The Aftermath; Or, Gleanings from a Busy Life / Called upon the outer cover, for purposes of sale, Caliban's Guide to Letters

by Hilaire Belloc

POLITICAL APPEALS.

It was one of Dr. Caliban’s chief characteristics—and perhaps the main source of his power over others—that he could crystallize, or—to use the modern term—“wankle,” the thought of his generation into sharp unexpected phrases. Among others, this was constantly upon his lips:—

“We live in stirring times.”

If I may presume to add a word to the pronouncements of my revered master, I would re-write the sentence thus:—

“We live in stirring—AND CHANGEFUL—times.”

It is not only an element of adventure, it is also an element of rapid and unexpected development which marks our period, and which incidentally lends so considerable an influence to genius.

In the older and more settled order, political forces were so well known that no description or analysis of them was necessary: to this day members of our more ancient political families do not read the newspapers. Soon, perhaps, the national life will have entered a new groove, and once more literary gentlemen will but indirectly control the life of the nation.

For the moment, however, their effect is direct and immediate. A vivid prophecy, a strong attack upon this statesman or that foreign Government may determine public opinion for a space of over ten days, and matter of this sort is remunerated at the rate of from 15s. to 18s. 6d. per thousand words. When we contrast this with the 9s. paid for the translation of foreign classics, the 5s. of occasional verse, or even the 10s. of police-court reporting, it is sufficiently evident that this kind of composition is the Premier Prose of our time.

There must, indeed, be in London and Manchester, alive at the present moment, at least fifty men who can command the prices I have mentioned, and who, with reasonable industry, can earn as much as £500 a year by their decisions upon political matters. But I should be giving the student very indifferent counsel were I to recommend him for the delivery of his judgment to the beaten track of Leading Articles or to that of specially written and signed communications: the sums paid for such writing never rise beyond a modest level; the position itself is precarious. In London alone, and within a radius of 87 yards from the “Green Dragon,” no less than 53 Authors lost their livelihood upon the more respectable papers from an inability to prophecy with any kind of accuracy upon the late war, and this at a time when the majority of regular politicians were able to retain their seats in Parliament and many ministers their rank in the Cabinet.

By far the most durable, the most exalted, and the most effective kind of appeal, is that which is made in a poetic form, especially if that form be vague and symbolic in its character. Nothing is risked and everything is gained by this method, upon which have been founded so many reputations and so many considerable fortunes. The student cannot be too strongly urged to abandon the regular and daily task of set columns—signed or unsigned—for the occasional Flash of Verse if he desire to provoke great wars and to increase his income. It may not always succeed, but the proportion of failures is very small, and at the worst it is but a moment’s energy wasted.

“We are sick” says one of the most famous among those who have adopted this method, “We are sick”—he is speaking not only of himself but of others—“We are sick for a stave of the song that our fathers sang.” Turn, therefore, to the dead—who are no longer alive, and with whom no quarrel is to be feared. Make them reappear and lend weight to your contention. Their fame is achieved, and may very possibly support your own. This kind of writing introduces all the elements that most profoundly affect the public: it is mysterious, it is vague, it is authoritative; it is also eminently literary, and I can recall no first-class political appeal of the last fifteen years which has not been cast more or less upon these lines.

The subjects you may choose from are numerous and are daily increasing, but for the amateur the best, without any question, is that of Imperialism. It is a common ground upon which all meet, and upon which every race resident in the wealthier part of London is agreed. Bring forward the great ghosts of the past, let them swell what is now an all but universal chorus. Avoid the more complicated metres, hendecasyllables, and the rest; choose those which neither scan nor rhyme; or, if their subtlety baffles you, fall back upon blank verse, and you should, with the most moderate talent, lay the foundation of a permanent success.

I will append, as is my custom, a model upon which the student may shape his first efforts, though I would not have him copy too faithfully, lest certain idiosyncrasies of manner should betray the plagiarism.

THE IMPERIALIST FEAST.

[A Hall at the Grand Oriental. At a long table are seated innumerable Shades. The walls are decorated with flags of all nations, and a band of musicians in sham uniform are playing very loudly on a daïs.]

Catullus rises and makes a short speech, pointing out the advantages of Strong Men, and making several delicate allusions to Cæsar, who is too much of a gentleman to applaud. He then gives them the toast of “Imperialism,” to which there is a hearty response. Lucan replies in a few well-chosen words, and they fall to conversation.

Petronius—I would be crowned with paper flowers to-night
And scented with the rare opopanax,
Whose savour leads the Orient in, suggesting
The seas beyond Modore.
Talleyrand— Shove up, Petronius,
And let me sit as near as possible
To Mr. Bingoe’s Grand Imperial Band
With Thirty-seven Brazen Instruments
And Kettle-Drums complete: I hear the players
Discourse the music called “What Ho! She Bumps!”
Lord Chesterfield—What Ho! She Bumps! Likewise! C’est ça! There’s ’Air!
Lord Glenaltamont of Ephesus (severely)—Lord Chesterfield! Be worthy of your name.
Lord Chesterfield (angrily)—Lord Squab, be worthy of your son-in-law’s.
Henry V.—My Lords! my Lords! What do you with your swords?
I mean, what mean you by this strange demeanour
Which (had you swords and knew you how to use them)
Might ... I forget what I was going to say....
Oh! Yes——Is this the time for peers to quarrel,
When all the air is thick with Agincourt
And every other night is Crispin’s day?
The very supers bellow up and down,
Armed of rude cardboard and wide blades of tin
For England and St. George!
Richard Yea and Nay— You talk too much.
Think more. Revise. Avoid the commonplace;
And when you lack a startling word, invent it.

[Their quarrel is stopped by Thomas Jefferson rising to propose the toast of “The Anglo-Saxon Race.”]

Jefferson—If I were asked what was the noblest message
Delivered to the twentieth century,
I should reply—
(Etc., etc. While he maunders on
Antony, Cleopatra, and Cæsar begin talking
rather loud)
Cleopatra—Waiter! I want a little crème de menthe.
(The waiter pays no attention.)
Antony—Waiter! A glass of curaçao and brandy.
(Waiter still looks at Jefferson.)
Cæsar—That is the worst of these contracted dinners.
They give you quite a feed for 3s. 6d.
And have a splendid Band. I like the Band,
It stuns the soul.... But when you call the waiter
He only sneers and looks the other way.
Cleopatra (makes a moue).
Cæsar (archly)—Was that the face that launched a thousand ships
And sacked....
Antony (angrily)—Oh! Egypt! Egypt! Egypt!
Thomas Jefferson (ending, interrupts the quarrel).
... blessings
Of order, cleanliness, and business methods.
The base of Empire is a living wage.
One King ... (applause) ... (applause)
... (applause) shall always wave ... (applause)
... (loud applause) ... (applause)
The Reign of Law!
(Thunders of applause)
Napoleon (rising to reply)—I am myself a strong Imperialist.
A brochure, very recently compiled
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read),
Neglects the point, I think; the Anglo-Saxon ... (&c. &c.)
George III. (to Burke)—Who’s that? Eh, what?
Who’s that? Who ever’s that?
Burke—Dread sire! It is the Corsican Vampire.
George III.—Napoleon? What? I thought that he was leaner.
I thought that he was leaner. What? What? What?
Napoleon (sitting down) ... such dispositions!
Order! Tête d’Armée!
(Slight applause)
Herod (rises suddenly without being asked, crosses his
arms, glares, and shouts very loudly).
Ha! Would you have Imperial hearing? Hounds!
I am that Herod which is he that am
The lonely Lebanonian (interruption) who despaired
In Deep Marsupial Dens ... (cries of “Sit down!”)
... In dreadful hollows
To—(“Sit down!”)—tear great trees with the
teeth, and hurricanes—(“Sit down!”)—
That shook the hills of Moab!
Chorus of Dead Men—Oh! Sit down.
(He is swamped by the clamour, in the midst of which
Lucullus murmurs to himself)
Lucullus (musing)—The banquet’s done. There was a tribute drawn
Of anchovies and olives and of soup
In tins of conquered nations; subject whiting:
Saddle of mutton from the antipodes
Close on the walls of ice; Laponian pheasants;
Eggs of Canadian rebels, humbled now
To such obeisance—scrambled eggs—and butter
From Brittany enslaved, and the white bread
Hardened for heroes in the test of time,
Was California’s offering. But the cheese,
The cheese was ours.... Oh! but the glory faded
Of feasting at repletion mocks our arms
And threatens even Empire.
(Great noise of Vulgarians, a mob of people, heralds,
trumpets, flags. Enter Vitellius.)
Vitellius— I have dined!
But not with you. The master of the world
Has dined alone and at his own expense.
And oh!—I am almost too full for words—
But oh! My lieges, I have used you well!
I have commanded fifteen hundred seats
And standing room for something like a thousand
To view my triumph over Nobody
Upon the limelit stage.
Herod— Oh! rare Vitellius,
Oh! Prominent great Imperial ears! Oh! Mouth
To bellow largesse! Oh! And rolling Thunder,
And trains of smoke. And oh!...
Vitellius— Let in the vulgar
To see the master sight of their dull lives:
Great Cæsar putting on his overcoat.
And then, my loved companions, we’ll away
To see the real Herod in the Play.
(The Shades pass out in a crowd. In the street Theocritus
is heard singing in a voice that gets fainter and fainter
with distance....)
“Put me somewhere ea-heast of Su-hez,
W’ere the best is loi-hoike the worst—
W’ere there hain’ no”—(and so forth).
Finis.

It is not enough to compose such appeals as may quicken the nation to a perception of her peculiar mission; it is necessary to paint for her guidance the abominations and weakness of foreign countries. The young writer may be trusted to know his duty instinctively in this matter, but should his moral perception be blunted, a sharper argument will soon remind him of what he owes to the Common Conscience of Christians. He that cannot write, and write with zeal, upon the Balkans, or upon Finland, or upon the Clerical trouble, or upon whatever lies before us to do for righteousness, is not worthy of a place in English letters: the public and his editor will very soon convince him of what he has lost by an unmanly reticence.

His comrades, who are content to deal with such matters as they arise, will not be paid at a higher rate: but they will be paid more often. They will not infrequently be paid from several sources; they will have many opportunities for judging those financial questions which are invariably mixed up with the great battle against the Ultramontane, the Cossack and the Turk. In Cairo, Frankfort, Pretoria, Mayfair, Shanghai, their latter days confirm Dr. Caliban’s profound conclusion: “Whosoever works for Humanity works, whether he know it or not, for himself as well.”[7]

I earnestly beseech the reader of this text-book, especially if he be young, to allow no false shame to modify his zeal in judging the vileness of the Continent. We know whatever can be known; all criticism or qualification is hypocrisy; all silence is cowardice. There is work to be done. Let the writer take up his pen and write.

I had some little hesitation what model to put before the student. This book does not profess to be more than an introduction to the elements of our science; I therefore omitted what had first seemed to me of some value, the letters written on a special commission to Pondicherry during the plague and famine in that unhappy and ill-governed remnant of a falling empire. The articles on the tortures in the Phillipines were never printed, and might mislead. I have preferred to show Priestcraft and Liberty in their eternal struggle as they appeared to me in the character of Special Commissioner for Out and About during the troubles of 1901. It is clear, and I think unbiassed; it opens indeed in that light fashion which is a concession to contemporary journalism: but the half-frivolous exterior conceals a permanent missionary purpose. Its carefully collected array of facts give, I suggest, a vivid picture of one particular battlefield; that whereon there rage to-day the opposed forces which will destroy or save the French people. The beginner could not have a better introduction to his struggle against the infamies of Clericalism. Let him ask himself (as Mr. Gardy, M.P., asked in a letter to Out and About) the indignant question, “Could such things happen here in England?”

THE SHRINE OF ST. LOUP.

My excellent good Dreyfusards, anti-Dreyfusards, Baptists, Anabaptists, pre-Monstratentians, antiquaries, sterling fellows, foreign correspondents, home-readers, historians, Nestorians, philosophers, Deductionists, Inductionists, Prætorians (I forgot those), Cæsarists, Lazarists, Catholics, Protestants, Agnostics and militant atheists, as also all you Churchmen, Nonconformists, Particularists, very strong secularists, and even you, my well-beloved little brethren called The Peculiar People, give ear attentively and listen to what is to follow, and you shall learn more of a matter that has wofully disturbed you than ever you would get from the Daily Mail or from Mynheer van Damm, or even from Dr. Biggies’ Walks and Talks in France.

In an upper valley of the Dauphiné there is a village called Lagarde. From this village, at about half-past four o’clock of a pleasant June morning, there walked out with his herd one Jean Rigors, a herdsman and half-wit. He had not proceeded very far towards the pastures above the village, and the sun was barely showing above the peak profanely called The Three Bishops, when he had the fortune to meet the Blessed St. Loup, or Lupus, formerly a hermit in that valley, who had died some fourteen hundred years ago, but whose name, astonishing as it may seem to the author of The Justification of Fame, is still remembered among the populace. The Blessed Lupus admonished the peasant, recalling the neglect into which public worship had fallen, reluctantly promised a sign whereby it might be re-created among the faithful, and pointed out a nasty stream of muddy water, one out of fifty that trickled from the moss of the Alps. He then struck M. Rigors a slight, or, as some accounts have it, a heavy, blow with his staff, and disappeared in glory.

Jean Rigors, who could not read or write, being a man over thirty, and having therefore forgotten the excellent free lessons provided by the Republic in primary schools, was not a little astonished at the apparition. Having a care to tether a certain calf whom he knew to be light-headed, he left the rest of the herd to its own unerring instincts, and ran back to the village to inform the parish priest of the very remarkable occurrence of which he had been the witness or victim. He found upon his return that the morning Mass, from which he had been absent off and on for some seven years, was already at the Gospel, and attended to it with quite singular devotion, until in the space of some seventeen minutes he was able to meet the priest in the sacristy and inform him of what had happened.

The priest, who had heard of such miraculous appearances in other villages, but (being a humble man, unfitted for worldly success and idiotic in business matters) had never dared to hope that one would be vouchsafed to his own cure, proceeded at once to the source of the muddy streamlet, and (unhistorical as the detail may seem to the author of Our Old Europe, Whence and Whither?) neglected to reward the hind, who, indeed, did not expect pecuniary remuneration, for these two excellent reasons:—First, that he knew the priest to be by far the poorest man in the parish; secondly, that he thought a revelation from the other world incommensurate with money payments even to the extent of a five-franc piece. The next Sunday (that is, three days afterwards) the priest, who had previously informed his brethren throughout the Canton, preached a sermon upon the decay of religion and the growing agnosticism of the modern world—a theme which, as they had heard it publicly since the Christian religion had been established by Constantine in those parts and privately for one hundred and twenty-five years before, his congregation received with some legitimate languor. When, however, he came to what was the very gist of his remarks, the benighted foreigners pricked up their ears (a physical atavism impossible to our own more enlightened community), and Le Sieur Rigors, who could still remember the greater part of the services of the Church, was filled with a mixture of nervousness and pride, while the good priest informed his hearers, in language that would have been eloquent had he not been trained in the little seminary, that the great St. Lupus himself had appeared to a devout member of his parish and had pointed out to him a miraculous spring, for the proper enshrinement of which he requested—nay, he demanded—the contributions of the faithful.

At that one sitting the excellent hierarch received no less a sum than 1053 francs and 67 centimes; the odd two-centimes (a coin that has disappeared from the greater part of France) being contributed by a road-mender, who was well paid by the State, but who was in the custom of receiving charity from tourists; the said tourists being under the erroneous impression that he was a beggar. He also, by the way, would entertain the more Anglo-Saxon of these with the folk-lore of the district, in which his fertile imagination was never at fault.

It will seem astonishing to the author of Village Communities in Western Europe to hear of so large a sum as £40 being subscribed by the congregation of this remote village, and it would seem still more astonishing to him could he see the very large chapel erected over the spring of St. Loup. I do not say that he would understand the phenomenon, but I do say that he would become a more perturbed and therefore a wiser man did he know the following four facts:—(1) That the freehold value of the village and its communal land, amounting to the sum of a poor £20,000, was not in the possession of a landlord, but in that of these wretched peasants. (2) That the one rich man of the neighbourhood, a retired glove-maker, being also a fanatic, presented his subscriptions in such a manner that they were never heard of. He had, moreover, an abhorrence for the regulation of charity. (3) That the master mason in the neighbouring town had in his youth been guilty of several mortal sins, and was so weak as to imagine that a special tender would in such a case make a kind of reparation; and (4) that the labourers employed were too ignorant to cheat and too illiterate to combine.

The new shrine waxed and prospered exceedingly, and on the Thursday following its dedication an epileptic, having made use of the water, was restored to a normal, and even commonplace, state of mind. On the Friday a girl, who said that she had been haunted by devils (though until then no one had heard of the matter), declared, upon drinking a cup from the spring of St. Loup, that she was now haunted by angels—a very much pleasanter condition of affairs. The Sunday following, the village usurer, who called himself Bertollin, but who was known to be a wicked foreigner from beyond the Alps, of the true name of Bertolino, ran into the inn like one demented, and threw down the total of his ill-gotten gains for the benefit of the shrine. They amounted, indeed, to but a hundred francs, but then his clientèle were close and skin-flint, as peasant proprietors and free men generally are the world over; and it was well known that the cobbler, who had himself borrowed a small sum for a month, and quadrupled it in setting up lodgings for artists, had been unable to recover from the usurer the mending of his boots.

By this time the Bishop had got wind of the new shrine, and wrote to the Curé of Lagarde a very strong letter, in which, after reciting the terms of the Concordat, Clause 714 of the Constitution and the decree of May 29th, 1854, he pointed out that by all these and other fundamental or organic laws of the Republic, he was master in his own diocese. He rebuked the curé for the superstitious practice which had crept into his cure, ordered the chapel to be used for none but ordinary purposes, and issued a pastoral letter upon the evils of local superstitions. This pastoral letter was read with unction and holy mirth in the neighbouring monastery of Bernion (founded in defiance of the law by the widow of a President of the Republic), but with sorrow and without comment in the little church of Lagarde.

The Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Public Worship, each in his separate way, proceeded to stamp out this survival of the barbaric period of Europe. The first by telling the Prefect to tell the sub-Prefect to tell the Mayor that any attempt to levy taxes in favour of the shrine would be administratively punished: the second by writing a sharp official note to the Bishop for not having acted on the very day that St. Loup appeared to the benighted herdsman. The sub-Prefect came from the horrible town of La Rochegayere and lunched with the Mayor, who was the donor of the new stained-glass window in the church, and they talked about the advantages of forcing the Government to construct a road through the valley to accommodate the now numerous pilgrims; a subject which the sub-Prefect, who was about to be promoted, approached with official nonchalance, but the Mayor (who owned the principal inn) with pertinacity and fervour. They then went out, the Mayor in his tricolour scarf to lock up the gate in front of the holy well, the sub-Prefect to escort his young wife to the presbytery, where she left a gift of 500 francs: the sub-Prefect thought it improper for a lady to walk alone.

Upon the closure of the shrine a local paper (joint property of the Bishop and a railway contractor) attacked the atheism of the Government. A local duchess, who was ignorant of the very terminology of religion, sent a donation of five thousand francs to the curé; with this the excellent man built a fine approach to the new chapel, “which,” as he sorrowfully and justly observed, “the faithful may approach, though an atheistic Government forbids the use of the shrine.” That same week, by an astonishing accident, the Ministry was overturned; the Minister of the Interior was compelled to retire into private life, and lived dependent upon his uncle (a Canon of Rheims). The Minister of Public Worship (who had become increasingly unpopular through the growth of anti-Semitic feeling) took up his father’s money-lending business at Antwerp.

Next week the lock and seals were discovered to have been in some inexplicable way removed from the gate of the well and (by Article 893 of the Administrative Code) before they could be replaced an action was necessary at the assize-town of Grenoble. This action (by the Order of 1875 on Law Terms) could not take place for six months; and in that interval an astonishing number of things happened at Lagarde.

An old Sapper General, who had devised the special obturator for light quick-firing guns, and who was attached to the most backward superstitions, came in full uniform to the Chapel and gave the shrine 10,000 francs: a mysteriously large endowment, as this sum was nearly half his income, and he had suffered imprisonment in youth for his Republican opinions. He said it was for the good of his soul, but the editor of the Horreur knew better, and denounced him. He was promptly retired upon a pension about a third greater than that to which he was legally entitled, and received by special secret messenger from the Minister of War an earnest request to furnish a memorandum on the fortifications of the Isère and to consider himself inspector, upon mobilisation, of that important line of defence.

Two monks, who had walked all the way from Spain, settled in a house near the well. A pilgrim, who had also evidently come from a prodigious distance on foot, but gave false information as to his movements, was arrested by the police and subsequently released. The arrest was telegraphed to the Times and much commented upon, but the suicide of a prominent London solicitor and other important news prevented any mention of his release.

A writer of great eminence, who had been a leading sceptic all his life, stayed at Lagarde for a month and became a raving devotee. His publishers (MM. Hermann Khan) punished him by refusing to receive his book upon the subject; but by some occult influence, probably that of the Jesuits, he was paid several hundreds for it by the firm of Zadoc et Cie; ten years afterwards he died of a congested liver, a catastrophe which some ascribed to a Jewish plot, and others treated as a proof that his intellect had long been failing.

A common peasant fellow, that had been paralysed for ten years, bathed in the water and walked away in a sprightly fashion afterwards. This was very likely due to his ignorance, for a doctor who narrowly watched the whole business has proved that he did not know the simplest rudiments of arithmetic or history, and how should such a fellow understand so difficult a disease as paralysis of the Taric nerve—especially if it were (as the doctor thought quite evident) complicated by a stricture of the Upper Dalmoid?

Two deaf women were, as is very commonly the case with enthusiasts of this kind, restored to their hearing; for how long we do not know, as their subsequent history was not traced for more than five years.

A dumb boy talked, but in a very broken fashion, and as he had a brother a priest and another brother in the army, trickery was suspected.

An English merchant, who had some trouble with his eyes, bathed in the water at the instance of a sister who desired to convert him. He could soon see so well that he was able to write to the Freethinker an account of his healing, called “The Medicinal Springs of Lagarde,” but, as he has subsequently gone totally blind, the momentary repute against ophthalmia which the water might have obtained was nipped in the bud.

What was most extraordinary of all, a very respectable director of a railway came to the village quietly, under an assumed name, and, after drinking the water, made a public confession of the most incredible kind and has since become a monk. His son, to whom he made over his whole fortune, had previously instituted a demand at law to be made guardian of his estates; but, on hearing of his father’s determination to embrace religion, he was too tolerant to pursue the matter further.

To cut a long story short, as Homer said when he abruptly closed the Odyssey, some 740 cases of miraculous cures occurred between the mysterious opening of the gates and the date for the trial at Grenoble. In that period a second and much larger series of buildings had begun to arise; the total property involved in the case amounted to 750,000 francs, and (by clause 61 of the Regulation on Civil Tribunals) the local court of assize was no longer competent. Before, however, the case could be removed to Paris, the assent of the Grenoble bench had to be formally obtained, and this, by the singularly Republican rule of “Non-avant” (instituted by Louis XI.), took just two years. By that time the new buildings were finished, eight priests were attached to the Church, a monastery of seventy-two monks, five hotels, a golf links, and a club were in existence. The total taxes paid by Lagarde to the Treasury amounted to half-a-million francs a year.

The Government had become willing (under the “Compromise of ’49,” which concerns Departments v. the State in the matter of internal communications) to build a fine, great road up to Lagarde. There was also a railway, a Custom House, and a project of sub-prefecture. Moreover, in some underhand way or other, several hundred people a month were cured of various ailments, from the purely subjective (such as buzzing in the ears) to those verging upon the truly objective (such as fracture of the knee-pan or the loss of an eye).

The Government is that of a practical and commonsense people. It will guide or protect, but it cannot pretend to coerce. Lagarde therefore flourishes, the Bishop is venerated, the monastery grumbles in silence, and there is some talk of an Hungarian journalist, born in Constantinople, whose father did time for cheating in the Russian Army, writing one of his fascinating anti-religious romances in nine hundred pages upon the subject. You will learn far more from such a book than you can possibly learn from the narrow limits of the above.

THE SHORT STORY.