THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS.
"I assume," said the Cynic, "that you are sufficiently sanguine to rejoice in the prospects of Peace."
"I derive a certain satisfaction from those prospects," replied Mr. Punch on a note of reserve.
"But you ought to be jazzing for joy, like the other fools in their Paradise of nigger minstrelsy."
"My years excuse me from choric exercises," said the Sage. "And, anyhow, it doesn't take me that way."
"Then you are not in the movement. You are not in touch with the spiritual pulse of our throbbing Metropolis; you take no active part in the New Life that is springing from the seed of England's sacrifices. True, your years, as you say, are against you, however well you wear them: it is to the young that we look first for signs of the great Regeneration. And in particular we look to those who are to be the mothers of that future race which should reap the full harvest of our blood and tears.
"And what do we find?" continued the Cynic. "We find a contempt for the old virtues of simplicity and reticence; we find the distinction of sex wiped out, and with it all reverence and sense of mystery. Nature is a back number with them; they must for ever be plastering their noses with powder—not just privily, as used to be the better way of faded charmers, but shamelessly in public places. In dress they barely keep within the bounds of decency prescribed by the police. They make their own advances, rounding up and capturing their 'boys' for partners, lest the haunts of jazzery should be closed against them. And in this competition for their favours the good modest fellows who only a little while ago were fighting our battles for us are now giving themselves the airs of spoilt beauties. What do you make of all this in your scheme of Renaissance?"
"I admit much of what you say," said Mr. Punch, "but I ascribe it, in part at least, to a natural reaction from the strain and horror of War."
"'Reaction'!" snorted the Cynic. "A very comfortable word. But what were the sufferings from which they are 'reacting'? The loss, you will say, of the flower of our chivalry in battle? Well, one would think that might have steadied them. Is this what our manhood died for—to make a British carnival?"
"I don't pretend to understand that side of it," said the Sage, "but I know that during the War we respected the silence of their grief; and I know that nature must choose its own way of recovering from a loss and reasserting its claim to happiness. Remember, too, that War must always have its demoralising features, however splendid the cause for which you are fighting. 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,' says the soldier in his brief intervals of release. And some of us at home went more than half-way to meet him, imitating an attitude excusable in him but not in us. And that attitude is bound to survive for a little time the causes that induced it. But you must not forget that many of the type which you are now attacking did noble work in the War; and they will do it again."
"That may be," said the Cynic; "but is it necessary to have an orgy of Carmagnole in between?"
"I think perhaps it is like the case of a crew or a team going out of training. They permit themselves a certain relaxation before they start training for the next contest. But I think too that there is something to be said for your reference to the Carmagnole. We are passing through a phase of Revolution, very natural after a great upheaval. The sense of freedom—the very thing for which we have been fighting—is apt to turn the heads of the young and thoughtless. There is a spirit of rebellion in the air, which at its worst takes the form of Bolshevism, but here is seen in a relatively harmless shape as a general revolt against social restriction, a general passion for what is known as 'a good time.' In any case it is only a passing phase. Already there are signs of a reaction from this reaction; of a return to the decency of other days. They tell me, for a slight but significant indication, that the waltz is coming back; that we may even look to see a revival of the, minuet and pavane."
"Then it is just a question of a cycle of vogues? We are to be swayed by recurring gusts of fashion, and not inspired by a fixed ideal."
"Fashion counts with us, of course, for we are human and some of us are feminine. There was a fashion of patriotism as there is now a fashion of something that might easily be mistaken for its opposite. But the range of its influence is largely confined to a rather negligible element in London, the most provincial of capitals. The Press—and notably the Photographic Press—gives it a prominence out of all relation to its importance. The great majority are untouched by it. They talk little and they advertise less. But in a thousand quiet ways they are setting themselves to make good."
"To make good money, you mean. Our world seems made up of profiteers and of those who would be profiteers but can't, and so abuse those who can. Can you name to me a period when there was a wilder rush for wealth, or a more blatant display of luxury? Sometimes I wish the War back; England was at her best when the call for sacrifice came home to her. But how—we hear great talk of Reconstruction, but I am reminded rather of the Restoration."
"My friend," said the Sage, "I shall believe that this too is only a temporary phase. Memory is not our strong point, but you can perhaps throw back your mind to a year ago and recall how near we came to the ruin of our hopes. Victory took us by surprise; and we were less prepared for Peace at that moment than we ever had been for War. And, just as in the first days of the fighting we went astray, running after the cry, 'Business-as-usual,' so to-day we are making as bad a mistake when we run after 'Pleasure-as-usual'—or rather more than usual. But we soon revised that early error, and we shan't waste much time about revising this. For though we lacked imagination then, and still lack it, we have the gift, perhaps even more useful if less showy, of common sense. And when common sense is found in natures that are honest and hearts that are clean it may make mistakes, but not for long.
"No, I am an optimist, and an incorrigible old fool, if you like, but I am certain that the spirit which won the War is not going to fail us at this second call. Perhaps we have only been waiting for the actual consummation of Peace to settle down to our new and greater task.
"And now I must excuse myself from further dialogue, having a mission to perform in connection with this very task. I go to distribute a corrective for some of the evils of Peace, as indicated by you. My motor-lorry, stuffed with samples, awaits me without."
"And what is the nature of your patent medicine?" said the Cynic, very cynically.
"It is," replied Mr. Punch, very confidently but also very modestly,—"it is a little thing of my own. It is, in fact; my
