It avails little that this nation has for scout and guide that generous British press, which is more than free,—which is sovereign,—and which through innumerable excellent journals throws light upon every question,—that is where England is; and let not France laugh too loudly, with her statue of Négrier; nor Belgium, with her statue of Belliard; nor Prussia, with her statue of Blücher; nor Austria, with the statue that she probably has of Schwartzenberg; nor Russia, with the statue that she certainly has of Souwaroff. If it is not Schwartzenberg, it is Windischgrätz; if it is not Souwaroff, it is Kutusoff.
Be Paskiewitch or Jellachich,—they will give you a statue; be Augereau or Bessières,—you get a statue; be an Arthur Wellesley, they will make you a colossus, and the ladies will dedicate you to yourself, quite naked, with this inscription: "Achilles." A young man, twenty years of age, performs the heroic action of marrying a beautiful young girl: they prepare for him triumphal arches; they come to see him out of curiosity; the grand-cordon is sent to him as on the morrow of a battle; the public squares are brilliant with fireworks; people who might have gray beards put on perukes to come and make speeches to him almost on their knees; they throw up in the air millions sterling in squibs and rockets to the applause of a multitude in tatters, who will have no bread to-morrow; starving Lancashire participates in the wedding; people are in ecstasies; they fire guns, they ring the bells,—"Rule Britannia!" "God save!" What! this young man has the kindness to do this? What a glory for the nation! Universal admiration,—a great people become frantic; a great city falls into a swoon; a balcony looking upon the passage of the young man is let for five hundred guineas; people heap themselves together, press upon one another, thrust one another beneath the wheels of his carriage; seven women are crushed to death in the enthusiasm, and their little children are picked up dead under the trampling feet; a hundred persons, partially stifled, are carried to the hospital: the joy is inexpressible. While this is going on in London, the cutting of the Isthmus of Panama is interrupted by a war; the cutting of the Isthmus of Suez depends on one Ismail Pacha; a company undertakes the sale of the water of Jordan at a guinea the bottle; walls are invented which resist every cannon-ball, after which missiles are invented which destroy every wall; an Armstrong cannon-shot costs fifty pounds; Byzantium contemplates Abdul-Azis; Rome goes to confession; the frogs, encouraged by the stork, demand a heron; Greece, after Otho, again wants a king; Mexico, after Iturbide, again wants an emperor; China wants two of them,—the king of the Centre, a Tartar, and the king of Heaven (Tien Wang), a Chinese. O earth! throne of stupidity.
CHAPTER III.
The glory of Shakespeare reached England from abroad. There was almost a day and an hour when one might have assisted at the landing of his fame at Dover.
It required three hundred years for England to begin to hear those two words that the whole world cries in her ear: "William Shakespeare."
What is England? She is Elizabeth. There is no incarnation more complete. In admiring Elizabeth, England loves her own looking-glass. Proud and magnanimous, yet full of strange hypocrisies; great, yet pedantic; haughty, albeit able; prudish, yet audacious; having favourites but no masters; her own mistress, even in her bed; all-powerful queen, inaccessible woman,—Elizabeth is a virgin as England is an island. Like England, she calls herself Empress of the Sea, Basilea maris. A fearful depth, in which are let loose the angry passions which behead Essex and the tempests which destroy the Armada, defends this virgin and defends this island from every approach. The ocean is the guardian of this modesty. A certain celibacy, in fact, constitutes all the genius of England. Alliances, be it so; no marriage. The universe always kept at some distance. To live alone, to go alone, to reign alone, to be alone,—such is Elizabeth, such is England.
On the whole, a remarkable queen and an admirable nation.
Shakespeare, on the contrary, is a sympathetic genius. Insularism is his ligature, not his strength. He would break it willingly. A little more and Shakespeare would be European. He loves and praises France; he calls her "the soldier of God." Besides, in that prudish nation he is the free poet.
England has two books: one which she has made, the other which has made her,—Shakespeare and the Bible. These two books do not agree together. The Bible opposes Shakespeare.