Modern Society

by Julia Ward Howe

We gallop across the sands to a point opposite Philæ, and reach the sacred spot by boat. We picnic among its tombs, climb its pylon, and remark upon the beauty of the view. At the first cataract, which is very near this place, an Arab woman shows me her baby with the pride of Eve or Queen Victoria. It has a nose-ring of brass wire, and similar adornments in the top of each ear. On my way back to the boat, my pocket is picked by a cunning youth. The Arabs of the desert will compare in this respect with the Arabs of European streets. A little Arab girl offers to sell me her rag doll, whose veil is bedizened with spangles. A little water-carrier, proud of her English, says, "Lady, give me backshish."

This shall end my peep at modern society in Egypt.

But one more personal remembrance you must accord me. The scene is a dirty, muddy street in a Cyprus seaport. The time is not far from noon. I am exploring, with some curiosity, the new jewel which Lord Beaconsfield has added to the crown of Great Britain.

What a mean, poor bazaar is this; what dull streets, what a barren place to live in, especially since methymenic Albion has drunk up all the best of the wine! I pass a shop, and a bright presence beams out upon me. It is Lady Baker, with her fair, luminous face, full of energy and resource. Sir Samuel, she tells me, is in the back shop buying hardware for a hard journey. For they intend to travel through the island in a huge covered wagon, drawn by oxen, which will be to them at once vehicle and hotel. Where they went, and how they fared, I know not, nor would it here import us, if I did. I only mention the appearance of these friends in this place, because this appearance was so characteristic of modern society, and because so many of its elements appeared there in their persons. The education and high society of England, the court, the literary circles, the almighty publisher, for an intended volume was surely looming in the foreground of their picture. And here I have clearly got hold of one feature of modern society; this is, that everything is everywhere. The Zulus are in London, the Londoners in Zululand. Empress Eugenie, the exploded star of French fashion in its highest supremacy, visits Cape Town. The stars and stripes protect American professors on the shores of the Bosphorus, within view of Mount Lebanon. It would not surprise us to learn that a party of our countrymen had read the Declaration of Independence beside the Pools of Solomon, or within the desolate heart of Moab.

In Jaffa of the Crusaders, Joppa of Peter and Paul, I find an American Mission School, kept by a worthy lady from Rhode Island. Prominent among its points of discipline is the clean-washed face which is so enthroned in the prejudices of Western civilization. One of her scholars, a youth of unusual intelligence, finding himself clean, observes himself to be in strong contrast with his mother's hovel, in which filth is just kept clear of fever point. "Why this dirt?" quoth he; "that which has made me clean, will cleanse this also." So without more ado, the process of scrubbing is applied to the floor, without regard to the danger of so great a novelty. This simple fact has its own significance, for if the innovation of soap and water can find its way to a Jaffa hut, where can the ancient, respectable, conservative dirt-devil feel himself secure?

The maxim also becomes vain nowadays, that there should be a place for everything, and that everything should be in its place. Cleopatra's Needles point their moral in London and in New York. The Prince of Wales hunts tigers in the Punjaub. Hyde Park is in the desert or on the Nile. America is all over the world. Against this universal game of "Puss in the Corner," reaction must come, some day, in some shape, or anywhere will mean nowhere, for those who, starting in the geographical pursuit of pleasure, fail to find it and never return home.

The oppositions of humanity have undergone many changes. Paul characterized them in his day as "Greek and Barbarian, bond and free, male and female." Christianity effaced old oppositions and created new ones. The old oppositions were national, personal, selfish. The new opposition was moral. It struck at evils, not at men, and tended to unite the latter in a patient and reasonable overcoming of the former. I know that the white heat at which its first blow was dealt left much for philosophy to elaborate, for science to adjust and apply. A Jesus, arrived at the plenitude of his intellectual vigor, could only have three years in which to formulate his weighty doctrine, and could not have had these without much care and hindrance. His work lay in the normal direction of human nature. In spite of lapses and relapses, mankind slowly creep towards the great unification which will make the savage animals and the selfish passions the only enemies of the human race. Modern society rests upon this unification as its basis of action. A positive philosophy which Auguste Comte did not elaborate absorbs its highest thought, and dictates its largest measures.

And so prophetic souls bid farewell to the old negations. In their view, the lion is already reconciled to the lamb. The taming of the elements prefigures the general reconciliation. The deadly lightning runs on errands and carries messages. The Titan steam is the servant of commerce and industry, meek as Hercules when armed with the distaff of Omphale. Emulation, the desire to excel, exquisite, dangerous stimulant to exertion, is not in our day educated to the intensification of self, but to the enlargement of public spirit and of general interest. The constant discoveries of new treasures in our material world, of gold, silver, iron, and copper, of states to be built up and of harvests to be sown and reaped, are accompanied by corresponding discoveries concerning the variety of human gifts and their application to useful ends. What men and women can be good for may be more voluminously stated to-day than in any preceding age of the world's history.

Comparison should be a strong point in modern society. When travelling was laborious and difficult, the masses of one country knew little concerning those of another. When learning was rare, and instruction costly and insufficient, the few knew the secrets of thought and science, the many not even knowing that such things were to be known. When wealth was uncommon, luxury was monopolized by a small class, the greater part of mankind earning only for themselves the right to live poorly. When distinctions were absolute, low life knew nothing of high life but what the novelist could invent, or the servant reveal. How changed is all this to-day! Competence, travel, tuition, and intelligent company are within the reach of all who will give themselves the trouble to attain them. The first consequence of this is that we become able to make the largest and most general comparison of human conditions which has ever been possible to humanity, nor does this ability regard the present alone. The unveiling of the treasures of the past, the interpretation of its experience and doctrine which we owe to the scholar and archæologist, enable us to compare remote antiquity with the things of the last minute. The work of antiquarian science culminates in the discovery of the prehistoric man. Theology had long before invented the post-historic angel. Now, indeed, we ought to be able to choose the best out of the best, since the whole is laid in order before us. But the chronic trouble hangs upon us still. Had we but such wisdom to choose as we have chance to see! The gifts of our future are still shown us in sealed caskets. Which of these conceals the condition of our true happiness? The leaden one, surely, of which we distrust the dull exterior, trusting in the inner brightness which it covers.

What is the problem of modern society?