JUSTICE AND THE NEW DEMOCRACY.
'They will soon be here,
They are upon the road,'
John Gilpin.
'I should like,' said Queen Mab one day, 'to go and see the City. Do
you think it would be safe?'
'Yes,' said the Owl, 'if you fly out of the way of the smoke and the
net of overhead wires, and take care not to be suffocated, and not to
go near the Houses of Parliament, nor the Bank, nor St. Paul's, nor the
Exchange, nor any great public building. And if you keep clear of all
the bridges, and the railway stations, and Victoria Embankment, and go
the other way whenever you see a person carrying a black bag.'
'Why?' inquired Queen Mab, a good deal mystified.
'Because all these places,' said the Owl, 'are in danger of being blown
up. If you could get a Home Ruler to take you round now; but I'm afraid
it wouldn't do, as he might put you into an explosion and leave you
there, as likely as not. Besides, I was forgetting, you are immortal,
aren't you? You _couldn't_ be blown up? If so, it is all right.'
'I don't suppose I could,' said Queen Mab a little doubtfully, 'but
still I shouldn't care to try. What is it like?'
'I don't know,' replied her mentor. 'I have never tried it myself. You
had better ask Mr. Bradlaugh, or some eminent popular sciolist Huxley
or Spencer would do. They have been exploding or blowing up popular
theology for a number of years, and popular theology and Mr. Joseph
Cook have been exploding them. As far as I can make out, they both
appear to think it very good fun. But I was going to tell you about the
black bags, which are filled with dynamite, a very explosive though
inexpensive substance indeed, and carried by persons called
"dynamiters." These bags are left at large in public buildings, while
the dynamitards go away, and as soon as their owners turn the corner
the bags explode and blow up the buildings, and anyone who happens to
be about.'
'Why do they do it?' exclaimed Queen Mab, breathless.
'Nobody seems to know,' said the Owl. 'It is one of the problems of the
nineteenth century. Even the dynamiters themselves don't appear to have
gone into the whole logic of it I suppose that they are tired of only
blowing things up on paper, and they are people who have a great
objection to things in general. They complain that they can't get
justice from the universe in its present state of preservation, and
therefore they are going to blow as much of it as possible into what
they call _smithereens_, and try to get justice from the smithereens.
It is a new scheme they have hit upon, a kind of scientific experiment.
The theory appears to be, that justice is the product of Nihilism plus
public buildings blown up by dynamite, and that the more public
buildings they blow up the more justice they will obtain. I hear that
they have also started a company for supplying statesmen, and all
public orators except Home Rulers, with nitro-glycerine jujubes to
improve the voice. Nitro-glycerine is a kind of condensed dynamite. A
City sparrow told me—but perhaps it was only his fun—that they were
borrowing the money from the Government, under the pretext of applying
it to a fund for presenting three-and-sixpenny copies of Jevons'
"Logic" to Members of Parliament who can't afford to buy the book for
themselves. It is reported, also, that if the Nihilists can't obtain
justice enough by any less extensive measures, they will lower a great
many kegs of nitro-glycerine to the molten nucleus of the globe, and
then—'
'Then?' said Queen Mab, much excited.
'Then the globe will explode, and all the inhabitants, even the
dynamiters themselves; but justice will remain; according to the
theory, that is. But it is rather an expensive experiment.'
'How dreadful!' said the fairy. 'Do you think I had better not go to
London?'
'I think you might,' replied the Owl thoughtfully. 'There would be a
little risk certainly; but you could fly high, and remember that
dynamite strikes downwards. You had better take the sparrow, though,
for I'm afraid I should attract too much attention. Otherwise I should
like to go with you.'
'I will make us both invisible,' said Queen Mab. 'That will be easy.'
'Oh, very well, if you do _that!_' And they started.
'After all,' said the Owl an hour later, 'as we _are_ here, and
invisible, we may as well rest on the dome of St. Paul's. Dynamite does
strike downwards, and I don't see any black bags about,' he added,
looking round suspiciously.
'All right,' said the fairy. 'Now you can tell me all about things,'
for they had been flying too fast to exchange many remarks. 'What is
this building?'
'It is one of St. George's best churches,' said the Owl.
A burst of melancholy music swelled out below them as he spoke, and
Queen Mab started with delight.
'That is like Fairyland,' she said promptly. 'What is it?'
'It is the organ and the choristers,' said the Owl. 'If you fly down a
moment you can look in; but don't wait long, because of the dynamite.
It would be just like them,' he added pensively, 'to blow it up when we
are here.'
Queen Mab obeyed, leaving the owl, still a little nervous, seated
invisible on the dome.
'I have heard the music,' she said when she flew back, 'and seen the
singers, and the great golden pipes the music comes out of. What a
beautiful big place it is! We have nothing like that in Polynesia.'
'No, I should think not,' returned the bird. 'Look round you. That
street where all the people and the vehicles are rushing up and down is
Cheapside.'
'Why do they all go so fast?' said the fairy.
'Oh, for many reasons. Competition, struggle for existence, and all
that. They are in a normal condition, in that street, of having trains
to catch, and not having any time to catch them in. Besides, they are
dragon-worshippers, most of them, and it is part of their religion to
walk as fast as they can, not only through Cheapside but through life.
The one who can walk fastest, and knock down the greatest number of
other people, gets a prize.'
'Who are the big men in black robes who stand at corners, and look as
if everything belonged to them? Are they the owners of the City?'
'They are policemen,' said the Owl. 'Products,' he went on learnedly,
'of the higher civilisation, evolved to put the lower civilisation into
prisons.'
'What are prisons?'
'A kind of hothouses,' said the Owl, 'for the culture of feeble moral
principles that the Struggle for Existtence has been too much for. They
are a wonderful system. The weak morality is supplied with bread and
water and a cell to develop in, and it is exercised on a treadmill, and
allowed to expand and pick oakum, and so it is turned into a beautiful
plant of virtue.'
'What do they do with it then?'
'Then they let it run wild, unless it comes across a Home Missionary,
or a School Board, or Dr. Barnardo, and gets trained.'
'Oh!' said Queen Mab. 'Are there many of these hothouses?'
'A good many. You see, such a number of the members of the lower
portion of the higher civilisation have moral principles that need
training. The moral principle is the latest product of evolution, or so
the professor says, and evolution has not yet got quite into the way of
always turning it out first class. Like everything else, it wants
practice. Some moral principles are excellent; but others are really
bungles, and require periodical prison culture. At present we need
policemen for the transplanting; but it is hoped that, in the course of
an era or two, the automatic method will be so much further developed
that a member of the higher civilisation who gets very drunk, or
steals, will put himself to prison at once, by reflex action. I told
you about that: it is a lengthy subject; but the kingfisher and I quite
mastered it one day, and I daresay you will. It is much easier than
portions of the Thirty-nine Articles.'
'I know what that is,' said Queen Mab; 'the missionaries were talking
about it once.'
'I have taken a good deal of trouble,' said the Owl, 'but there were
parts of the Thirty-nine Articles I never could make out. They are a
kind of tinned theology, and so much tinned that no one appreciates
them but the theologians.'
'Why is the theology tinned?' asked the Queen. 'Why don't they have it
fresh and fresh?'
'They like it old,' said the Owl. 'They have tried various ways of
treating it, for theology does not keep well in a scientific
atmosphere. Frozen theology has been experimented with by Archdeacon
Farrar and others, and has some vogue. But the popular taste prefers it
tinned. And yet it is very tough, in Articles. I am surprised that no
one has written a simple explanation of them: "Primer of the
Thirty-nine Articles," "The Thirty-nine Articles made Easy," or
"Thirty-nine Articles for Beginners;" but no one ever has. It is a book
that is very much needed, and if I had any influence with the
theologians I would ask them to do it at once. In days like ours, when
floods of Nonconformity and Socialism are pouring in on every hand, the
very foundations of Church and State are being sapped for want of a
plain popular guide ta the Thirty-nine Articles, that a child could
understand. A child couldn't expect to find them clear in their present
condensed state, could he now? But then, when I come to think of it,
perhaps there is no reason why he should.' And the owl fell into a
reverie.
After this they departed in search of a more sequestered resting-place,
and ultimately alighted in Kensington Gardens. And there they came upon
a Democrat and an Aristocrat who was also a landholder, and the
Aristocrat was saying:
'What will you do without an aristocracy? What will you look up to?'
'We shall do,' said the Democrat, 'very well indeed. We shall do, in
fact, a good deal better; for we shall be an aristocracy in ourselves,
and look up to ourselves, and reverence humanity. What, I should like
to know, has the British aristocracy done for us?'
'We have set you an example,' replied his companion impressively.
'We have told you what to do and what not to do. We have employed you;
we have let you vote for us; we have represented you in Church and
State; we have given you a popular education; and a pretty use you have
made of it! We have, in short,' he continued, trying hard to remember
the popular maxim, 'cherished you like a viper, and you turn again and
rend us.'
'All that,' said the Democrat, 'you did because you couldn't help it.'
'We have been,' exclaimed the Aristocrat with deep pathos, 'as lights
in a benighted land. We have improved the breed of horses and
cultivated the fine arts, and literature, and china, and the fashions,
and French cookery—'
'And drinking, and racing, and gambling, and betting, and
pigeon-shooting,' put in the Democrat thoughtfully. 'So you have.'
'We have come to church,' continued the Aristocrat unheeding, 'and you
have surveyed us from the free seats—when you were there. I regret to
say that your attendance at the established places of worship has been
far from satisfactory. We have allowed you to pay us the highest rents
you could afford, solely to develop in you the sense of competition and
a stimulus to progress, and we have daily displayed to you, in our
persons and equipments, the advantages of the higher life. Our wives
and daughters have played the piano, done crewel work, danced, sung and
skated, and painted on plaques for your edification and improvement. We
have trained ourselves, physically, mentally, morally, and
aesthetically to be a thing of beauty in your eyes and a joy for ever.
Alas, you have no vision for the beautiful and intrinsically complete;
you can't appreciate an aristocracy when you see one. We have even
flung open our parks and grounds for your benefit, and let you admire
our mansions, and you knocked down the ornaments, and smudged the
tapestry and the antimacassars, and trod on the flower-beds, and pulled
up the young trees, and threw orange-peel into the fountains, and
ridiculed the statuary. Then you asked us for peasant proprietorship.'
'It wasn't me,' said the Democrat with unusual humility. 'It was the
British public.'
'And what are you,' retorted his companion firmly—for he felt that he
had scored a point—'but a representative of the British public? Alas, I
could weep for your short-sightedness! When the reins of the ship of
State—no, the helm of the chariot of Government, is in the hands of a
semi-barbarous public, what will it do with it? The old aristocratic
ballast once thrown overboard, it will drive that chariot upon the
rocks of anarchy, it will overturn it upon the shores of revolution.
And you, contemptible tool of an infatuated majority, what will you do
then? Ah, then, too late you will cry, "Give me back my aristocracy,
the aristocracy I so madly flung away!" When you have the Church and
State flying about your ears, you will wish you had minded what we said
to you. You will long with remorse unspeakable for the old English
gentleman, the bulwark of the land; but the good old English gentleman
will be no more. He will have gone to the vaults of his fathers, to the
happy hunting-grounds of the noble lord.'
'You are really very eloquent,' said the Democrat, with more politeness
than his wont ('I didn't think he had it in him,' he murmured under his
breath.) 'But you exaggerate our intentions. We are only democrats: we
are not Nihilists. We desire justice.'
'Ah, that is what you all say!' exclaimed the Aristocrat hastily. 'I
have heard enough about justice: I wish it had never been invented.
Never knew any of your fine-sounding phrases yet that did not end in
gunpowder.'
'You mistake,' said the Democrat severely. 'Our requirements are few
and simple: Universal suffrage, the abolition of the peers, of entail,
and of primogeniture, the overthrow of establishments and armaments
equally bloated, the right to marry the deceased wife's sister, the
confiscation of landed property by the State—'
'Oh lord, yes!' groaned the Aristocrat 'I thought you were coming to
that next. Take our landed property, do—I wish you joy of it! What with
all your Communistic legislation and bad harvests, and backing good
things that don't come off—like an ass as I was—by Jove, I feel
disposed to quit the whole business and compete for a Mandarin's Button
in China. It's the only country for a British Aristocracy to live
comfortably in and be properly appreciated, and you can't come sneaking
about with your red-hot Republicanism, for they are all good
Conservatives. Who ever heard of The Chinese Revolution?'
They parted hastily, the common consequence of all lengthy argument,
and the aristocrat repaired to his club, smoking a cigar to soothe his
ruffled feelings, while the democrat also turned on his heel, and went
to address the British public in Hyde Park. Queen Mab, however, had
heard enough of social problems for one day, and she did not follow
him. The Owl took her, instead, to Westminster Abbey, and offered
explanations after the manner of a verger.
'This is our museum of 'dead celebrities,' he said. 'Here lie our great
men—poets, soldiers, artists, and statesmen. When the British public
feels elevated and sublime it comes here to look at the tombstones, and
it says: "These are my great men: they worked for me. I bought them: I
paid for them!" And it turns away with tears in its eyes.'
'And while they are alive?' asked Mab.
'That is rather a long subject,' replied the Owl.
'In the first place, they set up a great man, like a target, to shoot
at and fight over, and find out whether he is really a great man or
only a "lunatic ritualist," like General Gordon, in the view of
Thoughtful persons. It takes them some time to decide: sometimes they
never do decide till he has gone to his reward, if even then. It is an
admirable quality in him, always, not to mind being shot at. But when
the British public has really made up its mind that a man is a great
man, and that however low they rate him at market value he is sure to
be above the average, they sing a psalm of thanksgiving, and they cry,
"Where is his coffin? Let us drive nails into the coffin of this great
man! Let us show our magnanimity, our respect for the higher life, our
reverence for the lofty soul! Give us the hammer." Then they begin. It
is an imposing ceremony, and lasts during the lifetime of the great
man, whoever he happens to be. He may be a literary great man, a poet,
perhaps a Laureate. This type, according to the notions of the British
public, requires a great quantity of nails, and every class of society
almost brings them to his coffin. The young lady authors come, many
troops of them, all conscious of greatness in their own souls, and all
having made it the dream of their lives to turn their souls inside out
for the benefit of a really great man. Surely, they think, there must
be in the heart of him a natural affinity for the details of their
inner lives. They give him the details of their inner lives: they also
bring with them hammer and nails. There is nerve in those delicate
fingers, energy in those sympathetic souls: the number of nails they
contrive to hammer in is astonishing.
'Then the theologians come, with a doctrinal hammer and many nails, the
lineal descendants of the nail that Jael drove into the head of Sisera
because he fought against the Israelites. They have found out that
there is a want of sound sectarian teaching in the works of the poet,
and they say that in the interests of theology they must drive a nail
in. They drive it: they know how to drive nails, some of the
theologians. Good sound crushing, rending, comfortable nails of
doctrine—none of your airy latitudinarian tin-tacks. Then come the
critics: they have been brought up to it. They have all manner of
nails—nails with broad heads, and narrow heads, and brass heads, and no
heads, but all with points. If a critic ever should drive in a nail
without a point he would feel everlastingly disgraced, but he never
does: he sharpens them on the premises. He can always find a place for
another nail, till by-and-by the coffin is quite covered, and then the
great man is thankful to rest in it. Then the British public sings more
psalms.
But it seems to afford them solid comfort and happiness to find out, or
to think they find out, that a great man was really not so great after
all, and that they can look down on him. It is certainly a more piquant
sensation to look down on a great man than on an ordinary mortal, and
makes one feel happier. There is a melancholy, sweet satisfaction—I
have noticed it myself—in pointing out exactly where this or that great
man erred, and where we should not have erred if we had been this or
that great man. There is a calm, blessed sense of the law of
compensation among humans when they murmur over the grave: "Ah! his was
a mighty soul; everybody says so; but his umbrella was only gingham,
and mine has a silver handle." Or, "Yes, his force of mind was
gigantic; but just here he left the beaten track. If I had been in his
place at that moment I should have kept it; I always do." Or, "His
morality looks elegant, but it hasn't got any fibre to it. Now my
morality is all fibre; you never met with such fibrous morality. What
did he do with the fibre out of his? Did he pawn it? did he sell it?
did he give it away? We should like to know all about it—is it in his
autobiography? Did he write an autobiography? If he didn't, why didn't
he? We prefer all our great men to write autobiographies. We like to be
well up in them, and we think it would throw a great deal of light on
the study of psychology, and gratify our sense of reverence, to know
the exact details of the daily life of this great man, and at what hour
he dined, and whether he wrote with a quill or a J pen. Whether the
quality of the pens he used was or was not intimately connected with
the quality of his moral fibre, and whether his ethical degeneration
could or could not be dated from his ceasing to make two fair copies of
his manuscripts. We should also like to be informed whether his studs
were gold or gilt, and, if they were gold, whether it was 18-carat
gold, or only 15. If they were gilt, whether he wore them gilt on
principle, or because he hadn't money enough to buy a better pair; and
if, supposing that it was because he hadn't money enough, _why_ he
hadn't, and whether he spent the money on cigars. Why he was not an
anti-tobacconist. Did anyone ever invite him to join the
anti-tobacconists? and if they didn't, why didn't they? Did he approve
of the Blue Ribbon movement? Is it true that he once got intoxicated,
and smashed a blue china teapot? If he did, was it by way of protest
against the demoralising doctrine of Art for Art's sake? Has anybody
written his wife's biography?—if not, why not? We should like it at
once, and also the biographies of all his second and third cousins, and
of his publishers, and of the conductor of the tramcar he once went
into town by. Why did he travel by tram that day, and what had the
twopence he paid for the tramcar to do with the flow of the hexameters
used by him in translating the Æneid? Let us trace the effects of both
on the growth of individuality in his writings, and find out, if
possible, the influence of the twopence as affecting his views on the
opium traffic." But what a long time I have been talking,' said the
Owl, suddenly recollecting himself. 'Automatic action again. Dear me!'
'Yes, you have,' said Queen Mab, whose thoughts had been wandering. 'I
did not suppose you meant to stop. Is it not time for us to go?'
It was indeed growing late, and the Owl was tired after his long
harangue, but though they set out at once on their return journey, the
day's experiences were not quite ended. For behold! the mob, returning
from Hyde Park, with the Democrat at its head, in search of a Cabinet
Minister, a Lord Mayor, a Government, anything administrative and
official that they could lay their hands upon, and to whom they could
make representations. The mob was half-starved; but that, as the Owl
whispered to Queen Mab, was a way it had, and did not amount to much.
It was also able-bodied and unemployed but these too were normal
characteristics, and did not amount to much either. Fortunately, or
unfortunately, it met a Cabinet Minister just at the entrance of Oxford
Street, and the Cabinet Minister, who had been walking gaily, and
twirling his cane, instantly slackened his pace, and, with inherent
fine tact, put on a serious and sympathetic expression. The mob pushed
the Democrat forward, and he confronted the Cabinet Minister.
'What are you going to do for these people?' he said abruptly; 'they
are starving.'
'No; are they?' said the Cabinet Minister, looking very properly
horrified, at which the mob cheered. 'I am very sorry indeed to hear
it. Let me see if I can find a sixpence.'
He fumbled in all his pockets, and, finally, with some difficulty,
produced a threepenny bit. The mob cheered again.
'I am sorry,' he said, 'that I haven't a sixpence, but perhaps this
will be of use?'
'That won't do,' replied the Democrat roughly, as he pocketed the coin.
'Do you suppose that you are going to feed thousands of starving men,
women, and children on a threepenny bit?'
'I deeply sympathise,' said the Cabinet Minister, without any distinct
impression that he was quoting from 'Alice in Wonderland.' 'In fact, I
may say that I weep for you; but what can I do? Am I not with you?
Don't I hate criticism, and political economy, and Mr. Goschen?'
'You must _act_, returned the Democrat impressively. 'You are in the
Government; 'and there came from the mob a hoarse, funereal echo, 'You
are in the—qualified—Government!'
'Ah, but I am not in that department,' said the Minister, seeing a way
of escape. 'My friends—I may say, indeed, my suffering
fellow-citizens—be reasonable. Don't be vexed with _me_. I am only a
capitalist, a toiler and spinner. Go for dukes and earls, or
better—exercise patience. "The night," says the poet, "is always
darkest just before the dawn." I am not in that department.'
'Hang your departments!' said the Democrat. 'If you are not in that
department, at least you might be expected to know where it is, and to
tell it what to do. Who would give a farthing for departments and
officials who can't join hands at a time like this, to help their
starving countrymen? We shan't stop to quarrel with you how you do it,
if you only lift us out of the mire. Here are these men'—he pointed to
the mob, and the mob hurrahed—'willing to work, eager to work,
perishing for want of food, and not a soul of your benevolent
Governments will lift a finger to set them to work for it. Give them
public buildings to erect and to be blown up, canals to make, railways
to cut; assist them to emigrate, if you have nothing for them to do at
home, but in Heaven's name be sharp about it!'
'It is really very awkward,' said the Cabinet Minister. 'You see I am
not in the Railroad Department, nor in the Canal Department, nor in the
Emigration Department. I am sure you see that!' he continued hopefully,
looking round upon the crowd, who, though they admitted the fact, did
not appear to appreciate its deep and intrinsic force. 'But I am quite
willing at some future opportunity—indeed, I may say I hope at some
opportunity comparatively not distant, to consider the advisability of
representing the matter to the heads of certain departments who might
be able, in the course of the next but one Septennial Parliament, or'
(even more sanguinely) 'I might under favourable circumstances even
hope to say, the _next_ Septennial Parliament, to lay the topic before
the Government. In the meantime, my friends, consider that such means
as you have suggested for alleviating the hardships with which I so
profoundly sympathise are not things to be lightly rushed into. You
will agree with me doubtless. You will show that fine sense of the
propriety of your lots innate in the breast of every Briton, by
agreeing with me that canals, for instance, are not things to be
lightly rushed into. Emigration, my friends, is not a thing to be
lightly rushed into. In the meantime, knowledge, as the good old maxim
tells us, never comes amiss, and whatever be the eventual scheme
resolved upon by Government for relieving your necessities, you cannot
better employ your leisure than in preparatory academic study of the
arts of building, railway cutting, and canal-making, and in acquainting
yourselves with the principles and methods of emigration, the nature of
our different colonial settlements, their situation and productions,
during the seven years that must inevitably elapse—'
He would have proceeded, but a howl, long and loud, drowned his
utterance, and the mob surged forward, driving him back, in a state of
bewildered astonishment, into the premises of a fashionable dealer.
Various tokens of regard followed him in the shape of rotten eggs and
cabbage leaves, which, as the Owl observed in a thoughtful voice, were
doubtless symbolical.
Then the mob broke up and went on its different ways. Mab and the Owl,
following one of its scattered detachments, met another procession,
with a drum and trumpets and other instruments, all working their
hardest at one of Sankey and Moody's hymns, which procession drew up
straightway before the remnant of the mob, and began to convert it.
'What is this?' asked Queen Mab. 'Is it British Polynesians going to a
war-dance?'
'No,' replied the Owl. 'It is only the Salvation Army, walking
backwards into glory.'
'Come away,' said Mab. 'They are very noisy, these British Polynesians,
and the mob makes me miserable. Let us go back.'
'I am ready,' said the Owl. 'I don't wonder that London has this effect
on you at first. You are not sufficiently automatic, and a
non-automatic mind has always much to contend with.'