"THE DAWN."
Next to the delight of holding new and unpopular opinions is the delight
of having a medium for their unedited expression, though this is a
delight given to few reformers. "The Dawn," however, was to be such a
medium; and when the first number appeared, as it did nearly a month
from the meeting recorded in the last chapter, four people, nay,
five--for we mustn't forget Mr. Moggridge--were supremely happy. With
the exception of the poet, who, as we have seen, occasionally irradiated
the poet's corner of the "Argus," and Mr. Moggridge, it was a first
appearance in print for three out of the five contributors; and though
each talked most of the articles by the others, they were secretly
longing to get away with the little paper to some corner where they
could gloat over their own special contribution.
Not that they had any ridiculous ideas of the literary importance of the
articles in question, but because it seemed so strange to see the warm
words of their mouths thus condensed into cold print, so strange to
think that people all over Coalchester were reading them. Little Jenny
in particular felt quite a cold but pleasant shiver of notoriety as she
thought of it, while to her lover the delighted perusal and reperusal of
a large-type leading article, headed "In Darkest Coalchester!" brought a
new sense of power.
The poet, as was only to be expected, had his little grievance with the
printer, who, in spite of all his remonstrances and corrections in
proof,--the printer was a little wrong-headed Scotchman,--had insisted
at the last moment in heading his Tyrtean "Proem," a fine aerial
trumpet-blast somewhat Shelleyan in style, with the word that was
evidently intended, namely, "Poem." However, he was somewhat consoled by
reading his caustic column of notes headed "The World outside
Coalchester," the very heading of which was a revelation. Then, too, he
very much enjoyed his article on "Bad Lighting in Coalchester," with its
evident allegoric insinuation that Coalchester needed lighting in more
ways than one, and that "The Dawn" was prepared to undertake, free of
charge, the top-lighting of which it was most in need.
James Whalley contributed a review of "Mr. Swinburne's new Poems,"
through which article Mr. Moggridge's illustrated hams plainly showed
from the other side.
New truth is too often printed in very worn-out type, but the promoters
of "The Dawn" had wisely remembered how hard truth is to read, and had
given it good clear type, and generally made it a very comely and
attractive little paper. It bore a motto that sounded almost like a
threat, "We come to stay,"--a boast which it manfully kept for several
years. As I lift my eyes from this paper, they rest on no less than ten
great half-yearly volumes, which flash "The Dawn"--"The Dawn"--along a
darksome folio shelf, as they have flashed it week after week across
darkest Coalchester; and "The Dawn" ceased, at length, not from lack of
power and encouragement to continue, but because the world had grown
sadder by then, and it had lost the will to go on living.
In spite of this hardy existence, I suppose "The Dawn" will win no
record of itself in the histories of the press, though merely as
spirited journalism it deserves to do so; while in the history of the
human spirit at Coalchester it demands a grateful celebration such as it
will, again, most surely not receive from the literary and philosophical
historian of the town. At all events, honoured or forgotten as it may
be, should you ever come across its strange young pages, I know you will
agree with me that it was a wonderful little paper. It was not, you may
suspect, conservative, being, as it was, very alive and very young. In
fact, its radiant radicalism brings tears to one's eyes to-day, when so
many of the noble ideals it championed, to the length and strength of
its little angry arm, are lying smashed beneath the iron blows of the
capitalism that has outlived even the noble eloquence of Theophilus
Londonderry.
Like all young people, it was all for the young, the new; and I think
you will be astonished, if you do ever turn over its pages, at the
remarkable instinct for the crescent life possessed by these young men;
and, were it worth while, I could easily prove that several of the more
exquisite continental writers, now the fashion this many a year, first
found a humble welcome in that quaint little organ of New Zion.
Yes! it was a triumph for New Zion too. This modest and hitherto obscure
corner of the town suddenly found itself, comparatively, in a blaze of
publicity, for a column headed "Work at New Zion," evidently meant to be
weekly, left no doubt from what quarter of the town the dawn was to be
looked for. This was perhaps the most delightful thing about the
paper,--its calm assumption that the real aristocracy of the town was to
be found in that little back street, and that, if Coalchester was to
have any spiritual or intellectual life, it must seek it there. In Zion
Street, and nowhere else in Coalchester, were the angels descending into
the waters. And the best part of the joke was that the assumption was
literally true.