in Derbyshire (voters, good people, voters remember) whether the
United States were bound to us as a colony "like Egypt." And I once
heard also a debate as to whether the word were Horizon or Horizon;
this ended in a fight; and the Horizon man pushed the Horizon man
out at Skipton, and wouldn't let him get into the carriage again.
Then again I once heard two frightfully rich men near Birmingham
arguing why England was the richest and the Happiest Country in the
world. Neither of these men was a gentleman but they argued politely
though firmly, for they differed profoundly. One of them, who was
almost too rich to walk, said it was because we minded our own
affairs, and respected property and were law-abiding. This (he said)
was the cause of our prosperity and of the futile envy with which
foreigners regarded the homes of our working men. Not so the other:
_he_ thought that it was the Plain English sense of Duty that
did the trick: he showed how this was ingrained in us and appeared
in our Schoolboys and our Police: he contrasted it with Ireland, and
he asked what else had made our Criminal Trials the model of the
world? All this also I wrote down.
Then also once on a long ride (yes, "ride". Why not?) through
Lincolnshire I heard two men of the smaller commercial or salaried
kind at issue. The first, who had a rather peevish face, was looking
gloomily out of window and was saying, "Denmark has it: Greece has
it--why shouldn't we have it? Eh? America has it and so's Germany--why
shouldn't we have it?" Then after a pause he added, "Even France has
it--why haven't we got it?" He spoke as though he wouldn't stand it
much longer, and as though France were the last straw.
The other man was excitable and had an enormous newspaper in his
hand, 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 away
his fore-bob-stay. He answered slowly--
"Well ... yes ... in a manner of speaking. But what I meant to say
was like this, that what made England was Free Trade!" Here he
slapped 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. When
he had done, all the first man did was to say, "You talk
foolishness."
Then there was a long silence: very strained. At last the Free
Trader pulled out a pipe and filled it at leisure, with a light sort
of womanish tobacco, and just as he struck a match the Protectionist
shouted out, "No you don't! This ain't a smoking compartment. I
object!" The Free Trader said, "O! that's how it is, is it?" The
Protectionist answered in a lower voice and surly, "Yes: that's
how."
They sat avoiding each other's eyes till we got to Grantham. I had
no idea that feeling could run so high, yet neither of them had a
real grip on the Theory of International Exchange.
But by far the most extraordinary conversation and perhaps the most
illuminating I ever heard, was in a train going to the West Country
and 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 gold
watch-chain with a little ornament on it representing a pair of
compasses and a square. His beard was brown and soft. His eyes were
very sodden. When he got in he first wrapped a rug round and round
his legs, then he took off his top hat and put on a cloth cap, then
he sat down.
The other also wore a tweed suit and was also stout, but he was not
so tall. His watch-chain also was of gold (but of a different
pattern, paler, and with no ornament hung on it). His eyes also were
sodden. He had no rug. He also took off his hat but put no cap upon
his head. I noticed that he was rather bald, and in the middle of
his baldness was a kind of little knob. For the purposes of this
record, therefore, I shall give him the name "Bald," while I shall
call the other man "Cap."
I have forgotten, by the way, to tell you that Bald had a very large
nose, at the end of which a great number of little veins had
congested and turned quite blue.
CAP (_shuts up Levy's paper, "The Daily Telegraph," and opens
Harmsworth'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 my
name. (_He coughs to show breeding_.) Why! (_his eyes getting a
trifle 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 has
those attacks (_shaking his head_). Abdominal (_continuing to
shake 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. Nor
not inclined to neither. (_Draws a great breath._) I'm a single
man, 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 life
worth 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 the
Thersites' Lodge down Brixham way--only the other day. Wonderful
brilliant he was ... well, there ... (_his tone changes_) he
was sitting next to me--(_thoughtfully_)--as, might be here--(_putting
Harmsworth's paper down to represent Young Cobbler_)--and here like,
would be Lord Haltingtowres.
BALD (_his manner suddenly becoming very serious_): He's a
fine 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 them
just 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 ditto
to that, Mr. Binder! (_Thinking for a few moments of the
characteristics of Lord Charles Beresford._) It's pluck--that's
what it is--regular British pluck (_Grimly_) That's the kind of
man--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 and
speaking very rapidly_): Well, here's yours, Mr. Mowle. (_He
drinks out of it a quantity of neat whisky, and having drunk it rubs
the 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 sleeve
over it, screwed on the little top and giving that long gasp which
the occasion demands_): Yes, you're right there--"Well done.
Condor."
At this point the train began to go slowly, and just as it stopped
at the station I heard Cap begin again, asking Bald on what occasion
and for what services Lord Charles Beresford had been given his
title.
Full of the marvels of this conversation I got out, went into the
waiting-room and wrote it all down. I think I have it accurately
word for word.
But there happened to me what always happens after all literary
effort; the enthusiasm vanished, the common day was before me. I
went out to do my work in the place and to meet quite ordinary
people and to forget, perhaps, (so strong is Time) the fantastic
beings in the train. In a word, to quote Mr. Binyon's admirable
lines:
"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, without
fuss and thinly, as it were, which is their nature; but when such
visits were doubted even by those who received them and when new and
false names were given them the Dead did not find it worth while. It
was always a trouble; they did it really more for our sakes than for
theirs and they would be recognised or stay where they were.
I am not certain that they might not have changed with the times and
come frankly and positively, as some urged them to do, had it not
been for Rabelais' failure towards the end of the Boer war. Rabelais
(it will be remembered) appeared in London at the very beginning of
the season in 1902. Everybody knows one part of the story or
another, but if I put down the gist of it here I shall be of
service, for very few people have got it quite right all through,
and yet that story alone can explain why one cannot get the dead to
come 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 a
colonnade on a little hill looking south over the plains. There are
thrones there with the names of the owners on them. It is a sort of
Club.
Rabelais was quarrelling with some fool who had missed fire with a
medium and was saying that the modern world wanted positive
unmistakable appearances: he said he ought to know, because he had
begun the modern world. Lucian said it would fail just as much as
any other way; Rabelais hotly said it wouldn't. He said he would
come to London and lecture at the London School of Economics and
establish a good solid objective relationship between the two
worlds. Lucian said it would end badly. Rabelais, who had been
drinking, lost his temper and did at once what he had only been
boasting he would do. He materialised at some expense, and he
announced his lecture. Then the trouble began, and I am honestly of
opinion that if we had treated the experiment more decently we
should not have this recent reluctance on the part of the Dead to
pay us reasonable attention.
In the first place, when it was announced that Rabelais had returned
to life and was about to deliver a lecture at the London School of
Economics, Mrs. Whirtle, who was a learned woman, with a well-deserved
reputation in the field of objective psychology, called it a rumour
and discredited it (in a public lecture) on these three grounds:
(_a_) That Rabelais being dead so long ago would not come back
to life now.
(_b_) That even if he did come back to life it was quite out of
his habit to give lectures.
(_c_) That even if he had come back to life and did mean to
lecture, he would never lecture at the London School of Economics,
which was engaged upon matters principally formulated since
Rabelais' day and with which, moreover, Rabelais' "essentially
synthetical" mind would find a difficulty in grappling.
All Mrs. Whirtle's audience agreed with one or more of these
propositions except Professor Giblet, who accepted all three saving
and excepting the term "synthetical" as applied to Rabelais' mind.
"For," said he, "you must not be so deceived by an early use of the
Inducto-Deductive method as to believe that a sixteenth-century man
could be, in any true sense, synthetical." And this judgment the
Professor emphasized by raising his voice suddenly by one octave.
His position and that of Mrs. Whirtle were based upon that thorough
summary of Rabelais' style in Mr. Effort's book on French
literature: each held a sincere position, nevertheless this cold
water thrown on the very beginning of the experiment did harm.
The attitude of the governing class did harm also. Lady Jane Bird saw
the announcement on the placards of the evening papers as she went
out 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 a
group of people began to ask questions together: Lady Jane herself
did so. Mr. Wantage-Verneyson is (or rather was, alas!) the second
cousin of the Duke of Durham (he is--or rather was, alas!--the son of
Lord and Lady James Verneyson, now dead), and he said that Rabelais
was written by Urquhart a long time ago; this was quite deplorable
and did infinite harm. He also said that every educated man had read
Rabelais, and that he had done so. He said it was a protest against
Rome and all that sort of thing. He added that the language was
difficult to understand. He further remarked that it was full of
footnotes, but that he thought these had been put in later by scholars.
Cross-questioned on this he admitted that he did not see what scholars
could want with Rabelais. On hearing this and the rest of his
information several ladies and a young man of genial expression began
to doubt in their turn.
A Hack in Grub Street whom Painful Labour had driven to Despair and
Mysticism read the announcement with curiosity rather than
amazement, fully believing that the Great Dead, visiting as they do
the souls, may also come back rarely to the material cities of men.
One thing, however, troubled him, and that was how Rabelais, who had
slept 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. 32
of the street of the same name. Howsoever, he would have guessed
that the alchemy of that immeasurable mind had in some way got rid
of the difficulty, and really the Hack must be forgiven for his
faith, since one learned enough to know so much about sites, history
and literature, is learned enough to doubt the senses and to accept
the Impossible; unfortunately the fact was vouched for in eight
newspapers of which he knew too much and was not accepted in the
only sheet he trusted. So he doubted too.
John Bowles, of Lombard Street, read the placards and wrought
himself up into a fury saying, "In what other country would these
cursed Boers be allowed to come and lecture openly like this? It is
enough to make one excuse the people who break up their meetings."
He was a little consoled, however, by the thought that his country
was so magnanimous, and in the calmer mood of self-satisfaction went
so far as to subscribe £5 to a French newspaper which was being
founded to propagate English opinions on the Continent. He may be
neglected.
Peter Grierson, attorney, was so hurried and overwrought with the
work he had been engaged on that morning (the lending of £1323 to a
widow at 5 1/4 per cent., [which heaven knows is reasonable!] on
security of a number of shares in the London and North-Western
Railway) that he misread the placard and thought it ran "Rabelais
lecture at the London School Economics"; disturbed for a moment at
the thought of so much paper wasted in time of war for so paltry an
announcement, he soon forgot about the whole business and went off
to "The Holborn," where he had his lunch comfortably standing up at
the buffet, and then went and worked at dominoes and cigars for two
hours.
Sir Judson Pennefather, Cabinet Minister and Secretary of State for
Public Worship, Literature and the Fine Arts--
But what have I to do with all these; absurd people upon whom the
news of Rabelais' return fell with such varied effect? What have you
and I to do with men and women who do not, cannot, could not, will
not, ought not, have not, did, and by all the thirsty Demons that
serve the lamps of the cavern of the Sibyl, _shall_ not count
in the scheme of things as worth one little paring of Rabelais'
little finger nail? What are they that they should interfere with
the great mirific and most assuaging and comfortable feast of wit to
which I am now about to introduce you!--for know that I take you now
into the lecture-hall and put you at the feet of the past-master of
all arts and divinations (not to say crafts and homologisings and
integrativeness), the Teacher of wise men, the comfort of an
afflicted world, the uplifter of fools, the energiser of the
lethargic, the doctor of the gouty, the guide of youth, the
companion of middle age, the _vade mecum_ of the old, the
pleasant introducer of inevitable death, yea, the general solace of
mankind. Oh! what are you not now about to hear! If anywhere there
are rivers in pleasant meadows, cool heights in summer, lovely
ladies discoursing upon smooth lawns, or music skilfully befingered
by dainty artists in the shade of orange groves, if there is any
left of that wine of Chinon from behind the _Grille_ at four
francs a bottle (and so there is, I know, for I drank it at the last
Reveillon by St. Gervais)--I say if any of these comforters of the
living anywhere grace the earth, you shall find my master Rabelais
giving you the very innermost and animating spirit of all these good
things, their utter flavour and their saving power in the
quintessential words of his incontestably regalian lips. So here,
then, you may hear the old wisdom given to our wretched generation
for one happy hour of just living and we shall learn, surely in this
case at least, that the return of the Dead was admitted and the
Great Spirits were received and honoured.
* * * * *
But alas! No. (which is not a _nominativus pendens_, still less
an anacoluthon but a mere interjection). Contrariwise, in the place
of such a sunrise of the mind, what do you think we were given? The
sight of an old man in a fine red gown and with a University cap on
his head hurried along by two policemen in the Strand and followed
by a mob of boys and ruffians, some of whom took him for Mr. Kruger,
while others thought he was but a harmless mummer. And the
magistrate (who had obtained his position by a job) said these
simple words: "I do not know who you are in reality nor what foreign
name mask under your buffoonery, but I do know on the evidence of
these intelligent officers, evidence upon which I fully rely and
which you have made no attempt to contradict, you have disgraced
yourself and the hall of your kind hosts and employers by the use of
language which I shall not characterise save by telling you that it
would be comprehensible only in a citizen of the nation to which you
have the misfortune to belong. Luckily you were not allowed to
proceed for more than a moment with your vile harangue which (if I
understand rightly) was in praise of wine. You will go to prison for
twelve months. I shall not give you the option of a fine: but I can
promise you that if you prefer to serve with the gallant K. O.
Fighting Scouts your request will be favourably entertained by the
proper authorities."
Long before this little speech was over Rabelais had disappeared,
and was once more with the immortals cursing and swearing that he
would 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 appearance
and his departure, but I do say that if the Physicists (and notably
Mrs. Whirtle) had shown more imagination, the governing class a
wider reading, and the magistracy a trifle more sympathy with the
difference of tone between the sixteenth century and our own time,
the deplorable misunderstanding now separating the dead and the
living would never have arisen; for I am convinced that the Failure
of 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-Latin
oddities---The time has come to convey, impart and make known to you
the dreadful conclusions and horrible prognostications that flow,
happen, deduce, derive and are drawn from the truly abominable
conditions of the social medium in which you and I and all poor
devils are most fatally and surely bound to draw out our miserable
existence.
Note, I say "existence" and not "existences." Why do I say
"existence", and not "existences"? Why, with a fine handsome plural
ready to hand, do I wind you up and turn you off, so to speak, with
a piffling little singular not fit for a half-starved newspaper
fellow, let alone a fine, full-fledged, intellectual and well-read
vegetarian and teetotaller who writes in the reviews? Eh? Why do I
say "existence"?--speaking of many, several and various persons as
though they had but one mystic, combined and corporate personality
such as Rousseau (a fig for the Genevese!) portrayed in his
_Contrat Social_ (which you have never read), and such as
Hobbes, 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 may
ask yourselves one to another mutually round the tea-table putting
it as a problem or riddle. You may make a game of it, or use it for
gambling, or say it suddenly as a catch for your acquaintances when
they come up from the suburbs. It is a very pretty question and
would have been excellently debated by Thomas Aquinas in the
Jacobins of St. Jacques, near the Parloir aux Bourgeois, by the gate
of the University; by Albertus Magnus in the Cordeliers, hard by the
College of Bourgoyne; by Pic de la Mirandole, who lived I care not a
rap where and debated I know not from Adam how or when; by Lord
Bacon, who took more bribes in a day than you and I could compass in
a dozen years; by Spinoza, a good worker of glass lenses, but a
philosopher whom I have never read nor will; by Coleridge when he
was not talking about himself nor taking some filthy drug; by John
Pilkington Smith, of Norwood, Drysalter, who has, I hear, been
lately 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 leads
nowhere unless indeed there be sharp revelation, positive
declaration and very certain affirmation to go upon by way of Basis
or First Principle whence to deduce some sure conclusion and
irrefragable truth; for thus the intellect walks, as it were, along
a high road, whereas by all other ways it is lurching and stumbling
and boggling and tumbling in I know not what mists and brambles of
the great bare, murky twilight and marshy hillside of philosophy,
where I also wandered when I was a fool and unoccupied and lacking
exercise for the mind, but from whence, by the grace of St. Anthony
of Miranella and other patrons of mine, I have very happily
extricated myself. And here I am in the parlour of the "Bugle" at
Yarmouth, by a Christian fire, having but lately come off the sea
and writing this for the edification and confirmation of honest
souls.
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 interrogative
categories must be met, faced, resolved and answered exactly--or you
have no more knowledge of the matter than the _Times_ has of
economics or the King of the Belgians of thorough-Bass. Yea, if you
miss, overlook, neglect, or shirk by reason of fatigue or indolence,
so much as one tittle of these several aspects of a question you
might as well leave it altogether alone and give up analysis for
selling stock, as did the Professor of Verbalism in the University
of Adelaide to the vast solace and enrichment of his family.
For by the neglect of but one of these final and fundamental
approaches to the full knowledge of a question the world has been
irreparably, irretrievably and permanently robbed of the certain
reply to, and left ever in the most disastrous doubt upon, this most
important and necessary matter--namely, _whether real existence
can be predicated of matter._