The Essays of Douglas Jerrold

by Douglas William Jerrold

In the hopeless ignorance and vulgarity of our first prejudice, we might possibly want due veneration for the Golden Fleece; an ancient and most noble Order, worn by few. Yet with all our worst carelessness towards the Order, we never felt for it the same pitying contempt we feel towards an Order worn by many—not at their button-holes, not outside their breasts, but in the very core of their hearts—the Order of the Golden Calf.

Oh! bowelless Plutus, what a host of Knights! What a lean-faced, low-browed, thick-jowled, swag-bellied brotherhood! Deformity, in all its fantastic variety, meets in the chapter. They wear no armour of steel or brass, but are cased in the magic mail of impenetrable Bank-paper. They have no sword, no spear, no iron mace with spikes; but they ride merrily into the fight of life, swinging about gold-gutted purses, and levelling with the dust rebellious poverty. These are the Knights of the Golden Calf. It is a glorious community. What a look of easy triumph they have! With what serene self-satisfaction they measure the wide distance between mere paupers—the Knights of the Order of Nothing—and themselves! How they walk the earth as if they alone possessed the patent of walking upright! How they dilate in the light of their own gold, like adders in the sun!

A most fatal honour is this Order of the Golden Calf. It is worn unseen, as we have said, in the hearts of men; but its effects are visible: the disease speaks out in every atom of flesh—poor human worm’s-meat!—and throbs in every muscle. It poisons the soul; gives the eye a squint; takes from the face of fellow-man its God-gifted dignity, and makes him a thing to prey upon; to work, to use up; to reduce to so much hard cash; then to be put up, with a wary look of triumph, into the pocket. This Order damns with a leprosy of soul its worshipper. It blinds and deafens him to the glories and the harmonies ministrant to poorer men. His eye is jaundiced, and in the very stars of God he sees nought but twinkling guineas.

At this moment great is the Order throughout the land! Tyrannous its laws, reckless its doings. It is strong, and why should it be just? To be of this Order is now the one great striving of life. They alone are men who wear the jewel—wretches they without it. Man was originally made from the dust of the earth: he is now formed of a richer substance: the true man is made of gold. Yes, the regenerate Adam is struck only at the Mint.

The Knights of the Order of the Golden Calf have no formal ceremony of election; yet has brother knight almost instinctive knowledge of brother. In the solitude of his own thoughts is he made one of the community; in utter privacy he kisses the pulseless hand of Plutus, and swears to his supremacy. The oath divorces him from pauper-life—from its cares, its wants, its sympathies. He is privileged from the uneasiness of thought, the wear and tear of anxiety for fellow-man; he is compact and self-concentrated in his selfishness. Nought ruffles him that touches not that inmost jewel of his soul, his knighthood’s Order.

In the olden day the Knights of the Fleece, the Garter and other glories, won their rank upon the battlefield—blood and strife being to them the hand-maids of honour. The chivalry of the Golden Calf is mild and gentle. It splits no brain-pan, spills no blood; yet is it ever fighting. We are at the exchange. Look at that easy, peaceful man. What a serenity is upon his cheek! What a mild lustre in his eye! How plainly is he habited! He wears the livery of simplicity and the look of peace. Yet has he in his heart the Order of the Golden Calf. He is one of Mammon’s boldest heroes. A very soldier of fortune. He is now fighting—fighting valorously. He has come armed with a bran-new lie—a falsehood of surpassing temper, which with wondrous quietude he lays about him, making huge gashes in the money-bags of those he fights with. A good foreign lie, well finished and well mounted, is to this Knight of the Golden Calf as the sword of Faery to Orlando. With it he sometimes cuts down giant fortunes, and after “grinds their bones to make his bread.”

And there are small esquires and pages of the Order; men who, with heart-felt veneration, lick their lips at the Golden Calf, and with more than bridegroom yearning pant for possession. These small folk swarm like summer-gnats; and still they drone the praises of the Calf; and looking at no other thing, have their eyes bleared and dazzled to all beside.

The Knights of the Golden Calf shed no blood; that is, the wounds they deal bleed inwardly and give no evidence of homicide. They are, too, great consumers of the marrow of men; and yet they break no bones, but by a trick known to their Order extract without fracture precious nutriment. They are great alchemists, too; and turn the sweat of unrequited poverty, aye, the tears of childhood, into drops of gold.

Much wrong, much violence, much wayward cruelty—if the true history of knighthood were indicted—lies upon the Fleece, the Garter, yes, upon the Templar’s Lamb;—yet all is but as May-day pastime to the voracity, the ignorance, the wilful selfishness, the bestial lowings of the Golden Calf. And of this Order the oldest of the brotherhood are the most gluttonous. There is one whose every fibre is blasted with age. To the imagination his face is as a coffin-plate. Yet is he all belly. As cruel as a cat though toothless as a bird!

Oh, ye knights, great and small—whether expanding on the mart, or lying perdu in back parlours—fling from your hearts the Order there, and feel for once the warmth of kindly blood! The brotherhood chuckle at the adjuration. Well, let us fight the Order with an Order.