{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_49336/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_49336","id":"gutenberg_49336","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49336","summary":null,"tags":["Animal welfare","Category: Biographies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Civilization"],"text":"SEVENTY YEARS\n                             AMONG SAVAGES\n\n\n\n\n                             SEVENTY YEARS\n                             AMONG SAVAGES\n\n                                  BY\n\n                             HENRY S. SALT\n\n                       [Illustration: colophon]\n\n                   LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.\n\n                RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1\n\n                       _First published in 1921_\n\n                       (_All rights reserved._)\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                               PAGE\n\nI. THE ARGUMENT                                   7\n\nII. WHERE IGNORANCE WAS BLISS                    16\n\nIII. LITER\u00c6 INHUMANIORES                         36\n\nIV. THE DISCOVERY                                50\n\nV. CANNIBAL\u2019S CONSCIENCE                         67\n\nVI. GLIMPSES OF CIVILIZATION                     73\n\nVII. THE POET-PIONEER                            90\n\nVIII. VOICES CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS           101\n\nIX. A LEAGUE OF HUMANENESS                      121\n\nX. TWENTIETH-CENTURY TORTURES                   135\n\nXI. HUNNISH SPORTS AND FASHIONS                 151\n\nXII. A FADDIST\u2019S DIVERSIONS                     169\n\nXIII. HOOF-MARKS OF THE VANDAL                  185\n\nXIV. THE FORLORN HOPE                           200\n\nXV. THE CAVE-MAN RE-EMERGES                     219\n\nXVI. POETRY OF DEATH AND LOVE                   231\n\nXVII. THE TALISMAN                              239\n\nINDEX                                           249\n\n\n\n\nSeventy Years Among Savages\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE ARGUMENT\n\n    A strange lot this, to be dropped down in a world of barbarians--Men\n    who see clearly enough the barbarity of all ages except\n      their own!--ERNEST CROSBY.\n\n\nThe tales of travellers, from Herodotus to Marco Polo, and from Marco\nPolo to the modern \u201cglobe-trotter,\u201d have in all ages been subject,\njustly or unjustly, to a good deal of suspicion, on the ground that\nthose who go in quest of curious information among outlandish tribes are\nlikely in the first instance to be imposed on themselves, and in the\nsequel to impose on their readers. No such doubt, however, can attach to\nthe following record, for I am myself a native of the land whose customs\nare described by me. I cannot think that my story, true as it is, and\nadmitting of corroboration by the similar witness of others, is any the\nless adventurous on that account; for, like previous writers who have\nrecorded certain startling discoveries, I, too, have to speak of\nsolitudes and remotenesses, vast deserts and rare oases, inextricable\nforests and dividing gulfs; and such experiences are none the less\nnoteworthy because they are not of the body but of the mind. At any\nrate, the tale which I have to tell deals with incidents which have had\na very real significance for myself--quite as real as any of those\nrelated by the most venturesome of voyagers.\n\nThe seventy years spent by me among savages form the subject of this\nstory, but not, be it noted, seventy years of _consciousness_ that my\nlife was so cast, for during the first part of my residence in the\nstrange land where I was born, the dreadful reality of my surroundings\nwas hardly suspected by me, except now and then, perhaps, in a passing\nglimmer of apprehension. Then, by slow degrees, incident after incident\nbrought a gradual awakening, until at last there dawned on my mind the\nconviction which alone could explain and reconcile for me the many\ncontradictions of our society--that we were not \u201ccivilized\u201d but\n\u201csavages\u201d--that the \u201cdark ages,\u201d far from being part of a remote past,\nwere very literally present.\n\nAnd here, in explanation of my long blindness to an unwelcome truth, it\nmust be remarked that there is a fixed and almost insuperable\nsuperstition among my savage fellow-islanders--and, indeed, among all\nthe surrounding nations--that they are a cultured and highly civilized\nrace, living in an age which has wholly emerged from the barbarism of\ntheir forefathers, the \u201cgood old times\u201d to which some of them even\naffect to look back with feelings of pious regretfulness. It was this\ndelusion, to which I was at first fully subject, that made it so\ndifficult for me to see things in their true light, and still makes it\nwellnigh impossible to communicate the truth to others, except to those\nwhose suspicions have in like measure been aroused. In reality, it will\nbe seen, the difference between the earlier \u201cbarbarism\u201d and the later\nso-called \u201ccivilization\u201d is, in the main, a mere matter of the absence\nor presence of certain intellectual refinements and mechanical sciences,\nwhich, while largely altering and complicating the outward conditions of\nlife, leave its essentially savage spirit almost entirely untouched.\n\nIt was not till I was over thirty years of age that I felt any serious\nconcern as to the manners and customs with which I was familiar, and\nwhich I had unquestioningly accepted from childhood as part of the\nnatural order. I had heard and read of \u201csavages,\u201d but felt the more\nsatisfaction to know that I was a native of a land which had for\ncenturies enjoyed the blessings of civilization and of religion, which\nit was anxious to disseminate as widely as possible throughout the\nearth. Why the diet of my countrymen should have been the first thing to\nset me pondering, I am unable to say, for as my later discoveries\nconvinced me, the dietetic habits of these people are not more\nastonishing than many kindred practices which I still regarded without\nmistrust. But it was so; and I then found myself realizing, with an\namazement which time has not diminished, that the \u201cmeat\u201d which formed\nthe staple of our diet, and which I was accustomed to regard--like\nbread, or fruit, or vegetables--as a mere commodity of the table, was in\ntruth dead flesh--the actual flesh and blood--of oxen, sheep, swine, and\nother animals that were slaughtered in vast numbers under conditions so\nhorrible that even to mention the subject at our dinner-tables would\nhave been an unpardonable offence.\n\nNow, when I began to put questions to my friends and acquaintances about\nthis apparently glaring inconsistency in our \u201ccivilization,\u201d I could not\nhelp observing, novice though I was in such discussion, that the answers\nby which they sought to parry my awkward importunities were extremely\nevasive and sophistical--reminding me of the quibbling explanations\nwhich travellers have received from cannibals when they inquired too\nclosely into certain dietetic observances; and from this I could not but\nsuspect that, as far as diet was concerned, we differed in degree only\nfrom the savages whom we deemed so debased.\n\nIt must be understood, however, that here, and in other references to\n\u201csavages,\u201d I use that term in its natural and inoffensive meaning, as\nimplying simply a lack of the higher civilization and not any personal\ncruelty or bloodthirstiness. What I write is just a friendly account of\nfriendly savages (by one of them); and I would emphasize the fact that\nthe kindliness and good nature of my fellow-countrymen are in one\ndirection quite as marked features of their character as their savagery\nis in another. In their own families, to their own kith and kin, to\ntheir personal friends--to all those whom fortune has placed within,\ninstead of without the charmed circle of relationship--their conduct, in\nthe great majority of cases, is exemplary; it is only where custom or\nprejudice has dug a gulf of division between their fellow-creatures and\nthemselves that they indulge in the barbarous practices to which I\nrefer.\n\nIt may be convenient if I here speak briefly of their other customs\nunder two heads: first, those that relate to human beings; and,\nsecondly, those that relate to the so-called lower animals. In few ways,\nperhaps, is the barbarism of these islanders more apparent than in their\nwars and in their preparation for wars. For what they call \u201cpeace\u201d is,\nin fact, only an armed truce--an interval between two outbreaks of\nhostility--during which, so far from being at genuine peace with their\nneighbours, they are occupied in speculating where the next attack shall\nbe delivered, or, rather (for they love to depict themselves as always\nstanding on pious self-defence against the wanton aggressiveness of\nothers), how they shall repel the next attack from abroad. It is their\ncustom always to have, for the time being, some bugbear among\nneighbouring tribes, whose supposed machinations against the richer\nportions of their empire give them constant cause for unrest, and prompt\nthem to cement undying, but equally transitory, alliances with other\nnations, so that their very friendships are based less on the spirit of\namity than on that of distrust. Under pretence of believing in an\nunbelievable and, indeed, wholly ridiculous maxim--_Si vis pacem, para\nbellum_ (\u201dIf you wish for peace, prepare for war\u201d)--they keep their\nminds for ever set on wars and rumours of wars, with the result that,\nin spite of all their profession of benevolence and brotherhood, the\ntrade of _killing_ is that which is above all others respected by them.\nIs money required for purposes of national welfare, such as education or\nthe relief of the poor? Every difficulty is at once put in the way of\nsuch expenditure for such ends. But let there be the least suspicion,\nhowever irrational, of some foreign slight to \u201cthe flag,\u201d and there is\nscarce a savage in the island who is not willing that the public\ntreasury should be depleted in pursuance of a childish revenge. To\nremonstrate against such folly is to incur the charge of being\n\u201cunpatriotic.\u201d\n\nBut comical as their foreign policy is, their social system is still\nmore so, for under the guise of \u201ccharity\u201d and \u201cphilanthropy\u201d there\nexists, in fact, a civil war, in which each individual, or group of\nindividuals, plays a remorseless game of \u201cBeggar my neighbour\u201d and\n\u201cDevil take the hindmost\u201d in mad scramble for wealth; whence results, of\ncourse, a state of gross and glaring inequality, under which certain\nfavoured persons wallow in the good things of life, while others pass\ntheir years in the pinch of extremest poverty. Thus, in due course, and\nby an unerring process, is manufactured what they call \u201cthe criminal\nclass\u201d--that is, the host of those who are driven by social injustice to\noutlawry and violence. And herein, perhaps, more than in any other of\ntheir customs, is shown the inherent savagery of their natures, for,\ninstead of attempting to eradicate the _cause_ of these evils by the\ninstitution of fairer and juster modes of living, my fellow-islanders\nare almost to a man in favour of \u201cpunishing\u201d (that is the expression)\nthese victims of their own foolish laws by the infliction of barbarous\nsentences of imprisonment, or the lash, or, in extreme cases, the\ngallows. To inculcate habits of honesty they shut a man in prison, and\nrender him more than ever incapable of earning an honest livelihood. As\na warning against robbery with violence, they give a lesson in official\nviolence by flogging the criminal; and, by way of teaching the sanctity\nof human life, they judicially murder the murderer. Many a grotesque\nabsurdity is solemnly and deliberately enacted in their so-called\n\u201ccourts of law\u201d; and any one who ventures to suggest that this is the\ncase is regarded as a fool and reprobate for his pains.\n\nBut it is when we turn to their treatment of the non-human races that we\nfind the surest evidences of barbarism; yet their savagery, even here,\nis not wholly \u201cnaked and unashamed,\u201d for, strange to say, these curious\npeople delight to mask their rudeness in a cloak of fallacies and\nsophisms, and to represent themselves as \u201clovers\u201d of those very\ncreatures whom they habitually torture for \u201csport,\u201d \u201cscience,\u201d and the\n\u201ctable.\u201d They actually have a law for the prevention of cruelty to\nanimals, under which certain privileged species, classed as \u201cdomestic,\u201d\nare protected from some specified wrongs, though all the time they may,\nunder certain conditions, be subjected with impunity to other and worse\ninjuries at the hands of the slaughterman or the vivisector; while the\nwild species, though presumably not less sensitive to pain, are regarded\nas almost entirely outside the pale of protection, and as legitimate\nsubjects for those brutalities of \u201cfashion\u201d and \u201csport\u201d which are\ncharacteristic of the savage mind. Their women go furred and feathered\nwith the skins of beasts and birds; and so murderous is their millinery\nthat whole species are sacrificed to this reckless habit. Nothing can\nexceed the ferocity of the national pastimes, in which, under the plea\nof affording healthful exercise to their tormentors, park-bred deer,\nthat have been kept in paddocks for the purpose, are turned out before a\nmob of men and dogs to be baited and worried; foxes, otters, and hares\nare hunted and \u201cbroken up\u201d; bagged rabbits are \u201ccoursed\u201d in small\nenclosures by yelling savages on the eve of the weekly religious\nfestival; pheasants and other \u201cpreserved\u201d birds are mown down in\nthousands in an organized butchery euphemistically known as the\n_battue_; pigeons are released from traps in order to be shot by gangs\nof ruffians who gamble over the result of their skill; and almost every\nconceivable form of cowardly slaughter is practised as \u201csportsman-like\u201d\nand commended as \u201cmanly.\u201d All this, moreover, is done before the eyes\nand for the example of mere youths and children, who are thus from their\ntenderest years instructed in the habit of being pitiless and cruel.\nNay, in some cases they are even encouraged to take part in such doings,\nand on the first occasion when they are \u201cin at the death\u201d are initiated\nby being \u201cblooded\u201d--that is, baptized with the blood of the slaughtered\nvictim of their sport.\n\nNor are these things perhaps so strange as they might at first appear,\nfor, in spite of their boasted progress in sciences and arts, my\ncountrymen are still practically ignorant of the real kinship which\nexists between mankind and the other races, and of the duties which this\nkinship implies. They are still the victims of that old anthropocentric\nsuperstition which pictures Man as the centre of the universe, and\nseparated from the inferior animals--mere playthings made for his august\npleasure and amusement--by a deep intervening gulf; and it is probable\nenough that if any one of these unthinking savages who \u201cbreak up\u201d a\nhare, or baptize their children in the blood of a butchered fox, were\nreminded that he himself is in very truth an \u201canimal,\u201d he would resent\nsuch statement of an established fact as a slight on his religious\nconvictions and on his personal self-respect. For, as the author of\n_Hudibras_ discovered:\n\n    There\u2019s nothing so absurd, or vain,\n    Or barbarous, or inhumane,\n    But if it lay the least pretence\n    To piety and godliness,\n    And zeal for gospel truths profess,\n    Does sacred instantly commence.\n\nThe very scientists themselves, who have in theory renounced the\nold-fashioned idea of a universe created for mankind, are inclined in\npractice to belie their own biological faith, for they claim the moral\nright to devote large numbers of the lower animals, without scruple or\nremorse, to the tortures of \u201cresearch,\u201d just as if the fact of a close\nkinship between the vivisector who wields the scalpel and the dog who\nlies in the trough were a notion of which Science is unaware!\n\nIs it surprising that, to those of us who have gradually realized that\nwe are dwelling in a wild land among savages such as these, the\nconsciousness of the discovery should at times bring with it a sense of\nunutterable loneliness and desolation--that we should feel cut off, as\nit were, by interminable leagues of misunderstanding from all human\nintercourse, and from all possibility of expressing ourselves? What\nappeal _can_ be made to people whose first instinct, on seeing a\nbeautiful animal, full of joyousness and vitality, is to hunt or eat it?\nOne can only marvel how such sheer, untempered barbarism has come down\nto us from the past.\n\nBut the facts, though so terrible in their first impression, are capable\nof being more hopefully regarded; there is a consolatory, as well as a\ndiscomforting, way of interpreting them. For if these countrymen of ours\nare indeed savages (as who can doubt?), have we not at least reason to\nrejoice that, being savages, they in many ways conduct themselves so\ndiscreetly, and that, as far as their sense of relationship extends,\nthey are so civil, so kindly, so law-abiding? Instead, therefore, of too\nloudly upbraiding them for hunting or eating their little brethren, the\nanimals, ought we not, perhaps, to feel and express some gratitude to\nthem that they do not hunt each other--that they have not eaten _us_?\nTheir self-restraint in many directions is, perhaps, quite as remarkable\nas their self-abandonment in others; and the mere fact of one\u2019s having\n_lived_ for many years among savages is in itself a testimony to their\ngood nature. Looked at in this light, the trouble is not so much that\nthey are in reality savage, as that they suppose themselves to be\ncivilized; for it is from the false garb of civilization that the\nmisapprehension has sprung.\n\nBut, however that may be, they are, when the worst is said of them, a\nquaint and interesting people, and it is my earnest wish that, by the\npublication of this story, I may be the means of drawing to the habits\nof my fellow-islanders the closer attention of anthropologists. Surely,\nin an age when many wild tribes have been the subject of learned\ndiscourse and of missionary enterprise, it is desirable that a race\nwhich has carried into the twentieth century the primitive customs which\nI have described should be critically and exhaustively studied. If such\nshould indeed be the result of this book, I shall be more than\ncompensated for whatever pain I may have felt in the writing of these\nstrange but faithfully recorded experiences.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nWHERE IGNORANCE WAS BLISS\n\n     Thought would destroy their paradise!\n     No more: where ignorance is bliss\n          \u2019Tis folly to be wise.\n    _Gray\u2019s Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College._\n\n\nIf it be true, as scientists tell us, that the period of boyhood\ncorresponds, in human development, with an early phase of savagery, and\nthat the individual boy is himself an epitome of the uncivilized tribe,\nit may be said with still greater confidence that an English public\nschool, or \u201cboy-farm,\u201d where life is mostly so ordered as to foster the\nmore primitive habits of mind, is essentially a nursery of barbarism--a\nmicrocosm of that predatory class whose members, like the hunters of\nold, toil not, neither do they spin, but ever seek their ideal in the\ntwofold cult of sport and soldiership. Certainly the Eton of the\n\u2019sixties and \u2019seventies, whatever superficial show it might make of\nlearning and refinement, was at heart a stronghold of savagery--a most\ngraceful, easy-going savagery, be it granted; for savages, as we know,\nare often a very pleasant people.\n\nIn some reminiscences, _Eton under Hornby_, published in 1910, I gave a\ndescription of the public-school education of fifty years ago, a system\nprobably not much worse than that of to-day; and the conclusion reached\nwas that as Eton never really changes, it is best to regard her, as she\nregards other institutions, in a mood of good-natured unconcern, and as\na subject less for argument than for anecdote. Eton has been\npre-eminently the school \u201cwhere ignorance is bliss,\u201d and in a much wider\nsense than that intended by the poet Gray in his famous ode \u201cOn a\nDistant Prospect of Eton College.\u201d For, if it be true of schoolboys that\n\u201cthought would destroy their paradise\u201d--that is, the thought merely of\nthe personal ailments of mature age--how much more disturbing would be\nthe contemplation of the vast social wrongs that fill the world with\nsuffering! Of such sombre thought Eton knew nothing, but basked content\nin the warmth of her own supreme self-satisfaction; and the Eton life\nwas probably the most enjoyable of all hitherto invented forms of\nheedless existence. It is, then, of the pleasures of Eton that I would\nspeak, and of some of the more distinguished of her sons with whom it\nwas my privilege to be acquainted.\n\nLong before I was admitted to Eton as a King\u2019s Scholar, I had a personal\nlink with the school in the fact that John Moultrie, the friend of\nPraed, and contributor to that most noteworthy of school magazines, the\n_Etonian_--himself a Colleger at Eton from 1811 to 1819--was my\ngreat-uncle. At Eton and Cambridge, Moultrie\u2019s career had been a\nbrilliant one; he was the \u201cGerard Montgomery\u201d of the _Etonian_--in\nPraed\u2019s words \u201cthe humorous Moultrie, and the pathetic Moultrie, the\nMoultrie of \u2018Godiva,\u2019 and the Moultrie of \u2018My Brother\u2019s Grave,\u2019\u201d--but\nhis later career did not fulfil the promise of his youth. The vivid and\nextravagant fancy of his early poems was succeeded by a more homely and\nsober style, and the pastor-poet in his \u201cDream of Life\u201d even referred\napologetically to the levities of his youthful muse.[1] Yet he still\nretained in some measure the poet\u2019s vision; and when Rector of Rugby he\nwas famous for the powerful interpretation which he gave to Shakespeare\nin his reading of the Plays. Him I remember at his rectory in the early\n\u2019sixties, a dignified, kindly old man, with a quaint mixture of humour\nand pathos, of ruggedness and gentleness, in his manner. Many stories\nwere current in Rugby of his eccentricities and absent-mindedness; on\none occasion when he had brought a lengthy sermon to an end, he is said\nto have startled his congregation by substituting for the usual formula\nthe equally familiar post-prandial one: \u201cFor what we have received, the\nLord make us truly thankful.\u201d\n\nIt was from this Etonian worthy that I first heard of Eton; and though I\nlittle foresaw that nearly twenty years of my life would be spent there\nas boy and master, it thus came about that in the summer of 1866 I found\nmyself being \u201ccoached\u201d for an Eton scholarship by the Rev. C. Kegan\nPaul, formerly \u201cConduct\u201d (Chaplain) at Eton, who held the Eton living of\nSturminster Marshall in Dorsetshire.\n\nMr. Paul, afterwards founder of a well-known publishing firm, was then a\nradical parson of very \u201cbroad\u201d views, a friend of Frederick Denison\nMaurice, Charles Kingsley, and many other Liberals. A man of fine taste,\nhe also possessed a large fund of vivacity and spirits, which, with his\nunvarying kindness, made him very popular among his pupils; indeed, only\nat Eton itself could there have been a more delightful life, regarded\nfrom the boyish point of view, than that which we led in those summer\nmonths, fishing, bathing, bird\u2019s-nesting. The one cloud on our horizon\nwas the impending rite of Confirmation, which some of us had to undergo\nat Blandford, and for which Mr. Paul prepared us. I have always felt\ngrateful to him for the simplicity of his method, which was free from\nthe morbid inquiries then common in schools. I think he asked me only\none question: \u201cIs it wrong to doubt?\u201d This was a problem in which I felt\nno sort of concern; making a bold shot, I replied \u201cNo,\u201d and was\ngratified to find that I had answered correctly.\n\nAt Eton my tutor was Mr. Francis Warre Cornish, one of the gentlest and\nmost accomplished of men, the very antithesis of the bullying,\nblustering schoolmaster of the good old type which even then was not\nwholly superseded. Much loved by those of his pupils who learnt to know\nhim intimately, Mr. Cornish was a good deal hampered in his dealings\nwith boys by his shyness and diffidence; he lacked that gift of\ngeniality which is essential to a successful teacher. This I discovered\nat an early date, when, in the course of the entrance examination, I was\ntold to show him the rough copy of my Latin verses. It was to these, as\nit turned out, that I mainly owed my election; but it somewhat depressed\nme when my prospective tutor, after reading the lines with a sad and\nforlorn expression, handed them back to me with no more cheering remark\nthan: \u201cToo many spondees.\u201d Years afterwards, when Mr. Cornish, competing\nfor a headmastership, was described in a testimonial as \u201ctrembling on\nthe brink of poetic creation\u201d (an odd certificate for such a post), I\nremembered his criticism of my youthful verses, and could not help\nthinking that his own poetic genius would also have benefited by a\nlarger infusion of the sprightly or dactylic element. His nature was\ndecidedly spondaic; but he was a kind and courteous gentleman, in the\nbest sense of the word, and in a less rough environment than that of a\npublic school his great abilities would have found ampler scope.\n\nMuch the same must be said of Dr. J. J. Hornby, who succeeded the rigid\nDr. Balston in the headmastership of Eton in 1868. It was a marvel that\na man who loved leisure and quietude as he did, and who seemed always to\ndesire to doff rather than to don the formalities of high office, should\nhave deliberately sought preferment in a profession which could not have\nbeen very congenial to him. Not that he lacked the reputed qualities of\na ruler: he had a stately presence, a most courteous manner, a charming\nsense of humour, and the rare power of interesting an audience in any\nsubject of which he spoke. But, behind these external capabilities, he\nhad a fatal weakness--slackness, perhaps, is the proper term--which\nloosened the reins of authority, and made his headmastership a period of\nwhich Eton had no reason to be proud. \u201cIdleness holds sway everywhere,\u201d\nwrote an Eton boy at that time, \u201cand _such_ idleness! As a man who has\nnever had dealings with the Chinese can have but a faint idea of what\nswindling is, so a man who has never been at Eton has but a poor\nconception of what idleness is.\u201d[2] What wonder, when the headmaster was\nhimself as unpunctual as a fourth-form boy?\n\nHornby was too retiring, too sensitive, to govern a great school. I was\nin his Division for two years, almost at the beginning of his\nheadmastership; and I can see him still as he sat at his oak table in\nthe middle of the sixth-form room, toying with a pencil, and looking at\nus somewhat askance, as if to avoid either scrutinizing or being\nscrutinized, for he was not of the drill-master kind, who challenge\ntheir class and stare them down. We liked him the better for it, but\ndivined that he was not quite at ease; and it occurred to one of us that\nhe was aptly described in that terse phrase which Tacitus applied to a\nRoman emperor: _Capax imperii nisi imper\u00e2sset_ (\u201cEvery inch a ruler--if\nonly he had not ruled\u201d). There was a certain maladroitness, too, about\nhim which at times set us wondering; until some one suggested that we\nshould look up the cricket records, and see how he had acquitted himself\nin that supreme criterion of greatness, the Eton and Harrow match. We\ndid so, and found that he had hit his own wicket. Thus all was\nexplained, our worst misgivings confirmed.\n\nThe want of discipline in some of the classrooms was appalling. My first\nterm was spent in the \u201clag\u201d Division of Fifth Form, a very rowdy one,\nthen taken by a most accomplished classical scholar known as \u201cSwage,\u201d or\n\u201cSwog,\u201d and a more unpleasant introduction for a new boy could hardly\nhave been devised. So great was the uproar, and so frenzied the attempts\nof the unfortunate \u201cSwage\u201d to suppress it, that it was as dangerous to\nbe a member of the class as it is for a well-disposed citizen to be\nmixed up in a street-riot; for among so many tormentors there was no\nsecurity against being mistaken for a ringleader. \u201cSwage\u2019s\u201d schoolroom\nwas on the ground floor and close to the road; and one of the first\nscenes I witnessed was a determined attempt on the part of some of the\nbigger boys to drive a stray cow into the room; they got her to the\ndoorway, but there she was met and headed back by \u201cSwage\u201d himself,\nshouting at the top of his voice and flourishing his large door-key.\nThat was the sort of game that went on almost daily. It was currently\nreported, and I believe with truth, that \u201cSwage\u201d once set a punishment\nto a bird. To sing and to whistle were common practices in his Division;\nand when a bird perched near the window and chirruped in an interval of\nthe din, he rounded on it blindly with a cry of \u201cA hundred lines.\u201d\n\nThere was a story, too, that a letter which he once wrote to the\nheadmaster, complaining of one of his private pupils who persisted in\nknocking loudly on his study door, bore a brief after-cry more eloquent\nthan many words: \u201c_P.S._ He is knocking still.\u201d\n\nTo fall into the hands of boys, as this ill-fated master had done--and\nhis lot was shared by several others--was to be a captive among savages:\nthey did not kill and eat him, it is true, but that was the extent of\ntheir tender mercies, and every day he was brought out afresh to be\nbaited and worried.\n\nSuch was the state of affairs when Hornby was made headmaster; and it\nbecame worse rather than better under his lax and listless regime. Yet\nno one who has any knowledge of the history of corporal punishment will\nbe surprised to hear that he was a frequent wielder of the rod. Seldom\ndid a day pass without a visit from the Sixth Form Pr\u00e6postor to one or\nmore of the Divisions, to bid some culprit \u201cstay after school\u201d; and on\nthose occasions the conduct of the class was a good indication of the\nlight in which the punishment was regarded. As the fatal hour\napproached, the eyes of all would be riveted on the offender, who\nmaintained a dauntless demeanour to the last; pantomimic gestures would\nindicate the nature of the penalty which he was shortly to undergo;\nwatches would be held up to emphasize the dreadful fact that, as in the\ncase of Dr. Faustus, time was on the wing; and there would be audible\nsurmises as to \u201chow many\u201d he would get. The victim\u2019s friends, indeed,\nwere hardly so considerate and sympathetic as the circumstances might\nhave been expected to demand.\n\nFlogging is an old institution which has found mention in every book\nwritten about the school, and which could never be omitted from any\ndiscourse upon Eton. It used to be the custom, in the holidays, for\nparties of Windsor trippers to be shown over the school buildings under\nthe leadership of a woman--the wife, presumably, of one of the College\nservants--who gave an oral explanation of the \u201csights.\u201d When the\nheadmaster\u2019s room was reached, the guide of course drew attention to\nthat awful emblem of authority, the \u201cblock\u201d; and after pointing out the\npart which it played in the correction of offenders, she would add, in a\ncroaking voice befitting the solemnity of the subject: \u201cThey receive the\npunishment upon their seats.\u201d That was a true, but rather inadequate\ndescription of a practice which only a very barbarous society could\ntolerate. A flogging was a disgusting sight even to the two \u201clower boys\u201d\nwho then had to act as \u201cholders-down\u201d; still more so to the Sixth Form\nPr\u00e6postor whose duty it was to be present; most of all, one would\nsuppose, to the headmaster. It has been described as \u201can operation\nperformed on the naked back by the headmaster himself, who is always a\ngentleman, and sometimes a high dignitary of the Church.\u201d[3]\n\nThe Lower Master, at the time of which I am speaking, was the Rev. F. E.\nDurnford, nicknamed \u201cJudy,\u201d described in _Eton under Hornby_ as \u201ca\nstrange, laughable, yet almost pathetic figure, with whimsical puckered\nvisage and generally weather-beaten aspect, like a sort of Ancient\nMariner in academic garb.\u201d He, too, used the birch freely in his domain\nof Lower School, but his castigations were of a more paternal kind, and\nbetween the strokes of the rod he would interject moral reproofs in his\nqueer nasal voice, such as: \u201cYou nahty, nahty boy!\u201d It was said that\nduring the punishment he would even enter into conversation with the\noffender, especially when he knew his \u201cpeople\u201d personally, and that on\none occasion he was overheard to inquire of a boy on the block: \u201cHave\nyou seen your uncle lately?\u201d a question which, in the circumstances,\nwould at first sight seem irrelevant, but was probably intended to\nawaken repentance in the criminal by directing his thoughts to some\npious and respected relative. To the upper boys, \u201cJudy\u201d Durnford was a\nnever-failing amusement; his every gesture was noted by them; as when,\nin correcting exercises, if some word or phrase eluded his memory, he\nwould sit scratching his temples vigorously, and exclaiming: \u201cIt runs in\nme head.\u201d\n\nAmong Dr. Hornby\u2019s assistant masters were several others whose\neccentricities have been a fruitful subject of anecdote and legend.\nRussell Day, a quiet and insignificant-looking little man, had a mordant\nwit and gift of ready epigram, which caused him to be dreaded alike by\nmaster and boys. \u201cFriend, thou hast learned this lesson with a crib: a\ncrib is a thing in which thou liest,\u201d was his remark in the course of a\nTheocritus lesson to a member of his Division, from whom I heard the\nstory full forty years later. There were two boys of the name of Bankes,\none known afterwards as a distinguished K.C., the other a lazy youth who\nnever knew his lessons and was wont to mumble the Greek or Latin very\nslowly in order to postpone the moment of discovery. On one of these\noccasions Day leaned back in his chair and said in his drawling tones:\n\u201cBankes, Bankes, you remind me of the banks where the bees suck and with\ntheir murmuring make me sleep.\u201d I remember how a friend and schoolfellow\nof mine named Swan, who was a pupil of Day\u2019s, showed me a copy of his\nLatin verses which had drawn the following annotation: \u201c_Olor!_ You\n_cycnus_.\u201d Not less characteristic was Day\u2019s curt dismissal of a youth\nnamed Cole (report says it was the future director of the Bank of\nEngland): \u201cThen, Cole, you may scuttle.\u201d Nor did he hesitate to turn his\nwit against his colleagues or himself. He called his pony \u201cLucifer,\u201d\nbecause, as he said, \u201cWhen you see him coming, it announces the approach\nof Day.\u201d\n\nA still more remarkable teacher was William Johnson, author of \u201cIonica,\u201d\nwho afterwards took the name of Cory, a man of real genius, whose\nenforced departure from Eton (for he did not leave, as was currently\nsupposed, from some sudden whim of his own) was the tragedy of his\nlifetime, a \u201cstrange wounding,\u201d as he calls it in one of his published\nletters. Of \u201cBilly Johnson\u201d many descriptions have been written. Here is\na passage from one of them:\n\n     \u201cIn appearance, as in everything else, he was unlike the typical\n     schoolmaster: his thoughtful, handsome, somewhat sensuous features\n     were altogether out of the common; and owing to his short sight he\n     had a dreamy, mystic, inquiring way of looking at you which was\n     sometimes a little disquieting to the schoolboy mind. There were\n     occasions, too, when we dreaded his tart sayings (the very school\n     books written by him bristled with epigrams), and listened with\n     some anxiety to his sharp, staccato utterances, or watched him\n     during those \u2018accusing silences\u2019 by which, hardly less than by his\n     barbed speeches, he could awe the most unruly class. His blindness\n     led to a prevalent story (apocryphal, I believe, as it was told\n     also of other persons at different times) that he had been seen\n     pursuing a hen down Windsor Hill, and making futile grabs at her,\n     under the belief that she was his hat; but it is certain that he\n     was sometimes seen standing stock-still in School Yard, or some\n     open space, apparently unconscious of all observers or passers-by,\n     and wrapt in a profound daydream. Singular he undoubtedly was, to a\n     degree that was inconvenient to a schoolmaster; and there were\n     queer anecdotes of certain too generous suppers that he gave to his\n     favourites among the boys, when he began by politely overlooking\n     that they were getting drunk, and ended by unceremoniously kicking\n     them downstairs.\u201d[4]\n\n\u201cFormerly wise men used to grow beards. Now other persons do so.\u201d This\nsentence in _Nuces_, an exercise-book of William Johnson\u2019s compilation,\nwas supposed by us to be aimed at another assistant master, a bearded\nclergyman, bluff, honest, mannerless, and universally disliked, who went\nby the name of \u201cStiggins.\u201d He had a detestable habit of standing at\nright angles to any one with whom he was conversing, while he looked\nstraight away in front of him, his long red beard streaming down to his\nwaist, and when he spoke, he jerked his words at you, as it were, from\nround the corner. His rudeness was a by-word; and the attempt sometimes\nmade to excuse it, on the ground that it \u201cwas not intended,\u201d did not\nappeal very strongly I think, either to masters or to boys: and justly,\nfor surely the only sort of rudeness which can be pardoned is that which\n_is_ intended. There are occasions, rare, but real, when it is necessary\nand wholesome to be rude; but to be rude without knowing it is the very\nacme of ill manners, and that was precisely the kind of discourtesy in\nwhich \u201cStiggins\u201d was unequalled.\n\nThe story of how \u201cStiggins\u201d was once nearly thrown into Barnes Pool, a\nby-water of the Thames, by a riotous troop of boys, has been told in\nmore than one of the books about Eton; it was a curious coincidence that\nhe should have almost shared the fate of his reverend predecessor in\n_Pickwick_, who was dipped in a horse-trough by the infuriated Mr.\nWeller. This incident was, perhaps, the greatest of the many scandals\nthat occurred at Eton during Dr. Hornby\u2019s headmastership.\n\nIt has often struck me as strange that I should owe to such a plain and\nunadorned barbarian as \u201cStiggins\u201d my first introduction to Keats\u2019s\npoems: he gave me, as a prize, Moxon\u2019s edition of the works. He also\n\u201csent me up for good\u201d (for Latin verses), an honour of which I was\nrather unpleasantly reminded, some twenty or more years afterwards, when\nhe had retired from Eton to a country parsonage; for in order to raise\nfunds for a proposed \u201crestoration\u201d of his church, he conceived the idea\nof soliciting \u201cfor the glory of God,\u201d as he expressed it, a subscription\nfrom every Old Etonian who in bygone days had been \u201csent up for good\u201d in\nhis Division. There was a na\u00efve effrontery about this proposal which was\nquite characteristic of its author.\n\nThe writing of Latin verse, so highly regarded at Eton, was a curious\naccomplishment. It was said by Coleridge in his _Table Talk_ that\nEtonians acquired the art \u201cby conning Ovid and Tibullus\u201d: my\nrecollection is that we read Ovid but rarely, and Tibullus not at all.\nSome of us certainly became proficient in making Latin verses of a kind;\nbut our models were the renderings of English poems in such collections\nas the _Arundines Cami_ or the _Sabrin\u00e6 Corolla_, rather than any Latin\noriginals; and though we could turn out \u201clongs and shorts\u201d with\nfacility, and even with neatness, I hardly think our productions would\nhave passed muster in the Augustan age. Still, the versifier\u2019s art, such\nas it was, brought us a certain gratification; and in the summer, when,\nas we all felt, the time of the leading cricketers was of inestimable\nvalue to the school, we were glad to turn our skill to good account by\ncomposing for them their weekly copy of verses, and so releasing them,\nas it were, from a frivolous for a serious task. On \u201cverse days\u201d members\nof the Eleven would often come up into College, where each would find\nfor himself a poet; and thus valuable time would be saved for practice\nat the nets. It was but little we could do in so great a cause, but we\ndid it with willingness; and I remember the honest pride which I felt\nwhen dictating to the Captain of the Eleven a copy of verses, made up\nlargely of old tags and stock phrases, which he copied down with much\nsatisfaction and without the least understanding. His ignorance of the\nmeaning of what purported to be his own composition would lead to no\ntrouble; for tutors and division-masters alike were aware that they must\nnot press a good cricketer too hard. A blue cap covered a multitude of\nsins.\n\nBut that we were savages, who, looking back on those bygone times, can\ndoubt? _Non angeli, sed Angli._ \u201cIt was an era,\u201d as Mr. Ralph Nevill has\nwell remarked in his _Floreat Etona_, \u201cwhen the sickening cant of\nhumanitarianism, born of luxury and weakness, had not yet arisen, to\nemasculate and enfeeble the British race.\u201d The hunting and breaking up\nof hares then, as now, was one of the recognized pastimes; indeed, even\nas late as the headmastership of Dr. Balston (1857-68), it had been\npermitted to the boys, as a variation from the hare-hunt, to pursue with\nbeagles a mutilated fox deprived of one of his pads.[5] In the hundreds\nof sermons which I have heard preached in Eton College Chapel, never was\na word spoken on the subject of cruelty. And no wonder; for Eton had\nalways been a home of cruel sports.\n\nThere was the less excuse for these miserable practices, because an\nabundance and superabundance of the nobler sports was within reach of\nthe Eton boy: nowhere else could river and playing-field offer such\nattractions. Thrilling beyond all else, and crowning the glories of the\nsummer school-time, was the great annual cricket match between Eton and\nHarrow at \u201cLord\u2019s,\u201d a drama of such excitement as nothing in mature life\ncould ever equal. Who, for example, that witnessed the match of 1869--C.\nJ. Ottaway\u2019s year, when Eton broke a long series of defeats by a\nsingle-innings victory--can have forgotten the delirious scene at the\nclose? I can still see Dr. Goodford, the venerable Provost of Eton,\ndancing ecstatically, hat in hand, before the pavilion, and looking very\nmuch as \u201cSpy\u201d once pictured him in a famous cartoon in _Vanity Fair_.\n\nAthletics, of course, took precedence of all intellectual pursuits. The\n_Etonian_, in our time, was but a dim legend of the past, and the genius\nof Praed and Moultrie had left no direct line of succession;\nnevertheless among the upper boys there was not an entire dearth of\nliterary aspiration, and we had a school magazine, the _Adventurer_,\nwhich existed from the later \u2019sixties for about five years. One of its\neditors, a Colleger named C. C. Thornton, was the author of some\nextremely good verse; and among other contributors, towards the latter\npart of the _Adventurer\u2019s_ career, were Arthur A. Tilley, now a Fellow\nof King\u2019s College, Cambridge; E. C. Selwyn, afterwards headmaster of\nUppingham School; J. E. C. Welldon, the popular Dean of Durham; Herbert\nW. Paul; George Campbell Macaulay; J. C. Tarver; and Sir Melville\nMacnaghten, who wrote as M^{2}; also, if I mistake not, the _nom de\nplume_ of \u201cTom\u201d covered some early poems of Mr. F. B. Money-Coutts, now\nknown as Baron Latymer. One of the best essays in the _Adventurer_ was\nthat on \u201cArbitration as a Substitute for War,\u201d[6] by Mr. Herbert Paul.\nAnother noteworthy contribution, which has some historical interest for\nEtonians of that period, was a poem by Bishop Welldon, entitled\n\u201cAdventurer Loquitur\u201d[7] in which the Magazine was represented as giving\nsome description of the several members of its \u201cstaff,\u201d whether in\nrecognition of their services or in reproof of their remissness. Among\nthose clearly indicated, though unnamed, were A. A. Tilley, R. C.\nRadcliffe, G. R. Murray, Bernard Coleridge (now Lord Coleridge), H. G.\nWintle, G. C. Macaulay, C. C. Lacaita, J. E. C. Welldon, E. C. Selwyn,\nand the writer of these reminiscences. The cause of the _Adventurer\u2019s_\ndecease was that it ran counter to Etonian sentiment, in acting on the\nperilous principle that \u201cit is only those who truly love Eton that dare\nto show her her faults.\u201d[8]\n\nApart from the _Adventurer_, the literary ambition of some of the\nCollegers sought irregular expression, in those far-off days, by\nsupplying the Windsor press, when opportunity occurred, with exaggerated\nand absurdly inflated accounts of any exciting incident such as the\noutbreak of a fire. Nor was it only the local papers that allured us;\nfor I remember how G. C. Macaulay and I once had a daring wager as to\nwhich of us should more egregiously hoax the _Field_ with some story of\na rare bird. He tried a too highly coloured anecdote of a bee-eater, and\nfailed to win credence; while I, with a modest narrative of a supposed\nstork in Windsor Park (\u201ccan it have been a stork? I shall indeed feel\nmyself lucky if my supposition be correct\u201d), not only saw my letter\ninserted, but drew the gratifying editorial comment: \u201cMost probably it\nwas a stork.\u201d Thus we made natural history and beguiled the idle hours.\n\nTo look upon a group photograph of the Collegers of fifty years ago\nbrings many memories to the mind. E. C. Selwyn, before we met at Eton,\nhad been my schoolfellow at Blackheath Proprietary School, of which his\nfather was headmaster; and our friendly relations were renewed from\ntime to time till his death in 1919. As I once reminded him, we had but\ntwo quarrels--the first when we were freshmen at Cambridge, about Moses,\nin whom I had been rash enough to say that I \u201cdid not believe\u201d; and the\nsecond, at a later period, because I _did_ believe in Mr. H. M. Hyndman,\nof whose socialist doctrines Selwyn as vehemently disapproved. Long\nyears afterwards I made what I thought was a fair proposal to him--that\nif he would give up Moses, I would give up the other patriarch, and so\nour two small disagreements would be mutually adjusted; but his answer\nwas that, though Moses need no longer delay a settlement, he could not\nagree to Mr. Hyndman being given up, because his patriotic conduct\nduring the Great War had shown him in a new light.\n\nWe used to call Selwyn \u201cbishop\u201d in those days, either because of a\ndistant relationship to Dr. G. A. Selwyn, the well-known Bishop of\nLichfield, or because we thought him almost certainly destined to attain\nto episcopal rank: his scholarship, not to mention his defence of Moses,\nseemed to warrant no less. J. E. C. Welldon, who _did_ become a bishop,\nwas another most genial schoolfellow, famous in the football field no\nless than in the examination room. I remember running second to him in a\nhandicap quarter-mile race, in which he was allowed a good many yards\u2019\nstart, and with that advantage just managed to keep the rest of us in\nthe rear. Herbert Paul, unlike Welldon or Selwyn, was by no means\ndesignated for a bishopric. I recall him, a sceptic even in boyhood,\nstanding in Upper Passage, where Collegers often held informal\ndiscussion, as, with thumbs in waistcoat pockets, he would hold forth,\nalready a fearless disputant, on matters human and divine.\n\nAmong other figures in the group are Dr. Ryle, Dean of Westminster; Sir\nRichmond Ritchie; Mr. George Campbell Macaulay; Mr. C. Lowry, head of\nTonbridge School; Dr. Burrows, Bishop of Chichester, Dr. Harmer, Bishop\nof Rochester; Sir E. Ruggles-Brise, Chairman of the Prison Commission;\nMr. E. C. Tennyson-d\u2019Eyncourt; Rev. J. H. J. Ellison, late Vicar of\nWindsor; Sir Lionel Carden, of Mexican fame; and others who in various\nways have become distinguished.\n\nVery provocative of reminiscence, too, are the illustrations, printed in\nbooks about Eton, of the College servants, the College buildings, and\nmany well-remembered faces and scenes. Take, for example, a picture of\n\u201cOld College Servants\u201d in Mr. Ralph Nevill\u2019s _Floreat Etona_.\n\nThere stands the old College porter, Harry Atkins, whom, to our\ndisgrace, we used to bombard on dark winter nights in his little lodge\nat the gateway into School Yard, hurling missiles at his door from\nbehind the pillars of the cloisters under Upper School, and trusting to\nour superior fleetness of foot when he was goaded into a desperate\ncharge. There, too, are Culliford, the butler, and Westbrook, the cook,\nwho were treated by us with far greater respect than the equally\nrespectable Atkins, as presiding over departments in which our own\npersonal comforts were more closely concerned, and from whose hands, on\nthe occasion of banquets in the College Hall, the smaller Collegers\nwould try to beg or snatch dainties as they carried them up from the\nkitchen. Among the least prominent members of the group is one\nWagstaffe, designated \u201cscullion\u201d; yet, humble though he was in\nappearance, his name had become a household word among the boys; for the\nsomewhat unappetizing dough which formed the base of the puddings served\nto the Collegers was then known as \u201cthe Wagstaffe,\u201d on the supposition,\npresumably, that the under part of the pudding was the creation of the\nunder-cook. I do not think I could eat that pudding now; but looking on\nthe worthy Wagstaffe\u2019s image again, I feel that we wronged him in\nidentifying him, as we did, with an unsavoury composition for which he,\na mere subordinate, was not personally to blame.\n\nTo the College Hall there came daily, for the remnants of bread and\nother victuals, a number of poor old alms-women; and if any further\nproof be needed of the exceeding thinness of the veneer by which our\nyouthful savagery was overlaid, it will be found in our treatment of\nthose humble folk, who were of much more use in the world than\nourselves. We named them \u201cthe hags\u201d; and one of our amusements was to\nconstruct for them what was called a \u201chag-trap.\u201d A large square piece of\nbread was hollowed out in the centre through a hole bored in the side,\nand when the cavity had been filled up with mustard, pepper, salt, etc.,\nthe opening was plugged, and the bread left lying on the table as a bait\nfor some unwary victim who should carry it to her home. Whether the Eton\nMission in Hackney Wick has so ameliorated the hearts of later\ngenerations of Etonians that a \u201chag-trap\u201d would now be an impossibility,\nI do not know; but in those days we certainly had not the smallest atom\nof sympathy with the working classes, except perhaps with those College\nservants who were known to us personally, and who ministered to our\nwants.\n\nWe did not pretend to regard the working man as a brother. Once, when I\nwas travelling with some Eton friends, a sweep who was standing on the\nplatform tried to enter our carriage just as the train was about to\nstart. Instantly we seized the door, and held it closed from the inside;\nand after a short struggle (the black man\u2019s anxious eyes still haunt\nme), the victory remained with us, for the train begun to move, and the\nsweep was left behind. That was our idea of Fraternity. Was it Waterloo\nthat was won in the Eton Playing Fields? I have sometimes thought it\nmust have been Peterloo.\n\nBut let me turn from the recollection of childish deeds done by those\nwho were but \u201cscugs,\u201d or \u201clower boys,\u201d to that of the immense\nself-importance of which we were conscious when we had reached the\neminence of sixth form. Surely nowhere on earth is there such a\ntremendous personage as a sixth-form Eton boy; he acts continually with\nthat \u201cfull sense of responsibility\u201d so dear to the occupants of the\nParliamentary front-bench. No visitor to Eton College Chapel can have\nfailed to be impressed by the pompous entry of those twenty immaculately\nattired young men as they precede the Headmaster and the Provost in a\nsort of triumphal procession, thinking of anything rather than the\nreligious service to which their arrival is the prelude. On speech-days,\ntoo, when, arrayed in dress-coat and knee-breeches, we declaimed\npassages from the great writers of antiquity or of modern times, we felt\nto the full the colossal seriousness of our position--serious also it\nwas in another sense, for our self-satisfaction was then sobered by the\npossibility of breaking down. To keep order in the passages at night; to\nsay the Latin grace in Hall; to note the names at \u201cAbsence\u201d in the\nschool-yard, standing by the headmaster\u2019s side--even to read prayers in\nthe Houses on occasions--these were but a few of the many duties and\ndignities of sixth form. No young feathered \u201cbloods\u201d in red Indian tribe\ncould have had greater reason to be proud.\n\nEven in the holidays our grave responsibilities did not wholly cease;\nfor it was a custom for sixth-form youths to be sent as tutors to lower\nboys who needed \u201ccoaching\u201d at their homes. On two occasions it fell to\nmy lot to perform that service for a lively but very backward boy at\nEvans\u2019s House, Charley Selwyn, nephew of the Bishop of Lichfield; and\nthe awe which I felt at sojourning in a bishop\u2019s palace helped to fix\nmore firmly in my memory some of the impressions which I got there.\n\nDr. George Augustus Selwyn was the most stalwart champion of \u201cmuscular\nChristianity.\u201d His face was somewhat grim and stern, as was to be\nexpected in so redoubtable a preacher of the gospel of hard work; but\nthere was a humorous twinkle in his eyes which betokened a very kind\nheart; and to any one connected with Eton, present Etonian or Old\nEtonian, he extended the warmest of welcomes. In fact, New Zealand, the\nscene of his missionary labours, and Eton, where he had been a\nsuccessful scholar and athlete, were the standing subjects of\nconversation at his table: he and Mrs. Selwyn used often to converse\ntogether in the Maori tongue; and had there been an Etonian language\n(other than slang) it would assuredly have been spoken by them. The\nworld was, for the bishop, divided into Etonian and non-Etonian. I once\nheard him pressing upon an old schoolfellow, who was about to leave the\nPalace, some table-delicacies of rare excellence, and quoting the\nHoratian line:\n\n      Ut libet; h\u00e6c porcis hodie comedenda relinques.\n    (\u201cAs you like! The pigs will eat them up, if left.\u201d)\n\nHe explained that some other guests who were coming to Lichfield that\nday were--non-Etonians.\n\nBut in spite of the large and lion-like geniality of the bishop, there\nwere anxious moments when the sight of some indolent or slovenly action\ncaused his quick temper to give way, and then one knew not whether to\ntremble or be inwardly amused at the forms which his anger would take.\nOnce, on a dull Sunday afternoon (the Sundays _were_ dull at the\nPalace), he overheard his nephew yawning wearily and saying he did not\nknow what to do. \u201cWhat!\u201d cried the bishop. \u201cA Christian boy not know\nwhat to do on a Sunday afternoon!\u201d Then, in terrible tones: \u201cGo and\nfetch your Greek Testament.\u201d Forthwith, while I made haste to escape\nfrom that scene of wrath, the wretched boy had to undergo a long lesson\nfrom his uncle.\n\nOn another occasion it was my pupil\u2019s sister, a very beautiful child of\nten or twelve, who caused an eruption of the volcano. She had left, in\nthe course of luncheon, \u201ca wasteful plate\u201d--that is, she had put the\ngristle of the meat at the side, cleverly hidden, as she thought, under\nknife and fork--and the bishop, observing this, lectured her sharply on\nthe sinfulness of such a habit. Then, to our consternation, his anger\nrising higher, he ended by seizing the girl\u2019s plate, and then and there\nhimself devoured the disgusting stuff as a practical lesson in\nfrugality. \u201cThe bishop\u2019s in a very bad temper, to-day, sir,\u201d the butler\ngravely remarked to me afterwards.[9]\n\nEton, then, was the school where ignorance was bliss, but the bliss was\nvery dear while it lasted, and it would have been dearer still if we had\nmore fully realized the nature of the change that was to follow--the\ndifference between University and School. As the end of the last summer\nterm drew near, we felt more and more the pang of the parting that was\nto come; and when it was time to write our _Vale_--that last copy of the\nweekly verses, in which we were allowed, for once, to substitute English\nfor Latin--we naturally likened ourselves to some prophetic dreamer of\nsad dreams, or to some despairing convict who sees his approaching fate.\n\n    So I, who write, feel ever on my heart\n      Such dim presentiment, such dull despair:\n    Me, too, a doom awaits; I, too, must part,\n      And change a careless life for toil and care.\n\nDoubtless many such elegies periodically found their way, as mine did,\ninto Dr. Hornby\u2019s waste-paper basket.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nLITER\u00c6 INHUMANIORES\n\n    Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow.\n              MILTON.\n\n\nCertainly, after the liveliness of Thames, old Camus seemed to foot it\nvery slowly. Heavy was the fall from the exaltation of the sixth form to\nthe lowliness of the freshman. A needed experience it may have been, as\ncorrecting the natural priggishness of boyhood; but it was a change that\nwe little relished while we underwent it.\n\nKing\u2019s College, Cambridge, in the early \u2019seventies, was in a phase of\ntransition from the old-fashioned system, under which it was a mere\nappanage of Eton, to a new order of things which was gradually throwing\nits gates open to all comers; much, however, of the ancient pettiness of\nspirit still remained; the College was small in numbers and small in\ntone, dominated by a code of unwritten yet vexatious ordinances, which\nit was waste of time to observe, yet \u201cbad form\u201d to neglect. \u201cKing\u2019s\nalways had a tyrant,\u201d was a remark made to me by F. W. Cornish, himself\na Kingsman.\n\nThe Provost was Dr. Okes, a short, rather crabbed-looking old man, whose\nenormous self-complacency was the theme of many tales. Once, when he was\nwalking through the court, his pompous gait caused some ill-mannered\nundergraduates, who were watching him from a window, to give vent to\naudible laughter; whereupon he sent for them and explained that such\nmerriment must not be indulged in while _he_ was passing by. That he\nhimself could have been the cause of the merriment was a possibility\nwhich had not entered his mind.\n\nNext in authority was the dean, a wan and withered-looking clergyman\nnamed Churton, who always seemed unhappy himself and infected every one\nwho entered his rooms with a sense of discomfort. He used to invite\nundergraduates to breakfast with him, a melancholy function in which he\noften had the aid of Fred Whitting (the name was pronounced Whiting), a\nbluff and more genial don whose conversation just saved the guests from\nutter despair; and at these entertainments poor Churton\u2019s one remark, as\nhe helped the fish, was to say with a sour smile of ineffable\nwretchedness: \u201cWhitting, will you be a cannibal?\u201d\n\nVery different from this chilly dean, and much more interesting, as\nbeing genuine relics of the brave old days when Kingsmen had no need to\nstudy or to exert themselves, inasmuch as their University career was\nassured them from the first, were two portly and inseparable bachelors,\nMessrs. Law and Brocklebank, whose sole employment it seemed to be to\nreap to the full the emoluments of their life-fellowship, which they had\nheld for a goodly number of years. \u201cBrock\u201d and \u201cApplehead\u201d were their\nnicknames; both were stout and bulky, but there was a rotundity about\nMr. Law\u2019s cranial development which gave him a more imposing appearance.\nAs they ambled side by side about the courts and lawns, it amused us to\nfancy them a pair of strange survivals from a rude prehistoric age, we\nourselves, of course, playing the part of the moderns and intellectuals.\nWhen \u201cApplehead\u201d died, we were enjoined in a poetical epitaph, by some\nanonymous admirer, to deck his grave with pumpkins, gourds, melons,\ncucumbers and other emblematic fruits.\n\nThe literary element was not strong in King\u2019s; but in Henry Bradshaw,\none of the senior Fellows, the College could boast a University\nLibrarian of much distinction. He was a kind, but most whimsical and\neccentric man, whose friendship was open to any undergraduate who sought\nit, only it must be sought, and under the conditions imposed by Bradshaw\nhimself, for it was never in any circumstances offered. If you presented\nyourself uninvited at his rooms--rather an ordeal for a nervous\nfreshman--you were welcomed, perhaps taken to his heart. If you did not\npresent yourself, he never asked you to come; on the contrary, however\noften he met you on the stairs or elsewhere, he passed with a look of\nblank and stony indifference on his large and somewhat inexpressive\nvisage. I knew a scholar of King\u2019s who lived on Bradshaw\u2019s staircase,\nand who for more than a year was thus passed by as non-existent: then,\none evening, moved by a sudden impulse, he knocked at the great man\u2019s\ndoor, entered, and was immediately admitted to the cheery circle of his\nacquaintance. It was useless to resent such waywardness on Bradshaw\u2019s\npart; there was no \u201cought\u201d in his vocabulary; you had to take him on his\nown terms, or \u201cgo without\u201d; and the great number of University men who\ncame on pilgrimage to his rooms was in itself a proof of his mastery. I\nrecall the following lines from an epigram which some rebellious\nundergraduate wrote on him:\n\n    Throned in supreme indifference, he sees\n    The growing ardour of his devotees:\n    He cares not if they come, yet more and more\n    They throng subservient to the sacred door:\n    He cares not if they go, yet none the less\n    His \u201charvests ripen and his herds increase.\u201d\n\nIt was so; and Bradshaw, having a gift of very pungent speech, was well\nable to keep his \u201cherds\u201d in order when they were assembled: he would at\ntimes say a sharp and wholesome word to some conceited or presumptuous\nvisitor. Even his nearest friends could take no liberties with him. It\nwas said that when Mr. G. W. Prothero, then a Fellow of King\u2019s, took to\nomitting the \u201cEsquire\u201d in the address of letters, and wrote plain \u201cHenry\nBradshaw,\u201d the librarian retaliated in his reply by addressing\nlaconically to \u201cProthero\u201d--nothing more.\n\nTo attend lectures and chapel services formed the chief duties of\nundergraduates; and the lectures were much the less tedious task. It was\na chilly business, however, on a cold winter morning, to hear the great\nGreek scholar, R. Shilleto, hold forth for an hour on his beloved\nThucydides; for he was an elderly man with a chronic cough, and his\nenthusiasm for a Greek idiom hardly compensated his audience for the\nphysical difficulties with which he laboured. He would begin cheerily on\na difficult passage, and, overtaken by a bout of coughing, lose the\nplace for a while; then, with a drawling \u201cyes,\u201d catch up the thread of\nhis discourse, till another spasm overwhelmed him; while we, desiring\nour breakfasts much more than the privilege of listening to a second\nPorson, fumed and fidgeted, and took notes, or neglected to take notes,\ntill the stroke of the clock released us. Much more popular were some of\nthe lectures which we attended, in other Colleges, given by such skilled\nexponents of the Classics as Henry Jackson and R. C. Jebb. Jebb was\nalways the same--self-composed, neat and eloquent; Jackson, on the\ncontrary, though not at all less competent, used to work himself into a\nfever of fretfulness when he could not find the exact word he sought\nfor; and then, to our amusement, he would upbraid himself as \u201cdolt\u201d and\n\u201cidiot,\u201d even while he was giving a most suggestive address.\n\nThe compulsory \u201cchapels\u201d were a great trial to some of us; and each\nKing\u2019s scholar was further liable, in turn, to the function of reading\nthe Lessons for a week. I do not know why this should have seemed more\nformidable than \u201cspeeches\u201d at Eton, but it was an office which we would\nvery thankfully have escaped. It needed some courage to step down from a\nstall in that spacious chapel--most of all when, as on a Sunday\nafternoon, there was a large concourse of visitors--and then to mount,\nby what cragsmen would call an \u201cexposed ridge,\u201d the steps that led up to\nthe big lectern in the middle of the nave. The sensation was one of\nextreme solitariness and detachment, with little but the lectern itself\nto give support and protection; so that we could almost sympathize with\nthe plight of that disreputable undergraduate who, according to a\ncurrent story (which, be it hoped, was fictitious), had essayed to read\nthe Lessons, in some college chapel, when he was not so sober as he\nshould have been. Throwing his arms round the eagle--for his lectern was\nfashioned in the shape of that pagan bird--he appalled the congregation,\nit was said, by exclaiming, in a pensive voice: \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for this\n[something] duck, I\u2019d be down.\u201d\n\nBut practice makes all things easier; and after a time one or two of us\nso far overcame our nervousness as to utilize our position at the\nlectern for the benefit, as we thought, of the congregation at\nlarge--certainly for our own personal comfort; for we ventured to dock\nand shorten the Lessons as we felt inclined. \u201cHere endeth the Lesson,\u201d\nwe would cry, when we had read, perhaps, no more than a dozen verses out\nof twice or thrice that number; and immediately the great organ would\nsound, and the pompous choral service continued on its course. We had\nprivate information that this irregularity did not pass unobserved by\nsome of the dons; but as nothing was said we concluded that they blessed\nus for it in secret.\n\nThe relations between dons and undergraduates were for the most part\nvery friendly; but the blandness of the dons was somewhat measured and\ncondescending--not without reason, perhaps, for undergraduates, like\nschoolboys, were apt to take undue advantage of any excess of\naffability. Once, when I was walking along King\u2019s Parade with a friend,\nwe saw the great Dr. Lightfoot coming from the opposite direction. \u201cNow\njust look,\u201d said my companion, \u201chow polite Lightfoot will be. See how\nI\u2019ll make him smile as he passes.\u201d And sure enough, the learned divine,\nin response to an audacious salute from one who had no sort of claim to\nhis acquaintance, was instantly wreathed in smiles and benignity, as if\nhe were meeting the son of his dearest friend, instead of being\nimpudently imposed on by a stranger.\n\nWe rather dreaded the invitations that sometimes reached us to a formal\nbreakfast, or worse still, a _soir\u00e9e_ (familiarly known as a\n\u201cstand-up\u201d), at the residence of some high authority. I have spoken of\nthe Churton breakfasts in King\u2019s; still more serious an affair was it to\nbe one of a dozen undergraduates summoned _en bloc_ to breakfast at\nTrinity Lodge, for Dr. Thompson, the Master of Trinity, was a great\nUniversity magnate, widely famed and feared for his sententious sayings\nand biting sarcasms, many of which were reported from mouth to mouth. We\nhad heard of that deadly verdict of his on a University sermon preached\nby Dean Howson, joint author of Conybeare and Howson\u2019s _Life of St.\nPaul_: \u201cI was thinking what a very clever man Mr. Conybeare must have\nbeen.\u201d As a member once or twice of such a breakfast-party, I recollect\nhow awkwardly we stood herded together when we had entered the sage\u2019s\npresence, and how, as we passed into the breakfast-room, we almost\njostled each other in our anxiety to get a seat as far as possible away\nfrom that end of the long table where the Master in his majesty sat. As\nfor the _soir\u00e9es_ at Trinity Lodge and elsewhere, they demanded some\nstrength of limb; for the number of visitors exceeded the number of\nseats, and to stand for two hours in a corner, and look as if one liked\nit, was irksome even for youth. At these ceremonials, when the Provost\nof King\u2019s was the host, he used to invite undergraduates with immense\ncondescension to \u201cbe seated\u201d; and when he added with emphasis: \u201cYou may\nsit down _here_,\u201d he was understood to be reflecting on the superior\ncomfort of a Provost\u2019s entertainment as compared with that of Trinity\nLodge.\n\nOne thing that rather galled the feelings of undergraduates was that\nnone but Provost and Fellows might set foot on the extensive lawns at\nKing\u2019s--a selfish privilege of the few, as it appeared, maintained to\nthe exclusion of the many. However that may have been, there came a\nnight when a small party of Kingsmen committed the sacrilegious act of\nreleasing a mole in front of the Provost\u2019s Lodge, and dauntlessly\nawaited the result, thus anticipating Lord Milner\u2019s policy of \u201cdamning\nthe consequences.\u201d There were no serious consequences, except to the\nmost innocent of all the persons concerned--the mole. We watched him\nwith admiration as he sank into that soft green turf, like a seal into\nwater; and the next morning we were thrilled to see a small line of\nearthen hillocks on the sacred sward. Then followed a great to-do of\ngardeners and mole-catchers; and on the third day, to our regret and\nremorse, the poor mole paid the penalty for the trespasses of others. We\nput a London newspaper on the track of this incident, and the editor\npublished some humorous speculations, for the benefit of readers\ninterested in natural history, as to how the mole could have found his\nway to that cloistered spot.\n\nThe _Cambridge Undergraduates\u2019 Journal_ (I am now speaking of the year\n1873 and thereabouts) was a fortnightly paper--edited at one time by G.\nC. Macaulay, at another by Hallam (now Lord) Tennyson--in which some of\nus used to try our hands at the higher journalism, and write satirical\nessays on the various anomalies of Cambridge life. Compulsory chapels;\ncompulsory Latin and Greek; \u201ccribbing\u201d in examinations; antiquated\ncollege customs; the exactions of college servants; the social functions\nknown as \u201cstand-ups\u201d--these were but a few of the topics on which we\nheld forth with all the confidence of youth. It was the _Adventurer_\nover again, but on a more comprehensive scale; for the undergraduate\ncould express his feelings more openly than the schoolboy; else the\nwriter of an article on compulsory chapels could hardly have inveighed,\nas he did, against the ordinance of full choral service, where \u201cthe man\nwithout an ear\u201d was doomed, for two long hours, \u201cto sit, stand, and\nkneel in wearisome succession.\u201d\n\nThe annual competition for the English Prize Poem afforded another\nopportunity for nascent ambition. The subject one year was the recovery\nof the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward) from a serious illness;\nand it was this rather snobbish theme that drew from one of the\ncompetitors a couplet which went the round of a delighted University:\n\n    Flashed o\u2019er the land the electric message came:\n    \u201cHe is not better, but he\u2019s much the same.\u201d[10]\n\nThen there were the \u201cSir William Browne\u2019s Medals,\u201d offered annually for\nGreek and Latin odes and epigrams. These prizes were usually the\nperquisite of a few select scholars (my friend E. C. Selwyn had a way of\ncarrying them off); but as the poems were sent in anonymously, the\nenvelope containing the competitor\u2019s name not being opened except when\nhe won the medal, it was a safe and rather good sport to try one\u2019s luck\nin the contest. One of the surprises of my life was when old Shilleto\n(the coughing grammarian) walked into my room one evening, and told me\nthat the examiners had awarded me the medal for Greek epigram. There\nbeing a defect in one of the lines, he sat down and corrected it, there\nand then, by an emendation which was doubtless better Greek and\ncertainly worse poetry.\n\nAnother high Cambridge authority, at that time, was Dr. Benjamin\nKennedy, famed as former headmaster of Shrewsbury School, and as author\nof a Latin Grammar familiar to many generations of schoolboys. I had\nbeen told to call on him at his house, for my father had been under him\nat Shrewsbury, and there was an old friendship between the families; and\nwhen I did so with some trepidation--perhaps because a recent experience\nat Trinity Lodge had made me fearful of \u201creceptions\u201d--I found him a most\nbenign old gentleman, quite free from the awful stateliness of a Provost\nor a Master; indeed, when he asked undergraduates to dinner he relaxed\nto an extent which could not but restore confidence in the most timid.\nAfter dinner he would give us \u201cwords\u201d to decipher, in ivory letters,\naccording to that rather inane Victorian pastime; or he would recite odd\nverses to us in his quaint sing-song voice, something between a whisper\nand a wheeze. Who could have feared even the most learned of Professors,\nwhen he stooped to conquer by rehearsing for us such an example of an\nEnglish pentameter as the following, presumably of his own composition:\n\n    Strawberry jam jam jam; strawberry, strawberry jam.\n\nBut even the genial Dr. Kennedy could not wholly release himself from\nthe rigidness of Cambridge etiquette: it was impossible, so he had\nstated when he desired me to call on him, for _him_ to call on an\nundergraduate. No such difficulty existed for the greatest yet least\nassuming of the distinguished men then living in Cambridge, Frederick\nDenison Maurice. Having heard of me as a pupil of Mr. Kegan Paul\u2019s, he\ncame, though he was an old man, to my room on the top story in King\u2019s,\nand talked so quietly and naturally that I felt quite at ease with him.\nOn a later occasion I breakfasted at his house, alone with him, a\nprivilege which I much valued; for even then I was aware of his real\ngreatness, unlike as he was to the pompous University magnates who\nfigured so largely in public. If only the heads of Colleges and\nUniversities could know--but, of course, they rarely know--how much more\npowerful is the influence of simple unaffected kindness than of the\naffability which betrays a touch of patronage and condescension!\n\nSt. Edward\u2019s Church, of which Maurice was the incumbent, was close to\nthe gates of King\u2019s--and some of us undergraduates used to go there on\nSunday evenings, notwithstanding our weariness of our own chapel\nservices, in order to hear him preach, for we were drawn to him by the\nobvious impression which he gave of quiet sympathy and strength. At a\ntime when the revolting doctrine of eternal punishment was still widely\nheld, his humanizing influence must have been very valuable within the\nChurch. Matthew Arnold\u2019s clever gibe, that he beat about the bush, but\nwithout starting the hare, left a good deal unsaid; for if he did not\nstart the hare he helped to silence the hell-cat.\n\nNot very long before the time of which I am speaking, Maurice\u2019s curate\nat St. Edward\u2019s had been a namesake of that saint\u2019s, Edward Carpenter,\nwho, as is related in his autobiography,[11] resigned his Orders,\ntogether with his Fellowship at Trinity Hall, in 1871. Some thirteen\nyears later I made his acquaintance in London; and I have often\nregretted that I went to Cambridge too late to hear him preach, for I\nhave never been able quite to picture the author of _Towards Democracy_\nin the pulpit, arrayed canonically in surplice or gown.\n\nThe goal of a Kingsman\u2019s career at Cambridge was the Classical Tripos;\nand for three years he would read steadily, and with increasing\nintentness, keeping that end in view. It was generally thought advisable\nto have a \u201ccoach\u201d; but experience led me to doubt whether, for those who\nknew how to direct their own reading, and had the necessary\nperseverance, it was not a waste of time to invoke such assistance; a\ngood \u201ccrib\u201d was a far speedier and more effective instructor. Some\n\u201ccoaches,\u201d moreover, were apt to be rather lazy at times, and to put off\ntheir pupils\u2019 attendance on the plea, perhaps, that they had to go to\nLondon for the day, or were called off by some equally important\nengagement; and now, by a curious reversal, we, who at Eton should have\nbeen only too delighted if our tutors had perennially shirked their\nduties, had become in turn the studious ones, and having ourselves paid\nfor the tuition were annoyed if we did not get it! One contemporary of\nmine at King\u2019s was so upset by his \u201ccoach\u2019s\u201d remissness that he wrote\nhim a letter of remonstrance, more in sadness than anger, and roused him\nto fury by quoting some words from Thucydides (\u03bf\u03af \u03b4\u1f10 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03bb\u03b1\u03b2\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f40\n\u1f00\u03c1\u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd), in open allusion to those who first get their fee and then\nneglect to earn it.\n\nYoung men often fail to realize the sensitiveness of their elders, and\nthus say and do things which cause more hurt than was intended. We used\nto be resentful, in those too fastidious pre-war days, of the\nconsiderable amount of shale, schist, and rubble which was sold to us\nwith our coal; and a fellow Kingsman once asked me to accompany him to\nthe coal-merchant\u2019s, to whom he proposed to return a basketful of the\nrefuse in question. Foreseeing sport, I went; but the scene that ensued\nwas sorrowful rather than amusing, for the head of the firm, a\nvenerable-looking old man with white hair, happened to be in the office,\nand when the coal-substitutes were handed to him over the counter his\nwrath was so great that his hand positively shook with passion. Savages\nthough we were, we came away rather penitent.\n\nThere was, however, one Kingsman at that time, an undergraduate senior\nto myself, who was unpleasantly famed for the remorseless devilry with\nwhich he scored off any unfortunate person whom chance placed in his\npower. His tailor, it was said, having by mistake sent him in a bill\nthat had already been paid, was ordered to set the matter right, on pain\nof being dismissed. He did so; and then the offended customer said to\nhim: \u201cAnd now I dismiss you just the same.\u201d On another occasion it was a\nbroken-down clergyman who had the ill-luck to appeal to this young\ngentleman for pecuniary aid: so rare an opportunity could not be allowed\nto slip. \u201cYou trust in God, I suppose,\u201d said the undergraduate. It was\nnot possible for a clergyman to gainsay it. \u201cThen I will toss up,\u201d said\nthe other; \u201cand if you cry rightly, I shall know you deserve\nassistance\u201d; and forthwith he spun the coin, and the clergyman\ncried--\u201cheads\u201d or \u201ctails\u201d as might be. But unluckily for the poor\npilgrim, the Kingsman was a skilled manipulator of the coin in hazards\nof this sort, and the result was never in doubt. The mendicant was\nproved, on the highest authority, to be undeserving.\n\nBut to return to the Classical Tripos. Coached or uncoached, we came at\nlast to that great final examination, a sort of Judgment Day in\nminiature, which, for some of us, would have an important bearing on our\nlater lives. The examination system is in various ways open to\ncriticism, and critics have by no means been lacking, but it need not be\ndenied that intellectual benefit in many cases may result from the\nsustained effort to prepare oneself for a very searching test,\nnecessitating a thorough study of the chief Classical writers. But the\nweightiest charge against the University education is the one which\nleast often finds expression--that a learning which would strengthen the\nintellect only, and does not feed the heart, is in the main but barren\nand unprofitable, a culture of the _liter\u00e6 inhumaniores_. Except from F.\nD. Maurice, I never heard, during my four years at Cambridge--from\npreacher or professor, from lecturer, dean, or don--the least mention of\nthe higher social ethics, without which there can be no real culture\nand no true civilization.\n\nI remember, with shame, that I was once so moved by the florid rhetoric\nof Dean Farrar, in a missionary sermon preached before the University,\nthat I made a contribution to the offertory which I could ill afford. A\nday or two afterwards, with the return of sanity, I felt the force of\nthe adage that \u201cfools and their money are soon parted,\u201d and I saw that\nit was worse than folly to send missions to other countries, when we\nourselves were little better than pagans at home. The mischief of this\nspurious religionism was that it lessened the chance of any genuine\nawakening of conscience to the facts that stared us in the face. We were\nmade to study Paley\u2019s fantastic \u201cEvidences,\u201d while the evidence of\nnature, of the human heart, and of actual life, was sedulously hidden\naway.\n\nIn the Tripos of 1875 the Senior Classic was Mr. Peskett, who belonged\nproperly to the preceding year, but owing to illness or some other cause\nhad \u201cdegraded\u201d into ours, and thus robbed my friend Mr. Arthur Tilley of\nan honour which should rightly have been his. Dr. J. Gow, Headmaster of\nWestminster School, was third; the fifth place was shared by Mr. Gerald\nBalfour and myself.\n\nIt was the custom in those days for headmasters of Eton to draw largely\non King\u2019s College for their supply of assistants: thus a King\u2019s Scholar\nof Eton, after taking his degree at Cambridge, would often return to the\nschool as a Classical assistant master, and so complete the academical\nround. The process might, perhaps, have been likened to the three stages\nof butterfly life, but with the first and the last phase transposed. We\n_began_ as the gay Eton insects, whose ignorance was bliss; and then,\nafter passing through the chrysalis period by the Cam, reappeared on\nThames\u2019s bank, metamorphosed into the caterpillars locally known as\n\u201cbeaks,\u201d and usually content thenceforth to crawl soberly along on a\nwingless but well-nourished career. But even a worm, as we know, will\nturn; and, as the next chapter must relate, some of the grubs would at\ntimes be so unconscionable as to take new and unsettling notions into\ntheir heads.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE DISCOVERY\n\n     \u201cWhy, they are cannibals!\u201d said Toby. \u201cGranted,\u201d I replied; \u201cbut a\n     more gentlemanly and amiable set of epicures do not exist.\u201d--HERMAN\n     MELVILLE.\n\n\nWhat are the feelings of the poacher transformed into the gamekeeper?\nThey must, I think, be similar to those of a youth who, after studying\nfor a few years at the University, returns as master to the school which\nhe left as boy. _Quantum mutatus ab illo!_ The scene itself is the same,\nbut the part which he must play in it is now to a great extent reversed;\nand the irony of the situation is that though henceforth an upholder of\nlaw and order, he still, perhaps, sympathizes at heart with the\ntransgressors whom it is his duty to reprimand.\n\nTo be summoned as an assistant by Dr. Hornby, and at a few days\u2019 notice\n(his arrangements were frequently made in desperate haste), was to be\nthrown very suddenly upon one\u2019s own resources; for, an appointment once\ncompleted, he showed no further interest in the matter, and did not even\ntrouble himself to provide a school-room in which his latest lieutenant\nshould teach: that the number of Divisions exceeded the number of rooms\nwas a trifle which did not engage his attention. A novice had therefore\nto consider himself rather lucky when he was able to secure, for his\nfirst term or two, even an apartment so ill equipped for educational\npurposes as a sort of cupboard, situated under the stairs that led to\nthe headmaster\u2019s room, and popularly known as \u201cThe Dog-Kennel.\u201d Here,\nwith a class of about forty boys, a pleasant summer school-time had to\nbe spent.\n\nIt was a curious sensation, which I suppose all teachers of large\nclasses must have felt, to be confronted by serried ranks of boys whose\nfaces were entirely strange, though their names were entered on the list\nwhich lay, like a map, upon the desk. Some time was required before each\nname could be correctly fitted to the face; and in this process any\nabnormality of feature or size in individuals, which might constitute a\nlandmark, was a great help. A red-haired boy, or a fat boy, served to\npunctuate a row; and that classification of boys (I forget who made it)\ninto the beef-faced and the mealy-faced was a thing to be kept in mind.\n\nSuch were the auspices under which an Eton master was in those days\nstarted on his career--shut up in the Dog-Kennel with a horde of young\nbarbarians, whom, in the circumstances, it was hardly possible to\ninstruct, and not very easy to control. There were a few masters at\nEton, as doubtless at other public schools, who had a real gift for\nteaching; also a few, like our friend \u201cSwage,\u201d who were unable to\nmaintain any semblance of authority. Between these two extremes were\nthose, the great majority of us, who, while courteously and respectfully\ntreated by the boys, and having pleasant relations with them, could not\nin strict truth flatter themselves that, except in special cases, they\nhad overcome the natural tendency of boyhood to be idle. So much has\nbeen written about the defects of the Eton system that it suffices here\nto say that while a reputation for cleverness was maintained by a few of\nthe boys, mostly King\u2019s Scholars, the bulk of the school was inflexibly\nbent upon other activities than those of the mind.\n\nNor were the masters themselves unaffected by the general tone of the\nschool. There were some fine scholars, it is true, on Dr. Hornby\u2019s\nstaff, experts not in Classical literature only, but in various\nbranches of learning; yet in not a few cases these gifted specialists\nseemed as artless in their outlook on life as they were skilled in their\nparticular department. \u201cA d----d fool, with a taste for the Classics,\u201d\nwas the too unceremonious description given of one of them by a\nsarcastic acquaintance; and the epigram, however reprehensible in\nexpression, hit the mark. Knowledge is not wisdom; and this academical\nlearning often went together with a narrow and pedantic spirit which\nblindly upheld the old order of things and resented every sign of\nchange. For example, there was one learned master who used to assert, in\nthose years of peace, that what England most needed was a war--a grim,\nhard-fought war; and this was the sort of reckless talk often indulged\nin by the mildest-mannered of men, who themselves were in no danger\nwhatever of exchanging the gown for the sword.\n\nNew ideas were under a ban at Eton; notwithstanding the specious\ninvitations given to some distinguished men to lecture before the\nschool. Gladstone, Arnold, Ruskin, Morris and Lowell were among those\nwho addressed the boys in the School Library; and it was instructive to\nnote the reception which they severally obtained. Lowell was the most\npopular; his cheery contention that this world of ours is, after all,\n\u201cnot a bad world to live in,\u201d being delightedly received by an audience\nwhich had good personal reasons for concurring in such a sentiment:\nWilliam Morris, on the other hand, having ventured on the then dangerous\nground of Socialism, was hissed. Gladstone discreetly kept to the\nunimpeachable subject of Homer; and Matthew Arnold\u2019s staid appearance,\nwith his \u201cmutton-chop\u201d whiskers and mechanical bowing of the head in\naccord with the slow rhythm of his sentences, was sufficient to lull to\nsleep any insidious doubts of his respectability. As a speaker, Ruskin\nwas by far superior to the rest; his lucid train of thought and clear,\nmusical voice could hold enchanted an audience, even of Eton boys, for\nthe full space of an hour.\n\nScience lectures formed another branch of the intellectual treats that\nwere provided for the school; but Science was still rather under a cloud\nat that date. I recollect the title of but one discussion, and that only\nbecause I happened to be able to throw some light on the geological\nproblem with which it dealt. I was living in a small house (once famous\nas \u201cDrury\u2019s\u201d), which had a much higher one on either side; and as it was\nthe practice for the boys in neighbouring houses to bombard each other\nwith any missiles or minerals that might be handy, my garden became a\nsort of \u201cno-man\u2019s-land\u201d between the two rival fortresses, and its\nsurface was enriched with a very varied deposit. When, therefore, a\nlecture was announced on the question, \u201cWill coal be found in the Thames\nvalley?\u201d I was able to solve the problem affirmatively by the production\nfrom my own premises of some remarkably fine samples.\n\nIt would doubtless have shocked Dr. Hornby if any one had suggested that\nthere was a lack of religious instruction in that most conservative of\nschools. Chapel services there were in plenty; and a Greek Testament\nlesson on Monday morning; and \u201cSunday Questions\u201d to be answered in\nwriting; and \u201cSunday Private\u201d to be attended in the Tutor\u2019s pupil-room;\nand Prayers every evening in each House. Yet the general tone of Eton\nwas far from being religious, even in the conventional meaning of the\nterm; for the many superficial observances did not affect the deep\nunderlying worldliness of the place. It was Vanity Fair on Sundays and\nweek-days alike. There was an Eton story of a servant in a private\nfamily who, when the bell was rung for evening devotions, was overheard\nto cry in a weary voice: \u201cOh, dear! _Why_ do gentry have prayers?\u201d The\nreference to \u201cgentry\u201d shows the light in which such ceremonies are\nregarded downstairs. In the same way, the religious teaching in schools\nis looked upon by the boys as imposed on them for purposes of\ndiscipline.\n\nIt was not the boys only who found the Chapel services very tedious; for\nmost of the masters were laymen, many of them unorthodox, and for these\nit was no agreeable duty to be victimized both on Sundays and on Saints\u2019\nDays for the sake of keeping up appearances before the school.\nCalculations are sometimes made of the number of years spent in prison\nby some hardened criminal or \u201cgaol-bird.\u201d Why does no one tell us how\nmany hours, amounting to how many years, some zealous church-goer, or\npew-bird, has spent on such devotions? Without claiming that\ndistinction, I calculate that during some twenty years spent in\nconnection with public school and University I passed several thousands\nof hours in church and chapel.\n\nHuman nature could not but chafe under the fearful dulness and length of\nthe sermons in Eton College Chapel. Dr. Goodford, the Provost, was a\nsort of personified Doom; when once he mounted the pulpit he was in the\nsaddle, so to speak, and rode his congregation well-nigh to despair with\nhis merciless homilies, all uttered in that droning voice, with its\nceaseless _burr_ and inevitable cadence, which became to generations of\nEtonians as familiar as the Chapel bell itself. Scarcely less fearsome\nwere some of the elder Fellows, retired masters, such as Bishop Chapman\nand the Rev. John Wilder, who were often let loose on us on Sunday\nmornings and blithely seized the opportunity: it was their field-day,\nand they were out to enjoy themselves, quite unconscious that what was\npious sport to them was death to their unwilling audience. Small wonder\nthat some assistant masters used to dread the weeks when they were on\nduty (\u201cin desk\u201d it was called); but providentially there were others\nwho, disliking still more the labour of correcting Latin verses, were\nwilling to barter \u201cverses\u201d for \u201cdesks\u201d; that is, they would take so\nmany of a colleague\u2019s desks, while he in return would look over a\nstipulated number of exercises. Thus did the Muse come to the aid of her\ndevotees:\n\n    Sic me servavit Apollo.\n\nPerhaps the strangest form that religion took at Eton was that of\nmissionary zeal; we used to have sermons periodically about carrying the\ngospel to \u201cthe heathen\u201d; though if ever there was a benighted spot on\nearth, it was that pleasant school by the Thames. Some of the boys were\nat times infected by the passion for making proselytes: on one occasion\nan extremely dull and idle youth, who had lately left Eton, wrote to\ntell me, as his former tutor, that he had decided to become a missionary\n\u201cto the poor perishing heathen\u201d--in his case, the Chinese, a people much\nless ignorant and barbarous than many of their self-appointed rescuers.\n\n\u201cDivinity\u201d was one of the studies most encouraged and fostered at Eton;\none would have thought the place was a training-school for theologians,\nfrom the prominence that was given in examinations to this particular\nbranch of learning. The result, as might have been expected, was the\nsame as in the writing of Latin verses: a few boys became adepts in the\nBible Dictionary, while the bulk of the school scarcely advanced beyond\nthat stage of biblical knowledge exhibited by a certain Etonian who,\nwhen invited to write an account of St. James the Elder and St. James\nthe Less, was able to give a brief description of the Elder, but was\nreduced, in the case of the Lesser saint, to the rather inadequate,\nthough so far correct, statement that: \u201cThe other was another.\u201d\n\nWe were perhaps somewhat overdone with the Saints at Eton: the masters\nwho had to set the Sunday Questions were nearly as tired of asking about\nSt. Peter and St. Paul as the boys of answering; and in the Chapel\nsermons we suffered, year after year, under the whole Hagiology, until\nsome of us, it must be confessed, sighed in secret for the time:\n\n    When Reason\u2019s rays, illuming all,\n      Shall put the Saints to rout,\n    And Peter\u2019s holiness shall pall,\n      And Paul\u2019s shall peter out.\n\nBut if Christianity was the nominal religion at Eton, the real creed was\nRespectability. To do the \u201cproper thing\u201d; not to offend against any of\nthe conventional canons; to dress, walk, speak, eat and live in the\nmanner prescribed by \u201cgood form\u201d--this was the ever-present obligation\nwhich neither boy nor master could disregard. Any slip in matters of\netiquette was regarded as deadly. There was a dark rumour about one of\nthe masters, a good and worthy man, but very shortsighted, that by a\ntragic error in the High Street he had taken off his hat to his cook: it\nwas only less dreadful than if he had failed to perform that act of\ncourtesy in some case where it was required.\n\nAs is usual in barbarous societies, the number of things that were\n\u201ctaboo\u201d was considerable. In the early \u2019eighties the bicycle and\ntricycle were frowned upon, not for boys only but for masters; and a\nlady living in Eton once received from Mrs. Hornby, who of course, was\nat the head of the Fashions, a message that to ride a tricycle was \u201cnot\na nice thing to do.\u201d Yet for the boys it _was_ considered a nice thing\nto hunt and \u201cbreak up\u201d hares. I once witnessed the virtuous indignation\nof one of the masters, a clergyman, and a follower of the Eton hounds,\nwhen some rather \u201cshady\u201d incident of the hunt was reported to the\nheadmaster; but Dr. Hornby soon set matters right by explaining that, as\n_all_ hunting was cruel, he obviously could not take notice of any\nparticular malpractice. That was the sort of reasoning with which any\nattempts to humanize Eton customs were parried and thwarted.\n\nYet new ideas could not be wholly excluded, even from that stronghold\nof the antique; there were, in fact, several members of Hornby\u2019s staff\nwho held views too advanced to be avowed in such surroundings. One of\nthe least prejudiced men at Eton was the French Master, M. Roublot, who\nwas a close personal friend of his German colleague, Herr Griebel; and\nit is pleasant to recall the fact that during the horrors of the\nFranco-German War, some ten years earlier than the period of which I am\nspeaking, these two \u201cenemies\u201d had kept their friendship unbroken, and\nmight be seen daily taking their walk together, just as if their\ncountrymen were not insanely engaged in cutting each other\u2019s throats.\n\nAmong the Classical tutors, two of the most enlightened spirits, men of\ngreat personal charm, were Mr. E. S. Shuckburgh, afterwards lecturer at\nEmmanuel College, Cambridge, and the Rev. Duncan Tovey, who a few years\nlater took the Eton living of Worplesdon. Shuckburgh, though himself\nmost impatient of the old traditions, and sympathizing largely with the\nnewer thought, was of a very critical habit of mind, and used to\ndelight, for argumentative purposes, in dwelling on the difficulties and\nshortcomings of the reforms which some of us advocated. Tovey was a\nliterary man (his works on Gray and Thomson are well known), out of his\nelement in such a place as Eton, but in his happier moods a most\ndelightful talker and companion. Mrs. Tovey, too, had a lambent wit\nwhich could play lightly round the anomalies of Eton life. She once\nwrote a charming list of some imaginary books of fiction, the authorship\nof which she assigned to various local celebrities: one of the works,\nthe supposed creation of an Eton upholsterer notorious for his big\nbills, had a title which might make the fortune of a modern\nphilosophical novelist: \u201cMan\u2019s Time; a Mystery.\u201d\n\nSome of the junior masters played a useful part in challenging the old\nsuperstitions. Mr. J. D. Bourchier, afterwards a famous correspondent of\n_The Times_ in south-east Europe, was the first rider of the bicycle at\nEton, and incurred much obloquy through his persistence in a practice\nwhich no Eton master could then countenance with safety. My\nbrother-in-law, J. L. Joynes, jun., was a still worse offender. He had\nbeen impressed by Henry George\u2019s _Progress and Poverty_, and in the\nsummer holidays of 1882 travelled with George in Ireland. By a\nridiculous blunder of the Irish Constabulary, the two were arrested and\nlocked up as dangerous conspirators; and, though they were quickly\ndischarged when the magistrates discovered the error, the whole Press of\nthe country rang with amused comments. The Government had to apologize\nto Henry George as an American citizen; and an account of the fiasco,\nwritten by Joynes, and published in _The Times_, caused great scandal in\nEtonian circles, where publicity was regarded, not without good reason,\nas the thing of all things to be deprecated. Great, then, was the horror\nof the Eton authorities when, a few weeks later, an advertisement\nannounced Joynes\u2019s forthcoming volume, _Adventures of a Tourist in\nIreland_. In hot haste he was informed by the headmaster that he must\nchoose between his mastership and his book: he chose the latter, and\nresigned his post. That was the result, as a patriotic colleague and\nfriend pointed out to me, of giving heed to \u201ca mouldy American.\u201d Thus\nfallen from the high estate of an Eton mastership, Joynes became a\nleading spirit in the Social Democratic Federation; and by him I was\nintroduced to many well-known socialists whose names will be mentioned\nlater on.\n\nDuring the sixteen years of his headmastership Dr. Hornby dismissed no\nfewer than four assistants, and was himself involved at times in serious\nconflicts with the Governing Body. A weak man, he was obstinate to the\nlast degree when once engaged in controversy; as was shown by his\ndetermination to get rid of Mr. Oscar Browning, who, whatever the\nmerits of their quarrel, was worth much more to Eton than Hornby\nhimself. It was not generally known that three other assistant masters\nproffered their resignations as a protest against Mr. Browning\u2019s\ndismissal; a most ill-judged step, because matters had then reached a\npoint where either Hornby or Browning had to go. The resignations were\naccepted, and the three mutineers had to ask leave to withdraw them,\nwhich they did with as good a grace as they could muster. Thus the\nheadmaster triumphed; but it was a victory that brought him little\ncredit, and it was a lucky day for Eton when, on the death of Dr.\nGoodford, he was appointed to the Provostship in 1884.\n\nDr. Warre, succeeding Dr. Hornby, was like King Stork following King\nLog: it was as if the school, after a long period of \u201cgo as you like,\u201d\nhad been suddenly placed under a military dictatorship. Warre had nearly\nbeen appointed headmaster in 1868; and though, during Hornby\u2019s reign, he\ncontinued to serve loyally as an assistant, it was evident that it\ngalled him to watch the nervelessness and vacillation with which the\ngovernment of the school was conducted: I have heard him at a \u201cmasters\u2019\nmeeting\u201d appeal to Dr. Hornby in terms which, however respectful in\nform, conveyed a reproach which could hardly have been unnoticed: \u201cWill\nthe headmaster insist upon his rule being kept? Will you pull us up,\nsir, if we neglect it?\u201d We listened in amusement, knowing full well that\nHornby would himself be the first to break his own rule, if it was one\nthat demanded either punctuality or perseverance.\n\nOne of Dr. Warre\u2019s earliest innovations was to visit the different\nDivisions in person while a lesson was going on; a very right and proper\ncourse to take, but one which came rather as a shock to the assistant\nmasters of that time, who had been accustomed to consider their\nclass-rooms, like the proverbial Englishman\u2019s house, as their \u201ccastles.\u201d\nWe each wondered, not without anxiety, when his own turn would come.\nWhen mine came, I was spared a lengthy inspection owing to an incident\nwhich was as amusing as it was unforeseen. The next room happened to be\noccupied that day by a colleague who was entirely unable to keep order;\nand as neither the unfortunate man, nor his rowdy Division, was aware\nthat the headmaster was so near them, I had hardly begun my lesson when\nthere rose a terrific din from next door--shrieks, catcalls, peals of\nlaughter, stamping of feet, all the noises of a madhouse. With a wave of\nhis hand to me, the headmaster slipped swiftly from the room; and a\nmoment later I knew what had happened, not by hearing, but by the\ninstant _cessation_ of sound, for that wild uproar stopped as suddenly\nas if it had been cleft with an axe, and was succeeded by a deep silence\nmore eloquent than words.\n\nA few days later, Dr. Hornby, the new-made Provost, came up to a small\ngroup of masters who were standing near the school-yard, and smilingly\nasked us if we had been \u201cinspected\u201d yet. \u201cI\u2019m glad,\u201d he added, with a\nsigh of relief, \u201cthat they didn\u2019t inspect _me_.\u201d\n\nDr. Warre was in every way a contrast to Dr. Hornby. Far less sensitive\nand refined, he had much more real sympathy, if not with the masters, at\nany rate with the boys, and under a rough exterior showed on many\noccasions a practical kindness which was quite wanting in his\npredecessor. For example, the setting of \u201cGeorgics\u201d (i.e. the writing of\n500 lines of Virgil), one of the most senseless punishments in vogue at\nthat time, was always encouraged by Hornby. When Warre heard an\nassistant master remark that he was \u201clooking out for an opportunity\u201d to\nset a \u201cGeorgic\u201d to a troublesome boy, he interrupted him with: \u201cYou\nshould look out _not_ to set him a \u2018Georgic.\u2019\u201d He had that kindly\nunderstanding of boyhood which is of great value to a teacher; and from\nthe point of view of those who believe that Eton is an ideal school, and\nthe \u201chub\u201d of the universe, it is difficult to see how a better\nheadmaster than Dr. Warre could have been found; but he was a Tory of\nthe strictest type, and his appointment meant the indefinite\npostponement of reform.\n\nEnough has now been said to show why a ten-years\u2019 sojourn as a master at\nEton was likely to bring disillusionment, even if outside influences had\nnot quickened the process. Socialism was even then \u201cin the air\u201d; and to\nhave become personally acquainted with Bernard Shaw, Edward Carpenter,\nH. M. Hyndman, Henry George, William Morris, John Burns, H. H. Champion,\nBelfort Bax, and other apostles of what was then termed \u201crevolution,\u201d\nwas not calculated to strengthen a waverer in the pure Etonian faith.\nStill earlier, in the winter holidays of 1878-79, I had met at Coniston,\nin the Lake District, an ardent disciple of Ruskin, Mr. William Harrison\nRiley, who held communistic views; and in the course of some long walks\nwith him on the mountains, in which I acted as his guide, he more than\nrepaid the obligation by opening my eyes to certain facts which I had\npreviously overlooked. He brought me a message from another world.\n\nThis Riley, with all his fiery zeal, was a man of touching simplicity.\nHe was then working some land of Ruskin\u2019s, at St. George\u2019s farm, near\nSheffield, and he had come to Coniston to visit the Master, for whom he\nfelt and expressed an almost childlike veneration. By Mr. Ruskin\u2019s\ninvitation I accompanied Riley to luncheon at Brantwood, and was greatly\nstruck by the meeting between the two--the devotion of the follower, and\nthe geniality of the sage. Early in the morning Riley, who was much\nsurprised by the luxuriance of the verdure at Coniston, as compared with\nthe grey desolation of the Sheffield hills, confided to me his intention\nof taking as a present to Ruskin a clump of moss from a wall-top near\nthe hotel; but as there was hardly a wall in the district that was not\nsimilarly covered, I suggested to him, as delicately as I could, that\nit might be a case of carrying \u201ccoals to Newcastle.\u201d Disregarding such\nhints, he arrived at Ruskin\u2019s door with a big parcel of the moss, and\ngravely presented it as soon as the first salutations were complete. The\ndelightful charm of Ruskin\u2019s manner was seen in this little incident: he\nlaughed--for who could have helped laughing?--yet took the gift--and\nturned the subject--with a graciousness that could leave no hurt. A few\nyears later Riley migrated to Massachusetts, but took with him his\nquenchless ardour for \u201cthe cause.\u201d The last letter I received from him\nconcluded with the words: \u201cMy feeble hand still holds aloft the banner\nof the ideal.\u201d\n\nI remember that one of the subjects on which Ruskin discoursed was the\npoetry of Tennyson, who was still regarded by most people, certainly by\nthe _literati_ of Eton, as a thinker of extraordinary power. He was an\ninstance, said Ruskin, \u201cof one who, with proper guidance, _might_ have\ndone something great\u201d; as it was, he had written nothing of real value,\nexcept, perhaps, _In Memoriam_. _Maud_ and _The Princess_ were\n\u201cuseless,\u201d _Enoch Arden_ \u201cdisgusting\u201d; the hero of _Maud_ \u201can ass and a\nfool,\u201d and the war-spirit in the poem \u201cdownright mischievous.\u201d Thus,\nagain, was sapped the simple faith of an Eton master, who knew by heart\na large portion of Tennyson\u2019s poetry, including the whole of _Maud_.\n\nIn addition to such dangerous doctrines, Vegetarianism was now beginning\nto be heard of in Eton; and this was in one respect a worse heresy than\nSocialism, because it had to be practised as well as preached, and the\nabstinence from flesh-foods could not fail to attract unfavourable\nattention. There was a distinguished scientist among the Eton masters at\nthat time, Dr. P. H. Carpenter, a son of Dr. W. B. Carpenter; and when\nhe expressed a wish to speak with me on the subject of the new diet\nwhich he heard I had adopted, I felt that a critical moment had arrived,\nand as a novice in vegetarian practice I awaited the scientific\npronouncement with some awe. When it came, spoken with friendly\nearnestness, it was this: \u201cDon\u2019t you think that animals were _sent_ us\nas food?\u201d I have since heard the same pathetic question asked many\nscores of times. What can one say in reply to it, except that the\ninvoice has not yet been received?\n\nA book of rare merit, filled with a multifarious store of facts about\nthe food question in relation to the humaner thought, is Mr. Howard\nWilliams\u2019s _Ethics of Diet_, which was then appearing by instalments in\nthe magazine of the Vegetarian Society. I had the good fortune to make\nMr. Williams\u2019s personal acquaintance, which was the beginning of a\nvalued friendship; I also had helpful correspondence with Professor F.\nW. Newman, then President of the Vegetarian Society, and with Professor\nJ. E. B. Mayor, who afterwards succeeded to that post. Thus equipped, I\nwas not greatly impressed by the proofs which friendly colleagues\noffered me of the \u201cimpossibility\u201d of the humaner diet; nor was I\ntroubled when, of the two medical men with whom I was acquainted at\nEton, the one said to me: \u201cWell, I will give you two years,\u201d[12] and the\nother, a rather foolish person whom the boys used to call \u201cMary,\u201d\ninquired with a look of puzzled despair at such incredible madness: \u201cDo\nvegetarians eat meat _by night_?\u201d A vegetarian was of course regarded as\na sheer lunatic in the Eton of those days. Twenty-five years later Eton\nhad a vegetarian headmaster in Dr. Edward Lyttelton, who was an\nassistant there in the \u2019eighties. \u201cLittle did I think,\u201d he wrote to me,\n\u201cwhen we used to chaff you about cabbages, that it would come to this!\u201d\n\nIt happened, in one of those years, that it fell to my lot to set the\nsubject for \u201cDeclamations,\u201d a Latin theme on some debatable point, which\nhad to be composed and \u201cspouted\u201d annually by two of the sixth-form\nboys, who took opposite sides in the discussion; and I chose for\nsubject, rather to Dr. Hornby\u2019s disgust, the question of vegetarianism\n(_An Pythagorei qui carne abstinent laudandi sint_). Another channel for\nvegetarian propaganda was afforded by the Ascham Society, a learned and\nselect body organized by some of the masters, who met periodically to\nread and discuss papers on ethical and literary subjects. It happened\nthat the members were hospitably invited to a dinner by one of their\ncolleagues, who specially announced a dish of roast veal as an\nattraction: thus provoked, I could not but decline that treat in the\naccredited Eton manner, a set of Latin verses, of which the conclusion\nwas obvious: Spare the calf, or let _me_ be excused:\n\n    Si non vis vitulo parcere, parce mihi.\n\nThus gradually the conviction had been forced on me that we Eton\nmasters, however irreproachable our surroundings, were but cannibals in\ncap and gown--almost literally cannibals, as devouring the flesh and\nblood of the higher non-human animals so closely akin to us, and\nindirectly cannibals, as living by the sweat and toil of the classes who\ndo the hard work of the world.[13] To speak of this, with any fulness,\nin such a society as that of Eton, except to the two or three friends\nwho held a similar belief, would have been an absurdity; and I do not\nthink I exaggerated, in the first chapter of this book, when I described\nthe discovery as bringing with it a sense of being cut off from one\u2019s\nneighbours by interminable leagues of misunderstanding. I was living _in\npartibus infidelium_. It became a necessity to leave a place where there\ncould be no sympathetic exchange of thought upon matters which were\nfelt to be of vastly more importance than the accepted religion and\nroutine.\n\nI treasure the recollection of the interview in which I took farewell of\nDr. Warre. Most kindly he expressed his regret that I had lost faith in\nthat public school system to which he himself, as all Etonians are\naware, devoted a lifetime of unsparing service. \u201cIt\u2019s the\nVegetarianism,\u201d he gravely remarked; and I understood him to mean that\nit was the abandonment of the orthodox diet that had led, by inevitable\nweakening of the _mens sana in corpore sano_, to my apostasy in regard\nto Education. When I told him that Socialism must take its share of\nblame, as having been at least an auxiliary cause, he was really\nshocked. \u201cSocialism!\u201d he cried, in his hearty tones. \u201cThen blow us up,\nblow us up! There\u2019s nothing left for it but that.\u201d\n\nIt is strange to reflect that between thirty and forty years ago the\nmere mention of Socialism should have suggested desperate acts of\nviolence: the term was then the bugbear, for the time being, of the\nrespectable classes, who always keep on hand some convenient scare-word,\nfor the purpose of making an alarm. \u201cAnarchism\u201d has since served its\nturn; \u201cBolshevism\u201d is the latest. Something to fear, something to hate,\nseems to be an indispensable requirement; hence the periodical outbreak\nof war-cries and flogging-crazes; it matters little what the bogey is,\nso long as there is a vendetta of some kind, even if it be only, for a\ndiversion, a campaign against the sparrow or the rat. There is no surer\ntoken of the barbaric mind than this capricious state of panic,\ndescribed by George Meredith as \u201call stormy nightcap and fingers\nstarving for the bell-rope.\u201d\n\nMy one irreparable loss in leaving Eton was not that of culture or\nscholarship or social position, but of the game of Fives; for I used to\nthink that the evolution of the Eton fives-court, the original of which\nwas a flagged space between two buttresses of the Chapel (\u201cTax not the\nroyal Saint with vain expense\u201d), was the most valuable contribution ever\nmade by the school to the well-being of mankind. Fives is a great game;\nand to have played it with such master-hands as A. C. Ainger, E. C.\nAusten-Leigh, Edward Lyttelton, or C. T. Studd, was a privilege neither\nto be forgotten nor to be replaced. I used afterwards to dream at times\nthat I was again engaged in the game--\u201cserving,\u201d perhaps, or taking the\nservice, or enjoying a duel of long sweeping strokes on the outer court,\nor mixed up in one of those close-fought rallies that centred round the\n\u201cpepper-box\u201d; until a perfect shot from one side or the other had sent\nthe ball to its resting-place in \u201cdead man\u2019s hole.\u201d\n\nMy parting gift to the school was an article entitled \u201cConfessions of an\nEton Master,\u201d which appeared in the _Nineteenth Century_ in January,\n1885, and led to a good deal of discussion on the Eton system of\neducation.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nCANNIBAL\u2019S CONSCIENCE\n\n     If any one should be educated from his infancy in a dark cave till\n     he were of full age, and then should of a sudden be brought into\n     broad daylight ... no doubt but many strange and absurd fancies\n     would arise in his mind.--From BACON\u2019S _Advancement of Learning_.\n\n\n\u201cDo you think me a cannibal?\u201d is the remark often made by a cheery\nflesh-eater, when enjoying his roast beef in the presence of a\nvegetarian; and it may not be denied that such is the thought which\ncommonly suggests itself, for the more highly developed nonhuman animals\nare very closely akin to man. \u201cWe do not eat negroes,\u201d says Mr. W. H.\nHudson, \u201calthough their pigmented skin, flat feet and woolly heads\nproclaim them a different species--even monkey\u2019s flesh is abhorrent to\nus, merely because we fancy that that creature, in its ugliness,\nresembles some old men and some women and children that we know. But the\ngentle, large-brained social cow ... we slaughter and feed on her\nflesh--monsters and cannibals that we are.\u201d No apology, then, shall be\nmade for the heading of this chapter. There is a very real likeness, not\nonly between anthropophagy and other forms of flesh-eating, but between\nthe excuses offered by cannibals and those offered by flesh-eaters.\n\nForty years ago, the possibility of living healthily on a non-flesh diet\nwas by no means so generally admitted as it is now; and consequently\nvery na\u00efve and artless objections used to be advanced against abstinence\nfrom butcher\u2019s-meat. Mr. Kegan Paul told me that he had once heard a\nlady say to F. W. Newman: \u201cBut, Professor, don\u2019t you feel very weak?\u201d to\nwhich the Professor sturdily replied: \u201cMadam, feel my calves.\u201d \u201cWhat on\nearth do you live on?\u201d used to be a frequent question at Eton in those\ndays, the implication being that there is no \u201cvariety\u201d in the vegetarian\ndiet; an amusing complaint, in view of what Richard Jefferies has\ndescribed as \u201cthe ceaseless round of mutton and beef to which the dead\nlevel of civilization [_sic_] reduces us.\u201d So obvious is this monotony\nin the orthodox repasts that the _Spectator_, a good many years ago,\npublished an article headed, \u201cWanted, a New Meat,\u201d in which it was\nexplained that what is needed is some new and large animal, something\nwhich \u201cshall combine the game flavour with the substantial solidity of a\nleg of mutton.\u201d The _Spectator\u2019s_ choice ultimately fell upon the eland,\nbut not before the claims of various other \u201cneglected animals,\u201d among\nthem the wart-hog, had been conscientiously debated.\n\nThat the cannibal conscience is somewhat guilty and ill at ease seems\nevident from the nature of the arguments put forward by the apologists\nof flesh-eating; else why did Dr. P. H. Carpenter suggest that the lower\nanimals were \u201csent\u201d to us for food, when, as a scientist, he knew well\nthe absurdity of that remark? Why not say frankly what Nathaniel\nHawthorne wrote in his _English Notebook_ that \u201cthe best thing a man\nborn in this island can do is to eat his beef and mutton, and drink his\nporter, and take things as they are, and think thoughts that shall be so\nbeefish, muttonish, and porterish, that they shall be matters rather\nmaterial than intellectual\u201d? The reckless hardihood of a simple and\nbarbarous people is essentially _un_conscious, just as the action of a\nhawk or weasel is unconscious when it seizes its prey; but when\nconsciousness is once awakened, and a doubt arises as to the morality of\nthe action, the habit begins of giving sophistical reasons for practices\nthat cannot be justified. Herman Melville tells us in his _Typee_ that\nthe Polynesians, being aware of the horror which Europeans feel for\nanthropophagy, \u201cinvariably deny its existence, and, with the craft\npeculiar to savages, endeavour to conceal every trace of it.\u201d The\nexistence of flesh-eating cannot be denied; but do we not see a savage\u2019s\ncraft in the shifty and far-fetched reasons alleged for its continuance?\n\nIt is only fair to \u201cthe noble savage\u201d to draw this distinction between\nthe natural barbarism and the sophisticated, between the real necessity\nfor killing for food and the pretended necessity. Commander Peary, the\nArctic explorer, once wrote in the _Windsor Magazine_, under the title\nof \u201cHunting Musk Oxen near the Pole,\u201d a story of the genuine hunger, and\nexpressed a doubt whether a single one of his readers knew what hunger\nwas. He was actually in a famishing state when a herd of Musk Oxen came\nin view: \u201cThe big black animals,\u201d he said, \u201cwere not game, but meat, and\nevery nerve and fibre in my gaunt body was vibrating with a savage lust\nfor that meat, meat that should be soft and warm, meat into which the\nteeth could sink and tear and rend.\u201d Here was a savagery that can at\nleast be understood and respected, that did not need to postulate the\n\u201csending\u201d of the oxen for its subsistence; yet, strange to say, Peary\u2019s\nstory would be voted disgusting in many a respectable household which\norders its \u201chome-killed meat\u201d from the family butcher and employs a cook\nto disguise it. Certainly, if there is a \u201cnoble savage,\u201d we must\nrecognize also the ignoble variety that has developed the \u201cconscience\u201d\nof which I speak.\n\nTo this \u201ccannibal\u2019s conscience\u201d we owe those delightful excuses, those\nflowers of sophistry, which strew the path of the flesh-eater and lend\nhumour to an otherwise very gruesome subject. By far the most\nentertaining of them is what may be called the academical fallacy,\ninasmuch as it seems to have a special attraction for learned men--the\nargument that it is a kindness to the animals themselves to kill and eat\nthem, because otherwise they would not be bred at all, and so would miss\nthe pleasures of existence. This \u201cCanonization of the Ogre,\u201d as it has\nbeen named, was propounded by Professor D. G. Ritchie, Sir Leslie\nStephen, Sir Henry Thompson, Dr. Stanton Coit, and other distinguished\npublicists,[14] every one of whom, with the single exception of Dr.\nCoit, prudently evaded discussion of the question when the flaw in his\nreasoning was pointed out, viz. that existence cannot be compared with\nnon-existence. Of existence it is possible to predicate certain\nqualities--good or bad, happiness or unhappiness--but of non-existence\nwe can predicate nothing at all; we must first have the actual ground of\nexistence to argue from, and he who bases his reasoning on the\nnon-existent is building upon the treacherous sands.\n\n\u201cThe Pig has a stronger interest than anyone in the demand for bacon,\u201d\nwrote Sir Leslie Stephen in his _Social Rights and Duties_. Sir Leslie\nwas repeatedly invited to make some answer to the criticisms which this\ndictum called forth; but courageous champion of intellectual freedom\nthough he was, he preferred in this instance to take refuge in silence.\nTo no one but Dr. Stanton Coit has philosophy been indebted for a full\nexposition of a comfortable theory which may be expressed (with the\nalteration of one word) in Coleridge\u2019s famous lines:\n\n    He prayeth best who _eateth_ best\n    All things both great and small.\n\n\u201cIf the motive that might produce the greatest number of happiest\ncattle,\u201d said Dr. Coit, \u201cwould be the eating of beef, then beef-eating,\nso far, must be commended. And while heretofore the motive has not been\nfor the sake of cattle, it is conceivable that, if vegetarian\nconvictions should spread much further, love for cattle would (if it be\nnot psychologically incompatible) blend with the love of beef, in the\nminds of the opponents of vegetarianism.\u201d[15] According to this ethical\ndictum, it will be seen, mankind will continue to eat cows, sheep, pigs,\nand other animals for conscience sake--we must be, not conscientious\nobjectors to butchery, but conscientious _promoters_ of it. So far, Dr.\nCoit only set forth in greater detail the argument stated by Professor\nRitchie, Sir Leslie Stephen, and the other casuists in cannibalism; but\nnow we come to that \u201cpsychological incompatibility\u201d to which in a\nparenthesis he referred.\n\n     \u201cBut we frankly admit,\u201d he continued, \u201cthat it is a question\n     whether the love of cattle, intensified to the imaginative point of\n     individual affection for each separate beast, would not destroy the\n     pleasure of eating beef, and render this time-honoured custom\n     psychologically impossible. We surmise that bereaved affection at\n     the death of a dear creature would destroy the flavour.\u201d\n\nNothing in controversy ever gave me keener satisfaction than to have\ndrawn this \u201csurmise,\u201d this pearl of great price, from Dr. Stanton Coit\nin the very serious columns of the _Ethical World_. It shows clearly, I\nthink, why his co-adjutors in the metaphysic of the larder were wise in\ntheir avoidance of discussion.\n\nIt seems to be a benign provision of Nature that those who allege\naltruistic reasons for selfish actions invariably make themselves\nridiculous. \u201cWhat would become of the Esquimaux?\u201d was one of the\nquestions often put to advocates of vegetarianism; probably it is the\nonly instance on record of any solicitude for the welfare of that remote\npeople. Then, again, we were frequently asked: \u201cWhat would become of the\nanimals?\u201d the implication being that under a vegetarian regime there\nwould be large numbers of uneaten and neglected quadrupeds left straying\nabout the earth. An artist friend of mine once drew an amusing picture\nto illustrate this \u201cFlesh-Eaters\u2019 Dilemma.\u201d A gentleman and lady,\nsitting at a well-ordered dinner-table, are terribly inconvenienced by\nan invasion, through the conservatory door, of a number of such\nsuperfluous animals: a cow is putting her head through the window; a\nsheep is snatching at the bread; a pig is playing with a rabbit on the\nfloor; and in the distance a forlorn ox is seen lying in desperation\nagainst the garden gate.\n\nSuch are some of the sophisms of which cannibal\u2019s conscience is\nprolific. They belong to that class of subterfuge which Bacon designated\n_eidola specus_, \u201cidols of the cave,\u201d as lurking in the inmost and\ndarkest recesses of the human mind. \u201cFallacies of the Cave-Dweller\u201d\nmight perhaps be a fitting name for them; for they seem to be\ncharacteristic of the more primitive and uncivilized intelligence.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nGLIMPSES OF CIVILIZATION\n\n     Wealth is acquired by overreaching our neighbours, and is spent in\n     insulting them.--WILLIAM GODWIN.\n\n\nIn the \u2019eighties there were two movements especially attractive to one\nwho was breaking away from the old academical traditions, to wit,\nSocialism, the more equitable distribution of wealth; and\nSimplification, the saner method of living. William Godwin, in many ways\na true prophet, had foreshadowed the need of both these reforms in that\npungent sentence of his _Political Justice_.\n\nSimplification of life has in all ages had its advocates, but it was not\ntill the time of Rousseau and the revolutionary epoch that it acquired\nits full significance, when the connection between simple living and a\njuster social state became obvious and unmistakable, and it was seen\nthat luxury on the part of one man must involve drudgery on the part of\nanother. Thoreau\u2019s _Walden_, published in America in 1854, was beginning\nto be known in England some thirty years later; and Edward Carpenter\u2019s\nessays, afterwards collected in his _England\u2019s Ideal_ (1887), were\npointing the way to a wiser and healthier mode of life. I read some of\nthose essays while still at Eton; and amid such surroundings they had a\npeculiarly vivid interest, as revealing, what was there quite\noverlooked, that it was possible to dispense with the greater part of\nthe trappings with which we were encumbered, and to live far more simply\nand cheaply than was dreamed of in polite society.\n\nThe removal from a public school to a cottage among the Surrey hills was\nsomething more than a change of residence: it was an emigration, a\nromance, a strange new life in some remote antipodes, where the emblems\nof the old servitude, such as cap and gown, found new and better uses,\nlike swords beaten into ploughshares. My gown was cut into strips for\nfastening creepers to walls: my top-hat, the last time I remember seeing\nit, was shading a young vegetable-marrow. Servants there were none; and\nwith the loss of them we learnt two things: first that servants do a\ngreat deal more than their employers give them credit for; secondly,\nthat much of what they do may be lessened or rendered needless by a\nlittle judicious forethought in the arrangement of a house.\n\nOne ungrateful office that servants perform is that of protecting their\nemployers from personal interviews with beggars and tramps; they act as\nplenipotentiaries in the business of saying No. In country districts\nthis certainly saves a good deal of a householder\u2019s time, but whether it\nis altogether a benefit to him may be doubted, for tramps are sometimes\nan amusing folk, and by no means devoid of humour in their mode of\nlevying taxes upon the well-to-do. One old mendicant, I remember, who\ncalled at my back door to solicit a small sum for a very special\npurpose, and told his tale so skilfully that from admiration, not\nconviction, I relieved him, as he himself expressed it, of his immediate\ndifficulty. Two minutes later there was a gentle knock at my _front_\ndoor, and behold the same old rascal commencing the same old tale! He\nhad made the mistake of supposing that a single cottage was two\nsemi-detached ones, and when the door was opened by his late benefactor,\nI saw him shaken by a momentary spasm of laughter, so human as to disarm\nwrath.\n\nThen there were the \u201ctramps\u201d in the metaphorical sense, the friends and\nbidden or unbidden guests whose visits were welcomed in that secluded\nregion of bare heaths and hills. Edward Carpenter, as the writer of the\nbooks which had shown such life to be possible, was, of course, the\ntutelary deity of the place: Bernard Shaw, on the other hand, was the\n_advocatus diaboli_, whose professed hatred of the country gave an\nadditional zest to his appearances there, and culminated in a\ncharacteristic article, \u201cA Sunday on the Surrey Hills,\u201d in which he\ndescribed a wet walk on Hindhead and the extremity of his sufferings\nuntil he was restored to London by \u201cthe blessed rescuing train.\u201d[16] But\nit is dangerous to jest on such subjects; and I regret to say that a\nlocal paper, some years afterwards, in reprinting \u201cG.B.S.\u2019s\u201d jeremiad,\nadded some scathing editorial comments, which showed a resentment\nunmitigated by time, on \u201ca cockney gentleman possessing a very fine\nliver, but no soul above his stomach.\u201d[17] In the simplification of\nhousehold life, Shaw easily held his own; he was most conscientious and\nexemplary in \u201cwashing up,\u201d and to see the methodical precision with\nwhich he made his bed was itself a lesson in domestic orderliness. Thus\nwas realized the truth of what Clough had written in his _Bothie_:\n\n    How even churning and washing, the dairy, the scullery duties,\n    Wait but a touch to redeem and convert them to charms and attractions;\n    Scrubbing requires for true grace but frank and artistical handling,\n    And the removal of slops to be ornamentally treated.\n\nIn dealing with tramps, however, even Shaw could be at fault. We once\nhad a visit from a very undesirable vagrant who held forth at great\nlength about a fearful wound which he bore on his person; and when his\nlecture was ended, Shaw, in the approved Fabian fashion, proceeded to\nask a Question or two. But in such company to question is to suspect;\nand the tramp, deeply hurt at any reflection on his veracity, at once\ncommenced to divest himself of his clothing, so as to offer ocular\nproof. \u201cA sight to dream of, not to tell.\u201d We were just saved from it by\nan earnest disavowal of any fragment of unbelief.\n\nAmong the most welcome of our visitors was \u201cthe Wayfarer,\u201d Mr. W. J.\nJupp, author in after years of one of the wisest and most gracious of\nbooks, a real spiritual autobiography, a true story of the heart.[18]\nHimself a devoted nature-lover, he brought us tidings of the greatest of\npoet-naturalists, Henry David Thoreau, and thus laid me under the first\nof the many obligations which I owe to a friendship of old date.\n\nBut refreshing though it was thus to throw off the signs and symbols of\nRespectability, it is not so easy to drop \u201cthe gentleman\u201d as one could\nwish, for the tattoo-marks of gentility are almost as ineffaceable as\nthose of the barbarous ritual in which the islanders of the Pacific\ndelight. Once a gentleman, always a gentleman: the imputation, like that\nof criminality, is hard to live down. I once met the author of _Towards\nDemocracy_ walking and talking with a very ragged tramp whom he had\novertaken on the high road. The tramp accosted me, as if wishing to\nexplain matters: \u201cThis gentleman----\u201d he began, indicating Mr.\nCarpenter. \u201cI\u2019m _not_ a gentleman,\u201d sharply interjected the philosopher;\nwhereupon the tatterdemalion, with a puzzled look, and a shake of the\nhead that showed entire bewilderment, forsook us and went shambling on\nhis way.\n\nAs an organized movement, Simplification has not been so successful as\nthe importance of the subject might have warranted. The Fellowship of\nthe New Life, a society established in 1883, had the services of many\nthoughtful men, among them Mr. Maurice Adams, Mr. W. J. Jupp, Mr.\nHerbert Rix, Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald, and Mr. Percival Chubb; but\nthough its protagonist, Mr. Adams, brought to the cause an exceptional\nknowledge and ability, the Fellowship, after lasting a good many years,\ngradually flagged and expired. This was the more to be regretted,\nbecause simplification of life is peculiarly liable to misunderstanding\nand cheap ridicule, and therefore needed to be set permanently before\nthe public in a rational form; whereas now it is largely associated in\npeople\u2019s minds with Pastor Wagner\u2019s book, _The Simple Life_, and similar\nbanalities. For it is stupid, nothing less, to represent Simplification\nas merely a personal matter, and as amounting to little more than\nmoderation and sincerity in the various departments of life: there is a\n_social_ aspect of the question which cannot thus be ignored. As Thoreau\nsays: \u201cIf I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must\nfirst see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another\nman\u2019s shoulders.\u201d Simplicity is not only \u201ca state of mind\u201d: it implies\naction as well as taste.\n\nIt is not very surprising, perhaps, that this doctrine has been\nridiculed by critics, in view of the unwise manner in which some of its\nadherents have preached and practised it. The attractions of Rousseau\u2019s\n\u201creturn to nature\u201d have been too powerful for the weaker enthusiasts,\nwho, in their desire to be \u201cnatural,\u201d have missed the qualities in which\ntrue naturalness consists. I remember the case of a clever young man,\nfresh from the University, who, bitten by the creed of simplicity,\nrented a large tract in a sandy wilderness where crops could hardly be\nmade to grow, and induced an experienced labourer, of the old school, to\nbring his family to reside upon this model farm in the hope of there\nrealizing the ideal. He would be \u201cnatural\u201d; that was his constant cry. A\nHardy would have been needed to portray the agricultural tragedies that\nensued. In the fierce heat of a fiery summer the crops withered one by\none, until the heart of the old husbandman was sick within him with a\nsavage despair. I recall a Sunday stroll, with the party from the farm,\nto a hill which overlooked that Sahara where their hopes were buried,\nand the deep fervour of the veteran\u2019s ejaculations as he gazed across\nthe desolate scene. \u201cWell, I _am_--\u201d was his repeated remark; and the\nlanguage was quite unfitted for the mixed company at his side.\n\nAgainst fiascos of this sort stood the fact that the writings of the\ntrue exponents of Simplicity were increasingly read and pondered. In\nThoreau\u2019s genius there was a magnetism which could influence not only\nthose who knew him, but a later generation of readers, among whom a\ncommon love for the \u201cpoet-naturalist\u201d of Concord has often been a link\nof friendship (as I have reason to remember with gratitude) between\nlives that were otherwise far apart. A first reading of _Walden_ was in\nmy own case an epoch, a revelation; and I know that in this respect my\nexperience was not a singular one; nor has the impression which I then\nformed of Thoreau\u2019s greatness been in any way lessened, but on the\ncontrary much strengthened, by my correspondence or personal intercourse\nwith those who were numbered among his friends.\n\nOne of the most remarkable chapters in _Walden_ is that on \u201cHigher\nLaws,\u201d in which the ideal of humaneness is insisted on as an essential\npart of Simplification. How often, from the lack of such principle, in\nthe efforts to lead the simple life, has simplicity itself become little\nmore than sentimentality! Who but a savage, for example, would include\nthe keeping and killing of pigs as a feature of a model homestead? Yet\nin that establishment of which I have spoken, where the avowed aim was\nto be \u201cnatural,\u201d the pig-killing was a festive event. \u201cFather sticks\n\u2019em, brother cleans \u2019em,\u201d was the description vouchsafed by a charming\nyoung \u201cland-girl\u201d (to use a later-invented term), who dwelt with delight\nupon these unsavoury divisions of labour in her Blithedale Romance.\nWell might Tolstoy use this pig-killing process in illustration of his\nargument that, in any advance toward civilization, a disuse of butchery\nmust be \u201cthe first step.\u201d\n\nSocialism was at that time in its early and romantic stage, when the\nmenace of the Social Democratic Federation was becoming a terror to the\nwell-to-do, and when many a dignitary of Church and State shared Dr.\nWarre\u2019s belief that to \u201cblow us up\u201d was the diabolical desire of the\nincendiaries who denounced Capitalism. Doubtless it was the novelty of\nthe attack that made it seem so terrible; for Chartism had been largely\nforgotten, and Secularism had been filling up the interval as the\nnational bogey. Certainly in that period of the \u2019eighties the leading\nsocialist figures seemed more ominous and sinister than do any in the\nLabour movement of to-day. To William Morris, indeed, as being a poet of\nwide renown, a sort of licence was accorded to speak as bluntly as he\nchose; but Hyndman, Burns, Bax and H. H. Champion were names of dark\nimport to the \u201cbourgeois\u201d of that date. Mr. Hyndman\u2019s repeated\nprophecies of a Revolution were none the less disturbing because they\nwere always unfulfilled; Mr. Burns was dreaded as a demagogue who had\nbeen imprisoned owing to his defiance of law and order, Mr. Champion, as\na retired army officer, who might possibly turn his military knowledge\nto deadly account. To one who knew those reformers personally, and their\nfearless labours in an unpopular cause, it is strange to recall the\nstorm of obloquy which they then had to face; to them and others of like\nmettle is due in large measure such progress as has since been made in\nthe betterment of the conditions of Labour. Their weakness was that they\ncould not agree among themselves (reformers seldom can); hence the\ninternal ruptures that wrecked the influence of the S.D.F. Round\nChampion in particular the discord raged, until he was ostracized by his\nformer colleagues; yet no juster word was ever said of him than a\nremark made to me, years afterwards, by Mr. John Burns--that if he were\never in a tight place at a tiger-hunt there was no one whom he would so\ngladly have at his side as H. H. C.\n\nWith William Morris it was impossible, even for a \u201ccomrade,\u201d to have any\nquarrel; his utter sincerity and great-heartedness forbad it. But broad\nas his geniality was, he used to seem rather nonplussed by such new\nideas as vegetarianism in conjunction with teetotalism. \u201cI\u2019d like to ask\nyou to have a drink,\u201d he would say, after a meeting or lecture; and then\nwould add, as in despair: \u201cBut you _won\u2019t_ drink.\u201d\n\nOne of the memories of those years is the great meeting held in\nFebruary, 1888, to welcome John Burns and Cunninghame Graham on their\nrelease from prison. Apart from my admiration for the heroes of the\nevening, I had some cause to remember the occasion, because, like many\nothers who were present, I lost a valuable watch. This placed us in an\nembarrassing position; for having assembled to protest against the\nconduct of the police in the Square, we could not with dignity invoke\ntheir aid against the pickpockets.\n\nQuite the strangest personality among the socialists of that time was\nDr. Edward Aveling. It is easy to set him down as a scoundrel, but in\ntruth he was an odd mixture of fine qualities and bad; a double-dealer,\nyet his duplicities were the result less of a calculated dishonesty than\nof a nature in which there was an excess of the emotional and artistic\nelement, with an almost complete lack of the moral. The character of\nDubedat in Mr. Bernard Shaw\u2019s play, _The Doctor\u2019s Dilemma_, in some ways\nrecalls that of Aveling, for nearly every one who had dealings with him,\neven those who were on the friendliest of terms, found themselves\nvictimized, sooner or later, by his fraudulence in money matters. One\u2019s\nfeelings towards him might, perhaps, have been summed up in the remark\nmade by one of the characters in _The Doctor\u2019s Dilemma_: \u201cI can\u2019t help\nrather liking you, Dubedat. But you certainly are a thorough-going\nspecimen.\u201d\n\nYet Aveling\u2019s services to the socialist cause were perfectly sincere;\nand so, too, was his love of good literature, though it sometimes\nmanifested itself in rather too sentimental a strain. He was a skilled\nreciter of poetry, and on one occasion when, with Eleanor Marx, he\nvisited our Surrey cottage, he undertook to read aloud the last Act of\nShelley\u2019s _Prometheus Unbound_. As he gave effect to chorus and\nsemi-chorus, and to the wonderful succession of spirit voices in that\ngreatest of lyrical dramas, he trembled and shook in his passionate\nexcitement, and when he had delivered himself of the solemn words of\nDemogorgon with which the poem concludes, he burst into a storm of sobs\nand tears. I used to regret that I had never heard his recitation, said\nto be his most effective performance, of Poe\u2019s \u201cThe Bells\u201d; for there\nwas something rather uncanny and impish in his nature which doubtless\nmade him a good interpreter of the weird.\n\nThere was real tragedy, however, in Aveling\u2019s alliance with Karl Marx\u2019s\ndaughter; for Eleanor Marx was a splendid woman, strong both in brain\nand in heart, and true as steel to the man who was greatly her inferior\nin both, and who treated her at the end with a treachery and ingratitude\nwhich led directly to her death.\n\nAs a corrective of the romantic socialism of the S.D.F. arose the\nsoberer doctrine of Fabianism, a name derived, we are told, from the\ncelebrated Fabius, who won his victories on the principle of \u201cmore\nhaste, less speed\u201d; else one would have been disposed to trace it to a\nderivative of the Latin _fari_, \u201cto talk,\u201d as seen in the word\n\u201ccon_fab_ulation.\u201d In the early and most interesting days of Fabianism,\nits chief champions, known as \u201cthe four,\u201d were Sidney Webb, Bernard\nShaw, Sydney Olivier, and Graham Wallas; and assuredly no Roman three\never \u201ckept the bridge so well\u201d as the Fabian four kept the planks of\ntheir platform in all the assaults that were made on it. Rarely have\nbetter debates been heard than at those fortnightly meetings in Willis\u2019s\nRooms. The trouble indeed with Fabianism was that it became almost _too_\nbrainy; it used to remind me of Sydney Smith\u2019s remark about some one who\nwas all mind--that \u201chis intellect was indecently exposed.\u201d Humaneness\nfound little place in the Fabian philosophy. Once, when visiting a\nsuburban villa that had just been occupied by a refined Fabian family, I\nlearned that the ladies of the household, highly intellectual and\naccomplished women, had themselves been staining the floors of their new\nand charming residence with bullock\u2019s blood brought in a bucket from the\nshambles.\n\nShaw was, of course, the outstanding figure of Fabianism, as he was\nbound to be of any movement in which he took permanent part; but he was\na great deal more than Fabian, he was humanitarian as well; and it gives\ncause for reflection, as showing how much easier it is to change men\u2019s\ntheories than their habits, that, while his influence on social and\neconomic thought has been very marked, his followers in the practice of\nthe Humanities have been few. It has been noticeable, too, how, in the\nmany appreciations that have been written of Shaw, his humanitarianism\nhas been almost entirely ignored, or passed over as an amiable\neccentricity of a man of genius. Yet it is clear that if \u201cG.B.S.,\u201d who,\nduring the past forty years, has done enough disinterested work to make\nthe reputation of a score of philanthropists, is \u201cnot to be taken quite\nseriously,\u201d there is no sense in taking any one seriously. A man is not\nless in earnest because he has a rich gift of humour or veils his truths\nin paradoxes. Shaw, in fact, is one of the most serious and painstaking\nof thinkers: his frivolity is all in the manner, his seriousness in the\nintent; whereas, unhappily, in most persons it is the intent that is so\ndeadly frivolous, and the manner that is so deadly dull.\n\nPerhaps the dulness of our age shows itself most clearly in its humour;\nthe professional jester of the dinner-table or comic journal is of all\nmen the most saddening. It is related that when Emerson took his little\nboy to see a circus clown, the child looked up with troubled eyes and\nsaid: \u201cPapa, the funny man makes me want to go home.\u201d Many of us must\nhave felt that sensation when we have heard or read some of the\nbanalities that pass for humorous. It is here that \u201cG.B.S.\u201d stands out\nin refreshing contrast; his wit is as genuine and spontaneous as that of\nSydney Smith; but whereas Sydney Smith was constrained in his old age to\ncalculate how many cartloads of flesh-meat he consumed in his lifetime,\nBernard Shaw has been able to tell the world that his funeral will be\nfollowed \u201cnot by mourning coaches, but by herds of oxen, sheep, swine,\nflocks of poultry, and a small travelling aquarium of live\nfish\u201d--representatives of grateful fellow-beings whom he has _not_\neaten.[19]\n\nIf socialists had cared for the poetical literature of their cause one\nhalf so well as the Chartists did, the names of Francis Adams and John\nBarlas would have been far more widely known. It was Mr. W. M. Rossetti\nwho drew my attention to Adams\u2019s fiery volume of verse, the _Songs of\nthe Army of the Night_, first published in Australia in 1887; and as I\nwas then preparing an anthology of _Songs of Freedom_ I got into\ncommunication with the writer, and our acquaintance quickly ripened into\nfriendship. Francis Adams was a poet of Socialism in a much truer sense\nthan William Morris; for, while Morris was a poet who became a\nsocialist, Adams, like Barlas, was less a convert to Socialism than a\nscion of Socialism, a veritable _Child of the Age_, to quote the title\nof his own autobiographical romance, in the storm and stress of his\ncareer. He had received a classical education at Shrewsbury School (the\n\u201cGlastonbury\u201d of his novel), and after a brief spell of schoolmastering,\nhad became a journalist and wanderer. He was connected for a short\ntime, in 1883 or thereabouts, with the Social Democratic Federation, and\nenrolled himself a member under the Regent\u2019s Park trees one Sunday\nafternoon at a meeting addressed by his friend, Frank Harris. In\nAustralia, for a time, where he took an active part in the Labour\nmovement, and wrote frequently for the _Sydney Bulletin_ and other\njournals, he had many friends and admirers; but just as a Parliamentary\ncareer was opening for him he was crippled by illness, and returned to\nEngland, a consumptive, in 1890, to die three years later by his own\nhand.\n\nOf Adams\u2019s prose works the most remarkable is _A Child of the Age_,\nwritten when he was only eighteen, and first printed under the title of\n_Leicester, an Autobiography_, an extraordinarily fascinating, if\nsomewhat morbid story, which deserves to be ranked with _Wuthering\nHeights_ and _The Story of an African Farm_, among notable works of\nimmature imagination. He told me that it was written almost\nspontaneously: it just \u201ccame to him\u201d to write it, and he himself felt\nthat it was an abnormal book. Of the _Songs of the Army of the Night_,\nhe said that they were intended to do what had never before been\ndone--to express what might be the feelings of a member of the working\nclasses as he found out the hollowness, to him, of our culture and\nlearning; hence the pitiless invective which shows itself in many of the\npoems. As surely as Elliott\u2019s \u201cCorn Law Rhymes\u201d spoke the troubled\nspirit of their age, so do these fierce keen lyrics, on fire alike with\nlove and with hate, express the passionate sympathies and deep\nresentments of the socialist movement in its revolt from a sham\nphilanthropy and patriotism. No rebel poet has ever \u201carraigned his\ncountry and his day\u201d in more burning words than Adams in his stanzas \u201cTo\nEngland.\u201d\n\n    I, whom you fed with shame and starved with woe,\n      I wheel above you,\n    Your fatal Vulture, for I hate you so,\n      I almost love you.\n\nBut the _Songs_ are not only denunciatory; they have a closer and more\npersonal aspect, as in the infinitely compassionate \u201cOne among so Many,\u201d\nwhich endears them to the heart of the reader as only a few choice books\nare ever endeared. In their strange mixture of sweetness and bitterness,\nthey are very typical of Francis Adams himself: he was at one moment,\nand in one aspect, the most simple and lovable of beings; at another,\nthe most aggressively critical and fastidious.[20]\n\nBut if Francis Adams has not received his just meed of recognition, what\nshall be said of John Barlas, whose seven small volumes of richest and\nmost melodious verse were printed (they can hardly be said to have been\npublished) under the _nom de plume_ of \u201cEvelyn Douglas,\u201d and mostly in\nplaces remote from the world of books? When full allowance is made for\nsuch drawbacks, it is strange that literary critics, ever on the\nlook-out for new genius, failed to discover Barlas; for though the\nnumber of modern poets is considerable, the born singers are still as\nfew and far between as before; yet it was to that small and select class\nthat Barlas unmistakably belonged. His _Poems Lyrical and Dramatic_\n(1884) contained, with much that was faulty and immature, many\nexquisitely beautiful lyrics, the expression of a genuine gift of song.\nA Greek in spirit, he also possessed in a high degree the sense of\nbrotherhood with all that breathes, and was ever aspiring in his poetry\nnot only to the enjoyment of what is best and most beautiful on earth,\nbut to a fairer and happier state of society among mankind. Nor was he a\ndreamer only, intent on some far horizon of the future; he was an ardent\nlover of liberty and progress in the present; and this hope, too, found\nworthy utterance in his verse. It would be difficult to say where\nFreedom has been more nobly presented than in his poem to \u201cLe Jeune\nBarbaroux\u201d:\n\n    Freedom, her arm outstretched, but lips firm set,\n    Freedom, her eyes with tears of pity wet,\n      But her robe splashed with drops of bloody dew,\n    Freedom, thy goddess, is our goddess yet,\n              Young Barbaroux.\n\nOf Barlas\u2019s _Love Sonnets_ (1889) it may be said without exaggeration\nthat, unknown though they are to the reading public and to any but a\nmere handful of students, they are not undeserving to be classed among\nthe best sonnet-sequences. It was Meredith\u2019s opinion that as\nsonnet-writer Barlas took \u201chigh rank among the poets of his time\u201d; and\nthat the concluding sonnet was \u201cunmatched for nobility of sentiment.\u201d\nNobility was indeed a trait of all Barlas\u2019s poetry, and of his\ncharacter. Sprung from the line of the famous Kate Douglas who won the\nname of Bar-lass, he was noted even in his school-days for magnanimity\nand courage; and in no way did those qualities show themselves more\nclearly than in the dignity with which he bore long years of failure and\nmisfortune, darkened at times by insanity.\n\nThe winter of 1891-1892 had brought the one occasion on which Barlas\u2019s\nname came before the public. He was charged with firing a revolver at\nthe House of Commons, which he did to mark his contempt for\nParliamentary rule; but when H. H. Champion and Oscar Wilde offered\nthemselves as sureties, he was discharged in the care of his friends. I\nfirst heard from him, through Champion, soon after that event, in a\nletter in which he spoke of his poetry as having been \u201cthree parts of my\nreligion\u201d; but it was not till ten or twelve years later that I became\nclosely acquainted with him, and then he wrote to me regularly till his\ndeath in 1914. His letters, written mostly from an asylum in Scotland,\nare among the most interesting I have ever received; for in spite of his\nill health he was an untiring student, a great classical scholar, and\ndeeply read in many Greek and Latin authors whose works lie outside the\nnarrow range of school and University curriculum. But his genius was in\nhis poems; and it is to be hoped that a selection from these may yet see\nthe light.\n\nThus it was that these two poets, Adams and Barlas, though true-born\nchildren of Socialism, were precluded, owing to the misfortunes which\nbeset their lives, from taking active part in its advocacy. Edward\nCarpenter, on the other hand, if unattached to any one section of\nreformers, has been one of the most influential writers and speakers in\nthe socialist cause; and his name is deservedly honoured not only for\nhis many direct services to the movement, but for the personal\nfriendship which he has extended to fellow-workers, and indeed to all\nwho have sought his aid--giving freely where, in the nature of the case,\nthere could be little or no return. His cottage at Millthorpe had\nalready become, in the \u2019nineties, a place of pilgrimage, the resort of\n\u201ccomrades\u201d who dropped down on him from the surrounding hills, or\nswarmed up the valley from Chesterfield like a tidal wave, or \u201cbore,\u201d as\nhe aptly described it. His friend George Adams and family were then\nliving with him at Millthorpe; and those who had the good fortune to be\nintimate with that delightful household will always remember their\nvisits with pleasure. George Adams, the sandal-maker, was as charming a\ncompanion as the heart could desire, full of artistic feeling (witness\nhis beautiful watercolours), of quaint humorous fancies, and of\nunfailing kindliness. His memory is very dear to his friends.\n\nOne of the strangest things said about Edward Carpenter, and by one of\nhis most admiring critics, is that he has no faculty for organization. I\nused often to be struck by the great patience and adroitness with which\nhe marshalled and managed his numerous uninvited guests. He might fairly\nhave exclaimed, with Emerson:\n\n    Askest \u201chow long thou shalt stay\u201d?\n    Devastator of the day!\n\nBut though the pilgrims often showed but little consideration for their\nhost, in the manner and duration of their visits, he seemed to be always\nmaster of the emergency, receiving the new-comers, however untimely\ntheir arrival, with imperturbable urbanity, and gently detaching the\nlimpets with a skill that made them seem to be taking a voluntary and\nintended departure. It was hospitality brought to a fine art.\n\nFor many years there was a quaint division of Carpenter\u2019s writings in\nthe British Museum catalogue, his earlier works being attributed to one\nEdward Carpenter, \u201cFellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge,\u201d and the later to\nanother Edward Carpenter, placed on the lower grade of \u201cSocial\nReformer.\u201d There was, perhaps, some propriety, as well as unconscious\nhumour in this dual arrangement; for Carpenter, like Morris, was not a\nsocialist born, but one who, by force of natural bias, had gravitated\nfrom Respectability to Freedom; and his writings bore obvious tokens of\nthe change.\n\nAnother and more audacious classification was once propounded to me by\nBernard Shaw, viz. that future commentators would divide Carpenter\u2019s\nworks into two periods; first, that of the comparatively trivial books\nwritten before he came in contact with \u201cG.B.S.\u201d; secondly, that of the\nreally important contributions to literature, where the Shavian\ninfluence is discernible. I mentioned this scheme to Carpenter; and he\nsmilingly suggested that if there were any indebtedness, the names of\nthe debtor and the creditor must be reversed. But it would have been as\nreasonable for an elephant to claim to have influenced a whale, or a\nwhale an elephant, as for either the thinker or the seer, each moving\nin quite a different province, to suppose that he had affected the\nother\u2019s course. One common influence they felt--the desire to humanize\nthe barbarous age in which they lived--and it is strange that Carpenter,\nin his book on \u201cCivilization,\u201d should have bestowed so fair and\nunmerited a name on a state of society which, in spite of all its\nboasted sciences and mechanical inventions, is at heart little else than\nan ancient Savagery in a more complex and cumbrous form.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE POET-PIONEER\n\n     I know not the internal constitution of other men.... I see that in\n     some external attributes they resemble me, but when, misled by that\n     appearance, I have thought to appeal to something in common, and\n     unburthen my inmost soul to them, I have found my language\n     misunderstood, like one in a distant and savage land.--SHELLEY.\n\n\nThe words quoted above would savour of self-righteousness, if put into\nthe mouth of any one but the poet who wrote them. Coming from Shelley,\nthey do not give that impression; for we feel of him that, as Leigh Hunt\nused to say, he was \u201ca spirit that had darted out of its orb and found\nitself in another world ... he had come from the planet Mercury.\u201d Or,\nrather, he was a prophet and forerunner of a yet distant state of\nsociety upon this planet Earth, when the savagery of our past and\npresent shall have been replaced by a civilization that is to be.\n\nDuring the latter half of the nineteenth century Shelley\u2019s influence was\nvery powerful, not only upon the canons of poetry, but upon ideals of\nvarious kinds--upon free-thought, socialism, sex-questions, food-reform,\nand not a few other problems of intellectual and ethical import. The\nChartist movement set the example. In a letter which I received from\nEleanor Marx in 1892 she spoke of the \u201cenormous influence\u201d exercised by\nShelley\u2019s writings upon leading Chartists: \u201cI have heard my father and\nEngels again and again speak of this; and I have heard the same from the\nmany Chartists it has been my good fortune to know--Ernest Jones,\nRichard Moore, the Watsons, G. J. Harvey, and others.\u201d What was true of\nChartism held equally good of other movements; as indeed was admitted\nby Shelley\u2019s detractors as well as claimed by his friends: witness Sir\nLeslie Stephen\u2019s complaint that \u201cthe devotees of some of Shelley\u2019s pet\ntheories\u201d had become \u201cmuch noisier.\u201d In the \u2019eighties, the interest\naroused by the controversies that raged about Shelley, both as poet and\nas pioneer, was especially strong, as was proved by the renewed output\nof Shelleyan literature, such as Mr. Forman\u2019s and Mr. W. M. Rossetti\u2019s\neditions of the works, the biography of Dr. Dowden, and the numerous\npublications of the Shelley Society, dating from 1886 to 1892. It was a\ntime when the old abusive view of Shelley, as a fiend incarnate, was\ngiving way to the equally irrational apologetic view--the \u201cpoor, poor\nShelley\u201d period--of which Dowden was the spokesman; yet a good deal of\nthe old bitterness still remained, and Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson\u2019s lurid\nfiction, entitled \u201cThe Real Shelley,\u201d was published as late as 1885.\n\nIt is difficult for a humble student of such a genius as Shelley to\nspeak frankly of the debt that he owes to him, without seeming to forget\nhis own personal unimportance; but I prefer to risk the misunderstanding\nthan to leave the tribute unsaid. From the day when at a preparatory\nschool I was first introduced to Shelley\u2019s lyrics by having some stanzas\nof \u201cThe Cloud\u201d set for translation into Latin, I never doubted that he\nstood apart from all other poets in the enchantment of his verse; and I\nsoon learnt that there was an equal distinction in the beauty and wisdom\nof his thoughts; so that he became to me, as to others, what Lucretius\nfound in Epicurus, a guide and solace in all the vicissitudes of life:\n\n    Thou art the father of our faith, and thine\n    Our holiest precepts; from thy songs divine,\n    As bees sip honey in some flowery dell,\n    Cull we the glories of each golden line,\n    Golden, and graced with life imperishable.[21]\n\nAt Eton there was little knowledge of Shelley, and still less\nunderstanding. When it was first proposed to place a bust of the poet in\nthe Upper School, Dr. Hornby is said to have replied: \u201cNo: he was a bad\nman,\u201d and to have expressed a humorous regret that he had not been\neducated at Harrow. I once read a paper on Shelley before the Ascham\nSociety, and was amazed at the ignorance that prevailed about him among\nEton masters: only one or two of them had any acquaintance with the\nlonger poems; the rest had read the lines \u201cTo a Skylark\u201d; one told us\nwith a certain amount of pride that he had read \u201cAdonais\u201d; many thought\nthe poet a libertine; and though they did not say that he was a disgrace\nto Eton, it was evident that that was the underlying sentiment. Several\nyears after I had left Eton, William Cory wrote a paper for the Shelley\nSociety on \u201cShelley\u2019s Classics\u201d (viz. his knowledge of Greek and Latin),\nwhich, in his absence, I read at one of the Society\u2019s meetings; and I\nremember being surprised to find that even he regarded Shelley as a\nverbose and tedious writer.\n\nFrom Mr. Kegan Paul, who was a friend of Sir Percy and Lady Shelley, I\nhad heard all that was known of the inner history of Shelley\u2019s life; and\nas, after the publication of Dowden\u2019s biography in 1886, the main facts\nwere no longer in dispute, it seemed to me that the best service that\ncould then be rendered to his memory was to show how, far from being a\n\u201cbeautiful and ineffectual angel,\u201d he was a beautiful but very efficient\nprophet of reform. This I did, or tried to do, in various essays\npublished about the time when the Shelley Society was beginning its\nwork; and I was thus brought into close touch with it during the seven\nyears of its existence. As illustrating how the old animosities still\nsmouldered, more than sixty years after Shelley\u2019s death, I am tempted to\nquote a testimonial received by me from a critic in the _Westminster\nReview_, where I found myself described as one of the writers who\ngrubbed amongst \u201cthe offensive matter\u201d of Shelley\u2019s life \u201cwith gross\nminds and grunts of satisfaction,\u201d and as having made \u201can impudent\nendeavour to gain the notoriety of an iconoclast amongst social heretics\nwith immoral tendencies and depraved desires.\u201d There was the old genuine\nring about this, and I felt that I must be on the right track as a\nShelley student. I knew, too, from letters which I had received from\nLady Shelley, the poet\u2019s daughter-in-law, whose _Shelley Memorials_ was\nthe starting-point of all the later appreciations, that I was not\nwriting without credentials. \u201cFor the last thirty-five years,\u201d she wrote\nto me in 1888, speaking for Sir Percy Shelley and herself, \u201cwe have\nsuffered so much from what has been written on Shelley by those who had\nnot the capacity of understanding his character, and were utterly\nignorant of the circumstances which shaped his life, that I cannot\nrefrain from expressing our heartfelt thanks and gratitude for the\ncomfort and pleasure we have had in reading your paper.\u201d And later: \u201cIt\nis a great happiness to me to know, in my old age, that when I am gone\nthere will be some one left to do battle for the truth against those\nwhose nature prevents them from seeing in Shelley\u2019s beautiful unselfish\nlove and kindness anything but evil.\u201d\n\nThe Shelley Society, founded by Dr. F. J. Furnivall in 1886, had the\nsupport of a large number of the poet\u2019s admirers, among whom were Mr. W.\nM. Rossetti, Mr. Stopford Brooke, Mr. Buxton Forman, Mr. Hermann Vezin,\nDr. John Todhunter, Mr. F. S. Ellis, Mr. Stanley Little, and Mr. Bernard\nShaw; and much useful work was done in the way of meetings and\ndiscussions, the publication of essays on Shelley, and facsimile\nreprints of some of his rarer volumes, thus throwing new light,\nbiographical or bibliographical, on many doubtful questions. I will\nrefer only to one of these, in which I was myself concerned, a study of\n\u201cJulian and Maddalo,\u201d which I read at a meeting in 1888, and which was\nsubsequently printed in the _Shelley Society\u2019s Papers_ and reissued as a\npamphlet. Its object was to make clear what had been overlooked by\nDowden, Rossetti, and the chief authorities, though hinted at by one or\ntwo writers, viz. that the story of \u201cthe maniac\u201d (in \u201cJulian and\nMaddalo\u201d) was not, as generally supposed, a mere fanciful interpolation,\nbut a piece of poetical autobiography, a veiled record of Shelley\u2019s own\nfeelings at the time of his separation from Harriet. On this point Dr.\nFurnivall wrote to me (April 16, 1888): \u201cRobert Browning says he has\nalways held the main part of your view, from the first publication of\n\u2018Julian and Maddalo,\u2019 but you must not push it into detail. I had a long\ntalk with him last night.\u201d\n\nThe greatest single achievement of the Shelley Society was the staging\nof _The Cenci_ at the Islington Theatre, in 1886. The performance was\ntechnically a private one, as the Licenser of Plays had refused his\nsanction; but great public interest was aroused, and the acting of Mr.\nHermann Vezin as Count Cenci, and of Miss Alma Murray as Beatrice--\u201cthe\npoetic actress without a rival\u201d was Browning\u2019s description of her--made\nthe event one which no lover of Shelley could forget. If the Society had\ndone nothing else than this, its existence would still have been\njustified.\n\nEvery literary association, like every social movement, is sure to have\na humorous aspect as well as a serious one, and the Shelley Society was\nvery far from being an exception to this beneficent rule; indeed, on\nlooking back over its career, one has to check the impulse to be\nabsorbed in the laughable features of the proceedings, to the exclusion\nof its really valuable work. The situation was rich in delightful\nincongruities; for the bulk of the Committee, while admiring Shelley\u2019s\npoetical genius, seemed quite unaware of the conclusions to which his\nprinciples inevitably led, and of the live questions which any genuine\nstudy of Shelley was certain to awake. Accordingly, when Mr. G. W.\nFoote, the President of the National Secular Society, gave an address\nbefore a very large audience on Shelley\u2019s religion, the Committee, with\na few exceptions, marked their disgust for the lecturer\u2019s views, which\nhappened also to be Shelley\u2019s, by the expedient of staying away. I think\nit was on an earlier occasion that Bernard Shaw appalled the company by\ncommencing a speech with the words: \u201cI, as a socialist, an atheist, and\na vegetarian....\u201d I remember how the honorary secretary, speaking to me\nafterwards, as to a sympathetic colleague, said that he had always\nunderstood that if a man avowed himself an atheist it was the proper\nthing \u201cto go for him\u201d; but when I pointed out that, whatever might be\nthought of such a course as a general rule, it would be a little\ndifficult to act on it in a Shelley Society, he seemed struck by my\nsuggestion. Anyhow, we did not go for Shaw; perhaps we knew that he had\nstudied the noble art of self-defence.\n\nThen there was sad trouble on the Committee when Dr. Aveling applied for\nmembership, for the majority decided to refuse it--his marriage\nrelations being similar to Shelley\u2019s--and it was only by the determined\naction of the chairman, Mr. W. M. Rossetti, who threatened to resign if\nthe resolution were not cancelled, that the difficulty was surmounted.\nThis was by no means the only occasion on which William Rossetti\u2019s sound\nsense rescued the Society from an absurd and impossible position; but\nsane as were his judgments in all practical matters, he was himself\nsomewhat lacking in humour, as was made evident by a certain lecture\nwhich he gave us on \u201cShelley and Water\u201d; a title, by the way, which\nmight have been applied, not inaptly, to the sentiments of several of\nour colleagues. There are, as all Shelley students know, some curious\nreferences, in the poems, to death by drowning; and we thought that the\nlecturer intended to comment on these, and on any passages which might\nillustrate the love which Shelley felt for sailing on river or sea; we\nwere therefore rather taken aback when we found that the lecture, which\nwas divided into two parts, viz. \u201cShelley and Salt Water\u201d and \u201cShelley\nand Fresh Water,\u201d consisted of little more than the quotation of a\nnumber of passages. We heard the first part (I forget whether it was the\nsalt or the fresh), and then, at Dr. Furnivall\u2019s suggestion, the second\nwas withdrawn. There was comedy in this; but none the less all lovers of\nShelley owe gratitude to Mr. W. M. Rossetti, for he was one of the first\ncritics to understand the real greatness of Shelley\u2019s genius, and to\nappreciate not the poetry alone, but the conceptions by which it was\ninspired. He likewise did good service in introducing to the public some\noriginal writers, Walt Whitman among them, whose recognition might\notherwise have been delayed.\n\nBut the outstanding figure of the Shelley Society was that of its\nfounder, Dr. F. J. Furnivall, the veteran scholar and sculler, a grand\nold man whose unflagging ardour in his favourite pursuits might have\nshamed many enthusiasts who were his juniors by half a century. A born\nfighter, the vehemence of his disputes with certain men of letters\n(Swinburne, for example), was notorious; but personally he was kindness\nitself, and I have most pleasant recollections of the many visits which\nI paid him in his house near Primrose Hill, where, sitting in a big\narm-chair, he would talk eagerly, as he took tea, over the men he had\nknown or the Societies he had founded. His tea-tray used to be placed on\na sort of small bridge which rested on the arms of the chair, and in his\nexcitement over a thrilling anecdote, I have seen him forget that he was\nthus restricted, and springing forward send tray and tea flying together\nacross the room. He once told me that, for hygienic reasons, he had been\na vegetarian for twenty years, and had done the hardest work of his life\nwithout flesh-food: then, happening to be confined to the house with\nsprained ankles, he got out of health by neglecting to reduce his daily\ndiet. Just at that moment a friend sent him a turkey, and he said to\nhimself: \u201cNow, why should this fine bird be wasted, owing to a mere whim\nof mine?\u201d Thus had he relapsed into cannibalism as lightly as he\nrelinquished it.\n\nThere was an innocence and _na\u00efvet\u00e9_ about Furnivall which at times was\nalmost boyish; his impetuosity and total lack of discretion made him\ninsensible to other persons\u2019 feelings, so that he gave direful offence,\nand trod on the toes of many good people, without being in the least\nconscious of it. He ruined the Browning Society, of which he was both\nfounder and _con_founder, by an ill-advised speech about Jesus Christ,\nin a discussion on \u201cChristmas Eve and Easter Day\u201d; and in like manner,\nthough with less serious results, he startled his Shelleyan friends,\nwhen Prometheus was the subject of debate, by asking in tones of\nimpatience: \u201c_Why_ did the fellow allow himself to be chained to the\nrock? _Why_ didn\u2019t he show fight, as I should have done?\u201d And certainly,\nwhen one thinks of it, there would have been trouble in the Caucasus, if\nDr. Furnivall had been bidden to play the martyr\u2019s part.\n\nKnowing of my connection with Eton, Dr. Furnivall once came to me, in\nhigh spirits, with the news that in some researches at the British\nMuseum he had by chance unearthed the fact that Nicholas Udall, a\nheadmaster of Eton in the sixteenth century, and one of the recognized\n\u201cworthies\u201d of the school, had been convicted of a criminal offence--its\nnature I must leave my readers to surmise. I had heard this before, but\nI could not spoil the old man\u2019s glee by saying so; I therefore\ncongratulated him warmly, and asked him, in jest, whether he would not\nwrite to Dr. Warre and tell him of so interesting a discovery. \u201cI _have_\nwritten to him,\u201d he cried; and then, with a shade of real surprise and\ndisappointment on his face: \u201cBut he\u2019s not answered me!\u201d\n\nDuring the latter part of the Shelley Society\u2019s career, when its\nfortunes were dimmed, and many of its fashionable members had dropped\noff, we still continued to hold our monthly meetings at University\nCollege, Gower Street, and very quaint little gatherings some of them\nwere. The audience at times numbered no more than five or six, and the\n\u201cproceedings\u201d might have altogether failed had it not been for two or\nthree devoted enthusiasts who never slackened in their attendance. One\nof these was Mrs. Simpson, an old lady who became to the Shelley Society\nwhat Miss Flite was to the Court of Chancery in _Bleak House_, an\never-present spectator and ally. We all liked and respected her--she was\nhumanitarian as well as Shelleyan--but we were a little embarrassed when\nher filial piety prompted her to give us copies of her father\u2019s\nwritings, a bulky volume entitled _The Works of Henry Heavisides_. It\nwas a sobering experience to become possessed of that book, the title of\nwhich conveyed a true indication of the contents.\n\nThe Shelley Centenary (August 4, 1892) marked the climax of the cult\nwhich had had so great a vogue in the previous decade. The local meeting\nheld at Horsham in the afternoon, when Sussex squires and literary\ngentlemen from London united in an attempt to whitewash Shelley\u2019s\ncharacter--those \u201cshining garments\u201d of his, \u201cso little specked with\nmire,\u201d as one speaker expressed it--was a very hollow affair which\ncontrasted sharply with the London celebration held in the evening at\nthe Hall of Science, when Mr. G. W. Foote presided, and Mr. Bernard Shaw\nconvulsed the audience by his description of the Horsham apologetics. An\naccount of both these meetings was written by \u201cG.B.S.\u201d in his best vein,\nand printed in the _Albemarle Review_: it was in this article that he\nmade the suggestion that Shelley should be represented, at Horsham, on a\nbas-relief, \u201cin a tall hat, Bible in hand, leading his children on\nSunday morning to the church of his native parish.\u201d\n\nThat piece of sculpture has never been executed; but it would hardly\nhave been more inappropriate than the two chief monuments that have\nbeen erected, the one in Christchurch Priory, Hants, the other at\nUniversity College, Oxford; for what could be less in keeping with the\nimpression left by Shelley\u2019s ethereal genius than to figure him, as is\ndone in both these works, as a dead body, stretched limp and pitiful\nlike some suicide\u2019s corpse at the Morgue? Let us rid our thoughts of all\nsuch ghastly and funereal notions of Shelley, and think of him as what\nhe is, the poet not of death but of life,[22] that nobler life to which\nmankind shall yet attain, when they have learnt, in his own words:\n\n    To live as if to love and live were one.\n\nThe most human portrait of Shelley, to my thinking, is the one painted\nby a young American artist, William West, who met him at Byron\u2019s villa\nnear Leghorn, in 1822, and being greatly struck by his personality, made\na rough sketch which he afterwards finished and took back to America.\nThere it was preserved after West\u2019s death, and reproduced for the first\ntime in the _Century Magazine_ in October, 1905, with an explanatory\narticle by its present owner, Mrs. John Dunn. By the courtesy of Mrs.\nDunn, I was able to use this portrait as a frontispiece to a revised\nedition of my study of Shelley, published in 1913. Mr. Buxton Forman\ntold me that he did not believe in the genuineness of the picture; but\nreaders of _Letters about Shelley_ (1917) will see that Dr. Richard\nGarnett held a contrary opinion, and so, as I know, did Mr. W. M.\nRossetti. Some account of West\u2019s meeting with Shelley, and of his\nrecollections of Byron, may be found in Henry Theodore Tuckerman\u2019s _Book\nof the Artists_. His portrait of Byron is well known; and there seems to\nbe no inherent improbability in the account given of the origin and\npreservation of the other picture, which certainly impresses one as\nbeing more in agreement with the verbal descriptions of Shelley in his\nlater years than the almost boyish countenance so familiar in\nengravings.\n\nShelley is the greatest of the poet-pioneers of civilization, and his\ninfluence is still very far from having reached its zenith: he is \u201cthe\npoet of the young\u201d in the sense that future generations will be better\nand better able to understand him.\n\n    Thy wisdom lacks not years, thy wisdom grows\n    With _our_ growth and the growth of time unborn.[23]\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nVOICES CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS\n\n    I suffer mute and lonely, yet another\n    Uplifts his voice to let me know a brother\n      Travels the same wild paths though out of sight.\n           JAMES THOMSON (B.V.).\n\n\nPoets, as Shelley said, are \u201cthe hierophants of an unapprehended\ninspiration, the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts\nupon the present.\u201d The surest solace for the conditions in which men\u2019s\nlives are still lived is to be found in the utterances of those\nimpassioned writers, poets or poet-naturalists as we may call them, who\nare the harbingers of a higher social state, and, as such, have power to\ncheer their fellow-beings with the charm of their speech, though it is\nonly by the few that the full purport of their message can be\nunderstood. It is of some of these lights in the darkness, these voices\ncrying in the wilderness, that I would now speak.\n\nThere would seem, at first sight, to be a great gulf fixed between\nShelley and James Thomson, between optimist and pessimist, between the\npoet of _Prometheus Unbound_ whose faith in the future was immutable,\nand him of _The City of Dreadful Night_, who so despaired of progress as\nto hold that before we can reform the present we must reform the past.\nYet it was on Thomson\u2019s shoulders that the mantle of Shelley descended,\nin so far as they were the singers of free-thought; and he was one of\nthe earliest of all writers of distinction to apprehend the greatness of\nthat \u201cpoet of poets and purest of men\u201d to whom his own _Vane\u2019s Story_\nwas dedicated. Though we do not assent to the pessimistic contention\nthat we are the product of a past which has foredoomed human effort to\nfailure, we may still profit by the _mood_ of pessimism, the genuine\nvein of sadness that is found in all literatures and felt at times by\nall thoughtful men; for in its due place and proportion it is as real as\nthe contrary mood of joy. Why, then, should the darker mood be\nsedulously discountenanced, as if it came from the source of all evil?\nIt stands for something; it is part of us, and it is not to be\narbitrarily set aside.\n\nSo wonderful a poem as _The City of Dreadful Night_ needs no apology;\nits justification is in its own grandeur and strength: nor ought such\nliterature to be depressing in its effect on the reader\u2019s mind, but\nrather (in its right sphere and relation) a means of enlightenment and\nhelp. For whatever the subject and moral of a poem may be, there is\nnothing saddening in Art, provided the form and treatment be adequate;\nwe are not discouraged but cheered by any revelation of feeling that is\nsincerely and nobly expressed. I hold Thomson, therefore, pessimist\nthough he was, to have been, by virtue of his indomitable courage and\nlove of truth, one of the inspired voices of democracy.\n\nOver thirty years ago I was requested by Mr. Bertram Dobell, Thomson\u2019s\nfriend and literary executor, to write a Life of the poet; and in the\npreparation of that work, which involved a good deal of search for\nscattered letters and other biographical material, I was brought into\ntouch not only with many personal friends of Thomson, such as Mr.\nCharles Bradlaugh, Mr. G. W. Foote, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Wright, Mrs.\nH. Bradlaugh Bonner, Mr. J. W. Barrs, Mr. Charles Watts, and Mr. Percy\nHolyoake, but also with some well-known writers, among them Mr. George\nMeredith, Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Watts-Dunton, Mr. W. M. Rossetti, and Mr.\nWilliam Sharp. I was impressed by the warm regard in which Thomson\u2019s\nmemory was held by those who had known him, the single exception being a\nsour old landlady in a gloomy London street, of whose remarks I took\nnote as an instance of the strangely vague views held in some quarters\nas to the function of a biographer. She could give me no information\nabout her impecunious lodger, except that he had \u201cpassed away\u201d; but she\nadded that if I wished to write the Life of a good man, a real\nChristian, and a total abstainer--here she looked at me dubiously, as if\nquestioning my ability to carry out her suggestion--there was her dear\ndeparted husband!\n\nIn another case an old friend of Thomson\u2019s, who told me many interesting\nfacts about his early life, detained me just as I was taking my\ndeparture, and said in a meditative way, as if anxious to recall even\nthe veriest trifle: \u201cI think I remember that Jimmy once wrote a poem on\nsome subject or other.\u201d What he imagined to be my object in writing a\nLife of an obscure Army schoolmaster, except that he _had_ written a\npoem, I did not discover; perhaps the idea was that the biographer goes\nabout, like the lion, seeking whom he may devour.\n\nIn literary circles there has always been a strong prejudice against\n\u201cB.V.,\u201d owing, of course, to his atheistical views and the general lack\nof \u201crespectability\u201d in his life and surroundings. I was told by Mr.\nWilliam Sharp that, just after the _Life of James Thomson_ was\npublished, he happened to be travelling to Scotland in company with Mr.\nAndrew Lang, and having with him a copy of the book, which he was\nreviewing for the _Academy_, he tried to engage his companion in talk\nabout Thomson, but was met by a marked disinclination to discuss a\nsubject so uncongenial. I was not surprised at hearing this; but I had\nbeen puzzled by a refusal which I received from Mr. Swinburne to allow\nme to publish a letter which he had addressed to Mr. W. M. Rossetti some\nyears before, in high praise of Thomson\u2019s narrative poem \u201cWeddah and\nOm-el-Bonain,\u201d which he had described as possessing \u201cforthright\ntriumphant power.\u201d That letter, so Mr. Swinburne wrote to me, had been\ninspired by \u201ca somewhat extravagant and uncritical enthusiasm,\u201d and he\nnow spoke in rather severe reprobation of Thomson, as one who might have\nleft behind him \u201ca respectable and memorable name.\u201d The word\n\u201crespectable,\u201d coming from the author of _Poems and Ballads_, deserves\nto be noted.\n\nAbout two years later, in 1890, the immediate cause of this change of\nopinion on Mr. Swinburne\u2019s part was explained to me by no less an\nauthority than Mr. Watts-Dunton, who had invited me to pay him a visit\nin order to have a talk about Thoreau. During a stroll on Putney Heath,\nshared by Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. Watts-Dunton told me the story of James\nThomson\u2019s overthrow; and as the similar downfall of Whitman, and of some\nof Swinburne\u2019s other early favourites, was probably brought about in the\nsame manner, the process is worth relating. Mr. Swinburne, as I have\nsaid, had written in rapturous praise of one of \u201cB.V.\u2019s\u201d poems. One day\nMr. Watts-Dunton said to him: \u201cI wish you would re-read that poem of\nThomson\u2019s, as I cannot see that it possesses any great merit.\u201d A few\ndays later Swinburne came to him and said: \u201cYou are quite right. I have\nre-read \u2018Weddah and Om-el-Bonain,\u2019 and I find that it has very little\nvalue.\u201d Watts-Dunton\u2019s influence over his friend was so complete that\nthere are in fact _two_ Swinburnes: the earlier, democratic poet of the\n_Songs before Sunrise_, who had not yet been rescued by Mr.\nWatts-Dunton; and the later, respectable Swinburne, whose bent was for\nthe most part reactionary. A \u201clost leader\u201d indeed! Contrary to the\nproverb, the appeal, in this case, must be from Philip sober to Philip\ndrunk.\n\nAt the luncheon which followed our walk, Mr. Swinburne was present, and\none could not help observing that in personal matters, as in his\nliterary views, he seemed to be almost dependent on Mr. Watts-Dunton:\nhe ran to him with a new book like a poetic child with a plaything. His\namiability of manner and courtesy were charming; but his delicate face,\nquaint chanting voice, and restlessly twitching fingers, gave an\nimpression of weakness. He talked, I remember, of Meredith\u2019s _Sandra\nBelloni_ and _Diana of the Crossways_, and complained of their obscurity\n(\u201cCan you construe them?\u201d); then of his reminiscences of Eton, with\nfriendly inquiries about my father-in-law, the Rev. J. L. Joynes, who\nhad been his tutor and house-master; also about one of the French\nteachers, Mr. Henry Tarver, with whom he had been on very intimate\nterms. Here a few words on the poet\u2019s adventures at Eton may not be out\nof place.[24]\n\nIt is stated in Gosse\u2019s Life of Swinburne that there is no truth in the\nlegend that he was bullied at Eton; it is, however, a fact that his Eton\ncareer was not altogether an untroubled one. Mr. Joynes used to tell how\nSwinburne once came to him before school and begged to be allowed to\n\u201cstay out,\u201d because he was afraid to face some bigger boys who were\ntemporarily attached to his Division--\u201cthose dreadful boys,\u201d he called\nthem. \u201cOh, sir, they wear tail coats! Sir, they are men!\u201d The request\nwas not granted; but his tutor soothed the boy by reading a Psalm with\nhim, and thus fortified he underwent the ordeal.\n\nOne very characteristic anecdote has unfortunately been told\nincorrectly. Lady Jane Swinburne had come to Eton to see her son, who\nwas ill, and she read Shakespeare to him as he lay in bed. When she left\nhim for a time, a maid, whom she had brought with her, was requested to\ncontinue the reading, and she did so, with the result that a glass of\nwater which stood on a table by the bedside was presently dashed over\nher by the invalid. In the version quoted by his biographer the glass\nof water has become \u201ca pot of jam\u201d--quite wrongly, as I can testify, for\nI heard Mr. Joynes tell the story more than once.\n\nSwinburne was not allowed to read Byron or Shelley while he was at Eton.\nIn Mr. Joynes\u2019s house there was a set of volumes of the old English\ndramatists, and the young student urgently begged to be permitted to\nread these. \u201cMight he read Ford?\u201d To settle so difficult a question\nrecourse was had to the advice of Mr. W. G. Cookesley, a master who was\nreputed \u201cto know about everything\u201d; and Mr. Cookesley\u2019s judgment was\nthat the boy might read all Ford\u2019s plays except one--the one, of course,\nwhich has a title calculated to alarm. But this, it transpired, was one\nthat he had specially wished to read!\n\nMr. Watts-Dunton has been well described by Mr. Coulson Kernahan as \u201ca\nhero of friendship\u201d; and his personal friendliness was shown not to\ndistinguished writers only, but to any one whom he could encourage or\nhelp, nor did he take the least offence, however bluntly his own\ncriticisms were criticized. In reviewing _The City of Dreadful Night_,\non its first appearance in book form (1880), he had said that Thomson\nwrote in his pessimistic style \u201cbecause now it is the fashion to be\ndreadful,\u201d a denial of the sincerity of the poet to which I referred in\nmy _Life of James Thomson_ as one of the strangest of misapprehensions.\nWhen I met Mr. Watts-Dunton, he alluded to this and other matters\nconcerning Thomson so genially as to make me wonder how he could at\ntimes have written in so unsympathetic and unworthy a manner of authors\nwhom he disliked. Admirers of Walt Whitman, in particular, had reason to\nresent the really disgusting things that were said of him; as when he\nwas likened to a savage befouling the door-step of the civilized man.\nThat Whitman himself must have been indignant at the jibes levelled at\nhim from Putney Heath can hardly be doubted: I was told by a friend of\nhis that he had been heard to speak of Swinburne--the _second_\nSwinburne--as \u201ca damned simulacrum.\u201d\n\nVery different from Swinburne\u2019s ungenerous attitude to Thomson was that\nof George Meredith, as may be seen from several of his letters to me,\npublished in the _Life of James Thomson_, and reprinted in _Letters of\nGeorge Meredith_. A proposal was made that Mr. Meredith should himself\nwrite an appreciation of \u201cB.V.\u201d; this he could not do, but he gave me\npermission to make use of any opinions he had expressed by letter to me\nor in conversation; I visited him at Box Hill in 1891, and he talked at\ngreat length on that and other subjects. Of Thomson he spoke with\nfeelings akin to affection, exclaiming more than once: \u201cPoor dear\nfellow! I bitterly reproach myself that I did not help him more, by\ngetting him work on the _Athen\u00e6um_.\u201d But he doubted if he could at that\ndate have been reclaimed: earlier in life he might have been saved, he\nthought, by the companionship of a woman who would have given him\nsympathy and aid; praise, too, which had been the ruin of many writers\n(he instanced George Eliot and Dickens, with some trenchant remarks\nabout both) would have been good for \u201cB.V.,\u201d who was so brave and\nhonest. He himself, he said, had often felt what it was to lack all\nrecognition, and sometimes, when he had looked up from his writing and\nseen a distant field in sunlight, he had thought, \u201cit must be well to be\nin the warmth.\u201d What above all he admired in Thomson was his resolute\nclear courage. There had been no mention of pessimism in their talk,\nexcept that when he had been speaking of the brightest and the darkest\nmoods of Nature, Thomson answered: \u201cI see no brightest.\u201d\n\nMeredith was evidently repelled by this gospel of despair; he said that\nthe writing of _The City of Dreadful Night_ had done its author no good,\ninasmuch as he there embodied his gloomier images in a permanent form\nwhich in turn reacted on him and made him more despondent. He\nconsidered \u201cWeddah and Om-el-Bonain\u201d to be Thomson\u2019s masterpiece, and\nthe finest narrative poem we have: \u201cWhere can you find its equal?\u201d I\ntold him of Swinburne\u2019s change of opinion about it, and he said\ninstantly: \u201cYou know whose doing _that_ is.\u201d A playful account followed\nof the way in which his own poems used to be reviewed by Watts-Dunton in\nthe _Athen\u00e6um_. \u201cWe always receive anything of Mr. Meredith\u2019s with\nrespect.\u201d \u201cYou know,\u201d said Meredith, \u201cwhat that sort of beginning\nmeans.\u201d Of late he had ceased to send out review copies of his poems,\nbeing sickened by the ineptitude of critics. \u201cThere are a good many\ncurates about the country,\u201d he added, \u201cand the fact that many of them do\na little reviewing in their spare hours does not tend to elevate\nliterature.\u201d\n\nOf social problems he spoke with freedom; most strongly of the certain\nchange that is coming, when women get their economic independence.\nInfinite mischief comes to the race from loveless marriages. But he\nanticipated it would take six or more generations for women to rid\nthemselves of the intellectual follies they now inherit from their\ngrandmothers.\n\nAt dinner Mr. Meredith talked of his distaste for flesh food, and his\nesteem for simplicity in all forms, and stated emphatically that it was\nquite a mistake to suppose that his own experiments in vegetarianism had\ninjured his health. Yet, if he were to try that diet again, he knew how\nhis friends would explain to him that it is \u201cimpossible to live without\nmeat,\u201d or (this in dramatically sarcastic tones) that \u201cif it be possible\nfor _some_ persons, it is not possible for _me_.\u201d[25] I was struck by\nhis great kindliness as host; he was in fact over-solicitous for the\nwelfare of vegetarian guests.\n\nThe formality and punctiliousness of Mr. Meredith\u2019s manner, with his\nsomewhat ceremonious gestures and pronunciation, perhaps affected a\nvisitor rather unfavourably at first introduction; but after a few\nminutes this impression wore off, and one felt only the vivacity and\ncharm of his conversation. It was a continuous flow of epigrams, as\nincisive in many cases as those in his books; during which I noticed the\nintense sensitiveness and expressiveness of his mouth, the lips curling\nwith irony, as he flung out his sarcasms about critics, and curates, and\nsentimentalists of every order. His eyes were remarkably keen and\npenetrating, and he watched narrowly the effect of his points; so that\neven to keep up with him as a listener was a considerable mental strain.\nIt was in consequence of my mentioning this to Mr. Bernard Shaw, a few\ndays later, that he made his sporting offer that, if he were taken down\nto Box Hill, he \u201cwould start talking the moment he entered the house,\nand not let Meredith get a word in edgeways.\u201d In Mr. S. M. Ellis\u2019s\nbiography of Meredith, Shaw is quoted as saying that the proposal\nemanated from Mr. Clement Shorter or myself: this, however, is quite\nincorrect, for the suggestion was his own, and much too reckless to have\nhad any other source. Such an encounter, had it taken place, would not\nhave been, as Shaw flattered himself, a monologue, but a combat so\ncolossal that one shrinks from speculating on the result: all that seems\ncertain is that it would have lasted till the talk-out blow was given,\nand that upon the tomb of one or other of the colloquists a _hic tacet_\nwould have had to be inscribed.\n\nI noticed a certain resemblance in Meredith\u2019s profile to that of Edward\nCarpenter (it may be seen in some of the photographs); and this was the\nmore surprising because of the unlikeness of the two men in temperament,\nMeredith\u2019s cry for \u201cMore brain, O Lord, more brain!\u201d being in contrast\nwith Carpenter\u2019s rather slighting references to \u201cthe wandering lunatic\nMind.\u201d Yet Meredith, too, was an apostle of Nature; his democratic\ninstincts are unmistakable, though the scenes of his novels are mostly\nlaid in aristocratic surroundings, so that his \u201ccry for simplicity\u201d came\n\u201cfrom the very camp of the artificial.\u201d This was the view of his\nphilosophy taken by me in an article on \u201cNature-lessons from George\nMeredith,\u201d published in the _Free Review_, in reference to which Mr.\nMeredith wrote: \u201cIt is pleasant to be appreciated, but the chief\npleasure for me is in seeing the drift of my work rightly apprehended.\u201d\n\nTo Mr. Bertram Dobell, the well-known bookseller, whose name is so\nclosely associated with Thomson\u2019s and Traherne\u2019s, I was indebted for\nmuch information about books and writers of books, given in that cosy\nshop of his in the Charing Cross Road, which was a place of pleasant\nrecollections for so many literary men. I had especial reason to be\ngrateful to him for directing me to the writings of Herman Melville,\nwhose extraordinary genius, shown in such masterpieces as _Typee_ and\n_The Whale_, was so unaccountably ignored or undervalued that his name\nis still often confused with that of Whyte Melville or of Herman\nMerivale. Melville was a great admirer of James Thomson; this he made\nplain in several letters addressed to English correspondents, in which\nhe described _The City of Dreadful Night_ as the \u201cmodern Book of Job\nunder an original form, duskily looming with the same aboriginal\nverities,\u201d and wrote of one of the lighter poems that \u201c_Sunday up the\nRiver_, contrasting with the _City of Dreadful Night_, is like a Cuban\nhumming-bird, beautiful in fairy tints, flying against the tropic\nthunderstorm.\u201d\n\nMr. Dobell was a man of very active mind, and he had always in view some\nfurther literary projects. One of these, of which he told me not long\nbefore his death, was to write a book about his friend, James Thomson;\nand it is much to be regretted that this could not be accomplished.\nAnother plan--surely one of the strangest ever conceived--was to render\nor re-write Walt Whitman\u2019s poems in the Omar Khayy\u00e1m stanza: a proposal\nwhich reminded me of the beneficent scheme of Fourier, or another of the\nearly communists, to turn the waters of the ocean into lemonade. It is\ndifficult to speak of _Leaves of Grass_ and the _Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t_ in the same\nbreath; yet I once heard the Omar Khayy\u00e1m poem referred to in a still\nstranger connection by a clergyman who was the \u201cautocrat of the\nbreakfast table\u201d in a hotel where I was staying. Suddenly pausing in his\ntable-talk, he did me the honour of consulting me on a small question of\nauthorship. \u201cI am right, am I not,\u201d he said, \u201cin supposing that the\ntranslator of Omar Khayy\u00e1m was--Emerson?\u201d\n\nMr. Dobell\u2019s experiences in book-lore had been long and varied, and he\ncould tell some excellent stories, one of which especially struck me as\nshowing that he had a rare fund of shrewd sense as well as of\nprofessional knowledge. He once missed from his shop a very scarce and\nvaluable book, in circumstances which made it a matter of certainty to\nhim that it had been abstracted by a keen collector who had been talking\nto him that very day, though no word concerning the book had been\nspoken. Dobell was greatly troubled, until he hit upon a plan which was\nat once the simplest and most tactful that could have been imagined.\nWithout any inquiry or explanation, he sent in a bill for the book, as\nin course of business, and the account was duly paid.\n\nThrough _Songs of Freedom_, an anthology edited by me in 1892, I came\ninto correspondence with many democratic writers, several of whom,\nespecially Mr. Gerald Massey and Mr. W. J. Linton, showed much interest\nin the work and gave me valuable assistance. Dr. John Kells Ingram\u2019s\nfamous verses, \u201cThe Men of \u2018Ninety-Eight,\u201d were included in the book;\nand as curiosity has sometimes been expressed as to how far the\nsentiments of that poem accorded with the later views of its author, it\nmay be worth mentioning that, in giving me permission to reprint the\nstanzas, he wrote as follows: \u201cYou will not suppose that the effusion of\nthe youth exactly represents the convictions of the man. But I have\nnever been ashamed of having written the verses. They were the fruit of\ngenuine feeling.\u201d A request for Joaquin Miller\u2019s spirited lines, \u201cSophie\nPerovskaya,\u201d brought me a letter from the veteran author of that very\nbeautiful book, _Life amongst the Modocs_ (a work of art worthy to be\nclassed with Herman Melville\u2019s _Typee_), which was one of the strangest\npieces of penmanship I ever received, having the appearance of being\nwritten with a piece of wood rather than a pen, but more than\ncompensating by its heartiness for the labour needed in deciphering it:\n\u201cI thank you cordially; I am abashed at my audacity long ago, in\npublishing what I did in dear old England. I hope to do something really\nworth your reading before I die.\u201d But _that_ he had done long before.\n\nThe liberality with which writers of verse allow their poems to be used\nin anthologies is very gratifying to an editor; the more so, as such\nrepublication is by no means always a benefit to the authors themselves.\nMr. John Addington Symonds was an example of a poet who had suffered\nmuch, as he told me, from compilers of anthologies, especially in regard\nto some lines in his oft-quoted stanzas, \u201cA Vista,\u201d which in the\noriginal ran thus:\n\n    Nation with nation, land with land,\n      Inarmed shall live as comrades free.\n\n\u201cInarmed\u201d signified linked fraternity, but the word being a strange one\nwas changed in some collections to \u201c_un_armed,\u201d and in that easier form\nhad quite escaped from Mr. Symonds\u2019s control. This error still continues\nto be repeated and circulated, and has practically taken the place of\nthe authorized text. Truth, as the saying is, may be great, but it does\nnot always prevail.\n\nMr. J. A. Symonds, like his friend Mr. Roden Noel, at whose house I met\nhim, was one of those writers who, starting from a purely literary\nstandpoint, came over in the end towards the democratic view of life.\nHis appreciation of Whitman is well known; and he told me that since he\nwrote his study of Shelley for the \u201cEnglish Men of Letters\u201d series he\nhad changed some of his views in the more advanced Shelleyan direction.\n\nRobert Buchanan was another of Roden Noel\u2019s friends with whom I became\nacquainted and had a good deal of correspondence. His later writings,\nowing to their democratic tendencies and extreme outspokenness, received\nmuch less public attention than the earlier ones; in _The New Rome_, in\nparticular, there were a number of trenchant poems denouncing the\nsavageries of an aggressive militarism, and pleading the cause of the\nweak and suffering folk, whether human or sub-human, against the\ntyrannous and strong. So marked, in his later years, became Buchanan\u2019s\nhumanitarian sympathies, that when his biography was written by Miss\nHarriett Jay, in 1903, I was asked to contribute a chapter on the\nsubject.\n\nAn anthologist, as I have said, meets with much courtesy from poets, yet\nhis path is not altogether a rose-strewn one. When I undertook the work,\nI was warned by Mr. Bernard Shaw that the only certain result would be\nthat I should draw on myself the concentrated resentment of all the\nauthors concerned: this forecast was far from being verified; but in one\nor two instances I did become aware of certain irritable symptoms on the\npart of poetical acquaintances whose own songs of freedom had unluckily\nescaped my notice. Then the over-anxiety of some authors as to which of\ntheir master-pieces should be included, and which withheld, was at times\na trial to an editor. One of my contributors, who had moved in high\ncircles, was concerned to think that certain royalties of his\nacquaintance might feel hurt by his arraignment of tyrants: \u201cbut if the\nCzar,\u201d he wrote, \u201ctakes it home to himself, I shall be only too\ndelighted.\u201d Whether any protest from the Czar or other crowned heads was\nreceived by the publishers of the Canterbury Poets Series, I never\nheard.\n\nBut if poets are the forerunners of a future society, to\n\u201cpoet-naturalists\u201d also must a like function be assigned. Of Thoreau, to\nwhom that title was first and most fittingly given, I have already\nspoken; and his was the genius which, to me, next to that of Shelley,\nwas the most astonishing of nineteenth-century portents; a scion of the\nfuture, springing up, like some alien wild-flower, unclassed and\nuncomprehended: like Shelley\u2019s, too, his wisdom is still far ahead of\nour age, and destined to be increasingly acknowledged.\n\nIt was with this thought in mind that I wrote a biography of Thoreau, in\nwhich task I received valuable aid from his surviving friends, Mr.\nHarrison Blake, Mr. Daniel Ricketson, Mr. Frank B. Sanborn, Dr. Edward\nEmerson, and others. With Mr. Sanborn, the last of the Concord group, I\ncorresponded for nearly thirty years, and I had several long talks with\nhim on the occasions of his visiting England: he was a man of great\nerudition and extraordinary memory, so that his store of information\namassed in a long life was almost encyclopedic. I learnt much from him\nabout Concord and its celebrities; and he collaborated with me in\nediting a collection of Thoreau\u2019s \u201cPoems of Nature,\u201d which was published\nin 1895. Mr. Daniel Ricketson, the \u201cMr. D. R.\u201d of Emerson\u2019s edition of\nThoreau\u2019s _Letters_, was another friend to whom I was greatly indebted;\nhis correspondence with me was printed in a memorial volume, _Daniel\nRicketson and his Friends_, in 1902. By no one was I more helped and\nencouraged than by that most ardent of Thoreau-students, Dr. Samuel A.\nJones, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, who, with his fellow-enthusiast, Mr.\nAlfred W. Hosmer, of Concord, sent me at various times a large amount of\n_Thoreauana_, and enabled me to make a number of corrections and\namplifications in a later edition of the _Life_. It was through our\ncommon love of Thoreau that I first became acquainted with Mr. W. Sloane\nKennedy, of Belmont, Massachusetts, a true nature-lover with whom I have\nhad much pleasant and friendly intercourse both personally and by\nletter.\n\nRichard Jefferies, unlike Shelley or Thoreau, was so far a pessimist as\nto believe that \u201clives spent in doing good have been lives nobly\nwasted\u201d; but while convinced that \u201cthe whole and the worst the worst\npessimist could say is far beneath the least particle of the truth, so\nimmense is the misery of man,\u201d he could yet feel the hope of future\namelioration. \u201cFull well aware that all has failed, yet side by side\nwith the sadness of that knowledge, there yet lives on in me an\nunquenchable belief, thought burning like the sun, that there is yet\nsomething to be found, something real, something to give each separate\npersonality sunshine and flowers in its own existence now.\u201d If ever\nthere was an inspired work, a real book of prophecy, such a one is\nJefferies\u2019s _Story of my Heart_, in which, with his gaze fixed on a\nfuture society, where the term _pauper_ (\u201cinexpressibly wicked word\u201d)\nshall be unknown, he speaks in scathing condemnation of the present lack\nof just and equitable distribution, which keeps the bulk of the human\nrace still labouring for bare sustenance and shelter.\n\nIn a study of Jefferies\u2019s life and ideals, published in 1894, I drew\nattention to the marked change that came over his views, during his\nlater years, on social and religious questions, a ripening of thought,\naccompanied by a corresponding growth of literary style, which can be\nmeasured by the great superiority of _The Story_ over such books as _The\nGamekeeper at Home_; and in connection with this subject I pointed out\nthat the incident recorded by Sir Walter Besant in his _Eulogy of\nRichard Jefferies_ of a death-bed return to the Christian faith, at a\ntime when Jefferies was physically and intellectually a wreck, could not\nbe accepted as in any way reversing the authoritative statement of his\nreligious convictions which he had himself published in his _Story_. For\nthis I was taken to task in several papers as having perverted biography\nin the interest of my own prejudiced opinions; but under this censure,\nnot to mention that my views were shared by those friends and students\nof Jefferies with whom I was brought in touch, I had one unsuspected\nsource of consolation in the fact that Sir Walter Besant told me in\nprivate correspondence that, from what he had learnt since the\npublication of his _Eulogy_, he was convinced that I was quite right. I\ndid not make this public until many years later, when a new edition of\nmy book appeared: there was then some further outcry in a section of the\npress; but this was not repeated when Mr. Edward Thomas, in the latest\nand fullest biography of Jefferies, dismissed the supposed conversion as\na wrong interpretation by \u201cnarrow sectarians\u201d who ignored the work of\nJefferies\u2019s maturity.\n\nI have thought it worth while to refer to these facts, not that they are\nthemselves important, but as illustrating a Christianizing process which\nis often carried on with boundless effrontery by \u201creligious\u201d writers\nafter the death of free-thinkers. Another instance may be seen in the\ncase of Francis W. Newman, where a similar attempt was made to represent\nhim as having abandoned his own deliberate convictions.\n\nFrom Jefferies one\u2019s thoughts pass naturally to Mr. W. H. Hudson. It\nmust be over twenty-five years since through the hospitality of Mrs. E.\nPhillips, of Croydon, an ardent bird-lover and humanitarian, I had the\ngood fortune to be introduced to Mr. Hudson and to his books. A\nphilosopher and keen observer of all forms of life, he is far from being\nan ornithologist only; but there are certain sympathies that give rise\nto a sort of natural freemasonry among those who feel them; and of\nthese one of the pleasantest and most human is the love of birds--not of\ncooked birds, if you please, associated with dining-room memories of\n\u201cthe pleasures of the table,\u201d nor of caged birds in drawing-rooms, nor\nof stuffed birds in museums; but of real birds, live birds, wild birds,\nfree to exercise their marvellous faculties of flight and song. From\nthis love has sprung a corresponding bird-literature; and of the notable\nnames among the prophets and interpreters of bird life, the latest, and\nin my opinion the greatest, is that of Mr. Hudson: his books, in not a\nfew chapters and passages, rise above the level of mere natural history,\nand affect the imagination of the reader as only great literature can.\nIf he is an unequal writer and somewhat desultory, perhaps, in his\nmanner of work, yet at his best he is the greatest living master of\nEnglish prose. Such books as _The Naturalist in La Plata_ and _Nature in\nDownland_ (to name two only) are classics that can never be forgotten.\nAnd Mr. Hudson\u2019s influence, it should be noted, has been thrown more and\nmore on the side of that humane study of natural history which Thoreau\nadopted: his verdict is given in no uncertain language against the\nbarbarous habits of game-keeper and bird-catcher, fashionable milliner,\nand amateur collector of \u201cspecimens.\u201d\n\nIf a single title were to be sought for Mr. Hudson\u2019s writings, the name\nof one of his earlier books, _Birds and Man_, might be the most\nappropriate; for there seems almost to be a mingling of the avian with\nthe human in his nature: I have sometimes fancied that he must be a\ndescendant of Picus, or of some other prehistoric hero who was changed\ninto a bird. There is a passage in Virgil\u2019s _\u00c6neid_ where Diomede is\nrepresented as lamenting, as a \u201cfearful prodigy,\u201d such metamorphosis of\nhis companions.\n\n    Lost friends, to birds transfigured, skyward soar,\n    Or fill the rocky wold with wailing cries.\n\nBut if such a vicissitude were to befall any of Mr. Hudson\u2019s friends, I\nfeel sure that, far from being dismayed by it, he would be able to\ncontinue his acquaintance with them on terms of entire understanding:\nthey would in no sense be \u201clost\u201d because they were feathered. To him a\nmuch more fearful prodigy is the savage fashion of wearing the skins and\nfeathers of slaughtered birds as ornamental head-gear.\n\nOne of the most devoted followers of this new school of natural history,\nand himself a naturalist of distinction, was Dr. Alexander H. Japp, who,\nunder the pen-name of \u201cH. A. Page,\u201d wrote the first account of Thoreau\npublished in this country. I have a recollection of many pleasant chats\nwith him, especially of a visit which he paid me with Mr. Walton\nRicketson, the sculptor, a son of that intimate friend of Thoreau\u2019s of\nwhom I have spoken. Walton Ricketson was a boy at the time when Thoreau\nused to visit his father at New Bedford; but he was present on the\noccasion when the grave hermit of Walden surprised the company by a\nsudden hilarious impulse, which prompted him to sing \u201cTom Bowling\u201d and\nto perform an improvised dance, in which, it is said, he kept time to\nthe music but executed some steps more like those of the Indians than\nthe usual ballroom figures.\n\nDr. Japp was also a biographer of De Quincey, and by his sympathetic\nunderstanding did much to correct the disparaging judgments passed on\n\u201cthe English opium-eater\u201d by many critics and press-writers. As a result\nof a study of De Quincey which I published in 1904, I made the\nacquaintance, three years later, of Miss Emily de Quincey (she spelt her\nname in that manner), his last surviving daughter. She was a most\ncharming old lady, full of vivacity and humour; and her letters, of\nwhich I received a good many, were written with a sprightliness\nrecalling that of her father in his lighter moods; some of her\nreminiscences, too, were very interesting. She remembered the opium\ndecanter and glass standing on the mantelpiece when she was a child, but\nshe said that De Quincey quite left off the use of the drug for years\nbefore his death. She told me that the grudge against her father, which\nfrequently found expression in \u201cgrotesque descriptions\u201d of him, was\ncaused in part by his neglect to answer the letters, many of a very\nflattering kind, addressed to him by readers of his books; a remissness\nwhich was due, not to any lack of courtesy or gratitude, but to his\ninveterate procrastination; he would always be going to write\n\u201cto-morrow\u201d or \u201cwhen he had a good pen.\u201d On one occasion an admirer\nwrote to him from Australia, begging him for \u201csome truths\u201d that he might\ngive to his little son (who had been named after De Quincey) when he\nshould be able to understand them. De Quincey said sadly to his\ndaughter: \u201cMy dear, truths are very low with me just now. Do you think,\nif I sent a couple of lies, they would answer the purpose?\u201d She feared\nthat he never sent either truths or lies. Among the unanswered letters\nwhich her father received she recollected that there was one from \u201cthree\nbrothers,\u201d accompanied by a volume of poems by \u201cCurrer, Ellis and Acton\nBell.\u201d It was by the poetry of Ellis that the De Quinceys were most\nstruck, but not till years afterwards did they guess that those\n\u201cbrothers\u201d were the Bront\u00eb sisters in disguise.\n\nWere it not a common practice of reviewers, in estimating the work of a\ngreat writer, to omit, as far as possible, any mention of humane\nsympathies shown by him, it would be strange that De Quincey should be\nrepresented as a mere \u201cdreamer\u201d and visionary; for in truth, in spite of\nthe transcendental Toryism of his politics, he was in several respects a\npioneer of advanced humanitarian thought, especially in the question of\ncorporal punishment, on which he spoke, a hundred years ago, with a\ndignity and foresight which might put to shame many purblind\n\u201cprogressives\u201d of to-day. His profound regard for a suffering humanity\nis one of the noblest features in his writings; he rejoiced, for\ninstance, at the interference of Parliament to amend the \u201cruinous social\nevil\u201d of female labour in mines; and he spoke of the cruelty of that\nspirit which could look \u201clightly and indulgently on the affecting\nspectacle of female prostitution.\u201d \u201cAll I have ever had enjoyment of in\nlife,\u201d he said, \u201cseems to rise up to reproach me for my happiness, when\nI see such misery, and think there is so much of it in the world.\u201d It is\namusing to read animadversions on De Quincey\u2019s \u201clack of moral fibre,\u201d\nwritten by critics who lag more than a century behind him in some of the\nmatters that afford an unequivocal test of man\u2019s advance from barbarism\nto civilization.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nA LEAGUE OF HUMANENESS\n\n     Hommes, soyez humains. C\u2019est votre premier devoir. Quelle sagesse y\n     a-t-il pour vous, hors de l\u2019humanit\u00e9.--ROUSSEAU.\n\n\nFrom the vaticinations of poets and prophets I now return to the\nactualities of the present state. Thirty years ago there were already in\nexistence a number of societies which aimed at the humanizing of public\nopinion, in regard not to war only but to various other savage and\nuncivilized practices. The Vegetarian Society, founded in 1847,\nadvocated a radical amendment; and the cause of zoophily, represented by\nthe Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, had been\nstrengthened by the establishment of several Anti-Vivisection Societies.\nIn like manner the philanthropic tendencies of the time, with respect to\nprison management and the punishment or reclamation of offenders, were\nreflected in the work of the Howard Association.\n\nThe purpose of the Humanitarian League, which was formed in 1891, was to\nproclaim a _general_ principle of humaneness, as underlying the various\ndisconnected efforts, and to show that though the several societies were\nnecessarily working on separate lines, they were nevertheless inspired\nand united by a single bond of fellowship. The promoters of the League\nsaw clearly that barbarous practices can be philosophically condemned on\nno other ground than that of the broad democratic sentiment of universal\nsympathy. Humanity and science between them have exploded the\ntime-honoured idea of a hard-and-fast line between white man and black\nman, rich man and poor man, educated man and uneducated man, good man\nand bad man: equally impossible to maintain, in the light of newer\nknowledge, is the idea that there is any difference in kind, and not in\ndegree only, between human and non-human intelligence. The emancipation\nof men from cruelty and injustice will bring with it in due course the\nemancipation of animals also. The two reforms are inseparably connected,\nand neither can be fully realized alone.\n\nWe were well aware that a movement of this character would meet with no\npopular support; on the contrary, that those who took part in it would\nbe regarded as \u201cfaddists\u201d and \u201cvisionaries\u201d; but we knew also that the\ndirect opposite of this was the truth, and that while we were supposed\nto be merely building \u201ccastles in the air,\u201d we were in fact following\nThoreau\u2019s most practical advice, and _putting the foundations under\nthem_. For what is \u201cthe basis of morality,\u201d as laid down by so great a\nthinker as Schopenhauer, except this very doctrine of a comprehensive\nand reasoned sympathy?\n\nA year or two before the founding of the League, I had read at a meeting\nof the Fabian Society a paper on \u201cHumanitarianism,\u201d which afterwards\nformed a starting-point for the League\u2019s publications. The idea of a\nhumane society, with a wider scope than that of any previously existing\nbody, was suggested by Mr. Howard Williams; and it was at the house of a\nvery true friend of our cause, Mrs. Lewis (now Mrs. Drakoules), in Park\nSquare, London, that a small group of persons, among whom were Mrs.\nLewis, Mr. Edward Maitland, Mr. Howard Williams, Mr. Kenneth Romanes,\nand the present writer,[26] assembled, early in 1891, to draw up a\nmanifesto and to launch the Humanitarian League. The title\n\u201chumanitarian\u201d was chosen because, though fully aware of certain\nobjections to the word, we felt that it was the only term which\nsufficiently expressed our meaning, and that, whether a good name or a\nbad name, it must be taken up, like a gauntlet, by those who intended to\nfight for the cause which it denotes.\n\nFor it was to be a fighting, not a talking Society that the League was\ndesigned, even if it were a forlorn hope. In an interesting letter, read\nat the first meeting, the opinion was expressed by our veteran friend,\nProfessor Francis W. Newman, that the time was not ripe for such a\nventure as the assertion of a humanitarian ethic; but we came to the\nconclusion that however small a beginning might be made, much good would\nbe done by a systematic protest against the numerous barbarisms of the\nage--the cruelties inflicted by men on men, and the still more atrocious\nill-treatment of the lower animals.\n\nEdward Maitland, who, in spite of his advanced years, took a good deal\nof interest in our meetings, had had rather a remarkable career as\ntraveller, writer, and mystic; and his earlier book, _The Pilgrim and\nthe Shrine_, had been widely read. Those who knew him only as occultist\nwould have been surprised to see how extremely critical he was--to the\nverge of fastidiousness--in discussing practical affairs; there was no\none on that committee more useful in bringing the cold light of reason\nto bear on our consultations than the joint-author of Dr. Anna\nKingsford\u2019s very strange revelations. At the time I knew him, he was\nwriting his _magnum opus_, the Life of Anna Kingsford, and he would\noften discourse to me freely, after a committee meeting, on his\nspiritual experiences, to the astonishment, perhaps, of our\nfellow-travellers by rail or tram: on one occasion he described to me\non the top of an omnibus how he had been privileged to be a beholder of\nthe Great White Throne. There was something in these narrations so\nnatural and genuine as to compel the respectful attention of the\nlistener, whatever his personal belief might be as to the reality of the\nvisions described.\n\nMr. Howard Williams, on the other hand, was as pronounced a rationalist\nas Maitland was a mystic, and one who by word and by pen, in private and\nin public, was a quiet but untiring champion of the humanitarian cause.\nHis _Ethics of Diet_, which had the honour, at a later date, of being\nhighly commended by Tolstoy, whose essay entitled \u201cThe First Step\u201d was\nwritten as a preface to his Russian translation of the book, is a\nveritable mine of knowledge, which ranges over every period of history\nand covers not only the subject of humane dietetics but the whole field\nof man\u2019s attitude toward the non-human races: if Ethical Societies were\nintended to be anything more than places of debate, they would long ago\nhave included this work among their standard text-books. For the writing\nof such a treatise, Mr. Williams was specially qualified by the fact\nthat with a wide classical knowledge he united in a remarkable degree\nthe newer spirit and enthusiasm of humanity; he was in the truest sense\na student and professor of _liter\u00e6 humaniores_. It is difficult to\nestimate precisely the result of labours such as his; but that they have\nhad an appreciable influence upon the growth of a more humane public\nopinion is not to be doubted.\n\nThe Committee was gradually strengthened by the inclusion of such\nexperienced workers as the Rev. J. Stratton, Colonel W. Lisle B.\nCoulson, Mrs. L. T. Mallet, Mr. J. Frederick Green, Miss Elizabeth\nMartyn, the first secretary of the League, and Mr. Ernest Bell, a member\nof the well-known publishing firm and now President of the Vegetarian\nSociety, who for over twenty years was a bulwark of strength as\nchairman and treasurer. A campaign against the Royal Buckhounds had at\nonce commanded respect; the pamphlets were well noticed in the\npress--better, perhaps, in those days, when they were still a novelty,\nthan later, when they were taken as a matter of course--some successful\nmeetings were held, and the general interest shown in the League\u2019s\ndoings was out of all proportion to its numerical strength.\n\nIt was in 1895 that the second phase of the League\u2019s career began with\nthe acquirement of an office in Great Queen Street, and the institution\nof a monthly journal, _Humanity_, so-called at first because its later\ntitle, _The Humanitarian_, was at that time appropriated elsewhere. The\nholding of a National Humanitarian Conference, at St. Martin\u2019s Town\nHall, in the same year, was the first big public effort that the League\nhad made, and attracted a good deal of attention; and the scope of the\nwork was considerably extended by the appointment of special departments\nfor dealing with such subjects as Sports, Criminal Law and Prison\nReform, Humane Diet and Dress, and the Education of Children; and by a\nmuch wider use of the press as a medium for propaganda, in which sphere\nthe League was now able to avail itself of the services of Mr. Joseph\nCollinson, whose numerous press letters soon became a distinctive\nfeature of its work. In the summer of 1897 the League shifted its\nheadquarters to Chancery Lane, where it remained till it was brought to\nan end in 1919.\n\nThe League was soon engaged in controversies of various kinds. A little\nbook entitled _Animals\u2019 Rights_, which I wrote at the request of my\nfriend, Mr. Ernest Bell, and which was published by his firm in 1892,\nled to a great deal of discussion, and passed through numerous editions,\nbesides being translated into French, German, Dutch, Swedish, and other\nlanguages. Among its earliest critics was Professor D. G. Ritchie, who,\nin his work on _Natural Rights_, maintained that though \u201cwe may be said\nto have duties of _kindness towards_ the animals, it is incorrect to\nrepresent these as strictly _duties towards_ the animals themselves, as\nif they had rights against us.\u201d (The italics are Mr. Ritchie\u2019s.) There\nis a puzzle for you, reader. I took it to mean that, in man\u2019s duty of\nkindness, it is the kindness only that has reference to the animals, the\nduty being a private affair of the man\u2019s; the convenience of which\narrangement is that the man can shut off the kindness whenever it suits\nhim to do so, the kindness being, as it were, the water, and the duty\nthe tap. For instance, when the question of vivisection arose, Mr.\nRitchie at once turned off the water of kindness, though it had been\nvery liberally turned on by him when he gave approval to the\nhumanitarian protests against the barbarities of sport.\n\nTo this sophistical hair-splitting, in a matter of much practical\nimportance, we from the first refused to yield, and made it plain that\nit was no battle of words in which we were engaged but one of ethical\nconduct, and that while we were quite willing to exchange the term\n\u201crights\u201d for a better one, if better could be found, we would not allow\nthe concept either of human \u201cduties\u201d or of animals\u2019 \u201crights\u201d to be\nmanipulated in the manner of which Mr. Ritchie\u2019s book gave a conspicuous\nexample. Meanwhile the word \u201crights\u201d held the field.\n\nThe old Catholic school was, of course, antagonistic to the recognition\nof animals\u2019 rights, and we had controversies with Monsignor John S.\nVaughan, among other sacerdotalist writers, when he laid down the\nancient proposition that \u201cbeasts exist for the use and benefit of man.\u201d\nIt may be doubted whether argument is not a pure waste of time, when\nthere is a fundamental difference of opinion as to data and principles:\nthe sole reason for such debate was to ensure that the humanitarian view\nof the question was rightly placed before the public, and to show how\nstrange was the alliance between sacerdotalist and vivisector.\nEvolutionary science has demonstrated beyond question the kinship of all\nsentient life; yet the scientist, in order to rake together a moral\ndefence for his doings, condescends to take shelter under the same plea\nas the theologian, and having got rid of the old anthropocentric fallacy\nin the realm of science avails himself of that fallacy in the realm of\nethics: a progressive in one branch of thought, he is still a\nmedievalist in another.\n\nThus scientist and sacerdotalist between them would perpetuate the\nexperimental tortures of the laboratory. _Laborare est orare_ was the\nold saying; now it should be expanded by the Catholic school of\nvivisectionists into _laboratorium est oratorium_: the house of torture\nis the house of prayer. It is a beautiful and touching scene of\nreconciliation, this meeting of priest and professor over the\ntorture-trough of the helpless animal. They might exclaim in Tennyson\u2019s\nwords:\n\n    There above the little grave,\n    O there above the little grave,\n      We kissed again with tears.\n\nMore exhilarating was the discussion when Mr. G. K. Chesterton entered\nthe lists as champion of those high prerogatives of Mankind, which he\nsaw threatened by the sinister devices of humanitarians, who, as he has\nexplained in one of his books, \u201cuphold the claims of all creatures\nagainst those of humanity.\u201d A debate with Mr. Chesterton took place in\nthe Essex Hall; and for several years afterwards the argument was\nrenewed at times, as, for instance, when reviewing a book of mine on\n_The Logic of Vegetarianism_, he insisted[27] that \u201cthe difference\nbetween our moral relation to men and to animals is not a difference of\ndegree in the least: it is a difference of kind.\u201d The human race, he\nheld, is a definite society, different from everything else. \u201cThe man\nwho breaks a cat\u2019s back breaks a cat\u2019s back. The man who breaks a man\u2019s\nback breaks an implied treaty.\u201d To us, this terse saying of Mr.\nChesterton\u2019s seemed to contain unintentionally the root of all cruelty\nto animals, the quintessence of anthropocentric arrogance. The man who\nbreaks a cat\u2019s back, breaks a cat\u2019s back. Yes, and the scientist who\nvivisects a dog, vivisects a dog; the sportsman who breaks up a hare,\nbreaks up a hare. That is all. The victims are not human. But it is a\ndistinction which has caused, in savage hands, the immemorial ill-usage\nof the lower animals through the length and breadth of the world.\n\nPerhaps the strangest of Mr. Chesterton\u2019s charges against humanitarians\nwas one which he made in his book _Orthodoxy_, that their trend is \u201cto\ntouch fewer and fewer things,\u201d i.e. to abstain from one action after\nanother until they are left in a merely negative position. He failed to\nsee that while we certainly desire to touch fewer and fewer things with\nwhip, hob-nailed boot, hunting-knife, scalpel, or pole-axe, we equally\ndesire to get into touch with more and more of our fellow-beings by\nmeans of that sympathetic intelligence which tells us that they are\nclosely akin to ourselves. Why, ultimately, do we object to such\npractices as vivisection, blood-sports, and butchery? Because of the\ncruelty inseparable from them, no doubt; but also because of the hateful\nnarrowing of our own human pleasures which these barbarous customs\ninvolve. A recognition of the rights of animals implies no sort of\ndisparagement of human rights: this indeed was clearly indicated in the\nsub-title of my book, _Animals\u2019 Rights_ \u201cconsidered in relation to\nsocial progress.\u201d\n\nDuring the winter of 1895-96, a course of lectures on \u201cRights,\u201d as\nviewed from various standpoints--Christian, ethical, secularist,\nscientific, theosophical, and humanitarian--was organized by the\nHumanitarian League; and of these perhaps the most significant was Mr.\nFrederic Harrison\u2019s address on the ethical view, in which it was\nmaintained that \u201cman\u2019s morality towards the lower animals is a vital\nand indeed fundamental part of his morality towards his fellow-men.\u201d At\nthis same meeting some discussion arose on the far from unimportant\nquestion of nomenclature, objection being taken to Mr. Harrison\u2019s use of\nthe term \u201cbrute,\u201d which he, on his part, defended as being\nscientifically correct, and, in the sense of \u201cinarticulate,\u201d wholly void\nof offence, even when applied to such highly intelligent beings as the\nelephant, the horse, or the dog. Humanitarians, however, have generally\nheld that the meaning of the word \u201cbrute,\u201d in this connection, is not\n\u201cinarticulate\u201d but \u201cirrational,\u201d and that for this reason it should be\ndiscarded, on the ground that to call an animal a brute, or irrational,\nis the first step on the path to treating him accordingly. \u201cGive a dog a\nbad name,\u201d says the proverb; and directly follows the injunction: \u201cand\nhang him.\u201d\n\nFor like reasons the Humanitarian League always looked with disfavour on\nthe expression \u201cdumb animals,\u201d because, to begin with, animals are not\ndumb, and secondly, nothing more surely tends to their depreciation than\nthus to attribute to them an unreal deficiency or imperfection: such a\nterm may be meant to increase our pity, but in the long run it lessens\nwhat is more important, our respect. In this matter the League was glad\nto have the support of Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, who, as long ago as\n1877, had written satirically in the _Athen\u00e6um_ of what he called \u201cthe\ngreat human fallacy\u201d conveyed in the words \u201cthe dumb animals,\u201d and had\npointed out that animals are no more dumb than men are. Years afterwards\nhe wrote to me to inquire about the authorship of an article in the\n_Humanitarian_ in which the same conclusion was reached, and expressed\nhis full sympathy with our point of view.\n\nBut much more difficult to contend with than any anti-humanitarian\narguments is the dull dead weight of that unreasoning prejudice which\ncannot see consanguinity except in the conventional forms, and simply\ndoes not comprehend the statement that \u201cthe animals\u201d are our\nfellow-beings. There are numbers of good and kindly folk with whom, on\nthis question, one never reaches the point of difference at all, but is\ninvolved in impenetrable misapprehensions: there may be talking on\neither side, but communication there is none. Tell them, in Howard\nMoore\u2019s words, that the non-human beings are \u201cnot conveniences but\ncousins,\u201d and they will answer, assentingly, that they are all in favour\nof \u201ckindness to animals\u201d; after which they will continue to treat them\nnot as cousins but as conveniences. This impossibility of even making\noneself intelligible was brought home to me with great force, some years\nago, in connection with the death of a very dear friend, a cat, whose\nlong life of fifteen years had to be ended in the chloroform-box owing\nto an incurable ailment. The veterinary surgeon whose aid I invoked was\nan extremely kind man, for whose skill I shall always feel grateful; and\nfrom his patience and sympathetic manner I thought he partly understood\nwhat the occasion meant to me--that, like a human death-bed, it was a\nscene that could never pass from the mind. It was, therefore, with\nsomething of an amused shock that I recollected, after he had gone, what\nI had hardly noticed at the moment, that he had said to me, as he left\nthe door: \u201cYou\u2019ll be wanting a new pussy-cat soon.\u201d\n\nRichard Jefferies has remarked that the belief that animals are devoid\nof reason is rarely held by those who themselves labour in the fields:\n\u201cIt is the cabinet-thinkers who construct a universe of automatons.\u201d One\nis cheered now and then by hearing animals spoken of, quite simply and\nnaturally, as rational beings. I once made the acquaintance, in the Lake\nDistrict, of an old lady living in a roadside cottage, who had for her\ncompanion, sitting in an armchair by the fire, a lame hen, named Tetty,\nwhom she had saved and reared from chicken-hood. Some years later, as I\npassed that way, I called and inquired after Tetty, but learnt that she\nwas dead. \u201cAh, poor Tetty!\u201d said the dame, as tears fell from her eyes;\n\u201cshe passed away several months ago, quite conscious to the end.\u201d That\nto attribute to a dying bird the self-consciousness which is supposed to\nbe the special prerogative of mankind, should, to the great majority of\npersons, appear nothing less than comical, is a measure of the width of\nthat gulf which religion has delved between \u201cthe beasts that perish\u201d and\nthe Christian with his \u201csoul\u201d to save.\n\nBut it is not often that one hears of a case like that of Tetty: as a\nrule, disappointment lurks in the hopes that flatter the humanitarian\nmind. We had a neighbour in Surrey, an old woman living in an adjoining\ncottage, who professed full adherence to our doctrine that cats should\nnot be allowed to torture captured birds. \u201cI always take them away from\nmy cat: I can\u2019t bear to see them suffering,\u201d she said. We warmly\napproved of this admirable sentiment. But then, as she turned aside, she\nadded quietly: \u201cUnless, of course, they\u2019re sparrows.\u201d\n\nA year or two ago the papers described a singular accident at a railway\nstation, where a cow got on the line and was wedged between the platform\nand a moving train: the cow, we were told, was killed, \u201cbut fortunately\nthere was no personal injury\u201d--a view of the occurrence which seemed, to\na humanitarian, still stranger than the accident itself.\n\nHere, again, is an instance of unintended humour: \u201cHomeward Bound\u201d as\nthe title of a cheerful picture in which a bronzed sailor is represented\nreturning from the tropics, carrying--a caged parrot.\n\nIt is this traditional habit of regarding the lower animals not as\npersons and fellow-beings, but as automata and \u201cthings,\u201d that lies\nbehind the determined refusal to recognize that they have rights, and is\nthus ultimately responsible for much of the callousness with which they\nare treated. With this superstition the League was in conflict from the\nfirst.\n\nBut perhaps some of my readers may still think that time spent on the\nrights of animals is so much taken away from the great human interests\nthat are at stake. Let us help men first, they may argue, and then, when\nmankind is righted, we can help the animals after. On the other hand,\nthere are some zoophilists who take the contrary view that men can help\nthemselves, and that it is the animals first and foremost who need aid\nand protection. The League\u2019s opinion was that both these arguments are\nmistaken, and, for the same reason, viz. that, in our complex modern\nsociety, all great issues of justice or injustice are crossed and\nintermingled, so that no one cruelty can be singled out as the source of\nall other cruelties, nor can any one reform be fully realized apart from\nthe rest. By \u201chumanitarian\u201d we meant one who feels and acts humanely,\nnot towards mankind only, or the lower animals only, but towards all\nsentient life--one who adopts the Humanitarian League\u2019s principle that\n\u201cit is iniquitous to inflict avoidable suffering on any sentient being.\u201d\nWe did not regard as humanitarians, for example, those \u201cphilanthropic\u201d\npersons who, having made a fortune by commercial competition, in which\nthe depreciation of wages was a recognized method, afterwards gave back\na portion of their wealth in \u201ccharity.\u201d This might, perhaps, be\nphilanthropy, but it did not seem to be quite humanity. Nor did we think\nthat the name \u201chumanitarian\u201d should be given to those zoophilists or\nanimal lovers who keep useless and pampered animals as pets and\nplaythings, wasting on them time and money which might be better spent\nelsewhere, and indeed wasting the lives of the animals themselves, for\nanimals have their own lives to live as men have.\n\nPerhaps the most able of all vindications of humane principles is that\ncontained in Mr. Howard Moore\u2019s _The Universal Kinship_, published by\nthe League in 1906. It was through a notice which I wrote in the\n_Humanitarian_ of an earlier book of his, _Better-World Philosophy_,\nthat the League first came into association with him; and I remember\nwith shame that when that \u201csociological synthesis,\u201d as its sub-title\nproclaimed it to be, first came into my hands, I nearly left it unread,\nsuspecting it to be but the latest of the many wearisome ethical\ntreatises that are a scourge to the reviewer, to whom the very word\n\u201csociology\u201d or \u201csynthesis\u201d is a terror. But fortunately I read the book,\nand quickly discovered its merits; and from that time, till his death in\n1916, Howard Moore was one of the truest and tenderest of our friends,\nhimself prone to despondency and, as his books show, with a touch of\npessimism, yet never failing in his support and encouragement of others\nand of all humanitarian effort. \u201cWhat on earth would we Unusuals do, in\nthis lonely dream of life,\u201d so he wrote in one of his letters, \u201cif it\nwere not for the sympathy and friendship of the Few?\u201d\n\nHoward Moore died by his own hand (he had good reason for his action);\nand the timorous attitude which so many people adopt towards suicide was\nshown in the silence on this point which was maintained in most of the\nEnglish zoophilist journals which mentioned his death: one editor hit\nupon the sagacious announcement that \u201che died very suddenly,\u201d which\ndeserves, I think, to be noted as a consummate instance of how the truth\nmay be truthfully obscured.\n\nIn _The Universal Kinship_, Howard Moore left to humanitarians a\ntreasure which it will be their own fault if they do not value as it\ndeserves. There is a tendency to forget that it is to modern\nevolutionary science that the ethic of humaneness owes its strongest\ncorroboration. The physical basis of the humane philosophy rests on the\nbiological fact that kinship is universal. Starting from this admitted\ntruth, Moore showed, with much wealth of argument and epigram, that the\nsupposed psychical gulf between human and non-human has no more\nexistence, apart from the imagination of man, than the physical gulf\nwhich has now been bridged by science. The purpose of our movement was\nadmirably stated by him: \u201cto put science and humanitarianism in place of\ntradition and savagery.\u201d It was with that aim in view that our League of\nHumaneness had been formed.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nTWENTIETH-CENTURY TORTURES\n\n     Why not bring back at once the boot, the stake, and the\n     thumbscrew?--PROFESSOR LAWSON TAIT.\n\n\nIt is among the proudest boasts of this country that torture is not\npermitted within its borders: \u201cTorture,\u201d wrote Macaulay, \u201cwas inflicted\nfor the last time in the month of May, 1640.\u201d But pleasant though it is\nto think that it was in the beautiful springtime that the barbarous\npractice came to an end, this is unfortunately one of the cases in which\nour people allow themselves to be beguiled and fooled by very\ntransparent quibbles; for a few minutes\u2019 thought would suffice to\nconvince the most complacent of Britons that while some specialized\nforms of judicial torture have been abandoned, other tortures, some of\nthem not less painful and fully as repulsive, are being inflicted to\nthis day--nearly three hundred years after the glorious date of\nabolition. For if \u201ctorture,\u201d as etymology and the dictionaries and\ncommon usage tell us, means nothing more or less than the forcible\ninfliction of extreme pain, it is not a technicality but an absurdity to\npretend that it finds no place among twentieth-century institutions.\n\nFlogging is torture in a most literal sense, and in one of its grossest\nshapes: the \u201ccat,\u201d as Mr. G. K. Chesterton has well said, is \u201cthe rack\nwithout any of its intellectual reasons.\u201d[28] The horror of the old\nnaval and military lashings is within the memory of many officers who\nwere compelled to witness them: how is the punishment any less savage in\nits nature because it is now administered in a less severe degree, and\non men convicted of robbery with violence or some breach of prison\ndiscipline? In one of the Parliamentary debates of November, 1912, a\nMember who had been invited by the Home Secretary to examine the \u201ccat,\u201d\ngave it as his opinion that \u201cif _that_ is not torture, then I do not\nknow what torture is.\u201d\n\nIn the gloomiest but most impressive of his stories, _The Island of Dr.\nMoreau_, Mr. H. G. Wells has represented his savage \u201cbeast-folk\u201d as\nmonotonously chanting a certain \u201cidiotic formula\u201d about the\ninfallibility of \u201cthe Law.\u201d With nothing more fitly than with this can\nbe compared the undying legend, now over half a century old, that\n\u201cgarrotting was put down by the lash.\u201d It is not often that a popular\nfallacy, however erroneous it may be, can be actually disproved; but in\nthis particular case such refutation was possible, in the certified fact\nthat the garrotting \u201cepidemic\u201d of 1862 had been suppressed by the\nordinary law _before_ flogging for that offence was legalized. For many\nyears the Humanitarian League issued a public challenge on the subject,\nand made the facts known in thousands of press letters; the challenge\nwas quietly ignored, and the false statement repeated, till it was plain\nthat, as De Quincey remarked, \u201crarer than the ph\u0153nix is that virtuous\nman who will consent to lose a prosperous story on the consideration\nthat it happens to be a lie.\u201d One such virtuous man, however, and one\nonly, was found, namely, Mr. Montague Crackanthorpe, who actually\nrecanted the statement which he could not substantiate.[29] In view of\nhis unique candour, it was suggested after his death that a statue\nshould be erected to his memory.\n\nVery different from the course taken by Mr. Crackanthorpe was the\naction of Sir Alexander Wood Renton, of the Supreme Court of Ceylon,\nwho, in an article on \u201cCorporal Punishment,\u201d introduced into the\n_Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_ of 1910 that very garrotting legend from which\nit had previously been kept free, and made the further mistake of giving\nthe date of the Flogging Act of 1863 as 1861, thus lending to his\nblunder a misleading appearance of plausibility. When called to account,\nhe was content to maintain a masterly silence--more eloquent than\nwords--and to allow his misstatement, unacknowledged and uncorrected, to\ncontinue to keep alive a prevalent superstition. Can it be wondered that\nsuch fallacies persist, when a Chief Justice will thus lie low rather\nthan admit himself at fault?\n\nIt is an amusing fact, and far too little known, that the text which has\nlong lent a sanctity to the use of corporal punishment, is not taken, as\nsupposed, from the _Proverbs_ of Solomon, but from a passage, and a\nrather unseemly one, in Butler\u2019s _Hudibras_ (1663):[30] this, however,\nis as it should be, for it is fitting that an indecent practice should\nclaim authority from an indecent source. Thus encouraged, and with this\ndivine precept in their thoughts, parents and schoolmasters, and\nmagistrates, and judges, and all governors and rulers, have felt that in\nwielding the rod they were discharging a religious obligation, and not,\nas might otherwise have been suspected, gratifying some very primitive\ninstincts of their own. For \u201cthe Wisdom of Solomon\u201d has been quoted as\nour guide, in the correction of the old as well as of the young; indeed,\nas a writer in the _People_ sagely remarked, \u201cthe older the evildoer,\nthe more his need of the birch.\u201d On this principle, aged vagrants have\non various occasions been sentenced to be corrected with the rod; but\nit is to the young that the blessings of the birch more properly\nbelong.\n\n    Our British boys, from shore to shore,\n      Two priceless boons may find:\n    The Flag that\u2019s ever waved before,\n      The Birch that\u2019s waved behind.\n\nIn its campaign against flogging in the Royal Navy, the Humanitarian\nLeague gained not only a considerable success, but an amount of\nentertainment which of itself would have more than repaid the labour\nexpended on the work. To begin with, there was the technical quibble,\nvery characteristic of officialdom, that though the backs of boys, or\nrather of young men, might be cut into ribbons with the birch, there was\nno \u201cflogging\u201d in the Navy, for \u201cflogging\u201d meant the infliction not of\nthe birch but of the \u201ccat.\u201d With Mr. Swift MacNeill conducting the\nattack in the House of Commons, it may be imagined that such\nprevarications--and there were many similar instances--fared but badly;\nand it was no surprise when \u201cthese degrading practices,\u201d as Sir Henry\nCampbell-Bannerman described them, were brought to an end in 1906,\nthough the use of the cane, to the discredit of the Admiralty, is still\npermitted and defended.\n\nIn this long controversy the League was brought into conflict with all\nsorts of opponents, among them several Admirals, of whom the \u201cbreeziest\u201d\nwere the Hon. V. A. Montagu and Sir William Kennedy. With the latter\nespecially we had great fun, as we found in him an antagonist of the\nutmost heartiness and good humour. \u201cOf what use is it,\u201d he wrote to me,\n\u201csending me all this rubbish, except to fill the waste-paper basket? I\ndon\u2019t care a damn for Admiral----\u2019s opinion.\u201d On another occasion he\nsent me a formal challenge to meet him \u201cat any time and place, when\npistols and coffee will be provided.\u201d At a later date we had his\nsupport, equally emphatic, in our protest against the practice of\nfeeding snakes on live prey at the \u201cZoo.\u201d\n\nOther friends, too, helped to lend gaiety to a rather dismal subject.\nAmong those who actively co-operated with the League was a commercial\ntraveller, who was deeply versed in the various laws relating to\ncorporal punishment, and who, as he once confided to me, had been in the\nhabit of working locally as a sort of freelance and Bashi-Bazouk. He had\nmade a practice, for example, of writing \u201cHow about the Birch?\u201d on the\nAdmiralty\u2019s printed notices in which boys were invited to reap the\nbenefits of joining the Navy; and this had touched so sore a point that\nthe advertisements in question had at length been put within glass\nframes. Another of his little jokes was to write to private\nschoolmasters, saying that he had a son whom he was about to send to\nschool (which was true), and asking whether they could guarantee that\nthere would be no corporal punishment. Several masters responded\nfavourably, but as the boy could not be sent to more than one place of\neducation, these worthy folk were deprived of their _quid pro quo_; in\nthe end, however, a nemesis fell upon their betrayer, for once, when he\nhad just returned home after a long journey, tired, and wanting above\neverything his tea, who should be announced but one of those very\npedagogues with whom he had been in communication. He too had travelled\nsome distance, rather than miss the chance of a pupil, and, having\n\u201cideas\u201d on the subject of corporal punishment, had come, as he said, for\n\u201ca good talk.\u201d \u201cI could have eaten him,\u201d was our friend\u2019s remark.\n\nIn the \u2019nineties of last century, the state of the Criminal Law, as Mr.\nJustice Mathew pointed out, was a hundred years behind the times, and a\nspecial department of the Humanitarian League was established in order\nto advocate certain much-needed reforms. It was felt that in view of the\nseverity of the penal laws, the inequality of sentences, and the hard\nand indiscriminating character of prison discipline, an organized\nattempt ought to be made to humanize both the spirit of the law and the\nconditions of prison life, and to show that the true purpose of\nimprisonment was the reformation, not the mere punishment, of the\noffender. In this campaign the League was able to avail itself of a mass\nof expert information. It published, in 1893, a very effective pamphlet,\n\u201cI was in Prison,\u201d written by Mr. Robert Johnson, director of the\nColonial College at Hollesley Bay; and this was followed, a year later,\nby \u201cA Plea for Mercy to Offenders,\u201d an address given before the League\nby Mr. C. H. Hopwood, the Recorder of Liverpool, who, with his friend\nMr. Johnson, did great service in showing the futility of long sentences\nof imprisonment. I had several talks about that time with Mr. Johnson\nand Mr. Hopwood; and they would have thrown in their lot altogether with\nthe Humanitarian League but for their fear that the inclusion within its\nprogramme of many other questions, such as sport and vivisection, would\nalienate sympathy in some quarters from their special subject of prison\nreform: it was for this reason that Mr. Hopwood afterwards founded the\nRomilly Society.\n\nTwo other names stood out conspicuously in the same sphere of work--that\nof Dr. W. Douglas Morrison, the well-known criminologist, now Rector of\nMarylebone, under whose guidance the League took a prominent part in the\nagitation which led to the Prisons Act of 1898, and that of \u201cLex,\u201d one\nof the keenest intellects of his time, whose pen was placed unreservedly\nat the League\u2019s disposal. Mr. W. H. S. Monck--for it was he who adopted\nthat _nom de plume_--was Chief Registrar in Bankruptcy in the King\u2019s\nBench Division, Dublin, a post which he filled with distinction, while\nhis extraordinarily active and versatile mind found interest in many\nother studies: he was a mathematician, an astronomer, a writer on logic,\npolitical economy, and moral philosophy, and withal a chess-player of\nnote, among which pursuits he never failed to find time to help the\nhumanitarian cause. His official position made it desirable that his\nname should not appear; but many were the press letters that he wrote,\nand many the resolutions, memorials, and letters to governmental\ndepartments that he drafted on the League\u2019s behalf. To \u201cask \u2018Lex\u2019 to\ndraft it\u201d was often the course taken by the Committee when dealing with\nsome technical matter that needed exceptional care. The two subjects in\nwhich Mr. Monck was specially concerned, besides that of flogging, were\nthe establishment of a Court of Criminal Appeal and a revision of the\nlaw relating to Imprisonment for Debt; and it was largely his\nunacknowledged labours that brought about the one reform and prepared\nthe way for the other. In his press letters on corporal punishment he\nwould sometimes adopt the ironic manner; that is, he would write as one\nwho in part believed in the value of flogging, yet in such a way as to\nsuggest rather the flaws and failures of the practice, and so to impair\nany faith in it which might linger in the minds of his readers.\n\nAmong other friends to whom this department of the League was much\nindebted were Mr. George Ives, author of _A History of Penal Methods_;\nMrs. H. Bradlaugh Bonner; Mr. Carl Heath; Mr. H. B. Montgomery; Mrs. L.\nT. Mallet; Dr. T. Baty, the distinguished authority on International\nLaw; and Mr. Joseph Collinson, who for some years acted as its honorary\nsecretary. Mr. Collinson was a young north-countryman, self-taught, and\nfull of native readiness and ingenuity, who at an early age had\ndeveloped a passion for humanitarian journalism, and whose press letters\nbecame as well known as those of Mr. Algernon Ashton, while he had a\nmarked advantage over that gentleman in having an ethical purpose and\nsomething definite to write about. Any one who should glance over the\nfiles of the chief London and provincial journals, between the years\n1895 and 1910, could not fail to see a number of letters signed \u201cJoseph\nCollinson,\u201d or to admire the pertinacity with which the humanitarian\nview of a host of controversial subjects, in particular those relating\nto criminal law and prisons, was brought to the notice of the public.\nEspecially in regard to the flogging question Mr. Collinson\u2019s services\nwere of great value.\n\nThus supported, the Humanitarian League had no cause to fear any\nreasoned opposition: our difficulty, rather, was to meet with any; for\nour antagonists were mostly anonymous and often abusive correspondents\nof newspapers, and the real obstacle with which we had to cope was the\ncrass weight of prejudice and the immense stability of old institutions.\nTwo of our adversaries, however, must not go without mention. One was\nMr. William Tallack, then Secretary of the Howard Association, whose\nhostility was dangerous because it lurked under the guise of\nphilanthropy. He was an old gentleman of benevolent demeanour, whose\nmethod it was to sit astutely \u201con the fence,\u201d making oracular\nutterances, now on that side, now on this, so that, like the writer of\nan astrological almanack, he might be able in any event to run in and\ncry: \u201cI told you so.\u201d In his _Penological Principles_, a work much\nadvertised in those days, there was plenty of penology, but very little\nprinciple, much more of the Tallack than of the Howard: it was, in fact,\na farrago of platitudes and pieties, which said many things without\nultimately meaning anything at all. Yet, in spite of his much verbiage\nand many estimable sentiments, Mr. Tallack was a reactionist; he\nbelonged to an antiquated school of thought, quite out of sympathy with\nthe new style of prison reform; and as he lost no opportunity of\ndisparaging the work of the League, we showed him somewhat emphatically\nthat that was a game at which two parties could play. This he did not\nrelish, especially as we were strongly backed up by Mr. Passmore Edwards\nin his paper, the _Echo_. A conference was accordingly proposed by Mr.\nTallack, where it was agreed that in future there should be a friendly\narrangement of \u201chands off\u201d on either side. I remember how, at that\nmeeting, he told me in his paternal manner, as an instance of the\nadvantages of not advocating \u201cextreme\u201d measures of reform, that he\nenjoyed the privilege of being able, now and then, to have a personal\ntalk with the Home Secretary. \u201cWhat would humanitarians think of that?\u201d\nThe old gentleman was evidently unaware that if he was a _persona grata_\nat the Home Office, it was precisely because he was known to be a \u201ctame\u201d\nreformer, a parasite of the old system, not a champion of the new, and\ntherefore useful to those who wished to let matters go on as before.\n\nIn a prison-play \u201cThe Home Secretary\u2019s Holiday,\u201d which was acted before\nthe Humanitarian League at one of its social gatherings, Mr. Tallack was\nglanced at in the character of Mr. Prim, a Visiting Justice, who dwells\non the value of \u201csegregation,\u201d \u201cintrospection,\u201d \u201cself-questioning,\u201d and\n\u201cremorse,\u201d as heaven-sent means by which the convicted sinner may be\nawakened to a sense of his guilt.\n\nOur other critic, of whom I must say a brief word, was Sir Robert\nAnderson, then an ex-Assistant Commissioner of Police; who, being of a\ncholeric and over-bearing nature, was consumed with wrathful indignation\nat the activities of the Humanitarian League. In his book on _Criminals\nand Crime_, vengeful tirades against the professional criminal were\naccompanied with scarcely less violent abuse of \u201cprofessional\nhumanitarians\u201d--a strange term this, to be applied to honorary workers\nin an unpopular cause, and by one who had himself been for many years a\nsalaried official at Scotland Yard! In the same work we figured\nvariously as \u201chumanity-mongers,\u201d \u201cagitators,\u201d \u201cfools,\u201d \u201chysterical\nfaddists,\u201d \u201cdoctrinaire philanthropists,\u201d \u201cspurious philosophers,\u201d\n\u201cmaudlin sentimentalists,\u201d and so on. Authors sometimes describe their\nbooks as \u201ca labour of love.\u201d Sir Robert\u2019s was certainly a labour of\nhate, and among the punishments which he indicated as suitable for an\nimpenitent thief were the gallows, crucifixion, thumb-screws, and the\nrack; he added that it was consideration for the community, not for the\nthief, that prevented the use of them. It is not pleasant to have to\nspeak of such a man; one would rather forget him. But in estimating the\nsavagery of the age, the fact that his most vindictive proposals met\nwith a good deal of public support is one which cannot be left out of\naccount.\n\nA thorough-going condemnation of flogging is without doubt a very\nunpopular policy; the Humanitarian League lost many members and much\npecuniary support by its steadfastness on this point, especially,\nstrange to say, among zoophilists and anti-vivisectionists, many of whom\nwere firm believers in the propriety of vivisecting the backs of\ncriminals, and would have gone any distance, as I have heard said, \u201cto\nsee a vivisector flogged.\u201d Not the least valuable part of the League\u2019s\nduties was to put a check on foolish talk of that sort; and in this we\nhad the satisfaction of being warmly supported by so distinguished an\nopponent of vivisection as Professor Lawson Tait. It came about in a\nrather strange way.\n\nThe League held a meeting in Birmingham; and a local member, who had the\narrangements in hand, got Mr. Tait to preside, but by some oversight did\nnot sufficiently apprise him beforehand of our aims and objects. When he\nentered the room--a formidable-looking figure, with slow gait, massive\nbuild, and heavy brows--he was seen to be in a towering rage. The storm\nbroke at once. Instead of the usual complimentary remarks from the\nchair, he told us in wrathful tones that he knew nothing of the\nHumanitarian League, and that it was most improper that he should have\nbeen left thus uninformed. This was true, and we wished the earth would\nswallow us up; but there was nothing for it but to go on with the\nbusiness of the meeting, and while the speeches were being made Mr.\nTait sat and studied the League\u2019s printed manifesto. As he read it, the\ngloom gradually left him; he began to mutter approval of point after\npoint, then to chuckle with satisfaction, and presently he turned to me\n(I happened to be sitting next to him) and told me that he was in\ncomplete agreement with our programme. A great good humour now took the\nplace of his former resentment, and presently he spoke at some length,\nand himself moved a resolution that the objects of the League were\n\u201cworthy the support of all good citizens.\u201d He declared that he felt\nalmost as strongly on the question of prison punishments as on that of\nvivisection, and severely censured the clamour for the lash that had\nbeen raised by some woman-suffragists of Edinburgh. It was then that he\nused the words prefixed to this chapter: \u201cWhy not bring back at once the\nboot, the stake, and the thumbscrew?\u201d\n\nThat there are numbers of persons who would be quite willing to bring\nback, if it were possible, the medieval forms of torture cannot for a\nmoment be doubted by any one who, like myself, has had the experience of\nworking for over twenty-five years for the discontinuance of flogging.\nThere are, of course, many reasonable advocates of corporal punishment\nin one or another of its forms; but there are many more to whom the cry\nfor flogging, and for more and yet more flogging, has become a veritable\ncraze, as was seen when, in the agitation for the lashing of \u201cwhite\nslavers\u201d in 1912, a frenzied shriek of passion went up from a large\nsection of the people. \u201cWe know,\u201d said a Member of Parliament at the\ntime, \u201cthe extraordinary hysterical emotion which this Bill has aroused\nthroughout England. We get letters from all sorts of people, chiefly\nwomen, \u2018flog them,\u2019 \u2018crucify them,\u2019 and anything else you like. It is a\ncry we have had all down the ages.\u201d[31] That there has been such a cry\nall down the ages is likely enough; but the age which tolerates it can\nhardly claim to be a civilized one.\n\nIn _The Flogging Craze, a Statement of the Case against Corporal\nPunishment_,[32] a book published for the Humanitarian League in 1916,\nwith a preface by my friend Sir George Greenwood, I availed myself of\nthe large amount of material amassed by the League during its long\ncampaign against flogging, in the hope that such a work--the first of\nits kind, if pamphlets be excepted--might prove useful to many social\nreformers, who, though instinctively opposed to the use of the lash, are\noften silenced by confident assertions of its efficacy, and are unaware\nthat in this, as in similar discussions, humanity and reason go hand in\nhand.\n\nLet me now turn to another and still more gruesome form of torture. It\nis fitting, perhaps, that the twin tyrannies of Flogging and Vivisection\nshould be linked together as Lawson Tait saw them, for they are indeed\nkindred expressions of one barbarous spirit. I use, for the sake of\nbrevity and convenience, the customary term \u201cvivisection,\u201d though there\nis force in the objection raised against it by certain humanitarian\nwriters, that the Latin word somewhat conceals the vileness of the\npractice, and though the phrase suggested by Mr. Howard Williams,\n\u201cexperimental torture,\u201d is more strictly appropriate to the nameless\nthing for which a name has to be found. Here, at any rate, in the\ntwentieth century of our barbarism, is torture in its most naked\nform--the rack, not indeed \u201cwithout any of its intellectual reasons,\u201d as\nwas said of the lash, but torture as surely as the boot and the\nthumbscrew were torture. As for the intellectual reasons alleged in\nexcuse of the practice, it was pointed out in _Animals\u2019 Rights_ that\nbefore holding vivisection justified on the strength of its utility, a\nwise man will take into consideration the other, the _moral_ side of\nthe question, \u201cthe hideous injustice of torturing a sentient animal,\nand the wrong thereby done to the humane sense of the community.\u201d This\ncontention was quoted and corroborated in an unexpected quarter, viz. in\na book published in 1901 by a Russian doctor, V. Veresaeff,[33] who,\nthough himself justifying vivisection, did not conceal his misgivings as\nto the ethical aspect of the practice. \u201cThe question,\u201d he said, in\nreference to the passage in _Animals\u2019 Rights_, \u201cis plainly put, and\nthere can be no room for any equivocation. I repeat that we ought not to\nridicule the pretensions of the anti-vivisectionists--the sufferings of\nanimals are truly horrible; and sympathy with them is not\nsentimentality.\u201d In view of that admission, I will waste no words in\ndiscussing the pretence that an\u00e6sthetics have relieved the vivisected\nanimals of their \u201ctruly horrible\u201d sufferings. It is not so, even in this\ncountry, where the legal restrictions are a farce; and if it were so\nhere, the rest of the world would be open to experimentation unlicensed\nand unlimited.\n\nThe special application of the word \u201cvivisection\u201d to physiological\nexperiments has led to a belief, in many minds, that the vivisecting\nscientist is the sole torturer of animals. This is unjust both to the\nlaboratory and to its victims. The crusade against vivisection would be\nmuch strengthened if those who take part in it would remember that the\ncruelties of science are only part of the great sum of cruelty that in\nvarious forms disgraces the dealings of mankind with the lower animals.\nGranted that the worst barbarities of the vivisector exceed those of the\nsportsman or the slaughterman, both in duration and intensity, it is\nstill a fact, as scientists have often pointed out, that there are other\ntortures than those of the laboratory, and that to some of these the\nname \u201cvivisection\u201d might as accurately be applied. For example, clumsy\ncastration of domestic animals, as the law is beginning to recognize,\nis nothing less than \u201cfarmyard vivisection\u201d; the \u201cdocking\u201d of horses\u2019\ntails is vivisection in a very revolting form; in the seal-fishery the\nwretched victims of \u201cfashion\u201d have often been skinned alive; nor can it\nbe pretended that the torture of the egrets, flung aside to die when\ntheir nuptial plumes have been torn off, demands a milder name than\nvivisection; yet some zoophilists, who look upon a vivisecting\nphysiologist as a fiend, do not hesitate to wear an aigrette or a\nsealskin cloak, or to be the owners of docked horses or cropped dogs. It\nis impossible to draw a strict line of division between those\nbarbarities which amount to torture and those which fall short of it,\nand it is convenient that the cruelties of sport and fashion should be\ndealt with under a separate head; nevertheless there is one other\npractice on which a few words must be spoken before this chapter is\nclosed.\n\nUnder the antiquated methods of transport and butchery still permitted\nin England, it is impossible to doubt that something not far removed\nfrom torture is often practised in the cattle trade; for which reason,\nwhile aware that in vegetarianism lies the only full solution of the\ndiet-question, humanitarians have long pressed for an amelioration of\nthe worst features of cattle-ship and shambles, and, as a minimum, for\nthe establishment of public abattoirs in place of private\nslaughterhouses. Even in this respect, owing to the supineness of the\nCounty Council, London has been left at the mercy of \u201cthe trade,\u201d though\nin some other districts there has been a gratifying improvement. The\nHumanitarian League, enjoying the advantage of being advised by such\nexperts as Sir Benjamin Richardson, Mr. H. F. Lester (whose _Behind the\nScenes in Slaughterhouses_ we published in 1892), Mr. Charles W.\nForward, Mr. C. Cash, and Mr. R. S. Ayling, lost no opportunity of\nmaking known the need of this long postponed reform; but the subject\nbeing so repulsive it was always difficult to enlist the sympathies of\nthe public, that is, of the very persons whose conscience ought to have\nbeen touched; or, if any interest _was_ awakened, it might be among\nthose who were traditionally or professionally opposed to the changes\ndesired.\n\nThis danger was once curiously illustrated at a meeting held by the\nLeague in the rooms of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty\nto Animals, when Mr. John Colam, the Secretary of that Society, took the\nchair, and Mr. C. W. Forward gave an address on the Jewish method of\nslaughtering. A mere handful of our friends attended, but the hall was\npacked from end to end with Jewish visitors, who had seen the\nannouncement of the meeting in the papers, and rallied to the defence of\ntheir ritual. We had intended to move a resolution, strongly condemning\nthe Jewish system, but we decided, after a hurried consultation with Mr.\nColam, that an academic discussion would better suit the circumstances;\nand fortunately it did not occur to our Hebrew friends to propose and\npass a resolution of the contrary kind: they talked long and volubly,\nand we were glad they did nothing worse. The meeting, however, was not\nwithout result, for it led, a couple of months later, to the reception\nby the Jewish Board of Shecheta of a deputation from the Humanitarian\nLeague, at which the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Adler, was present, and gave us a\nvery courteous reply. The Jewish system of \u201ccasting,\u201d he said, which had\nespecially been criticized as barbarous, was a good deal misunderstood\nowing to the word by which it was described: in reality the animals were\nnot \u201ccast,\u201d but \u201clet down gently with ropes.\u201d Mr. Forward, however, who\nhad often witnessed the process, remained unconvinced on this point: it\nseemed to him that it was the public that was being let down gently with\nwords.\n\nThe League had the satisfaction of seeing the Jewish system strongly\ncondemned in the official report (1904) of the Committee appointed to\nconsider the Humane Slaughtering of Animals; but nothing has yet been\ndone to carry the recommendations of that Committee into effect, the\nsupposed sanctity of a \u201creligious\u201d usage having been allowed, as usual,\nto outweigh the clearest dictates of humaneness.\n\nThere are not a few other current and strongly-rooted practices to which\nthe title of this chapter might justly be applied; but enough has now\nbeen said to show that the merry month of May, in the year of grace\n1640, did not witness, as has been supposed, quite the last instance of\nthe infliction of Torture in this favoured land of the free.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nHUNNISH SPORTS AND FASHIONS\n\n    Half ignorant, they turn\u2019d an easy wheel,\n    That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.\n              KEATS.\n\n\nFrom the subject of torture we pass naturally to that of sport; indeed,\nit is difficult to separate them, for they are psychologically and\nactually akin. There is undoubtedly an element of sport in the gloating\nover savage punishments, and some of the sufferings which sportsmen\ninflict, such as the hunting to death of a timid deer or hare, cannot\nfairly be distinguished from torture. But when I speak of \u201csport\u201d in\nthis connection, I mean of course _blood-sport_; not the manly games of\nplaying-field or river, but the quest for personal recreation at the\nexpense of pain to others. The term \u201cblood-sports\u201d was first used, as\nfar as I am aware, by Mr. John Macdonald, who, under the name of\n\u201cMeliorist,\u201d was the author of some suggestive articles that appeared in\nthe _Echo_; anyhow, the Humanitarian League borrowed the word from him,\nand finding that it \u201cwent home,\u201d made a point of using it on every\npossible occasion. It is the right and proper expression for the\npractices which it connotes.\n\nThe League published in 1914 a volume of essays on _Killing for Sport_,\nwith Preface by Mr. Bernard Shaw, in which the various aspects of\nblood-sports were for the first time fully set forth and examined from\nthe standpoint of ethics and economics: the book, in fact, formed a\nsummary of the League\u2019s arraignment of certain bloody and barbarous\npastimes, just as _The Flogging Craze_ was a record of its protests\nagainst the continued use of the lash. I will here mention only a few of\nthe more salient features of a long campaign.\n\nFor ten years, from 1891 to 1901, the League made the Royal Buckhounds\nserve as a \u201cpeg\u201d--and a very useful peg it was--on which to hang an\nexposure of the cruelty of stag-hunting.[34] The doings of the\nBuckhounds were watched from season to season; detailed accounts of the\n\u201cruns\u201d were published, in contradiction of the shuffling reports sent to\nthe papers by patrons of the Hunt, and a number of horrible cases of\nmutilation were dragged into light. Questions were put in Parliament;\nleaflets, articles, and press letters printed in hundreds, and many\nlectures given at various clubs and institutions.\n\nIn this work we had the sympathy of many distinguished public men and\nthe support of a section of the press (notably of the _Star_, which was\nthen edited by Mr. Ernest Parke); but every possible difficulty was put\nin our way by officials, whether of the Court, the Government, or the\nHunt, who in this case, as in all, desired nothing more than to save\nthemselves trouble by letting things go on as before. Red tape cared\nlittle whether carted stags continued to be disembowelled on iron\npalings and worried by hounds. For example, when, in 1898, we wished to\nlay before Queen Victoria the case _against_ the Royal Hunt, in answer\nto Lord Ribblesdale\u2019s book, _The Queen\u2019s Hounds_, her private secretary,\nSir A. Bigge, refused to bring the League\u2019s publications to her notice;\nthe Home Secretary also declined to do so, and so did the Prime\nMinister, each and all of them cordially advising us to apply elsewhere.\nThus thwarted, we hit on the expedient of _petitioning_ the Queen to\nallow the counter-case to be sent to her, and in this way the Home\nOffice was finally forced to do what it had declared to be \u201ccontrary to\npractice.\u201d The Queen, as we had known since 1891, from a private letter\naddressed to Mr. Stratton by Sir Henry Ponsonby, had been \u201cstrongly\nopposed to stag-hunting for many years past\u201d; and when this fact was\npublished after her death it settled the fate of the Buckhounds.\n\nLooking back twenty years and more, it is comical to find the followers\nof the Royal Hunt trying to exploit the visit of the German Emperor, in\n1899, in order to bolster up the failing reputation of their sport. They\nwere very anxious that a \u201cmeet\u201d of the Buckhounds should be one of the\nentertainments provided for the Kaiser, and on November 24th, in\nexpectation of his being present, an unusually large company assembled;\nbut the Humanitarian League had been beforehand in the matter, a letter\nof protest which it had addressed to the Prince of Wales had the desired\neffect, and the Kaiser had an engagement elsewhere. Had he been present,\nhe would, as it happened, have seen a deer staked and done to death in\nthe manner which was far from uncommon, and he would have learnt (if he\nhad any doubt on the subject) that \u201cHuns\u201d are not entirely confined to\nGermany.\n\nThis rascally \u201csport,\u201d though no longer a State institution, is still\ncarried on by private packs in several parts of the country, and nothing\nbut fresh legislation can prevent its continuance. A \u201cSpurious Sports\nBill\u201d drafted by the Humanitarian League, with the purpose of\nprohibiting the hunting of carted stags, the coursing of bagged rabbits,\nand the shooting of birds released from traps, has been introduced at\nvarious times in the House of Commons by Mr. A. C. Morton, Mr. H. F.\nLuttrell, Sir William Byles, Sir George Greenwood, and other Members,\nand in the House of Lords by the Bishop of Hereford (Dr. Percival); but\nits opponents have always succeeded in preventing its becoming law. On\none occasion (1893) it was \u201ctalked out\u201d by Sir Frederick Banbury, who\nis renowned in the House as an anti-vivisectionist and friend of\nanimals. It is not only human beings who have to pray, at times, to be\ndelivered from their friends.\n\nThe Eton Beagles were another of the League\u2019s most cherished \u201cpegs,\u201d and\ndisplayed as useful an illustration of the hare-hunt as the Royal\nBuckhounds of the deer-worry. Had humanitarians talked of the cruelty of\nhare-hunting in general, little attention would have been paid to them;\nbut with concrete instances drawn from the leading public school, and\nquoted in the words of the boys themselves as printed in the _Eton\nCollege Chronicle_--a disgusting record of \u201cblooded\u201d hounds and of the\nhare \u201cbroken up,\u201d or crawling \u201cdeadbeat,\u201d \u201cabsolutely stiff,\u201d \u201cso done\nthat she could not stand\u201d--a great impression was made, and the\nmemorials presented to the headmaster or the Governing Body, asking for\nthe substitution of a drag-hunt (a form of sport which was formerly\npopular at Eton and led to very good runs), received a large number of\nvery influential signatures, including that of the Visitor of Eton, the\nlate Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. E. L. Hicks. But public opinion counts for\nvery little at the school where ignorance is bliss; a far more important\nconsideration for Governing Bodies and headmasters is the opinion of Old\nEtonians; indeed, it is doubtful whether a headmaster of Eton could even\nretain his position if he were to decree the discontinuance of what Dr.\nWarre described, with all due solemnity, as \u201can old Eton institution.\u201d\nSo obvious was this that we were inspired to borrow the title of Gray\u2019s\nfamous poem in an enlarged form, and to indite an \u201cOde on the\nExceedingly Distant Prospect of Humane Reform at Eton College.\u201d\n\nDr. E. C. Selwyn, headmaster of Uppingham, wrote to me if he were made\nheadmaster of Eton, he would abolish the Beagles \u201cat the earliest\nopportunity.\u201d Unfortunately he was not the successful candidate for the\npost when Dr. Warre gave it up, or we might have seen some rare sport at\nEton, and a hue and cry more exciting than any hare-hunt. Dislike of\nblood-sport as a school recreation is by no means confined to\nhumanitarians, as may be seen from the following sentence which I quote\nfrom an interesting unpublished letter on the ethics of sport, addressed\nto Mr. Stratton in 1905 by Mr. F. C. Selous, the great lion-hunter:\n\u201cAfter reading your pamphlet, I certainly think it would be better to\nsubstitute drag-hunting for the pursuit and killing of a hare. To see\none of these animals worried and torn by a pack of dogs is not an\nedifying sight for a young boy.\u201d\n\nAll hunting, whether of the hare, fox, stag, or otter, has many horrible\nfeatures: perhaps the very nastiest is the custom of \u201cblooding,\u201d i.e.\nbaptizing with the blood of the mangled victim any children or young\nfolk who partake in the sport for the first time. The practice has been\ndescribed, but too modestly, it would seem, as \u201ca hunting tradition\nwhich goes back to the Middle Ages\u201d; one would suppose it went back to\nstill more primitive times. Yet to this day this savage ritual is\npatronized by our nobility and by royalty. \u201cPrince Henry was blooded,\u201d\nwas the conclusion of a newspaper report of a \u201ckill\u201d with a pack of\nfox-hounds, January 9, 1920. There is a double significance, it seems,\nin the expression \u201ca prince of the blood.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou can\u2019t eliminate cruelty from sport,\u201d says a distinguished\nsportsman, the Earl of Warwick, in his _Memories of Sixty Years_. In no\nform of blood-sport do we more clearly see what a veritable mania this\namateur butchery may become than in one of Lord Warwick\u2019s hobbies, \u201cbig\ngame hunting,\u201d the difficult and costly pursuit of wild animals in\ndistant lands, for no better reason than the craze for killing.\nTiger-shooting is doubtless an exciting pastime, and there are savage\nbeasts that at times have to be destroyed; but what of that other tiger\nthat lurks in the heart of each of us? and how is _he_ going to be\neliminated, so long as a savage lust for killing is a recognized form of\namusement? For in spite of all the barriers and divisions that prejudice\nand superstition have heaped up between the human and the non-human, we\nmay take it as certain that, in the long run, as we treat out\nfellow-beings, \u201cthe animals,\u201d so shall we treat our fellow-men.\n\nEvery one knows how the possessors of such \u201ctrophies\u201d as the heads and\nhorns of \u201cbig game\u201d love to decorate their halls with these mementoes of\nthe chase. I was once a visitor at a house which was not only adorned in\nthis way, but contained also a human head that had been sent home by a\nmember of a certain African expedition and \u201cpreserved\u201d by the skill of\nthe taxidermist. When I was invited by the owner of the head--the\n_second_ owner--to see that particular trophy, it was with some\nmisgivings that I acquiesced; but when, after passing up a staircase\nbetween walls plastered with portions of the carcases of elephant,\nrhinoceros, antelope, etc., I came to a landing where, under a glass\ncase, was the head of a pleasant-looking young negro, I felt no special\nrepugnance at the sight. It was simply a part--and, as it seemed, not a\npeculiarly dreadful or loathsome part--of the surrounding dead-house;\nand I understood how mankind itself may be nothing more than \u201cbig game\u201d\nto our soldier-sportsmen abroad. The absolute distinction between human\nand non-human is a fiction which will not bear the test either of\nsearching thought in the study or of rough experience in the wilds.\n\nIniquitous as the Game Laws are, I have often thought it strange that\nKingsley, even when regarding them, quite justly, from the poacher\u2019s\nstandpoint, should have hurled at the game-preserver that eloquent\ndenunciation:\n\n    There\u2019s blood on the game you sell, squire,\n      And there\u2019s blood on the game you eat.\n\nwithout in the least realizing the full truth of the statement. For\nthere, literally, is blood on the \u201cgame\u201d which the squire (or the\npoacher) disposes of, viz. the blood of the \u201cgame\u201d itself; and that\nKingsley should have forgotten this, is a singular proof of the way in\nwhich the lower animals are regarded as mere goods and chattels, and not\nas creatures of flesh and blood at all--except to cook and eat. The very\nuse of the word \u201cgame,\u201d in this sense, is most significant.\n\nAs mention has been made of the fall of the Royal Buckhounds, a few\nwords must be said of the man who chiefly brought it about. The Rev. J.\nStratton was Master of Lucas\u2019s Hospital, Wokingham, a charitable\ninstitution founded in 1663, where a number of aged labourers live as\npensioners; and as Wokingham lay in the centre of the hunting district,\nhe was well placed for observing what went on, and for obtaining exact\ninformation: he had, moreover, a first-hand knowledge of \u201csport,\u201d and\nhis detestation of it was based on his own earlier experiences, as well\nas on a keen sense of fair play. Of all the active workers with whom I\nhave been privileged to be associated, Mr. Stratton was the finest; I\nhave known nothing more courageous than the way in which, almost\nsingle-handed at first, and with the whole hunting fraternity against\nhim, he gradually \u201cpulled down\u201d (to use a pleasant sporting term) the\ncruel and stupid institution which was carried on in the Sovereign\u2019s\nname and at the expense of the public.\n\nIn character, as in appearance, Mr. Stratton was a Roman; his stern and\nunswerving rectitude made him respected even by his most active\nopponents. His outspokenness, where matters of real import were at\nstake, was quite undaunted, and to an extent which sometimes caused\nconsternation among the weaker brethren. I was once asked by a\nsympathetic bishop whether it would be possible \u201cto keep Mr. Stratton\nquiet.\u201d More than one dignitary of the Church must have mused on that\nproblem; for if Mr. Stratton had a weakness, it was for a bishop. I do\nnot mean that he viewed bishops with undue reverence, somewhat the\nreverse, for he loved to take a bishop to task; and some of his letters\nto bishops, in reference to their sanction of vivisection or\nblood-sports, were of a nature to cause a mild surprise in episcopal\ncircles. But if bishops did not always appreciate Mr. Stratton, other\npersons did. So well did the birds in his garden at Wokingham understand\nhim, that they would let him talk to them and stroke them as they sat on\ntheir nests. Could there be a more convincing proof of a man\u2019s goodness?\n\nAnother active champion of the reform of blood-sports was Colonel W. L.\nB. Coulson, a well-known Northumberland country gentleman and J.P., who\nwas one of the first men of influence to join the Humanitarian League.\nHe possessed a fine military presence, and a voice which, even at its\nwhisper, had a volume and resonance which could not fail to make it\nheard to the uttermost corner of a room; his appearance, in brief, had\nso little of the pale cast of thought that on the occasion when he first\nmet us we were the victims of an odd misapprehension. It had been\narranged that he would preside at a public meeting in London, the first\nwe held, on the subject of deer-hunting; and when the members of our\nCommittee arrived, some time before the discussion began, we were\ntroubled to find thus early upon the scene a very large and powerfully\nbuilt man, whom, as he did not introduce himself, we imagined to be a\nmaster of staghounds, or at least an opponent of formidable calibre,\ncome to intimidate us at the start. We were relieved when we discovered\nhim to be our missing chairman.\n\nColonel Coulson was very popular with his audiences, for there was a\nfrankness about him which went straight to the heart, and his speeches,\nthough not cultured, were full of raciness and humanity. Himself brought\nup as a sportsman, he felt keenly about the sufferings of animals, and\nafter his retirement from the army devoted much time to lecturing-tours,\nin which he visited many parts of the country and especially addressed\nhimself to schools. Eton would not receive him, doubtless fearing some\nreference to her hare-hunt; but at several of the other big public\nschools he was asked to speak more than once. Brave, simple, and\ncourteous, he was loved by all who knew him, and by none more than by\nhis colleagues in the humanitarian cause.\n\nNothing was more remarkable in the history of the Humanitarian League\nthan the diversity of character in the persons whom its principles\nattracted. Lady Florence Dixie, who joined the League at its start in\n1891, had a strange and adventurous career, and has been described, not\ninaptly, as \u201ca sort of \u2018Admirable Crichton\u2019 among women, a poet, a\nnovelist, an explorer, a war correspondent, a splendid horse-woman, a\nconvincing platform-speaker, a swimmer of great endurance, and as keen a\nhumanitarian as ever lived.\u201d It was as humanitarian that I knew her; and\nshe was certainly one of the most faithful supporters of the League,\never ready to help with pen or purse, and prompt, sincere, and\nunwavering in her friendship. Her poems, of which she sent me more than\none volume, had little worth; but her essay on \u201cThe Horrors of Sport\u201d\nwas one of the most vivid and moving appeals that have been written on\nthe subject; none of the League\u2019s pamphlets had so wide a circulation,\nfor it has been read and quoted in every part of the English-speaking\nworld. She here wrote with full knowledge of the facts, and with a\nsympathetic insight, which, together with a swift and picturesque style,\nmade her, at her best, a powerful and fascinating writer. Of her\npersonal eccentricities many reports were rife; and I remembered that\nwhen I lived at Eton she used to be seen in the garden of her villa, on\nthe Windsor bank of the Thames, walking, like a modern Circe, with a\nnumber of wild beasts in her train. On one occasion a jaguar made his\nescape from her control, and there was a mild panic in Windsor and Eton\ntill he was recaptured: it might have indeed been serious if the bold\nyouths who hunted the terror-stricken hare had started a quarry that\nshowed fight.\n\nAnother unfailing friend of the League\u2019s Sports Committee was the Hon.\nFitzRoy Stewart. When I first knew him he was Secretary of the Central\nConservative Office, and we were rather surprised at finding an ally in\nthat direction; in fact, we had some suspicions, entirely unjust, as the\nresult proved, that Mr. Stewart might be desirous of learning our plan\nof campaign against the Royal Buckhounds in the interest of his sporting\nfriends. The first time I visited him at the Conservative headquarters I\nwas introduced to Sir Howard Vincent, M.P., who, though a patron of the\nRoyal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, had not scrupled\nto throw in his lot with those who were fighting for the continuance of\nrabbit-coursing, pigeon-shooting and stag-hunting. He seemed to be a\ngood-natured, vacuous-minded person, and one of his remarks, I remember,\nwas that England is \u201ca paradise for animals.\u201d This was hardly the\nopinion of FitzRoy Stewart, who was indefatigable with his schemes for\nthe prohibition of the more cruel forms of sport. He had great hopes of\nyoung Mr. Winston Churchill, then beginning to be known as a rising star\nof the Tory party, and at his earnest request a letter was sent to Mr.\nChurchill from the office of the League, reminding him of Lord Randolph\nChurchill\u2019s strong denunciation of stag-hunting, and asking his aid\nagainst the Buckhounds. Mr. Churchill, however, unmoved by this appeal\nto his filial piety, sagely opined that the crusade against the Royal\nHunt was too democratic.\n\nMr. FitzRoy Stewart worked closely with the Humanitarian League till his\ndeath in 1914; and many were his press letters which he and I jointly\ncomposed at the office in Chancery Lane. He liked to come there armed\nwith some sheets of his Carlton Club notepaper, on which the letters,\nwhen worded to his satisfaction, were duly copied and signed--\u201cOld\nHarrovian,\u201d or \u201cA Member of the Carlton Club,\u201d was his favourite\nsignature--and then he sent them off to some influential editors of his\nacquaintance, whose disgust would have been unmeasured had they known\nwhat company their esteemed contributor had been keeping. Mr. Stewart, I\nmust in fairness add, though a strong opponent of blood-sport, was a\nfirm believer in the beneficence of flogging; but he was willing to sink\nthis one point of difference in his general approval of the League\u2019s\nwork. So good-natured was he, that when the subject of corporal\npunishment was going to crop up at a Committee meeting, he used to ask\nme to put it first on the agenda, so that he might wait outside until\nthat burning question was disposed of: then he would join us--coming in\nto dessert, as we expressed it--and take his share in the discussion.\nOh, if all colleagues were as reasonable! As _The Times_ truly said of\nhim, \u201chis sweetness of temper and social tact made him the most\ncompanionable of human beings.\u201d\n\nMr. John Colam, for many years Secretary of the Royal Society for the\nPrevention of Cruelty to Animals, was a well-known figure in the\nzoophilist movement at the time of which I am speaking, and had a great\nreputation for astuteness. Wily he certainly was, with the vast\nexperience he had acquired in evading the double pressure of those who\ncried \u201cforward\u201d and of those who cried \u201cback\u201d; and he was a veritable\nProteus in the skill with which he gave the slip to any one who tried to\ncommit him to any course but the safest. He used privately to allege the\nbackwardness of his Committee as a cause for this seeming timidity; thus\nhe told me in 1901, when the fate of the Royal Buckhounds was hanging in\nthe balance, that the R.S.P.C.A. was unable to take any public action,\nnot from any remissness on his part, but because certain members of the\nCommittee were afraid of alienating subscribers, including King Edward\nhimself. Personally I liked Mr. Colam; he was humane so far as his\ninterests permitted, and when one had realized, once for all, the\nuselessness of attempting to bind him to any fixed purpose, it was\ninstructive to have an occasional talk with him at Jermyn Street, and to\nobserve the great adroitness with which he conducted the affairs of the\nSociety; and he, on his part, when he saw that one had no longer any\nethical designs on him, but approached him rather as a fellow-student,\nalbeit a mere amateur, in the art of dealing with unreasonable people,\nwould become chatty and confidential and tell amusing stories of a\nSecretary\u2019s adventures. He would have made a successful Prime Minister,\nfor his \u201cwizardry\u201d was of the highest order; as a humanitarian he left\nsomething to be desired.\n\nWith the Sporting League, which professed to discountenance\n\u201cmalpractices\u201d in sport, yet opposed the Bill which would have\nprohibited rabbit-coursing and kindred pastimes, we were of course\ninvolved in controversy. We sought to bring this to a point by proposing\na public discussion of the question: \u201cWhat are malpractices in Sport?\u201d\nBut this challenge was declined, the _Sportsman_ expressing the opinion\nthat \u201csuch piffling folly is best treated with contempt,\u201d and the\n_Evening News_ that \u201ccackling is the strong point of the faddists.\u201d We\nwere more successful in bringing to book some champions of aristocratic\nblood-sports, among them Sir Herbert Maxwell and Sir Edward Grey, who on\none or two occasions appeared on neutral platforms, and seized the\nopportunity to eulogize their own favourite recreations, but showed\nlittle relish for the discussion which they themselves had provoked. Mr.\nF. G. Aflalo was another of our many antagonists in the magazines and\nthe press; and I have a pleasant recollection of friendly encounters\nwith him in the _Fortnightly Review_ and elsewhere. Many other\napologists of blood-sports there were, of a more sentimental and\nunreasoning kind, and with these, too, we much enjoyed the argument,\nwhich was quite as good sport to us as their hunting or coursing was to\nthem.\n\nBefore passing from Sports to Fashions, I will speak briefly of those\npopular places of recreation, known euphemistically as \u201cZoological\nGardens,\u201d which in a civilized age would surely be execrated as among\nthe saddest and dullest spots on the earth, being, in fact, nothing\ncheerier than big convict-stations, to which the ill-fated\nlife-prisoners--\u201cstuff,\u201d as the keepers call them--are conveyed from\nmany distant lands. How any rational person can find pleasure in seeing,\nfor example, \u201cthe lions fed\u201d (the modern version of _Christianos ad\nleones_) is a mystery that baffles thought. I have not been to the\nLondon \u201cZoo\u201d for a good many years; but when I knew it, the\nincongruities of the place were so ludicrous as almost to obscure one\u2019s\nsense of its barbarity: the Tiger\u2019s den, for instance, was labelled:\n\u201cBeware of pickpockets,\u201d and the Eagle\u2019s cage bore the inscription: \u201cTo\nthe Refreshment Rooms\u201d; and there, sure enough, within sight of the\ncaptive Bird of Jove moping disconsolate on his perch, was a waiter,\nserving out coffees or lemon-squashes, regardless of the great Raptor by\nwhom his predecessor, Ganymede, had been carried off to be the god\u2019s\ncup-bearer. Could bathos have gone further?\n\nA friend of mine who, as an Eton boy, used to go to the \u201cZoo\u201d in the\nholidays and amuse himself by teasing the captives, was converted to\nhumanitarian principles in a rather curious way. An elk, or some large\nanimal of the ruminant order, whose wrath he had deservedly incurred,\n_coughed_ on him with such vehemence that he retired from the elk-house\ncovered with a sort of moist bran, and with his top-hat irrevocably\ndamaged. Though at the time this touched his hat rather than his heart,\nhe afterwards came to regard the incident as what is called a \u201cmeans of\ngrace.\u201d It caused _him_, too, to \u201cruminate,\u201d and so brought home to him\nthe fact that an elk is \u201ca person.\u201d\n\nA pamphlet of mine, issued by the Humanitarian League in 1895, entitled\n\u201cA Zoophilist at the Zoo,\u201d was the beginning of an agitation which\ngradually led to a considerable improvement in the housing of the\nanimals, in which discussion the most noteworthy feature was a series of\narticles contributed to the _Saturday Review_ by Mr. Edmund Selous, and\nafterwards reprinted by the League. Another subject, debated with much\nliveliness, was the practice of feeding pythons and other large serpents\non living prey--ducks, fowls, rabbits, and even goats being given to the\nreptiles, to be devoured in a manner which was sickening to witness and\nalmost too loathsome to describe.[35] These exhibitions were open till\n1881; then for publicity extreme secrecy was substituted, and all\ninquiries were met by the stereotyped statement that the use of live\nprey was confined to cases \u201cwhere such food was a necessity.\u201d\n\n    Who feeds slim serpents must himself be slim.\n\nThe League found the reptile-feeders at Regent\u2019s Park exceedingly\nslippery to deal with, and it needed long time, and much patience, to\nbring them to book. In this task, however, I was encouraged by the\nrecollection of a scene which I once witnessed in a crowded\nrailway-carriage, when a large eel had made its escape from a basket\nwhich one of my fellow-travellers was holding, and created a mild panic\namong the company by its convolutions under the seat. An old lady\nsharply upbraided the owner of the eel, and I was struck by the\nreasonableness of his reply in rather difficult circumstances, when the\neel had repeatedly slipped from his grasp. \u201cWait a little, mum,\u201d he\nsaid, \u201cuntil he gets a bit dusty\u201d; and the result proved the man to be\nright. In like manner we waited till the excuses given by the Zoological\nSociety had become very dusty indeed.\n\nSome of the reasons offered for the old system of snake-feeding were\nthemselves truly reptilian. \u201cWe follow God\u2019s ordinances, and they must\nbe right,\u201d was the reverent remark of a keeper; and humanitarians were\ntold that \u201cto declare the use of live food to be cruel is to bring that\ncharge against the Designer of Nature Himself.\u201d So deep and fervent was\nthe piety of the Reptile House! Nevertheless, we continued to urge our\npoint, and the subject was hotly debated at more than one of the\nZoological Society\u2019s annual meetings, where, as a result of the protests\nraised by Captain Alfred Carpenter, R.N., Mr. Stephen Coleridge, Mr.\nRowland Hunt, and other F.Z.S.\u2019s, it was made evident that the majority\nof the Fellows, who regarded the Society as a sort of private club, were\nindignant at public opinion being brought to bear upon their concerns.\nIt was a situation not devoid of humour. I happen to know that in the\ncourse of an excited meeting held in November, 1907, when the Duke of\nBedford, as President of the Zoological Society, was in the chair, the\nfollowing telegram was despatched to his Grace:\n\n     Beg you to stand firm for live food and maintain the ordinances of\n     the Creator.\n\n_From_ ANNA CONDA.\n\n\n\nThis artless prayer of an unknown lady was fully in accord with the\nspirit of the meeting. Nevertheless, things moved, even in Regent\u2019s\nPark; and, when we had shown that the snakes in the New York Zoological\nPark were successfully fed on freshly-killed animals, we had the\nsatisfaction of seeing the same less barbarous method adopted at the\nLondon \u201cZoo.\u201d\n\nI once had the advantage of hearing some of the inner history of a large\nmenagerie from the wife of one of the keepers, a charwoman in the house\nwhere I was staying, who was of a somewhat loquacious and communicative\ndisposition, the staple of her talk being the adventures of her husband,\nJohnnie. \u201cJohnnie came home dead-tired last night, sir,\u201d she said on one\noccasion. \u201cWhy was that, Mrs. Smith?\u201d I asked. \u201cWhy, sir, he had had to\nbeat the elephant; and after that he was too stiff and tired to take his\nsupper.\u201d My natural inquiry whether the elephant had been able to take\n_his_ supper was set aside as frivolous.\n\nKnowing something of the profound piety of the keepers at the (London)\n\u201cZoo\u201d in relation to snake-feeding, I was pained to learn from this good\nwoman that her husband, who, unfortunately, was not employed in a\nreptile-department, had \u201clost his faith,\u201d and for a reason which I think\nhas not before been recorded among the many modern causes of unbelief.\n\u201cYou see, sir, Johnny can never again hold with the Church, after the\nway he\u2019s seen clergymen going on with girls in the elephant house.\u201d\n\nWhen speaking of cruel pastimes, I referred to the value of the term\n\u201cblood-sports\u201d in the many controversies which we waged. Just as the\nfortunes of a book may be affected by its title, so in ethical and\npolitical discussions there is often what may be called a winning word;\nand where none such is found ready to hand, it is advisable to invent\none. Thus the League made good play with \u201cflagellomania,\u201d as used by Mr.\nBernard Shaw in one of his lectures; and \u201cbrutalitarian\u201d (an invention\nof our own, I think) did us yeoman service, as will be seen in a later\nchapter. \u201cMurderous Millinery,\u201d another term which has gained a wide\ncirculation, was first used as a chapter-heading in my _Animals\u2019\nRights_; and though it rather shocked some zoophilists of the older\nschool, who presumably thought that only a human being can be\n\u201cmurdered,\u201d it served a useful purpose, perhaps, in drawing attention\nto the revolting cruelty that underlies the plumage trade. In its\ncondemnation of these barbarities, as in other matters, the Humanitarian\nLeague was a pioneer; its pamphlet on \u201cThe Extermination of Birds,\u201d\nwritten by Miss Edith Carrington, and published nearly thirty years ago,\nplayed a marked part in the creation of a better public opinion; and a\nBill drafted by the League in 1901, to prohibit the use of the plumage\nof certain rare and beautiful birds, attracted very wide public\nattention, and was the basis of subsequent attempts at legislation. But\nhere it must be added that the man who has done more than all the\nSocieties together to insure the passage of a Plumage Bill is Mr. James\nBuckland. Nothing in the humanitarian movement has been finer than the\nway in which Mr. Buckland forced this question to the front and made it\npeculiarly his own.\n\nEvery whit as savage as the feather-trade is the fur-trade, responsible\nas it is for some most horrible methods of torture--the steel-trap,\nwhich inflicts shocking injuries on its victim; the spring-pole, which\njerks both trap and captive high in air, there to hang till the trapper\nnext comes on his rounds; the terrible \u201cdead-fall\u201d used for bears and\nother large animals; the poisoning of wolves with strychnine; and the\nabominations in the butchery of seals. Even the fashionable people who\nwear furs (in a climate where there is not the least need of such\nclothing) would hardly be able to continue the habit if they knew how\ntheir \u201ccomforts\u201d were provided; as it is, the Feather-Headed Woman is\nnot a commoner sight in our streets than the Ass in the skin of the\n(Sea) Lion. It would seem that fur-wearers are almost unconscious that\ntheir sables and sealskins are the relicts of previous possessors, and,\nlike the heroines of modern drama, have very decidedly had \u201ca past\u201d; or,\nif they do not wholly forget this fact, they think it quite natural that\n_they_ should now have their turn with the skin, as the animal had\nbefore. Thus Pope, in a well-known couplet:\n\n    Know, Nature\u2019s children all divide her care;\n    The fur that warms a monarch warmed a bear.\n\nOne would have thought that the bear who grew the skin had somewhat more\nright to it than the monarch! Politicians may talk of \u201cone man, one\nvote\u201d; but really, if there is ever to be a civilized state, a programme\nof \u201cone man, one skin\u201d seems fairer and more democratic.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nA FADDIST\u2019S DIVERSIONS\n\n     No greyhound loves to cote a hare, as I to turn and course a\n     fool.--SCOTT\u2019S _Kenilworth_.\n\n\nI wonder how many times, during the past thirty years, we humanitarians\nwere told that we were \u201cfaddists,\u201d or \u201ccranks,\u201d or \u201csentimentalists,\u201d\nthat our hearts were \u201cbetter than our heads,\u201d and that we were totally\nlacking in a sense of humour. I feel sure that if I had kept all the\nletters and press-cuttings in which we found ourselves thus described,\nthey would amount not to hundreds but to thousands; for it seemed to be\na common belief among the genial folk whose unpleasant practices were\narraigned by us that the Committee of the Humanitarian League must be a\nset of sour Puritans, sitting in joyless conclave, and making solemn\nlamentation over the wickedness of the world. Our opponents little knew\nhow much we were indebted to them for providing a light and comic side\nin a controversy which might otherwise have been just a trifle dull.\n\nIt was said by Gibbon, that it was the privilege of the medieval church\n\u201cto defend nonsense by cruelties.\u201d Nowadays we see the patrons of sport,\nvivisection, butchery, and other time-honoured institutions, adopting\nthe contrary process, and defending cruelties by nonsense. And by _what_\nnonsense! I do not know where else one can find such grotesque\nabsurdities, such utter topsy-turvydom of argument, as in the quibbling\nmodern brutality which gives sophisticated reasons for perpetuating\nsavage customs.\n\nOf some of the fallacies of the cannibalistic conscience I have already\nspoken: a volume could easily be filled with not less diverting\nutterances culled from kindred fields of thought. The apologists of the\nRoyal Buckhounds, for instance, were comedians of the first rank, a\ntroupe of entertainers who long ago anticipated \u201cThe Follies.\u201d Did they\nnot themselves assure us that, in hunting the carted stag, they \u201crode to\nsave the deer for another day\u201d? Such devotion needed another Lovelace:\n\n    Did\u2019st wonder, since my love was such,\n      I hunted thee so sore?\n    I could not love thee, Deer, so much,\n      Loved I not Hunting more.\n\nThe stag, so a noble lord pointed out at a meeting of the Sporting\nLeague, was \u201ca most pampered animal.\u201d \u201cWhen he was going to be hunted,\nhe was carried to the meet in a comfortable cart. When set down, the\nfirst thing he did was to crop the grass. When the hounds got too near,\nthey were stopped. By and by he lay down, and was wheeled back to his\ncomfortable home. It was a life many would like to live.\u201d Thus it was\nshown to be a deprivation, to humans and non-humans alike, not to be\nhunted by a pack of staghounds over a country of barbed wire and broken\nbottles. Life seemed poor and mean without it.\n\nFox-hunting, too, has always been refreshingly rich in sophistries. The\nfarmer is adjured to be grateful to the Hunt, because the fox is killed,\nand the fox because his species (not himself) is \u201cpreserved\u201d$1 thus the\nsportsman takes credit either way--on the one hand, for the destruction\nof a pest; on the other, for saving similar pests from extermination. It\nis a scene for a Gilbertian opera or a \u201cBab Ballad\u201d; it makes one feel\nthat this British blood-sport must be deleterious not only to the\nvictims of the chase, but to the mental capacity of the gentlemen who\nindulge in it.\n\nThe climax of absurdity was reached, perhaps, in the dedication by the\nArchbishop of York (Dr. Cosmo Lang) of a stained window--a _very_\nstained window, as was remarked at the time--in the church of Moor\nMonkton, to the memory of the Rev. Charles Slingsby, an aged\nblood-sportsman who broke his neck in the hunting-field. That a minister\nshould have been \u201claunched into eternity,\u201d as the phrase is, while\nchasing a fox, might have been expected to cause a sense of deep pain,\nif not shame, to his co-religionists: what happened was that an\nArchbishop was found willing to eulogize, in a consecrated place of\nworship, not only the old gentleman whose life was thus thrown away, but\nthe sport of fox-hunting itself: Dr. Lang pronounced, in fact, what may\nbe called the Foxology. Of the stained window, with its representation,\non one part, of St. Hubert and the stag, and on the other of St.\nFrancis--yes, St. Francis--giving his blessing to the birds, one can\nonly think with a smile. A few months later, an Izaak Walton memorial\nwindow was placed in Winchester Cathedral in honour of \u201cthe quaint old\ncruel coxcomb\u201d whom Byron satirized. Whether, in this work of religious\nart, the pious angler is portrayed in the act of impaling the live frog\non the hook \u201cas if he loved him,\u201d the newspapers did not state.\n\nMany instances might be quoted of the deep godliness, at times even\nreligious rapture, felt by the votaries of blood-sports; perhaps one\nfrom the German Crown Prince\u2019s _Leaves from my Hunting Diary_ is most\nimpressive: \u201cTo speak of religious feelings is a difficult matter. I\nonly know one thing--I have never felt so near my God as when I, with my\nrifle on my knee, sat in the golden loneliness of high mountains, or in\nthe moving silence of the evening forest.\u201d This sort of sentiment is by\nno means exclusively of German make. Listen to the piety of a big\ngame-hunter, Mr. H. W. Seton-Karr: \u201cWhy did Almighty God create lions to\nprey on harmless animals? And should we not, even at the expense of a\ndonkey as bait, be justified in reducing their number?\u201d Here, again, is\nwhat the Rev. Walter Crick had to say in defence of the fur-trade: \u201cIf\nit is wrong to carry a sealskin muff, the camel\u2019s-hair raiment of St.\nJohn Baptist, to say nothing of the garments worn by our first parents\nin the Garden of Eden, stands equally condemned.\u201d\n\nStrictly ecclesiastical was the tone of a pamphlet which hailed from New\nYork State, entitled \u201cThe Dog Question, discussed in the Interest of\nHumanity,\u201d and concluded in these terms: \u201cNow, my boy or girl, whichever\nyou are, drop this nonsense about dogs. They are demanding valuable time\nthat should be employed in teaching such as you. A dog cannot love you.\nYou cannot love a dog. Naught beside a divine soul can love or be loved.\nChloroform your dog, and take to reading your Testament.\u201d\n\nI once overheard a clergyman, who had taken his seat at a tea-table in a\nSurrey garden, sharply call to order some boys of his party who were\nstriking wildly at wasps and mashing them with any instrument that was\nhandy. I listened, thinking that at last I was going to hear some wise\nwords on that silly and disgusting practice in which many excitable\npersons indulge; but it turned out that the cause of the reverend\ngentleman\u2019s displeasure was merely that he had not yet \u201csaid grace\u201d:\nthat done, the wasp-mashing was resumed without interruption.\n\nSpace would fail me, were I to attempt to cite one-hundredth part of the\namazing Book of Fallacies written in defence of Brutality. \u201cMethinks,\u201d\nsaid Sir Herbert Maxwell, \u201cwere it possible to apply the referendum to\nour flocks and herds, the reply would come in a fashion on which\nvegetarians scarcely calculate.\u201d There would be a universal roar of\nremonstrance, it seems, from oxen, sheep, and swine, at the proposal to\nsever their grateful association with the drover and the slaughterman.\nEven more delightful was Mr. W. T. Stead, when he received from the\nspirit world a message to the effect that vegetarianism was good for\nsome persons but not good for _him_. That message, I think, smacked less\nof the starry spheres than of the _Review of Reviews_ office: if it was\nnot pure spirit, it was pure Stead.\n\nThe \u201cmystics\u201d were often a great joy to us; for example, Mr. J. W.\nLloyd, author of an occult work called _Dawn-Thought_, expressed himself\nas follows: \u201cWhen I go afield with my gun, and kill my little brother,\nthe Rabbit, I do not therefore cease to love him, or deny my\nrelationship, or do him any real wrong. I simply set him free to come\none step nearer to me.\u201d Here was Brer Fox again, only funnier. We\nsuggested to Mr. Lloyd that \u201cBrawn-Thought\u201d might be a more appropriate\ntitle for his book.\n\nThus, like pedagogues, we faddists, too, had our diversions; cheered as\nwe were in the weary work of propaganda by such mental harlequinades as\nthose of which I have quoted a few specimens almost at random.\n\nPerhaps the most laughable thing about the poor spavined Fallacies was\nthe entire confidence with which they were trotted out. They were very\nold and very silly; they had again and again been refuted; yet they were\nalways advanced in a manner which seemed to say: \u201cSurely _this_ is an\nargument you have never heard before? Surely you will give up your\nhumanitarian sentiment _now_?\u201d As the frequent oral exposure of such\ninveterate sophisms was a tedious task, we found it convenient to print\nthem, tabulated and numbered, each with its proper refutation, under\nsome such title as \u201cFamiliar Fallacies,\u201d or, borrowing from Sydney\nSmith, \u201cThe Noodle\u2019s Oration\u201d; and then, when some opponent came along\nexultingly with one or other of them, all we had to do was to send him\nthe list, with a mark against his own delusion. Trust one who has tried\nthe plan: it is more effective than any amount of personal talk. The man\nwho will bore you to death with his pertinacious twaddle, in the belief\nthat he is saying something new, will soon tire of it when he finds the\nwhole story already in print, with a \u201cSee number--\u201d written large in\nblue pencil against his most original argument.\n\nBut the League did not stop at that point: we felt ourselves competent,\nafter years of experience, to carry the war into the enemies\u2019 camp--to\nhoist them with their own petard by means of the _reductio ad absurdum_,\na pretended defence of the very practices which we were attacking. The\npublication of the first and only number of _The Brutalitarian, a\nJournal for the Sane and Strong_, went far towards achieving our aims.\nThe printers were inundated with requests for copies, and the editor (as\nI happen to know) received many letters of warm congratulation on his\nefforts \u201cto combat the sickly sentiments of modern times.\u201d The press, as\na whole, regarded the new paper with amusement tempered with caution:\nsome suspecting in it the hand of Mr. G. K. Chesterton, some of Mr.\nBernard Shaw, while one venturesome editor hinted that the humanitarians\nthemselves might have been concerned in it, but prudently added that\n\u201cperhaps that would be attributing too much cleverness to the\nHumanitarian League.\u201d So the authorship of the _Brutalitarian_, like\nthat of the letters of Junius, remained a secret; but the laughter\ncaused by its preposterous eulogies of Flogging put a stop for the time\nto the cry that had been raised in _Blackwood_ by Mr. G. W. Steevens and\nothers, that \u201cwe have let Brutality die out too much.\u201d They did not\nrelish their own panacea, when it was served to them in an undiluted\nform, and with imbecility no less than brutality as its principal\ningredient.\n\nThe Eton Beagles, of course, offered a tempting mark for satire, as it\nwas easy to hit upon a strain of balderdash, in mock defence of\nhare-hunting, the absurdity of which would be apparent to the ordinary\nreader, yet would escape the limited intelligence of schoolboys and\nsporting papers. Accordingly, there appeared in 1907, two numbers of\n_The Beagler Boy_, conducted by two Old Etonians with the professed\npurpose of \u201csaving a gallant school sport from extinction,\u201d and with the\nulterior design of showing that there is nothing too fatuous to be\nseriously accepted as argument by the upholders of blood-sports.\n\nThe success of the _Beagler Boy_ in this adventure was not for a moment\nin doubt. The Etonians were enthusiastic over it. The _Sportsman_ found\nit \u201ca publication after our own heart,\u201d and \u201cfar more interesting and\ninvigorating than anything we are capable of\u201d; and the hoax was welcomed\nin like manner by _Sporting Life_, _Horse and Hound_, and the\n_Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News_, a periodical described (by\nitself) as \u201cbright, entertaining, and original.\u201d One of the most\nsolemnly comic notices was that in _Countryside_, Mr. E. Kay Robinson\u2019s\npaper, which found the _Beagler Boy_ \u201cclever and strenuous, but of\ncourse _ex parte_\u201d; but the gem of the collection was a long and serious\ndissertation on \u201cBoys and Beagles\u201d in the _British Medical Journal_,\nwhich thought that its readers would be glad to have their attention\ndirected to the new sporting organ. There was a _sauve qui peut_ among\nthese worthy people when, from the general laughter in the press, they\nlearnt that they had been imposed upon; but the shock was borne most\ngood-humouredly. \u201cEven the beagler boys,\u201d as was remarked by the\n_Evening Standard_, \u201cthose of them, at least, who know how rare and\nprecious an instrument satire is, may forgive, after they have read:\nperhaps some will even be converted.\u201d Their disillusionment must\ncertainly have been rather keenly felt at the time; like that of the\nlion who, as related in _The Man-Eaters of Tsavo_, had carried off what\nhe thought was a coolie from the tent, only to find, when he had gone\nsome distance, that it was a sack of sawdust.\n\nThe _Beagler Boy_ was added, by request, to Lord Harcourt\u2019s collection\nof books, pamphlets, and other matter relating to Eton, which at a later\ndate he presented to the School. It must, I feel sure, be gratifying to\nSir George Greenwood, and to the other Old Etonian who collaborated with\nhim in the editorship, to know that the fruits of their toil are thus\nenshrined in the archives of Eton College.\n\nSome twelve months after the meteoric career of the _Beagler Boy_ it\nhappened that there was a good deal of talk about an Eton Mission to\nChina, which was to give the Chinese \u201can opportunity of the best\neducation and of learning Christianity.\u201d Then a very curious thing\nhappened. A Chinese gentleman, Mr. Ching Ping, who was in England at the\ntime, wrote to Dr. Lyttelton, the headmaster, and offered to conduct a\nChinese Mission to Eton, in order to bring \u201ca message of humanity and\ncivilization to your young barbarians of the West.\u201d The proposal was not\naccepted, and it was even hinted in the press that Mr. Ching Ping came\nfrom this side of Suez; but however that may have been, his letter to\nDr. Lyttelton had a wide circulation, both in England and in the Far\nEast.\n\nSuch were some of a faddist\u2019s diversions; others too we had, of a\ndifferent kind, for the every-day work that goes on behind the scenes in\nan office is by no means devoid of entertainment to one who is\ninterested in the eccentricities of human nature, and is prepared to\nrisk some wasted hours in studying them. There was a time when I went to\nthe headquarters of the Humanitarian League in Chancery Lane almost\ndaily for some years, and there had experience of many strange visitors\nand correspondents of every complexion--voluble cranks and genial\nimpostors; swindlers begging for the cost of a railway-ticket to their\ndistant and long-lamented homes; ex-convicts proposing to write their\nprison-story at the League\u2019s expense; needy journalists anxious to pick\nup a paragraph; litigants who wanted gratuitous legal advice; and, worst\nof all, the confidential Bores who were determined to talk to one for\nhours together about what Mr. Stead used to call \u201cthe progress of the\nworld.\u201d\n\nNor did the post often fail to bring me some queer tidings--a letter\nperhaps, from some zealot who sent his latest pamphlet about \u201cGod\u2019s Dumb\nAnimals\u201d (himself, alas! not one of them), with a request that it should\nbe at once forwarded to the Pope; a voluminous work in manuscript,\npropounding, as its author assured me, \u201copinions of an extraordinary and\nundreamt of kind\u201d; an anthology of Bible-texts in praise of some\ndisputed practice; a suggestion that a notorious murderer should be\nflogged before being hanged; a grave remonstrance from a friend who\nfeared that public abattoirs \u201cwould pave the way for Socialism\u201d; a\nrequest from a very troublesome correspondent that the League would\naward a medal to a man who had saved her from drowning; two twenty-page\nepistles from an American lady, who, in the first, complimented me on my\n\u201cmarkedly intelligent view of the universe,\u201d and in the second told me\nfrankly that I was a fool; a note inviting me to call at a certain\naddress, to fetch a cat whom the writer wished me to destroy; and an\nurgent inquiry whether sea-sand was a healthy bedding for pigs. Such\ncommunications were the daily reward of those who sat in offices to\npromote humanitarian principles. It was remarkable how few persons\nvolunteered for the work.\n\nEven arbitration, of a most delicate and thankless sort, was thrust\nupon us. My opinion was once asked on a point of manners, by a young man\nwho was a member of the Humanitarian League. He had never been in the\nhabit of doffing his hat to ladies; he hardly knew how to do so; yet\nhaving come to London from Arcadia he found himself upbraided for not\nmaking the customary obeisance to the wife of his employer. What was he\nto do? I gave him what I thought was the tactful advice, that he should\nso far make compromise as to raise his hat slightly, eschewing\nflourishes. A fortnight later he returned in reproachful mood, with the\nnews that my too slender regard for principle had had a disastrous\nresult. He had met the lady on the steps of some underground station,\nand in his attempt to bow to her, had dropped his hat in the stream of\noutgoing passengers, where it had been trampled underfoot.\n\nAll this was well enough for an amateur like myself who could withdraw\nwhen it became unbearable; but it made me understand why the official\nsecretaries of propagandist societies often acquire a sort of defensive\nastuteness which is wrongly ascribed to some inborn cunning in their\ncharacter. To do reform work in an office open at certain hours, is like\nbeing exposed as a live-bait where one may be nibbled at by every\nprowling denizen of the deep, or, to speak more accurately, of the\nshallows; and it is no exaggeration to say that the secretarial work of\na cause is hindered much less by its avowed enemies than by its\nprofessed friends. Among zoophilists, especially, there are a number of\ngood people, ladies, who go about talking of their \u201cmercy-work,\u201d yet\nshow a merciless indifference to the value of other persons\u2019 time. Here,\nincidentally, I may say that one of the most considerate visitors whom I\never saw at the office of the Humanitarian League was Mr. G. K.\nChesterton, who repeatedly expressed his fears that, if he occupied much\nof my time, our friends the animals might be the sufferers. \u201cCan you\nassure me,\u201d he said, \u201cthat, if I stay a few minutes longer, no elephant\nwill be the worse for it?\u201d\n\nBy far the most deadly consumer of humanitarian energies is the\nbenevolent Bore. There was a very good and worthy old gentleman who used\nto pay me frequent visits, the reason of which I did not discover till\nmany years later; on several occasions he brought with him a written\nlist of questions to be put to me, twelve or more perhaps in number, the\nonly one of which I still remember was the not very thrilling inquiry:\n\u201cNow, Sir, do you read the _Echo_?\u201d In particular he pressed on my\nattention, as demanding most earnest study, a book called _The Alpha_,\nwritten by a friend of his, and differing, as he explained to me, from\nall other printed works in this--that whereas _they_ expressed merely\nthe opinions of their respective writers, _The Alpha_ conveyed the\nactual and absolute truth. In my liking and respect for a sincere friend\nof our cause, I not only replied as well as I could to his string of\nquestions, but even made an attempt to read _The Alpha_ itself: here,\nhowever (as with _The Works of Henry Heavisides_ mentioned in a previous\nchapter), I failed so utterly that all I could do was to agree with the\ndonor of the book that it was certainly unique. This was too ambiguous\nto satisfy him; he was disappointed in me, and from that time his visits\nwere fewer, till they altogether ceased: thus _The Alpha_ became in a\nmanner the Omega or the end of our intercourse. After his death I learnt\nthat he had left money to found a Society; and then only did I\ncomprehend why he had \u201csampled\u201d the Humanitarian League with such\nassiduous care. Without knowing it, we had been weighed in the balance\nand found wanting: we were not capable of so great and sacred a trust.\n\nSometimes the visitation came from oversea; in one case we unwittingly\nbrought it on ourselves, by sending to the Madrid papers an account of a\nscandalous scene that had taken place with the Royal Buckhounds, our\nobject being to show that British deer-hunting and Spanish bull-baiting\ncame of the same stock. We did not know with what zest the Spanish\npapers had taken to the subject, till one day there arrived in Chancery\nLane an infuriated American, who told us that his work in the Canary\nIslands had been blasted and ruined by our action. For years, he said,\nhe had preached kindness to animals, making England his exemplar, and\nnow at one fell swoop all his labours had been demolished, for the story\nof the British stag-bait had gone like wild-fire through the Spanish\npapers, and thence to the Canaries. We expressed our sincere regret to\nhim for this mishap, but tried to make him see that it was no fault of\nours if he had based his propaganda on a false principle, viz. the\nsuperiority of Anglo-Saxon ethics, instead of on the universal\nobligation of humaneness. It was useless. He consumed much time in\nexcited talk, and went away unappeased. This incident should be classed,\nI feel, not with our diversions, but with our tribulations; but having\nno chapter on the latter theme, I must let it remain where it stands.\n\nBut here some of my readers may be wondering why the office of the\nHumanitarian League should have been so open to attack: they imagine it\nperhaps as a luxurious suite of apartments, one within the other, with a\nhall-porter in the outer premises, skilled in the art of the sending the\nundesirable visitor into space. In reality, the circumstances of the\nLeague were very humble, and its housing was in accord with its income;\nsome of our friends, in fact, used to be pleased to chaff us by quoting\nthat well-known verse in Lowell\u2019s stanzas to Lloyd Garrison:\n\n    In a small chamber, friendless and unseen,\n      Toiled o\u2019er his types one poor unlearn\u2019d young man;\n    The place was dark, unfurnitured and mean;\n      Yet there the freedom of a race began.\n\nThus it was that, with an ante-room of very diminutive size, we were\nalmost at the mercy of any one who opened the outer door; for though the\nsecretary of the League, Miss Whitaker, would rush forward most\ndevotedly to bear the brunt of the charge, not a few of our assailants\nwere through the front lines, and well in our midst, before we were\naware of it. To this I owe my not inconsiderable knowledge of the\ntime-devouring Bore.\n\nAmong the ex-prisoners who visited us were occasionally some very good\nfellows, with a real wish to do something to improve the penal system,\nwhich they all described as thoroughly bad; but as a rule they lacked\nthe power of expressing what they knew, or were hampered by some\npersonal ailment. There was one, a quiet civil man, who was anxious to\ngive a lecture before the League, and assured us that, though he was\nprone to drink, he would take care that none of his lapses should\ncoincide with the date of his appearance on our platform. That was a\nrisk which we were not disposed to take; but strange to say, the very\ndisaster which we shunned in this case actually befell us, a year or two\nafterwards, at a most respectable meeting which we organized jointly\nwith another Society. On the very stroke of the clock, when the audience\nwas all seated in expectation, and the chairman was ready to ascend the\nplatform, supported by the members of our Committee, the news reached us\nthat the lecturer himself could not be present: it was _he_ in fact, who\nwas having to be \u201csupported,\u201d in another and more literal sense.\n\nEx-warders did not often favour us with a visit; but one there was who\nhad been employed in Reading Gaol at the time when Oscar Wilde was\nimprisoned there: such was his story, and I had no reason to disbelieve\nit. He told me several edifying anecdotes, among them the following: It\nused to be a great hardship to Wilde that the glazed window of his cell\nallowed him no skyward view (one recalls his allusion, in _The Ballad\nof Reading Gaol_, to \u201cthat little tent of blue, which prisoners call the\nsky\u201d); and once, when the prison chaplain was visiting him, he spoke\nsorrowfully of this grievance. But the chaplain only offered him\nspiritual comfort, and urged him to lift up his thoughts \u201cto Him who is\nabove the sky\u201d; whereat Wilde, suddenly losing his patience, exclaimed,\n\u201cGet out, you d----d fool!\u201d and pushed him to the door. For this he was\nreported to the Governor.\n\nThe League had not often the honour of finding itself in agreement with\nthe Prison Commissioners; but we did think that they were wise to\ndecline the too generous offer of a body calling itself the Poetry\nRecital Society to read poetry to prisoners. The words, \u201cI was in\nprison, and ye came unto me,\u201d would receive a new and fearful\nsignificance, if a number of versifiers and reciters were to be let\nloose on the helpless inmates of our gaols. It seemed barbarous on the\npart of these minstrels to try to secure an audience which had no choice\nin the matter, and which had not got even an open window to jump through\nif the strain should have become too acute.\n\nOf beggars and swindlers we had no lack in Chancery Lane; it suited\ntheir purpose to regard a Humanitarian League as primarily designed for\nthe relief of the impecunious; its very name, they felt, could imply\nnothing less. They were mostly young men who seemed to act in concert;\nfor they usually came, as if on circuit, at certain times of the year.\nTheir mentality was of a low order (or they thought that ours was), for\nthough they showed a certain ingenuity in collecting previous\ninformation about the parties on whom they tried to impose, they often\npresented their case so badly as to make it palpably absurd. Sometimes,\nhowever, a really clever and humorous rogue would make his appearance.\nThere was one such who began a wordy statement that if I would but\ngrant him twenty minutes, he could convince me that he was deserving of\nhalf a crown; but when I hinted that if the interview was going to cost\nme half a crown, I would rather be spared the twenty minutes, his\nsolemnity fell from him like a cloud, and with a twinkling eye he said\nthat he would be only too pleased to cut his story as short as I liked.\n\nWhen I was a master at Eton I used to subscribe to the Charity\nOrganization Society, and I was presented by that austere body with a\nnumber of tickets, one of which was to be given to every beggar who\ncalled; but the trouble was that the tramps declined to regard the\n\u201cscrap of paper\u201d seriously, and informed us, in effect, that when they\nasked for bread we were offering them a stone. It certainly did not seem\nquite a human way of treating a fellow-being; unless one could hold the\ncomfortable belief, confidently expressed to me by one of my Eton\ncolleagues, a very religious man, that every mendicant one meets has had\na good chance in life, and has deliberately thrown it away. The logic of\nthat view was to say \u201cno\u201d to everybody.\n\nI once had an opportunity of seeing the exactly opposite theory put into\npractice. When I was living in Surrey, I had a visit from Prince\nKropotkin, who was looking for a house in the district, and we spent a\nday in walking about on that quest. We met a troop of beggars whose\nappearance was decidedly professional; and I noticed that Kropotkin at\nonce responded to their appeal. Later in the day we fell in with the\nsame party, and again, when they told their tale of woe, Kropotkin put\nhis hand in his pocket. At this I ventured to ask him whether he had\nobserved that they were the same lot; to which he replied: \u201cOh, yes. I\nknow they are probably impostors and will drink the money at the public\nhouse; but _we_ are going back to our comfortable tea, and I cannot run\nthe risk of refusing help where it may possibly be needed.\u201d If in this\nmatter one sympathizes with Kropotkin rather than with the Charity\nOrganization folk, I suppose it is on Shelley\u2019s principle--that he would\n\u201crather be damned with Plato and Lord Bacon than be saved with Paley and\nMalthus.\u201d\n\nI will conclude this chapter on our diversions with a rather diverting\npassage from Mr. George Moore\u2019s _Confessions_:\n\n     \u201cSelf, and after self, a friend; the rest may go to the devil; and\n     be sure that when any man is more stupidly vain and outrageously\n     egotistic than his fellows, he will hide his hideousness in\n     humanitarianism.... Humanitarianism is a pigsty where liars,\n     hypocrites, and the obscene in spirit congregate; it has been so\n     since the great Jew conceived it, and it will be so till the end.\n     Far better the blithe modern pagan in his white tie and evening\n     clothes, and his facile philosophy. He says: \u2018I don\u2019t care how the\n     poor live; my only regret is that they live at all\u2019; and he gives\n     the beggar a shilling.\u201d\n\nMany years ago, at a meeting of the Shelley Society, I had the pleasure\nof a talk with Mr. George Moore; and I remember that when he asked me\nwhat work I was doing, and I said it was mostly humanitarian, there came\nover his expressive face a look of half-incredulous surprise and\ndisgust--the sort of look a bishop might give to one who coolly remarked\nthat he had just committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. I was rather\npuzzled at the moment; and it was not till long after, when I read Mr.\nMoore\u2019s _Confessions_, that I realized of what crimes I had convicted\nmyself in his eyes by my too careless avowal. But as for \u201cthe blithe\nmodern pagan,\u201d I suspect he would be a little less blithe if his wish\nwere fulfilled, and the poor did not live at all; for how then would he\nobtain his evening clothes and his white tie? He would have to live\nentirely, one fears, upon his \u201cfacile philosophy,\u201d as snails were once\nreputed to subsist on their own succulence.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nHOOF-MARKS OF THE VANDAL\n\n     The barbarian gives to the earth he lives on an aspect of rough\n     brutality.--ELIS\u00c9E RECLUS.\n\n\nHumanitarianism is not merely an expression of sympathy with pain: it is\na protest against all tyranny and desecration, whether such wrong be\ndone by the infliction of suffering on sentient beings, or by the\nVandalism which can ruthlessly destroy the natural grace of the earth.\nIt is in man\u2019s dealings with the mountains, where, owing to the\nuntameable wildness of the scenery, any injury is certain to be\nirreparable, that the marks of the modern Vandal are most clearly seen.\n\nIt so happens that as I have known the mountains of Carnarvonshire and\nCumberland rather intimately for many years, the process of spoliation\nwhich, as Elis\u00e9e Reclus has remarked, is a characteristic of barbarism,\nhas been there forced on my attention. It is close on half a century\nsince I was introduced to some of the wildest mountains of North Wales\nby that muscular bishop, Dr. G. A. Selwyn, of whom I have spoken in an\nearlier chapter, when, as tutor to his nephew, I was one of an episcopal\nparty that went on a summer holiday from Lichfield to Penmaenmawr. There\nthe bishop relaxed very genially from the austere dignities of his\nPalace: and having procured an Ordnance map, was not only taken with a\ndesire to find his way across the heights to Llyn-an-Afon, a tarn which\nnestles under the front of the great range of Carnedd Llewelyn, but\ninsisted on being accompanied by his nephew and his nephew\u2019s tutor.\nMountaineering, as I afterwards saw, could not have been one of Dr.\nSelwyn\u2019s many accomplishments; for we had to make more than one\nexpedition before we set eyes on the lake, and in the course of our\nfirst walk he slipped on a steep ridge and put his thumb out of joint,\nto the secret amusement, I had reason to fear, of my pupil, who, greatly\ndisliking these forced marches into the wilderness, regarded the\naccident as a nemesis on an uncle\u2019s despotism. But to me the experience\nof those bleak uplands was invaluable, for it was the beginning of a\nlove of mountains, both Cambrian and Cumbrian, which led me to return to\nthem again and again, until I had paid over a hundred visits to their\nchief summits. Thus I could not fail to note, now in the one district,\nnow in the other, how the hand of the desecrator had been busy.\n\nRecent discussions in the press on the subject of the proposed Sty Head\nmotor-road have been useful in two ways: first, they called forth so\nstrong and general an expression of opinion against that ill-advised\nproject, as to render its realization extremely unlikely for a long time\nto come; and secondly, they drew attention to the wider and deeper\nunder-lying question of the preservation of British mountain scenery\nagainst Vandalism of various kinds. The attempt on the Sty Head was in\nitself a significant object-lesson in the dangers by which our mountain\n\u201csanctuaries\u201d are beset. A hundred and fifty years ago the poet Gray\ncould write thus of the hamlet of Seathwaite, where the famous Pass has\nits entrance on the Borrowdale side:\n\n     \u201cAll further access is here barred to prying mortals, only there is\n     a little path winding over the fells, and for some weeks in the\n     year passable to the dalesmen; but the mountains know well that\n     these innocent people will not reveal the mysteries of their\n     ancient kingdom.\u201d\n\nIf the mountains held that belief, it was _they_, not the dalesmen, who\nwere the innocents, for the little path has been found passable at every\nseason of the year; and Mr. G. D. Abraham, himself a distinguished\nclimber, and a native of the district, was so willing to reveal the\nmountain mysteries as to plead in his book on _Motor Ways in Lakeland_\nfor the construction of a highroad from the very point where all farther\naccess used to be barred. \u201cThe quaint little old-world hamlet,\u201d he said,\n\u201cwill doubtless recover its glory of former days when the highway over\nSty Head Pass becomes an accomplished fact.\u201d\n\nThe love of mountains, itself a growth of modern times, has in fact\nbrought with it a peril which did not exist before; it has opened the\ngateway and pointed the path to the shrine; but where the worshipper\nenters, what if the destroyer enters too? What if the pilgrim is close\nfollowed by the prospector?\n\nSome years ago Mr. C. P. Trevelyan, M.P., introduced an \u201cAccess to\nMountains Bill,\u201d which while safeguarding the interests of land-owners,\nwould have permitted pedestrians to indulge their love of highland\nscenery by making their way to the summits of uncultivated mountain or\nmoorland. All nature-lovers must desire that such a measure may become\nlaw; and it might be hoped that landlords themselves would not persist\nin opposing it, for consideration should show them that it is impossible\npermanently to exclude the people from the hilltops of their native\nland. Even now, since it is the difficult and the forbidden which\nattract, there is a certain relish in the attempted ascent of those\nheights which in the landlord\u2019s sense (not the climber\u2019s) are still\n\u201cinaccessible\u201d--just as the cragsmen find a pleasure in striving to\nsurmount the obstacles of rock-face or gully. Who has not longed to\ncross the lofty frontier into some deer-stalking or grouse-shooting\nThibet, where, beyond the familiar lying sign-post stating that\n\u201ctrespassers will be prosecuted,\u201d all is vagueness and mystery? What\nmountain-lover has not at times sought to snatch an \u201caccess to\nmountains\u201d where access was denied?\n\nI still recall the zest of a raid, albeit unsuccessful, on one of the\nsummits of the Grampians, when our small party of climbers, starting\nfrom Aviemore, and passing the heathery shores of Loch-an-Eilan, fell in\nnear \u201cthe Argyle Stone\u201d with a number of deer-stalkers, who groaned\naloud in their fury when they heard by what route we had ascended, and\ninsisted on our going down to Kincraig. We had spoiled their day\u2019s\nsport, they told us; and we, while regretting to have done so, could not\nrefrain from saying that they had equally spoiled ours. We were\nconsoled, however, in some measure, during that inglorious descent, by\nthe sight of an osprey, or fishing-eagle, hovering over the river Spey:\ndoubtless the bird was one of a pair that for years haunted\nLoch-an-Eilan, until the cursed cupidity of egg-collectors drove them\nfrom almost their last breeding-place.\n\nOne of the most inaccessible heights in England at the present day is\nKinderscout, the \u201cPeak\u201d of Derbyshire, a triangular plateau of heathery\nmoorland, with rocky \u201cedges\u201d broken into fantastic turrets and\n\u201ccastles.\u201d Here only do the Derbyshire hills show some true mountain\ncharacteristics; and the central position of the \u201cPeak,\u201d which is about\ntwenty miles equidistant from Sheffield, Manchester, and Huddersfield,\nwould seem to mark it as a unique playground for the dwellers in our\ngreat manufacturing towns. In reality, it is a _terra incognita_ to all\nbut a very few, a place not for workers to find health in, but for\nsportsmen to shoot grouse; and there is no spot in England which is\nguarded against intruders with more jealous care. I speak advisedly, for\nI once tried, with some friends, to \u201crush\u201d the summit-ridge from the\npublic path which crosses its western shoulders, only to be overtaken\nand turned back by some skilfully posted gamekeeper.[36] The loss to the\npublic of a right of way over these moors, as over many similar places,\nis deplorable; and here, as elsewhere, the compromise that has been\narrived at has been greatly to the landlord\u2019s advantage, for while the\ngrouse-shooter excludes the public from a vast area of moorland, the\nwayfarer finds himself limited to the narrowest of roundabout routes,\nand is insulted, as at Ashop Head, by a perfect plague of notice-boards\nthreatening all the imaginary pains and penalties of the law for any\ndivergence on to the hillside. Certainly an Access to Mountains Bill is\nurgently required.\n\nBut there is one thing which is even worse than too little access to\nmountains, and that is the concession of too much. It were heartily to\nbe wished that such districts as those of the Lakes, Snowdonia, and\nothers which might be named, had long ago been made inaccessible, in\nthis sense, to the railway-lord, the company-promoter, and all the other\nVandals who for commercial purposes would destroy the sanctitude of the\nhills. We have, in fact, to consider what _sort_ of access we propose,\nfor just as there is all the difference in the world between the\nadmission of the public to see a grand piece of statuary, and the\nadmission of the man who has a design to chip the statue\u2019s nose, so we\nhave to distinguish between those who come to the mountains to speculate\non the beauties of Nature and those who come there to speculate in a\nbaser sense. Access to mountains is in itself most desirable, but what\nif we end by having no mountains to approach? In this respect the Bill\nmight be strengthened, by making it withhold from the Vandal the access\nwhich it would bestow on the mountaineer.\n\nAlready much that was of inestimable value has been lost. The Lake\nDistrict has in this respect been more fortunate than some other\nlocalities, because, owing to the powerful sentiment aroused by the Lake\npoets, there is a considerable public opinion opposed to any act of\ndesecration. For this we have to thank, in the first place, the great\nname of Wordsworth, and, next, the faithful band of defenders which has\nstood between the enterprising contractor and his prey, as in the case\nof the once threatened railway to Ambleside and Grasmere. But even in\nLakeland no little damage has been done, as by the mining which has\nruined the scenery of Coniston, and by the permission granted to\nManchester to turn the once sylvan and secluded Thirlmere into a\nsuburban tank--Thirlmere first, and now the ruin of Haweswater is to\nfollow.\n\nMention has been made in an earlier part of this book of a visit which I\npaid to Coniston in the winter of 1878-79. It so happened that a spell\nof severe frost and cloudless skies had then turned the Lakeland\nmountains into a strange realm of enchantment, the rocks being\nfantastically coated with fronds and feathers of snow, and the streams\nand waterfalls frozen into glittering masses of ice. I was the only\nvisitor in the place (it was before Mr. Harrison Riley\u2019s arrival), and\nfor several days I had been scrambling over the range of the Old Man\nmountain without meeting a human being, when one afternoon, on the shore\nof Levers Water, a solitary figure came suddenly round a buttress of the\nhill and stalked silently past me as if wrapped in thought. I knew at\nonce that it was Ruskin, for what other inhabitant of Coniston would be\non the fells at such a season?\n\nA few days later, when I went to Brantwood with Harrison Riley, as I\nhave described, Ruskin talked a good deal of his favourite mountain\nhaunts, as he showed us his wild strawberry beds, and terraces on the\nhillside made like Swiss roads; also a small beck running through his\ngrounds to the lake, which he said was never dry, and was as precious to\nhim as a stream of pure gold. The Lake scenery, he said, almost\ncompensated him for the loss of Switzerland, which he could not hope to\nsee again; his feeling for it was one less of affection than of\n\u201cveneration.\u201d But the sunsets had been a disappointment to him, for the\nsky above the Old Man was often sullen and overclouded, and this he\nattributed to the poisonous influence of the copper mines.\n\nAt present the chief danger to the quietude and beauty of the Lake\ndistrict seems to be the motor-craze, especially that form of it which\nhas been called \u201cthe fascinating sport of hill-hunting,\u201d a game which\nhas turned the Kirkstone Pass into a place of terror, where noisy\nmachines pant and snort up one side and scorch furiously down the other,\nand which is now craving new heights to conquer. If not on the Sty Head,\nwhy not make a motor-way of the old track from Langdale to Eskdale over\nthe passes of Wrynose and Hardknott? Such was the \u201ccompromise\u201d which\nsome mountain-lovers unwisely suggested, forgetting, first, that even\nthis surrender, though less deadly than that of the Sty Head, would\ninvolve the destruction of a wild and primitive tract, and secondly\nthat, as there is no finality in such dealings, it would only whet the\nmotorists\u2019 appetite for more. It is generally overlooked, too, though\nthe point is a very important one, that the invaders have already got\nmuch more than their due share of the district; for the making of many\nof the roads now in existence would have been strongly opposed years\nago, if it had been possible to foresee the riotous use to which they\nwould be put.\n\nBut it is when we turn to the mountains of Snowdonia that we see what\ninexcusable injury has been done by the rapacity of private enterprise,\nconnived at by the indifference of the public. It is a somewhat strange\nfact that, while there is an English branch of the League for the\nPreservation of Swiss Scenery, no organized attempt is made to preserve\nour own mountain scenery, not from desecration merely, but from\ndestruction.[37]\n\nTake, for example, the case of the River Glaslyn, which flows from the\nheart of Snowdon through Cwm Dyli and Nant Gwynant, till it finds its\nway by the Pass of Aberglaslyn to the sea. Visitors are often invited to\nadmire the \u201cpower works,\u201d erected some years ago at the head of Nant\nGwynant, and other signs of enterprise; but from the nature-lover\u2019s\npoint of view there is a different tale to tell. The once shapely peak\nof Snowdon has been blunted into a formless cone by the Summit Hotel,\nwhich has since added to its premises a battlemented wall built of red\nbrick; both Glaslyn and Llyn Llydaw, two tarns of flawless natural\nbeauty, have long been befouled with copper mines; and more recently the\nglorious waterfall, through which the stream dashed headlong from Cwm\nDyli to Nant Gwynant, has been replaced by a line of hideous metal\npipes, by which the whole hillside is scarred. As for the far-famed Pass\nof Aberglaslyn, defaced as it is by railway works and tunnellings,\nremorselessly begun and then temporarily abandoned, its state can only\nbe described as one of stagnant devastation.\n\nYet all this mountain scenery, which has been foolishly sacrificed for\nprivate purposes, might have been a public possession of inestimable\nvalue had it been tended as it deserved; and much yet remains in\nSnowdonia that might be saved for the enjoyment and refreshment of\nfuture generations, if the apathy of public feeling, and of the Welsh\npeople, could be dispelled. But it is useless to look for local\nresistance to this vandalism, for one is always met by the assertion,\ntrue but irrelevant, that such enterprises \u201cgive work\u201d; which, indeed,\nwould equally justify the pulling down of Westminster Abbey to \u201cgive\nwork\u201d to the unemployed of London. Nothing but an enlightened public\nopinion, unmistakably expressed, can now avert the destruction (for such\nit is) of the noblest of Welsh, perhaps of all British mountains.\n\nIt is strange that the incongruity--the lack of humour--in these\noutrages on the sanctitude of a great mountain does not make itself\nfelt. What could be more ridiculous, apart from the gross vandalism of\nthe act, than to put a railway-station on Snowdon? A friend who knows\nthe Welsh mountains intimately told me that on his first visit to the\npeak, after the building of the Summit Hotel, he remarked to a\ncompanion: \u201cWe shall be expected to have a green chartreuse after lunch\nhere.\u201d A waiter, overhearing him, said: \u201cWe ain\u2019t got no green\nchartreuse, sir; but we have cherry brandy and cura\u00e7oa, if you like.\u201d\n\nIn a little book entitled _On Cambrian and Cumbrian Hills_, published in\n1908, I commented strongly on these outrages, and the justice of my\ncriticisms with regard to the ruin of Welsh mountain scenery was not\nseriously disputed in the local press, though one editor did accuse me\nof being guilty of \u201ca wicked libel upon the people of Wales,\u201d and\nexpressed himself as having been caused \u201creal pain\u201d by my remarks. When,\nhowever, I asked him to consider what real pain the disfigurement of\nSnowdon had caused to mountain-lovers, and suggested that, instead of\ntaking me to task, he should try to arouse his readers to put an end to\nthe vandalism which, for the sake of a temporary profit, is ruining some\nof the finest portions of Carnarvonshire, he made a reply which was, in\nfact, a most signal corroboration of my complaint; for he stated that I\nhad evidently \u201cno conception of the difficulties which residents in\nNorth Wales have to encounter when they oppose any commercial\nenterprise, backed up by English speculators, which threatens to spoil\nour beauty-spots.\u201d[38] There we have the fatal truth in a sentence! What\nis spoiling Snowdonia is the commercial cupidity of the Welsh\nthemselves, utilized by English capitalists. The editor na\u00efvely added\nthat, were I myself living in North Wales, I should be \u201cmore\nsympathetic.\u201d More sympathetic, that is, with the Welsh residents, who\nknow that their country is being spoiled, but dare not say so; less\nsympathetic with the mountain-lovers who deplore this crime!\n\nIn the excuses put forward for the invasion of the mountains with\nfunicular railways, motor high-roads, and the like, there is a comic\nelement which would be vastly entertaining if the very existence of\nmountain scenery were not at stake. Thus I have been met with the\nargument that a mountain railway, such as that on Snowdon, \u201ctakes into a\npurer atmosphere and into an ennobling environment those who have no\nother way of learning the lesson that grand mountains can teach,\u201d to\nwit, \u201cthe enfeebled toilers of the towns.\u201d I was reminded, as one\nconvicted of \u201ca little selfishness,\u201d that \u201cthe weak and the feeble have\nto be considered, as well as the athletic and the hardy.\u201d But, in the\nfirst place, those who travel by so expensive a route as this mountain\nrailway are rarely the toilers of the towns, nor, so far as I have\nobserved them, are they \u201cthe weak and the feeble.\u201d They seem to be\nmostly able-bodied well-to-do tourists, who are too lazy to use their\nlegs. I once overheard a passenger in a train, describing a recent Swiss\ntrip, make the remark: \u201cOh, no, I didn\u2019t _walk_ a step. Funicular\nrailways up nearly all the mountains--Pilatus, Rigi, and the rest. I\nwouldn\u2019t give a fig to _walk_.\u201d\n\nIt is amusing, too, to find \u201cimperial\u201d reasons advanced in defence of\nthe Snowdon railroad, in what is called the \u201cOfficial Guide,\u201d a pamphlet\npublished by the London and North-Western Railway at Llanberis England,\nwe are proudly told, \u201cdoes not usually care to be behind other countries\nin matters of progress, but, with regard to the application of\nmechanical means for reaching the peaks of mountains, until now it has\ncertainly been so.\u201d The inference is obvious. Patriotic climbers should\nascend Snowdon by train.\n\nThen there is the clever appeal to the sense of peril and romance. We\nare informed in the same disinterested treatise that the owner of\nSnowdon (yes, reader, Snowdon is _owned_!), \u201chaving regard to the\nexigencies of the modern tourist, the increasing eagerness of people to\n\u2018do\u2019 Snowdon, and the dangers which beset the ordinary ways available\nfor that purpose, felt that the solitude and sanctity of Snowdon ought,\nto a certain extent, to give way before the progressive advance of the\nage.\u201d And again: \u201cHitherto none but the most daring or the most sanguine\nwould venture to ascend during a storm.... None the less, however,\nSnowdon during a storm presents a scene of impressive grandeur, and the\nnew railway will make it possible to see it under this aspect without\nrisk.\u201d Henceforth poets will know how to view the grandeur of the\ngathering storm. \u201cI climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn,\u201d sang\nScott. The modern singer will take a ticket on the Snowdon Mountain\nTramroad.\n\nThe true objection to mountain railways is not that they bring more\npeople to the mountain, but that they spoil the very thing that the\npeople come to see, viz. the mountain itself. The environment, in fact,\nis no longer \u201cennobling\u201d when a mountain-top is vulgarized, as Snowdon\nhas been, by a railway and hotel; it is then not a mountain scene at\nall. There are numberless points of view in North Wales, and in every\nhighland district, to which the weak and feeble can be easily conveyed,\nand from which they can see the mountains at their best; but to\nconstruct a railway to the chief summit is \u201cto kill the goose that laid\nthe golden eggs,\u201d because, when that is done, there is no mountain (in\nthe true sense) any longer for the enjoyment of either feeble or strong.\n\nAnd surely the feeble can seek their enjoyment in fitter ways than in\nbeing hauled up mountains by steam. I have heard of a blind man who\nwalked, with a friend to guide him, to the top of Goatfell, in the Isle\nof Arran, because he wished to feel the mountain air and to hear the\nthunder of the sea waves far away below. Was not that better than\nspoiling Goatfell with a rail? Not, of course, that such railways are\nreally made for the benefit of the feeble-bodied; they are built for\ncommercial purposes, to put money into private pockets at the expense of\nscenery which should belong to the community as a whole.\n\nBut it is not only the nature-lover and the rock-climber who are\ninterested in the preservation of mountains; the naturalist also, and\nthe botanist, are very deeply concerned, for the extermination of the\nrarer fauna and flora is practically assured unless the onroad of this\nvandalism is checked. The golden eagle, the kite, and the osprey are\ngone. Do we desire such birds as the raven, the chough, the buzzard, and\nthe peregrine falcon to survive in their few remaining strongholds? If\nso, we must take measures to stop the depredations not only of the\negg-collecting tourist, but of the death-dealing gamekeeper.\n\nThe flight of the buzzard is one of the greatest glories of the hills of\nCumberland and Carnarvonshire, and it is deeply to be regretted that so\nbeautiful and harmless a bird should be wantonly destroyed. The\nworst--or should we say the best?--that can be said of the buzzard is\nthat in very rare instances he has been known to \u201cstoop\u201d at persons who\napproach his eyrie. In a letter which appeared in the _Lakes Chronicle_\nsome years ago a tourist absurdly complained that he had been attacked\non a mountain near Windermere by a \u201chuge bird \u201c--evidently a\nbuzzard--and urged that \u201cit would be to the advantage of the public if\nsome good shot were to free the mountain of this foul-fiend usurper.\u201d\nThe buzzard defending his nest is a \u201cfoul-fiend usurper\u201d! Such is the\namount of sympathy which the average tourist has with the wild mountain\nbird! And as for the ornithological knowledge, this may be judged from\nthe fact that a similar incident on the same mountain was actually\ndescribed in the papers under the head, \u201c_Bustard_ attacks a clergyman.\u201d\n\nOf the wild upland flora there is the same tale to tell. The craze for\ncollecting, and what is worse, uprooting, the rarer Alpine plants has\nalmost brought about the extinction of several species, such as the\n_saxifraga nivalis_, which used to be fairly frequent on Snowdon,\nHelvellyn, and other British hills; and this in spite of the many\nappeals that have been made to the better feeling of tourists. Public\nspirit in these matters seems to be wellnigh dead.\n\nWhat, then, is being done, in the face of these destructive agencies, to\npreserve our wild mountain districts, and the wild life that is native\nto them, from the ruin with which they are threatened? As far as I am\naware, apart from occasional protests in newspapers, this only--that\nappeals are made to the public from time to time by the National Trust\nand kindred societies to save, by private purchase, certain \u201cbeauty\nspots\u201d from spoliation. These appeals cannot but meet with the entire\napproval of nature-lovers, and the rescuing of such estates as Catbells,\nGowbarrow, Grange Fell, and others that might be mentioned, represents a\nreal measure of success. Still the question has to be faced--what is to\nbe done in the future if, as is certain to happen, the menace to our\nmountains is maintained? It is too much to hope that large sums can\nalways be raised by private subscription; also, while one favoured place\nis being safeguarded, others, less fortunate, are being destroyed. We\ncannot save our mountains generally by these piecemeal purchases; for\neven if the money were always procurable, the rate of destruction\nexceeds that of purchase, and the power of the many syndicates that\nwould exploit the mountains must necessarily be greater than that of the\nfew Societies that would preserve them. In a word, private action is\nquite inadequate, in the long run, to repel so extensive an attack.\n\nWhat is needed is public action on a scale commensurate with the evil,\nin the direction of the \u201creservation\u201d of certain districts as\nsanctuaries for all wild life. We need, in fact, highland parks, in\nwhich the hills themselves, with the wild animals and plants whose life\nis of the hills, shall be preserved in their wildness as the property of\nthe people; an arrangement which would be equally gratifying to the\nnature-lover, the naturalist, and the mountaineer, and of vastly more\n\u201cprofit\u201d to the nation as a whole than the disfigurement of its\nbeautiful places.\n\nWithout at all suggesting that the National Trust should relax its\nefforts for the rescue by purchase of particular tracts, I think that it\nwould be doing a still greater service if it could see its way to\norganizing a movement for pressing on the Government the urgent need of\ntaking some active steps to counteract the injury which is being done by\ncommercial interests to the true interests of the people. Otherwise the\nresult will be that while a few spots are saved, whole districts will be\nlost, and eventually all that the nation will possess will be some oases\nof beauty in a desert of ugliness.\n\nAs I have elsewhere pointed out,[39] there is only one thorough solution\nof the problem, and that is, to nationalize such districts as Snowdonia,\nLakeland, the Peak of Derbyshire, and other public holiday-haunts, and\nso to preserve them for the use and enjoyment of the people for all\ntime. \u201cIf parks, open spaces, railways, tramways, water, and other\npublic needs can be nationalized, why not mountains? It is impossible to\nover-estimate the value of mountains as a recreation-ground for soul and\nbody; yet, while we are awaking to the need of maintaining public rights\nin other directions, we are allowing our mountains--in North Wales and\nelsewhere--to be sacrificed to commercial selfishness. If Snowdon, for\ninstance, had been purchased by the public twenty years ago, the\ninvestment would have been a great deal more profitable than those in\nwhich we usually engage; but while we are willing to spend vast sums on\ngrabbing other people\u2019s territory, we have not, of course, a penny to\nspare for the preservation of our own.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nTHE FORLORN HOPE\n\n    At least we witness of thee, ere we die,\n    That these things are not otherwise, but thus.\n                 SWINBURNE.\n\n\nTwenty-four years\u2019 work with the Humanitarian League had left many\nproblems unsolved, many practical matters undecided; but on one point\nsome of us were now in no sort of uncertainty--that a race which still\nclung tenaciously to the practices at which I have glanced in the\nforegoing chapters was essentially barbaric, not in its diet only,\nthough the butchery of animals for food had first arrested our\nattention, but also, and not less glaringly, in its penal system, its\nsports, its fashions, and its general way of regarding that great body\nof our fellow-beings whom we call \u201cthe animals.\u201d It did not need Mr.\nHoward Moore\u2019s very suggestive book, _Savage Survivals_,[40] to convince\nus of this; but we found in the conclusions reached by him an ample\ncorroboration of those we had long had in mind, and which alone could\nexplain the stubborn adherence of educated as well as uneducated classes\nto a number of primitive and quite uncivilized habits. \u201cIt is not\npossible,\u201d he says, \u201cto understand the things higher men do, nor to\naccount for the things that you find in their natures, unless you\nrecognize the fact that higher men are merely savages made over and only\npartially changed.\u201d\n\nProfessor F. W. Newman\u2019s warning, that the time was not ripe for a\nHumanitarian League, had to this extent been verified: if we had thought\nthat we were going to effect any great visible changes, we should have\nbeen justly disappointed. But those who work with no expectation of\nseeing results cannot be disappointed; they are beyond the scope of\nfailure, and may even meet, as we did, with some small and unforeseen\nsuccess. The League was thus, in the true sense of the term, a Forlorn\nHope; that is, a troop of venturesome pioneers, who were quite\nuntrammelled by \u201cprospects,\u201d and whose whim it was to open out a path by\nwhich others might eventually follow.\n\nPerhaps the success of the League lay less in what it did than in what\nit _demanded_--less, that is, in the defeat of a flogging Bill, or in\nthe abolition of a cruel sport, than in the fearless, logical, and\nunwavering assertion of a clear principle of humaneness, which applies\nto the case of human and non-human alike. After all, it does not so\ngreatly matter whether this or that particular form of cruelty is\nprohibited; what matters is that _all_ forms of cruelty should be shown\nto be incompatible with progress. Here, I venture to think, the\nintellectual and controversial side of the League\u2019s work was of some\nvalue; for before a new system could be built up, the ground had to be\ncleared, and the main obstacle to humanitarianism had long been the very\nwidespread contempt for what is known as \u201csentiment,\u201d and the idea that\nhumanitarians were a poor weakly folk who might be ridiculed with\nimpunity. The Humanitarian League changed all that; and a good many\npompous persons, who had come into collision with its principles,\nemerged with modified views and a considerably enlarged experience.\n\nI have already spoken of some of the protagonists of the League: at this\npoint it may be fitting to recount, in epic fashion, the names and\nservices of a few of the influential allies who from time to time lent\nus their aid.\n\nMr. Herbert Spencer\u2019s philosophical writings were fully imbued with the\nhumane spirit. An opponent of militarism, of vindictive penal laws, of\ncorporal punishment for the young, of cruel sports, and indeed of every\nform of brutality, he had done as much as any man of his generation to\nhumanize public opinion. He willingly signed the Humanitarian League\u2019s\nmemorials against the Royal Buckhounds and the Eton Beagles.\n\nDr. Alfred R. Wallace was also in full accord with us, and he was\nespecially interested in our protest against the Game Laws, \u201cthose\nabominable engines of oppression and selfishness,\u201d as he described them\nin one of several letters which I received from him. He was anxious that\nsome Member of Parliament should be found who would move an annual\nresolution for the abolition of these laws, and he considered that such\na motion \u201cwould serve as a very good test of Liberalism and Radicalism.\u201d\nIn reference to flogging under the old Vagrancy Act, he wrote: \u201cThere\nare scores or hundreds of these old laws which are a disgrace to\ncivilization. Many years ago I advocated enacting a law for the\nautomatic termination of _all_ laws after, say, fifty years, on the\nground that one generation cannot properly legislate for a later one\nunder totally different conditions.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Truth about the Game Laws,\u201d a pamphlet of which Dr. Wallace\nexpressed much approval, was written by Mr. J. Connell, author of \u201cThe\nRed Flag,\u201d whose democratic instincts had led him to acquire first-hand\nknowledge of the nocturnal habits of game-keepers, and was prefaced with\nsome spirited remarks by Mr. Robert Buchanan, who, as having been for\nmany years a devotee of sport, here occupied, as he himself expressed\nit, \u201cthe position of the converted clown who denounces topsy-turvydom.\u201d\nBuchanan\u2019s humane sympathies were shown in many of his poems, as in his\n\u201cSong of the Fur Seal,\u201d inspired by one of the League\u2019s pamphlets; he\nwrote also a powerful article on \u201cThe Law of Infanticide,\u201d in reference\nto one of those cruel cases in which the death-sentence is passed on\nsome poor distracted girl, and which clearly demonstrate, as Buchanan\npointed out, that \u201cwe are still a savage and uncivilized people, able\nand willing to mow down with artillery such subject races as are not of\nour way of thinking, but utterly blind and indifferent to the sorrows of\nthe weak and the sufferings of the martyred poor.\u201d\n\nGeorge Meredith, for the last ten or twelve years of his life, was a\nfriend and supporter of the League. \u201cOn a point or two of your\nadvocacy,\u201d he wrote to me, \u201cI am not in accord with you, but fully upon\nmost.\u201d He declared the steel trap to be \u201camong the most villainous\noffences against humanity\u201d; and he more than once signed the League\u2019s\nmemorials against such spurious sports as rabbit-coursing and\nstag-hunting. When the Royal Buckhounds were abolished in 1891, he wrote\nto us: \u201cYour efforts have gained their reward, and it will encourage you\nto pursue them in all fields where the good cause of sport, or any good\ncause, has to be cleansed of blood and cruelty. So you make steps in our\ncivilization.\u201d\n\nMr. Thomas Hardy more than once lent his name to the League\u2019s petitions,\nand recognized that in its handling of the problem of animals\u2019 rights it\nwas grappling with the question \u201cof equal justice all round.\u201d In an\nextremely interesting letter, read at the annual meeting in 1910, he\nexpressed his opinion that \u201cfew people seem to perceive fully, as yet,\nthat the most far-reaching consequence of the establishment of the\ncommon origin of all species is ethical; that it logically involved a\nreadjustment of altruistic morals, by enlarging, as a necessity of\nrightness, the application of what has been called the Golden Rule from\nthe area of mere mankind to that of the whole animal kingdom.\u201d This\nwas, of course, the main contention of the Humanitarian League.\n\nIn 1896 the League addressed an appeal to a number of leading artists,\nasking them to make it plain that their sympathies were on the\nhumanitarian side, and that they would at least not be abettors of that\nspirit of cruelty which is the ally and companion of ugliness. Very few\nreplies were received, but among them was one from Mr. G. F. Watts, who,\nin becoming a member, wrote us a letter on the cruelty of docking\nhorses\u2019 tails (\u201cbarbarous in those who practise it, infinitely degrading\nin those who encourage it from so mean a motive as fashion--only not\ncontemptible because so much worse\u201d), which was very widely published in\nthe press, and did great service in bringing an odious fashion into\ndisrepute. Mr. Walter Crane was another artist who gave support on many\noccasions to humanitarian principles; so, too, was Mr. Martin Anderson\n(\u201cCynicus\u201d), who employed on the League\u2019s behalf his great powers as a\nsatirist in a cartoon which castigated the tame deer hunt.\n\nCount Tolstoy, it goes without saying, was in full sympathy with us; and\nso was that many-sided man of genius, M. Elis\u00e9e Reclus. Famed as\ngeographer, philosopher, and revolutionist, one is tempted to sum him up\nin the word \u201cpoet\u201d; for though he did not write in verse, he was a great\nmaster of language, unsurpassed in lucidity of thought and serene beauty\nof style. He was a vegetarian, and the grounds of his faith are set\nforth in a luminous essay on that subject which he wrote for the\nHumanitarian League. Very beautiful, too, is his article on \u201cThe Great\nKinship,\u201d worthily translated by Edward Carpenter, in which he portrayed\nthe primeval friendly relations of mankind with the lower races, and\nglanced at the still more wonderful possibilities of the future. His\nanarchist views prevented him from formally joining an association\nwhich aimed at legislative action; but his help was always freely given.\n\u201cI send you my small subscription,\u201d he wrote, \u201cwithout any engagement\nfor the future, not knowing beforehand if next year I will be penniless\nor not.\u201d I only once saw Elis\u00e9e Reclus; it was on the occasion of an\nanarchist meeting in which he took part, and he then impressed me as\nbeing the Grand Old Man without rival or peer; never elsewhere have I\nseen such magnificent energy and enthusiasm combined with such lofty\nintellectual gifts.\n\nErnest Crosby, another philosophic anarchist, was perhaps as little\nknown, in proportion to his great merits, as any writer of our time.\nElected as a Republican to the Assembly of New York State, he had been\nappointed in 1889 to be a Judge of the International Court in Egypt; but\nafter serving there five years, his whole life was suddenly changed,\nowing largely to a book of Tolstoy\u2019s which fell into his hands: he\nresigned his post, and thenceforward passed judgment on no man but\nhimself. A poet and thinker of high order, he stood up with unfailing\ncourage against the brute force of \u201cimperialism\u201d in its every form--the\nexploitation of one race by another race, of one class by another class,\nof the lower animals by mankind. It is strange that his writings,\nespecially the volume entitled _Swords and Plowshares_, should be almost\nunknown to English democrats, for they include many poems which touch a\nvery high standard of artistic excellence, and a few that are gems of\nverse. \u201cThe Tyrant\u2019s Song,\u201d for instance, expresses in a few lines the\nstrength of the Non-Resistant, and of the conscientious objector to\nmilitary service (\u201cthe man with folded arms\u201d); yet during all the long\ncontroversy on that subject I never once saw it quoted or mentioned. A\nsuperficial likeness between Crosby\u2019s unrhymed poetry and that of Edward\nCarpenter led in one case to an odd error on the part of an American\nfriend to whom I had vainly commended Carpenter\u2019s writings; for in his\njoy over _Swords and Plowshares_ he rashly jumped to the conclusion that\n\u201cErnest Crosby\u201d was a _nom de plume_ for the other E.C. \u201cI owe you a\nconfession,\u201d he wrote. \u201cHitherto I have not been able to find in\nCarpenter anything that substantiated your admiration for him; but _now_\na flood of light is illuminating his _Towards Democracy_.\u201d I\ncommunicated this discovery to the poets concerned, and they were both\ncharmed by it.\n\nCrosby was a tall handsome man, of almost military appearance, and this,\ntoo, was a cause of misapprehension; for an English friend whom he\nvisited, and who knew him only through his writings, spent a long\nafternoon with him without even discovering that he was the Crosby whose\npoems he admired.\n\nClarence Darrow, brother-in-law of Howard Moore and friend of Crosby,\nwas another of our American comrades. He arrived one afternoon\nunexpectedly at the League\u2019s office, with a letter of introduction from\nCrosby. It is often difficult to know what to do with such letters in\nthe presence of their bearer--whether to keep him waiting till the\nmessage has been deciphered, or to greet him without knowing fully who\nhe is--but on this occasion a glance at Crosby\u2019s first three words was\nenough, for I saw: \u201cThis is Darrow,\u201d and I knew that Darrow was the\nauthor of \u201cCrime and Criminals,\u201d an entirely delightful lecture,\nbrimming over with humour and humanity, which had been delivered to the\nprisoners of the Chicago County Gaol; and I had heard of him from Crosby\nas a brilliant and successful advocate, who had devoted his genius not\nto the quest of riches or fame, but to the cause of the poor and the\naccused. It _was_ Darrow; and as I looked into a face in which strength\nand tenderness were wonderfully mingled, the formalities of first\nacquaintance seemed to be mercifully dispensed with, and I felt as if I\nhad known him for years. Since that time Darrow has become widely known\nin America by his pleadings in the Haywood and other Labour trials, and\nmore recently through the McNamara case. He is the author of several\nvery remarkable works. His _Farmington_ is a fascinating book of\nreminiscences, and _An Eye for an Eye_ the most impressive story ever\nwritten on the subject of the death-penalty.\n\nLet me now pass to a very different champion of our cause. In connection\nwith the _Humanitarian_, the _Humane Review_, and the League\u2019s\npublications in general, I received a number of letters from \u201cOuida,\u201d\nwritten mostly on that colossal notepaper which her handwriting\nrequired, some of them so big that the easiest way to read them was to\npin them on the wall and then stand back as from a picture. Her large\nvehement nature showed itself not only in the passionate wording of\nthese protests against cruelties of various kinds, but in her queer\nerrors in detail, and in the splendid carelessness with which the\nenvelopes were often addressed. One much-travelled wrapper, directed\nwrongly, and criss-crossed with postmarks and annotations, I preserved\nas a specimen of the tremendous tests to which the acumen of the Post\nOffice was subjected by her.\n\nOuida was often described as \u201cfanatical;\u201d but though her views were\ncertainly announced in rather unmeasured terms, I found her reasonable\nwhen any error or exaggeration was pointed out. Her sincerity was beyond\nquestion; again and again she lent us the aid of her pen, and as the\npress was eager to accept her letters, she was a valuable ally, though\nthrough all that she wrote there ran that pessimistic tone which marked\nher whole attitude to modern life. Whatever her place in literature, she\nwas a friend of the oppressed and a hater of oppression, and her name\ndeserves to be gratefully remembered for the burning words which she\nspoke on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves.\n\nIt was always a cause of pride to the Humanitarian League that its\nprinciples were broad enough to win the support of thoughtful and\nfeeling men, without regard to differences of character or of opinion\nupon other subjects. A striking instance of this catholicity was seen on\nan occasion when the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes was lecturing before the\nLeague on the attitude of Nonconformists towards Humanitarianism, and\nMr. G. W. Foote, editor of the _Freethinker_, and President of the\nNational Secular Society, was present in the audience; for Mr. Price\nHughes and Mr. Foote had been engaged in a very bitter personal\ncontroversy concerning the alleged conversion of a certain \u201catheist\nshoemaker.\u201d When Mr. Foote rose to take part in the discussion, I\nnoticed a sudden look of concern on the face of the lecturer, as he\nwhispered to me: \u201cIs that Mr. Foote?\u201d expecting doubtless a\nrecrudescence of hostilities; but on the neutral, or rather the\nuniversal ground of humanitarianism, hostilities could not be; and\nquestions bearing on the subject of the lecture were courteously asked\nand answered by antagonists who, however sharply at variance on other\nquestions, were in their humanity at one.\n\nLooking back over a large period of the League\u2019s work, I can think of no\none who gave us more constant proofs of friendship than Mr. Foote; and\nhis testimony was the more welcome because of the very high and rare\nintellectual powers which he wielded. Few men of his time combined in\nequal degree such gifts of brain and heart. I have heard no public\nspeaker who had the faculty of going so straight to the core of a\nsubject--of recapturing and restoring, as it were, to the attention of\nan audience that jewel called \u201cthe point,\u201d on which all are supposed to\nbe intent, but which seems so fatally liable to be mislaid. It was\nalways an intellectual treat to hear him speak; and though, owing to\nreligious prejudices, his public reputation as thinker and writer was\nabsurdly below his deserts he had the regard of George Meredith and\nothers who were qualified to judge, and the enthusiastic support of his\nfollowers. All social reformers, whether they acknowledge it or not, owe\na debt of gratitude to iconoclasts like Bradlaugh and Foote, who made\nfree speech possible where it was hardly possible before.\n\nMr. Passmore Edwards, renowned as a philanthropist, was another of our\nsupporters; indeed, he once proposed indirectly, through a friend, that\nhe should be elected President of the League; but this suggestion we did\nnot entertain, because, though we valued his appreciation, we were\nanxious to keep clear of all ceremonious titles and \u201cfigure-heads\u201d that\nmight possibly compromise our freedom of action. Perhaps, too, we were a\nlittle piqued by an artless remark which Mr. Edwards had made to the\nRev. J. Stratton, who was personally intimate with him: \u201cIt is for the\nLeague to do the small things, Mr. Stratton. Leave the great things to\nme.\u201d None the less, Mr. Edwards remained on most friendly terms with the\nLeague; and when the Warden of the Passmore Edwards Settlement curtly\nrequested us not to send him any more of our \u201ccirculars,\u201d Mr. Edwards\nexpressed his surprise and regret, and added these words: \u201cIf the\nPassmore Edwards Settlement does as much good [as the Humanitarian\nLeague] in proportion to the means at its disposal, I shall be\nabundantly satisfied.\u201d\n\nTwo other friends I must not leave unmentioned. Mr. W. J. Stillman\u2019s\ndelightful story of his pet squirrels, _Billy and Hans_, was the most\nnotable of the many charming things written by him in praise of that\nhumaneness which, to him, was identical with religion. A copy of the\nbook which he gave me, and which I count among my treasures, bears marks\nof having been nibbled on the cover. \u201cThe signature of my Squirrels,\u201d\nMr. Stillman had written there. I value no autograph more than that of\nBilly or Hans.\n\nMr. R. W. Trine used often to visit the League when he was in London.\nHe had an extraordinary aptitude for re-stating unpopular truths in a\nform palatable to the public; and his _Every Living Creature_, which was\npractically a Humanitarian League treatise in a new garb, has had a wide\ncirculation. Mr. Trine, many years ago, asked me to recommend him to a\nLondon publisher with a view to an English edition of his _In Tune with\nthe Infinite_; and I have it as a joke against my friend Mr. Ernest Bell\nthat when I mentioned the proposal to him he at first looked grave and\ndoubtful. Eventually he arranged matters with Mr. Trine, and I do not\nthink his firm has had reason to regret it, for the book has sold by\nhundreds of thousands.\n\nEnough has been said to show that the humanitarian movement was not in\nwant of able counsellors and allies; and there were not a few others of\nwhom further mention would have to be made if this book were a history\nof the League. The support of such friends as Mr. Edward Carpenter, Mr.\nBernard Shaw, Mrs. Besant, Mr. W. H. Hudson, and Mr. Herbert Burrows,\nwas taken for granted. Sir Sydney Olivier, distinguished alike as\nthinker and administrator, was at one time a member of the Committee; a\nsimilar position was held for many years by Captain Alfred Carpenter,\nR.N. Even Old Etonians were not unknown in our ranks. Mr. Goldwin Smith\npaid tribute to the justice of our protests against both vivisection and\nthe Eton hare-hunt, as may be seen in two letters which he wrote to me,\nnow included in his published Correspondence. In Sir George Greenwood\nour Committee had for years a champion both in Parliament and in the\npress, whose wide scholarship, armed with a keen and rapier-like humour,\nmade many a dogmatical opponent regret his entry into the fray. Readers\nof that subtly reasoned book, _The Faith of an Agnostic_, will not need\nto be told that its author\u2019s philosophy is no mere negative creed, but\none that on the ethical side finds expression in very real humanitarian\nfeeling.\n\nBelonging to the younger generation, Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Deuchar were\namong the most valuable of the League\u2019s \u201cdiscoveries\u201d: rarely, I\nsuppose, has a reform society had the aid of a more talented pair of\nwriters. Mr. Deuchar has a genuine gift of verse which, if cultivated,\nshould win him a high place among present-day poets: if anything finer\nand more discriminating has been written about Shelley than his sonnet,\nfirst printed in the _Humane Review_, I do not know it; and in his small\nvolume of poems, _The Fool Next Door_, published under a disguised name,\nthere are other things not less good. Mrs. Deuchar, as Miss M. Little,\nearned distinction as a novelist of great power and insight: she, too,\nwas a frequent contributor to the _Humane Review_ and the\n_Humanitarian_.\n\nThe _Humane Review_, which has been mentioned more than once in the\nforegoing pages, was a quarterly magazine, published by Mr. Ernest Bell,\nand edited by myself, during the first decade of the century. It was\nindependent of the Humanitarian League, but was very useful as an organ\nin which the various subjects with which the League dealt could be\ndiscussed more fully than was possible in the brief space of its\njournal. The list of contributors to the _Review_ included the names of\nmany well-known writers; and if humanitarians had cared sufficiently for\ntheir literature, it would have had a longer life: that it survived for\nten years was due to the fact that it was very generously supported by\ntwo excellent friends of our cause, Mr. and Mrs. Atherton Curtis.\n\nThe Humanitarian League itself resembled the _Humane Review_ in this,\nthat its ordinary income was never sufficient to meet the yearly\nexpenditure, and had it not been for the special donations of a few of\nits members, notably Mr. Ernest Bell, and some welcome bequests, its\ncareer would have closed long before 1919. The League ended, as it\nbegan, in its character of Forlorn Hope. We had the goodwill of the\nfree-lances, not of the public or of the professions. I have already\nmentioned how the artists, with one or two important exceptions, stood\naloof from what they doubtless regarded as a meddlesome agitation;\nliterary men, even those who agreed with us, were often afraid of\nincurring the name \u201chumanitarian\u201d; schoolmasters looked askance at a\nsociety which condemned the cane; and religious folk were troubled\nbecause we did not begin our meetings with prayers (as was the fashion a\nquarter-century ago), and because none of the usual pietistic phrases\nwere read in our journal. From the clergy we got little cheer; though\nthere were a few of them who did not hesitate to say personally with\nDean Kitchin, that the League \u201cwas carrying out the best side of our\nSaviour\u2019s life and teaching.\u201d Mr. Price Hughes, in particular, was most\ncourageous in his endorsement of an ethic which found little favour\namong his co-religionists. Archbishop Temple and some leaders of\nreligious opinion personally signed our memorials against cruel sport;\nand the Bishop of Hereford (Dr. Percival) introduced our Spurious Sports\nBill in the House of Lords; yet from Churchmen as a body our cause\nreceived no sympathy, and many of them were ranged against it.\n\nIn the many protests against cruelty in its various forms, whether of\njudicial torture, or vivisection, or butchery, or blood-sport, the\nreproachful cry: \u201cWhere are the clergy?\u201d has frequently been raised, but\nraised by those who have forgotten, in each case, that there was nothing\nnew in the failure of organized Religion to aid in the work of\nemancipation.\n\nI wish to be just in this matter. I know well from a long experience of\nwork in an unpopular cause that humaneness is not a perquisite of any\none sect or creed, whether affirmative or negative, religious or\nsecular; it springs up in the heart of all sorts of persons in all sorts\nof places, according to no law of which at present we have cognisance.\nIn every age there have been men whose religion was identical with\ntheir humanity; men like that true saint, John Woolman, whose gift, as\nhas been well said, was love. St. Francis is the favourite instance of\nthis type; but sweet and gracious as he was, with his appeals to\n\u201cbrother wolf\u201d and \u201csister swallows,\u201d his example has perhaps suffered\nsomewhat by too frequent quotation, which raises the suspicion that the\nChurch makes such constant use of him because its choice is but a\nlimited one. Less known, and more impressive, is the story, related by\nGibbon, of the Asiatic monk, Telemachus (A.D. 404), who, having dared to\ninterrupt the gladiatorial shows by stepping into the arena to separate\nthe combatants, was overwhelmed under a shower of stones. \u201cBut the\nmadness of the people soon subsided; they respected the memory of\nTelemachus, who had deserved the honour of martyrdom, and they submitted\nwithout a murmur to laws which abolished for ever the human sacrifices\nof the amphitheatre.\u201d Gibbon\u2019s comment is as follows: \u201cYet no church has\nbeen dedicated, no altar has been erected, to the only monk who died a\nmartyr in the cause of humanity.\u201d\n\nReligion has never befriended the cause of humaneness. Its monstrous\ndoctrine of eternal punishment and the torture of the damned underlies\nmuch of the barbarity with which man has treated man; and the deep\ndivision imagined by the Church between the human being, with his\nimmortal soul, and the soulless \u201cbeasts,\u201d has been responsible for an\nincalculable sum of cruelty.\n\nI knew a Catholic priest, of high repute, who excused the Spanish\nbull-fight on the plea that it forms a safety-valve for men\u2019s savage\ninstincts; their barbarity goes out on the bull, and leaves them gentle\nand kindly in their domestic relations. It is, in fact, the story of the\nscape-goat repeated; only the victim is not a goat, and he does not\nescape. Everywhere among the religious, except in a few individuals, one\nmeets the persistent disbelief in the kinship of all sentient life: it\nis the religious, not the heretics, who are the true infidels and\nunbelievers. A few years ago the Bishop of Oxford refused to sanction a\nprayer for the animals, because \u201cit has never been the custom of the\nChurch to pray for any other beings than those we think of as rational.\u201d\n\nI was told by the Rev. G. Ouseley, an old man whose heart and soul were\nin the work of alleviating the wrongs of animals, that he once\napproached all the ministers of religion in a large town on the south\ncoast, in the hope of inducing them to discountenance the cruel\ntreatment of cats. He met with little encouragement; and one of the\nparsons on whom he called, the most influential in the place, bluntly\nridiculed the proposal. \u201cOne can\u2019t chuck a cat across the room,\u201d he\nsaid, \u201cwithout some old woman making a fuss about it.\u201d Mr. Ouseley\u2019s\nonly comment, when he repeated this remark, was: \u201cA Christian\nclergyman!\u201d\n\nThe following is an extract from a letter written at Jerusalem by my\nfriend Mr. Philip G. Peabody, who has travelled very widely, and has\nbeen a most careful observer of the treatment accorded to animals,\nespecially to horses, in the various countries visited by him:\n\n     \u201cWhen I reflect that for centuries, and from all parts of the\n     world, the most earnest Christians have been coming here, and are\n     still coming; that often they remain here until they die; that\n     scores of great churches here are crowded with pious thousands; and\n     that not one human being of them, so far as I can see or can learn,\n     has the slightest regard for the cruelties occurring hundreds of\n     times daily, so atrocious that the most heartless ruffian in Boston\n     would indignantly protest against them--what am I to think of the\n     value of Christianity to make men good, tender, and kind?\u201d\n\nThis opinion would seem to be corroborated by that of Dean Inge, who has\ndescribed Man as \u201ca bloodthirsty savage, not much changed since the\nfirst Stone Age.\u201d Unfortunately, the Gloomy Dean, whose oracular\nutterances are so valued by journalists as providing excellent material\nfor \u201ccopy,\u201d does not himself extend any sympathy to those who are\nendeavouring to mitigate the savageness which he deplores, and which his\nreligion has failed to amend.\n\nPerhaps no better test of a people\u2019s civilization could be found than in\nthe manner of their religious festivals. What of our Christmas--the\nseason when peace and goodwill take the form of a general massacre\nfollowed by a general gormandizing, with results not much less fatal to\nthe merry-makers than to their victims? One would think that a decent\ncannibal would be sickened by the shows of live cattle, fattened for the\nknife, and thousands of ghastly carcases hung in the butchers\u2019 shops;\nbut, on the contrary, the spectacle is everywhere regarded as a genial\nand festive one. The protests which the Humanitarian League used to\nmake, in letters to ministers of religion and other persons of\ninfluence, met with hardly any response; sometimes a press-writer would\npiously vindicate the sacred season, as \u201cDagonet\u201d once did in the\n_Referee_: \u201cWe are, of course, from a certain point of view, barbarians\nin our butchery of beasts for the banquet. The spectacle of headless\nanimals hanging on hooks and dripping with blood is not \u00e6sthetic. But\nNature is barbarous in her methods, and it is a law of Nature that one\nset of live things should live upon another set of live things. To kill\nand eat is a natural instinct. To denounce it as inhuman is not only\nabsurd, but in a sense impious.\u201d Piety and pole-axe, it will be seen, go\ntogether, in the celebration of the Christian Saturnalia.\n\n    Christmas comes but once a year:\n      Let this our anguish soften!\n    For who could bide that season drear\n    Of bogus mirth and gory cheer,\n      If it came more often?\n\nFrom Religion, then, as such, the League expected nothing and got\nnothing; but it must be owned that its failure to obtain any substantial\nhelp from the Labour movement was something of a disappointment; for\nthough not a few leaders, men such as Keir Hardie, J. R. Clynes, J. R.\nMacdonald, Bruce Glasier, and George Lansbury, were good friends to our\ncause, the party, as a whole, showed little interest in the reforms\nwhich we advocated, even in matters which specially concerned the\nworking classes, such as the Vagrancy Act, the Game Laws, and the use of\nthe cane in Board Schools. As for the non-humans, it is a curious fact\nthat while the National Secular Society includes among its immediate\npractical objects a more humane treatment of animals, and their legal\nprotection against cruelty, the Labour movement, like the Churches, has\nnot cared to widen its outlook even to the extent of demanding better\nconditions for the more highly organized domestic animals.\n\nI have often thought that Walter Crane\u2019s cartoon, \u201cThe Triumph of\nLabour,\u201d has a deep esoteric meaning, though perhaps not intended by its\nauthor. Every socialist knows the picture--a May-day procession, in\nwhich a number of working-folk are riding to the festival in a large\nwain, with a brave flutter of flags and banners, and supporting above\nthem, with upturned palms, a ponderous-looking globe on which is\ninscribed \u201cThe Solidarity of Labour\u201d--the whole party being drawn by two\nsturdy Oxen, the true heroes of the scene, who must be wishing the\nsolidarity of labour were a little less solid, for it would appear that\nthose heedless merry-makers ought to be prosecuted for overloading their\nfaithful friends. The Triumph of Labour seems a fit title for the scene,\nbut in a sense which democrats would do well to lay to heart. Do not\nhorses and other \u201cbeasts of burden\u201d deserve their share of citizenship?\nCenturies hence, perhaps, some learned antiquarian will reconstruct,\nfrom such anatomical data as may be procurable, the gaunt, misshapen,\npitiable figure of our now vanishing cab-horse, and a more civilized\nposterity will shudder at the sight of what we still regard as a\nlegitimate agent in locomotion.\n\nSuch, then, was the position of our Forlorn Hope in the years that saw\nthe menace of Armageddon looming larger. Like every one else,\nhumanitarians underrated the vastness of the catastrophe towards which\nthe world was drifting; but some at least saw the madness of the\nscaremongers who were persistently fostering in their respective nations\nthe spirit of hatred; and five years before the crash came it was\npointed out in the _Humanitarian_ that a terrible war was, consciously\nor unconsciously, the aim and end of the outcry that was being raised\nabout the wicked designs of Germany, to the concealment of the more\nimportant fact that every nation\u2019s worst enemies are the quarrelsome or\ninterested persons within its own borders, who would involve two\nnaturally friendly peoples in a foolish and fratricidal strife.\n\nWe knew too well, from the lessons of the Boer War, what sort of folk\nsome of these were, who, themselves without the least intention of\nfighting, had stirred up such warlike passions in the Yellow Press. I\nhad been acquainted with some of them at that time, and had not\nforgotten how, meeting one such firebrand, I noticed with surprise that\nhe had become facially, as well as journalistically, yellow, his cheeks\nhaving assumed an ochreous hue since I had seen him a day or two before.\nHe confided his secret to me. He had once enlisted in the army; and\nhaving, as he supposed, been discharged, was now stupefied by receiving\na notice to rejoin his regiment. And there he sat, wondering how he\ncould meet his country\u2019s call, a yellow journalist indeed: I saw him in\nhis true colours that day.\n\nBut even thus, though we suspected, with a great eruption in prospect,\nthat to pursue our humanitarian work was but to cultivate the slopes of\na volcano, we did not at all guess the magnitude of the coming disaster.\nIt might bring a return, we feared, to the ethics of, say, the Middle\nAges; our countrymen\u2019s innate savagery would be rather more openly and\navowedly practised--that would be all. They would be like the troupe of\nmonkeys who, having been trained to go through their performance with\ngrave and sedate demeanour, were loosed suddenly, by the flinging of a\nhandful of nuts, into all their native lawlessness. What we did _not_\nanticipate--the very thing that happened--was that the atavism aroused\nby such a conflict would bring to light much more aboriginal instincts\nthan those of a few centuries back; that it was not the medieval man who\nwas being summoned from the vasty deep, but the prehistoric troglodyte,\nor Cave-Man, who, far from having become extinct, as was fondly\nsupposed, still survived in each and all of us, awaiting his chance of\nresurrection.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nTHE CAVE-MAN RE-EMERGES\n\n                    I scan him now,\n    Beastlier than any phantom of his kind\n    That ever butted his rough brother-brute\n    For lust or lusty blood or provender.\n               TENNYSON.\n\n\nIt is a subject of speculation among zoologists whether the swamps and\nforests of Central Africa may still harbour some surviving Dinosaur, or\nBrontosaur, a gigantic dragon-like monster, half-elephant, half-reptile,\na relic of a far bygone age. The thought is thrilling, though the hope\nis probably doomed to disappointment. What is more certain is that not\nless marvellous prodigies may be studied, by those naturalists who have\nthe eyes to see them, much nearer home; for though Africa has been truly\ncalled a wonderful museum, it cannot compare in that respect with the\nhuman mind, a repository that still teems with griffins and gorgons,\ncentaurs and chim\u00e6ras, not less real because they are not creatures of\nflesh and blood. Two thousand years ago it was shown by the Roman poet\nLucretius that what mortals had to fear was not such fabled pests as the\nNemean lion, the Arcadian boar, or the Cretan bull, but the much more\nterrible in-dwelling monsters of the mind. In like manner, it was from\nsome hidden mental recesses that there emerged that immemorial savage,\nthe Cave-Man, who, released by the great upheaval of the war, was\nsighted by many eye-witnesses, on many occasions, during the\nfive-years\u2019 carnival of Hatred.[41]\n\nSome day, perhaps, a true history of the war will be written, and it\nwill then be made plain how such conflict had been rendered all but\ninevitable by the ambitious schemes and machinations not of one Empire,\nbut of several; by the piling up of huge armaments under the pretence of\ninsuring peace; by the greed of commercialists; and by the spirit of\njealousy and suspicion deliberately created by reckless speakers and\nwriters on both sides; further, how, when the crisis arrived, the\nworking-classes in all the nations concerned were bluffed and cajoled\ninto a contest which to their interests was certain in any event to be\nruinous. Then, the flame once lit, there followed in this country the\nclever engineering of enforced military service, rendered possible by\nthe preceding Registration Act (disguised under the pretence of a quite\ndifferent purpose), and by a number of illusory pledges and promises for\nthe protection of conscientious objectors to warfare. The whole story,\nfaithfully told, will be a long record of violence and trickery\nmasquerading as \u201cpatriotism\u201d; but what I am concerned with here is less\nthe war itself than the brutal spirit of hatred and persecution which\nthe war engendered.\n\nAs a single instance of Cave-Man\u2019s ferocity, take the ill-treatment of\n\u201cenemy aliens\u201d by non-combatants, who, themselves running no personal\nrisks, turned their insensate malice against helpless foreigners who had\nevery claim to a generous nation\u2019s protection. \u201cThey are an accursed\nrace,\u201d said a typical speaker at one of the meetings held in London.\n\u201cIntern them all, or rather leave out the _n_, and inter them all. Let\nthe name \u2018German\u2019 be handed down to posterity, and be known to the\nhistorian as everything that was bestial, damnable, and abominable.\u201d\nThese would be words of criminal lunacy--nothing less--in the mouth of\ncivilized beings, yet they are merely examples of things said on\ninnumerable occasions in every part of our land. Great masses of\nEnglishmen were, for the time, in a mental state lower than that of\nremote tribes whom we regard as Bushmen and cannibals.\n\nPerhaps the most curious feature of this orgie of patriotic Hatred was\nits artificial nature: it was at home, not at the front, that it\nflourished; and if those who indulged in it had been sane enough to read\neven the war-news with intelligence, they would there have found ample\ndisproof of their denunciations. Half a dozen lines from one of Mr.\nPhilip Gibbs\u2019s descriptions would have put their ravings to shame. \u201cSome\nof them [English wounded] were helped down by German prisoners, and it\nwas queer to see one of our men with his arms round the necks of two\nGermans. German wounded, helped down by our men less hurt than they,\nwalked in the same way, with their arms round the necks of our men; and\nsometimes an English soldier and a German soldier came along together\nvery slowly, arm in arm, like old cronies.\u201d Not much patriotic Hatred\n_there_.\n\nNor, of course, was it only the wounded, companions in misfortune, who\nthus forgot their enmity; for the practice of \u201cfraternizing\u201d sprang up\nto such an extent at the first Christmas of the war, that it was\nafterwards prohibited. \u201cThey gave us cigars and cigarettes and toffee,\u201d\nwrote an English soldier who took part in this parley with the accursed\nrace, \u201cand they told us that they didn\u2019t want to fight, but they had to.\nWe were with them about an hour, and the officers couldn\u2019t make head or\ntail of it.\u201d To this a military correspondent adds: \u201cThere is more\nbitterness against the Germans among the French soldiers than among the\nBritish, who as a rule show no bitterness at all, but the general spirit\nof the French army is much less bitter than that of many civilians.\u201d It\nis an interesting psychological fact that it was the civilians, the\ndo-nothings, who made Hatred into a cult.\n\nAnd what a beggarly, despicable sort of virulence it was! For a genuine\nhatred there is at least something to be said; but this spurious\nmanufactured malevolence, invented by yellow journalists, and fostered\nby Government placards, was a mere poison-gas of words, a thing without\nsubstance, yet with power to corrupt and vitiate the minds of all who\nsuccumbed to it. Men wrangled, as in \u00c6sop\u2019s fable, not over the ass, but\nover the shadow of the ass. Theirs was, in Coleridge\u2019s words:\n\n    A wild and dreamlike trade of blood and guile,\n    Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile.\n\nYet it was difficult not to smile at it. The Niagara of nonsense that\nthe war let loose--the war that was supposed to be \u201cmaking people\nthink\u201d--was almost as laughable as the war itself was tragic; and\nsatirists[42] there were who, like Juvenal, found it impossible to keep\na grave countenance under such provocation. Hereafter, no doubt, smiles\nand tears will be freely mingled, when posterity realizes, for example,\nwhat tragi-comic part was played by \u201cthe scrap of paper,\u201d that emblem of\nnational adherence to obligations of honour; by the concern felt among\nthe greater nations for the interests of the smaller; or by the\njustification of the latest war as \u201cthe war to end war.\u201d[43] What a\nvast amount of material, too, will be available for an illustrated book\nof humour, when some wag of the future shall collect and reprint the\nseries of official war-posters, including, of course, those printed as\nadvertisements of the war-loans (the melancholy lady, reminded that \u201cOld\nAge must Come,\u201d and the rest of them), and when it shall be recollected\nthat these amazing absurdities could really influence the public! As if\nmilitarism in itself were not comical enough, its eulogists succeeded in\nmaking it still more ridiculous by their cartoons. As for the blind\ncredulity which the war-fever inspired, the legend of the Angels of Mons\nwill stand for age-long remembrance.\n\n    Parturiunt mures, nascetur ridiculus Mons.\n\nThis credulity begins, like charity, at home. Whenever a war breaks out,\nthere is much talk of the disingenuousness of \u201cenemy\u201d writers; but the\nsophisms which are really perilous to each country are those of native\ngrowth--those which lurk deep in the minds of its own people, ready,\nwhen the season summons them, to spring up to what Sydney Smith called\n\u201cthe full bloom of their imbecility.\u201d That egregious maxim, _si vis\npacem para bellum_, \u201cIf you wish for peace, prepare for war,\u201d is now\nsomewhat discredited; but it did its \u201cbit\u201d in causing the war, and after\na temporary retirement will doubtless be brought forward again when\ncircumstances are more favourable. It is perhaps as silly a saying as\nany invented by the folly of man. Imagine a ward of lunatics, who,\nhaving got their keepers under lock and key by a reversal of position\nsuch as that described in one of Poe\u2019s fantastic stories, should proceed\nto safeguard peace by arming themselves with pokers and legs of tables.\nFor a time this adoption of the _para bellum_ principle might postpone\nhostilities; but even lunatics would be wasting time and temper in thus\nstanding idly arrayed, and it is certain that sooner or later that\nmadhouse would realize its Armageddon. For opportunity in the long run\nbegets action; and whether you put a poker into a lunatic\u2019s hand, or a\nsword into a soldier\u2019s, the result will eventually be the same.\n\nOr perhaps we are told that war is \u201ca great natural outburst,\u201d\nmysterious in its origin, beyond human control: the creed expressed in\nWordsworth\u2019s famous assertion that carnage is \u201cGod\u2019s daughter.\u201d Could\nany superstition be grosser? There is nothing mysterious or cataclysmic\nin the outbreak of modern wars. Antipathies and rivalries of nations\nthere are, as of individuals, and of course if these are cherished they\nwill burst into flame; but it is equally true that if they are wisely\ndiscountenanced and repressed they will finally subside. We do not\nexcuse an individual who pleads his jealousy, his passion, his thirst\nfor revenge as a reason for committing an assault, though personal crime\nis just as much an \u201coutbreak\u201d as war is. There seems to be an idea that\nwhen such passions exist it is better for them to \u201ccome out.\u201d On the\ncontrary, the only hope for mankind is that such savage survivals should\n_not_ come out, but that \u201cthe ape and tiger\u201d should be steadily\nrepressed until they die.\n\nBut \u201c_this_ war was justifiable.\u201d In every nation the belief prevails\nthat, though war in general is to be deprecated, any particular contest\nin which they may be engaged is righteous, inevitable, one of pure\nself-defence, in their own words, \u201cforced on us.\u201d Even if this were\ntrue, in some instances, in bygone years when international relations\nwere less complex, and when it was possible for two countries to quarrel\nand \u201cfight it out,\u201d like schoolboys, without inflicting any widespread\ninjury upon others, it is wholly different now; for the calamity caused\nby a modern war is so great that it hardly matters, to the world at\nlarge, who, in schoolboy phrase, \u201cbegan it.\u201d It takes two to make a\nquarrel; and the two are jointly responsible for the disaster that their\nquarrel entails upon mankind.\n\nThe more one looks into these fallacies about fighting--and their number\nis legion--one is compelled to believe that the spirit which chiefly\nunderlies the tendencies to war, apart from the direct incentive of\ncommercial greed, is one of Fear. Hatred is more obvious, but it is fear\nwhich is at the bottom of the hatred. This alone can account for the\nextraordinary shortsightedness with which all freedom, both of speech\nand of action, is trampled on, when a war is once commenced. In such\ncircumstances, society at once reverts, in its panic alarm for its own\nsafety, to what may be called the Ethics of the Pack. Of all the absurd\ncharges levelled against those objectors to military service who refused\nto sacrifice their own principles to other persons\u2019 ideas of patriotism,\nthe quaintest was that of \u201ccowardice\u201d; for, with all respect to the very\nreal physical bravery of those who fought, it must be said that the\nhighest courage shown during the war was that of the persons who were\ndenounced and ridiculed as cravens. It was a moment when it required\nmuch more boldness to object than to consent; one of those crises to\nwhich the famous lines of Marvell are applicable:\n\n    When the sword glitters o\u2019er the judge\u2019s head,\n    And fear has coward churchmen silenc\u00e9d,\n    Then is the poet\u2019s time; \u2019tis then he draws,\n    And single fights forsaken virtue\u2019s cause.\n\nThe despised \u201cConchie\u201d was, in truth, the hero and poet of the occasion.\n\nAgain, it must be owing to fear, above all other impulses, that when a\nwar is over, the conquerors, instead of offering generous terms--a\ncourse which would be at least as much to their own advantage as to that\nof the vanquished--enforce hard and ruinous conditions which rob them\nof a permanent peace. This they do from what Leigh Hunt calls\n\n    The consciousness of strength in enemies,\n    Who must be strain\u2019d upon, or else they rise.\n\nIt was this that caused the Germans, fifty years ago, to dictate at\nParis those shameful terms which have now been their own undoing; and it\nwas this which caused the French, in their hour of victory, to imitate\nthe worst blunders of their enemies.\n\nWe are but a world of savages, or we should see that in international as\nin personal affairs generosity is much more mighty than vengeance. Some\nyears before the war there appeared in the _Daily News_ an article by\nits Paris correspondent, the late Mr. J. F. Macdonald, which even at the\ntime was very impressive, and which now, as one looks back over the\nhorrors of the war, has still greater and more melancholy significance.\nHe called it \u201cA Dream.\u201d He pointed out that the sole obstacle to a\nfriendly relationship between France and Germany, and the chief peril to\nEuropean peace, was the lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine.\n\n     \u201cDuring my fifteen years\u2019 residence in France I have often dreamt a\n     dream--so audacious, so quixotic, so startling, that I can hardly\n     put it down on paper. It was that the German Emperor restored the\n     provinces of Alsace-Lorraine to France.... What a thrill throughout\n     the world, what a heroic and imperishable place in history for the\n     German Emperor, were the centenary of Waterloo to be commemorated\n     by the generous, the magnificent release of Alsace-Lorraine.\u201d\n\nA dream, indeed, and of a kind which at present flits through the ivory\ngate; but a true dream in the sense that it conveyed a great\npsychological fact, and of the sort which will yet have to be fulfilled,\nif ever the world is to become a fit place for civilized beings--not to\nmention \u201cheroes\u201d--to dwell in.\n\nBut let us return to realities and to the Cave-Man. However irrational\nthe Hatred which surged up in so many hearts, it nevertheless had power\nto trample every humane principle under foot. That gorilla-like visage\nwhich looked out at us from numbers of human faces meant that our\nhumanitarian cause, if not killed or mortally injured by the war-spirit,\nwas at least, in military parlance, \u201cinterned.\u201d What we were advocating\nwas a more sympathetic conduct of life with regard to both our human and\nour non-human fellow-beings, and what we mainly relied on, and aimed at\ndeveloping by the aid of reason, was the compassionate instinct which\ncannot view any suffering unmoved. We had advanced to a point where some\nsort of reprobation, however inadequate, was beginning to be felt for\ncertain barbarous practices; and though we could not claim to have done\nmore than curb the ferocious spirit of cruelty that had come down to us\nfrom the past, it was at least some satisfaction that limits were\nbeginning to be imposed on it. What result, then, was inevitable, when,\nin a considerable area of the world, all such ethical restrictions were\nsuddenly and completely withdrawn, and mankind was exhorted to take a\ndeep draught of aboriginal savagery?\n\nTerrible as are the wrongs that countless human beings have to suffer,\nwhen great military despotisms are adjusting by the sword their \u201cbalance\nof power,\u201d and exhibiting their entire lack of balance of mind, still\nmore terrible are the cruelties inflicted on the innocent non-human\nraces whose fate it is to be involved in the internecine battles of men.\nIn a message addressed to the German people, the Kaiser was reported to\nhave said: \u201cWe shall resist to the last breath of man and of horse.\u201d As\nif the horse could enjoy the comforts of \u201cpatriotism,\u201d and were not\nruthlessly sacrificed, like a mere machine, for a quarrel in which he\nhad neither lot nor part! More suffering is caused to animals in a day\nof war than in a year of peace; and so long as wars last it is idle to\nsuppose that a humane treatment of animals can be secured. Do the\nopponents of blood-sports, of butchery, of vivisection, wonder at the\nobstinate continuance of those evils? Let them consider what goes on\n(blessed by bishops) in warfare, and they need not wonder any more.\n\n\u201cDo men gather figs from thistles?\u201d It seemed as if some of our sages\nexpected men to do so, if one might judge from the anticipations of a\nregenerated Europe that was to arise after the close of the war! Already\nwe see the vanity of such prophesyings--of making a sanguinary struggle\nthe foundation of idealistic hopes. Not all the wisdom of all the\nprophets can alter the fact that like breeds like, that savage methods\nperpetuate savage methods, that evil cannot be suppressed by evil, nor\none kind of militarism extinguished by another kind of militarism. Hell,\nwe say, is paved with good intentions; but those who assumed that the\nconverse was true, and that the pathway of their good intentions could\nbe paved with hell, have been woefully disillusioned by the event.\n\nThere is a too easy and sanguine expectation of \u201cgood coming out of\nevil.\u201d People talked as if Armageddon would naturally be followed by the\nmillennium. But history shows that modern wars leave periods of\nexhaustion and repression. \u201cReconstruction\u201d is a phrase now much in\nvogue, but reconstruction is not progress. If two neighbouring families,\nor several families, quarrel and pull down each others\u2019 houses, there\nwill certainly have to be \u201creconstruction\u201d; but it will be a long time\nbefore they are even as well off as they were before. So it is with\nnations. The question is: Does war quicken men\u2019s sympathies or deaden\nthem? To some extent, both, according to the difference in their\ntemperaments; but it is to be feared that those who are quickened by\nexperience of war to hatred of war are but a small minority, compared\nwith those who are rendered more callous.\n\nOne great obstacle to the discontinuance of bloodshed is the\nincorrigible sentimentality with which war has always been regarded by\nmankind. \u201cWho was it,\u201d exclaimed the poet Tibullus, \u201cthat first invented\nthe dreadful sword? How savage, how truly steel-hearted was he!\u201d But\nsurely the reproach is less deserved by the early barbarian who had the\ningenuity to discover an improved method of destruction than by the\nso-called civilized persons who, for the sake of lucre, prolong such\ninventions long after the date when they should have been abandoned.\n\u201cWar is hell,\u201d men say, and continue to accept it as inevitable. But if\nwar is hell, who but men themselves are the fiends that people it?\n\nIn like manner the outbreak of war is often called \u201ca relapse into\nbarbarism,\u201d but rather it is a proof that we have never emerged from\nbarbarism at all; and the knowledge of that fact is the only rational\nsolace that can be found, when we see the chief nations of Europe flying\nat each other\u2019s throats. For if this were a civilized age, the prospect\nwould be without hope; but seeing that we are not civilized--that as yet\nwe have only distant glimpses of civilization--we can still have faith\nin the future. For the present, looking at the hideous lessons of the\nwar, we must admit that the growth of a humaner sentiment has been\nindefinitely retarded. We cannot advance at the same time on the path of\nmilitarism and of humaneness: we shall have to make up our minds, when\nthe fit of savagery has spent itself, which of the two diverging paths\nwe are to follow. And the moral of the war for social reformers will\nperhaps be this: that it is not sufficient to condemn the barbarities of\nwarfare alone, as our pacifists have too often done. The civilized\nspirit can only be developed by a consistent protest against all forms\nof cruelty and oppression; it is only by cultivating a whole-minded\nreverence for the rights of all our fellow-beings that we shall rid\nourselves of that inheritance of selfish callousness of which the\nmilitarist and imperialist mania is a part.[44]\n\nIs it not time that we sent the Cave-Man back to his den--henceforth to\nbe his sepulchre--and buried for ever that infernal spirit of Hatred\nwhich he brought with him from the pit?\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nPOETRY OF DEATH AND LOVE\n\n    And Death and Love are yet contending for their prey.\n              SHELLEY.\n\n\nTo look back over a long stretch of years, or to re-read the annals of a\nSociety with which one has been closely associated, is to be reminded of\nthe loss of many cherished comrades and friends. During the past decade,\nespecially, there are few households that have not become more\nintimately associated with Death; but even in this matter, it would\nseem, the war, far from \u201cmaking men think,\u201d has thrown them back more\nand more on the ancient substitutes for thought, and on consolations\nwhich only console when they are quite uncritically accepted.\n\nFor though the ceaseless conflict between death and love has brought to\nthe aid of mankind in this age, as in all ages, a host of comforters\nwho, whether by religion or by philosophy, have made light of the\nterrors of the grave, they have as yet failed to supply the solace for\nwhich mankind has long looked and is still looking. They profess to\nremove \u201cthe sting of death,\u201d but leave its real bitterness--the\nsundering of lover from lover, friend from friend--unmitigated and\nuntouched.\n\nDeath is the eternal foe of love; and it is just because it is the foe\nof love, not only because it is the foe of life, that it is properly and\nnaturally dreaded. Its sting lies not in the mortality, but in the\nseparation. A lover, a friend, a relative, grieves, not because the\nloved one is mortal, still less because he himself is mortal, but\nbecause they two will meet no more in the relation in which they have\nstood to each other.\n\n    They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead.\n    They brought me bitter news to hear, and bitter tears to shed.\n    I wept as I remembered how often you and I\n    Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.\n\nIt is useless to surmise, or to assert, that the spirit passes, after\ndeath, into other spheres of activity or of happiness; for, even if\nthere were proof of this, it would in no way lessen the grief of those\nwho are bereaved of the actual. It was long ago pointed out by Lucretius\nthat even a renewed physical life would in any case be so different from\nthe present life that it could not be justly regarded as in any true\nsense a continuance of it:\n\n    Nor yet, if time our scattered dust re-blend,\n    And after death upbuild the flesh again--\n    Yea, and our light of life arise re-lit--\n    Can such new birth concern the Self one whit,\n    When once dark death has severed memory\u2019s chain?[45]\n\nIn like manner a future spiritual life could never compensate for the\nseverance of love in _this_ life; for it is of the very essence of love\nto desire, not similar things, nor as good things, nor even better\nthings, but the same things. As Richard Jefferies wrote: \u201cI do not want\nchange; I want the same old and loved things, the same wild flowers, the\nsame trees and soft ash-green: the turtle-doves, the blackbirds, ... and\nI want them in the same place.\u201d\n\nAnd what is true of the nature-lover is not less true of the\nhuman-lover, be he parent, or brother, or husband, or friend. It is not\na solace but a mockery of such passionate affection to assert that it\ncan be compensated for its disruption in the present by a new but\nchanged condition in the future. A recognition of this truth may be seen\nin Thomas Hardy\u2019s poem, \u201cHe Prefers Her Earthly\u201d:\n\n... Well, shall I say it plain?\n    I would not have you thus and there,\n    But still would grieve on, missing you, still feature\n      You as the one you were.\n\nBut this, it may be said, is to set love in rebellion against not death\nonly, but the very laws of life. There is truth in such censure; and\nwisest is he who can so reconcile his longings with his destiny as to\nknow enough of the sweetness of love without too much of the bitterness\nof regret. Perhaps, in some fairer society of a future age, when love is\nmore generally shared, the sting of death will be less acute; but what\ncenturies have yet to pass before that \u201cGolden City\u201d of which John\nBarlas sang can be realized?\n\n    There gorgeous Plato\u2019s spirit\n      Hangs brooding like a dove,\n    And all men born inherit\n      Love free as gods above;\n    There each one is to other\n    A sister or a brother,\n    A father or a mother,\n      A lover or a love.\n\nMeantime it would almost seem that to the religious folk who assume a\nperpetuity of individual life, the thought of death sometimes becomes\nless solemn, less sacred, than it is to those who have no supernatural\nbeliefs. The easy assurance of immortality to which friends who are\nwriting letters of condolence to a mourner too often have recourse, is\nusually a sign less of sympathy than of the lack of it; for it is not\nsympathetic to repeat ancient formulas in face of a present and very\nreal grief; indeed, it is in many cases an impertinence, when it is\ndone without any regard to the views of the person to whom such solace\nis addressed. Among the professional ghouls who watch the death-notices\nin the papers, none, perhaps, are more callous--not even the would-be\nbuyers of old clothes or artificial teeth--than the pious busybodies who\nintrude on homes of sorrow with their vacant tracts and booklets. Nay,\nworse: nowadays mourners are lucky if some spiritist acquaintance does\nnot have a beatific vision of the lost one; for the dead seem to be\nregarded as a lawful prey by any one who sees visions and dreams dreams,\nand who is determined to call them as witnesses that there is no reality\nin the most stringent ordinances of nature:\n\n    Stern law of every mortal lot;\n      Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear,\n    And builds himself I know not what\n      Of second life I know not where.\n\nWith much appropriateness did Matthew Arnold introduce his trenchant\nrebuke of human arrogance into a poem on the grave of a dog; for mankind\nhas neither right nor reason to presume for itself an hereafter which it\ndenies to humbler fellow-beings who share at least the ability to suffer\nand to love. Can any one, not a mere barbarian, who has watched the\ndeath of an animal whom he loved, and by whom he was himself loved with\nthat faithful affection which is never withheld when it is merited, dare\nto doubt that the conditions of life and death are essentially the same\nfor human and for non-human? Is an animal\u2019s death one whit less poignant\nin remembrance than that of one\u2019s dearest human friend? Must it not\nremain with us as ineffaceably?\n\nThat individual love should resent the thraldom of death may be\nunreasonable; but it is useless to ignore the fact of such resentment,\nor to proffer consolations which can neither convince nor console. From\nthe earliest times the poets, above all others, have borne witness to\nlove\u2019s protest. Perhaps the most moving lyric in Roman literature is\nthat short elegy written by Catullus at his brother\u2019s grave, full of a\ndeep passion which can hardly be conveyed in another tongue.\n\n    Borne far o\u2019er many lands, o\u2019er many seas,\n      On this sad service, brother, have I sped,\n    To proffer thee death\u2019s last solemnities,\n      And greet, though words be vain, the silent dead:\n    For thou art lost, so cruel fate decrees;\n      Ah, brother, from my sight untimely fled!\n    Yet take these gifts, ordained in bygone years\n      For mournful dues when funeral rites befell;\n    Take them, all streaming with a brother\u2019s tears:\n      And thus, for evermore--hail and farewell!\n\nA similar cry is heard in that famous passage of Virgil, where the\nbereaved Orpheus refuses to be comforted for the loss of his Eurydice.\nAnd nearly two thousand years later we find Wordsworth, a Christian\npoet, echoing the same lamentation:\n\n... When I stood forlorn,\n    Knowing my heart\u2019s best treasure was no more;\n    That neither present time, nor years unborn,\n    Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.\n\nMark the reference to \u201cyears unborn.\u201d Wordsworth was a believer in\nimmortality; but immortality itself cannot restore what is past and\ngone. All the sages and seers and prophets, that have given mankind the\nbenefit of their wisdom since the world began, have so far failed to\nprovide the least crumb of comfort for the ravages of death, or to\nexplain why love should be for ever built up to be for ever overthrown,\nand why union should always be followed by disseverance.\n\nThere may, of course, be a solution of this tragedy hereafter to be\ndiscovered by mankind; all that we know is that, as yet, no human being\nhas found the clue to the mystery, or, if he has found it, has\nvouchsafed the knowledge to his fellow-mortals. For we must dismiss as\nidle the assertion that such things cannot be communicated in words.\nAnything that is apprehended by the mind can be expressed by the\nmouth--not adequately, perhaps, yet still, in some measure,\nexpressed--and the reason why this greatest of secrets has never been\nconveyed is that, as yet, it has never been apprehended.\n\nIt is, doubtless, this lack of any real knowledge, of any genuine\nconsolation, that drives mankind to seek refuge in the more primitive\nsuperstitions. Something more definite, more tangible, is not\nunnaturally desired; and therefore men turn to the assurances of what is\ncalled spiritualism--the refusal to believe that death, in the accepted\nsense, has taken place at all. This creed is at least free from the\nvagueness of the ordinary religious view of death. It is small comfort\nto be told that a lost friend is sitting transfigured, harp in hand, in\nsome skiey mansion of the blest; but it might mitigate the bereavement\nof some mourners (not all) to converse with their lost one, and to learn\nthat he exists in much the same manner, and with the same affections as\nbefore. Some who \u201cprefer him earthly\u201d are less likely to be disappointed\nin spiritualism than in any other philosophy; the danger is rather that\nthey should find him _too_ earthly--enjoying a cigarette, perhaps, as in\na case mentioned in recent revelations of the spirit-life. This is\nliteralness with a vengeance; but however ludicrous and incredible it\nmay be, it is not--from the comforter\u2019s point of view--meaningless;\nwhereas it _is_ unmeaning to tell a mourner that the loved one is not\nlost, to him, when the whole environment and fabric of their love are\nshattered and destroyed.\n\nIs there, then--pending such fuller knowledge as mankind may hereafter\ngain--no present comfort for death\u2019s tyranny? I have spoken of the poets\nas the champions of love against death; and it is perhaps in poetry,\nthe poetry of love and death, that the best solace will be found--in\nthat open-eyed and quite rational view of the struggle, which does not\ndeny the reality of death, but asserts the reality of love. It is\namusing to hear those who do not accept the orthodox creed as regards an\nafter-life described as cold \u201cmaterialists\u201d and \u201csceptics.\u201d For who have\nwritten most loftily, most spiritually, about death and the great\nemotions that are implied in the word--the religionists and\n\u201cspiritualists,\u201d who pretend to a mystic knowledge, or the great\nfree-thinking poets, from the time of Lucretius to the time of Shelley\nand James Thomson? Can any \u201cspiritualist\u201d poetry match the great sublime\npassages of the _De Rerum Natur\u00e2_, or, to come to our own age, of _The\nCity of Dreadful Night_?\n\nIt is to the poets, then, not to the dogmatists, that we must look for\nsolace; for, where knowledge is still unattainable, an aspiration is\nwiser than an assertion, and the theme of death is one which can be far\nbetter treated idealistically than as a matter of doctrine. In poetry,\nas nowhere else, can be expressed those manifold moods, and half-moods,\nin which the noblest human minds have sought relief when confronted by\nthis mighty problem; and far more soothing than any unsubstantial\npromises of futurity is the charm that is felt in the magic of beautiful\nverse. In Milton\u2019s words:\n\n... I was all ear,\n    And took in strains that might create a soul\n    Under the ribs of death.\n\nAt the present time, when a great war has brought bereavement into so\nmany homes, and when superstition is reaping its harvest among the sad\nand broken lives that are everywhere around us, how can rational men do\nbetter than recall as many minds as possible from the false teachers to\nthe true, from the priests, who claim a knowledge which they do not\npossess, to the poets, in whom, as Shelley said, there is \u201cthe power of\ncommunicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions\nrespecting man and nature\u201d? And the testimony of the poets cannot be\nmistaken; their first word and their last word is Love. Whether it be\nCowper, gazing on his mother\u2019s portrait; or Burns, lamenting his\nHighland Mary; or Wordsworth, in his elegies for Lucy; or Shelley, in\nthe raptures of his \u201cAdonais\u201d; or pessimists, such as Edgar Poe and\nJames Thomson, to whom love was the \u201csole star of light in infinite\nblack despair\u201d--the lesson that we learn from them is the same. For\ndeath there is no solace but in love; it is to love\u2019s name that the\nhuman heart must cling.\n\n    Ah! let none other alien spell soe\u2019er,\n    But only the one Hope\u2019s one name be there,\n    Not less, nor more, but even that word alone!\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nTHE TALISMAN\n\n    Comprendre c\u2019est Pardonner.--MADAME DE STA\u00cbL.\n\n\nAre we, then, a civilized people? Has the Man of to-day, still living by\nbloodshed, still striving to grow rich at the expense of his neighbour,\nstill using torture in punishment, still seeking sport in destruction,\nstill waging fratricidal wars, and, while making a hell on earth,\nclaiming for himself an eternal heaven hereafter--has this selfish,\npredatory being arrived at a state of \u201ccivilization\u201d?\n\nIt may be said, perhaps, that as the ideal is always in advance of the\nactual, and it is easy to show that any present stage of society falls\nfar short of what it might be and ought to be, the distinction between\nsavagery and civilization is a matter of names. This, in one sense, is\ntrue; but it is also true that names are of great importance as reacting\nupon conduct, and that to use flattering titles as a veil for cruel\npractices gives permanence to evils that otherwise would not be\npermitted. Our present self-satisfaction in what we are pleased to call\nour civilization is a very serious obstacle to improvement.\n\nIn this manner euphemism plays a great part in language; for just as the\nGreeks used gracious terms to denote malignant powers, and so, as they\nthought, to disarm their hostility, the modern mind seeks, consciously\nor unconsciously, to disguise iniquities by misnaming them. Thus a blind\ntribal hatred can be masked as \u201cpatriotism\u201d; living idly on the work of\nothers is termed \u201can independence\u201d; vivisection cloaks itself as\n\u201cresearch\u201d; and the massacre of wild animals for man\u2019s wanton amusement\nis dignified as \u201csport.\u201d There is undoubtedly much virtue in names.\n\nBut here another objection may be raised, to wit, that in view of the\nvast advance that has been made by mankind from primeval savagery to the\npresent complex social state, it is impossible to apply to the higher\nman the same name as to the lower man; for if _we_ are savages, what are\nthe Bushmen or the Esquimaux?\n\n    Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.\n\nIt may be doubted whether of late years Europe has been pleasanter as a\nresidential district than Cathay; but, letting that pass, must we not\nadmit that a real culture implies something more than material and\nmental opulence? \u201cCivilization,\u201d as a French writer has lately said, \u201cis\nnot in this terrible trumpery: if it is not in the heart of man, then it\nexists nowhere.\u201d[46] It is easy to frame \u201cethnical periods,\u201d as is done\nin Morgan\u2019s _Ancient Society_, in which are postulated the three\nphases--Savagery, Barbarism, and Civilization--the last-named commencing\nwith the invention of a Phonetic Alphabet; but such a definition, when\nput to practical test, seems a somewhat fanciful one. The brute who\ntortures or butchers a sentient fellow-being remains a brute, whether a\nPhonetic Alphabet has been invented or not. He has not learnt the ABC of\ncivilization. What is needed, for the measurement of human progress, is\na standard of ethical, not ethnical refinement.\n\nThat mankind has already advanced so far is a sign, not that it has now\nreached its zenith, but that it has yet further to advance; and this\nadvance will be delayed, not promoted, by the refusal to recognize that\nthe physical and mental sciences have far outrun the moral--that,\ndespite our multifarious discoveries and accomplishments, we are still\nbarbarians at heart.\n\nIn this sense, then, we are savages; and the knowledge of that fact is\nthe first step toward civilization. There is a line which pious\nzoophilists are fond of quoting to sportsmen or other thoughtless\npersons who ill-use their humbler fellow-creatures:\n\n    Remember, He who made thee made the brute.\n\nThe reminder is wholesome, for kinship is too apt to be forgotten; but I\nwould venture to interpret that significant verse in a much more literal\nsense; for it must be confessed that many a human being, if judged by\nhis actions, is not only _related_ to the brute, but is _himself_ the\nbrute. The old Greek maxim, \u201cKnow thyself,\u201d is the starting-point of all\nreformation.\n\nThrough this knowledge, and only through it, can come the patience which\nforgives because it fully understands: \u201cComprendre c\u2019est pardonner\u201d is\nassuredly one of the world\u2019s greatest sayings.\n\n    He pardons all, who all can understand.\n\nThere is no need to search for extenuating circumstances, because, as\nErnest Crosby has remarked: \u201cIs not the fact of being born a man or a\nwoman an all-sufficient extenuating circumstance?\u201d All is explained,\nwhen once we are content to look upon our fellow-beings, and upon\nourselves, as what we verily are--a race of rough but not unkindly\nbarbarians, emerging with infinite slowness to a more humanized\ncondition, and to recognize that if mankind, even as it is, has been\nevolved from a still more savage ancestry, that fact is in itself a\nproof that progress is not wholly chimerical.\n\nConsidered from the point of view of personal happiness and peace of\nmind, the question is the same. To what sort of comfort can a person of\nsensibility hope to attain, in sight of the immense sum of wretchedness\nand suffering that is everywhere visible, and audible, around us? I know\nnot a few humanitarians whose lives are permanently saddened by the\nthought of the awful destitution that afflicts large masses of mankind,\nand of the not less awful cruelties inflicted on the lower animals in\nthe name of sport and science and fashion. How can sensitive and\nsympathetic minds forget the loss of other persons\u2019 happiness in the\nculture of their own, especially if they have realized that not a little\nof their well-being is derived from the toil of their fellows?\n\nHere, again, some measure of consolation may be found, if we look at the\nproblem in a less sanguine and therefore less exacting spirit. People\noften indignantly ask, with reference to some cruel action or custom,\nwhether we are living \u201cin an age of civilization or of savagery,\u201d the\nimplication being that in an era of the highest and noblest\ncivilization, such as ours is assumed to be, some unaccountably\nbarbarous persons are stooping to an unworthy practice. Is it not wiser,\nand more conducive to one\u2019s personal peace of mind, to reverse this\nassumption, and to start with the frank avowal that the present age, in\nspite of its vast mechanical cleverness, is, from an ethical point of\nview, one of positive barbarism, not so savage, of course, as some that\nhave preceded it, but still undeniably savage as compared with what we\nforesee of a civilized future?\n\nViewed in this more modest light, many usages which, if prevalent in a\ncivilized country, might well make one despair of humankind, are seen to\nbe, like the crimes of children, symptoms of the thoughtless infancy of\nour race. We are not civilized folk who have degenerated into monsters,\nbut untamed savages who, on the whole, make a rather creditable display,\nand may in future centuries become civilized.\n\nFor example, when one meets a number of \u201csportsmen\u201d going forth, with\nhorses and with hounds, to do to death with every circumstance of\nbarbarity some wretched little animal whom they have actually bred, or\n\u201cpreserved,\u201d or imported for the purpose, such a sight--if one regards\nthem as rational and civilized beings--might well spoil one\u2019s happiness\nfor a fortnight. But if we take a lower stand, and see in them nothing\nmore than fine strapping barbarians, engaged in one of the national\nrecreations of those \u201cdark ages\u201d in which we live, the outlook becomes\nimmediately a more cheerful one; and instead of being surprised that\nladies and gentlemen in the twentieth century should desire to \u201cbreak\nup\u201d a fox, we are able to recognize the moderation and civility with\nwhich in other respects they conduct themselves.\n\nOne advantage, at least, can be drawn by humanitarians from the present\nstate of affairs--a more accurate apprehension of the obstacles by which\ntheir hopes are beset. Much has been said and written about the causes\nof the war; and it is inevitable that the _immediate_ causes (for they\nalone are discussed) should be thoroughly investigated. But the deeper\nunderlying causes of the recent war, and of every war, are not those\nupon which diplomatists and politicians and journalists and historians\nare intent: they must be sought in that callous and selfish habit of\nmind--common to all races, and as such accepted without thought, and\ntransmitted from one generation to another--which exhibits itself not in\nwar only, but in numerous other forms of barbarity observed in so-called\ncivilized life.\n\nNo League of Nations, or of individuals, can avail, without a change of\nheart. Reformers of all classes must recognize that it is useless to\npreach peace by itself, or socialism by itself, or anti-vivisection by\nitself, or vegetarianism by itself, or kindness to animals by itself.\nThe cause of each and all of the evils that afflict the world is the\nsame--the general lack of humanity, the lack of the knowledge that all\nsentient life is akin, and that he who injures a fellow-being is in fact\ndoing injury to himself. The prospects of a happier society are wrapped\nup in this despised and neglected truth, the very statement of which, at\nthe present time, must (I well know) appear ridiculous to the accepted\ninstructors of the people.\n\nThe one and only talisman is Love. Active work has to be done, but if it\nis to attain its end, it is in the spirit of love that it must be\nundertaken. Perhaps the most significant symptom of the brutishness\naroused by the war-fever was the blank inability which many Christians\nshowed not only to practise such injunctions as \u201cLove your enemies,\u201d but\neven to understand them.[47] Had it not been that humour, like\nhumaneness, was sunk fathoms deep in an ocean of stupidity, one would\nhave been tempted to quote Ernest Crosby\u2019s delightful lines on \u201cLove the\nOppressors\u201d:\n\n    Love the oppressors and tyrants:\n    It is the only way to get rid of them!\n\nIn these days, when the voice of hatred and malevolence is so dominant,\nit is a joy to turn to the pages of writers who proclaim a wiser faith.\n\u201cThis is a gray world,\u201d says Howard Moore. \u201cThere is enough sorrow in\nit, even though we cease to scourge each other--the sorrow of floods,\nfamines, fires, earthquakes, storms, diseases, and death. We should\ntrust each other, and love each other, and sympathize with and help each\nother, and be patient and forgiving.\u201d Nor is it only the human that\nclaims our sympathy; for does not Pierre Loti, in his _Book of Pity and\nDeath_, imagine even his stray Chinese cat, whom he had befriended on\nshipboard, addressing him in similar words: \u201cIn this autumn day, so sad\nto the heart of cats, since we are here together, both isolated beings\n... suppose we give, one to the other, a little of that kindness which\nsoftens trouble, which resembles the immaterial and defies death, which\nis called affection, and which expresses itself from time to time by a\ncaress.\u201d\n\nHas not this distracted world had enough, and more than enough, of\njealousies and denunciations? Is it not time that we tried, in their\nstead, the effect, say, of a bombardment of blessings? If there are\nlight-waves, heat-waves, sound-waves, may there not also be love-waves?\nHow if we sent out a daily succession of these to earth\u2019s uttermost\nparts? A benediction is as easily uttered as a curse; and it needs no\npriest to pronounce it. At least it is pleasant to think (and men put\nfaith in creeds that are much less believable) that gentle thoughts, the\n\u201cwireless\u201d of the heart, may penetrate and be picked up in regions that\nare beyond our ken, and so create a more favourable atmosphere for\ngentle deeds. \u201cWhy did none of them tell me,\u201d asks Crosby, \u201cthat my soul\nwas a loving-machine?\u201d It is strange, certainly, that we take so much\nmore pains to kindle the fires of hate than the fires of love.\n\n\u201cBoundless compassion for all living beings,\u201d says Schopenhauer, \u201cis the\nsurest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no\ncasuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do\nharm to no one, encroach on no man\u2019s rights; he will rather have regard\nfor every one, forgive every one, help every one as far as he can, and\nall his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness.\u201d[48]\nIncidentally it may be observed that, as Schopenhauer points out, the\ndifficulties of what is called the sex question would in large measure\nbe solved, if this rule of \u201cinjure no one\u201d were more fully believed and\nacted on.\n\nThe lesson of the past six years is this. It is useless to hope that\nwarfare, which is but one of many savage survivals, can be abolished,\nuntil the mind of man is humanized in other respects also--until _all_\nsavage survivals are at least seen in their true light. As long as man\nkills the lower races for food or sport, he will be ready to kill his\nown race for enmity. It is not _this_ bloodshed, or _that_ bloodshed,\nthat must cease, but _all_ needless bloodshed--all wanton infliction of\npain or death upon our fellow-beings. Only when the great sense of the\nuniversal kinship has been realized among us, will love cast out hatred,\nand will it become impossible for the world to witness anew the\nsenseless horrors that disgrace Europe to-day.\n\nHumanitarians, then, must expect little, but claim much; must know that\nthey will see no present fruits of their labours, but that their labours\nare nevertheless of far-reaching importance. Let those who have been\nhorrified by the spectacle of an atrocious war resolve to support the\npeace movement more strongly than ever; but let them also support the\nstill wider and deeper humanitarian movement of which pacifism is but a\npart, inasmuch as all humane causes, though seemingly separate, are\nultimately and essentially one.\n\n\n\n\nPOSTSCRIPT\n\n\nIn the preparation of this book I have used the substance of several\narticles that first appeared in the _Humane Review_, _Humanitarian_,\n_Literary Guide_, _Rationalist Press Association\u2019s Annual_, _Vegetarian\nMessenger_, or elsewhere. Acknowledgment of certain other obligations is\nmade in the footnotes.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nAdams, Francis, 83-85\n\nAdams, George, 87\n\nAdams, Maurice, 76, 77\n\n_Adventurer_, the, 28, 29\n\nAnderson, Martin (\u201cCynicus\u201d), 204\n\nAnderson, Sir Robert, 143, 144\n\nAnimals, kinship with man, 13, 14, 128, 130, 131;\n  deaths of, 130, 234;\n  \u201cdumb,\u201d 129;\n  rights of, 125-128, 132\n\nAnthropocentric superstition, 13, 127, 128, 131\n\nArnold, Matthew, 45, 52, 234\n\nAveling, Edward, 80, 81, 95\n\n\nBarlas, John, 85-87;\n  quoted, 233\n\n_Beagler Boy_, the, 175, 176\n\nBell, Ernest, 124, 125, 211\n\nBesant, Sir Walter, 115, 116\n\nBig Game Hunting, 155, 156\n\n\u201cBlooding,\u201d 13, 155\n\nBlood-Sport, 12, 13, 151, 162, 171, 243\n\nBourchier, J. D., 57, 58\n\nBradshaw, Henry, 37-39\n\nBrowning, Oscar, 58, 59\n\nBrowning, Robert, 94\n\n_Brutalitarian_, The, 174\n\nBuchanan, Robert, 113, 202, 203\n\nBuckland, James, 167\n\n\n\u201cCanonization of the Ogre,\u201d 70, 71\n\nCarpenter, Captain Alfred, R.N., 165, 210\n\nCarpenter, Edward, 45, 61, 73, 75, 76, 87-89, 109, 110, 205, 206, 210\n\nCarpenter, Dr. P. H., 62, 68\n\nCatullus, quoted, 235\n\nChampion, H. H., 61, 79, 86\n\nChesterton, G. K., 127, 128, 174, 178;\n  quoted, 135\n\nChing Ping, Chinese Mission to Eton, 176\n\nChristmas cruelties, 215\n\nCoit, Dr. Stanton, 70, 71\n\nColam, John, 149, 161, 162\n\n_Comprendre c\u2019est pardonner_, 241\n\nConda, Anna, her appeal to the Zoological Society, 165\n\nCornish, F. Warre, 19, 36\n\nCory, William, _see_ Johnson\n\nCoulson, Colonel W. L. B., 124, 158, 159\n\nCrane, Walter, 204, 216\n\nCrosby, Ernest, 205, 206, 241, 244, 245\n\n\nDarrow, Clarence, 206, 207\n\nDay, Rev. Russell, 23, 24\n\nde Quincey, Miss E., 118, 119\n\nDe Quincey, Thomas, 118-120;\n  quoted, 136\n\nDeuchar, N. Douglas, 211;\n  quoted, 100\n\nDixie, Lady Florence, 159, 160\n\nDobell, Bertram, 102, 110, 111\n\nDurnford, Rev. F. E., 23\n\n\nEdwards, J. Passmore, 142, 209\n\nEton College, 16-35, 50-66\n\nEton Hare-hunt, 27, 56, 154, 155, 160, 175\n\n\nFabian Society, 81, 82\n\nFeather and Fur Trades, 12, 148, 167, 168, 172\n\nFighting, fallacies about, 223-225, 228, 229\n\nFlagellomania, 145, 146, 166\n\nFlesh-eating, 9, 67-69, 148\n\nFlogging, at Eton, 22, 23;\n  in Royal Navy, 138;\n  judicial, 135-137, 144-146\n\nFoote, G. W., 94, 95, 98, 102, 208\n\nFoxology, the, pronounced by an Archbishop, 171\n\nFurnivall, Dr. F. J., 93, 94, 96, 97\n\n\nGame Laws, 156, 157, 202\n\nGarrotting, _not_ suppressed by the lash, 136, 137\n\nGeorge, Henry, 58, 61\n\nGoodford, Dr. C. O., 28, 54\n\nGreenwood, Sir George, 153, 176, 210\n\n\n\u201cHag-traps,\u201d 32\n\nHardy, Thomas, 203, 204;\n  quoted, 233\n\nHarrison, Frederic, 128, 129\n\nHatred, carnival of, 220-222, 227, 230\n\nHopwood, C. H., 140\n\nHornby, Dr. J. J., 19, 20, 50, 56, 58-60;\n  on Shelley, 92\n\n_Hudibras_, quoted, 13, 137\n\nHudson, W. H., 116-118, 210;\n  quoted, 66\n\nHughes, Rev. H. Price, 208, 212\n\n_Humane Review_, The, 211\n\nHumanitarian League, established, 121-123;\n  closed, 211\n\nHyndman, H. M., 30, 79, 108 (note)\n\n\nInge, Very Rev. W. R., 70 (note), 214, 215\n\nIngram, John Kells, 111, 112\n\n\nJapp, A. H., 118\n\nJefferies, Richard, 115, 116, 130\n\nJohnson (Cory), William, 24, 25, 92;\n  quoted, 232\n\nJoynes, Rev. J. L., 105, 106\n\nJoynes, J. L, _jun._, 58\n\nJupp, W. J., 76\n\n\nKennedy, Admiral Sir W., 138\n\nKennedy, Dr. Benjamin, 43, 44\n\nKennedy, W. S., 115\n\nKropotkin, Prince, 183, 184\n\n\nLatin Verses at Eton, 26, 27\n\nLester, H. F., 148\n\nLinton, W. J., 111\n\nLoti, Pierre, quoted, 244, 245\n\nLowell, J. R., 52;\n  quoted, 180\n\nLucretius, quoted, 91, 232\n\nLyttelton, Dr. Edward, 23 (note), 63, 66, 176\n\n\nMacaulay, G. C., 20 (note), 28, 29, 42\n\nMacdonald, J. F., his dream, 226\n\nMacdonald, John, 151\n\nMaitland, Edward, 122-124\n\nMarx, Eleanor, 81, 90\n\nMassey, Gerald, 111\n\nMaurice, Rev. F. D., 44, 45, 47\n\nMelville, Herman, 69, 110, 112\n\nMeredith, George, 102, 107-110, 203;\n  quoted, 65\n\nMiller, Joaquin, 112\n\nMissionary zeal, at Eton, 55, 176;\n  at Cambridge, 48\n\nMonck, W. H. S. (\u201cLex\u201d), 140, 141\n\nMoore, George, on Humanitarianism, 184\n\nMoore, J. Howard, 130, 132-134, 200;\n  quoted, 64 (note), 244\n\nMorris, William, 52, 61, 79, 80\n\nMorrison, Dr. W. D., 140\n\nMoultrie, John, 17, 18\n\nMountain scenery, desecration of, 185-199\n\n\u201cMurderous Millinery,\u201d 166\n\n\nNames, importance of, 129, 166, 239, 240\n\nNewman, Francis W., 63, 68, 116, 123, 201\n\nNoel, Hon. Roden, 113\n\n\nOkes, Dr., Provost of King\u2019s College, Cambridge, 36, 37, 41\n\nOlivier, Sir Sydney, 81, 210\n  \u201cOuida,\u201d 207\n\n\nParke, Ernest, 152\n\nPaul, C. Kegan, 18, 68, 92\n\nPaul, Herbert W., 28, 30\n\nPeabody, Philip G., 214\n\nPig-killing, 78\n\n\nReclus, Elis\u00e9e, 204, 205\n\nReligion, its attitude towards Humaneness, 212-216\n\nRenton, Chief Justice, his error in the _Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_, 137\n\nRicketson, Daniel, 114\n\nRicketson, Walton, 118\n\nRiley, W. Harrison, 61, 62, 190\n\nRitchie, D. G., 70, 125, 126\n\nRossetti, W. M., 83, 95, 96, 99, 102\n\nRuskin, John, 52, 61, 62, 190, 191;\n  on Tennyson, 62\n\n\nSanborn, F. B., 114\n\nSavages, in what sense, 8-10\n\nSchopenhauer, quoted, 122, 245\n\nSelous, Edmund, 164\n\nSelous, F. C., on the Eton Hare-hunt, 155\n\nSelwyn, Dr. E. C., 28-30, 43, 154\n\nSelwyn, Dr. G. A., Bishop of Lichfield, 30, 33-35, 185, 186\n\nSharp, William, 102, 103\n\nShaw, G. Bernard, 61, 75, 80, 82, 83, 88, 93, 95,\n    98, 109, 113, 151, 166, 174, 210\n\nShelley, Lady, 92, 93\n\nShelley, P. B., 90-93, 99, 100\n\nShelley Society, 91, 93-98\n\nShilleto, R., 39, 43\n\nShuckburgh, E. S., 57\n\nSimplification of Life, 73, 75-78\n\nSlaughter-house barbarities, 9, 148-150\n\nSmith, Professor Goldwin, 210\n\nSnake-Feeding in Zoological Gardens, 164, 165\n\nSocialism, 61, 73, 79, 80;\n  Dr. Warre on, 65\n\nSolomon, on the rod, Butlerized, 137\n\nSpencer, Herbert, 202\n\nStag-hunting, 152-154, 170\n\nStephen, Sir Leslie, 70, 91\n\nStewart, Hon. FitzRoy, 160, 161\n\n\u201cStiggins,\u201d 25, 26\n\nStillman, W. J., 209\n\nStratton, Rev. J., 124, 157, 158\n\n\u201cSwage,\u201d 21\n\nSwinburne, A. C., 102-107\n\nSymonds, J. A., 112, 113\n\n\nTait, Professor Lawson, 144, 145\n\nTallack, William, 142, 143\n\nTelemachus, the Martyr, 213\n\nThompson, Dr., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, 41\n\nThomson, James (\u201cB.V.\u201d), 101-104, 237\n\nThoreau, H. D., 73, 76, 78, 114, 115, 118, 122;\n  quoted, 77\n\nTolstoy, Count, 79, 204, 205\n\nTovey, D. C., 57\n\nTrine, R. W., 209, 210\n\n\nVaughan, Mgr. J. S., 126\n\nVegetarianism, at Eton, 62-64, 68\n\nVeresaeff, V., his _Confessions of a Physician_, 147\n\nVivisection, 12, 127, 146-148\n\n\nWallace, Alfred R., 202\n\nWarre, Dr. E., Headmaster of Eton, 59, 60, 65, 97, 154\n\nWatts, G. F., 204\n\nWatts-Dunton, Theodore, 102, 104-106, 108, 129\n\nWelldon, Rt. Rev. J. E. C., 28-30\n\nWest, William, his portrait of Shelley, 99, 100\n\nWilde, Oscar, 86, 181, 182\n\nWilliams, Howard, 63, 122, 124, 146\n\n\nZoological Gardens, 163, 164;\n  piety at the Reptile House, 165\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Printed in Great Britain by_\n\nUNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED\n\nWOKING AND LONDON\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Works by Henry S. Salt_\n\n\n=The Flogging Craze= A Statement of the Case against\nCorporal Punishment\n\nWith FOREWORD by SIR GEORGE GREENWOOD.      3_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n\n=Godwin\u2019s Political Justice= A reprint of the Essay\non Property\n\nEdited by HENRY S. SALT.      3_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\nGEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.\n\n\n=Treasures of Lucretius= (Translations)      1_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n\n=The Life of James Thomson (\u201cB.V.\u201d)=\n\nRevised Edition      2_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\nWATTS & CO.\n\n\n=The Life of Henry David Thoreau=      1_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\nSecond Edition\n\n\n=Songs of Freedom=      1_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\nEdited by HENRY S. SALT.\n\nWALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO.\n\n\n=Richard Jefferies=: His Life and his Ideals      1_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n\n=Eton under Hornby=      2_s._ 6_d._ and 1_s._ 4_d._\n\n\n=Tennyson as a Thinker=      6_d._\n\nA. C. FIFIELD\n\n\n=De Quincey=\n\nBell\u2019s Great Writers. Short Monographs.      1_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n\n=Animals\u2019 Rights=\n\nRevised Edition      1_s._ 6_d._\n\n\n=The Logic of Vegetarianism=      6_d._\n\n\n=Killing for Sport= Essays by Various Writers      _1s._\n\nWith PREFACE by G. BERNARD SHAW. Edited by HENRY S. SALT.\n\n=G. Bell & Sons Ltd.=\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nRuskin the Prophet And Other Centenary Studies By JOHN MASEFIELD, DEAN\nINGE, C. F. G. MASTERMAN, AND OTHERS EDITED BY J. HOWARD WHITEHOUSE\n\n_Demy 8vo._      _8s. 6d. net._\n\nAn important and authoritative book on Ruskin, containing critical\nappreciations and essays by John Masefield, Dean Inge, J. A. Hobson,\nCharles Masterman, H. W. Nevinson, Laurence Binyon, and the editor,\nHoward Whitehouse. Among the subjects dealt with are the Influence of\nRuskin in Modern Life, his social and economic teaching, his relation to\nPlato, and many other aspects of his teaching and influence. The book\nwill be a fitting complement to the remarkable exhibition of Ruskin\u2019s\ndrawings recently held at the Royal Academy.\n\n\nThe Harvest of Ruskin\n\nBY PRINCIPAL JOHN W. GRAHAM, M.A.\n\n_Cr. 8vo._       _7s. 6d. net._\n\nA critical but sympathetic estimate of the net result of Ruskin\u2019s\nteaching in the regions of economics and social reform, education and\nreligion, examined in the light of the present situation between Capital\nand Labour, the advocacy of Guild Socialism, and the widespread\nunsettlement about religion.\n\n\nPagan and Christian Creeds\n\nTheir Origin and Meaning\n\n_Demy 8vo._      BY EDWARD CARPENTER      _10s. 6d. net._\n\n\u201cA splendid theory, and Mr. Carpenter\u2019s exposition of it is done with an\ninfectious enthusiasm ... like all this veteran writer\u2019s work, a sincere\ncontribution to the world\u2019s stock of knowledge.\u201d--_Daily Chronicle._\n\n\u201c ... A genius which is both scientific and artistic, philosophic and\npoetic. Such genius sees and gives the reader visions.\u201d--_Observer._\n\n\nThe Making of Humanity\n\n_Demy 8vo._      BY ROBERT S. BRIFFAULT      _12s. 6d. net._\n\n\u201cAn astonishing book ... a _tour de force_ of rapid historical\nexposition. A masterly analysis of human progress. We hope Democracy\nwill study this brace and brilliant book.\u201d--_English Review._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe History of Social\nDevelopment BY DR.\n            F. M\u00dcLLER-LYER\n\nTRANSLATED BY ELIZABETH COOTE LAKE & H. A. LAKE, B.Sc. (Econ.) WITH AN\nINTRODUCTION BY PROFESSORS L. T. HOBHOUSE & E. J. URWICK\n\n_Demy 8vo._      _18s. net._\n\nThis translation of Dr. F. M\u00fcller-Lyer\u2019s famous book, \u201cPhasen der\nKultur,\u201d will appeal to all who are interested in labour problems at the\npresent time. It contains a series of studies of the different economic\nphenomena of to-day, describing the gradual evolution of each from the\nearliest times, with an indication of the probable trend of future\ndevelopments. The inter-connection of the different conditions so\ndescribed is well illustrated, and each chapter ends with a brief\nsummary of its subject matter. The accounts of the various stages of\nfood production, of clothing, of housing and of the use of tools contain\nin a brief and readable form the results of the investigations of the\npast century, and Part III, \u201cThe History of the Evolution of Labour,\u201d\nwill be read with especial interest.\n\n\nThe Perils of Wealth and\nPoverty BY CANON S. A. BARNETT,\n               M.A., D.C.L.\n\nEDITED BY THE REV. V. A. BOYLE, M.A. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MRS. S. A.\nBARNETT, C.B.E.\n\n_Cr. 8vo._      _2s. 6d. net._\n\nCanon Barnett was so careful a student of social conditions, and so sane\nan idealist, that this little book (which he was engaged in writing just\nbefore his last illness) will be of interest to all who think, and who\ndesire the common welfare.\n\n\nThe Sickness of an Acquisitive\nSociety         BY R. H. TAWNEY\n\n_Cr. 8vo._      _Second Impression_      _2s. net._\n\nIn this booklet the author analyses the causes of the present\ndiscontents which are troubling modern society, and traces their origin\nto the divorce of property rights from social duties.\n\n\nCo-operation and the Future\nof Industry         BY LEONARD S. WOOLF\n\n_Cr. 8vo._      _Second Edition_      _5s. net._\n\n\u201cA book of great immediate and practical importance. Every one who\ndesires industrial reconstruction would do well to master\nit.\u201d--_Herald._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGovernment and Industry BY C. DELISLE BURNS\n\nAuthor of \u201cPolitical Ideals\u201d\n\n_Demy 8vo._      _About 16s. net._\n\nThis is a description of the existing relations between British\ngovernment and the industrial system. The present tendencies are shown\nto indicate the formation of an organized \u201ceconomic\u201d community, based\nupon the State organization but distinct from it. The dominant\nconception operating in this economic community is that of public\nservice. The theory expressed in the book, however, is subordinated to a\ndescription of actual facts--the administrative treatment of labour\nconditions, unemployment, commerce and finance, which will be found\nvaluable even by those who do not agree with the theory, since the\ndescription is the only one which covers contemporary post-war\nadministration.\n\n\nProblems of a New World BY J. A. HOBSON\n\n_Cr. 8vo._      _7s. 6d. net._\n\nEvents of the last few years have shaken our political and economic\nsystems to their foundations. The old guarantees of order and progress\nno longer suffice. The problems of 1920 are not those of 1914. Human\nNature itself, as an operative force, has changed.\n\nThese chapters discuss the revelations and describe the new ideals that\nare struggling to get themselves realized in the new Industry, the new\nState, and the new World-Order.\n\n\nWhat the Workers Want A Study in British Labour BY ARTHUR GLEASON\n\n_Demy 8vo._      _About 16s. net._\n\nA record of the aims and achievements of British Labour, the result of\nfive years\u2019 continuous study of Labour conditions. It deals with what\nthe workers want, who the leaders are, what the strikes mean, what the\nworkers have won, and what they seek. There are chapters by Messrs.\nSmillie, Frank Hodges, C. T. Cramp and others; and the appendix contains\nall the important documents of the industrial revolution.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n                 LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LIMITED\n\n                RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n [1] In an article published in _Macmillan\u2019s Magazine_, December 1887,\n I dealt with the subject of Moultrie\u2019s Poems.\n\n [2] Article on \u201cEton as it is,\u201d in the _Adventurer_, No. 23, by \u201cE. G.\n R.\u201d (G. C. Macaulay).\n\n [3] Dr. Lyttelton, when Headmaster of Eton, substituted the cane for\n the birch in the Upper School.\n\n [4] From the chapter on \u201cThe Author of Ionica,\u201d in _Eton under Hornby_.\n\n [5] See Brinsley Richards\u2019s _Seven Years at Eton_.\n\n [6] The article, unsigned, appeared in No. 23.\n\n [7] The _Adventurer_, No. 20.\n\n [8] See the concluding article, \u201cValete Etonenses,\u201d No. 29.\n\n [9] The incident is a good example of the way in which the _real_\n ethics of diet are often overlooked, while stress is laid upon some\n quite minor and subordinate aspect of it.\n\n [10] I was not aware of these lines having appeared in print,\n until they were quoted by Sir Edward Cook in his _More Literary\n Recreations_, 1919. My version of them is slightly different from his;\n but I think my recollection is trustworthy.\n\n [11] _My Days and Dreams_, by Edward Carpenter, 1916.\n\n [12] The two years allowed for vegetarianism have now become forty,\n and all of them years of hard work.\n\n [13] \u201cOur competitive system of industry is a vestigial institution.\n It is a survival from the militant ages of the past.... It is a system\n of cannibalism. Instead of instilling the feeling of brotherhood,\n it compels us to eat each other.\u201d--_Savage Survivals_, by J. Howard\n Moore, 1916.\n\n [14] Since the above was written, Dean Inge has added his name to the\n illustrious list. Is it not time, by the way, that some one collected\n the Gloomy Dean\u2019s golden sayings in a volume--under the title of\n _Ingots_, perhaps?\n\n [15] Article on \u201cThe Bringing of Sentient Beings into Existence,\u201d the\n _Ethical World_, May 7, 1898.\n\n [16] _Pall Mall Gazette_, April 28, 1888.\n\n [17] _Farnham Herald_, September 16, 1899.\n\n [18] _Wayfarings_: a Record of Adventure and Liberation in the Life of\n the Spirit, 1918.\n\n [19] _The Academy_, October 15, 1898.\n\n [20] The substance of what is here said about Francis Adams is taken\n from my editorial note to the revised edition of the _Songs of the\n Army of the Night_, published by Mr. A. C. Fifield, 1910.\n\n [21] _De Rerum Natur\u00e2_, iii. 9-13, as translated in _Treasures of\n Lucretius_.\n\n [22] It is significant that the title of Edward Carpenter\u2019s lines\n to Shelley: \u201cTo a Dead Poet,\u201d became, in later editions of _Towards\n Democracy_, \u201cTo One who is where the Eternal are.\u201d\n\n [23] _Sonnet to Shelley_, by N. Douglas Deuchar.\n\n [24] From a letter on \u201cSwinburne at Eton,\u201d _Times Literary\n Supplement_, December 25, 1919.\n\n [25] The assertion made in Mr. H. M. Hyndman\u2019s _Records of an\n Adventurous Life_ (1911) that Meredith\u2019s vegetarianism was \u201calmost\n the death of him,\u201d and that he himself \u201crecognized the truth,\u201d viz.\n that flesh food is a necessity for those who work with mind as well\n as body, is directly at variance with what Meredith himself told me\n twenty years nearer the date of the experiment in question.\n\n [26] Here perhaps I had better say that my own work for the League,\n though mostly private and anonymous, was continuous during the\n twenty-nine years of the League\u2019s existence; so that in describing\n the various aspects of the movement I am writing of what I know. The\n opinions expressed are, of course, only personal, as in the remarks\n about the war (Chap. XV).\n\n [27] _Daily News_, April 10, 1906.\n\n [28] _Daily News_, June 6, 1908.\n\n [29] _The Times_, December 11 and 26, 1902.\n\n [30]\n\n    Then spare the rod and spoil the child.\n      _Hudibras_, Part II, canto 1, 844.\n\n\n [31] Mr. J. F. P. Rawlinson, in the House of Commons, November 1, 1912.\n\n [32] London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.\n\n [33] _The Confessions of a Physician_, translated by Simeon Linden,\n pp. 158, 159.\n\n [34] A Member of Parliament who had charge of a Sports Bill once\n begged us not to get the Buckhounds abolished, because, as he said,\n they were the great incentive to vote for the Bill.\n\n [35] See Dickens\u2019s description, Forster\u2019s _Life of Dickens_, iii. 146.\n\n [36] Some years later I was enabled, by the courtesy of the owner, to\n visit the top of Kinderscout on a frosty afternoon in December, when\n it had the appearance of a great snow-clad table-land, intersected by\n deep ruts, and punctuated here and there by the black masonry of the\n tors.\n\n [37] I have here incorporated the substance of a letter on \u201cThe\n Preservation of Mountain Scenery\u201d published in _The Times_, April 28,\n 1908.\n\n [38] _North Wales Weekly News_, May 15, 1908.\n\n [39] _On Cambrian and Cumbrian Hills._\n\n [40] Charles H. Kerr & Co., Chicago, 1916; Watts & Co., London, 1918.\n\n [41] See the address on \u201cWar and Sublimation,\u201d given by Dr. L. Jones,\n in the subsection of Psychology, at the meetings of the British\n Association, September 11, 1915. In war, he pointed out, impulses\n were noticed which apparently did not exist in peace, except in\n the criminal classes. Primitive tendencies never disappeared from\n existence; they only vanished from view by being repressed and buried\n in the unconscious mind.\n\n [42] _Cf._ Mr. Edward Garnett\u2019s _Papa\u2019s War, and Other Satires_,\n George Allen & Unwin, Ld., 1918.\n\n [43] \u201cWe were told that the war was to end war, but it was not: it did\n not and it could not.\u201d So said Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, May 18,\n 1920; at which date it was no longer necessary to keep up the illusion.\n\n [44] If any doubt existed as to the national insensibility caused by\n the war, it must have been dispelled by the comparative indifference\n with which the news of the Amritsar massacre--a more terrible atrocity\n than any for which German commanders were responsible--was received in\n this country.\n\n [45] _De Rerum Natur\u00e2_, iii, 847-850, as translated in _Treasures of\n Lucretius_.\n\n [46] _Civilization_, by George Duhamel. Translated by T. P.\n Conwil-Evans.\n\n [47] I heard a Derbyshire gamekeeper actually quote \u201cVengeance is\n mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,\u201d as if it were an injunction to\n the righteous to follow the example of a vengeful Deity.\n\n [48] _The Basis of Morality._ Translated by Arthur Brodrick Bullock,\n 1903 (George Allen and Unwin, Ltd.).\n\n\nTypographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:\n\nfor how then would be obtain=> for how then would he obtain {pg 184}\n\nthe London and North-Western Railway at Llanber i England=> the London\nand North-Western Railway at Llanberis England {pg 195}","title":"Seventy Years Among Savages","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":78229}