{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_54715/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_54715","id":"gutenberg_54715","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54715","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Humour","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Great Britain -- Civilization"],"text":"Note: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive. See\n      https://archive.org/details/nightswithgods00reicrich\n\n\n\n\n\nNIGHTS WITH THE GODS..\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nNIGHTS WITH THE GODS\n\nby\n\nEMIL REICH\n\nDoctor Juris\n\nAuthor of\n\"Foundations of Modern Europe\"\n\"Success among Nations\" etc.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLondon\nT. Werner Laurie\nCliffords Inn, Fleet Street\n\nThe Riverside Press Limited, Edinburgh.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                                  PAGE\n\n  THE FIRST NIGHT\n\n  ARISTOTLE ON SPECIALISM IN ENGLAND                                1\n\n\n  THE SECOND NIGHT\n\n  DIOGENES AND PLATO ON TOLSTOY, IBSEN, SHAW, ETC.                 32\n\n\n  THE THIRD NIGHT\n\n  ALCIBIADES ON WOMEN IN ENGLAND                                   65\n\n\n  THE FOURTH NIGHT\n\n  ALCIBIADES--CONTINUED                                           101\n\n\n  THE FIFTH NIGHT\n\n  C\u00c6SAR ON THE HOUSE OF COMMONS                                   134\n\n\n  THE SIXTH NIGHT\n\n  APOLLO AND DIONYSUS IN ENGLAND                                  160\n\n\n  THE SEVENTH NIGHT\n\n  SOCRATES, DIOGENES, AND PLATO ON RELIGION                       182\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\n\nThe great spirits of the past, chiefly Hellenes, recently revisited\nEngland. With a view to an exchange of ideas on English contemporary\nlife, they met at night in various towns of Italy, where, by the favour\nof Dionysus, the author was allowed to be present, and to take notes\nat the proceedings. The following pages contain some of the speeches\ndelivered in the Assembly of the Gods and Heroes.\n\n  THE AUTHOR.\n\n  33 ST LUKE'S ROAD,\n  NOTTING HILL,\n  LONDON, W.\n\n\n\n\nNIGHTS WITH THE GODS\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIRST NIGHT\n\nARISTOTLE ON SPECIALISM IN ENGLAND\n\n\nThe first night the gods and heroes assembled on the heights around\nFlorence. From the magnificent town there came only a faint glimmer of\nartificial light, and the Arno rolled its waves melodiously towards the\nsea. On a height full of convenient terraces, offering a view on the\nLily of the Arno, on Fiesole, and on the finely undulating outlines of\nthe Apennine Mountains, the Assembly sat down. From afar one could see\nthe bold lines of the copy of Michelangelo's David on the hill. The\nevening was lovely and balmy. Zeus opened the meeting with a request\ndirected to Alexander, King of Macedon, to ask his teacher Aristotle\nto entertain them with his experiences at the seats of modern learning\nand study. Alexander did so, and the grave Stagirite, mellowed by the\nyears, addressed the Assembly as follows:\n\n\"All my mortal life I have tried, by reading, by making vast\ncollections of natural objects and animals, and by the closest thinking\non the facts furnished to me by men of all sorts of professions and\ncrafts, to get at some unity of knowledge. I held, and still hold,\nthat just as Nature is one, so ought Knowledge too to be. I have\nwritten a very large number of treatises, many of which, thanks to Thy\nProvidence, O Zeus, have escaped the smallpox called commentaries, in\nthat the little ones never got possession of those works. But while\nalways loving detail and single facts, I never lost sight of the\nconnection of facts. As a coin, whether a penny or a sovereign, has\nno currency unless the image of the prince is cut out on it, even so\nhas no fact scientific value unless the image of an underlying general\nprinciple is grafted thereon. This great truth I taught all my pupils,\nand I hoped that men would carefully observe it in all their studies.\nWhen then I went amongst the little ones, I expected them to do as I\nhad taught their teachers to do. However, what I found was, O Zeus, the\nfunniest of all things.\n\n\"On my visit to what they call Universities I happened to call, in the\nfirst place, on a professor who said he studied history. In my time I\nbelieved that history was not as suggestive of philosophical truths as\nis poetry. Since then I have somewhat altered my view. Naturally enough\nI was curious to know what my Professor of History thought of that, and\nI asked him to that effect. He looked at me with a singular smile and\nsaid: 'My young friend (--I had assumed the appearance of a student--),\nmy young friend, history is neither more nor less than a science. As\nsuch it consists of a long array of specialities.' 'And which,' I asked\ntimidly, 'is your special period?' Whereupon the professor gravely\nsaid: 'The afternoons of the year 1234 A.D.'\" While everybody present\nin the Assembly, including even St Francis of Assisi, laughed at this\npoint of Aristotle's narrative, Diogenes exclaimed: \"Why has the good\nman not selected the nights of that year? It would greatly reduce his\nlabours.\"\n\nA peal of laughter rewarded the lively remark. Aristotle resumed his\ntale, and said: \"When the professor saw that I was a little amused\nat his statement, he frowned on me and exclaimed in a deep voice,\nif with frequent stammerings, which as I subsequently learnt is the\nchief attraction of their diction, 'My young friend, you must learn\nto understand that we modern historians have discovered a method so\nsubtle, and so effective, that, with all deference be it said, we are\nin some respects stronger even than the gods. For the gods cannot\nchange the past; but we modern historians can. We do it every day of\nour lives, and some of us have obtained a very remarkable skill at it.'\"\n\nAt this point of Aristotle's narrative Homeric laughter seized all\npresent, and Aristophanes patted the Stagirite on the back, saying:\n\"Pray, consider yourself engaged. At the next performance of my best\ncomedy you will be my protagonist.\" Aristotle thanked him with much\ngrace, and continued: \"I was naturally very curious to learn what my\nProfessor of History thought of the great Greeks of my own time and of\nthat of my ancestors. I mentioned Homer. I had barely done so but what\nmy professor burst into a coarse and disdainful guffaw.\n\n\"'Homer?' he exclaimed; 'Homer?--but of whom do you speak?\nHomer is nothing more nor less than a multiple syndicate of\nstreet-ballad-singers who, by a belated process of throwing back the\n\"reflex\" of present and modern events to remote ages, and by the\nwell-known means of literary contamination, epical syncretism, and\nreligious, mythopoeic, and subconscious impersonation have been hashed\ninto the appearance of one great poet.\n\n\"'Our critical methods, my young friend, are so keen that, to speak by\nway of simile, we are able to spot, from looking at the footprints of a\nman walking in the sand, what sort of buttons he wore on his cuffs.\n\n\"'Poor Cuvier--otherwise one of my revered colleagues--used to say:\n\"Give me a tooth of an animal and I will reconstruct the rest of the\nanimal's body.\" What is Cuvier's feat as compared with ours? He still\nwanted a tooth; he still was in need of so clumsy and palpable a thing\nas a tooth; perhaps a molar. We, the super-Cuviers of history, we do\nnot want a tooth any more than toothache; we want nothing. No tooth,\nno footprint even, simply nothing. Is it not divine? We form, as it\nwere, an _Ex Nihilo_ Club. We have nothing, we want nothing, and yet\ngive everything. Although we have neither leg to stand on, nor tooth to\nbite with, we staunchly prove that Homer was not Homer, but a lot of\nHomers. Is that not marvellous? But even this, my young friend, is only\na trifle. We have done far greater things.\n\n\"'These ancient Greeks (quite clever fellows, I must tell you, and some\nof them _could_ write grammatical Greek), these ancient Greeks had,\namongst other remarkable men, one called Aristotle. He wrote quite a\nnumber of works; of course, not quite as many as he thought he did. For\nwe have proved by our _Ex Nihilo_ methods that much of what he thought\nhe had written was not written by him, but dictated. We have gone even\nso far (I myself, although used to our exploits, stand sometimes agape\nat our sagacity), we have gone so far as to prove that in the dictation\nof some of his writings Aristotle was repeatedly interrupted by letters\nor telephonic messages, which accounts for gaps and other shortcomings.\n\n\"'Well, this man Aristotle (for, we have not yet pluralised him,\nalthough I--but this would pass your horizon, my young friend)--this\nclever man has left us, amongst other works, one called \"Politics.\" It\nis not wanting in quality, and it is said, if with certain doubts, that\nthere are a few things to be learnt from it. It is, of course, also\nsaid that no professor has ever learnt them. But this is mere calumny.\nLook at their vast commentaries. Of course, how can one accept some of\nthe glaring fallacies of Aristotle? Imagine, that man Aristotle wants\nus to believe that nearly all Greek states were founded, equipped with\na constitution, and in a word, completely fitted out by _one_ man in\neach case. Thus, that Sparta was founded, washed, dressed, fed, and\neducated by one Lycurgus. How ridiculous!\n\n\"'Having proved, as we have, that Homer's poetry, a mere book, was\nmade by a Joint Stock Company, Unlimited, how can we admit that a big\nand famous state like Sparta was ordered, cut out, tailored, stuffed\nand set on foot by one man? Where would be Evolution? If a state like\nSparta was made in the course of a few months by one man, what would\nEvolution do with all the many, many years and ages she has to drag\nalong? Why, she would die with _ennui_, bored to death. Can we admit\nthat? _Can one let Evolution die?_ Is she not a nice, handy, comely\nEvolution, and so useful in the household that we cannot be happy\nuntil we get her? To believe in a big, important state like Sparta\nhaving been completely established by one man is like saying that\nmy colleague, the Professor of Zoology, taking a shilling bottle of\nBovril, has reconstituted out of its contents a live ox walking stately\ninto his lecture-room. Hah-hah-hah! Very good joke. (Secretary! Put it\ninto my table-talk! Voltairian joke! serious, but not grave.)\n\n\"'Now, you see, my young friend, in that capital point Aristotle was\nmost childishly mistaken; and even so in many another point. We have\ndefinitely done away with all state-founders of the ancients. Romulus\nis a myth; so is Theseus; so is Moses; so is Samson (not to speak of\nDelilah); so is everybody who pretended to have founded a city-state.\nSince he never existed, how could he have founded anything? Could I\nfound a city-state? Or any state, except a certain state of mind, in\nwhich I say that no single man can found a city-state? Could I? Of\ncourse, I could not. Well then, how could Lycurgus? Was he a LL.D.?\nWas he a member of the British Academy? Was he a professor at Oxford?\nHad he written numerous letters to _The Times_? Was he subscriber to\nso respectable a paper as _The Spectator_? It is ridiculous to speak\nof such a thing. Lycurgus founding Sparta! It is too amusing for\nwords. These are all myths. Whatever we cannot understand, we call a\nmyth; and since we do not understand many things, we get every day a\nricher harvest of myths. We are full of them. We are the real living\nmythology.'\n\n\"To this long oration,\" Aristotle continued, \"I retorted as calmly\nas I could, that we Greeks had states totally different from those\nof the moderns, just as the latter had a Church system absolutely\ndifferent from our religious institutions; so that if anyone had tried\nto persuade an Athenian of my time that a few hundred years later there\nwould be Popes, or single men claiming and obtaining the implicit\nobedience of all believers in all countries, the Athenian would sooner\nhave gone mad than believe such stuff. For, to him, as a Greek, it must\nhave seemed hopelessly incredible that an office such as that of the\nuniversal Pope should ever be tolerated; or, in other words, that a\nsingle man should ever be given such boundless spiritual power. I said\nall that with much apparent deference; but my professor got more and\nmore out of control.\n\n\"'What,' said he, 'what do you drag in Popes for? We talk of Lycurgus,\nnot of Popes. Was Lycurgus a Christian? Let us stick to the point. The\npoint is that Lycurgus never existed, since so many professors, who do\nexist beyond doubt, deny his historical existence. Now, either you deny\nthe existence of these professors, which you can't; or you deny that\nof Lycurgus, which you must. Existence cannot include non-existence.\nFor, non-existence is, is it not?--the negation of existence. And since\nthe professors exist, their non-existence would involve us in the\nmost exasperating contradictions with them, with ourselves, and with\nthe daily Press. This, however, would be a disaster too awful to be\nseriously thought of. Consequently, Lycurgus did not exist; nor did any\nother state-founding personality in Greek or Roman times.\n\n\"'In fact when you come to think of it, nobody ever existed except\nourselves. Adam was not; he will be at the end of ends. The whole\nconcept of the world is wrong as understood by the vulgar. Those old\nGreek and Roman heroes, like Aristomenes, Coriolanus, Cincinnatus,\nnever existed for a day. Nor did the Doric Migration, the Twelve\nTables, and lots of other so-called events. They have been invented\nby schoolmasters for purposes of exams. Did Draco's laws ever exist?\nRidiculous. That man Aristotle speaks of them, but it is as evident as\nsoap that he invented them for mods. or other exams. of his.\n\n\"'The vulgar constantly ask me whether or no history repeats itself.\nWhat, for goodness' sake, does that matter to me? It is sufficient\nfor all purposes that historians repeat each other, for it is in\nthat way that historical truth is established. Or do not the great\nbusiness-princes thus establish their reputation? They go on repeating\n\"Best furniture at Staple's,\" \"Best furniture at Staple's,\" three\nhundred and sixty-five times a year, in three hundred and sixty-five\npapers a day. By repetition of the same thing they establish truth. So\ndo we historians. That's business. What, under the circumstances, does\nit matter, whether history itself does or does not repeat itself?\n\n\"'One arrogant fellow who published a wretched book on \"General\nHistory,\" thought wonders what he did not do by saying, that\n\"_History does repeat itself in institutions, but never in events or\npersons._\" Can such drivel be tolerated! Why, the repetition by and\nthrough persons (read: historians) is the very soul of history. We in\nthis country have said and written in and out of time and on every\nsort of paper, that the \"Decline and Fall of the Burmese Empire\"\nis the greatest historical work ever written by a Byzantine, or a\npost-Byzantine. We have said it so frequently, so incessantly, that at\npresent it is an established truth. Who would dare to say that it is\nnot? Why, the very _Daily Nail_ would consider such a person as being\nbeneath it.\n\n\"'We real historians go for facts only. Ideas are sheer dilettantism.\nGive us facts, nothing but single, limited, middle-class facts. In the\nRepublic of Letters we do not suffer any lordly ideas, no more than the\nidea of lords. One fact is as good as another, and far worse. Has not\nour greatest authority taught that the British Empire was established\nin and by absent-mindedness, that is, without a trace of reasoned\nideas? As the British Empire, even so the British historians, and,\n_cela vo sang dir_, all the other historians. Mind is absent. \"Mind\" is\na periodical; not a necessity. We solid researchers crawl from one fact\nto another for crawling's sake.'\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe gods and heroes were highly amused with the tale of Aristotle,\nand it was with genuine delight that they saw him resume the story of\nhis experiences at the seats of learning. \"When I left the Professor\nof History,\" continued Aristotle, \"I felt somewhat heavy and dull.\nI could not easily persuade myself that such utter confusion should\nreign in the study of history after so many centuries of endless\nresearch. I hoped that the little ones might have made more real\nadvance in philosophy; and with a view to ascertain the fact, I entered\na lecturing hall where a professor was even then holding forth on my\ntreatise 'De Anima.' He had just published a thick book on my little\ntreatise, although (or perhaps because?...) another professor, a\nFrenchman, had recently published a much thicker book on it.\n\n\"I listened very attentively, but could not understand a word\nof what he said. He treated me text-critically, philologically,\nhermeneutically,--everything, except understandingly. I felt that my\ntreatise was not mine at all. It was his. At a given moment I could\nnot help uttering aloud a sarcastic remark about the professor's\nexplanations. Down he came on me like thunder, and with a triumphant\nsneer he proved to me that what I had said I had not said at all.\nIn that I differed entirely from a great statesman of theirs, who\n_had_ said what he had said. The professor put me under a regular\nexamination, and after twenty minutes formally ploughed me in 'De\nAnima.'\n\n\"This was a novel experience for me. In the Middle Ages, it is true,\nI had repeatedly had the same experience, and Albertus Magnus and St\nThomas Aquinas had done me the same honour. But in modern times I had\nnot yet experienced it. The next day I called upon the professor, who\nlived in a beautiful house, filled with books, amongst which I saw a\ngreat number of editions of my own works.\n\n\"I asked him whether he had ever cared to study the _anima_, or what\nthey call the psychology of animals. I added that Aristotle had\nevidently done so, as his works explicitly prove, and that after he\nhad surveyed all sorts of souls in the vegetable, animal and human\nkingdom, both normal and pathological, he wrote his treatise 'De\nAnima,' the real sense of which must escape him who has not taken such\na wide range of the question. Ah--you ought to have seen the professor!\nHe jumped from his seat, took another whisky and soda and said: 'My\nyoung friend, the first thing in science is to distinguish well. _Bene\ndocet qui bene distinguit._ You speak of animals. What have they to do\nwith human psychology? Their souls are studied by my colleague who goes\nin for comparative psychology; or rather by several of my colleagues,\none of whom studies the comparative psychology of the senses; the\nother that of the emotions; the third that of memory; the fourth--the\nfifth--the sixth, etc., etc., etc.\n\n\"'I, I stick to my point. I have my speciality. You might think that\nmy speciality is psychology, or Aristotle's psychology. Not at all.\nThis is all too vague, too general. My speciality is quite special; a\nparticularly singular speciality: the text of Aristotle's psychology.\nAnd even that goes too far; for what I really call my speciality\nis _my_ version of the text which is said to have been written by\nAristotle.\n\n\"'Now at last we are on firm ground. What under those conditions need\nI trouble about cats and rats? The latter, the rats, have, I admit,\nsome little importance for me. They have in their time devoured parts\nof Aristotle's manuscripts, and I have now to reconstitute what they\nhave swallowed. I am to them a kind of literary Beecham's Pill. But\nas to cats, mules or donkeys? What have they to do with me? Can they\ninfluence my version of the text? Hardly.\n\n\"'My young friend, if Aristotle himself came to me, I should tell him:\n\"My good man, unless you accept my version of your text, you are out of\ncourt. I am a professor, and you are only an author. Worse than that--a\nGreek author. As theologians fix the value and meaning of gospel-words;\nas the State makes a piece of worthless paper worth five pounds\nsterling by a mere declaration; even so we say what you Aristotle did\nsay. What _you_ said or meant is indifferent; what we say you said or\nmeant is alone of consequence.\" How then could even Aristotle refute me\nregarding my view of his views? It is logically impossible.\n\n\"'Don't you see, this is why we have invented our beautiful system\nof excessive specialisation. Where each of us studies only one very\nsmall thing, there he need not fear much competition, but may hope for\nexclusive authority. We shall soon establish chairs for professors of\nphilosophy, who will study, each of them, just a mere splinter of a\ntwig of one branch of the tree of philosophy; or better still, just\none leaf of such a twig of such a branch; and finally, just a dewdrop\non such a leaf of such a twig of such a branch. Then we shall have\ncompleted our network of authority.\n\n\"'Our contemptible enemies say that our talk about Aristotle and\nPlato is like the gossip of lackeys in the pot-house about their\nnoble masters. We know better. You are a young man. I will give you a\nbit of profound advice. If you want to make your way in the literary\nworld rapidly and with ease, hitch on your name to some universally\nacknowledged celebrity. Do not write on obscure, if great authors or\nheroes; but pick out Homer, Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, or\nNapoleon. Write constantly on some speciality of these men; thus,\non the adjectives in Homer; on the neutral article in Plato; on the\nconjunctions in Dante; on the plant-lore in Shakespeare; on the names\nof women in Goethe; or on the hats of Napoleon.\n\n\"'Your name will then incessantly be before the public together with\nthat of Homer or Shakespeare or Napoleon. After a time, by a natural\nassociation of ideas, something of the lustre of the immortal will\nfall on you. Note how the most elaborate writers on, say Shakespeare,\nare almost invariably men of the most sincere mediocrity. They are,\nnevertheless, exceedingly clever tacticians. They become \"authorities.\"\nWe are not authorities because we are specialists; we have, on the\ncontrary, introduced the system of specialities in order to pass\nfor authorities. To use Plato's terms: our whole business spells\n_effectology_, and nothing else. Take this to heart and be successful.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"On leaving the professor,\" Aristotle said, \"I felt that I had\nmade several steps forward in the comprehension of that system\nof specialisation which I heard praised and admired in all the\nUniversities. I need not tell you, my friends, how utterly wrong\nthat system is. As humans do not think in words, but in whole\nsentences, so Nature does not act in particulars, but in wholes. The\nparticulars are ours, not Nature's. In making them we act arbitrarily.\nWhy should dentistry be one speciality? Why should there not be\nthirty-two different specialist dentists for our thirty-two teeth?\nAll specialisation in the realm of knowledge is rank arbitrariness.\nWithout exception, the great leading ideas in all organised thought\nhave invariably been made by wholesale thinkers like Pythagoras, Plato,\nI venture to add: myself, Lionardo da Vinci, Kepler, Newton, Pascal,\nLeibniz, Darwin. That is precisely where humans differ from animals.\nAll animals are the most conceited specialists.\"\n\nHere Diogenes interrupted: \"Does the converse hold good, O Aristotle?\"\n\n\"I will leave,\" Aristotle replied with a smile, \"the consideration of\nthis case to your own discretion. I do repeat it, that each animal is\nan out-and-out specialist. It troubles about nothing else than the two\nor three things it takes a professional interest in. It eats, sleeps,\nand propagates; occasionally it adds a tightly circumscribed activity\nof some kind. That's why animals do not talk. It is not part of their\nspeciality. They do not talk for the same reason that the English do\nnot produce fine music, nor the Prussians tactful behaviour. In all\nthese cases the interest of the specialist lies elsewhere.\n\n\"Does a modern specialist in heart-diseases study the kidneys? Does\na specialist in surgery care to study the nerves? Even so an animal\ndoes not care to speak. It is a specialist; it restricts itself to\nits 'business,' to 'the point.' The little ones say that animals have\nno general ideas, and that is why they cannot speak. But have human\nspecialists any general ideas of anything, and yet--do they not speak?\nThe argument is too foolish for words.\n\n\"Why, Nature created men in order to have a few _generalists_, if I may\nsay so, amongst all the specialists called animals or plants; just as\namongst men she created Homers and Platos and Galileos and Leibnizes,\nin order to save the rest of humans from their evil tendency to\nover-specialisation. It is a plan as plain as transparent glass.\n\n\"Thousands of years ago Nature found out that, with all these endless\nvegetal and animal specialists on hand, she would soon have to declare\nherself bankrupt. One specialist ignored the other; or hampered, hurt,\nand paralysed the other; they could not understand one another, because\nthey had no common interest. In her predicament, Nature created human\nbeings for the same reason that men invented the locomotive or the\ntelegraph. She could no longer be without him. Man was, by his very\nneeds, obliged to drop over-specialisation. He interested himself,\nfor a variety of ends and reasons, in stones as much as in plants and\nanimals. By exterminating some of the most damaging species of animals,\nhe saved the life of millions of specimens of other animals that would\notherwise have been killed out by ferocious specialists, such as the\ntiger, the leopard, and the wolf. The same he did to plants, and partly\nto rivers and lakes. He brought a little order into this pandemonium of\nspecialists in Nature.\n\n\"Look at the sea. There man was unable to exert his power for order\nby general ideas. Look at the indescribable disorder and chaos and\nmonstrosity of life and living beings in the sea. They are hideous,\nlike an octopus; short-lived, nay, of a few minutes' duration, like\nthe jelly-fish; fearful and yet cowardly like a shark; abominably\nunder-sized or over-sized; incapable of any real passion, except that\nof eating and drinking. This liquid mass of fanatic and unsystematised\nspecialists render the sea as inferior to the land as is Thibet to Holy\nAthens. People travelling in that ocean of specialists are exasperated\nby foul sea-sickness; and empires built on it have repeatedly been\ndestroyed in a single week; ay, in one day.\n\n\"The dread of being swamped by specialists has driven Nature into\ncreating the most grotesque compositions of beings half plant and half\nanimal, or half stone and half plant; or again half male and half\nfemale; or half land-animal, half fish. Another way adopted by Nature\nin her attempt to obviate the ravages of specialists was by giving\nthem exceedingly short shrift, and just a mere speck of existence; or\nagain by forcing them to form big corporations and societies, such as\nforests, prairies, meadows, swarms, troupes.\n\n\"In fact Nature is a free lance fighting incessantly the evil done by\nthe specialists. Ask Poseidon what trouble the sea gives him; ask \u00c6olus\nhow his life is made a misery through the mad freaks of the various\nspecialists in winds. And what is the deep, underlying reason of all\nthis insane race for specialism? I will tell you that in one word. It\nis Envy and Jealousy. In certain countries Envy and Jealousy are the\ninextinguishable and ubiquitous hydra of life.\n\n\"Take England. She is a democracy, if a masked one. Hence Jealousy is\nthe dominating trait of her citizens. Jealousy has, thousands of years\nago, invented railways, telegraphs, wired and wireless ones, telephones\nand R\u00f6ntgen-rays, and all the rest of the infernal machines whereby\nSpace, Time, and Work is shortened, curtailed, annihilated. Jealousy\nhas at all times sent wireless messages over and through all the houses\nof a town or an entire country. It has R\u00f6ntgenised the most hidden\ninteriors; and its poison runs more quickly through all the veins and\nnerves of men than does the electric spark.\n\n\"Look at the customs, social prejudices, or views of that nation. Over\none half of them was introduced to disarm the ever-present demon of\nJealousy. Why is a man a specialist? Because in that way he disarms\nJealousy more quickly and more surely than by any other expedient. It\ngives him an air both of modesty and of strength by concentration.\nIn reality it does neither. It is only an air. The so-called Reality\nconsists of nothing but unrealities, of shams, and masks. A specialist\nis not a master of his subject; he is a master of the art than which\nthere is no greater, the art of making other people believe that you\nare not what you are, but what _they_ want you to be.\n\n\"Nature has a horror of specialists; and she will reveal her secrets to\nan insane poet rather than to a specialist. Most great inventions were\nmade either by 'outsiders,' or by young men who had not yet had the\ntime to harden into specialists. In specialisation there is nothing but\na total misunderstanding of Nature.\n\n\"Nature acts by instantaneous correlation and co-operation of different\nparts to one end; and to specialise is tantamount to taking a clock\nto pieces, putting them separately in a row on the table, and then\nexpecting them to give you the exact time.\n\n\"In Nature there is no evolution, but only co-evolution; there is no\ndifferentiation but only co-differentiation. The little ones have\nquite overlooked all that; and that is why so many of the statements\nof co-differentiation in my zoology can be neither confirmed nor\nrefuted by them. Who dare say which is a 'part' in Nature? Is the hand\na 'part,' that is, something that might legitimately be told off as a\nspeciality? Or must it be studied in connection with the arm, or with\nits homologies in the nether part of the body?\n\n\"In the same way: what constitutes a 'period' in history? Any division\nof a hundred or a thousand years by two, three, or four? Or by a\ndivision of twenty-five or thirty only? Who can tell? A man who says\nhe is a specialist in the thirteenth century, is he not like a man who\npretends that he is a specialist in respiration in the evening?\n\n\"Nature does specialise; witness her innumerable specialists. But do\nwe know, do we possess the slightest idea as to how she does it? Can\nwe prove why a goose has its peculiar head and not that of a stork?\nEvidently not, because we do not know what Nature calls a part, a\nspeciality. She abhors specialists, just because they know so little of\n_her_ way of specialising.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt this point of Aristotle's speech, Aristophanes asked for leave to\nprotest. Having obtained it from Zeus, he commenced forthwith: \"O\nFather of Nature and Man, I can no longer stand the invective of the\nStagirite. In his time he was prudent enough to postpone his birth\ntill after my mortal days; otherwise I should have treated him as I\ndid Meton and Socrates, and other philosophers. But here he shall not\nescape me. Just imagine, this man wants to deprive creation of the best\nfun that is offered to the thinking beings amongst animals and humans.\n\n\"I wish he had overheard, as I have, when the other night I passed\nthrough an old forest near Darlington, a conversation between an old\nowl, a black woodpecker, and a badger. The owl sat, somewhat lower than\nusual on a birch-tree, while the woodpecker stopped his work at the\nbark of the groaning tree, and the badger had left his hole in order\nto enjoy the cool breath of the night. The owl said: 'Good-evening,\nMr Woodpecker, how is business? Many worms beneath the bark?' The\nwoodpecker replied: 'Thanks, madam, there is a slump, but one must put\nup with what one can get.'\n\n\"The badger then complained that he passed tedious hours in the ground,\nand he wished he could again see the exciting times of a few hundred\nthousand years ago when earthquakes and other catastrophes made\nexistence more entertaining. 'Quite so,' said the owl, 'the forest is\ngetting too civilised, and too calm. But you see, my friends, I have\nprovided for much solid amusement for my old days. I used to visit a\nhuman's room, who read a great number of books. I asked him to teach\nme that art. I found it easy enough, only that these humans will read\nin a straight line from left to right, and I am accustomed to circular\nlooks all round.\n\n\"'When I had quite acquired the art, I read some of his books. They\nwere all about us folk in the forest. Once I chanced upon a chapter on\nowls. You may easily imagine how interested I was. I had not yet read\na few pages, when I was seized with such a laughter that the professor\nbecame very indignant and told me to leave him. This I did; but\nwhenever he read his books, I read them too, perched on a tree not far\nfrom his study. I cannot tell you how amusing it was.\n\n\"'These humans tell stories about us owls, and about you, Mr\nWoodpecker, and Mr Badger, that would cause a sloth to dance with joy.\nThey imagine they know how we see, how we fly, how we get our food, and\nhow we make our abodes. As a matter of fact they have hopelessly wrong\nnotions about all these things. They want, as my venerated father used\nto say, to tap the lightning off into nice little flasks, in order to\nstudy it conveniently. This they call Evolution.\n\n\"'The idea was mostly developed in England, in a country where they\nare proud of thinking that they always \"muddle through somehow.\" These\nthree words they apply to Nature, and call it Evolution. Once upon a\ntime, they say--it does not matter whether 200,000 or 300,000 years,\nor perchance 645,789 years ago--there was my ancestor who, by mere\naccident, had an eye that enabled him to see more clearly at night than\nother birds did. This eye enabled him to catch more prey, thus to live\nlonger, and to transmit his _nocturne_ of an eye to his progeny. And\nso by degrees we muddled into owlship.\n\n\"'Is that not charming? My father used to laugh at that idea until all\nthe cuckoos came to inquire what illness had befallen him. He told me,\nthat an owl's eye was in strict correlation with definite and strongly\nindividual formations of the ears, of the neck, of the feet, and of\nthe intestines, and that accordingly a mere accidental change in the\nsupposed ancestor's eye was totally insufficient to account for the\ncorresponding and correlative formations just mentioned.\n\n\"'Such correlative and simultaneous changes in various organs can\nbe the consequences only of a violent and, as it were, fulgurous\nshock to the whole system of a bird. Such shocks are not a matter of\nslow growth. As all individual animal life at present is called into\nexistence by one shock of fulgurant forces, even so it arose originally.\n\n\"'But the English think that Nature is by birth an Englishman who\nadopts new organisms as Englishmen adopt new systems of measures,\ncalendars, inventions, or laws,--_i.e._ hundreds of years after someone\nelse has fulgurated them out.\n\n\"'They imagine Nature to be, by rank and profession, a middle-class\nman and muddler; by religion, a Nonconformist; and by politics, a\nLiberal. However, we know better. Nature is, by rank and profession,\na free lance and a genius; by religion, a Roman Catholic; and by\npolitics, a Tory of the Tories. Now this being so, you may imagine, Mr\nWoodpecker and Mr Badger, what capital fun it is to read these learned\nlucubrations about birds and other animals as written by humans.\n\n\"'The other day I called on Master Fox in the neighbourhood. He was\nill and, in order to amuse him, I told him what they say of him in\nhuman books. He fairly burst with laughter. He told me later on, that\nby narrating all the Don Quixote stories told of him by man, to a big\nbrown bear, he became the court-favourite of that dreaded king of the\nplace.\n\n\"'I have sent the swiftest bat, to whom I gave a safe conduct, to all\nthe birds and animals of this country, to meet at a given time on\none of the peaks of the Hartz Mountains, where I mean to entertain\nthem with the stories told by specialists on each of them, on their\nstructure, functions, and mode of life. It will be the greatest fun\nwe have had these two thousand years. I charged the nightingales, the\nlarks, and the mocking birds of America to open the meeting with the\nmost wonderful chorus that they have ever sung, and I am sure that I\nwill deserve well of the whole community of birds and other animals by\noffering them this the most exhilarating amusement imaginable.'\n\n\"So spake the owl. And now, O Zeus, can you really brook Aristotle's\nattempt to demolish and to remove men who furnish pleasure and intense\namusement to so many animals holy to men and even to the gods? I\ncannot believe it. You know how necessary it is to provide carefully\nfor the amusement of people. To neglect Dionysus is to court hideous\npunishment. If the specialists in Nature should disappear, you will,\nO Zeus, have endless anarchy on all sides. Birds, insects, snakes,\nand reptiles, lions, felines, and bears--they will all rise in bored\ndiscontent, in the waters, on land, in the air. You will never have a\nfree moment for calm repose.\n\n\"They will worry all the gods incessantly. They will make the most\nannoying conspiracies and plots and intrigues against all of us. Let\nus not take Aristotle seriously. He means well, and is no doubt quite\nright, as far as reason goes. But does reason go very far? Can he now\ndeny the eternal rights of unreason? To remove the specialists in\nbiology and natural history is to remove the comedy from Athens. The\nAthenians, in order to be ruled, must be entertained. But for me and\nthe like of me, the Athenians could never have held out as long as they\ndid hold out. It is even so with animals. They want their Aristophanes.\nThey must have their specialists. Pray, Artemis, you who in your\nhunts over dales and mountains have heard and observed everything\nthat concerns animals, join me in protesting against the onslaught of\nAristotle on men so necessary for the well-being of animated Nature.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nArtemis Diana laughed melodiously and nodded consent. The other gods,\namidst great hilarity, passed a vote against Aristotle, and the sage\nsmilingly bowed acceptance of the censure.\n\n\"I will abide,\" he exclaimed, \"by your decision. But, pray, let me\nmake just one more remark which, I have no doubt, the master-minds of\nthe unique city, over which we are hovering at present, will gladly\napprove. I call upon you Lionardo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and\nyou magnificent Lorenzo, whether I am exceeding the limits of truth.\nI do maintain that while the little ones have, in religion, gone from\nPolytheism to Monotheism, they pretend that in matters of knowledge\ntime is constantly increasing the number of gods to be worshipped.\n\n\"At present they affect to believe no longer in the numerous gods and\ngoddesses of the Olympus, but only in one God. In point of knowledge,\non the other hand, they declare that each little department thereof\nis endless, requiring the study and devotion of a whole lifetime,\nand controlled, each of them, by a god whom they call an authority.\nNow, nothing can be more evident than the fact that knowledge, real\nknowledge, becomes increasingly more stenographic in expression, and\nsensibly easier of acquisition. The Chinese write encyclop\u00e6dias in\n6000 volumes; the modern Europeans do so in twenty-four or thirty-six\nvolumes.\"\n\nHere Diogenes interrupted the Stagirite and said: \"I am afraid, O\nAristotle, that your argument has little real force to boast of. It\ndoes not prove at all that the Chinese have only crude, empirical, and\nunorganised knowledge, while the little ones in Europe have a reasoned\nand systematised, and hence a less cumbrous one. This is owing to quite\na different cause.\n\n\"The little ones have of late invented a method of publishing\nencyclop\u00e6dias in a manner so well adapted to tempt, threaten, bully,\nor wire each member of the general public into the purchase of an\nentire copy, that if their encyclop\u00e6dias consisted of 6000 or 10,000\nvolumes each, the people of England, for instance, would have to\nconquer Norway, Sweden, and Iceland first. Norway they would be\nobliged to conquer, in order to possess themselves of sufficient\nwood for the cases; Sweden, in order to appoint all Swedish gymnasts\nfor the acrobatic feat of fetching a volume from the fiftieth row of\na bookcase; and Iceland, in order to place excited readers of the\nencyclop\u00e6dia in a cool place. But for this circumstance, I am sure the\nlittle ones in Europe would fain publish an encyclop\u00e6dia in 15,000\nvolumes.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen the laughter of the Assembly had subsided, Aristotle continued:\n\"Nothing has struck me more forcibly in my visit to their seats of\nlearning than this universal belief in the infinitude of each tiny\ndepartment or speciality. They do most gravely assert that 'nowadays'\nit is impossible to embrace more than one speciality; and they look\nupon me or Leibniz with a certain knowing smile as if in our times all\nknowledge would have consisted of a few jugs full of water, whereas\nnow it is no less than an ocean. But when you ask them the simplest\nquestions, they are at a loss how to answer them.\n\n\"I asked one of their most famous specialists why the eyebrows of men\nare shorter than the moustaches. He did not know it. How could he?\nIt takes the knowledge of at least five so-called specialities to\nanswer such a question. I asked their most learned specialist in their\nlanguage, why the English have dropped the use of 'thou,' although no\nother European nation has done so. He did not know it.\n\n\"They study a given subject when death has driven out all life from it.\nThey do not trouble about language as a living organism, full of fight,\nof movement, of ruses, of intrigues, of sins and graces; but only of\nlanguage when it lies motionless, a veritable corpse, on the table\nof the anatomical dissector and dictionary-fiend. They do not study\na butterfly when it is in full life, flirting, pilfering, gossiping,\nmerrymaking; but only when it is motionless, lifeless, pierced by a\npin. This is how they get their specialities.\n\n\"Death indeed is the greatest of all specialisers. As soon as a man is\ndead, each hair or bone on or in his body takes up a separate line of\ndecay, caring nothing for the other, full of scorn for its immediate\nneighbour, sulking by itself, wandering to the Styx alone and sullen.\n\n\"In England they have pushed that belief in specialities to a funereal\ndegree. I wonder they allow a man to play one of their instruments,\ncalled the piano, with both his hands at a time. I wonder they do not\ninsist that a given piece by Chopin be played by two men, one of whom\nshould first play the part for the right hand, and afterwards the\nother man the part for the left hand. To play both parts at a time,\nand to have that done by one single man too,--what presumption! How\nsuperficial!\n\n\"In law they have long acted in this sense. There is one man, called\nthe solicitor (--a very good name--), who plays the bass, or left-hand\npart with a vengeance, for several weeks. When that is done; when the\n'hearer' or client lies prostrate on the ground from the infernal noise\nmade by the solicitor's music, the solicitor hands over the whole case\nto the other man, the barrister, who plays the most tortuous treble, in\na manner likely to madden Pan himself.\n\n\"The idea, accepted by all the other nations of Europe, that the whole\nprejudicial business of a legal contention might very well be left to\none man, to a lawyer proper,--what presumption! How superficial!\n\n\"But when you tell them that they browbeat their own principle of\nspecialisation by taking their judges from amongst late barristers,\nthen they wax into an august anger. Yet no other nation does that. The\nfunction of a judge is radically different from that of a barrister.\nAfter a man has been a barrister for twenty years; after all his mind\nhas taken the creases and folds of barristerdom; after he has quite\nspecialised himself in that particular line, he is unlikely to have the\nbest qualities of a judge. If a barrister cannot be a solicitor; why\nshould he be at once, and suddenly able to become judge?\n\n\"Their arguments to that effect are most amusing. They dance a real\nwar-dance round the truth that they mean to scalp.\n\n\"The truth of course is that all the three have one and the same\nspeciality: that of running England. That country is lawyer-ridden, as\nEgypt was priest-ridden, or Babylonia scribe-ridden. The English being\ntoo proud to be stingy or petty in money matters, do not mind their\nrulers, the solicitors-barristers-judges, because these deprive them\neventually only of what the English do not hold in great esteem, small\nsums of money. In France, where people cling fanatically to a penny,\nthe barristers have not been allowed to become judges. In France\nspecialisation in law has triumphed, where in England it has failed.\n\n\"Does that not show that specialisation is done, not in obedience to\nthe behests of truth, but to those of interests?\n\n\"We Hellenes specialised on small city-states; we did not want to\nwiden out indefinitely into huge states; just because we wanted to\ngive each citizen a chance of coining out all his human capital, and\nnot to become, like our slaves, a limited specialist. In a huge state\nspecialisation becomes inevitable. In such states they must, more or\nless, sterilise the human capital of millions of citizens, just as we\nHellenes sterilised the political capital of thousands of slaves.\n\n\"Specialisation _is_ enslaving, if not downright slavery. It furthers\ntruth very little; it cripples man.\n\n\"Just as a man who talks several languages well, will write his own\nidiom better than do his less accomplished compatriots; even so the\nman who keeps his mind open to more than one aspect of things, to more\nthan one 'speciality' will be by far more efficient than his less\nbroad-minded colleagues. Man may and shall invent, as I have long\npredicted it, highly specialised machines doing the work of the weaver,\nor the baker. But he himself must not become a machine. This is what\nhappens 'now,' as the little ones say all over Europe and America.\n\n\"Not only have they formed states with many, many millions of\npeople each. Worse than that, they have agglomerated the majority\nof these millions into a few towns of unwieldy size. In those towns\nspecialisation is carried into every fibre of men and women. This\ndesiccates them, disemotions them, sterilises them. We Hellenes gladly\nadmit that the Europeans of the last four centuries have excelled us in\none art: in music. But their period for this exceeding excellence is\nnow gone.\n\n\"By over-specialisation of thought and heart, caused chiefly by\nover-urbanisation, the very wells of music begin to dry up. The music\nof the day is hysterical, neurasthenic, and false. It is the cry,\nnot of an aching heart, but of an aching tooth, of a gouty toe, or a\nrheumatic nerve. It does not weep; it coughs phthisically. It does not\nsigh; it sneezes. It is a blend of what we used to call Phrygian and\nCorybantic rhapsodies.\n\n\"And as in music, even so in character. Where each individual distorts\nhimself or herself into a narrow speciality, there people must needs\nbecome as angular, lop-sided, and grotesque as possible. They are, when\ntogether in a room, like the words on a page of a dictionary: they have\nnothing to communicate to one another. There they stand, each in his\ncage, uncommunicative, sulky, and forbidding. One thinks in F major;\nthe other in F sharp minor. Harmony amongst them is impossible. Every\none of them is hopelessly right in every one of his ideas; and of all\nmental processes, that of doubt or hesitation in judgment is the last\nthey practise.\n\n\"A specialist does not doubt. Why should he? To him the most\ncomplicated things human appear as mere specialities, that is, as mere\nfragments. A woman is only a specialist in parturition. A physician\nis only a specialist in writing Latin words on small slips of paper.\nA barrister is only a man who wears neither moustache nor beard. A\nclergyman is practically a collar buttoning behind, and supported by a\nsort of man inside it. In that way everything is so simplified that no\ndifficulty of comprehending it remains.\n\n\"All this clearly proves, O Empedocles, how right and, at the same\ntime, how wrong you were in your view of the origin of things. Perhaps\nyou were right in saying that the parts or organs of our bodies arose\nsingly, or, as it were, as specialists. In times long before us there\narose, as you taught, heads without necks; arms wandering alone in\nspace; eyes, without foreheads, roaming about by themselves. But\nwhen you say that all this happened only at the beginning of things,\nyou are, I take it, sorely mistaken. Indeed it is still going on in\ncountries where specialism reigns supreme; at anyrate it is going on\nin the moral world. In such countries you still see arms wandering\nalone in space, or eyes roaming about without foreheads, as well as\nheads without brains flying about in space. Not literally, of course.\nBut what else is a character-specialist cultivating exclusively _one_\nquality of the human soul than an arm wandering about alone? The little\nones must come back to the Hellenic idea of seeing things as a whole,\nand not, as do wretched flies, as mere chips of things.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe divine Assembly had listened deferentially to the great sage. Zeus\nnow charged Hermes to fetch some of the masterpieces from the room\ncalled the _Tribuna_ at the Uffizi in Florence. Hermes, aided by a\nnumber of nymphs, fetched them and, placing them in the midst of the\nAssembly, exhibited their perfect beauty to the gods and heroes. This\nrefreshed their souls sickened with the story of the serfdom of modern\nover-specialism.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SECOND NIGHT\n\nDIOGENES AND PLATO ON TOLSTOY, IBSEN, SHAW, ETC.\n\n\nOn the second night the Olympians assembled at Pompeii. It was a balmy,\nstarry night. The ruins of the old town, white in their marble dresses,\nshone with a spectral brightness against the mountains, bays, and\nmeadows surrounding them. From Stabi\u00e6 and Gragnano opposite one could\nhear the pipe of Pan and the laughter of his nymphs, and on the dark\nwater there were magic boats carrying Circe and her maids to their blue\ngrotto in Capri. Selene sent her mildest rays over the scene, and grass\nand stone were as if steeped in silvery dreams. The place selected for\nthe meeting was the amphitheatre. At a move of Zeus' right hand the\nseats and alleys, which had long since disappeared under the pressure\nof the ugly lava, rose from the ground. The orchestra and stage took\nup their old shape, and the whole graceful space with its incomparable\nview was again full of beauty, comfort, and pleasurableness. Zeus, and\nhis wife Juno, sat down on the central seat, and around them the other\ngods and heroes. When everyone had found his or her seat, Zeus spake:\n\"We have heard with much contentment the experiences of Aristotle in\nthe country which the little ones below call England. We should now\nlike to hear something about the theatres in that strange land. If\nlife itself is so uncommon and funny in that part of the non-Grecian\nworld, their theatre, reflecting life, must be unusually entertaining.\nPerhaps you Aristotle, as the most renowned critic of poetry and the\ndrama, will be good enough to give us an idea of the thing they call\ndrama in England.\"\n\nWhereupon Aristotle rose from his seat, and treated the immortals to\na sight which no one had as yet enjoyed: he smiled. And smilingly he\nsaid to the almighty son of Kronos, ruler of the world: \"O Zeus, your\nwish is a behest, and if you insist I will of course obey. But pray,\nkindly consider that I have, with your consent, withheld from these\npeople, who call themselves moderns, and who might better be called\n_afterlings_, the second book of my 'Poetics,' in which I treat of\nthe comedy, the farce, the burlesque, and similar _phlyakes_, as we\nterm them. If now I should reveal my thoughts on the _phlyakes_ of\nthe English, several of their sophists, whom they call University\nprofessors, might still add to the lava which my commentators have\nspurted out upon my works, just as we see here the lava of angry\nVesuvius cover the beauteous fields in and around Pompeii.\n\n\"May I propose the proper person to entertain us about that sort of\ncomedy of the English which, at present, is more or less generally\nconsidered to be their most valuable dramatic output? If so,\" Aristotle\ncontinued at a sign from Zeus, \"I propose him who over there at the\nright entrance of the stage lies carelessly on the ground and seems\nto heed us as little as in his time he heeded the Athenians and the\nCorinthians.\" Aristotle, raising his hand, pointed to the shabby,\nuntidy figure of Diogenes. When the gods and heroes heard the name\nand looked at the person of the Cynic, they all burst out in immortal\nlaughter, and the sea, catching the gay ripple, laughed as far as\nSorrento.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDiogenes, without moving from his position, and putting one of his\nlegs comfortably on one of the low statues of a satyr, turned his head\ntowards Zeus and exclaimed: \"Verily, I tell you, you only confirm me in\nmy old belief, that there is nothing sadder than laughter. Why should\nyou laugh? Are we not here to enjoy ourselves? Is not this lovely spot\none where even we might and ought to feel perfectly happy? Why, then,\nlaugh? I mean, of course, laugh at me.\n\n\"I _do_ pooh-pooh all your glories. Olympus to me is not a whit more\nagreeable than my tub at Corinth. This is, you understand, the reason\nof my predilection for the English. They, alone of all these Europeans,\nlive at least for five seconds each day in a tub.\n\n\"I also pooh-pooh your feasts, your ambrosia and nectar. For having\npassed a few months in a large village they call London, I have so\ncompletely lost my palate and taste, that for the next two thousand\nyears, at anyrate, I shall not be able to distinguish nectar from stale\nale, nor ambrosia from cabbage.\n\n\"Yes, I still pooh-pooh, disdain and neglect most of the things that\nyou and your worshippers hold in great esteem. Alcibiades raved about\nthe beauty of women now limping about in the various cities of the\nbarbarians, and more particularly in the towns of the English. A woman!\nA mere woman! What is the good of a woman unless one is rid of her? I\nstill think what I used to teach, that between a man and a woman there\nis only a slight difference, one that is scarcely worth considering.\n\n\"You may laugh until Vesuvius again vomits scorn upon you, but I tell\nyou here, at Pompeii, what I used to tell everybody at Corinth: your\nglories are all gone, or ought to go. Just look at Venus. There she\nsits displaying to eager-looking Pans and Sileni the loveliness of her\nhead and neck and figure. But what does it mean after all? Repentance\nand wormwood. Look at Ares--(Mars). Does he not look as if he ruled\nthe world? Does he not behave as if all great things were achieved\nthrough and by him? And what is it in reality? Mere butchery--cowardly\nbutchery. You laugh; of course, you do. But I mean to show you that all\nthat I have ever taught is nothing less than strictly true; the only\ntruth; truth the one.\n\n\"Aristotle, in pointing me out as the person who can best tell you\nwhat this new Shavian drama of England really is; Aristotle, I say,\nmay have acted with malice. He has, nevertheless, acted with great\nwisdom. I am indeed the only man out of the world (there is none in\nit), who does clearly and fully understand my little disciple who calls\nhimself Bernard Shaw. Of the other friends and admirers of his, he\nmight very well say what that great German philosopher Hegel said in\nhis last moments: 'One man alone has understood me well,--and even he\nmisunderstood me entirely.' He might with reference to my Cynic lady\nfriend Hipparchia also say: 'One man alone understood me well,--and she\nwas a woman.'\n\n\"The fact is, Shaw, the son of Pooh-Pooh, is simply a goody disciple\nof my school, of the Cynics. When I was still within that mortal\ncoil which men call skin and flesh, I did take all my sputterings\nand utterings very seriously, or as they say in cultured Mayfair:\n'_Oh grant serio_.' I really thought, as undoubtedly thinks my brave\ndisciple in London, that my criticism of social, political, or\nreligious things went deep into the essence of all that maintains\nSociety, the State, and the Temples. Good old Plato, it is true, hinted\nat my vanity and conceit more than once, and I still feel the sting of\nhis remark when once, soaked all through by the rain, I was surrounded\nby pitying folk: 'If you want to feel pity for Diogenes,' Plato said,\n'then leave him alone.'\n\n\"But I then did not heed any satire directed against me, being fully\noccupied with satirising others all day long. However, since that time,\nand since I have been given a corner in the palace of the immortals,\nlying on one of the steps like a dog, as that Italian dauber, whom they\ncall Raphael, painted me in his 'School of Athens' (--a fresco which\nmight be much better had Raphael wisely chosen his age and appeared as\na Pr\u00e6-Raphaelite--); ever since I have learnt a great deal, not only\nabout others, but also about myself.\n\n\"While you superior people drink nectar and partake of ambrosia, I\nenjoy with infinite zest the malicious pleasure of studying the capers,\nantics, and poses of my posthumous selfs, the Diogeneses of that\nspeck on the mirror of eternity which the little ones below call 'our\ntime.' Could anything be more amusing to a Cynic of about twenty-two\ncenturies' standing like myself, who has heard and taught all the most\nnerve-rasping eccentricities imaginable, than to hear Tolstoy, Shaw,\nIbsen, and _tutti quanti_, teach with thunderous ponderosity, and\nwith penurious fulguration their doctrines as the latest and hitherto\nunheard-of delivery of the human or inhuman mind? I beg to assure you\nit is excruciatingly funny. But I feel I must tell you the whole story\nin due order. It happened thus.\n\n\"I learnt from Momus that another posthumous self of mine had arisen\nand, accordingly, I forthwith repaired to the place called London.\n(By the way, it is a queer place. It is neither a village, nor a\ntown; neither a country, nor a desert; it is something of all, and\nmuch of neither.) In one of the streets I saw an inscription over a\ndoor--'Agency for amusements, theatres, blue bands, green bands, etc.'\nI did not quite understand what blue bands had to do with amusement,\nbut I entered.\n\n\"Behind the counter was a middle-aged man working busily at papers. I\naddressed him: 'Be cheerful!'\n\n\"He looked at me in a curious fashion, evidently doubting the sanity\nof my mind. As a matter of fact, after a little while I could not help\nseeing that he was right. How _could_ I imagine him to be cheerful?\n\n\"I asked him for the means of seeing a theatrical piece by Shaw. He\noffered a ticket, and wanted to know my name. I said 'Diogenes.'\n\n\"He became impatient, and said: 'Diogenes--which? I mean, your family\nname?'\n\n\"'I have no other name,' I said; 'don't you know, I am Diogenes who cut\nAlexander the Great?'\n\n\"'Alexander the Great?' he said--'Why, I only know of a tailor, called\nAlexander the Great. Do you mean to tell me you cut him?'\n\n\"'No,' I said; 'I do not. I mean Alexander, King of Macedon.'\n\n\"Whereupon he contemptuously said: 'I never heard of the gentleman,\nand if he was a king of Macedon he has made a jolly fine mess of his\ncountry--just read about the Macedonian question in to-day's _Daily\nTelegraph_.' I wanted to ask him whether he was perchance Professor of\nHistory, but other people came in, and so I left.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"On the same evening I was shown the way to a theatre, and I understood\nthat the piece given was _Arms and the Man_. I enjoyed myself immensely.\n\n\"It is all very well to share the pleasures of Olympus with the gods.\nYet, by all the Graces, whenever I hear or read reminiscences of my\nearly youth, those unforgettable events and ideas of the time when\nI walked in the streets of Athens in the wake of my revered master\nAntisthenes, it gives me a thrill of pleasure,--I might almost say, a\nnew shiver.\n\n\"Just fancy, here I was sitting in far-off Britannia, over two\nthousand years after my mortal existence, listening to an oration--of\nAntisthenes, my master, which we used to call 'Kyros.' I see very well,\nO Ares, you remember the famous oration directed against you, against\nall the glories of War, because even now you frown on me, and I must\nask Venus to keep you in check. I have received too many a whipping\nwhile I was at Athens and Corinth--pray let me in peace here in our\ntemporary Olympus.\n\n\"At present, as you well know, I have quite changed my ideas about war,\nand much as I may have disliked you before, at present I know that\nApollo, Venus, you Ares, and Dionysus keep all mortal things agoing.\nBut let us amuse ourselves with the contemplation of an oration of\nAntisthenes in modern Britannic.\n\n\"Antisthenes hated war so much that he attacked the greatest and least\ndoubted military glory of the Athenians, their victories over the\nPersians. He attacked it with serious arguments, he sneered at it, he\ntried to reduce it to a mere sham. Did Antisthenes not say, that the\nvictory of the Athenians over the Persians at Salamis would have been\nsomething admirable, had the Persians excelled the Athenians in point\nof virtue and capability? For in that case the Athenians would have\nproved even more virtuous and more capable. However, the Persians,\nAntisthenes elaborately proves, were altogether inferior. Nor did they\nhave a true king, Xerxes being a mere sham king with a high and richly\njewelled cap on his head, sitting on a golden throne, like a doll.\nHad Xerxes not to whip his soldiers into battle? What, then, is the\nglory of the Athenians? None! Salamis, like all battles, was a mere\nbutchery, and soldiers are mere cowards, beating inferiors and running\naway from superiors. So far Antisthenes.\n\n\"The Britannic version of Antisthenes' sally against war, soldiers, and\nthe whole of the military spirit, I found comical in the extreme. 'Well\ndone' I repeatedly exclaimed within myself, when I saw the old capers\nof the Cynics of my mortal time brought up again for the consumption of\npeople who had never heard of Cynics. That man Shaw out-Cynics many a\nCynic. He brings upon the stage a number of persons, each of whom is,\nin turn, a good soul first, and then a viper; an enthusiast, and then a\nliar; a virtue, and then vice itself.\n\n\"Take the girl Raina. She begins by being ideal and enthusiastic;\nideal, because she is pure, young, and in love with her own _fianc\u00e9_;\nenthusiastic, because she is in raptures over the military glory of\nher _fianc\u00e9_, as would be in all truth and reality a hundred out of\neach hundred girls in most countries of the sub-Shavian world. Not the\nslightest inkling or fact is indicated that she is not pure, ideal,\nor genuinely enthusiastic. In the next scene she is suddenly made out\nto be a vicious girl, a coldly calculating minx, and we are given to\nunderstand that she has had no end of general and particular adventures\nbehind her, as she hopes to have a good many in front of her.\n\n\"Why? Why are we now to assume or believe that Raina of yesterday is\nnot Raina of to-day? Where is the motive, I asked myself with grim\nsatisfaction with the brave Cynicism of the author. Why? Simply, for\nnothing. The comedy as such does not require it; no fact alleged to\nhave happened, substantiates it; no situation growing out of the piece\nmakes it a dramatic necessity. It is done simply and exclusively, in\ntrue Cynic fashion, for the sake of ridiculing a person that began by\nbeing enthusiastic for War.\n\n\"It is the old story of the ugly sorceress in the child's book of\nfables. 'If you praise the beauty of yonder little girl in the garden,\nI will transform you into a guinea-pig; and if you still continue\ndoing so, I will make an old cock of you.' Even so Raina is changed\ninto a viper, a liar, a dissimulator, a senseless changer of lovers,\nan--anything, without the slightest inner coherence, or what the\nphilosophers call, psychological connection.\n\n\"The same old witch's wand is used, with the freedom of a clown, with\nregard to the _fianc\u00e9_ of Raina, the young military hero. He had by a\nbold cavalry charge captured a battery or two of the enemy's artillery.\nHow can he be forgiven such an execrable deed? How dare he succeed?\nOut with the old sauce of Antisthenes! It is, of course, exceedingly\nstale by this time. But the English, it appears, are so thoroughly\nused to stale sauces. They will not notice it at all. And thus all the\nthreadbare arguments of Antisthenes are dished up again. I jubilated in\nmy pride.\n\n\"The _fianc\u00e9_, Sergius, took the batteries of cannon because, we are\ntold, by a mistake of their commander, they were--not charged. How\nwitty! How clever! Antisthenes merely said that the Persians were much\ninferior to the Athenians, so the latter easily got the better of the\nformer. But this twentieth-century dapper little Cynic goes one better.\nHe says, as it were, the Persians had no weapons to strike with. Who\nwould have thought of such an ingenious satire?\n\n\"Please, Hermes (Mercury), do not interrupt me! I know very well what\nyou mean to say. In all actions of men, victory depends more on the\nshortcomings of their rivals and competitors than on their own genius.\nIt is no special feature of military victories. Of two grocers in the\nsame street, one succeeds mainly because the other is neglectful and\nunbusinesslike. Of two dramatists in the same country, one succeeds\nbecause he gives the people what _they_ want, and not, as does the\nother, what dramatic Art wants. And so forth _ad infinitum_.\n\n\"But my Cynical Shavian does not heed these inconsistencies; he knows\nthe public will not notice them. He wants simply to ridicule War, and\nthe whole military spirit. Accordingly out with the witch's wand, and\nlet us change the hero first into a whimpering calf, and then suddenly\ninto a lewd he-goat, and then, for no reason whatever, into the most\nmendacious magpie flying about, and finally into a little mouse caught\nin a trap laid by a kitchen-maid. For this is precisely what happens to\nthe hero Sergius.\n\n\"Returning from war, he is sick of it with a nauseating sea-sickness.\nWhy? Unknown; or, as Herbert Spencer, the next best replica of\nAntisthenes in Britannia, would have said, _unknowable_.\n\n\"Sergius is sentimentally idiotic about the nullity of his military\nglory. A few moments later he cannot resist the rustic beauties of a\nkitchen-maid, one minute after he had disentangled himself out of the\nembraces of his beautiful, young, and worshipped _fianc\u00e9_. The he-goat\nis upon him. Why? Unknown, unknowable.\n\n\"Here in our fourth dimension we know very well (do we not, Ares?) that\nsoldiers have done similar _escapades_? But have barristers done less?\nHave all solicitors proved bosom-proof? Has no dramatist ever been\nsorely tempted by buxomness and vigorous development of youthful flesh?\nOne wonders.\n\n\"Why then bring up such stuff, without the slightest reason, without\nthe slightest need, internal or external? But the soldier, do you not\nsee, must be run down. He must be ridiculed. It must be shown that he\nis only a cowardly mouse caught in the trap laid for him by that very\nkitchen-maid whom at first he treats merely as a well-ordered mass of\ntempting flesh, and whom in the end he--marries.\n\n\"This trait is delicious. I have frequently been in Mysia, or what\nthese people now call Bulgaria, where Shaw's scene is laid. The idea of\na Bulgarian gentleman of the highest standing marrying a kitchen-maid\ngave me a fit of laughter. In eccentric England a high-born gentleman\nmay very well marry a barmaid. In Bulgaria a nobleman will no more\nmarry a servant-girl than his own mother. He has known too many of\nthem; he can study her carefully, encyclop\u00e6dically, without marrying\nher in the least. For, _she_ will never love _him_.\n\n\"Of course, my acolyte full well knows that the English are not at all\nconversant with any nation south of Dover Straits, and that one may\ntell them anything one pleases about nations other than themselves,\nThey will believe it. And so Sergius marries the girl by the same\nnecessity that a mouse may be said to have married the trap into which\nit drops.\n\n\"Is not this fun indeed? To call marrying what simple people call\ngetting morally insane? How clever! How bright!\n\n\"This is precisely what we Cynics used to do in ancient Greece. We\nturned humanity inside out, and then I walked in day-time in the\nstreets with a lamp in my hand in search of a normal man, of a human\nbeing. If you vitriole a person's face or character first, how can you\nexpect him to have unscathed features? But that is precisely the point\nwith us Cynics. We take human nature; we then vitriole it out of all\nshape, and afterwards cry out in sheer indignation, 'How awful!' 'How\nabsurd!' This reminds me of my lawyer pupil who once, in the defence of\na fellow who had murdered his parents, pathetically exclaimed to the\njury: 'And finally, gentlemen, have pity on this poor, orphaned boy!'\n\n\"Not content with Sergius, another 'type' of soldier is dragged up to\nthe stage; a Swiss. Now I do not here mean to repeat our old Greek\njokes about people similar to the Swiss, such as the Paphlagonians or\nCilicians. I will only remark that the French, who have for over four\nhundred years had intimate knowledge of the Swiss, put the whole of\nSwiss character into the famous _mot_: 'Which animal resembles a human\nbeing most?' Answer: 'A Swiss.'\n\n\"From a Swiss you may expect anything. He talks three languages; all in\nvile German. He is to his beautiful country like a wart on a perfect\nface. In the midst of paradise he is worse than a Prussian yokel born\nin the dreary heaths of North Germany. He is a Swiss. He has been a\nmercenary soldier to Popes and Lutheran princes alike. His aim was\nmoney; is money; will always be nothing but money. He sells his blood\nas he does the milk of his cows, by the _litre_ or the _decilitre_;\npreferably by the latter. He likes war well enough; but he prefers\ntruces and cessation of arms. He thinks the best part of death is the\navoidance thereof. He is, when a mercenary, a military Cynic.\n\n\"I like him dearly; he does me honour. Whenever I see him on the grand\nstaircase in the Vatican, I grin 'way down in my heart. Here is a Cynic\ndressed up like a parrot in gorgeous plumage. Diogenes in Rococo-dress!\nIt is intensely amusing.\n\n\"Now this Swiss is made by Shaw a 'type' of a soldier. This is quite\nin accordance with the procedure of the Cynical School. First, all\nreal soldierly qualities are vitrioled out of the man by making\nhim a Swiss mercenary; and then he is shown up in all his callous\nindifference to Right, Love, or Justice; which is tantamount to saying\n'a distinguished Belgian lady patrolling Piccadilly after midnight.'\nThat Swiss mercenary proves no more against the worth of soldiers,\nthan that Belgian woman proves anything in disgrace of the women of\nBelgium. If Shaw's figure proves anything, it proves the worthlessness\nof mercenaries in general, and of Swiss mercenaries in particular. That\nis, it proves something quite different from what it means to prove.\nThis too is arch-Cynical. Why, who knows it better than I, that we\nCynics were not infrequently instrumental in bringing about the very\nreverse of what we were aiming at? But the more perverse, the better\nthe fun.\n\n\"And the fun is excellent beyond words. It is, in fact, as grim as the\ngrimmest Welshman. On my way home from the theatre I thought of it,\nand started laughing in the street with such violence that a policeman\nwanted to take me to the station. The grimness of the fun was this:\ninquiring about the author, I learnt that he was an Irishman. I had\nno sooner made sure of the truth of this statement than I could not\ncontrol myself for laughter.\n\n\"An Irishman reviling war, and soldiers, and the military spirit! How\nunutterably grim,--how unspeakably grimy! The Irish, endowed by nature\nwith gifts of the body as well as the mind incomparably superior to\nthose of the English, have made the most atrocious failure of their\nhistory, of their possibilities, of their chances, for that one and\nonly reason, that they never found means of character and endurance\nto fight for their rights and hopes in bitter and unrelenting wars.\nNot having made a single effort in any way comparable to the sustained\narmed resistance of the Scotch, the Dutch, the Hungarians, or the\nBoers, in the course of over three hundred years, they have fallen\nunder the yoke of a nation whom they detest. This naturally demoralised\nthem, as it demoralises a mere husband when he is yoked to a hated\nwife. Being demoralised, they have never, oh never, reached that\nbalance of internal powers without which nothing great can be achieved.\nThe English with lesser powers, being undemoralised, got their powers\ninto far greater balance. So did the Scot through sustained, reckless\nfighting for their ideals. Hence the misery of the Irish, who are\nlike their fairies, enchanting, but fatal to themselves and to others;\nunbalanced, unsteady in mind and resolution to a sickening degree;\nfickle, and resembling altogether sweet kisses from one's lady-love\nintermingled with knocks in the face from one's vilest creditors.\n\n\"Their recoiling from making resolute war on the enemy being the great\ncause of the failure of the Irish, what can be more grimly Cynical than\nan Irishman's indignation at all that appertains to war? We Cynics\nalways do that. Moderation having been the soul of all things Hellenic,\nwe Cynics told the Greeks that the one fatal excess that man can commit\nis moderation. Of music we taught that its only beauties are in the\npauses; and of man we held that he is perfect only by making himself\ninto a beast.\n\n\"We taught people to contemplate everything in a convex mirror and then\nto fall foul of the image so distorted. This the idlers and the mob\ngreatly admire. They deem it marvellous originality. And what can be\nnearer to the origin of new things than to take man and nature always\nin the last agonising stage of final decomposition?\n\n\"In my own dramas I did all that with a vengeance; so did Crates, my\nrevered colleague. What was a plot to us? What does a plot matter?\nThe other day when I sauntered through the Champs Elys\u00e9es of Paris, I\noverheard a conversation between little girls playing at ladies. By\nAntisthenes, that was the real model of the plot and dialogue of all\nCynic dramas!\n\n\"Said one little girl to the other: 'How are you, madame?'\n\n\"'Thanks,' said the other, 'very well. I am watching my children.'\n\n\"'How many have you?'\n\n\"'Seventy-five, please.'\n\n\"'And how old are you?'\n\n\"'Twenty years, madame.'\n\n\"'And how is your husband?'\n\n\"'_Y pensez-vous?_ My husband? Fancy that! Why, I have none!'\n\n\"This is precisely the plot and dialogue in Shaw's _Candida_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"I enjoyed _Candida_ so intensely; I could have kissed the author. How\nentirely like my own dramas! How closely modelled on the dialogue of\nthe little girls!\n\n\"A husband of forty, vigorous, brave, honest, hard-working in a noble\ncause, loving and loved, father of two children, befriends a boy of\neighteen, who is as wayward and conceited and inconsistent as only\nboys of eighteen can be. That boy suddenly tells the husband that he,\nthe boy, loved Candida, the wife of the said husband. The boy, not\nsatisfied with this amenity, becomes intolerably impudent, and the\nhusband, acting on his immediate and just sentiment, wants to throw him\nout of the house.\n\n\"But this is too much of what ninety-nine out of a hundred husbands\nwould do. So instead of kicking the impertinent lad into the street,\nthe husband--invites him to lunch.\n\n\"I was so afraid the husband would in the end bundle the youth out of\nthe room. To my intense delight the author did not forget the rules of\nthe Cynic drama, and the boy remained for lunch.\n\n\"Bravo! Bravo! I secretly hoped the husband would solemnly charge\nthe interesting youth to fit Candida with the latest corset. To my\namazement that did not take place. But yet there was some relief for me\nin store: the husband invites the boy to pass the evening with his wife\nalone.\n\n\"This is, of course, precisely what most husbands would do.\n\n\"This is what another disciple of mine in Paris (a man called Anatole,\nand misnamed France), did do in an even worse case. In Anatole's story,\nthe husband arrives in the most inopportune moment that a forgetful\nwife can dread. He looks at the scene with much self-control, takes up\nthe _Petit Parisien_ lying on the floor, and withdraws gracefully into\nanother room, there to make sundry reflections on the _Petit Parisien_\nand on the 'Petite Parisienne.'\n\n\"How classically Cynical! How Bion, Metrocles, Menippus, and all the\nrest of our sect would have enjoyed that! Here is a true comedy! Here\nis something truly realistic, and realistically true. That's why\nAnatole is so much admired by Englishmen. He too is, as we Cynics have\nbeen called, a philosopher of the proletariate.\n\n\"Much, O Zeus, as I enjoy the honour and pleasure of being allowed\nto crouch on one of the steps of your divine halls, I do also keenly\nappreciate the pleasure of meeting my disciples of the hour. One of\nthese next days I will ask Momus to invite Tolstoy, Ibsen, Shaw,\nAnatole, and a few others to a lunch, to meet me in a Swiss hotel.\nPlato, you better come and listen behind a screen. You might perhaps\nimprove upon your _Gorgias_ in which dialogue you attempt to sketch\nthe superman and super-cynic. Ibsen will stammer and jerk his best\nin deathly hatred of all Authority. Shaw will pinprick to death the\nfoundations of Marriage and Family. Anatole will try to upset, by\nthrowing little mud-pellets at them, ideal figures such as Joan of\nArc\" (--Diogenes had barely uttered this name, when Zeus and all the\nother gods rose from their seats, and bowed towards Pallas Athene, who\nheld Joan in her holy arms--). \"Tolstoy, with a penny trumpet in his\ntoothless mouth, will bray against war; Oh, it will be glorious.\n\n\"Of course, by this time I know very well that the controlling\nprinciple of all mundane and supramundane things is Authority. As we\nhere all bow to Zeus, so mortals must always bow to some authority.\nNothing more evident can be imagined nor shown. It is the broadest\nresult of all history, of all experience. Just because this is so, and\nunmistakably so, my disciples must naturally say the reverse. They\ndo not look at facts by a microscope or a telescope; they telescope\ntrain-loads of facts into a mass of pulverised debris.\n\n\"Instead of saying that in England, through her social caste system,\nthere are many, too many, _parvenus_ or tactless upstarts, my disciples\nmust say: 'The greatness of England is owing to her tactlessness.' This\nis the real merchandise which I sold at Corinth over two thousand years\nago.\n\n\"Tolstoy thunders against War. I wonder he does not thunder against\nmothers' breasts feeding their babies. Why, War made everything that\nis worth having. First of all, it made Peace. Without war there is no\npeace; there is only stagnation. The greater the ideal, the greater the\nprice we have to pay for it. And since we always crave for the sublime\nideals of Liberty, Honour, Wealth, Power, Beauty, and Knowledge, we\nmust necessarily pay the highest price for it--ourselves, our lives\nin war. There is no Dante without the terrible wars of the Guelfs and\nthe Ghibellines. There could have been no ideal superman like Raphael\nwithout the counter-superman called Cesare Borgia. It is only your\nabominable Philistine who squeaks: 'Oh, we might have many a nice slice\nfrom the ham of Ideals without paying too dearly for it.' What do you\nthink of that, Hercules? Did you win Hebe by avoiding conflicts and\ndisasters?\"\n\nHercules groaned deeply and looked first at his battered club and\nthen at charming Hebe. The gods laughed aloud and Apollo, taking up\nhis lyre, intoned a grand old Doric song in praise of the heroes of\nwar who, by their valour, had prepared the _pal\u00e6stra_ for the heroes\nof thought and beauty. He was soon joined by a thousand harmonious\nvoices from the temple of Isis, and from his own majestic sanctuary at\nPompeii. Vesuvius counterpointed the lithe song with his deep bass;\nand, with Dionysus at the head of them, Pan and the nymphs came wafting\nthrough the air, strewing buds of melodies on to the Olympian wreaths\nof tones sung by Phoebus Apollo in praise of War.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen the song had subsided, Zeus, in a voice full of serenity and\nbenign music, addressed the gods and heroes as follows: \"We are very\nmuch beholden to Diogenes for his bright and amusing story of the\nCynical ants that at present run about the woods and cottages of men,\nbiting each other and their friends. Their epigrams and other eccentric\nutterances can affect none of us here assembled. You very well know\nthat I have not allowed Apollo, or Reason to reign alone and unaided by\nUnreason, or Dionysus. The Cynical critics of men want to bring about\nthe Age of Reason, or as these presumptuous half-knowers call it, the\nAge of Science. This, I have long since laid down, shall never be.\n\n\"At the gate of the Future, at Delphi, Apollo is associated with\nDionysus, and so it has been ever since I came to rule this Universe.\nJust as good music consists of tones and rhythms, and again of the\ncessation of all sound, or of measured pauses; even so my Realm\nconsists of Reason, and of the cessation of all Reason, or of Unreason.\nThe Cynics who ignore the latter, misjudge the former. This, I take it,\nis perfectly clear to all of us.\n\n\"But while we here may laugh at the bites of the Cynical ants below,\nwe do not mean to state that in their occupation there is no point, no\nutility at all. These little ants may be, and undoubtedly are largely\nsterile mockers. Yet even I have experienced it on myself that the\neffects of their doings are not always sterile.\"\n\nAnd leaning back on his chryselephantine chair, Zeus lowered his voice\nand said almost in a whisper: \"See, friends, why do we meet here in\nlonely places, in a dead town, during the mysterious hours of night?\nYou know very well who and what has prevailed upon me to choose this\ntemporary darkening of our blissful life.\"\n\nAt this moment there came from the rushes near the sea a plaintive song\naccompanied by a flute, and a voice of a human sobbed out the cry:\n\"Pan, the Great Pan is dead!\"\n\nA sudden silence fell over the divine Assembly. A cloud of deep sadness\nseemed to hover over all.\n\nThe three Graces then betook themselves to dancing, and their beauteous\nmovements and poses so exhilarated the Assembly, that the former\nserenity was soon re-established.\n\nZeus now turned to Plato, calling upon him to give his opinion on the\nCynics. Zeus reminded Plato that hitherto the Cynics had been treated\nby him merely incidentally, mostly by hidden allusions to Antisthenes,\nor by witty remarks on Diogenes. At present Plato might help the gods\nto pass agreeably the rest of the beautiful night by telling them in\nconnection and fulness what really the ultimate purport of these modern\nCynics, Shavian or other is going to be. Everybody turned his or her\nface towards Plato, who rose from his seat, and bowing, with a smile,\ntowards Diogenes, thus addressed Zeus and the Assembly of gods and\nheroes at Pompeii:\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"It is quite true that in my writings I have not devoted any explicit\ndiscussion to the views and tenets of the Cynics. They appeared to\nme at that time far too grotesque to be worth more than a passing\nconsideration. Of their dramas I had, and still have a very poor\nopinion. From what I hear from Diogenes, the modern imitators of Cynic\ndramatists are not a whit better. In addition to all their wearying\neccentricities, they add the most unbearable eccentricity of all, to\nwit, that their dramas and comedies represent a new departure within\ndramatic literature.\n\n\"Shaw's dramas are no more dramas than his Swiss, in _Arms and the\nMan_, is a soldier; or his clergyman in _Candida_ a husband, or a man.\nHis pieces are not dramatic in the least; they do not exhibit the most\nelementary qualities of a comedy. For, whatever the definition of a\ncomedy may be, one central quality can never be missing in it: the\npersons presented must be types of human beings.\n\n\"Shaw's persons are no humans whatever. They are _homunculi_ concocted\nin a chemical laboratory of pseudo-science and false psychology. They\ncrack, from time to time, brave jokes; so do clowns in a circus. That\nalone does not make a wax figure into a human.\n\n\"There may be very interesting comic scenes amongst bees, wasps, or\nbeavers; but we cannot appreciate them. We can only appreciate human\ncomicality, even when it is presented to us in the shape of dialogues\nbetween animals, as Aristophanes, the fabulists, and so many other\nwriters have done.\n\n\"Who would care to sit through a comedy showing the comic aspects of\nlife in a Bedlam? If madmen have humour, as undoubtedly they have, we\ndo not want to see it on a public stage. The fact that it is a madman's\nhumour deprives it of all humour.\n\n\"Hedda Gabler can appeal to no sound taste. One never sees why she is\nso fearfully unhappy. If she is not in love with her husband, let her\nwork in the house, in the kitchen, in the garden; let her try to be a\nmother; let her adopt a child if the gods deny her one of her own. Let\nher do something. Of course, idling all day long as she does, will in\nthe end demoralise a poker; and far from wondering that she ends badly\nat the end of the last act, one only wonders that she did not do away\nwith herself before the first scene of the first act. By doing so she\nwould have done a great service to herself, her people, and to dramatic\nliterature.\n\n\"Of the same kind is Raina, in _Arms and the Man_. She is a doll, but\nnot a young girl. She has neither senses, nor sense. She is made of\ncardboard, and fit only to appear in a Punch and Judy show. She is, in\ncommon with most of the figures in the comedies of the modern Cynics,\na mere outline drawing of a human being from whose mouth hang various\nslips of paper on which the author conveniently writes his _variorum_\njokes and bright sayings. All these so-called dramatic pieces will\nbe brushed away by the broom of Time, as happened to the dramas and\ntravesties of our Greek Cynics. Life eternal is given to things only\nthrough Art, and in these writings of the Cynics, old or modern ones,\nthere is not the faintest trace either of one of the Graces, or of one\nof the Muses.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Having said this much about Shaw's and the other modern Cynics'\nalleged dramatic writings, I hasten to add, that when we come to\nconsider the _effect_ these so-called dramas have, and possibly will\ncontinue to have on the mind of the public, we are bound to speak in\nquite a different manner.\n\n\"I have had plenty of time, since the days of my Academy at Athens,\nto think out the vast difference between such works of the intellect\nas aim at nothing but truth and beauty, or what we might call\n_alethology_, on the one hand; and such works as aim at effect, or what\nmay be generally termed as _effectology_.\n\n\"It is from this all-important point of view that I say that Tolstoy,\nIbsen, Shaw and the others are, _effectologically_, just as remarkable\nas they are _alethologically_ without much significance.\n\n\"As to the latter; as to their hitting off great or new truths; as to\ntheir being philosophers; or to put it in my terms, as to their having\nany _alethological_ value, Diogenes has already spoken with sufficient\nclearness. Just consider this one point.\n\n\"Tolstoy, as well as Shaw, wants to reform the abuses of civilisation.\nIn order to do so they combat with all their might the most powerful\npurifier and reformer of men,--War. Can anything be more ludicrous, and\nunscientific?\n\n\"Who gave the modern Germans that incomparable dash and _\u00e9lan_, thanks\nto which they have in one generation quadrupled their commerce, doubled\ntheir population, quintupled their wealth, and ensured their supremacy\non the Continent?\n\n\"Was it done by their thinkers and scholars? The greatest of these died\nbefore 1870.\n\n\"Was it done by getting into possession of the mouth of the Rhine, or\nof the access to the Danish Sounds, which formerly debarred them from\nthe sea? They do not possess the mouth of the Rhine, nor Denmark to the\npresent day.\n\n\"Nothing has changed in the material or intellectual world making the\nGermany of to-day more advantageous for commerce or power than it had\nbeen formerly.\n\n\"Except the victorious wars of 1866 and of 1870.\n\n\"Can such an evident connection of fact be overlooked? And would Russia\nhave introduced the Duma without the battle of Mukden? It is waste of\ntime even for the immortals to press this point much longer.\n\n\"As in this case, so in nearly all the other cases, Cynics revile\nabuses the sole remedies for which they violently combat. In their\nnegative attacks they brandish the keenest edges of the swords, daggers\nand pins of Logic; in their positive advices they browbeat every person\nin the household of logical thought.\n\n\"Yet, worthless, or very nearly so, as they may be as teachers of\ntruth, they are powerful as writers of pamphlets. For this is what\ntheir literature comes to. They do not write dramas, nor novels.\nThey can do neither the one, nor the other. But they write effective\npamphlets in the apparent form of dramas and novels.\n\n\"They are pamphleteers, and not men of letters.\n\n\"In that lies their undeniably great force. They instinctively choose\nas eccentric, as loud, and as striking forms and draperies of ideas as\npossible, so as to rouse the apathetic Philistine to an interest in\nwhat they say. They are full of absurdities; but which of us here can\nnow after centuries of experience venture to make light of the power of\nthe absurd?\n\n\"Error and Absurdity are so powerful, so necessary, so inevitable, that\nProtagoras was perhaps not quite wrong in saying that Truth herself is\nonly a particular species of Error.\n\n\"Once, many years ago, I despised the Cynics, and my own master\nSocrates made light of them. But at present I think differently. When\nSocrates said, with subtle sarcasm, to Antisthenes: 'I see your vanity\npeeping out through the holes of your shabby garment,' Antisthenes\nmight have retorted to him: 'And I, O Socrates, see through these very\nholes how short-sighted you are.'\n\n\"For have we not lived to see that while all revere Socrates in words,\nthey follow the pupils of Antisthenes in deeds? The Cynics, fathered\nby Antisthenes, begot the Stoics; and the Stoics were the main ferment\nin the rise and spread of Christianity. Many of the sayings and\nteachings and doings of the Cynics, which we at Athens made most fun\nof, have long since become the sinews and fibres of Christian ideas\nand institutions. There is greater similarity and mental propinquity\nbetween Antisthenes or Diogenes and St Paul, than between Socrates and\nSt Augustine of Hippo.\n\n\"I pray thee, O Zeus, to let us for a moment see this town of Pompeii\nas it was a day before its destruction, with all its life in the\nstreets and the Forum, so as to give us an ocular proof of the truth of\nwhat I just now said about the Cynics and Eccentrics of Antiquity, and\nwhat I am going to apply to the modern Cynics, literary or other.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThereupon Zeus, by a wave of his hand, placed the whole Assembly in the\nshadow as if encircled by a vast mantle of darkness, and shed a strange\nand supramundane light on the town of Pompeii, which grew up at sight\nfrom the ground, putting on life and movement and beauty on all its\nhouses, narrow streets, gardens, and squares. The ancient population\nfilled, in ceaseless movement, every part of the charming city. Richly\ndressed ladies, carried in sedan-chairs by black slaves; patricians in\nspotless togas, followed by crowds of clients; magistrates preceded by\nlictors; soldiers recruited from all nations; tradesmen from every part\nof the Roman Empire; all these and innumerable others, visitors from\nthe neighbouring cities, thronged the streets, and the whole population\nseemed to breathe nothing but joy and a sense of exuberant life.\n\nIn one of the squares there was a hilarious crowd listening, with loud\nderision and ironical applause, to a haggard, miserably clad, old\nman who, addressing them in Ionian Greek, with the strong guttural\naccent of the Asiatics, stood on one of the high jumping-stones of the\npavement, and spoke with fanatic fervour of the nameless sinfulness of\nthe people of Pompeii. With him were two or three other persons of the\nsame description, joining him from time to time in his imprecations\nagainst the \"doomed town.\"\n\nThe old man told them that their whole life was rotten through and\nthrough, a permanent lie, a contradiction to itself, a sure way to\ndamnation. He thundered against the soldiers jeering at him in the\ncrowd, calling them cowards, butchers, wretches, and the sinners of all\nsinners. He sneered at one of the priests of Isis present in the crowd,\ntelling the people that there was only one true belief, and no other.\n\nThe more the old man talked, the more the crowd laughed at him; and\nwhen a Greek philosopher, who happened to be there, interpellated and\nelegantly refuted the old man in a manner approved by the rules of the\nprevalent school of rhetoric and dialectics, the crowd cheered the\nphilosopher, and the more accomplished amongst the bystanders said to\none another: \"This old man is a mere charlatan, or an impostor; it's\nwaste of time to take him seriously.\"\n\nOne man alone, in the whole crowd, a shy and retiring disciple of\nApollonius of Tyana, waited until the crowd had dispersed, and then\nwalking up to the old man, asked him what sect of Cynics he belonged to.\n\nThe old man said: \"I am no Cynic; I am a Christian.\"\n\nThereupon the disciple of Apollonius took the old man's hand, pressed\nit with emotion, kissed him, and turning away from him, walked off,\nplunged in deep thought.\n\nA minute later the supramundane light over Pompeii disappeared, and the\nAssembly of the gods and heroes was again in the mild rays of Selene.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Can anyone here,\" continued Plato, \"deny that that crowd together\nwith the philosopher was quite mistaken in their appreciation of the\neccentric old man, and that the silent pupil of Apollonius alone was\nright?\n\n\"Cynics and Eccentrics have at all times been the forerunners of vast\npopular movements. The flagellants, the Beguins and Lollards, and\ncountless other Cynics in the latter half of the Middle Ages preceded\nthe Reformation.\n\n\"And was not the French Revolution, or the vastest effort at realising\nIdeals ever made by the little ones down here, preceded by a Cynic and\nhis pamphlets, by Jean Jacques Rousseau?\n\n\"No Greek town would have endured within its walls a youth so\ncompletely shattered in all his moral build, as was Rousseau. He was\nthoroughly and hopelessly demoralised in character, _d\u00e9cousu_ and\neccentric in thought, and badly tutored in point of knowledge. The\nclever woman that was his protectress, mistress, and guide, and who\ndisplayed a marvellous capacity for devising jobs and an inexhaustible\nresourcefulness in turning things and persons to practical use, could\nyet never discover any usefulness in Jean Jacques.\n\n\"He wrote, later on, novels, political treatises, botanical ones,\nmusical ones. In truth he never wrote a novel; he wrote nothing but\npamphlets; stirring, wild, eccentric, enchanting pamphlets. He was\nnot, like Beaumarchais, a pamphleteer and yet a writer of a real, and\nimmortal comedy, itself a political pamphlet. Rousseau was a writing\nstump-orator doing anticipative yeoman's work for the Revolution.\n\n\"So are all the Cynics. So are Ibsen, Tolstoy; so is Shaw. Their\ndramas may be, say _are_ no dramas at all; their novels may be, say\n_are_ no novels at all; their serious treatises are neither serious nor\ntreatises; and yet they are, and always will be great _effectological_\ncentres. They attack the whole fabric of the extant civilisation;\nby this one move they rally round them both the silent and the loud\nenemies of WHAT IS, and the eager friends of what OUGHT TO BE. Of these\nmalcontents there always is a great number; especially in times of\nprolonged peace.\n\n\"A war, a real, good national war would immediately sweep away all\nthese social malcontents.\n\n\"That's why the leaders of the Cynics, and more especially Tolstoy and\nShaw, hate war. It is their mar-feast, their kill-joy; their microbes\ndo not prosper in times of war.\n\n\"Without the fatal and all but universal peace of the period from 50\nA.D. to 190 A.D., Christianity could never have made any headway in the\nRoman Empire; just as we got rid of our Cynics by the second Athenian\nEmpire and its great wars.\n\n\"This, then, is in my opinion the true perspective of our modern\nCynics. As literature or truth, they exhibit little of value, except\nthat Shaw appears to me (--if a Greek may be allowed to pass judgment\non such a matter--) to be the only one amongst living writers in\nEngland who has real literary splendour in his style. As men, however,\nexercising an effect on a possible social Revolution, these writers are\nof the utmost importance.\n\n\"Or to repeat it in my terms: _alethologically_ nil or nearly so,\n_effectologically_ very important or interesting; this is the true\nperspective of writers like Tolstoy, Shaw, and other modern Cynics.\n\n\"Their influence is not on Thought, nor on Art, but on Action.\n\n\"They may eventually, if Mars will continue trifling with wood-nymphs\nand other well-intended cordials, become a great power. They may beget\nNeo-Stoics, who may beget Neo-Christians. They themselves may then\nappear only as the tiny drum-pages running in front or beside the\nreal fighters in battle. Yet their importance will be little impaired\nthereby.\n\n\"The Church Fathers have frequently endeavoured to honour me with the\nname of one of the lay protagonists of Christianity. But I know much\nbetter than that. The true protagonists were Antisthenes or Diogenes;\nand that is why the Roman Catholic Church has at no time countenanced\nme. And just as we now do not mind the jokes, burlesques and _boutades_\nof Diogenes any more, admitting freely, as we do, that behind them was\nthe _aurora borealis_ of a new creed, a new movement, a new world;\neven so we must not mind the grotesque _boutades_ of Tolstoy, Ibsen,\nShaw, Anatole, and other modern Cynics, for behind them is the magnetic\nfulguration of new electric currents in the social world.\n\n\"This, the public indistinctly feel; that's why they continue to read\nand criticise or revile these men. The public feels that while there\nmay not be much in what these men yield for the present, the future,\npossibly, is theirs.\n\n\"The little ones below do not as yet know, that there is no future; nor\nthat all that is or can be, has long been. Therefore they do not turn\nto us who might point out to them what things are driving at; but they\nwant the oldest things in ever new forms.\n\n\"We, however, know that _plus cela change, plus c'est la m\u00eame chose_,\nas one of the modern Athenians in Paris has put it.\n\n\"Do not frown on me, Heraclitus; I well know that you hold the very\nreverse, and that you would say: '_plus c'est la m\u00eame chose, plus cela\nchange_.'\n\n\"I have gladly accepted that in my earthly time when I made a sharp\ndistinction between phenomena and super-phenomena, or _noumena_. But I\ndo no longer make such a distinction.\n\n\"We are above time. We Hellenes are alive to-day as we were over\ntwo thousand years ago. We still think aloud or on papyrus the most\nbeautiful and the truest thoughts of men. Have we not but quite lately\nsent down for one of us to while amongst us for ever? He too began as\na Cynic. But having learnt the inanity of the so-called 'future,' he\nrose above time and space, and soared on the wings of eagle concepts\nto the heights where we welcome him. He has just entered the near port\nin a boat rowed by the nymphs of Circe. We cannot close our meeting in\na more condign fashion than by asking Hebe to offer him the goblet of\nwelcome.\"\n\nThe eyes of all present turned to the shore, where a man of middle age,\nwho had evidently regained his former vigour, walked up to the steps\nof the amphitheatre. When he came quite near to the Assembly, Diogenes\nexclaimed: \"Hail to thee, Frederick Nietzsche!\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE THIRD NIGHT\n\nALCIBIADES ON WOMEN IN ENGLAND\n\n\nIn the third night the gods and heroes assembled at Venice. Where the\nCanal Grande almost disappears in the sea, there on mystic gondolas\nthe divine Assembly met in the town of Love and Passion, at the\nwhilom centre of Power wedded to Beauty. It was a starlit night of\nincomparable charm. The Canal Grande, with its majestic silence; the\ndark yet clearly outlined Palaces surrounding the Canal like beautiful\nwomen forming a procession in honour of a triumphant hero; the grave\nspires of hundreds of churches standing like huge sentinels of the town\nof millions of secrets never revealed, and vainly searched for in her\nvast archives; and last not least the invisible Past hovering sensibly\nover every stone of the unique city; all this contributed ever new\ncharms to the meeting of the gods and heroes at Venice.\n\nZeus, not unforgetful of the Eternal Feminine, asked Alcibiades to\nentertain the Assembly with his adventures amongst the women of\nEngland. Alcibiades thereupon rose and spake as follows: \"O Zeus and\nthe other gods and heroes, I am still too much under the fascination\nof the women with whom I have spent the last twelve months, to be in\na position to tell you with becoming calmness what kind of beings\nthey are. In my time I knew the women of over a dozen Greek states,\nand many a woman of the Barbarians. Yet not one of them was remotely\nsimilar to the women of England. I will presently relate what I\nobserved of the beauty of these northern women.\n\n\"But first of all, it seems to me, I had better dwell upon one\nparticular type of womanhood which I have never met before except when\nonce, eight hundred years ago, I travelled in company with Abelard\nthrough a few towns of Medi\u00e6val France. That type is what in England\nthey call the middle-class woman. She is not always beautiful, and yet\nmight be so frequently, were her features not spoilt by her soul. She\nis the most bigoted, the most prejudiced, and most intolerant piece of\nperverted humanity that can be imagined.\n\n\"The first time I met her I asked her how she felt that day. To this\nshe replied, 'Sir-r-r!' with flashing eyes and sinking cheeks. When I\nthen added: 'I hope, madame, you are well?'--she looked at me even more\nfiercely and uttered: 'Sir-r-r!' Being quite unaware of the reason of\nher indignation, I begged to assure her that it gave me great pleasure\nto meet her. Thereupon she got up from her seat and exclaimed in a most\ntragic manner: 'Si-r-r-r, you are _no_ gentleman!!'\n\n\"Now, I have been shown out, in my time, from more than one lady's\nroom; but there always was some acceptable reason for it. In this case\nI could not so much as surmise what crime I had committed. On asking\none of my English friends, I learnt that I ought to have commenced\nthe conversation with remarks on the weather. Unless conversation is\ncommenced in that way it will never commend itself to that class of\nwomen in England. It is undoubtedly for that reason, Zeus, that you\nhave given England four different seasons indeed, but all in the course\nof one and the same day. But for this meteorological fact, conversation\nwith middle-class people would have become impossible.\n\n\"The women of that class have an incessant itch for indignation;\nunless they feel shocked at least ten times a day, they cannot live.\nAccordingly, everything shocks them; they are afflicted with permanent\n_shockingitis_.\n\n\"Tell her that it is two o'clock P.M., and she will be shocked. Tell\nher you made a mistake, and that it was only half-past one o'clock, and\nshe will be even more shocked. Tell her Adam was the first man, and she\nwill scream with indignation; tell her she had only one mother, and she\nwill send for the police. The experience of over two thousand years\namongst all the nations in and out of Europe has not enabled me to find\na topic, nor the manner of conversation agreeable or acceptable to an\nEnglish middle-class woman.\n\n\"At first I thought that she was as puritanic in her virtue as she was\nrigid and forbidding in appearance. One of them was unusually pretty\nand I attempted to please her. My efforts were in vain, until I found\nout that she took me for a Greek from Soho Square, which in London is\nsomething like the poor quarters of our Pir\u00e6us. She had never heard of\nAthens or of ancient history, and she believed that Joan of Arc was the\ndaughter of Noah.\n\n\"When I saw that, I dropped occasionally the remark that my uncle was\nLord Pericles, and that the King of Sparta had reasons to hide from\nme his wife. This did it at once. She changed completely. Everything\nI said was 'interesting.' When I said, 'Wet to-day,' she swore that\nit was a capital joke. She admired my very gloves. She never tired\nasking me questions about the 'swell set.' I told her all that I did\nnot know. The least man of my acquaintance was a lord; my friends were\nall viscounts and marquesses; my dog was the son of a dog in the King's\nkennels; my motor was one in which three earls and their wives had\nbroken eleven legs of theirs.\n\n\"These broken legs brought me very much nearer to my goal; and when\nfinally I apprised her that I had hopelessly spoilt my digestion at the\nwedding meal of the Duke of D'Ontexist, she implored me not to trifle\nany longer with her feelings. I stopped trifling.\n\n\"This experience,\" Alcibiades continued, \"did much to enlighten me\nabout what was behind all that forbidding exterior of the middle-class\nwoman. I discovered Eve in the Medi\u00e6val form of womanhood. I was\nreminded of the Spartan women who, at the first meeting, seemed so\nproud, unapproachable and Amazonian; at the second meeting they had\nlost some of their prohibitive temper; and at the third meeting they\nproved to be women, and nothing but women after all.\n\n\"Honestly, I preferred the English middle-class woman in her first\nstage. It suited the somewhat rigid style of her beauty much better.\nIn the last or sentimental stage she was much less interesting.\nHer tenderness was flabby or childish. Then she cried after every\n_rendez-vous_. That annoyed me considerably. One evening I could not\nhelp asking her whether she did not feel like sending five pounds of\nconscience-money to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. She drew the line\non that, and cried more profusely. Whereupon I proposed to send fifty\npounds of conscience-money and to be released of any further tears.\nThis seemed to pacify and to console her; and thus we parted.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"A few days after I had been relieved of my first lady friend in\nEngland,\" Alcibiades continued, \"I made the acquaintance of a girl\nwhose age I was unable to determine. She said she was twenty-nine years\nold. However, I soon found that all unmarried girls _d'un certain \u00e2ge_\nin England are exactly twenty-nine years old.\n\n\"She was not without certain attractions. She had read much, spoke\nfluently, had beautiful auburn hair and white arms. In her technical\nterms, which she used very frequently, she was not very felicitous.\nShe repeatedly mixed up bigotry with bigamy, or with trigonometry. My\npresence did not seem to affect her very much, and after two or three\ncalls I discovered that she was in a chronic state of rebellion against\nsociety and law at large.\n\n\"She held that women were in absolute serfdom to men, and that unless\nwomen were given the most valuable of rights, that is, the suffrage,\nneither women nor men could render the commonwealth what it ought to\nbe. I told her that shortly after my disappearance from the political\nstage of Athens, about twenty-three centuries ago, the women of that\ntown, together with those of other towns, clamoured for the same\nobject. 'What?' she exclaimed. 'Do you mean to say that suffragettes\nwere already known in those olden times?' I assured her that all that\nshe had told me about the aims and arguments of herself and her friends\nwas as old as the comedies of Aristophanes. That seemed to have a\nstrange effect upon her. I noticed that what she believed to be the\nnovelty of the movement constituted really its greatest charm for her.\nShe had thought that suffragettism was the very latest fashion, in\nevery way brand new.\n\n\"But after a time she recovered and said: 'Very well; if our objects\nand aims are as old as all that, they are sure to be even more solidly\nfounded in reason than I thought they were.'\n\n\"Reason, Right, Equity, and Fairness were her stock-in-trade. She was\nthe daughter of Reason; the wife of Right; the mother of Equity; and\nthe mother-in-law of Fairness. It was in vain that I told her that\nthis world was not held together by Reason or Right alone, but also\nby Unreason and Wrongs. She scoffed at my remarks, and asked me to\ncome to one of her speeches in Hyde Park on one of the next Sundays. I\ncame. There was a huge crowd, counting by the hundreds of thousands.\nMy lady friend stood on a waggon in the midst of about half-a-dozen\nother women, who all had preferred single blessedness to coupled bliss.\nThey were, of course, each of them twenty-nine years old; and yet their\naccumulated ages brought one comfortably back to the times of Queen\nElizabeth. When my friend's turn came, she addressed the crowd as\nfollows:\n\n\"'Men and women. Excuse me, ladies, beginning my speech in that way. It\nis mere custom, the behests of which I obey. In my opinion there are no\nmen in this country. There are only cowards and their wives. Who but a\ncoward would refuse a woman the most elementary right of citizenship?\nWho but a wretch and a dastardly runaway would deny women a right\nwhich is given to the scum of men, provided they pay a ridiculous sum\nin yearly taxes? There are no men in this country.' (A voice from the\npeople: 'None for you, m'um, evidently!')\n\n\"'I repeat it to you: there are no men. I will repeat it again. I can\nnever repeat it too frequently. Or, do you call a person a man who is\nnone? The first and chief characteristic of a true man is his love of\njustice. It is so completely and exclusively his, that we women do not\nin the least pretend to share in this his principal privilege.\n\n\"'But can the present so-called men be called just? Is it justice to\ndeny justice to more than one half of the nation, to the women? Let\nus women have the suffrage, so that men, by thus doing justice, shall\nbecome true men worthy of _their_ suffrage. For are not all their\nreasonings against our wishes void of any force?\n\n\"'They say that the suffrage of women, by dragging them too much into\nthe political arena, would defeminise them. Pray look at us here\nassembled. Are we unwomanly? Do we look as if we had lost any of that\ndown which hovers over the soul of domesticated women as does the nap\non a peach?' (Stormy applause.) 'Thanks, many thanks. I knew you would\nnot think so.\n\n\"'No, it is indeed absurd to assume that a waggon can change a woman\ninto a dragon. Am I changed by entering a 'bus? Or by mounting a taxi?\nWhy, then, should I be changed by standing on a waggon? I am no more\nchanged by it, than the waggon is changed by me.' (A voice: 'Good old\nwaggon!')\n\n\"'We want to have a share in legislation. There are a hundred\nsubjects regarding which we are better informed than are men.\nTake food-adulteration--who knows more about it than we do? Take\nintemperance--who drinks more in secret than we do? Take the law of\nlibel and slander--who libels and slanders more than we do? Who can\npossibly possess more experience about it?\n\n\"'Look at history. Repeatedly there have been periods when a number of\nqueens and empresses proved to be more efficient than men. Politics,\nespecially foreign policy, spells simply lies and dissimulation. Who\ncan do that better than ourselves? People say that if we women get the\nsuffrage, the House of Commons would soon be filled with mere women.\nLet us grant that, for argument's sake. Would the difference be really\nso great? Are there not women in trousers? And are there not more\ntrousers than men?\n\n\"'Nowadays most men cry themselves hoarse over Peace, Arbitration,\nInternational Good Will, and similar nostrums. Could we women not do\nthat too? I ask you men present, could we not do that as well? The men\nof this country think that they will bring about the millennium by\npreaching and spreading teetotalism, Christian Science, vegetarianism,\nor simple lifeism. How ridiculous and petty.\n\n\"'Look at the \"isms\" we propose to preach and spread: (1)\nAnti-corsetism; (2) Anti-skirtism; (3) Anti-bonnetism; (4)\nAnti-gloveism; (5) Anti-necktieism; (6) Anti-cigarettism; and finally\n(7) _Anti-antiism_.\n\n\"'On these seven hills of antis, or if you prefer it, on these seven\nant-hills, which are in reality anti-ills, we shall build our New Rome,\nthe rummiest Rome that ever was, and more eternal than the town of the\nC\u00e6sars and the Popes. Give us the suffrage! Do you not see how serious\nwe are about it? We know very well that the various classes of men\nobtained the suffrage only by means of great fights in which, in some\ncountries, untold thousands of men were killed. But can you seriously\nthink of putting us women to similar straits?\n\n\"'Evidently, what men had to fight for in bitter earnest, ought to be\ngiven to women in jest as a mere gift. Do give us the suffrage! Do not\nbe pedantic nor naughty. We mean it very seriously; therefore give it\nto us as a joke, by sheer politeness, and as a matter of good manners.\n\n\"'Come, my male friends, be good boys; let me brush your coat, fix the\nnecktie in the proper shape and pour a little brilliantine on your\nmoustaches. There! That's a nice little boy. And now open the safe of\nthe nation and give us quick the right of rights, the might of mights,\nthe very thing that you men have been fighting for ever since Magna\nCharta in 1215, give us the suffrage as an incidental free gift.\n\n\"'If you do so, we will pass a law that all barbers' shops shall be\nin the soft, pleasant hands of young she-barbers. Think of the downy\nsatisfaction that this will give you! Think of the placid snoozes\nin a barber's chair when your face is soaped, shaven and sponged by\nmellow hands! Is it not a dear little enjoyment? Now, look here my male\nfriends, this and similar boons we shall shower upon you, provided you\ngive us the suffrage.\n\n\"'Nay, we shall before everything else (provided we have the suffrage!)\npass a law _abolishing breach-of-promise cases_.'\n\n\"(Endless hurrahs from all sides--Band--Fire-works--St Vitus' Dances,\nuntil the whole immense crowd breaks out in a song 'She is a jolly good\nmaiden, etc.')\n\n\"'Thanks, you are very kind. Yes, we mean to abolish breach-of-promise\ncases. Consider what advantages that would imply for you. A man will be\nable to flirt round five different corners at a time, without risking\nanything. He will be able to practise letter-writing in all the colours\nof the rainbow, without in the least jeopardising his situation, purse\nor expectations. He will be in a position to amuse himself thoroughly,\nfreely, everywhere, and at any time. What makes you men so stiff, so\ntongue-tied, so pokery, but the dread of a breach-of-promise case.\nOnce that dread is removed by the abolition of such cases, you will be\namiable, great orators, full of charming _abandon_, and too lovely for\nwords. As a natural consequence, women will be more in love with you\nthan ever before. Your conquests in Sexland will be countless. You will\nbe like Alcibiades,--irresistible, universally victorious. Now, could\nwe offer you anything more tempting?\n\n\"'I know, of course, that outwardly you affect to be no ladies' men.\nBut pray, _entre nous_, are you not in reality just the reverse? Man\n_is_ polygamous. We women do not in the least care for men, and if all\nmy female contemporaries should die out, leaving me alone in the world\nwith 600,000,000 men, I should myself speedily die with boredom. What\nare men here for but as mere cards in our game of one woman against the\nother? If I cannot martyrise a little the heart of my female friend by\nalienating her man from her, what earthly use has her man for me?\n\n\"'But you men, you are quite different. You do wish that all the\nwomen, at any rate all the young and beautiful women, shall be at your\norder. This of course we cannot legislate for you. But we can do the\nnext best thing: we can abolish the chief obstacle in your way: the\nbreach-of-promise cases. This we promise to do, provided you give us\nthe suffrage. You are, however, much mistaken if you think that that is\nall we have in store for you. Far from it.\n\n\"'If you give us the franchise, we pledge ourselves _never to publish a\nnovel or a drama_.'\n\n\"(Applause like an earthquake--men embrace one another--elderly\ngentlemen cry with joy--a clergyman calls upon people to pray--in the\nskies a rainbow appears.)\n\n\"'Yes, although with a breaking heart, yet we will make this immense\nsacrifice on the altar of our patriotism: we will henceforth not\npublish any novels. I cannot say that we will not write any. This would\nbe more than I or any other woman could promise. We must write novels.\nWe are subject to a writing itch that is quite beyond our control. The\nless a woman has to say the more she will write. She must write; she\nmust write novels.\n\n\"'We write, we publish at present about five novels a day. If you give\nus the suffrage, we pledge ourselves not to publish a single novel.'\n\n\"(Universal cry: 'Give them the suffrage, for God's sake!')\n\n\"'And if you do not give us the suffrage, we shall publish ten novels a\nday.'\n\n\"(Fearful uproar--fierce cries for the police--twenty publishers\npresent are mobbed--Miss Cora Morelli present is in imminent danger of\nlife.)\n\n\"'Did I say, ten? What I meant to say is, that if you do not give us\nthe franchise, we shall publish fifteen novels a day.'\n\n\"(Revolution--pistol shots--the fire-brigade comes.)\n\n\"'Twenty--thirty--forty novels a day.'\n\n\"(The Big Ben is howling--the Thames river floods Middlesex--the House\nof Commons suspends the Habeas Corpus Act.)\n\n\"'Or even ten novels every hour.'\n\n\"(The Albert Memorial leaves its place and takes refuge in the Imperial\nInstitute--the crowd, in despair, falls on their knees and implores the\nspeaker to have mercy on them--they promise the suffrage, at once, or\nsomewhat before that.)\n\n\"'There! I told you, we do mean what we mean, and we have all sorts of\nmeans of making you mean what we mean. It is therefore understood that\nyou will give us the franchise, and we shall stop publishing novels.\nBut should you change your mind and go back on your present promises,\nthen I must warn you that we have in store even more drastic means of\nforcing your hands. You must not in the least believe that the pressure\nwe can bring to bear upon you is exhausted with the devices just\nenumerated. There are other devices. But for evident reasons of modesty\nI prefer calling upon my motherly guide, Mrs Pancake, to tell you more\nabout them.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"With that my tender friend retired, and up got a middle-aged woman\nwith hard features and much flabby flesh. She was received with\nmournful silence. She began in a strident voice, which she accentuated\nby angular gestures cutting segments out of the air. She said:\n\n\"'You have, ladies and gentlemen, heard some of the disadvantages that\nwill inevitably be entailed upon you by not granting us what Justice,\nEquity and our Costume render a demand that none but barbarians can\nrefuse. I am now going to give you just an inkling of what will befall\nyou should you pertinaciously persist in your obdurate refusal of the\nfranchise to women. We women have made up our minds to the exclusion of\nany imaginable hesitation, change, or vacillation. We shall be firm and\nunshakable.\n\n\"'We have done everything that could be done by way of persuading you.\nWe have published innumerable pamphlets; we have trodden countless\nstreets in countless processions; we have been wearing innumerable\nbadges and carrying thousands of flags and standards; we have screamed,\npushed, rowdied, boxed, scuffled, gnashed our teeth (even such as were\nnot originally made for that purpose), and suffered our skirts to be\ntorn to shreds; we have petitioned, waylaid, interpellated, ambushed,\nbullied and memorialised all the ministers, all the editors, all the\nclergymen, all the press-men; we have suffered imprisonment, fines,\nscorn, ridicule; we have done, with the exception of actual fighting,\neverything that men have done for the conquest of the suffrage.\n\n\"'Should all these immense sacrifices not avail us any; should it all\nbe in vain; then we the women of this country, and I doubt not those\nof the other countries too, will, as a last resort, take refuge in\nthe oldest and most powerful ally of our sex. Eternal Time has two\nconstituents: Day and Night. The Day is man's. The Night is ours.'\n\n\"(Deadly silence--men begin looking very serious.)\n\n\"'The Night, I repeat it in the sternest manner possible, the Night\nis ours. We grant, indeed, that sixteen hours are man's; but the\nremaining eight are ours. The stars and the moon; the darkness and\nthe dream--they are all ours. Should you men persist in refusing us\nthe franchise, you will wake in vain for the moon and the stars and\nthe dream. You will see stars indeed, but other ones than you expect.\nWe shall be inexorable. No moon any more for you; neither crescent,\nhalf nor full moon; neither stars nor milky-way; neither galaxy nor\ngallantry.'\n\n\"(A salvationist: 'Let us pray!'--A soldier: 'Hope, m'um, that\nSaturdays will be off-days?'--Solicitors, teetotallers, and three\neditors of Zola's collected works: 'Disgraceful! shocking!'--A\nscholar: 'Madame, that's a chestnut, Aristophanes has long proposed\nthat!'--General uproar--a band of nuns from Piccadilly hurrah the\nproposal and raise prices of tickets--Scotland Yard smiles--the _Daily\nNail_ kodaks everybody and interviews Mrs Pancake on the spot--Mrs\nGuard, the famous writer, at once founds a counter-League, with the\nmotto 'Astronomy for the people--Stars and Stripes free--the United\nGates of Love'--the _Daily Crony_ has an attack of moral appendicitis.)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"I wish,\" continued Alcibiades, amidst the laughter of the immortals,\n\"Aristophanes had been present. I assure you that all that he said in\nhis comedies called _Ecclesiazusae_ and _Lysistrata_ pale beside the\ntumultuous scenes caused by the peroration of Mrs Pancake. Her threat\nwas in such drastic contrast to the stars and moon she personally could\nexhibit to the desires of men, that the comic effect of it became at\ntimes almost unbearable.\n\n\"While the pandemonium was at its height a stentorian voice invited\nall present to another platform where another woman was holding forth\non Free Love and Free Marriage. I forthwith repaired to the place, and\nheard what was in every way a most interesting speech delivered by a\nwoman who consisted of a ton of bones and an ounce of flesh. She was\nbetween forty and seventy-nine. She talked in a tone of conviction\nwhich seemed to come from every corner of her personal masonry. Her\ngestures were, if I may say so, as strident as her voice, which came\nout with a peculiar gust of pectoral wind, unimpeded, as it was, by the\nfence of too numerous teeth. She said:\n\n\"'Gentlemen, all that you have heard over there from the platforms of\nthe suffragettes is, to put it mildly, the merest rubbish. We women do\nnot want the suffrage. What we want is quite another thing. All our\nmisery since the days of Eve comes from one silly, absurd, and criminal\ninstitution, and from that alone. Abolish that cesspool of depravity;\nthat hotbed of social gangrene; that degradation of men and women; and\nwe shall be all happy and contented for ever.\n\n\"'That institution; that cancerous hotbed; that degradation is:\n_Marriage_. As long as we shall endure this scandalous bondage and\nprostitution of the most sacred sentiments and desires of human beings,\neven so long will our social wretchedness last.\n\n\"'Abolish marriage.\n\n\"'It has neither sense, nor object, nor right; it is the most hapless\naberration of humanity. How can you uphold such a monstrous thing?\n\n\"'Just consider: I do not know, and do not care to know what other\nnations are like; I only care for my great nation, for England, for\nEnglishmen. Now, can anyone here present (or here absent, for the\nmatter of that), seriously contend that an Englishman is by nature\nor education fit for marriage? Why, not one in ten thousand has the\nslightest aptitude for it.\n\n\"'An Englishman is an island, a solitary worm, morally a hermit,\nsocially a bear, humanly a Cyclop. He hates company, including his own.\nThe idea that any person should intrude upon his hallowed circles\nfor more than a few minutes is revolting to him. When he is ill he\nsuffers most from the inquiries of friends about his condition. When\nhe is successful he is too proud to stoop to talking with anyone under\nthe rank of a lord. When he is unsuccessful, he takes it for granted\nthat nobody desires to speak to him. He builds his house after his\nown character: rooms do not communicate. He chooses his friends among\npeople that talk as little as possible and call on him once a year. Any\nremark about his person he resents most bitterly. Tell him, ever so\nmildly, that the colour of his necktie is cryingly out of harmony with\nthe colour of his waistcoat, and he will hate you for three years.\n\n\"'And you mean to tell me, gentlemen, that such a creature is fit for\nmarriage? That is, fit for a condition of things in which a person,\nother than himself, claims the right to be in the same room with him at\nany given hour of the day or the night; to pass remarks on his necktie,\nor his cuffs, or even on his tobacco; to talk, ay, to talk to him for\nan hour, to twit him, or chaff him--good heavens, one might just as\nwell think of asking the Archbishop of Canterbury by telephone whether\nhe would not come to the next bar round the corner for a glass of Bass.\n\n\"'And as to other still more personal claims of tenderness and intimacy\non the part of the wife, such as embraces and kisses, one shudders\nto think how any woman may ever hope to attempt doing them without\nimminent risk to her life.\n\n\"'Fancy a wife trying to kiss her legal husband! He, prouder of his\ncollar and cuffs than of his banking account, to stand calmly and\nwillingly an assault on the immaculate correctness of the said collar\nand cuffs!\n\n\"'It passes human comprehension. The mere idea thereof is unthinkable.\n\n\"'Perhaps in the first few weeks of married life. But after six months;\nafter a year, or two--by what stretch of imagination shall one reach\nthe possibility of such an event? After six months, he is indifferent\nto the entire astronomy of his wife; after a year or so, he hates her.\nIt is not so much that he wants another woman, or another man's wife,\nor another wife's man; what he wants is to be left alone.\n\n\"'He has long since shaken off the State, the Church, the Army, and,\npolitically, the Nobility. Nothing can be more evident than that he\nwants to shake off the last of the old shackles: Marriage. His motive\nis: shekels, but no shackles.\n\n\"'Some incomprehensibly modest people have proposed marriage to last\nten years only. It appears, they contend, that the critical period of\nthe modern marriage shows itself at the end of ten years. The scandals\nthat are usually cropping up at the end of that period, they say, might\nvery well be avoided by terminating marriage legally at the end of the\ntenth year. People proposing such stuff clearly manifest their utter\ninability to see through the true character of modern marriage.\n\n\"'If marriages were to last only ten years, then be sure that the said\ncritical period with its inevitable scandals would set in at the end\nof the fifth year. The cause, the real cause of these scandals is not\nin the length of time, but in the very nature of marriage. If this\niniquitous and barbarous contract were to last only for five years,\nthen its critical period and its scandals would appear at the end of\ntwo years. And by a parity of reasoning, if marriage were to last one\nyear only, it would by its inherent vice come to grief at the end of\nsix months.\n\n\"'The only cure for marriage is to abolish it. Does marriage not demand\nthe very quality that not one English person in a hundred thousand\npossesses: yieldingness? Or can anyone deny that no English person has\never really meant to admit that he or she was wrong?\n\n\"'They are all of them infallible. People write such a lot about the\nhatred of Popery in English history. What nonsense. English people do\nnot hate Popery; they despise the idea that there should be only one\ninfallible Pope, whereas they know that in England alone there are at\npresent over thirty millions of such infallibles. This being so, how\ncan marriage be a success?\n\n\"'Or take it,' the Free Love lady continued, 'from another standpoint.\nMost Englishmen enter married life with little if any experience of\nwomanhood. Only the other day a young man of twenty-five, who was just\nabout to marry, asked in my presence whether it was likely that a woman\ngave birth to one child early in the month of May, and to the other in\nthe following month of June? He thought that _The Times_ instalment\nsystem applied to all good things.\n\n\"'Other young men inquire seriously about the strategy of marriage, and\nthe famous song in the _Belle of New York_, in which the girl asks her\n_fianc\u00e9_ \"When we are married what will you do?\" was possible only in\ncountries of Anglo-Saxon stock. In Latin countries the operette could\nnot have been finished in one evening on account of the interminable\nlaughter of the public. In London nobody turned a hair, as they say.\nHalf of the men present had, in their time, asked the same question of\nthemselves or of their doctors.\n\n\"'Now if there is one thing more certain than another in the whole\nmatter of marriage it is this, that the inexperienced _fianc\u00e9_\ngenerally makes the worst husband. Being familiar only with the ways\nand manners of men, he misunderstands, misconstrues, and misjudges most\nof the actions or words of his young wife. He is positively shocked\nat her impetuous tenderness, and takes many a manifestation of her\nlove for him as mere base flattery or as hypocrisy. Not infrequently\nhe ceases treating her as his wife, and goes on living with her as\nhis sister; and, since the wife, more loyal to nature, rarely omits\nrecouping herself, her husband acts the part of certain gentlemen of\nConstantinople. It is thus that the famous _m\u00e9nage \u00e0 trois_ does not,\nproperly speaking, exist in England. In England it is always a _m\u00e9nage\n\u00e0 deux_.\n\n\"'If, then, instead of continuing marriage; if, instead of maintaining\nan institution so absurd and so contrary to the nature of an\nEnglishman, we dropped it altogether; if, instead of compulsory wedding\nceremonies, we introduced that most sacred of all things: FREE LOVE;\nthe advantages accruing to the nation as a whole, and to each person\nconstituting that nation, would be immense.\n\n\"'Free Love, ay: that is the only solution. Nature knows what she is\nafter. The blue-eyed crave the black-eyed ones; the fair-haired desire\nthe dark-haired; the tall ones the small; the thin ones the thick; the\nunlettered ones the lettered unfettered ones. This is Nature.\n\n\"'If these affinities are given free scope, the result will be a nation\nof giants and heroes. Affinities produce Infinities. Free Trade in\nwedlock is the great panacea. Since the only justifiable ground for\nmarriage is--the child, how dare one marry anyone else than the person\nwith whom he or she is most likely to have the finest babe? That person\nis clearly indicated by Nature. How, then, can Society, Law, or the\nChurch claim the right to interfere in the choice?\n\n\"'I know that many of you will say: \"Oh, if men should take their wives\nonly from Free Love, they would take a different one every quarter.\"\nBut if you come to think of it, it is not so at all. If men took their\nwives out of Free Love, they could not so much as think of taking\nanother wife every quarter. For, which other wife could they take?\nThere would be none left for them, since all the other women would,\nby the hypothesis, long have been taken up by _their_ Free Lovers.\nMoreover, if a man takes a wife out of Free Love, he sticks to her just\nbecause he loves her. Had he not loved her, he would not have taken\nher; and if he should cease loving her, he would find no other woman to\njoin him, owing to his proved fickleness.\n\n\"'Last, not least, women and men would form elaborate societies for\nthe prevention of frivolous breaches of faith. At present no woman has\na serious interest in watching another woman's man. It would be quite\ndifferent in Free-Love-Land. The unofficial supervision and control of\nmen and women would be as rigorous as in monastic orders. As a man\nwill pay off debts contracted at a card-table with infinitely greater\nanxiety than any ordinary debt of his to a tailor or a grocer, just\nbecause such gambling debts are not actionable; even so conjugal debts\nwould, in Free-Love-Land, be discharged with a punctuality that now is\npractically unknown.\n\n\"'The commonplace assertion that legal marriage preserves men and women\nin a virtuous life has been refuted these six thousand years. To the\npresent day one is not able to deny the truth of what once a Turkish\nwoman replied to a Christian lady. The latter asked the Oriental: \"How\ncan you tolerate the fact that your husband has at the same time and\nin the same house three other wives of his?\" The Turkish lady replied:\n\"Please, do not excite yourself unduly. The only difference between me\nand you is this, that I know the names of my rivals, and you do not.\"\n\n\"'In Free-Love-Land alone is there virtue. Men and women select freely,\nobeying only the dictates of infallible Nature. The result is order,\nhealth, joy, and efficiency. How can any person of sense believe in the\npresent marriage systems, when one considers the countless lives of old\nmaids sacrificed to the Moloch of modern legal monogamy?\n\n\"'In England there are about four times more old maids than in any\nother country; except in New England, in the United States, where every\nsecond woman is born an old maid. Has anybody ever seriously pondered\nover the great danger to Society and State implied in an excessive\nnumber of old maids? I leave it to you, and I dare say to everyone of\nyou who has, no doubt, bitterly suffered at the hands of some one old\nmaid in his or her family.\n\n\"'Old maids are either angels of goodness, or devils in human form;\nthe real proportion of either must be left to the Lord Chancellor\nto decide. But who, or what produces old maids? Our legal monogamy.\nGive us Free Love, and you shall have heard the last word of old\nmaids. Refuse Free Love, and we shall have to form our old maids\ninto regiments and send them against the Germans. Plato said that\nthe unsatisfied womb of a woman wanders about in all her body like\na ravenous animal and devours everything on his path. Our present\nmarriage system makes more victims than victors.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"The good bag of bones wanted to continue in the same strain, but was\nstopped by a young policeman who threatened to take her into custody\nunless she discontinued her oratory. She threatened to love him freely;\nwhereupon he ran away as speedily as he could manage, but was at once\nfollowed by the valiant she-orator, who nearly overtook him, crying\nall the time 'I love you freely'--'I love you freely.' The whole crowd\nfollowed, howling, screaming, laughing, and singing songs of Free Love.\nSo ended the discourse on Free Love.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"A few weeks later,\" continued Alcibiades, \"I made the acquaintance\nof what they call a society lady. She was, of course, a specialist.\nShe had found out that her physical attractions were of a kind to show\noff best at the moment of entering a crowded room. She was, to use the\nphraseology of the _chef_, an _entr\u00e9e_ beauty. Her name was Entr\u00e9a. At\nthe moment she entered a _salon_, she gave, just for a few minutes, the\nimpression of being strikingly handsome. She walked well, and the upper\npart of her head, her hair, forehead, and eyes were very pretty. She\nknew that on entering a room, the upper part of the head is precisely\nthe one object of general attention. This she utilised in the most\nmethodic manner. She entered with an innocent smile and lustrous eyes.\nThe effect was decidedly pretty.\n\n\"In order to heighten it she always came late. Her cheeks, which were\nugly; her shoulders, which were uglier; her arms, which were still\nuglier, were all cleverly disguised or made to appear secondary, and\nas if dominated by her big eyes. She was very successful. Most men\nconsidered her beautiful; and women were happy that her principal\neffect did not last very long. She knew some fifteen phrases by heart,\nwhich were meant to meet the conversation of the fifteen different\nspecies into which she had, for daily use, divided the different men\nshe met in society. Each of these phrases gave her the appearance of\nmuch _esprit_ and of an intelligent interest in the subject. She did\nnot understand them at all; but she never mixed them up, thanks to her\ninstinct, which was infallible.\n\n\"The last time she had done or said anything spontaneously or\nnaively was on the day she left her nursery. Ever since she was\nthe mere manager of her words and acts. In everything there was a\ncool intention. As a matter of fact she was meant by Nature to be a\nsalesgirl at Whiteley's. Failing this, she sold her presence, her\nsmiles, her manners to the best social advantage. A rabid materialist,\nshe always pretended to live for nothing but ideals. Sickened by music,\nshe always gave herself out to be an enthusiast for Wagner. Like many\nwomen that have no natural talent for intellectual pursuits, she was\nmost eager to read serious books, to attend serious lectures, and to\nengage a conversation on philosophy.\n\n\"I met her in my quality as Prince of Syracuse. She first thought\nthat Syracuse was the name of my father; when I had explained to her\nthat Syracuse was the name of a famous town in Sicily, she asked me\nwhether I belonged to the great family whose motto was _qui s'excuse,\ns'iracuse_.\n\n\"On my answering in the negative, she exclaimed: 'But surely you belong\nat least to the Maffia? Oh do, it would be so interesting!' In order\nto please her I at once belonged to that society of secret assassins.\nHowever, I soon noticed that she thought the Maffia was the Sicilian\nform of a society for patriotic Mafficking.\n\n\"When we became a little more intimate, she told me that I was\nnever to speak of anything else than Syracuse. That would give me a\ncertain _cachet_, as she put it, and distinguish me from the others.\nAccordingly I placed all my stories and occasional sallies of talk\nat Syracuse. I was the Syracusan. She swore my accent was Syracusan,\nand that my entire personality breathed Syracusan air. In society she\npresented me as a member of a curious race, the Syracusans, in Sicily,\nclose to the Riviera.\n\n\"One day she surprised me with the question whether the men of Syracuse\nwere still in the habit of marrying two women at a time. She had read\nin some book of the double marriage of Dionysus the Elder in the fourth\ncentury B.C. I calmed her in that respect. I said that since that time\nthings had changed at Syracuse.\n\n\"On the other hand, I was unable to make out whether she was a divorced\nvirgin, or a deceased sister's wife. It was not clear at all. When\nconversing with me alone, she was as dry as a Nonconformist; but in a\ndrawing-room, full of people, she showered upon me all the sweets of\npassionate flirtation.\n\n\"One day I told her that I had won great victories in the chariot races\nat Olympia. She looked at me with a knowing smile and said: 'Come,\ncome, why did I not read about it in the _Daily Nail_?' and, showing me\nthe inside of her hat, she pointed at a slip of paper in it, on which\nwas printed: 'I am somewhat of a liar myself.' I assured her that I had\nreally won great prizes at Olympia.\n\n\"'Were they in the papers?' she asked.\n\n\"I said, we had no papers at that time.\n\n\"'No papers?' she exclaimed. 'Why, were you like the negroes? No\npapers! What will you tell me next? Had you perhaps no top-hats either?\nDo you mean to tell me that this great poet of yours--what you call\nhim?--ah, Lord Homer, had no top-hat?'\n\n\"I assured her that we had no hats whatever.\n\n\"'Oh, I see,' she said, 'you were founded like the blue boys,--I see.\nBut surely you wore gloves?'\n\n\"On my denying it, she turned a little pale.\n\n\"'No gloves either? Then I must ask you only one more thing: had you no\nshoes either?'\n\n\"'No,' I said, calmly, 'some of us, like Socrates, went always\nbarefoot, others in sandals.'\n\n\"She smiled incredulously. I told her that in the heyday of Athens men\nin the streets went about over one-third nude. She did not mind the\nnude, but she stopped at the word heyday.\n\n\"She asked me: 'On which day of the year fell your heyday?'\n\n\"I did not quite know what to say, until it flashed upon my mind that\nshe meant 'hay-day.' I soon saw I was right, because she added:\n\n\"'Does going barefoot cure hay-fever? And is that the reason why so\nmany people still talk of Socrates?'\n\n\"I stared at her. Was it really possible that she did not know who\nSocrates was? I tried to give a short sketch of your life, O Socrates,\nbut I could not go beyond the time before you were born. For, when I\nsaid that your mother had been a midwife, my lady friend recoiled with\nan expression of terror.\n\n\"'What,' she exclaimed, 'he was the son of a midwife?--a\nmidwife?--Pray, do not let us talk about such people! I hoped he was at\nleast the son of a baronet. How could you ever endure his company?'\n\n\"'That was just it,' said I, 'I could not. His charm was so great, that\nfor fear of neglecting everything else I fled from him like a hunted\nstag.'\n\n\"'But pray,' she retorted, 'what charm can there be in a son of a\nmidwife? I can imagine some interest in a clever midwife,--but in her\nson? Oh, that is too absurd for words!'\n\n\"'My charming friend,' I answered, 'Socrates was, as he frequently\nremarked it, himself a sort of midwife, who never pretended to be\nparent to a thought, but only to have helped others to produce them.'\n\n\"'Oh, is that it,--' she said dryly, 'Socrates did manual services in\nmidwifery? How lost to all shame your women must have been to engage a\nman in their most delicate moments. I now see why so many of my lady\nfriends deserted a man who had announced lectures on Plato. He also\ntalked about Socrates, and when it became known that Socrates was a\nwretched midwife's clerk, we left the lecture-hall in indignation.\nFancy that man said he talked about Plato, and yet in his discourses\nhe talked about nurseries, teetotalism, Christian Science and all such\nthings as date only of yesterday, and of which Plato could have known\nnothing.'\n\n\"'But my lovely Entr\u00e9a,' I interrupted, 'Plato does talk of all these\nthings, and with a vengeance.'\n\n\"'How _could_ he talk of them?' she triumphantly retorted. 'Did he ever\nread the _Daily Nail_ or _Ladies' Wold_?'\n\n\"'No,' I said, 'he never did, which is one of the many reasons of his\ndivine genius. But he does speak of temperance, and simple life, and\nthe superman, and all the other so-called discoveries of this age,\nwith the full knowledge of a sage who has actually experienced those\neccentricities.'\n\n\"My fascinating friend could stand it no longer. Interrupting me she\nsaid:\n\n\"'Why, every child knows that Plato talked of nothing else than of\nPlatonic love. We all expected to hear about nothing else than that\ncurious love which all of us desire, if it is not too long insisted\nupon. We went to the course to revive in ourselves long-lost shivers\nnot only of idealism, but even of bimetallism, or as it were the double\nweight of it.\n\n\"'We thought, since Plato is evidently named after platinum, which we\nknow to be the dearest of precious metals, his philosophy must treat of\nsuch emotions as cost us the greatest sacrifice.\n\n\"'Platonic love is the most comfortable of subjects to talk or think\nabout. It makes you look innocent, and yet on its brink there are such\nnicely dreadful possibilities of plunging into delightful abysses. Each\nthing gets two values; one Platonic, the other,--the naughty value. A\nwhole nude arm may be Platonic; but a voluptuous wrist peeping out of\nfine laces may be only--a tonic.\n\n\"'Now these are precisely the subjects of which we desired to hear\nin those lectures. Instead of which the man said nothing about them,\nnothing about that dear Platonic love; in fact, he said that Plato\nnever speaks of what is now called Platonic love. And that man calls\nhimself a scholar? Why, my very chamber-maid knows better. The other\nday she saw the lecturer's photo in a paper and, smiling in an\nembarrassed way, she said to the cook: \"That's the man what talks at\nCliradge's about miscarriages.\" Was she not right? Is not Platonic love\nthe cause of so many miscarriages, before, during, or after the wedding\nceremony?\n\n\"'And then,' she added with a gasp, 'we all knew that Plato was a\nmystic, full of that shivery, half-toney, gruesomely something or other\nwhich makes us feel that even in everyday life we are surrounded by\nasterisks, or, as they also call them, astral forces. Was not Plato\nan intimate friend of Mrs Blavatsky, the sister of Madame Badarzewska,\nwho was the composer of \"A Maiden's Prayer\"? There! why then did that\nlecturer not talk about palmistry, auristry, sorcery, witchcraft, and\nother itch-crafts? Not a word about them! We were indignant.\n\n\"'A friend of mine, Mrs Oofry Blazing, who talks French admirably,\nand whose teeth are the envy of her nose, declared: \"_Cet homme est\nun fumiste_.\" Of course, he sold us fumes, instead of perfumes. One\namongst us, an American woman of the third sex, told the man publicly\nstraight into his face, and with inimitable delicacy of touch: \"Sir,\nwhat are you here for?\" Quite so; what _was_ he there for? We wanted\nPlato, and nothing but Plato. One fairly expected him to begin every\nsentence with P's, or Pl's. Instead of that he wandered from one\nsubject to another. One day he talked about the general and the\nparticular; the other day about the particular and the general. But\nwhat particular is there in a general, I beg of you? Is an admiral not\nmuch more important? We do not trouble about the army at all. And then,\nand chiefly, what has a general to do with Plato? The lectures were\nnot on military matters, but on the most immaterial matters, which yet\nmatter materially. But, of course, now that you tell me that Socrates,\nPlato's master, was a he-midwife, I can very well understand that his\nmodern disciples are philosophical miscarriages!'\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe gods laughed heartily, and Sappho asked Plato how he liked the\nremarks of Entr\u00e9a. Plato smiled and made Sappho blush by reminding\nher what the little ones had at all times said of her, although not\na tittle of truth was in it. \"No ordinary citizen, nor his wife,\" he\nadded, \"ever wants to know persons or things as they really are. They\nonly want to know what they imagine or desire to be the truth. This\nis the reason why so many men before the public take up a definite\npose, the one demanded by the public. This they do, not out of sheer\nfatuity, but of necessity. A king could not afford to sing in public,\nno matter how well he sang; it does not fit the image the public likes\nto form about a king. In fact, the better he sang, the more harm it\nwould do him. I have always impressed the little ones as a mystic, an\nenthusiast, a blessed spirit, as you Goethe used to call me. Yet my\nprincipal aim was Apollo, and not Dionysus; clearness, and not the\n_clair-obscur_ of trances.\"\n\nAlcibiades, whose beautiful head added to the charms of Venice, then\ncontinued: \"Nothing, O Plato, can be truer than your remark. My lady\nfriend was a living example of your statement. To me, after so many\nhundreds of experiences, her made-up little mask was no hindrance,--I\nsaw through her within less than a week. She was, at heart, as dry,\nas kippered, as intentionalist, and coldly self-conscious as the\ndriest of Egyptian book-keepers in a great merchant firm at Corinth.\nNothing really interested her; she was only ever running after what she\nimagined to be the fashion of the moment. What she really wanted was\nto be the earliest in 'the latest.' When she came to the bookshop,\nat five in the afternoon, when all the others came, she would ask the\nclerk after the latest fashion in novels. She did that so frequently,\nand with such exasperating regularity, that one day the clerk, who\ncould stand it no longer, said to her: 'Madame, be seated for a\nfew moments--the fashion is just changing.' She, not in the least\ndisconcerted, eagerly retorted: 'I say, is that \"the latest\"?' The\nclerk gave notice to leave!\n\n\"One day I found her in a very bad humour. When pressed for an\nexplanation, she told me that just at that moment an elegant funeral\nwas going on, at which she was most anxious to attend. 'Why, then, do\nyou not go?' I asked.\n\n\"'Because,' she replied, 'it is simply impossible. Just fancy, that\ngood woman died of heart failure!'\n\n\"'?'--\n\n\"'You cannot see? Heart failure? Can you imagine anybody to die\nof heart failure, when the only correct thing to do is to die of\nappendicitis? I telephoned in due time to her doctor, imploring him\nto declare that she died of that smart disease. But he is a brute. He\nwould not do it. Now I am for ever compromised by the friendship of\nthat woman. Oh how true was the remark of your sage Salami, when he\nsaid that nobody can be said to be happy before all his friends have\ndied!'\"\n\nThereupon the gods and heroes congratulated Solon upon his change of\nprofession: having been a sage, he was now a sausage.\n\n\"The next time I saw my lady friend,\" Alcibiades continued, \"I found\nher in tears. Inquiring after the cause of her distress, I learnt:\n\n\"'Just imagine! You know my little pet-dog. I bought him of a\nlady-in-waiting. He has the most exquisite tact and feels happy only\nin genteel society. An hour ago my maid suddenly left my flat, and\nexpecting, as I did, a lady of very high standing, I did a little\ndusting and cleaning in my room. When my Toto saw that; when he watched\nme actually doing housemaid's work, he cried bitterly. He could not\nbear the idea of my demeaning myself with work unfit for a lady. It\nwas really too touching for words. When I saw the refined sense of\ngenteeldom in Toto's eyes, I too began crying. And so we both cried.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"When I had lived through several scenes of the character just\ndescribed, I could not help thinking that we Athenians were perhaps\nmuch wiser than the modern men, in that we did not allow our women\nto appear in society. They were, it is true, seldom interesting, nor\nphysically greatly developed. On the other hand they never bored us\nwith types of what these little ones call society ladies. I cannot\nbut remember the exquisite evenings which I spent at the house of\nCritias, where one of our wittiest _hetairai_, or emancipated women,\nimitated the false manners, hypocrisy and inane pomp of the society\nladies of Thebes in Egypt. We laughed until we could see no longer.\nWhat Leontion, that _hetaira_, represented was exactly what I observed\nin my lady friend in London. The same disheartening dryness of soul;\nthe same exasperating superficiality of intellect; the same lack of all\nreal refinement, that I found a few centuries later in society in the\ntimes of the Roman C\u00e6sars.\n\n\"London desiccates; whereas Athens or Paris animates. When I gave\nup my relation to Entr\u00e9a, I met a woman of about thirty-four, whose\nhead was so perfect that Ev\u00e6netus himself has never engraved a more\nabsolutely beautiful one. Her hair was not only golden of the most\nlovely tint, but also full of waves, from long curls in Doric _adagio_,\nto tantalising Corinthian _pizzicato_ frizzles all round. Her face was\na cameo cut in onyx, and both lovely and severe. Her loveliness was in\nthe upper part of her face; her severity round the mouth and the chin.\nThis strange reversal of what is usually the case gave her a character\nof her own. Her stark blue eyes were big and cold, yet sympathetic and\nintelligent-looking; and her ears were the finest shells that Leucothea\npresented her mother with from the wine-coloured ocean, and inside the\nshells were the most enchanting pearls, which the sea-nymph then left\nin the mouth of the blessed babe as her teeth. She was not tall, but\nvery neatly made; a _fausse maigre_. She wrote bright articles, in\nwhich from time to time she wrapped up a big truth in _bon-bon_ paper.\n\n\"There was in her the richest material for the most enchanting\nwomanhood; a blend of Musarion and Aspasia; or to talk modern style,\na blend of Mademoiselle l'Espinasse with Madame R\u00e9camier. She was\nneither. Not that she made any preposterous effort to be, what Paris\ncalls, a Madame R\u00e9camier. But London desiccated her. From dry by\nnature, she became drier still by London. Being as dry as she was, she\nonly cared for mystic things; for what is behind the curtain of things;\nfor the borderland of knowledge and dream. As sand can never drink in\nenough rain, so dry souls want to intoxicate themselves with mystic\nalcohol. In vulgarly dry persons that rain from above becomes--mud;\nin refinedly dry souls it is atomised into an intellectual spray. Her\nwhole soul was athirst of that spray.\n\n\"When I told her that I was the son of Clinias, she wanted to know\nfirst of all, what had been going on at the mysteries of Eleusis. I\ntold her that, like all the Hellenes, I had sworn never to reveal what\nI had seen at the holy ceremonies. This she could not understand. In\nher religion the priests are but too anxious to initiate anybody that\ncares for it.\n\n\"'Initiate me--oh initiate me--I beg you,' she said, and looked more\nbeautiful than ever. Her arm trembled; her voice faltered. Even if\nI did not respect my oath, I should not have told her the teachings\nof Eleusis. They were far too simple for her mystery-craving soul.\nSo I told her of the Orphic mysteries, and the more she heard of the\nextravagant and mind-shaking rites and tenets, the more interested she\nbecame. Her mouth, usually so severe, swung again in pouty lines of\nyouthful timidity, and her voice got a 'cello down of mellowness.\n\n\"'Let us introduce Orphism into this country,' she exclaimed. 'Will you\nbe honorary treasurer?'\n\n\"I accepted,\" said Alcibiades. \"Within three days Orphism was presented\nas the _Orphic Science_. The members were called priestesses,\narchontes, or acolytes, according to their degree. Within a month\nthere were 843 members. Jamblichus was sent for and made secretary.\nCostumes were invented; pamphlets printed; cures promised; shares\noffered. It was declared that trances and mystic shivers would be\nprocured 'while you wait'; dreams accounted for; inexplicables\nexplained; the curtain of things raised every Friday at five, after\ntea. Finally the Orphics gave their first dinner at the Hotel Cecil.\n\n\"That was the worst blow. After that I abandoned Orphism.\"\n\n\n\n\nFOURTH NIGHT\n\nALCIBIADES--CONTINUED\n\n\nHestia now interrupted Alcibiades with the question whether all the\nwomen in nebulous Britannia were as grotesque as those that he had\ndescribed.\n\nAlcibiades smiled and said:\n\n\"Not all of them, but all at times. Women must necessarily adapt\nthemselves to the nature of their men, as clerks do to that of their\npatrons, or soldiers to that of their generals and officers. The\nEnglishman buys his liberty at the expense of much human capital;\nwhich cannot but make him eccentric and grotesque. The women attune\nthemselves to him, although no foreigner has a clearer nor a more\ndepreciative idea of Englishmen's angularity than have English women.\nAs women they do not, as a rule, care for liberty at all, and hence\nconsider the sacrifices made by men for liberty as superfluous and\nuncalled-for. A woman wants in all things the human note, which the\naverage Englishman hates. Hence the surprising power of Continental men\nover English women. A hundred picked Greeks from Athens, Sicyon and\nSyracuse could bring half of all English women to book--for Cytherea.\nHow could it be otherwise? The animated, passionate, direct talk of a\nGreek is something so novel to an English woman that she is as it were\nhypnotised by it. She thinks it is she and her personality that has\ngiven her Continental admirer that _verve_ of expression which she has\nnever before experienced in the men of her circle. This alone is such\nflattery to her that she loses her head.\n\n\"If one resolutely goes on scraping off the man-made chalk from the\nmanners and actions of English women, one is frequently rewarded\nwith the pleasure of arriving at last at the woman behind the chalk.\nThis is more especially the case in women of the higher classes. The\nonly time in England I felt something of that painful bliss that\nmortals call love, was in the case of a lady friend of mine who, under\nmountains of London clay, hid away a passionate, loving woman. She\nwas tall and luxuriously built. Her hands were of perfect shape and\ncondignly continued by lovely arms, that attached themselves into\nmajestic shoulders with the ease of a rivulet entering a lake by a\ngraceful curve. Over her shoulders the minaret of her neck stood\nwatch. In charming contrast to the _legato cantabile_ of her body was\nthe _staccato_ of her mind. Her words pecked at things like birds.\nSometimes there appeared amongst the latter an ugly vulture or two; but\nthere were more colibris and magpies. I had met her for months before\nI surmised that there was something behind that London clay. But when\nthe moment came and the bells began sobbing in her minaret, then I knew\nthat here was a heart aglow with true passion and with the dawn of hope\ndivine. Like all women that do truly love, she would not believe me\nthat I sincerely felt what I said. Doubt is to women what danger is to\nmen: it sharpens the delight of love. She never became really tender;\nay, she was amazed and moved to tears at my being so. Her heart was\nuneducated; it was _gauche_ at the game of love.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Amongst the persons dressed in female attire I also met a number of\nbeings whom, but for my long stay at Sparta, I should hardly have\nrecognised as women. A French friend of mine remarked of them: '_Ce ne\nsont pas des femmes, ce sont des Am\u00e9ricaines_.' The species is very\nmuch in evidence in London. They reminded me violently of the Spartan\nwomen. They are handsome, if more striking than beautiful. I noticed\nthat in contrast to European women, American females gain in years what\nthey lose in dress at night. They look older when undressed. They have\nexcellent teeth, and execrable hands; they jump well, but walk badly.\nTheir great speciality is their voice, which is strident, top-nasal,\n_falsetto_, disheartening. The most beautiful amongst them is murdered\nby her voice. It is as if out of the most perfect mouth, set in the\nmost charming face, an ugly rat would jump at one. That voice, the\nEnglish say, comes from the climate of America. (This I do not believe\nat all; for I have noticed that in England everything is ascribed to\nthe climate, as to the thing most talked about by the people. Climate\nand weather are the most popular subjects in England; the one that is\nnever out of fashion.) As a matter of fact it comes from the total lack\nof emotionality in the Americans; just as amongst musical instruments\nthe more emotional ones, like the 'cello, have more pectoral tonality,\nwhereas the fife, for instance, having no deep emotions at all to\nexpress, is high and thin toned.\n\n\"Nothing seemed to me more interesting than the way in which the\nAmerican female reminded me of the Spartans and the Amazons.\nCould anything be more striking than the coincidence between two\nconversations, one of which I had, far over two thousand years ago,\nwith the Queen of an Amazonian tribe in Thracia, and the other with\nthe wife of an American flour dealer settled in London? When I called\non Thamyris in her tent, one of her first questions was as to the\nlatest dramatic piece by Sophocles. I at once saw that the Queen\nwanted to impress her _entourage_ with her great literary abilities. I\ngave her some news about Sophocles, whereupon she turned round to her\none-breasted she-warriors and said with a superior smile:\n\n\"'You must know that Sophocles is the latest star in Athenian comedy.'\n\n\"She mixed you up, O Sophocles, with Aristophanes. With the American\nflour dealer's wife my experience was as follows: He had made my\nacquaintance in a bar-room, and invited me to his house. On the way\nthere he said to me:\n\n\"'My missus is quite a linguist. She talks French like two natives. Do\ntalk to her French.'\n\n\"When we arrived at the house and entered the drawing-room, a rather\nhandsome woman rose from an arm-chair, and stepping up to me said\nsomething that sounded like '_Monsieur, je suis ravie de faire votre\nconnaissance_'; I thanked her, also in French, when suddenly she bowed\nover me and whispered in American fifes:\n\n\"'Don't continue, that's all I know.'\n\n\"When I left, the husband accompanied me to the door. Before I took\nleave, he twinkled with his right eye, and asked me with a knowing\nlook, 'Well, sir, what do you think of the linguistic range of my\nmadame?'\n\n\"I did not quite know what to reply. At last I said: 'Like a true\nsoldier she fights on the borderland.'\n\n\"One of the strangest things to note in London society is the\nfascination exercised by American women on Englishmen. Many of the\nreally intelligent men among the English are practically lost as\nsoon as the American woman begins playing with the little lasso of\nthin ropes which she carries about her in the shape of an acquired\nbrightness and a studied vivacity. The most glaring defects of those\nwomen do not seem to exist for the average Englishman. He takes her\nloud brightness for French _esprit_ dished up to him in intelligible\nEnglish. Her total lack of self-restraint and modesty he takes for a\ncharming _abandon_. The real fact is that he is afraid of her. She\nmay have many a bump: she certainly has not that of reverence. Her\nirreverent mind makes light of the _grandezza_ of Englishmen, and thus\ncows him by his fear of making himself ridiculous.\n\n\"The first American woman (--_sit venia verbo_, as you would say, O\nCicero--) I met in London was one married to an English lord. She was\ntall, well-built, with rich arms and hips, an expressive head, very\nfond of the arts, more especially of music. Even her head, which was\na trifle square, indicated that. When she learnt that I really was the\nfamous Alcibiades, her excitement knew no bounds. She was good enough\nto explain it to me:\n\n\"'Just fancy that! Alcibiades! (They pronounce my name Elkibidees.) I\nam simply charmed! I have so far every year introduced some new and\nstriking personage into drawing-rooms, in order to stun the natives of\nthis obsolete island. I have brought into fashion one-legged dancers;\nthree-legged calves; single-minded thought-readers; illusionists;\ndisillusionists; disemotionists; dancers classical, medi\u00e6val, and\nhyper-modern; French lectures on the isle of Lesbos, after a series of\ndiscourses on the calves of the legs of Greek goddesses in marble; not\nto forget my unique course of lectures given at the drawing-room of the\ndearest of all duchesses, on the history of _d\u00e9colletage_.\n\n\"'This year, to be quite frank with you, Mr Elkibidees, I meant to\narrange in the magnificent drawing-room of an Oriental English lady,\nthe uniquest and at the same time the boldest exhibition ever offered\nto the dear nerves of any class of women. I cannot quite tell you what\nit was going to be. I can only faintly indicate that it was to be a\ncollection of all the oldest as well as latest inventions securing the\ntranquillity of enjoying just one child in the family. This, I have no\ndoubt, would have been the greatest sensation of the season.\n\n\"'The city of Manchester and the town of Leeds would have publicly\nprotested against so \"immoral\" an exhibition. Of course their\ncouncillors would have done so after careful study of the things\nexhibited. Three bishops would have threatened to preach publicly in\nHyde Park; while five archdeacons would have volunteered to be the\nhonorary secretaries of so interesting an exhibition.\n\n\"'I communicated the idea to Father Bowan, a virulent Jesuit, who\nin the creepiest of _capucinades_, delivered on most Sundays during\nthe season, gives us the most delightful shivers of repentance, and\nlikewise many an inkling of charming vice of which we did not know\nanything before we learned it from his pure lips. He was delighted.\n\"Do, my lady, do do it. I am just a little short of horrors, and your\nexhibition will give me excellent material for at least four Sundays.\nI hope you have not forgotten to illustrate by wax figures certain\nmethods, far more efficient than any instrument can be, and most\ncompletely enumerated and described in the works of members of our\nholy Order, such as Suarez, Sanchez, Escobar, and others. Should you\nnot have these works, I will send you an accurate abridgment of their\nprincipal statements of facts.\"\n\n\"'When I heard the Rev. Father talk like that, I could scarcely control\nmyself with enthusiasm in anticipating the huge sensation my exhibition\nwas sure to make. It would have been the best fed, the best clad, and\nthe most enlightened sensation ever made in England since the battle of\nHastings. I really thought that nothing greater could be imagined.\n\n\"'And yet, when I now come to think what a draw you will be, Mr Elki,\nif properly taken in hand, duly advertised, adroitly paragraphed,\nconstantly interviewed, and occasionally leadered,--when I think of\nall that, I cannot but think that I shall have in you the greatest\ncatch that has ever been in any country under any sun. In fact, I have\nmy plan quite ready.\n\n\"'I will announce a big reception, \"to meet\" you. Some ladies will,\nby request, arrive in Greek dress. The public orator of one of the\ngreat Universities will address you in Greek, and you will reply in\nthe same language. Then three of the prettiest daughters of earls and\nmarquesses will dance the dance of the Graces, after which there will\nbe a dramatic piece made by Hall Caine and Shaw, each of them writing\nalternate pages, the subject of which will be the Thirty Years' War, in\nwhich you excelled so much.'\n\n\"I interrupted her,\" said Alcibiades, \"remarking that the Thirty Years'\nWar was two thousand years after my time; my war was the Peloponnesian\nWar.\n\n\"'Very well,' she exclaimed, 'the Peloponnesian War. I do not care\nwhich. Hall Caine will praise everything in connection with war, in his\nbest _Daily Nail_ style. He is, you know, our leading light. He always\nwants to indulge in great thoughts, and would do so too, but for the\nawkward fact that he cannot find any.\n\n\"'Shaw, on the other hand, will cry down in choicest Gaelic all the\nglories of war. It will be the biggest fun out.\n\n\"'And then, _entre nous_, could you not bring with you a Lais, a Phryne\nor two, in their original costumes as they allured all you naughty\nGreeks in times bygone? It would be charmingly revolting. When I dimly\nrepresent to myself how the young eagles of society will tremble with\npleasure at the thought of adding to their lists of conquests, in pink\nand white, a Corinthian or Athenian _demi-mondaine_ of two thousand\nyears ago, I feel that I am a Personality.\n\n\"'If I could offer such an unheard-of opportunity I should get first\nleaders in the _Manchester Guardian_ and mild rebukes, full of secret\nzest, in the godly _Guardian_; let alone other noble papers read by the\ngoody-goody ones. The _Record_ would send me a testimonial signed by\nthe leading higher critics. I should be the heroine of the day and of\nthe night.'\"\n\nThe gods and heroes encouraged Alcibiades by their gay laughter to tell\nthem all that happened at the \"At Home\" of his American lady friend,\nand he continued as follows:\n\n\"When the evening of the Greek _soir\u00e9e_ came, I went to the\ndrawing-room in company with Phryne and Lais, who were most charmingly\ndressed as flute-girls. When we entered the large room we saw a vast\nassembly of women and men, mostly dressed in the preposterous fashion\nof the little ones. The women looked like zoological specimens, some\nresembling Brazilian butterflies, others reptiles, others again snakes\nor birds of prey. The upper part of their bodies was uncovered,\nno matter whether the rest of the body had gone through countless\ncampaigns enlivened by numerous capitulations, or whether it had just\nexpanded into the buds of rosy spring. The men looked like the clowns\nin our farces. They wore a costume that no Greek slave would have\ndonned. It was all black and all of the same cut. Instead of looking\nenterprising, they all looked like undertakers. Each of them made\na nervous attempt to appear as inoffensive, and as self-effacing as\npossible; just like undertakers entering the house where a person had\ndied.\n\n\"When we entered the room the whole assembly rose and cried:\n'Cairo--Cairo!' (they were told to cry _Chaire_--but in vain). I\ncould distinctly hear remarks such as these: 'How weird!'--'Is it not\nuncanny?'--'It makes me feel creepy!' After a few minutes there was\na deep silence, and an elderly gentleman came up through the middle\nof the room and, bowing first to us and then to the people assembled,\nstepped up to the platform and began a speech in a strange language,\nwhich I vaguely remembered having heard before.\n\n\"Phryne suddenly began to giggle, and so irresistible was her laughter\nthat both Lais and I could not but join her, especially when in words\nbroken by continuous laughter she told us:\n\n\"'The old gent pretends to speak Athenian Greek!'\n\n\"It was indeed too absurd for words. There was especially that vulgar\nsound _i_ constantly recurring where we never dreamt of using such a\nsound; and our beautiful _ypsilon_ (\u03b3) he pronounced like the English\n_u_, which is like serving champagne in soup-plates. When he stumbled\nover an _ou_, he pronounced it with a sound to which dentists are\nbetter accustomed than any Athenian ever was, and our deep and manly\n_ch_ (\u03c7) he castrated down to a lisping _k_. I remember Carians in\nAsia Minor who talked like that. Our noble and incomparable language,\norchestral, picturesque, sculptural, became like the Palace of Minos\nwhich they are excavating at present: in its magnificent halls, eaten\nby weather and worm, one sees only poor labourers and here and there a\ndirecting mind.\n\n\"I imagined that the good man meant by his speech to welcome me back\ninto the world, and so when my turn to answer him came, I got up and,\nleaning partly on Phryne and partly on Lais, who stood near me, I\nreplied as follows, after speaking for a little while in Attic, in the\nlanguage of the country:\n\n\"'It is indeed with no ordinary satisfaction that I beg to thank\nyou, O Sophist, and you here present for the pleasant reception that\nyou have given us. My lot has on the whole not been altogether bad.\nYour studious men, it is true, affect to condemn me, my policy,\nand my private life. Perhaps they will allow me to remark that the\nirregularity of my past morals is a matter of temptations. Diogenes\nused to tell us that one of my sternest historian-critics in Syracuse\nleft his wife, children and house on being for once tempted by the\nchamber-maid of one of my passing caprices; and the historians of your\nrace who so gravely decry a Madame de Montespan would, did Madame only\nsmile at them, incontinently fall into a fit of hopeless moral collapse.\n\n\"'But if your men write against me, irrespective of what they really\nfeel about me, I am sure your women take a much more lenient view of\nthe case.'\n\n\"(Discreet applause.)\n\n\"'They feel that ambition did not eat up all the forces of my soul, and\nthat in worshipping Ares (Mars), I never forgot the cult of Aphrodite\n(Venus) either. We Hellenes ventured to be humans, and that is why now\nwe have become demi-gods. You, my friends, do not even venture to be\nhumans, and that is why you remain the little ones.\n\n\"'I notice in the northern countries of Europe men do not, or to a\nvery small degree care for women. Perhaps that is the reason why the\nRoman Catholic idea of the Holy Virgin has had no lasting hold on these\nnations.\n\n\"'I have seen,' continued Alcibiades, 'too many faces, masks, and\npretences to be much impressed by the apparent indifference of the\nnortherner to the charms of women. It never meant more than either an\nunavowed inclination towards his own sex, or sheer boorishness. Even we\nHellenes had very much to suffer from our political and social neglect\nof women outside emancipated ones. The Romans acted much more wisely in\nthat respect; while the nation of our hostess has practically become\nwhat we called a _gyn\u00e6cocracy_ or women's rule, where man is socially\nwhat our Greek women used to be: relegated to the background. I hear,\nthis is the privilege of Englishmen. I understand. When I was young I\nlearnt but too much about that privilege.\n\n\"'But if I should be asked for advice I would tell your men to take\nyour women much more seriously. I know that Englishmen are much more\ngrave than serious; yet with regard to women they ought to be much more\nintent on considering them in everything their mates, and in several\nthings their superiors. Of course, this is an unmilitary nation; and\nsuch nations will always remain boors in Sunday dress.\n\n\"'One of your great writers who, being outside the academic clique,\nhas always been maligned by the officials, has written a beautiful\nessay on the influence of women. Poor Buckle--he treated the problem\nas a schoolroom paper. He came to the result that women encourage the\ndeductive mode of thinking. However, women are more seductive than\ndeductive, and their real influence is to charm the young, to warm the\nmature, and not to alarm the old.\n\n\"'I, being now above the changes of time, I only, contemplate their\ncharm. And what greater potentialities of charm could one wish for\nthan those that your women possess? If those magnificently cut and\nsuperbly coloured eyes learned to be expressive; if the muscles of\nthose fine cheeks knew how to move with speedier grace; if that purely\noutlined mouth were more animated--what possibilities of fascination,\nlike so many fairies, might rise over the dispassionate surface of\nthose silent lakes! As they are, their several organs are positively\nhostile, or coldly indifferent to one another. The forehead, instead\nof being the ever-changing capital of the human column, setting off\ntheir beautiful hair, as ivory sets off gold; the shoulders, the seat\nof human grace, instead of giving to the head the pedestal of the\nCharites; and the arms and hands, instead of giving by their movements\nthe proper lilt and cadence to everything said or done;--all these\nhate one another respectively. The arms do not converse with the face;\ntheirs is like other conversations: after a few remarks on the weather\nall communication stops. So sullen is the antipathy of the arms, that\nas a rule they hide on the back, as if begrudging the face or the bust\ntheir company. It is in that way that English women who might be as\nbeautiful and charming as the maidens of Thebes or of Tanagra, have\nmade themselves into walking Caryatides, whom we invariably represented\nas doing a slavish labour, with their arms on their backs, and with a\nheavy load on their heads.\n\n\"'Remove the arms, O women of England, from your badly swung back\nand bring them into play in front of your well-shaped bust and your\nbeautiful faces! Let the consciousness of your power electrify your\nlooks, your dimples, and your gait; and when from musing Graces you\nwill have changed into graceful Muses, your men too will be much\nsuperior to what they used to be.\n\n\"'See how little your influence is, as your language clearly indicates.\nIs not your language the only idiom in Europe that has completely\ndropped that fine shade of sweet intimacy which the use of _thou_ and\n_thy_ is giving to the other languages? Is not a new world of tenderest\ninternal joy permeating the French, German or Italian woman who for\nthe first time dares to _tutoyer_ her lover? You women of England, the\nnatural priestesses of all warmth and intimacy, you have suffered all\nthat to decay.\n\n\"'To your men we Hellenes say: \"Imitate us!\" To you women, we do not\nsay so. We ask you to exceed us, to go beyond us, and then alone\nwhen women will be what we Hellenic men were, that is, specimens of\nall-round humanity, then indeed you too will rise to the higher status,\nand the golden age will again fill the world with light and happiness!'\n\n\"After that speech of mine,\" continued Alcibiades, \"there was much\napplause. I mingled with the public, and was at once interpellated by\none of the American ladies present:\n\n\"'Most interesting speech,' she said. 'What I especially liked were\nyour remarks about thou-ing. And what I want to know most is whether\nCaryatides were thou-ing one another?'\n\n\"I was a little perplexed, and all that I could answer was: 'Their\ndimples did,' and this seemed to satisfy my American lady marvellously\nwell.\n\n\"Another lady asked me how many Muses we had, and on hearing that their\nnumber was nine, she was highly astonished. 'Only nine? Why in London\nthere are mews in every second street. How strange!'\n\n\"A third lady asked me what I meant by shoulders being a pedestal. Her\nshoulders, she was sure, were no pedestals, and she would not allow\nanyone to stand on them. She added, that she was aware of my having\nsaid that the shoulders were the pedestal of the Charites, but with her\nbest intention she could not allow even charity to be extended to her\nshoulders. I smiled consent.\n\n\"A fourth lady, whose name was Valley, but who was a mountain of\notherwise rosy flesh, asked me what I had meant by maidens of Podagra?\nShe was sure that young maids never suffered from that ugly disease. I\ntold her that I really meant Chiragra. This satisfied her marvellously\nwell.\n\n\"During that time Phryne and Lais were the heroines of the evening,\nlionised by women, and courted by men. The women asked them all sorts\nof questions and seemed extraordinarily eager to be instructed. One of\nthem, a brilliant duchess--(who had three secretaries providing her\nwith the latest information about everything, the first preparing all\nthe catch-words from A to G, the second from H to N, and the third from\nO to Z)--asked Phryne whether she would not permit her to convince\nherself of the accuracy of the estimate in which Hyperides held the\nexquisite form of Phryne's bosom. (A middle-class woman thereupon asked\nMr Gox, M.P., what Hyperides meant. Mr Gox told her it was the Greek\nfor Rufus, son of Abraham.) Phryne volunteered to do so at once, and\nthe women disappeared in a special room, from where very soon cries\nof amazement could be heard. The pure beauty of Phryne enchanted the\nwomen. The sensation was immense, ay immensest.\n\n\"The representative of the _Daily Nail_ offered first \u00a32000, then\n\u00a33000, finally \u00a35000 for permission to kodak Phryne.\n\n\"The _Bad Times_ at once prepared a folio edition of _The Engravers'\nEngravings_, payable in 263 instalments, or preferably at once.\n\n\"The _Daily Marconigraph_ started a public discussion in its columns:\n'Shall the lower part of the upper anatomy of the female trunk be\nunveiled?'\n\n\"The excitement became so universal that Mr Gigerl See at once convened\na national meeting for the erection of ten new statues to Shakespeare;\nand General Booth ordered an absolute fast of 105 hours' duration.\n\n\"All the directors of music halls, the next day, stormed Hotel Ritz\nwhere Phryne had a suite of six lovely rooms, and offered impossible\nprices for a performance of five minutes. Phryne, after consulting me,\nconsented to appear at the Palace Theatre, in the immortal scene when,\nin presence of the entire population of Athens, she descended into the\nsea. Half of the proceeds were to be given to a fund for poor women in\nchildbed. Endless advertisements soon filled every available space on\nLondon's walls, parks, newspapers, 'buses, railways, and shops. Tickets\nsold at tenfold their original prices.\n\n\"At last the evening came. In the first two rows there were practically\nnothing but clergymen. The following rows were filled with lawyers,\nM.P.'s and University professors. In the boxes one could see all the\naristocracy of the country. When Phryne's turn came, the orchestra\nplayed Wagner's 'Pilgrim's Chorus,' toward the end of which the curtain\nrolled up, and the scene represented the Pir\u00e6us with apparently\ncountless people, all in Greek dress. When the expectation was at its\nheight, Phryne appeared clad only with the veil of her perfect beauty,\nand descended into the sea. Before she entered the water she said her\nprayers to Aphrodite, and then slowly went into the waves.\n\n\"Everyone in the audience had come to the theatre expecting to be\nbadly shocked. To their utmost astonishment they found that there\nwas not only nothing shocking in the scene, but even much to fill\nthe people with awe. Like all the barbarians, the little ones deem\nnudity a shocking sight. What shocked them that night was the fact\nthat they were not shocked. They felt for a moment that many of their\nnotions and views must be radically wrong, and that was the only shock\nthey received. Phryne triumphed over Londoners, as she did over the\nAthenians.\n\n\"My American lady friend was in raptures. The incredible sensation her\nElki and his Athenian women had caused in _blas\u00e9_ London society made\nher the centre of all social centres for a fortnight. She received\ninnumerable letters from innumerable people. The greatest writers\nthat the world has ever seen, such as Miss Cora Morelli, wrote to her\nsaying, that:\n\n\"'She had from her infancy onward taken a deep interest in Alcibiades\nand his time, and that now, having actually seen him, she would\nforthwith publish a novel under the attractive title of \"The Mighty\nElki,\" let alone another novel, full of the most delightful shivers,\ncalled \"Phry, the Pagan.\"'\n\n\"Mr Hall Caine, in a thundering article, fulminated against the row\nmade over Phryne, and solemnly declared that the charms of his Manxman\nwere incomparably greater. One day Mr Caine called on me. He implored\nme to become a Christian, and assured me that the shortest way to that\neffect would be to attend a performance of his piece of that name. I\nthanked him for his kind offer, but politely declined it. Whereupon Mr\nCaine remained musing, until at last he surprised me with the question:\n'Mr Alcib, you are the man to solve the problem of my life. Do you not\nthink I bear a remarkable resemblance to Lord Bacon?'\n\n\"I answered that I could discern no resemblance between him and the\nwitty Chancellor, but that I was bound to confess that there was a\nstriking resemblance between him and Shakespeare.\n\n\"Mr Caine smiled a superior smile. 'I wonder,' he said, 'you are not\naware of the fact that Shakespeare was written by Lord Bacon.'\n\n\"'Very strange--very strange,' I replied. 'We in Olympus think that\nShakespeare was written by the victory over the Armada, and published\nby Elizabeth and Co.'\n\n\"'Do you really think such stuff in Olympus?' exclaimed Mr Caine;\n'then I do not wonder that I have never been invited to that place.\nWhat has the Armada to do with _Hamlet_ or _King Lear_? You might just\nas well say that my novels were written by our victory at Colenso and\nSpion Kop. It is revoltingly absurd. A book is a book and not shrapnel\nor bombs. Sir, I am ashamed of you; the purple of red indignation\nrises swellingly into my distended physiognomy, and my thought-fraught\nforehead sinks under the ignominy of such life-bereft incoherences!'\n\n\"I advised Mr Caine to drink Perrier; he thanked me profusely, and\nassured me that he had always done so. He evidently mixed it up\nwith the Pierian sources of literature which, I learn, provide the\ninnumerable papers of the Associated Press with the necessary water\nunder the name of Perrier.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"In my honour my American lady friend gave, a few days later, a\nconcert. The little ones call a concert a series of instrumental and\nvocal pieces played for sheer amusement, and without any relation to\npoetry, dance, or religion. I have these three to four hundred years\naccustomed myself to their music, which is thoroughly different from\nours, being polyphonous, whereas ours was never so. Dionysus, who\npresides at their music, has often told us that he introduced it into\nthe modern world in order to show his exceeding power even in times\nwhen the men and women have lamentably fallen from the height of our\nGrecian culture. Our music was essentially Apollinic; that of the\nmoderns is Dionysiac. You remember, O Zeus, that even Apollo was moved\nwhen three of the moderns had the honour to perform before him. Even he\npraised Mozart, Chopin, and some pieces of Weber. You need not blush,\nFr\u00e9d\u00e9ric, and you might help me to entertain and charm our holy circle\nby playing us one of your compositions in which beauty of form is\nmarried in tender love to truth of feeling.\"\n\nThereupon, at a sign of Zeus, Milo of Crotona, the Olympian victor\nof all victors, carried a piano on his mighty back, and put it down\ngently in one of the mystic barks. Chopin, bowing to the gods, and more\nparticularly to Juno and Diana, sat down to the instrument and played\nthe second and the third movement of his E minor _Concerto_. Round\nhim waved the three Graces, while Dionysus laid an ivy wreath on his\nblessed head. Even the gods were moved, and when Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric had ended,\nthey applauded him with passionate admiration.\n\n\"I wish, O Chopin,\" continued Alcibiades, \"I had known you in my\nmortal time. What Terpander and Thaletas, the great musicians, did for\nSparta, you might have helped me to do for Athens. It was not to be.\nThe thought saddens me still. More than Sophocles and Aristophanes\nor Socrates, your incomparable music would have helped to keep the\n_Kosmos_ of Athens in due proportions.\"\n\nA short pause ensued, and all looked with timidity on Zeus' immovable\nface.\n\n\"But let us drop these sorrowful reminiscences and return to the London\nconcert given by my American hostess.\n\n\"She had engaged the best-known artists. For the solo songs she engaged\na woman who had to be carried into the room in a motor chair, and was\nnot allowed to stand up, before three architects had examined the\nsolidity of the floor. Her range was from the deep _p_ to the high\n_l_. She sang baritone, and soprano at the same time, and what her\ntone wanted in width her _taille_ amply replaced. She sang nothing but\nWagner, whose music, it would appear, is written for two-ton women\nonly. No smaller tonnage need apply. While she sang, three dozen\nviolins executed the tremolos of five hundred whimpering children,\nwhile forty counter-basses gave, every three minutes, a terrible grunt\nin _x_ minor. There were also fifteen fifes, and twenty-one different\nkinds of brass instruments, some of which had necks much longer than\nthat of the oldest giraffe. The music was decidedly sensual and\nnerve-irritating. It was full of chords, both accords and discords,\nand what little melody there was in it was kneaded out into a tapeworm\nof prodigious length and such hydralike vitality, that no matter how\nfrequently the strings throttled off its head, it yet constantly\nrecurred bulging out a new head.\n\n\"The men present liked the singer; the women adored the music. It gave\nthem all sorts of shivers, and although they did not understand it at\nall, they yet felt that here was a new shiver. Or as one of them, the\nbright Mrs Blazing, remarked: '_Quel artiste que ce M. Wagner!_ He has\ntranslated into music the grating noise of a comb on silk, the creaking\nof a rusty key in an old lock, and the strident rasp of a skidding\nsleigh or motor on hard-frozen snow.'\n\n\"The next artist was a Belgian violinist. For reasons that you alone,\nO Zeus, could tell us, the Belgians are credited with a special gift\nfor pulling strings in general, and those of the violin in particular.\nBeing a nation midway between the Germans and the French, they are\nbelieved to possess much of German musical talent and something of\nFrench elegance. This would easily make them good 'cello players.\nBut not satisfied with the 'cello, in which they have excelled more\nthan one nation, they must needs be great violinists too. However,\nthe violin, while not at all the king of instruments, is yet the most\nvindictive and jealous amongst them. It is like the Lorelei: it allures\nhundreds, only to dash their bones against the rock of Failure. It\nwants the delicacy of a woman and the strength of a man. It requires\nthe soul of spring and the heart of summer to play it well.\n\n\"A Belgian is _eo ipso_ debarred from reaching the height of\nviolin-playing; just as a Chinaman, with his over-specialised mind,\ncan never well play the orchestral piano. A Belgian heart is moving\nin a colourless and slouching _andante_; the violin moves in a\nprofoundly agitated _adagio_ or _allegro_. The violin is the instrument\nof luckless nations, such as were formerly the Italians, the Poles,\nand the Hungarians who gave us Paganini, Wienavski and Joachim. The\nBelgians have nearly always enjoyed the _embonpoint_ of fat prosperity.\n'_Leur jeu bedonne_,' as Mrs Blazing would say.\n\n\"The Belgian played your _Chaconne_ in D minor, O Bach.\"\n\nAt these words of Alcibiades all the thinkers and poets present rose\nfrom their seats and bowed to John Sebastian, who stood near Strabo\nand Aristotle, being exceedingly fond of geographical lore. Even the\ngods applauded and Polyhymnia allowed him to kiss her hands.\n\n\"You remember, O John Sebastian, when I met you near L\u00fctzen at one of\nyour solitary walks and you spoke to me of your _Chaconne_. I listened\nwith rapt attention and told you that your composition, which you\nthen played to me on a violin which the old inn-keeper lent you and\nwhich had just arrived from Steiner in Tyrol, rendered as perfectly\nas possible the sentiments I had felt when for the first time in my\nlife I went to the Oracle at Dodona, where the winds rush through the\nhigh oak-trees with a fierce power such as can be heard in no other\nspot in Europe. I re-imagined my awe-struck meditations in the holy\ngrove; I heard the stormy music of Zeus' winds in Zeus' trees; I again\nfelt all through me the soul-moving chorus of the priests which ends\nin a jubilating mood, and finally I left with deep regret at having\nto re-enter my life of stress after having spent a day in sacred and\nmystic seclusion.\n\n\"When the Belgian artist played it, I listened in vain for Dodona. What\nI heard was the rustling of silken tones through the wood of the chairs\nand tables at the Carlton. Where was the Oracle? Where the chorus of\nthe priests? Where their jubilation? The only thing that I found were\nmy regrets. But the public was charmed. It is imperative to admire the\n_Chaconne_, chiefly because it is played Violin _solo_. Mrs Blazing\nexplained the matter to me with her wonted rapidity of mind: 'Why\nwonder at our admiration of the _Chaconne_? Do we not say: \"_Chacun \u00e0\nson go\u00fbt_?\"'\n\n\"The next artist was a pianist, whose name sounded like Pianowolsky\nor Forterewsky. He was of course a Pole. The English have long found\nout that -welsky or -ewsky goes with the name of a great pianist, as\nthe pedal goes with the piano. It was for this reason that Liszt, the\nOrpheus of the last century, never had any success in England. He ought\nto have called himself Franzescowitch Lisztobulszky, and then, no\ndoubt, he would have scored heavily. Rubinstein had indeed much success\nin England, but it is patent that most English took his official name\nas a mere abbreviation of Ruben Ishnajewich Stonehammercrushowsky.\nThe English taste in music is remarkable; it is somewhat like their\ntaste in fruit. They prefer hothouse grapes to natural ones. In the\nsame way they prefer the piano music of Mendelmeier, called Bartholdy,\nto that of Stephen Heller or Volkmann. What they more particularly\nlike are the 'Songs without Words' of that composer, which in reality\nare _Words without Songs_. His piano music is nothing but congealed\nrespectability, or frozen _shockingitis_.\"\n\nAristoxenus, interrupting Alcibiades, exclaimed: \"Do not, O son of\nClinias, forget the man's marvellous compositions for the violin as\nwell as for the orchestra. Diana frequently commands his _Midsummer\nNight's Dream_ when she dwells with her nymphs in the mystic forest\nnear Farnham Common, where Bartholdy composed it under the trees of\nCanute.\"\n\n\"You are quite right, O master of all Harmony, and I want to speak\nonly of his piano music. The pianist at the concert had a very fine\nprofile and beautiful hair. This helped him very much in a country\nwhere the sense of stylishness is exceedingly acute. A coachman must\nhave a broad back; a pianist, a fine profile; a violinist, long legs;\na 'cellist, beautiful hands; and a lady singer, a vast promontory.\nOnce these indispensable qualities are given, his or her music is\npractically a matter of indifference.\n\n\"The pianist then performing played well, as long as he played _forte_\nand _staccato_; but he had neither a _legato_ nor, what was fatal, a\n_piano_, let alone a _pianissimo_. Fortunately his sense of rhythm was\nvery well developed; otherwise he did not rise above a first prizeman\nof a conservatory.\n\n\"He played a transcription or two by Liszt. This the English condemn;\nit appears unlegitimate to them. To please them, one must play one\nof the last sonatas of Beethoven, preferably those composed after\nhis death, that is, those that the man wrote when he had long lost\nthe power of moulding his ideas in the cast of a sonata, and when\nhis vitality had been ebbing away for years. A transcription stands\nto the original as does an engraving of an oil-colour picture or a\nstatue to its original. Most people will enjoy a fine engraving of\nthe _Transfiguration_ or of Our Lady of Milo much more readily than\nthey would the original; just as I now know that you gave us, O Zeus,\ngreat artists like Scopas, Praxiteles, Lionardo, or Domenichino,\nbecause we could not bear, nor comprehend the sight of the originals\nof their divine art, as long as we still move in our mortal coil. The\ntranscription of some of the ideas of Mozart's _Don Juan_ by Liszt is\nthe best and most illuminating commentary on that incomparable opera.\n\n\"More interesting than the play were the remarks which I overheard\nfrom among the public. The men dwelt exclusively on the big sums of\nmoney the pianist made by his 1526 recitals in 2000 towns of the\nUnited States. The profits they credited him with ranged from \u00a315,000\nto \u00a3100,000. A Viennese banker present drily remarked that he wished\nhe could play the difference between the real and the imagined profits\nof the virtuoso on a fine Erard piano. The women made quite different\nremarks. Said one:\n\n\"'Herr Pianoforterewsky has been painted by royalty.'\n\n\"'Is that so?' said her neighbour. 'What an interesting face! I wish I\ncould procure a photo of the picture.'\n\n\"'Do you know,' said a third, 'that Herr Pinaforewsky practises\ntwenty-three hours a day? I know it on the best authority; his tuner\ntold me so.'\n\n\"'Which tuner? Herr Pinacothekowsky, my dear, has three tuners: one for\nthe high notes, the second for the middle ones, and the third for the\nlow notes.'\n\n\"'How interesting! But suppose one of the tuners falls ill. What does\nhe do then?'\n\n\"'Why, it's simple enough. In that case he only plays pieces requiring\ntwo of the three ranges of notes.'\n\n\"'How intensely interesting! But pray, if you do not take it amiss, my\ndear, I learnt that Herr Pedalewsky has only two tuners: one for the\nblack keys, the other for the white ones.'\n\n\"'My dear, that was so in bygone times when he played sometimes a whole\nconcert on the black keys alone, being 231 variations on Chopin's\n_Etude_ on the black keys. But it made such a sad impression that some\nnasty critics said his piano was in mourning black; other critics said\nthat he was paid to do so by Mr Jay of Regent Street.'\n\n\"'How excruciatingly interesting! Do you know, my dear, I was told\nthat Herr Polonorusky plays practically all the time, and even when\nhe travels he carries with him a dumb piano on which he practises\nincessantly.'\n\n\"'How touching! I have heard that too, and believed it, until that\natrocious man who writes for the _Bad Times_ destroyed all my\nillusions. He said that if Herr Pantyrewsky did that, he would for ever\nspoil his touch. Just fancy that! It is not the touch, but the pose of\nthat languid, Chopinesque profile over a dumb piano in a rattling car\nthat was so interesting. And now that horrid journalist spoils it all.\nNay, he added that the whole story was deliberately invented by the\nartist's manager.'\n\n\"'How distressingly interesting! You know, my dear, I will not believe\nthe story about the manager. I know too much about the wonderful\npianist. I have learnt at Marienbad that he had ten teachers at a time,\none for each of his fingers, and that for five years he lived in a tiny\nvillage in Bavaria, because, don't you see, it was so central for the\nten different cities where his teachers lived. For the thumb he rushed\noff to Frankfort on the Maine. There is no town like Frankfort for the\nstudy of the thumb. That's why they make such excellent sausages there\nwhich resemble a thumb to perfection. For the index he went to Rome.\nAnd so forth and so on. It is most marvellous.'\n\n\"All during that time,\" Alcibiades continued, \"the pianist was playing\nthe moonlight sonata of Beethoven. At the end of the piece, the ladies\nwho had carried on the lively conversation applauded wildly. 'Was\nit not marvellous?' said one to the other. 'Oh--delightful!' was the\nanswer.\n\n\"So ended the concert. On leaving my seat I met Mrs Blazing.\n\n\"'_O mon cher_,' she said, 'why do all these women pretend to enjoy\nmusic? They very well know that not one of them cares for it in the\nleast. I frankly admit that music to me is the anarchy of air, the\nFrench Revolution of sounds, acoustic bankruptcy. All our lives we have\nbeen taught to suppress our emotions, and to consider it ungenteel\nto express them in any way whatever. We were told that we must hide\nand suppress them--which we have done so successfully that after some\ntime we resemble to a nicety the famous safe of Madame Humbert. And\nthen, in flagrant contradiction to all this genteel education, we are\nsupposed to accept with joy the moanings, cries, sobs, sighs, and other\nunsuppressed emotions of some middle-class Dutchman or Teuton dished up\nto us in the form of a sonata. It is too absurd for words.\n\n\"'If that lower-middle-class Dutchman Beethoven (or as my Cynthia\ncalls him: \"_B\u00eate au vent_\") wants to exhale his moral distress and\nsentimental indigestion, let him do so by all means, but in a lonely\nroom. Why does he interfere with the even tenor of our well-varnished\nlife? If my charming Japanese china figures, or my pretty girls and\nshepherds in _vieux Saxe_ suddenly began to roar out their sentiments,\nI should have them destroyed or sold without any further ado. Why\nshould I accept such roarings from an ugly, beer-drinking, unmannered\nTeuton? Why, I ask you?'\n\n\"'Music is the art of poor nations and poor classes. Outside a few\nJews, no great musician came from among the rich classes; and Jews\nare socially impoverished. I can understand the attraction of ditties\nnursed in the music halls. They fan one with a gentle breeze of\nlight tones, and here and there tickle a nerve or two. But what on\nearth shall we do with such _plesiosauri_ as the monsters they call\nsymphonies, in which fifty or sixty instruments go amuck in fifty\ndifferent ways? The flute tries to serpentine round the bassoon in\norder to instil in it drops of deadly poison; the violins gallop\nrecklessly _\u00e0 la_ Mazeppa against and over the violas and 'celli, while\nthe brass darts forth glowing bombs falling with cruelty into the\nfinest flower-beds of oboes and harps. It is simply the hoax of the\ncentury. Would you at Athens ever have endured such a pandemonium?'\n\n\"'You are quite right, _ma tr\u00e8s charmante dame_,' I said, 'we never\nhad such music and we should have little cared for it. Our way of\nmaking symphonies was to write epics, crowded with persons, divine and\nhuman, and with events and incidents of all colours and shades. The\nContinental nations have lost the epic creativeness proper, and must\ntherefore write epics in sound. Just as your languages do not allow you\nto write very strictly metred poetry such as we have written without\nimpairing the fire and glamour of poetry, and the only way left for you\nof imitating the severe metres of Archilochus, Alc\u00e6us or Sappho is in\nthe form of musical canons, fugues, or other counterpointed music. It\nseems to me that you English have not done much by way of music epics,\nbecause, like ourselves, you were busily engaged in writing epics of\nquite a different kind: the epic of your Empire. The nations that have\nwritten musical epics, did do so at a time when these were the only\nepics they could write,--the symphony of Empire being refused them.'\n\n\"'I see,' said Mrs Blazing. 'You mean to say that our Mozarts and\nBeethovens are Lord Chatham, Clive, Nelson and Wellington?'\n\n\"'In a manner, yes. Few nations, if any, can excel both in arts and in\nEmpire-making, and had you English been able to hold in your imperial\npower considerable parts of Europe, say, of France, Germany or Spain,\nyou would never have had either Walter Scott or Byron, Shelley or\nTennyson. For the efforts required to conquer and hold European\nterritory would have taxed all your strength so severely that no\nresources would have been left for conquests in the realm of the arts\nand literature.\n\n\"'This is why the Romans, who conquered, not coloured races, but the\nmightiest white nations, could never write either great epics or great\ndramas. They wrote only one epic, one drama of first and to this day\nunparalleled magnitude: the Roman Empire. I meant to do a similar thing\nfor Athens, but I failed. I now know why. My real enemies were not in\nthe camp of my political adversaries, but in the theatre of Dionysus\nand in the schools of the philosophers. Do not, therefore, _ma ch\u00e8re\namie_, begrudge the Germans their great musicians. They are really very\ngreat, and not even your greatest minds surpass, perhaps do not even\nequal them. Your consolation may be in this, that the Germans too will\nsoon cease writing music worth the hearing. They now want to write\nquite different epics. And no nation can write two sorts of epics at a\ntime.'\n\n\"'I am so glad to hear you say so,' said Mrs Blazing. 'It relieves me\nof a _corv\u00e9e_ that I hitherto considered to be a patriotic duty. I\nmean, I will henceforth never attend the representations of the new\nschool of _soi-disant_ English music. Inwardly I never liked it; it\nalways appeared to me like an Englishwoman who tries to imitate the\n_gr\u00e2ce_ and _verve_ of a Parisian woman, with all her easy gestures,\nvivacious conversation, and delicate coquetry. It will not do.\n\n\"'We English women do not shine in movement; our sphere is repose. We\nmay be troublesome, but never _troublante_.\n\n\"'Even so is English academic music. And I now see why it must be so.\nIt is not in us, because another force takes its place. Like all people\nwe like to shine in that wherein we are most deficient, and the other\nday I was present at a scene that could hardly be more painful. At the\nhouse of a rich and highly distinguished city man I met the famous Sir\nSomebody Hangar, the composer. The question arose who was the greatest\nmusician? Thereupon Sir Somebody, looking up to the beautiful ceiling\nof the room, exclaimed dreamily: \"Music is of _very_ recent origin....\"\nOne of the gentlemen present then asked Sir Somebody whether he had\never heard the reply given to that question by the great Gounod? Sir\nSomebody contemptuously uttered: \"Gounod? It is not worth hearing.\" I\nwas indignant, and pointedly asked the gentleman to tell us Gounod's\nreply. The gentleman, looking at Sir Somebody with a curious smile,\nrelated:\n\n\"'Gounod, on being asked who in his opinion was the greatest musician,\nsaid: \"When I was a boy of twenty, I said: _moi_. Ten years later I\nsaid: _moi et Mozart_. Again ten years later I said: _Mozart et moi_.\nAnd now I say: _Mozart_.\"'\n\n\"This reply,\" said Alcibiades, \"has Attic perfume in it. Having\nsuffered so much, as I have, at the hands of musicians in my time, when\ndramatic writers were as much musicians as dramatists, I have in my\nOlympian leisure carefully inquired into the real causes of the rise of\nmodern music.\n\n\"'You said a few moments ago, _ma tr\u00e8s spirituelle dame_, that\nmusic is the art of poor classes. There is this much truth in that,\nthat modern music has indeed been almost entirely in the hands of\nmiddle-class people. This being so, everything depends on the nature\nand dispositions of the middle class in a given country. In England,\nfor instance, the middle class is totally different from that of\nFrance or that of South Germany, the home of German music. The English\nmiddle class is cold, dry, _gaffeur_ to the extreme, afflicted with a\nveritable rage for outward respectability, unsufferably formalist, and\ndeeply convinced of its social inferiority. In such a class nothing\nremotely resembling German or French music can ever possibly arise.\nSuch a class furnishes excellent business men, and reliable sergeants\nto the officers of imperial work. But music can no more grow out of it\nthan can a rose out of a poker.\n\n\"'This middle class is the result of British Imperialism, and this is\nhow Imperialism has prevented and will, as long as it lasts, always\nprevent the rise of really fine music in the higher sense of the term.\nThis is also why we Hellenes never achieved greater results in music.\nLike the English, or the Americans, we never had a real _bourgeoisie_,\nor the only possible foster-earth of great music. However,\n_bourgeoisie_ is only a historic phenomenon, one that is destined to\ndisappear, and with it will disappear all music. Mr Richard Strauss is\nsinging its dirge.'\"\n\nWhen Alcibiades had finished his entertaining tale of women and\nmusic in England, the gods and heroes congratulated him warmly, and\nZeus ordered that, under the direction of Mozart, all the nymphs and\ngoddesses of the forests and seas shall sing one of the motets of Bach.\nThis they did, and all Venice was filled with the magic songs, which\nwere as pure as those produced by the nymph Echo in the Baptistry at\nPisa. All the palaces and the churches of Venice seemed to listen with\nmelancholy pleasure, and St Mark's hesitated to sound the hour lest the\nspell should be broken. When the motet was ended, the gods and heroes\nrose and disappeared in the heavens.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIFTH NIGHT\n\nC\u00c6SAR ON THE HOUSE OF COMMONS\n\n\nOn the fifth night the gods and heroes assembled in the city of Rome.\nTheir meeting-place was the Forum. The eternal city lay dormant\naround them, and Zeus, who had for the time recalled into existence\nthe magnificent temple built in his honour, which used to adorn the\nincomparable centre of Roman might and splendour, sat in front of it,\nsurrounded by the Flamines and the last Pontifex Maximus aided by the\nlast Vestal Virgins. On the _via sacra_ there was an unending flow of\nthronging Romans and Greeks, and Cicero was seen talking with great\nanimation with Julius C\u00e6sar, while Augustus seemed to chide Tacitus\nwith mild irony. Cornelius Scipio Africanus was deeply engaged in a\nconversation with Pericles, and Marcus Antistius Labeo discussed law\nwith Plato. From afar the wind brought the sounds of the bells of the\nVatican, at the hearing of which all conversation stopped; and when\na few minutes later a choir intoned a hymn in a neighbouring church,\nthe Pontifex and the Flamines veiled their heads in dumb resignation,\nand the Vestal Virgins looked up to Zeus as if imploring him for help.\nA pause followed. But soon the moon rose over the majestic Palatine\nhill; the Graces performed a soulful dance, and finally Zeus asked\nCaius Julius C\u00e6sar to entertain them with his experiences during his\nthird travel in England which, as he said, he had, in addition to his\ntwo landings during his mortal life, recently made after nearly two\nthousand years.\n\nC\u00e6sar, standing near the house of the Senate of ancient Rome, thus\naddressed the divine Assembly:\n\n\"It is, O Jupiter and all the other gods and heroes, a singular\npleasure and honour to me to address you on a topic so important and\ninteresting. When I arrived in England for the third time (--I started\nfrom Dunkerque to avoid giving offence to the 112 scholars who have,\neach to his complete satisfaction, proved 112 different spots on the\nFrench coast between Boulogne and Calais wherefrom I am supposed to\nhave started for England in my mortal time--) I was received by no\nwilder tribe than a few customs officials, who asked me whether I had\nany cigars in my toga. On my denying it, they searched me, and finding\nnone they let me go. Two hours later I arrived in London, which I found\nugly beyond words. I can understand that you, O Canova, cried on seeing\nit. What struck me most was its surprising silence, which contrasted\nvery strongly with the noise of Rome, or Paris. I mentioned this to a\ncasual acquaintance, who stared at me in despair, exclaiming: 'Silence,\nsir? Why, the noises of London drive half of us to madness. Here, take\nthat (--he handed me a bunch of printed papers--) read it carefully\nand join us.' On looking into the papers I found that they contained\na prospectus of a vast 'Society for the Abatement of Street-Noises in\nLondon.'\n\n\"This made me somewhat thoughtful. It was quite clear to me that the\nunattractiveness of London is owing chiefly to its lack of animation,\nto its silence. I soon found out that silence is the dominating\ninstitution of that country. To talk is to infringe the principal law\nof their language. They want to see their language noiselessly, and\nnot to hear it. Hence they constantly read printed language on wooden\npaper, in a wooden style, on wooden matters. This they call 'the\ndaily Press.' I met one of the chief writers on their most popular\npaper, and he assured me that the editor solemnly warns each of his\ncontributors not to indulge in any attempt at _esprit_ or brilliancy of\nany sort; for, should he do so, the editor would be forced to dismiss\nhim forthwith. All that the contributor is allowed to do is to make\nstartling headlines, such as:\n\n  'Delicious puddings made out of wood.'\n\n  'New aqueducts full of milk for the people.'\n\n  'Discovery of wireless telegraphy among the\n  ancient Egyptians.'\n\n  'Discovery of the pin-cushion to Cleopatra's\n  needles.'\n\n  'Trunk murder: a man assassinates his widow.'\n\nThat same editor, on my asking him why he allowed such crying\nstupidities in the headlines, and nothing but the most platitudinous\nstuff in the body of the article, gave me the following answer:\n\n\"'My dear sir, our public has nerves but no intellect. Hence we work\nfor sudden, rapid shocks to their nerves, and no fatigue to their\nintellect. They not only do not think; they do not want to think.\nThey are practically convinced that thinking is the perdition of\nall common-sense. Just let me give you an example. There is among\nthe younger writers one whose mind is singularly suggestive and\nnimble. He really has something to say, and can say it well. However,\nunfortunately, he says it in what are, apparently, contradictory and\ncircuitous terms. This my readers cannot grasp; it fatigues them. They\ncomplain of that man's writings as being \"heavy,\" \"hard to follow.\"\nThis is the consequence of the vogue of music halls. One may say that\nthe popular University of this country, where the average man gets most\nof his ideas from, is the music hall. What, then, can we editors do\nbetter than imitate the style and substance of the music hall? Shocks\nto the nerves--and no fatigue to the intellect. _Voil\u00e0!_'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"On my way home I met Columbus. He told me, and no man ever spoke with\nmore solid right, that he was the greatest benefactor to England. But\nfor him, who by discovering the New World placed England in the very\ncentre of the intelligent and wealthy nations, while formerly England\nwas somewhere on the 'other end of all the world'; but for him, he\nsaid, England could never have had her unique leverage. 'You, C\u00e6sar,'\nhe added, 'discovered England, as the Vikings discovered America; I did\nnot discover it, I made it. But would you believe me that thousands\nand thousands of Englishmen have scarcely ever heard my name? They\nconstantly talk of their race as born to rule. But what would they\nhave ruled without me? The ponds in Lincolnshire. You wonder at their\ntongue-tiedness. I will tell you what it means. The English are neither\ntalkers nor thinkers; they are almost exclusively men of action; or\nused to be. They have no intellectual initiative. They have started\nneither the Renascence, nor the Great Discoveries of my time, nor the\nReformation, or the three greatest factors in the formation of modern\nEurope. All this was first started by us Italians. We can both talk\nand think and create; but we are not good at actions. The English are\ngood only at action. This is the be-all and end-all of their history.\nHave you ever seen their Parliament? Do not omit attending it. You will\nthere learn something that no other Assembly can teach you. It rarely\ncontains a great orator, for oratory is of little use in an Assembly\nwith an iron party discipline, and with members every one of whom is\namenable to no argument that has not had the august privilege of being\nborn in his own mind. And since his mind brings forth none, he moves in\na vicious circle!'\n\n\"'Would you not,' I asked Columbus, 'accompany me to the House of\nCommons?'\n\n\"'Readily,' said the great Genoese. And next day we repaired to the\n'first club of the country.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"The hall was curiously unfit for the business of a national Assembly.\nIt is neither large, nor light enough. The acoustics are fair, but\nsuperfluous. For, who cares very much what any member other than\nhimself is saying? In the midst there is a porter's lodge, in which\nsits a gentleman in the attire of the eighteenth century. This, as\nbehoves a conservative Roman, did not meet with my disapproval.\nThe only objection I made was that in my opinion he ought to have\nbeen clothed in all the various costumes in use since Magna Charta.\nThe English, and the rest of the little ones, in utter contrast to\nourselves, constantly vary their dress. We preferred to vary our inner\nselves.\n\n\"The subject of discussion, or rather of a score or so of monologues,\nwas one of which in my time I have had the amplest experience. They\nproposed to give weekly a certain sum of money to anyone of their\ncitizens who on reaching his seventieth year had arrived at the end\nof his financial tether. In my day I had given away millions to\nthe populace, and my imperial successors had gone even very much\nfurther. The common people was thereby demoralised as is everybody,\neven parents, who accepts, year in year out, free gifts from a third\nperson or his children. Being demoralised, such a recipient of\ndonations becomes inevitably the most cruel enemy of his donor. Nothing\ncontributed more to the downfall of Rome. A nation must consist of free\nand financially independent citizens, or it loses its most precious\nasset. How frequently, O Pericles, have you said to me, how much you\nregretted having introduced the same injurious donations into Athens.\nBut this is the melancholy truth of all history: one learns from\nhistory one thing only, to wit, that no statesman has ever learned\nanything from history.\n\n\"In the midst of my sad reflections I could yet not help being amused\nby the speech of one member of the governing party, who belonged to\nthat formidable mixture of faddists, formalists, cocksure-ists, and\nmoral precisians who have in this country an influence that we should\nnot have given to the members of the most exalted among the Roman\npatricians. Much as they are laughed at, they yet have the power of\nstriking dread into the public and instilling hesitation into the\nfeeble nerves of statesmen. The name of the orator in question was, if\nI am right, Harold Gox. He said:\n\n\"'Mr Speaker, it is with a satisfaction and self-complacency new even\nto me that I beg to submit my remarks on a subject than which there is\nno greater one; a subject, sir, that has no predicate except that of\nimmensity; an immensity, sir, that exceeds infinitude itself; and last\nnot least, an infinitude vaster than all other infinitudes: a moral\ninfinity. This country, sir, was built up by morals and righteousness.\nRighteousness, I say, sir; and I will repeat it: righteousness. How did\nwe come by our Empire? By righteousness. How did our colonists occupy\nvast continents? By righteousness. What was the guiding principle even\nof our national debt? Righteousness, in that we contracted it mainly\nby paying the foreigner to help us in beating our immoral enemies.\nRighteousness is the A and the Z of our glorious polity.\n\n\"'We cannot help being righteous; it is in us, over us, beside,\nbeneath, and all through us. We have sometimes tried to be unrighteous;\nbut, sir, we could not. It is not given to us, and we have only what is\ngiven to us.\n\n\"'Well then, sir, if that be so, as it undoubtedly is, beyond the\nshadow of a doubt; then I venture to say that any person that opposes\nthe present bill of Old Age Pensions cannot but be an enemy of England,\nin that he is an enemy of righteousness.\n\n\"'What indeed, sir, can be fairer, juster, and more equitable than that\nthey who have laboriously saved up a few sovereigns, should share them\nwith those that have done everything in their power to have none?\n\n\"'Where there is nothing, there is death. Can a country introduce\ndeath as a regular constituent organ of its life? What in that case\nwould righteousness do? She would blush green with shame, sir. Nothing\nwould remain for her but to leave this country and to go to Germany or\nTurkey. Could we allow such a disaster? Would it not be necessary to\nhold or haul her back by ropes, strings, or any other instrument of our\nparty machinery?\n\n\"'Just, pray, represent to yourself, sir, or to any other person, the\nactualities of the case. Here is a man of seventy. It is a noble feat\nof honourable perseverance to reach that age. It is, I make bold to\nsubmit, an evident proof of the favour and countenance of The Principle\nof All RIGHTEOUSNESS that the man was allowed to proceed so far.\n\n\"'He has worked all such days of his long life as he did not spend in\nreverential contemplation of the works of the Almighty. Who can blame\nhim for that?\n\n\"'I go much further: who can possibly blame him for having focussed his\nattention rather on the liquid than on the solid bodies of Creation?\n\n\"'Each man has his own way of saying prayers.\n\n\"'Now, after having thus spent a long life in what has at all times\nbeen considered the essence of life; or as the ancient Romans used to\nformulate it, after having acted upon the noble doctrine of _ora et\nlabora_ (pray and work), he finds himself landed, or rather stranded\nin the wilderness of penury. Sir, such a state of things is untenable,\nunbearable, and unrighteous.\n\n\"'I know full well that people who have never given righteousness the\nslightest chance persist in repeating the old fallacy, that a labourer\nought to save up for a rainy day. But, pray, sir, is it not perfectly\nclear that this principle is of Egyptian origin, and comes therefore\nfrom a country where there is no rain?\n\n\"'In England, sir, there are 362 rainy days a year; therefore 3620\nrainy days in ten years, 18,100 rainy days in fifty years. How shall, I\nask you, that unfortunate labourer, or grocer, or author, save up for\n18,100 days? That takes a capital of at least \u00a325,000. Well, who has\nthat capital? No one. The nation alone has it. Ergo, the nation must\npay for the rain.\n\n\"'I have, sir, in my locker a great many shots like the preceding,\nbut I will, out of modesty, not use them all. I will only dwell on\none point. Sir, our opponents contend that the money needed for Old\nAge Pensions is not available unless it be taken from funds much more\nnecessary for the public welfare. Now I ask, which are those funds?\nThe answer I receive is that the nation needs more defensive measures\nagainst possible invasions on the part of a Continental power.\n\n\"'Sir, on hearing such nonsense one is painfully reminded of what Lord\nBacon used to say: \"_Difficile est satiram non scribere_.\"' (A voice\nfrom the Irish bench: 'Juvenal, and not Lord Bacon!') 'Well, Lord\nPercival, and not Lord Bacon, it amounts to the same.\n\n\"'An invasion? Sir, an invasion? How, for goodness' sake, do our\nopponents imagine such a thing to be possible? I know they say that\nLord Roberts has declared an invasion of England a feasible thing. But\nhas Lord Roberts ever invaded England? How can he know? How can anyone\nknow?\n\n\"'They refer me to William the Conqueror. But, sir, is it not evident\nthat William could not have done it had he not been the Conqueror?\nBeing the Conqueror, he was bound to do it. Is there any such William\namongst the Williams of the day? I looked them all up in the latest\n_Who's Who_--but not one of them came up to the requisite conditions.'\n(A voice: 'William Whiteley!') 'I hear, sir, the name of William\nWhiteley; and I reply that he is now too \"Ltd.\" to undertake such a\ngrand enterprise.\n\n\"'And more than anything else militating in my favour is the fact that\nthe Germans do not so much as dream of doing this country the slightest\nharm. Look at the relationship between the Kaiser and the King; nephew\nand uncle. Who has ever heard that a nephew made war on an uncle? Take\ninto consideration how the Kaiser behaved when lately visiting England.\nDid he not leave huge tips at Windsor? Did he not stroke children's\ncheeks? Did he not admire our houses? Who else has ever done that? He\ntalked English all day long, and during part of the night. He read\nthe _Daily Telegraph_ and took his tub every morning. Can there be\nstronger symptoms of his Anglophile soul?\n\n\"'A few weeks after he left England he went so far in his predilection\nof everything English that he even curtailed his moustaches.\n\n\"'His moustaches, sir, these the beacons of the German Empire, the\nhirsute hymn of Teutonia, her anchor, her lightning rod, her salvation!\n\n\"'To talk of such a man's hostile intentions against England is to\naccuse Dover Cliff, High Cliffe, or Northcliffe, or any other Cliff of\nbase treachery. No, sir, there is no need of new expenses for defence\non land; and as to the sea, we have only to follow the Chief Admiral's\nadvice and go to sleep. Our principal force consists of our power to\nsleep on land as well as on sea. Once asleep, we can spend nothing.\nIn that way there remains plenty of money for the Old Age Pensions,\nthat glorious corrective of misery, that ventilator of property, and\ndistillator of other men's pockets. I have not a word to add; the\nsubject itself talks to every person of sense in a thousand tongues.'\n\n\"When the man had ended,\" C\u00e6sar continued, \"I asked one of the\nofficials whether the orator was the clown of the house. The official\nlooked daggers at me. He explained in a solemn voice that the orator\nwas a staunch Liberal and Cobraite. The latter name was, I learnt,\na little mistake in pronunciation; it ought to have been Cobdenite.\nCobden, I was told, was a very great man. He succeeded in passing a\nmeasure which under the circumstances of his time was not altogether\nbad, although it drove the people away from the plough to the factories.\n\n\"However, he, like our Gracchi, imagined that what was good for\nhis time must necessarily be good for all times. On the basis of a\ncomplete ignorance of the Continent, that is, of the Power that has\nalways been and always will be the real regulator of the fundamental\npolicy of England, Cobden thought he had got hold of an absolute truth,\ninstead of a merely passing and temporary measure. Like all nations\nthat have never gone through social and political cataclysms and are\nnecessarily highly conservative, the English are totally lacking in\nhistoric perspective. Men of the class of Cobden, or such as the orator\nI had heard, are like their most renowned thinker, Herbert Spencer,\nabsolutely devoid of historic thinking. They think in categories of\nquantity and matter; never in quality made by history.\n\n\"Columbus, who was with me, said:\n\n\"'You need not be unusually excited over what you see. Each nation cuts\na different caper to the riddles and problems of life. The French, who\nused to be _des hommes_, while at present alas! they are only _des\nomelettes_, were in their prime of an aggressive attitude to all that\ntouched them; the Germans were of an idealising temper, while their\npresent mood is rather a tampering ideal; the Americans are full of\nthe exploiting fever; and the English invariably take up a posture of\nexpectativeness.\n\n\"'They pretend to believe what the Spartan King Archidamus always\nsaid: \"One cannot by reasoning disentangle the future.\" This attitude\npays the English best. First they let it be proved by the Spanish,\nPortuguese, Dutch, and more particularly by the French that India can\nbe conquered, and then--they take it. Even so with Egypt, Canada, the\nWest Indies, and South Africa. Expectativeness is their motto.\n\n\"'When I came to England trying to persuade them to help me in the\ndiscovery of America, they acted the wise Archidamus, and would not\ngive me linen for one sail. When I had discovered it, then they took\nas much of it, and more than they could swallow. This method of\nexpectativeness has had much historic quality, to use your words, O\nC\u00e6sar, for a time. But I am afraid it is beginning to be worn out.\n\n\"'I for one know (and have you, and Pericles, and Joan of Arc, and\nNapoleon, and so many others not told me the same thing when we used to\nmeet, at the wish of Joan, at Rheims Cathedral?), I for one know what\nthese little ones do not even dream of, so infatuated are they with the\npower of Reason and Science and similar machinery, namely, that our\nforce to forefeel things of the future is far greater, at least in some\nof us, than our capacity to analyse or comprehend things of the present\nor the past. Our whole being is not so much an upshot of the past as\na projection of the future. Hence the astounding assurance with which\nall of us now assembled in Olympus felt in advance what later on we\nactually did carry out. I should have discovered America had it never\nexisted; as I actually discovered it thinking that I discovered the\neastern side of Asia.'\n\n\"I very well see,\" said C\u00e6sar, \"what you mean. The English have no\nforefeeling of things to come. They do not note that their whole\nsituation in historic space has in the last generation completely\nchanged, and that therefore their old method of expectativeness, which\nlived mainly on the blunders of other nations, has become quite\nobsolete. They are where we were after Zama, after the end of the\nSecond Punic War, or the end of the third century B.C., as they say.\nSo they are at the end of their second Hundred Years' War with France.\nBut while we distinctly felt that after the Carthaginians, whom we\nhad defeated, we were inevitably compelled to reduce the Macedonians,\nand not shrinking from our heavy task we did defeat them, though with\ntremendous effort; the English do shrink from doing what the uncommon\nsense of the future as well as the common sense of the present but too\nclearly tell them to do.\n\n\"The blunder of France and Spain which was the chief ally of England in\nformer times, I mean, the blunder of these great nations in making war\non England only at times when they had four to ten other wars on hand;\nthat capital blunder the dominating Power of this moment will never\ncommit.\n\n\"Germany will not embroil herself in any Continental war while fighting\nEngland. This is indisputable.\n\n\"For the first time in modern times England will be at grips with a\nfirst-class Continental Power which is in a position to concentrate\nall her strength on England. This completely novel situation requires\ncompletely novel methods of meeting it. Yet, the average Englishman\nis quite unaware of all that. What ruined mighty Macedon? Not the\nlack of a powerful army, since our oldest generals, such as \u00c6milius\nPaulus, trembled at the thunderlike onslaught of the famous Macedonian\n_phalanx_, or infantry. But instead of joining the Carthaginians\nfull-heartedly while we smarted under the scourge of Hannibal, they\nmisread the whole situation and waited, and waited, until--we were able\nto concentrate upon them, even to incorporate the best Greek forces in\nour armies, and the end was disaster for Macedon.\n\n\"Just listen to the speech now going on. The Leader of the Opposition\nis speaking.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"'Mr Speaker, I am broadly astonished at the statements of the hon.\nmember for Alarmville, who has just painted the international horizon\nin tints of Indian ink. I cannot imagine where he takes his tints from.\nDoes he want to pose as a political Tintoretto?'\n\n\"(Much applause--most members send for the _Encyclop\u00e6dia Imperialis_ to\nfind out what _Tintoretto_ means.)\n\n\"'The horizon, as everybody knows, is only an imaginary line, and each\nman has his own horizon. If therefore the horizon of the hon. member be\nas black as jet, I have not much to say against it, and will send him\nmy condolences. But why should he obtrude his horizon on that of all\nthe rest of peace-loving humanity? I also have my horizon.'\n\n\"(The hon. member: 'Horizons, if you please.')\n\n\"'Horizons? More than one horizon? Perhaps; it probably needs more than\none to descend to that of the hon. member.'\n\n\"(Opposition members: 'Deucedly clever, by Jove!')\n\n\"'On my horizon I see no cloud, no vapours, no foundations of any\nbelief in storms or tempests of any kind. What conceivable reason\nshould the Germans have for attacking us? I fail, I utterly fail to see\nit. I know that my adversaries say that whatever reasons Germany may or\nmay not have to attack us, we, these people say, we have a plethora of\nmotives to attack them. This point, this argument is so devoid of point\nor argument, that I cannot waste the time of the House in refuting\nit. It refutes itself. Why should we attack the Germans? Because we\nhave no reasons to do so. That is all that one can advance. Do we\nwant their colonies? Why, we are eternally obliged to them for having\ntaken them and so rid us of a sterile investment. Do we want part\nof Germany? Neither parts nor the whole of it. Have we not ceded to\nthem Heligoland? Sir, it is, as I said, impossible to detect a single\nargument in favour of our attacking Germany. The minds that counsel\nsuch a violent measure are influenced by apprehensions arising out of\nfuture developments. They are anticipative souls to whom the secrets\nof the future have been revealed by the timorousness of the present. I\nrespect souls; I respect timorousness; but I refuse to attribute to it\nany oracular wisdom. The future is dark, three shades darker than the\npresent, which is impenetrable enough as it is.\n\n\"'There remains, then, only the other alternative: Germany seriously\nmeans to attack us. Well, sir, let us analyse this statement. What\nearthly good would such an attack do to the Germans? I hear they covet\nDenmark and Holland, as the natural outlets of their Empire which at\npresent is like a muffled head; and since England cannot permit their\ntaking possession of Denmark and Holland, the Germans must fight\nEngland. This argument, sir, lacks all the elements of truth. It lacks\ngeographical force, historical momentum, political sense. Denmark, we\nall know, is quite in the east of Germany between the Elbe river and\nthe Lake of Baikal.'\n\n\"(Uproarious hilarity in parts of the House. A voice: 'Lake Baikal is\nin Siberia!')\n\n\"'I hear, sir, Lake Baikal is in Siberia. As if I had not known it,\nsir! I say Baikal as the scientific term of Baltic, which is in reality\nBi-Kalic, or rapidly speaking: Baikal.'\n\n\"(Opposition members: 'Deucedly clever--he got out of _that_ scrape!')\n\n\"'Denmark which, as I said, is in the east of Germany does not muffle\nher at all. It is a highly artistic country and in the Bay of Catgut\nare fished the best strings for violins.'\n\n\"(A voice: 'Sound of Kattegat!')\n\n\"'I hear, sir, that it is the Sound of Kattegat, but I think every\npatriotic Englishman says Catgut. But to return to my argument: the\nGermans being very musical, love violins, and consequently love the\nKattegat, as the hon. voice says, and love the Danes. As long as the\nDanes give their fine catguts, the Germans will certainly not think of\ndoing them any harm.'\n\n\"(An angry voice: 'But Denmark is in the north of Germany!')\n\n\"'I hear, sir, that Denmark has moved from her ancient moorings. If\nthat be so, then I can only conclude that Germany has still less reason\nto covet the possession of Denmark. For, is it not clear, or _luce\nclarius_, that Denmark is a sort of nightcap to Germany? The Germans\nthemselves typify their nation as a _Deutscher Michel_ (Teuton Michael)\nwith a nightcap on his head. Why, this nightcap is Denmark. The Teuton\nlikes a nightcap.'\n\n\"(General laughter.)\n\n\"'All Teutons do.'\n\n\"(Renewed laughter.)\n\n\"'Need I say more?\n\n\"'And as to Holland, I am bound to say that it passes my comprehension\nhow anyone can seriously maintain that Germany covets Holland. I hear\nthat she covets Holland because it is exasperating to a great Power\nlike Germany that the entire delta of her greatest river, the Rhine,\nbelongs to a small and hostile Power. It is asked of me, how I, or\nfor the matter of that any Englishman, would like to see the mouth\nof the Thames in the power of the Belgians? Sir, I should not like\nto see that, to be sure. But the case is quite different. We English\nhave no river like the Rhine, which in its upper course gives the\nmost generous wine, and in its lower course is nothing but a vile\ncombination of hydrogen and oxygen, commonly called water. If, for\nbetter illustration, the Thames in her upper course gave the finest\nwhisky----'\n\n\"(Great uproar among two-thirds of the members, all teetotallers.)\n\n\"'Or, I beg your pardon, ginger beer or cyder, we should not greatly\nmind to whom the lower course belonged. But, sir, it is a well-known\nand a most patriotic fact that the Thames river contains nothing else\nthan water. Water, sir, is the panacea of this nation!'\n\n\"(Violent applause from two-thirds of the House.)\n\n\"'Yes, the panacea, the salvation, the resurrection, and the\nrehabilitation of this country.'\n\n\"(Cries: 'Righteousness!--Righteousness!')\n\n\"'We cannot get enough of it. Water in our throats--in our papers,\nbooks, and speeches. Water in our dramas, novels, drugs; water,\nwater--three kingdoms for water!'\n\n\"(Wild and frantic applause of the whole House.)\n\n\"'Now, sir, I maintain all this does not hold good with our friends\nthe Germans. They do drink wine and beer and schnapps. They cannot be\nwithout them. Their Rhine gives them wine in plenty in that part of its\ncourse which belongs to them. What does it, what can it matter to them\nto whom the lower part of the Rhine, full of mere water, does or does\nnot belong?'\n\n\"('Hear! Hear!')\n\n\"'The Germans are a practical nation. Does any person; I say more than\nthat, _can_ any person say that the Germans will wage a great war in\norder to possess themselves of water, when all that time they already\nhave excellent wine? I could understand, sir, that if the Germans\noccupied the watery mouth of the Rhine only, and not its middle and\nupper course full of noble wine----'\n\n\"(Several voices: 'Order! Order! Retract noble.')\n\n\"'Well, well, the House will allow me to say \"noble\" wine, inasmuch as\nwine has not only four or fourteen quarters, but innumerable ones.'\n\n\"(Opposition cries: 'Excellent! deucedly clever!')\n\n\"'To return to my argument: I could understand that the Germans, if\nthey had only the lower course of the Rhine, would forthwith wage war\nto acquire the middle and upper course of the river. We learn from\nTacitus that they are a very thirsty nation, and this authentic news\nis, as readers of more modern authors tell me, not given the lie by the\ncontemporary Germans either. But under the existing circumstances the\nRhine--or Hock--argument, meant to prove German hostility, falls into\nthe water near the Dutch border, wherever that may be.\n\n\"'There is finally, sir, another so-called argument _re_ Holland and\nGermany. It is stated that the Germans covet Holland on account of the\nDutch colonies in Asia and South America. These colonies, as everybody\nknows, are exiguous.'\n\n\"(An angry voice: 'About 800,000 English square miles.')\n\n\"'I hear, sir, the Dutch colonies are about 800,000 English square\nmiles. Of course, my information is taken from Tacitus; and no doubt\nsince his time some additions have been made to the colonial microcosm\nof the Dutch. But even if that were so, and if the Dutch actually\npossessed 800,000 square miles of colonies, it is quite patent that\nthese colonies, if not exiguous in extent, are exiguous in value:\notherwise they would long ago have been governed from Downing Street.'\n\n\"(Approving laughter--half of the members smile knowingly, while the\nother half pat themselves on the backs of their neighbours.)\n\n\"'Do you mean to tell me that the Germans will wage an immense war for\nthe sake of what we have not deigned to pick up? They are, I know, past\nmasters in the use of offals for purposes of food and drink. But surely\nin matters of politics they want more than offals.\n\n\"'At the risk of wearying hon. members I should like to add just a\nremark or two on another argument of the alarmists. We have seen the\nDanish argument; the Hock argument; and the Dutch colonies argument.\nThere remains one more: the aerial argument. I hear from my valet that\none Chaplin or Zebraline has made a flight or two through the air.'\n\n\"(Voices: 'Zeppelin!')\n\n\"'I hear, sir, his name is Zeppelin; probably an abbreviation of\nMazeppaline, whom Lord Byron has sung so well.'\n\n\"(Opposition members: 'Deucedly clever!')\n\n\"'The flight of Mazeppa has naturally much agitated the Germans, all of\nwhom can read English. If they could not, what else would they read? I\nhave never heard of a German literature.\n\n\"'But to resume: the Germans, excited by _Mazeppa_ behold in Herr\nZeppelin an aerial Mazeppa. That is all, as the French say. But, sir,\nis it likely that Herr Zeppelin will so perfect his balloon or airship\nas to make it available for the transportation of an army corps or\ntwo to England? Suppose he could do so; what would be simpler than to\nrender his aerial landing in this country impossible? We have simply to\nrefuse him a patent for the British Empire, and lo! he can never set\nfoot on the clouds of England.\n\n\"'But the alarmists say that even if Zeppelin's airship could not carry\nover whole army corps, they might very well serve for German scouts and\nspies, who might explore the secret preparations and defensive measures\nmade by this country on land.\n\n\"'Well, sir, this apparently strong argument has not an atom of\nvitality in it; and for the simplest of reasons too. The Germans might\nsend their trustiest Zeppelin No. 10 or No. 50, with their best trained\nscouts in it. These scouts might pry into anything in the shape of\nmilitary preparations in England; but they will never discover anything.\n\n\"'Why, sir, this is why we make no preparations. We do that simply to\nnullify any possible Zeppelin.'\n\n\"('Hear! Hear! Deucedly clever.')\n\n\"'Some critics say that we have lost the old bold imperialist spirit.\nBut, sir, is it not evident that we are to-day of a greater military\nspirit than we ever were formerly? Feeble nations, in order to secure\npeace, constantly prepare for war; or as the Latin adage holds it: \"_Si\nvis pacem para bellum_.\" We, on the other hand, make no preparations\nfor war, because we are so strong as to consider war or peace with\nequal equanimity. To sum up: the aerial argument has no more force in\nit than the other arguments of the alarmists. If a modern William the\nConqueror should be able to conquer the air, and by a modern battle of\nHazetings (deucedly clever!) enter the mid-air of this country, he will\nfind Heroes and not Harolds to contest every square inch of Margate\nwinds, of Lincolnshire rain, or of London smoke. This country, sir, can\nbe subjugated neither by land, nor by sea, nor by air. Over these three\nelements hovers and reigns supreme the indomitable spirit of the race.'\n\n\"(Tremendous applause.)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"When the speech of the Leader of the Opposition was ended, Columbus\nturned to me,\" continued C\u00e6sar, \"and said: 'I have no doubt, O C\u00e6sar,\nthat you are fairly sickened by that speech. But, pray, consider that\nevery word of it was framed and uttered, not to discuss seriously the\nGerman danger, but to get back into power. The speaker is neither so\nignorant nor so foolish as he appears. He made a special effort to\nappear absolutely ignorant of geography, because the party in power has\nwon great renown by an imposing ignorance in that subject. You must not\nsmile. I say deliberately, imposing. The English hate geography, maps,\natlases, globes. Even in the examinations for the diplomatic service\nthey do not admit geography as a subject.\n\n\"'Being convinced of the exclusive importance of their own country,\nthey are simply bored with geographical considerations of any other\ncountry. Some time ago it occurred that not one member of the House\nknew whether British Guiana was an island or a peninsula. Of course,\nit is neither. It belongs to the _bon ton_ to be ignorant of all\ngeography; that is, to treat Germany or Denmark or Russia as if one\nspoke of some internal province of the Chinese Empire. For similar\nreasons, the speaker affected not to see the slightest danger from\nGermany. The party in power was elected by the people mainly on the\nground that with the Goody-Goody ones \"in,\" and the Imperialists \"out,\"\nthe people were safe not to be embroiled in a European war. In order to\ntake the wind out of the tattered sail of Pacifism the speaker acted as\nif the Germans did not so much as dream of doing England any harm.'\n\n\"All this is most disheartening,\" said C\u00e6sar. \"To treat foreign policy\nmerely as a card in the little game of electioneering is most injurious\nto the interests of a great country. England, like every other country\nin Europe, has been made in her Downing Street rather than at the polls\nor in Committee-rooms. European currents determine the minor currents\nof the home policies of the several countries. You say, and with the\nutmost right, O Columbus, that you have given the English their most\npowerful leverage. But would you have thought of doing what you did do,\nhad not a vast event in South-eastern Europe, the coming of the Turk,\ndriven your countrymen to the discovery of a western route, the eastern\nbeing closed by the Turk?\n\n\"I wish the Parthians in mid-Asia, in my time, had been as strong as\nthe Turks were in your time. We should have had you while I lived, and\nby the discovery of America over fifteen hundred years before you did\ndiscover it, the whole trend of the world's history would have been\ndifferent. For you would have given this immense new leverage to the\nRoman Empire instead of to little England. It is rather amusing to hear\nthe English talk of the 'Unspeakable Turk,' a nation to whom they are,\nif indirectly, more obliged than to any other nation of the past or\npresent, excepting the French.\n\n\"The truth is, that no nation makes itself. It is made by itself only\nin so far as it reacts against the powerful influence of the others,\nits neighbours and their neighbours. If these neighbours are feeble,\nand second-rate nations, the reacting nation itself will remain feeble\nand second-rate. The greatness of the present Germans is a veritable\ngodsend to the English, since the decadence of the French. By reacting\nagainst it properly, England will be newly invigorated.\n\n\"The scribblers of the little ones ascribe the downfall of the Empire\nwhich I founded to the rottenness of my Romans. How untrue! My Empire\ndecayed because, comprising as it did all the then known civilised\nnations, it lacked a great adversary by reacting against whom it might\nhave reinvigorated itself from time to time. They say the Barbarians,\nchiefly the Teutons, overpowered us. Alas! I wish they had been much\nstronger than they were. They never overpowered us. Had the Greeks and\nMacedonians been able to concert great military measures against us, we\nshould have been forced to give up the fatal idea of an all-compassing\nEmpire, and should have finally arrived at a fine and vitalising\nbalance of power in the Mediterranean.\n\n\"The English ought to welcome, although to combat the rise of Germany.\nThey imagine that their principal force comes from their colonies. It\nwill come, not from their colonies, which is geographically impossible,\nbut from their perennial rivalry with great Continental Powers. These\nrivalries made England, made her colonies. To give up these rivalries,\nto cease combating great Continental Powers, will be the end both of\nEngland and her Empire. In my time I, together with all my friends,\ngloried in my long-drawn conquest of Gaul, and my final victory over\nthe leader of the Gauls, Vercingetorix. I now wish I had been defeated\nat Alesia, and a strong and united Gaul had been established under my\nunlucky adversary. What inestimable centre of healthy rivalry would\nGaul not have been for us! To try to conquer it was right; to have\ndefinitely deprived it of independence was a disaster. Strifeless bliss\nprospers only in Olympus.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE SIXTH NIGHT\n\nAPOLLO AND DIONYSUS IN ENGLAND[1]\n\n\nIt is many years ago that in the Bodleian at Oxford I was shown into\nthe beautiful room where John Selden's noble library is placed. It is a\nlofty, well-proportioned room, and on the walls are arrayed the silent\nlegions of the great scholar's books.\n\nAt that time I was still fonder of books than of realities, and with\nbreathless haste I ran over the title-pages and contents of the grand\nfolios in over fifteen languages, written by scholars of all the\nWestern nations and of many an Oriental people.\n\nThen I paused before the fine oil-painting near the entrance of the\nroom representing the face and upper body of the scholar-patriot. The\nface is singularly, touchingly beautiful. The delicately swung lines of\nthe lips tell at once, more especially in their discreet corners, of\nthe deep reticence and subtle tact of the man. No wonder my Lady Kent\nloved him. The combination of political power, boundless erudition, and\ncharming male beauty could not but be pleasing to a knowing woman of\nthe world. His eyes, big and lustrous, yet veil more than they reveal.\nHe evidently was a man who saw more than he expressed, and felt more\nthan he cared to show. Living in the troublous times of James the First\nand Charles the First, he worked strenuously for the liberties of\nhis country, while all the time pouring forth works of the heaviest\nerudition on matters of ancient law, religions, and antiquities.\n\nHis printed works are, in keeping with the custom of his day, like\ncomets: a small kernel of substance, appended to a vast tail of\nquotations from thousands of authors. Like the unripe man I was,\nI liked the tail more than the kernel. Yet I had been in various\ncountries and had acquired a little knowledge of substance.\n\nAnd as I gazed with loving looks at the mild beauty of the scholar,\nI fell slowly into a reverie. I had read him and about him with such\nzeal that it seemed to me I knew the man personally. Then also I had\nwalked over the very streets and in the very halls where he had walked\nand talked to Camden, Cotton, Archbishop Ussher, Sir Mathew Hale, Lord\nEllesmere, Coke, Cromwell. It was the period that we, in Hungary, had\nbeen taught to admire most in all English history.\n\nAnd there was more particularly one maxim of Selden's, which he\ncarefully wrote on every one of the books of his library, which had\nalways impressed me most.\n\nIt ran: \"Liberty above everything\"; or as he wrote it, in Greek: \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f31\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u1f41\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f21\u03bd \u1f11\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u1f31\u03b1\u03bd.\n\nYes, liberty--that is, political liberty--above everything else. I had,\nlike all people born in the fifties of the last century, believed in\nthat one idea as one believes in the goodness and necessity of bread\nand wine. I could not doubt it; I thought, to doubt it was almost\nabsurd. And so I had long made up my mind to go one day to Oxford and\nto make my reverent bow to the scholar who had adorned the shallowest\nbook of his vast collection by writing on it the Greek words in praise\nof liberty.\n\nHowever, before I could carry out my pilgrimage to the Bodleian, I had\nbeen five years in the States. There indeed was plenty of political\nliberty, but after a year or so I could not but see that the sacrifices\nwhich the Americans had to make for their political liberty were heavy,\nvery heavy, not to say crushing.\n\nAnd I began to doubt.\n\nI conceived that it was perhaps not impossible to assume that in\nSelden's maxim there were certain \"ifs\" and certain drawbacks. My soul\ndarkened; and when finally I arrived at the Bodleian, I went into\nSelden's room, and to his portrait, prompted by an unarticulated hope\nthat in some way or other I might get a solution of the problem from\nthe man whose maxim I had held in so great esteem for many a long year.\n\nSo I gazed at him, and waited. The room became darker; the evening\nshadows began spreading about the shelves. The portrait alone was still\nin a frame of strangely white light. It was as if Apollo could not tear\nhimself away from the face of one who had been his ardent devotee.\n\nAfter a while I observed, or thought I did, with a sensation of mingled\nhorror and delight, that the eyes of the portrait were moving towards\nme. I took courage and uttered my wish, and asked Selden outright\nwhether now, after he had spent centuries in the Elysian fields with\nPericles and Plato, whether he still was of opinion that liberty,\npolitical liberty, is the chief aim of a nation, an aim to be secured\nat all prices.\n\nThereupon I clearly saw how his eyes deepened, and how the surface of\ntheir silent reserve began to ripple, as it were, and finally a mild\nsmile went over them like a cloud over a Highland lake.\n\nThat smile sent a shiver through my soul. Selden, too, doubts his\nmaxim? Can political liberty be bought at too great a price? Are there\ngoods more valuable than political liberty?\n\nAfter I recovered from my first shock, I boldly approached the smiling\nportrait, and implored Selden to help me.\n\nAnd then, in the silence of the deserted room, I saw how his lips\nmoved, and I heard English sounds pronounced in a manner considerably\ndifferent from what they are to-day. They sounded like the bass notes\nof a clarionet, and there was much more rhythm and cadence in them than\none can hear to-day. They were also of exquisite politeness, and the\nwords were, one imagined, like so many courtiers, hat in hand, bowing\nto one another, yet with a ready sword at the side.\n\nTo my request he replied: \"If it should fall out to be your fervent\ndesire to know the clandestine truth of a matter so great and weighty,\nI shall, for the love of your devotion, be much pleased to be your\nsuitor and help. Do not hesitate to follow me.\"\n\nWith that he stepped out from the frame and stood before me in the\ncostume of the time of the Cavaliers. He took me by the hand, and in\na way that seemed both natural and supernatural, so strangely did I\nfeel at that moment, we left unseen and unnoticed the lofty room, and\narrived almost immediately after that at a place in the country that\nreminded me of Kenilworth, or some other part of lovely Warwickshire.\n\nIt was night, and a full moon shed her mysteries over trees, valleys,\nand mountains. On a lawn, in the midst of a fine wood of alders, Selden\nhalted.\n\nThere were several persons present. They struck me as being Greeks;\ntheir costume was that of Athenians in the time of Alcibiades. I soon\nsaw that I was right, for they talked ancient Greek. Selden explained\nto me that they had left Elysium for a time, in order to see how the\nworld beneath was going on. In their travels they had come to England,\nand were anxious to meet men of the past as well as men of the present,\nand to inquire into the nature and lot of the nation of which they had\nheard, by rumour, that it had something of the nature of the Athenians,\nmuch of the character of the Spartans, a good deal of the people of\nSyracuse and Tarentum, and also a trait or two of the Romans.\n\nOf those Greeks I at once recognised Pericles, the son of Xanthippus;\nAlcibiades, the son of Clinias; Plato, the son of Ariston; Euripides,\nthe son of Mnesarchos; moreover, a man evidently an _archon_ or\nhigh official of the oracle of Delphi; and in the retinue I saw\nsculpturesque maidens of Sparta and charming women of Argos, set off by\nincomparably formed beauties of Thebes, and girls of Tanagra smiling\nsweetly with stately daintiness.\n\nSelden was received by them with hearty friendliness, and conversation\nwas soon at its best, just as if it had been proceeding in the cool\ngroves of the Academy at Athens.\n\nThe first to speak was Pericles. He expressed to Selden his great\namazement at the things he had seen in England.\n\n\"Had I not governed the city of holy Athena for thirty years,\" he\nsaid, \"I should be perhaps pleased with what I see in this strange\ncountry. But having been at the head of affairs of a State which in my\ntime was the foremost of the world; and having always availed myself\nof the advice and wisdom of men like Damon, the musician-philosopher,\nAnaxagoras, the thinker, Protagoras, the sophist, and last, not least,\nAspasia, my tactful wife and friend, I am at a loss to understand the\npolity that you call England.\n\n\"What has struck me most in this country is the sway allowed to what we\nused to call Orphic Associations. In Athens we had, in my time, a great\nnumber of private societies the members of which devoted themselves to\nthe cult of extreme, unnatural, and un-Greek ideas and superstitions.\nThus we had _thiasoi_, as we called them, the members of which were\nfanatic vegetarians; others, again, who would not allow their adherents\nto partake of a single drop of Chian or any other wine; others, again,\nwho would under no circumstances put on any woollen shirt or garment.\n\n\"But if any of these Orphic mystagogues had arrogated to themselves the\nright of proposing laws in the Public Assembly, or what this nation\ncalls the Parliament, with a view of converting the whole State of\nAthens into an Association of Orphic rites and mysteries, then, I am\nsure, my most resolute antagonists would have joined hands with me to\ncounteract such unholy and scurrilous attempts.\n\n\"I can well understand that the Spartans, who are quite unwilling to\nvest any real power whatever in either their kings, their assembly,\ntheir senate, or their minor officials, are consequently compelled\nto vest inordinate power in their few Ephors, and in the constantly\npractised extreme self-control of each individual Spartan. In a\ncommonwealth like Sparta, where the commune is allowed very little,\nor no, power; where there are neither generals, directors of police,\npowerful priests or princes, nor any other incumbents of great coercive\npowers; in such a community the individual himself must needs be his\nown policeman, his own priest, prince, general, and coercive power.\nThis he does by being a vegetarian, a strict Puritan, teetotaller,\nmelancholist, and universal killer of joy.\"\n\nHere Pericles was interrupted by the suave voice of Selden, who, in\npure Attic, corroborated the foregoing statements by a reference to the\npeople called Hebrews in Palestine. \"These men,\" Selden said, \"were\npractically at all times so fond of liberty that they could not brook\nany sort of government in the form of officials, policemen, soldiers,\nprinces, priests, or lords whatever. In consequence of which they\nintroduced a system of individual self-control called ritualism, by\nmeans of which each Hebrew tied himself down with a thousand filigree\nties as to eating, drinking, sleeping, merrymaking, and, in short, as\nto every act of ordinary life. So that, O Pericles, the Hebrews are\none big Orphic Association of extremists, less formidable than the\nSpartans, but essentially similar to them.\"\n\nSelden had scarcely finished his remarks, when Alcibiades, encouraged\nby a smile from Plato, joined the discussion, and, looking at\nPericles, exclaimed:\n\n\"My revered relative, I have listened to your observations with close\nattention; and I have also, in my rambles through this country, met a\ngreat number of men and women. It seems to me that but for their Orphic\nAssociations, which here some people call Societies of Cranks and\nFaddists, the population of this realm would have one civil war after\nthe other.\n\n\"Surely you all remember how, in my youth, misunderstanding as I did\nthe Orphic and mystery-craving nature of man, I made fun of it, and\nwas terribly punished for it at the hands of Hermes, a god far from\nbeing as great as Zeus, Apollo, or Dionysus. Little did I know at that\ntime that the exuberance of vitality, which I, owing to my wealth and\nstation in life, could gratify by gorgeous chariot races at Olympia\nunder the eyes of all the Hellenes, was equally strong, but yet\nunsatisfied, in the average and less dowered citizens of my State.\n\n\"My chequered experience has taught me that no sort of people can quite\ndo without Orphic mysteries, and when I sojourned among the Thracians,\nI saw that those barbarians, fully aware of the necessity of Mysteries\nand Orphic Trances, had long ago introduced festivals at which their\nmen and women could give free vent to their subconscious, vague, yet\npowerful chthonic craving for impassioned daydreaming and revelry. They\nindulge in wild dances on the mountains, at night, invoking the gods\nof the nether world, indulging freely in the wildest form of boundless\nhilarity, and rivalling in their exuberance the mad sprouting of trees\nand herbs in spring.\n\n\"You Laconian maidens, usually so proud and cold and Amazonian, I call\nupon you to say whether in your strictly regulated polity of Sparta\nyou do not, at times, rove in the wildest fashion over the paths,\nravines, and clefts of awful Mount Taygetus, in reckless search of the\njoy of frantic vitality which your State ordinarily does not allow\nyou to indulge in? And you women of Argos, are you too not given to\nwild rioting at stated times? Have I not watched you in your religious\nrevivals of fierce joy?\"\n\nBoth the Laconian and Argive women admitted the fact, and one of them\nasked: \"Do the women of this country not observe similar festivals? I\npity them if they don't.\"\n\nAnd a Theban girl added: \"The other day we passed over Snowdon and\nother mounts in a beauteous land which they call Wales. It is much\nlike our own holy Mount Kith\u00e6ron. Why, then, do the women of this\ncountry not rove, in honour of the god, over the Welsh mountains,\nfree and unobserved, as we do annually over wild Kith\u00e6ron? They would\ndo it gracefully, for I have noticed that they run much better than\nthey walk, and they would swing the _thyrsus_ in their hand with more\nelegance than the sticks they use in their games.\"\n\nAt that moment there arose from the haze and clouded mystery of the\nneighbouring woods a rocket of sounds, sung by female voices and soon\njoined in the distance by a chorus of men. The company on the lawn\nsuddenly stopped talking, and at the bidding of the Delphic archon,\nwhom they called Trichas, they all went in search of ivy, and, having\nfound it, wreathed themselves with it. The music, more and more\npassionate, came nearer and nearer.\n\nFrom my place I could slightly distinguish, in mid-air, a fast\ntravelling host of women in light dresses, swinging the _thyrsus_,\ndancing with utter freedom of beautiful movement, and singing all the\ntime songs in praise of Dionysus, the god of life and joy.\n\nTrichas solemnly called upon us to close our eyes, and he intoned a\n_p\u00e6an_ of strange impressiveness, imploring the god to pardon our\npresence and to countenance us hereafter as before.\n\nBut the Laconian, Theban, and Argive maidens left us, and soaring into\nair, as it were, joined the host of revelling women.\n\nAfter a time the music subsided far away, and nothing could be heard\nbut the melodious soughing of the wind through the lank alder-trees.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen, at a sign of Trichas, Plato took the word and said:\n\n\"You are aware, my friends, that whatever I have taught in my Athenian\ndays regarding the punishment of our faults at the hands of the Powers\nof the Netherworld, all that has been amply visited upon me in the\nshape of commentaries written on my works by learned teachers, after\nthe fashion of savages who tattoo the beautiful body of a human being.\n\n\"I may therefore say that I have at last come to a state of\npurification and castigation which allows one to see things in their\nright proportion. Thus, with regard to this curious country in which we\nare just at present, I cannot but think that while there is much truth\nin what all of you have remarked, yet you do not seem to grasp quite\nclearly the essence, or, as we used to say, the \u03bf\u1f51\u03c3\u1f31\u03b1 of the whole\nproblem.\n\n\"This nation, like all of us Hellenes, has many centuries ago made up\nits mind to keep its political liberty intact and undiminished. For\nthat purpose it always tried to limit, and in the last three hundred\nyears actually succeeded in limiting, or even destroying, most of the\ncoercive powers of the State, the Church, the nobility, the army.\nSelden not improperly compared them to the Jews. And as in the case\nof the Jews, so in the case of the English, the lack of the coercive\npowers of State, Church, nobility, and army inevitably engendered\ncoercive powers of an individual or private character.\n\n\"This is called, in a general word, Puritanism. Our Spartans, who\nwould not tolerate public coercive corporate powers any more than\ndo the English, were likewise driven into an individual Puritanism,\ncalled their \u1f01\u03b3\u03c9\u03b3\u1f21, which likewise consisted of fanatic teetotalism,\n_mutisme_, anti-intellectualism, and other common features.\n\n\"This inevitable Puritanism in England assumed formerly what they call\na Biblical form; now it feeds on teetotalism--that is, it has become\nliquid Puritanism. I have it on the most unquestionable authority, that\nthe contemporary Britons are, in point of consumption of spirits and\nwine, the most moderate consumers of all the European nations; and the\naverage French person, for example, drinks 152 times more wine per\nannum than the average Englishman. Even in point of beer, the average\nBelgian, for instance, drinks twice as much as the average Englishman;\nwhile the average Dane drinks close on five times more spirits than the\naverage Briton.\n\n\"Yet all these facts will convert no one. For, since the Puritan wants\nPuritanism and not facts, he can be impressed only by inducing him to\nadopt another sort of Puritanism, but never by facts.\n\n\"Accordingly, they have introduced Christian Science, or one of\nthe oldest Orphic fallacies, which the Medi\u00e6val Germans used to\ncall 'to pray oneself sound.' They have likewise inaugurated\nanti-vivisectionism, vegetarianism, anti-tobacconism, Sabbatarianism,\nand a social class system generally, which combines all the features of\nall the kinds of Puritanism.\n\n\"We in Athens divided men only on lines of the greater or lesser\npolitical rights we gave them; but we never drew such lines in matters\nsocial and purely human. The freest Athenian readily shook hands with\na _metic_ or denizen; and we ate all that was eatable and good. In\nEngland the higher class looks upon the next lower as the teetotaller\nlooks upon beer, the vegetarian upon beef, or the Sabbatarian upon what\nthey call the Continental Sunday.\n\n\"Moreover, there is in England, in addition to the science of zoology\nor botany, such as my hearer Aristotle founded it, a social zoology and\nbotany, treating of such animals and plants as cannot, according to\nEnglish class Puritanism, be offered to one's friends at meals. Thus,\nmussels and cockles are socially ostracised, except in unrecognisable\nform; bread is offered in homoeopathic doses; beer at a banquet is\nsimply impossible; black radishes, a personal insult.\n\n\"In the same way, streets, squares, halls, theatres,\nwatering-places--in short, everything in the material universe is\nor is not 'class'; that is, it is subject or not subject to social\nPuritanism. All this, as in the case of the Hebrews, who have an\ninfinitely developed ritualism of eatables and drinkables, of things\n'pure' or 'impure'; all this, I say, is the inevitable consequence of\nthe unwillingness of the English to grant any considerable coercive\npower to the State, the Church, the nobility, the army, or any other\norganised corporate institution.\n\n\"They hate the idea of conscription, because they hate to give power to\nthe army, and prefer to fall into the snares of faddists.\n\n\"The coercive power which they will not grant in one form, they must\nnecessarily admit in another form. They destroy Puritanism as wielded\nby State or Church, and must therefore, since coercive powers are\nalways indispensable, accept it as Puritanism of fads.\n\n\"What are the Jews other than a nation of extreme faddists? Being\nquite apolitical, as we call it, they must necessarily be extremely\nOrphic--that is, extreme Puritans.\n\n\"Political liberty is bought at the expense of social freedom. Nobody\ndares to give himself freely and naively; he must needs watch with\nsickly self-consciousness over every word or act of his, as a policeman\nwatches over the traffic of streets. And lest he betray his real\nsentiments, he suppresses all gestures, because gestures give one away\nat once. One cannot make a gesture of astonishment without being really\nastonished at all, and _vice vers\u00e2_.\n\n\"And so slowly, by degrees, the whole of the human capital is\nrepressed, disguised, unhumanised, and, in a word, sacrificed at the\naltar of political liberty.\n\n\"The Romans, much wiser than the Spartans, gave immense coercive power\nboth to corporate bodies, such as the Roman Senate, and to single\nofficials, such as a Consul, a Censor, a Tribune, or a Pr\u00e6tor. They\ntherefore did not need any grotesque private coercive institutions or\nfads.\n\n\"The English, on the other hand, want to wield such an empire as the\nRoman, and yet build up their polity upon the narrow plane of a Spartan\n\u1f01\u03b3\u03c9\u03b3\u1f21. In this there is an inherent contradiction. They hamper their\nbest intentions, and must at all times, and against their better\nconvictions, legislate for faddists, because they lack the courage of\ntheir Imperial mission.\n\n\"Empires want Imperial institutions, that is, such as are richly\nendowed in point of political power. Offices ought to be given by\nappointment, and not by competitive examinations, if only for five or\nten years. The police ought to have a very much more comprehensive\npower, and the schools ought to be subject to a national committee.\nParliament must be Imperial, and not only British. Very much more might\nbe said about the necessity of rendering this Realm more _apotelestic_,\nas we have called it, but I see that Euripides is burning to make his\nremarks, and I am sure that he is able to give us the final expression\nof the whole difficulty in a manner that none of us can rival.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThereupon Euripides addressed the company as follows:\n\n\"For many, many a year I have observed and studied the most\nlife-endowed commonwealth that the world has ever seen, Athens. I\nwatched the Athenians in their homes, in the market-place, in the law\ncourts, in peace and war, in the theatre and in the temple, at the holy\nplaces of Eleusis and Delphi, their men as well as their women.\n\n\"Personally I long inclined towards a view of the world almost\nexclusively influenced by Apollo. I thought that as the sun is\nevidently the great life-giver of all existence, so light, reason,\nsystem, liberty, and consummately devised measures constitute the\nhighest wisdom of the community.\n\n\"In all I wrote or said I worked for the great god of Light, and\nReason, and Progress. I could not find words and phrases trenchant\nenough to express my disdain for sentiments and ideas discountenanced\nby Apollo. I persecuted and fiercely attacked all those dark, chthonic,\nand mysterious passions of which man is replete to overflowing. I hated\nImperialism, I adored Liberty; I extolled Philosophy, and execrated\nOrphic ideas.\n\n\"But at last, when I had gone through the fearful experiences of the\nPeloponnesian War, with all its supreme glories and its unrelieved\nshames, I learned to think otherwise. I learned to see that as man\nhas two souls in his breast, one celestial or Apollinic, the other\nterrestrial or Dionysiac, so there are two gods, and not one, that\ngovern this sub-lunar world.\n\n\"The two are Apollo and Dionysus.\n\n\"One rules the world of light, of political power, of scientific\nreason, and of harmonious muses. The other is the god of unreason, of\npassion, and wild enthusiasm, of that unwieldy Heart of ours which is\nfuller of monsters, and also of precious pearls, than is the wide ocean.\n\n\"Unless in a given commonwealth the legislator wisely provides for the\ncult of both gods, in an orderly and public fashion, Dionysus or Apollo\nwill take fearful revenge for the neglect they suffer at the hands of\nshort-sighted statesmen and impudent unbelievers.\n\n\"In the course of our Great War we have come into contact and\nconflict with many a non-Greek nation, or people whom we rightly term\nBarbarians. For while some of them sedulously, perhaps over-zealously,\nworship Dionysus, they all ignore or scorn Apollo. The consequence is\nthat the great god blinds them to their own advantages, robs them of\nlight and moderation, and they prosper enduringly neither as builders\nof States nor as private citizens in their towns.\n\n\"For Apollo, like all the gods, is a severe god, and his bow he uses as\nunerringly as his lyre.\n\n\"It is even so with Dionysus.\n\n\"The nation that affects to despise him, speedily falls a wretched\nvictim to his awful revenge. Instead of worshipping him openly and\nin public fashion, such a nation falls into grotesque and absurd\neccentricities, that readily degenerate into poisonous vices,\ninfesting every organ of the body politic and depriving social\nintercourse of all its charms. The Spartans, although they allowed\ntheir women a temporary cult of the god Dionysus, yet did not pay\nsufficient attention to him, worshipping mainly Apollo. They had, in\nconsequence, to do much that tends to de-humanisation, and, while many\nadmired them, no one loved them.\n\n\"It was this, my late and hard-won insight into the nature of man,\nwhich I wanted to articulate in the strongest fashion imaginable in\nmy drama called the _Bacch\u00e6_. I see with bitterness how little my\ncommentators grasped the real mystery of my work. If Dionysus was to me\nonly the symbol of wine and merrymaking, why should I have indulged in\nthe gratuitous cruelty of punishing the neglect of Bacchus by the awful\nmurder of a son-king at the hands of his own frenzied mother-queen?\nAll my Hellenic sentiment of moderation shudders at such a ghastly\nexaggeration.\n\n\"Neither the myth nor my drama refers to wanton, barbarous bloodshed;\nand such scholars as assume archaic human sacrifices in honour of\nDionysus, and 'survivals' thereof in Dionysiac rites, ought to be taken\nin hand by the god's own M\u00e6nads and suffer for their impudence.\n\n\"Human sacrifices indeed, but not such as are made by stabbing people\nwith knives and bleeding them to physical death. Human sacrifices in\nthe sense of a terrible loss of human capital, of a de-humanisation\ncaused by the browbeating of the Heart--this and nothing else was the\nmeaning of my drama.\n\n\"And what country is a fuller commentary on the truth of my _Bacch\u00e6_\nthan England?\n\n\"Here is a country that, had Dionysus been properly worshipped by its\npeople, might be the happiest, brightest of all nations, a model for\nall others, and living like the gods in perpetual bliss--that is,\nin perfect equilibrium of thought and action, reason and sentiment,\nbeauty and moderation. They have done much and successfully for Pythian\nApollo; they have established a solid fabric of Liberty and Imperial\nPower; various intellectual pursuits they have cultivated with glory;\nand in their p\u00e6ans to Apollo they have shown exquisite beauties of\nexpression and feeling.\n\n\"But Dionysus they persistently want to neglect, to discredit, to oust.\n\n\"Instead of bowing humbly and openly to the god of enthusiasm, of\nunreasoned lilt of sentiment and passion, and of the intense delight\nin all that lives and throbs and vibrates with pleasure and joy; they\naffect to suppress sentiments, to rein in all pleasures, and to cast a\nslur on joy.\n\n\"And then the god, seeing the scorn with which they treat him, avenges\nhimself, and blinds and maddens them, as he did King Pentheus of\nThebes, King Perseus of Argos, the daughters of Minyas of Orchomenos,\nProitos of Tiryns, and so many others. The god Dionysus puts into their\nhearts absurd thoughts and fantastic prejudices, and some of them spend\nmillions of money a year to stop the use of the Bacchic gifts in a\ncountry which has long been the least drinking country in the white\nworld, and as a matter of fact drinks far too little good and noble\nwine.\n\n\"Others again are made by angry Dionysus to \u03bc\u03b1\u1f31\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 or rage by adding\nto the 250 unofficial yearly fogs of the country, fifty-two official\nones, which they call Sundays.\n\n\"Again others, instigated by the enraged god Dionysus, drive people\nto furor by their intolerable declamations against alleged cruelties\nto animals, while they are themselves full of cruel boredom to human\nbeings.\n\n\"There is, I note with satisfaction, one among them who seems to have\nan inkling of the anger of the god, and who has tried to restore, in a\nfashion, the cult of Dionysiac festivals.\n\n\"He calls his Orphic Association the Salvation Army.\n\n\"They imitate not quite unsuccessfully the doings of the legs and feet\nof the true worshippers of Dionysus; but the spirit of the true cult is\nvery far off from them.\n\n\"And so Dionysus, ignored and looked down upon by the people of this\ncountry, avenges himself in a manner the upshot and sum of which is not\ninadequately represented in my _Bacch\u00e6_.\n\n\"And yet the example of the Hellas of Hellas, or of the town of Athens,\nwhich all of them study in their schools, might have taught them better\nthings.\n\n\"When, by about the eighth or seventh century B.C. (as they say), the\ncult of Dionysus began to spread in Greece, the various States opposed\nit at first with all their power. All these States were Apollinic\ncontrivances. They were ordered by reasoned constitutions, generally by\none man. In them everything was deliberately arranged for light, order,\ngood rhythm, clearness, and system. It was all in honour of Apollo,\nthe city-builder. Naturally the leaders of those States hated Dionysus.\n\n\"However, they were soon convinced of the might of the new god, and,\ninstead of scorning, defying or neglecting him, the wise men at the\nhead of affairs resolved to adopt him officially. In this they followed\n(O Trichas, did they not?) the example of Delphi, which, although\nformerly purely Apollinic, now readily opened its holy halls to the new\ngod Dionysus, so that ever after Delphi was as much Dionysiac as it was\nApollinic.\n\n\"At Athens they honoured the new god so deeply and fully that, not\ncontent with the ordinary rural sports and processions given in his\nhonour, the Athenians created the great Tragedy and Comedy as a fit\ncult of the mighty god. The Athenians were paid to go to those wondrous\nplays, where their Dionysiac soul could and did find ample food,\nand was thereby purged and purified, or, in other words, prevented\nfrom falling into the snares of silly faddists of religious or other\nimpostures. But for those Dionysiac festivals in addition to the cult\nof Apollo, the Greeks would have become the Chinese of Europe.\n\n\"Why, then, do not the English do likewise? Why do they not build a\nmighty, State-kept theatre, or several of them? Why does their State\ntry to pension decrepit persons, and not rather help to balance young\nminds? Why have they no public _agones_ or competitions in singing,\nreciting, and dancing? They do officially, next to nothing for music;\nand if one of their _strategi_ or ministers was known to be a good\npianist or violinist, as they call their instruments, they would scorn\nhim as unworthy of his post. Yet few of such _strategi_ are the equals\nof Epaminondas, who excelled both in dancing and playing our harp.\n\n\"But while they ignore music--that is, Dionysus' chief gift--they\ncrouch before the unharmonious clamour of any wretched Orphic\nteetotaller, vegetarian, or Sabbatarian.\n\n\"This is how Dionysus avenges himself.\n\n\"I see how uneasy they are with regard to the great might of the\nGermans. Why, then, do they not learn to respect Dionysus, who was the\nchief help to the powerful consolidation of the German Empire? German\nmusic kept North and South Germans intimately together; it saved them\nfrom wasting untold sums of money, of time, of force, on arid fads; it\npaved the way to political intimacy.\n\n\"Had the English not neglected Dionysus, had they sung in his honour\nthose soul-attaching songs which once learned in youth can never be\nforgotten, they might have retained the millions of Irishmen, who have\nleft their shores, by the heart-melting charm of a common music. From\nthe lack of such a delicate but enduring tie, the Irish had to be held\nby sterile political measures only.\n\n\"In music there is infinitely more than a mere tinkling of rhythm;\nthere is Dionysus in it. Their teachers of politics sneer at Aristotle\nbecause he treats solemnly of music in his 'Politics.' But Aristotle\ntold me himself that he sneers at them, seeing what absurd socialistic\nschemes they discuss because they do not want to steady the souls of\ntheir people by a proper cult of Dionysus.\n\n\"Socialism is doomed to the fate of Pentheus at the terrible hands of\nDionysus. Socialism despises Dionysus; the god will speedily drive it\nto madness.\n\n\"See, friends, we must leave--yonder Apollo is rising; he wants to join\nDionysus, who passed us a little while ago. Should both stay in this\ncountry, and should they both be properly worshipped, we might from\ntime to time come back again. At present I propose to leave forthwith\nfor the Castalian springs.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: Reprinted, with permission, from the _Nineteenth Century\nand After_ for July 1908.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE SEVENTH NIGHT\n\nSOCRATES, DIOGENES, AND PLATO ON RELIGION\n\n\nDuring the seventh night the gods and heroes met again at Rome in the\nColiseum. The splendid moon hung deep from the sky like a huge lantern,\nand shed her mild and plaintive rays over all the immense building.\nThe immortals, in their light dresses and lighter movements, formed a\ngorgeous contrast to the sombre stones of the vast edifice. When all\nhad taken their seats, Zeus rose in all his majesty and spake:\n\n\"Gods and heroes! We have derived much exquisite distraction from the\nstories of Alcibiades, Diogenes, Plato, Aristotle, Columbus and C\u00e6sar\nabout the various features of lay-life in England. If now I call upon\nyou, Socrates, to tell us something about the religious life of the\nEnglish, it is, I need hardly assure you, not in a spirit of mockery\nthat I do so. What we here think about it all, we know, and need not\nutter it. When Athena in her indignation more than once asked me to\nhurl my lightning into her former abode at Athens, into the remains of\nthe Parthenon, I told her something in secret--she knows what,--and did\nnot touch the holy temple. Even so shall I deal with the temples of\nthe little ones. We shall listen to you, Socrates, with sympathy and\nattention.\"\n\nUp rose the sturdy figure of the sage. His features had become even\nmore illuminated with humanity, and thus more divine, and over his face\nerred a mild smile. He spoke as follows:\n\n\"O Zeus and the other gods and heroes! In my mortal time I frequently\nlistened to the marvellous stories of Herodotus, and while I never\npermitted myself to question his honesty, as later on Plutarch did, yet\nI could not help doubting some of his tales about the religions of the\nvarious peoples he describes. Had I then known and learnt what I have\nlearnt since in England, I should not have felt the slightest doubt\nregarding his statements.\n\n\"I had been in England for some time before I began to understand\nsomething of their curious religions. For, they have not one religion,\nbut quite a number of such. At first I thought they had different\nreligions according to the boundaries of their different counties. I\nfancied that such a neat geographical distribution might render the\nwhole matter more methodic. But I found that that was not the case.\nIn the same way I tried to find out whether their religions were not\ndistributed according to their sixty different social classes. This too\ndid not work. I then tried their professions; after that, their dress;\nafter that, their income-tax; then, their private games.\n\n\"In that way I finally came to reach the true lines of cleavage between\ntheir numerous religions. For, to put it briefly, their religions are\nparallel to and dependent on each man's hobbies.\n\n\"If, for instance, an Englishman dislikes wine, and thus leans towards\nPuritanic ideas, he will be much inclined to adopt the religion of one\nCalvin, who taught to enjoy life by killing all its joys.\n\n\"Another Englishman, being very partial to tobacco and to smoking, will\nhave a natural bent towards the High Church, in which much incense is\nburnt and much smoke produced.\n\n\"Another, being very methodical and punctilious, will regard Methodism\nwith much sympathy.\n\n\"A fourth, being afflicted with great susceptibility to moral shocks,\ngoes among the Quakers.\n\n\"In that way I began to feel my way through the maze of their\nreligions. The strangest thing, however, was that all these\nmultifarious believers staunchly maintained that they took their\ndivergent creeds from one and the same book: from the Bible. In that\nrespect they reminded me of my whilom adversaries at Athens, the\nSophists, who could prove the pro and con of any given assertion with\nequal volubility.\n\n\"In order to imbue myself fully with the spirit of their beliefs, I\nfrequently went to church on Sundays.\n\n\"To be quite frank, I do not very well see why in England they call\nthat day a Sunday. There is no sun in it, and otherwise it resembles\nnight more than anything else. It ought to be called Un-day. I\nconcluded that everything arranged for that day was done in order to\nbring out its resemblance to night ever so strongly. Thus, lest people\nshould forego sleep on that drowsy day, the people of England have\nintroduced thousands of soporifics in the shape of sermons. What other\nuse that drug may have I could never see.\n\n\"To me as an old Hellene it seemed a thing quite beyond comprehension,\nwhy people should go out of their way to salary a person for making\nthem feel creepy at the same place, and on the same day of the week,\nby repeating the same admonitions in nearly the same words hundreds\nof times a year. Evidently their lives on the other days of the week\nare so spiritless, dull and dry, that they want to get at least on\nSundays some moral hair-friction with spiritual _eau de Cologne_. We\nHellenes never thought of doing such things. It would have struck us as\na personal insult to suppose that we needed such perpetual moralisation\nat stated times.\n\n\"Hippocrates told me that some constitutions do need the constant use\nof purgative waters. But do all people suffer from ethical constipation?\n\n\"I could not help smiling at the idea of my preaching like that to the\nAthenians of my time. They would have handed me the goblet with hemlock\nlong before they did do it. Each householder would have considered my\npretensions to moralise them as a slander on his private life. Each of\nthem tried to make his own house a chapel full of constantly practised\npiety, dutifulness, and humanity. What need had he of my sermons? When\nhe joined the great festivals of the city, it was to do his duty by the\nother Athenians, just as he joined the army on land, or the navy on\nsea, for the same purpose.\n\n\"We knew of no dogmas. We did not think that a man need stake all his\nsoul on the belief in certain abstract dogmas. If he did not feel\ninclined to linger on one story told of Zeus, he might lovingly dwell\non any other of the numberless stories told of him. If some said that\nZeus was born in Crete, others maintained that he was born elsewhere.\nIt seemed to us immaterial whether this fact or that was or was not\nhistorically exact.\n\n\"Not so the little ones. For them religion is viewed as a matter of\ndocumentary evidence, like a bill of sale. They constantly clamour\nfor 'evidence,' 'proofs' and 'verifications.' Their theologians are\nsolicitors and barristers, but not religious men. If I had asked\nPericles for 'evidences' of the religious cult practised by his family\nor _gens_, the Alcm\u00e6onid\u00e6, he would have indignantly told his slaves\nto put me out of the house, just as if I had asked him to give me\n'evidences' of his wife's virtue.\n\n\"We held that Religion is not a matter of 'evidences,' any more than\nLife, Health, Sleep, or Dreams stand in need of being 'proved' by\n'evidences.' We know that we live, or that we are in good health; we do\nnot care to listen to long-winded arguments proving it.\n\n\"On my rambles in England I met many a clergyman. I remember one who\noccupied a high position at Canterbury, and was a very learned man.\nI was rather curious to learn what he thought of the religion of the\nGreeks. He treated me to the following remarks:\n\n\"'The Religion of the Greeks? Why, my dear sir, they had none. The\nGreeks were pagans, heathens. They believed in all sorts of immoral\nstories about immoral gods and goddesses; they were sunk in wholesale\ncorruption and rottenness. Their vices smelt to heaven. Did ever any\nGreek say that he who smiteth you on your left cheek, ought to be\noffered your right cheek too?'\n\n\"'No,' I said, continued Socrates, 'we never said that, because we knew\nthat nobody would ever do it. We did so many noble actions at home\nand in war that we never felt the urgency of exaggerating actions in\nwords, that we never did in fact.'\n\n\"'Is that it?' he answered. 'Do you mean to say that we only say such\nthings, because we never practise them?'\n\n\"'Precisely,' said I. '\"Incapable of the deed, you try to embrace its\nshadow, the word,\" as Democritus said.'\n\n\"'Even if we never practised them, is it not sublime to say them? Is\nit not increasing our moral worth when we profess to be gentle and\ngenerous and superhumanly good, not exactly on the day when we make\nsuch professions, but possibly on some subsequent day?'\n\n\"'I am afraid,' said I, 'this we used to call the talk of sycophants\nand hypocrites.'\n\n\"'But for my Religion, sir, I should reply in very offensive terms. We\nare no hypocrites. We believe what we say, and all that is required is\nto believe. We do not trouble about the application of our beliefs, any\nmore than the mathematician troubles about the practical application of\nhis theorems.'\n\n\"'This is my very objection to your belief. Religion is not a theorem\nbut an action, an active sentiment. Our religion was like our language:\nall active verbs, all movement and energy, all expression and\nsentiment, but no theorems.'\n\n\"'But just look at the superstition and downright fiction in all your\nmythology! Who has ever seen Apollo, Dionysus, the Graces, Aphrodite,\nor any other of your numberless gods? They are all mere phantasies,\nmeant to amuse, but not to elevate. They belong to the infancy of the\nreligious sentiment, and are only a more artistic form of Fetishism.'\n\n\"'I quite believe you,' I said, 'that you never met the Graces, nor\nAphrodite. Perhaps they avoided you as carefully as you did them.'\n\n\"'Sir, this is frivolous. In our Religion there is nothing frivolous.\nAllow me to be quite frank with you. It is stated that you confessed to\nhaving felt the touch of some Phryne's beautiful hand on your shoulder\nfor several days. Sir, this characterises you, and all the heathen\nGreeks. My mind staggers at the idea that one of our bishops should\never confess to such a frivolous sentiment. We too have shoulders; and\nthere are still alas! Phrynes amongst us. But none of our class would\never confess to having felt what you admitted to have felt. There you\nhave precisely the difference between you and us.'\n\n\"'You are ashamed of your humanity, and we were not; this is the whole\ndifference. We were so full of our humanity, that we humanised even our\ngods. You are so ashamed of your humanity, that you de-humanise and\nsupra-humanise your god.'\n\n\"'Disgraceful, sir, most disgraceful. Our humanity is _in_ God!'\n\n\"'And only in Him; so that none is left in you.'\n\n\"At these words,\" continued Socrates, \"the man left me.\n\n\"A few days later I was at a place which they call Oxford, and where\ndwell and teach many of their Sophists. A young man is there taught to\nassume that callous look which is very imposing to Hindoos and negroes.\nNothing surprises him, as nothing stirs him, except the latest shape of\na cuff or a collar. He becomes in due time a curious blend of a monk, a\nfop, and a pedant.\n\n\"I was led to one of the most renowned of their theologians, whose name\nin our language means a coachman. He received me with a curious smile.\nBefore I could say anything he spoke as follows:\n\n\"'I understand, sir, that you pose as the late Socrates. Well,\nwell--come, come! I must tell you in confidence that I, being a higher\ncritic, am a perfect adept in the great science of the vanishing trick.\nSuppose you bring forward a famous personage of history, and want him\nto disappear. Nothing is easier to me. I ask the man first of all very\nsimple questions, such as:\n\n\"'Who asked him to exist?\n\n\"'Why did he choose his mother in preference to many other able women?\n\n\"'What made him prefer his father to so many other capable men?\n\n\"'For what reason did he fix his particular place of birth, let alone\nthe time of the year, month, week and day where and when he was born?\n\n\"'What motive had he in filling the air with his screamings soon after\nhis birth?\n\n\"'Could he give any satisfactory explanation of his various illnesses\nas a child? That is, whether he had measles and whooping-cough out of\nmalice prepense, out of cussedness, or out of any hopes of receiving\nmore attention?\n\n\"'When the man cannot satisfactorily answer these clear and positive\nquestions, I put him down first as a suspect. Then I proceed to further\nquestions.\n\n\"'If he is said to have won a battle, I ask him why he fought it on\nland and not on sea? Or _vice vers\u00e2_.\n\n\"'Why he did not, while fighting the battle, accurately determine the\ndegrees of longitude and latitude of the locality of the battle?\n\n\"'Or why his chief general's name began with an L and not with an S?\n\n\"'If he is said to have been an ancient legislator, I ask him why he\ntook his laws from his neighbours?\n\n\"'What mode of registration and publication of the law he observed?\n\n\"'Whether the paper of his code was hand-made, or wood-pulp?\n\n\"'Whether the water-marks on it were original or were imitations?\n\n\"'Whether he used ink or paint?\n\n\"'Whether he wrote them standing or sitting?\n\n\"'Whether he used the same pen for writing his nouns and verbs? Or\nwhether he had different pens for the different parts of speech?\n\n\"'Whether he really knew what a noun was? Whether he liked male\nterminations, or preferred to revel in female endings? Whether he was\nnot prejudiced against pronouns, or felt an idiosyncracy against the\nletters b, k, and z?\n\n\"'If the man cannot satisfactorily answer all these pertinent\nquestions, I declare him to be a fraud. I tell him straight into his\nface that he never existed, and then I revile him as a low character\nfor pretending an existence that is totally unfounded. Now, as to your\ncase. You say, you are Socrates. Can you answer any of the questions I\nenumerated? Let us take the first question: \"Who asked you to exist?\"'\n\n\"'Athens, I presume,' said Socrates.\n\n\"'Athens? To dispose of this answer, we must first of all see whether\nAthens existed. I put it to you, sir, can you prove that Athens\nexisted?'\n\n\"'I can; for, it still exists.'\n\n\"'Note the glaring fallacy! A thing that now exists, now, that is, on\nthe brink of the present and the future, can that be said to have _eo\nipso_ existed in the past? I put it to you most seriously, is the brink\nof the present, the past? Is the brink of the future, the past? Can,\nthen, the brink of the present _and_ the future be called the past?\nAthens may have existed. That is, a number of houses and streets, once\ncalled Athens, may have existed. But can you say, I put it to you most\nmostly, can you say that the houses of Athens asked you to exist? Or\ndid the streets do so?'\n\n\"'By Athens we mean the Athenians.'\n\n\"'Oh, I see, the Athenians. Who were they? Two-thirds were\nforeign slaves; one-fifth were _metiks_, that is, denizens of\nforeign extraction. Consequently, two-thirds and one-fifth being\nthirteen-fifteenths, the overwhelming majority of the town being\n_uitlanders_, you cannot possibly be said to have been asked into\nexistence by them. Remain two-fifteenths of Athenians proper. Of these\nthe great majority were your enemies, who drove you into death. Can\nthey, who furiously clamoured for your death, be said to have violently\nwished for your birth?\n\n\"'Remain, therefore, only a handful of Athenians who _may_ have desired\nyou to exist. How could they give due expression to their wish? In\nthe Assembly matters were decided by a majority, which they did not\ncontrol. In the law courts were hundreds, nay thousands of judges in\neach case, of whom, as _per supra_, the great majority were your\nenemies, who would have decided against your birth. In the Temples such\ndecisions were never taken.\n\n\"'The intention of your prenatal friends could thus remain but a mere\nprivate wish of a few citizens, but could not possibly be an inherent\ntendency or desire of Athens. _Quod erat demonstrandum._ And since you\nhave been unable to give a satisfactory answer to the first of the\ncrucial questions, I put you down as a suspect.'\n\n\"I did not say anything,\" said Socrates. \"I was amazed beyond\nexpression that such nonsense could be allowed to pose as searching and\n'scientific' analysis of facts. But he triumphantly continued:\n\n\"'You say nothing? _Qui tacet consentire videtur_,--silence means\nconsent. I can see in your face how overawed you are by my sagacity, I\nhave unmasked you. We unmask everything and anything. We unmask stones,\npyramids, crocodiles, ichneumons, princes, kings, prophets, and heroes.\nWe strike terror into the common people by our vast erudition and our\npenetrating sagacity.\n\n\"'We are the Sherlock Holmes of theology.\n\n\"'We run down any pretender, any scribe, any man who has the impudence\nof posing as a somebody. Given that we are not much; how can he be\nanything?\n\n\"'If you will stay here for some time, you will soon know a lot about\nwhat did not happen in ancient Israel.\n\n\"'Oxford is the Scotland Yard of all those humbugs that pass by the\nname of Abraham, Moses, King David, Samson, the Prophets, and other\nimpostors. We have pin-pricked them out of existence!\n\n\"'At present we have proved that all the Religion of Israel was stolen\nfrom Babylon. In a few years we shall prove that the Babylonians stole\nit all from the Elamites, farther east. This, once well established,\nwill give us a welcome means of proving that the Elamites stole it\nall from the Thibetans; who stole it from the Chinese; who stole it\nfrom the Japanese; who stole it from the Redskins in America; who\nstole it from the Yankees; who stole it from Oxford. And so we shall\nreturn to this great University and provide occupation and fame for the\nhigher critics of the next three hundred years. Where are you now, O\nPseudo-Socrates?'\n\n\"I was unable to say a word for some time. When I collected myself to a\ncertain extent, I said:\n\n\"'O Sophist, if our Religion in ancient Greece had had no other\nadvantage than that of saving us from the works of \"higher critics,\" it\nhas deserved well of us. We were immune from that disease, at any rate.\nDion of Prusa and others wrote declamations against the historicity\nof the Trojan War; but nobody took them for more than what they were,\nfor rhetorical exercises. No Hellene would have paid the slightest\nattention, nor accorded the slightest recognition to men like yourself.\nThe English must be suffering from very ugly religious crochets and\nspiritual eczemas, to have recourse to drugs and pills offered by such\nmedicine-men.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Other friends in England to whom I expressed my profound aversion to\nthis puny scepticism in matters of Religion, advised me to attend the\nsermons given by a relatively young man with white hair in a temple in\nthe city. They said that in him and his addresses there was religious\nsentiment. I accepted their advice and went repeatedly to hear what was\ncalled _The New Religion_.\n\n\"The young man talked well and impressively. He told them that two and\ntwo made four, and absolutely refused to make five.\n\n\"With much emphasis he declared that he could not believe in miracles,\nbecause of the miraculous way in which they happened. If, he said, a\nmiracle should happen in an orderly fashion, performed under police\nrevision, say, in Regent Street in front of Peter Robinson's, the\narrangement and whole sequence of the procedure being duly anticipated\nand announced by the _Daily Nail_ or the _Daily X-Rays_, then indeed he\nwould say: 'O Lord, O Lord, I am convinced.'\n\n\"'But,' the white-haired young man said, 'how can you, the rest of the\nworld, or anyone else suppose that I could believe a miracle, that\npops in from mid-air, in the most disorderly and unreasonable fashion,\nwithout having given notice either to the police or to the editor of\nthe _Daily Nail_ or the _Daily X-Rays_?\n\n\"'Such a miracle is a mere vagrant, a loafer, a _d\u00e9class\u00e9_ or\n_d\u00e9racin\u00e9_, as we say in Burmese. It has neither documents to\nlegitimate itself with, nor any decent social connections. It disturbs\nthe professor of physics at that great seat of untaught knowledge, the\nLondon University; it annoys all chemists, and confirms my colleagues\nin the other pulpits in their preposterous superstitions.\n\n\"'My brethren and _sithren_, I tell you there are no miracles; there\nnever were any; there never can be any. Just let me tell you an\ninteresting experience I had the other day with a man who travelled in\nthe south of France, a country which, but for the fact that England is\ngood enough to patronise her, would long since have disappeared from\nthe surface of this or any other planet.\n\n\"'The gentleman in question spoke of Lourdes, and the miracles he had\nseen there. I listened for a while with patience; at last I could bear\nit no longer, and the following dialogue arose between us:\n\n\"He: '\"Lourdes is the most convincing case of the miraculous power of\nthe true Church.\"\n\n\"I: '\"The true Church is in the city of London, sir, and there is no\nmiracle going on there whatever.\"\n\n\"He: '\"I completely differ, especially if, for argument's sake, I\naccept your statement that the temple in the city is the true Church.\nIf that be so, then the miracles wrought there are even greater than\nthose observable at Lourdes.\"\n\n\"I: '\"I thank you for your rapid conversion. I am glad to see that you\nfeel the power of my Church. This power comes from the great truths I\nteach. But as to miracles proper, I must, if reluctantly, decline the\nhonour. I repeat it, there are no miracles in my Church, neither taught\nnor wrought.\"\n\n\"He: '\"Come, come! Not only are there miracles in your Church, but they\nare also of the very same type that I noted at Lourdes.\"\n\n\"I: '\"Sir, how can you insult me so gratuitously? Lourdes swarms with\nso-called miracles, which are no miracles at all, but only the effects\nof auto-hypnotisation. A person who can believe in the healing power of\nSt ----\"\n\n\"He: '\"Steady, steady, my dear sir. I do not allude to that healing\npower at all. Again, placing myself on your standpoint, I will, for\nargument's sake, admit that the waters at Lourdes have no miraculous\nhealing power owing to the influence of this saint or that. You might\npermit me to remark, nevertheless, that it is just as much of a miracle\nas when the drugs prescribed by our doctors happen to cure us. For,\nwhat could be more miraculous than that? But this is only by the way.\nI allude to quite another miracle, and I can only express my amazement\nthat you do not guess it more quickly.\"\n\n\"I: '\"I am quite out of touch with miracles.\"\n\n\"He: '\"Bravo! This is precisely what the great Lessing used to say: the\ngreatest of all miracles is the one that people do not notice as such\nat all. Just consider: do you not draw vast masses of people to your\nsermons? Have you not persuaded most of them that you have founded a\nnew Religion? What on earth could be more miraculous than that!\n\n\"'\"In your sermons you dance on a thin rope of logic made out of the\nguts of a few an\u00e6mic cats dropped from the dissecting table of science.\nIf therefore you had won a reputation as a rope-dancer, one could\nreadily understand it. But you have won the reputation of a founder\nof a new religion, which is to a logical rope what catguts are to a\ngreat violinist. Is that not marvellous? Savonarola would have charged\nyou, at best, with blacking his shoes, and yet people take you for a\nmodern Savonarola. Is that not marvellous? Is it anything short of a\nmiracle? Is not this the very miracle of Lourdes? Hundreds of thousands\nof intelligent Frenchmen believe in the healing power of water in\nconsequence of its canonisation by a saint. Is this not a miracle in\nour time?\"\n\n\"I: '\"If I am to be infinitely less worthy a man than Savonarola\nbecause I believe in the infinity and truth of Science, I gladly forego\nthe honour. The more light we pour into the human heart, the nobler it\nwill be.\"\n\n\"He: '\"So you believe that your hearers follow you on account of the\nlight you give them? Pray, abandon any such idea forthwith. They cling\nto you because of your interesting personality, and because you give\nsatisfaction to their vanity. In persuading them that the life-blood of\nthe 'old' Religion is mere stale water, they congratulate themselves on\ntheir being intellectually superior to the orthodox believers.\n\n\"'\"Is there no one who has the courage to say aloud that the canker\nof all Religions in England is their constant toadying to Reason and\nScience? The theory of Evolution, first rightly condemned by the\nclergy, is now an established costume without which no bishop would\ndare to officiate in sermons or books. Naturalists all over the world\nlustily attack and combat Evolution; but no English clergyman ventures\nto doubt it. He will and must toady to what he thinks is 'Science.'\n\n\"'\"Formerly Science was the _ancilla_, or maid of Theology; now\nTheology is the mere charwoman of any physiologist or biologist.\"\n\n\"I: '\"And so it shall be. I see, my good man, I must talk to you a\nlittle more plainly. We theologians want nothing but authority. We\nhave long since learned that this world is governed by authority, and\nby nothing else; just as is the next world, if there be any. Now, in\nformer times Science was not imposing enough. Being, as it was, in\nits infancy, it had little authority. So we trampled upon it, and\nside-tracked it with disdain. At present, on the other hand, Science\nhas become quite an influential member of society. It goes on doing\nmarvellous things and inventing incredible feats of physical, chemical,\nor biological triumph.\n\n\"'\"What is more natural than that we now not only receive the _homo\nnovus_, the man of Science, but that we also try to avail ourselves of\nthe authority his exploits give him?\n\n\"'\"Take this nation. It is thoroughly materialist and on its knees\nbefore Science. For the last sixty years Science, and nothing but\nphysical Science has been knocked into its head. This nation thinks\nthat any study outside Science proper is pleasant humbugging. They are\ncompletely ignorant of human history. Give us Science! Give us facts,\nfacts! Of course they say so, because facts save them the trouble of\nthinking, and do not allow one to pose as a thinker.\n\n\"'\"Facts, scientific facts, that is all that they want. Human thought,\nthey think, is a physical excretion from the brain, just as tears\nare from the lachrymal glands, or other liquids from the kidneys.\nHence, they infer, all that is needed is to study, in a physiological\nlaboratory, the brain.\n\n\"'\"What's the use of literary history, for instance? If you want to\nknow it, you have only to study the brain which is the cause of at\nleast some portions of literature.\n\n\"'\"What is the use of military history? Study, in a physiological\nlaboratory, the arm, not arms; since it is the arm that fights.\n\n\"'\"What is the use of Sociology, say, the study of the Family? Study,\nin a physiological laboratory, the nerves of certain organs which\nconstitute the true cause of families. And similarly with all other\nstudies relating to the humanities. Science; it is all a matter of\nScience proper.\"\n\n\"'Under these conditions,' the white-haired one continued, 'what can\nwe do but take the requisite authority there where we find it best\ndeveloped, in Science? Anything that pleases the _grand seigneur_, we\nhasten to acquiesce in while shoe-licking him. Science proper, that is,\nPhysics, Chemistry, and Physiology disavow Imponderables, Tendencies,\nPresent Projections of the Future, Incomprehensibles, etc., etc.; so do\nwe.\n\n\"'Science cannot move from certain mathematical principles; speedily we\ntoo cry aloud that we cannot cease hugging these dear principles.\n\n\"'Science can never analyse or reconstrue the mystery of all mysteries:\nPersonality; at once we novel theologians exclaim, beating our worn\nbreasts, that Personality is no historic force at all.\n\n\"'Science cannot possibly so much as approach the problem of\ncreativeness, creation, or origin of life; hence we gallop after it\nlike newsboys, screaming at the top of our voices: \"Latest news! No\ncreation! No origins! Bill just passed! Enormous majority! One penny!\nLatest news!\"\n\n\"'Cannot you see that? Can you not grasp that as in Republican\ncountries we are Republicans, and in Monarchical ones, Monarchists;\neven so in an age overawed by the surface-scratchers of physical\nScience, we too must feel the itch and scratch away with violence?\n\n\"'We cannot possibly afford to forego the authority at present in\nthe gift of Science. How could I dare to treat Jesus as one of\nthose mysterious persons that bring to a head both vast and secular\ntendencies of the Past, and Present Projections of an immense Future?\nHe, I hear from a certain humanist, was the heir of all that marvellous\nPower of Personality, called Cephalism, which shaped all classical\nantiquity; and at the same time He was the Anticipative Projection of a\nvast Future.\n\n\"'Perhaps.\n\n\"'But could any process approved by Science proper be applied to such a\nmode of thinking? None. Consequently I am bound to belittle, to ignore\nit.\n\n\"'As long as Jesus is not amenable to that mode of biography or to that\nkind of reflections which we apply to the life of cockroaches or gnats,\nwe cannot seriously speak of Him.\n\n\"'Or is not His preaching like the laying of eggs by a bird, out of\nwhich eggs new birds arise in due time?\n\n\"'Is not His Church like the nest of a spotted woodpecker made in the\nhollow of some ancient tree?\n\n\"'Are not His apostles like the watch-birds amongst wandering cranes?\n\n\"'If, then, we want to study Him scientifically, we must treat Him\nand His exactly as we treat a hoopoe or a jackdaw. Not that we really\nknow anything about a hoopoe or a jackdaw. But in treating Him in\nthat fashion we can use all the sounding terms of Science, and thus,\ndon't you see, secure all the authority of which Science to-day has so\nplentiful a share.\n\n\"'I have so far founded the New Religion. But I am not quite satisfied\nwith it. I feel we need a Newest Religion. Ever since my birth the\nworld has stepped into a new era. Something has been wrenched from its\nformer place. I must at once see to it.\n\n\"'Meanwhile I am preparing a Life of Jesus on a truly scientific basis.\nThe Lives hitherto published are completely out of date. They lack the\ntrue scientific spirit.\n\n\"'My \"Life of Jesus\" will have three sections. The first will contain\nthe Antecedents. I will start with the soil, the air, and the waters\nof Palestine. I will investigate the influence which the geology of\nPalestine had on Jesus; especially, whether the stratification of that\nsoil does not correspond to the stratification of the mind of Jesus. In\nthat way I will obtain the precise nomenclature of the various layers\nof the intellect, human and Messianic, of Jesus.\n\n\"'Thus, I will determine his pal\u00e6olithic, neolithic, pliocene, miocene\nand other tertiary mental formations. That will be inestimable.\n\n\"'I will then proceed to a close analysis of the air in Palestine, and\ntry to determine how much argon it contains. This, together with the\njargon talked round Bethlehem, and a close study of the remains of the\nKing Sargon will give me a solid foundation for my researches into\nthe feelings of Jesus. I will thus make sure whether these feelings\nwere subconscious, auto-hypnotic, auto-R\u00f6ntgenising, \u00e6roplanesque, or\nzeppelinury.\n\n\"'Should I find some radium in the stones near Bethlehem or Nazareth,\nI shall be enabled to account for the precociousness and light-emitting\ngift of Jesus.\n\n\"'Once I have thus settled the Antecedents, I will proceed to His life.\nIn accordance with the method of zoologists and biologists, to whom one\nfox is as good as another, and one rabbit as serviceable as another, I\nwill study the daily life of a modern rabbi in Sichem, or Jerusalem.\n\n\"'I will measure his nose, his lips, the width and height of his mouth\nwhen yawning and when asleep, his weight, his rapidity of walk, the\nloudness of his voice, his pulse, his heart, his meals, and his drinks.\nThis will give me valuable data for the life of Jesus. I will reduce\nall these data to finely-drawn statistical tables.\n\n\"'As soon as I shall be in possession of these tables I will attack\nthe most important part of my work: I will not tire until I discover\nthe microbe which imparted to all that Jesus said an extraordinary\npower of captivation. That microbe, I have no doubt, can be distilled\nfrom a comparative solution of Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius, Mahomet\nand Jesus. I name it _microbus prophetizans Huxleyi_. I shall, I\ntrust, isolate it and send specimens to the South Kensington Museum, I\nwill----'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"When the white-haired one,\" said Socrates, \"had arrived at that stage\nof his wanderings, I left the hall. I felt sea-sick. These little ones\nthink that they can triangulate the human personality, because they\nhave triangulated many of their countries. They never consider that\ntriangulation, and all scientific methods, refer, and can refer only\nto quantity or material quality. There is no geometry of love, hatred,\nor spiritual power. It is the old error of the Pythagoreans which you,\nO Pythagoras, admitted to me after having whiled in Olympus for a few\nhundred years.\n\n\"Numbers are not the souls of things.\n\n\"Personality is the soul of things.\n\n\"We humans are pre-eminently creative. Our chief force is not intellect\nnor will-power. We are neither Hegelians nor Schopenhauerians. In point\nof sagacity many an animal transcends us; and did you not avow to me, O\nLeibniz, that the difference between you and a yokel is not so much in\nyour being more intellectual, or in your having more brain-power, but\nin your having more creative power?\n\n\"Intellect, or the force of close thinking, may be found in abundance\nin the city of London. Had people devoted as keen an interest to\nscience or philosophy as city men do to money transactions, we should\nbe much further than we are.\n\n\"But people differ very much less in power of intellect than in\nstrength of originality.\n\n\"The great men of Literature or Science or Art are not very much\ncleverer in point of intellect than is the rest of the people. They\nexceed them in point of originality; that is, they exceed them because\nthey devote themselves to digging in unbroken ground. It is in this way\nthey create.\n\n\"It is in this sense that each human is, to a certain extent, new\nground; and consequently, that the Great Humans are absolutely new\nphenomena. In other words, they are new creations. They have an X in\nthem that no x-rays can penetrate into.\n\n\"Science can comprehend averages only. _Nova_ she cannot approach.\nThis is why Great Humans have invariably been disavowed, rejected, and\npooh-poohed by men of Science.\n\n\"Why has a lily of the valley bell-like blossoms? Science will never\nexplain it. Those bells are part of the personality of the lily; and\nScience can understand it as little as a crofter could understand a\nrefined Athenian.\n\n\"You may imagine, O gods and heroes, what I felt when I heard so many\nclergymen talk so 'scientifically' of The Greatest of Humans, who by\nHis being so was _eo ipso_ Supra-human too.\n\n\"Science is unable to account for a lily of the valley; and yet shall\nScience be able to reconstruct Jesus?\n\n\"I should have shrunk from the task of reconstructing, in the manner of\nmen of Science, my Phrygian slave.\n\n\"One can re-recreate, as it were, many of the phenomena of Personality,\nbut not by the methods of Science. Personalities belong to the\nHumanities, whose methods are totally different from those of Science\nproper.\n\n\"It was said of me that in my mortal time I brought Philosophy from\nHeaven to Earth. I wish, O Zeus, you would allow me to mix again with\nthe people in order to raise their Philosophy from Earth to Heaven.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen Socrates had finished, a deep silence fell over the Assembly.\nIn the divine face of Zeus there was no movement to be noticed, and\nnot an encouraging word fell from his lips. Suddenly one heard a loud\nlaughter. Everybody turned towards the place where the laughter came\nfrom, and felt relieved to see that Diogenes was preparing to address\nthe Assembly. Zeus nodded consent, and the whilom Cynic spake as\nfollows:\n\n\"Few things have afforded me greater pleasure than your tale, O\nSocrates. Verily I believe that your renewed presence among the little\nones is much less needed than is mine. I am the only man that could set\nright the wrenched religious fibres of these mannikins and womenfolk.\nBut for my respect for you and the Assembly, I should have burst into\nan unseemly laughter while you were talking of their New Religion,\nwhich is but a resurrection-pie less the resurrection.\n\n\"To talk to them seriously about the incapacity of any physical\nScience or its methods to cope with the problems of Religion is to\nwaste precious time. Let them have their Evolution, Convolution, or\nDevolution, by all means. The more they welter in it, the more my\npupils on earth have a welcome chance of success. The official clergy\nthink wonders of their cleverness in trying to make Religion into a\nCentaur, half man, half horse, or half Science and half Belief. While\nthey are at it, my pupils, infinitely cleverer than all the clergy,\nmake glorious headway in all directions.\n\n\"Is it not side-splitting to note how these clergymen are unable to see\nthat the more people learn of Science proper; the more they accustom\ntheir minds to the dry biscuits of scientific methods; the more they\nwill inwardly long for the drinks of Mysticism?\n\n\"The Roman clergy, trained by two thousand years, knows all that but\ntoo well.\n\n\"Your plain soul, your hard-working, scientifically untutored peasant\nor small _bourgeois_ is quite satisfied with a little, hearty Belief,\nand is indifferent to Mysticism and religious Extravagancies. It is\nyour high-strung, modern, scientifically trained mind that impatiently\ncraves more than sober Science can give it.\n\n\"Just look at the Europoids in the western continent. In the United\nStates everything is reasoned out, systematised, methodised to a\nnicety. Their whole life looks like their towns: regular squares;\nstraight streets, named after the consecutive numbers; labelled,\ndocketed, built and shaped according to definite rules. In an American\ntown nothing surprises one, except that the people themselves do not\nhave each his respective number painted on his back.\n\n\"As the streets, so are the Constitution, the Schools, the\nTerritory,--everything is ruled like a sheet of music. In the 250,000\nschools, in the 500,000 Universities, and the 600,000 libraries, all\nfounded (or confounded?) by a few multis, you hear nothing but Reason,\nReason, Reason. You get Reason boiled, roasted, fried or stewed. You\nget it from injectors, from which it will jet out in smaller or larger\njets, so that if it be too much for you, one can, by pulling the piston\nbackwards, again store it up in the injector.\n\n\"Instead of traditions, unarticulated tendencies, latent\n_sous-entendus_, and delicate imponderables, there are only machines,\nledgers, and registers, articulated with a vengeance, cryingly\nexplicit and loud and indelicate. Everything is bound in the leather\nof reasonableness, in the hide of method, and in the wooden boards of\nLogic. Instead of on the rich soup of sentiments, men and women in the\nStates are fed on scientific tabloids containing sentiments reduced\nto their ultimate chemical essences. A woman laughs at romance; her\nrelations to men are 'reasonable.' A child laughs at piety; his or\nher relations to parents are tanned by 'sense'! A servant sneers at\nloyalty; her relations to the masters are macerated in the vinegar of\n'inalienable right of reason.'\n\n\"All this is excellent--for me. For, what happens?\n\n\"The Americans indulging in too many orgies of Reasonableness; the\nAmericans having thrown over-board all motives of historic truth in\norder to live under the banner of reasoned truth only, have long\nsince become sick of Reason. They resemble a crew on a big ship\nthat has stored its pantries and larders with nothing else than\nmeat-extracts and tabloids. That crew, after a month's journey or so,\nwill unfailingly sink or else eat the most loathsome fish rather than\ncontinue feeding on its scientific food.\n\n\"After all, when all is said and done, the Americans too are humans.\nThey too want more than tabloids and meat-extracts. Tons of tins will\nnot replace one fresh cabbage. On this eternal truth my disciples go to\nwork in the States.\n\n\"Fully aware, as they are, that the Americans must be and are deadly\n'tired' of Reason, they hasten to give the people of the States the\nmost exciting devices of Unreason. One of them invents Mormonism;\nthe other, Spiritualism; the third, Zionism; the fourth, Oneidaism,\nor general Promiscuity; the fifth, Christian Science; the sixth,\nIncarnationism; and so forth, and so on, _ad infinitum_.\n\n\"Can my triumph be greater? I will carefully avoid telling them\nthat by worshipping Apollo extravagantly while neglecting the great\ngod Dionysus, they have fallen wretched victims to the wrath of the\nlatter. Just let them go on writing contemptuous reflections on Greek\nMythology, and glory in the 'wonderful century' in which Dionysus\nis declared to be a mere myth. As long as they do that, I shall not\nlack plenty of successful disciples, and my name will wax greater and\ngreater, until nobody shall be able to find, even did he use the latest\nEdison lamp, a single well-balanced human in all the States.\n\n\"Why, then, take so many English clergymen and their evolutions round\nEvolution so gravely, O Socrates? They do what the Americans do: they\noverdo Reason. Do let them do it, and do not disturb my circles, as\nArchimedes said. I promise you, when next they introduce the 'latest'\nevolution, I will invite you to the sight, and you will enjoy the\nfun as you have rarely enjoyed anything. I have instructed a new set\nof pupils of mine to start _The_ new Religion in England. The 'New\nReligion' of a year or so ago is out of fashion. What these decadent\nvibrants want is another Religion. I have just received a Marconigram\nfrom below, and am in a position to tell you all about the latest\ncapers of my pupils. May I do so?\"\n\nDiana and Aphrodite and Pallas Athena at once applauded, and their\nsilvery laughter was joined by the rest of the gods and heroes.\nDionysus sent two beautiful nymphs to make the resting-place of\nDiogenes more comfortable, and to offer him a cup of the wine of Capri,\nshining like gold and full of mirth. Diogenes, deeply bowing to the\nGreat God, and to Zeus, then proceeded:\n\n\"I learn that _The_ Religion now to be started is based on what my\ndear disciples have agreed to call _Elysiograms_; a word formed _\u00e0 la_\n'telegram,' 'marconigram,' and meant to denote messages from Elysium.\n\n\"It is quite evident that a generation of impatient eels such as the\npresent instalment of the little ones, cannot possibly wait until\nafter death for news from the other world. The sub-lunar world they\nhave ransacked and swallowed, hair and flesh, and all. Before, in the\nmorning, they have quite recovered from their sleep; and before they\nhave quite finished their nerve-destroying first cup of Ceylon cabbage,\nthey have, in their 'papers,' learnt all that has been going on in\nevery quarter of the globe terrestrial.\n\n\"That globe begins to bore them. They must have a daily (or hourly?)\ncolumn or two about what is going on in Elysium, let alone in Hades. It\nis indispensable for their digestion.\n\n\"Just fancy how very much more easily one could swallow one's lunch\nwith just a little dose of Hades in it! While one tries to make a\ntunnel through the stony meat from Patagonia called Scotch beef, one\nwould read with grim satisfaction how one's late creditor is maltreated\nin the torture-chamber of Hades. Why, one would feel so buoyant that\none would even be able to finish a meal at the Cecil.\n\n\"You said, O Socrates, that their clergy adopt Evolution because of the\nauthority it gives them. Surely, they can tarry no longer in adopting\nthe improved means of communication. If Marconi can wire wirelessly to\nNew York, how can the clergy stay lagging behind? They must needs go\none better, and wire wirelessly to Elysium. Nothing can be plainer.\n\n\"People want it.\n\n\"Soon Messrs Wright will ascend the Rainbow and sit astride on it. Even\nbefore that, Herr Zeppelin will land the first German street-band on\nMars; and, probably, ere that is done, Madame Curie will by means of\na rock of Radium as big as St Paul's illumine and read all the vast\ndepths of the unexplored Heavens.\n\n\"How, under these circumstances, can the clergy remain behind? It\nis unthinkable. Accordingly, it is understood that the _Daily Nail_\nand the _Crony_ will have every day a column called _Elysiograms_.\nIt will consist of single words, numbers, signs, exclamations, and\npauses, _elysiogrammed_ from over there. Some paragraphs will consist\nof commas, colons, semi-colons, and dots only. They will be the most\ninteresting. These messages will be carefully distinguished from\nmassages. They will be quite different. They will give the most\nastounding news. My principal pupil, Professor Oliver Nodge, just\nmarconied me the latest _Elysiogram_, which he was fortunate enough to\nreceive to-day:\n\n    \"'Rather hot day to-night.--Feel depressed as if I had exchanged\n    ideas with Mr H.C.--4, 0,--:!--Place here somewhat out of date.--Do\n    send me _Times_ more regularly.--Can now see that flannels do not\n    conduce to health.--Never forget to wind up your watch!--Death is\n    a mere incident in Life.--If you can avoid it, don't die!--It is a\n    failure.--34, 56, 78, 90, 12....'\"\n\nWhen Diogenes had finished reading the _Elysiogram_ of his pupil, even\nHeph\u00e6stus (Vulcan), otherwise so grave, broke out in a tremendous\nlaughter which made one of the tiers of the Coliseum shake like an\nelm-tree in a gale.\n\n\"I am delighted to see,\" continued Diogenes, \"that my pupils contribute\nto your amusement. It is indeed beyond a doubt that without them this\nworld would be considerably staler and duller than it is. You may\nimagine that my pupils will not rest contented with a daily column in a\nnewspaper.\n\n\"They will found Elysiogram papers of their own; found Elysiogram\nChurches; build up Elysiogram congregations; deliver Elysiogram\nsermons; in short, they will establish _The New Religion_\nof--_Elysionism_.\n\n\"In this marvellous Religion the believer is given all the shivers,\ncardiac vibrations, nervous shocks and prostrate contritions,\npleasantly alternated with ecstatic exuberance, that he may wish for.\n\n\"In that respect it is far superior to any music hall.\n\n\"These funny clergymen rage against the music halls. But why have they\nabolished all public, gay, and variegated Church festivals, such as the\nMiddle Ages had introduced in plenty? The public do want to have their\nshocks and shivers. If the Church does not provide some of them, music\nhalls will.\n\n\"We Hellenes did everything to render Religion attractive and\nenjoyable. Our religious processions and public festivals were gorgeous\nwith colours, fun, art, music, and touching piety.\n\n\"How could any Hellene have felt the need of a modern music hall, this\nthe last degradation of the human intellect, worse than the Roman\ngladiatorial games, worse than the Spanish bull-fights, worse than the\nworst of French novels.\n\n\"If, therefore, the clergy will take our New Religion into the least\nconsideration, they will forthwith see the immense advantages thereof.\nIn _Elysionism_ the most languorously delicate of the elegant ladies\nwill at last find what she has all this time been hankering for.\n\n\"In the morning when she gets up between twelve and two o'clock,\nshe will with religious shivers reach after the Elysiogram press.\nWith burning eye she will run over the columns in search of the\nlatest _Elysiogram_. Just think of her excitement on finding, in one\nparagraph or another, some indiscretion of one of her departed friends,\nmale or female, regarding her. Just imagine how she will devoutly\nrun to the editor of the paper, or to the _Elysiop_, that is, the\nchief bishop of the New Religion, offering him \u00a3100, \u00a3200, nay \u00a3500\nfor the 'tranquillity' of the poor soul in Elysium from whom came\nthat disquieting par. The _Elysiop_ will promise to do his best and\nwill--enter the \u00a3500 _pour les frais de l'\u00e9glise_. What a delightfully\nexciting experience to have!\n\n\"Later on in the day, the same lady will enjoy the anxiety of a lady\nfriend of hers who is waiting for an _Elysiogram_ from her husband who\ndisappeared a few months before without sending his faithful wife the\ncorrect official statement of his departure. What exquisite moments of\nnervous expectation to pass!\n\n\"For a few further bank-notes _pour les frais de l'\u00e9glise_, the\nliberating _Elysiogram_ appears.\n\n\"Imagine the interest with which sermons delivered by the Elysiop,\nElysiarch, or the Elyseacon, will be attended by the _beau monde_. The\npreacher after the customary introduction will pull from his pocket\nthe latest _Elysiograms_, which are notoriously frequent on Saturdays.\nArtistically pausing before he begins reading them out, he will\nfill all these vibrants with the most dainty nervous wrenchings and\ntwistings.\n\n\"Then slowly he will report to them the latest news from Elysium and\nHades. With that justice so characteristic of the Powers of the Other\nWorld, the pleasant news, full of consolation and comfort, is addressed\nto such members as have proved zealous in deed and alms to the Church.\nOn the other hand, members whose zeal left much to be desired, are\ntreated to news that makes both kinds of their hair stand on end.\n\n\"Where is the music hall or even the theatre that will be in a position\nto vie with such a Church in intense attractiveness? Once the classes\nas well as the masses are drawn to it, some Oxford or Liverpool\nprofessor will speedily come forward with the new dogmatics of\n_Elysionism_; and in less than three years Prof. Harnack of Berlin will\nwrite its history of dogmatics, and publish maps about its geographical\ndistribution.\n\n\"Amongst the innumerable blessings of this Religion there is one the\nvalue of which cannot be exaggerated, let alone properly estimated. I\nmean, of course, its vast resources for healing all diseases. It is\npatent that once we stand in continuous and direct communication with\nElysium, we can easily inquire from our departed ones what we ought to\ndo in case of illness. Since a given individual in Elysium who died\nof, say, hay-fever has traversed all its stages, and is naturally\nmore conversant with it than any terrestrial doctor can ever be,\nknowing thereof not only the stages passing on earth but also those\ngoing on beyond the Rainbow; he is in the best of positions to advise\na patient what to do and what not to do. Especially, when one takes\ninto consideration that according to the most authentic _Elysiograms_,\nwritten by Prof. Nodge's own Elysio-typer, all departed people agree\nthat hay-fever, appendicitis, pneumonia, etc., are only the _noms de\nplume_ of Dr Smith, Dr Jones, Dr Jenkinson, and so on.\n\n\"We shall, accordingly, in any case of illness, simply communicate the\nsymptoms to Elysium and ask for detailed instructions from such of the\nElysians as have died of that disease. In that way we are sure to heal\nall diseases much more rapidly than even Christian Science or Mahometan\nChemistry could do.\n\n\"We shall sell Elysio-pills, with which no Beecham's Pill will be\nable to compete; and using the indications we shall receive from over\nthe Acheron, we shall have _d\u00e9p\u00f4ts_ of Elysian Waters triumphing over\nHunyady J\u00e1nos, Carlsbad Sprudel, Contrex\u00e9ville, or Aix-les-Bains.\n\n\"In fact, since the Kaiser is well known to be in close relations\nto the Upper World, and an intimate friend of Providence, we shall\narrange through him an Elysian Bath, somewhere near Nauheim.\n\n\"Then our Religion will be complete.\n\n\"It will have its unique Press, its hierarchy, its liturgy, sermons,\npills, waters, and watering-places, let alone its Pleasant Sunday\nAfternoons, moral gymnasiums, self-denial weeks, and special wireless\ncostumes.\n\n\"The extant religions will all disappear; religious unity will reign\nover the whole world, and if you, O Zeus, will consent to it, I shall\npersonally preside at my headquarters in Westbourne Park Chapel.\"\n\nThe speech of Diogenes was received with hearty applause, and even\nstern Demosthenes congratulated him on his idea of offering a really\nnew shake-up to the tired nerves of the poor human tremolos of Mayfair\nand the East End.\n\nSeveral of the gods volunteered to send messages for the _Elysian\nTimes_, and C\u00e6sar proposed that he and Alexander the Great, Pericles,\nand other heroes send messages counterdicting the extant Greek and\nRoman histories of their exploits, in order to enjoy the huge fun\narising from the confusion amongst scholars.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen the hilarity of the Assembly had reached its maximum, Zeus\naddressed them as follows:\n\n\"Before, O Friends, we part from here repairing to Olympus, and\neventually to Japan and China, I propose that Plato give us his serious\nimpression of what turn the next religious phase of the little ones\nwill take. I entitle him even to say, with due moderation, what turn it\nshall take.\"\n\nPlato, rising from his seat near Socrates and Aristotle, first bowed\nto Zeus, and then to Apollo whom he requested to allow his priests\nto intone the sacred hymn of Delphi. That hymn, Plato said, had been\nhanded down from hoary antiquity, and was the song best fitted to fill\nthe hearts of men with the sentiment of religion; the Roman Church,\nhe added, still retained it. Apollo nodded consent, and forthwith the\narchons of Delphi, aided by the great choir of the Parthenon, filled\nthe still night with mighty harmonies. The simple tunes rose into the\nheights like columns upon which the singers finally laid down capitals,\narchitraves and pediments of serene melodies, until all Rome and the\nsurrounding plains and valleys seemed changed into one vast musical\ntemple, while the echo of the Albanian Mountains handed the rhythms and\ncadences on to stern Soracte and the Apennines.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"I will not undertake,\" Plato said, \"to determine what direction the\nnew Religion of the little ones will take. That direction depends upon\ntheir whole life in peace and war, which is, and will remain, under\nyour exclusive control, O Zeus. But if I am to outline what shape and\nfunction their Religion is likely to take in the near future, I feel\nmore confident of acquitting myself creditably. This applies more\nparticularly to the negative part of my task. I mean, it is quite\npossible to criticise the various schemes of new Religions proposed by\na number of thinkers, and to say why these schemes will not succeed.\n\n\"The most numerous schemes of this description have been propounded by\nmen of otherwise great abilities and accomplishments, such as Auguste\nComte, and his followers in England and elsewhere. They have tried to\nestablish rational Religions, or such in which Dionysus has no share.\nThis is a vain attempt.\n\n\"Diogenes showed with great justice how all such attempts are doomed to\nfailure.\n\n\"The more rational knowledge spreads both in bulk and in number of\ndisciples, the more the little ones will need a Dionysiac religion.\n\n\"If the State or other ruling classes will not provide it properly,\neccentrics and faddists will do so improperly.\n\n\"If the true enthusiasm for Art could really enter the hearts of the\nmasses, then, and then alone, Religion need not be Dionysiac. However,\nthis is impossible in nations consisting each of many millions of\npeople.\n\n\"This is the greatness of your work, O Nietzsche. In your _Zarathustra_\nyou worship Apollo with piety, but you entreat Dionysus too to enter\nthe temple. However, you restrict your cult to the few, and for this\nreason you cannot succeed to a greater extent than did Pythagoras, who\nlikewise closed the gates of his sanctuary to the Many.\n\n\"The question in Europe is how to let the Many feel the Light of Apollo\nand the Might of Dionysus. Unless this is done, nothing is done. Can\nProtestantism do that? Calvin is fast aging, and his hair is quite\nwhite. Can Roman Catholicism do it?\"\n\nAt these words of Plato the first matutinal choir came wafted from the\nVatican. Plato made a pause. The Vestal Virgins bowed their heads. On\nC\u00e6sar's expressive face there appeared a strange smile, and leaning\nover to Cicero, he whispered something into the ear of the great\norator-statesman. Zeus remained immobile.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPlato resumed thus: \"The Romans of our time were to us Hellenes as\nProtestantism is to Catholicism. Will the Rome of this day be absorbed\nby the Protestants of the North as we were absorbed by ancient Rome?\n\n\"You used to say, O Machiavelli, that this world belongs to the cold\nhearts. That is probably quite true with regard to material things. But\nis it true with regard to spiritual ones?\n\n\"The North of Europe is cold; the South is warm. The former is romantic\nat its best, and eccentric at its worst; while the South is classic\nat its best, and irreverential at its worst. The North therefore will\nworship Apollo only in a haze, and Dionysus in distorted forms; while\nthe South willingly bows to Apollo full of heavenly light, and accepts\nDionysus only by means of a strict, hierarchical organisation.\n\n\"Can any Bach write one 'well-tempered' fugue on both North and South?\nCan they in future be united in one belief?\n\n\"We have had so far two kinds of Religion only. One, those of small\nStates, such as we had in Greece or Italy; the other, universal\nReligions, such as the Religion of Jesus, based on humans as mere\nabstracts, as mere equal atoms; Religions that applied to any person\nirrespective of State, race, class, or occupation. There are, however,\nnow no small States such as we used to found, nor is all European\nhumanity one vast conglomeration of atomic men.\n\n\"There are now new entities: nations.\n\n\"Will each of them develop her own Religion?\n\n\"Most likely, I think.\n\n\"It is with Religions as with Law and Language: each nation, the more\nhigh-strung it becomes, the more it differentiates its Law and its\nLanguage. In the Middle Ages, up to the twelfth century, there were not\nfifty languages in Europe. There are now far over a thousand.\n\n\"Each nation wants its own way of worshipping and representing Apollo\nand Dionysus. In countries full of musical enthusiasm the religious\n_r\u00f4le_ of Dionysus is different from what it is in countries where\nmusic is not an organ of the national soul. Should Europe ever be\nlevelled down to one United States of Europe (--at these words one\ncould see Zeus smile with benignant sarcasm--) then there will arise\nnew Religions in nearly every county of every country.\n\n\"In England we see the process clearly developing. The official Church\nis neither quite Apollo nor quite Dionysus; it is a product grown\nsomewhere between Rome and Geneva, say at Leghorn.\n\n\"The unofficial Churches accept Dionysus only as enthusiasm for\nunenthusiastic matters, such as Puritanism; while Apollo with them is a\nSunday school teacher.\n\n\"And this cannot be otherwise. An Imperialist nation cannot have\nan Imperialist Religion too, otherwise the heads of that Religion\nwould run the Empire. The English, in the interest of their Empire,\ndisintegrated their ancient Religion. In other words, they were bound\nto obscure Apollo and to degrade Dionysus by eccentricities.\n\n\"Take the Unitarians. Unable to find place for Dionysus in their\nover-rationalised Religion, they rush into moral eccentricities, such\nas a wholesale condemnation of war, a sickly philanthropy that yet\nseldom leaves the precincts of words, and other morbid habits.\n\n\"In England, Religion cannot be allowed its full-fledged growth. Should\nthe English lose their Empire and, which is doubtful, yet survive as\na small island-state, they will forthwith change their Religions, and\nthe first of these to be dropped will be Anglicanism; while Methodism,\nin one of its extremer forms, is the most likely to replace all the\nothers, should Catholicism not supplant it.\n\n\"The only new Christian Religion likely to arise in the British Empire\nis one in India, which will stand to British Christianity as the Greek\nChurch stands to the Roman. I wonder why one or another of the British\nmissionaries has not developed it long ago.\n\n\"In Great Britain herself a powerful new Religion cannot be devised as\nyet.\n\n\"It is quite different on the Continent; and it is devoutly to be\nhoped that France will shake off her torpor and pour new religious\nenthusiasm into the soul of her nation.\n\n\"It is also to be hoped that the Japanese will at last adopt a Religion\nfitting their new status as a great nation. They will never accept\nProtestantism. They may accept some new form of Romanism, in that\nthe great distance of Rome from Tokio guarantees them from too much\ninterference, and because their next objective, the thousands of\nislands called the Philippines, have long been converted to Romanism.\n\n\"I have, in my travels on earth, frequently been asked whether our own\nbeautiful Religion could not be revived again.\n\n\"To this the answer can hardly be doubtful. Our Religion was so\nintimately connected with our peculiar polity that unless such polities\nshould be revived, our Religion cannot be reintroduced into the life of\nnations.\n\n\"In my Republic I have anticipated most of the political communities\nthat have arisen after my death; and the Roman Church has fully\nconfirmed my prediction, that the polity in which philosophers will be\nkings will be the most abiding of all. The restrictions which I placed\non the various classes of my ideal Republic have not been literally\nobserved by the Roman Church; she has laid upon them other restrictions.\n\n\"But then as now I say, that the greater the Ideal, the heavier price\nwe have to pay for it.\n\n\"The little ones, listening to arm-chair experts, multi-millionaires\nand faddists, indulge in the childish belief that they will be able\nto bring Elysium down into their Assemblies, Market-places, and their\nSocial Life, by removing all severe conflicts, all cruelty, all\nrelentless punishments, and similar necessities which are only the\ninevitable price paid for some great good. They think they will make\nthe world more humane, by giving up any attempt at weeding out all the\nbad herbs among the human grass.\n\n\"They will never do it. If they want to have a Religion better than the\none they have, they will have to pay an exceedingly heavy price for it.\n\n\"First is Calvary, and then comes the Resurrection.\n\n\"Religion is an Ideal, and hence very costly. If ever the general\nbrotherhood of men should be realised, just for one year, the\nsacrifices to be paid for such a sublime ideal would be so immense that\npeople would at once relapse into the other extreme.\n\n\"Nothing wiser ever fell from your lips, O Goethe, than your saying\nthat 'nothing is more hard to endure than a series of three beautiful\ndays.'\n\n\"We Greeks know it. We realised many an ideal; more than has been\nrealised by any other people. Accordingly, we did not last very long.\nDo not covet the stars! Be satisfied with a little cottage in the midst\nof a small garden.\n\n\"But you were right, O Spinoza, that the whole essence of Man is\nconcupiscence. He _will_ desire and aspire after an endless array of\nthings, all of which he wants to have for nothing.\n\n\"It is in vain that we tell him that there is no more expensive shop\nthan that where gratification of desires is sold.\n\n\"In vain have all the Religions essayed to inculcate the lesson of\nresignation, one by threatening dire punishments on earth, the other\nby menacing eternal pains in yonder world.\n\n\"Resignation is the last thing a human thinks of. He thinks he is so\nclever, so intelligent, so inventive and especially so 'progressive,'\nthat he will bend Ideals to his will, as he has done with a few of the\nphysical forces of Nature. He does not know that while other goods\nrequire only the abnegation of one or a few individuals, Ideals exact\nthe privation of multitudes.\n\n\"Could we free Greeks have been what we were, had we not stood on the\nbodies of degraded slaves who relieved us of the drudgery of life? One\ncannot be free and a slave at the same time.\n\n\"In my deep conviction of the heavy sacrifices demanded for Ideals,\nI frequently think that we Greeks, and more particularly myself, who\nintroduced this thirst for Ideals into the world, have thereby done\nEurope more harm than good.\n\n\"How many a time has the fate of Prometheus been re-enacted in millions\nof ideal-smitten Europeans! There he is, bound to a rock, while an\neagle eats his liver, because he wanted to bring down Olympus to earth.\n\n\"The Religion that will teach man serene resignation; that will imbue\nhim with the sense of the magnitude of Ideals; that will make him feel\nthat Ideals are not for man, but for gods; that Religion will save him.\n\n\"None other.\n\n\"The priests of that Religion must be the first to exemplify that\nResignation to the full. They must not preach Resignation while\nthemselves dressed in purple and clothed in the amplest rights of\nPrecedence, Authority, and Splendour. Will there ever be such priests?\n\n\"I doubt it. What priests want and what they have always wanted, is\nnothing but authority.\n\n\"They have founded and brought to its most consummate expression the\nscience of authority-seeking. They know how to impress people. I do not\nhope that they will ever give up such a profitable accomplishment; and\nconsequently no Religion of the future will have a remarkable success\nunless it enables its founders to invest many persons with great\nauthority.\n\n\"The scant authority it gives to its incumbents is the chief weakness\nof Protestantism as compared with Roman Catholicism. This world is\nruled by Authority; and so far, the other world too has been governed\nby the same means. And so at the end, as well as at the outset of our\nreflections on Life we start and come back to the same eternal truth,\nthat practical life wants not truth as such, but only _effectology_.\n\n\"Truth proper, and independent of any practical effects, has its place\nonly at the foot of Your Mighty Throne in Olympus, O Zeus.\n\n\"We Hellenes having been on a plane altogether higher than is that of\nthe little ones, we dared to introduce some truths proper into our\nlife. We sincerely called a spade a spade. We knew that some women and\nmen must suffer, in order that others may fully develop their humanity;\nand so we instituted slavery, scorning, as we did, the half-measures of\nquarter, third, or three quarters liberty in men or women. We openly\ntalked of the 'Envy of the gods,' which is one of the deepest truths\nof life. And thus in many a custom, law, or measure of ours we had the\ncourage to enshrine truth proper in the prose-frame of ordinary life.\n\n\"This emboldened me to think that there might one day be a State, a\nRepublic, wholly built on eternal truths. And so I wrote my book hoping\nit would serve as a beacon-fire for all times and all humans.\n\n\"At present I know better. What people want, in Religion or Science, is\n_effectological_ truth, and not truth proper. My book, as the rest of\nmy work, has procured me a place in Olympus, but has not enabled me to\nconquer a single town of the nether-world.\n\n\"I too have learnt to resign myself.\n\n\"Truth, like Beauty, and Goodness, is not meant for the little ones.\nAnd yet they will in all times go on their pilgrimage to our shrines;\nthrough all ages they will worship Athens and mighty Rome as the true\nhome of humanity; as the age and the men who had the divine courage of\ntruthfulness, and the saving grace of Beauty.\"\n\nZeus and Juno rose from their chryselephantine seats. The shades of\nthe night became lighter, and at a sign from Mercury, the whole divine\nAssembly left their places and moved through the air towards Olympus.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\nA Catalogue of the\n\nPublications of T. Werner Laurie.\n\n\n    ABBEYS OF GREAT BRITAIN, The (H. Clairborne Dixon and E. Ramsden).\n    6s. net. (Cathedral Series.)\n\n    ABBEYS OF ENGLAND, The (Elsie M. Lang). 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Crown 8vo, 6s. net.\n\n    ARNCLIFFE PUZZLE, The (Gordon Holmes). 6s.\n\n    ART IN THE DUMPS (Eugene Merrill). 1s. net.\n\n    ARTIST'S LIFE, The (John Oliver Hobbes). 2s. 6d. net.\n\n    BEAUTY SHOP, The (Daniel Woodroffe). 6s.\n\n    BECKE (L.), Notes from My South Sea Log. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s.\n    net.\n\n    BECKE (L.), My Wanderings in the South Seas. Illustrated. Crown\n    8vo, 6s. net.\n\n    BECKE (L.), Sketches in Normandy. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.\n\n    BELL AND ARROW, The (Nora Hopper). 6s.\n\n    BENNETT (A.). See Phillpotts.\n\n    BIOGRAPHY FOR BEGINNERS, The (E. Clerihew). 6s. net.\n\n    BLAND (Hubert) (\"Hubert\" of the _Sunday Chronicle_), Letters to a\n    Daughter. Illustrated Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. net;\n    paper, 1s. net.\n\n    BLAND (Hubert) (\"Hubert\" of the _Sunday Chronicle_), With the Eyes\n    of a Man. 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Octavo, decorative cover, cloth gilt, 6s. net each; in\n    leather, 10s. 6d. net per vol.\n\n    BUMPUS (T.F.), The Cathedrals and Churches of Northern Italy. With\n    80 plates, nine of them in colour, and a coloured frontispiece by\n    F.L. Griggs, 9 \u00d7 6-1/2. 16s. net.\n\n    BUMPUS (T.F.), The Cathedrals of Northern Germany and the Rhine.\n    (The Cathedral Series, Vol. VI.). With many plates and minor\n    decorations. 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. net; leather, 10s. 6d. net.\n\n    BUMPUS (T.F.), Old London Churches. In 2 vols. (Uniform with the\n    Cathedral Series.) Many illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s.\n    net each.\n\n    BURLESQUE NAPOLEON, The (Philip W. Sergeant). 10s. 6d. net.\n\n    BURROWS (G.T.), Some Old Inns of England. (The Leather Booklets,\n    Vol. II.) 24 illustrations. 5 \u00d7 3, stamped leather, 2s. 6d. net.\n\n    BUTLER (W.M.), The Golfers' Guide. With an Introduction by Dr.\n    Macnamara. (Vol. III., Library of Sports.) 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