ON NOTHING & KINDRED SUBJECTS

BY

HILAIRE BELLOC

TO

MAURICE BARING

CONTENTS

ON THE PLEASURE OF TAKING UP ONE'S PEN

ON GETTING RESPECTED IN INNS AND HOTELS

ON IGNORANCE

ON ADVERTISEMENT

ON A HOUSE

ON THE ILLNESS OF MY MUSE

ON A DOG AND A MAN ALSO

ON TEA

ON THEM

ON RAILWAYS AND THINGS

ON CONVERSATIONS IN TRAINS

ON THE RETURN OF THE DEAD

ON THE APPROACH OF AN AWFUL DOOM

ON A RICH MAN WHO SUFFERED

ON A CHILD WHO DIED

ON A LOST MANUSCRIPT

ON A MAN WHO WAS PROTECTED BY ANOTHER MAN

ON NATIONAL DEBTS

ON LORDS

ON JINGOES: IN THE SHAPE OF A WARNING

ON A WINGED HORSE AND THE EXILE WHO RODE HIM

ON A MAN AND HIS BURDEN

ON A FISHERMAN AND THE QUEST OF PEACE

ON A HERMIT WHOM I KNEW

ON AN UNKNOWN COUNTRY

ON A FAËRY CASTLE

ON A SOUTHERN HARBOUR

ON A YOUNG MAN AND AN OLDER MAN

ON THE DEPARTURE OF A GUEST

ON DEATH

ON COMING TO AN END

_King's Land, December the 13th, 1907

My dear Maurice, It was in Normandy, you will remember, and in the heat of the year, when the birds were silent in the trees and the apples nearly ripe, with the sun above us already of a stronger kind, and a somnolencewithin and without, that it was determined among us (the jollycompany!) that I should write upon Nothing, and upon all that iscognate to Nothing, a task not yet attempted since the Beginning ofthe World. 

Now when the matter was begun and the subject nearly approached, Isaw more clearly that this writing upon Nothing might be very grave, and as I looked at it in every way the difficulties of my adventureappalled me, nor am I certain that I have overcome them all. But Ihad promised you that I would proceed, and so I did, in spite of mydoubts and terrors. 

For first I perceived that in writing upon this matter I was inperil of offending the privilege of others, and of those especiallywho are powerful to-day, since I would be discussing things verydear and domestic to my fellow-men, such as The Honour of Politicians, The Tact of Great Ladies, The Wealth of Journalists, The Enthusiasmof Gentlemen, and the Wit of Bankers. All that is most intimate anddearest to the men that make our time, all that they would most defendfrom the vulgar gaze, --this it was proposed to make the theme of acommon book. 

In spite of such natural fear and of interests so powerful to detainme, I have completed my task, and I will confess that as it grew itenthralled me. There is in Nothing something so majestic and so highthat it is a fascination and spell to regard it. Is it not thatwhich Mankind, after the great effort of life, at last attains, andthat which alone can satisfy Mankind's desire? Is it not that whichis the end of so many generations of analysis, the final word ofPhilosophy, and the goal of the search for reality? Is it not thevery matter of our modern creed in which the great spirits of ourtime repose, and is it not, as it were, the culmination of theirintelligence? It is indeed the sum and meaning of all around!

How well has the world perceived it and how powerfully do itslegends illustrate what Nothing is to men!

You know that once in Lombardy Alfred and Charlemagne and the KaliphHaroun-al-Raschid met to make trial of their swords. The sword ofAlfred was a simple sword: its name was Hewer. And the sword ofCharlemagne was a French sword, and its name was Joyeuse. But thesword of Haroun was of the finest steel, forged in Toledo, temperedat Cordova, blessed in Mecca, damascened (as one might imagine) inDamascus, sharpened upon Jacob's Stone, and so wrought that when onestruck it it sounded like a bell. And as for its name, By Allah!that was very subtle---for it had no name at all. 

Well then, upon that day in Lombardy Alfred and Charlemagne and theKaliph were met to take a trial of their blades. Alfred took a pigof lead which he had brought from the Mendip Hills, and swiping theair once or twice in the Western fashion, he cut through that leadand girded the edge of his sword upon the rock beneath, making alittle dent. 

Then Charlemagne, taking in both hands his sword Joyeuse, and aimingat the dent, with a laugh swung down and cut the stone itself rightthrough, so that it fell into two pieces, one on either side, andthere they lie today near by Piacenza in a field. 

Now that it had come to the Kaliph's turn, one would have said therewas nothing left for him to do, for Hewer had manfully hewn lead, and Joyeuse had joyfully cleft stone. 

But the Kaliph, with an Arabian look, picked out of his pocket agossamer scarf from Cashmir, so light that when it was tossed intothe air it would hardly fall to the ground, but floated downwardsslowly like a mist. This, with a light pass, he severed, andimmediately received the prize. For it was deemed more difficult byfar to divide such a veil in mid-air, than to cleave lead or evenstone. 

I knew a man once, Maurice, who was at Oxford for three years, andafter that went down with no degree. At College, while his friendswere seeking for Truth in funny brown German Philosophies, ShamReligions, stinking bottles and identical equations, he was lying onhis back in Eynsham meadows thinking of Nothing, and got the Truthby this parallel road of his much more quickly than did they by theirs;for the asses are still seeking, mildly disputing, and, in a cultivatedmanner, following the gleam, so that they have become in their Donnishmiddleage a nuisance and a pest; while he--that other--with the Truthvery fast and firm at the end of a leather thong is dragging hersliding, whining and crouching on her four feet, dragging her reluctantthrough the world, even into the broad daylight where Truth most hatesto be. 

He it was who became my master in this creed. For once as we layunder a hedge at the corner of a road near Bagley Wood we heard faroff the notes of military music and the distant marching of acolumn; these notes and that tramp grew louder, till there swunground the turning with a blaze of sound five hundred men in order. They passed, and we were full of the scene and of the memories ofthe world, when he said to me: "Do you know what is in your heart?It is the music. And do you know the cause and Mover of that music?It is the Nothingness inside the bugle; it is the hollow Nothingnessinside the Drum. "

Then I thought of the poem where it says of the Army of the Republic:

 The thunder of the limber and the rumble of a hundred of the guns. And there hums as she comes the roll of her innumerable drums. 

I knew him to be right. 

From this first moment I determined to consider and to meditate uponNothing. 

Many things have I discovered about Nothing, which have proved it--tome at least--to be the warp or ground of all that is holiest. It isof such fine gossamer that loveliness was spun, the mists under thehills on an autumn morning are but gross reflections of it; moonshineon lovers is earthy compared with it; song sung most charmingly andstirring the dearest recollections is but a failure in the humanattempt to reach its embrace and be dissolved in it. It is out ofNothing that are woven those fine poems of which we carry but vaguerhythms in the head:--and that Woman who is a shade, the_ Insaisissable, _whom several have enshrined in melody--well, her Christian name, hermaiden name, and, as I personally believe, her married name as well, is Nothing. I never see a gallery of pictures now but I know how theuse of empty spaces makes a scheme, nor do I ever go to a play but Isee how silence is half the merit of acting and hope some day forabsence and darkness as well upon the stage. What do you think thefairy Melisende said to Fulk-Nerra when he had lost his soul for herand he met her in the Marshes after twenty years? Why, Nothing--whatelse could she have said? Nothing is the reward of good men who alonecan pretend to taste it in long easy sleep, it is the meditation ofthe wise and the charm of happy dreamers. So excellent and final isit that I would here and now declare to you that Nothing was the gateof eternity, that by passing through Nothing we reached our everyobject as passionate and happy beings--were it not for the Councilof Toledo that restrains my pen. Yet . .. Indeed, indeed when I thinkwhat an Elixir is this Nothing I am for putting up a statue nowhere, on a pedestal that shall not exist, and for inscribing on it inletters that shall never be written:

TO NOTHING

THE HUMAN RAGE IN GRATITUDE. 

So I began to write my book, Maurice: and as I wrote it the dignityof what I had to do rose continually before me, as does the dignityof a mountain range which first seemed a vague part of the sky, butat last stands out august and fixed before the traveller; or as thesky at night may seem to a man released from a dungeon who sees itbut gradually, first bewildered by the former constraint of hisnarrow room but now gradually enlarging to drink in its immensity. Indeed this Nothing is too great for any man who has once embracedit to leave it alone thenceforward for ever; and finally, thedignity of Nothing is sufficiently exalted in this: that Nothing isthe tenuous stuff from which the world was made. 

For when the Elohim set out to make the world, first they debatedamong themselves the Idea, and one suggested this and anothersuggested that, till they had threshed out between them a verypretty picture of it all. There were to be hills beyond hills, goodgrass and trees, and the broadness of rivers, animals of all kinds, both comic and terrible, and savours and colours, and all around theceaseless streaming of the sea. 

Now when they had got that far, and debated the Idea in detail, andwith amendment and resolve, it very greatly concerned them of whatso admirable a compost should be mixed. Some said of this, and somesaid of that, but in the long run it was decided by the narrowmajority of eight in a full house that Nothing was the only propermaterial out of which to make this World of theirs, and out ofNothing they made it: as it says in the Ballade:

 Dear, tenuous stuff, of which the world was made. 

And again in the Envoi:

 Prince, draw this sovereign draught in your despair, That when your riot in that rest is laid, You shall be merged with an Essential Air:-- Dear, tenuous stuff, of which the world was made!

Out of Nothing then did they proceed to make the world, this sweetworld, always excepting Man the Marplot. Man was made in a muddierfashion, as you shall hear. 

For when the world seemed ready finished and, as it were, presentable for use, and was full of ducks, tigers, mastodons, waddling hippopotamuses, lilting deer, strong-smelling herbs, angrylions, frowsy snakes, cracked glaciers, regular waterfalls, colouredsunsets, and the rest, it suddenly came into the head of theyoungest of these strong Makers of the World (the youngest, who hadbeen sat upon and snubbed all the while the thing was doing, andhardly been allowed to look on, let alone to touch), it suddenlycame into his little head, I say, that he would make a Man. 

Then the Elder Elohim said, some of them, "Oh, leave well alone!send him to bed!" And others said sleepily (for they were tired), "No! no! let him play his little trick and have done with it, andthen we shall have some rest. " Little did they know!. .. And othersagain, who were still broad awake, looked on with amusement andapplauded, saying: "Go on, little one! Let us see what you can do. "But when these last stooped to help the child, they found that allthe Nothing had been used up (and that is why there is none of itabout to-day). So the little fellow began to cry, but they, tocomfort him, said: "Tut, lad! tut! do not cry; do your best withthis bit of mud. It will always serve to fashion something. "

So the jolly little fellow took the dirty lump of mud and pushed itthis way and that, jabbing with his thumb and scraping with hisnail, until at last he had made Picanthropos, who lived in Java andwas a fool; who begat Eoanthropos, who begat Meioanthropos, whobegat Pleioanthropos, who begat Pleistoanthropos, who is often mixedup with his father, and a great warning against keeping the samenames in one family; who begat Paleoanthropos, who begat Neoanthropos, who begat the three Anthropoids, great mumblers and murmurers withtheir mouths; and the eldest of these begat Him whose son was He, from whom we are all descended. 

He was indeed halting and patchy, ill-lettered, passionate and rude;bald of one cheek and blind of one eye, and his legs were ofdifferent sizes, nevertheless by process of ascent have we, hisdescendants, manfully continued to develop and to progress, and toswell in everything, until from Homer we came to Euripides, and fromEuripides to Seneca, and from Seneca to Boethius and his peers; andfrom these to Duns Scotus, and so upwards through James I of Englandand the fifth, sixth or seventh of Scotland (for it is impossible toremember these things) and on, on, to my Lord Macaulay, and in thevery last reached YOU, the great summits of the human race and lastperfection of the ages READERS OF THIS BOOK, and you also Maurice, to whom it is dedicated, and myself, who have written it for gain. 

Amen. _

ON NOTHING

ON THE PLEASURE OF TAKING UP ONE'S PEN

Among the sadder and smaller pleasures of this world I count thispleasure: the pleasure of taking up one's pen. 

It has been said by very many people that there is a tangible pleasurein the mere act of writing: in choosing and arranging words. It hasbeen denied by many. It is affirmed and denied in the life of DoctorJohnson, and for my part I would say that it is very true in some raremoods and wholly false in most others. However, of writing and thepleasure in it I am not writing here (with pleasure), but of thepleasure of taking up one's pen, which is quite another matter. 

Note what the action means. You are alone. Even if the room iscrowded (as was the smoking-room in the G. W. R. Hotel, at Paddington, only the other day, when I wrote my "Statistical Abstract ofChristendom"), even if the room is crowded, you must have madeyourself alone to be able to write at all. You must have built upsome kind of wall and isolated your mind. You are alone, then; andthat is the beginning. 

If you consider at what pains men are to be alone: how they climbmountains, enter prisons, profess monastic vows, put on eccentricdaily habits, and seclude themselves in the garrets of a great town, you will see that this moment of taking up the pen is not leasthappy in the fact that then, by a mere association of ideas, thewriter is alone. 

So much for that. Now not only are you alone, but you are going to"create". 

When people say "create" they flatter themselves. No man can createanything. I knew a man once who drew a horse on a bit of paper to amusethe company and covered it all over with many parallel streaks as hedrew. When he had done this, an aged priest (present upon that occasion)said, "You are pleased to draw a zebra. " When the priest said this theman began to curse and to swear, and to protest that he had never seenor heard of a zebra. He said it was all done out of his own head, andhe called heaven to witness, and his patron saint (for he was of the OldEnglish Territorial Catholic Families--his patron saint was Aethelstan), and the salvation of his immortal soul he also staked, that he was asinnocent of zebras as the babe unborn. But there! He persuaded no one, and the priest scored. It was most evident that the Territorial wascrammed full of zebraical knowledge. 

All this, then, is a digression, and it must be admitted that thereis no such thing as a man's "creating". But anyhow, when you take upyour pen you do something devilish pleasing: there is a prospectbefore you. You are going to develop a germ: I don't know what itis, and I promise you I won't call it creation--but possibly a godis creating through you, and at least you are making believe atcreation. Anyhow, it is a sense of mastery and of origin, and youknow that when you have done, something will be added to the world, and little destroyed. For what will you have destroyed or wasted? Acertain amount of white paper at a farthing a square yard (and I amnot certain it is not pleasanter all diversified and variegated withblack wriggles)--a certain amount of ink meant to be spread anddried: made for no other purpose. A certain infinitesimal amount ofquill--torn from the silly goose for no purpose whatsoever but tominister to the high needs of Man. 

Here you cry "Affectation! Affectation! How do I know that thefellow writes with a quill? A most unlikely habit!" To that I answeryou are right. Less assertion, please, and more humility. I willtell you frankly with what I am writing. I am writing with aWaterman's Ideal Fountain Pen. The nib is of pure gold, as was thethrone of Charlemagne, in the "Song of Roland. " That throne (I needhardly tell you) was borne into Spain across the cold and awfulpasses of the Pyrenees by no less than a hundred and twenty mules, and all the Western world adored it, and trembled before it when itwas set up at every halt under pine trees, on the upland grasses. For he sat upon it, dreadful and commanding: there weighed upon himtwo centuries of age; his brows were level with justice andexperience, and his beard was so tangled and full, that he wascalled "bramble-bearded Charlemagne. " You have read how, when hestretched out his hand at evening, the sun stood still till he hadfound the body of Roland? No? You must read about these things. 

Well then, the pen is of pure gold, a pen that runs straight awaylike a willing horse, or a jolly little ship; indeed, it is a pen soexcellent that it reminds me of my subject: the pleasure of takingup one's pen. 

God bless you, pen! When I was a boy, and they told me work washonourable, useful, cleanly, sanitary, wholesome, and necessary tothe mind of man, I paid no more attention to them than if they hadtold me that public men were usually honest, or that pigs could fly. It seemed to me that they were merely saying silly things they hadbeen told to say. Nor do I doubt to this day that those who told methese things at school were but preaching a dull and careless round. But now I know that the things they told me were true. God blessyou, pen of work, pen of drudgery, pen of letters, pen of posings, pen rabid, pen ridiculous, pen glorified. Pray, little pen, beworthy of the love I bear you, and consider how noble I shall makeyou some day, when you shall live in a glass case with a crowd oftourists round you every day from 10 to 4; pen of justice, pen ofthe _saeva indignatio_, pen of majesty and of light. I willwrite with you some day a considerable poem; it is a compact betweenyou and me. If I cannot make one of my own, then I will write outsome other man's; but you, pen, come what may, shall write out agood poem before you die, if it is only the _Allegro_. 

 * * * * *

The pleasure of taking up one's pen has also this, peculiar amongall pleasures, that you have the freedom to lay it down when youwill. Not so with love. Not so with victory. Not so with glory. 

Had I begun the other way round, I would have called this Work, "ThePleasure of laying down one's Pen. " But I began it where I began it, and I am going on to end it just where it is going to end. 

What other occupation, avocation, dissertation, or intellectualrecreation can you cease at will? Not bridge--you go on playing towin. Not public speaking--they ring a bell. Not mere converse--youhave to answer everything the other insufficient person says. Notlife, for it is wrong to kill one's self; and as for the natural endof living, that does not come by one's choice; on the contrary, itis the most capricious of all accidents. 

But the pen you lay down when you will. At any moment: withoutremorse, without anxiety, without dishonour, you are free to do thisdignified and final thing (I am just going to do it). .. . You lay itdown. 

ON GETTING RESPECTED IN INNS AND HOTELS

To begin at the beginning is, next to ending at the end, the wholeart of writing; as for the middle you may fill it in with any rubblethat you choose. But the beginning and the end, like the strongstone outer walls of mediaeval buildings, contain and define thewhole. 

And there is more than this: since writing is a human and a livingart, the beginning being the motive and the end the object of thework, each inspires it; each runs through organically, and the twobetween them give life to what you do. 

So I will begin at the beginning and I will lay down this firstprinciple, that religion and the full meaning of things has nowheremore disappeared from the modern world than in the department ofGuide Books. 

For a Guide Book will tell you always what are the principal andmost vulgar sights of a town; what mountains are most difficult toclimb, and, invariably, the exact distances between one place andanother. But these things do not serve the End of Man. The end ofman is Happiness, and how much happier are you with such aknowledge? Now there are some Guide Books which do make littleexcursions now and then into the important things, which tell you(for instance) what kind of cooking you will find in what places, what kind of wine in countries where this beverage is publiclyknown, and even a few, more daring than the rest, will give a hintor two upon hiring mules, and upon the way that a bargain should beconducted, or how to fight. 

But with all this even the best of them do not go to the moral heartof the matter. They do not give you a hint or an idea of that whichis surely the basis of all happiness in travel. I mean, the art ofgaining respect in the places where you stay. Unless that respect ispaid you you are more miserable by far than if you had stayed athome, and I would ask anyone who reads this whether he can rememberone single journey of his which was not marred by the evidentcontempt which the servants and the owners of taverns showed for himwherever he went?

It is therefore of the first importance, much more important thanany question of price or distance, to know something of this art; itis not difficult to learn, moreover it is so little exploited thatif you will but learn it you will have a sense of privilege and ofupstanding among your fellows worth all the holidays which were evertaken in the world. 

Of this Respect which we seek, out of so many human pleasures, afacile, and a very false, interpretation is that it is the privilegeof the rich, and I even knew one poor fellow who forged a cheque andwent to gaol in his desire to impress the host of the "Spotted Dog, "near Barnard Castle. It was an error in him, as it is in all who soimagine. The rich in their degree fall under this contempt asheavily as any, and there is no wealth that can purchase the trueawe which it should be your aim to receive from waiters, serving-wenches, boot-blacks, and publicans. 

I knew a man once who set out walking from Oxford to Stow-in-the-Wold, from Stow-in-the-Wold to Cheltenham, from Cheltenham to Ledbury, fromLedbury to Hereford, from Hereford to New Rhayader (where the Cobblerlives), and from New Rhayader to the end of the world which lies alittle west and north of that place, and all the way he slept roughunder hedges and in stacks, or by day in open fields, so terrifiedwas he at the thought of the contempt that awaited him should he payfor a bed. And I knew another man who walked from York to Thirsk, andfrom Thirsk to Darlington, and from Darlington to Durham, and so onup to the border and over it, and all the way he pretended to beextremely poor so that he might be certain the contempt he receivedwas due to nothing of his own, but to his clothes only: but this wasan indifferent way of escaping, for it got him into many fights withminers, and he was arrested by the police in Lanchester; and atJedburgh, where his money did really fail him, he had to walk allthrough the night, finding that no one would take in such atatterdemalion. The thing could be done much more cheaply than that, and much more respectably, and you can acquire with but little practiceone of many ways of achieving the full respect of the whole house, evenof that proud woman who sits behind glass in front of an enormousledger; and the first way is this:--

As you come into the place go straight for the smoking-room, andbegin talking of the local sport: and do not talk humbly andtentatively as so many do, but in a loud authoritative tone. Youshall insist and lay down the law and fly into a passion if you arecontradicted. There is here an objection which will arise in themind of every niggler and boggler who has in the past very properlybeen covered with ridicule and become the butt of the waiters andstable-yard, which is, that if one is ignorant of the local sport, there is an end to the business. The objection is ridiculous. Do yousuppose that the people whom you hear talking around you are morelearned than yourself in the matter? And if they are do you supposethat they are acquainted with your ignorance? Remember that most ofthem have read far less than you, and that you can draw upon anexperience of travel of which they can know nothing; do but make theplunge, practising first in the villages of the Midlands, I willwarrant you that in a very little while bold assertion of this kindwill carry you through any tap-room or bar-parlour in Britain. 

I remember once in the holy and secluded village of Washington underthe Downs, there came in upon us as we sat in the inn there a man whomI recognised though he did not know me--for a journalist--incapable ofunderstanding the driving of a cow, let alone horses: a prophet, asocialist, a man who knew the trend of things and so forth: a man whohad never been outside a town except upon a motor bicycle, upon whichsnorting beast indeed had he come to this inn. But if he was less thanus in so many things he was greater than us in this art of gainingrespect in Inns and Hotels. For he sat down, and when they had barelyhad time to say good day to him he gave us in minutest detail a greatrun after a fox, a run that never took place. We were fifteen men inthe room; none of us were anything like rich enough to hunt, and thelie went through them like an express. This fellow "found" (whateverthat may mean) at Gumber Corner, ran right through the combe (which, by the way, is one of those bits of land which have been stolen bodilyfrom the English people), cut down the Sutton Road, across the railwayat Coates (and there he showed the cloven hoof, for your liar alwaystakes his hounds across the railway), then all over Egdean, and killedin a field near Wisborough. All this he told, and there was not even aman there to ask him whether all those little dogs and horses swamthe Rother or jumped it. He was treated like a god; they tried tomake him stop but he would not. He was off to Worthing, where I haveno doubt he told some further lies upon the growing of tomatoesunder glass, which is the main sport of that district. Similarly, Ihave no doubt, such a man would talk about boats at King's Lynn, murder with violence at Croydon, duck shooting at Ely, and racinganywhere. 

Then also if you are in any doubt as to what they want of you, youcan always change the scene. Thus fishing is dangerous for even thepoor can fish, and the chances are you do not know the names of theanimals, and you may be putting salt-water fish into the stream ofLambourne, or talking of salmon upon the Upper Thames. But what isto prevent you putting on a look of distance and marvel, andconjuring up the North Atlantic for them? Hold them with the coldand the fog of the Newfoundland seas, and terrify their simple mindswith whales. 

A second way to attain respect, if you are by nature a silent man, and one which I think is always successful, is to write before yougo to bed and leave upon the table a great number of envelopes whichyou should address to members of the Cabinet, and Jewish money-lenders, dukes, and in general any of the great. It is but slight labour, andfor the contents you cannot do better than put into each envelope oneof those advertisements which you will find lying about. Then nextmorning you should gather them up and ask where the post is: but youneed not post them, and you need not fear for your bill. Your billwill stand much the same, and your reputation will swell like a sponge. 

And a third way is to go to the telephone, since there aretelephones nowadays, and ring up whoever in the neighbourhood is ofthe greatest importance. There is no law against it, and when youhave the number you have but to ask the servant at the other endwhether it is not somebody else's house. But in the meanwhile yournight in the place is secure. 

And a fourth way is to tell them to call you extremely early, andthen to get up extremely late. Now why this should have the effectit has I confess I cannot tell. I lay down the rule empirically andfrom long observation, but I may suggest that perhaps it is thecombination of the energy you show in early rising, and of theluxury you show in late rising: for energy and luxury are the twoqualities which menials most admire in that governing class to whichyou flatter yourself you belong. Moreover the strength of will withwhich you sweep aside their inconvenience, ordering one thing anddoing another, is not without its effect, and the stir you havecreated is of use to you. 

And the fifth way is to be Strong, to Dominate and to Lead. To beone of the Makers of this world, one of the Builders. To have themore Powerful Will. To arouse in all around you by mere Force ofPersonality a feeling that they must Obey. But I do not know howthis is done. 

ON IGNORANCE

There is not anything that can so suddenly flood the mind with shameas the conviction of ignorance, yet we are all ignorant of nearlyeverything there is to be known. Is it not wonderful, then, that weshould be so sensitive upon the discovery of a fault which must ofnecessity be common to all, and that in its highest degree? Theconviction of ignorance would not shame us thus if it were not forthe public appreciation of our failure. 

If a man proves us ignorant of German or the complicated order ofEnglish titles, or the rules of Bridge, or any other matter, we donot care for his proofs, so that we are alone with him: firstbecause we can easily deny them all, and continue to wallow in ourignorance without fear, and secondly, because we can always counterwith something we know, and that he knows nothing of, such as theCreed, or the history of Little Bukleton, or some favourite book. Then, again, if one is alone with one's opponent, it is quite easyto pretend that the subject on which one has shown ignorance isunimportant, peculiar, pedantic, hole in the corner, and this can bebrazened out even about Greek or Latin. Or, again, one can turn thelaugh against him, saying that he has just been cramming up thematter, and that he is airing his knowledge; or one can begin makingjokes about him till he grows angry, and so forth. There is nonecessity to be ashamed. 

But if there be others present? Ah! _Hoc est aliud rem_, thatis another matter, for then the biting shame of ignorance suddenlydisplayed conquers and bewilders us. We have no defence left. We areat the mercy of the discoverer, we own and confess, and becomeinsignificant: we slink away. 

Note that all this depends upon what the audience conceive ignoranceto be. It is very certain that if a man should betray in some cheapclub that he did not know how to ride a horse, he would be brokendown and lost, and similarly, if you are in a country house amongthe rich you are shipwrecked unless you can show acquaintance withthe Press, and among the poor you must be very careful, not only towear good cloth and to talk gently as though you owned them, butalso to know all about the rich. Among very young men to seemignorant of vice is the ruin of you, and you had better not havebeen born than appear doubtful of the effects of strong drink whenyou are in the company of Patriots. There was a man who died ofshame this very year in a village of Savoy because he did not knowthe name of the King reigning over France to-day, and it is a commonthing to see men utterly cast down in the bar-rooms off the Strandbecause they cannot correctly recite the opening words of "Boys ofthe Empire. " There are schoolgirls who fall ill and pine awaybecause they are shown to have misplaced the name of Dagobert III inthe list of Merovingian Monarchs, and quite fearless men will blushif they are found ignoring the family name of some peer. Indeed, there is nothing so contemptible or insignificant but that in somesociety or other it is required to be known, and that the ignoranceof it may not at any moment cover one with confusion. Neverthelesswe should not on that account attempt to learn everything there isto know (for that is manifestly impossible), nor even to learneverything that is known, for that would soon prove a tedious andheart-breaking task; we should rather study the means to be employedfor warding off those sudden and public convictions of Ignorancewhich are the ruin of so many. 

These methods of defence are very numerous and are for the most parteasy of acquirement. The most powerful of them by far (but the mostdangerous) is to fly into a passion and marvel how anyone can besuch a fool as to pay attention to wretched trifles. "Powerful, "because it appeals to that strongest of all passions in men by whichthey are predisposed to cringe before what they think to be asuperior station in society. "Dangerous, " because if it fail in itsobjects this method does not save you from pain, and secures you inaddition a bad quarrel, and perhaps a heavy beating. Still it hasmany votaries, and is more often carried off than any other. Thus, if in Bedfordshire, someone catches you erring on a matter of crops, you profess that in London such things are thought mere rubbish anddespised; or again, in the society of professors at theUniversities, an ignorance of letters can easily be turned by anallusion to that vapid life of the rich, where letters growinsignificant; so at sea, if you slip on common terms, speak alittle of your luxurious occupations on land and you will usually besafe. 

There are other and better defences. One of these is to turn theattack by showing great knowledge on a cognate point, or byremembering that the knowledge your opponent boasts has beensomewhere contradicted by an authority. Thus, if some day a friendshould say, as continually happens in a London club:

"Come, let us hear you decline [Greek: tetummenos on], " you cananswer carelessly:

"You know as well as I do that the form is purely Paradigmatic: itis never found. "

Or again, if you put the Wrekin by an error into Staffordshire, youcan say, "I was thinking of the Jurassic formation which is thebasis of the formation of----" etc. Or, "Well, Shrewsbury . .. Staffordshire?. .. Oh! I had got my mind mixed up with the graves ofthe Staffords. " Very few people will dispute this, none will followit. There is indeed this difficulty attached to such a method, thatit needs the knowledge of a good many things, and a readyimagination and a stiff face: but it is a good way. 

Yet another way is to cover your retreat with buffoonery, pretendingto be ignorant of the most ordinary things, so as to seem to havebeen playing the fool only when you made your first error. There isa special form of this method which has always seemed to me the mostexcellent by far of all known ways of escape. It is to show a steadyand crass ignorance of very nearly everything that can be mentioned, and with all this to keep a steady mouth, a determined eye, and(this is essential) to show by a hundred allusions that you have onyour own ground an excellent store of knowledge. 

This is the true offensive-defensive in this kind of assault, andtherefore the perfection of tactics. 

Thus if one should say:

"Well, it was the old story. [Greek: Anankae]. "

It might happen to anyone to answer: "I never read the play. "

This you will think perhaps an irremediable fall, but it is not, aswill appear from this dialogue, in which the method is developed:

SAPIENS. But, Good Heavens, it isn't a play!

IGNORAMUS. Of course not. I know that as well as you, but thecharacter of [Greek: Anankae] dominates the play. You won't denythat?

SAPIENS. You don't seem to have much acquaintance with Liddell andScott. 

IGNORAMUS. I didn't know there was anyone called Liddell in it, butI knew Scott intimately, both before and after he succeeded to theestate. 

SAPIENS. But I mean the dictionary. 

IGNORAMUS. I'm quite certain that his father wouldn't let him writea dictionary. Why, the library at Bynton hasn't been opened foryears. 

If, after five minutes of that, Ignoramus cannot get Sapiensfloundering about in a world he knows nothing of, it is his ownfault. 

But if Sapiens is over-tenacious there is a final method which maynot be the most perfect, but which I have often tried myself, andusually with very considerable success:

SAPIENS. Nonsense, man. The Dictionary. The _Greek_ dictionary. 

IGNORAMUS. What has _Ananti_ to do with Greek?

SAPIENS. I said [Greek: Anankae]. 

IGNORAMUS. Oh! h----h! you said [Greek: anankae], did you? I thoughtyou said Ananti. Of course, Scott didn't call the play Ananti, butAnanti was the principal character, and one always calls it that inthe family. It is very well written. If he hadn't that shyness aboutpublishing . .. And so forth. 

Lastly, or rather Penultimately, there is the method of upsettingthe plates and dishes, breaking your chair, setting fire to thehouse, shooting yourself, or otherwise swallowing all the memory ofyour shame in a great catastrophe. 

But that is a method for cowards; the brave man goes out into thehall, comes back with a stick, and says firmly, "You have justdeliberately and cruelly exposed my ignorance before this company; Ishall, therefore, beat you soundly with this stick in the presenceof them all. "

This you then do to him or he to you, _mutatis mutandis, ceterisparibus_; and that is all I have to say on Ignorance. 

ON ADVERTISEMENT

Harmonides of Ephesus says in one of his treatises upon method (Iforget which, but I think the fifth) that a matter is very oftenmore clearly presented by way of example than in the form of adirect statement and analysis. I have determined to follow theadvice of this great though pagan authority in what you will nowread or not read, according to your inclination. 

As I was sitting one of these sunny mornings in my little Park, reading an article upon vivisection in the _Tablet_ newspaper, a Domestic [Be seated, be seated, I pray you!] brought me a letterupon a Silver Salver [Be covered!]

Which reminds me, why do people say that silver is the only perfectspondee in the English language? Salver is a perfectly good spondee;so is North-Cape; so is great-coat; so is High-Mass; so isWenchthorpe; so is forewarp, which is the rope you throw out fromthe stem to the little man in the boat who comes to moor you alongthe west gully in the Ramsgate Harbour; so is Longnose, the name ofa buoy, and of a reef of rocks just north of the North Foreland; soare a great many other words. But I digress. I only put in thesewords to show you in case you had any dissolving doubts remainingupon the matter, that the kind of stuff you read is very often allnonsense, and that you must not take things for granted merelybecause they are printed. I have watched you doing it from time totime, and have been torn between pity and anger. But all that isneither here nor there. This habit of parenthesis is the ruin ofgood prose. As I was saying, example clearly put down withoutcomment is very often more powerful than analysis for the purpose ofconviction. 

The Domestic brought me a letter upon a Silver Salver. I took it andcarefully examined the outside. 

They err who will maintain through thick and thin upon a mere theoryand without any true experience of the world, that it matters notwhat the outside of a letter may be so long as the contents provoketerror or amusement. The outside of a letter should appeal to one. When one gets a letter with a halfpenny stamp and with the flap ofthe letter stuck inside, and with the address on the outsidetypewritten, one is very apt to throw it away. I believe that thereis no recorded case of such a letter containing a cheque, a summons, or an invitation to eat good food, and as for demand notes, what arethey? Then again those long envelopes which come with the notice, "Paid in bulk, " outside instead of a stamp--no man can be moved bythem. They are very nearly always advertisements of cheap wine. 

Do not misunderstand me: cheap wine is by no means to be despised. There are some sorts of wine the less you pay for them the betterthey are--within reason; and if a Gentleman has bought up a bankruptstock of wine from a fellow to whom he has been lending money, whyon earth should he not sell it again at a reasonable profit, yetquite cheap? It seems to be pure benefit to the world. But Iperceive that all this is leading me from my subject. 

I took up the letter, I say, and carefully examined the outside. Itwas written in the hand of an educated man. It was almost illegible, and had all the appearance of what an honest citizen of some culturemight write to one hurriedly about some personal matter. I noticedthat it had come from the eastern central district, but when youconsider what an enormous number of people live there during theday, that did not prejudice me against it. 

Now, when I opened this letter, I found it written a little morecarefully, but still, written, not printed, or typewritten, ormanifolded, or lithographed, or anything else of that kind. It waswritten. 

The art of writing . .. But Patience! Patience!. .. 

It was written. It was very cordial, and it appealed directly, onlythe style was otiose, but in matters of the first importance styleis a hindrance. 

_Telephone No. 666. 

The Mercury, 15th Nishan 5567. 

Dear Sir, --Many people wonder, especially in your profession, _[what is It?] _why a certain Taedium Vitae seizes them towardsfive o'clock in the afternoon. The stress and hurry of modern lifehave forced so many of Us to draw upon Our nervous energy that Weimagine that_ [Look at that 'that'! The whole Elizabethantradition chucked away!] _We are exceeding our powers, and whenthis depression comes over Us, we think it necessary to take a rest, and Let up from working. This is an erroneous supposition. What itmeans is that Our body has received insufficient nutriment duringthe last twenty-four hours, and that Nature is craving for moresustenance. 

We shall be very happy to offer you, through the medium of thispaper, a special offer of our Essence of The Ox. This offer willonly remain open until Derby Day, during which period a box of ourEssence of The Ox will be sent to you Free, if you will enclose thefollowing form, and send it to Us in the stamped envelope, whichaccompanies this letter. 

Very faithfully yours, _

HENRY DE LA MERE ULLMO. 

It seemed to me a most extraordinary thing. I had never written forUllmo and his _Mercury_, and I could do them no good in the world, either here or in Johannesburg. I was never likely to write forhim at all. He is not very pleasant; He is by no means rich; He isill-informed. He has no character at all, apart from rather unsuccessfulmoney-grubbing, and from a habit of defending with some virulence, but with no capacity, his fellow money-grubbers throughout theworld. However, I thought no more about it, and went on readingabout "Vivisection. "

Two days later I got a letter upon thick paper, so grained as toimitate oak, and having at the top a coat-of-arms of the mostcomplicated kind. This coat-of-arms had a little lamb on it, suspended by a girdle, as though it were being slung on board ship;there were also three little sheaves of wheat, a sword, threepanthers, some gules, and a mullet. Above it was a helmet, and therewere two supporters: one was a man with a club, and the other wasanother man without a club, both naked. Underneath was the motto, "Tout à Toi. " This second letter was very short. 

_Dear Sir, --Can you tell me why you have not answered Our letterre the Essence of the Ox? Derby Day is approaching, and theremaining time is very short. We made the offer specially to you, and we had at least expected the courtesy of an acknowledgment. Youwill understand that the business of a great newspaper leaves butlittle time for private charity, but we are willing to let the offerremain open for three days longer, after which date--_

How easy it would be to criticise this English! To continue:

_--after which date the price will inevitably be raised to OneShilling. --We remain, etc. _

I had this letter framed with the other, and I waited to see whatwould happen, keeping back from the bank for fear of frightening thefish, and hardly breathing. 

What happened was, after four or five days, a very sad letter whichsaid that Ullmo expected better things from me, but that He knewwhat the stress of modern life was, and how often correspondencefell into arrears. He sent me a smaller specimen box of the Essenceof The Ox. I have it still. 

And there it is. There is no moral; there is no conclusion orapplication. The world is not quite infinite--but it isastonishingly full. All sorts of things happen in it. There are allsorts of different men and different ways of action, and differentgoals to which life may be directed. Why, in a little wood nearhome, not a hundred yards long, there will soon burst, in the spring(I wish I were there!), hundreds of thousands of leaves, and no oneleaf exactly like another. At least, so the parish priest used tosay, and though I have never had the leisure to put the thing to theproof, I am willing to believe that he was right, for he spoke withauthority. 

ON A HOUSE

I appeal loudly to the Muse of History (whose name I forget and younever knew) to help me in the description of this house, for--

The Muse of Tragedy would overstrain herself on it;

The Muse of Comedy would be impertinent upon it;

The Muse of Music never heard of it;

The Muse of Fine Arts disapproved of it;

The Muse of Public Instruction . .. (Tut, tut! There I was nearlymaking a tenth Muse! I was thinking of the French Ministry. )

The Muse of Epic Poetry did not understand it;

The Muse of Lyric Poetry still less so;

The Muse of Astronomy is thinking of other things;

The Muse Polyhymnia (or Polymnia, who, according to Smith's_Dictionary of Antiquities_, is commonly represented in apensive attitude) has no attribute and does no work. 

And as for little Terpsichore whose feet are like the small waves insummer time, she would laugh in a peal if I asked her to write, think of, describe, or dance in this house (and that makes elevenMuses. No matter; better more than less). 

Yet it was a house worthy of description and careful inventory, andfor that reason I have appealed to the Muse of History whosebusiness it is to set down everything in order as it happens, judging between good and evil, selecting facts, condensingnarratives, admitting picturesque touches, and showing her furtherknowledge by the allusive method or use of the dependent clause. Well then, inspired, I will tell you exactly how that house wasdisposed. First, there ran up the middle of it a staircase which, had Horace seen it (and heaven knows he was the kind of man to livein such a house), he would have called in his original and strikingway "Res Angusta Domi, " for it was a narrow thing. Narrow do I callit? Yes--and yet not so narrow. It was narrow enough to avoid allappearance of comfort or majesty, yet not so narrow as to be quaintor snug. It was so designed that two people could walk exactlyabreast, for it was necessary that upon great occasions the ladiesshould be taken down from the drawing-room by the gentlemen to thedining-room, yet it would have been a sin and a shame to make itwider than that, and the house was not built in the days ofcrinolines. Upon these occasions it was customary for the couples togo down in order and in stately fashion, and the hostess went last;but do not imagine that there was any order of precedence. Oh, no!Far from it, they went as they were directed. 

This staircase filled up a kind of Chimney or Funnel, or ratherParallelepiped, in the house: half-way between each floor was alanding where it turned right round on itself, and on each floor alarger landing flanked by two doors on either side, which made fouraltogether. This staircase was covered with Brussels carpet (and letme tell you in passing that no better covering for stairs was everyet invented; it wears well and can be turned, and when the uppersare worn you can move the whole thing down one file and put the stepswhere the uppers were. None of your cocoanut stuff or gimcracks forthe honest house: when there is money you should have Brussels, whenyou have none linoleum--but I digress). The stair-rods were of brassand beautifully polished, the banisters of iron painted to look likemahogany; and this staircase, which I may take to be the emblem of agood life lived for duty, went up one pair, and two pair, and threepair--all in the same way, and did not stop till it got to the top. But just as a good life has beneath it a human basis so this (heavenforgive me!) somewhat commonplace staircase changed its characterwhen it passed the hall door, and as it ran down to the basement hadno landing, ornament, carpet or other paraphernalia, but a soundflight of stone steps with a cold rim of unpainted metal for the hand. 

The hall that led to these steps was oblong and little furnished. There was a hat-rack, a fireplace (in which a fire was not lit) andtwo pictures; one a photograph of the poor men to whom the ownerpaid weekly wages at his Works, all set out in a phalanx, or ratherfan, with the Owner of the House (and them) in the middle, the othera steel engraving entitled "The Monarch of the Forest, " from apainting by Sir Edwin Landseer. It represented a stag and was veryugly. 

On the ground floor of the House (which is a libel, for it was somefeet above the ground, and was led up to by several steps, as theporch could show) there were four rooms--the Dining-room, theSmoking-room, the Downstairs-room and the Back-room. The Dining-roomwas so called because all meals were held in it; the Smoking-roombecause it was customary to smoke all over the house (except theDrawing-room); the Back-room because it was at the back, and theDownstairs-room because it was downstairs. Upon my soul, I wouldgive you a better reason if I had one, but I have none. Only I maysay that the Smoking-room was remarkable for two stuffed birds, theDownstairs-room from the fact that the Owner lived in it and felt atease there, the Back-room from the fact that no one ever went intoit (and quite right too), while the Dining-room--but the Dining-roomstands separate. 

The Dining-room was well carpeted; it had in its midst a largemahogany table so made that it could get still larger by theaddition of leaves inside; there were even flaps as well. It hadeleven chairs, and these in off-times stood ranged round the wallthinking of nothing, but at meal times were (according to the numberwanted) put round the table. It is a theory among those who believethat a spirit nourishes all things from within, that there was somecompetition amongst these chairs as to which should be used attable, so dull, forlorn and purposeless was their life against thewall. Seven pictures hung on that wall; not because it was a mysticnumber, but because it filled up all the required space; two on eachside of the looking-glass and three large ones on the opposite wall. They were all of them engravings, and one of them at least was thatof a prominent statesman (Lord Beaconsfield), while the rest had todo with historical subjects, such as the visit of Prince Albert tothe Exhibition of 1851, and I really forget what else. There was aChiffonier at the end of the room in which the wines and spiritswere kept, and which also had a looking-glass above it; also a whitecloth on the top for no reason on earth. An arm-chair (in which theOwner sat) commonly stood at the head of the table; this remainedthere even between meals, and was a symbol that he was master of thehouse. Four meals were held here. Breakfast at eight, dinner at one, tea at six, and a kind of supper (when the children had gone to bed)at nine or so. But what am I saying--_quo Musa Historiaetendis?_--dear! dear! I thought I was back again in the oldtimes! a thousand pardons. At the time my story opens--and closesalso for that matter (for I deal of the Owner and the House _inarticulo mortis_ so to speak; on the very edge of death)--it wasfar otherwise. Breakfast was when you like (for him, however, alwaysat the same old hour, and there he would sit alone, his wife dead, his son asleep--trying to read his newspaper, but staring out fromtime to time through the window and feeling very companion-less). Dinner was no longer dinner; there was "luncheon" to which nobodycame except on Saturdays. Then there was another thing (called bythe old name of dinner) at half-past seven, and what had happened tosupper no one ever made out. Some people said it had gone toPrince's, but certainly the Owner never followed it there. 

On the next floor was the Drawing-room, noted for its cabinet ofcuriosities, its small aquarium, its large sofa, its piano and itsinlaid table. The back of the drawing-room was another room beyondfolding doors. This would have been convenient if a dance had everbeen given in the house. On the other side were the best bedroom anda dressing-room. Each in its way what might be expected, save that atthe head of the best bed were two little pockets as in the time of ourgrandfathers; also there was a Chevalier looking-glass and on thedressing-table a pin-cushion with pins arranged in a pattern. Thefire-place and the mantelpiece were of white marble and had on themtwo white vases picked out in bright green, a clock with a bronzeupon it representing a waiter dressed up partly in fifteenth-centuryplate and partly in twelfth-century mail, and on the wall were twoJewish texts, each translated into Jacobean English and illuminatedwith a Victorian illumination. One said: "He hath prevented all myways. " The other said: "Wisdom is better than Rubies. " But the gothic"u" was ill made and it looked like "Rabies. " There was also in theroom a good wardrobe of a kind now difficult to get, made out of cedarand very reasonable in arrangement. There was, moreover (now it occursto me), a little table for writing on; there was writing paper with"Wood Thorpe" on it, but there were no stamps, and the ink was dry inthe bottles (for there were two bottles). 

Well, now, shall I be at the pains of telling you what there wasupstairs? Not I! I am tired enough as it is of detailing all thesethings. I will speak generally. There were four bedrooms. They wereused by the family, and above there was an attic which belonged tothe servants. The decoration of the wall was everywhere much thesame, save that it got a little meaner as one rose, till at last, inthe top rooms of all, there was nothing but little photographs ofsweethearts or pictures out of illustrated papers stuck against thewalls. The wall-paper, that had cost 3_s_. 3_d_. A piece in the hall anddining-room, and 7_s_. 6_d_. In the drawing-room, suddenly began tocost 1_s_. 4_d_. In the upper story and the attic was merely whitewashed. 

One thing more there was, a little wooden gate. It had been putthere when the children were little, and had remained ever since atthe top of the stairs. Why? It may have been mere routine. It mayhave been romance. The Owner was a practical man, and the littlegate was in the way; it was true he never had to shut and open it onhis way to bed, and but rarely even saw it. Did he leave it therefrom a weak sentiment or from a culpable neglect? He was not asentimental man; on the other hand, he was not negligent. There is agreat deal to be said on both sides, and it is too late to discussthat now. 

Heaven send us such a house, or a house of some kind; but Heavensend us also the liberty to furnish it as we choose. For this it wasthat made the Owner's joy: he had done what he liked in his ownsurroundings, and I very much doubt whether the people who live inQueen Anne houses or go in for timber fronts can say the same. 

ONE THE ILLNESS OF MY MUSE

The other day I noticed that my Muse, who had long been ailing, silent and morose, was showing signs of actual illness. 

Now, though it is by no means one of my habits to coddle the dogs, cats and other familiars of my household, yet my Muse had so pitifulan appearance that I determined to send for the doctor, but notbefore I had seen her to bed with a hot bottle, a good supper, andsuch other comforts as the Muses are accustomed to value. All thatcould be done for the poor girl was done thoroughly; a fine fire waslit in her bedroom, and a great number of newspapers such as she isgiven to reading for her recreation were bought at a neighbouringshop. When she had drunk her wine and read in their entirety the_Daily Telegraph_, the _Morning Post_, the _Standard_, the _DailyMail_, the _Daily Express_, the _Times_, the _Daily News_, andeven the _Advertiser_, I was glad to see her sink into a profoundslumber. 

I will confess that the jealousy which is easily aroused amongservants when one of their number is treated with any specialcourtesy gave me some concern, and I was at the pains of explainingto the household not only the grave indisposition from which theMuse suffered, but also the obligation I was under to her on accountof her virtues: which were, her long and faithful service, herwillingness, and the excess of work which she had recently beencompelled to perform. Her fellow-servants, to my astonishment andpleasure, entered at once into the spirit of my apology: the still-roommaid offered to sit up with her all night, or at least until thetrained nurse should arrive, and the groom of the chambers, witha good will that I confess was truly surprising in one of his proudnature, volunteered to go himself and order straw for the streetfrom a neighbouring stable. 

The cause of this affection which the Muse had aroused in the wholehousehold I subsequently discovered to lie in her own amiable andunselfish temper. She had upon two occasions inspired the knife-boyto verses which had subsequently appeared in the _Spectator_, and with weekly regularity she would lend her aid to the cook in thecomposition of those technical reviews by which (as it seemed) thatdomestic increased her ample wages. 

The Muse had slept for a full six hours when the doctor arrived--aspecialist in these matters and one who has before now been calledin (I am proud to say) by such great persons as Mr. Hichens, Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Roosevelt when their Muses have been out ofsorts. Indeed, he is that doctor who operated for aphasia upon theMuse of the late Mr. Rossetti just before his demise. His fees arehigh, but I was willing enough to pay, and certainly would neverhave consented--as have, I regret to say, so many of my unworthycontemporaries--to employ a veterinary surgeon upon such anoccasion. 

The great specialist approached with a determined air the couchwhere the patient lay, awoke her according to the ancient formula, and proceeded to question her upon her symptoms. He soon discoveredtheir gravity, and I could see by his manner that he was anxious toan extreme. The Muse had grown so weak as to be unable to dictateeven a little blank verse, and the indisposition had so far affectedher mind that she had no memory of Parnassus, but deliriouslymaintained that she had been born in the home counties--nay, in theneighbourhood of Uxbridge. Her every phrase was a deplorablecommonplace, and, on the physician applying a stethoscope andbegging her to attempt some verse, she could give us nothing betterthan a sonnet upon the expansion of the Empire. Her weakness wassuch that she could do no more than awake, and that feebly, whileshe professed herself totally unable to arise, to expand, to soar, to haunt, or to perform any of those exercises which are proper toher profession. 

When his examination was concluded the doctor took me aside andasked me upon what letters the patient had recently fed. I told himupon the daily Press, some of the reviews, the telegrams from thelatest seat of war, and occasionally a debate in Parliament. At thishe shook his head and asked whether too much had not recently beenasked of her. I admitted that she had done a very considerableamount of work for so young a Muse in the past year, though itsquality was doubtful, and I hastened to add that I was the less toblame as she had wasted not a little of her powers upon otherswithout asking my leave; notably upon the knife-boy and the cook. 

The doctor was then good enough to write out a prescription in Latinand to add such general recommendations as are commonly of morevalue than physic. She was to keep her bed, to be allowed no modernliterature of any kind, unless Milton and Swift may be admitted asmoderns, and even these authors and their predecessors were to beadmitted in very sparing quantities. If any signs of inversion, archaism, or neologistic tendencies appeared he was to be summonedat once; but of these (he added) he had little fear. He did notdoubt that in a few weeks we should have her up and about again, buthe warned me against letting her begin work too soon. 

"I would not, " he said, "permit her to undertake any effort untilshe can inspire within one day of twelve hours at least eighteenquatrains, and those lucid, grammatical, and moving. As for singlelines, tags, fine phrases, and the rest, they are no sign whateverof returning health, if anything of the contrary. "

He also begged that she might not be allowed any Greek or Latin forten days, but I reassured him upon the matter by telling him thatshe was totally unacquainted with those languages--at which heexpressed some pleasure but even more astonishment. 

At last he told me that he was compelled to be gone; the season hadbeen very hard, nor had he known so general a breakdown among theMuses of his various clients. 

I thought it polite as I took him to the door to ask after some ofhis more distinguished patients; he was glad to say that theArchbishop of Armagh's was very vigorous indeed, in spite of the ageof her illustrious master. He had rarely known a more inventive orcourageous female, but when, as I handed him into his carriage, Iasked after that of Mr. Kipling, his face became suddenly grave; andhe asked me, "Have you not heard?"

"No, " said I; but I had a fatal presentiment of what was to follow, and indeed I was almost prepared for it when he answered in solemntones:

"She is dead. "

ON A DOG AND A MAN ALSO

There lives in the middle of the Weald upon the northern edge of asmall wood where a steep brow of orchard pasture goes down to alittle river, a Recluse who is of middle age and possessed of allthe ordinary accomplishments; that is, French and English literatureare familiar to him, he can himself compose, he has read hisclassical Latin and can easily decipher such Greek as he has beentaught in youth. He is unmarried, he is by birth a gentleman, heenjoys an income sufficient to give him food and wine, and has forcompanion a dog who, by the standard of dogs, is somewhat moreelderly than himself. 

This dog is called Argus, not that he has a hundred eyes nor even two, indeed he has but one; for the other, or right eye, he lost the sightof long ago from luxury and lack of exercise. This dog Argus is neithersmall nor large; he is brown in colour and covered--though now butpartially--with curly hair. In this he resembles many other dogs, buthe differs from most of his breed in a further character, which isthat by long association with a Recluse he has acquired a human mannerthat is unholy. He is fond of affected poses. When he sleeps it is withthat abandonment of fatigue only naturally to be found in mankind. Hewatches sunsets and listens mournfully to music. Cooked food is dearerto him than raw, and he will eat nuts--a monstrous thing in a dog andproof of corruption. 

Nevertheless, or, rather, on account of all this, the dog Argus isexceedingly dear to his master, and of both I had the other day asingular revelation when I set out at evening to call upon myfriend. 

The sun had set, but the air was still clear and it was light enoughto have shot a bat (had there been bats about and had one had a gun)when I knocked at the cottage door and opened it. Right within, onecomes to the first of the three rooms which the Recluse possesses, and there I found him tenderly nursing the dog Argus, who laygroaning in the arm-chair and putting on all the airs of a Christianman at the point of death. 

The Recluse did not even greet me, but asked me only in a hurriedway how I thought the dog Argus looked. I answered gravely and in alow tone so as not to disturb the sufferer, that as I had not seenhim since Tuesday, when he was, for an elderly dog, in the best ofhealth, he certainly presented a sad contrast, but that perhaps hewas better than he had been some few hours before, and that theRecluse himself would be the best judge of that. 

My friend was greatly relieved at what I said, and told me that hethought the dog was better, compared at least with that samemorning; then, whether you believe it or not, he took him by theleft leg just above the paw and held it for a little time as thoughhe were feeling a pulse, and said, "He came back less than twenty-fourhours ago!" It seemed that the dog Argus, for the first time in fourteenyears, had run away, and that for the first time in perhaps twenty orthirty years the emotion of loss had entered into the life of theRecluse, and that he had felt something outside books and outsidethe contemplation of the landscape about his hermitage. 

In a short time the dog fell into a slumber, as was shown by anumber of grunts and yaps which proved his sleep, for the dog Argusis of that kind which hunts in dreams. His master covered himreverently rather than gently with an Indian cloth and, stillleaving him in the armchair, sat down upon a common wooden chairclose by and gazed pitifully at the fire. For my part I stood up andwondered at them both, and wondered also at that in man by which hemust attach himself to something, even if it be but a dog, apolitician, or an ungrateful child. 

When he had gazed at the fire a little while the Recluse began totalk, and I listened to him talking:

"Even if they had not dug up so much earth to prove it I should haveknown, " said he, "that the Odyssey was written not at the beginningof a civilisation nor in the splendour of it, but towards its close. I do not say this from the evening light that shines across itspages, for that is common to all profound work, but I say it becauseof the animals, and especially because of the dog, who was the onlyone to know his master when that master came home a beggar to hisown land, before his youth was restored to him, and before he gotback his women and his kingship by the bending of his bow, andbefore he hanged the housemaids and killed all those who haddespised him. "

"But how, " said I (for I am younger than he), "can the animals inthe poem show you that the poem belongs to a decline?"

"Why, " said he, "because at the end of a great civilisation the airgets empty, the light goes out of the sky, the gods depart, and menin their loneliness put out a groping hand, catching at thefriendship of, and trying to understand, whatever lives and suffersas they do. You will find it never fail that where a passionateregard for the animals about us, or even a great tenderness forthem, is to be found there is also to be found decay in the State. "

"I hope not, " said I. "Moreover, it cannot be true, for in theThirteenth Century, which was certainly the healthiest time we everhad, animals were understood; and I will prove it to you in severalcarvings. "

He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, saying, "In the roughand in general it is true; and the reason is the reason I have givenyou, that when decay begins, whether of a man or of a State, therecomes with it an appalling and a torturing loneliness in which ourenergies decline into a strong affection for whatever is constantlyour companion and for whatever is certainly present upon earth. Forwe have lost the sky. "

"Then if the senses are so powerful in a decline of the State thereshould come at the same time, " said I, "a quick forgetfulness of thehuman dead and an easy change of human friendship?"

"There does, " he answered, and to that there was no more to be said. 

"I know it by my own experience, " he continued. "When, yesterday, atsunset, I looked for my dog Argus and could not find him, I went outinto the wood and called him: the darkness came and I found no traceof him. I did not hear him barking far off as I have heard himbefore when he was younger and went hunting for a while, and threetimes that night I came back out of the wild into the warmth of myhouse, making sure he would have returned, but he was never there. The third time I had gone a mile out to the gamekeeper's to give himmoney if Argus should be found, and I asked him as many questionsand as foolish as a woman would ask. Then I sat up right into thenight, thinking that every movement of the wind outside or of thedrip of water was the little pad of his step coming up theflagstones to the door. I was even in the mood when men see unrealthings, and twice I thought I saw him passing quickly between mychair and the passage to the further room. But these things areproper to the night and the strongest thing I suffered for him wasin the morning. 

"It was, as you know, very bitterly cold for several days. Theyfound things dead in the hedgerows, and there was perhaps no runningwater between here and the Downs. There was no shelter from thesnow. There was no cover for my friend at all. And when I was up atdawn with the faint light about, a driving wind full of sleet filledall the air. Then I made certain that the dog Argus was dead, andwhat was worse that I should not find his body: that the old dog hadgot caught in some snare or that his strength had failed him throughthe cold, as it fails us human beings also upon such nights, striking at the heart. 

"Though I was certain that I would not see him again yet I went onfoolishly and aimlessly enough, plunging through the snow from onespinney to another and hoping that I might hear a whine. I heardnone: and if the little trail he had made in his departure mighthave been seen in the evening, long before that morning the driftwould have covered it. 

"I had eaten nothing and yet it was near noon when I returned, pushing forward to the cottage against the pressure of the storm, when I found there, miserably crouched, trembling, half dead, in thelee of a little thick yew beside my door, the dog Argus; and as Icame his tail just wagged and he just moved his ears, but he had notthe strength to come near me, his master. "

[Greek: ourae men rh ho g esaene kai ouata kabbalen ampho, asson douket epeita dunaesato oio anaktos elthemen. ]

"I carried him in and put him here, feeding him by force, and I haverestored him. "

All this the Recluse said to me with as deep and as restrainedemotion as though he had been speaking of the most sacred things, asindeed, for him, these things were sacred. 

It was therefore a mere inadvertence in me, and an untrained habitof thinking aloud, which made me say:

"Good Heavens, what will you do when the dog Argus dies?"

At once I wished I had not said it, for I could see that the Reclusecould not bear the words. I looked therefore a little awkwardlybeyond him and was pleased to see the dog Argus lazily opening hisone eye and surveying me with torpor and with contempt. He wascertainly less moved than his master. 

Then in my heart I prayed that of these two (unless The God wouldmake them both immortal and catch them up into whatever place isbetter than the Weald, or unless he would grant them one deathtogether upon one day) that the dog Argus might survive my friend, and that the Recluse might be the first to dissolve that longcompanionship. For of this I am certain, that the dog would sufferless; for men love their dependents much more than do theirdependents them; and this is especially true of brutes; for men arenearer to the gods. 

ON TEA

When I was a boy--

What a phrase! What memories! O! Noctes Coenasque Deûm! Why, then, is there something in man that wholly perishes? It is against soundreligion to believe it, but the world would lead one to imagine it. The Hills are there. I see them as I write. They are the cloud orwall that dignified my sixteenth year. And the river is there, andflows by that same meadow beyond my door; from above Coldwatham thesame vast horizon opens westward in waves of receding crests morechangeable and more immense than is even our sea. The same sunsetsat times bring it all in splendour, for whatever herds the westernclouds together in our stormy evenings is as stable and as vigorousas the County itself. If, therefore, there is something gone, it isI that have lost it. 

Certainly something is diminished (the Priests and the tradition ofthe West forbid me to say that the soul can perish), certainlysomething is diminished--what? Well, I do not know its name, nor hasanyone known it face to face or apprehended it in this life, but thesense and influence--alas! especially the memory of It, lies in thewords "When I was a boy, " and if I write those words again in anydocument whatsoever, even in a lawyer's letter, without admitting atonce a full-blooded and galloping parenthesis, may the Seven Devilsof Sense take away the last remnant of the joy they lend me. 

When I was a boy there was nothing all about the village or thewoods that had not its living god, and all these gods were good. Oh!How the County and its Air shone from within; what meaning lay inunexpected glimpses of far horizons; what a friend one was with theclouds!

Well, all I can say to the Theologians is this:

"I will grant you that the Soul does not decay: you know more ofsuch flimsy things than I do. But you, on your side, must grant methat there is Something which does not enter into your systems. Thathas perished, and I mean to mourn it all the days of my life. Praydo not interfere with that peculiar ritual. "

When I was a boy I knew Nature as a child knows its nurse, and Tea Idenounced for a drug. I found to support this fine instinct manyarguments, all of which are still sound, though not one of themwould prevent me now from drinking my twentieth cup. It wasintroduced late and during a corrupt period. It was an exotic. Itwas a sham exhilarant to which fatal reactions could not but attach. It was no part of the Diet of the Natural Man. The two nations thatalone consume it--the English and the Chinese--are become, by itsbaneful influence on the imagination, the most easily deceived inthe world. Their politics are a mass of bombastic illusions. Also itdries their skins. It tans the liver, hardens the coats of thestomach, makes the brain feverishly active, rots the nerve-springs;all that is still true. Nevertheless I now drink it, and shall drinkit; for of all the effects of Age none is more profound than this:that it leads men to the worship of some one spirit less erect thanthe Angels. A care, an egotism, an irritability with regard todetails, an anxious craving, a consummate satisfaction in theperformance of the due rites, an ecstasy of habit, all proclaim thesenile heresy, the material Religion. I confess to Tea. 

All is arranged in this Cult with the precision of an ancient creed. The matter of the Sacrifice must come from China. He that woulddrink Indian Tea would smoke hay. The Pot must be of metal, and themetal must be a white metal, not gold or iron. Who has not known theacidity and paucity of Tea from a silver-gilt or golden spout? ThePot must first be warmed by pouring in a little _boiling_ water(the word _boiling_ should always be underlined); then thewater is poured away and a few words are said. Then the Tea is putin and unrolls and spreads in the steam. Then, in due order, onthese expanding leaves _Boiling_ Water is largely poured andthe god arises, worthy of continual but evil praise and of thethanks of the vicious, a Deity for the moment deceitfully kindly tomen. Under his influence the whole mind receives a sharp vision ofpower. It is a phantasm and a cheat. Men can do wonders throughwine; through Tea they only think themselves great and clear--butthat is enough if one has bound oneself to that strange idol andlearnt the magic phrase on His Pedestal, [Greek: ARISTON MEN TI], for of all the illusions and dreams men cherish none is so grandioseas the illusion of conscious power within. 

 * * * * *

Well, then, it fades. .. . I begin to see that this cannot continue. .. Of Tea it came, inconsecutive and empty; with the influence ofTea dissolving, let these words also dissolve. .. . I could wish ithad been Opium, or Haschisch, or even Gin; you would have hadsomething more soaring for your money. .. . _In vino Veritas. InAqua satietas. In_ . .. What is the Latin for Tea? What! Is thereno Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I wouldhave let the vulgar stuff alone. 

ON THEM

I do not like Them. It is no good asking me why, though I haveplenty of reasons. I do not like Them. There would be no particularpoint in saying I do not like Them if it were not that so manypeople doted on Them, and when one hears Them praised, it goads oneto expressing one's hatred and fear of Them. 

I know very well that They can do one harm, and that They haveoccult powers. All the world has known that for a hundred thousandyears, more or less, and every attempt has been made to propitiateThem. James I. Would drown Their mistress or burn her, but_They_ were spared. Men would mummify Them in Egypt, andworship the mummies; men would carve Them in stone in Cyprus, andCrete and Asia Minor, or (more remarkable still) artists, especiallyin the Western Empire, would leave Them out altogether; so much wasTheir influence dreaded. Well, I yield so far as not to print Theirname, and only to call Them "They", but I hate Them, and I'm notafraid to say so. 

If you will take a little list of the chief crimes that livingbeings can commit you will find that They commit them all. And Theyare cruel; cruelty is even in Their tread and expression. They arehatefully cruel. I saw one of Them catch a mouse the other day (thecat is now out of the bag), and it was a very much more sickeningsight, I fancy, than ordinary murder. You may imagine that Theycatch mice to eat them. It is not so. They catch mice to torture them. And what is worse, They will teach this to Their children--Theirchildren who are naturally innocent and fat, and full of goodness, are deliberately and systematically corrupted by Them; there isdiabolism in it. 

Other beings (I include mankind) will be gluttonous, but gluttonousspasmodically, or with a method, or shamefacedly, or, in some way oranother that qualifies the vice; not so They. They are gluttonousalways and upon all occasions, and in every place and for ever. Itwas only last Vigil of All Fools' Day when, myself fasting, I filledup the saucer seven times with milk and seven times it was emptied, and there went up the most peevish, querulous, vicious complaint anddemand for an eighth. They will eat some part of the food of allthat are in the house. Now even a child, the most gluttonous onewould think of all living creatures, would not do that. It makes aselection, _They_ do not. _They_ will drink beer. This is not a theory;I know it; I have seen it with my own eyes. They will eat special foods;They will even eat dry bread. Here again I have personal evidence ofthe fact; They will eat the dog's biscuits, but never upon any occasionwill They eat anything that has been poisoned, so utterly lacking areThey in simplicity and humility, and so abominably well filled withcunning by whatever demon first brought their race into existence. 

They also, alone of all creation, love hateful noises. Some beingsindeed (and I count Man among them) cannot help the voice with whichthey have been endowed, but they know that it is offensive, and areat pains to make it better; others (such as the peacock or theelephant) also know that their cry is unpleasant. They therefore useit sparingly. Others again, the dove, the nightingale, the thrush, know that their voices are very pleasant, and entertain us with themall day and all night long; but They know that Their voices are themost hideous of all the sounds in the world, and, knowing this, Theyperpetually insist upon thrusting those voices upon us, saying, asit were, "I am giving myself pain, but I am giving you more pain, and therefore I shall go on. " And They choose for the place wherethis pain shall be given, exact and elevated situations, very closeto our ears. Is there any need for me to point out that in everycity they will begin their wicked jar just at the time when itsinhabitants must sleep? In London you will not hear it till aftermidnight; in the county towns it begins at ten; in remote villagesas early as nine. 

Their Master also protects them. They have a charmed life. I haveseen one thrown from a great height into a London street, which whenIt reached it It walked quietly away with the dignity of the LostWorld to which It belonged. 

If one had the time one could watch Them day after day, and neversee Them do a single kind or good thing, or be moved by a singlevirtuous impulse. They have no gesture for the expression ofadmiration, love, reverence or ecstasy. They have but one method ofexpressing content, and They reserve that for moments of physicalrepletion. The tail, which is in all other animals the signal forjoy or for defence, or for mere usefulness, or for a noble anger, iswith Them agitated only to express a sullen discontent. 

All that They do is venomous, and all that They think is evil, andwhen I take mine away (as I mean to do next week--in a basket), Ishall first read in a book of statistics what is the wickedest partof London, and I shall leave It there, for I know of no one evenamong my neighbours quite so vile as to deserve such a gift. 

ON RAILWAYS AND THINGS

Railways have changed the arrangement and distribution of crowds andsolitude, but have done nothing to disturb the essential contrastbetween them. 

The more behindhand of my friends, among whom I count the weary menof the towns, are ceaselessly bewailing the effect of railways andthe spoiling of the country; nor do I fail, when I hear suchcomplaints, to point out their error, courteously to hint at theirsheep-like qualities, and with all the delicacy imaginable to letthem understand they are no better than machines repeating worn-outformulae through the nose. The railways and those slow lumberingthings the steamboats have not spoilt our solitudes, on the contrarythey have intensified the quiet of the older haunts, they havecreated new sanctuaries, and (crowning blessing) they make it easyfor us to reach our refuges. 

For in the first place you will notice that new lines of travel arelike canals cut through the stagnant marsh of an old civilisation, draining it of populace and worry, and concentrating upon themselvesthe odious pressure of humanity. 

You know (to adopt the easy or conversational style) that you and Ibelong to a happy minority. We are the sons of the hunters and thewandering singers, and from our boyhood nothing ever gave us greaterpleasure than to stand under lonely skies in forest clearings, or tofind a beach looking westward at evening over unfrequented seas. Butthe great mass of men love companionship so much that nothing seemsof any worth compared with it. Human communion is their meat anddrink, and so they use the railways to make bigger and bigger hivesfor themselves. 

Now take the true modern citizen, the usurer. How does the usurersuck the extremest pleasure out of his holiday? He takes the trainpreferably at a very central station near the Strand, and (if he canchoose his time) on a foggy and dirty day; he picks out an expressthat will take him with the greatest speed through the Garden of Eden, nor does he begin to feel the full savour of relaxation till a row ofabominable villas' appears on the southern slope of what were once thedowns; these villas stand like the skirmishers of a foul army deployed:he is immediately whirled into Brighton and is at peace. There he hashis wish for three days; there he can never see anything but houses, or, if he has to walk along the sea, he can rest his eye on herds ofunhappy people and huge advertisements, and he can hear the newspaperboys telling lies (perhaps special lies he has paid for) at the top oftheir voices; he can note as evening draws on the pleasant glare of gasupon the street mud and there pass him the familiar surroundings ofservility, abject poverty, drunkenness, misery, and vice. He has hismusic-hall on the Saturday evening with the sharp, peculiar finish ofthe London accent in the patriotic song, he has the London paper onSunday to tell him that his nastiest little Colonial War was a crusade, and on Monday morning he has the familiar feeling that follows hisexcesses of the previous day. .. . Are you not glad that such men andtheir lower-fellows swarm by hundreds of thousands into the "resorts"?Do you not bless the railways that take them so quickly from one Hellto another. 

Never let me hear you say that the railways spoil a countryside;they do, it is true, spoil this or that particular place--as, forexample, Crewe, Brighton, Stratford-on-Avon--but for thisdisadvantage they give us I know not how many delights. What is moreEnglish than the country railway station? I defy the eighteenthcentury to produce anything more English, more full of home and restand the nature of the country, than my junction. Twenty-seven trainsa day stop at it or start from it; it serves even the expresses. Smith's monopoly has a bookstall there; you can get cheap Kiplingand Harmsworth to any extent, and yet it is a theme for Englishidylls. The one-eyed porter whom I have known from childhood; thestation-master who ranges us all in ranks, beginning with the Dukeand ending with a sad, frayed and literary man; the little chaise inwhich the two old ladies from Barlton drive up to get their paper ofan evening, the servant from the inn, the newsboy whose mother keepsa sweetshop--they are all my village friends. The glorious Sussexaccent, whose only vowel is the broad "a", grows but more rich andemphatic from the necessity of impressing itself upon foreignintruders. The smoke also of the train as it skirts the Downs ispart and parcel of what has become (thanks to the trains) ourencloistered country life; the smoke of the trains is a littlesmudge of human activity which permits us to match our incomparableseclusion with the hurly-burly from which we have fled. Upon mysoul, when I climb up the Beacon to read my book on the warm turf, the sight of an engine coming through the cutting is an emphasis ofmy selfish enjoyment. I say "There goes the Brighton train", but theimage of Brighton, with its Anglo-Saxons and its Vision of Empire, does not oppress me; it is a far-off thing; its life ebbs and flowsalong that belt of iron to distances that do not regard me. 

Consider this also with regard to my railway: it brings me what Iwant in order to be perfect in my isolation. Those books discussingProblems: whether or not there is such an idea as right; theinconvenience of being married; the worry of being Atheist and yetliving upon a clerical endowment, --these fine discussions come froma library in a box by train and I can torture myself for a shilling, whereas, before the railways, I should have had to fall back on the_Gentleman's Magazine_ and the County History. In the way ofnewspapers it provides me with just the companionship necessary to ahermitage. Often and often, after getting through one paper, Istroll down to the junction and buy fifteen others, and so enjoy thefruits of many minds. 

Thanks to my railway I can sit in the garden of an evening and readmy paper as I smoke my pipe, and say, "Ah! That's Buggin's work. Iremember him well; he worked for Rhodes. .. . Hullo! Here's Simpson atit again; since when did they buy _him_?. .. " And so forth. I leadmy pastoral life, happy in the general world about me, and I serve, as sauce to such healthy meat, the piquant wickedness of the town;nor do I ever note a cowardice, a lie, a bribery, or a breach oftrust, a surrender in the field, or a new Peerage, but I rememberthat my newspaper could not add these refining influences to my lifebut for the _railway_ which I set out to praise at the beginning ofthis and intend to praise manfully to the end. 

Yet another good we owe to railways occurs to me. They keep thesmall towns going. 

Don't pester me with "economics" on that point; I know moreeconomics than you, and I say that but for the railways the smalltowns would have gone to pieces. There never yet was a civilisationgrowing richer and improving its high roads in which the small townsdid not dwindle. The village supplied the local market with bodilynecessaries; the intellectual life, the civic necessities had to gointo the large towns. It happened in the second and third centuriesin Italy; it happened in France between Henri IV and the Revolution;it was happening here before 1830. 

Take those little paradises Ludlow and Leominster; consider Arundel, and please your memory with the admirable slopes of Whitchurch; growcontented in a vision of Ledbury, of Rye, or of Abingdon, or ofBeccles with its big church over the river, or of Newport in theIsle of Wight, or of King's Lynn, or of Lymington--you would nothave any of these but for the railway, and there are 1800 such inEngland--one for every tolerable man. 

Valognes in the Cotentin, Bourg-d'Oysan down in the Dauphiné in itsvast theatre of upright hills, St. Julien in the Limousin, Aubusson-in-the-hole, Puy (who does not connect beauty with theword?), Mansle in the Charente country--they had all been half deadfor over a century when the railway came to them and made themjolly, little, trim, decent, self-contained, worthy, satisfactory, genial, comforting and human [Greek: politeiae], with clergy, upperclass, middle class, poor, soldiers, yesterday's news, a college, anti-Congo men, fools, strong riders, old maids, and all that makesa state. In England the railway brought in that beneficent class, the gentlemen; in France, that still more beneficent class, theHaute Bourgeoisie. 

I know what you are going to say; you are going to say that therewere squires before the railways in England. Pray have youconsidered how many squires there were to go round? About half adozen squires to every town, that is (say) four gentlemen, and ofthose four gentlemen let us say two took some interest in the place. It wasn't good enough . .. And heaven help the country towns now ifthey had to depend on the great houses! There would be a smart dog-cartonce a day with a small (vicious and servile) groom in it, an actor, aforeign money-lender, a popular novelist, or a newspaper owner jumpingout to make his purchases and driving back again to his host's withinthe hour. No, no; what makes the country town is the Army, the Navy, the Church, and the Law--especially the retired ones. 

Then think of the way in which the railways keep a good man'sinfluence in a place and a bad man's out of it. Your good man lovesa country town, but he must think, and read, and meet people, so inthe last century he regretfully took a town house and had his littlehouse in the country as well. Now he lives in the country and runsup to town when he likes. 

He is always a permanent influence in the little city--especially ifhe has but £400 a year, which is the normal income of a retiredgentleman (yes, it is so, and if you think it is too small anestimate, come with me some day and make an inquisitorial tour of mytown). As for the vulgar and cowardly man, he hates small towns(fancy a South African financier in a small town!), well, therailway takes him away. Of old he might have had to stay there orstarve, now he goes to London and runs a rag, or goes intoParliament, or goes to dances dressed up in imitation of a soldier;or he goes to Texas and gets hanged--it's all one to me. He's out ofmy town. 

And as the railways have increased the local refinement and virtue, so they have ennobled and given body to the local dignitary. Whatwould the Bishop of Caen (he calls himself Bishop of Lisieux andBayeux, but that is archaeological pedantry); what, I say, would theBishop of Caen be without his railway? A Phantom or a Paris magnate. What the Mayor of High Wycombe? Ah! what indeed! But I cannot wasteany more of this time of mine in discussing one aspect of therailway; what further I have to say on the subject shall bepresented in due course in my book on _The Small Town ofChristendom_ [Footnote: _The Small Town of Christendom: anAnalytical Study_. With an Introduction by Joseph Reinach. Ulmoet Cie. £25 nett. ] I will close this series of observations with alittle list of benefits the railway gives you, many of which wouldnot have occurred to you but for my ingenuity, some of which you mayhave thought of at some moment or other, and yet would never haveretained but for my patient labour in this. 

The railway gives you seclusion. If you are in an express alone youare in the only spot in Western Europe where you can be certain oftwo or three hours to yourself. At home in the dead of night you maybe wakened by a policeman or a sleep-walker or a dog. The heaths arepopulous. You cannot climb to the very top of Helvellyn to read yourown poetry to yourself without the fear of a tourist. But in thecorner of a third-class going north or west you can be sure of yourown company; the best, the most sympathetic, the most brilliant inthe world. 

The railway gives you sharp change. And what we need in change issurely keenness. For instance, if one wanted to go sailing in theold days, one left London, had a bleak drive in the country, gotnearer and nearer the sea, felt the cold and wet and discomfortgrowing on one, and after half a day or a day's gradual introductionto the thing, one would at last have got on deck, wet and wretched, and half the fun over. Nowadays what happens? Why, the other day, arich man was sitting in London with a poor friend; they werediscussing what to do in three spare days they had. They said "letus sail. " They left London in a nice warm, comfortable, rich-padded, swelly carriage at four, and before dark they were lettingeverything go, putting on the oilies, driving through the open infront of it under a treble-reefed storm jib, praying hard for theirlives in last Monday's gale, and wishing to God they had stayed athome--all in the four hours. That is what you may call piquant, itbraces and refreshes a man. 

For the rest I cannot detail the innumerable minor advantages ofrailways; the mild excitement which is an antidote to gambling; theshaking which (in moderation) is good for livers; the meetingfamiliarly with every kind of man and talking politics to him; thedelight in rapid motion; the luncheon-baskets; the porters; thesolid guard; the strenuous engine-driver (note this next time youtravel--it is an accurate observation). And of what other kind ofmodern thing can it be said that more than half pay dividends?Thinking of these things, what sane and humorous man would eversuggest that a part of life, so fertile in manifold and humanpleasure, should ever be bought by the dull clique who callthemselves "the State", and should yield under such a scheme yet_more_, yet _larger_, yet _securer_ salaries to the younger sons. 

ON CONVERSATIONS IN TRAINS

I might have added in this list I have just made of the advantagesof Railways, that Railways let one mix with one's fellow-men andhear their continual conversation. Now if you will think of it, Railways are the only institutions that give us that advantage. Inother places we avoid all save those who resemble us, and many menbecome in middle age like cabinet ministers, quite ignorant of theirfellow-citizens. But in Trains, if one travels much, one hears everykind of man talking to every other and one perceives all England. 

It is on this account that I have always been at pains to note whatI heard in this way, especially the least expected, most startling, and therefore most revealing dialogues, and as soon as I could towrite them down, for in this way one can grow to know men. 

Thus I have somewhere preserved a hot discussion among some minersin Derbyshire (voters, good people, voters remember) whether theUnited States were bound to us as a colony "like Egypt. " And I onceheard also a debate as to whether the word were Horizon or Horizon;this ended in a fight; and the Horizon man pushed the Horizon manout at Skipton, and wouldn't let him get into the carriage again. 

Then again I once heard two frightfully rich men near Birminghamarguing why England was the richest and the Happiest Country in theworld. Neither of these men was a gentleman but they argued politelythough firmly, for they differed profoundly. One of them, who wasalmost too rich to walk, said it was because we minded our ownaffairs, and respected property and were law-abiding. This (he said)was the cause of our prosperity and of the futile envy with whichforeigners regarded the homes of our working men. Not so the other:_he_ thought that it was the Plain English sense of Duty thatdid the trick: he showed how this was ingrained in us and appearedin our Schoolboys and our Police: he contrasted it with Ireland, andhe asked what else had made our Criminal Trials the model of theworld? All this also I wrote down. 

Then also once on a long ride (yes, "ride". Why not?) throughLincolnshire I heard two men of the smaller commercial or salariedkind at issue. The first, who had a rather peevish face, was lookinggloomily out of window and was saying, "Denmark has it: Greece hasit--why shouldn't we have it? Eh? America has it and so's Germany--whyshouldn't we have it?" Then after a pause he added, "Even France hasit--why haven't we got it?" He spoke as though he wouldn't stand itmuch longer, and as though France were the last straw. 

The other man was excitable and had an enormous newspaper in hishand, and he answered in a high voice, "'Cause we're too sensible, that's why! 'Cause we know what we're about, we do. "

The other man said, "Ho! Do we?"

The second man answered, "Yes: we do. What made England?"

"Gord, " said the first man. 

This brought the second man up all standing and nearly carried awayhis fore-bob-stay. He answered slowly--

"Well . .. Yes . .. In a manner of speaking. But what I meant to saywas like this, that what made England was Free Trade!" Here heslapped one hand on to the other with a noise like that of a pistol, and added heavily: "And what's more, I can prove it. "

The first man, who was now entrenched in his position, said again, "Ho! Can you?" and sneered. 

The second man then proved it, getting more and more excited. Whenhe had done, all the first man did was to say, "You talkfoolishness. "

Then there was a long silence: very strained. At last the FreeTrader pulled out a pipe and filled it at leisure, with a light sortof womanish tobacco, and just as he struck a match the Protectionistshouted out, "No you don't! This ain't a smoking compartment. Iobject!" The Free Trader said, "O! that's how it is, is it?" TheProtectionist answered in a lower voice and surly, "Yes: that'show. "

They sat avoiding each other's eyes till we got to Grantham. I hadno idea that feeling could run so high, yet neither of them had areal grip on the Theory of International Exchange. 

But by far the most extraordinary conversation and perhaps the mostilluminating I ever heard, was in a train going to the West Countryand stopping first at Swindon. 

It passed between two men who sat in corners facing each other. 

The one was stout, tall, and dressed in a tweed suit. He had a goldwatch-chain with a little ornament on it representing a pair ofcompasses and a square. His beard was brown and soft. His eyes werevery sodden. When he got in he first wrapped a rug round and roundhis legs, then he took off his top hat and put on a cloth cap, thenhe sat down. 

The other also wore a tweed suit and was also stout, but he was notso tall. His watch-chain also was of gold (but of a differentpattern, paler, and with no ornament hung on it). His eyes also weresodden. He had no rug. He also took off his hat but put no cap uponhis head. I noticed that he was rather bald, and in the middle ofhis baldness was a kind of little knob. For the purposes of thisrecord, therefore, I shall give him the name "Bald, " while I shallcall the other man "Cap. "

I have forgotten, by the way, to tell you that Bald had a very largenose, at the end of which a great number of little veins hadcongested and turned quite blue. 

CAP (_shuts up Levy's paper, "The Daily Telegraph, " and opensHarmsworth's "Daily Mail, " Shuts that up and looks fixedly at_ BALD):I ask your pardon . .. But isn't your name Binder?

BALD (_his eyes still quite sodden_): That is my name. Binder's myname. (_He coughs to show breeding_. ) Why! (_his eyes getting atrifle less sodden_) if you aren't Mr. Mowle! Well, Mr. Mowle, sir, how are you?

CAP (_with some dignity_): Very well, thank you, Mr. Binder. How, how's Mrs. Binder and the kids? All blooming?

BALD: Why, yes, thank you, Mr. Mowle, but Mrs. Binder still hasthose attacks (_shaking his head_). Abdominal (_continuing toshake his head_). Gastric. Something cruel. 

CAP: They do suffer cruel, as you say, do women, Mr. Binder(_shaking his head too--but more slightly_). This indigestion--ah!

BALD (_more brightly_): Not married yet, Mr. Mowle?

CAP (_contentedly and rather stolidly_): No, Mr. Binder. Nornot inclined to neither. (_Draws a great breath. _) I'm a singleman, Mr. Binder, and intend so to adhere. (_A pause to think. _)That's what I call (_a further pause to get the right phrase_)"single blessedness. " Yes, (_another deep breath_) I find lifeworth living, Mr. Binder. 

BALD (_with great cunning_): That depends upon the liver. (_Roars with laughter. _)

CAP (_laughing a good deal too, but not so much as_ BALD): Ar!That was young Cobbler's joke in times gone by. 

BALD (_politely_): Ever see young Cobbler now, Mr. Mowle?

CAP (_with importance_): Why yes, Mr. Binder; I met him at theThersites' Lodge down Brixham way--only the other day. Wonderfulbrilliant he was . .. Well, there . .. (_his tone changes_) hewas sitting next to me--(_thoughtfully_)--as, might be here--(_puttingHarmsworth's paper down to represent Young Cobbler_)--and here like, would be Lord Haltingtowres. 

BALD (_his manner suddenly becoming very serious_): He's afine man, he is! One of those men I respect. 

CAP (_with still greater seriousness_): You may say that, Mr. Binder. No respecter of persons--talks to me or you or any of themjust the same. 

BALD (_vaguely_): Yes, they're a fine lot! (_Suddenly_)So's Charlie Beresford!

CAP (_with more enthusiasm than he had yet shown_): I say dittoto that, Mr. Binder! (_Thinking for a few moments of thecharacteristics of Lord Charles Beresford. _) It's pluck--that'swhat it is--regular British pluck (_Grimly_) That's the kind ofman--no favouritism. 

BALD: Ar! it's a case of "Well done, Condor!"

CAP: Ar! you're right there, Mr. Binder. 

BALD (_suddenly pulling a large flask out of his pocket andspeaking very rapidly_): Well, here's yours, Mr. Mowle. (_Hedrinks out of it a quantity of neat whisky, and having drunk it rubsthe top of his flask with his sleeve and hands it over politely to_)CAP. 

Cap (_having drunk a lot of neat whisky also, rubbed his sleeveover it, screwed on the little top and giving that long gasp whichthe occasion demands_): Yes, you're right there--"Well done. Condor. "

At this point the train began to go slowly, and just as it stoppedat the station I heard Cap begin again, asking Bald on what occasionand for what services Lord Charles Beresford had been given histitle. 

Full of the marvels of this conversation I got out, went into thewaiting-room and wrote it all down. I think I have it accuratelyword for word. 

But there happened to me what always happens after all literaryeffort; the enthusiasm vanished, the common day was before me. Iwent out to do my work in the place and to meet quite ordinarypeople and to forget, perhaps, (so strong is Time) the fantasticbeings in the train. In a word, to quote Mr. Binyon's admirablelines:

 "The world whose wrong Mocks holy beauty and our desire returned. "

ON THE RETURN OF THE DEAD

The reason the Dead do not return nowadays is the boredom of it. 

In the old time they would come casually, as suited them, withoutfuss and thinly, as it were, which is their nature; but when suchvisits were doubted even by those who received them and when new andfalse names were given them the Dead did not find it worth while. Itwas always a trouble; they did it really more for our sakes than fortheirs and they would be recognised or stay where they were. 

I am not certain that they might not have changed with the times andcome frankly and positively, as some urged them to do, had it notbeen for Rabelais' failure towards the end of the Boer war. Rabelais(it will be remembered) appeared in London at the very beginning ofthe season in 1902. Everybody knows one part of the story oranother, but if I put down the gist of it here I shall be ofservice, for very few people have got it quite right all through, and yet that story alone can explain why one cannot get the dead tocome back at all now even in the old doubtful way they did in the'80's and early '90's of the last century. 

There is a place in heaven where a group of writers have put up acolonnade on a little hill looking south over the plains. There arethrones there with the names of the owners on them. It is a sort ofClub. 

Rabelais was quarrelling with some fool who had missed fire with amedium and was saying that the modern world wanted positiveunmistakable appearances: he said he ought to know, because he hadbegun the modern world. Lucian said it would fail just as much asany other way; Rabelais hotly said it wouldn't. He said he wouldcome to London and lecture at the London School of Economics andestablish a good solid objective relationship between the twoworlds. Lucian said it would end badly. Rabelais, who had beendrinking, lost his temper and did at once what he had only beenboasting he would do. He materialised at some expense, and heannounced his lecture. Then the trouble began, and I am honestly ofopinion that if we had treated the experiment more decently weshould not have this recent reluctance on the part of the Dead topay us reasonable attention. 

In the first place, when it was announced that Rabelais had returnedto life and was about to deliver a lecture at the London School ofEconomics, Mrs. Whirtle, who was a learned woman, with a well-deservedreputation in the field of objective psychology, called it a rumourand discredited it (in a public lecture) on these three grounds:

(_a_) That Rabelais being dead so long ago would not come backto life now. 

(_b_) That even if he did come back to life it was quite out ofhis habit to give lectures. 

(_c_) That even if he had come back to life and did mean tolecture, he would never lecture at the London School of Economics, which was engaged upon matters principally formulated sinceRabelais' day and with which, moreover, Rabelais' "essentiallysynthetical" mind would find a difficulty in grappling. 

All Mrs. Whirtle's audience agreed with one or more of thesepropositions except Professor Giblet, who accepted all three savingand excepting the term "synthetical" as applied to Rabelais' mind. "For, " said he, "you must not be so deceived by an early use of theInducto-Deductive method as to believe that a sixteenth-century mancould be, in any true sense, synthetical. " And this judgment theProfessor emphasized by raising his voice suddenly by one octave. His position and that of Mrs. Whirtle were based upon that thoroughsummary of Rabelais' style in Mr. Effort's book on Frenchliterature: each held a sincere position, nevertheless this coldwater thrown on the very beginning of the experiment did harm. 

The attitude of the governing class did harm also. Lady Jane Bird sawthe announcement on the placards of the evening papers as she wentout to call on a friend. At tea-time a man called Wantage-Verneyson, who was well dressed, said that he knew all about Rabelais, and agroup of people began to ask questions together: Lady Jane herselfdid so. Mr. Wantage-Verneyson is (or rather was, alas!) the secondcousin of the Duke of Durham (he is--or rather was, alas!--the son ofLord and Lady James Verneyson, now dead), and he said that Rabelaiswas written by Urquhart a long time ago; this was quite deplorableand did infinite harm. He also said that every educated man had readRabelais, and that he had done so. He said it was a protest againstRome and all that sort of thing. He added that the language wasdifficult to understand. He further remarked that it was full offootnotes, but that he thought these had been put in later by scholars. Cross-questioned on this he admitted that he did not see what scholarscould want with Rabelais. On hearing this and the rest of hisinformation several ladies and a young man of genial expression beganto doubt in their turn. 

A Hack in Grub Street whom Painful Labour had driven to Despair andMysticism read the announcement with curiosity rather thanamazement, fully believing that the Great Dead, visiting as they dothe souls, may also come back rarely to the material cities of men. One thing, however, troubled him, and that was how Rabelais, who hadslept so long in peace beneath the Fig Tree of the Cemetery of St. Paul, could be risen now when his grave was weighed upon by No. 32of the street of the same name. Howsoever, he would have guessedthat the alchemy of that immeasurable mind had in some way got ridof the difficulty, and really the Hack must be forgiven for hisfaith, since one learned enough to know so much about sites, historyand literature, is learned enough to doubt the senses and to acceptthe Impossible; unfortunately the fact was vouched for in eightnewspapers of which he knew too much and was not accepted in theonly sheet he trusted. So he doubted too. 

John Bowles, of Lombard Street, read the placards and wroughthimself up into a fury saying, "In what other country would thesecursed Boers be allowed to come and lecture openly like this? It isenough to make one excuse the people who break up their meetings. "He was a little consoled, however, by the thought that his countrywas so magnanimous, and in the calmer mood of self-satisfaction wentso far as to subscribe £5 to a French newspaper which was beingfounded to propagate English opinions on the Continent. He may beneglected. 

Peter Grierson, attorney, was so hurried and overwrought with thework he had been engaged on that morning (the lending of £1323 to awidow at 5 1/4 per cent. , [which heaven knows is reasonable!] onsecurity of a number of shares in the London and North-WesternRailway) that he misread the placard and thought it ran "Rabelaislecture at the London School Economics"; disturbed for a moment atthe thought of so much paper wasted in time of war for so paltry anannouncement, he soon forgot about the whole business and went offto "The Holborn, " where he had his lunch comfortably standing up atthe buffet, and then went and worked at dominoes and cigars for twohours. 

Sir Judson Pennefather, Cabinet Minister and Secretary of State forPublic Worship, Literature and the Fine Arts--

But what have I to do with all these; absurd people upon whom thenews of Rabelais' return fell with such varied effect? What have youand I to do with men and women who do not, cannot, could not, willnot, ought not, have not, did, and by all the thirsty Demons thatserve the lamps of the cavern of the Sibyl, _shall_ not countin the scheme of things as worth one little paring of Rabelais'little finger nail? What are they that they should interfere withthe great mirific and most assuaging and comfortable feast of wit towhich I am now about to introduce you!--for know that I take you nowinto the lecture-hall and put you at the feet of the past-master ofall arts and divinations (not to say crafts and homologisings andintegrativeness), the Teacher of wise men, the comfort of anafflicted world, the uplifter of fools, the energiser of thelethargic, the doctor of the gouty, the guide of youth, thecompanion of middle age, the _vade mecum_ of the old, thepleasant introducer of inevitable death, yea, the general solace ofmankind. Oh! what are you not now about to hear! If anywhere thereare rivers in pleasant meadows, cool heights in summer, lovelyladies discoursing upon smooth lawns, or music skilfully befingeredby dainty artists in the shade of orange groves, if there is anyleft of that wine of Chinon from behind the _Grille_ at fourfrancs a bottle (and so there is, I know, for I drank it at the lastReveillon by St. Gervais)--I say if any of these comforters of theliving anywhere grace the earth, you shall find my master Rabelaisgiving you the very innermost and animating spirit of all these goodthings, their utter flavour and their saving power in thequintessential words of his incontestably regalian lips. So here, then, you may hear the old wisdom given to our wretched generationfor one happy hour of just living and we shall learn, surely in thiscase at least, that the return of the Dead was admitted and theGreat Spirits were received and honoured. 

 * * * * *

But alas! No. (which is not a _nominativus pendens_, still lessan anacoluthon but a mere interjection). Contrariwise, in the placeof such a sunrise of the mind, what do you think we were given? Thesight of an old man in a fine red gown and with a University cap onhis head hurried along by two policemen in the Strand and followedby a mob of boys and ruffians, some of whom took him for Mr. Kruger, while others thought he was but a harmless mummer. And themagistrate (who had obtained his position by a job) said thesesimple words: "I do not know who you are in reality nor what foreignname mask under your buffoonery, but I do know on the evidence ofthese intelligent officers, evidence upon which I fully rely andwhich you have made no attempt to contradict, you have disgracedyourself and the hall of your kind hosts and employers by the use oflanguage which I shall not characterise save by telling you that itwould be comprehensible only in a citizen of the nation to which youhave the misfortune to belong. Luckily you were not allowed toproceed for more than a moment with your vile harangue which (if Iunderstand rightly) was in praise of wine. You will go to prison fortwelve months. I shall not give you the option of a fine: but I canpromise you that if you prefer to serve with the gallant K. O. Fighting Scouts your request will be favourably entertained by theproper authorities. "

Long before this little speech was over Rabelais had disappeared, and was once more with the immortals cursing and swearing that hewould not do it again for 6, 375, 409, 702 sequins, or thereabouts, no, nor for another half-dozen thrown in as a makeweight. 

There is the whole story. 

I do not say that Rabelais was not over-hasty both in his appearanceand his departure, but I do say that if the Physicists (and notablyMrs. Whirtle) had shown more imagination, the governing class awider reading, and the magistracy a trifle more sympathy with thedifference of tone between the sixteenth century and our own time, the deplorable misunderstanding now separating the dead and theliving would never have arisen; for I am convinced that the Failureof Rabelais' attempt has been the chief cause of it. 

ON THE APPROACH OF AN AWFUL DOOM

My dear little Anglo-Saxons, Celt-Iberians and Teutonico-Latinoddities---The time has come to convey, impart and make known to youthe dreadful conclusions and horrible prognostications that flow, happen, deduce, derive and are drawn from the truly abominableconditions of the social medium in which you and I and all poordevils are most fatally and surely bound to draw out our miserableexistence. 

Note, I say "existence" and not "existences. " Why do I say"existence", and not "existences"? Why, with a fine handsome pluralready to hand, do I wind you up and turn you off, so to speak, witha piffling little singular not fit for a half-starved newspaperfellow, let alone a fine, full-fledged, intellectual and well-readvegetarian and teetotaller who writes in the reviews? Eh? Why do Isay "existence"?--speaking of many, several and various persons asthough they had but one mystic, combined and corporate personalitysuch as Rousseau (a fig for the Genevese!) portrayed in his_Contrat Social_ (which you have never read), and such asHobbes, in his _Leviathan_ (which some of you have heard of), ought to have premised but did not, having the mind of a lame, halting and ill-furnished clockmaker, and a blight on him!

Why now "existence" and not "existences"? You may wonder; you mayask yourselves one to another mutually round the tea-table puttingit as a problem or riddle. You may make a game of it, or use it forgambling, or say it suddenly as a catch for your acquaintances whenthey come up from the suburbs. It is a very pretty question andwould have been excellently debated by Thomas Aquinas in theJacobins of St. Jacques, near the Parloir aux Bourgeois, by the gateof the University; by Albertus Magnus in the Cordeliers, hard by theCollege of Bourgoyne; by Pic de la Mirandole, who lived I care not arap where and debated I know not from Adam how or when; by LordBacon, who took more bribes in a day than you and I could compass ina dozen years; by Spinoza, a good worker of glass lenses, but aphilosopher whom I have never read nor will; by Coleridge when hewas not talking about himself nor taking some filthy drug; by JohnPilkington Smith, of Norwood, Drysalter, who has, I hear, beenlately horribly bitten by the metaphysic; and by a crowd of others. 

But that's all by the way. Let them debate that will, for it leadsnowhere unless indeed there be sharp revelation, positivedeclaration and very certain affirmation to go upon by way of Basisor First Principle whence to deduce some sure conclusion andirrefragable truth; for thus the intellect walks, as it were, alonga high road, whereas by all other ways it is lurching and stumblingand boggling and tumbling in I know not what mists and brambles ofthe great bare, murky twilight and marshy hillside of philosophy, where I also wandered when I was a fool and unoccupied and lackingexercise for the mind, but from whence, by the grace of St. Anthonyof Miranella and other patrons of mine, I have very happilyextricated myself. And here I am in the parlour of the "Bugle" atYarmouth, by a Christian fire, having but lately come off the seaand writing this for the edification and confirmation of honestsouls. 

What, then, of the question, _Quid de quuerendo? Quantum?Qualiter? Ubi? Cur? Quid? Quando? Quomodo? Quum? Sive an non?_

Ah! There you have it. For note you, all these interrogativecategories must be met, faced, resolved and answered exactly--or youhave no more knowledge of the matter than the _Times_ has ofeconomics or the King of the Belgians of thorough-Bass. Yea, if youmiss, overlook, neglect, or shirk by reason of fatigue or indolence, so much as one tittle of these several aspects of a question youmight as well leave it altogether alone and give up analysis forselling stock, as did the Professor of Verbalism in the Universityof Adelaide to the vast solace and enrichment of his family. 

For by the neglect of but one of these final and fundamentalapproaches to the full knowledge of a question the world has beenirreparably, irretrievably and permanently robbed of the certainreply to, and left ever in the most disastrous doubt upon, this mostimportant and necessary matter--namely, _whether real existencecan be predicated of matter. _

For Anaxagoras of Syracuse, that was tutor to the Tyrant Machion, being in search upon this question for a matter of seventy-twoyears, four months, three days and a few odd hours and minutes, did, in extreme old age, as he was walking by the shore of the sea, hit, as it were in a flash, upon six of the seven answers, and was ablein one moment, after so much delay and vexatious argument for andagainst with himself, to resolve the problem upon the points of_how, why, when, where, how much_, and _in what_, matter might or mightnot be real, and was upon the very nick of settling the last littlepoint--namely, _sive an non_ (that is, whether it _were_ real or no)--when, as luck would have it, or rather, as his own beastly appetite and senilegreed would have it, he broke off sharp at hearing the dinner-gong orbell, or horn, or whatever it was--for upon these matters the King wasindifferent (_de minimis non curat rex_), and so am I--and was poisonedeven as he sat at table by the agents of Pyrrhus. 

By this accident, by this mere failure upon _one_ of the SevenAnswers, it has been since that day never properly decided whetheror no this true existence was or was not predicable of matter; andsome believing matter to be there have treated it pompously andgiven it reverence and adored it in a thousand merry ways, butothers being confident it was not there have starved and fallen offedges and banged their heads against corners and come plump againsthigh walls; nor can either party convince the other, nor can thedoubts of either be laid to rest, nor shall it from now to the Dayof Doom be established whether there is a Matter or is none; thoughmany learned men have given up their lives to it, includingProfessor Britton, who so despaired of an issue that he drownedhimself in the Cam only last Wednesday. But what care I for him orany other Don?

So there we are and an answer must be found, but upon my soul Iforget to what it hangs, though I know well there was some questionpropounded at the beginning of this for which I cared a trifle atthe time of asking it and you I hope not at all. Let it go the wayof all questions, I beg of you, for I am very little inclined toseek and hunt through all the heap that I have been tearing throughthis last hour with Pegasus curvetting and prancing and flapping hiswings to the danger of my seat and of the cities and fields belowme. 

Come, come, there's enough for one bout, and too much for some. Nogood ever came of argument and dialectic, for these breed only angrygestures and gusty disputes (_de gustibus non disputandum_) andthe ruin of friendships and the very fruitful pullulation ofDictionaries, textbooks and wicked men, not to speak ofIntellectuals, Newspapers, Libraries, Debating-clubs, bankruptcies, madness, _Petitiones elenchi_ and ills innumerable. 

I say live and let live; and now I think of it there was somethingat the beginning and title of this that dealt with a warning to wardyou off a danger of some kind that terrified me not a little when Isat down to write, and that was, if I remember right, that a friendhad told me how he had read in a book that the damnable BruteCAPITAL was about to swallow us all up and make slaves of us andthat there was no way out of it, seeing that it was fixed, settledand grounded in economics, not to speak of the procession of theEquinox, the Horoscope of Trimegistus, and _Old Moore'sAlmanack_. Oh! Run, Run! The Rich are upon us! Help! Their hotbreath is on our necks! What jaws! What jaws!

Well, what must be must be, and what will be will be, and if theRich are upon us with great open jaws and having power to enslaveall by the very fatal process of unalterable laws and at the biddingof Blind Fate as she is expounded by her prophets who live on milkand newspapers and do woundily talk Jew Socialism all day long; yetis it proved by the same intellectual certitude and irrefragablemethod that we shall not be caught before the year 1938 at theearliest and with luck we may run ten years more: why then let usmake the best of the time we have, and sail, ride, travel, write, drink, sing and all be friends together; and do you go about doinggood to the utmost of your power, as I heartily hope you will, though from your faces I doubt it hugely. A blessing I wish you all. 

ON A RICH MAN WHO SUFFERED

One cannot do a greater service now, when a dangerous confusion ofthought threatens us with an estrangement of classes, than todistinguish in all we write between Capitalism--the result of ablind economic development--and the persons and motives of those whohappen to possess the bulk of the means of Production. 

Capitalism may or may not have been a Source of Evil to ModernCommunities--it may have been a necessary and even a beneficentphase in that struggle upward from the Brute which marks ourprogress from Gospel Times until the present day--but whether it hasbeen a good or a bad phase in Economic Evolution, it is notScientific and it is not English to confuse the system with theliving human beings attached to it, and to contrast "Rich" and"Poor, " insisting on the supposed luxury and callousness of the oneor the humiliations and sufferings of the other. 

To expose the folly--nay, the wickedness--of that attitude I havebut to take some very real and very human case of a rich man--a veryrich man--who suffered and suffered deeply merely _as_ a man:one whose suffering wealth did not and could not alleviate. 

One very striking example of this human bond I am able to lay beforeyou, because the gentleman in question has, with fine humansympathy, permitted his story to be quoted. 

The only stipulation he made with me was first that I should concealreal names and secondly that I should write the whole in asjournalistic and popular a method as possible, so that his verylegitimate grievance in the matter I am about to describe should beas widely known as possible and also in order to spread as widely aspossible the lesson it contains that _the rich also are men_. 

To change all names etc. , a purely mechanical task, I easilyachieved. Whether I have been equally successful in my second objectof catching the breezy and happy style of true journalism it is formy readers to judge. I can only assure them that my intentions arepure. 

 * * * * *

I have promised my friend to set down the whole matter as itoccurred. 

"The Press, " he said to me, "is the only vehicle left by which onecan bring pressure to bear upon public opinion. I hope you can dosomething for me. .. . You write, I believe", he added, "for thepapers?"

I said I did. 

"Well, " he answered, "you fellows that write for the newspapers havea great advantage . .. !"

At this he sighed deeply, and asked me to come and have lunch withhim at his club, which is called "The Ragamuffins" for fun, and isfull of jolly fellows. There I ate boiled mutton and greens, washeddown with an excellent glass, or maybe a glass and a half, ofBelgian wine--a wine called Chateau Bollard. 

I noticed in the room Mr. Cantor, Mr. Charles, Sir John Ebbsmith, Mr. May, Mr. Ficks, "Joe" Hesketh, Matthew Fircombe, Lord Boxgrove, old Tommy Lawson, "Bill", Mr. Compton, Mr. Annerley, Jeremy (thetrainer), Mr. Mannering, his son, Mr. William Mannering, and hisnephew Mr. "Kite" Mannering, Lord Nore, Pilbury, little Jack Bowdon, Baxter ("Horrible" Baxter) Bayney, Mr. Claversgill, the solemn oldDuke of Bascourt (a Dane), Ephraim T. Seeber, Algernon Gutt, Feverthorpe (whom that old wit Core used to call "_Feather_thorpe"), and many others with whose names I will not weary the reader, for hewould think me too reminiscent and digressive were I to add to the list"Cocky" Billings, "Fat Harry", Mr. Muntzer, Mr. Eartham, dear, courteous, old-world Squire Howle, and that prime favourite, Lord Mann. "Sambo"Courthorpe, Ring, the Coffee-cooler, and Harry Sark, with all theForfarshire lot, also fell under my eye, as did Maxwell, Mr. Gam----

However, such an introduction may prove overlong for the complaint Ihave to publish. I have said enough to show the position my friendholds. Many of my readers on reading this list will guess at oncethe true name of the club, and may also come near that of mydistinguished friend, but I am bound in honour to disguise it underthe veil of a pseudonym or _nom de guerre_; I will call him Mr. Quail. 

Mr. Quail, then, was off to shoot grouse on a moor he had taken inMull for the season; the house and estate are well known to all ofus; I will disguise the moor under the pseudonym or _nom deguerre_ of "Othello". He was awaited at "Othello" on the eveningof the eleventh; for on the one hand there is an Act most strictlyobserved that not a grouse may be shot until the dawn of August12th, and on the other a day passed at "Othello" with any otheroccupation but that of shooting would be hell. 

Mr. Quail, therefore, proposed to travel to "Othello" by way ofGlasgow, taking the 9. 47 at St. Pancras on the evening of the10th--last Monday--and engaging a bed on that train. 

It is essential, if a full, Christian and sane view is to be had ofthis relation, that the reader should note the following details:--

Mr. Quail had _engaged_ the bed. He had sent his cheque for ita week before and held the receipt signed "T. Macgregor, Superintendent". 

True, there was a notice printed very small on the back of thereceipt saying the company would not be responsible in any case ofdisappointment, overcrowding, accident, delay, robbery, murder, orthe Act of God; but my friend Mr. Quail very properly paid noattention to that rubbish, knowing well enough (he is a J. P. ) that aman cannot sign himself out of his common-law rights. 

In order to leave ample time for the train, my friend Mr. Quailordered dinner at eight--a light meal, for his wife had gone to theEngadine some weeks before. At nine precisely he was in his carriagewith his coachman on the box to drive his horses, his man Mole also, and Piggy the little dog in with him. He knows it was nine, becausehe asked the butler what time it was as he left the dining-room, andthe butler answered "Five minutes to nine, my Lord"; moreover, theclock in the dining-room, the one on the stairs and his own watch, all corroborated the butler's statement. 

He arrived at St. Pancras. "If, " as he sarcastically wrote to thecompany, "your _own clocks_ are to be trusted, " at 9. 21. 

So far so good. He had twenty-six minutes to spare. On his carriagedriving up to the station he was annoyed to discover an enormousseething mob through which it was impossible to penetrate, swirlinground the booking office and behaving with a total lack ofdiscipline which made the confusion ten thousand times worse than itneed have been. 

"I wish, " said Mr. Quail to me later, with some heat, "I wish Icould have put some of those great hulking brutes into the ranks fora few months! Believe me, conscription would work wonders!" Mr. Quail himself holds a commission in the Yeomanry, and knows what heis talking about. But that is neither here nor there. I only mentionit to show what an effect this anarchic mob produced upon a man ofMr. Quail's trained experience. 

His man Mole had purchased the tickets in the course of the day;unfortunately, on being asked for them he confessed in someconfusion to having mislaid them. 

Mr. Quail was too well bred to make a scene. He quietly despatched hisman Mole to the booking office with orders to get new tickets whilehe waited for him at an appointed place near the door. He had not beenthere five minutes, he had barely seen his man struggle through thepress towards the booking office, when a hand was laid upon hisshoulder and a policeman told him in an insolent and surly tone to"move out of it. " Mr. Quail remonstrated, and the policeman--who, I amassured, was only a railway servant in disguise--_bodily and physically_forced him from the doorway. 

To this piece of brutality Mr. Quail ascribes all his subsequentmisfortunes. Mr. Quail was on the point of giving his card, when hefound himself caught in an eddy of common people who bore him offhis feet; nor did he regain them, in spite of his struggles, untilhe was tightly wedged against the wall at the further end of theroom. 

Mr. Quail glanced at his watch, and found it to be twenty minutes toten. There were but seven minutes left before his train would start, and his appointment with his man, Mole, was hopelessly missed unlesshe took the most immediate steps to recover it. 

Mr. Quail is a man of resource; he has served in South Africa, andis a director of several companies. He noticed that porters pushingheavy trollies and crying "By your leave" had some chance of forgingthrough the brawling welter of people. He hailed one such; andstretching, as best he could, from his wretched fix, begged him toreach the door and tell his man Mole where he was. At the same time--asthe occasion was most urgent (for it was now 9. 44)--he held out half asovereign. The porter took it respectfully enough, but to Mr. Quail'shorror the menial had no sooner grasped the coin than he made off inthe opposite direction, pushing his trolley indolently before him andcrying "By your leave" in a tone that mingled insolence with a coarseexultation. 

Mr. Quail, now desperate, fought and struggled to be free--therewere but two minutes left--and he so far succeeded as to breakthrough the human barrier immediately in front of him. It may be heused some necessary violence in this attempt; at any rate a woman ofthe most offensive appearance raised piercing shrieks and swore thatshe was being murdered. 

The policeman (to whom I have before alluded) came jostling throughthe throng, seized Mr. Quail by the collar, and crying "What!Again?" treated him in a manner which (in the opinion of Mr. Quail'ssolicitor) would (had Mr. Quail retained his number) have warranteda criminal prosecution. 

Meanwhile Mr. Quail's man Mole was anxiously looking for him, firstat the refreshment bar, and later at the train itself. Here he wasstartled to hear the Guard say "Going?" and before he could reply hewas (according to his own statement) thrust into the train whichimmediately departed, and did not stop till Peterborough; there thefaithful fellow assures us he alit, returning home in the earlyhours of the morning. 

Mr. Quail himself was released with a torn coat and collar, hiseye-glasses smashed, his watch-chain broken, and smarting under awarning from the policeman not to be caught doing it again. 

He went home in a cab to find every single servant out of the house, junketing at some music-hall or other, and several bottles of wine, with a dozen glasses, standing ready for them against their return, on his own study table. 

The unhappy story need not be pursued. Like every misfortune it breda crop of others, some so grievous that none would expose them tothe public eye, and one consequence remote indeed but clearlytraceable to that evening nearly dissolved a union of seventeenyears. I do not believe that any one of those who are for everpresenting to us the miseries of the lower classes, would have met adisaster of this sort with the dignity and the manliness of myfriend, and I am further confident that the recital of his sufferinghere given will not have been useless in the great debate nowengaged as to the function of wealth in our community. 

ON A CHILD WHO DIED

There was once a little Whig. .. . 

Ugh! The oiliness, the public theft, the cowardice, the welter ofsin! One cannot conceive the product save under shelter and in themidst of an universal corruption. 

Well, then, there was once a little Tory. But stay; that is not apleasant thought. .. . 

Well, then there was once a little boy whose name was Joseph, andnow I have launched him, I beg you to follow most precisely all thathe said, did and was, for it contains a moral. But I would have youbear me witness that I have withdrawn all harsh terms, and havecalled him neither Whig nor Tory. Nevertheless I will not deny thathad he grown to maturity he would inevitably have been a politician. As you will be delighted to find at the end of his short biography, he did not reach that goal. He never sat upon either of the frontbenches. He never went through the bitter business of choosing hisparty and then ratting when he found he had made a mistake. He neverso much as got his hand into the public pocket. Nevertheless readhis story and mark it well. It is of immense purport to the State. 

 * * * * *

When little Joseph was born, his father (who could sketch remarkablywell and had rowed some years before in his College boat) wascongratulated very warmly by his friends. One lady wrote to him:"_Your_ son cannot fail to add distinction to an already famousname"--for little Joseph's father's uncle had been an UnderSecretary of State. Then another, the family doctor, said heartily, "Well, well, all doing excellently; another Duggleton" (for littleJoseph's father's family were Duggletons) "and one that will keepthe old flag flying. "

Little Joseph's father's aunt whose husband had been the UnderSecretary, wrote and said she was longing to see the _lastDuggleton_, and hinted that a Duggleton the more was sheer gainto This England which Our Fathers Made. His father put his name downthat very day for the Club and met there Baron Urscher, who promisedevery support "if God should spare him to the time when he mightwelcome another Duggleton to these old rooms. " The baron thenrecalled the names of Charlie Fox and Beau Rimmel, that was to say, Brummel. He said an abusive word or two about Mr. Gladstone, who wasthen alive, and went away. 

Little Joseph for many long weeks continued to seem much likeothers, and if he had then died (as some cousins hoped he would, andas, indeed, there seemed to be a good chance on the day that heswallowed the pebble at Bournemouth) I should have no more to writeabout. There would be an end of little Joseph so far as you and Iare concerned; and as for the family of Duggleton, why any one butthe man who does Society Notes in the _Evening Yankee_ shouldwrite about them I can't conceive. 

Well, but little Joseph did not die--not just then, anyhow. He livedto learn to speak, and to talk, and to put out his tongue atvisitors, let alone interrupting his parents with unpleasing remarksand telling lies. It was early observed that he did all these thingswith a _je-ne-scais-quoy_ and a _verve_ quite different from the mannerof his little playmates. When one day he moulded out, flattened andunshaped the waxen nose of a doll of his, it was apparent to all thatit had been very skilfully done, and showed a taste for modelling, and the admiration this excited was doubled when it was discoveredthat he had called the doll "Aunt Garry". He took also to drawingthings with a pencil as early as eight years old, and for this talenthis father's house was very suitable, for Mrs. Duggleton had niceLouis XV furniture, all white and gold, and a quaint new brown-papermedium on her walls. Colour, oddly enough, little Joseph could notpretend to; but he had a remarkably fine ear, and was often heard, before he was ten years old, singing some set of words or other overand over again very loudly upon the staircase to a few single notes. 

It seems incredible, but it is certainly true, that he even composed_verses_ at the age of eleven, wherein "land" and "strand", "more" and "shore" would frequently recur, the latter being commonlyassociated with England, to which, his beloved country, theintelligent child would add the epithet "old". 

He was, a short time after this, discovered playing upon words andwould pun upon "rain" and "reign", as also upon "Wales" the country(or rather province, for no patriot would admit a Divided Crown) and"Whales"--the vast Oceanic or Thalassic mammals that swim in Arcticwaters. 

He asked questions that showed a surprising intelligence and at thesame time betrayed a charming simplicity and purity of mind. Thus hewould cross-examine upon their recent movements ladies who came tocall, proving them very frequently to have lied, for he was puzzledlike most children by the duplicity of the gay world. Or again, hewould ask guests at the dinner table how old they were and whetherthey liked his father and mother, and this in a loud and shrill waythat provoked at once the attention and amusement of the selectcoterie (for coterie it was) that gathered beneath his father'sroof. 

As is so often the case with highly strung natures, he was morbidlysensitive in his self-respect. Upon one occasion he had inventedsome boyish nickname or other for an elderly matron who was presentin his mother's drawing-room, and when that lady most forcibly urgedhis parent to chastise him he fled to his room and wrote a shortnote in pencil forgiving his dear mamma her intimacy with hisenemies and announcing his determination to put an end to his life. His mother on discovering this note pinned to her chair gave way tovery natural alarm and rushed upstairs to her darling, with whom sheremonstrated in terms deservedly severe, pointing out the folly andwickedness of self-destruction and urging that such thoughts wereunfit for one of his tender years, for he was then barely thirteen. 

This incident and many others I could quote made a profoundimpression upon the Honourable Mr. And Mrs. Duggleton, who, by thetime of their son's adolescence, were convinced that Providence hadentrusted them with a vessel of no ordinary fineness. They discussedthe question of his schooling with the utmost care, and at the ageof fifteen sent "little Joseph", as they still affectionately calledhim, to the care of the Rev. James Filbury, who kept a small butexceedingly expensive school upon the banks of the River Thames. 

The three years that he spent at this establishment were among thehappiest in the life of his father's private secretary, and arestill remembered by many intimate friends of the family. 

He was twice upon the point of securing the prize for Biblicalstudies and did indeed take that for French and arithmetic. Mr. Filbury assured his father that he had the very highest hopes of hiscareer at the University. "Joseph, " he wrote, "is a fine, highlytempered spirit, one to whom continual application is difficult, butwho is capable of high flights of imagination not often reached byour sturdy English boyhood. .. . I regret that I cannot see my way toreducing the charge for meat at breakfast. Joseph's health isexcellent, and his scholarship, though by no means ripe, showspromise of that . .. " and so forth. 

I have no space to give the letter in full; it betrays in every linethe effect this gifted youth had produced upon one well acquaintedwith the marks of future greatness;--for Mr. Filbury had been thetutor and was still the friend of the Duke of Buxton, the sometimeform-master of the present Bishop of Lewes and the cousin of thelate Joshua Lambkin of Oxford. 

Little Joseph's entry into college life abundantly fulfilled theexpectations held of him. The head of his college wrote to hisgreat-aunt (the wife of the Under Secretary of State) ". .. He hassomething in him of what men of Old called prophecy and we termgenius . .. ", old Dr. Biddlecup the Dean asked the boy to dinner, andafterwards assured his father that little Joseph was the image ofWilliam Pitt, whom he falsely pretended to have seen in childhood, and to whom the Duggletons were related through Mrs. Duggleton'sgrandmother, whose sister had married the first cousin of theSaviour of Europe. 

Dr. Biddlecup was an old man and may not have been accurate in hishistorical pretensions, but the main truth of what he said wascertain, for Joseph resembled the great statesman at once in hisphysical appearance, for he was sallow and had a turned-up nose: inhis gifts: in his oratory which was ever remarkable at the socialclubs and wines--and alas! in his fondness for port. 

Indeed, little Joseph had to pay the price of concentrating inhimself the genius of three generations, he suffered more thanone of the temptations that assault men of vigorous imagination. Hekept late hours, drank--perhaps not always to excess but alwaysover-frequently--and gambled, if not beyond his means, at least witha feverish energy that was ruinous to his health. He fell desperatelyill in the fortnight before his schools, but he was granted an_aegrotat_, a degree equivalent in his case to a First Class inHonours, and he was asked by one or other of the Colleges to competefor a Fellowship; it was, however, given to another candidate. 

After this failure he went home, and on his father's advice, attempted political work; but the hurry and noise of an electiondisgusted him, and it is feared that his cynical and highlyepigrammatic speeches were another cause of his defeat. 

Sir William Mackle, who had watched the boy with the tenderestinterest and listened to his fancied experiences with a father'spatience, ordered complete rest and change, and recommended theSouth of France; he was sent thither with a worthless friend orrather dependent, who permitted the lad to gamble and even to borrowmoney, and it was this friend to whom Sir William (in his letter tothe Honourable Mr. Duggleton acknowledging receipt of his cheque)attributed the tragedy that followed. 

"Had he not, " wrote the distinguished physician, "permitted our poorJoseph to borrow money of him; had he resolutely refused to drinkwine at dinner; had he locked Joseph up in his room every evening atthe opening hour of the Casino, we should not have to deplore theloss of one of England's noblest. " Nor did the false friend makethings easier for the bereaved father by suggesting ere twelve shortmonths had elapsed that the sums Joseph had borrowed of him shouldbe repaid. 

Joseph, one fatal night, somewhat heated by wine, had heard aFrenchman say to an Italian at his elbow certain very outrageousthings about one Mazzini. The pair were discussing a localbookmaker, but the boy, whose passion for Italian unity is now wellknown, imagined that the Philosopher and Statesman was in question;he fell into such a passion and attacked these offensive foreignerswith such violence as to bring on an attack from which he did notrecover: his grave now whitens the hillside of the Monte Resorto (inFrench Mont-resort). 

He left some fifty short poems in the manner of Shelley, Rossettiand Swinburne, and a few in an individual style that would surelyhave developed with age. These have since been gathered into avolume and go far to prove the truth of his father's despairing cry:"Joseph, " the poor man sobbed as he knelt by the insanitarycurtained bed on which the body lay, "Joseph would have done for thename of Duggleton in literature what my Uncle did for it inpolitics. "

His portrait may be found in _Annals of the RutlandshireGentry_, a book recently published privately by subscriptions oftwo guineas, payable to the gentleman who produced that handsomevolume. 

ON A LOST MANUSCRIPT

If this page does not appal you, nothing will. 

If these first words do not fill you with an uneasy presentiment ofdoom, indeed, indeed you have been hitherto blessed in an ignoranceof woe. 

It is lost! What is lost? The revelation this page was to afford. The essay which was to have stood here upon page 127 of my book: thenoblest of them all. 

The words you so eagerly expected, the full exposition which was tohave brought you such relief, is not here. 

It was lost just after I wrote it. It can never be re-written; it isgone. 

Much depended upon it; it would have led you to a great and to arapidly acquired fortune; but you must not ask for it. You must turnyour mind away. It cannot be re-written, and all that can take itsplace is a sort of dirge for departed and irrecoverable things. 

"Lugete o Veneres Cupidinesque, " which signifies "Mourn oh! youpleasant people, you spirits that attend the happiness of mankind":"et quantum est hominum venustiorum, " which signifies "and you suchmortals as are chiefly attached to delightful things. " _Passer_, etc. , which signifies my little, careful, tidy bit of writing, _mortuus est_, is lost. I lost it in a cab. 

It was a noble and accomplished thing. Pliny would have loved it whosaid: "Ea est stomachi mei natura ut nil nisi merum atque totumvelit, " which signifies "such is the character of my taste that itwill tolerate nothing but what is absolute and full. " . .. It is nouse grumbling about the Latin. The nature of great disasters callsout for that foundational tongue. They roll as it were (do the greatdisasters of our time) right down the emptiness of the centuriesuntil they strike the walls of Rome and provoke these sonorousechoes worthy of mighty things. 

It was to have stood here instead of this, its poor apologist. Itwas to have filled these lines, this space, this very page. It isnot here. You all know how, coming eagerly to a house to see someonedearly loved, you find in their place on entering a sister or afriend who makes excuses for them; you all know how the mind growsblank at the news and all nature around one shrivels. It is a worseemptiness than to be alone. So it is with me when I consider this asI write it, and then think of That Other which should have taken itsplace; for what I am writing now is like a little wizened figuredressed in mourning and weeping before a deserted shrine, but ThatOther which I have lost would have been like an Emperor returnedfrom a triumph and seated upon a throne. 

Indeed, indeed it was admirable! If you ask me where I wrote it, itwas in Constantine, upon the Rock of Cirta, where the storms comebowling at you from Mount Atlas and where you feel yourself part ofthe sky. At least it was there in Cirta that I blocked out thething, for efforts of that magnitude are not completed in one placeor day. It was in Cirta that I carved it into form and gave it ageneral life, upon the 17th of January, 1905, sitting where long agoMassinissa had come riding in through the only gate of the city, sitting his horse without stirrups or bridle. Beside me, as I wrote, an Arab looked carefully at every word and shook his head because hecould not understand the language; but the Muses understood andApollo, which were its authors almost as much as I. How graceful itwas and yet how firm! How generous and yet how particular! How easy, how superb, and yet how stuffed with dignity! There ran through it, half-perceived and essential, a sort of broken rhythm that neverdescended to rhetoric, but seemed to enliven and lift up the orderof the words until they were filled with something approachingmusic; and with all this the meaning was fixed and new, the orderlucid, the adjectives choice, the verbs strong, the substantivesmeaty and full of sap. It combined (if I may say so with modesty)all that Milton desired to achieve, with all that Bacon did in themodelling of English. .. . And it is gone. It will never be seen orread or known at all. It has utterly disappeared nor is it evenpreserved in any human memory--no, not in my own. 

I kept it for a year, closely filing, polishing, and emending ituntil one would have thought it final, and even then I continued todevelop and to mould it. It grew like a young tree in the corner ofa fruitful field and gave an enduring pleasure. It never left me bynight or by day; it crossed the Pyrenees with me seven times and theMediterranean twice. It rode horses with me and was become a part ofmy habit everywhere. In trying to ford the Sousseyou I held it highout of the water, saving it alone, and once by a camp fire I wokeand read it in the mountains before dawn. My companions slept oneither side of me. The great brands of pine glowed and gave melight; there was a complete silence in the forest except for thenoise of water, and in the midst of such spells I was so entrancedby the beauty of the thing that when I had done my reading I took adead coal from the fire and wrote at the foot of the paper: "Thereis not a word which the most exuberant could presume to add, nor onewhich the most fastidious would dare to erase. " All that glory hasvanished. 

I know very well what the cabman did. He looked through the trap-doorin the top of the roof to see if I had left anything behind. It wasin Vigo Street, at the corner, that the fate struck. He looked andsaw a sheet or two of paper--something of no value. He crumpled it upand threw it away, and it joined the company which men have not beenthought worthy to know. It went to join Calvus and the dreadful booksof the Sibyl, and those charred leaves which were found on the floorwhere Chatterton lay dead. 

I went three times to Scotland Yard, allowing long intervals andtorturing myself with hope. Three times my hands thought to hold it, and three times they closed on nothingness. A policeman then told methat cabmen very rarely brought him written things, but rathersticks, gloves, rings, purses, parcels, umbrellas, and the crushedhats of drunken men, not often verse or prose; and I abandoned myquest. 

There are some reading this who may think me a trifle too fond andmay doubt the great glory to which I testify here. They willremember how singularly the things we no longer possess rise uponthe imagination and enlarge themselves, and they will quote thatpathetic error whereby the dead become much dearer to us when we canno longer smile into their faces or do them the good we desire. Theywill suggest (most tenderly) that loss and the enchantment of memoryhave lent a thought too much of radiance and of harmony to what wascertainly a noble creation of the mind, but still human and shotwith error. 

To such a criticism I cannot reply, I have no longer, alas! the bestof replies, the Thing Itself, the Achievement: and not having that Ihave nothing. I am without weapons. Who shall convince ofpersonality, of beauty, or of holiness, unless they be seen andfelt? So it is with letters, and if I am not believed--or even if Iam--it is of little moment, for the beloved object is rapt away. 

Its matter--if one can say that anything so manifold and exalted hada mere subject--its matter was the effect of the piercing of theSuez Canal upon coastwise trade in the Mediterranean, but it isprofane to bring before the general gaze a title which can tell theworld nothing of the iridescence and vitality it has lost. 

I will not console myself with the uncertain guess that thingsperished are in some way recoverable beyond the stars, nor hope tosee and read again the artistry and the result whose loss I havemourned in these lines; but if, as the wisest men imagine, there isa place of repose for whatever most deserves it among the shades, there either I or others worthier may read what will never be readby living eyes or praised by living lips again. It may be so. Butthe loss alone is certain. 

ON A MAN WHO WAS PROTECTED BY ANOTHER MAN

There was once a man called Mahmoud. He had other names, such asAli, Akbar, and Shmaeil, and so forth, with which I will not troubleyou, because in very short stories it is important not to confusethe mind. I have been assured of this by many authorities, some ofwhom make a great deal of money by short stories, and all of whomknow a great deal about the way in which they ought to be written. 

Now I come to think of it, I very much doubt whether this is a shortstory at all, for it has no plot so far and I do not see any plotdeveloping. No matter. The thing is to say what one has to sayhumbly but fully. Providence will look after the rest. 

So, as I was saying, there was a man called Mahmoud. He lived in acountry entirely made of sand. There were hills which on the mapswere called mountains, but when you came to look at them they wereonly a lot more sand, and there was nothing about them except anaspect of sand heaped up. You may say, "How, then, did Mahmoud builda house?" He did not. He lived in a tent. "But, " you continue, "whatdid he do about drinking?" Well, it was Mahmoud's habit to go to aplace where he knew that by scratching a little he would find badwater, and there he would scratch a little and find it, and, beingan abstemious man, he needed but a drop. 

The sun in Mahmoud's country was extremely hot. It stood right upabove one's head and looked like the little thing that you get inthe focus of a burning glass. The sun made it almost impossible tomove, except in the early morning or at evening, and even during thenight it was not particularly cool. It never rained in this place. 

There were no rivers and no trees. There was no grass, and the onlyanimal was a camel. The camel was content to eat a kind of scrubthat grew here and there on the sand, and it drank the little waterMahmoud could afford it, and was permanently happy. So was Mahmoud. Beneath him the sand sloped down until it met the sea, which wastepid on account of the great heat, and in which were a lot of fish, pearls, and other things. Every now and then Mahmoud would force ason or domestic of his to go down and hoick out a pearl, and thispearl he would exchange for something that he absolutely needed, such as a new tent or a new camel, and then he went on living theway he had been living before. 

Now, one day there came to this part of the world a man calledSmith. He was dressed as you and I are, in trousers and a coat andboots, and he had a billycock hat on. He had a foolish, anxiousface. He did not keep his word particularly; and he was exceedinglyfond of money. He had spent most of his life accumulating all sortsof wealth in a great bag, and he landed with this bag in Mahmoud'scountry, and Mahmoud was as polite to him as the heat would allow. Then Mahmoud said to him:

"You appear to be a very rich man. "

And Smith said:

"I am, " and opened his bag and showed a great quantity of things. SoMahmoud was pleased and astonished, and fussed a good dealconsidering the climate, and got quite a quantity of pearls out ofthe sea, and gave them to Smith, who let him have a gun, but a badone; and he, Smith, retained a good rifle. Then Smith sat down andwaited for about six months, living on the provisions he had broughtin his bag, until Mahmoud said to him:

"What have you come to do here?"

And Smith said:

"Why, to tell you the honest truth, I have come to protect you. "

So Mahmoud thought a long time, smoking a pipe, because he did notunderstand a word of what Smith had said. Then Mahmoud said:

"All right, protect away, " and after that there was a silence forabout another six months, and nothing had happened. 

Mahmoud did not mind being protected, because it made no differenceto him, and after a certain time he had got all he wanted out ofSmith, and was tired of bothering about the pearls. So he and Smithjust lived side by side doing nothing in particular, except thatSmith went on protecting and that Mahmoud went on being protected. But while Mahmoud was perfectly content to be protected tillDoomsday, being an easy-going kind of fellow, Smith was more andmore put out. He was a trifle irritable by nature. The climate didnot suit him. He drank beer and whisky and other things quitedangerous under such a sun, and he came out all over like themeasles. He tried to pass the time riding on a camel. At first hethought it great sport, but after a little he got tired of thatalso. He began to write poetry, all about Mahmoud, and as Mahmoudcould not read it did not much matter. Then he wrote poetry abouthimself, making out Mahmoud to be excessively fond of him, and thispoetry he read to himself, and it calmed him; but as Mahmoud did notknow about this poetry, Smith got bored with it, and, his irritationincreasing, he wrote more poetry, showing Mahmoud to be a villainand a serf, and showing himself, Smith, to be under a divinemission. 

Now, just when things had come to this unpleasant state Mahmoud gotup and shook himself and began skipping and dancing outside the doorof his tent and running round and round it very fast, and waving hishands in the air, and shouting incongruous things. 

Smith was exceedingly annoyed by this. He had never gone on likethat himself, and he did not see why Mahmoud should. But Mahmoud hadlived there a good deal longer than Smith had, and he knew that itwas absolutely necessary. There were stories of people in the pastwho had felt inclined to go on like this and had restrainedthemselves with terrible consequences. So Mahmoud went on worse thanever, running as fast as he could out into the sand, shouting, leaping into the air, and then running back again as fast as hecould, and firing off his gun and calling upon his god. 

Smith, whose nerves were at the last stretch, asked Mahmoud savagelywhat he was about. To this Mahmoud gave no reply, save to twirlround rapidly upon one foot and to fall down foaming at the mouth. Smith, therefore, losing all patience, said to Mahmoud:

"If you do not stop I will shoot you by way of protecting youagainst yourself. "

Mahmoud did not know what the word protected meant, but heunderstood the word shoot, and shouting with joy, he blew offSmith's hat with his gun, and said:

"A fight! a fight!"

For he loved fighting when he was in this mood, while Smith detestedit. 

Smith, however, remembered that he had come there to protectMahmoud; he set his teeth, aimed with his rifle, fired at Mahmoud, and missed. 

Mahmoud was so surprised at this that he ran at Smith, and rolledhim over and over on the ground. Then they unclenched, both verymuch out of breath, and Smith said:

"Will you or will you not be protected?"

Mahmoud said he should be delighted. Moreover, he said that he hadgiven his word that he would be protected, and that he was not a manto break his word. 

After that he took Smith by the hand and shook it up and down forabout five minutes, until Smith was grievously put out. 

When they were friends again. Smith said to Mahmoud:

"Will you not go down into the sea and get me some more pearls?"

"No, " said Mahmoud, "I am always very exhausted after theseattacks. "

Then Smith sat down by the seashore and began to cry, thinking ofhis home and of the green trees and of the North, and he wroteanother poem about the burden that he had borne, and of what a greatman he was and how he went all over the world protecting people, andhow brave he was, and how Mahmoud also was very brave, but how hewas much braver than Mahmoud. Then he said:

"Mahmoud, I am going away back to my distant home, unless you willget me more pearls. "

But Mahmoud said:

"I cannot get you any more pearls because it is too hot, and if onlyyou will stop you can go on doing some protecting, which, upon mysoul, I do like better than anything in the world. "

And even as he said this he began jumping about and shouting strangethings and waving his gun, and Smith at once went away. 

Then Mahmoud sat down sadly by the sea, and thought of how Smith hadprotected him, and how now all that was passed and the oldmonotonous life would begin again. But Smith went home, and all hisneighbours asked how it was that he protected so well, and he wrotea book to enlighten them, called _How I Protected Mahmoud_. Then all his neighbours read this book and went out in a great boatto do something of the same kind. And Smith could not refrain fromsmiling. 

Mahmoud, however, by his lonely shore, regretted more and more thisepisode in his dull life, and he wept when he remembered thefantastic Smith, who had such an enormous number of things in hisbag and who had protected him; and he also wrote a poem, which israther difficult to understand in connection with the business, butwhich to him exactly described it. And the poem went like this;having no metre and no rhyming, and being sung to three notes and aquarter in a kind of wail:

"When the jackal and the lion meet it is full moon; it is full moonand the gazelles are abroad. "

"Why are the gazelles abroad when the jackal and the lion meet: whenit is full moon in the desert and there is no wind?"

"There is no wind because the gazelles are abroad, the moon is atthe full, and the lion and the jackal are together. "

"Where is he that protected me and where is the great battle and theshouts and the feasting afterwards, and where is that bag?"

"But we dwell in the desert always, and men do not visit us, and thelion and the jackal have met, and it is full moon, O gazelles!"

Mahmoud was so pleased with this song that he wrote it down, a thinghe only did with one song out of several thousands, for he wrotewith difficulty, but I think it a most ridiculous song, and I farprefer Smith's, though you would never know it had to do with thesame business. 

ON NATIONAL DEBTS (WHICH ARE IMAGINARIES AND TRUE NOTHINGS OF STATE)

One day Peter and Paul--I knew them both, the dear fellows: Peterperhaps a trifle wild, Paul a little priggish, but that is no matter--one day, I say, Peter and Paul (who lived together in rooms offSouthampton Row, Bloomsbury, a very delightful spot) were talkingover their mutual affairs. 

"My dear Paul, " said Peter, "I wish I could persuade you to thisexpenditure. It will be to our mutual advantage. Come now, you haveten thousand a year of your own and I with great difficulty earn ahundred; it is surprising that you should make the fuss you do. Besides which you well know that this feeding off packing-cases isirksome; we really need a table and it will but cost ten pounds. "

To all this Paul listened doubtfully, pursing up his lips, joiningthe tips of his fingers, crossing his legs and playing the solemnfool generally. 

"Peter, " said he, "I mislike this scheme of yours. It is a heavyoutlay for a single moment. It would disturb our credit, and yoursespecially, for your share would come to five pounds and you wouldhave to put off paying the Press-Cutting agency to which youfoolishly subscribe. No; there is an infinitely better way than thiscrude idea of paying cash down in common. I will lend the whole sumof ten pounds to our common stock and we will each pay one pound ayear as interest to myself for the loan. I for my part will notshirk my duty in the matter of this interest and I sincerely trustyou will not shirk yours. "

Peter was so delighted with this arrangement that his gratitude knewno bounds. He would frequently compliment himself in private on theadvantage of living with Paul, and when he went out to see hisfriends it was with the jovial air of the Man with the BottomlessPurse, for he did not feel the pound a year he had to pay, and Paulalways seemed willing to undertake similar expenses on similarterms. He purchased a bronze over-mantel, he fitted the rooms withelectric light, he bought (for the common use) a large prize dog for£56, and he was for ever bringing in made dishes, bottles of wineand what not, all paid for by this lending of his. The interestincreased to £20 and then to £30 a year, but Paul was so rigorouslyhonest, prompt and exact in paying himself the interest that Petercould not bear to be behindhand or to seem less punctual and uprightthan his friend. But so high a proportion of his small income goingin interest left poor Peter but a meagre margin for himself and hehad to dine at Lockhart's and get his clothes ready made, which (toa refined and sensitive soul such as his) was a grievous trial. 

Some little time after a Fishmonger who had attained to Cabinet rankwas married to the daughter of a Levantine and London was inconsequence illuminated. Paul said to Peter in his jovial way, "Itis imperative that we should show no meanness upon this occasion. Weare known for the most flourishing and well-to-do pair of bachelorsin the neighbourhood, and I have not hesitated (for I know I hadyour consent beforehand) to go to Messrs. Brock and order an immensequantity of fireworks for the balcony on this auspicious occasion. Not a word. The loan is mine and very freely do I make it to ourMutual Position. "

So that night there was an illumination at their flat, and thecentre-piece was a vast combination of roses, thistles, shamrocks, leeks, kangaroos, beavers, schamboks, and other national emblems, and beneath it the motto, "United we stand, divided we fall: Peterand Paul, " in flaming letters two feet high. 

Peter was after this permanently reduced to living upon rice and tomending his own clothes; but he could easily see how fair thearrangement was, and he was not the man to grumble at a freecontract. Moreover, he was expecting a rise in salary from theeditor of the _Hoot_, in which paper he wrote "Woman's World", and signed it "Emily". 

At the close of the year Peter had some difficulty in meeting theinterest, though Paul had, with true business probity, paid his onthe very day it fell due. Peter therefore approached Paul with somelittle diffidence and hesitation, saying:

"Paul: I trust you will excuse me, but I beg you will be so verygood as to see your way, if possible, to granting me an extension oftime in the matter of paying my interest. "

Paul, who was above everything regular and methodical, replied:

"Hum, chrm, chrum, chrm. Well, my dear Peter, it would not begenerous to press you, but I trust you will remember that this moneyhas not been spent upon my private enjoyment. It has gone for theglory of our Mutual Position; pray do not forget that, Peter; andremember also that if you have to pay interest, so have I, so haveI. We are all in the same boat, Peter, sink or swim; sink orswim. .. . " Then his face brightened, he patted Peter genially on theshoulder and added: "Do not think me harsh, Peter. It is necessarythat I should keep to a strict, business-like way of doing things, for I have a large property to manage; but you may be sure that myfriendship for you is of more value to me than a few paltrysovereigns. I will lend you the sum you owe to the interest on theCommon Debt, and though in strict right you alone should pay theinterest on this new loan I will call half of it my own and youshall pay but £1 a year on it for ever. "

Peter's eyes swam with tears at Paul's generosity, and he thankedhis stars that his lot had been cast with such a man. But when Paulcame again with a grave face and said to him, "Peter, my boy, wemust insure at once against burglars: the underwriters demand ahundred pounds, " his heart broke, and he could not endure thethought of further payments. Paul, however, with the quiet goodsense that characterised him, pointed out the necessity of thepayment and, eyeing Peter with compassion for a moment, told himthat he had long been feeling that he (Peter) had been unfairlytaxed. "It is a principle" (said Paul) "that taxation should fallupon men in proportion to their ability to pay it. I am determinedthat, whatever happens, you shall in future pay but a third of theinterest that may accrue upon further loans. " It was in vain thatPeter pointed out that, in his case, even a thirtieth would meanstarvation; Paul was firm and carried his point. 

The wretched Peter was now but skin and bone, and his earning power, small as it had ever been, was considerably lessened. Paul began tofear very seriously for his invested funds: he therefore kept upPeter's spirits as best he could with such advice as the following:--

"Dear Peter, do not repine; your lot is indeed hard, but it has itssilver lining. You are the member of a partnership famous among allother bachelor-residences for its display of fireworks and its finefurniture. So valuable is the room in which you live that theinsurance alone is the wonder and envy of our neighbours. Consideralso how firm and stable these loans make our comradeship. They giveme a stake in the rooms and furnish a ready market for the sparecapital of our little community. The interest WE pay upon the fundis an evidence of our social rank, and all London stares withastonishment at the flat of Peter and Paul, which can without aneffort buy such gorgeous furniture at a moment's notice. "

But, alas! these well-meant words were of no avail. On a beautifulspring day, when all the world seemed to be holding him to the joysof living, Peter passed quietly away in his little truckle bed, unattended even by a doctor, whose fees would have necessitated aloan the interest of which he could never have paid. 

Paul, on the death of Peter, gave way at first to bitterrecrimination. "Is this the way, " he said, "that you repay years ofunstinted generosity? Nay, is this the way you meet your sacredobligations? You promised upon a thousand occasions to pay yourshare of the interest for ever, and now like a defaulter you abandonyour post and destroy half the revenue of our firm by oneintempestive and thoughtless act! Had you but possessed a littleproperty which, properly secured, would continue to meet the claimsyou had incurred, I had not blamed you. But a man who earns all thathe possesses has no right to pledge himself to perpetual paymentunless he is prepared to live for ever!"

Nobler thoughts, however, succeeded this outburst, and Paul threwhimself upon the bed of his Departed Friend and moaned. "Who nowwill pay me an income in return for my investments? All my fortuneis sunk in this flat, though I myself pay the interest never soregularly, it will not increase my fortune by one farthing! I shallas I live consume a fund which will never be replenished, and withina short time I shall be compelled to work for my living!"

Maddened by this last reflection, he dashed into the street, hurriednorthward through-the-now-rapidly-gathering-darkness, and drownedhimself in the Regent's Canal, just where it runs by the ZoologicalGardens, under the bridge that leads to the cages of the largerpachyderms. 

Thus miserably perished Peter and Paul, the one in the thirtieth, the other in the forty-seventh year of his age, both victims totheir ignorance of _Mrs. Fawcett's Political Economy for theYoung_, the _Nicomachean Ethics_, Bastiat's _Economic Harmonies, TheFourth Council of Lateran on Unfruitful Loans and Usury, The Speechesof Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Mr. Brodrick (now Lord Midleton), TheSermons of St. Thomas Aquinas_, under the head "Usuria, "Mr. W. S. Lilly's First _Principles in Politics_, and other workstoo numerous to mention. 

ON LORDS

"_Saepe miratus sum_, " I have often wondered why men wereblamed for seeking to know men of title. That a man should be blamedfor the acceptance of, or uniformity with, ideals not his own isright enough; but a man who simply reveres a Lord does nothing sograve: and why he should not revere such a being passes mycomprehension. 

The institution of Lords has for its object the creation of a highand reverend class; well, a man looks up to them with awe orexpresses his reverence and forthwith finds himself accused! Get ridof Lords by all means, if you think there should be none, but do notcome pestering me with a rule that no Lord shall be considered whileyou are making them by the bushel for the special purpose of beingconsidered--_ad considerandum_ as Quintillian has it in hishighly Quintillianarian essay on I forget what. 

I have heard it said that what is blamed in snobs, _snobinibusquid reatumst_, is not the matter but the manner of theirworship. Those who will have it so maintain that we should pay torank a certain discreet respect which must not be marred by crudeexpression. They compare snobbishness to immodesty, and profess thatthe pleasure of acquaintance with the great should be so enjoyedthat the great themselves are but half-conscious of the homageoffered them: this is rather a subtle and finicky critique of whatis in honest minds a natural restraint. 

I knew a man once--Chatterley was his name, Shropshire his county, and racing his occupation--who said that a snob was blamed for theoffence he gave to Lords themselves. Thus we do well (said this manChatterley) to admire beautiful women, but who would rush into aroom and exclaim loudly at the ladies it contained? So (said thisman Chatterley) is it with Lords, whom we should never forget, butwhom we should not disturb by violent affection or by too persistenta pursuit. 

Then there was a nasty drunken chap down Wapping way who had seenbetter days; he had views on dozens of things and they were oftenworth listening to, and one of his fads was to be for ever preachingthat the whole social position of an aristocracy resided in a veilof illusion, and that hands laid too violently on this veil wouldtear it. It was only by a sort of hypnotism, he said, that weregarded Lords as separate from ourselves. It was a dream, and arough movement would wake one out of it. Snobbishness (he said) didviolence to this sacred film of faith and might shatter it, andhence (he pointed out) was especially hated by Lords themselves. Itwas interesting to hear as a theory and delivered in thosesurroundings, but it is exploded at once by the first experience ofHigh Life and its solid realities. 

There is yet another view that to seek after acquaintance with menof position in some way hurts one's own soul, and that to straintowards our superiors, to mingle our society with their own, isunworthy, because it is destructive of something peculiar toourselves. But surely there is implanted in man an instinct whichleads him to all his noblest efforts and which is, indeed, themotive force of religion, the instinct by which he will ever seek toattain what he sees to be superior to him and more worthy than thethings of his common experience. It seems to be proper, therefore, that no man should struggle against the very natural attractionwhich radiates from superior rank, and I will boldly affirm that hedoes his country a good service who submits to this force. 

The just appetite for rank gives rise to two kinds of duty, one orthe other of which each of us in his sphere is bound to regard. There is first for much the greater part of men the duty of showingrespect and deference to men of title, by which I do not mean onlyLords absolute (which are Barons, Viscounts, Earls, Marquises andDukes), but also Lords in gross, that is the whole body of lords, including lords by courtesy, ladies, their wives and mothers, honourables and cousins--especially heirs of Lords, and to someextent Baronets as well. Secondly, there is the duty of those fewwithin whose power it lies to become Lords, Lords to become, lestthe aristocratic element in our Constitution should decline. Themost obvious way of doing one's duty in this regard if one iswealthy is to purchase a peerage, or a Baronetcy at the least, andwhen I consider how very numerous are the fortunes to which a sum oftwenty or thirty thousand pounds is not really a sacrifice, and howfew of their possessors exercise a tenacious effort to acquire rankby the disbursement of money, I cannot but fear for the future ofthe country! It is no small sign of our times that we should read socontinually of large bequests to public charities made by men whohave had every opportunity for entering the Upper House but whopreferred to remain unnoted in the North of England and to leavetheir posterity no more dignified than they were themselves. 

There is a yet more restricted class to whom it is open to becomeLords by sheer merit. The one by gallant conduct in the field, another by a pretty talent for verse, a third by scientificresearch. And if any of my readers happen to be a man of this kindand yet hesitate to undertake the effort required of him, I wouldpoint out that our Constitution in its wisdom adds certain verymaterial advantages to a peerage of this kind. It is no excuse for aman of military or scientific eminence to say that his income wouldnot enable him to maintain such a dignity. Parliament is alwaysready to vote a sufficient grant of money, and even were it not so, it is quite possible to be a Lord and yet to be but poorly providedwith the perishable goods of this world, as is very clearly seen inthe case of no fewer than eighty-two Barons, fourteen Earls, andthree dukes, a list of whom I had prepared for printing in thesedirections but have most unfortunately mislaid. 

Again, even if one's private means be small, and if Parliament bysome neglect omit to endow one's new splendour, the common sense ofEngland will come to the help of any man so situated if he is worthhis salt. He will with the greatest ease obtain positions ofresponsibility and emolument, notably upon the directorate of publiccompanies, and can often, if he finds his salary insufficient, persuade his fellow-directors to increase it, whether by threateningthem with exposure or by some other less drastic and more convivialmeans. 

If after reading these lines there is anyone who still doubts theattitude that an honest man should take upon this matter, it isenough to point out in conclusion how Providence itself appears tohave designed the whole hierarchy of Lords with a view to temptingman higher and ever higher. Thus, if some reader of this happens tobe a baron, he might think perhaps that it is not worth a furthereffort to receive another grade of distinction. He would be wrong, for such an advance gives a courtesy title to his daughters; onemore step and the same benefit accrues to his sons. After that thereis indeed a hiatus, nor have I ever been able to see what advantageis held out to the viscount who desires to become a marquis--unless, indeed, it be marquises that become viscounts. Anyhow, it is thelatter title which is the less English and the less manly and whichI am glad to hear it is proposed to abolish by a short, one-clausebill in the next Session of Parliament. Above these, the dukes inthe titles of their wives and the mode in which they are addressedstand alone. There is, therefore, no stage in a man's upwardprogress upon this ancient and glorious ladder where he will notfind some great reward for the toil of ascending. In view of thesethings, I for my part hope, in common with many another, that thefoolish pledge given some years ago when the Liberal Party was inopposition, that it would create no more Lords, will be revised nowthat it has to consider the responsibilities of office; a revisionfor which there is ample precedent in the case of other pledgeswhich were as rashly made but of which a reconsideration has beenfound necessary in practice. 

NOTE. --_I find I am wrong upon Viscounts, but as I did notdiscover this until my book was in the press I cannot correct it. The remainder of the matter is accurate enough, and may be relied onby the student. _

ON JINGOES: IN THE SHAPE OF A WARNING

BEING

The sad and lamentable history of Jack Bull, son of the late JohnBull, India Merchant, wherein it will be seen how this prosperousmerchant left an heir that ran riot with 'Squires, trainbands, Blackmen, and Soldiers, and squandered all his substance, so that at lasthe came to selling penny tokens in front of the Royal Exchange inThreadneedle Street, and is now very miserably writing for thepapers. 

John Bull, whom I knew very well, drove a great trade in tea, cottongoods, and bombazine, as also in hardware, all manner of cutlery, good and bad, and especially sea-coal, and was very highly respectedin the City of London, of which he was twice Sheriff and once LordMayor. When he went abroad some begged of him, and to these he wouldgive a million or so at a time openly in the street, so that a crowdwould gather and cry, "Lord! what a generous fellow is this Mr. Bull!" Some, again, of better station would pluck his sleeve andtake him aside into Broad Street Corner or Mansion House Court, andsay, "Mr. Bull, a word in your ear. I have more paper about than Icare for in these hard times, and I could pay you handsomely for ashort loan. " These always found Mr. Bull willing and ready, sure andsilent, and, withal, cheaper at a discount than any other. Forbuying cloth all came to Bull; and for buying other wares his housewas preferred to those of Frog and Hans and the rest, because he wascourteous and ready, always to be found in his office (which wasnear the Wool-pack in Leaden Hall Street, next to Mr. Marlow's, theMethodist preacher), and moreover he was very attentive to littlethings. This last habit he would call the soul of business. In suchfashion Mr. Bull had accumulated a sum of five hundred thousandmillion pounds, or thereabouts, and when he died the neighbours saidthis and that spiteful thing about his son Jack whom he had trainedup to the business, making out that _they knew more than theycared to say_, that _Jack was not John_, that _they had heard of Pridegoing before a fall_, and so much tittle-tattle as jealousy will breed. But they were very much disappointed in their malice, for this sameJack went sturdily to work and trod in his father's steps, so thathis wealth increased even beyond what he had inherited, and he had atlast more risks upon the sea in one way and another than any othermerchant in the City. And if you would know how Jack (who was, totell the truth, more flighty and ill-informed than his father) came togo so wisely, it was thus: Old John had left him a few directions writup in pencil on the mantelpiece, which ran in this way:---

1. Never go into an adventure unless the feeling of your neighboursbe with you. 

2. Spend no more than you earn--nay, put by every year. 

3. Put out no money for show in your business but only for use, saveonly on the occasion of the Lord Mayor's Show, your taking of anoffice, or on the occasion of public holidays, as, when the King'swife or daughter lies in. 

4. Live and let live, for be sure your business can only thrive onthe condition that others do also. 

5. Vex no man at your door; buy and sell freely. 

6. Do not associate with Drunkards, Brawlers and Poets; and God'sblessing be with you. 

Now when Jack was grown to about thirty years old, he came, mostunfortunately, upon a certain Sir John Snipe, Bart. , that was a veryscandalous young squire of Oxfordshire, and one that had publishedfive lyrics and a play (enough to warn any Bull against him), whospoke to him somewhat in this fashion:---

"La! Jack, what a pity you and I should live so separate! I'll bebound you're the best fellow in the world, the very backbone of thecountry. To be sure there's a silly old-fashioned lot of Lumpkins inour part that will have it you're no gentleman, but I say, 'Gentleis as Gentle does, ' and fair play's a jewel. I will enter yourcounting-house as soon as drink to you, as I do here. "

Whereat Jack cried--

"God 'a' mercy, a very kind gentleman! Be welcome to my house. Praytake it as your own. I think you may count me one of you? Eh? Beseated. Come, how can I serve you?": and at last he had thisJackanapes taking a handsome salary for doing nothing. 

When Jack's friends would reproach him and say, "Oh, Jack, Jack, beware this fine gentleman; he will be your ruin, " Jack wouldanswer, "A plague on all levellers, " or again, "What if he be agentleman? So that he have talent 'tis all I seek, " or yet further, "Well, gentle or simple, thank God he's an honest Englishman. "Whereat Jack added to the firm, Isaacs of Hamburg, Larochelle ofCanada, Warramugga of Van Dieman's Land, Smuts Bieken of the Cape ofGood Hope, and the Maharajah of Mahound of the East Indies that wasa plaguey devilish-looking black fellow, pock-marked, and with aterrible great paunch to him. 

So things went all to the dogs with poor Jack, that would hear nosense or reason from his father's old friends, but was always seenarm in arm with Sir John Snipe, Warra Mugga, the Maharajah and therest; drinking at the sign of the "Beerage, " gambling and dicing at"The Tape, " or playing fisticuffs at the "Lord Nelson, " till at lasthe quarrelled with all the world but his boon companions and, whatwas worse, boasted that his father's brother's son, rich JonathanSpare, was of the company. So if he met some dirty dog or other inthe street he would cry, "Come and sup to-night, you shall meetCousin Jonathan!" and when no Jonathan was there he would make athousand excuses saying, "Excuse Jonathan, I pray you, he hasmarried a damned Irish wife that keeps him at home"; or, "What!Jonathan not come? Oh! we'll wait awhile. He never fails, for we arelike brothers!" and so on; till his companions came to think at lastthat he had never met or known Jonathan; which was indeed the case. 

About this time he began to think himself too fine a gentleman tolive over the shop as his father had done, and so asked Sir JohnSnipe where he might go that was more genteel; for he still had toomuch sense to ask any of those other outlandish fellows' advice insuch a matter. At last, on Snipe's bespeaking, he went to Wimbledon, which is a vastly smart suburb, and there, God knows, he fell into athousand absurd tricks so that many thought he was off his head. 

He hired a singing man to stand before his door day and nightsinging vulgar songs out of the street in praise of Dick Turpin andMolly Nog, only forcing him to put in his name of Jack Bull in theplace of the Murderer or Oyster Wench therein celebrated. 

He would drink rum with common soldiers in the public-houses andthen ask them in to dinner to meet gentlemen, saying "These areheroes and gentlemen, which are the two first kinds of men, " andthey would smoke great pipes of tobacco in his very dining-room tothe general disgust. 

He would run out and cruelly beat small boys unaware, and when hehad nigh killed them he would come back and sit up half the nightwriting an account of how he had fought Tom Mauler of Bermondsey andbeaten him in a hundred and two rounds, which (he would add) no manliving but he could do. 

He would hang out of his window a great flag with a challenge on it"to all the people of Wimbledon assembled, or to any of themsingly, " and then he would be seen at his front gate waving a greatred flag and gnawing a bone like a dog, saying that he loved Forceonly, and would fight all and any. 

When he received any print, newspaper, book or pamphlet that praisedany but himself, he would throw it into the fire in a kind offrenzy, calling God to witness that he was the only person ofconsequence in the world, that it was a horrible shame that he wasso neglected, and Lord knows what other rubbish. 

In this spirit he quarrelled with all his fellow-underwriters andfriends and comrades, and that in the most insolent way. For knowingwell that Mr. Frog had a shrew of a wife, he wrote to him dailyasking "if he had had a domestic broil of late, and how his poorhead felt since it was bandaged. " To Mr. Hans, who lived in a smallway and loved gardening, he sent an express "begging him to mind hiscabbages and leave gentlemen to their greater affairs. " To Niccoliniof Savoy, the little swarthy merchant, he sent indeed a more politenote, but as he said in it "that he would be very willing to givehim charity and help him as he could" and as he added "for my fatherit was that put you up in business" (which was a monstrous lie, forFrog had done this) he did but offend. Then to Mr. William Eagle, that was a strutting, arrogant fellow, but willing to be a friend, he wrote every Monday to say that the house of Bull was lost unlessMr. Eagle would very kindly protect it and every Thursday tochallenge him to mortal combat, so that Mr. Eagle (who, to tell thetruth, was no great wit, but something of a dullard and moreoversuffering from a gathering in the ear, a withered arm, and poorblood) gave up his friendship and business with Bull and took tomaking up sermons and speeches for orators. 

He would have no retainers but two, whose common names were Hocusand Pocus, but as he hated the use of common names and as no one hadheard of Hocus' lineage (nor did he himself know it) he called him, Hocus, "Freedom" as being a high-sounding and moral name for afootman and Pocus (whose name was of an ordinary decent kind) hecalled "Glory" as being a good counterweight to Freedom; both thesewere names in his opinion very decent and well suited for agentleman's servants. 

Now Freedom and Glory got together in the apple closet and put it toeach other that, as their master was evidently mad it would be athousand pities to take no advantage of it, and they agreed thatwhatever bit of jobbing Hocus Freedom should do, Pocus Glory shouldapprove; and contrariwise about. But they kept up a sham quarrel tomask this; thus Hocus was for Chapel, Pocus for Church, and it wasagreed Hocus should denounce Pocus for drinking Port. 

The first fruit of their conspiracy was that Hocus recommended hisbrother and sister, his two aunts and nieces and four nephews, hisown six children, his dog, his conventicle-minister, his laundress, his secretary, a friend of whom he had once borrowed five pounds, and a blind beggar whom he favoured, to various posts about thehouse and to certain pensions, and these Jack Bull (though hisfortune was already dwindling) at once accepted. 

Thereupon Pocus loudly reproached Hocus in the servants' hall, saying that the compact had only stood for things in reason, whereatHocus took off his coat and offered to "Take him on, " and Pocus, thinking better of it, managed for his share to place in thehousehold such relatives as he could, namely, Cohen to whom he wasin debt, Bernstein his brother-in-law and all his family of fiveexcept little Hugh that blacked the boots for the Priest, and so wasalready well provided for. 

In this way poor Jack's fortune went to rack and ruin. The clerks inhis office in the City (whom he now never saw) would telegraph to himevery making-up day that there was loss that had to be met, but tothese he always sent the same reply, namely, "Sell stock and scrip tothe amount"; and as that phrase was costly, he made a code-word, towit, "Prosperity, " stand for it. Till one day they sent word "Thereis nothing left. " Then he bethought him how to live on credit, butthis plan was very much hampered by his habit of turning in a passionon all those who did not continually praise him. Did an honest manlook in and say, "Jack, there is a goat eating your cabbages, " hewould fly into a rage and say, "You lie, Pro-Boer, my cabbages aresacred, and Jove would strike the goat dead that dared to eat them, "or if a poor fellow should touch his hat in the street and say, "Pardon, sir, your buttons are awry, " he would answer, "Off, villain!Zounds, knave! Know you not that my Divine buttons are the model ofthings?" and so forth, until he fell into a perfect lunacy. 

But of how he came to selling tokens of little leaden soldiers at apenny in front of the Exchange, and of how at last he even fell towriting for the papers, I will not tell you; for, _imprimis_, it has not happened yet, nor do I think it will, and in the secondplace I am tired of writing. 

ON A WINGED HORSE AND THE EXILE WHO RODE HIM

It so happened that one day I was riding my horse Monster in theBerkshire Hills right up above that White Horse which was dug theysay by this man and by that man, but no one knows by whom; for I wasseeing England, a delightful pastime, but a somewhat anxious one ifone is riding a horse. For if one is alone one can sleep where onechooses and walk at one's ease, and eat what God sends one and spendwhat one has; but when one is responsible for any other being(especially a horse) there come in a thousand farradiddles, for ofeverything that walks on earth, man (not woman--I use the word inthe restricted sense) is the freest and the most unhappy. 

Well, then, I was riding my horse and exploring the Island ofEngland, going eastward of a summer afternoon, and I had so riddenalong the ridge of the hills for some miles when I came, as chancewould have it, upon a very extraordinary being. 

He was a man like myself, but his horse, which was grazing by hisside, and from time to time snorting in a proud manner, was quiteunlike my own. This horse had all the strength of the horses ofNormandy, all the lightness, grace, and subtlety of the horses ofBarbary, all the conscious value of the horses that race for richmen, all the humour of old horses that have seen the world and willbe disturbed by nothing, and all the valour of young horses who havetheir troubles before them, and race round in paddocks attempting todefeat the passing trains. I say all these things were in the horse, and expressed by various movements of his body, but the list ofthese qualities is but a hint of the way in which he bore himself;for it was quite clearly apparent as I came nearer and nearer tothis strange pair that the horse before me was very different (asperhaps was the man) from the beings that inhabit this island. 

While he was different in all qualities that I have mentioned--orrather in their combination--he also differed physically from mosthorses that we know, in this, that from his sides and clapt alongthem in repose was growing a pair of very fine sedate and noblewings. So habited, with such an expression and with such gestures ofhis limbs, he browsed upon the grass of Berkshire, which, if youexcept the grass of Sussex and the grass perhaps of Hampshire, isthe sweetest grass in the world. I speak of the chalk-grass; as forthe grass of the valleys, I would not eat it in a salad, let alonegive it to a beast. 

The man who was the companion rather than the master of thischarming animal sat upon a lump of turf singing gently to himselfand looking over the plain of Central England, the plain of theUpper Thames, which men may see from these hills. He looked at itwith a mixture of curiosity, of memory, and of desire which was veryinteresting but also a little pathetic to watch. And as he looked atit he went on crooning his little song until he saw me, when withgreat courtesy he ceased and asked me in the English languagewhether I did not desire companionship. 

I answered him that certainly I did, though not more than wascommonly the case with me, for I told him that I had hadcompanionship in several towns and inns during the past few days, and that I had had but a few hours' bout of silence and ofloneliness. 

"Which period, " I added, "is not more than sufficient for a man ofmy years, though I confess that in early youth I should have foundit intolerable. "

When I had said this he nodded gravely, and I in my turn began towonder of what age he might be, for his eyes and his whole mannerwere young, but there was a certain knowledge and gravity in hisexpression and in the posture of his body which in another mighthave betrayed middle age. He wore no hat, but a great quantity ofhis own hair, which was blown about by the light summer wind uponthese heights. As he did not reply to me, I asked him a furtherquestion, and said:

"I see you are gazing upon the plain. Have you interests or memoriesin that view? I ask you without compunction so delicate a questionbecause it is as open to you to lie as it was to me when I lied tothem only yesterday morning, a little beyond Wayland's Cave, tellingthem that I had come to make sure of the spot where St. Georgeconquered the Dragon, though, in truth, I had come for no suchpurpose, and telling them that my name was so-and-so, whereas it wasnothing of the kind. "

He brightened up at this, and said: "You are quite right in tellingme that I am free to lie if I choose, and I would be very happy tolie to you if there were any purpose in so doing, but there is none. I gaze upon this plain with the memories that are common to all menwhen they gaze upon a landscape in which they have had a part in theyears recently gone by. That is, the plain fills me with a sort oflonging, and yet I cannot say that the plain has treated meunjustly. I have no complaint against it. God bless the plain!"After thinking a few moments, he added: "I am fond of Wantage;Wallingford has done me no harm; Oxford gave me many companions; Iwas not drowned at Dorchester beyond the Little Hills; and the bestof men gave me a true farewell in Faringdon yonder. Moreover, Cumnoris my friend. Nevertheless, I like to indulge in a sort of sadnesswhen I look over this plain. "

I then asked him whither he would go next. 

He answered: "My horse flies, and I am therefore not bound to anyparticular track or goal, especially in these light airs of summerwhen all the heaven is open to me. "

As he said this I looked at his mount and noticed that when he shookhis skin as horses will do in the hot weather to rid themselves offlies, he also passed a little tremor through his wings, which werelarge and goose-grey, and, spreading gently under that effort, seemed to give him coolness. 

"You have, " said I, "a remarkable horse. "

At this word he brightened up as men do when something is spoken ofthat interests them nearly, and he answered: "Indeed, I have! and Iam very glad you like him. There is no such other horse to myknowledge in England, though I have heard that some still linger inIreland and in France, and that a few foals of the breed have beendropped of late years in Italy, but I have not seen them. 

"How did you come by this horse?" said I; "if it is not trespassingupon your courtesy to ask you so delicate a question. "

"Not at all; not at all, " he answered. "This kind of horse runs wildupon the heaths of morning and can be caught only by Exiles: and Iam one. .. . Moreover, if you had come three or four years later thanyou have I should have been able to give you an answer in rhyme, butI am sorry to say that a pestilent stricture of the imagination, orrather, of the compositive faculty so constrains me that I have notyet finished the poem I have been writing with regard to thediscovery and service of this beast. "

"I have great sympathy with you, " I answered, "I have been at theballade of Val-ès-Dunes since the year 1897 and I have not yetcompleted it. "

"Well, then, " he said, "you will be patient with me when I tell youthat I have but three verses completed. " Whereupon without furtherinvitation he sang in a loud and clear voice the following verse:

 _It's ten years ago to-day you turned me out of doors To cut my feet on flinty lands and stumble down the shores. And I thought about the all in all . .. _

"The '_all in all_, '" I said, "is weak. "

He was immensely pleased with this, and, standing up, seized me bythe hand. "I know you now, " he said, "for a man who does indeedwrite verse. I have done everything I could with those threesyllables, and by the grace of Heaven I shall get them right intime. Anyhow, they are the stop-gap of the moment, and with yourleave I shall reserve them, for I do not wish to put words like'tumty tum' into the middle of my verse. "

I bowed to him, and he proceeded:

 _And I thought about the all in all, and more than I could tell; But I caught a horse to ride upon and rode him very well. He had flame behind the eyes of him and wings upon his side-- And I ride; and I ride!_

"Of how many verses do you intend this metrical composition to be?"said I, with great interest. 

"I have sketched out thirteen, " said he firmly, "but I confess thatthe next ten are so embryonic in this year 1907 that I cannot singthem in public. " He hesitated a moment, then added: "They have manyfine single lines, but there is as yet no composition or unity aboutthem. " And as he recited the words "composition" and "unity" hewaved his hand about like a man sketching a cartoon. 

"Give me, then, " said I, "at any rate the last two. " For I hadrapidly calculated how many would remain of his scheme. 

He was indeed pleased to be so challenged, and continued to sing:

 _And once atop of Lambourne Down, towards the hill of Clere, I saw the host of Heaven in rank and Michael with his spear And Turpin, out of Gascony, and Charlemagne the lord, And Roland of the Marches with his hand upon his sword For fear he should have need of it;--and forty more beside! And I ride; and I ride! For you that took the all in all. .. _

"That again is weak, " I murmured. 

"You are quite right, " he said gravely, "I will rub it out. " Then hewent on:

 _For you that took the all in all, the things you left were three: A loud Voice for singing, and keen Eyes to see, And a spouting Well of Joy within that never yet was dried! And I ride!_

He sang this last in so fierce and so exultant a manner that I wasimpressed more than I cared to say, but not more than I cared toshow. As for him, he cared little whether I was impressed or not; hewas exalted and detached from the world. 

There were no stirrups upon the beast. He vaulted upon it, and saidas he did so:

"You have put me into the mood, and I must get away!"

And though the words were abrupt, he _did_ speak them with sucha grace that I will always remember them!

He then touched the flanks of his horse with his heels (on whichthere were no spurs) and at once beating the air powerfully twice orthrice with its wings it spurned the turf of Berkshire and made outsouthward and upward into the sunlit air, a pleasing and a glorioussight. 

In a very little while they had dwindled to a point of light andwere soon mixed with the sky. But I went on more lonely along thecrest of the hills, very human, riding my horse Monster, a mortalhorse--I had almost written a human horse. My mind was full ofsilence. 

Some of those to whom I have related this adventure criticise it bythe method of questions and of cross-examination proving that itcould not have happened precisely where it did; showing that I leftthe vale so late in the afternoon that I could not have found thisman and his mount at the hour I say I did, and making all manner ofcomments upon the exact way in which the feathers (which they sayare those of a bird) grew out of the hide of the horse, and soforth. There are no witnesses of the matter, and I go lonely, formany people will not believe, and those who do believe believe toomuch. 

ON A MAN AND HIS BURDEN

Once there was a Man who lived in a House at the Corner of a Woodwith an excellent landscape upon every side, a village about onemile off, and a pleasant stream flowing over chalk and full oftrout, for which he used to fish. 

This man was perfectly happy for some little time, fishing for thetrout, contemplating the shapes of clouds in the sky, and singingall the songs he could remember in turn under the high wood, tillone day he found, to his annoyance, that there was strapped to hisback a Burden. 

However, he was by nature of a merry mood, and began thinking of allthe things he had read about Burdens. He remembered an uncle of hiscalled Jonas (ridiculous name) who had pointed out that Burdens, especially if borne in youth, strengthen the upper deltoid muscle, expand the chest, and give to the whole figure an erect and gracefulpoise. He remembered also reading in a book upon "Country Sports"that the bearing of heavy weights is an excellent training for allother forms of exercise, and produces a manly and resolute carriage, very useful in golf, cricket and Colonial wars. He could not forgethis mother's frequent remark that a Burden nobly endured gavefirmness, and at the same time elasticity, to the character, andaltogether he went about his way taking it as kindly as he could;but I will not deny that it annoyed him. 

In a few days he discovered that during sleep, when he lay down, theBurden annoyed him somewhat less than at other times, though thememory of it never completely left him. He would therefore sleep fora very considerable number of hours every day, sometimes retiring torest as early as nine o'clock, nor rising till noon of the next day. He discovered also that rapid and loud conversation, adventure, wine, beer, the theatre, cards, travel, and so forth made him forgethis Burden for the time being, and he indulged himself perhaps toexcess in all these things. But when the memory of his Burden wouldreturn to him after each indulgence, whether working in his garden, or fishing for trout, or on a lonely walk, he began reluctantly toadmit that, on the whole, he felt uncertainty and doubt as towhether the Burden was really good for him. 

In this unpleasing attitude of mind he had the good fortune one dayto meet with an excellent Divine who inhabited a neighbouringparish, and was possessed of no less a sum than £29, 000. ThisEcclesiastic, seeing his whilom jocund Face fretted with the Marksof Care, put a hand gently upon his shoulder and said:

"My young friend, I easily perceive that you are put out by thisBurden which you bear upon your shoulders. I am indeed surprisedthat one so intelligent should take such a matter so ill. What! Doyou not know that burdens are the common lot of humanity? I myself, though you may little suspect it, bear a burden far heavier thanyours, though, true, it is invisible, and not strapped on to myshoulders by gross material thongs of leather, as is yours. Theworthy Squire of our parish bears one too; and with what manliness!what ease! what abnegation! Believe me, these other Burdens of whichyou never hear, and which no man can perceive, are for that veryreason the heaviest and the most trying. Come, play the man! Littleby little you will find that the patient sustenance of this Burdenwill make you something greater, stronger, nobler than you were, andyou will notice as you grow older that those who are most favouredby the Unseen bear the heaviest of such impediments. "

With these last words recited in a solemn, and, as it were, aninspired voice, the Hierarch lifted an immense stone from theroadway, and placing it on the top of the Burden, so as considerablyto add to its weight, went on his way. 

The irritation of the Man was already considerable when his familycalled upon him--his mother, that is, his younger sister, his cousinJane, and her husband--and after they had eaten some of his food anddrunk some of his beer they all sat out in the garden with him andtalked to him somewhat in this manner:

"We really cannot pity you much, for ever since you were a childwhatever evil has happened to you has been your own doing, andprobably this is no different from the rest. .. . What can havepossessed you to get putting upon your back an ugly, useless, anddangerous great Burden! You have no idea how utterly out of fashionyou seem, stumbling about the roads like a clodhopper, and going upand downstairs as though you were on the treadmill. .. . For theLord's sake, at least have the decency to stay at home and not todisgrace the family with your miserable appearance!"

Having said so much they rose, and adding to his burden a number ofleaden weights they had brought with them, went on their way andleft him to his own thoughts. 

You may well imagine that by this time the irritation of the Man hadgone almost past bearing. He would quarrel with his best friends, and they, in revenge, would put something more on to the burden, till he felt he would break down. It haunted his dreams and filledmost of his waking thoughts, and did all those things which burdenshave been discovered to do since the beginning of time, until atlast, though very reluctantly, he determined to be rid of it. 

Upon hearing of this resolution his friends and acquaintances raiseda most fearful hubbub; some talked of sending for the police, othersof restraining him by force, and others again of putting him into anasylum, but he broke away from them all, and, making for the openroad, went out to see if he could not rid himself of this abominablestrain. 

Of himself he could not, for the Burden was so cunningly strapped onthat his hands could not reach it, and there was magic about it, anda spell; but he thought somewhere there must be someone who couldtell him how to cast it away. 

In the very first ale-house he came to he discovered what is commonto such places, namely, a batch of politicians, who laughed at himvery loudly for not knowing how to get rid of burdens. "It is done, "they said, "by the very simple method of paying one of us to get ontop and undo the straps. " This the man said he would be very willingto do, whereat the politicians, having fought somewhat amongthemselves for the money, desisted at last in favour of the mostvulgar, who climbed on to the top of the man's burden, and remainedthere, viewing the landscape and commenting in general terms uponthe nature of public affairs, and when the man complained a little, the politician did but cuff him sharply on the side of the head toteach him better manners. 

Yet a little further on he met with a Scientist, who told him inEnglish Greek a clear and simple method of getting rid of theburden, and, since the Man did not seem to understand, he lost histemper, and said, "Come, let me do it, " and climbed up by the sideof the Politician. Once there the Scientist confessed that theproblem was not so easy as he had imagined. 

"But, " said he, "now that I am here, you may as well carry me, forit will be no great additional weight, and meanwhile I will spendmost of my time in trying to set you free. "

And the third man he met was a Philosopher with quiet eyes; a personwhose very gestures were profound. Taking by the hand the Man, nowfevered and despairing, he looked at him with a mixture ofcomprehension and charity, and he said:

"My poor fellow, your eyes are very wild and staring and bloodshot. How little you understand the world!" Then he smiled gently, andsaid, "Will you never learn?"

And without another word he climbed up on the top of the burden andseated himself by the side of the other two. 

After this the man went mad. 

The last time I saw him he was wandering down the road with hisburden very much increased. He was bearing not only these originalthree, but some Kings and Tax-gatherers and Schoolmasters, severalFortune-tellers, and an Old Admiral. He was blind, and they weregoading him. But as he passed me he smiled and gibbered a little, and told me it was in the nature of things, and went on downwardstumbling. 

_This Parable I think, as I re-read it, demands a KEY, lest itprove a stumbling-block to the muddle-headed and a perplexity to thefoolish. Here then is the KEY:_--

_The_ MAN _is a_ MAN. _His_ BURDEN _is that Burdenwhich men often feel themselves to be bearing as they advance fromyouth to manhood. The_ RELATIVES _(his mother, his sister, hiscousins, etc. ) are a Man's_ RELATIVES _and the little weightsthey add to the_ BURDEN _are the little additional weights aMan's_ RELATIVES _commonly add to his burden. The_ PARSON_represents a_ PARSON, _and the_ POLITICIAN, _the_PHILOSOPHER, _the_ SCIENTIST, _the_ KINGS, _the_ TAX-GATHERERS _and the_OLD ADMIRAL, _stand severally for an_ OLD ADMIRAL, TAX-GATHERERS, POLITICIANS, PHILOSOPHERS, SCIENTISTS _and_ KINGS. 

_The_ POLITICIANS _who fight for the_ MONEY_represent_ POLITICIANS, _and the_ MONEY _they strugglefor is the_ MONEY _for which Politicians do ceaselessly jostleand barge one another. The_ MOST VULGAR _in whose favour theothers desist, represents the_ MOST VULGAR _who, among Politicians, invariably obtains the largest share of whatever public money is going. 

The_ MADNESS _of the Man at the end, stands for the_ MADNESS_which does as a fact often fall upon Men late in life if theirBurdens are sufficiently increased. 

I trust that with this Key the Parable will be clear to all. _

ON A FISHERMAN AND THE QUEST OF PEACE

In that part of the Thames where the river begins to feel its lifebefore it knows its name the counties play with it upon either side. It is not yet a boundary. The parishes upon the northern bank aresometimes as truly Wiltshire as those to the south. The men upon thefarms that look at each other over the water are close neighbours;they use the same words and the way they build their houses is thesame. Between them runs the beginning of the Thames. 

From the surface of the water the whole prospect is sky, bounded byreeds; but sitting up in one's canoe one sees between the reedsdistant hills to the southward, or, on the north, trees in groups, and now and then the roofs of a village; more often the lonely groupof a steading with a church close by. 

Floating down this stream quite silently, but rather swiftly upon asummer's day, I saw on the bank to my right a very pleasant man. Hewas perhaps a hundred yards or two hundred ahead of me when I firstcaught sight of him, and perceived that he was a clergyman of theChurch of England. He was fishing. 

He was dressed in black, even his hat was black (though it was ofstraw), but his collar was of such a kind as his ancestors had worn, turned down and surrounded by a soft white tie. His face was clearand ruddy, his eyes honest, his hair already grey, and he was gazingintently upon the float; for I will not conceal it that he wasfishing in that ancient manner with a float shaped like a sea-buoyand stuck through with a quill. So fish the yeomen to this day inNorthern France and in Holland. Upon such immutable customs does anancient State repose, which, if they are disturbed, there is dangerof its dissolution. 

As I so looked at him and rapidly approached him I took care not todisturb the water with my paddle, but to let the boat glide far fromhis side, until in the pleasure of watching him, I got fast upon thefurther reeds. There she held and I, knowing that the effort ofgetting her off would seriously stir the water, lay still. Nor did Ispeak to him, though he pleased me so much, because a friend of minein Lambourne had once told me that of all things in Nature what afish most fears is the voice of a man. 

He, however, first spoke to me in a sort of easy tone that couldfrighten no fish. He said "Hullo!"

I answered him in a very subdued voice, for I have no art wherefishes are concerned, "Hullo!"

Then he asked me, after a good long time, whether his watch wasright, and as he asked me he pulled out his, which was a large, thick, golden watch, and looked at it with anxiety and dread. Heasked me this, I think, because I must have had the look of a tiredman fresh from the towns, and with the London time upon him, and yetI had been for weeks in no town larger than Cricklade: moreover, Ihad no watch. Since, none the less, it is one's duty to uplift, sustain, and comfort all one's fellows I told him that his watch wasbut half a minute fast, and he put it back with a greater contentthan he had taken it out; and, indeed, anyone who blames me for whatI did in so assuring him of the time should remember that I hadother means than a watch for judging it. The sunlight was alreadyfull of old kindness, the midges were active, the shadow of thereeds on the river was of a particular colour, the haze of aparticular warmth; no one who had passed many days and nightstogether sleeping out and living out under this rare summer couldmistake the hour. 

In a little while I asked him whether he had caught any fish. Hesaid he had not actually caught any, but that he would have caughtseveral but for accidents, which he explained to me in technicallanguage. Then he asked me in his turn where I was going to thatevening. I said I had no object before me, that I would sleep when Ifelt sleepy, and wake when I felt wakeful, and that I would so driftdown Thames till I came to anything unpleasant, when it was mydesign to leave my canoe at once, to tie it up to a post, and to gooff to another place, "for, " I told him, "I am here to think aboutPeace, and to see if She can be found. " When I said this his facebecame moody, and, as though such portentous thoughts requiredaction to balance them, he strained his line, lifted his floatsmartly from the water (so that I saw the hook flying through theair with a quarter of a worm upon it), and brought it down far upthe stream. Then he let it go slowly down again as the water carriedit, and instead of watching it with his steady and experienced eyeshe looked up at me and asked me if, as yet, I had come upon any clueto Peace, that I expected to find Her between Cricklade and BablockHythe. I answered that I did not exactly expect to find Her, that Ihad come out to think about Her, and to find out whether She couldbe found. I told him that often and often as I wandered over theearth I had clearly seen Her, as once in Auvergne by Pont-Gibaud, once in Terneuzen, several times in Hazlemere, Hampstead, Clapham, and other suburbs, and more often than I could tell in the Weald:"but seeing Her, " said I, "is one thing and holding Her is another. I hardly propose to follow all Her ways, but I do propose toconsider Her nature until I know so much as to be able to discoverHer at last whenever I have need, for I am convinced by this timethat nothing else is worth the effort of a man . .. And I think Ishall achieve my object somewhere between here and Bablock Hythe. "

He told me without interest that there was nothing attractive in thepursuit or in its realisation. 

I answered with equal promptitude that the whole of attraction wassummed up in it: that to nothing else did we move by nature, and tonothing else were we drawn but to Peace. I said that a completionand a fulfilment were vaguely demanded by a man even in very earlyyouth, that in manhood the desire for them became a passion and inearly middle age so overmastering and natural a necessity that allwho turned aside from it and attempted to forget it were justlydespised by their fellows and were some of them money-makers, someof them sybarites, but all of them perverted men, whose hard eyes, weak mouths, and fear of every trial sufficiently proved the cursethat was upon them. I told him as heatedly as one can speak lyingback in a canoe to a man beyond a little river that he, being olderthan I, should know that everything in a full man tended towardssome place where expression is permanent and secure; and then I toldhim that since I had only seen such a place far off as it were, butnever lived in, I had set forth to see if I might think out the wayto it, "and I hope, " I said, "to finish the problem not so far downas Bablock Hythe, but nearer by, towards New Bridge or even higher, by Kelmscott, "

He asked me, after a little space, during which he took off theremnant of the worm and replaced it by a large new one, whether whenI said "Peace" I did not really mean "Harmony. "

At this phrase a suspicion rose in my mind; it seemed to me that Iknew the school that had bred him, and that he and I should beacquainted. So I was appeased and told him I did not mean Harmony, for Harmony suggested that we had to suit ourselves to the thingsaround us or to get suited to them. I told him what I was after wasno such German Business, but something which was Fruition and morethan Fruition--full power to create and at the same time to enjoy, aco-existence of new delight and of memory, of growth, and yet offoreknowledge and an increasing reverence that should beincreasingly upstanding, and high hatred as well as high lovejustified; for surely this Peace is not a lessening into which wesink, but an enlargement which we merit and into which we rise andenter--"and this, " I ended, "I am determined to obtain before I getto Bablock Hythe. "

He shook his head determinedly and said my quest was hopeless. 

"Sir, " said I, "are you acquainted with the Use of Sarum?"

"I have read it, " he said, "but I do not remember it well. " Then, indeed, indeed I knew that he was of my own University and of my owncollege, and my heart warmed to him as I continued:

"It is in Latin; but, after all, that was the custom of the time. "

"Latin, " he answered, "was in the Middle Ages a universal tongue. "

"Do you know, " said I, "that passage which begins 'Illam Pacem----'?"

At this moment the float, which I had almost forgotten but which hein the course of our speeches had more and more remembered, began tobob up and down violently, and, if I may so express myself, thePhilosopher in him was suddenly swamped by the Fisherman. He struckwith the zeal and accuracy of a conqueror; he did somethingdexterous with his rod, flourished the line and landed amagnificent--ah! There the whole story fails, for what on earth wasthe fish?

Had it been a pike or a trout I could have told it, for I am wellacquainted with both; but this fish was to me as a human being is toa politician: this fish was to me unknown. .. . 

ON A HERMIT WHOM I KNEW

In a valley of the Apennines, a little before it was day, I wentdown by the side of a torrent wondering where I should find repose;for it was now some hours since I had given up all hope ofdiscovering a place for proper human rest and for the passing of thenight, but at least I hoped to light upon a dry bed of sand undersome overhanging rock, or possibly of pine needles beneath closelywoven trees, where one might get sleep until the rising of the sun. 

As I still trudged, half expectant and half careless, a man came upbehind me, walking quickly as do mountain men: for throughout theworld (I cannot tell why) I have noticed that the men of themountains walk quickly and in a sprightly manner, arching the foot, and with a light and general gait as though the hills were waves andas though they were in thought springing upon the crests of them. This is true of all mountaineers. They are but few. 

This man, I say, came up behind me and asked me whether I were goingtowards a certain town of which he gave me the name, but as I hadnot so much as heard of this town I told him I knew nothing of it. Ihad no map, for there was no good map of that district, and a badmap is worse than none. I knew the names of no towns except thelarge towns on the coast. So I said to him:

"I cannot tell anything about this town, I am not making towards it. But I desire to reach the sea coast, which I know to be many hoursaway, and I had hoped to sleep overnight under some roof or at leastin some cavern, and to start with the early morning; but here I am, at the end of the night, without repose and wondering whether I cango on. "

He answered me:

"It is four hours to the sea coast, but before you reach it you willfind a lane branching to the right, and if you will go up it (for itclimbs the hill) you will find a hermitage. Now by the time you arethere the hermit will be risen. "

"Will he be at his prayers?" said I. 

"He says no prayers to my knowledge, " said my companion lightly;"for he is not a hermit of that kind. Hermits are many and prayersare few. But you will find him bustling about, and he is a veryhospitable man. Now as it so happens that the road to the sea coastbends here round along the foot of the hills, you will, in hiscompany, perceive the port below you and the populace and the highroad, and yet you will be saving a good hour in distance of time, and will have ample rest before reaching your vessel, if it is avessel indeed that you intend to take. "

When he had said these things I thanked him and gave him a bit ofsausage and went along my way, for as he had walked faster than mebefore our meeting and while I was still in the dumps, so now Iwalked faster than him, having received good news. 

All happened just as he had described. The dawn broke behind me overthe noble but sedate peaks of the Apennines; it first defined theheights against the growing colours of the sun, it next produced ageneral warmth and geniality in the air about me; it last displayedthe downward opening of the valley, and, very far off, a plain thatsloped towards the sea. 

Invigorated by the new presence of the day I went forward morerapidly, and came at last to a place where a sculptured panel madeout of marble, very clever and modern, and representing a mystery, marked the division between two ways; and I took the lane to myright as my companion of the night hours had advised me. 

For perhaps a mile or a little more the lane rose continuallybetween rough walls intercepted by high banks of thorn, with hereand there a vineyard, and as it rose one had between the breaches ofthe wall glimpses of an ever-growing sea: for, as one rose, the seabecame a broader and a broader belt, and the very distant islands, which at first had been but little clouds along the horizon, stoodout and became parts of the landscape, and, as it were, framed allthe bay. 

Then at last, when I had come to the height of the hill, to where itturned a corner and ran level along the escarpment of the cliffsthat dominated the sea plain, I saw below me a considerable stretchof country, between the fall of the ground and the distant shore, and under the daylight which was now full and clear one couldperceive that all this plain was packed with an intense cultivation, with houses, happiness and men. 

Far off, a little to the northward, lay the mass of a town; andstretching out into the Mediterranean with a gesture of command andof desire were the new arms of the harbour. 

To see such things filled me with a complete content. I know notwhether it be the effect of long vigil, or whether it be the effectof contrast between the darkness and the light, but certainly tocome out of a lonely night spent on the mountains, down with thesunlight into the civilisation of the plain, is, for any man thatcares to undergo the suffering and the consolation, as good as anyexperience that life affords. Hardly had I so conceived the viewbefore me when I became aware, upon my right, of a sort of cavern, or rather a little and carefully minded shrine, from which agreeting proceeded. 

I turned round and saw there a man of no great age and yet of avenerable appearance. He was perhaps fifty-five years old, orpossibly a little less, but he had let his grey-white hair growlongish and his beard was very ample and fine. It was he that hadaddressed me. He sat dressed in a long gown in a modern and ratherluxurious chair at a low long table of chestnut wood, on which hehad placed a few books, which I saw were in several languages andtwo of them not only in English, but having upon them the mark of anEnglish circulating library which did business in the great town atour feet. There was also upon the table a breakfast ready of whitebread and honey, a large brown coffee-pot, two white cups, and somegoat's milk in a bowl of silver. This meal he asked me to share. 

"It is my custom, " he said, "when I see a traveller coming up mymountain road to get out a cup and a plate for him, or, if it ismidday, a glass. At evening, however, no one ever comes. "

"Why not?" said I. 

"Because, " he answered, "this lane goes but a few yards furtherround the edge of the cliff, and there it ends in a precipice; thelittle platform where we are is all but the end of the way. Indeed, I chose it upon that account, seeing, when I first came here, thatfrom its height and isolation it was well fitted for my retreat. "

I asked him how long ago that was, and he said nearly twenty years. For all that time, he added, he had lived there, going down into theplain but once or twice in a season and having for his rarecompanions those who brought him food and the peasants on such daysas they toiled up to work at their plots towards the summit; also, from time to time, a chance traveller like myself. But these, hesaid, made but poor companions, for they were usually such as hadmissed their way at the turning and arrived at that high place ofhis out of breath and angry. I assured him that this was not mycase, for a man had told me in the night how to find his hermitageand I had come of set purpose to see him. At this he smiled. 

We were now seated together at table eating and talking so, when Iasked him whether he had a reputation for sanctity and whether thepeople brought him food. He answered with a little hesitation thathe had a reputation, he thought, for necromancy rather than anythingelse, and that upon this account it was not always easy to persuadea messenger to bring him the books in French and English which heordered from below, though these were innocent enough, being, as arule, novels written by women or academicians, records of travel, the classics of the Eighteenth Century, or the biographies of agedstatesmen. As for food, the people of the place did indeed bring itto him, but not, as in an idyll, for courtesy; contrariwise, theydemanded heavy payment, and his chief difficulty was with bread;for stale bread was intolerable to him. In the matter of religion hewould not say that he had none, but rather that he had severalreligions; only at this season of the year, when everything wasfresh, pleasant and entertaining, he did not make use of any ofthem, but laid them all aside. As this last saying of his had nomeaning for me I turned to another matter and said to him:

"In any solitude contemplation is the chief business of the soul. How, then, do you, who say you practise no rites, fill up yourloneliness here?"

In answer to this question he became more animated, spoke with asort of laugh in his voice, and seemed as though he were young againand as though my question had aroused a whole lifetime of goodmemories. 

"My contemplation, " he said, not without large gestures, "is thiswide and prosperous plain below: the great city with its harbour andceaseless traffic of ships, the roads, the houses building, thefields yielding every year to husbandry, the perpetual activities ofmen. I watch my kind and I glory in them, too far off to bedisturbed by the friction of individuals, yet near enough to have adaily companionship in the spectacle of so much life. The mornings, when they are all at labour, I am inspired by their energy; in thenoons and afternoons I feel a part of their patient and vigorousendurance; and when the sun broadens near the rim of the sea atevening, and all work ceases, I am filled with their repose. Thelights along the harbour front in the twilight and on into thedarkness remind me of them when I can no longer see their crowds andmovements, and so does the music which they love to play in theirrecreation after the fatigues of the day, and the distant songswhich they sing far into the night. 

"I was about thirty years of age, and had seen (in a career ofdiplomacy) many places and men; I had a fortune quite insufficientfor a life among my equals. My youth had been, therefore, anxious, humiliated, and worn when, upon a feverish and unhappy holiday takenfrom the capital of this State, I came by accident to the cave andplatform which you see. It was one of those days in which the airexhales revelation, and I clearly saw that happiness inhabited themountain corner. I determined to remain for ever in so rare acompanionship, and from that day she has never abandoned me. For alittle while I kept a touch with the world by purchasing thosenewspapers in which I was reported shot by brigands or devoured bywild beasts, but the amusement soon wearied me, and now I haveforgotten the very names of my companions. "

We were silent then until I said: "But some day you will die hereall alone. "

"And why not?" he answered calmly. "It will be a nuisance for thosewho find me, but I shall be indifferent altogether. "

"That is blasphemy, " says I. 

"So says the priest of St. Anthony, " he immediately replied--butwhether as a reproach, an argument, or a mere commentary I could notdiscover. 

In a little while he advised me to go down to the plain before theheat should incommode my journey. I left him, therefore, reading abook of Jane Austen's, and I have never seen him since. 

Of the many strange men I have met in my travels he was one of themost strange and not the least fortunate. Every word I have writtenabout him is true. 

OF AN UNKNOWN COUNTRY

Ten years ago, I think, or perhaps a little less or perhaps a littlemore, I came in the Euston Road--that thoroughfare of Empire--upon ayoung man a little younger than myself whom I knew, though I did notknow him very well. It was drizzling and the second-hand booksellers(who are rare in this thoroughfare) were beginning to put out thewaterproof covers over their wares. This disturbed my acquaintance, because he was engaged upon buying a cheap book that should reallysatisfy him. 

Now this was difficult, for he had no hobby, and the book whichshould satisfy him must be one that should describe or summon up, or, it is better to say, hint at--or, the theologians would say, reveal, or the Platonists would say _recall_--the Unknown Country, which he thought was his very home. 

I had known his habit of seeking such books for two years, and hadhalf wondered at it and half sympathised. It was an appetite partlysatisfied by almost any work that brought to him the vision of aplace in the mind which he had always intensely desired, but towhich, as he had then long guessed, and as he is now quite certain, no human paths directly lead. He would buy with avidity travels tothe moon and to the planets, from the most worthless to the best. Heloved Utopias and did not disregard even so prosaic a category asbooks of real travel, so long as by exaggeration or by a glamour inthe style they gave him a full draught of that drug which hedesired. Whether this satisfaction the young man sought was asatisfaction in illusion (I have used the word "drug" withhesitation), or whether it was, as he persistently maintained, thesatisfaction of a memory, or whether it was, as I am often temptedto think, the satisfaction of a thirst which will ultimately bequenched in every human soul I cannot tell. Whatever it was, hesought it with more than the appetite with which a hungry man seeksfood. He sought it with something that was not hunger but passion. 

That evening he found a book. 

It is well known that men purchase with difficulty second-hand booksupon the stalls, and that in some mysterious way the sellers ofthese books are content to provide a kind of library for the poorerand more eager of the public, and a library admirable in this, thatit is accessible upon every shelf and exposes a man to no control, except that he must not steal, and even in this it is nothing butthe force of public law that interferes. My friend therefore wouldin the natural course of things have dipped into the book and leftit there; but a better luck persuaded him. Whether it was thebeginning of the rain or a sudden loneliness in such terribleweather and in such a terrible town, compelling him to seek a morepermanent companionship with another mind, or whether it was mysudden arrival and shame lest his poverty should appear in hisrefusing to buy the book--whatever it was, he bought that same. Andsince he bought the Book I also have known it and have found in it, as he did, the most complete expression that I know of the UnknownCountry, of which he was a citizen--oddly a citizen, as I thenthought, wisely as I now conceive. 

All that can best be expressed in words should be expressed inverse, but verse is a slow thing to create; nay, it is not reallycreated: it is a secretion of the mind, it is a pearl that gathersround some irritant and slowly expresses the very essence of beautyand of desire that has lain long, potential and unexpressed, in themind of the man who secretes it. God knows that this Unknown Countryhas been hit off in verse a hundred times. If I were perfectly sureof my accents I would quote two lines from the Odyssey in which theUnknown Country stands out as clear as does a sudden vision from amountain ridge when the mist lifts after a long climb and one seesbeneath one an unexpected and glorious land; such a vision as greetsa man when he comes over the Saldeu into the simple and secludedRepublic of the Andorrans. Then, again, the Germans in their idiomshave flashed it out, I am assured, for I remember a woman telling methat there was a song by Schiller which exactly gave the revelationof which I speak. In English, thank Heaven, emotion of this kind, emotion necessary to the life of the soul, is very abundantlyfurnished. As, who does not know the lines:

 Blessed with that which is not in the word Of man nor his conception: Blessed Land!

Then there is also the whole group of glimpses which Shakespeareamused himself by scattering as might a man who had a great oakchest full of jewels and who now and then, out of kindly fun, pouredout a handful and gave them to his guests. I quote from memory, butI think certain of the lines run more or less like this:

 Look how the dawn in russet mantle clad Stands on the steep of yon high eastern hill. 

And again:

 Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. 

Which moves me to digress. .. . How on earth did any living man pullit off as well as that? I remember arguing with a man who verygenuinely thought the talent of Shakespeare was exaggerated inpublic opinion, and discovering at the end of a long wrangle that hewas not considering Shakespeare as a poet. But as a poet, then, howon earth did he manage it?

Keats did it continually, especially in the _Hyperion_. Miltondoes it so well in the Fourth Book of _Paradise Lost_ that Idefy any man of a sane understanding to read the whole of that bookbefore going to bed and not to wake up next morning as though he hadbeen on a journey. William Morris does it, especially in the versesabout a prayer over the corn; and as for Virgil, the poet Virgil, hedoes it continually like a man whose very trade it is. Who does notremember the swimmer who saw Italy from the top of the wave?

Here also let me digress. How do the poets do it? (I do not meanwhere do they get their power, as I was asking just now ofShakespeare, but how do the words, simple or complex, produce thateffect?) Very often there is not any adjective, sometimes not anyqualification at all: often only one subject with its predicate andits statement and its object. There is never any detail ofdescription, but the scene rises, more vivid in colour, more exactin outline, more wonderful in influence, than anything we can seewith our eyes, except perhaps those things we see in the few momentsof intense emotion which come to us, we know not whence, and expandout into completion and into manhood. 

Catullus does it. He does it so powerfully in the opening lines of

_Vesper adest_ . .. 

that a man reads the first couplet of that Hymeneal, and immediatelyperceives the Apennines. 

The nameless translator of the Highland song does it, especiallywhen he advances that battering line--

 And we in dreams behold the Hebrides. 

They all do it, bless their hearts, the poets, which leads me backagain to the mournful reflection that it cannot be done in prose. .. . 

Little friends, my readers, I wish it could be done in prose, for ifit could, and if I knew how to do it, I would here present to youthat Unknown Country in such a fashion that every landscape whichyou should see henceforth would be transformed, by the appearingthrough it, the shining and uplifting through it, of the UnknownCountry upon which reposes this tedious and repetitive world. 

Now you may say to me that prose can do it, and you may quote to methe end of the _Pilgrim's Progress_, a very remarkable piece ofwriting. Or, better still, as we shall be more agreed upon it, thegeneral impression left upon the mind by the book which set mewriting--Mr. Hudson's _Crystal Age_. I do not deny that prosecan do it, but when it does it, it is hardly to be called prose, forit is inspired. Note carefully the passages in which the trick isworked in prose (for instance, in the story of Ruth in the Bible, where it is done with complete success), you will perceive anincantation and a spell. Indeed this same episode of Ruth in exilehas inspired two splendid passages of European verse, of which it isdifficult to say which is the more national, and therefore thegreatest, Victor Hugo's in the _Legende des Siecles_ or Keats'sastounding four lines. 

There was a shepherd the other day up at Findon Fair who had comefrom the east by Lewes with sheep, and who had in his eyes thatreminiscence of horizons which makes the eyes of shepherds and ofmountaineers different from the eyes of other men. He was occupiedwhen I came upon him in pulling Mr. Fulton's sheep by one hind legso that they should go the way they were desired to go. It happenedthat day that Mr. Fulton's sheep were not sold, and the shepherdwent driving them back through Findon Village, and up on to the highDowns. I went with him to hear what he had to say, for shepherdstalk quite differently from other men. And when we came on to theshoulder of Chanctonbury and looked down upon the Weald, whichstretched out like the Plains of Heaven, he said to me: "I nevercome here but it seems like a different place down below, and asthough it were not the place where I have gone afoot with sheepunder the hills. It seems different when you are looking down atit. " He added that he had never known why. Then I knew that he, likemyself, was perpetually in perception of the Unknown Country, and Iwas very pleased. But we did not say anything more to each otherabout it until we got down into Steyning. There we drank togetherand we still said nothing more about it, so that to this day all weknow of the matter is what we knew when we started, and what youknew when I began to write this, and what you are now no furtherinformed upon, namely, that there is an Unknown Country lyingbeneath the places that we know, and appearing only in moments ofrevelation. 

Whether we shall reach this country at last or whether we shall not, it is impossible to determine. 

ON A FAERY CASTLE

A woman whose presence in English letters will continue to increasewrote of a cause to which she had dedicated her life that it waslike that Faery Castle of which men became aware when they wanderedupon a certain moor. In that deserted place (the picture was takenfrom the writings of Sir Walter Scott) the lonely traveller heardabove him a noise of bugles in the air, and thus a Faery Castle wasrevealed; but again, when the traveller would reach it, a doom comesupon him, and in the act of its attainment it vanishes away. 

We are northern, full of dreams in the darkness; this Castle iscaught in glimpses, a misty thing. It is seen a moment--then itmixes once again with the mist of our northern air, and when thatmist has lifted from the heath there is nothing before the watcherbut a bare upland open to the wind and roofed only by hurryingcloud. Yet in the moment of revelation most certainly the travellerperceived it, and the call of its bugle-guard was very clear. Hecontinues his way perceiving only the things he knows--trees bent bythe gale, rude heather, the gravel of the path, and mountains allaround. In that landscape he has no companion; yet he cannot but behaunted, as he goes, by towers upon which he surely looked, and bythe sharp memory of bugle-notes that still seem to startle hishearing. 

In our legends of Western Europe this Castle perpetually returns. Ithas been seen not only on the highlands of Ireland, of Wales, ofBrittany, of the Asturias, of Normandy, and of Auvergne, but in theplains also, and on those river meadows where wealth comes so fastthat even simple men early forget the visions of the hills. Theimagination, or rather the speech, of our race has created orrecognised throughout our territory this stronghold which was notaltogether of the world. 

Queen Iseult, as she sat with Tristan in a Castle Garden, towardsthe end of a summer night, whispered to him: "Tristan, they say thatthis Castle is Faëry; it is revealed at the sound of a Trumpet, butpresently it vanishes away, " and as she said it the bugles rangdawn. 

Raymond of Saragossa saw this Castle, also, as he came down from thewooded hills after he had found the water of life and was bearing ittowards the plain. He saw the towers quite clearly and also thoughthe heard the call upon that downward road at whose end he was tomeet with Bramimonde. But he saw it thence only, in the exaltationof the summits as he looked over the falling forest to the plain andthe Sierra miles beyond. He saw it thence only. Never after uponeither bank of Ebro could he come upon it, nor could any man assurehim of the way. 

In the Story of Val-es-Dunes, Hugh the Fortinbras out of theCotentin had a castle of this kind. For when, after the battle, theycount the dead, the Priest finds in the sea-grass among other bodiesthat of this old Lord. .. . 

 . .. And Hugh that trusted in his glass, But rode not home the day; Whose title was the Fortinbras With the Lords of his Array. 

This was that old Hugh the Fortinbras who had been Lord to thePriest's father, so that when the battle was engaged the Priestwatched him from the opposing rank, and saw him fall, far off, justas the line broke and before the men of the Caux country had room tocharge. It was easy to see him, for he rode a high horse and wastaller than other Normans, and when his horse was wounded. .. . 

 . .. The girth severed and the saddle swung And he went down; He never more sang winter songs In his High Town. 

 In his High Town that Faery is And stands on Harcourt Lea; To summon him up his arrier-ban His writ beyond the mountain ran. My father was his serving-man; Although the farm was free. Before the angry wars began He was a friend to me!

 In his High Town that Faery is And stands on Harcourt bay; The Fisher driving through the night Makes harbour by that castle height And moors him till the day: But with the broadening of the light It vanishes away. 

So the Faery Castle comes in by an illusion in the Ballad of theBattle of Val-es-Dunes. 

 * * * * *

What is this vision which our race has so symbolised or so seen andto which are thus attached its oldest memories? It is the miraculousmoment of intense emotion in which whether we are duped ortransfigured we are in touch with a reality firmer than the realityof this world. The Faery Castle is the counterpart and the exampleof those glimpses which every man has enjoyed, especially in youth, and which no man even in the dust of middle age can quite forget. Inthese were found a complete harmony and satisfaction which were notnegative nor dependent upon the absence of discord--such completionas criticism may conceive--but as positive as colour or as music, and clothed as it were in a living body of joy. 

The vision may be unreal or real, in either case it is valid: if itis unreal it is a symbol of the world behind the world. But it is noless a symbol; even if it is unreal it is a sudden seeing of theplace to which our faces are set during this unbroken marching ofyears. 

Once on the Sacramento River a little before sunrise I lookedeastward from a boat and saw along the dawn the black edge of theSierras. The peaks were as sharp as are the Malvern from theCotswold, though they were days and days away. They made a broadjagged band intensely black against the glow of the sky. I drew themso. A tiny corner of the sun appeared between two central peaks:--atonce the whole range was suffused with glory. The sun was whollyrisen and the mountains had completely disappeared, --in the placewhere they had been was the sky of the horizon. 

At another time, also in a boat, I saw beyond a spit of the Tunisiancoast, as it seemed a flat island. Through the heat, with which theair trembled, was a low gleam of sand, a palm or two, and, lesscertainly, the flats and domes of a white native village. Ourcourse, which was to round the point, went straight for this island, and, as we approached, it became first doubtful, then flickering, then a play of light upon the waves. It was a mirage, and it hadmelted into the air. 

 * * * * *

There is a part of us, as all the world knows, which is immixed withchange and by change only can live. There is another part which liesbehind motion and time, and that part is ourselves. This divinerpart has surely a stronghold which is also an inheritance. It has ahome which perhaps it remembers and which certainly it conceives atrare moments during our path over the moor. 

This is that Faëry Castle. It is revealed at the sound of a trumpet;we turn our eyes, we glance and we perceive it; we strain to reachit--in the very effort of our going the doom of human labour fallsupon us and it vanishes away. 

It is real or unreal. It is unreal like that island which I thoughtto see some miles from Africa, but which was not truly there: forthe ship when it came to the place that island had occupied sailedeasily over an empty sea. It is real, like those high Sierras whichI drew from the Sacramento River at the turn of the night and whichwere suddenly obliterated by the rising sun. 

Where the vision is but mirage, even there it is a symbol of ourgoal; where it stands fast and true, for however brief a moment, itcan illumine, and should determine the whole of our lives. For suchsights are the manifestation of that glory which lies permanentbeyond the changing of the world. Of such a sort are the youngpassionate intentions to relieve the burden of mankind, first love, the mood created by certain strains of music, and--as I am willingto believe--the Walls of Heaven. 

ON A SOUTHERN HARBOUR

The ship had sailed northward in an even manner and under a sky thatwas full of stars, when the dawn broke and the full day quicklybroadened over the Mediterranean. With the advent of the light thesalt of the sea seemed stronger, and there certainly arose a newfreshness in the following air; but as yet no land appeared. Untilat last, seated as I was alone in the fore part of the vessel, Iclearly saw a small unchanging shape far off before me, peaked uponthe horizon and grey like a cloud. This I watched, wondering whatits name might be, who lived upon it, or what its fame was; for itwas certainly land. 

I watched in this manner for some hours--perhaps for two--when theisland, now grown higher, was so near that I could see trees uponit; but they were set sparsely, as trees are on a dry land, and mostof them seemed to be thorn trees. 

It was at this moment that a man who had been singing to himself ina low tone aft came up to me and told me that this island was calledthe Island of Goats and that there were no men upon it to hisknowledge, that it was a lonely place and worth little. But by thistime there had risen beyond the Island of Goats another and muchlarger land. 

It lay all along the north in a mountainous belt of blue, and anyman coming to it for the first time or unacquainted with maps wouldhave said to himself: "I have found a considerable place. " And, indeed, the name of the island indicates this, for it is calledMajorca, "The Larger Land. " Towards this, past the Island of Goats, and past the Strait, we continued to sail with a light breeze forhours, until at last we could see on this shore also sparse trees;but most of them were olive trees, and they were relieved with thegreen of cultivation up the high mountain sides and with the whitehouses of men. 

The deck was now crowded with people, most of whom were coming backto their own country after an exile in Africa among un-Christian anddangerous things. The little children who had not yet known Europe, having been born beyond the sea, were full of wonder; but theirparents, who knew the shortness of human life and its trouble, werehappy because they had come back at last and saw before them theknown jetties and the familiar hills of home. As I was surrounded byso much happiness, I myself felt as though I had come to the end ofa long journey and was reaching my own place, though I was, inreality, bound for Barcelona, and after that up northward throughthe Cerdagne, and after that to Perigord, and after that to theChannel, and so to Sussex, where all journeys end. 

The harbour had about it that Mediterranean-go-as-you-please whicheverywhere in the Mediterranean distinguishes harbours. It was asthough the men of that sea had said: "It never blows for long: letus build ourselves a rough refuge and to-morrow sail away. " Weneared this harbour, but we flew no flag and made no signal. Beneathus the water was so clear that all one need have done to havebrought the vessel in if one had not known the channel would havebeen to lean over the side and to keep the boy at the helm off thevery evident shallows and the crusted rocks by gestures of one'shands, for the fairway was like a trench, deep and blue. So we slidinto Palma haven, and as we rounded the pier the light wind took usfirst abeam and then forward; then we let go and she swung up andwas still. They lowered the sails. 

The people who were returning were so full of activity and joy thatit was like a hive of bees; but I no longer felt this as I had felttheir earlier and more subdued emotion, for the place was no longerdistant or mysterious as it had been when first its sons anddaughters had come up on deck to welcome it and had given me part oftheir delight. It was now an evident and noisy town; hot, violent, and strong. The houses had about them a certain splendour, thecitizens upon the quays a satisfied and prosperous look. Itsstreets, where they ran down towards the sea, were charmingly cleanand cared for, and the architecture of its wealthier mansions seemedto me at once unusual and beautiful, for I had not yet seen Spain. Each house, so far as I could make out from the water, was enteredby a fine sculptured porch which gave into a cool courtyard witharcades under it, and most of the larger houses had escutcheonscarved in stone upon their walls. 

But what most pleased me and also seemed most strange was to seeagainst the East a vast cathedral quite Northern in outline, exceptfor a severity and discipline of which the North is incapable savewhen it has steeped itself in the terseness of the classics. 

This monument was far larger than anything in the town. It stood outseparate from the town and dominated it upon its seaward side, somewhat as might an isolated hill, a shore fortress of rock. It wasalmost bare of ornament; its stones were very carefully worked andclosely fitted, and little waves broke ceaselessly along the base ofits rampart. Landwards, a mass of low houses which seemed to touchthe body of the building did but emphasise its height. When I hadlanded I made at once for this cathedral, and with every step itgrew greater. 

We who are of the North are accustomed to the enormous; we haveunearthly sunsets and the clouds magnify our hills. The Southern mensee nothing but misproportion in what is enormous. They love to havethings in order, and violence in art is odious to them. This highand dreadful roof had not been raised under the influences of theisland; it had surely been designed just after the re-conquest fromthe Mohammedans, when a turbulent army, not only of Gascons andCatalans, but of Normans also and of Frisians, and of Rhenish men, had poured across the water and had stormed the sea-walls. On thisaccount the cathedral had about it in its sky-line and in itsimmensity, and in the Gothic point of its windows, a Northern air. But in its austerity and in its magnificence it was Spaniard. 

As I passed the little porch of entry in the side wall I saw a man. He was standing silent and alone; he was not blind and perhaps notpoor, and as I passed he begged the charity not of money but ofprayers. When I had entered the cool and darkness of the nave, hisfigure still remained in my mind, and I could not forget it. Iremembered the straw hat upon his head and the suit of blue canvaswhich he wore, and the rough staff of wood in his hand. I wasespecially haunted by his expression, which was patient and masquedas though he were enduring a pain and chose to hide it. 

The nave was empty. It was a great hollow that echoed and re-echoed;there were no shrines and no lamps, and no men or women praying, andtherefore the figure at the door filled my mind more and more, untilI went out and asked him if he was in need of money, of which atthat moment I had none. He answered that his need was not for moneybut only for prayers. 

"Why, " said I, "do you need prayers?"

He said it was because his fate was upon him. 

I think he spoke the truth. He was standing erect and with dignity, his eyes were not disturbed, and he repeatedly refused the alms ofpassers-by. 

"No one" said I, "should yield to these moods. "

He answered nothing, but looked pensive like a man gazing at alandscape and remembering his life. 

But it was now the hour when the ship was to be sailing again, and Icould not linger, though I wished very much to talk more with him. Ibegged him to name a shrine where a gift might be of especial valueto him. He said that he was attached to no one shrine more than toany other, and then I went away regretfully, remembering howearnestly he had asked for prayers. 

This was in Palma of Majorca not two years ago. There are many suchmen, but few who speak so humbly. 

When I had got aboard again the ship sailed out and rounded alighthouse point and then made north to Barcelona. The night fell, and next morning there rose before us the winged figures that crownthe Custom House of that port and are an introduction to the gloriesof Spain. 

ON A YOUNG MAN AND AN OLDER MAN

A Young Man of my acquaintance having passed his twenty-eighthbirthday, and wrongly imagining this date to represent the GrandClimacteric, went by night in some perturbation to an Older Man andspoke to him as follows:

"Sir! I have intruded upon your leisure in order to ask your adviceupon certain matters. "

The Older Man, whose thoughts were at that moment intently set uponmoney, looked up in a startled way and attempted to excuse himself, suffering as he did from the delusion that the Young Man was after aloan. But the Young Man, whose mind was miles away from all suchtrifling things, continued to press him anxiously without so much asnoticing that he had perturbed his Senior. 

"I have come, Sir, " said he, "to ask your opinion, advice, experience, and guidance upon something very serious which hasentered into my life, which is, briefly, that I feel myself to begrowing old. "

Upon hearing this so comforting and so reasonable a statement theOlder Man heaved a profound sigh of relief and turning to him amature and smiling visage (as also turning towards him his personand in so doing turning his Polished American Hickory Wood OfficeChair), answered with a peculiar refinement, but not withoutsadness, "I shall be happy to be of any use I can"; from which orderand choice of words the reader might imagine that the Older Man washimself a Colonial, like his chair. In this imagination the reader, should he entertain it, would be deceived. 

The Younger Man then proceeded, knotting his forehead and puttinginto his eyes that troubled look which is proper to virtue and toyouth:

"Oh, Sir! I cannot tell you how things seem to be slipping from me!I smell less keenly and taste less keenly, I enjoy less keenly andsuffer less keenly than I did. Of many things which I certainlydesired I can only say that I now desire them in a more confusedmanner. Of certain propositions in which I intensely believed I canonly say that I now see them interfered with and criticisedperpetually, not, as was formerly the case, by my enemies, but bythe plain observance of life, and what is worse, I find growing inme a habit of reflection for reflection's sake, leading nowhere--anda sort of sedentary attitude in which I watch but neither judge norsupport nor attack any portion of mankind. "

The Older Man, hearing this speech, congratulated his visitor uponhis terse and accurate methods of expression, detailed to him thecareers in which such habits of terminology are valuable, and alsothose in which they are a fatal fault. 

"Having heard you, " he said, "it is my advice to you, drawn from along experience of men, to enter the legal profession, and, havingentered it, to supplement your income with writing occasionalarticles for the more dignified organs of the Press. But if thisprospect does not attract you (and, indeed, there are many whom ithas repelled) I would offer you as an alternative that you shouldproduce slowly, at about the rate of one in every two years, shortbooks compact of irony, yet having running through them like atwisted thread up and down, emerging, hidden, and re-emerging in thestuff of your writing, a memory of those early certitudes and evenof passion for those earlier revelations. "

When the Older Man had said this he sat silent for a few moments andthen added gravely, "But I must warn you that for such a career youneed an accumulated capital of at least £30, 000. "

The Young Man was not comforted by advice of this sort, and wasdetermined to make a kind of war upon the doctrine which seemed tounderlie it. He said in effect that if he could not be restored tothe pristine condition which he felt to be slipping from him hewould as lief stop living. 

On hearing this second statement the Older Man became extremelygrave. 

"Young Man, " said he, "Young Man, consider well what you are saying!The poet Shakespeare in his most remarkable effort, which, I needhardly tell you, is the tragedy of _Hamlet, or the Prince ofDenmark, _ has remarked that the thousand doors of death standopen. I may be misquoting the words, and if I am I do so boldly andwithout fear, for any fool with a book at his elbow can get thewords right and yet not understand their meaning. Let me assure youthat the doors of death are not so simply hinged, and that anydetermination to force them involves the destruction of much morethan these light though divine memories of which you speak; theyinvolve, indeed, the destruction of the very soul which conceivesthem. And let me assure you, not upon my own experience, but uponthat of those who have drowned themselves imperfectly, who haveenlisted in really dangerous wars, or who have fired revolvers atthemselves in a twisted fashion with their right hands, that, quiteapart from that evil to the soul of which I speak, the evil to themere body in such experiments is so considerable that a man wouldrather go to the dentist than experience them. .. . You will forgiveme, " he added earnestly, "for speaking in this gay manner upon animportant philosophical subject, but long hours of work at theearning of my living force me to some relaxation towards the end ofthe day, and I cannot restrain a frivolous spirit even in thediscussion of such fundamental things. .. . No, do not, as you put it, 'stop living. ' It hurts, and no one has the least conception ofwhether it is a remedy. What is more, the life in front of you willprove, after a few years, as entertaining as the life which you arerapidly leaving. "

The Young Man caught on to this last phrase, and said, "What do youmean by 'entertaining'?"

"I intend, " said the Older Man, "to keep my advice to you in thenote to which I think such advice should be set. I will not burdenit with anything awful, nor weight an imperfect diction withabsolute verities in which I do indeed believe, but which would bealtogether out of place at this hour of the evening. I will not denythat from eleven till one, and especially if one be delivering anhistorical, or, better still, a theological lecture, one can withoutloss of dignity allude to the permanent truth, the permanent beauty, and the permanent security without which human life wreathes up likemist and is at the best futile, at the worst tortured. But you mustremember that you have come to me suddenly with a most importantquestion, after dinner, that I have but just completed an essay uponthe economic effect of the development of the Manchurian coalfields, and that (what is more important) all this talk began in a certainkey, and that to change one's key is among the most difficult ofcreative actions. .. . No, Young Man, I shall not venture upon thetrue reply to your question. "

On hearing this answer the Young Man began to curse and to swear andto say that he had looked everywhere for help and had never foundit; that he was minded to live his own life and to see what wouldcome of it; that he thought the Older Man knew nothing of what hewas talking about, but was wrapping it all up in words; that he hadclearly recognised in the Older Man's intolerable prolixity severalclichés or ready-made phrases; that he hoped on reaching the OlderMan's age he would not have been so utterly winnowed of allsubstance as to talk so aimlessly; and finally that he prayed Godfor a personal development more full of justice, of life, and ofstuff than that which the Older Man appeared to have suffered orenjoyed. 

On hearing these words the Older Man leapt to his feet (which wasnot an easy thing for him to do) and as one overjoyed grasped theYounger Man by the hand, though the latter very much resented suchantics on the part of Age. 

"That is it! That is it!" cried the Older Man, looking now far tooold for his years. "If I have summoned up in you that spirit I havenot done ill! Get you forward in that mood and when you come to mytime of life you will be as rotund and hopeful a fellow as I ammyself. "

But having heard these words the Young Man left him in disgust. 

The Older Man, considering all these things as he looked into thefire when he was alone, earnestly desired that he could have toldthe Young Man the exact truth, have printed it, and have produced aproper Gospel. But considering the mountains of impossibility thatlay in the way of such public action, he sighed deeply and took tothe more indirect method. He turned to his work and continued toperform his own duty before God and for the help of mankind. This, on that evening, was for him a review upon the interpretation of theword _haga_ in the Domesday Inquest. This kept him up till aquarter past one, and as he had to take a train to Newcastle ateight next morning it is probable that much will be forgiven himwhen things are cleared. 

ON THE DEPARTURE OF A GUEST

 _C'est ma Jeunesse qui s'en va. Adieu! la tres gente compagne-- Oncques ne suis moins gai pour ça (C'est ma Jeunesse qui s'en va) Et lon-lon-laire, et lon-lon-là Peut-etre perd's; peut-etre gagne. C'est ma Jeunesse qui s'en va. _

(From the Author's MSS. In the library of the Abbey of Theleme. )

Host: Well, Youth, I see you are about to leave me, and since it isin the terms of your service by no means to exceed a certain periodin my house, I must make up my mind to bid you farewell. 

Youth: Indeed, I would stay if I could; but the matter lies as youknow in other hands, and I may not stay. 

Host: I trust, dear Youth, that you have found all comfortable whileyou were my guest, that the air has suited you and the company?

Youth: I thank you, I have never enjoyed a visit more; you may saythat I have been most unusually happy. 

Host: Then let me ring for the servant who shall bring down yourthings. 

Youth: I thank you civilly! I have brought them down already--see, they are here. I have but two, one very large bag and this othersmall one. 

Host: Why, you have not locked the small one! See it gapes!

Youth (_somewhat embarrassed_): My dear Host . .. To tell thetruth . .. I usually put it off till the end of my visits . .. But thetruth . .. To tell the truth, my luggage is of two kinds. 

Host: I do not see why that need so greatly confuse you. 

Youth (_still more embarrassed_): But you see--the fact is--Istay with people so long that--well, that very often they forgetwhich things are mine and which belong to the house . .. And--well, the truth is that I have to take away with me a number of thingswhich . .. Which, in a word, you may possibly have thought your own. 

Host (_coldly_): Oh!

Youth (_eagerly_): Pray do not think the worse of me--you knowhow strict are my orders. 

Host (_sadly_): Yes, I know; you will plead that Master ofyours, and no doubt you are right. .. . But tell me, Youth, what arethose things?

Youth: They fill this big bag. But I am not so ungracious as youthink. See, in this little bag, which I have purposely left open, are a number of things properly mine, yet of which I am allowed tomake gifts to those with whom I lingered--you shall choose amongthem, or if you will, you shall have them all. 

Host: Well, first tell me what you have packed in the big bag andmean to take away. 

Youth: I will open it and let you see. (_He unlocks it and pullsthe things out_. ) I fear they are familiar to you. 

Host: Oh! Youth! Youth! Must you take away all of these? Why, youare taking away, as it were, my very self! Here is the love ofwomen, as deep and changeable as an opal; and here is carelessnessthat looks like a shower of pearls. And here I see--Oh! Youth, forshame!--you are taking away that silken stuff which used to wrap upthe whole and which you once told me had no name, but which lent toeverything it held plenitude and satisfaction. Without it surelypleasures are not all themselves. Leave me that at least. 

Youth: No, I must take it, for it is not yours, though from courtesyI forbore to tell you so till now. These also go: Facility, theointment; Sleep, the drug; Full Laughter, that tolerated allfollies. It was the only musical thing in the house. And I musttake--yes, I fear I must take Verse. 

HOST: Then there is nothing left!

YOUTH: Oh! yes! See this little open bag which you may choose from!Feel it!

HOST (_lifting it_): Certainly it is very heavy, but it rattlesand is uncertain. 

YOUTH: That is because it is made up of divers things having nosimilarity; and you may take all or leave all, or choose as youwill. Here (_holding up a clout_) is Ambition: Will you havethat?. .. 

HOST (_doubtfully_): I cannot tell. .. . It has been mine and yet. .. Without those other things. .. . 

YOUTH (_cheerfully_): Very well, I will leave it. You shalldecide on it a few years hence. Then, here is the perfume Pride. Will you have that?

HOST: No; I will have none of it. It is false and corrupt, and onlyyesterday I was for throwing it out of window to sweeten the air inmy room. 

YOUTH: So far you have chosen well; now pray choose more. 

HOST: I will have this--and this--and this. I will take Health(_takes it out of the bag_), not that it is of much use to mewithout those other things, but I have grown used to it. Then I willtake this (_takes out a plain steel purse and chain_), which isthe tradition of my family, and which I desire to leave to my son. Imust have it cleaned. Then I will take this (_pulls out a trinket_), which is the Sense of Form and Colour. I am told it is of less valuelater on, but it is a pleasant ornament . .. And so, Youth, goodbye. 

Youth (_with a mysterious smile_): Wait--I have something elsefor you (_he feels in his ticket pocket_); no less a thing(_he feels again in his watch pocket_) than (_he looks a trifle anxiousand feels in his waistcoat pockets_) a promise from my Master, signedand sealed, to give you back all I take and more in Immortality! (_Hefeels in his handkerchief pocket. _)

Host: Oh! Youth!

Youth (_still feeling_): Do not thank me! It is my Master youshould thank. (_Frowns_. ) Dear me! I hope I have not lost it!(_Feels in his trousers pockets. _)

Host (_loudly_): Lost it?

Youth (_pettishly_): I did not say I had lost it! I said Ihoped I had not . .. (_feels in his great-coat pocket, and pullsout an envelope_). Ah! Here it is! (_His face clouds over_. )No, that is the message to Mrs. George, telling her the time hascome to get a wig . .. (_Hopelessly_): Do you know I am afraid Ihave lost it! I am really very sorry--I cannot wait. (_He goesoff_. )

ON DEATH

I knew a man once who made a great case of Death, saying that heesteemed a country according to its regard for the conception ofDeath, and according to the respect which it paid to thatconception. He also said that he considered individuals by much thesame standard, but that he did not judge them so strictly in thematter, because (said he) great masses of men are more permanentlyconcerned with great issues; whereas private citizens are disturbedby little particular things which interfere with their littleparticular lives, and so distract them from the general end. 

This was upon a river called Boutonne, in Vendée, and at the time Idid not understand what he meant because as yet I had had noexperience of these things. But this man to whom I spoke had hadthree kinds of experience; first, he had himself been very probablythe occasion of Death in others, for he had been a soldier in a warof conquest where the Europeans were few and the Barbarians many!secondly, he had been himself very often wounded, and more than onceall but killed; thirdly, he was at the time he told me this thing anold man who must in any case soon come to that experience orcatastrophe of which he spoke. 

He was an innkeeper, the father of two daughters, and his inn was bythe side of the river, but the road ran between. His face was moreanxiously earnest than is commonly the face of a French peasant, asthough he had suffered more than do ordinarily that very prosperous, very virile, and very self-governing race of men. He had also abouthim what many men show who have come sharply against the greatrealities, that is, a sort of diffidence in talking of ordinarythings. I could see that in the matters of his household he allowedhimself to be led by women. Meanwhile he continued to talk to meover the table upon this business of Death, and as he talked heshowed that desire to persuade which is in itself the strongestmotive of interest in any human discourse. 

He said to me that those who affected to despise the considerationof Death knew nothing of it; that they had never seen it close andmight be compared to men who spoke of battles when they had onlyread books about battles, or who spoke of sea-sickness though theyhad never seen the sea. This last metaphor he used with some pride, for he had crossed the Mediterranean from Provence to Africa somefive or six times, and had upon each occasion suffered horribly;for, of course, his garrison had been upon the edge of the desert, and he had been a soldier beyond the Atlas. He told me that thosewho affected to neglect or to despise Death were worse than childrentalking of grown-up things, and were more like prigs talking ofphysical things of which they knew nothing. 

I told him then that there were many such men, especially in thetown of Geneva. This, he said, he could well believe, though he hadnever travelled there, and had hardly heard the name of the place. But he knew it for some foreign town. He told me, also, that therewere men about in his own part of the world who pretended that sinceDeath was an accident like any other, and, moreover, one as certainas hunger or as sleep, it was not to be considered. These, he said, were the worst debaters upon his favourite subject. 

Now as he talked in this fashion I confess that I was very bored. Ihad desired to go on to Angouléme upon my bicycle, and I was at thatage when all human beings think themselves immortal. I had desiredto get off the main high road into the hills upon the left, to theeast of it, and I was at an age when the cessation of mundaneexperience is not a conceivable thing. Moreover, this innkeeper hadbeen pointed out to me as a man who could give very usefulinformation upon the nature of the roads I had to travel, and it hadnever occurred to me that he would switch me off after dinner upon ahobby of his own. To-day, after a wider travel, I know well that allinnkeepers have hobbies, and that an abstract or mystical hobby ofthis sort is amongst the best with which to pass an evening. But nomatter, I am talking of then and not now. He kept me, therefore, uninterested as I was, and continued:

"People who put Death away from them, who do not neglect or despiseit but who stop thinking about it, annoy me very much. We have inthis village a chemist of such a kind. He will have it that, fiveminutes afterwards, a man thinks no more about it. " Having gone sofar, the innkeeper, clenching his hands and fixing me with abrilliant glance from his old eyes, said:

"With such men I will have nothing to do!"

Indeed, that his chief subject should be treated in such a fashionwas odious to him, and rightly, for of the half-dozen things worthstrict consideration, there is no doubt that his hobby was thechief, and to have one's hobby vulgarly despised is intolerable. 

The innkeeper then went on to tell me that so far as he could makeout it was a man's business to consider this subject of Deathcontinually, to wonder upon it, and, if he could, to extract itsmeaning. Of the men I had met so far in life, only the Scotch andcertain of the Western French went on in this metaphysical manner:thus a Breton, a Basque, and a man in Ecclefechan (I hope I spell itright) and another in Jedburgh had already each of them sent me tomy bed confused upon the matter of free will. So this Westerninnkeeper refused to leave his thesis. It was incredible to him thata Sentient Being who perpetually accumulated experience, who grewriper and riper, more and more full of such knowledge as was nativeto himself and complementary to his nature, should at the verycrisis of his success in all things intellectual and emotional, cease suddenly. It was further an object to him of vast curiositywhy such a being, since a future was essential to it, should findthat future veiled. 

He presented to me a picture of men perpetually passing through afield of vision out of the dark and into the dark. He showed methese men, not growing and falling as fruits do (so the modernvulgar conception goes) but alive throughout their transit: pouringlike an unbroken river from one sharp limit of the horizon whencethey entered into life to that other sharp limit where they pouredout from life, not through decay, but through a sudden catastrophe. 

"I, " said he, "shall die, I do suppose, with a full consciousness ofmy being and with a great fear in my eyes. And though many diedecrepit and senile, that is not the normal death of men, for menhave in them something of a self-creative power, which pushes themon to the further realisation of themselves, right up to the edge oftheir doom. "

I put his words in English after a great many years, but they weresomething of this kind, for he was a metaphysical sort of man. 

It was now near midnight, and I could bear with such discussions nolonger; my fatigue was great and the hour at which I had to risenext day was early. It was, therefore, in but a drowsy state that Iheard him continue his discourse. He told me a long story of how hehad seen one day a company of young men of the New Army, theconscripts, go marching past his house along the river through adriving snow. He said that first he heard them singing long beforehe saw them, that then they came out like ghosts for a momentthrough the drift, that then in the half light of the winter dawnthey clearly appeared, all in step for once, swinging forward, muffled in their dark blue coats, and still singing to the lift oftheir feet; that then on their way to the seaport, they passed againinto the blinding scurry of the snow, that they seemed like ghostsagain for a moment behind the veil of it, and that long after theyhad disappeared their singing could still be heard. 

By this time I was most confused as to what lesson he would convey, and sleep had nearly overcome me, but I remember his telling me thatsuch a sight stood to him at the moment and did still stand for thepassage of the French Armies perpetually on into the dark, centuryafter century, destroyed for the most part upon fields of battle. Hetold me that he felt like one who had seen the retreat from Moscow, and he would, I am sure, had I not determined to leave him and totake at least some little sleep, have asked me what fate there wasfor those single private soldiers, each real, each existent, whilethe Army which they made up and of whose "destruction" men spoke, was but a number, a notion, a name. He would have pestered me, if mymind had still been active, as to what their secret destinies werewho lay, each man alone, twisted round the guns after the failure tohold the Bridge of the Beresina. He might have gone deeper, but Iwas too tired to listen to him any more. 

This human debate of ours (and very one-sided it was!) is nowresolved, for in the interval since it was engaged the innkeeperhimself has died. 

ON COMING TO AN END

Of all the simple actions in the world! Of all the simple actions inthe world!

One would think it could be done with less effort than the heavingof a sigh. .. . Well--then, one would be wrong. 

There is no case of Coming to an End but has about it something ofan effort and a jerk, as though Nature abhorred it, and though it betrue that some achieve a quiet and a perfect end to one thing oranother (as, for instance, to Life), yet this achievement is notarrived at save through the utmost toil, and consequent upon themost persevering and exquisite art. 

Now you can say that this may be true of sentient things but not ofthings inanimate. It is true even of things inanimate. 

Look down some straight railway line for a vanishing point to theperspective: you will never find it. Or try to mark the moment whena small target becomes invisible. There is no gradation; a moment itwas there, and you missed it--possibly because the Authorities werenot going in for journalism that day, and had not chosen a dead calmwith the light full on the canvas. A moment it was there and then, as you steamed on, it was gone. The same is true of a lark in theair. You see it and then you do not see it, you only hear its song. And the same is true of that song: you hear it and then suddenly youdo not hear it. It is true of a human voice, which is familiar inyour ear, living and inhabiting the rooms of your house. There comesa day when it ceases altogether--and how positive, how definite andhard is that Coming to an End. 

It does not leave an echo behind it, but a sharp edge of emptiness, and very often as one sits beside the fire the memory of that voicesuddenly returning gives to the silence about one a personal force, as it were, of obsession and of control. So much happens when evenone of all our million voices Comes to an End. 

It is necessary, it is august and it is reasonable that the greatstory of our lives also should be accomplished and should reach aterm: and yet there is something in that hidden duality of ourswhich makes the prospect of so natural a conclusion terrible, and itis the better judgment of mankind and the mature conclusion ofcivilisations in their age that there is not only a conclusion herebut something of an adventure also. It may be so. 

Those who solace mankind and are the principal benefactors of it, Imean the poets and the musicians, have attempted always to ease theprospect of Coming to an End, whether it were the Coming to an Endof the things we love or of that daily habit and conversation whichis our life and is the atmosphere wherein we loved them. Indeed thisis a clear test whereby you may distinguish the great artists fromthe mean hucksters and charlatans, that the first approach andreveal what is dreadful with calm and, as it were, with a purpose touse it for good while the vulgar catchpenny fellows must liven uptheir bad dishes as with a cheap sauce of the horrible, caringnothing, so that their shrieks sell, whether we are the better forthem or no. 

The great poets, I say, bring us easily or grandly to the gate: asin that _Ode to a Nightingale_ where it is thought good (in animmortal phrase) to pass painlessly at midnight, or, in the gloriousline which Ronsard uses, like a salute with the sword, hailing "laprofitable mort. "

The noblest or the most perfect of English elegies leaves, as a sortof savour after the reading of it, no terror at all nor even toomuch regret, but the landscape of England at evening, when the smokeof the cottages mixes with autumn vapours among the elms; and eventhat gloomy modern _Ode to the West Wind_, unfinished andtouched with despair, though it will speak of--

 . .. That outer place forlorn Which, like an infinite grey sea, surrounds With everlasting calm the land of human sounds;

yet also returns to the sacramental earth of one's childhood whereit says:

 For now the Night completed tells her tale Of rest and dissolution: gathering round Her mist in such persuasion that the ground Of Home consents to falter and grow pale. And the stars are put out and the trees fail. Nor anything remains but that which drones Enormous through the dark. .. . 

And again, in another place, where it prays that one may at the lastbe fed with beauty---

 . .. As the flowers are fed That fill their falling-time with generous breath: Let me attain a natural end of death, And on the mighty breast, as on a bed, Lay decently at last a drowsy head, Content to lapse in somnolence and fade In dreaming once again the dream of all things made. 

The most careful philosophy, the most heavenly music, the bestchoice of poetic or prosaic phrase prepare men properly for man'sperpetual loss of this and of that, and introduce us proudly to thesimilar and greater business of departure from them all, fromwhatever of them all remains at the close. 

To be introduced, to be prepared, to be armoured, all these areexcellent things, but there is a question no foresight can answernor any comprehension resolve. It is right to gather upon thatquestion the varied affections or perceptions of varying men. 

I knew a man once in the Tourdenoise, a gloomy man, but very rich, who cared little for the things he knew. This man took no pleasurein his fruitful orchards and his carefully ploughed fields and hisharvests. He took pleasure in pine trees; he was a man of groves andof the dark. For him that things should come to an end was but partof an universal rhythm; a part pleasing to the general harmony, andmaking in the music of the world about him a solemn and, oh, aconclusive chord. This man would study the sky at night and takefrom it a larger and a larger draught of infinitude, finding in thisexercise not a mere satisfaction, but an object and goal for themind; when he had so wandered for a while under the night he seemed, for the moment, to have reached the object of his being. 

And I knew another man in the Weald who worked with his hands, andwas always kind, and knew his trade well; he smiled when he talkedof scythes, and he could thatch. He could fish also, and he knewabout grafting, and about the seasons of plants, and birds, and theway of seed. He had a face full of weather, he fatigued his body, hewatched his land. He would not talk much of mysteries, he wouldrather hum songs. He loved new friends and old. He had lived withone wife for fifty years, and he had five children, who were apoliceman, a schoolmistress, a son at home, and two who weresailors. This man said that what a man did and the life in which hedid it was like the farmwork upon a summer's day. He said one worksa little and rests, and works a little again, and one drinks, andthere is a perpetual talk with those about one. Then (he would say)the shadows lengthen at evening, the wind falls, the birds get backhome. And as for ourselves, we are sleepy before it is dark. 

Then also I knew a third man who lived in a town and was clericaland did no work, for he had money of his own. This man said that allwe do and the time in which we do it is rather a night than a day. He said that when we came to an end we vanished, we and our works, but that we vanished into a broadening light. 

Which of these three knew best the nature of man and of his works, and which knew best of what nature was the end?

 * * * * *

Why so glum, my Lad, or my Lass (as the case may be), why so heavyat heart? Did you not know that you also must Come to an End?

Why, that woman of Etaples who sold such Southern wine for thedissipation of the Picardian Mist, her time is over and gone and thewine has been drunk long ago and the singers in her house havedeparted, and the wind of the sea moans in and fills their hall. TheLords who died in Roncesvalles have been dead these thousand yearsand more, and the loud song about them grew very faint and dwindledand is silent now: there is nothing at all remains. 

It is certain that the hills decay and that rivers as the dustyyears proceed run feebly and lose themselves at last in desertsands; and in its aeons the very firmament grows old. But evil alsois perishable and bad men meet their judge. Be comforted. 

Now of all endings, of all Comings to an End none is so hesitatingas the ending of a book which the Publisher will have so long andthe writer so short: and the Public (God Bless the Public) will havewhatever it is given. 

Books, however much their lingering, books also must Come to an End. It is abhorrent to their nature as to the life of man. They must besharply cut off. Let it be done at once and fixed as by a spell andthe power of a Word; the word

FINIS