Transcriber’s Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.

FREE OPINIONS
FREELY EXPRESSED

FREE OPINIONS

FREELY EXPRESSED

ON

Certain Phases of Modern Social
Life and Conduct

By

MARIE CORELLI

AUTHOR OF “GOD’S GOOD MAN” “TEMPORAL POWER”
“BARABBAS” “THE MASTER CHRISTIAN” ETC

LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO Ltd
1905

Butler & Tanner,
The Selwood Printing Works,
Frome, and London.

A Toi,
Sauvage!

“Si vous voulez combattre,

Il faut croire d’abord;

Il faut que le lutteur

Affirme la justice;

Il faut, pour le devoir

Qu’il s’offre au sacrifice,

Et qu’il soit le plus pur,

S’il n’est pas le plus fort.”

Eugène Manuel.

CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Some of these social papers which are now collected together for the first time, have appeared before in various periodicals enjoying a simultaneous circulation in this country and the United States. Eleven of them were written for an American syndicate, which (for the purpose of copyright in Great Britain) sold them to a London weekly journal, wherein they were duly issued. “Pagan London,” however, which caused some little public discussion, was not included among those supplied to the American syndicated press, that article having been written specially for readers in this country as a protest against Archdeacon Sinclair’s sweeping condemnation of the lax morality and neglect of religion among the teeming millions that populate our great English metropolis,—a condemnation which I ventured, and still venture to think unfair, in the face of the open worldliness, and gross inattention to the spiritual needs of their congregations on the part of a very large majority of the clergy themselves. Certain people, whose brains must be of that peculiar density which is incapable of receiving even the impression of a shadow of common sense, have since accused me of attacking “all” the clergy. Such an accusation is unwarranted and unwarrantable, for no one appreciates more than I do the brave, patient, self-denying and silent work of the true ministers of the Gospel, who, seeking nothing for themselves, sacrifice all for their Master. But it is just these noble clergy whose high profession is degraded by the ever-increasing tribe of the false hypocrites of their order, such as those mentioned in “Unchristian Clerics,” all of whom have come within the radius of my own personal experience. I readily admit that I have little patience with humbug of any kind, and that “religious” humbug does always seem to me more like open blasphemy than what is commonly called by that name. I equally confess that I have no sympathy with any form of faith which needs continuous blatant public advertisement in the press of a so-called “Christian” country—nor do I believe in a Brass-band “revival” of what, if our religion is religion at all, should never need “reviving.” I have put forward these views plainly in “The Soul of the Nation,” which appears for the first time in the present volume.

I have only to add that I attach no other merit to such “opinions” as will be found in the following pages, than that they are honest, and that they are honestly expressed, without fear or favour. This is their only claim upon the attention of the public.

Stratford-on-Avon,
March, 1905.

A VITAL POINT OF EDUCATION

In days like these, when the necessity of Education, technical or otherwise, is strenuously insisted upon by all the learned, worshipful, governmental and dictatorial personages who “sit” on County Councils, or talk the precious time recklessly away in Parliament without apparently arriving at any decision of definite workable good for the nation, it will not perhaps be considered obtrusive or intrusive if a suggestion be put forward as to the importance of one point,—

The Necessity of Teaching People to Read.

This essential of education is sadly lacking among the general majority of “educated” persons in Great Britain, and I think I may say America. Especially among those of the “upper” classes, in both countries. When we speak of these “upper” classes, we mean of course those, who by chance or fortune have been born either to such rank or to such sufficient wealth as to be lifted above the toiling million, and who may be presumed to have had all the physical, mental and social advantages that tuition, training and general surroundings can give them. Yet it is precisely among these that we find the ones who cannot read, who frequently cannot spell, and whose handwriting is so bad as to be well-nigh illegible. When it is said that they cannot read, that statement is not intended to convey the idea that if a book or newspaper be given to them they do not understand the letters or the print in which the reading matter is presented to their eyes. They do. But such letters and such print impress no meaning upon their minds. Anyone can prove this by merely asking them what they have been reading. In nine cases out of ten they “don’t know.” And if they ever did know, during one unusual moment of brain-activity, they “forget.” The thinking faculty is, with them, like a worn-out sieve, through which everything runs easily and drops to waste. The news of the day, be it set forth never so boldly in no matter what startlingly stout headlines, barely excites their interest for more than a second. They may perhaps glance at a couple of newspaper placards and lazily observe, “Russia at it again,” but of the ins and outs of policy, the difficulties of Government, the work of nations, they grasp absolutely nothing. Thus it happens that when they are asked their opinion on any such events of the hour as may be making history in the future, they display their utter ignorance in such a frankly stupid fashion that any intelligent enquirer is bound to be stunned by their lack of knowledge, and will perhaps murmur feebly: “Have you not read the news?” to which will come the vague reply: “Oh, yes, I read all the newspapers! But I really don’t remember the particulars just now!” What they do remember—these “cultured” persons, (and the more highly they are cultured, the more tenacious appears to be their memory in this respect)—is a divorce case. They always read that carefully over and over again. They comment upon it afterwards with such gusto as to make it quite evident to the merest tyro, that they have learned all its worst details by heart. If they can only revel in the published shame and disgrace of one or two of their very “dearest” friends, they enjoy and appreciate that kind of mental fare more than all the beautiful poems and idyllic romances ever written.

The “million” have long ago learned to read,—and are reading. The last is the most important fact, and one which those who seek to govern them would do well to remember. For their reading is of a most strange, mixed, and desultory order—and who can say what wondrous new notions and disturbing theories may not leap out sprite-like from the witch’s cauldron of seething ideas round which they gather, watching the literary “bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,” wherein the “eye of newt and toe of frog” in the book line may contrast with something which is altogether outside the boiling hotch-potch,—namely that “sick eagle looking at the sky” which is the true symbol of the highest literary art. But the highest literary art, particularly in its poetic form, is at a discount nowadays. And why? Simply because even the million do not know “how” to read. Moreover, it is very difficult to make them learn. They have neither the skill nor the patience to study beautiful thoughts expressed in beautiful language. They want to “rush” something through. Whether poem, play, or novel, it must be “rushed through” and done with. Very few authors’ work, if any, can be sure of an honest and unprejudiced reading, either by those whose business it is to review it for the press, or those whose pleasure it is to “skim” it for themselves. “They have no time.” They have time for motoring, cycling, card-playing, racing, betting, hockey and golf,—anything in short which does not directly appeal to the intellectual faculties,—but for real reading, they can neither make leisure, nor acquire aptitude.

This vague, sieve-like quality of brain and general inability to comprehend or retain impressions of character or events, which is becoming so common among modern so-called “readers” of books, can but make things very difficult for authors who seek to contribute something of their utmost and best to the world of literature. Most men and women who feel the “divine afflatus,” and who are able to write in a style above the average, must be conscious of a desire to rise yet higher than any of their own attempted efforts, and to do something new, strong, and true enough to hold life and lasting in it when other contemporary work is forgotten. It is the craving of the “sick eagle looking at the sky” perhaps, nevertheless it is a noble craving. In taking an aim, it is as well to let fly at the moon, even if one only hits a tree. But when fiery-footed Pegasus would fain gallop away with its rider into the realms of imagination and enchantment,—when the aspiring disciple of literature, all aglow with freshness and fervour, strives to catch some new spirit of thought as it rushes past on its swift wings, or seeks to create some fair consoling idyll of human circumstance, then all the publishers stand massed in the way and cry “Halt!” “Don’t let us have any great ideas!” they say—“They are above the heads of the public. Be domestic—be matrimonially iniquitous,—be anything in the line of fiction but ‘great.’ Don’t give us new things to think about,—the public have no time to think. What they want is just something to glance at between tea and dinner.”

Now this condition of affairs, which is positively disastrous to all literary art, is brought about by the lack of the one vital point in the modern education of the British and American people,—namely, that they have not been taught “how” to read. As a result of this, they frequently pronounce a book “too long” or “too dull,”—too this, or too that, without having looked at more than perhaps twenty pages of its contents. They will skim over any amount of cheap newspapers and trashy society “weeklies” full of the unimportant movements and doings of he and she and they, but to take up a book with any serious intention of reading it thoroughly, is a task which only the thoughtful few will be found ready to undertake. What is called the appreciation of the “belles lettres” is indeed “caviare to the general.” Knowledge brings confidence; and if it were made as much the fashion to read as it is to ride in motor-cars, some improvement in manners and conduct might be the happy result of such a prevailing taste. But as matters stand at the present day, there are a large majority of the “educated” class, who actually do not know the beginnings of “how” to read. They have never learned—and some of them will never learn. They cannot realize the unspeakable delight and charm of giving one’s self up to one’s author, sans prejudice, sans criticism, sans everything that could possibly break or mar the spell, and being carried on the wings of gentle romance away from Self, away from the everyday cares and petty personalities of social convention, and observance, and living “with” the characters which have been created by the man or woman whose fertile brain and toiling pen have unitedly done their best to give this little respite and holiday to those who will take it and rejoice in it with gratitude.

Few there are nowadays who will so permit themselves to be carried away. Far larger is the class of people who take up a novel or a volume of essays, merely to find fault with it and fling it aside half unread. The attitude of the bad-tempered child who does not know what toy to break next, is the attitude of many modern readers. Nothing is more manifestly unfair to an author than to judge a book by the mere “skimming” of its pages, and this injustice becomes almost felonious when the merits or demerits of the work are decided without reading it at all. For instance, Smith meets Jones in the train which is taking them out to their respective “little places” in the country, and says:

“Have you read So-and-So’s latest book? If not, don’t!” Whereupon Jones murmurs: “Really! So bad as all that! Have you read it?” To which Smith rejoins rudely: “No! And don’t intend! I’ve heard all about it!” And Jones, acquiescing feebly, decides that he must “taboo” that book, also its author, lest perhaps Mrs. Jones’ virtue be put to the blush at the mention of either. Now if Smith dared to condemn a tradesman in this way, and depreciated his goods to Jones in such wise that the latter should be led to avoid him altogether, that tradesman could claim damages for injuring his character and depriving him of custom. Should not the same rule apply to authors when they are condemned on mere hearsay? Or when their work is wilfully misrepresented and misquoted in the press?

It may not, perhaps, be considered out of place here to recall a “personal reminiscence” of the wilful misrepresentation made to a certain section of the public of a novel of mine entitled “Temporal Power.” That book had scarcely left the printer’s hands when W. T. Stead, of the Review of Reviews, wrote me a most cordial letter, congratulating me on the work, and averring that it was “the best” of all I had done. But in his letter he set forth the startling proposition that I “must have meant” King Edward, our own gracious Sovereign, for my “fictional” King, Queen Alexandra for the Queen, the Prince of Wales for my “Prince Humphry,” and Mr. Chamberlain for the defaulting Secretary of State, who figures in the story as “Carl Perousse.” I was so amazed at this curious free translation of my ideas, that at first I thought it was “Julia” who had thus persuaded Mr. Stead to see things upside down. But as his criticism of the book had not yet appeared in the Review of Reviews, I wrote to him at once, and earnestly assured him of the complete misapprehension he had made of my whole scope and intention. Despite this explanation on my part, however, Mr. Stead wrote and published a review of the book maintaining his own fabricated “case” against me, notwithstanding the fact that he held my denial of his assertions in his possession before the publication of his criticism! And though a dealer in meat, groceries, and other food stuffs may obtain compensation if his wares are wilfully misrepresented to the buying public, the purveyor of thoughts or ideas has no remedy when such thoughts or ideas are deliberately and purposefully falsified to the world through the press. Yet the damage is surely as great,—and the injury done to one’s honest intention quite as gratuitous. From this little incident occurring to myself, I venture to say in reference to the assertion that people do not know how to read, that if those who “rushed” through the misleading criticism of “Temporal Power” had honestly read the book so criticized for themselves, they would have seen at once how distorted was Mr. Stead’s view of the whole story. But,—while many who had read the book and not the review, laughed at the bare notion of there being any resemblance between my fictional hero-king of romance and the Sovereign of the British Empire, others, reading the review only, foolishly decided that I must have written some “travesty” upon English royalty, and condemned the book without reading it. This is what all authors have a right to complain of,—the condemnation or censure of their books by persons who have not read them. For though there never was so much reading matter put before the public, there was never less actual “reading” in the truest and highest sense of the term than there is at present.

To read, as I take it, means to sit down quietly and enjoy a book in its every line and expression. Whether it be tragic or humourous, simple or ornate, it has been written to beguile us from our daily routine of life, and to give us a little change of thought or mood. It may please us, or it may make us sad—it may even anger us by upsetting our pet theories and contradicting us on our own lines of argument; but if it has taken us away for a time from ourselves, it has fulfilled the greater part of its mission, and done us a good turn. Those who have really learned to read, are no encouragers of the Free Library craze. The true lover of books will never want to peruse volumes that are thumbed and soiled by hundreds of other hands—he or she will manage to buy them and keep them as friends in the private household. Any book, save the most expensive “édition de luxe,” can be purchased for a few shillings,—a little saving on drugged beer and betting would enable the most ordinary mechanic to stock himself with a very decent library of his own. To borrow one’s mental fare from Free Libraries is a dirty habit to begin with. It is rather like picking up eatables dropped by some one else in the road, and making one’s dinner off another’s leavings. One book, clean and fresh from the bookseller’s counter, is worth half a dozen of the soiled and messy knock-about volumes, which many of our medical men assure us carry disease-germs in their too-frequently fingered pages. Free Libraries are undoubtedly very useful resorts for betting men. They can run in, glance at the newspapers for the latest “Sporting Items” and run out again. But why ratepayers should support such houses of call for these gentry remains a mystery which one would have to pierce through all the Wool and Wobble of Municipal Corporations to solve. An American “professor”—(there are so many of them) spoke to me the other day in glowing terms of Andrew Carnegie. “He’s cute, you bet!” he remarked, “he goes one better than Pears’ Soap! Pears has got to pay for the upkeep of his hoardings, but Carnegie plants his down in the shape of libraries and gets the British ratepayer to keep them all going! Ain’t he spry!”

Poor British ratepayer! It is to be feared he is easily gulled! But,—to return to the old argument—if he knew “how” to read—really knew,—he would not be so easily taken in, even by the schemes of philanthropy. He would buy his books himself, and among them he might even manage to secure a copy of a very interesting volume published in America, so I am given to understand, which tells us how Carnegie made his millions, and how he sanctioned the action of the Pinkerton police force in firing on his men when they “struck” for higher wages.

Apropos of America and things American, there is just now a pretty little story started in the press on both sides of the water, about British novels and British authors no longer being wanted in the United States. The Children of the Eagle are going to make their fiction themselves. All power to their elbows! But British authors will do themselves no harm by enquiring carefully into this report. It may even pay some of them to send over a private agent on their own behalf to study the American book stores, and take count of the thousands of volumes of British fiction which are selling there “like hot cakes,” to quote a choice expression of Transatlantic slang. It is quite evident that the Children of the Eagle purchase British fiction. It is equally evident that the publishers who cater for the Children of the Eagle are anxious to get British fiction cheap, and are doing this little deal of the “No demand” business from an acute sense of urgency. It is all right, of course! If I were an American publisher and had to pay large prices to popular British authors for popular British fiction (now that “piracy” is no longer possible), I should naturally tell those British authors that they are not wanted in America, and that it is very good and condescending of me to consider their wares at all. I should give a well-known British author from £100 to £500 for the sole American rights of his or her newest production, and proceed to make £5,000 or £7,000 profit out of it. That kind of thing is called “business.” I should never suspect the British author of being so base as to send over and get legal statements as to how his or her book was selling, or to take note of the thousands of copies stacked up every day in the stores, to be melted away as soon as stacked, in the hands of eager purchasers. No! As a strictly honourable person, I should hope that the British author would stay at home and mind his or her own business. But let us suppose that the American publisher’s latest delicate “feeler” respecting the “No demand for British literature” were true, it would seem that Americans, even more than the British, require to be taught “how” to read. If one may judge from their own output of literature, the lesson is badly needed. Ralph Waldo Emerson remains, as yet, their biggest literary man. He knew “how” to read, and from that knowledge learned “how” to write. But no American author has come after him that can be called greater than he, or as great. Concerning the art of fiction, the present American “make” is, whatever the immediate “catching on” of it may be, distinctly ephemera of the utmost ephemeral. Such “literature” would not exist even in America, if Americans knew “how” to read. What is called the “Yellow Journalism” would not exist either. Why? Because a really educated reader of things worth reading would not read it—and it would therefore be a case of the wicked ceasing to trouble and the weary being at rest.

There is a general complaint nowadays—especially among authors—of the “decadence” of literature. It is true enough. But the cause of the “decadence” is the same—simply and solely that people cannot and will not read. They do not know “how” to do it. If they ever did know in the bygone days of Dickens and Thackeray, they have forgotten. Every book is “too long” for them. Yet scarcely any novel is published now as long as the novels of Dickens, which were so eagerly devoured at one time by tens of thousands of admiring readers. A short, risky, rather “nasty” book, (reviewers would call it strong, but that is only a little joke of theirs,—they speak of this kind of literature as though it were cheese) finds most favour with the “upper” circles of society in Great Britain and America. Not so with the “million” though. The million prefer simpler fare—and they read a good deal—though scarcely in the right way. It is always more a case of “skimming” than reading. If they are ever taught the right way to read, they may become wiser than any political government would like them to be. For right reading makes right thinking—and right thinking makes right living—and right living would result in what? Well! For one thing, members of councils and other “ruling” bodies would be lazier than ever, with less to do—and the Education Act would no longer be necessary, as the fact of simply knowing “how” to read, would educate everybody without further trouble.

Dear Sir or Madam,—read! Don’t “skim”! Learn your letters! Study the pronunciation and meaning of words thoroughly first, and then you may proceed to sentences. Gradually you will be able to master a whole passage of prose or poetry in such a manner as actually to understand it. That will be a great thing! And once you understand it, you may even possibly remember it! And then,—no matter how much you may have previously been educated,—your education will only have just begun.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PRESS

Not very long ago a Royal hint was given by one of the wisest and most tactful among the great throned Rulers of the world, to that other ruling power which is frequently alluded to as “the Fourth Estate.” Edward the Seventh, King by the Grace of God over Great Britain and all the dependencies which flourish under the sign of the Rose, Shamrock and Thistle, using that courteous and diplomatic manner which particularly belongs to him, expressed his “hope” that the Gentlemen of the Press would do their best to foster amity and goodwill between the British Empire and other nations. Now amongst the many kindly, thoughtful, sagacious and farsighted things which His Majesty has done since he ascended the English Throne, that highest seat of honour in the world—perhaps this mild and friendly suggestion to the Press is one of the most pointed, necessary and admirable. It is a suggestion which, if accepted in the frank, manly and magnanimous spirit in which it has been conveyed, would make for the peace of Europe. Petty insult often begets serious strife, and the cheap sneer of a would-be “smart” journalist at another country’s governmental mistakes may lead to consequences undreamt of in newspaper-office philosophy. Yet the journalist, as journalist, is scarcely to blame if, in a praiseworthy desire to give a “selling” impetus to the paper on which he is employed, he gets up a little bit of speculative melodrama, such as “German Malignity,” “Russian Trickery,” “Mysterious Movements of the Fleet,” “French Insult to the King,” “America’s Secret Treaty,” or “Alarming Eastern Rumours.” He is perhaps not in any way departing from his own special line of business if he counts on the general gullibility of the public, though in this matter he is often liable to be himself gulled. For the public have been so frequently taken in by mere “sensationalism” in war news and the like, that they are beginning to view all such rumours with more contempt than credence. Nevertheless the ambitious little Press boys (for they are only boys in their lack of discernment, whatever may be their external appearance as grown men) do not deserve so much reproof for their hot-headed, impulsive and thoughtless ways as the personages set in authority over them, whose business it is to edit their “copy” before passing it on to the printers. They are the responsible parties,—and when they forget the dignity of their position so much as to allow a merely jejune view of the political situation to appear in their journals, under flamboyant headlines which catch the eye and ensnare the attention of the more or less uninstructed crowd, one naturally deplores the lapse of their honourable duty. For in this way a great deal of harm may be done and endless misunderstanding and mischief created. It is quite wrong and wholly unpatriotic that the newspapers of any country should strive to foster ill-feeling between conflicting nations or political parties. When they engage in this kind of petty strife one is irresistibly reminded of the bad child in the nursery who, seeing his two little brothers quarrelling, cries out: “Go it, Tom! Go it, Jack! Hit him in the eye!” and then, when the hit is given and mutual screams follow, runs to his mother with the news—“Ma! Tom and Jack are fighting!” carefully suppressing the fact that he helped to set them at it. And when the trouble begins to be serious, and national recriminations are freely exchanged, it is curious to note how quickly the Press, on both sides, assumes the attitude of an almost matronly remonstrance. One hears in every leading article the “How can you behave so, Jack? What a naughty boy you are, Tom! Positively, I am ashamed of you both!”

There would be no greater force existing in the world as an aid to civilization and human fraternity than the Press, if its vast powers were employed to the noblest purposes. It ought to resemble a mighty ship, which, with brave, true men at the helm, moves ever on a straight course, cleaving the waters of darkness and error, and making direct for the highest shores of peace and promise. But it must be a ship indeed,—grandly built, nobly manned, and steadily steered,—not a crazy, water-logged vessel, creaking with the thud of every wave, or bobbing backwards and forwards uncertainly in a gale. Its position at the present day is, or appears to be, rather the latter than the former. Unquestionably the people, taken in the mass, do not rely upon it. They read the newspapers—but they almost immediately forget everything in them except the headlines and one or two unpleasant police cases. And why do they forget? Simply because first of all they are not sufficiently interested; and, secondly, because they do not believe the news they read. A working man told me the other day that he had been saving sixpence a week on two halfpenny papers which he had been accustomed to take in for the past year. “I found ’em out in ten lies, all on top of one another, in two weeks,” he candidly explained; “and so I thought I might as well keep my money for something more useful. So I started putting the halfpence by for my little kiddie, and I’m going to stick to it. There’s five shillings in the Savings Bank already!”

Glancing back to the early journalism of the past century, when Dickens and Thackeray wrote for the newspapers (“there were giants in those days”), one cannot help being struck by the great deterioration in the whole “tone” of the press at the present time, as contrasted with that which prevailed in the dawn of the Victorian era. There is dignity, refinement, and power in the leading articles of the Times and other journals then in vogue, such as must needs have compelled people not only to read, but to think. The vulgar “personal” note, the flippant sneer at this, that, or t’other personage,—the monkey-like mockery of women,—the senseless gibes flung at poets and poetry,—the clownish kick at sentiment,—were all apparently unknown.

True it is that the Times still holds its own as a journal in which one may look in vain for “sensationalism” but its position is rather like that of a grim old lion surrounded by cubs of all sizes and ages, that yap and snap at its whiskers and take liberties with its tail. It can be said, however, that all the better, higher-class periodicals are in the same situation—the yapping and snapping goes on around them precisely in the same way—“Circulation Five Times as Large as that of any Penny Morning Journal,” etcetera, etcetera. And the question of the circulation of any particular newspaper resolves itself into two points,—first, the amount of money it puts into the pockets of its proprietors or proprietor,—and secondly, the influence it has, or is likely to have, on the manners and morals of the public. The last is by far the most important matter, though the first is naturally the leading motive of its publication. Herein we touch the keynote of responsibility. How, and in what way are the majority of people swayed or affected by the statements and opinions of some one man or several men employed on the world’s press? On this point it may perhaps be asked whether any newspaper is really justified in setting before readers of all ages and temperaments, a daily fare of suicides, murders, divorce-cases, sudden deaths, or abnormal “horrors” of every kind to startle, depress or warp the mind away from a sane and healthful outlook upon life and the things of life in general? A very brilliant and able journalist tells me that “if we don’t put these things in, we are so deadly dull!” One can but smile at this candid statement of inefficiency. The idea that there can be any “lively” reading in the sorrowful details of sickness, crime or mania, leaves much room for doubt. And when it is remembered how powerfully the human mind is affected by suggestion, it is surely worth while enquiring as to whether the newspapers could not manage to offer their readers noble and instructive subjects of thought, rather than morbid or degrading ones. Fortunately for all classes, the bulk of what may be called “magazine literature” makes distinctly for the instruction and enlightenment of the public, and though a “gutter press” exists in Great Britain, as in America, a great portion of the public are now educated enough to recognize its type and to treat it with the contempt it merits. I quote here part of a letter which recently appeared in the Westminster Gazette signed “Observer,” and entitled:

“A Press-governed Empire.

“To the Editor of the Westminster Gazette.

“Sir,—We have it on the highest authority that the Government acts on the same information as is at the disposal of ‘the man in the street’ (vide Mr. Balfour at Manchester). The man in the street obviously must depend on the Press for his information. How has the Press served him?

“Let me take a recent illustration. A great experiment was to be made by the Navy. A battleship with all its tremendous armament was to pound a battleship. Naturally the Press was well represented, and the public was eager for its report.

“In due course a narrative appeared describing the terrible havoc wrought. The greatest stress was laid upon the instant ignition and complete destruction by fire of all the woodwork on the doomed ship. Elaborate leading articles appeared enforcing the lesson that wood was no longer a possible material for the accessory furniture of a battleship.

“A day or two after, a quiet answer in the House of Commons from Mr. Goschen informed the limited public who read it, that no fire whatever had occurred on the occasion so graphically described by the host of Press correspondents.

“The events dealt with on these occasions took place in our own country, and under our own eyes, so to speak. If such untrue reports are set forth with the verisimilitude of accurate and detailed personal description of eye-witnesses, what are we to say of the truth in the reports of events occurring at a distance?

“Special knowledge, special experience long continued, speaking under a sense of responsibility, are set at nought. The regular channels of information are neglected, and the conduct of affairs is based on newspaper reports. Any private business conducted and managed on these lines would be immediately ruined. The business of the Empire is more important, and the results of its mismanagement are more serious. For how long will it be possible to continue its management, trusting to the light thrown on events by an irresponsible Press?”

* * * * *

The “irresponsibility” here complained of comes out perhaps more often and most glaringly in those papers which profess to chronicle the sayings and doings of kings and queens, prime ministers, and personages more or less well known in the world of art, letters and society. In nine cases out of ten, the journalist who reports these sayings and doings has never set eyes on the people about whom he writes with such a free and easy flippancy. Even if he has, his authority to make their conversation public may be questioned. It is surely not too much to ask of the editors of newspapers that they should, by applying directly to the individuals concerned, ascertain whether such and such a statement made to them is true before giving it currency. A couple of penny stamps expended in private correspondence would settle the matter to the satisfaction of both parties.

“Personalities,” however, would seem to be greatly in vogue. Note the following:

“At seven o’clock the King left the hotel and walked to the spring to drink more of the water. Altogether, His Majesty has to drink about a quart of the water every morning, before breakfast.

“Standing among the throng, in which every type and nationality of humanity was represented, the King sipped his second pint glass of water.

“After drinking the quart of water, the regulations laid down for the ‘cure’ further require the King to walk for two hours before eating a morsel of food.

“This His Majesty performed by pacing up and down the promenade from the Kruez spring at one end, to the Ferdinand spring at the other.

“Notwithstanding all the appeals of the local authorities to the visitors, King Edward was [1]much greatly inconvenienced by the snobbish curiosity of the crowd.”

One may query whether “the snobbish curiosity of the crowd” or the snobbish information as to how “the King sipped his second pint glass of water” was the more reprehensible. Of course there are both men and women who delight in the personalities of the Press, especially when they concern themselves. Many ladies of rank and title are only too happy to have their dresses described to the man in the street, and their physical charms discussed by Tom, Dick and Harry. And when the Press is amiable enough to oblige them in these little yearnings for personal publicity, let us hope that the labourer, being worthy of his hire, hath his reward.

The following extract, taken from a daily journal boasting a large circulation, can be called little less than a pandering to the lowest tastes of the abandoned feminine snob, as well as a flagrant example of the positively criminal recklessness with which irresponsible journalists permit themselves to incite, by their flamboyant praise of the demi-mondaine, the envy and cupidity of thoughtless girls and women, who perhaps but for the perusal of such tawdry stuff, would never have known of, or half-unconsciously coveted the dress-and-diamond gew-gaws which are the common reward of female degradation and dishonesty:

“Miss W., a young American actress, has burst upon London. She has brought back from Paris to the Savoy Hotel, along with her golden hair and lovely brown eyes, an enormous jewel-case, innumerable dress-baskets—and a story. It concerns herself and how she made a fortune on the Paris Bourse, and she told it to our representative yesterday.

“She is an American, and was eating candy when she met M. J—— L——. ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘give up stick and buy stock.’ She ‘took the tip,’ she says, and staked her fortune—every penny—on the deal. A fortnight later she came back one night to her flat in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, from the Olympia, where she plays a leading part. A telegram from her bankers was waiting. It said: ‘You have been successful.’ ‘Next day,’ says Miss W., ‘I called on those bankers and picked up the £20,000 I had made.’

“Inveterate Gambler.

“‘Wonderful, wasn’t it?’ said Miss W., and our representative agreed that it was. ‘Oh, but it was a mere nothing!’ she said. ‘I have gambled since I was seven. Then I used to bet in pop-corn and always won. At seventeen I was quite ‘a dab’ at spotting winners on the Turf.

“‘Monte Carlo? Oh, yes. I won a trifle there this year—£800 or so. And Trouville! Why, you may not believe it, but I won £4,000 there this year in a few weeks.

“‘Of course, I don’t know the tricks of the Stock Exchange, though I was once chased by a bull,’ observed Miss W., with a smile. ‘Still, I think I’ll stick to it.’

“Opposite the Bourse is a shop where fashionable Parisians buy their furs. She spent £1,600 in a sable coat and hat on the day that the Bourse made her. Her other purchases include:—

Paris hats to the value of £200.
A robe of baby lamb, £150.
Fifteen Paquin gowns.
Two long fur coats.
Five short fur coats.
Three sets of furs.

“She also admits that she bought such trifles in the way of jewellery as:—

A corsage with thirteen large diamonds.
Eighteen rows of pearls.
Eighteen diamond rings.
Two diamond butterflies.
One emerald ring.
Several pendants.

“Diamonds, says Miss W., are the joy of her life. Each night on the stage of the Olympia she wears between £30,000 and £40,000 worth of jewellery.”

Paris hats to the value of £200.
A robe of baby lamb, £150.
Fifteen Paquin gowns.
Two long fur coats.
Five short fur coats.
Three sets of furs.

A corsage with thirteen large diamonds.
Eighteen rows of pearls.
Eighteen diamond rings.
Two diamond butterflies.
One emerald ring.
Several pendants.

The woman who confides her wardrobe list and the prices of her clothes to a Fleet Street hack of the pen is far gone past recall, but her manner of misdemeaning herself should not be proclaimed in the Press under “headings” as if it were news of importance to the country; and it would not be so proclaimed were the Press entirely, instead of only partially, in the hands of educated men.

In olden days it would seem that a great part of the responsibility of the Press lay in its criticism of art and literature. That burden, however, no longer lies upon its shoulders. Since the people began to read for themselves, newspaper criticism, so far as books are concerned, carries little weight. When some particular book secures a great success, we read this kind of thing about it: “In argument, intrigue and style it captures the fancy of the masses without attracting the slightest attention from the critical and discriminating few whose approval alone gives any chance of permanence to work.” This is, of course, very old hearing. “The critical and discriminating few” in Italy long ago condemned Dante as a “vulgar” rhymer, who used the “people’s vernacular.” Now the much-abused Florentine is the great Italian classic. The same “critical and discriminating few” condemned John Keats, who is now enrolled among the chiefest of English poets. Onslaughts of the bitterest kind were hurled at the novels of Charles Dickens by the “critical and discriminating few”—in the great writer’s time—but he “captured the fancy of the masses” and lives in the hearts and homes of thousands for whom the “critical and discriminating few” might just as well never have existed. And when we look up the names of the “critical and discriminating few” in our own day, we find, strange to say, that they are all disappointed authors! All of them have-written poems or novels, which are failures. So we must needs pity their “criticism” and “discrimination” equally, knowing the secret fount of gall from which these delicate emotions spring. At the same time, the “responsibility” of the Press might still be appealed to in literary, dramatic and artistic matters as, for example:

Why allow an unsuccessful artist to criticize a successful picture?

Why ask an unlucky playwright who cannot get even a farce accepted by the managers, to criticize a brilliant play?

Why depute a gentleman or lady who has “essayed” a little unsuccessful fiction to “review” a novel which has “captured the fancy of the masses” and is selling well?

These be weighty matters! Common human nature is common human nature all the world over, and it is not in common human nature to give praise to another for qualities we ourselves envy. Every one has not the same fine endowment of generosity as Sir Walter Scott, who wrote an anonymous review of Lord Byron’s poems, giving them the most enthusiastic praise, and frankly stating that after the appearance of so brilliant a luminary of genius, Walter Scott could no longer be considered worthy of attention as a poet. What rhymer of to-day would thus nobly condemn himself in order to give praise to a rival?

May it not, with due respect, be suggested to those who have the handling of such matters that neither the avowed friends nor the avowed foes of authors be permitted to review their books?—the same rule of criticism to apply equally to the works of musicians, painters, sculptors and playwrights? Neither personal prejudice nor personal favouritism should be allowed to interfere with the impression produced on the mind by a work of art. Vulgar abuse and fervid eulogy are alike out of place. In the productions of the human brain nothing is wholly bad and nothing is wholly good. Perfection is impossible of attainment on our present plane of existence. We do not find it in Nature,—still less shall we find it in ourselves. The critic can show good in everything if he himself is of a good mind. Or he can show bad in everything as easily, should his digestion be out of order. Unfortunately the “wear and tear of life”—to quote the patent medicine advertisements, wreaks natural havoc on the physical composition of the gentleman who is perhaps set down to review twenty novels in one column of print for the trifling sum of a guinea. All sorts of difficulties beset him. For instance, he may be employed on a certain “literary” paper which, being the property of the relatives of a novelist, exists chiefly to praise that novelist, even though it be curiously called an “organ of English literature,”—and woe betide the miserable man who dares to praise anyone else! Knowing much of the ins and outs of the literary grind, I tender my salutations to all reviewers of books, together with my respectful sympathy. I am truly sorry for them, and I do not in the least wonder that they hate with a deadly hatred every scribbling creature who writes a “long” novel. Because the “pay” for reviewing such a book is never in proportion to its length, as of course it ought to be. But anyway it doesn’t matter how much or how little of it is criticized. The bulk of the public do not read reviews. That is left to the “discriminating few.” And oh, how that “discriminating few” would love to “capture the fancy of the masses” if they could only manage to do it! Yet—“Never mind!” they say, with the tragedian’s glare and scowl—“Our names will be inscribed upon the scroll of fame when all ye are forgotten!” Dear things! Heaven grant them this poor comfort in their graves!

One cannot but regret that in these days of wonderful research, discovery and invention, so little is done to popularize science in the columns of the daily Press. The majority of the public are appallingly ignorant of astronomy for instance. Would it not be as interesting to instruct them in a simple and easy style as to the actual wonders of the heavens about us, as to fill their minds with the details of a murder? I hardly like to touch on the subject of geography, for out of fifteen “educated” persons I asked the question of recently, not one knew the actual situation on the map, of Tibet. Now it seems to me that the Press could work wonders in the way of education,—much more than the “Bill” will ever do. Books on science and learning are often sadly dull and generally expensive, and the public cannot afford to buy them largely, nor do they ask for them much at the libraries. If the daily journals made it a rule to give bright picturesque articles on some grand old truths or great new discoveries of science, such a course of procedure would be far more productive of good than any amount of “Short Sermons” such as we have lately heard discussed in various quarters. For the Press is a greater educational force than the Pulpit. In its hands it has the social moulding of a people, and the dignity of a nation as represented to other nations. There could hardly be a nobler task,—there can certainly never be a higher responsibility.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Copied verbatim from the Press report.

“PAGAN LONDON”

London is “a pagan city.” Such was the uncompromising verdict lately pronounced upon it by the Venerable Archdeacon Sinclair, of great St. Paul’s. “A pagan city”—he said, or was reported to say—“with churches glimmering here and there like fairy lamps twinkling in the spaces of darkness upon a lawn. Like fairy lamps, they serve to show the darkness rather than to illuminate it.” It was in a manner striking and curious that the Archdeacon should have chosen such a simile as “fairy lamps” for the Churches. It was an unconsciously happy hit—no doubt absolutely unintentional. But it described the Churches of to-day with marvellous exactitude. They are “fairy lamps”—no more!—only fit for show—of no use in a storm—and quenched easily with a strong puff of wind. Fairy lamps!—not strong or steady beacons—not lighthouses in the rough sea of life, planted bravely on impregnable rocks of faith to which the drowning sailor may cling for rescue and haply find life again. Fairy lamps! Multiply them by scores, good Archdeacon!—quadruple them in every corner of this “pagan” city of ours, over which the heart of every earnest thinker must yearn with a passion of love and pity, and they shall be no use whatever to light the blackness of one soul’s midnight of despair! “Pagan London!” The roaring, rushing crowd—the broad deep river of suffering, working, loving, struggling humanity, sweeping on, despite itself, to the limitless sea of Death,—every unit in the mass craving for sympathy, praying for guidance, longing for comfort, trying to discover ways out of pain and grief, and hoping to find God somehow and somewhere—and naught but “fairy lamps”—twinkling doubtfully, making the gloom more visible, the uncertainty of the gathering shadows more confusing and misleading!—“fairy lamps” of which the “Church of the Laodiceans,” so strongly reproved by the “Spirit” in the Revelation of St. John the Divine, must have been the originator and precursor—“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth!”

It is perhaps to be doubted whether any Churchman, no matter how distinguished, learned, fashionable or popular, has the right to call London or any city which is under the Christian dispensation “pagan.” No one man can honestly say he has probed the heart of another,—and if this be true, as it undoubtedly is, still less can one man assume to judge the faith or the emotions of six million hearts—six million striving, working and struggling souls. That even a handful of the six million should still wander towards “fairy lamp” Churches, in the hope to find warmth and luminance for their poor lives in such flickering and easily quenched sparks of life, speaks volumes for the touching faith, the craving hope, the desire of ultimate good, which animates our “pagan” citizens. For, if after two thousand years of Christianity, some of them are still passionately asking to be taught and guided, still praying for strength and courage to fight against many natural besetting sins, and still seeking after such pure ideals of work and attainment as can alone make life worth living, it is not they, surely, who merit the term “pagan.” They should not be so much blamed as compassionated, if, when searching for God’s fair and open sunshine, they only stumble at the “fairy lamps,” and, angered thereby, turn altogether away into the outer darkness. Such a term as “pagan” can be applied with far more justice to their teachers and preachers, who, having all the means of help and consolation at their disposal, fail to perform their high duties with either power, conviction or effect. It is quite easy to say “Pagan London,” but what if one spoke of “pagan clergy”? What of certain ecclesiastics who do not believe one word of the creed they profess, and who daily play the part of Judas Iscariot over again in taking money for a new betrayal of Christ? What of the ordained ministers of Christianity who are un-Christian in every word and act of their daily lives? What of the surpliced hypocrites who preach to others what they never even try to practise? What of certain vicious and worldly clerical bon-vivants, who may constantly be met with in the houses of wealthy and titled persons, “clothed in fine linen and faring sumptuously every day,” talking unsavoury society scandal with as much easy glibness as any dissolute “lay” decadent that ever cozened another man’s wife away from the path of honour in the tricky disguise of a “Soul”? What of the spiteful, small-minded, quarrelsome “local” parsons, who, instead of fostering kindness, neighbourliness, goodwill and unity among their parishioners, set them all by the ears, and play the petty tyrant with a domineering obstinacy which is rather worse than pagan, being purely barbarous? Many cases could easily be quoted where the childish, not to say querulous, pettiness of the ruling vicar of a country parish has helped to narrow, coarsen, and deteriorate the spirit of a whole community, spreading mean jealousies, fostering cheap rivalries, and making every soul in the place, from Sunday school children up to poor workhouse octogenarians, irritable, discontented and unhappy. And if the word “pagan” be used at all, should it not be particularly and specially applied to those theatrical dignitaries of the Church whose following of the simple and beautiful doctrine of Christ consists in sheer disobedience to His commands—disobedience openly displayed in the ornate ritual and “vain repetitions” which Christ expressly forbade. “For all their works they do to be seen of men; they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments.” And while “enlarging the borders of their garments” they institute “processional” services and promenades round the “fairy lamp” churches, with various altar-bobbings and other foolish ceremonies, caring nothing for the Spirit of the faith, if only all forms and observances, imported from Rome, or from still older “pagan” rites than the Roman, namely, the Græco-Egyptian, may be in some way introduced into the simple and unaffected form of prayer authorized by the Church of England. Disloyal to both God and the King, the “pagan clergy” are doing more at this present day to injure the cause of true religion among the masses than is any lack of zeal or want of faith that may exist in the people themselves. Who can blame sensible men and women for staying away from church, when in nine cases out of ten they know that the officiating minister is less Christian, less enlightened, less charitable and kind-hearted than themselves? Canon Allen Edwards, in an admirable letter addressed to the Press, put the case of “pagan London” very clearly. He says: “We do not want new churches.” True. No more “fairy lamps” are required for the general misleading of the straying sheep. He adds: “We want new men.”

This is the real need—men! Men of thought—men of heart,—men of true conviction, ardent faith, passionate exaltation, and unceasing devotion,—men who will not play about with “show” services, like amateur actors in a charity performance,—but who will sincerely care for and sympathize with their fellow-creatures, and will offer up the prayer and praise of humanity to an all-wise Omnipotence with that deep heartfelt fervour which is always expressed in the utmost simplicity of form and language,—men who have the intelligence to understand intelligent people, and who are as able to deal sympathetically with the spiritual troubles and perplexities of an educated person as with those of the ill-taught and frequently ill-fed rustic,—men who, if they preach, can find something to say of the marvels of this God-born creation of which we are a part—who will teach as well as admonish,—and who will take reverent care not to set the Almighty Creator within a small circle of their own special form of orthodoxy, and condemn every creature that wanders outside that exclusive “fairy lamp” enclosure. Canon Allen Edwards further remarked that “The reason why the working classes do not go to church is the same reason why I do not go to the Derby, not because I think it wrong, for I have no opinion on the subject, but because I have no interest in the things that go on there. And this is the reason, and no other, why many men do not go to church. They are not interested in what is done there.... A large number of those who are going into the ministry to-day are, for one most essential part of their work, entirely without the first elements of equipment. They cannot preach, and they are not helped to try and learn, and yet preaching is that very part of their work for which the people expect, and have a right to expect, equipment of the highest order.”

The Canon says: “they cannot preach.” That is true enough, but why? I maintain that if they felt their mission, they could preach it. If they loved their fellow-creatures a thousand times better than themselves, as they should do, they would find much of greatness, beauty and truth to say! If they honoured and worshipped their Divine Master as they profess to honour and worship Him, there would be little lack of spirit or of eloquence! People always know when a speaker or a preacher is in earnest. He may have a faulty utterance—his elocution may be far from perfect, but if the heart attunes the voice, the voice carries. There are many hundreds of noble clergy—but they are fewer than the ignoble of the same calling. And many there are, not only ignoble in themselves, but who attempt to pervert their very churches to illegitimate uses. I quote the following from a letter addressed to me on one occasion by a notorious “minister” of the Gospel.

“As the vicar of one of the largest parishes in England, I am often put to it how best to attract to the church the careless and the indifferent. Though a very strong High Anglican, I am an intense believer in the Priesthood of the Laity. It is the one weak spot in the Church’s system that she does not, as do the non-conformists, make sufficient use of and properly appreciate the services of her lay members. It has occurred to me therefore this year that by way of a start in this direction I should ask the help of certain leading people in the Literary, Dramatic and Artistic worlds. My friend, Mrs. X., has already made a beginning by reciting two poems in my Church, and thereby moving intensely a congregation of upwards of 3,000 people.” Now Mrs. X. was, and is, a well-known actress, and she recited the two poems in question from the chancel steps at the conclusion of the Sunday evening service. I am told, (though for this I will not vouch,) that money was taken at the church doors, and seats reserved and paid for, precisely as if the sacred building had been suddenly metamorphosed into a theatre or music hall. It never seemed to occur to the reverend gentleman who is the proprietor of this once “consecrated” building, that if he could not attract to his church “the careless and indifferent,” the fault probably lay in himself and his general unfitness. As a “very strong High Anglican” he would naturally have leanings towards the theatre and its lime-light effects, and certes, the “Priesthood of the Laity,” whatever may be meant by that term, is more to be believed in than the Priesthood of this particular ordained “priest” who instituted and encouraged a kind of stage recital from the steps of a sacred chancel, where the actor or actress concerned was invited to declaim his or her lines, with back turned to the Altar, the Communion-table serving as the “scenery.” Such men as these are the real “pagans,” and they do infinite harm to the dignity and purity of the Christian doctrine by their unworthy and debasing example. Churches under their dominance are less than “fairy lamps” in their influence for good,—they are the mere flare of stage footlights, showing up the grease-paint and powder of the clerical mime.

A deep religious sentiment lies at the hearts of the British people, as indeed of all peoples in the world. No nation, small or great, was ever entirely given over to atheism. If atheism and indifference affect a few, or even a majority of persons, the fault is assuredly with those who are elected to teach “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” They are chosen and solemnly ordained to be the friends, lovers and guides of humanity,—not to be selfish pedants, quarrelsome quidnuncs, and bigoted despots, exposing themselves, as they often do, to the righteous scorn, as well as to the careless contempt of the more honest laity. When they show themselves unworthy, the people fall away. When even one minister of religion appears as co-respondent in a divorce case, tens of thousands of men and women turn their backs on the Church. When anything low, mean, despicable or treacherous is said or done by a professing “servant of Christ,” the evil word or deed from such a source makes Christianity a byword to many more than the merely profane. When certain great dignitaries of the Church sit wine-bibbing at “swagger” dinner-parties, relating questionable or “spicy” anecdotes unfitting for the ears of decent women, they lose not only caste themselves, but they lay all the brethren of their order open to doubt. “Example is better than precept.” We have all written that in our school copy-books,—and nothing has ever happened, or ever will happen, that is likely to contradict the statement. If London is indeed a “pagan” city, as Archdeacon Sinclair has solemnly declared from under the shadowy luminance of his own big “fairy lamp,” St. Paul’s Cathedral, then the clergy, and the clergy alone are responsible. On their “ordained” heads be it! For “pagan” people are merely the natural outcome of a “pagan” priesthood.

A QUESTION OF FAITH

PROPOUNDED TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Before fully entering on this paper, I should like those who may be inclined to read it to understand very distinctly, once and for all, that I am a Christian. I am sorry that the too-hasty misjudgment of others compels me to assert the fact. The term “Atheist” has been applied to me by several persons who should know better,—for it is an absolutely false, and I may add, libellous accusation. That it has been uttered unthinkingly and at random, by idle chatterers who have never read a line I have written I can well believe,—nevertheless it is a mischievous rumour, as senseless as wicked. Poor and inadequate as my service is, and must ever be, still I am a follower of the Christian Faith, as expounded in Christ’s own words to His disciples. I believe that Christian Faith to be the grandest and purest in the world,—the most hopeful, the most strengthening, the most soul-supporting and ennobling religion ever taught to humanity. To me, in hours of the bitterest trial, it has proved not “a reed shaken by the wind,”—but a rock firmer than the foundations of the world, against which the waves of tribulation break in vain and disperse to naught,—and when brought face to face with imminent death as I have been, it has kept me fearless and calm. I know—because I have experienced,—its priceless worth, its truth, its grand uplifting power; and it is because this simple Christian Faith is so dear to me, and so much a part of my every-day life, that I venture to ask a few straight questions of those who, calling themselves Christians, seem to have lost sight altogether of their Master and His commands. I like people who are consistent. Inconsistency of mind is like uncleanliness of body; it breeds discomfort and disease. And in this wonderful age of ours, in which there is so little real “greatness,”—when even the tried heroism of our leading statesmen and generals is sullied by contemptible jealousies and petty discussions of a quarrelsome nature,—when the minds of men are bent chiefly on money-making and mechanical inventions to save labour (labour being most unfortunately estimated as a curse instead of the blessing it indubitably is), I find inconsistency the chief ingredient of all modern thought. Things are jumbled up in a heterogeneous mass, without order, distinction or merit. And the principal subject on which men and women are most wildly, glaringly inconsistent, is that which is supposed to be the guiding rule of life—Religion. I should like to try and help to settle this vexed question. I want to find out what the Christian Empire means by its “faith.” I venture to lift up my voice as the voice of one alone in the wilderness, and to send it with as clear a pitch and true a tone as I can across the sea of discussion,—the stormy ocean of angry and contradictory tongues,—and I ask bluntly and straightly, “What is it all about? Do you believe your religion, or do you not?”

It is an honest question, and demands an honest answer. Put it to yourselves plainly. Do you believe with all your heart and soul in the faith you profess to follow?

Again—put it with equal plainness—Do you not believe one iota of it all? And are you only following it as a matter of custom and form?

Let us, my reader or readers, be round and frank with each other. If you are a Christian, your religion is to believe that Christ was a human Incarnation or Manifestation of an Eternal God, born miraculously of the Virgin Mary; that He was crucified in the flesh as a criminal, died, was buried, rose again from the dead, and ascended to heaven as God and Man in one, and there perpetually acts as Mediator between mankind and Divine Justice. Remember, that if you believe this, you believe in the PURELY SUPERNATURAL. But let any one talk or write of the purely supernatural as existent in any other form save this one of the Christian Faith, and you will probably be the first to scout the idea of the supernatural altogether. Why? Where is your consistency? If you believe in one thing which is supernatural, why not in others?

Now let us consider the other side of the question. You who do not believe, but still pretend to do so, for the sake of form and conventional custom, do you realize what you are? You consider yourself virtuous and respectable, no doubt; but facts are facts, and you, in your pretence at faith, are nothing but a Liar. The honest sunshiny face of day looks on you, and knows you for a hypocrite—a miserable unit who is trying in a vague, mad fashion to cheat the Eternal Forces. Be ashamed of lying, man or woman, whichever you be! Stand out of the press and say openly that you do not believe; so at least shall you be respected. Do not show any religious leanings either to one side or the other “for the sake of custom”—and then we shall see you as you are, and refrain from branding you “liar.” I would say to all, clergy and laity, who do not in their hearts believe in the Christian Faith, “Go out of all churches; stand aside and let us see who is who. Let us have space in which to count up those who are willing to sacrifice all their earthly well-being for Christ’s sake (for it amounts to nothing less than this), and those who prefer this world to the next.” I will not presume to calculate as to which will form the larger majority. I only say it is absurd to keep up churches, and an enormous staff of clergy, archbishops, bishops, popes, cardinals, and the like, for a faith in which we do not TRULY, ABSOLUTELY, AND ENTIRELY BELIEVE. It is a mere pageant of inflated Falsehood, and as such must be loathsome in the sight of God,—this always with the modern proviso, “if there indeed be a God.” Yet, apart from a God altogether, it is degrading to ourselves to play the hypocrite with the serious facts of life and death. Therefore, I ask you again—Do you believe, or do you not believe? My object in proposing the question at all is to endeavour to show the spiritual and symbolic basis upon which the Christian Faith rests, and the paramount necessity there is for accepting it in its pristine purity and beauty, if we would be wise. To grasp it thoroughly, we must view it, not as it now seems to look to us through the darkening shadows of sectarianism, BUT AS IT WAS ORIGINALLY FOUNDED. The time has come upon us that is spoken of in the New Testament, when “one shall be taken and the other left,” and the sorting of the sheep from the goats has already commenced. It can be said with truth that most of our Churches, as they now exist, are diametrically opposed to the actual teachings of their Divine Founder. It can be proved that in our daily lives we live exactly in the manner which Christ Himself would have most sternly condemned. And when all the proofs are put before you plainly, and without disguise or hyperbole, in the simplest and straightest language possible, I shall again ask you, “Do you believe, or do you not believe?” If you do believe, declare it openly and live accordingly; if you do not believe, in God’s name leave off lying!

The Symbolism of the Christian Faith has been, and is still, very much lost sight of, owing to the manner in which the unimaginative and unthinking majority of people will persist in looking at things from a directly physical, materialistic and worldly point of view. But if we take the life and character of Christ as a Symbolic representation of that Perfect Manhood which alone can be pleasing to God,—which alone can be worthy to call the Divine Source of Creation “Father!”—some of our difficulties may possibly be removed. Christ’s Gospel was first proclaimed in the East,—and the Eastern peoples were accustomed to learn the great truths of religion by a “symbolic,” or allegorical method of instruction. Christ Himself knew this,—for “He taught them many things by parables.”

We shall do well to keep this spirit of Eastern symbolism in mind when considering the “miraculous” manner of Christ’s birth. Note the extreme poverty, humility, well-nigh shame attending it! Joseph doubted Mary, and was “minded to put her away privily.” Mary herself doubted the Angelic Annunciation, and said, “How shall this be?”

Thus, even with those most closely concerned, a cloud of complete disbelief and distrust environed the very thought, suggestion, and announcement of the God-in-Man.

It should be remembered that the Evangelists, Mark and John, have no account of a “miraculous” birth at all. John, supreme as a Symbolist, the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” wrote, “The WORD was made flesh and dwelt among us.”

Securing this symbolic statement for ourselves, we find that two of the chief things to which we attach importance in this world—namely, birth and position—are altogether set aside in this humanizing of the WORD, and are of no account whatever. And, that the helpless Child lying in a manger on that first Christmas morning of the world, was,—despite poverty and humility,—fore-destined to possess more power than all the kings and emperors ever born in the purple.

Thus, the first lessons we get from the birth of Christ are—Faith and Humility—these are indeed the whole spirit of His Divine doctrine.

Now,—How does this spirit pervade our social community to-day, after nearly two thousand years of constant preaching and teaching?

Look round on the proud array of the self-important, pugnacious, quarrelsome, sectarian and intolerant so-called “servants of the Lord.” The Pope of Rome, and his Cardinals and his Monsignori! The Archbishop of Canterbury, and his Bishops, Deacons, Deans and Chapters and the like! The million “sects”—and all the cumbrous paraphernalia of the wealthy and worldly, “ordained” to preach the Gospel! Ask them for “proofs” of faith! For signs of “humility”! For evidences of any kind to show that they are in very soul and life and truth, the followers of that Master who never knew luxury, and had not where to lay His head!

And you, among the laity, how can you pray, or pretend to pray to a poor and despised “Man of Sorrows,” in these days, when with every act and word of your life you show your neighbours that you love Money better than anything else in earth or in heaven!—when even you who are millionaires only give and do just as much as will bring you notoriety, or purchase you a “handle” to your names! Why do you bend your hypocritical heads on Sundays to the Name of “Jesus,” who (so far as visible worldly position admitted) was merely the son of a carpenter, and followed the carpenter’s trade, while on week-days you make no secret of your scorn of, or indifference to the “working-man,” and more often than not spurn the beggar from your gates!

Be consistent, friends!—be consistent! If you believe in Christianity, you must also believe in these three things:—

1. The virtue of poverty.

2. The dignity of labour.

3. The excellence of simplicity.

Rank, wealth, and all kinds of ostentation should be to you pitiable—not enviable.

Is it so? Do you prefer poverty, with a pure conscience, to ill-gotten riches? Would you rather be a faithful servant of Christ or a slave of Mammon? Give the answer to your own soul,—but give it honestly—if you can!

If you find, on close self-examination, that you love yourself, your own importance, your position, your money, your household goods and clothes, your place in what you call “society,” more than the steady working for and following of Christ,—you are not a Christian. That being the case, be brave about it! Say what you are, and do not pretend to be what you are not!

It ought to be quite easy for you to come to a clear understanding with yourselves. Take down the New Testament and read it. Read it as closely and carefully as you read your cheap newspapers, and with as much eagerness to find out “news.” For news there is in it, and of grave import. Not news affecting the things of this world, which pass like a breath of wind and are no more,—but news which treats of Eternal Facts, outlasting the creation and re-creation of countless worlds. Read this book for yourselves, I say, rather than take it in portions on Sundays only from your clergy,—and devote your earnest attention to the simple precepts uttered by Christ Himself. If you are a Christian, you believe Christ was an Incarnation of God,—then does it not behove you to listen when God speaks? Or is it a matter of indifference to you that the Maker and Upholder of millions of universes should have condescended to come and teach you how to live? If it is, then stand forth and let us see you! Do not attend places of worship merely to be noticed by your neighbours. For,—apart from such conduct being strictly forbidden by Christ,—you insult other persons by your presence as a liar and hypocrite. This is what you may call a “rude” statement;—plain-speaking and truth-telling are always called “rude.” You will find the utmost plain-speaking in the Gospels upon which you profess to pin your faith. If you have any “fancy Ritualism” lurking about you, you will discover that “forms” are not tolerated by the Saviour of mankind.

“All their works they do for to be seen of men; they make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments.”

“Shows” of religion are severely censured and condemned by Him whose commands we assume to try and obey—we can scarcely find even a peg whereon to hang an excuse for our practice of praying in public, while “vain repetitions” of prayer are expressly prohibited. I repeat—Read the Four Gospels; they are very much mis-read in these days, and even in the Churches are only gabbled. See if your private and personal lives are in keeping with the commands there set down. If not, cease to play Humbug with the Eternities;—they will avenge themselves upon your hypocrisy in a way you dream not of! “Whosoever excuses himself accuses himself.”

The true Christian faith has no dogma,—no form,—no sect. It starts with Christ as God-in-Man, in an all-embracing love for God and His whole Creation, with an explicit and clear understanding (as symbolized so emphatically in the Crucifixion and Resurrection), that each individual Soul is an immortal germ of life, in process of eternal development, to which each new “experience” of thought, whether on this planet or others, adds larger powers, wider intelligence, and intensified consciousness. There are no “isms” in this faith—no bigotry, and no intolerance. It leaves no ground for discussion.

“This is my commandment,—That ye love one another as I have loved you.”

It is all there,—simple, straight and pure—no more, no less than this.

“Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility. It is, therefore, able to undertake all things, and it completes many things and warrants them to take effect where he who does not love would faint and lie down. Love is watchful, and, sleeping, slumbereth not. Though weary, it is not tired; though alarmed, it is not confounded, but, as a lively flame and burning torch, it forces its way upwards, and securely passes all.... Love is born of God and cannot rest but in God, above all created things.”

Is our Gospel of modern life and society to-day one of love or of hate? Do we help each other more readily than we kick each other down? Do we prefer to praise or to slander our neighbours? Is it not absolutely true that “a cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they run”? Can we leave anybody alone without covert or open detraction from his or her merits? Even in the most ordinary, every-day life do we not see people taking a malicious, insane delight in making their next-door neighbours as uncomfortable as possible in every petty way they can? These persons, by the way, are generally the class who go to Church most regularly, and are constant Communicants. Do they not by their profane attempt to assimilate the malignity of their dispositions with the gospel of Christ, deserve to be considered as mere blasphemers of the Faith?

Yet, as a matter of fact, it is much easier to love than to hate. Love is the natural and native air of the immortal soul. “While we fulfil the law of love in all our thoughts and actions, we cannot fail to grow.” Hatred, discontent, envy, and pessimism, cramp all the higher faculties of the mind and very often actually breed disease in the body. To love all creation is to draw the responsive health and life of creation into one’s own immortal cognizance. “Love easily loosens all our bonds. There is no discomfort that will not yield to its sovereign power.” But it must not be a selfish love. It must be a Love which is the keynote of the Christian Faith—“Love one another as I have loved you.”

It follows very plainly that if we truly loved one another there would be no wars, no envyings, no racial hatreds, no over-reaching of our brethren for either wealth, place or power. There would be no such hells as the Lancashire factories, for example, where, as Allen Clarke graphically tells us,[2] “Amidst that sickening jerry-jumble of cheap bricks and cheaper British industry, over a hundred thousand men, women and children, toil and exist, sweating in the vast, hot, stuffy mills and sweltering forges—going, when young, to the smut-surrounded schools to improve their minds, and trying to commune with the living God in the dreary, dead, besmirched churches and grimy puritanical chapels; growing up stunted, breeding thoughtlessly, dying prematurely, knowing not, nor dreaming, except for here and there a solitary one cursed with keen sight and sensitive soul, of aught better and brighter than this sickening, steaming sphere of slime and sorrow.” Contrast this picture with a crowded “supper-night” at the Carlton or any other fashionable Feeding-place of London, and then maintain, if you dare, that the men and women who are responsible for two such differing sides of life are “Christians”!

England is, we are told, in danger of becoming “Romanized.” Priests and nuns of various “orders” who have been thrust out of France and Spain for intermeddling, are seeking refuge here, in company with the organ-grinders and other folk who have been found unnecessary in their own countries. From Paris official news was cabled on September 11, 1902, as follows:—

“JESUIT EXODUS FROM FRANCE.

“Paris, Wednesday, September 11.

“It is announced officially that by the 1st of next month not a single Jesuit will be left in France. Most of them are emigrating to England, and will make Canterbury their headquarters.—Dalziel.”

France will not have the Jesuits; may it be asked why we are to have them? It is England’s proud privilege to be an international workhouse for all the decrepit of the world, and for this cause a happy hunting ground is open to Rome among these same decrepit. There is no creed in the world which is better adapted for those who are morally weak, and frightened of themselves. All the millionaires who have gotten their goods by fraud, can, by leaving the greater part of these goods to Rome, secure a reserved seat in Rome’s Heaven, with a special harp and crown. All the women with “soul-affinities” other than lawful, can, after a considerable wallow in social mire, enter the Church of Rome, and, after confession, be “cleansed” sufficiently to begin again a new life, approved of the saints. All the spiritualists and faith-healers can find support for their theories with Rome,—and the Roman hell, full of large snakes and much brimstone, is a satisfactory place to consign one’s enemies to, when we have quite put aside Christ’s command, “Love one another.” Altogether Romanism is calculated to appeal to a very large majority of persons through the sensuous and emotional beauty of its ritual;—it is a kind of heavenly narcotic which persuades the believer to resign his own will into the hypnotic management of the priests. The church is made gorgeous with soft lights and colours,—glorious music resounds through the building, and the mind drowses gently under the influence of the Latin chanting, which we need not follow unless we like,—we are permitted to believe that a large number of saints and angels are specially looking after us, and that the sweet Virgin Mary is ever ready with outstretched hands to listen to all our little griefs and vexations. It is a beautiful and fascinating Creed, hallowed by long antiquity, graced by deeds of romance and chivalry, sanctified by the memories of great martyrs and pure saints, and even in these degenerate days, glorified by the noble-hearted men and women who follow it without bigotry or intolerance, doing good everywhere, tending the sick, comforting the sorrowful, and gathering up the little children into their protecting arms, even as Jesus Himself gathered them. It would need an angel’s pen dipped in fire, to record the true history of a faithful, self-denying priest of the Roman Church, who gives up his own advantage for the sake of serving others,—who walks fearlessly into squalid dens reeking with fever, and sets the pure Host between the infected lips of the dying,—who combats with the Demon of Drink, and drags up the almost lost reprobate out of that horrible chasm of vice and destruction. No one could ever give sufficient honour to such a man for all the immense amount of good he does, unostentatiously and without hope of reward. But many men like himself exist equally in the English Church as the Roman,—in the Presbyterian Church, in the Greek Church, in the Buddhist temples, among the Quakers, “Plymouth Brethren,” and other sects—among the followers of Mahomet or of Confucius. For there are good men and good women in every Church, faithful to the spirit of Christ, and, therefore, “Christians,” even if called Jews or Hindoos.

Personally, I have no more objection or dislike to Romanism than I have to any other “ism” ever formulated. From a student’s point of view I admire the Roman Catholic priesthood, because they understand their business, and thoroughly know the material with which they have to deal. Wise as their Egyptian prototypes of old, they decline to unveil “mysteries” to the uninitiated vulgar—therefore the laity are not expected to read the Bible for themselves. Knowing the terrors of a guilty conscience, they are able to intimidate the uneducated ruffian of both sexes more successfully than all the majesty of the law. Thoroughly aware of the popular delight in “shows,” they organize public processions on feast days, just as the “Masters of the Stars” used to do in Memphis, where, by the way (as those who take the trouble to study ancient Egyptian records will discover), our latest inventions, such as the electric light, the telephone, the phonograph, and many other modern conveniences, were used by the priests for “miraculous” effects. From the Egyptian priesthood we derive the beginnings of scientific discovery;—to the early Roman Catholic priesthood we owe the preservation of much history and learning. The one is, intellectually speaking, a lineal descendant of the other, and both deserve the utmost respect for their immense capacity as Rulers of the Ignorant.

The greater majority of persons have no force of will and no decided opinions, but only an under-sense of coward fear or vexation at the possible unsuccessful or damaging result of their own ill-doings. Hence the power of the Roman Catholic dogma. It is not Christianity; it has not the delicate subtlety of Greek mythology; it is simply pagan Rome engrafted on the conversion and repentance of the Jew, Peter, who, in the time of trial, “knew not the Man.” Curiously enough, it is just the “Man,” the real typical Christ, the pure, strong God-in-humanity who is still “not known” in the Roman Catholic ritual. There are prayers to the “Sacred Heart” and to other physical attributes of Jesus,—just as in old Rome there were prayers to the physical attributes of the various deities, but of the perfect “Man,” as seen in Christ’s dauntless love of truth and exposure of shams, His scourging of the thieves out of the holy temple, His grand indifference to the world’s malice and hatred, and His conquest over death and the grave,—of these things we are given no clear or helpful image. Nevertheless, it is the “Man” we most need,—the “Man” who came to us to teach us how to live;—the brother, the friend, the close sympathizer,—the great Creator of all life mingling Himself with His human creation in a beautiful, tender, loving, wise and all-pitiful Spirit, wherein is no hate, no revenge, and no intolerance! This is the Christ;—this is His Christianity. Romanism, on the contrary, allows plenty of space for those who want to hate as well as to love, and it is as helpful or as useless as any of the thousand and one dogmas built up around Christ, dogmas which include bad passions as well as divine aspirations. The danger of such a creed gaining too much ground in England, the land where our forefathers fought against it and trampled it out with their own blood and tears, is not because it is a particular form of religious Faith, but because it is an intolerant system of secret Government. This has been proved over and over again throughout history. Its leaders have not shown themselves as gentle pagans by any means, either now or in the past;—and intolerance in any form, from any sect, is no part of the Constitution of a free country.

Hence the real cause of the objection which has been entertained by millions of persons in the Empire to the suggested alteration of the King’s Coronation oath. The British King is a Constitutional monarch,—and the words “Defender of the Faith” imply that he is equally Defender of the Constitution. He agrees, when he is crowned King of England, to uphold that Constitution,—he therefore tacitly rejects all that might tend to undermine it,—all secret methods of tampering with political, governmental or financial matters relating to the State. The wording of the Coronation Oath is, and must be distinctly offensive to thousands of excellent persons who are Roman Catholics,—nevertheless, in the times when it was so worded, the offending terms were made necessary by the conduct of the Roman Catholics themselves. Those times, we are assured, are past. We have made progress in education,—we are now broad-minded enough to be fair to foes, as well as to friends. We should, therefore, in common courtesy to a rival Church, consent to have this irritating formula altered. Perhaps we should,—but is it too much to ask our Roman Catholic brethren that they also should, if they wish for tolerance, exhibit it on their own side? When Queen Victoria died, was it not quite as offensive on the part of Pope Leo to publicly state that he “could not be represented at the funeral of a Protestant Queen”—as it may be for our King to publicly repudiate the service of the Mass? Nothing could have been more calculated to gratuitously wound the feelings of a great People than that most unnecessary announcement made from an historical religious centre like the Vatican, at a time of universal grief for the death of a good Monarch. If the Pope’s act was according to the rule of his Church, the King’s oath is according to the rule of the British Constitution. No one could accuse the Pope of any particularly “Christian” feeling in declining to be represented at the last obsequies of the best Queen that ever reigned—no one can or would ever conscientiously accuse an English King of “religious intolerance” when he takes the oath as it is set down for him. Both acts are matters of policy. We have seen the foremost peer of England, the Duke of Norfolk, forgetting himself so far on one occasion as to drag his religious creed into the political arena, and publicly expressing the hope on behalf of all English Catholics that the Pope may soon regain temporal power (which means, to put it quite plainly, that the British Constitution should be disintegrated and laid under subjection to Rome): the natural consequence of such conduct is that an enormous majority of perfectly sensible broad-minded people doubt whether it is wise to leave an entirely loose rein on the neck of the papal Pegasus. Tolerance and equity on the one side must be met by tolerance and equity on the other, if a fair understanding is to be arrived at. And when the professors of any religious Creed still persecute heroism and intellect, or refuse reverence to the last rite of a noble Queen, whose long reign was a blessing to the whole world, one may be permitted to question their fitness for the task of elevating and refining the minds and morals of those whom their teachings help to influence. And having, as a man of intellectual and keen perception, the full consciousness that such unuttered “questioning” was burning the hearts and minds of thousands, the late Cardinal Vaughan showed himself a master of the art of Roman Catholic diplomacy in his speech at Newcastle-on-Tyne on September 9, 1902. Speaking of the inrush of Roman Catholic priests into England, he said:—

“A statement from a London paper has been running through the provincial Press to the effect that I have deliberately outraged public feeling by inviting to England certain French religieux, some of those confrères who have made themselves particularly obnoxious by their constant attacks upon this country. The fact is that, upon the passing of the iniquitous law against the religious congregations, I gave a general invitation to any religieux who might wish, to come to my diocese until they could return to France. Among those who applied were three or four fathers, some of those confrères who do not love England. My invitation being general, I was not, and am not going to make distinctions. None will come who do not intend to obey the laws and follow my direction. And if there be any who have not been sufficiently enlightened to appreciate this country while living in France, they are the very people who had best come and make our acquaintance. This is the surest way to change their views. But while England boasts of her generous hospitality to every kind of refugee, I shall certainly offer whatever hospitality I can to the men and women who have suffered for Christ’s sake. I am too broad an Englishman to know any other policy.”

“Broad Englishman” as the Cardinal professed to be, he had no pity on the aged Dr. St. George Mivart, the circumstances of whose treatment are not yet forgotten.

Speaking of the Coronation oath, the Cardinal said: “I entirely and frankly accept the decision of the country that the King must be a Protestant. They believe that this is in some way bound up with the welfare of the Empire. Without going this length, I am convinced that in the present condition of the English people, HAUNTED AS THEY ARE BY FEARS AND SUSPICIONS, it is expedient that the King should be of the religion of the overwhelming majority. Besides, the King being, in virtue of Royal supremacy, head of the State Church, it is impossible that he should be other than a Protestant. Catholics have no difficulty in paying most loyal allegiance to a Protestant Sovereign. In this they seem to be of more liberal and confiding temper than those who would refuse allegiance to a King unless he professed their creed. The Catholic has no difficulty, because he gives his allegiance and his life, when needed, primarily to the civil power ordained of God.”

(The Cardinal did not pause here to try and explain why God has thus “ordained” a Protestant sovereign instead of a Roman Catholic one! Yet no doubt he will admit that God knows best.)

“The Sovereign REPRESENTS THIS POWER, whatever be his religion. Was it not Catholic Belgium that placed the Protestant King Leopold upon the Throne, and gave to him at least as hearty a devotion as ever has been shown to his Catholic successor? Other Catholic States are ruled by Protestant Sovereigns. And who can say that the 16,000,000 of German Catholics are a whit less loyal to their German Protestant Emperor than the millions who are of the Protestant or of no religion? There are people, I believe, pursued by the conviction that we Catholics would do anything in the world to get a Catholic King upon the Throne; that the Pope would give us leave to tell lies, commit perjury, plot, scheme, and kill to any extent for such a purpose; that there is no crime we should stick at if the certainty, or even the probability of accomplishing such an end were in view. Now let me put it to our Protestant friends in this way. If the King of England were an absolute Monarch, the dictator of the laws to be enacted, and his own executive, there might be something of vital importance to our interests and to those of religion to excite in us an intense desire to have a Catholic King. Though even then the end could never, even remotely, justify the means suggested. But how do matters really stand? We have a Constitutional Monarch who is subject to the laws, and in practice bound to follow the advice of his Ministers. A Catholic King, under present circumstances, would be a cause of weakness, of perpetual difficulty, and of untold anxiety. We are far better off as we are. Our dangers and grievances, our hopes and our happiness, lie in the working of the Constitution, not in the favour or power of any Sovereign. It is the Parliament, the House of Commons, that we must convert, or at least strive to retain within the influence of Christianity. For the well-being of this country and the salvation of its people depend, above all other human things, upon the view that the House of Commons can be got to take of its duty—to respect and obey the law of Christ. What we want is to get the House of Commons to maintain the Christian laws of marriage as the basis of society, and to secure to parents and their children a true and proper liberty in the matter of Christian education. And in this, remember well, that the House of Commons depends not upon the King, whatever his religion, but upon ourselves. The people of this country must work out their own salvation. And here let me point out to you, in passing, that the next Session of Parliament may settle for ever the position of Christianity in this country. Secondary and middle-class education will be thrown into the melting-pot. In the process of the devolution of educational authority upon county councils, Christianity will run the risk of losing rights which it seems to have almost secured under the working of the Education Department. The adoption of a single clause or principle will have far-reaching and most vital results. There will be another educational struggle. Struggles will be inevitable until the Christian cause which is becoming more and more openly the cause of the majority has permanently triumphed.”

Here we have four distinct “moves” on the plan of campaign.

1. “It is the Parliament, the House of Commons, that we must convert.”

This means, that wherever influence can be brought to bear on the return of Roman Catholic members to the House, that influence will not be lacking.

2. “The next Session of Parliament may settle for ever the position of Christianity in this country.”

Not Christianity, for that is above all “settling,”—save with its Founder—but that the next or other Sessions may open the way to a more complete Roman Catholic domination is what is here hoped for.

3. “The adoption of a single clause or principle will have far-reaching and most vital results.”

Precisely;—so far-reaching and vital that England must be on her guard against even a “single clause or principle” which endangers the liberty of the subject.

4. “Struggles will be inevitable until the Christian cause which is becoming more and more openly the cause of the majority has permanently triumphed.”

For Cardinal Vaughan there was only one “Christian” cause—viz., the Roman Catholic, and he who runs may read the meaning of the above phrase without much difficulty.

Concerning the King’s Declaration Oath, said the Cardinal:—

“It is not the King who is responsible for the drafting or the retention of this detestable Declaration. It is the Ministry, the Legislature, the Constitution that are responsible for its retention, and for forcing its acceptance upon the Sovereign. The gravamen, therefore, lies against the State, not against the person of the King.”

Quite true; and it is therefore against the State that the Vatican powers must, and possibly may, in time, be directed.

“And,” went on the Cardinal, “do not devout clergymen swear every day in good faith to teach the Thirty-nine Articles, and find every day that conscience and good faith compel them to break their engagement by submitting to the Catholic Church? When a man fully realizes that by a promise or an oath he has pledged himself to something that is unjust, immoral, untrue, the engagement ceases to bind.”

Ergo, the English Church, the particular “Faith” which our King undertakes to DEFEND, is “unjust, immoral and untrue.”

And, “Could Englishmen see themselves as others see them, they would be more chary than they are of provoking hatred by such wanton contempt for the feelings of other nations.”

Well, Englishmen have every chance of seeing themselves as others see them, when they have to chronicle a “Christian” Cardinal’s indictment accusing them of “wanton contempt for the feelings of other nations.” To whom do other nations turn in want or distress but England? From whom do the famine and fever-stricken in all corners of the world obtain relief? England! Where is there any Roman Catholic country that has poured out such limitless charity and pity to all in sorrow as England? And why should the “conversion of England” be so valuable to the Roman Church? Merely because of England’s incalculable wealth and power!

Again, concerning the Declaration Oath, the Cardinal continued:—“Now, should it ever happen that the King became convinced, by God’s grace, of the truth of the doctrines that he abjured, of what value would be the Declaration? Absolutely none!”

Of course not!—he would simply cease to be King, and would enjoy the complete liberty of the subject.

“By all means,” went on his Eminence, warming with his theme, “let the majority, if it please, stand by the law, which exists apart from the Declaration, declaring that to reign over England the Sovereign must be a Protestant. Retain this law and enforce it; but respect our creed, at least just so far as to ignore it, and to leave us alone. This, surely, is not a heavy demand to make upon the spirit of modern toleration.”

Then why did not the Cardinal and all his followers “respect the creed” established in this country,—the religion of the State,—“just so far as to ignore it,” and to leave those who honour it “alone”? “This, surely, is not a heavy demand to make upon the spirit of modern toleration.” It was not the Church of England which started any discussion on the Coronation Oath at the time of King Edward the Seventh’s crowning,—the quarrel emanated entirely from the Roman Catholic side. And the Cardinal’s speech was intended to be more aggressive than pacifying.

“But if,” he continued, “after all, there must be a Declaration as a sop to certain fears and passions, let there be one to the effect that the King is a Protestant—and stop there. Should, however, a denunciation of the Catholic religion be added to a profession of Protestantism, the whole world will understand it; it will understand it as a pitiable confession of English fear and weakness. And as to ourselves; well, we shall take it as a complimentary acknowledgment by our Protestant fellow-countrymen of the importance and power of faith—that it can not only remove mountains, but is capable of moving even the fabric of the British Empire itself. But I should like to conclude in another strain, and add to these observations a resolution to this effect:—

“That the Sovereign of this Empire ought to be raised high above the strife of all political and religious controversies, the more easily to draw to himself and to retain the unabated loyalty of all creeds and races within his Empire.”

With the latter part of the Cardinal’s harangue every one of every creed and class will agree, but “a pitiable confession of English fear and weakness” is a phrase that should never have been uttered by an Englishman, whether “broad” or narrow, cardinal or layman. “English fear and weakness” has never yet been known in the world’s history. And as for “moving the fabric of the British Empire,” that can only be done through the possible incompetence or demoralization of its own statesmen,—by shiftiness, treachery and corruption in State affairs—and even at this utmost worst, though England might be bent, she would never be broken.

All this, however, has nothing to do with the Christian faith as Christ Himself expounded it in His own commands. Quarrels and dissensions are as far from the teaching of the Divine Master as an earth’s dusthole is from the centre of the sun. Differences of dogma are not approved in His eyes. Whether candles shall, or shall not, be set on the altar, whether incense shall, or shall not, be burnt, may be said to relegate to the “cleansing of the outside of the cup and platter,” and are not a vital part of His intention—for He has nothing but condemnation for “forms” and “ceremonies.” There is something both strange and unnatural in the provocative spirit which is at present being exercised by professing rulers of the Church of England against one another; and another matter too for deep regret is the attitude of favour maintained by certain political ministers, towards the practice of an almost theatrical display in the form of English Christian services. The various appointments of High Churchmen to important bishoprics shows the tendency towards extravagant ritualism; certainly the more simple and unaffected men of pure taste and dignity in Church ritual get little chance of encouragement; and that the path is being prepared for a second Cromwell is only too evident. It is lamentable indeed that any discussions should arise between the different sects as to “forms and ceremonies,” and those who excite fanatical hatreds by their petty quarrels over unimportant “shows” and observances, are criminally to blame for any evils that are likely to ensue. What Christ commands is “Love one another”;—what He desires is that all mankind should be friends and brothers in His Name. And it is from this point of view that I again ask the question of those who may have glanced through this paper—Do you believe, or do you not believe? Are you a Christian? Or a SECTARIAN? The one is not the other.

For my own part I would desire to see all the Sects cease their long quarrel,—all “dogmas” dropped—and all creeds amalgamated into one great loving family under the name of Christ. I should like to see an end to all bigotry, whether of Protestantism against Romanism, or Romanism against Protestantism,—a conclusion to all differences—and one Universal Church of simple Love and Thanksgiving, and obedience to Christ’s own commands. “Temporal power” should be held as the poor thing which it is, compared to Spiritual power,—for Spiritual power, according to the Founder of the Christian Faith, is the transcendent force of Love—love to God and love to man,—“that perfect love which casteth out fear,” and which, being “born of God, cannot rest but in God above all created things.”

Thus it follows—That if we hate or envy or slander any person, we are not Christians.

If we prefer outward forms of religious ceremonial to the every-day practice of a life lived as closely as possible in accordance with the commands laid down for us in the Gospel, we are not Christians.

If we love ourselves more than our neighbours, we are not Christians.

If we care for money, position, and the ostentation attending these things, more than truth, simplicity and plain dealing, we are not Christians.

These ordinary tests of our daily conduct are quite enough to enable us to decide whether we are or are not of the faith. If we are not, we should cease to “sham” that we are. It will be far better for all those with whom we are brought in contact. For, thank God, there exist thousands of very real “Christians”—(“by their fruits ye shall know them”), doing unostentatious good everywhere, rescuing the lost, aiding the poor, comforting the sick, and helping the world to grow happier and better. They may be called Jews, or Baptists, Papists, or Buddhists,—but I hold them all as “Christians” if they perform those good deeds and live those good lives which are acceptable to Christ,—while many church-going hypocrites called “Christians” whose social existence is a scandal, whose dissipations, gross immoralities and pernicious example of living are open dangers to the whole community, do not deserve even such a complimentary term as “pagan” applied to them. For the pagans—aye, the earliest savages, believed in Something higher than themselves,—but these sort of people believe in nothing but the necessity of getting what they want at all costs, and are mere human cancers of evil, breeding infection and pestilence. And it is particularly incumbent on the clergy of all denominations at the present juncture to sift Themselves as to their calling and election while sifting others,—to ask Themselves whether they may not be in a great measure to blame for much of the infamy which reeks from our great cities—for much of the apathy and indifference to that bitter poverty, that neglected suffering which often gives birth to Anarchy,—for much of the open atheism which shames the upper classes of society. Let them live such lives as may liberate them from all fear or hesitation in speaking out boldly to the souls they have in charge—let them “preach the Gospel” as they were commanded, rather than expound human dogmas. Sympathy, tenderness, patience, love for all living creatures, rejection of everything that is mean and cruel, false and cowardly,—a broad mind, open to all the beautiful and gracious influences of Nature—a spirit uplifted in thanksgiving to the loving God of all worlds, who is brought close to us and made the friend of man in the Divine Personality of Christ,—this surely is Christianity,—a Faith which leaves no corner anywhere for the admission of hate, dissension or despair. Such is the Faith the Master taught, saying:

[3]“I have not spoken of myself, but of the Father which sent me; He gave me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak.

“And I know that His commandment is life everlasting—whatsoever I speak, therefore, even as the Father taught me, so I speak.”

So He speaks—but do we listen? And if we listen,—and believe,—why do we not obey?

FOOTNOTES:

[2] “Effects of the Factory System.”—Allen Clarke.

[3] John xii. 49.

UNCHRISTIAN CLERICS

It is generally supposed that an ordained minister of the Gospel is a Christian. Whatever the faults, negligences and shortcomings of other people in other conditions of life, it is tacitly expected that the professing disciples of Christ, the priests, teachers and exponents of holy and spiritual things, should be more or less holy and spiritual in themselves. They are at any rate accredited with honest effort to practise, as well as to preach, the divine ethics of their Divine Master. Their position in the social community is one which, through old-time tradition, historical sentiment, and inborn national piety, is bound to command a certain respect from the laity. Any public disgrace befalling a clergyman is always accompanied by a strong public sense of shame, disappointment and regret. And when we meet (as most unhappily we often do), with men in “holy orders” who,—instead of furnishing the noble and pure examples of life and character which we have a distinct right to look for in them,—degrade themselves and their high profession by conduct unworthy of the lowest untutored barbarian, we are moved by amazement as well as sorrow to think that such wolves in sheep’s clothing should dare to masquerade as the sacredly ordained helpers and instructors of the struggling human soul.

During the past few years there have been many examples of men belonging to the hierarchy of the Church, who have wantonly and knowingly outraged every canon of honour and virtue, and their sins appear all the blacker because of the whiteness of the faith they profess to serve. A criminal is twice a criminal when he adds hypocrisy to his crime. The clergyman of a parish, who has all doors thrown open to him,—who invites and receives the trust of his parishioners,—who is set among them to guide, help and comfort them in the devious and difficult ways of life, is a thousand times more to blame than any other man in a less responsible position, when he knowingly and deliberately consents to sin. Unless he is able to govern his own passions, and eschew every base, mean and petty motive of action, he is not fit to influence his fellow men, nor should he presume to instruct them in matters which he makes it evident he does not himself understand.

Quite recently a case was chronicled in the daily press of a clergyman who went to visit a dying woman at her own request. She wished to make a last confession to him, and so unburden her soul of its secret misery before she passed away, trusting in God’s mercy for pardon and peace. The clergyman went accordingly, and heard what she had to say. When the unhappy creature was dead, however, he refused her poor body the sacred rites of burial! Now it surely may be asked what authority had he or any man calling himself a Christian minister to refuse the rites of burial even to the worst of sinners? Whatever the woman’s faults might have been, vengeance wreaked on a corpse is both futile and barbarous. There is nothing in Christ’s pure and noble teaching that can endorse so unholy a spirit of intolerance,—one too, which is calculated to give the bitterest pain to the living friends and relations of the so coarsely-insulted dead, and to breed in them a relentless hostility to the Church and its representatives. For the poorest erring human creature that ever turned over the pages of the New Testament, knows that such conduct is not Christ-like, inasmuch as Christ had nothing but the tenderest pity, pardon and peace for the worst sinner at the last moment. When death steps in to close all accounts, it behoves man to be more than merciful to his brother man. “For if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses.”

Still fresh in the minds of many must be the un-Christian conduct of the late Cardinal Vaughan in denying the rites of Christian burial to the venerable Dr. St. George Mivart. Dr. St. George Mivart was a man of science whose theories did not agree with the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church, and as he belonged ostensibly to that form of faith, one may call him, if one so chooses, a bad Catholic. But when it is remembered that within quite recent days, so-called “Christian” priests in Servia have given their solemn benediction to the assassins of the late King and Queen of that country, it is somewhat difficult to understand or appreciate the kind of “religion” that blesses murderers and regicides, yet refuses burial to a modern scientist who, as far as his intellectual powers allowed him, was working for the good and the wider instruction of the human race. At the time of the “inhibition” and subsequent death of Dr. Mivart, I ventured to address an “Open Letter” to Cardinal Vaughan on the subject. This Letter was published in March 1900, and though no doubt the great “Prince of the Church” never deigned to read it, a large majority of the public did, and I have had much cause to rejoice that in the timorously silent acquiescence of the Christian world in a deed which shames the very name of Christ, I, at least, as one of the humblest among the followers of the Christian faith, did have sufficient courage to speak out openly against the wicked intolerance which made the Church itself seem mere “sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal,” because lacking in that holy charity “which suffereth long and is kind.” It was a barbarous act to “inhibit” Dr. Mivart,—it was still more barbarous to refuse his body the sacred burial-rites,—and though the great Cardinal has now followed his victim to that world where all the secrets of the soul are made manifest, his cruelty remains as a blot on his mortal career,—a black smirch, ugly to look upon in the chronicle of his various virtues and excellencies. No ordained minister of the Gospel has the right to be intolerant. He has not the slightest excuse for arrogating to himself any other code of ethics or conduct than that which is set out plainly for him in the New Testament. Away from that he should not dare to go, if he truly believes what he elects to preach,—and if he does not believe, he should at once resign his office and not live on the proceeds of what in his own private conscience he considers untrue.

Most of us have met with many a mean little curate,—many a sly, spiteful, scandal-mongering hypocritical parson,—in the daily round of our common lives and duties. Most of us know the “salad” cleric,—the gentleman who is a doubtful compound of oil and vinegar, with a good deal of tough green vegetable matter growing where the brain should be,—coarse weed of bigotry, prejudice, and rank obstinacy. None of us are entirely ignorant of the sedately amorous parson who is either looking out for a wife on his own account, or attempting a “Christianly” conversion of the wife of somebody else. In country towns we can scarcely fail to have come across the domineering vicar,—the small and petty tyrant, who whips the souls committed to his charge with rods steeped in his own particular pickle of arrogance, austerity and coercion, playing the part of a little despot over terrorized Sunday-school children, and laying down the law for his parishioners by way of a “new dispensation” wherein the Gospel has no part. One such petty martinet, well known in a certain rural parish, plays regular “ogre” to his choir boys. It is always a case of “Fee, fi, fa, fo, fum, I smell the blood of a chorister,” with him. Should one of these unfortunate minstrels chance to sneeze during service, this vicar straightway imposes a penny fine (sometimes more) on the unlucky little wretch for yielding to an irresistible nasal impulse! This kind of thing is, of course, ridiculous, and would merit nothing but laughter, were it not for the dislike, distrust and contempt engendered in the minds of the boys by the display of such a peevish spirit of trumpery oppression on the part of a man who is placed in the position he holds to be an example of kindness, good temper, cheerfulness and amiability to all. True, the vicar in question is what may be called “liverish,” and a small boy’s sneeze may seem, to a mind perverted by bilious bodily secretions, like the collapse of a universe. But there are various ways of conquering even one’s physical ills,—at least to the extent of sparing poor children the infliction of fines because they have noses which occasionally give them trouble.

The begging cleric is of all sacerdotal figures the one most familiar to the general community. One can seldom attend a church without hearing the mendicant’s plea. If the collection taken were indeed for the poor, and one felt that it was really and truly going to help feed the starving and nourish the sick, how gladly most of us would contribute, to the very best of our ability! But sad experience teaches us that this is not so. There are “Funds” of other mettle than for the sick and poor,—“restoration” funds especially. For many years a famous church was in debt owing to “restorations,” and Sunday after Sunday the vicar implored his congregation to lift “the burden” off its time-honoured walls—in vain! At last one parishioner paid the amount required in full. The vicar acknowledged the cheque,—put a recording line in the “Parish Magazine,”—wrote a formal letter of thanks regretting that the donor did not “show a good example by attending public worship on Sundays,”—after which, for more than a year he did not speak to that parishioner again! This is a fact. Neither he nor his wife during that time ever showed the slightest common civility to the one individual who, out of all the parish, had “lifted the burden,” concerning which so many pious exordiums had been preached. Till the debt was paid, the vicar showed every friendliness to the person in question—but afterwards—well!—one can only suppose it was a case of “Othello’s occupation gone!” He could beg no more,—not for that particular object. But I understand he has started fresh “restorations” lately, so till he finds another trusting sheep in the way of a too sympathetic parishioner, he will be quite happy.

There are some clerics who, to their sacred duties add “a little literary work.” They are not literary men,—indeed very frequently they have no idea whatever of literature—they are what may be called “literary jobbers.” Many clergymen have been, and are still, greatly distinguished in the literary calling—but I am not alluding to past or future Kingsleys. The men I mean are those who “do a bit of writing”—and help in compiling books of reference to which few ever refer. They are apt to be the most pertinacious beggars of their class,—beggars, not for others’ needs, but for their own. They want introductions to “useful” people—people of “influence”—and they ask for letters to publishers, which they sometimes get. The publishers are not grateful. They are over-run, they say, with clergymen who want to write guide-books, books of travel, books of reference, books of reminiscence. One of these “reverend” individuals, pleading stress of poverty, was employed by a lady to do some copying work, for which, in a well-meant wish to satisfy the immediate needs of his wife and children, she paid him in advance the sum of Fifty Pounds. He sent her a signed receipt for the money with the following gushing epistle:

“Dear ——,

Could I write as you do, I might find words to express in part some of my feelings of gratitude to you for all your kindness. My little daughter owes to you untold happiness, and I believe the goodness you ever show her will brighten her whole future life. My dear wife you help to bear her many burdens of health and loneliness as no other has ever attempted to do; and my very mediocre self owes to you, a recognition, after many long struggles, I will not say of merit, for no one knows better than myself, my own shortcomings, but of ‘effort.’ In fact, you come to us as Amenhotep sung of the sun:—

Thou art very beautiful, brilliant and exalted above earth,

Thy beams encompass all lands, which thou hast made.

Thou art our sun.

Thou bindest us with thy love.

Thou art on high, but the day passes with thy going!

Even so, your kindly heart has shone upon our life, and made us feel the springs of life within us. May the Great Master of all things for ever bless you and yours!”

After this poetical effusion,[4] it is difficult to believe that this same “Christian” minister, in order to gratify the private jealousy, spite and malice of a few common persons whom he fancied might be useful to him on account of their “local” influence, wrote and published a scurrilous lampoon on the very friend who had tried to benefit him and his wife and family, and to whom he had expressed himself in the above terms of unmeasured gratitude! But such, nevertheless, was the case. Report says that he was handsomely paid for his trouble, which may perhaps serve as his excuse,—for in many cases, as we know, money outweighs principle, even with a disciple of Christ. It did so in the case of Judas Iscariot, who, however, “went out and hanged himself” promptly. Perhaps the “very mediocre” cleric who owed to the woman he afterwards insulted, “a recognition after many long struggles,” will do the same morally and socially in due course. For it would be as great a wrong to the Church to call such a man a “Christian” as it would be to canonize Judas. Even the untutored savage will not injure one with whom he has broken bread. And to bite the hand that has supplied a need, is scarcely the act of a mongrel cur,—let us hope it is a sufficiently rare performance among mongrel clerics.

Among other such “trifling” instances of the un-Christianity of Christian ministers may be quoted a recent instance of a letter addressed to a country newspaper by a clergyman who complained of the small fees allowed him for the burial of paupers! “The game,” so he expressed it, “was not worth the candle.” Christian charity was no part of the business. Unless one can make a margin of profit, by committing paupers to the hope of a joyful resurrection, why do it at all? Such appeared to be the sum and substance of the reverend gentleman’s argument. Another case in point is the following: A poor man of seventy-five years old, getting the impression that Death was too long in coming to fetch him, committed suicide by hanging himself in a coal-shed. His widow, nearly as aged as he was, went tottering feebly along to the clergyman of the parish, to relate the disaster and seek for help. The first thing the good minister told her was, that her husband, by committing suicide, had gone to hell. He then relaxed his sternness somewhat, and kindly said that, considering her age, infirmity and trouble, she “might call at the rectory every afternoon for the tea-leaves.” This gracious invitation meant that the bereaved old creature could have, for her consolation, the refuse of the afternoon tea-pot after it had been well drained by this “Christian” gentleman, his wife and family! Of other help she got none, and life having become too hard for her to manage alone, despite the assistance of the clergyman’s tea-leaves, she very soon, fortunately for herself, died of grief and starvation. “He that giveth to the poor” in this fashion, truly “lendeth to the Lord.”

“Christianity” and “Christian” are beautiful words, emblematic of beautiful thoughts and beautiful deeds. The men who profess to teach the value of those thoughts, the influence of those deeds, should be capable in themselves of practically illustrating what they mean by their faith, in their own lives and actions. Inspired by the purest Creed that was ever taught to mankind for its better hope and enlightenment, they should express in their attitude to the world, a confident and constant joy and belief in God’s goodness, and should remember that if He, their divine Master “so loved us,” equally should they, His ordained ministers, love us, ay, even the worst of us, in their turn. When, on the contrary, they do things for which the poorest peasant or dockyard labourer would have the right, and the honest right too, to despise them,—when they commit base actions for money or advancement,—when they are harsh, unyielding, discourteous and obstinate to the degree of even declining to aid a good cause or assist in some benefit to the nation at large, merely because they have not been consulted as to ways and methods, they do not deserve to be called “Christian” at all. They are of that class, unhappily increasing in number, who cry out: “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name?” to whom will be given the answer: “I never knew you; depart from Me, ye that work iniquity!” Great and noble beyond all praise are true “Christian” ministers,—and thousands of them are to be found in all parts of the world, working silently and bravely for the rescue of bodies as well as souls, giving practical as well as spiritual help and sympathy to their fellow-men in trouble. But just because their labours are so valuable, one resents all the more deeply the conduct of certain members of the clergy who cast dishonour upon their whole calling,—and just because the vocation of “priest” is so high, we intensely deplore every action that tends to debase it. The un-Christian cleric belongs to no spiritual form of faith whatsoever, and should not be allowed to pretend that he does. He has but one religion,—Self. And from the professor of Self, no man need ask either help or instruction.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] As some doubt has been expressed as to whether this incident is a true one, the author wishes it to be known that she holds the original letter written and signed by the reverend lampooner in question.

THE SOCIAL BLIGHT

People who live in the country know what is meant by a “blight”—a thing which is neither mist nor storm, neither cloud nor rain,—a fever of the atmosphere, without any freshening or cleansing force in its composition. Like a dull stretch of smoky fog, it hangs for hours and often for days over the face of the landscape, poisoning the wholesome fruit and grain in the orchards and fields, and leaving trails of noxious insect pests behind it upon trees and flowers, withering their foliage, and blackening all buds of promise with a destroying canker to their very core. It is a suffocating, malodorous miasma, clinging to the air, for which there is no remedy but a strong, ay, even a tempestuous wind,—a wind which vigorously pierces through the humid vapour and disperses it, tearing it to shreds, and finally working up such a storm as shall drown it out of existence in torrents of purifying rain. Then all nature is relieved,—the air is cleared,—health and gladness re-assert their beneficent influences, and the land lies open to renewed life and easy breathing once more.

Even as “blight” is known in things natural, so is it known and easily recognizable in things moral and social. It occurs periodically and with more or less regularity, between certain changing, and not always progressive phases or epochs of human civilization. It visited Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon; it loomed over Nineveh and Babylon,—and in our day it is steadily spreading its pall over Europe and America. Its gloom is heavy and pronounced,—it would seem to be darkening into the true sable or death colour, for there is no light of faith to illumine it. It is the outcome of the infected breath of peoples who are deliberately setting God aside out of their countings, and living for Self and the Hour alone. So-called “scientists,” scraping at the crust-covering of the mine of knowledge, and learning of its hidden treasure about as much as might be measured with a finger-nail, have boldly asserted that there is no God, no Supreme Intelligent Force back of the universe,—no future life,—nothing but death and destruction for the aspiring, fighting, working human soul,—and that, therefore, having been created out of caprice, a “sport” of chance and the elements, and having nothing to exist for but to make chance and the elements as agreeable as possible during his brief conscious experience of them, the best thing for man to do is to “eat, drink, and be merry all the days of his life,” though even this, according to Solomon, is “also vanity.” For of eating comes indigestion, of drink stupefaction, and of merriment satiety. Strange it is that if there is no higher destiny for man than this world and its uses, he should always be thrown back upon himself dissatisfied! Give him millions of money, and when he has them, he cares little for what they can bring; grant him unlimited power and a few years suffice to weary him of its use. And stranger still it is to realize, that while those who do not admit God’s existence, strut forth like bantams on a dunghill, crowing their little opinions about the sun-rise, we are all held fast and guided, not only in our physical, but in our moral lives by immutable laws, invisible in their working, but sooner or later made openly manifest. Crime meets with punishment as surely as night follows day. If the retribution is not of man’s making,—if human law, often so vicious and one-sided in itself, fails to give justice to the innocent, then Something or Someone steps in to supply man’s lack of truth and courage, and executes a judgment from which there is no appeal. What it is or Who it is, we may not presume to declare,—the Romans called it Jove or Jupiter;—we call it God, while denying, with precisely the same easy flippancy as the Romans did just before their downfall, that such a Force exists. It is convenient and satisfying to Mammonites and sensualists generally, to believe in nothing but themselves, and the present day. It would be very unpleasant for them to have to contemplate with any certainty a future life where neither Money nor Sex prevail. And because it would be unpleasant, they naturally do not admit its possibility. Nevertheless, without belief in the Creator and Ruler of all things,—without faith in the higher spiritual destiny of man as an immortal and individual soul, capable of progressing ever onwards to wider and grander spheres of action, life in this world appears but a poor and farcical futility.

Yet it is precisely the poor, farcical and futile view of life that is taken by thousands of European and American people in our present period. Both press and pulpit reflect it; it is openly shown in the decadence of the drama, of art, of literature, of politics, and of social conduct. The “blight” is over all. The blight of atheism, infidelity, callousness and indifference to honourable principle,—the blight of moral cowardice, self-indulgence, vanity and want of heart. Without mincing matters, it can be fairly stated that the aristocratic Jezebel is the fashionable woman of the hour, while the men vie with one another as to who shall best screen her from her amours with themselves. And so far as the sterner sex are personally concerned, the moneyed man is the one most sought after, most tolerated, most appreciated and flattered in that swarm of drones called “society” where each buzzing insect tries to sting the other, or crawl over it in such wise as to be the first to steal whatever honey may be within reach. And worst of all things is the selfish apathy which pervades the majority of the well-to-do classes. As little sympathy is shown among them for the living, as regret for the dead. The misfortunes of friends are far more often made subject for ill-natured mockery than for compassion,—the deaths of parents and relations are accepted with a kind of dull pleasure, as making way for the inheritance of money or estates. No real delight is shown in the arts which foster peace, progress and wisdom; and equally little enthusiasm is stirred for such considerations of diplomacy or government which help to keep nations secure. A great man dies one day, and is forgotten the next,—unless some clumsy and scandalous “biography” which rakes up all his faults and mistakes in life, and publishes private letters of the most intimate and sacred character, can be hawked to the front by certain literary vultures who get their living by tearing out the heart of a corpse. Say that a dire tragedy is enacted,—such as the assassination of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, or the atrocious murder of the late King and Queen of Servia,—or, what is to many minds almost as bad,—the heartless and un-Christian conduct of Leopold, King of the Belgians, to his unhappy daughter Stéphanie,—and though each event may be as painful and terrible as any that ever occupied the attention of the historian, they appear to excite no more human emotion than a few cold expressions of civil surprise or indifference. Feeling,—warm, honest, active, passionate feeling for any cause, is more difficult to rouse than the Sloth from its slumbers. It would, in truth, seem to be dead. The Church cannot move it. The Drama fails to stir it. Patriotism,—National Honour,—have no power to lift it from the quagmire of inertia. But let there be a sudden panic on the Stock Exchange,—let the Paris Bourse be shaken,—let Wall Street be ablaze with sinister rumour—and then hey and halloo for a reckless, degrading, humiliating, miserable human stampede! Like infuriated maniacs men shriek and stamp and wrestle;—with brains on fire, they forget that they were born to be reasoning creatures capable of self-control;—their much boasted-of “education” avails them nothing,—and they offer to the gods a spectacle of frantic fear and ignominy of which even an untaught savage might well be ashamed.

But perhaps the most noxious sign of the blight in the social atmosphere is the openly increasing laxity of morals, and the frankly disgraceful disregard of the marriage tie. Herein the British aristocracy take the lead as the choicest examples of the age. Whatever Europe or America may show in the way of godless and dissolute living, we are unhappily forced to realize that there are men in Great Britain, renowned for their historic names and exclusive positions, who are content to stand by, the tame witnesses of their own marital dishonour, accepting, with a cowardice too contemptible for horsewhipping, other men’s children as their own, all the time knowing them to be bastards. We have heard of a certain “nobleman” who,—to quote Holy Writ,—“neighed after” another man’s wife to such an extent, that to stop the noise, the obliging husband accepted £60,000, a trifling sum, which was duly handed over. Whether the gentleman who neighed, or the gentleman who paid, was the worst rascal, must be left to others to determine. It was all hushed up quite nicely,—and both parties are received “in the best society,” with even more attention than would be shown to them if they were clean and honest, instead of being soiled and disreputable. The portrait of the lady whose damaged virtue was plastered up for £60,000 is often seen in pictorials, with appended letterpress suitably describing her as a lily-white dove of sweet purity and peace. One blames the sinners in this sordid comedy less than the “fashionable” folk who tolerate and excuse their conduct. Sinners there are, and sinners there always will be,—modern Davids will always exist who seek after Bathsheba, and do their level best to get Uriah the Hittite comfortably out of the way,—but that they should be encouraged in their sins and commended for them, is quite another story. Apart from the pernicious influence they exercise on their own particular “set,” the example of conduct they give to the nation at large, not only arouses national contempt, but in some cases, where certain notable politicians are concerned, may breed national disaster.

With looseness of morals naturally comes looseness of conversation. The conversation of many of the Upper Ten, in England at least, shows a remarkable tendency towards repulsive subjects and objectionable details. It is becoming quite a common thing to hear men and women talking about their “Little Marys,” a phrase which, though invented by Mr. J. M. Barrie, is not without considerable vulgarity and offence. Before the brilliant Scottish novelist chose this title for a play dealing with the digestive apparatus, it would have done him no harm to pause and reflect that with a very large portion of the Christian world, namely the Roman Catholic, the name of Mary is held to be the most sacred of all names, second to none save that of the Divine Founder of the Faith. I am told on good authority that Americans,—especially the best of the American women,—have been amazed and more or less scandalized at the idea that any portion of the “cultured” British public should be found willing to attend a dramatic representation dealing with matters pertaining to the human stomach. I hope this report is true. My admiration for some American women is considerable, but it would go up several points higher if I were made quite sure that their objection to this form of theatrical enterprise was genuine, permanent, and unconquerable. I like Mr. Barrie very much, and his Scottish stories delight me as they delight everybody, but I want him to draw the line at the unbeautiful details of dyspepsia. People are already too fond of talking about the various diseases afflicting various parts of their bodies to need any spur in that way from the romantic drama. One of the most notorious women of the day has attained her doubtful celebrity partially by conversing about her own inner mechanism and other people’s inner mechanisms in a style which is not only “free,” but frankly disgusting. But,—“she is so amusing!” say the Smart Set,—“One cannot repeat her stories, of course—they go rather far!—but—but—you really ought to hear her tell them!” This kind of thing is on a par with certain lewd fiction lately advertised by certain enterprising publishers who announce—“You must have this book! The booksellers will not show it on their bookstalls. They say you ought NOT to read it. GET IT!”

All homage to the booksellers who draw the line at printed garbage! One must needs admire and respect them for refusing to take percentages on the sale of corrupt matter. For business is always business,—and when business men see that the tendency of a certain portion of the reading public is towards prurient literature, they might, were they less honourable and conscientious than they are, avail themselves financially of this morbid and depraved taste. Especially as there are a large number of self-called “stylists” who can always be relied upon to praise the indecent in literature. They call it “strong,” or “virile,” and reck nothing of the fact that the “strong” stench of it may poison previously healthy minds, and corrupt otherwise innocent souls. Prurient literature is always a never-failing accompaniment of social “blight.” The fancy for it arises when wholesome literary fare has become too simple for the diseased and capricious mental appetite, and when the ideal conceptions of great imaginative minds, such as the romances of Scott and Dickens, are voted “too long and boresome!—there’s really no time to read such stories nowadays!” No,—there is no time! There’s plenty of time to play Bridge though!

Poetry—the greatest of the arts—is neglected at the present day, because nobody will read it. Among the most highly “educated” persons, many can be met with who prattle glibly about Shakespeare, but who neither know the names of his plays nor have read a line of his work. With the decline of Poesy comes as a matter of course the decline of Sculpture, Painting, Architecture and Music. For Poesy is the parent stem from which all these arts have sprung. The proofs of their decline are visible enough amongst us to-day. Neither Great Britain, nor Europe, nor America, can show a really great Poet. England’s last great poet was Tennyson,—since his death we have had no other. Similarly there is no great sculptor, no great painter, no great novelist, no great architect, no great musician. I use the word “great,” of course, in its largest sense, in the sense wherein we speak of Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, or Beethoven. There are plenty of clever “sketchy” artists,—“impressionist” painters and fictionists, “rococo” sculptors, and melodious drawing-room song-writers,—but we wait in vain for a new “grand” opera, a nobly-inspired statue, a novel like “Guy Mannering,” or a Cathedral, such as the devout old monks designed in the intervals between prayer and praise. The beautiful and poetic ideals that made such work possible are, if not quite dead, slowly dying, under the influence of the “blight” which infects the social atmosphere,—the blight which is thick with Self and Sensuality,—which looms between man and his Maker, shutting out every hopeful glimpse of the sun of faith, whose life-giving rays invigorate the soul. And those who see it slowly darkening—those who have been and are students of history, and are thereby able to recognize its appearance, its meaning, and its mission, and who know the mischief wrought by the poison it exhales, will pray for a Storm!

“Come but the direst storm and stress that Fate

Can bring upon us in its darkest hour,

Then will the realm awake, however late,

From the warm sloth in which we yawn and cower,

And pass our sordid lives in greed, or mate

With animal delights in luxury’s bower;

Then will the ancient virtues bloom anew,

And love of country quench the love of gold;

Then will the mocking spirits that imbue

Our daily converse fade like misty cold

When the clear sunshine permeates the blue;

Men will be manly as in days of old,

And scorn the base delights that sink them down

Into the languid waters where they drown!”

THE DEATH OF HOSPITALITY

There is an old song, a very old song, the refrain of which runs thus: “’Twas merry in the hall, when the beards wagged all, We shall never see the like again, again!—We shall never see the like again!” Whether there was anything particularly hilarious in the wagging of beards we may not feel able to determine, but there is unquestionably a vague sense of something festive and social conveyed in the quaint lines. We feel, without knowing why, that it was, it must have been, “merry in the hall,” at the distant period alluded to,—while at the present time we are daily and hourly made painfully aware that whether it be in hall, drawing-room or extensive “reception gallery,” the merriment formerly so well sung and spoken of exists no longer. The Harp that once through Tara’s Halls—no!—I mean the Beards that once wagged in the Hall, wag no more. Honest laughter has given place to the nanny-goat sniggering bleat now common to polite society, and understood to be the elegantly trained and “cultured” expression of mirth. The warm hand-shake has, in a very great measure, degenerated into the timorous offer of two or three clammy fingers extended dubiously, as with a fear of microbes. And Hospitality, large-hearted, smiling, gracious Hospitality, is dead and wrapped in its grave-clothes, waiting in stiff corpse-like state for its final burial. Public dinners, public functions of all kinds,—in England at any rate,—are merely so many funeral feasts in memory of the great defunct virtue. Its spirit has fled,—and there is no calling it back again. The art of entertaining is lost,—together with the art of conversation. And when our so-called “friends” are “at home,” we are often more anxious to find reasons for declining rather than for accepting their invitations, simply because we know that there is no real “at home” in it, but merely an “out-of-home” arrangement, in which a mixed crowd of people are asked to stand and swelter in an uneasy crush on staircases and in drawing-rooms, pretending to listen to music which they can scarcely hear, and scrambling for tea which is generally too badly made to drink. Indeed, it may be doubted whether, of all the various ludicrous social observances in which our progressive day takes part, there is anything quite so sublimely idiotic as a smart “At Home” in London during the height of the season. Nothing certainly presents men and women in such a singularly unintelligent aspect. Their faces all wear more or less the same expression of forced amiability,—the same civil grin distorts their poor mouths—the same wondering and weary stare afflicts their tired straining eyeballs—and the same automatic arm-movement and hand-jerk works every unit, as each approaches the hostess in the conventional manner enjoined by the usages of that “cultured” hypocrisy which covers a multitude of lies. Sheep, herding in a field and cropping the herbage in the comfortable unconsciousness that they are eating merely to be eaten, are often stated to be the silliest of animals,—but whether they are sillier than the human beings who consent to be squashed together in stuffy rooms where they can scarcely move, under the sham impression that they are “at home” with a friend, is a matter open to question. Of course to some minds it may be, and no doubt is, extremely edifying to learn by the society papers that Mrs. So-and-So, or Lord and Lady Thingummy will “entertain a great deal this season.” People who have no idea what this kind of “entertaining” means, may have glittering visions thereof. They may picture to themselves scenes of brilliancy where “a thousand hearts beat happily, and when, Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell!” Only these things do not happen. Anything but love is “looked” from soft eyes and hard eyes equally;—derision, contempt, indifference, dejection, malice, and (so far as champagne, ices and general messy feeding are concerned) greed, light up these “windows of the soul” from time to time during the progress of such festivities; but love, never! The women are far too busy finding standing-room wherein to show themselves and their newest frocks off to advantage, to waste any moment in mere sentiment, and it is a Christianly beautiful sight to see how the dear things who wear the dressmaker’s latest “creations” elbow and push and hustle and tread on the toes of their sisters who are less highly favoured than themselves in the matter of mere clothes. As for the men,—if they have, by dint of hard exertion, managed to get in at the “crush,” and near enough to the hostess to bow and touch her hand, their sole attention henceforward becomes concentrated on the business of getting out again as rapidly as possible. For let it be said to the praise, honour and glory of the sterner sex, that taken in the rough majority, they detest the fashionable “At Home,” with vigorous and honest intensity,—and unless they are of that degenerate class who like to be seen hanging round some notoriously press-puffed “professional beauty,” or some equally notoriously known leader of the Smart Set, they are seldom seen at such gatherings. They feel themselves to be incongruous and out of place,—and so they are. “At Homes” are curious sort of social poultry-yards, where the hens have it all their own way, and do most distinctly crow.

But if “At Homes” are bad enough, the smart, the very smart dinner-party is perhaps a little worse in its entire lack of the true hospitality which, united to grace and tact and ready conversation, should make every guest feel that his or her presence is valuable and welcome. A small private dinner, at which the company are some six or eight persons at most, is sometimes (though not by any means always) quite a pleasant affair, but a “big” dinner in the “big” sense of the word, is generally the most painful and dismal of functions, except to those for whom silent gorging and after repletion are the essence of all mental and physical joy. I remember—and of a truth it would be impossible to forget—one of these dinners which took place one season in a very “swagger” house—the house of a member of that old British nobility whose ancestors and titles always excite a gentle flow of saliva in the mouths of snobs. The tables—there were two,—were, to use the formal phrase, “laid for forty covers”—that is to say that each table accommodated twenty guests. The loveliest flowers, the most priceless silver, the daintiest glass, adorned the festive boards,—everything that taste could suggest or wealth supply, had its share in the general effect of design and colour,—the host was at the head of one table,—the hostess at the other—and between-whiles a fine string band discoursed the sweetest music. But with it all there was no real hospitality. We might as well have been seated at some extra-luxurious table-d’hôte in one of the “Kur” houses of Austria or Germany, paying so much per day for our entertainment. Any touch of warm and kindly feeling was altogether lacking; and to make matters worse, a heavy demon brooded over the brave outward show of the feast,—a demon with sodden grey wings that refused to rise and soar,—the demon of a hopeless, irremediable Stupidity! Out and alas!—here was the core of the mischief! For sad as it is to lack Heart in the entertaining of our friends, it doubles the calamity to lack Brain as well! Our host was stupid;—dull to a degree unimaginable by those who do not know what some lordly British aristocrats can be at their own tables,—our hostess, a beautiful woman, was equally stupid, being entirely engrossed in herself and her own bodily charms, to the utter oblivion of the ease and well-being of her guests. What a meal it was! How interminably it dragged its slow length along! What small hydraulic bursts of meaningless talk spurted out between the entrées and the game!—talk to be either checked by waiters proffering more food, or drowned in the musical growling of the band! I believe one man hazarded a joke,—but it was not heard,—and I know that a witty old Irish peer told an anecdote which was promptly “quashed” by a dish of asparagus being thrust before him, just as he was, in the richest brogue, arriving at the “point.” But as nobody listened to him, it did not matter. Nobody does listen to anybody or anything nowadays at social functions. Everybody talks with insane, babbling eagerness, apparently indifferent as to whether they are heard or not. Any amount of people ask questions and never think of waiting for the answers. Should any matters, small or great, require explanation, scarce a soul has the patience or courtesy to attend to such explanation or to follow it with any lucidity or comprehension. It is all hurry-skurry, helter-skelter, and bad, shockingly bad, manners.

I am given to understand that Americans, and Americans alone, retain and cherish the old-fashioned grace of Hospitality, which is so rapidly becoming extinct in Great Britain. I would fain believe this, but of myself I do not know. I have had no experience of social America, save such as has been freely and cordially taught me by Americans in London. Some of these have indeed proved that they possess the art of entertaining friends with real friendly delight in the grace and charm and mutual help of social intercourse,—others again, by an inordinate display of wealth, and a feverish yearning for the Paragraph-Man (or Woman), have plainly shown that Hospitality is, with them, a far less concern than Notoriety. However this may be, no sane person will allow that it is “hospitality” to ask a number of friends into your house and there keep them all standing because you have managed that there shall be no room to sit down, while strong, half-cold tea and stale confectionery are hastily dispensed among them. It is not “hospitality” to ask people to dinner, and never speak a word to them all the evening, because you, if a man, are engaged upon your own little “business affair,” or, if a woman, are anxious not to lose hold of your special male flatterer. If friends are invited, they should surely be welcomed in the manner friendly, and made to feel at home by the personal attention of both host and hostess. It is not “hospitality” to turn them loose in bewildered droves through grounds or gardens, to listen to a band which they have no doubt heard many times before,—or to pack them all into a stuffy room to be “entertained” by a professional musician whom they could hear to much more comfortable and independent advantage by paying for stalls at the legitimate concert hall. What do we really mean by Hospitality? Surely we mean friendship, kindness, personal interest, and warm-hearted openness of look and conduct,—and all of these are deplorably missing from the “smart” functions of up-to-date society in London, whatever the state of things may be concerning this antique virtue in New York and Boston. It would appear that the chief ingredients of Hospitality are manners,—for as Emerson says: “Manners are the happy way of doing things.” This “happy way” is becoming very rare. Society, particularly the “Upper Ten” society,—is becoming, quite noticeably, very rude. Some of the so-called “smartest” women are notoriously very vulgar. Honesty, simplicity, sympathy, and delicacy of feeling are, or seem to be, as much out of date as the dainty poems of Robert Herrick, and the love-sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney. Time goes on, say the iconoclasts—and we must go with it—we must, if our hurrying civilization requires it, pass friends by with a cool nod, mock at the vices of the young, and sneer at the failings of the old;—we are all too busy to be courteous,—too much in a hurry grabbing gold to be kind, and much too occupied with ourselves to be thoughtful of others. So let us bury Hospitality decently once and for all, and talk no more about it! It was a grand old Virtue!—let us inter it with honour,—and cease to hold our funeral feasts and entertainments in its name. For, being dead, ’tis dead and done with,—and amid all our twentieth-century shams, let us at least drop, for shame, our base imitations of the great-souled splendid Grace that was meant to link our lives more sweetly together, to engender love, and to make home more home-like. For nowadays, few of us are simple and truthful enough in our lines of conduct even to understand Hospitality in its real meaning. “Between simple and noble persons,”—says a great philosopher—“there is always a quick intelligence; they recognize at sight; and meet on a better ground than the talents and skills they may chance to possess, namely, on sincerity and uprightness.” Sincerity and uprightness are the very fibre and life-blood of true Hospitality. But the chief canon of modern society is hypocrisy, to begin with. Insincerity and lack of principle naturally follow, with their usual accompaniment, moral cowardice,—and so men and women sneak and crawl, and flatter base persons for what they can get, and reject all chances of faithful friendship for mere ephemeral show. Under such conditions as these, what can good old Hospitality do but draw its last breath with a gentle sigh of expiring sorrow for the mistaken world which prefers a lie to a truth, and still to this day crucifies all its loving would-be redeemers on miserable Calvarys of desolation! No happiness does it gain thereby, but only increased bitterness and weariness,—and the fact that all our social customs have greatly changed since the old time when households were wisely ruled and very simply ordered, is no advantage to the general social community. We may, if we choose,—(and we very often do so choose,) fly from one desire to another and thence to satiety, and back again from satiety to desire, but we shall never, in such pursuit, find the peace engendered by simplicity of life, or the love and lasting joy inspired by that honourable confidence in one another’s best and noblest attributes, which should frankly and openly set the seal on friendship, and make Hospitality a glad duty as well as a delight. “Old-fashioned” as it may be, no new fashion can ever replace it.

THE VULGARITY OF WEALTH

There are certain periods in the lives of nations when the balance of things in general would seem to be faultily adjusted; when one side of the scale almost breaks and falls to the ground through excess of weight, and the other tips crazily upward, well-nigh to overturning, through an equally undue excess of lightness. The inequality can be traced with mathematical precision as occurring at regular intervals throughout the world’s history. It is as though the clock of human affairs had been set correctly for a certain limited time only, and was then foredoomed to fall out of gear in such a manner as to need cleansing and winding up afresh. A good many people, including some of the wisest of our few wise men, have openly expressed the opinion that we, of the proudest and greatest Empire at present under the sun, have almost reached that particularly fatal figure on the Eternal Dial,

When all the wheels run down,

and when the scales of Justice are becoming so dangerously worn out and uneven, as to suggest an incapacity for holding social and political weights and measures much longer. One of the symptoms of this overstrained condition of our latter-day civilization is precisely the same danger-signal which has in all ages accompanied national disaster—a pernicious influence, like that of the planet “Algol,” which, when in the ascendant, is said to betoken mischief and ruin to all who see it rise on the horizon. Our evil Star, the evil star of all Empires, has long ago soared above the eastern edge; fully declared, it floods our heaven with such lurid brilliancy that we can scarce perceive any other luminary. And its name is Mammon. The present era in which we are permitted by Divine law to run through our brief existence and make our mark or miss it, as we choose, is principally distinguished by an insane worship of Wealth. Wealth in excess—wealth in chunks—wealth in great awkward, unbecoming dabs, is plastered, as it were, by the merest hap-hazard toss of fortune’s dice, on the backs of uncultured and illiterate persons, who, bowed down like asses beneath the golden burden, are asininely ignorant of its highest uses. The making of millions would seem to be like a malignant fever, which must run its course, ending in either the death or the mental and physical wreck of the patient. He who has much money seems always to find it insufficient, and straightway proceeds to make more; while he who has not only much, but superabundance of the dross, scatters it in every direction broadcast, wherever it can best serve as an aid to his own self-advertisement, vanity and ostentation. Once upon a time wealth could not purchase an entrance into society; now it is the only pass-key. Men of high repute for learning, bravery, and distinctive merit, are “shunted” as it were off the line to make way for the motor-car traffic of plutocrats, who, by dint of “push,” effrontery, and brazen impudence, manage to shout their income figures persistently in the ears of those whose high privilege it is to “give the lead” in social affairs. And to the shame of such exalted individuals be it said, that they listen, with ears stretched wide, to the yell of the huckster in stocks and shares; and setting aside every thought for the future of Great Britain and the highest honour of her sons and daughters, they sell their good word, their influence, and their favour easily, for so much cash down. Men and women who have the privilege of personally knowing, and frequently associating with the Royal Family, are known to accept payment for bringing such and such otherwise obscure persons under the immediate notice of the King; and it is a most unfortunate and regrettable fact that throughout the realm the word goes that no such obscure persons ever dine with their Sovereign without having paid the “middle man” for the privilege. It would be an easy matter for the present writer to name at least a dozen well-known society women, assuming to be “loyal,” who make a very good thing out of their “loyalty” by accepting huge payments in exchange for their recommendation or introduction to Royal personages, and who add considerably to their incomes by such means, bringing the names of the King and Queen down to their own sordid level of bargain and sale, with a reckless disregard of the damaging results of such contemptible conduct. These are some of the very ladies who are most frequently favoured by notice at Court, and who occupy the position of being in the “swagger set.” Whereas, the men and women who are faithful, who hold the honour of their King dearer than their own lives, who refuse to truckle to the spirit of money-worship, and who presume to denounce the sickening hypocrisy of modern society life and its shameless prostitution of high ideals, are “hounded” by those portions of the Press which are governed by Jew syndicates, and slandered by every dirty cad that makes his cheap living by putting his hand secretly in his neighbour’s pocket. Never, in all the ages of the world, have truth-tellers been welcome; from Socrates to Christ the same persecution has followed every human being who has had enough of God in him or her to denounce shams; and the Christian religion itself is founded on the crucifixion of Honesty by the priests of Hypocrisy. It is a lesson that can hardly be too deeply dwelt upon at the present notable time of day, which seems, for many students of national affairs, the crucial point of a coming complete change in British history.

On every side, look where we may, we see an almost brutal dominance of wealth. We see the Yankee Trade-octopus, stretching out greedy tentacles in every direction, striving to grasp British shipping, British industries, and British interests everywhere, in that devouring and deadly grip, which, if permitted to hold, would mean mischief and loss of prestige to our country, though, no doubt, it might create rejoicing in America. For America is by no means so fond of us as certain interested parties would have us suppose. She would dearly like to “patronise” us, but she does not love us, though at present she hides her hand. In a case of struggle, she would not support the “old country” for mere sentimental love of it. She would naturally serve only her own best interests. As a nation of bombast and swagger, she is a kind of “raree-show” in the world’s progress; but her strength is chiefly centred in dollars, and her influence on the social world teaches that “dollars are the only wear.” English society has been sadly vulgarized by this American taint. Nevertheless, it is, as it has always been, a fatal mistake for any nation to rely on the extent of its cash power alone. Without the real spirit which makes for greatness—without truth, without honour, without sincere patriotism and regard for the real well-being and honest government of the majority—any national system, whether monarchical or republican, must inevitably decay and perish from the face of the earth.

Unblemished honesty is the best policy for statesmen; but that such has been their rule of conduct in these latter years may perhaps be open to question. The late Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, whose broad-minded, impartial views of life, commend themselves forcibly to every literary student, writing of Cecil Rhodes, whose funeral service was celebrated with such almost royal pomp in St. Paul’s Cathedral, gives us a sketch which should make the most casual “man in the street” pause and reflect as to whether those solemn public rites and tributary honours from both the King and Queen were not somewhat out of place on such an occasion.

“What Mr. Rhodes did,” wrote Mr. Lecky, in his strong, trenchant way, “has been very clearly established. When holding the highly confidential position of Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, and being at the same time a Privy Councillor of the Queen, he engaged in a conspiracy for the overthrow of the Government of a neighbouring and friendly State. In order to carry out this design, he deceived the High Commissioner whose Prime Minister he was. He deceived his own colleagues in the Ministry. He collected under false pretences a force which was intended to co-operate with an insurrection in Johannesburg. Being a Director of the Chartered Company, he made use of that position without the knowledge of his colleagues to further the conspiracy. He took an active and secret part in smuggling great quantities of arms into the Transvaal, which were intended to be used in the rebellion; and at a time when his organs in the Press were representing Johannesburg as seething with spontaneous indignation against an oppressive Government, he, with another millionaire, was secretly expending many thousands of pounds in that town in stimulating and subsidizing the rising. He was also directly connected with the shabbiest incident in the whole affair, the concoction of a letter from the Johannesburg conspirators absurdly representing English women and children at Johannesburg as in danger of being shot down by the Boers, and urging the British to come at once and save them. It was a letter drawn up with the sanction of Mr. Rhodes many weeks before the raid, and before any disturbance had arisen; and kept in reserve to be dated and used in the last moment for the purpose of inducing the young soldiers in South Africa to join in the raid, and of subsequently justifying their conduct before the War Office, and also for the purpose of being published in the English Press at the same time as the first news of the raid in order to work upon English opinion, and persuade the English people that the raid, though technically wrong was morally justifiable.... No reasonable judge can question that in these transactions he was more blamable than those who were actually punished by the law for taking part in the raid, far more blamable than those young officers who were, in truth, the most severely punished and who had been induced to take part in it under false representation of the wishes of the Government at home, and a grossly false representation of the state of things at Johannesburg. The failure of the raid, and his undoubted complicity with its design, obliged Mr. Rhodes to resign the post of Prime Minister, and his directorship of the Chartered Company.... But what can be thought of the language of a Minister who volunteered to assure the House of Commons that in all the transactions I have described, Mr. Rhodes, though he had made ‘a gigantic mistake,’ a mistake perhaps as great as a statesman could make, had done nothing affecting his personal honour?”

What has been thought, and what is thought of the matter, has been largely suppressed by party politicians. The War Enquiry was conducted with secrecy; Cabinet Ministers held their Councils, as it were, with locked doors. An eager desire to conceal the real state of affairs in the country, and an unfortunate tendency to “hush up” such matters as are the plain right of ratepayers to know, are the betraying signs of many of our statesmen’s inward disquiet. Because, as many people instinctively feel, the trail of finance is likely to be openly traced to an unlawful, and in some cases, dishonourable extent, over much recent political work. Honour, however, is due to those Ministers who valiantly endeavour to screen greater names than their own behind their skilful diplomacy; and one naturally admires the zeal and courage with which they fight for this cause, even as M. Maurepas and M. Necker fought a similar campaign long ago in the dark days of France, when, as Carlyle writes, it was “clearly a difficult point for Government, that of the dealing with the masses—if indeed it be not rather the sole point and problem of Government, and all other points were incidental crotchets, superficialities, and beatings of the wind! For let Charter-chests, Use and Wont, Law, common and special, say what they will, the masses count to so many millions of units, made to all appearance by God, whose earth this is declared to be. Besides, the people are not without ferocity; they have sinews and indignation.”

At the immediate moment, the masses in our country are, rightly or wrongly, vaguely conscious of two things which they view as forms of injustice, namely, that they are asked to pay rates for an educational system which a large bulk of them do not approve, and that they are taxed for the expenses of a war, the conduct of which was discussed “secretly,” as though its methods implied some dishonour to those concerned in it. Moreover, they understand, with more or less bewilderment, that though the King is now “Supreme Lord of the Transvaal” there is no chance whatever for British subjects to make fortune there, the trades being swamped by Germans, and the mines controlled by Jews. Therefore, in their inability to follow the devious paths of reasoning by which politicians explain away what they term “ignorant and illiterate” conclusions, some of them begin to think that the blood of their sons has been shed in hard battle, not so much for the glory and good of the many, as for the private greed of the few. They are no doubt wrong; but it will take something more than “secret” enquiries to set them right.

Meanwhile, the passing of the social pageant interests them more deeply than is apparent on the frothy surface of social things. Their contempt is aroused and kept sullenly alive by daily contemplation of the flagrant assertion of money-dominance over every other good. They hear of one Andrew Carnegie strewing Free Libraries over the surface of the country, as if these institutions were so many lollipops thrown out of a schoolboy’s satchel; they follow the accounts of his doings with a mingling of wonder and derision, some of them up in Scotland openly and forcibly regretting the mischief done to the famed “grit and grip” of Scottish students, who are not now, as of yore, forced by hard necessity to work for their University education themselves, and win it, as it were, by the very skin of their teeth. Hard necessity is a fine taskmaster, and turns out splendid scholars and useful men. But when educational advantages are thrown headlong at aspiring students, and Universities are opened freely, as though they were a species of pauper-refuge, the delights of learning are apt to be proportionately cheapened and lessened. Lads with real ability naturally and invariably seek to do something that shall prove their own capabilities of pluck and endurance; and a truly independent spirit not only chafes at, but absolutely resents, assistance. Thus it has come to pass that Mr. Carnegie’s Free Libraries are looked upon by hosts of people as so many brick and mortar advertisements of his own great wealth and unfailing liberality. A labour leader of some repute among his own class, remarked the other day that “the Carnegie libraries were like ‘So-and-So’s Pills,’ posted up everywhere lest the inventor’s name should be forgotten!” This was an unkind, and perhaps an ungrateful observation, but we have to recollect that a People, taken as a People, do not want to be grateful for anything. They want to work for all they get, and to feel that they have honestly deserved their earnings. It is only the drones of the hive that seek to be taken care of. The able citizen strenuously objects to be helped in obtaining sustenance for either his soul or his body. What is necessary for him, that he will fight for, and, having won the battle, he enjoys the victory. There is no pleasure in conquering an enemy, if a policeman has helped you to knock him down.

Thus, with many of the more independently-thinking class, millionaire Carnegie’s money, pitched at the public, savours of “patronage” which they resent, and ostentation which they curtly call “swagger.” Free Libraries are by no means essential to perfect happiness, while they may be called extremely detrimental to the prosperity of authors. A popular author would have good reason to rejoice if his works were excluded from Free Libraries, inasmuch as his sales would be twice, perhaps three times as large. If a Free Library takes a dozen copies of a book, that dozen copies has probably to serve for five or six hundred people, who get it in turn individually. But if the book could not possibly be obtained for gratuitous reading in this fashion, and could only be secured by purchase, then it follows that five or six hundred copies would be sold instead of twelve. This applies only to authors whose works the public clamour for, and insist on reading; with the more select “unpopular” geniuses the plan, of course, would not meet with approval. In any case, a Free Library is neither to an author, nor to the reading public, an unmitigated boon. One has to wait for months sometimes for the book specially wanted; sometimes one’s name is 1,000 on the list, though certain volumes known as “heavy stock” can always be obtained immediately on application, but are seldom applied for. Real book-lovers buy their books and keep them. Reading which is merely haphazard and casual is purely pernicious, and does far more harm than good. However, Carnegie, being the possessor of millions, probably does not know what else to do with the cash except in the way of Libraries. To burden a human biped with tons of gold, and then set him adrift to get rid of it as best he may, is one of the scurviest tricks of Fortune. Inasmuch as ostentation is the trade mark of vulgarity, and a rich man cannot spend his money without at least appearing ostentatious. The revival of the spinning and silk-weaving industries in England would be a far nobler and more beneficial help to the country and to the many thousands of people, than any number of Free Libraries, yet no millionaire comes forward to offer the needful assistance towards this deserving end. But perhaps a hundred looms set going, with their workers all properly supported, would not be so prominently noticed in the general landscape as a hundred Free Libraries.

Apart from the manner in which certain rich men spend their wealth, there is something in an overplus of riches which is distinctly “out of drawing,” and lop-sided. It is a false note in the musical scale. Just as a woman, by wearing too great a number of jewels, vulgarizes whatever personal beauty she may possess by the flagrant exhibition of valuables and bad taste together, so does a man who has no other claim upon society than that of mere wealth, appear as a kind of monstrosity and deformity in the general equality and equilibrium of Nature. When such a man’s career is daily seen to be nothing more than a constant pursuit of his own selfish ends, regardless of truth, honour, high principle, and consideration for his fellow-men, he becomes even more than a man-camel with a golden hump—he is an offence and a danger to the community. If, by mere dint of cash, he is allowed to force his way everywhere—if no ruling sovereign on the face of the earth has sufficient wisdom or strength of character to draw a line against the entrance into society and politics of Money, for mere Money’s sake, then the close of our circle of civilisation is nearly reached, and the old story of Tyre and Sidon and Babylon will be re-told again for us with the same fatal conclusion to which Volney, in his Ruins of Empires impressively calls attention, in the following passage:

“Cupidity, the daughter and companion of ignorance, has produced all the mischiefs that have desolated the globe. Ignorance and the love of accumulation, these are the two sources of all the plagues that infest the life of man. They have inspired him with false ideas of his happiness, and prompted him to misconstrue and infringe the laws of nature, as they related to the connection between him and exterior objects. Through them his conduct has been injurious to his own existence, and he has thus violated the duty he owes to himself; they have fortified his heart against compassion, and his mind against the dictates of justice, and he has thus violated the duty he owes to others. By ignorant and inordinate desire, man has armed himself against man, family against family, tribe against tribe, and the earth is converted into a bloody theatre of discord and robbery. They have sown the seeds of secret war in the bosom of every state, divided the citizens from each other, and the same society is constituted of oppressors and oppressed, of masters and slaves. They have taught the heads of nations, with audacious insolence, to turn the arms of society against itself, and to build upon mercenary avidity the fabric of political despotism, or they have a more hypocritical and deep-laid project, that imposes, as the dictate of heaven, lying sanctions and a sacrilegious yoke, thus rendering avarice the source of credulity. In fine, they have corrupted every idea of good and evil, just and unjust, virtue and vice; they have misled nations in a labyrinth of calamity and mistake. Ignorance and the love of accumulation! These are the malevolent beings that have laid waste the earth; these are the decrees of fate that have overturned empires; these are the celestial maledictions that have struck these walls, once so glorious, and converted the splendour of populous cities into a sad spectacle of ruins!”

Laughable, yet grievous, is the childish conduct of many American plutocrats who are never tired of announcing in the daily Press that they are spending Three Thousand Pounds on roses for one afternoon’s “At Home,” or Five Thousand Pounds on one single banquet! After this, why should we call the Roman Heliogabalus a sensualist and voluptuary? His orgies were less ostentatious than many social functions of to-day. It is not, we believe, recorded that he paid any “fashion-papers” (if there were any such in the Roman Empire) to describe his “Feasts of Flowers,” though a lively American lady, giving out her “social experiences” recently at an “Afternoon tea” said gaily: “I always send an account of my dinners, my dresses, and the dresses of my friends to ‘The ——’ with a cheque. Otherwise, you know, I should never get myself or my parties mentioned at all!” One is bound to entertain the gravest doubts as to the truth of her assertion, knowing, of course, that of all institutions in the world, the Press, in Great Britain at any rate, is the last to be swayed by financial considerations. One has never heard (in England at least) of any “Company” paying several thousand pounds to the Press for “floating it.” Though such things may be done in America, they are never tolerated here. But, the Press apart, which in its unblemished rectitude “shines like a good deed in a naughty world,” most things in modern politics and society are swayed by money considerations, and the sudden acquisition of wealth does not in many cases improve the morality of the person so favoured, or persuade him to discharge such debts as he may have incurred in his days of limited means. On the contrary, he frequently ignores these, and proceeds to incur fresh liabilities, as in the striking case of a lady “leader of society” at the present day, who, having owed large sums to certain harmless and confiding tradesmen for the past seven or eight years, ignores these debts or “shunts them,” and spends six thousand pounds recklessly on the adornment of rooms for the entertainment of Royalty—which fact most notably proclaims her vulgarity, singularly allied to her social distinction. The payment of her debts first, and the entertainment of great personages afterwards, would seem to be a nobler and more becoming thing.

But show and vanity, pride and “bounce,” appear to have taken the place of such old-fashioned virtues as simplicity, sincerity, and that genuine hospitality which asserts nothing, but gives all.

Kind hearts are more than coronets,

And simple faith than Norman blood.

In very few cases does immense wealth seem to go hand in hand with refinement, reserve and dignity. Millionaires are for the most part ill-mannered and illiterate, and singularly uninteresting in their conversation. A certain millionaire, occupying during some seasons one of the fine old Scottish Castles whose owners still take pride in the fact that its walls once sheltered “bonnie Prince Charlie,” can find little to do with himself and his “house-party,” but fill the grand old drawing-room with tobacco-smoke and whisky-fumes of an evening, and play “Bridge” for ruinous stakes on Sundays, of all days in the week. During other hours and days he goes out shooting, or drives a motor-car. Intellectually speaking, the man is less of a real personality than the great Newfoundland dog he owns. But measured by gold he is a person of enormous importance—a human El Dorado. And his banking-account is the latchkey with which he opens the houses of the great and intrudes his coarse presence through the doors of royal palaces; whereas if by some capricious stroke of ill-luck he had not a penny left in the world, those same doors would be shut in his face with a bang.

The vulgarity of wealth is daily and hourly so broadly evidenced and apparent, that one can well credit a strange rumour prevalent in certain highly exclusive circles, far removed from the “swagger set,” to the effect that with one more turn of blind Fortune’s wheel, the grace of Poverty will become a rare social distinction. The Poor Gentleman, it is said, will be eagerly sought after, and to be seen in his company will entitle one to respect. The man of money will stand outside the ring of this Society, which is in process of formation for the revival of the Art of Intelligent Conversation and the Cultivation of Good Manners. Ladies who dress with a becoming simplicity, and who are not liable to the accusation of walking about with clothes unpaid for, will be eligible for membership,—and young men who are not ashamed to emphatically decline playing cards on Sunday will be equally welcome in the select coterie. Limited means will be considered more of a recommendation than a drawback, and visits will be interchanged among the members on the lines of unaffected hospitality, offered with unassuming friendship and sincerity. Kindness towards each other, punctilious attention to the smallest courtesies of life, unfailing chivalry towards women, and honour to men, will be the prevailing “rules” of the community, and every attempt at “show,” either in manners or entertainment, will be rigorously forbidden and excluded. The aim of the Society will be to prove the truth of the adage that “Manners makyth the man,” as opposed to the modern reading, “Money makyth the nobleman.” Bearing in mind that the greatest reformers and teachers of the world were seldom destitute of the grace of Poverty, it will be deemed good and necessary to make a stand for this ancient and becoming Virtue, which as a learned writer says, “doth sit on a wise man more becomingly than royal robes on a king.” Many who entertain this view are prepared to unite their forces in making well-born and well-bred Poverty the fashion. For in such a scheme, singular as it may appear, there is just a faint chance of putting up a barrier against boorish Plutocracy (which is a more unwieldy and offensive power than Democracy), and also of asserting the existence of grander national qualities than greed, avarice, and self-indulgence, which humours, if allowed to generate and grow in the minds of a people, result in the ravaging sickness of such a pestilence of evil as cannot be easily stayed or remedied. There has been enough, and too much of the Idolatry of Money-bags—it is time the fever of such insanity should abate and cool down. To conclude with another admirable quotation from Mr. Lecky: “Of colossal fortunes only a very small fraction can be truly said to minister to the personal enjoyment of the owner. The disproportion in the world between pleasure and cost is indeed almost ludicrous. The two or three shillings that gave us our first Shakespeare would go but a small way towards providing one of the perhaps untasted dishes on the dessert table. The choicest masterpieces of the human mind—the works of human genius that through the long course of centuries have done most to ennoble, console, brighten, and direct the lives of men, might all be purchased—I do not say by the cost of a lady’s necklace, but by that of one or two of the little stones of which it is composed. Compare the relish with which the tired pedestrian eats his bread and cheese with the appetites with which men sit down to some stately banquet; compare the level of spirits at the village dance with that of the great city ball whose lavish splendour fills the society papers with admiration; compare the charms of conversation in the college common room with the weary faces that may be often seen around the millionaire’s dinner table, and we may gain a good lesson of the vanity of riches.”

And, we may add, of the vulgarity of those who advertise their wealth by ostentation, as well as of those who honour Purses more than Principles.

AMERICAN WOMEN IN ENGLAND

Why is the American woman so popular in English society? Why is her charmingly assertive personality acknowledged everywhere? Why is she received by knights and earls and belted churls with such overpowering enthusiasm? Surely something subtle, elusive and mysterious, clings to her particular form, nature and identity, for more often than not, the stolid Britisher, while falling at her feet and metaphorically kissing the hem of her garment, wonders vaguely how it is that she manages to make such a fool of him! To which, she might reply, on demand, that if he were not a fool already, she would not find her task so easy! For the American woman is, above all women in the world, clever—or let us say “brainy” to an almost incredible height of brainyness. She is “all there.” She can take the measure of a man in about ten minutes and classify him as though he were a botanical specimen. She realizes all his limitations, his “notions,” and his special and particular fads,—and she has the uncommonly good sense not to expect much of him. She would not “take any” on the lily-maid of Astolat, the fair Elaine, who spent her time in polishing the shield of Lancelot, and who finally died of love for that most immoral but fascinating Knight of the Round Table. No, she wouldn’t polish a shield, you bet! She would make Lancelot polish it himself for all he was worth, and polish her own dear little boots and shoes for her into the bargain. That is one of her secrets—masterfulness—or, let us say queenliness, which sounds better. The Lord of creation can do nothing in the way of ordering her about,—because, as the Lady of creation she expects to order him about,—and she does! She expects to be worked for, worshipped and generally attended to,—and she gets her way. What she wants, she will have,—though “Companies” smash, and mighty Combines split into infinite nothingness; and more than any tamer of wild forest animals she makes all her male lions and bears dance at her bidding.

Perhaps the chief note in the ever-ascending scale of her innumerable attractions is her intense vitality. The mixed blood of many intelligent races courses through her delicate veins and gives a joyous lightness to the bounding of her heart and the swift grace of her step. She is full of energy as well as charm. If she sets out to enjoy herself, she enjoys herself thoroughly. She talks and laughs freely. She is not a mere well-dressed automaton like the greater majority of upper-class British dames. She is under the impression,—(a perfectly correct one) that tongues were given to converse with, and that lips, especially pretty ones, were made to smile with. She is, taken at her best, eminently good-natured, and refreshingly free from the jaundiced spite against others of her own sex which savours the afternoon chitter-chatter of nine out of every ten English spinsters and matrons taken together in conclave. She would, on the whole, rather say a kind thing than a cruel one. Perhaps this is because she is herself always so triumphant in her social career,—because she is too certain of her own power to feel “the pangs of unrequited love,” or to allow herself to be stung by the “green-eyed monster,” jealousy. Her car is always rolling over roses,—there is always a British title going a-begging,—always some decayed or degenerate or semi-drunken peer, whose fortunes are on the verge of black ruin, ready and willing to devour, monster-like, the holocaust of an American virgin, provided bags of bullion are flung, with her, into his capacious maw. Though certainly one should look upon the frequent marriages of American heiresses with effete British nobles, as the carrying out of a wise and timely dispensation of Providence. New blood—fresh sap, is sorely needed to invigorate the grand old tree of the British aristocracy, which has of late been looking sadly as though dry rot were setting in,—as though the woodlice were at work in its heart, and the rats burrowing at its root. But, by the importation of a few clean-minded, sweet-souled American women, some of the most decayed places in the venerable stem have been purged and purified,—the sap has risen, and new boughs and buds of promise are sprouting. And it is full time that this should be. For we have had to look with shame and regret upon many of our English lords caught in gambling dens,—and shown up in dishonourable bankruptcies;—some of them have disported themselves upon the “variety” stage, clad in women’s petticoats and singing comic songs for a fee,—others have “hired themselves out” as dummy figures of attraction at evening parties, accepting five guineas for each appearance,—and they have become painfully familiar objects in the Divorce Court, where the stories of their most unsavoury manners and customs, as detailed in the press, have offered singular instruction and example to those “lower” classes whom they are supposed to more or less influence. A return to the old motto of “noblesse oblige” would not be objectionable; a re-adopting of old un-blemished scutcheons of honour would be appreciated, even by the so-called “vulgar,”—and a great noble who is at the same time a great man, would in this present day, be accepted by all classes with an universal feeling of grateful surprise and admiration.

But, revenons à nos moutons,—the social popularity of the American woman in English society. That she is popular is an admitted and incontestable fact. She competes with the native British female product at every turn,—in her dress, in her ways, in her irresistible vivacity, and above all in her intelligence. When she knows things, she lets people know that she knows things. She cannot sit with her hands before her in stodgy silence, allowing other folks to talk. That is an English habit. No doubt the English girl or woman knows quite as much as her American sister, but she has an unhappy knack of assuming to be a fool. She says little, and that little not to much purpose,—she looks less,—it is dimly understood that she plays hockey, tennis and golf, and has large feet. She is an athletic Enigma. I write this, of course, solely concerning those British women, young, middle-aged and elderly, who make “sport” and out-door exercise the chief aim and end of existence. But I yield to none in my love and admiration for the real, genuine, unmodernised English maiden, at her gentlest and best,—she is the rosebud of the world. And I tender devout reverence and affection to the un-fashionable, single-hearted, dear, loving and ever-beloved English wife and mother—she is the rose in all its full-blown glory. Unfortunately, however, these English rosebuds and roses are seldom met with in the sweltering, scrambling crowd called “society.” They dwell in quiet country-places where the lovely influences of their modest and retiring lives are felt but never seen. Society likes to be seen rather than felt. There is all the difference. And in that particular section of it whose aim is seeing to be seen, and seen to be seeing, the American woman is as an oasis in the desert. She also wants to be seen,—but she expresses that desire so naïvely, and often so bewitchingly, that it is a satisfaction to every one to grant her request. She also would see,—and her eyes are so bright and roving and restless, that Mother Britannia is perforce compelled to smile indulgently, and to open all her social picture-books for the pleasure of the spoilt child of eternal Mayflower pedigree. It has to be said and frankly admitted too, that much of the popularity attending an American girl when she first comes over to London for a “season” is due to an idea which the stolid Britisher gets into his head, namely, that she has, she must have, Money. The American girl and Money are twins, according to the stolid Britisher’s belief. And when the stolid Britisher fixes something—anything—into the passively-resisting matter composing his brain, it would take Leviathan, with, not one, but several hooks, to unfix it. And thus it often happens that the sight of a charmingly dressed, graceful, generally “smart” American girl attracts the stolid Britisher in the first place because he says to himself—“Money!” He knows all the incomes of all the best families in his own country,—and none of them are big enough to suit him. But the American girl arrives as more or less of a financial mystery. She may have thousands,—she may have millions,—he can never be quite sure. And he does all he can to ingratiate himself with her and give her a good time “on spec.” to begin with, while he makes cautious and diplomatic enquiries. If his hopes rest on a firm basis, his attentions are redoubled—if, on the contrary, they are built on shifting sand, he gradually diminishes his ardour and like a “wilting flower” fades and “fizzles” away.

I am here reminded of a certain Earl, renowned in the political and social world, who, when he was a young man, went over on a visit to America and there fell, or feigned to fall, deeply in love with a very sweet, very beautiful, very gentle and lovable American girl. In a brief while he became engaged to her. The engagement was made public—the wedding day was almost fixed. The girl’s father was extremely wealthy, and she was the only child and sole heiress. But an unfortunate failure,—a gigantic collapse in the money market, made havoc of the father’s fortunes, and as soon as his ruin was declared beyond a doubt, the noble Earl, without much hesitation or ado, broke off his engagement, and rapidly decamped from the States back to his own country, where, as all the world knows, he did very well for himself. Strange to say, however, the girl whom he had thus brutally forsaken for no fault of her own, had loved him with all the romantic and trusting tenderness of first love, and the heartless blow inflicted upon her by his noble and honourable lordship was one from which she never recovered. The Noble and Honourable has, I repeat, done very well for himself, though it is rumoured that he sleeps badly, and that he has occasionally been heard muttering after the fashion of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,—“Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space were it not that I have bad dreams!”

Marriage, however, is by no means the only, or even the chief resource in life of the American woman. She evidently looks with a certain favour on the holy estate of matrimony and is quite willing to become an excellent wife and mother if the lines of her destiny run that way, but if they should happen to branch out in another direction, she wastes no time in useless pining. She is too vital, too capable, too intelligent and energetic altogether to play the rôle of an interesting martyr to male neglect. She will teach, or she will lecture,—she will sing, or she will act,—she will take her degrees in medicine and surgery,—she will practise for the Bar,—she will write books, and the days are fast approaching when she will become a high priestess of the Church, and will preach to the lost sheep of Israel as well as to the equally lost ones of New York or Chicago;—she will be a “beauty doctor,” a “physical culture” woman, a “medium,” a stock-broker, a palmist, a florist, a house-decorator, a dealer in lace and old curiosities,—ay! she will even become a tram-car conductor if necessity compels and the situation is open to her,—and she will manage a cattle ranch as easily as a household, should opportunity arise. Marriage is but one link in the long chain of her general efficiency, and like Cleopatra, “age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety.” A curious fact and one worth noting is, that we seldom or never hear Americans use the ill-bred expression “old maid” when alluding to such of their feminine relatives or friends who may happen to remain unmarried. They know too well that these confirmed and settled spinsters are as capable and as well to the front in the rush of life as the wedded wives, if not more so,—they know that among these unmarried feminine forces they have to reckon with some of the cleverest heads of the day, to whom no opprobrious term of contempt dare be applied,—women who are editors and proprietors of great newspapers,—women who manage famous schools and colleges,—women who, being left with large fortunes, dispense the same in magnificently organized but unadvertised charities,—women who do so command by their unassisted influence certain social movements and events, that if indeed they were to marry, something like confusion and catastrophe might ensue among the circles they control by the introduction of a new and possibly undesirable element. “Old maid,” may apply to the unfortunate female who has passed all the days of her youth in talking about men and in failing to catch so much as one of the wandering tribe, and who, on arriving at forty years, meekly retires to the chimney corner with shawl over her shoulders and some useful knitting,—but it carries neither meaning nor application to the brisk, brilliant American spinster who at fifty keeps her trim svelte figure, dresses well, goes here, there and everywhere, and sheds her beaming smile with good-natured tolerance, and perchance something of gratitude as well, on the men she has escaped from. Life does not run only in one channel for the American Woman. She does not “make tracks” solely from the cradle to the altar, from the altar to the grave. She realizes that there is more fun to be got out of being born than just this little old measure meted out to her by the barbaric males of earliest barbaric periods, when women were yoked to the plough with cattle. And it is the innate consciousness of her own power and intelligent ability that gives her the dominating charm,—the magnetic spell under which the stolid Britisher falls more or less stricken, stupefied and inert. He is never a great talker; she is. Her flow of conversation bewilders him. She knows so much too—she chatters of Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, Keats—and he thinks he has heard of these people somewhere before. He listens dumbly. Sometimes he scratches his head,—occasionally he feels his moustache, if he has one. When she laughs, he smiles slowly and dubiously. He hopes she is not laughing at him. He feels—he feels—dontcherknow—that she is “ripping.” He couldn’t tell you what he means by “ripping” to save his life. But painfully accustomed as he is to the dull and listless conversation of the British materfamilias, and to the half-hoydenish conduct of the British tom-boy girl who will insist on playing golf and hockey with him in order not to lose him out of her sight, he is altogether refreshed and relieved when the American Woman dawns upon his cloudy horizon, and instead of waiting upon him, commands him to wait upon her, with one dazzling look of her bright, audacious eye. The American Woman is not such a fool as to go play hockey with him at all times and in all weathers, thereby allowing him to take the unchecked measure of her ankles. She is too clever to do anything that might possibly show her in an unlovely or ungraceful light. She takes care to keep her hands soft and small and white, that they may be duly caressable,—and makes the best and prettiest of herself on all and every occasion. And that she has succeeded in taking English society by storm is no matter of surprise. English society, unmixed with any foreign element, is frequently said to be the dullest in the world. It is an entertainment where no one is entertained. A civil apathy wraps each man and woman in its fibrous husk, and sets them separately apart behind barricades of the most idiotic conventionality. The American Woman is the only being that can break down these barricades and tear the husk to shreds. No wonder she is popular! The secret of her success is in her own personal charm and vivacious intelligence,—in her light scorn of stupid ceremonies,—in the frank geniality of her disposition (when she can manage to keep it unspoilt by contact with the reserved hypocrisy of the “Smart Set,”) and the delightful spontaneity of her thoughts which find such ready expression in equally spontaneous speech. Altogether the American Woman is a valuable importation into Great Britain. She is an incarnation of the Present, and an embryo of the Future. She is a gifted daughter of the British race, holding within her bright, vital, ambitious identity many of the greater possibilities of Britain. And to the question “Why is she popular?” the answer is simple—“Because she deserves to be!”

THE AMERICAN BOUNDER

Everything in America is colossal, stupendous and pre-eminent,—it follows, therefore, that the American “bounder” is the most colossal, stupendous and pre-eminent bounder in existence. None of his tribe can match him in “brass,”—none of his European forbears or connections can equal him in brag. He is an inflated bladder of man, swollen out well-nigh to bursting with the wind of the Yankee Doodle Eagle’s wing. His aim in life appears to be to disgrace his country by his manners, his morals and his conversation. He arrives in Europe with the air of laying Europe under a personal debt of obligation to Providence for having kindly permitted him to be born. As befits a son of the goddess Liberty, he sets his proud foot on the “worn out” soil of the Old World and prances there, even as the “wild ass” mentioned in Holy Writ. As a citizen of the greatest Republic over which any starred or striped flag ever flew, he extends his gracious patronage to tottering monarchies, and allows it to be understood that he tolerates with an amused compassion that poor, drivelling, aged and senile institution known as the Aristocracy. He alludes to “my friend the Duke,” casually, as one might speak of a blind beggar. He throws in a remark quite unexpectedly at times concerning “Betty—you’ve heard of her surely? Countess Betty—the Countess of Hockyfield—oh yes!—you English snobs rather ‘kotow’ to her, but I call her Betty!—she likes it!” He may frequently be found in residence on the fourth floor back of a swagger hotel, occupying a “bed-sitting room” littered with guide books, “yellow” journalism, and dubious French novels, with an impressionist sketch of the newest Paris “danseuse” in her most suggestive want of attire set conspicuously forward for inspection. If chance visitors happen to notice flowers on his table, he at once seethes into a simmering scum of self-adulation. “Charming, are they not!” he says—“So sweet! So dear of the Duchess to send them!—she knows how fond I am of Malmaisons!—did you notice that Malmaison?—the Duchess gathered it for me herself—it is from one of the Sandringham stock. Of course you know the carnation houses at Sandringham? Alex. delights in Malmaisons!” And when guileless strangers gasp and blink as they realize that it is England’s gracious Queen-Consort who is being spoken of as “Alex.” in the company of the soiled literature and the portrait of the Paris “danseuse” the Bounder is delighted. He feels he has made a point. He chortles cheerfully on—“What a rotten old country this is after all, eh? Just crawling alive with snobs! Everyone’s on their knees to a title, and the sight of a lord seems to give the average Britisher a fit. Now look at me! I don’t care a cent about your dukes and earls. Why should I? I’m always with ’em—fact is, they can’t bear to have me out of their sight! Lady Belinda Boomall—second daughter of the Duke of Borrowdom,—she’s just mad on me! She thinks I’ve got money, and I let her! It’s real fun! And as to the Marchioness Golfhouse—she’s up to some games I tell you! She knows a thing or two! My word!” Here he gives vent to a sound suggestive of something between a sneeze and a snigger which is his own particular way of rendering the laugh satirical. “I always get on with your blue-blooded girls!”—he proceeds; “I guess they’re pretty tired of their own men hulking round! They take to an Amurrican as ducks take to water. See all those cards?”—pointing in a casual way to half a dozen or so of pasteboard slips littered on the mantelshelf, among which the discerning observer might certainly see one or two tradesmen’s advertisements—“They just shower ’em on me! I’ve got an ‘at home’ to-night and a ball afterwards—to-morrow I breakfast at Marlborough House;—then lunch with Lady Adelaide Sparkler,—she drives me in the Park afterwards—and in the evening I dine at St. James’ Palace and go to the Opera with the Rothschilds. It’s always like that with me! I never have a moment to myself. All these people want me. Lady Adelaide Sparkler declares she cannot possibly do without me! I ought to have been at Stafford House this afternoon—great show on there—but I can’t be bothered!—the Duchess is just too trying for words sometimes! Of course it’s all a question of connection;—they know who I am and all about my ancestors, and that makes ’em so anxious to have me. You know who my ancestors were?”

Now when the American Bounder puts this question, he ought to receive a blunt answer. Perhaps if Britishers were as rude as they are sometimes reported to be, one of them would give such an answer straight. He would say “No, I do not; but I expect you sprang from a convict root of humanity thrown out as bad rubbish from an over-populated prison and cast by chance into American soil beside an equally rank native Indian weed—and that in your present bad form and general condition, you are the expressive result of that disastrous combination.” But, as a rule, even the most truculent Britisher’s natural pluck is so paralysed by the American Bounder’s amazing capacity for lying, that in nine cases out of ten, he merely murmurs an inarticulate negative. Whereat the Bounder at once proceeds to enlighten him—“I am the direct descendant of the Scroobys of Scrooby in Yorkshire,”—he resumes—“My name’s not Scrooby—no!—but that has nothing to do with it. The families got mixed. Scrooby of Scrooby went over to Holland in 1607 and joined the Pilgrim Fathers. He was quite a boy, but Elder Brewster took care of him! He held the Bible when Brewster first fell upon his knees and thanked God. So you see I really come from Yorkshire. Real old Yorkshire ham ‘cured’ into an Amurrican!”

After this, there is nothing more to be said. Questions of course might be asked as to how the “Yorkshire ham” not being “Scrooby” now, ever started from “Scrooby” in the past, only it is not worth while. It never is worth while to try and certify an American Bounder’s claim to being sprung from a dead and gone family of English gentlemen. Regard for the dead and gone English gentlemen should save them from this affront to their honourable dust.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the American Bounder after his free and easy familiarities with “Bertie” (the King) “Alex.” (the Queen) and “Georgie and May” (the Prince and Princess of Wales) is his overweening, self-satisfied, complacent and arrogant ignorance. The most blatant little local tradesman who, through well-meaning Parliamentary short-sightedness in educational schemes, becomes a “governor” of a Technical School in the provinces, is never so blatantly ignorant as he. He talks of everything and knows nothing. He assumes to have the last word in science, art and literature. He will tell you he is “great chums” with Marconi and Edison, and that these famous discoverers and inventors always lay their heads on his bosom and tell him their dearest confidences. He knows just what is going to be done by everybody with everything. He is friends with the Drama too. Beerbohm Tree rings him up on the telephone at all manner of strange hours, thirsting for his advice on certain “scenes” and “effects.” He is—to use his own words—“doing a great thing” for Tree! Sarah Bernhardt is his very dearest of dear ones! She has fallen into his arms, coming off the stage at the side wings, exhausted, and exclaiming—“Toi, mon cher! Enfin! Maintenant, je respire!” Madame Réjane is always at home to him. In fact all Paris hails him with a joy too deep for tears. He would not be a true “Amurrican” if he did not love Paris, and if Paris did not love him.

But though he is completely “at one,” according to his own statement, with most of the celebrated personages of the day, if not all, he cannot tell you the most commonly known facts about them to save his life. And though—again according to his own statement—he has read every book ever published, visited every picture gallery, “salon” and theatre in Europe, he cannot pronounce the name of one single foreign author or artist correctly. His English is bad enough, but his French is worse. He seldom makes excursions into the Italian language—“Igh—talian” as he calls it, but it is quite enough for the merest beginner in the Tuscan tongue to hear him say “gondòla” to take the measure of his capacity. “Gòndola” is a word so easily learned and so often used in Italian, that one might think any child could master its pronunciation from twice hearing it—but the American Bounder makes the whole tour of Italy without losing a scrap of his own special nasal lingo, and returns in triumph to talk of the “gondòla” and the “bella ràgg-azza” (instead of ragàzza) till one’s ears almost ache with the hideous infliction of his abominable accent. In Switzerland he is always alluding to “Mount Blank”—the “Cantone Gry-son”—“Noo-shatell”—and the “Mountain Vert”—and in Great Britain he has been heard to speak of Loche Kay-trine and Ben Neevis, as well as of Conisston and Cornwàll. But it is quite “correct” he will tell you—it is only the English people who do not know how to talk English. The actual, true, pure pronunciation of the English language went over to the States with the Scroobys of Scrooby, and he their descendant and Bounder, has preserved it intact. Even Shakespeare’s river Avon becomes metamorphosed under the roll of his atrocious tongue. He will not pronounce it with the English A, as in the word “bay,”—he calls it A’von, as the “a” is sounded in the word avarice—so that the soft poetic name of the classic stream appears to have been bitten off by him and swallowed like a pop-corn. But it would be of no use to argue with him on this or on any other point, because he is always right. No real American Bounder was ever wrong.

One cannot but observe what a close acquaintance the Bounder has with Debrett and various “County” Directories. His study of these volumes is almost as profound as that of Mr. Balfour must have been when writing “The Foundations of Belief.” Between Debrett and Baedeker he manages to elicit a certain useful stock of surface information which he imparts in a kind of cheap toy-cracker fashion to various persons, who, politely listening, wonder why he appears to think that they are not aware of facts familiar to them from their childhood. His modes of appearing “to know, you know!” are exceedingly simple. For example, suppose him to be asked to join a “house-party” in Suffolk. He straightway studies the “County Directory” of that quarter of England, and looks up the principal persons mentioned therein in various other books of handy reference. When, in due course, he arrives at the house to which he has been invited, he manages to faintly surprise uninitiated persons by his (apparently) familiar acquaintance with the pedigree and history of this or that “county” magnate, and his (apparently) intimate knowledge of such and such celebrated paintings and “objets d’art” as adorn the various historical mansions in the district—knowledge for which he is merely indebted to Baedeker. He is as loquacious as a village washerwoman. He will relate any number of scandalous stories in connection with the several families of whose ways and doings he pretends to have such close and particular information—and should any listener interrupt him with a mild “Pardon me!—but, having resided in this neighbourhood all my life I venture to think you must be mistaken”;—he merely smiles blandly at such a display of “native” ignorance. “Lived here all your life and not know that!” he exclaims—“My word! It takes an Amurrican to teach you what’s going on in your own country!”

Offensive as is this more or less ordinary type of American Bounder who makes his “home in Yew-rope” on fourth floors of fashionable hotels, a still worse and more offensive specimen is found in the Starred-and-Striped Bounding Millionaire. This individual—who has frequently attained to a plethora of cash through one of two reprehensible ways—either by “sweating” labour, or by fooling shareholders in “trust” companies,—comes to Great Britain with the fixed impression that everything in the “darned old place” can be bought for money. Unfortunately he is often right. The British—originally and by nature proud, reserved, and almost savagely tenacious of their freedom and independence—have been bitten by the Transatlantic madness of mere Greed, and their blood has been temporarily poisoned by infection. But one may hope and believe that it is only a passing malady, and that the old healthy life will re-invest the veins of the nation all the more strongly for partial sickness and relapse. In the meantime it occasionally happens that the “free” Briton bows his head like a whipped mongrel cur to the bulging Bank-Account of the American Millionaire-Bounder. And the American Millionaire-Bounder plants his flat foot on the so foolishly bent pate and walks over it with a commercial chuckle. “You talk of your ‘Noblesse oblige,’ your honour, your old historic tradition and aristocratic Order!” he says, sneeringly—“Why there isn’t a man alive in Britain that I couldn’t buy, principles and all, for fifty thousand pounds!”

This kind of vaunt at Britain’s expense is common to the American Millionaire-Bounder—and whether it arises out of his conscious experience of the British, or his braggart conceit, must be left to others to query or determine. Certain it is that he does buy a good deal, and that the owners of such things as he wants seem always ready to sell. Famous estates are knocked down to him—manuscripts and pictures which should be the preciously guarded property of the nation, are easily purchased by him,—and, laughing in his sleeve at the purblind apathy of the British Government, which calmly looks on while he pockets such relics of national greatness as unborn generations will vainly and indignantly ask for,—he congratulates himself on possessing, as he says, “the only few things the old country has got left worth having.” One can but look gloomily through the “Calendar of Shakespearean Rarities,” collected by Halliwell Phillips, which were offered to the wealthy city of Birmingham for £7,000, and reflect that this same wealthy city disgraced itself by refusing to purchase the collection and by allowing everything to be bought and carried away from England by “an American” in 1897. We do not say this American was a “Bounder”—nevertheless, if he had been a real lover of Shakespeare’s memory, rather than of himself, he would have bought these relics for Shakespeare’s native country and presented them for Shakespeare’s sake to Shakespeare’s native people, who are not, as a People, to blame for the parsimony of their Governments. They pay taxes enough in all conscience, and at least they deserve that what few relics remain of their Greatest Man should be saved and ensured to them.

But perhaps the American Millionaire-Bounder is at his best when he has bought an English newspaper and is running it in London. Then he feels as if he were running the Imperial Government itself—nay, almost the Monarchy. He imagines that he has his finger on the very pulse of Time. He hugs himself in the consciousness that the British people,—that large majority of them who are not behind the scenes—buy his paper, believing it to be a British paper, not a journal of “Amurrican” opinion, that is, opinion as ordered and paid for by one “Amurrican.” He knows pretty well in his own mind that if they understood that such was the actual arrangement, they would save their pence. Unfortunately the great drawback of the “man in the street” who buys newspapers, is that he has no time to enquire as to the way in which the journals he confides in are “run.” If he knew that the particular view taken of the political situation in a certain journal, was merely the political view ordered to be taken by one “Amurrican”—naturally he would not pin his simple faith upon it. Perhaps the Man in the Street will some day wake up to the realization that in many cases, (though not all) with respect to journalism, he only exists to be “gulled.”

Like all good and bad things, the American Bounder, whether millionaire or only shabby-genteel, has a certain height beyond which he can no further go—a point where he culminates in a blaze of ultra Bounder-ism. This brilliant apotheosis is triumphantly reached in the Female of his species. The American Female Bounder is the quintessence of vulgarity, and in every way makes herself so objectionable even to her own people and country that Americans themselves view her departure for “Yew-rope” with perfect equanimity, and hope she will never come back. Once in what she calls “the old country” she talks all day long through her quivering nose of “Lady This” and “Countess That.” One of this class I recall now as I write, who spoke openly of a “Mrs. Countess So-and-So”—and utterly declined to be instructed in any other form of address. She was not content to trace her lineage to such humble folk as the “Scroobys of Scrooby”—no indeed, not she! Kings were her ancestors; her “family tree” sprouted from Richard the Lion-Heart, according to her own bombastic assertion, and she, with her loud twanging voice, odious manners and insufferable impertinence, was “genuine stock” of royallest origin. Of course it is quite possible that, as in horticulture, a once nobly cultivated human plant may, if left without wholesome or fostering influences, degenerate into a weed—but that so rank a weed as the American Female Bounder should be the dire result of the Conqueror’s blood is open to honest doubt. She generally has a “mission” to reform something or somebody,—she is very often a “Christian science” woman, or a theosophist. Sometimes she “takes up” Art as though it were a dustpan, and sweeps into it under her “patronage” certain dusty and doubtful literary and musical aspirants who want a “hearing” for their efforts. Fortunately for the world, a “hearing” under the gracious auspices of the American Female Bounder means a silence everywhere else. She is fond of “frocks and frills”—and wears an enormous quantity of jewels, “stones” as she calls them. She “pushes” herself in every possible social direction, and wherever she sees she is not wanted, there, more particularly than elsewhere, she contrives to force an entry. She embraces the game of “Bridge” with passionate eagerness because she sees that by keeping open house, with card-tables always ready, she can attract the loafing “great ones of the earth,” and possibly persuade a “Mrs. Countess” to befriend her. If she is fairly wealthy, she can generally manage to do this. All Mrs. Countesses have not “that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.” Some of them find the American Female Bounder useful—and precisely in the manner she offers herself, even so they take her. And thus it often happens that one frequently meets her where she has no business to be. One is not surprised to find her at Court, or in the Royal enclosure at Ascot, because so many of her British sisters in the Bounder line are in these places, ready to give her a helping hand—but one is occasionally startled and in a manner sorry to discover her making herself at home among certain “exclusive” people who are chiefly distinguished for their good-breeding, culture and refinement. In one thing, however, we can take much comfort, and this is, that whatever the American Bounder, Male or Female, may purchase or otherwise insidiously obtain in the Old World, neither he nor she can ever secure respect. Driven to bay as the Britisher may be by consummate and pertinacious lying, he can and does withhold from the liars his honest esteem. He may sell a valuable manuscript or picture to a “bounding” Yankee, out of sheer necessitous circumstance, but he will never be “friends” with the purchaser. He will call him “bounder” to the crack of doom, and Doomsday itself will not alter that impression of him.

It may be, and it is I think, taken for granted that America itself is very glad to get rid of its “bounders.” It regards them with as much shame and distress as we feel when we see certain specimens of “travelling English” disporting themselves upon the Continent in the ’Arry and Jemima way. We always fervently hope that our Continental neighbours will not take these extraordinary roughs as bona-fide examples of the British people, and in the same way America trusts all the nations of Europe not to accept their “Bounders” as examples of the real pith and power of the United States. The American People are too great, too broad-minded, sane, and thorough, not to wish to shake off these aphides on their rose of life. They watch them “clearing out” for “Yew-rope” with perfect satisfaction. Said a charming American woman to me the other day—“What a pity it is that English people will keep on receiving Americans here who would not be tolerated for a moment in New York or Boston society! It surprises us very greatly. Sometimes indeed we cannot help laughing to see the names of women figuring among your ‘haute noblesse’ who would never get inside a decent house anywhere in the States. But more often we are sorry that your social ‘leaders’ are so easily taken in!”

Here indeed is the sum total of the matter. If Great Britain—and other countries in Europe—but Great Britain especially—did not “receive” and encourage the American Bounder and Bounderess, these objectionable creatures would never be known or heard of. Therefore it is our fault that they exist. Were it not for our short-sighted foolishness, and our proneness to believe that every “Amurrican” with money must be worth knowing, we should be better able to sort the sheep from the goats. We should add to the pleasures of our social life and intercourse an agreeable knowledge of the real American ladies, the real American gentlemen; and though these are seldom seen over here, for the very good reason that they are valued and wanted in their own country, they could at least be certain, when they did come, of being received at their proper valuation, and not set to herd with the “Bounders” of their country, whom their country rejects. For one may presume that there is some cogent reason why an American citizen of the Greatest Republic in the world, should elect to desert his native land and “settle down” under “rotten old monarchies.” People do not leave the home of their birth for ever unless they find it impossible to live there for causes best known to themselves. The poor are often compelled to emigrate, we know, in the hope to find employment and food in other countries—but when the rich “slope off” from the very centres where they have made their capital, one may be permitted to doubt the purity of their intentions. Anyway, surrounded as we are to-day socially by American Bounders of every description,—American Bounders who think themselves as good as any one else “and a darned sight better”—American Bounders who declare that they are the “real old British race renewed,”—American Bounders who “run” British journals of “literary opinion” and so forth,—American Bounders who thrust themselves into the company of unhappy kings and queens,—those crowned slaves who in such earthquaking days as these have to be more than common careful “not to offend,”—American Bounders who themselves claim kinship with the blood royal,—the one straight and simple fact remains—namely, that all the best Americans still live in America!

COWARD ADAM

Among the numerous fascinating and delightful members of the male sex whom I have the honour to count as friends, there is one very handsome and devotedly attentive gentleman of four years old, who is particularly fond of reciting to me in private the following striking poem on the Fall of Man.

When Mister Sarpint did deceive

Poor little silly Missis Eve,

The Lord he spied an apple gone

From off the branch it hanged upon;

That apple was a heavy loss,

And so the Lord got very cross,