Hence I return to my previous proposition, i.e., the respect we owe to dreams, particularly when they result in fixed realities such as, well!—such as curates, for example. I mention this class of individuals particularly, because there are so many of them, and also because they are generally so desperately poor, and (to young ladies in country parishes) so desperately interesting. What English fiction would do without a curate or a clerical personage of some kind or other to figure in its pages I dare not imagine. The novels of other countries do not produce such hosts of invaluable churchmen, but in England the most successful books are frequently those which treat of the clergy, from "Robert Elsmere," who found himself startled out of orthodoxy by a few familiar and well-ventilated French and German theories of creed, down to the gentle milksops of the church as found in the novels of Anthony Trollope and the dreary stories of Miss Edna Lyall. This well-intentioned lady's productions would assuredly find few readers were it not for the "old-woman-and-faded-spinster" fanaticism for clergymen. And yet—I once knew a wicked army man (worshippers of Edna Lyall prepare to be disgusted! truth is always disgusting) who for some years amused himself by collecting out of the daily newspapers, cuttings of all the police reports and criminal cases in which clergymen were implicated, and this volume, an exceedingly bulky one, he brought to me, with a Mephistophelian twinkle in his bad old eyes.
"Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest!" said he. "These fellows in 'holy orders' have committed every crime in the calendar, and the only mischief I have not found them out in yet is Arson!"
This was the fact. The calm, unromantic statements of the police, as chronicled in that carefully-collected book of damnatory evidence, bore black witness against clerical virtue and morality—a "reverend" was mixed up in every sort of "abomination" which in old times called down the judgments of the Lord—save and except the one thing—that none of them had been convicted of wilfully setting fire to their own or other peoples' dwellings. But I believe—I may be wrong—that Arson is not a very common crime with any class. It is not of such frequent occurrence as murder or bigamy—or if it is, it does not attract so much attention. So I fancy it may be taken for granted that clergymen are, on the whole, not a whit better, while they are very often worse, than the laity they preach at—hence their "calling and election" is vain, and nobody wonders that they are by their proven inefficiency causing the very pillars of the Church to totter and fall. And has not Parliament been seriously busying itself with a "Clerical Immorality" Bill? This speaks volumes for the integrity of the preachers of the Gospel!
As for me, who am no Churchman, but merely a stray masquerader strolling through the social bazaar, I consider that all churches as they at present exist, are mockeries, and as such, are inevitably doomed. Nothing can save them; no prop will keep them up; neither fancy spiritualism, nor theosophism, nor any other "ism" offered by notoriety-hunting individuals as a stop-gap to the impending crash. Not even the Booth-boom will avail—that balloon of cleverly-inflated philanthropy which has been sent up just high enough to attract attention from the gaping Britishers, who, like big children, must always have something to stare at. Of course, my opinion, being the opinion of an "anonymous," is worthless, and I do not offer it as being valuable. In saying things, I say them for my own amusement, and if I bore any one by my remarks, so much the more am I delighted. As a matter of fact, I take peculiar pleasure in boring people. Why? Because people always bore me, and I adore the sentiment of revenge! And that I stand here, masked, a stranger to all the brilliant company whirling wildly around me, is also for my own particular entertainment. If I have said anything to offend any of the excellent clericals I see running towards me with the inevitable "collection-plate," I am sorry. But I will not bribe them for their good opinion, nor will I flatly disobey the command received (which they all seem to forget), "Do not your alms before men." Besides, I have nothing with me just now—not a farthing. I am only in this great assembly for a few moments, and my "silver domino," lavishly studded with stars, has cost me dear. For the completion of churches, and the mending of chancels, and the french-polishing of pews, I have no spare cash. Walls will not hold me when I am fain to worship—I take the whole arching width of the uncostly sky. There are rich old ladies in this vast throng of people, doubtless?—dear Christian souls who hate their younger relatives, and who are therefore willing to spend spare cash in order to prove their love of God. From these gather your harvest while you may, all ye ordained "disciples of the Lord," but excuse a poor wandering Nobody from No-land from the uncongenial task of helping to provide a new organ for parish yokels, and from sending out cheap Bibles to the "heathen Chinee," who frequently disdains to read them. Let me pass on—I am not worth buttonholing—and I want to take a passing glance at things in general. I shall whisper, mutter, or talk loudly about anything I see, just as the humour takes me. Only I will not promise any polite lying. Not because I object to it, but simply because it has become commonplace. Everybody does it, and thus it has ceased to be original, or even diplomatic. To openly declare the Truth—the truth of what we are now, and what, in the course of our present down-hill "progress," we are likely to become; the truth that is incessantly and relentlessly gnawing away at the foundations of all our social sophistries—to do this, I say, and stand by it when done, would be the only possible novelty that could really startle the indolent and exhausted age. But nobody will undertake it. It would be too troublesome. One would run so many risks. One would offend so many "nice" people! True—very true. All the same, neither for convenience nor amiability do I personally consider myself bound to tell lies for the mere sake of lying. So, while elbowing a passage through the crowd, I shall give expression to whatever thoughts occur to me, inconsequentially or rationally, as my varying moods suggest; moreover, I shall be very content to glide out of the "hurly-burly," and enter it no more, when once I have said my say.
II.
SOLILOQUISETH ON LITTLE MANNERS.