{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_41490/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_41490","id":"gutenberg_41490","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41490","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Fiction"],"text":"[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n  THE DECADENT: BEING THE GOSPEL\n  OF INACTION: WHEREIN ARE\n  SET FORTH IN ROMANCE FORM\n  CERTAIN REFLECTIONS TOUCHING\n  THE CURIOUS CHARACTERISTICS\n  OF THESE ULTIMATE YEARS, AND\n  THE DIVERS CAUSES THEREOF.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n  PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR\n  THE AUTHOR MDCCCXCIII\n\n\n\n\n  TIBI \u00b7 MEO \u00b7 CARO \u00b7 B \u00b7 G \u00b7 G \u00b7\n  CVIVS \u00b7 LABORIBVS \u00b7 PRETIVM \u00b7 NON \u00b7 PROPRIVM \u00b7 EI \u00b7 FIEBAT\u00b7\n  OPERA \u00b7 TVA \u00b7 EXARCHO \u00b7 FRATRIBVSQVE \u00b7\n  EIVS \u00b7 ORDINIS \u00b7 QVAE \u00b7 SVMNIA \u00b7 SIBI \u00b7 FINGIT \u00b7\n  DENIQVE \u00b7 OMNIBVS \u00b7 DELECTIS \u00b7 PER \u00b7 ORBEM \u00b7 TERRARVM \u00b7\n  HVNC \u00b7 LIBRVM \u00b7 GRATE \u00b7 DICO \u00b7\n\n\n\n\nTHE DECADENT.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\nThe 3.20 train from Boston slowed up as it drew into a way station, and\nMalcolm McCann, grim and sullen from his weary ride in the dirt and\ncinders, the coal-smoke and the foetid air, the fretting babies and hot,\nworrying men, that characterise a railway journey in August, hurried out\nwith a grunt of relief.\n\nIt was not a pretty station where he found himself, and he glared\nill-naturedly around with restless, aggressive eyes. The brick walls,\nthe cheaply grained doors bearing their tarnished legends, \"Gents,\"\n\"Ladies,\" \"Refreshment Saloon,\" the rough raftered roof over the\ntracks,--everything was black and grimy with years of smoke, belching\neven now from the big locomotive, and gathering like an ill-conditioned\nthunder-cloud over the mob of scurrying, pushing men and women, a mob\nthat swelled and scattered constantly in fretful confusion. A hustling\nbusiness-man with a fat, pink face and long sandy whiskers, his silk hat\ncocked on one side in grotesque assumption of jauntiness, tripped over\nthe clay-covered pick of a surly labourer, red of face and sweaty, blue\nof overalls and mud-coloured of shirt, and as he stumbled over the\nannoying implement scowled coarsely, and swore, with his cigar between\nhis teeth.\n\nRagged and grimy children, hardly old enough to walk, sprawled and\nscrambled on the dirty platform, and as McCann hurried by, a five-year\nold cursed shrilly a still more youthful little tough, who answered in\nkind. Vulgar theatre-bills in rank reds and yellows flaunted on the\ncindery walls; discarded newspapers, banana-skins, cigar-butts, and\nsaliva were ground together vilely under foot by the scuffling mob.\nDirt, meanness, ugliness everywhere,--in the unhappy people no less than\nin their surroundings.\n\nMcCann strode scornfully to the rear of the station and looked vaguely\naround to see if Aurelian had sent any kind of a conveyance to take him\nto his home,--of the location of which, save that it was to be reached\nfrom this particular station, McCann knew nothing. The prospect was not\nmuch better outside than in. The air was thick with fine white dust, and\ndazzling with fierce sunlight. On one side was a wall of brick\ntenements, with liquor saloons, cheap groceries, and a fish-market\nbelow, all adding their mite to the virulence of the dead, stifling air.\nAbove, men in dirty shirt-sleeves lolled out of the grimy windows, where\nlong festoons of half-washed clothes drooped sordidly. On the other\nside, gangs of workmen were hurriedly repairing the ravages of a fire\nthat evidently had swept clear a large space in its well-meant but\nineffectual attempts at purgation. Gaunt black chimneys wound with\nwrithing gas-pipes, tottering fragments of wall blistered white on one\nside, piles of crumbling bricks where men worked sullenly loading blue\ncarts, mingled with new work, where the walls, girdled with yellow\nscaffolding, were rising higher, uglier, than before; the plain factory\nwalls with their rows of square windows less hideous by far than those\nbuildings where some ignorant contractor was trying by the aid of\ngalvanised iron to produce an effect of tawdry, lying magnificence.\nDump-carts, market-waggons, shabby hacks, crawled or scurried along in\nthe hot dust. A huge dray loaded with iron bars jolted over the granite\npavement with a clanging, clattering din that was maddening. In fact,\nnone of the adjuncts of a thriving, progressive town were absent, so far\nas one could see.\n\nMcCann turned away from this spectacle of humiliating prosperity, and\nran his eyes over the vehicles about the station, searching for some\nindication of his friend. He had thought that perhaps Aurelian might\ncome himself; but he saw no sign of a familiar figure, no indication\neven of any conveyance that might belong to Aurelian Blake. The greater\npart of the carriages had gone, and now only remained an express-waggon\nor two, a decrepit old hack, an old-fashioned chaise, one or two\nnondescript country conveyances, and a particularly gorgeous victoria,\ndrawn by a pair of splendid grey horses, a liveried driver sitting on\nthe box in Ethiopian state. None of these vehicles could possibly belong\nto the fastidious but democratic Aurelian, and McCann almost thought\nhis telegram must have miscarried.\n\nA black footman in fawn-coloured livery, wearing a small cockade of\nscarlet and silver, touched his hat to the sulky traveller.\n\n\"Beg yo pahdon, suh, but ah yo Mistuh McCann, Mistuh Malcolm McCann, of\nBoston, suh?\"\n\n\"That is my name,\" said McCann, shortly.\n\n\"I have the honnoh to be Mistuh Blake's footman, suh,\" and he touched\nthe cockade in his hat again. \"Will yo have the kindness to follow me,\nsuh?\"\n\nThere was a touch of servile imperiousness in the voice, and McCann\nfollowed in bewildered surprise. \"Aurelian Blake's footman\"--that did\nnot sound well. Could his pupil have become a backslider in the last two\nyears? \"Aurelian Blake's footman\"--the idea was surprising in itself;\nbut the fact of the big victoria with its luxurious trappings where he\nsoon found himself being whirled swiftly on through the screaming,\nclattering city was more surprising still, and not a little disquieting.\n\nThe carriage threaded its way through the roaring crowd of vehicles,\npassing the business part of the city, and entering a tract given over\nto factories, hideous blocks of barren brick and shabby clapboards,\nthrough the open windows of which came the brain-killing whir of heavy\nmachinery, and hot puffs of oily air. Here and there would be small\nareas between the buildings where foul streams of waste from some\nfactory of cheap calico would mingle dirtily with pools of green,\nstagnant water, the edges barred with stripes of horrible pinks and\npurples where the water had dried under the fierce sun. All around lay\npiles of refuse,--iron hoops, broken bottles, barrels, cans, old leather\nstewing and fuming in the dead heat, and everywhere escape-pipes\nvomiting steam in spurts. Over it all was the roar of industrial\ncivilisation. McCann cast a pitying look at the pale, dispirited figures\npassing languidly to and fro in the midst of the din and the foul air,\nand set his teeth closely.\n\nPresently they entered that part of the city where live the poor, they\nwho work in the mills, when they are not on strike, or the mills are not\nshut down,--as barren of trees or grass as the centre of the city, the\nbaked grey earth trodden hard between the crowded tenements painted\nlifeless greys, as dead in colour as the clay about them. Children and\ngoats crawled starvedly around or huddled in the hot shadow of the sides\nof the houses. This passed, and then came the circle of \"suburban\nresidences,\" as crowded almost as the tottering tenements, but with\ngreen grass around them. Frightful spectacles these,--\"Queen Anne\" and\ncolonial vagaries painted lurid colours, and frantic in their cheap\nelaboration. Between two affected little cottages painted orange and\ngreen and with round towers on their corners, stood a new six-story\napartment-house with vulgar front of brown stone, \"Romanesque\" in style,\nbut with long flat sides of cheap brick. McCann caught the name on the\nbig white board that announced \"Suites to let,\" \"Hotel Plantagenet,\" and\ngrinned savagely.\n\nThen, at last, even this region of speculative horrors came to an end,\ngiving place to a wide country road that grew more and more beautiful as\nthey left the town far behind. McCann's eyebrows were knotted in a\nscowl. The ghastly nonsense, like a horrible practical joke, that the\ncity had been to him, excited, as it always did, all the antagonism\nwithin his rebellious nature. Slowly and grimly he said to himself, yet\nhalf aloud, in a tone of deliberation, as though he were cursing\nsolemnly the town he had left: \"I hope from my soul that I may live to\nsee the day when that damned city will be a desolate wilderness; when\nthose chimneys shall rise smokeless; when those streets shall be stony\nvalleys between grisly ridges of fallen brick; when Nature itself shall\nshrink from repairing the evil that man has wrought; when the wild birds\nshall sweep widely around that desolation that they may not pass above;\nwhen only rats and small snakes shall crawl through the ruin of that\n'thriving commercial and manufacturing metropolis;' when the very name\nit bore in the days of its dirty glory shall have become a synonym for\nhorror and despair!\" Having thus relieved himself he laughed softly, and\nfelt better.\n\nPresently a flash of recollection passed over his face, and he eagerly\ndropped his hand into a side pocket, pulling therefrom a brierwood pipe,\ndiscovered with a sigh of satisfaction that a sweet heel of \"Dills\nBest\" still lurked in the bottom of the bowl, and, regardless of the\namazement of the immaculate footman, lighted it, and sank back in the\ncushions, well content. As he smoked, his thoughts went back to Aurelian\nwith some uneasiness. \"I am afraid he is a backslider,\" he mused\nseriously. \"Now, when I went over to England a couple of years ago, he\nwas a good socialist, the best pupil I ever had. He would rail at the\nworld in good set terms, better than I myself. And now he runs a trap\nlike this, with a coon slave for a driver and a footman beside him. Now,\nI _can't_ lose a man like that; he was a born leader of men, when\nleaders are what we lack. Besides, he had a lot of money, and we need\nmoney as badly as we need leaders. I must get him back some way, if gone\nhe is; and I very much expect bad news from the boy when I get to--Now,\nwhat did he call his place?\" he pulled a letter from his pocket, shaking\ntobacco ashes out of its folds. \"Oh, yes, 'Vita Nuova.' Now, why the\ndevil did he name his place that?\"\n\nThe stubby pipe sucked and sputtered, and McCann knocked the ashes into\nthe road. They had driven already nearly an hour, and he was growing\nimpatient; \"how much farther had they to go?\" He asked the coachman, who\nonly replied, \"Just a fractional bit further, suh,\" which was\nindefinite. They left the highway and struck into a hilly road where the\nhedgerows grew thick on either side, with rough pastures beyond, on the\none hand, and on the other thick and ancient pine forests, where the\nlow sunlight struck under the sighing branches and rested on mossy\nboulders and level patches of golden ferns. Now and then a grey\nfarmhouse appeared in its orchard, and once they passed a dingy white\nmeeting-house, with pointed wooden spikes on the four corners of its\nbelfry, its green blinds faded a sickly yellow. Just beyond they met the\ncountry milk-team with its cantering horses and clattering cans, the\ndriver nodding on his seat, with a watchful collie beside him. Then the\npastures on the right ended, and they plunged into deep forests, black,\nalmost lightless, where the road wound like the bed of a dry torrent in\na vast green ca\u00f1on. The carriage climbed steeply up the rocky road, with\nno sound around but the rattle of pebbles under the feet of the horses,\nand the melancholy calling of the wood thrushes. On the crown of the\nhill heavy wrought-iron gates closed their passage, gates that swung\nback slowly as the footman whistled twice. They passed through, turned\nsharply to the left, and in a flash were out of the forest.\n\nMalcolm McCann had not a very keen sense of beauty, but even to him the\nvision that lay before him startled him into sudden enthusiasm. They\nwere riding along the comb of a ridge of high hills thick with ink-black\npine forests to the left, while to the right they swept down in gracious\nundulations into a basin-shaped valley, the level floor of which was, it\nmay be, something over a thousand acres in extent, shaped like an\nelongated ellipse, with lofty hills rising on all sides.\n\nThe sun dropped down and lay on the edge of the world; from the farther\nside of the valley it poured a suave, golden glory of molten light down\nover the purple, serrated hills, that lay in the valley like amber wine.\nSmooth fields of ripening grain and velvet meadow-land chequered the\nvalley irregularly, slim elms and dark, heavy oaks rising among them. In\nthe midst, curling like level smoke, wound a narrow river with black\npoplars and golden chestnut-trees leaning above. In all the valley was\nno sign of a dwelling save far away at the distant end, where from the\nmidst of thick foliage rose dark roofs and towers and chimneys, as of\nsome ch\u00e2teau on the Loire.\n\nMcCann caught his breath. \"Is that the place?\" he said quickly.\n\n\"Suh, that is Vita Nuova,\" answered the footman.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\n\"This,\" said Eveleth, languidly, turning his head in the valley of\nsilken pillows until he could see the long figure of Aurelian drooping\nin the Mexican hammock across the big room through the dim strata of\nblue smoke that, in the silence, lay almost motionless, swirled now and\nthen into subtle curlings and windings as some drowsy smoker breathed\nmore white vapour into the slowly moving and rising tide,--\"This is the\npeace of the land of Proserpina, the faultless content of perfect\npossession. Philistinism is not without honour, for behold! it has\nconceived and brought forth--the Decadence.\"\n\n            \"_Non sentir m'e gran ventura\n    Por\u00f2 non mi distar: deh! parla basso!_\"\n\nsaid Aurelian, softly. \"It is only a dream after all, even a dream of\nthe land of endless afternoon. There is lotos mingled with the tobacco,\nbut we wake easily.\"\n\nA deeper voice came from a motionless figure prone on a tiger skin\nbefore the crumbling fire. \"Opium and Burgundy are not faultless\nsubstitutes for the true lotos after all, but--they do very well--for\nthe time.\"\n\nMurmurs of inarticulate assent rose and faded in the opium-heavy air,\nand then the smoke grew still again. Now and then a bit of wood fell in\nthe fireplace. Aurelian's narghileh gurgled and sighed in slow cadence.\nThese things were only a modulation of the silence.\n\nThe room was vast and dim, seemingly without bounds, save on that side\nwhere the violet flames of a drift-wood fire flickered quiveringly,\nmaking a centre, a concentration of dull light; for the rest, a\nmysterious wilderness of rugs and divans, Indian chairs and hammocks,\nwhere silent figures lay darkly, each a primal cause of one of the many\nthin streams of smoke that curled heavily upward;--smoke from strange\nand curious pipes from Lahore and Gualior; small sensitive pipes from\nJapan; here and there the short thick stems of opium-pipes, and by the\nmotionless Mexican hammock a splendid and wonderful hookah with writhing\nstem. As the thin flames of the dying fire flashed into some sudden\nbrightness, they revealed details unseen in the general gloom,--a vast\nand precious missal gorgeous with scarlet and gold and purple\nillumination, open, on a carved oak lectern, spoil of some Spanish\nmonastery; the golden gloom of a Giovanni Bellini reft from its home in\nVenice, and as yet unransomed; the glint of twisted and gilded glass in\nan ebony cabinet; great folios and quartos in ancient bindings of vellum\nand ivory and old calf-skin, heavily tooled with gold, and with silver\nand jewelled medallions and clasps, stacked in heaps in careless\nindifference; the flash and sparkle of a cabinet of gems, the red\nsplendour of old lacquer; the green mystery of wrought jade. And\neverywhere a heavy atmosphere that lay on the chest like a strange yet\ndesirable dream; the warm, sick odour of tobacco and opium, striving\nwith the perfume of sandal-wood, and of roses that drooped and fluttered\nin pieces in the hot air.\n\nAround a brazier of green bronze, on the floor, before the fire, lay the\nthree men who were gently breathing in the bland opium, their dark\nfigures radiating from the queer brazier wrought of two ugly dragons\nchasing each other around a great globe of Japanese chrystal, the\nfirelight gleaming on the tall glasses of champagne where the little\ncolumn of gold bubbles rose steadily. The fire fell together, and a\nleaping flame cast a fitful light on heavy tapestry curtains wrought\nwith the story of the loves of Cupid and Psyche. Its two halves parted\nslowly, and a flush of red light fell through as, in the midst, appeared\na dark figure with closed eyes, swaying softly as it leaned forward,\nand, while the curtains closed, fell with a long sweep gently toward the\nbrazier,--not as men fall, but as a snake with its head lifted high\nmight advance slidingly, and as it came, droop lower and lower until it\nrested prone on the uncrushed flowers. So Enderby, heavy with the suave\nsleep of haschish, came among the smokers and dropped motionless in the\nmidst of the cushions. The movement set a tall glass quivering until it\nfell to one side, and the yellow wine sank slowly into the silky fur of\na leopard skin.\n\nAurelian lifted his hand to a gold cord that hung over the hammock.\nPresently a slim girl with flesh like firelight on ivory, clad in\ntranslucent silk of a dusky purple that made no sound as she came,\nappeared in the darkness of the farther doorway. She came to the hammock\nwhere Aurelian was lying.\n\n\"Will the honourable master be served with the august sak\u00e9?\" she asked\nwith a voice that was like the fluttering of cherry blossoms in\nYoshiwara.\n\n\"No, O Shiratsuyu,\" said Aurelian, drawing the slim figure toward him,\nkissing the scarlet mouth that drooped above as he lay full length,\nlooking sleepily upward. \"No, O Shiratsuyu, but fill the glasses of the\nhonourable guests with the wine, there on the table.\"\n\nThe girl glided among the drowsy figures, filling the glasses. As she\nknelt by the brazier to lift the overturned glass, her slim fingers\nlingered; a head turned sleepily, and, as the lips fell on the little\nhand, kissed it softly.\n\nAt a movement of Aurelian's eyes the girl vanished.\n\nEveleth half rose to look after her with delight. \"Where did you find\nthat bauble, Aurelian?\" he said.\n\nAurelian neither moved nor opened his eyes as he replied, \"In Kioto.\"\n\n\"She is more precious than your Delhi topaz.\"\n\n\"She cost me more.\"\n\n\"What is she called?\"\n\n\"The Honourable White Dew.\"\n\n\"I have never seen her before.\"\n\n\"Nor any other than myself.\"\n\n\"I think she is a dream.\"\n\n\"No, only part of a dream.\"\n\n\"How long will the dream last?\"\n\n\"Until dawn.\"\n\n\"What is the dawn?\"\n\n\"Death.\"\n\nThe word roused ungracious thoughts in Eveleth, and he turned his face\nto the wall, falling into a half dream. When next he looked toward his\nhost it was at the instigation of low voices. A servant was standing by\nthe hammock,--not the mysterious Japanese girl, but a black boy in a red\nfez. Aurelian looked toward Eveleth sleepily.\n\n\"One is without and craves entrance,\" said he. \"What shall I say to him?\nHe has come as my guest; shall I receive him here?\"\n\n\"Is he an 'Elect'?\"\n\n\"No, he is not an 'Elect.'\"\n\n\"A Philistine then.\"\n\n\"Neither a Philistine, wholly.\"\n\n\"What then?\"\n\n\"A product of Philistinism, an Agitator.\"\n\nEveleth looked vaguely around over the silent room,--at Wentworth,\nthroned in a stately chair of mahogany and brass that had belonged to\nthe great Napoleon, still crowned with the garland of gold bay leaves he\nhad placed on his head after dinner, half in defiance, half in jest, now\nsleeping, his chibouk lying between his knees; at the abandoned figures\nmotionless about the bronze brazier; at Aurelian, clothed gloriously in\na sleeveless gaberdine of blood-red silk over a white cr\u00eape kimono heavy\nwith embroidery; at his own figure half wrapped in a big mantle of\nrose-coloured damask. And everywhere the stillness of Oriental sleep. As\nhe looked he said dubiously, \"An agitator? Do you think an agitator\nwould do--here? Isn't there rather too much to agitate?\"\n\n\"Yes, and for that reason I will let him come; as it is, this is almost\nstagnation. He will amuse me, I feel,--I feel, that in a little while,\nI--might be bored.\"\n\nEveleth sank back resignedly and not without curiosity. Aurelian nodded,\nand the servant glided away.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Hello, Aurelian!\"\n\nThe words were like a stone dashed in the midst of a pool of brown\nwater, still, under willows. Wentworth, looking like a Napoleonic\n_revenant_, shivered into wakefulness; Eveleth sat bolt upright with a\nstart; even the opium-smokers, all but Enderby, turned their heavy\nheads, wakened from mysterious dreams.\n\nThe new-comer stopped in the door and stared,--stared mightily. He\ncoughed and blinked in the smoky air. It was the clash of East and West,\nof a fictitious, exotic East, of a commonplace, hard-headed, practical\nWest.\n\n\"Where are you?\" McCann cried loudly, making his way through the\ntwilight toward the sound of Aurelian's voice.\n\n\"I'm glad to see you at last,\" he said doubtfully, \"but I'm not quite\nused to this sort of thing, you know; I feel as though I had drank too\nmuch.\" His eyes fell on the confused heap of drowsy humanity around the\nbrazier. \"Aurelian,\" he said sternly, \"is this a 'joint' I have happened\non?\"\n\n\"It is my house,\" said Aurelian, in his gentle voice, \"wherein I have\nthe honour to count you for the moment a guest.\"\n\n\"I beg pardon,\" grimly; \"but as I said, you must remember I am not\nfamiliar with this sort of thing. I think I had better wait until you\nare less busily engaged.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow, I am never busily engaged, and I am never more idle\nthan now. You will stay, of course. Will you smoke?--I mean tobacco. I\nthink you smoke narghilehs; shall Murad come and light you one?\"\n\n\"Thanks, by your leave I will smoke my own,\" and McCann pulled out his\nbrier bull-dog, filled it from his own pouch, and sat down\nconstrainedly, his eyes fixed on the four men in their motley costumes,\nstrewn on the floor.\n\nAt once Aurelian began to talk to him frankly and freely, as though\nnothing had changed since last master and pupil had spoken together,\nquestioning him of his adventures in England and Germany while on his\nmission among the socialist leaders. McCann noted with surprise and with\na feeling almost of reassurance that no detail of recent sociological\nevents had escaped Aurelian; that he listened with equal interest to all\nthat he told him; that he showed keen satisfaction at the outcome of two\nor three recent strikes in which the strikers had been victorious. But\nall the time the agitator's eyes were wandering over the dimly visible\ndetails of the strange treasure-house where he found himself. He looked\non it all with growing resentment; it was hardly to be called\nsocialistic, and there seemed to be a lack of harmony between these\nluxurious surroundings and the words that Aurelian was saying. There was\nsomething awfully wrong; but he shrunk from knowing what he feared to be\nthe worst.\n\nAfter the first convulsion which his entrance had caused, the different\nmen had all fallen back languidly in their places; but now Wentworth\nlifted himself lazily and came down toward Aurelian and the agitator.\n\"Well, _citoyen_,\" he said, nothing abashed by his fantastic garb, which\nwas far enough from being the same in which he generally met McCann,\n\"Well, _citoyen_, you come as a visitant from another world, like the\nblack steamers that crawl into the balmy vision known to the children of\nmen as Venice,--in it, not of it. Can you bring a tale of the things\nwithout? Is there anything worthy of note in Philistia? How fare our\nfriends the republics of the world, there in the outer darkness?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said McCann, with indifference, \"there is another revolution on\ndown in Guatemala, and one expected daily in Brazil, and one in the\nFrench Republic--\"\n\n\"And the smoke not yet cleared away from the last revolution in Brazil,\nnor yet from the last in Chile, nor yet from the last in Honduras; wars\nin half the republics in South and Central America, rumours of wars in\nMexico and all the rest; the French Republic counting the days that\nalready are numbered by its dupes at length undeceived,--I know the\nwhole grotesque story, and yet people talk about popular sovereignty and\nrepublics. And you yourselves, McCann, _bon citoyen_, you agitators and\nsocialists, hug to yourselves the vain phantom of popular government.\nYou ought to know better, for you know something of sociology if you\n_are_ sweetly ignorant on politics. What was that Balzac said, Aurelian?\nTell me.\"\n\n\"About popular government, you mean?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Why, he called it the only government that is irresponsible and whose\ntyranny will be unchecked because exercised under the name of law.\"\n\n\"Ah, this is it! Isn't that exact? '_A bas la R\u00e9publique_,' the King\nshall come to his own again!\" and he sung the words gaily to a fragment\nof an old Jacobite air. \"Don't interrupt me, Aurelian, the spirit is on\nme and I must confound this blind leader.\" His tone changed and he put\nhis hand on McCann's shoulder. \"Malcolm, you know as we all know here\nthat the present condition of this happy world is very like the Puritan\nidea of hell. You know, also, that the preserving factor, if not the\noriginal cause of this pleasant state of affairs, is the modern theory\nof economics and its resulting industrial and commercial systems. Now,\nwhat do you propose to substitute in place of this gigantic abortion,\nthis debauching incubus?\"\n\n\"State Socialism.\"\n\n\"Exactly! Out of your own mouth have you condemned yourself. Man, man!\nwhat would your State Socialism be in the hands of such a State as we\nhave now? In Chile? In Mexico? In any ring-ruled mob-ruled State in this\nunhealthy republic? Why, simply the biggest and most wholesale 'job,'\nthe most arrant corruption, the most awful and omnipotent succubus that\never waxed fat on the blood of a dying nation. Malcolm, you and your ilk\nhave made a dreary mistake; you think only of industrial reforms, while\nto make these of effect you must first have a political reform which\nwill be in itself a revolution. Destroy the present system, build up an\nhonourable State, and then it will be time to talk of State Socialism.\"\n\nMcCann had chafed furiously under this tirade, and as Wentworth threw\nhimself down in a low chair, lighting his Dimitrino cigarette at the\nflames of the brazier, he burst out violently: \"You are all wrong, you\ndon't know what you are talking about when you say we don't want a\npolitical reform! We do, a radical reform.\"\n\nWentworth's eyes gleamed amusedly through the rings of white smoke as he\nsaid quietly, \"How?\"\n\n\"I would destroy the whole system of party and ring rule.\"\n\nWentworth smiled disdainfully. \"My dear Malcolm,\" he said, blowing an\nash from his cigarette, \"I spare you the humiliation of trying to tell\nme how. Do you not realise that party and ring rule are the necessary\nresults of three of your dearest idols?--idols that you would defend, I\nbelieve, with your life. They are these: Manhood suffrage, rotation in\noffice, and representative government. Until you are content to destroy\nthese in your political revolution your attempts to abolish ring and\npartisan rule will fail.\"\n\n\"They will not fail, for we shall abolish those abuses through making\nthe control of the people over their representatives more absolute and\ndirect.\"\n\n\"The exact contrary of the result you hope for would follow from the\ncourse you suggest. I can't convince you of that now; grant the truth of\nyour position for a moment, what would follow? You would simply\nsubstitute for the repulsive rule of the 'bosses' a dreary and fleeting\ngovernment of emancipated slaves. We have seen the result of that in the\nSouth, where we made fatal error in giving the black slaves a measure of\npolitical power. You would do the same by giving the white slaves _all_\npolitical power. I say, emancipate them,--and govern them.\"\n\n\"By whom?\"\n\n\"Their King and their peers.\"\n\n\"Where will you find them in this country?\"\n\n\"Choose them.\"\n\n\"By whom?\"\n\n\"The people.\"\n\n\"Aha! Then you lose your point.\"\n\n\"By no means, for the franchise should be a privilege, not a right, and\nwhile the people should choose, only their leaders should govern.\"\n\n\"You are a monarchist!\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then you are a reactionist, an aristocrat; no socialist!\"\n\n\"I am a monarchist and a vehement socialist.\"\n\n\"That is a paradox.\"\n\n\"So are most final truths, since a paradox is only a concise statement\nof the colour on each side of the shield; you remember the fable?\"\n\n\"Then you mean to say that socialism and monarchism do not negative each\nother?\"\n\n\"No more than the silver of one side of the shield negatives the gold of\nthe other.\"\n\n\"You are a vain theorist!\"\n\n\"It is you who are a vain theorist; my position is based on history. I\nknow the record of the attempts to put the visionary theory of popular\ngovernment into practice.\"\n\n\"We have never had a true popular government yet.\"\n\n\"I agree with you; but we have had true princes.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\nFor answer Wentworth turned his head a little and raised his eyes toward\na great picture hanging in the shadow. McCann followed his glance, and\nfound himself looking at the sad face with the mournful eyes of\nVandyke's portrait of King Charles I. of England. Curtains of old\npurple velvet wrought with Bourbon lilies of tarnished gold hung on\neither side, and from their midst the King seemed looking on them as in\na vision. The picture annoyed McCann; it was the presentment of a King,\na tyrant; he scowled at it ill-naturedly.\n\n\"You keep that there because it is a good picture, I suppose,\" he said,\nturning to Aurelian, who had been listening silently.\n\n\"Because it is a copy of a good picture of a glorious King,\" replied\nAurelian.\n\n\"A good _King_!\"\n\n\"A glorious King and most noble man.\"\n\n\"You talk like a Jacobite.\"\n\n\"I _am_ a Jacobite.\"\n\nMcCann took his pipe out of his mouth. \"What do you talk like that for?\nYou used to be a socialist.\"\n\n\"I am still a socialist.\"\n\n\"Are you bedevilled with Wentworth's theory that a man can be both a\nsocialist and a royalist?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"How do you justify such nonsense?\"\n\n\"By regarding both sides of the shield.\"\n\n\"I deny that socialism is one side of a shield, the other side of which\nis monarchism.\"\n\n\"Then you should study history more carefully,\" interrupted Wentworth.\n\n\"Will history prove to me that monarchism is not and has not been from\nthe first the bitter enemy of the people?\" cried the agitator,\nderisively, flashing his eyes savagely on the languid Wentworth.\n\n\"That is exactly what it will prove,\" returned his tormentor, sweetly.\n\n\"Well, I have studied history for twenty years, and it has taught me\nexactly the reverse.\"\n\n\"_Histories_, you mean; but you must remember that there is very little\nhistory in histories.\"\n\nMcCann gasped in impotent rage, but Aurelian interposed with his low\nvoice. \"You will reach nothing by such argument, my children. You are\nboth visionaries,--you, Malcolm, who dream of ideal, impossible\nrepublics surrounded by the tottering ruins of your fantastic fabrics,\nbuilded on the shifting sand of popular fancies; you, Strafford\nWentworth, dear dupe of futile hopes, vainly watching for the King to\ncome to his own again. Dreamers both of you! I alone am the practical\nman; I wait for that which the gods may give. In the mean time I stand\nwith the 'divine Plato,' aside, under the wall, while the storm of dust\ngoes by. Forsake your forlorn hope, Malcolm; stand to one side with me,\nand wait. And in the mean time\"--he lifted a strange Japanese viol--\"in\nthe mean time, sing, and forget the imminent night. Malcolm, there is\nbeauty still left, and a little art; it will last us through the\ntwilight.\"\n\n\"Art will not quiet my conscience, nor blind my eyes to the sight of\nrotting slaves and foul fat drivers.\"\n\n\"You take things too seriously!\" cried Wentworth, biting the heavy\nleaves one by one from a drooping rose. \"It is like putting new wine\ninto old bottles to try to pour seriousness into this decrepit and\ndegenerate age.\"\n\nMcCann laughed aloud. \"I accept the omen; for the bottles, if I remember\naright, were burst!\"\n\n\"And you will spill your wine.\"\n\n\"The type of blood; and the blood of martyrs is the seed of the new\nCommonwealth!\"\n\n\"But why not take new bottles and save your precious wine?\"\n\n\"We have none, and the old are at hand.\"\n\n\"They are rotting fast.\"\n\n\"The world cannot wait,--mothers and children starve every day.\"\n\n\"If you die for them it is only a life for a life, and the guilty\nthrive.\"\n\n\"Some will go down with us to hades!\"\n\nAurelian laughed softly, and rambled vaguely on over the strings of his\nsamosen, making strange music. \"Now we will quarrel no more, for we are\nwhere we began. Malcolm, if you must go to your death, _Vale_, I will\noffer a kid and honey on the altar of Mnemosyne. Go your ways, and leave\nme to mine; I am aweary of this servile and perishing world, rheumy and\ngibbering. Here I have my books of the Elect, my fading pictures, my\ntreasures of dead civilisation. This is my monastery, like those of the\nold Faith that, during the night that came down on the world after the\nruin of Rome, treasured as in an ark the seeds of the new life. Here I\ncan gather my Children of Light and bar my doors against the Philistines\nwithout, among whom, dear Malcolm, force me not yet to number you. Be\nlenient with me, accept my hospitality; it will strengthen you for your\nfight with the windmill that forces the wind of God to grind men and\nwomen like grain. In the mean time, it is still the youth of the night,\nso I will give you more wine--or your favourite beer if you like; I have\nsome good Bavarian. Those four decadents and the poor agnostic there on\nthe floor are happy. I never take the black smoke myself, nor any of\nyou: wise, all of you, but God forbid that I should refuse any guest of\nmine aught! They, sleeping in opium-dreams, have chosen their way. We\nwill choose another for ourselves.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nThe night had grown old unnoticed, and now in the first dim twilight of\ncoming dawn Aurelian and McCann were sitting on the wide terrace that\nstretched along the south side of the great house, smoking lazily and\ndrinking the fine rare wines that Aurelian treasured as he treasured his\nprecious books. Not far away the nightingales were singing in the thick\nwood; other sound there was none save the sweet rustle and stir of the\nawakening trees under the first thin wind of morning.\n\nAt first McCann had raged inwardly at everything,--at the crowded\ntreasures of art that filled the castle-like house, at the dominant\nluxury, at the opium, the wine, at all the unfamiliar splendour that\nsurrounded Aurelian. He sat now listening unappreciatively to Aurelian's\nquiet voice discoursing lovingly of the Roman\u00e9e Conti, which he himself\ncould not have told from M\u00e2con. \"There are not two dozen of this vintage\nin America outside of my own cellars,\" Aurelian had said, and the poor\nagitator heard him miserably. He did remember, indeed, when a slim glass\nof amber Madeira was placed on the Indian table by his side and its name\ngiven him, that some one had once told him that Constitution Madeira was\nlast quoted in New York at seventy dollars a bottle, and so he drank his\nglass with a kind of distant wonder, but without pleasure; he thought it\nmusty, he would have chosen Bass. Yet, even as he lay in the long Indian\nchair, the subtle influence of Aurelian's Lattakhia and of his ancient\nwine worked slowly in his system, and already he began to think with\nsomething approaching tolerance of his pupil's apostasy. He lay full\nlength looking out over the carved balustrade through the silvery\njasmine flowers amid their black leaves, to where the sky of blazing\nstars, already paling before the advancing day, ceased at the edge of\nthe dark hills; and as he lay thus dreamily, he even wondered if he had\nrealised all that there was in life, in his career of feverish action.\n\nAurelian tossed the glowing end of his cigarette out through the jasmine\nleaves, watching it fall like a scarlet star. \"Do you not see how it\nis?\" he said; \"I know to the full the grotesque hideousness of life as\nit is, and I long for revolution. But I have seen every man who is fired\nwith desire to bring the change yield to the baleful influence of that\nwhich he would destroy until he has come to see no ideals save those of\nmaterialism. His ideal of life is a socialistic ideal of a dead, gross,\nphysical ease and level uniformity; his ideal of government a democracy;\nhis ideal of industry State factories with gigantic steam-engines,--his\nwhole system but the present system with all its false ideals, deprived\nof its individualism. I have lived beyond this, I can see the futility\nof all these things. I believe only in art as the object of\nproduction,--art which shall glorify that which we eat, that wherewith\nwe clothe ourselves, those things whereby we are sheltered; art which\nshall be this and more,--the ultimate expression of all that is\nspiritual, religious, and divine in the soul of man. I hate material\nprosperity, I refuse to justify machinery, I cannot pardon public\nopinion. I desire only absolute individuality and the triumph of\nidealism. I detest the republic, and long for the monarchy again.\"\n\n\"Aurelian,\" said McCann, \"will you tell me straight what you mean when\nyou say that, yet claim to be a socialist? I asked you once before that\nempty-headed Rip Van Winkle called Strafford Wentworth in the other\nroom, and you made an evasive answer. Now, tell me, how do you reconcile\nthe two?\"\n\n\"Because I believe that political socialism will destroy society and\nclear the ground for a new life; because it will annihilate the\nRepublic, and make monarchial government possible.\"\n\n\"It will destroy neither, but reform them both.\"\n\n\"It cannot reform either, for the principles of each are false.\"\n\n\"What do you fancy those principles to be?\"\n\n\"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.\"\n\n\"Do you dare to call those principles false?\"\n\n\"Liberty and equality false, fraternity impossible so long as the first\ntwo pretend to exist.\"\n\nMcCann sat bolt upright. \"Look here, Aurelian,\" he said seriously, \"I\ncan't talk in this way, I am not that kind of man. What has come over\nyou? I left you a socialist, and I come back and find you an unreasoning\nroyalist, incapable of talking sense, putting your defenceless fancies\ninto the armour of paradox. What in the name of common-sense do you mean\nby it?\"\n\nAurelian turned his handsome head and looked at the red-bearded\nagitator. \"Malcolm,\" he said gently, \"as you would say, we had best have\nit out. I have changed, but not exactly in the way you think. As I say,\nI am a socialist but also a royalist, as well as many other things you\nwould think equally bad. I have done a good deal of reading of late, a\ngood deal of thinking; so I have grown,--more than you, for you have\nonly acted. And just that, if you don't mind my saying so, is precisely\nthe trouble with most socialists. Look, this is the situation,\"--he sat\nup with almost animation in his face. \"The world is in a bad way, never\nworse; you taught me that, and the more I study life the more convinced\nI am of its eternal truth. Reform must come if we are to save this\ndecrepit world from a vain repetition of history; that of course follows\nfrom the other assumption. Thus far we walk together; but then arises\nthe question of means, and here we part, for you say reform may be won\nby agitation, I say man is helpless at the present juncture and can only\nwait.\"\n\n\"Men have not waited before; they have acted and have won.\"\n\n\"Yes, for it was dawn and not the eleventh hour.\"\n\n\"What do you make of the French Revolution?\"\n\n\"A reform undertaken at the eleventh hour, and therefore merging within\nthree years into hideous deformity,--a reform that failed.\"\n\n\"You dare to say that it failed when it destroyed feudalism and the\nrotten monarchial system?\"\n\n\"Yes, for in their places it made possible capitalism and the French\nRepublic. Should your agitation succeed it would result in the French\nRevolution over again, together with all its corollaries,--anarchy,\nkakistocracy, a glorious tyranny on a false foundation, kakistocracy\nagain, and chaos: a counter revolution, again a kakistocracy, and\nfinally impotence, false and evil as the destroyed feudalism.\"\n\n\"You are the worst pessimist I ever saw!\"\n\n\"Of course, for I am an optimist; and one can't be an optimist touching\nthe future without being a pessimist touching the present.\"\n\n\"But how can you be an optimist with regard to the future when you\ncondemn not only the present but every effort toward rebellion and\nreform?\"\n\n\"Because you are trying to turn back a tide that is almost at its full.\nHave patience, and the ebb will come.\"\n\nA great Persian greyhound, with white silky hair, paced solemnly down\nthe terrace and dropped its head on its master's knees, gazing at him\nwith soft eyes. Aurelian stroked its nose gently.\n\n\"Malcolm,\" he said, \"if you persist you will fail, either broken by the\npower you attack or through creating a condition more evil, more\nintolerable still. There is a depth of fall below the point the\nnineteenth century has now reached, and until that destiny is\naccomplished, you are helpless.\"\n\n\"You break my heart, Aurelian,\" said McCann, sadly. \"When I went away\nyou promised to fight with me in the battle for reform. I thought you\nunderstood me, followed me. And now--you lapse into awful luxury and\nvice,--opium and things. This is pretty bad, you force me to call you a\nrecreant; here on the very eve of battle you forsake the cause, you go\nover to the enemy; and worse, you are a traitor, for you debauch my\nmen,--you have North now in there drugged with opium. Last of all, you\ntry to tempt me, you urge me to give up the fight; but I am not a\ndeserter.\"\n\n\"Malcolm, dear boy, I don't deserve quite all of that,\" said Aurelian,\ngently. \"Yes, I have deserted as you say, for I see more clearly than\nyou; the battle is already lost even before it is fought. I thought once\nwhen you filled me with ardour of war that we could win. I see further\nnow. Dear Malcolm, you are waging war against the gods; you have\nmistaken the light that is on the horizon; you have waked from sleep,\nbut the flush of light that is in your eyes is not the dawn,--it is\nsunset. You taught me that we lived in another Renaissance; I know it\nnow to be another decadence, inevitable, implacable.\"\n\n\"You are wrong; the decadents have bedevilled you; they are but the\nfroth of the wave that has broken on the shore: the wave of the New Life\nfollows behind to sweep them into nothingness. Leave the simile: grant\nfor the moment that you are right: are you a coward to forsake a good\ncause that may fail? Have you forgotten John Ball?\"\n\n\"No, I have not forgotten John Ball, but I am not made of the stuff of\nmartyrs. Malcolm, I love life and love, and the beautiful things still\nsaved from the wreck of worlds. You would make me--an artist--forsake\nit all, and go shoulder a rifle, or carry a red flag. I have a life\ngiven me, let me live. I am not a fighter, let me be; let me live here\nin this happy oasis in the desert of men. I can't help you, I can only\nlay down my life on a barricade.\"\n\n\"That is brute selfishness!\"\n\n\"No, it is reason. I know myself: I am of no use to you; I thought I\nmight be once, and I tried. Everything sickens me,--every detail of the\nlife that is now, the stock exchange and newspapers, alleged art and\ntrade, and the whole false principle that is under it all. I can't fight\nthem, the contest sickens me. It is all wrong, the principle of your\nreform; you are wrong yourself. I can't have hope, and if I can't have\nhope I can't fight. How can I fight for a reform that, if it were\ncarried, would only take the power out of the hands of a sordid gang of\ncapitalists and throw it into the hands of a sordid gang of emancipated\nslaves? Life would be as hideous under their _r\u00e9gime_ as now. You would\nchange the ownership of cities, but you would not destroy them. You\nwould change the control of machinery, but you would not destroy it. You\nwould, in a word, glorify the machine, magnify the details, ignore the\nsoul of it all,--and the result? Stagnation. I have read your\nUtopias,--they are hopelessly Philistine; their remedies are stimulants\nthat leave the disease untouched. Malcolm, you will fail, for you do not\nsee far enough. 'Ill would change be at whiles, were it not for the\nchange beyond the change.' They are the words of your own prophet; you\nwill, if you succeed, bring in the change, and it will be ill indeed. I\nwait for 'the change beyond the change.'\"\n\n\"I deny that the change that we shall bring will be ill; it will be the\nnext step beyond where we are now. There is no turning back: the law of\nevolution drives us onward always; each new position won is nobler than\nthe last.\"\n\n\"Ah, that 'law of evolution'--I knew you would quote it to me sooner or\nlater. You hug the pleasant and cheerful theory to your hearts, and\ntwist history to fit its fancied laws. You cannot see that the law of\nevolution works by a system of waves advancing and retreating; yet as\nyou say the tide goes forward always. Civilisations have risen and\nfallen in the past as ours has risen and is falling now. Does not\nhistory repeat itself? Can you not see that this is one of the periods\nof decadence that alternate inevitably with the periods of advance? The\ntide--\n\n    'W_as once too at the full, and round earth's shore_\n    L_ay like the folds of a bright girdle furled;_\n    B_ut now I only hear_\n    I_ts melancholy, long-withdrawing roar_\n    R_etreating to the breath_\n    O_f the night-wind, down the vast edges drear_\n    A_nd naked shingles of the world._'\n\n\"Yes, it is the decadence, the Roman decadence over again. Were Lucian\nto come among us now he would be quite at ease--no, not that, for in one\nthing we are utterly changed; so sordid is our decadence, so gross, so\ncontemptibly material, that we are denied the consolations of art\nvouchsafed to his own land. Even in the days of her death Rome could\nboast the splendour of a luxuriant literature, the glory of beauty of\nenvironment, the supremacy of an art-appreciation that blinded men's\neyes to the shadow of the end. But for us, in the meanness of our fall,\nwe have no rags of art wherewith to cover our nakedness. Wagner is dead,\nand Turner and Rossetti; Burne-Jones and Watts will go soon, and Pater\nwill follow Newman and Arnold. The night is at hand.\"\n\nHe lifted a small hammer and struck a velvet-voiced bell that stood on\nthe Arabian table of cedar inlaid with nacre and ivory. Murad came out\nof the darkness, and at a gesture from Aurelian filled the great hookah\nof jade and amber with the tobacco mingled with honey and opium and\ncinnamon, placed a bright coal in the cup, and gave the curling stem\nwound with gold thread to his master.\n\nMalcolm watched it all as in a midsummer dream; for once he was\nsuccumbing to the subtle influences that were seducing his yielding\nsenses. He could not reply to Aurelian, he lacked now even the desire.\nThe slow and musical voice, so delicately cadenced, had grown infinitely\npleasing to his unfamiliar ears, strangely fascinating in its mellow\ncharm. Wondering, he found himself yielding to it,--at first defiantly,\nthen sulkily, then with careless enjoyment, forgetful of everything\nsave his new delight in his strange surroundings.\n\nThe rose-water gurgled and sobbed in the jade hookah; thin lines of\nodorous smoke rose sinuously to the silken awning that hung above the\nterrace, dead in the hot August night. For a time neither spoke; then at\nlength Aurelian said, with a more sorrowful gravity than before,--\n\n\"Yes, the night is at hand, and the darkness at last will cover our\nshame. It is better so. I thought once that through art we might work\nrevolution, and so win the world to clearness of sight again; that was\nbecause I did not know the nature of art. Art is a result, not an\naccident,--a result of conditions that no longer exist. We might as well\nwork for the restoration of chivalry, of the House of Stuart, of the\nspirit of the Cinque-Cento, or any other equally desirable yet hopeless\nthing. What we are, that our art is also. Every school of art, every\nlecture on \u00e6sthetics, every art museum, is a waste and a vanity, their\ninfluence is nothing. Art can never happen again; we who love it and\nknow it for what it is, the flowering of life, may only dream in the\npast, building for ourselves a stately pleasure-house in Xanadu on the\nbanks of that river measureless to man that runs to a sunless sea.\n\n\"Individualism begot materialism, and materialism begot realism; and\nrealism is the antithesis of art.\n\n\"What else could have been? Art is a result,--and a cause; at once the\nflower of life and the seed of the age to come. That age which through\nits meanness and poverty is barren of blooms leaves no seed for its own\npropagation. Good-night then to art; for the time its day is done.\nIntelligence and erudition may create a creditable arch\u00e6ology, and a\nblind generation may--nay, has--mistaken this for art. Well, its folly\nis fond and pitiful.\n\n\"Do you not see, then, how the discovery of this thing must fill me with\nthat despair which kills all effort? You will say, 'Rise then, gird\nthyself with the sword of scorn and invective, and strike with\nexaltation at the false civilisation which is the death of art and of\nall that is worthy in life.' Dear boy, our fathers in their fond,\nvisionary idealism made for all time such warfare of no avail. By\ncunning schemes and crafty mechanism they, impelled by most honourable\nmotives, have woven a System which is now not alone the System of these\nUnited States but of that Europe which we have dragged to our level; a\nSystem which is now being accepted by that pure and happy civilisation,\nthe last to yield to our importunity, Japan, and being accepted to its\nown damnation. And that System has made impossible forever any\nsuccessful result; for so dominant is it, so subtle in its influence, so\nalmighty in its power, that human strength is helpless before it.\nMoreover, it will, through its infinite craft, seem to yield now and\nthen, yet only in form; for it will so debauch the reformers that they\nwill think now and again their cause is won, yet will it have lost\nevery element of desirability. Nevertheless 'the People' will shout with\nacclamation, 'Victory! glorious victory! won through the strength of our\nimmortal and matchless institutions.' And all the while they are\nshouting for the shadow of revolution, for the dead body from which the\nsoul has fled.\n\n\"'What is this System,' do you say? I will tell you; it is the system of\nthe nineteenth century, by which it will be known in the histories of\ntimes to come, should time continue,--the great three-fold system of\nEquality, The Freedom of the Press, and Public Opinion. You yourself do\nthem honour, for that you yourself have yielded to their evil influence;\nuntil you have risen once for all superior to their plausible sophistry,\nevery thought you have, every act you are guilty of, will be tainted by\nthem and made of no avail. The whole world kneels before them now,\nconfessing their dominion. So long as this is so, so long will reform be\nimpossible.\n\n\"Democracy, Public Opinion, Freedom of the Press,--the idolatrous\ntritheism of a corrupt generation. Through the Institution of Democracy\nyou have bound yourself with invincible chains to a political system\nwhich is the government of the best, by the worst, for the few,--in\nother words, the suppression of the intelligent few by the mob for the\nbosses. By the Institution of Public Opinion you have made Democracy\npermanent, preventing forever the rule of the 'saving remnant.' You\nhave founded your unholy inquisition for the suppression of the martyrs\nto wisdom, and by your Institution of the Freedom of the Press you have\nraised a tyranny, an irresponsible hierarchy of godless demagogues, an\nimpeccable final authority which will suppress, as it suppresses now,\nall honourable freedom of thought. You have broken and destroyed the\npower of the Church, and you are proud thereof; but beware! for in its\nplace you have builded a Power, more widespread, more overwhelming, more\nirresistible. Though you crushed Democracy and discredited Public\nOpinion, yet so long as the Freedom of the Press remained in existence,\nJournalism would by its bull of deposition, its anathema of\nexcommunication, extinguish your labour in a breath.\n\n\"Here is your triple-headed Cerberus that bars your exit from this hades\nyou have made. Until he is slain you may never escape. Slain? You cannot\nslay him; he is sheathed in an impenetrable hide, proof against all\nassaults. Listen, only in one way may you pass by him. Wait! In a little\ntime his three horrid heads will growl with rising fury each to each,\nover the enormous spoils of decaying life. Wait! and the growls will\ngrow fierce and more furious; and at last in mortal and horrible combat\nthe beast will strive with _itself_, spreading chaos and death around.\nSo will it disable itself; and when at last its triple head has\ncollapsed in ghastly exhaustion, then will the time have come: pile\nupon it the hoary boulders of experience left by immemorial glaciers of\ntime; raise them into a mountain, and though, like imprisoned Titan, the\nhorrid beast bellows and thunders below, you may go forth fearlessly,\nand on the dread ruin he has wrought build a new civilisation, a new\nlife.\"\n\nAurelian's ardent eyes gazed on the man before him through the writhing\nsmoke in the pallid dawn; his voice was like the voice of a velvet bell.\n\n\"Yes, it is the end of years; the era of action is over, night follows,\nblotting from sight the shame of a wasted world; but through the mute,\nunutterable night rises and brightens the splendour of the new day, the\nnew life. Action has striven and failed, and wreck and ruin are the\nending thereof; but across the desert of failure and despair bursts the\nflame of the Dawn; the far-forgotten spirit of the world rises toward\ndominion again,--the spirit of visions and dreams, the mighty Mother of\nworlds and men, the Soul of the Eternal East.\"\n\nAurelian had risen and stood facing McCann, his white face lighted by a\nflame of sudden vigour and inspiration; but even as he finished speaking\nit changed. His eyes grew soft, and he smiled gently. \"Malcolm,\" he\nsaid, coming to the speechless agitator, and laying an arm lightly over\nhis broad shoulders, \"Malcolm, I shall hardly forgive you this. You have\nmade me almost enthusiastic again; for a moment I could have believed\nonce more there was virtue in action; that has passed, and I am myself\nagain. And now, look!\"\n\nThe sun rose, and its level river of light swept through the valley. A\nmist like vaporous opals rose slowly from the winding river below them,\ncurling in the amber air and brushing itself in thin plumes over the\npale sky. Down from the terrace stretched the great garden, where\nmultitudinous lilies flashed in the first light with iridescent dew. A\nsplendid peacock swept flauntingly through the mazy walks and among the\nwhite statues until it reached the central fountain, where it spread\nitself in the sun. At the foot of the last terrace, where the marble\nsteps turned to serpentine in the still water, a small white boat with\nprow of gilded fretwork lay motionless among the opening water-lilies\nand the great blooms of the lotos. The breath of honeysuckle and jasmine\nand day-lilies and tuberoses drifted slowly up in the first stirring\nwind. The river-mist lifted, showing the golden meadows with the slim\nelms here and there and the lofty hills fringed with dark forests\nbeyond.\n\n\"Malcolm,\" said Aurelian, \"beyond those fortress hills lies\nthe world,--the nineteenth century, seething with impotent\ntumult,--festering towns of shoe factories and cotton-mills, lying\ntradesmen and legalised piracy; pork-packing, stock-brokers, quarrelling\nand snarling sectaries, and railroads; politicians, mammonism, realism,\nand newspapers. Within my walls, which are the century-living pines, is\nthe world of the past and of the future, of the fifteenth century and\nof the twentieth century. Here have I gathered all my treasures of art\nand letters; here may those I love find rest and refreshment when worn\nout with hopeless lighting. Suffer me to live here and forget, or live\nin a living dream of dreamless life. Against my hilly ramparts life may\nbeat in vain,--it cannot enter. Here I am a King; humour my fancy, and\ngive over your striving to make a poet into a warrior. There is other\nwork before me. Even as in the monasteries of the sixth century the wise\nmonks treasured the priceless records of a dead life until the night had\npassed and the white day of medi\u00e6valism dawned on the world, so suffer\nme to dream in my cloister through evil days; for the night has come\nwhen man may no longer work.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere ends the Gospel of Inaction called the Decadent, which is privately\nissued for the Author by Copeland and Day, of Cornhill, Boston, in an\nedition limited to one hundred and ten copies on this yellow French\nhandmade paper, and fifteen copies on thick Lalanne paper, which have\nbeen printed during October and November, MDCCCXCIII by John Wilson and\nSon, Cambridge, at the University Press. The Frontispiece and Initial\nletters are designed by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and cut upon wood by\nJohn Sample, Jr.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\n\nPage 1, changed \"agressive\" to \"aggressive\" and changed oe ligature to\n\"oe\" in \"foetid.\" (Ligature is retained in HTML edition).\n\nPage 17, changed \"Guatamala\" to \"Guatemala\".","title":"The decadent : $b being the gospel of inaction : wherein are set forth in romance form certain reflections touching the curious characteristics of these ultimate years, and the divers causes thereof","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":10032}