My dear MacWhittlesey:
No, I have not become a pessimist. If I ever was an optimist, I am certainly one still. But to my mind the only use of being an optimist about the universe is that one can the more boldly be a pessimist about the world. That you may see I can discern the good signals as well as the bad, I will tell you three recent things with which I am thoroughly delighted. With brazen audacity, I will even put first the one topic you know all about and I know nothing about. I am thoroughly delighted with the election of the American President, with the election of the French President, and with the victory in the Balkans. You may think these three things have nothing to do with one another. Wait till I have done explaining things; it will not last long or hurt much.
Don’t imagine I have any newspaper illusions about any of the three. I am a journalist and never believe the newspapers. I know there will be a lot of merely fashionable fuss about the American and the French presidents; I know we shall hear how fond Mr. Wilson is of canaries or how interested M. Poincaré is in yachting. It is truer still, of course, about the Balkan War. I have been anti-Turk through times when nearly every one else was pro-Turk. I may therefore be entitled to say that much of the turnover of sympathy is pure snobbery. Silly fashions always follow the track of any victory. After 1870 our regiments adopted Prussian spikes on their helmets, as though the Prussians had fought with their heads, like bisons. Doubtless there will be a crop of the same sort of follies after the Balkan War. We shall see the altering of inscriptions, titles, and advertisements. Turkish baths may be called Bulgarian baths. The sweetmeat called Turkish Delight may probably be called Servian Delight. A Turkey carpet, very much kicked about and discolored, may be sold again as a Montenegro carpet. These cheap changes may easily occur, and in the same way the international world (which consists of hotels instead of homes) may easily make the same mistake about the French and American presidents. Thousands of Englishmen will read the American affair as a mere question of Colonel Roosevelt. Thousands will read of the Poincaré affair as a mere echo of the Dreyfus case. Thousands have never thought of the near East except as the sultan and Constantinople. For such masses of men Roosevelt is the only American there ever was. For them the Dreyfus question was the only French question there ever was. They had never heard that the Servians had a country, let alone an army.
The fact in which the three events meet is this: they are all realities on the spot. Most Englishmen have never heard of Mr. Woodrow Wilson; so they know that Americans really trust him. Most Englishmen have never heard of M. Poincaré; so they know that Frenchmen know he is a Frenchman. Neither is a member of the International Club, the members of which advertise one another.
Do you know what I mean? Do you not know that International Club? Like many other secret societies, it is unaware of its own existence. But there is a sort of ring of celebrities known all over the world, and more important all over the world than any of them are at home. Even when they do not know one another, they talk about one another. Let me see if I can find a name that typifies them. Well, I have no thought of disrespect to the memory of a man I liked and admired personally, and who died with a tragic dignity fitted for one who had always longed to be a link between your country and mine; but I think the late W. T. Stead was the unconscious secretary of that unconscious International Club. The other members, roughly speaking, were Colonel Roosevelt, the German Emperor, Tolstoy, Cecil Rhodes, and somebody like Mr. Edison. In an interview with Roosevelt, Rhodes would be the most important man in England, the Kaiser (or Tolstoy) the most important man in Europe. In an interview with Rhodes, the Kaiser would be important, Mr. Edison more important, Mr. Stead rather important; Bulgaria and M. Poincaré not important at all. Interview the Kaiser, and you will probably find the only interviewer he remembers is Stead. Could Rhodes have been taken to Russia you would probably find the only Russian he had really heard of was Tolstoy. For the rest, the Nobel prize, the Harmsworth newspaper group, the Marconi inventions, the attempts at a universal language—all these strike the note. I forgot the British Empire, on which the sun never sets, a horribly unpoetical state of things. Think of having a native land without any sunsets!
This International Club is breaking up. Men are more and more trusting men they know to have been honest in a small way; men faithful in one city to rule over many cities. Imperialists like Roosevelt and Rhodes stood for unrealities. Please observe that I do not for one moment say insincerities. Tolstoy was splendidly sincere; but the cult of him was an unreality to this extent, that it left large masses in America and England with a general idea that he was the only Christian in the east of Europe. Since then we have seen Christianity on the march as it was in the Middle Ages, a thing of thousands, ready for pilgrimage and crusade. I don’t ask you to like it if you don’t like it. I only say it’s jolly different from Tolstoy, and equally sincere. It is a reality on the spot.
Well, just as Russia and the Slavs meant for us Tolstoy, so France and French literature meant for many of us Zola. Poincaré’s election represents a France that hates Zola more than the Balkans hate the Turk. The old definite, domestic, patriotic Frenchman has come to the top. I can’t help fancying that with you the old serious, self-governing, idealistic, and really republican American has come to the top, too. But there I speak of things I know not, and await your next letter with alarm.
Faithfully yours,
G. K. Chesterton.