +is with Normandy. + +This vast territory--larger (I think) than all North England from the +Humber to Cheviot and from Chester to the Solway--has never formed a +nation. It is typical of the national idea in France that Normandy +should have "held" of the political centre of the country, probably +since the first Gallic confederations were formed, certainly since the +organization of the Empire. It is equally typical of the local life of a +French province that, thus dependent, Normandy should have strictly +preserved its manner and its spirit, and should have readily made war +upon the Crown and resisted, as it still resists and will perhaps for +ever, the centralizing forces of the national temper. + +If you will travel day after day, and afoot, westward across the length +of Normandy, you will have, if you are a good walker, a fortnight's +task ahead of you; even if you are walking for a wager, a week's. It is +the best way in which to possess a knowledge of that great land, and my +advice would be to come in from the Picards over the bridge of Aumale +across the little River Bresle (which is the boundary of Normandy to the +east), and to go out by way of Pontorson, there crossing into Brittany +over the little River Couesnon, which is the boundary of Normandy upon +the west and beyond which lie the Bretons. In this way will you be best +acquainted with the sharp differentiation of the French provinces +passing into Normandy from Picardy, brick-built, horse-breeding, and +slow, passing out of Normandy into the desolation and dreams of +Brittany, and having known between the one and the other the chalk +streams, the day-long beechen forests, the valley pastures, and the +flamboyant churches of the Normans. You will do well to go by +Neufchtel, where the cheese is made, and by Rouen, then by Lisieux to +Falaise, where the Conqueror was born, and thence by Vive to Avranches +and so to the Breton border, taking care to choose the forests between +one town and another for your road, since these many and deep +woods--much wider than any we know in England--are in great part the +soul of the country. + +By this itinerary you will not have taken all you should into view; you +will not have touched the coast nor seen how Normandy is based upon the +sea, and you will not have known the Cotentin, which is a little State +of its own and is the quadrilateral which Normandy thrusts forth into +the Channel. If you have the leisure, therefore, return by the north. +Pass through Coutances and Valognes to Cherbourg, thence through Caen +and Bayeux to the crossing of Seine at Honfleur, and then on by the +chalk uplands and edges of the cliffs till you reach Eu upon the Bresle +again. In such a double journey the character of the whole will be +revealed, and if you have studied the past of the place before starting +you will find your journey full. Avranches, Coutances, Lisieux, Bayeux, +Rouen are not chance sites. Their great churches mark the bishoprics; +the bishoprics in turn were the administrative centres of Rome, and Rome +chose them because they were the strongholds or the sacred cities each +of a Gallic tribe. The wealth of the valleys permitted everywhere that +astonishing richness of detail which marks the stonework in village +after village; the connexion with England, especially the last connexion +under Henry V, explains the innumerable churches, splendid even in +hamlets as are our own. The Bresle and the Couesnon, those little +streams, are boundaries not of these last few centuries, but of a time +beyond view; the Romans found them so. Diocletian made them the limits +of the "Second Lyonesse," "Lugdunensis Secunda," which was the last +Roman name of the province. + +Here and there, near the west especially, you will discover names which +recall the chief adventure of Normandy, the accident which baptized it +with its Christian name, the landing of the Scandinavian pirates, the +thousandth anniversary of which is now being celebrated. They came--we +cannot tell in what numbers, some thousands--and harried the land. The +old policy of the Empire, the policy already seven hundred years old, +was had recourse to; the barbarians were granted settlement, +inheritance, marriage, and partnership with the Lords of the Villae; +their chief was permitted to hold local government, to tax and to levy +men as the administrator of the whole province; but there followed +something which wherever else the experiment had been tried had not +followed: something of a new race arose. In Burgundy, in the northeast, +in Visigothic Aquitaine the slight admixture of foreign blood had not +changed the people, it was absorbed; the slight admixture of +Scandinavian blood, coming so much later, in a time so degraded in +government and therefore so open to natural influence, did change the +Gallo-Romans of the Second Lyonesse. Few as the newcomers may have been +in number, the new element transformed the mass, and when a century had +permitted the union to work and settle, the great soldiers who founded +us appeared. The Norman lords ordered, surveyed, codified, and ruled. +They let Europe into England, they organized Sicily, they confirmed the +New Papacy, they were the framework of the Crusades. + +The phenomenon was brief. It lasted little more than a hundred years, +but it transformed Europe and launched the Middle Ages. When it had +passed, Normandy stood confirmed for centuries (and is still confirmed) +in a character of its own. No longer adventurous but mercantile, apt, of +a resisting courage, sober in thought, leaning upon tradition, not +imperially but domestically strong: the country of Corneille and of +Malesherbes, a reflection of that spirit in letters; the conservative +body of to-day--for in our generation that is the mark of Normandy--and, +in arms, the recruitment to which Napoleon addressed his short and +famous order that "the Normans that day should do their duty." + + + + +The Old Things + + +Those who travel about England for their pleasure, or, for that matter, +about any part of Western Europe, rightly associate with such travel the +pleasure of history; for history adds to a man, giving him, as it were, +a great memory of things--like a human memory, but stretched over a far +longer space than that of one human life. It makes him, I do not say +wise and great, but certainly in communion with wisdom and greatness. + +It adds also to the soil he treads, for to this it adds meaning. How +good it is when you come out of Tewkesbury by the Cheltenham road to +look upon those fields to the left and know that they are not only +pleasant meadows, but also the place in which a great battle of the +mediaeval monarchy was decided, or as you stand by that ferry, which is +not known enough to Englishmen (for it is one of the most beautiful +things in England), and look back and see Tewkesbury tower, framed +between tall trees over the level of the Severn, to see also the Abbey +buildings in your eye of the mind--a great mass of similar stone with +solid Norman walls, stretching on hugely to the right of the Minster. + +All this historical sense and the desire to marry History with Travel is +very fruitful and nourishing, but there is another interest, allied to +it, which is very nearly neglected, and which is yet in a way more +fascinating and more full of meaning. This interest is the interest in +such things as lie behind recorded history, and have survived into our +own times. For underneath the general life of Europe, with its splendid +epic of great Rome turned Christian, crusading, discovering, furnishing +the springs of the Renaissance, and flowering at last materially into +this stupendous knowledge of today, the knowledge of all the Arts, the +power to construct and to do--underneath all that is the foundation on +which Europe is built, the stem from which Europe springs; and that stem +is far, far older than any recorded history, and far, far more vital +than any of the phenomena which recorded history presents. + +Recorded history for this island and for Northern France and for the +Rhine Valley is a matter of two thousand years; for the Western +Mediterranean of three; but the things of which I speak are to be +reckoned in tens of thousands of years. Their interest does not lie only +nor even chiefly in things that have disappeared. It is indeed a great +pleasure to rummage in the earth and find polished stones wrought by men +who came so many centuries before us, and of whose blood we certainly +are; and it is a great pleasure to find, or to guess that we find, under +Canterbury the piles of a lake or marsh dwelling, proving that +Canterbury has been there from all time; and that the apparently +defenceless Valley City was once chosen as an impregnable site, when the +water-meadows of the Stour were impassable as marsh, or with difficulty +passable as a shallow lagoon. And it is delightful to stand on the +earthwork a few miles west and to say to oneself (as one can say with a +fair certitude), "Here was the British camp defending the south-east; +here the tenth legion charged." All these are pleasant, but more +pleasant, I think, to follow the thing where it actually survives. + +Consider the track-ways, for instance. How rich is England in these! No +other part of Europe will afford the traveller so permanent and so +fascinating a problem. Elsewhere Rome hardened and straightened every +barbaric trail until the original line and level disappeared; but in +this distant province of Britain she could only afford just so much +energy as made them a foothold for her soldiery; and all over England +you can go, if you choose, foot by foot, along the ancient roads that +were made by the men of your blood before they had heard of brick or of +stone or of iron or of written laws. + +I wonder that more men do not set out to follow, let us say, the +Fosse-Way. There it runs right across Western England from the +south-west to the north-east in a line direct yet sinuous, characters +which are the very essence of a savage trail. It is a modern road for +many miles, and you are tramping, let us say, along the Cotswold on a +hard metalled modern English highway, with milestones and notices from +the County Council telling you that the culverts will not bear a +steam-engine, if so be you were to travel on one. Then suddenly this +road comes up against a cross-road and apparently ceases, making what +map draughtsmen call a "T"; but right in the same line you see a gate, +and beyond it a farm lane, and so you follow. You come to a spinney +where a ride has been cut through by the woodreeve, and it is all in the +same line. The Fosse-Way turns into a little path, but you are still on +it; it curves over a marshy brook-valley, picking out the firm land, and +as you go you see old stones put there heaven knows how many (or how +few) generations ago--or perhaps yesterday, for the tradition remains, +and the country-folk strengthen their wet lands as they have +strengthened them all these thousands of years; you climb up out of that +depression, you get you over a stile, and there you are again upon a +lane. You follow that lane, and once more it stops dead. This time there +is a field before you. No right of way, no trace of a path, nothing but +grass rounded into those parallel ridges which mark the modern decay of +the corn lands and pasture--alas!--taking the place of ploughing. Now +your pleasure comes in casting about for the trail; you look back along +the line of the Way; you look forward in the same line till you find +some indication, a boundary between two parishes, perhaps upon your map, +or two or three quarries set together, or some other sign, and very soon +you have picked up the line again. + +So you go on mile after mile, and as you tread that line you have in the +horizons that you see, in the very nature and feel of the soil beneath +your feet, in the skies of England above you, the ancient purpose and +soul of this Kingdom. Up this same line went the Clans marching when +they were called Northward to the host; and up this went slow, creaking +wagons with the lead of the Mendips or the tin of Cornwall or the gold +of Wales. + +And it is still there; it is still used from place to place as a high +road, it still lives in modern England. There are some of its peers, as +for instance the Ermine Street, far more continuous, and affording +problems more rarely; others like the ridgeway of the Berkshire Downs, +which Rome hardly touched, and of which the last two thousand years has, +therefore, made hardly anything; you may spend a delightful day piecing +out exactly where it crossed the Thames, making your guess at it, and +wondering as you sit there by Streatley Vicarage whether those islands +did not form a natural weir below which lay the ford. + +The roads are the most obvious things. There are many more; for +instance, thatch. The same laying of the straw in the same manner, with +the same art, has continued, we may be certain, from a time long before +the beginning of history. See how in the Fen Land they thatch with +reeds, and how upon the Chalk Downs with straw from the Lowlands. I +remember once being told of a record in a manor, which held of the +Church and which lay upon the southern slope of the Downs, that so much +was entered for "straw from the Lowlands": then, years afterwards, when +I had to thatch a Bethlehem in an orchard underneath tall elms--a +pleasant place to write in, with the noise of bees in the air--the man +who came to thatch said to me: "We must have straw from the Lowlands; +this upland straw is no good for thatching." Immediately when I heard +him say this there was added to me ten thousand years. And I know +another place in England, far distant from this, where a man said to me +that if I wished to cross in a winter mist, as I had determined to do, +Cross-Fell, that great summit of the Pennines, I must watch the drift of +the snow, for there was no other guide to one's direction in such +weather. And I remember another man in a little boat in the North Sea, +as we came towards the Foreland, talking to me of the two tides, and +telling me how if one caught the tide all the way up to Long Nose and +then went round it on the end of the flood, one caught a new tide up +London river, and so made two tides in one day. He spoke with the same +pleasure that silly men show when they talk about an accumulation of +money. He felt wealthy and proud from the knowledge, for by this +knowledge he had two tides in one day. Now knowledge of this sort is +older than ten thousand years; and so is the knowledge of how birds fly, +and of how they call, and of how the weather changes with the moon. + +Very many things a man might add to the list that I am making. Dew-pans +are older than the language or the religion; and the finding of water +with a stick; and the catching of that smooth animal, the mole; and the +building of flints into mortar, which if one does it in the old way (as +you may see at Pevensey) the work lasts for ever, but if you do it in +any new way it does not last ten years; then there is the knowledge of +planting during the crescent part of the month, but not before the new +moon shows; and there is the influence of the moon on cider, and to a +less extent upon the brewing of ale; and talking of ale, the knowledge +of how ale should be drawn from the brewing just when a man can see his +face without mist upon the surface of the hot brew. And there is the +knowledge of how to bank rivers, which is called "throwing the rives" in +the South, but in the Fen Land by some other name; and how to bank them +so that they do not silt, but scour themselves. There are these things +and a thousand others. All are immemorial. + + + + +The Battle of Hastings. Related in the Manner of Oxford and Dedicated +to that University + + +So careless were the French commanders (or more properly the French +commander, for the rest were cowed by the bullying swagger of William) +that the night, which should have been devoted to some sort of +reconnaissance, if not of a preparation of the ground, was devoted to +nothing more practical than the religious exercises peculiar to +foreigners. + +Their army, as we have seen, was not drawn from any one land, but it was +in the majority composed of Normans and Bretons; we can therefore +understand the extravagant superstition which must bear the blame for +what followed. + +Meanwhile, upon the heights above, the English host calmly prepared for +battle. Fires were lit each in its appointed place, and at these meat +was cooked under the stern but kindly eyes of the sergeant-majors. These +also distributed at an appointed price liquor, of which the British +soldier is never willing to be deprived, and as the hours advanced +towards morning, the songs in which our adventurous race has ever +delighted rose from the heights above the Brede. + +The morning was misty, as is often the case over damp and marshy lands +in the month of October, but the inclemency of the weather, or, to speak +more accurately, the superfluous moisture precipitated from an already +saturated atmosphere, was of no effect upon those silent and tenacious +troops of Harold. It was far other with the so-called "Norman" host, who +were full of forebodings--only too amply to be justified--of the fate +that lay before them upon the morrow. + +It is curious to contrast the quiet skill and sagacity which marked the +disposition of Harold with the almost childish simplicity of William's +plan--if plan it may be called. + +The Saxon hosts were drawn along the ridge in a position chosen with +masterly skill. It afforded (as may still be seen) no dead ground for an +attacking force and little cover. [Footnote: The Rhododendrons on the +great lawn are modern.] Their left was arranged _en potence_, their +right was drawn up in echelon. The centre followed the plan usual at +that time, reposing upon the wings to its right and left and extended. +The reserves were, of course, posted behind. Cavalry, as at Omdurman, +played but a slight role in this typically national action and such +mounted troops as were present seem to have been intermixed with the +line in the fashion later known, in the jargon of the service, as "The +Beggar's Quadrille." The Brigade of Guards is not mentioned in any +record that I can discover, but was probably set by reversed companies +in a square perpendicular to the main ravine and a little in front of +the salient angle which appears upon the map at the point marked A. + +The terrain can be clearly determined at the present day in spite of the +changes that have taken place in the intervening years. It is a fairly +steep slope of hemispherical contour interspersed with low bushes; the +summit (upon which now stands our lovely English village of Battle and +the residence of one of those cultured and leisured men who form the +framework of our commonwealth) was then but a wild heath. + +Harold himself could be distinguished in the centre of the line by his +handsome features, restrained deportment, and unfailing gentlemanly good +sense as he spoke to staff officer, orderly, and even groom with +indefatigable skill. + +In spite of the determination observable from a great distance upon the +faces of the tall Saxon line, William with characteristic lack of +balance opened the action by ordering a charge uphill with cavalry +alone; it was a piece of tactics absurdly incongruous and one even he +would never have attempted had he understood the foe that was before +him, or the fate to which that foe had doomed him. + +The lesson dealt him was as immediate as it was severe. The foreigners +were thrust headlong down the hill, and a private letter tells us how +the Men of Kent in particular buffeted the Normans about "as though they +were boys." But even in the heat of this initial success Harold had the +self-command to order the retirement upon the main position: and with +troops such as his the order was equivalent to its execution. + +This rude blow would have sufficed for any commander less vain than +William, but he seems to have lost all judgment in a fit of personal +vanity and to have ordered a second charge which could not but prove as +futile as the first, delivered as it was up a perfect glacis +strengthened by epaulements, reverses and countersunk galvon work and +one whose natural strength was heightened by the stockade which the +indomitable energy of Harold's troops had perfected in the early hours +of the morning. Many of the stakes in this, the reader may note with +pardonable pride, were of English oak--sharpened at the tip. + +William's plan (if plan it may be called) was, as we have seen, +necessarily futile and was foredoomed to failure. But Harold had no +intention to let the action bear no more fruit than a tactical victory +upon this particular field. The brain that had designed the exact +synchrony of Stamford Bridge and the famous march southward from the +Humber was of that sort which is only found once in many centuries of +the history of war and which is (it may be said without boasting) +peculiar to this island. + +Another general would have awaited the second charge with its useless +butchery and still more useless contest for the barren name of victory. +Not so Harold. Those commanding, cold grey eyes of his swept the line in +a comprehensive glance, and though no written record of the detail +remains, he must know little of the character of the man who does not +understand that from Harold certainly proceeded the order for what +followed. + +The forces at the centre, which he commanded in person, deftly withdrew +before the futile gallop of William's cavalry, leaving, with that +coolness which has ever distinguished our troops, the laggards to their +fate. At the same moment, and with marvellous precision, the left and +right were withdrawn from the plateau rapidly and as by magic, and the +old-fashioned tactics of mere impact (which William of Normandy seems +seriously to have relied on!) were spent and wasted upon the now +evacuated summit of the hill. + +What followed is famous in history. + +The cohesion of the Saxon force and the exactitude and coolness with +which its great operation was performed is of good augury for the future +of our country. Though it was now thick night, by no set road and with +no cumbersome machinery of train and rear-guard, the whole of the vast +assembly masked itself behind the woodlands of the Weald. + +The Norman horsemen, bewildered and fatigued, gazed on the many that had +fallen in defence of the masking position and wondered whether such +novel happenings were victory or no, but the army whose concentration +upon the Thames it was William's whole object to prevent, was already +miles northward, each unit proceeding by exactly co-ordinated routes +towards London. + +There is perhaps no more difficult task set before soldiers than the +quiet execution of such a manoeuvre after the heat of a heavy action, +and none have performed it more magnificently than the veteran troop of +Harold. + +When (luckily) all the orders had been finally distributed a great +tragedy marred the completeness of the day. + +Just before the execution of this masterpiece of strategy, and as the +autumn sun was sinking, the inevitable price which war demands of all +its darlings was paid. + +Harold himself, the artist of the great victory, fell. But we have no +reason to believe that his loss retarded the retrograding movement in +any degree. Men who create as Harold created have not their creations +spoilt by death. + + * * * * * + +The shameful history of the close of the campaign is familiar to every +schoolboy, and the military historian must be pardoned if he deals with +a purely civilian blunder in a few brief words. + +Parliament interfered--as it always does--with what should have been a +matter for soldiers alone. Intrigues, bribery, or worse (with which the +military historian has no concern) ruined what had been, in the field, +one of the principal achievements of the Saxon arms. And William, who +could not count to hold his own against regular forces and who was +astonished to find himself free to retreat precipitately on Dover, was +still more astonished to find himself accepted a few weeks later after +an aimless march to the west and north by the politicians--or worse--at +Berkhampstead. He and England were equally astounded to find that a +broken and defeated invader could actually be accepted by the intriguers +at Westminster and crowned King of England as the price of a secret +bargain. + +Such was the fruit of as great and successful an effort as ever Saxon +soldier made: the Battle of Senlac: for such--as I am now free to +reveal--was the true name of the field of action. + +The ineptitude or avarice of politicians had undone the work of +soldiers, and it is no wonder that the last of Harold's veterans, who +retired in disgust to impregnable fortresses in Ely, Arthur's Seat, and +Pudsey, are recorded to have gnashed their teeth and shed tears of +indignation at the dispatches from the metropolis. At Crcy they were to +be avenged. + + + + +The Roman Roads in Picardy + + +If a man were asked where he would find upon the map the sharpest +impress of Rome and of the memories of Rome, and where he would most +easily discover in a few days on foot the foundations upon which our +civilization still rests, he might, in proportion to his knowledge of +history and of Europe, be puzzled to reply. He might say that a week +along the wall from Tyne to Solway would be the answer; or a week in the +great Roman cities of Provence with their triumphal arches and their +vast arenas and their Roman stone cropping out everywhere: in old quays, +in ruined bridges, in the very pavement of the streets they use to-day, +and in the columns of their living churches. + +Now I was surprised to find myself after many years of dabbling in such +things, furnishing myself the answer in quite a different place. It was +in Picardy during the late manoeuvres of the French Army that, in the +intervals of watching those great buzzing flies, the aeroplanes, and in +the intervals of long tramps after the regiments or of watching the +massed guns, the necessity for perpetually consulting the map brought +home to me for the first time this truth--that Picardy is the +province--or to be more accurate, Picardy with its marches in the le de +France, the edge of Normandy and the edge of Flanders--which retains +to-day the most vivid impress of Rome. For though the great buildings +are lacking, and the Roman work, which must here have been mainly of +brick, has crumbled, and though I can remember nothing upstanding and +patently of the Empire between the gate of Rheims and the frontier of +Artois, yet one feature--the Roman road--is here so evident, so +multiple, and so enduring that it makes up for all the rest. + +One discovers the old roads upon the map, one after the other, with a +sort of surprise. The scheme develops before one as one looks, and +always when one thinks one has completed the web another and yet another +straight arrow of a line reveals itself across the page. + +The map is a sort of palimpsest. A mass of fine modern roads, a whole +red blur of lanes and local ways, the big, rare black lines of the +railway--these are the recent writing, as it were; but underneath the +whole, more and more apparent and in greater and greater numbers as one +learns to discover them, are the strict, taut lines which Rome stretched +over all those plains. + +There is something most fascinating in noting them, and discovering them +one after the other. + +For they need discovering. No one of them is still in complete use. The +greater part must be pieced together from lengths of lanes which turn +into broad roads, and then suddenly sink again into footpaths, rights of +way, or green forest rides. + +Often, as with our rarer Roman roads in England, all trace of the thing +disappears under the plough or in the soft crossings of the river +valleys; one marks them by the straightness of their alignment, by the +place names which lie upon them (the repeated name Estree, for instance, +which is like the place name "street" upon the Roman roads of England); +by the recovery of them after a gap; by the discoveries which local +archaeology has made. + +Different men have different pastimes, and I dare say that most of those +who read this will wonder that such a search should be a pastime for any +man, but I confess it is a pastime for me. To discover these things, to +recreate them, to dig out on foot the base upon which two thousand years +of history repose, is the most fascinating kind of travel. + +And then, the number of them! You may take an oblong of country with +Maubeuge at one corner, Pontoise at another, Yvetot and some frontier +town such as Fumes for the other two corners, and in that stretch of +country a hundred and fifty miles by perhaps two hundred, you can build +up a scheme of Roman ways almost as complete as the scheme of the great +roads to-day. + +That one which most immediately strikes the eye is the great line which +darts upon Rouen from Paris. + +Twice broken at the crossing of the river valleys, and lost altogether +in the last twelve miles before the capital of Normandy, it still stands +on the modern map a great modern road with every aspect of purpose and +of intention in its going. + +From Amiens again they radiate out, these roads, some, like the way to +Cambray, in use every mile; some, like the old marching road to the sea, +to the Portus Itius, to Boulogne, a mere lane often wholly lost and +never used as a great modern road. This was the way along which the +French feudal cavalry trailed to the disaster of Crcy, and just beyond +Crcy it goes and loses itself in that exasperating but fascinating +manner which is the whole charm of Roman roads wherever the hunter finds +them. You may lay a ruler along this old forgotten track, all the way +past Domqueur, Novelle (which is called Novelle-en-Chausse, that is +Novelle on the paved road), on past Estre (where from the height you +overlook the battlefield of Crcy), and that ruler so lying on your map +points right at Boulogne Harbour, thirty odd miles away--and in all +those thirty odd remaining miles I could not find another yard of it. +But what an interest! What a hobby to develop! There is nothing like it +in all the kinds of hunting that have ever been invented for filling up +the whole of the mind. True, you will get no sauce of danger, but, on +the other hand, you will hunt for weeks and weeks, and you will come +back year after year and go on with your hunting, and sometimes you +actually find--which is more than can be said for hunting some animals +in the Weald. + +How was it lost, this great main road of Europe, this marching road of +the legions, linking up Gaul and Britain, the way that Hadrian went, and +the way down which the usurper Constantine III must have come during +that short adventure of his which lends such a romance to the end of the +Empire? One cannot conceive why it should have disappeared. It is a +sunken way down the hillside across the light railway which serves +Crcy, it gets vaguer and vaguer, for all the world like those ridges +upon the chalk that mark the Roman roads in England, and then it is +gone. It leaves you pointing, I say, at that distant harbour, thirty odd +miles off, but over all those miles it has vanished. The ghost of the +legends cannot march along it any more. In one place you find a few +yards of it about three miles south and east of Montreuil. It may be +that the little lane leading into Estre shows where it crossed the +valley of the Cauche, but it is all guesswork, and therefore very proper +to the huntsman. + +Then there is that unbroken line by which St. Martin came, I think, when +he rode into Amiens, and at the gate of the town cut his cloak in two to +cover the beggar. It drives across country for Roye and on to Noyon, the +old centre of the Kings. It is a great modern road all the way, and it +stretches before you mile after mile after mile, until suddenly, without +explanation and for no reason, it ends sharply, like the life of a man. +It ends on the slopes of the hill called Choisy, at the edge of the wood +which is there. And seek as you will, you will never find it again. + +From that road also, near Amiens, branches out another, whose object was +St. Quentin, first as a great high road, lost in the valley of the +Somme, a lesser road again, still in one strict alignment, it reaches on +to within a mile of Vermand, and there it stops dead. I do not think +that between Vermand and St. Quentin you will find it. Go out +north-westward from Vermand and walk perhaps five miles, or seven: there +is no trace of a road, only the rare country lanes winding in and out, +and the open plough of the rolling land. But continue by your compass so +and you will come (suddenly again and with no apparent reason for its +abrupt origin) upon the dead straight line that ran from the capital of +the Nervii, three days' march and more, and pointing all the time +straight at Vermand. + +And so it is throughout the province and its neighbourhood. Here and +there, as at Bavai, a great capital has decayed. Here and there (but +more rarely), a town wholly new has sprung up since the Romans, but the +plan of the country is the same as that which they laid down, and the +roads as you discover them, mark it out and establish it. The armies +that you see marching to-day in their manoeuvres follow for half a +morning the line which was taken by the Legions. + + + + +The Reward of Letters + + +It has often been remarked that while all countries in the world possess +some sort of literature, as Iceland her Sagas, England her daily papers, +France her prose writers and dramatists, and even Prussia her railway +guides, one nation and one alone, the Empire of Monomotopa, is utterly +innocent of this embellishment or frill. + +No traveller records the existence of any Monomotopan quill-driver; no +modern visitor to that delightful island has come across a +_littrateur_ whether in the worse or in the best hotels; and such +reading as the inhabitants enjoy is entirely confined to works imported +by large steamers from the neighbouring Antarctic Continent. + +The causes of this singular and happy state of affairs were unknown +(since the common histories did not mention them) until the recent +discovery by Mr. Paley, the chief authority upon Monomotopan hieratic +script, of a very ancient inscription which clearly sets forth the whole +business. + +It seems that an Emperor of Monomotopa, whose date can be accurately +fixed by internal evidence to lie after the universal deluge and before +the building of the Pyramid of Cheops, was, upon his accession to the +throne, particularly concerned with the just repartition of taxes among +his beloved subjects. + +It would seem (if we are to trust the inscription) that in a past still +more remote the taxes were so light that even the richest men would meet +them promptly and without complaining, but this was at a period when the +enemies of Monomotopa were at once distant and actively engaged in +quarrelling among themselves. With sickening treachery these distant +rival nations had determined to produce wealth and to live in amity, so +that it was incumbent upon the Monomotopans not only to build ships, but +actually to provide an army, and at last (what broke the camel's back) +to establish fortifications of a very useless but expensive sort upon a +dozen points of their Imperial coast. + +Under the increasing strain the old fiscal system broke down. The poor +were clearly embarrassed, as might be seen in their emaciated visages +and from the terrible condition of their boots. The rich had reached the +point after which it was inconvenient to them to pay any more. The +middle classes were spending the greater part of their time in devising +methods by which the exorbitant and intempestive demands of the +collectors could be either evaded or, more rarely, complied with. In a +word, a new and juster system of taxation was an imperative need, and +the Emperor, who had just ascended the throne at the age of eighteen, +and whom a sort of greenness had preserved from the iniquities of this +world, was determined to effect the great reform. + +With the advice of his Ministers (all of whom had had considerable +experience in the handling of money), the Emperor at last determined +that each man and woman should pay to the State one-tenth and no more of +the wealth which he or she produced; those who produced nothing it was +but common justice and reason to exempt, and the effect of this tardy +act of justice upon the very rich was observed in the sudden increase of +the death-rate from all those diseases that are the peculiar product of +luxury and evil living. Paupers also, the unemployed, cripples, +imbeciles, deaf mutes, and the clergy escaped under this beneficent and +equable statute, and we may sum up the whole policy by saying that never +was a law acclaimed with so much happy bewilderment nor subject to less +expressed criticism than this. + +It was, moreover, easy to estimate in this new fashion the total revenue +of the State, since its produce had been accurately set down by +statisticians of the utmost eminence, and one of these diverse documents +had been taken for the basis of the new fiscal regime. + +In practice also the collection was easy. Overseers would attend the +harvest with large carts, prong the tenth turnip, hoick up the tenth +sheaf of wheat, bucket out the tenth gallon of ale, and so forth. In the +markets every tenth animal was removed by Imperial officers, every tenth +newspaper was impounded as it left the press, and every tenth drink +about to be consumed in the hostelries of the Empire was, after a +simulacrum of proffering it, suddenly removed by the waiter and poured +into a receptacle, the keys of which were very jealously guarded. + +It was the same with the liberal professions: of the fee received by a +barrister in the Criminal Courts a tenth was regularly demanded at the +door when the verdict had been given and the prisoner whom he had +defended passed out to execution. The tenth knock-out in the prize ring +received by the professional pugilist was followed by the immediate +sequestration of his fee for that particular encounter, and the tenth +aria vibrating from the lips of a prima donna was either compounded for +at a certain rate or taken in kind by the official who attended at every +performance of grand opera. + +One form of wealth alone puzzled the beneficent monarch and his +Napoleonic advisers, and this was the production (for it then existed) +of literary matter. + +At first this seemed as simple to tax as any one of the other numerous +activities upon which the Emperor's loyal and loving subjects were +engaged. A brief examination of the customs of the trade, conducted by +an army of officials who penetrated into the very dens and attics in +which Letters are evolved, reported that the method of payment was by +the measurement of a number of words. + +"It is, your Majesty," wrote the permanent official of the department in +his minute, "the practice of those who charitably employ this sort of +person to pay them in classes by the thousand words; thus one man gets +one sequin a thousand, another two byzants, a third as much as a ducat, +while some who have singularly attracted the notice of the public can +command ten, twenty, nay forty scutcheons, and in some very exceptional +cases a thousand words command one of those beautiful pieces of stiff +paper which your Majesty in his bountiful provision tenders to his +dutiful subjects for acceptance as metal under diverse penalties. The +just taxation of these fellows can therefore be easily achieved if your +Majesty, in the exercise of his almost superhuman wisdom, will but add a +schedule to the Finance Act in which there shall be set down fifteen or +twenty classes of writers, with their price per thousand words, and a +compulsory registration of each class, enforced by the rude hand of the +police." + +The Emperor of Monomotopa immediately nominated a Royal Commission +(unpaid), among whose sons, nephews, and private friends the salaried +posts connected with the work were distributed. This Commission reported +by a majority of one ere two years had elapsed. The schedule was +designed, and such _littrateurs_ as had not in the interval fled +the country were registered, while a further enactment strictly +forbidding their employers to make payment upon any other system +completed the scheme. + +But, alas! so full of low cunning and dirty dodges is this kind of man +(I mean what we call authors) that very soon after the promulgation of +the new law a marked deterioration in the quality of Monomotopan letters +was apparent upon every side! + +The citizen opening his morning paper would be astonished to find the +leading article consist of nothing more original than a portion of the +sacred Scriptures. A novel bought to ease the tedium of a journey would +consist of long catalogues for the most part, and when it came to +descriptions of scenery would fall into the most minute and detailed +category of every conceivable feature of the landscape. Some even took +advantage of the new regulation so far as to repeat one single word an +interminable number of times, while it was remarked with shame by the +Ministers of Religion that the morals of their literary friends +permitted them only to use words of one syllable, and those of the +shortest kind. And this they said was the only true and original +Monomotopan dialect. + +Such was the public inconvenience that next year a sharper and much more +drastic law was passed, by which it was laid down that every literary +composition should make sense within the meaning of the Act, and should +be original so far as the reading of the judge appointed for the trial +of the case extended. But though after the first few executions this law +was generally observed, the nasty fellows affected by it managed to +evade it in spirit, for by the use of obscure terms, of words drawn from +dead languages, and of bold metaphor transferred from one art to +another, they would deliberately invite prosecution, and then in the +witness-box make fools of those plain men, the judge and jury, by +showing that this apparently meaningless claptrap could, with sufficient +ingenuity, be made to yield some sort of sense, and during this period +no art critic was put to death. + +Driven to desperation, the Emperor changed the whole basis of the +Remuneration of Literary Labour, and ordered that it should be by the +length of the prose or poetry measured in inches. + +This reform, however, did but add to the confusion, for while the men of +the pen wrote their works entirely in short dialogue, asterisks, and +blanks, the publishers, who were now thoroughly organized, printed the +same in smaller and smaller type, in order to avoid the consequences of +the law. + +At this last piece of insolence the Emperor's mind was quickly decided. +Arresting one night not only all those who had ever written, but all +those who had even boasted of letters, or who were so much as suspected +by their relatives of secretly indulging in them, he turned the whole +two million into a large but enclosed area, and (desiring to kill two +birds with one stone) offered the ensuing spectacle as an amusement to +the more sober and respectable sections of the community. + +It is well known that the profession of letters breeds in its followers +an undying hatred of each against his fellows. The public were therefore +entertained for a whole day with the pleasing sight of a violent but +quite disordered battle, in which each of the wretched prisoners seemed +animated by no desire but the destruction of as many as possible of his +hated rivals, until at last every soul of these detestable creatures had +left its puny body and the State was rid of all. + +A law which carried to the universities the rule of the primary +schools--to wit, that men should be taught to read but not to +write--completed the good work. And there was peace. + + + + +The Eye-Openers + + +Without any doubt whatsoever, the one characteristic of the towns is +the lack of reality in the impressions of the many: now we live in +towns: and posterity will be astounded at us! It isn't only that we get +our impressions for the most part as imaginary pictures called up by +printer's ink--that would be bad enough; but by some curious perversion +of the modern mind, printer's ink ends by actually preventing one from +seeing things that are there; and sometimes, when one says to another +who has not travelled, "Travel!" one wonders whether, after all, if he +does travel, he will see the things before his eyes? If he does, he will +find a new world; and there is more to be discovered in this fashion +to-day than ever there was. + +I have sometimes wished that every Anglo-Saxon who from these shores has +sailed and seen for the first time the other Anglo-Saxons in New York or +Melbourne, would write in quite a short letter what he really felt. +Ninety-nine times out of a hundred men only write what they have read +before they started, just as Rousseau in an eighteenth-century village +believed that every English yokel could vote and that his vote conveyed +a high initiative, making and unmaking the policy of the State; or just +as people, hearing that the birth-rate of France is low, travel in that +country and say they can see no children--though they would hardly say +it about Sussex or Cumberland where the birth-rate is lower still. + +What travel does in the way of pleasure (the providing of new and fresh +sensations, and the expansion of experience), that it ought to do in the +way of knowledge. It ought to and it does, with the wise, provide a +complete course of unlearning the wretched tags with which the sham +culture of our great towns has filled us. For instance, of Barbary--the +lions do not live in deserts; they live in woods. The peasants of +Barbary are not Semitic in appearance or in character; Barbary is full +to the eye, not of Arab and Oriental buildings--they are not +striking--but of great Roman monuments: they are altogether the most +important things in the place. Barbary is not hot, as a whole: most of +Barbary is extremely cold between November and March. The inhabitants of +Barbary do not like a wild life, they are extremely fond of what +civilization can give them, such as _crme de menthe_, rifles, good +waterworks, maps, and railways: only they would like to have these +things without the bother of strict laws and of the police, and so +forth. Travel in Barbary with seeing eyes and you find out all this new +truth. + +Now it took the French forty years and more before each of these plain +facts (and I have only cited half a dozen out of as many hundred) got +into their letters and their print: they have not yet got into the +letters and the print of other nations. But an honest man travelling in +Barbary on his own account would pick up every one of these truths in +two or three days, except the one about the lions; to pick up that truth +you must go to the very edge of the country, for the lion is a shy beast +and withdraws from men. + +The wise man who really wants to see things as they are and to +understand them, does not say: "Here I am on the burning soil of +Africa." He says: "Here I am stuck in a snowdrift and the train twelve +hours late"--as it was (with me in it) near Stif in January, 1905. He +does not say as he looks on the peasant at his plough outside Batna: +"Observe yon Semite!" He says: "That man's face is exactly like the face +of a dark Sussex peasant, only a little leaner." He does not say: "See +those wild sons of the desert! How they must hate the new artificial +world around them!" Contrariwise, he says: "See those four Mohammedans +playing cards with a French pack of cards and drinking liqueurs in the +caf! See, they have ordered more liqueurs!" He does not say: "How +strange and terrible a thing the railway must be to them!" He says: "I +wish I was rich enough to travel first, for the natives pouring in and +out of this third-class carriage, jabbering like monkeys, and treading +on my feet, disturb my tranquillity. Some hundreds must have got in and +out during the last fifty miles!" + +In other words, the wise man has permitted eye-openers to rain upon him +their full, beneficent, and sacramental influence. And if a man in +travelling will always maintain his mind ready for what he really sees +and hears, he will become a whole nest of Columbuses discovering a +perfectly interminable series of new worlds. + +A man can only talk of what he himself knows. Let me give further +examples. I had always heard until I visited the Pyrenees how French +civilization (especially in the matter of roads, motors, and things like +that) went up to the "Spanish" frontier and then stopped dead. It +doesn't. The change is at the Aragonese frontier. On the Basque third of +the frontier the people are just as active and fond of wealth, and of +scraping of stone and of cleanliness, and of drawing straight lines, to +the north as to the south of it. They are all one people, as +industrious, as thrifty, and as prosperous as the Scots. So are the +Catalans one people, and you get much the same sort of advantages and +disadvantages (apart from the effect of government) with the Catalans to +the north as with the Catalans to the south of the border. + +So with religion. I had thought to find the Spanish churches crowded. I +found just the contrary. It was the French churches that were crowded, +not the Spanish; and the difference between the truth--what one really +sees and hears--and the printed legend happens to be very subtly +illustrated in this case of religion. The French have inherited (and are +by this time used to, and have, perhaps grown fond of) a big religious +debate. Those who side with the national religion and tradition +emphasize their opinion in every possible way--so do their opponents. +You pick up two newspapers from Toulouse, for instance, and it is quite +on the cards that the leading article of each will be a disquisition +upon the philosophy of religion, the one, the "Depche" of Toulouse, +militantly, and often solently atheist; the other as militantly +Catholic. + +You don't get that in Pamplona, and you don't get it in Saragossa. What +you get there is a profound dislike of being interfered with, ancient +and lazy customs, wealth retained by the chapters, the monasteries, and +the colleges, and with all this a curious, all-pervading indifference. + +One might end this little train of thought by considering a converse +test of what the eye-opener is in travel; and that test is to talk to +foreigners when they first come to England and see how they tend to +discover in England what they have read of at home instead of what they +really see. There have been very few fogs in London of late, but your +foreigner nearly always finds London foggy. Kent does not show along its +main railway line the evidence of agricultural depression: it is like a +garden. Yet, in a very careful and thorough French book just published +by a French traveller, his bird's-eye view of the country as he went +through Kent just after landing would make you think the place a desert; +he seems to have thought the hedges a sign of agricultural decay. The +same foreigner will discover a plebeian character in the Commons and an +aristocratic one in the House of Lords, though he shall have heard but +four speeches in each, and though every one of the eight speeches shall +have been delivered by members of one family group closely intermarried, +wealthy, titled, and perhaps (who knows?) of some lineage as well. + +The moral is that one should tell the truth to oneself, and look out for +it outside one. It is quite as novel and as entertaining as the +discovery of the North Pole--or, in case that has come off (as some +believe), the discovery of the South Pole. + + + + +The Public + + +I notice a very curious thing in the actions particularly of business +men to-day, and of other men also, which is the projection outward from +their own inward minds of something which is called "The Public"--and +which is not there. + +I do not mean that a business man is wrong when he says that "the public +will demand" such and such an article, and on producing the article +finds it sells widely; he is obviously and demonstrably right in his use +of the word "public" in such a connexion. Nor is a man wrong or subject +to illusion when he says, "The public have taken to cinematograph +shows," or "The public were greatly moved when the Hull fishermen were +shot at by the Russian fleet in the North Sea." What I mean is "The +Public" as an excuse or scapegoat; the Public as a menace; the Public as +a butt. That Public simply does not exist. + +For instance, the publisher will say, as though he were talking of some +monster, "The Public will not buy Jinks's work. It is first-class work, +so it is too good for the Public." He is quite right in his statement of +fact. Of the very small proportion of our people who read only a +fraction buy books, and of the fraction that buy books very few indeed +buy Jinks's. Jinks has a very pleasant up-and-down style. He loves to +use funny words dragged from the tomb, and he has delicate little +emotions. Yet hardly anybody will buy him--so the publisher is quite +right in one sense when he says, "The Public" won't buy Jinks. But where +he is quite wrong and suffering from a gross illusion is in the motive +and the manner of his saying it. He talks of "The Public" as something +gravely to blame and yet irredeemably stupid. He talks of it as +something quite external to himself, almost as something which he has +never personally come across. He talks of it as though it were a Mammoth +or an Eskimo. Now, if that publisher would wander for a moment into the +world of realities he would perceive his illusion. Modern men do not +like realities, and do not usually know the way to come in contact with +them. I will tell the publisher how to do so in this case. + +Let him consider what books he buys himself, what books his wife buys; +what books his eldest son, his grandmother, his Aunt Jane, his old +father, his butler (if he runs to one), his most intimate friend, and +his curate buy. He will find that not one of these people buys Jinks. +Most of them will talk Jinks, and if Jinks writes a play, however dull, +they will probably go and see it once; but they draw the line at buying +Jinks's books--and I don't blame them. + +The moral is very simple. You yourselves are "The Public," and if you +will watch your own habits you will find that the economic explanation +of a hundred things becomes quite clear. + +I have seen the same thing in the offices of a newspaper. Some simple +truth of commanding interest to this country, involving no attack upon +any rich man, and therefore not dangerous under our laws, comes up for +printing. It is discussed in the editor's room. The editor says, "Yes, +of course, we know it is true, and of course it is important, but the +Public would not stand it." + +I remember one newspaper office of my youth in which the Public was +visualized as a long file of people streaming into a Wesleyan chapel, +and another in which the Public was supposed to be made up without +exception of retired officers and maiden ladies, every one of whom was a +communicant of the English Established Church, every one of good birth, +and yet every one devoid of culture. + +Without the least doubt each of these absurd symbols haunted the brain +of each of the editors in question. The editor of the first paper would +print at wearisome length accounts of obscure Catholic clerical scandals +on the Continent, and would sweat with alarm if his sub-editors had +admitted a telegram concerning the trial of some fraudulent Protestant +missionary or other in China. + +Meanwhile his rather dull paper was being bought by you and me, and bank +clerks and foreign tourists, and doctors, and publicans, and brokers, +Catholics, Protestants, atheists, "peculiar people," and every kind of +man for many reasons--because it had the best social statistics, because +it had a very good dramatic critic, because they had got into the habit +and couldn't stop, because it came nearest to hand on the bookstall. Of +a hundred readers, ninety-nine skipped the clerical scandal and either +chuckled over the fraudulent missionary or were bored by him and went on +to the gambling news from the Stock Exchange. But the type for whom all +that paper was produced, the menacing god or demon who was supposed to +forbid publication of certain news in it, did not exist. + +So it was with the second paper, but with this difference, that the +editor was right about the social position of those who read his sheet, +but quite wrong about the opinions and emotions of people in that social +position. + +It was all the more astonishing from the fact that the editor was born +in that very class himself and perpetually mixed with it. No one perhaps +read "The Stodge" (for under this device would I veil the true name of +the organ) more carefully than those retired officers of either service +who are to be found in what are called our "residential" towns. The +editor was himself the son of a colonel of guns who had settled down in +a Midland watering-place. He ought to have known that world, and he did +know that world, but he kept his illusion of his Public quite apart from +his experience of realities. + +Your retired officer (to take his particular section of this particular +paper's audience) is nearly always a man with a hobby, and usually a +good scientific or literary hobby at that. He writes many of our best +books demanding research. He takes an active part in public work which +requires statistical study. He is always a travelled man, and nearly +always a well-read man. The broadest and the most complete questioning +and turning and returning of the most fundamental subjects--religion, +foreign policy, and domestic economics--are quite familiar to him. But +the editor was not selecting news for that real man; he was selecting +news for an imaginary retired officer of inconceivable stupidity and +ignorance, redeemed by a childlike simplicity. If a book came in, for +instance, on biology, and there was a chance of having it reviewed by +one of the first biologists of the day, he would say: "Oh, our Public +won't stand evolution," and he would trot out his imaginary retired +officer as though he were a mule. + +Artists, by which I mean painters, and more especially art critics, sin +in this respect. They say: "The public wants a picture to tell a story," +and they say it with a sneer. Well, the public does want a picture to +tell a story, because you and I want a picture to tell a story. Sorry. +But so it is. The art critic himself wants it to tell a story, and so +does the artist. Each would rather die than admit it, but if you set +either walking, with no one to watch him, down a row of pictures you +would see him looking at one picture after another with that expression +of interest which only comes on a human face when it is following a +human relation. A mere splash of colour would bore him; still more a +mere medley of black and white. The story may have a very simple plot; +it may be no more than an old woman sitting on a chair, or a landscape, +but a picture, if a man can look at it all, tells a story right enough. +It must interest men, and the less of a story it tells the less it will +interest men. A good landscape tells so vivid a story that children (who +are unspoilt) actually transfer themselves into such a landscape, walk +about in it, and have adventures in it. + +They make another complaint against the public, that it desires painting +to be lifelike. Of course it does! The statement is accurate, but the +complaint is based on an illusion. It is you and I and all the world +that want painting to imitate its object. There is a wonderful picture +in the Glasgow Art Gallery, painted by someone a long time ago, in which +a man is represented in a steel cuirass with a fur tippet over it, and +the whole point of that picture is that the fur looks like fur and the +steel looks like steel. I never met a critic yet who was so bold as to +say that picture was a bad picture. It is one of the best pictures in +the world; but its whole point is the liveliness of the steel and of the +fur. + +Finally, there is one proper test to prove that all this jargon about +"The Public" is nonsense, which is that it is altogether modern. Who +quarrelled with the Public in the old days when men lived a healthy +corporate life, and painted, wrote, or sang for the applause of their +fellows? + +If you still suffer from the illusion after reading these magisterial +lines of mine, why, there is a drastic way to cure yourself, which is to +go for a soldier; take the shilling and live in a barracks for a year; +then buy yourself out. You will never despise the public again. And +perhaps a better way still is to go round the Horn before the mast. But +take care that your friends shall send you enough money to Valparaiso +for your return journey to be made in some comfort; I would not wish my +worst enemy to go back the way he came. + + + + +On Entries + + +I am always planning in my mind new kinds of guide books. Or, rather, +new features in guide books. + +One such new feature which I am sure would be very useful would be an +indication to the traveller of how he should approach a place. + +I would first presuppose him quite free and able to come by rail or by +water or by road or on foot across the fields, and then I would describe +how the many places I have seen stand quite differently in the mind +according to the way in which one approaches them. + +The value of travel, to the eye at least, lies in its presentation of +clear and permanent impressions, and these I think (though some would +quarrel with me for saying it) are usually instantaneous. It is the +first sharp vision of an unknown town, the first immediate vision of a +range of hills, that remains for ever and is fruitful of joy within the +mind, or, at least, that is one and perhaps the chief of the fruits of +travel. + +I remember once, for instance, waking from a dead sleep in a train (for +I was very tired) and finding it to be evening. What woke me was the +sudden stopping of the train. It was in Italy. A man in the carriage +said to me that there was some sort of accident and that we should be +waiting a while. The people got out and walked about by the side of the +track. I also got out of the carriage and took the air, and when I so +stepped out into the cool of that summer evening I was amazed at the +loneliness and tragedy of the place. + +There were no houses about me that I could see save one little place +built for the railway men. There was no cultivation either. + +Close before me began a sort of swamp with reeds which hardly moved to +the air, and this gradually merged into a sheet of water above and +beyond which were hills, barren and not very high, which took the last +of the daylight, for they looked both southward and to the west. The +more I watched the extraordinary and absolute scene the less I heard of +the low voices about me, and indeed a sort of positive silence seemed to +clothe the darkening landscape. It was full of something quite gone +down, and one had the impression that it would never be disturbed. + +As the light lessened, the hills darkened, the sky took on one broad and +tender colour, the sheet of water gleamed quite white, and the reeds +stood up like solid shadows against it. I wish I could express in words +the impression of recollection and of savage mourning which all that +landscape imposed, but from that impression I was recalled and startled +by the guard, who came along telling us that things were righted and +that the train would start again; soon we were in our places and the +rapid movement isolated for me the memory of a singularly vivid scene. I +thought the place must have a name, and I asked a neighbour in the +carriage what it was called; he told me it was called Lake Trasimene. + +Now I do not say that this tragic site is to be visited thus. It was but +an accident, though an accident for which I am most grateful to my fate. +But what I have said here illustrates my meaning that the manner of +one's approach to any place in travel makes all the difference. + +Thus one may note how very different is Europe seen from the water than +seen from any other opportunity for travel. So many of the great +cathedrals were built to dominate men who should watch them from the +wharves of the mediaeval towns, but I think it is almost a rule if you +have leisure and can take your choice to choose this kind of entry to +them. Amiens is quite a different thing seen from the river below it to +the north and east from what it is seen by a gradual approach along the +street of a modern town. The roofs climb up at it, and it stands +enthroned. So Chartres seen from the little Eure; but the Eure is so +small a river that he would be a bold man who would travel up it all +this way. Nevertheless it is a good piece of travel, and anyone who will +undertake it will see Louviers and will pass Anet, where the greatest +work of the Renaissance once stood, and will go through lonely but rich +pastures until at last he gets to Chartres by the right gate. Thence he +will see something astonishing for so flat a region as the Beauce. The +great church seems mountainous upon a mountain. Its apse completes the +unclimbable steepness of the hill and its buttresses follow the lines of +the fall of it. But if you do not come in by the river, at least come in +by the Orleans road. I suppose that nine people out of ten, even to-day +when the roads are in proper use again, come into Chartres by that +northern railway entry, which is for all the world like coming into a +great house by a big, neglected backyard. + +Then if ever you have business that takes you to Bayonne, come in by +river and from the sea, and how well you will understand the little town +and its lovely northern Gothic! + +Some of the great churches all the world knows must be seen from the +water, and most of the world so sees them. Ely is one, Cologne is +another, but how many people have looked right up at Durham as at a +cliff from that gorge below, or how many have seen the height of Albi +from the Tarn? + +As for famous cities with their walls, there is no doubt that a man +should approach them by the chief high road, which once linked them with +their capital, or with their nearest port, or with Rome--and that +although this kind of entry is nowadays often marred by ugly suburbs. +You will get much your finest sight of Segovia as you come in by the +road from the Guadarama and from Madrid. It is from that point that you +were meant to see the town, and you will get much your best grip on +Carcassonne, old Carcassonne, if you come in by the road from Toulouse +at morning as you were meant to come, and so Coucy should be approached +by that royal road from Soissons and from the south, while as for Laon +(the most famous of the hill towns), come to it from the east, for it +looks eastward, and its lords were Eastern lords. + +Ranges of hills, I think, are never best first seen from railways. +Indeed, I can remember no great sight of hills so seen, not even the +Alps. A railway must of necessity follow the floor of the valley and +tunnel and creep round the shoulders of the bulwarks. There is perhaps +one exception to this rule, which is the sight of the Pyrenees from the +train as one comes into Tarbes. It is a wise thing if you are visiting +those hills to come into Tarbes by night and sleep there, and then next +morning the train upon its way to Pau unfolds you all the wall of the +mountains. But this is an accident. It is because the railway runs upon +a sort of high platform that you see the mountains so. With all other +hills that I remember it is best to have them burst suddenly upon you +from the top of some pass lifted high above the level and coming, let us +say, to a height half their own. Certainly the Bernese Oberland is more +wonderful caught in one moment from the Jura than introduced in any +other way, and the snows on Atlas over the desert seem like part of the +sky when they come upon one after climbing the red rocks of the high +plateaux and you see them shining over the salt marshes. The Vosges you +cannot thus see from a half-height; there is no platform, and that is +perhaps why the Vosges have not impressed travellers as they should. But +you can so watch the grand chain of old volcanoes which are the rampart +of Auvergne. You can stand upon the high wooden ridge of Foreze and see +them take the morning across the mists and the flat of the Limagne, +where the Gauls fought Caesar. Further south from the high table of the +Velay you can see the steep backward escarpment of the Cevennes, inky +blue, desperately blue, blue like nothing else on earth except the +mountains in those painters of North Italy, of the parts north and east +of Venice, the name of whose school escapes me--or, rather, I never knew +it. + +Now, as for towns that live in a hollow, it is great fun to come upon +them from above. They are not used to being thus taken at a disadvantage +and they are both surprised and surprising. There are many towns in +holes and trenches of Europe which you can thus play "peep-bo" with if +you will come at them walking. By train they will mean nothing to you. +You will probably come upon them out of a long, shrieking tunnel, and by +the high road they mean little more, for the high road will follow the +vale. But if you come upon them from over their guardian cliffs and +scars you catch them unawares, and this is a good way of approaching +them, for you master them, as it were, and spy them out before you enter +in. You can act thus with Grenoble and with many a town on the Meuse, +and particularly with Aubusson, which lies in the depths of so dreadful +a trench that I could wonder how man ever dreamt of living and building +there. + +The most difficult of all places on which to advise, I think, would be +the very great cities, the capitals. They seem to have to-day no noble +entries and no proper approach. Perhaps we shall only deal with them +justly when we can circle down to them through the air and see their +vast activity splashed over the plain. Anyhow, there is no proper way of +entering them now that I know of. Berlin is not worth entering at all. +Rome (a man told me once) could be entered by some particular road over +the Janiculum, I think--which also, if I remember right, was the way +that Shelley came--but I despair of Paris, and certainly of London. I +cannot even recall an entry for Brussels, though Brussels is a +monumental city with great rewards for those who love the combination of +building and hills. + +Perhaps, after all, the happiest entries of all and the most easy are +those of our many market towns, small and not swollen in Britain and in +Northern Gaul and in the Netherlands and in the Valley of the Rhine. +These hardly ever fail us, and we come upon them in our travels as they +desire that we should come, and we know them properly as things should +properly be known--that is, from the beginning. + + + + +Companions of Travel + + +I write of travelling companions in general, and not in particular, +making of them a composite photograph, as it were, and finding what they +have in common and what is their type; and in the first place I find +them to be chance men. For there are some people who cannot travel +without a set companion who goes with them from Charing Cross all over +the world and back to Charing Cross again. And there is a pathos in +this: as Balzac said of marriage, "What a commentary on human life, that +human beings must associate to endure it." So it is with many who cannot +endure to travel alone: and some will positively advertise for another +to go with them. + +In a glade of the Sierra Nevada, which, for awful and, as it were, +permanent beauty seemed not to be of this world, I came upon a man +slowly driving along the trail a ramshackle cart, in which were a few +chairs and tables and bedding. He had a long grey beard and wild eyes; +he was old, and very small like a gnome, but he had not the gnome's +good-humour. I asked him where he was going, and I slowed down, so as to +keep pace with his ridiculous horse. For some time he would not answer +me, and then he said, "Out of this." He added, "I am tired of it." And +when I asked him, "Of what?" his only answer was an old-fashioned oath. +But from further complaints which he made I gathered that what he was +tired of was clearing forests, digging ground, paying debts, and in +general living upon this unhappy earth. He did not like me very much, +and though I would willingly have learned more, he would tell me nothing +further, so when we got to a place where there was a little stream I +went on and left him. + +I have never forgotten the sadness of this man. Where he was going, and +what he expected to do, or what opportunities he had, I have never +understood. Though some years after, in quite another place--namely, +Steyning, in Sussex--I came upon just such another, whose quarrel was +with the English climate, the rich and the poor, and the whole +constitution of God's earth. These are the advantages of travel, that +one meets so many men whom one would otherwise never meet, and that one +feeds as it were upon the complexity of mankind. + +Thus in a village called Encamps, in the depths of Andorra, where no man +has ever killed another, I found a man with a blue face, who was a +fossil, the kind of man you would never find in the swelling life of +Western Europe. He was emancipated, he had studied in Perpignan, over +and beyond the great hills. He could not see why he should pay taxes to +support a priest. "The priests" he assured me, "say the most ridiculous +things. They narrate the most impossible fables. They affirm what cannot +possibly be true. All that they say is in opposition to science. If I am +ill, can a priest cure me? No. Can a priest tell me how to build, or how +to light my house? He is unable to do so. He is a useless and a lying +mouth, why should I feed him?" + +I questioned this man very closely, and discovered that in his view the +world slowly changed from worse to better, and to accelerate this +process enlightenment alone was needed. "But what do these brutes," he +said, alluding to his fellow-countrymen, "know of enlightenment? They do +not even make roads, because the priests forbid them." + +I could write at length upon this man. He was not a Sceptic as you may +imagine, nor had he adopted the Lucretian form of Epicureanism. Not a +bit of it. He was a hearty Atheist, with Positivist leanings. I further +found that he had married a woman older, wealthier, and if possible +uglier than himself. She kept the inn, and was very kind to him. His +life would have been quite happy had he not been tortured by the +monstrous superstitions of others. + +Then, again, in the town of Marseilles, only two years ago, I met a man +who looked well fed, and had a stalwart, square French face, and whose +politico-economic ideal, though it was not mine, greatly moved me. It +was just past midnight, and I was throwing little stones into the old +Greek harbour, the stench and the glory of which are nearly three +thousand years old; I was to be off at dawn upon a tramp steamer, and I +had so determined to pass the few hours of darkness. + +I was throwing pebbles into the water, I say, and thinking about +Ulysses, when this man came slouching up, with his hands in the pockets +of his enormous corduroy trousers, and, looking at me with some contempt +from above (for he was standing, I was sitting), he began to converse +with me. We talked first of ships, then of heat and cold, and so on to +wealth and poverty; and thus it was I came upon his views, which were +that there should be a sort of break up, and houses ought to be burned, +and things smashed, and people killed; and over and above this, it +should be made plain that no one had a right to govern: not the people, +because they were always being bamboozled; obviously not the rich; least +of all, the politicians, to whom he justly applied the most derogatory +epithets. He waved his arm out in the darkness at the Phoceans, at the +half-million of Marseilles, and said, "All that should disappear." The +constructive side of his politico-economic scheme was negative. He was a +practical man. None of your fine theories for him. One step at a time. +Let there be a Chambardement--that is, a noisy collapse, and he would +think about what to do afterwards. + +His was not the narrow, deductive mind. He was objective and concrete. +Believe me or not, he was paid an excellent wage by the municipality to +prevent people like me, who sit up at night, from doing mischief in the +harbour. When I had come to an end of his politico-economic scheme--the +main lines of which were so clear and simple that a child could +understand them--we fell to talking of the tides, and I told him that in +my country the sea went up and down. He was no rustic, and would have no +such commonplace truths. He was well acquainted with the Phenomenon of +the Tides; it was due to the combined attraction of the sun and of the +moon. But when I told him I knew places where the tides fell thirty or +forty feet, we would have had a violent quarrel had I not prudently +admitted that that was romantic exaggeration, and that five or six was +the most that one ever saw it move. I avoided the quarrel, but the +little incident broke up our friendship, and he shuffled away. He did +not like having his leg pulled. + +There are many others I remember. Those I have written about elsewhere I +am ashamed to recall, as the man at Jedburgh, who first expounded to me +how one knew all about the fate of the individual soul, and then +objected to personal questions about his own; the German officer man at +Aix-la-Chapelle, who had hair the colour of tow, and gave me minute +details of the method by which England was to be destroyed; a man I met +upon the Appian Way, who told the most abominable lies; and another man +who met me outside Oxford station during the Vac. and offered to show me +the sights of the town for a consideration, which he did, but I would +not pay him because he was inaccurate, as I easily proved by a few +searching questions upon the exact site of Bocardo (of which he had +never heard), and the negative evidence against a Roman origin for the +site of the city. Moreover, he said that Trinity was St. John's, which +was rubbish. + +Then there was another man who travelled with me from Birmingham, +pressed certain tracts upon me, and wanted to charge me sixpence each at +Paddington. But if I were to speak of even these few I should exceed. + + + + +On the Sources of Rivers + + +There are certain customs in man the permanence of which gives infinite +pleasure. When the mood of the schools is against them these customs lie +in wait beneath the floors of society, but they never die, and when a +decay in pedantry or in despotism or in any other evil and inhuman +influence permits them to reappear they reappear. + +One of these customs is the religious attachment of man to isolated high +places, peaks, and single striking hills. On these he must build +shrines, and though he is a little furtive about it nowadays, yet the +instinct is there, strong as ever. I have not often come to the top of a +high hill with another man but I have seen him put a few stones together +when he got there, or, if he had not the moral courage so to satisfy his +soul, he would never fail on such an occasion to say something ritual and +quasi-religious, even if it were only about the view; and another instinct +of the same sort is the worship of the sources of rivers. + +The Iconoclast and the people whose pride it is that their senses are +dead will see in a river nothing more than so much moisture gathered in +a narrow place and falling as the mystery of gravitation inclines it. +Their mood is the mood of that gentleman who despaired and wrote: + + A cloud's a lot of vapour, + The sky's a lot of air, + And the sea's a lot of water + That happens to be there. + +You cannot get further down than that. When you have got as far down as +that all is over. Luckily God still keeps his mysteries going for you, +and you can't get rid, even in that mood, of the certitude that you +yourself exist and that things outside of you are outside of you. But +when you get into that modern mood you do lose the personality of +everything else, and you forget the sanctity of river heads. + +You have lost a great deal when you have forgotten that, and it behoves +you to recover what you have lost as quickly as possible, which is to be +done in this way: Visit the source of some famous stream and think about +it. There was a Scotchman once who discovered the sources of the Nile, +to the lasting advantage of mankind and the permanent glory of his +native land. He thought the source of the Nile looked rather like the +sources of the Till or the Tweed or some such river of Thule. He has +been ridiculed for saying this, but he was mystically very right. The +source of the greatest of rivers, since it was sacred to him, reminded +him of the sacred things of his home. + +When I consider the sources of rivers which I have seen, there is not +one, I think, which I do not remember to have had about it an influence +of awe. Not only because one could in imaginings see the kingdoms of the +cities which it was to visit and the way in which it would bind them all +together in one province and one story, but also simply because it was +an origin. + +The sources of the Rhone are famous: the Rhone comes out of a glacier +through a sort of ice cave, and if it were not for an enormous hotel +quite four-square it would be as lonely a place as there is in Europe, +and as remarkable a beginning for a great river as could anywhere be +found. Nor, when you come to think of it, does any European river have +such varied fortunes as the Rhone. It feeds such different religions and +looks on such diverse landscapes. It makes Geneva and it makes Avignon; +it changes in colour and in the nature of its going as it goes. It sees +new products appearing continually on its journey until it comes to +olives, and it flows past the beginning of human cities, when it +reflects the huddle of old Arles. + +The sources of the Garonne are well known. The Garonne rises by itself +in a valley from which there is no issue, like the fabled valleys shut +in by hills on every side. And if it were anything but the Garonne it +would not be able to escape: it would lie imprisoned there for ever. +Being the Garonne it tunnels a way for itself right under the High +Pyrenees and comes out again on the French side. There are some that +doubt this, but then there are people who would doubt anything. + +The sources of the River Arun are not so famous as these two last, and +it is a good thing, for they are to be found in one of the loneliest +places within an hour of London that any man can imagine, and if you +were put down there upon a windy day you would think yourself upon the +moors. There is nothing whatsoever near you at the beginnings of the +little sacred stream. + +Thames had a source once which was very famous. The water came out +plainly at a fountain under a bleak wood just west of the Fosse Way, +under which it ran by a culvert, a culvert at least as old as the +Romans. But when about a hundred years ago people began to improve the +world in those parts, they put up a pumping station and they pumped +Thames dry--since which time its gods have deserted the river. + +The sources of the Ribble are in a lonely place up in a corner of the +hills where everything has strange shapes and where the rocks make one +think of trolls. The great frozen Whernside stands up above it, and +Ingleborough Hill, which is like no other hill in England, but like the +flat-topped Mesas which you have in America, or (as those who have +visited it tell me) like the flat hills of South Africa; and a little +way off on the other side is Pen-y-ghent, or words to that effect. The +little River Ribble rises under such enormous guardianship. It rises +quite clean and single in the shape of a little spring upon the +hillside, and too few people know it. The other river that flows east +while the Ribble flows west is the River Ayr. It rises in a curious way, +for it imitates the Garonne, and finding itself blocked by limestone +burrows underneath at a place called Malham Tarn, after which it has no +more trouble. + +The River Severn, the River Wye, and a third unimportant river, or at +least important only for its beauty (and who would insist on that?) rise +all close together on the skirts of Plinlimmon, and the smallest of them +has the most wonderful rising, for it falls through the gorge of Llygnant, +which looks like, and perhaps is, the deepest cleft in this island, or, at +any rate, the most unexpected. And a fourth source on the mountain, a tarn +below its summit, is the source of Rheidol, which has a short but +adventurous life like Achilles. + +There is one source in Europe that is properly dealt with, and where the +religion due to the sources of rivers has free play, and this is the +source of the Seine. It comes out upon the northern side of the hills +which the French call the Hills of Gold, in a country of pasturage and +forest, very high up above the world and thinly peopled. The River Seine +appears there in a sort of miraculous manner, pouring out of a grotto, +and over this grotto the Parisians have built a votive statue; and there +is yet another of the hundred thousand things that nobody knows. + + + + +On Error + + +There is an elusive idea that has floated through the minds of most of +us as we grew older and learnt more and more things. It is an idea +extremely difficult to get into set terms. It is an idea very difficult +to put so that we shall not seem nonsensical; and yet it is a very +useful idea, and if it could be realized its realization would be of +very practical value. It is the idea of a Dictionary of Ignorance and +Error. + +On the face of it a definition of the work is impossible. Strictly +speaking it would be infinite, for human knowledge, however far +extended, must always be infinitely small compared with all possible +knowledge, just as any given finite space is infinitely small compared +with all space. + +But that is not the idea which we entertain when we consider this +possible Dictionary of Ignorance and Error. What we really mean is a +Dictionary of the sort of Ignorance and the sort of Error which we know +ourselves to have been guilty of, which we have escaped by special +experience or learning as time went on, and against which we would warn +our fellows. + +Flaubert, I think, first put it down in words, and said that such an +encyclopaedia was very urgently needed. + +It will never exist, but we all know that it ought to exist. Bits of it +appear from time to time piecemeal and here and there, as for instance +in the annotations which modern scholarship attaches to the great text, +in the printed criticisms to which sundry accepted doctrines are +subjected by the younger men to-day, in the detailed restatement of +historical events which we get from modern research as our fathers could +never have them--but the work itself, the complete Encyclopaedia or +Dictionary of Ignorance and Error, will never be printed. It is a great +pity. + +Incidentally one may remark that the process by which a particular error +is propagated is as interesting to watch as the way in which a plant +grows. + +The first step seems to be the establishing of an authority and the +giving of that authority a name which comes to connote doctrinal +infallibility. A very good example of this is the title "Science." Mere +physical research, its achievements, its certitudes, even its +conflicting and self-contradictory hypotheses, having got lumped +together in many minds under this one title Science, the title is now +sacred. It is used as a priestly title, as an immediate estopper to +doubt or criticism. + +The next step is a very interesting one for the student of psychical +pathology to note. It seems to be a disease as native and universal to +the human mind as is the decay of the teeth to the human body. It seems +as though we all must suffer somewhat from it, and most of us suffer a +great deal from it, though in a cool aspect we easily perceive it to be +a lesion of thought. And this second step is as follows: + +The whole lump having been given its sacred title and erected into an +infallible authority, which you are to accept as directly superior to +yourself and all personal sources of information, there is attributed to +this idol a number of attributes. We give it a soul, and a habit and +manners which do not attach to its stuff at all. The projection of this +imagined living character in our authority is comparable to what we also +do with mountains, statues, towns, and so forth. Our living +individuality lends individuality to them. I might here digress to +discuss whether this habit of the mind were not a distorted reflection +of some truth, and whether, indeed, there be not such beings as demons +or the souls of things. But, to leave that, we take our authority--this +thing "Science," for instance--we clothe it with a creed and appetites +and a will, and all the other human attributes. + +This done, we set out in the third step in our progress towards fixed +error. We make the idol speak. Of course, being only an idol, it talks +nonsense. But by the previous steps just referred to we must believe +that nonsense, and believe it we do. Thus it is, I think, that fixed +error is most generally established. + +I have already given one example in the hierarchic title "Science." + +It was but the other day that I picked up a weekly paper in which a +gentleman was discussing ghosts--that is, the supposed apparition of the +living and the dead: of the dead though dead, and of the living though +absent. + +Nothing has been more keenly discussed since the beginning of human +discussions. Are these phenomena (which undoubtedly happen) what modern +people call subjective, or are they what modern people call objective? +In old-fashioned English, Are the ghosts really there or are they not? +The most elementary use of the human reason persuades us that the matter +is not susceptible of positive proof. The criterion of certitude in any +matter of perception is an inner sense in the perceiver that the thing +he perceives is external to himself. He is the only witness; no one can +corroborate or dispute him. The seer may be right or he may be wrong, +but we have no proof--and only according to our temperament, our fancy, +our experience, our mood, do we decide with one or the other of the two +great schools. + +Well, the gentleman of whom I am speaking wrote and had printed in plain +English this phrase (read it carefully):--"Science teaches us that these +phenomena are purely subjective." + +Now I am quite sure that of the thousands who read that phrase all but a +handful read it in the spirit in which one hears the oracle of a god. +Some read it with regret, some with pleasure, but all with acquiescence. + +That physical science was not competent in the matter one way or the +other each of those readers would probably have discovered, if even so +simple a corrective as the use of the term "physical research" instead +of the sacred term "science" had been applied; the hierarchic title +"Science" did the trick. + +I might take another example out of many hundreds to show what I mean. +You have an authority which is called, where documents are concerned, +"The Best Modern Criticism." "The Best Modern Criticism" decides that +"Tam o' Shanter" was written by a committee of permanent officials of +the Board of Trade, or that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed. As a +matter of fact, the tomfoolery does not usually venture upon ground so +near home, but it talks rubbish just as monstrous about a poem a few +hundred or a few thousand years old, or a great personality a few +hundred or a few thousand years old. + +Now if you will look at that phrase "The Best Modern Criticism" you will +see at once that it simply teems with assumption and tautology. But it +does more and worse: it presupposes that an infallible authority must of +its own nature be perpetually wrong. + +Even supposing that I have the most "modern" (that is, merely the +latest) criticism to hand, and even supposing that by some omniscience +of mine I can tell which is "the best" (that is, which part of it has +really proved most ample, most painstaking, most general, and most +sincere), even then the phrase fatally condemns me. It is to say that +Wednesday is always infallible as compared with Tuesday, and Thursday as +compared with Wednesday, which is absurd. + +The B.M.C. tells me in 1875 that the Song of Roland could have no +origins anterior to the year 1030. But the B.M.C. of 1885 (being a +B.M.C. and nothing more valuable) has a changed opinion. It must change +its opinion, that is the law of its being, since an integral factor in +its value is its modernity. In 1885 B.M.C. tells me that the Song of +Roland can be traced to origins far earlier, let us say to 912. + +In 1895 B.M.C. has come to other conclusions--the Song of Roland is +certainly as late as 1115 ... and so forth. + +Now you would say that an idol of that absurdity could have no effect +upon sane men. Change the terms and give it another name, and you would +laugh at the idea of its having an effect upon any men. But we know as a +matter of fact that it commands the thoughts of nearly all men to-day +and makes cowards of the most learned. + +Perhaps you will ask me at the end of so long a criticism in what way +error may be corrected, since there is this sort of tendency in us to +accept it, to which I answer that things correct it, or as the +philosophers call things, "Reality." Error does not wash. + +To go back to that example of ghosts. If ever you see a ghost (my poor +reader), I shall ask you afterwards whether he seemed subjective or no. +I think you will find the word "subjective" an astonishingly thin +one--if, at least, I catch you early after the experience. + + + + +The Great Sight + + +All night we had slept on straw in a high barn. The wood of its beams +was very old, and the tiles upon the roof were green with age; but there +hung from beam to beam, fantastically, a wire caught by nails, and here +and there from this wire hung an electric-light bulb. It was a symbol of +the time, and the place, and the people. There was no local by-law to +forbid such a thing, or if there was, no one dreamt of obeying it. + +Just in the first dawn of that September day we went out, my companion +and I, at guesswork to hunt in the most amusing kind of hunting, which +is the hunting of an army. The lane led through one of those lovely +ravines of Picardy which travellers never know (for they only see the +plains), and in a little while we thought it wise to strike up the steep +bank from the valley on to the bare plateau above, but it was all at +random and all guesswork, only we wisely thought that we were nearing +the beginning of things, and that on the bare fields of the high flat we +should have a greater horizon and a better chance of catching any +indications of men or arms. + +When we had reached the height the sun had long risen, but it as yet +gave no shining and there were no shadows, for a delicate mist hung all +about the landscape, though immediately above us the sky was faintly +blue. + +It was the weirdest of sensations to go for mile after mile over that +vast plain, to know that it was cut in regular series by parallel +ravines which in all that extended view we could not guess at; to see up +to the limits of the plateau the spires of villages and the groups of +trees about them, and to know that somewhere in all this there lay +concealed a _corps d'arme_--and not to see or hear a soul. The +only human being that we saw was a man driving a heavy farm cart very +slowly up a side-way just as we came into the great road which has shot +dead across this country in one line ever since the Romans built it. As +we went along that road, leaving the fields, we passed by many men +indeed, and many houses, all in movement with the early morning; and the +chalked numbers on the doors, and here and there an empty tin of +polishing-paste or an order scrawled on paper and tacked to a wall +betrayed the passage of soldiers. But of the army there was nothing at +all. Scouting on foot (for that was what it was) is a desperate +business, and that especially if you have nothing to tell you whether +you will get in touch in five, or ten, or twenty miles. + +It was nine o'clock before a clatter of horse-hoofs came up the road +behind us. At first my companion and I wondered whether it were the +first riders of the Dragoons or Cuirassiers. In that case the advance +was from behind us. But very soon, as the sound grew clearer, we heard +how few they were, and then there came into view, trotting rapidly, a +small escort and two officers with the umpires' badges, so there was +nothing doing; but when, half a mile ahead of us on the road, they +turned off to the left over plough, we knew that that was the way we +must follow too. Before we came to the turning-place, before we left the +road to take the fields on the left, there came from far off and on our +right the sound of a gun. + +It was my companion who heard it first. We strained to hear it again; +twice we thought we had caught it, and then again twice we doubted. It +is not so easily recognizable a sound as you might think in those great +plains cut by islands of high trees and steading walls. The little "75" +gun lying low makes a different sound altogether at a distance from the +old piece of "90." At any rate there was here no doubt that there were +guns to the right and in front of us, and the umpire had gone to the +left. We were getting towards the thick, and we had only to go straight +on to find out where the front was. + +Just as we had so decided and were still pursuing the high road, there +came, not half a mile away and again to our right, in a valley below us, +that curious sound which is like nothing at all unless it be dumping of +flints out of a cart: rifle fire. It cracked and tore in stretches. Then +there were little gaps of silence like the gaps in signalling, and then +it cracked and tore in stretches again; and then, fitfully, one +individual shot and then another would be heard; and, much further off, +with little sounds like snaps, the replies began from the hillside +beyond the stream. So far so good. Here was contact in the valley below +us, and the guns, some way behind and far off northwards, had opened. So +we got the hang of it instantly--the front was a sort of a crescent +lying roughly north and south, and roughly parallel to the great road, +and the real or feigned mass of the advance was on the extreme left of +that front. We were in it now, and that anxious and wearing business in +all hunting, finding, was over; but we had been on foot six mortal hours +before coming across our luck, and more than half the soldiers' day was +over. These men had been afoot since three, and certain units on the +left had already marched over twenty miles. + +After that coming in touch with our business, not only did everything +become plain, but the numbers we met, and what I have called "the thick +of things," fed us with interest. We passed half the 38th, going down +the road singing, to extend the line, and in a large village we came to +the other half, slouching about in the traditional fashion of the +Service; they had been waiting for an hour. With them, and lined up all +along the village street, was one battery, with the drivers dismounted, +and all that body were at ease. There were men sitting on the doorsteps +of the houses and men trotting to the canteen-wagon or to the village +shops to buy food; and there were men reading papers which a pedlar had +brought round. Mud and dust had splashed them all; upon some there was a +look of great fatigue; they were of all shapes and sizes, and altogether +it was the sort of sight you would not see in any other service in the +world. It was the sort of sight which so disgusted the Emperor Joseph +when he made his little tour to spy out the land before the +Revolutionary Wars. It was the sort of sight which made Massenbach +before Grandpr marvel whether the French forces were soldiers at all, +and the sort of sight which made Valmy inexplicable to the King of +Prussia and his staff. It was the sort of sight which eighteen months +later still convinced Mack in Tournai that the Duke of York's plan was a +plan "of annihilation." It is a trap for judgment is the French service. + +So they lounged about and bought bread, and shifted their packs, and so +the drivers stood by their horses, and so they all waited and slouched; +until there came, not a man with a bugle nor anything with the slightest +savour of drama but a little fellow running along thumping in his loose +leather leggings, who went up to a Major of Artillery and saluted, and +immediately afterwards the Major put his hand up, and then down a +village street, from a point which we could not see came a whistle, and +the whole of that mass of men began to swarm. The grey-blue coats of the +line swung round the corner of the village street; they had yet a few +miles before them. Anything more rapid or less in step it would be +difficult to conceive. The guns were off at a right angle down the main +road, making a prodigious clatter, and at the same time appeared two +parties, one of which it was easy to understand, the other not. They +were both parties of sappers. The one party had a great roll of wire on +a drum, and as quick as you could think they were unreeling it, and as +they unreeled it fastening it to eaves, overhanging branches, and to +corners of walls, stretching it out forward. It was the field-telephone. +The other party came along carrying great beams upon their shoulders, +but what they were to do with these beams we did not know. + +We followed the tail of the line down into the valley, and all that +morning long and past the food time at midday, and so till the sun +declined in the afternoon, we went with the 38th in its gradual success +from crest to crest. And still the 38th slouched by companies, and mile +after mile with checks and halts, and it never seemed to get either less +or more tired. The men had had twelve hours of it when they came at +last, and we after them, on to the critical position. They had carried +(together with all the line to left and to the right of them) a string +of villages which crowned the crest of a further plateau, and over this +further plateau they were advancing against the main body of the +resistance--the other army corps which was set up against ours, to +simulate an enemy. + +A railway line ran here across the rolling hedgeless fields, and just at +the point where my companion and I struck it there was a dip in the land +and a high embankment which hid the plain beyond; but from that plain +beyond one heard the separate fire of the advancing line in its +scattered order. We climbed the embankment, and from its ridge we saw +over two miles or more of stubble, the little creeping bunches of the +attack. What was resisting, or where it lay, one could only guess. Some +hundreds of yards before us to the east, with the sloping sun full on +it, a line of thicket, one scattered wood and then another, an +imperceptible lifting of the earth here and there marked the opposing +firing line. Two pompoms could be spotted exactly, for the flashes were +clear through the underwood. And still the tide of the advance continued +to flow, and the little groups came up and fed it, one after another and +another, in the centre where we were, and far away to the north and +right away to the south the countryside was alive with it. The action +was beginning to take on something of that final movement and decision +which makes the climax of manoeuvres look so great a game. But in a +little while that general creeping forward was checked: there were +orders coming from the umpires, and a sort of lull fell over each +position held. My companion said to me: + +"Let us go forward now over the intervening zone and in among Picquart's +men, and get well behind their line, and see whether there is a rally or +whether before the end of this day they begin to fall back again." + +So we did, walking a mile or so until we had long passed their outposts +and were behind their forward lines. And standing there, upon a little +eminence near a wood, we turned and looked over what we had come, +westward towards the sun which was now not far from its setting. Then it +was that we saw the last of the Great Sight. + +The level light, mellow and already reddening, illumined all that plain +strangely, and with the absolute stillness of the air contrasted the +opening of the guns which had been brought up to support the renewal of +the attack. We saw the isolated woods standing up like islands with low +steep cliffs, dotted in a sea of stubble for miles and miles, and first +from the cover of one and then from another the advance perpetually, +piercing and deploying. As we so watched there buzzed high above us, +like a great hornet, a biplane, circling well within our lines, beyond +attack from the advance, but overlooking all they concealed behind it. +In a few minutes a great Bleriot monoplane like a hawk followed, yet +further inwards. The two great birds shot round in an arc, parallel to +the firing line, and well behind it, and in a few minutes, that seemed +seconds, they were dots to the south and then lost in the air. And +perpetually, as the sun declined, Picquart's men were falling back north +and south of us and before us, and the advance continued. Group by group +we saw it piercing this hedge, that woodland, now occupying a nearer and +a nearer roll of land. It was the greatest thing imaginable: this +enormous sweep of men, the dead silence of the air, and the +comparatively slight contrast of the ceaseless pattering rifle fire and +the slight intermittent accompaniment of the advancing batteries; until +the sun set and all this human business slackened. Then for the first +time one heard bugles, which were a command to cease the game. + +I would not have missed that day nor lose the memories of it for +anything in the world. + + + + +The Decline of a State + + +The decline of a State is not equivalent to a mortal sickness therein. +States are organisms subject to diseases and to decay as are the +organisms of men's bodies; but they are not subject to a rhythmic rise +and fall as is the body of a man. A State in its decline is never a +State doomed or a State dying. States perish slowly or by violence, but +never without remedy and rarely without violence. + +The decline of a State differs with the texture of it. A democratic +State will decline from a lowering of its potential, that is of its +ever-ready energy to act in a crisis, to correct and to control its +servants in common times, to watch them narrowly and suspect them at all +times. A despotic State will decline when the despot is not in point of +fact the true depository of despotic power, but some other acting in his +name, of whom the people know little and cannot judge; or when the +despot, though fully in view and recognized, lacks will; or when (which +is rare) he is so inhuman as to miss the general sense of his subjects. +An oligarchic State, or aristocracy as it is called, will decline +principally through two agencies which are, first, illusion, and +secondly, lack of civic aptitude. For an oligarchic State tends very +readily to illusion, being conducted by men who live at leisure, satisfy +their passions, are immune from the laws, and prefer to shield +themselves from reality. Their capacity or appetite for illusion will +rapidly pervade those below them, for in an aristocracy the rulers are +subjected to a sort of worship from the rest of the community, and thus +it comes about that aristocracies in their decline accept fantastic +histories of their own past, conceive victory possible without armies, +wealth to be an indication of ability, and national security to be a +natural gift rather than a product of the will. Such communities further +fail from the lack of civic aptitude, as was said above, which means +that they deliberately elect to leave the mass of citizens incompetent +and irresponsible for generations, so that, when any more strain is upon +them, they look at once for some men other than themselves to relieve +them, and are incapable of corporate action upon their own account. + +The decline of a State differs also according to whether it be a great +State or a small one, for in the first indifference, in the latter +faction, are a peril, and in the first ignorance, in the latter private +spite. + +Then again, the decline of a State will differ according to whether its +strength is rooted originally in commerce, in arms, or in production; +and if in production, then whether in the production of the artisan or +in that of the peasant. If arms be the basis of the State, then that the +army should become professional and apart is a symptom of decline and a +cause of it; if commerce, the substitution of hazards and imaginaries +for the transport of real goods and the search after real demand; if +production, the discontent or apathy of the producer; as with peasants +an ill system in the taxation of the land or in the things necessary for +its tillage, such as a misgovernment of its irrigation in a dry country; +the permission of private exactions and tolls in a fertile one; the +toleration of thieves and forestallers, and so forth. Artisans, upon the +other hand, may well flourish, though the State be corrupt in such +matters, but they must be secured in a high wage and be given a vast +liberty of protest, for if they sink to be slaves in fact, they will +from the nature of their toil grow both weak and foolish. Yet is not the +State endangered by the artisan's throwing off a refuse of ill-paid and +starving men who are either too many for the work or unskilful at it? +Such an excretion would poison a peasantry, remaining in their body as +it were, but artisans are purged thereby. This refuse it is for the +State to decide upon. It may in an artisan State be used for soldiery +(since such States commonly maintain but small armies and are commonly +indifferent to military glory), or it may be set to useful labour, or +again, destroyed; but this last use is repugnant to humanity, and so in +the long run hurtful to the State. + +In the decline of a State, of whatever nature that State be, two vices +will immediately appear and grow: these are Avarice and Fear; and men +will more readily accept the imputation of Avarice than of Fear, for +Avarice is the less despicable of the two--yet in fact Fear will be by +far the strongest passion of the time. + +Avarice will show itself not indeed in a mere greed of gain (for this is +common to all societies whether flourishing or failing), but rather in a +sort of taking for granted and permeation of the mere love of money, so +that history will be explained by it, wars judged by their booty or +begun in order to enrich a few, love between men and women wholly +subordinated to it, especially among the rich: wealth made a test for +responsibility and great salaries invented and paid to those who serve +the State. This vice will also be apparent in the easy acquaintance of +all who are possessed of wealth and their segregation from the less +fortunate, for avarice cleaves society flatways, keeping the scum of it +quite clear of the middle, the middle of it quite clear of the dregs, +and so forth. It is a further mark of avarice in its last stages that +the rich are surrounded with lies in which they themselves believe. +Thus, in the last phase, there are no parasites but only friends, no +gifts but only loans, which are more esteemed favours than gifts once +were. No one vicious but only tedious, and no one a poltroon but only +slack. + +Of Fear in the decline of a State it may be said that it is so much the +master passion of such decline as to eat up all others. Coming by travel +from a healthy State to one diseased, Fear is the first point you take. +Men dare not print or say what they feel of the judges, the public +governors, the action of the police, the controllers of fortunes and of +news. This Fear will have about it something comic, providing infinite +joy to the foreigner, and modifying with laughter the lament of the +patriot. A miserable hack that never had a will of his own, but ran to +do what he was told for twenty years at the bidding of his masters, +being raised to the Bench will be praised for an impartial virtue more +than human. A drunken fellow, the son of a drunkard, having stolen +control over some half-dozen sheets, must be named under the breath or +not at all. A powerful minister may be accused with sturdy courage of +something which he did not do and no one would mind his doing, but under +the influence of Fear, to tell the least little truth about him will put +a whole assembly into a sort of blankness. + +This vice has for its most laughable effect the raising of a whole host +of phantoms, and when a State is so far gone that civic Fear is quite +normal to the citizens, then you will find them blenching with terror at +a piece of print, a whispered accusation. Bankruptcy, though they be +possessed of nothing, and even the ill-will of women. Moneylenders under +this influence have the greatest power, next after them, blackmailers of +all kinds, and next after these eccentrics who may blurt or break out. +Those who have least power in the decline of a State, are priests, +soldiers, the mothers of many children, the lovers of one woman, and +saints. + + + + +On Past Greatness + + +There lies in the North-East of France, close against the Belgian +frontier and within cannon shot of the famous battlefield of Malplaquet, +a little town called Bavai--I have written of it elsewhere. + +Coming into this little town you seem to be entering no more than a +decent, unimportant market borough, a larger village meant for country +folk, perhaps without a history and certainly without fame. + +As you come to look about you one thing after another enlivens your +curiosity and suggests something at once enormous and remote in the +destinies of the place. + +In the first place, seven great roads go out like the seven rays of a +star, plumb straight, darting along the line, across the vast, bare +fields of Flanders, past and along the many isolated woods of the +provinces, and making to great capitals far off--to Cologne, to Paris, +to Treves, and to the ports of the sea. + +These roads are deserted in great part. Some of them are metalled in +certain sections, and again in other sections are no more than lanes, +and again no more than footpaths, as you proceed along their miles of +way; but their exact design awfully impresses the mind. You know, as you +follow such strict alignment, that you are fulfilling the majestic +purpose of Imperial Rome. It was the Romans that made these things. + +Then, intrigued and excited by such remains of greatness, you read what +you can of the place.... And you find nothing but a dust of legend. You +find a story that once here a king, filled with ambition and worshipping +strange gods, thrust out these great roads to the ends of the earth; +desired his capital to be a hub and navel for the world. He put them +under the protection of the seven planets and of the deities of those +stars. Three he paved with black marble and four with white marble, and +where they met upon the market place he put up a golden terminal. There +the legend ends. + +It is only legend--a true product of the Dark Ages, when all that Rome +had done rose like a huge dream in the mind of Europe and took on +gorgeous and fantastic colouring. You learn (for the rest) very +little--that ornaments and money have been found dating from two +thousand years, that once great walls surrounded the place. It must have +had noble buildings and solemn courts. In strict history all you will +discover is that it was the capital of that tribe, the Nervii, against +whom Caesar fought, and whose territory was early conquered for the +Empire. You will find nothing more. There is no living tradition, there +is no voice; the little town is dumb. + +The place is a figure, and a striking one, of greatness long dead, and a +man visiting its small domestic interests to-day, and noting its +comfort, its humility, and its sleep, is reminded of many things +attaching to human fame. It would seem as though the ambitions of men, +and that exalted appetite for glory which has produced the chief things +of this world, suffer the effect of time somewhat as the body of an +animal slain will suffer that. + +One part of the organism and then another decays and mixes back with +nature. The effect of will has vanished. The thing is a prey to all that +environment which, once alive, it combated, conquered, and transformed +to its own use. One portion after another is lost, until at last only +the most resisting stands--the skeleton and hard framework, the least +expressive, the least personal part of the whole. This also decays and +perishes. Then there remains no more but a score of hardened fragments +that linger in their place, and what has passed away is fortunate if +even the slightest or most fantastic legend of itself survives. + +The great dead are first forgotten in their physical habit; we lose the +nature of their voices, we forget their sympathies and their affections. +Bit by bit all that they intended to be eternal slips back into the +common thing around. A blurred image, growing fainter and fainter, +lingers. At last the person vanishes, and in its place some public +raising material things--a monument, a tomb, an ornament, or weapon of +enduring metal--is all that remains. + +If it were possible for the spring of appetite and quest to be dried up +in man, such a spectacle would dry up that spring. + +It is not possible, for it is providentially in the nature of man to +cherish these illusions of an immortal memory and of a life bestowed +upon the shade or the mere name of his living greatness. Those various +forms of fame which are young men's goals, and to which the eager +creative power of early manhood so properly directs itself, seem each in +turn or each for its varying temperament to promise the desired reward; +and one imagines that his love, another that his discoveries, another +that his victories in the field or his conspicuous acts of courage will +remain permanently with his fellows long after he has left their feast. + +As though to give some substance to the flattering cheat, there is one +kind of fame which men have been permitted to attain, and which does +give them a sort of fixed tenure--if not for ever, yet for generations +upon generations--in the human city. This sort of fame is the fame of +the great poets. There is nothing more enduring. It has for some who +were most blessed outlasted, you may say, all material things which they +handled or they knew--all fabrics, all instruments, all habitations. It +is comparable in its endurance to the years, and a man reads the "Song +of Roland" and can still look on that same unchanged Cleft of +Roncesvalles, or a man reads the Iliad and can look to-day westward from +the shores to Tenedos. But wait a moment. Are they indeed blessed in +this, the great poets? Ronsard debated it. He decided that they were, +and put into the mouth of the muses the great lines:---- + + Mais un tel accident n'arrive point a l'me, + Qui sans matire vist immortelle l haut. + + * * * * * + + Vela saigement dit, Ceux dont la fantaisie + Sera religieuse et devote envers Dieu + Tousjours acheveront quelque grand posie, + Et dessus leur renom la Parque n'aura lieu. + +But the matter is still undecided. + + + + +Mr. The Duke: The Man of Malplaquet + + +On the field of Malplaquet, that battlefield, I met a man. + +He was pointed out to me as a man who drove travellers to Bavai. His +name was Mr. The Duke, and he was very poor. + +If he comes across these lines (which is exceedingly unlikely) I offer +him my apologies. Anyhow, I can write about him freely, for he is not +rich, and, what is more, the laws of his country permit the telling of +the truth about our fellow-men, even when they are rich. + +Mr. The Duke was of some years, and his colour was that of cedar wood. I +met him in his farmyard, and I said to him: + +"Is it you, sir, that drive travellers to Bavai?" + +"No," said he. + +Accustomed by many years of travel to this type of response, I +continued: + +"How much do you charge?" + +"Two francs fifty," said he. + +"I will give you three francs," I said, and when I had said this he +shook his head and replied: + +"You fall at an evil moment; I was about to milk the cows." Having said +this he went to harness the horse. + +When the horse was harnessed to his little cart (it was an extremely +small horse, full of little bones and white in colour, with one eye +stronger than the other) he gave it to his little daughter to hold, and +himself sat down to table, proposing a meal. + +"It is but humble fare," he said, "for we are poor." + +This sounded familiar to me; I had both read and heard it before. The +meal was of bread and butter, pasty and beer, for Malplaquet is a +country of beer and not of wine. + +As he sat at table the old man pointed out to me that contraband across +the Belgian frontier, which is close by, was no longer profitable. + +"The Fraud," he said, "is no longer a living for anyone." + +Upon that frontier contraband is called "The Fraud"; it holds an +honourable place as a career. + +"The Fraud," he continued, "has gone long ago; it has burst. It is no +longer to be pursued. There is not even any duty upon apples.... But +there is a duty upon pears. Had I a son I would not put him into The +Fraud.... Sometimes there is just a chance here and there.... One can +pick up an occasion. But take it all in all (and here he wagged his head +solemnly) there is nothing in it any more." + +I said that I had no experience of contraband professionally, but that I +knew a very honest man who lived by it in the country of Andorra, and +that according to my morals a man had a perfect right to run the risk +and take his chance, for there was no contract between him and the power +he was trying to get round. This announcement pleased the old gentleman, +but it did not grip his mind. He was of your practical sort. He was +almost a Pragmatist. Abstractions wearied him. He put no faith in the +reality of ideas. I think he was a Nominalist like Abelard: and whatever +excuse you may make for him, Abelard was a Nominalist right enough, for +it was the intellectual thing to be at the time, though St. Bernard +utterly confuted him in arguments of enormous length and incalculable +boredom. + +The old man, then, I say, would have nothing to do with first +principles, and he reasserted his position that, in the concrete, in the +existent world, The Fraud no longer paid. + +This said for the sixth or seventh time, he drank some brandy to put +heart into him and climbed up into his little cart, I by his side. He +hit the white horse with a stick, making at the same time an +extraordinary shrill noise with his mouth, like a siren, and the horse +began to slop and sludge very dolefully towards Bavai. + +"This horse," said Mr. The Duke, "is a wonderfully good horse. He goes +like the wind. He is of Arab extraction, and comes from Africa." + +With these words he gave the horse another huge blow with his stick, and +once more emitted his piercing cry. The horse went neither faster nor +slower than before, and seemed very indifferent to the whole +performance. + +"He is from Africa," said Mr. The Duke again, meditatively. "Do you know +Africa?" + +Africa with the French populace means Algiers. I answered that I knew +it, and that in particular I knew the road southward from Constantine. +At this he looked very pleased, and said: + +"I was a soldier in Africa. I deserted seven times." + +To this I made no answer. I did not know how he wanted me to take it, so +I waited until he should speak again, which he soon did, and said: + +"The last time I deserted I was free for a year and a half. I used to +conduct beasts; that was my trade. When they caught me I was to have +been shot. I was saved by the tears of a woman!" + +Having said this the old man pulled out a very small pipe and filled it +with exceedingly black tobacco. He lit it, then he began talking again +rather more excitedly. + +"It is a terrible thing and an unhappy thing none the less," he went on, +"that a man should be taken out to be shot and should be saved by the +tears of a woman." Then he added, "Of what use are wars? How foolish it +is that men should kill each other! If there were a war I would not +fight. Would you?" + +I said I thought I would; but whether I should like to or not would +depend upon the war. + +He was eager to contradict and to tell me that war was wrong and stupid. +Having behind him the logical training of fifteen Christian centuries he +was in no way muddle-headed upon the matter. He saw very well that his +doctrine meant that it was wrong to have a country, and wrong to love +it, and that patriotism was all bosh, and that no ideal was worth +physical pain or trouble. To such conclusions had he come at the end of +his life. + +The white horse meanwhile slouched; Bavai grew somewhat nearer as we sat +in silence after his last sentence. He was turning many things over in +his mind. He veered off on to political economy. + +"When the rich man at the Manufactory here, the place where they sell +phosphates for the land, when he stands beer to all the workmen and to +the countryside, I always say, 'Fools! All this will be put on to the +cost of the phosphates; they will cost you more!'" + +Mr. The Duke did not accept John Stuart Mill's proposition upon the cost +of production nor the general theories of Ricardo upon which Mill's +propositions were based. In his opinion rent was a factor in the cost of +production, for he told me that butter had gone up because the price of +land was rising near the towns. In what he next said I found out that he +was not a Collectivist, for he said a man should own enough to live +upon, but he said that this was impossible if rich people were allowed +to live. I asked him what the politics of the countryside were and how +people voted. He said: + +"The politicians trick the people. They are a heap of worthlessness." + +I asked him if he voted, and he said "yes." He said there was only one +way to vote, but I did not understand what this meant. + +Had time served I should have asked him further questions--upon the +nature of the soul, its ultimate fate, the origin of man and his +destiny, whether mortal or immortal; the proper constitution of the +State, the choice of the legislator, the prince, and the magistrate; the +function of art, whether it is subsidiary or primary in human life; the +family; marriage. Upon the State he had already informed me, and also +upon the institution of property, and upon his view of armies. Upon all +those other things he would equally have given me a clear reply, for he +was a man that knew his own mind, and that is more than most people can +say. + +But we were now in Bavai, and I had no time to discover more. We drank +together before we parted, and I was very pleased to see the honest look +in his face. With more leisure and born to greater opportunities he +would have been talked about, this Man of Malplaquet. He had come to his +odd conclusions as the funny people do in Scandinavia and in Russia, and +among the rich intellectuals and usurers in London and Berlin; but he +was a jollier man than they are, for he could drive a horse and lie +about it, and he could also milk a cow. As we parted he used a phrase +that wounded me, and which I had only heard once before in my life. He +said: + +"We shall never see each other again!" + +Another man had once said this thing to me before. This man was a farmer +in the Northumbrian hills, who walked with me a little way in the days +when I was going over Carter Fell to find the Scots people, many, many +years ago. He also said: "We shall never meet again!" + + + + +The Game of Cards + + +A youth of no more than twenty-three years entered a first-class +carriage at the famous station of Swindon in the county of Wiltshire, +proposing to travel to the uttermost parts of the West and to enjoy a +comfortable loneliness while he ruminated upon all things human and +divine; when he was sufficiently annoyed to discover that in the further +corner of the carriage was sitting an old gentleman of benevolent +appearance, or at any rate a gentleman of benevolent appearance who +appeared in his youthful eyes to be old. + +For though the old gentleman was, as a fact, but sixty, yet his virile +beard had long gone white and the fringes of hair attaching to his +ostrich egg of a head confirmed his venerable appearance. + +When the train had started the young man proceeded in no very good +temper and with great solemnity to fill a pipe. He turned to his senior, +who was watching him in a very paternal and happy manner, and said +formally: + +"I hope you do not mind my smoking, sir?" + +"Not at all," said the old boy; "it is a habit I have long grown +accustomed to in others." + +The young man bowed in a somewhat absurd fashion and felt for his +matches. He discovered to his no small mortification that he had none. +He was so used to his pipe after a meal that he really could not forgo +it. He came off his perch by at least three steps and asked the old man +very gently whether he had any matches. + +The older man produced a box and at the same time brought out with it a +little notebook and a playing card which happened to be in his pocket. +The young man took the matches and lit his pipe, surveying the old man +the while with a more complacent eye. + +"It is very kind of you, sir," he said a little less stiffly. He handed +back the matches, wrapped his rug round his legs, sat down in his place, +and knowing that one should prolong the conversation for a moment or two +after a favour, said: "I see that you play cards." + +"I do," said the old man simply; "would you like a game?" + +"I don't mind," said the young man, who had always heard that it was +unmanly and ridiculous to refuse a game of cards in a railway carriage. + +The elder man laughed merrily in his strong beard as he saw his junior +begin to spread somewhat awkwardly a copy of a newspaper upon his knees. +"I'll show you a trick worth two of that," he said, and taking one of +the first-class cushions, which alone of railway cushions are movable +from its place, he came over to the corner opposite the young man and +made a table of the cushion between them. "Now," said he genially, +"what's it to be?" + +"Well," said the young man like one who expounds new mysteries, "do you +know piquet?" + +"Oh, yes," said his companion with another happy little laugh of +contentment with the world. "I'll take you on. What shall it be?" + +"Pennies if you like," said the young man nonchalantly. + +"Very well, and double for the Rubicon." + +"How do you mean?" said the young man, puzzled. + +"You will see," said the old man, and they began to play. + +The game was singularly absorbing. At first the young man won a few +pounds; then he lost rather heavily, then he won again, but not quite +enough to recoup. Then in the fourth game he won, so that he was a +little ahead, and meanwhile the old man chatted merrily during the +discarding or the shuffling: during the shuffling especially. He looked +out towards the downs with something of a sigh at one moment, and said: + +"It's a happy world." + +"Yes," answered the younger man with the proper lugubriousness of youth, +"but it all comes to an end." + +"It isn't its coming to an end," said the elder man, declaring a point +of six, "that's not the tragedy; it's the little bits coming to an end +meanwhile, before the whole comes to an end: that's the tragedy...." But +he added with another of his jolly laughs: "We must play. Piquet takes +up all one's grey matter." + +They played and the young man lost again, but by a very narrow margin: +it was quite an absorbing game. As they shuffled again the young man +said: + +"What did you mean by the little bits stopping, or whatever it was?" + +"Oh," said the old man as though he couldn't remember, and then he +added: "Oh, yes, I mean you'll find, as you grow older, people die and +affections change, and, though it seems silly to mention it in company +with higher things, there's what Shelley called the 'contagion of the +world's slow stain.'" + +Then their conversation was interrupted by the ardour of the game; but +as they played the young man was ruminating, and he had come to the +conclusion that his senior was imperfectly educated and was probably of +the middle classes, whereas he himself was destined to be a naval +architect, and with that object had recently left the university for an +office in the city. The young man thought that a man properly educated +would never quote a tag: he was wrong there. As he had allowed his +thoughts to wander somewhat the young man lost that game rather heavily, +and at the end of it he was altogether about ten shillings to the bad. +It was his turn to shuffle. The older man was at leisure to speak, and +did so rather dreamily as he gazed at the landscape again. + +"Things change, you know," he said, "and there is the contagion of the +world's slow stain. One gets preoccupied: especially about money. When +men marry they get very much preoccupied upon that point. It's bad for +them, but it can't be helped." + +"You cut," said the young man. + +His elder cut and they played again. This time as they played their game +the old man broke his rule of silence and continued his observations +interruptedly: + +"Four kings," he said.... "It isn't that a man gets to think money +all-important, it is that he has to think of it all the time.... No, +three queens are no good. I said four kings.... four knaves.... The +little losses of money don't affect one, but perpetual trouble about it +does, and" (closing up the majority of tricks which he had just gained) +"many a man goes on making more year after year and yet feels himself in +peril.... _And_ the last trick." He took up the cards to shuffle +them. "Towards the very end of life," he continued, "it gets less, I +suppose, but you'll feel the burden of it." He put the pack over for the +younger man to cut. When that was done he dealt them out slowly. As he +dealt he said: "One feels the loss of little material things: objects to +which one was attached, a walking-stick, or a ring, or a watch which one +has carried for years. Your declare." + +The young man declared, and that game was played in silence. I regret to +say that the young man was Rubiconed, and was thirty shillings in the +elder's debt. + +"We'll stop if you like" said the elder man kindly. + +"Oh, no," said the youth with nonchalance, "I'll pay you now if you +like." + +"Not at all, I didn't mean that," said the older man with a sudden prick +of honour. + +"Oh, but I will, and we'll start fair again," said the young man. +Whereupon he handed over his combined losses in gold, the older man gave +him change, they shuffled again, and they went on with their play. + +"After all," said the older man, musing as he confessed to a point of no +more than five, "it's all in the day's work.... It's just a day's work," +he repeated with a saddened look in his eyes, "it's a game that one +plays like this game, and then when it's over it's over. It's the little +losses that count." + +That game again was unfortunate for the young man, and he had to shell +out fifteen and six. But the brakes were applied, Bristol was reached, +the train came to a standstill, and the young man, looking up a little +confused and hurried, said: "Hello, Bristol! I get out here." + +"So do I," said the older man. They both stood up together, and the jolt +of the train as it stopped dead threw them into each other's arms. + +"I am really very sorry," said the youth. + +"It's my fault," said the old chap like a good fellow, "I ought to have +caught hold. You get out and I'll hand you your bag." + +"It's very kind of you," said the young man. He was really flattered by +so much attention, but he knew himself what a good companion he was and +he could understand it; besides which they had made friends during that +little journey. He always liked a man to whom he had lost some money in +an honest game. + +There was a heavy crowd upon the platform, and two men barging up out of +it saluted the old man boisterously by the name of Jack. He twinkled at +them with his eyes as he began moving the luggage about, and stood for a +moment in the doorway with his own bag in his right hand and the young +man's bag in his left. The young man so saw it for an instant, a fine +upstanding figure--he saw his bag handed by some mistake to the second +of the old man's friends, a porter came by at the moment pushing through +the crowd with a trolley, an old lady made a scene, the porter +apologized, the crowd took sides, some for the porter, some for the old +lady; the young man, with the deference of his age, politely asked +several people to make way, but when he had emerged from the struggle +his companion, his companion's friends, and his own bag could not be +found; or at any rate he could not make out where they were in the great +mass that pushed and surged upon the platform. + +He made himself a little conspicuous by asking too many questions and by +losing his temper twice with people who had done him no harm, when, just +as his excitement was growing more than querulous, a very heavy, +stupid-looking man in regulation boots tapped him on the shoulder and +said: "Follow me." He was prepared with an oath by way of reply, but +another gentleman of equal weight, wearing boots of the same pattern, +linked his arm in his and between them they marched him away, to a +little private closet opening out of the stationmaster's room. + +"Now, sir," said he who had first tapped him on the shoulder, "be good +enough to explain your movements." + +"I don't know what you mean," said the young man. + +"You were in the company," said the older man severely, "of an old man, +bald, with a white beard and a blue sailor suit. He had come from +London; you joined him at Swindon. We have evidence that he was to be +met at this station and it will be to your advantage if you make a clean +breast of it." + +The young man was violent and he was borne away. + +But he had friends at Bristol. He gave his references and he was +released. To this day he believes that he suffered not from folly, but +from injustice. He did not see his bag again, but after all it contained +no more than his evening clothes, for which he had paid or rather owed +six guineas, four shirts, as many collars and dress ties, a +silver-mounted set of brushes and combs, and useless cut-glass bottles, +a patented razor, a stick of shaving soap, and two very, very +confidential letters which he treasured. His watch, of course, was gone, +but not, I am glad to say, his chain, which hung dangling, though in his +flurry he had not noticed it. It made him look a trifle ridiculous. As +he wore no tie-pin he had not lost that, and beyond his temper he had +indeed lost nothing further save, possibly, a textbook upon +Thermodynamics. This book he _thought_ he remembered having put +into the bag, and if he had it belonged to his library, but he could not +quite remember this point, and when the Library claimed it he stoutly +disputed their claim. + +In this dispute he was successful, but it was the only profit he made +out of that journey, unless we are to count his experience, and +experience, as all the world knows, is a thing that men must buy. + + + + +"King Lear" + + +The great unity which was built up two thousand years ago and was +called Christendom in its final development split and broke in pieces. +The various civilizations of its various provinces drifted apart, and it +will be for the future historian to say at what moment the isolation of +each from all was farthest pushed. It is certain that that point is +passed. + +In the task of reuniting what was broken--it is the noblest work a +modern man can do--the very first mechanical act must be to explain one +national soul to another. That act is not final. The nations of Europe, +now so divided, still have more in common than those things by which +they differ, and it is certain that when they have at last revealed to +them their common origin they will return to it. They will return to it, +perhaps, under the pressure of war waged by some not Christian +civilization, but they will return. In the meanwhile, of those acts not +final, yet of immediate necessity in the task of establishing unity, is +the act of introducing one national soul to another. + +Now this is best accomplished in a certain way which I will describe. +You will take that part in the letters of a nation which you maturely +judge most or best to reflect the full national soul, with its +qualities, careless of whether these be great or little; you will take +such a work as reproduces for you as you read it, not only in its +sentiment, but in its very rhythm, the stuff and colour of the nation; +this you will present to the foreigner, who cannot understand. His +efforts must be laborious, very often unfruitful, but where it is +fruitful it will be of a decisive effect. + +Thus let anyone take some one of the immortal things that Racine wrote +and show them to an Englishman. He will hardly ever be able to make +anything of it at first. Here and there some violently emotional passage +may faintly touch him, but the mass of the verse will seem to him dead. +Now, if by constant reading, by association with those who know what +Racine is, he at last sees him--and these changes in the mind come very +suddenly--he will see into the soul of Gaul. For the converse task, +to-day not equally difficult but once almost impossible, of presenting +England to the French intelligence--or, indeed, to any other alien +intelligence--you may choose the play "King Lear." + +That play has every quality which does reflect the soul of the community +in which and for which it was written. Note a few in their order. + +First, it is not designed to its end; at least it is not designed +accurately to its end; it is written as a play and it is meant to be +acted as a play, and it is the uniform opinion of those versed in plays +and in acting that in its full form it could hardly be presented, while +in any form it is the hardest even of Shakespeare's plays to perform. +Here you have a parallel with a thousand mighty English things to which +you can turn. Is there not institution after institution to decide on, +so lacking a complete fitness to its end, larger in a way than the end +it is to serve, and having, as it were, a life of its own which proceeds +apart from its effect? This quality which makes so many English things +growths rather than instruments is most evident in the great play. + +Again, it has that quality which Voltaire noted, which he thought +abnormal in Shakespeare, but which is the most national characteristic +in him, that a sort of formlessness, if it mars the framework of the +thing and spoils it, yet also permits the exercise of an immeasurable +vitality. When a man has read "King Lear" and lays down the book he is +like one who has been out in one of those empty English uplands in a +storm by night. It is written as though the pen bred thoughts. It is +possible to conjecture as one reads, and especially in the diatribes, +that the pen itself was rapid and the brain too rapid for the pen. One +feels the rush of the air. Now, this quality is to be discovered in the +literature of many nations, but never with the fullness which it has in +the literature of England. And note that in those phases of the national +life when foreign models have constrained this instinct of expansion in +English verse, they never have restrained it for long, and that even +through the bonds established by those models the instinct of expansion +breaks. You see it in the exuberance of Dryden and in the occasional +running rhetoric of Pope, until it utterly loosens itself with the end +of the eighteenth century. + +The play is national, again, in that permanent curiosity upon knowable +things--nay, that mysterious half-knowledge of unknowable things--which, +in its last forms, produced the mystic, and which is throughout history +so plainly characteristic of these Northern Atlantic islands. Every play +of Shakespeare builds with that material, and no writer, even of the +English turn, has sent out points further into the region of what is not +known than Shakespeare has in sudden flashes of phrase. But "King Lear," +though it contains a lesser number of lines of this mystical and +half-religious effect than, say, "Hamlet," yet as a general impression +is the more mystical of the two plays. The element of madness, which in +"Hamlet" hangs in the background like a storm-cloud ready to break, in +"King Lear" rages; and it is the use of this which lends its amazing +psychical power to the play. It has been said (with no great profundity +of criticism) that English fiction is chiefly remarkable for its power +of particularization of character, and that where French work, for +instance, will present ideas, English will present persons. The judgment +is grossly insufficient, and therefore false, but it is based upon a +proof which is very salient in English letters, which is that, say, in +quite short and modern work the sense of complete unity deadens the +English mind. The same nerve which revolts at a straight road and at a +code of law revolts against one tone of thought, and the sharp contrast +of emotional character, not the dual contrast which is common to all +literatures, but the multiple contrast, runs through "King Lear" and +gives the work such a tone that one seems as one reads it to be moving +in a cloud. + +The conclusion is perhaps Shakespearean rather than English, and in a +fashion escapes from any national labelling. But the note of silence +which Shakespeare suddenly brings in upon the turmoil, and with which he +is so fond of completing what he has done, would not be possible were +not that spirit of expansion and of a kind of literary adventurousness +present in all that went before. + +It is indeed this that makes the play so memorable. And it may not be +fantastic to repeat and expand what has been said above in other words, +namely, that King Lear has something about him which seems to be a +product of English landscape and of English weather, and if its general +movement is a storm its element is one of those sudden silences that +come sometimes with such magical rapidity after the booming of the wind. + + + + +The Excursion + + +It is so old a theme that I really hesitate to touch it; and yet it is +so true and so useful that I will. It is true all the time, and it is +particularly useful at this season of the year to men in cities: to all +repetitive men: to the men that read these words. What is more, true as +it is and useful as it is, no amount of hammering at people seems to get +this theme into their practice; though it has long ago entered into +their convictions they will not act upon it in their summers. And this +true and useful theme is the theme of little freedoms and discoveries, +the value of getting loose and away by a small trick when you want to +get your glimpse of Fairyland. + +Now how does one get loose and away? + +When a man says to himself that he must have a holiday he means that he +must see quite new things that are also old: he desires to open that +door which stood wide like a window in childhood and is now shut fast. +But where are the new things that are also the old? Paradoxical fellows +who deserve drowning tell one that they are at our very doors. Well, +that is true of the eager mind, but the mind is no longer eager when it +is in need of a holiday. And you can get at the new things that are also +the old by way of drugs, but drugs are a poor sort of holiday fabric. If +you have stored up your memory well with much experience you can get +these things from your memory--but only in a pale sort of way. + +I think the best avenue to recreation by the magical impressions of the +world upon the mind is this: To go to some place to which the common +road leads you and then to get just off the common road. You will be +astonished to find how strange the world becomes in the first mile--and +how strange it remains till the common road is reached again. + +It always sounds like a mockery for a man who has travelled to a great +many places, as I have, to advise his fellows to travel abroad; they are +most of them hard tied. Yet it is really a much easier thing than men +bound to the desk and the workshop understand. Britain is but one great +port, and its inward seas are narrow--and the fares are ridiculously +low. If you are a young man you can go almost anywhere for almost +anything, sitting up by night on deck, and not expecting too much +courtesy. But, of course, if you shirk the sea you are a prisoner. + +Well, then, supposing you abroad, or even in some other part of this +highly varied kingdom in which you live, and supposing you to have +reached some chosen place by some common road--what I desire to dilate +upon here is the truth which every little excursion of business or of +leisure (and precious few of leisure) makes me more certain of every +day: That just a little way off the road is fairyland. + +It was exactly three days ago that I had occasion to go down the railway +line that is the most frequented in Europe: I was on business, not +leisure, but in the business I had two days' leisure, and I did what I +would advise all other men to do in such a circumstance. + +I took a train to nowhere, fixing my starting-point thus:-- + +I first looked at the map and saw where nearest to me was a +quadrilateral bare of railways. This formula, to look for a +quadrilateral bare of railways, is a very useful formula for the man who +is seeking another world. Then I fixed at random upon one little +roadside station upon the main line; I determined to get out there and +to walk aimlessly and westward until I should strike the other side of +the quadrilateral. I made no plan, not even of the hours of the day. + +I came into my roadside station at half-past eight of the long summer +night, broad daylight that is, but with night advancing. I got out and +began my westward march. At once there crowded upon me any number of +unexpected and entertaining things! + +The first thing I found was a street which was used by horses as well as +by men, and yet was made up of broad steps. It was a sort of stair-case +going up a hill. At the top of it I found a woman leading a child by the +hand. I asked her the name of the steps. She told me they were called +"The Steps of St. John." + +A quarter of a mile further down the narrow lane I saw to my +astonishment an enormous castle, ruined and open to the sky. There are +many such ruins famous in Europe, but of this one I had never even +heard. I went lonely under the evening and looked at its main gate and +saw on it a moulded escutcheon, carved, and the motto in French, +"Henceforward," which word made me think a great deal, but resolved no +problem in my mind. + +I went on again westward as the darkness fell and saw what I had not +seen before, though my reading had told me of its existence, a long line +of trees marking a ridge on the horizon, which line was the border of +that ancient road the Roman soldiers built leading from the west into +Amiens. "Along that road," thought I, "St. Martin rode before he became +a monk, and while he was yet a soldier and was serving under Julian the +Apostate. Along that road he came to the west gate of Amiens and there +cut his cloak in two and gave the half of it to a beggar." + +The memory of St. Martin's deed entertained me for some miles of my way, +and I remembered how, when I was a child, it had seemed to me ridiculous +to cut your coat in two whether for a beggar or for anybody else. Not +that I thought charity ridiculous--God forbid!--but that a coat seemed +to me a thing you could not cut in two with any profit to the user of +either half. You might cut it in latitude and turn it into an Eton +jacket and a kilt, neither of much use to a Gallo-Roman beggar. Or you +might cut it in meridian and leave but one sleeve: mere folly. + +Considering these things, I went on over the rolling plateau. I saw a +great owl flying before me against the sky, different from the owls of +home. I saw Jupiter shining above a cloud and Venus shining below one. +The long light lingered in the north above the English sea. At last I +came quite unexpectedly upon that delight and plaything of the French: a +light railway, or steam tram such as that people build in great +profusion to link up their villages and their streams. The road where I +came upon it made a level crossing, and there was a hut there, and a +woman living in it who kept the level crossing and warned the +passers-by. She told me no more trains, or rather little trams, would +pass that night, but that three miles further on I should come to a +place called "The Mills of the Vidame." + +Now the name "Vidame" reminded me that a "Vidame" was the lay protector +of a Cathedral Chapter in feudal times, so the name gave me a renewed +pleasure. + +But it was now near midnight, and when I came to this village I +remembered how in similar night walks I had sometimes been refused +lodging. When I got among the few houses all was dark. I found, however, +in the darkness two young men, each bearing an enormous curled trumpet +of the kind which the French call _cors de chasse_, that is, +hunting horns, so I asked them where the inn was. They took me to it and +woke up the hostess, who received us with oaths. This she did lest the +young men with hunting horns should demand a commission. Her heart, +however, was better than her mouth, and she put me up, but she charged +me tenpence for my room, counting coffee in the morning, which was, I am +sure, more than her usual rate. + +Next day I took the little steam tram away from the place and went on +vaguely whither it should please God to take me, until the plateau +changed and the light railway fell into a charming valley, and, seeing a +town rooted therein, I got out and paid my fare and visited the town. In +this town I went to church, as it was early morning (you must excuse the +foible), and, coming out of church, I had an argument with a working man +upon the matter of religion, in which argument, as I believe, I was the +victor. I then went on north out of this town and came into a wood of +enormous size. It was miles and miles across, and the trees were higher +than anything I have seen outside of California. It was an enchanted +wood. The sun shone down through a hundred feet of silence by little +rounds between the leaves, and there was silence everywhere. In this +wood I sojourned all day long, making slowly westward, till, in the very +midst of it, I found a troubled man. He was a man of middle age, short, +intelligent, fat, and weary. He said to me: + +"Have you noticed any special mark upon the trees? A white mark of the +number 90?" + +"No," said I. "Are there any wild boars in this forest?" + +"Yes," he answered, "a few, but not of use. I am looking for trees +marked in white with the number 90. I have paid a price for them, and I +cannot find them." + +I saluted him and went on my way. At last I came to an open clearing, +where there was a town, and in the town I found a very delightful inn, +where they would cook anything one felt inclined for, within reason, and +charged one very moderately indeed. I have retained its name. + +By this time I was completely lost, and in the heart of Fairyland, when +suddenly I remembered that everyone that strikes root in Fairyland loses +something, at the least his love and at the worst his soul, and that it +is a perilous business to linger there, so I asked them in that hotel +how they worked it when they wanted to go west into the great towns. +They put me into an omnibus, which charged me fourpence for a journey of +some two miles. It took me, as Heaven ordained, to a common great +railway, and that common great railway took me through the night to the +town of Dieppe, which I have known since I could speak and before, and +which was about as much of Fairyland to me as Piccadilly or Monday +morning. + +Thus ended those two days, in which I had touched again the unknown +places--and all that heaven was but two days, and cost me not fifty +shillings. + +Excuse the folly of this. + + + + +The Tide + + +I wish I had been one of those men who first sailed beyond the Pillars +of Hercules and first saw, as they edged northward along a barbarian +shore, the slow swinging of the sea. How much, I wonder, did they think +themselves enlarged? How much did they know that all the civilization +behind them, the very ancient world of the Mediterranean, was something +protected and enclosed from which they had escaped into an outer world? +And how much did they feel that here they were now physically caught by +the moving tides that bore them in the whole movement of things? + +For the tide is of that kind; and the movement of the sea four times +daily back and forth is a consequence, a reflection, and a part of the +ceaseless pulse and rhythm which animates all things made and which +links what seems not living to what certainly lives and feels and has +power over all movement of its own. The circuits of the planets stretch +and then recede. Their ellipses elongate and flatten again to the +semblance of circles. The Poles slowly nod once every many thousand +years, there is a libration to the moon; and in all this vast harmonious +process of come and go the units of it twirl and spin, and, as they +spin, run more gravely in ordered procession round their central star: +that star moves also to a beat, and all the stars of heaven move each in +times of its own as well, and their movement is one thing altogether. +Whoever should receive the mighty business moving in one ear would get +the music of it in a perfect series of chords, superimposed the one upon +the other, but not a tremble of them out of tune. + +The great scheme is not infinite, for were it infinite such rhythms +could not be. It was made, and it moves in order to the scheme of its +making without caprice, not wayward anywhere, but in and out and back +and forth as to a figure set for it. It must be so, or these exact +arrangements could not be. + +Now with this regulated breathing and expiration, playing itself out in +a million ways and co-extensive with the universe of things, the tides +keep time, and they alone of earthly things bring its actual force to +our physical perception, to our daily life. We see the sea in movement +and power before us heaving up whatever it may bear, and we feel in an +immediate way its strong backward sagging when the rocks appear above it +as it falls. We have our hand on the throb of the current turning in a +salting river inland between green hills; we are borne upon it bodily as +we sail, its movement kicks the tiller in our grasp, and the strength +beneath us and around us, the rush and the compulsion of the stream, its +silence and as it were its purpose, all represent to us, immediately and +here, that immeasurable to and fro which rules the skies. + +When the Roman soldiers came marching northward with Caesar and first +saw the shores of ocean: when, after that occupation of Gaul which has +changed the world, they first mounted guard upon the quays of the Itian +port under Gris-Nez, or the rocky inlets of the Veneti by St. Malo and +the Breton reefs, they were appalled to see what for centuries chance +traders and the few curious travellers, the men of Marseilles and of the +islands, had seen before them. They saw in numbers and in a corporate +way what hitherto individuals alone had seen; they saw the sea like a +living thing, advancing and retreating in an ordered dance, alive with +deep sighs and intakes, and ceaselessly proceeding about a work and a +doing which seemed to be the very visible action of an unchanging will +still pleased with calculated change. It was the presence of the Roman +army upon the shores of the Channel which brought the Tide into the +general conscience of Europe, and that experience, I think, was among +the greatest, perhaps the greatest, of those new things which rushed +upon the mind of the Empire when it launched itself by the occupation of +Gaul. + +The tide, when it is mentioned in brief historical records of times long +since, suddenly strikes one with vividness and with familiarity, so that +the past is introduced at once, presented to us physically, and obtruded +against our modern senses alive. I know of no other physical thing +mentioned in this fashion, in chronicle or biography, which has so +powerful an effect to restore the reality of a dead century. + +The Venerable Bede is speaking in one place of Southampton Water, in his +ecclesiastical history, or, rather, of the Isle of Wight, whence those +two Princes were baptized and died under Cadwalla. As the historian +speaks of the place he says: + +"In this sea" (which is the Solent) "comes a double tide out of the seas +which spring from the infinite ocean of the Arctic surrounding all +Britain." + +And he tells us how these double tides rush together and fight together, +sweeping as they do round either side of the island by the Needles and +by Spithead into the land-locked sheet within. + +Now that passage in Bede's fourth book is more real to me than anything +in all his chronicle, for in Southampton Water to-day the living thing +which we still note as we sail is the double tide. You take a falling +tide at the head of the water, near Southampton Town, and if you are not +quick with your business it is checked in two hours and you meet a +strange flood, the second flood, before you have rounded Calshott +Castle. + +Then there is a Charter of Newcastle. Or, rather, the inviolable Customs +of that town, very old, drawn up nearly eight hundred years ago, but +beginning from far earlier; and in these customs you find written: + +"If a plea shall arise between a burgess and a merchant it must be +determined before the third flowing of the sea"--that is, within three +tides; a wise provision! For thus the merchant would not miss the last +tide of the day after the quarrel. How living it is, a phrase of that +sort coming in the midst of those other phrases! + +All the rest, worse luck, has gone. Burgage-tenure, and the economic +independence of the humble, and the busy, healthy life of men working to +enrich themselves, not others, and that corporate association which was +the blood of the Middle Ages, and the power of popular opinion, and, in +general, freedom. But out of all these things that have perished, the +tide remains, and in the eighteen clauses of the Customs, the tidal +clause alone stands fresh and still has meaning. The capital, great +clinching clause by which men owned their own land within the town has +gone utterly and altogether. The modern workman on the Tyne would not +understand you perhaps, to whom in that very place you should say, "Many +centuries ago the men that came before you here, your fathers, were not +working precariously at a wage, or paying rent to others, but living +under their own roofs and working for themselves." There is only one +passage in the document that all could understand in Newcastle +to-day--the very few rich who are hardly secure, the myriads of poor who +are not secure at all--and that passage is the passage which talks of +the third tide; for even to-day there is some good we have left +undestroyed and the sea still ebbs and flows. + +This little note of the Newcastle men, and of the flowing and the ebbing +of their sea, is to be found, you say, in the archives of England? Not +at all! It is to be found in the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland--at +least, so my book assures me, but why I do not know. Perhaps of the +times when between Tyne and Tees, men looked northward and of the times +when they looked southward (for they alternately did one and the other +during many hundreds of years) those times when they looked northward +seemed the more natural to them. Anyhow, the reference is to the Acts of +the Parliament of Scotland, and that is the end of it. + + + + +On a Great Wind + + +It is an old dispute among men, or rather a dispute as old as mankind, +whether Will be a cause of things or no; nor is there anything novel in +those moderns who affirm that Will is nothing to the matter, save their +ignorant belief that their affirmation is new. + +The intelligent process whereby I know that Will not seems but is, and +can alone be truly and ultimately a cause, is fed with stuff and +strengthens sacramentally as it were, whenever I meet, and am made the +companion of, a great wind. + +It is not that this lively creature of God is indeed perfected with a +soul; this it would be superstition to believe. It has no more a person +than any other of its material fellows, but in its vagary of way, in the +largeness of its apparent freedom, in its rush of purpose, it seems to +mirror the action of mighty spirit. When a great wind comes roaring over +the eastern flats towards the North Sea, driving over the Fens and the +Wringland, it is like something of this island that must go out and +wrestle with the water, or play with it in a game or a battle; and when, +upon the western shores, the clouds come bowling up from the horizon, +messengers, outriders, or comrades of a gale, it is something of the sea +determined to possess the land. The rising and falling of such power, +its hesitations, its renewed violence, its fatigue and final repose--all +these are symbols of a mind; but more than all the rest, its exultation! +It is the shouting and the hurrahing of the wind that suits a man. + +Note you, we have not many friends. The older we grow and the better we +can sift mankind, the fewer friends we count, although man lives by +friendship. But a great wind is every man's friend, and its strength is +the strength of good-fellowship; and even doing battle with it is +something worthy and well chosen. If there is cruelty in the sea, and +terror in high places, and malice lurking in profound darkness, there is +no one of these qualities in the wind, but only power. Here is strength +too full for such negations as cruelty, as malice, or as fear; and that +strength in a solemn manner proves and tests health in our own souls. +For with terror (of the sort I mean--terror of the abyss or panic at +remembered pain, and in general, a losing grip of the succours of the +mind), and with malice, and with cruelty, and with all the forms of that +Evil which lies in wait for men, there is the savour of disease. It is +an error to think of such things as power set up in equality against +justice and right living. We were not made for them, but rather for +influences large and soundly poised; we are not subject to them but to +other powers that can always enliven and relieve. It is health in us, I +say, to be full of heartiness and of the joy of the world, and of +whether we have such health our comfort in a great wind is a good test +indeed. No man spends his day upon the mountains when the wind is out, +riding against it or pushing forward on foot through the gale, but at +the end of his day feels that he has had a great host about him. It is +as though he had experienced armies. The days of high winds are days of +innumerable sounds, innumerable in variation of tone and of intensity, +playing upon and awakening innumerable powers in man. And the days of +high wind are days in which a physical compulsion has been about us and +we have met pressure and blows, resisted and turned them; it enlivens us +with the simulacrum of war by which nations live, and in the just +pursuit of which men in companionship are at their noblest. + +It is pretended sometimes (less often perhaps now than a dozen years +ago) that certain ancient pursuits congenial to man will be lost to him +under his new necessities; thus men sometimes talk foolishly of horses +being no longer ridden, houses no longer built of wholesome wood and +stone, but of metal; meat no more roasted, but only baked; and even of +stomachs grown too weak for wine. There is a fashion of saying these +things, and much other nastiness. Such talk is (thank God!) mere folly; +for man will always at last tend to his end, which is happiness, and he +will remember again to do all those things which serve that end. So it +is with the uses of the wind, and especially the, using of the wind with +sails. + +No man has known the wind by any of its names who has not sailed his own +boat and felt life in the tiller. Then it is that a man has most to do +with the wind, plays with it, coaxes or refuses it, is wary of it all +along; yields when he must yield, but comes up and pits himself again +against its violence; trains it, harnesses it, calls it if it fails him, +denounces it if it will try to be too strong, and in every manner +conceivable handles this glorious playmate. + +As for those who say that men did but use the wind as an instrument for +crossing the sea, and that sails were mere machines to them, either they +have never sailed or they were quite unworthy of sailing. It is not an +accident that the tall ships of every age of varying fashions so +arrested human sight and seemed so splendid. The whole of man went into +their creation, and they expressed him very well; his cunning, and his +mastery, and his adventurous heart. For the wind is in nothing more +capitally our friend than in this, that it has been, since men were men, +their ally in the seeking of the unknown and in their divine thirst for +travel which, in its several aspects--pilgrimage, conquest, discovery, +and, in general, enlargement--is one prime way whereby man fills himself +with being. + +I love to think of those Norwegian men who set out eagerly before the +north-east wind when it came down from their mountains in the month of +March like a god of great stature to impel them to the West. They pushed +their Long Keels out upon the rollers, grinding the shingle of the beach +at the fjord-head. They ran down the calm narrows, they breasted and +they met the open sea. Then for days and days they drove under this +master of theirs and high friend, having the wind for a sort of captain, +and looking always out to the sea line to find what they could find. It +was the springtime; and men feel the spring upon the sea even more +surely than they feel it upon the land. They were men whose eyes, pale +with the foam, watched for a landfall, that unmistakable good sight +which the wind brings us to, the cloud that does not change and that +comes after the long emptiness of sea days like a vision after the +sameness of our common lives. To them the land they so discovered was +wholly new. + +We have no cause to regret the youth of the world, if indeed the world +were ever young. When we imagine in our cities that the wind no longer +calls us to such things, it is only our reading that blinds us, and the +picture of satiety which our reading breeds is wholly false. Any man +to-day may go out and take his pleasure with the wind upon the high +seas. He also will make his landfalls to-day, or in a thousand years; +and the sight is always the same, and the appetite for such discoveries +is wholly satisfied even though he be only sailing, as I have sailed, +over seas that he has known from childhood, and come upon an island far +away, mapped and well known, and visited for the hundredth time. + + + + +The Letter + + +If you ask me why it is now three weeks since I received your letter +and why it is only today that I answer it, I must tell you the truth +lest further things I may have to tell you should not be worthy of your +dignity or of mine. It was because at first I dared not, then later I +reasoned with myself, and so bred delay, and at last took refuge in more +delay. I will offer no excuse: I will not tell you that I suffered +illness, or that some accident of war had taken me away from this old +house, or that I have but just returned from a journey to my hill and my +view over the Plain and the great River. + +Your messenger I have kept, and I have entertained him well. I looked at +him a little narrowly at his first coming, thinking perhaps he might be +a gentleman of yours, but I soon found that he was not such, and that he +bore no disguise, but was a plain rider of your household. I put him in +good quarters by the Hunting Stables. He has had nothing to do but to +await my resolution, which is now at last taken, and which you receive +in this. + +But how shall I begin, or how express to you what not distance but a +slow and bitter conclusion of the mind has done? + +I shall not return to Meudon. I shall not see the woods, the summer +woods turning to autumn, nor follow the hunt, nor take pleasure again in +what is still the best of Europe at Versailles. And now that I have said +it, you must read it so; for I am unalterably determined. Believe me, it +is something much more deep than courtesy which compels me to give you +my reasons for this final and irrevocable doom. + +We were children together. Though we leant so lightly in our +conversations of this spring upon all we knew in common, I know your age +and all your strong early experience--and you know mine. Your mother +will recall that day's riding when I came back from my first leave and +you were home, not, I think, for good, from the convent. A fixed +domestic habit blinded her, so that she could then still see in us no +more than two children; yet I was proud of my sword, and had it on, and +you that day were proud of a beauty which could no longer be hidden even +from yourself; I would then have sacrificed, and would now, all I had or +was or had or am to have made that beauty immortal. + +I say, you remember that day's riding, and how after it the world was +changed for you and me, and how that same evening the elders saw that it +was changed. + +You will remember that for two years we were not allowed to meet again. +When the two years were passed we met indeed by a mere accident of that +rich and tedious life wherein we were both now engaged. I was returned +from leave before Tournay; you had heard, I think, a false report that I +had been wounded in the dreadful business at Fontenoy (which to remember +even now horrifies me a little). I had heard and knew which of the great +names you now bore by marriage. The next day it was your husband who +rode with me to Marly. I liked him well enough. I have grown to like him +better. He is an honest man, though I confess his philosophers weary me. +When I say "an honest man" I am giving the highest praise I know. + +My dear, that was sixteen years ago. + +You may not even now understand, so engrossing is the toilsome and +excited ritual of that rich world at Versailles, how blest you are: your +children are growing round you: your daughters are beginning to reveal +your own beauty, and your sons will show in these next years immediately +before us that temper which in you was a spirit and a height of being, +and in them, men, will show as plain courage. During that long space of +years your house has remained well ordered (it was your husband's +doing). His great fortune and yours have jointly increased: if I may +tell you so, it is a pleasure to all who understand fitness to know that +this is so, and that your lineage and his will hold so great a place in +the State. + +As you review those sixteen years you may, if you will--I trust you will +not--recall those occasions when I saw the woods of Meudon and mixed by +chance with your world, and when we renewed the rides which had ended +our childhood. As for me I have not to recall those things. They are, +alas, myself, and beyond them there is nothing that I can call a memory +or a being at all. Nevertheless, as I have told you, I shall not come to +Meudon: I shall not hear again the delightful voices of those many +friends (now in mid-life as am I) who are my equals at Versailles. I +shall not see your face. + +I did not take service with the Empire from any pique or folly, but from +a necessity for adventure and for the refounding of my house. It might +have chanced that I should marry: the land demanded an heir. My +impoverishment weighed upon me like an ill deed, for all this belt of +land is dependent upon the old house, which I can with such difficulty +retain and from which I write to-day. I spent all those years in the +service of the Empire (and even of Russia) from no uncertain temper and +from no imaginary quarrel. It is so common or so necessary for men and +women to misjudge each other that I believe you thought me wayward, or +at least unstable. If you did so you did me a wrong. Those two good +seasons when we met again, and this last of but a month ago, were not +accidents or fitful recoveries. They were all I possessed in my life and +all that will perish with me when I die. + +But now, to tell you the very core of my decision, it is this: The years +that pass carry with them an increasing weight at once sombre and +majestic. There are things belonging to youth which habit continues +strangely longer than the season to which they properly belong: if, when +we discover them to be too prolonged as cling to their survival, why, +then, we eat dust. So long as we possess the illusion and so long as the +dearest things of youth maintain unchanged, in one chamber of our life +at least, our twentieth year, so long all is well. But there is a cold +river which we must pass in our advance towards nothingness and age. In +the passage of that stream we change: and you and I have passed it. +There is no more endurance in that young mood of ours than in any other +human thing. One always wakes from it at last. One sees what it is. The +soul sees and counts with hard eyes the price at which a continuance of +such high dreams must be purchased, and the heart has a prevision of the +evil that the happy cheat will work as maturity is reached by each of +us, and as each of us fully takes on the burden of the world. + +Therefore I must not return. + +Foolishly and without thinking of real things, acting as though indeed +that life of dream and of illusion were still possible to me, I +yesterday cut with great care a rose, one from the many that have now +grown almost wild upon the great wall overlooking the Danube. Then ... I +could not but smile to myself when I remembered how by the time that +rose should have reached you every petal would be wasted and fallen in +the long week's ride. There is a fixed term of life for roses also as +for men. I do not cite this to you by way of parable. I have no heart +for tricks of the pen to-night; but the two images came together, and +you will understand. If I do not return, it is for the same reason that +I could not send the rose. + + + + +The Regret + + +Everybody knows, I suppose, that kind of landscape in which hills seem +to lie in a regular manner, fold on fold, one range behind the other, +until, at last, behind them all some higher and grander range dominates +and frames the whole. + +The infinite variety of light and air and accident of soil provide all +men save those who live in the great plains with examples of this sort. +The traveller in the dry air of California or of Spain, watching great +distances from the heights, will recollect such landscapes all his life. +They were the reward of his long ascents and the visions which attended +his effort as he climbed up to the ridge of his horizon. Such a +landscape does a man see from the Western edges of the Guadarrama, +looking eastward and south toward the very distant hills that guard +Toledo and the Gulf of the Tagus. Such a landscape does a man see at +sunrise from the highest of the Cevennes looking right eastward to the +dawn as it comes up in the pure and cold air beyond the Alps, and shows +you the falling of the foothills to the Rhone. And by such a landscape +is a man gladdened when upon the escarpments of the Tuolumne he turns +back and looks westward over the plain towards the vast range. + +The experience of such a sight is one peculiar in travel, or, for that +matter, if a man is lucky enough to enjoy it at home, insistent and +reiterated upon the mind of the home-dwelling man. Such a landscape, for +instance, makes a man praise God if his house is upon the height of +Mendip, and he can look over falling hills right over the Vale of Severn +toward the ridge above ridge of the Welsh solemnities beyond, until the +straight line and high of the Black Mountains ends his view. + +It is the character of these landscapes to suggest at once a vastness, +diversity, and seclusion. When a man comes upon them unexpectedly he can +forget the perpetual toil of men and imagine that those who dwell below +in the near side before him are exempt from the necessities of this +world. When such a landscape is part of a man's dwelling-place, though +he well knows that the painful life of men within those hills is the +same hard business that it is throughout the world, yet his knowledge is +modified and comforted by the permanent glory of the thing he sees. + +The distant and high range that bounds his view makes a sort of veiling, +cutting it off and guarding it from whatever may be beyond. The +succession of lower ranges suggests secluded valleys, and the reiterated +woods, distant and more distant, convey an impression of fertility more +powerful than that of corn in harvest upon the lowlands. + +Sometimes it is a whole province that is thus grasped by the eye, +sometimes in the summer haze but a few miles; always this scenery +inspires the onlooker with a sense of completion and of repose, and at +the same time, I think, with worship and with awe. + +Now one such group of valleys there was, hill above hill, forest above +forest, and beyond it a great noble range, unwooded and high against +heaven, guarding it, which I for my part knew when first I knew anything +of this world. There is a high place under fir trees, a place of sand +and bracken, in South England whence such a view was always present to +eye in childhood and "There," said I to myself (even in childhood) "a +man should make his habitation." In those valleys is the proper off-set +for man. + +And so there was. + +It was a little place which had grown up as my county grows. The house +throwing out arms and layers. One room was panelled in the oak of the +seventeenth century--but that had been a novelty in its time, for the +walls upon which the panels stood were of the late fifteenth, oak and +brick intermingled. Another room was large and light built in the manner +of one hundred and fifty years ago, which people call Georgian. It had +been thrown out south (which is quite against our older custom, for our +older houses looked east and west to take all the sun and to present a +corner to the south-west and the storms. So they stand still). It had +round it a solid cornice which the modern men of the towns would have +called ugly, but there was ancestry in it. Then, further on this house +had modern roominess stretching in one new wing after another; and it +had a great steading and there was a copse and some six acres of land. +Over a deep ravine looked the little town that was the mother of the +place, and altogether it was enclosed, silent, and secure. + +"The fish that misses the hook regrets the worm." If this is not a +Chinese proverb it ought to be. That little farm and steading and those +six acres, that ravine, those trees, that aspect of the little mothering +town; the wooded hills fold above fold, the noble range beyond, will not +be mine. + +For all I know, some man quite unacquainted with that land took them +grumbling for a debt; or again, for all I know, they may have been +bought by a blind man who could not see the hills, or by some man who, +seeing them, perpetually regretted the flat marshes of the fens. One +day, up high on Egdean Side, not thinking of such things, through a gap +in the trees I saw again after so many years, set one behind the other, +the forests wave upon wave, the summer heat, the high, bare range +guarding all, and in the midst of that landscape, set like a toy, the +little Sabine Farm. + +Then I said to it, "Continue. Go and serve whom you will, my little +Sabine Farm. You were not mine because you would not be, and you are not +mine at all to-day. You will regret it perhaps, and perhaps you will +not. There was verse in you, perhaps, or prose, or--infinitely +more!--contentment for a man (for all I know). But you refused. You lost +your chance. Goodbye." And with that I went on into the wood and beyond +the gap, and saw the sight no more. + +It was ten years since I had seen it last. It may be ten years before I +see it again, or it may be for ever. But as I went through the woods +saying to myself: + +"You lost your chance, my little Sabine Farm, you lost your chance!" +another part of me at once replied: + +"Ah! And so did _you_!" + +Then, by way of riposte, I answered in my mind: + +"Not at all, for the chance I never had, but what I lost was my desire." + +"No, not your desire," said the voice to me within, "but the fulfilment +of it, in which you would have lost your desire." And when that reply +came I naturally turned as all men do on hearing such interior replies, +to a general consideration of regret, and was prepared, if any honest +publisher should have come whistling through that wood, with an offer +proper to the occasion, namely, to produce no less than five volumes on +the Nature of Regret, its mortal sting, its bitter-sweetness, its power +to keep alive in man the pure passions of the soul, its hints at +immortality, its memory of Heaven. But the wood was empty of publishers. +The offer did not come. The moment was lost. The five volumes will +hardly now be written. In place of them I offer poor this, which you may +take or leave. But I beg leave before I end to cite certain words very +nobly attached to that great inn "The Griffin," which has its foundation +set far off in another place, in the town of March, in the Fen Land: + +"England my desire, what have you not refused?" + + + + +The End Of The World + + +One day I met a man who was sitting quite silent near Whitney, in the +Thames Valley, in a very large, long, low inn that stands in those +parts, or at least stood then, for whether it stands now or not depends +upon the Fussyites, whose business it is to Fuss, and in their Fussing +to disturb mankind. + +He had nothing to say for himself at all, and he looked not gloomy but +sad. He was tall and thin, with high cheekbones. His face was the colour +of leather that has been some time in the weather, and he despised us +altogether: he would not say a word to us, until one of the company +said, rising from his meat and drink: "Very well, there's a thing we +shall never know till the end of the world" (he was talking about some +discussion or other which the young men had been holding together). +"There's a thing we shall never know till the end of the world--and +about that nobody knows!" + +"You will pardon me," said the tall, thin, and elderly man with a face +like leather that has been exposed to the weather, "I know about the End +of the World, for I have been there." + +This was so interesting that we all sat down again to listen. + +"I wasn't talking of place, but of time," murmured the young man whom +the stranger had answered. + +"I cannot help that," said the stranger decisively; "the End of the +World is the End of the World, and whether you are talking of space or +of time it does not matter, for when you have got to the end you have +got to the end, as may be proved in several ways." + +"How did you get to it?" said one of our companions. + +"That is very simply answered," said the elder man; "you get to it by +walking straight in front of you." + +"Anyone could do that," said the other. + +"Anyone could," said the elder man, "but nobody does. I did.... When I +was quite a boy in my father's parsonage (for my father was a parson), +having heard so much about the End of the World and seeing that people's +descriptions of it differed so much and that everybody was quite sure of +his own, I used to take my father's friends and guests aside privately, +for I was afraid to take my father himself, and I used to ask them how +they knew what the End of the World was really like, and whether they +had seen it. Some laughed, others were silent, and others were angry; +but no one gave me any information. At last I decided (and it was very +wise of me) that the only way to find out a thing of that sort was to +find it out for one's self, and not to go by hearsay, so I determined to +go straight on without stopping until I got to the End of the World." + +"Which way did you walk?" said yet another of my companions. + +"Young man," said the stranger, with solemnity, "I walked westward +toward the setting sun ... I walked and I walked and I walked, day after +day and year after year. Whenever I came to the seacoast I would take +work on board a ship--and remember it is always easy to get work if you +will take the wages that are offered, and always difficult to get it if +you will not. Well, then, I went in this way through all known lands and +over all known seas, until at last I came to the shore of a sea beyond +which (so the people told me who lived there) there was no further +shore. 'I cannot help that,' said I; 'I have not yet come to the End of +the World, and it is common sense that such a lot of water must have +something at the back of it to hold it up; besides which there is a +strong wind blowing out of the gates of the west and from the sunset. +Now that wind must rise somewhere, and I am going on to see where it +rises.' One of them was kind enough to lend me a boat with oars; I +thanked him prettily, and then I set out to row toward the End of the +World, taking with me two or three days' provisions. + +"When I had rowed a long time I went asleep, and when I woke up next +morning I rowed again all day until the second night I went to sleep. On +the third day I rowed again: a little before sunset on the third day I +saw before me high hills, all in peaks like a great saw. On the very +highest of the peaks there were streaks of snow, and at about six +o'clock in the afternoon I grounded my boat upon that gravelly shore and +pulled it up upon the shingle, though it was evident either that the +tide was high or that there was no tide in these silent places. + +"I offered up a prayer to the genius of the land, and tied the painter +of the boat to two great stones, so that no wave reaching it might move +it, and then I went on inland. When I had gone a little way I saw a +signpost on which was written, 'To the End of the World One Mile' and +there was a rough track along which it pointed. I went along this track. +Everything was completely silent. There were no birds, there was no wind, +there was nothing in the sky. But one thing I did notice, which was that +the sun was much larger than it used to be, and that as I went along this +last mile or so it seemed to get larger still--but that may have been my +imagination, for I must tell you my imagination is pretty strong. + +"Well then, gentlemen, when I had gone a mile or so I saw another +signpost, on which there was a large board marked 'Danger,' and a +hundred yards beyond the track went between two great dark rocks--and +there I was! The road had stopped short; it was broken off, jagged, just +like a torn bit of paper ... and there was the End of the World." + +"How do you mean?" said one of the younger men in an awed tone. + +"What I say," said the stranger decidedly. "I had come to the end; there +was nothing beyond. You looked down over a precipice where there was +moss and steep grass, and on the ledges trees far below, and then more +precipice, and then--oh, miles below--a few more trees or so clinging to +the steep, then more precipice, and then darkness; and far away before +me was the whole expanse of sky; and in the midst of it I saw the broad +red sun setting into the brume; it was not yet dark enough to see the +stars, and there was no moon in the sky. + +"I assure you it was a very wonderful sight, and I was awed though I was +not afraid. And how glad I was to find that the world had an edge to it, +and that all that talk about its being round was nonsense! + +"When the sun was set it grew dark, and I returned to find my boat; but +I must have missed my way, for the track became broader and better, and +at last I came to a gate of a human sort, with an initial on it, which +showed that it had been put up by some landlord. It was an open gate, +and after I had entered it I came upon a broad highway, beautifully +metalled, and when I had gone along this for less than half a mile I +came to this inn where I am now sitting. That was a week ago, and I have +been here ever since. They took me in kindly enough, but they would not +believe what I had to tell them about the End of the World. It is a +great pity, gentlemen, for that wonderful sight is to be discovered +somewhere hereabouts, and a mere accident of my losing my way in the +darkness makes it difficult for me to find it by daylight." + +Having said all this, the stranger was silent. + +One of my companions whispered to me that the old man must be mad. The +stranger overheard him, and said with a thin smile: + +"Oh, I know all about that; several have suggested it already; but it is +no answer, for if I did not come from the End of the World, where did I +come from? No one has seen me hereabouts during the last few days until +I came to this inn. And all the first part of my journey I can very +easily explain, for I have notes of it, and it lasted for years. It is +only this last part which seems to me so difficult.... I tell you I lost +my way, and when a man has lost his way at night he can never find it +again in the daytime." + +As he spoke he took a little piece of folded paper, rather dirty, out of +his inner pocket, on which a rough sketch-map was drawn, and he began +touching it with a stump of pencil that he held in his hand. His eyes +seemed to grow dimmer as he did so, and he leaned his head upon his +hand. "I think I have got hold of it, gentlemen," he said. + +We did not get up or go too near him, for we thought he might be +dangerous. + +"I think, gentlemen," he repeated in a more mumbling and lower and less +certain voice, "I think I have got hold of it. I go backwards again +through the gate to the right, just as then I went to the left, and +after that it cannot be very far, for I see those two rocks in front of +me. Besides which," he muttered less and less coherently, "I ought to +have remembered of course those very high and silent hills with nothing +living upon them...." And he added, half asleep, as his head dropped +upon his hand, "It was westward.... I had forgotten that." + +Having so spoken, he seemed to fall asleep altogether, and his head fell +back upon the corner of the wainscoting behind the bench where he sat. +He made no noise in breathing as he slept. + +It was the first time that any of us young men had come across this +fairly common sight of a man who took things within for things without; +some of us were frightened, and all of us wished to be rid of the place +and to get away. As we went out we told the landlord nothing either of +the old fellow's vagaries or of his sleep, but we went out and reached +the town of Whitney, and when we had stayed there a couple of hours or +so we went out southward to the station and waited there for the train +which should take us back to Oxford. + +While we were waiting there in the station two farmers were talking +together. One said to the other: + +"Ar, if he'd paid them they wouldn't have minded so much." + +To which the other answered: + +"Ar, 'tisn't only the paying: it's always an awkward thing when a man +dies in your house, specially if it's licensed. My wife's brother was +caught that way." + +Then as they went on talking we found that they were talking of the man +in the inn, who it seems had not slept very long, but was dead, and had +died in that same room. It was a shocking thing to hear. The first +farmer said to the second in the railway carriage when we had all got +in: + +"Where'd he come from?" + +The other, who was an old man, grinned and said: + +"Where we all come from, I suppose, and where we all go to." He touched +his forehead with his hand. "He said he'd come from the End of the +World." + +"Ar," said the other gloomily in answer, "like enough!" And after that +they talked no more about the matter. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of First and Last, by H. 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Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: First and Last + +Author: H. Belloc + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7352] +[This file was first posted on April 19, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FIRST AND LAST *** + + + + +Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + +FIRST AND LAST + +BY + +H. BELLOC + + + + +CONTENTS + + +ON WEIGHING ANCHOR + +THE REVEILLON + +ON CHEESES + +THE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY + +THE INVENTOR + +THE VIEWS OF ENGLAND + +THE LUNATIC + +THE INHERITANCE OF HUMOUR + +THE OLD GENTLEMAN'S OPINIONS + +ON HISTORICAL EVIDENCE + +THE ABSENCE OF THE PAST + +ST. PATRICK + +THE LOST THINGS + +ON THE READING OF HISTORY + +THE VICTORY + +REALITY + +ON THE DECLINE OF THE BOOK + +JOSE MARIA DE HEREDIA + +NORMANDY AND THE NORMANS + +THE OLD THINGS + +THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS + +THE ROMAN ROADS IN PICARDY + +THE REWARD OF LETTERS + +THE EYE-OPENERS + +THE PUBLIC + +ON ENTRIES + +COMPANIONS OF TRAVEL + +ON THE SOURCES OF RIVERS + +ON ERROR + +THE GREAT SIGHT + +THE DECLINE OF A STATE + +ON PAST GREATNESS + +MR. THE DUKE: THE MAN OF MALPLAQUET + +THE GAME OF CARDS + +"KING LEAR" + +THE EXCURSION + +THE TIDE + +ON A GREAT WIND + +THE LETTER + +THE REGRET + +THE END OF THE WORLD + + + + +FIRST AND LAST + + + + +On Weighing Anchor + + +Personally I should call it "Getting It up," but I have always seen it +in print called "weighing anchor"--and if it is in print one must bow to +it. It does weigh. + +There are many ways of doing it. The best, like all good things, has +gone for ever, and this best way was for a thing called a capstan to +have sticking out from it, movable, and fitted into its upper rim, other +things called capstan--bars. These, men would push singing a song, while +on the top of the capstan sat a man playing the fiddle, or the flute, or +some other instrument of music. You and I have seen it in pictures. Our +sons will say that they wish they had seen it in pictures. Our sons' +sons will say it is all a lie and was never in anything but the +pictures, and they will explain it by some myth or other. + +Another way is to take two turns of a rope round a donkey-engine, paying +in and coiling while the engine clanks. And another way on smaller boats +is a sort of jack arrangement by which you give little jerks to a +ratchet and wheel, and at last It looses Its hold. Sometimes (in this +last way) It will not loose Its hold at all. + +Then there is a way of which I proudly boast that it is the only way I +know, which is to go forward and haul at the line until It comes--or +does not come. If It does not come, you will not be so cowardly or so +mean as to miss your tide for such a trifle. You will cut the line and +tie a float on and pray Heaven that into whatever place you run, that +place will have moorings ready and free. + +When a man weighs anchor in a little ship or a large one he does a jolly +thing! He cuts himself off and he starts for freedom and for the chance +of things. He pulls the jib a-weather, he leans to her slowly pulling +round, he sees the wind getting into the mainsail, and he feels that she +feels the helm. He has her on a slant of the wind, and he makes out +between the harbour piers. I am supposing, for the sake of good luck, +that it is not blowing bang down the harbour mouth, nor, for the matter +of that, bang out of it. I am supposing, for the sake of good luck to +this venture, that in weighing anchor you have the wind so that you can +sail with it full and by, or freer still, right past the walls until you +are well into the tide outside. You may tell me that you are so rich and +your boat is so big that there have been times when you have anchored in +the very open, and that all this does not apply to you. Why, then, your +thoughts do not apply to me nor to the little boat I have in mind. + +In the weighing of anchor and the taking of adventure and of the sea +there is an exact parallel to anything that any man can do in the +beginning of any human thing, from his momentous setting out upon his +life in early manhood to the least decision of his present passing day. +It is a very proper emblem of a beginning. It may lead him to that kind +of muddle and set-back which attaches only to beginnings, or it may get +him fairly into the weather, and yet he may find, a little way outside, +that he has to run for it, or to beat back to harbour. Or, more +generously, it may lead him to a long and steady cruise in which he +shall find profit and make distant rivers and continue to increase his +log by one good landfall after another. But the whole point of weighing +anchor is that he has chosen his weather and his tide, and that he is +setting out. The thing is done. + +You will very commonly observe that, in land affairs, if good fortune +follows a venture it is due to the marvellous excellence of its +conductor, but if ill fortune, then to evil chance alone. Now, it is not +so with the sea. + +The sea drives truth into a man like salt. A coward cannot long pretend +to be brave at sea, nor a fool to be wise, nor a prig to be a good +companion, and any venture connected with the sea is full of venture and +can pretend to be nothing more. Nevertheless there is a certain pride in +keeping a course through different weathers, in making the best of a +tide, in using cats' paws in a dull race, and, generally, in knowing how +to handle the thing you steer and to judge the water and the wind. Just +because men have to tell the truth once they get into tide water, what +little is due to themselves in their success thereon they are proud of +and acknowledge. + +If your sailing venture goes well, sailing reader, take a just pride in +it; there will be the less need for me to write, some few years hence, +upon the art of picking up moorings, though I confess I would rather +have written on that so far as the fun of writing was concerned. For +picking up moorings is a far more tricky and amusing business than +Getting It up. It differs with every conceivable circumstance of wind, +and tide, and harbour, and rig, and freeboard, and light; and then there +are so many stories to tell about it! As--how once a poor man picked up +a rich man's moorings at Cowes and was visited by an aluminium boat, all +splendid in the morning sun. Or again--how a stranger who had made +Orford Haven (that very difficult place) on the very top of an +equinoctial springtide, picked up a racing mark-buoy, taking it to be +moorings, and dragged it with him all the way to Aldborough, and that +right before the town of Orford, so making himself hateful to the Orford +people. + +But I digress.... + + + + +The Reveillon + + +There was in the regiment with which I served a man called Frocot, +famous with his comrades because he had seen The Dead, for this +experience, though common among the Scotch, is rare among the French, a +sister nation. This man Frocot could neither write nor read, and was +also the strongest man I ever knew. He was quite short and exceedingly +broad, and he could break a penny with his hands, but this gift of +strength, though young men value it so much, was thought little of +compared with his perception of unseen things, for though the men, who +were peasants, professed to laugh at it, and him, in their hearts they +profoundly believed. It had been made clear to us that he could see and +hear The Dead one night in January during a snowstorm, when he came in +and woke me in barrack-room because he had heard the Loose Spur. Our +spurs were not buckled on like the officers'; they were fixed into the +heel of the boot, and if a nail loosened upon either side the spur +dragged with an unmistakable noise. There was a sergeant who (for some +reason) had one so loosened on the last night he had ever gone the +rounds before his death, for in the morning as he came off guard he +killed himself, and the story went about among the drivers that +sometimes on stable guard in the thick of the night, when you watched +all alone by the lantern (with your three comrades asleep in the straw +of an empty stall), your blood would stop and your skin tauten at the +sound of a loose spur dragging on the far side of the stable, in the +dark. But though many had heard the story, and though some had pretended +to find proof for it, I never knew a man to feel and know it except this +man Frocot on that night. I remember him at the foot of my bed with his +lantern waking me from the rooted sleep of bodily fatigue, standing +there in his dark blue driver's coat and staring with terrible eyes. He +had undoubtedly heard and seen, but whether of himself from within, +imagining, or, as I rather believe, from without and influenced, it is +impossible to say. He was rough and poor, and he came from the Forest of +Ardennes. + +The reason I remember him and write of him at this season is not, +however, this particular and dreadful visitation of his, but a folly or +a vision that befell him at this time of the year, now seventeen years +ago; for he had Christmas leave and was on his way from garrison to his +native place, and he was walking the last miles of the wood. It was the +night before Christmas. It was clear, and there was no wind, but the sky +was overcast with level clouds and the evening was very dark. He started +unfed since the first meal of the day; it was dark three hours before he +was up into the high wood. He met no one during all these miles, and his +body and his mind were lonely; he hoped to press on and be at his +father's door before two in the morning or perhaps at one. The night was +so still that he heard no noise in the high wood, not even the rustling +of a leaf or a twig crackling, and no animal ran in the undergrowth. The +moss of the ride was silent under his heavy tread, but now and then the +steel of his side-arm clicked against a metal button of the great cloak +he wore. This sharp sound made him so conscious of himself that he +seemed to fill that forest with his own presence and to be all that was, +there or elsewhere. He was in a mood of unreal and not holy things. The +mood, remaining, changed its aspect, and now he was so far from alone +that all the trunks around him and the glimmers of sky between bare +boughs held each a spirit of its own, and with the powerful imagination +of the unlearned he could have spoken and held communion with the trees; +but it would have an evil communion, for he felt this mood of his take +on a further phase as he went deeper and deeper still into these +forests. He felt about him uneasily the sense of doom. He was in that +exaltation of fancy or dream when faint appeals are half heard far off, +but not by our human ears, and when whatever attempts to pierce the +armour of our mortality appeals to us by wailing and by despairing +sighs. It seemed to him that most unhappy things passed near him in the +air, and that the wood about him was full of sobbing. Then, again, he +felt his own mind within him begin to be occupied by doubtful troubles +worse than these terrors, an anxious straining for ill news, for bitter +and dreadful news, mixed with a confused certitude that such news had +come indeed, disturbed and haunted him; and all the while about him in +that stillness the rushing of unhappy spirits went like a secret storm. +He was clouded with the mingled emotions of apprehension and of fatal +mourning; he attempted to remember the expectations that had failed him, +friends untrue, and the names of parents dead; but he was now the victim +of this strange night and unable (whether from hunger or fatigue, or +from that unique power of his to discern things beyond the world) to +remember his life or his definite aims at all, or even his own name. He +was mixed with the whole universe about him, and was suffering some loss +so grievous that very soon the gait of his march and his whole being +were informed by a large and final despair. + +It was in this great and universal mood (granted to him as a seer, +though he was a common man) that he saw down the ride, but somewhat to +one side of it in the heart of the high wood, a great light shining from +a barn or shed that stood there in the undergrowth, and to this light, +though his way naturally led him to it, he felt also impelled by an +influence as strong as or stronger than the despair that had filled his +soul and all the woods around. He went on therefore quickly, straining +with his eyes, and when he came into the light that shone out from this +he saw a more brilliant light within, and men of his own kind adoring; +but the vision was confused, like light on light or like vapours moving +over bright metals in a cauldron, and as he gazed his mind became still +and the dread left him altogether. He said it was like shutting a +gentleman's great oaken door against a driving storm. + +This is the story he told me weeks after as we rode together in the +battery, for he hid it in his heart till the spring. As I say, I +believed him. + +He was an unlearned man and a strong; he never worshipped. He was of +that plain stuff and clay on which has worked since all recorded time +the power of the Spirit. + +He said that when he left (as he did rapidly leave) that light, peace +also left him, but that the haunting terror did not return. He found the +clearing and his father's hut; fatigue and the common world indeed +returned, but with them a permanent memory of things experienced. + +Every word I have written of him is true. + + + + +On Cheeses + + +If antiquity be the test of nobility, as many affirm and none deny +(saving, indeed, that family which takes for its motto "Sola Virtus +Nobilitas," which may mean that virtue is the only nobility, but which +may also mean, mark you, that nobility is the only virtue--and anyhow +denies that nobility is tested by the lapse of time), _if_, I say, +antiquity be the only test of nobility, then cheese is a very noble +thing. + +But wait a moment: there was a digression in that first paragraph which +to the purist might seem of a complicated kind. + +Were I writing algebra (I wish I were) I could have analysed my thoughts +by the use of square brackets, round brackets, twiddly brackets, and the +rest, all properly set out in order so that a Common Fool could follow +them. + +But no such luck! I may not write of algebra here; for there is a rule +current in all newspapers that no man may write upon any matter save +upon those in which he is more learned than all his human fellows that +drag themselves so slowly daily forward to the grave. + +So I had to put the thing in the very common form of a digression, and +very nearly to forget that great subject of cheese which I had put at +the very head and title of this. + +Which reminds me: had I followed the rule set down by a London +journalist the other day (and of the proprietor of his paper I will say +nothing--though I might have put down the remark to his proprietor) I +would have hesitated to write that first paragraph. I would have +hesitated, did I say? Griffins' tails! Nay--Hippogriffs and other things +of the night! I would not have dared to write it at all! For this +journalist made a law and promulgated it, and the law was this: that no +man should write that English which could not be understood if all the +punctuation were left out. Punctuation, I take it, includes brackets, +which the Lord of Printers knows are a very modern part of punctuation +indeed. + +Now let the horripilised reader look up again at the first paragraph (it +will do him no harm), and think how it would look all written out in +fair uncials like the beautiful Gospels of St. Chad, which anyone may +see for nothing in the cathedral of Lichfield, an English town famous +for eight or nine different things: as Garrick, Doctor Johnson, and its +two opposite inns. Come, read that first paragraph over now and see what +you could make of it if it were written out in uncials--that is, not +only without punctuation, but without any division between the words. +Wow! As the philosopher said when he was asked to give a plain answer +"Yes" or "No." + +And now to cheese. I have had quite enough of digressions and of +follies. They are the happy youth of an article. They are the springtime +of it. They are its riot. I am approaching the middle age of this +article. Let us be solid upon the matter of cheese. + +I have premised its antiquity, which is of two sorts, as is that of a +nobleman. First, the antiquity of its lineage; secondly, the antiquity +of its self. For we all know that when we meet a nobleman we revere his +nobility very much if he be himself old, and that this quality of age in +him seems to marry itself in some mysterious way with the antiquity of +his line. + +The lineage of cheese is demonstrably beyond all record. What did the +faun in the beginning of time when a god surprised him or a mortal had +the misfortune to come across him in the woods? It is well known that +the faun offered either of them cheese. So he knew how to make it. + +There are certain bestial men, hangers-on of the Germans, who would +contend that this would prove cheese to be acquired by the Aryan race +(or what not) from the Dolichocephalics (or what not), and there are +certain horrors who descend to imitate these barbarians--though +themselves born in these glorious islands, which are so steep upon their +western side. But I will not detain you upon these lest I should fall +head foremost into another digression and forget that my article, +already in its middle age, is now approaching grey hairs. + +At any rate, cheese is very old. It is beyond written language. Whether +it is older than butter has been exhaustively discussed by several +learned men, to whom I do not send you because the road towards them +leads elsewhere. It is the universal opinion of all most accustomed to +weigh evidence (and in these I very properly include not only such +political hacks as are already upon the bench but sweepingly every +single lawyer in Parliament, since any one of them may tomorrow be a +judge) that milk is older than cheese, and that man had the use of milk +before he cunningly devised the trick of squeezing it in a press and by +sacrificing something of its sweetness endowed it with a sort of +immortality. + +The story of all this has perished. Do not believe any man who professes +to give it you. If he tells you some legend of a god who taught the +Wheat-eating Race, the Ploughers, and the Lords to make cheese, tell him +such tales are true symbols, but symbols only. If he tells you that +cheese was an evolution and a development, oh! then!--bring up your +guns! Open on the fellow and sweep his intolerable lack of intelligence +from the earth. Ask him if he discovers reality to be a function of +time, and Being to hide in clockwork. Keep him on the hop with ironical +comments upon how it may be that environment can act upon Will, while +Will can do nothing with environment--whose proper name is mud. Pester +the provincial. Run him off the field. + +But about cheese. Its noble antiquity breeds in it a noble diffusion. + +This happy Christendom of ours (which is just now suffering from an +indigestion and needs a doctor--but having also a complication of +insomnia cannot recollect his name) has been multifarious +incredibly--but in nothing more than in cheese! + +One cheese differs from another, and the difference is in sweeps, and in +landscapes, and in provinces, and in countrysides, and in climates, and +in principalities, and in realms, and in the nature of things. Cheese +does most gloriously reflect the multitudinous effect of earthly things, +which could not be multitudinous did they not proceed from one mind. + +Consider the cheese of Rocquefort: how hard it is in its little box. +Consider the cheese of Camembert, which is hard also, and also lives in +a little box, but must not be eaten until it is soft and yellow. +Consider the cheese of Stilton, which is not made there, and of Cheddar, +which is. Then there is your Parmesan, which idiots buy rancid in +bottles, but which the wise grate daily for their use: you think it is +hard from its birth? You are mistaken. It is the world that hardens the +Parmesan. In its youth the Parmesan is very soft and easy, and is +voraciously devoured. + +Then there is your cheese of Wensleydale, which is made in Wensleydale, +and your little Swiss cheese, which is soft and creamy and eaten with +sugar, and there is your Cheshire cheese and your little Cornish cheese, +whose name escapes me, and your huge round cheese out of the Midlands, +as big as a fort whose name I never heard. There is your toasted or +Welsh cheese, and your cheese of Pont-l'eveque, and your white cheese of +Brie, which is a chalky sort of cheese. And there is your cheese of +Neufchatel, and there is your Gorgonzola cheese, which is mottled all +over like some marbles, or like that Mediterranean soap which is made of +wood-ash and of olive oil. There is your Gloucester cheese called the +Double Gloucester, and I have read in a book of Dunlop cheese, which is +made in Ayrshire: they could tell you more about it in Kilmarnock. Then +Suffolk makes a cheese, but does not give it any name; and talking of +that reminds me how going to Le Quesnoy to pass the people there the +time of day, and to see what was left of that famous but forgotten +fortress, a young man there showed me a cheese, which he told me also +had no name, but which was native to the town, and in the valley of Ste. +Engrace, where is that great wood which shuts off all the world, they +make their cheese of ewe's milk and sell it in Tardets, which is their +only livelihood. They make a cheese in Port-Salut which is a very subtle +cheese, and there is a cheese of Limburg, and I know not how many +others, or rather I know them, but you have had enough: for a little +cheese goes a long way. No man is a glutton on cheese. + +What other cheese has great holes in it like Gruyere, or what other is +as round as a cannon-ball like that cheese called Dutch? which reminds +me:-- + +Talking of Dutch cheese. Do you not notice how the intimate mind of +Europe is reflected in cheese? For in the centre of Europe, and where +Europe is most active, I mean in Britain and in Gaul and in Northern +Italy, and in the valley of the Rhine--nay, to some extent in Spain (in +her Pyrenean valleys at least)--there flourishes a vast burgeoning of +cheese, infinite in variety, one in goodness. But as Europe fades away +under the African wound which Spain suffered or the Eastern barbarism of +the Elbe, what happens to cheese? It becomes very flat and similar. You +can quote six cheeses perhaps which the public power of Christendom has +founded outside the limits of its ancient Empire--but not more than six. +I will quote you 253 between the Ebro and the Grampians, between +Brindisi and the Irish Channel. + +I do not write vainly. It is a profound thing. + + + + +The Captain of Industry + + +The heir of the merchant Mahmoud had not disappointed that great +financier while he still lived, and when he died he had the satisfaction +of seeing the young man, now twenty-five years of age, successfully +conducting his numerous affairs, and increasing (fabulous as this may +seem) the millions with which his uncle entrusted him. + +Shortly after Mahmoud's death the prosperity of the firm had already +given rise to a new proverb, and men said: "Do you think I am +Mahmoud's-Nephew?" when they were asked to lend money or in some other +way to jeopardize a few coppers in the service of God or their +neighbour. + +It was also a current expression, "He's rich as Mahmoud's-Nephew," when +comrades would jest against some young fellow who was flusher than +usual, and could afford a quart or even a gallon of wine for the +company; while again the discontented and the oppressed would mutter +between their teeth: "Heaven will take vengeance at last upon these +Mahmoud's-Nephews!" In a word, "Mahmoud's-Nephew" came to mean +throughout the whole Caliphate and wherever the True Believers spread +their empire, an exceedingly wealthy man. But Mahmoud himself having +been dead ten years and his heir the fortunate head of the establishment +being now well over thirty years of age, there happened a very +inexplicable and outrageous accident: he died--and after his death no +instructions were discovered as to what should be done with this +enormous capital, no will could be found, and it happened moreover to be +a moment of great financial delicacy when the manager of each department +in the business needed all the credit he could get. + +In such a quandary the Chief Organizer and confidential friend, Ahmed, +upon whom the business already largely depended, and who was so +circumstanced that he could draw almost at will upon the balances, +imagined a most intelligent way of escaping from the difficulties that +would arise when the death of the principal was known. + +He caused a quantity of hay, of straw, of dust and of other worthless +materials to be stuffed into a figure of canvas; this he wrapped round +with the usual clothes that Mahmoud's-Nephew had worn in the office, he +shrouded the face with the hood which his chief had commonly worn during +life, and having so dressed the lay figure and secretly buried the real +body, he admitted upon the morning after the death those who first had +business with his master. + +He met them at the door with smiles and bows, saying: "You know, +gentlemen, that like most really successful men, my chief is as silent +as his decisions are rapid; he will listen to what you have to say, and +it will be a plain yes or no at the end of it." + +These gentlemen came with a proposal to sell to the firm for the sum of +one million dinars a barren rock in the Indian Sea, which was not even +theirs, and on which indeed not one of them had ever set eyes. Their +claim to advance so original a proposal was that to their certain +knowledge two thousand of the wealthiest citizens of their town were +willing to buy the rock again at a profit from whoever should be its +possessor during the next few weeks in the fond hope of selling it once +again to provincials, clerics, widows, orphans, and in general the +uninstructed and the credulous--among whom had been industriously spread +the report that the rock in question consisted of one solid and flawless +diamond. + +These gentlemen sitting round the table before the shrouded figure laid +down their proposals, whereupon the manager briefly summed up what they +had said, and having done so, replied: "Gentlemen, his lordship is a man +of few words; but you will have your answer in a moment if you will be +good enough to rise, as he is at this moment expecting a deputation from +the Holy Men who are entreating him to provide the cost of a mosque in +one of the suburbs." + +The proposers of the bargain rose, greatly awed and pleased by the +silence and dignity of the financier who apparently remained for a +moment discussing their proposals without gesture and in a tone too low +for them to hear, while his manager bent over to listen. + +"It is ever so," said one of them, "you may ever know the greatest men +by their silence." + +"You are right," said another, "he is not one to be easily deceived." + +The manager in a moment or two rejoined them at the door. "Gentlemen," +he said, smiling, "my chief has heard your arguments and has expressed +his assent to your conditions." + +They went out, delighted at the success of their mission, and +congratulated Ahmed upon the financier's genius. + +"He does not," said the manager, laughing in hearty agreement, "bestow +himself as a present upon all and sundry. Nor is he often caught +indulging in short bouts of sleep, nor are flies diabolically left to +repose undisturbed upon his features--but you must excuse me, I hear the +Holy Men," and indeed from the inner room came a noise of speechifying +in that doleful sing-song which is associated in Bagdad with the +practice of religion. + +The gentlemen who had thus had the luck to interview Mahmoud's-Nephew +with such success in the matter of the Diamond Island, soon spread about +the news, and confirmed their fellow-citizens in the certitude that a +great financier is neither talkative nor vivacious. "Still waters run +deep," they said, and all those to whom they said it nodded in a wise +acquiescence. Nor had the Manager the least difficulty in receiving one +set of customers after another and in negotiating within three weeks an +infinite amount of business, all of which confirmed those who had the +pleasure of an audience with the stuffed dummy that great fortunes were +made and retained by reticence and a contempt for convivial weakness. + +At last the ingenious man of affairs, to whom the whole combination was +due, was not a little disturbed to receive from the Caliph a note +couched in the following terms: + +"The Commander of the Faithful and the Servant of the Merciful whose +name be exalted, to the Nephew of Mahmoud: + +"My Lord:-- + +"It has been the custom since the days of my grandfather (May his soul +see God!) for the more wealthy of the Faithful to be called to my +councils, and upon my summoning them thither it has not been unusual for +them to present sums varying in magnitude but always proportionate to +their total fortunes. My court will receive signal honour if you will +present yourself after the morning prayer of the day after to-morrow. My +treasurer will receive from you with gratitude and remembrance upon the +previous day and not later than noon, the sum of one million dinars." + +Here, indeed, was a perplexity. The payment of the money was an easy +matter and was duly accomplished; but how should the lay figure which +did duty in such domestic scenes as the negotiation of loans, the +bullying of debtors, the purchase of options, and the cheating of the +innocent and the embarrassed, take his place in the Caliph's council and +remain undiscovered? For great as was the reputation of Mahmoud's-Nephew +for discretion and for golden silence, such as are proper to the +accumulation of great wealth, there would seem a necessity in any +political assembly to open the mouth from time to time, if only for the +giving of a vote. + +But Ahmed, who had by this time accumulated into his own hands the +millions formerly his master's, finally solved the problem. Judicious +presents to the servants of the palace and the public criers made his +way the easier, and on the summoning of the council Mahmoud's-Nephew, +whose troublesome affection of the throat was now publicly discussed, +was permitted to bring into the council-room his private secretary and +manager. + +Moreover at the council, as at his private office, the continued +taciturnity of the millionaire could not but impress the politicians as +it had already impressed the financial world. + +"He does not waste his breath in tub-thumping," said one, looking +reverently at the sealed figure. + +"No," another would reply, "they may ridicule our old-fashioned, honest, +quiet Mohammedan country gentlemen, but for common sense I will back +them against all the brilliant paradoxical young fellows of our day." + +"They say he is very kind at heart and lovable," a third would then add, +upon which a fourth would bear his testimony thus: + +"Yes, and though he says nothing about it, his charitable gifts are +enormous." + +By the second meeting of the council the lay figure had achieved a +reputation of so high a sort that the Caliph himself insisted upon +making him a domestic adviser, one of the three who perpetually +associated with the Commander of the _Faithful_ and directed his +policy. For the universal esteem in which the new councillor was held +had affected that Prince very deeply. + +Here there arose a crux from which there could be no escape, as one of +the three chief councillors, Mahmoud's-Nephew, must speak at last and +deliver judgments! + +The Manager, first considering the whole business, and next adding up +his private gains, which he had carefully laid out in estates of which +the firm and its employes knew nothing, decided that he could afford to +retire. What might happen to the general business after his withdrawal +would not be his concern. + +He first gave out, therefore, that the millionaire was taken exceedingly +ill, and that his life was despaired of: later, within a few hours, that +he was dead. + +So far from attempting to allay the panic which ensued, Ahmed frankly +admitted the worst. + +With cries of despair and a confident appeal to the justice of Heaven +against such intrigues, the honest fellow permitted the whole of the +vast business to be wound up in favour of newcomers, who had not +forgotten to reward him, and soothing as best he could the ruined crowds +of small investors who thronged round him for help and advice, he +retired under an assumed name to his highly profitable estates, which +were situated in the most distant provinces of the known world. + +As for Mahmoud's-Nephew, three theories arose about him which are still +disputed to this day: + +The first was that his magnificent brain with its equitable judgment and +its power of strict secrecy, had designed plans too far advanced for his +time, and that his bankruptcy was due to excess of wisdom. + +The second theory would have it that by "going into politics" (as the +phrase runs in Bagdad) he had dissipated his energies, neglected his +business, and that the inevitable consequences had followed. + +The third theory was far more reasonable. Mahmoud's-Nephew, according to +this, had towards the end of his life lost judgment; his garrulous +indecision within the last few days before his death was notorious: in +the Caliph's council, as those who should best know were sure, one could +hardly get a word in edgewise for his bombastic self-assurance; while in +matters of business, to conduct a bargain with him was more like +attending a public meeting than the prosecution of negotiations with a +respectable banker. + +In a word, it was generally agreed that Mahmoud's-Nephew's success had +been bound up with his splendid silence, his fall, bankruptcy, and +death, with a lesion of the brain which had disturbed this miracle of +self-control. + + + + +The Inventor + + +I had a day free between two lectures in the south-west of England, and +I spent it stopping at a town in which there was a large and very +comfortable old posting-house or coaching-inn. I had meant to stay some +few hours there and to take the last train out in the evening, and I had +meant to spend those hours alone and resting; but this was not permitted +me, for just as I had taken up the local paper, which was a humble, +reasonable thing, empty of any passion and violence and very reposeful +to read, a man came up and touched my left elbow sharply: a gesture not +at all to my taste nor, I think, to that of anyone who is trying to read +his paper. + +I looked up and saw a man who must have been quite sixty years of age. +He had on a soft, felt slouch hat, a very old and greenish black coat; +he stooped and shuffled; he was clean-shaven, with long grey hair, and +his eyes were astonishingly bright and piercing and set close together. + +He said, "I beg your pardon." + +I said, "Eh, what?" + +He said again "I beg your pardon" in the tones of a man who almost +commands, and having said this he put his hat on the table, dragged a +chair quite close to mine, and pulled a folded bunch of foolscap sheets +out of his pocket. His manner was that of a man who engages your +attention and has a right to engage it. There were no preliminaries and +there was no introduction. This was apparently his manner, and I +submitted. + +"I have here," he said, fixing me with his intense eyes, "the plans for +a speedometer." + +"Oh!" said I. + +"You know what a speedometer is?" he asked suspiciously. + +I said yes. I said it was a machine for measuring the speed of vehicles, +and that it was compounded of two (or more) Greek words. + +He nodded; he was pleased that I knew so much, and could therefore +listen to his tale and understand it. He pulled his grey baggy trousers +up over the knee, settled himself, sitting forward, and opened his +document. He cleared his throat, still fixing me with those eyes of his, +and said-- + +"Every speedometer up to now has depended upon the same principle as a +Watt's governor; that is, there are two little balls attached to each by +a limb to a central shaft: they rise and fall according to their speed +of rotation, and this movement is indicated upon a dial." + +I nodded. + +He cleared his throat again. "Of course, that is unsatisfactory." + +"Damnably!" said I, but this reply did not check him. + +"It works tolerably well at high speeds; at low speeds it is useless; +and then again there is a very rapid fluctuation, and the instrument is +of only approximate precision." + +"Not it!" said I to encourage him. + +"There is one exception," he continued, "to this principle, and that is +a speedometer which depends upon the introduction of resistance into a +current generated by a small magneto. The faster the magneto turns the +stronger the current generated, and the change is indicated upon a +dial." + +"Yes," said I sadly, "as in the former case so in this; the change of +speed is indicated upon a dial." And I sighed. + +"But this method also," he went on tenaciously, "has its defects." + +"You may lay to that," I interrupted. + +"It has the defect that at high speeds its readings are not quite +correct, and at very low speeds still less so. Moreover, it is said that +it slightly deteriorates with the passage of time." + +"Now that," I broke in emphatically, "is a defect I have discovered +in----" + +But he put up his hand to stop me. "It slightly deteriorates, I say, +with the passage of time." He paused a moment impressively. "No one has +hitherto discovered any system which will accurately record the speed of +a vehicle or of any rotary movement and register it at the lowest as at +the highest speeds." He paused again for a still longer period in order +to give still greater emphasis to what he had to say. He concluded in a +new note of sober triumph: "I have solved the problem!" + +I thought this was the end of him, and I got up and beamed a +congratulation at him and asked if he would drink anything, but he only +said, "Please sit down again and I will explain." + +There is no way of combating this sort of thing, and so I sat down, and +he went on: + +"It is perfectly simple...." He passed his hand over his forehead. "It +is so simple that one would say it must have been thought of before; but +that is what is always said of a great invention.... Now I have here" +(and he opened out his foolscap) "the full details. But I will not read +them to you; I will summarize them briefly." + +"Have you a plan or anything I could watch?" said I a little anxiously. + +"No," he answered sharply, "I have not, but if you like I will draw a +rough sketch as I go along upon the margin of your newspaper." + +"Thank you," I said. + +He drew the newspaper towards him and put it on his knee. He pulled out +a pencil; he held the foolscap up before his eye, and he began to +describe. + +"The general principle upon which my speedometer reposes," he said +solemnly, "is the coordination of the cylinder and the cone upon an +angle which will have to be determined in practice, and will probably +vary for different types. But it will never fall below 15 nor rise over +43." + +"I should have thought----" I began, but he told me I could not yet have +grasped it, and that he wished to be more explicit. + +"On a king bolt," he said, occasionally consulting his notes, "runs a +pivot in bevel which is kept in place by a small hair-spring, which +spring fits loosely on the Conkling Shaft." + +"Exactly," said I, "I see what is coming." + +But he wouldn't let me off so easily. + +"Yes, of course you are going to say that the whole will be keyed +together, and that the T-pattern nuts on a movable shank will be my +method of attachment to the fixed portion next to the cam? Eh? So it is, +but" (and here his eye brightened), "_anyone_ could have arranged +that. My particularity is that I have a freedom of movement even at the +lowest speeds, and an accuracy of notation even at the highest, which is +secured in a wholly novel manner ... and yet so simply. What do you +think it is?" + +I affected to look puzzled, and thought for a moment. "I cannot +imagine," said I, "unless----" + +"No," he interrupted, "do not try to guess it, for you never will. _I +turn the flange inward_ on a Wilkinson lathe and give it a parabolic +section so that the axes are always parallel to each other and to the +shaft.... There!" + +I had no idea the man could be so moved: there was jubilation in his +voice. + +"There!" he said again, as though some effort of the brain had exhausted +him. "It can't be touched, mind you," he added suspiciously; "I've taken +out the provisional patents. There's one man I know wants to fight it in +the courts as an infringement on Wilkinson's own patent, but it can't be +touched!" He shook his head decisively. "No! my lawyer's certain of +that--and so'm I!" + +Here there was a break in his communications, so to speak, and he had +apparently run out. It was not for me to wind him up again. I watched +him with a sombre relief as he stood up again to full height, leaned his +head back, and sighed profoundly with satisfaction and with completion. +He folded up his specification and put it in his pocket again. He tore +off the incomprehensible sketch he had made with his pencil while he was +speaking, and put it by me on the mantelshelf. "You might like to keep +it," he said pathetically; "it's a document, that is; it will be famous +some day." He looked at it lovingly, almost as though he was going to +take it back again: but he thought better of it. + +I was waiting, I will not say itching, for him to take his leave, when a +god or demon, that same perhaps which had treated the poor fellow as a +jest for a whole lifetime, inspired him to take a very false step +indeed. He had already taken up his hat and was turning as though to go +to the door, when the unfortunate thought struck him. + +"What would you do?" he said. + +"How do you mean?" I answered. + +"Why, what would you do to try and get it taken up and talked about?" + +Then it was my turn, and I let him have it. + +"You must get the Press and the Government to work together," I said +rapidly, "and particularly in connection with the new Government Service +of Camion's Fettle-Trains and Cursory Circuits." + +He nodded like one who thoroughly understands and desires to hear more. + +"Speed," I added nonchalantly, "and the measure of it are of course +essentials in their case." + +He nodded again. + +"And they have never really settled the problem ... especially about +Fettle-Trains." + +"No," said he ponderously, "so I understand." + + +"Well now," I went on, full of the chase, "you will naturally ask me who +are you to go to?" I scratched my nose. "You know the Fusionary Office, +as we call it? It is really, of course, a part of the Stannaries. But +the Chief Permanent Secretary likes to have it called the Fusionary +Office; it's his vanity." + +"Yes," said he eagerly, "yes, go on!" + +"They always have the same hours," I said, "four to eleven." + +"Four to _what_?" he asked, looking up. + +"To eleven," I repeated sharply; "but you'd much better call round about +three." + +He looked bewildered. + +"Don't interrupt," I said, seeing him open his lips, "or I shall lose +the thread. It's rather complicated. You call at three by the little +door in Whitehall on the Embankment side towards the Horse Guards +looking south, and _don't_ ring the bell." + +"Why not?" he asked. I thought for the moment he might begin to cry. + +"Oh, well," I said testily, "you mustn't ask those questions. All these +institutions are very old institutions with habits and prejudices of +their own. You mustn't ring the bell, that's all; they don't like it; +you must just wait until they open; and then, if you take _my_ +advice, don't write a note or ask to interview the First Analyist. Don't +do any of the usual things, but just fill up one of the regular Treasury +forms and state that you have come with regard to the Perception and +Mensuration advertisements." + +His face was pained and wrinkled as he heard me, but he said, "I beg +your pardon ... but shall I have it all explained to me at the office?" + +"Certainly not!" I said, aghast; "it's just because you might have so +much difficulty there that I'm explaining everything to you." + +"Yes, I know," he said doubtfully; "thank you." + +"I hope you'll try and follow what I say," I continued a little wearily; +"I have special opportunities for knowing.... Political, you know." + +"Certainly," he said, "certainly; but about those forms?" + +"Well," I said, "you didn't suppose they supplied them, did you?" + +"I almost did," he ventured. + +"Oh, you did," said I, with a loud laugh, "well, you're wrong there. +However, I dare say I've got one on me." He looked up eagerly as I felt +in my pockets. I brought out a telegraph blank, two letters, and a +tobacco pouch. I looked at them for a moment. "No," said I, "I haven't +got one; it's a pity, but I'll tell you who will give you one; you know +the place opposite, where the bills are drafted?" + +"I'm afraid I don't," he said, admitting ignorance for the first time in +this conversation and perhaps in his life. + +"Well," said I impatiently, "never mind, anyone will show you. Go there, +and if they don't give you a form they'll show you a copy of Paper B, +which is much the same thing." + +"Thank you," said he humbly, and he got up to move out. He was going a +little groggily, his eyes were dull and sodden. He presented all the +aspect of a man under a heavy strain. + +"You've got it all clear, I hope?" I asked cheerfully as he neared the +door. + +"Oh, yes!" he said. "Thank you; yes!" + +"Anything else?" I shouted as he passed out into the courtyard. +"Anything else I can do? You'll always find me in the room over the +office, Room H, down the little iron staircase," I nodded genially to +him as he disappeared. + +In this way did we exchange, the Inventor and I, those expert +confidences and mutual aids in either's technical skill which are too +rarely discovered in modern travel. + + + + +The Views of England + + +England is a country with edges and with a core. It is a country very +small for the number of people who live in it, and very appreciable to +the eye for the traveller who travels on foot or in a boat from place to +place. Considering the part it has in the making of the world, it might +justly be compared to a jewel which is very small and very valuable and +can almost be held in the hand. The physical appreciation of England is +to be reached by an appreciation of landscape. + +It so happens that England is traversed by remarkable and sudden ranges; +hills with a sharp escarpment overlooking great undulating plains. This +is not true of any other one country of Europe, but it is true of +England, and a man who professes to consider, to understand, to +criticize, to defend, and to love this country, must know the Pennines, +the Cotswolds, the North and the South Downs, the Chilterns, the +Mendips, and the Malverns; he must know Delamere Forest, and he must +know the Hill of Beeston, from which all Cheshire may be perceived. If +he knows these heights and has long considered the prospects which they +afford, he can claim to have seen the face of England. + +It is deplorable that our modern method of travel does cut us off from +such experiences. They were not only common to, they were necessary to +our fathers; the roads would not be at the expense of tunnelling through +hills, and (what is more important) when those men who most mould the +knowledge of the country by the country (the people who deal with its +soil, who live separate upon its separate farms) visited each other upon +horses; and horses, unlike railway trains, cannot climb hills. They +puff, they heave, they snort, as do railway trains, but they climb them +well. + +On this account, because the roads for the carriages went over hills, +and because the method of visiting even a near neighbour would permit +you to go over hills, the England of quite a little time ago was +familiar with the half-dozen great landscapes of England. You may see it +in that most individual, that most peculiar, and, I think, that most +glorious school of painters, the English landscape painter, Constable +with his thick colours, Turner with his wonderment, and even the +portrait painters in their backgrounds depend upon the view of the +plains from a height. To-day our landscape painters sometimes do the +same, but the market for that emotion is capricious, it is no longer the +secure and natural way of presenting England to English eyes. + +If you will consider these plains at the foot of the English hills you +will find in them the whole history of the country, and the whole +meaning of it as well. Two occur to me first: The view of the Weald +(both Kentish and Sussex) through which the influence of Europe +perpetually approached the island, not only in the crisis of the Roman +or the Norman invasions, but in a hundred episodes stretched out through +two thousand years--and the view of the Thames Valley as one gets it on +a clear day from the summits of the North Downs when one looks northward +and sees very faintly the Chilterns along the horizon. + +This last is obscured by London. One needs a very particular +circumstance in which to appreciate it. The air must be dry and clear, +there must be little or no wind, or if there is a wind it must be a +strong one from the south and west that has already driven the smoke +from the western edge of the town. When this is so, a man looks right +across to the sandy heights just north of the Thames, and far beyond he +sees the Chilterns, like a landfall upon the rim of the world. He looks +at all that soil on which the government of this country has been +rooted. He sees the hill of Windsor. He overlooks, though he cannot +perceive at so great a distance, the two great schools of the rich; he +has within one view the principal Castle of the Kings, the place of +their council, and the cathedral of their capital city: so true is it +that the Thames made England. + +Then, if you consider the upper half of that valley, the view is from +the ridge of the Berkshire hills, or, better still, from Cumnor, or from +the clump of trees above Faringdon. From such look-outs the astonishing +loneliness which England has had the strength to preserve in this +historic belt of land profoundly strikes a man. You can see to your left +and, a long way off, the hill where, as is most probable, Alfred thrust +back the Pagans, and so saved one-half of Christendom. Oxford is within +your landscape. The roll upwards in a glacis of the Cotswold, the nodal +point of the Roman roads at Cirencester, and the ancient crossings of +the Thames. + +From the Cotswold again westward you look over a sheer wall and see one +of those differences which make up England. For the passage from the +Upper Thames to the flat and luxuriant valley floor of the Severn is a +transition (if it be made by crossing the hills) more sudden than that +between many countries abroad. Had our feudalism cut England into +provinces we should here have two marked provincial histories marching +together, for the natural contrast is greater than between Normandy and +Brittany at any part of their march or between Aragon and Castile at any +part of theirs. I do not know what it is, but the view of the jagged +Malvern seen above the happy mists of autumn, when these mists lie like +a warm fleece upon the orchards of the vale, preserving them of a +morning until the strengthening of the sun, the sudden aspect, I say, of +those jagged peaks strikes one like a vision of a new world. How many +men have thought it! How often it ought to be written down! It hangs in +the memory of the traveller like a permanent benediction, and remains in +his mind a standing symbol of peace. + +I have no space to speak of how from Beeston you see all Cheshire; the +Vale Royal to your left, and the main plain of the county to your right. +The whole stretch is framed in with definite hills, the last and highly +marked line of the Pennines bounds the view upon the east; upon the west +the first of the Welsh hills stands sharply in a long even line against +the fading sun; and on the north you see the height of Delamere. There +are three other views in the North of England, the first easy, the last +two difficult to obtain, all between them making up a true picture of +what the North of England is. The first (and it is very famous) is the +view over the industrial ferment of South Lancashire, seen from the +complete silence of the hills round the Peak. No matter where you cross +that summit, even if you take the high road from the Snake Inn to +Glossop, where the easiest, and therefore the least striking, passage +has been chosen, much more if you follow the wild heights a little to +the south until you come to a more abrupt descent on which there are not +even paths, there comes a point where there is presented to you in one +great offering, without introduction, a vision of the vast energies of +England. + +I remember once in winter when the sun sets early (it was December, and +seven years ago) coming upon this sight. The clouds were so arranged +after an Atlantic storm that all the heaven (which here is always +spacious and noble) was covered with a rolling curtain as though a man +had pulled it with his hands. But far off, westward, there was a broad +red band of sunset, and against this the smoke, the tall stacks, the +violence and the wealth of that cauldron. One could almost hear the +noise. It did arrest one; it was as though someone had painted something +unreal, to be a mystical emblem, and to sum up in one picture all those +million despairs, misfortunes, chances, disciplines, and acquirements +which make up the character of Lancashire men. This vision also many men +have seen and many men shall write of. Very rarely upon the surface of +the earth does the soul take on so immediate and obvious a physical body +as does the soul of that industrial world in the view of which I speak. + +And the two other views are, first, that difficult one which one must +pick and choose but which can be obtained from several sites (especially +at the end of Wensleydale), and which is the view of that rich, old, and +agricultural Yorkshire, from which the county draws its traditions and +in which, perhaps, the truest spirit of the county still abides; for +Yorkshire is at heart farmer, and possibly after three generations of a +town, a man from this part of England still looks more lively when he +sees a lively horse put before him for judgment. Second, the view from +Cross Fell, very, very difficult to obtain, for often when one climbs +Cross Fell in sunny weather, one gets up over the Scar under the threat +of cloud, and one only reaches the summit by the time the evening or the +mist has fallen; but if one has the luck to see the view of which I +speak, then one sees all that rugged remaining part of the Northwest +exactly as the Romans saw it, and as it has been for two thousand years, +with the high land of the lakes and the stony nature and the sparseness +of all the stretch about one, and the approach to a foreign land. + +I have often thought when I have heard men blaming the story of England +or her present mood for false reasons, or, what is worse, praising her +for false reasons; when I have heard the men of the cities talking wild +talk got from maps and from print, or the disappointed men talking wild +talk of another kind, expecting impossible or foreign perfections from +their own kindred--I have often thought, I say, when I have heard the +folly upon either side (and the mass of it daily increases)--that it +would be a wholesome thing if one could take such a talker and make him +walk from Dover to the Solway, exercising some care that he should rise +before the sun, and that he should see in clear weather the views of +which I speak. A man who has done that has seen England--not the name or +the map or the rhetorical catchword, but the thing. And it does not take +so very long. + + + + +The Lunatic + + +Those who are interested in what simple straightforward people call the +Pathology of Consciousness have gathered a great body of evidence upon +the various manias that affect men, and there is an especially +interesting department of this which concerns illusion upon matters +which in the sane are determinable by the senses and common experience. +Thus one man will believe himself to be the Emperor of China, another to +be William Shakespeare or some other impossible person, though one would +imagine that his every accident of daily life would convince him to the +contrary. + +I had recently occasion to watch one of the most harmless and yet one of +the most striking of these illusions in a private asylum which has +specialized, if I may so express myself, upon men of letters. The case +was harmless and even benign, for the poor fellow was not of a combative +disposition to begin with, was of too careful and dignified a +temperament to show more than slight irritation if his delusion were +contradicted. This misfortune, however, very rarely overtook him, for +those who came to visit him were warned to humour his whim. This +eccentricity I will now describe. + +He imagined, nay he was convinced, that he was existing fifty years in +the future, and that the interest of his conversation for others would +lie in his reminiscence of the state of society in which we are actually +living today. If anyone who had not been warned was imprudent enough to +suggest that the conversation was taking place in 1909 would smile +gently, nod, and say rather bitterly, "Yes, I know, I know," as though +recognizing a universal plot against him which he was too weary to +combat. But when he had said this he would continue to talk on as though +both parties to the conversation were equally convinced that the year +was really 1960 or thereabouts. Whether to add zest to what he said or +from some part of his malady consonant with all the rest, my poor friend +(who had been a journalist and will very possibly be a journalist again) +presupposed that the whole structure of society as we now know it had +changed and that his reminiscences were those of a past time which, on +account of some great revolution or other, men imperfectly comprehended, +so that it must be of the highest interest and advantage to listen to +the testimony of an eye-witness upon them. + +What especially delighted him (for he was a zealous admirer of the +society he described) was the method of government. + +"There was no possibility of going wrong," he said to me with curious +zeal, "not a shadow of danger! It would be difficult for you to +understand now how easily the system worked!" And here he sighed +profoundly. "And why on earth," he continued, "men should have destroyed +such an instrument when they had it is more than I can understand. There +it was in every country in Europe; there were elections; all the men +voted. And mind you, the elections were not so very far apart. Most +people living at one election could remember the last, so there was no +time for abuses to spring up.... Well, everybody voted. If a man wanted +one thing he voted one way, and if he wanted another thing he voted the +other way. The people for whom he voted would then meet, and with a +sense of duty which I cannot exaggerate they would work month after +month exactly to reproduce the will of those who had appointed them. It +was a great time!" + +"Yet," said I, "even so there must have been occasional divergences +between what these people did and what the nation wanted." + +"I see what you mean," he said, musing, "you mean that all the devotion +in the world, the purest of motives and the most devoted sense of duty, +could not keep the elected always in contact with the electors. You are +right. But you must remember that in every country there was a +machinery, with regard to the most important measures at least, which +could throw the matter before the electors to be re-decided. I can +remember no important occasion upon which the machinery was not brought +into use." + +"But, after all, the value of the decisions of the electorate you are +describing," said I, continuing to humour him, "would depend upon the +information which the electorate had received as well as upon their +judgment." + +"As for their judgment," he said, a little shortly, "it is not for our +time to criticize theirs. Human judgment is not infallible, but I can +well remember how in every nation of Europe it was the fixed conviction +of the citizens that judgment was their chief characteristic, and +especially judgment in national affairs. I cannot believe that so +universal an attitude of the mind could have arisen had it not been +justified. But as for information, they had the Press ... a free Press!" +Here he fell into a reverie, so powerfully did his supposed memories +affect him. + +I was willing to lead him on, because this kind of illness is best met +by sympathy, and also because I was not uninterested to discover how his +own trade had affected him. + +"You would hardly understand it," he said sadly; "what you hear from me +is nothing but words.... I wish I could have shown you one of those +great houses with information pouring in as rapid, as light, and as +clear, from every hidden corner of the world, digested by master brains +into the most lucid and terse presentment of it possible, and then +whirled out on great wheels to be distributed by the thousand and the +hundred thousand, to the hungry intelligence of Europe. There was +nothing escaped it--nothing. In every capital were crowds of men +dispatched from the other capitals of our civilization, moving with ease +in the wealthiest houses, and exquisitely in touch with the most +delicate phases of national life everywhere. And these men were such +experts in selection that a picture of Europe as a whole was presented +every morning to each particular part of Europe; and nowhere was this +more successfully accomplished than in my own beloved town of London." + +"It must have been useful," I said, "not only for the political purposes +you describe, but also for investors. Indeed, I should imagine that the +two things ran together." + +"You are right," he said with interest, "the wide knowledge which even +the poorest of the people possessed upon foreign affairs, through the +action of the Press, was, further, of the utmost and most beneficent +effect in teaching even the smallest proprietor what he need do with his +capital. A discovery of metallic ore--especially of gold--a new +invention, anything which might require development, was at once +presented in its most exact aspect to the reader." + +"It was probably upon that account," said I, "that property was so +equally distributed, and that so general a prosperity reigned as you +have often described to me." + +"You are right," said he; "it was mainly this accurate and universal +daily information which produced such excellent results." + +"But it occurs to me," said I, by way of stimulating his conversation +with an objection, "that if so passionate and tenacious a habit of +telling the exact truth upon innumerable things was present in this old +institution of which you speak, it cannot but have bred a certain amount +of dissension, and it must sometimes even have done definite harm to +individuals whose private actions were thus exposed." + +"You are right," said he; "the danger of such misfortunes was always +present, and with the greatest desire in the world to support only what +was worthy the writers of the journals of which I speak would +occasionally blunder against private interests; but there was a remedy." + +"What was that?" I asked. + +"Why, the law provided that in this matter twelve men called a jury, +instructed by a judge, after the matter had been fully explained to them +by two other men whose business it was to examine the truth boldly for +the sake of justice--I say the law provided that the twelve men after +this process should decide whether the person injured should receive +money from the newspaper or no, and if so, in what amount. And, lest +there should still be any manner of doubt, the judge was permitted to +set aside their verdict if he thought it unjust. To secure his absolute +impartiality as between rich and poor he was paid somewhat over L100 a +week, a large salary in those days, and he was further granted the right +of imprisoning people at will or of taking away their property if he +believed them to obstruct his judgment. Nor were these the only +safeguards. For in the case of very rich men, to whom justice might not +be done on account of the natural envy of their poorer fellow-citizens, +it was arranged that the jury should consist only of rich men. In this +way it was absolutely certain that a complete impartiality would reign. +We shall never see those days again," he concluded. + +"But do you not think," I said before I left him, "that the social +perfection of the kind you have described must rather have been due to +some spirit of the time than to particular institutions? For after all +the zealous love of justice and the sense of duty which you describe are +not social elements to be produced by laws." + +"Possibly," he said, wearily, "possibly, but we shall never see it +again!" + +And I left him looking into the fire with infinite sadness and +reflecting upon his lost youth and the year 1909: a pathetic figure, and +one whose upkeep during the period of his deficiency was a very serious +drain upon the resources of his family. + + + + +The Inheritance of Humour + + +There are some truths which seem to get old almost as soon as they are +born, and that simply because they are so astonishingly true that people +soon get to feel as though they have known them all their lives; and +such a truth is that which first one writer and then another in the last +five years has been insisting upon, until it is already a perfect +commonplace that nations do not know their own qualities. The inmost, +the characteristic thing, that which differentiates one community from +another, as tastes or colours differentiate things--_that_ a +nation hardly ever knows until it is pointed out to it by some foreigner +or by some observer from within. It cannot know it, because one cannot +tell the very atmosphere in which one lives. It is universal and +therefore unnoticed. Now, if this is true of any nation, it is +particularly true of England. And English people need to be told +morning, noon, and night, not indeed the particular national +characteristic which they have, since for this no particular name could +be found, but rather what its evidences are; as, for instance, +spontaneity in design, a passion for the mystical in poetry and the +arts; a power in water-colour, in which they are perhaps quite alone, +and certainly the first in Europe; and, above all, the chief, the master +thing of all, humour. + +There is not nor ever will be anything like English humour. It is a +thing quite apart, and by it for now more than two hundred years you may +know England. It does not puzzle the foreigner (as the more blatant kind +of intellectual man is too fond of boasting that it does); he simply +admires it as a rule and wonders at it always; sometimes he actually +dislikes it, but by it he knows that the thing he is reading is English +and has the savour and taste of England. + +It is impossible to define it, because it is so full of stuff and so +organic a quality; but in our own time it was principally the pencil of +Charles Keene that has summed it up and presented it in a moment and at +once to the eye--the pencil of Charles Keene and that profound instinct +whereby he chose the legends for his drawing, whether he found them by +his own sympathy with the people or whether they were suggested to him +by friends. + +It is the verdict of the men most competent perhaps to judge upon these +things that he had the greatest graphic power of his time, and that no +one had had that power to such an extent since Hogarth. Upon these +things the men of the trade must dispute; the layman cannot doubt that +he had here a genius and a genius comprehensively national. It is the +essence of a good draughtsman that what he wants to draw, that he draws. +The line that he desires to see upon the paper appears there as his +fingers move. It is a quality extremely rare in its perfection. And +Charles Keene had it in perfection, as in totally different manner had +the offensive and diseased talent of Beardsley. + +But more important than the power to do is the quality of the thing +done, and the work of Charles Keene, multitudinous, varied, always +great, is an inheritance for English people comparable to the +inheritance they have in Dickens. It has also what Dickens had, a power +of representing, as it were, the essential English. Just that which +makes people say (with some truth) that Dickens never drew a gentleman +would make them say with equal truth that what was interesting in the +gentlemen of Charles Keene (and he perpetually drew them) was not the +externals upon which gentlemen so pride themselves, but the soul. Thus I +have in mind one picture wherein Keene drew a gentleman; true, he was a +gentleman who had just swallowed a bad oyster, and therefore he was a +man as well. I recall another of an old gentleman complaining of the +caterpillar on his chop: he is a gentleman of the professional rather +than the territorial classes, and, great heavens! what a power of line! +All you see beneath the round of his hat is the end of his nose, the +curve of his mouth, and two bushy ends of whiskers. Yet one can tell all +about that man; one could write a book on him. One knows his economics, +his religion, his accent, and what he thought of the Third Napoleon and +what of Garibaldi. I have called draughtsmanship of this quality an +inheritance--I might have called it perhaps with better propriety a +monument. It is possible that England in the near future will look back +with great envy, as she will certainly look back with great pride, to +the generation preceding our own: they were a solid and a happy +community of men. How much they owed to fortune, how much to themselves, +it is not the place of such random stuff as mine to consider. + +They were nearly impregnable in their island; they were not bellicose. +They made and sold for all the world. Whether the very different future +which we are now entering is to be laid to their door or to our own, +that generation will still remain one of the principal things in English +history, like the Elizabethan generation, or the group of men who +organized the Seven Years' War, or the group of men who fought in the +Peninsula. And of that generation the note of health and of stability is +represented by its humour. I am not sure that of all things educational +to young men with no personal memory of that time, and especially to +young men with no family tradition of it to reflect it in their books +and their furniture; and--this yet more particularly--to young men born +out of England yet claiming communion with England, the Anglo-Indians +and the Colonials--I am not sure, I say, that the thing most educational +to these would not be some hundred of Charles Keene's drawings, for +therein they would find what it was that gave them the power and the +wealth that can hardly be defended unless its traditions are continued. +Note how Victorian England dealt with the humour of a Volunteer review; +note how it dealt with the humour of excessive wealth; and note how it +dealt with the humour of schools and of Dons. One might almost define it +by negations. There is in all of it no--but here I lack a word.... When +things ring false it is because they have got by exaggeration or by some +other form of falsity _beside_ themselves. Appreciation of rank or +even of worth becomes snobbishness; appreciation of another's judgment +false taste; and patriotism, the most beautiful, the noblest, the most +necessary of the great emotions, corrupts into something very vile +indeed. + +Well, the Victorians, and notably this man of whose power of the pencil +I am speaking, did lack that false savour, that savour of just missing +what one wishes to say or to feel, which haunts us to-day; and I should +imagine that whether it were cause or effect the salt present in the +preservation of the moral health of that society was humour. Let us +enjoy it like an heirloom. It is more national than the language; at +least it is more national than what the language has become under +foreign pressure; it is infinitely more national than our problems and +our tragedies. It is so national that--who knows?--it may crop up again +of itself one of these days; and may that not be long. + + + + +The Old Gentleman's Opinions + + +I had occasion about a fortnight ago to meet a man more nearly ninety +than eighty years of age, who had had special opportunity for +discovering the changes of Europe during his long life. He was of the +English wealthier classes by lineage, but his mother had been of the +French nobility and a Huguenot. His father had been prominent in the +diplomacy of a couple of generations ago. He had travelled widely, read +perhaps less widely, but had known and appreciated an astonishing number +of his contemporaries. + +I was interested (without any power of my own to judge whether his +decisions were right or wrong) to discover what most struck him in the +changes produced by that great stretch of years, all of which he had +personally observed: he was born just after Waterloo, and he could +remember the Reform Bill. + +He surprised me by telling me, in the first place, that the material +changes and discoveries, enormous though they were in extent, were not, +in his view, the most striking. He was ready to leave it open whether +these material changes were the causes of moral changes more remarkable, +or merely effects concomitant with these. When I asked him what had +struck him most of the great material developments, he told me the +phonograph and the aeroplane among inventions; Mendel's observations in +the sphere of experimental knowledge; and, in the sphere of pure theory, +the breakdown of many things that had been dogmas of physical science in +his early manhood. + +Since I did not quite understand what he meant by this last, he gave me, +after some hesitation, a few examples: That the interior of the earth +was molten; that a certain limited number of elements--not all yet +isolated, but certainly few in their total--were at the base of all +material forms, and were immutable; that the ultimate unit of each of +these was a certain indivisible, eternal thing called the Atom; and so +forth. + +He assured me that views of this sort, extending over a hundred or a +thousand other points, were so universally accepted in his time that to +dispute them was to be ranked with the unlettered or the fantastic. I +asked him if it were so in economics. He said: Yes, in England, where +there was a similar dogma of Free Trade: not abroad. + +When I asked him why Mendel's published experiments and the theory based +upon them had so much impressed him, he said because it was almost the +first attempt to apply to the speculative dogmas of biology some +standard demonstrably true; and here he wandered off to explain to me +why the commonly accepted views upon biology, which had so changed +thought in the latter part of his life, were associated with the name of +Darwin. Darwin, he assured me, had brought forward no new discovery, but +only a new hypothesis, and that only a small and particular hypothesis, +whereby to explain the general theory of transformism. This theory, he +told me--the unbroken descent of living organisms and their physical +connection with one another and with common parents--had been a +favourite idea from the beginning of history with many great thinkers, +from Lucretius to Buffon and from Augustus of Hippo to Lamarck. +Darwin's, the old gentleman assured me, which he had defended with +infinite toil, was that the method in which this continuity of descent +proceeded was by an infinitely slow process of very small changes +differentiating each minute step from the one before and the one after +it, and these small changes Darwin's hypothesis referred to a natural +selection. Nothing else in Darwin's work, he assured me, was novel, and +yet it was the one thing which subsequent research had rendered more and +more doubtful. Darwin (he said) said nothing new that was also true. + +At this point I was moved to contradict the old gentleman, and to say +that one unquestioned contribution to science of Darwin, as novel as it +was secure, was his patient discovery of the work of earthworms, and of +its vast effect. The old gentleman was willing to admit that I was +right, but he said he was only speaking of Darwin in connection with +transformism and the whimsical way in which his private name (and his +errors) had become identified with evolution in general. + +I asked him, since he had such a knowledge of men from observation, why +this was so. + +"It seems at first sight," he said, "as ridiculous as though we should +associate the theory of light with the name of Newton, who inclined to +the exploded corpuscular hypothesis, or the general conception of +orbital motion in the universe to the great Bacon, who, in point of +fact, rudely repudiated the Copernican theory in particular." + +"Did he, indeed?" said I, interested. + +"I believe so," said the old gentleman; "at any rate you were asking me +why Darwin, with his single contribution to the theory of transformism, +and that a doubtful one--or, to be accurate, an exploded one--should be +associated in the popular mind with the invention of so ancient a theory +as that of evolution. The reason is, I think, no more than that he came +at a particular moment when any man doing great quantities of detailed +work in this field was bound to stand out exaggeratedly. The society in +which he appeared had, until just before his day, accepted a narrow +cosmogony, quite unknown to its ancestors. Darwin's book certainly +exploded that, and the mind of his time--ignorant as it was of the +past--was ready to accept the shattering of its father's idols as a new +revelation." + +"But you were saying," said I, when he had thus dealt harshly with a +great name, "that not the material but the moral changes of your time +seemed to you the greatest. Which did you mean?" + +"Why, in the first place," said the old man thoughtfully and with some +hesitation, "the curiously rapid decline of intelligence, or if you will +have it differently, the clouding of thought that has marked the last +thirty years. Men in my youth knew what they held and what they did not +hold. They knew why they held it or why they did not hold it; but the +attempt to enjoy the advantages of two contradictory systems at the same +time, and, what is worse, the consulting of a man as an authority upon +subjects he had never professed to know, are intellectual phenomena +quite peculiar to the later years of my life." + +I said we of the younger generation had all noticed it, as, for +instance, when an honest but imperfectly intelligent chemist was +listened to in his exposition of the nature of the soul, or a well-paid +religious official was content to expound the consolations of +Christianity while denying that Christianity was true. + +"But," I continued, "we are usually told that this unfortunate decline +in the express powers of the brain is due to the wide and imperfect +education of the populace at the present moment." + +"That is not the case," answered the old man sharply, when I had made +myself clear by repeating my remarks in a louder tone, for he was a +little deaf. + +"That is not the case. The follies of which I speak are not particularly +to be discovered among the poorer classes who have passed through the +elementary schools. _These_" (it was to the schools that he was +alluding with a comprehensive pessimism) "may account for the gross +decline apparent in the public manners of our people, but not for faults +which are peculiar to the upper and middle classes. It is not in the +populace, but in those wealthier ranks that you will find the sort of +intellectual decay of which I spoke." + +I asked him whether he thought the tricks it was now considered cultured +to play with mathematics came within the category of this intellectual +decay. The old gentleman answered me a little abruptly that he could not +judge what I was talking about. + +"Why," said I, "do you believe that parallel straight lines +_converge_ or _diverge_?" + +"Neither," said he, a little bewildered. "If they are parallel they +cannot by definition either diverge or converge." + +"You are, then," said I, "an old-fashioned adherent of the theory of the +parabolic universe?" At which sensible reply of mine the old man +muttered rather ill-temperedly, and begged me to speak of something +else. + +I asked him whether the knowledge of languages had not declined in his +time. He said, somewhat emphatically, yes, and especially the knowledge +of French, assuring me that in his early years many a Fellow of a +College at Oxford or at Cambridge was capable of speaking that tongue in +such a fashion as to make himself understood. On the other hand, he +admitted that German and Spanish were more widely known than they had +been, and Arabic certainly far more widely diffused among those +officials of the Empire who took their work seriously. + +When I asked him whether politics were more corrupt as time proceeded, +he said No, but more cynical; and as to morals he would not judge, for +he was certain that as one vice was corrected another appeared in its +place. + +What he told me he most deplored in the social system of his country was +the power of the police and of the statistician by whom the policeman +was guided. This he ascribed to the growth of great towns, to civic +cowardice, and to a new taboo laid upon uniformed and labelled public +authorities, who are now regarded as sacred, and also inordinately +feared. + +"In my youth," he said, "there was a joke that every man in Paris was +known to the police. Today that is universally true, and no joke with +regard to every man in London. Our movements are marked, our earnings, +our expenses, and our most private affairs known to the innumerable +officials of the Treasury, our records of every sort, however intimate, +are exactly and correctly maintained. The obtaining of work and a +livelihood is dependent upon strong organizations. There is hardly an +ailment or a domestic habit, from drinking wine to eating turnips, which +some crank who has obtained the ear of a politician does not control or +threaten in the immediate future to control." + +"As for doctors!" he began, his voice cracking with indignation, "their +abominable...." but here the old gentleman fell into so violent a fit of +coughing that he nearly turned black in the face, and when I +respectfully slapped him on the back, in the hopes of granting him +relief, he made matters worse by shaking himself at me with an energy +worthy of 1842. His nurse rushed in, clapped him upon his pillows, and +was prepared to vent her wrath upon me for having caused this paroxysm, +when the old man's exhaustion and laboured breathing captured all her +attention, and I had the opportunity to withdraw. + + + + +On Historical Evidence + + +The last book to be published upon the last Dauphin of France set me +thinking upon what seems to me the chief practical science in which +modern men should secure themselves. I mean the science of history--and +in this science almost all lies in the appreciation of evidence, for one +of the chief particular problems presented to the student of history at +the present moment is whether the Dauphin did or did not survive his +imprisonment in the Temple. + +Let me first say why, to so many of us, the science of history and the +appreciation of the evidence upon which it depends is of the first +moment. It is because, short of vision or revelation, history is our +only extension of human experience. It is true that a philosophy common +to all citizens is necessary for a State if it is to, live--but short +of that necessity the next most necessary factor is a knowledge of the +stuff of mankind: of how men act under certain conditions and impulses. +This knowledge may be acquired, and is in some measure, during the +experience of one wise lifetime, but it is indefinitely extended by the +accumulation of experience which history affords. + +And what history so gives us is always of immediate and practical +moment. + +For instance, men sometimes speak with indifference of the rival +theories as to the origin of European land tenure; they talk as though +it were a mere academic debate whether the conception of private +property in land arose comparatively late among Europeans or was native +and original in our race. But you have only to watch a big popular +discussion on that very great and at the present moment very living +issue, the moral right to the private ownership in land, to see how +heavily the historic argument weighs with every type of citizen. The +instinct that gives that argument weight is a sound one, and not less +sound in those who have least studied the matter than in those who have +most studied it; for if our race from its immemorial origins has desired +to own land as a private thing side by side with communal tenures, then +it is pretty certain that we shall not modify that intention, however +much we change our laws. If, on the other hand, it could be shown that +before the advent of a complex civilization Europeans had no conception +of private property in land, but treated land as a thing necessarily and +always communal, then you could ascribe modern Socialist theories with +regard to the land to that general movement of harking back to the +origins which Europe has been assisting at through over a hundred years +of revolution and of change. + +It sounds cynical, but it is perfectly true, that much the largest +factor in the historical conception of men is assertion. It is literally +true that when men (with the exception of a very small proportion of +scholars who are also intelligent) consider the past, the picture on which +they dwell is a picture conveyed to them wholly by authority and by +unquestioned authority. There was never a time when the original sources +of history were more easily to be consulted by the plain man; but whether +because of their very number, or because the habit is not yet formed, or +because there are traditions of imaginary difficulty surrounding such +reading, original sources were perhaps never less familiar to fairly +educated opinion than they are today; and therefore no type of book gives +more pleasure when one comes across it than those little cheap books, now +becoming fairly numerous, in which the original sources, and the +original sources alone, are put before the reader. Mr. Rait has already +done such work in connection with Mary Queen of Scots, and Mr. Archer +did it admirably in connection with the Third Crusade. + +But apart from the importance of consulting original sources--which is +like hearing the very witnesses themselves in court--there is a factor +in historical judgment which by some unhappy accident is peculiarly +lacking in the professional historian. It is a factor to which no +particular name can be attached, though it may be called a department of +common sense. But it is a mental power or attitude easily recognizable +in those who possess it, and perhaps atrophied by the very atmosphere of +the study. It goes with the open air with a general knowledge of men and +with that rapid recognition of the way in which things "fit in" which is +necessarily developed by active life. + +For instance, when you know the pace at which Harold marched down from +the north to Hastings you recognize, if you use that factor of historic +judgment of which I spake, that the affair was not barbaric. There must +have been fairly good roads, and there must have been a high +organization of transport. You have only to consider for a moment what a +column looks like, even if it be only a brigade, to see the truth of +that. Again, this type of judgment forbids anyone who uses it to ascribe +great popular movements (great massacres, great turmoils, and so forth) +to craft. It is a very common thing, especially in modern history, to +lay such things to the power of one or two wealthy or one or two bloody +leaders, but you have only to think for a few moments of what a mob is +to see the falsity of that. Craft can harness this sort of explosive +force, it can control it, or persuade it, or canalize it to certain +issues, but it cannot create it. + +Again, this sort of sense easily recognizes in historic types the +parallels of modern experience. It avoids the error of thinking history +a mistake and making of the men and women who appear there something +remote from humanity, extreme, and either stilted or grandiose. + +In aid of this last feature in historical judgment there is nothing of +such permanent value as a portrait. Obtain your conception (as, indeed, +most boys do) of the English early sixteenth century from a text, then +go and live with the Holbeins for a week and see what an enormously +greater thing you will possess at the end of it. It is indeed one of the +misfortunes of European history that from the fifth century to at least +the eleventh we are, so far as Western European history is concerned, +deprived of portraits. And by an interesting parallel the writers of the +dark time seemed to have had neither the desire nor the gift of vivid +description. Consider the dreariness of the hagiographers, every one of +them boasting the noble rank and the conventional status of his hero, +and you may say not one giving the least conception of the man's +personality. You have the great Gallo-Roman noble family of Ferreolus +running down the centuries from the Decline of the Empire to the climax +of Charlemagne. Many of those names stand for some most powerful +individuality, yet all we have is a formula, a lineage, with symbols and +names in the place of living beings, and even that established only by +careful work, picking out and sifting relationships from various lives. +The men of that time did not even think to tell us that there was such a +thing as a family tradition, nor did it seem important to them to +establish its Roman origin and its long succession in power. + +Next it must be protested that the smallness and particularity of the +questions upon which historical discussion rages are no proof either of +its general purposelessness nor of _their_ insignificance. All +advance of knowledge proceeds in this fashion. Physical science affords +innumerable examples of the way in which progress has depended upon a +curiosity directed towards apparently insignificant things, and there is +something in the mind which compels it to select a narrow field for the +exercise of its acutest powers. Moreover, special points, discussion +upon which must evidently be lengthy and may be indefinite, are +peculiarly attractive to just that kind of man who by a love of +prolonged research enlarges the bounds of knowledge and at the same time +strengthens and improves for his fellows by continual exercise all the +instruments of their common trade. Take, for instance, this case of the +little Dauphin, Louis XVII. It really does not matter to day whether the +boy got away or whether he died in prison. It does not prolong the line +of the Capetians--the heir to that is present in the Duke of Orleans. It +does not even affect our view of any other considerable part of +history--save possibly the policy of Louis XVIII--and it is of no direct +interest to our pockets or to our affections. Yet the masses of work +which have accumulated round that one doubt have solved twenty other +doubts. They have illuminated all the close of the Terror; they are +beginning to make us understand that most difficult piece of political +psychology, the reaction of Thermidor, and with it how Europeans lose +their balance and regain it in the course of their quasi-religious wars; +for all our wars have something in them of religion. + +Three elements appear to enter into the judgment of history. First, +there is the testimony of human witnesses; next, there are the non-human +boundaries wherein the action took place, boundaries which, by all our +experience, impose fixed limits to action; thirdly, there is that +indefinable thing, that mystic power, which all nations deriving from +the theology of the Western Church have agreed to call, with the +schoolman, _common sense_; a general appreciation which transcends +particular appreciations and which can integrate the differentials of +evidence. Of this last it is quite impossible to afford a test or to +construct a measure; its presence in an argument is none the less as +readily felt as fresh air in a room; without it nothing is convincing +however laboured, with it, even though it rely upon slight evidence, one +has the feeling of walking on a firm road. But it must be "common +sense"--it must be of the sort, that is, which is common to man various +and general, and it is in this perhaps that history suffers most from +the charlatanism and ritual common to all great matters. + +Men will have pomp and mystery surrounding important things, and +therefore the historians must, consciously or unconsciously, tend to +strut, to quote solemn authorities in support, and to make out the +vulgar unworthy of their confidence. Hence, by the way, the plague of +footnotes. + +These had their origin in two sources: the desire to show that one was +honest and to prove it by a reference; the desire to elucidate some +point which it was not easy to elucidate in the text itself without +making the sentence too elaborate and clumsy. Either use may be seen at +its best in Gibbon. With the last generation they have served mainly, +and sometimes merely, for ritual adornment and terror, not to make +clearer or more honest, but to deceive. Thus Taine in his monstrously +false history of the Revolution revels in footnotes; you have but to +examine a batch of them with care to turn them completely against his +own conclusions--they are only put there as a sort of spiked paling to +warn off trespassers. Or, again, M. Thibaut, who writes under the name +of "Anatole France," gives footnotes by the score in his romance of Joan +of Arc, apparently not even caring to examine whether they so much as +refer to his text, let alone support it. They seem to have been done by +contract. + +Another ailment in this department is the negative one, whereby an +historian will leave out some aspect which to him, cramped in a study, +seems unimportant, but which any plain man moving in the world would +have told him to be the essential aspect of the whole matter. For +instance, when Napoleon left Madrid on his forced march to intercept Sir +John Moore before that general should have reached Benevente, he thought +Moore was at Valladolid, when as a fact he was at Sahagun. In Mr. Oman's +history of the Peninsular War the error is put thus: "Napoleon had not +the comparatively easy task of cutting the road between Valladolid and +Astorga, but the much harder one of intercepting that between Sahagun +and Astorga." + +Why is this egregious nonsense? The facts are right and so are the dates +and the names, yet it makes one blush for Oxford history. Why? Because +the all-important element of _distance_ is omitted. The very first +question a plain man would ask about the case would be, "What were the +distances involved?" The academic historian doesn't know, or, at least, +doesn't say; yet without an appreciation of the distances the statement +has no value. As a fact the distances were such that in the first case +(supposing Moore had been at Valladolid) Napoleon would have had to +cover nearly three miles to Moore's one to intercept him--an almost +superhuman task. In the second case (Moore being as a fact at Sahagun) +he would have had to go over _four miles_ to his opponent's one--an +absolutely impossible feat. + +To march _three_ miles to the enemy's _one_ is what Mr. Oman +calls "a comparatively easy task"; to march four to his one is what Mr. +Oman calls a "much harder" task; and to write like that is what an +informed critic calls bad history. + +The other two factors in an historical judgment can be more easily +measured. + +The non-human elements which, as I have said, are irremovable (save to +miracle), are topography, climate, season, local physical conditions, +and so forth. They have two valuable characters in aid of history; the +first is that they correct the errors of human memory and support the +accuracy of details; the second is that they enable us to complete a +picture. We can by their aid "see" the physical framework in which an +action took place, and such a landscape helps the judgment of things +past as it does of things contemporary. Thus the map, the date, the +soil, the contours of Crecy field make the traditional spot at which the +King of Bohemia fell doubtful; the same factors make it certain that +Drouet did not plunge haphazard through Argonne on the night of June 21, +1791, but that he must have gone by one path--which can be determined. + +Or, again, take that prime question, why the Prussians did not charge at +Valmy. On their failure to do so all the success of the Revolution +turned. A man may read Dumouriez, Kellermann, Pully, Botidoux, +Massenback, Goethe--there are fifty eye-witnesses at least whose +evidence we can collect, and I defy anyone to decide. (Brunswick himself +never knew.) But go to that roll of land between Valmy and the high +road; go after three days' rain as the allies did, and you will +immediately learn. That field between the heights of "The Moon" and the +site of old Valmy mill, which is as hard as a brick in summer (when the +experts visit it), is a marsh of the worst under an autumn drizzle; no +one could have charged. + +As for human testimony, three things appear: first, that the witness is +not, as in a law court, circumscribed. His relation may vary infinitely +in degree of proximity of time or space to the action, from that of an +eye-witness writing within the hour to that of a partisan writing at +tenth hand a lifetime after. That question of proximity comes first, +from the known action of the human mind whereby it transforms colours +and changes remembered things. Next there is the character of the +witness _for the purposes of his testimony_. Historians write, too +often, as though virtue--or wealth (with which they often confound +it)--were the test. It is not, short of a known motive for lying; a +murderer or a thief casually witnessing to a thing with which he is +familiar is worth more than the best man witnessing in a matter which he +understands ill. It was this error which ruined Croker's essay on +Charlotte Robespierre's Memoirs. Croker thought, perhaps wisely, that +all radicals were scoundrels; he could not accept her editor's evidence, +and (by the way) the view of this amateur collector without a tincture +of historical scholarship actually imposed itself on Europe for nearly +seventy years! + +And the third character in the witness is support: the support upon +converging lines of other human testimony, most of it indifferent, some +(this is essential) casual and by the way--deprived therefore of motive. + +When I shall find these canons satisfied to oppose the strong +probability and tradition of the Dauphin's death in prison I shall doubt +that death, but not before. + + + + +The Absence of the Past + + +It is perhaps not possible to put into human language that emotion +which rises when a man stands upon some plot of European soil and can +say with certitude to himself: "Such and such great, or wonderful, or +beautiful things happened here." + +Touch that emotion ever so lightly and it tumbles into the commonplace, +and the deadest of commonplace. Neglect it ever so little and the +Present (which is never really there, for even as you walk across +Trafalgar Square it is yesterday and tomorrow that are in your mind), +the Present, I say, or rather the immediate flow of things, occupies you +altogether. But there is a mood, and it is a mood common in men who have +read and who have travelled, in which one is overwhelmed by the sanctity +of a place on which men have done this or that a long, long time ago. + +Here it is that the gentle supports which have been framed for human +life by that power which launched it come in and help a man. Time does +not remain, but space does, and though we cannot seize the Past +physically we can stand physically upon the site, and we can have (if I +may so express myself) a physical communion with the Past by occupying +that very spot which the past greatness of man or of event has occupied. + +It was but the other day that, with an American friend at my side, I +stood looking at the little brass plate which says that here Charles +Stuart faced (he not only faced, but he refused) the authority of his +judges. I know not by what delicate mechanism of the soul that record +may seem at one moment a sort of tourist thing, to be neglected or +despised, and at another moment a portent. But I will confess that all +of a sudden, pointing out this very well-known record upon the brass let +into the stone in Westminster Hall, I suddenly felt the presence of the +thing. Here all that business was done: they were alive; they were in +the Present as we are. Here sat that tender-faced, courageous man, with +his pointed beard and his luminous eyes; here he was a living man +holding his walking-stick with the great jewel in the handle of it; here +was spoken in the very tones of his voice (and how a human voice +perishes!--how we forget the accents of the most loved and the most +familiar voices within a few days of their disappearance!); here the +small gestures, and all the things that make up a personality, marked +out Charles Stuart. When the soul is seized with such sudden and +positive conviction of the substantial past it is overwhelmed; and +Europe is full of such ghosts. + +As you take the road to Paradise, about halfway there you come to an +inn, which even as inns go is admirable. You go into the garden of it, +and see the great trees and the wall of Box Hill shrouding you all +around. It is beautiful enough (in all conscience) to arrest one without +the need of history or any admixture of the pride of race; but as you +sit there on a seat in that garden you are sitting where Nelson sat when +he said goodbye to his Emma, and if you will move a yard or two you will +be sitting where Keats sat biting his pen and thinking out some new line +of his poem. + +What has happened? These two men with their keen, feminine faces, these +two great heroes of a great time in the great story of a great people of +this world, are not there. They are nowhere. But the site remains. + +Philosophers can put in formulae the crowd of suggestions that rush into +the mind when one's soul contemplates the perpetual march and passage of +mortality. But they can do no more than give us formularies: they cannot +give us replies. What are we? What is all this business? Why does the +mere space remain and all the rest dissolve? + +There is a lonely place in the woods of Chilham, in the County of Kent, +above the River Stour, where a man comes upon an irregular earthwork +still plainly marked upon the brow of the bluff. Nobody comes near this +place. A vague country lane, or rather track; goes past the wet soil of +it, plunges into the valley beyond, and after serving a windmill joins +the high road to Canterbury. Well, that vague track is the ancient +British road, as old as anything in this Island, that took men from +Winchester to the Straits of Dover. That earthwork is the earthwork (I +could prove it, but this is not the place) where the British stood +against the charge of the Tenth Legion, and first heard, sounding on +their bronze, the arms of Caesar. Here the river was forded; here the +little men of the South went up in formation; here the Barbarian broke +and took his way, as the opposing General has recorded, through devious +woodland paths, scattering in the pursuit; here began the great history +of England. + +Is it not an enormous business merely to stand in such a place? I think +so. + +I know a field to the left of the Chalons Road, some few miles before +you get to Ste. Menehould. There used to be an inn by the roadside +called "The Sign of the Moon." It has disappeared. There used to be a +ramshackle windmill beyond the field, a mile or so from the road, on an +upland swell of land, but that also has gone, and had been gone for some +time before I knew the field of which I write. It is a bare fold of land +with one or two little scrubby spinneys alongside the plough. And for +the rest, just the brown earth and the sky. There are days on which you +will see a man at work somewhere within that mile, others on which it is +completely deserted. Here it is that the French Revolution was +preserved. Here was the Prussian charge. On the deserted, ugly lump of +empty earth beyond you were the three batteries that checked the +invaders. It was all alive and crowded for one intense moment with the +fate of Christendom. Here, on the place in which you are standing and +gazing, young Goethe stood and gazed. That meaningless stretch of coarse +grass supported Brunswick and the King of Prussia, and the brothers of +the King of France, as they stood windswept in the rain, watching the +failure of the charge. It is the field of Valmy. Turn on that height and +look back westward and you see the plains rolling out infinitely; they +are the plains upon which Attila was crushed; but there is no one there. + +All men have remarked that night and silence are august, and I think +that if this quality in night and silence be closely examined it will be +found to consist, in part at least, in this: that either of them +symbolizes Absence. By a paradox which I will not attempt to explain, +but which all have felt, it is in silence and in darkness that the Past +most vividly returns, and that this absence of what once was possesses, +nay, obtrudes itself upon the mind: it becomes almost a sensible thing. +There is much to be said for those who pretend, imagine, or perhaps have +experienced under such conditions the return of the dead. The mood of +darkness and of silence is a mood crammed with something that does not +remain, as space remains, that is limited by time, and is a creature of +time, and yet something that has an immortal right to remain. + +Now, I suppose that in that sentence where I say things mortal have +immortal rights to permanence, the core of the whole business is touched +upon. And I suppose that the great men who could really think and did +not merely fire off fireworks to dazzle their contemporaries--I suppose +that Descartes, for instance, if he were here sitting at my table--could +help me to solve that contradiction; but I sit and think and cannot +solve it. + +"What," says the man upon his own land, inherited perhaps and certainly +intended for his posterity--"what! Can you separate me from this? Are +not this and I bound up inextricably?" The answer is "No; you are not so +far as any observer of this world can discover. Space is in no way +possessed by man, and he who may render a site immortal in one of our +various ways, the captain who there conquered, the poet who there +established his sequence of words, cannot himself put forward a claim to +permanence within it at all." + +There was a woman of charming vivacity, whose eyes were ever ready for +laughter, and whose tone of address of itself provoked the noblest of +replies. Many loved her; all admired. She passed (I will suppose) by +this street or by that; she sat at table in such and such a house; +Gainsborough painted her; and all that time ago there were men who had +the luck to meet her and to answer her laughter with their own. And the +house where she moved is there and the street in which she walked, and +the very furniture she used and touched with her hands you may touch +with your hands. You shall come into the rooms that she inhabited, and +there you shall see her portrait, all light and movement and grace and +beatitude. + +She is gone altogether, the voice will never return, the gestures will +never be seen again. She was under a law; she changed, she suffered, she +grew old, she died; and there was her place left empty. The not living +things remain; but what counted, what gave rise to them, what made them +all that they are, has pitifully disappeared, and the greater, the +infinitely greater, thing was subject to a doom perpetually of change +and at last of vanishing. The dead surroundings are not subject to such +a doom. Why? + +All those boys who held the line of the low ridge or rather swell of +land from Hougoumont through the Belle Alliance have utterly gone. More +than dust goes, more than wind goes; they will never be seen again. +Their voices will never be heard--they are not. But what is the mere +soil of the field without them? What meaning has it save for their +presence? + +I could wish to understand these things. + + + + +St. Patrick + + +If there is one thing that people who are not Catholic have gone wrong +upon more than another in the intellectual things of life, it is the +conception of a Personality. They are muddled about it where their own +little selves are concerned, they misappreciate it when they deal with +the problems of society, and they have a very weak hold of it when they +consider (if they do consider) the nature of Almighty God. + +Now, personality is everything. It was a Personal Will that made all +things, visible and invisible. Our hope of immortality resides in this, +that we are persons, and half our frailties proceed from a +misapprehension of the awful responsibilities which personality involves +or a cowardly ignorance of its powers of self-government. + +The hundred and one errors which this main error leads to include a bad +error on the nature of history. Your modern non-Catholic or +anti-Catholic historian is always misunderstanding, underestimating, or +muddling the role played in the affairs of men by great and individual +Personalities. That is why he is so lamentably weak upon the function of +legend; that is why he makes a fetish of documentary evidence and has no +grip upon the value of tradition. For traditions spring from some +personality invariably, and the function of legend, whether it be a +rigidly true legend or one tinged with make-believe, is to interpret +Personality. Legends have vitality and continue, because in their origin +they so exactly serve to explain or illustrate some personal character +in a man which no cold statement could give. + +Now St. Patrick, the whole story and effect of him, is a matter of +Personality. There was once--twenty or thirty years ago--a whole school +of dunderheads who wondered whether St. Patrick ever existed, because +the mass of legends surrounding his name troubled them. How on earth +(one wonders) do such scholars consider their fellow-beings! Have they +ever seen a crowd cheering a popular hero, or noticed the expression +upon men's faces when they spoke of some friend of striking power +recently dead? A great growth of legends around a man is the very best +proof you could have not only of his existence but of the fact that he +was an origin and a beginning, and that things sprang from his will or +his vision. There were some who seemed to think it a kind of favour done +to the indestructible body of Irish Catholicism when Mr. Bury wrote his +learned Protestant book upon St. Patrick. It was a critical and very +careful bit of work, and was deservedly praised; but the favour done us +I could not see! It is all to the advantage of non-Catholic history that +it should be sane, and that a great Protestant historian should make +true history out of a great historical figure was a very good sign. It +was a long step back towards common sense compared with the German +absurdities which had left their victims doubting almost all the solid +foundation of the European story; but as for us Catholics, we had no +need to be told it. Not only was there a St. Patrick in history, but +there is a St. Patrick on the shores of his eastern sea and throughout +all Ireland to-day. It is a presence that stares you in the face, and +physically almost haunts you. Let a man sail along the Leinster coast on +such a day as renders the Wicklow Mountains clear up-weather behind him, +and the Mourne Mountains perhaps in storm, lifted clearly above the sea +down the wind. He is taking some such course as that on which St. +Patrick sailed, and if he will land from time to time from his little +boat at the end of each day's sailing, and hear Mass in the morning +before he sails further northward, he will know in what way St. Patrick +inhabits the soil which he rendered sacred. + +We know that among the marks of holiness is the working of miracles. +Ireland is the greatest miracle any saint ever worked. It is a miracle +and a nexus of miracles. Among other miracles it is a nation raised from +the dead. + +The preservation of the Faith by the Irish is an historical miracle +comparable to nothing else in Europe. There never was, and please God +never can be, so prolonged and insanely violent a persecution of men by +their fellow-men as was undertaken for centuries against the Faith in +Ireland: and it has completely failed. I know of no example in history +of failure following upon such effort. It had behind it in combination +the two most powerful of the evil passions of men, terror and greed. And +so amazing is it that they did not attain their end, that perpetually as +one reads one finds the authors of the dreadful business now at one +period, now at another, assuming with certitude that their success is +achieved. Then, after centuries, it is almost suddenly perceived--and in +our own time--that it has not been achieved and never will be. + +What a complexity of strange coincidences combined, coming out of +nothing as it were, advancing like spirits summoned on to the stage, all +to effect this end! Think of the American Colonies; with one little +exception they were perhaps the most completely non-Catholic society of +their time. Their successful rebellion against the mother country meant +many things, and led to many prophecies. Who could have guessed that one +of its chief results would be the furnishing of a free refuge for the +Irish? + +The famine, all human opinion imagined, and all human judgment was bound +to conclude, was a mortal wound, coming in as the ally of the vile +persecution I have named. It has turned out the very contrary. From it +there springs indirectly the dispersion, and that power which comes from +unity in dispersion, of Irish Catholicism. + +Who, looking at the huge financial power that dominated Europe, and +England in particular, during the youth of our own generation, could +have dreamt that in any corner of Europe, least of all in the poorest +and most ruined corner of Christendom, an effective resistance could be +raised? + +Behind the enemies of Ireland, furnishing them with all their modern +strength, was that base and secret master of modern things, the usurer. +He it was far more than the gentry of the island who demanded toll, and, +through the mortgages on the Irish estates, had determined to drain +Ireland as he has drained and rendered desert so much else. Is it not a +miracle that he has failed? + +Ireland is a nation risen from the dead; and to raise one man from the +dead is surely miraculous enough to convince one of the power of a great +spirit. This miracle, as I am prepared to believe, is the last and the +greatest of St. Patrick's. + +When I was last in Ireland, I bought in the town of Wexford a coloured +picture of St. Patrick which greatly pleased me. Most of it was green in +colour, and St. Patrick wore a mitre and had a crosier in his hand. He +was turning into the sea a number of nasty reptiles: snakes and toads +and the rest. I bought this picture because it seemed to me as modern a +piece of symbolism as ever I had seen: and that was why I bought it for +my children and for my home. + +There was a few pence change, but I did not want it. The person who sold +me the picture said they would spend the change in candles for St. +Patrick's altar. So St. Patrick is still alive. + + + + +The Lost Things + + +I never remember an historian yet, nor a topographer either, who could +tell me, or even pretend to explain by a theory, how it was that certain +things of the past utterly and entirely disappear. + +It is a commonplace that everything is subject to decay, and a +commonplace which the false philosophy of our time is too apt to forget. +Did we remember that commonplace we should be a little more humble in +our guesswork, especially where it concerns prehistory; and we should +not make so readily certain where the civilization of Europe began, nor +limit its immense antiquity. But though it is a commonplace, and a true +one, that all human work is subject to decay, there seems to be an +inexplicable caprice in the method and choice of decay. + +Consider what a body of written matter there must have been to instruct +and maintain the technical excellence of Roman work. What a mass of +books on engineering and on ship-building and on road-making; what +quantities of tables and ready-reckoners, all that civilization must +have produced and depended upon. Time has preserved much verse, and not +only the best by any means, more prose, particularly the theological +prose of the end of the Roman time. The technical stuff, which must, in +the nature of things, have been indefinitely larger in amount, has (save +in one or two instances and allusions) gone. + +Consider, again, all that mass of seven hundred years which was called +Carthage. It was not only seven hundred years of immense wealth, of +oligarchic government, of a vast population, and of what so often goes +with commerce and oligarchy--civil and internal peace. A few stones to +prove the magnitude of its municipal work, a few ornaments, a few +graves--all the rest is absolutely gone. A few days' marches away there +is an example I have quoted so often elsewhere that I am ashamed of +referring to it again, but it does seem to me the most amazing example +of historical loss in the world. It is the site of Hippo Regius. Here +was St. Augustine's town, one of the greatest and most populous of a +Roman province. It was so large that an army of eighty thousand men +could not contain it, and even with such a host its siege dragged on for +a year. There is not a sign of that great town today. + +A suburb, well without the walls--to be more accurate, a neighbouring +village--carries on the name under the form of Bona, and that is all. A +vast, fertile plain of black rich earth, now largely planted with +vineyards, stands where Hippo stood. How can the stones have gone? How +can it have been worth while to cart away the marble columns? Why are +there no broken statues on such a ground, and no relics of the gods? + +Nay, the wells are stopped up from which the people drank, and the +lining of the wells is not to be discovered in the earth, and the +foundations of the walls, and even the ornaments of the people and their +coins, all these have been spirited away. + +Then there are the roads. Consider that great road which reached from +Amiens to the main port of Gaul, the Portus Itius at Boulogne. It is +still in use. It was in use throughout the Middle Ages. Up that road the +French Army marched to Crecy. It points straight to its goal upon the +sea coast. Its whole purpose lay in reaching the goal. For some +extraordinary reason, which I have never seen explained or even guessed +at, there comes a point as it nears the coast where it suddenly ceases +to be. + +No sand has blown over it. It runs through no marshes; the land is firm +and fertile. Why should that, the most important section of the great +road which led northward from Rome, have failed, and have failed so +recently, in the history of man? Where this great road crosses streams +and might reasonably be lost, at its _pontes_, its bridges, it has +remained, and is of such importance as to have given a name to a whole +countryside--_Ponthieu_. But north of that it is gone. + +Nearly every Roman road of Gaul and Britain presents something of the +same puzzle in some parts of its course. It will run clear and +followable enough, or form a modern highway for mile upon mile, and then +not at a marsh where one would expect its disappearance, nor in some +desolate place where it might have fallen out of use, but in the +neighbourhood of a great city and at the very chief of its purpose, it +is gone. It is so with the Stane Street that led up from the garrison of +Chichester and linked it with the garrison of London. You can +reconstruct it almost to a yard until you reach Epsom Downs. There you +find it pointing to London Bridge, and remaining as clear as in any +other part of its course: much clearer than in most other sections. But +try to follow it on from Epsom Racecourse, and you entirely fail. The +soil is the same; the conditions of that soil are excellent for its +retention; but a year's work has taught me that there is no +reconstructing it save by hypothesis and guesswork from this point to +the crossing of the Thames. + +What happened to all that mass of local documents whereby we ought to be +able to build up the territorial scheme and the landed regime of old +France? Much remains, if you will, in the shape of chance charters and +family papers. Even in the archives of Paris you can get enough to whet +your curiosity. But not even in one narrow district can you obtain +enough to reconstruct the whole truth. There is not a scholar in Europe +who can tell you exactly how land was owned and held, even, let us say, +on the estates of Rheims or by the family of Conde. And men are ready to +quarrel as to how many peasants owned and how much of their present +ownership was due to the Revolution, evidence has already become so +wholly imperfect in that tiny stretch of historical time. + +But, after all, perhaps one ought not to wonder too much that material +things should thus capriciously vanish. Time, which has secured Timgad +so that it looks like an unroofed city of yesterday, has swept and razed +Laimboesis. The two towns were neighbours--one was taken and the other +left--and there is no sort of reason any man can give for it. Perhaps +one ought not too much to wonder, for a greater wonder still is the +sudden evaporation and loss of the great movements of the human soul. +That what our ancestors passionately believed or passionately disputed +should, by their descendants in one generation or in two, become +meaningless, absurd, or false--this is the greatest marvel and the +greatest tragedy of all. + + + + +On the Reading of History + + +Let me at the beginning of this short article present two facts to the +reader. Neither can be disputed, and that is why I call them facts and +put them in the forefront before I begin upon my theories. + +The first fact is that the record of what men have done in the past and +how they have done it is the chief positive guide to present action. The +second fact is that most men must now receive the impression of the past +through reading. + +Put these two facts together and you get the fundamental truth that upon +the right reading of history the right use of citizenship in England +today will depend. It will of course depend upon other things as well: +chiefly upon the human conscience; for if you were to pack off to an +island a hundred families as ignorant as any human families can be of +tradition, and wholly ignorant of positive history, those families would +yet be able to create a human society and the voice of God within them +would give just limits to their actions. + +Still, of those factors in civic action amenable to civic direction, +conscious and positively effective, there is nothing to compare with the +right teaching and the right reading of history. Now teaching is today +ruined. The old machinery by which the whole nation could be got to know +all essential human things, has been destroyed, and the teaching of +history in particular has been not only ruined but rendered ridiculous. +There is no historical school properly so-called in modern England; that +is, there is no organization framed with the sole object of extending +and co-ordinating historical knowledge and of choosing men for their +capacity to discover upon the one hand and to teach upon the other. +There is nothing approaching to it in the two ancient universities, +because the choice of teachers there depends upon a multitude of +considerations quite separate from those mentioned, and the capacity to +discover, to know, and to teach history, though it _may_ be present +in a tutor, will only be accidentally so present: while as for +co-ordination of knowledge, there is no attempt at it. Even where very +hard work is done, and, when it concerns local history, very useful +work, history as a general study is not grasped because the universities +have not grasped it. + +History is to be had by the modern Englishman from his own reading only; +and I am here concerned with the question how he shall read history with +profit. + +To read history with profit, history must be true, or at any rate the +reader must have a power of discerning what is true in the midst of much +that may be false. I will bargain, for instance, that in the summer of +1899 the great mass of men, and especially the great mass of men who had +passed through the universities, were under the impression that armies +had left England for the purpose of conquest in distant countries with +invariable success: that that success had been unique, unsupported and +always decisive, and that the wealth of the country after each success +had increased, not diminished. In other words, had history been studied +even by the tiny minority who have education today in England, Sir +William Butler would have counted more than the Joels, and the late Mr. +Barnato (as he called himself); the South African War would not have +taken place in a society which knew its past. + +Again, you may pick almost any phrase referring to the Middle Ages out +of any newspaper--if you are a man read in the Middle Ages--and you will +find in it not only a definite historical falsehood with regard to the +fact referred to, or the analogy drawn, but also a false philosophy. + +For instance, the other day I read this phrase with regard to the burial +of a certain gentleman of my neighbourhood in Sussex: "We are surely +past the phase of mediaeval thought in which it was imagined that a few +words spoken over the lifeless clay would determine the fate of the soul +for all eternity." Just notice the myriad falsehoods of a phrase like +that! I will not discuss what is connoted by the words "past the phase +of mediaeval thought"--it connotes of course that the human mind changes +fundamentally with the centuries, and therefore that whatever we think +is probably wrong, and that what we are sure of we cannot be sure of, an +absurd conclusion. I will only note the historical falsehoods. When on +earth did the "Middle Ages" lay down that a "few words over lifeless +clay determined the fate of the soul for all eternity"? On the contrary, +the Middle Ages laid it down--it was their peculiar doctrine--that it +was impossible to determine the fate of the soul; that no one could tell +the fate of any one individual soul; that it was a grievous sin, among +the most grievous of sins, to affirm positive knowledge that any +individual had lost his soul. More than this, the Middle Ages were +peculiar in their insistence upon the doctrine that a man might have +been very bad and might have had all the appearance of having lost his +soul so far as human judgment went, and yet was liable to a midway place +between salvation and damnation, and they affirmed that this midway +place did not lead to either fate but necessarily to salvation and to +salvation only. + +Again, whatever could help the human soul to salvation was by the most +rigorous theological definition of the Middle Ages applicable only +before death. After death the fate of the soul was sealed, and the man +once dead, the "lifeless clay" (as the journalist put it--and the Middle +Ages was the only source from which he got the idea of clay at all), +whether it were that of a Pope or of some random highwayman, had no +effect whatsoever upon the fate of the soul. The greatest saint might +have offered the most solemn sacrifice on its behalf for years, and if +the soul were damned his sacrifice would have been of no avail. + +I have taken this example absolutely at random. But the modern reader, +apart from sentences as clearly provocative of criticism as this, is +perpetually coming across references, allusions, and parallels which +take a certain course of human European and English history for granted. +How is he to distinguish when that course is rightly drawn from when it +is wrongly drawn? + +Thus in some newspaper article written by an able man, and dealing, let +us say, with the territorial army, one might come across a sentence like +this: "Napoleon himself used troops so raw that they were actually +drilled on the march to the battlefield." That would be a perfectly true +statement. Any amount of criticism of it lies in connexion with Mr. +Haldane's scheme, but still it is a true piece of history. Napoleon did +get raw recruits into his battalions just before any one of his famous +marches began, and drill them on the way to victory. In the next column +of the newspaper the reader may be presented with a sentence like this: +"The captures of English by privateers in the Revolutionary War should +teach us what foreign cruisers can do." + +There were plenty of captures by privateers in the Revolutionary Wars; +if I remember rightly, many many hundreds, all discreetly hidden from +the common or garden reader until party politics necessitated their +resurrection a hundred years after the event, but they have nothing +whatsoever to do with modern circumstances. + +Both statements are true then, and yet one can be truthfully applied +today, while the other cannot. + +How is the plain reader to distinguish between two historical truths, +one of which is a useful modern analogy, the other of which is a +ludicrously misleading one? + +The reader, it would seem, has no criterion by which to distinguish what +has been withheld from him and what has been emphasized; he may, from +his knowledge of the historian's character or bias, stand upon his +guard, but he can do little more. + +There is another difficulty. It is less subtle and less common, but it +exists. I mean brute lying. You do not often get the lie direct in +official history; it would be too dangerous a game to play in the face +of the critics, though some historians, and notably the French historian +Taine, have played it boldly enough, and have stated dogmatically, as +historical happenings, things that never happened and that they knew +never happened. But the plain or brute historical lie is more commonly +found in the pages of ephemeral journalism. Thus the other day, with +regard to the Budget, I saw some financial operation alluded to as +comparable with "the pulling out of Jews' teeth for money in the Middle +Ages." When did anyone in the Middle Ages pull out a Jew's teeth for +money? There is just one very doubtful story told about King John, and +that story is told without proof by one of John's worst enemies, in a +mass of other accusations many of which can be proved to be false. + +Again, I turn to an Oxford History of the French Revolution, and I find +the remark that the massacres of September were organized by the men +from Marseilles. They were not organized by the men from Marseilles. The +men from Marseilles had nothing to do with them, and the fact has been +public property since the publication of Pollio and Marcel's monograph +twenty years ago. + +What criterion can the ordinary reader choose when he is confronted by +difficulties of this sort? I will suggest to him one which seems to me +by far the most valuable. It is the reading of firsthand authorities. It +is all a matter of habit. When the original authorities upon which +history is based were difficult to get at, when few of those in foreign +tongues had been translated, and when those that had been published were +published in the most expensive form, the ordinary reader had to depend +upon an historian who would summarize for him the reading of another. +The ordinary reader was compelled to read secondary history or none. Now +secondary history is among the most valuable of literary efforts; where +evidence is slight, the judgment of an historian who knows from other +reading the general character of the period, is most valuable. Where +evidence is abundant, and therefore confusing, the historian used to the +selection and weighing of it performs a most valuable function. Still, +the reader who is not acquainted with original authorities does not +really know history and is at the mercy of whatever myth or tradition +may be handed to him in print. + +We should remember that today, even in England, original authorities are +quite easy to get at. Two little books, for instance, occur to me out of +hundreds: Mr. Rait's book on Mary Stuart and Mr. Archer's on the Third +Crusade. In each of these the reader gets in a cheap form, in modern and +readable English, the kind of evidence upon which historians base their +history, and he can use that evidence in the light of his own knowledge +of human nature and his own judgment of human life. + +Or again, if he wants to know what the Romans really knew or said they +knew about the German tribes who, as pirates, so greatly influenced the +history of England, let him get Mr. Rouse's edition of Grenewey's +translation of the Germania in Blackie's series of English texts; it +will only cost sixpence, and for that money he will get a bit of +Caesar's Gallic War and the Agricola as well. But the list nowadays is a +very long one, luckily, and the lay reader has only to choose what +period he would like to read up, and he will find for nearly every one +first-hand evidence ready, cheap and published in a readable modern +form. That he should take such first-hand evidence is the very best +advice that any honest historian can give. + + + + +The Victory + + +The study of history, like the exploration, the thorough exploration, of +any other field, leads one to perpetual novelties, miracles, and +unexpected things; and I, in the study of the revolutionary wars, came +across the story of a battle which completely possessed my spirit. + +It would not be to my purpose here to give its name. It is not among the +most famous; it is not Waterloo, nor Leipsic, nor Austerlitz, nor even +Jemappes. The more I read into the night the more I perceived that upon +the issue of that struggle depended the fate of the modern world. So +completely did the notes of Carnot and a few private letters that had +been put before me absorb my attention that I will swear the bugle-calls +of those two days (for it was a two-days' struggle) sounded more clearly +in my ears than the rumble of the London streets, and, as this died out +with the advance of the night and the approach of morning, I was living +entirely upon that ridge in Flanders, watching, as a man watches an +arena, whether the new things or the old should be victorious. It was +the new that conquered. + +From that evening I was determined to visit this place of which so far I +had but read, and to see how far it might agree with the vision I had +had of it, and to people actual fields with the ghosts of dead soldiers. +And for the better appreciation of the drama I chose the season and the +days on which the fight had been driven across that rolling land, and I +came there, as the Republicans had come, a little before the dawn. + +The hillside was silent and deserted, more even than are commonly such +places, though silence and desertion seem the common atmosphere of all +the fields on which such fates have been decided. A man looking over +Carthage Bay, especially a man looking at those sodden pools that were +the sound harbours of Carthage, might be in an uninhabited world; and +the loop of the Trebbia is the same, and the edge of Fontenoy; and even +here in England that hillside looking south up which the Normans charged +at Battle is a quiet and a drowsy sort of place.... So it was here in +Flanders. + +For two miles as I ascended by the little sunken lane which the extreme +right wing had followed in the last attack I saw neither man nor beast, +but only the same stubble of the same autumn fields, and the same colder +sun shining upon the empty uplands until I reached the crest where the +Hungarian and the Croat had met the charge, and had disputed the little +village for two hours--a dispute upon which hung your fate and mine and +that of Europe. + +It was a tiny little village, seven or eight houses together and no +more, with a crazy little wooden steeple to its church all twisted awry, +large barns, and comfortable hedgerows of the Northern kind; and from it +one looked out westwards over an infinity of country, following low +crest after low crest, down on to the French plains. I went into the inn +of the place to drink, and found the cobbler there complaining that +wealth disturbed the natural equality of men. Then I wandered out, +pacing this point and that which I knew accurately from my maps, and +thinking of the noise of the war. Behind the little church, upon a +ramshackle green not large enough to pitch the stumps for single-wicket, +was the modest monument, a cock in bronze, crowing, and the word +"Victory" stamped into the granite of the pedestal; the whole thing, I +suppose, not ten feet high. The bronze was very well done; it savoured +strongly of Paris and looked odd in this abandoned little place. But +every time my eyes sank from the bronze, to look at some other point in +the landscape to identify the emplacement of such and such a battery or +the gully that had concealed the advance of such and such a troop, my +glance perpetually returned to that word "VICTORY," sculptured by itself +upon the stone. It was indeed a victory; it was a victory which, for its +huge unexpectedness, for the noise of it, for the length of time during +which it was in doubt, for its final success, there is no parallel, and +yet it is by no means among the famous battles of the world. And though +the French count it one among the thousand of their battles, I doubt +whether even in Paris most men would recognize it for the hammer-blow it +was. The men of the time hardly knew it, though Carnot guessed at it, and +now to-day in Sorbonne I think that regal fight is taking its true place. + +So I went down the eight miles of front northward along the ridge; for +even that battle, a hundred and more years ago, had an extended front of +this kind. I recognized the tall majestic fringe of beeches from which +had issued the last of the Royalist regiments bearing for the last time +upon a European field the white flag of the Bourbon Monarchy; I came +beyond it to the combe fringed with its semicircle of underbrush in +which Coburg had massed his guns in the last effort to break the French +centre when his flank was turned. I came to the main highway, very +broad, straight, and paved, which cuts this battlefield in two, and then +beyond it to the central position whose capture had made the final +manoeuvre possible. + +All Wednesday the Grenadiers, German, tall, padded, smart, and stout, +had held their ground. It was not until Thursday, and by noon, that they +were slowly driven up the hill by the ragged lads, the Gauls, shoeless, +some not in uniform at all, half-mutinous, drunk with pain and glory. +And I remembered, as the scene returned to me, that this battle, like so +many of the Revolution, had been a battle of men against boys; how grey +and veteran and trained in arms were the Austrians and the Prussians, +their allies, how strict in orders, how calm: and what children the +Terror had called up by force from the exhausted fields of remote French +provinces, to break them here against the frontier, like water against a +wall...! + +There was a little chap, twelve years old, a drummer; he had crept and +crawled by hedgerows till he found himself behind the line of those +volleying Grenadiers. There, "before his side," and breaking all rules, +he had sounded the roll of the charge. They cut him down and killed him, +and the roll of his drum ceased hard. A generation or more later, +digging for foundations at this spot, the builders of the Peace came +upon his bones, the little bones of a child heaped pell-mell with +skeletons of the fallen giants round him. + +I went back into the town in whose defence the battle had been waged, +and there I saw again in bronze this little lad, head high and mouth +open, a-beating of his drum, and again the word "VICTORY." + +All that effort was undertaken, all those young men and children killed, +for something that was to happen for the salvation of the world; it has +not come. All that iron resistance of the German line had been forged +and organized till it almost conquered, till it almost thwarted, the +Republic, and it also had been organized for the defence, and, as some +thought, for the salvation, of the world. Some great good was to have +come by the storming of that hill, or some great good by the defeat of +the impetuous charge. Well, the hill was stormed, and (if you will) at +Leipsic the effort which had stormed it was rolled back. What has +happened to the High Goddess whom that youth followed, and worshipped as +they say, and what to the Gods whom their enemies defended? The ridge is +exactly the same. + + + + +Reality + + +A couple of generations ago there was a sort of man going mournfully +about who complained of the spread of education. He had an ill-ease in +his mind. He feared that book learning would bring us no good, and he +was called a fool for his pains. Not undeservedly--for his thoughts were +muddled, and if his heart was good it was far better than his head. He +argued badly or he merely affirmed, but he had strong allies (Ruskin was +one of them), and, like every man who is sincere, there was something in +what he said; like every type which is numerous, there was a human +feeling behind him: and he was very numerous. + +Now that he is pretty well extinct we are beginning to understand what +he meant and what there was to be said for him. The greatest of the +French Revolutionists was right--"After bread, the most crying need of +the populace is knowledge." But what knowledge? + +The truth is that secondary impressions, impressions gathered from books +and from maps, are valuable as adjuncts to primary impressions (that is, +impressions gathered through the channel of our senses), or, what is +always almost as good and sometimes better, the interpreting voice of +the living man. For you must allow me the paradox that in some +mysterious way the voice and gesture of a living witness always convey +something of the real impression he has had, and sometimes convey more +than we should have received ourselves from our own sight and hearing of +the thing related. + +Well, I say, these secondary impressions are valuable as adjuncts to +primary impressions. But when they stand absolute and have hardly any +reference to primary impressions, then they may deceive. When they stand +not only absolute but clothed with authority, and when they pretend to +convince us even against our own experience, they are positively undoing +the work which education was meant to do. When we receive them merely as +an enlargement of what we know and make of the unseen things of which we +read, things in the image of the seen, then they quite distort our +appreciation of the world. + +Consider so simple a thing as a river. A child learns its map and knows, +or thinks it knows, that such and such rivers characterize such and such +nations and their territories. Paris stands upon the River Seine, Rome +upon the River Tiber, New Orleans on the Mississippi, Toledo upon the +River Tagus, and so forth. That child will know one river, the river +near his home. And he will think of all those other rivers in its image. +He will think of the Tagus and the Tiber and the Seine and the +Mississippi--and they will all be the river near his home. Then let him +travel, and what will he come across? The Seine, if he is from these +islands, may not disappoint him or astonish him with a sense of novelty +and of ignorance. It will indeed look grander and more majestic, seen +from the enormous forest heights above its lower course, than what, +perhaps, he had thought possible in a river, but still it will be a +river of water out of which a man can drink, with clear-cut banks and +with bridges over it, and with boats that ply up and down. But let him +see the Tagus at Toledo, and what he finds is brown rolling mud, pouring +solid after the rains, or sluggish and hardly a river after long +drought. Let him go down the Tiber, down the Valley of the Tiber, on +foot, and he will retain until the last miles an impression of nothing +but a turbid mountain torrent, mixed with the friable soil in its bed. +Let him approach the Mississippi in the most part of its long course and +the novelty will be more striking still. It will not seem to him a river +at all (if he be from Northern Europe); it will seem a chance flood. He +will come to it through marshes and through swamps, crossing a deserted +backwater, finding firm land beyond, then coming to further shallow +patches of wet, out of which the tree-stumps stand, and beyond which +again mud-heaps and banks and groups of reeds leave undetermined, for +one hundred yards after another, the limits of the vast stream. At last, +if he has a boat with him, he may make some place where he has a clear +view right across to low trees, tiny from their distance, similarly half +swamped upon a further shore, and behind them a low escarpment of bare +earth. That is the Mississippi nine times out of ten, and to an +Englishman who had expected to find from his early reading or his maps a +larger Thames it seems for all the world like a stretch of East Anglian +flood, save that it is so much more desolate. + +The maps are coloured to express the claims of Governments. What do they +tell you of the social truth? Go on foot or bicycling through the more +populated upland belt of Algiers and discover the curious mixture of +security and war which no map can tell you of and which none of the +geographies make you understand. The excellent roads, trodden by men +that cannot make a road; the walls as ready loopholed for fighting; the +Christian church and the mosque in one town; the necessity for and the +hatred of the European; the indescribable difference of the sun, which +here, even in winter, has something malignant about it, and strikes as +well as warms; the mountains odd, unlike our mountains; the forests, +which stand as it were by hardihood, and seem at war against the +influence of dryness and the desert winds, with their trees far apart, +and between them no grass, but bare earth alone. + +So it is with the reality of arms and with the reality of the sea. Too +much reading of battles has ever unfitted men for war; too much talk of +the sea is a poison in these great town populations of ours which know +nothing of the sea. Who that knows anything of the sea will claim +certitude in connexion with it? And yet there is a school which has by +this time turned its mechanical system almost into a commonplace upon +our lips, and talks of that most perilous thing, the fortunes of a +fleet, as though it were a merely numerical and calculable thing! The +greatest of Armadas may set out and not return. + +There is one experience of travel and of the physical realities of the +world which has been so widely repeated, and which men have so +constantly verified, that I could mention it as a last example of my +thesis without fear of misunderstanding. I mean the quality of a great +mountain. + +To one that has never seen a mountain it may seem a full and a fine +piece of knowledge to be acquainted with its height in feet exactly, its +situation; nay, many would think themselves learned if they know no more +than its conventional name. But the thing itself! The curious sense of +its isolation from the common world, of its being the habitation of awe, +perhaps the brooding-place of a god! + +I had seen many mountains, I had travelled in many places, and I had +read many particular details in the books--and so well noted them upon +the maps that I could have re-drawn the maps--concerning the Cerdagne. +None the less the sight of that wall of the Cerdagne, when first it +struck me, coming down the pass from Tourcarol, was as novel as though +all my life had been spent upon empty plains. By the map it was 9000 +feet. It might have been 90,000! The wonderment as to what lay beyond, +the sense that it was a limit to known things, its savage intangibility, +its sheer silence! Nothing but the eye seeing could give one all those +things. + +The old complain that the young will not take advice. But the wisest +will tell them that, save blindly and upon authority, the young cannot +take it. For most of human and social experience is words to the young, +and the reality can come only with years. The wise complain of the jingo +in every country; and properly, for he upsets the plans of statesmen, +miscalculates the value of national forces, and may, if he is powerful +enough, destroy the true spirit of armies. But the wise would be wiser +still if, while they blamed the extravagance of this sort of man, they +would recognize that it came from that half-knowledge of mere names and +lists which excludes reality. It is maps and newspapers that turn an +honest fool into a jingo. + +It is so again with distance, and it is so with time. Men will not grasp +distance unless they have traversed it, or unless it be represented to +them vividly by the comparison of great landscapes. Men will not grasp +historical time unless the historian shall be at the pains to give them +what historians so rarely give, the measure of a period in terms of a +human life. It is from secondary impressions divorced from reality that +a contempt for the past arises, and that the fatal illusion of some +gradual process of betterment of "progress" vulgarizes the minds of men +and wastes their effort. It is from secondary impressions divorced from +reality that a society imagines itself diseased when it is healthy, or +healthy when it is diseased. And it is from secondary impressions +divorced from reality that springs the amazing power of the little +second-rate public man in those modern machines that think themselves +democracies. This last is a power which, luckily, cannot be greatly +abused, for the men upon whom it is thrust are not capable even of abuse +upon a great scale. It is none the less marvellous in its falsehood. + +Now you will say at the end of this, Since you blame so much the power +for distortion and for ill residing in our great towns, in our system of +primary education and in our papers and in our books, what remedy can +you propose? Why, none, either immediate or mechanical. The best and the +greatest remedy is a true philosophy, which shall lead men always to ask +themselves what they really know and in what order of certitude they +know it; where authority actually resides and where it is usurped. But, +apart from the advent, or rather the recapture, of a true philosophy by +a European society, two forces are at work which will always bring +reality back, though less swiftly and less whole. The first is the poet, +and the second is Time. + +Sooner or later Time brings the empty phrase and the false conclusion up +against what is; the empty imaginary looks reality in the face and the +truth at once conquers. In war a nation learns whether it is strong or +no, and how it is strong and how weak; it learns it as well in defeat as +in victory. In the long processes of human lives, in the succession of +generations, the real necessities and nature of a human society destroy +any false formula upon which it was attempted to conduct it. Time must +always ultimately teach. + +The poet, in some way it is difficult to understand (unless we admit +that he is a seer), is also very powerful as the ally of such an +influence. He brings out the inner part of things and presents them to +men in such a way that they cannot refuse but must accept it. But how +the mere choice and rhythm of words should produce so magical an effect +no one has yet been able to comprehend, and least of all the poets +themselves. + + + + +On the Decline of the Book: [And Especially of the Historical Book] + + +It is an interesting speculation by what means the Book lost its old +position in this country. This is not only an interesting speculation, +but one which nearly concerns a vital matter. For if men fall into the +habit of neglecting true books in an old and traditional civilization, +the inaccuracy of their judgments and the illusions to which they will +be subject, must increase. + +To take but one example: history. The less the true historical book is +read and the more men depend upon ephemeral statement, the more will +legend crystallize, the harder will it be to destroy in the general mind +some comforting lie, and the great object-lesson of politics (which is +an accurate knowledge of how men have acted in the past) will become at +last unknown. + +There are many, especially among younger men, who would contest the +premiss upon which all this is founded. They may point out, for +instance, that the actual number of bound books bought in a given time +at present is much larger than ever it was before. They may point out +again, and with justice, that the proportion of the population which +reads books of any sort, though perhaps not larger than it was three +hundred years ago, is very much larger than it was one hundred years +ago. And it may further be affirmed with truth that the range of +subjects now covered by books produced and sold is much wider than ever +it was before. + +All this is true; and yet it is also true that the Book as a factor in +our civilization has not only declined but has almost disappeared. Were +many more dogs to be possessed in England than are now possessed, but +were they to be all mongrels, among which none could be found capable of +retrieving, or of following a fox or a hare with any discipline, one +would have a right to say that the dog as a factor of our civilization +had declined. Were many more men in England able to ride horses more or +less, but were the number of those who rode constantly and for pleasure +enormously to diminish, and were the new millions who could just manage +to keep on horseback to prefer animals without spirit on which they +would feel safe, one would have a right to say that the horse was +declining as a factor in our civilization; and this is exactly what has +happened with the Book. + +The excellence of a book and its value as a book depend upon two +factors, which are usually, though not always, united in varied +proportions: first, that it should put something of value to the reader, +whether of value as a discovery and an enlargement of wisdom or of value +as a new emphasis laid upon old and sound morals; secondly, that this +thing added or renewed in human life should be presented in such a +manner as to give permanent aesthetic pleasure. + +That is not a first-rate book which, while it is admirably written, +teaches something false or something evil; nor is that a first-rate book +which, though it discover a completely new thing, or emphasize the most +valuable department of morals, is so constructed as to be unreadable. +Now it will not be denied that as far as these two factors are +concerned--and I repeat they are almost always found in combination--the +position of the Book has dwindled almost to nothingness. One could give +examples of almost every kind: one could show how poetry, no matter how +appreciated or praised, no longer sells. One could show--and this is one +of the worst signs of all--how men will buy by the hundred thousand +anything at all which has the hall mark of an established reputation, +quite careless as to their love of it or their appetite for it. One +could further show how more than one book of permanent value in English +life has been discovered in our generation outside England, and has been +as it were thrust upon the English public by foreign opinion. + +But for my purpose it will be sufficient to take one very important +branch which I can claim to have watched with some care, and that is the +branch of History. + +It may be said with truth that in our generation no single first-rate +piece of history has enjoyed an appreciable sale. That is not true of +France, it is not true of the United States, it is not even true of +Germany in her intellectual decline, but it is true of England. + +History is an excellent test. No man will read history, at least history +of an instructive sort, unless he is a man who can read a book, and +desires to possess one. To read History involves not only some permanent +interest in things not immediately sensible, but also some permanent +brain-work in the reader; for as one reads history one cannot, if one is +an intelligent being, forbear perpetually to contrast the lessons it +teaches with the received opinions of our time. Again, History is +valuable as an example in the general thesis I am maintaining, because +no good history can be written without a great measure of hard work. To +make a history at once accurate, readable, useful, and new, is probably +the hardest of all literary efforts; a man writing such history is +driving more horses abreast in his team than a man writing any other +kind of literary matter. He must keep his imagination active; his style +must be not only lucid, but also must arrest the reader; he must +exercise perpetually a power of selection which plays over innumerable +details; he must, in the midst of such occupations, preserve unity of +design, as much as must the novelist or the playwright; and yet with all +this there is not a verb, an adjective or a substantive which, if it +does not repose upon established evidence, will not mar the particular +type of work on which he is engaged. + +As an example of what I mean, consider two sentences: The first is taken +from the 432nd page of that exceedingly unequal publication, the +_Cambridge History of the French Revolution_; the second I have +made up on the spur of the moment; both deal with the Battle of +Wattignies. The "Cambridge History" version runs as follows:-- + +On October 15 the relieving force, 50,000 strong, attacked the Austrian +covering force at Wattignies; the battle raged all that day and was most +furious on the right, in front of the village of Wattignies, which was +taken and lost three times; on the 17th the French expected another +general engagement but the enemy had drawn off. + +There are here five great positive errors in six lines. The French were +not 50,000 strong, the attack on the 15th was not on Wattignies, but on +Dourlers; Wattignies was not taken and lost three times; the fight of +the 15th was _least_ pressed on the right (harder on the left and +hardest in the centre) and no one--not the least recruit--expected +Coburg to come _back_ on the 17th. Why, he had crossed the Sambre +at every point the day before! As for negative errors, or errors of +omission, they are capital, and the chief is that the victory was won on +the second day, the 16th, of which no mention is made. + +Now contrast such a sentence with the following:-- + +On October 15th the relieving force, 42,000 strong, attacked the +Austrian centre at Dourlers, and made demonstrations upon its wings; the +attack upon Dourlers (which village had been taken and lost three times) +having failed, upon the following day, October 16th, the extreme left of +the enemy's position at Wattignies was attacked and carried; the enemy +thus outflanked was compelled to retreat, and Maubeuge was relieved the +same evening. + +In the first sentence (which bears the hall mark of the University) +every error that could possibly be made in so few lines has been made. +The numbers are wrong; the nature of the fighting is misstated; the +village in the centre is confused with that on the extreme right; the +critical second day is altogether omitted, and every portion of the +sentence, verb, adjective, and substantive, is either directly +inaccurate or indirectly conveys an inaccurate impression. The second +sentence, bald in style and uninteresting in presentation as the first, +has the merit of telling the truth. But--and here is the point--it would +be impossible to criticize the first sentence unless someone had read up +the battle, and to read up that battle one has to depend on five or six +documents, some unpublished (like much of Jourdan's Memoirs), some of +them involving a visit to Maubeuge itself, some, like Pierrat's book, +very difficult to obtain (for it is neither in the British Museum nor in +the Bodleian) some few the writings of contemporary eyewitnesses, and +yet themselves demonstrably inaccurate. All these must be read and +collated, and if possible the actual ground of the battle visited, +before the first simple inaccurate sentence can be properly criticized +or the second bald but accurate sentence framed. None of these +authorities can have been so much as heard of by the official historian +I have quoted. + +It would be redundant to press the point. Most readers know well enough +what labour the just writing of history involves, and how excellent a +type it is of that "making of a book" which art is, as I have said, +imperilled by apathy at the present day. + +Consider for a moment who were those that purchased historical works in +this country in the past. There were, first of all, the landed gentry. +In almost every great country-house you will find a good old library, +and that good old library you will discover to be, as a rule, most +valuable and most complete in what concerns the end of the eighteenth +and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. A very large proportion +of history, and history of the best sort, is to be found upon those +shelves. The standard dwindles, though it is fairly well maintained +during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Then--as a +rule--it abruptly comes to an end. One may take as a sort of bourne, the +two great books Macaulay's _History_ and Kinglake's, for an earlier +and a later limit. Most of these libraries contain Macaulay; some few +Kinglake; hardly one possesses later works of value. + +It may be urged in defence of the buyer that no later works of value +exist. Put so broadly, the statement is erroneous; but the truth which +it contains is in itself dependent upon the lack of public support for +good historical work. When there is a fortune for the man who writes in +accordance with whatever form of self-appreciation happens for the +moment to be popular, while a steady view and an accurate presentation +of the past can find no sale, then that steady view and that accurate +presentation cannot be pursued save by men who are wealthy, or by men +who are endowed, but even wealthy men will hesitate to write what they +know will not be read, and for history no one is endowed. + +Our Universities were framed for many purposes, of which the cultivation +of learning was but one; in that one field, however, a particular form +of learning was taken very seriously, and was pursued with admirable +industry; I mean an acquaintance with and an imitation of the Latin and +Greek Classics. + +It was a particular character of this form of learning that proficiency +in it would lead to undisputed honours. The scholar recognized the +superior scholar; the field of inquiry was by convention highly limited; +it had been thoroughly explored; discussion upon such results as were +doubtful did not involve a difference in general philosophy. + +With history it is otherwise. Whether such things have or have not +happened, and, above all, if they have happened, the _way_ in which +they have happened, is to our general judgment of contemporary men what +evidence is to a criminal trial. Facts won't give way. If, therefore, +there are vested interests, moral or material, to be maintained, history +is, of all the sciences or arts, that one most likely to suffer at the +hands of those connected with such interests. Even where the truth will +be of advantage to those interests, they are afraid of it, because the +thorough discussion of it will involve the presentation of views +disadvantageous to privilege. + +Where, as is much more commonly the case (for vested interests, moral or +material, are unreasoning and selfish things), the truth would certainly +offend them, they are the more determined to prevent its appearance. + +But of all vested interests none deal with such assured incomes, none +are so immune by influence and tradition as the Universities. + +Now, if the rich man has no temptation by way of popular fame, and the +poor man no opportunity for endowment, in any branch of letters, there +remains but a third form of support, and that is the support of the +buying public. And the public will not buy. + +I will suppose the case of a popular novelist, who in a few months shall +write, not an historical novel, but a piece of so-called history. He +shall call it, for instance, "England's Heroes." Before you tell me his +name, or what he has written, I can tell you here and now what he will +write on any number of points. He will call Hastings Senlac. In the +Battle of Hastings he will make out Harold to be the head of a highly +patriotic nation called the "Anglo-Saxons"; they shall be desperately +defending themselves against certain French-speaking Scandinavians +called Normans. He will deplore the defeat, but will say it was all for +the best. Magna Charta he will have signed at Runnymede--probably he +will have it drawn up there as well. He will translate the most famous +clause by the modern words "Judgment of his peers" and "law of the +land." He will represent the Barons as having behind them the voice of +the whole nation--and so forth. When he comes to Crecy he will make +Edward III speak English. When he comes to Agincourt he will leave his +readers as ignorant as himself upon the boundaries, numbers and power of +the Burgundian faction. In the Civil War Oliver Cromwell will be an +honest and not very rich gentleman of the middle-classes. The +Parliamentary force will be that of the mass of the people against a few +gallant but wicked aristocrats who follow the perfidious Charles. He +will make no mention of the pay of the Ironsides. James II will be +driven out by a popular uprising, in which the great Churchill will play +an honourable and chivalric part. The loss of the American Colonies will +be deplored, and will be ascribed to the folly of attempting to tax men +of "Anglo-Saxon" blood, unless you grant them representation. The +Continental troops will be treated as the descendants of Englishmen! The +guns at Saratoga will be Colonial guns; the incapacity of the Fleet will +not be touched upon. Here again, as in the case of the Battle of +Hastings, all will be for the best, and there will be a few touching +words upon the passionate affection now felt for Great Britain by the +inhabitants of the United States. The defensive genius of Wellington +will be represented as that of a general particularly great in the +offensive. Talavera will be a victory. The Spanish Auxiliaries in the +Peninsula will be contemptible. No guns will be abandoned before Coruna, +but what are left at Coruna will be mentioned and re-embarked. The +character of Nelson will receive a curious sort of glutinous praise; Emma +Hamilton, not Naples, will be the stain upon his name; the Battle of +Trafalgar will prevent the invasion of England. + +This is a lengthy but not unjust description of what this gentleman +would write; it is rubbish from beginning to end. It would sell, because +every word of it would foster in the reader the illusion that the +community of which he is a member is invincible under all circumstances, +that effort and self-denial and suffering are spared him alone out of +all mankind, and that a little pleasurable excitement, preferably that +to be obtained from his favourite game, is the chief factor in military +success. + +I have omitted Alfred. Alfred in such a book will be the "teller of +truth"--but he will not go to Mass. + +Given that the name is sufficiently well known, there is hardly any +limit to the sale of a book modelled upon these lines. Contrast with its +fate the fate of a book, written no matter how powerfully, that should +insist upon truths, no matter how valuable to the English people at the +present moment. These truths need by no means be unpleasant, though at +the present moment an unpleasant truth is undoubtedly more valuable than +a pleasant one. They could make as much or more for the glory of the +country; they could be at any rate of infinitely greater service, but +they would not be received, simply because they would compel close +attention and brain-work in the reader as well as in the writer of them. +An established groove would have to be abandoned; to use a strong +metaphor, the reader would have to get out of bed, and that is what the +modern reader will not do. Tell him that the men who fought on either +side at Hastings' plain cared nothing for national but everything for +feudal allegiance; that _lex terrae_ means the local custom of +ordeal and not the "law of the land"; tell him that _judicium +parium_ means the right of a noble to be judged by nobles, and has +nothing to do with the jury system; tell him that Magna Charta was +certainly drawn up before the meeting at Runnymede; that not until the +Lancastrians did English kings speak English; that Oliver Cromwell owed +his position to the enormous wealth of the Williamses, of whom had he +not been a cadet, he would never have been known; tell him that the +whole force of the Parliament resided in the squires and that the Civil +Wars turned England into an oligarchy; tell him the exact truth about +the infamy of Churchill; tell him what proportion of Englishmen during +the American War were taxed without being represented; tell him what +proportion of Washington's troops were of English blood; tell him any +one illuminating and true thing about the history of his country, and +the novelty will so offend him that a direct insult would have pleased +him better. + +What is true of history is true of nearly all the rest, and the upshot +of the whole matter is that there is not, either in private patronage or +in popular demand, a chance for history in modern England. + +You can have excellent literature in journalism, and it will be widely +read. I would say more--I would say that the better literature a +newspaper admits, the more widely will that paper be read, or at any +rate the greater will its influence be on modern Englishmen. But when it +comes to the kneaded and wrought matter of the true Book, neither the +public nor the centres of learning will have any of it, and the last +medium which might make it possible, patronage, has equally disappeared, +because the modern patron does not work in the daylight in the full view +of the nation and with its full approbation, and he is no longer a public +man (though he is richer than ever he was before). His patronage, +therefore, though it is still considerable, is expended in satisfying his +private demand. Private architects build him doubtful castles, private +collectors get him manuscripts and jewels, but Letters, which are a public +thing, he can no longer command. + +It might be asked, by way of conclusion, whether there is any remedy for +this state of things. There is none. Its prime cause resides in a +certain attitude of the national mind, and this kind of broadly held +philosophy is not changed save by slow preaching or external shock. As +long as modern England remains what we know it, and follows the lines of +change which we see it following, the Book will necessarily decline more +and more, and we must make up our minds to it. + +Of other evil tendencies of our time, one can say of some that they are +obviously mending, of others that such and such an applicable remedy +would mend them. Our public architecture is certainly getting better; so +is our painting. Our gross and increasing contempt of self-government +(to take quite another sphere) is curable by one or two simple reforms +in procedure, registration, the expenses of election, and voting at the +polls, which would restore the House of Commons to life, and give it +power to express English will. But a regard for, a cultivation of, above +all a sinking of wealth upon, English Letters is past praying for. We +must wait until the tide changes; we can do nothing, and the waiting +will be long. + + + + +Jose Maria de Heredia + + +The French have a phrase "la beaute du verbe" by which they would +express a something in the sound and in the arrangement of words which +supplements whatever mere thought those words were intended to express. +It is evident that no definition of this beauty can be given, but it is +also evident that without it letters would not exist. How it arises we +cannot explain, yet the process is familiar to us in everything we do +when we are attempting to fulfil an impulse towards whatever is good. An +integration not of many small things but of an infinite series of +infinitely small things build up the perfect gesture, the perfect line, +the perfect intonation, and the perfect phrase. So indeed are all things +significant built up: every tone of the voice, every arrangement of +landscape or of notes in music which awake us and reveal the things +beyond. But when one says that this is especially true of perfect +expression one means that sometimes, rarely, the integration achieves a +steadfast and sufficient formula. The mind is satisfied rather than +replete. It asks no more; and if it desires to enjoy further the +pleasure such completion has given it, it does not attempt to prolong or +to develop the pleasure under which it has leapt; it is content to wait +a while and to return, knowing well that it has here a treasure laid up +for ever. + +All this may be expressed in two words: the Classical Spirit. That is +Classic of which it is true that the enjoyment is sufficient when it is +terminated and that in the enjoyment of it an entity is revealed. + +When men propose to bequeath to their fellows work of so supreme a kind +it is to be noticed that they choose by instinct a certain material. + +It has been said that the material in which he works affects the +achievement of the artist: it is truer to say that it helps him. A man +designing a sculpture in marble knows very well what he is about to do. +A man attempting the exact and restrained rendering of tragedy upon the +stage does not choose the stage as one among many methods, he is drawn +to it: he needs it; the audience, the light, the evening, the very slope +of the boards, all minister to his efforts. And so a man determined to +produce the greatest things in verse takes up by nature exact and +thoughtful words and finds that their rhythm, their combination, and +their sound turn under his hand to something greater than he himself at +first intended; he becomes a creator, and his name is linked with the +name of a masterpiece. The material in which he has worked is hard; the +price he has paid is an exceeding effect; the reward he has earned is +permanence. + +Jose de Heredia was an artist of this kind. The mass of the verse he +produced, or rather published, was small. It might have been very large. +It is not (as a foolish modern affectation will sometimes pretend) +necessary to the endurance or even the excellence of work that it should +be the product of exceptional moments; nor is it even true (as the wise +Ancients believed) that great length of time must always mature it. But +the small volume of Heredia's legacy to European letters does argue this +at least in the poet, that he passionately loved perfection and that, +finding himself able to achieve it (for perfection can be achieved) but +now and then, he chose only to be remembered by the contentment which, +now and then, his own genius had given him. + +He worked upon verse as men work upon the harder metals; all that he did +was chiselled very finely, then sawn to an exact configuration and at +last inlaid, for when he published his completed volume it is true to +say that every piece fitted in with the sound of one before and of one +after. He was careful in the heroic degree. + +His blood and descent are worthy of notice. He was a Spaniard, +inheriting from the first Conquerors of the New World, nor was it +remarkable to those who have received a proper enthusiasm for the +classical spirit that the energy and even the violence natural to such a +lineage should express themselves in the coldest and the most exalted +form when, for the second time, a member of the family attempted verse. +It is in the essence of that spirit that it alone can dare to be +disciplined. It never doubts the motive power that will impel it; it is +afraid, if anything, of an excess of power, and consciously imposes upon +itself the limits which give it form. + +Heredia in his person expressed the activity which impelled him, for he +was strong, brown, erect, a rapid walker, and a man whose voice was +perpetually modulated in resonant and powerful tones. In his last years +during his administration of the Library at the Arsenal this vitality of +his took on an aspect of good nature very charming and very fruitful. +His organization of the place was thorough, his knowledge of the readers +intimate. He refused the manuscripts of none, he advised, laughed, and +consoled. His criticism was sure. Several, notably Marcel Prevost, were +launched by his authority. The same deep security of literary judgment +which had permitted him to chastise and to perfect his impeccable +sonnets into their final form permitted him also to hold up before his +eyes, grasp, and judge the work of every other man. + +His frailty, as must always be the frailty of such men, was +fastidiousness. The same sensitive consciousness which is said to have +all but lost us the Aeneid, and which certainly all but lost us the +Apologia, dominated his otherwise vigorous soul. It is more than forty +years since his first verse, written just upon achieving his majority, +appeared in the old _Revue de Paris_ and in the _Revue des Deux +Mondes_. It was not till 1893 that he collected in one volume the +scattered sonnets of his youth and middle age: the collection won him +somewhat tardily his chair in the Academy. There is irony in the +reminiscence that the man he defeated in that election was Zola. + +All the great men who saluted his advent are dead. Theophile Gautier, +who first established his fame; Hugo, who addressed to him, perhaps, +that vigorous appeal in which strict labour is deified, and the medal +and the marble bust are shown to outlive the greatest glories, are +sometimes quoted as the last among the great French writers. + +The immediate future will show that the stream of French excellence in +this department, as in any other of human activity, is full, deep, and +steady. The work of Heredia will help to prove it. He was a Spaniard, +and a Colonial Spaniard. No other nation, perhaps, except the modern +French, so inherit the romantic appetite of the later Roman Empire as to +be able to mould and absorb every exterior element of excellence. It is +remarkable that at the same moment Paris contemplated the funeral of the +Italian de Brazza and the death of the Cuban Heredia. It is probable +that those of us who are still young will live to see either name at the +head of a new tradition. Heredia proved it possible not so much to +imitate as to recapture the secure tradition of an older time. Perhaps +the truest generalization that can be made with regard to the French +people is to say that they especially in Western Europe (whose quality +it is ever to transform itself but never to die) discover new springs of +vitality after every period of defeat and aridity which they are +compelled to cross. Heredia will prove in the near future a capital +example of this power. He will increase silently in reputation until we, +in old age, shall be surprised to find our sons and grandsons taking him +for granted and speaking of him as one speaks of the Majores, of the +permanent lights of poetry. + + + + +Normandy and the Normans + + +There is no understanding a country unless one gets to know the nature +of its sub-units. In some way not easy to comprehend, impossible to +define, and yet very manifest, each of the great national organisms of +which Christendom is built up is itself a body of many regions whose +differences and interaction endow it with a corporate life. No one could +understand the past of England who did not grasp the local genius of the +counties--Lancashire, cut off eastward by the Pennines, southward by the +belt of marsh, with no natural entry save by the gate of Stockport; +Sussex, which was and is a bishopric and a kingdom; Kent, Devon, the +East Anglian meres. No one could (or does) understand modern England who +does not see its sub-units to have become by now the great industrial +towns, or who fails to seize the spirit of each group of such +towns--with London lying isolated in the south, a negative to the rest. + +France is built of such sub-units: it is the peculiarity of French +development that these are not small territories mainly of an average +extent with government answerable in a long day's ride to one centre, +such as most English counties are; nor city States such as form the +piles upon which the structure of Italy has been raised; nor kingdoms +such as coalesced to reform the Spanish people; but _provinces_, +differing greatly in area, from little plains enclosed, like the +Rousillon, to great stretches of landscape succeeding landscape like the +Bourbonnais or the Perigord. + +The real continuity with an immemorial past which inspires all Gallic +things is discoverable in this arrangement of Gaul. At the first glance +one might imagine a French province to be a chance growth of the feudal +ties and of the Middle Ages. A further effort of scholarship will prove +it essentially Roman. An intimate acquaintance with its customs and with +the site of its strongholds, coupled with a comparison of the most +recent and most fruitful hypotheses of historians, will convince you +that it is earlier than the Roman conquest; it is tribal, or the home of +a group of cognate tribes, and its roots are lost in prehistory. So it +is with Normandy. + +This vast territory--larger (I think) than all North England from the +Humber to Cheviot and from Chester to the Solway--has never formed a +nation. It is typical of the national idea in France that Normandy +should have "held" of the political centre of the country, probably +since the first Gallic confederations were formed, certainly since the +organization of the Empire. It is equally typical of the local life of a +French province that, thus dependent, Normandy should have strictly +preserved its manner and its spirit, and should have readily made war +upon the Crown and resisted, as it still resists and will perhaps for +ever, the centralizing forces of the national temper. + +If you will travel day after day, and afoot, westward across the length +of Normandy, you will have, if you are a good walker, a fortnight's +task ahead of you; even if you are walking for a wager, a week's. It is +the best way in which to possess a knowledge of that great land, and my +advice would be to come in from the Picards over the bridge of Aumale +across the little River Bresle (which is the boundary of Normandy to the +east), and to go out by way of Pontorson, there crossing into Brittany +over the little River Couesnon, which is the boundary of Normandy upon +the west and beyond which lie the Bretons. In this way will you be best +acquainted with the sharp differentiation of the French provinces +passing into Normandy from Picardy, brick-built, horse-breeding, and +slow, passing out of Normandy into the desolation and dreams of +Brittany, and having known between the one and the other the chalk +streams, the day-long beechen forests, the valley pastures, and the +flamboyant churches of the Normans. You will do well to go by +Neufchatel, where the cheese is made, and by Rouen, then by Lisieux to +Falaise, where the Conqueror was born, and thence by Vive to Avranches +and so to the Breton border, taking care to choose the forests between +one town and another for your road, since these many and deep +woods--much wider than any we know in England--are in great part the +soul of the country. + +By this itinerary you will not have taken all you should into view; you +will not have touched the coast nor seen how Normandy is based upon the +sea, and you will not have known the Cotentin, which is a little State +of its own and is the quadrilateral which Normandy thrusts forth into +the Channel. If you have the leisure, therefore, return by the north. +Pass through Coutances and Valognes to Cherbourg, thence through Caen +and Bayeux to the crossing of Seine at Honfleur, and then on by the +chalk uplands and edges of the cliffs till you reach Eu upon the Bresle +again. In such a double journey the character of the whole will be +revealed, and if you have studied the past of the place before starting +you will find your journey full. Avranches, Coutances, Lisieux, Bayeux, +Rouen are not chance sites. Their great churches mark the bishoprics; +the bishoprics in turn were the administrative centres of Rome, and Rome +chose them because they were the strongholds or the sacred cities each +of a Gallic tribe. The wealth of the valleys permitted everywhere that +astonishing richness of detail which marks the stonework in village +after village; the connexion with England, especially the last connexion +under Henry V, explains the innumerable churches, splendid even in +hamlets as are our own. The Bresle and the Couesnon, those little +streams, are boundaries not of these last few centuries, but of a time +beyond view; the Romans found them so. Diocletian made them the limits +of the "Second Lyonesse," "Lugdunensis Secunda," which was the last +Roman name of the province. + +Here and there, near the west especially, you will discover names which +recall the chief adventure of Normandy, the accident which baptized it +with its Christian name, the landing of the Scandinavian pirates, the +thousandth anniversary of which is now being celebrated. They came--we +cannot tell in what numbers, some thousands--and harried the land. The +old policy of the Empire, the policy already seven hundred years old, +was had recourse to; the barbarians were granted settlement, +inheritance, marriage, and partnership with the Lords of the Villae; +their chief was permitted to hold local government, to tax and to levy +men as the administrator of the whole province; but there followed +something which wherever else the experiment had been tried had not +followed: something of a new race arose. In Burgundy, in the northeast, +in Visigothic Aquitaine the slight admixture of foreign blood had not +changed the people, it was absorbed; the slight admixture of +Scandinavian blood, coming so much later, in a time so degraded in +government and therefore so open to natural influence, did change the +Gallo-Romans of the Second Lyonesse. Few as the newcomers may have been +in number, the new element transformed the mass, and when a century had +permitted the union to work and settle, the great soldiers who founded +us appeared. The Norman lords ordered, surveyed, codified, and ruled. +They let Europe into England, they organized Sicily, they confirmed the +New Papacy, they were the framework of the Crusades. + +The phenomenon was brief. It lasted little more than a hundred years, +but it transformed Europe and launched the Middle Ages. When it had +passed, Normandy stood confirmed for centuries (and is still confirmed) +in a character of its own. No longer adventurous but mercantile, apt, of +a resisting courage, sober in thought, leaning upon tradition, not +imperially but domestically strong: the country of Corneille and of +Malesherbes, a reflection of that spirit in letters; the conservative +body of to-day--for in our generation that is the mark of Normandy--and, +in arms, the recruitment to which Napoleon addressed his short and +famous order that "the Normans that day should do their duty." + + + + +The Old Things + + +Those who travel about England for their pleasure, or, for that matter, +about any part of Western Europe, rightly associate with such travel the +pleasure of history; for history adds to a man, giving him, as it were, +a great memory of things--like a human memory, but stretched over a far +longer space than that of one human life. It makes him, I do not say +wise and great, but certainly in communion with wisdom and greatness. + +It adds also to the soil he treads, for to this it adds meaning. How +good it is when you come out of Tewkesbury by the Cheltenham road to +look upon those fields to the left and know that they are not only +pleasant meadows, but also the place in which a great battle of the +mediaeval monarchy was decided, or as you stand by that ferry, which is +not known enough to Englishmen (for it is one of the most beautiful +things in England), and look back and see Tewkesbury tower, framed +between tall trees over the level of the Severn, to see also the Abbey +buildings in your eye of the mind--a great mass of similar stone with +solid Norman walls, stretching on hugely to the right of the Minster. + +All this historical sense and the desire to marry History with Travel is +very fruitful and nourishing, but there is another interest, allied to +it, which is very nearly neglected, and which is yet in a way more +fascinating and more full of meaning. This interest is the interest in +such things as lie behind recorded history, and have survived into our +own times. For underneath the general life of Europe, with its splendid +epic of great Rome turned Christian, crusading, discovering, furnishing +the springs of the Renaissance, and flowering at last materially into +this stupendous knowledge of today, the knowledge of all the Arts, the +power to construct and to do--underneath all that is the foundation on +which Europe is built, the stem from which Europe springs; and that stem +is far, far older than any recorded history, and far, far more vital +than any of the phenomena which recorded history presents. + +Recorded history for this island and for Northern France and for the +Rhine Valley is a matter of two thousand years; for the Western +Mediterranean of three; but the things of which I speak are to be +reckoned in tens of thousands of years. Their interest does not lie only +nor even chiefly in things that have disappeared. It is indeed a great +pleasure to rummage in the earth and find polished stones wrought by men +who came so many centuries before us, and of whose blood we certainly +are; and it is a great pleasure to find, or to guess that we find, under +Canterbury the piles of a lake or marsh dwelling, proving that +Canterbury has been there from all time; and that the apparently +defenceless Valley City was once chosen as an impregnable site, when the +water-meadows of the Stour were impassable as marsh, or with difficulty +passable as a shallow lagoon. And it is delightful to stand on the +earthwork a few miles west and to say to oneself (as one can say with a +fair certitude), "Here was the British camp defending the south-east; +here the tenth legion charged." All these are pleasant, but more +pleasant, I think, to follow the thing where it actually survives. + +Consider the track-ways, for instance. How rich is England in these! No +other part of Europe will afford the traveller so permanent and so +fascinating a problem. Elsewhere Rome hardened and straightened every +barbaric trail until the original line and level disappeared; but in +this distant province of Britain she could only afford just so much +energy as made them a foothold for her soldiery; and all over England +you can go, if you choose, foot by foot, along the ancient roads that +were made by the men of your blood before they had heard of brick or of +stone or of iron or of written laws. + +I wonder that more men do not set out to follow, let us say, the +Fosse-Way. There it runs right across Western England from the +south-west to the north-east in a line direct yet sinuous, characters +which are the very essence of a savage trail. It is a modern road for +many miles, and you are tramping, let us say, along the Cotswold on a +hard metalled modern English highway, with milestones and notices from +the County Council telling you that the culverts will not bear a +steam-engine, if so be you were to travel on one. Then suddenly this +road comes up against a cross-road and apparently ceases, making what +map draughtsmen call a "T"; but right in the same line you see a gate, +and beyond it a farm lane, and so you follow. You come to a spinney +where a ride has been cut through by the woodreeve, and it is all in the +same line. The Fosse-Way turns into a little path, but you are still on +it; it curves over a marshy brook-valley, picking out the firm land, and +as you go you see old stones put there heaven knows how many (or how +few) generations ago--or perhaps yesterday, for the tradition remains, +and the country-folk strengthen their wet lands as they have +strengthened them all these thousands of years; you climb up out of that +depression, you get you over a stile, and there you are again upon a +lane. You follow that lane, and once more it stops dead. This time there +is a field before you. No right of way, no trace of a path, nothing but +grass rounded into those parallel ridges which mark the modern decay of +the corn lands and pasture--alas!--taking the place of ploughing. Now +your pleasure comes in casting about for the trail; you look back along +the line of the Way; you look forward in the same line till you find +some indication, a boundary between two parishes, perhaps upon your map, +or two or three quarries set together, or some other sign, and very soon +you have picked up the line again. + +So you go on mile after mile, and as you tread that line you have in the +horizons that you see, in the very nature and feel of the soil beneath +your feet, in the skies of England above you, the ancient purpose and +soul of this Kingdom. Up this same line went the Clans marching when +they were called Northward to the host; and up this went slow, creaking +wagons with the lead of the Mendips or the tin of Cornwall or the gold +of Wales. + +And it is still there; it is still used from place to place as a high +road, it still lives in modern England. There are some of its peers, as +for instance the Ermine Street, far more continuous, and affording +problems more rarely; others like the ridgeway of the Berkshire Downs, +which Rome hardly touched, and of which the last two thousand years has, +therefore, made hardly anything; you may spend a delightful day piecing +out exactly where it crossed the Thames, making your guess at it, and +wondering as you sit there by Streatley Vicarage whether those islands +did not form a natural weir below which lay the ford. + +The roads are the most obvious things. There are many more; for +instance, thatch. The same laying of the straw in the same manner, with +the same art, has continued, we may be certain, from a time long before +the beginning of history. See how in the Fen Land they thatch with +reeds, and how upon the Chalk Downs with straw from the Lowlands. I +remember once being told of a record in a manor, which held of the +Church and which lay upon the southern slope of the Downs, that so much +was entered for "straw from the Lowlands": then, years afterwards, when +I had to thatch a Bethlehem in an orchard underneath tall elms--a +pleasant place to write in, with the noise of bees in the air--the man +who came to thatch said to me: "We must have straw from the Lowlands; +this upland straw is no good for thatching." Immediately when I heard +him say this there was added to me ten thousand years. And I know +another place in England, far distant from this, where a man said to me +that if I wished to cross in a winter mist, as I had determined to do, +Cross-Fell, that great summit of the Pennines, I must watch the drift of +the snow, for there was no other guide to one's direction in such +weather. And I remember another man in a little boat in the North Sea, +as we came towards the Foreland, talking to me of the two tides, and +telling me how if one caught the tide all the way up to Long Nose and +then went round it on the end of the flood, one caught a new tide up +London river, and so made two tides in one day. He spoke with the same +pleasure that silly men show when they talk about an accumulation of +money. He felt wealthy and proud from the knowledge, for by this +knowledge he had two tides in one day. Now knowledge of this sort is +older than ten thousand years; and so is the knowledge of how birds fly, +and of how they call, and of how the weather changes with the moon. + +Very many things a man might add to the list that I am making. Dew-pans +are older than the language or the religion; and the finding of water +with a stick; and the catching of that smooth animal, the mole; and the +building of flints into mortar, which if one does it in the old way (as +you may see at Pevensey) the work lasts for ever, but if you do it in +any new way it does not last ten years; then there is the knowledge of +planting during the crescent part of the month, but not before the new +moon shows; and there is the influence of the moon on cider, and to a +less extent upon the brewing of ale; and talking of ale, the knowledge +of how ale should be drawn from the brewing just when a man can see his +face without mist upon the surface of the hot brew. And there is the +knowledge of how to bank rivers, which is called "throwing the rives" in +the South, but in the Fen Land by some other name; and how to bank them +so that they do not silt, but scour themselves. There are these things +and a thousand others. All are immemorial. + + + + +The Battle of Hastings. Related in the Manner of Oxford and Dedicated +to that University + + +So careless were the French commanders (or more properly the French +commander, for the rest were cowed by the bullying swagger of William) +that the night, which should have been devoted to some sort of +reconnaissance, if not of a preparation of the ground, was devoted to +nothing more practical than the religious exercises peculiar to +foreigners. + +Their army, as we have seen, was not drawn from any one land, but it was +in the majority composed of Normans and Bretons; we can therefore +understand the extravagant superstition which must bear the blame for +what followed. + +Meanwhile, upon the heights above, the English host calmly prepared for +battle. Fires were lit each in its appointed place, and at these meat +was cooked under the stern but kindly eyes of the sergeant-majors. These +also distributed at an appointed price liquor, of which the British +soldier is never willing to be deprived, and as the hours advanced +towards morning, the songs in which our adventurous race has ever +delighted rose from the heights above the Brede. + +The morning was misty, as is often the case over damp and marshy lands +in the month of October, but the inclemency of the weather, or, to speak +more accurately, the superfluous moisture precipitated from an already +saturated atmosphere, was of no effect upon those silent and tenacious +troops of Harold. It was far other with the so-called "Norman" host, who +were full of forebodings--only too amply to be justified--of the fate +that lay before them upon the morrow. + +It is curious to contrast the quiet skill and sagacity which marked the +disposition of Harold with the almost childish simplicity of William's +plan--if plan it may be called. + +The Saxon hosts were drawn along the ridge in a position chosen with +masterly skill. It afforded (as may still be seen) no dead ground for an +attacking force and little cover. [Footnote: The Rhododendrons on the +great lawn are modern.] Their left was arranged _en potence_, their +right was drawn up in echelon. The centre followed the plan usual at +that time, reposing upon the wings to its right and left and extended. +The reserves were, of course, posted behind. Cavalry, as at Omdurman, +played but a slight role in this typically national action and such +mounted troops as were present seem to have been intermixed with the +line in the fashion later known, in the jargon of the service, as "The +Beggar's Quadrille." The Brigade of Guards is not mentioned in any +record that I can discover, but was probably set by reversed companies +in a square perpendicular to the main ravine and a little in front of +the salient angle which appears upon the map at the point marked A. + +The terrain can be clearly determined at the present day in spite of the +changes that have taken place in the intervening years. It is a fairly +steep slope of hemispherical contour interspersed with low bushes; the +summit (upon which now stands our lovely English village of Battle and +the residence of one of those cultured and leisured men who form the +framework of our commonwealth) was then but a wild heath. + +Harold himself could be distinguished in the centre of the line by his +handsome features, restrained deportment, and unfailing gentlemanly good +sense as he spoke to staff officer, orderly, and even groom with +indefatigable skill. + +In spite of the determination observable from a great distance upon the +faces of the tall Saxon line, William with characteristic lack of +balance opened the action by ordering a charge uphill with cavalry +alone; it was a piece of tactics absurdly incongruous and one even he +would never have attempted had he understood the foe that was before +him, or the fate to which that foe had doomed him. + +The lesson dealt him was as immediate as it was severe. The foreigners +were thrust headlong down the hill, and a private letter tells us how +the Men of Kent in particular buffeted the Normans about "as though they +were boys." But even in the heat of this initial success Harold had the +self-command to order the retirement upon the main position: and with +troops such as his the order was equivalent to its execution. + +This rude blow would have sufficed for any commander less vain than +William, but he seems to have lost all judgment in a fit of personal +vanity and to have ordered a second charge which could not but prove as +futile as the first, delivered as it was up a perfect glacis +strengthened by epaulements, reverses and countersunk galvon work and +one whose natural strength was heightened by the stockade which the +indomitable energy of Harold's troops had perfected in the early hours +of the morning. Many of the stakes in this, the reader may note with +pardonable pride, were of English oak--sharpened at the tip. + +William's plan (if plan it may be called) was, as we have seen, +necessarily futile and was foredoomed to failure. But Harold had no +intention to let the action bear no more fruit than a tactical victory +upon this particular field. The brain that had designed the exact +synchrony of Stamford Bridge and the famous march southward from the +Humber was of that sort which is only found once in many centuries of +the history of war and which is (it may be said without boasting) +peculiar to this island. + +Another general would have awaited the second charge with its useless +butchery and still more useless contest for the barren name of victory. +Not so Harold. Those commanding, cold grey eyes of his swept the line in +a comprehensive glance, and though no written record of the detail +remains, he must know little of the character of the man who does not +understand that from Harold certainly proceeded the order for what +followed. + +The forces at the centre, which he commanded in person, deftly withdrew +before the futile gallop of William's cavalry, leaving, with that +coolness which has ever distinguished our troops, the laggards to their +fate. At the same moment, and with marvellous precision, the left and +right were withdrawn from the plateau rapidly and as by magic, and the +old-fashioned tactics of mere impact (which William of Normandy seems +seriously to have relied on!) were spent and wasted upon the now +evacuated summit of the hill. + +What followed is famous in history. + +The cohesion of the Saxon force and the exactitude and coolness with +which its great operation was performed is of good augury for the future +of our country. Though it was now thick night, by no set road and with +no cumbersome machinery of train and rear-guard, the whole of the vast +assembly masked itself behind the woodlands of the Weald. + +The Norman horsemen, bewildered and fatigued, gazed on the many that had +fallen in defence of the masking position and wondered whether such +novel happenings were victory or no, but the army whose concentration +upon the Thames it was William's whole object to prevent, was already +miles northward, each unit proceeding by exactly co-ordinated routes +towards London. + +There is perhaps no more difficult task set before soldiers than the +quiet execution of such a manoeuvre after the heat of a heavy action, +and none have performed it more magnificently than the veteran troop of +Harold. + +When (luckily) all the orders had been finally distributed a great +tragedy marred the completeness of the day. + +Just before the execution of this masterpiece of strategy, and as the +autumn sun was sinking, the inevitable price which war demands of all +its darlings was paid. + +Harold himself, the artist of the great victory, fell. But we have no +reason to believe that his loss retarded the retrograding movement in +any degree. Men who create as Harold created have not their creations +spoilt by death. + + * * * * * + +The shameful history of the close of the campaign is familiar to every +schoolboy, and the military historian must be pardoned if he deals with +a purely civilian blunder in a few brief words. + +Parliament interfered--as it always does--with what should have been a +matter for soldiers alone. Intrigues, bribery, or worse (with which the +military historian has no concern) ruined what had been, in the field, +one of the principal achievements of the Saxon arms. And William, who +could not count to hold his own against regular forces and who was +astonished to find himself free to retreat precipitately on Dover, was +still more astonished to find himself accepted a few weeks later after +an aimless march to the west and north by the politicians--or worse--at +Berkhampstead. He and England were equally astounded to find that a +broken and defeated invader could actually be accepted by the intriguers +at Westminster and crowned King of England as the price of a secret +bargain. + +Such was the fruit of as great and successful an effort as ever Saxon +soldier made: the Battle of Senlac: for such--as I am now free to +reveal--was the true name of the field of action. + +The ineptitude or avarice of politicians had undone the work of +soldiers, and it is no wonder that the last of Harold's veterans, who +retired in disgust to impregnable fortresses in Ely, Arthur's Seat, and +Pudsey, are recorded to have gnashed their teeth and shed tears of +indignation at the dispatches from the metropolis. At Crecy they were to +be avenged. + + + + +The Roman Roads in Picardy + + +If a man were asked where he would find upon the map the sharpest +impress of Rome and of the memories of Rome, and where he would most +easily discover in a few days on foot the foundations upon which our +civilization still rests, he might, in proportion to his knowledge of +history and of Europe, be puzzled to reply. He might say that a week +along the wall from Tyne to Solway would be the answer; or a week in the +great Roman cities of Provence with their triumphal arches and their +vast arenas and their Roman stone cropping out everywhere: in old quays, +in ruined bridges, in the very pavement of the streets they use to-day, +and in the columns of their living churches. + +Now I was surprised to find myself after many years of dabbling in such +things, furnishing myself the answer in quite a different place. It was +in Picardy during the late manoeuvres of the French Army that, in the +intervals of watching those great buzzing flies, the aeroplanes, and in +the intervals of long tramps after the regiments or of watching the +massed guns, the necessity for perpetually consulting the map brought +home to me for the first time this truth--that Picardy is the +province--or to be more accurate, Picardy with its marches in the Ile de +France, the edge of Normandy and the edge of Flanders--which retains +to-day the most vivid impress of Rome. For though the great buildings +are lacking, and the Roman work, which must here have been mainly of +brick, has crumbled, and though I can remember nothing upstanding and +patently of the Empire between the gate of Rheims and the frontier of +Artois, yet one feature--the Roman road--is here so evident, so +multiple, and so enduring that it makes up for all the rest. + +One discovers the old roads upon the map, one after the other, with a +sort of surprise. The scheme develops before one as one looks, and +always when one thinks one has completed the web another and yet another +straight arrow of a line reveals itself across the page. + +The map is a sort of palimpsest. A mass of fine modern roads, a whole +red blur of lanes and local ways, the big, rare black lines of the +railway--these are the recent writing, as it were; but underneath the +whole, more and more apparent and in greater and greater numbers as one +learns to discover them, are the strict, taut lines which Rome stretched +over all those plains. + +There is something most fascinating in noting them, and discovering them +one after the other. + +For they need discovering. No one of them is still in complete use. The +greater part must be pieced together from lengths of lanes which turn +into broad roads, and then suddenly sink again into footpaths, rights of +way, or green forest rides. + +Often, as with our rarer Roman roads in England, all trace of the thing +disappears under the plough or in the soft crossings of the river +valleys; one marks them by the straightness of their alignment, by the +place names which lie upon them (the repeated name Estree, for instance, +which is like the place name "street" upon the Roman roads of England); +by the recovery of them after a gap; by the discoveries which local +archaeology has made. + +Different men have different pastimes, and I dare say that most of those +who read this will wonder that such a search should be a pastime for any +man, but I confess it is a pastime for me. To discover these things, to +recreate them, to dig out on foot the base upon which two thousand years +of history repose, is the most fascinating kind of travel. + +And then, the number of them! You may take an oblong of country with +Maubeuge at one corner, Pontoise at another, Yvetot and some frontier +town such as Fumes for the other two corners, and in that stretch of +country a hundred and fifty miles by perhaps two hundred, you can build +up a scheme of Roman ways almost as complete as the scheme of the great +roads to-day. + +That one which most immediately strikes the eye is the great line which +darts upon Rouen from Paris. + +Twice broken at the crossing of the river valleys, and lost altogether +in the last twelve miles before the capital of Normandy, it still stands +on the modern map a great modern road with every aspect of purpose and +of intention in its going. + +From Amiens again they radiate out, these roads, some, like the way to +Cambray, in use every mile; some, like the old marching road to the sea, +to the Portus Itius, to Boulogne, a mere lane often wholly lost and +never used as a great modern road. This was the way along which the +French feudal cavalry trailed to the disaster of Crecy, and just beyond +Crecy it goes and loses itself in that exasperating but fascinating +manner which is the whole charm of Roman roads wherever the hunter finds +them. You may lay a ruler along this old forgotten track, all the way +past Domqueur, Novelle (which is called Novelle-en-Chaussee, that is +Novelle on the paved road), on past Estree (where from the height you +overlook the battlefield of Crecy), and that ruler so lying on your map +points right at Boulogne Harbour, thirty odd miles away--and in all +those thirty odd remaining miles I could not find another yard of it. +But what an interest! What a hobby to develop! There is nothing like it +in all the kinds of hunting that have ever been invented for filling up +the whole of the mind. True, you will get no sauce of danger, but, on +the other hand, you will hunt for weeks and weeks, and you will come +back year after year and go on with your hunting, and sometimes you +actually find--which is more than can be said for hunting some animals +in the Weald. + +How was it lost, this great main road of Europe, this marching road of +the legions, linking up Gaul and Britain, the way that Hadrian went, and +the way down which the usurper Constantine III must have come during +that short adventure of his which lends such a romance to the end of the +Empire? One cannot conceive why it should have disappeared. It is a +sunken way down the hillside across the light railway which serves +Crecy, it gets vaguer and vaguer, for all the world like those ridges +upon the chalk that mark the Roman roads in England, and then it is +gone. It leaves you pointing, I say, at that distant harbour, thirty odd +miles off, but over all those miles it has vanished. The ghost of the +legends cannot march along it any more. In one place you find a few +yards of it about three miles south and east of Montreuil. It may be +that the little lane leading into Estree shows where it crossed the +valley of the Cauche, but it is all guesswork, and therefore very proper +to the huntsman. + +Then there is that unbroken line by which St. Martin came, I think, when +he rode into Amiens, and at the gate of the town cut his cloak in two to +cover the beggar. It drives across country for Roye and on to Noyon, the +old centre of the Kings. It is a great modern road all the way, and it +stretches before you mile after mile after mile, until suddenly, without +explanation and for no reason, it ends sharply, like the life of a man. +It ends on the slopes of the hill called Choisy, at the edge of the wood +which is there. And seek as you will, you will never find it again. + +From that road also, near Amiens, branches out another, whose object was +St. Quentin, first as a great high road, lost in the valley of the +Somme, a lesser road again, still in one strict alignment, it reaches on +to within a mile of Vermand, and there it stops dead. I do not think +that between Vermand and St. Quentin you will find it. Go out +north-westward from Vermand and walk perhaps five miles, or seven: there +is no trace of a road, only the rare country lanes winding in and out, +and the open plough of the rolling land. But continue by your compass so +and you will come (suddenly again and with no apparent reason for its +abrupt origin) upon the dead straight line that ran from the capital of +the Nervii, three days' march and more, and pointing all the time +straight at Vermand. + +And so it is throughout the province and its neighbourhood. Here and +there, as at Bavai, a great capital has decayed. Here and there (but +more rarely), a town wholly new has sprung up since the Romans, but the +plan of the country is the same as that which they laid down, and the +roads as you discover them, mark it out and establish it. The armies +that you see marching to-day in their manoeuvres follow for half a +morning the line which was taken by the Legions. + + + + +The Reward of Letters + + +It has often been remarked that while all countries in the world possess +some sort of literature, as Iceland her Sagas, England her daily papers, +France her prose writers and dramatists, and even Prussia her railway +guides, one nation and one alone, the Empire of Monomotopa, is utterly +innocent of this embellishment or frill. + +No traveller records the existence of any Monomotopan quill-driver; no +modern visitor to that delightful island has come across a +_litterateur_ whether in the worse or in the best hotels; and such +reading as the inhabitants enjoy is entirely confined to works imported +by large steamers from the neighbouring Antarctic Continent. + +The causes of this singular and happy state of affairs were unknown +(since the common histories did not mention them) until the recent +discovery by Mr. Paley, the chief authority upon Monomotopan hieratic +script, of a very ancient inscription which clearly sets forth the whole +business. + +It seems that an Emperor of Monomotopa, whose date can be accurately +fixed by internal evidence to lie after the universal deluge and before +the building of the Pyramid of Cheops, was, upon his accession to the +throne, particularly concerned with the just repartition of taxes among +his beloved subjects. + +It would seem (if we are to trust the inscription) that in a past still +more remote the taxes were so light that even the richest men would meet +them promptly and without complaining, but this was at a period when the +enemies of Monomotopa were at once distant and actively engaged in +quarrelling among themselves. With sickening treachery these distant +rival nations had determined to produce wealth and to live in amity, so +that it was incumbent upon the Monomotopans not only to build ships, but +actually to provide an army, and at last (what broke the camel's back) +to establish fortifications of a very useless but expensive sort upon a +dozen points of their Imperial coast. + +Under the increasing strain the old fiscal system broke down. The poor +were clearly embarrassed, as might be seen in their emaciated visages +and from the terrible condition of their boots. The rich had reached the +point after which it was inconvenient to them to pay any more. The +middle classes were spending the greater part of their time in devising +methods by which the exorbitant and intempestive demands of the +collectors could be either evaded or, more rarely, complied with. In a +word, a new and juster system of taxation was an imperative need, and +the Emperor, who had just ascended the throne at the age of eighteen, +and whom a sort of greenness had preserved from the iniquities of this +world, was determined to effect the great reform. + +With the advice of his Ministers (all of whom had had considerable +experience in the handling of money), the Emperor at last determined +that each man and woman should pay to the State one-tenth and no more of +the wealth which he or she produced; those who produced nothing it was +but common justice and reason to exempt, and the effect of this tardy +act of justice upon the very rich was observed in the sudden increase of +the death-rate from all those diseases that are the peculiar product of +luxury and evil living. Paupers also, the unemployed, cripples, +imbeciles, deaf mutes, and the clergy escaped under this beneficent and +equable statute, and we may sum up the whole policy by saying that never +was a law acclaimed with so much happy bewilderment nor subject to less +expressed criticism than this. + +It was, moreover, easy to estimate in this new fashion the total revenue +of the State, since its produce had been accurately set down by +statisticians of the utmost eminence, and one of these diverse documents +had been taken for the basis of the new fiscal regime. + +In practice also the collection was easy. Overseers would attend the +harvest with large carts, prong the tenth turnip, hoick up the tenth +sheaf of wheat, bucket out the tenth gallon of ale, and so forth. In the +markets every tenth animal was removed by Imperial officers, every tenth +newspaper was impounded as it left the press, and every tenth drink +about to be consumed in the hostelries of the Empire was, after a +simulacrum of proffering it, suddenly removed by the waiter and poured +into a receptacle, the keys of which were very jealously guarded. + +It was the same with the liberal professions: of the fee received by a +barrister in the Criminal Courts a tenth was regularly demanded at the +door when the verdict had been given and the prisoner whom he had +defended passed out to execution. The tenth knock-out in the prize ring +received by the professional pugilist was followed by the immediate +sequestration of his fee for that particular encounter, and the tenth +aria vibrating from the lips of a prima donna was either compounded for +at a certain rate or taken in kind by the official who attended at every +performance of grand opera. + +One form of wealth alone puzzled the beneficent monarch and his +Napoleonic advisers, and this was the production (for it then existed) +of literary matter. + +At first this seemed as simple to tax as any one of the other numerous +activities upon which the Emperor's loyal and loving subjects were +engaged. A brief examination of the customs of the trade, conducted by +an army of officials who penetrated into the very dens and attics in +which Letters are evolved, reported that the method of payment was by +the measurement of a number of words. + +"It is, your Majesty," wrote the permanent official of the department in +his minute, "the practice of those who charitably employ this sort of +person to pay them in classes by the thousand words; thus one man gets +one sequin a thousand, another two byzants, a third as much as a ducat, +while some who have singularly attracted the notice of the public can +command ten, twenty, nay forty scutcheons, and in some very exceptional +cases a thousand words command one of those beautiful pieces of stiff +paper which your Majesty in his bountiful provision tenders to his +dutiful subjects for acceptance as metal under diverse penalties. The +just taxation of these fellows can therefore be easily achieved if your +Majesty, in the exercise of his almost superhuman wisdom, will but add a +schedule to the Finance Act in which there shall be set down fifteen or +twenty classes of writers, with their price per thousand words, and a +compulsory registration of each class, enforced by the rude hand of the +police." + +The Emperor of Monomotopa immediately nominated a Royal Commission +(unpaid), among whose sons, nephews, and private friends the salaried +posts connected with the work were distributed. This Commission reported +by a majority of one ere two years had elapsed. The schedule was +designed, and such _litterateurs_ as had not in the interval fled +the country were registered, while a further enactment strictly +forbidding their employers to make payment upon any other system +completed the scheme. + +But, alas! so full of low cunning and dirty dodges is this kind of man +(I mean what we call authors) that very soon after the promulgation of +the new law a marked deterioration in the quality of Monomotopan letters +was apparent upon every side! + +The citizen opening his morning paper would be astonished to find the +leading article consist of nothing more original than a portion of the +sacred Scriptures. A novel bought to ease the tedium of a journey would +consist of long catalogues for the most part, and when it came to +descriptions of scenery would fall into the most minute and detailed +category of every conceivable feature of the landscape. Some even took +advantage of the new regulation so far as to repeat one single word an +interminable number of times, while it was remarked with shame by the +Ministers of Religion that the morals of their literary friends +permitted them only to use words of one syllable, and those of the +shortest kind. And this they said was the only true and original +Monomotopan dialect. + +Such was the public inconvenience that next year a sharper and much more +drastic law was passed, by which it was laid down that every literary +composition should make sense within the meaning of the Act, and should +be original so far as the reading of the judge appointed for the trial +of the case extended. But though after the first few executions this law +was generally observed, the nasty fellows affected by it managed to +evade it in spirit, for by the use of obscure terms, of words drawn from +dead languages, and of bold metaphor transferred from one art to +another, they would deliberately invite prosecution, and then in the +witness-box make fools of those plain men, the judge and jury, by +showing that this apparently meaningless claptrap could, with sufficient +ingenuity, be made to yield some sort of sense, and during this period +no art critic was put to death. + +Driven to desperation, the Emperor changed the whole basis of the +Remuneration of Literary Labour, and ordered that it should be by the +length of the prose or poetry measured in inches. + +This reform, however, did but add to the confusion, for while the men of +the pen wrote their works entirely in short dialogue, asterisks, and +blanks, the publishers, who were now thoroughly organized, printed the +same in smaller and smaller type, in order to avoid the consequences of +the law. + +At this last piece of insolence the Emperor's mind was quickly decided. +Arresting one night not only all those who had ever written, but all +those who had even boasted of letters, or who were so much as suspected +by their relatives of secretly indulging in them, he turned the whole +two million into a large but enclosed area, and (desiring to kill two +birds with one stone) offered the ensuing spectacle as an amusement to +the more sober and respectable sections of the community. + +It is well known that the profession of letters breeds in its followers +an undying hatred of each against his fellows. The public were therefore +entertained for a whole day with the pleasing sight of a violent but +quite disordered battle, in which each of the wretched prisoners seemed +animated by no desire but the destruction of as many as possible of his +hated rivals, until at last every soul of these detestable creatures had +left its puny body and the State was rid of all. + +A law which carried to the universities the rule of the primary +schools--to wit, that men should be taught to read but not to +write--completed the good work. And there was peace. + + + + +The Eye-Openers + + +Without any doubt whatsoever, the one characteristic of the towns is +the lack of reality in the impressions of the many: now we live in +towns: and posterity will be astounded at us! It isn't only that we get +our impressions for the most part as imaginary pictures called up by +printer's ink--that would be bad enough; but by some curious perversion +of the modern mind, printer's ink ends by actually preventing one from +seeing things that are there; and sometimes, when one says to another +who has not travelled, "Travel!" one wonders whether, after all, if he +does travel, he will see the things before his eyes? If he does, he will +find a new world; and there is more to be discovered in this fashion +to-day than ever there was. + +I have sometimes wished that every Anglo-Saxon who from these shores has +sailed and seen for the first time the other Anglo-Saxons in New York or +Melbourne, would write in quite a short letter what he really felt. +Ninety-nine times out of a hundred men only write what they have read +before they started, just as Rousseau in an eighteenth-century village +believed that every English yokel could vote and that his vote conveyed +a high initiative, making and unmaking the policy of the State; or just +as people, hearing that the birth-rate of France is low, travel in that +country and say they can see no children--though they would hardly say +it about Sussex or Cumberland where the birth-rate is lower still. + +What travel does in the way of pleasure (the providing of new and fresh +sensations, and the expansion of experience), that it ought to do in the +way of knowledge. It ought to and it does, with the wise, provide a +complete course of unlearning the wretched tags with which the sham +culture of our great towns has filled us. For instance, of Barbary--the +lions do not live in deserts; they live in woods. The peasants of +Barbary are not Semitic in appearance or in character; Barbary is full +to the eye, not of Arab and Oriental buildings--they are not +striking--but of great Roman monuments: they are altogether the most +important things in the place. Barbary is not hot, as a whole: most of +Barbary is extremely cold between November and March. The inhabitants of +Barbary do not like a wild life, they are extremely fond of what +civilization can give them, such as _creme de menthe_, rifles, good +waterworks, maps, and railways: only they would like to have these +things without the bother of strict laws and of the police, and so +forth. Travel in Barbary with seeing eyes and you find out all this new +truth. + +Now it took the French forty years and more before each of these plain +facts (and I have only cited half a dozen out of as many hundred) got +into their letters and their print: they have not yet got into the +letters and the print of other nations. But an honest man travelling in +Barbary on his own account would pick up every one of these truths in +two or three days, except the one about the lions; to pick up that truth +you must go to the very edge of the country, for the lion is a shy beast +and withdraws from men. + +The wise man who really wants to see things as they are and to +understand them, does not say: "Here I am on the burning soil of +Africa." He says: "Here I am stuck in a snowdrift and the train twelve +hours late"--as it was (with me in it) near Setif in January, 1905. He +does not say as he looks on the peasant at his plough outside Batna: +"Observe yon Semite!" He says: "That man's face is exactly like the face +of a dark Sussex peasant, only a little leaner." He does not say: "See +those wild sons of the desert! How they must hate the new artificial +world around them!" Contrariwise, he says: "See those four Mohammedans +playing cards with a French pack of cards and drinking liqueurs in the +cafe! See, they have ordered more liqueurs!" He does not say: "How +strange and terrible a thing the railway must be to them!" He says: "I +wish I was rich enough to travel first, for the natives pouring in and +out of this third-class carriage, jabbering like monkeys, and treading +on my feet, disturb my tranquillity. Some hundreds must have got in and +out during the last fifty miles!" + +In other words, the wise man has permitted eye-openers to rain upon him +their full, beneficent, and sacramental influence. And if a man in +travelling will always maintain his mind ready for what he really sees +and hears, he will become a whole nest of Columbuses discovering a +perfectly interminable series of new worlds. + +A man can only talk of what he himself knows. Let me give further +examples. I had always heard until I visited the Pyrenees how French +civilization (especially in the matter of roads, motors, and things like +that) went up to the "Spanish" frontier and then stopped dead. It +doesn't. The change is at the Aragonese frontier. On the Basque third of +the frontier the people are just as active and fond of wealth, and of +scraping of stone and of cleanliness, and of drawing straight lines, to +the north as to the south of it. They are all one people, as +industrious, as thrifty, and as prosperous as the Scots. So are the +Catalans one people, and you get much the same sort of advantages and +disadvantages (apart from the effect of government) with the Catalans to +the north as with the Catalans to the south of the border. + +So with religion. I had thought to find the Spanish churches crowded. I +found just the contrary. It was the French churches that were crowded, +not the Spanish; and the difference between the truth--what one really +sees and hears--and the printed legend happens to be very subtly +illustrated in this case of religion. The French have inherited (and are +by this time used to, and have, perhaps grown fond of) a big religious +debate. Those who side with the national religion and tradition +emphasize their opinion in every possible way--so do their opponents. +You pick up two newspapers from Toulouse, for instance, and it is quite +on the cards that the leading article of each will be a disquisition +upon the philosophy of religion, the one, the "Depeche" of Toulouse, +militantly, and often solently atheist; the other as militantly +Catholic. + +You don't get that in Pamplona, and you don't get it in Saragossa. What +you get there is a profound dislike of being interfered with, ancient +and lazy customs, wealth retained by the chapters, the monasteries, and +the colleges, and with all this a curious, all-pervading indifference. + +One might end this little train of thought by considering a converse +test of what the eye-opener is in travel; and that test is to talk to +foreigners when they first come to England and see how they tend to +discover in England what they have read of at home instead of what they +really see. There have been very few fogs in London of late, but your +foreigner nearly always finds London foggy. Kent does not show along its +main railway line the evidence of agricultural depression: it is like a +garden. Yet, in a very careful and thorough French book just published +by a French traveller, his bird's-eye view of the country as he went +through Kent just after landing would make you think the place a desert; +he seems to have thought the hedges a sign of agricultural decay. The +same foreigner will discover a plebeian character in the Commons and an +aristocratic one in the House of Lords, though he shall have heard but +four speeches in each, and though every one of the eight speeches shall +have been delivered by members of one family group closely intermarried, +wealthy, titled, and perhaps (who knows?) of some lineage as well. + +The moral is that one should tell the truth to oneself, and look out for +it outside one. It is quite as novel and as entertaining as the +discovery of the North Pole--or, in case that has come off (as some +believe), the discovery of the South Pole. + + + + +The Public + + +I notice a very curious thing in the actions particularly of business +men to-day, and of other men also, which is the projection outward from +their own inward minds of something which is called "The Public"--and +which is not there. + +I do not mean that a business man is wrong when he says that "the public +will demand" such and such an article, and on producing the article +finds it sells widely; he is obviously and demonstrably right in his use +of the word "public" in such a connexion. Nor is a man wrong or subject +to illusion when he says, "The public have taken to cinematograph +shows," or "The public were greatly moved when the Hull fishermen were +shot at by the Russian fleet in the North Sea." What I mean is "The +Public" as an excuse or scapegoat; the Public as a menace; the Public as +a butt. That Public simply does not exist. + +For instance, the publisher will say, as though he were talking of some +monster, "The Public will not buy Jinks's work. It is first-class work, +so it is too good for the Public." He is quite right in his statement of +fact. Of the very small proportion of our people who read only a +fraction buy books, and of the fraction that buy books very few indeed +buy Jinks's. Jinks has a very pleasant up-and-down style. He loves to +use funny words dragged from the tomb, and he has delicate little +emotions. Yet hardly anybody will buy him--so the publisher is quite +right in one sense when he says, "The Public" won't buy Jinks. But where +he is quite wrong and suffering from a gross illusion is in the motive +and the manner of his saying it. He talks of "The Public" as something +gravely to blame and yet irredeemably stupid. He talks of it as +something quite external to himself, almost as something which he has +never personally come across. He talks of it as though it were a Mammoth +or an Eskimo. Now, if that publisher would wander for a moment into the +world of realities he would perceive his illusion. Modern men do not +like realities, and do not usually know the way to come in contact with +them. I will tell the publisher how to do so in this case. + +Let him consider what books he buys himself, what books his wife buys; +what books his eldest son, his grandmother, his Aunt Jane, his old +father, his butler (if he runs to one), his most intimate friend, and +his curate buy. He will find that not one of these people buys Jinks. +Most of them will talk Jinks, and if Jinks writes a play, however dull, +they will probably go and see it once; but they draw the line at buying +Jinks's books--and I don't blame them. + +The moral is very simple. You yourselves are "The Public," and if you +will watch your own habits you will find that the economic explanation +of a hundred things becomes quite clear. + +I have seen the same thing in the offices of a newspaper. Some simple +truth of commanding interest to this country, involving no attack upon +any rich man, and therefore not dangerous under our laws, comes up for +printing. It is discussed in the editor's room. The editor says, "Yes, +of course, we know it is true, and of course it is important, but the +Public would not stand it." + +I remember one newspaper office of my youth in which the Public was +visualized as a long file of people streaming into a Wesleyan chapel, +and another in which the Public was supposed to be made up without +exception of retired officers and maiden ladies, every one of whom was a +communicant of the English Established Church, every one of good birth, +and yet every one devoid of culture. + +Without the least doubt each of these absurd symbols haunted the brain +of each of the editors in question. The editor of the first paper would +print at wearisome length accounts of obscure Catholic clerical scandals +on the Continent, and would sweat with alarm if his sub-editors had +admitted a telegram concerning the trial of some fraudulent Protestant +missionary or other in China. + +Meanwhile his rather dull paper was being bought by you and me, and bank +clerks and foreign tourists, and doctors, and publicans, and brokers, +Catholics, Protestants, atheists, "peculiar people," and every kind of +man for many reasons--because it had the best social statistics, because +it had a very good dramatic critic, because they had got into the habit +and couldn't stop, because it came nearest to hand on the bookstall. Of +a hundred readers, ninety-nine skipped the clerical scandal and either +chuckled over the fraudulent missionary or were bored by him and went on +to the gambling news from the Stock Exchange. But the type for whom all +that paper was produced, the menacing god or demon who was supposed to +forbid publication of certain news in it, did not exist. + +So it was with the second paper, but with this difference, that the +editor was right about the social position of those who read his sheet, +but quite wrong about the opinions and emotions of people in that social +position. + +It was all the more astonishing from the fact that the editor was born +in that very class himself and perpetually mixed with it. No one perhaps +read "The Stodge" (for under this device would I veil the true name of +the organ) more carefully than those retired officers of either service +who are to be found in what are called our "residential" towns. The +editor was himself the son of a colonel of guns who had settled down in +a Midland watering-place. He ought to have known that world, and he did +know that world, but he kept his illusion of his Public quite apart from +his experience of realities. + +Your retired officer (to take his particular section of this particular +paper's audience) is nearly always a man with a hobby, and usually a +good scientific or literary hobby at that. He writes many of our best +books demanding research. He takes an active part in public work which +requires statistical study. He is always a travelled man, and nearly +always a well-read man. The broadest and the most complete questioning +and turning and returning of the most fundamental subjects--religion, +foreign policy, and domestic economics--are quite familiar to him. But +the editor was not selecting news for that real man; he was selecting +news for an imaginary retired officer of inconceivable stupidity and +ignorance, redeemed by a childlike simplicity. If a book came in, for +instance, on biology, and there was a chance of having it reviewed by +one of the first biologists of the day, he would say: "Oh, our Public +won't stand evolution," and he would trot out his imaginary retired +officer as though he were a mule. + +Artists, by which I mean painters, and more especially art critics, sin +in this respect. They say: "The public wants a picture to tell a story," +and they say it with a sneer. Well, the public does want a picture to +tell a story, because you and I want a picture to tell a story. Sorry. +But so it is. The art critic himself wants it to tell a story, and so +does the artist. Each would rather die than admit it, but if you set +either walking, with no one to watch him, down a row of pictures you +would see him looking at one picture after another with that expression +of interest which only comes on a human face when it is following a +human relation. A mere splash of colour would bore him; still more a +mere medley of black and white. The story may have a very simple plot; +it may be no more than an old woman sitting on a chair, or a landscape, +but a picture, if a man can look at it all, tells a story right enough. +It must interest men, and the less of a story it tells the less it will +interest men. A good landscape tells so vivid a story that children (who +are unspoilt) actually transfer themselves into such a landscape, walk +about in it, and have adventures in it. + +They make another complaint against the public, that it desires painting +to be lifelike. Of course it does! The statement is accurate, but the +complaint is based on an illusion. It is you and I and all the world +that want painting to imitate its object. There is a wonderful picture +in the Glasgow Art Gallery, painted by someone a long time ago, in which +a man is represented in a steel cuirass with a fur tippet over it, and +the whole point of that picture is that the fur looks like fur and the +steel looks like steel. I never met a critic yet who was so bold as to +say that picture was a bad picture. It is one of the best pictures in +the world; but its whole point is the liveliness of the steel and of the +fur. + +Finally, there is one proper test to prove that all this jargon about +"The Public" is nonsense, which is that it is altogether modern. Who +quarrelled with the Public in the old days when men lived a healthy +corporate life, and painted, wrote, or sang for the applause of their +fellows? + +If you still suffer from the illusion after reading these magisterial +lines of mine, why, there is a drastic way to cure yourself, which is to +go for a soldier; take the shilling and live in a barracks for a year; +then buy yourself out. You will never despise the public again. And +perhaps a better way still is to go round the Horn before the mast. But +take care that your friends shall send you enough money to Valparaiso +for your return journey to be made in some comfort; I would not wish my +worst enemy to go back the way he came. + + + + +On Entries + + +I am always planning in my mind new kinds of guide books. Or, rather, +new features in guide books. + +One such new feature which I am sure would be very useful would be an +indication to the traveller of how he should approach a place. + +I would first presuppose him quite free and able to come by rail or by +water or by road or on foot across the fields, and then I would describe +how the many places I have seen stand quite differently in the mind +according to the way in which one approaches them. + +The value of travel, to the eye at least, lies in its presentation of +clear and permanent impressions, and these I think (though some would +quarrel with me for saying it) are usually instantaneous. It is the +first sharp vision of an unknown town, the first immediate vision of a +range of hills, that remains for ever and is fruitful of joy within the +mind, or, at least, that is one and perhaps the chief of the fruits of +travel. + +I remember once, for instance, waking from a dead sleep in a train (for +I was very tired) and finding it to be evening. What woke me was the +sudden stopping of the train. It was in Italy. A man in the carriage +said to me that there was some sort of accident and that we should be +waiting a while. The people got out and walked about by the side of the +track. I also got out of the carriage and took the air, and when I so +stepped out into the cool of that summer evening I was amazed at the +loneliness and tragedy of the place. + +There were no houses about me that I could see save one little place +built for the railway men. There was no cultivation either. + +Close before me began a sort of swamp with reeds which hardly moved to +the air, and this gradually merged into a sheet of water above and +beyond which were hills, barren and not very high, which took the last +of the daylight, for they looked both southward and to the west. The +more I watched the extraordinary and absolute scene the less I heard of +the low voices about me, and indeed a sort of positive silence seemed to +clothe the darkening landscape. It was full of something quite gone +down, and one had the impression that it would never be disturbed. + +As the light lessened, the hills darkened, the sky took on one broad and +tender colour, the sheet of water gleamed quite white, and the reeds +stood up like solid shadows against it. I wish I could express in words +the impression of recollection and of savage mourning which all that +landscape imposed, but from that impression I was recalled and startled +by the guard, who came along telling us that things were righted and +that the train would start again; soon we were in our places and the +rapid movement isolated for me the memory of a singularly vivid scene. I +thought the place must have a name, and I asked a neighbour in the +carriage what it was called; he told me it was called Lake Trasimene. + +Now I do not say that this tragic site is to be visited thus. It was but +an accident, though an accident for which I am most grateful to my fate. +But what I have said here illustrates my meaning that the manner of +one's approach to any place in travel makes all the difference. + +Thus one may note how very different is Europe seen from the water than +seen from any other opportunity for travel. So many of the great +cathedrals were built to dominate men who should watch them from the +wharves of the mediaeval towns, but I think it is almost a rule if you +have leisure and can take your choice to choose this kind of entry to +them. Amiens is quite a different thing seen from the river below it to +the north and east from what it is seen by a gradual approach along the +street of a modern town. The roofs climb up at it, and it stands +enthroned. So Chartres seen from the little Eure; but the Eure is so +small a river that he would be a bold man who would travel up it all +this way. Nevertheless it is a good piece of travel, and anyone who will +undertake it will see Louviers and will pass Anet, where the greatest +work of the Renaissance once stood, and will go through lonely but rich +pastures until at last he gets to Chartres by the right gate. Thence he +will see something astonishing for so flat a region as the Beauce. The +great church seems mountainous upon a mountain. Its apse completes the +unclimbable steepness of the hill and its buttresses follow the lines of +the fall of it. But if you do not come in by the river, at least come in +by the Orleans road. I suppose that nine people out of ten, even to-day +when the roads are in proper use again, come into Chartres by that +northern railway entry, which is for all the world like coming into a +great house by a big, neglected backyard. + +Then if ever you have business that takes you to Bayonne, come in by +river and from the sea, and how well you will understand the little town +and its lovely northern Gothic! + +Some of the great churches all the world knows must be seen from the +water, and most of the world so sees them. Ely is one, Cologne is +another, but how many people have looked right up at Durham as at a +cliff from that gorge below, or how many have seen the height of Albi +from the Tarn? + +As for famous cities with their walls, there is no doubt that a man +should approach them by the chief high road, which once linked them with +their capital, or with their nearest port, or with Rome--and that +although this kind of entry is nowadays often marred by ugly suburbs. +You will get much your finest sight of Segovia as you come in by the +road from the Guadarama and from Madrid. It is from that point that you +were meant to see the town, and you will get much your best grip on +Carcassonne, old Carcassonne, if you come in by the road from Toulouse +at morning as you were meant to come, and so Coucy should be approached +by that royal road from Soissons and from the south, while as for Laon +(the most famous of the hill towns), come to it from the east, for it +looks eastward, and its lords were Eastern lords. + +Ranges of hills, I think, are never best first seen from railways. +Indeed, I can remember no great sight of hills so seen, not even the +Alps. A railway must of necessity follow the floor of the valley and +tunnel and creep round the shoulders of the bulwarks. There is perhaps +one exception to this rule, which is the sight of the Pyrenees from the +train as one comes into Tarbes. It is a wise thing if you are visiting +those hills to come into Tarbes by night and sleep there, and then next +morning the train upon its way to Pau unfolds you all the wall of the +mountains. But this is an accident. It is because the railway runs upon +a sort of high platform that you see the mountains so. With all other +hills that I remember it is best to have them burst suddenly upon you +from the top of some pass lifted high above the level and coming, let us +say, to a height half their own. Certainly the Bernese Oberland is more +wonderful caught in one moment from the Jura than introduced in any +other way, and the snows on Atlas over the desert seem like part of the +sky when they come upon one after climbing the red rocks of the high +plateaux and you see them shining over the salt marshes. The Vosges you +cannot thus see from a half-height; there is no platform, and that is +perhaps why the Vosges have not impressed travellers as they should. But +you can so watch the grand chain of old volcanoes which are the rampart +of Auvergne. You can stand upon the high wooden ridge of Foreze and see +them take the morning across the mists and the flat of the Limagne, +where the Gauls fought Caesar. Further south from the high table of the +Velay you can see the steep backward escarpment of the Cevennes, inky +blue, desperately blue, blue like nothing else on earth except the +mountains in those painters of North Italy, of the parts north and east +of Venice, the name of whose school escapes me--or, rather, I never knew +it. + +Now, as for towns that live in a hollow, it is great fun to come upon +them from above. They are not used to being thus taken at a disadvantage +and they are both surprised and surprising. There are many towns in +holes and trenches of Europe which you can thus play "peep-bo" with if +you will come at them walking. By train they will mean nothing to you. +You will probably come upon them out of a long, shrieking tunnel, and by +the high road they mean little more, for the high road will follow the +vale. But if you come upon them from over their guardian cliffs and +scars you catch them unawares, and this is a good way of approaching +them, for you master them, as it were, and spy them out before you enter +in. You can act thus with Grenoble and with many a town on the Meuse, +and particularly with Aubusson, which lies in the depths of so dreadful +a trench that I could wonder how man ever dreamt of living and building +there. + +The most difficult of all places on which to advise, I think, would be +the very great cities, the capitals. They seem to have to-day no noble +entries and no proper approach. Perhaps we shall only deal with them +justly when we can circle down to them through the air and see their +vast activity splashed over the plain. Anyhow, there is no proper way of +entering them now that I know of. Berlin is not worth entering at all. +Rome (a man told me once) could be entered by some particular road over +the Janiculum, I think--which also, if I remember right, was the way +that Shelley came--but I despair of Paris, and certainly of London. I +cannot even recall an entry for Brussels, though Brussels is a +monumental city with great rewards for those who love the combination of +building and hills. + +Perhaps, after all, the happiest entries of all and the most easy are +those of our many market towns, small and not swollen in Britain and in +Northern Gaul and in the Netherlands and in the Valley of the Rhine. +These hardly ever fail us, and we come upon them in our travels as they +desire that we should come, and we know them properly as things should +properly be known--that is, from the beginning. + + + + +Companions of Travel + + +I write of travelling companions in general, and not in particular, +making of them a composite photograph, as it were, and finding what they +have in common and what is their type; and in the first place I find +them to be chance men. For there are some people who cannot travel +without a set companion who goes with them from Charing Cross all over +the world and back to Charing Cross again. And there is a pathos in +this: as Balzac said of marriage, "What a commentary on human life, that +human beings must associate to endure it." So it is with many who cannot +endure to travel alone: and some will positively advertise for another +to go with them. + +In a glade of the Sierra Nevada, which, for awful and, as it were, +permanent beauty seemed not to be of this world, I came upon a man +slowly driving along the trail a ramshackle cart, in which were a few +chairs and tables and bedding. He had a long grey beard and wild eyes; +he was old, and very small like a gnome, but he had not the gnome's +good-humour. I asked him where he was going, and I slowed down, so as to +keep pace with his ridiculous horse. For some time he would not answer +me, and then he said, "Out of this." He added, "I am tired of it." And +when I asked him, "Of what?" his only answer was an old-fashioned oath. +But from further complaints which he made I gathered that what he was +tired of was clearing forests, digging ground, paying debts, and in +general living upon this unhappy earth. He did not like me very much, +and though I would willingly have learned more, he would tell me nothing +further, so when we got to a place where there was a little stream I +went on and left him. + +I have never forgotten the sadness of this man. Where he was going, and +what he expected to do, or what opportunities he had, I have never +understood. Though some years after, in quite another place--namely, +Steyning, in Sussex--I came upon just such another, whose quarrel was +with the English climate, the rich and the poor, and the whole +constitution of God's earth. These are the advantages of travel, that +one meets so many men whom one would otherwise never meet, and that one +feeds as it were upon the complexity of mankind. + +Thus in a village called Encamps, in the depths of Andorra, where no man +has ever killed another, I found a man with a blue face, who was a +fossil, the kind of man you would never find in the swelling life of +Western Europe. He was emancipated, he had studied in Perpignan, over +and beyond the great hills. He could not see why he should pay taxes to +support a priest. "The priests" he assured me, "say the most ridiculous +things. They narrate the most impossible fables. They affirm what cannot +possibly be true. All that they say is in opposition to science. If I am +ill, can a priest cure me? No. Can a priest tell me how to build, or how +to light my house? He is unable to do so. He is a useless and a lying +mouth, why should I feed him?" + +I questioned this man very closely, and discovered that in his view the +world slowly changed from worse to better, and to accelerate this +process enlightenment alone was needed. "But what do these brutes," he +said, alluding to his fellow-countrymen, "know of enlightenment? They do +not even make roads, because the priests forbid them." + +I could write at length upon this man. He was not a Sceptic as you may +imagine, nor had he adopted the Lucretian form of Epicureanism. Not a +bit of it. He was a hearty Atheist, with Positivist leanings. I further +found that he had married a woman older, wealthier, and if possible +uglier than himself. She kept the inn, and was very kind to him. His +life would have been quite happy had he not been tortured by the +monstrous superstitions of others. + +Then, again, in the town of Marseilles, only two years ago, I met a man +who looked well fed, and had a stalwart, square French face, and whose +politico-economic ideal, though it was not mine, greatly moved me. It +was just past midnight, and I was throwing little stones into the old +Greek harbour, the stench and the glory of which are nearly three +thousand years old; I was to be off at dawn upon a tramp steamer, and I +had so determined to pass the few hours of darkness. + +I was throwing pebbles into the water, I say, and thinking about +Ulysses, when this man came slouching up, with his hands in the pockets +of his enormous corduroy trousers, and, looking at me with some contempt +from above (for he was standing, I was sitting), he began to converse +with me. We talked first of ships, then of heat and cold, and so on to +wealth and poverty; and thus it was I came upon his views, which were +that there should be a sort of break up, and houses ought to be burned, +and things smashed, and people killed; and over and above this, it +should be made plain that no one had a right to govern: not the people, +because they were always being bamboozled; obviously not the rich; least +of all, the politicians, to whom he justly applied the most derogatory +epithets. He waved his arm out in the darkness at the Phoceans, at the +half-million of Marseilles, and said, "All that should disappear." The +constructive side of his politico-economic scheme was negative. He was a +practical man. None of your fine theories for him. One step at a time. +Let there be a Chambardement--that is, a noisy collapse, and he would +think about what to do afterwards. + +His was not the narrow, deductive mind. He was objective and concrete. +Believe me or not, he was paid an excellent wage by the municipality to +prevent people like me, who sit up at night, from doing mischief in the +harbour. When I had come to an end of his politico-economic scheme--the +main lines of which were so clear and simple that a child could +understand them--we fell to talking of the tides, and I told him that in +my country the sea went up and down. He was no rustic, and would have no +such commonplace truths. He was well acquainted with the Phenomenon of +the Tides; it was due to the combined attraction of the sun and of the +moon. But when I told him I knew places where the tides fell thirty or +forty feet, we would have had a violent quarrel had I not prudently +admitted that that was romantic exaggeration, and that five or six was +the most that one ever saw it move. I avoided the quarrel, but the +little incident broke up our friendship, and he shuffled away. He did +not like having his leg pulled. + +There are many others I remember. Those I have written about elsewhere I +am ashamed to recall, as the man at Jedburgh, who first expounded to me +how one knew all about the fate of the individual soul, and then +objected to personal questions about his own; the German officer man at +Aix-la-Chapelle, who had hair the colour of tow, and gave me minute +details of the method by which England was to be destroyed; a man I met +upon the Appian Way, who told the most abominable lies; and another man +who met me outside Oxford station during the Vac. and offered to show me +the sights of the town for a consideration, which he did, but I would +not pay him because he was inaccurate, as I easily proved by a few +searching questions upon the exact site of Bocardo (of which he had +never heard), and the negative evidence against a Roman origin for the +site of the city. Moreover, he said that Trinity was St. John's, which +was rubbish. + +Then there was another man who travelled with me from Birmingham, +pressed certain tracts upon me, and wanted to charge me sixpence each at +Paddington. But if I were to speak of even these few I should exceed. + + + + +On the Sources of Rivers + + +There are certain customs in man the permanence of which gives infinite +pleasure. When the mood of the schools is against them these customs lie +in wait beneath the floors of society, but they never die, and when a +decay in pedantry or in despotism or in any other evil and inhuman +influence permits them to reappear they reappear. + +One of these customs is the religious attachment of man to isolated high +places, peaks, and single striking hills. On these he must build +shrines, and though he is a little furtive about it nowadays, yet the +instinct is there, strong as ever. I have not often come to the top of a +high hill with another man but I have seen him put a few stones together +when he got there, or, if he had not the moral courage so to satisfy his +soul, he would never fail on such an occasion to say something ritual and +quasi-religious, even if it were only about the view; and another instinct +of the same sort is the worship of the sources of rivers. + +The Iconoclast and the people whose pride it is that their senses are +dead will see in a river nothing more than so much moisture gathered in +a narrow place and falling as the mystery of gravitation inclines it. +Their mood is the mood of that gentleman who despaired and wrote: + + A cloud's a lot of vapour, + The sky's a lot of air, + And the sea's a lot of water + That happens to be there. + +You cannot get further down than that. When you have got as far down as +that all is over. Luckily God still keeps his mysteries going for you, +and you can't get rid, even in that mood, of the certitude that you +yourself exist and that things outside of you are outside of you. But +when you get into that modern mood you do lose the personality of +everything else, and you forget the sanctity of river heads. + +You have lost a great deal when you have forgotten that, and it behoves +you to recover what you have lost as quickly as possible, which is to be +done in this way: Visit the source of some famous stream and think about +it. There was a Scotchman once who discovered the sources of the Nile, +to the lasting advantage of mankind and the permanent glory of his +native land. He thought the source of the Nile looked rather like the +sources of the Till or the Tweed or some such river of Thule. He has +been ridiculed for saying this, but he was mystically very right. The +source of the greatest of rivers, since it was sacred to him, reminded +him of the sacred things of his home. + +When I consider the sources of rivers which I have seen, there is not +one, I think, which I do not remember to have had about it an influence +of awe. Not only because one could in imaginings see the kingdoms of the +cities which it was to visit and the way in which it would bind them all +together in one province and one story, but also simply because it was +an origin. + +The sources of the Rhone are famous: the Rhone comes out of a glacier +through a sort of ice cave, and if it were not for an enormous hotel +quite four-square it would be as lonely a place as there is in Europe, +and as remarkable a beginning for a great river as could anywhere be +found. Nor, when you come to think of it, does any European river have +such varied fortunes as the Rhone. It feeds such different religions and +looks on such diverse landscapes. It makes Geneva and it makes Avignon; +it changes in colour and in the nature of its going as it goes. It sees +new products appearing continually on its journey until it comes to +olives, and it flows past the beginning of human cities, when it +reflects the huddle of old Arles. + +The sources of the Garonne are well known. The Garonne rises by itself +in a valley from which there is no issue, like the fabled valleys shut +in by hills on every side. And if it were anything but the Garonne it +would not be able to escape: it would lie imprisoned there for ever. +Being the Garonne it tunnels a way for itself right under the High +Pyrenees and comes out again on the French side. There are some that +doubt this, but then there are people who would doubt anything. + +The sources of the River Arun are not so famous as these two last, and +it is a good thing, for they are to be found in one of the loneliest +places within an hour of London that any man can imagine, and if you +were put down there upon a windy day you would think yourself upon the +moors. There is nothing whatsoever near you at the beginnings of the +little sacred stream. + +Thames had a source once which was very famous. The water came out +plainly at a fountain under a bleak wood just west of the Fosse Way, +under which it ran by a culvert, a culvert at least as old as the +Romans. But when about a hundred years ago people began to improve the +world in those parts, they put up a pumping station and they pumped +Thames dry--since which time its gods have deserted the river. + +The sources of the Ribble are in a lonely place up in a corner of the +hills where everything has strange shapes and where the rocks make one +think of trolls. The great frozen Whernside stands up above it, and +Ingleborough Hill, which is like no other hill in England, but like the +flat-topped Mesas which you have in America, or (as those who have +visited it tell me) like the flat hills of South Africa; and a little +way off on the other side is Pen-y-ghent, or words to that effect. The +little River Ribble rises under such enormous guardianship. It rises +quite clean and single in the shape of a little spring upon the +hillside, and too few people know it. The other river that flows east +while the Ribble flows west is the River Ayr. It rises in a curious way, +for it imitates the Garonne, and finding itself blocked by limestone +burrows underneath at a place called Malham Tarn, after which it has no +more trouble. + +The River Severn, the River Wye, and a third unimportant river, or at +least important only for its beauty (and who would insist on that?) rise +all close together on the skirts of Plinlimmon, and the smallest of them +has the most wonderful rising, for it falls through the gorge of Llygnant, +which looks like, and perhaps is, the deepest cleft in this island, or, at +any rate, the most unexpected. And a fourth source on the mountain, a tarn +below its summit, is the source of Rheidol, which has a short but +adventurous life like Achilles. + +There is one source in Europe that is properly dealt with, and where the +religion due to the sources of rivers has free play, and this is the +source of the Seine. It comes out upon the northern side of the hills +which the French call the Hills of Gold, in a country of pasturage and +forest, very high up above the world and thinly peopled. The River Seine +appears there in a sort of miraculous manner, pouring out of a grotto, +and over this grotto the Parisians have built a votive statue; and there +is yet another of the hundred thousand things that nobody knows. + + + + +On Error + + +There is an elusive idea that has floated through the minds of most of +us as we grew older and learnt more and more things. It is an idea +extremely difficult to get into set terms. It is an idea very difficult +to put so that we shall not seem nonsensical; and yet it is a very +useful idea, and if it could be realized its realization would be of +very practical value. It is the idea of a Dictionary of Ignorance and +Error. + +On the face of it a definition of the work is impossible. Strictly +speaking it would be infinite, for human knowledge, however far +extended, must always be infinitely small compared with all possible +knowledge, just as any given finite space is infinitely small compared +with all space. + +But that is not the idea which we entertain when we consider this +possible Dictionary of Ignorance and Error. What we really mean is a +Dictionary of the sort of Ignorance and the sort of Error which we know +ourselves to have been guilty of, which we have escaped by special +experience or learning as time went on, and against which we would warn +our fellows. + +Flaubert, I think, first put it down in words, and said that such an +encyclopaedia was very urgently needed. + +It will never exist, but we all know that it ought to exist. Bits of it +appear from time to time piecemeal and here and there, as for instance +in the annotations which modern scholarship attaches to the great text, +in the printed criticisms to which sundry accepted doctrines are +subjected by the younger men to-day, in the detailed restatement of +historical events which we get from modern research as our fathers could +never have them--but the work itself, the complete Encyclopaedia or +Dictionary of Ignorance and Error, will never be printed. It is a great +pity. + +Incidentally one may remark that the process by which a particular error +is propagated is as interesting to watch as the way in which a plant +grows. + +The first step seems to be the establishing of an authority and the +giving of that authority a name which comes to connote doctrinal +infallibility. A very good example of this is the title "Science." Mere +physical research, its achievements, its certitudes, even its +conflicting and self-contradictory hypotheses, having got lumped +together in many minds under this one title Science, the title is now +sacred. It is used as a priestly title, as an immediate estopper to +doubt or criticism. + +The next step is a very interesting one for the student of psychical +pathology to note. It seems to be a disease as native and universal to +the human mind as is the decay of the teeth to the human body. It seems +as though we all must suffer somewhat from it, and most of us suffer a +great deal from it, though in a cool aspect we easily perceive it to be +a lesion of thought. And this second step is as follows: + +The whole lump having been given its sacred title and erected into an +infallible authority, which you are to accept as directly superior to +yourself and all personal sources of information, there is attributed to +this idol a number of attributes. We give it a soul, and a habit and +manners which do not attach to its stuff at all. The projection of this +imagined living character in our authority is comparable to what we also +do with mountains, statues, towns, and so forth. Our living +individuality lends individuality to them. I might here digress to +discuss whether this habit of the mind were not a distorted reflection +of some truth, and whether, indeed, there be not such beings as demons +or the souls of things. But, to leave that, we take our authority--this +thing "Science," for instance--we clothe it with a creed and appetites +and a will, and all the other human attributes. + +This done, we set out in the third step in our progress towards fixed +error. We make the idol speak. Of course, being only an idol, it talks +nonsense. But by the previous steps just referred to we must believe +that nonsense, and believe it we do. Thus it is, I think, that fixed +error is most generally established. + +I have already given one example in the hierarchic title "Science." + +It was but the other day that I picked up a weekly paper in which a +gentleman was discussing ghosts--that is, the supposed apparition of the +living and the dead: of the dead though dead, and of the living though +absent. + +Nothing has been more keenly discussed since the beginning of human +discussions. Are these phenomena (which undoubtedly happen) what modern +people call subjective, or are they what modern people call objective? +In old-fashioned English, Are the ghosts really there or are they not? +The most elementary use of the human reason persuades us that the matter +is not susceptible of positive proof. The criterion of certitude in any +matter of perception is an inner sense in the perceiver that the thing +he perceives is external to himself. He is the only witness; no one can +corroborate or dispute him. The seer may be right or he may be wrong, +but we have no proof--and only according to our temperament, our fancy, +our experience, our mood, do we decide with one or the other of the two +great schools. + +Well, the gentleman of whom I am speaking wrote and had printed in plain +English this phrase (read it carefully):--"Science teaches us that these +phenomena are purely subjective." + +Now I am quite sure that of the thousands who read that phrase all but a +handful read it in the spirit in which one hears the oracle of a god. +Some read it with regret, some with pleasure, but all with acquiescence. + +That physical science was not competent in the matter one way or the +other each of those readers would probably have discovered, if even so +simple a corrective as the use of the term "physical research" instead +of the sacred term "science" had been applied; the hierarchic title +"Science" did the trick. + +I might take another example out of many hundreds to show what I mean. +You have an authority which is called, where documents are concerned, +"The Best Modern Criticism." "The Best Modern Criticism" decides that +"Tam o' Shanter" was written by a committee of permanent officials of +the Board of Trade, or that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed. As a +matter of fact, the tomfoolery does not usually venture upon ground so +near home, but it talks rubbish just as monstrous about a poem a few +hundred or a few thousand years old, or a great personality a few +hundred or a few thousand years old. + +Now if you will look at that phrase "The Best Modern Criticism" you will +see at once that it simply teems with assumption and tautology. But it +does more and worse: it presupposes that an infallible authority must of +its own nature be perpetually wrong. + +Even supposing that I have the most "modern" (that is, merely the +latest) criticism to hand, and even supposing that by some omniscience +of mine I can tell which is "the best" (that is, which part of it has +really proved most ample, most painstaking, most general, and most +sincere), even then the phrase fatally condemns me. It is to say that +Wednesday is always infallible as compared with Tuesday, and Thursday as +compared with Wednesday, which is absurd. + +The B.M.C. tells me in 1875 that the Song of Roland could have no +origins anterior to the year 1030. But the B.M.C. of 1885 (being a +B.M.C. and nothing more valuable) has a changed opinion. It must change +its opinion, that is the law of its being, since an integral factor in +its value is its modernity. In 1885 B.M.C. tells me that the Song of +Roland can be traced to origins far earlier, let us say to 912. + +In 1895 B.M.C. has come to other conclusions--the Song of Roland is +certainly as late as 1115 ... and so forth. + +Now you would say that an idol of that absurdity could have no effect +upon sane men. Change the terms and give it another name, and you would +laugh at the idea of its having an effect upon any men. But we know as a +matter of fact that it commands the thoughts of nearly all men to-day +and makes cowards of the most learned. + +Perhaps you will ask me at the end of so long a criticism in what way +error may be corrected, since there is this sort of tendency in us to +accept it, to which I answer that things correct it, or as the +philosophers call things, "Reality." Error does not wash. + +To go back to that example of ghosts. If ever you see a ghost (my poor +reader), I shall ask you afterwards whether he seemed subjective or no. +I think you will find the word "subjective" an astonishingly thin +one--if, at least, I catch you early after the experience. + + + + +The Great Sight + + +All night we had slept on straw in a high barn. The wood of its beams +was very old, and the tiles upon the roof were green with age; but there +hung from beam to beam, fantastically, a wire caught by nails, and here +and there from this wire hung an electric-light bulb. It was a symbol of +the time, and the place, and the people. There was no local by-law to +forbid such a thing, or if there was, no one dreamt of obeying it. + +Just in the first dawn of that September day we went out, my companion +and I, at guesswork to hunt in the most amusing kind of hunting, which +is the hunting of an army. The lane led through one of those lovely +ravines of Picardy which travellers never know (for they only see the +plains), and in a little while we thought it wise to strike up the steep +bank from the valley on to the bare plateau above, but it was all at +random and all guesswork, only we wisely thought that we were nearing +the beginning of things, and that on the bare fields of the high flat we +should have a greater horizon and a better chance of catching any +indications of men or arms. + +When we had reached the height the sun had long risen, but it as yet +gave no shining and there were no shadows, for a delicate mist hung all +about the landscape, though immediately above us the sky was faintly +blue. + +It was the weirdest of sensations to go for mile after mile over that +vast plain, to know that it was cut in regular series by parallel +ravines which in all that extended view we could not guess at; to see up +to the limits of the plateau the spires of villages and the groups of +trees about them, and to know that somewhere in all this there lay +concealed a _corps d'armee_--and not to see or hear a soul. The +only human being that we saw was a man driving a heavy farm cart very +slowly up a side-way just as we came into the great road which has shot +dead across this country in one line ever since the Romans built it. As +we went along that road, leaving the fields, we passed by many men +indeed, and many houses, all in movement with the early morning; and the +chalked numbers on the doors, and here and there an empty tin of +polishing-paste or an order scrawled on paper and tacked to a wall +betrayed the passage of soldiers. But of the army there was nothing at +all. Scouting on foot (for that was what it was) is a desperate +business, and that especially if you have nothing to tell you whether +you will get in touch in five, or ten, or twenty miles. + +It was nine o'clock before a clatter of horse-hoofs came up the road +behind us. At first my companion and I wondered whether it were the +first riders of the Dragoons or Cuirassiers. In that case the advance +was from behind us. But very soon, as the sound grew clearer, we heard +how few they were, and then there came into view, trotting rapidly, a +small escort and two officers with the umpires' badges, so there was +nothing doing; but when, half a mile ahead of us on the road, they +turned off to the left over plough, we knew that that was the way we +must follow too. Before we came to the turning-place, before we left the +road to take the fields on the left, there came from far off and on our +right the sound of a gun. + +It was my companion who heard it first. We strained to hear it again; +twice we thought we had caught it, and then again twice we doubted. It +is not so easily recognizable a sound as you might think in those great +plains cut by islands of high trees and steading walls. The little "75" +gun lying low makes a different sound altogether at a distance from the +old piece of "90." At any rate there was here no doubt that there were +guns to the right and in front of us, and the umpire had gone to the +left. We were getting towards the thick, and we had only to go straight +on to find out where the front was. + +Just as we had so decided and were still pursuing the high road, there +came, not half a mile away and again to our right, in a valley below us, +that curious sound which is like nothing at all unless it be dumping of +flints out of a cart: rifle fire. It cracked and tore in stretches. Then +there were little gaps of silence like the gaps in signalling, and then +it cracked and tore in stretches again; and then, fitfully, one +individual shot and then another would be heard; and, much further off, +with little sounds like snaps, the replies began from the hillside +beyond the stream. So far so good. Here was contact in the valley below +us, and the guns, some way behind and far off northwards, had opened. So +we got the hang of it instantly--the front was a sort of a crescent +lying roughly north and south, and roughly parallel to the great road, +and the real or feigned mass of the advance was on the extreme left of +that front. We were in it now, and that anxious and wearing business in +all hunting, finding, was over; but we had been on foot six mortal hours +before coming across our luck, and more than half the soldiers' day was +over. These men had been afoot since three, and certain units on the +left had already marched over twenty miles. + +After that coming in touch with our business, not only did everything +become plain, but the numbers we met, and what I have called "the thick +of things," fed us with interest. We passed half the 38th, going down +the road singing, to extend the line, and in a large village we came to +the other half, slouching about in the traditional fashion of the +Service; they had been waiting for an hour. With them, and lined up all +along the village street, was one battery, with the drivers dismounted, +and all that body were at ease. There were men sitting on the doorsteps +of the houses and men trotting to the canteen-wagon or to the village +shops to buy food; and there were men reading papers which a pedlar had +brought round. Mud and dust had splashed them all; upon some there was a +look of great fatigue; they were of all shapes and sizes, and altogether +it was the sort of sight you would not see in any other service in the +world. It was the sort of sight which so disgusted the Emperor Joseph +when he made his little tour to spy out the land before the +Revolutionary Wars. It was the sort of sight which made Massenbach +before Grandpre marvel whether the French forces were soldiers at all, +and the sort of sight which made Valmy inexplicable to the King of +Prussia and his staff. It was the sort of sight which eighteen months +later still convinced Mack in Tournai that the Duke of York's plan was a +plan "of annihilation." It is a trap for judgment is the French service. + +So they lounged about and bought bread, and shifted their packs, and so +the drivers stood by their horses, and so they all waited and slouched; +until there came, not a man with a bugle nor anything with the slightest +savour of drama but a little fellow running along thumping in his loose +leather leggings, who went up to a Major of Artillery and saluted, and +immediately afterwards the Major put his hand up, and then down a +village street, from a point which we could not see came a whistle, and +the whole of that mass of men began to swarm. The grey-blue coats of the +line swung round the corner of the village street; they had yet a few +miles before them. Anything more rapid or less in step it would be +difficult to conceive. The guns were off at a right angle down the main +road, making a prodigious clatter, and at the same time appeared two +parties, one of which it was easy to understand, the other not. They +were both parties of sappers. The one party had a great roll of wire on +a drum, and as quick as you could think they were unreeling it, and as +they unreeled it fastening it to eaves, overhanging branches, and to +corners of walls, stretching it out forward. It was the field-telephone. +The other party came along carrying great beams upon their shoulders, +but what they were to do with these beams we did not know. + +We followed the tail of the line down into the valley, and all that +morning long and past the food time at midday, and so till the sun +declined in the afternoon, we went with the 38th in its gradual success +from crest to crest. And still the 38th slouched by companies, and mile +after mile with checks and halts, and it never seemed to get either less +or more tired. The men had had twelve hours of it when they came at +last, and we after them, on to the critical position. They had carried +(together with all the line to left and to the right of them) a string +of villages which crowned the crest of a further plateau, and over this +further plateau they were advancing against the main body of the +resistance--the other army corps which was set up against ours, to +simulate an enemy. + +A railway line ran here across the rolling hedgeless fields, and just at +the point where my companion and I struck it there was a dip in the land +and a high embankment which hid the plain beyond; but from that plain +beyond one heard the separate fire of the advancing line in its +scattered order. We climbed the embankment, and from its ridge we saw +over two miles or more of stubble, the little creeping bunches of the +attack. What was resisting, or where it lay, one could only guess. Some +hundreds of yards before us to the east, with the sloping sun full on +it, a line of thicket, one scattered wood and then another, an +imperceptible lifting of the earth here and there marked the opposing +firing line. Two pompoms could be spotted exactly, for the flashes were +clear through the underwood. And still the tide of the advance continued +to flow, and the little groups came up and fed it, one after another and +another, in the centre where we were, and far away to the north and +right away to the south the countryside was alive with it. The action +was beginning to take on something of that final movement and decision +which makes the climax of manoeuvres look so great a game. But in a +little while that general creeping forward was checked: there were +orders coming from the umpires, and a sort of lull fell over each +position held. My companion said to me: + +"Let us go forward now over the intervening zone and in among Picquart's +men, and get well behind their line, and see whether there is a rally or +whether before the end of this day they begin to fall back again." + +So we did, walking a mile or so until we had long passed their outposts +and were behind their forward lines. And standing there, upon a little +eminence near a wood, we turned and looked over what we had come, +westward towards the sun which was now not far from its setting. Then it +was that we saw the last of the Great Sight. + +The level light, mellow and already reddening, illumined all that plain +strangely, and with the absolute stillness of the air contrasted the +opening of the guns which had been brought up to support the renewal of +the attack. We saw the isolated woods standing up like islands with low +steep cliffs, dotted in a sea of stubble for miles and miles, and first +from the cover of one and then from another the advance perpetually, +piercing and deploying. As we so watched there buzzed high above us, +like a great hornet, a biplane, circling well within our lines, beyond +attack from the advance, but overlooking all they concealed behind it. +In a few minutes a great Bleriot monoplane like a hawk followed, yet +further inwards. The two great birds shot round in an arc, parallel to +the firing line, and well behind it, and in a few minutes, that seemed +seconds, they were dots to the south and then lost in the air. And +perpetually, as the sun declined, Picquart's men were falling back north +and south of us and before us, and the advance continued. Group by group +we saw it piercing this hedge, that woodland, now occupying a nearer and +a nearer roll of land. It was the greatest thing imaginable: this +enormous sweep of men, the dead silence of the air, and the +comparatively slight contrast of the ceaseless pattering rifle fire and +the slight intermittent accompaniment of the advancing batteries; until +the sun set and all this human business slackened. Then for the first +time one heard bugles, which were a command to cease the game. + +I would not have missed that day nor lose the memories of it for +anything in the world. + + + + +The Decline of a State + + +The decline of a State is not equivalent to a mortal sickness therein. +States are organisms subject to diseases and to decay as are the +organisms of men's bodies; but they are not subject to a rhythmic rise +and fall as is the body of a man. A State in its decline is never a +State doomed or a State dying. States perish slowly or by violence, but +never without remedy and rarely without violence. + +The decline of a State differs with the texture of it. A democratic +State will decline from a lowering of its potential, that is of its +ever-ready energy to act in a crisis, to correct and to control its +servants in common times, to watch them narrowly and suspect them at all +times. A despotic State will decline when the despot is not in point of +fact the true depository of despotic power, but some other acting in his +name, of whom the people know little and cannot judge; or when the +despot, though fully in view and recognized, lacks will; or when (which +is rare) he is so inhuman as to miss the general sense of his subjects. +An oligarchic State, or aristocracy as it is called, will decline +principally through two agencies which are, first, illusion, and +secondly, lack of civic aptitude. For an oligarchic State tends very +readily to illusion, being conducted by men who live at leisure, satisfy +their passions, are immune from the laws, and prefer to shield +themselves from reality. Their capacity or appetite for illusion will +rapidly pervade those below them, for in an aristocracy the rulers are +subjected to a sort of worship from the rest of the community, and thus +it comes about that aristocracies in their decline accept fantastic +histories of their own past, conceive victory possible without armies, +wealth to be an indication of ability, and national security to be a +natural gift rather than a product of the will. Such communities further +fail from the lack of civic aptitude, as was said above, which means +that they deliberately elect to leave the mass of citizens incompetent +and irresponsible for generations, so that, when any more strain is upon +them, they look at once for some men other than themselves to relieve +them, and are incapable of corporate action upon their own account. + +The decline of a State differs also according to whether it be a great +State or a small one, for in the first indifference, in the latter +faction, are a peril, and in the first ignorance, in the latter private +spite. + +Then again, the decline of a State will differ according to whether its +strength is rooted originally in commerce, in arms, or in production; +and if in production, then whether in the production of the artisan or +in that of the peasant. If arms be the basis of the State, then that the +army should become professional and apart is a symptom of decline and a +cause of it; if commerce, the substitution of hazards and imaginaries +for the transport of real goods and the search after real demand; if +production, the discontent or apathy of the producer; as with peasants +an ill system in the taxation of the land or in the things necessary for +its tillage, such as a misgovernment of its irrigation in a dry country; +the permission of private exactions and tolls in a fertile one; the +toleration of thieves and forestallers, and so forth. Artisans, upon the +other hand, may well flourish, though the State be corrupt in such +matters, but they must be secured in a high wage and be given a vast +liberty of protest, for if they sink to be slaves in fact, they will +from the nature of their toil grow both weak and foolish. Yet is not the +State endangered by the artisan's throwing off a refuse of ill-paid and +starving men who are either too many for the work or unskilful at it? +Such an excretion would poison a peasantry, remaining in their body as +it were, but artisans are purged thereby. This refuse it is for the +State to decide upon. It may in an artisan State be used for soldiery +(since such States commonly maintain but small armies and are commonly +indifferent to military glory), or it may be set to useful labour, or +again, destroyed; but this last use is repugnant to humanity, and so in +the long run hurtful to the State. + +In the decline of a State, of whatever nature that State be, two vices +will immediately appear and grow: these are Avarice and Fear; and men +will more readily accept the imputation of Avarice than of Fear, for +Avarice is the less despicable of the two--yet in fact Fear will be by +far the strongest passion of the time. + +Avarice will show itself not indeed in a mere greed of gain (for this is +common to all societies whether flourishing or failing), but rather in a +sort of taking for granted and permeation of the mere love of money, so +that history will be explained by it, wars judged by their booty or +begun in order to enrich a few, love between men and women wholly +subordinated to it, especially among the rich: wealth made a test for +responsibility and great salaries invented and paid to those who serve +the State. This vice will also be apparent in the easy acquaintance of +all who are possessed of wealth and their segregation from the less +fortunate, for avarice cleaves society flatways, keeping the scum of it +quite clear of the middle, the middle of it quite clear of the dregs, +and so forth. It is a further mark of avarice in its last stages that +the rich are surrounded with lies in which they themselves believe. +Thus, in the last phase, there are no parasites but only friends, no +gifts but only loans, which are more esteemed favours than gifts once +were. No one vicious but only tedious, and no one a poltroon but only +slack. + +Of Fear in the decline of a State it may be said that it is so much the +master passion of such decline as to eat up all others. Coming by travel +from a healthy State to one diseased, Fear is the first point you take. +Men dare not print or say what they feel of the judges, the public +governors, the action of the police, the controllers of fortunes and of +news. This Fear will have about it something comic, providing infinite +joy to the foreigner, and modifying with laughter the lament of the +patriot. A miserable hack that never had a will of his own, but ran to +do what he was told for twenty years at the bidding of his masters, +being raised to the Bench will be praised for an impartial virtue more +than human. A drunken fellow, the son of a drunkard, having stolen +control over some half-dozen sheets, must be named under the breath or +not at all. A powerful minister may be accused with sturdy courage of +something which he did not do and no one would mind his doing, but under +the influence of Fear, to tell the least little truth about him will put +a whole assembly into a sort of blankness. + +This vice has for its most laughable effect the raising of a whole host +of phantoms, and when a State is so far gone that civic Fear is quite +normal to the citizens, then you will find them blenching with terror at +a piece of print, a whispered accusation. Bankruptcy, though they be +possessed of nothing, and even the ill-will of women. Moneylenders under +this influence have the greatest power, next after them, blackmailers of +all kinds, and next after these eccentrics who may blurt or break out. +Those who have least power in the decline of a State, are priests, +soldiers, the mothers of many children, the lovers of one woman, and +saints. + + + + +On Past Greatness + + +There lies in the North-East of France, close against the Belgian +frontier and within cannon shot of the famous battlefield of Malplaquet, +a little town called Bavai--I have written of it elsewhere. + +Coming into this little town you seem to be entering no more than a +decent, unimportant market borough, a larger village meant for country +folk, perhaps without a history and certainly without fame. + +As you come to look about you one thing after another enlivens your +curiosity and suggests something at once enormous and remote in the +destinies of the place. + +In the first place, seven great roads go out like the seven rays of a +star, plumb straight, darting along the line, across the vast, bare +fields of Flanders, past and along the many isolated woods of the +provinces, and making to great capitals far off--to Cologne, to Paris, +to Treves, and to the ports of the sea. + +These roads are deserted in great part. Some of them are metalled in +certain sections, and again in other sections are no more than lanes, +and again no more than footpaths, as you proceed along their miles of +way; but their exact design awfully impresses the mind. You know, as you +follow such strict alignment, that you are fulfilling the majestic +purpose of Imperial Rome. It was the Romans that made these things. + +Then, intrigued and excited by such remains of greatness, you read what +you can of the place.... And you find nothing but a dust of legend. You +find a story that once here a king, filled with ambition and worshipping +strange gods, thrust out these great roads to the ends of the earth; +desired his capital to be a hub and navel for the world. He put them +under the protection of the seven planets and of the deities of those +stars. Three he paved with black marble and four with white marble, and +where they met upon the market place he put up a golden terminal. There +the legend ends. + +It is only legend--a true product of the Dark Ages, when all that Rome +had done rose like a huge dream in the mind of Europe and took on +gorgeous and fantastic colouring. You learn (for the rest) very +little--that ornaments and money have been found dating from two +thousand years, that once great walls surrounded the place. It must have +had noble buildings and solemn courts. In strict history all you will +discover is that it was the capital of that tribe, the Nervii, against +whom Caesar fought, and whose territory was early conquered for the +Empire. You will find nothing more. There is no living tradition, there +is no voice; the little town is dumb. + +The place is a figure, and a striking one, of greatness long dead, and a +man visiting its small domestic interests to-day, and noting its +comfort, its humility, and its sleep, is reminded of many things +attaching to human fame. It would seem as though the ambitions of men, +and that exalted appetite for glory which has produced the chief things +of this world, suffer the effect of time somewhat as the body of an +animal slain will suffer that. + +One part of the organism and then another decays and mixes back with +nature. The effect of will has vanished. The thing is a prey to all that +environment which, once alive, it combated, conquered, and transformed +to its own use. One portion after another is lost, until at last only +the most resisting stands--the skeleton and hard framework, the least +expressive, the least personal part of the whole. This also decays and +perishes. Then there remains no more but a score of hardened fragments +that linger in their place, and what has passed away is fortunate if +even the slightest or most fantastic legend of itself survives. + +The great dead are first forgotten in their physical habit; we lose the +nature of their voices, we forget their sympathies and their affections. +Bit by bit all that they intended to be eternal slips back into the +common thing around. A blurred image, growing fainter and fainter, +lingers. At last the person vanishes, and in its place some public +raising material things--a monument, a tomb, an ornament, or weapon of +enduring metal--is all that remains. + +If it were possible for the spring of appetite and quest to be dried up +in man, such a spectacle would dry up that spring. + +It is not possible, for it is providentially in the nature of man to +cherish these illusions of an immortal memory and of a life bestowed +upon the shade or the mere name of his living greatness. Those various +forms of fame which are young men's goals, and to which the eager +creative power of early manhood so properly directs itself, seem each in +turn or each for its varying temperament to promise the desired reward; +and one imagines that his love, another that his discoveries, another +that his victories in the field or his conspicuous acts of courage will +remain permanently with his fellows long after he has left their feast. + +As though to give some substance to the flattering cheat, there is one +kind of fame which men have been permitted to attain, and which does +give them a sort of fixed tenure--if not for ever, yet for generations +upon generations--in the human city. This sort of fame is the fame of +the great poets. There is nothing more enduring. It has for some who +were most blessed outlasted, you may say, all material things which they +handled or they knew--all fabrics, all instruments, all habitations. It +is comparable in its endurance to the years, and a man reads the "Song +of Roland" and can still look on that same unchanged Cleft of +Roncesvalles, or a man reads the Iliad and can look to-day westward from +the shores to Tenedos. But wait a moment. Are they indeed blessed in +this, the great poets? Ronsard debated it. He decided that they were, +and put into the mouth of the muses the great lines:---- + + Mais un tel accident n'arrive point a l'ame, + Qui sans matiere vist immortelle la haut. + + * * * * * + + Vela saigement dit, Ceux dont la fantaisie + Sera religieuse et devote envers Dieu + Tousjours acheveront quelque grand poesie, + Et dessus leur renom la Parque n'aura lieu. + +But the matter is still undecided. + + + + +Mr. The Duke: The Man of Malplaquet + + +On the field of Malplaquet, that battlefield, I met a man. + +He was pointed out to me as a man who drove travellers to Bavai. His +name was Mr. The Duke, and he was very poor. + +If he comes across these lines (which is exceedingly unlikely) I offer +him my apologies. Anyhow, I can write about him freely, for he is not +rich, and, what is more, the laws of his country permit the telling of +the truth about our fellow-men, even when they are rich. + +Mr. The Duke was of some years, and his colour was that of cedar wood. I +met him in his farmyard, and I said to him: + +"Is it you, sir, that drive travellers to Bavai?" + +"No," said he. + +Accustomed by many years of travel to this type of response, I +continued: + +"How much do you charge?" + +"Two francs fifty," said he. + +"I will give you three francs," I said, and when I had said this he +shook his head and replied: + +"You fall at an evil moment; I was about to milk the cows." Having said +this he went to harness the horse. + +When the horse was harnessed to his little cart (it was an extremely +small horse, full of little bones and white in colour, with one eye +stronger than the other) he gave it to his little daughter to hold, and +himself sat down to table, proposing a meal. + +"It is but humble fare," he said, "for we are poor." + +This sounded familiar to me; I had both read and heard it before. The +meal was of bread and butter, pasty and beer, for Malplaquet is a +country of beer and not of wine. + +As he sat at table the old man pointed out to me that contraband across +the Belgian frontier, which is close by, was no longer profitable. + +"The Fraud," he said, "is no longer a living for anyone." + +Upon that frontier contraband is called "The Fraud"; it holds an +honourable place as a career. + +"The Fraud," he continued, "has gone long ago; it has burst. It is no +longer to be pursued. There is not even any duty upon apples.... But +there is a duty upon pears. Had I a son I would not put him into The +Fraud.... Sometimes there is just a chance here and there.... One can +pick up an occasion. But take it all in all (and here he wagged his head +solemnly) there is nothing in it any more." + +I said that I had no experience of contraband professionally, but that I +knew a very honest man who lived by it in the country of Andorra, and +that according to my morals a man had a perfect right to run the risk +and take his chance, for there was no contract between him and the power +he was trying to get round. This announcement pleased the old gentleman, +but it did not grip his mind. He was of your practical sort. He was +almost a Pragmatist. Abstractions wearied him. He put no faith in the +reality of ideas. I think he was a Nominalist like Abelard: and whatever +excuse you may make for him, Abelard was a Nominalist right enough, for +it was the intellectual thing to be at the time, though St. Bernard +utterly confuted him in arguments of enormous length and incalculable +boredom. + +The old man, then, I say, would have nothing to do with first +principles, and he reasserted his position that, in the concrete, in the +existent world, The Fraud no longer paid. + +This said for the sixth or seventh time, he drank some brandy to put +heart into him and climbed up into his little cart, I by his side. He +hit the white horse with a stick, making at the same time an +extraordinary shrill noise with his mouth, like a siren, and the horse +began to slop and sludge very dolefully towards Bavai. + +"This horse," said Mr. The Duke, "is a wonderfully good horse. He goes +like the wind. He is of Arab extraction, and comes from Africa." + +With these words he gave the horse another huge blow with his stick, and +once more emitted his piercing cry. The horse went neither faster nor +slower than before, and seemed very indifferent to the whole +performance. + +"He is from Africa," said Mr. The Duke again, meditatively. "Do you know +Africa?" + +Africa with the French populace means Algiers. I answered that I knew +it, and that in particular I knew the road southward from Constantine. +At this he looked very pleased, and said: + +"I was a soldier in Africa. I deserted seven times." + +To this I made no answer. I did not know how he wanted me to take it, so +I waited until he should speak again, which he soon did, and said: + +"The last time I deserted I was free for a year and a half. I used to +conduct beasts; that was my trade. When they caught me I was to have +been shot. I was saved by the tears of a woman!" + +Having said this the old man pulled out a very small pipe and filled it +with exceedingly black tobacco. He lit it, then he began talking again +rather more excitedly. + +"It is a terrible thing and an unhappy thing none the less," he went on, +"that a man should be taken out to be shot and should be saved by the +tears of a woman." Then he added, "Of what use are wars? How foolish it +is that men should kill each other! If there were a war I would not +fight. Would you?" + +I said I thought I would; but whether I should like to or not would +depend upon the war. + +He was eager to contradict and to tell me that war was wrong and stupid. +Having behind him the logical training of fifteen Christian centuries he +was in no way muddle-headed upon the matter. He saw very well that his +doctrine meant that it was wrong to have a country, and wrong to love +it, and that patriotism was all bosh, and that no ideal was worth +physical pain or trouble. To such conclusions had he come at the end of +his life. + +The white horse meanwhile slouched; Bavai grew somewhat nearer as we sat +in silence after his last sentence. He was turning many things over in +his mind. He veered off on to political economy. + +"When the rich man at the Manufactory here, the place where they sell +phosphates for the land, when he stands beer to all the workmen and to +the countryside, I always say, 'Fools! All this will be put on to the +cost of the phosphates; they will cost you more!'" + +Mr. The Duke did not accept John Stuart Mill's proposition upon the cost +of production nor the general theories of Ricardo upon which Mill's +propositions were based. In his opinion rent was a factor in the cost of +production, for he told me that butter had gone up because the price of +land was rising near the towns. In what he next said I found out that he +was not a Collectivist, for he said a man should own enough to live +upon, but he said that this was impossible if rich people were allowed +to live. I asked him what the politics of the countryside were and how +people voted. He said: + +"The politicians trick the people. They are a heap of worthlessness." + +I asked him if he voted, and he said "yes." He said there was only one +way to vote, but I did not understand what this meant. + +Had time served I should have asked him further questions--upon the +nature of the soul, its ultimate fate, the origin of man and his +destiny, whether mortal or immortal; the proper constitution of the +State, the choice of the legislator, the prince, and the magistrate; the +function of art, whether it is subsidiary or primary in human life; the +family; marriage. Upon the State he had already informed me, and also +upon the institution of property, and upon his view of armies. Upon all +those other things he would equally have given me a clear reply, for he +was a man that knew his own mind, and that is more than most people can +say. + +But we were now in Bavai, and I had no time to discover more. We drank +together before we parted, and I was very pleased to see the honest look +in his face. With more leisure and born to greater opportunities he +would have been talked about, this Man of Malplaquet. He had come to his +odd conclusions as the funny people do in Scandinavia and in Russia, and +among the rich intellectuals and usurers in London and Berlin; but he +was a jollier man than they are, for he could drive a horse and lie +about it, and he could also milk a cow. As we parted he used a phrase +that wounded me, and which I had only heard once before in my life. He +said: + +"We shall never see each other again!" + +Another man had once said this thing to me before. This man was a farmer +in the Northumbrian hills, who walked with me a little way in the days +when I was going over Carter Fell to find the Scots people, many, many +years ago. He also said: "We shall never meet again!" + + + + +The Game of Cards + + +A youth of no more than twenty-three years entered a first-class +carriage at the famous station of Swindon in the county of Wiltshire, +proposing to travel to the uttermost parts of the West and to enjoy a +comfortable loneliness while he ruminated upon all things human and +divine; when he was sufficiently annoyed to discover that in the further +corner of the carriage was sitting an old gentleman of benevolent +appearance, or at any rate a gentleman of benevolent appearance who +appeared in his youthful eyes to be old. + +For though the old gentleman was, as a fact, but sixty, yet his virile +beard had long gone white and the fringes of hair attaching to his +ostrich egg of a head confirmed his venerable appearance. + +When the train had started the young man proceeded in no very good +temper and with great solemnity to fill a pipe. He turned to his senior, +who was watching him in a very paternal and happy manner, and said +formally: + +"I hope you do not mind my smoking, sir?" + +"Not at all," said the old boy; "it is a habit I have long grown +accustomed to in others." + +The young man bowed in a somewhat absurd fashion and felt for his +matches. He discovered to his no small mortification that he had none. +He was so used to his pipe after a meal that he really could not forgo +it. He came off his perch by at least three steps and asked the old man +very gently whether he had any matches. + +The older man produced a box and at the same time brought out with it a +little notebook and a playing card which happened to be in his pocket. +The young man took the matches and lit his pipe, surveying the old man +the while with a more complacent eye. + +"It is very kind of you, sir," he said a little less stiffly. He handed +back the matches, wrapped his rug round his legs, sat down in his place, +and knowing that one should prolong the conversation for a moment or two +after a favour, said: "I see that you play cards." + +"I do," said the old man simply; "would you like a game?" + +"I don't mind," said the young man, who had always heard that it was +unmanly and ridiculous to refuse a game of cards in a railway carriage. + +The elder man laughed merrily in his strong beard as he saw his junior +begin to spread somewhat awkwardly a copy of a newspaper upon his knees. +"I'll show you a trick worth two of that," he said, and taking one of +the first-class cushions, which alone of railway cushions are movable +from its place, he came over to the corner opposite the young man and +made a table of the cushion between them. "Now," said he genially, +"what's it to be?" + +"Well," said the young man like one who expounds new mysteries, "do you +know piquet?" + +"Oh, yes," said his companion with another happy little laugh of +contentment with the world. "I'll take you on. What shall it be?" + +"Pennies if you like," said the young man nonchalantly. + +"Very well, and double for the Rubicon." + +"How do you mean?" said the young man, puzzled. + +"You will see," said the old man, and they began to play. + +The game was singularly absorbing. At first the young man won a few +pounds; then he lost rather heavily, then he won again, but not quite +enough to recoup. Then in the fourth game he won, so that he was a +little ahead, and meanwhile the old man chatted merrily during the +discarding or the shuffling: during the shuffling especially. He looked +out towards the downs with something of a sigh at one moment, and said: + +"It's a happy world." + +"Yes," answered the younger man with the proper lugubriousness of youth, +"but it all comes to an end." + +"It isn't its coming to an end," said the elder man, declaring a point +of six, "that's not the tragedy; it's the little bits coming to an end +meanwhile, before the whole comes to an end: that's the tragedy...." But +he added with another of his jolly laughs: "We must play. Piquet takes +up all one's grey matter." + +They played and the young man lost again, but by a very narrow margin: +it was quite an absorbing game. As they shuffled again the young man +said: + +"What did you mean by the little bits stopping, or whatever it was?" + +"Oh," said the old man as though he couldn't remember, and then he +added: "Oh, yes, I mean you'll find, as you grow older, people die and +affections change, and, though it seems silly to mention it in company +with higher things, there's what Shelley called the 'contagion of the +world's slow stain.'" + +Then their conversation was interrupted by the ardour of the game; but +as they played the young man was ruminating, and he had come to the +conclusion that his senior was imperfectly educated and was probably of +the middle classes, whereas he himself was destined to be a naval +architect, and with that object had recently left the university for an +office in the city. The young man thought that a man properly educated +would never quote a tag: he was wrong there. As he had allowed his +thoughts to wander somewhat the young man lost that game rather heavily, +and at the end of it he was altogether about ten shillings to the bad. +It was his turn to shuffle. The older man was at leisure to speak, and +did so rather dreamily as he gazed at the landscape again. + +"Things change, you know," he said, "and there is the contagion of the +world's slow stain. One gets preoccupied: especially about money. When +men marry they get very much preoccupied upon that point. It's bad for +them, but it can't be helped." + +"You cut," said the young man. + +His elder cut and they played again. This time as they played their game +the old man broke his rule of silence and continued his observations +interruptedly: + +"Four kings," he said.... "It isn't that a man gets to think money +all-important, it is that he has to think of it all the time.... No, +three queens are no good. I said four kings.... four knaves.... The +little losses of money don't affect one, but perpetual trouble about it +does, and" (closing up the majority of tricks which he had just gained) +"many a man goes on making more year after year and yet feels himself in +peril.... _And_ the last trick." He took up the cards to shuffle +them. "Towards the very end of life," he continued, "it gets less, I +suppose, but you'll feel the burden of it." He put the pack over for the +younger man to cut. When that was done he dealt them out slowly. As he +dealt he said: "One feels the loss of little material things: objects to +which one was attached, a walking-stick, or a ring, or a watch which one +has carried for years. Your declare." + +The young man declared, and that game was played in silence. I regret to +say that the young man was Rubiconed, and was thirty shillings in the +elder's debt. + +"We'll stop if you like" said the elder man kindly. + +"Oh, no," said the youth with nonchalance, "I'll pay you now if you +like." + +"Not at all, I didn't mean that," said the older man with a sudden prick +of honour. + +"Oh, but I will, and we'll start fair again," said the young man. +Whereupon he handed over his combined losses in gold, the older man gave +him change, they shuffled again, and they went on with their play. + +"After all," said the older man, musing as he confessed to a point of no +more than five, "it's all in the day's work.... It's just a day's work," +he repeated with a saddened look in his eyes, "it's a game that one +plays like this game, and then when it's over it's over. It's the little +losses that count." + +That game again was unfortunate for the young man, and he had to shell +out fifteen and six. But the brakes were applied, Bristol was reached, +the train came to a standstill, and the young man, looking up a little +confused and hurried, said: "Hello, Bristol! I get out here." + +"So do I," said the older man. They both stood up together, and the jolt +of the train as it stopped dead threw them into each other's arms. + +"I am really very sorry," said the youth. + +"It's my fault," said the old chap like a good fellow, "I ought to have +caught hold. You get out and I'll hand you your bag." + +"It's very kind of you," said the young man. He was really flattered by +so much attention, but he knew himself what a good companion he was and +he could understand it; besides which they had made friends during that +little journey. He always liked a man to whom he had lost some money in +an honest game. + +There was a heavy crowd upon the platform, and two men barging up out of +it saluted the old man boisterously by the name of Jack. He twinkled at +them with his eyes as he began moving the luggage about, and stood for a +moment in the doorway with his own bag in his right hand and the young +man's bag in his left. The young man so saw it for an instant, a fine +upstanding figure--he saw his bag handed by some mistake to the second +of the old man's friends, a porter came by at the moment pushing through +the crowd with a trolley, an old lady made a scene, the porter +apologized, the crowd took sides, some for the porter, some for the old +lady; the young man, with the deference of his age, politely asked +several people to make way, but when he had emerged from the struggle +his companion, his companion's friends, and his own bag could not be +found; or at any rate he could not make out where they were in the great +mass that pushed and surged upon the platform. + +He made himself a little conspicuous by asking too many questions and by +losing his temper twice with people who had done him no harm, when, just +as his excitement was growing more than querulous, a very heavy, +stupid-looking man in regulation boots tapped him on the shoulder and +said: "Follow me." He was prepared with an oath by way of reply, but +another gentleman of equal weight, wearing boots of the same pattern, +linked his arm in his and between them they marched him away, to a +little private closet opening out of the stationmaster's room. + +"Now, sir," said he who had first tapped him on the shoulder, "be good +enough to explain your movements." + +"I don't know what you mean," said the young man. + +"You were in the company," said the older man severely, "of an old man, +bald, with a white beard and a blue sailor suit. He had come from +London; you joined him at Swindon. We have evidence that he was to be +met at this station and it will be to your advantage if you make a clean +breast of it." + +The young man was violent and he was borne away. + +But he had friends at Bristol. He gave his references and he was +released. To this day he believes that he suffered not from folly, but +from injustice. He did not see his bag again, but after all it contained +no more than his evening clothes, for which he had paid or rather owed +six guineas, four shirts, as many collars and dress ties, a +silver-mounted set of brushes and combs, and useless cut-glass bottles, +a patented razor, a stick of shaving soap, and two very, very +confidential letters which he treasured. His watch, of course, was gone, +but not, I am glad to say, his chain, which hung dangling, though in his +flurry he had not noticed it. It made him look a trifle ridiculous. As +he wore no tie-pin he had not lost that, and beyond his temper he had +indeed lost nothing further save, possibly, a textbook upon +Thermodynamics. This book he _thought_ he remembered having put +into the bag, and if he had it belonged to his library, but he could not +quite remember this point, and when the Library claimed it he stoutly +disputed their claim. + +In this dispute he was successful, but it was the only profit he made +out of that journey, unless we are to count his experience, and +experience, as all the world knows, is a thing that men must buy. + + + + +"King Lear" + + +The great unity which was built up two thousand years ago and was +called Christendom in its final development split and broke in pieces. +The various civilizations of its various provinces drifted apart, and it +will be for the future historian to say at what moment the isolation of +each from all was farthest pushed. It is certain that that point is +passed. + +In the task of reuniting what was broken--it is the noblest work a +modern man can do--the very first mechanical act must be to explain one +national soul to another. That act is not final. The nations of Europe, +now so divided, still have more in common than those things by which +they differ, and it is certain that when they have at last revealed to +them their common origin they will return to it. They will return to it, +perhaps, under the pressure of war waged by some not Christian +civilization, but they will return. In the meanwhile, of those acts not +final, yet of immediate necessity in the task of establishing unity, is +the act of introducing one national soul to another. + +Now this is best accomplished in a certain way which I will describe. +You will take that part in the letters of a nation which you maturely +judge most or best to reflect the full national soul, with its +qualities, careless of whether these be great or little; you will take +such a work as reproduces for you as you read it, not only in its +sentiment, but in its very rhythm, the stuff and colour of the nation; +this you will present to the foreigner, who cannot understand. His +efforts must be laborious, very often unfruitful, but where it is +fruitful it will be of a decisive effect. + +Thus let anyone take some one of the immortal things that Racine wrote +and show them to an Englishman. He will hardly ever be able to make +anything of it at first. Here and there some violently emotional passage +may faintly touch him, but the mass of the verse will seem to him dead. +Now, if by constant reading, by association with those who know what +Racine is, he at last sees him--and these changes in the mind come very +suddenly--he will see into the soul of Gaul. For the converse task, +to-day not equally difficult but once almost impossible, of presenting +England to the French intelligence--or, indeed, to any other alien +intelligence--you may choose the play "King Lear." + +That play has every quality which does reflect the soul of the community +in which and for which it was written. Note a few in their order. + +First, it is not designed to its end; at least it is not designed +accurately to its end; it is written as a play and it is meant to be +acted as a play, and it is the uniform opinion of those versed in plays +and in acting that in its full form it could hardly be presented, while +in any form it is the hardest even of Shakespeare's plays to perform. +Here you have a parallel with a thousand mighty English things to which +you can turn. Is there not institution after institution to decide on, +so lacking a complete fitness to its end, larger in a way than the end +it is to serve, and having, as it were, a life of its own which proceeds +apart from its effect? This quality which makes so many English things +growths rather than instruments is most evident in the great play. + +Again, it has that quality which Voltaire noted, which he thought +abnormal in Shakespeare, but which is the most national characteristic +in him, that a sort of formlessness, if it mars the framework of the +thing and spoils it, yet also permits the exercise of an immeasurable +vitality. When a man has read "King Lear" and lays down the book he is +like one who has been out in one of those empty English uplands in a +storm by night. It is written as though the pen bred thoughts. It is +possible to conjecture as one reads, and especially in the diatribes, +that the pen itself was rapid and the brain too rapid for the pen. One +feels the rush of the air. Now, this quality is to be discovered in the +literature of many nations, but never with the fullness which it has in +the literature of England. And note that in those phases of the national +life when foreign models have constrained this instinct of expansion in +English verse, they never have restrained it for long, and that even +through the bonds established by those models the instinct of expansion +breaks. You see it in the exuberance of Dryden and in the occasional +running rhetoric of Pope, until it utterly loosens itself with the end +of the eighteenth century. + +The play is national, again, in that permanent curiosity upon knowable +things--nay, that mysterious half-knowledge of unknowable things--which, +in its last forms, produced the mystic, and which is throughout history +so plainly characteristic of these Northern Atlantic islands. Every play +of Shakespeare builds with that material, and no writer, even of the +English turn, has sent out points further into the region of what is not +known than Shakespeare has in sudden flashes of phrase. But "King Lear," +though it contains a lesser number of lines of this mystical and +half-religious effect than, say, "Hamlet," yet as a general impression +is the more mystical of the two plays. The element of madness, which in +"Hamlet" hangs in the background like a storm-cloud ready to break, in +"King Lear" rages; and it is the use of this which lends its amazing +psychical power to the play. It has been said (with no great profundity +of criticism) that English fiction is chiefly remarkable for its power +of particularization of character, and that where French work, for +instance, will present ideas, English will present persons. The judgment +is grossly insufficient, and therefore false, but it is based upon a +proof which is very salient in English letters, which is that, say, in +quite short and modern work the sense of complete unity deadens the +English mind. The same nerve which revolts at a straight road and at a +code of law revolts against one tone of thought, and the sharp contrast +of emotional character, not the dual contrast which is common to all +literatures, but the multiple contrast, runs through "King Lear" and +gives the work such a tone that one seems as one reads it to be moving +in a cloud. + +The conclusion is perhaps Shakespearean rather than English, and in a +fashion escapes from any national labelling. But the note of silence +which Shakespeare suddenly brings in upon the turmoil, and with which he +is so fond of completing what he has done, would not be possible were +not that spirit of expansion and of a kind of literary adventurousness +present in all that went before. + +It is indeed this that makes the play so memorable. And it may not be +fantastic to repeat and expand what has been said above in other words, +namely, that King Lear has something about him which seems to be a +product of English landscape and of English weather, and if its general +movement is a storm its element is one of those sudden silences that +come sometimes with such magical rapidity after the booming of the wind. + + + + +The Excursion + + +It is so old a theme that I really hesitate to touch it; and yet it is +so true and so useful that I will. It is true all the time, and it is +particularly useful at this season of the year to men in cities: to all +repetitive men: to the men that read these words. What is more, true as +it is and useful as it is, no amount of hammering at people seems to get +this theme into their practice; though it has long ago entered into +their convictions they will not act upon it in their summers. And this +true and useful theme is the theme of little freedoms and discoveries, +the value of getting loose and away by a small trick when you want to +get your glimpse of Fairyland. + +Now how does one get loose and away? + +When a man says to himself that he must have a holiday he means that he +must see quite new things that are also old: he desires to open that +door which stood wide like a window in childhood and is now shut fast. +But where are the new things that are also the old? Paradoxical fellows +who deserve drowning tell one that they are at our very doors. Well, +that is true of the eager mind, but the mind is no longer eager when it +is in need of a holiday. And you can get at the new things that are also +the old by way of drugs, but drugs are a poor sort of holiday fabric. If +you have stored up your memory well with much experience you can get +these things from your memory--but only in a pale sort of way. + +I think the best avenue to recreation by the magical impressions of the +world upon the mind is this: To go to some place to which the common +road leads you and then to get just off the common road. You will be +astonished to find how strange the world becomes in the first mile--and +how strange it remains till the common road is reached again. + +It always sounds like a mockery for a man who has travelled to a great +many places, as I have, to advise his fellows to travel abroad; they are +most of them hard tied. Yet it is really a much easier thing than men +bound to the desk and the workshop understand. Britain is but one great +port, and its inward seas are narrow--and the fares are ridiculously +low. If you are a young man you can go almost anywhere for almost +anything, sitting up by night on deck, and not expecting too much +courtesy. But, of course, if you shirk the sea you are a prisoner. + +Well, then, supposing you abroad, or even in some other part of this +highly varied kingdom in which you live, and supposing you to have +reached some chosen place by some common road--what I desire to dilate +upon here is the truth which every little excursion of business or of +leisure (and precious few of leisure) makes me more certain of every +day: That just a little way off the road is fairyland. + +It was exactly three days ago that I had occasion to go down the railway +line that is the most frequented in Europe: I was on business, not +leisure, but in the business I had two days' leisure, and I did what I +would advise all other men to do in such a circumstance. + +I took a train to nowhere, fixing my starting-point thus:-- + +I first looked at the map and saw where nearest to me was a +quadrilateral bare of railways. This formula, to look for a +quadrilateral bare of railways, is a very useful formula for the man who +is seeking another world. Then I fixed at random upon one little +roadside station upon the main line; I determined to get out there and +to walk aimlessly and westward until I should strike the other side of +the quadrilateral. I made no plan, not even of the hours of the day. + +I came into my roadside station at half-past eight of the long summer +night, broad daylight that is, but with night advancing. I got out and +began my westward march. At once there crowded upon me any number of +unexpected and entertaining things! + +The first thing I found was a street which was used by horses as well as +by men, and yet was made up of broad steps. It was a sort of stair-case +going up a hill. At the top of it I found a woman leading a child by the +hand. I asked her the name of the steps. She told me they were called +"The Steps of St. John." + +A quarter of a mile further down the narrow lane I saw to my +astonishment an enormous castle, ruined and open to the sky. There are +many such ruins famous in Europe, but of this one I had never even +heard. I went lonely under the evening and looked at its main gate and +saw on it a moulded escutcheon, carved, and the motto in French, +"Henceforward," which word made me think a great deal, but resolved no +problem in my mind. + +I went on again westward as the darkness fell and saw what I had not +seen before, though my reading had told me of its existence, a long line +of trees marking a ridge on the horizon, which line was the border of +that ancient road the Roman soldiers built leading from the west into +Amiens. "Along that road," thought I, "St. Martin rode before he became +a monk, and while he was yet a soldier and was serving under Julian the +Apostate. Along that road he came to the west gate of Amiens and there +cut his cloak in two and gave the half of it to a beggar." + +The memory of St. Martin's deed entertained me for some miles of my way, +and I remembered how, when I was a child, it had seemed to me ridiculous +to cut your coat in two whether for a beggar or for anybody else. Not +that I thought charity ridiculous--God forbid!--but that a coat seemed +to me a thing you could not cut in two with any profit to the user of +either half. You might cut it in latitude and turn it into an Eton +jacket and a kilt, neither of much use to a Gallo-Roman beggar. Or you +might cut it in meridian and leave but one sleeve: mere folly. + +Considering these things, I went on over the rolling plateau. I saw a +great owl flying before me against the sky, different from the owls of +home. I saw Jupiter shining above a cloud and Venus shining below one. +The long light lingered in the north above the English sea. At last I +came quite unexpectedly upon that delight and plaything of the French: a +light railway, or steam tram such as that people build in great +profusion to link up their villages and their streams. The road where I +came upon it made a level crossing, and there was a hut there, and a +woman living in it who kept the level crossing and warned the +passers-by. She told me no more trains, or rather little trams, would +pass that night, but that three miles further on I should come to a +place called "The Mills of the Vidame." + +Now the name "Vidame" reminded me that a "Vidame" was the lay protector +of a Cathedral Chapter in feudal times, so the name gave me a renewed +pleasure. + +But it was now near midnight, and when I came to this village I +remembered how in similar night walks I had sometimes been refused +lodging. When I got among the few houses all was dark. I found, however, +in the darkness two young men, each bearing an enormous curled trumpet +of the kind which the French call _cors de chasse_, that is, +hunting horns, so I asked them where the inn was. They took me to it and +woke up the hostess, who received us with oaths. This she did lest the +young men with hunting horns should demand a commission. Her heart, +however, was better than her mouth, and she put me up, but she charged +me tenpence for my room, counting coffee in the morning, which was, I am +sure, more than her usual rate. + +Next day I took the little steam tram away from the place and went on +vaguely whither it should please God to take me, until the plateau +changed and the light railway fell into a charming valley, and, seeing a +town rooted therein, I got out and paid my fare and visited the town. In +this town I went to church, as it was early morning (you must excuse the +foible), and, coming out of church, I had an argument with a working man +upon the matter of religion, in which argument, as I believe, I was the +victor. I then went on north out of this town and came into a wood of +enormous size. It was miles and miles across, and the trees were higher +than anything I have seen outside of California. It was an enchanted +wood. The sun shone down through a hundred feet of silence by little +rounds between the leaves, and there was silence everywhere. In this +wood I sojourned all day long, making slowly westward, till, in the very +midst of it, I found a troubled man. He was a man of middle age, short, +intelligent, fat, and weary. He said to me: + +"Have you noticed any special mark upon the trees? A white mark of the +number 90?" + +"No," said I. "Are there any wild boars in this forest?" + +"Yes," he answered, "a few, but not of use. I am looking for trees +marked in white with the number 90. I have paid a price for them, and I +cannot find them." + +I saluted him and went on my way. At last I came to an open clearing, +where there was a town, and in the town I found a very delightful inn, +where they would cook anything one felt inclined for, within reason, and +charged one very moderately indeed. I have retained its name. + +By this time I was completely lost, and in the heart of Fairyland, when +suddenly I remembered that everyone that strikes root in Fairyland loses +something, at the least his love and at the worst his soul, and that it +is a perilous business to linger there, so I asked them in that hotel +how they worked it when they wanted to go west into the great towns. +They put me into an omnibus, which charged me fourpence for a journey of +some two miles. It took me, as Heaven ordained, to a common great +railway, and that common great railway took me through the night to the +town of Dieppe, which I have known since I could speak and before, and +which was about as much of Fairyland to me as Piccadilly or Monday +morning. + +Thus ended those two days, in which I had touched again the unknown +places--and all that heaven was but two days, and cost me not fifty +shillings. + +Excuse the folly of this. + + + + +The Tide + + +I wish I had been one of those men who first sailed beyond the Pillars +of Hercules and first saw, as they edged northward along a barbarian +shore, the slow swinging of the sea. How much, I wonder, did they think +themselves enlarged? How much did they know that all the civilization +behind them, the very ancient world of the Mediterranean, was something +protected and enclosed from which they had escaped into an outer world? +And how much did they feel that here they were now physically caught by +the moving tides that bore them in the whole movement of things? + +For the tide is of that kind; and the movement of the sea four times +daily back and forth is a consequence, a reflection, and a part of the +ceaseless pulse and rhythm which animates all things made and which +links what seems not living to what certainly lives and feels and has +power over all movement of its own. The circuits of the planets stretch +and then recede. Their ellipses elongate and flatten again to the +semblance of circles. The Poles slowly nod once every many thousand +years, there is a libration to the moon; and in all this vast harmonious +process of come and go the units of it twirl and spin, and, as they +spin, run more gravely in ordered procession round their central star: +that star moves also to a beat, and all the stars of heaven move each in +times of its own as well, and their movement is one thing altogether. +Whoever should receive the mighty business moving in one ear would get +the music of it in a perfect series of chords, superimposed the one upon +the other, but not a tremble of them out of tune. + +The great scheme is not infinite, for were it infinite such rhythms +could not be. It was made, and it moves in order to the scheme of its +making without caprice, not wayward anywhere, but in and out and back +and forth as to a figure set for it. It must be so, or these exact +arrangements could not be. + +Now with this regulated breathing and expiration, playing itself out in +a million ways and co-extensive with the universe of things, the tides +keep time, and they alone of earthly things bring its actual force to +our physical perception, to our daily life. We see the sea in movement +and power before us heaving up whatever it may bear, and we feel in an +immediate way its strong backward sagging when the rocks appear above it +as it falls. We have our hand on the throb of the current turning in a +salting river inland between green hills; we are borne upon it bodily as +we sail, its movement kicks the tiller in our grasp, and the strength +beneath us and around us, the rush and the compulsion of the stream, its +silence and as it were its purpose, all represent to us, immediately and +here, that immeasurable to and fro which rules the skies. + +When the Roman soldiers came marching northward with Caesar and first +saw the shores of ocean: when, after that occupation of Gaul which has +changed the world, they first mounted guard upon the quays of the Itian +port under Gris-Nez, or the rocky inlets of the Veneti by St. Malo and +the Breton reefs, they were appalled to see what for centuries chance +traders and the few curious travellers, the men of Marseilles and of the +islands, had seen before them. They saw in numbers and in a corporate +way what hitherto individuals alone had seen; they saw the sea like a +living thing, advancing and retreating in an ordered dance, alive with +deep sighs and intakes, and ceaselessly proceeding about a work and a +doing which seemed to be the very visible action of an unchanging will +still pleased with calculated change. It was the presence of the Roman +army upon the shores of the Channel which brought the Tide into the +general conscience of Europe, and that experience, I think, was among +the greatest, perhaps the greatest, of those new things which rushed +upon the mind of the Empire when it launched itself by the occupation of +Gaul. + +The tide, when it is mentioned in brief historical records of times long +since, suddenly strikes one with vividness and with familiarity, so that +the past is introduced at once, presented to us physically, and obtruded +against our modern senses alive. I know of no other physical thing +mentioned in this fashion, in chronicle or biography, which has so +powerful an effect to restore the reality of a dead century. + +The Venerable Bede is speaking in one place of Southampton Water, in his +ecclesiastical history, or, rather, of the Isle of Wight, whence those +two Princes were baptized and died under Cadwalla. As the historian +speaks of the place he says: + +"In this sea" (which is the Solent) "comes a double tide out of the seas +which spring from the infinite ocean of the Arctic surrounding all +Britain." + +And he tells us how these double tides rush together and fight together, +sweeping as they do round either side of the island by the Needles and +by Spithead into the land-locked sheet within. + +Now that passage in Bede's fourth book is more real to me than anything +in all his chronicle, for in Southampton Water to-day the living thing +which we still note as we sail is the double tide. You take a falling +tide at the head of the water, near Southampton Town, and if you are not +quick with your business it is checked in two hours and you meet a +strange flood, the second flood, before you have rounded Calshott +Castle. + +Then there is a Charter of Newcastle. Or, rather, the inviolable Customs +of that town, very old, drawn up nearly eight hundred years ago, but +beginning from far earlier; and in these customs you find written: + +"If a plea shall arise between a burgess and a merchant it must be +determined before the third flowing of the sea"--that is, within three +tides; a wise provision! For thus the merchant would not miss the last +tide of the day after the quarrel. How living it is, a phrase of that +sort coming in the midst of those other phrases! + +All the rest, worse luck, has gone. Burgage-tenure, and the economic +independence of the humble, and the busy, healthy life of men working to +enrich themselves, not others, and that corporate association which was +the blood of the Middle Ages, and the power of popular opinion, and, in +general, freedom. But out of all these things that have perished, the +tide remains, and in the eighteen clauses of the Customs, the tidal +clause alone stands fresh and still has meaning. The capital, great +clinching clause by which men owned their own land within the town has +gone utterly and altogether. The modern workman on the Tyne would not +understand you perhaps, to whom in that very place you should say, "Many +centuries ago the men that came before you here, your fathers, were not +working precariously at a wage, or paying rent to others, but living +under their own roofs and working for themselves." There is only one +passage in the document that all could understand in Newcastle +to-day--the very few rich who are hardly secure, the myriads of poor who +are not secure at all--and that passage is the passage which talks of +the third tide; for even to-day there is some good we have left +undestroyed and the sea still ebbs and flows. + +This little note of the Newcastle men, and of the flowing and the ebbing +of their sea, is to be found, you say, in the archives of England? Not +at all! It is to be found in the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland--at +least, so my book assures me, but why I do not know. Perhaps of the +times when between Tyne and Tees, men looked northward and of the times +when they looked southward (for they alternately did one and the other +during many hundreds of years) those times when they looked northward +seemed the more natural to them. Anyhow, the reference is to the Acts of +the Parliament of Scotland, and that is the end of it. + + + + +On a Great Wind + + +It is an old dispute among men, or rather a dispute as old as mankind, +whether Will be a cause of things or no; nor is there anything novel in +those moderns who affirm that Will is nothing to the matter, save their +ignorant belief that their affirmation is new. + +The intelligent process whereby I know that Will not seems but is, and +can alone be truly and ultimately a cause, is fed with stuff and +strengthens sacramentally as it were, whenever I meet, and am made the +companion of, a great wind. + +It is not that this lively creature of God is indeed perfected with a +soul; this it would be superstition to believe. It has no more a person +than any other of its material fellows, but in its vagary of way, in the +largeness of its apparent freedom, in its rush of purpose, it seems to +mirror the action of mighty spirit. When a great wind comes roaring over +the eastern flats towards the North Sea, driving over the Fens and the +Wringland, it is like something of this island that must go out and +wrestle with the water, or play with it in a game or a battle; and when, +upon the western shores, the clouds come bowling up from the horizon, +messengers, outriders, or comrades of a gale, it is something of the sea +determined to possess the land. The rising and falling of such power, +its hesitations, its renewed violence, its fatigue and final repose--all +these are symbols of a mind; but more than all the rest, its exultation! +It is the shouting and the hurrahing of the wind that suits a man. + +Note you, we have not many friends. The older we grow and the better we +can sift mankind, the fewer friends we count, although man lives by +friendship. But a great wind is every man's friend, and its strength is +the strength of good-fellowship; and even doing battle with it is +something worthy and well chosen. If there is cruelty in the sea, and +terror in high places, and malice lurking in profound darkness, there is +no one of these qualities in the wind, but only power. Here is strength +too full for such negations as cruelty, as malice, or as fear; and that +strength in a solemn manner proves and tests health in our own souls. +For with terror (of the sort I mean--terror of the abyss or panic at +remembered pain, and in general, a losing grip of the succours of the +mind), and with malice, and with cruelty, and with all the forms of that +Evil which lies in wait for men, there is the savour of disease. It is +an error to think of such things as power set up in equality against +justice and right living. We were not made for them, but rather for +influences large and soundly poised; we are not subject to them but to +other powers that can always enliven and relieve. It is health in us, I +say, to be full of heartiness and of the joy of the world, and of +whether we have such health our comfort in a great wind is a good test +indeed. No man spends his day upon the mountains when the wind is out, +riding against it or pushing forward on foot through the gale, but at +the end of his day feels that he has had a great host about him. It is +as though he had experienced armies. The days of high winds are days of +innumerable sounds, innumerable in variation of tone and of intensity, +playing upon and awakening innumerable powers in man. And the days of +high wind are days in which a physical compulsion has been about us and +we have met pressure and blows, resisted and turned them; it enlivens us +with the simulacrum of war by which nations live, and in the just +pursuit of which men in companionship are at their noblest. + +It is pretended sometimes (less often perhaps now than a dozen years +ago) that certain ancient pursuits congenial to man will be lost to him +under his new necessities; thus men sometimes talk foolishly of horses +being no longer ridden, houses no longer built of wholesome wood and +stone, but of metal; meat no more roasted, but only baked; and even of +stomachs grown too weak for wine. There is a fashion of saying these +things, and much other nastiness. Such talk is (thank God!) mere folly; +for man will always at last tend to his end, which is happiness, and he +will remember again to do all those things which serve that end. So it +is with the uses of the wind, and especially the, using of the wind with +sails. + +No man has known the wind by any of its names who has not sailed his own +boat and felt life in the tiller. Then it is that a man has most to do +with the wind, plays with it, coaxes or refuses it, is wary of it all +along; yields when he must yield, but comes up and pits himself again +against its violence; trains it, harnesses it, calls it if it fails him, +denounces it if it will try to be too strong, and in every manner +conceivable handles this glorious playmate. + +As for those who say that men did but use the wind as an instrument for +crossing the sea, and that sails were mere machines to them, either they +have never sailed or they were quite unworthy of sailing. It is not an +accident that the tall ships of every age of varying fashions so +arrested human sight and seemed so splendid. The whole of man went into +their creation, and they expressed him very well; his cunning, and his +mastery, and his adventurous heart. For the wind is in nothing more +capitally our friend than in this, that it has been, since men were men, +their ally in the seeking of the unknown and in their divine thirst for +travel which, in its several aspects--pilgrimage, conquest, discovery, +and, in general, enlargement--is one prime way whereby man fills himself +with being. + +I love to think of those Norwegian men who set out eagerly before the +north-east wind when it came down from their mountains in the month of +March like a god of great stature to impel them to the West. They pushed +their Long Keels out upon the rollers, grinding the shingle of the beach +at the fjord-head. They ran down the calm narrows, they breasted and +they met the open sea. Then for days and days they drove under this +master of theirs and high friend, having the wind for a sort of captain, +and looking always out to the sea line to find what they could find. It +was the springtime; and men feel the spring upon the sea even more +surely than they feel it upon the land. They were men whose eyes, pale +with the foam, watched for a landfall, that unmistakable good sight +which the wind brings us to, the cloud that does not change and that +comes after the long emptiness of sea days like a vision after the +sameness of our common lives. To them the land they so discovered was +wholly new. + +We have no cause to regret the youth of the world, if indeed the world +were ever young. When we imagine in our cities that the wind no longer +calls us to such things, it is only our reading that blinds us, and the +picture of satiety which our reading breeds is wholly false. Any man +to-day may go out and take his pleasure with the wind upon the high +seas. He also will make his landfalls to-day, or in a thousand years; +and the sight is always the same, and the appetite for such discoveries +is wholly satisfied even though he be only sailing, as I have sailed, +over seas that he has known from childhood, and come upon an island far +away, mapped and well known, and visited for the hundredth time. + + + + +The Letter + + +If you ask me why it is now three weeks since I received your letter +and why it is only today that I answer it, I must tell you the truth +lest further things I may have to tell you should not be worthy of your +dignity or of mine. It was because at first I dared not, then later I +reasoned with myself, and so bred delay, and at last took refuge in more +delay. I will offer no excuse: I will not tell you that I suffered +illness, or that some accident of war had taken me away from this old +house, or that I have but just returned from a journey to my hill and my +view over the Plain and the great River. + +Your messenger I have kept, and I have entertained him well. I looked at +him a little narrowly at his first coming, thinking perhaps he might be +a gentleman of yours, but I soon found that he was not such, and that he +bore no disguise, but was a plain rider of your household. I put him in +good quarters by the Hunting Stables. He has had nothing to do but to +await my resolution, which is now at last taken, and which you receive +in this. + +But how shall I begin, or how express to you what not distance but a +slow and bitter conclusion of the mind has done? + +I shall not return to Meudon. I shall not see the woods, the summer +woods turning to autumn, nor follow the hunt, nor take pleasure again in +what is still the best of Europe at Versailles. And now that I have said +it, you must read it so; for I am unalterably determined. Believe me, it +is something much more deep than courtesy which compels me to give you +my reasons for this final and irrevocable doom. + +We were children together. Though we leant so lightly in our +conversations of this spring upon all we knew in common, I know your age +and all your strong early experience--and you know mine. Your mother +will recall that day's riding when I came back from my first leave and +you were home, not, I think, for good, from the convent. A fixed +domestic habit blinded her, so that she could then still see in us no +more than two children; yet I was proud of my sword, and had it on, and +you that day were proud of a beauty which could no longer be hidden even +from yourself; I would then have sacrificed, and would now, all I had or +was or had or am to have made that beauty immortal. + +I say, you remember that day's riding, and how after it the world was +changed for you and me, and how that same evening the elders saw that it +was changed. + +You will remember that for two years we were not allowed to meet again. +When the two years were passed we met indeed by a mere accident of that +rich and tedious life wherein we were both now engaged. I was returned +from leave before Tournay; you had heard, I think, a false report that I +had been wounded in the dreadful business at Fontenoy (which to remember +even now horrifies me a little). I had heard and knew which of the great +names you now bore by marriage. The next day it was your husband who +rode with me to Marly. I liked him well enough. I have grown to like him +better. He is an honest man, though I confess his philosophers weary me. +When I say "an honest man" I am giving the highest praise I know. + +My dear, that was sixteen years ago. + +You may not even now understand, so engrossing is the toilsome and +excited ritual of that rich world at Versailles, how blest you are: your +children are growing round you: your daughters are beginning to reveal +your own beauty, and your sons will show in these next years immediately +before us that temper which in you was a spirit and a height of being, +and in them, men, will show as plain courage. During that long space of +years your house has remained well ordered (it was your husband's +doing). His great fortune and yours have jointly increased: if I may +tell you so, it is a pleasure to all who understand fitness to know that +this is so, and that your lineage and his will hold so great a place in +the State. + +As you review those sixteen years you may, if you will--I trust you will +not--recall those occasions when I saw the woods of Meudon and mixed by +chance with your world, and when we renewed the rides which had ended +our childhood. As for me I have not to recall those things. They are, +alas, myself, and beyond them there is nothing that I can call a memory +or a being at all. Nevertheless, as I have told you, I shall not come to +Meudon: I shall not hear again the delightful voices of those many +friends (now in mid-life as am I) who are my equals at Versailles. I +shall not see your face. + +I did not take service with the Empire from any pique or folly, but from +a necessity for adventure and for the refounding of my house. It might +have chanced that I should marry: the land demanded an heir. My +impoverishment weighed upon me like an ill deed, for all this belt of +land is dependent upon the old house, which I can with such difficulty +retain and from which I write to-day. I spent all those years in the +service of the Empire (and even of Russia) from no uncertain temper and +from no imaginary quarrel. It is so common or so necessary for men and +women to misjudge each other that I believe you thought me wayward, or +at least unstable. If you did so you did me a wrong. Those two good +seasons when we met again, and this last of but a month ago, were not +accidents or fitful recoveries. They were all I possessed in my life and +all that will perish with me when I die. + +But now, to tell you the very core of my decision, it is this: The years +that pass carry with them an increasing weight at once sombre and +majestic. There are things belonging to youth which habit continues +strangely longer than the season to which they properly belong: if, when +we discover them to be too prolonged as cling to their survival, why, +then, we eat dust. So long as we possess the illusion and so long as the +dearest things of youth maintain unchanged, in one chamber of our life +at least, our twentieth year, so long all is well. But there is a cold +river which we must pass in our advance towards nothingness and age. In +the passage of that stream we change: and you and I have passed it. +There is no more endurance in that young mood of ours than in any other +human thing. One always wakes from it at last. One sees what it is. The +soul sees and counts with hard eyes the price at which a continuance of +such high dreams must be purchased, and the heart has a prevision of the +evil that the happy cheat will work as maturity is reached by each of +us, and as each of us fully takes on the burden of the world. + +Therefore I must not return. + +Foolishly and without thinking of real things, acting as though indeed +that life of dream and of illusion were still possible to me, I +yesterday cut with great care a rose, one from the many that have now +grown almost wild upon the great wall overlooking the Danube. Then ... I +could not but smile to myself when I remembered how by the time that +rose should have reached you every petal would be wasted and fallen in +the long week's ride. There is a fixed term of life for roses also as +for men. I do not cite this to you by way of parable. I have no heart +for tricks of the pen to-night; but the two images came together, and +you will understand. If I do not return, it is for the same reason that +I could not send the rose. + + + + +The Regret + + +Everybody knows, I suppose, that kind of landscape in which hills seem +to lie in a regular manner, fold on fold, one range behind the other, +until, at last, behind them all some higher and grander range dominates +and frames the whole. + +The infinite variety of light and air and accident of soil provide all +men save those who live in the great plains with examples of this sort. +The traveller in the dry air of California or of Spain, watching great +distances from the heights, will recollect such landscapes all his life. +They were the reward of his long ascents and the visions which attended +his effort as he climbed up to the ridge of his horizon. Such a +landscape does a man see from the Western edges of the Guadarrama, +looking eastward and south toward the very distant hills that guard +Toledo and the Gulf of the Tagus. Such a landscape does a man see at +sunrise from the highest of the Cevennes looking right eastward to the +dawn as it comes up in the pure and cold air beyond the Alps, and shows +you the falling of the foothills to the Rhone. And by such a landscape +is a man gladdened when upon the escarpments of the Tuolumne he turns +back and looks westward over the plain towards the vast range. + +The experience of such a sight is one peculiar in travel, or, for that +matter, if a man is lucky enough to enjoy it at home, insistent and +reiterated upon the mind of the home-dwelling man. Such a landscape, for +instance, makes a man praise God if his house is upon the height of +Mendip, and he can look over falling hills right over the Vale of Severn +toward the ridge above ridge of the Welsh solemnities beyond, until the +straight line and high of the Black Mountains ends his view. + +It is the character of these landscapes to suggest at once a vastness, +diversity, and seclusion. When a man comes upon them unexpectedly he can +forget the perpetual toil of men and imagine that those who dwell below +in the near side before him are exempt from the necessities of this +world. When such a landscape is part of a man's dwelling-place, though +he well knows that the painful life of men within those hills is the +same hard business that it is throughout the world, yet his knowledge is +modified and comforted by the permanent glory of the thing he sees. + +The distant and high range that bounds his view makes a sort of veiling, +cutting it off and guarding it from whatever may be beyond. The +succession of lower ranges suggests secluded valleys, and the reiterated +woods, distant and more distant, convey an impression of fertility more +powerful than that of corn in harvest upon the lowlands. + +Sometimes it is a whole province that is thus grasped by the eye, +sometimes in the summer haze but a few miles; always this scenery +inspires the onlooker with a sense of completion and of repose, and at +the same time, I think, with worship and with awe. + +Now one such group of valleys there was, hill above hill, forest above +forest, and beyond it a great noble range, unwooded and high against +heaven, guarding it, which I for my part knew when first I knew anything +of this world. There is a high place under fir trees, a place of sand +and bracken, in South England whence such a view was always present to +eye in childhood and "There," said I to myself (even in childhood) "a +man should make his habitation." In those valleys is the proper off-set +for man. + +And so there was. + +It was a little place which had grown up as my county grows. The house +throwing out arms and layers. One room was panelled in the oak of the +seventeenth century--but that had been a novelty in its time, for the +walls upon which the panels stood were of the late fifteenth, oak and +brick intermingled. Another room was large and light built in the manner +of one hundred and fifty years ago, which people call Georgian. It had +been thrown out south (which is quite against our older custom, for our +older houses looked east and west to take all the sun and to present a +corner to the south-west and the storms. So they stand still). It had +round it a solid cornice which the modern men of the towns would have +called ugly, but there was ancestry in it. Then, further on this house +had modern roominess stretching in one new wing after another; and it +had a great steading and there was a copse and some six acres of land. +Over a deep ravine looked the little town that was the mother of the +place, and altogether it was enclosed, silent, and secure. + +"The fish that misses the hook regrets the worm." If this is not a +Chinese proverb it ought to be. That little farm and steading and those +six acres, that ravine, those trees, that aspect of the little mothering +town; the wooded hills fold above fold, the noble range beyond, will not +be mine. + +For all I know, some man quite unacquainted with that land took them +grumbling for a debt; or again, for all I know, they may have been +bought by a blind man who could not see the hills, or by some man who, +seeing them, perpetually regretted the flat marshes of the fens. One +day, up high on Egdean Side, not thinking of such things, through a gap +in the trees I saw again after so many years, set one behind the other, +the forests wave upon wave, the summer heat, the high, bare range +guarding all, and in the midst of that landscape, set like a toy, the +little Sabine Farm. + +Then I said to it, "Continue. Go and serve whom you will, my little +Sabine Farm. You were not mine because you would not be, and you are not +mine at all to-day. You will regret it perhaps, and perhaps you will +not. There was verse in you, perhaps, or prose, or--infinitely +more!--contentment for a man (for all I know). But you refused. You lost +your chance. Goodbye." And with that I went on into the wood and beyond +the gap, and saw the sight no more. + +It was ten years since I had seen it last. It may be ten years before I +see it again, or it may be for ever. But as I went through the woods +saying to myself: + +"You lost your chance, my little Sabine Farm, you lost your chance!" +another part of me at once replied: + +"Ah! And so did _you_!" + +Then, by way of riposte, I answered in my mind: + +"Not at all, for the chance I never had, but what I lost was my desire." + +"No, not your desire," said the voice to me within, "but the fulfilment +of it, in which you would have lost your desire." And when that reply +came I naturally turned as all men do on hearing such interior replies, +to a general consideration of regret, and was prepared, if any honest +publisher should have come whistling through that wood, with an offer +proper to the occasion, namely, to produce no less than five volumes on +the Nature of Regret, its mortal sting, its bitter-sweetness, its power +to keep alive in man the pure passions of the soul, its hints at +immortality, its memory of Heaven. But the wood was empty of publishers. +The offer did not come. The moment was lost. The five volumes will +hardly now be written. In place of them I offer poor this, which you may +take or leave. But I beg leave before I end to cite certain words very +nobly attached to that great inn "The Griffin," which has its foundation +set far off in another place, in the town of March, in the Fen Land: + +"England my desire, what have you not refused?" + + + + +The End Of The World + + +One day I met a man who was sitting quite silent near Whitney, in the +Thames Valley, in a very large, long, low inn that stands in those +parts, or at least stood then, for whether it stands now or not depends +upon the Fussyites, whose business it is to Fuss, and in their Fussing +to disturb mankind. + +He had nothing to say for himself at all, and he looked not gloomy but +sad. He was tall and thin, with high cheekbones. His face was the colour +of leather that has been some time in the weather, and he despised us +altogether: he would not say a word to us, until one of the company +said, rising from his meat and drink: "Very well, there's a thing we +shall never know till the end of the world" (he was talking about some +discussion or other which the young men had been holding together). +"There's a thing we shall never know till the end of the world--and +about that nobody knows!" + +"You will pardon me," said the tall, thin, and elderly man with a face +like leather that has been exposed to the weather, "I know about the End +of the World, for I have been there." + +This was so interesting that we all sat down again to listen. + +"I wasn't talking of place, but of time," murmured the young man whom +the stranger had answered. + +"I cannot help that," said the stranger decisively; "the End of the +World is the End of the World, and whether you are talking of space or +of time it does not matter, for when you have got to the end you have +got to the end, as may be proved in several ways." + +"How did you get to it?" said one of our companions. + +"That is very simply answered," said the elder man; "you get to it by +walking straight in front of you." + +"Anyone could do that," said the other. + +"Anyone could," said the elder man, "but nobody does. I did.... When I +was quite a boy in my father's parsonage (for my father was a parson), +having heard so much about the End of the World and seeing that people's +descriptions of it differed so much and that everybody was quite sure of +his own, I used to take my father's friends and guests aside privately, +for I was afraid to take my father himself, and I used to ask them how +they knew what the End of the World was really like, and whether they +had seen it. Some laughed, others were silent, and others were angry; +but no one gave me any information. At last I decided (and it was very +wise of me) that the only way to find out a thing of that sort was to +find it out for one's self, and not to go by hearsay, so I determined to +go straight on without stopping until I got to the End of the World." + +"Which way did you walk?" said yet another of my companions. + +"Young man," said the stranger, with solemnity, "I walked westward +toward the setting sun ... I walked and I walked and I walked, day after +day and year after year. Whenever I came to the seacoast I would take +work on board a ship--and remember it is always easy to get work if you +will take the wages that are offered, and always difficult to get it if +you will not. Well, then, I went in this way through all known lands and +over all known seas, until at last I came to the shore of a sea beyond +which (so the people told me who lived there) there was no further +shore. 'I cannot help that,' said I; 'I have not yet come to the End of +the World, and it is common sense that such a lot of water must have +something at the back of it to hold it up; besides which there is a +strong wind blowing out of the gates of the west and from the sunset. +Now that wind must rise somewhere, and I am going on to see where it +rises.' One of them was kind enough to lend me a boat with oars; I +thanked him prettily, and then I set out to row toward the End of the +World, taking with me two or three days' provisions. + +"When I had rowed a long time I went asleep, and when I woke up next +morning I rowed again all day until the second night I went to sleep. On +the third day I rowed again: a little before sunset on the third day I +saw before me high hills, all in peaks like a great saw. On the very +highest of the peaks there were streaks of snow, and at about six +o'clock in the afternoon I grounded my boat upon that gravelly shore and +pulled it up upon the shingle, though it was evident either that the +tide was high or that there was no tide in these silent places. + +"I offered up a prayer to the genius of the land, and tied the painter +of the boat to two great stones, so that no wave reaching it might move +it, and then I went on inland. When I had gone a little way I saw a +signpost on which was written, 'To the End of the World One Mile' and +there was a rough track along which it pointed. I went along this track. +Everything was completely silent. There were no birds, there was no wind, +there was nothing in the sky. But one thing I did notice, which was that +the sun was much larger than it used to be, and that as I went along this +last mile or so it seemed to get larger still--but that may have been my +imagination, for I must tell you my imagination is pretty strong. + +"Well then, gentlemen, when I had gone a mile or so I saw another +signpost, on which there was a large board marked 'Danger,' and a +hundred yards beyond the track went between two great dark rocks--and +there I was! The road had stopped short; it was broken off, jagged, just +like a torn bit of paper ... and there was the End of the World." + +"How do you mean?" said one of the younger men in an awed tone. + +"What I say," said the stranger decidedly. "I had come to the end; there +was nothing beyond. You looked down over a precipice where there was +moss and steep grass, and on the ledges trees far below, and then more +precipice, and then--oh, miles below--a few more trees or so clinging to +the steep, then more precipice, and then darkness; and far away before +me was the whole expanse of sky; and in the midst of it I saw the broad +red sun setting into the brume; it was not yet dark enough to see the +stars, and there was no moon in the sky. + +"I assure you it was a very wonderful sight, and I was awed though I was +not afraid. And how glad I was to find that the world had an edge to it, +and that all that talk about its being round was nonsense! + +"When the sun was set it grew dark, and I returned to find my boat; but +I must have missed my way, for the track became broader and better, and +at last I came to a gate of a human sort, with an initial on it, which +showed that it had been put up by some landlord. It was an open gate, +and after I had entered it I came upon a broad highway, beautifully +metalled, and when I had gone along this for less than half a mile I +came to this inn where I am now sitting. That was a week ago, and I have +been here ever since. They took me in kindly enough, but they would not +believe what I had to tell them about the End of the World. It is a +great pity, gentlemen, for that wonderful sight is to be discovered +somewhere hereabouts, and a mere accident of my losing my way in the +darkness makes it difficult for me to find it by daylight." + +Having said all this, the stranger was silent. + +One of my companions whispered to me that the old man must be mad. The +stranger overheard him, and said with a thin smile: + +"Oh, I know all about that; several have suggested it already; but it is +no answer, for if I did not come from the End of the World, where did I +come from? No one has seen me hereabouts during the last few days until +I came to this inn. And all the first part of my journey I can very +easily explain, for I have notes of it, and it lasted for years. It is +only this last part which seems to me so difficult.... I tell you I lost +my way, and when a man has lost his way at night he can never find it +again in the daytime." + +As he spoke he took a little piece of folded paper, rather dirty, out of +his inner pocket, on which a rough sketch-map was drawn, and he began +touching it with a stump of pencil that he held in his hand. His eyes +seemed to grow dimmer as he did so, and he leaned his head upon his +hand. "I think I have got hold of it, gentlemen," he said. + +We did not get up or go too near him, for we thought he might be +dangerous. + +"I think, gentlemen," he repeated in a more mumbling and lower and less +certain voice, "I think I have got hold of it. I go backwards again +through the gate to the right, just as then I went to the left, and +after that it cannot be very far, for I see those two rocks in front of +me. Besides which," he muttered less and less coherently, "I ought to +have remembered of course those very high and silent hills with nothing +living upon them...." And he added, half asleep, as his head dropped +upon his hand, "It was westward.... I had forgotten that." + +Having so spoken, he seemed to fall asleep altogether, and his head fell +back upon the corner of the wainscoting behind the bench where he sat. +He made no noise in breathing as he slept. + +It was the first time that any of us young men had come across this +fairly common sight of a man who took things within for things without; +some of us were frightened, and all of us wished to be rid of the place +and to get away. As we went out we told the landlord nothing either of +the old fellow's vagaries or of his sleep, but we went out and reached +the town of Whitney, and when we had stayed there a couple of hours or +so we went out southward to the station and waited there for the train +which should take us back to Oxford. + +While we were waiting there in the station two farmers were talking +together. One said to the other: + +"Ar, if he'd paid them they wouldn't have minded so much." + +To which the other answered: + +"Ar, 'tisn't only the paying: it's always an awkward thing when a man +dies in your house, specially if it's licensed. My wife's brother was +caught that way." + +Then as they went on talking we found that they were talking of the man +in the inn, who it seems had not slept very long, but was dead, and had +died in that same room. It was a shocking thing to hear. The first +farmer said to the second in the railway carriage when we had all got +in: + +"Where'd he come from?" + +The other, who was an old man, grinned and said: + +"Where we all come from, I suppose, and where we all go to." He touched +his forehead with his hand. "He said he'd come from the End of the +World." + +"Ar," said the other gloomily in answer, "like enough!" 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: First and Last + +Author: H. Belloc + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7352] +[This file was first posted on April 19, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FIRST AND LAST *** + + + + +Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + +FIRST AND LAST + +BY + +H. BELLOC + + + + +CONTENTS + + +ON WEIGHING ANCHOR + +THE REVEILLON + +ON CHEESES + +THE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY + +THE INVENTOR + +THE VIEWS OF ENGLAND + +THE LUNATIC + +THE INHERITANCE OF HUMOUR + +THE OLD GENTLEMAN'S OPINIONS + +ON HISTORICAL EVIDENCE + +THE ABSENCE OF THE PAST + +ST. PATRICK + +THE LOST THINGS + +ON THE READING OF HISTORY + +THE VICTORY + +REALITY + +ON THE DECLINE OF THE BOOK + +JOS MARIA DE HEREDIA + +NORMANDY AND THE NORMANS + +THE OLD THINGS + +THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS + +THE ROMAN ROADS IN PICARDY + +THE REWARD OF LETTERS + +THE EYE-OPENERS + +THE PUBLIC + +ON ENTRIES + +COMPANIONS OF TRAVEL + +ON THE SOURCES OF RIVERS + +ON ERROR + +THE GREAT SIGHT + +THE DECLINE OF A STATE + +ON PAST GREATNESS + +MR. THE DUKE: THE MAN OF MALPLAQUET + +THE GAME OF CARDS + +"KING LEAR" + +THE EXCURSION + +THE TIDE + +ON A GREAT WIND + +THE LETTER + +THE REGRET + +THE END OF THE WORLD + + + + +FIRST AND LAST + + + + +On Weighing Anchor + + +Personally I should call it "Getting It up," but I have always seen it +in print called "weighing anchor"--and if it is in print one must bow to +it. It does weigh. + +There are many ways of doing it. The best, like all good things, has +gone for ever, and this best way was for a thing called a capstan to +have sticking out from it, movable, and fitted into its upper rim, other +things called capstan--bars. These, men would push singing a song, while +on the top of the capstan sat a man playing the fiddle, or the flute, or +some other instrument of music. You and I have seen it in pictures. Our +sons will say that they wish they had seen it in pictures. Our sons' +sons will say it is all a lie and was never in anything but the +pictures, and they will explain it by some myth or other. + +Another way is to take two turns of a rope round a donkey-engine, paying +in and coiling while the engine clanks. And another way on smaller boats +is a sort of jack arrangement by which you give little jerks to a +ratchet and wheel, and at last It looses Its hold. Sometimes (in this +last way) It will not loose Its hold at all. + +Then there is a way of which I proudly boast that it is the only way I +know, which is to go forward and haul at the line until It comes--or +does not come. If It does not come, you will not be so cowardly or so +mean as to miss your tide for such a trifle. You will cut the line and +tie a float on and pray Heaven that into whatever place you run, that +place will have moorings ready and free. + +When a man weighs anchor in a little ship or a large one he does a jolly +thing! He cuts himself off and he starts for freedom and for the chance +of things. He pulls the jib a-weather, he leans to her slowly pulling +round, he sees the wind getting into the mainsail, and he feels that she +feels the helm. He has her on a slant of the wind, and he makes out +between the harbour piers. I am supposing, for the sake of good luck, +that it is not blowing bang down the harbour mouth, nor, for the matter +of that, bang out of it. I am supposing, for the sake of good luck to +this venture, that in weighing anchor you have the wind so that you can +sail with it full and by, or freer still, right past the walls until you +are well into the tide outside. You may tell me that you are so rich and +your boat is so big that there have been times when you have anchored in +the very open, and that all this does not apply to you. Why, then, your +thoughts do not apply to me nor to the little boat I have in mind. + +In the weighing of anchor and the taking of adventure and of the sea +there is an exact parallel to anything that any man can do in the +beginning of any human thing, from his momentous setting out upon his +life in early manhood to the least decision of his present passing day. +It is a very proper emblem of a beginning. It may lead him to that kind +of muddle and set-back which attaches only to beginnings, or it may get +him fairly into the weather, and yet he may find, a little way outside, +that he has to run for it, or to beat back to harbour. Or, more +generously, it may lead him to a long and steady cruise in which he +shall find profit and make distant rivers and continue to increase his +log by one good landfall after another. But the whole point of weighing +anchor is that he has chosen his weather and his tide, and that he is +setting out. The thing is done. + +You will very commonly observe that, in land affairs, if good fortune +follows a venture it is due to the marvellous excellence of its +conductor, but if ill fortune, then to evil chance alone. Now, it is not +so with the sea. + +The sea drives truth into a man like salt. A coward cannot long pretend +to be brave at sea, nor a fool to be wise, nor a prig to be a good +companion, and any venture connected with the sea is full of venture and +can pretend to be nothing more. Nevertheless there is a certain pride in +keeping a course through different weathers, in making the best of a +tide, in using cats' paws in a dull race, and, generally, in knowing how +to handle the thing you steer and to judge the water and the wind. Just +because men have to tell the truth once they get into tide water, what +little is due to themselves in their success thereon they are proud of +and acknowledge. + +If your sailing venture goes well, sailing reader, take a just pride in +it; there will be the less need for me to write, some few years hence, +upon the art of picking up moorings, though I confess I would rather +have written on that so far as the fun of writing was concerned. For +picking up moorings is a far more tricky and amusing business than +Getting It up. It differs with every conceivable circumstance of wind, +and tide, and harbour, and rig, and freeboard, and light; and then there +are so many stories to tell about it! As--how once a poor man picked up +a rich man's moorings at Cowes and was visited by an aluminium boat, all +splendid in the morning sun. Or again--how a stranger who had made +Orford Haven (that very difficult place) on the very top of an +equinoctial springtide, picked up a racing mark-buoy, taking it to be +moorings, and dragged it with him all the way to Aldborough, and that +right before the town of Orford, so making himself hateful to the Orford +people. + +But I digress.... + + + + +The Reveillon + + +There was in the regiment with which I served a man called Frocot, +famous with his comrades because he had seen The Dead, for this +experience, though common among the Scotch, is rare among the French, a +sister nation. This man Frocot could neither write nor read, and was +also the strongest man I ever knew. He was quite short and exceedingly +broad, and he could break a penny with his hands, but this gift of +strength, though young men value it so much, was thought little of +compared with his perception of unseen things, for though the men, who +were peasants, professed to laugh at it, and him, in their hearts they +profoundly believed. It had been made clear to us that he could see and +hear The Dead one night in January during a snowstorm, when he came in +and woke me in barrack-room because he had heard the Loose Spur. Our +spurs were not buckled on like the officers'; they were fixed into the +heel of the boot, and if a nail loosened upon either side the spur +dragged with an unmistakable noise. There was a sergeant who (for some +reason) had one so loosened on the last night he had ever gone the +rounds before his death, for in the morning as he came off guard he +killed himself, and the story went about among the drivers that +sometimes on stable guard in the thick of the night, when you watched +all alone by the lantern (with your three comrades asleep in the straw +of an empty stall), your blood would stop and your skin tauten at the +sound of a loose spur dragging on the far side of the stable, in the +dark. But though many had heard the story, and though some had pretended +to find proof for it, I never knew a man to feel and know it except this +man Frocot on that night. I remember him at the foot of my bed with his +lantern waking me from the rooted sleep of bodily fatigue, standing +there in his dark blue driver's coat and staring with terrible eyes. He +had undoubtedly heard and seen, but whether of himself from within, +imagining, or, as I rather believe, from without and influenced, it is +impossible to say. He was rough and poor, and he came from the Forest of +Ardennes. + +The reason I remember him and write of him at this season is not, +however, this particular and dreadful visitation of his, but a folly or +a vision that befell him at this time of the year, now seventeen years +ago; for he had Christmas leave and was on his way from garrison to his +native place, and he was walking the last miles of the wood. It was the +night before Christmas. It was clear, and there was no wind, but the sky +was overcast with level clouds and the evening was very dark. He started +unfed since the first meal of the day; it was dark three hours before he +was up into the high wood. He met no one during all these miles, and his +body and his mind were lonely; he hoped to press on and be at his +father's door before two in the morning or perhaps at one. The night was +so still that he heard no noise in the high wood, not even the rustling +of a leaf or a twig crackling, and no animal ran in the undergrowth. The +moss of the ride was silent under his heavy tread, but now and then the +steel of his side-arm clicked against a metal button of the great cloak +he wore. This sharp sound made him so conscious of himself that he +seemed to fill that forest with his own presence and to be all that was, +there or elsewhere. He was in a mood of unreal and not holy things. The +mood, remaining, changed its aspect, and now he was so far from alone +that all the trunks around him and the glimmers of sky between bare +boughs held each a spirit of its own, and with the powerful imagination +of the unlearned he could have spoken and held communion with the trees; +but it would have an evil communion, for he felt this mood of his take +on a further phase as he went deeper and deeper still into these +forests. He felt about him uneasily the sense of doom. He was in that +exaltation of fancy or dream when faint appeals are half heard far off, +but not by our human ears, and when whatever attempts to pierce the +armour of our mortality appeals to us by wailing and by despairing +sighs. It seemed to him that most unhappy things passed near him in the +air, and that the wood about him was full of sobbing. Then, again, he +felt his own mind within him begin to be occupied by doubtful troubles +worse than these terrors, an anxious straining for ill news, for bitter +and dreadful news, mixed with a confused certitude that such news had +come indeed, disturbed and haunted him; and all the while about him in +that stillness the rushing of unhappy spirits went like a secret storm. +He was clouded with the mingled emotions of apprehension and of fatal +mourning; he attempted to remember the expectations that had failed him, +friends untrue, and the names of parents dead; but he was now the victim +of this strange night and unable (whether from hunger or fatigue, or +from that unique power of his to discern things beyond the world) to +remember his life or his definite aims at all, or even his own name. He +was mixed with the whole universe about him, and was suffering some loss +so grievous that very soon the gait of his march and his whole being +were informed by a large and final despair. + +It was in this great and universal mood (granted to him as a seer, +though he was a common man) that he saw down the ride, but somewhat to +one side of it in the heart of the high wood, a great light shining from +a barn or shed that stood there in the undergrowth, and to this light, +though his way naturally led him to it, he felt also impelled by an +influence as strong as or stronger than the despair that had filled his +soul and all the woods around. He went on therefore quickly, straining +with his eyes, and when he came into the light that shone out from this +he saw a more brilliant light within, and men of his own kind adoring; +but the vision was confused, like light on light or like vapours moving +over bright metals in a cauldron, and as he gazed his mind became still +and the dread left him altogether. He said it was like shutting a +gentleman's great oaken door against a driving storm. + +This is the story he told me weeks after as we rode together in the +battery, for he hid it in his heart till the spring. As I say, I +believed him. + +He was an unlearned man and a strong; he never worshipped. He was of +that plain stuff and clay on which has worked since all recorded time +the power of the Spirit. + +He said that when he left (as he did rapidly leave) that light, peace +also left him, but that the haunting terror did not return. He found the +clearing and his father's hut; fatigue and the common world indeed +returned, but with them a permanent memory of things experienced. + +Every word I have written of him is true. + + + + +On Cheeses + + +If antiquity be the test of nobility, as many affirm and none deny +(saving, indeed, that family which takes for its motto "Sola Virtus +Nobilitas," which may mean that virtue is the only nobility, but which +may also mean, mark you, that nobility is the only virtue--and anyhow +denies that nobility is tested by the lapse of time), _if_, I say, +antiquity be the only test of nobility, then cheese is a very noble +thing. + +But wait a moment: there was a digression in that first paragraph which +to the purist might seem of a complicated kind. + +Were I writing algebra (I wish I were) I could have analysed my thoughts +by the use of square brackets, round brackets, twiddly brackets, and the +rest, all properly set out in order so that a Common Fool could follow +them. + +But no such luck! I may not write of algebra here; for there is a rule +current in all newspapers that no man may write upon any matter save +upon those in which he is more learned than all his human fellows that +drag themselves so slowly daily forward to the grave. + +So I had to put the thing in the very common form of a digression, and +very nearly to forget that great subject of cheese which I had put at +the very head and title of this. + +Which reminds me: had I followed the rule set down by a London +journalist the other day (and of the proprietor of his paper I will say +nothing--though I might have put down the remark to his proprietor) I +would have hesitated to write that first paragraph. I would have +hesitated, did I say? Griffins' tails! Nay--Hippogriffs and other things +of the night! I would not have dared to write it at all! For this +journalist made a law and promulgated it, and the law was this: that no +man should write that English which could not be understood if all the +punctuation were left out. Punctuation, I take it, includes brackets, +which the Lord of Printers knows are a very modern part of punctuation +indeed. + +Now let the horripilised reader look up again at the first paragraph (it +will do him no harm), and think how it would look all written out in +fair uncials like the beautiful Gospels of St. Chad, which anyone may +see for nothing in the cathedral of Lichfield, an English town famous +for eight or nine different things: as Garrick, Doctor Johnson, and its +two opposite inns. Come, read that first paragraph over now and see what +you could make of it if it were written out in uncials--that is, not +only without punctuation, but without any division between the words. +Wow! As the philosopher said when he was asked to give a plain answer +"Yes" or "No." + +And now to cheese. I have had quite enough of digressions and of +follies. They are the happy youth of an article. They are the springtime +of it. They are its riot. I am approaching the middle age of this +article. Let us be solid upon the matter of cheese. + +I have premised its antiquity, which is of two sorts, as is that of a +nobleman. First, the antiquity of its lineage; secondly, the antiquity +of its self. For we all know that when we meet a nobleman we revere his +nobility very much if he be himself old, and that this quality of age in +him seems to marry itself in some mysterious way with the antiquity of +his line. + +The lineage of cheese is demonstrably beyond all record. What did the +faun in the beginning of time when a god surprised him or a mortal had +the misfortune to come across him in the woods? It is well known that +the faun offered either of them cheese. So he knew how to make it. + +There are certain bestial men, hangers-on of the Germans, who would +contend that this would prove cheese to be acquired by the Aryan race +(or what not) from the Dolichocephalics (or what not), and there are +certain horrors who descend to imitate these barbarians--though +themselves born in these glorious islands, which are so steep upon their +western side. But I will not detain you upon these lest I should fall +head foremost into another digression and forget that my article, +already in its middle age, is now approaching grey hairs. + +At any rate, cheese is very old. It is beyond written language. Whether +it is older than butter has been exhaustively discussed by several +learned men, to whom I do not send you because the road towards them +leads elsewhere. It is the universal opinion of all most accustomed to +weigh evidence (and in these I very properly include not only such +political hacks as are already upon the bench but sweepingly every +single lawyer in Parliament, since any one of them may tomorrow be a +judge) that milk is older than cheese, and that man had the use of milk +before he cunningly devised the trick of squeezing it in a press and by +sacrificing something of its sweetness endowed it with a sort of +immortality. + +The story of all this has perished. Do not believe any man who professes +to give it you. If he tells you some legend of a god who taught the +Wheat-eating Race, the Ploughers, and the Lords to make cheese, tell him +such tales are true symbols, but symbols only. If he tells you that +cheese was an evolution and a development, oh! then!--bring up your +guns! Open on the fellow and sweep his intolerable lack of intelligence +from the earth. Ask him if he discovers reality to be a function of +time, and Being to hide in clockwork. Keep him on the hop with ironical +comments upon how it may be that environment can act upon Will, while +Will can do nothing with environment--whose proper name is mud. Pester +the provincial. Run him off the field. + +But about cheese. Its noble antiquity breeds in it a noble diffusion. + +This happy Christendom of ours (which is just now suffering from an +indigestion and needs a doctor--but having also a complication of +insomnia cannot recollect his name) has been multifarious +incredibly--but in nothing more than in cheese! + +One cheese differs from another, and the difference is in sweeps, and in +landscapes, and in provinces, and in countrysides, and in climates, and +in principalities, and in realms, and in the nature of things. Cheese +does most gloriously reflect the multitudinous effect of earthly things, +which could not be multitudinous did they not proceed from one mind. + +Consider the cheese of Rocquefort: how hard it is in its little box. +Consider the cheese of Camembert, which is hard also, and also lives in +a little box, but must not be eaten until it is soft and yellow. +Consider the cheese of Stilton, which is not made there, and of Cheddar, +which is. Then there is your Parmesan, which idiots buy rancid in +bottles, but which the wise grate daily for their use: you think it is +hard from its birth? You are mistaken. It is the world that hardens the +Parmesan. In its youth the Parmesan is very soft and easy, and is +voraciously devoured. + +Then there is your cheese of Wensleydale, which is made in Wensleydale, +and your little Swiss cheese, which is soft and creamy and eaten with +sugar, and there is your Cheshire cheese and your little Cornish cheese, +whose name escapes me, and your huge round cheese out of the Midlands, +as big as a fort whose name I never heard. There is your toasted or +Welsh cheese, and your cheese of Pont-l'evque, and your white cheese of +Brie, which is a chalky sort of cheese. And there is your cheese of +Neufchatel, and there is your Gorgonzola cheese, which is mottled all +over like some marbles, or like that Mediterranean soap which is made of +wood-ash and of olive oil. There is your Gloucester cheese called the +Double Gloucester, and I have read in a book of Dunlop cheese, which is +made in Ayrshire: they could tell you more about it in Kilmarnock. Then +Suffolk makes a cheese, but does not give it any name; and talking of +that reminds me how going to Le Quesnoy to pass the people there the +time of day, and to see what was left of that famous but forgotten +fortress, a young man there showed me a cheese, which he told me also +had no name, but which was native to the town, and in the valley of Ste. +Engrace, where is that great wood which shuts off all the world, they +make their cheese of ewe's milk and sell it in Tardets, which is their +only livelihood. They make a cheese in Port-Salut which is a very subtle +cheese, and there is a cheese of Limburg, and I know not how many +others, or rather I know them, but you have had enough: for a little +cheese goes a long way. No man is a glutton on cheese. + +What other cheese has great holes in it like Gruyere, or what other is +as round as a cannon-ball like that cheese called Dutch? which reminds +me:-- + +Talking of Dutch cheese. Do you not notice how the intimate mind of +Europe is reflected in cheese? For in the centre of Europe, and where +Europe is most active, I mean in Britain and in Gaul and in Northern +Italy, and in the valley of the Rhine--nay, to some extent in Spain (in +her Pyrenean valleys at least)--there flourishes a vast burgeoning of +cheese, infinite in variety, one in goodness. But as Europe fades away +under the African wound which Spain suffered or the Eastern barbarism of +the Elbe, what happens to cheese? It becomes very flat and similar. You +can quote six cheeses perhaps which the public power of Christendom has +founded outside the limits of its ancient Empire--but not more than six. +I will quote you 253 between the Ebro and the Grampians, between +Brindisi and the Irish Channel. + +I do not write vainly. It is a profound thing. + + + + +The Captain of Industry + + +The heir of the merchant Mahmoud had not disappointed that great +financier while he still lived, and when he died he had the satisfaction +of seeing the young man, now twenty-five years of age, successfully +conducting his numerous affairs, and increasing (fabulous as this may +seem) the millions with which his uncle entrusted him. + +Shortly after Mahmoud's death the prosperity of the firm had already +given rise to a new proverb, and men said: "Do you think I am +Mahmoud's-Nephew?" when they were asked to lend money or in some other +way to jeopardize a few coppers in the service of God or their +neighbour. + +It was also a current expression, "He's rich as Mahmoud's-Nephew," when +comrades would jest against some young fellow who was flusher than +usual, and could afford a quart or even a gallon of wine for the +company; while again the discontented and the oppressed would mutter +between their teeth: "Heaven will take vengeance at last upon these +Mahmoud's-Nephews!" In a word, "Mahmoud's-Nephew" came to mean +throughout the whole Caliphate and wherever the True Believers spread +their empire, an exceedingly wealthy man. But Mahmoud himself having +been dead ten years and his heir the fortunate head of the establishment +being now well over thirty years of age, there happened a very +inexplicable and outrageous accident: he died--and after his death no +instructions were discovered as to what should be done with this +enormous capital, no will could be found, and it happened moreover to be +a moment of great financial delicacy when the manager of each department +in the business needed all the credit he could get. + +In such a quandary the Chief Organizer and confidential friend, Ahmed, +upon whom the business already largely depended, and who was so +circumstanced that he could draw almost at will upon the balances, +imagined a most intelligent way of escaping from the difficulties that +would arise when the death of the principal was known. + +He caused a quantity of hay, of straw, of dust and of other worthless +materials to be stuffed into a figure of canvas; this he wrapped round +with the usual clothes that Mahmoud's-Nephew had worn in the office, he +shrouded the face with the hood which his chief had commonly worn during +life, and having so dressed the lay figure and secretly buried the real +body, he admitted upon the morning after the death those who first had +business with his master. + +He met them at the door with smiles and bows, saying: "You know, +gentlemen, that like most really successful men, my chief is as silent +as his decisions are rapid; he will listen to what you have to say, and +it will be a plain yes or no at the end of it." + +These gentlemen came with a proposal to sell to the firm for the sum of +one million dinars a barren rock in the Indian Sea, which was not even +theirs, and on which indeed not one of them had ever set eyes. Their +claim to advance so original a proposal was that to their certain +knowledge two thousand of the wealthiest citizens of their town were +willing to buy the rock again at a profit from whoever should be its +possessor during the next few weeks in the fond hope of selling it once +again to provincials, clerics, widows, orphans, and in general the +uninstructed and the credulous--among whom had been industriously spread +the report that the rock in question consisted of one solid and flawless +diamond. + +These gentlemen sitting round the table before the shrouded figure laid +down their proposals, whereupon the manager briefly summed up what they +had said, and having done so, replied: "Gentlemen, his lordship is a man +of few words; but you will have your answer in a moment if you will be +good enough to rise, as he is at this moment expecting a deputation from +the Holy Men who are entreating him to provide the cost of a mosque in +one of the suburbs." + +The proposers of the bargain rose, greatly awed and pleased by the +silence and dignity of the financier who apparently remained for a +moment discussing their proposals without gesture and in a tone too low +for them to hear, while his manager bent over to listen. + +"It is ever so," said one of them, "you may ever know the greatest men +by their silence." + +"You are right," said another, "he is not one to be easily deceived." + +The manager in a moment or two rejoined them at the door. "Gentlemen," +he said, smiling, "my chief has heard your arguments and has expressed +his assent to your conditions." + +They went out, delighted at the success of their mission, and +congratulated Ahmed upon the financier's genius. + +"He does not," said the manager, laughing in hearty agreement, "bestow +himself as a present upon all and sundry. Nor is he often caught +indulging in short bouts of sleep, nor are flies diabolically left to +repose undisturbed upon his features--but you must excuse me, I hear the +Holy Men," and indeed from the inner room came a noise of speechifying +in that doleful sing-song which is associated in Bagdad with the +practice of religion. + +The gentlemen who had thus had the luck to interview Mahmoud's-Nephew +with such success in the matter of the Diamond Island, soon spread about +the news, and confirmed their fellow-citizens in the certitude that a +great financier is neither talkative nor vivacious. "Still waters run +deep," they said, and all those to whom they said it nodded in a wise +acquiescence. Nor had the Manager the least difficulty in receiving one +set of customers after another and in negotiating within three weeks an +infinite amount of business, all of which confirmed those who had the +pleasure of an audience with the stuffed dummy that great fortunes were +made and retained by reticence and a contempt for convivial weakness. + +At last the ingenious man of affairs, to whom the whole combination was +due, was not a little disturbed to receive from the Caliph a note +couched in the following terms: + +"The Commander of the Faithful and the Servant of the Merciful whose +name be exalted, to the Nephew of Mahmoud: + +"My Lord:-- + +"It has been the custom since the days of my grandfather (May his soul +see God!) for the more wealthy of the Faithful to be called to my +councils, and upon my summoning them thither it has not been unusual for +them to present sums varying in magnitude but always proportionate to +their total fortunes. My court will receive signal honour if you will +present yourself after the morning prayer of the day after to-morrow. My +treasurer will receive from you with gratitude and remembrance upon the +previous day and not later than noon, the sum of one million dinars." + +Here, indeed, was a perplexity. The payment of the money was an easy +matter and was duly accomplished; but how should the lay figure which +did duty in such domestic scenes as the negotiation of loans, the +bullying of debtors, the purchase of options, and the cheating of the +innocent and the embarrassed, take his place in the Caliph's council and +remain undiscovered? For great as was the reputation of Mahmoud's-Nephew +for discretion and for golden silence, such as are proper to the +accumulation of great wealth, there would seem a necessity in any +political assembly to open the mouth from time to time, if only for the +giving of a vote. + +But Ahmed, who had by this time accumulated into his own hands the +millions formerly his master's, finally solved the problem. Judicious +presents to the servants of the palace and the public criers made his +way the easier, and on the summoning of the council Mahmoud's-Nephew, +whose troublesome affection of the throat was now publicly discussed, +was permitted to bring into the council-room his private secretary and +manager. + +Moreover at the council, as at his private office, the continued +taciturnity of the millionaire could not but impress the politicians as +it had already impressed the financial world. + +"He does not waste his breath in tub-thumping," said one, looking +reverently at the sealed figure. + +"No," another would reply, "they may ridicule our old-fashioned, honest, +quiet Mohammedan country gentlemen, but for common sense I will back +them against all the brilliant paradoxical young fellows of our day." + +"They say he is very kind at heart and lovable," a third would then add, +upon which a fourth would bear his testimony thus: + +"Yes, and though he says nothing about it, his charitable gifts are +enormous." + +By the second meeting of the council the lay figure had achieved a +reputation of so high a sort that the Caliph himself insisted upon +making him a domestic adviser, one of the three who perpetually +associated with the Commander of the _Faithful_ and directed his +policy. For the universal esteem in which the new councillor was held +had affected that Prince very deeply. + +Here there arose a crux from which there could be no escape, as one of +the three chief councillors, Mahmoud's-Nephew, must speak at last and +deliver judgments! + +The Manager, first considering the whole business, and next adding up +his private gains, which he had carefully laid out in estates of which +the firm and its employs knew nothing, decided that he could afford to +retire. What might happen to the general business after his withdrawal +would not be his concern. + +He first gave out, therefore, that the millionaire was taken exceedingly +ill, and that his life was despaired of: later, within a few hours, that +he was dead. + +So far from attempting to allay the panic which ensued, Ahmed frankly +admitted the worst. + +With cries of despair and a confident appeal to the justice of Heaven +against such intrigues, the honest fellow permitted the whole of the +vast business to be wound up in favour of newcomers, who had not +forgotten to reward him, and soothing as best he could the ruined crowds +of small investors who thronged round him for help and advice, he +retired under an assumed name to his highly profitable estates, which +were situated in the most distant provinces of the known world. + +As for Mahmoud's-Nephew, three theories arose about him which are still +disputed to this day: + +The first was that his magnificent brain with its equitable judgment and +its power of strict secrecy, had designed plans too far advanced for his +time, and that his bankruptcy was due to excess of wisdom. + +The second theory would have it that by "going into politics" (as the +phrase runs in Bagdad) he had dissipated his energies, neglected his +business, and that the inevitable consequences had followed. + +The third theory was far more reasonable. Mahmoud's-Nephew, according to +this, had towards the end of his life lost judgment; his garrulous +indecision within the last few days before his death was notorious: in +the Caliph's council, as those who should best know were sure, one could +hardly get a word in edgewise for his bombastic self-assurance; while in +matters of business, to conduct a bargain with him was more like +attending a public meeting than the prosecution of negotiations with a +respectable banker. + +In a word, it was generally agreed that Mahmoud's-Nephew's success had +been bound up with his splendid silence, his fall, bankruptcy, and +death, with a lesion of the brain which had disturbed this miracle of +self-control. + + + + +The Inventor + + +I had a day free between two lectures in the south-west of England, and +I spent it stopping at a town in which there was a large and very +comfortable old posting-house or coaching-inn. I had meant to stay some +few hours there and to take the last train out in the evening, and I had +meant to spend those hours alone and resting; but this was not permitted +me, for just as I had taken up the local paper, which was a humble, +reasonable thing, empty of any passion and violence and very reposeful +to read, a man came up and touched my left elbow sharply: a gesture not +at all to my taste nor, I think, to that of anyone who is trying to read +his paper. + +I looked up and saw a man who must have been quite sixty years of age. +He had on a soft, felt slouch hat, a very old and greenish black coat; +he stooped and shuffled; he was clean-shaven, with long grey hair, and +his eyes were astonishingly bright and piercing and set close together. + +He said, "I beg your pardon." + +I said, "Eh, what?" + +He said again "I beg your pardon" in the tones of a man who almost +commands, and having said this he put his hat on the table, dragged a +chair quite close to mine, and pulled a folded bunch of foolscap sheets +out of his pocket. His manner was that of a man who engages your +attention and has a right to engage it. There were no preliminaries and +there was no introduction. This was apparently his manner, and I +submitted. + +"I have here," he said, fixing me with his intense eyes, "the plans for +a speedometer." + +"Oh!" said I. + +"You know what a speedometer is?" he asked suspiciously. + +I said yes. I said it was a machine for measuring the speed of vehicles, +and that it was compounded of two (or more) Greek words. + +He nodded; he was pleased that I knew so much, and could therefore +listen to his tale and understand it. He pulled his grey baggy trousers +up over the knee, settled himself, sitting forward, and opened his +document. He cleared his throat, still fixing me with those eyes of his, +and said-- + +"Every speedometer up to now has depended upon the same principle as a +Watt's governor; that is, there are two little balls attached to each by +a limb to a central shaft: they rise and fall according to their speed +of rotation, and this movement is indicated upon a dial." + +I nodded. + +He cleared his throat again. "Of course, that is unsatisfactory." + +"Damnably!" said I, but this reply did not check him. + +"It works tolerably well at high speeds; at low speeds it is useless; +and then again there is a very rapid fluctuation, and the instrument is +of only approximate precision." + +"Not it!" said I to encourage him. + +"There is one exception," he continued, "to this principle, and that is +a speedometer which depends upon the introduction of resistance into a +current generated by a small magneto. The faster the magneto turns the +stronger the current generated, and the change is indicated upon a +dial." + +"Yes," said I sadly, "as in the former case so in this; the change of +speed is indicated upon a dial." And I sighed. + +"But this method also," he went on tenaciously, "has its defects." + +"You may lay to that," I interrupted. + +"It has the defect that at high speeds its readings are not quite +correct, and at very low speeds still less so. Moreover, it is said that +it slightly deteriorates with the passage of time." + +"Now that," I broke in emphatically, "is a defect I have discovered +in----" + +But he put up his hand to stop me. "It slightly deteriorates, I say, +with the passage of time." He paused a moment impressively. "No one has +hitherto discovered any system which will accurately record the speed of +a vehicle or of any rotary movement and register it at the lowest as at +the highest speeds." He paused again for a still longer period in order +to give still greater emphasis to what he had to say. He concluded in a +new note of sober triumph: "I have solved the problem!" + +I thought this was the end of him, and I got up and beamed a +congratulation at him and asked if he would drink anything, but he only +said, "Please sit down again and I will explain." + +There is no way of combating this sort of thing, and so I sat down, and +he went on: + +"It is perfectly simple...." He passed his hand over his forehead. "It +is so simple that one would say it must have been thought of before; but +that is what is always said of a great invention.... Now I have here" +(and he opened out his foolscap) "the full details. But I will not read +them to you; I will summarize them briefly." + +"Have you a plan or anything I could watch?" said I a little anxiously. + +"No," he answered sharply, "I have not, but if you like I will draw a +rough sketch as I go along upon the margin of your newspaper." + +"Thank you," I said. + +He drew the newspaper towards him and put it on his knee. He pulled out +a pencil; he held the foolscap up before his eye, and he began to +describe. + +"The general principle upon which my speedometer reposes," he said +solemnly, "is the coordination of the cylinder and the cone upon an +angle which will have to be determined in practice, and will probably +vary for different types. But it will never fall below 15 nor rise over +43." + +"I should have thought----" I began, but he told me I could not yet have +grasped it, and that he wished to be more explicit. + +"On a king bolt," he said, occasionally consulting his notes, "runs a +pivot in bevel which is kept in place by a small hair-spring, which +spring fits loosely on the Conkling Shaft." + +"Exactly," said I, "I see what is coming." + +But he wouldn't let me off so easily. + +"Yes, of course you are going to say that the whole will be keyed +together, and that the T-pattern nuts on a movable shank will be my +method of attachment to the fixed portion next to the cam? Eh? So it is, +but" (and here his eye brightened), "_anyone_ could have arranged +that. My particularity is that I have a freedom of movement even at the +lowest speeds, and an accuracy of notation even at the highest, which is +secured in a wholly novel manner ... and yet so simply. What do you +think it is?" + +I affected to look puzzled, and thought for a moment. "I cannot +imagine," said I, "unless----" + +"No," he interrupted, "do not try to guess it, for you never will. _I +turn the flange inward_ on a Wilkinson lathe and give it a parabolic +section so that the axes are always parallel to each other and to the +shaft.... There!" + +I had no idea the man could be so moved: there was jubilation in his +voice. + +"There!" he said again, as though some effort of the brain had exhausted +him. "It can't be touched, mind you," he added suspiciously; "I've taken +out the provisional patents. There's one man I know wants to fight it in +the courts as an infringement on Wilkinson's own patent, but it can't be +touched!" He shook his head decisively. "No! my lawyer's certain of +that--and so'm I!" + +Here there was a break in his communications, so to speak, and he had +apparently run out. It was not for me to wind him up again. I watched +him with a sombre relief as he stood up again to full height, leaned his +head back, and sighed profoundly with satisfaction and with completion. +He folded up his specification and put it in his pocket again. He tore +off the incomprehensible sketch he had made with his pencil while he was +speaking, and put it by me on the mantelshelf. "You might like to keep +it," he said pathetically; "it's a document, that is; it will be famous +some day." He looked at it lovingly, almost as though he was going to +take it back again: but he thought better of it. + +I was waiting, I will not say itching, for him to take his leave, when a +god or demon, that same perhaps which had treated the poor fellow as a +jest for a whole lifetime, inspired him to take a very false step +indeed. He had already taken up his hat and was turning as though to go +to the door, when the unfortunate thought struck him. + +"What would you do?" he said. + +"How do you mean?" I answered. + +"Why, what would you do to try and get it taken up and talked about?" + +Then it was my turn, and I let him have it. + +"You must get the Press and the Government to work together," I said +rapidly, "and particularly in connection with the new Government Service +of Camion's Fettle-Trains and Cursory Circuits." + +He nodded like one who thoroughly understands and desires to hear more. + +"Speed," I added nonchalantly, "and the measure of it are of course +essentials in their case." + +He nodded again. + +"And they have never really settled the problem ... especially about +Fettle-Trains." + +"No," said he ponderously, "so I understand." + + +"Well now," I went on, full of the chase, "you will naturally ask me who +are you to go to?" I scratched my nose. "You know the Fusionary Office, +as we call it? It is really, of course, a part of the Stannaries. But +the Chief Permanent Secretary likes to have it called the Fusionary +Office; it's his vanity." + +"Yes," said he eagerly, "yes, go on!" + +"They always have the same hours," I said, "four to eleven." + +"Four to _what_?" he asked, looking up. + +"To eleven," I repeated sharply; "but you'd much better call round about +three." + +He looked bewildered. + +"Don't interrupt," I said, seeing him open his lips, "or I shall lose +the thread. It's rather complicated. You call at three by the little +door in Whitehall on the Embankment side towards the Horse Guards +looking south, and _don't_ ring the bell." + +"Why not?" he asked. I thought for the moment he might begin to cry. + +"Oh, well," I said testily, "you mustn't ask those questions. All these +institutions are very old institutions with habits and prejudices of +their own. You mustn't ring the bell, that's all; they don't like it; +you must just wait until they open; and then, if you take _my_ +advice, don't write a note or ask to interview the First Analyist. Don't +do any of the usual things, but just fill up one of the regular Treasury +forms and state that you have come with regard to the Perception and +Mensuration advertisements." + +His face was pained and wrinkled as he heard me, but he said, "I beg +your pardon ... but shall I have it all explained to me at the office?" + +"Certainly not!" I said, aghast; "it's just because you might have so +much difficulty there that I'm explaining everything to you." + +"Yes, I know," he said doubtfully; "thank you." + +"I hope you'll try and follow what I say," I continued a little wearily; +"I have special opportunities for knowing.... Political, you know." + +"Certainly," he said, "certainly; but about those forms?" + +"Well," I said, "you didn't suppose they supplied them, did you?" + +"I almost did," he ventured. + +"Oh, you did," said I, with a loud laugh, "well, you're wrong there. +However, I dare say I've got one on me." He looked up eagerly as I felt +in my pockets. I brought out a telegraph blank, two letters, and a +tobacco pouch. I looked at them for a moment. "No," said I, "I haven't +got one; it's a pity, but I'll tell you who will give you one; you know +the place opposite, where the bills are drafted?" + +"I'm afraid I don't," he said, admitting ignorance for the first time in +this conversation and perhaps in his life. + +"Well," said I impatiently, "never mind, anyone will show you. Go there, +and if they don't give you a form they'll show you a copy of Paper B, +which is much the same thing." + +"Thank you," said he humbly, and he got up to move out. He was going a +little groggily, his eyes were dull and sodden. He presented all the +aspect of a man under a heavy strain. + +"You've got it all clear, I hope?" I asked cheerfully as he neared the +door. + +"Oh, yes!" he said. "Thank you; yes!" + +"Anything else?" I shouted as he passed out into the courtyard. +"Anything else I can do? You'll always find me in the room over the +office, Room H, down the little iron staircase," I nodded genially to +him as he disappeared. + +In this way did we exchange, the Inventor and I, those expert +confidences and mutual aids in either's technical skill which are too +rarely discovered in modern travel. + + + + +The Views of England + + +England is a country with edges and with a core. It is a country very +small for the number of people who live in it, and very appreciable to +the eye for the traveller who travels on foot or in a boat from place to +place. Considering the part it has in the making of the world, it might +justly be compared to a jewel which is very small and very valuable and +can almost be held in the hand. The physical appreciation of England is +to be reached by an appreciation of landscape. + +It so happens that England is traversed by remarkable and sudden ranges; +hills with a sharp escarpment overlooking great undulating plains. This +is not true of any other one country of Europe, but it is true of +England, and a man who professes to consider, to understand, to +criticize, to defend, and to love this country, must know the Pennines, +the Cotswolds, the North and the South Downs, the Chilterns, the +Mendips, and the Malverns; he must know Delamere Forest, and he must +know the Hill of Beeston, from which all Cheshire may be perceived. If +he knows these heights and has long considered the prospects which they +afford, he can claim to have seen the face of England. + +It is deplorable that our modern method of travel does cut us off from +such experiences. They were not only common to, they were necessary to +our fathers; the roads would not be at the expense of tunnelling through +hills, and (what is more important) when those men who most mould the +knowledge of the country by the country (the people who deal with its +soil, who live separate upon its separate farms) visited each other upon +horses; and horses, unlike railway trains, cannot climb hills. They +puff, they heave, they snort, as do railway trains, but they climb them +well. + +On this account, because the roads for the carriages went over hills, +and because the method of visiting even a near neighbour would permit +you to go over hills, the England of quite a little time ago was +familiar with the half-dozen great landscapes of England. You may see it +in that most individual, that most peculiar, and, I think, that most +glorious school of painters, the English landscape painter, Constable +with his thick colours, Turner with his wonderment, and even the +portrait painters in their backgrounds depend upon the view of the +plains from a height. To-day our landscape painters sometimes do the +same, but the market for that emotion is capricious, it is no longer the +secure and natural way of presenting England to English eyes. + +If you will consider these plains at the foot of the English hills you +will find in them the whole history of the country, and the whole +meaning of it as well. Two occur to me first: The view of the Weald +(both Kentish and Sussex) through which the influence of Europe +perpetually approached the island, not only in the crisis of the Roman +or the Norman invasions, but in a hundred episodes stretched out through +two thousand years--and the view of the Thames Valley as one gets it on +a clear day from the summits of the North Downs when one looks northward +and sees very faintly the Chilterns along the horizon. + +This last is obscured by London. One needs a very particular +circumstance in which to appreciate it. The air must be dry and clear, +there must be little or no wind, or if there is a wind it must be a +strong one from the south and west that has already driven the smoke +from the western edge of the town. When this is so, a man looks right +across to the sandy heights just north of the Thames, and far beyond he +sees the Chilterns, like a landfall upon the rim of the world. He looks +at all that soil on which the government of this country has been +rooted. He sees the hill of Windsor. He overlooks, though he cannot +perceive at so great a distance, the two great schools of the rich; he +has within one view the principal Castle of the Kings, the place of +their council, and the cathedral of their capital city: so true is it +that the Thames made England. + +Then, if you consider the upper half of that valley, the view is from +the ridge of the Berkshire hills, or, better still, from Cumnor, or from +the clump of trees above Faringdon. From such look-outs the astonishing +loneliness which England has had the strength to preserve in this +historic belt of land profoundly strikes a man. You can see to your left +and, a long way off, the hill where, as is most probable, Alfred thrust +back the Pagans, and so saved one-half of Christendom. Oxford is within +your landscape. The roll upwards in a glacis of the Cotswold, the nodal +point of the Roman roads at Cirencester, and the ancient crossings of +the Thames. + +From the Cotswold again westward you look over a sheer wall and see one +of those differences which make up England. For the passage from the +Upper Thames to the flat and luxuriant valley floor of the Severn is a +transition (if it be made by crossing the hills) more sudden than that +between many countries abroad. Had our feudalism cut England into +provinces we should here have two marked provincial histories marching +together, for the natural contrast is greater than between Normandy and +Brittany at any part of their march or between Aragon and Castile at any +part of theirs. I do not know what it is, but the view of the jagged +Malvern seen above the happy mists of autumn, when these mists lie like +a warm fleece upon the orchards of the vale, preserving them of a +morning until the strengthening of the sun, the sudden aspect, I say, of +those jagged peaks strikes one like a vision of a new world. How many +men have thought it! How often it ought to be written down! It hangs in +the memory of the traveller like a permanent benediction, and remains in +his mind a standing symbol of peace. + +I have no space to speak of how from Beeston you see all Cheshire; the +Vale Royal to your left, and the main plain of the county to your right. +The whole stretch is framed in with definite hills, the last and highly +marked line of the Pennines bounds the view upon the east; upon the west +the first of the Welsh hills stands sharply in a long even line against +the fading sun; and on the north you see the height of Delamere. There +are three other views in the North of England, the first easy, the last +two difficult to obtain, all between them making up a true picture of +what the North of England is. The first (and it is very famous) is the +view over the industrial ferment of South Lancashire, seen from the +complete silence of the hills round the Peak. No matter where you cross +that summit, even if you take the high road from the Snake Inn to +Glossop, where the easiest, and therefore the least striking, passage +has been chosen, much more if you follow the wild heights a little to +the south until you come to a more abrupt descent on which there are not +even paths, there comes a point where there is presented to you in one +great offering, without introduction, a vision of the vast energies of +England. + +I remember once in winter when the sun sets early (it was December, and +seven years ago) coming upon this sight. The clouds were so arranged +after an Atlantic storm that all the heaven (which here is always +spacious and noble) was covered with a rolling curtain as though a man +had pulled it with his hands. But far off, westward, there was a broad +red band of sunset, and against this the smoke, the tall stacks, the +violence and the wealth of that cauldron. One could almost hear the +noise. It did arrest one; it was as though someone had painted something +unreal, to be a mystical emblem, and to sum up in one picture all those +million despairs, misfortunes, chances, disciplines, and acquirements +which make up the character of Lancashire men. This vision also many men +have seen and many men shall write of. Very rarely upon the surface of +the earth does the soul take on so immediate and obvious a physical body +as does the soul of that industrial world in the view of which I speak. + +And the two other views are, first, that difficult one which one must +pick and choose but which can be obtained from several sites (especially +at the end of Wensleydale), and which is the view of that rich, old, and +agricultural Yorkshire, from which the county draws its traditions and +in which, perhaps, the truest spirit of the county still abides; for +Yorkshire is at heart farmer, and possibly after three generations of a +town, a man from this part of England still looks more lively when he +sees a lively horse put before him for judgment. Second, the view from +Cross Fell, very, very difficult to obtain, for often when one climbs +Cross Fell in sunny weather, one gets up over the Scar under the threat +of cloud, and one only reaches the summit by the time the evening or the +mist has fallen; but if one has the luck to see the view of which I +speak, then one sees all that rugged remaining part of the Northwest +exactly as the Romans saw it, and as it has been for two thousand years, +with the high land of the lakes and the stony nature and the sparseness +of all the stretch about one, and the approach to a foreign land. + +I have often thought when I have heard men blaming the story of England +or her present mood for false reasons, or, what is worse, praising her +for false reasons; when I have heard the men of the cities talking wild +talk got from maps and from print, or the disappointed men talking wild +talk of another kind, expecting impossible or foreign perfections from +their own kindred--I have often thought, I say, when I have heard the +folly upon either side (and the mass of it daily increases)--that it +would be a wholesome thing if one could take such a talker and make him +walk from Dover to the Solway, exercising some care that he should rise +before the sun, and that he should see in clear weather the views of +which I speak. A man who has done that has seen England--not the name or +the map or the rhetorical catchword, but the thing. And it does not take +so very long. + + + + +The Lunatic + + +Those who are interested in what simple straightforward people call the +Pathology of Consciousness have gathered a great body of evidence upon +the various manias that affect men, and there is an especially +interesting department of this which concerns illusion upon matters +which in the sane are determinable by the senses and common experience. +Thus one man will believe himself to be the Emperor of China, another to +be William Shakespeare or some other impossible person, though one would +imagine that his every accident of daily life would convince him to the +contrary. + +I had recently occasion to watch one of the most harmless and yet one of +the most striking of these illusions in a private asylum which has +specialized, if I may so express myself, upon men of letters. The case +was harmless and even benign, for the poor fellow was not of a combative +disposition to begin with, was of too careful and dignified a +temperament to show more than slight irritation if his delusion were +contradicted. This misfortune, however, very rarely overtook him, for +those who came to visit him were warned to humour his whim. This +eccentricity I will now describe. + +He imagined, nay he was convinced, that he was existing fifty years in +the future, and that the interest of his conversation for others would +lie in his reminiscence of the state of society in which we are actually +living today. If anyone who had not been warned was imprudent enough to +suggest that the conversation was taking place in 1909 would smile +gently, nod, and say rather bitterly, "Yes, I know, I know," as though +recognizing a universal plot against him which he was too weary to +combat. But when he had said this he would continue to talk on as though +both parties to the conversation were equally convinced that the year +was really 1960 or thereabouts. Whether to add zest to what he said or +from some part of his malady consonant with all the rest, my poor friend +(who had been a journalist and will very possibly be a journalist again) +presupposed that the whole structure of society as we now know it had +changed and that his reminiscences were those of a past time which, on +account of some great revolution or other, men imperfectly comprehended, +so that it must be of the highest interest and advantage to listen to +the testimony of an eye-witness upon them. + +What especially delighted him (for he was a zealous admirer of the +society he described) was the method of government. + +"There was no possibility of going wrong," he said to me with curious +zeal, "not a shadow of danger! It would be difficult for you to +understand now how easily the system worked!" And here he sighed +profoundly. "And why on earth," he continued, "men should have destroyed +such an instrument when they had it is more than I can understand. There +it was in every country in Europe; there were elections; all the men +voted. And mind you, the elections were not so very far apart. Most +people living at one election could remember the last, so there was no +time for abuses to spring up.... Well, everybody voted. If a man wanted +one thing he voted one way, and if he wanted another thing he voted the +other way. The people for whom he voted would then meet, and with a +sense of duty which I cannot exaggerate they would work month after +month exactly to reproduce the will of those who had appointed them. It +was a great time!" + +"Yet," said I, "even so there must have been occasional divergences +between what these people did and what the nation wanted." + +"I see what you mean," he said, musing, "you mean that all the devotion +in the world, the purest of motives and the most devoted sense of duty, +could not keep the elected always in contact with the electors. You are +right. But you must remember that in every country there was a +machinery, with regard to the most important measures at least, which +could throw the matter before the electors to be re-decided. I can +remember no important occasion upon which the machinery was not brought +into use." + +"But, after all, the value of the decisions of the electorate you are +describing," said I, continuing to humour him, "would depend upon the +information which the electorate had received as well as upon their +judgment." + +"As for their judgment," he said, a little shortly, "it is not for our +time to criticize theirs. Human judgment is not infallible, but I can +well remember how in every nation of Europe it was the fixed conviction +of the citizens that judgment was their chief characteristic, and +especially judgment in national affairs. I cannot believe that so +universal an attitude of the mind could have arisen had it not been +justified. But as for information, they had the Press ... a free Press!" +Here he fell into a reverie, so powerfully did his supposed memories +affect him. + +I was willing to lead him on, because this kind of illness is best met +by sympathy, and also because I was not uninterested to discover how his +own trade had affected him. + +"You would hardly understand it," he said sadly; "what you hear from me +is nothing but words.... I wish I could have shown you one of those +great houses with information pouring in as rapid, as light, and as +clear, from every hidden corner of the world, digested by master brains +into the most lucid and terse presentment of it possible, and then +whirled out on great wheels to be distributed by the thousand and the +hundred thousand, to the hungry intelligence of Europe. There was +nothing escaped it--nothing. In every capital were crowds of men +dispatched from the other capitals of our civilization, moving with ease +in the wealthiest houses, and exquisitely in touch with the most +delicate phases of national life everywhere. And these men were such +experts in selection that a picture of Europe as a whole was presented +every morning to each particular part of Europe; and nowhere was this +more successfully accomplished than in my own beloved town of London." + +"It must have been useful," I said, "not only for the political purposes +you describe, but also for investors. Indeed, I should imagine that the +two things ran together." + +"You are right," he said with interest, "the wide knowledge which even +the poorest of the people possessed upon foreign affairs, through the +action of the Press, was, further, of the utmost and most beneficent +effect in teaching even the smallest proprietor what he need do with his +capital. A discovery of metallic ore--especially of gold--a new +invention, anything which might require development, was at once +presented in its most exact aspect to the reader." + +"It was probably upon that account," said I, "that property was so +equally distributed, and that so general a prosperity reigned as you +have often described to me." + +"You are right," said he; "it was mainly this accurate and universal +daily information which produced such excellent results." + +"But it occurs to me," said I, by way of stimulating his conversation +with an objection, "that if so passionate and tenacious a habit of +telling the exact truth upon innumerable things was present in this old +institution of which you speak, it cannot but have bred a certain amount +of dissension, and it must sometimes even have done definite harm to +individuals whose private actions were thus exposed." + +"You are right," said he; "the danger of such misfortunes was always +present, and with the greatest desire in the world to support only what +was worthy the writers of the journals of which I speak would +occasionally blunder against private interests; but there was a remedy." + +"What was that?" I asked. + +"Why, the law provided that in this matter twelve men called a jury, +instructed by a judge, after the matter had been fully explained to them +by two other men whose business it was to examine the truth boldly for +the sake of justice--I say the law provided that the twelve men after +this process should decide whether the person injured should receive +money from the newspaper or no, and if so, in what amount. And, lest +there should still be any manner of doubt, the judge was permitted to +set aside their verdict if he thought it unjust. To secure his absolute +impartiality as between rich and poor he was paid somewhat over 100 a +week, a large salary in those days, and he was further granted the right +of imprisoning people at will or of taking away their property if he +believed them to obstruct his judgment. Nor were these the only +safeguards. For in the case of very rich men, to whom justice might not +be done on account of the natural envy of their poorer fellow-citizens, +it was arranged that the jury should consist only of rich men. In this +way it was absolutely certain that a complete impartiality would reign. +We shall never see those days again," he concluded. + +"But do you not think," I said before I left him, "that the social +perfection of the kind you have described must rather have been due to +some spirit of the time than to particular institutions? For after all +the zealous love of justice and the sense of duty which you describe are +not social elements to be produced by laws." + +"Possibly," he said, wearily, "possibly, but we shall never see it +again!" + +And I left him looking into the fire with infinite sadness and +reflecting upon his lost youth and the year 1909: a pathetic figure, and +one whose upkeep during the period of his deficiency was a very serious +drain upon the resources of his family. + + + + +The Inheritance of Humour + + +There are some truths which seem to get old almost as soon as they are +born, and that simply because they are so astonishingly true that people +soon get to feel as though they have known them all their lives; and +such a truth is that which first one writer and then another in the last +five years has been insisting upon, until it is already a perfect +commonplace that nations do not know their own qualities. The inmost, +the characteristic thing, that which differentiates one community from +another, as tastes or colours differentiate things--_that_ a +nation hardly ever knows until it is pointed out to it by some foreigner +or by some observer from within. It cannot know it, because one cannot +tell the very atmosphere in which one lives. It is universal and +therefore unnoticed. Now, if this is true of any nation, it is +particularly true of England. And English people need to be told +morning, noon, and night, not indeed the particular national +characteristic which they have, since for this no particular name could +be found, but rather what its evidences are; as, for instance, +spontaneity in design, a passion for the mystical in poetry and the +arts; a power in water-colour, in which they are perhaps quite alone, +and certainly the first in Europe; and, above all, the chief, the master +thing of all, humour. + +There is not nor ever will be anything like English humour. It is a +thing quite apart, and by it for now more than two hundred years you may +know England. It does not puzzle the foreigner (as the more blatant kind +of intellectual man is too fond of boasting that it does); he simply +admires it as a rule and wonders at it always; sometimes he actually +dislikes it, but by it he knows that the thing he is reading is English +and has the savour and taste of England. + +It is impossible to define it, because it is so full of stuff and so +organic a quality; but in our own time it was principally the pencil of +Charles Keene that has summed it up and presented it in a moment and at +once to the eye--the pencil of Charles Keene and that profound instinct +whereby he chose the legends for his drawing, whether he found them by +his own sympathy with the people or whether they were suggested to him +by friends. + +It is the verdict of the men most competent perhaps to judge upon these +things that he had the greatest graphic power of his time, and that no +one had had that power to such an extent since Hogarth. Upon these +things the men of the trade must dispute; the layman cannot doubt that +he had here a genius and a genius comprehensively national. It is the +essence of a good draughtsman that what he wants to draw, that he draws. +The line that he desires to see upon the paper appears there as his +fingers move. It is a quality extremely rare in its perfection. And +Charles Keene had it in perfection, as in totally different manner had +the offensive and diseased talent of Beardsley. + +But more important than the power to do is the quality of the thing +done, and the work of Charles Keene, multitudinous, varied, always +great, is an inheritance for English people comparable to the +inheritance they have in Dickens. It has also what Dickens had, a power +of representing, as it were, the essential English. Just that which +makes people say (with some truth) that Dickens never drew a gentleman +would make them say with equal truth that what was interesting in the +gentlemen of Charles Keene (and he perpetually drew them) was not the +externals upon which gentlemen so pride themselves, but the soul. Thus I +have in mind one picture wherein Keene drew a gentleman; true, he was a +gentleman who had just swallowed a bad oyster, and therefore he was a +man as well. I recall another of an old gentleman complaining of the +caterpillar on his chop: he is a gentleman of the professional rather +than the territorial classes, and, great heavens! what a power of line! +All you see beneath the round of his hat is the end of his nose, the +curve of his mouth, and two bushy ends of whiskers. Yet one can tell all +about that man; one could write a book on him. One knows his economics, +his religion, his accent, and what he thought of the Third Napoleon and +what of Garibaldi. I have called draughtsmanship of this quality an +inheritance--I might have called it perhaps with better propriety a +monument. It is possible that England in the near future will look back +with great envy, as she will certainly look back with great pride, to +the generation preceding our own: they were a solid and a happy +community of men. How much they owed to fortune, how much to themselves, +it is not the place of such random stuff as mine to consider. + +They were nearly impregnable in their island; they were not bellicose. +They made and sold for all the world. Whether the very different future +which we are now entering is to be laid to their door or to our own, +that generation will still remain one of the principal things in English +history, like the Elizabethan generation, or the group of men who +organized the Seven Years' War, or the group of men who fought in the +Peninsula. And of that generation the note of health and of stability is +represented by its humour. I am not sure that of all things educational +to young men with no personal memory of that time, and especially to +young men with no family tradition of it to reflect it in their books +and their furniture; and--this yet more particularly--to young men born +out of England yet claiming communion with England, the Anglo-Indians +and the Colonials--I am not sure, I say, that the thing most educational +to these would not be some hundred of Charles Keene's drawings, for +therein they would find what it was that gave them the power and the +wealth that can hardly be defended unless its traditions are continued. +Note how Victorian England dealt with the humour of a Volunteer review; +note how it dealt with the humour of excessive wealth; and note how it +dealt with the humour of schools and of Dons. One might almost define it +by negations. There is in all of it no--but here I lack a word.... When +things ring false it is because they have got by exaggeration or by some +other form of falsity _beside_ themselves. Appreciation of rank or +even of worth becomes snobbishness; appreciation of another's judgment +false taste; and patriotism, the most beautiful, the noblest, the most +necessary of the great emotions, corrupts into something very vile +indeed. + +Well, the Victorians, and notably this man of whose power of the pencil +I am speaking, did lack that false savour, that savour of just missing +what one wishes to say or to feel, which haunts us to-day; and I should +imagine that whether it were cause or effect the salt present in the +preservation of the moral health of that society was humour. Let us +enjoy it like an heirloom. It is more national than the language; at +least it is more national than what the language has become under +foreign pressure; it is infinitely more national than our problems and +our tragedies. It is so national that--who knows?--it may crop up again +of itself one of these days; and may that not be long. + + + + +The Old Gentleman's Opinions + + +I had occasion about a fortnight ago to meet a man more nearly ninety +than eighty years of age, who had had special opportunity for +discovering the changes of Europe during his long life. He was of the +English wealthier classes by lineage, but his mother had been of the +French nobility and a Huguenot. His father had been prominent in the +diplomacy of a couple of generations ago. He had travelled widely, read +perhaps less widely, but had known and appreciated an astonishing number +of his contemporaries. + +I was interested (without any power of my own to judge whether his +decisions were right or wrong) to discover what most struck him in the +changes produced by that great stretch of years, all of which he had +personally observed: he was born just after Waterloo, and he could +remember the Reform Bill. + +He surprised me by telling me, in the first place, that the material +changes and discoveries, enormous though they were in extent, were not, +in his view, the most striking. He was ready to leave it open whether +these material changes were the causes of moral changes more remarkable, +or merely effects concomitant with these. When I asked him what had +struck him most of the great material developments, he told me the +phonograph and the aeroplane among inventions; Mendel's observations in +the sphere of experimental knowledge; and, in the sphere of pure theory, +the breakdown of many things that had been dogmas of physical science in +his early manhood. + +Since I did not quite understand what he meant by this last, he gave me, +after some hesitation, a few examples: That the interior of the earth +was molten; that a certain limited number of elements--not all yet +isolated, but certainly few in their total--were at the base of all +material forms, and were immutable; that the ultimate unit of each of +these was a certain indivisible, eternal thing called the Atom; and so +forth. + +He assured me that views of this sort, extending over a hundred or a +thousand other points, were so universally accepted in his time that to +dispute them was to be ranked with the unlettered or the fantastic. I +asked him if it were so in economics. He said: Yes, in England, where +there was a similar dogma of Free Trade: not abroad. + +When I asked him why Mendel's published experiments and the theory based +upon them had so much impressed him, he said because it was almost the +first attempt to apply to the speculative dogmas of biology some +standard demonstrably true; and here he wandered off to explain to me +why the commonly accepted views upon biology, which had so changed +thought in the latter part of his life, were associated with the name of +Darwin. Darwin, he assured me, had brought forward no new discovery, but +only a new hypothesis, and that only a small and particular hypothesis, +whereby to explain the general theory of transformism. This theory, he +told me--the unbroken descent of living organisms and their physical +connection with one another and with common parents--had been a +favourite idea from the beginning of history with many great thinkers, +from Lucretius to Buffon and from Augustus of Hippo to Lamarck. +Darwin's, the old gentleman assured me, which he had defended with +infinite toil, was that the method in which this continuity of descent +proceeded was by an infinitely slow process of very small changes +differentiating each minute step from the one before and the one after +it, and these small changes Darwin's hypothesis referred to a natural +selection. Nothing else in Darwin's work, he assured me, was novel, and +yet it was the one thing which subsequent research had rendered more and +more doubtful. Darwin (he said) said nothing new that was also true. + +At this point I was moved to contradict the old gentleman, and to say +that one unquestioned contribution to science of Darwin, as novel as it +was secure, was his patient discovery of the work of earthworms, and of +its vast effect. The old gentleman was willing to admit that I was +right, but he said he was only speaking of Darwin in connection with +transformism and the whimsical way in which his private name (and his +errors) had become identified with evolution in general. + +I asked him, since he had such a knowledge of men from observation, why +this was so. + +"It seems at first sight," he said, "as ridiculous as though we should +associate the theory of light with the name of Newton, who inclined to +the exploded corpuscular hypothesis, or the general conception of +orbital motion in the universe to the great Bacon, who, in point of +fact, rudely repudiated the Copernican theory in particular." + +"Did he, indeed?" said I, interested. + +"I believe so," said the old gentleman; "at any rate you were asking me +why Darwin, with his single contribution to the theory of transformism, +and that a doubtful one--or, to be accurate, an exploded one--should be +associated in the popular mind with the invention of so ancient a theory +as that of evolution. The reason is, I think, no more than that he came +at a particular moment when any man doing great quantities of detailed +work in this field was bound to stand out exaggeratedly. The society in +which he appeared had, until just before his day, accepted a narrow +cosmogony, quite unknown to its ancestors. Darwin's book certainly +exploded that, and the mind of his time--ignorant as it was of the +past--was ready to accept the shattering of its father's idols as a new +revelation." + +"But you were saying," said I, when he had thus dealt harshly with a +great name, "that not the material but the moral changes of your time +seemed to you the greatest. Which did you mean?" + +"Why, in the first place," said the old man thoughtfully and with some +hesitation, "the curiously rapid decline of intelligence, or if you will +have it differently, the clouding of thought that has marked the last +thirty years. Men in my youth knew what they held and what they did not +hold. They knew why they held it or why they did not hold it; but the +attempt to enjoy the advantages of two contradictory systems at the same +time, and, what is worse, the consulting of a man as an authority upon +subjects he had never professed to know, are intellectual phenomena +quite peculiar to the later years of my life." + +I said we of the younger generation had all noticed it, as, for +instance, when an honest but imperfectly intelligent chemist was +listened to in his exposition of the nature of the soul, or a well-paid +religious official was content to expound the consolations of +Christianity while denying that Christianity was true. + +"But," I continued, "we are usually told that this unfortunate decline +in the express powers of the brain is due to the wide and imperfect +education of the populace at the present moment." + +"That is not the case," answered the old man sharply, when I had made +myself clear by repeating my remarks in a louder tone, for he was a +little deaf. + +"That is not the case. The follies of which I speak are not particularly +to be discovered among the poorer classes who have passed through the +elementary schools. _These_" (it was to the schools that he was +alluding with a comprehensive pessimism) "may account for the gross +decline apparent in the public manners of our people, but not for faults +which are peculiar to the upper and middle classes. It is not in the +populace, but in those wealthier ranks that you will find the sort of +intellectual decay of which I spoke." + +I asked him whether he thought the tricks it was now considered cultured +to play with mathematics came within the category of this intellectual +decay. The old gentleman answered me a little abruptly that he could not +judge what I was talking about. + +"Why," said I, "do you believe that parallel straight lines +_converge_ or _diverge_?" + +"Neither," said he, a little bewildered. "If they are parallel they +cannot by definition either diverge or converge." + +"You are, then," said I, "an old-fashioned adherent of the theory of the +parabolic universe?" At which sensible reply of mine the old man +muttered rather ill-temperedly, and begged me to speak of something +else. + +I asked him whether the knowledge of languages had not declined in his +time. He said, somewhat emphatically, yes, and especially the knowledge +of French, assuring me that in his early years many a Fellow of a +College at Oxford or at Cambridge was capable of speaking that tongue in +such a fashion as to make himself understood. On the other hand, he +admitted that German and Spanish were more widely known than they had +been, and Arabic certainly far more widely diffused among those +officials of the Empire who took their work seriously. + +When I asked him whether politics were more corrupt as time proceeded, +he said No, but more cynical; and as to morals he would not judge, for +he was certain that as one vice was corrected another appeared in its +place. + +What he told me he most deplored in the social system of his country was +the power of the police and of the statistician by whom the policeman +was guided. This he ascribed to the growth of great towns, to civic +cowardice, and to a new taboo laid upon uniformed and labelled public +authorities, who are now regarded as sacred, and also inordinately +feared. + +"In my youth," he said, "there was a joke that every man in Paris was +known to the police. Today that is universally true, and no joke with +regard to every man in London. Our movements are marked, our earnings, +our expenses, and our most private affairs known to the innumerable +officials of the Treasury, our records of every sort, however intimate, +are exactly and correctly maintained. The obtaining of work and a +livelihood is dependent upon strong organizations. There is hardly an +ailment or a domestic habit, from drinking wine to eating turnips, which +some crank who has obtained the ear of a politician does not control or +threaten in the immediate future to control." + +"As for doctors!" he began, his voice cracking with indignation, "their +abominable...." but here the old gentleman fell into so violent a fit of +coughing that he nearly turned black in the face, and when I +respectfully slapped him on the back, in the hopes of granting him +relief, he made matters worse by shaking himself at me with an energy +worthy of 1842. His nurse rushed in, clapped him upon his pillows, and +was prepared to vent her wrath upon me for having caused this paroxysm, +when the old man's exhaustion and laboured breathing captured all her +attention, and I had the opportunity to withdraw. + + + + +On Historical Evidence + + +The last book to be published upon the last Dauphin of France set me +thinking upon what seems to me the chief practical science in which +modern men should secure themselves. I mean the science of history--and +in this science almost all lies in the appreciation of evidence, for one +of the chief particular problems presented to the student of history at +the present moment is whether the Dauphin did or did not survive his +imprisonment in the Temple. + +Let me first say why, to so many of us, the science of history and the +appreciation of the evidence upon which it depends is of the first +moment. It is because, short of vision or revelation, history is our +only extension of human experience. It is true that a philosophy common +to all citizens is necessary for a State if it is to, live--but short +of that necessity the next most necessary factor is a knowledge of the +stuff of mankind: of how men act under certain conditions and impulses. +This knowledge may be acquired, and is in some measure, during the +experience of one wise lifetime, but it is indefinitely extended by the +accumulation of experience which history affords. + +And what history so gives us is always of immediate and practical +moment. + +For instance, men sometimes speak with indifference of the rival +theories as to the origin of European land tenure; they talk as though +it were a mere academic debate whether the conception of private +property in land arose comparatively late among Europeans or was native +and original in our race. But you have only to watch a big popular +discussion on that very great and at the present moment very living +issue, the moral right to the private ownership in land, to see how +heavily the historic argument weighs with every type of citizen. The +instinct that gives that argument weight is a sound one, and not less +sound in those who have least studied the matter than in those who have +most studied it; for if our race from its immemorial origins has desired +to own land as a private thing side by side with communal tenures, then +it is pretty certain that we shall not modify that intention, however +much we change our laws. If, on the other hand, it could be shown that +before the advent of a complex civilization Europeans had no conception +of private property in land, but treated land as a thing necessarily and +always communal, then you could ascribe modern Socialist theories with +regard to the land to that general movement of harking back to the +origins which Europe has been assisting at through over a hundred years +of revolution and of change. + +It sounds cynical, but it is perfectly true, that much the largest +factor in the historical conception of men is assertion. It is literally +true that when men (with the exception of a very small proportion of +scholars who are also intelligent) consider the past, the picture on which +they dwell is a picture conveyed to them wholly by authority and by +unquestioned authority. There was never a time when the original sources +of history were more easily to be consulted by the plain man; but whether +because of their very number, or because the habit is not yet formed, or +because there are traditions of imaginary difficulty surrounding such +reading, original sources were perhaps never less familiar to fairly +educated opinion than they are today; and therefore no type of book gives +more pleasure when one comes across it than those little cheap books, now +becoming fairly numerous, in which the original sources, and the +original sources alone, are put before the reader. Mr. Rait has already +done such work in connection with Mary Queen of Scots, and Mr. Archer +did it admirably in connection with the Third Crusade. + +But apart from the importance of consulting original sources--which is +like hearing the very witnesses themselves in court--there is a factor +in historical judgment which by some unhappy accident is peculiarly +lacking in the professional historian. It is a factor to which no +particular name can be attached, though it may be called a department of +common sense. But it is a mental power or attitude easily recognizable +in those who possess it, and perhaps atrophied by the very atmosphere of +the study. It goes with the open air with a general knowledge of men and +with that rapid recognition of the way in which things "fit in" which is +necessarily developed by active life. + +For instance, when you know the pace at which Harold marched down from +the north to Hastings you recognize, if you use that factor of historic +judgment of which I spake, that the affair was not barbaric. There must +have been fairly good roads, and there must have been a high +organization of transport. You have only to consider for a moment what a +column looks like, even if it be only a brigade, to see the truth of +that. Again, this type of judgment forbids anyone who uses it to ascribe +great popular movements (great massacres, great turmoils, and so forth) +to craft. It is a very common thing, especially in modern history, to +lay such things to the power of one or two wealthy or one or two bloody +leaders, but you have only to think for a few moments of what a mob is +to see the falsity of that. Craft can harness this sort of explosive +force, it can control it, or persuade it, or canalize it to certain +issues, but it cannot create it. + +Again, this sort of sense easily recognizes in historic types the +parallels of modern experience. It avoids the error of thinking history +a mistake and making of the men and women who appear there something +remote from humanity, extreme, and either stilted or grandiose. + +In aid of this last feature in historical judgment there is nothing of +such permanent value as a portrait. Obtain your conception (as, indeed, +most boys do) of the English early sixteenth century from a text, then +go and live with the Holbeins for a week and see what an enormously +greater thing you will possess at the end of it. It is indeed one of the +misfortunes of European history that from the fifth century to at least +the eleventh we are, so far as Western European history is concerned, +deprived of portraits. And by an interesting parallel the writers of the +dark time seemed to have had neither the desire nor the gift of vivid +description. Consider the dreariness of the hagiographers, every one of +them boasting the noble rank and the conventional status of his hero, +and you may say not one giving the least conception of the man's +personality. You have the great Gallo-Roman noble family of Ferreolus +running down the centuries from the Decline of the Empire to the climax +of Charlemagne. Many of those names stand for some most powerful +individuality, yet all we have is a formula, a lineage, with symbols and +names in the place of living beings, and even that established only by +careful work, picking out and sifting relationships from various lives. +The men of that time did not even think to tell us that there was such a +thing as a family tradition, nor did it seem important to them to +establish its Roman origin and its long succession in power. + +Next it must be protested that the smallness and particularity of the +questions upon which historical discussion rages are no proof either of +its general purposelessness nor of _their_ insignificance. All +advance of knowledge proceeds in this fashion. Physical science affords +innumerable examples of the way in which progress has depended upon a +curiosity directed towards apparently insignificant things, and there is +something in the mind which compels it to select a narrow field for the +exercise of its acutest powers. Moreover, special points, discussion +upon which must evidently be lengthy and may be indefinite, are +peculiarly attractive to just that kind of man who by a love of +prolonged research enlarges the bounds of knowledge and at the same time +strengthens and improves for his fellows by continual exercise all the +instruments of their common trade. Take, for instance, this case of the +little Dauphin, Louis XVII. It really does not matter to day whether the +boy got away or whether he died in prison. It does not prolong the line +of the Capetians--the heir to that is present in the Duke of Orleans. It +does not even affect our view of any other considerable part of +history--save possibly the policy of Louis XVIII--and it is of no direct +interest to our pockets or to our affections. Yet the masses of work +which have accumulated round that one doubt have solved twenty other +doubts. They have illuminated all the close of the Terror; they are +beginning to make us understand that most difficult piece of political +psychology, the reaction of Thermidor, and with it how Europeans lose +their balance and regain it in the course of their quasi-religious wars; +for all our wars have something in them of religion. + +Three elements appear to enter into the judgment of history. First, +there is the testimony of human witnesses; next, there are the non-human +boundaries wherein the action took place, boundaries which, by all our +experience, impose fixed limits to action; thirdly, there is that +indefinable thing, that mystic power, which all nations deriving from +the theology of the Western Church have agreed to call, with the +schoolman, _common sense_; a general appreciation which transcends +particular appreciations and which can integrate the differentials of +evidence. Of this last it is quite impossible to afford a test or to +construct a measure; its presence in an argument is none the less as +readily felt as fresh air in a room; without it nothing is convincing +however laboured, with it, even though it rely upon slight evidence, one +has the feeling of walking on a firm road. But it must be "common +sense"--it must be of the sort, that is, which is common to man various +and general, and it is in this perhaps that history suffers most from +the charlatanism and ritual common to all great matters. + +Men will have pomp and mystery surrounding important things, and +therefore the historians must, consciously or unconsciously, tend to +strut, to quote solemn authorities in support, and to make out the +vulgar unworthy of their confidence. Hence, by the way, the plague of +footnotes. + +These had their origin in two sources: the desire to show that one was +honest and to prove it by a reference; the desire to elucidate some +point which it was not easy to elucidate in the text itself without +making the sentence too elaborate and clumsy. Either use may be seen at +its best in Gibbon. With the last generation they have served mainly, +and sometimes merely, for ritual adornment and terror, not to make +clearer or more honest, but to deceive. Thus Taine in his monstrously +false history of the Revolution revels in footnotes; you have but to +examine a batch of them with care to turn them completely against his +own conclusions--they are only put there as a sort of spiked paling to +warn off trespassers. Or, again, M. Thibaut, who writes under the name +of "Anatole France," gives footnotes by the score in his romance of Joan +of Arc, apparently not even caring to examine whether they so much as +refer to his text, let alone support it. They seem to have been done by +contract. + +Another ailment in this department is the negative one, whereby an +historian will leave out some aspect which to him, cramped in a study, +seems unimportant, but which any plain man moving in the world would +have told him to be the essential aspect of the whole matter. For +instance, when Napoleon left Madrid on his forced march to intercept Sir +John Moore before that general should have reached Benevente, he thought +Moore was at Valladolid, when as a fact he was at Sahagun. In Mr. Oman's +history of the Peninsular War the error is put thus: "Napoleon had not +the comparatively easy task of cutting the road between Valladolid and +Astorga, but the much harder one of intercepting that between Sahagun +and Astorga." + +Why is this egregious nonsense? The facts are right and so are the dates +and the names, yet it makes one blush for Oxford history. Why? Because +the all-important element of _distance_ is omitted. The very first +question a plain man would ask about the case would be, "What were the +distances involved?" The academic historian doesn't know, or, at least, +doesn't say; yet without an appreciation of the distances the statement +has no value. As a fact the distances were such that in the first case +(supposing Moore had been at Valladolid) Napoleon would have had to +cover nearly three miles to Moore's one to intercept him--an almost +superhuman task. In the second case (Moore being as a fact at Sahagun) +he would have had to go over _four miles_ to his opponent's one--an +absolutely impossible feat. + +To march _three_ miles to the enemy's _one_ is what Mr. Oman +calls "a comparatively easy task"; to march four to his one is what Mr. +Oman calls a "much harder" task; and to write like that is what an +informed critic calls bad history. + +The other two factors in an historical judgment can be more easily +measured. + +The non-human elements which, as I have said, are irremovable (save to +miracle), are topography, climate, season, local physical conditions, +and so forth. They have two valuable characters in aid of history; the +first is that they correct the errors of human memory and support the +accuracy of details; the second is that they enable us to complete a +picture. We can by their aid "see" the physical framework in which an +action took place, and such a landscape helps the judgment of things +past as it does of things contemporary. Thus the map, the date, the +soil, the contours of Crcy field make the traditional spot at which the +King of Bohemia fell doubtful; the same factors make it certain that +Drouet did not plunge haphazard through Argonne on the night of June 21, +1791, but that he must have gone by one path--which can be determined. + +Or, again, take that prime question, why the Prussians did not charge at +Valmy. On their failure to do so all the success of the Revolution +turned. A man may read Dumouriez, Kellermann, Pully, Botidoux, +Massenback, Goethe--there are fifty eye-witnesses at least whose +evidence we can collect, and I defy anyone to decide. (Brunswick himself +never knew.) But go to that roll of land between Valmy and the high +road; go after three days' rain as the allies did, and you will +immediately learn. That field between the heights of "The Moon" and the +site of old Valmy mill, which is as hard as a brick in summer (when the +experts visit it), is a marsh of the worst under an autumn drizzle; no +one could have charged. + +As for human testimony, three things appear: first, that the witness is +not, as in a law court, circumscribed. His relation may vary infinitely +in degree of proximity of time or space to the action, from that of an +eye-witness writing within the hour to that of a partisan writing at +tenth hand a lifetime after. That question of proximity comes first, +from the known action of the human mind whereby it transforms colours +and changes remembered things. Next there is the character of the +witness _for the purposes of his testimony_. Historians write, too +often, as though virtue--or wealth (with which they often confound +it)--were the test. It is not, short of a known motive for lying; a +murderer or a thief casually witnessing to a thing with which he is +familiar is worth more than the best man witnessing in a matter which he +understands ill. It was this error which ruined Croker's essay on +Charlotte Robespierre's Memoirs. Croker thought, perhaps wisely, that +all radicals were scoundrels; he could not accept her editor's evidence, +and (by the way) the view of this amateur collector without a tincture +of historical scholarship actually imposed itself on Europe for nearly +seventy years! + +And the third character in the witness is support: the support upon +converging lines of other human testimony, most of it indifferent, some +(this is essential) casual and by the way--deprived therefore of motive. + +When I shall find these canons satisfied to oppose the strong +probability and tradition of the Dauphin's death in prison I shall doubt +that death, but not before. + + + + +The Absence of the Past + + +It is perhaps not possible to put into human language that emotion +which rises when a man stands upon some plot of European soil and can +say with certitude to himself: "Such and such great, or wonderful, or +beautiful things happened here." + +Touch that emotion ever so lightly and it tumbles into the commonplace, +and the deadest of commonplace. Neglect it ever so little and the +Present (which is never really there, for even as you walk across +Trafalgar Square it is yesterday and tomorrow that are in your mind), +the Present, I say, or rather the immediate flow of things, occupies you +altogether. But there is a mood, and it is a mood common in men who have +read and who have travelled, in which one is overwhelmed by the sanctity +of a place on which men have done this or that a long, long time ago. + +Here it is that the gentle supports which have been framed for human +life by that power which launched it come in and help a man. Time does +not remain, but space does, and though we cannot seize the Past +physically we can stand physically upon the site, and we can have (if I +may so express myself) a physical communion with the Past by occupying +that very spot which the past greatness of man or of event has occupied. + +It was but the other day that, with an American friend at my side, I +stood looking at the little brass plate which says that here Charles +Stuart faced (he not only faced, but he refused) the authority of his +judges. I know not by what delicate mechanism of the soul that record +may seem at one moment a sort of tourist thing, to be neglected or +despised, and at another moment a portent. But I will confess that all +of a sudden, pointing out this very well-known record upon the brass let +into the stone in Westminster Hall, I suddenly felt the presence of the +thing. Here all that business was done: they were alive; they were in +the Present as we are. Here sat that tender-faced, courageous man, with +his pointed beard and his luminous eyes; here he was a living man +holding his walking-stick with the great jewel in the handle of it; here +was spoken in the very tones of his voice (and how a human voice +perishes!--how we forget the accents of the most loved and the most +familiar voices within a few days of their disappearance!); here the +small gestures, and all the things that make up a personality, marked +out Charles Stuart. When the soul is seized with such sudden and +positive conviction of the substantial past it is overwhelmed; and +Europe is full of such ghosts. + +As you take the road to Paradise, about halfway there you come to an +inn, which even as inns go is admirable. You go into the garden of it, +and see the great trees and the wall of Box Hill shrouding you all +around. It is beautiful enough (in all conscience) to arrest one without +the need of history or any admixture of the pride of race; but as you +sit there on a seat in that garden you are sitting where Nelson sat when +he said goodbye to his Emma, and if you will move a yard or two you will +be sitting where Keats sat biting his pen and thinking out some new line +of his poem. + +What has happened? These two men with their keen, feminine faces, these +two great heroes of a great time in the great story of a great people of +this world, are not there. They are nowhere. But the site remains. + +Philosophers can put in formulae the crowd of suggestions that rush into +the mind when one's soul contemplates the perpetual march and passage of +mortality. But they can do no more than give us formularies: they cannot +give us replies. What are we? What is all this business? Why does the +mere space remain and all the rest dissolve? + +There is a lonely place in the woods of Chilham, in the County of Kent, +above the River Stour, where a man comes upon an irregular earthwork +still plainly marked upon the brow of the bluff. Nobody comes near this +place. A vague country lane, or rather track; goes past the wet soil of +it, plunges into the valley beyond, and after serving a windmill joins +the high road to Canterbury. Well, that vague track is the ancient +British road, as old as anything in this Island, that took men from +Winchester to the Straits of Dover. That earthwork is the earthwork (I +could prove it, but this is not the place) where the British stood +against the charge of the Tenth Legion, and first heard, sounding on +their bronze, the arms of Caesar. Here the river was forded; here the +little men of the South went up in formation; here the Barbarian broke +and took his way, as the opposing General has recorded, through devious +woodland paths, scattering in the pursuit; here began the great history +of England. + +Is it not an enormous business merely to stand in such a place? I think +so. + +I know a field to the left of the Chalons Road, some few miles before +you get to Ste. Menehould. There used to be an inn by the roadside +called "The Sign of the Moon." It has disappeared. There used to be a +ramshackle windmill beyond the field, a mile or so from the road, on an +upland swell of land, but that also has gone, and had been gone for some +time before I knew the field of which I write. It is a bare fold of land +with one or two little scrubby spinneys alongside the plough. And for +the rest, just the brown earth and the sky. There are days on which you +will see a man at work somewhere within that mile, others on which it is +completely deserted. Here it is that the French Revolution was +preserved. Here was the Prussian charge. On the deserted, ugly lump of +empty earth beyond you were the three batteries that checked the +invaders. It was all alive and crowded for one intense moment with the +fate of Christendom. Here, on the place in which you are standing and +gazing, young Goethe stood and gazed. That meaningless stretch of coarse +grass supported Brunswick and the King of Prussia, and the brothers of +the King of France, as they stood windswept in the rain, watching the +failure of the charge. It is the field of Valmy. Turn on that height and +look back westward and you see the plains rolling out infinitely; they +are the plains upon which Attila was crushed; but there is no one there. + +All men have remarked that night and silence are august, and I think +that if this quality in night and silence be closely examined it will be +found to consist, in part at least, in this: that either of them +symbolizes Absence. By a paradox which I will not attempt to explain, +but which all have felt, it is in silence and in darkness that the Past +most vividly returns, and that this absence of what once was possesses, +nay, obtrudes itself upon the mind: it becomes almost a sensible thing. +There is much to be said for those who pretend, imagine, or perhaps have +experienced under such conditions the return of the dead. The mood of +darkness and of silence is a mood crammed with something that does not +remain, as space remains, that is limited by time, and is a creature of +time, and yet something that has an immortal right to remain. + +Now, I suppose that in that sentence where I say things mortal have +immortal rights to permanence, the core of the whole business is touched +upon. And I suppose that the great men who could really think and did +not merely fire off fireworks to dazzle their contemporaries--I suppose +that Descartes, for instance, if he were here sitting at my table--could +help me to solve that contradiction; but I sit and think and cannot +solve it. + +"What," says the man upon his own land, inherited perhaps and certainly +intended for his posterity--"what! Can you separate me from this? Are +not this and I bound up inextricably?" The answer is "No; you are not so +far as any observer of this world can discover. Space is in no way +possessed by man, and he who may render a site immortal in one of our +various ways, the captain who there conquered, the poet who there +established his sequence of words, cannot himself put forward a claim to +permanence within it at all." + +There was a woman of charming vivacity, whose eyes were ever ready for +laughter, and whose tone of address of itself provoked the noblest of +replies. Many loved her; all admired. She passed (I will suppose) by +this street or by that; she sat at table in such and such a house; +Gainsborough painted her; and all that time ago there were men who had +the luck to meet her and to answer her laughter with their own. And the +house where she moved is there and the street in which she walked, and +the very furniture she used and touched with her hands you may touch +with your hands. You shall come into the rooms that she inhabited, and +there you shall see her portrait, all light and movement and grace and +beatitude. + +She is gone altogether, the voice will never return, the gestures will +never be seen again. She was under a law; she changed, she suffered, she +grew old, she died; and there was her place left empty. The not living +things remain; but what counted, what gave rise to them, what made them +all that they are, has pitifully disappeared, and the greater, the +infinitely greater, thing was subject to a doom perpetually of change +and at last of vanishing. The dead surroundings are not subject to such +a doom. Why? + +All those boys who held the line of the low ridge or rather swell of +land from Hougoumont through the Belle Alliance have utterly gone. More +than dust goes, more than wind goes; they will never be seen again. +Their voices will never be heard--they are not. But what is the mere +soil of the field without them? What meaning has it save for their +presence? + +I could wish to understand these things. + + + + +St. Patrick + + +If there is one thing that people who are not Catholic have gone wrong +upon more than another in the intellectual things of life, it is the +conception of a Personality. They are muddled about it where their own +little selves are concerned, they misappreciate it when they deal with +the problems of society, and they have a very weak hold of it when they +consider (if they do consider) the nature of Almighty God. + +Now, personality is everything. It was a Personal Will that made all +things, visible and invisible. Our hope of immortality resides in this, +that we are persons, and half our frailties proceed from a +misapprehension of the awful responsibilities which personality involves +or a cowardly ignorance of its powers of self-government. + +The hundred and one errors which this main error leads to include a bad +error on the nature of history. Your modern non-Catholic or +anti-Catholic historian is always misunderstanding, underestimating, or +muddling the role played in the affairs of men by great and individual +Personalities. That is why he is so lamentably weak upon the function of +legend; that is why he makes a fetish of documentary evidence and has no +grip upon the value of tradition. For traditions spring from some +personality invariably, and the function of legend, whether it be a +rigidly true legend or one tinged with make-believe, is to interpret +Personality. Legends have vitality and continue, because in their origin +they so exactly serve to explain or illustrate some personal character +in a man which no cold statement could give. + +Now St. Patrick, the whole story and effect of him, is a matter of +Personality. There was once--twenty or thirty years ago--a whole school +of dunderheads who wondered whether St. Patrick ever existed, because +the mass of legends surrounding his name troubled them. How on earth +(one wonders) do such scholars consider their fellow-beings! Have they +ever seen a crowd cheering a popular hero, or noticed the expression +upon men's faces when they spoke of some friend of striking power +recently dead? A great growth of legends around a man is the very best +proof you could have not only of his existence but of the fact that he +was an origin and a beginning, and that things sprang from his will or +his vision. There were some who seemed to think it a kind of favour done +to the indestructible body of Irish Catholicism when Mr. Bury wrote his +learned Protestant book upon St. Patrick. It was a critical and very +careful bit of work, and was deservedly praised; but the favour done us +I could not see! It is all to the advantage of non-Catholic history that +it should be sane, and that a great Protestant historian should make +true history out of a great historical figure was a very good sign. It +was a long step back towards common sense compared with the German +absurdities which had left their victims doubting almost all the solid +foundation of the European story; but as for us Catholics, we had no +need to be told it. Not only was there a St. Patrick in history, but +there is a St. Patrick on the shores of his eastern sea and throughout +all Ireland to-day. It is a presence that stares you in the face, and +physically almost haunts you. Let a man sail along the Leinster coast on +such a day as renders the Wicklow Mountains clear up-weather behind him, +and the Mourne Mountains perhaps in storm, lifted clearly above the sea +down the wind. He is taking some such course as that on which St. +Patrick sailed, and if he will land from time to time from his little +boat at the end of each day's sailing, and hear Mass in the morning +before he sails further northward, he will know in what way St. Patrick +inhabits the soil which he rendered sacred. + +We know that among the marks of holiness is the working of miracles. +Ireland is the greatest miracle any saint ever worked. It is a miracle +and a nexus of miracles. Among other miracles it is a nation raised from +the dead. + +The preservation of the Faith by the Irish is an historical miracle +comparable to nothing else in Europe. There never was, and please God +never can be, so prolonged and insanely violent a persecution of men by +their fellow-men as was undertaken for centuries against the Faith in +Ireland: and it has completely failed. I know of no example in history +of failure following upon such effort. It had behind it in combination +the two most powerful of the evil passions of men, terror and greed. And +so amazing is it that they did not attain their end, that perpetually as +one reads one finds the authors of the dreadful business now at one +period, now at another, assuming with certitude that their success is +achieved. Then, after centuries, it is almost suddenly perceived--and in +our own time--that it has not been achieved and never will be. + +What a complexity of strange coincidences combined, coming out of +nothing as it were, advancing like spirits summoned on to the stage, all +to effect this end! Think of the American Colonies; with one little +exception they were perhaps the most completely non-Catholic society of +their time. Their successful rebellion against the mother country meant +many things, and led to many prophecies. Who could have guessed that one +of its chief results would be the furnishing of a free refuge for the +Irish? + +The famine, all human opinion imagined, and all human judgment was bound +to conclude, was a mortal wound, coming in as the ally of the vile +persecution I have named. It has turned out the very contrary. From it +there springs indirectly the dispersion, and that power which comes from +unity in dispersion, of Irish Catholicism. + +Who, looking at the huge financial power that dominated Europe, and +England in particular, during the youth of our own generation, could +have dreamt that in any corner of Europe, least of all in the poorest +and most ruined corner of Christendom, an effective resistance could be +raised? + +Behind the enemies of Ireland, furnishing them with all their modern +strength, was that base and secret master of modern things, the usurer. +He it was far more than the gentry of the island who demanded toll, and, +through the mortgages on the Irish estates, had determined to drain +Ireland as he has drained and rendered desert so much else. Is it not a +miracle that he has failed? + +Ireland is a nation risen from the dead; and to raise one man from the +dead is surely miraculous enough to convince one of the power of a great +spirit. This miracle, as I am prepared to believe, is the last and the +greatest of St. Patrick's. + +When I was last in Ireland, I bought in the town of Wexford a coloured +picture of St. Patrick which greatly pleased me. Most of it was green in +colour, and St. Patrick wore a mitre and had a crosier in his hand. He +was turning into the sea a number of nasty reptiles: snakes and toads +and the rest. I bought this picture because it seemed to me as modern a +piece of symbolism as ever I had seen: and that was why I bought it for +my children and for my home. + +There was a few pence change, but I did not want it. The person who sold +me the picture said they would spend the change in candles for St. +Patrick's altar. So St. Patrick is still alive. + + + + +The Lost Things + + +I never remember an historian yet, nor a topographer either, who could +tell me, or even pretend to explain by a theory, how it was that certain +things of the past utterly and entirely disappear. + +It is a commonplace that everything is subject to decay, and a +commonplace which the false philosophy of our time is too apt to forget. +Did we remember that commonplace we should be a little more humble in +our guesswork, especially where it concerns prehistory; and we should +not make so readily certain where the civilization of Europe began, nor +limit its immense antiquity. But though it is a commonplace, and a true +one, that all human work is subject to decay, there seems to be an +inexplicable caprice in the method and choice of decay. + +Consider what a body of written matter there must have been to instruct +and maintain the technical excellence of Roman work. What a mass of +books on engineering and on ship-building and on road-making; what +quantities of tables and ready-reckoners, all that civilization must +have produced and depended upon. Time has preserved much verse, and not +only the best by any means, more prose, particularly the theological +prose of the end of the Roman time. The technical stuff, which must, in +the nature of things, have been indefinitely larger in amount, has (save +in one or two instances and allusions) gone. + +Consider, again, all that mass of seven hundred years which was called +Carthage. It was not only seven hundred years of immense wealth, of +oligarchic government, of a vast population, and of what so often goes +with commerce and oligarchy--civil and internal peace. A few stones to +prove the magnitude of its municipal work, a few ornaments, a few +graves--all the rest is absolutely gone. A few days' marches away there +is an example I have quoted so often elsewhere that I am ashamed of +referring to it again, but it does seem to me the most amazing example +of historical loss in the world. It is the site of Hippo Regius. Here +was St. Augustine's town, one of the greatest and most populous of a +Roman province. It was so large that an army of eighty thousand men +could not contain it, and even with such a host its siege dragged on for +a year. There is not a sign of that great town today. + +A suburb, well without the walls--to be more accurate, a neighbouring +village--carries on the name under the form of Bona, and that is all. A +vast, fertile plain of black rich earth, now largely planted with +vineyards, stands where Hippo stood. How can the stones have gone? How +can it have been worth while to cart away the marble columns? Why are +there no broken statues on such a ground, and no relics of the gods? + +Nay, the wells are stopped up from which the people drank, and the +lining of the wells is not to be discovered in the earth, and the +foundations of the walls, and even the ornaments of the people and their +coins, all these have been spirited away. + +Then there are the roads. Consider that great road which reached from +Amiens to the main port of Gaul, the Portus Itius at Boulogne. It is +still in use. It was in use throughout the Middle Ages. Up that road the +French Army marched to Crcy. It points straight to its goal upon the +sea coast. Its whole purpose lay in reaching the goal. For some +extraordinary reason, which I have never seen explained or even guessed +at, there comes a point as it nears the coast where it suddenly ceases +to be. + +No sand has blown over it. It runs through no marshes; the land is firm +and fertile. Why should that, the most important section of the great +road which led northward from Rome, have failed, and have failed so +recently, in the history of man? Where this great road crosses streams +and might reasonably be lost, at its _pontes_, its bridges, it has +remained, and is of such importance as to have given a name to a whole +countryside--_Ponthieu_. But north of that it is gone. + +Nearly every Roman road of Gaul and Britain presents something of the +same puzzle in some parts of its course. It will run clear and +followable enough, or form a modern highway for mile upon mile, and then +not at a marsh where one would expect its disappearance, nor in some +desolate place where it might have fallen out of use, but in the +neighbourhood of a great city and at the very chief of its purpose, it +is gone. It is so with the Stane Street that led up from the garrison of +Chichester and linked it with the garrison of London. You can +reconstruct it almost to a yard until you reach Epsom Downs. There you +find it pointing to London Bridge, and remaining as clear as in any +other part of its course: much clearer than in most other sections. But +try to follow it on from Epsom Racecourse, and you entirely fail. The +soil is the same; the conditions of that soil are excellent for its +retention; but a year's work has taught me that there is no +reconstructing it save by hypothesis and guesswork from this point to +the crossing of the Thames. + +What happened to all that mass of local documents whereby we ought to be +able to build up the territorial scheme and the landed regime of old +France? Much remains, if you will, in the shape of chance charters and +family papers. Even in the archives of Paris you can get enough to whet +your curiosity. But not even in one narrow district can you obtain +enough to reconstruct the whole truth. There is not a scholar in Europe +who can tell you exactly how land was owned and held, even, let us say, +on the estates of Rheims or by the family of Cond. And men are ready to +quarrel as to how many peasants owned and how much of their present +ownership was due to the Revolution, evidence has already become so +wholly imperfect in that tiny stretch of historical time. + +But, after all, perhaps one ought not to wonder too much that material +things should thus capriciously vanish. Time, which has secured Timgad +so that it looks like an unroofed city of yesterday, has swept and razed +Laimboesis. The two towns were neighbours--one was taken and the other +left--and there is no sort of reason any man can give for it. Perhaps +one ought not too much to wonder, for a greater wonder still is the +sudden evaporation and loss of the great movements of the human soul. +That what our ancestors passionately believed or passionately disputed +should, by their descendants in one generation or in two, become +meaningless, absurd, or false--this is the greatest marvel and the +greatest tragedy of all. + + + + +On the Reading of History + + +Let me at the beginning of this short article present two facts to the +reader. Neither can be disputed, and that is why I call them facts and +put them in the forefront before I begin upon my theories. + +The first fact is that the record of what men have done in the past and +how they have done it is the chief positive guide to present action. The +second fact is that most men must now receive the impression of the past +through reading. + +Put these two facts together and you get the fundamental truth that upon +the right reading of history the right use of citizenship in England +today will depend. It will of course depend upon other things as well: +chiefly upon the human conscience; for if you were to pack off to an +island a hundred families as ignorant as any human families can be of +tradition, and wholly ignorant of positive history, those families would +yet be able to create a human society and the voice of God within them +would give just limits to their actions. + +Still, of those factors in civic action amenable to civic direction, +conscious and positively effective, there is nothing to compare with the +right teaching and the right reading of history. Now teaching is today +ruined. The old machinery by which the whole nation could be got to know +all essential human things, has been destroyed, and the teaching of +history in particular has been not only ruined but rendered ridiculous. +There is no historical school properly so-called in modern England; that +is, there is no organization framed with the sole object of extending +and co-ordinating historical knowledge and of choosing men for their +capacity to discover upon the one hand and to teach upon the other. +There is nothing approaching to it in the two ancient universities, +because the choice of teachers there depends upon a multitude of +considerations quite separate from those mentioned, and the capacity to +discover, to know, and to teach history, though it _may_ be present +in a tutor, will only be accidentally so present: while as for +co-ordination of knowledge, there is no attempt at it. Even where very +hard work is done, and, when it concerns local history, very useful +work, history as a general study is not grasped because the universities +have not grasped it. + +History is to be had by the modern Englishman from his own reading only; +and I am here concerned with the question how he shall read history with +profit. + +To read history with profit, history must be true, or at any rate the +reader must have a power of discerning what is true in the midst of much +that may be false. I will bargain, for instance, that in the summer of +1899 the great mass of men, and especially the great mass of men who had +passed through the universities, were under the impression that armies +had left England for the purpose of conquest in distant countries with +invariable success: that that success had been unique, unsupported and +always decisive, and that the wealth of the country after each success +had increased, not diminished. In other words, had history been studied +even by the tiny minority who have education today in England, Sir +William Butler would have counted more than the Joels, and the late Mr. +Barnato (as he called himself); the South African War would not have +taken place in a society which knew its past. + +Again, you may pick almost any phrase referring to the Middle Ages out +of any newspaper--if you are a man read in the Middle Ages--and you will +find in it not only a definite historical falsehood with regard to the +fact referred to, or the analogy drawn, but also a false philosophy. + +For instance, the other day I read this phrase with regard to the burial +of a certain gentleman of my neighbourhood in Sussex: "We are surely +past the phase of mediaeval thought in which it was imagined that a few +words spoken over the lifeless clay would determine the fate of the soul +for all eternity." Just notice the myriad falsehoods of a phrase like +that! I will not discuss what is connoted by the words "past the phase +of mediaeval thought"--it connotes of course that the human mind changes +fundamentally with the centuries, and therefore that whatever we think +is probably wrong, and that what we are sure of we cannot be sure of, an +absurd conclusion. I will only note the historical falsehoods. When on +earth did the "Middle Ages" lay down that a "few words over lifeless +clay determined the fate of the soul for all eternity"? On the contrary, +the Middle Ages laid it down--it was their peculiar doctrine--that it +was impossible to determine the fate of the soul; that no one could tell +the fate of any one individual soul; that it was a grievous sin, among +the most grievous of sins, to affirm positive knowledge that any +individual had lost his soul. More than this, the Middle Ages were +peculiar in their insistence upon the doctrine that a man might have +been very bad and might have had all the appearance of having lost his +soul so far as human judgment went, and yet was liable to a midway place +between salvation and damnation, and they affirmed that this midway +place did not lead to either fate but necessarily to salvation and to +salvation only. + +Again, whatever could help the human soul to salvation was by the most +rigorous theological definition of the Middle Ages applicable only +before death. After death the fate of the soul was sealed, and the man +once dead, the "lifeless clay" (as the journalist put it--and the Middle +Ages was the only source from which he got the idea of clay at all), +whether it were that of a Pope or of some random highwayman, had no +effect whatsoever upon the fate of the soul. The greatest saint might +have offered the most solemn sacrifice on its behalf for years, and if +the soul were damned his sacrifice would have been of no avail. + +I have taken this example absolutely at random. But the modern reader, +apart from sentences as clearly provocative of criticism as this, is +perpetually coming across references, allusions, and parallels which +take a certain course of human European and English history for granted. +How is he to distinguish when that course is rightly drawn from when it +is wrongly drawn? + +Thus in some newspaper article written by an able man, and dealing, let +us say, with the territorial army, one might come across a sentence like +this: "Napoleon himself used troops so raw that they were actually +drilled on the march to the battlefield." That would be a perfectly true +statement. Any amount of criticism of it lies in connexion with Mr. +Haldane's scheme, but still it is a true piece of history. Napoleon did +get raw recruits into his battalions just before any one of his famous +marches began, and drill them on the way to victory. In the next column +of the newspaper the reader may be presented with a sentence like this: +"The captures of English by privateers in the Revolutionary War should +teach us what foreign cruisers can do." + +There were plenty of captures by privateers in the Revolutionary Wars; +if I remember rightly, many many hundreds, all discreetly hidden from +the common or garden reader until party politics necessitated their +resurrection a hundred years after the event, but they have nothing +whatsoever to do with modern circumstances. + +Both statements are true then, and yet one can be truthfully applied +today, while the other cannot. + +How is the plain reader to distinguish between two historical truths, +one of which is a useful modern analogy, the other of which is a +ludicrously misleading one? + +The reader, it would seem, has no criterion by which to distinguish what +has been withheld from him and what has been emphasized; he may, from +his knowledge of the historian's character or bias, stand upon his +guard, but he can do little more. + +There is another difficulty. It is less subtle and less common, but it +exists. I mean brute lying. You do not often get the lie direct in +official history; it would be too dangerous a game to play in the face +of the critics, though some historians, and notably the French historian +Taine, have played it boldly enough, and have stated dogmatically, as +historical happenings, things that never happened and that they knew +never happened. But the plain or brute historical lie is more commonly +found in the pages of ephemeral journalism. Thus the other day, with +regard to the Budget, I saw some financial operation alluded to as +comparable with "the pulling out of Jews' teeth for money in the Middle +Ages." When did anyone in the Middle Ages pull out a Jew's teeth for +money? There is just one very doubtful story told about King John, and +that story is told without proof by one of John's worst enemies, in a +mass of other accusations many of which can be proved to be false. + +Again, I turn to an Oxford History of the French Revolution, and I find +the remark that the massacres of September were organized by the men +from Marseilles. They were not organized by the men from Marseilles. The +men from Marseilles had nothing to do with them, and the fact has been +public property since the publication of Pollio and Marcel's monograph +twenty years ago. + +What criterion can the ordinary reader choose when he is confronted by +difficulties of this sort? I will suggest to him one which seems to me +by far the most valuable. It is the reading of firsthand authorities. It +is all a matter of habit. When the original authorities upon which +history is based were difficult to get at, when few of those in foreign +tongues had been translated, and when those that had been published were +published in the most expensive form, the ordinary reader had to depend +upon an historian who would summarize for him the reading of another. +The ordinary reader was compelled to read secondary history or none. Now +secondary history is among the most valuable of literary efforts; where +evidence is slight, the judgment of an historian who knows from other +reading the general character of the period, is most valuable. Where +evidence is abundant, and therefore confusing, the historian used to the +selection and weighing of it performs a most valuable function. Still, +the reader who is not acquainted with original authorities does not +really know history and is at the mercy of whatever myth or tradition +may be handed to him in print. + +We should remember that today, even in England, original authorities are +quite easy to get at. Two little books, for instance, occur to me out of +hundreds: Mr. Rait's book on Mary Stuart and Mr. Archer's on the Third +Crusade. In each of these the reader gets in a cheap form, in modern and +readable English, the kind of evidence upon which historians base their +history, and he can use that evidence in the light of his own knowledge +of human nature and his own judgment of human life. + +Or again, if he wants to know what the Romans really knew or said they +knew about the German tribes who, as pirates, so greatly influenced the +history of England, let him get Mr. Rouse's edition of Grenewey's +translation of the Germania in Blackie's series of English texts; it +will only cost sixpence, and for that money he will get a bit of +Caesar's Gallic War and the Agricola as well. But the list nowadays is a +very long one, luckily, and the lay reader has only to choose what +period he would like to read up, and he will find for nearly every one +first-hand evidence ready, cheap and published in a readable modern +form. That he should take such first-hand evidence is the very best +advice that any honest historian can give. + + + + +The Victory + + +The study of history, like the exploration, the thorough exploration, of +any other field, leads one to perpetual novelties, miracles, and +unexpected things; and I, in the study of the revolutionary wars, came +across the story of a battle which completely possessed my spirit. + +It would not be to my purpose here to give its name. It is not among the +most famous; it is not Waterloo, nor Leipsic, nor Austerlitz, nor even +Jemappes. The more I read into the night the more I perceived that upon +the issue of that struggle depended the fate of the modern world. So +completely did the notes of Carnot and a few private letters that had +been put before me absorb my attention that I will swear the bugle-calls +of those two days (for it was a two-days' struggle) sounded more clearly +in my ears than the rumble of the London streets, and, as this died out +with the advance of the night and the approach of morning, I was living +entirely upon that ridge in Flanders, watching, as a man watches an +arena, whether the new things or the old should be victorious. It was +the new that conquered. + +From that evening I was determined to visit this place of which so far I +had but read, and to see how far it might agree with the vision I had +had of it, and to people actual fields with the ghosts of dead soldiers. +And for the better appreciation of the drama I chose the season and the +days on which the fight had been driven across that rolling land, and I +came there, as the Republicans had come, a little before the dawn. + +The hillside was silent and deserted, more even than are commonly such +places, though silence and desertion seem the common atmosphere of all +the fields on which such fates have been decided. A man looking over +Carthage Bay, especially a man looking at those sodden pools that were +the sound harbours of Carthage, might be in an uninhabited world; and +the loop of the Trebbia is the same, and the edge of Fontenoy; and even +here in England that hillside looking south up which the Normans charged +at Battle is a quiet and a drowsy sort of place.... So it was here in +Flanders. + +For two miles as I ascended by the little sunken lane which the extreme +right wing had followed in the last attack I saw neither man nor beast, +but only the same stubble of the same autumn fields, and the same colder +sun shining upon the empty uplands until I reached the crest where the +Hungarian and the Croat had met the charge, and had disputed the little +village for two hours--a dispute upon which hung your fate and mine and +that of Europe. + +It was a tiny little village, seven or eight houses together and no +more, with a crazy little wooden steeple to its church all twisted awry, +large barns, and comfortable hedgerows of the Northern kind; and from it +one looked out westwards over an infinity of country, following low +crest after low crest, down on to the French plains. I went into the inn +of the place to drink, and found the cobbler there complaining that +wealth disturbed the natural equality of men. Then I wandered out, +pacing this point and that which I knew accurately from my maps, and +thinking of the noise of the war. Behind the little church, upon a +ramshackle green not large enough to pitch the stumps for single-wicket, +was the modest monument, a cock in bronze, crowing, and the word +"Victory" stamped into the granite of the pedestal; the whole thing, I +suppose, not ten feet high. The bronze was very well done; it savoured +strongly of Paris and looked odd in this abandoned little place. But +every time my eyes sank from the bronze, to look at some other point in +the landscape to identify the emplacement of such and such a battery or +the gully that had concealed the advance of such and such a troop, my +glance perpetually returned to that word "VICTORY," sculptured by itself +upon the stone. It was indeed a victory; it was a victory which, for its +huge unexpectedness, for the noise of it, for the length of time during +which it was in doubt, for its final success, there is no parallel, and +yet it is by no means among the famous battles of the world. And though +the French count it one among the thousand of their battles, I doubt +whether even in Paris most men would recognize it for the hammer-blow it +was. The men of the time hardly knew it, though Carnot guessed at it, and +now to-day in Sorbonne I think that regal fight is taking its true place. + +So I went down the eight miles of front northward along the ridge; for +even that battle, a hundred and more years ago, had an extended front of +this kind. I recognized the tall majestic fringe of beeches from which +had issued the last of the Royalist regiments bearing for the last time +upon a European field the white flag of the Bourbon Monarchy; I came +beyond it to the combe fringed with its semicircle of underbrush in +which Coburg had massed his guns in the last effort to break the French +centre when his flank was turned. I came to the main highway, very +broad, straight, and paved, which cuts this battlefield in two, and then +beyond it to the central position whose capture had made the final +manoeuvre possible. + +All Wednesday the Grenadiers, German, tall, padded, smart, and stout, +had held their ground. It was not until Thursday, and by noon, that they +were slowly driven up the hill by the ragged lads, the Gauls, shoeless, +some not in uniform at all, half-mutinous, drunk with pain and glory. +And I remembered, as the scene returned to me, that this battle, like so +many of the Revolution, had been a battle of men against boys; how grey +and veteran and trained in arms were the Austrians and the Prussians, +their allies, how strict in orders, how calm: and what children the +Terror had called up by force from the exhausted fields of remote French +provinces, to break them here against the frontier, like water against a +wall...! + +There was a little chap, twelve years old, a drummer; he had crept and +crawled by hedgerows till he found himself behind the line of those +volleying Grenadiers. There, "before his side," and breaking all rules, +he had sounded the roll of the charge. They cut him down and killed him, +and the roll of his drum ceased hard. A generation or more later, +digging for foundations at this spot, the builders of the Peace came +upon his bones, the little bones of a child heaped pell-mell with +skeletons of the fallen giants round him. + +I went back into the town in whose defence the battle had been waged, +and there I saw again in bronze this little lad, head high and mouth +open, a-beating of his drum, and again the word "VICTORY." + +All that effort was undertaken, all those young men and children killed, +for something that was to happen for the salvation of the world; it has +not come. All that iron resistance of the German line had been forged +and organized till it almost conquered, till it almost thwarted, the +Republic, and it also had been organized for the defence, and, as some +thought, for the salvation, of the world. Some great good was to have +come by the storming of that hill, or some great good by the defeat of +the impetuous charge. Well, the hill was stormed, and (if you will) at +Leipsic the effort which had stormed it was rolled back. What has +happened to the High Goddess whom that youth followed, and worshipped as +they say, and what to the Gods whom their enemies defended? The ridge is +exactly the same. + + + + +Reality + + +A couple of generations ago there was a sort of man going mournfully +about who complained of the spread of education. He had an ill-ease in +his mind. He feared that book learning would bring us no good, and he +was called a fool for his pains. Not undeservedly--for his thoughts were +muddled, and if his heart was good it was far better than his head. He +argued badly or he merely affirmed, but he had strong allies (Ruskin was +one of them), and, like every man who is sincere, there was something in +what he said; like every type which is numerous, there was a human +feeling behind him: and he was very numerous. + +Now that he is pretty well extinct we are beginning to understand what +he meant and what there was to be said for him. The greatest of the +French Revolutionists was right--"After bread, the most crying need of +the populace is knowledge." But what knowledge? + +The truth is that secondary impressions, impressions gathered from books +and from maps, are valuable as adjuncts to primary impressions (that is, +impressions gathered through the channel of our senses), or, what is +always almost as good and sometimes better, the interpreting voice of +the living man. For you must allow me the paradox that in some +mysterious way the voice and gesture of a living witness always convey +something of the real impression he has had, and sometimes convey more +than we should have received ourselves from our own sight and hearing of +the thing related. + +Well, I say, these secondary impressions are valuable as adjuncts to +primary impressions. But when they stand absolute and have hardly any +reference to primary impressions, then they may deceive. When they stand +not only absolute but clothed with authority, and when they pretend to +convince us even against our own experience, they are positively undoing +the work which education was meant to do. When we receive them merely as +an enlargement of what we know and make of the unseen things of which we +read, things in the image of the seen, then they quite distort our +appreciation of the world. + +Consider so simple a thing as a river. A child learns its map and knows, +or thinks it knows, that such and such rivers characterize such and such +nations and their territories. Paris stands upon the River Seine, Rome +upon the River Tiber, New Orleans on the Mississippi, Toledo upon the +River Tagus, and so forth. That child will know one river, the river +near his home. And he will think of all those other rivers in its image. +He will think of the Tagus and the Tiber and the Seine and the +Mississippi--and they will all be the river near his home. Then let him +travel, and what will he come across? The Seine, if he is from these +islands, may not disappoint him or astonish him with a sense of novelty +and of ignorance. It will indeed look grander and more majestic, seen +from the enormous forest heights above its lower course, than what, +perhaps, he had thought possible in a river, but still it will be a +river of water out of which a man can drink, with clear-cut banks and +with bridges over it, and with boats that ply up and down. But let him +see the Tagus at Toledo, and what he finds is brown rolling mud, pouring +solid after the rains, or sluggish and hardly a river after long +drought. Let him go down the Tiber, down the Valley of the Tiber, on +foot, and he will retain until the last miles an impression of nothing +but a turbid mountain torrent, mixed with the friable soil in its bed. +Let him approach the Mississippi in the most part of its long course and +the novelty will be more striking still. It will not seem to him a river +at all (if he be from Northern Europe); it will seem a chance flood. He +will come to it through marshes and through swamps, crossing a deserted +backwater, finding firm land beyond, then coming to further shallow +patches of wet, out of which the tree-stumps stand, and beyond which +again mud-heaps and banks and groups of reeds leave undetermined, for +one hundred yards after another, the limits of the vast stream. At last, +if he has a boat with him, he may make some place where he has a clear +view right across to low trees, tiny from their distance, similarly half +swamped upon a further shore, and behind them a low escarpment of bare +earth. That is the Mississippi nine times out of ten, and to an +Englishman who had expected to find from his early reading or his maps a +larger Thames it seems for all the world like a stretch of East Anglian +flood, save that it is so much more desolate. + +The maps are coloured to express the claims of Governments. What do they +tell you of the social truth? Go on foot or bicycling through the more +populated upland belt of Algiers and discover the curious mixture of +security and war which no map can tell you of and which none of the +geographies make you understand. The excellent roads, trodden by men +that cannot make a road; the walls as ready loopholed for fighting; the +Christian church and the mosque in one town; the necessity for and the +hatred of the European; the indescribable difference of the sun, which +here, even in winter, has something malignant about it, and strikes as +well as warms; the mountains odd, unlike our mountains; the forests, +which stand as it were by hardihood, and seem at war against the +influence of dryness and the desert winds, with their trees far apart, +and between them no grass, but bare earth alone. + +So it is with the reality of arms and with the reality of the sea. Too +much reading of battles has ever unfitted men for war; too much talk of +the sea is a poison in these great town populations of ours which know +nothing of the sea. Who that knows anything of the sea will claim +certitude in connexion with it? And yet there is a school which has by +this time turned its mechanical system almost into a commonplace upon +our lips, and talks of that most perilous thing, the fortunes of a +fleet, as though it were a merely numerical and calculable thing! The +greatest of Armadas may set out and not return. + +There is one experience of travel and of the physical realities of the +world which has been so widely repeated, and which men have so +constantly verified, that I could mention it as a last example of my +thesis without fear of misunderstanding. I mean the quality of a great +mountain. + +To one that has never seen a mountain it may seem a full and a fine +piece of knowledge to be acquainted with its height in feet exactly, its +situation; nay, many would think themselves learned if they know no more +than its conventional name. But the thing itself! The curious sense of +its isolation from the common world, of its being the habitation of awe, +perhaps the brooding-place of a god! + +I had seen many mountains, I had travelled in many places, and I had +read many particular details in the books--and so well noted them upon +the maps that I could have re-drawn the maps--concerning the Cerdagne. +None the less the sight of that wall of the Cerdagne, when first it +struck me, coming down the pass from Tourcarol, was as novel as though +all my life had been spent upon empty plains. By the map it was 9000 +feet. It might have been 90,000! The wonderment as to what lay beyond, +the sense that it was a limit to known things, its savage intangibility, +its sheer silence! Nothing but the eye seeing could give one all those +things. + +The old complain that the young will not take advice. But the wisest +will tell them that, save blindly and upon authority, the young cannot +take it. For most of human and social experience is words to the young, +and the reality can come only with years. The wise complain of the jingo +in every country; and properly, for he upsets the plans of statesmen, +miscalculates the value of national forces, and may, if he is powerful +enough, destroy the true spirit of armies. But the wise would be wiser +still if, while they blamed the extravagance of this sort of man, they +would recognize that it came from that half-knowledge of mere names and +lists which excludes reality. It is maps and newspapers that turn an +honest fool into a jingo. + +It is so again with distance, and it is so with time. Men will not grasp +distance unless they have traversed it, or unless it be represented to +them vividly by the comparison of great landscapes. Men will not grasp +historical time unless the historian shall be at the pains to give them +what historians so rarely give, the measure of a period in terms of a +human life. It is from secondary impressions divorced from reality that +a contempt for the past arises, and that the fatal illusion of some +gradual process of betterment of "progress" vulgarizes the minds of men +and wastes their effort. It is from secondary impressions divorced from +reality that a society imagines itself diseased when it is healthy, or +healthy when it is diseased. And it is from secondary impressions +divorced from reality that springs the amazing power of the little +second-rate public man in those modern machines that think themselves +democracies. This last is a power which, luckily, cannot be greatly +abused, for the men upon whom it is thrust are not capable even of abuse +upon a great scale. It is none the less marvellous in its falsehood. + +Now you will say at the end of this, Since you blame so much the power +for distortion and for ill residing in our great towns, in our system of +primary education and in our papers and in our books, what remedy can +you propose? Why, none, either immediate or mechanical. The best and the +greatest remedy is a true philosophy, which shall lead men always to ask +themselves what they really know and in what order of certitude they +know it; where authority actually resides and where it is usurped. But, +apart from the advent, or rather the recapture, of a true philosophy by +a European society, two forces are at work which will always bring +reality back, though less swiftly and less whole. The first is the poet, +and the second is Time. + +Sooner or later Time brings the empty phrase and the false conclusion up +against what is; the empty imaginary looks reality in the face and the +truth at once conquers. In war a nation learns whether it is strong or +no, and how it is strong and how weak; it learns it as well in defeat as +in victory. In the long processes of human lives, in the succession of +generations, the real necessities and nature of a human society destroy +any false formula upon which it was attempted to conduct it. Time must +always ultimately teach. + +The poet, in some way it is difficult to understand (unless we admit +that he is a seer), is also very powerful as the ally of such an +influence. He brings out the inner part of things and presents them to +men in such a way that they cannot refuse but must accept it. But how +the mere choice and rhythm of words should produce so magical an effect +no one has yet been able to comprehend, and least of all the poets +themselves. + + + + +On the Decline of the Book: [And Especially of the Historical Book] + + +It is an interesting speculation by what means the Book lost its old +position in this country. This is not only an interesting speculation, +but one which nearly concerns a vital matter. For if men fall into the +habit of neglecting true books in an old and traditional civilization, +the inaccuracy of their judgments and the illusions to which they will +be subject, must increase. + +To take but one example: history. The less the true historical book is +read and the more men depend upon ephemeral statement, the more will +legend crystallize, the harder will it be to destroy in the general mind +some comforting lie, and the great object-lesson of politics (which is +an accurate knowledge of how men have acted in the past) will become at +last unknown. + +There are many, especially among younger men, who would contest the +premiss upon which all this is founded. They may point out, for +instance, that the actual number of bound books bought in a given time +at present is much larger than ever it was before. They may point out +again, and with justice, that the proportion of the population which +reads books of any sort, though perhaps not larger than it was three +hundred years ago, is very much larger than it was one hundred years +ago. And it may further be affirmed with truth that the range of +subjects now covered by books produced and sold is much wider than ever +it was before. + +All this is true; and yet it is also true that the Book as a factor in +our civilization has not only declined but has almost disappeared. Were +many more dogs to be possessed in England than are now possessed, but +were they to be all mongrels, among which none could be found capable of +retrieving, or of following a fox or a hare with any discipline, one +would have a right to say that the dog as a factor of our civilization +had declined. Were many more men in England able to ride horses more or +less, but were the number of those who rode constantly and for pleasure +enormously to diminish, and were the new millions who could just manage +to keep on horseback to prefer animals without spirit on which they +would feel safe, one would have a right to say that the horse was +declining as a factor in our civilization; and this is exactly what has +happened with the Book. + +The excellence of a book and its value as a book depend upon two +factors, which are usually, though not always, united in varied +proportions: first, that it should put something of value to the reader, +whether of value as a discovery and an enlargement of wisdom or of value +as a new emphasis laid upon old and sound morals; secondly, that this +thing added or renewed in human life should be presented in such a +manner as to give permanent aesthetic pleasure. + +That is not a first-rate book which, while it is admirably written, +teaches something false or something evil; nor is that a first-rate book +which, though it discover a completely new thing, or emphasize the most +valuable department of morals, is so constructed as to be unreadable. +Now it will not be denied that as far as these two factors are +concerned--and I repeat they are almost always found in combination--the +position of the Book has dwindled almost to nothingness. One could give +examples of almost every kind: one could show how poetry, no matter how +appreciated or praised, no longer sells. One could show--and this is one +of the worst signs of all--how men will buy by the hundred thousand +anything at all which has the hall mark of an established reputation, +quite careless as to their love of it or their appetite for it. One +could further show how more than one book of permanent value in English +life has been discovered in our generation outside England, and has been +as it were thrust upon the English public by foreign opinion. + +But for my purpose it will be sufficient to take one very important +branch which I can claim to have watched with some care, and that is the +branch of History. + +It may be said with truth that in our generation no single first-rate +piece of history has enjoyed an appreciable sale. That is not true of +France, it is not true of the United States, it is not even true of +Germany in her intellectual decline, but it is true of England. + +History is an excellent test. No man will read history, at least history +of an instructive sort, unless he is a man who can read a book, and +desires to possess one. To read History involves not only some permanent +interest in things not immediately sensible, but also some permanent +brain-work in the reader; for as one reads history one cannot, if one is +an intelligent being, forbear perpetually to contrast the lessons it +teaches with the received opinions of our time. Again, History is +valuable as an example in the general thesis I am maintaining, because +no good history can be written without a great measure of hard work. To +make a history at once accurate, readable, useful, and new, is probably +the hardest of all literary efforts; a man writing such history is +driving more horses abreast in his team than a man writing any other +kind of literary matter. He must keep his imagination active; his style +must be not only lucid, but also must arrest the reader; he must +exercise perpetually a power of selection which plays over innumerable +details; he must, in the midst of such occupations, preserve unity of +design, as much as must the novelist or the playwright; and yet with all +this there is not a verb, an adjective or a substantive which, if it +does not repose upon established evidence, will not mar the particular +type of work on which he is engaged. + +As an example of what I mean, consider two sentences: The first is taken +from the 432nd page of that exceedingly unequal publication, the +_Cambridge History of the French Revolution_; the second I have +made up on the spur of the moment; both deal with the Battle of +Wattignies. The "Cambridge History" version runs as follows:-- + +On October 15 the relieving force, 50,000 strong, attacked the Austrian +covering force at Wattignies; the battle raged all that day and was most +furious on the right, in front of the village of Wattignies, which was +taken and lost three times; on the 17th the French expected another +general engagement but the enemy had drawn off. + +There are here five great positive errors in six lines. The French were +not 50,000 strong, the attack on the 15th was not on Wattignies, but on +Dourlers; Wattignies was not taken and lost three times; the fight of +the 15th was _least_ pressed on the right (harder on the left and +hardest in the centre) and no one--not the least recruit--expected +Coburg to come _back_ on the 17th. Why, he had crossed the Sambre +at every point the day before! As for negative errors, or errors of +omission, they are capital, and the chief is that the victory was won on +the second day, the 16th, of which no mention is made. + +Now contrast such a sentence with the following:-- + +On October 15th the relieving force, 42,000 strong, attacked the +Austrian centre at Dourlers, and made demonstrations upon its wings; the +attack upon Dourlers (which village had been taken and lost three times) +having failed, upon the following day, October 16th, the extreme left of +the enemy's position at Wattignies was attacked and carried; the enemy +thus outflanked was compelled to retreat, and Maubeuge was relieved the +same evening. + +In the first sentence (which bears the hall mark of the University) +every error that could possibly be made in so few lines has been made. +The numbers are wrong; the nature of the fighting is misstated; the +village in the centre is confused with that on the extreme right; the +critical second day is altogether omitted, and every portion of the +sentence, verb, adjective, and substantive, is either directly +inaccurate or indirectly conveys an inaccurate impression. The second +sentence, bald in style and uninteresting in presentation as the first, +has the merit of telling the truth. But--and here is the point--it would +be impossible to criticize the first sentence unless someone had read up +the battle, and to read up that battle one has to depend on five or six +documents, some unpublished (like much of Jourdan's Memoirs), some of +them involving a visit to Maubeuge itself, some, like Pierrat's book, +very difficult to obtain (for it is neither in the British Museum nor in +the Bodleian) some few the writings of contemporary eyewitnesses, and +yet themselves demonstrably inaccurate. All these must be read and +collated, and if possible the actual ground of the battle visited, +before the first simple inaccurate sentence can be properly criticized +or the second bald but accurate sentence framed. None of these +authorities can have been so much as heard of by the official historian +I have quoted. + +It would be redundant to press the point. Most readers know well enough +what labour the just writing of history involves, and how excellent a +type it is of that "making of a book" which art is, as I have said, +imperilled by apathy at the present day. + +Consider for a moment who were those that purchased historical works in +this country in the past. There were, first of all, the landed gentry. +In almost every great country-house you will find a good old library, +and that good old library you will discover to be, as a rule, most +valuable and most complete in what concerns the end of the eighteenth +and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. A very large proportion +of history, and history of the best sort, is to be found upon those +shelves. The standard dwindles, though it is fairly well maintained +during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Then--as a +rule--it abruptly comes to an end. One may take as a sort of bourne, the +two great books Macaulay's _History_ and Kinglake's, for an earlier +and a later limit. Most of these libraries contain Macaulay; some few +Kinglake; hardly one possesses later works of value. + +It may be urged in defence of the buyer that no later works of value +exist. Put so broadly, the statement is erroneous; but the truth which +it contains is in itself dependent upon the lack of public support for +good historical work. When there is a fortune for the man who writes in +accordance with whatever form of self-appreciation happens for the +moment to be popular, while a steady view and an accurate presentation +of the past can find no sale, then that steady view and that accurate +presentation cannot be pursued save by men who are wealthy, or by men +who are endowed, but even wealthy men will hesitate to write what they +know will not be read, and for history no one is endowed. + +Our Universities were framed for many purposes, of which the cultivation +of learning was but one; in that one field, however, a particular form +of learning was taken very seriously, and was pursued with admirable +industry; I mean an acquaintance with and an imitation of the Latin and +Greek Classics. + +It was a particular character of this form of learning that proficiency +in it would lead to undisputed honours. The scholar recognized the +superior scholar; the field of inquiry was by convention highly limited; +it had been thoroughly explored; discussion upon such results as were +doubtful did not involve a difference in general philosophy. + +With history it is otherwise. Whether such things have or have not +happened, and, above all, if they have happened, the _way_ in which +they have happened, is to our general judgment of contemporary men what +evidence is to a criminal trial. Facts won't give way. If, therefore, +there are vested interests, moral or material, to be maintained, history +is, of all the sciences or arts, that one most likely to suffer at the +hands of those connected with such interests. Even where the truth will +be of advantage to those interests, they are afraid of it, because the +thorough discussion of it will involve the presentation of views +disadvantageous to privilege. + +Where, as is much more commonly the case (for vested interests, moral or +material, are unreasoning and selfish things), the truth would certainly +offend them, they are the more determined to prevent its appearance. + +But of all vested interests none deal with such assured incomes, none +are so immune by influence and tradition as the Universities. + +Now, if the rich man has no temptation by way of popular fame, and the +poor man no opportunity for endowment, in any branch of letters, there +remains but a third form of support, and that is the support of the +buying public. And the public will not buy. + +I will suppose the case of a popular novelist, who in a few months shall +write, not an historical novel, but a piece of so-called history. He +shall call it, for instance, "England's Heroes." Before you tell me his +name, or what he has written, I can tell you here and now what he will +write on any number of points. He will call Hastings Senlac. In the +Battle of Hastings he will make out Harold to be the head of a highly +patriotic nation called the "Anglo-Saxons"; they shall be desperately +defending themselves against certain French-speaking Scandinavians +called Normans. He will deplore the defeat, but will say it was all for +the best. Magna Charta he will have signed at Runnymede--probably he +will have it drawn up there as well. He will translate the most famous +clause by the modern words "Judgment of his peers" and "law of the +land." He will represent the Barons as having behind them the voice of +the whole nation--and so forth. When he comes to Crcy he will make +Edward III speak English. When he comes to Agincourt he will leave his +readers as ignorant as himself upon the boundaries, numbers and power of +the Burgundian faction. In the Civil War Oliver Cromwell will be an +honest and not very rich gentleman of the middle-classes. The +Parliamentary force will be that of the mass of the people against a few +gallant but wicked aristocrats who follow the perfidious Charles. He +will make no mention of the pay of the Ironsides. James II will be +driven out by a popular uprising, in which the great Churchill will play +an honourable and chivalric part. The loss of the American Colonies will +be deplored, and will be ascribed to the folly of attempting to tax men +of "Anglo-Saxon" blood, unless you grant them representation. The +Continental troops will be treated as the descendants of Englishmen! The +guns at Saratoga will be Colonial guns; the incapacity of the Fleet will +not be touched upon. Here again, as in the case of the Battle of +Hastings, all will be for the best, and there will be a few touching +words upon the passionate affection now felt for Great Britain by the +inhabitants of the United States. The defensive genius of Wellington +will be represented as that of a general particularly great in the +offensive. Talavera will be a victory. The Spanish Auxiliaries in the +Peninsula will be contemptible. No guns will be abandoned before Corua, +but what are left at Corua will be mentioned and re-embarked. The +character of Nelson will receive a curious sort of glutinous praise; Emma +Hamilton, not Naples, will be the stain upon his name; the Battle of +Trafalgar will prevent the invasion of England. + +This is a lengthy but not unjust description of what this gentleman +would write; it is rubbish from beginning to end. It would sell, because +every word of it would foster in the reader the illusion that the +community of which he is a member is invincible under all circumstances, +that effort and self-denial and suffering are spared him alone out of +all mankind, and that a little pleasurable excitement, preferably that +to be obtained from his favourite game, is the chief factor in military +success. + +I have omitted Alfred. Alfred in such a book will be the "teller of +truth"--but he will not go to Mass. + +Given that the name is sufficiently well known, there is hardly any +limit to the sale of a book modelled upon these lines. Contrast with its +fate the fate of a book, written no matter how powerfully, that should +insist upon truths, no matter how valuable to the English people at the +present moment. These truths need by no means be unpleasant, though at +the present moment an unpleasant truth is undoubtedly more valuable than +a pleasant one. They could make as much or more for the glory of the +country; they could be at any rate of infinitely greater service, but +they would not be received, simply because they would compel close +attention and brain-work in the reader as well as in the writer of them. +An established groove would have to be abandoned; to use a strong +metaphor, the reader would have to get out of bed, and that is what the +modern reader will not do. Tell him that the men who fought on either +side at Hastings' plain cared nothing for national but everything for +feudal allegiance; that _lex terrae_ means the local custom of +ordeal and not the "law of the land"; tell him that _judicium +parium_ means the right of a noble to be judged by nobles, and has +nothing to do with the jury system; tell him that Magna Charta was +certainly drawn up before the meeting at Runnymede; that not until the +Lancastrians did English kings speak English; that Oliver Cromwell owed +his position to the enormous wealth of the Williamses, of whom had he +not been a cadet, he would never have been known; tell him that the +whole force of the Parliament resided in the squires and that the Civil +Wars turned England into an oligarchy; tell him the exact truth about +the infamy of Churchill; tell him what proportion of Englishmen during +the American War were taxed without being represented; tell him what +proportion of Washington's troops were of English blood; tell him any +one illuminating and true thing about the history of his country, and +the novelty will so offend him that a direct insult would have pleased +him better. + +What is true of history is true of nearly all the rest, and the upshot +of the whole matter is that there is not, either in private patronage or +in popular demand, a chance for history in modern England. + +You can have excellent literature in journalism, and it will be widely +read. I would say more--I would say that the better literature a +newspaper admits, the more widely will that paper be read, or at any +rate the greater will its influence be on modern Englishmen. But when it +comes to the kneaded and wrought matter of the true Book, neither the +public nor the centres of learning will have any of it, and the last +medium which might make it possible, patronage, has equally disappeared, +because the modern patron does not work in the daylight in the full view +of the nation and with its full approbation, and he is no longer a public +man (though he is richer than ever he was before). His patronage, +therefore, though it is still considerable, is expended in satisfying his +private demand. Private architects build him doubtful castles, private +collectors get him manuscripts and jewels, but Letters, which are a public +thing, he can no longer command. + +It might be asked, by way of conclusion, whether there is any remedy for +this state of things. There is none. Its prime cause resides in a +certain attitude of the national mind, and this kind of broadly held +philosophy is not changed save by slow preaching or external shock. As +long as modern England remains what we know it, and follows the lines of +change which we see it following, the Book will necessarily decline more +and more, and we must make up our minds to it. + +Of other evil tendencies of our time, one can say of some that they are +obviously mending, of others that such and such an applicable remedy +would mend them. Our public architecture is certainly getting better; so +is our painting. Our gross and increasing contempt of self-government +(to take quite another sphere) is curable by one or two simple reforms +in procedure, registration, the expenses of election, and voting at the +polls, which would restore the House of Commons to life, and give it +power to express English will. But a regard for, a cultivation of, above +all a sinking of wealth upon, English Letters is past praying for. We +must wait until the tide changes; we can do nothing, and the waiting +will be long. + + + + +Jos Maria de Heredia + + +The French have a phrase "la beaut du verbe" by which they would +express a something in the sound and in the arrangement of words which +supplements whatever mere thought those words were intended to express. +It is evident that no definition of this beauty can be given, but it is +also evident that without it letters would not exist. How it arises we +cannot explain, yet the process is familiar to us in everything we do +when we are attempting to fulfil an impulse towards whatever is good. An +integration not of many small things but of an infinite series of +infinitely small things build up the perfect gesture, the perfect line, +the perfect intonation, and the perfect phrase. So indeed are all things +significant built up: every tone of the voice, every arrangement of +landscape or of notes in music which awake us and reveal the things +beyond. But when one says that this is especially true of perfect +expression one means that sometimes, rarely, the integration achieves a +steadfast and sufficient formula. The mind is satisfied rather than +replete. It asks no more; and if it desires to enjoy further the +pleasure such completion has given it, it does not attempt to prolong or +to develop the pleasure under which it has leapt; it is content to wait +a while and to return, knowing well that it has here a treasure laid up +for ever. + +All this may be expressed in two words: the Classical Spirit. That is +Classic of which it is true that the enjoyment is sufficient when it is +terminated and that in the enjoyment of it an entity is revealed. + +When men propose to bequeath to their fellows work of so supreme a kind +it is to be noticed that they choose by instinct a certain material. + +It has been said that the material in which he works affects the +achievement of the artist: it is truer to say that it helps him. A man +designing a sculpture in marble knows very well what he is about to do. +A man attempting the exact and restrained rendering of tragedy upon the +stage does not choose the stage as one among many methods, he is drawn +to it: he needs it; the audience, the light, the evening, the very slope +of the boards, all minister to his efforts. And so a man determined to +produce the greatest things in verse takes up by nature exact and +thoughtful words and finds that their rhythm, their combination, and +their sound turn under his hand to something greater than he himself at +first intended; he becomes a creator, and his name is linked with the +name of a masterpiece. The material in which he has worked is hard; the +price he has paid is an exceeding effect; the reward he has earned is +permanence. + +Jos de Heredia was an artist of this kind. The mass of the verse he +produced, or rather published, was small. It might have been very large. +It is not (as a foolish modern affectation will sometimes pretend) +necessary to the endurance or even the excellence of work that it should +be the product of exceptional moments; nor is it even true (as the wise +Ancients believed) that great length of time must always mature it. But +the small volume of Heredia's legacy to European letters does argue this +at least in the poet, that he passionately loved perfection and that, +finding himself able to achieve it (for perfection can be achieved) but +now and then, he chose only to be remembered by the contentment which, +now and then, his own genius had given him. + +He worked upon verse as men work upon the harder metals; all that he did +was chiselled very finely, then sawn to an exact configuration and at +last inlaid, for when he published his completed volume it is true to +say that every piece fitted in with the sound of one before and of one +after. He was careful in the heroic degree. + +His blood and descent are worthy of notice. He was a Spaniard, +inheriting from the first Conquerors of the New World, nor was it +remarkable to those who have received a proper enthusiasm for the +classical spirit that the energy and even the violence natural to such a +lineage should express themselves in the coldest and the most exalted +form when, for the second time, a member of the family attempted verse. +It is in the essence of that spirit that it alone can dare to be +disciplined. It never doubts the motive power that will impel it; it is +afraid, if anything, of an excess of power, and consciously imposes upon +itself the limits which give it form. + +Heredia in his person expressed the activity which impelled him, for he +was strong, brown, erect, a rapid walker, and a man whose voice was +perpetually modulated in resonant and powerful tones. In his last years +during his administration of the Library at the Arsenal this vitality of +his took on an aspect of good nature very charming and very fruitful. +His organization of the place was thorough, his knowledge of the readers +intimate. He refused the manuscripts of none, he advised, laughed, and +consoled. His criticism was sure. Several, notably Marcel Prevost, were +launched by his authority. The same deep security of literary judgment +which had permitted him to chastise and to perfect his impeccable +sonnets into their final form permitted him also to hold up before his +eyes, grasp, and judge the work of every other man. + +His frailty, as must always be the frailty of such men, was +fastidiousness. The same sensitive consciousness which is said to have +all but lost us the Aeneid, and which certainly all but lost us the +Apologia, dominated his otherwise vigorous soul. It is more than forty +years since his first verse, written just upon achieving his majority, +appeared in the old _Revue de Paris_ and in the _Revue des Deux +Mondes_. It was not till 1893 that he collected in one volume the +scattered sonnets of his youth and middle age: the collection won him +somewhat tardily his chair in the Academy. There is irony in the +reminiscence that the man he defeated in that election was Zola. + +All the great men who saluted his advent are dead. Thophile Gautier, +who first established his fame; Hugo, who addressed to him, perhaps, +that vigorous appeal in which strict labour is deified, and the medal +and the marble bust are shown to outlive the greatest glories, are +sometimes quoted as the last among the great French writers. + +The immediate future will show that the stream of French excellence in +this department, as in any other of human activity, is full, deep, and +steady. The work of Heredia will help to prove it. He was a Spaniard, +and a Colonial Spaniard. No other nation, perhaps, except the modern +French, so inherit the romantic appetite of the later Roman Empire as to +be able to mould and absorb every exterior element of excellence. It is +remarkable that at the same moment Paris contemplated the funeral of the +Italian de Brazza and the death of the Cuban Heredia. It is probable +that those of us who are still young will live to see either name at the +head of a new tradition. Heredia proved it possible not so much to +imitate as to recapture the secure tradition of an older time. Perhaps +the truest generalization that can be made with regard to the French +people is to say that they especially in Western Europe (whose quality +it is ever to transform itself but never to die) discover new springs of +vitality after every period of defeat and aridity which they are +compelled to cross. Heredia will prove in the near future a capital +example of this power. He will increase silently in reputation until we, +in old age, shall be surprised to find our sons and grandsons taking him +for granted and speaking of him as one speaks of the Majores, of the +permanent lights of poetry. + + + + +Normandy and the Normans + + +There is no understanding a country unless one gets to know the nature +of its sub-units. In some way not easy to comprehend, impossible to +define, and yet very manifest, each of the great national organisms of +which Christendom is built up is itself a body of many regions whose +differences and interaction endow it with a corporate life. No one could +understand the past of England who did not grasp the local genius of the +counties--Lancashire, cut off eastward by the Pennines, southward by the +belt of marsh, with no natural entry save by the gate of Stockport; +Sussex, which was and is a bishopric and a kingdom; Kent, Devon, the +East Anglian meres. No one could (or does) understand modern England who +does not see its sub-units to have become by now the great industrial +towns, or who fails to seize the spirit of each group of such +towns--with London lying isolated in the south, a negative to the rest. + +France is built of such sub-units: it is the peculiarity of French +development that these are not small territories mainly of an average +extent with government answerable in a long day's ride to one centre, +such as most English counties are; nor city States such as form the +piles upon which the structure of Italy has been raised; nor kingdoms +such as coalesced to reform the Spanish people; but _provinces_, +differing greatly in area, from little plains enclosed, like the +Rousillon, to great stretches of landscape succeeding landscape like the +Bourbonnais or the Prigord. + +The real continuity with an immemorial past which inspires all Gallic +things is discoverable in this arrangement of Gaul. At the first glance +one might imagine a French province to be a chance growth of the feudal +ties and of the Middle Ages. A further effort of scholarship will prove +it essentially Roman. An intimate acquaintance with its customs and with +the site of its strongholds, coupled with a comparison of the most +recent and most fruitful hypotheses of historians, will convince you +that it is earlier than the Roman conquest; it is tribal, or the home of +a group of cognate tribes, and its roots are lost in prehistory. So it +is with Normandy. + +This vast territory--larger (I think) than all North England from the +Humber to Cheviot and from Chester to the Solway--has never formed a +nation. It is typical of the national idea in France that Normandy +should have "held" of the political centre of the country, probably +since the first Gallic confederations were formed, certainly since the +organization of the Empire. It is equally typical of the local life of a +French province that, thus dependent, Normandy should have strictly +preserved its manner and its spirit, and should have readily made war +upon the Crown and resisted, as it still resists and will perhaps for +ever, the centralizing forces of the national temper. + +If you will travel day after day, and afoot, westward across the length +of Normandy, you will have, if you are a good walker, a fortnight's +task ahead of you; even if you are walking for a wager, a week's. It is +the best way in which to possess a knowledge of that great land, and my +advice would be to come in from the Picards over the bridge of Aumale +across the little River Bresle (which is the boundary of Normandy to the +east), and to go out by way of Pontorson, there crossing into Brittany +over the little River Couesnon, which is the boundary of Normandy upon +the west and beyond which lie the Bretons. In this way will you be best +acquainted with the sharp differentiation of the French provinces +passing into Normandy from Picardy, brick-built, horse-breeding, and +slow, passing out of Normandy into the desolation and dreams of +Brittany, and having known between the one and the other the chalk +streams, the day-long beechen forests, the valley pastures, and the +flamboyant churches of the Normans. You will do well to go by +Neufchtel, where the cheese is made, and by Rouen, then by Lisieux to +Falaise, where the Conqueror was born, and thence by Vive to Avranches +and so to the Breton border, taking care to choose the forests between +one town and another for your road, since these many and deep +woods--much wider than any we know in England--are in great part the +soul of the country. + +By this itinerary you will not have taken all you should into view; you +will not have touched the coast nor seen how Normandy is based upon the +sea, and you will not have known the Cotentin, which is a little State +of its own and is the quadrilateral which Normandy thrusts forth into +the Channel. If you have the leisure, therefore, return by the north. +Pass through Coutances and Valognes to Cherbourg, thence through Caen +and Bayeux to the crossing of Seine at Honfleur, and then on by the +chalk uplands and edges of the cliffs till you reach Eu upon the Bresle +again. In such a double journey the character of the whole will be +revealed, and if you have studied the past of the place before starting +you will find your journey full. Avranches, Coutances, Lisieux, Bayeux, +Rouen are not chance sites. Their great churches mark the bishoprics; +the bishoprics in turn were the administrative centres of Rome, and Rome +chose them because they were the strongholds or the sacred cities each +of a Gallic tribe. The wealth of the valleys permitted everywhere that +astonishing richness of detail which marks the stonework in village +after village; the connexion with England, especially the last connexion +under Henry V, explains the innumerable churches, splendid even in +hamlets as are our own. The Bresle and the Couesnon, those little +streams, are boundaries not of these last few centuries, but of a time +beyond view; the Romans found them so. Diocletian made them the limits +of the "Second Lyonesse," "Lugdunensis Secunda," which was the last +Roman name of the province. + +Here and there, near the west especially, you will discover names which +recall the chief adventure of Normandy, the accident which baptized it +with its Christian name, the landing of the Scandinavian pirates, the +thousandth anniversary of which is now being celebrated. They came--we +cannot tell in what numbers, some thousands--and harried the land. The +old policy of the Empire, the policy already seven hundred years old, +was had recourse to; the barbarians were granted settlement, +inheritance, marriage, and partnership with the Lords of the Villae; +their chief was permitted to hold local government, to tax and to levy +men as the administrator of the whole province; but there followed +something which wherever else the experiment had been tried had not +followed: something of a new race arose. In Burgundy, in the northeast, +in Visigothic Aquitaine the slight admixture of foreign blood had not +changed the people, it was absorbed; the slight admixture of +Scandinavian blood, coming so much later, in a time so degraded in +government and therefore so open to natural influence, did change the +Gallo-Romans of the Second Lyonesse. Few as the newcomers may have been +in number, the new element transformed the mass, and when a century had +permitted the union to work and settle, the great soldiers who founded +us appeared. The Norman lords ordered, surveyed, codified, and ruled. +They let Europe into England, they organized Sicily, they confirmed the +New Papacy, they were the framework of the Crusades. + +The phenomenon was brief. It lasted little more than a hundred years, +but it transformed Europe and launched the Middle Ages. When it had +passed, Normandy stood confirmed for centuries (and is still confirmed) +in a character of its own. No longer adventurous but mercantile, apt, of +a resisting courage, sober in thought, leaning upon tradition, not +imperially but domestically strong: the country of Corneille and of +Malesherbes, a reflection of that spirit in letters; the conservative +body of to-day--for in our generation that is the mark of Normandy--and, +in arms, the recruitment to which Napoleon addressed his short and +famous order that "the Normans that day should do their duty." + + + + +The Old Things + + +Those who travel about England for their pleasure, or, for that matter, +about any part of Western Europe, rightly associate with such travel the +pleasure of history; for history adds to a man, giving him, as it were, +a great memory of things--like a human memory, but stretched over a far +longer space than that of one human life. It makes him, I do not say +wise and great, but certainly in communion with wisdom and greatness. + +It adds also to the soil he treads, for to this it adds meaning. How +good it is when you come out of Tewkesbury by the Cheltenham road to +look upon those fields to the left and know that they are not only +pleasant meadows, but also the place in which a great battle of the +mediaeval monarchy was decided, or as you stand by that ferry, which is +not known enough to Englishmen (for it is one of the most beautiful +things in England), and look back and see Tewkesbury tower, framed +between tall trees over the level of the Severn, to see also the Abbey +buildings in your eye of the mind--a great mass of similar stone with +solid Norman walls, stretching on hugely to the right of the Minster. + +All this historical sense and the desire to marry History with Travel is +very fruitful and nourishing, but there is another interest, allied to +it, which is very nearly neglected, and which is yet in a way more +fascinating and more full of meaning. This interest is the interest in +such things as lie behind recorded history, and have survived into our +own times. For underneath the general life of Europe, with its splendid +epic of great Rome turned Christian, crusading, discovering, furnishing +the springs of the Renaissance, and flowering at last materially into +this stupendous knowledge of today, the knowledge of all the Arts, the +power to construct and to do--underneath all that is the foundation on +which Europe is built, the stem from which Europe springs; and that stem +is far, far older than any recorded history, and far, far more vital +than any of the phenomena which recorded history presents. + +Recorded history for this island and for Northern France and for the +Rhine Valley is a matter of two thousand years; for the Western +Mediterranean of three; but the things of which I speak are to be +reckoned in tens of thousands of years. Their interest does not lie only +nor even chiefly in things that have disappeared. It is indeed a great +pleasure to rummage in the earth and find polished stones wrought by men +who came so many centuries before us, and of whose blood we certainly +are; and it is a great pleasure to find, or to guess that we find, under +Canterbury the piles of a lake or marsh dwelling, proving that +Canterbury has been there from all time; and that the apparently +defenceless Valley City was once chosen as an impregnable site, when the +water-meadows of the Stour were impassable as marsh, or with difficulty +passable as a shallow lagoon. And it is delightful to stand on the +earthwork a few miles west and to say to oneself (as one can say with a +fair certitude), "Here was the British camp defending the south-east; +here the tenth legion charged." All these are pleasant, but more +pleasant, I think, to follow the thing where it actually survives. + +Consider the track-ways, for instance. How rich is England in these! No +other part of Europe will afford the traveller so permanent and so +fascinating a problem. Elsewhere Rome hardened and straightened every +barbaric trail until the original line and level disappeared; but in +this distant province of Britain she could only afford just so much +energy as made them a foothold for her soldiery; and all over England +you can go, if you choose, foot by foot, along the ancient roads that +were made by the men of your blood before they had heard of brick or of +stone or of iron or of written laws. + +I wonder that more men do not set out to follow, let us say, the +Fosse-Way. There it runs right across Western England from the +south-west to the north-east in a line direct yet sinuous, characters +which are the very essence of a savage trail. It is a modern road for +many miles, and you are tramping, let us say, along the Cotswold on a +hard metalled modern English highway, with milestones and notices from +the County Council telling you that the culverts will not bear a +steam-engine, if so be you were to travel on one. Then suddenly this +road comes up against a cross-road and apparently ceases, making what +map draughtsmen call a "T"; but right in the same line you see a gate, +and beyond it a farm lane, and so you follow. You come to a spinney +where a ride has been cut through by the woodreeve, and it is all in the +same line. The Fosse-Way turns into a little path, but you are still on +it; it curves over a marshy brook-valley, picking out the firm land, and +as you go you see old stones put there heaven knows how many (or how +few) generations ago--or perhaps yesterday, for the tradition remains, +and the country-folk strengthen their wet lands as they have +strengthened them all these thousands of years; you climb up out of that +depression, you get you over a stile, and there you are again upon a +lane. You follow that lane, and once more it stops dead. This time there +is a field before you. No right of way, no trace of a path, nothing but +grass rounded into those parallel ridges which mark the modern decay of +the corn lands and pasture--alas!--taking the place of ploughing. Now +your pleasure comes in casting about for the trail; you look back along +the line of the Way; you look forward in the same line till you find +some indication, a boundary between two parishes, perhaps upon your map, +or two or three quarries set together, or some other sign, and very soon +you have picked up the line again. + +So you go on mile after mile, and as you tread that line you have in the +horizons that you see, in the very nature and feel of the soil beneath +your feet, in the skies of England above you, the ancient purpose and +soul of this Kingdom. Up this same line went the Clans marching when +they were called Northward to the host; and up this went slow, creaking +wagons with the lead of the Mendips or the tin of Cornwall or the gold +of Wales. + +And it is still there; it is still used from place to place as a high +road, it still lives in modern England. There are some of its peers, as +for instance the Ermine Street, far more continuous, and affording +problems more rarely; others like the ridgeway of the Berkshire Downs, +which Rome hardly touched, and of which the last two thousand years has, +therefore, made hardly anything; you may spend a delightful day piecing +out exactly where it crossed the Thames, making your guess at it, and +wondering as you sit there by Streatley Vicarage whether those islands +did not form a natural weir below which lay the ford. + +The roads are the most obvious things. There are many more; for +instance, thatch. The same laying of the straw in the same manner, with +the same art, has continued, we may be certain, from a time long before +the beginning of history. See how in the Fen Land they thatch with +reeds, and how upon the Chalk Downs with straw from the Lowlands. I +remember once being told of a record in a manor, which held of the +Church and which lay upon the southern slope of the Downs, that so much +was entered for "straw from the Lowlands": then, years afterwards, when +I had to thatch a Bethlehem in an orchard underneath tall elms--a +pleasant place to write in, with the noise of bees in the air--the man +who came to thatch said to me: "We must have straw from the Lowlands; +this upland straw is no good for thatching." Immediately when I heard +him say this there was added to me ten thousand years. And I know +another place in England, far distant from this, where a man said to me +that if I wished to cross in a winter mist, as I had determined to do, +Cross-Fell, that great summit of the Pennines, I must watch the drift of +the snow, for there was no other guide to one's direction in such +weather. And I remember another man in a little boat in the North Sea, +as we came towards the Foreland, talking to me of the two tides, and +telling me how if one caught the tide all the way up to Long Nose and +then went round it on the end of the flood, one caught a new tide up +London river, and so made two tides in one day. He spoke with the same +pleasure that silly men show when they talk about an accumulation of +money. He felt wealthy and proud from the knowledge, for by this +knowledge he had two tides in one day. Now knowledge of this sort is +older than ten thousand years; and so is the knowledge of how birds fly, +and of how they call, and of how the weather changes with the moon. + +Very many things a man might add to the list that I am making. Dew-pans +are older than the language or the religion; and the finding of water +with a stick; and the catching of that smooth animal, the mole; and the +building of flints into mortar, which if one does it in the old way (as +you may see at Pevensey) the work lasts for ever, but if you do it in +any new way it does not last ten years; then there is the knowledge of +planting during the crescent part of the month, but not before the new +moon shows; and there is the influence of the moon on cider, and to a +less extent upon the brewing of ale; and talking of ale, the knowledge +of how ale should be drawn from the brewing just when a man can see his +face without mist upon the surface of the hot brew. And there is the +knowledge of how to bank rivers, which is called "throwing the rives" in +the South, but in the Fen Land by some other name; and how to bank them +so that they do not silt, but scour themselves. There are these things +and a thousand others. All are immemorial. + + + + +The Battle of Hastings. Related in the Manner of Oxford and Dedicated +to that University + + +So careless were the French commanders (or more properly the French +commander, for the rest were cowed by the bullying swagger of William) +that the night, which should have been devoted to some sort of +reconnaissance, if not of a preparation of the ground, was devoted to +nothing more practical than the religious exercises peculiar to +foreigners. + +Their army, as we have seen, was not drawn from any one land, but it was +in the majority composed of Normans and Bretons; we can therefore +understand the extravagant superstition which must bear the blame for +what followed. + +Meanwhile, upon the heights above, the English host calmly prepared for +battle. Fires were lit each in its appointed place, and at these meat +was cooked under the stern but kindly eyes of the sergeant-majors. These +also distributed at an appointed price liquor, of which the British +soldier is never willing to be deprived, and as the hours advanced +towards morning, the songs in which our adventurous race has ever +delighted rose from the heights above the Brede. + +The morning was misty, as is often the case over damp and marshy lands +in the month of October, but the inclemency of the weather, or, to speak +more accurately, the superfluous moisture precipitated from an already +saturated atmosphere, was of no effect upon those silent and tenacious +troops of Harold. It was far other with the so-called "Norman" host, who +were full of forebodings--only too amply to be justified--of the fate +that lay before them upon the morrow. + +It is curious to contrast the quiet skill and sagacity which marked the +disposition of Harold with the almost childish simplicity of William's +plan--if plan it may be called. + +The Saxon hosts were drawn along the ridge in a position chosen with +masterly skill. It afforded (as may still be seen) no dead ground for an +attacking force and little cover. [Footnote: The Rhododendrons on the +great lawn are modern.] Their left was arranged _en potence_, their +right was drawn up in echelon. The centre followed the plan usual at +that time, reposing upon the wings to its right and left and extended. +The reserves were, of course, posted behind. Cavalry, as at Omdurman, +played but a slight role in this typically national action and such +mounted troops as were present seem to have been intermixed with the +line in the fashion later known, in the jargon of the service, as "The +Beggar's Quadrille." The Brigade of Guards is not mentioned in any +record that I can discover, but was probably set by reversed companies +in a square perpendicular to the main ravine and a little in front of +the salient angle which appears upon the map at the point marked A. + +The terrain can be clearly determined at the present day in spite of the +changes that have taken place in the intervening years. It is a fairly +steep slope of hemispherical contour interspersed with low bushes; the +summit (upon which now stands our lovely English village of Battle and +the residence of one of those cultured and leisured men who form the +framework of our commonwealth) was then but a wild heath. + +Harold himself could be distinguished in the centre of the line by his +handsome features, restrained deportment, and unfailing gentlemanly good +sense as he spoke to staff officer, orderly, and even groom with +indefatigable skill. + +In spite of the determination observable from a great distance upon the +faces of the tall Saxon line, William with characteristic lack of +balance opened the action by ordering a charge uphill with cavalry +alone; it was a piece of tactics absurdly incongruous and one even he +would never have attempted had he understood the foe that was before +him, or the fate to which that foe had doomed him. + +The lesson dealt him was as immediate as it was severe. The foreigners +were thrust headlong down the hill, and a private letter tells us how +the Men of Kent in particular buffeted the Normans about "as though they +were boys." But even in the heat of this initial success Harold had the +self-command to order the retirement upon the main position: and with +troops such as his the order was equivalent to its execution. + +This rude blow would have sufficed for any commander less vain than +William, but he seems to have lost all judgment in a fit of personal +vanity and to have ordered a second charge which could not but prove as +futile as the first, delivered as it was up a perfect glacis +strengthened by epaulements, reverses and countersunk galvon work and +one whose natural strength was heightened by the stockade which the +indomitable energy of Harold's troops had perfected in the early hours +of the morning. Many of the stakes in this, the reader may note with +pardonable pride, were of English oak--sharpened at the tip. + +William's plan (if plan it may be called) was, as we have seen, +necessarily futile and was foredoomed to failure. But Harold had no +intention to let the action bear no more fruit than a tactical victory +upon this particular field. The brain that had designed the exact +synchrony of Stamford Bridge and the famous march southward from the +Humber was of that sort which is only found once in many centuries of +the history of war and which is (it may be said without boasting) +peculiar to this island. + +Another general would have awaited the second charge with its useless +butchery and still more useless contest for the barren name of victory. +Not so Harold. Those commanding, cold grey eyes of his swept the line in +a comprehensive glance, and though no written record of the detail +remains, he must know little of the character of the man who does not +understand that from Harold certainly proceeded the order for what +followed. + +The forces at the centre, which he commanded in person, deftly withdrew +before the futile gallop of William's cavalry, leaving, with that +coolness which has ever distinguished our troops, the laggards to their +fate. At the same moment, and with marvellous precision, the left and +right were withdrawn from the plateau rapidly and as by magic, and the +old-fashioned tactics of mere impact (which William of Normandy seems +seriously to have relied on!) were spent and wasted upon the now +evacuated summit of the hill. + +What followed is famous in history. + +The cohesion of the Saxon force and the exactitude and coolness with +which its great operation was performed is of good augury for the future +of our country. Though it was now thick night, by no set road and with +no cumbersome machinery of train and rear-guard, the whole of the vast +assembly masked itself behind the woodlands of the Weald. + +The Norman horsemen, bewildered and fatigued, gazed on the many that had +fallen in defence of the masking position and wondered whether such +novel happenings were victory or no, but the army whose concentration +upon the Thames it was William's whole object to prevent, was already +miles northward, each unit proceeding by exactly co-ordinated routes +towards London. + +There is perhaps no more difficult task set before soldiers than the +quiet execution of such a manoeuvre after the heat of a heavy action, +and none have performed it more magnificently than the veteran troop of +Harold. + +When (luckily) all the orders had been finally distributed a great +tragedy marred the completeness of the day. + +Just before the execution of this masterpiece of strategy, and as the +autumn sun was sinking, the inevitable price which war demands of all +its darlings was paid. + +Harold himself, the artist of the great victory, fell. But we have no +reason to believe that his loss retarded the retrograding movement in +any degree. Men who create as Harold created have not their creations +spoilt by death. + + * * * * * + +The shameful history of the close of the campaign is familiar to every +schoolboy, and the military historian must be pardoned if he deals with +a purely civilian blunder in a few brief words. + +Parliament interfered--as it always does--with what should have been a +matter for soldiers alone. Intrigues, bribery, or worse (with which the +military historian has no concern) ruined what had been, in the field, +one of the principal achievements of the Saxon arms. And William, who +could not count to hold his own against regular forces and who was +astonished to find himself free to retreat precipitately on Dover, was +still more astonished to find himself accepted a few weeks later after +an aimless march to the west and north by the politicians--or worse--at +Berkhampstead. He and England were equally astounded to find that a +broken and defeated invader could actually be accepted by the intriguers +at Westminster and crowned King of England as the price of a secret +bargain. + +Such was the fruit of as great and successful an effort as ever Saxon +soldier made: the Battle of Senlac: for such--as I am now free to +reveal--was the true name of the field of action. + +The ineptitude or avarice of politicians had undone the work of +soldiers, and it is no wonder that the last of Harold's veterans, who +retired in disgust to impregnable fortresses in Ely, Arthur's Seat, and +Pudsey, are recorded to have gnashed their teeth and shed tears of +indignation at the dispatches from the metropolis. At Crcy they were to +be avenged. + + + + +The Roman Roads in Picardy + + +If a man were asked where he would find upon the map the sharpest +impress of Rome and of the memories of Rome, and where he would most +easily discover in a few days on foot the foundations upon which our +civilization still rests, he might, in proportion to his knowledge of +history and of Europe, be puzzled to reply. He might say that a week +along the wall from Tyne to Solway would be the answer; or a week in the +great Roman cities of Provence with their triumphal arches and their +vast arenas and their Roman stone cropping out everywhere: in old quays, +in ruined bridges, in the very pavement of the streets they use to-day, +and in the columns of their living churches. + +Now I was surprised to find myself after many years of dabbling in such +things, furnishing myself the answer in quite a different place. It was +in Picardy during the late manoeuvres of the French Army that, in the +intervals of watching those great buzzing flies, the aeroplanes, and in +the intervals of long tramps after the regiments or of watching the +massed guns, the necessity for perpetually consulting the map brought +home to me for the first time this truth--that Picardy is the +province--or to be more accurate, Picardy with its marches in the le de +France, the edge of Normandy and the edge of Flanders--which retains +to-day the most vivid impress of Rome. For though the great buildings +are lacking, and the Roman work, which must here have been mainly of +brick, has crumbled, and though I can remember nothing upstanding and +patently of the Empire between the gate of Rheims and the frontier of +Artois, yet one feature--the Roman road--is here so evident, so +multiple, and so enduring that it makes up for all the rest. + +One discovers the old roads upon the map, one after the other, with a +sort of surprise. The scheme develops before one as one looks, and +always when one thinks one has completed the web another and yet another +straight arrow of a line reveals itself across the page. + +The map is a sort of palimpsest. A mass of fine modern roads, a whole +red blur of lanes and local ways, the big, rare black lines of the +railway--these are the recent writing, as it were; but underneath the +whole, more and more apparent and in greater and greater numbers as one +learns to discover them, are the strict, taut lines which Rome stretched +over all those plains. + +There is something most fascinating in noting them, and discovering them +one after the other. + +For they need discovering. No one of them is still in complete use. The +greater part must be pieced together from lengths of lanes which turn +into broad roads, and then suddenly sink again into footpaths, rights of +way, or green forest rides. + +Often, as with our rarer Roman roads in England, all trace of the thing +disappears under the plough or in the soft crossings of the river +valleys; one marks them by the straightness of their alignment, by the +place names which lie upon them (the repeated name Estree, for instance, +which is like the place name "street" upon the Roman roads of England); +by the recovery of them after a gap; by the discoveries which local +archaeology has made. + +Different men have different pastimes, and I dare say that most of those +who read this will wonder that such a search should be a pastime for any +man, but I confess it is a pastime for me. To discover these things, to +recreate them, to dig out on foot the base upon which two thousand years +of history repose, is the most fascinating kind of travel. + +And then, the number of them! You may take an oblong of country with +Maubeuge at one corner, Pontoise at another, Yvetot and some frontier +town such as Fumes for the other two corners, and in that stretch of +country a hundred and fifty miles by perhaps two hundred, you can build +up a scheme of Roman ways almost as complete as the scheme of the great +roads to-day. + +That one which most immediately strikes the eye is the great line which +darts upon Rouen from Paris. + +Twice broken at the crossing of the river valleys, and lost altogether +in the last twelve miles before the capital of Normandy, it still stands +on the modern map a great modern road with every aspect of purpose and +of intention in its going. + +From Amiens again they radiate out, these roads, some, like the way to +Cambray, in use every mile; some, like the old marching road to the sea, +to the Portus Itius, to Boulogne, a mere lane often wholly lost and +never used as a great modern road. This was the way along which the +French feudal cavalry trailed to the disaster of Crcy, and just beyond +Crcy it goes and loses itself in that exasperating but fascinating +manner which is the whole charm of Roman roads wherever the hunter finds +them. You may lay a ruler along this old forgotten track, all the way +past Domqueur, Novelle (which is called Novelle-en-Chausse, that is +Novelle on the paved road), on past Estre (where from the height you +overlook the battlefield of Crcy), and that ruler so lying on your map +points right at Boulogne Harbour, thirty odd miles away--and in all +those thirty odd remaining miles I could not find another yard of it. +But what an interest! What a hobby to develop! There is nothing like it +in all the kinds of hunting that have ever been invented for filling up +the whole of the mind. True, you will get no sauce of danger, but, on +the other hand, you will hunt for weeks and weeks, and you will come +back year after year and go on with your hunting, and sometimes you +actually find--which is more than can be said for hunting some animals +in the Weald. + +How was it lost, this great main road of Europe, this marching road of +the legions, linking up Gaul and Britain, the way that Hadrian went, and +the way down which the usurper Constantine III must have come during +that short adventure of his which lends such a romance to the end of the +Empire? One cannot conceive why it should have disappeared. It is a +sunken way down the hillside across the light railway which serves +Crcy, it gets vaguer and vaguer, for all the world like those ridges +upon the chalk that mark the Roman roads in England, and then it is +gone. It leaves you pointing, I say, at that distant harbour, thirty odd +miles off, but over all those miles it has vanished. The ghost of the +legends cannot march along it any more. In one place you find a few +yards of it about three miles south and east of Montreuil. It may be +that the little lane leading into Estre shows where it crossed the +valley of the Cauche, but it is all guesswork, and therefore very proper +to the huntsman. + +Then there is that unbroken line by which St. Martin came, I think, when +he rode into Amiens, and at the gate of the town cut his cloak in two to +cover the beggar. It drives across country for Roye and on to Noyon, the +old centre of the Kings. It is a great modern road all the way, and it +stretches before you mile after mile after mile, until suddenly, without +explanation and for no reason, it ends sharply, like the life of a man. +It ends on the slopes of the hill called Choisy, at the edge of the wood +which is there. And seek as you will, you will never find it again. + +From that road also, near Amiens, branches out another, whose object was +St. Quentin, first as a great high road, lost in the valley of the +Somme, a lesser road again, still in one strict alignment, it reaches on +to within a mile of Vermand, and there it stops dead. I do not think +that between Vermand and St. Quentin you will find it. Go out +north-westward from Vermand and walk perhaps five miles, or seven: there +is no trace of a road, only the rare country lanes winding in and out, +and the open plough of the rolling land. But continue by your compass so +and you will come (suddenly again and with no apparent reason for its +abrupt origin) upon the dead straight line that ran from the capital of +the Nervii, three days' march and more, and pointing all the time +straight at Vermand. + +And so it is throughout the province and its neighbourhood. Here and +there, as at Bavai, a great capital has decayed. Here and there (but +more rarely), a town wholly new has sprung up since the Romans, but the +plan of the country is the same as that which they laid down, and the +roads as you discover them, mark it out and establish it. The armies +that you see marching to-day in their manoeuvres follow for half a +morning the line which was taken by the Legions. + + + + +The Reward of Letters + + +It has often been remarked that while all countries in the world possess +some sort of literature, as Iceland her Sagas, England her daily papers, +France her prose writers and dramatists, and even Prussia her railway +guides, one nation and one alone, the Empire of Monomotopa, is utterly +innocent of this embellishment or frill. + +No traveller records the existence of any Monomotopan quill-driver; no +modern visitor to that delightful island has come across a +_littrateur_ whether in the worse or in the best hotels; and such +reading as the inhabitants enjoy is entirely confined to works imported +by large steamers from the neighbouring Antarctic Continent. + +The causes of this singular and happy state of affairs were unknown +(since the common histories did not mention them) until the recent +discovery by Mr. Paley, the chief authority upon Monomotopan hieratic +script, of a very ancient inscription which clearly sets forth the whole +business. + +It seems that an Emperor of Monomotopa, whose date can be accurately +fixed by internal evidence to lie after the universal deluge and before +the building of the Pyramid of Cheops, was, upon his accession to the +throne, particularly concerned with the just repartition of taxes among +his beloved subjects. + +It would seem (if we are to trust the inscription) that in a past still +more remote the taxes were so light that even the richest men would meet +them promptly and without complaining, but this was at a period when the +enemies of Monomotopa were at once distant and actively engaged in +quarrelling among themselves. With sickening treachery these distant +rival nations had determined to produce wealth and to live in amity, so +that it was incumbent upon the Monomotopans not only to build ships, but +actually to provide an army, and at last (what broke the camel's back) +to establish fortifications of a very useless but expensive sort upon a +dozen points of their Imperial coast. + +Under the increasing strain the old fiscal system broke down. The poor +were clearly embarrassed, as might be seen in their emaciated visages +and from the terrible condition of their boots. The rich had reached the +point after which it was inconvenient to them to pay any more. The +middle classes were spending the greater part of their time in devising +methods by which the exorbitant and intempestive demands of the +collectors could be either evaded or, more rarely, complied with. In a +word, a new and juster system of taxation was an imperative need, and +the Emperor, who had just ascended the throne at the age of eighteen, +and whom a sort of greenness had preserved from the iniquities of this +world, was determined to effect the great reform. + +With the advice of his Ministers (all of whom had had considerable +experience in the handling of money), the Emperor at last determined +that each man and woman should pay to the State one-tenth and no more of +the wealth which he or she produced; those who produced nothing it was +but common justice and reason to exempt, and the effect of this tardy +act of justice upon the very rich was observed in the sudden increase of +the death-rate from all those diseases that are the peculiar product of +luxury and evil living. Paupers also, the unemployed, cripples, +imbeciles, deaf mutes, and the clergy escaped under this beneficent and +equable statute, and we may sum up the whole policy by saying that never +was a law acclaimed with so much happy bewilderment nor subject to less +expressed criticism than this. + +It was, moreover, easy to estimate in this new fashion the total revenue +of the State, since its produce had been accurately set down by +statisticians of the utmost eminence, and one of these diverse documents +had been taken for the basis of the new fiscal regime. + +In practice also the collection was easy. Overseers would attend the +harvest with large carts, prong the tenth turnip, hoick up the tenth +sheaf of wheat, bucket out the tenth gallon of ale, and so forth. In the +markets every tenth animal was removed by Imperial officers, every tenth +newspaper was impounded as it left the press, and every tenth drink +about to be consumed in the hostelries of the Empire was, after a +simulacrum of proffering it, suddenly removed by the waiter and poured +into a receptacle, the keys of which were very jealously guarded. + +It was the same with the liberal professions: of the fee received by a +barrister in the Criminal Courts a tenth was regularly demanded at the +door when the verdict had been given and the prisoner whom he had +defended passed out to execution. The tenth knock-out in the prize ring +received by the professional pugilist was followed by the immediate +sequestration of his fee for that particular encounter, and the tenth +aria vibrating from the lips of a prima donna was either compounded for +at a certain rate or taken in kind by the official who attended at every +performance of grand opera. + +One form of wealth alone puzzled the beneficent monarch and his +Napoleonic advisers, and this was the production (for it then existed) +of literary matter. + +At first this seemed as simple to tax as any one of the other numerous +activities upon which the Emperor's loyal and loving subjects were +engaged. A brief examination of the customs of the trade, conducted by +an army of officials who penetrated into the very dens and attics in +which Letters are evolved, reported that the method of payment was by +the measurement of a number of words. + +"It is, your Majesty," wrote the permanent official of the department in +his minute, "the practice of those who charitably employ this sort of +person to pay them in classes by the thousand words; thus one man gets +one sequin a thousand, another two byzants, a third as much as a ducat, +while some who have singularly attracted the notice of the public can +command ten, twenty, nay forty scutcheons, and in some very exceptional +cases a thousand words command one of those beautiful pieces of stiff +paper which your Majesty in his bountiful provision tenders to his +dutiful subjects for acceptance as metal under diverse penalties. The +just taxation of these fellows can therefore be easily achieved if your +Majesty, in the exercise of his almost superhuman wisdom, will but add a +schedule to the Finance Act in which there shall be set down fifteen or +twenty classes of writers, with their price per thousand words, and a +compulsory registration of each class, enforced by the rude hand of the +police." + +The Emperor of Monomotopa immediately nominated a Royal Commission +(unpaid), among whose sons, nephews, and private friends the salaried +posts connected with the work were distributed. This Commission reported +by a majority of one ere two years had elapsed. The schedule was +designed, and such _littrateurs_ as had not in the interval fled +the country were registered, while a further enactment strictly +forbidding their employers to make payment upon any other system +completed the scheme. + +But, alas! so full of low cunning and dirty dodges is this kind of man +(I mean what we call authors) that very soon after the promulgation of +the new law a marked deterioration in the quality of Monomotopan letters +was apparent upon every side! + +The citizen opening his morning paper would be astonished to find the +leading article consist of nothing more original than a portion of the +sacred Scriptures. A novel bought to ease the tedium of a journey would +consist of long catalogues for the most part, and when it came to +descriptions of scenery would fall into the most minute and detailed +category of every conceivable feature of the landscape. Some even took +advantage of the new regulation so far as to repeat one single word an +interminable number of times, while it was remarked with shame by the +Ministers of Religion that the morals of their literary friends +permitted them only to use words of one syllable, and those of the +shortest kind. And this they said was the only true and original +Monomotopan dialect. + +Such was the public inconvenience that next year a sharper and much more +drastic law was passed, by which it was laid down that every literary +composition should make sense within the meaning of the Act, and should +be original so far as the reading of the judge appointed for the trial +of the case extended. But though after the first few executions this law +was generally observed, the nasty fellows affected by it managed to +evade it in spirit, for by the use of obscure terms, of words drawn from +dead languages, and of bold metaphor transferred from one art to +another, they would deliberately invite prosecution, and then in the +witness-box make fools of those plain men, the judge and jury, by +showing that this apparently meaningless claptrap could, with sufficient +ingenuity, be made to yield some sort of sense, and during this period +no art critic was put to death. + +Driven to desperation, the Emperor changed the whole basis of the +Remuneration of Literary Labour, and ordered that it should be by the +length of the prose or poetry measured in inches. + +This reform, however, did but add to the confusion, for while the men of +the pen wrote their works entirely in short dialogue, asterisks, and +blanks, the publishers, who were now thoroughly organized, printed the +same in smaller and smaller type, in order to avoid the consequences of +the law. + +At this last piece of insolence the Emperor's mind was quickly decided. +Arresting one night not only all those who had ever written, but all +those who had even boasted of letters, or who were so much as suspected +by their relatives of secretly indulging in them, he turned the whole +two million into a large but enclosed area, and (desiring to kill two +birds with one stone) offered the ensuing spectacle as an amusement to +the more sober and respectable sections of the community. + +It is well known that the profession of letters breeds in its followers +an undying hatred of each against his fellows. The public were therefore +entertained for a whole day with the pleasing sight of a violent but +quite disordered battle, in which each of the wretched prisoners seemed +animated by no desire but the destruction of as many as possible of his +hated rivals, until at last every soul of these detestable creatures had +left its puny body and the State was rid of all. + +A law which carried to the universities the rule of the primary +schools--to wit, that men should be taught to read but not to +write--completed the good work. And there was peace. + + + + +The Eye-Openers + + +Without any doubt whatsoever, the one characteristic of the towns is +the lack of reality in the impressions of the many: now we live in +towns: and posterity will be astounded at us! It isn't only that we get +our impressions for the most part as imaginary pictures called up by +printer's ink--that would be bad enough; but by some curious perversion +of the modern mind, printer's ink ends by actually preventing one from +seeing things that are there; and sometimes, when one says to another +who has not travelled, "Travel!" one wonders whether, after all, if he +does travel, he will see the things before his eyes? If he does, he will +find a new world; and there is more to be discovered in this fashion +to-day than ever there was. + +I have sometimes wished that every Anglo-Saxon who from these shores has +sailed and seen for the first time the other Anglo-Saxons in New York or +Melbourne, would write in quite a short letter what he really felt. +Ninety-nine times out of a hundred men only write what they have read +before they started, just as Rousseau in an eighteenth-century village +believed that every English yokel could vote and that his vote conveyed +a high initiative, making and unmaking the policy of the State; or just +as people, hearing that the birth-rate of France is low, travel in that +country and say they can see no children--though they would hardly say +it about Sussex or Cumberland where the birth-rate is lower still. + +What travel does in the way of pleasure (the providing of new and fresh +sensations, and the expansion of experience), that it ought to do in the +way of knowledge. It ought to and it does, with the wise, provide a +complete course of unlearning the wretched tags with which the sham +culture of our great towns has filled us. For instance, of Barbary--the +lions do not live in deserts; they live in woods. The peasants of +Barbary are not Semitic in appearance or in character; Barbary is full +to the eye, not of Arab and Oriental buildings--they are not +striking--but of great Roman monuments: they are altogether the most +important things in the place. Barbary is not hot, as a whole: most of +Barbary is extremely cold between November and March. The inhabitants of +Barbary do not like a wild life, they are extremely fond of what +civilization can give them, such as _crme de menthe_, rifles, good +waterworks, maps, and railways: only they would like to have these +things without the bother of strict laws and of the police, and so +forth. Travel in Barbary with seeing eyes and you find out all this new +truth. + +Now it took the French forty years and more before each of these plain +facts (and I have only cited half a dozen out of as many hundred) got +into their letters and their print: they have not yet got into the +letters and the print of other nations. But an honest man travelling in +Barbary on his own account would pick up every one of these truths in +two or three days, except the one about the lions; to pick up that truth +you must go to the very edge of the country, for the lion is a shy beast +and withdraws from men. + +The wise man who really wants to see things as they are and to +understand them, does not say: "Here I am on the burning soil of +Africa." He says: "Here I am stuck in a snowdrift and the train twelve +hours late"--as it was (with me in it) near Stif in January, 1905. He +does not say as he looks on the peasant at his plough outside Batna: +"Observe yon Semite!" He says: "That man's face is exactly like the face +of a dark Sussex peasant, only a little leaner." He does not say: "See +those wild sons of the desert! How they must hate the new artificial +world around them!" Contrariwise, he says: "See those four Mohammedans +playing cards with a French pack of cards and drinking liqueurs in the +caf! See, they have ordered more liqueurs!" He does not say: "How +strange and terrible a thing the railway must be to them!" He says: "I +wish I was rich enough to travel first, for the natives pouring in and +out of this third-class carriage, jabbering like monkeys, and treading +on my feet, disturb my tranquillity. Some hundreds must have got in and +out during the last fifty miles!" + +In other words, the wise man has permitted eye-openers to rain upon him +their full, beneficent, and sacramental influence. And if a man in +travelling will always maintain his mind ready for what he really sees +and hears, he will become a whole nest of Columbuses discovering a +perfectly interminable series of new worlds. + +A man can only talk of what he himself knows. Let me give further +examples. I had always heard until I visited the Pyrenees how French +civilization (especially in the matter of roads, motors, and things like +that) went up to the "Spanish" frontier and then stopped dead. It +doesn't. The change is at the Aragonese frontier. On the Basque third of +the frontier the people are just as active and fond of wealth, and of +scraping of stone and of cleanliness, and of drawing straight lines, to +the north as to the south of it. They are all one people, as +industrious, as thrifty, and as prosperous as the Scots. So are the +Catalans one people, and you get much the same sort of advantages and +disadvantages (apart from the effect of government) with the Catalans to +the north as with the Catalans to the south of the border. + +So with religion. I had thought to find the Spanish churches crowded. I +found just the contrary. It was the French churches that were crowded, +not the Spanish; and the difference between the truth--what one really +sees and hears--and the printed legend happens to be very subtly +illustrated in this case of religion. The French have inherited (and are +by this time used to, and have, perhaps grown fond of) a big religious +debate. Those who side with the national religion and tradition +emphasize their opinion in every possible way--so do their opponents. +You pick up two newspapers from Toulouse, for instance, and it is quite +on the cards that the leading article of each will be a disquisition +upon the philosophy of religion, the one, the "Depche" of Toulouse, +militantly, and often solently atheist; the other as militantly +Catholic. + +You don't get that in Pamplona, and you don't get it in Saragossa. What +you get there is a profound dislike of being interfered with, ancient +and lazy customs, wealth retained by the chapters, the monasteries, and +the colleges, and with all this a curious, all-pervading indifference. + +One might end this little train of thought by considering a converse +test of what the eye-opener is in travel; and that test is to talk to +foreigners when they first come to England and see how they tend to +discover in England what they have read of at home instead of what they +really see. There have been very few fogs in London of late, but your +foreigner nearly always finds London foggy. Kent does not show along its +main railway line the evidence of agricultural depression: it is like a +garden. Yet, in a very careful and thorough French book just published +by a French traveller, his bird's-eye view of the country as he went +through Kent just after landing would make you think the place a desert; +he seems to have thought the hedges a sign of agricultural decay. The +same foreigner will discover a plebeian character in the Commons and an +aristocratic one in the House of Lords, though he shall have heard but +four speeches in each, and though every one of the eight speeches shall +have been delivered by members of one family group closely intermarried, +wealthy, titled, and perhaps (who knows?) of some lineage as well. + +The moral is that one should tell the truth to oneself, and look out for +it outside one. It is quite as novel and as entertaining as the +discovery of the North Pole--or, in case that has come off (as some +believe), the discovery of the South Pole. + + + + +The Public + + +I notice a very curious thing in the actions particularly of business +men to-day, and of other men also, which is the projection outward from +their own inward minds of something which is called "The Public"--and +which is not there. + +I do not mean that a business man is wrong when he says that "the public +will demand" such and such an article, and on producing the article +finds it sells widely; he is obviously and demonstrably right in his use +of the word "public" in such a connexion. Nor is a man wrong or subject +to illusion when he says, "The public have taken to cinematograph +shows," or "The public were greatly moved when the Hull fishermen were +shot at by the Russian fleet in the North Sea." What I mean is "The +Public" as an excuse or scapegoat; the Public as a menace; the Public as +a butt. That Public simply does not exist. + +For instance, the publisher will say, as though he were talking of some +monster, "The Public will not buy Jinks's work. It is first-class work, +so it is too good for the Public." He is quite right in his statement of +fact. Of the very small proportion of our people who read only a +fraction buy books, and of the fraction that buy books very few indeed +buy Jinks's. Jinks has a very pleasant up-and-down style. He loves to +use funny words dragged from the tomb, and he has delicate little +emotions. Yet hardly anybody will buy him--so the publisher is quite +right in one sense when he says, "The Public" won't buy Jinks. But where +he is quite wrong and suffering from a gross illusion is in the motive +and the manner of his saying it. He talks of "The Public" as something +gravely to blame and yet irredeemably stupid. He talks of it as +something quite external to himself, almost as something which he has +never personally come across. He talks of it as though it were a Mammoth +or an Eskimo. Now, if that publisher would wander for a moment into the +world of realities he would perceive his illusion. Modern men do not +like realities, and do not usually know the way to come in contact with +them. I will tell the publisher how to do so in this case. + +Let him consider what books he buys himself, what books his wife buys; +what books his eldest son, his grandmother, his Aunt Jane, his old +father, his butler (if he runs to one), his most intimate friend, and +his curate buy. He will find that not one of these people buys Jinks. +Most of them will talk Jinks, and if Jinks writes a play, however dull, +they will probably go and see it once; but they draw the line at buying +Jinks's books--and I don't blame them. + +The moral is very simple. You yourselves are "The Public," and if you +will watch your own habits you will find that the economic explanation +of a hundred things becomes quite clear. + +I have seen the same thing in the offices of a newspaper. Some simple +truth of commanding interest to this country, involving no attack upon +any rich man, and therefore not dangerous under our laws, comes up for +printing. It is discussed in the editor's room. The editor says, "Yes, +of course, we know it is true, and of course it is important, but the +Public would not stand it." + +I remember one newspaper office of my youth in which the Public was +visualized as a long file of people streaming into a Wesleyan chapel, +and another in which the Public was supposed to be made up without +exception of retired officers and maiden ladies, every one of whom was a +communicant of the English Established Church, every one of good birth, +and yet every one devoid of culture. + +Without the least doubt each of these absurd symbols haunted the brain +of each of the editors in question. The editor of the first paper would +print at wearisome length accounts of obscure Catholic clerical scandals +on the Continent, and would sweat with alarm if his sub-editors had +admitted a telegram concerning the trial of some fraudulent Protestant +missionary or other in China. + +Meanwhile his rather dull paper was being bought by you and me, and bank +clerks and foreign tourists, and doctors, and publicans, and brokers, +Catholics, Protestants, atheists, "peculiar people," and every kind of +man for many reasons--because it had the best social statistics, because +it had a very good dramatic critic, because they had got into the habit +and couldn't stop, because it came nearest to hand on the bookstall. Of +a hundred readers, ninety-nine skipped the clerical scandal and either +chuckled over the fraudulent missionary or were bored by him and went on +to the gambling news from the Stock Exchange. But the type for whom all +that paper was produced, the menacing god or demon who was supposed to +forbid publication of certain news in it, did not exist. + +So it was with the second paper, but with this difference, that the +editor was right about the social position of those who read his sheet, +but quite wrong about the opinions and emotions of people in that social +position. + +It was all the more astonishing from the fact that the editor was born +in that very class himself and perpetually mixed with it. No one perhaps +read "The Stodge" (for under this device would I veil the true name of +the organ) more carefully than those retired officers of either service +who are to be found in what are called our "residential" towns. The +editor was himself the son of a colonel of guns who had settled down in +a Midland watering-place. He ought to have known that world, and he did +know that world, but he kept his illusion of his Public quite apart from +his experience of realities. + +Your retired officer (to take his particular section of this particular +paper's audience) is nearly always a man with a hobby, and usually a +good scientific or literary hobby at that. He writes many of our best +books demanding research. He takes an active part in public work which +requires statistical study. He is always a travelled man, and nearly +always a well-read man. The broadest and the most complete questioning +and turning and returning of the most fundamental subjects--religion, +foreign policy, and domestic economics--are quite familiar to him. But +the editor was not selecting news for that real man; he was selecting +news for an imaginary retired officer of inconceivable stupidity and +ignorance, redeemed by a childlike simplicity. If a book came in, for +instance, on biology, and there was a chance of having it reviewed by +one of the first biologists of the day, he would say: "Oh, our Public +won't stand evolution," and he would trot out his imaginary retired +officer as though he were a mule. + +Artists, by which I mean painters, and more especially art critics, sin +in this respect. They say: "The public wants a picture to tell a story," +and they say it with a sneer. Well, the public does want a picture to +tell a story, because you and I want a picture to tell a story. Sorry. +But so it is. The art critic himself wants it to tell a story, and so +does the artist. Each would rather die than admit it, but if you set +either walking, with no one to watch him, down a row of pictures you +would see him looking at one picture after another with that expression +of interest which only comes on a human face when it is following a +human relation. A mere splash of colour would bore him; still more a +mere medley of black and white. The story may have a very simple plot; +it may be no more than an old woman sitting on a chair, or a landscape, +but a picture, if a man can look at it all, tells a story right enough. +It must interest men, and the less of a story it tells the less it will +interest men. A good landscape tells so vivid a story that children (who +are unspoilt) actually transfer themselves into such a landscape, walk +about in it, and have adventures in it. + +They make another complaint against the public, that it desires painting +to be lifelike. Of course it does! The statement is accurate, but the +complaint is based on an illusion. It is you and I and all the world +that want painting to imitate its object. There is a wonderful picture +in the Glasgow Art Gallery, painted by someone a long time ago, in which +a man is represented in a steel cuirass with a fur tippet over it, and +the whole point of that picture is that the fur looks like fur and the +steel looks like steel. I never met a critic yet who was so bold as to +say that picture was a bad picture. It is one of the best pictures in +the world; but its whole point is the liveliness of the steel and of the +fur. + +Finally, there is one proper test to prove that all this jargon about +"The Public" is nonsense, which is that it is altogether modern. Who +quarrelled with the Public in the old days when men lived a healthy +corporate life, and painted, wrote, or sang for the applause of their +fellows? + +If you still suffer from the illusion after reading these magisterial +lines of mine, why, there is a drastic way to cure yourself, which is to +go for a soldier; take the shilling and live in a barracks for a year; +then buy yourself out. You will never despise the public again. And +perhaps a better way still is to go round the Horn before the mast. But +take care that your friends shall send you enough money to Valparaiso +for your return journey to be made in some comfort; I would not wish my +worst enemy to go back the way he came. + + + + +On Entries + + +I am always planning in my mind new kinds of guide books. Or, rather, +new features in guide books. + +One such new feature which I am sure would be very useful would be an +indication to the traveller of how he should approach a place. + +I would first presuppose him quite free and able to come by rail or by +water or by road or on foot across the fields, and then I would describe +how the many places I have seen stand quite differently in the mind +according to the way in which one approaches them. + +The value of travel, to the eye at least, lies in its presentation of +clear and permanent impressions, and these I think (though some would +quarrel with me for saying it) are usually instantaneous. It is the +first sharp vision of an unknown town, the first immediate vision of a +range of hills, that remains for ever and is fruitful of joy within the +mind, or, at least, that is one and perhaps the chief of the fruits of +travel. + +I remember once, for instance, waking from a dead sleep in a train (for +I was very tired) and finding it to be evening. What woke me was the +sudden stopping of the train. It was in Italy. A man in the carriage +said to me that there was some sort of accident and that we should be +waiting a while. The people got out and walked about by the side of the +track. I also got out of the carriage and took the air, and when I so +stepped out into the cool of that summer evening I was amazed at the +loneliness and tragedy of the place. + +There were no houses about me that I could see save one little place +built for the railway men. There was no cultivation either. + +Close before me began a sort of swamp with reeds which hardly moved to +the air, and this gradually merged into a sheet of water above and +beyond which were hills, barren and not very high, which took the last +of the daylight, for they looked both southward and to the west. The +more I watched the extraordinary and absolute scene the less I heard of +the low voices about me, and indeed a sort of positive silence seemed to +clothe the darkening landscape. It was full of something quite gone +down, and one had the impression that it would never be disturbed. + +As the light lessened, the hills darkened, the sky took on one broad and +tender colour, the sheet of water gleamed quite white, and the reeds +stood up like solid shadows against it. I wish I could express in words +the impression of recollection and of savage mourning which all that +landscape imposed, but from that impression I was recalled and startled +by the guard, who came along telling us that things were righted and +that the train would start again; soon we were in our places and the +rapid movement isolated for me the memory of a singularly vivid scene. I +thought the place must have a name, and I asked a neighbour in the +carriage what it was called; he told me it was called Lake Trasimene. + +Now I do not say that this tragic site is to be visited thus. It was but +an accident, though an accident for which I am most grateful to my fate. +But what I have said here illustrates my meaning that the manner of +one's approach to any place in travel makes all the difference. + +Thus one may note how very different is Europe seen from the water than +seen from any other opportunity for travel. So many of the great +cathedrals were built to dominate men who should watch them from the +wharves of the mediaeval towns, but I think it is almost a rule if you +have leisure and can take your choice to choose this kind of entry to +them. Amiens is quite a different thing seen from the river below it to +the north and east from what it is seen by a gradual approach along the +street of a modern town. The roofs climb up at it, and it stands +enthroned. So Chartres seen from the little Eure; but the Eure is so +small a river that he would be a bold man who would travel up it all +this way. Nevertheless it is a good piece of travel, and anyone who will +undertake it will see Louviers and will pass Anet, where the greatest +work of the Renaissance once stood, and will go through lonely but rich +pastures until at last he gets to Chartres by the right gate. Thence he +will see something astonishing for so flat a region as the Beauce. The +great church seems mountainous upon a mountain. Its apse completes the +unclimbable steepness of the hill and its buttresses follow the lines of +the fall of it. But if you do not come in by the river, at least come in +by the Orleans road. I suppose that nine people out of ten, even to-day +when the roads are in proper use again, come into Chartres by that +northern railway entry, which is for all the world like coming into a +great house by a big, neglected backyard. + +Then if ever you have business that takes you to Bayonne, come in by +river and from the sea, and how well you will understand the little town +and its lovely northern Gothic! + +Some of the great churches all the world knows must be seen from the +water, and most of the world so sees them. Ely is one, Cologne is +another, but how many people have looked right up at Durham as at a +cliff from that gorge below, or how many have seen the height of Albi +from the Tarn? + +As for famous cities with their walls, there is no doubt that a man +should approach them by the chief high road, which once linked them with +their capital, or with their nearest port, or with Rome--and that +although this kind of entry is nowadays often marred by ugly suburbs. +You will get much your finest sight of Segovia as you come in by the +road from the Guadarama and from Madrid. It is from that point that you +were meant to see the town, and you will get much your best grip on +Carcassonne, old Carcassonne, if you come in by the road from Toulouse +at morning as you were meant to come, and so Coucy should be approached +by that royal road from Soissons and from the south, while as for Laon +(the most famous of the hill towns), come to it from the east, for it +looks eastward, and its lords were Eastern lords. + +Ranges of hills, I think, are never best first seen from railways. +Indeed, I can remember no great sight of hills so seen, not even the +Alps. A railway must of necessity follow the floor of the valley and +tunnel and creep round the shoulders of the bulwarks. There is perhaps +one exception to this rule, which is the sight of the Pyrenees from the +train as one comes into Tarbes. It is a wise thing if you are visiting +those hills to come into Tarbes by night and sleep there, and then next +morning the train upon its way to Pau unfolds you all the wall of the +mountains. But this is an accident. It is because the railway runs upon +a sort of high platform that you see the mountains so. With all other +hills that I remember it is best to have them burst suddenly upon you +from the top of some pass lifted high above the level and coming, let us +say, to a height half their own. Certainly the Bernese Oberland is more +wonderful caught in one moment from the Jura than introduced in any +other way, and the snows on Atlas over the desert seem like part of the +sky when they come upon one after climbing the red rocks of the high +plateaux and you see them shining over the salt marshes. The Vosges you +cannot thus see from a half-height; there is no platform, and that is +perhaps why the Vosges have not impressed travellers as they should. But +you can so watch the grand chain of old volcanoes which are the rampart +of Auvergne. You can stand upon the high wooden ridge of Foreze and see +them take the morning across the mists and the flat of the Limagne, +where the Gauls fought Caesar. Further south from the high table of the +Velay you can see the steep backward escarpment of the Cevennes, inky +blue, desperately blue, blue like nothing else on earth except the +mountains in those painters of North Italy, of the parts north and east +of Venice, the name of whose school escapes me--or, rather, I never knew +it. + +Now, as for towns that live in a hollow, it is great fun to come upon +them from above. They are not used to being thus taken at a disadvantage +and they are both surprised and surprising. There are many towns in +holes and trenches of Europe which you can thus play "peep-bo" with if +you will come at them walking. By train they will mean nothing to you. +You will probably come upon them out of a long, shrieking tunnel, and by +the high road they mean little more, for the high road will follow the +vale. But if you come upon them from over their guardian cliffs and +scars you catch them unawares, and this is a good way of approaching +them, for you master them, as it were, and spy them out before you enter +in. You can act thus with Grenoble and with many a town on the Meuse, +and particularly with Aubusson, which lies in the depths of so dreadful +a trench that I could wonder how man ever dreamt of living and building +there. + +The most difficult of all places on which to advise, I think, would be +the very great cities, the capitals. They seem to have to-day no noble +entries and no proper approach. Perhaps we shall only deal with them +justly when we can circle down to them through the air and see their +vast activity splashed over the plain. Anyhow, there is no proper way of +entering them now that I know of. Berlin is not worth entering at all. +Rome (a man told me once) could be entered by some particular road over +the Janiculum, I think--which also, if I remember right, was the way +that Shelley came--but I despair of Paris, and certainly of London. I +cannot even recall an entry for Brussels, though Brussels is a +monumental city with great rewards for those who love the combination of +building and hills. + +Perhaps, after all, the happiest entries of all and the most easy are +those of our many market towns, small and not swollen in Britain and in +Northern Gaul and in the Netherlands and in the Valley of the Rhine. +These hardly ever fail us, and we come upon them in our travels as they +desire that we should come, and we know them properly as things should +properly be known--that is, from the beginning. + + + + +Companions of Travel + + +I write of travelling companions in general, and not in particular, +making of them a composite photograph, as it were, and finding what they +have in common and what is their type; and in the first place I find +them to be chance men. For there are some people who cannot travel +without a set companion who goes with them from Charing Cross all over +the world and back to Charing Cross again. And there is a pathos in +this: as Balzac said of marriage, "What a commentary on human life, that +human beings must associate to endure it." So it is with many who cannot +endure to travel alone: and some will positively advertise for another +to go with them. + +In a glade of the Sierra Nevada, which, for awful and, as it were, +permanent beauty seemed not to be of this world, I came upon a man +slowly driving along the trail a ramshackle cart, in which were a few +chairs and tables and bedding. He had a long grey beard and wild eyes; +he was old, and very small like a gnome, but he had not the gnome's +good-humour. I asked him where he was going, and I slowed down, so as to +keep pace with his ridiculous horse. For some time he would not answer +me, and then he said, "Out of this." He added, "I am tired of it." And +when I asked him, "Of what?" his only answer was an old-fashioned oath. +But from further complaints which he made I gathered that what he was +tired of was clearing forests, digging ground, paying debts, and in +general living upon this unhappy earth. He did not like me very much, +and though I would willingly have learned more, he would tell me nothing +further, so when we got to a place where there was a little stream I +went on and left him. + +I have never forgotten the sadness of this man. Where he was going, and +what he expected to do, or what opportunities he had, I have never +understood. Though some years after, in quite another place--namely, +Steyning, in Sussex--I came upon just such another, whose quarrel was +with the English climate, the rich and the poor, and the whole +constitution of God's earth. These are the advantages of travel, that +one meets so many men whom one would otherwise never meet, and that one +feeds as it were upon the complexity of mankind. + +Thus in a village called Encamps, in the depths of Andorra, where no man +has ever killed another, I found a man with a blue face, who was a +fossil, the kind of man you would never find in the swelling life of +Western Europe. He was emancipated, he had studied in Perpignan, over +and beyond the great hills. He could not see why he should pay taxes to +support a priest. "The priests" he assured me, "say the most ridiculous +things. They narrate the most impossible fables. They affirm what cannot +possibly be true. All that they say is in opposition to science. If I am +ill, can a priest cure me? No. Can a priest tell me how to build, or how +to light my house? He is unable to do so. He is a useless and a lying +mouth, why should I feed him?" + +I questioned this man very closely, and discovered that in his view the +world slowly changed from worse to better, and to accelerate this +process enlightenment alone was needed. "But what do these brutes," he +said, alluding to his fellow-countrymen, "know of enlightenment? They do +not even make roads, because the priests forbid them." + +I could write at length upon this man. He was not a Sceptic as you may +imagine, nor had he adopted the Lucretian form of Epicureanism. Not a +bit of it. He was a hearty Atheist, with Positivist leanings. I further +found that he had married a woman older, wealthier, and if possible +uglier than himself. She kept the inn, and was very kind to him. His +life would have been quite happy had he not been tortured by the +monstrous superstitions of others. + +Then, again, in the town of Marseilles, only two years ago, I met a man +who looked well fed, and had a stalwart, square French face, and whose +politico-economic ideal, though it was not mine, greatly moved me. It +was just past midnight, and I was throwing little stones into the old +Greek harbour, the stench and the glory of which are nearly three +thousand years old; I was to be off at dawn upon a tramp steamer, and I +had so determined to pass the few hours of darkness. + +I was throwing pebbles into the water, I say, and thinking about +Ulysses, when this man came slouching up, with his hands in the pockets +of his enormous corduroy trousers, and, looking at me with some contempt +from above (for he was standing, I was sitting), he began to converse +with me. We talked first of ships, then of heat and cold, and so on to +wealth and poverty; and thus it was I came upon his views, which were +that there should be a sort of break up, and houses ought to be burned, +and things smashed, and people killed; and over and above this, it +should be made plain that no one had a right to govern: not the people, +because they were always being bamboozled; obviously not the rich; least +of all, the politicians, to whom he justly applied the most derogatory +epithets. He waved his arm out in the darkness at the Phoceans, at the +half-million of Marseilles, and said, "All that should disappear." The +constructive side of his politico-economic scheme was negative. He was a +practical man. None of your fine theories for him. One step at a time. +Let there be a Chambardement--that is, a noisy collapse, and he would +think about what to do afterwards. + +His was not the narrow, deductive mind. He was objective and concrete. +Believe me or not, he was paid an excellent wage by the municipality to +prevent people like me, who sit up at night, from doing mischief in the +harbour. When I had come to an end of his politico-economic scheme--the +main lines of which were so clear and simple that a child could +understand them--we fell to talking of the tides, and I told him that in +my country the sea went up and down. He was no rustic, and would have no +such commonplace truths. He was well acquainted with the Phenomenon of +the Tides; it was due to the combined attraction of the sun and of the +moon. But when I told him I knew places where the tides fell thirty or +forty feet, we would have had a violent quarrel had I not prudently +admitted that that was romantic exaggeration, and that five or six was +the most that one ever saw it move. I avoided the quarrel, but the +little incident broke up our friendship, and he shuffled away. He did +not like having his leg pulled. + +There are many others I remember. Those I have written about elsewhere I +am ashamed to recall, as the man at Jedburgh, who first expounded to me +how one knew all about the fate of the individual soul, and then +objected to personal questions about his own; the German officer man at +Aix-la-Chapelle, who had hair the colour of tow, and gave me minute +details of the method by which England was to be destroyed; a man I met +upon the Appian Way, who told the most abominable lies; and another man +who met me outside Oxford station during the Vac. and offered to show me +the sights of the town for a consideration, which he did, but I would +not pay him because he was inaccurate, as I easily proved by a few +searching questions upon the exact site of Bocardo (of which he had +never heard), and the negative evidence against a Roman origin for the +site of the city. Moreover, he said that Trinity was St. John's, which +was rubbish. + +Then there was another man who travelled with me from Birmingham, +pressed certain tracts upon me, and wanted to charge me sixpence each at +Paddington. But if I were to speak of even these few I should exceed. + + + + +On the Sources of Rivers + + +There are certain customs in man the permanence of which gives infinite +pleasure. When the mood of the schools is against them these customs lie +in wait beneath the floors of society, but they never die, and when a +decay in pedantry or in despotism or in any other evil and inhuman +influence permits them to reappear they reappear. + +One of these customs is the religious attachment of man to isolated high +places, peaks, and single striking hills. On these he must build +shrines, and though he is a little furtive about it nowadays, yet the +instinct is there, strong as ever. I have not often come to the top of a +high hill with another man but I have seen him put a few stones together +when he got there, or, if he had not the moral courage so to satisfy his +soul, he would never fail on such an occasion to say something ritual and +quasi-religious, even if it were only about the view; and another instinct +of the same sort is the worship of the sources of rivers. + +The Iconoclast and the people whose pride it is that their senses are +dead will see in a river nothing more than so much moisture gathered in +a narrow place and falling as the mystery of gravitation inclines it. +Their mood is the mood of that gentleman who despaired and wrote: + + A cloud's a lot of vapour, + The sky's a lot of air, + And the sea's a lot of water + That happens to be there. + +You cannot get further down than that. When you have got as far down as +that all is over. Luckily God still keeps his mysteries going for you, +and you can't get rid, even in that mood, of the certitude that you +yourself exist and that things outside of you are outside of you. But +when you get into that modern mood you do lose the personality of +everything else, and you forget the sanctity of river heads. + +You have lost a great deal when you have forgotten that, and it behoves +you to recover what you have lost as quickly as possible, which is to be +done in this way: Visit the source of some famous stream and think about +it. There was a Scotchman once who discovered the sources of the Nile, +to the lasting advantage of mankind and the permanent glory of his +native land. He thought the source of the Nile looked rather like the +sources of the Till or the Tweed or some such river of Thule. He has +been ridiculed for saying this, but he was mystically very right. The +source of the greatest of rivers, since it was sacred to him, reminded +him of the sacred things of his home. + +When I consider the sources of rivers which I have seen, there is not +one, I think, which I do not remember to have had about it an influence +of awe. Not only because one could in imaginings see the kingdoms of the +cities which it was to visit and the way in which it would bind them all +together in one province and one story, but also simply because it was +an origin. + +The sources of the Rhone are famous: the Rhone comes out of a glacier +through a sort of ice cave, and if it were not for an enormous hotel +quite four-square it would be as lonely a place as there is in Europe, +and as remarkable a beginning for a great river as could anywhere be +found. Nor, when you come to think of it, does any European river have +such varied fortunes as the Rhone. It feeds such different religions and +looks on such diverse landscapes. It makes Geneva and it makes Avignon; +it changes in colour and in the nature of its going as it goes. It sees +new products appearing continually on its journey until it comes to +olives, and it flows past the beginning of human cities, when it +reflects the huddle of old Arles. + +The sources of the Garonne are well known. The Garonne rises by itself +in a valley from which there is no issue, like the fabled valleys shut +in by hills on every side. And if it were anything but the Garonne it +would not be able to escape: it would lie imprisoned there for ever. +Being the Garonne it tunnels a way for itself right under the High +Pyrenees and comes out again on the French side. There are some that +doubt this, but then there are people who would doubt anything. + +The sources of the River Arun are not so famous as these two last, and +it is a good thing, for they are to be found in one of the loneliest +places within an hour of London that any man can imagine, and if you +were put down there upon a windy day you would think yourself upon the +moors. There is nothing whatsoever near you at the beginnings of the +little sacred stream. + +Thames had a source once which was very famous. The water came out +plainly at a fountain under a bleak wood just west of the Fosse Way, +under which it ran by a culvert, a culvert at least as old as the +Romans. But when about a hundred years ago people began to improve the +world in those parts, they put up a pumping station and they pumped +Thames dry--since which time its gods have deserted the river. + +The sources of the Ribble are in a lonely place up in a corner of the +hills where everything has strange shapes and where the rocks make one +think of trolls. The great frozen Whernside stands up above it, and +Ingleborough Hill, which is like no other hill in England, but like the +flat-topped Mesas which you have in America, or (as those who have +visited it tell me) like the flat hills of South Africa; and a little +way off on the other side is Pen-y-ghent, or words to that effect. The +little River Ribble rises under such enormous guardianship. It rises +quite clean and single in the shape of a little spring upon the +hillside, and too few people know it. The other river that flows east +while the Ribble flows west is the River Ayr. It rises in a curious way, +for it imitates the Garonne, and finding itself blocked by limestone +burrows underneath at a place called Malham Tarn, after which it has no +more trouble. + +The River Severn, the River Wye, and a third unimportant river, or at +least important only for its beauty (and who would insist on that?) rise +all close together on the skirts of Plinlimmon, and the smallest of them +has the most wonderful rising, for it falls through the gorge of Llygnant, +which looks like, and perhaps is, the deepest cleft in this island, or, at +any rate, the most unexpected. And a fourth source on the mountain, a tarn +below its summit, is the source of Rheidol, which has a short but +adventurous life like Achilles. + +There is one source in Europe that is properly dealt with, and where the +religion due to the sources of rivers has free play, and this is the +source of the Seine. It comes out upon the northern side of the hills +which the French call the Hills of Gold, in a country of pasturage and +forest, very high up above the world and thinly peopled. The River Seine +appears there in a sort of miraculous manner, pouring out of a grotto, +and over this grotto the Parisians have built a votive statue; and there +is yet another of the hundred thousand things that nobody knows. + + + + +On Error + + +There is an elusive idea that has floated through the minds of most of +us as we grew older and learnt more and more things. It is an idea +extremely difficult to get into set terms. It is an idea very difficult +to put so that we shall not seem nonsensical; and yet it is a very +useful idea, and if it could be realized its realization would be of +very practical value. It is the idea of a Dictionary of Ignorance and +Error. + +On the face of it a definition of the work is impossible. Strictly +speaking it would be infinite, for human knowledge, however far +extended, must always be infinitely small compared with all possible +knowledge, just as any given finite space is infinitely small compared +with all space. + +But that is not the idea which we entertain when we consider this +possible Dictionary of Ignorance and Error. What we really mean is a +Dictionary of the sort of Ignorance and the sort of Error which we know +ourselves to have been guilty of, which we have escaped by special +experience or learning as time went on, and against which we would warn +our fellows. + +Flaubert, I think, first put it down in words, and said that such an +encyclopaedia was very urgently needed. + +It will never exist, but we all know that it ought to exist. Bits of it +appear from time to time piecemeal and here and there, as for instance +in the annotations which modern scholarship attaches to the great text, +in the printed criticisms to which sundry accepted doctrines are +subjected by the younger men to-day, in the detailed restatement of +historical events which we get from modern research as our fathers could +never have them--but the work itself, the complete Encyclopaedia or +Dictionary of Ignorance and Error, will never be printed. It is a great +pity. + +Incidentally one may remark that the process by which a particular error +is propagated is as interesting to watch as the way in which a plant +grows. + +The first step seems to be the establishing of an authority and the +giving of that authority a name which comes to connote doctrinal +infallibility. A very good example of this is the title "Science." Mere +physical research, its achievements, its certitudes, even its +conflicting and self-contradictory hypotheses, having got lumped +together in many minds under this one title Science, the title is now +sacred. It is used as a priestly title, as an immediate estopper to +doubt or criticism. + +The next step is a very interesting one for the student of psychical +pathology to note. It seems to be a disease as native and universal to +the human mind as is the decay of the teeth to the human body. It seems +as though we all must suffer somewhat from it, and most of us suffer a +great deal from it, though in a cool aspect we easily perceive it to be +a lesion of thought. And this second step is as follows: + +The whole lump having been given its sacred title and erected into an +infallible authority, which you are to accept as directly superior to +yourself and all personal sources of information, there is attributed to +this idol a number of attributes. We give it a soul, and a habit and +manners which do not attach to its stuff at all. The projection of this +imagined living character in our authority is comparable to what we also +do with mountains, statues, towns, and so forth. Our living +individuality lends individuality to them. I might here digress to +discuss whether this habit of the mind were not a distorted reflection +of some truth, and whether, indeed, there be not such beings as demons +or the souls of things. But, to leave that, we take our authority--this +thing "Science," for instance--we clothe it with a creed and appetites +and a will, and all the other human attributes. + +This done, we set out in the third step in our progress towards fixed +error. We make the idol speak. Of course, being only an idol, it talks +nonsense. But by the previous steps just referred to we must believe +that nonsense, and believe it we do. Thus it is, I think, that fixed +error is most generally established. + +I have already given one example in the hierarchic title "Science." + +It was but the other day that I picked up a weekly paper in which a +gentleman was discussing ghosts--that is, the supposed apparition of the +living and the dead: of the dead though dead, and of the living though +absent. + +Nothing has been more keenly discussed since the beginning of human +discussions. Are these phenomena (which undoubtedly happen) what modern +people call subjective, or are they what modern people call objective? +In old-fashioned English, Are the ghosts really there or are they not? +The most elementary use of the human reason persuades us that the matter +is not susceptible of positive proof. The criterion of certitude in any +matter of perception is an inner sense in the perceiver that the thing +he perceives is external to himself. He is the only witness; no one can +corroborate or dispute him. The seer may be right or he may be wrong, +but we have no proof--and only according to our temperament, our fancy, +our experience, our mood, do we decide with one or the other of the two +great schools. + +Well, the gentleman of whom I am speaking wrote and had printed in plain +English this phrase (read it carefully):--"Science teaches us that these +phenomena are purely subjective." + +Now I am quite sure that of the thousands who read that phrase all but a +handful read it in the spirit in which one hears the oracle of a god. +Some read it with regret, some with pleasure, but all with acquiescence. + +That physical science was not competent in the matter one way or the +other each of those readers would probably have discovered, if even so +simple a corrective as the use of the term "physical research" instead +of the sacred term "science" had been applied; the hierarchic title +"Science" did the trick. + +I might take another example out of many hundreds to show what I mean. +You have an authority which is called, where documents are concerned, +"The Best Modern Criticism." "The Best Modern Criticism" decides that +"Tam o' Shanter" was written by a committee of permanent officials of +the Board of Trade, or that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed. As a +matter of fact, the tomfoolery does not usually venture upon ground so +near home, but it talks rubbish just as monstrous about a poem a few +hundred or a few thousand years old, or a great personality a few +hundred or a few thousand years old. + +Now if you will look at that phrase "The Best Modern Criticism" you will +see at once that it simply teems with assumption and tautology. But it +does more and worse: it presupposes that an infallible authority must of +its own nature be perpetually wrong. + +Even supposing that I have the most "modern" (that is, merely the +latest) criticism to hand, and even supposing that by some omniscience +of mine I can tell which is "the best" (that is, which part of it has +really proved most ample, most painstaking, most general, and most +sincere), even then the phrase fatally condemns me. It is to say that +Wednesday is always infallible as compared with Tuesday, and Thursday as +compared with Wednesday, which is absurd. + +The B.M.C. tells me in 1875 that the Song of Roland could have no +origins anterior to the year 1030. But the B.M.C. of 1885 (being a +B.M.C. and nothing more valuable) has a changed opinion. It must change +its opinion, that is the law of its being, since an integral factor in +its value is its modernity. In 1885 B.M.C. tells me that the Song of +Roland can be traced to origins far earlier, let us say to 912. + +In 1895 B.M.C. has come to other conclusions--the Song of Roland is +certainly as late as 1115 ... and so forth. + +Now you would say that an idol of that absurdity could have no effect +upon sane men. Change the terms and give it another name, and you would +laugh at the idea of its having an effect upon any men. But we know as a +matter of fact that it commands the thoughts of nearly all men to-day +and makes cowards of the most learned. + +Perhaps you will ask me at the end of so long a criticism in what way +error may be corrected, since there is this sort of tendency in us to +accept it, to which I answer that things correct it, or as the +philosophers call things, "Reality." Error does not wash. + +To go back to that example of ghosts. If ever you see a ghost (my poor +reader), I shall ask you afterwards whether he seemed subjective or no. +I think you will find the word "subjective" an astonishingly thin +one--if, at least, I catch you early after the experience. + + + + +The Great Sight + + +All night we had slept on straw in a high barn. The wood of its beams +was very old, and the tiles upon the roof were green with age; but there +hung from beam to beam, fantastically, a wire caught by nails, and here +and there from this wire hung an electric-light bulb. It was a symbol of +the time, and the place, and the people. There was no local by-law to +forbid such a thing, or if there was, no one dreamt of obeying it. + +Just in the first dawn of that September day we went out, my companion +and I, at guesswork to hunt in the most amusing kind of hunting, which +is the hunting of an army. The lane led through one of those lovely +ravines of Picardy which travellers never know (for they only see the +plains), and in a little while we thought it wise to strike up the steep +bank from the valley on to the bare plateau above, but it was all at +random and all guesswork, only we wisely thought that we were nearing +the beginning of things, and that on the bare fields of the high flat we +should have a greater horizon and a better chance of catching any +indications of men or arms. + +When we had reached the height the sun had long risen, but it as yet +gave no shining and there were no shadows, for a delicate mist hung all +about the landscape, though immediately above us the sky was faintly +blue. + +It was the weirdest of sensations to go for mile after mile over that +vast plain, to know that it was cut in regular series by parallel +ravines which in all that extended view we could not guess at; to see up +to the limits of the plateau the spires of villages and the groups of +trees about them, and to know that somewhere in all this there lay +concealed a _corps d'arme_--and not to see or hear a soul. The +only human being that we saw was a man driving a heavy farm cart very +slowly up a side-way just as we came into the great road which has shot +dead across this country in one line ever since the Romans built it. As +we went along that road, leaving the fields, we passed by many men +indeed, and many houses, all in movement with the early morning; and the +chalked numbers on the doors, and here and there an empty tin of +polishing-paste or an order scrawled on paper and tacked to a wall +betrayed the passage of soldiers. But of the army there was nothing at +all. Scouting on foot (for that was what it was) is a desperate +business, and that especially if you have nothing to tell you whether +you will get in touch in five, or ten, or twenty miles. + +It was nine o'clock before a clatter of horse-hoofs came up the road +behind us. At first my companion and I wondered whether it were the +first riders of the Dragoons or Cuirassiers. In that case the advance +was from behind us. But very soon, as the sound grew clearer, we heard +how few they were, and then there came into view, trotting rapidly, a +small escort and two officers with the umpires' badges, so there was +nothing doing; but when, half a mile ahead of us on the road, they +turned off to the left over plough, we knew that that was the way we +must follow too. Before we came to the turning-place, before we left the +road to take the fields on the left, there came from far off and on our +right the sound of a gun. + +It was my companion who heard it first. We strained to hear it again; +twice we thought we had caught it, and then again twice we doubted. It +is not so easily recognizable a sound as you might think in those great +plains cut by islands of high trees and steading walls. The little "75" +gun lying low makes a different sound altogether at a distance from the +old piece of "90." At any rate there was here no doubt that there were +guns to the right and in front of us, and the umpire had gone to the +left. We were getting towards the thick, and we had only to go straight +on to find out where the front was. + +Just as we had so decided and were still pursuing the high road, there +came, not half a mile away and again to our right, in a valley below us, +that curious sound which is like nothing at all unless it be dumping of +flints out of a cart: rifle fire. It cracked and tore in stretches. Then +there were little gaps of silence like the gaps in signalling, and then +it cracked and tore in stretches again; and then, fitfully, one +individual shot and then another would be heard; and, much further off, +with little sounds like snaps, the replies began from the hillside +beyond the stream. So far so good. Here was contact in the valley below +us, and the guns, some way behind and far off northwards, had opened. So +we got the hang of it instantly--the front was a sort of a crescent +lying roughly north and south, and roughly parallel to the great road, +and the real or feigned mass of the advance was on the extreme left of +that front. We were in it now, and that anxious and wearing business in +all hunting, finding, was over; but we had been on foot six mortal hours +before coming across our luck, and more than half the soldiers' day was +over. These men had been afoot since three, and certain units on the +left had already marched over twenty miles. + +After that coming in touch with our business, not only did everything +become plain, but the numbers we met, and what I have called "the thick +of things," fed us with interest. We passed half the 38th, going down +the road singing, to extend the line, and in a large village we came to +the other half, slouching about in the traditional fashion of the +Service; they had been waiting for an hour. With them, and lined up all +along the village street, was one battery, with the drivers dismounted, +and all that body were at ease. There were men sitting on the doorsteps +of the houses and men trotting to the canteen-wagon or to the village +shops to buy food; and there were men reading papers which a pedlar had +brought round. Mud and dust had splashed them all; upon some there was a +look of great fatigue; they were of all shapes and sizes, and altogether +it was the sort of sight you would not see in any other service in the +world. It was the sort of sight which so disgusted the Emperor Joseph +when he made his little tour to spy out the land before the +Revolutionary Wars. It was the sort of sight which made Massenbach +before Grandpr marvel whether the French forces were soldiers at all, +and the sort of sight which made Valmy inexplicable to the King of +Prussia and his staff. It was the sort of sight which eighteen months +later still convinced Mack in Tournai that the Duke of York's plan was a +plan "of annihilation." It is a trap for judgment is the French service. + +So they lounged about and bought bread, and shifted their packs, and so +the drivers stood by their horses, and so they all waited and slouched; +until there came, not a man with a bugle nor anything with the slightest +savour of drama but a little fellow running along thumping in his loose +leather leggings, who went up to a Major of Artillery and saluted, and +immediately afterwards the Major put his hand up, and then down a +village street, from a point which we could not see came a whistle, and +the whole of that mass of men began to swarm. The grey-blue coats of the +line swung round the corner of the village street; they had yet a few +miles before them. Anything more rapid or less in step it would be +difficult to conceive. The guns were off at a right angle down the main +road, making a prodigious clatter, and at the same time appeared two +parties, one of which it was easy to understand, the other not. They +were both parties of sappers. The one party had a great roll of wire on +a drum, and as quick as you could think they were unreeling it, and as +they unreeled it fastening it to eaves, overhanging branches, and to +corners of walls, stretching it out forward. It was the field-telephone. +The other party came along carrying great beams upon their shoulders, +but what they were to do with these beams we did not know. + +We followed the tail of the line down into the valley, and all that +morning long and past the food time at midday, and so till the sun +declined in the afternoon, we went with the 38th in its gradual success +from crest to crest. And still the 38th slouched by companies, and mile +after mile with checks and halts, and it never seemed to get either less +or more tired. The men had had twelve hours of it when they came at +last, and we after them, on to the critical position. They had carried +(together with all the line to left and to the right of them) a string +of villages which crowned the crest of a further plateau, and over this +further plateau they were advancing against the main body of the +resistance--the other army corps which was set up against ours, to +simulate an enemy. + +A railway line ran here across the rolling hedgeless fields, and just at +the point where my companion and I struck it there was a dip in the land +and a high embankment which hid the plain beyond; but from that plain +beyond one heard the separate fire of the advancing line in its +scattered order. We climbed the embankment, and from its ridge we saw +over two miles or more of stubble, the little creeping bunches of the +attack. What was resisting, or where it lay, one could only guess. Some +hundreds of yards before us to the east, with the sloping sun full on +it, a line of thicket, one scattered wood and then another, an +imperceptible lifting of the earth here and there marked the opposing +firing line. Two pompoms could be spotted exactly, for the flashes were +clear through the underwood. And still the tide of the advance continued +to flow, and the little groups came up and fed it, one after another and +another, in the centre where we were, and far away to the north and +right away to the south the countryside was alive with it. The action +was beginning to take on something of that final movement and decision +which makes the climax of manoeuvres look so great a game. But in a +little while that general creeping forward was checked: there were +orders coming from the umpires, and a sort of lull fell over each +position held. My companion said to me: + +"Let us go forward now over the intervening zone and in among Picquart's +men, and get well behind their line, and see whether there is a rally or +whether before the end of this day they begin to fall back again." + +So we did, walking a mile or so until we had long passed their outposts +and were behind their forward lines. And standing there, upon a little +eminence near a wood, we turned and looked over what we had come, +westward towards the sun which was now not far from its setting. Then it +was that we saw the last of the Great Sight. + +The level light, mellow and already reddening, illumined all that plain +strangely, and with the absolute stillness of the air contrasted the +opening of the guns which had been brought up to support the renewal of +the attack. We saw the isolated woods standing up like islands with low +steep cliffs, dotted in a sea of stubble for miles and miles, and first +from the cover of one and then from another the advance perpetually, +piercing and deploying. As we so watched there buzzed high above us, +like a great hornet, a biplane, circling well within our lines, beyond +attack from the advance, but overlooking all they concealed behind it. +In a few minutes a great Bleriot monoplane like a hawk followed, yet +further inwards. The two great birds shot round in an arc, parallel to +the firing line, and well behind it, and in a few minutes, that seemed +seconds, they were dots to the south and then lost in the air. And +perpetually, as the sun declined, Picquart's men were falling back north +and south of us and before us, and the advance continued. Group by group +we saw it piercing this hedge, that woodland, now occupying a nearer and +a nearer roll of land. It was the greatest thing imaginable: this +enormous sweep of men, the dead silence of the air, and the +comparatively slight contrast of the ceaseless pattering rifle fire and +the slight intermittent accompaniment of the advancing batteries; until +the sun set and all this human business slackened. Then for the first +time one heard bugles, which were a command to cease the game. + +I would not have missed that day nor lose the memories of it for +anything in the world. + + + + +The Decline of a State + + +The decline of a State is not equivalent to a mortal sickness therein. +States are organisms subject to diseases and to decay as are the +organisms of men's bodies; but they are not subject to a rhythmic rise +and fall as is the body of a man. A State in its decline is never a +State doomed or a State dying. States perish slowly or by violence, but +never without remedy and rarely without violence. + +The decline of a State differs with the texture of it. A democratic +State will decline from a lowering of its potential, that is of its +ever-ready energy to act in a crisis, to correct and to control its +servants in common times, to watch them narrowly and suspect them at all +times. A despotic State will decline when the despot is not in point of +fact the true depository of despotic power, but some other acting in his +name, of whom the people know little and cannot judge; or when the +despot, though fully in view and recognized, lacks will; or when (which +is rare) he is so inhuman as to miss the general sense of his subjects. +An oligarchic State, or aristocracy as it is called, will decline +principally through two agencies which are, first, illusion, and +secondly, lack of civic aptitude. For an oligarchic State tends very +readily to illusion, being conducted by men who live at leisure, satisfy +their passions, are immune from the laws, and prefer to shield +themselves from reality. Their capacity or appetite for illusion will +rapidly pervade those below them, for in an aristocracy the rulers are +subjected to a sort of worship from the rest of the community, and thus +it comes about that aristocracies in their decline accept fantastic +histories of their own past, conceive victory possible without armies, +wealth to be an indication of ability, and national security to be a +natural gift rather than a product of the will. Such communities further +fail from the lack of civic aptitude, as was said above, which means +that they deliberately elect to leave the mass of citizens incompetent +and irresponsible for generations, so that, when any more strain is upon +them, they look at once for some men other than themselves to relieve +them, and are incapable of corporate action upon their own account. + +The decline of a State differs also according to whether it be a great +State or a small one, for in the first indifference, in the latter +faction, are a peril, and in the first ignorance, in the latter private +spite. + +Then again, the decline of a State will differ according to whether its +strength is rooted originally in commerce, in arms, or in production; +and if in production, then whether in the production of the artisan or +in that of the peasant. If arms be the basis of the State, then that the +army should become professional and apart is a symptom of decline and a +cause of it; if commerce, the substitution of hazards and imaginaries +for the transport of real goods and the search after real demand; if +production, the discontent or apathy of the producer; as with peasants +an ill system in the taxation of the land or in the things necessary for +its tillage, such as a misgovernment of its irrigation in a dry country; +the permission of private exactions and tolls in a fertile one; the +toleration of thieves and forestallers, and so forth. Artisans, upon the +other hand, may well flourish, though the State be corrupt in such +matters, but they must be secured in a high wage and be given a vast +liberty of protest, for if they sink to be slaves in fact, they will +from the nature of their toil grow both weak and foolish. Yet is not the +State endangered by the artisan's throwing off a refuse of ill-paid and +starving men who are either too many for the work or unskilful at it? +Such an excretion would poison a peasantry, remaining in their body as +it were, but artisans are purged thereby. This refuse it is for the +State to decide upon. It may in an artisan State be used for soldiery +(since such States commonly maintain but small armies and are commonly +indifferent to military glory), or it may be set to useful labour, or +again, destroyed; but this last use is repugnant to humanity, and so in +the long run hurtful to the State. + +In the decline of a State, of whatever nature that State be, two vices +will immediately appear and grow: these are Avarice and Fear; and men +will more readily accept the imputation of Avarice than of Fear, for +Avarice is the less despicable of the two--yet in fact Fear will be by +far the strongest passion of the time. + +Avarice will show itself not indeed in a mere greed of gain (for this is +common to all societies whether flourishing or failing), but rather in a +sort of taking for granted and permeation of the mere love of money, so +that history will be explained by it, wars judged by their booty or +begun in order to enrich a few, love between men and women wholly +subordinated to it, especially among the rich: wealth made a test for +responsibility and great salaries invented and paid to those who serve +the State. This vice will also be apparent in the easy acquaintance of +all who are possessed of wealth and their segregation from the less +fortunate, for avarice cleaves society flatways, keeping the scum of it +quite clear of the middle, the middle of it quite clear of the dregs, +and so forth. It is a further mark of avarice in its last stages that +the rich are surrounded with lies in which they themselves believe. +Thus, in the last phase, there are no parasites but only friends, no +gifts but only loans, which are more esteemed favours than gifts once +were. No one vicious but only tedious, and no one a poltroon but only +slack. + +Of Fear in the decline of a State it may be said that it is so much the +master passion of such decline as to eat up all others. Coming by travel +from a healthy State to one diseased, Fear is the first point you take. +Men dare not print or say what they feel of the judges, the public +governors, the action of the police, the controllers of fortunes and of +news. This Fear will have about it something comic, providing infinite +joy to the foreigner, and modifying with laughter the lament of the +patriot. A miserable hack that never had a will of his own, but ran to +do what he was told for twenty years at the bidding of his masters, +being raised to the Bench will be praised for an impartial virtue more +than human. A drunken fellow, the son of a drunkard, having stolen +control over some half-dozen sheets, must be named under the breath or +not at all. A powerful minister may be accused with sturdy courage of +something which he did not do and no one would mind his doing, but under +the influence of Fear, to tell the least little truth about him will put +a whole assembly into a sort of blankness. + +This vice has for its most laughable effect the raising of a whole host +of phantoms, and when a State is so far gone that civic Fear is quite +normal to the citizens, then you will find them blenching with terror at +a piece of print, a whispered accusation. Bankruptcy, though they be +possessed of nothing, and even the ill-will of women. Moneylenders under +this influence have the greatest power, next after them, blackmailers of +all kinds, and next after these eccentrics who may blurt or break out. +Those who have least power in the decline of a State, are priests, +soldiers, the mothers of many children, the lovers of one woman, and +saints. + + + + +On Past Greatness + + +There lies in the North-East of France, close against the Belgian +frontier and within cannon shot of the famous battlefield of Malplaquet, +a little town called Bavai--I have written of it elsewhere. + +Coming into this little town you seem to be entering no more than a +decent, unimportant market borough, a larger village meant for country +folk, perhaps without a history and certainly without fame. + +As you come to look about you one thing after another enlivens your +curiosity and suggests something at once enormous and remote in the +destinies of the place. + +In the first place, seven great roads go out like the seven rays of a +star, plumb straight, darting along the line, across the vast, bare +fields of Flanders, past and along the many isolated woods of the +provinces, and making to great capitals far off--to Cologne, to Paris, +to Treves, and to the ports of the sea. + +These roads are deserted in great part. Some of them are metalled in +certain sections, and again in other sections are no more than lanes, +and again no more than footpaths, as you proceed along their miles of +way; but their exact design awfully impresses the mind. You know, as you +follow such strict alignment, that you are fulfilling the majestic +purpose of Imperial Rome. It was the Romans that made these things. + +Then, intrigued and excited by such remains of greatness, you read what +you can of the place.... And you find nothing but a dust of legend. You +find a story that once here a king, filled with ambition and worshipping +strange gods, thrust out these great roads to the ends of the earth; +desired his capital to be a hub and navel for the world. He put them +under the protection of the seven planets and of the deities of those +stars. Three he paved with black marble and four with white marble, and +where they met upon the market place he put up a golden terminal. There +the legend ends. + +It is only legend--a true product of the Dark Ages, when all that Rome +had done rose like a huge dream in the mind of Europe and took on +gorgeous and fantastic colouring. You learn (for the rest) very +little--that ornaments and money have been found dating from two +thousand years, that once great walls surrounded the place. It must have +had noble buildings and solemn courts. In strict history all you will +discover is that it was the capital of that tribe, the Nervii, against +whom Caesar fought, and whose territory was early conquered for the +Empire. You will find nothing more. There is no living tradition, there +is no voice; the little town is dumb. + +The place is a figure, and a striking one, of greatness long dead, and a +man visiting its small domestic interests to-day, and noting its +comfort, its humility, and its sleep, is reminded of many things +attaching to human fame. It would seem as though the ambitions of men, +and that exalted appetite for glory which has produced the chief things +of this world, suffer the effect of time somewhat as the body of an +animal slain will suffer that. + +One part of the organism and then another decays and mixes back with +nature. The effect of will has vanished. The thing is a prey to all that +environment which, once alive, it combated, conquered, and transformed +to its own use. One portion after another is lost, until at last only +the most resisting stands--the skeleton and hard framework, the least +expressive, the least personal part of the whole. This also decays and +perishes. Then there remains no more but a score of hardened fragments +that linger in their place, and what has passed away is fortunate if +even the slightest or most fantastic legend of itself survives. + +The great dead are first forgotten in their physical habit; we lose the +nature of their voices, we forget their sympathies and their affections. +Bit by bit all that they intended to be eternal slips back into the +common thing around. A blurred image, growing fainter and fainter, +lingers. At last the person vanishes, and in its place some public +raising material things--a monument, a tomb, an ornament, or weapon of +enduring metal--is all that remains. + +If it were possible for the spring of appetite and quest to be dried up +in man, such a spectacle would dry up that spring. + +It is not possible, for it is providentially in the nature of man to +cherish these illusions of an immortal memory and of a life bestowed +upon the shade or the mere name of his living greatness. Those various +forms of fame which are young men's goals, and to which the eager +creative power of early manhood so properly directs itself, seem each in +turn or each for its varying temperament to promise the desired reward; +and one imagines that his love, another that his discoveries, another +that his victories in the field or his conspicuous acts of courage will +remain permanently with his fellows long after he has left their feast. + +As though to give some substance to the flattering cheat, there is one +kind of fame which men have been permitted to attain, and which does +give them a sort of fixed tenure--if not for ever, yet for generations +upon generations--in the human city. This sort of fame is the fame of +the great poets. There is nothing more enduring. It has for some who +were most blessed outlasted, you may say, all material things which they +handled or they knew--all fabrics, all instruments, all habitations. It +is comparable in its endurance to the years, and a man reads the "Song +of Roland" and can still look on that same unchanged Cleft of +Roncesvalles, or a man reads the Iliad and can look to-day westward from +the shores to Tenedos. But wait a moment. Are they indeed blessed in +this, the great poets? Ronsard debated it. He decided that they were, +and put into the mouth of the muses the great lines:---- + + Mais un tel accident n'arrive point a l'me, + Qui sans matire vist immortelle l haut. + + * * * * * + + Vela saigement dit, Ceux dont la fantaisie + Sera religieuse et devote envers Dieu + Tousjours acheveront quelque grand posie, + Et dessus leur renom la Parque n'aura lieu. + +But the matter is still undecided. + + + + +Mr. The Duke: The Man of Malplaquet + + +On the field of Malplaquet, that battlefield, I met a man. + +He was pointed out to me as a man who drove travellers to Bavai. His +name was Mr. The Duke, and he was very poor. + +If he comes across these lines (which is exceedingly unlikely) I offer +him my apologies. Anyhow, I can write about him freely, for he is not +rich, and, what is more, the laws of his country permit the telling of +the truth about our fellow-men, even when they are rich. + +Mr. The Duke was of some years, and his colour was that of cedar wood. I +met him in his farmyard, and I said to him: + +"Is it you, sir, that drive travellers to Bavai?" + +"No," said he. + +Accustomed by many years of travel to this type of response, I +continued: + +"How much do you charge?" + +"Two francs fifty," said he. + +"I will give you three francs," I said, and when I had said this he +shook his head and replied: + +"You fall at an evil moment; I was about to milk the cows." Having said +this he went to harness the horse. + +When the horse was harnessed to his little cart (it was an extremely +small horse, full of little bones and white in colour, with one eye +stronger than the other) he gave it to his little daughter to hold, and +himself sat down to table, proposing a meal. + +"It is but humble fare," he said, "for we are poor." + +This sounded familiar to me; I had both read and heard it before. The +meal was of bread and butter, pasty and beer, for Malplaquet is a +country of beer and not of wine. + +As he sat at table the old man pointed out to me that contraband across +the Belgian frontier, which is close by, was no longer profitable. + +"The Fraud," he said, "is no longer a living for anyone." + +Upon that frontier contraband is called "The Fraud"; it holds an +honourable place as a career. + +"The Fraud," he continued, "has gone long ago; it has burst. It is no +longer to be pursued. There is not even any duty upon apples.... But +there is a duty upon pears. Had I a son I would not put him into The +Fraud.... Sometimes there is just a chance here and there.... One can +pick up an occasion. But take it all in all (and here he wagged his head +solemnly) there is nothing in it any more." + +I said that I had no experience of contraband professionally, but that I +knew a very honest man who lived by it in the country of Andorra, and +that according to my morals a man had a perfect right to run the risk +and take his chance, for there was no contract between him and the power +he was trying to get round. This announcement pleased the old gentleman, +but it did not grip his mind. He was of your practical sort. He was +almost a Pragmatist. Abstractions wearied him. He put no faith in the +reality of ideas. I think he was a Nominalist like Abelard: and whatever +excuse you may make for him, Abelard was a Nominalist right enough, for +it was the intellectual thing to be at the time, though St. Bernard +utterly confuted him in arguments of enormous length and incalculable +boredom. + +The old man, then, I say, would have nothing to do with first +principles, and he reasserted his position that, in the concrete, in the +existent world, The Fraud no longer paid. + +This said for the sixth or seventh time, he drank some brandy to put +heart into him and climbed up into his little cart, I by his side. He +hit the white horse with a stick, making at the same time an +extraordinary shrill noise with his mouth, like a siren, and the horse +began to slop and sludge very dolefully towards Bavai. + +"This horse," said Mr. The Duke, "is a wonderfully good horse. He goes +like the wind. He is of Arab extraction, and comes from Africa." + +With these words he gave the horse another huge blow with his stick, and +once more emitted his piercing cry. The horse went neither faster nor +slower than before, and seemed very indifferent to the whole +performance. + +"He is from Africa," said Mr. The Duke again, meditatively. "Do you know +Africa?" + +Africa with the French populace means Algiers. I answered that I knew +it, and that in particular I knew the road southward from Constantine. +At this he looked very pleased, and said: + +"I was a soldier in Africa. I deserted seven times." + +To this I made no answer. I did not know how he wanted me to take it, so +I waited until he should speak again, which he soon did, and said: + +"The last time I deserted I was free for a year and a half. I used to +conduct beasts; that was my trade. When they caught me I was to have +been shot. I was saved by the tears of a woman!" + +Having said this the old man pulled out a very small pipe and filled it +with exceedingly black tobacco. He lit it, then he began talking again +rather more excitedly. + +"It is a terrible thing and an unhappy thing none the less," he went on, +"that a man should be taken out to be shot and should be saved by the +tears of a woman." Then he added, "Of what use are wars? How foolish it +is that men should kill each other! If there were a war I would not +fight. Would you?" + +I said I thought I would; but whether I should like to or not would +depend upon the war. + +He was eager to contradict and to tell me that war was wrong and stupid. +Having behind him the logical training of fifteen Christian centuries he +was in no way muddle-headed upon the matter. He saw very well that his +doctrine meant that it was wrong to have a country, and wrong to love +it, and that patriotism was all bosh, and that no ideal was worth +physical pain or trouble. To such conclusions had he come at the end of +his life. + +The white horse meanwhile slouched; Bavai grew somewhat nearer as we sat +in silence after his last sentence. He was turning many things over in +his mind. He veered off on to political economy. + +"When the rich man at the Manufactory here, the place where they sell +phosphates for the land, when he stands beer to all the workmen and to +the countryside, I always say, 'Fools! All this will be put on to the +cost of the phosphates; they will cost you more!'" + +Mr. The Duke did not accept John Stuart Mill's proposition upon the cost +of production nor the general theories of Ricardo upon which Mill's +propositions were based. In his opinion rent was a factor in the cost of +production, for he told me that butter had gone up because the price of +land was rising near the towns. In what he next said I found out that he +was not a Collectivist, for he said a man should own enough to live +upon, but he said that this was impossible if rich people were allowed +to live. I asked him what the politics of the countryside were and how +people voted. He said: + +"The politicians trick the people. They are a heap of worthlessness." + +I asked him if he voted, and he said "yes." He said there was only one +way to vote, but I did not understand what this meant. + +Had time served I should have asked him further questions--upon the +nature of the soul, its ultimate fate, the origin of man and his +destiny, whether mortal or immortal; the proper constitution of the +State, the choice of the legislator, the prince, and the magistrate; the +function of art, whether it is subsidiary or primary in human life; the +family; marriage. Upon the State he had already informed me, and also +upon the institution of property, and upon his view of armies. Upon all +those other things he would equally have given me a clear reply, for he +was a man that knew his own mind, and that is more than most people can +say. + +But we were now in Bavai, and I had no time to discover more. We drank +together before we parted, and I was very pleased to see the honest look +in his face. With more leisure and born to greater opportunities he +would have been talked about, this Man of Malplaquet. He had come to his +odd conclusions as the funny people do in Scandinavia and in Russia, and +among the rich intellectuals and usurers in London and Berlin; but he +was a jollier man than they are, for he could drive a horse and lie +about it, and he could also milk a cow. As we parted he used a phrase +that wounded me, and which I had only heard once before in my life. He +said: + +"We shall never see each other again!" + +Another man had once said this thing to me before. This man was a farmer +in the Northumbrian hills, who walked with me a little way in the days +when I was going over Carter Fell to find the Scots people, many, many +years ago. He also said: "We shall never meet again!" + + + + +The Game of Cards + + +A youth of no more than twenty-three years entered a first-class +carriage at the famous station of Swindon in the county of Wiltshire, +proposing to travel to the uttermost parts of the West and to enjoy a +comfortable loneliness while he ruminated upon all things human and +divine; when he was sufficiently annoyed to discover that in the further +corner of the carriage was sitting an old gentleman of benevolent +appearance, or at any rate a gentleman of benevolent appearance who +appeared in his youthful eyes to be old. + +For though the old gentleman was, as a fact, but sixty, yet his virile +beard had long gone white and the fringes of hair attaching to his +ostrich egg of a head confirmed his venerable appearance. + +When the train had started the young man proceeded in no very good +temper and with great solemnity to fill a pipe. He turned to his senior, +who was watching him in a very paternal and happy manner, and said +formally: + +"I hope you do not mind my smoking, sir?" + +"Not at all," said the old boy; "it is a habit I have long grown +accustomed to in others." + +The young man bowed in a somewhat absurd fashion and felt for his +matches. He discovered to his no small mortification that he had none. +He was so used to his pipe after a meal that he really could not forgo +it. He came off his perch by at least three steps and asked the old man +very gently whether he had any matches. + +The older man produced a box and at the same time brought out with it a +little notebook and a playing card which happened to be in his pocket. +The young man took the matches and lit his pipe, surveying the old man +the while with a more complacent eye. + +"It is very kind of you, sir," he said a little less stiffly. He handed +back the matches, wrapped his rug round his legs, sat down in his place, +and knowing that one should prolong the conversation for a moment or two +after a favour, said: "I see that you play cards." + +"I do," said the old man simply; "would you like a game?" + +"I don't mind," said the young man, who had always heard that it was +unmanly and ridiculous to refuse a game of cards in a railway carriage. + +The elder man laughed merrily in his strong beard as he saw his junior +begin to spread somewhat awkwardly a copy of a newspaper upon his knees. +"I'll show you a trick worth two of that," he said, and taking one of +the first-class cushions, which alone of railway cushions are movable +from its place, he came over to the corner opposite the young man and +made a table of the cushion between them. "Now," said he genially, +"what's it to be?" + +"Well," said the young man like one who expounds new mysteries, "do you +know piquet?" + +"Oh, yes," said his companion with another happy little laugh of +contentment with the world. "I'll take you on. What shall it be?" + +"Pennies if you like," said the young man nonchalantly. + +"Very well, and double for the Rubicon." + +"How do you mean?" said the young man, puzzled. + +"You will see," said the old man, and they began to play. + +The game was singularly absorbing. At first the young man won a few +pounds; then he lost rather heavily, then he won again, but not quite +enough to recoup. Then in the fourth game he won, so that he was a +little ahead, and meanwhile the old man chatted merrily during the +discarding or the shuffling: during the shuffling especially. He looked +out towards the downs with something of a sigh at one moment, and said: + +"It's a happy world." + +"Yes," answered the younger man with the proper lugubriousness of youth, +"but it all comes to an end." + +"It isn't its coming to an end," said the elder man, declaring a point +of six, "that's not the tragedy; it's the little bits coming to an end +meanwhile, before the whole comes to an end: that's the tragedy...." But +he added with another of his jolly laughs: "We must play. Piquet takes +up all one's grey matter." + +They played and the young man lost again, but by a very narrow margin: +it was quite an absorbing game. As they shuffled again the young man +said: + +"What did you mean by the little bits stopping, or whatever it was?" + +"Oh," said the old man as though he couldn't remember, and then he +added: "Oh, yes, I mean you'll find, as you grow older, people die and +affections change, and, though it seems silly to mention it in company +with higher things, there's what Shelley called the 'contagion of the +world's slow stain.'" + +Then their conversation was interrupted by the ardour of the game; but +as they played the young man was ruminating, and he had come to the +conclusion that his senior was imperfectly educated and was probably of +the middle classes, whereas he himself was destined to be a naval +architect, and with that object had recently left the university for an +office in the city. The young man thought that a man properly educated +would never quote a tag: he was wrong there. As he had allowed his +thoughts to wander somewhat the young man lost that game rather heavily, +and at the end of it he was altogether about ten shillings to the bad. +It was his turn to shuffle. The older man was at leisure to speak, and +did so rather dreamily as he gazed at the landscape again. + +"Things change, you know," he said, "and there is the contagion of the +world's slow stain. One gets preoccupied: especially about money. When +men marry they get very much preoccupied upon that point. It's bad for +them, but it can't be helped." + +"You cut," said the young man. + +His elder cut and they played again. This time as they played their game +the old man broke his rule of silence and continued his observations +interruptedly: + +"Four kings," he said.... "It isn't that a man gets to think money +all-important, it is that he has to think of it all the time.... No, +three queens are no good. I said four kings.... four knaves.... The +little losses of money don't affect one, but perpetual trouble about it +does, and" (closing up the majority of tricks which he had just gained) +"many a man goes on making more year after year and yet feels himself in +peril.... _And_ the last trick." He took up the cards to shuffle +them. "Towards the very end of life," he continued, "it gets less, I +suppose, but you'll feel the burden of it." He put the pack over for the +younger man to cut. When that was done he dealt them out slowly. As he +dealt he said: "One feels the loss of little material things: objects to +which one was attached, a walking-stick, or a ring, or a watch which one +has carried for years. Your declare." + +The young man declared, and that game was played in silence. I regret to +say that the young man was Rubiconed, and was thirty shillings in the +elder's debt. + +"We'll stop if you like" said the elder man kindly. + +"Oh, no," said the youth with nonchalance, "I'll pay you now if you +like." + +"Not at all, I didn't mean that," said the older man with a sudden prick +of honour. + +"Oh, but I will, and we'll start fair again," said the young man. +Whereupon he handed over his combined losses in gold, the older man gave +him change, they shuffled again, and they went on with their play. + +"After all," said the older man, musing as he confessed to a point of no +more than five, "it's all in the day's work.... It's just a day's work," +he repeated with a saddened look in his eyes, "it's a game that one +plays like this game, and then when it's over it's over. It's the little +losses that count." + +That game again was unfortunate for the young man, and he had to shell +out fifteen and six. But the brakes were applied, Bristol was reached, +the train came to a standstill, and the young man, looking up a little +confused and hurried, said: "Hello, Bristol! I get out here." + +"So do I," said the older man. They both stood up together, and the jolt +of the train as it stopped dead threw them into each other's arms. + +"I am really very sorry," said the youth. + +"It's my fault," said the old chap like a good fellow, "I ought to have +caught hold. You get out and I'll hand you your bag." + +"It's very kind of you," said the young man. He was really flattered by +so much attention, but he knew himself what a good companion he was and +he could understand it; besides which they had made friends during that +little journey. He always liked a man to whom he had lost some money in +an honest game. + +There was a heavy crowd upon the platform, and two men barging up out of +it saluted the old man boisterously by the name of Jack. He twinkled at +them with his eyes as he began moving the luggage about, and stood for a +moment in the doorway with his own bag in his right hand and the young +man's bag in his left. The young man so saw it for an instant, a fine +upstanding figure--he saw his bag handed by some mistake to the second +of the old man's friends, a porter came by at the moment pushing through +the crowd with a trolley, an old lady made a scene, the porter +apologized, the crowd took sides, some for the porter, some for the old +lady; the young man, with the deference of his age, politely asked +several people to make way, but when he had emerged from the struggle +his companion, his companion's friends, and his own bag could not be +found; or at any rate he could not make out where they were in the great +mass that pushed and surged upon the platform. + +He made himself a little conspicuous by asking too many questions and by +losing his temper twice with people who had done him no harm, when, just +as his excitement was growing more than querulous, a very heavy, +stupid-looking man in regulation boots tapped him on the shoulder and +said: "Follow me." He was prepared with an oath by way of reply, but +another gentleman of equal weight, wearing boots of the same pattern, +linked his arm in his and between them they marched him away, to a +little private closet opening out of the stationmaster's room. + +"Now, sir," said he who had first tapped him on the shoulder, "be good +enough to explain your movements." + +"I don't know what you mean," said the young man. + +"You were in the company," said the older man severely, "of an old man, +bald, with a white beard and a blue sailor suit. He had come from +London; you joined him at Swindon. We have evidence that he was to be +met at this station and it will be to your advantage if you make a clean +breast of it." + +The young man was violent and he was borne away. + +But he had friends at Bristol. He gave his references and he was +released. To this day he believes that he suffered not from folly, but +from injustice. He did not see his bag again, but after all it contained +no more than his evening clothes, for which he had paid or rather owed +six guineas, four shirts, as many collars and dress ties, a +silver-mounted set of brushes and combs, and useless cut-glass bottles, +a patented razor, a stick of shaving soap, and two very, very +confidential letters which he treasured. His watch, of course, was gone, +but not, I am glad to say, his chain, which hung dangling, though in his +flurry he had not noticed it. It made him look a trifle ridiculous. As +he wore no tie-pin he had not lost that, and beyond his temper he had +indeed lost nothing further save, possibly, a textbook upon +Thermodynamics. This book he _thought_ he remembered having put +into the bag, and if he had it belonged to his library, but he could not +quite remember this point, and when the Library claimed it he stoutly +disputed their claim. + +In this dispute he was successful, but it was the only profit he made +out of that journey, unless we are to count his experience, and +experience, as all the world knows, is a thing that men must buy. + + + + +"King Lear" + + +The great unity which was built up two thousand years ago and was +called Christendom in its final development split and broke in pieces. +The various civilizations of its various provinces drifted apart, and it +will be for the future historian to say at what moment the isolation of +each from all was farthest pushed. It is certain that that point is +passed. + +In the task of reuniting what was broken--it is the noblest work a +modern man can do--the very first mechanical act must be to explain one +national soul to another. That act is not final. The nations of Europe, +now so divided, still have more in common than those things by which +they differ, and it is certain that when they have at last revealed to +them their common origin they will return to it. They will return to it, +perhaps, under the pressure of war waged by some not Christian +civilization, but they will return. In the meanwhile, of those acts not +final, yet of immediate necessity in the task of establishing unity, is +the act of introducing one national soul to another. + +Now this is best accomplished in a certain way which I will describe. +You will take that part in the letters of a nation which you maturely +judge most or best to reflect the full national soul, with its +qualities, careless of whether these be great or little; you will take +such a work as reproduces for you as you read it, not only in its +sentiment, but in its very rhythm, the stuff and colour of the nation; +this you will present to the foreigner, who cannot understand. His +efforts must be laborious, very often unfruitful, but where it is +fruitful it will be of a decisive effect. + +Thus let anyone take some one of the immortal things that Racine wrote +and show them to an Englishman. He will hardly ever be able to make +anything of it at first. Here and there some violently emotional passage +may faintly touch him, but the mass of the verse will seem to him dead. +Now, if by constant reading, by association with those who know what +Racine is, he at last sees him--and these changes in the mind come very +suddenly--he will see into the soul of Gaul. For the converse task, +to-day not equally difficult but once almost impossible, of presenting +England to the French intelligence--or, indeed, to any other alien +intelligence--you may choose the play "King Lear." + +That play has every quality which does reflect the soul of the community +in which and for which it was written. Note a few in their order. + +First, it is not designed to its end; at least it is not designed +accurately to its end; it is written as a play and it is meant to be +acted as a play, and it is the uniform opinion of those versed in plays +and in acting that in its full form it could hardly be presented, while +in any form it is the hardest even of Shakespeare's plays to perform. +Here you have a parallel with a thousand mighty English things to which +you can turn. Is there not institution after institution to decide on, +so lacking a complete fitness to its end, larger in a way than the end +it is to serve, and having, as it were, a life of its own which proceeds +apart from its effect? This quality which makes so many English things +growths rather than instruments is most evident in the great play. + +Again, it has that quality which Voltaire noted, which he thought +abnormal in Shakespeare, but which is the most national characteristic +in him, that a sort of formlessness, if it mars the framework of the +thing and spoils it, yet also permits the exercise of an immeasurable +vitality. When a man has read "King Lear" and lays down the book he is +like one who has been out in one of those empty English uplands in a +storm by night. It is written as though the pen bred thoughts. It is +possible to conjecture as one reads, and especially in the diatribes, +that the pen itself was rapid and the brain too rapid for the pen. One +feels the rush of the air. Now, this quality is to be discovered in the +literature of many nations, but never with the fullness which it has in +the literature of England. And note that in those phases of the national +life when foreign models have constrained this instinct of expansion in +English verse, they never have restrained it for long, and that even +through the bonds established by those models the instinct of expansion +breaks. You see it in the exuberance of Dryden and in the occasional +running rhetoric of Pope, until it utterly loosens itself with the end +of the eighteenth century. + +The play is national, again, in that permanent curiosity upon knowable +things--nay, that mysterious half-knowledge of unknowable things--which, +in its last forms, produced the mystic, and which is throughout history +so plainly characteristic of these Northern Atlantic islands. Every play +of Shakespeare builds with that material, and no writer, even of the +English turn, has sent out points further into the region of what is not +known than Shakespeare has in sudden flashes of phrase. But "King Lear," +though it contains a lesser number of lines of this mystical and +half-religious effect than, say, "Hamlet," yet as a general impression +is the more mystical of the two plays. The element of madness, which in +"Hamlet" hangs in the background like a storm-cloud ready to break, in +"King Lear" rages; and it is the use of this which lends its amazing +psychical power to the play. It has been said (with no great profundity +of criticism) that English fiction is chiefly remarkable for its power +of particularization of character, and that where French work, for +instance, will present ideas, English will present persons. The judgment +is grossly insufficient, and therefore false, but it is based upon a +proof which is very salient in English letters, which is that, say, in +quite short and modern work the sense of complete unity deadens the +English mind. The same nerve which revolts at a straight road and at a +code of law revolts against one tone of thought, and the sharp contrast +of emotional character, not the dual contrast which is common to all +literatures, but the multiple contrast, runs through "King Lear" and +gives the work such a tone that one seems as one reads it to be moving +in a cloud. + +The conclusion is perhaps Shakespearean rather than English, and in a +fashion escapes from any national labelling. But the note of silence +which Shakespeare suddenly brings in upon the turmoil, and with which he +is so fond of completing what he has done, would not be possible were +not that spirit of expansion and of a kind of literary adventurousness +present in all that went before. + +It is indeed this that makes the play so memorable. And it may not be +fantastic to repeat and expand what has been said above in other words, +namely, that King Lear has something about him which seems to be a +product of English landscape and of English weather, and if its general +movement is a storm its element is one of those sudden silences that +come sometimes with such magical rapidity after the booming of the wind. + + + + +The Excursion + + +It is so old a theme that I really hesitate to touch it; and yet it is +so true and so useful that I will. It is true all the time, and it is +particularly useful at this season of the year to men in cities: to all +repetitive men: to the men that read these words. What is more, true as +it is and useful as it is, no amount of hammering at people seems to get +this theme into their practice; though it has long ago entered into +their convictions they will not act upon it in their summers. And this +true and useful theme is the theme of little freedoms and discoveries, +the value of getting loose and away by a small trick when you want to +get your glimpse of Fairyland. + +Now how does one get loose and away? + +When a man says to himself that he must have a holiday he means that he +must see quite new things that are also old: he desires to open that +door which stood wide like a window in childhood and is now shut fast. +But where are the new things that are also the old? Paradoxical fellows +who deserve drowning tell one that they are at our very doors. Well, +that is true of the eager mind, but the mind is no longer eager when it +is in need of a holiday. And you can get at the new things that are also +the old by way of drugs, but drugs are a poor sort of holiday fabric. If +you have stored up your memory well with much experience you can get +these things from your memory--but only in a pale sort of way. + +I think the best avenue to recreation by the magical impressions of the +world upon the mind is this: To go to some place to which the common +road leads you and then to get just off the common road. You will be +astonished to find how strange the world becomes in the first mile--and +how strange it remains till the common road is reached again. + +It always sounds like a mockery for a man who has travelled to a great +many places, as I have, to advise his fellows to travel abroad; they are +most of them hard tied. Yet it is really a much easier thing than men +bound to the desk and the workshop understand. Britain is but one great +port, and its inward seas are narrow--and the fares are ridiculously +low. If you are a young man you can go almost anywhere for almost +anything, sitting up by night on deck, and not expecting too much +courtesy. But, of course, if you shirk the sea you are a prisoner. + +Well, then, supposing you abroad, or even in some other part of this +highly varied kingdom in which you live, and supposing you to have +reached some chosen place by some common road--what I desire to dilate +upon here is the truth which every little excursion of business or of +leisure (and precious few of leisure) makes me more certain of every +day: That just a little way off the road is fairyland. + +It was exactly three days ago that I had occasion to go down the railway +line that is the most frequented in Europe: I was on business, not +leisure, but in the business I had two days' leisure, and I did what I +would advise all other men to do in such a circumstance. + +I took a train to nowhere, fixing my starting-point thus:-- + +I first looked at the map and saw where nearest to me was a +quadrilateral bare of railways. This formula, to look for a +quadrilateral bare of railways, is a very useful formula for the man who +is seeking another world. Then I fixed at random upon one little +roadside station upon the main line; I determined to get out there and +to walk aimlessly and westward until I should strike the other side of +the quadrilateral. I made no plan, not even of the hours of the day. + +I came into my roadside station at half-past eight of the long summer +night, broad daylight that is, but with night advancing. I got out and +began my westward march. At once there crowded upon me any number of +unexpected and entertaining things! + +The first thing I found was a street which was used by horses as well as +by men, and yet was made up of broad steps. It was a sort of stair-case +going up a hill. At the top of it I found a woman leading a child by the +hand. I asked her the name of the steps. She told me they were called +"The Steps of St. John." + +A quarter of a mile further down the narrow lane I saw to my +astonishment an enormous castle, ruined and open to the sky. There are +many such ruins famous in Europe, but of this one I had never even +heard. I went lonely under the evening and looked at its main gate and +saw on it a moulded escutcheon, carved, and the motto in French, +"Henceforward," which word made me think a great deal, but resolved no +problem in my mind. + +I went on again westward as the darkness fell and saw what I had not +seen before, though my reading had told me of its existence, a long line +of trees marking a ridge on the horizon, which line was the border of +that ancient road the Roman soldiers built leading from the west into +Amiens. "Along that road," thought I, "St. Martin rode before he became +a monk, and while he was yet a soldier and was serving under Julian the +Apostate. Along that road he came to the west gate of Amiens and there +cut his cloak in two and gave the half of it to a beggar." + +The memory of St. Martin's deed entertained me for some miles of my way, +and I remembered how, when I was a child, it had seemed to me ridiculous +to cut your coat in two whether for a beggar or for anybody else. Not +that I thought charity ridiculous--God forbid!--but that a coat seemed +to me a thing you could not cut in two with any profit to the user of +either half. You might cut it in latitude and turn it into an Eton +jacket and a kilt, neither of much use to a Gallo-Roman beggar. Or you +might cut it in meridian and leave but one sleeve: mere folly. + +Considering these things, I went on over the rolling plateau. I saw a +great owl flying before me against the sky, different from the owls of +home. I saw Jupiter shining above a cloud and Venus shining below one. +The long light lingered in the north above the English sea. At last I +came quite unexpectedly upon that delight and plaything of the French: a +light railway, or steam tram such as that people build in great +profusion to link up their villages and their streams. The road where I +came upon it made a level crossing, and there was a hut there, and a +woman living in it who kept the level crossing and warned the +passers-by. She told me no more trains, or rather little trams, would +pass that night, but that three miles further on I should come to a +place called "The Mills of the Vidame." + +Now the name "Vidame" reminded me that a "Vidame" was the lay protector +of a Cathedral Chapter in feudal times, so the name gave me a renewed +pleasure. + +But it was now near midnight, and when I came to this village I +remembered how in similar night walks I had sometimes been refused +lodging. When I got among the few houses all was dark. I found, however, +in the darkness two young men, each bearing an enormous curled trumpet +of the kind which the French call _cors de chasse_, that is, +hunting horns, so I asked them where the inn was. They took me to it and +woke up the hostess, who received us with oaths. This she did lest the +young men with hunting horns should demand a commission. Her heart, +however, was better than her mouth, and she put me up, but she charged +me tenpence for my room, counting coffee in the morning, which was, I am +sure, more than her usual rate. + +Next day I took the little steam tram away from the place and went on +vaguely whither it should please God to take me, until the plateau +changed and the light railway fell into a charming valley, and, seeing a +town rooted therein, I got out and paid my fare and visited the town. In +this town I went to church, as it was early morning (you must excuse the +foible), and, coming out of church, I had an argument with a working man +upon the matter of religion, in which argument, as I believe, I was the +victor. I then went on north out of this town and came into a wood of +enormous size. It was miles and miles across, and the trees were higher +than anything I have seen outside of California. It was an enchanted +wood. The sun shone down through a hundred feet of silence by little +rounds between the leaves, and there was silence everywhere. In this +wood I sojourned all day long, making slowly westward, till, in the very +midst of it, I found a troubled man. He was a man of middle age, short, +intelligent, fat, and weary. He said to me: + +"Have you noticed any special mark upon the trees? A white mark of the +number 90?" + +"No," said I. "Are there any wild boars in this forest?" + +"Yes," he answered, "a few, but not of use. I am looking for trees +marked in white with the number 90. I have paid a price for them, and I +cannot find them." + +I saluted him and went on my way. At last I came to an open clearing, +where there was a town, and in the town I found a very delightful inn, +where they would cook anything one felt inclined for, within reason, and +charged one very moderately indeed. I have retained its name. + +By this time I was completely lost, and in the heart of Fairyland, when +suddenly I remembered that everyone that strikes root in Fairyland loses +something, at the least his love and at the worst his soul, and that it +is a perilous business to linger there, so I asked them in that hotel +how they worked it when they wanted to go west into the great towns. +They put me into an omnibus, which charged me fourpence for a journey of +some two miles. It took me, as Heaven ordained, to a common great +railway, and that common great railway took me through the night to the +town of Dieppe, which I have known since I could speak and before, and +which was about as much of Fairyland to me as Piccadilly or Monday +morning. + +Thus ended those two days, in which I had touched again the unknown +places--and all that heaven was but two days, and cost me not fifty +shillings. + +Excuse the folly of this. + + + + +The Tide + + +I wish I had been one of those men who first sailed beyond the Pillars +of Hercules and first saw, as they edged northward along a barbarian +shore, the slow swinging of the sea. How much, I wonder, did they think +themselves enlarged? How much did they know that all the civilization +behind them, the very ancient world of the Mediterranean, was something +protected and enclosed from which they had escaped into an outer world? +And how much did they feel that here they were now physically caught by +the moving tides that bore them in the whole movement of things? + +For the tide is of that kind; and the movement of the sea four times +daily back and forth is a consequence, a reflection, and a part of the +ceaseless pulse and rhythm which animates all things made and which +links what seems not living to what certainly lives and feels and has +power over all movement of its own. The circuits of the planets stretch +and then recede. Their ellipses elongate and flatten again to the +semblance of circles. The Poles slowly nod once every many thousand +years, there is a libration to the moon; and in all this vast harmonious +process of come and go the units of it twirl and spin, and, as they +spin, run more gravely in ordered procession round their central star: +that star moves also to a beat, and all the stars of heaven move each in +times of its own as well, and their movement is one thing altogether. +Whoever should receive the mighty business moving in one ear would get +the music of it in a perfect series of chords, superimposed the one upon +the other, but not a tremble of them out of tune. + +The great scheme is not infinite, for were it infinite such rhythms +could not be. It was made, and it moves in order to the scheme of its +making without caprice, not wayward anywhere, but in and out and back +and forth as to a figure set for it. It must be so, or these exact +arrangements could not be. + +Now with this regulated breathing and expiration, playing itself out in +a million ways and co-extensive with the universe of things, the tides +keep time, and they alone of earthly things bring its actual force to +our physical perception, to our daily life. We see the sea in movement +and power before us heaving up whatever it may bear, and we feel in an +immediate way its strong backward sagging when the rocks appear above it +as it falls. We have our hand on the throb of the current turning in a +salting river inland between green hills; we are borne upon it bodily as +we sail, its movement kicks the tiller in our grasp, and the strength +beneath us and around us, the rush and the compulsion of the stream, its +silence and as it were its purpose, all represent to us, immediately and +here, that immeasurable to and fro which rules the skies. + +When the Roman soldiers came marching northward with Caesar and first +saw the shores of ocean: when, after that occupation of Gaul which has +changed the world, they first mounted guard upon the quays of the Itian +port under Gris-Nez, or the rocky inlets of the Veneti by St. Malo and +the Breton reefs, they were appalled to see what for centuries chance +traders and the few curious travellers, the men of Marseilles and of the +islands, had seen before them. They saw in numbers and in a corporate +way what hitherto individuals alone had seen; they saw the sea like a +living thing, advancing and retreating in an ordered dance, alive with +deep sighs and intakes, and ceaselessly proceeding about a work and a +doing which seemed to be the very visible action of an unchanging will +still pleased with calculated change. It was the presence of the Roman +army upon the shores of the Channel which brought the Tide into the +general conscience of Europe, and that experience, I think, was among +the greatest, perhaps the greatest, of those new things which rushed +upon the mind of the Empire when it launched itself by the occupation of +Gaul. + +The tide, when it is mentioned in brief historical records of times long +since, suddenly strikes one with vividness and with familiarity, so that +the past is introduced at once, presented to us physically, and obtruded +against our modern senses alive. I know of no other physical thing +mentioned in this fashion, in chronicle or biography, which has so +powerful an effect to restore the reality of a dead century. + +The Venerable Bede is speaking in one place of Southampton Water, in his +ecclesiastical history, or, rather, of the Isle of Wight, whence those +two Princes were baptized and died under Cadwalla. As the historian +speaks of the place he says: + +"In this sea" (which is the Solent) "comes a double tide out of the seas +which spring from the infinite ocean of the Arctic surrounding all +Britain." + +And he tells us how these double tides rush together and fight together, +sweeping as they do round either side of the island by the Needles and +by Spithead into the land-locked sheet within. + +Now that passage in Bede's fourth book is more real to me than anything +in all his chronicle, for in Southampton Water to-day the living thing +which we still note as we sail is the double tide. You take a falling +tide at the head of the water, near Southampton Town, and if you are not +quick with your business it is checked in two hours and you meet a +strange flood, the second flood, before you have rounded Calshott +Castle. + +Then there is a Charter of Newcastle. Or, rather, the inviolable Customs +of that town, very old, drawn up nearly eight hundred years ago, but +beginning from far earlier; and in these customs you find written: + +"If a plea shall arise between a burgess and a merchant it must be +determined before the third flowing of the sea"--that is, within three +tides; a wise provision! For thus the merchant would not miss the last +tide of the day after the quarrel. How living it is, a phrase of that +sort coming in the midst of those other phrases! + +All the rest, worse luck, has gone. Burgage-tenure, and the economic +independence of the humble, and the busy, healthy life of men working to +enrich themselves, not others, and that corporate association which was +the blood of the Middle Ages, and the power of popular opinion, and, in +general, freedom. But out of all these things that have perished, the +tide remains, and in the eighteen clauses of the Customs, the tidal +clause alone stands fresh and still has meaning. The capital, great +clinching clause by which men owned their own land within the town has +gone utterly and altogether. The modern workman on the Tyne would not +understand you perhaps, to whom in that very place you should say, "Many +centuries ago the men that came before you here, your fathers, were not +working precariously at a wage, or paying rent to others, but living +under their own roofs and working for themselves." There is only one +passage in the document that all could understand in Newcastle +to-day--the very few rich who are hardly secure, the myriads of poor who +are not secure at all--and that passage is the passage which talks of +the third tide; for even to-day there is some good we have left +undestroyed and the sea still ebbs and flows. + +This little note of the Newcastle men, and of the flowing and the ebbing +of their sea, is to be found, you say, in the archives of England? Not +at all! It is to be found in the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland--at +least, so my book assures me, but why I do not know. Perhaps of the +times when between Tyne and Tees, men looked northward and of the times +when they looked southward (for they alternately did one and the other +during many hundreds of years) those times when they looked northward +seemed the more natural to them. Anyhow, the reference is to the Acts of +the Parliament of Scotland, and that is the end of it. + + + + +On a Great Wind + + +It is an old dispute among men, or rather a dispute as old as mankind, +whether Will be a cause of things or no; nor is there anything novel in +those moderns who affirm that Will is nothing to the matter, save their +ignorant belief that their affirmation is new. + +The intelligent process whereby I know that Will not seems but is, and +can alone be truly and ultimately a cause, is fed with stuff and +strengthens sacramentally as it were, whenever I meet, and am made the +companion of, a great wind. + +It is not that this lively creature of God is indeed perfected with a +soul; this it would be superstition to believe. It has no more a person +than any other of its material fellows, but in its vagary of way, in the +largeness of its apparent freedom, in its rush of purpose, it seems to +mirror the action of mighty spirit. When a great wind comes roaring over +the eastern flats towards the North Sea, driving over the Fens and the +Wringland, it is like something of this island that must go out and +wrestle with the water, or play with it in a game or a battle; and when, +upon the western shores, the clouds come bowling up from the horizon, +messengers, outriders, or comrades of a gale, it is something of the sea +determined to possess the land. The rising and falling of such power, +its hesitations, its renewed violence, its fatigue and final repose--all +these are symbols of a mind; but more than all the rest, its exultation! +It is the shouting and the hurrahing of the wind that suits a man. + +Note you, we have not many friends. The older we grow and the better we +can sift mankind, the fewer friends we count, although man lives by +friendship. But a great wind is every man's friend, and its strength is +the strength of good-fellowship; and even doing battle with it is +something worthy and well chosen. If there is cruelty in the sea, and +terror in high places, and malice lurking in profound darkness, there is +no one of these qualities in the wind, but only power. Here is strength +too full for such negations as cruelty, as malice, or as fear; and that +strength in a solemn manner proves and tests health in our own souls. +For with terror (of the sort I mean--terror of the abyss or panic at +remembered pain, and in general, a losing grip of the succours of the +mind), and with malice, and with cruelty, and with all the forms of that +Evil which lies in wait for men, there is the savour of disease. It is +an error to think of such things as power set up in equality against +justice and right living. We were not made for them, but rather for +influences large and soundly poised; we are not subject to them but to +other powers that can always enliven and relieve. It is health in us, I +say, to be full of heartiness and of the joy of the world, and of +whether we have such health our comfort in a great wind is a good test +indeed. No man spends his day upon the mountains when the wind is out, +riding against it or pushing forward on foot through the gale, but at +the end of his day feels that he has had a great host about him. It is +as though he had experienced armies. The days of high winds are days of +innumerable sounds, innumerable in variation of tone and of intensity, +playing upon and awakening innumerable powers in man. And the days of +high wind are days in which a physical compulsion has been about us and +we have met pressure and blows, resisted and turned them; it enlivens us +with the simulacrum of war by which nations live, and in the just +pursuit of which men in companionship are at their noblest. + +It is pretended sometimes (less often perhaps now than a dozen years +ago) that certain ancient pursuits congenial to man will be lost to him +under his new necessities; thus men sometimes talk foolishly of horses +being no longer ridden, houses no longer built of wholesome wood and +stone, but of metal; meat no more roasted, but only baked; and even of +stomachs grown too weak for wine. There is a fashion of saying these +things, and much other nastiness. Such talk is (thank God!) mere folly; +for man will always at last tend to his end, which is happiness, and he +will remember again to do all those things which serve that end. So it +is with the uses of the wind, and especially the, using of the wind with +sails. + +No man has known the wind by any of its names who has not sailed his own +boat and felt life in the tiller. Then it is that a man has most to do +with the wind, plays with it, coaxes or refuses it, is wary of it all +along; yields when he must yield, but comes up and pits himself again +against its violence; trains it, harnesses it, calls it if it fails him, +denounces it if it will try to be too strong, and in every manner +conceivable handles this glorious playmate. + +As for those who say that men did but use the wind as an instrument for +crossing the sea, and that sails were mere machines to them, either they +have never sailed or they were quite unworthy of sailing. It is not an +accident that the tall ships of every age of varying fashions so +arrested human sight and seemed so splendid. The whole of man went into +their creation, and they expressed him very well; his cunning, and his +mastery, and his adventurous heart. For the wind is in nothing more +capitally our friend than in this, that it has been, since men were men, +their ally in the seeking of the unknown and in their divine thirst for +travel which, in its several aspects--pilgrimage, conquest, discovery, +and, in general, enlargement--is one prime way whereby man fills himself +with being. + +I love to think of those Norwegian men who set out eagerly before the +north-east wind when it came down from their mountains in the month of +March like a god of great stature to impel them to the West. They pushed +their Long Keels out upon the rollers, grinding the shingle of the beach +at the fjord-head. They ran down the calm narrows, they breasted and +they met the open sea. Then for days and days they drove under this +master of theirs and high friend, having the wind for a sort of captain, +and looking always out to the sea line to find what they could find. It +was the springtime; and men feel the spring upon the sea even more +surely than they feel it upon the land. They were men whose eyes, pale +with the foam, watched for a landfall, that unmistakable good sight +which the wind brings us to, the cloud that does not change and that +comes after the long emptiness of sea days like a vision after the +sameness of our common lives. To them the land they so discovered was +wholly new. + +We have no cause to regret the youth of the world, if indeed the world +were ever young. When we imagine in our cities that the wind no longer +calls us to such things, it is only our reading that blinds us, and the +picture of satiety which our reading breeds is wholly false. Any man +to-day may go out and take his pleasure with the wind upon the high +seas. He also will make his landfalls to-day, or in a thousand years; +and the sight is always the same, and the appetite for such discoveries +is wholly satisfied even though he be only sailing, as I have sailed, +over seas that he has known from childhood, and come upon an island far +away, mapped and well known, and visited for the hundredth time. + + + + +The Letter + + +If you ask me why it is now three weeks since I received your letter +and why it is only today that I answer it, I must tell you the truth +lest further things I may have to tell you should not be worthy of your +dignity or of mine. It was because at first I dared not, then later I +reasoned with myself, and so bred delay, and at last took refuge in more +delay. I will offer no excuse: I will not tell you that I suffered +illness, or that some accident of war had taken me away from this old +house, or that I have but just returned from a journey to my hill and my +view over the Plain and the great River. + +Your messenger I have kept, and I have entertained him well. I looked at +him a little narrowly at his first coming, thinking perhaps he might be +a gentleman of yours, but I soon found that he was not such, and that he +bore no disguise, but was a plain rider of your household. I put him in +good quarters by the Hunting Stables. He has had nothing to do but to +await my resolution, which is now at last taken, and which you receive +in this. + +But how shall I begin, or how express to you what not distance but a +slow and bitter conclusion of the mind has done? + +I shall not return to Meudon. I shall not see the woods, the summer +woods turning to autumn, nor follow the hunt, nor take pleasure again in +what is still the best of Europe at Versailles. And now that I have said +it, you must read it so; for I am unalterably determined. Believe me, it +is something much more deep than courtesy which compels me to give you +my reasons for this final and irrevocable doom. + +We were children together. Though we leant so lightly in our +conversations of this spring upon all we knew in common, I know your age +and all your strong early experience--and you know mine. Your mother +will recall that day's riding when I came back from my first leave and +you were home, not, I think, for good, from the convent. A fixed +domestic habit blinded her, so that she could then still see in us no +more than two children; yet I was proud of my sword, and had it on, and +you that day were proud of a beauty which could no longer be hidden even +from yourself; I would then have sacrificed, and would now, all I had or +was or had or am to have made that beauty immortal. + +I say, you remember that day's riding, and how after it the world was +changed for you and me, and how that same evening the elders saw that it +was changed. + +You will remember that for two years we were not allowed to meet again. +When the two years were passed we met indeed by a mere accident of that +rich and tedious life wherein we were both now engaged. I was returned +from leave before Tournay; you had heard, I think, a false report that I +had been wounded in the dreadful business at Fontenoy (which to remember +even now horrifies me a little). I had heard and knew which of the great +names you now bore by marriage. The next day it was your husband who +rode with me to Marly. I liked him well enough. I have grown to like him +better. He is an honest man, though I confess his philosophers weary me. +When I say "an honest man" I am giving the highest praise I know. + +My dear, that was sixteen years ago. + +You may not even now understand, so engrossing is the toilsome and +excited ritual of that rich world at Versailles, how blest you are: your +children are growing round you: your daughters are beginning to reveal +your own beauty, and your sons will show in these next years immediately +before us that temper which in you was a spirit and a height of being, +and in them, men, will show as plain courage. During that long space of +years your house has remained well ordered (it was your husband's +doing). His great fortune and yours have jointly increased: if I may +tell you so, it is a pleasure to all who understand fitness to know that +this is so, and that your lineage and his will hold so great a place in +the State. + +As you review those sixteen years you may, if you will--I trust you will +not--recall those occasions when I saw the woods of Meudon and mixed by +chance with your world, and when we renewed the rides which had ended +our childhood. As for me I have not to recall those things. They are, +alas, myself, and beyond them there is nothing that I can call a memory +or a being at all. Nevertheless, as I have told you, I shall not come to +Meudon: I shall not hear again the delightful voices of those many +friends (now in mid-life as am I) who are my equals at Versailles. I +shall not see your face. + +I did not take service with the Empire from any pique or folly, but from +a necessity for adventure and for the refounding of my house. It might +have chanced that I should marry: the land demanded an heir. My +impoverishment weighed upon me like an ill deed, for all this belt of +land is dependent upon the old house, which I can with such difficulty +retain and from which I write to-day. I spent all those years in the +service of the Empire (and even of Russia) from no uncertain temper and +from no imaginary quarrel. It is so common or so necessary for men and +women to misjudge each other that I believe you thought me wayward, or +at least unstable. If you did so you did me a wrong. Those two good +seasons when we met again, and this last of but a month ago, were not +accidents or fitful recoveries. They were all I possessed in my life and +all that will perish with me when I die. + +But now, to tell you the very core of my decision, it is this: The years +that pass carry with them an increasing weight at once sombre and +majestic. There are things belonging to youth which habit continues +strangely longer than the season to which they properly belong: if, when +we discover them to be too prolonged as cling to their survival, why, +then, we eat dust. So long as we possess the illusion and so long as the +dearest things of youth maintain unchanged, in one chamber of our life +at least, our twentieth year, so long all is well. But there is a cold +river which we must pass in our advance towards nothingness and age. In +the passage of that stream we change: and you and I have passed it. +There is no more endurance in that young mood of ours than in any other +human thing. One always wakes from it at last. One sees what it is. The +soul sees and counts with hard eyes the price at which a continuance of +such high dreams must be purchased, and the heart has a prevision of the +evil that the happy cheat will work as maturity is reached by each of +us, and as each of us fully takes on the burden of the world. + +Therefore I must not return. + +Foolishly and without thinking of real things, acting as though indeed +that life of dream and of illusion were still possible to me, I +yesterday cut with great care a rose, one from the many that have now +grown almost wild upon the great wall overlooking the Danube. Then ... I +could not but smile to myself when I remembered how by the time that +rose should have reached you every petal would be wasted and fallen in +the long week's ride. There is a fixed term of life for roses also as +for men. I do not cite this to you by way of parable. I have no heart +for tricks of the pen to-night; but the two images came together, and +you will understand. If I do not return, it is for the same reason that +I could not send the rose. + + + + +The Regret + + +Everybody knows, I suppose, that kind of landscape in which hills seem +to lie in a regular manner, fold on fold, one range behind the other, +until, at last, behind them all some higher and grander range dominates +and frames the whole. + +The infinite variety of light and air and accident of soil provide all +men save those who live in the great plains with examples of this sort. +The traveller in the dry air of California or of Spain, watching great +distances from the heights, will recollect such landscapes all his life. +They were the reward of his long ascents and the visions which attended +his effort as he climbed up to the ridge of his horizon. Such a +landscape does a man see from the Western edges of the Guadarrama, +looking eastward and south toward the very distant hills that guard +Toledo and the Gulf of the Tagus. Such a landscape does a man see at +sunrise from the highest of the Cevennes looking right eastward to the +dawn as it comes up in the pure and cold air beyond the Alps, and shows +you the falling of the foothills to the Rhone. And by such a landscape +is a man gladdened when upon the escarpments of the Tuolumne he turns +back and looks westward over the plain towards the vast range. + +The experience of such a sight is one peculiar in travel, or, for that +matter, if a man is lucky enough to enjoy it at home, insistent and +reiterated upon the mind of the home-dwelling man. Such a landscape, for +instance, makes a man praise God if his house is upon the height of +Mendip, and he can look over falling hills right over the Vale of Severn +toward the ridge above ridge of the Welsh solemnities beyond, until the +straight line and high of the Black Mountains ends his view. + +It is the character of these landscapes to suggest at once a vastness, +diversity, and seclusion. When a man comes upon them unexpectedly he can +forget the perpetual toil of men and imagine that those who dwell below +in the near side before him are exempt from the necessities of this +world. When such a landscape is part of a man's dwelling-place, though +he well knows that the painful life of men within those hills is the +same hard business that it is throughout the world, yet his knowledge is +modified and comforted by the permanent glory of the thing he sees. + +The distant and high range that bounds his view makes a sort of veiling, +cutting it off and guarding it from whatever may be beyond. The +succession of lower ranges suggests secluded valleys, and the reiterated +woods, distant and more distant, convey an impression of fertility more +powerful than that of corn in harvest upon the lowlands. + +Sometimes it is a whole province that is thus grasped by the eye, +sometimes in the summer haze but a few miles; always this scenery +inspires the onlooker with a sense of completion and of repose, and at +the same time, I think, with worship and with awe. + +Now one such group of valleys there was, hill above hill, forest above +forest, and beyond it a great noble range, unwooded and high against +heaven, guarding it, which I for my part knew when first I knew anything +of this world. There is a high place under fir trees, a place of sand +and bracken, in South England whence such a view was always present to +eye in childhood and "There," said I to myself (even in childhood) "a +man should make his habitation." In those valleys is the proper off-set +for man. + +And so there was. + +It was a little place which had grown up as my county grows. The house +throwing out arms and layers. One room was panelled in the oak of the +seventeenth century--but that had been a novelty in its time, for the +walls upon which the panels stood were of the late fifteenth, oak and +brick intermingled. Another room was large and light built in the manner +of one hundred and fifty years ago, which people call Georgian. It had +been thrown out south (which is quite against our older custom, for our +older houses looked east and west to take all the sun and to present a +corner to the south-west and the storms. So they stand still). It had +round it a solid cornice which the modern men of the towns would have +called ugly, but there was ancestry in it. Then, further on this house +had modern roominess stretching in one new wing after another; and it +had a great steading and there was a copse and some six acres of land. +Over a deep ravine looked the little town that was the mother of the +place, and altogether it was enclosed, silent, and secure. + +"The fish that misses the hook regrets the worm." If this is not a +Chinese proverb it ought to be. That little farm and steading and those +six acres, that ravine, those trees, that aspect of the little mothering +town; the wooded hills fold above fold, the noble range beyond, will not +be mine. + +For all I know, some man quite unacquainted with that land took them +grumbling for a debt; or again, for all I know, they may have been +bought by a blind man who could not see the hills, or by some man who, +seeing them, perpetually regretted the flat marshes of the fens. One +day, up high on Egdean Side, not thinking of such things, through a gap +in the trees I saw again after so many years, set one behind the other, +the forests wave upon wave, the summer heat, the high, bare range +guarding all, and in the midst of that landscape, set like a toy, the +little Sabine Farm. + +Then I said to it, "Continue. Go and serve whom you will, my little +Sabine Farm. You were not mine because you would not be, and you are not +mine at all to-day. You will regret it perhaps, and perhaps you will +not. There was verse in you, perhaps, or prose, or--infinitely +more!--contentment for a man (for all I know). But you refused. You lost +your chance. Goodbye." And with that I went on into the wood and beyond +the gap, and saw the sight no more. + +It was ten years since I had seen it last. It may be ten years before I +see it again, or it may be for ever. But as I went through the woods +saying to myself: + +"You lost your chance, my little Sabine Farm, you lost your chance!" +another part of me at once replied: + +"Ah! And so did _you_!" + +Then, by way of riposte, I answered in my mind: + +"Not at all, for the chance I never had, but what I lost was my desire." + +"No, not your desire," said the voice to me within, "but the fulfilment +of it, in which you would have lost your desire." And when that reply +came I naturally turned as all men do on hearing such interior replies, +to a general consideration of regret, and was prepared, if any honest +publisher should have come whistling through that wood, with an offer +proper to the occasion, namely, to produce no less than five volumes on +the Nature of Regret, its mortal sting, its bitter-sweetness, its power +to keep alive in man the pure passions of the soul, its hints at +immortality, its memory of Heaven. But the wood was empty of publishers. +The offer did not come. The moment was lost. The five volumes will +hardly now be written. In place of them I offer poor this, which you may +take or leave. But I beg leave before I end to cite certain words very +nobly attached to that great inn "The Griffin," which has its foundation +set far off in another place, in the town of March, in the Fen Land: + +"England my desire, what have you not refused?" + + + + +The End Of The World + + +One day I met a man who was sitting quite silent near Whitney, in the +Thames Valley, in a very large, long, low inn that stands in those +parts, or at least stood then, for whether it stands now or not depends +upon the Fussyites, whose business it is to Fuss, and in their Fussing +to disturb mankind. + +He had nothing to say for himself at all, and he looked not gloomy but +sad. He was tall and thin, with high cheekbones. His face was the colour +of leather that has been some time in the weather, and he despised us +altogether: he would not say a word to us, until one of the company +said, rising from his meat and drink: "Very well, there's a thing we +shall never know till the end of the world" (he was talking about some +discussion or other which the young men had been holding together). +"There's a thing we shall never know till the end of the world--and +about that nobody knows!" + +"You will pardon me," said the tall, thin, and elderly man with a face +like leather that has been exposed to the weather, "I know about the End +of the World, for I have been there." + +This was so interesting that we all sat down again to listen. + +"I wasn't talking of place, but of time," murmured the young man whom +the stranger had answered. + +"I cannot help that," said the stranger decisively; "the End of the +World is the End of the World, and whether you are talking of space or +of time it does not matter, for when you have got to the end you have +got to the end, as may be proved in several ways." + +"How did you get to it?" said one of our companions. + +"That is very simply answered," said the elder man; "you get to it by +walking straight in front of you." + +"Anyone could do that," said the other. + +"Anyone could," said the elder man, "but nobody does. I did.... When I +was quite a boy in my father's parsonage (for my father was a parson), +having heard so much about the End of the World and seeing that people's +descriptions of it differed so much and that everybody was quite sure of +his own, I used to take my father's friends and guests aside privately, +for I was afraid to take my father himself, and I used to ask them how +they knew what the End of the World was really like, and whether they +had seen it. Some laughed, others were silent, and others were angry; +but no one gave me any information. At last I decided (and it was very +wise of me) that the only way to find out a thing of that sort was to +find it out for one's self, and not to go by hearsay, so I determined to +go straight on without stopping until I got to the End of the World." + +"Which way did you walk?" said yet another of my companions. + +"Young man," said the stranger, with solemnity, "I walked westward +toward the setting sun ... I walked and I walked and I walked, day after +day and year after year. Whenever I came to the seacoast I would take +work on board a ship--and remember it is always easy to get work if you +will take the wages that are offered, and always difficult to get it if +you will not. Well, then, I went in this way through all known lands and +over all known seas, until at last I came to the shore of a sea beyond +which (so the people told me who lived there) there was no further +shore. 'I cannot help that,' said I; 'I have not yet come to the End of +the World, and it is common sense that such a lot of water must have +something at the back of it to hold it up; besides which there is a +strong wind blowing out of the gates of the west and from the sunset. +Now that wind must rise somewhere, and I am going on to see where it +rises.' One of them was kind enough to lend me a boat with oars; I +thanked him prettily, and then I set out to row toward the End of the +World, taking with me two or three days' provisions. + +"When I had rowed a long time I went asleep, and when I woke up next +morning I rowed again all day until the second night I went to sleep. On +the third day I rowed again: a little before sunset on the third day I +saw before me high hills, all in peaks like a great saw. On the very +highest of the peaks there were streaks of snow, and at about six +o'clock in the afternoon I grounded my boat upon that gravelly shore and +pulled it up upon the shingle, though it was evident either that the +tide was high or that there was no tide in these silent places. + +"I offered up a prayer to the genius of the land, and tied the painter +of the boat to two great stones, so that no wave reaching it might move +it, and then I went on inland. When I had gone a little way I saw a +signpost on which was written, 'To the End of the World One Mile' and +there was a rough track along which it pointed. I went along this track. +Everything was completely silent. There were no birds, there was no wind, +there was nothing in the sky. But one thing I did notice, which was that +the sun was much larger than it used to be, and that as I went along this +last mile or so it seemed to get larger still--but that may have been my +imagination, for I must tell you my imagination is pretty strong. + +"Well then, gentlemen, when I had gone a mile or so I saw another +signpost, on which there was a large board marked 'Danger,' and a +hundred yards beyond the track went between two great dark rocks--and +there I was! The road had stopped short; it was broken off, jagged, just +like a torn bit of paper ... and there was the End of the World." + +"How do you mean?" said one of the younger men in an awed tone. + +"What I say," said the stranger decidedly. "I had come to the end; there +was nothing beyond. You looked down over a precipice where there was +moss and steep grass, and on the ledges trees far below, and then more +precipice, and then--oh, miles below--a few more trees or so clinging to +the steep, then more precipice, and then darkness; and far away before +me was the whole expanse of sky; and in the midst of it I saw the broad +red sun setting into the brume; it was not yet dark enough to see the +stars, and there was no moon in the sky. + +"I assure you it was a very wonderful sight, and I was awed though I was +not afraid. And how glad I was to find that the world had an edge to it, +and that all that talk about its being round was nonsense! + +"When the sun was set it grew dark, and I returned to find my boat; but +I must have missed my way, for the track became broader and better, and +at last I came to a gate of a human sort, with an initial on it, which +showed that it had been put up by some landlord. It was an open gate, +and after I had entered it I came upon a broad highway, beautifully +metalled, and when I had gone along this for less than half a mile I +came to this inn where I am now sitting. That was a week ago, and I have +been here ever since. They took me in kindly enough, but they would not +believe what I had to tell them about the End of the World. It is a +great pity, gentlemen, for that wonderful sight is to be discovered +somewhere hereabouts, and a mere accident of my losing my way in the +darkness makes it difficult for me to find it by daylight." + +Having said all this, the stranger was silent. + +One of my companions whispered to me that the old man must be mad. The +stranger overheard him, and said with a thin smile: + +"Oh, I know all about that; several have suggested it already; but it is +no answer, for if I did not come from the End of the World, where did I +come from? No one has seen me hereabouts during the last few days until +I came to this inn. And all the first part of my journey I can very +easily explain, for I have notes of it, and it lasted for years. It is +only this last part which seems to me so difficult.... I tell you I lost +my way, and when a man has lost his way at night he can never find it +again in the daytime." + +As he spoke he took a little piece of folded paper, rather dirty, out of +his inner pocket, on which a rough sketch-map was drawn, and he began +touching it with a stump of pencil that he held in his hand. His eyes +seemed to grow dimmer as he did so, and he leaned his head upon his +hand. "I think I have got hold of it, gentlemen," he said. + +We did not get up or go too near him, for we thought he might be +dangerous. + +"I think, gentlemen," he repeated in a more mumbling and lower and less +certain voice, "I think I have got hold of it. I go backwards again +through the gate to the right, just as then I went to the left, and +after that it cannot be very far, for I see those two rocks in front of +me. Besides which," he muttered less and less coherently, "I ought to +have remembered of course those very high and silent hills with nothing +living upon them...." And he added, half asleep, as his head dropped +upon his hand, "It was westward.... I had forgotten that." + +Having so spoken, he seemed to fall asleep altogether, and his head fell +back upon the corner of the wainscoting behind the bench where he sat. +He made no noise in breathing as he slept. + +It was the first time that any of us young men had come across this +fairly common sight of a man who took things within for things without; +some of us were frightened, and all of us wished to be rid of the place +and to get away. As we went out we told the landlord nothing either of +the old fellow's vagaries or of his sleep, but we went out and reached +the town of Whitney, and when we had stayed there a couple of hours or +so we went out southward to the station and waited there for the train +which should take us back to Oxford. + +While we were waiting there in the station two farmers were talking +together. One said to the other: + +"Ar, if he'd paid them they wouldn't have minded so much." + +To which the other answered: + +"Ar, 'tisn't only the paying: it's always an awkward thing when a man +dies in your house, specially if it's licensed. My wife's brother was +caught that way." + +Then as they went on talking we found that they were talking of the man +in the inn, who it seems had not slept very long, but was dead, and had +died in that same room. It was a shocking thing to hear. The first +farmer said to the second in the railway carriage when we had all got +in: + +"Where'd he come from?" + +The other, who was an old man, grinned and said: + +"Where we all come from, I suppose, and where we all go to." He touched +his forehead with his hand. "He said he'd come from the End of the +World." + +"Ar," said the other gloomily in answer, "like enough!" And after that +they talked no more about the matter. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FIRST AND LAST *** + +This file should be named 8flst10.txt or 8flst10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8flst11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8flst10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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+Title: First and Last
+
+Author: H. Belloc
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7352]
+[This file was first posted on April 19, 2003]
+[Most recently updated May 3, 2003]
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+Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FIRST AND LAST ***
+
+
+
+
+Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+</PRE>
+
+<h2>FIRST AND LAST</h2>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>H. BELLOC</h2>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<p>
+<b>CONTENTS</b>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#weigh">ON WEIGHING ANCHOR</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#reveillon">THE REVEILLON</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#cheeses">ON CHEESES</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#captain">THE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#inventor">THE INVENTOR</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#views">THE VIEWS OF ENGLAND</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#lunatic">THE LUNATIC</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#inheritance">THE INHERITANCE OF HUMOUR</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#old">THE OLD GENTLEMAN'S OPINIONS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#historical">ON HISTORICAL EVIDENCE</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#absence">THE ABSENCE OF THE PAST</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#st">ST. PATRICK</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#lost">THE LOST THINGS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#reading">ON THE READING OF HISTORY</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#victory">THE VICTORY</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#reality">REALITY</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#decline">ON THE DECLINE OF THE BOOK</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#jose">JOS MARIA DE HEREDIA</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#normandy">NORMANDY AND THE NORMANS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#oldt">THE OLD THINGS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#battle">THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#roman">THE ROMAN ROADS IN PICARDY</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#reward">THE REWARD OF LETTERS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#eye">THE EYE-OPENERS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#public">THE PUBLIC</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#entries">ON ENTRIES</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#companions">COMPANIONS OF TRAVEL</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#sources">ON THE SOURCES OF RIVERS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#error">ON ERROR</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#great">THE GREAT SIGHT</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#declines">THE DECLINE OF A STATE</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#past">ON PAST GREATNESS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#mr">MR. THE DUKE: THE MAN OF MALPLAQUET</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#game">THE GAME OF CARDS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#king">"KING LEAR"</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#excursion">THE EXCURSION</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#tide">THE TIDE</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#greatw">ON A GREAT WIND</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#letter">THE LETTER</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#regret">THE REGRET</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#end">THE END OF THE WORLD</a>
+</p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+<h2>FIRST AND LAST</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+<h3><a name="weigh">On Weighing Anchor</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+Personally I should call it "Getting It up," but I have always seen it
+in print called "weighing anchor"--and if it is in print one must bow to
+it. It does weigh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are many ways of doing it. The best, like all good things, has
+gone for ever, and this best way was for a thing called a capstan to
+have sticking out from it, movable, and fitted into its upper rim, other
+things called capstan--bars. These, men would push singing a song, while
+on the top of the capstan sat a man playing the fiddle, or the flute, or
+some other instrument of music. You and I have seen it in pictures. Our
+sons will say that they wish they had seen it in pictures. Our sons'
+sons will say it is all a lie and was never in anything but the
+pictures, and they will explain it by some myth or other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another way is to take two turns of a rope round a donkey-engine, paying
+in and coiling while the engine clanks. And another way on smaller boats
+is a sort of jack arrangement by which you give little jerks to a
+ratchet and wheel, and at last It looses Its hold. Sometimes (in this
+last way) It will not loose Its hold at all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there is a way of which I proudly boast that it is the only way I
+know, which is to go forward and haul at the line until It comes--or
+does not come. If It does not come, you will not be so cowardly or so
+mean as to miss your tide for such a trifle. You will cut the line and
+tie a float on and pray Heaven that into whatever place you run, that
+place will have moorings ready and free.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When a man weighs anchor in a little ship or a large one he does a jolly
+thing! He cuts himself off and he starts for freedom and for the chance
+of things. He pulls the jib a-weather, he leans to her slowly pulling
+round, he sees the wind getting into the mainsail, and he feels that she
+feels the helm. He has her on a slant of the wind, and he makes out
+between the harbour piers. I am supposing, for the sake of good luck,
+that it is not blowing bang down the harbour mouth, nor, for the matter
+of that, bang out of it. I am supposing, for the sake of good luck to
+this venture, that in weighing anchor you have the wind so that you can
+sail with it full and by, or freer still, right past the walls until you
+are well into the tide outside. You may tell me that you are so rich and
+your boat is so big that there have been times when you have anchored in
+the very open, and that all this does not apply to you. Why, then, your
+thoughts do not apply to me nor to the little boat I have in mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the weighing of anchor and the taking of adventure and of the sea
+there is an exact parallel to anything that any man can do in the
+beginning of any human thing, from his momentous setting out upon his
+life in early manhood to the least decision of his present passing day.
+It is a very proper emblem of a beginning. It may lead him to that kind
+of muddle and set-back which attaches only to beginnings, or it may get
+him fairly into the weather, and yet he may find, a little way outside,
+that he has to run for it, or to beat back to harbour. Or, more
+generously, it may lead him to a long and steady cruise in which he
+shall find profit and make distant rivers and continue to increase his
+log by one good landfall after another. But the whole point of weighing
+anchor is that he has chosen his weather and his tide, and that he is
+setting out. The thing is done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You will very commonly observe that, in land affairs, if good fortune
+follows a venture it is due to the marvellous excellence of its
+conductor, but if ill fortune, then to evil chance alone. Now, it is not
+so with the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sea drives truth into a man like salt. A coward cannot long pretend
+to be brave at sea, nor a fool to be wise, nor a prig to be a good
+companion, and any venture connected with the sea is full of venture and
+can pretend to be nothing more. Nevertheless there is a certain pride in
+keeping a course through different weathers, in making the best of a
+tide, in using cats' paws in a dull race, and, generally, in knowing how
+to handle the thing you steer and to judge the water and the wind. Just
+because men have to tell the truth once they get into tide water, what
+little is due to themselves in their success thereon they are proud of
+and acknowledge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If your sailing venture goes well, sailing reader, take a just pride in
+it; there will be the less need for me to write, some few years hence,
+upon the art of picking up moorings, though I confess I would rather
+have written on that so far as the fun of writing was concerned. For
+picking up moorings is a far more tricky and amusing business than
+Getting It up. It differs with every conceivable circumstance of wind,
+and tide, and harbour, and rig, and freeboard, and light; and then there
+are so many stories to tell about it! As--how once a poor man picked up
+a rich man's moorings at Cowes and was visited by an aluminium boat, all
+splendid in the morning sun. Or again--how a stranger who had made
+Orford Haven (that very difficult place) on the very top of an
+equinoctial springtide, picked up a racing mark-buoy, taking it to be
+moorings, and dragged it with him all the way to Aldborough, and that
+right before the town of Orford, so making himself hateful to the Orford
+people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I digress....
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="reveillon">The Reveillon</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+There was in the regiment with which I served a man called Frocot,
+famous with his comrades because he had seen The Dead, for this
+experience, though common among the Scotch, is rare among the French, a
+sister nation. This man Frocot could neither write nor read, and was
+also the strongest man I ever knew. He was quite short and exceedingly
+broad, and he could break a penny with his hands, but this gift of
+strength, though young men value it so much, was thought little of
+compared with his perception of unseen things, for though the men, who
+were peasants, professed to laugh at it, and him, in their hearts they
+profoundly believed. It had been made clear to us that he could see and
+hear The Dead one night in January during a snowstorm, when he came in
+and woke me in barrack-room because he had heard the Loose Spur. Our
+spurs were not buckled on like the officers'; they were fixed into the
+heel of the boot, and if a nail loosened upon either side the spur
+dragged with an unmistakable noise. There was a sergeant who (for some
+reason) had one so loosened on the last night he had ever gone the
+rounds before his death, for in the morning as he came off guard he
+killed himself, and the story went about among the drivers that
+sometimes on stable guard in the thick of the night, when you watched
+all alone by the lantern (with your three comrades asleep in the straw
+of an empty stall), your blood would stop and your skin tauten at the
+sound of a loose spur dragging on the far side of the stable, in the
+dark. But though many had heard the story, and though some had pretended
+to find proof for it, I never knew a man to feel and know it except this
+man Frocot on that night. I remember him at the foot of my bed with his
+lantern waking me from the rooted sleep of bodily fatigue, standing
+there in his dark blue driver's coat and staring with terrible eyes. He
+had undoubtedly heard and seen, but whether of himself from within,
+imagining, or, as I rather believe, from without and influenced, it is
+impossible to say. He was rough and poor, and he came from the Forest of
+Ardennes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reason I remember him and write of him at this season is not,
+however, this particular and dreadful visitation of his, but a folly or
+a vision that befell him at this time of the year, now seventeen years
+ago; for he had Christmas leave and was on his way from garrison to his
+native place, and he was walking the last miles of the wood. It was the
+night before Christmas. It was clear, and there was no wind, but the sky
+was overcast with level clouds and the evening was very dark. He started
+unfed since the first meal of the day; it was dark three hours before he
+was up into the high wood. He met no one during all these miles, and his
+body and his mind were lonely; he hoped to press on and be at his
+father's door before two in the morning or perhaps at one. The night was
+so still that he heard no noise in the high wood, not even the rustling
+of a leaf or a twig crackling, and no animal ran in the undergrowth. The
+moss of the ride was silent under his heavy tread, but now and then the
+steel of his side-arm clicked against a metal button of the great cloak
+he wore. This sharp sound made him so conscious of himself that he
+seemed to fill that forest with his own presence and to be all that was,
+there or elsewhere. He was in a mood of unreal and not holy things. The
+mood, remaining, changed its aspect, and now he was so far from alone
+that all the trunks around him and the glimmers of sky between bare
+boughs held each a spirit of its own, and with the powerful imagination
+of the unlearned he could have spoken and held communion with the trees;
+but it would have an evil communion, for he felt this mood of his take
+on a further phase as he went deeper and deeper still into these
+forests. He felt about him uneasily the sense of doom. He was in that
+exaltation of fancy or dream when faint appeals are half heard far off,
+but not by our human ears, and when whatever attempts to pierce the
+armour of our mortality appeals to us by wailing and by despairing
+sighs. It seemed to him that most unhappy things passed near him in the
+air, and that the wood about him was full of sobbing. Then, again, he
+felt his own mind within him begin to be occupied by doubtful troubles
+worse than these terrors, an anxious straining for ill news, for bitter
+and dreadful news, mixed with a confused certitude that such news had
+come indeed, disturbed and haunted him; and all the while about him in
+that stillness the rushing of unhappy spirits went like a secret storm.
+He was clouded with the mingled emotions of apprehension and of fatal
+mourning; he attempted to remember the expectations that had failed him,
+friends untrue, and the names of parents dead; but he was now the victim
+of this strange night and unable (whether from hunger or fatigue, or
+from that unique power of his to discern things beyond the world) to
+remember his life or his definite aims at all, or even his own name. He
+was mixed with the whole universe about him, and was suffering some loss
+so grievous that very soon the gait of his march and his whole being
+were informed by a large and final despair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was in this great and universal mood (granted to him as a seer,
+though he was a common man) that he saw down the ride, but somewhat to
+one side of it in the heart of the high wood, a great light shining from
+a barn or shed that stood there in the undergrowth, and to this light,
+though his way naturally led him to it, he felt also impelled by an
+influence as strong as or stronger than the despair that had filled his
+soul and all the woods around. He went on therefore quickly, straining
+with his eyes, and when he came into the light that shone out from this
+he saw a more brilliant light within, and men of his own kind adoring;
+but the vision was confused, like light on light or like vapours moving
+over bright metals in a cauldron, and as he gazed his mind became still
+and the dread left him altogether. He said it was like shutting a
+gentleman's great oaken door against a driving storm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This is the story he told me weeks after as we rode together in the
+battery, for he hid it in his heart till the spring. As I say, I
+believed him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was an unlearned man and a strong; he never worshipped. He was of
+that plain stuff and clay on which has worked since all recorded time
+the power of the Spirit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He said that when he left (as he did rapidly leave) that light, peace
+also left him, but that the haunting terror did not return. He found the
+clearing and his father's hut; fatigue and the common world indeed
+returned, but with them a permanent memory of things experienced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every word I have written of him is true.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="cheeses">On Cheeses</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+If antiquity be the test of nobility, as many affirm and none deny
+(saving, indeed, that family which takes for its motto "Sola Virtus
+Nobilitas," which may mean that virtue is the only nobility, but which
+may also mean, mark you, that nobility is the only virtue--and anyhow
+denies that nobility is tested by the lapse of time), <i>if</i>, I say,
+antiquity be the only test of nobility, then cheese is a very noble
+thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But wait a moment: there was a digression in that first paragraph which
+to the purist might seem of a complicated kind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Were I writing algebra (I wish I were) I could have analysed my thoughts
+by the use of square brackets, round brackets, twiddly brackets, and the
+rest, all properly set out in order so that a Common Fool could follow
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But no such luck! I may not write of algebra here; for there is a rule
+current in all newspapers that no man may write upon any matter save
+upon those in which he is more learned than all his human fellows that
+drag themselves so slowly daily forward to the grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So I had to put the thing in the very common form of a digression, and
+very nearly to forget that great subject of cheese which I had put at
+the very head and title of this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Which reminds me: had I followed the rule set down by a London
+journalist the other day (and of the proprietor of his paper I will say
+nothing--though I might have put down the remark to his proprietor) I
+would have hesitated to write that first paragraph. I would have
+hesitated, did I say? Griffins' tails! Nay--Hippogriffs and other things
+of the night! I would not have dared to write it at all! For this
+journalist made a law and promulgated it, and the law was this: that no
+man should write that English which could not be understood if all the
+punctuation were left out. Punctuation, I take it, includes brackets,
+which the Lord of Printers knows are a very modern part of punctuation
+indeed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now let the horripilised reader look up again at the first paragraph (it
+will do him no harm), and think how it would look all written out in
+fair uncials like the beautiful Gospels of St. Chad, which anyone may
+see for nothing in the cathedral of Lichfield, an English town famous
+for eight or nine different things: as Garrick, Doctor Johnson, and its
+two opposite inns. Come, read that first paragraph over now and see what
+you could make of it if it were written out in uncials--that is, not
+only without punctuation, but without any division between the words.
+Wow! As the philosopher said when he was asked to give a plain answer
+"Yes" or "No."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now to cheese. I have had quite enough of digressions and of
+follies. They are the happy youth of an article. They are the springtime
+of it. They are its riot. I am approaching the middle age of this
+article. Let us be solid upon the matter of cheese.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have premised its antiquity, which is of two sorts, as is that of a
+nobleman. First, the antiquity of its lineage; secondly, the antiquity
+of its self. For we all know that when we meet a nobleman we revere his
+nobility very much if he be himself old, and that this quality of age in
+him seems to marry itself in some mysterious way with the antiquity of
+his line.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lineage of cheese is demonstrably beyond all record. What did the
+faun in the beginning of time when a god surprised him or a mortal had
+the misfortune to come across him in the woods? It is well known that
+the faun offered either of them cheese. So he knew how to make it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are certain bestial men, hangers-on of the Germans, who would
+contend that this would prove cheese to be acquired by the Aryan race
+(or what not) from the Dolichocephalics (or what not), and there are
+certain horrors who descend to imitate these barbarians--though
+themselves born in these glorious islands, which are so steep upon their
+western side. But I will not detain you upon these lest I should fall
+head foremost into another digression and forget that my article,
+already in its middle age, is now approaching grey hairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At any rate, cheese is very old. It is beyond written language. Whether
+it is older than butter has been exhaustively discussed by several
+learned men, to whom I do not send you because the road towards them
+leads elsewhere. It is the universal opinion of all most accustomed to
+weigh evidence (and in these I very properly include not only such
+political hacks as are already upon the bench but sweepingly every
+single lawyer in Parliament, since any one of them may tomorrow be a
+judge) that milk is older than cheese, and that man had the use of milk
+before he cunningly devised the trick of squeezing it in a press and by
+sacrificing something of its sweetness endowed it with a sort of
+immortality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The story of all this has perished. Do not believe any man who professes
+to give it you. If he tells you some legend of a god who taught the
+Wheat-eating Race, the Ploughers, and the Lords to make cheese, tell him
+such tales are true symbols, but symbols only. If he tells you that
+cheese was an evolution and a development, oh! then!--bring up your
+guns! Open on the fellow and sweep his intolerable lack of intelligence
+from the earth. Ask him if he discovers reality to be a function of
+time, and Being to hide in clockwork. Keep him on the hop with ironical
+comments upon how it may be that environment can act upon Will, while
+Will can do nothing with environment--whose proper name is mud. Pester
+the provincial. Run him off the field.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But about cheese. Its noble antiquity breeds in it a noble diffusion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This happy Christendom of ours (which is just now suffering from an
+indigestion and needs a doctor--but having also a complication of
+insomnia cannot recollect his name) has been multifarious
+incredibly--but in nothing more than in cheese!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One cheese differs from another, and the difference is in sweeps, and in
+landscapes, and in provinces, and in countrysides, and in climates, and
+in principalities, and in realms, and in the nature of things. Cheese
+does most gloriously reflect the multitudinous effect of earthly things,
+which could not be multitudinous did they not proceed from one mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Consider the cheese of Rocquefort: how hard it is in its little box.
+Consider the cheese of Camembert, which is hard also, and also lives in
+a little box, but must not be eaten until it is soft and yellow.
+Consider the cheese of Stilton, which is not made there, and of Cheddar,
+which is. Then there is your Parmesan, which idiots buy rancid in
+bottles, but which the wise grate daily for their use: you think it is
+hard from its birth? You are mistaken. It is the world that hardens the
+Parmesan. In its youth the Parmesan is very soft and easy, and is
+voraciously devoured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there is your cheese of Wensleydale, which is made in Wensleydale,
+and your little Swiss cheese, which is soft and creamy and eaten with
+sugar, and there is your Cheshire cheese and your little Cornish cheese,
+whose name escapes me, and your huge round cheese out of the Midlands,
+as big as a fort whose name I never heard. There is your toasted or
+Welsh cheese, and your cheese of Pont-l'evque, and your white cheese of
+Brie, which is a chalky sort of cheese. And there is your cheese of
+Neufchatel, and there is your Gorgonzola cheese, which is mottled all
+over like some marbles, or like that Mediterranean soap which is made of
+wood-ash and of olive oil. There is your Gloucester cheese called the
+Double Gloucester, and I have read in a book of Dunlop cheese, which is
+made in Ayrshire: they could tell you more about it in Kilmarnock. Then
+Suffolk makes a cheese, but does not give it any name; and talking of
+that reminds me how going to Le Quesnoy to pass the people there the
+time of day, and to see what was left of that famous but forgotten
+fortress, a young man there showed me a cheese, which he told me also
+had no name, but which was native to the town, and in the valley of Ste.
+Engrace, where is that great wood which shuts off all the world, they
+make their cheese of ewe's milk and sell it in Tardets, which is their
+only livelihood. They make a cheese in Port-Salut which is a very subtle
+cheese, and there is a cheese of Limburg, and I know not how many
+others, or rather I know them, but you have had enough: for a little
+cheese goes a long way. No man is a glutton on cheese.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What other cheese has great holes in it like Gruyere, or what other is
+as round as a cannon-ball like that cheese called Dutch? which reminds
+me:--
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Talking of Dutch cheese. Do you not notice how the intimate mind of
+Europe is reflected in cheese? For in the centre of Europe, and where
+Europe is most active, I mean in Britain and in Gaul and in Northern
+Italy, and in the valley of the Rhine--nay, to some extent in Spain (in
+her Pyrenean valleys at least)--there flourishes a vast burgeoning of
+cheese, infinite in variety, one in goodness. But as Europe fades away
+under the African wound which Spain suffered or the Eastern barbarism of
+the Elbe, what happens to cheese? It becomes very flat and similar. You
+can quote six cheeses perhaps which the public power of Christendom has
+founded outside the limits of its ancient Empire--but not more than six.
+I will quote you 253 between the Ebro and the Grampians, between
+Brindisi and the Irish Channel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I do not write vainly. It is a profound thing.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="captain">The Captain of Industry</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+The heir of the merchant Mahmoud had not disappointed that great
+financier while he still lived, and when he died he had the satisfaction
+of seeing the young man, now twenty-five years of age, successfully
+conducting his numerous affairs, and increasing (fabulous as this may
+seem) the millions with which his uncle entrusted him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly after Mahmoud's death the prosperity of the firm had already
+given rise to a new proverb, and men said: "Do you think I am
+Mahmoud's-Nephew?" when they were asked to lend money or in some other
+way to jeopardize a few coppers in the service of God or their
+neighbour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was also a current expression, "He's rich as Mahmoud's-Nephew," when
+comrades would jest against some young fellow who was flusher than
+usual, and could afford a quart or even a gallon of wine for the
+company; while again the discontented and the oppressed would mutter
+between their teeth: "Heaven will take vengeance at last upon these
+Mahmoud's-Nephews!" In a word, "Mahmoud's-Nephew" came to mean
+throughout the whole Caliphate and wherever the True Believers spread
+their empire, an exceedingly wealthy man. But Mahmoud himself having
+been dead ten years and his heir the fortunate head of the establishment
+being now well over thirty years of age, there happened a very
+inexplicable and outrageous accident: he died--and after his death no
+instructions were discovered as to what should be done with this
+enormous capital, no will could be found, and it happened moreover to be
+a moment of great financial delicacy when the manager of each department
+in the business needed all the credit he could get.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In such a quandary the Chief Organizer and confidential friend, Ahmed,
+upon whom the business already largely depended, and who was so
+circumstanced that he could draw almost at will upon the balances,
+imagined a most intelligent way of escaping from the difficulties that
+would arise when the death of the principal was known.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He caused a quantity of hay, of straw, of dust and of other worthless
+materials to be stuffed into a figure of canvas; this he wrapped round
+with the usual clothes that Mahmoud's-Nephew had worn in the office, he
+shrouded the face with the hood which his chief had commonly worn during
+life, and having so dressed the lay figure and secretly buried the real
+body, he admitted upon the morning after the death those who first had
+business with his master.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He met them at the door with smiles and bows, saying: "You know,
+gentlemen, that like most really successful men, my chief is as silent
+as his decisions are rapid; he will listen to what you have to say, and
+it will be a plain yes or no at the end of it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These gentlemen came with a proposal to sell to the firm for the sum of
+one million dinars a barren rock in the Indian Sea, which was not even
+theirs, and on which indeed not one of them had ever set eyes. Their
+claim to advance so original a proposal was that to their certain
+knowledge two thousand of the wealthiest citizens of their town were
+willing to buy the rock again at a profit from whoever should be its
+possessor during the next few weeks in the fond hope of selling it once
+again to provincials, clerics, widows, orphans, and in general the
+uninstructed and the credulous--among whom had been industriously spread
+the report that the rock in question consisted of one solid and flawless
+diamond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These gentlemen sitting round the table before the shrouded figure laid
+down their proposals, whereupon the manager briefly summed up what they
+had said, and having done so, replied: "Gentlemen, his lordship is a man
+of few words; but you will have your answer in a moment if you will be
+good enough to rise, as he is at this moment expecting a deputation from
+the Holy Men who are entreating him to provide the cost of a mosque in
+one of the suburbs."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The proposers of the bargain rose, greatly awed and pleased by the
+silence and dignity of the financier who apparently remained for a
+moment discussing their proposals without gesture and in a tone too low
+for them to hear, while his manager bent over to listen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is ever so," said one of them, "you may ever know the greatest men
+by their silence."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You are right," said another, "he is not one to be easily deceived."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The manager in a moment or two rejoined them at the door. "Gentlemen,"
+he said, smiling, "my chief has heard your arguments and has expressed
+his assent to your conditions."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went out, delighted at the success of their mission, and
+congratulated Ahmed upon the financier's genius.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He does not," said the manager, laughing in hearty agreement, "bestow
+himself as a present upon all and sundry. Nor is he often caught
+indulging in short bouts of sleep, nor are flies diabolically left to
+repose undisturbed upon his features--but you must excuse me, I hear the
+Holy Men," and indeed from the inner room came a noise of speechifying
+in that doleful sing-song which is associated in Bagdad with the
+practice of religion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The gentlemen who had thus had the luck to interview Mahmoud's-Nephew
+with such success in the matter of the Diamond Island, soon spread about
+the news, and confirmed their fellow-citizens in the certitude that a
+great financier is neither talkative nor vivacious. "Still waters run
+deep," they said, and all those to whom they said it nodded in a wise
+acquiescence. Nor had the Manager the least difficulty in receiving one
+set of customers after another and in negotiating within three weeks an
+infinite amount of business, all of which confirmed those who had the
+pleasure of an audience with the stuffed dummy that great fortunes were
+made and retained by reticence and a contempt for convivial weakness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last the ingenious man of affairs, to whom the whole combination was
+due, was not a little disturbed to receive from the Caliph a note
+couched in the following terms:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The Commander of the Faithful and the Servant of the Merciful whose
+name be exalted, to the Nephew of Mahmoud:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"My Lord:--
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It has been the custom since the days of my grandfather (May his soul
+see God!) for the more wealthy of the Faithful to be called to my
+councils, and upon my summoning them thither it has not been unusual for
+them to present sums varying in magnitude but always proportionate to
+their total fortunes. My court will receive signal honour if you will
+present yourself after the morning prayer of the day after to-morrow. My
+treasurer will receive from you with gratitude and remembrance upon the
+previous day and not later than noon, the sum of one million dinars."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here, indeed, was a perplexity. The payment of the money was an easy
+matter and was duly accomplished; but how should the lay figure which
+did duty in such domestic scenes as the negotiation of loans, the
+bullying of debtors, the purchase of options, and the cheating of the
+innocent and the embarrassed, take his place in the Caliph's council and
+remain undiscovered? For great as was the reputation of Mahmoud's-Nephew
+for discretion and for golden silence, such as are proper to the
+accumulation of great wealth, there would seem a necessity in any
+political assembly to open the mouth from time to time, if only for the
+giving of a vote.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Ahmed, who had by this time accumulated into his own hands the
+millions formerly his master's, finally solved the problem. Judicious
+presents to the servants of the palace and the public criers made his
+way the easier, and on the summoning of the council Mahmoud's-Nephew,
+whose troublesome affection of the throat was now publicly discussed,
+was permitted to bring into the council-room his private secretary and
+manager.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moreover at the council, as at his private office, the continued
+taciturnity of the millionaire could not but impress the politicians as
+it had already impressed the financial world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He does not waste his breath in tub-thumping," said one, looking
+reverently at the sealed figure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," another would reply, "they may ridicule our old-fashioned, honest,
+quiet Mohammedan country gentlemen, but for common sense I will back
+them against all the brilliant paradoxical young fellows of our day."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"They say he is very kind at heart and lovable," a third would then add,
+upon which a fourth would bear his testimony thus:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes, and though he says nothing about it, his charitable gifts are
+enormous."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the second meeting of the council the lay figure had achieved a
+reputation of so high a sort that the Caliph himself insisted upon
+making him a domestic adviser, one of the three who perpetually
+associated with the Commander of the <i>Faithful</i> and directed his
+policy. For the universal esteem in which the new councillor was held
+had affected that Prince very deeply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here there arose a crux from which there could be no escape, as one of
+the three chief councillors, Mahmoud's-Nephew, must speak at last and
+deliver judgments!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Manager, first considering the whole business, and next adding up
+his private gains, which he had carefully laid out in estates of which
+the firm and its employs knew nothing, decided that he could afford to
+retire. What might happen to the general business after his withdrawal
+would not be his concern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He first gave out, therefore, that the millionaire was taken exceedingly
+ill, and that his life was despaired of: later, within a few hours, that
+he was dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So far from attempting to allay the panic which ensued, Ahmed frankly
+admitted the worst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With cries of despair and a confident appeal to the justice of Heaven
+against such intrigues, the honest fellow permitted the whole of the
+vast business to be wound up in favour of newcomers, who had not
+forgotten to reward him, and soothing as best he could the ruined crowds
+of small investors who thronged round him for help and advice, he
+retired under an assumed name to his highly profitable estates, which
+were situated in the most distant provinces of the known world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Mahmoud's-Nephew, three theories arose about him which are still
+disputed to this day:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first was that his magnificent brain with its equitable judgment and
+its power of strict secrecy, had designed plans too far advanced for his
+time, and that his bankruptcy was due to excess of wisdom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second theory would have it that by "going into politics" (as the
+phrase runs in Bagdad) he had dissipated his energies, neglected his
+business, and that the inevitable consequences had followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The third theory was far more reasonable. Mahmoud's-Nephew, according to
+this, had towards the end of his life lost judgment; his garrulous
+indecision within the last few days before his death was notorious: in
+the Caliph's council, as those who should best know were sure, one could
+hardly get a word in edgewise for his bombastic self-assurance; while in
+matters of business, to conduct a bargain with him was more like
+attending a public meeting than the prosecution of negotiations with a
+respectable banker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a word, it was generally agreed that Mahmoud's-Nephew's success had
+been bound up with his splendid silence, his fall, bankruptcy, and
+death, with a lesion of the brain which had disturbed this miracle of
+self-control.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="inventor">The Inventor</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+I had a day free between two lectures in the south-west of England, and
+I spent it stopping at a town in which there was a large and very
+comfortable old posting-house or coaching-inn. I had meant to stay some
+few hours there and to take the last train out in the evening, and I had
+meant to spend those hours alone and resting; but this was not permitted
+me, for just as I had taken up the local paper, which was a humble,
+reasonable thing, empty of any passion and violence and very reposeful
+to read, a man came up and touched my left elbow sharply: a gesture not
+at all to my taste nor, I think, to that of anyone who is trying to read
+his paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked up and saw a man who must have been quite sixty years of age.
+He had on a soft, felt slouch hat, a very old and greenish black coat;
+he stooped and shuffled; he was clean-shaven, with long grey hair, and
+his eyes were astonishingly bright and piercing and set close together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He said, "I beg your pardon."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I said, "Eh, what?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He said again "I beg your pardon" in the tones of a man who almost
+commands, and having said this he put his hat on the table, dragged a
+chair quite close to mine, and pulled a folded bunch of foolscap sheets
+out of his pocket. His manner was that of a man who engages your
+attention and has a right to engage it. There were no preliminaries and
+there was no introduction. This was apparently his manner, and I
+submitted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I have here," he said, fixing me with his intense eyes, "the plans for
+a speedometer."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh!" said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You know what a speedometer is?" he asked suspiciously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I said yes. I said it was a machine for measuring the speed of vehicles,
+and that it was compounded of two (or more) Greek words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded; he was pleased that I knew so much, and could therefore
+listen to his tale and understand it. He pulled his grey baggy trousers
+up over the knee, settled himself, sitting forward, and opened his
+document. He cleared his throat, still fixing me with those eyes of his,
+and said--
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Every speedometer up to now has depended upon the same principle as a
+Watt's governor; that is, there are two little balls attached to each by
+a limb to a central shaft: they rise and fall according to their speed
+of rotation, and this movement is indicated upon a dial."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He cleared his throat again. "Of course, that is unsatisfactory."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Damnably!" said I, but this reply did not check him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It works tolerably well at high speeds; at low speeds it is useless;
+and then again there is a very rapid fluctuation, and the instrument is
+of only approximate precision."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Not it!" said I to encourage him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"There is one exception," he continued, "to this principle, and that is
+a speedometer which depends upon the introduction of resistance into a
+current generated by a small magneto. The faster the magneto turns the
+stronger the current generated, and the change is indicated upon a
+dial."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," said I sadly, "as in the former case so in this; the change of
+speed is indicated upon a dial." And I sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But this method also," he went on tenaciously, "has its defects."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You may lay to that," I interrupted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It has the defect that at high speeds its readings are not quite
+correct, and at very low speeds still less so. Moreover, it is said that
+it slightly deteriorates with the passage of time."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Now that," I broke in emphatically, "is a defect I have discovered
+in----"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he put up his hand to stop me. "It slightly deteriorates, I say,
+with the passage of time." He paused a moment impressively. "No one has
+hitherto discovered any system which will accurately record the speed of
+a vehicle or of any rotary movement and register it at the lowest as at
+the highest speeds." He paused again for a still longer period in order
+to give still greater emphasis to what he had to say. He concluded in a
+new note of sober triumph: "I have solved the problem!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought this was the end of him, and I got up and beamed a
+congratulation at him and asked if he would drink anything, but he only
+said, "Please sit down again and I will explain."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is no way of combating this sort of thing, and so I sat down, and
+he went on:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is perfectly simple...." He passed his hand over his forehead. "It
+is so simple that one would say it must have been thought of before; but
+that is what is always said of a great invention.... Now I have here"
+(and he opened out his foolscap) "the full details. But I will not read
+them to you; I will summarize them briefly."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Have you a plan or anything I could watch?" said I a little anxiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," he answered sharply, "I have not, but if you like I will draw a
+rough sketch as I go along upon the margin of your newspaper."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Thank you," I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He drew the newspaper towards him and put it on his knee. He pulled out
+a pencil; he held the foolscap up before his eye, and he began to
+describe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The general principle upon which my speedometer reposes," he said
+solemnly, "is the coordination of the cylinder and the cone upon an
+angle which will have to be determined in practice, and will probably
+vary for different types. But it will never fall below 15 nor rise over
+43."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I should have thought----" I began, but he told me I could not yet have
+grasped it, and that he wished to be more explicit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"On a king bolt," he said, occasionally consulting his notes, "runs a
+pivot in bevel which is kept in place by a small hair-spring, which
+spring fits loosely on the Conkling Shaft."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Exactly," said I, "I see what is coming."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he wouldn't let me off so easily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes, of course you are going to say that the whole will be keyed
+together, and that the T-pattern nuts on a movable shank will be my
+method of attachment to the fixed portion next to the cam? Eh? So it is,
+but" (and here his eye brightened), "<i>anyone</i> could have arranged
+that. My particularity is that I have a freedom of movement even at the
+lowest speeds, and an accuracy of notation even at the highest, which is
+secured in a wholly novel manner ... and yet so simply. What do you
+think it is?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I affected to look puzzled, and thought for a moment. "I cannot
+imagine," said I, "unless----"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," he interrupted, "do not try to guess it, for you never will. <i>I
+turn the flange inward</i> on a Wilkinson lathe and give it a parabolic
+section so that the axes are always parallel to each other and to the
+shaft.... There!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had no idea the man could be so moved: there was jubilation in his
+voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"There!" he said again, as though some effort of the brain had exhausted
+him. "It can't be touched, mind you," he added suspiciously; "I've taken
+out the provisional patents. There's one man I know wants to fight it in
+the courts as an infringement on Wilkinson's own patent, but it can't be
+touched!" He shook his head decisively. "No! my lawyer's certain of
+that--and so'm I!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here there was a break in his communications, so to speak, and he had
+apparently run out. It was not for me to wind him up again. I watched
+him with a sombre relief as he stood up again to full height, leaned his
+head back, and sighed profoundly with satisfaction and with completion.
+He folded up his specification and put it in his pocket again. He tore
+off the incomprehensible sketch he had made with his pencil while he was
+speaking, and put it by me on the mantelshelf. "You might like to keep
+it," he said pathetically; "it's a document, that is; it will be famous
+some day." He looked at it lovingly, almost as though he was going to
+take it back again: but he thought better of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was waiting, I will not say itching, for him to take his leave, when a
+god or demon, that same perhaps which had treated the poor fellow as a
+jest for a whole lifetime, inspired him to take a very false step
+indeed. He had already taken up his hat and was turning as though to go
+to the door, when the unfortunate thought struck him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What would you do?" he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How do you mean?" I answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why, what would you do to try and get it taken up and talked about?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then it was my turn, and I let him have it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You must get the Press and the Government to work together," I said
+rapidly, "and particularly in connection with the new Government Service
+of Camion's Fettle-Trains and Cursory Circuits."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded like one who thoroughly understands and desires to hear more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Speed," I added nonchalantly, "and the measure of it are of course
+essentials in their case."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And they have never really settled the problem ... especially about
+Fettle-Trains."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," said he ponderously, "so I understand."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+
+"Well now," I went on, full of the chase, "you will naturally ask me who
+are you to go to?" I scratched my nose. "You know the Fusionary Office,
+as we call it? It is really, of course, a part of the Stannaries. But
+the Chief Permanent Secretary likes to have it called the Fusionary
+Office; it's his vanity."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," said he eagerly, "yes, go on!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"They always have the same hours," I said, "four to eleven."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Four to <i>what</i>?" he asked, looking up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"To eleven," I repeated sharply; "but you'd much better call round about
+three."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked bewildered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Don't interrupt," I said, seeing him open his lips, "or I shall lose
+the thread. It's rather complicated. You call at three by the little
+door in Whitehall on the Embankment side towards the Horse Guards
+looking south, and <i>don't</i> ring the bell."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why not?" he asked. I thought for the moment he might begin to cry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh, well," I said testily, "you mustn't ask those questions. All these
+institutions are very old institutions with habits and prejudices of
+their own. You mustn't ring the bell, that's all; they don't like it;
+you must just wait until they open; and then, if you take <i>my</i>
+advice, don't write a note or ask to interview the First Analyist. Don't
+do any of the usual things, but just fill up one of the regular Treasury
+forms and state that you have come with regard to the Perception and
+Mensuration advertisements."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His face was pained and wrinkled as he heard me, but he said, "I beg
+your pardon ... but shall I have it all explained to me at the office?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Certainly not!" I said, aghast; "it's just because you might have so
+much difficulty there that I'm explaining everything to you."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes, I know," he said doubtfully; "thank you."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I hope you'll try and follow what I say," I continued a little wearily;
+"I have special opportunities for knowing.... Political, you know."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Certainly," he said, "certainly; but about those forms?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Well," I said, "you didn't suppose they supplied them, did you?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I almost did," he ventured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh, you did," said I, with a loud laugh, "well, you're wrong there.
+However, I dare say I've got one on me." He looked up eagerly as I felt
+in my pockets. I brought out a telegraph blank, two letters, and a
+tobacco pouch. I looked at them for a moment. "No," said I, "I haven't
+got one; it's a pity, but I'll tell you who will give you one; you know
+the place opposite, where the bills are drafted?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I'm afraid I don't," he said, admitting ignorance for the first time in
+this conversation and perhaps in his life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Well," said I impatiently, "never mind, anyone will show you. Go there,
+and if they don't give you a form they'll show you a copy of Paper B,
+which is much the same thing."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Thank you," said he humbly, and he got up to move out. He was going a
+little groggily, his eyes were dull and sodden. He presented all the
+aspect of a man under a heavy strain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You've got it all clear, I hope?" I asked cheerfully as he neared the
+door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh, yes!" he said. "Thank you; yes!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Anything else?" I shouted as he passed out into the courtyard.
+"Anything else I can do? You'll always find me in the room over the
+office, Room H, down the little iron staircase," I nodded genially to
+him as he disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this way did we exchange, the Inventor and I, those expert
+confidences and mutual aids in either's technical skill which are too
+rarely discovered in modern travel.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="views">The Views of England</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+England is a country with edges and with a core. It is a country very
+small for the number of people who live in it, and very appreciable to
+the eye for the traveller who travels on foot or in a boat from place to
+place. Considering the part it has in the making of the world, it might
+justly be compared to a jewel which is very small and very valuable and
+can almost be held in the hand. The physical appreciation of England is
+to be reached by an appreciation of landscape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It so happens that England is traversed by remarkable and sudden ranges;
+hills with a sharp escarpment overlooking great undulating plains. This
+is not true of any other one country of Europe, but it is true of
+England, and a man who professes to consider, to understand, to
+criticize, to defend, and to love this country, must know the Pennines,
+the Cotswolds, the North and the South Downs, the Chilterns, the
+Mendips, and the Malverns; he must know Delamere Forest, and he must
+know the Hill of Beeston, from which all Cheshire may be perceived. If
+he knows these heights and has long considered the prospects which they
+afford, he can claim to have seen the face of England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is deplorable that our modern method of travel does cut us off from
+such experiences. They were not only common to, they were necessary to
+our fathers; the roads would not be at the expense of tunnelling through
+hills, and (what is more important) when those men who most mould the
+knowledge of the country by the country (the people who deal with its
+soil, who live separate upon its separate farms) visited each other upon
+horses; and horses, unlike railway trains, cannot climb hills. They
+puff, they heave, they snort, as do railway trains, but they climb them
+well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On this account, because the roads for the carriages went over hills,
+and because the method of visiting even a near neighbour would permit
+you to go over hills, the England of quite a little time ago was
+familiar with the half-dozen great landscapes of England. You may see it
+in that most individual, that most peculiar, and, I think, that most
+glorious school of painters, the English landscape painter, Constable
+with his thick colours, Turner with his wonderment, and even the
+portrait painters in their backgrounds depend upon the view of the
+plains from a height. To-day our landscape painters sometimes do the
+same, but the market for that emotion is capricious, it is no longer the
+secure and natural way of presenting England to English eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If you will consider these plains at the foot of the English hills you
+will find in them the whole history of the country, and the whole
+meaning of it as well. Two occur to me first: The view of the Weald
+(both Kentish and Sussex) through which the influence of Europe
+perpetually approached the island, not only in the crisis of the Roman
+or the Norman invasions, but in a hundred episodes stretched out through
+two thousand years--and the view of the Thames Valley as one gets it on
+a clear day from the summits of the North Downs when one looks northward
+and sees very faintly the Chilterns along the horizon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This last is obscured by London. One needs a very particular
+circumstance in which to appreciate it. The air must be dry and clear,
+there must be little or no wind, or if there is a wind it must be a
+strong one from the south and west that has already driven the smoke
+from the western edge of the town. When this is so, a man looks right
+across to the sandy heights just north of the Thames, and far beyond he
+sees the Chilterns, like a landfall upon the rim of the world. He looks
+at all that soil on which the government of this country has been
+rooted. He sees the hill of Windsor. He overlooks, though he cannot
+perceive at so great a distance, the two great schools of the rich; he
+has within one view the principal Castle of the Kings, the place of
+their council, and the cathedral of their capital city: so true is it
+that the Thames made England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, if you consider the upper half of that valley, the view is from
+the ridge of the Berkshire hills, or, better still, from Cumnor, or from
+the clump of trees above Faringdon. From such look-outs the astonishing
+loneliness which England has had the strength to preserve in this
+historic belt of land profoundly strikes a man. You can see to your left
+and, a long way off, the hill where, as is most probable, Alfred thrust
+back the Pagans, and so saved one-half of Christendom. Oxford is within
+your landscape. The roll upwards in a glacis of the Cotswold, the nodal
+point of the Roman roads at Cirencester, and the ancient crossings of
+the Thames.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the Cotswold again westward you look over a sheer wall and see one
+of those differences which make up England. For the passage from the
+Upper Thames to the flat and luxuriant valley floor of the Severn is a
+transition (if it be made by crossing the hills) more sudden than that
+between many countries abroad. Had our feudalism cut England into
+provinces we should here have two marked provincial histories marching
+together, for the natural contrast is greater than between Normandy and
+Brittany at any part of their march or between Aragon and Castile at any
+part of theirs. I do not know what it is, but the view of the jagged
+Malvern seen above the happy mists of autumn, when these mists lie like
+a warm fleece upon the orchards of the vale, preserving them of a
+morning until the strengthening of the sun, the sudden aspect, I say, of
+those jagged peaks strikes one like a vision of a new world. How many
+men have thought it! How often it ought to be written down! It hangs in
+the memory of the traveller like a permanent benediction, and remains in
+his mind a standing symbol of peace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have no space to speak of how from Beeston you see all Cheshire; the
+Vale Royal to your left, and the main plain of the county to your right.
+The whole stretch is framed in with definite hills, the last and highly
+marked line of the Pennines bounds the view upon the east; upon the west
+the first of the Welsh hills stands sharply in a long even line against
+the fading sun; and on the north you see the height of Delamere. There
+are three other views in the North of England, the first easy, the last
+two difficult to obtain, all between them making up a true picture of
+what the North of England is. The first (and it is very famous) is the
+view over the industrial ferment of South Lancashire, seen from the
+complete silence of the hills round the Peak. No matter where you cross
+that summit, even if you take the high road from the Snake Inn to
+Glossop, where the easiest, and therefore the least striking, passage
+has been chosen, much more if you follow the wild heights a little to
+the south until you come to a more abrupt descent on which there are not
+even paths, there comes a point where there is presented to you in one
+great offering, without introduction, a vision of the vast energies of
+England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I remember once in winter when the sun sets early (it was December, and
+seven years ago) coming upon this sight. The clouds were so arranged
+after an Atlantic storm that all the heaven (which here is always
+spacious and noble) was covered with a rolling curtain as though a man
+had pulled it with his hands. But far off, westward, there was a broad
+red band of sunset, and against this the smoke, the tall stacks, the
+violence and the wealth of that cauldron. One could almost hear the
+noise. It did arrest one; it was as though someone had painted something
+unreal, to be a mystical emblem, and to sum up in one picture all those
+million despairs, misfortunes, chances, disciplines, and acquirements
+which make up the character of Lancashire men. This vision also many men
+have seen and many men shall write of. Very rarely upon the surface of
+the earth does the soul take on so immediate and obvious a physical body
+as does the soul of that industrial world in the view of which I speak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the two other views are, first, that difficult one which one must
+pick and choose but which can be obtained from several sites (especially
+at the end of Wensleydale), and which is the view of that rich, old, and
+agricultural Yorkshire, from which the county draws its traditions and
+in which, perhaps, the truest spirit of the county still abides; for
+Yorkshire is at heart farmer, and possibly after three generations of a
+town, a man from this part of England still looks more lively when he
+sees a lively horse put before him for judgment. Second, the view from
+Cross Fell, very, very difficult to obtain, for often when one climbs
+Cross Fell in sunny weather, one gets up over the Scar under the threat
+of cloud, and one only reaches the summit by the time the evening or the
+mist has fallen; but if one has the luck to see the view of which I
+speak, then one sees all that rugged remaining part of the Northwest
+exactly as the Romans saw it, and as it has been for two thousand years,
+with the high land of the lakes and the stony nature and the sparseness
+of all the stretch about one, and the approach to a foreign land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have often thought when I have heard men blaming the story of England
+or her present mood for false reasons, or, what is worse, praising her
+for false reasons; when I have heard the men of the cities talking wild
+talk got from maps and from print, or the disappointed men talking wild
+talk of another kind, expecting impossible or foreign perfections from
+their own kindred--I have often thought, I say, when I have heard the
+folly upon either side (and the mass of it daily increases)--that it
+would be a wholesome thing if one could take such a talker and make him
+walk from Dover to the Solway, exercising some care that he should rise
+before the sun, and that he should see in clear weather the views of
+which I speak. A man who has done that has seen England--not the name or
+the map or the rhetorical catchword, but the thing. And it does not take
+so very long.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="lunatic">The Lunatic</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+Those who are interested in what simple straightforward people call the
+Pathology of Consciousness have gathered a great body of evidence upon
+the various manias that affect men, and there is an especially
+interesting department of this which concerns illusion upon matters
+which in the sane are determinable by the senses and common experience.
+Thus one man will believe himself to be the Emperor of China, another to
+be William Shakespeare or some other impossible person, though one would
+imagine that his every accident of daily life would convince him to the
+contrary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had recently occasion to watch one of the most harmless and yet one of
+the most striking of these illusions in a private asylum which has
+specialized, if I may so express myself, upon men of letters. The case
+was harmless and even benign, for the poor fellow was not of a combative
+disposition to begin with, was of too careful and dignified a
+temperament to show more than slight irritation if his delusion were
+contradicted. This misfortune, however, very rarely overtook him, for
+those who came to visit him were warned to humour his whim. This
+eccentricity I will now describe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He imagined, nay he was convinced, that he was existing fifty years in
+the future, and that the interest of his conversation for others would
+lie in his reminiscence of the state of society in which we are actually
+living today. If anyone who had not been warned was imprudent enough to
+suggest that the conversation was taking place in 1909 would smile
+gently, nod, and say rather bitterly, "Yes, I know, I know," as though
+recognizing a universal plot against him which he was too weary to
+combat. But when he had said this he would continue to talk on as though
+both parties to the conversation were equally convinced that the year
+was really 1960 or thereabouts. Whether to add zest to what he said or
+from some part of his malady consonant with all the rest, my poor friend
+(who had been a journalist and will very possibly be a journalist again)
+presupposed that the whole structure of society as we now know it had
+changed and that his reminiscences were those of a past time which, on
+account of some great revolution or other, men imperfectly comprehended,
+so that it must be of the highest interest and advantage to listen to
+the testimony of an eye-witness upon them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What especially delighted him (for he was a zealous admirer of the
+society he described) was the method of government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"There was no possibility of going wrong," he said to me with curious
+zeal, "not a shadow of danger! It would be difficult for you to
+understand now how easily the system worked!" And here he sighed
+profoundly. "And why on earth," he continued, "men should have destroyed
+such an instrument when they had it is more than I can understand. There
+it was in every country in Europe; there were elections; all the men
+voted. And mind you, the elections were not so very far apart. Most
+people living at one election could remember the last, so there was no
+time for abuses to spring up.... Well, everybody voted. If a man wanted
+one thing he voted one way, and if he wanted another thing he voted the
+other way. The people for whom he voted would then meet, and with a
+sense of duty which I cannot exaggerate they would work month after
+month exactly to reproduce the will of those who had appointed them. It
+was a great time!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yet," said I, "even so there must have been occasional divergences
+between what these people did and what the nation wanted."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I see what you mean," he said, musing, "you mean that all the devotion
+in the world, the purest of motives and the most devoted sense of duty,
+could not keep the elected always in contact with the electors. You are
+right. But you must remember that in every country there was a
+machinery, with regard to the most important measures at least, which
+could throw the matter before the electors to be re-decided. I can
+remember no important occasion upon which the machinery was not brought
+into use."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But, after all, the value of the decisions of the electorate you are
+describing," said I, continuing to humour him, "would depend upon the
+information which the electorate had received as well as upon their
+judgment."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"As for their judgment," he said, a little shortly, "it is not for our
+time to criticize theirs. Human judgment is not infallible, but I can
+well remember how in every nation of Europe it was the fixed conviction
+of the citizens that judgment was their chief characteristic, and
+especially judgment in national affairs. I cannot believe that so
+universal an attitude of the mind could have arisen had it not been
+justified. But as for information, they had the Press ... a free Press!"
+Here he fell into a reverie, so powerfully did his supposed memories
+affect him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was willing to lead him on, because this kind of illness is best met
+by sympathy, and also because I was not uninterested to discover how his
+own trade had affected him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You would hardly understand it," he said sadly; "what you hear from me
+is nothing but words.... I wish I could have shown you one of those
+great houses with information pouring in as rapid, as light, and as
+clear, from every hidden corner of the world, digested by master brains
+into the most lucid and terse presentment of it possible, and then
+whirled out on great wheels to be distributed by the thousand and the
+hundred thousand, to the hungry intelligence of Europe. There was
+nothing escaped it--nothing. In every capital were crowds of men
+dispatched from the other capitals of our civilization, moving with ease
+in the wealthiest houses, and exquisitely in touch with the most
+delicate phases of national life everywhere. And these men were such
+experts in selection that a picture of Europe as a whole was presented
+every morning to each particular part of Europe; and nowhere was this
+more successfully accomplished than in my own beloved town of London."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It must have been useful," I said, "not only for the political purposes
+you describe, but also for investors. Indeed, I should imagine that the
+two things ran together."
+
+"You are right," he said with interest, "the wide knowledge which even
+the poorest of the people possessed upon foreign affairs, through the
+action of the Press, was, further, of the utmost and most beneficent
+effect in teaching even the smallest proprietor what he need do with his
+capital. A discovery of metallic ore--especially of gold--a new
+invention, anything which might require development, was at once
+presented in its most exact aspect to the reader."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It was probably upon that account," said I, "that property was so
+equally distributed, and that so general a prosperity reigned as you
+have often described to me."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You are right," said he; "it was mainly this accurate and universal
+daily information which produced such excellent results."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But it occurs to me," said I, by way of stimulating his conversation
+with an objection, "that if so passionate and tenacious a habit of
+telling the exact truth upon innumerable things was present in this old
+institution of which you speak, it cannot but have bred a certain amount
+of dissension, and it must sometimes even have done definite harm to
+individuals whose private actions were thus exposed."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You are right," said he; "the danger of such misfortunes was always
+present, and with the greatest desire in the world to support only what
+was worthy the writers of the journals of which I speak would
+occasionally blunder against private interests; but there was a remedy."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What was that?" I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why, the law provided that in this matter twelve men called a jury,
+instructed by a judge, after the matter had been fully explained to them
+by two other men whose business it was to examine the truth boldly for
+the sake of justice--I say the law provided that the twelve men after
+this process should decide whether the person injured should receive
+money from the newspaper or no, and if so, in what amount. And, lest
+there should still be any manner of doubt, the judge was permitted to
+set aside their verdict if he thought it unjust. To secure his absolute
+impartiality as between rich and poor he was paid somewhat over 100 a
+week, a large salary in those days, and he was further granted the right
+of imprisoning people at will or of taking away their property if he
+believed them to obstruct his judgment. Nor were these the only
+safeguards. For in the case of very rich men, to whom justice might not
+be done on account of the natural envy of their poorer fellow-citizens,
+it was arranged that the jury should consist only of rich men. In this
+way it was absolutely certain that a complete impartiality would reign.
+We shall never see those days again," he concluded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But do you not think," I said before I left him, "that the social
+perfection of the kind you have described must rather have been due to
+some spirit of the time than to particular institutions? For after all
+the zealous love of justice and the sense of duty which you describe are
+not social elements to be produced by laws."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Possibly," he said, wearily, "possibly, but we shall never see it
+again!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And I left him looking into the fire with infinite sadness and
+reflecting upon his lost youth and the year 1909: a pathetic figure, and
+one whose upkeep during the period of his deficiency was a very serious
+drain upon the resources of his family.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="inheritance">The Inheritance of Humour</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+There are some truths which seem to get old almost as soon as they are
+born, and that simply because they are so astonishingly true that people
+soon get to feel as though they have known them all their lives; and
+such a truth is that which first one writer and then another in the last
+five years has been insisting upon, until it is already a perfect
+commonplace that nations do not know their own qualities. The inmost,
+the characteristic thing, that which differentiates one community from
+another, as tastes or colours differentiate things--<i>that</i> a
+nation hardly ever knows until it is pointed out to it by some foreigner
+or by some observer from within. It cannot know it, because one cannot
+tell the very atmosphere in which one lives. It is universal and
+therefore unnoticed. Now, if this is true of any nation, it is
+particularly true of England. And English people need to be told
+morning, noon, and night, not indeed the particular national
+characteristic which they have, since for this no particular name could
+be found, but rather what its evidences are; as, for instance,
+spontaneity in design, a passion for the mystical in poetry and the
+arts; a power in water-colour, in which they are perhaps quite alone,
+and certainly the first in Europe; and, above all, the chief, the master
+thing of all, humour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is not nor ever will be anything like English humour. It is a
+thing quite apart, and by it for now more than two hundred years you may
+know England. It does not puzzle the foreigner (as the more blatant kind
+of intellectual man is too fond of boasting that it does); he simply
+admires it as a rule and wonders at it always; sometimes he actually
+dislikes it, but by it he knows that the thing he is reading is English
+and has the savour and taste of England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is impossible to define it, because it is so full of stuff and so
+organic a quality; but in our own time it was principally the pencil of
+Charles Keene that has summed it up and presented it in a moment and at
+once to the eye--the pencil of Charles Keene and that profound instinct
+whereby he chose the legends for his drawing, whether he found them by
+his own sympathy with the people or whether they were suggested to him
+by friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is the verdict of the men most competent perhaps to judge upon these
+things that he had the greatest graphic power of his time, and that no
+one had had that power to such an extent since Hogarth. Upon these
+things the men of the trade must dispute; the layman cannot doubt that
+he had here a genius and a genius comprehensively national. It is the
+essence of a good draughtsman that what he wants to draw, that he draws.
+The line that he desires to see upon the paper appears there as his
+fingers move. It is a quality extremely rare in its perfection. And
+Charles Keene had it in perfection, as in totally different manner had
+the offensive and diseased talent of Beardsley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But more important than the power to do is the quality of the thing
+done, and the work of Charles Keene, multitudinous, varied, always
+great, is an inheritance for English people comparable to the
+inheritance they have in Dickens. It has also what Dickens had, a power
+of representing, as it were, the essential English. Just that which
+makes people say (with some truth) that Dickens never drew a gentleman
+would make them say with equal truth that what was interesting in the
+gentlemen of Charles Keene (and he perpetually drew them) was not the
+externals upon which gentlemen so pride themselves, but the soul. Thus I
+have in mind one picture wherein Keene drew a gentleman; true, he was a
+gentleman who had just swallowed a bad oyster, and therefore he was a
+man as well. I recall another of an old gentleman complaining of the
+caterpillar on his chop: he is a gentleman of the professional rather
+than the territorial classes, and, great heavens! what a power of line!
+All you see beneath the round of his hat is the end of his nose, the
+curve of his mouth, and two bushy ends of whiskers. Yet one can tell all
+about that man; one could write a book on him. One knows his economics,
+his religion, his accent, and what he thought of the Third Napoleon and
+what of Garibaldi. I have called draughtsmanship of this quality an
+inheritance--I might have called it perhaps with better propriety a
+monument. It is possible that England in the near future will look back
+with great envy, as she will certainly look back with great pride, to
+the generation preceding our own: they were a solid and a happy
+community of men. How much they owed to fortune, how much to themselves,
+it is not the place of such random stuff as mine to consider.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were nearly impregnable in their island; they were not bellicose.
+They made and sold for all the world. Whether the very different future
+which we are now entering is to be laid to their door or to our own,
+that generation will still remain one of the principal things in English
+history, like the Elizabethan generation, or the group of men who
+organized the Seven Years' War, or the group of men who fought in the
+Peninsula. And of that generation the note of health and of stability is
+represented by its humour. I am not sure that of all things educational
+to young men with no personal memory of that time, and especially to
+young men with no family tradition of it to reflect it in their books
+and their furniture; and--this yet more particularly--to young men born
+out of England yet claiming communion with England, the Anglo-Indians
+and the Colonials--I am not sure, I say, that the thing most educational
+to these would not be some hundred of Charles Keene's drawings, for
+therein they would find what it was that gave them the power and the
+wealth that can hardly be defended unless its traditions are continued.
+Note how Victorian England dealt with the humour of a Volunteer review;
+note how it dealt with the humour of excessive wealth; and note how it
+dealt with the humour of schools and of Dons. One might almost define it
+by negations. There is in all of it no--but here I lack a word.... When
+things ring false it is because they have got by exaggeration or by some
+other form of falsity <i>beside</i> themselves. Appreciation of rank or
+even of worth becomes snobbishness; appreciation of another's judgment
+false taste; and patriotism, the most beautiful, the noblest, the most
+necessary of the great emotions, corrupts into something very vile
+indeed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, the Victorians, and notably this man of whose power of the pencil
+I am speaking, did lack that false savour, that savour of just missing
+what one wishes to say or to feel, which haunts us to-day; and I should
+imagine that whether it were cause or effect the salt present in the
+preservation of the moral health of that society was humour. Let us
+enjoy it like an heirloom. It is more national than the language; at
+least it is more national than what the language has become under
+foreign pressure; it is infinitely more national than our problems and
+our tragedies. It is so national that--who knows?--it may crop up again
+of itself one of these days; and may that not be long.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="old">The Old Gentleman's Opinions</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+I had occasion about a fortnight ago to meet a man more nearly ninety
+than eighty years of age, who had had special opportunity for
+discovering the changes of Europe during his long life. He was of the
+English wealthier classes by lineage, but his mother had been of the
+French nobility and a Huguenot. His father had been prominent in the
+diplomacy of a couple of generations ago. He had travelled widely, read
+perhaps less widely, but had known and appreciated an astonishing number
+of his contemporaries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was interested (without any power of my own to judge whether his
+decisions were right or wrong) to discover what most struck him in the
+changes produced by that great stretch of years, all of which he had
+personally observed: he was born just after Waterloo, and he could
+remember the Reform Bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He surprised me by telling me, in the first place, that the material
+changes and discoveries, enormous though they were in extent, were not,
+in his view, the most striking. He was ready to leave it open whether
+these material changes were the causes of moral changes more remarkable,
+or merely effects concomitant with these. When I asked him what had
+struck him most of the great material developments, he told me the
+phonograph and the aeroplane among inventions; Mendel's observations in
+the sphere of experimental knowledge; and, in the sphere of pure theory,
+the breakdown of many things that had been dogmas of physical science in
+his early manhood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Since I did not quite understand what he meant by this last, he gave me,
+after some hesitation, a few examples: That the interior of the earth
+was molten; that a certain limited number of elements--not all yet
+isolated, but certainly few in their total--were at the base of all
+material forms, and were immutable; that the ultimate unit of each of
+these was a certain indivisible, eternal thing called the Atom; and so
+forth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He assured me that views of this sort, extending over a hundred or a
+thousand other points, were so universally accepted in his time that to
+dispute them was to be ranked with the unlettered or the fantastic. I
+asked him if it were so in economics. He said: Yes, in England, where
+there was a similar dogma of Free Trade: not abroad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I asked him why Mendel's published experiments and the theory based
+upon them had so much impressed him, he said because it was almost the
+first attempt to apply to the speculative dogmas of biology some
+standard demonstrably true; and here he wandered off to explain to me
+why the commonly accepted views upon biology, which had so changed
+thought in the latter part of his life, were associated with the name of
+Darwin. Darwin, he assured me, had brought forward no new discovery, but
+only a new hypothesis, and that only a small and particular hypothesis,
+whereby to explain the general theory of transformism. This theory, he
+told me--the unbroken descent of living organisms and their physical
+connection with one another and with common parents--had been a
+favourite idea from the beginning of history with many great thinkers,
+from Lucretius to Buffon and from Augustus of Hippo to Lamarck.
+Darwin's, the old gentleman assured me, which he had defended with
+infinite toil, was that the method in which this continuity of descent
+proceeded was by an infinitely slow process of very small changes
+differentiating each minute step from the one before and the one after
+it, and these small changes Darwin's hypothesis referred to a natural
+selection. Nothing else in Darwin's work, he assured me, was novel, and
+yet it was the one thing which subsequent research had rendered more and
+more doubtful. Darwin (he said) said nothing new that was also true.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this point I was moved to contradict the old gentleman, and to say
+that one unquestioned contribution to science of Darwin, as novel as it
+was secure, was his patient discovery of the work of earthworms, and of
+its vast effect. The old gentleman was willing to admit that I was
+right, but he said he was only speaking of Darwin in connection with
+transformism and the whimsical way in which his private name (and his
+errors) had become identified with evolution in general.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I asked him, since he had such a knowledge of men from observation, why
+this was so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It seems at first sight," he said, "as ridiculous as though we should
+associate the theory of light with the name of Newton, who inclined to
+the exploded corpuscular hypothesis, or the general conception of
+orbital motion in the universe to the great Bacon, who, in point of
+fact, rudely repudiated the Copernican theory in particular."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Did he, indeed?" said I, interested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I believe so," said the old gentleman; "at any rate you were asking me
+why Darwin, with his single contribution to the theory of transformism,
+and that a doubtful one--or, to be accurate, an exploded one--should be
+associated in the popular mind with the invention of so ancient a theory
+as that of evolution. The reason is, I think, no more than that he came
+at a particular moment when any man doing great quantities of detailed
+work in this field was bound to stand out exaggeratedly. The society in
+which he appeared had, until just before his day, accepted a narrow
+cosmogony, quite unknown to its ancestors. Darwin's book certainly
+exploded that, and the mind of his time--ignorant as it was of the
+past--was ready to accept the shattering of its father's idols as a new
+revelation."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But you were saying," said I, when he had thus dealt harshly with a
+great name, "that not the material but the moral changes of your time
+seemed to you the greatest. Which did you mean?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why, in the first place," said the old man thoughtfully and with some
+hesitation, "the curiously rapid decline of intelligence, or if you will
+have it differently, the clouding of thought that has marked the last
+thirty years. Men in my youth knew what they held and what they did not
+hold. They knew why they held it or why they did not hold it; but the
+attempt to enjoy the advantages of two contradictory systems at the same
+time, and, what is worse, the consulting of a man as an authority upon
+subjects he had never professed to know, are intellectual phenomena
+quite peculiar to the later years of my life."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I said we of the younger generation had all noticed it, as, for
+instance, when an honest but imperfectly intelligent chemist was
+listened to in his exposition of the nature of the soul, or a well-paid
+religious official was content to expound the consolations of
+Christianity while denying that Christianity was true.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But," I continued, "we are usually told that this unfortunate decline
+in the express powers of the brain is due to the wide and imperfect
+education of the populace at the present moment."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That is not the case," answered the old man sharply, when I had made
+myself clear by repeating my remarks in a louder tone, for he was a
+little deaf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That is not the case. The follies of which I speak are not particularly
+to be discovered among the poorer classes who have passed through the
+elementary schools. <i>These</i>" (it was to the schools that he was
+alluding with a comprehensive pessimism) "may account for the gross
+decline apparent in the public manners of our people, but not for faults
+which are peculiar to the upper and middle classes. It is not in the
+populace, but in those wealthier ranks that you will find the sort of
+intellectual decay of which I spoke."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I asked him whether he thought the tricks it was now considered cultured
+to play with mathematics came within the category of this intellectual
+decay. The old gentleman answered me a little abruptly that he could not
+judge what I was talking about.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why," said I, "do you believe that parallel straight lines
+<i>converge</i> or <i>diverge</i>?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Neither," said he, a little bewildered. "If they are parallel they
+cannot by definition either diverge or converge."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You are, then," said I, "an old-fashioned adherent of the theory of the
+parabolic universe?" At which sensible reply of mine the old man
+muttered rather ill-temperedly, and begged me to speak of something
+else.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I asked him whether the knowledge of languages had not declined in his
+time. He said, somewhat emphatically, yes, and especially the knowledge
+of French, assuring me that in his early years many a Fellow of a
+College at Oxford or at Cambridge was capable of speaking that tongue in
+such a fashion as to make himself understood. On the other hand, he
+admitted that German and Spanish were more widely known than they had
+been, and Arabic certainly far more widely diffused among those
+officials of the Empire who took their work seriously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I asked him whether politics were more corrupt as time proceeded,
+he said No, but more cynical; and as to morals he would not judge, for
+he was certain that as one vice was corrected another appeared in its
+place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What he told me he most deplored in the social system of his country was
+the power of the police and of the statistician by whom the policeman
+was guided. This he ascribed to the growth of great towns, to civic
+cowardice, and to a new taboo laid upon uniformed and labelled public
+authorities, who are now regarded as sacred, and also inordinately
+feared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"In my youth," he said, "there was a joke that every man in Paris was
+known to the police. Today that is universally true, and no joke with
+regard to every man in London. Our movements are marked, our earnings,
+our expenses, and our most private affairs known to the innumerable
+officials of the Treasury, our records of every sort, however intimate,
+are exactly and correctly maintained. The obtaining of work and a
+livelihood is dependent upon strong organizations. There is hardly an
+ailment or a domestic habit, from drinking wine to eating turnips, which
+some crank who has obtained the ear of a politician does not control or
+threaten in the immediate future to control."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"As for doctors!" he began, his voice cracking with indignation, "their
+abominable...." but here the old gentleman fell into so violent a fit of
+coughing that he nearly turned black in the face, and when I
+respectfully slapped him on the back, in the hopes of granting him
+relief, he made matters worse by shaking himself at me with an energy
+worthy of 1842. His nurse rushed in, clapped him upon his pillows, and
+was prepared to vent her wrath upon me for having caused this paroxysm,
+when the old man's exhaustion and laboured breathing captured all her
+attention, and I had the opportunity to withdraw.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="historical">On Historical Evidence</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+The last book to be published upon the last Dauphin of France set me
+thinking upon what seems to me the chief practical science in which
+modern men should secure themselves. I mean the science of history--and
+in this science almost all lies in the appreciation of evidence, for one
+of the chief particular problems presented to the student of history at
+the present moment is whether the Dauphin did or did not survive his
+imprisonment in the Temple.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let me first say why, to so many of us, the science of history and the
+appreciation of the evidence upon which it depends is of the first
+moment. It is because, short of vision or revelation, history is our
+only extension of human experience. It is true that a philosophy common
+to all citizens is necessary for a State if it is to, live--but short
+of that necessity the next most necessary factor is a knowledge of the
+stuff of mankind: of how men act under certain conditions and impulses.
+This knowledge may be acquired, and is in some measure, during the
+experience of one wise lifetime, but it is indefinitely extended by the
+accumulation of experience which history affords.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And what history so gives us is always of immediate and practical
+moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For instance, men sometimes speak with indifference of the rival
+theories as to the origin of European land tenure; they talk as though
+it were a mere academic debate whether the conception of private
+property in land arose comparatively late among Europeans or was native
+and original in our race. But you have only to watch a big popular
+discussion on that very great and at the present moment very living
+issue, the moral right to the private ownership in land, to see how
+heavily the historic argument weighs with every type of citizen. The
+instinct that gives that argument weight is a sound one, and not less
+sound in those who have least studied the matter than in those who have
+most studied it; for if our race from its immemorial origins has desired
+to own land as a private thing side by side with communal tenures, then
+it is pretty certain that we shall not modify that intention, however
+much we change our laws. If, on the other hand, it could be shown that
+before the advent of a complex civilization Europeans had no conception
+of private property in land, but treated land as a thing necessarily and
+always communal, then you could ascribe modern Socialist theories with
+regard to the land to that general movement of harking back to the
+origins which Europe has been assisting at through over a hundred years
+of revolution and of change.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It sounds cynical, but it is perfectly true, that much the largest
+factor in the historical conception of men is assertion. It is literally
+true that when men (with the exception of a very small proportion of
+scholars who are also intelligent) consider the past, the picture on which
+they dwell is a picture conveyed to them wholly by authority and by
+unquestioned authority. There was never a time when the original sources
+of history were more easily to be consulted by the plain man; but whether
+because of their very number, or because the habit is not yet formed, or
+because there are traditions of imaginary difficulty surrounding such
+reading, original sources were perhaps never less familiar to fairly
+educated opinion than they are today; and therefore no type of book gives
+more pleasure when one comes across it than those little cheap books, now
+becoming fairly numerous, in which the original sources, and the
+original sources alone, are put before the reader. Mr. Rait has already
+done such work in connection with Mary Queen of Scots, and Mr. Archer
+did it admirably in connection with the Third Crusade.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But apart from the importance of consulting original sources--which is
+like hearing the very witnesses themselves in court--there is a factor
+in historical judgment which by some unhappy accident is peculiarly
+lacking in the professional historian. It is a factor to which no
+particular name can be attached, though it may be called a department of
+common sense. But it is a mental power or attitude easily recognizable
+in those who possess it, and perhaps atrophied by the very atmosphere of
+the study. It goes with the open air with a general knowledge of men and
+with that rapid recognition of the way in which things "fit in" which is
+necessarily developed by active life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For instance, when you know the pace at which Harold marched down from
+the north to Hastings you recognize, if you use that factor of historic
+judgment of which I spake, that the affair was not barbaric. There must
+have been fairly good roads, and there must have been a high
+organization of transport. You have only to consider for a moment what a
+column looks like, even if it be only a brigade, to see the truth of
+that. Again, this type of judgment forbids anyone who uses it to ascribe
+great popular movements (great massacres, great turmoils, and so forth)
+to craft. It is a very common thing, especially in modern history, to
+lay such things to the power of one or two wealthy or one or two bloody
+leaders, but you have only to think for a few moments of what a mob is
+to see the falsity of that. Craft can harness this sort of explosive
+force, it can control it, or persuade it, or canalize it to certain
+issues, but it cannot create it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again, this sort of sense easily recognizes in historic types the
+parallels of modern experience. It avoids the error of thinking history
+a mistake and making of the men and women who appear there something
+remote from humanity, extreme, and either stilted or grandiose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In aid of this last feature in historical judgment there is nothing of
+such permanent value as a portrait. Obtain your conception (as, indeed,
+most boys do) of the English early sixteenth century from a text, then
+go and live with the Holbeins for a week and see what an enormously
+greater thing you will possess at the end of it. It is indeed one of the
+misfortunes of European history that from the fifth century to at least
+the eleventh we are, so far as Western European history is concerned,
+deprived of portraits. And by an interesting parallel the writers of the
+dark time seemed to have had neither the desire nor the gift of vivid
+description. Consider the dreariness of the hagiographers, every one of
+them boasting the noble rank and the conventional status of his hero,
+and you may say not one giving the least conception of the man's
+personality. You have the great Gallo-Roman noble family of Ferreolus
+running down the centuries from the Decline of the Empire to the climax
+of Charlemagne. Many of those names stand for some most powerful
+individuality, yet all we have is a formula, a lineage, with symbols and
+names in the place of living beings, and even that established only by
+careful work, picking out and sifting relationships from various lives.
+The men of that time did not even think to tell us that there was such a
+thing as a family tradition, nor did it seem important to them to
+establish its Roman origin and its long succession in power.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next it must be protested that the smallness and particularity of the
+questions upon which historical discussion rages are no proof either of
+its general purposelessness nor of <i>their</i> insignificance. All
+advance of knowledge proceeds in this fashion. Physical science affords
+innumerable examples of the way in which progress has depended upon a
+curiosity directed towards apparently insignificant things, and there is
+something in the mind which compels it to select a narrow field for the
+exercise of its acutest powers. Moreover, special points, discussion
+upon which must evidently be lengthy and may be indefinite, are
+peculiarly attractive to just that kind of man who by a love of
+prolonged research enlarges the bounds of knowledge and at the same time
+strengthens and improves for his fellows by continual exercise all the
+instruments of their common trade. Take, for instance, this case of the
+little Dauphin, Louis XVII. It really does not matter to day whether the
+boy got away or whether he died in prison. It does not prolong the line
+of the Capetians--the heir to that is present in the Duke of Orleans. It
+does not even affect our view of any other considerable part of
+history--save possibly the policy of Louis XVIII--and it is of no direct
+interest to our pockets or to our affections. Yet the masses of work
+which have accumulated round that one doubt have solved twenty other
+doubts. They have illuminated all the close of the Terror; they are
+beginning to make us understand that most difficult piece of political
+psychology, the reaction of Thermidor, and with it how Europeans lose
+their balance and regain it in the course of their quasi-religious wars;
+for all our wars have something in them of religion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three elements appear to enter into the judgment of history. First,
+there is the testimony of human witnesses; next, there are the non-human
+boundaries wherein the action took place, boundaries which, by all our
+experience, impose fixed limits to action; thirdly, there is that
+indefinable thing, that mystic power, which all nations deriving from
+the theology of the Western Church have agreed to call, with the
+schoolman, <i>common sense</i>; a general appreciation which transcends
+particular appreciations and which can integrate the differentials of
+evidence. Of this last it is quite impossible to afford a test or to
+construct a measure; its presence in an argument is none the less as
+readily felt as fresh air in a room; without it nothing is convincing
+however laboured, with it, even though it rely upon slight evidence, one
+has the feeling of walking on a firm road. But it must be "common
+sense"--it must be of the sort, that is, which is common to man various
+and general, and it is in this perhaps that history suffers most from
+the charlatanism and ritual common to all great matters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Men will have pomp and mystery surrounding important things, and
+therefore the historians must, consciously or unconsciously, tend to
+strut, to quote solemn authorities in support, and to make out the
+vulgar unworthy of their confidence. Hence, by the way, the plague of
+footnotes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These had their origin in two sources: the desire to show that one was
+honest and to prove it by a reference; the desire to elucidate some
+point which it was not easy to elucidate in the text itself without
+making the sentence too elaborate and clumsy. Either use may be seen at
+its best in Gibbon. With the last generation they have served mainly,
+and sometimes merely, for ritual adornment and terror, not to make
+clearer or more honest, but to deceive. Thus Taine in his monstrously
+false history of the Revolution revels in footnotes; you have but to
+examine a batch of them with care to turn them completely against his
+own conclusions--they are only put there as a sort of spiked paling to
+warn off trespassers. Or, again, M. Thibaut, who writes under the name
+of "Anatole France," gives footnotes by the score in his romance of Joan
+of Arc, apparently not even caring to examine whether they so much as
+refer to his text, let alone support it. They seem to have been done by
+contract.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another ailment in this department is the negative one, whereby an
+historian will leave out some aspect which to him, cramped in a study,
+seems unimportant, but which any plain man moving in the world would
+have told him to be the essential aspect of the whole matter. For
+instance, when Napoleon left Madrid on his forced march to intercept Sir
+John Moore before that general should have reached Benevente, he thought
+Moore was at Valladolid, when as a fact he was at Sahagun. In Mr. Oman's
+history of the Peninsular War the error is put thus: "Napoleon had not
+the comparatively easy task of cutting the road between Valladolid and
+Astorga, but the much harder one of intercepting that between Sahagun
+and Astorga."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Why is this egregious nonsense? The facts are right and so are the dates
+and the names, yet it makes one blush for Oxford history. Why? Because
+the all-important element of <i>distance</i> is omitted. The very first
+question a plain man would ask about the case would be, "What were the
+distances involved?" The academic historian doesn't know, or, at least,
+doesn't say; yet without an appreciation of the distances the statement
+has no value. As a fact the distances were such that in the first case
+(supposing Moore had been at Valladolid) Napoleon would have had to
+cover nearly three miles to Moore's one to intercept him--an almost
+superhuman task. In the second case (Moore being as a fact at Sahagun)
+he would have had to go over <i>four miles</i> to his opponent's one--an
+absolutely impossible feat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To march <i>three</i> miles to the enemy's <i>one</i> is what Mr. Oman
+calls "a comparatively easy task"; to march four to his one is what Mr.
+Oman calls a "much harder" task; and to write like that is what an
+informed critic calls bad history.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other two factors in an historical judgment can be more easily
+measured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The non-human elements which, as I have said, are irremovable (save to
+miracle), are topography, climate, season, local physical conditions,
+and so forth. They have two valuable characters in aid of history; the
+first is that they correct the errors of human memory and support the
+accuracy of details; the second is that they enable us to complete a
+picture. We can by their aid "see" the physical framework in which an
+action took place, and such a landscape helps the judgment of things
+past as it does of things contemporary. Thus the map, the date, the
+soil, the contours of Crcy field make the traditional spot at which the
+King of Bohemia fell doubtful; the same factors make it certain that
+Drouet did not plunge haphazard through Argonne on the night of June 21,
+1791, but that he must have gone by one path--which can be determined.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Or, again, take that prime question, why the Prussians did not charge at
+Valmy. On their failure to do so all the success of the Revolution
+turned. A man may read Dumouriez, Kellermann, Pully, Botidoux,
+Massenback, Goethe--there are fifty eye-witnesses at least whose
+evidence we can collect, and I defy anyone to decide. (Brunswick himself
+never knew.) But go to that roll of land between Valmy and the high
+road; go after three days' rain as the allies did, and you will
+immediately learn. That field between the heights of "The Moon" and the
+site of old Valmy mill, which is as hard as a brick in summer (when the
+experts visit it), is a marsh of the worst under an autumn drizzle; no
+one could have charged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for human testimony, three things appear: first, that the witness is
+not, as in a law court, circumscribed. His relation may vary infinitely
+in degree of proximity of time or space to the action, from that of an
+eye-witness writing within the hour to that of a partisan writing at
+tenth hand a lifetime after. That question of proximity comes first,
+from the known action of the human mind whereby it transforms colours
+and changes remembered things. Next there is the character of the
+witness <i>for the purposes of his testimony</i>. Historians write, too
+often, as though virtue--or wealth (with which they often confound
+it)--were the test. It is not, short of a known motive for lying; a
+murderer or a thief casually witnessing to a thing with which he is
+familiar is worth more than the best man witnessing in a matter which he
+understands ill. It was this error which ruined Croker's essay on
+Charlotte Robespierre's Memoirs. Croker thought, perhaps wisely, that
+all radicals were scoundrels; he could not accept her editor's evidence,
+and (by the way) the view of this amateur collector without a tincture
+of historical scholarship actually imposed itself on Europe for nearly
+seventy years!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the third character in the witness is support: the support upon
+converging lines of other human testimony, most of it indifferent, some
+(this is essential) casual and by the way--deprived therefore of motive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I shall find these canons satisfied to oppose the strong
+probability and tradition of the Dauphin's death in prison I shall doubt
+that death, but not before.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="absence">The Absence of the Past</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+It is perhaps not possible to put into human language that emotion
+which rises when a man stands upon some plot of European soil and can
+say with certitude to himself: "Such and such great, or wonderful, or
+beautiful things happened here."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Touch that emotion ever so lightly and it tumbles into the commonplace,
+and the deadest of commonplace. Neglect it ever so little and the
+Present (which is never really there, for even as you walk across
+Trafalgar Square it is yesterday and tomorrow that are in your mind),
+the Present, I say, or rather the immediate flow of things, occupies you
+altogether. But there is a mood, and it is a mood common in men who have
+read and who have travelled, in which one is overwhelmed by the sanctity
+of a place on which men have done this or that a long, long time ago.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here it is that the gentle supports which have been framed for human
+life by that power which launched it come in and help a man. Time does
+not remain, but space does, and though we cannot seize the Past
+physically we can stand physically upon the site, and we can have (if I
+may so express myself) a physical communion with the Past by occupying
+that very spot which the past greatness of man or of event has occupied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was but the other day that, with an American friend at my side, I
+stood looking at the little brass plate which says that here Charles
+Stuart faced (he not only faced, but he refused) the authority of his
+judges. I know not by what delicate mechanism of the soul that record
+may seem at one moment a sort of tourist thing, to be neglected or
+despised, and at another moment a portent. But I will confess that all
+of a sudden, pointing out this very well-known record upon the brass let
+into the stone in Westminster Hall, I suddenly felt the presence of the
+thing. Here all that business was done: they were alive; they were in
+the Present as we are. Here sat that tender-faced, courageous man, with
+his pointed beard and his luminous eyes; here he was a living man
+holding his walking-stick with the great jewel in the handle of it; here
+was spoken in the very tones of his voice (and how a human voice
+perishes!--how we forget the accents of the most loved and the most
+familiar voices within a few days of their disappearance!); here the
+small gestures, and all the things that make up a personality, marked
+out Charles Stuart. When the soul is seized with such sudden and
+positive conviction of the substantial past it is overwhelmed; and
+Europe is full of such ghosts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As you take the road to Paradise, about halfway there you come to an
+inn, which even as inns go is admirable. You go into the garden of it,
+and see the great trees and the wall of Box Hill shrouding you all
+around. It is beautiful enough (in all conscience) to arrest one without
+the need of history or any admixture of the pride of race; but as you
+sit there on a seat in that garden you are sitting where Nelson sat when
+he said goodbye to his Emma, and if you will move a yard or two you will
+be sitting where Keats sat biting his pen and thinking out some new line
+of his poem.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What has happened? These two men with their keen, feminine faces, these
+two great heroes of a great time in the great story of a great people of
+this world, are not there. They are nowhere. But the site remains.
+
+Philosophers can put in formulae the crowd of suggestions that rush into
+the mind when one's soul contemplates the perpetual march and passage of
+mortality. But they can do no more than give us formularies: they cannot
+give us replies. What are we? What is all this business? Why does the
+mere space remain and all the rest dissolve?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is a lonely place in the woods of Chilham, in the County of Kent,
+above the River Stour, where a man comes upon an irregular earthwork
+still plainly marked upon the brow of the bluff. Nobody comes near this
+place. A vague country lane, or rather track; goes past the wet soil of
+it, plunges into the valley beyond, and after serving a windmill joins
+the high road to Canterbury. Well, that vague track is the ancient
+British road, as old as anything in this Island, that took men from
+Winchester to the Straits of Dover. That earthwork is the earthwork (I
+could prove it, but this is not the place) where the British stood
+against the charge of the Tenth Legion, and first heard, sounding on
+their bronze, the arms of Caesar. Here the river was forded; here the
+little men of the South went up in formation; here the Barbarian broke
+and took his way, as the opposing General has recorded, through devious
+woodland paths, scattering in the pursuit; here began the great history
+of England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Is it not an enormous business merely to stand in such a place? I think
+so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I know a field to the left of the Chalons Road, some few miles before
+you get to Ste. Menehould. There used to be an inn by the roadside
+called "The Sign of the Moon." It has disappeared. There used to be a
+ramshackle windmill beyond the field, a mile or so from the road, on an
+upland swell of land, but that also has gone, and had been gone for some
+time before I knew the field of which I write. It is a bare fold of land
+with one or two little scrubby spinneys alongside the plough. And for
+the rest, just the brown earth and the sky. There are days on which you
+will see a man at work somewhere within that mile, others on which it is
+completely deserted. Here it is that the French Revolution was
+preserved. Here was the Prussian charge. On the deserted, ugly lump of
+empty earth beyond you were the three batteries that checked the
+invaders. It was all alive and crowded for one intense moment with the
+fate of Christendom. Here, on the place in which you are standing and
+gazing, young Goethe stood and gazed. That meaningless stretch of coarse
+grass supported Brunswick and the King of Prussia, and the brothers of
+the King of France, as they stood windswept in the rain, watching the
+failure of the charge. It is the field of Valmy. Turn on that height and
+look back westward and you see the plains rolling out infinitely; they
+are the plains upon which Attila was crushed; but there is no one there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All men have remarked that night and silence are august, and I think
+that if this quality in night and silence be closely examined it will be
+found to consist, in part at least, in this: that either of them
+symbolizes Absence. By a paradox which I will not attempt to explain,
+but which all have felt, it is in silence and in darkness that the Past
+most vividly returns, and that this absence of what once was possesses,
+nay, obtrudes itself upon the mind: it becomes almost a sensible thing.
+There is much to be said for those who pretend, imagine, or perhaps have
+experienced under such conditions the return of the dead. The mood of
+darkness and of silence is a mood crammed with something that does not
+remain, as space remains, that is limited by time, and is a creature of
+time, and yet something that has an immortal right to remain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, I suppose that in that sentence where I say things mortal have
+immortal rights to permanence, the core of the whole business is touched
+upon. And I suppose that the great men who could really think and did
+not merely fire off fireworks to dazzle their contemporaries--I suppose
+that Descartes, for instance, if he were here sitting at my table--could
+help me to solve that contradiction; but I sit and think and cannot
+solve it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What," says the man upon his own land, inherited perhaps and certainly
+intended for his posterity--"what! Can you separate me from this? Are
+not this and I bound up inextricably?" The answer is "No; you are not so
+far as any observer of this world can discover. Space is in no way
+possessed by man, and he who may render a site immortal in one of our
+various ways, the captain who there conquered, the poet who there
+established his sequence of words, cannot himself put forward a claim to
+permanence within it at all."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a woman of charming vivacity, whose eyes were ever ready for
+laughter, and whose tone of address of itself provoked the noblest of
+replies. Many loved her; all admired. She passed (I will suppose) by
+this street or by that; she sat at table in such and such a house;
+Gainsborough painted her; and all that time ago there were men who had
+the luck to meet her and to answer her laughter with their own. And the
+house where she moved is there and the street in which she walked, and
+the very furniture she used and touched with her hands you may touch
+with your hands. You shall come into the rooms that she inhabited, and
+there you shall see her portrait, all light and movement and grace and
+beatitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She is gone altogether, the voice will never return, the gestures will
+never be seen again. She was under a law; she changed, she suffered, she
+grew old, she died; and there was her place left empty. The not living
+things remain; but what counted, what gave rise to them, what made them
+all that they are, has pitifully disappeared, and the greater, the
+infinitely greater, thing was subject to a doom perpetually of change
+and at last of vanishing. The dead surroundings are not subject to such
+a doom. Why?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All those boys who held the line of the low ridge or rather swell of
+land from Hougoumont through the Belle Alliance have utterly gone. More
+than dust goes, more than wind goes; they will never be seen again.
+Their voices will never be heard--they are not. But what is the mere
+soil of the field without them? What meaning has it save for their
+presence?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could wish to understand these things.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="st">St. Patrick</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+If there is one thing that people who are not Catholic have gone wrong
+upon more than another in the intellectual things of life, it is the
+conception of a Personality. They are muddled about it where their own
+little selves are concerned, they misappreciate it when they deal with
+the problems of society, and they have a very weak hold of it when they
+consider (if they do consider) the nature of Almighty God.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, personality is everything. It was a Personal Will that made all
+things, visible and invisible. Our hope of immortality resides in this,
+that we are persons, and half our frailties proceed from a
+misapprehension of the awful responsibilities which personality involves
+or a cowardly ignorance of its powers of self-government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hundred and one errors which this main error leads to include a bad
+error on the nature of history. Your modern non-Catholic or
+anti-Catholic historian is always misunderstanding, underestimating, or
+muddling the role played in the affairs of men by great and individual
+Personalities. That is why he is so lamentably weak upon the function of
+legend; that is why he makes a fetish of documentary evidence and has no
+grip upon the value of tradition. For traditions spring from some
+personality invariably, and the function of legend, whether it be a
+rigidly true legend or one tinged with make-believe, is to interpret
+Personality. Legends have vitality and continue, because in their origin
+they so exactly serve to explain or illustrate some personal character
+in a man which no cold statement could give.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now St. Patrick, the whole story and effect of him, is a matter of
+Personality. There was once--twenty or thirty years ago--a whole school
+of dunderheads who wondered whether St. Patrick ever existed, because
+the mass of legends surrounding his name troubled them. How on earth
+(one wonders) do such scholars consider their fellow-beings! Have they
+ever seen a crowd cheering a popular hero, or noticed the expression
+upon men's faces when they spoke of some friend of striking power
+recently dead? A great growth of legends around a man is the very best
+proof you could have not only of his existence but of the fact that he
+was an origin and a beginning, and that things sprang from his will or
+his vision. There were some who seemed to think it a kind of favour done
+to the indestructible body of Irish Catholicism when Mr. Bury wrote his
+learned Protestant book upon St. Patrick. It was a critical and very
+careful bit of work, and was deservedly praised; but the favour done us
+I could not see! It is all to the advantage of non-Catholic history that
+it should be sane, and that a great Protestant historian should make
+true history out of a great historical figure was a very good sign. It
+was a long step back towards common sense compared with the German
+absurdities which had left their victims doubting almost all the solid
+foundation of the European story; but as for us Catholics, we had no
+need to be told it. Not only was there a St. Patrick in history, but
+there is a St. Patrick on the shores of his eastern sea and throughout
+all Ireland to-day. It is a presence that stares you in the face, and
+physically almost haunts you. Let a man sail along the Leinster coast on
+such a day as renders the Wicklow Mountains clear up-weather behind him,
+and the Mourne Mountains perhaps in storm, lifted clearly above the sea
+down the wind. He is taking some such course as that on which St.
+Patrick sailed, and if he will land from time to time from his little
+boat at the end of each day's sailing, and hear Mass in the morning
+before he sails further northward, he will know in what way St. Patrick
+inhabits the soil which he rendered sacred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We know that among the marks of holiness is the working of miracles.
+Ireland is the greatest miracle any saint ever worked. It is a miracle
+and a nexus of miracles. Among other miracles it is a nation raised from
+the dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The preservation of the Faith by the Irish is an historical miracle
+comparable to nothing else in Europe. There never was, and please God
+never can be, so prolonged and insanely violent a persecution of men by
+their fellow-men as was undertaken for centuries against the Faith in
+Ireland: and it has completely failed. I know of no example in history
+of failure following upon such effort. It had behind it in combination
+the two most powerful of the evil passions of men, terror and greed. And
+so amazing is it that they did not attain their end, that perpetually as
+one reads one finds the authors of the dreadful business now at one
+period, now at another, assuming with certitude that their success is
+achieved. Then, after centuries, it is almost suddenly perceived--and in
+our own time--that it has not been achieved and never will be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What a complexity of strange coincidences combined, coming out of
+nothing as it were, advancing like spirits summoned on to the stage, all
+to effect this end! Think of the American Colonies; with one little
+exception they were perhaps the most completely non-Catholic society of
+their time. Their successful rebellion against the mother country meant
+many things, and led to many prophecies. Who could have guessed that one
+of its chief results would be the furnishing of a free refuge for the
+Irish?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The famine, all human opinion imagined, and all human judgment was bound
+to conclude, was a mortal wound, coming in as the ally of the vile
+persecution I have named. It has turned out the very contrary. From it
+there springs indirectly the dispersion, and that power which comes from
+unity in dispersion, of Irish Catholicism.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Who, looking at the huge financial power that dominated Europe, and
+England in particular, during the youth of our own generation, could
+have dreamt that in any corner of Europe, least of all in the poorest
+and most ruined corner of Christendom, an effective resistance could be
+raised?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Behind the enemies of Ireland, furnishing them with all their modern
+strength, was that base and secret master of modern things, the usurer.
+He it was far more than the gentry of the island who demanded toll, and,
+through the mortgages on the Irish estates, had determined to drain
+Ireland as he has drained and rendered desert so much else. Is it not a
+miracle that he has failed?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ireland is a nation risen from the dead; and to raise one man from the
+dead is surely miraculous enough to convince one of the power of a great
+spirit. This miracle, as I am prepared to believe, is the last and the
+greatest of St. Patrick's.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I was last in Ireland, I bought in the town of Wexford a coloured
+picture of St. Patrick which greatly pleased me. Most of it was green in
+colour, and St. Patrick wore a mitre and had a crosier in his hand. He
+was turning into the sea a number of nasty reptiles: snakes and toads
+and the rest. I bought this picture because it seemed to me as modern a
+piece of symbolism as ever I had seen: and that was why I bought it for
+my children and for my home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a few pence change, but I did not want it. The person who sold
+me the picture said they would spend the change in candles for St.
+Patrick's altar. So St. Patrick is still alive.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="lost">The Lost Things</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+I never remember an historian yet, nor a topographer either, who could
+tell me, or even pretend to explain by a theory, how it was that certain
+things of the past utterly and entirely disappear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is a commonplace that everything is subject to decay, and a
+commonplace which the false philosophy of our time is too apt to forget.
+Did we remember that commonplace we should be a little more humble in
+our guesswork, especially where it concerns prehistory; and we should
+not make so readily certain where the civilization of Europe began, nor
+limit its immense antiquity. But though it is a commonplace, and a true
+one, that all human work is subject to decay, there seems to be an
+inexplicable caprice in the method and choice of decay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Consider what a body of written matter there must have been to instruct
+and maintain the technical excellence of Roman work. What a mass of
+books on engineering and on ship-building and on road-making; what
+quantities of tables and ready-reckoners, all that civilization must
+have produced and depended upon. Time has preserved much verse, and not
+only the best by any means, more prose, particularly the theological
+prose of the end of the Roman time. The technical stuff, which must, in
+the nature of things, have been indefinitely larger in amount, has (save
+in one or two instances and allusions) gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Consider, again, all that mass of seven hundred years which was called
+Carthage. It was not only seven hundred years of immense wealth, of
+oligarchic government, of a vast population, and of what so often goes
+with commerce and oligarchy--civil and internal peace. A few stones to
+prove the magnitude of its municipal work, a few ornaments, a few
+graves--all the rest is absolutely gone. A few days' marches away there
+is an example I have quoted so often elsewhere that I am ashamed of
+referring to it again, but it does seem to me the most amazing example
+of historical loss in the world. It is the site of Hippo Regius. Here
+was St. Augustine's town, one of the greatest and most populous of a
+Roman province. It was so large that an army of eighty thousand men
+could not contain it, and even with such a host its siege dragged on for
+a year. There is not a sign of that great town today.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A suburb, well without the walls--to be more accurate, a neighbouring
+village--carries on the name under the form of Bona, and that is all. A
+vast, fertile plain of black rich earth, now largely planted with
+vineyards, stands where Hippo stood. How can the stones have gone? How
+can it have been worth while to cart away the marble columns? Why are
+there no broken statues on such a ground, and no relics of the gods?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nay, the wells are stopped up from which the people drank, and the
+lining of the wells is not to be discovered in the earth, and the
+foundations of the walls, and even the ornaments of the people and their
+coins, all these have been spirited away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there are the roads. Consider that great road which reached from
+Amiens to the main port of Gaul, the Portus Itius at Boulogne. It is
+still in use. It was in use throughout the Middle Ages. Up that road the
+French Army marched to Crcy. It points straight to its goal upon the
+sea coast. Its whole purpose lay in reaching the goal. For some
+extraordinary reason, which I have never seen explained or even guessed
+at, there comes a point as it nears the coast where it suddenly ceases
+to be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No sand has blown over it. It runs through no marshes; the land is firm
+and fertile. Why should that, the most important section of the great
+road which led northward from Rome, have failed, and have failed so
+recently, in the history of man? Where this great road crosses streams
+and might reasonably be lost, at its <i>pontes</i>, its bridges, it has
+remained, and is of such importance as to have given a name to a whole
+countryside--<i>Ponthieu</i>. But north of that it is gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nearly every Roman road of Gaul and Britain presents something of the
+same puzzle in some parts of its course. It will run clear and
+followable enough, or form a modern highway for mile upon mile, and then
+not at a marsh where one would expect its disappearance, nor in some
+desolate place where it might have fallen out of use, but in the
+neighbourhood of a great city and at the very chief of its purpose, it
+is gone. It is so with the Stane Street that led up from the garrison of
+Chichester and linked it with the garrison of London. You can
+reconstruct it almost to a yard until you reach Epsom Downs. There you
+find it pointing to London Bridge, and remaining as clear as in any
+other part of its course: much clearer than in most other sections. But
+try to follow it on from Epsom Racecourse, and you entirely fail. The
+soil is the same; the conditions of that soil are excellent for its
+retention; but a year's work has taught me that there is no
+reconstructing it save by hypothesis and guesswork from this point to
+the crossing of the Thames.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What happened to all that mass of local documents whereby we ought to be
+able to build up the territorial scheme and the landed regime of old
+France? Much remains, if you will, in the shape of chance charters and
+family papers. Even in the archives of Paris you can get enough to whet
+your curiosity. But not even in one narrow district can you obtain
+enough to reconstruct the whole truth. There is not a scholar in Europe
+who can tell you exactly how land was owned and held, even, let us say,
+on the estates of Rheims or by the family of Cond. And men are ready to
+quarrel as to how many peasants owned and how much of their present
+ownership was due to the Revolution, evidence has already become so
+wholly imperfect in that tiny stretch of historical time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, after all, perhaps one ought not to wonder too much that material
+things should thus capriciously vanish. Time, which has secured Timgad
+so that it looks like an unroofed city of yesterday, has swept and razed
+Laimboesis. The two towns were neighbours--one was taken and the other
+left--and there is no sort of reason any man can give for it. Perhaps
+one ought not too much to wonder, for a greater wonder still is the
+sudden evaporation and loss of the great movements of the human soul.
+That what our ancestors passionately believed or passionately disputed
+should, by their descendants in one generation or in two, become
+meaningless, absurd, or false--this is the greatest marvel and the
+greatest tragedy of all.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="reading">On the Reading of History</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+Let me at the beginning of this short article present two facts to the
+reader. Neither can be disputed, and that is why I call them facts and
+put them in the forefront before I begin upon my theories.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first fact is that the record of what men have done in the past and
+how they have done it is the chief positive guide to present action. The
+second fact is that most men must now receive the impression of the past
+through reading.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Put these two facts together and you get the fundamental truth that upon
+the right reading of history the right use of citizenship in England
+today will depend. It will of course depend upon other things as well:
+chiefly upon the human conscience; for if you were to pack off to an
+island a hundred families as ignorant as any human families can be of
+tradition, and wholly ignorant of positive history, those families would
+yet be able to create a human society and the voice of God within them
+would give just limits to their actions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still, of those factors in civic action amenable to civic direction,
+conscious and positively effective, there is nothing to compare with the
+right teaching and the right reading of history. Now teaching is today
+ruined. The old machinery by which the whole nation could be got to know
+all essential human things, has been destroyed, and the teaching of
+history in particular has been not only ruined but rendered ridiculous.
+There is no historical school properly so-called in modern England; that
+is, there is no organization framed with the sole object of extending
+and co-ordinating historical knowledge and of choosing men for their
+capacity to discover upon the one hand and to teach upon the other.
+There is nothing approaching to it in the two ancient universities,
+because the choice of teachers there depends upon a multitude of
+considerations quite separate from those mentioned, and the capacity to
+discover, to know, and to teach history, though it <i>may</i> be present
+in a tutor, will only be accidentally so present: while as for
+co-ordination of knowledge, there is no attempt at it. Even where very
+hard work is done, and, when it concerns local history, very useful
+work, history as a general study is not grasped because the universities
+have not grasped it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+History is to be had by the modern Englishman from his own reading only;
+and I am here concerned with the question how he shall read history with
+profit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To read history with profit, history must be true, or at any rate the
+reader must have a power of discerning what is true in the midst of much
+that may be false. I will bargain, for instance, that in the summer of
+1899 the great mass of men, and especially the great mass of men who had
+passed through the universities, were under the impression that armies
+had left England for the purpose of conquest in distant countries with
+invariable success: that that success had been unique, unsupported and
+always decisive, and that the wealth of the country after each success
+had increased, not diminished. In other words, had history been studied
+even by the tiny minority who have education today in England, Sir
+William Butler would have counted more than the Joels, and the late Mr.
+Barnato (as he called himself); the South African War would not have
+taken place in a society which knew its past.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again, you may pick almost any phrase referring to the Middle Ages out
+of any newspaper--if you are a man read in the Middle Ages--and you will
+find in it not only a definite historical falsehood with regard to the
+fact referred to, or the analogy drawn, but also a false philosophy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For instance, the other day I read this phrase with regard to the burial
+of a certain gentleman of my neighbourhood in Sussex: "We are surely
+past the phase of mediaeval thought in which it was imagined that a few
+words spoken over the lifeless clay would determine the fate of the soul
+for all eternity." Just notice the myriad falsehoods of a phrase like
+that! I will not discuss what is connoted by the words "past the phase
+of mediaeval thought"--it connotes of course that the human mind changes
+fundamentally with the centuries, and therefore that whatever we think
+is probably wrong, and that what we are sure of we cannot be sure of, an
+absurd conclusion. I will only note the historical falsehoods. When on
+earth did the "Middle Ages" lay down that a "few words over lifeless
+clay determined the fate of the soul for all eternity"? On the contrary,
+the Middle Ages laid it down--it was their peculiar doctrine--that it
+was impossible to determine the fate of the soul; that no one could tell
+the fate of any one individual soul; that it was a grievous sin, among
+the most grievous of sins, to affirm positive knowledge that any
+individual had lost his soul. More than this, the Middle Ages were
+peculiar in their insistence upon the doctrine that a man might have
+been very bad and might have had all the appearance of having lost his
+soul so far as human judgment went, and yet was liable to a midway place
+between salvation and damnation, and they affirmed that this midway
+place did not lead to either fate but necessarily to salvation and to
+salvation only.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again, whatever could help the human soul to salvation was by the most
+rigorous theological definition of the Middle Ages applicable only
+before death. After death the fate of the soul was sealed, and the man
+once dead, the "lifeless clay" (as the journalist put it--and the Middle
+Ages was the only source from which he got the idea of clay at all),
+whether it were that of a Pope or of some random highwayman, had no
+effect whatsoever upon the fate of the soul. The greatest saint might
+have offered the most solemn sacrifice on its behalf for years, and if
+the soul were damned his sacrifice would have been of no avail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have taken this example absolutely at random. But the modern reader,
+apart from sentences as clearly provocative of criticism as this, is
+perpetually coming across references, allusions, and parallels which
+take a certain course of human European and English history for granted.
+How is he to distinguish when that course is rightly drawn from when it
+is wrongly drawn?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus in some newspaper article written by an able man, and dealing, let
+us say, with the territorial army, one might come across a sentence like
+this: "Napoleon himself used troops so raw that they were actually
+drilled on the march to the battlefield." That would be a perfectly true
+statement. Any amount of criticism of it lies in connexion with Mr.
+Haldane's scheme, but still it is a true piece of history. Napoleon did
+get raw recruits into his battalions just before any one of his famous
+marches began, and drill them on the way to victory. In the next column
+of the newspaper the reader may be presented with a sentence like this:
+"The captures of English by privateers in the Revolutionary War should
+teach us what foreign cruisers can do."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were plenty of captures by privateers in the Revolutionary Wars;
+if I remember rightly, many many hundreds, all discreetly hidden from
+the common or garden reader until party politics necessitated their
+resurrection a hundred years after the event, but they have nothing
+whatsoever to do with modern circumstances.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Both statements are true then, and yet one can be truthfully applied
+today, while the other cannot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How is the plain reader to distinguish between two historical truths,
+one of which is a useful modern analogy, the other of which is a
+ludicrously misleading one?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reader, it would seem, has no criterion by which to distinguish what
+has been withheld from him and what has been emphasized; he may, from
+his knowledge of the historian's character or bias, stand upon his
+guard, but he can do little more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is another difficulty. It is less subtle and less common, but it
+exists. I mean brute lying. You do not often get the lie direct in
+official history; it would be too dangerous a game to play in the face
+of the critics, though some historians, and notably the French historian
+Taine, have played it boldly enough, and have stated dogmatically, as
+historical happenings, things that never happened and that they knew
+never happened. But the plain or brute historical lie is more commonly
+found in the pages of ephemeral journalism. Thus the other day, with
+regard to the Budget, I saw some financial operation alluded to as
+comparable with "the pulling out of Jews' teeth for money in the Middle
+Ages." When did anyone in the Middle Ages pull out a Jew's teeth for
+money? There is just one very doubtful story told about King John, and
+that story is told without proof by one of John's worst enemies, in a
+mass of other accusations many of which can be proved to be false.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again, I turn to an Oxford History of the French Revolution, and I find
+the remark that the massacres of September were organized by the men
+from Marseilles. They were not organized by the men from Marseilles. The
+men from Marseilles had nothing to do with them, and the fact has been
+public property since the publication of Pollio and Marcel's monograph
+twenty years ago.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What criterion can the ordinary reader choose when he is confronted by
+difficulties of this sort? I will suggest to him one which seems to me
+by far the most valuable. It is the reading of firsthand authorities. It
+is all a matter of habit. When the original authorities upon which
+history is based were difficult to get at, when few of those in foreign
+tongues had been translated, and when those that had been published were
+published in the most expensive form, the ordinary reader had to depend
+upon an historian who would summarize for him the reading of another.
+The ordinary reader was compelled to read secondary history or none. Now
+secondary history is among the most valuable of literary efforts; where
+evidence is slight, the judgment of an historian who knows from other
+reading the general character of the period, is most valuable. Where
+evidence is abundant, and therefore confusing, the historian used to the
+selection and weighing of it performs a most valuable function. Still,
+the reader who is not acquainted with original authorities does not
+really know history and is at the mercy of whatever myth or tradition
+may be handed to him in print.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We should remember that today, even in England, original authorities are
+quite easy to get at. Two little books, for instance, occur to me out of
+hundreds: Mr. Rait's book on Mary Stuart and Mr. Archer's on the Third
+Crusade. In each of these the reader gets in a cheap form, in modern and
+readable English, the kind of evidence upon which historians base their
+history, and he can use that evidence in the light of his own knowledge
+of human nature and his own judgment of human life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Or again, if he wants to know what the Romans really knew or said they
+knew about the German tribes who, as pirates, so greatly influenced the
+history of England, let him get Mr. Rouse's edition of Grenewey's
+translation of the Germania in Blackie's series of English texts; it
+will only cost sixpence, and for that money he will get a bit of
+Caesar's Gallic War and the Agricola as well. But the list nowadays is a
+very long one, luckily, and the lay reader has only to choose what
+period he would like to read up, and he will find for nearly every one
+first-hand evidence ready, cheap and published in a readable modern
+form. That he should take such first-hand evidence is the very best
+advice that any honest historian can give.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="victory">The Victory</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+The study of history, like the exploration, the thorough exploration, of
+any other field, leads one to perpetual novelties, miracles, and
+unexpected things; and I, in the study of the revolutionary wars, came
+across the story of a battle which completely possessed my spirit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would not be to my purpose here to give its name. It is not among the
+most famous; it is not Waterloo, nor Leipsic, nor Austerlitz, nor even
+Jemappes. The more I read into the night the more I perceived that upon
+the issue of that struggle depended the fate of the modern world. So
+completely did the notes of Carnot and a few private letters that had
+been put before me absorb my attention that I will swear the bugle-calls
+of those two days (for it was a two-days' struggle) sounded more clearly
+in my ears than the rumble of the London streets, and, as this died out
+with the advance of the night and the approach of morning, I was living
+entirely upon that ridge in Flanders, watching, as a man watches an
+arena, whether the new things or the old should be victorious. It was
+the new that conquered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From that evening I was determined to visit this place of which so far I
+had but read, and to see how far it might agree with the vision I had
+had of it, and to people actual fields with the ghosts of dead soldiers.
+And for the better appreciation of the drama I chose the season and the
+days on which the fight had been driven across that rolling land, and I
+came there, as the Republicans had come, a little before the dawn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hillside was silent and deserted, more even than are commonly such
+places, though silence and desertion seem the common atmosphere of all
+the fields on which such fates have been decided. A man looking over
+Carthage Bay, especially a man looking at those sodden pools that were
+the sound harbours of Carthage, might be in an uninhabited world; and
+the loop of the Trebbia is the same, and the edge of Fontenoy; and even
+here in England that hillside looking south up which the Normans charged
+at Battle is a quiet and a drowsy sort of place.... So it was here in
+Flanders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For two miles as I ascended by the little sunken lane which the extreme
+right wing had followed in the last attack I saw neither man nor beast,
+but only the same stubble of the same autumn fields, and the same colder
+sun shining upon the empty uplands until I reached the crest where the
+Hungarian and the Croat had met the charge, and had disputed the little
+village for two hours--a dispute upon which hung your fate and mine and
+that of Europe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a tiny little village, seven or eight houses together and no
+more, with a crazy little wooden steeple to its church all twisted awry,
+large barns, and comfortable hedgerows of the Northern kind; and from it
+one looked out westwards over an infinity of country, following low
+crest after low crest, down on to the French plains. I went into the inn
+of the place to drink, and found the cobbler there complaining that
+wealth disturbed the natural equality of men. Then I wandered out,
+pacing this point and that which I knew accurately from my maps, and
+thinking of the noise of the war. Behind the little church, upon a
+ramshackle green not large enough to pitch the stumps for single-wicket,
+was the modest monument, a cock in bronze, crowing, and the word
+"Victory" stamped into the granite of the pedestal; the whole thing, I
+suppose, not ten feet high. The bronze was very well done; it savoured
+strongly of Paris and looked odd in this abandoned little place. But
+every time my eyes sank from the bronze, to look at some other point in
+the landscape to identify the emplacement of such and such a battery or
+the gully that had concealed the advance of such and such a troop, my
+glance perpetually returned to that word "VICTORY," sculptured by itself
+upon the stone. It was indeed a victory; it was a victory which, for its
+huge unexpectedness, for the noise of it, for the length of time during
+which it was in doubt, for its final success, there is no parallel, and
+yet it is by no means among the famous battles of the world. And though
+the French count it one among the thousand of their battles, I doubt
+whether even in Paris most men would recognize it for the hammer-blow it
+was. The men of the time hardly knew it, though Carnot guessed at it, and
+now to-day in Sorbonne I think that regal fight is taking its true place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So I went down the eight miles of front northward along the ridge; for
+even that battle, a hundred and more years ago, had an extended front of
+this kind. I recognized the tall majestic fringe of beeches from which
+had issued the last of the Royalist regiments bearing for the last time
+upon a European field the white flag of the Bourbon Monarchy; I came
+beyond it to the combe fringed with its semicircle of underbrush in
+which Coburg had massed his guns in the last effort to break the French
+centre when his flank was turned. I came to the main highway, very
+broad, straight, and paved, which cuts this battlefield in two, and then
+beyond it to the central position whose capture had made the final
+manoeuvre possible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All Wednesday the Grenadiers, German, tall, padded, smart, and stout,
+had held their ground. It was not until Thursday, and by noon, that they
+were slowly driven up the hill by the ragged lads, the Gauls, shoeless,
+some not in uniform at all, half-mutinous, drunk with pain and glory.
+And I remembered, as the scene returned to me, that this battle, like so
+many of the Revolution, had been a battle of men against boys; how grey
+and veteran and trained in arms were the Austrians and the Prussians,
+their allies, how strict in orders, how calm: and what children the
+Terror had called up by force from the exhausted fields of remote French
+provinces, to break them here against the frontier, like water against a
+wall...!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a little chap, twelve years old, a drummer; he had crept and
+crawled by hedgerows till he found himself behind the line of those
+volleying Grenadiers. There, "before his side," and breaking all rules,
+he had sounded the roll of the charge. They cut him down and killed him,
+and the roll of his drum ceased hard. A generation or more later,
+digging for foundations at this spot, the builders of the Peace came
+upon his bones, the little bones of a child heaped pell-mell with
+skeletons of the fallen giants round him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I went back into the town in whose defence the battle had been waged,
+and there I saw again in bronze this little lad, head high and mouth
+open, a-beating of his drum, and again the word "VICTORY."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All that effort was undertaken, all those young men and children killed,
+for something that was to happen for the salvation of the world; it has
+not come. All that iron resistance of the German line had been forged
+and organized till it almost conquered, till it almost thwarted, the
+Republic, and it also had been organized for the defence, and, as some
+thought, for the salvation, of the world. Some great good was to have
+come by the storming of that hill, or some great good by the defeat of
+the impetuous charge. Well, the hill was stormed, and (if you will) at
+Leipsic the effort which had stormed it was rolled back. What has
+happened to the High Goddess whom that youth followed, and worshipped as
+they say, and what to the Gods whom their enemies defended? The ridge is
+exactly the same.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="reality">Reality</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+A couple of generations ago there was a sort of man going mournfully
+about who complained of the spread of education. He had an ill-ease in
+his mind. He feared that book learning would bring us no good, and he
+was called a fool for his pains. Not undeservedly--for his thoughts were
+muddled, and if his heart was good it was far better than his head. He
+argued badly or he merely affirmed, but he had strong allies (Ruskin was
+one of them), and, like every man who is sincere, there was something in
+what he said; like every type which is numerous, there was a human
+feeling behind him: and he was very numerous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now that he is pretty well extinct we are beginning to understand what
+he meant and what there was to be said for him. The greatest of the
+French Revolutionists was right--"After bread, the most crying need of
+the populace is knowledge." But what knowledge?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The truth is that secondary impressions, impressions gathered from books
+and from maps, are valuable as adjuncts to primary impressions (that is,
+impressions gathered through the channel of our senses), or, what is
+always almost as good and sometimes better, the interpreting voice of
+the living man. For you must allow me the paradox that in some
+mysterious way the voice and gesture of a living witness always convey
+something of the real impression he has had, and sometimes convey more
+than we should have received ourselves from our own sight and hearing of
+the thing related.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, I say, these secondary impressions are valuable as adjuncts to
+primary impressions. But when they stand absolute and have hardly any
+reference to primary impressions, then they may deceive. When they stand
+not only absolute but clothed with authority, and when they pretend to
+convince us even against our own experience, they are positively undoing
+the work which education was meant to do. When we receive them merely as
+an enlargement of what we know and make of the unseen things of which we
+read, things in the image of the seen, then they quite distort our
+appreciation of the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Consider so simple a thing as a river. A child learns its map and knows,
+or thinks it knows, that such and such rivers characterize such and such
+nations and their territories. Paris stands upon the River Seine, Rome
+upon the River Tiber, New Orleans on the Mississippi, Toledo upon the
+River Tagus, and so forth. That child will know one river, the river
+near his home. And he will think of all those other rivers in its image.
+He will think of the Tagus and the Tiber and the Seine and the
+Mississippi--and they will all be the river near his home. Then let him
+travel, and what will he come across? The Seine, if he is from these
+islands, may not disappoint him or astonish him with a sense of novelty
+and of ignorance. It will indeed look grander and more majestic, seen
+from the enormous forest heights above its lower course, than what,
+perhaps, he had thought possible in a river, but still it will be a
+river of water out of which a man can drink, with clear-cut banks and
+with bridges over it, and with boats that ply up and down. But let him
+see the Tagus at Toledo, and what he finds is brown rolling mud, pouring
+solid after the rains, or sluggish and hardly a river after long
+drought. Let him go down the Tiber, down the Valley of the Tiber, on
+foot, and he will retain until the last miles an impression of nothing
+but a turbid mountain torrent, mixed with the friable soil in its bed.
+Let him approach the Mississippi in the most part of its long course and
+the novelty will be more striking still. It will not seem to him a river
+at all (if he be from Northern Europe); it will seem a chance flood. He
+will come to it through marshes and through swamps, crossing a deserted
+backwater, finding firm land beyond, then coming to further shallow
+patches of wet, out of which the tree-stumps stand, and beyond which
+again mud-heaps and banks and groups of reeds leave undetermined, for
+one hundred yards after another, the limits of the vast stream. At last,
+if he has a boat with him, he may make some place where he has a clear
+view right across to low trees, tiny from their distance, similarly half
+swamped upon a further shore, and behind them a low escarpment of bare
+earth. That is the Mississippi nine times out of ten, and to an
+Englishman who had expected to find from his early reading or his maps a
+larger Thames it seems for all the world like a stretch of East Anglian
+flood, save that it is so much more desolate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The maps are coloured to express the claims of Governments. What do they
+tell you of the social truth? Go on foot or bicycling through the more
+populated upland belt of Algiers and discover the curious mixture of
+security and war which no map can tell you of and which none of the
+geographies make you understand. The excellent roads, trodden by men
+that cannot make a road; the walls as ready loopholed for fighting; the
+Christian church and the mosque in one town; the necessity for and the
+hatred of the European; the indescribable difference of the sun, which
+here, even in winter, has something malignant about it, and strikes as
+well as warms; the mountains odd, unlike our mountains; the forests,
+which stand as it were by hardihood, and seem at war against the
+influence of dryness and the desert winds, with their trees far apart,
+and between them no grass, but bare earth alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So it is with the reality of arms and with the reality of the sea. Too
+much reading of battles has ever unfitted men for war; too much talk of
+the sea is a poison in these great town populations of ours which know
+nothing of the sea. Who that knows anything of the sea will claim
+certitude in connexion with it? And yet there is a school which has by
+this time turned its mechanical system almost into a commonplace upon
+our lips, and talks of that most perilous thing, the fortunes of a
+fleet, as though it were a merely numerical and calculable thing! The
+greatest of Armadas may set out and not return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is one experience of travel and of the physical realities of the
+world which has been so widely repeated, and which men have so
+constantly verified, that I could mention it as a last example of my
+thesis without fear of misunderstanding. I mean the quality of a great
+mountain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To one that has never seen a mountain it may seem a full and a fine
+piece of knowledge to be acquainted with its height in feet exactly, its
+situation; nay, many would think themselves learned if they know no more
+than its conventional name. But the thing itself! The curious sense of
+its isolation from the common world, of its being the habitation of awe,
+perhaps the brooding-place of a god!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had seen many mountains, I had travelled in many places, and I had
+read many particular details in the books--and so well noted them upon
+the maps that I could have re-drawn the maps--concerning the Cerdagne.
+None the less the sight of that wall of the Cerdagne, when first it
+struck me, coming down the pass from Tourcarol, was as novel as though
+all my life had been spent upon empty plains. By the map it was 9000
+feet. It might have been 90,000! The wonderment as to what lay beyond,
+the sense that it was a limit to known things, its savage intangibility,
+its sheer silence! Nothing but the eye seeing could give one all those
+things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old complain that the young will not take advice. But the wisest
+will tell them that, save blindly and upon authority, the young cannot
+take it. For most of human and social experience is words to the young,
+and the reality can come only with years. The wise complain of the jingo
+in every country; and properly, for he upsets the plans of statesmen,
+miscalculates the value of national forces, and may, if he is powerful
+enough, destroy the true spirit of armies. But the wise would be wiser
+still if, while they blamed the extravagance of this sort of man, they
+would recognize that it came from that half-knowledge of mere names and
+lists which excludes reality. It is maps and newspapers that turn an
+honest fool into a jingo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is so again with distance, and it is so with time. Men will not grasp
+distance unless they have traversed it, or unless it be represented to
+them vividly by the comparison of great landscapes. Men will not grasp
+historical time unless the historian shall be at the pains to give them
+what historians so rarely give, the measure of a period in terms of a
+human life. It is from secondary impressions divorced from reality that
+a contempt for the past arises, and that the fatal illusion of some
+gradual process of betterment of "progress" vulgarizes the minds of men
+and wastes their effort. It is from secondary impressions divorced from
+reality that a society imagines itself diseased when it is healthy, or
+healthy when it is diseased. And it is from secondary impressions
+divorced from reality that springs the amazing power of the little
+second-rate public man in those modern machines that think themselves
+democracies. This last is a power which, luckily, cannot be greatly
+abused, for the men upon whom it is thrust are not capable even of abuse
+upon a great scale. It is none the less marvellous in its falsehood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now you will say at the end of this, Since you blame so much the power
+for distortion and for ill residing in our great towns, in our system of
+primary education and in our papers and in our books, what remedy can
+you propose? Why, none, either immediate or mechanical. The best and the
+greatest remedy is a true philosophy, which shall lead men always to ask
+themselves what they really know and in what order of certitude they
+know it; where authority actually resides and where it is usurped. But,
+apart from the advent, or rather the recapture, of a true philosophy by
+a European society, two forces are at work which will always bring
+reality back, though less swiftly and less whole. The first is the poet,
+and the second is Time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sooner or later Time brings the empty phrase and the false conclusion up
+against what is; the empty imaginary looks reality in the face and the
+truth at once conquers. In war a nation learns whether it is strong or
+no, and how it is strong and how weak; it learns it as well in defeat as
+in victory. In the long processes of human lives, in the succession of
+generations, the real necessities and nature of a human society destroy
+any false formula upon which it was attempted to conduct it. Time must
+always ultimately teach.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poet, in some way it is difficult to understand (unless we admit
+that he is a seer), is also very powerful as the ally of such an
+influence. He brings out the inner part of things and presents them to
+men in such a way that they cannot refuse but must accept it. But how
+the mere choice and rhythm of words should produce so magical an effect
+no one has yet been able to comprehend, and least of all the poets
+themselves.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="decline">On the Decline of the Book: [And Especially of the Historical Book]</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+It is an interesting speculation by what means the Book lost its old
+position in this country. This is not only an interesting speculation,
+but one which nearly concerns a vital matter. For if men fall into the
+habit of neglecting true books in an old and traditional civilization,
+the inaccuracy of their judgments and the illusions to which they will
+be subject, must increase.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To take but one example: history. The less the true historical book is
+read and the more men depend upon ephemeral statement, the more will
+legend crystallize, the harder will it be to destroy in the general mind
+some comforting lie, and the great object-lesson of politics (which is
+an accurate knowledge of how men have acted in the past) will become at
+last unknown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are many, especially among younger men, who would contest the
+premiss upon which all this is founded. They may point out, for
+instance, that the actual number of bound books bought in a given time
+at present is much larger than ever it was before. They may point out
+again, and with justice, that the proportion of the population which
+reads books of any sort, though perhaps not larger than it was three
+hundred years ago, is very much larger than it was one hundred years
+ago. And it may further be affirmed with truth that the range of
+subjects now covered by books produced and sold is much wider than ever
+it was before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this is true; and yet it is also true that the Book as a factor in
+our civilization has not only declined but has almost disappeared. Were
+many more dogs to be possessed in England than are now possessed, but
+were they to be all mongrels, among which none could be found capable of
+retrieving, or of following a fox or a hare with any discipline, one
+would have a right to say that the dog as a factor of our civilization
+had declined. Were many more men in England able to ride horses more or
+less, but were the number of those who rode constantly and for pleasure
+enormously to diminish, and were the new millions who could just manage
+to keep on horseback to prefer animals without spirit on which they
+would feel safe, one would have a right to say that the horse was
+declining as a factor in our civilization; and this is exactly what has
+happened with the Book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The excellence of a book and its value as a book depend upon two
+factors, which are usually, though not always, united in varied
+proportions: first, that it should put something of value to the reader,
+whether of value as a discovery and an enlargement of wisdom or of value
+as a new emphasis laid upon old and sound morals; secondly, that this
+thing added or renewed in human life should be presented in such a
+manner as to give permanent aesthetic pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That is not a first-rate book which, while it is admirably written,
+teaches something false or something evil; nor is that a first-rate book
+which, though it discover a completely new thing, or emphasize the most
+valuable department of morals, is so constructed as to be unreadable.
+Now it will not be denied that as far as these two factors are
+concerned--and I repeat they are almost always found in combination--the
+position of the Book has dwindled almost to nothingness. One could give
+examples of almost every kind: one could show how poetry, no matter how
+appreciated or praised, no longer sells. One could show--and this is one
+of the worst signs of all--how men will buy by the hundred thousand
+anything at all which has the hall mark of an established reputation,
+quite careless as to their love of it or their appetite for it. One
+could further show how more than one book of permanent value in English
+life has been discovered in our generation outside England, and has been
+as it were thrust upon the English public by foreign opinion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But for my purpose it will be sufficient to take one very important
+branch which I can claim to have watched with some care, and that is the
+branch of History.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It may be said with truth that in our generation no single first-rate
+piece of history has enjoyed an appreciable sale. That is not true of
+France, it is not true of the United States, it is not even true of
+Germany in her intellectual decline, but it is true of England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+History is an excellent test. No man will read history, at least history
+of an instructive sort, unless he is a man who can read a book, and
+desires to possess one. To read History involves not only some permanent
+interest in things not immediately sensible, but also some permanent
+brain-work in the reader; for as one reads history one cannot, if one is
+an intelligent being, forbear perpetually to contrast the lessons it
+teaches with the received opinions of our time. Again, History is
+valuable as an example in the general thesis I am maintaining, because
+no good history can be written without a great measure of hard work. To
+make a history at once accurate, readable, useful, and new, is probably
+the hardest of all literary efforts; a man writing such history is
+driving more horses abreast in his team than a man writing any other
+kind of literary matter. He must keep his imagination active; his style
+must be not only lucid, but also must arrest the reader; he must
+exercise perpetually a power of selection which plays over innumerable
+details; he must, in the midst of such occupations, preserve unity of
+design, as much as must the novelist or the playwright; and yet with all
+this there is not a verb, an adjective or a substantive which, if it
+does not repose upon established evidence, will not mar the particular
+type of work on which he is engaged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As an example of what I mean, consider two sentences: The first is taken
+from the 432nd page of that exceedingly unequal publication, the
+<i>Cambridge History of the French Revolution</i>; the second I have
+made up on the spur of the moment; both deal with the Battle of
+Wattignies. The "Cambridge History" version runs as follows:--
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On October 15 the relieving force, 50,000 strong, attacked the Austrian
+covering force at Wattignies; the battle raged all that day and was most
+furious on the right, in front of the village of Wattignies, which was
+taken and lost three times; on the 17th the French expected another
+general engagement but the enemy had drawn off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are here five great positive errors in six lines. The French were
+not 50,000 strong, the attack on the 15th was not on Wattignies, but on
+Dourlers; Wattignies was not taken and lost three times; the fight of
+the 15th was <i>least</i> pressed on the right (harder on the left and
+hardest in the centre) and no one--not the least recruit--expected
+Coburg to come <i>back</i> on the 17th. Why, he had crossed the Sambre
+at every point the day before! As for negative errors, or errors of
+omission, they are capital, and the chief is that the victory was won on
+the second day, the 16th, of which no mention is made.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now contrast such a sentence with the following:--
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On October 15th the relieving force, 42,000 strong, attacked the
+Austrian centre at Dourlers, and made demonstrations upon its wings; the
+attack upon Dourlers (which village had been taken and lost three times)
+having failed, upon the following day, October 16th, the extreme left of
+the enemy's position at Wattignies was attacked and carried; the enemy
+thus outflanked was compelled to retreat, and Maubeuge was relieved the
+same evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the first sentence (which bears the hall mark of the University)
+every error that could possibly be made in so few lines has been made.
+The numbers are wrong; the nature of the fighting is misstated; the
+village in the centre is confused with that on the extreme right; the
+critical second day is altogether omitted, and every portion of the
+sentence, verb, adjective, and substantive, is either directly
+inaccurate or indirectly conveys an inaccurate impression. The second
+sentence, bald in style and uninteresting in presentation as the first,
+has the merit of telling the truth. But--and here is the point--it would
+be impossible to criticize the first sentence unless someone had read up
+the battle, and to read up that battle one has to depend on five or six
+documents, some unpublished (like much of Jourdan's Memoirs), some of
+them involving a visit to Maubeuge itself, some, like Pierrat's book,
+very difficult to obtain (for it is neither in the British Museum nor in
+the Bodleian) some few the writings of contemporary eyewitnesses, and
+yet themselves demonstrably inaccurate. All these must be read and
+collated, and if possible the actual ground of the battle visited,
+before the first simple inaccurate sentence can be properly criticized
+or the second bald but accurate sentence framed. None of these
+authorities can have been so much as heard of by the official historian
+I have quoted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would be redundant to press the point. Most readers know well enough
+what labour the just writing of history involves, and how excellent a
+type it is of that "making of a book" which art is, as I have said,
+imperilled by apathy at the present day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Consider for a moment who were those that purchased historical works in
+this country in the past. There were, first of all, the landed gentry.
+In almost every great country-house you will find a good old library,
+and that good old library you will discover to be, as a rule, most
+valuable and most complete in what concerns the end of the eighteenth
+and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. A very large proportion
+of history, and history of the best sort, is to be found upon those
+shelves. The standard dwindles, though it is fairly well maintained
+during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Then--as a
+rule--it abruptly comes to an end. One may take as a sort of bourne, the
+two great books Macaulay's <i>History</i> and Kinglake's, for an earlier
+and a later limit. Most of these libraries contain Macaulay; some few
+Kinglake; hardly one possesses later works of value.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It may be urged in defence of the buyer that no later works of value
+exist. Put so broadly, the statement is erroneous; but the truth which
+it contains is in itself dependent upon the lack of public support for
+good historical work. When there is a fortune for the man who writes in
+accordance with whatever form of self-appreciation happens for the
+moment to be popular, while a steady view and an accurate presentation
+of the past can find no sale, then that steady view and that accurate
+presentation cannot be pursued save by men who are wealthy, or by men
+who are endowed, but even wealthy men will hesitate to write what they
+know will not be read, and for history no one is endowed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our Universities were framed for many purposes, of which the cultivation
+of learning was but one; in that one field, however, a particular form
+of learning was taken very seriously, and was pursued with admirable
+industry; I mean an acquaintance with and an imitation of the Latin and
+Greek Classics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a particular character of this form of learning that proficiency
+in it would lead to undisputed honours. The scholar recognized the
+superior scholar; the field of inquiry was by convention highly limited;
+it had been thoroughly explored; discussion upon such results as were
+doubtful did not involve a difference in general philosophy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With history it is otherwise. Whether such things have or have not
+happened, and, above all, if they have happened, the <i>way</i> in which
+they have happened, is to our general judgment of contemporary men what
+evidence is to a criminal trial. Facts won't give way. If, therefore,
+there are vested interests, moral or material, to be maintained, history
+is, of all the sciences or arts, that one most likely to suffer at the
+hands of those connected with such interests. Even where the truth will
+be of advantage to those interests, they are afraid of it, because the
+thorough discussion of it will involve the presentation of views
+disadvantageous to privilege.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Where, as is much more commonly the case (for vested interests, moral or
+material, are unreasoning and selfish things), the truth would certainly
+offend them, they are the more determined to prevent its appearance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But of all vested interests none deal with such assured incomes, none
+are so immune by influence and tradition as the Universities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, if the rich man has no temptation by way of popular fame, and the
+poor man no opportunity for endowment, in any branch of letters, there
+remains but a third form of support, and that is the support of the
+buying public. And the public will not buy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I will suppose the case of a popular novelist, who in a few months shall
+write, not an historical novel, but a piece of so-called history. He
+shall call it, for instance, "England's Heroes." Before you tell me his
+name, or what he has written, I can tell you here and now what he will
+write on any number of points. He will call Hastings Senlac. In the
+Battle of Hastings he will make out Harold to be the head of a highly
+patriotic nation called the "Anglo-Saxons"; they shall be desperately
+defending themselves against certain French-speaking Scandinavians
+called Normans. He will deplore the defeat, but will say it was all for
+the best. Magna Charta he will have signed at Runnymede--probably he
+will have it drawn up there as well. He will translate the most famous
+clause by the modern words "Judgment of his peers" and "law of the
+land." He will represent the Barons as having behind them the voice of
+the whole nation--and so forth. When he comes to Crcy he will make
+Edward III speak English. When he comes to Agincourt he will leave his
+readers as ignorant as himself upon the boundaries, numbers and power of
+the Burgundian faction. In the Civil War Oliver Cromwell will be an
+honest and not very rich gentleman of the middle-classes. The
+Parliamentary force will be that of the mass of the people against a few
+gallant but wicked aristocrats who follow the perfidious Charles. He
+will make no mention of the pay of the Ironsides. James II will be
+driven out by a popular uprising, in which the great Churchill will play
+an honourable and chivalric part. The loss of the American Colonies will
+be deplored, and will be ascribed to the folly of attempting to tax men
+of "Anglo-Saxon" blood, unless you grant them representation. The
+Continental troops will be treated as the descendants of Englishmen! The
+guns at Saratoga will be Colonial guns; the incapacity of the Fleet will
+not be touched upon. Here again, as in the case of the Battle of
+Hastings, all will be for the best, and there will be a few touching
+words upon the passionate affection now felt for Great Britain by the
+inhabitants of the United States. The defensive genius of Wellington
+will be represented as that of a general particularly great in the
+offensive. Talavera will be a victory. The Spanish Auxiliaries in the
+Peninsula will be contemptible. No guns will be abandoned before Corua,
+but what are left at Corua will be mentioned and re-embarked. The
+character of Nelson will receive a curious sort of glutinous praise; Emma
+Hamilton, not Naples, will be the stain upon his name; the Battle of
+Trafalgar will prevent the invasion of England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This is a lengthy but not unjust description of what this gentleman
+would write; it is rubbish from beginning to end. It would sell, because
+every word of it would foster in the reader the illusion that the
+community of which he is a member is invincible under all circumstances,
+that effort and self-denial and suffering are spared him alone out of
+all mankind, and that a little pleasurable excitement, preferably that
+to be obtained from his favourite game, is the chief factor in military
+success.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have omitted Alfred. Alfred in such a book will be the "teller of
+truth"--but he will not go to Mass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Given that the name is sufficiently well known, there is hardly any
+limit to the sale of a book modelled upon these lines. Contrast with its
+fate the fate of a book, written no matter how powerfully, that should
+insist upon truths, no matter how valuable to the English people at the
+present moment. These truths need by no means be unpleasant, though at
+the present moment an unpleasant truth is undoubtedly more valuable than
+a pleasant one. They could make as much or more for the glory of the
+country; they could be at any rate of infinitely greater service, but
+they would not be received, simply because they would compel close
+attention and brain-work in the reader as well as in the writer of them.
+An established groove would have to be abandoned; to use a strong
+metaphor, the reader would have to get out of bed, and that is what the
+modern reader will not do. Tell him that the men who fought on either
+side at Hastings' plain cared nothing for national but everything for
+feudal allegiance; that <i>lex terrae</i> means the local custom of
+ordeal and not the "law of the land"; tell him that <i>judicium
+parium</i> means the right of a noble to be judged by nobles, and has
+nothing to do with the jury system; tell him that Magna Charta was
+certainly drawn up before the meeting at Runnymede; that not until the
+Lancastrians did English kings speak English; that Oliver Cromwell owed
+his position to the enormous wealth of the Williamses, of whom had he
+not been a cadet, he would never have been known; tell him that the
+whole force of the Parliament resided in the squires and that the Civil
+Wars turned England into an oligarchy; tell him the exact truth about
+the infamy of Churchill; tell him what proportion of Englishmen during
+the American War were taxed without being represented; tell him what
+proportion of Washington's troops were of English blood; tell him any
+one illuminating and true thing about the history of his country, and
+the novelty will so offend him that a direct insult would have pleased
+him better.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What is true of history is true of nearly all the rest, and the upshot
+of the whole matter is that there is not, either in private patronage or
+in popular demand, a chance for history in modern England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You can have excellent literature in journalism, and it will be widely
+read. I would say more--I would say that the better literature a
+newspaper admits, the more widely will that paper be read, or at any
+rate the greater will its influence be on modern Englishmen. But when it
+comes to the kneaded and wrought matter of the true Book, neither the
+public nor the centres of learning will have any of it, and the last
+medium which might make it possible, patronage, has equally disappeared,
+because the modern patron does not work in the daylight in the full view
+of the nation and with its full approbation, and he is no longer a public
+man (though he is richer than ever he was before). His patronage,
+therefore, though it is still considerable, is expended in satisfying his
+private demand. Private architects build him doubtful castles, private
+collectors get him manuscripts and jewels, but Letters, which are a public
+thing, he can no longer command.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It might be asked, by way of conclusion, whether there is any remedy for
+this state of things. There is none. Its prime cause resides in a
+certain attitude of the national mind, and this kind of broadly held
+philosophy is not changed save by slow preaching or external shock. As
+long as modern England remains what we know it, and follows the lines of
+change which we see it following, the Book will necessarily decline more
+and more, and we must make up our minds to it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of other evil tendencies of our time, one can say of some that they are
+obviously mending, of others that such and such an applicable remedy
+would mend them. Our public architecture is certainly getting better; so
+is our painting. Our gross and increasing contempt of self-government
+(to take quite another sphere) is curable by one or two simple reforms
+in procedure, registration, the expenses of election, and voting at the
+polls, which would restore the House of Commons to life, and give it
+power to express English will. But a regard for, a cultivation of, above
+all a sinking of wealth upon, English Letters is past praying for. We
+must wait until the tide changes; we can do nothing, and the waiting
+will be long.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="jose">Jos Maria de Heredia</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+The French have a phrase "la beaut du verbe" by which they would
+express a something in the sound and in the arrangement of words which
+supplements whatever mere thought those words were intended to express.
+It is evident that no definition of this beauty can be given, but it is
+also evident that without it letters would not exist. How it arises we
+cannot explain, yet the process is familiar to us in everything we do
+when we are attempting to fulfil an impulse towards whatever is good. An
+integration not of many small things but of an infinite series of
+infinitely small things build up the perfect gesture, the perfect line,
+the perfect intonation, and the perfect phrase. So indeed are all things
+significant built up: every tone of the voice, every arrangement of
+landscape or of notes in music which awake us and reveal the things
+beyond. But when one says that this is especially true of perfect
+expression one means that sometimes, rarely, the integration achieves a
+steadfast and sufficient formula. The mind is satisfied rather than
+replete. It asks no more; and if it desires to enjoy further the
+pleasure such completion has given it, it does not attempt to prolong or
+to develop the pleasure under which it has leapt; it is content to wait
+a while and to return, knowing well that it has here a treasure laid up
+for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this may be expressed in two words: the Classical Spirit. That is
+Classic of which it is true that the enjoyment is sufficient when it is
+terminated and that in the enjoyment of it an entity is revealed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When men propose to bequeath to their fellows work of so supreme a kind
+it is to be noticed that they choose by instinct a certain material.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It has been said that the material in which he works affects the
+achievement of the artist: it is truer to say that it helps him. A man
+designing a sculpture in marble knows very well what he is about to do.
+A man attempting the exact and restrained rendering of tragedy upon the
+stage does not choose the stage as one among many methods, he is drawn
+to it: he needs it; the audience, the light, the evening, the very slope
+of the boards, all minister to his efforts. And so a man determined to
+produce the greatest things in verse takes up by nature exact and
+thoughtful words and finds that their rhythm, their combination, and
+their sound turn under his hand to something greater than he himself at
+first intended; he becomes a creator, and his name is linked with the
+name of a masterpiece. The material in which he has worked is hard; the
+price he has paid is an exceeding effect; the reward he has earned is
+permanence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jos de Heredia was an artist of this kind. The mass of the verse he
+produced, or rather published, was small. It might have been very large.
+It is not (as a foolish modern affectation will sometimes pretend)
+necessary to the endurance or even the excellence of work that it should
+be the product of exceptional moments; nor is it even true (as the wise
+Ancients believed) that great length of time must always mature it. But
+the small volume of Heredia's legacy to European letters does argue this
+at least in the poet, that he passionately loved perfection and that,
+finding himself able to achieve it (for perfection can be achieved) but
+now and then, he chose only to be remembered by the contentment which,
+now and then, his own genius had given him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He worked upon verse as men work upon the harder metals; all that he did
+was chiselled very finely, then sawn to an exact configuration and at
+last inlaid, for when he published his completed volume it is true to
+say that every piece fitted in with the sound of one before and of one
+after. He was careful in the heroic degree.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His blood and descent are worthy of notice. He was a Spaniard,
+inheriting from the first Conquerors of the New World, nor was it
+remarkable to those who have received a proper enthusiasm for the
+classical spirit that the energy and even the violence natural to such a
+lineage should express themselves in the coldest and the most exalted
+form when, for the second time, a member of the family attempted verse.
+It is in the essence of that spirit that it alone can dare to be
+disciplined. It never doubts the motive power that will impel it; it is
+afraid, if anything, of an excess of power, and consciously imposes upon
+itself the limits which give it form.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Heredia in his person expressed the activity which impelled him, for he
+was strong, brown, erect, a rapid walker, and a man whose voice was
+perpetually modulated in resonant and powerful tones. In his last years
+during his administration of the Library at the Arsenal this vitality of
+his took on an aspect of good nature very charming and very fruitful.
+His organization of the place was thorough, his knowledge of the readers
+intimate. He refused the manuscripts of none, he advised, laughed, and
+consoled. His criticism was sure. Several, notably Marcel Prevost, were
+launched by his authority. The same deep security of literary judgment
+which had permitted him to chastise and to perfect his impeccable
+sonnets into their final form permitted him also to hold up before his
+eyes, grasp, and judge the work of every other man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His frailty, as must always be the frailty of such men, was
+fastidiousness. The same sensitive consciousness which is said to have
+all but lost us the Aeneid, and which certainly all but lost us the
+Apologia, dominated his otherwise vigorous soul. It is more than forty
+years since his first verse, written just upon achieving his majority,
+appeared in the old <i>Revue de Paris</i> and in the <i>Revue des Deux
+Mondes</i>. It was not till 1893 that he collected in one volume the
+scattered sonnets of his youth and middle age: the collection won him
+somewhat tardily his chair in the Academy. There is irony in the
+reminiscence that the man he defeated in that election was Zola.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the great men who saluted his advent are dead. Thophile Gautier,
+who first established his fame; Hugo, who addressed to him, perhaps,
+that vigorous appeal in which strict labour is deified, and the medal
+and the marble bust are shown to outlive the greatest glories, are
+sometimes quoted as the last among the great French writers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The immediate future will show that the stream of French excellence in
+this department, as in any other of human activity, is full, deep, and
+steady. The work of Heredia will help to prove it. He was a Spaniard,
+and a Colonial Spaniard. No other nation, perhaps, except the modern
+French, so inherit the romantic appetite of the later Roman Empire as to
+be able to mould and absorb every exterior element of excellence. It is
+remarkable that at the same moment Paris contemplated the funeral of the
+Italian de Brazza and the death of the Cuban Heredia. It is probable
+that those of us who are still young will live to see either name at the
+head of a new tradition. Heredia proved it possible not so much to
+imitate as to recapture the secure tradition of an older time. Perhaps
+the truest generalization that can be made with regard to the French
+people is to say that they especially in Western Europe (whose quality
+it is ever to transform itself but never to die) discover new springs of
+vitality after every period of defeat and aridity which they are
+compelled to cross. Heredia will prove in the near future a capital
+example of this power. He will increase silently in reputation until we,
+in old age, shall be surprised to find our sons and grandsons taking him
+for granted and speaking of him as one speaks of the Majores, of the
+permanent lights of poetry.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="normandy">Normandy and the Normans</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+There is no understanding a country unless one gets to know the nature
+of its sub-units. In some way not easy to comprehend, impossible to
+define, and yet very manifest, each of the great national organisms of
+which Christendom is built up is itself a body of many regions whose
+differences and interaction endow it with a corporate life. No one could
+understand the past of England who did not grasp the local genius of the
+counties--Lancashire, cut off eastward by the Pennines, southward by the
+belt of marsh, with no natural entry save by the gate of Stockport;
+Sussex, which was and is a bishopric and a kingdom; Kent, Devon, the
+East Anglian meres. No one could (or does) understand modern England who
+does not see its sub-units to have become by now the great industrial
+towns, or who fails to seize the spirit of each group of such
+towns--with London lying isolated in the south, a negative to the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+France is built of such sub-units: it is the peculiarity of French
+development that these are not small territories mainly of an average
+extent with government answerable in a long day's ride to one centre,
+such as most English counties are; nor city States such as form the
+piles upon which the structure of Italy has been raised; nor kingdoms
+such as coalesced to reform the Spanish people; but <i>provinces</i>,
+differing greatly in area, from little plains enclosed, like the
+Rousillon, to great stretches of landscape succeeding landscape like the
+Bourbonnais or the Prigord.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The real continuity with an immemorial past which inspires all Gallic
+things is discoverable in this arrangement of Gaul. At the first glance
+one might imagine a French province to be a chance growth of the feudal
+ties and of the Middle Ages. A further effort of scholarship will prove
+it essentially Roman. An intimate acquaintance with its customs and with
+the site of its strongholds, coupled with a comparison of the most
+recent and most fruitful hypotheses of historians, will convince you
+that it is earlier than the Roman conquest; it is tribal, or the home of
+a group of cognate tribes, and its roots are lost in prehistory. So it
+is with Normandy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This vast territory--larger (I think) than all North England from the
+Humber to Cheviot and from Chester to the Solway--has never formed a
+nation. It is typical of the national idea in France that Normandy
+should have "held" of the political centre of the country, probably
+since the first Gallic confederations were formed, certainly since the
+organization of the Empire. It is equally typical of the local life of a
+French province that, thus dependent, Normandy should have strictly
+preserved its manner and its spirit, and should have readily made war
+upon the Crown and resisted, as it still resists and will perhaps for
+ever, the centralizing forces of the national temper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If you will travel day after day, and afoot, westward across the length
+of Normandy, you will have, if you are a good walker, a fortnight's
+task ahead of you; even if you are walking for a wager, a week's. It is
+the best way in which to possess a knowledge of that great land, and my
+advice would be to come in from the Picards over the bridge of Aumale
+across the little River Bresle (which is the boundary of Normandy to the
+east), and to go out by way of Pontorson, there crossing into Brittany
+over the little River Couesnon, which is the boundary of Normandy upon
+the west and beyond which lie the Bretons. In this way will you be best
+acquainted with the sharp differentiation of the French provinces
+passing into Normandy from Picardy, brick-built, horse-breeding, and
+slow, passing out of Normandy into the desolation and dreams of
+Brittany, and having known between the one and the other the chalk
+streams, the day-long beechen forests, the valley pastures, and the
+flamboyant churches of the Normans. You will do well to go by
+Neufchtel, where the cheese is made, and by Rouen, then by Lisieux to
+Falaise, where the Conqueror was born, and thence by Vive to Avranches
+and so to the Breton border, taking care to choose the forests between
+one town and another for your road, since these many and deep
+woods--much wider than any we know in England--are in great part the
+soul of the country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this itinerary you will not have taken all you should into view; you
+will not have touched the coast nor seen how Normandy is based upon the
+sea, and you will not have known the Cotentin, which is a little State
+of its own and is the quadrilateral which Normandy thrusts forth into
+the Channel. If you have the leisure, therefore, return by the north.
+Pass through Coutances and Valognes to Cherbourg, thence through Caen
+and Bayeux to the crossing of Seine at Honfleur, and then on by the
+chalk uplands and edges of the cliffs till you reach Eu upon the Bresle
+again. In such a double journey the character of the whole will be
+revealed, and if you have studied the past of the place before starting
+you will find your journey full. Avranches, Coutances, Lisieux, Bayeux,
+Rouen are not chance sites. Their great churches mark the bishoprics;
+the bishoprics in turn were the administrative centres of Rome, and Rome
+chose them because they were the strongholds or the sacred cities each
+of a Gallic tribe. The wealth of the valleys permitted everywhere that
+astonishing richness of detail which marks the stonework in village
+after village; the connexion with England, especially the last connexion
+under Henry V, explains the innumerable churches, splendid even in
+hamlets as are our own. The Bresle and the Couesnon, those little
+streams, are boundaries not of these last few centuries, but of a time
+beyond view; the Romans found them so. Diocletian made them the limits
+of the "Second Lyonesse," "Lugdunensis Secunda," which was the last
+Roman name of the province.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here and there, near the west especially, you will discover names which
+recall the chief adventure of Normandy, the accident which baptized it
+with its Christian name, the landing of the Scandinavian pirates, the
+thousandth anniversary of which is now being celebrated. They came--we
+cannot tell in what numbers, some thousands--and harried the land. The
+old policy of the Empire, the policy already seven hundred years old,
+was had recourse to; the barbarians were granted settlement,
+inheritance, marriage, and partnership with the Lords of the Villae;
+their chief was permitted to hold local government, to tax and to levy
+men as the administrator of the whole province; but there followed
+something which wherever else the experiment had been tried had not
+followed: something of a new race arose. In Burgundy, in the northeast,
+in Visigothic Aquitaine the slight admixture of foreign blood had not
+changed the people, it was absorbed; the slight admixture of
+Scandinavian blood, coming so much later, in a time so degraded in
+government and therefore so open to natural influence, did change the
+Gallo-Romans of the Second Lyonesse. Few as the newcomers may have been
+in number, the new element transformed the mass, and when a century had
+permitted the union to work and settle, the great soldiers who founded
+us appeared. The Norman lords ordered, surveyed, codified, and ruled.
+They let Europe into England, they organized Sicily, they confirmed the
+New Papacy, they were the framework of the Crusades.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The phenomenon was brief. It lasted little more than a hundred years,
+but it transformed Europe and launched the Middle Ages. When it had
+passed, Normandy stood confirmed for centuries (and is still confirmed)
+in a character of its own. No longer adventurous but mercantile, apt, of
+a resisting courage, sober in thought, leaning upon tradition, not
+imperially but domestically strong: the country of Corneille and of
+Malesherbes, a reflection of that spirit in letters; the conservative
+body of to-day--for in our generation that is the mark of Normandy--and,
+in arms, the recruitment to which Napoleon addressed his short and
+famous order that "the Normans that day should do their duty."
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="oldt">The Old Things</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+Those who travel about England for their pleasure, or, for that matter,
+about any part of Western Europe, rightly associate with such travel the
+pleasure of history; for history adds to a man, giving him, as it were,
+a great memory of things--like a human memory, but stretched over a far
+longer space than that of one human life. It makes him, I do not say
+wise and great, but certainly in communion with wisdom and greatness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It adds also to the soil he treads, for to this it adds meaning. How
+good it is when you come out of Tewkesbury by the Cheltenham road to
+look upon those fields to the left and know that they are not only
+pleasant meadows, but also the place in which a great battle of the
+mediaeval monarchy was decided, or as you stand by that ferry, which is
+not known enough to Englishmen (for it is one of the most beautiful
+things in England), and look back and see Tewkesbury tower, framed
+between tall trees over the level of the Severn, to see also the Abbey
+buildings in your eye of the mind--a great mass of similar stone with
+solid Norman walls, stretching on hugely to the right of the Minster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this historical sense and the desire to marry History with Travel is
+very fruitful and nourishing, but there is another interest, allied to
+it, which is very nearly neglected, and which is yet in a way more
+fascinating and more full of meaning. This interest is the interest in
+such things as lie behind recorded history, and have survived into our
+own times. For underneath the general life of Europe, with its splendid
+epic of great Rome turned Christian, crusading, discovering, furnishing
+the springs of the Renaissance, and flowering at last materially into
+this stupendous knowledge of today, the knowledge of all the Arts, the
+power to construct and to do--underneath all that is the foundation on
+which Europe is built, the stem from which Europe springs; and that stem
+is far, far older than any recorded history, and far, far more vital
+than any of the phenomena which recorded history presents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Recorded history for this island and for Northern France and for the
+Rhine Valley is a matter of two thousand years; for the Western
+Mediterranean of three; but the things of which I speak are to be
+reckoned in tens of thousands of years. Their interest does not lie only
+nor even chiefly in things that have disappeared. It is indeed a great
+pleasure to rummage in the earth and find polished stones wrought by men
+who came so many centuries before us, and of whose blood we certainly
+are; and it is a great pleasure to find, or to guess that we find, under
+Canterbury the piles of a lake or marsh dwelling, proving that
+Canterbury has been there from all time; and that the apparently
+defenceless Valley City was once chosen as an impregnable site, when the
+water-meadows of the Stour were impassable as marsh, or with difficulty
+passable as a shallow lagoon. And it is delightful to stand on the
+earthwork a few miles west and to say to oneself (as one can say with a
+fair certitude), "Here was the British camp defending the south-east;
+here the tenth legion charged." All these are pleasant, but more
+pleasant, I think, to follow the thing where it actually survives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Consider the track-ways, for instance. How rich is England in these! No
+other part of Europe will afford the traveller so permanent and so
+fascinating a problem. Elsewhere Rome hardened and straightened every
+barbaric trail until the original line and level disappeared; but in
+this distant province of Britain she could only afford just so much
+energy as made them a foothold for her soldiery; and all over England
+you can go, if you choose, foot by foot, along the ancient roads that
+were made by the men of your blood before they had heard of brick or of
+stone or of iron or of written laws.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I wonder that more men do not set out to follow, let us say, the
+Fosse-Way. There it runs right across Western England from the
+south-west to the north-east in a line direct yet sinuous, characters
+which are the very essence of a savage trail. It is a modern road for
+many miles, and you are tramping, let us say, along the Cotswold on a
+hard metalled modern English highway, with milestones and notices from
+the County Council telling you that the culverts will not bear a
+steam-engine, if so be you were to travel on one. Then suddenly this
+road comes up against a cross-road and apparently ceases, making what
+map draughtsmen call a "T"; but right in the same line you see a gate,
+and beyond it a farm lane, and so you follow. You come to a spinney
+where a ride has been cut through by the woodreeve, and it is all in the
+same line. The Fosse-Way turns into a little path, but you are still on
+it; it curves over a marshy brook-valley, picking out the firm land, and
+as you go you see old stones put there heaven knows how many (or how
+few) generations ago--or perhaps yesterday, for the tradition remains,
+and the country-folk strengthen their wet lands as they have
+strengthened them all these thousands of years; you climb up out of that
+depression, you get you over a stile, and there you are again upon a
+lane. You follow that lane, and once more it stops dead. This time there
+is a field before you. No right of way, no trace of a path, nothing but
+grass rounded into those parallel ridges which mark the modern decay of
+the corn lands and pasture--alas!--taking the place of ploughing. Now
+your pleasure comes in casting about for the trail; you look back along
+the line of the Way; you look forward in the same line till you find
+some indication, a boundary between two parishes, perhaps upon your map,
+or two or three quarries set together, or some other sign, and very soon
+you have picked up the line again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So you go on mile after mile, and as you tread that line you have in the
+horizons that you see, in the very nature and feel of the soil beneath
+your feet, in the skies of England above you, the ancient purpose and
+soul of this Kingdom. Up this same line went the Clans marching when
+they were called Northward to the host; and up this went slow, creaking
+wagons with the lead of the Mendips or the tin of Cornwall or the gold
+of Wales.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And it is still there; it is still used from place to place as a high
+road, it still lives in modern England. There are some of its peers, as
+for instance the Ermine Street, far more continuous, and affording
+problems more rarely; others like the ridgeway of the Berkshire Downs,
+which Rome hardly touched, and of which the last two thousand years has,
+therefore, made hardly anything; you may spend a delightful day piecing
+out exactly where it crossed the Thames, making your guess at it, and
+wondering as you sit there by Streatley Vicarage whether those islands
+did not form a natural weir below which lay the ford.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The roads are the most obvious things. There are many more; for
+instance, thatch. The same laying of the straw in the same manner, with
+the same art, has continued, we may be certain, from a time long before
+the beginning of history. See how in the Fen Land they thatch with
+reeds, and how upon the Chalk Downs with straw from the Lowlands. I
+remember once being told of a record in a manor, which held of the
+Church and which lay upon the southern slope of the Downs, that so much
+was entered for "straw from the Lowlands": then, years afterwards, when
+I had to thatch a Bethlehem in an orchard underneath tall elms--a
+pleasant place to write in, with the noise of bees in the air--the man
+who came to thatch said to me: "We must have straw from the Lowlands;
+this upland straw is no good for thatching." Immediately when I heard
+him say this there was added to me ten thousand years. And I know
+another place in England, far distant from this, where a man said to me
+that if I wished to cross in a winter mist, as I had determined to do,
+Cross-Fell, that great summit of the Pennines, I must watch the drift of
+the snow, for there was no other guide to one's direction in such
+weather. And I remember another man in a little boat in the North Sea,
+as we came towards the Foreland, talking to me of the two tides, and
+telling me how if one caught the tide all the way up to Long Nose and
+then went round it on the end of the flood, one caught a new tide up
+London river, and so made two tides in one day. He spoke with the same
+pleasure that silly men show when they talk about an accumulation of
+money. He felt wealthy and proud from the knowledge, for by this
+knowledge he had two tides in one day. Now knowledge of this sort is
+older than ten thousand years; and so is the knowledge of how birds fly,
+and of how they call, and of how the weather changes with the moon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Very many things a man might add to the list that I am making. Dew-pans
+are older than the language or the religion; and the finding of water
+with a stick; and the catching of that smooth animal, the mole; and the
+building of flints into mortar, which if one does it in the old way (as
+you may see at Pevensey) the work lasts for ever, but if you do it in
+any new way it does not last ten years; then there is the knowledge of
+planting during the crescent part of the month, but not before the new
+moon shows; and there is the influence of the moon on cider, and to a
+less extent upon the brewing of ale; and talking of ale, the knowledge
+of how ale should be drawn from the brewing just when a man can see his
+face without mist upon the surface of the hot brew. And there is the
+knowledge of how to bank rivers, which is called "throwing the rives" in
+the South, but in the Fen Land by some other name; and how to bank them
+so that they do not silt, but scour themselves. There are these things
+and a thousand others. All are immemorial.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="battle">The Battle of Hastings. Related in the Manner of Oxford and Dedicated
+to that University</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+So careless were the French commanders (or more properly the French
+commander, for the rest were cowed by the bullying swagger of William)
+that the night, which should have been devoted to some sort of
+reconnaissance, if not of a preparation of the ground, was devoted to
+nothing more practical than the religious exercises peculiar to
+foreigners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their army, as we have seen, was not drawn from any one land, but it was
+in the majority composed of Normans and Bretons; we can therefore
+understand the extravagant superstition which must bear the blame for
+what followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, upon the heights above, the English host calmly prepared for
+battle. Fires were lit each in its appointed place, and at these meat
+was cooked under the stern but kindly eyes of the sergeant-majors. These
+also distributed at an appointed price liquor, of which the British
+soldier is never willing to be deprived, and as the hours advanced
+towards morning, the songs in which our adventurous race has ever
+delighted rose from the heights above the Brede.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The morning was misty, as is often the case over damp and marshy lands
+in the month of October, but the inclemency of the weather, or, to speak
+more accurately, the superfluous moisture precipitated from an already
+saturated atmosphere, was of no effect upon those silent and tenacious
+troops of Harold. It was far other with the so-called "Norman" host, who
+were full of forebodings--only too amply to be justified--of the fate
+that lay before them upon the morrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is curious to contrast the quiet skill and sagacity which marked the
+disposition of Harold with the almost childish simplicity of William's
+plan--if plan it may be called.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Saxon hosts were drawn along the ridge in a position chosen with
+masterly skill. It afforded (as may still be seen) no dead ground for an
+attacking force and little cover. [<a href="#1">1</a>] Their left was arranged <i>en potence</i>, their
+right was drawn up in echelon. The centre followed the plan usual at
+that time, reposing upon the wings to its right and left and extended.
+The reserves were, of course, posted behind. Cavalry, as at Omdurman,
+played but a slight role in this typically national action and such
+mounted troops as were present seem to have been intermixed with the
+line in the fashion later known, in the jargon of the service, as "The
+Beggar's Quadrille." The Brigade of Guards is not mentioned in any
+record that I can discover, but was probably set by reversed companies
+in a square perpendicular to the main ravine and a little in front of
+the salient angle which appears upon the map at the point marked A.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The terrain can be clearly determined at the present day in spite of the
+changes that have taken place in the intervening years. It is a fairly
+steep slope of hemispherical contour interspersed with low bushes; the
+summit (upon which now stands our lovely English village of Battle and
+the residence of one of those cultured and leisured men who form the
+framework of our commonwealth) was then but a wild heath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Harold himself could be distinguished in the centre of the line by his
+handsome features, restrained deportment, and unfailing gentlemanly good
+sense as he spoke to staff officer, orderly, and even groom with
+indefatigable skill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In spite of the determination observable from a great distance upon the
+faces of the tall Saxon line, William with characteristic lack of
+balance opened the action by ordering a charge uphill with cavalry
+alone; it was a piece of tactics absurdly incongruous and one even he
+would never have attempted had he understood the foe that was before
+him, or the fate to which that foe had doomed him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lesson dealt him was as immediate as it was severe. The foreigners
+were thrust headlong down the hill, and a private letter tells us how
+the Men of Kent in particular buffeted the Normans about "as though they
+were boys." But even in the heat of this initial success Harold had the
+self-command to order the retirement upon the main position: and with
+troops such as his the order was equivalent to its execution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This rude blow would have sufficed for any commander less vain than
+William, but he seems to have lost all judgment in a fit of personal
+vanity and to have ordered a second charge which could not but prove as
+futile as the first, delivered as it was up a perfect glacis
+strengthened by epaulements, reverses and countersunk galvon work and
+one whose natural strength was heightened by the stockade which the
+indomitable energy of Harold's troops had perfected in the early hours
+of the morning. Many of the stakes in this, the reader may note with
+pardonable pride, were of English oak--sharpened at the tip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+William's plan (if plan it may be called) was, as we have seen,
+necessarily futile and was foredoomed to failure. But Harold had no
+intention to let the action bear no more fruit than a tactical victory
+upon this particular field. The brain that had designed the exact
+synchrony of Stamford Bridge and the famous march southward from the
+Humber was of that sort which is only found once in many centuries of
+the history of war and which is (it may be said without boasting)
+peculiar to this island.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another general would have awaited the second charge with its useless
+butchery and still more useless contest for the barren name of victory.
+Not so Harold. Those commanding, cold grey eyes of his swept the line in
+a comprehensive glance, and though no written record of the detail
+remains, he must know little of the character of the man who does not
+understand that from Harold certainly proceeded the order for what
+followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The forces at the centre, which he commanded in person, deftly withdrew
+before the futile gallop of William's cavalry, leaving, with that
+coolness which has ever distinguished our troops, the laggards to their
+fate. At the same moment, and with marvellous precision, the left and
+right were withdrawn from the plateau rapidly and as by magic, and the
+old-fashioned tactics of mere impact (which William of Normandy seems
+seriously to have relied on!) were spent and wasted upon the now
+evacuated summit of the hill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What followed is famous in history.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cohesion of the Saxon force and the exactitude and coolness with
+which its great operation was performed is of good augury for the future
+of our country. Though it was now thick night, by no set road and with
+no cumbersome machinery of train and rear-guard, the whole of the vast
+assembly masked itself behind the woodlands of the Weald.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Norman horsemen, bewildered and fatigued, gazed on the many that had
+fallen in defence of the masking position and wondered whether such
+novel happenings were victory or no, but the army whose concentration
+upon the Thames it was William's whole object to prevent, was already
+miles northward, each unit proceeding by exactly co-ordinated routes
+towards London.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is perhaps no more difficult task set before soldiers than the
+quiet execution of such a manoeuvre after the heat of a heavy action,
+and none have performed it more magnificently than the veteran troop of
+Harold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When (luckily) all the orders had been finally distributed a great
+tragedy marred the completeness of the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just before the execution of this masterpiece of strategy, and as the
+autumn sun was sinking, the inevitable price which war demands of all
+its darlings was paid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Harold himself, the artist of the great victory, fell. But we have no
+reason to believe that his loss retarded the retrograding movement in
+any degree. Men who create as Harold created have not their creations
+spoilt by death.
+</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p>
+The shameful history of the close of the campaign is familiar to every
+schoolboy, and the military historian must be pardoned if he deals with
+a purely civilian blunder in a few brief words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Parliament interfered--as it always does--with what should have been a
+matter for soldiers alone. Intrigues, bribery, or worse (with which the
+military historian has no concern) ruined what had been, in the field,
+one of the principal achievements of the Saxon arms. And William, who
+could not count to hold his own against regular forces and who was
+astonished to find himself free to retreat precipitately on Dover, was
+still more astonished to find himself accepted a few weeks later after
+an aimless march to the west and north by the politicians--or worse--at
+Berkhampstead. He and England were equally astounded to find that a
+broken and defeated invader could actually be accepted by the intriguers
+at Westminster and crowned King of England as the price of a secret
+bargain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such was the fruit of as great and successful an effort as ever Saxon
+soldier made: the Battle of Senlac: for such--as I am now free to
+reveal--was the true name of the field of action.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ineptitude or avarice of politicians had undone the work of
+soldiers, and it is no wonder that the last of Harold's veterans, who
+retired in disgust to impregnable fortresses in Ely, Arthur's Seat, and
+Pudsey, are recorded to have gnashed their teeth and shed tears of
+indignation at the dispatches from the metropolis. At Crcy they were to
+be avenged.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="roman">The Roman Roads in Picardy</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+If a man were asked where he would find upon the map the sharpest
+impress of Rome and of the memories of Rome, and where he would most
+easily discover in a few days on foot the foundations upon which our
+civilization still rests, he might, in proportion to his knowledge of
+history and of Europe, be puzzled to reply. He might say that a week
+along the wall from Tyne to Solway would be the answer; or a week in the
+great Roman cities of Provence with their triumphal arches and their
+vast arenas and their Roman stone cropping out everywhere: in old quays,
+in ruined bridges, in the very pavement of the streets they use to-day,
+and in the columns of their living churches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now I was surprised to find myself after many years of dabbling in such
+things, furnishing myself the answer in quite a different place. It was
+in Picardy during the late manoeuvres of the French Army that, in the
+intervals of watching those great buzzing flies, the aeroplanes, and in
+the intervals of long tramps after the regiments or of watching the
+massed guns, the necessity for perpetually consulting the map brought
+home to me for the first time this truth--that Picardy is the
+province--or to be more accurate, Picardy with its marches in the le de
+France, the edge of Normandy and the edge of Flanders--which retains
+to-day the most vivid impress of Rome. For though the great buildings
+are lacking, and the Roman work, which must here have been mainly of
+brick, has crumbled, and though I can remember nothing upstanding and
+patently of the Empire between the gate of Rheims and the frontier of
+Artois, yet one feature--the Roman road--is here so evident, so
+multiple, and so enduring that it makes up for all the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One discovers the old roads upon the map, one after the other, with a
+sort of surprise. The scheme develops before one as one looks, and
+always when one thinks one has completed the web another and yet another
+straight arrow of a line reveals itself across the page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The map is a sort of palimpsest. A mass of fine modern roads, a whole
+red blur of lanes and local ways, the big, rare black lines of the
+railway--these are the recent writing, as it were; but underneath the
+whole, more and more apparent and in greater and greater numbers as one
+learns to discover them, are the strict, taut lines which Rome stretched
+over all those plains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is something most fascinating in noting them, and discovering them
+one after the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For they need discovering. No one of them is still in complete use. The
+greater part must be pieced together from lengths of lanes which turn
+into broad roads, and then suddenly sink again into footpaths, rights of
+way, or green forest rides.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Often, as with our rarer Roman roads in England, all trace of the thing
+disappears under the plough or in the soft crossings of the river
+valleys; one marks them by the straightness of their alignment, by the
+place names which lie upon them (the repeated name Estree, for instance,
+which is like the place name "street" upon the Roman roads of England);
+by the recovery of them after a gap; by the discoveries which local
+archaeology has made.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Different men have different pastimes, and I dare say that most of those
+who read this will wonder that such a search should be a pastime for any
+man, but I confess it is a pastime for me. To discover these things, to
+recreate them, to dig out on foot the base upon which two thousand years
+of history repose, is the most fascinating kind of travel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then, the number of them! You may take an oblong of country with
+Maubeuge at one corner, Pontoise at another, Yvetot and some frontier
+town such as Fumes for the other two corners, and in that stretch of
+country a hundred and fifty miles by perhaps two hundred, you can build
+up a scheme of Roman ways almost as complete as the scheme of the great
+roads to-day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That one which most immediately strikes the eye is the great line which
+darts upon Rouen from Paris.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice broken at the crossing of the river valleys, and lost altogether
+in the last twelve miles before the capital of Normandy, it still stands
+on the modern map a great modern road with every aspect of purpose and
+of intention in its going.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Amiens again they radiate out, these roads, some, like the way to
+Cambray, in use every mile; some, like the old marching road to the sea,
+to the Portus Itius, to Boulogne, a mere lane often wholly lost and
+never used as a great modern road. This was the way along which the
+French feudal cavalry trailed to the disaster of Crcy, and just beyond
+Crcy it goes and loses itself in that exasperating but fascinating
+manner which is the whole charm of Roman roads wherever the hunter finds
+them. You may lay a ruler along this old forgotten track, all the way
+past Domqueur, Novelle (which is called Novelle-en-Chausse, that is
+Novelle on the paved road), on past Estre (where from the height you
+overlook the battlefield of Crcy), and that ruler so lying on your map
+points right at Boulogne Harbour, thirty odd miles away--and in all
+those thirty odd remaining miles I could not find another yard of it.
+But what an interest! What a hobby to develop! There is nothing like it
+in all the kinds of hunting that have ever been invented for filling up
+the whole of the mind. True, you will get no sauce of danger, but, on
+the other hand, you will hunt for weeks and weeks, and you will come
+back year after year and go on with your hunting, and sometimes you
+actually find--which is more than can be said for hunting some animals
+in the Weald.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How was it lost, this great main road of Europe, this marching road of
+the legions, linking up Gaul and Britain, the way that Hadrian went, and
+the way down which the usurper Constantine III must have come during
+that short adventure of his which lends such a romance to the end of the
+Empire? One cannot conceive why it should have disappeared. It is a
+sunken way down the hillside across the light railway which serves
+Crcy, it gets vaguer and vaguer, for all the world like those ridges
+upon the chalk that mark the Roman roads in England, and then it is
+gone. It leaves you pointing, I say, at that distant harbour, thirty odd
+miles off, but over all those miles it has vanished. The ghost of the
+legends cannot march along it any more. In one place you find a few
+yards of it about three miles south and east of Montreuil. It may be
+that the little lane leading into Estre shows where it crossed the
+valley of the Cauche, but it is all guesswork, and therefore very proper
+to the huntsman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there is that unbroken line by which St. Martin came, I think, when
+he rode into Amiens, and at the gate of the town cut his cloak in two to
+cover the beggar. It drives across country for Roye and on to Noyon, the
+old centre of the Kings. It is a great modern road all the way, and it
+stretches before you mile after mile after mile, until suddenly, without
+explanation and for no reason, it ends sharply, like the life of a man.
+It ends on the slopes of the hill called Choisy, at the edge of the wood
+which is there. And seek as you will, you will never find it again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From that road also, near Amiens, branches out another, whose object was
+St. Quentin, first as a great high road, lost in the valley of the
+Somme, a lesser road again, still in one strict alignment, it reaches on
+to within a mile of Vermand, and there it stops dead. I do not think
+that between Vermand and St. Quentin you will find it. Go out
+north-westward from Vermand and walk perhaps five miles, or seven: there
+is no trace of a road, only the rare country lanes winding in and out,
+and the open plough of the rolling land. But continue by your compass so
+and you will come (suddenly again and with no apparent reason for its
+abrupt origin) upon the dead straight line that ran from the capital of
+the Nervii, three days' march and more, and pointing all the time
+straight at Vermand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so it is throughout the province and its neighbourhood. Here and
+there, as at Bavai, a great capital has decayed. Here and there (but
+more rarely), a town wholly new has sprung up since the Romans, but the
+plan of the country is the same as that which they laid down, and the
+roads as you discover them, mark it out and establish it. The armies
+that you see marching to-day in their manoeuvres follow for half a
+morning the line which was taken by the Legions.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="reward">The Reward of Letters</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+It has often been remarked that while all countries in the world possess
+some sort of literature, as Iceland her Sagas, England her daily papers,
+France her prose writers and dramatists, and even Prussia her railway
+guides, one nation and one alone, the Empire of Monomotopa, is utterly
+innocent of this embellishment or frill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No traveller records the existence of any Monomotopan quill-driver; no
+modern visitor to that delightful island has come across a
+<i>littrateur</i> whether in the worse or in the best hotels; and such
+reading as the inhabitants enjoy is entirely confined to works imported
+by large steamers from the neighbouring Antarctic Continent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The causes of this singular and happy state of affairs were unknown
+(since the common histories did not mention them) until the recent
+discovery by Mr. Paley, the chief authority upon Monomotopan hieratic
+script, of a very ancient inscription which clearly sets forth the whole
+business.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seems that an Emperor of Monomotopa, whose date can be accurately
+fixed by internal evidence to lie after the universal deluge and before
+the building of the Pyramid of Cheops, was, upon his accession to the
+throne, particularly concerned with the just repartition of taxes among
+his beloved subjects.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would seem (if we are to trust the inscription) that in a past still
+more remote the taxes were so light that even the richest men would meet
+them promptly and without complaining, but this was at a period when the
+enemies of Monomotopa were at once distant and actively engaged in
+quarrelling among themselves. With sickening treachery these distant
+rival nations had determined to produce wealth and to live in amity, so
+that it was incumbent upon the Monomotopans not only to build ships, but
+actually to provide an army, and at last (what broke the camel's back)
+to establish fortifications of a very useless but expensive sort upon a
+dozen points of their Imperial coast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under the increasing strain the old fiscal system broke down. The poor
+were clearly embarrassed, as might be seen in their emaciated visages
+and from the terrible condition of their boots. The rich had reached the
+point after which it was inconvenient to them to pay any more. The
+middle classes were spending the greater part of their time in devising
+methods by which the exorbitant and intempestive demands of the
+collectors could be either evaded or, more rarely, complied with. In a
+word, a new and juster system of taxation was an imperative need, and
+the Emperor, who had just ascended the throne at the age of eighteen,
+and whom a sort of greenness had preserved from the iniquities of this
+world, was determined to effect the great reform.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the advice of his Ministers (all of whom had had considerable
+experience in the handling of money), the Emperor at last determined
+that each man and woman should pay to the State one-tenth and no more of
+the wealth which he or she produced; those who produced nothing it was
+but common justice and reason to exempt, and the effect of this tardy
+act of justice upon the very rich was observed in the sudden increase of
+the death-rate from all those diseases that are the peculiar product of
+luxury and evil living. Paupers also, the unemployed, cripples,
+imbeciles, deaf mutes, and the clergy escaped under this beneficent and
+equable statute, and we may sum up the whole policy by saying that never
+was a law acclaimed with so much happy bewilderment nor subject to less
+expressed criticism than this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was, moreover, easy to estimate in this new fashion the total revenue
+of the State, since its produce had been accurately set down by
+statisticians of the utmost eminence, and one of these diverse documents
+had been taken for the basis of the new fiscal regime.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In practice also the collection was easy. Overseers would attend the
+harvest with large carts, prong the tenth turnip, hoick up the tenth
+sheaf of wheat, bucket out the tenth gallon of ale, and so forth. In the
+markets every tenth animal was removed by Imperial officers, every tenth
+newspaper was impounded as it left the press, and every tenth drink
+about to be consumed in the hostelries of the Empire was, after a
+simulacrum of proffering it, suddenly removed by the waiter and poured
+into a receptacle, the keys of which were very jealously guarded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the same with the liberal professions: of the fee received by a
+barrister in the Criminal Courts a tenth was regularly demanded at the
+door when the verdict had been given and the prisoner whom he had
+defended passed out to execution. The tenth knock-out in the prize ring
+received by the professional pugilist was followed by the immediate
+sequestration of his fee for that particular encounter, and the tenth
+aria vibrating from the lips of a prima donna was either compounded for
+at a certain rate or taken in kind by the official who attended at every
+performance of grand opera.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One form of wealth alone puzzled the beneficent monarch and his
+Napoleonic advisers, and this was the production (for it then existed)
+of literary matter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first this seemed as simple to tax as any one of the other numerous
+activities upon which the Emperor's loyal and loving subjects were
+engaged. A brief examination of the customs of the trade, conducted by
+an army of officials who penetrated into the very dens and attics in
+which Letters are evolved, reported that the method of payment was by
+the measurement of a number of words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is, your Majesty," wrote the permanent official of the department in
+his minute, "the practice of those who charitably employ this sort of
+person to pay them in classes by the thousand words; thus one man gets
+one sequin a thousand, another two byzants, a third as much as a ducat,
+while some who have singularly attracted the notice of the public can
+command ten, twenty, nay forty scutcheons, and in some very exceptional
+cases a thousand words command one of those beautiful pieces of stiff
+paper which your Majesty in his bountiful provision tenders to his
+dutiful subjects for acceptance as metal under diverse penalties. The
+just taxation of these fellows can therefore be easily achieved if your
+Majesty, in the exercise of his almost superhuman wisdom, will but add a
+schedule to the Finance Act in which there shall be set down fifteen or
+twenty classes of writers, with their price per thousand words, and a
+compulsory registration of each class, enforced by the rude hand of the
+police."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Emperor of Monomotopa immediately nominated a Royal Commission
+(unpaid), among whose sons, nephews, and private friends the salaried
+posts connected with the work were distributed. This Commission reported
+by a majority of one ere two years had elapsed. The schedule was
+designed, and such <i>littrateurs</i> as had not in the interval fled
+the country were registered, while a further enactment strictly
+forbidding their employers to make payment upon any other system
+completed the scheme.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, alas! so full of low cunning and dirty dodges is this kind of man
+(I mean what we call authors) that very soon after the promulgation of
+the new law a marked deterioration in the quality of Monomotopan letters
+was apparent upon every side!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The citizen opening his morning paper would be astonished to find the
+leading article consist of nothing more original than a portion of the
+sacred Scriptures. A novel bought to ease the tedium of a journey would
+consist of long catalogues for the most part, and when it came to
+descriptions of scenery would fall into the most minute and detailed
+category of every conceivable feature of the landscape. Some even took
+advantage of the new regulation so far as to repeat one single word an
+interminable number of times, while it was remarked with shame by the
+Ministers of Religion that the morals of their literary friends
+permitted them only to use words of one syllable, and those of the
+shortest kind. And this they said was the only true and original
+Monomotopan dialect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such was the public inconvenience that next year a sharper and much more
+drastic law was passed, by which it was laid down that every literary
+composition should make sense within the meaning of the Act, and should
+be original so far as the reading of the judge appointed for the trial
+of the case extended. But though after the first few executions this law
+was generally observed, the nasty fellows affected by it managed to
+evade it in spirit, for by the use of obscure terms, of words drawn from
+dead languages, and of bold metaphor transferred from one art to
+another, they would deliberately invite prosecution, and then in the
+witness-box make fools of those plain men, the judge and jury, by
+showing that this apparently meaningless claptrap could, with sufficient
+ingenuity, be made to yield some sort of sense, and during this period
+no art critic was put to death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Driven to desperation, the Emperor changed the whole basis of the
+Remuneration of Literary Labour, and ordered that it should be by the
+length of the prose or poetry measured in inches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This reform, however, did but add to the confusion, for while the men of
+the pen wrote their works entirely in short dialogue, asterisks, and
+blanks, the publishers, who were now thoroughly organized, printed the
+same in smaller and smaller type, in order to avoid the consequences of
+the law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this last piece of insolence the Emperor's mind was quickly decided.
+Arresting one night not only all those who had ever written, but all
+those who had even boasted of letters, or who were so much as suspected
+by their relatives of secretly indulging in them, he turned the whole
+two million into a large but enclosed area, and (desiring to kill two
+birds with one stone) offered the ensuing spectacle as an amusement to
+the more sober and respectable sections of the community.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is well known that the profession of letters breeds in its followers
+an undying hatred of each against his fellows. The public were therefore
+entertained for a whole day with the pleasing sight of a violent but
+quite disordered battle, in which each of the wretched prisoners seemed
+animated by no desire but the destruction of as many as possible of his
+hated rivals, until at last every soul of these detestable creatures had
+left its puny body and the State was rid of all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A law which carried to the universities the rule of the primary
+schools--to wit, that men should be taught to read but not to
+write--completed the good work. And there was peace.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="eye">The Eye-Openers</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+Without any doubt whatsoever, the one characteristic of the towns is
+the lack of reality in the impressions of the many: now we live in
+towns: and posterity will be astounded at us! It isn't only that we get
+our impressions for the most part as imaginary pictures called up by
+printer's ink--that would be bad enough; but by some curious perversion
+of the modern mind, printer's ink ends by actually preventing one from
+seeing things that are there; and sometimes, when one says to another
+who has not travelled, "Travel!" one wonders whether, after all, if he
+does travel, he will see the things before his eyes? If he does, he will
+find a new world; and there is more to be discovered in this fashion
+to-day than ever there was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have sometimes wished that every Anglo-Saxon who from these shores has
+sailed and seen for the first time the other Anglo-Saxons in New York or
+Melbourne, would write in quite a short letter what he really felt.
+Ninety-nine times out of a hundred men only write what they have read
+before they started, just as Rousseau in an eighteenth-century village
+believed that every English yokel could vote and that his vote conveyed
+a high initiative, making and unmaking the policy of the State; or just
+as people, hearing that the birth-rate of France is low, travel in that
+country and say they can see no children--though they would hardly say
+it about Sussex or Cumberland where the birth-rate is lower still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What travel does in the way of pleasure (the providing of new and fresh
+sensations, and the expansion of experience), that it ought to do in the
+way of knowledge. It ought to and it does, with the wise, provide a
+complete course of unlearning the wretched tags with which the sham
+culture of our great towns has filled us. For instance, of Barbary--the
+lions do not live in deserts; they live in woods. The peasants of
+Barbary are not Semitic in appearance or in character; Barbary is full
+to the eye, not of Arab and Oriental buildings--they are not
+striking--but of great Roman monuments: they are altogether the most
+important things in the place. Barbary is not hot, as a whole: most of
+Barbary is extremely cold between November and March. The inhabitants of
+Barbary do not like a wild life, they are extremely fond of what
+civilization can give them, such as <i>crme de menthe</i>, rifles, good
+waterworks, maps, and railways: only they would like to have these
+things without the bother of strict laws and of the police, and so
+forth. Travel in Barbary with seeing eyes and you find out all this new
+truth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now it took the French forty years and more before each of these plain
+facts (and I have only cited half a dozen out of as many hundred) got
+into their letters and their print: they have not yet got into the
+letters and the print of other nations. But an honest man travelling in
+Barbary on his own account would pick up every one of these truths in
+two or three days, except the one about the lions; to pick up that truth
+you must go to the very edge of the country, for the lion is a shy beast
+and withdraws from men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wise man who really wants to see things as they are and to
+understand them, does not say: "Here I am on the burning soil of
+Africa." He says: "Here I am stuck in a snowdrift and the train twelve
+hours late"--as it was (with me in it) near Stif in January, 1905. He
+does not say as he looks on the peasant at his plough outside Batna:
+"Observe yon Semite!" He says: "That man's face is exactly like the face
+of a dark Sussex peasant, only a little leaner." He does not say: "See
+those wild sons of the desert! How they must hate the new artificial
+world around them!" Contrariwise, he says: "See those four Mohammedans
+playing cards with a French pack of cards and drinking liqueurs in the
+caf! See, they have ordered more liqueurs!" He does not say: "How
+strange and terrible a thing the railway must be to them!" He says: "I
+wish I was rich enough to travel first, for the natives pouring in and
+out of this third-class carriage, jabbering like monkeys, and treading
+on my feet, disturb my tranquillity. Some hundreds must have got in and
+out during the last fifty miles!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In other words, the wise man has permitted eye-openers to rain upon him
+their full, beneficent, and sacramental influence. And if a man in
+travelling will always maintain his mind ready for what he really sees
+and hears, he will become a whole nest of Columbuses discovering a
+perfectly interminable series of new worlds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A man can only talk of what he himself knows. Let me give further
+examples. I had always heard until I visited the Pyrenees how French
+civilization (especially in the matter of roads, motors, and things like
+that) went up to the "Spanish" frontier and then stopped dead. It
+doesn't. The change is at the Aragonese frontier. On the Basque third of
+the frontier the people are just as active and fond of wealth, and of
+scraping of stone and of cleanliness, and of drawing straight lines, to
+the north as to the south of it. They are all one people, as
+industrious, as thrifty, and as prosperous as the Scots. So are the
+Catalans one people, and you get much the same sort of advantages and
+disadvantages (apart from the effect of government) with the Catalans to
+the north as with the Catalans to the south of the border.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So with religion. I had thought to find the Spanish churches crowded. I
+found just the contrary. It was the French churches that were crowded,
+not the Spanish; and the difference between the truth--what one really
+sees and hears--and the printed legend happens to be very subtly
+illustrated in this case of religion. The French have inherited (and are
+by this time used to, and have, perhaps grown fond of) a big religious
+debate. Those who side with the national religion and tradition
+emphasize their opinion in every possible way--so do their opponents.
+You pick up two newspapers from Toulouse, for instance, and it is quite
+on the cards that the leading article of each will be a disquisition
+upon the philosophy of religion, the one, the "Depche" of Toulouse,
+militantly, and often solently atheist; the other as militantly
+Catholic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You don't get that in Pamplona, and you don't get it in Saragossa. What
+you get there is a profound dislike of being interfered with, ancient
+and lazy customs, wealth retained by the chapters, the monasteries, and
+the colleges, and with all this a curious, all-pervading indifference.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One might end this little train of thought by considering a converse
+test of what the eye-opener is in travel; and that test is to talk to
+foreigners when they first come to England and see how they tend to
+discover in England what they have read of at home instead of what they
+really see. There have been very few fogs in London of late, but your
+foreigner nearly always finds London foggy. Kent does not show along its
+main railway line the evidence of agricultural depression: it is like a
+garden. Yet, in a very careful and thorough French book just published
+by a French traveller, his bird's-eye view of the country as he went
+through Kent just after landing would make you think the place a desert;
+he seems to have thought the hedges a sign of agricultural decay. The
+same foreigner will discover a plebeian character in the Commons and an
+aristocratic one in the House of Lords, though he shall have heard but
+four speeches in each, and though every one of the eight speeches shall
+have been delivered by members of one family group closely intermarried,
+wealthy, titled, and perhaps (who knows?) of some lineage as well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moral is that one should tell the truth to oneself, and look out for
+it outside one. It is quite as novel and as entertaining as the
+discovery of the North Pole--or, in case that has come off (as some
+believe), the discovery of the South Pole.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="public">The Public</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+I notice a very curious thing in the actions particularly of business
+men to-day, and of other men also, which is the projection outward from
+their own inward minds of something which is called "The Public"--and
+which is not there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I do not mean that a business man is wrong when he says that "the public
+will demand" such and such an article, and on producing the article
+finds it sells widely; he is obviously and demonstrably right in his use
+of the word "public" in such a connexion. Nor is a man wrong or subject
+to illusion when he says, "The public have taken to cinematograph
+shows," or "The public were greatly moved when the Hull fishermen were
+shot at by the Russian fleet in the North Sea." What I mean is "The
+Public" as an excuse or scapegoat; the Public as a menace; the Public as
+a butt. That Public simply does not exist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For instance, the publisher will say, as though he were talking of some
+monster, "The Public will not buy Jinks's work. It is first-class work,
+so it is too good for the Public." He is quite right in his statement of
+fact. Of the very small proportion of our people who read only a
+fraction buy books, and of the fraction that buy books very few indeed
+buy Jinks's. Jinks has a very pleasant up-and-down style. He loves to
+use funny words dragged from the tomb, and he has delicate little
+emotions. Yet hardly anybody will buy him--so the publisher is quite
+right in one sense when he says, "The Public" won't buy Jinks. But where
+he is quite wrong and suffering from a gross illusion is in the motive
+and the manner of his saying it. He talks of "The Public" as something
+gravely to blame and yet irredeemably stupid. He talks of it as
+something quite external to himself, almost as something which he has
+never personally come across. He talks of it as though it were a Mammoth
+or an Eskimo. Now, if that publisher would wander for a moment into the
+world of realities he would perceive his illusion. Modern men do not
+like realities, and do not usually know the way to come in contact with
+them. I will tell the publisher how to do so in this case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let him consider what books he buys himself, what books his wife buys;
+what books his eldest son, his grandmother, his Aunt Jane, his old
+father, his butler (if he runs to one), his most intimate friend, and
+his curate buy. He will find that not one of these people buys Jinks.
+Most of them will talk Jinks, and if Jinks writes a play, however dull,
+they will probably go and see it once; but they draw the line at buying
+Jinks's books--and I don't blame them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moral is very simple. You yourselves are "The Public," and if you
+will watch your own habits you will find that the economic explanation
+of a hundred things becomes quite clear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have seen the same thing in the offices of a newspaper. Some simple
+truth of commanding interest to this country, involving no attack upon
+any rich man, and therefore not dangerous under our laws, comes up for
+printing. It is discussed in the editor's room. The editor says, "Yes,
+of course, we know it is true, and of course it is important, but the
+Public would not stand it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I remember one newspaper office of my youth in which the Public was
+visualized as a long file of people streaming into a Wesleyan chapel,
+and another in which the Public was supposed to be made up without
+exception of retired officers and maiden ladies, every one of whom was a
+communicant of the English Established Church, every one of good birth,
+and yet every one devoid of culture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without the least doubt each of these absurd symbols haunted the brain
+of each of the editors in question. The editor of the first paper would
+print at wearisome length accounts of obscure Catholic clerical scandals
+on the Continent, and would sweat with alarm if his sub-editors had
+admitted a telegram concerning the trial of some fraudulent Protestant
+missionary or other in China.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile his rather dull paper was being bought by you and me, and bank
+clerks and foreign tourists, and doctors, and publicans, and brokers,
+Catholics, Protestants, atheists, "peculiar people," and every kind of
+man for many reasons--because it had the best social statistics, because
+it had a very good dramatic critic, because they had got into the habit
+and couldn't stop, because it came nearest to hand on the bookstall. Of
+a hundred readers, ninety-nine skipped the clerical scandal and either
+chuckled over the fraudulent missionary or were bored by him and went on
+to the gambling news from the Stock Exchange. But the type for whom all
+that paper was produced, the menacing god or demon who was supposed to
+forbid publication of certain news in it, did not exist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So it was with the second paper, but with this difference, that the
+editor was right about the social position of those who read his sheet,
+but quite wrong about the opinions and emotions of people in that social
+position.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was all the more astonishing from the fact that the editor was born
+in that very class himself and perpetually mixed with it. No one perhaps
+read "The Stodge" (for under this device would I veil the true name of
+the organ) more carefully than those retired officers of either service
+who are to be found in what are called our "residential" towns. The
+editor was himself the son of a colonel of guns who had settled down in
+a Midland watering-place. He ought to have known that world, and he did
+know that world, but he kept his illusion of his Public quite apart from
+his experience of realities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Your retired officer (to take his particular section of this particular
+paper's audience) is nearly always a man with a hobby, and usually a
+good scientific or literary hobby at that. He writes many of our best
+books demanding research. He takes an active part in public work which
+requires statistical study. He is always a travelled man, and nearly
+always a well-read man. The broadest and the most complete questioning
+and turning and returning of the most fundamental subjects--religion,
+foreign policy, and domestic economics--are quite familiar to him. But
+the editor was not selecting news for that real man; he was selecting
+news for an imaginary retired officer of inconceivable stupidity and
+ignorance, redeemed by a childlike simplicity. If a book came in, for
+instance, on biology, and there was a chance of having it reviewed by
+one of the first biologists of the day, he would say: "Oh, our Public
+won't stand evolution," and he would trot out his imaginary retired
+officer as though he were a mule.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Artists, by which I mean painters, and more especially art critics, sin
+in this respect. They say: "The public wants a picture to tell a story,"
+and they say it with a sneer. Well, the public does want a picture to
+tell a story, because you and I want a picture to tell a story. Sorry.
+But so it is. The art critic himself wants it to tell a story, and so
+does the artist. Each would rather die than admit it, but if you set
+either walking, with no one to watch him, down a row of pictures you
+would see him looking at one picture after another with that expression
+of interest which only comes on a human face when it is following a
+human relation. A mere splash of colour would bore him; still more a
+mere medley of black and white. The story may have a very simple plot;
+it may be no more than an old woman sitting on a chair, or a landscape,
+but a picture, if a man can look at it all, tells a story right enough.
+It must interest men, and the less of a story it tells the less it will
+interest men. A good landscape tells so vivid a story that children (who
+are unspoilt) actually transfer themselves into such a landscape, walk
+about in it, and have adventures in it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They make another complaint against the public, that it desires painting
+to be lifelike. Of course it does! The statement is accurate, but the
+complaint is based on an illusion. It is you and I and all the world
+that want painting to imitate its object. There is a wonderful picture
+in the Glasgow Art Gallery, painted by someone a long time ago, in which
+a man is represented in a steel cuirass with a fur tippet over it, and
+the whole point of that picture is that the fur looks like fur and the
+steel looks like steel. I never met a critic yet who was so bold as to
+say that picture was a bad picture. It is one of the best pictures in
+the world; but its whole point is the liveliness of the steel and of the
+fur.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally, there is one proper test to prove that all this jargon about
+"The Public" is nonsense, which is that it is altogether modern. Who
+quarrelled with the Public in the old days when men lived a healthy
+corporate life, and painted, wrote, or sang for the applause of their
+fellows?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If you still suffer from the illusion after reading these magisterial
+lines of mine, why, there is a drastic way to cure yourself, which is to
+go for a soldier; take the shilling and live in a barracks for a year;
+then buy yourself out. You will never despise the public again. And
+perhaps a better way still is to go round the Horn before the mast. But
+take care that your friends shall send you enough money to Valparaiso
+for your return journey to be made in some comfort; I would not wish my
+worst enemy to go back the way he came.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+
+</p>
+
+<p>
+
+<h3><a name="entries">On Entries</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+I am always planning in my mind new kinds of guide books. Or, rather,
+new features in guide books.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One such new feature which I am sure would be very useful would be an
+indication to the traveller of how he should approach a place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I would first presuppose him quite free and able to come by rail or by
+water or by road or on foot across the fields, and then I would describe
+how the many places I have seen stand quite differently in the mind
+according to the way in which one approaches them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The value of travel, to the eye at least, lies in its presentation of
+clear and permanent impressions, and these I think (though some would
+quarrel with me for saying it) are usually instantaneous. It is the
+first sharp vision of an unknown town, the first immediate vision of a
+range of hills, that remains for ever and is fruitful of joy within the
+mind, or, at least, that is one and perhaps the chief of the fruits of
+travel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I remember once, for instance, waking from a dead sleep in a train (for
+I was very tired) and finding it to be evening. What woke me was the
+sudden stopping of the train. It was in Italy. A man in the carriage
+said to me that there was some sort of accident and that we should be
+waiting a while. The people got out and walked about by the side of the
+track. I also got out of the carriage and took the air, and when I so
+stepped out into the cool of that summer evening I was amazed at the
+loneliness and tragedy of the place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were no houses about me that I could see save one little place
+built for the railway men. There was no cultivation either.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Close before me began a sort of swamp with reeds which hardly moved to
+the air, and this gradually merged into a sheet of water above and
+beyond which were hills, barren and not very high, which took the last
+of the daylight, for they looked both southward and to the west. The
+more I watched the extraordinary and absolute scene the less I heard of
+the low voices about me, and indeed a sort of positive silence seemed to
+clothe the darkening landscape. It was full of something quite gone
+down, and one had the impression that it would never be disturbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the light lessened, the hills darkened, the sky took on one broad and
+tender colour, the sheet of water gleamed quite white, and the reeds
+stood up like solid shadows against it. I wish I could express in words
+the impression of recollection and of savage mourning which all that
+landscape imposed, but from that impression I was recalled and startled
+by the guard, who came along telling us that things were righted and
+that the train would start again; soon we were in our places and the
+rapid movement isolated for me the memory of a singularly vivid scene. I
+thought the place must have a name, and I asked a neighbour in the
+carriage what it was called; he told me it was called Lake Trasimene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now I do not say that this tragic site is to be visited thus. It was but
+an accident, though an accident for which I am most grateful to my fate.
+But what I have said here illustrates my meaning that the manner of
+one's approach to any place in travel makes all the difference.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus one may note how very different is Europe seen from the water than
+seen from any other opportunity for travel. So many of the great
+cathedrals were built to dominate men who should watch them from the
+wharves of the mediaeval towns, but I think it is almost a rule if you
+have leisure and can take your choice to choose this kind of entry to
+them. Amiens is quite a different thing seen from the river below it to
+the north and east from what it is seen by a gradual approach along the
+street of a modern town. The roofs climb up at it, and it stands
+enthroned. So Chartres seen from the little Eure; but the Eure is so
+small a river that he would be a bold man who would travel up it all
+this way. Nevertheless it is a good piece of travel, and anyone who will
+undertake it will see Louviers and will pass Anet, where the greatest
+work of the Renaissance once stood, and will go through lonely but rich
+pastures until at last he gets to Chartres by the right gate. Thence he
+will see something astonishing for so flat a region as the Beauce. The
+great church seems mountainous upon a mountain. Its apse completes the
+unclimbable steepness of the hill and its buttresses follow the lines of
+the fall of it. But if you do not come in by the river, at least come in
+by the Orleans road. I suppose that nine people out of ten, even to-day
+when the roads are in proper use again, come into Chartres by that
+northern railway entry, which is for all the world like coming into a
+great house by a big, neglected backyard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then if ever you have business that takes you to Bayonne, come in by
+river and from the sea, and how well you will understand the little town
+and its lovely northern Gothic!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some of the great churches all the world knows must be seen from the
+water, and most of the world so sees them. Ely is one, Cologne is
+another, but how many people have looked right up at Durham as at a
+cliff from that gorge below, or how many have seen the height of Albi
+from the Tarn?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for famous cities with their walls, there is no doubt that a man
+should approach them by the chief high road, which once linked them with
+their capital, or with their nearest port, or with Rome--and that
+although this kind of entry is nowadays often marred by ugly suburbs.
+You will get much your finest sight of Segovia as you come in by the
+road from the Guadarama and from Madrid. It is from that point that you
+were meant to see the town, and you will get much your best grip on
+Carcassonne, old Carcassonne, if you come in by the road from Toulouse
+at morning as you were meant to come, and so Coucy should be approached
+by that royal road from Soissons and from the south, while as for Laon
+(the most famous of the hill towns), come to it from the east, for it
+looks eastward, and its lords were Eastern lords.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ranges of hills, I think, are never best first seen from railways.
+Indeed, I can remember no great sight of hills so seen, not even the
+Alps. A railway must of necessity follow the floor of the valley and
+tunnel and creep round the shoulders of the bulwarks. There is perhaps
+one exception to this rule, which is the sight of the Pyrenees from the
+train as one comes into Tarbes. It is a wise thing if you are visiting
+those hills to come into Tarbes by night and sleep there, and then next
+morning the train upon its way to Pau unfolds you all the wall of the
+mountains. But this is an accident. It is because the railway runs upon
+a sort of high platform that you see the mountains so. With all other
+hills that I remember it is best to have them burst suddenly upon you
+from the top of some pass lifted high above the level and coming, let us
+say, to a height half their own. Certainly the Bernese Oberland is more
+wonderful caught in one moment from the Jura than introduced in any
+other way, and the snows on Atlas over the desert seem like part of the
+sky when they come upon one after climbing the red rocks of the high
+plateaux and you see them shining over the salt marshes. The Vosges you
+cannot thus see from a half-height; there is no platform, and that is
+perhaps why the Vosges have not impressed travellers as they should. But
+you can so watch the grand chain of old volcanoes which are the rampart
+of Auvergne. You can stand upon the high wooden ridge of Foreze and see
+them take the morning across the mists and the flat of the Limagne,
+where the Gauls fought Caesar. Further south from the high table of the
+Velay you can see the steep backward escarpment of the Cevennes, inky
+blue, desperately blue, blue like nothing else on earth except the
+mountains in those painters of North Italy, of the parts north and east
+of Venice, the name of whose school escapes me--or, rather, I never knew
+it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, as for towns that live in a hollow, it is great fun to come upon
+them from above. They are not used to being thus taken at a disadvantage
+and they are both surprised and surprising. There are many towns in
+holes and trenches of Europe which you can thus play "peep-bo" with if
+you will come at them walking. By train they will mean nothing to you.
+You will probably come upon them out of a long, shrieking tunnel, and by
+the high road they mean little more, for the high road will follow the
+vale. But if you come upon them from over their guardian cliffs and
+scars you catch them unawares, and this is a good way of approaching
+them, for you master them, as it were, and spy them out before you enter
+in. You can act thus with Grenoble and with many a town on the Meuse,
+and particularly with Aubusson, which lies in the depths of so dreadful
+a trench that I could wonder how man ever dreamt of living and building
+there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The most difficult of all places on which to advise, I think, would be
+the very great cities, the capitals. They seem to have to-day no noble
+entries and no proper approach. Perhaps we shall only deal with them
+justly when we can circle down to them through the air and see their
+vast activity splashed over the plain. Anyhow, there is no proper way of
+entering them now that I know of. Berlin is not worth entering at all.
+Rome (a man told me once) could be entered by some particular road over
+the Janiculum, I think--which also, if I remember right, was the way
+that Shelley came--but I despair of Paris, and certainly of London. I
+cannot even recall an entry for Brussels, though Brussels is a
+monumental city with great rewards for those who love the combination of
+building and hills.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps, after all, the happiest entries of all and the most easy are
+those of our many market towns, small and not swollen in Britain and in
+Northern Gaul and in the Netherlands and in the Valley of the Rhine.
+These hardly ever fail us, and we come upon them in our travels as they
+desire that we should come, and we know them properly as things should
+properly be known--that is, from the beginning.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="companions">Companions of Travel</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+I write of travelling companions in general, and not in particular,
+making of them a composite photograph, as it were, and finding what they
+have in common and what is their type; and in the first place I find
+them to be chance men. For there are some people who cannot travel
+without a set companion who goes with them from Charing Cross all over
+the world and back to Charing Cross again. And there is a pathos in
+this: as Balzac said of marriage, "What a commentary on human life, that
+human beings must associate to endure it." So it is with many who cannot
+endure to travel alone: and some will positively advertise for another
+to go with them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a glade of the Sierra Nevada, which, for awful and, as it were,
+permanent beauty seemed not to be of this world, I came upon a man
+slowly driving along the trail a ramshackle cart, in which were a few
+chairs and tables and bedding. He had a long grey beard and wild eyes;
+he was old, and very small like a gnome, but he had not the gnome's
+good-humour. I asked him where he was going, and I slowed down, so as to
+keep pace with his ridiculous horse. For some time he would not answer
+me, and then he said, "Out of this." He added, "I am tired of it." And
+when I asked him, "Of what?" his only answer was an old-fashioned oath.
+But from further complaints which he made I gathered that what he was
+tired of was clearing forests, digging ground, paying debts, and in
+general living upon this unhappy earth. He did not like me very much,
+and though I would willingly have learned more, he would tell me nothing
+further, so when we got to a place where there was a little stream I
+went on and left him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have never forgotten the sadness of this man. Where he was going, and
+what he expected to do, or what opportunities he had, I have never
+understood. Though some years after, in quite another place--namely,
+Steyning, in Sussex--I came upon just such another, whose quarrel was
+with the English climate, the rich and the poor, and the whole
+constitution of God's earth. These are the advantages of travel, that
+one meets so many men whom one would otherwise never meet, and that one
+feeds as it were upon the complexity of mankind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus in a village called Encamps, in the depths of Andorra, where no man
+has ever killed another, I found a man with a blue face, who was a
+fossil, the kind of man you would never find in the swelling life of
+Western Europe. He was emancipated, he had studied in Perpignan, over
+and beyond the great hills. He could not see why he should pay taxes to
+support a priest. "The priests" he assured me, "say the most ridiculous
+things. They narrate the most impossible fables. They affirm what cannot
+possibly be true. All that they say is in opposition to science. If I am
+ill, can a priest cure me? No. Can a priest tell me how to build, or how
+to light my house? He is unable to do so. He is a useless and a lying
+mouth, why should I feed him?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I questioned this man very closely, and discovered that in his view the
+world slowly changed from worse to better, and to accelerate this
+process enlightenment alone was needed. "But what do these brutes," he
+said, alluding to his fellow-countrymen, "know of enlightenment? They do
+not even make roads, because the priests forbid them."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could write at length upon this man. He was not a Sceptic as you may
+imagine, nor had he adopted the Lucretian form of Epicureanism. Not a
+bit of it. He was a hearty Atheist, with Positivist leanings. I further
+found that he had married a woman older, wealthier, and if possible
+uglier than himself. She kept the inn, and was very kind to him. His
+life would have been quite happy had he not been tortured by the
+monstrous superstitions of others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, again, in the town of Marseilles, only two years ago, I met a man
+who looked well fed, and had a stalwart, square French face, and whose
+politico-economic ideal, though it was not mine, greatly moved me. It
+was just past midnight, and I was throwing little stones into the old
+Greek harbour, the stench and the glory of which are nearly three
+thousand years old; I was to be off at dawn upon a tramp steamer, and I
+had so determined to pass the few hours of darkness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was throwing pebbles into the water, I say, and thinking about
+Ulysses, when this man came slouching up, with his hands in the pockets
+of his enormous corduroy trousers, and, looking at me with some contempt
+from above (for he was standing, I was sitting), he began to converse
+with me. We talked first of ships, then of heat and cold, and so on to
+wealth and poverty; and thus it was I came upon his views, which were
+that there should be a sort of break up, and houses ought to be burned,
+and things smashed, and people killed; and over and above this, it
+should be made plain that no one had a right to govern: not the people,
+because they were always being bamboozled; obviously not the rich; least
+of all, the politicians, to whom he justly applied the most derogatory
+epithets. He waved his arm out in the darkness at the Phoceans, at the
+half-million of Marseilles, and said, "All that should disappear." The
+constructive side of his politico-economic scheme was negative. He was a
+practical man. None of your fine theories for him. One step at a time.
+Let there be a Chambardement--that is, a noisy collapse, and he would
+think about what to do afterwards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His was not the narrow, deductive mind. He was objective and concrete.
+Believe me or not, he was paid an excellent wage by the municipality to
+prevent people like me, who sit up at night, from doing mischief in the
+harbour. When I had come to an end of his politico-economic scheme--the
+main lines of which were so clear and simple that a child could
+understand them--we fell to talking of the tides, and I told him that in
+my country the sea went up and down. He was no rustic, and would have no
+such commonplace truths. He was well acquainted with the Phenomenon of
+the Tides; it was due to the combined attraction of the sun and of the
+moon. But when I told him I knew places where the tides fell thirty or
+forty feet, we would have had a violent quarrel had I not prudently
+admitted that that was romantic exaggeration, and that five or six was
+the most that one ever saw it move. I avoided the quarrel, but the
+little incident broke up our friendship, and he shuffled away. He did
+not like having his leg pulled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are many others I remember. Those I have written about elsewhere I
+am ashamed to recall, as the man at Jedburgh, who first expounded to me
+how one knew all about the fate of the individual soul, and then
+objected to personal questions about his own; the German officer man at
+Aix-la-Chapelle, who had hair the colour of tow, and gave me minute
+details of the method by which England was to be destroyed; a man I met
+upon the Appian Way, who told the most abominable lies; and another man
+who met me outside Oxford station during the Vac. and offered to show me
+the sights of the town for a consideration, which he did, but I would
+not pay him because he was inaccurate, as I easily proved by a few
+searching questions upon the exact site of Bocardo (of which he had
+never heard), and the negative evidence against a Roman origin for the
+site of the city. Moreover, he said that Trinity was St. John's, which
+was rubbish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there was another man who travelled with me from Birmingham,
+pressed certain tracts upon me, and wanted to charge me sixpence each at
+Paddington. But if I were to speak of even these few I should exceed.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="sources">On the Sources of Rivers</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+There are certain customs in man the permanence of which gives infinite
+pleasure. When the mood of the schools is against them these customs lie
+in wait beneath the floors of society, but they never die, and when a
+decay in pedantry or in despotism or in any other evil and inhuman
+influence permits them to reappear they reappear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One of these customs is the religious attachment of man to isolated high
+places, peaks, and single striking hills. On these he must build
+shrines, and though he is a little furtive about it nowadays, yet the
+instinct is there, strong as ever. I have not often come to the top of a
+high hill with another man but I have seen him put a few stones together
+when he got there, or, if he had not the moral courage so to satisfy his
+soul, he would never fail on such an occasion to say something ritual and
+quasi-religious, even if it were only about the view; and another instinct
+of the same sort is the worship of the sources of rivers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Iconoclast and the people whose pride it is that their senses are
+dead will see in a river nothing more than so much moisture gathered in
+a narrow place and falling as the mystery of gravitation inclines it.
+Their mood is the mood of that gentleman who despaired and wrote:
+</p>
+
+<p class="ind">
+ A cloud's a lot of vapour,<br>
+ The sky's a lot of air,<br>
+ And the sea's a lot of water<br>
+ That happens to be there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You cannot get further down than that. When you have got as far down as
+that all is over. Luckily God still keeps his mysteries going for you,
+and you can't get rid, even in that mood, of the certitude that you
+yourself exist and that things outside of you are outside of you. But
+when you get into that modern mood you do lose the personality of
+everything else, and you forget the sanctity of river heads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You have lost a great deal when you have forgotten that, and it behoves
+you to recover what you have lost as quickly as possible, which is to be
+done in this way: Visit the source of some famous stream and think about
+it. There was a Scotchman once who discovered the sources of the Nile,
+to the lasting advantage of mankind and the permanent glory of his
+native land. He thought the source of the Nile looked rather like the
+sources of the Till or the Tweed or some such river of Thule. He has
+been ridiculed for saying this, but he was mystically very right. The
+source of the greatest of rivers, since it was sacred to him, reminded
+him of the sacred things of his home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I consider the sources of rivers which I have seen, there is not
+one, I think, which I do not remember to have had about it an influence
+of awe. Not only because one could in imaginings see the kingdoms of the
+cities which it was to visit and the way in which it would bind them all
+together in one province and one story, but also simply because it was
+an origin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sources of the Rhone are famous: the Rhone comes out of a glacier
+through a sort of ice cave, and if it were not for an enormous hotel
+quite four-square it would be as lonely a place as there is in Europe,
+and as remarkable a beginning for a great river as could anywhere be
+found. Nor, when you come to think of it, does any European river have
+such varied fortunes as the Rhone. It feeds such different religions and
+looks on such diverse landscapes. It makes Geneva and it makes Avignon;
+it changes in colour and in the nature of its going as it goes. It sees
+new products appearing continually on its journey until it comes to
+olives, and it flows past the beginning of human cities, when it
+reflects the huddle of old Arles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sources of the Garonne are well known. The Garonne rises by itself
+in a valley from which there is no issue, like the fabled valleys shut
+in by hills on every side. And if it were anything but the Garonne it
+would not be able to escape: it would lie imprisoned there for ever.
+Being the Garonne it tunnels a way for itself right under the High
+Pyrenees and comes out again on the French side. There are some that
+doubt this, but then there are people who would doubt anything.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sources of the River Arun are not so famous as these two last, and
+it is a good thing, for they are to be found in one of the loneliest
+places within an hour of London that any man can imagine, and if you
+were put down there upon a windy day you would think yourself upon the
+moors. There is nothing whatsoever near you at the beginnings of the
+little sacred stream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thames had a source once which was very famous. The water came out
+plainly at a fountain under a bleak wood just west of the Fosse Way,
+under which it ran by a culvert, a culvert at least as old as the
+Romans. But when about a hundred years ago people began to improve the
+world in those parts, they put up a pumping station and they pumped
+Thames dry--since which time its gods have deserted the river.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sources of the Ribble are in a lonely place up in a corner of the
+hills where everything has strange shapes and where the rocks make one
+think of trolls. The great frozen Whernside stands up above it, and
+Ingleborough Hill, which is like no other hill in England, but like the
+flat-topped Mesas which you have in America, or (as those who have
+visited it tell me) like the flat hills of South Africa; and a little
+way off on the other side is Pen-y-ghent, or words to that effect. The
+little River Ribble rises under such enormous guardianship. It rises
+quite clean and single in the shape of a little spring upon the
+hillside, and too few people know it. The other river that flows east
+while the Ribble flows west is the River Ayr. It rises in a curious way,
+for it imitates the Garonne, and finding itself blocked by limestone
+burrows underneath at a place called Malham Tarn, after which it has no
+more trouble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The River Severn, the River Wye, and a third unimportant river, or at
+least important only for its beauty (and who would insist on that?) rise
+all close together on the skirts of Plinlimmon, and the smallest of them
+has the most wonderful rising, for it falls through the gorge of Llygnant,
+which looks like, and perhaps is, the deepest cleft in this island, or, at
+any rate, the most unexpected. And a fourth source on the mountain, a tarn
+below its summit, is the source of Rheidol, which has a short but
+adventurous life like Achilles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is one source in Europe that is properly dealt with, and where the
+religion due to the sources of rivers has free play, and this is the
+source of the Seine. It comes out upon the northern side of the hills
+which the French call the Hills of Gold, in a country of pasturage and
+forest, very high up above the world and thinly peopled. The River Seine
+appears there in a sort of miraculous manner, pouring out of a grotto,
+and over this grotto the Parisians have built a votive statue; and there
+is yet another of the hundred thousand things that nobody knows.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="error">On Error</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+There is an elusive idea that has floated through the minds of most of
+us as we grew older and learnt more and more things. It is an idea
+extremely difficult to get into set terms. It is an idea very difficult
+to put so that we shall not seem nonsensical; and yet it is a very
+useful idea, and if it could be realized its realization would be of
+very practical value. It is the idea of a Dictionary of Ignorance and
+Error.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the face of it a definition of the work is impossible. Strictly
+speaking it would be infinite, for human knowledge, however far
+extended, must always be infinitely small compared with all possible
+knowledge, just as any given finite space is infinitely small compared
+with all space.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But that is not the idea which we entertain when we consider this
+possible Dictionary of Ignorance and Error. What we really mean is a
+Dictionary of the sort of Ignorance and the sort of Error which we know
+ourselves to have been guilty of, which we have escaped by special
+experience or learning as time went on, and against which we would warn
+our fellows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Flaubert, I think, first put it down in words, and said that such an
+encyclopaedia was very urgently needed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It will never exist, but we all know that it ought to exist. Bits of it
+appear from time to time piecemeal and here and there, as for instance
+in the annotations which modern scholarship attaches to the great text,
+in the printed criticisms to which sundry accepted doctrines are
+subjected by the younger men to-day, in the detailed restatement of
+historical events which we get from modern research as our fathers could
+never have them--but the work itself, the complete Encyclopaedia or
+Dictionary of Ignorance and Error, will never be printed. It is a great
+pity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Incidentally one may remark that the process by which a particular error
+is propagated is as interesting to watch as the way in which a plant
+grows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first step seems to be the establishing of an authority and the
+giving of that authority a name which comes to connote doctrinal
+infallibility. A very good example of this is the title "Science." Mere
+physical research, its achievements, its certitudes, even its
+conflicting and self-contradictory hypotheses, having got lumped
+together in many minds under this one title Science, the title is now
+sacred. It is used as a priestly title, as an immediate estopper to
+doubt or criticism.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next step is a very interesting one for the student of psychical
+pathology to note. It seems to be a disease as native and universal to
+the human mind as is the decay of the teeth to the human body. It seems
+as though we all must suffer somewhat from it, and most of us suffer a
+great deal from it, though in a cool aspect we easily perceive it to be
+a lesion of thought. And this second step is as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The whole lump having been given its sacred title and erected into an
+infallible authority, which you are to accept as directly superior to
+yourself and all personal sources of information, there is attributed to
+this idol a number of attributes. We give it a soul, and a habit and
+manners which do not attach to its stuff at all. The projection of this
+imagined living character in our authority is comparable to what we also
+do with mountains, statues, towns, and so forth. Our living
+individuality lends individuality to them. I might here digress to
+discuss whether this habit of the mind were not a distorted reflection
+of some truth, and whether, indeed, there be not such beings as demons
+or the souls of things. But, to leave that, we take our authority--this
+thing "Science," for instance--we clothe it with a creed and appetites
+and a will, and all the other human attributes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This done, we set out in the third step in our progress towards fixed
+error. We make the idol speak. Of course, being only an idol, it talks
+nonsense. But by the previous steps just referred to we must believe
+that nonsense, and believe it we do. Thus it is, I think, that fixed
+error is most generally established.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have already given one example in the hierarchic title "Science."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was but the other day that I picked up a weekly paper in which a
+gentleman was discussing ghosts--that is, the supposed apparition of the
+living and the dead: of the dead though dead, and of the living though
+absent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nothing has been more keenly discussed since the beginning of human
+discussions. Are these phenomena (which undoubtedly happen) what modern
+people call subjective, or are they what modern people call objective?
+In old-fashioned English, Are the ghosts really there or are they not?
+The most elementary use of the human reason persuades us that the matter
+is not susceptible of positive proof. The criterion of certitude in any
+matter of perception is an inner sense in the perceiver that the thing
+he perceives is external to himself. He is the only witness; no one can
+corroborate or dispute him. The seer may be right or he may be wrong,
+but we have no proof--and only according to our temperament, our fancy,
+our experience, our mood, do we decide with one or the other of the two
+great schools.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, the gentleman of whom I am speaking wrote and had printed in plain
+English this phrase (read it carefully):--"Science teaches us that these
+phenomena are purely subjective."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now I am quite sure that of the thousands who read that phrase all but a
+handful read it in the spirit in which one hears the oracle of a god.
+Some read it with regret, some with pleasure, but all with acquiescence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That physical science was not competent in the matter one way or the
+other each of those readers would probably have discovered, if even so
+simple a corrective as the use of the term "physical research" instead
+of the sacred term "science" had been applied; the hierarchic title
+"Science" did the trick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I might take another example out of many hundreds to show what I mean.
+You have an authority which is called, where documents are concerned,
+"The Best Modern Criticism." "The Best Modern Criticism" decides that
+"Tam o' Shanter" was written by a committee of permanent officials of
+the Board of Trade, or that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed. As a
+matter of fact, the tomfoolery does not usually venture upon ground so
+near home, but it talks rubbish just as monstrous about a poem a few
+hundred or a few thousand years old, or a great personality a few
+hundred or a few thousand years old.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now if you will look at that phrase "The Best Modern Criticism" you will
+see at once that it simply teems with assumption and tautology. But it
+does more and worse: it presupposes that an infallible authority must of
+its own nature be perpetually wrong.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even supposing that I have the most "modern" (that is, merely the
+latest) criticism to hand, and even supposing that by some omniscience
+of mine I can tell which is "the best" (that is, which part of it has
+really proved most ample, most painstaking, most general, and most
+sincere), even then the phrase fatally condemns me. It is to say that
+Wednesday is always infallible as compared with Tuesday, and Thursday as
+compared with Wednesday, which is absurd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The B.M.C. tells me in 1875 that the Song of Roland could have no
+origins anterior to the year 1030. But the B.M.C. of 1885 (being a
+B.M.C. and nothing more valuable) has a changed opinion. It must change
+its opinion, that is the law of its being, since an integral factor in
+its value is its modernity. In 1885 B.M.C. tells me that the Song of
+Roland can be traced to origins far earlier, let us say to 912.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1895 B.M.C. has come to other conclusions--the Song of Roland is
+certainly as late as 1115 ... and so forth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now you would say that an idol of that absurdity could have no effect
+upon sane men. Change the terms and give it another name, and you would
+laugh at the idea of its having an effect upon any men. But we know as a
+matter of fact that it commands the thoughts of nearly all men to-day
+and makes cowards of the most learned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps you will ask me at the end of so long a criticism in what way
+error may be corrected, since there is this sort of tendency in us to
+accept it, to which I answer that things correct it, or as the
+philosophers call things, "Reality." Error does not wash.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To go back to that example of ghosts. If ever you see a ghost (my poor
+reader), I shall ask you afterwards whether he seemed subjective or no.
+I think you will find the word "subjective" an astonishingly thin
+one--if, at least, I catch you early after the experience.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="great">The Great Sight</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+All night we had slept on straw in a high barn. The wood of its beams
+was very old, and the tiles upon the roof were green with age; but there
+hung from beam to beam, fantastically, a wire caught by nails, and here
+and there from this wire hung an electric-light bulb. It was a symbol of
+the time, and the place, and the people. There was no local by-law to
+forbid such a thing, or if there was, no one dreamt of obeying it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just in the first dawn of that September day we went out, my companion
+and I, at guesswork to hunt in the most amusing kind of hunting, which
+is the hunting of an army. The lane led through one of those lovely
+ravines of Picardy which travellers never know (for they only see the
+plains), and in a little while we thought it wise to strike up the steep
+bank from the valley on to the bare plateau above, but it was all at
+random and all guesswork, only we wisely thought that we were nearing
+the beginning of things, and that on the bare fields of the high flat we
+should have a greater horizon and a better chance of catching any
+indications of men or arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we had reached the height the sun had long risen, but it as yet
+gave no shining and there were no shadows, for a delicate mist hung all
+about the landscape, though immediately above us the sky was faintly
+blue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the weirdest of sensations to go for mile after mile over that
+vast plain, to know that it was cut in regular series by parallel
+ravines which in all that extended view we could not guess at; to see up
+to the limits of the plateau the spires of villages and the groups of
+trees about them, and to know that somewhere in all this there lay
+concealed a <i>corps d'arme</i>--and not to see or hear a soul. The
+only human being that we saw was a man driving a heavy farm cart very
+slowly up a side-way just as we came into the great road which has shot
+dead across this country in one line ever since the Romans built it. As
+we went along that road, leaving the fields, we passed by many men
+indeed, and many houses, all in movement with the early morning; and the
+chalked numbers on the doors, and here and there an empty tin of
+polishing-paste or an order scrawled on paper and tacked to a wall
+betrayed the passage of soldiers. But of the army there was nothing at
+all. Scouting on foot (for that was what it was) is a desperate
+business, and that especially if you have nothing to tell you whether
+you will get in touch in five, or ten, or twenty miles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was nine o'clock before a clatter of horse-hoofs came up the road
+behind us. At first my companion and I wondered whether it were the
+first riders of the Dragoons or Cuirassiers. In that case the advance
+was from behind us. But very soon, as the sound grew clearer, we heard
+how few they were, and then there came into view, trotting rapidly, a
+small escort and two officers with the umpires' badges, so there was
+nothing doing; but when, half a mile ahead of us on the road, they
+turned off to the left over plough, we knew that that was the way we
+must follow too. Before we came to the turning-place, before we left the
+road to take the fields on the left, there came from far off and on our
+right the sound of a gun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was my companion who heard it first. We strained to hear it again;
+twice we thought we had caught it, and then again twice we doubted. It
+is not so easily recognizable a sound as you might think in those great
+plains cut by islands of high trees and steading walls. The little "75"
+gun lying low makes a different sound altogether at a distance from the
+old piece of "90." At any rate there was here no doubt that there were
+guns to the right and in front of us, and the umpire had gone to the
+left. We were getting towards the thick, and we had only to go straight
+on to find out where the front was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just as we had so decided and were still pursuing the high road, there
+came, not half a mile away and again to our right, in a valley below us,
+that curious sound which is like nothing at all unless it be dumping of
+flints out of a cart: rifle fire. It cracked and tore in stretches. Then
+there were little gaps of silence like the gaps in signalling, and then
+it cracked and tore in stretches again; and then, fitfully, one
+individual shot and then another would be heard; and, much further off,
+with little sounds like snaps, the replies began from the hillside
+beyond the stream. So far so good. Here was contact in the valley below
+us, and the guns, some way behind and far off northwards, had opened. So
+we got the hang of it instantly--the front was a sort of a crescent
+lying roughly north and south, and roughly parallel to the great road,
+and the real or feigned mass of the advance was on the extreme left of
+that front. We were in it now, and that anxious and wearing business in
+all hunting, finding, was over; but we had been on foot six mortal hours
+before coming across our luck, and more than half the soldiers' day was
+over. These men had been afoot since three, and certain units on the
+left had already marched over twenty miles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After that coming in touch with our business, not only did everything
+become plain, but the numbers we met, and what I have called "the thick
+of things," fed us with interest. We passed half the 38th, going down
+the road singing, to extend the line, and in a large village we came to
+the other half, slouching about in the traditional fashion of the
+Service; they had been waiting for an hour. With them, and lined up all
+along the village street, was one battery, with the drivers dismounted,
+and all that body were at ease. There were men sitting on the doorsteps
+of the houses and men trotting to the canteen-wagon or to the village
+shops to buy food; and there were men reading papers which a pedlar had
+brought round. Mud and dust had splashed them all; upon some there was a
+look of great fatigue; they were of all shapes and sizes, and altogether
+it was the sort of sight you would not see in any other service in the
+world. It was the sort of sight which so disgusted the Emperor Joseph
+when he made his little tour to spy out the land before the
+Revolutionary Wars. It was the sort of sight which made Massenbach
+before Grandpr marvel whether the French forces were soldiers at all,
+and the sort of sight which made Valmy inexplicable to the King of
+Prussia and his staff. It was the sort of sight which eighteen months
+later still convinced Mack in Tournai that the Duke of York's plan was a
+plan "of annihilation." It is a trap for judgment is the French service.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So they lounged about and bought bread, and shifted their packs, and so
+the drivers stood by their horses, and so they all waited and slouched;
+until there came, not a man with a bugle nor anything with the slightest
+savour of drama but a little fellow running along thumping in his loose
+leather leggings, who went up to a Major of Artillery and saluted, and
+immediately afterwards the Major put his hand up, and then down a
+village street, from a point which we could not see came a whistle, and
+the whole of that mass of men began to swarm. The grey-blue coats of the
+line swung round the corner of the village street; they had yet a few
+miles before them. Anything more rapid or less in step it would be
+difficult to conceive. The guns were off at a right angle down the main
+road, making a prodigious clatter, and at the same time appeared two
+parties, one of which it was easy to understand, the other not. They
+were both parties of sappers. The one party had a great roll of wire on
+a drum, and as quick as you could think they were unreeling it, and as
+they unreeled it fastening it to eaves, overhanging branches, and to
+corners of walls, stretching it out forward. It was the field-telephone.
+The other party came along carrying great beams upon their shoulders,
+but what they were to do with these beams we did not know.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We followed the tail of the line down into the valley, and all that
+morning long and past the food time at midday, and so till the sun
+declined in the afternoon, we went with the 38th in its gradual success
+from crest to crest. And still the 38th slouched by companies, and mile
+after mile with checks and halts, and it never seemed to get either less
+or more tired. The men had had twelve hours of it when they came at
+last, and we after them, on to the critical position. They had carried
+(together with all the line to left and to the right of them) a string
+of villages which crowned the crest of a further plateau, and over this
+further plateau they were advancing against the main body of the
+resistance--the other army corps which was set up against ours, to
+simulate an enemy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A railway line ran here across the rolling hedgeless fields, and just at
+the point where my companion and I struck it there was a dip in the land
+and a high embankment which hid the plain beyond; but from that plain
+beyond one heard the separate fire of the advancing line in its
+scattered order. We climbed the embankment, and from its ridge we saw
+over two miles or more of stubble, the little creeping bunches of the
+attack. What was resisting, or where it lay, one could only guess. Some
+hundreds of yards before us to the east, with the sloping sun full on
+it, a line of thicket, one scattered wood and then another, an
+imperceptible lifting of the earth here and there marked the opposing
+firing line. Two pompoms could be spotted exactly, for the flashes were
+clear through the underwood. And still the tide of the advance continued
+to flow, and the little groups came up and fed it, one after another and
+another, in the centre where we were, and far away to the north and
+right away to the south the countryside was alive with it. The action
+was beginning to take on something of that final movement and decision
+which makes the climax of manoeuvres look so great a game. But in a
+little while that general creeping forward was checked: there were
+orders coming from the umpires, and a sort of lull fell over each
+position held. My companion said to me:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Let us go forward now over the intervening zone and in among Picquart's
+men, and get well behind their line, and see whether there is a rally or
+whether before the end of this day they begin to fall back again."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we did, walking a mile or so until we had long passed their outposts
+and were behind their forward lines. And standing there, upon a little
+eminence near a wood, we turned and looked over what we had come,
+westward towards the sun which was now not far from its setting. Then it
+was that we saw the last of the Great Sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The level light, mellow and already reddening, illumined all that plain
+strangely, and with the absolute stillness of the air contrasted the
+opening of the guns which had been brought up to support the renewal of
+the attack. We saw the isolated woods standing up like islands with low
+steep cliffs, dotted in a sea of stubble for miles and miles, and first
+from the cover of one and then from another the advance perpetually,
+piercing and deploying. As we so watched there buzzed high above us,
+like a great hornet, a biplane, circling well within our lines, beyond
+attack from the advance, but overlooking all they concealed behind it.
+In a few minutes a great Bleriot monoplane like a hawk followed, yet
+further inwards. The two great birds shot round in an arc, parallel to
+the firing line, and well behind it, and in a few minutes, that seemed
+seconds, they were dots to the south and then lost in the air. And
+perpetually, as the sun declined, Picquart's men were falling back north
+and south of us and before us, and the advance continued. Group by group
+we saw it piercing this hedge, that woodland, now occupying a nearer and
+a nearer roll of land. It was the greatest thing imaginable: this
+enormous sweep of men, the dead silence of the air, and the
+comparatively slight contrast of the ceaseless pattering rifle fire and
+the slight intermittent accompaniment of the advancing batteries; until
+the sun set and all this human business slackened. Then for the first
+time one heard bugles, which were a command to cease the game.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I would not have missed that day nor lose the memories of it for
+anything in the world.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="declines">The Decline of a State</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+The decline of a State is not equivalent to a mortal sickness therein.
+States are organisms subject to diseases and to decay as are the
+organisms of men's bodies; but they are not subject to a rhythmic rise
+and fall as is the body of a man. A State in its decline is never a
+State doomed or a State dying. States perish slowly or by violence, but
+never without remedy and rarely without violence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The decline of a State differs with the texture of it. A democratic
+State will decline from a lowering of its potential, that is of its
+ever-ready energy to act in a crisis, to correct and to control its
+servants in common times, to watch them narrowly and suspect them at all
+times. A despotic State will decline when the despot is not in point of
+fact the true depository of despotic power, but some other acting in his
+name, of whom the people know little and cannot judge; or when the
+despot, though fully in view and recognized, lacks will; or when (which
+is rare) he is so inhuman as to miss the general sense of his subjects.
+An oligarchic State, or aristocracy as it is called, will decline
+principally through two agencies which are, first, illusion, and
+secondly, lack of civic aptitude. For an oligarchic State tends very
+readily to illusion, being conducted by men who live at leisure, satisfy
+their passions, are immune from the laws, and prefer to shield
+themselves from reality. Their capacity or appetite for illusion will
+rapidly pervade those below them, for in an aristocracy the rulers are
+subjected to a sort of worship from the rest of the community, and thus
+it comes about that aristocracies in their decline accept fantastic
+histories of their own past, conceive victory possible without armies,
+wealth to be an indication of ability, and national security to be a
+natural gift rather than a product of the will. Such communities further
+fail from the lack of civic aptitude, as was said above, which means
+that they deliberately elect to leave the mass of citizens incompetent
+and irresponsible for generations, so that, when any more strain is upon
+them, they look at once for some men other than themselves to relieve
+them, and are incapable of corporate action upon their own account.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The decline of a State differs also according to whether it be a great
+State or a small one, for in the first indifference, in the latter
+faction, are a peril, and in the first ignorance, in the latter private
+spite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then again, the decline of a State will differ according to whether its
+strength is rooted originally in commerce, in arms, or in production;
+and if in production, then whether in the production of the artisan or
+in that of the peasant. If arms be the basis of the State, then that the
+army should become professional and apart is a symptom of decline and a
+cause of it; if commerce, the substitution of hazards and imaginaries
+for the transport of real goods and the search after real demand; if
+production, the discontent or apathy of the producer; as with peasants
+an ill system in the taxation of the land or in the things necessary for
+its tillage, such as a misgovernment of its irrigation in a dry country;
+the permission of private exactions and tolls in a fertile one; the
+toleration of thieves and forestallers, and so forth. Artisans, upon the
+other hand, may well flourish, though the State be corrupt in such
+matters, but they must be secured in a high wage and be given a vast
+liberty of protest, for if they sink to be slaves in fact, they will
+from the nature of their toil grow both weak and foolish. Yet is not the
+State endangered by the artisan's throwing off a refuse of ill-paid and
+starving men who are either too many for the work or unskilful at it?
+Such an excretion would poison a peasantry, remaining in their body as
+it were, but artisans are purged thereby. This refuse it is for the
+State to decide upon. It may in an artisan State be used for soldiery
+(since such States commonly maintain but small armies and are commonly
+indifferent to military glory), or it may be set to useful labour, or
+again, destroyed; but this last use is repugnant to humanity, and so in
+the long run hurtful to the State.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the decline of a State, of whatever nature that State be, two vices
+will immediately appear and grow: these are Avarice and Fear; and men
+will more readily accept the imputation of Avarice than of Fear, for
+Avarice is the less despicable of the two--yet in fact Fear will be by
+far the strongest passion of the time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Avarice will show itself not indeed in a mere greed of gain (for this is
+common to all societies whether flourishing or failing), but rather in a
+sort of taking for granted and permeation of the mere love of money, so
+that history will be explained by it, wars judged by their booty or
+begun in order to enrich a few, love between men and women wholly
+subordinated to it, especially among the rich: wealth made a test for
+responsibility and great salaries invented and paid to those who serve
+the State. This vice will also be apparent in the easy acquaintance of
+all who are possessed of wealth and their segregation from the less
+fortunate, for avarice cleaves society flatways, keeping the scum of it
+quite clear of the middle, the middle of it quite clear of the dregs,
+and so forth. It is a further mark of avarice in its last stages that
+the rich are surrounded with lies in which they themselves believe.
+Thus, in the last phase, there are no parasites but only friends, no
+gifts but only loans, which are more esteemed favours than gifts once
+were. No one vicious but only tedious, and no one a poltroon but only
+slack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of Fear in the decline of a State it may be said that it is so much the
+master passion of such decline as to eat up all others. Coming by travel
+from a healthy State to one diseased, Fear is the first point you take.
+Men dare not print or say what they feel of the judges, the public
+governors, the action of the police, the controllers of fortunes and of
+news. This Fear will have about it something comic, providing infinite
+joy to the foreigner, and modifying with laughter the lament of the
+patriot. A miserable hack that never had a will of his own, but ran to
+do what he was told for twenty years at the bidding of his masters,
+being raised to the Bench will be praised for an impartial virtue more
+than human. A drunken fellow, the son of a drunkard, having stolen
+control over some half-dozen sheets, must be named under the breath or
+not at all. A powerful minister may be accused with sturdy courage of
+something which he did not do and no one would mind his doing, but under
+the influence of Fear, to tell the least little truth about him will put
+a whole assembly into a sort of blankness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This vice has for its most laughable effect the raising of a whole host
+of phantoms, and when a State is so far gone that civic Fear is quite
+normal to the citizens, then you will find them blenching with terror at
+a piece of print, a whispered accusation. Bankruptcy, though they be
+possessed of nothing, and even the ill-will of women. Moneylenders under
+this influence have the greatest power, next after them, blackmailers of
+all kinds, and next after these eccentrics who may blurt or break out.
+Those who have least power in the decline of a State, are priests,
+soldiers, the mothers of many children, the lovers of one woman, and
+saints.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="past">On Past Greatness</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+There lies in the North-East of France, close against the Belgian
+frontier and within cannon shot of the famous battlefield of Malplaquet,
+a little town called Bavai--I have written of it elsewhere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Coming into this little town you seem to be entering no more than a
+decent, unimportant market borough, a larger village meant for country
+folk, perhaps without a history and certainly without fame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As you come to look about you one thing after another enlivens your
+curiosity and suggests something at once enormous and remote in the
+destinies of the place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the first place, seven great roads go out like the seven rays of a
+star, plumb straight, darting along the line, across the vast, bare
+fields of Flanders, past and along the many isolated woods of the
+provinces, and making to great capitals far off--to Cologne, to Paris,
+to Treves, and to the ports of the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These roads are deserted in great part. Some of them are metalled in
+certain sections, and again in other sections are no more than lanes,
+and again no more than footpaths, as you proceed along their miles of
+way; but their exact design awfully impresses the mind. You know, as you
+follow such strict alignment, that you are fulfilling the majestic
+purpose of Imperial Rome. It was the Romans that made these things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, intrigued and excited by such remains of greatness, you read what
+you can of the place.... And you find nothing but a dust of legend. You
+find a story that once here a king, filled with ambition and worshipping
+strange gods, thrust out these great roads to the ends of the earth;
+desired his capital to be a hub and navel for the world. He put them
+under the protection of the seven planets and of the deities of those
+stars. Three he paved with black marble and four with white marble, and
+where they met upon the market place he put up a golden terminal. There
+the legend ends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is only legend--a true product of the Dark Ages, when all that Rome
+had done rose like a huge dream in the mind of Europe and took on
+gorgeous and fantastic colouring. You learn (for the rest) very
+little--that ornaments and money have been found dating from two
+thousand years, that once great walls surrounded the place. It must have
+had noble buildings and solemn courts. In strict history all you will
+discover is that it was the capital of that tribe, the Nervii, against
+whom Caesar fought, and whose territory was early conquered for the
+Empire. You will find nothing more. There is no living tradition, there
+is no voice; the little town is dumb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The place is a figure, and a striking one, of greatness long dead, and a
+man visiting its small domestic interests to-day, and noting its
+comfort, its humility, and its sleep, is reminded of many things
+attaching to human fame. It would seem as though the ambitions of men,
+and that exalted appetite for glory which has produced the chief things
+of this world, suffer the effect of time somewhat as the body of an
+animal slain will suffer that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One part of the organism and then another decays and mixes back with
+nature. The effect of will has vanished. The thing is a prey to all that
+environment which, once alive, it combated, conquered, and transformed
+to its own use. One portion after another is lost, until at last only
+the most resisting stands--the skeleton and hard framework, the least
+expressive, the least personal part of the whole. This also decays and
+perishes. Then there remains no more but a score of hardened fragments
+that linger in their place, and what has passed away is fortunate if
+even the slightest or most fantastic legend of itself survives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great dead are first forgotten in their physical habit; we lose the
+nature of their voices, we forget their sympathies and their affections.
+Bit by bit all that they intended to be eternal slips back into the
+common thing around. A blurred image, growing fainter and fainter,
+lingers. At last the person vanishes, and in its place some public
+raising material things--a monument, a tomb, an ornament, or weapon of
+enduring metal--is all that remains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If it were possible for the spring of appetite and quest to be dried up
+in man, such a spectacle would dry up that spring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is not possible, for it is providentially in the nature of man to
+cherish these illusions of an immortal memory and of a life bestowed
+upon the shade or the mere name of his living greatness. Those various
+forms of fame which are young men's goals, and to which the eager
+creative power of early manhood so properly directs itself, seem each in
+turn or each for its varying temperament to promise the desired reward;
+and one imagines that his love, another that his discoveries, another
+that his victories in the field or his conspicuous acts of courage will
+remain permanently with his fellows long after he has left their feast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As though to give some substance to the flattering cheat, there is one
+kind of fame which men have been permitted to attain, and which does
+give them a sort of fixed tenure--if not for ever, yet for generations
+upon generations--in the human city. This sort of fame is the fame of
+the great poets. There is nothing more enduring. It has for some who
+were most blessed outlasted, you may say, all material things which they
+handled or they knew--all fabrics, all instruments, all habitations. It
+is comparable in its endurance to the years, and a man reads the "Song
+of Roland" and can still look on that same unchanged Cleft of
+Roncesvalles, or a man reads the Iliad and can look to-day westward from
+the shores to Tenedos. But wait a moment. Are they indeed blessed in
+this, the great poets? Ronsard debated it. He decided that they were,
+and put into the mouth of the muses the great lines:----
+</p>
+
+<p class="ind">
+ Mais un tel accident n'arrive point a l'me,<br>
+ Qui sans matire vist immortelle l haut.
+</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="ind">
+ Vela saigement dit, Ceux dont la fantaisie<br>
+ Sera religieuse et devote envers Dieu<br>
+ Tousjours acheveront quelque grand posie,<br>
+ Et dessus leur renom la Parque n'aura lieu.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the matter is still undecided.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="mr">Mr. The Duke: The Man of Malplaquet</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+On the field of Malplaquet, that battlefield, I met a man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was pointed out to me as a man who drove travellers to Bavai. His
+name was Mr. The Duke, and he was very poor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If he comes across these lines (which is exceedingly unlikely) I offer
+him my apologies. Anyhow, I can write about him freely, for he is not
+rich, and, what is more, the laws of his country permit the telling of
+the truth about our fellow-men, even when they are rich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. The Duke was of some years, and his colour was that of cedar wood. I
+met him in his farmyard, and I said to him:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Is it you, sir, that drive travellers to Bavai?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accustomed by many years of travel to this type of response, I
+continued:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How much do you charge?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Two francs fifty," said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I will give you three francs," I said, and when I had said this he
+shook his head and replied:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You fall at an evil moment; I was about to milk the cows." Having said
+this he went to harness the horse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the horse was harnessed to his little cart (it was an extremely
+small horse, full of little bones and white in colour, with one eye
+stronger than the other) he gave it to his little daughter to hold, and
+himself sat down to table, proposing a meal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is but humble fare," he said, "for we are poor."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This sounded familiar to me; I had both read and heard it before. The
+meal was of bread and butter, pasty and beer, for Malplaquet is a
+country of beer and not of wine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he sat at table the old man pointed out to me that contraband across
+the Belgian frontier, which is close by, was no longer profitable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The Fraud," he said, "is no longer a living for anyone."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon that frontier contraband is called "The Fraud"; it holds an
+honourable place as a career.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The Fraud," he continued, "has gone long ago; it has burst. It is no
+longer to be pursued. There is not even any duty upon apples.... But
+there is a duty upon pears. Had I a son I would not put him into The
+Fraud.... Sometimes there is just a chance here and there.... One can
+pick up an occasion. But take it all in all (and here he wagged his head
+solemnly) there is nothing in it any more."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I said that I had no experience of contraband professionally, but that I
+knew a very honest man who lived by it in the country of Andorra, and
+that according to my morals a man had a perfect right to run the risk
+and take his chance, for there was no contract between him and the power
+he was trying to get round. This announcement pleased the old gentleman,
+but it did not grip his mind. He was of your practical sort. He was
+almost a Pragmatist. Abstractions wearied him. He put no faith in the
+reality of ideas. I think he was a Nominalist like Abelard: and whatever
+excuse you may make for him, Abelard was a Nominalist right enough, for
+it was the intellectual thing to be at the time, though St. Bernard
+utterly confuted him in arguments of enormous length and incalculable
+boredom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man, then, I say, would have nothing to do with first
+principles, and he reasserted his position that, in the concrete, in the
+existent world, The Fraud no longer paid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This said for the sixth or seventh time, he drank some brandy to put
+heart into him and climbed up into his little cart, I by his side. He
+hit the white horse with a stick, making at the same time an
+extraordinary shrill noise with his mouth, like a siren, and the horse
+began to slop and sludge very dolefully towards Bavai.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"This horse," said Mr. The Duke, "is a wonderfully good horse. He goes
+like the wind. He is of Arab extraction, and comes from Africa."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With these words he gave the horse another huge blow with his stick, and
+once more emitted his piercing cry. The horse went neither faster nor
+slower than before, and seemed very indifferent to the whole
+performance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He is from Africa," said Mr. The Duke again, meditatively. "Do you know
+Africa?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Africa with the French populace means Algiers. I answered that I knew
+it, and that in particular I knew the road southward from Constantine.
+At this he looked very pleased, and said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I was a soldier in Africa. I deserted seven times."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To this I made no answer. I did not know how he wanted me to take it, so
+I waited until he should speak again, which he soon did, and said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The last time I deserted I was free for a year and a half. I used to
+conduct beasts; that was my trade. When they caught me I was to have
+been shot. I was saved by the tears of a woman!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having said this the old man pulled out a very small pipe and filled it
+with exceedingly black tobacco. He lit it, then he began talking again
+rather more excitedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is a terrible thing and an unhappy thing none the less," he went on,
+"that a man should be taken out to be shot and should be saved by the
+tears of a woman." Then he added, "Of what use are wars? How foolish it
+is that men should kill each other! If there were a war I would not
+fight. Would you?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I said I thought I would; but whether I should like to or not would
+depend upon the war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was eager to contradict and to tell me that war was wrong and stupid.
+Having behind him the logical training of fifteen Christian centuries he
+was in no way muddle-headed upon the matter. He saw very well that his
+doctrine meant that it was wrong to have a country, and wrong to love
+it, and that patriotism was all bosh, and that no ideal was worth
+physical pain or trouble. To such conclusions had he come at the end of
+his life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The white horse meanwhile slouched; Bavai grew somewhat nearer as we sat
+in silence after his last sentence. He was turning many things over in
+his mind. He veered off on to political economy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"When the rich man at the Manufactory here, the place where they sell
+phosphates for the land, when he stands beer to all the workmen and to
+the countryside, I always say, 'Fools! All this will be put on to the
+cost of the phosphates; they will cost you more!'"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. The Duke did not accept John Stuart Mill's proposition upon the cost
+of production nor the general theories of Ricardo upon which Mill's
+propositions were based. In his opinion rent was a factor in the cost of
+production, for he told me that butter had gone up because the price of
+land was rising near the towns. In what he next said I found out that he
+was not a Collectivist, for he said a man should own enough to live
+upon, but he said that this was impossible if rich people were allowed
+to live. I asked him what the politics of the countryside were and how
+people voted. He said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The politicians trick the people. They are a heap of worthlessness."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I asked him if he voted, and he said "yes." He said there was only one
+way to vote, but I did not understand what this meant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had time served I should have asked him further questions--upon the
+nature of the soul, its ultimate fate, the origin of man and his
+destiny, whether mortal or immortal; the proper constitution of the
+State, the choice of the legislator, the prince, and the magistrate; the
+function of art, whether it is subsidiary or primary in human life; the
+family; marriage. Upon the State he had already informed me, and also
+upon the institution of property, and upon his view of armies. Upon all
+those other things he would equally have given me a clear reply, for he
+was a man that knew his own mind, and that is more than most people can
+say.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But we were now in Bavai, and I had no time to discover more. We drank
+together before we parted, and I was very pleased to see the honest look
+in his face. With more leisure and born to greater opportunities he
+would have been talked about, this Man of Malplaquet. He had come to his
+odd conclusions as the funny people do in Scandinavia and in Russia, and
+among the rich intellectuals and usurers in London and Berlin; but he
+was a jollier man than they are, for he could drive a horse and lie
+about it, and he could also milk a cow. As we parted he used a phrase
+that wounded me, and which I had only heard once before in my life. He
+said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We shall never see each other again!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another man had once said this thing to me before. This man was a farmer
+in the Northumbrian hills, who walked with me a little way in the days
+when I was going over Carter Fell to find the Scots people, many, many
+years ago. He also said: "We shall never meet again!"
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="game">The Game of Cards</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+A youth of no more than twenty-three years entered a first-class
+carriage at the famous station of Swindon in the county of Wiltshire,
+proposing to travel to the uttermost parts of the West and to enjoy a
+comfortable loneliness while he ruminated upon all things human and
+divine; when he was sufficiently annoyed to discover that in the further
+corner of the carriage was sitting an old gentleman of benevolent
+appearance, or at any rate a gentleman of benevolent appearance who
+appeared in his youthful eyes to be old.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For though the old gentleman was, as a fact, but sixty, yet his virile
+beard had long gone white and the fringes of hair attaching to his
+ostrich egg of a head confirmed his venerable appearance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the train had started the young man proceeded in no very good
+temper and with great solemnity to fill a pipe. He turned to his senior,
+who was watching him in a very paternal and happy manner, and said
+formally:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I hope you do not mind my smoking, sir?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Not at all," said the old boy; "it is a habit I have long grown
+accustomed to in others."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man bowed in a somewhat absurd fashion and felt for his
+matches. He discovered to his no small mortification that he had none.
+He was so used to his pipe after a meal that he really could not forgo
+it. He came off his perch by at least three steps and asked the old man
+very gently whether he had any matches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The older man produced a box and at the same time brought out with it a
+little notebook and a playing card which happened to be in his pocket.
+The young man took the matches and lit his pipe, surveying the old man
+the while with a more complacent eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is very kind of you, sir," he said a little less stiffly. He handed
+back the matches, wrapped his rug round his legs, sat down in his place,
+and knowing that one should prolong the conversation for a moment or two
+after a favour, said: "I see that you play cards."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I do," said the old man simply; "would you like a game?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I don't mind," said the young man, who had always heard that it was
+unmanly and ridiculous to refuse a game of cards in a railway carriage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The elder man laughed merrily in his strong beard as he saw his junior
+begin to spread somewhat awkwardly a copy of a newspaper upon his knees.
+"I'll show you a trick worth two of that," he said, and taking one of
+the first-class cushions, which alone of railway cushions are movable
+from its place, he came over to the corner opposite the young man and
+made a table of the cushion between them. "Now," said he genially,
+"what's it to be?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Well," said the young man like one who expounds new mysteries, "do you
+know piquet?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh, yes," said his companion with another happy little laugh of
+contentment with the world. "I'll take you on. What shall it be?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Pennies if you like," said the young man nonchalantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Very well, and double for the Rubicon."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How do you mean?" said the young man, puzzled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You will see," said the old man, and they began to play.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The game was singularly absorbing. At first the young man won a few
+pounds; then he lost rather heavily, then he won again, but not quite
+enough to recoup. Then in the fourth game he won, so that he was a
+little ahead, and meanwhile the old man chatted merrily during the
+discarding or the shuffling: during the shuffling especially. He looked
+out towards the downs with something of a sigh at one moment, and said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It's a happy world."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," answered the younger man with the proper lugubriousness of youth,
+"but it all comes to an end."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It isn't its coming to an end," said the elder man, declaring a point
+of six, "that's not the tragedy; it's the little bits coming to an end
+meanwhile, before the whole comes to an end: that's the tragedy...." But
+he added with another of his jolly laughs: "We must play. Piquet takes
+up all one's grey matter."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They played and the young man lost again, but by a very narrow margin:
+it was quite an absorbing game. As they shuffled again the young man
+said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What did you mean by the little bits stopping, or whatever it was?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh," said the old man as though he couldn't remember, and then he
+added: "Oh, yes, I mean you'll find, as you grow older, people die and
+affections change, and, though it seems silly to mention it in company
+with higher things, there's what Shelley called the 'contagion of the
+world's slow stain.'"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then their conversation was interrupted by the ardour of the game; but
+as they played the young man was ruminating, and he had come to the
+conclusion that his senior was imperfectly educated and was probably of
+the middle classes, whereas he himself was destined to be a naval
+architect, and with that object had recently left the university for an
+office in the city. The young man thought that a man properly educated
+would never quote a tag: he was wrong there. As he had allowed his
+thoughts to wander somewhat the young man lost that game rather heavily,
+and at the end of it he was altogether about ten shillings to the bad.
+It was his turn to shuffle. The older man was at leisure to speak, and
+did so rather dreamily as he gazed at the landscape again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Things change, you know," he said, "and there is the contagion of the
+world's slow stain. One gets preoccupied: especially about money. When
+men marry they get very much preoccupied upon that point. It's bad for
+them, but it can't be helped."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You cut," said the young man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His elder cut and they played again. This time as they played their game
+the old man broke his rule of silence and continued his observations
+interruptedly:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Four kings," he said.... "It isn't that a man gets to think money
+all-important, it is that he has to think of it all the time.... No,
+three queens are no good. I said four kings.... four knaves.... The
+little losses of money don't affect one, but perpetual trouble about it
+does, and" (closing up the majority of tricks which he had just gained)
+"many a man goes on making more year after year and yet feels himself in
+peril.... <i>And</i> the last trick." He took up the cards to shuffle
+them. "Towards the very end of life," he continued, "it gets less, I
+suppose, but you'll feel the burden of it." He put the pack over for the
+younger man to cut. When that was done he dealt them out slowly. As he
+dealt he said: "One feels the loss of little material things: objects to
+which one was attached, a walking-stick, or a ring, or a watch which one
+has carried for years. Your declare."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man declared, and that game was played in silence. I regret to
+say that the young man was Rubiconed, and was thirty shillings in the
+elder's debt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We'll stop if you like" said the elder man kindly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh, no," said the youth with nonchalance, "I'll pay you now if you
+like."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Not at all, I didn't mean that," said the older man with a sudden prick
+of honour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh, but I will, and we'll start fair again," said the young man.
+Whereupon he handed over his combined losses in gold, the older man gave
+him change, they shuffled again, and they went on with their play.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"After all," said the older man, musing as he confessed to a point of no
+more than five, "it's all in the day's work.... It's just a day's work,"
+he repeated with a saddened look in his eyes, "it's a game that one
+plays like this game, and then when it's over it's over. It's the little
+losses that count."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That game again was unfortunate for the young man, and he had to shell
+out fifteen and six. But the brakes were applied, Bristol was reached,
+the train came to a standstill, and the young man, looking up a little
+confused and hurried, said: "Hello, Bristol! I get out here."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"So do I," said the older man. They both stood up together, and the jolt
+of the train as it stopped dead threw them into each other's arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am really very sorry," said the youth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It's my fault," said the old chap like a good fellow, "I ought to have
+caught hold. You get out and I'll hand you your bag."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It's very kind of you," said the young man. He was really flattered by
+so much attention, but he knew himself what a good companion he was and
+he could understand it; besides which they had made friends during that
+little journey. He always liked a man to whom he had lost some money in
+an honest game.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a heavy crowd upon the platform, and two men barging up out of
+it saluted the old man boisterously by the name of Jack. He twinkled at
+them with his eyes as he began moving the luggage about, and stood for a
+moment in the doorway with his own bag in his right hand and the young
+man's bag in his left. The young man so saw it for an instant, a fine
+upstanding figure--he saw his bag handed by some mistake to the second
+of the old man's friends, a porter came by at the moment pushing through
+the crowd with a trolley, an old lady made a scene, the porter
+apologized, the crowd took sides, some for the porter, some for the old
+lady; the young man, with the deference of his age, politely asked
+several people to make way, but when he had emerged from the struggle
+his companion, his companion's friends, and his own bag could not be
+found; or at any rate he could not make out where they were in the great
+mass that pushed and surged upon the platform.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made himself a little conspicuous by asking too many questions and by
+losing his temper twice with people who had done him no harm, when, just
+as his excitement was growing more than querulous, a very heavy,
+stupid-looking man in regulation boots tapped him on the shoulder and
+said: "Follow me." He was prepared with an oath by way of reply, but
+another gentleman of equal weight, wearing boots of the same pattern,
+linked his arm in his and between them they marched him away, to a
+little private closet opening out of the stationmaster's room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Now, sir," said he who had first tapped him on the shoulder, "be good
+enough to explain your movements."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I don't know what you mean," said the young man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You were in the company," said the older man severely, "of an old man,
+bald, with a white beard and a blue sailor suit. He had come from
+London; you joined him at Swindon. We have evidence that he was to be
+met at this station and it will be to your advantage if you make a clean
+breast of it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man was violent and he was borne away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he had friends at Bristol. He gave his references and he was
+released. To this day he believes that he suffered not from folly, but
+from injustice. He did not see his bag again, but after all it contained
+no more than his evening clothes, for which he had paid or rather owed
+six guineas, four shirts, as many collars and dress ties, a
+silver-mounted set of brushes and combs, and useless cut-glass bottles,
+a patented razor, a stick of shaving soap, and two very, very
+confidential letters which he treasured. His watch, of course, was gone,
+but not, I am glad to say, his chain, which hung dangling, though in his
+flurry he had not noticed it. It made him look a trifle ridiculous. As
+he wore no tie-pin he had not lost that, and beyond his temper he had
+indeed lost nothing further save, possibly, a textbook upon
+Thermodynamics. This book he <i>thought</i> he remembered having put
+into the bag, and if he had it belonged to his library, but he could not
+quite remember this point, and when the Library claimed it he stoutly
+disputed their claim.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this dispute he was successful, but it was the only profit he made
+out of that journey, unless we are to count his experience, and
+experience, as all the world knows, is a thing that men must buy.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="king">"King Lear"</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+The great unity which was built up two thousand years ago and was
+called Christendom in its final development split and broke in pieces.
+The various civilizations of its various provinces drifted apart, and it
+will be for the future historian to say at what moment the isolation of
+each from all was farthest pushed. It is certain that that point is
+passed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the task of reuniting what was broken--it is the noblest work a
+modern man can do--the very first mechanical act must be to explain one
+national soul to another. That act is not final. The nations of Europe,
+now so divided, still have more in common than those things by which
+they differ, and it is certain that when they have at last revealed to
+them their common origin they will return to it. They will return to it,
+perhaps, under the pressure of war waged by some not Christian
+civilization, but they will return. In the meanwhile, of those acts not
+final, yet of immediate necessity in the task of establishing unity, is
+the act of introducing one national soul to another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now this is best accomplished in a certain way which I will describe.
+You will take that part in the letters of a nation which you maturely
+judge most or best to reflect the full national soul, with its
+qualities, careless of whether these be great or little; you will take
+such a work as reproduces for you as you read it, not only in its
+sentiment, but in its very rhythm, the stuff and colour of the nation;
+this you will present to the foreigner, who cannot understand. His
+efforts must be laborious, very often unfruitful, but where it is
+fruitful it will be of a decisive effect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus let anyone take some one of the immortal things that Racine wrote
+and show them to an Englishman. He will hardly ever be able to make
+anything of it at first. Here and there some violently emotional passage
+may faintly touch him, but the mass of the verse will seem to him dead.
+Now, if by constant reading, by association with those who know what
+Racine is, he at last sees him--and these changes in the mind come very
+suddenly--he will see into the soul of Gaul. For the converse task,
+to-day not equally difficult but once almost impossible, of presenting
+England to the French intelligence--or, indeed, to any other alien
+intelligence--you may choose the play "King Lear."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That play has every quality which does reflect the soul of the community
+in which and for which it was written. Note a few in their order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First, it is not designed to its end; at least it is not designed
+accurately to its end; it is written as a play and it is meant to be
+acted as a play, and it is the uniform opinion of those versed in plays
+and in acting that in its full form it could hardly be presented, while
+in any form it is the hardest even of Shakespeare's plays to perform.
+Here you have a parallel with a thousand mighty English things to which
+you can turn. Is there not institution after institution to decide on,
+so lacking a complete fitness to its end, larger in a way than the end
+it is to serve, and having, as it were, a life of its own which proceeds
+apart from its effect? This quality which makes so many English things
+growths rather than instruments is most evident in the great play.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again, it has that quality which Voltaire noted, which he thought
+abnormal in Shakespeare, but which is the most national characteristic
+in him, that a sort of formlessness, if it mars the framework of the
+thing and spoils it, yet also permits the exercise of an immeasurable
+vitality. When a man has read "King Lear" and lays down the book he is
+like one who has been out in one of those empty English uplands in a
+storm by night. It is written as though the pen bred thoughts. It is
+possible to conjecture as one reads, and especially in the diatribes,
+that the pen itself was rapid and the brain too rapid for the pen. One
+feels the rush of the air. Now, this quality is to be discovered in the
+literature of many nations, but never with the fullness which it has in
+the literature of England. And note that in those phases of the national
+life when foreign models have constrained this instinct of expansion in
+English verse, they never have restrained it for long, and that even
+through the bonds established by those models the instinct of expansion
+breaks. You see it in the exuberance of Dryden and in the occasional
+running rhetoric of Pope, until it utterly loosens itself with the end
+of the eighteenth century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The play is national, again, in that permanent curiosity upon knowable
+things--nay, that mysterious half-knowledge of unknowable things--which,
+in its last forms, produced the mystic, and which is throughout history
+so plainly characteristic of these Northern Atlantic islands. Every play
+of Shakespeare builds with that material, and no writer, even of the
+English turn, has sent out points further into the region of what is not
+known than Shakespeare has in sudden flashes of phrase. But "King Lear,"
+though it contains a lesser number of lines of this mystical and
+half-religious effect than, say, "Hamlet," yet as a general impression
+is the more mystical of the two plays. The element of madness, which in
+"Hamlet" hangs in the background like a storm-cloud ready to break, in
+"King Lear" rages; and it is the use of this which lends its amazing
+psychical power to the play. It has been said (with no great profundity
+of criticism) that English fiction is chiefly remarkable for its power
+of particularization of character, and that where French work, for
+instance, will present ideas, English will present persons. The judgment
+is grossly insufficient, and therefore false, but it is based upon a
+proof which is very salient in English letters, which is that, say, in
+quite short and modern work the sense of complete unity deadens the
+English mind. The same nerve which revolts at a straight road and at a
+code of law revolts against one tone of thought, and the sharp contrast
+of emotional character, not the dual contrast which is common to all
+literatures, but the multiple contrast, runs through "King Lear" and
+gives the work such a tone that one seems as one reads it to be moving
+in a cloud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The conclusion is perhaps Shakespearean rather than English, and in a
+fashion escapes from any national labelling. But the note of silence
+which Shakespeare suddenly brings in upon the turmoil, and with which he
+is so fond of completing what he has done, would not be possible were
+not that spirit of expansion and of a kind of literary adventurousness
+present in all that went before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is indeed this that makes the play so memorable. And it may not be
+fantastic to repeat and expand what has been said above in other words,
+namely, that King Lear has something about him which seems to be a
+product of English landscape and of English weather, and if its general
+movement is a storm its element is one of those sudden silences that
+come sometimes with such magical rapidity after the booming of the wind.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="excursion">The Excursion</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+It is so old a theme that I really hesitate to touch it; and yet it is
+so true and so useful that I will. It is true all the time, and it is
+particularly useful at this season of the year to men in cities: to all
+repetitive men: to the men that read these words. What is more, true as
+it is and useful as it is, no amount of hammering at people seems to get
+this theme into their practice; though it has long ago entered into
+their convictions they will not act upon it in their summers. And this
+true and useful theme is the theme of little freedoms and discoveries,
+the value of getting loose and away by a small trick when you want to
+get your glimpse of Fairyland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now how does one get loose and away?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When a man says to himself that he must have a holiday he means that he
+must see quite new things that are also old: he desires to open that
+door which stood wide like a window in childhood and is now shut fast.
+But where are the new things that are also the old? Paradoxical fellows
+who deserve drowning tell one that they are at our very doors. Well,
+that is true of the eager mind, but the mind is no longer eager when it
+is in need of a holiday. And you can get at the new things that are also
+the old by way of drugs, but drugs are a poor sort of holiday fabric. If
+you have stored up your memory well with much experience you can get
+these things from your memory--but only in a pale sort of way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I think the best avenue to recreation by the magical impressions of the
+world upon the mind is this: To go to some place to which the common
+road leads you and then to get just off the common road. You will be
+astonished to find how strange the world becomes in the first mile--and
+how strange it remains till the common road is reached again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It always sounds like a mockery for a man who has travelled to a great
+many places, as I have, to advise his fellows to travel abroad; they are
+most of them hard tied. Yet it is really a much easier thing than men
+bound to the desk and the workshop understand. Britain is but one great
+port, and its inward seas are narrow--and the fares are ridiculously
+low. If you are a young man you can go almost anywhere for almost
+anything, sitting up by night on deck, and not expecting too much
+courtesy. But, of course, if you shirk the sea you are a prisoner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, then, supposing you abroad, or even in some other part of this
+highly varied kingdom in which you live, and supposing you to have
+reached some chosen place by some common road--what I desire to dilate
+upon here is the truth which every little excursion of business or of
+leisure (and precious few of leisure) makes me more certain of every
+day: That just a little way off the road is fairyland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was exactly three days ago that I had occasion to go down the railway
+line that is the most frequented in Europe: I was on business, not
+leisure, but in the business I had two days' leisure, and I did what I
+would advise all other men to do in such a circumstance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took a train to nowhere, fixing my starting-point thus:--
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I first looked at the map and saw where nearest to me was a
+quadrilateral bare of railways. This formula, to look for a
+quadrilateral bare of railways, is a very useful formula for the man who
+is seeking another world. Then I fixed at random upon one little
+roadside station upon the main line; I determined to get out there and
+to walk aimlessly and westward until I should strike the other side of
+the quadrilateral. I made no plan, not even of the hours of the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I came into my roadside station at half-past eight of the long summer
+night, broad daylight that is, but with night advancing. I got out and
+began my westward march. At once there crowded upon me any number of
+unexpected and entertaining things!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first thing I found was a street which was used by horses as well as
+by men, and yet was made up of broad steps. It was a sort of stair-case
+going up a hill. At the top of it I found a woman leading a child by the
+hand. I asked her the name of the steps. She told me they were called
+"The Steps of St. John."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A quarter of a mile further down the narrow lane I saw to my
+astonishment an enormous castle, ruined and open to the sky. There are
+many such ruins famous in Europe, but of this one I had never even
+heard. I went lonely under the evening and looked at its main gate and
+saw on it a moulded escutcheon, carved, and the motto in French,
+"Henceforward," which word made me think a great deal, but resolved no
+problem in my mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I went on again westward as the darkness fell and saw what I had not
+seen before, though my reading had told me of its existence, a long line
+of trees marking a ridge on the horizon, which line was the border of
+that ancient road the Roman soldiers built leading from the west into
+Amiens. "Along that road," thought I, "St. Martin rode before he became
+a monk, and while he was yet a soldier and was serving under Julian the
+Apostate. Along that road he came to the west gate of Amiens and there
+cut his cloak in two and gave the half of it to a beggar."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The memory of St. Martin's deed entertained me for some miles of my way,
+and I remembered how, when I was a child, it had seemed to me ridiculous
+to cut your coat in two whether for a beggar or for anybody else. Not
+that I thought charity ridiculous--God forbid!--but that a coat seemed
+to me a thing you could not cut in two with any profit to the user of
+either half. You might cut it in latitude and turn it into an Eton
+jacket and a kilt, neither of much use to a Gallo-Roman beggar. Or you
+might cut it in meridian and leave but one sleeve: mere folly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Considering these things, I went on over the rolling plateau. I saw a
+great owl flying before me against the sky, different from the owls of
+home. I saw Jupiter shining above a cloud and Venus shining below one.
+The long light lingered in the north above the English sea. At last I
+came quite unexpectedly upon that delight and plaything of the French: a
+light railway, or steam tram such as that people build in great
+profusion to link up their villages and their streams. The road where I
+came upon it made a level crossing, and there was a hut there, and a
+woman living in it who kept the level crossing and warned the
+passers-by. She told me no more trains, or rather little trams, would
+pass that night, but that three miles further on I should come to a
+place called "The Mills of the Vidame."
+
+Now the name "Vidame" reminded me that a "Vidame" was the lay protector
+of a Cathedral Chapter in feudal times, so the name gave me a renewed
+pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was now near midnight, and when I came to this village I
+remembered how in similar night walks I had sometimes been refused
+lodging. When I got among the few houses all was dark. I found, however,
+in the darkness two young men, each bearing an enormous curled trumpet
+of the kind which the French call <i>cors de chasse</i>, that is,
+hunting horns, so I asked them where the inn was. They took me to it and
+woke up the hostess, who received us with oaths. This she did lest the
+young men with hunting horns should demand a commission. Her heart,
+however, was better than her mouth, and she put me up, but she charged
+me tenpence for my room, counting coffee in the morning, which was, I am
+sure, more than her usual rate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day I took the little steam tram away from the place and went on
+vaguely whither it should please God to take me, until the plateau
+changed and the light railway fell into a charming valley, and, seeing a
+town rooted therein, I got out and paid my fare and visited the town. In
+this town I went to church, as it was early morning (you must excuse the
+foible), and, coming out of church, I had an argument with a working man
+upon the matter of religion, in which argument, as I believe, I was the
+victor. I then went on north out of this town and came into a wood of
+enormous size. It was miles and miles across, and the trees were higher
+than anything I have seen outside of California. It was an enchanted
+wood. The sun shone down through a hundred feet of silence by little
+rounds between the leaves, and there was silence everywhere. In this
+wood I sojourned all day long, making slowly westward, till, in the very
+midst of it, I found a troubled man. He was a man of middle age, short,
+intelligent, fat, and weary. He said to me:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Have you noticed any special mark upon the trees? A white mark of the
+number 90?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," said I. "Are there any wild boars in this forest?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes," he answered, "a few, but not of use. I am looking for trees
+marked in white with the number 90. I have paid a price for them, and I
+cannot find them."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saluted him and went on my way. At last I came to an open clearing,
+where there was a town, and in the town I found a very delightful inn,
+where they would cook anything one felt inclined for, within reason, and
+charged one very moderately indeed. I have retained its name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time I was completely lost, and in the heart of Fairyland, when
+suddenly I remembered that everyone that strikes root in Fairyland loses
+something, at the least his love and at the worst his soul, and that it
+is a perilous business to linger there, so I asked them in that hotel
+how they worked it when they wanted to go west into the great towns.
+They put me into an omnibus, which charged me fourpence for a journey of
+some two miles. It took me, as Heaven ordained, to a common great
+railway, and that common great railway took me through the night to the
+town of Dieppe, which I have known since I could speak and before, and
+which was about as much of Fairyland to me as Piccadilly or Monday
+morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus ended those two days, in which I had touched again the unknown
+places--and all that heaven was but two days, and cost me not fifty
+shillings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Excuse the folly of this.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="tide">The Tide</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+I wish I had been one of those men who first sailed beyond the Pillars
+of Hercules and first saw, as they edged northward along a barbarian
+shore, the slow swinging of the sea. How much, I wonder, did they think
+themselves enlarged? How much did they know that all the civilization
+behind them, the very ancient world of the Mediterranean, was something
+protected and enclosed from which they had escaped into an outer world?
+And how much did they feel that here they were now physically caught by
+the moving tides that bore them in the whole movement of things?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the tide is of that kind; and the movement of the sea four times
+daily back and forth is a consequence, a reflection, and a part of the
+ceaseless pulse and rhythm which animates all things made and which
+links what seems not living to what certainly lives and feels and has
+power over all movement of its own. The circuits of the planets stretch
+and then recede. Their ellipses elongate and flatten again to the
+semblance of circles. The Poles slowly nod once every many thousand
+years, there is a libration to the moon; and in all this vast harmonious
+process of come and go the units of it twirl and spin, and, as they
+spin, run more gravely in ordered procession round their central star:
+that star moves also to a beat, and all the stars of heaven move each in
+times of its own as well, and their movement is one thing altogether.
+Whoever should receive the mighty business moving in one ear would get
+the music of it in a perfect series of chords, superimposed the one upon
+the other, but not a tremble of them out of tune.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great scheme is not infinite, for were it infinite such rhythms
+could not be. It was made, and it moves in order to the scheme of its
+making without caprice, not wayward anywhere, but in and out and back
+and forth as to a figure set for it. It must be so, or these exact
+arrangements could not be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now with this regulated breathing and expiration, playing itself out in
+a million ways and co-extensive with the universe of things, the tides
+keep time, and they alone of earthly things bring its actual force to
+our physical perception, to our daily life. We see the sea in movement
+and power before us heaving up whatever it may bear, and we feel in an
+immediate way its strong backward sagging when the rocks appear above it
+as it falls. We have our hand on the throb of the current turning in a
+salting river inland between green hills; we are borne upon it bodily as
+we sail, its movement kicks the tiller in our grasp, and the strength
+beneath us and around us, the rush and the compulsion of the stream, its
+silence and as it were its purpose, all represent to us, immediately and
+here, that immeasurable to and fro which rules the skies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the Roman soldiers came marching northward with Caesar and first
+saw the shores of ocean: when, after that occupation of Gaul which has
+changed the world, they first mounted guard upon the quays of the Itian
+port under Gris-Nez, or the rocky inlets of the Veneti by St. Malo and
+the Breton reefs, they were appalled to see what for centuries chance
+traders and the few curious travellers, the men of Marseilles and of the
+islands, had seen before them. They saw in numbers and in a corporate
+way what hitherto individuals alone had seen; they saw the sea like a
+living thing, advancing and retreating in an ordered dance, alive with
+deep sighs and intakes, and ceaselessly proceeding about a work and a
+doing which seemed to be the very visible action of an unchanging will
+still pleased with calculated change. It was the presence of the Roman
+army upon the shores of the Channel which brought the Tide into the
+general conscience of Europe, and that experience, I think, was among
+the greatest, perhaps the greatest, of those new things which rushed
+upon the mind of the Empire when it launched itself by the occupation of
+Gaul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tide, when it is mentioned in brief historical records of times long
+since, suddenly strikes one with vividness and with familiarity, so that
+the past is introduced at once, presented to us physically, and obtruded
+against our modern senses alive. I know of no other physical thing
+mentioned in this fashion, in chronicle or biography, which has so
+powerful an effect to restore the reality of a dead century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Venerable Bede is speaking in one place of Southampton Water, in his
+ecclesiastical history, or, rather, of the Isle of Wight, whence those
+two Princes were baptized and died under Cadwalla. As the historian
+speaks of the place he says:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"In this sea" (which is the Solent) "comes a double tide out of the seas
+which spring from the infinite ocean of the Arctic surrounding all
+Britain."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he tells us how these double tides rush together and fight together,
+sweeping as they do round either side of the island by the Needles and
+by Spithead into the land-locked sheet within.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now that passage in Bede's fourth book is more real to me than anything
+in all his chronicle, for in Southampton Water to-day the living thing
+which we still note as we sail is the double tide. You take a falling
+tide at the head of the water, near Southampton Town, and if you are not
+quick with your business it is checked in two hours and you meet a
+strange flood, the second flood, before you have rounded Calshott
+Castle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there is a Charter of Newcastle. Or, rather, the inviolable Customs
+of that town, very old, drawn up nearly eight hundred years ago, but
+beginning from far earlier; and in these customs you find written:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"If a plea shall arise between a burgess and a merchant it must be
+determined before the third flowing of the sea"--that is, within three
+tides; a wise provision! For thus the merchant would not miss the last
+tide of the day after the quarrel. How living it is, a phrase of that
+sort coming in the midst of those other phrases!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the rest, worse luck, has gone. Burgage-tenure, and the economic
+independence of the humble, and the busy, healthy life of men working to
+enrich themselves, not others, and that corporate association which was
+the blood of the Middle Ages, and the power of popular opinion, and, in
+general, freedom. But out of all these things that have perished, the
+tide remains, and in the eighteen clauses of the Customs, the tidal
+clause alone stands fresh and still has meaning. The capital, great
+clinching clause by which men owned their own land within the town has
+gone utterly and altogether. The modern workman on the Tyne would not
+understand you perhaps, to whom in that very place you should say, "Many
+centuries ago the men that came before you here, your fathers, were not
+working precariously at a wage, or paying rent to others, but living
+under their own roofs and working for themselves." There is only one
+passage in the document that all could understand in Newcastle
+to-day--the very few rich who are hardly secure, the myriads of poor who
+are not secure at all--and that passage is the passage which talks of
+the third tide; for even to-day there is some good we have left
+undestroyed and the sea still ebbs and flows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This little note of the Newcastle men, and of the flowing and the ebbing
+of their sea, is to be found, you say, in the archives of England? Not
+at all! It is to be found in the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland--at
+least, so my book assures me, but why I do not know. Perhaps of the
+times when between Tyne and Tees, men looked northward and of the times
+when they looked southward (for they alternately did one and the other
+during many hundreds of years) those times when they looked northward
+seemed the more natural to them. Anyhow, the reference is to the Acts of
+the Parliament of Scotland, and that is the end of it.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="greatw">On a Great Wind</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+It is an old dispute among men, or rather a dispute as old as mankind,
+whether Will be a cause of things or no; nor is there anything novel in
+those moderns who affirm that Will is nothing to the matter, save their
+ignorant belief that their affirmation is new.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The intelligent process whereby I know that Will not seems but is, and
+can alone be truly and ultimately a cause, is fed with stuff and
+strengthens sacramentally as it were, whenever I meet, and am made the
+companion of, a great wind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is not that this lively creature of God is indeed perfected with a
+soul; this it would be superstition to believe. It has no more a person
+than any other of its material fellows, but in its vagary of way, in the
+largeness of its apparent freedom, in its rush of purpose, it seems to
+mirror the action of mighty spirit. When a great wind comes roaring over
+the eastern flats towards the North Sea, driving over the Fens and the
+Wringland, it is like something of this island that must go out and
+wrestle with the water, or play with it in a game or a battle; and when,
+upon the western shores, the clouds come bowling up from the horizon,
+messengers, outriders, or comrades of a gale, it is something of the sea
+determined to possess the land. The rising and falling of such power,
+its hesitations, its renewed violence, its fatigue and final repose--all
+these are symbols of a mind; but more than all the rest, its exultation!
+It is the shouting and the hurrahing of the wind that suits a man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Note you, we have not many friends. The older we grow and the better we
+can sift mankind, the fewer friends we count, although man lives by
+friendship. But a great wind is every man's friend, and its strength is
+the strength of good-fellowship; and even doing battle with it is
+something worthy and well chosen. If there is cruelty in the sea, and
+terror in high places, and malice lurking in profound darkness, there is
+no one of these qualities in the wind, but only power. Here is strength
+too full for such negations as cruelty, as malice, or as fear; and that
+strength in a solemn manner proves and tests health in our own souls.
+For with terror (of the sort I mean--terror of the abyss or panic at
+remembered pain, and in general, a losing grip of the succours of the
+mind), and with malice, and with cruelty, and with all the forms of that
+Evil which lies in wait for men, there is the savour of disease. It is
+an error to think of such things as power set up in equality against
+justice and right living. We were not made for them, but rather for
+influences large and soundly poised; we are not subject to them but to
+other powers that can always enliven and relieve. It is health in us, I
+say, to be full of heartiness and of the joy of the world, and of
+whether we have such health our comfort in a great wind is a good test
+indeed. No man spends his day upon the mountains when the wind is out,
+riding against it or pushing forward on foot through the gale, but at
+the end of his day feels that he has had a great host about him. It is
+as though he had experienced armies. The days of high winds are days of
+innumerable sounds, innumerable in variation of tone and of intensity,
+playing upon and awakening innumerable powers in man. And the days of
+high wind are days in which a physical compulsion has been about us and
+we have met pressure and blows, resisted and turned them; it enlivens us
+with the simulacrum of war by which nations live, and in the just
+pursuit of which men in companionship are at their noblest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is pretended sometimes (less often perhaps now than a dozen years
+ago) that certain ancient pursuits congenial to man will be lost to him
+under his new necessities; thus men sometimes talk foolishly of horses
+being no longer ridden, houses no longer built of wholesome wood and
+stone, but of metal; meat no more roasted, but only baked; and even of
+stomachs grown too weak for wine. There is a fashion of saying these
+things, and much other nastiness. Such talk is (thank God!) mere folly;
+for man will always at last tend to his end, which is happiness, and he
+will remember again to do all those things which serve that end. So it
+is with the uses of the wind, and especially the, using of the wind with
+sails.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No man has known the wind by any of its names who has not sailed his own
+boat and felt life in the tiller. Then it is that a man has most to do
+with the wind, plays with it, coaxes or refuses it, is wary of it all
+along; yields when he must yield, but comes up and pits himself again
+against its violence; trains it, harnesses it, calls it if it fails him,
+denounces it if it will try to be too strong, and in every manner
+conceivable handles this glorious playmate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for those who say that men did but use the wind as an instrument for
+crossing the sea, and that sails were mere machines to them, either they
+have never sailed or they were quite unworthy of sailing. It is not an
+accident that the tall ships of every age of varying fashions so
+arrested human sight and seemed so splendid. The whole of man went into
+their creation, and they expressed him very well; his cunning, and his
+mastery, and his adventurous heart. For the wind is in nothing more
+capitally our friend than in this, that it has been, since men were men,
+their ally in the seeking of the unknown and in their divine thirst for
+travel which, in its several aspects--pilgrimage, conquest, discovery,
+and, in general, enlargement--is one prime way whereby man fills himself
+with being.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I love to think of those Norwegian men who set out eagerly before the
+north-east wind when it came down from their mountains in the month of
+March like a god of great stature to impel them to the West. They pushed
+their Long Keels out upon the rollers, grinding the shingle of the beach
+at the fjord-head. They ran down the calm narrows, they breasted and
+they met the open sea. Then for days and days they drove under this
+master of theirs and high friend, having the wind for a sort of captain,
+and looking always out to the sea line to find what they could find. It
+was the springtime; and men feel the spring upon the sea even more
+surely than they feel it upon the land. They were men whose eyes, pale
+with the foam, watched for a landfall, that unmistakable good sight
+which the wind brings us to, the cloud that does not change and that
+comes after the long emptiness of sea days like a vision after the
+sameness of our common lives. To them the land they so discovered was
+wholly new.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We have no cause to regret the youth of the world, if indeed the world
+were ever young. When we imagine in our cities that the wind no longer
+calls us to such things, it is only our reading that blinds us, and the
+picture of satiety which our reading breeds is wholly false. Any man
+to-day may go out and take his pleasure with the wind upon the high
+seas. He also will make his landfalls to-day, or in a thousand years;
+and the sight is always the same, and the appetite for such discoveries
+is wholly satisfied even though he be only sailing, as I have sailed,
+over seas that he has known from childhood, and come upon an island far
+away, mapped and well known, and visited for the hundredth time.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="letter">The Letter</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+If you ask me why it is now three weeks since I received your letter
+and why it is only today that I answer it, I must tell you the truth
+lest further things I may have to tell you should not be worthy of your
+dignity or of mine. It was because at first I dared not, then later I
+reasoned with myself, and so bred delay, and at last took refuge in more
+delay. I will offer no excuse: I will not tell you that I suffered
+illness, or that some accident of war had taken me away from this old
+house, or that I have but just returned from a journey to my hill and my
+view over the Plain and the great River.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Your messenger I have kept, and I have entertained him well. I looked at
+him a little narrowly at his first coming, thinking perhaps he might be
+a gentleman of yours, but I soon found that he was not such, and that he
+bore no disguise, but was a plain rider of your household. I put him in
+good quarters by the Hunting Stables. He has had nothing to do but to
+await my resolution, which is now at last taken, and which you receive
+in this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But how shall I begin, or how express to you what not distance but a
+slow and bitter conclusion of the mind has done?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I shall not return to Meudon. I shall not see the woods, the summer
+woods turning to autumn, nor follow the hunt, nor take pleasure again in
+what is still the best of Europe at Versailles. And now that I have said
+it, you must read it so; for I am unalterably determined. Believe me, it
+is something much more deep than courtesy which compels me to give you
+my reasons for this final and irrevocable doom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were children together. Though we leant so lightly in our
+conversations of this spring upon all we knew in common, I know your age
+and all your strong early experience--and you know mine. Your mother
+will recall that day's riding when I came back from my first leave and
+you were home, not, I think, for good, from the convent. A fixed
+domestic habit blinded her, so that she could then still see in us no
+more than two children; yet I was proud of my sword, and had it on, and
+you that day were proud of a beauty which could no longer be hidden even
+from yourself; I would then have sacrificed, and would now, all I had or
+was or had or am to have made that beauty immortal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I say, you remember that day's riding, and how after it the world was
+changed for you and me, and how that same evening the elders saw that it
+was changed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You will remember that for two years we were not allowed to meet again.
+When the two years were passed we met indeed by a mere accident of that
+rich and tedious life wherein we were both now engaged. I was returned
+from leave before Tournay; you had heard, I think, a false report that I
+had been wounded in the dreadful business at Fontenoy (which to remember
+even now horrifies me a little). I had heard and knew which of the great
+names you now bore by marriage. The next day it was your husband who
+rode with me to Marly. I liked him well enough. I have grown to like him
+better. He is an honest man, though I confess his philosophers weary me.
+When I say "an honest man" I am giving the highest praise I know.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My dear, that was sixteen years ago.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You may not even now understand, so engrossing is the toilsome and
+excited ritual of that rich world at Versailles, how blest you are: your
+children are growing round you: your daughters are beginning to reveal
+your own beauty, and your sons will show in these next years immediately
+before us that temper which in you was a spirit and a height of being,
+and in them, men, will show as plain courage. During that long space of
+years your house has remained well ordered (it was your husband's
+doing). His great fortune and yours have jointly increased: if I may
+tell you so, it is a pleasure to all who understand fitness to know that
+this is so, and that your lineage and his will hold so great a place in
+the State.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As you review those sixteen years you may, if you will--I trust you will
+not--recall those occasions when I saw the woods of Meudon and mixed by
+chance with your world, and when we renewed the rides which had ended
+our childhood. As for me I have not to recall those things. They are,
+alas, myself, and beyond them there is nothing that I can call a memory
+or a being at all. Nevertheless, as I have told you, I shall not come to
+Meudon: I shall not hear again the delightful voices of those many
+friends (now in mid-life as am I) who are my equals at Versailles. I
+shall not see your face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did not take service with the Empire from any pique or folly, but from
+a necessity for adventure and for the refounding of my house. It might
+have chanced that I should marry: the land demanded an heir. My
+impoverishment weighed upon me like an ill deed, for all this belt of
+land is dependent upon the old house, which I can with such difficulty
+retain and from which I write to-day. I spent all those years in the
+service of the Empire (and even of Russia) from no uncertain temper and
+from no imaginary quarrel. It is so common or so necessary for men and
+women to misjudge each other that I believe you thought me wayward, or
+at least unstable. If you did so you did me a wrong. Those two good
+seasons when we met again, and this last of but a month ago, were not
+accidents or fitful recoveries. They were all I possessed in my life and
+all that will perish with me when I die.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But now, to tell you the very core of my decision, it is this: The years
+that pass carry with them an increasing weight at once sombre and
+majestic. There are things belonging to youth which habit continues
+strangely longer than the season to which they properly belong: if, when
+we discover them to be too prolonged as cling to their survival, why,
+then, we eat dust. So long as we possess the illusion and so long as the
+dearest things of youth maintain unchanged, in one chamber of our life
+at least, our twentieth year, so long all is well. But there is a cold
+river which we must pass in our advance towards nothingness and age. In
+the passage of that stream we change: and you and I have passed it.
+There is no more endurance in that young mood of ours than in any other
+human thing. One always wakes from it at last. One sees what it is. The
+soul sees and counts with hard eyes the price at which a continuance of
+such high dreams must be purchased, and the heart has a prevision of the
+evil that the happy cheat will work as maturity is reached by each of
+us, and as each of us fully takes on the burden of the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Therefore I must not return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Foolishly and without thinking of real things, acting as though indeed
+that life of dream and of illusion were still possible to me, I
+yesterday cut with great care a rose, one from the many that have now
+grown almost wild upon the great wall overlooking the Danube. Then ... I
+could not but smile to myself when I remembered how by the time that
+rose should have reached you every petal would be wasted and fallen in
+the long week's ride. There is a fixed term of life for roses also as
+for men. I do not cite this to you by way of parable. I have no heart
+for tricks of the pen to-night; but the two images came together, and
+you will understand. If I do not return, it is for the same reason that
+I could not send the rose.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="regret">The Regret</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+Everybody knows, I suppose, that kind of landscape in which hills seem
+to lie in a regular manner, fold on fold, one range behind the other,
+until, at last, behind them all some higher and grander range dominates
+and frames the whole.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The infinite variety of light and air and accident of soil provide all
+men save those who live in the great plains with examples of this sort.
+The traveller in the dry air of California or of Spain, watching great
+distances from the heights, will recollect such landscapes all his life.
+They were the reward of his long ascents and the visions which attended
+his effort as he climbed up to the ridge of his horizon. Such a
+landscape does a man see from the Western edges of the Guadarrama,
+looking eastward and south toward the very distant hills that guard
+Toledo and the Gulf of the Tagus. Such a landscape does a man see at
+sunrise from the highest of the Cevennes looking right eastward to the
+dawn as it comes up in the pure and cold air beyond the Alps, and shows
+you the falling of the foothills to the Rhone. And by such a landscape
+is a man gladdened when upon the escarpments of the Tuolumne he turns
+back and looks westward over the plain towards the vast range.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The experience of such a sight is one peculiar in travel, or, for that
+matter, if a man is lucky enough to enjoy it at home, insistent and
+reiterated upon the mind of the home-dwelling man. Such a landscape, for
+instance, makes a man praise God if his house is upon the height of
+Mendip, and he can look over falling hills right over the Vale of Severn
+toward the ridge above ridge of the Welsh solemnities beyond, until the
+straight line and high of the Black Mountains ends his view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is the character of these landscapes to suggest at once a vastness,
+diversity, and seclusion. When a man comes upon them unexpectedly he can
+forget the perpetual toil of men and imagine that those who dwell below
+in the near side before him are exempt from the necessities of this
+world. When such a landscape is part of a man's dwelling-place, though
+he well knows that the painful life of men within those hills is the
+same hard business that it is throughout the world, yet his knowledge is
+modified and comforted by the permanent glory of the thing he sees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The distant and high range that bounds his view makes a sort of veiling,
+cutting it off and guarding it from whatever may be beyond. The
+succession of lower ranges suggests secluded valleys, and the reiterated
+woods, distant and more distant, convey an impression of fertility more
+powerful than that of corn in harvest upon the lowlands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes it is a whole province that is thus grasped by the eye,
+sometimes in the summer haze but a few miles; always this scenery
+inspires the onlooker with a sense of completion and of repose, and at
+the same time, I think, with worship and with awe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now one such group of valleys there was, hill above hill, forest above
+forest, and beyond it a great noble range, unwooded and high against
+heaven, guarding it, which I for my part knew when first I knew anything
+of this world. There is a high place under fir trees, a place of sand
+and bracken, in South England whence such a view was always present to
+eye in childhood and "There," said I to myself (even in childhood) "a
+man should make his habitation." In those valleys is the proper off-set
+for man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so there was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a little place which had grown up as my county grows. The house
+throwing out arms and layers. One room was panelled in the oak of the
+seventeenth century--but that had been a novelty in its time, for the
+walls upon which the panels stood were of the late fifteenth, oak and
+brick intermingled. Another room was large and light built in the manner
+of one hundred and fifty years ago, which people call Georgian. It had
+been thrown out south (which is quite against our older custom, for our
+older houses looked east and west to take all the sun and to present a
+corner to the south-west and the storms. So they stand still). It had
+round it a solid cornice which the modern men of the towns would have
+called ugly, but there was ancestry in it. Then, further on this house
+had modern roominess stretching in one new wing after another; and it
+had a great steading and there was a copse and some six acres of land.
+Over a deep ravine looked the little town that was the mother of the
+place, and altogether it was enclosed, silent, and secure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The fish that misses the hook regrets the worm." If this is not a
+Chinese proverb it ought to be. That little farm and steading and those
+six acres, that ravine, those trees, that aspect of the little mothering
+town; the wooded hills fold above fold, the noble range beyond, will not
+be mine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For all I know, some man quite unacquainted with that land took them
+grumbling for a debt; or again, for all I know, they may have been
+bought by a blind man who could not see the hills, or by some man who,
+seeing them, perpetually regretted the flat marshes of the fens. One
+day, up high on Egdean Side, not thinking of such things, through a gap
+in the trees I saw again after so many years, set one behind the other,
+the forests wave upon wave, the summer heat, the high, bare range
+guarding all, and in the midst of that landscape, set like a toy, the
+little Sabine Farm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I said to it, "Continue. Go and serve whom you will, my little
+Sabine Farm. You were not mine because you would not be, and you are not
+mine at all to-day. You will regret it perhaps, and perhaps you will
+not. There was verse in you, perhaps, or prose, or--infinitely
+more!--contentment for a man (for all I know). But you refused. You lost
+your chance. Goodbye." And with that I went on into the wood and beyond
+the gap, and saw the sight no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was ten years since I had seen it last. It may be ten years before I
+see it again, or it may be for ever. But as I went through the woods
+saying to myself:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You lost your chance, my little Sabine Farm, you lost your chance!"
+another part of me at once replied:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah! And so did <i>you</i>!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, by way of riposte, I answered in my mind:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Not at all, for the chance I never had, but what I lost was my desire."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No, not your desire," said the voice to me within, "but the fulfilment
+of it, in which you would have lost your desire." And when that reply
+came I naturally turned as all men do on hearing such interior replies,
+to a general consideration of regret, and was prepared, if any honest
+publisher should have come whistling through that wood, with an offer
+proper to the occasion, namely, to produce no less than five volumes on
+the Nature of Regret, its mortal sting, its bitter-sweetness, its power
+to keep alive in man the pure passions of the soul, its hints at
+immortality, its memory of Heaven. But the wood was empty of publishers.
+The offer did not come. The moment was lost. The five volumes will
+hardly now be written. In place of them I offer poor this, which you may
+take or leave. But I beg leave before I end to cite certain words very
+nobly attached to that great inn "The Griffin," which has its foundation
+set far off in another place, in the town of March, in the Fen Land:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"England my desire, what have you not refused?"
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<h3><a name="end">The End Of The World</a></h3>
+
+<p>
+One day I met a man who was sitting quite silent near Whitney, in the
+Thames Valley, in a very large, long, low inn that stands in those
+parts, or at least stood then, for whether it stands now or not depends
+upon the Fussyites, whose business it is to Fuss, and in their Fussing
+to disturb mankind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had nothing to say for himself at all, and he looked not gloomy but
+sad. He was tall and thin, with high cheekbones. His face was the colour
+of leather that has been some time in the weather, and he despised us
+altogether: he would not say a word to us, until one of the company
+said, rising from his meat and drink: "Very well, there's a thing we
+shall never know till the end of the world" (he was talking about some
+discussion or other which the young men had been holding together).
+"There's a thing we shall never know till the end of the world--and
+about that nobody knows!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You will pardon me," said the tall, thin, and elderly man with a face
+like leather that has been exposed to the weather, "I know about the End
+of the World, for I have been there."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was so interesting that we all sat down again to listen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I wasn't talking of place, but of time," murmured the young man whom
+the stranger had answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I cannot help that," said the stranger decisively; "the End of the
+World is the End of the World, and whether you are talking of space or
+of time it does not matter, for when you have got to the end you have
+got to the end, as may be proved in several ways."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How did you get to it?" said one of our companions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That is very simply answered," said the elder man; "you get to it by
+walking straight in front of you."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Anyone could do that," said the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Anyone could," said the elder man, "but nobody does. I did.... When I
+was quite a boy in my father's parsonage (for my father was a parson),
+having heard so much about the End of the World and seeing that people's
+descriptions of it differed so much and that everybody was quite sure of
+his own, I used to take my father's friends and guests aside privately,
+for I was afraid to take my father himself, and I used to ask them how
+they knew what the End of the World was really like, and whether they
+had seen it. Some laughed, others were silent, and others were angry;
+but no one gave me any information. At last I decided (and it was very
+wise of me) that the only way to find out a thing of that sort was to
+find it out for one's self, and not to go by hearsay, so I determined to
+go straight on without stopping until I got to the End of the World."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Which way did you walk?" said yet another of my companions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Young man," said the stranger, with solemnity, "I walked westward
+toward the setting sun ... I walked and I walked and I walked, day after
+day and year after year. Whenever I came to the seacoast I would take
+work on board a ship--and remember it is always easy to get work if you
+will take the wages that are offered, and always difficult to get it if
+you will not. Well, then, I went in this way through all known lands and
+over all known seas, until at last I came to the shore of a sea beyond
+which (so the people told me who lived there) there was no further
+shore. 'I cannot help that,' said I; 'I have not yet come to the End of
+the World, and it is common sense that such a lot of water must have
+something at the back of it to hold it up; besides which there is a
+strong wind blowing out of the gates of the west and from the sunset.
+Now that wind must rise somewhere, and I am going on to see where it
+rises.' One of them was kind enough to lend me a boat with oars; I
+thanked him prettily, and then I set out to row toward the End of the
+World, taking with me two or three days' provisions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"When I had rowed a long time I went asleep, and when I woke up next
+morning I rowed again all day until the second night I went to sleep. On
+the third day I rowed again: a little before sunset on the third day I
+saw before me high hills, all in peaks like a great saw. On the very
+highest of the peaks there were streaks of snow, and at about six
+o'clock in the afternoon I grounded my boat upon that gravelly shore and
+pulled it up upon the shingle, though it was evident either that the
+tide was high or that there was no tide in these silent places.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I offered up a prayer to the genius of the land, and tied the painter
+of the boat to two great stones, so that no wave reaching it might move
+it, and then I went on inland. When I had gone a little way I saw a
+signpost on which was written, 'To the End of the World One Mile' and
+there was a rough track along which it pointed. I went along this track.
+Everything was completely silent. There were no birds, there was no wind,
+there was nothing in the sky. But one thing I did notice, which was that
+the sun was much larger than it used to be, and that as I went along this
+last mile or so it seemed to get larger still--but that may have been my
+imagination, for I must tell you my imagination is pretty strong.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Well then, gentlemen, when I had gone a mile or so I saw another
+signpost, on which there was a large board marked 'Danger,' and a
+hundred yards beyond the track went between two great dark rocks--and
+there I was! The road had stopped short; it was broken off, jagged, just
+like a torn bit of paper ... and there was the End of the World."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How do you mean?" said one of the younger men in an awed tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What I say," said the stranger decidedly. "I had come to the end; there
+was nothing beyond. You looked down over a precipice where there was
+moss and steep grass, and on the ledges trees far below, and then more
+precipice, and then--oh, miles below--a few more trees or so clinging to
+the steep, then more precipice, and then darkness; and far away before
+me was the whole expanse of sky; and in the midst of it I saw the broad
+red sun setting into the brume; it was not yet dark enough to see the
+stars, and there was no moon in the sky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I assure you it was a very wonderful sight, and I was awed though I was
+not afraid. And how glad I was to find that the world had an edge to it,
+and that all that talk about its being round was nonsense!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"When the sun was set it grew dark, and I returned to find my boat; but
+I must have missed my way, for the track became broader and better, and
+at last I came to a gate of a human sort, with an initial on it, which
+showed that it had been put up by some landlord. It was an open gate,
+and after I had entered it I came upon a broad highway, beautifully
+metalled, and when I had gone along this for less than half a mile I
+came to this inn where I am now sitting. That was a week ago, and I have
+been here ever since. They took me in kindly enough, but they would not
+believe what I had to tell them about the End of the World. It is a
+great pity, gentlemen, for that wonderful sight is to be discovered
+somewhere hereabouts, and a mere accident of my losing my way in the
+darkness makes it difficult for me to find it by daylight."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having said all this, the stranger was silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One of my companions whispered to me that the old man must be mad. The
+stranger overheard him, and said with a thin smile:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh, I know all about that; several have suggested it already; but it is
+no answer, for if I did not come from the End of the World, where did I
+come from? No one has seen me hereabouts during the last few days until
+I came to this inn. And all the first part of my journey I can very
+easily explain, for I have notes of it, and it lasted for years. It is
+only this last part which seems to me so difficult.... I tell you I lost
+my way, and when a man has lost his way at night he can never find it
+again in the daytime."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he spoke he took a little piece of folded paper, rather dirty, out of
+his inner pocket, on which a rough sketch-map was drawn, and he began
+touching it with a stump of pencil that he held in his hand. His eyes
+seemed to grow dimmer as he did so, and he leaned his head upon his
+hand. "I think I have got hold of it, gentlemen," he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We did not get up or go too near him, for we thought he might be
+dangerous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I think, gentlemen," he repeated in a more mumbling and lower and less
+certain voice, "I think I have got hold of it. I go backwards again
+through the gate to the right, just as then I went to the left, and
+after that it cannot be very far, for I see those two rocks in front of
+me. Besides which," he muttered less and less coherently, "I ought to
+have remembered of course those very high and silent hills with nothing
+living upon them...." And he added, half asleep, as his head dropped
+upon his hand, "It was westward.... I had forgotten that."
+
+Having so spoken, he seemed to fall asleep altogether, and his head fell
+back upon the corner of the wainscoting behind the bench where he sat.
+He made no noise in breathing as he slept.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the first time that any of us young men had come across this
+fairly common sight of a man who took things within for things without;
+some of us were frightened, and all of us wished to be rid of the place
+and to get away. As we went out we told the landlord nothing either of
+the old fellow's vagaries or of his sleep, but we went out and reached
+the town of Whitney, and when we had stayed there a couple of hours or
+so we went out southward to the station and waited there for the train
+which should take us back to Oxford.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While we were waiting there in the station two farmers were talking
+together. One said to the other:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ar, if he'd paid them they wouldn't have minded so much."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To which the other answered:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ar, 'tisn't only the paying: it's always an awkward thing when a man
+dies in your house, specially if it's licensed. My wife's brother was
+caught that way."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then as they went on talking we found that they were talking of the man
+in the inn, who it seems had not slept very long, but was dead, and had
+died in that same room. It was a shocking thing to hear. The first
+farmer said to the second in the railway carriage when we had all got
+in:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Where'd he come from?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other, who was an old man, grinned and said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Where we all come from, I suppose, and where we all go to." He touched
+his forehead with his hand. "He said he'd come from the End of the
+World."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ar," said the other gloomily in answer, "like enough!" And after that
+they talked no more about the matter.
+</p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<p>
+<a name="1">1.</a> The Rhododendrons on the great lawn are modern.
+</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<br><br><br><br><br>
+<BR>
+<BR>
+<BR>
+<BR>
+<PRE>
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