Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 15

by Unknown

The late owners! Were we no longer actual owners, then? My individual loss was not great, and besides, it might be made up to me; for I saw my name on a strange box on the table, and being of curious disposition, the singularity of the adventure made it interesting to me. The consternation of the rest was indescribable. The minister supposed that he had fallen among communists, who disbelieved in property, and was beginning a speech on the elementary conditions of society; when silence was called, and the third-class passengers were ordered to advance, that their boxes might be opened. Each man had his own carefully docketed. The lids flew off, and within, instead of clothes, and shoes, and dressing apparatus, and money, and jewels, and such-like, were simply samples of the work which he had done in his life. There was an account-book also, in which were entered the number of days which he had worked, the number and size of the fields, etc., which he had drained and inclosed and plowed, the crops which he had reaped, the walls which he had built, the metal which he had dug out and smelted and fashioned into articles of use to mankind, the leather which he had tanned, the clothes which he had woven,—all entered with punctual exactness; and on the opposite page, the wages which he had received, and the share which had been allotted to him of the good things which he had helped to create.

Besides his work, so specifically called, there were his actions,—his affection for his parents or his wife and children, his self-denials, his charities, his purity, his truth, his honesty; or it might be ugly catalogues of sins and oaths and drunkenness and brutality. But inquiry into action was reserved for a second investigation before a higher commissioner. The first examination was confined to the literal work done by each man for the general good,—how much he had contributed, and how much society had done for him in return; and no one, it seemed, could be allowed to go any further without a certificate of having passed this test satisfactorily. With the workmen, the balance in most instances was found enormously in their favor. The state of the case was so clear that the scrutiny was rapidly got over, and they and their luggage were passed in to the higher court. A few were found whose boxes were empty, who had done nothing useful all their lives, and had subsisted by begging and stealing. These were ordered to stand aside till the rest of us had been disposed of.

The saloon passengers were taken next. Most of them, who had nothing at all to show, were called up together and were asked what they had to say for themselves. A well-dressed gentleman, who spoke for the rest, said that the whole investigation was a mystery to him. He and his friends had been born to good fortunes, and had found themselves, on entering upon life, amply provided for. They had never been told that work was required of them, either work with their hands or work with their heads,—in fact, work of any kind. It was right of course for the poor to work, because they could not honestly live otherwise. For themselves, they had spent their time in amusements, generally innocent. They had paid for everything which they had consumed. They had stolen nothing, taken nothing from any man by violence or fraud. They had kept the Commandments, all ten of them, from the time when they were old enough to understand them. The speaker, at least, declared that he had no breach of any Commandment on his own conscience, and he believed that he might say as much of his companions. They were superior people, who had been always looked up to and well spoken of; and to call upon them to show what they had done was against reason and equity.

"Gentlemen," said the chief official, "we have heard this many times; yet as often as it is repeated we feel fresh astonishment. You have been in a world where work is the condition of life. Not a meal can be had by any man that some one has not worked to produce. Those who work deserve to eat; those who do not work deserve to starve. There are but three ways of living: by working, by stealing, or by begging. Those who have not lived by the first have lived by one of the other two. And no matter how superior you think yourselves, you will not pass here till you have something of your own to produce. You have had your wages beforehand—ample wages, as you acknowledge yourselves. What have you to show?"

"Wages!" the speaker said: "we are not hired servants; we received no wages. What we spent was our own. All the orders we received were that we were not to do wrong. We have done no wrong. I appeal to the higher court."

But the appeal could not be received. To all who presented themselves with empty boxes, no matter who they were, or how excellent their characters appeared to one another, there was the irrevocable answer—"No admittance, till you come better furnished." All who were in this condition, the duke and duchess among them, were ordered to stand aside with the thieves. The duchess declared that she had given the finest parties in the season, and as it was universally agreed that they had been the most tedious, and that no one had found any pleasure there, a momentary doubt rose whether they might not have answered some useful purpose in disgusting people with such modes of entertainment; but no evidence of this was forthcoming: the world had attended them because the world had nothing else to do, and she and her guests had been alike unprofitable. Thus the large majority of the saloon passengers was disposed of. The minister, the archbishop, the lawyer, the banker, and others who although they had no material work credited to them had yet been active and laborious in their different callings, were passed to the superior judges.

Our turn came next,—ours of the second class,—and a motley gathering we were. Busy we must all have been, from the multitude of articles which we found assigned to us: manufacturers with their wares, solicitors with their law-suits, doctors and clergymen with the bodies and souls which they had saved or lost, authors with their books, painters and sculptors with their pictures and statues. But the hard test was applied to all that we had produced,—the wages which we had received on one side, and the value of our exertions to mankind on the other,—and imposing as our performances looked when laid out to be examined, we had been paid, most of us, out of all proportion to what we were found to have deserved. I was reminded of a large compartment in the Paris Exhibition, where an active gentleman, wishing to show the state of English literature, had collected copies of every book, review, pamphlet, or newspaper which had been published in a single year. The bulk was overwhelming, but the figures were only decimal points, and the worth of the whole was a fraction above zero. A few of us were turned back summarily among the thieves and the fine gentlemen and ladies: speculators who had done nothing but handle money which had clung to their fingers in passing through them, divines who had preached a morality which they did not practice, and fluent orators who had made speeches which they knew to be nonsense; philosophers who had spun out of moonshine systems of the universe, distinguished pleaders who had defeated justice while they established points of law, writers of books upon subjects of which they knew enough to mislead their readers, purveyors of luxuries which had added nothing to human health or strength, physicians and apothecaries who had pretended to knowledge which they knew that they did not possess,—these all, as the contents of their boxes bore witness against them, were thrust back into the rejected herd.

There were some whose account stood better, as having at least produced something of real merit, but they were cast on the point of wages: modest excellence had come badly off; the plausible and unscrupulous had thriven and grown rich. It was tragical, and evidently a surprise to most of us, to see how mendacious we had been: how we had sanded our sugar, watered our milk, scamped our carpentering and mason's work, literally and metaphorically; how in all things we had been thinking less of producing good work than of the profit which we could make out of it; how we had sold ourselves to tell lies and act them, because the public found lies pleasant and truth expensive and troublesome. Some of us were manifest rogues, who had bought cheap and sold dear, had used false measures and weights, had made cotton pass for wool, and hemp for silk, and tin for silver. The American peddler happened to be in the party, who had put a rind upon a grindstone and had sold it as a cheese. These were promptly sifted out and placed with their fellows; only persons whose services were on the whole greater than the pay which they had received were allowed their certificates. When my own box was opened, I perceived that though the wages had been small, the work done seemed smaller still; and I was surprised to find myself among those who had passed.

The whistle of a train was heard at this moment, coming in upon the main line. It was to go in half an hour, and those who had been turned back were told that they were to proceed by it to the place where they had been originally going. They looked infinitely relieved at the news; but before they started, a few questions had to be put to them, and a few alterations made which were to affect their future. They were asked to explain how they had come to be such worthless creatures. They gave many answers, which came mainly to the same thing. Circumstances had been against them. It was all owing to circumstances. They had been badly brought up. They had been placed in situations where it had been impossible for them to do better. The rich people repeated that they had never been informed that any work was expected of them. Their wants had all been provided for, and it was unfair to expect that they should have exerted themselves of their own accord when they had no motive for working. If they had only been born poor, all would have gone well with them. The cheating tradesman declared that the first duty of a shopkeeper, according to all received principles, was to make money and better his condition. It was the buyer's business to see to the quality of the articles which he purchased; the shopkeeper was entitled to sell his wares at the highest price which he could get for them. So, at least, it was believed and taught by the recognized authorities on the subject. The orators, preachers, newspaper writers, novel-writers, etc., etc., of whom there were a great many, appealed to the crowds who came to listen to them, or bought and read their productions. Tout le monde, it was said, was wiser than the wisest single sage. They had given the world what the world wished for and approved; they had worked at supplying it with all their might, and it was extremely hard to blame them for guiding themselves by the world's judgment. The thieves and vagabonds argued that they had been brought into existence without their consent being asked: they had not wished for it; although they had not been without their pleasures, they regarded existence on the whole as a nuisance which they would gladly have been spared. Being alive, however, they had to keep alive; and for all that they could see, they had as full a right to the good things which the world contained as anybody else, provided they could get them. They were called thieves. Law and language were made by the property-owners, who were their natural enemies. If society had given them the means of living honestly they would have found it easy to be honest. Society had done nothing for them—why should they do anything for society?

So, in their various ways, those who had been "plucked" defended themselves. They were all delighted to hear that they were to have another chance; and I was amused to observe that though some of them had pretended that they had not wished to be born, and had rather not have been born, not one of them protested against being sent back. All they asked was that they should be put in a new position, and that the adverse influences should be taken off. I expected that among these adverse influences they would have mentioned the faults of their own dispositions. My own opinion had been that half the misdoings of men came from congenital defects of character which they had brought with them into the world, and that constitutional courage, right-mindedness, and practical ability were as much gifts of nature or circumstance as the accidents of fortune. A change in this respect was of more consequence than in any other. But with themselves they were all apparently satisfied, and they required only an improvement in their surroundings. The alterations were rapidly made. The duchess was sent to begin her life again in a laborer's cottage. She was to attend the village school and rise thence into a housemaid. The fine gentleman was made a plowboy. The authors and preachers were to become mechanics, and bound apprentices to carpenters and blacksmiths. A philosopher who, having had a good fortune and unbroken health, had insisted that the world was as good as it could be made, was to be born blind and paralytic, and to find his way through life under the new conditions. The thieves and cheats, who pretended that their misdemeanors were due to poverty, were to find themselves, when they arrived in the world again, in palaces surrounded with luxury. The cup of Lethe was sent round. The past became a blank. They were hurried into the train; the engine screamed and flew away with them.