merely a change, but a change conspicuously for the worse. The amount
of church-going always differed in different circles; religious people
went often and careless people went seldom, but almost every one went
sometimes, if merely from a sense of duty and decorum. Mr. Gladstone,
whose traditions were Evangelical, thought very poorly of what he
called a "once-er," _i.e._ a person who attended divine service only
once on a Sunday. He himself was always a "twice-er," and often a
"thrice-er"; but to-day it would puzzle the social critic to discover a
"twice-er," and even a "once-er" is sufficiently rare to be noticeable.
But far more serious than the decay of mere attendance at church is
the complete abolition of the Day of Rest. People, who have nothing
to do but to amuse themselves, work at that entrancing occupation
with redoubled energy on Sundays. If they are in London, they whirl
off to spend the "week-end" amid the meretricious splendours of the
stockbroker's suburban paradise; and, if they are entertaining friends
at their country houses, they play bridge or tennis or croquet; they
row, ride, cycle, and drive, spend the afternoon in a punt, and wind up
the evening with "The Washington Post."
All this is an enormous change since the days when the only decorous
amusement for Sunday was a visit after church to the stables, or a
walk in the afternoon to the home farm or the kitchen garden; and, of
course, it entails a corresponding amount of labour for the servants.
Maids and valets spend the "week-end" in a whirl of packing and
unpacking, and the whole staff of the kitchen is continuously employed.
In old days people used to reduce the meals on Sunday to the narrowest
dimensions, in order to give the servants their weekly due of rest and
recreation, and in a family with which I am connected the traditional
bill of fare for Sunday's dinner, drawn by a cook who lived before the
School Board, is still affectionately remembered--
Soup.
Cold Beef.
Salad.
_Cold Sweats._
In brief, respectable people used to eat and drink sparingly on Sunday,
caused no unnecessary work, went a good deal to church, and filled up
their leisure time by visiting sick people in the cottages or teaching
in the Sunday School. No doubt there was a trace of Puritan strictness
about the former practice, and people too generally forgot that the
First Day of the week is by Christian tradition a feast. Society
has rediscovered that great truth. It observes the weekly feast by
over-eating itself, and honours the day of rest by over-working its
dependants.
LII
SUPERSTITION
"Superstition and infidelity usually go together. Professed atheists
have trafficked in augury, and men who do not believe in God
will believe in ghosts." To-day I take up my parable concerning
superstition, to which, time out of mind, the human spirit has betaken
itself as soon as it parted company with faith.
I once asked a lady who, in her earlier life, had lived in the very
heart of society, and who returned to it after a long absence, what was
the change which struck her most forcibly. She promptly replied, "The
growth of superstition. I hear people seriously discussing ghosts. In
my day people who talked in that way would have been put in Bedlam;
their relations would have required no other proof that they were mad."
My own experience entirely confirms this testimony as to the
development of superstition, and I have had some peculiarly favourable
opportunities of observing its moral effect upon its votaries. The
only superstition tolerated in my youth was table-turning, and that
was always treated as more than half a joke. To sit in a darkened
room round a tea-table, secretly join hands under the mahogany, and
"communicate a revolving motion" to it (as Mr. Pickwick to his fists)
was not bad fun when the company was mainly young and larky, but
contained one or two serious people who desired to probe the mystery to
its depths. Or, perhaps, our psychic force would cause the respectable
piece of furniture to rear itself upon one leg, and deal out with a
ponderous foot mysterious raps, which the serious people interpreted
with their own admirable solemnity. I well remember a massive gentleman
with an appalling stammer who proclaimed that some lost document which
we had asked the table to discover would be found in the Vatican
Library, "wrapped in a ragged palimpsest of Tertullian;" and the
quaintness of the utterance dissolved the tables, or at least the
table-turners, in laughter. This particular form of superstition became
discredited among respectable people when sharpers got hold of it and
used it as an engine for robbing the weak-minded. It died, poor thing,
of exposure, and its epitaph was written by Browning in "Mr. Sludge,
the Medium."
It was the same with ghost-stories. People told them--partly to fill
gaps when reasonable conversation failed, and partly for the fun of
making credulous hearers stare and gasp. But no one, except ladies as
weak-minded as Byng's Half-Aunt in "Happy Thoughts," ever thought of
taking them seriously. Bishop Wilberforce invented a splendid story
about a priest and a sliding panel and a concealed confession; and I
believe that he habitually used it as a foolometer, to test the mental
capacity of new acquaintances. But the Bishop belonged to that older
generation which despised superstition, and during the last few years,
twaddle of this kind has risen to the dignity of a pseudo-science.
Necromancy is a favourite substitute for religion. It supplies the
element of mystery without which the human spirit cannot long subsist;
and, as it does not require its adherents to practise self-denial,
or get up early on Sunday, or subscribe to charities, or spend their
leisure in evil-smelling slums, it is a cult particularly well adapted
to a self-indulgent age. I vividly remember a scene which occurred
just before the Coronation. A luxurious luncheon had been prolonged by
the aid of coffee, kümmel, and cigarettes till four o'clock; and the
necromancers--surfeited, flushed, and a little maudlin--were lolling
round the drawing-room fire. A whispered colloquy in a corner was heard
through the surrounding chatter, and the hostess saw her opportunity.
"Dear Lady De Spook, do let us hear. I know you are such a wonderful
medium."
_Lady De Spook._ Really, it was nothing at all out of the common. I had
come home dead tired from the opera, and just as I was going to bed I
heard that rap--you know what I mean?
_Mr. Sludge_ (enthusiastically). Oh yes, indeed I do! No one who has
ever heard it can ever forget it.
_Lady De Spook_ (resuming). Well, and do you know it turned out to be
poor dear Lord De Spook. It was wonderful how energetically he rapped,
for you know he was quite paralysed years before he died; and the
curious thing was that I couldn't make out what he said. It seemed
to be, "Don't buy. Sarah. Search." I was too tired to go on talking
to him, so I went to bed; but next day, do you know, my maid found
the coronet which his first wife, whose name was Sarah, had worn at
the last Coronation. I was just going to order a new one. Wasn't it a
wonderful interposition!--Such a saving!
_Chorus_ (sentimentally). Ah, wonderful indeed! Our dear ones are never
really lost to us.
Closely connected with necromancy is clairvoyance. A man whom I knew
well was taken suddenly and seriously ill, and his relations, who were
enthusiastic spookists, telegraphed for the celebrated clairvoyante
Mrs. Endor. She duly arrived, threw herself into a trance, declared
that the patient would die, came to, and declared that there was
nothing much the matter, and that he would be about again in two or
three days. Then, having pocketed her cheque, she returned to London.
The patient grew rapidly worse, and died; and his relations, though I
am sure they sincerely mourned him, were much sustained in the hour
of bereavement by the thought that the opinion which Mrs. Endor had
given in her trance had proved to be the right one, and that spiritual
science was justified by the result.
But, after all, necromancy and clairvoyance are a little old-fashioned.
Crystal-gazing is more modish. 'Tis as easy as lying. You gather
open-mouthed round a glass ball, and the gifted gazer reports that
which he or she can see, but which is invisible to grosser eyes. There
are no bounds to the fascinating range of a crystal-gazer's fancy, nor
to the awestruck credulity with which his revelations are received.
But crystal is not the only medium through which a purged eye can
discern the mysterious future. Coffee-grounds, though less romantic,
are very serviceable. Our hostess is an expert in this form of science,
and, being a thoroughly amiable woman, she makes the coffee say pretty
much what we should like to hear. "Dear Mr. Taper, this is delightful.
You will be Prime Minister before you die. It is true that your party
will not be in office again just yet; but 'hope on, hope ever,' and
trust your star."
"Oh! Mr. Garbage, I have such good news for you. Your next book will be
an immense success, and, after that, Messrs. Skin & Flint will be more
liberal, and, what with the American copyright and the acting rights,
you will make quite a fortune."
Closely akin to the science of coffee-grounds is that of palmistry.
A wretched gipsy who "tells fortunes" at a race-meeting is sent to
prison; but, when St. Berengaria's gets up a bazaar for its new vestry,
a bejewelled lady sits in a secret chamber (for admission to which an
extra half-crown is charged), and, after scrutinizing your line of
life, tells you that you have had the influenza; and, projecting her
soul into futurity, predicts that the next time you have it you will
get pneumonia unless you are very careful.
Of course, these minor superstitions are mainly ridiculous, and to
get up moral indignation over them would be a waste of force. But
one cannot speak so lightly of the degrading cults which are grouped
together under the name of Spiritualism. I have known a "Spiritual
Wife" who was highly commended in spookish circles because she left her
husband, family, and home in one continent and crossed the world to
find her "affinity" in another. I have known a most promising boy whose
health was destroyed and his career ruined by a hypnotic experiment
performed on him without his parents' knowledge. I have known a
mesmeric clergyman who cozened the women of his congregation out of
money, character, and in some cases reason. Where occultism is pursued,
all veracity and self-respect disappear; pruriency finds a congenial
lodgment, and the issue is--well--what we sometimes see exhibited in
all its uncomeliness at the Central Criminal Court.
The wisest lawgiver who ever lived said, "Thou shalt not suffer a
witch to live." And a great judge acted on the rule. But that was a
long time ago. We have improved upon the jurisprudence of Moses and the
methods of Sir Matthew Hale. Stoning and hanging are a little out of
date, but boycotting is a remedy still within our reach. Whoso is wise
will ponder these things, and will give occultists, male and female, an
uncommonly wide berth.
LIII
THE REMNANT
Some recent observations of mine on the deterioration of society have
drawn this interesting response from an eminent clergyman in the north
of London:--
"Is it possible that in 'Society' itself there is a point of resistance
which may be touched by an effective appeal coming from the wholesomer
elements in English life? Belonging as I do to that section of English
life which is a stranger to Society in the technical sense, I am deeply
impressed with the taint which comes to all circles of society from
the contamination of the circle at the top. To elicit a strong opinion
and a resolute determination from what I may call the Puritan side of
English life, may be perhaps the first step towards the correction
of the evil which Mr. Russell describes. Are there not in Society
itself some men and women who retain the high ideals and the strenuous
purposes of their ancestry? Can they be induced to raise their protest,
to assert their principles, and open the way to a better--because a
purer--future? I venture to make this appeal because it is my fixed
conviction that even in the worst and most degraded society there are
men who sigh for better things, just as in the worst and most degraded
men there remains a desire, however overlaid, for regeneration."
Well, frankly I think that an amiable insanity deludes my reverend
friend if he expects a moral reformation in the sort of society which
I have been describing. It would tax the combined energies of St. John
the Baptist, Savonarola, the two Wesleys, and George Whitefield, all
rolled into one, to convince the people whom I have in my mind of their
ethical shortcomings. They have made their own beds, in every sense of
that expressive phrase, and must lie on them till the cataclysm comes
which will bring us all to our senses.
But I am reminded that I promised to write not exclusively about
deteriorations in society, but about changes of all kinds. That there
has been some change for the better I readily admit, as well as an
enormous number of changes for the worse. "All things are double," says
the Son of Sirach, "one against the other," and in this closing chapter
I will try to balance our gains and our losses.
That there has always been a mixture of good and bad in society is
only another way of saying that society is part of mankind; but, if I
am right in my survey, the bad just now is flagrant and ostentatious
to a degree which we have not known in England since 1837. There was
once a moralist who spoke of the narrow path which lay between right
and wrong, and similarly there used to be a Debatable Land which lay
between the good and evil districts of society. It was inhabited by the
people who, having no ethical convictions of their own, go very much as
they are led. It was written of them long ago that--
"They eat, they drink, they sleep, they plod,
They go to church on Sunday;
And many are afraid of God,
And more of Mrs. Grundy."
As long as Mrs. Grundy was a real, though comical, guardian of social
propriety--as long as the highest influences in the social system
tended towards virtue and decorum--the inhabitants of the Debatable
Land were even painfully respectable. But now that the "trend" (as
Pennialinus calls it) is all the other way, and Mrs. Grundy has been
deposed as a bore and an anachronism, they willingly follow the "smart"
multitude to do evil; and so the area covered by social wickedness is
much larger than in former times. In other words, the evil of society
is both worse in quality and larger in quantity than it was fifty--or
even twenty--years ago.
Now if this be true--and I hold it to be unquestionable--what have we
to set against it? I reply, the greatly increased activity of those
who are really good. In old days the good were good in a quiescent
and lethargic way. They were punctual in religious observances, public
and private; exemplary in the home and the family, and generous to the
poor. But their religion could scarcely be called active, except in
so far as pottering about among the cottages, or teaching a class of
well-washed children in the Sunday School, can be reckoned as active
employments; and even such activities as these were as a rule confined
to women.
Sir Walter Scott believed that "there were few young men, and those
very sturdy moralists, who would not rather be taxed with some moral
peccadillo than with want of horsemanship." And, in days much more
recent than the beloved Sir Walter's, men, if they were religious,
studiously kept their light under a bushel, and took the utmost pains
to avoid being detected in acts of charity or devotion.
Nowadays all this is changed, and changed, in my opinion, much for the
better. Religious people are ready to let the world know what they
believe, and are active in the pursuit of the things which are pure
and lovely and of good report. Well-dressed young men combine dancing
with slumming. Untidiness and dulness are no longer the necessary
concomitants of virtue. Officers of the Guards sing in the choir and
serve the altar. Men whose names are written in the book of the peerage
as well as the Book of Life conduct Bible-classes and hand round the
hymn-books at mission-services. The group of young M.P.'s who were
nicknamed "Hughligans" showed the astonished House of Commons that
Religion is as practical a thing as Politics, and (as one of them
lately said) they cheerfully encountered that hot water which is the
modern substitute for boiling oil. The Universities send their best
athletes and social favourites to curacies in the slums or martyrdom
in the mission-field. The example set by Mr. James Adderley, when he
left Christ Church and founded the Oxford House at Bethnal Green, has
been followed in every direction. Both the Universities, and most of
the colleges, run "Settlements," where laymen, in the intervals of
professional work and social enjoyment, spread religion, culture, and
physical education amid the "dim, common populations" of Camberwell and
Stratford and Poplar.
The Public Schools, formerly denounced as "the seats and nurseries
of vice," make their full contribution to active religion. Eton and
Winchester and Harrow have their Missions in crowded quarters of great
towns. At one school, the boys have a guild of devotion; at another, a
voluntary Bible-class with which no master inter-meddles. And so the
young citizens of the privileged order gain their first lessons in
religious and social service, and carry the idea with them to the Army
or the Bar or the Stock Exchange or the House of Commons. All this is,
in my eyes, a social change which is also a clear and enormous gain.
But, if what I say is true of men, it is even more conspicuously true
of women. They are no longer content with the moderate church-going
at comfortable hours, and the periodical visits to particularly clean
cottages, which at one time were the sum-total of their activities.
Every well-organized parish has its staff of woman-workers, who
combine method with enthusiasm and piety with common sense. Belgravia
and Mayfair send armies of district-visitors to Hoxton and Poplar.
Girls from fashionable homes, pretty and well dressed, sacrifice
their evenings to clubs and social gatherings for factory-hands and
maids-of-all-work. Beneath the glittering surface of social life, there
is a deep current of wise and devoted effort for those unhappy beings
who are least able to help themselves. And all this philanthropic
energy is distinctively and avowedly Christian. It is the work of
men and women, young and old, widely differentiated from one another
in outward circumstances of wealth and accomplishments and social
influence, but all agreed about "the one thing needful," and all keen
to confess their faith before a hostile world.
What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter? Society, during
the years in which I have known it, has changed enormously, alike in
its exterior characteristics and, as far as I can judge, in its inner
spirit. While some of the changes have been simply innocuous, and a
few even beneficial, the great majority have been gross and palpable
deteriorations. An onlooker who knew society well thus described its
present condition: "We are living in an age of decadence, and we
pretend not to know it. There is not a feature wanting, though we
cannot mention the worst of them. We are Romans of the worst period,
given up to luxury and effeminacy, and caring for nothing but money. We
care no more for beauty in art, but only for a brutal realism. Sport
has lost its manliness, and is a matter of pigeons from a trap, or a
mountain of crushed pheasants to sell to your own tradesmen. Religion
is coming down to jugglers and table-turnings and philanderings with
cults brought, like the rites of Isis, from the East; and as for
patriotism, it is turned on like beer at election times, or worked like
a mechanical doll by wire-pullers. We belong to one of the most corrupt
generations of the human race. To find its equal one must go back to
the worst times of the Roman Empire, and look devilish close then.
But it's uncommonly amusing to live in an age of decadence; you see
the funniest sights and you get every conceivable luxury, and you die
before the irruption of the barbarians."
This is, I believe, a true indictment against the age in which our lot
is cast, although the utterance has just that touch of exaggeration
which secures a hearing for unpalatable truth. But the man who wrote
it left out of account that redeeming element in our national life
which I have discussed in this closing chapter. After all, there is a
world-wide difference between the "Majority" and the "Remnant,"--and
the ten righteous men may yet save the guilty city.
POSTSCRIPT
_The bulk of this book appeared in the "Manchester Guardian," and my
thanks are due to Mr. C. P. Scott for permission to reproduce it. The
last twelve chapters were originally published under the title, "For
Better? For Worse?" and they reappear by the kind consent of Mr. Fisher
Unwin._
_G. W. E. R._
_Twelfth Night, 1907._
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. Edinburgh & London
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
--Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
End of Project Gutenberg's Seeing and Hearing, by George W. E. Russell