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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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