OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE STATE
The large gaunt building, which was dignified by the name of the
‘People’s Assembly Rooms,’ stood in a dim unfashionable square of the
city which had once been entirely devoted to warehouses and storage
cellars. It had originally served a useful purpose in providing
temporary shelter for foreign-made furniture, which was badly
constructed and intrinsically worthless,--but which, being cheaply
imported and showy in appearance, was patronized by some of the upper
middle-classes in preference to goods of their own home workmanship.
Lately, however, the foreign import had fallen to almost less than
nothing; and whether or no this was due to the secret machinations of
Sergius Thord and his Revolutionary Committee, no one would have had
the hardihood to assert. Foreign tradesmen, however, and foreign workmen
generally had certainly experienced a check in their inroads upon
home manufactures, and some of the larger business firms had been so
successfully intimidated as to set up prominent announcements outside
their warehouses to the effect that “Only native workmen need apply.”
Partly in consequence of the “slump” in foreign goods, the “Assembly
Rooms,” as a mere building had for some time been shut up, and given
over to dust and decay, till the owners of the property decided to
let it out for popular concerts, meetings and dances, and so make some
little money out of its bare whitewashed walls and comfortless ugliness.
The plan had succeeded fairly well, and the place was beginning to be
known as a convenient centre where thousands were wont to congregate, to
enjoy cheap music and cheap entertainment generally. It was a favourite
vantage ground for the disaffected and radical classes of the metropolis
to hold forth on their wrongs, real or imaginary,--and the capacities of
the largest room or hall in the building were put to their utmost
extent to hold the enormous audiences that always assembled to hear the
picturesque, passionate and striking oratory of Sergius Thord.
But there were one or two rare occasions when even Sergius Thord’s
attractions as a speaker were thrown into the background, by the
appearance of that mysterious personality known as Lotys,--concerning
whom a thousand extravagant stories were rife, none of which were true.
It was rumoured among other things as wild and strange, that she was
the illegitimate child of a certain great prince, whose amours were
legion--that she had been thrown out into the street to perish, deserted
as an infant, and that Sergius Thord had rescued her from that impending
fate of starvation and death,--and that it was by way of vengeance for
the treatment of her mother by the Exalted Personage involved, that
she had thrown in her lot with the Revolutionary party, to aid their
propaganda by her intellectual gifts, which were many. She was known to
be very poor,--she lived in cheap rooms in a low quarter of the city;
she was seldom or never seen in the public thoroughfares,--she appeared
to have no women friends, and she certainly mixed in no form of social
intercourse or entertainment. Yet her name was on the lips of the
million, and her influence was felt far beyond the city’s radius.
Even among some of the highest and wealthiest classes of society this
peculiar appellation of “Lotys,” carrying no surname with it, and
spoken at haphazard had the effect of causing a sudden silence, and
the interchange of questioning looks among those who heard it, and who,
without knowing who she was, or what her aims in life really were, voted
her “dangerous.” Those among the superior classes who had by rare
chance seen her, were unanimous in their verdict that she was not
beautiful,--“but!”--and the “but” spoke volumes. She was known
to possess something much less common, and far more potent than
beauty,--and that was a fascinating, compelling spiritual force,
which magnetised into strange submission all who came within its
influence,--and many there were who admitted, though with bated breath
that ‘An’ if she chose’ she could easily become a very great personage
indeed.
She herself was, or seemed to be, perfectly unconscious of the many
discussions concerning her and her origin. She had her own secret
sorrows,--her sad private history, which she shut close within her own
breast,--but out of many griefs and poverty-stricken days of struggle
and cruel environment, she had educated herself to a wonderful height of
moral self-control and almost stoical rectitude. Her nature was a broad
and grand one, absolutely devoid of pettiness, and full of a strong,
almost passionate sympathy with the wrongs of others,--and she had
formed herself on such firm, heroic lines of courage and truth and
self-respect, that the meaner vices of her sex were absolutely unknown
to her. Neither vanity, nor envy, nor malice, nor spleen disturbed the
calmly-flowing current of her blood,--her soul was absorbed in pity for
human kind, and contemplation of its many woes,--and so living alone,
and studiously apart from the more frivolous world, she had attained a
finely tempered and deeply thoughtful disposition which gave her equally
the courage of the hero and the resignation of the martyr. She had long
put away out of her life all possibility of happiness for herself. She
had, by her unwearying study of the masses of working, suffering men and
women, come to the sorrowful conclusion that real happiness could only
be enjoyed by the extremely young, and the extremely thoughtless,--and
that love was only another name for the selfish and often cruel and
destructive instincts of animal desire. She did not resent these ugly
facts, or passionately proclaim against the gloomy results of life such
as were daily displayed to her,--she was only filled with a profound and
ceaseless compassion for the evils which were impossible to cure.
Her tireless love for the sick, the feeble, the despairing, the
broken-hearted and the dying, had raised her to the height of an angel’s
quality among the very desperately poor and criminal classes;--the
fiercest ruffians of the slums were docile in her presence and obedient
to her command;--and many a bold plan of robbery,--many a wicked
scheme of murder had been altogether foregone and abandoned through the
intervention of Lotys, whose intellectual acumen, swift to perceive the
savage instinct, or motive for crime, was equally swift to point out
its uselessness as a means of satisfying vengeance. No preacher could
persuade a thief of the practical ingloriousness of thieving, as Lotys
could,--and a prison chaplain, remonstrating with an assassin after his
crime, was not half as much use to the State as Lotys, who could induce
such an one to resign his murderous intent altogether, before he had so
much as possessed himself of the necessary weapon. Thousands of people
were absolutely under her moral dominion,--and the power she exercised
over them was so great, and yet so unobtrusive, that had she bidden the
whole city rise in revolt, she would most surely have been obeyed by the
larger and fiercer half of its population.
With the moneyed classes she had nothing in common, though she viewed
them with perhaps more pity than she did the very poor. An overplus of
cash in any one person’s possession that had not been rightfully earned
by the work of brain or body, was to her an incongruity, and a defection
from the laws of the universe;--show and ostentation she despised,--and
though she loved beautiful things, she found them,--as she herself
said,--much more in the everyday provisions of nature, than in the
elaborate designs of art. When she passed the gay shops in the
principal thoroughfares she never paused to look in at the jewellers’
windows,--but she would linger for many minutes studying the beauty of
the sprays of orchids and other delicate blossoms, arranged in baskets
and vases by the leading florists; while,--best delight of all to her,
was a solitary walk inland among the woods, where she could gather
violets and narcissi, and, as she expressed it ‘feel them growing
about her feet.’ She would have been an extraordinary personality as a
man,--as a woman she was doubly remarkable, for to a woman’s gentleness
she added a force of will and brain which are not often found even in
the stronger sex.
Mysterious as she was in her life and surroundings, enough was known of
her by the people at large, to bring a goodly concourse of them to the
Assembly Rooms on the night when she was announced to speak on a subject
of which the very title seemed questionable, namely, “On the Corruption
of the State.” The police had been notified of the impending meeting,
and a few stalwart emissaries of the law in plain clothes mixed with the
in-pouring throng. The crowd, however, was very orderly;--there was
no pushing, no roughness, and no coarse language. All the members of
Sergius Thord’s Revolutionary Committee were present, but they came as
stragglers, several and apart,--and among them Paul Zouche the poet,
was perhaps the most noticeable. He had affected the picturesque in his
appearance;--his hat was of the Rembrandt character, and he had donned
a very much worn, short velveteen jacket, whose dusty brown was relieved
by the vivid touch of a bright red tie. His hair was wild and bushy, and
his eyes sparkled with unwonted brilliancy, as he nodded to one or
two of his associates, and gave a careless wave of the hand to Sergius
Thord, who, entering slowly, and as if with reluctance, took a seat at
the very furthest end of the hall, where his massive figure showed least
conspicuous among the surging throng. Keeping his head down in a pensive
attitude of thought, his eyes were, nevertheless, sharp to see every
person entering who belonged to his own particular following,--and a
ray of satisfaction lighted up his face, as he perceived his latest new
associate, Pasquin Leroy, quietly edge his way through the crowd, and
secure a seat in one of the obscurest and darkest corners of the badly
lighted hall. He was followed by his comrades, Max Graub and Axel
Regor,--and Thord felt a warm glow of contentment in the consciousness
that these lately enrolled members of the Revolutionary Committee were
so far faithful to their bond. Signed and sealed in the blood of
Lotys, they had responded to the magnetism of her name with the prompt
obedience of waves rising to the influence of the moon,--and Sergius,
full of a thousand wild schemes for the regeneration of the People, was
more happy to know them as subjects to her power, than as adherents
to his own cause. He was calmly cognisant of the presence of General
Bernhoff, the well-known Chief of Police;--though he was rendered a
trifle uneasy by observing that personage had seated himself as closely
as possible to the bench occupied by Leroy and his companions. A faint
wonder crossed his mind as to whether the three, in their zeal for the
new Cause they had taken up, had by any means laid themselves open to
suspicion; but he was not a man given to fears; and he felt convinced in
his own mind, from the close personal observation he had taken of Leroy,
and from the boldness of his speech on his enrolment as a member of the
Revolutionary Committee, that, whatever else he might prove to be, he
was certainly no coward.
The hall filled quickly, till by and by it would have been impossible to
find standing room for a child. A student of human nature is never long
in finding out the dominant characteristic of an audience,--whether its
attitude be profane or reverent, rowdy or attentive, and the bearing of
the four or five thousand here assembled was remarkable chiefly for its
seriousness and evident intensity of purpose. The extreme orderliness of
the manner in which the people found and took their seats,--the entire
absence of all fussy movement, fidgeting, staring, querulous changing of
places, whispering or laughter, showed that the crowd were there for
a deeper purpose than mere curiosity. The bulk of the assemblage was
composed of men; very few women were present, and these few were all of
the poor and hard-working classes. No female of even the lower middle
ranks of life, with any faint pretence to ‘fashion,’ would have been
seen listening to “that dreadful woman,”--as Lotys was very often called
by her own sex,--simply because of the extraordinary fascination she
secretly exercised over men. Pasquin Leroy and his companions spoke now
and then, guardedly, and in low whispers, concerning the appearance
and demeanour of the crowd, Max Graub being particularly struck by the
general physiognomy and type of the people present.
“Plenty of good heads!” he said cautiously. “There are thinkers
here--and thinkers are a very dangerous class!”
“There are many people who ‘think’ all their lives and ‘do’ nothing!”
said Axel Regor languidly.
“True, my friend! But their thought may lead, while, they themselves
remain passive,” joined in Pasquin Leroy sotto-voce;--“It is not at all
impossible that if Lotys bade these five thousand here assembled burn
down the citadel, it would be done before daybreak!”
“I have no doubt at all of that,” said Graub. “One cannot forget that
the Bastille was taken while the poor King Louis XVI. was enjoying
a supper-party and ‘a little orange-flower-water refreshment’ at
Versailles!”
Leroy made an imperative sign of silence, for there was a faint stir
and subdued hum of expectation in the crowd. Another moment,--and Lotys
stepped quietly and alone on the bare platform. As she confronted her
audience, a low passionate sound, like the murmur of a rising storm,
greeted her,--a sound that was not anything like the customary applause
or encouragement offered to a public speaker, but that suggested
extraordinary satisfaction and expectancy, which almost bordered on
exultation. Pasquin Leroy, raising his eyes as she entered, was startled
by an altogether new impression of her to that which he had received on
the night he first saw her. Her personality was somehow different--her
appearance more striking, brilliant and commanding. Attired in the same
plain garment of dead white serge in which he had previously seen
her, with the same deep blood-red scarf crossing her left shoulder and
breast,--there was something to-night in this mere costume that seemed
emblematic of a far deeper power than he had been at first inclined to
give her. A curious sensation began to affect his nerves,--a sudden and
overwhelming attraction, as though his very soul were being drawn out
of him by the calm irresistible dominance of those slumbrous dark-blue
iris-coloured eyes, which had the merit of appearing neither brilliant
nor remarkable as eyes merely, but which held in their luminous depths
that intellectual command which represents the active and passionate
life of the brain, beside which all other life is poor and colourless.
These eyes appeared to rest upon him now from under their drooping
sleepy white eyelids with an inexpressible tenderness and fascination,
and he was suddenly reminded of Heinrich Heine’s quaint love-fancy;
“Behind her dreaming eyelids the sun has gone to rest; when she opens
her eyes it will be day, and the birds will be heard singing!” He began
to realise depths in his own nature which he had till now been almost
unconscious of; he knew himself to a certain extent, but by no means
thoroughly; and awakening as he was to the fact that other lives around
him presented strange riddles for consideration, he wondered whether
after all, his own life might not perhaps prove one of the most complex
among human conundrums? He had often meditated on the inaccessibility of
ideal virtues, the uselessness of persuasion, the commonplace absurdity,
as he had thought, of trying to embody any lofty spiritual dream,--yet
he was himself a man in whom spiritual forces were so strong that he was
personally unaware of their overflow, because they were as much a part
of him as his breathing capacity. True, he had never consciously tested
them, but they were existent in him nevertheless.
He watched Lotys now, with an irritable, restless attention,--there
was a thrill of vague expectation in his soul as of new things to be
done,--changes to be made in the complex machinery of human nature,--and
a great wonder, as well as a great calm, fell upon him as the first
clear steady tones of her voice chimed through the deep hush which had
prepared the way for her first words. Her voice was a remarkable one,
vibrant, yet gentle,--ringing out forcefully, yet perfectly sweet. She
began very simply,--without any attempt at a majestic choice of words,
or an impressive flow of oratory. She faced her audience quietly,--one
bare rounded arm resting easily on a small uncovered deal table in front
of her;--she had no ‘notes’ but her words were plainly the result of
deliberate and careful thinking-out of certain problems needful to be
brought before the notice of the people. Her face was colourless,--the
dead gold hair rippling thickly away in loose clusters from the white
brows, fell into their accustomed serpentine twisted knot at the nape of
her neck; and the scarlet sash she wore, alone relieved the statuesque
white folds of her draperies; but as she spoke, something altogether
superphysical seemed to exhale from her as heat exhales from fire--a
strange essence of overpowering and compelling sweetness stole into
the heavy heated air, and gave to the commonplace surroundings and the
poorly clothed crowd of people an atmosphere of sacredness and beauty.
This influence deepened steadily under the rhythmic cadence of her
voice, till every agitated soul, every resentful and troubled heart in
the throng was conscious of a sudden ingathering of force and calm, of
self-respect and self-reliance. The gist of her intention was plainly to
set people thinking for themselves, and in this there could be no manner
of doubt but that she succeeded. Of the ‘Corruption of the State’ she
spoke as a thing thoroughly recognised by the masses.
“We know,--all of us,”--she said, in the concluding portion of her
address, “that we have Ministers who personally care nothing for the
prosperity or welfare of the country. We know--all of us,--that we
have a bribed Press; whose business it is to say nothing that shall
run counter to Ministerial views. We know,--all of us,--that it is this
bribed Ministerial press which leads the ignorant, (who are not behind
the scenes,) to wrong and false conclusions;--and that it is solely upon
these wrong and false conclusions of the wilfully misled million,
that the Ministry itself rests for support. On one side the Press
is manipulated by the Jews; on the other by the Jesuits. There is no
journal in this country that will, or dare, publish the true reflex of
popular opinion. Therefore the word ‘free’ cannot be applied to that
recording-force of nations which we call Journalism; inasmuch as it
is now a merely purchased Chattle. We should remember, when we read
‘opinions of the Press,’--on any great movement or important change in
policy, that we are merely accepting the opinions of the bound and paid
Slave of Capitalists;--and we should take care to form our judgment for
ourselves, rather than from the Capitalist point of view. Were there a
strong man to lead,--the shiftiness, treachery, and deliberate neglect
practised on the million by those who are now in office, could
not possibly last;--but where there is no strength, there must be
weakness,--and where a long career of deceit has been followed, instead
of a course of plain dealing, failure in the end is inevitable.
With failure comes disaster; and often something which augments
disaster--Revolt. The people, weary of constant imposition,--of
incessant delays of the justice due to them,--as well as the
unscrupulous breaking of promises solemnly pledged,--will--in the
long run, take their own way, as they have done before in history, of
securing instant amelioration of those wrongs which their paid rulers
fail to redress. Who will dare to say that, under such circumstances,
it is ill for the people to act? Sometimes it is a greater Consciousness
than their own that moves them; and the wronged and half-forgotten Cause
of all worlds makes His command known through His creatures, who obey
His impulse,--even as the atoms gathering in space cluster at His will
into solar systems, and bring forth their burden of life!”
She paused, and leaning forward a little, her eyes poured out their
flashing searchlight as it seemed into the very souls of her hearers.
“Dear friends!--dear children!” she said, and in her tone there was the
tenderness of a great compassion, almost bordering on tears,--“What
is it, think you all, that makes the age in which we live so sad, so
colourless, so restless and devoid of hope and peace? It is not that we
are the inhabitants of a less wonderful or less beautiful world,--it is
not as if the sun had ceased to shine, or the birds had forgotten how
to sing! Triumphs of science,--triumphs of learning and discovery, these
are all on the increase for our help and furtherance. With so much
gain in evident advancement, what is it we have lost?--what is it
we miss?--whence come the dreariness and emptiness and satiety,--the
intolerable sense of the futility of life, even when life has most
to offer? Dear children, you are all so sad!--many of you so
broken-hearted!--why is it?--how is it? Poverty alone is not the
cause,--for it is quite possible to be poor, yet happy! True enough it
is that in these days you are ground down by the imposition of taxes,
which try all the strength of your earnings to pay; but even this is
an evil you could mitigate for yourselves, by strong and united public
protest. How is it that you do not realise your own strength? You are
not like the poor brutes of the field and forest, who lack the reason
which would show them how superior in physical force alone they are to
the insignificant biped who commands them. Could the ox understand his
own strength, he would never be led to the slaughter-house;--he and
his kind would become a terror instead of a provision. You are not
oxen,--yet often you are as patient, as dull, as blind and reasonless
as they! You form clubs, societies, and trades-unions;--but in how many
cases do you not enter upon small and querulous differences which so
weaken your unity that presently it falls to pieces and has no more
power in it? This is what your tyrants in trade rely on and hope for;
the constant recurrence of quarrels and dissensions among yourselves.
No Society lasts which tolerates conflicting argument or differing
sentiments in itself. Why is it that the Jesuits,--whom you are all
unanimous in hating,--are still the strongest political Brotherhood
on the face of the earth? Because they are bound to maintain in every
particular the tenets of their Order. No matter how vile, or how
reprehensibly false their theories, they are compelled to carry on the
work and propaganda of their Union, despite all loss and sacrifice to
themselves. This is the secret of their force. Expelled from one land,
they take root in another. Suppressed entirely by Pope Clement XIV., in
1773, they virtually ignored suppression, and took up their headquarters
in Russia. The influence they exerted there still lies on the serf
population, like one of the many chains fastened to a Siberian exile’s
body. Yet they were driven from Russia in 1820,--from Holland in
1816,--from Switzerland in 1847, and from Germany in 1872. Latterly they
have been expelled from France. Nevertheless, in spite of these numerous
expulsions, and the universal odium in which they are held,--they still
flourish; still are they able to maintain their twenty-two generals and
their four Vicars;--and still all countries have, in their turn, to deal
with their impending or fulfilled invasion. Why is it that a Society
so criminal in historic annals, should yet remain as a force in our
advanced era of civilization? Simply, because it is of One Mind! Bent on
evil, or good,--self-renunciation or self-aggrandisement,--it is still
of One Mind! Friends,--were you like them, also of One Mind, your
injuries, your oppressions, your taxations would not last long! The
remedy for all is easy, and rests with yourselves,--only yourselves! But
some of you have lost heart--and other some have lost patience. You look
round upon the squalid corners of this great city--you shudder at the
cruelty of the daily life with which you have to contend,--you enter
poor rooms, which you are compelled to call ‘home,’ where the sick and
dying, the newly-born and the dead are huddled all together,--ten,
and sometimes fifteen in one small den of four whitewashed walls;--and
sickened and tired, you cry out ‘Is life worth no more than this? Is
God’s scheme for the human race no more than this? Then why were we born
at all? Or, being born, why may we not die at once, self-slain?’ Ah,
yes, dear friends!--you often feel like this; we all of us often feel
like this! But--it is not God who has made life thus hard for you,--it
is yourselves! It is you who consent to be down-trodden,--it is you who
resign your freewill, your thought, your originality of character, into
the dominating power of others. True,--wealth controls affairs to a vast
extent nowadays,--but there is a stronger power than wealth, and that is
Soul! It is not the possession of gold that has given the greatest
men their position. This is a commercial age, we own,--and
certainly,--because of the base and degrading love of
accumulation,--Intellectuality is for the moment often set aside as
something valueless--but whenever Intellectuality truly asserts itself,
there is at once made visible an acting force of the Divine, which
is practically limitless and irresistible. Think for yourselves,
friends!--do not let a hired Press think for you! Think for
yourselves--judge for yourselves, and act for yourselves! By your
observation of a statesman’s life, you shall know his capabilities. If
he has once been a turncoat, he will be a turncoat again. If he has been
known to speculate privately in a forthcoming political crisis, which he
alone knows of in advance----”
Here the speaker was interrupted by what sounded more like a snarl than
a shout. “Pérousse! Pérousse!”
The name was hissed out, and tossed from one rank to another of the
audience, and one or two of the police present glanced enquiringly
towards Bernhoff their chief,--but he sat with folded arms and
inscrutable demeanour, making no sign. Lotys raised her small,
beautifully-shaped white hand to enjoin silence. She was obeyed
instantly.
“I speak of no one man,” she said with deliberate emphasis; “I accuse no
one man,--or any man! I say ‘if’ any man gambles with State policy, he
is a traitor to the country! But such gambling is not a novelty in the
history of nations. It has been practised over and over again. Only mark
you all this one God’s truth!--that whenever it _has_ occurred--whenever
the rulers of a State _are_ corrupt,--whenever society sinks into such
moral defilement that it sees nothing better, nothing higher than the
love of money,--then comes the downfall!--then Ruin and Anarchy set up
their dominion,--and Heaven’s rage rolls out upon the offenders, till
their offence be cleansed away in rivers of blood and tears!”
She waited a moment,--and changing her attitude, seemed as it were,
to project her thought into her audience, by the sudden passion of her
commanding gesture, and the flash of her deep luminous eyes.
“We have heard of the Great Renunciation!” she said; “How God Himself
took human form, and came to this low little earth to prove how nobly
we should live and die! But in our day,--we with our preachers and
teachers, our press and our parliamentary orators,--our atheistical
statesmen on all hands, have come upon the Great Obliteration!--the
Obliteration of God altogether in our ways of life! We push Him out, as
if He were not. He is not in our Churches--He is not in our Laws--He
is not in our Commerce. Only when we are brought low by pain and
sickness--when we are confronted by death itself--then we call out ‘God!
God!’ like cowards, praying for help from the Power we have negatived
all our lives! Here is the evil, O children all!--we have forgotten Our
Father! We arrange all our affairs in life without giving Him a thought!
Our pleasures, our gains, our advantages,--are calculated without
consulting His good pleasure. He is last, or not at all,--when He should
be first, and in everything! The end of this is misery;--it must be so;
it cannot by law be anything else. For what is God? Who is God? God is
a name merely,--but we give it to that Unseen, but ever working Force
which rules the Universe! The coldest atheist that ever breathed
must own that somehow,--by some means or other,--the Universe _is_
ruled,--for if it were not, we should know nothing of it. Therefore,
when we set aside, or leave out the consciousness and acknowledgment of
the Ruler, the ruling of our affairs must, of necessity, go wrong!
“I cannot preach to you--I cannot out of my own conscience recommend to
you one or the other form of faith as the way to peace and wisdom;--but
I can and do Beseech you to remember the Note Dominant of this great
Universe--the Note that sounds through high and low,--through small
and great alike!--and that must and will in due course absorb all our
discords into Everlasting Harmony! Try not to put this fact out of your
lives,--that Justice and Order are the rule of the spheres; and that
whenever we depart from these, even in the smallest contingency,
confusion reigns. How hard it is to believe in Justice and Order, you
will tell me,--when the poor are not treated with the same consideration
as the rich,--and when money will buy place and position! True! It is
hard to believe,--but it is believable nevertheless. As the lungs and
the heart are the life of the human body, so are Justice and Order the
life of the Universe,--and when these are pushed out of place, or become
diseased in the composition of a human state or community, then the
life of that state or community is threatened;--and unless remedies are
quickly to hand, it must end. You all know the position of things among
yourselves to-day;--you all know that there is no trust to be placed in
Churches, Kings or Parliaments;--that the world is in a state of ferment
and unrest,--moving towards Change;--change imminent--change, possibly,
disastrous! And if it is You who know, it is likewise You who must seize
the hour as it approaches!--seize it as you would seize a robber by the
throat, and demand its business;--search its heart;--deprive it of its
weapons;--and learn from it its message! A message it may be of wild
alarm--of tearing up old conventions;--of thrusting forth old abuses; a
message full of clamour and outcry--but whatever the uproar, doubt not
that we shall hear the voice of the Forgotten God thundering in our
ears at the close! We shall have found our way closer to Him--and with
penitence and prayer, we shall ask to be forgiven for having wandered
away from Him so long!
“And will He not pardon? Yes,--He will, because He must! To Him we owe
our existence;--He alone is responsible for our life, our probation, our
progress, our striving through many errors towards Perfection! He,
who sees all, must needs have pity for His creature Man! Out of the
evolutions of a blind Time, He has made the poor weak human being, who
in the first days of his sojourn on earth had neither covering nor home.
Less protected than the beasts of the forest, he found himself compelled
to Think!--to think out his own means of shelter,--to contrive his own
weapons of defence. Slowly, and by painful degrees, from Savagery he has
emerged to Civilization;--wherefore it is evident that his Maker meant
Thought to be his first principle, and Action his second. He who does
not work, shall not eat;--he who does not use all his faculties for
improvement, shall by and by have none to use. Injustice and corruption
are amongst us, merely because we ourselves have failed to resist their
first inroads. Who is it that complains of wrong? Let him hasten to
his own amending,--and he will find a thousand hands, a thousand hearts
ready to work with him! All Nature is on the side of health in the body,
as of health in the State. All Nature fights against disease,--physical
and moral. Therefore do not,--dear friends and children!--sit idle and
passive, submitting yourselves to be deceived, as if you had no force
to withstand deception! Show that you hate lies, and will have none of
them,--show that you will not be imposed upon--and decline to be led
or governed by party agents, who persuade you to your own and your
country’s destruction! The voice of the People can no longer be heard
in a purchased Press;--let it echo forth then, in stronger form
than ephemeral print, which to-day is glanced at, and to-morrow is
forgotten;--wherever and whenever you are given the chance to meet,
and to speak, let your authority as the workers, the ratepayers, and
supporters of the State be heard; and do not You, without whom even the
King could not keep his throne, consent to be set aside as the Unvalued
Majority! Prove, by your own firm attitude that without You, nothing
can be done! It is time, oh people of my heart!--it is time you spoke
clearly! God is moving His thought through your souls--God stirs in you
the fear, the discontent, the suspicion that all is not well with your
country;--and it is the Spirit of God which breathes in the warning note
of the time--
“‘Hark to the voice of the time!
The multitude think forthemselves,
And weigh their condition each one;
The drudge has a spirit sublime,
And whether he hammers or delves,
He reads when his labour is done;
And learns, though he groan under poverty’s ban,
That freedom to Think, is the birthright of man!’
“Learn,” she continued,--as a low deep murmur of agreement ran through
the room; “Learn to what strange uses God puts even such men of this
world, whose sole existence has been for the cause of amassing
money! They have acted as the merest machines, gathering in the
millions;--gathering, gathering them in! For what purpose? Lo, they are
smitten down in the prime of their lives, and the gold they have
piled up is at once scattered! Much of it becomes used for educational
purposes;--and some of these dead millionaires have, as it were thrown
Education at the heads of the people, and almost pauperised it. Far
away in Great Britain, a millionaire has recently made the Scottish
University education ‘free’ to all students,--instead of, as it used to
be, hard to get, and well worth working to win. Now,--through the wealth
of one man, it is turned into a pauper’s allowance;--like offering the
smallest silver coin to a reduced gentleman. The pride,--the skill,--the
self-renunciation,--the strong determination to succeed, which form
fine character, and which taught the struggling student to win his
own University education, are all wiped out;--there is no longer any
necessity for the practice of these manly and self-sustaining virtues.
The harm that will be done is probably not yet perceivable; but it will
be incalculable. Education, turned into a kind of pauper’s monopoly,
will have widely different results to those just now imagined! But
with all the contemptuous throwing out of the unneeded kitchen-waste of
millionaires,--still Education is the thing to take at any price, and
under any circumstances;--because it alone is capable of giving power!
It alone will ‘put down the mighty from their seats, and exalt the
humble and the meek.’ It alone will give us the force to fight our
taskmasters with their own weapons, and to place them where they should
be, coequal with us, but not superior,--considerate of us, but not
commanding us,--and above all things, bound to make their records of
such work as they do for the State--clean!”
A hurricane of applause interrupted her,--she waited till it subsided,
then went on quietly.
“There should be no scheming in the dark; no secret contracts for which
we have to pay blindly;--no refusal to explain the way in which the
people’s hard-earned money is spent; and before foreign urbanities and
diplomacies and concessions are allowed to take up time in the Senate,
it is necessary that the frightful and abounding evils of our own
land,--our own homes,--be considered. For this we purpose to demand
redress,--and not only to demand it, but to obtain it! Ministers
may refuse to hear us; but the Country’s claims are greater than any
Ministry! A King’s displeasure may cause court-parasites to tremble--but
a People’s Honour is more to be guarded than a thousand thrones!”
As she concluded with these words, she seemed to grow taller, nobler,
more inspired and commanding,--and while the applause was yet shaking
the rafters of the hall, she left the platform. Shouts of “Lotys!
Lotys!” rang out again and again with passionate bursts of
cheering,--and in response to it she came back, and by a slight gesture
commanded silence.
“Dear friends, I thank you all for listening to me!” she said simply,
her rich voice trembling a little; “I speak only with a woman’s impulse
and unwisdom--just as I think and feel--and always out of my great
love for you! As you all know, I have no interests to serve;--I am only
Lotys, your own poor friend,--one who works with you, and dwells among
you, seeing and sharing your hard lives, and wishing with all my heart
that I could help you to be happier and freer! My life is at
your service,--my love for you is all too great for any words to
express,--and my gratitude for your faith and trust in me forms my daily
thanksgiving! Now, dear children all,--for you are truly as children in
your patience, submission and obedience to bitter destiny!--I will ask
you to disperse quietly without noise or confusion, or any trouble that
may give to the paid men of law ungrateful work to do;--and in your
homes, think of me!--remember my words!--and while you maintain order by
the steadiness and reasonableness of your difficult lives, still avoid
and resent that slavish obedience to the yoke fastened upon you by
capitalists,--who have no other comfort to offer you in poverty than the
workhouse; and no other remedy for the sins into which you are thrust
by their neglect, than the prison! Take, and keep the rights of your
humanity!--the right to think,--the right to speak,--the right to know
what is being done with the money you patiently earn for others;--and
work, all together in unity. Put aside all petty differences,--all small
rancours and jealousies; and even as a Ministry may unite to defraud
and deceive you, so do you, the People, unite to expose the fraud, and
reject the deception! There is no voice so resonant and convincing as
the voice of the public; there is no power on earth more strong or more
irresistible than the power of the People!”
She stood for one moment more,--silent; her eyes brilliant, her face
beautiful with inspired thought,--then with a quiet, half-deprecatory
gesture, in response to the fresh outbreak of passionate cheering, she
retired from the platform. Pasquin Leroy, whose eyes had been riveted on
her from the first to the last word of her oration, now started as from
a dream, and rose up half-unconsciously, passing his hand across his
brow, as though to exorcise some magnetic spell that had crept over
his brain. His face was flushed, his pulses were throbbing quickly. His
companions, Max Graub and Axel Regor, looked at him inquisitively. The
audience was beginning to file out of the hall in orderly groups.
“What next?” said Graub; “Shall ye go?”
“I suppose so,” said Leroy, with a quick sigh, and forcing a smile;
“But--I should have liked to speak with her----”
At that moment his shoulder was touched by a man he recognised as Johan
Zegota. He gave the sign of the Revolutionary Committee bond, to which
Leroy and his comrades responded.
“Will you all three come over the way?” whispered Zegota cautiously; “We
are entertaining Lotys to supper at the inn opposite,--the landlord is
one of us. Thord saw you sitting here, and sent me to ask you to join
us.”
“With pleasure,” assented Leroy; “We will come at once!”
Zegota nodded and disappeared.
“So you will see the end of this escapade!” said Max Graub, a trifle
crossly. “It would have been much better to go home!”
“You have enjoyed escapades in your time, have you not, my friend? Some
even quite recently?” returned Leroy gaily. “One or two more will not
hurt you!”
They edged their way out among the quietly moving crowd, and
happening to push past General Bernhoff, that personage gave an almost
imperceptible salute, which Leroy as imperceptibly returned. It was
clear that the Chief of Police was acquainted with Pasquin Leroy, the
‘spy’ on whose track he had been sent by Carl Pérousse, and moreover,
that he was evidently in no hurry to arrest him. At any rate he allowed
him to pass with his friends unmolested, out of the People’s Assembly
Rooms, and though he followed him across the road, ‘shadowing him,’
as it were, into a large tavern, whose lighted windows betokened
some entertainment within, he did not enter the hostelry himself, but
contented his immediate humour by walking past it to a considerable
distance off, and then slowly back again. By and by Max Graub came out
and beckoned to him, and after a little earnest conversation Bernhoff
walked off altogether, the ring of his martial heels echoing for some
time along the pavement, even after he had disappeared. And from within
the lighted tavern came the sound of a deep, harmonious, swinging
chorus--
“Way, make way!--for our banner is unfurled,
Let each man
stand by his neighbour! The thunder of our footsteps shall roll
through the world, In the March of the Men of Labour!”
“Yes!” said Max Graub, pausing to listen ere re-entering the
tavern--“If--and it is a great ‘if’--if every man will stand by his
neighbour, the thunder will be very loud,--and by all the deities that
ever lived in the Heaven blue, it is a thunder that is likely to last
some time! The possibility of standing by one’s neighbour is the only
doubtful point!”