(1866.)
Poor dear God sat alone in his private chamber, moody, melancholy,
miserable, sulky, sullen, weary, dejected, supenally hipped. It was the
evening of Sunday, the 24th of December, 1865. Waters continually
dripping wear away the hardest stone; year falling after year will at
length overcome the strongest god: an oak-tree outlasts many generations
of men; a mountain or a river outlasts many celestial dynasties. A cold
like a thick fog in his head, rheum in his eyes, and rheumatism in his
limbs and shoulders, his back bent, his chin peaked, his poll bald, his
teeth decayed, his body all shivering, his brain all muddle, his heart
all black care; no wonder the old gentleman looked poorly as he cowered
there, dolefully sipping his Lachryma Christi. “I wish the other party
would lend me some of his fire,” he muttered, “for it is horribly frigid
up here.” The table was crowded and the floor littered with books and
documents, all most unreadable reading: missionary reports,
controversial divinity, bishops’ charges, religious periodicals, papal
allocutions and encyclical letters, minutes of Exeter Hall meetings,
ponderous blue books from the angelic bureaux—dreary as the humor of
_Punch_, silly as the critiques of the _Times_, idiotic as the poetry of
_All the Year Round_. When now and then he eyed them askance he
shuddered more shockingly, and looked at his desk with loathing despair.
For he had gone through a hard day’s work, with extra services
appropriate to the sacred season; and for the ten-thousandth time he had
been utterly knocked up and bewildered by the Athanasian Creed.
While he sat thus, came a formal tap at the door, and his son entered,
looking sublimely good and respectable, pensive with a pensiveness on
which one grows comfortably fat. “Ah, my boy,” said the old gentleman,
“you seem to get on well enough in these sad times: come to ask my
blessing for your birthday _fête_?” “I fear that you are not well, my
dear father; do not give way to dejection, there was once a man—
“O, dash your parables! keep them for your disciples; they are not too
amusing. Alack for the good old times!” “The wicked old times you mean,
my father; the times when we were poor, and scorned, and oppressed; the
times when heathenism and vain philosophy ruled everywhere in the world.
Now, all civilised realms are subject to us, and worship us.” “And
disobey us. You are very wise, much wiser than your old worn-out father;
yet perchance a truth or two comes to me in solitude, when it can’t
reach you through the press of your saints, and the noise of your
everlasting preaching and singing and glorification. You know how I
began life, the petty chief of a villainous tribe. But I was passionate
and ambitious, subtle and strong-willed, and, in spite of itself, I made
my tribe a nation; and I fought desperately against all the surrounding
chiefs, and with pith of arm and wile of brain I managed to keep my head
above water. But I lived all alone, a stern and solitary existence. None
other of the gods was so friendless as I; and it is hard to live alone
when memory is a sea of blood. I hated and despised the Greek Zeus and
his shameless court; yet I could not but envy him, for a joyous life the
rogue led. So I, like an old fool, must have my amour; and a pretty
intrigue I got into with the prim damsel Mary! Then a great thought
arose in me: men cannot be loyal to utter aliens; their gods must be
human on one side, divine on the other; my own people were always
deserting me to pay homage to bastard deities. I would adopt you as my
own son (between ourselves, I have never been sure of the paternity),
and admit you to a share in the government. Those infernal Jews killed
you, but the son of a God could not die; you came up hither to dwell
with me; I the old absolute king, you the modern tribune of the people.
Here you have been ever since; and I don’t mind telling you that you
were a much more loveable character below there as the man Jesus than
you have proved above here as the Lord Christ. As some one was needed on
earth to superintend the executive, we created the Comforter, prince
royal and plenipotentiary; and behold us a divine triumvirate! The new
blood was, I must own, beneficial. We lost Jerusalem, but we won Rome;
Jove, Neptune, Apollo, Bacchus, and the rest, were conquered and slain;
our leader of the opposition ejected Pluto and Pan. Only I did not
bargain that my mistress should more than succeed to Juno, who was, at
any rate, a lawful wife. You announced that our empire was peace; you
announced likewise that it was war; both have served us. Our power
extended, our glory rose; the chief of a miserable tribe has become
emperor of Europe. But our empire was to be the whole world; yet instead
of signs of more dominion, I see signs that what we have is falling to
pieces. From my youth up I have been a man of war; and now that I am old
and weary and wealthy, and want peace, peace flies from me. Have we not
shed enough blood? Have we not caused enough tears? Have we not kindled
enough fires? And in my empire what am I? Yourself and my mistress share
all the power between you; I am but a name at the head of our
proclamations. I have been a man of war, I am setting old and worn out,
evil days are at hand, and I have never enjoyed life; therefore is my
soul vexed within me. And my own subjects are as strangers. Your darling
saints I cannot bear. The whimpering, simpering, canting, chanting
blockheads! You were always happy in a pious miserableness, and you do
not foresee the end. Do you know that in spite of our vast possessions
we are as near bankruptcy as Spain or Austria? Do you know that our
innumerable armies are a Chinese rabble of cowards and traitors? Do you
know that our legitimacy (even if yours were certain) will soon avail us
as little as that of the Bourbons has availed them? Of these things you
are ignorant: you are so deafened with shouts and songs in your own
praise that you never catch a whisper of doom. I would not quail if I
had youth to cope with circumstance; none can say honestly that I ever
feared a foe; but I am so weak that often I could not walk without
leaning on you. Why did I draw out my life to this ignominious end? Why
did I not fall fighting like the enemies I overcame? Why the devil did
you get born at all, and then murdered by those rascally Jews, that I
who was a warrior should turn into a snivelling saint? The heroes of
Asgard have sunk into a deeper twilight than they foresaw; but their
sunset, fervent and crimson with blood and with wine, made splendid that
dawnless gloaming. The joyous Olympians have perished, but they all had
lived and loved. For me, I have subsisted and hated. What of time is
left to me I will spend in another fashion. Let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die.” And he swallowed hastily a bumper of the wine, which
threw him into convulsions of coughing.
Serene and superior the son had let the old man run on. “Do not, I
entreat you, take to drink in your old age, dear father. You say that
our enemies lived and loved; but think how unworthy of divine rulers was
their mode of life, how immoral, how imprudent, how disreputable, how
savage, how lustful, how un-Chris-tian! What a bad example for poor
human souls!” “Human souls be blessed! Are they so much improved now?...
Would that at least I had conserved Jove’s barmaid; the prettiest,
pleasantest girl they say (we know you are a Joseph, though you always
had three or four women dangling about you); fair-ankled was the wench,
bright-limbed; she might be unto me even as was Abishag, the Shunammite,
unto my old friend David.” “Let us speak seriously, my father, of the
great celebration to-morrow.” “And suppose I _am_ speaking very
seriously, you solemn prig; not a drop of my blood is there in you.”
Here came a hurried knocking at the door, and the angelic ministers of
state crawled in, with super-elaborate oriental cringings, to deliver
their daily reports. “Messages from Brahma, Ormuzd, etc., to
congratulate on the son’s birthday.” “The infidels! the mockers!”
muttered the son. “Good words,” said the father; “they belong to older
families than ours, my lad, and were once much more powerful. You are
always trying to win over the parvenus.” “A riot in the holy city. The
black angels organised to look after the souls of converted negroes
having a free fight with some of the white ones. My poor lambs!” sighed
the son. “Black sheep,” growled the father; “what is the row?” “They
have plumed themselves brighter than peacocks, and scream louder than
parrots; claim precedence over the angels of the mean whites; insist on
having some of their own hymns and tunes in the programme of to-morrow’s
concert.” “Lock’em all up, white and black, especially the black, till
Tuesday morning; they can fight it out then—it’s Boxing Day. Well have
quite enough noise to-morrow without ’em. Never understood the nigger
question, for my part: was a slave-holder myself, and cursed Ham as much
as pork.” “New saints grumbling about lack of civilised accommodation:
want underground railways, steamers for the crystal sea, telegraph wires
to every mansion, morning and evening newspapers, etc., etc,; have had a
public meeting with a Yankee saint in the chair, and resolved that
heaven is altogether behind the age.” “Confound it, my son, have I not
charged you again and again to get some saints of ability up here? For
years past every batch has been full of good-for-nothing noodles. Have
we no engineers, no editors at all.” “One or two engineers, we believe,
sire, but we can’t find a single editor.” “Give one of the _Record_
fellows the measles, and an old _l’Univers_ hand the cholera, and bring
them up into glory at once, and we’ll have two daily papers. And while
you are about it, see whether you can discover three or four pious
engineers—not muffs, mind—and blow them up hither with their own
boilers, or in any other handy way. Haste, haste, post haste!”
“Deplorable catastrophe in the temple of the New Jerusalem: a large part
of the foundation given way, main wall fallen, several hundred workmen
bruised.” “Stop that fellow who just left; countermand the measles, the
cholera will be enough; we will only have one journal, and that must be
strictly official. If we have two, one will be opposition. Hush up the
accident. It is strange that Pandemonium was built so much better and
more quickly than our New Jerusalem!” “All our best architects and other
artists have deserted into Elysium, my lord; so fond of the company of
the old Greeks.”
When these and many other sad reports had been heard, and the various
ministers and secretaries savagely dismissed, the father turned to the
son and said: “Did I not tell you of the evil state we are in?” “By hope
and faith and charity, and the sublime doctrine of self-renunciation,
all will yet come right, my father.” “Humph! let hope fill my treasury,
and faith finish the New Jerusalem, and charity give us peace and
quietness, and self-renunciation lead three-quarters of your new-fangled
saints out of heaven; and then I shall look to have a little comfort.”
“Will you settle to-morrow’s programme, sire? or shall I do my best to
spare you the trouble?” “You do your best to spare me the trouble of
reigning altogether, I think. What programme can there be but the old
rehearsal for the eternal life (I wish you may get it)? O, that horrible
slippery sea of glass, that bedevilled throne vomiting thunders and
lightning, those stupid senile elders in white nightgowns, those four
hideous beasts full of eyes, that impossible lamb with seven horns and
one eye to each horn! O, the terrific shoutings and harpings and
stifling incense! A pretty set-out for my time of life I And to think
that you hope some time or other to begin this sort of thing as a daily
amusement, and to carry it on for ever and ever! Not much appearance of
its beginning soon, thank goodness—that is to say,, thank badness. Why
can’t you have a play of Aristophanes, or Shakespeare, or Molière? Why
should I meddle with the programme? I had nothing to do with first
framing it. Besides, it is all in your honor, not in mine. You like
playing the part of the Lamb; I’m much more like an old wolf. You are
ravished when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks; as for me,
I am utterly sick of them. Behold what I will do; I must countenance the
affair, but I can do so without disturbing myself. I’ll not go
thundering and roaring in my state-carriage of the whirlwind; I’ll slip
there in a quiet cloud. You can’t do without my glory, but it really is
too heavy for my aged shoulders; you may lay it upon the throne; it will
look just as well. As for my speech, here it is all ready written out;
let Mercury, I mean Raphael or Uriel, read it; I can’t speak plainly
since I lost so many teeth. And now I consider the matter, what need is
there for my actual presence at all? Have me there in effigy; a noble
and handsome dummy can wear the glory with grace* Mind you have a
handsome one; I wish all the artists had not deserted us. Your pious
fellows make sad work of us, my son. But then their usual models are so
ugly; your saints have good reason to speak of their vile bodies. How is
it that all the pretty girls slip away to the other place, poor
darlings? By the bye, who are going on this occasion to represent the
twelve times twelve thousand of the tribes of Israel? Is the boy Mortara
dead yet? He will make one real Jew.” “We are converting them, sire.”
“Not the whole gross of thousands yet, I trust? Faugh! what a greasy
stench there would be—what a blazing of Jew jewelry!
“Hand me the latest bluebook, with the reports....
“Ah, I see; great success! Power of the Lord Christ! (always you, of
course). Society flourishing. Eighty-two thousand pounds four shillings
and twopence three-farthings last year from Christians aroused to the
claims of the lost sheep of the House of Israel. (Very good.) Five
conversions!! Three others have already been persuaded to eat pork
sausages. (Better and better.) One, who drank most fervently of the
communion wine suffered himself to be treated to an oyster supper.
Another, being greatly moved, was heard to ejaculate, ‘O, Christ!’...
Hum, who are the five? Moses Isaacs: wasn’t he a Christian ten years ago
in Italy, and afterwards a Mahommedan in Salonica, and afterwards a Jew
in Marseilles? This Mussulman is your oyster-man, I presume? You will
soon get the one hundred and forty-four thousand at this rate, my son!
and cheap too!”
He chuckled, and poured out another glass of Lachryma Christi; drank it,
made a wry face, and then began coughing furiously. “Poor drink this for
a god in his old age. Odin and Jupiter fared better. Though decent for a
human tipple, for a divinity it is but _ambrosie stygiale_, as my dear
old favorite chaplain would call it. I have his devotional works under
lock and key there in my desk. _Apropos_, where is he? Left us again for
a scurry through the more jovial regions? I have not seen him for a long
time.” “My father! really, the words he used, the life he led; so
corrupting for the young saints! We were forced to invite him to travel
a little for the benefit of his health. The court _must_ be kept pure,
you know.” “Send for him instantly, sir. He is out of favor because he
likes the old man and laughs at your saints, because he can’t cant and
loves to humbug the humbugs. Many a fit of the blues has he cured for
me, while you only make them bluer. Have him fetched at once. O, I know
you never liked him; you always thought him laughing at your sweet pale
face and woebegone airs, laughing ‘_en horrible sarcasm et sanglante
derision_’ (what a style the rogue has! what makes that of your favorite
parsons and holy ones so flaccid and flabby and hectic?) ‘Physician,
heal thyself!’ So, in plain words, you have banished him; the only jolly
soul left amongst us, my pearl and diamond and red ruby of Chaplains,
abstracter of the quintessence of pantagruelism! The words he used! I
musn’t speak freely myself now, and the old books I wrote are a great
deal too coarse for you Michael and Gabriel told me the other day that
they had just been severely lectured on the earnestness of life by one
of your new _protégés_; they had to kick him howling into limbo. A fine
set of solemn prigs we are getting!” “My father, the holiness of sorrow,
the infiniteness of suffering!” “Yes, yes, I know all about it. That
long-winded poet of yours (he does an ode for you to-morrow?) began to
sermonise me thereon. By Jupiter, he wanted to arouse me to a sense of
my inner being and responsibilities and so forth. I very soon packed him
off to the infant school where he teaches the alphabet and catechism to
the babies and sucklings. Have you sent for my jovial, joyous, jolly
Curé of Meudon?” “I have; but I deeply regret that your Majesty thinks
it fitting to be intimate with such a free-liver, such a glutton and
wine-bibber and mocker and buffoon.” “Bah! you patronised the publicans
and sinners yourself in your younger and better days. The strict ones
blamed you for going about eating and drinking so much. I hear that some
of your newest favorites object to the wine in your last supper, and are
going to insist on vinegar-and-water in future.”
Whereupon entered a man of a noble and courtly presence, lively-eyed and
golden bearded, ruddy complexioned, clear-browed, thoughtful, yet
joyous, serene and unabashed. “Welcome, thrice welcome, my beloved
Alcofribas!” cried the old monarch; “very long is it since last I saw
you.” “I have been exiled since then, your Majesty.” “And I knew nothing
of it!” “And thought nothing of it or of me until you wanted me. No one
expects the King to have knowledge of what is passing under his eyes.”
“And how did you manage to exist in exile, my poor chaplain?” “Much
better than here at court, sire. If your Majesty wants a little
pleasure, I advise you to get banished yourself. Your parasites and
sycophants and courtiers are a most morose, miserable, ugly, detestable,
intolerable swarm of blind beetles and wasps; the devils are beyond
comparison better company.” “What! you have been mixing with traitors?”
“Oh, I spent a few years in Elysium, but didn’t this time go into the
lower circles. But while I sojourned as a country gentleman on the
heavenly borders, I met a few contrabandists. I need not tell you that
large, yea, enormous quantities of beatitude are smuggled out of your
dominions.” “But what is smuggled in?” “Sire, I am not an informer; I
never received anything out of the secret-service money. The poor angels
are glad to run a venture at odd times, to relieve the tedium of
everlasting Te Deum. By the bye, I saw _the_ Devil himself.” “The Devil
in my kingdom! What is Uriel about? he’ll have to be superannuated.”
“Bah! your Majesty knows very well that Satan comes in and returns as
and when he likes. The passport system never stops the really dangerous
fellows. When he honored me with a call he looked the demurest young
saint, and I laughed till I got the lockjaw at his earnest and spiritual
discourse. He would have taken yourself in, much more Uriel. You really
ought to get him on the list of court chaplains. He and I were always
good friends, so if anything happens.... It may be well for you if you
can disguise yourself as cleverly as he. A revolution is not quite
impossible, you know.” The Son threw up his hands in pious horror; the
old King, in one of his spasms of rage, hurled the blue-book at the
speaker’s head, which it missed, but knocked down and broke his favorite
crucifix. “Jewcy fiction _versus_ crucifixion, sire; _magna est veritas
et prevalebit!_ Thank Heaven, all that folly is _out*side my brains; it
is not the first book full of cant and lies and stupidity that has been
flung at me. Why did you not let me finish? The Devil is no fonder than
your sacred self of the new opinions; in spite of the proverb, he loves
and dotes upon holy water. If you cease to be head of the ministry, he
ceases to be head of the opposition; he wouldn’t mind a change, an
innings for him and an outings for you; but these latest radicals want
to crush both Whigs and Tories. He was on his way to confer with some of
your Privy Council, to organise joint action for the suppression of new
ideas. You had better be frank and friendly with him. Public opposition
and private amity are perfectly consistent and praiseworthy. He has done
you good service before now; and you and your Son have always been of
the greatest assistance to him.” “By the temptation of Job! I must see
to it. And now no more business. I am hipped, my Rabelais; we must have
a spree. The cestus of Venus, the lute of Apollo, we never could find;
but there was sweeter loot in the sack of Olympus, and our cellars are
not yet quite empty. We will have a *petit souper_ of ambrosia and
nectar.” “My father! my father! did you not sign the pledge to abstain
from these heathen stimulants?” “My beloved Son, with whom I am not at
all well pleased, go and swill water till you get the dropsy, and permit
me to do as I like. No wonder people think that I am failing when my
child and my mistress rule for me!”
The Son went out, shaking his head, beating his breast, scrubbing his
eyes, wringing his hands, sobbing and murmuring piteously. “The poor old
God! my dear old father! Ah, how he is breaking! Alack, he will not last
long! Verily, his wits are leaving him! Many misfortunes and disasters
would be spared us were he to abdicate prudently at once. Or a regency
might do. But the evil speakers and slanderers would say that I am
ambitious. I must get the matter judiciously insinuated to the Privy
Council. Alack! alack!”
“Let him go and try on his suit of lamb’s wool for to-morrow,” said the
old monarch. “I have got out of the rehearsal, my friend; I shall be
conspicuous by my absence; there will be a dummy in my stead.” “Rather
perilous innovation, my Lord; the people may think that the dummy does
just as well, that there is no need to support the original.” “Shut up,
shut up, O, my Curé; no more politics, confound our politics! It is
Sunday, so we must have none but chaplains here. You may fetch Friar
John and sweet Dean Swift and the amiable parson Sterne, and any other
godly and devout and spiritual ministers you can lay hold of; but don’t
bring more than a pleiad.” “With Swift for the lost one; he is cooling
his ‘sæva indignatio’ in the Devil’s kitchen-furnace just now,
comforting poor Addison, who hasn’t got quit for his death-bed brandy
yet.” “A night of devotion will we have, and of inextinguishable
laughter; and with the old liquor we will pour out the old libations.
Yea, Gargantuan shall be the feast; and this night, and to-morrow, and
all next week, and twelve days into the new year the hours shall reel
and roar with Pantagruelism. Quick, for the guests, and I will order the
banquet!” “With all my heart, sire, will I do this very thing. Parsons
and pastors, pious and devout, will I lead back, choice and most elect
souls worthy of the old drink delectable. And I will lock and double
bolt the door, and first warm the chamber by burning all these devilish
books; and will leave word with the angel on guard that we are not to be
called for three times seven days, when all these Christmas fooleries
and mummeries are long over. Amen. Selah. _Au revoir_. Tarry till I
come.”