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diff --git a/old/7352-8.txt b/old/7352-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7e47ab6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7352-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7266 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of First and Last, by H. Belloc + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: First and Last + +Author: H. Belloc + +Posting Date: February 2, 2015 [EBook #7352] +Release Date: January, 2005 +First Posted: April 19, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRST AND LAST *** + + + + +Produced by Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + +FIRST AND LAST + +BY + +H. BELLOC + + + + +CONTENTS + + +ON WEIGHING ANCHOR + +THE REVEILLON + +ON CHEESES + +THE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY + +THE INVENTOR + +THE VIEWS OF ENGLAND + +THE LUNATIC + +THE INHERITANCE OF HUMOUR + +THE OLD GENTLEMAN'S OPINIONS + +ON HISTORICAL EVIDENCE + +THE ABSENCE OF THE PAST + +ST. PATRICK + +THE LOST THINGS + +ON THE READING OF HISTORY + +THE VICTORY + +REALITY + +ON THE DECLINE OF THE BOOK + +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 +Neufchatel, and there is your Gorgonzola cheese, which is mottled all +over like some marbles, or like that Mediterranean soap which is made of +wood-ash and of olive oil. There is your Gloucester cheese called the +Double Gloucester, and I have read in a book of Dunlop cheese, which is +made in Ayrshire: they could tell you more about it in Kilmarnock. Then +Suffolk makes a cheese, but does not give it any name; and talking of +that reminds me how going to Le Quesnoy to pass the people there the +time of day, and to see what was left of that famous but forgotten +fortress, a young man there showed me a cheese, which he told me also +had no name, but which was native to the town, and in the valley of Ste. +Engrace, where is that great wood which shuts off all the world, they +make their cheese of ewe's milk and sell it in Tardets, which is their +only livelihood. They make a cheese in Port-Salut which is a very subtle +cheese, and there is a cheese of Limburg, and I know not how many +others, or rather I know them, but you have had enough: for a little +cheese goes a long way. No man is a glutton on cheese. + +What other cheese has great holes in it like Gruyere, or what other is +as round as a cannon-ball like that cheese called Dutch? which reminds +me:-- + +Talking of Dutch cheese. Do you not notice how the intimate mind of +Europe is reflected in cheese? For in the centre of Europe, and where +Europe is most active, I mean in Britain and in Gaul and in Northern +Italy, and in the valley of the Rhine--nay, to some extent in Spain (in +her Pyrenean valleys at least)--there flourishes a vast burgeoning of +cheese, infinite in variety, one in goodness. But as Europe fades away +under the African wound which Spain suffered or the Eastern barbarism of +the Elbe, what happens to cheese? It becomes very flat and similar. You +can quote six cheeses perhaps which the public power of Christendom has +founded outside the limits of its ancient Empire--but not more than six. +I will quote you 253 between the Ebro and the Grampians, between +Brindisi and the Irish Channel. + +I do not write vainly. It is a profound thing. + + + + +The Captain of Industry + + +The heir of the merchant Mahmoud had not disappointed that great +financier while he still lived, and when he died he had the satisfaction +of seeing the young man, now twenty-five years of age, successfully +conducting his numerous affairs, and increasing (fabulous as this may +seem) the millions with which his uncle entrusted him. + +Shortly after Mahmoud's death the prosperity of the firm had already +given rise to a new proverb, and men said: "Do you think I am +Mahmoud's-Nephew?" when they were asked to lend money or in some other +way to jeopardize a few coppers in the service of God or their +neighbour. + +It was also a current expression, "He's rich as Mahmoud's-Nephew," when +comrades would jest against some young fellow who was flusher than +usual, and could afford a quart or even a gallon of wine for the +company; while again the discontented and the oppressed would mutter +between their teeth: "Heaven will take vengeance at last upon these +Mahmoud's-Nephews!" In a word, "Mahmoud's-Nephew" came to mean +throughout the whole Caliphate and wherever the True Believers spread +their empire, an exceedingly wealthy man. But Mahmoud himself having +been dead ten years and his heir the fortunate head of the establishment +being now well over thirty years of age, there happened a very +inexplicable and outrageous accident: he died--and after his death no +instructions were discovered as to what should be done with this +enormous capital, no will could be found, and it happened moreover to be +a moment of great financial delicacy when the manager of each department +in the business needed all the credit he could get. + +In such a quandary the Chief Organizer and confidential friend, Ahmed, +upon whom the business already largely depended, and who was so +circumstanced that he could draw almost at will upon the balances, +imagined a most intelligent way of escaping from the difficulties that +would arise when the death of the principal was known. + +He caused a quantity of hay, of straw, of dust and of other worthless +materials to be stuffed into a figure of canvas; this he wrapped round +with the usual clothes that Mahmoud's-Nephew had worn in the office, he +shrouded the face with the hood which his chief had commonly worn during +life, and having so dressed the lay figure and secretly buried the real +body, he admitted upon the morning after the death those who first had +business with his master. + +He met them at the door with smiles and bows, saying: "You know, +gentlemen, that like most really successful men, my chief is as silent +as his decisions are rapid; he will listen to what you have to say, and +it will be a plain yes or no at the end of it." + +These gentlemen came with a proposal to sell to the firm for the sum of +one million dinars a barren rock in the Indian Sea, which was not even +theirs, and on which indeed not one of them had ever set eyes. Their +claim to advance so original a proposal was that to their certain +knowledge two thousand of the wealthiest citizens of their town were +willing to buy the rock again at a profit from whoever should be its +possessor during the next few weeks in the fond hope of selling it once +again to provincials, clerics, widows, orphans, and in general the +uninstructed and the credulous--among whom had been industriously spread +the report that the rock in question consisted of one solid and flawless +diamond. + +These gentlemen sitting round the table before the shrouded figure laid +down their proposals, whereupon the manager briefly summed up what they +had said, and having done so, replied: "Gentlemen, his lordship is a man +of few words; but you will have your answer in a moment if you will be +good enough to rise, as he is at this moment expecting a deputation from +the Holy Men who are entreating him to provide the cost of a mosque in +one of the suburbs." + +The proposers of the bargain rose, greatly awed and pleased by the +silence and dignity of the financier who apparently remained for a +moment discussing their proposals without gesture and in a tone too low +for them to hear, while his manager bent over to listen. + +"It is ever so," said one of them, "you may ever know the greatest men +by their silence." + +"You are right," said another, "he is not one to be easily deceived." + +The manager in a moment or two rejoined them at the door. "Gentlemen," +he said, smiling, "my chief has heard your arguments and has expressed +his assent to your conditions." + +They went out, delighted at the success of their mission, and +congratulated Ahmed upon the financier's genius. + +"He does not," said the manager, laughing in hearty agreement, "bestow +himself as a present upon all and sundry. Nor is he often caught +indulging in short bouts of sleep, nor are flies diabolically left to +repose undisturbed upon his features--but you must excuse me, I hear the +Holy Men," and indeed from the inner room came a noise of speechifying +in that doleful sing-song which is associated in Bagdad with the +practice of religion. + +The gentlemen who had thus had the luck to interview Mahmoud's-Nephew +with such success in the matter of the Diamond Island, soon spread about +the news, and confirmed their fellow-citizens in the certitude that a +great financier is neither talkative nor vivacious. "Still waters run +deep," they said, and all those to whom they said it nodded in a wise +acquiescence. Nor had the Manager the least difficulty in receiving one +set of customers after another and in negotiating within three weeks an +infinite amount of business, all of which confirmed those who had the +pleasure of an audience with the stuffed dummy that great fortunes were +made and retained by reticence and a contempt for convivial weakness. + +At last the ingenious man of affairs, to whom the whole combination was +due, was not a little disturbed to receive from the Caliph a note +couched in the following terms: + +"The Commander of the Faithful and the Servant of the Merciful whose +name be exalted, to the Nephew of Mahmoud: + +"My Lord:-- + +"It has been the custom since the days of my grandfather (May his soul +see God!) for the more wealthy of the Faithful to be called to my +councils, and upon my summoning them thither it has not been unusual for +them to present sums varying in magnitude but always proportionate to +their total fortunes. My court will receive signal honour if you will +present yourself after the morning prayer of the day after to-morrow. My +treasurer will receive from you with gratitude and remembrance upon the +previous day and not later than noon, the sum of one million dinars." + +Here, indeed, was a perplexity. The payment of the money was an easy +matter and was duly accomplished; but how should the lay figure which +did duty in such domestic scenes as the negotiation of loans, the +bullying of debtors, the purchase of options, and the cheating of the +innocent and the embarrassed, take his place in the Caliph's council and +remain undiscovered? For great as was the reputation of Mahmoud's-Nephew +for discretion and for golden silence, such as are proper to the +accumulation of great wealth, there would seem a necessity in any +political assembly to open the mouth from time to time, if only for the +giving of a vote. + +But Ahmed, who had by this time accumulated into his own hands the +millions formerly his master's, finally solved the problem. Judicious +presents to the servants of the palace and the public criers made his +way the easier, and on the summoning of the council Mahmoud's-Nephew, +whose troublesome affection of the throat was now publicly discussed, +was permitted to bring into the council-room his private secretary and +manager. + +Moreover at the council, as at his private office, the continued +taciturnity of the millionaire could not but impress the politicians as +it had already impressed the financial world. + +"He does not waste his breath in tub-thumping," said one, looking +reverently at the sealed figure. + +"No," another would reply, "they may ridicule our old-fashioned, honest, +quiet Mohammedan country gentlemen, but for common sense I will back +them against all the brilliant paradoxical young fellows of our day." + +"They say he is very kind at heart and lovable," a third would then add, +upon which a fourth would bear his testimony thus: + +"Yes, and though he says nothing about it, his charitable gifts are +enormous." + +By the second meeting of the council the lay figure had achieved a +reputation of so high a sort that the Caliph himself insisted upon +making him a domestic adviser, one of the three who perpetually +associated with the Commander of the _Faithful_ and directed his +policy. For the universal esteem in which the new councillor was held +had affected that Prince very deeply. + +Here there arose a crux from which there could be no escape, as one of +the three chief councillors, Mahmoud's-Nephew, must speak at last and +deliver judgments! + +The Manager, first considering the whole business, and next adding up +his private gains, which he had carefully laid out in estates of which +the firm and its 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 formulae the crowd of suggestions that rush into +the mind when one's soul contemplates the perpetual march and passage of +mortality. But they can do no more than give us formularies: they cannot +give us replies. What are we? What is all this business? Why does the +mere space remain and all the rest dissolve? + +There is a lonely place in the woods of Chilham, in the County of Kent, +above the River Stour, where a man comes upon an irregular earthwork +still plainly marked upon the brow of the bluff. Nobody comes near this +place. A vague country lane, or rather track; goes past the wet soil of +it, plunges into the valley beyond, and after serving a windmill joins +the high road to Canterbury. Well, that vague track is the ancient +British road, as old as anything in this Island, that took men from +Winchester to the Straits of Dover. That earthwork is the earthwork (I +could prove it, but this is not the place) where the British stood +against the charge of the Tenth Legion, and first heard, sounding on +their bronze, the arms of Caesar. Here the river was forded; here the +little men of the South went up in formation; here the Barbarian broke +and took his way, as the opposing General has recorded, through devious +woodland paths, scattering in the pursuit; here began the great history +of England. + +Is it not an enormous business merely to stand in such a place? I think +so. + +I know a field to the left of the Chalons Road, some few miles before +you get to Ste. Menehould. There used to be an inn by the roadside +called "The Sign of the Moon." It has disappeared. There used to be a +ramshackle windmill beyond the field, a mile or so from the road, on an +upland swell of land, but that also has gone, and had been gone for some +time before I knew the field of which I write. It is a bare fold of land +with one or two little scrubby spinneys alongside the plough. And for +the rest, just the brown earth and the sky. There are days on which you +will see a man at work somewhere within that mile, others on which it is +completely deserted. Here it is that the French Revolution was +preserved. Here was the Prussian charge. On the deserted, ugly lump of +empty earth beyond you were the three batteries that checked the +invaders. It was all alive and crowded for one intense moment with the +fate of Christendom. Here, on the place in which you are standing and +gazing, young Goethe stood and gazed. That meaningless stretch of coarse +grass supported Brunswick and the King of Prussia, and the brothers of +the King of France, as they stood windswept in the rain, watching the +failure of the charge. It is the field of Valmy. Turn on that height and +look back westward and you see the plains rolling out infinitely; they +are the plains upon which Attila was crushed; but there is no one there. + +All men have remarked that night and silence are august, and I think +that if this quality in night and silence be closely examined it will be +found to consist, in part at least, in this: that either of them +symbolizes Absence. By a paradox which I will not attempt to explain, +but which all have felt, it is in silence and in darkness that the Past +most vividly returns, and that this absence of what once was possesses, +nay, obtrudes itself upon the mind: it becomes almost a sensible thing. +There is much to be said for those who pretend, imagine, or perhaps have +experienced under such conditions the return of the dead. The mood of +darkness and of silence is a mood crammed with something that does not +remain, as space remains, that is limited by time, and is a creature of +time, and yet something that has an immortal right to remain. + +Now, I suppose that in that sentence where I say things mortal have +immortal rights to permanence, the core of the whole business is touched +upon. And I suppose that the great men who could really think and did +not merely fire off fireworks to dazzle their contemporaries--I suppose +that Descartes, for instance, if he were here sitting at my table--could +help me to solve that contradiction; but I sit and think and cannot +solve it. + +"What," says the man upon his own land, inherited perhaps and certainly +intended for his posterity--"what! Can you separate me from this? Are +not this and I bound up inextricably?" The answer is "No; you are not so +far as any observer of this world can discover. Space is in no way +possessed by man, and he who may render a site immortal in one of our +various ways, the captain who there conquered, the poet who there +established his sequence of words, cannot himself put forward a claim to +permanence within it at all." + +There was a woman of charming vivacity, whose eyes were ever ready for +laughter, and whose tone of address of itself provoked the noblest of +replies. Many loved her; all admired. She passed (I will suppose) by +this street or by that; she sat at table in such and such a house; +Gainsborough painted her; and all that time ago there were men who had +the luck to meet her and to answer her laughter with their own. And the +house where she moved is there and the street in which she walked, and +the very furniture she used and touched with her hands you may touch +with your hands. You shall come into the rooms that she inhabited, and +there you shall see her portrait, all light and movement and grace and +beatitude. + +She is gone altogether, the voice will never return, the gestures will +never be seen again. She was under a law; she changed, she suffered, she +grew old, she died; and there was her place left empty. The not living +things remain; but what counted, what gave rise to them, what made them +all that they are, has pitifully disappeared, and the greater, the +infinitely greater, thing was subject to a doom perpetually of change +and at last of vanishing. The dead surroundings are not subject to such +a doom. Why? + +All those boys who held the line of the low ridge or rather swell of +land from Hougoumont through the Belle Alliance have utterly gone. More +than dust goes, more than wind goes; they will never be seen again. +Their voices will never be heard--they are not. But what is the mere +soil of the field without them? What meaning has it save for their +presence? + +I could wish to understand these things. + + + + +St. Patrick + + +If there is one thing that people who are not Catholic have gone wrong +upon more than another in the intellectual things of life, it is the +conception of a Personality. They are muddled about it where their own +little selves are concerned, they misappreciate it when they deal with +the problems of society, and they have a very weak hold of it when they +consider (if they do consider) the nature of Almighty God. + +Now, personality is everything. It was a Personal Will that made all +things, visible and invisible. Our hope of immortality resides in this, +that we are persons, and half our frailties proceed from a +misapprehension of the awful responsibilities which personality involves +or a cowardly ignorance of its powers of self-government. + +The hundred and one errors which this main error leads to include a bad +error on the nature of history. Your modern non-Catholic or +anti-Catholic historian is always misunderstanding, underestimating, or +muddling the role played in the affairs of men by great and individual +Personalities. That is why he is so lamentably weak upon the function of +legend; that is why he makes a fetish of documentary evidence and has no +grip upon the value of tradition. For traditions spring from some +personality invariably, and the function of legend, whether it be a +rigidly true legend or one tinged with make-believe, is to interpret +Personality. Legends have vitality and continue, because in their origin +they so exactly serve to explain or illustrate some personal character +in a man which no cold statement could give. + +Now St. Patrick, the whole story and effect of him, is a matter of +Personality. There was once--twenty or thirty years ago--a whole school +of dunderheads who wondered whether St. Patrick ever existed, because +the mass of legends surrounding his name troubled them. How on earth +(one wonders) do such scholars consider their fellow-beings! Have they +ever seen a crowd cheering a popular hero, or noticed the expression +upon men's faces when they spoke of some friend of striking power +recently dead? A great growth of legends around a man is the very best +proof you could have not only of his existence but of the fact that he +was an origin and a beginning, and that things sprang from his will or +his vision. There were some who seemed to think it a kind of favour done +to the indestructible body of Irish Catholicism when Mr. Bury wrote his +learned Protestant book upon St. Patrick. It was a critical and very +careful bit of work, and was deservedly praised; but the favour done us +I could not see! It is all to the advantage of non-Catholic history that +it should be sane, and that a great Protestant historian should make +true history out of a great historical figure was a very good sign. It +was a long step back towards common sense compared with the German +absurdities which had left their victims doubting almost all the solid +foundation of the European story; but as for us Catholics, we had no +need to be told it. Not only was there a St. Patrick in history, but +there is a St. Patrick on the shores of his eastern sea and throughout +all Ireland to-day. It is a presence that stares you in the face, and +physically almost haunts you. Let a man sail along the Leinster coast on +such a day as renders the Wicklow Mountains clear up-weather behind him, +and the Mourne Mountains perhaps in storm, lifted clearly above the sea +down the wind. He is taking some such course as that on which St. +Patrick sailed, and if he will land from time to time from his little +boat at the end of each day's sailing, and hear Mass in the morning +before he sails further northward, he will know in what way St. Patrick +inhabits the soil which he rendered sacred. + +We know that among the marks of holiness is the working of miracles. +Ireland is the greatest miracle any saint ever worked. It is a miracle +and a nexus of miracles. Among other miracles it is a nation raised from +the dead. + +The preservation of the Faith by the Irish is an historical miracle +comparable to nothing else in Europe. There never was, and please God +never can be, so prolonged and insanely violent a persecution of men by +their fellow-men as was undertaken for centuries against the Faith in +Ireland: and it has completely failed. I know of no example in history +of failure following upon such effort. It had behind it in combination +the two most powerful of the evil passions of men, terror and greed. And +so amazing is it that they did not attain their end, that perpetually as +one reads one finds the authors of the dreadful business now at one +period, now at another, assuming with certitude that their success is +achieved. Then, after centuries, it is almost suddenly perceived--and in +our own time--that it has not been achieved and never will be. + +What a complexity of strange coincidences combined, coming out of +nothing as it were, advancing like spirits summoned on to the stage, all +to effect this end! Think of the American Colonies; with one little +exception they were perhaps the most completely non-Catholic society of +their time. Their successful rebellion against the mother country meant +many things, and led to many prophecies. Who could have guessed that one +of its chief results would be the furnishing of a free refuge for the +Irish? + +The famine, all human opinion imagined, and all human judgment was bound +to conclude, was a mortal wound, coming in as the ally of the vile +persecution I have named. It has turned out the very contrary. From it +there springs indirectly the dispersion, and that power which comes from +unity in dispersion, of Irish Catholicism. + +Who, looking at the huge financial power that dominated Europe, and +England in particular, during the youth of our own generation, could +have dreamt that in any corner of Europe, least of all in the poorest +and most ruined corner of Christendom, an effective resistance could be +raised? + +Behind the enemies of Ireland, furnishing them with all their modern +strength, was that base and secret master of modern things, the usurer. +He it was far more than the gentry of the island who demanded toll, and, +through the mortgages on the Irish estates, had determined to drain +Ireland as he has drained and rendered desert so much else. Is it not a +miracle that he has failed? + +Ireland is a nation risen from the dead; and to raise one man from the +dead is surely miraculous enough to convince one of the power of a great +spirit. This miracle, as I am prepared to believe, is the last and the +greatest of St. Patrick's. + +When I was last in Ireland, I bought in the town of Wexford a coloured +picture of St. Patrick which greatly pleased me. Most of it was green in +colour, and St. Patrick wore a mitre and had a crosier in his hand. He +was turning into the sea a number of nasty reptiles: snakes and toads +and the rest. I bought this picture because it seemed to me as modern a +piece of symbolism as ever I had seen: and that was why I bought it for +my children and for my home. + +There was a few pence change, but I did not want it. The person who sold +me the picture said they would spend the change in candles for St. +Patrick's altar. So St. Patrick is still alive. + + + + +The Lost Things + + +I never remember an historian yet, nor a topographer either, who could +tell me, or even pretend to explain by a theory, how it was that certain +things of the past utterly and entirely disappear. + +It is a commonplace that everything is subject to decay, and a +commonplace which the false philosophy of our time is too apt to forget. +Did we remember that commonplace we should be a little more humble in +our guesswork, especially where it concerns prehistory; and we should +not make so readily certain where the civilization of Europe began, nor +limit its immense antiquity. But though it is a commonplace, and a true +one, that all human work is subject to decay, there seems to be an +inexplicable caprice in the method and choice of decay. + +Consider what a body of written matter there must have been to instruct +and maintain the technical excellence of Roman work. What a mass of +books on engineering and on ship-building and on road-making; what +quantities of tables and ready-reckoners, all that civilization must +have produced and depended upon. Time has preserved much verse, and not +only the best by any means, more prose, particularly the theological +prose of the end of the Roman time. The technical stuff, which must, in +the nature of things, have been indefinitely larger in amount, has (save +in one or two instances and allusions) gone. + +Consider, again, all that mass of seven hundred years which was called +Carthage. It was not only seven hundred years of immense wealth, of +oligarchic government, of a vast population, and of what so often goes +with commerce and oligarchy--civil and internal peace. A few stones to +prove the magnitude of its municipal work, a few ornaments, a few +graves--all the rest is absolutely gone. A few days' marches away there +is an example I have quoted so often elsewhere that I am ashamed of +referring to it again, but it does seem to me the most amazing example +of historical loss in the world. It is the site of Hippo Regius. Here +was St. Augustine's town, one of the greatest and most populous of a +Roman province. It was so large that an army of eighty thousand men +could not contain it, and even with such a host its siege dragged on for +a year. There is not a sign of that great town today. + +A suburb, well without the walls--to be more accurate, a neighbouring +village--carries on the name under the form of Bona, and that is all. A +vast, fertile plain of black rich earth, now largely planted with +vineyards, stands where Hippo stood. How can the stones have gone? How +can it have been worth while to cart away the marble columns? Why are +there no broken statues on such a ground, and no relics of the gods? + +Nay, the wells are stopped up from which the people drank, and the +lining of the wells is not to be discovered in the earth, and the +foundations of the walls, and even the ornaments of the people and their +coins, all these have been spirited away. + +Then there are the roads. Consider that great road which reached from +Amiens to the main port of Gaul, the Portus Itius at Boulogne. It is +still in use. It was in use throughout the Middle Ages. Up that road the +French Army marched to 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. [Footnote: The Rhododendrons on the +great lawn are modern.] Their left was arranged _en potence_, their +right was drawn up in echelon. The centre followed the plan usual at +that time, reposing upon the wings to its right and left and extended. +The reserves were, of course, posted behind. Cavalry, as at Omdurman, +played but a slight role in this typically national action and such +mounted troops as were present seem to have been intermixed with the +line in the fashion later known, in the jargon of the service, as "The +Beggar's Quadrille." The Brigade of Guards is not mentioned in any +record that I can discover, but was probably set by reversed companies +in a square perpendicular to the main ravine and a little in front of +the salient angle which appears upon the map at the point marked A. + +The terrain can be clearly determined at the present day in spite of the +changes that have taken place in the intervening years. It is a fairly +steep slope of hemispherical contour interspersed with low bushes; the +summit (upon which now stands our lovely English village of Battle and +the residence of one of those cultured and leisured men who form the +framework of our commonwealth) was then but a wild heath. + +Harold himself could be distinguished in the centre of the line by his +handsome features, restrained deportment, and unfailing gentlemanly good +sense as he spoke to staff officer, orderly, and even groom with +indefatigable skill. + +In spite of the determination observable from a great distance upon the +faces of the tall Saxon line, William with characteristic lack of +balance opened the action by ordering a charge uphill with cavalry +alone; it was a piece of tactics absurdly incongruous and one even he +would never have attempted had he understood the foe that was before +him, or the fate to which that foe had doomed him. + +The lesson dealt him was as immediate as it was severe. The foreigners +were thrust headlong down the hill, and a private letter tells us how +the Men of Kent in particular buffeted the Normans about "as though they +were boys." But even in the heat of this initial success Harold had the +self-command to order the retirement upon the main position: and with +troops such as his the order was equivalent to its execution. + +This rude blow would have sufficed for any commander less vain than +William, but he seems to have lost all judgment in a fit of personal +vanity and to have ordered a second charge which could not but prove as +futile as the first, delivered as it was up a perfect glacis +strengthened by epaulements, reverses and countersunk galvon work and +one whose natural strength was heightened by the stockade which the +indomitable energy of Harold's troops had perfected in the early hours +of the morning. Many of the stakes in this, the reader may note with +pardonable pride, were of English oak--sharpened at the tip. + +William's plan (if plan it may be called) was, as we have seen, +necessarily futile and was foredoomed to failure. But Harold had no +intention to let the action bear no more fruit than a tactical victory +upon this particular field. The brain that had designed the exact +synchrony of Stamford Bridge and the famous march southward from the +Humber was of that sort which is only found once in many centuries of +the history of war and which is (it may be said without boasting) +peculiar to this island. + +Another general would have awaited the second charge with its useless +butchery and still more useless contest for the barren name of victory. +Not so Harold. Those commanding, cold grey eyes of his swept the line in +a comprehensive glance, and though no written record of the detail +remains, he must know little of the character of the man who does not +understand that from Harold certainly proceeded the order for what +followed. + +The forces at the centre, which he commanded in person, deftly withdrew +before the futile gallop of William's cavalry, leaving, with that +coolness which has ever distinguished our troops, the laggards to their +fate. At the same moment, and with marvellous precision, the left and +right were withdrawn from the plateau rapidly and as by magic, and the +old-fashioned tactics of mere impact (which William of Normandy seems +seriously to have relied on!) were spent and wasted upon the now +evacuated summit of the hill. + +What followed is famous in history. + +The cohesion of the Saxon force and the exactitude and coolness with +which its great operation was performed is of good augury for the future +of our country. Though it was now thick night, by no set road and with +no cumbersome machinery of train and rear-guard, the whole of the vast +assembly masked itself behind the woodlands of the Weald. + +The Norman horsemen, bewildered and fatigued, gazed on the many that had +fallen in defence of the masking position and wondered whether such +novel happenings were victory or no, but the army whose concentration +upon the Thames it was William's whole object to prevent, was already +miles northward, each unit proceeding by exactly co-ordinated routes +towards London. + +There is perhaps no more difficult task set before soldiers than the +quiet execution of such a manoeuvre after the heat of a heavy action, +and none have performed it more magnificently than the veteran troop of +Harold. + +When (luckily) all the orders had been finally distributed a great +tragedy marred the completeness of the day. + +Just before the execution of this masterpiece of strategy, and as the +autumn sun was sinking, the inevitable price which war demands of all +its darlings was paid. + +Harold himself, the artist of the great victory, fell. But we have no +reason to believe that his loss retarded the retrograding movement in +any degree. Men who create as Harold created have not their creations +spoilt by death. + + * * * * * + +The shameful history of the close of the campaign is familiar to every +schoolboy, and the military historian must be pardoned if he deals with +a purely civilian blunder in a few brief words. + +Parliament interfered--as it always does--with what should have been a +matter for soldiers alone. Intrigues, bribery, or worse (with which the +military historian has no concern) ruined what had been, in the field, +one of the principal achievements of the Saxon arms. And William, who +could not count to hold his own against regular forces and who was +astonished to find himself free to retreat precipitately on Dover, was +still more astonished to find himself accepted a few weeks later after +an aimless march to the west and north by the politicians--or worse--at +Berkhampstead. He and England were equally astounded to find that a +broken and defeated invader could actually be accepted by the intriguers +at Westminster and crowned King of England as the price of a secret +bargain. + +Such was the fruit of as great and successful an effort as ever Saxon +soldier made: the Battle of Senlac: for such--as I am now free to +reveal--was the true name of the field of action. + +The ineptitude or avarice of politicians had undone the work of +soldiers, and it is no wonder that the last of Harold's veterans, who +retired in disgust to impregnable fortresses in Ely, Arthur's Seat, and +Pudsey, are recorded to have gnashed their teeth and shed tears of +indignation at the dispatches from the metropolis. At 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 Estree, for instance, +which is like the place name "street" upon the Roman roads of England); +by the recovery of them after a gap; by the discoveries which local +archaeology has made. + +Different men have different pastimes, and I dare say that most of those +who read this will wonder that such a search should be a pastime for any +man, but I confess it is a pastime for me. To discover these things, to +recreate them, to dig out on foot the base upon which two thousand years +of history repose, is the most fascinating kind of travel. + +And then, the number of them! You may take an oblong of country with +Maubeuge at one corner, Pontoise at another, Yvetot and some frontier +town such as Fumes for the other two corners, and in that stretch of +country a hundred and fifty miles by perhaps two hundred, you can build +up a scheme of Roman ways almost as complete as the scheme of the great +roads to-day. + +That one which most immediately strikes the eye is the great line which +darts upon Rouen from Paris. + +Twice broken at the crossing of the river valleys, and lost altogether +in the last twelve miles before the capital of Normandy, it still stands +on the modern map a great modern road with every aspect of purpose and +of intention in its going. + +From Amiens again they radiate out, these roads, some, like the way to +Cambray, in use every mile; some, like the old marching road to the sea, +to the Portus Itius, to Boulogne, a mere lane often wholly lost and +never used as a great modern road. This was the way along which the +French feudal cavalry trailed to the disaster of 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. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of First and Last, by H. 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