By the side of this road lies a chimæra, with woman's breasts couched upon lion's paws. It is the old direful Questioner of Thebes; the Propounder of Riddles; the prodigious Asker of Enigmas. Before entering the gates of the City the jostling multitude must pause in their furious haste towards life and listen to her as she propounds to each generation her problem. Every generation guesses at the riddle with fear or hope, with timidity or courage, as its nature may be, and then rushes on within the gates, not knowing if it has guessed aright, but with the task laid upon it of living out its life by the light of that answer, let the result be what it will.
The Sphinx lies watching the generations whirled past her into existence. She listens to the cries, the turmoil, the bitter plaints of those within the walls who believed that they had solved her problem a century ago, and as she listens she smiles her cold, incredulous smile. Not yet have they divined her secret, if one may judge from their loud protests, and this new generation pouring in among them has but small patience with their failure. The newcomers are quite sure that they at last have answered the immortal conundrum correctly. They have found it quite easy, and they mean to show their silly predecessors how simple it is to find happiness if one has only the correct formula.
All the preceding guesses have been wrong?—well, but it is just because they were wrong that the application failed. Here is the right one at last, triumphantly evolved by the new heir of all the ages, and it will be soon seen how criminally, how almost incredibly mistaken the previous generations have been in their foolish attempts to live by such palpably absurd theories of existence.
Make way!—you silly old folk—make way for the young lords of life who come bearing truth and wisdom to the world! Who come to inaugurate a reign of peace and plenty and delight!
The old generation, nearing the City's lower gate,—beyond which lies another road, equally broad and well-travelled, but gloomier and more airless than the one by which they came,—shake their heads doubtingly at these assertions. They were quite as confident in their time, and yet, somehow, things did not work out as they expected. No doubt their own guess was quite right; they are almost sure of it; but many unforeseen exigencies interfered. People were obstinate. The formula was perfect, but people were so very wrong-headed that it never had a proper opportunity of proving how infallible it really was. And so difficulties in the application arose, and—But the young newcomers push them, still babbling and explaining, out of the further gate, and set at once about regenerating the unfortunate city which has been forced to wait such a weary while for this the perfect solution of all problems.
And the old Questioner lying without the gates stares with her long, calm eyes into the white mist from which yet more generations are to come, and she smiles her fixed and scornful smile.
It was after this fashion our century, nineteenth of the era, came in—flushed, happy, confident. It came an army with banners, every standard blazoned in letters of gold with its magic device—"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."
How it hustled the poor painted, formal, withered, old eighteenth century out at the nether gate! Smashing its idols, toppling over its altars, tearing down its tarnished hangings of royalty from the walls, and bundling its poor antiquated furniture of authority out of windows. All doors were flung wide; the barriers of caste, class, sex, religion, race, were burst open and light poured in. The gloomy Ghettos were emptied of their silent, stubborn, cringing population; forged by the hammer of Christian hate through two thousand years into a race as keen, compact, and flexible as steel. The slave stood up free of bonds; half exultant, half frightened at the liberty that brought with it responsibilities heavier and more inexorable than the old shackles. Woman caught her breath and lifted up her arms. The old superstitious Asiatic curse fixed upon her by the church was laughed scornfully into nothingness. She was as free as the Roman woman again. Free to be proud of her sex, free to wed where she chose, free to claim as her own the child for whom she had travailed to give life.
A vast bonfire was made of the stake, the wheel, the gyve; of crowns, of orders, of robes of state. All wrongs were to be righted, all oppressions redressed; all inequalities levelled, all cruelties forbidden. Men shuddered when they thought of the crimes of the past, when they talked of Calas. Such a crime would never be possible in this new golden age. Only of oppression and cruelty was vice bred. Given perfect liberty and perfect justice the warring world would become Arcadia once more. Lions if not hunted, and if judiciously trained by the constant instilling of virtuous maxims, would acquire a perfect disgust for mutton, and lambs would consequently lie down beside them and would grow as courageous and self-reliant as wolves.
What a beautiful time it was, those first thrilling days of the new era! How the spirit dilates in contemplating it, even now. The heart beat with the noble new emotions, the cheek flushed, the eyes glistened with sensibility's ready tear. It was so pleasant to be good, to be kind, to be just; to feel that even the bonds of nationality were cast aside, and that all mankind were brothers striving only for pre-eminence in virtue. It was a new chivalry, a new crusade. Only, instead of lovely princesses to be succoured, or sepulchres to be saved, it was the rescue of all the humble and suffering, a crusade against the paganism of the strong. The heart could hardly hold without delicious pain this broad flood of universal kindness.