One of the most trying defects which I find in these—these—what shall I
call them? for I will not apply injurious epithets to them, the way
they do to us, such violations of courtesy being repugnant to my nature
and my dignity. The farthest I can go in that direction is to call them
by names of limited reverence—names merely descriptive, never unkind,
never offensive, never tainted by harsh feeling. If _they_ would do
like this, they would feel better in their hearts. Very well, then—to
proceed. One of the most trying defects which I find in these
Stratfordolaters, these Shakesperiods, these thugs, these bangalores,
these troglodytes, these herumfrodites, these blatherskites, these
buccaneers, these bandoleers, is their spirit of irreverence. It is
detectable in every utterance of theirs when they are talking about us.
I am thankful that in me there is nothing of that spirit. When a thing
is sacred to me it is impossible for me to be irreverent toward it. I
cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been
irreverent, except towards the things which were sacred to other
people. Am I in the right? I think so. But I ask no one to take my
unsupported word; no, look at the dictionary; let the dictionary
decide. Here is the definition:
_Irreverence_. The quality or condition of irreverence toward God and
sacred things.
What does the Hindu say? He says it is correct. He says irreverence is
lack of respect for Vishnu, and Brahma, and Chrishna, and his other
gods, and for his sacred cattle, and for his temples and the things
within them. He endorses the definition, you see; and there are
300,000,000 Hindus or their equivalents back of him.
The dictionary had the acute idea that by using the capital G it could
restrict irreverence to lack of reverence for _our_ Deity and our
sacred things, but that ingenious and rather sly idea miscarried: for
by the simple process of spelling _his_ deities with capitals the Hindu
confiscates the definition and restricts it to his own sects, thus
making it clearly compulsory upon us to revere _his_ gods and _his_
sacred things, and nobody’s else. We can’t say a word, for he has our
own dictionary at his back, and its decision is final.
This law, reduced to its simplest terms, is this: 1. Whatever is sacred
to the Christian must be held in reverence by everybody else; 2.
whatever is sacred to the Hindu must be held in reverence by everybody
else; 3. therefore, by consequence, logically, and indisputably,
whatever is sacred to _me_ must be held in reverence by everybody else.
Now then, what aggravates me is that these troglodytes and muscovites
and bandoleers and buccaneers are _also_ trying to crowd in and share
the benefit of the law, and compel everybody to revere their
Shakespeare and hold him sacred. We can’t have that: there’s enough of
us already. If you go on widening and spreading and inflating the
privilege, it will presently come to be conceded that each man’s sacred
things are the _only_ ones, and the rest of the human race will have to
be humbly reverent toward them or suffer for it. That can surely
happen, and when it happens, the word Irreverence will be regarded as
the most meaningless, and foolish, and self-conceited, and insolent,
and impudent, and dictatorial word in the language. And people will
say, “Whose business is it what gods I worship and what things hold
sacred? Who has the right to dictate to my conscience, and where did he
get that right?”
We cannot afford to let that calamity come upon us. We must save the
word from this destruction. There is but one way to do it, and that is
to stop the spread of the privilege and strictly confine it to its
present limits—that is, to all the Christian sects, to all the Hindu
sects, and me. We do not need any more, the stock is watered enough,
just as it is.
It would be better if the privilege were limited to me alone. I think
so because I am the only sect that knows how to employ it gently,
kindly, charitably, dispassionately. The other sects lack the quality
of self-restraint. The Catholic Church says the most irreverent things
about matters which are sacred to the Protestants, and the Protestant
Church retorts in kind about the confessional and other matters which
Catholics hold sacred; then both of these irreverencers turn upon
Thomas Paine and charge _him_ with irreverence. This is all
unfortunate, because it makes it difficult for students equipped with
only a low grade of mentality to find out what Irreverence really _is_.
It will surely be much better all around if the privilege of regulating
the irreverent and keeping them in order shall eventually be withdrawn
from all the sects but me. Then there will be no more quarreling, no
more bandying of disrespectful epithets, no more heartburnings.
There will then be nothing sacred involved in this Bacon-Shakespeare
controversy except what is sacred to me. That will simplify the whole
matter, and trouble will cease. There will be irreverence no longer,
because I will not allow it. The first time those criminals charge me
with irreverence for calling their Stratford myth an
Arthur-Orton-Mary-Baker-Thompson-Eddy-Louis-the-Seventeenth-Veiled-
Prophet -of-Khorassan will be the last. Taught by the methods found
effective in extinguishing earlier offenders by the Inquisition, of
holy memory, I shall know how to quiet them.