[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.